Chapter Text
They were practically ingrained in Loki’s head from the hundreds of times he’s heard them.
You want me to stop, you’ll have to kill me.
The seemingly self-sacrificing words had sounded heroic the first time, but by now he was just sick of it. Loki knew about Sylvie’s stubborn motivations; in fact, he too had felt similarly, no matter how flawed his aims might have been. He had told Sylvie as such, countless times. It hadn’t stopped her from sprinting toward He Who Remains, stabbing him with no remorse.
No matter how he phrased it, Loki’s plan of convincing Sylvie to not kill He Who Remains seemed to be going nowhere. It wasn’t that he didn’t have another plan, it was more so that he didn’t want to move to the next step. Replaying the same scenario over and over again with the fruitless hope of convincing Sylvie was painfully simple, even if it was unsuccessful every time and inevitably led to He Who Remains’s death.
It was about time Loki started considering possible alternatives. Perhaps seek out a third opinion on this timely matter.
He Who Remains was quickly eliminated as a potential source of advice, since Loki had already spoken with him. “We die with the dying, we’re born with the dead,” et cetera, et cetera. It had already been discussed more times than he could possibly know. Sylvie, of course, was not viable either. Even talking to her in the future would result in her stubborn nature resurfacing. But Mobius…Mobius was more than an ideal person to discuss the matter with. He had experience messing with time, perhaps not to the extent Loki had, but enough that he would understand even a sliver of Loki’s situation.
After watching Sylvie kill He Who Remains for the umpteenth time, Loki quickly settled into this idea of asking Mobius for help. His current situation had grown tedious to experience. A face that wasn't He Who Remains or Sylvie would be a nice change of things.
Therefore, with an amount of thinking, Loki disappeared, time slipping to another, more pleasant, time.
After some contorting and flailing occurred (it seemed that even though Loki could control his time slipping, he could not control the random jerks of his limbs that accompanied his new powers), Mobius was indeed facing Loki. “Loki, did you just time slip again? We’ve — I thought you’ve stopped doing that.”
Loki stared at the TVA agent, momentarily lost in his concerned expression before noticing the rest of his surroundings. Key lime pie sat in front of both himself and Mobius. Mobius’s pie looked half-eaten, but only the whipped cream had been scraped off Loki’s. Around Loki, were some tables and many more pies displayed around the room.
“Loki?” Mobius asked again.
“Oh. Yes?” Loki looked at Mobius.
“Did you just time slip? You did the…” he paused, and waved his hands ambiguously. “… the weird thing.”
Loki tried to dodge the question. “Mobius, can I ask you something?”
“You just did,” Mobius said, with a chuckle. “Alright, sure, go ahead.”
“How do you choose who lives or who dies?” Loki asked, urgency creeping into his words.
His insistence didn’t go unnoticed. Instead of answering, Mobius said, “You're not… Loki.”
“I— “
“Would you be able to tell me what we were talking about five minutes ago?”
Loki stared at Mobius, shocked. He had a vague, nearly forgotten, memory of eating pie with Mobius, and pretending to enjoy it (the pie, that is). Unsurprisingly, Loki could not exactly recall what they had talked about.
Convinced by Loki’s confused expression, Mobius continued. “That’s what I thought. You’re — are you from the past?”
“No,” Loki replied honestly. “No, I’m — I’m from the future.”
“From the future!” Mobius exclaimed. “What a pleasure! Well, I’m guessing something’s gone wrong if you’re here. What’s happened? What’s the problem?”
“Well,” Loki began awkwardly, “it was what I was asking you. How do you choose who lives or who dies?”
Mobius knit his brow, looking back down at his pie and taking a bite in lieu of answering. “Mm,” he explained thoroughly.
“Yeah?”
“Mm. Yeah.” Mobius swallowed his pie. “I mean, I’ve never chosen who lives or dies directly. It’s all based on the Sacred Timeline. But, I’m sure you know that.”
“I know the dogma, yes,” Loki agreed. “But you guys are the ones that are pruning everyone.”
“We’re just following orders,” Mobius said, his jaw unnaturally tight.
“What comfort is there in that?”
“Comfort? There is no comfort.” Mobius frowned and looked up at Loki. “You’re not gonna find comfort here. I mean, it's the TVA.”
Loki begged to differ, because the TVA had, over the last few… Well, Loki wasn’t sure how long he had been here, but the TVA had turned into something like a home for Loki. Perhaps comfortable was a bit more than how he felt, but it would not be an ill-fitting word either.
Nevertheless, Loki didn’t dare interrupt, and Mobius explained. “A couple of hunters went out on a mission somewhere near the Black Sea to find a Variant who’s gonna be responsible for 5,000 deaths. Deaths that weren’t in the proper flow of time. They get there… and there’s this little hiccup.” Mobius paused and closed his eyes, the memory bringing some sort of pain to him. “The Variant is an eight-year old boy.”
Loki’s eyes widened. He remembered how Sylvie told him how she had been kidnapped by the TVA at a similarly young age. It wasn’t unheard of, then, but definitely uncommon.
“He was just minding his own business. Swimming with his brother, jumping off the dock. And one of the Hunters who never had trouble pruning before, he had never hesitated, but that day he did. He paused.” Mobius paused in his speech as well. After a deep breath, he continued, “Then… the timeline started to branch, more Variants appeared. His partner had to step in and prune the kid. But by then, the cat was out of the bag. Couple Hunters died. All because that one Hunter, he lost sight of the big picture.” He tried to force a half-hearted smile on his face. “Gotta keep the big picture in mind.”
“It gets difficult,” was all Loki could manage to reply with.
“It does,” Mobius concurred. “Most purpose is more burden than glory. But, there’s been some changes since then, of course. Not all the Variants get pruned so quickly now.”
Loki nodded, mulling over Mobius’s anecdote. That eight-year old was meant to be pruned, as much as it pained Mobius. It was, after all, for the betterment of the timeline. Was Sylvie meant to die in the same way? Was her existence only to cause He Who Remains’s death, to cause the chaos that had erupted in the aftermath? But if Loki didn’t kill her, well, he had already seen what would happen. Everything, in all the timelines, would cease to exist.
Loki blinked a few times and got up from his chair. “I think I understand now... Thank you.” He looked down at his pie, still unfinished. Loki, now standing, adjusted his posture, took a deep breath, shut his eyes, furrowed his brow, and started to focus on where, or rather, when, he would timeslip to next.
However, his concentration was interrupted by a firm hand around his wrist. “Wait.”
“What is it?” Loki asked, opening his eyes and seeing that Mobius was standing up, looking desperate.
“Can’t you… Oh, I don’t know,” Mobius sighed, releasing his grip, “can’t you tell me the problem? What’s wrong? At least before you go? Or are you just so far in the future that I possibly couldn’t understand it?”
Loki hesitated for a moment. “It is complicated,” he stated.
Mobius gestured to the chair. “Go on, sit down. We have some time. Or, I do, at least.”
After a moment, Loki conceded and sat back down. Nothing seemed to be happening to Mobius, so he supposed he had enough time to explain the finer details of the entire ordeal. “To start with things… I’m sure you’ve noticed I can control my timeslipping now…”
It was indeed complicated, but Mobius tried his best to understand it. He asked many questions throughout, keeping up with Loki's explanation. “That seems even worse than when I stuck you in that time loop with Sif!” he exclaimed once Loki had thoroughly described the many times he had replayed his and Sylvie’s encounter with He Who Remains.
“I wouldn’t say that,” Loki muttered.
“Hmm,” Mobius said, dwelling over the dilemma. “So, the problem is if you don’t kill Sylvie, you don’t think the Time Loom will ever be restored? And we’ll all… die?”
Loki nodded.
“Well, so much for that, I guess,” Mobius said. “And if you do kill her?”
“If I do kill her, she won’t kill He Who Remains, and then the timelines will remain stable. It’s just… I’m still trying to figure out if there’s another way. Where she wouldn’t have to die. And everyone else lives too.”
“Loki,” Mobius said, with a bittersweet expression. “You didn’t need to come to me for this. You know what you have to do.”
“I… do?”
“Listen. I hesitated, and it cost lives. Don’t… don’t hesitate. You’ve tried everything else. Don’t hesitate.”
He was right, Loki thought. “But…”
“There is no comfort,” Mobius said for a second time. “You just choose your burden. It’s her, or everyone else.”
Loki did not speak for several seconds. “Thank you, Mobius,” he finally said. He stood up, this time not intending to sit back down. “If I do… make that decision, that is, I won’t ever see you like this again.”
“Oh, we’ll get back to this point. I’m sure of it,” Mobius said casually. “I wish you luck, Loki. Just, um… let me turn my back when you timeslip. I feel so bad when I see it.”
They shook hands. Loki waited for Mobius to turn around. Then, he time slipped away.
Despite what Mobius had said about not hesitating, Loki couldn’t bring himself to do the deed just yet. He couldn’t just… kill Sylvie. Whilst part of him knew she was supposed to have been dead or at least imprisoned for a long time now, her being a Variant and all, Loki knew he was also a Variant, and was supposed to have been confined to the same fate.
It felt unfair to kill her, and it felt unfair to the journey they had spent to find He Who Remains, to discover the truth behind the TVA, all just to leave it unchanged. At the same time, Loki knew it was even more unfair to let Sylvie live and cause the suffering of others. There was a solution, and there was Loki’s difficulty in enacting the solution.
Right now, Loki was outside time itself. He wasn’t even at the TVA, just a blank white space that he somehow had manifested and did not want to think too long on how he was even able to do that in the first place. Pacing back and forth on the floor that did and also did not exist, he mulled over it, for the thousandth time. If this plan B did not work out, if killing Sylvie didn’t work, he could just go back. He could just timeslip back, and go to plan C instead (Loki did not have a plan C, but right now, he pretended to).
After approximately 2.5 hours of thinking, Loki had settled on it. He could reverse it anyway, he might as well just see what happens.
Closing his eyes and silently wondering if this was the last time he’d ever need to timeslip, Loki traveled back to the citadel at the End of Time. In front of him was Sylvie, her eyes darting from him to directly behind him. Loki didn’t need to turn back to know that He Who Remains was sitting in the back of the room.
“Sylvie – “ Loki began, but he truly didn’t know why he had tried. He was well aware that convincing Sylvie was pointless.
“Get out of my way,” she replied through gritted teeth.
“Can you just think about what you’re doing? Killing him won’t do anything. It’ll just make things worse,” Loki said, the words familiar on his tongue.
“Oh, piss off. He’s lying .” She tried to push past him, but Loki blocked her with an arm. She hadn’t gotten out her blade just yet, and neither had Loki. But he knew it would escalate to that eventually. It always did.
“Sylvie, stop!” Loki cried out. “He isn’t lying.”
“If you want me to stop, you’ll have to kill me.”
There was that infamous ultimatum, said as clearly and as firmly as they had been the last several hundred times. During those times, Loki had told himself he would never hurt Sylvie. The very first time, he had said it aloud, to Sylvie. He had told Sylvie a great many things. He sighed. What a foolish idea! He thought it would stop her. It hadn’t. This time, he wouldn’t be so kind.
“Oh, Sylvie, I can’t do that,” Loki said, bluffing, of course.
She continued to walk resolutely toward He Who Remains, who sat watching them like it was a live football game. Loki followed Sylvie’s every step, until his legs hit the table and Sylvie was still right in front of him.
“I can’t let you kill him,” Loki said.
Sylvie was still at the point where she hadn’t been stirred toward violent action just yet. Repeating the same few minutes so many times had made Loki very perceptive to the twitches in Sylvie’s eyebrows right before she was going to attack. She hadn’t done such a thing yet.
“Sylvie,” he said again, reaching to put his hands on her shoulders. “This is beyond us. This is the timeline we’re talking about. Billions of lives.”
She looked at him, not convinced. “That’s exactly why we need to kill him.”
“No, that’s exactly why we can’t mess this up!” Loki said in frustration. He put his arms down and stared at the ground.
Sylvie remained silent for a few moments, looking at Loki with some sort of expression on her face. She couldn’t surely realize what he was about to do. No, that wasn’t understanding on her face. She was just confused, and angry, and distrustful of Loki like she had always been.
Don’t hesitate , Mobius had reiterated to Loki. Therefore, Loki did not hesitate as he summoned his dagger and drove it forward, stabbing her in the stomach.
Sylvie made a pained sound, and even He Who Remains quietly made a noise of surprise. However, Loki’s experience with backstabbing let him easily ignore these sounds as he pushed the blade further in. “I’m sorry, Sylvie,” he murmured, truly apologizing. “It’s the only way.”
She didn’t seem to believe him, which Loki could understand, honestly. Rather, she just looked at him. There was pain and agony in her eyes, and she gasped and fell to the floor, blood seeping through her clothes. “You picked… wrong,” she managed before her head hit the floor, her breathing becoming more and more labored.
How erroneous she was, Loki wished she knew. Instead, he only watched as life faded from her eyes.
Before he could truly collect himself from what he had done, Loki heard slow and deliberate clapping from behind. “Well, well, well,” said He Who Remains, finally standing up from his seat. “I never thought you’d have the guts.”
Loki turned to face him, Sylvie’s body laying on the ground. “It was the only way,” he restated, though his voice was trembling.
“Was it?” He Who Remains replied with a raised eyebrow.
Unsettled, Loki tried to remain calm. This was the right decision. He Who Remains was just trying to confuse him. And he could always timeslip back as a last resort. “If I let her kill you, the timelines would be in disarray. I know.”
“Right, right. There was another way, though.”
He was lying, Loki thought. Why wouldn’t He Who Remains have said this the hundreds of other times they’ve spoken? Why now? Why only after Sylvie was dead?
Not waiting for a response, He Who Remains began to explain. “You just need someone to… fill my seat.”
“One of your Variants, I assume,” Loki said flatly.
“No, no. Not at all. Haven’t you wondered, Loki, why you of all people have this… ability to move through time? Why are you able to manipulate time the same way I can?”
He had wondered that, in fact.
“You know the answer, even if you won’t admit it. You were meant to stand in my spot. She,” he nodded toward Sylvie’s body on the ground behind them, “she said all you wanted was my throne. Well, my throne is right here. Right up for grabs.”
“The last thing I want is a throne,” Loki insisted. He grabbed Sylvie’s TemPad, and started to open a Time Door back to the TVA.
“You might leave now, but you’re a Loki. You’re not going to escape your nature. I mean, look at your little friend here. She either wanted to kill me or die trying. Soon enough you’re gonna start acting the same,” said He Who Remains nonchalantly.
Loki said nothing, and left through the Time Door.