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Three years in, Loki makes his way to the pie room. He wasn’t lying when he told OB he was a quick study, but three years of theoretical physics is enough, as Mobius would say, to make any guy a little stir-crazy. Loki’s not a guy, nor is he stir-crazy, exactly, but the general sentiment still rings true.
It’s been a long day.
Loki stares blankly at the dispenser, before automatically selecting key lime—it’s not his favorite, as far as pie flavors go, but it reminds him of better times. Times that were less complicated, less fraught with meaning, even if he foolishly believed that they were both. Loki never knew how good he truly had it. He never knew, until it was gone.
He takes his pie. He takes his plastic fork.
He sits.
No sooner than the first bite passes his lips, there’s a flash of dark brown linen to his right. Mobius’s hair catches the fluorescent light, and Loki spends just a second too long watching it gleam. He catches himself immediately, jerking his head away, clenching his jaw. All this time, and Loki still hasn’t learned to use it wisely.
“Hey,” Mobius says, and it’s soft. Too soft. As is the hand that reaches for his elbow, so familiar, so fond. Years ago, Loki would have sliced his hand clean off for the transgression. Now, he just counts the spaces between Mobius’s knuckles, grateful that they’re all still there. There’s only so many times you can see a man get turned to ribbons of flesh. Especially when that man is—
Well. When that man is Mobius.
Loki swallows. The key lime is tart as it goes down. “Hey,” he replies, and his voice sounds hoarse to his own ears. Frail.
Weak, he hears, in Odin’s booming timbre, and banishes the memory to the back of his mind.
Mobius’s thumb begins to stroke back and forth over Loki’s skin. He wonders, idly, if he even knows he’s doing it.
Probably not.
“You seem a little…” Mobius starts, then fishes for a word, his free hand wavering in midair. “Off,” he finishes, with a slight wince. “Is something up?”
“Up?” Loki repeats, a bit mindlessly, still staring at Mobius’s thumb. He’d chosen, today, to go back to a day before the end. To a day where he and Mobius were nothing but partners, a time-honored analyst and his favorite variant, working together to solve cases and track down clues. He’s been seeing OB in the basement on his breaks. It’s nice.
Mobius’s eyes have gone rather wide.
“No,” Loki corrects, with a reassuring laugh. “No, I’m quite alright. Just a bit… Tired.”
He waits, but Mobius still looks more alarmed than he should. It’s not quite right, for Mobius to look alarmed in the pie room. Something about that feels decidedly strange.
“Would you like some?” Loki offers, before he can think better of it, and pushes his plate sideways.
Mobius frowns, the kind of frown that means he really would like some pie, but he’s trying to be noble about it. “No, no, I really shouldn’t.”
“It’s alright,” Loki says, the frown tugging at his resolve and strengthening his hasty decision. “I’m afraid I’ve rather lost my appetite.”
A considering expression makes its way onto Mobius’s face. “Well,” he says, picking up Loki’s fork. “In that case.”
Mobius is right-handed. He’s right-handed, and yet he picks up Loki’s fork with his left, so that his other hand remains firmly settled on Loki’s elbow. Loki watches this absurd procession, rendered mute, then watches as Mobius slides the used fork into his mouth. His lips where Loki’s lips had been. His tongue—
“You look ridiculous,” Loki blurts. He moves his free arm, the one not currently ravaged by Mobius’s touch, under the table. It’s shaking.
Mobius looks sideways at him, lips curving around the fork, and runs his thumb across Loki’s skin. This time, it feels decidedly intentional.
“Well,” he says, still smiling. “I think it’s alright to be a little ridiculous about pie.”
Loki needs to get out of here.
He goes back to the beginning.
ⴵ
Twelve years in, Mobius corners him by the elevator. “Loki,” he says, like he’s said it millions of times before. “Talk to me.”
“I am,” Loki says, frustrated, and runs a hand down his face. He doesn’t have time for this. It’s been twelve years, and he still doesn’t understand the inner components of the throughput multiplier. Yes, twelve years is a mere blink of an eye, in relation to the grander scope of his life, but—foolishly, Loki thought he would be a quicker study. OB said centuries, but Loki had, in the far back of his mind, expected minutes. He had expected greatness. He had expected to be exceptional.
He is decidedly not.
It weighs on him, the true nature of his mediocrity. Mobius, for example, probably could have done twice as much in half the time. Loki is gifted with grand ability, yet burdened with an inability to wield it. He is—he is—
“Woah, woah,” Mobius says, and his hands fly to Loki’s shoulders. “Loki, breathe.”
“I’m breathing,” he retorts, but finds that he currently lacks the airflow to make the words snap the way they should. “I’m—I—”
“Hey,” Mobius murmurs, and moves one hand down to his ribcage. “In and out, okay? Easy.”
Loki blinks. Mobius’s fingers warm the hollows of his ribs, press firmly against his intercostal muscles, and Loki’s mind, for once, has gone entirely blank. The equations that OB taught him this morning, which have been running desperately through his brain ever since, are nowhere to be found. He’ll have to relearn them all tomorrow.
And yet.
Mobius breathes, and Loki breathes with him. Matches his pace. In and out, ebb and flow, push and pull. Form and function.
“See?” Mobius says. The corner of his mouth ticks up. “There you go.”
His fingers skate across Loki’s ribs.
Loki wants to kiss him.
The thought is so immediate, so sudden in its intensity, that he instinctively tries to take a step backwards. Of course, his back being to the wall, all he accomplishes is a rather embarrassing knock on the head.
Horrifyingly, this only makes Mobius’s free hand dart up to his face. He ghosts over the ridge of Loki’s cheekbone, holding him lightly by the jaw, and Loki only has a mere moment to look back at him, feeling truly desperate in a way he never quite has before, before Mobius turns his head to the side. He feels around the back of Loki’s skull, tenderly prodding, as if checking for a bruise. “You alright?”
This is far from the first time Loki has wanted to kiss Mobius.
It is, however, the first time he’s been truly afraid that he might do it.
Loki can bear this no longer.
He steps out of Mobius’s grasp, and goes back to the beginning.
ⴵⴵ
Fifty years in, Loki tries again. Half a century, he figures, is surely as good as several. He’s learned far more than he ever imagined himself capable of, and he’s able to keep up with OB even on his worst days. He couldn’t possibly be any more prepared.
“Right,” he says, clipped and to-the-point, as he claps Victor on the shoulder. “Cross the gangplank, dock the multiplier, press the green button.”
Victor nods, his sharpness of mind visible behind his quickly-darting eyes. “Got it,” he says, and he does.
“Casey, tape his helmet,” Loki reminds. “Otherwise, his skin will be shredded.”
Victor doesn’t look half as concerned by this as he probably should be. Loki wonders if it comes from a life of difference, of oddity, of waiting to die. Loki wonders if Victor knows, just as he does, that the life of a visionary is not a lengthy one.
It’s fitting, then, that Loki’s time would be so infinite.
As Victor descends the stairs, Loki rushes to check the controls. He’s gotten here rather early today—the radiation hasn’t reached a tipping point yet, and the atmosphere outside is only face-melting rather than skin-shredding.
They have a chance.
“He’ll make it this time,” Loki says, half prayer and half manifestation. He pretends not to notice the sharp, calculating glance that Mobius throws his way. No one else shows any sign of hearing his statement, far too consumed by their own panic and adrenaline to care.
Victor starts down the gangplank.
“He’s doing it!” OB squeaks. The light of the loom reflects off his glasses, illuminating the clear hero-worship in his eyes. That’s nice. Loki wishes he still had heroes to believe in. There is only time, backwards and forwards and round and round, over and over, until he’s sick of it altogether. And even then, it marches on.
Loki doesn’t tear his eyes from the window. Victor is, indeed, doing it. Slowly, laboriously, but more successfully than he ever has before. Each step is an effort. Each breath is drawn tight.
“That’s it,” Loki whispers, hoping the microphone picks up his words. “You’ve got it, Victor.”
“I’ve—got—it,” Victor replies, panting heavily. In the glowing vastness of space, he heaves the multiplier over his shoulder.
Loki will never tell anyone this, but this shabby gangplank of the TVA reminds him a bit of the Bifrost. The similarities are slim, of course, but he’s always had a rather tortuous imagination. It’s part of the reason why, even after all this time, he has not once volunteered to take the journey himself.
Selfishly, he is too afraid.
He watches Victor struggle down the bridge, nearly slipping off several times, and tries to quell the frantic thrumming of his heart. It can’t be good for him, fifty years of panic. He thinks he’s beginning to get gray hairs.
Finally, Victor reaches the loom.
Loki lets out a wordless, breathless exhale of excitement, a sharp ah that crackles into the static of distanced communication. “You’re there,” he says, leaning right against the window. The heat is almost blinding, yet he presses in as close as he possibly can. “You’re there,” he repeats, hardly daring to believe it. “Alright. Alright. Now—dock the multiplier.”
There is a slight pause, and Loki closes his eyes in relief, basking in the unabashed glory of the moment. Finally, he reigns victorious. Finally, he has accomplished his true purpose. With the multiplier docked, the loom will be reborn. The strands will be managed. The TVA will live on, and his friends will live on, and everything can return to the way it was. And Mobius—
Mobius has moved closer.
Loki hasn’t opened his eyes, but he feels his presence, just as he always does, hovering just behind his shoulder. He knows that if he turned around, they would be nearly nose-to-nose.
Loki stays exactly where he is. He plants the heels of his loafers into the floor.
Don’t do anything rash, he reminds himself. Not until this is all over.
He can’t risk it.
“Loki,” Mobius says, and Loki still does not open his eyes. Still does not turn around.
Through the speakers, a loud clang resounds.
Then silence.
“Victor,” Loki says, his entire body held forcibly still. “Victor, what happened.”
The silence becomes distinctly ashamed. “I… I needed a—a break,” Victor stutters, sounding heartbreakingly weary. “I put the multiplier—down. And it—”
Loki opens his eyes.
The multiplier has rolled off the gangway.
Of course it has.
It’s a little frightening, how calm he feels in this moment. Rather detached, come to think of it. He gives a little chuckle, just to test it out, and it soon devolves into a full-blown laugh. His eyes feel quite warm, and he’s not sure what that’s all about. He’s not sure of anything anymore. It all feels—it feels so—
“Loki,” Mobius repeats, and reaches out. Loki lets himself be turned around, a pie in the dispenser, a jetski in the tide. Everything seems rather amusing at the moment. Even his metaphors are absurd.
Then Mobius meets his eye, and it’s not funny at all. Loki abruptly stops laughing.
“Loki,” he says again, something inordinately sad in his gaze. “How many times have you done this?”
Naturally, that’s when the loom explodes.
Loki goes back to the beginning.
ⴵⴵⴵ
One century in, Loki tells Mobius the truth. At this point, he supposes it can’t hurt. Mobius has caught on more than once—nearly every time, to be honest—and Loki has grown so sick of lying to him. Mobius is clever; sharp as a blade, quick as a punch. It’s half the reason why Loki likes him so much. The other half, mortifyingly, is his kindness.
All things considered, Mobius takes it rather well.
“So you’re caught in a time loop?” he says, his voice hushed and secretive, his eyes childishly wide with excitement. Loki perches on the edge of his desk, papers shoved carelessly to the ground, and they’re really much closer than is typically considered polite. Mobius has never shown any respect for decorum, however. Even with both halves accounted for, Loki supposes this tidbit might fit somewhere into the equation of affection.
Again—mortifying.
Lately, Loki’s taken to jumping as far back as he possibly can. After he and Mobius became friendly, but before it all started to go wrong. He likes spending those weeks with Mobius, with OB, with Casey, and even sometimes with Sylvie. One century in, Loki has learned the value of slowing down. After all, he has time.
Loki tilts his head consideringly, making a vague so-so motion with his hand. “Not caught, exactly,” he corrects. “I’m quite in control.”
Mobius squints at him, that familiar sheen of calculation in his eyes. “And you’re using all these years to… learn theoretical physics?”
There’s something rather judgemental to his tone, which takes Loki aback. He blinks, then narrows his eyes in return. “Yes, of course,” he replies. “Were you not listening? It’s necessary to restore—”
Mobius waves a hand. “To restore the loom,” he finishes. “Yeah, yeah, I heard you. I get it.”
A short silence swells between them. Loki detects something of a challenge in the air. And he should know—he’s quite adept at detecting challenge.
He swings his legs over to the other side of Mobius’s desk, right next to his chair. He leans forward onto his elbows, directly into Mobius’s space. There were a million reasons not to do this, he knows, but at the moment he can’t think of a single one.
“What are you suggesting?” he asks, letting his voice dip a bit lower. If there’s one thing Loki excels at, it’s rising to the occasion.
Mobius’s eyes flicker downwards, landing somewhere around his mouth. Inexplicably, Loki feels his throat go dry.
When Mobius looks back up, the smug bastard, he’s holding back a grin. “I’m just saying,” he says, matching Loki’s tone note-for-note, “that you have a bit of a one-track mind sometimes, Loki.”
It takes everything in him not to scoff. A one-track mind? This from the man who can think of nothing but pie and jetskis?
Loki tells him as much.
Mobius nods, taking his words very seriously, as well as not seriously at all. “Pie’s great, yeah,” he agrees. “Jetskis, too. And—theoretical physics, time loops, fixing the loom—all super great. Very—noble. Practical.”
With all he’s been through, Loki feels that he might be allowed to tempt fate a bit. He leans closer. Quirks an eyebrow. “But?”
“But,” Mobius echoes, and leans forward as well. They’re working a late night, as they often did in these days—no one else in the office, all the lights gone pleasantly dim. It feels a bit like a dream. Or a memory.
“But,” Mobius says again, and it takes Loki a second to realize that he’s stumbling on his words. He’s become flustered, gaze darting quickly around Loki’s face, eyes to lips and back again, his hands thrumming nervously against his slacks. “I don’t know, Loki. There’s just—there’s other things in the world, you know? There’s a lot of time. You can just—do whatever you want.”
What Loki wants, in this precise moment, is to grab Mobius by his ridiculous plain tie and haul him forward.
So he does.
Mobius goes instantly, pliantly, like he’d already been kissing Loki in his mind and is glad to make the transition to reality. Loki plants one foot on either side of Mobius’s desk chair, brackets his chest between his knees, and gives it everything he’s got. The angle is a bit strange, but Loki has never felt anything better.
Loki has kissed a lot of people. Male, female, both, neither. He has kissed people as a woman, as a man, as a king, as a god. He has kissed a variation of himself, right before getting slammed through a time door and into the worst several days of his life.
None of it compares to kissing Mobius.
It’s silly of him, perhaps, to have never imagined the difference that genuine affection makes. When he kissed people before, he had the upper hand. He was wholly and completely in control.
With Mobius, he is entirely helpless. He can’t predict Mobius’s next move—a nip to his bottom lip, a gentle hand at his waist, a skillful twist of his tongue. He certainly can’t predict how those things make him feel. Loki has never felt anything like this before. He feels—he feels—
He feels alive.
When Mobius pulls back, Loki feels like he’s suffered a blow to the head. “It’s about who,” he whispers, entirely unprompted, staring directly at the TVA poster across from Mobius’s desk. On it, a man is sitting on the branch of a tree, diligently sawing off a limb. Tidy timeline, stable society, the bold font proclaims.
Mobius blinks at him, hand slackening a bit at his belt loop. “What?”
Startled, Loki tears his gaze from the poster. “I—nothing,” he manages, a bit flustered. “Just something from another time.”
Mobius raises an eyebrow, but lets it pass. “You mind if we get back to what we were doing in this time?” he proposes. “Or is that too much for you?”
It’s framed as sarcasm, but Loki sees the truth in the question. It’s clear as day, right in the depths of Mobius’s eyes— tell me to stop, and I’ll stop.
Which is ridiculous, of course. Loki’s the one who kissed him.
So, feeling entirely and overwhelmingly fond, he does it again.
Of course, it won’t last forever. It won’t even last a month. The loop is unforgivingly short, and eventually, Loki will have to leave before everything spools away from him, including the man he loves. Eventually, he will have to reintroduce himself to OB, relearn the fundamentals of physics, retry the heartbreaking last day of his life. Eventually, he will grow sick of wanting more. He will yearn for the Mobius of his time, Mobius as he is on that last day, clever and quick and as old as he will ever be. He will yearn for a Mobius that he can make new memories with. For a Mobius that he can build a future with, if that’s something that he so desires.
Eventually, he will try his best to save his friends. To save everyone. To make up for his lengthy, miserable life by actually attempting to do some good.
For now, though, he just holds Mobius closer.
Three centuries later, he goes back to the beginning.