Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

This stupid song is on repeat. Mobius thinks it's because Loki wants him to get up and move on. At this point it's stuck on repeat in his brain, too. He thinks the lines before she says them. It makes it all the more funny because he's sitting in an 1986 McDonald's that is playing Taylor swift. These people are going to be so confused in thirty years. He can see it now. Taylor Swift alien? Time traveler? What is she hiding? Mobius will give it to the song though. It's the most accurate rendition of how he feels currently. 

Friends break up, friends get married

Strangers get born, strangers get buried

Trends change, rumors fly through new skies

But I'm right where you left me

B-15 is in this weird new relationship with a guy named Peter. Thinks he's amazing. Casey got promoted to analyst. O.B. wrote a new book. A manuel to understand the tree. Sylvie is doing her thing at McDonald's. Starting to date that radio shack, vinyl guy Lyle. 

Then there is Mobius. The world is spinning on.

Help, I'm still at the restaurant

Still sitting in a corner I haunt

Cross-legged in the dim light

They say, "What a sad sight"

The song skips as an announcement that the dining room is closing soon and food will be done being served shortly is said. The sound comes back at the most relatable part.

Everybody moved on

I, I stayed there

Dust collected on my pinned-up hair

They expected me to find somewhere

Some perspective, but I sat and stared

Right where you left me

Mobius jumps as an apple pie and milkshake is slapped down in front of him. Sylvie slumps into the seat across from him. "Eat," she demands, her face taught and frustration. Mobius glares at her before turning back to the window to watch the cars drive by. 

Almost immediately the speaker plays 'Why Can't We Be Friends.' Sylvie looks up and shouts, "Shut up!"

Conversations pause to no doubt look at her before going on. The song doesn't stop. Mobius doesn't eat. The world spins on. 

Sylvie sits back, angry, arms crossed, and hisses, "I'm sorry about judging you for wanting to eat pie, alright? So will you please eat that one before we're dead?"

"Loki has been gone almost a century," Mobius growls, "and you want me to eat something I haven't touched in that long." He finally looks at her, a bitter taste in his mouth. "No thank you."

"He's gone," she says, grabbing the pie and taking a bite, "everyone has moved on. You need to, too."

"I'm not everyone," Mobius says louder than he means to. The music stops. 

Sylvie eyes the speaker above them, swallowing her bite before going on. "You're not well. You have jumped timelines for the entire time he's been gone, never letting yourself heal and move on."

"I'm a nowhere man, remember," Mobius says, crossing his arms, "I don't belong at the TVA anymore than you do."

"You just don't want the memories."

"No, I don't. You don't want half your memories either. Don't be hypocritical."

"Boy, what has crawled into your ear and died today?"

"That's not a saying."

"Yes, it is." Sylvie takes another bite before placing a pie on the table. "Why are you here?"

Mobius sighs. He stares out the window. A bus drives by. "I don't know."

"You don't know?"

Mobius clenches his fist and shoves it under the table. He's mostly avoided this branch for this reason. To avoid arguing about Loki and how he's still not over it. But there was an incident. Too many variants of the same guy causing issues. Mobius got called in. Too many memories filled his mind. Then the nightmare happened. The murders. Mobius left the TVA in tears and for some god forsaken reason ended up here in Smallsville waiting to talk to Sylvie who can barely stand him.

"How did you move on?" He hisses, "He loved you. You acted sad when he left and yet," Mobius slaps the table, finally turning to her, his glare even stronger, "you're dating Lyle and act like he never existed."

"I never loved him," Sylvie hisses before looking up at the ceiling, like it'll hear her. "Not that way."

Mobius squints at her. "You still moved on knowing very well how much he cared about you. How could you just do that?"

"People leave Mobius," Sylvie throws herself forward, angry and shaking, "Spouses die. People remarry. Friends move so we get new friends. People...people move on. It's normal and natural to do so." She grabs the shake and starts to drink it, too. 

Mobius groans, putting his face in his hands. "There has to be a way to get to him, Sylvie."

"Did you not hear a word I just said?"

Yes, but Mobius doesn't really care. He rubs his eyes. "He's stuck. He's keeping us alive, no way to change that. But if I can get to him, help him, somehow..."

Sylvie rolls her eyes. "He's literally a part of time and space now. Unless you figure out a way to be a god, you aren't getting to him. Even then, it's not likely you'll-"

But Mobius is caught on her first words. He's part of space and time. No, not space, but time...like the time stone, but time is a part of space. If Mobius could figure out the relation, if he could become space...

Mobius stands up so fast his knees hit the table and the apple pie goes flying. So he jumps, her eyes wide with shock. Mobius smiles. "I figured it out."

Sylvie frowns. "Figured what out?"

Mobius grabs his jacket and swings it around him. "I got to go."

"Mobius!"

But before she can get him, he's running out of McDonald's, passed her truck and the gentle music that says: 

the reason I hold on

Ooh, 'cause I need this hole gone

Well, funny you're the broken one

But I'm the only one who needed saving

*******************************

Casey drops his coffee and splatters it all over his pants when Mobius come s through the time door. It is a odd sight, seeing Casey hop from foot to foot trying to get his pants to cool down and Mobius would stand and watch if he didn't have work to do.

"Where's the Infinity Stones?" He asks.

Casey clutches the pocket of his dress shirt that lies over his heart. "You almost scared me to death!" He shouts,"And my coffee! Couldn't you have come here through the elevator like everyone else?"

It must be one of those big meeting days. Ever since Casey got stuck in the heavy duty, leading-the-TVA party, he's been grumpy whenever he has to go to a serious meeting. Mobius can't blame him. He dodged a bullet leaving for that little time that he did. Or maybe it was because he was emotionally compromised and everyone thought he would lose a screw if they put too much pressure on him. Either way this is for the best. No one needs a crazy man on the council and what Mobius is about to do, whether it works or not, will label him a madman. 

"I'm sorry, Casey," Mobius says, deciding if he's going to go through with this he should probably be nice to his friends. Mobius runs to the bathroom and grabs some napkins which he promptly hands to Casey who starts dabbing his pants. "Really, I'm sorry. Was it a rough meeting?"

"When isn't it?" Casey grouches, "They were talking about the tree. Some people still want to prune, but they are a fiery minority. It's hard to do anything without them making a ruckus."

"What did you guys say?" Mobius asks.

"The tree is vulnerable. It's pure time. We are unraveling time if we prune, killing something that doesn't need to be killed. But they are worried that if the tree continues to grow, it'll start pushing the boundaries of the TVA, the Void, anything outside of it. That roots and branches if allowed to grow start to choke anything around it."

"So it needs space," Mobius says, "breathing room to grow and for other things to be out of its way."

"Yeah," Casey agrees, slumping back, "but where are we going to get space? You'd have to create a pocket around the tree and where or how would we even do that? So we're just going in circles, saying we'll be fine even if we don't know that for sure. It's been..." Casey shakes his head. A nightmare. That's what it is. 

Mobius pat's his shoulder. "I'm sure it will be fine. Nonetheless, can you keep me in the loop for that? I'm sure there is a way to fix it." Like with the space stone. 

Casey nods. "Sure. Maybe you can convince them they're being stupid." Finally, he faces Mobius directly and says, "What was it you were looking for?"

Mobius chews his lip. He hates lying to Casey. That's why he came in so adruptly. If he was quick enough he wouldn't ask questions. Not today it seems. "The infinity stones," Mobius says, "where did they go?"

Casey cocks his head, "Why are you looking for those?"

Mobius has thought only briefly of what he could do to convince Casey that him looking into the Infinity Stones isn't going to lead to some massive mental breakdown. And that may just be the problem when Mobius says, "I just want to look at them."

Casey eyes him. " B said to never let you near those."

Of course she did. Mobius rolls his eyes as if she doesn't have every reason to be worried. "I'm fine, casey. When's the last time I had any kind of meltdown?"

At that Casey is deadpan. "Yesterday in the room docking area."

Bad question. That's on Mobius. "Okay, yes, I had a meltdown, but I made it through that nightmare demon case-"

"Barley," Casey interrupts, "you barely made it through the nightmare case. Gwen is still worried about you from that."

"But I did come through. That has to count for something, right?"

Casey sucks on his inner cheek for a long moment. Mobius doesn't look good. He knows that. He has wrinkles in his shirt, two different shoes on and who knows where his Blazer went. Probably stuck in transport. But Mobius tries to look okay, look sane, and professional.

Finally, Casey sighs and picks up his tempad. "I'll let O.B. know you're on your way."

*******************************

Loki has been gone a long time.

And that isn't an argument. That is a statement of fact. It's been so long that the TVA has become more new workers than old. For example Gwen Stacy who is crawling on the roof above Mobius or Gambit who is constantly throwing cards at them are the ones doing a lot of the work.

There is also the giant statue outside that took ages to build. Mobius wasn't there for that part. They made and dedicated it without him being there. Which is just fine with him. He doesn't like looking at it. Makes him nauseated.

But he does. In fact, Mobius can stand at the balcony for hours looking at that statue, being mad at Loki, being mad at himself, Sylvie, everyone. That doesn't change the fact that Loki is somewhere at the end of time where Sylvie refuses to go and Mobius can't get to.

Or at least Mobius thought he couldn't. 

As he stares out at the statue, Mobius has to stop and pause. He has run for what feels like a millennia. Trying to find something to take away these feelings of betrayal and regret and hurt. He almost asked Judge Gamble to erase his memories. Allow him to have a fresh start again. But he didn't because even if Loki left him behind that doesn't mean he should leave Loki.

And doesn't that just bite. Because maybe he doesn't want to see Mobius. Maybe Loki likes where he is. And he doesn't need any of them, need Mobius. Maybe Mobius is about to do something so stupid that it'll kill him all for nothing.

But then what if that's wrong. What if Loki is all alone and in pain. What if he does want to see Mobius in person. Not just on some timeline going on dates that will go nowhere and living a life that means nothing. Food tastes like ash nowadays. Mobius tries to eat with Gwen and the others but he's out classed. He doesn't belong here. Not anymore. If Mobius even belonged here in the first place.

He continues walking to the elevator, forcing his eyes off the statue. He's tired of running. If this doesn't work, and it doesn't kill him, Mobius just might go through on that memory erasing thing. Unless they beat him to it. That might be the best option.

As Mobius approaches the elevator, he notices a few others also waiting. He recognizes a few of the new variants and-

He turns around so fast he gets whiplash, but she catches him anyway. 

"Mr. Mobius," Captain Carter calls, "are you here to join us?"

Mobius groans. "I think I forgot something. Oh, look, no jacket. I must have left it. I better-"

But Captain Carter grabs his shirt and pulls him back to the waiting group. "Don't worry," she states, "Casey notified us that you were going to see O.B. None of us care if you don't have a jacket. Some prefer it I think."

She nods at one of the variants, some variant of a Roman emperor Mobius thinks, who is staring noticeably. He just gets behind carter, away from prying eyes. Dealing with a God is enough. He doesn't need Mr. Caesar to add to his growing list of pains in the-

"Are you well, Mr. Mobius," Carter asks, taking the liberty to block him from prying eyes. 

"I'm fine, Captain," Mobius says. He looks at the elevator. It's still floors away. The Caeser variant hits the button again. It doesn't go any faster.

She turns to him, her back to the variants. "It's all right that you are not, Mobius."

"Why did you ask me then?"

Captain Carter shrugs. "We are soldiers together, working for all time. And we just got done solving literal nightmare case. One that resulted in you being in the hospital for some time."

"I'm fine," Mobius repeats as his side aches. Then as the elevator reaches two floors out, he's sighs, "are you all right?"

Carter is almost surprised by the question. She looks away. "It's nothing I haven't dealt with before."

Mobius nods. It's only fair that if he's elusive, she is just as much so. The elevator bings and the five of them climb on. Carter makes sure to stay between him and Caesar who tries several times to see or speak to Mobius, but Carter always interrupts, making sure Mobius is comfortable until she gets off on her floor which just happens to be the same one Caeser has to get off of at. The other two get off soon after.

When Mobius is alone, he slumps against the wall. He feels exhausted. No. He's not fine. He spends the rest of the trip doing deep breaths and trying not to pass out. 

****************************

"Hey, Mobius," O.B. says way too cheerfully for Mobius's slowly dying brain. Time jet lag is what O.B. calls it. He spent too long in time and now he's getting jet lag because of it. Joy. 

"Hey, O.B.," Mobius says, "Casey said he texted everyone I was coming." Just saying that makes Mobius want to slap Casey silly. 

O.B. shrugs. "Not everyone. Just the group from The nightmare scenario." He puts down whatever weird trinket he is working on he gives Mobius a great big grin. "What can I do for you?"

Mobius feel stupid now, standing here in front of O.B. He likes O.B. He really does. He's a good friend. O.B. and B-15 are probably half the reason Mobius is still here. But then he spots the old TVA handbook, dusty and neglected under a pile of tools and metal.

He has a job to do.

"Infinity Stones," he says, "Casey said you have them now."

"I do," O.B. says. He swizzles off his stool and starts walking to the back of the shop. When Mobius doesn't follow, he looks back and waves him forward. "Come on. There's no way I'm bringing them all out."

That is a fair request. The TVA had way too many Infinity Stones just lying around and honestly they shouldn't be down here either. Who knows what havoc that will cause one day. At the back wall, O.B. opens several drawers filled with stones sorted into color. The time and space stones they have the most of, but the mind stone could put up a fight for second most. The green stones seem to glow, call to Mobius. He reaches for one until O.B. slaps his hand. He jerks back.

"Don't touch," O.B. says, "we use tongs to get all the uncovered stones down here."

"Uncovered?" Mobius asks.

"Yeah. Stones that don't have protection like the power stone with the orb or the tesseract." Mobius eyes the blue stone. Two tesseracts sit in the drawer, half buried.

"So you can touch the ones that are covered?"

"Sort of," O.B. says, "the stones are more volatile here. As if being outside time and reality messes with them. They need a conduit to house the energy or it gets erratic, hence why they are in the shelves."

"Is that also why humans can touch those ones," Mobius asks, "Cause of conduits?"

O.B. nods, "But not people like Thanos or the eternal beings. People with cosmic power and/or a special connection to the universe can use that power."

This might be a little more complicated than Mobius thought. 

"Shouldn't we get rid of these," Mobius suggests, "Throw them out the loom docking bay doors. You know in case they decide to implode or something?"

O.B. hums as if he's never thought of that. "The radiation may break down the stones and depending on the reaction might just send it back to its place in the universe, like a reset or it might snap and cause a big bang all over again."

"That would kill us, wouldn't it?" Mobius asks uneasily.

"Oh, definitely," O.B. says. He reaches for a pair of tongs. "Let's try it."

*****************************

"Are you two insane?"

O.B. has already ejected the power stone which promptly blew up outside the large windows and left a purple glow over the TVA. He's in the process of releasing the time stone when B-15 stomps in, her suit immaculate but not complimentary to her snarl.

"Oh, hi, B-15," O.B. says before releasing the time stone. The group watches it float out the window where it fizzles like a mentos in pop before it disappears all together.

"Huh..." O.B. says, "That's not the reaction I was expecting." Then he's typing it up on his pad to make sure it's documented for future research.

B-15 looks about ready to explode. "What are you doing?" She hisses, "The entire TVA shook, everyone is in a panic and you're down here tossing Infinity Stones out the window."

"It was Mobius's idea," O.B. says, and her angry stare immediately goes to Mobius who has this far stayed out of the fray and just watched. Her stare makes him turn and stare at the wall as if it's the most interesting thing in the world. O.B. is still going, "We need to do something with those Infinity Stones. We're trying to see which ones we can get rid of without destroying everything."

"Is that right?" B-15 growls. Mobius doesn't think he's sweat so much in his life.

"You gotta admit," Mobius tries, "too many of those things together might just be the end of us."

B is not amused. "So you go visit Sylvie and come back deciding that blowing us up is a good idea?"

"We're not dead yet," Mobius says though it does nothing to fight the frown on her face. In fact it gets worse.

O.B. looks up. " The time stone disintegrated mostly due to the temporal radiation mixing with its cellular structure. The space stone might have a similar effect and might even make our corner of space bigger. Let's do that on one next."

Mobius's heart jumps. This is his chance. "I'll go get it ready," he says.

As he walks to the stairs, he hears B-15 say, "O.B., I don't think this is a good idea. What happens if the reality stone explodes? It could rewrite this whole place."

He stops at the top of the stairs. Mobius sees it clear as day. Loki walking down those stairs. His eyes meeting his before Loki locks himself behind that door. His words. The hatch opening... Mobius is hyperventilating.

"Mobius," he hears B-15 call, "are you okay?"

"I'm fine," he says forcefully, then makes his body go forward down the stairs. He doesn't have long. B-15 will figure it out. Then he'll be locked up for sure.

The tesseract sits on the table, surrounded by the reality, soul and mind stones. Mobius stares at it then looks at the gangway door. Only beings with a special connection to the universe can wield this thing. So either he's going to die right here, right now...or he's going to see Loki very soon.

Mobius picks up the tesseract while simultaneously setting down his tempad, O.B.'s words about a conduit echoing in his mind. He feels a buzz as he lifts it to his face. A buzz starts in his hands and goes down his arms to his shoulders and across his chest. His eyes hurt, as if something is jabbing at the back of them. Flecks of blue appear, dying the world a different hue.

People with cosmic power or a special connection to the universe can use that power...

Mobius's lungs feel like they are being crushed while simultaneously his body feels like it's being stretched in every direction imaginable. He watches the tesseract as it begins to drain of color, as if it's power is getting sucked away.

"Mobius."

Mobius chokes. Loki? He can't look away. But he hears him. It's far away but Mobius hears him.

"Let it go." But Mobius doesn't. In fact, he holds it tighter. He's not stopping. Not this time. "Mobius!" he yells, "Let it go!"

"Mobius?"

Mobius turns. O.B. and B stand in the doorway. Their eyes widen when they see him. They glow blue for a slight moment before the tesseract stops glowing.

"I'm sorry," Mobius whispers, numbly before the world explodes. 

He hears O.B. and B-15 scream his name but he's swallowed in blue. He feels as if every cell in his body is being torn apart. He sees images. The loom. Asgard. Cleveland. McDonald's. The TVA. The loom, Asgard, Cleveland, McDonald's, the TVA. Theloomasgardclevelandmcdonald'sthetva. It goes faster and faster. He can't think. He can't breathe. He's being crushed. He's going to die. Mobius is going to-

New York! He sees New York!

"Loki!"

B-15, blinded by the blue, reaches out her hand, and brushes a shirt sleeve. "Mobius!"

Just as suddenly as it started, the whirlwind stops. Her hand grips nothing. The light fades away. 

Mobius is gone.

Chapter Text

Blue is the heart

That travels through time and space

Searching for the thing that makes

Space endless and time an infinity

Loki stares at the notepad on his knee. This is garbage. How can his writing be this bad? He's done works with Homer, Shakespeare, Mary Shelley and somehow he can't write a simple poem. He squeezes the pen so hard ink runs down his fist. He throws it away, grabs the paper and rips it to shreds.

"Hey!" Loki jerks at the sound of Clint's voice. His babysitter for today. "Are you going to come help us with this homeless center or are you going to sulk and rip up paper all day?"

Loki growls under his breath before standing and whipping around to where half of a construction crew stands in the sun glaring at him. They scream as he levitates slabs of concrete onto the frame of the new homeless shelter and seals it down. Clint, with his hands on his hips, turns to him, unamused.

"Happy," Loki grouches before he turns back around and sits on the rubble on the old homeless shelter, only brick and chard bits now. This whole part of the city is just that. Black charred remains. In the distance, he can see a billboard announcing the anniversary of New York's attack and a day of mourning for those who died.

May 2013. And Loki is still here. Odin didn't want him on Asgard if he couldn't kill him. Loki has Frigga to thank for that. So instead he's down on Earth being monitored by Thor and these Avengers and their stupid organization named S.H.I.E.L.D, rebuilding the city, and 'showing he's a changed man' to a people he has no care for and they have no care for him. Just last week he got lectured by six year olds about why Thor is better.

The week before, it was delivering goods to a hospital and the week before that, an animal shelter (he didn't mind that one. Animals are better than humans). And on and on it goes. Recompense for Earth, forbidden from returning to Asgard, trapped here. At least he has writing utensils. That's the least they could do for him.

Loki's back to staring at his paper, cursing the fact he broke his pen when Clint plops down beside him. "You know, the point of coming out here is to help people and show you are trustworthy. I don't think using magic to do half of the job is helping."

Loki waves his notebook toward the building. "I got the walls up. Whether your tiny human minds can comprehend magic or not is your problem." He slams it back into his lap. "And what are you talking about, trustworthy? You don't trust me so how could anyone else expect themselves to do so."

The man shrugs, "You're right there. But it's not my idea. It came from above Fury so who knows, maybe they just want to show we can coexist with aliens. It doesn't matter. We both know that. All of this is a waste of time."

Loki snorts, "Finally, something we can agree on."

Clint's phone cheeps, a real pathetic thing that can rival Thor's pathetic dog ringtone any day. He takes it and moves away from where Loki can hear.

Loki rolls his eyes. Probably some S.H.I.E.L.D agent complaining again. He watches the clouds pass by. The poems he could write about a cloud.

"If I were a bird, I would nestle into your downy softness and ride with you into the pale sunset," he whispers.

No. That's not very good either.

Clint comes back, slapping his flip phone shut, face pale. "Come on," he says motioning to the car down the street surrounded by two agents. "We got to go."

"It's not time yet," Loki says, "we still have two hours. My service for the week isn't through-"

"There's something wrong with the tesseract."

That makes Loki pause and his stomach drops. 

"What?"

*******************************

The tesseract was supposed to be on Asgard. But the rainbow bridge is not fixed yet and Thor has to use it to report to Odin, keep an eye on Loki and, to a lesser extent, make out with Jane.

So while Thor was out today, taking Jane to some observatory, he left the tesseract with Tony and Steve which is bad as it is with Tony having an incurable need to test it. Loki believes everyone is grateful that Bruce is taking a trip down south or else 'Avengers Tower' would be halfway across the universe by now.

Clint and Loki run into Stark's lab where he and Pepper stand one side of the cube, arguing about security risks, while Steve is on the other side, using his shield to keep him and Natasha safe from the sparks that the cube is giving off.

"What happening?" Clint asks, stopping Loki just beyond the threshold. 

Tony looks over and immediately points at Loki, "Are you doing this?"

Loki scowls. Typical. "No. How could I do this when I'm not even here?" 

"Isn't this how you got here?" Natasha asks, "By coming through the cube?"

"That's right," Clint says, "you came through the tesseract-"

"By someone else's power," Loki hisses, "let's not forget that."

"How long has this been going, Tony?" Steve asks as another large spark hits his shield. 

"Maybe an hour," Tony says, turning his attention to the tesseract. "Maybe two."

"And you didn't think to tell anyone until now," Pepper says, looking more and more irritated the more the tesseract sparks.

"Well, you know, wanted to make sure if we're going to explode we explode together."

"If Loki is right," Natasha steps in, "and someone used their power to get him here, does that mean someone is trying to get through again?"

The entire group looks at each other and in a blink, Clint has an arrow he always keeps in case Loki gets out of control out, Pepper is stepping back, Tony is calling his armor and Steve and Natasha are in battle positions.

Loki eyes the tesseract, it's flowing angry sparks hypnotizing him. Is something trying to come through? Is it... Thanos? 

Loki conjures a dagger. Clint eyes him wearily but Loki keeps his eyes on the tesseract. If Thanos is coming for him, he'll give him a fight.

The tesseract sparks more and more. Tony's suit arrives and it surrounds him, ensuring his safety as he steps in front of Pepper. Loki is holding his breath. He wants to run but it would be foolish. Where would he go? I couldn't get anywhere far enough to ensure safety from the Titan. And even if he could hide, it wouldn't be a secret Loki was wanted and the people would offer him up on a silver platter the in exchange for their lives. He would be dead before he could count one, two-

The tesseract explodes, taking Clint, Steve and Natasha off their feet. Tony wraps Pepper in a protective embrace. Loki holds his ground, keeping his eyes on the tesseract as the cube explodes and something big flies out of it and into the wall behind him, collapsing to the ground. The energy disperses and Loki sees the infinity stone that made up the tesseract fade to a dull gray... as if all its power has been lost.

"What..."

Loki whips around to the form on the floor, the blue energy seeping into it, leaving blue cracks along pale skin. Loki walks slowly to the body before Clint stands from where he hit the wall and gets a good look at the figure.

"It's...it's just some guy," Clint says.

"Just some guy that came out of the tesseract," Tony says, straightening, "that doesn't sound right."

But Clint is right. It's a human. Gray hair. Mustache. Filled with blue cracks, out cold. As the group gathers around him, Loki squints. This isn't right. This is a mid guardian. How did this happen?

******************************

"I'm telling you it's wrong!" Loki hisses. Stark looks up from his position by the man's head, his lab table turned into a medical bed. Pepper is gone and calling S.H.I.E.L.D. This is bigger than any of them want to deal with.

Stark glares at him and says, "You're arguing with fact here, Loki. This guy clearing absorbed the tesseract. That rock and those broken pieces," Stark points at the crumbled cube and grey stone on the second table, "are not showing any energy at all. Zip. Nada. This guy," he pulls up a screen from nowhere, throbbing with high energy readings from the diagram of a human body "is. The energy of the tesseract went into him."

"But that's not possible," Loki further argues, "that is a Midgardian. Humans can not contain this much power. It would destroy you. If he is containing the energy of the tesseract in his being there must be some other force keeping him alive."

"He's got a point," Natasha says from beside the table, watching as the blue cracks get longer and narrower.

"I agree," Clint adds, joining Natasha at the side, "this guy is holding a power that both Fury and Eric Selvig were barely able to touch let alone hold. Either he looks human but isn't or there is some other power at play."

"He's waking up," Steve suddenly blurts and the group shuts up. Loki crosses his arms and stands over the human on the empty side of the bed. Is he human? Maybe he's some monstrosity Thanos picked up. That sounds like something he would do. Pick up a monster and send it after the person who failed him. 

The man groans and peels his eyes open. Brilliant blue eyes greet them, the exact color of the tesseract. As bright as it too. They glow slightly, and flicker off the machinery as he looks around. Then his eyes land on Loki and they soften almost instantly. A small smile crosses his face. 

"Loki."

Something in Loki shutters at how the man says his name. It's said in a way that Loki has never heard before. Reverently. Kindly. Lovingly. Knowingly. The man looks at him as if he knows everything about Loki, as if the man's known him since the dawn of his existence and yet Loki does not know him. 

At that, a horrifying thought occurs. Maybe he is not midgardian. Maybe he did work for Thanos or maybe he didn't. Maybe... maybe he is the space stone made into flash. An unfortunate choice of flesh, but if it's the space stone it probably doesn't matter.

Loki doesn't realize he's holding his breath . Not until the man's smile fades...

I had all and then most of you

Some and now none of you

Stark and Loki jerk so hard that they kick the table. Clint curses and Natasha immediately goes to the computer as music continues to play.

Take me back to the night we met 

 I don't know what I'm supposed to do 

Haunted by the ghost of you

Then the song switches and it blurts out: 

Please don't forget me 

just yet, don't forget me 

The man's face falls and it as if he's finally seeing who Loki really is. He looks around, really seeing Tony, Natasha, Clint and Steve. He tries to sit up, but Tony pushes him back down. "Easy there. You just exploded through a box and then screwed with my audio system. I think you need to lie there until security comes." 

"Wasn't me," the man mumbles in an accent Loki's only heard on Tony's television. The man looks at Loki, then at Tony. "When am I?"

When am I? What kind of question is that? 

"We have a couple questions for you, sir," Steve says down by the man's feet, "then if it's prudent, we will answer yours." When the man just looks at him, he continues, "Who are you? What's your name?"

The man lifts his head, rubbing his temples, and saying, "Mobius."

"Wierd name," Clint mutters. 

"How did you get here, Mobius?" Steve asks.

But this man, Mobius, is looking at his hand now and his eyes are growing wide. "What is this?" The blue lines, cracks, whatever they may be seem to glow brighter. His breathing starts to get erratic. "What did I do?"

"Sir," Steve says, trying to get a hold of the situation, "you must calm-"

A cloud of blue swallows the man and he's gone. The group stares. "Where did he go?" Clint asks.

A loud crash interrupts the quiet and they spin to the man sitting on Stark's other table, glass instruments broke, and the man still panicking.

"Holy..." Natasha mutters.

"Sir," Stark starts, "you need to-"

But he disappears again, sending the glass pieces to the floor. Loki doesn't even have time to brace himself when the man appears again, running straight into him, sending them both to the floor. The man is not heavy in the least but his body against Loki's, his eyes looking into his, with shock and confusion, not fear or repulsion intrigues Loki.

He's warm. He's so incredibly warm and soft and it scares Loki. The look in his eyes terrifies him. The softness and concern. It's unwarranted. "I am so sorry," he mumbles, climbing to his feet, but he has a hard time doing it because he keeps fuzzing in and out as if he's trying to disappear.

"Okay, this is getting out of hand," Stark grabs the man's arm and amazingly pulls him up without him slipping through Stark's fingers. His armour is back on as if the man phasing in and out of existence is going to threaten the integrity of everything in the Tower. 

But the man just looks at him, feels the suit and pokes the mask. "It's not nanotech. So that's pre Ultron. But Loki's here so that's post New York..."

"Wait. How do you-"

Stark can't get a full sentence out before the man is looking around him to Steve and Natasha. "Which means I'm in 2013. Branched timeline."

He turns to Loki. "Where is Thor?"

Loki frowns. Of course he's asking that. Everyone is always asking that. But then the man is going on again. "Never mind. That doesn't matter." He looks at Stark. "I'm sorry for landing in your tower. I honestly don't know why I am here."

"Is there another place you should be?" Clint asks, arrow still aimed at the man's chest.

As Stark leads the man back to the table, the man rubs his face. Loki stands, walking weakly after them, quite freaked out. This isn't normal and he knows it. Something is not right. The man nods. "Yes. I'm supposed to be elsewhere. Somewhere I have never seen. I suppose that was the problem wasn't it..."

It's as if he's talking to himself. Stark puts him back on the table, and Natasha says, "How do you know Loki?"

The man looks quite confused for a moment before looking at Loki. Then a sudden pain overcomes his eyes. He looks away. At the same time, Stark's audio turns on again, this time playing a new song.

Just some roughed up desperadoes

Hanging tough through thick and thin

Kicking up dust wherever we go

I can see that you and me are gonna be friends

To the end you and me are gonna be friends

The man goes red. Stark retracts his face plate, pointing at his audio system. "Are you doing that?"

The man snorts. "Right. I don't know half the songs in the universe let alone how to run your audio system."

"Mobius," Steve says, and this time Loki thinks the name sticks, "you just came out of the tesseract. Do you know what that is?"

Mobius nods. "Too well."

"So does that mean you know you broke the box and the weird stone in the middle of it?" Stark asks, grabbing the Stone from the floor and shoving it at Mobius.

The man frowns. "That's the space stone. It's supposed to be blue."

"And yet it's not," Loki says, finally joining the conversation, "because you took all of its power with you when you appeared. A human containing the power of the stone. Or maybe you are the stone made flesh."

Clint looks freaked out by that implication. "Oh, no. We don't need some space entity trying to take over Earth again."

"At ease, Mr. Barton," Mobius says, rubbing the space between his eyes. Then he notices his green shirt is covered in pieces of glass, slashed in many places. "Oh... I liked this shirt."

"Mr. Mobius," Steve continues, "we are the Avengers and he," he points at Loki, "is the god of mischief-"

"I know," Mobius says as he throws away his tie. He looks Steve in the eye, bored almost, "Look, Mr. Rogers. I don't know why I am here. I don't know why I sucked all of your space stones power away. No, I am not the space stone incarnated. I'm just a guy who was desperate and did something stupid and wound up here instead of where I wanted to be."

"A human can't wield an Infinity stone," Loki objects but Mobius cuts him off.

"Without a conduit or special connection to the universe."

"And you think you have a special connection to the universe?" Steve asks. They all look at the man intently. His answer could very well start an attack right here, right now.

Mobius looks tired. "No, not really. But I'm here. I'm not ripped apart and my particles aren't floating around in space so I guess I must have some sort of connection to something bigger."

"That seems like a big if for that much power," Loki hisses. 

"Says the guy who worked for the universe's biggest warlord."

Loki feels like he just got slapped. How does he know about that?

Steve sighs, "If you don't mind, Mr. Mobius, a friend of ours has been alerted to your presence and wants to ask you a few questions."

"Let me guess. Director Fury?" Mobius says.

Out of anything that unnerves the Avengers the most, it's this. The fact that Fury was just called out. Loki would find it interesting if it didn't unnerve him as well. Their silence is enough for Mobius to nod. "That's fine. I don't think I'm getting where I want to go anytime soon anyway."

***********************************

Mobius is in pain and a lot of it. It's not physical either although he thinks he might be getting an idea of how Loki was feeling when he was time slipping. But if Mobius has to have his body ripped apart again and again just so he can see Loki once more, then it will be worth it. He's alive. The space stone didn't kill him. Which means Loki must be helping him live or else he would be dead by now.

Mobius can't help but laugh though. Maybe he's just like Jane when she had the ether. She died very slowly from it. Maybe that's what's happening to him. It's ripping him apart cell to cell until there is nothing left and he just can't feel it.

No, the real pain was waking up in New York and seeing Loki. A Loki he's supposes. One that looks like his in all features save for brown eyes. He even acts as guarded as Mobius's.

Its as if he was drowning again, like a tidal wave hit him and sent him spiraling back to hell. Although it wasn't as bad as the TVA. Maybe that would have been more accurate. The music helped. Loki can still see Mobius which is nice but that doesn't mean it hurts any less.

Then there's the fact that this Loki is following him around unnecessarily. They wanted him to stay in the tower when the helecarrier came but Loki insisted that he argue his case since he doesn't know who Mobius is and he knows a ton about the space stone.

So now he sits in his interrogation room with Mobius, ankle bracelet blinking, writing away in a notebook that looks like it came straight from the 14th century. He grumbles something about some ancient author every couple of minutes before erasing something and turning the page.

It's quite soothing actually. Despite the pain, Mobius lays his head down on the table and watches Loki write. He wishes he could lay his head on his arms but they cuffed him. He wonders if he could get out of them if...

Mobius's body screams and everything flashes blue then he's falling on his butt behind the chair. The cuffs fall to the floor underneath the table.

"Ow," Mobius groans as he stands and sits back in the chair. So he can teleport out of cuffs by getting to Loki as a pipe dream. Lovely.

He has Loki's attention now. He's eyeing him as he sits again and rubs his lower back. Being a man of space does not cure you of back pain, that is for sure.

Mobius looks between him and the notebook. "What are you writing?" He asks.

Loki scowls, "I would say none of your business but you probably already know."

Mobius chuckles. "I can take a guess. Maybe it's about a silly old man falling out of chairs and trying to kill himself by jumping all over the place."

Loki squints at him. Mobius can see a million questions behind his eyes. He's happy Loki doesn't ask any of them. He can't explain it to him that he's not from this timeline and he's looking for another Loki. First off, that's confusing. Second it's insulting and third it would take too long.

Less than a minute later, Nick Fury enters the room, an intimidating walk taking him to the seat across from Mobius. He immediately sees that Mobius has no cuffs on and gives him a look. "Where are the cuffs?"

Mobius kicks them over to him. Fury doesn't look away. Ah. Intimidation. Why not. Mobius was never good at that kind of interrogation. "I am director Nick Fury," he says, "Stark tells me you're harmless but he also says you came out of the tesseract. Those two don't intertwine well in my head."

Mobius shrugs. "You're right to be weary. It's not every day some strange person comes out of a portal through an infinity stone." Mobius winks at Loki.

Loki raises a brow but Mobius sees the slight lift of his lips. Score!

Fury looks between them. "Barton says you know Loki but he doesn't know you. Can you explain that?"

Yes, but Mobius doesn't want to. So he uses his humanity to his advantage. "How could I not? He attacked New York. I would have to live under a rock not to know him."

It's not a lie and Mobius knows that's why the lie detector in the room made by Stark doesn't go off. But Loki is the god of lies and Mobius does not miss the lift in his brow. The fact he doesn't say anything is... strange.

"I have a hard time believing thats it," Fury says, leaning forward, "Barton said you looked at him like he's an old friend. Loki doesn't seem to know you either."

Mobius shrugs. "I don't know him." Which is true. He don't know this Loki from Adam.

"If I may interrupt," Loki suddenly says and that seems to set Fury off.

"No, you may not," he growls. 

Siding with Loki is probably not something Mobius should do, especially in front of a guy who is going to marry a Skroll and knows Captain Marvel but since when does Loki ever help Mobius think straight.

"Now hold on, Loki is here. He should be allowed to speak. Maybe he like secretly hates me or something. Maybe he has dirt that you need to know about."

"You just said you don't know him," Fury deadpans.

"I don't."

Again the machine doesn't go off. Loki starts because the lie is so blatant and yet Mobius really doesn't know this Loki. That infuriates Fury.

"I don't need anything from a lying terrorist."

Loki sobers at that. But Mobius frowns. A lying terrorist. For the most part that is true. But Loki is so much more than that. "Now hold on. Yeah, Loki did some horrible stuff. There's no denying that. But it's clear he is here to make restitution to New York. Why else would he be here and not on Asgard in prison? How's he going to get better or want to be better if you keep putting him in a box."

"Mr. Mobius-" Fury starts but Mobius slams his hand down. His body feels fuzzy, ready to teleport. He wills it not to as he continues to speak.

"Loki can be anything he wants to be. Be who he wants to be. He can save everyone and give his life just like any hero. In fact he could do more than that. In fact-"

Mobius yells as his body spasms. He doesn't go anywhere, just straight back into his seat where he feels absolutely exhausted. He has a hard time breathing as that horrible day with the loom fills his mind. All the green, the dissapearance, the door. He holds his breath, letting tears flow down his cheeks before opening his eyes again to a Fury who is angry and a Loki who looks flustered.

"Sorry," Mobius mutters, shifting in his seat.

"Well," Loki says weakly, "now you've seen him try to teleport."

"Amongst other things," Fury growls. He leans closer to Mobius, "shall we continue Mr. Mobius or is that your actual name?"

Maybe it's the tesseract influencing him, or for some reason he feels looser, like he can take on anything. Either way, Mobius sits back for a long interview. "Well, for starters, no, it's Don, but I haven't gone by that in a long time..."

***********************************

Mobius's words echo in his head as they walk down the hall back to the quinjet that will take them back to Stark Tower. Mobius went through that interview without a hitch save the question where Fury asked why he changed his name and he said he didn't like it. That's the only time the lie detector in the ceiling went off. They had tried using it on Loki when Stark had it installed. A machine that doesn't attack you, just monitors you like a heat signature. That beeped every second he spoke. But for Mobius it didn't and that's what's frightening Loki.

He said so many good things. How Loki is in a box. How he doesn't need one. How Loki can be anything, anybody. How he's a hero. But that's a lie and everyone and their dog knows it. So that means the machine is faulty. Because Loki's not a hero and he can't be anyone he wants to be. That's a poor mans dream.

Loki squeezes his notebook. The notebook that indeed has haikus and a long poem about an old man who fell out of a cube. An old man who was walking beside him, looking increasingly like he's going to pass out.

"If you collapse," Loki says lowly, "I'm abandoning you on this ship and leaving without you."

Mobius chuckles. "Fair enough. I could go for a big sandwich right now."

Loki frowns. "Sandwich?"

"Yeah. Smoked ham, pepper jack cheese. Maybe some pickles and mayo..." He looks a Loki, "Are you hungry?"

Loki squints at him, "You're strange."

"Thanks. I feel strange. I think I need an aspirin."

"The only reason Fury let you go is because the only thing he has against you is your name. He's going to have every eye in Stark Tower watching you."

"Well they can watch me eat a sandwich. You want one?"

Mobius slaps his arm then seems to stiffen. Loki almost thinks it's out of fear but upon closer inspection, he sees... sadness. Pain. Mobius turns away, his blue eyes shining brighter as the pain grows. "Sorry."

Loki stares at him. He doesn't remember the last time he was asked to have a sandwich let alone food with someone. He's... touched. And that's scary.

Loki swallows hard, "Yes. I would like a sandwich. With you."

Mobius hesitantly looks back and nods. "Okay. Let's have a sandwich."

******************************

Loki normally eats alone. In his room. Away from everyone. That's how it's been for the past year. So sitting in Starks kitchen eating a sandwich with a man with blue cracks that keeps fuzzing in and out like he's going to disappear any second is strange.

But he eats two sandwiches and a salad in the time it takes Loki to eat one. He watches him, the words still rolling through his head until Loki finally asks, "Why did you do it?"

With cheeks full of leaves, Mobius grunts in confusion.

"You defended me," Loki says picking up a pickle that had fell out and eating it, "Why?"

Mobius slows his chewing. He looks up at the ceiling as if it'll give him the answer. His hands fuzz and the sandwich falls back onto the plate. Finally he looks at Loki again, swallowing before saying, "You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

"Try me," Loki says and that just makes Mobius chuckle.

"I know a lot about you, Loki. And not in some creepy spy way or something. I know you. I know you have a good heart. You are a good person-"

Loki wonders what he put in that sandwich. "I'm not a good person. I killed so many of your kind because I wanted a throne. I committed genocide-"

"Believe it or not, Lokes, I have a higher kill count. I killed universes for a living."

Loki drops his sandwich now. He almost wouldn't believe Mobius if it wasn't for the pain he sees in his eyes. The same pain Loki sees in his own when he wakes up in the morning. The same pain he walks the world with. The pain that shows up when he has to help orphans or meet with ravaged families.

Loki swallows hard, "I didn't mean to hurt them..."

Mobius nods. "I know."

Neither of them are hungry anymore. Mobius jerks as if in pain every couple of seconds, but tries not to look like it's hurting him. Loki says, "You don't know what you're doing with that power, do you?"

He smiles weakly, "Its that obvious, huh?" He chuckles, "No. When I... took the tesseracts power I really didn't think over how to properly use it."

Loki raises a brow. "Why did you take it? You were pretty vague with Fury about it."

He smirks as if he knows Loki is trying to pry, to get the power. "Wouldn't you like to know?" Loki scowls. The look on Mobius's face was accurate. He knows. "It has nothing to do with thrones and palaces if that's what your thinking."

"How could you want to cosmic power for nothing but a throne, a place of power and glory."

Mobius's face seems to pale and his smile disappears. The gravity of his words fill Loki with an icky feeling. "There's more to the world than power and glory. Some people gain it to save those they love."

"You speak from experience," Loki says.

Mobius seems to pale more. He refuses to look at Loki now, electing to turn and look out the window instead at the dark city, illuminated only by street lights and other business buildings. Loki taps his plate, staring at the white flowered grooves in it. Finally, he says, "I could help you, if you want?"

"What?"

"To use the power. To harness it. Use it correctly."

Mobius turns but only slightly. "You want to take it."

Loki blushes. Shame fills him. "How do you keep doing that?"

"Like I said. I know you."

Loki looks away. He does want the power. Then he can leave here, visit his mother, get away from all the hate. Try somewhere else.

"Hey," Mobius taps his arm, "can you look at me?" Loki doesn't want to so he does so through his hair, "I want you to help me," he says softly and with a smile, "I can't figure this out on my own. I need someone who knows the stone better than me."

"That would require you trusting me," Loki says.

"I do trust you." At that Loki really does look at him. The honesty in Mobius's eyes surprises him, "I meant what I said. We can be friends, Loki. But you have to trust me, too."

"Trust is for-"

"-children and dogs. I know."

The way Mobius knows all this is starting to freak Loki out. The man pats Loki's hand again and says, "Hey, Jarvis, where is Mr. Stark?"

"In his laboratory, sir," Jarvis replies. 

Mobius winks at Loki, "It's bedtime. Think about what I said. You don't have to help me, but I would appreciate it if you did."

Then he's gone leaving Loki and his half eaten sandwich to his own devices.

******************************

I am not the only traveler 

Who has not repaid his debt

Mobius has never put a lot of thought into the music that plays around him. It was too painful, too. But now he listens. And he speaks to Loki, too, lying on his bed in a secluded part of the tower with no windows and a small door. The one Stark said he could have because he either didn't know where to put him or wanted him as far away from Loki and Pepper as he could be. He stares at the speakers as they play imagining Loki instead of wires. 

"I'm not far away now," Mobius says as the music plays. He doesn't know how the music works but he knows it does and he's grateful for it. Knowing Loki is here is helpful. "I didn't think everything through, obviously. Or else I would be there by now."

And then I can tell myself 

What the hell I'm supposed to do 

"There's another Loki. I asked him to help me. He's a good one. I can tell." Mobius hiccups at that part. Tears touch his eyes as the faces of two Loki's collide, "He looks just like you. Gosh, Loki, I thought he was you there for a minute."

When the night is full of terrors

And your eyes filled with tears

Mobius covers his face. His head hurts. His body hurts. He wants to cry. He wants to throw up. He keeps getting shocks up his arm and he's one hundred percent sure he's supposed to be dead right now but he's not. He doesn't know how to leave this place. He doesn't know how he got here at all. And it's so hard that he went to a place where the Loki is an exact replica of the one he lost.

Mobius starts sobbing. He's not there yet. Why is he not there? He should be with Loki but he's stuck in New York! Why? How could he have been so stupid to think this would work right? That he could do this? He's not anything special. He hasn't done anything special. He's nobody going nowhere.

Come stop your crying 

It'll be alright 

Mobius gasps at the sudden change of song. It's gentle, soft. 

I will be here

Don't you cry

"Loki," Mobius chokes both in question and despair. He continues to hiccup as the song washes over him. It plays to the end almost like a comforting hug. As he calms down, the song fades away until there's nothing but a consistent hum from the speakers above. He wonders if the Avengers are recording him and this breakdown. Wouldn't that be his luck. Fury would have him court-martialed immediately.

"Thank you," he whispers. The speaker's fuzz before the song from earlier starts again. Mobius sniffs hard and takes a deep breath. "I'll make it through this, Lokes. I'll get to you soon. I promise." Then he chokes as he says, "I miss you."

The music gets louder. Mobius drift's off to it as if the blue knows he needs it more than consciousness.

I had all and then most of you 

 some and now none of you 

take me back to the night we met 

I don't know what I'm supposed to do 

haunted by the ghost of you

Take me back to the night we met

Chapter Text

Mobius regrets taking up Loki's offer on getting help to control this newfound power. It's not that Loki's not interested. He isn't. Mobius can tell from how Loki scribbles in that notebook all through breakfast. The less interested in Mobius he is the better. It's not that all the Avengers are looking at them strangely. Though they have every reason to. Who wouldn't fear a living tesseract and the god of mischief. And it certainly isn't the fact that Thor is coming to give his brother a huge lecture and threatened Mobius. It's... other stuff.

It's the fact that this Loki takes his tea the same way his Loki does. It's how this Loki has his nose bound in a book. A notebook but it is is it really that much different. His hair falling in his face, his jaw, voice, mannerisms, all of it!

So as Mobius sits stirring his cereal in circles, he starts thinking maybe he'll tell Loki never mind then go and hide in his cell of a room and try to figure this out on his own. It can't be that hard. Loki got here with it. Selvig did have to use a machine to open it. Concentrate the energy. So that must automatically be the key then. Concentrating the power.

Mobius hits his bowl way harder than he needs to, making the Avengers all look at him. He wishes Loki had taught him what he did to master time slipping. I can't be that different from... space slipping? Time slipping and space slipping? Sounds right.

Mobius doesn't know how this Loki is supposed to teach him. Anything either of them do will be suspicious, especially if it's together. Which again brings Mobius back to just doing it himself to essentially avoid everything.

"So," Stark says, as Mobius spoons some cereal up just to dump it back into the bowl, "Mr. Tesseract, you going to be around long?"

"Tony," Steve groans. 

Mobius sniffs, "Depends. Is Fury going to lock me up anytime soon?"

"Fury is nervous," Natasha says, "he wants you gone but he can't support that if you're going to hop from place to place."

As if in emphasis, Mobius's body locks up. He gasps and falls through his chair and lands on the floor feet away. He groans. Bruce comes around from his spot by Tony and holds out his hand.

"Thanks," Mobius mumbles as he takes it and Bruce hauls him to his feet. 

"No problem," he says and as he goes back to his seat an idea occurs to Mobius. 

Mobius sits back in his chair and says, "What if I suggest a crazy idea?"

Everyone stops in their eating, including Loki who's scratching stops. "I have somewhere else to be. Another part of space. But I can't get there without his help," Mobius nods to Loki who looks up in alarm, "what if Bruce watches us? If anything suspicious happens he can call you or turn Hulk and smash us. As a security measure. To make Fury happy. I mean that's why he was called here isn't it?"

They stare at him. Just. Stare. As if he knowing about Bruce, how he was called in last night due to this and the fact Clint isn't here was supposed to go unnoticed. Steve leans back, arms crossed.

"We don't trust you," he says plainly, "and I don't think making Banner vulnerable to you or Loki's provocations is a good idea."

"I could do it," Bruce bursts in, "If Thor thinks it's a good idea."

Mobius claps his hands. "Yes. I'll talk to Thor. Heck, he would probably want to do it instead. That's less of a worry for you and one step forward to getting rid of me."

"Do I get to have a say in this," Loki suddenly grouches.

"No," the Avengers automatically chime.

Mobius can't help but smile at Loki's scowl. Loki notices and sneers. But Mobius holds his smile until Loki says, "And I suppose this is amusing to you."

"We're in the same boat, your highness. Don't forget I'm a prisoner, too."

"Oh, that's right. You're just a tad more out of your mind than I am."

"Let's make a bet-" Mobius says before Steve reaches across the table and lowers his hand. 

"No, no bets."

"Especially with each other. We don't need extra crazy," Tony says, as he goes to the toaster, gets two packages of Pop-Tarts from the cupboard and puts them in.

Loki frowns and looks up right as thunder roars outside the window and a large object hits the tarmac. Thor in all his glory. 

Steve looks at Tony, "Did you feel it again?"

Tony pats his chest triumphantly, "Always."

*****************************

Thor is intimidating. Everyone would agree to that save Loki. But right now he's not so intimidating. It's hard to be when you're stuffing your face with pop-tarts. He's glaring at Mobius, trying to figure him out while Loki sits on the other end of the couch, staring at his notebook like it has the answers to the universe. There will be no help from him so Mobius might as well relax and wait for Thor to stop staring. The radio is playing some song in the back, jumping between the speakers and the radio and Mobius's pretty sure Jarvis is getting irritated with pushing his Loki out of the system if the thing even can get irritated.

Finally, Thor swallows and growls, "I was told you came out of the tesseract and in the process destroyed it."

"Well," Mobius says, shrugging, "I didn't mean to. I was trying to get somewhere else." His heart hurts and the fact he unsuccessfully reached Loki. Not the one he wanted but to one he guesses. "I just don't know how to do it yet I guess."

The song, a lyricless melody, decreases in sound and almost in emphasis, Mobius's body convulses and he reappears besides the radio. He lands beside the small table, but his flailing causes it to fall over and the radio hits the ground, turning off for a second before a beach boys voice yells, "Nice!"

"Shut up," Mobius growls, getting back to his feet. Across the room, Thor has his mouth wide open, showing half eaten Pop-Tarts inside it.

Mobius walks back to the couch and slumps into it. His back aches from falling onto the floor but his everything hurts from tearing himself apart so often so what room is there for him to complain.

Loki looks up, "And he says he's not the tesseract incarnate."

"I'm not," Mobius grumbles.

Thor looks terribly confused. Mobius almost feels bad for the guy. He's not supposed to be here and yet he has to deal with Mobius now instead of his girlfriend. "So, where exactly are you supposed to be?" He asked, trying to move past how he teleported.

Mobius shrugs, "Not here."

Thor gets this weary look on his face. "That's pretty vague."

"Your highness," Mobius says and he can practically feel the burn from Loki stare on his face, "I can say I mean you no harm all day and we can go absolutely nowhere. You can't arrest me cause I can't control where I go or what falls off. Heck, just ten minutes ago I teleported out of my shirt. The point is that I need help. And you have to trust me in order for me to get that help. So how can we make that happen?"

Thor blinks again as if the question catches him off guard. "I.. first tell us where you want to go."

Mobius rolls his eyes. He's never going to get out of this is he? He groans. He has to answer if he ever wants to get there. "The end of time."

Suddenly the radio screams. Loki's pen goes up in the air before hitting him in the head. Thor drops his pop-tart. The radio screams between songs as if it can't decide which song to sing or words to say, and finally lands on some mix of screaming and 'Be happy!'

Tony comes screaming into the room, grabs the radio and takes off with it, yelling at Bruce that it's time to tear it apart.

Thor looks pretty disturbed after that. "What..." he struggles to say, "what's at the end of time?"

Mobius looks at the ceiling. At the speaker that's emanating staticy sounds. And he tries to picture it. The tree. The sky around it. How Loki described He Who Remains home. He closes his eyes, trying to imagine Loki in those green robes. His face as they parted. Mobius feel sick. He feels tormented. He feels.... hopeful. "Everything."

Suddenly Mobius's body convulses in agonizing pain as if he's asking too much of it then he's sitting on Loki who looks positively terrified that he's suddenly on top of him. "Get off," he shouts and shoves him to the floor.

It doesn't hurt. Not as much as the fact that no matter how hard Mobius tries to reach his Loki he can't seem to get to him. So he lays on the white carpet, staring up at the speaker as it stops crackling and a rock song comes on. It's sweet but Mobius can't help but feel angry that Loki hasn't talked to him as much as he is right now. Where has he been for the past millennium?

I am with you always 

From the darkness of night til the morning 

I am with you always 

From life until-

"Sorry, Thor," Jarvis interrupts, "my system is acting up and trying to track the reason has not been successful."

"It's fine, Jarvis," Thor says before turning back to Mobius. He walks to where the man lays, staring at the ceiling feeling simultaneously angry and depressed. Loki makes magic look so easy...

Thor kneels by his side, a contemplative look on his face. "You need my brother's help to control this?" Mobius nods. "Nobody will be happy about this."

"I won't be here long enough for it to matter."

Mobius hear's Loki growl lowly but he ignores it. This isn't about him. He can't help another Loki. Not when he wasn't supposed to be here in the first place.

Thor looks at Loki for a moment, then back down to Mobius. "Bruce and I will keep watch. Jarvis will no doubt be monitoring as well. Will that be all right with you?"

Mobius frowns. It is strange that Thor has suddenly changed his mind. He cocks his head and says, "Why are you deciding to help me? Two seconds ago you were skeptical of me."

"No one just attacks my brother like you just did. That was bravery. And stupidity. Clearly, you have no skill or preservation instincts."

"Hey!" Loki shouts and frankly Mobius is a bit insulted, too, but Thor just smiles. Besides, you seem earnest in your quest. Whatever it is you're looking for, we'll help you find it."

Oh. It's Thors lack of people reading that spared him from Mjolnirs bolts. Well. At least Thor is on his side.

"Thank you," he murmurs as a buzz starts up in his veins again. 

Thor pats his chest, a hard happy thump of a too happy man. "You're welcome, Mobius."

Then Mobius's body explodes again sending him careening to Starks lab. Which wouldn't have been a problem... if he wasn't completely naked when he got there.

Bruce and Tony's yells and the cackling laugh from the radio will forever be etched into Mobius's memory.

***************************

Loki is beyond pissed. How can someone with the ultimate power of an infinity stone being so inept of how to control it? And his reason for taking it? To get to some unseen, unknowable place because 'everything' resides there.

What in helhiem is that supposed to mean?

This man is crazy. Nobody believes Loki but he is. He's just too nice. Too 'kind' and 'helpful' to be a villain. He calls bull on that. Even rabbits have teeth.

But Thor is having the time of his life, watching from the catwalk as Loki tries to teach this stupid man how to teleport. He laughs every time Loki says focus on what he wants because almost inevitably the man will run into him, sending them both into the wall, the floor, left out training equipment. And Thor will laugh like it's the funniest thing he's ever seen.

Loki has never been in Stark's gym. It makes everybody uneasy if he can access weights or handle any kind of strengthening tool. It's a large area with hardwood floor and very little light. All of the weightlifting equipment is pushed to the side beneath the catwalk Thor sit's on. It leaves them with plenty of room to try and practice but Loki's highly suspicious this is not going to work like anyone is hoping.

"No! No! No!" Loki shouts as Mobius runs into the wall for the hundredth time, this time without a shoe. "You need to focus on where you want to go and envision your entire body going with you."

"That's what I'm doing," the man growls. He's practically at the end of his rope, too. He struggles to stand and looks for his shoe which is clear across the gym. 

"Are you?" Loki hisses, "because you keep running into me or the wall or the weights." But mostly Loki. Ninety percent of the time its him. Which makes Loki uneasy. Either he wants Loki or there's something attracting him to Loki. Neither idea please him.

"It's not like I'm meaning to," Mobius grouses, "where is my shoe?"

Loki glares and waves across the room. Mobius groans. "Okay. I'll go to the shoe. And I won't run into you."

Loki rolls his eyes. "I highly doubt that."

Movies starts taking in deep huffing breaths, something he should be able to do because Loki told him to and to envision the power flowing through his veins, and somehow that turned into him breathing like a billsnite.

"Hey, Mobius?"

They both pause and look up at Thor who has a bag of cheetos in hand. "When you get this power controlled will you be removing the tesseract so I can go home?"

Loki laughs. He really does. Because he can't imagine this man figuring out how to keep his clothes on, let alone rebuilding an infinity stone. Loki finds it funny that the guy looks at him and laughs, too. "No, I don't think that will be happening, Thor. I think you're going to have to wait until the bifrost is fixed."

"Sounds like you're trapped, brother," Loki hisses, "just like me."

He looks up at Thor who glares back at him as if he personally ruined his day. 

"Yeah!"

They both turn. Mobius is across the gym, holding his shoe up like it's the finest treasure in the world. 

He got over there. Without losing any clothes. Maybe there is some hope for this man yet...

Loki thinks as Mobius disappears and then reappears in front of him, knocking him to the floor.

Thor laughs way too hard and too forced to be real. And because it's a forced roaring laugh, Loki shoves Mobius off him harder than he means to and the man practically falls into his own teleportation and he's gone.

Thor stops laughing. "Where did he go?"

Loki sits up, hardly caring. "Away. Maybe to the end of time," he says sarcastically.

And he hits him. The man hits Loki. Not a run into him kind of way, but a good sock to his jaw that sends him into the weights as he's reappearing. Thor really howls now. So does Loki's anger.

Mobius curses but Loki is beyond caring. He gets to his feet, fist clenched, ready to shove a knife between the man's ribs. "Do you think this is funny?" he hisses.

"I...no!" Mobius looks petrified. "I wasn't aiming for you! I was...some guy was lunging-"

Loki grabs the labels of his shirt and slams him into the wall. 

"Hey. Loki," Thor warn's. Loki hears him struggling to get his legs out from between the bars but Loki doesn't care. He's angry. This man is humiliating him. He's probably something his enemies created to humiliate him, make it so he never gets taken seriously again.

"Listen you insignificant worm," Loki hisses, "you are nothing. I have fought Titans, lived in the black holes of space and survived far worse than you ever have-"

"Space," Mobius mouths, then suddenly blue flashes in Loki's eyes and...

...he's falling.

They both are. Falling through blue. Loki's body contorts in strange ways he screams through his teeth at how he feels as if he's being stretched this way and that. He swears that Mr. Tesseract has dragged him down and is tearing him apart just because he threatened him. He lied. He can control it. He's a spy for Thanos and is killing Loki. Disappearing before Thor can-

Then it's silent. There is no air. When Loki tries to inhale nothing comes and when he opens his eyes he gasps. The world is pink and blue and green with stars everywhere. Up, down, left, right. He's spinning in circles. To his left he sees a nebula growing brighter and brighter as he spins. He recognizes it as the exact place he fell to. The place Thanos finds him. The place he came to die.

"No," Loki chokes, going numb, "no..."

He's back here. How is he back here? Why is he here? The stars seem to laugh. Loki's back here again. Back to where he fell two years ago. This time they'll forget him. This time he will be swallowed up and never found.

Loki is floating. There's nothing to grab onto. Nothing but-

"Loki!" Mobius yells and somehow there is sound when there shouldn't be. Is it because he's a space dirty or something else all together?

Loki's hyperventilating. His vision spots as he starts to float away from Mobius. He throws his arms and legs out as of trying to swim but only results in tossing himself further into space. "No... no..." he's choking. Mobius is going to leave. He's going to disappear and leave him alone to die. He can't breathe! He can't-

Mobius slams into him. Just as he has all day, reappearing from blue and hitting him so hard they go careening further into space.

Loki still can't breathe, but he does feel Mobius's arms wrap around his waist, holding him tightly to him.

"Why," he tries to choke out as they spin and tears lift off his cheeks, "why did you take us here?"

Loki barely has enough vision to see him mouth, "It's okay, Loki. We'll get out of here."

They hit an asteroid and Loki's almost jared from his grip. He screams but there is no sound. He grips Mobius's shirt so tightly the fabric rips, but his hands don't let Loki go. Before Loki's pulled into him, he sees him mouth, "I won't let you go. I promise, I won't let you go."

Then Loki's wrapped so tightly against him he can feel the quick beat of his heart. Loki wraps his arms around Mobius's shoulders, tangling his fists in the shirt. His hair is floating in both their faces but that doesn't stop Mobius from looking around.

Mobius reaches out and Loki practically screams bloody murder thinking he's going to let go. Instead, through the tears he sees the clouds of the nebula move. Mobius's breath hiccups than in another flash of blue they are next to it, entangled in stardust and color. It stretches for miles around them and Mobius seems to laugh before Loki squeezes him and he puts his arm back around him.

Loki's breathing so hard he can't think. None of this is okay. Why are they here? What kind of sick joke is this? His brain is fuzzy. His eyes are closed. He doesn't even know they have teleported until there's a voice in his ear and a hand in his hair, saying, "It's okay, Loki. We're not there anymore. It's okay. I'm so sorry I sent us there. But we aren't there anymore. It's okay."

"No, it's not," Loki tries to yell but his voice is wobbly, weak. He can still see it. His fall from Asgard. Letting go, spinning in space for who knows how long, the Giant ship. "None of this is okay." He croaks out a sob and even though he wants to push him, maybe put a dagger in his belly, Loki can't let Mobius go because if he does... he might float away again.

"Shh," Mobius hums and Loki feels his hand scim over his back, trying to sooth him. "I'm sorry. That was nothing to do with you. I shouldn't have taken you there. You can stab me later. Right now I need you to concentrate on my breathing."

Mobius takes a deep breath. Loki tries to but the images of dying alone in space won't go away. He hiccups more sobs. And Mobius keeps telling him to breathe and he keeps inhaling until his breathing aligns with his and he's not sobbing anymore. He still feels terrified of letting go and floating away, so even though he feels gravity and he feels his body on top of Mobius's he doesn't let go. Not until he realizes they aren't in Stark's gym. They are on wood floors with brick walls and a desk tipped over feet away. Broken equipment and machines surround them.

"Where are we?" Loki asks.

Mobius looks around at the mess this room is. The pain that crosses his face is unmistakable. "Chicago, 1893." He hits his head against the wood harder than necessary and curses.

"1893," Loki says, sitting up which if he thinks too hard about it would be highly inappropriate with Mobius's waist between his legs. No, stop it. He was just in space and now he's over a hundred years in the past. This isn't good. "You took us back in time. I thought you could only traverse space."

"So did I," Mobius says, his hands dragging themselves away, leaving Loki cold, "I guess space and time are more interconnected than anyone thought."

"That or there's something else at play."

Mobius looks to their left where white creepy manequins lie, "Something or someone..." Then he looks at Loki, "we need to go back."

Loki glares at him. "Can we? Or are you going to send us to space again?"

"I told you I'm sorry," Mobius huffs. He squirms under Loki and Loki puts all his weight on him, forcing him to stop moving. "Loki..."

"Why that part of space? You clearly know about me. Why there?"

"I thought you wanted to go home."

"That's not my home and we both know it."

Mobius sighs and heaves a big breath. Loki watches his stomach rise and fall. He's soft. Pudgy. Not a warrior by any means. And yet he holds the power of an Infinity stone. If only Loki could find a way to get it out of him.

"Why do I go anywhere, Loki?" He growls, shoving at Loki's knees. "I just think of it and pop. There I am."

"So you just thought of my fall from grace and decided to make a visit."

Suddenly there is a voice coming toward the door. They twist to it. It's a voice that stutters, that sounds frantic.

Mobius curses again and suddenly Loki's back in his arms and blue flashes before he's falling on his back in a metal contraption and it's moving. 

It's like a huge cage Loki heard Midgardians had in old times. It's empty save for them though he hears a crowd outside.

This time Loki pushes off Mobius and goes to the window. They are in some contraption that is lifting into the sky. As they lift the human celebration comes into view. Booths, tents, people laughing, children with toys, it all flies by.

Mobius exhales shortly, "I thought space only went linearly. Time is everywhere not space."

Loki nods as they rise above the skyline. "Space is linear. Moving through time is a magic, a power that is not been discovered yet."

"Clearly," Mobius hums as he crawls to the opening of the carriage they are in. "Cause when you move through space there's a high chance of landing in 1893."

Something in his tone clicks in Loki's brain. This is in not 2013 anymore. Far from it in fact. "How did you bring us here?" Loki says lowly.

"You're really think I know. It's the first place I thought of-"

"How is the first place you think of 1893 in a big middle contraption, springing through the skies of some strange city!"

Mobius seems to be lost in thought staring at the people below, "Maybe it's about when I want to be not where."

"When you want to be?" Loki hisses, "That's how you think this works."

Mobius sighs. "It's my best guess, Loki. I mean it makes sense. So far I've only gone where I want to go that I know, not where I haven't been. I can imagine where I am going because I've been there before-"

"So you've just been to 1893 before. That's how we got here!"

Mobius looks around almost in a sickly slow motion fashion. "I'm done talking about this." Then he collapses onto the floor, his blue cracks throbbing with light, eyes closed.

"What are you doing?"

"You're giving me a headache," Mobius snips, "and I have no desire to go back to New York so you better just sit because we're going to be here a while."

"But-"

"Also I might throw up in a second. Unless you want to get thrown up on mid travel I suggest you shut up."

Loki wants to explode. This human is just fine with sitting in some cart as it spins around in some time that shouldn't be possible to be in. Fine. He'll do it himself.

He strides to Mobius and grabs his shirt but the second he tries to reach in and drain that power, to call it to him, a green and blue spark leaps out and hits his arm, sending a powerful and quite agonizing shock up his arm. Loki screams and stumbles back, hitting a rung in the floor and falling down.

Loki's vision sparks green and blue and he feels horrible. The electricity flows into the wheel they are on and suddenly it's going backward. People scream outside. Loki doesn't care. He's in too much pain to care.

Mobius appears above him, an unamused look on his face. "Beware of the greedy for they will fall in the end."

"Shut up." The green twirls around Loki and for the first time he feels it's unique signature. It's owner. It feels like him. Which doesn't make sense because why would his magic turn on him like that. He doesn't understand.

Suddenly the cart stops. This swings them for a moment then there are yells below. Mobius looks around and sighs. "Good. We broke the ferris wheel. We're stuck."

"We wouldn't be stuck if you would take us back."

Mobius eyes him. Those piercing, glowing eyes never leave Loki as he backs up to the wall and says, "I want to be here. Maybe if you distract me, I will want to go back. But right now you're not making a compelling case."

His tone is harsh. Harsher than it's ever been with Loki. It's only been a day and Loki's used to the softness. Softness he doesn't deserve and shouldn't seek.

As much as Loki wants to return to the Avengers and they're annoying probing and laughing and anger, Thor will tell their mother and father...Odin and Frigga... he disappeared. Then he'll be in real trouble. Loki must obliged. Put on a fake smile and talk.

"What would you like to discuss?" Loki says tinting his voice with fake joy while slowly sitting up even though the world spins and he wants to throw up from the itchy out of place magic that feels like him that flows through his bones.

"First off," Mobius grins, crossing his arms and stretching out his legs, "none of that sultry seductive crap. That's not going to get you back any faster."

Loki scowls again. How does this man know how to push all the right buttons? Loki should slap him.

Then Mobius smiles as if he can hear Loki's thoughts. "Tell me about you, Loki," he says, eyes and cracks throbbing blue, "tell me about your hobbies, likes, dislikes. I want to know you."

That's different. Loki sneers. "I don't like you."

It doesn't bother the man. At least it doesn't appear to. "This isn't about me."

Loki grinds his teeth. No one's ever asked him this. Where is he supposed to start so Mobius will take them back home? Nobody has ever asked about this...

They stay quiet for once as Loki has nothing to say and Mobius waits for him to do so. Loki flexes his hand. He wishes he had his notebook. Then he could ignore Mobius and maybe draw himself stabbing Mobius. That would be nice.

Again it's as if he's reading Loki's mind, "Do you like to write?"

Loki wants to tell him it's none of his business but that would not get him out of here faster. He clenches his fist. "Yes... I like poetry not that any mortal seems to enjoy any of that type of beauty and glamor."

Mobius says almost in retaliation, "Come on now. Edgar Allan Poe wasn't so bad. Or Robert Frost. Emily Dickinson might be your type."

"For your information the only good writer on this planet was Shakespeare. He captured the essence-"

"Human essence or royalty / family versus family essence? I see a bit of both-"

"Mary Shelley or Brad stoker at the right idea on monsters. They clearly had the right idea on how monster hood worked-"

"That or the human psyche-"

"Must you argue with everything I say?"

Mobius chuckles and crosses one leg over the other, "Sorry, force of habit."

"Do you argue with everyone who crosses your path?"

He takes a minute to think about that and smiles. "I'd say about ninety percent of the time, yeah."

Loki rolls his eyes. After a minute of silence with only the creaking of the cart and the yells outside, he says, "So you like to write?"

"Yes," Loki sighs, crossing his own legs, "it's relaxing. Better than dealing with those buffoons all day."

"Why are you on Earth? I mean shouldn't you be on Asgard working on your penance there?"

Loki wrinkles his nose, hackles raised more than they already are, "They don't like me." He looks away, "Odin decided that I wasn't worth the time. Thought I was better off for Midgard amongst lesser men."

"Good to know he thinks that Earth is hell," Mobius rolls his eyes, "so he sent you back to the wolves. How thoughtful."

Loki can't help but smile at that. "Your world is so behind the times it's not even funny."

"I'm not arguing with you there but who can blame us. It seems like the whole universe decided we were the armpit of society and never gave us a chance to thrive."

"Can you blame us? It took you a thousand years to make a vehicle let alone a starship. We had other concerns."

Mobius shake's his head. "Okay, so you're a poet and a so-called beast because you're fake father didn't want you. What else?"

Loki rolls his eyes. "There's nothing else-"

"What's your favorite candy?"

Loki squints at the question. "Your candy or my candy?"

Mobius shrugs. The cage shakes. They're about to move again. "Any."

As the cart begins to lower, Loki sighs, "Sugared cherries on Asgard. On Earth," he shrugs, "I like chocolate."

Mobius seems to smile sadly, "Do you like hot chocolate?"

Loki frowns, "What?"

As the cart reaches the ground, a grin covers Mobius's face. He holds out his hands, "I know where to go."

Loki hesitates to take his hands but he has to because the people outside are running toward their door now. He grabs Mobius's hands and in a beat of blue they are gone.

******************************

Loki doesn't know where Mobius takes him. It's just some green hallway with a hot cocoa machine. Mobius looks around almost in a panic and then runs to the machine, "Stick to me. Let me get this then I'll take you home."

"Where are we?" Loki asks as Mobius takes two cups and pours some brown liquid into them.

"Don't worry about it," Mobius answers. Loki hears footsteps down the hall, running towards them... "Here," Mobius huffs shoving a cup at him. It practically burns Loki's fingers as Mobius grabs his arms. He hears a voice yell Mobius's name before Mobius fuzzes and blue surrounds them again. Then...

They're on Stark's roof. It's a tad windy, cold but the warmth from the cup keeps him warm. There's a flash of blue in his peripheral and he has to push it away. No blue. Not now. Not ever. They look around at the pebbles and disregarded machinery that Stark left behind.

Loki sighs in relief. They're back. He's not stranded. "You got us back," he says, "you finally figured it out."

Mobius shrugs, taking a sip of his drink, "Not really. We still need to figure out going to places I haven't seen." He elbows Loki gently, "Drink. It's you mentioning chocolate that got us back."

Loki finally looks at the little cup of brown liquid. Hot chocolate. Something so simple got them back. Something he wanted. Not Mobius. Well...sort of Mobius. For some reason that makes his chest warm. Mobius didn't do this for him. He needs to remember that.

It would make a good poem.

A small cup 

 not even a pint 

created away for a god

And a man the color of the moon

 and sapphires

Better. Not quite there though. 

Loki doesn't realize he's staring until Mobius elbows him again. "I didn't poison it. Promise."

"I know that," Loki snaps and takes a sip. Then another. And another. It's good. Incredibly so. It's thick, creamy. The kind of drink he's seen on TV when Stark allows him to look at it. It's like nothing he's ever tasted. Quite the opposite of wine or alcohol. Sweet. Warming.

Mobius chuckles. "What?" Loki hisses.

His eyes are sad again. "Nothing. You just..." he hums and drinks his drink.

"No, what?" Loki asks, "What about me?"

Mobius's eyes glow and he fuzzes but manages not to drop his drink. "Cute," he finally says, "you are cute. Don't read too much into that."

Loki squints while trying to hold back his blush. "I can't tell if you like me or not," he mutters though he wishes he hadn't.

Mobius looks in his eyes then and the look in them is one Loki has never seen before. One of feelings he doesn't understand and emotions he can't match to anyone else, to anything else. Mobius's eyes glow but before he can answer, Stark flies above them, circles once then hovers.

"The roof," Stark hisses, "of all the places you could teleport to, you go to the roof."

Loki snorts, "Don't fly too close, Stark. You might get sucked in a wormhole, too."

"Haha," Stark snarks, "get back inside before your anklet goes off." Then he's off again and Mobius is laughing.

"You heard the man. Let's go."

Mobius wraps an arm around Loki's waist and then he's falling again but this time it's too comforting for him to be scared.

***************************

B-15 can't say she's happy to see Sylvie. That is hardly ever the case but right now she is absolutely loathe to see her. She'd have left the goddess of mischief alone if she didn't have the sneaking suspicion Mobius swallowing of a space stone and disappearance had something to do with her.

So into the war room she is marched with Gwen and Gambit on either side. She looks practically murderous but B-15 doesn't care. If Sylvie is at fault she just might be doing some murdering of her own.

Gwen and Gambit let Sylvie's arms go and stand at the opposite end of the table, arms crossed, bodies tense. But not as tense as Sylvie. "Is there a reason you practically arrested me and drug me here like a common criminal?" She scowls, "I thought we were supposed to be 'friends' or whatever version of you leave me alone is."

Nope. B-15 is not having it. Not today. "Mobius came and visited you a couple of days ago."

Sylvie rolls her eyes, "If he's moping even worse than before that's not my fault-"

"He's gone, Sylvie."

That makes her pause. "Excuse me."

"He's gone. What did you tell him when you saw him?"

"I didn't say anything-"

"Bull!" B-15 honestly didn't mean to yell, but she's so utterly pissed. The gall of this woman to not even look concerned is enough to drive her crazy. She's grateful Sylvie killed He Who Remains but her immaturity kills her. Mobius cares about all Loki's Sylvie could at least pretend. "He left here looking for help from you and when he came back, he went to O.B., took the tesseract and absorbed it."

Sylvie stares for a long moment before whispering, "What?" Then louder, "What do you mean he absorbed it? That's not possible-"

"But it is because O.B. and I watched him turn into a blue cloud and disappear. It was premeditated, Sylvie. We've done enough investigating to bring it down to you. Mobius's death is on your head."

Sylvie's eyes grows big and skin pale. B-15 can't help but smile at that. Finally a little emotion from the childish goddess. "He's dead."

"What else could he be?" B-15 growls, "He's gone. There's no trace of him and I want to know what you said that made him commit suicide."

Sylvie collapses into a chair halfway down the table. "Nothing," she chokes out, "I didn't say anything. He came to me, I gave him food and I told him it's time to move on."

Ah. Preaching the same song the same deaf choir. "Shocker. What else?"

"What else is there?" Sylvie growls, "I told him Loki is gone. Away. Forever. He's part of time and unless he becomes a god he can't get to-"

Gambit hits the table so hard the women jump. He points at Sylvie, eyes glaring. "That's it! He's part of time. The only way to get to him is be a god. What other way is there than to become an infinity stone."

"So he killed himself trying to become a god," Gwen chimes, her voice still raw from when she was told Mobius is gone, "because that's the only way he would be happy."

Sylvie looks pissed. "I never thought he'd actually do it. I wouldn't have said it if I thought he'd be stupid enough to-"

"Don't go there," Gwen butts in, "you know how much he missed Loki. It shouldn't surprise you that he would try something like that."

Sylvie has the decency to look somewhat ashamed. She looks even the tiniest bit sick. "He's gone?"

B-15 pulls up the footage Miss Minutes caught right before the explosion took out O.B.'s mainframe. She watches Sylvie as Mobius takes the tesseract, absorbs it in his body and right before B-15 can grab him, he explodes in a cloud of blue and is gone.

Sylvie curses.

"I should have you imprisoned," B-15 growls.

Sylvie glares back, "Fight me."

Then Gwen explodes in a ramble of 'Sylvie doesn't care about anyone' and Sylvie's on her feet, screaming back that it's Mobius's fault and Gambit looks ready to stick a card in everyone's throats while B-15 rubs her head. Casualties. She's so done with casualties. She's done with losing friends. Sick of it!

And that's when Jimmy Hudson comes in, looking like a ghost, shaking, eyes wide, pale, walking slow. 

He walks over to her, the yelling not phasing him, eyes focused on her. He stops a foot away, his fists clenching and unclenching.

"What is it, Poison," B-15 says, still rubbing her forehead.

"I saw him..." He says so quietly B-15 almost misses it.

"Saw who?"

"Mobius," Jimmy says, impossibly quieter, "I saw Mobius."

*****************************

Mobius went to 1893. 1893. That's not supposed to happen. Space is linear. Time is not. And yet with the space stone in him he went back in time. Maybe he should have done this after some research about the stone. But he also got to Loki in 2013 when he was aiming for right outside the TVA. 

So maybe space bends to time. Space is the branches that Loki holds but it's also time. So is this a different type of space just as there are different types of matter? If space is matter then maybe that's why he can go back in time. It's the same matter at a different time, reprogramming the body to adjust to what matter was like back then. But there's also dark matter. Dark matter is part of everything. Is that Loki? Is he the dark matter of the universe? Mobius wishes he could talk to O.B. If he knows what matter is outside the TVA he can get to Loki faster. How movies wishes he his body could do it. He does he adjust his body to it? He must be able to if he went to the TVA while Loki and he -

"Mobius..."

Mobius's swinging thoughts stop. He's lying on his bed in the dark staring at the ceiling. His feet are cold, bear. When did he take his shoes off? Maybe they fell off. Did he want them to fall off? Like he wanted to go back to the fair, the last time Loki and he had a moment to themselves. The last bit of peace before everything became a nightmare.

Mobius wishes they could have gone on that ferris wheel together. Or the balloons. He wishes he would have died on that branch. But that wouldn't be fair to everyone else...

Loki sits by his feet and slowly his face comes into view. Mobius smiles weakly. "Hi."

Loki needs water. Mobius shouldn't be able to hear him swallow. "Hi," he murmurs. 

"I didn't know you knew where my room was," Mobius says, trying to keep the mix of frustration and pain from his voice.

"Wasn't hard. Stark switch surveillance to you. I'm not important anymore."

Mobius snorts. "You'll always be important. No new enemy is going to change that."

"Are you saying you're an enemy?"

"No."

Loki leans away. Mobius pulls himself up against the wall, letting his blue eyes faintly light up Loki's white shirt and pale skin. His eyes glimmer and Mobius can read them to tell him what Loki might be thinking. Always could. 

"Still looking to get the space stuff from me?"

"Space stuff?" Loki asks as if that is the most ridiculous thing he's ever heard.

"Yeah. I don't think we can rightly call it the tesseract anymore, and it's no longer a stone so-"

"I get it," Loki hisses, "and no I'm not here for that. I'm-" he cuts off, looks away, then brushes his long hair to the front of his face, hiding. "I wish your eyes would stop glowing."

Mobius shrugs, "Too bad I don't come with an off-on switch."

Loki smirks again. "Like those tickle me Elmo's? Those are annoying. But kids like them. I've probably handed a thousand children that toy in this last year alone."

"Is that why you're here for a tickle me Mobius trick?"

The radio buzzes, sounding wavy, almost like it's laughing. Loki stiffens. "No. I just... I don't... he stands and starts to pace where Mobius's light can reach him. He lets him stew, listening to the radio, waiting for it to speak. It doesn't.

"Why did you help me?" Loki suddenly bursts.

Boy isn't that a loaded question. "What?"

Loki sounds like he's gargling rocks as he speaks, "In space. You grabbed me. You could have let me float away. One less obstacle in your way. The Avengers would have been thrilled. But you saved me. Why?" Mobius doesn't even get to open his mouth before Loki adds in, "And don't say it's because it's the right thing to do or because I deserve to be saved because neither is true and you know it."

"Okay one," Mobius starts, "you actually deserve to be saved." The radio starts a slow tune. Some love song. Mobius ignores it. "So let's make that clear. I think I went over that yesterday-"

"Who are you to say I can be good. That I am anything you said I was-"

"I know you can be if you so choose to be, Loki. I can't make you be good, I just know what I see-"

"And what do you see?"

"A hero," Mobius says it because he can't stop himself, "someone with a big heart that's been crushed too often."

"Stop it."

"Just because you deny it, it doesn't make it any less true."

Loki scurries into the corner before saying, "You haven't answered my question."

Mobius sighs. "I don't know what your fishing for here, Loki. I'm not going to tell you it's cause I want to use you as a tool for conquest because it's not true. I like you, Loki. Truly, genuinely like you."

The radio stops humming and it's almost eerie how quiet it is. Loki is silent for a long time. His voice is scratchy, small when he speaks, "Liar."

Mobius shrugs. He lays back down, staring at the ceiling, trying to picture what his Loki is doing. "Call me whatever you like."

He waits for Loki to stomp out, slam his door. Instead he shuffles back and sits on the edge of the bed, still far enough away that the light doesn't reach him. 

"Thank you," he seems to choke, "For saving me. It was... horrifying."

Mobius sighs. "I'm sorry for bringing you there, causing you trauma. That was not my intention."

Again there is silence, then, "I don't remember the last time I got an apology."

Mobius swallows hard. "You deserve better."

Loki snorts. "You're the only one who thinks that."

Mobius can't argue there. Not without giving the TVA away. There are people now. O.B., and Casey and B. But this Loki can't know that. He can never know that.

"Thank you for helping me today," Mobius says instead, "It really helped."

"I didn't do it for you-"

"I know. That doesn't mean I can't say thank you."

Loki stiffens then sighs, "I have charity work tomorrow. I can't... help as much."

Mobius shrugs, "I'll go with. I like to mingle. Maybe it'll help them see you in a better light."

"Right," Loki says and Mobius can practically hear the eye roll in his voice. He gets up and the light from the hall fills the room. Before Loki leaves, he whisperers, "Mobius." Mobius grunts for him to continue, "I... I think... I may like you, too."

Then the door closes and he's gone. Mobius's heart seems to stop. I may like you, too. He feels dizzy. He passes through the bed onto the floor as his body buzzes. Now under his bed, feeling slightly ill, slightly elated and slightly on cloud nine, he curses himself.

"Oh, Loki, what have I done?"

Chapter Text

Mobius wants Loki.

If it's true that Mobius teleports where he wants to be, then he wants Loki. Landing on his lap last week proves it. So he must want him in some sense. He's not just some tool he's using to get where he wants to go. People who use Loki that way don't stare at him like he's a jewel or talk to him about hobbies or ask him to have pie in the middle of the night and go catch Tony Stark when he sleeps walks.

And, if Loki were to be honest, at some point he stopped looking at Mobius as a tool or a way out of here long ago. 

Mobius likes kids. That much is certain when they visits a care facility at it's rededication. He's covered in clothing from jaw to toe but it's not enough to cover cracks in his skin or his sparking blue eyes. Mobius has taken to helping Loki with community service a few hours after lessons. Most of the time he looks like he wants to run but he doesn't. Just comes with Loki. He says it's an exercise in control, forcing him to monitor his body so he doesn't 'space slip' and scare someone.

Loki supposes it's working cause they have been at places for hours at a time and Mobius has only space slipped a handful of times. He gave a construction worker a heart attack one time then decided to resign himself to not looking at Loki and keeping himself busy. It's not something Loki understands, but Mobius is controlling it and that's what matters.

But today's trip is interesting. It's after a bit of training where he managed to teleport himself to Dubai, India, a place he claims to never have seen before, and back. So Mobius is feeling extra celebratory and it leaves a bounce his steps and it manifests in the way he talks to these children who poke his cracks and make him laugh.

Loki can't help but stare from his place underneath the trees outside the center. He's fooling himself if he doesn't admit he's been dreaming about that hair, the moustache, the eyes. He's beautiful. Loki can't help but breath it into the air around him so only he can hear it.

Mobius is beautiful.

Loki barely says it before he gets whacked on the back of the head and he stumbles falling into the dirt beside the trunk of the tree. His head spins says he turns to look who attacked him. But there is no one. Just him and the tree. Leaves cover the cement where he just stood.

This, too, has become more frequent. When Loki loses himself in trying to solve the puzzle that is Mobius and him something happens. The shampoo will fall on his foot, or the water will become ice cold in the shower. The stove will turn flaming hot. A book will fall in his head. Or in this case, he gets slapped by a tree. More is going on here then any of them know.

"Loki!" He looks over at Mobius who is looking at him in concern as some kid pokes a crack in his cheek. "You okay?"

Loki smiles wearily and waves him off. He must stop this foolish dive for more. Mobius is bent on getting to the end of time no matter what Loki says or does. Mobius is going to leave. If Lokis smart he'll stay away. Guard his heart just says he's always done. If he only wouldn't look at Loki like he hung the entire universe above his head.

Briefly a strobe of blue envelops Mobius's body but he doesn't go anywhere. He's gotten better at holding still, not letting the blue swallow him and take him somewhere else. But he is right. It's a matter of where and when he wants to be. And several of their sessions he's teleported them to odd places. Cleveland, 2022. Pompeii right before the eruption. Even a McDonald's in the '80s. All these places he recognizes and Loki doesn't get it. Why does he recognize it? There's something he's not saying. And the future! This man can go to the future and he's staying in 2013. Why? It's as if he's seen it already and is bored of it. 

And yet... It should be a red flag. That something is not right and Mobius is lying. But Loki supposes that's what the problem is. Amora. Fandral. That one guard will he can't remember the name of. They were all that way. Sneaking around and lying. There's a big difference between them and Mobius. And that should scare Loki, too, he's not letting it. He's too far gone way too fast.

One of the children who was flocking around Mobius comes to Loki, slowly, shyly. Loki feels his nerves flare up. What is this?

"He has a question for you," Mobius calls as he begins handing kids bags with Steve Rogers face on them. He looks unsure but goes on. "Answer honestly."

Loki prickles at that. God of lies telling the truth. What nonsense. But he hears Mobius's voice in his head say 'you're not the god of lies, Loki. You're the god of mischief. There's a difference.' As the child draws near, Loki sighs and sits up out of the dirt, letting it rain down his back. "Yes?"

The child refuses to look at him and it's all too clear why. His parents are dead because of Loki. Loki surprised he doesn't try to attack him.

He swirls his shoe in the dirt then whispers, "Why did you do it?"

Do what? Kill his parents or come here? Loki shakes his head, "Why did I attack New York?" The kid nods all too quickly. Ah. He sees now. Loki wonders if this is a genuine question or if someone brought it up. Either way, he needs to answer like Mobius says. Honestly.

Loki sighs. This is way too complicated. "I was asked to by someone else."

The little boy doesn't expect that and his face clenches tighter. "Why didn't you say no?"

The boy must be at least ten. Too young to face this. This is why they make Loki go here. To face these kids who he hurt beyond fixing. He swallows hard.

"I should have," he says slowly, "but I was... angry. Anger makes you do stupid things."

The boys eyes tear up. Loki watches in his peripheral as Mobius stands and comes to him, resting a hand on his shoulder. Loki wishes he could teleport them away. He doesn't want to be here.

Mobius's hand on his shoulder grounds him as he forces himself to push on. Mobius said he could be good. He has to believe it. He just has to put the work in. And that will be painful beyond measure.

"I shouldn't have done it," Loki says slowly, "but I did. I'm sorry, child. I am..." He doesn't finish the sentence. He can't. The boy looks like he's going to hit him. Instead, he turns and runs. The guardian glares at him as she ushers the children back into the building. Loki slumps. He can't do this. Not alone.

"How do you feel?" Mobius asks, hauling Loki to his feet. 

"Awful."

Guards come up behind them and escort them to the van where Barton is sipping on a slurpee. He looks unimpressed.

Loki sighs, "Do you truly believe that these people will ever trust me? They all seem hell-bent on keeping me on my knees."

Mobius shrugs, "It takes a lot of work. Who knows? Maybe the next baddie will be worse than you and you can show him up."

Loki snorts, "Thanos."

"Yeah, but I was thinking Ultron first but that's just me."

It honestly shouldn't surprise Loki that he knows who Thanos is, but it does. He has to wonder how much Mobius knows. Does he know Thanos personally? If Thanos came, would he teleport them away to somewhere safe?

Barton opens the back of the van and pats it like it's his pride and joy. "Good work, gentleman. More training I assume."

"Always," Mobius smiles.

Barton has taken a liking to Mobius. Many of the Avengers have. It's his charm. If Barton didn't have a wife Loki would be envious. So as Barton chuckles, Loki remembers the picture of the little girl the man has in his back pocket.

"Let's go, Mr. Tesseract. You, too, magic Man."

"Are you sure I can't kill him?" Loki snarls. 

Mobius laughs again as he fuzzes lightly. "And risk the wrath of Agent Romanoff. No thank you."

****************************

Something is wrong with him. 

That is immediately obvious considering Mobius has blue cracks all over his body and he keeps disappearing and reappearing. It's also obvious because in his obsession with getting to one Loki he ended up caring for another.

But that's not what Mobius is talking about. 

It's the fact he didn't think over doing this before he actually did it. In retrospect, as Mobius thinks of all the intricacies he's seen the power of a space stone do, he should have known there would be... side effects.

For example, when Mobius watched Loki's death on the sacred timeline, he watched Thanos use the space stone to stop Loki's dagger. Just recently that's begun to be a... talent of his. He knocks off a cup of water from the counter, he reaches out and it freezes. He wants a bowl of cereal, the box comes to his hand. This is all done in flashes of blue and scares everyone involved.

But that's not all. Not even close.

The space stone has the ability to make things incorporeal so when Clint accidentally loses an arrow or Thor lobs Mjolnir at Mobius it in turn phases right through him. Doing that to Mjolnir was horrifying. That hammer should not become incorporeal under any circumstances.

The one plus side for mostly Tony is Mobius became an endless energy source. You would think they would learn after what happened with Loki last year not to mess with energy sources like this but that doesn't stop Tony from hooking a car battery up to Mobius just to see how much power he can give it. 

Then don't get Steve talking about bending or distorting space. Red skull was not wrong about the incredible power of the stone holds. He just didn't know at all. Steve volunteered to help Mobius to learn to control all this energy in his veins. He doesn't think the captain expected to be unable to catch his shield or reflect his attacks like he normally could. Like the time the shield got bumped from this hand to his face and nearly took it off because Mobius accidently bumped gravity a little too hard. 

And as Mobius tries to think more and more about this he realizes while he has the entire space stone in him, that doesn't mean others don't have it. Carol Danvers was made off the energy of the space stone. So technically he could do what she can. It's no wonder Loki looked at him strange when he said all he wanted to do was get to the end of time. Mobius is one of the most powerful beings in the cosmos. He could go anywhere, do anything. But all he wants is a god somewhere at the end of time and to spend the rest of his days with him.

Thanos would be laughing his chin off.

So Mobius has been combusting with new powers over the last couple weeks. He's trying to distract himself by focusing on the end of time and all the prepping for the anniversary of the attack on New York.

Loki doesn't help anything.

With every new power comes a litany of celebratory acts. If he isn't there to witness Mobius crush a bottle or make the laundry phase through the floor, Loki convinces him to do it again. Show him he can do it. Convince the god of mischief.

To add to it, whenever Mobius tries to picture his Loki, all that comes up is this Loki's face. He's starting to blend the two together and it's not good. If Mobius can't picture his Loki exactly how he remembers him, how will he ever get to him.

Mobius won't lie. He likes this Loki. He's sweet. He brought him ugly flowers he'd pulled out of Peppers garden roof, roots and dirt and all. He reads Mobius cheesy poetry that he writes in that little notebook. He tries to cook and burns it every time. And it makes Mobius wonder if things had been different, would his Loki have treated him this way? If he didn't have to give them time, would Loki have made Mobius breakfast or brought him flowers?

Speaking of, a large plate of pancakes covered in butter and syrup and scrambled eggs falls in front of Mobius then Loki across from him, shoveling his own mouthful in before saying, "So where are we going today?"

Mobius stares at the food in front of him. And he feels the warmth in his chest. And he's scared of it. He can't love this Loki. Because he loves someone else and that's not fair. He needs to start focusing on what's his. Not what can't be.

Mobius pushes the plate away but not before making the pancakes intangible and getting them stuck in the granite island. Somewhere further in the building, Tony yells as 'Happy' starts playing. What that missing god could be happy about, Mobius doesn't know.

"I want to try for the end of time today."

Loki's chewing goes from fast to slow to nothing at all. He swallow so hard it looks painful. His walls go up and Mobius has to force his own up not to feel bad about it.

"Are you sure," Loki asks, his voice sharper than Mobius anticipated. "You barely managed to get inside the Eiffel Tower the other day."

Mobius shrugs. "If I don't try once in awhile, how do I know I'm making any progress."

Loki stabs his pancake. Tony runs by, radio held in his hand as he is yelling at Bruce on the phone. The radio gets louder as it goes by Mobius, then fades as Tony runs. Immediately the tune gets stuck in Mobius's head and he hums.

Because I'm happy

Clap along if you know what happiness is to you

It must get Loki thinking, cause he says, "You're not happy here, are you?"

Mobius sighs and picks an egg off his plate, dipping it and syrup before saying, "I'm happy. Don't get me wrong, Loki, I like it here. But I don't..." Belong here. Have ties here. Can't be here would being more accurate. But Mobius can't explain that. Not now.

Loki sighs. He drops his fork and leans back, watching Mobius. His next sentence breaks his heart. "What can I do to make you happy?"

Again Mobius shakes his head. "I am happy. Just-"

Mobius gasps as his body twists. The lights around him scream with extra power before popping. Tony and Happy yell before Jarvis announces he's looking into backup power.

Mobius slumps over. His brain seems to freeze bad tingle as he sees worlds. Millions of them. All these possibilities before him before he gets yanked back.

What was that? How did Mobius just see thousands of world? That's not possible. Was it just worlds in this timeline? Or beyond...

Slowly his ears stop ringing and he can focus enough to see he's on the floor with Loki worriedly staring down from above.

"Mobius," he says, practically breathless as he grips the man's shirt, "are you with me?"

Mobius gasps, realizing he wasn't breathing. He wasn't breathing. He curses. 

"What?" Loki asks, his hand cupping Mobius's cheek. His cold skin soothes the throbbing where his cracks are. Mobius almost wishes his cool form could cover all of him, ease the burning in his body, the heat in his system. Mobius is going to explode.

"Worlds," Mobius croaks, "I saw worlds."

*****************************

Casey and O.B. are in a flurry as they scramble through Miss Minutes recordings of the last twenty-four hours if that is what they can call the time that has passed since Jimmy announced he saw Mobius.

B-15 taps her nails on the desk, filled with impatience. Sylvie, still under arrest, stands between Gwen and Gambit, arms crossed. Gwen bounces on her heels, nervous while Jimmy sits against the wall feet away, head in his hands muttering something about Loki and blue smoke. B-15 doesn't really care as long as O.B. and Casey give her something to work with. Maybe Jimmy is going crazy and if he is they definitely need to do something about it.

But the more O.B. scans the paler he gets. And with one final tap, he looks a B-15 and says, "It's him."

He turns the monitor and on the fuzzy screen is Mobius giving hot chocolate to a Loki in a hoodie and jeans who looks around in confusion. Jimmy comes around the corner and in a cloud of blue, the two disappear. And Jimmy stands there looking horrified before running up the stairs and the image resets.

And boy does a large whirl of relief overcome B-15 before utter chaos ensues in her brain. Mobius is alive. And he's running around with Loki. Is it their loki? It can't be. There's no way it could be. They're all still alive. The tree isn't dying. So it's a different Loki? You know what. Not worrying about the Loki. Mobius is alive and looks like some deranged super villain. But most of all he survived taking in the space stone if that blue glow has anything to do with anything.

"He's alive," Gwen says and the hope in her voice does nothing to soothe B-15's nerves.

"How?" She says almost in accusation, you said that energy would tear him apart."

"It should have," O.B. says, quieter than he has ever sounded, "no normal person should be able to hold the complete power of an infinity stone and live."

"But he is," Jimmy croaks, turning to lay flat on the floor, rubbing his head like he has a headache. B-15 has half of mind to slap him silly. He's not the one having to do all the work.

"Yes," O.B. says, breathlessly, "he is."

Sylvie yanks away from Gambit who throws a card at her back, nearly catching her coat on fire. She comes up to the screen that is paused on a hunched over Mobius and a weary loki. She stares and stairs before looking up at O.B.

"So. If he's alive, we can find him, right?"

O.B. shrugs as Casey's tempad pings and he starts tapping away. "Yes, we can. But that's not going to be easy with the soul stone messing with his temporal aura."

Gambit thumps his chest, "We can go get him. We found all the clues to nightmare. We can track Mobius down, too."

O.B. shakes his head, "That will be harder than you think. I've scoured the branches for his aura already. His aura has succumbed to the space stone. It's a needle and a haystack without his specific signature. And with a space stone in every universe, a haystack becomes an ocean."

"Maybe it won't be," Casey suddenly says.

B looks to him and she hears the whispering behind her stop. Even O.B. is confused. It's not often he's contradicted. Casey taps his tempad for a moment before realizing everyone is watching him, waiting for him to speak. He blushes and clears his throat. "Remember before Mobius left we were talking about how the tree is getting too big and it'll eventually run into the void, the TVA, etc."

"Not enough room for the branches," B says half-heartedly, "yes, I remember."

Casey nods. "Well, yesterday there was an influx of energy. It's as if the TVA itself got bigger. Space itself shifted and for a moment we were within the red zone of the tree." He flips his tempad so everyone can see. Slowly a red alert crosses it before disappearing again after a moment. B raises a brow and stares at Casey. By now Gwen, Gambit, Jimmy and Sylvie are crowding them, trying to get a look.

"This happened," Casey continues, "right when Mobius popped into our orbit."

"And," Sylvie says, glaring at O.B.'s monitor, to Mobius and Loki appearing and disappearing, "what does that have to do with anything?"

Casey looks at O.B. who's eyes are getting bigger. In a chocked whisper, he says, "It has to do with everything."

Something in B's stomach drops. "Casey..."

The man shakes his pen at the computer. "Mobius expanded space whether he realized it or not. It made our sensors go wild. If he did that here, he could be doing it anywhere."

"So we narrow the scope to inflating branches," O.B. suddenly steps in. "The amount of power he gave off could expand over time. If not, there is still a chance he's influencing the space around him, making it bigger and denser." He looks at B, the group and suddenly hope is back on his face. "We can find him."

Gwen stand straighter. Jimmy and Gambit's eyes steel. And Sylvie balks. "Who says he wants to be found? He left you for a ghost. Shouldn't we just let him burn himself out? He'll come back when he's ready, just like before."

B bites her tongue, but not the fire in her belly. "He's family, Sylvie. Maybe we can't fix what he's feeling but we can show we love him. We still want him even if he turned himself into some scary blue crackling man."

Sylvie grinds her jaw. "I suppose you want me to help."

And B snaps. She looks at Sylvie, then with Mobius on her mind, she says, "No. Go home."

Then B turns from her completely and says to O.B., "Start scanning the branches. Figure out what version of Loki that is. It'll get you closer to an actual date. Alert me if anything comes up. Gwen, Gambit, Jimmy, prepare for extraction. We don't know if that stone has done anything to his mond. If it has we need all the fight we can get. Casey keep watching the tree. I'm going to inform Gamble of this in case something goes wrong."

Then B-15 leaves, a million questions buzzing through her head. None of which she can decipher right now. Priority one, get Mobius. Pray he's still their friend, that the stone hasn't warped his mind, and if it has...

Well, she really doesn't want to think about that. 

*************************************

Loki tries to identify as many worlds as he can. And Mobius tries to describe them. The Avengers watch on various screens as they do, setting everyone on edge by asking questions that lead nowhere. But the worlds are familiar. At least some of them. Lamentis. Knowhere. Vormir. Asgard. There is no rhyme or reason to these worlds. Too many Loki can't identify. He thinks that's what unnerves Stark the most.

"You embody the space stone," he says to Mobius, "but you can't identify half the world you saw."

Mobius shoots him a look. One Loki's never seen on his face before. "I don't even know why I saw them, let alone what they are," he looks at Clint and growls, "you were under the stones power. You were shown your targets. How?"

Barton is taken back by the sudden question and for a moment he and Natasha look ready for a fight before Barton spits out, "I don't know. I just assumed Loki was doing it the whole time."

Loki snorts, "I never explicitly told you to go to a museum and tell me to take a man's eye out."

"Wait," Banners voice echoes from his mic, "are you saying the stone talks to you?"

"I wouldn't say talk," Barton says, looking a tad queasy, "more like showing."

"So it showed Mobius worlds," Stark says, as if he's finally catching up, "why would it just do that?"

And with that they all look at Loki. He scoffs. "Don't look at me. Just because I was looking for power it doesn't mean I know how it works. That's why I recruited Selvig."

"And it showed him stuff, too," Mobius sighs. Then he suddenly perks up, eyes glowing brighter at his sudden excitement, "It showed him universes. Facts. It gave him knowledge. In a way it shaped the future." His eyes take on a far away look, one that quite frankly worries Loki, "Time and space are more connected than I realized."

Now Loki is confused, "What?"

Mobius shakes his head. "It doesn't matter. I'll come to your lab soon, Stark. I'm hankering for some cake from your party the other day."

Stark shrugs, "Please. Eat it. Pepper wants it gone and Happy is on some diet craze."

Mobius nods and marches out, leaving Loki slightly frazzled. What is happening? 

"Is there any reason we should be on alert, Loki?"

He turns. Natasha stares at him, looking through him.

Loki puts on a sarcastic smile even though he's starting to wonder the same thing. "Wouldn't you like to know."

He wipes the screens away and they all disappear. Avengers. What a joke. Loki takes off after Mobius who is already in the kitchen, stuffing his face with cake. It's some cookies and cream thing. Sweet. Addicting even. For some. 

Loki sits across from him, magicking a fork of his own. He picks at the cake, dwelling on things he shouldn't dwell on. Like the fact he fell in love so fast he could be considered a 'Disney princess' as Barton likes to point out. Or how he thinks Mobius likes him back but that means nothing cause he's hell bent on the end of time. Something about his demeanor must bring attention to Mobius because he breaks Loki out of his thoughts by saying, "Penny for your thoughts?"

"What's a penny?" Loki asks. 

Mobius smiles, chuckles, "Don't worry about it. You're fidgety. You don't have your notebook making it worse. You're nervous. Are you okay?"

"You like to phyco-analyze people, don't you," Loki says, and Mobius shrugs. 

"That's how I got to know you."

"That's a tad alarming."

Again Mobius shrugs. Loki sighs. He sits back, staring at the cake and picking at it as he says, "Mobius, what... how do..." he growls and sits up again. He tries something less direct. "When I was younger I sought out company that turned out terrible for me. Horrible things with consequences I don't like to think about."

"Yeah," Mobius hums, "some people attracted the wrong attention."

"My point is how do you know when you are loving the right person? How do you keep yourself from loving the wrong ones?"

Mobius's brow raises and Loki knows the question shocks him. He drops his fork, and kind of stares for a while. "You know, I used to ask myself that too."

Loki snorts. Of course. 

He smiles weakly before continuing, "I used to love someone who I know I shouldn't love but I did. Loving him could have gotten me killed."

It's Loki's turn to raise a brow. "Oh?"

"Yep. Old triple M had it bad. He stabbed me in the back. Was a bit of a liar."

"Did you get rid of him?" Loki asks, hating this fellow already.

Mobius shakes his head. "No. He pulled his head out of his butt after a while. We saved each other." Mobius takes a shakey breath. Loki's stomach drops. "He and I worked together for a while before he... before he sacrificed everything for us. His life. His family. Time. Everything. It was the most selfless thing I've ever seen." Mobius's eyes tear up. He freezes just a little bit. The fork goes through his fingers, and so does the cake through the granite. No more cake. "He did it for everyone who ever hated him or loved him." He looks up at Loki and there are tears on his cheeks. And Loki feels sick. "I don't know how you know if someone is good for you. Or how to not fall for the wrong ones. Not everyone is the man I love. Some people are horrible. But I do know this. That man did everything for everyone. A man who does something like that cannot be measured in some acts. But if a man, woman, they, them, whomever sacrifices, serves kindness, does something that makes lives better in the smallest ways is showing love. Being selfless can be love.

"And maybe getting your skin peeled off is a little bit of love, too."

Loki hangs on to every word until the end where his thoughts screech to a halt. "Getting your skin peeled off?"

Mobius shrugs, "Skin peeled off, neck ring, all the same thing."

He focuses on the granite and slowly the cake rises back to the top although it's missing a majority of its frosting. Loki is simultaneously heartbroken and in love. "You really are odd aren't you?"

"I guess you could read up on love languages, too. My friend, Casey, he was into that kind of thing."

Loki's fingers itch. He wants to hide away in his notebook and write. Draw himself up in the play he's writing about two lovers from different worlds. Instead, he asks, "You love someone?"

"I...did. I... do." Mobius says it and is sounds like more of a question than an answer. His eyes get a faraway look in them as he leans back and Loki feels a bitterness well in his stomach.

"He sounds... important to you," Loki says cautiously, "though he is gone and heartache can be such lonely and painful business. I would like to-"

"I see it."

"Huh?" Loki turns and goosebumps crawl across his skin. Mobius is looking at the ceiling. His skin is starting to glow a neon blue that's blinding Loki.

And Loki feels it. The vacuum that comes right before Mobius teleports himself somewhere far away.

"Loki," he says as his pupils disappear in the blue glow.

"No!" Loki yells, launching across the island. He bangs his foot on the underside of the granite but the pain doesn't register the bits of stone lodging in his skin. But Loki doesn't care as he pushes into Mobius's arms right as the blue swallows them both and they disappear.

******************************

The blue takes them to space again. Faint stars surround them but are barely noticed as they tumble. Loki gasps and holds tight to the shirt that Mobius wears, praying for them to stop spinning.

"What's with you and space!" Loki howls and... his voice that goes back. What?

"Loki..." Mobius huffs again. 

"What?" Loki says trying to get a look at Mobius's face so he doesn't panic even more. But as he peels his eyes open- when did he close them?- something big and green, blue, purple, greets him. A tree. A big tree in the middle of space throbbing with light. Is that.. the world tree?

Loki curses. 

"Where did you take us?" he chokes.

"Where I want to be," Mobius says and his voice is scarily monotone, "the end of time."

Loki curses again. This is not happening. He hasn't said what he wanted to say, done what he wanted to do. 

"Okay, wonderful. You've seen it now let's go home-"

Mobius groans and his eyes seem to roll to the back of his head. "Loki," he says again. The tree pulses, growing bigger.

Then Loki feels it. The power around him as the stars seem to get further away. Then stretching in his body as voices call to him from everywhere. People he remembers from home, people at the tower, and people he doesn't recognize. And lastly, as Mobius's arms fall from embracing him, he feels the shirt crumbling beneath his fingers.

***************************************

"B! B, get over here now!"

B-15 swears she has never ran as fast as she does when Casey yells from his desk at the front sprinting as if the world is ending. She is from the elevator back to his desk in seconds staring at his screen that is letting off light blue pulses just outside the tree.

"What is that?" She asks, breathless, "What's happening?"

"It's him," Casey says, equally breathless, "the space around the tree. It's growing."

B-15 about curses approximately fifty new curses. Casey was right. Casey was freaking right! Mobius is expanding space. And it's unnerving.

"Track him," she says, "don't lose him. Scan him if you have to. Just don't lose him."

"Aye, aye, captain," Casey says and with a few tapes of his fingers, the new aura is saved in the system. An aura that is fraying at the seams. But B and Casey don't notice as they call O.B. Soon Mobius will be home, and then comes the hard part.

Extracting the space stone. 

*******************************

Loki's shirt crumbles over Loki's fingers in bright flex of blue. It starts to drift around them and Loki starts to float away. A harsh panic fills his throat and he starts screaming. "Mobius! You're falling apart! Mobius!"

At his yell Mobius jerks back to reality and finally notices that his chest is turning into blue flecks and he's floating away. He curses loud and hard. Loki flings his limbs every which way trying to get back to him. The tree pulses beyond them. The blue spreads up his chest.

Loki feels the space around him convulse and the pieces suck to him before the ashy blue starts to crawl down Mobius's legs. He is disappearing before Loki's eyes. "Mobius!"

Loki doesn't know where it comes from, but a magpie arrives, cawing harshly as it flies above Mobius who still at seeing the bird. "Ikol?" He asks and his hand starts to disappear.

The bird latches onto Loki's shirt and flaps as hard as it can to drag him back to Mobius. It practically digs his claws into his skin but Loki doesn't care because the man before him is turning into ash. What does he do? What does he do? What does he do!

The bird is cawing unceasingly now, keeping Loki in place while watching Mobius fade. If he doesn't come up with something quick, he's going to disappear for good. They have to go home. They have to- home!

"Key lime pie!" Loki shouts. And Mobius looks at him in and utter confusion and panic.

"What?"

Even the bird pauses in surprise. Loki licks his lips and continues reaching for Mobius's one hand and grasping it the best he can, intertwining their fingers as he does. "Cake. Stupid cheesy movies. Hot cocoa."

"Loki, what are you-"

"Jet skis, poems, kids, pets. Sleep!" The blue flecks around him shiver and seem to stop mid float. The bird is smashed between them now. Loki grabs Mobius's waist even though it breaks apart under his hand. Everything shivers.

"New York!"

Mobius's eyes flash blue and suddenly they're getting sucked back to Mobius's bedroom, the pulsing tree disappearing as they fall to the floor between the bed and the door that leads them to the bathroom. The air is kicked from Mobius's chest when they hit the floor and the bird... the bird is gone. Which is fine cause it was freaking Loki out anyway.

Loki takes deep breaths, trying to sooth himself as he looks over Mobius who is panting, shaking as the glowing bits of himself come back together. "Mobius," Loki says, cupping his cheek, "are you okay? Moby?"

Slowly, his gaze registers Loki and his eyes seem to spark. "Loki... you just saved us... didn't you?"

His throat clogs. Save them? Did he save them? Was he a hero just this once? 

"I... I don't... I guess... I guess I did."

Mobius smirks, lightly shaking his head though he cups Loki's hand keeping it in place. "Loki Laufeyson, my hero."

And Loki doesn't know what it is that makes him do it. Maybe it's how Mobius says his name, full of awe, respect... maybe even love. Maybe it's how he encourages Loki's touch instead of struggling to pull away. Or maybe it's just a fact that Mobius just about turned into nothing but blue flecks just a moment ago.

Either way, Loki has no control as he closes the rest of the gap and kisses him.

Chapter Text

He found the tree. 

Mobius found the end of time.

And before he could do anything he almost turned into nothing. Why? Shouldn't the space Stone make him invincible, not susceptible to his skin peeling off? Or turn to blue sparkles? That shouldn't happen, but it did.

Why?

Maybe he could think about this, celebrate finding his Loki, the end of time, or figure out why he couldn't stay long enough to say hi... If this Loki's tongue wasn't down his throat.

And it's dangerous, how easy it is to fall into his arms. To kiss him. To let him hold Mobius tightly while attacking him relentlessly with cool smooth lips.

Mobius's brain fuzzes at the slide and glide of their lips, and the pushing and pulling of hands. Lokis hands pull at his shirt, fitting cold hands under to touch warm skin. Mobius is not in control either. How could he be? This is everything I could never admit he wanted. The weight of this being on top of him is everything I never dated to imagine. And that talented mouth...

It was all slow and soft when this started and Mobius was in shock because this Loki is kissing him. A Loki is kissing him. And he reciprocated by clutching Loki's face and pouring every inch of his being into him. 

Loki's hand though ice cold roam his body holding tightly to his stomach and the smile is felt through the kisses and bites at Mobius's throat. "Soft..."

Mobius's curses at him before Loki nips at his jaw and Mobius groans. 

"Moby," Loki says, teeth climbing down on his Adams apple before soothing it with puppy dog kisses, "Mobius..."

"Loki..." Mobius groans, clutching the black curls in a tight grip. 

For a moment his mind goes completely blank. Blank of everything but Loki. His lips, his hands, their hips rubbing together, his thrusting into Mobius because Loki wants him, he wants him, he wants him! And the lights flicker above them but he doesn't care because Loki's fingers are brushing his zipper and it feels good, like an electric shock to his system that makes his heat go to new places and makes him hard. And Lokis mouth latches onto his silencing his mantra of the gods name, coaxing his tongue into Lokis mouth, sucking on it, ruining Mobius. 

The lights flicker faster. Mobius's heart feels ready to explode. And as he feels Loki, he knows he's there, too. 

"Mobius," Loki groans, grinding down hard.

"Loki-"

Screams. Loud, piercing screams echo in Mobius's head, making his heart stop. Piercing horrifying screams that he's only heard on a screen when a Titan was displeased. 

A yell rips through him. Blue and green errupt from Mobius's body sending Loki flying into the wall, cracking it and raining shards down to the floor. Above them the lights shatter raining down blue and green sparks. The screams in his head turn to sobs before disappearing altogether.

Mobius's radio sparks to life but only white noise comes through. Nothing needs to because he knows what happened. He doesn't know how he heard Loki. He supposes it has to do with the glowing blue aura around his room coming from his body that also allowed him to see worlds. Or maybe Loki just knows how to talk to his own brand of magic. But he heard him. And Mobius hurt him.

"What the hel?" This Loki groans, and Mobius hears him cursing as he pulls himself up from the wall. "What was that? Mobius? Are you okay?"

He appears above Mobius, eyes worried as he reaches down to to touch him.

"No!" He yells. Loki lurches back. Mobius leaps to his feet and runs into the small bathroom big enough for only one occupant at a time and slams the door shut.

Then he slides down the door until he's curled in a ball, shaking, panting, waiting for the pain to exit his system.

The lights are off. The room glows blue. 

******************************

"We got him!"

B snorts as she watches Sylvie spray her tea everywhere, about dropping the mug on the ground. O.B. jerks up, hitting his head on a low lying machine while Gwen looks up from her Nintendo. B and Casey enter R&A, Casey waving his tempad around like it holds the new found secrets to the universes.

"You got him?" Sylvie asks, wiping her mug with her coat.

"I thought you were leaving," B says, really not wanting to deal with a snarky Loki right now.

Sylvie glares. "And you think you're the boss of me. Funny how both of those thoughts don't matter."

B looks at Gwen. The young woman shrugs. "Sylvie had left for a while. Had to tell her boyfriend she was going to be gone on a trip. Guess she's helping get Moby back."

B sighs. "Fine. The more the merrier." Not really but she's not starting an argument right now.

Casey's shoving his way between contraptions O.B. has been making to extract the space stone to show him the chart. "Look at this! This solves everything, O.B. How many space stones do you have? We need granule analytics and lots of glue."

"Hold on!" Sylvie says as she magic's away her stained cloak for a green sweatshirt as well as the disgusting mug, "what is going on? Explain." Then after a hushed huff, "please."

Casey immediately thrusts his tempad at O.B. who barely catches it before reading it over. Meanwhile, Casey begins a long explanation while B tries not to think.

"Mobius popped up on our scanner outside of the tree!"

"What?" Gwen squawks.

Sylvie's jaw drops. "How is that possible? The end of time -"

"Is also the end of space," Casey says, "he can get there just as easily as Loki with the space stone. But look!"

Casey pulls up a graph that expands and decompresses over and out with his tempad. "Space around where he was is expanding. When he was there matter expanded." He slaps down the tempad, a big smile on his face, "we are out of the red zone, but only for now."

"Oh!" O.B. says, eyes glowing as he catches onto what Casey's saying. "The tree will continue to grow but if the space stone is there to counteract the growth of time by growing space then we will be able to live in the TVA without worrying about the tree consuming us."

"Yes!" Casey yells, "We need all of the space stones and a way to harness that power so it will expand when we get it out there."

"And how do you plan on getting this device out there," Sylvie asks, picking her nails. 

Casey and O.B. look at each other, and B decides to step in. "One thing at a time. Casey, what else did you find?"

Casey nods, remembering why they are here. "Right. Mobius's aura was scanned. His new one. I'm tracking it, and right now it's on a branch somewhere in the middle of the tree. So far he's in the year 2013, New York. Which is probably why we saw him with a Loki when he showed up here."

"If that's where he's been this whole time..." Gwen mumbles before saying clearly, "what are we waiting for then? Let's go get him!"

"We're waiting," B states, "because this is not going to be as easy as saying we're here to pick you up. Mobius has the space stone. His goal was and most likely still is, to get to Loki. If he has any chance to get to him he will take it, and considering he was just outside the tree, he's close to exactly what he wants. He's not going to come. Not easily."

"You really think you can convince him to come back," Sylvie laughs, "he just proved me wrong and you expect him to come back at all." She leans forward, fire in her eyes. "You are going to have to fight him. We all are. Your best option is to take him out and drag him back here before he wakes up. Even then he'll never forgive you. Not after he's seen the tree."

B has a vendetta with Loki's. And one thing she hates about Sylvie is that sometimes she's absolutely right. And the others in the room know it too if it looks on their faces is anything to go by.

"So... If we have to hurt him, make him hate us, what do we do to fix things?" O.B. asks. 

And B is stuck. If they do this, Mobius won't forgive them. Not to mention how this is a march on his agency. So how much does one intervene when their friend is making awful decisions? Especially when the one won't listen and will hate you at the end of it all.

No. Focus on now. Mobius is a danger to himself. Maybe they can talk to him on the timeline. Maybe if they come to him as friends, not foes he'll listen. And maybe they can convince him that destroying himself is not the answer.

She turns to Gwen and says, "Get the others. We're his friends. We'll try to talk to him. If that doesn't work..." she trails off. Sylvie grinds her teeth. Gwen nods and takes off to go find the rest of their little group. "Casey, O.B., work on the machine for the space stones. We'll be back shortly."

Then B is off, Sylvie is not far behind. She ignores her. Anxiety curls in her gut. She ignores that, too.

*********************************

Mobius hides away in the bathroom long enough for Loki to bite all of his nails down to stubs and go over the scenario at least twenty times. 

Did he hurt him? Was Mobius fighting him and Loki just thought his reception was enjoyment when really it was pain? Did he hurt him just like he hurts everyone? If he hurt Mobius in this way, he'll never forgive himself. Id rather jump off the rainbow bridge then ever do harm to Mobius again. He might even suggest it now. 

But one thing is keeping Loki from marching from this room and telling Stark to lock him in chains. The magic. Of course it was Mobius's but his wasn't the only one there. The same energy he felt when they visited the children was here, too. It echoes in the pain Loki feels, the cracks in the wall. Even that branch that hit him. But it doesn't make sense. Whose magic could it be? Was it his own? Maybe he shouldn't have took Clint's dare to read Jekyll and Hyde. Could it be possible that he is Jekyll or Hyde and he doesn't know it?

And there his thoughts go back to hurting Mobius in a giant circle spinning faster and faster until the bathroom door creaks open and he looks to Mobius from his place on the floor, leaning against the bed, thumb nail in his mouth. 

He leans against the door frame, tired, wilted, "Hey."

Loki swallows hard, "Hi."

Mobius smiles back but it doesn't reach his eyes. "I think we should talk."

Loki nods numbly, "Yes, I think we should."

Mobius slowly goes to Loki, sits next to him, but doesn't dare touch. He leans his head back and stares at the ceiling. "I don't know where to start."

"Did I hurt you?" Loki asks because he can't take another second of not knowing.

"No," he says quickly, "no, you didn't hurt me. Quite the opposite, actually."

Loki knows he should be happy to hear that. He's not. "But?"

Mobius exhales slowly. Then he stretches his arm out as if reaching for something. "The tree is what I was looking for. And you can't go with me there. Us dancing around like this... It's pointless."

The tree is what he was looking for. Why? What could possibly be there that's so important? Loki grinds his teeth before snapping, "Why not? It's a tree. If it's what you want then take me with you. We both know I can survive in space and frankly you need me. I'm a god. I don't need the same things humans do. I can be with you at the tree."

"Loki, this is your world-"

"I don't belong here, Mobius. I belong with you."

Something sharp enters his eyes. His next words make Loki's blood go cold. "There's another Loki."

Loki feels dizzy, sick. "...What?"

*************************************

They sit there for the better part of an hour, bathed in the light coming from the cracks in Mobius's skin. Loki listens to everything he says. From what the tree is, who he is, about how the old organization was brought down and how all the timelines are alive because of him. 

And when Loki reads between the lines he can see where Mobius is going with all of this. Another Loki. Who looks like him. A hero who changed from destroying the universe to saving all of them. All Loki has done is forced community service and an occasional breakfast.

All of this takes so much energy out of Mobius that he falls asleep after mentioning the god of time and Loki can't help but wonder if it's really him or this other Loki trying to put him to sleep to silence him. 

Loki puts him in bed, gently and covers him as he lightly smiles and the blues pulses like a beacon. Suddenly the blue isn't so friendly anymore. 

He doesn't really know how he ends up in Stark's bar, sipping on five different bottles. Because there is too much anger and jealousy in him that is roaring to destroy something and if he does that all the progress he's made will be erased. Not that it matters. The only thing keeping him from it is the disappointment he knows will appear on Mobius's face. 

He also doesn't know when he ends up on the couch. It's not from a drunken stupor because human alcohol is like wet paper. Unappetizing and disgusting. Does very little. Not even a buzz. But he's there and after two bottles, she slides in next to him in a black tank top and leggings that make Loki jealous. He hasn't been a woman in a while. His feminity hasn't sprung up since before everything on Asgard. Maybe that needs to change.

"Tony's going to flip a lid when he sees you drank his favorite scotch," she says holding up the bottle. Only a drop remains at the bottom.

Loki grunts, takes a swig, "It was disgusting. He has horrible taste."

"Yeah, well," Natasha sniffs as she takes the bottle of beluga vodka, "so does the guy who hides mice in a toothbrush cup."

Loki smiles. "I don't suppose that got you."

"No, but Steve is mad so watch your back."

Loki takes a long swig, never looking at her. "Why are you here?"

Natasha pops her bottle and takes a sip. "Babysitting. Though I don't suppose you'll go on a drunken rampage through New York anytime soon."

He snorts. He feels her gaze etch itself into the side of his face as he lets his teeth hook on the lip of the bottle. "Did something happen with you and Mobius?"

It's so direct it almost shocks Loki, "That is none of your business."

Her eyes don't turn away. He squirms. "He found what he wanted," she says softly, "didn't he?"

"I don't need you analyzing me and poking old wounds," Loki hisses, proceeding to down half the bottle, then say, "leave."

Natasha turns away from him. She doesn't leave though. His body feels too heavy to leave either, so they just sit on the couch and drink. She takes several more sips of her bottle before she says anything else. "I'm a hypocrite. You know it and I know it," Loki snorts, "you have red in your ledger. So do I. We're both trying to wipe it out. I don't trust people. Neither do you."

"What is your point, Agent Romanoff?"

"There is a lot we differ in but also a lot we share. No one believed you could be anyone but the guy who destroyed half of New York. And I believed a long time I couldn't be anyone but the assassin I was created to be. I had someone who saved me. That's how I ended up here."

"I'm not you."

"No, but you're showing a new side to yourself. A good one. And all that started with Mobius."

Loki grips the bottle tight. It starts to crack around the neck. He has to loosen his grip to not shatter it.

"I still don't trust you. But because Mobius does, Banner, Stark, Thor, they are starting too. Because of him you might have a chance."

"I still don't see the point you're making," Loki hisses, this other Loki appearing in his mind's eye. This noble, heroic version of him who he wants to stick a knife into.

"Don't give up on Mobius," she says and the bottle pauses halfway to Loki's lips. "Whatever he did. Whatever argument or reaction or thing he found or thinks he needs, don't give up on him. He hasn't given up on you." She takes a long drink before standing and taking the vodka with her. "I don't know a lot about either of you, but the desperation, the way he speaks and acts, he's grieving someone. And whatever he's after he thinks will fix it."

"What if it's something better than me?" Loki says and he immediately regrets letting it slip. But he can't help it. His walls have begun to crumble since Mobius's arrival. "What if this thing could help him better than I ever could?"

Natasha doesn't answer for a long time. He almost believes she's gone when she says, "Is this love?"

It's too reminiscent and Loki can't help but sigh at it. She takes it as an answer. "Then you'll do what's best for him."

Loki let's that sit, burn his chest. When he turns back, she's gone.

************************************

Tony 100% knows something is wrong the second Mobius marches into his lab. He almost thinks it's Pepper at first. If it wasn't for the lack of clacking heels, he would have started to apologize already. Instead he looks up and there's Mobius, no tie or suit coat, sleeves rolled up and the fires of hell in his eyes.

"I need you to help me with something," he says stopping by Tony's desk and Tony has an urged to hide the Ultron plans but Mobius it seems is preoccupied with his strobing body that's going to give Tony a migraine.

"Look, Rudolph the blue crazed energy bomb, can you stop strobing. You're giving me a cop and stop light vibe and it's killing me."

"Tony?"

Mobius flinches. Bruce comes from the other room, looking half asleep. Mobius then pushes off Tony's desk and goes to Bruce. 

"What? What is happening?" Bruce says, starting to wake up. 

Tony stands, watching the way Mobius moves, and it alerts him. This is a man on a mission, which last Tony check, this little mission was futile. The end of time is not just some place you could go to. Yet...

Mobius stops in front of Bruce, his hands raised placatingly. "I need answers and I'm going to have to tell you two things that don't make sense but I need you to try to understand."

Bruce looks at Tony. Tony shrugs, "As long as it's not illegal..."

Bruce is unimpressed, "That's not a good basis, Tony."

"What? You want to be illegal-"

"The end of time!" Mobius shouts, dragging them both back in, "It's surrounded by time radiation. This stuff could turn you into spaghetti."

Bruce's eyes widen and his jaw drops. "Excuse me?"

"It's true. Trust me. Not fun stuff." Mobius rubs his face before continuing, "A god-like Thor is not affected. One would think someone who holds an infinity stone would be immune, too, yes?"

Bruce looks at Tony. And Tony's brain is firing on all cylinders because time radiation? Thor? Infinity stones? Where's Mobius going with this? "I..." Bruce stutters, "I suppose..."

Mobius claps, "Wrong! Why is that and how do we fix it?"

Tony curses. Because what kind of question is that? "Are you asking us how the laws of space time work with some sort of radiation that erodes infinity... people?"

Mobius groans and sit's on the stairs at Bruce's feet, "I got to the end of time."

"What?" Bruce blurts. 

"But!" Mobius holds up a finger, "I started falling apart when I was there. I don't know why."

Something clicks for Tony and he answers most of his questions with, "Gods can walk through but humans can't. "

Mobius looks at him and nods. Tony slaps his leg. He has an answer but he asks his next question anyway, "What happened when you fell apart?"

Mobius shakes his head. "I was just turning into flecks on blue. It was like ash. I just fell apart, started floating away."

"But it was blue flecks?"

"Yeah..."

"Tony," Bruce says, as if he's coming to the same conclusion. 

"Well, that's easy, Mr. Tesseract," Tony goes back to his chair, grabs the apple Pepper left earlier and says, "You're still human." Then he takes a bite.

Mobius looks confused. "But I absorbed the stone. Shouldn't it have taken that out of me?"

"Technically," Bruce says, "the stone should have destroyed you. For some reason it didn't. You're still in human skin. But at the end of time, whatever is keeping you together isn't working."

Mobius thinks about it for a moment, then curses. "You're right. The reason I'm together... I'm on the timelines. At the end of time... he... that power can't touch me. It's too busy keeping the tree alive."

Tony has no idea what that means but looking at Mobius puts was a whole new perspective on things. Some force is keeping him together. He's basically the springs with a battery living in him that can turn the human itself into battery acid or be taken out and leave the human as a shell. The question is if they took it out would it kill Mobius?

After a long moment, Mobius looks up and says, "Okay, we know the why. Do we have an idea how I can stop relying on that power?"

"Without dying?" Tony says and Mobius flinches. 

"Yeah. Preferably without dying."

Bruce sits next to Mobius as Tony continues to eat his apple. He rubs his chest as he does. He's defied death three years because he is even hopped up on a battery. Take it out and he's just as dead. But if his assumption here is correct and whoever is powering the spirals is actually the spirals and Mobius is the shell than that spring would still be a part of him. A new battery? No, he wants this battery. So how does he make a battery self-sustaining? No springs. No charger. No need to replace it after a few years. No falling apart.

Tony snaps his fingers, "When you were literally falling to the little itty bitty pieces of ash, were you feeling anything? Like it was the end, oh no!"

Mobius frowns, "I... I don't think so. But am I supposed to? It's not like anyone has turned into an infinity stone's ashes before."

Tony waves him over as he scatters pens from his desk, pulling up a scanner that Jarvis holds high above his head. "Come here. I want to look at something."

Mobius hesitates but he stands and comes up. Jarvis scans him as Tony typed. Bruce rushes the desk, looking flustered. "What are you doing?"

"I'm," Tony says slowly, "scanning his heat signature."

He finishes typing and Jarvis pulls up the scan, "Body heat is higher than normal, sir. By a hundred degrees in fact."

Tony taps around on the scan, searching, slowly, taking it all in. 

"What is it?" Mobius asks. 

"I wanted to see," Tony scans the image as a whole, "If your conscious, or whatever you believe it is, is separate from the stone."

Mobius's eyes widen, "I can do that. Give me a second."

Then he's gone in a cloud of blue. And that's when Bruce lets loose. "What is going on, Tony? Are we seriously telling this guy how to be one with the Tesseract or space stone or whatever it's called."

Tony finally looks at Bruce who's anxiety is palpable. "Have we ever seen this guy do anything close to violent? Besides mauling a cup of pudding to death?"

"Don't tell me you're doing this based off assumptions. Last week you thought he and Loki were plotting to kill you."

"That's Loki. Mobius has a clear mind."

"Does he? Anyone who ingests an alien power is not exactly sane, Tony."

Tony doesn't get another word in before Mobius returns, holding on old poloroid looking scan out to him. Tony takes it and Bruce looks over his shoulder. 

"Where did you get this?" He asks. 

"Some old friends," Mobius says and Tony is going to have to look into that later. But the scan shows him exactly what he wanted to know. The person on the scan is two different colors. A blinding white is pushing back the multicolored residue of what Tony assumes is the soul. As always he's right. 

Tony turns to Mobius, slapping the picture before saying, "It's like oil and water. They don't mix. That's why you should be disappearing."

Mobius pales, "How do you convert oil to water or vice versa?"

"You can't," Bruce mutters, but Tony smiles.

"No, you can't convert it but there is a loop hole."

***********************************

Loki stays on the couch all night and it's not until the sun is risen that he realizes something is going on. And that's simply because Bruce comes to him in half a panic saying, "Did you and Mobius get in a fight or something? Why is he trying to get out of here so fast? He's got Tony working like a dog."

That's when Loki finally blinks and looks at him. "What?"

"Mobius!" Bruce says again. "He came to us last night so he can fix whatever happened at the end of time and now he's in some big hurry to get out of here. He's letting Tony experiment with his blood for heavens sake. He's become Frankensteins monster."

Lokis stomach drops, "He's trying to leave?"

"Yeah. What happened? He said he went to the end of time. Almost died. How did that happen?"

But Loki doesn't care about Bruce's question or that Stark is playing with blood platelets. Mobius is trying to leave. And Loki doesn't have the strength to let it happen. "Where is he? I have to stop-"

There's a loud screech then from the elevators direction comes a magpie. A very familiar one, flying right for him. Loki curses and tries to dodge the claws but the birds catches his shoulder as he falls from the couch.

"What is happening?" Bruce shouts, swatting at the bird. "Why is there a magpie? What is this?"

Loki makes several grabs for the bird and only success after Bruce hits it with a pen. He binds it with magic that protests him in an uncomfortablely familiar way. And he squeezes. He wants to kill it. Hurt this other Loki. Get the message through that one's skull that he is not welcome here. Instead, Loki looks it in the eye and hisses, "You put the idea into his head, didn't you? You raeva. You faen!"

It caws at him while Bruce is counting out breaths behind him. "Breathe in, one, too, three, breathe out, one, too, three. Oh, why didn't I leave when I had chance. Monsters and gods and crazy superman. I should have become an accountant."

The magpie strikes Loki's thumb. He yells and drops him. The bird takes off down the hall and Bruce points at his bleeding hand. "This is crazy. First Mobius goes insane then a magpie attacks you."

"It was no magpie," Loki hisses, those green eyes branded into his mind.

And Bruce looks even more freaked out at that. "Should I be calling someone? Is there something going on that we should know about?"

And for once in Loki's life he wants to tell the truth. Well, a half truth. He wants to say an evil God has a spell over Mobius, making him think he needs to go to the end of time. Sabotage this whole thing so that Loki gets his due and Mobius doesn't leave.

But that's not love. Is it. 

And that's Loki's undoing. He remembers when Frigga taught him about how to find real love and that he should show those characteristics, those ways, back. He didn't believe it because none of it worked. It was only ridiculed. But no one is Mobius. There won't be another one. So hearing her words in his mind's eye, the descriptions of kindness, security, of words of love and time and the inevitability of letting go when there time is up is... Bitter. 

It would have been better to never know Mobius. To have kept all of his bitterness than let in the sweet. And it's not that that's the worst of it. To know he is loved but not really. To be wanted but only as a variant of the one who is truly wanted. He could do just as much as this other Loki. Even more convincing he's trapped in a tree. Mobius can't have that Loki's warmth. A family. Home. Food he likes or even satisfy his needs.

And yet...

"Loki," Bruce taps his arm and he jerks. So does Bruce. 

Loki exhales slowly. "No," he says, swallowing hard, "There is nothing wrong. He's just as dedicated to his goal as when he got here."

"But... the magpie. You-"

"What about me?" Loki snaps, harsher than he means to. 

Bruce stares at him for a long moment and Loki tenses, waiting for some kind of push back. Then he sighs, "Nothing. I guess, I just thought that-"

"Well, you're wrong."

Loki shoves past him and makes his way toward where that bird disappeared. The hall leads past closed rooms to the stairwell that's door is wide open. He takes the stairs to Tony's lab where he sees the man hunched over a desk muttering to himself while playing that awful 'rock' music. Nothing rock about it. Just singing that burns Loki's ears. In the corner of the lair above the door is the magpie who Loki curses at. He caws back.

Mobius sits in the back on the stairs leading to Bruce's room. He's itching at his left wrist. He must sense Loki because he looks at him and the tense atmosphere shrinks and expands all in one breath. Loki breathes easier, walks lighter, but feels just as heavy as he enters the lab formally. Tony glances between them before humming on. 

Loki is halfway to the stairs when Mobius finally releases his stare. Loki hates the words that are forming his his mind because he doesn't want them. In fact he would rather say 'I love you' then what these words are. 'Let me be your Lok' would be far better. But those blue eyes pulse and Mobius looks tired so Loki pushes it all aside to sit beside him and he selfless. 

"How can I help?"

******************************

Mobius is wildly aware of how painful this is. How cruel and unfair this is. It's not like he wants Loki's help. But even after he told him he doesn't need it, to go and figure out what he's going to do for the anniversary, Loki stays. Helps Tony, yells at Bruce who Mobius can tell is skeptical of all this. He knows how smart Loki can become. Him working with Stark on his problem is not beyond believability anymore.

The issue here is that Loki knows why Mobius is doing this and it kills him that he has let himself get attached to two Loki's and let another one become attached to him. He has to hurt him and there is no way to fix it. They can't go back to before because that would only bring more hurt to both of them. But Loki yearns. It's clear through his soft touches and glassy eyes. And Mobius yearns, too.

Mobius thinks about that as he washes the days grime from his body. The cracks in his body throb as he scrubs and he can't help but stop and feel them for once. It's almost like a cut only there is no blood, just light. He's sticks a finger in a crack on his arm and there should be a slight sting, a burn, but there's just warmth. He presses a hand his chest. His heart still pumps but if there is no blood what does it circulate? He supposes the power of the space stone and it's bursting him at the seams. It was to pull him apart and that's where the cracks appeared. If they managed to find a way to fix him and the stone, will the cracks disappear or will Mobius? Will he look like himself or something different?

Mobius scrubs harder as a response. What of him will be left to present to Loki? Will it really matter? He supposed not. Or at least he hopes not.

Jarvis dries him with some high tech fan when he steps out and when he opens the door, a blue bathrobe lays waiting on his bed with a note attached. 'For Mr. Tesseract.' Definitely Tony's writing. But that's not what keeps Mobius's eyes glued to the card. 

Mr. Tesseract.

Tony is known for giving out nicknames. This is not surprising or new. But the name is also true, isn't it? Mobius has become the house for the space stone. As he wraps himself in the cozy soft rob, the words settle in his bones. It sounds almost dark, sinister. Powerful.

Somewhere beyond the door, he hears Clint curse about Ikol and something in Mobius burns causing the blue glow to stutter. He sits in the bed, stares at the cracks in the wall. He doesn't remember hearing Loki hit it, but he can picture the noise. 

This loki. He's just as amazing as every Loki Mobius has ever known. Even more so by how he is working to be better with the whole earth hating him. And he loves Mobius. There's no denying that anymore. Not after what happened yesterday. Mobius feels his lips. He can still feel the cool skin against them. And he hates that he was taken here. That he landed in New York with a Loki who's only difference is brown eyes and a need to write. A need to love Mobius is the ultimate similarity.

Mobius doesn't want to hurt him. He doesn't want to see this Loki break down and turn into a shell of what he could have been. But Loki can't be good just because of Mobius. And Mobius can't stay here. Not with that 'for you' ringing in his head. Not when his heart belongs to the god stuck in a tree. He could never love this Loki properly. And he knows bringing in another Loki is not an option. Blood will be spilt. It doesn't matter who's.

A crash outside takes him to his feet. Through the vent in the ceiling comes Ikol, cawing as if in laughter before landing on the dresser with big coal eyes. Mobius's Loki in some form. He pets the birds feathers and Ikol seems to almost purr in response. Mobius blue glows brighter.

"I'm coming, pussycat," Mobius says, clenching the fist by his side, "It won't be long now."

Ikol caws. Mobius shakes his head. "It's going to be hard. But I might have to become the bad guy to do it."

Ikol shakes his feathers, pecks at Mobius's hand that doesn't bleed. It barely even stings. "I know what I have to do, Lokes," Mobius says, "just like you did. It's going to hurt me. It's going to hurt this other Loki. But it's the same as you did. What you had to do that hurt us both." And the magpies eyes look sad, defeated but also hopeful, a balance that seems impossible if Mobius wasn't feeling it, too. He kisses the bird's head before saying, "I'll be home soon, Loki. But first, Mr. Tesseract has some business to take care of."

Then he throws on that blue suit he got when Loki and he went to help out at a run down mall then makes his way to Tony's lab.

What's left of his blood sings.