Mobius hadn’t been in a hurry to actually make time to have this conversation - he should have known better from the start. How much time and effort had he put into learning about Lokis, into understanding them and being able to anticipate their moves. And still he’d been careless about what he’d said out in public for anyone to see, knowing it was only a matter of time before Loki saw it. And from there it had only been a matter of time before Loki asked him about it. He’d been able to put off answering that particular question initially - Loki giving him a pass on account of it being a party, or maybe Loki had just been feeling generous because of the dance. Either way he’d had a brief reprieve before they’d carved out the time to be able to have this talk.
He was a man of his word after all. And Loki had said they wanted to know, so Mobius would tell him, or he’d try to. He still wasn’t certain just how he’d manage it, how much he would say - what things he would skirt around. And of course he didn’t know the full story, he hadn’t seen all of it - but he could tell, just by watching Loki that there were things he’d done on his own, things he’d experienced and lived through that informed everything he did before he stepped out those doors and changed everything.
All of this to say, Mobius had been stalling. But he wasn’t a coward, for all that he had been tooling around lately working on finding a place for himself, he was going to face this.
Which was how he ended up in Loki’s office again. Perhaps they could have done this somewhere else, but it felt right here - sitting across from one another, the way they’d begun things so long ago. “Do you ever think about what you’d have done next?” Mobius asked, there were always questions to be asked, even now. “If you’d been there still?”
They did often tend to find themselves here, didn’t they? Each of them across the table from the other, like there was work to be done, assessments to be had. Maybe that was just a part of the TVA that had stuck around in both of them, for now.
“Beyond see how badly we’d destroyed the timelines?” Loki asked, because it was no secret that he was pretty sure that his and Sylvie’s combined efforts hadn’t done any good for the timelines. “Try and fix it.” That was vague, obviously, but so were the details, thus far.
But they didn’t have to be. Obviously Mobius knew something, something he’d been putting off and skirting around. Something that had been bothering him since the moment he’d shown up here. And here was Loki, leaning forward on his desk, ready to learn a secret or ten.
Mobius pursed his lips, it wasn't a surprising answer really - and perhaps more of a plan than what Sylvie had owned up to when he'd talked to her about the state of the timeline. Like she couldn't believe things didn't simply sort themselves out on their own. But things could never have been that simple - they'd been too tied up in the complicated web of the TVA and the loom to be able to simply sort themselves out without a little help.
And in the end that had been what happened in a sense wasn't it? They'd fixed it - or Loki had at least. In a sense.
"It nearly ended everything," He admitted finally, which was fine - that was maybe a better outcome all things considered. Sure it meant the death of every timeline, but then no one would be meddling around in it that way. "Every timeline, every branch, the TVA, all of it." He lifted his shoulders feeling that same sense of defeat he'd felt watching the loom tick nearer and nearer to its ultimate destruction.
"It was a failsafe, left by HWR. It should have destroyed everything, leaving nothing but the Sacred Timeline." And it very nearly had.
“That would have killed literally… countless people,” Loki said after a beat. Of course He Who Remains would have that kind of failsafe, something to keep the Sacred Timeline on track, but he couldn’t properly believe that any version of himself – or Mobius – would be willing to let things sit as they were once things started falling apart. Which Loki could only imagine they had. Not that he blamed Sylvie for kick starting it. He was as much to blame, in one way or another. “He said there would be a war, that his variants would take over, if the TVA was dismantled.”
"I'm sure that was the point," Mobius agreed - it had only ever been about maintaining the flow of time as directed by one single man, anything that threatened that too much had to be dealt with. It was a kind of ruthlessness that Mobius had never been able to fully get behind, no matter how dedicated to the cause he had once been. And once he realized the lie he'd been living he lost the ability to fall in line all together.
"Sylvie seemed to think he was telling the truth too." Though he suspected they both knew that He Who Remains wasn't quite as truthful as he lead any of them to believe. "It seemed okay in the beginning, there were branching timelines, they were growing but soon it became more than the Temporal Loom could handle. There were no variants, well - none who attempted to start a war." There had been Mr. Timely after all, but he'd done what he could to help them fix what had been broken.
In the end there really had only been two options, the way things turned out and the way things had been left to go. It had been up to Loki to make the final decision in the end. "We tried to fix it, but -" He lifted his shoulders because there really was no point to anything they'd done. "It came down to you in the end. You did something incredible, you saved everyone, every timeline."
Loki considered that for a moment, fingers tapping against the tabletop in a soft beat as they did – Sylvie was more than able to change her mind, and the He Who Remains variants were a problem that they could neutralize, or maybe HWR had neutralized himself, considering all the work that had been done on the Sacred Timeline before Loki had shown up but –
“I’m always incredible,” they said, because it couldn’t be helped, and Loki liked for a little grandstanding in moments. “But I… don’t make it?” Loki asked finally. Because there was no other reason for Mobius to look the way he did, sometimes. The way he had when he’d first arrived to find Loki in Pickman’s lobby.
"You certainly are," Mobius agreed without making a joke of it, because that more than anything had been what he'd learned in the time he'd spent with Loki before he'd made his sacrifice. He could tease Loki later, they could joke about this or some other moment, Mobius could remind him of some point when incredible might not be the word anyone would choose to describe him. But for now it was right.
"Making it is subjective I suppose." Mobius admitted, because to him - Loki was lost. They wouldn't get to sit back after everything they'd done and talk about it or make plans for whatever lives they might want to lead on whatever timeline they might select. Loki was beyond Mobius' grasp. "There has to be someone at the end of time keeping things together for the rest of us." Loki was still there, that future still loomed over every interaction, and Mobius didn't quite know how to square that knowledge with being here.
When they had time, when he could say the things he'd never been able to before, only to perhaps at some eventual point still reach that point all over again.
Well.
Loki sat back in his seat over that one, arms crossing and expression going thoughtfully guarded for a moment as they took the time to really translate what that meant for – well. Everything.
It was quite the thing, knowing that he’d saved – all of time. All that was, all that would be. Every story, big or small was Loki’s to hold together and to allow to flourish.
The cost was high though. Not unlike He Who Remains, Loki was distinctly aware that it was a very solitary job. Forever.
“I see,” Loki said, “Glorious purpose, indeed.”
"You always did know you were destined for something," Mobius agreed - though he doubted anyone could have truly foreseen how glorious it would turn out to be in the end.
"The TVA tracks his variants now, He Who Remains." considering he'd already told Loki the worst of it he might as well finish the job. "Keeping track of them all and whatever they get up to, just in case." Because they couldn't trust that they would all be like Victor Timely after all.
"I-" Mobius started and stopped. "I couldn't stay. Not after - it felt wrong, not to go out there and see it all for myself."
“No,” Loki said, not unkindly. Because it was really sinking in now – the truth of it all. It was a good ending, in that everyone had been saved, as best they all could have managed. But it wasn’t a happy ending. Not for everyone. “I suppose you couldn’t.”
And Loki couldn’t blame him.
“And there you were, ready to set out on some new path, and then you ended up right back in mine, completely at random.”
"I thought maybe I'd see where I'd come from." Mobius still didn't know for certain, beyond the time and the place, he hadn't been able to read the file - he'd needed to be able to see it for himself.
And instead of that, which he'd known would be a special kind of painful, he'd ended up here - which was painful in an entirely different kind of way. And Loki had made a life here, he had figured out a way to live here, and Mobius still felt like he was struggling to get his feet under him.
"I'd never seen anything like what you did." He said soft and a little bit hurt over it. He'd long past the point when he'd expected Loki to betray anyone, they'd managed to become friends, maybe even more than that if they'd had the time, and then it had been the thing that had to be sacrificed if everyone was going to make it through the ordeal in the end. "You were-" He started and stopped, shaking his head.
Loki had always sort of wondered – if Mobius was curious about where he’d come from. Who he’d been before. Or if it was something that he’d not let himself think on much, written off because it was too late to go back to it anyway, and knowing wouldn’t solve anything. Loki wondered if they were in the same position, what they might have chosen.
Would they want to know? Or simply move on and forward?
“I was…?” They asked, instead – careful, curious.
He probably shouldn't give Loki too big an ego, he was certain he had more than enough to work with as it was. But sometimes these things simply needed to be said.
"Incredible." He said honestly. Loki had gone from someone who seemed to only want power, to be subversive simply for the thrill of it, seeking a place to belong, to someone who actively worked to protect others, and in the end sacrificing everything so those around them could have a chance.
"You were brave, you were selfless, you were unlike anything I've ever seen before." And that was saying something, considering just how much Mobius had seen. "And I didn't think I'd ever get the chance to tell you that, not like this and I know it's not- '' He shook his head, "It's not the same, I know. But you deserve to hear it, here or there. You are capable of so much more than anyone could have known." He didn't care what kind of machinations He Who Remains had put in place to make things turn out a certain way or not, he didn't care how smart he might be, Loki was something else entirely.
It wasn’t really an ego trip that Loki was getting from this. Not really. Was it nice to hear these things? Was it a bit heady to get such high praise from someone like Mobius, someone who had once been able to read him better than he’d been able to himself?
Yes. Of course it was.
But it was bittersweet, too, in a way. Because these weren’t compliments that Mobius might have felt inclined to give if he’d had another chance, or any other kind of choice.
So Loki had been capable and incredible, selfless. He’d found some kind of purpose beyond himself and his wants, and he’d done what needed to be done and –
Loki ducked his head down, smiled vaguely. “Yes, well,” he said. “Best to not get too emotional over it.” Who Loki was talking about for that, was unclear.
And then, even though Loki had just denied the concept of feelings, he went on anyway. “I’m certain that one day, when or if we go back, I’ll end up doing it again. Know that it’s no light decision, leaving you behind.”
“Best not,” Mobius agreed, taking a moment to take a breath as he nodded because - what else could he do? After all of that. They were here after all, the both of them, able to talk like this, face to face, and he could say all the things he’d never let himself say before.
“I’m sure you will,” Mobius agreed, “You wouldn’t be the Loki I know you to be if you didn’t.” And Mobius would have this ache all over again.
“Maybe then I’ll have the wherewithal to tell you how grateful I am for you, and your chaotic entrance into my life.” He clearly wasn’t finished making a fool of himself. “Before you walked through those doors.” Because this Loki, and that Loki, they were the same, and they both deserved to know that they had been the spark that had changed everything for Mobius.
“Maybe you will,” Loki said a little sadly. “But maybe I already know that, anyway.” Even now. Definitely later, if Loki had any wits about him at all, right? Because time only meant further fondness, so far as Loki would tell.
“Let’s hold that off for as long as possible though, shall we?” he asked instead, eyebrows raising in a way that was clearly meant to be enticing. “Let’s have this, while it lasts.”
Mobius nodded, he wasn’t at all eager to leave this place - not if it meant going back to whatever his life might have been, and the future that awaited Loki. Not when staying here meant having more of those kinds of looks from Loki.
“Yes,” Mobius agreed, obviously enticed. “I think that’s a good plan, let’s see what we can get up to while we’re here - however long that might be.”