Chapter Text
“I really don’t think this is a great idea.”
“C’mon,” coaxed Other Mobius, smiling encouragingly, “what could possibly go wrong?”
The Director raised an eyebrow. B-15 and the variant he still thought of as “Other Mobius” had materialised inside his office approximately half-an-hour ago, according to the large and relentlessly ticking clock mounted on the wall opposite his desk. He could already feel the beginnings of a headache blooming behind his eyes.
“Can’t you just… keep an eye on him for a while?” B-15 looked exhausted, eyelids heavy and shoulders slumped in a noticeable change from her usual ramrod straight posture.
“I’m not a babysitter,” the Director protested, already starting to relent.
“He’s causing trouble with the other Lokis. We’re hoping he might do better in a TVA where he isn’t surrounded by his own variants.”
“Let me guess... this version of Loki isn’t a team player?”
“That’s one way of putting it,” B-15 grumbled. “Thinks we should all bow down before him, no questions asked. Talk about delusions of grandeur.”
“To be fair,” the Director commented mildly, “he is royalty. God of Mischief, Prince of Asgard, rightful King of Jotunheim.” He hesitated, glancing at B-15 and Other Mobius. “Have I got that right?”
B-15 just rolled her eyes. “Don’t remind me,” she groaned.
The Director still couldn’t quite believe that the first Loki he’d encountered, what felt like a lifetime ago now, had turned out to be a literal god. The Loki from this reality’s Sacred Timeline had died as a baby, abandoned on a lonely mountaintop in Jotunheim. The slim file buried deep in the archives only referenced Asgard in passing, in the context of a long and bloodthirsty war with the Frost Giants. He’d known from the start that Loki wasn’t really an analyst, but there’d been no reason to suspect a closer connection with the Asgardian royal family, and opportunities for conducting clandestine research at other TVAs had been few and far between.
“You say he’s causing trouble?” he prompted, figuring he should probably gather all the relevant facts before making any kind of commitment.
“He won’t cooperate,” said B-15 bluntly. “The rest of us are working together, and ok, it’s not always easy, but at least we’re trying. I get it, all Lokis have trust issues - but he won’t engage with the others at all unless it’s to antagonise them. Like the time he ordered Kid Loki to make him a sandwich.”
“What happened?” asked the Director curiously.
“Croki threatened to bite his other hand off. Sylvie sided with Kid Loki. Our Loki intervened to try and calm things down, which didn’t go so well. We narrowly avoided an Incident.”
The Director suppressed a chuckle at the image of B-15 stepping in to placate a roomful of warring Lokis. Other Mobius must have been absent at the time, most likely on a mission to consolidate fledgling alliances with like-minded TVAs.
“Ok, honestly? The sandwich thing doesn’t sound so bad.” It was hardly on a level with razing Manhattan to the ground. “I get that Lokis don’t like being ordered around, but it sounds more like a prank to me.” He shrugged. “Maybe he’s just bored?”
“Pranks I can deal with. Plots, on the other hand…” B-15 sighed wearily. “He tried to stage a coup recently, install himself as leader of the TVA. Our TVA, that is.” She fixed the Director with an appraising look. “You never know, the two of you might get along.”
The Director shifted uncomfortably. B-15 had made no secret of the fact that she suspected his motives for leading an uprising against the Overseer, the megalomaniacal Kang variant who’d ruled over… well, his TVA, as he supposed he should think of it now. Truth be told he hadn’t wanted the top job, but in the absence of any other suitable volunteers he’d found himself stuck with it. After all, someone had to pick up the pieces: rebuild the TVA from the ground up, ensure the organisation was robust enough to withstand threats from multiple fronts, internal as well as external. The Overseer still had plenty of fanatical supporters, and while most of them had fled along with their former leader, it was likely some had chosen to remain, hiding in plain sight, waiting to exploit any hint of weakness.
“Bea’s right that Lokis don’t trust easily.” Other Mobius spoke gently, with no trace of B-15’s barely contained frustration. “There’s usually a good reason for that.”
The Director swallowed, forcing himself to meet his variant’s eyes. A familiar weight of guilt settled on his chest.
To describe their relationship as complex would be an understatement. The Overseer’s TVA had imprisoned Other Mobius and tortured him for information. The Director had facilitated his escape (eventually), but he’d made some morally questionable choices along the way. They were allies now, united in the fight against the Overseer’s increasingly unhinged vision to establish himself as the dominant power in the multiverse, but he still wasn’t sure how things stood between them on a more personal level. B-15 had made it clear on multiple occasions that she didn't fully trust him, but Other Mobius played his cards close to his chest. It was a tactic he recognised.
“He survived longer in the Void than any other variant,” Other Mobius continued, “mostly fending for himself. He gathered a group of supporters around him eventually, but most of them were biding their time, just waiting for the chance to stab him in the back. He’s survived this long by clinging to power at all costs, not relying on anyone but himself.” He paused, holding the Director’s gaze. “That’s how he sees it, anyway.”
“Is that the Loki expert talking?”
Other Mobius chuckled softly, blue eyes crinkling in the corners. “Don’t take my word for it.” He gestured towards the stack of Time Reels in round metal canisters currently taking up an alarming amount of space on the Director’s desk. Each canister was neatly labelled: Loki Laufeyson (Odinson), former Sacred Timeline, followed by an eye-wateringly long string of numbers (the Caseys from their respective TVAs had teamed up to identify and catalogue each reality's original Sacred Timeline, starting with their own).
The Director hesitated, discomfort at the prospect of being granted access to the entirety of Loki’s life (which presumably included the more intimate moments) warring with deep curiosity.
So far he’d seen only the best of Loki. He’d witnessed the god’s capacity for heroism firsthand: Loki’s determination in fighting to find and protect Other Mobius, risking his own life in the process... that miraculous display of magic inside the walls of the TVA. His own long-suppressed unease at the organisation’s methods had grown steadily stronger since the timelines started branching, exacerbated by the Overseer’s heavy-handed response to the catastrophe. Loki had provided the spark that lit the flame, single-handedly restoring his wavering faith that there was goodness in the multiverse, that a better way of living was worth fighting for.
He’d been surprised to learn that on most Sacred Timelines (including the one Other Mobius and B-15 had been sworn to protect) Loki was cast as an untrustworthy villain, redeemed only by death. Maybe the reels would help him understand how the potential for such extremes of heroism and villainy could co-exist within the same endlessly complex, endlessly fascinating being.
“It’s ok,” Other Mobius reassured him, apparently reading his mind (this happened a lot, and it never stopped being any less unnerving). “All the Lokis agreed to this. President Loki included.”
“Wait… so he knows you’re here?”
“We wouldn’t have proceeded without his consent.”
The Director frowned. Why would President Loki agree to swap one TVA for another? Unless, of course, he was planing to stage another coup.
“Ok, but why come here? There’s a whole multiverse out there.” Surely there was somewhere in the vastness of space and time that this version of Loki could be happy – another Asgard, maybe?
“He’s free to leave whenever he likes, he knows that. He wants to help, he just hasn’t figured out how. Not yet.”
This sounded dangerously idealistic, but the Director decided against pointing this out. Instead, he turned his attention to the solitary file that accompanied the film reels, the official record of Variant L-816’s TVA processing. He couldn’t help noticing that it seemed unusually sparse.
”I can’t see anything on his Nexus Event?”
“There’s a lot missing from his file,” Other Mobius agreed. “He was one of the first Lokis we brought in, before my time. I heard he managed to outsmart the guards and slip away briefly.” He shrugged. “Looks like he made a beeline for the archives.”
“He told me he stabbed one of his rivals for the Presidency,” said B-15. “Turns out he told each of us a different story. We don’t know what finally put him on the TVA’s radar.”
The Director flipped through the file, lost in thought, the fingers of his free hand tapping an unconscious rhythm on the edge of his desk. Most of the documentation he’d normally expect to see was missing (the usual exhaustive report on the nature of the variant’s Nexus Event and the steps taken to reset the timeline, interrogation transcripts, the trial verdict), but what remained wasn’t entirely without interest. The contents included a detailed psychological evaluation, an account of Loki’s brief escape from TVA custody, and a motley assortment of pamphlets, draft speeches, news cuttings and other ephemera relating to his election campaign.
The missing pieces were all the more intriguing in light of what had been left untouched. The Director could never resist a puzzle.
“Maybe you can encourage him to talk?” B-15 suggested. “That’s not a euphemism, by the way,” she added hastily.
“Believe it or not, I wasn’t planning on torturing him.”
“You can see why we might get the wrong idea about that.”
The temperature of the room shifted suddenly. Other Mobius placed a warning hand on B-15’s arm, and once again the Director locked eyes with his variant.
In some ways it was like looking in a mirror. Other Mobius had the same neatly combed hair and moustache, the same outwardly calm demeanour and bright blue eyes that crinkled in the corners when he smiled. Like Mobius, he still wore the same TVA-issue brown suit, even though there wasn’t any particular reason to anymore. To a casual observer they might have seemed identical.
But the Director had been higher up the chain of command than his other self, working for a TVA he now knew to have been among the most ruthless in the multiverse. He’d done what was necessary to survive, rising in the ranks of an organisation founded on fear and ever-shifting allegiances when so many of his colleagues had fallen by the wayside. As the Overseer’s second in command he’d been complicit in perpetuating an authoritarian regime that punished the slightest hint of deviation or disloyalty.
All Time Agents had done bad things, cut short innocent lives in the service of the Sacred Timeline, but the Director didn’t doubt his variant had acted out of a sincere belief that ensuring the proper flow of time was essential to preventing chaos and destruction on an unimaginable scale.
When all was said and done, Other Mobius was a good person. The kind of person who inspired trust, affection, loyalty. Unconditional love. The Director was the cracked reflection, the imperfect copy; he was under no illusions about that.
He lowered his eyes.
“Think of it as a trial,” said Other Mobius, breaking the strained silence. “You’re under-resourced. Trust me, you’ll track down the Overseer a lot quicker with Loki’s help.”
“You’d be doing us a favour,” added B-15, less combative now. The Director was struck once again by how tired she looked. The pressure of co-running one of the few TVAs that hadn’t yet fallen to the Overseer and recruiting allies for an all-but-inevitable multiversal war was clearly taking its toll. He experienced a pang of sympathy. If he could help lighten the load for B-15 and Other Mobius, how could he possibly refuse?
Besides, he couldn’t pretend the prospect of spending time with a Loki again wasn’t an enticing one. Even if this particular Loki did sound like quite the handful.
“Ok,” he said quietly, busying himself with stacking the overflowing contents of his in-tray into in an orderly pile. “Go ahead. Bring him in.”
It was worth it just to see B-15’s face light up.
“Just one question.” He hesitated, suddenly unsure whether he really wanted to hear the answer. “Why me?”
“You have a way with Lokis,” said B-15 simply. “All Mobiuses do, apparently.”
He sincerely hoped B-15 was right. Things were still shaky in the aftermath of deposing the Overseer; if President Loki decided to mount a leadership challenge with the TVA in its current state, there was every chance he’d succeed.
They moved to discussing reports of TVAs being infiltrated by the Overseer’s supporters, rumoured sightings of the Overseer himself (mostly unsubstantiated) and – most worrying of all – increasing incidents of “temporal contamination”, when branched timelines started bleeding into one another.
Eventually B-15 entered a set of coordinates into her TemPad, bidding the Director a cursory farewell before stepping through the glowing portal that materialised in the middle of the room.
Other Mobius hesitated for a moment before following B-15 through the Door.
“He’s looking for a purpose,” he said quietly. “I know you can understand that.”
He was gone before the Director had a chance to reply, the glowing orange portal fading from view.