Wither
The TVA guards’ grips were iron-tight on Loki’s arms as they marched him through the endless beige corridors. He’d tried to pull toward Time Theater 38—something about that number had felt right, familiar—but they’d dragged him past it without breaking stride. Now the placard above the door read “Time Theater 42” in that same sterile TVA font that adorned everything in this place.
They shoved him inside, and the door sealed with a hydraulic hiss.
Loki sank to the floor, his bound hands resting in his lap. The collar around his neck was cold, heavy—a reminder that even here, at the end of all things, he was still a prisoner. At least the temperature in this room was bearable. Cooler than most spaces in the TVA, the chill air raised goosebumps on his arms.
He closed his eyes and tried to center himself. Tried to make sense of the impossible situation he’d found himself in. The timelines were broken. Mobius didn’t remember him. Nothing was as it should be.
The door opened without warning.
“So you’re not one of us—”
Loki’s head snapped up. The voice was achingly familiar, but when his eyes focused on the figure in the doorway, his chest tightened.
“You’re my favorite,” Mobius had said once, grinning over paperwork in the archive room. “Don’t tell the other Lokis.” The warmth in his eyes had made Loki believe, for the first time in centuries, that he might actually deserve friendship.
It was Mobius. Or rather, it looked like Mobius: same grey hair, same rumpled suit, same easy stance. But the eyes that met his were those of a stranger—flat, analytical, empty of recognition. The resemblance was perfect and terrible all at once.
“Who broke the thermostat?” This Mobius turned to a panel on the wall, frowning as he adjusted the controls. “You must be freezing down there.”
“Not really,” Loki managed, his voice softer than he’d intended.
Mobius approached the table, setting down a thick file and his TemPad with practiced efficiency. “Now, I don’t know what’s going on or who you are exactly,” he said, pulling out a chair and settling into it with a sigh, “but you’re something that doesn’t fit in with what’s happening here. An anomaly in an ocean of anomalies. And that makes me think—” He leaned forward, elbows on the table. “Hear me out... that you might be responsible for all this.”
The laugh that escaped Loki was bitter, hollow. “Ah, yes, well, you’ve caught me. Congratulations.” The words tasted like ash.
“God of Mischief, yeah.” Mobius flipped open the file, his finger tracing down a page. “Loki. Another Loki. Do you have any idea how many of you there are now? The branches are lousy with Lokis.”
“So I’ve been told.” Loki remained on the floor, unmoving. There was nowhere else to go anyway.
Mobius studied him for a long moment, then leaned back in his chair. “So. Why did you break the timeline? More importantly—how did you do it?”
“I didn’t do it.” Loki’s voice cracked slightly. He cleared his throat. “Well, maybe I did. A variant of me did. She killed him.”
“Killed who?”
“The one whom you seem to refer to as ‘He Who Remains,’ I suppose.” Loki shrugged, his eyes fixed on the tile floor. The pattern had become very familiar over the last hour. Or had it been longer? Time moved strangely here.
Mobius leaned down, elbows to knees, peering at Loki with genuine curiosity. “You know, you don’t look like any Loki I’ve ever met. And I’ve met a lot of Lokis. You certainly don’t act like one either.”
“That’s because I’m not.” The words came out heavy, weighted with everything he couldn’t explain. It would have been a boast once—I’m not like other Lokis, I’m better, I’m different—but now it was just a simple, aching truth.
“What broke you?” Mobius asked it almost gently, with something that might have been compassion in another timeline.
Loki looked up, meeting those familiar yet foreign eyes. “What broke me,” he repeated, then looked away. The answer was too big, too complicated, too raw. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
“Try me.” Mobius stood, moving closer, hands sliding into his pockets as he looked down at Loki. “Come on. Just try me.”
The words tumbled out before Loki could stop them. “Once I had two friends.” His throat tightened. “And I have lost them both.” He lifted his bound hands in a gesture of helpless surrender. “Forgive me if my mourning is still fresh.” He folded his hands closed and returned them to his lap, armor clicking back into place.
Mobius was quiet for a moment, something shifting in his expression. Then he nodded slowly. “The timeline has splintered so far that we don’t have the manpower to chase down all the branches. We’re drowning in variants, in nexus events, in—” He gestured vaguely at everything and nothing.
“What does the TVA plan to do?” Loki asked, looking up.
Mobius returned to his seat at the table with a heavy sigh. “We’re not sure. It’s hard to tell what the Sacred Timeline is and what isn’t at this point.” He opened the file again, turning pages without really seeing them. “There’s so much overlap. So many possibilities. It’s chaos.”
“What do you plan to do about it?” The question was barely a whisper.
Mobius cleared his throat and closed the folder with a soft thump. “There’s little to do right now. We’re waiting for word from the top. For someone to tell us how to fix this.”
“From him?” Loki’s eyes widened slightly.
“Yes.” Mobius’s voice was firm. “Because I assure you, he’s still alive. Despite this—” he tapped the file, “—testimony to the contrary.”
“My variant killed him,” Loki said urgently, leaning forward. “I assure you, the person in charge who belonged to the Sacred Timeline anyway. And with his death began the splintering, the breaking of the universe.” He drew in a shaky breath. “I... I know you don’t remember me, but we were friends.”
The words felt like a confession and a plea all at once. Some desperate part of him hoped that saying it aloud would wake Mobius up, would break through whatever wall separated them.
Mobius laughed—actually laughed—shaking his head. “They said you might be funny.”
The dismissal stung worse than any blow. “I’m not trying to humor you,” Loki said sharply, turning his face away. “Just leave me.”
“Can’t do that, I’m afraid.” Mobius’s laughter faded. “Look, this isn’t easy for either of us, but I need you to answer some questions for me.”
Loki sighed, defeat settling into his bones. “Fine. Ask your questions.”
A doorway appeared—golden, shimmering, impossible—cutting through the very air. Another head popped through. Another Mobius, this one’s eyes scanning the room before landing on Loki.
“Might be this one,” the new Mobius said, grabbing Loki by the arm and hauling him to his feet.
“Wait—” The interrogator Mobius was only halfway out of his chair when Loki stumbled through the golden doorway.
It sealed behind him with a sound like reality stitching itself back together.
Loki needed a moment to orient himself. The room was different—darker, more cluttered. Hunter B-15 stood a few feet away, a pruning wand in her hand, its tip glowing with that sickly energy he’d come to dread.
“Mobius, this is the fifteenth one,” she said, sounding tired.
The Mobius who’d pulled him through—his Mobius, Loki hoped desperately—held out a hand toward her. “I know, I know. But I gotta find him.”
Behind them, Loki could see another interrogation room through an open doorway. A younger Loki sat there, defiant and snarling, all sharp edges and barely contained rage—nothing like him at all.
“The last one tried to stab me,” B-15 muttered. “The one before that wouldn’t stop crying. And that one—” she jerked her thumb toward another door, “—keeps insisting he’s actually Thor.”
“This one’s different,” Mobius said, his eyes never leaving Loki’s face. “I can feel it.”
“Find who?” Loki shook his head, confusion and hope warring in his chest.
“My friend is a Loki. One variant who had another variant of himself named Sylvie.” Mobius turned to face him fully, studying him.
Loki’s heart was racing. He needed to know, needed to be sure. “What is something you have always wanted?” he asked, hardly daring to breathe.
“Jet Skis.” The answer came without hesitation, without a blink.
“Mobius!”
Loki struggled to stand correctly, his legs weak with relief. He lifted his joined arms up and around Mobius in an awkward, desperate hug. “It’s you. It’s really you.”
“Took us a while to find you.” Mobius’s voice was warm now, familiar, home. “We were looking in the branches closest to the breaking point. Should have known you’d end up somewhere more complicated.”
“What’s going on?” Loki lifted his arms, releasing Mobius but staying close. “What’s happening to the timeline?”
“We’re not sure yet, but—” Mobius paused, then met Loki’s eyes. “I could use some help.”
“Of course!” Loki nodded eagerly, extending his hands. Hunter B-15 stepped forward and removed the restraints with quick, efficient movements. The collar clattered to the floor a moment later, and Loki rubbed at his wrists. “What do we do? Where do we start?”
Mobius rested his hands on his hips, the gesture so achingly familiar that Loki felt something in his chest unknot. “I have this idea. And it’s crazy.”
Loki smiled—actually smiled—for the first time in what felt like ages. “I like crazy.”
“We’re gonna start at the beginning of time and prune our way up,” Mobius explained. “And we’ll ask the variants we bring in to help us do that. Build a team, restore order.”
“And if they don’t comply?” Loki asked, though he suspected he knew the answer.
“We put them in a holding cell.” Mobius’s voice was quieter now. “I don’t know what else to do.”
“But you’ll be killing people,” B-15 interjected, her voice tight. “Erasing them. Just like before.”
“We’ve been doing that our whole lives, B-15.”
“That doesn’t make it right, Mobius.” She was right. Loki knew she was right, could see the weight of that truth in Mobius’s eyes.
An idea sparked in Loki’s mind—something from his past, from lessons in Asgard’s great library about the nature of time and space. “What if...” He turned to the table and grabbed a piece of paper from the file. He returned to Mobius, snatched a pen from his shirt pocket with a small smile, and began sketching frantically. “The timelines look like this now, don’t they? This is a big ball of a mess.” He drew a chaotic tangle of intersecting lines.
“Yeah,” Mobius confirmed, leaning in to look.
“So what if we go to the beginning of time, and we fix it? Make the timelines look like this.” Loki grabbed another piece of paper and drew a single dot at the bottom center. From it, he drew lines that extended upward and outward, none of them crossing, like a tree with infinite branches. “Everyone can exist. All of them. All at once. Without interfering with anyone else. You’d only need to prune connections that make these lines intersect—prevent paradoxes, not prevent existence.”
Mobius stared at the drawing, his brow furrowed. “Huh.”
“Could that work?” B-15 moved closer to study the sketch.
“Time flows in waves,” Mobius said slowly, his analytical mind clearly working through the problem. “Basic time theory. Sometimes waves meet at their ebb and die. That’s just how time works.” He frowned. “But this wouldn’t be history repeating itself—”
“This would be time happening over and over again,” Loki interjected, pointing at each line on his drawing with growing excitement, “but without interference or connections from other timelines. He who remains—the person at the end of time—he said it was like this once, before the multiversal war. So to fix it, we have to go back to the way it was. Not one timeline. Many. But separate.”
“That’s a tall order, Loki.” Mobius looked up at B-15. “I need some analysts. Everyone you can find me. Get them here now.”
B-15 exited the room immediately, her footsteps echoing down the corridor.
Loki turned back to Mobius, the pieces clicking together in his mind. “The man at the end of time—He Who Remains—he said he was only trying to preserve himself. But he was tired. The branching began when he decided not to hold so tightly to the timeline anymore. When Sylvie killed him, it broke his entire hold on reality. So we need to figure out how to unravel this mess and put it back the way it was. Not the Sacred Timeline. The multiverse.”
“Do you think that’s possible?” Mobius asked quietly.
“I hope so.” Loki’s voice was barely above a whisper.
Mobius’s hands reached up, and Loki instinctively turned toward them—expecting what, he wasn’t sure. Comfort, maybe. Connection. But the hands reached for the collar still hanging loose around his neck, not his face. It clattered to the floor with finality.
Loki let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.
“Let’s get you a change of clothes,” Mobius said, patting his arm with that casual affection that meant everything. “We have work to do.”
As Mobius led him out of the room, Loki whispered a thank you to whatever God or Gods might still be listening to his prayers.
The locker room was quiet, empty. Mobius had stepped outside to give him privacy, though Loki suspected it was also to give him a moment to collect himself.
Loki stared at the tan TVA jacket in his hands. The last time he’d worn one, everything had been different. The TVA had been a lie, but his friendship with Mobius had been real. Sylvie had been alive. The universe had made sense, or at least as much sense as it ever did.
He pulled on the undershirt, then the dress shirt, his fingers fumbling slightly with the buttons. Muscle memory took over—tie, jacket, the weight of it settling on his shoulders like purpose.
When he looked in the mirror, he saw someone he barely recognized. Same face, same eyes, but something fundamental had shifted. The God of Mischief looked tired. Looked older. Looked like someone who’d lost everything and somehow found a reason to keep going anyway.
“You okay in there?” Mobius’s voice came through the door.
Loki swallowed hard. “Yes. I’m... yes.”
He emerged to find Mobius waiting, two cups of something steaming in his hands. Coffee, probably. The gesture was so simple, so typical, that Loki felt his throat tighten again.
“Here.” Mobius handed him a cup. “Figured you could use it. It’s been a long day. Well, days. Time is relative and all that.”
Loki took it, his fingers wrapping around the warmth. “How many did you search through? Before you found me.”
“Fifteen Lokis across probably sixty branched timelines.” Mobius took a sip of his coffee, making a face. “Still can’t get used to this stuff without sugar. Anyway—some of them were you, just... different versions. Wrong moments. Wrong choices. One was from a timeline where you never left Asgard. Another where you’d become some warlord. But none of them were you, you.”
“How did you know?” Loki asked quietly. “That I’d be... that you’d find the right one?”
Mobius smiled, and it was warm and genuine and his. “Because I know you, Loki. The you who overthinks everything and pretends not to care but cares more than anyone I’ve ever met. The you who’d rather save everyone than just himself.” He paused. “The you who’s my friend.”
Loki looked down at his coffee, blinking rapidly. “I thought I’d lost you. When that Mobius didn’t know me, I thought—”
“I know.” Mobius’s hand found his shoulder, steady and grounding. “But you didn’t. I’m right here. And we’re going to fix this. Together.”
“Together,” Loki echoed, and for the first time since the timeline shattered, he felt something like hope.
The multiverse was broken, but he wasn’t alone anymore. And maybe that would be enough.
