Hunter B15 (Verity?), OB, Casey, and Mobius all going over their files together.
B15: "If I had to match these lives to each of you I'd probably only get 50 percent right."
Mobius: "Come on, how could you not think you'd be a doctor? I get that someone like me would have to be doing something cerebral but-"
OB: "No one would've guessed you'd be a medical doctor let alone any other kind of doctor, Mobius."
B15: "In the TVA I was never given a chance to do that kind of work but when I saw the sacred timeline... it made sense."
Casey: "Of course it made sense. You were the first of us to break free and you immediately tried to save everyone."
Mobius: "Hey! I've saved tons of people. Like when Loki was..."
Everyone: "..."
B15: "...anyways it doesn't make sense. After you rule out OB and I, because of course he's the genius writer and scientist, you're left with an interesting scenario."
OB: "Aw you're too kind!"
Mobius: "Casey or I could've been the doctor. You just ruled out salesman and prisoner for yourself."
B15: "Yes I did rule out I probably wasn't the single dad. Great detective work Mobius."
Casey: "So what doesn't make sense? Mobius loves jetskis and talking. He fits his life perfectly."
Mobius: "I do not! I am my own man. Don and I may share similar interests but that's it."
OB: "She's saying that if anyone has committed a felony it's Mobius."
Mobius: "..."
Casey: "...I could do one of those. Someone just needs to tell me what that is first."
B15: "I..."
Mobius: "BOLD OF YOU TO ASSUME I'D GET CAUGHT."
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Time after time
As the God of Stories and Keeper of Time, there are many who would seek Loki's counsel. Some find the answers they are looking for, others do not.
Or, five people who go to Loki seeking answers for themselves, and one person who seeks an answer for Loki himself.
Rating: General | Words: 1.3K
Read below the cut, [click here for AO3]
The first one to locate him at the end of space and time, of course, is O.B.
Loki smiles as his old friend appears at the bottom of the stairs to the Tree of Time, huffs when the man nearly falls on his ass as he takes in the sight of the billions of branches that Loki guards by his will and power alone.
“Ouroboros,” Loki greets, as O.B. reaches the summit and they are face to face. “Welcome.”
“Loki,” O.B. breathes, both awed and horrified at once. He doesn’t fully grasp the meaning of Loki’s duty, but as always, seems determined to make sense of it.
“Is this really—how is it—are you okay?” O.B. finally asks, settling on asking after his well being over any questions about how all of this works. Loki feels warmth bloom in his chest at the question, and nods.
“I am,” he answers truthfully. He is more than okay. He is alive in a way he did not know was possible, he is everywhere and nowhere at once, he is lonely and yet never alone.
“Does it hurt?” O.B. asks. “How many branches are you holding?!” he adds, trying once more in vain to count the branches of time by sight alone.
Loki pauses and places. He gives O.B. a number that makes the man’s eyes go wide as dinner plates as he tries to comprehend the true meaning of infinity.
“Can I see you again?” O.B. asks later, when his time is up and his special Tempad screams at him to leave. He still has so many questions, but not enough time to ask and answer them all. It’s okay. Loki has all the time to spare.
“You are welcome anytime, old friend. Give the TVA my regards.”
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His second visitor is Stephen Strange. There is an active threat to his universe, and his quest for answers has brought him to Loki.
“You are not as I remember you,” Strange tells him once Loki has provided the wisdom that the man sought. “The Loki I knew would never have been able to bear this.”
Loki simply shakes his head.
“I am not the Loki you knew,” Loki says simply. “That Loki perished in the war with Thanos, and my path diverged from his long before that. ”
“A Variant then?” Strange asks. “How—”
“Your time grows short, Stephen Strange,” Loki interrupts him, sensing the fraying occurring in the man’s universe. “Go. The answers you seek shall guide you.”
Strange’s eyes widen, but he nods, and soon he is gone.
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His third visitor is another Loki.
“How can this possibly be our glorious purpose?!” his variant screams at him. “How could you let us be forgotten like this? What good is a throne with no subjects to love you?”
Loki shakes his head and sighs. This Loki is shortsighted and does not yet understand the weight of his responsibility. He will soon learn, one way or another.
“You never wanted the throne,” Loki tells his other self. “You will not find the answers you are looking for here.”
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It isn’t long before Kang the Conqueror arrives. He has come for Loki’s title, his throne, a claim that his position is his birthright, and that Loki had unfairly stolen it from him. Loki laughs. This Kang is nothing compared to the Kang he once knew. The arrogance is the same, but there is not nearly enough power to back his claims, even with the power it took to even locate Loki in the first place. He growls in frustration when he is blown back to the bottom of the stairs with barely a flick of Loki’s fingers.
“I have overcome you and your variants before, and I will again,” Loki tells Kang. “You will not find victory here today, or tomorrow…or ever, really”
“We’ll see about that,” Kang spits angrily before he stomps away, unable to do much else. From over his shoulder, Miss Minutes appears and sticks her tongue out at him.
Loki knows this is not the last he has seen of this Kang, or any Kang. They will all come for him, for the branches that make up the multiverse. They will try to do what the Kang who ruled the Sacred Timeline has done, and Loki will always be there to stop them.
--------------------------------
Though he knows he is coming, Loki is still not fully prepared when Thor appears before him. Loki knows this is not quite his Thor, his Thor still lives blissfully unaware of the multiverse, and Loki was taken from his altered timeline long before the story could play out. But this Thor is still his, in a way, and Loki feels his heart lurch and ache all the same.
Thor falls to his knees when he reaches the summit and lays on Loki for the first time.
“In the name of Odin,” Thor whispers, tears falling freely from his face. “So the wizard was right.”
“Hello brother,” Loki says, unable to keep his own tears from forming. His hands shake and the branches quiver as they parse his frayed emotions. “Although, I am not quite your brother, as you know.”
Thor shakes his head.
“In any universe, across all timelines, you are always my brother, no matter what,” Thor tells him. “And I am proud to call you so, in any universe, in any time, now and forever. I could not imagine another more worthy than you to be the guardian of time, no longer the God of Mischief, but the God of Stories. Of all stories.”
Though Loki has heard this name many times in many universes, and even from many Thors, to hear it from this Thor, his Thor, at this exact moment at the end of time, affects Loki in a way he cannot describe.
Thor presses their foreheads together and sings him a lullaby their mother often sang to them as children. When he is done, they are both a mess, and Loki is loathe to bid his brother goodbye, even knowing he cannot stay.
Parting was always such sweet sorrow.
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Loki smiles when his star-crossed lover appears to him.
“So this is where you’ve been hiding,” they say, looking around and taking in the branches of the Tree of Time. Their gaze is appreciative, wondrous even, at all that Loki has done. At all that he continues to do.
“Here I am,” Loki replies, unable to keep the smile off his face. It is good to see them once more. “You certainly took your time coming here.”
“Hey, it wasn't easy!” they shoot back, affronted.
Loki shrugs. “O.B. figured it out fairly quickly,” he says.
“Of course he did,” they grumble. “And then he didn’t bother to tell me how.”
Loki shakes his head. “Each traveler must find their own way here without aid,” he explains. “It is a personal journey to seek the truth at the End of Time.”
His lover-not-quite-lover hums thoughtfully. They fall to silence for a while, but it isn’t awkward. Silence between them has never been awkward.
“Are you happy, Loki?” they finally ask.
Loki considers this for a moment before he answers.
“I am content,” he finally says. “My purpose is not easy, nor is it the life I would have imagined for myself, but I would make the same choice again and again.”
His not-lover nods, seeming to finally find the answer they have been seeking. Which means it is now their time to leave. It is bittersweet.
“I would have loved you,” they confess, meeting his eyes directly. “If things were different. In another timeline, another universe, perhaps.”
Loki thinks of all the universes where that scenario is a reality and smiles.
“You already do.”
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