Loki has done more reading today than he has in his entire life.
It's just file after file, a never-ending cycle of boredom. Every now and then, he thinks about stopping, taking a quick break to rest his eyes and his brain, but he'd probably just fall asleep, falling asleep in the middle of the TVA sounds like a bad idea. He doesn't trust these people not to just walk over and prune him in his sleep.
So he soldiers on, reading through this mountain of files and just hoping something will jump out at him so he can tell Mobius (who's nowhere to be seen, by the way; apparently he gets a very long lunch break and Loki doesn't get shit) and they can be done with this.
After rereading the same file three times because he realized he was processing absolutely none of it, he sighs and rubs his eyes. Reading is such an easy thing to do. He's been doing it for centuries. Why is it so goddamn hard right now?
He props his head up on his hand and tries to read it again. He's sure it will be the same thing as most of the others — the Variant killed a bunch of Minutemen and stole a reset charge — but maybe he'll get lucky and find something more.
He doesn't, obviously, but he keeps telling himself he will because someone needs to hype him up and there's no one else around to do it.
A hand on his shoulder makes him jump, and he immediately pulls away. A glance behind him reveals that it's just Mobius, and Loki turns his attention back to his stack of files. He props his head back up on his hand. Oh, this is fun. Not.
"Still going, huh?" Mobius says.
"Mm," Loki hums.
"Find anything interesting?"
"Mm-mm." He squeezes his eyes shut briefly to try to force himself awake, and then he's back to reading.
He notices out of the corner of his eye that Mobius sits down across from him. He doesn't even have the energy to look at the guy. He doesn't move at all until he finishes the file, and even then, all he does is move this one out of the way so he can read the next.
Mobius sighs and stands up. "Alright, come on. We're taking a break."
"To do what?"
"Rest."
Loki gives a minute shake of his head. "I'm fine."
"I can see you falling asleep," Mobius says.
"I'm fine," Loki repeats, more forcefully this time. "I just want to finish these files."
"Why?" Mobius asks, and he almost sounds amused. "You like seeing the superior Loki's work?"
"No, I just want you to find him so I can talk to the Time Keepers about going home," Loki deadpans.
"If you're too tired to insist he's not the superior Loki, you're too tired to find anything important in these files." Mobius shoves them all into two piles, read and unread, and pulls Loki's chair out and away from the table. "Come on, get up."
"Mobius, I don't —"
"It wasn't a request."
It's becoming increasingly clear that Loki doesn't really have a choice in this, so he reluctantly stands up and lets Mobius lead him through the TVA.
Maybe this was a good idea. Even just standing up and walking around is starting to wake him up a little bit. It should be a little easier to go back to work now, whenever Mobius decides to bring him back to his little work station.
Mobius looks over at him as they're walking. "How you doing, Loki?"
"I've been kidnapped by the Time Police and being held against my will to kidnap another me," Loki deadpans. "I'm doing great."
Mobius nods slowly. "Okay, that's fair."
Loki just rolls his eyes.
"You're so grumpy," Mobius remarks. "Are you always this grumpy when you're tired?"
"You tell me," Loki says. "You seem to think you know more about me than I do."
"If that were true, you wouldn't be here," Mobius says.
Loki just shoots him a look.
"Alright, alright," Mobius says, putting his hands up to show he's backing off. "Not in the mood to talk. Got it."
He shuts up after that, much to Loki's relief. Mobius enjoys himself way too much for Loki's liking. He's always in too good of a mood (except, of course, when Loki was in a good mood earlier today, and then Mobius wanted nothing to do with him and basically told him to sit down and shut up for a while).
The thing about the TVA is that it is impossible to tell where you are. Loki realized that when he was playing around with his Time Collar. Every hallway looks exactly the same, and unless you happen to pass by a distinct-looking room, you have absolutely no idea where you are.
Despite Loki's best efforts to keep this walk as quiet as possible, eventually, he just has to ask. "Where are we going?"
"To bed," Mobius says simply.
"What?"
"I am taking you to my bed," Mobius repeats obnoxiously slowly. "So you can sleep."
"Mobius, I'm not sl—"
"Yes, you are," Mobius says. "You're useless to me burnt out — and you're boring, too."
"Great, then you know to catch the Variant at night when he's tucking himself into bed," Loki says sarcastically.
That gets a small smile out of him. "Tell you what. You figure out what planet the Variant is on and when, I will make sure we find him at night just for you."
Loki doesn't dignify that with a response. Just once, he would like to go someplace where people don't mock him every chance they get. Is that too much to ask?
They lapse into silence again, stretching all the way until Mobius's abrupt turn towards one of the many, many doors in this hallway. He swings it open and heads inside, holding the door with his foot until Loki joins him.
The room is exceptionally bare — like, the-prisons-of-Asgard bare. There's a chair, a small dresser, a desk covered in paperwork, and a neatly-made bed, and nothing else in sight. Loki looks around for another door. There has to be another door. This can't be all there is.
"Welcome to my humble abode," Mobius says. "Make yourself at home — but not really. Don't make a mess."
"Make a mess of what?" Loki asks incredulously. "There's nothing here."
"Then it should be easy," Mobius says with a shrug. "See you later, Loki." He starts to walk out the door.
Loki raises an eyebrow. "You're really going to leave me here? Alone?"
Mobius turns back to face him. "Well, I figured you didn't need someone to hold you until you fall asleep."
Loki ignores that. "You really trust me alone in here?"
"Yeah, I do," Mobius says. "Don't make me regret it." And then he's gone, closing the door behind him.
Loki watches the door for a few minutes just to make sure he's not coming back — and that if he does come back, he sees that Loki does not want to sleep here, thank you very much.
When it becomes clear that he really is alone, he meanders around the room, just taking it in. Everything is so empty. Even the dresser is practically empty, with just the bare necessities a TVA agent could need. (He's not really sure why he checked all the drawers. He knew what he'd see: clothes — though he's almost surprised to see the sweatpants in the bottom drawer. It hadn't occurred to him that even TVA agents need comfortable clothes for bed.)
He makes his way to Mobius's desk and looks down at the papers lying on top of it. He hopes to find something interesting, something to tell him that what's going on isn't what they keep telling him it is, but to no avail. These are a lot of the same papers Loki's read. A few of them he either hasn't seen or just doesn't remember, but nothing here looks very interesting. Even the pages about other Loki Variants don't really hold his interest. He flips through the pictures briefly (and there are a lot of pictures of him from varyious timelines; it's almost flattering) but eventually he moves on to find something else to do.
Except there really isn't anything else to do. This room is so empty that there's really nothing to snoop through. Well, that's just great. What is he supposed to do now?
His gaze slowly drifts to the bed. He doesn't want to fall asleep at the TVA. He doesn't trust them enough for that. The door doesn't even have a lock; anyone could walk in and prune him at any moment and he'd have no idea.
But he really is tired, and if he has to sleep eventually...
Loki sighs, hangs his stuoid little Variant jacket over the back of the chair, and crawls into the bed. He covers himself with the blanket, and it's a little too hot for his comfort, but he likes having a blanket to cuddle with (which he would vehemently deny if anyone asked) so he keeps it on.
Admittedly, this is not a very comfortable bed, but the moment he closes his eyes, he feels a wave of sluggishness wash over him and he decides that he really just does not care. A bed is a bed.
It's better than the alternative, at least. On the so-called Sacred Timeline, he'd be sleeping in the Asgardian dungeons instead. In fact, if the TVA exists outside of time, there must a version of him in the dungeon right now. It's a funny thought. They're both equally as uncomfortable and as lonely despite leading two completely different lives.
In fact, in a way, isn't all of time happening right now? Every single moment of his life? Every moment that he wasn't alive?
Right now, at one point in the timeline, he's tricking Thor into picking up a bloodthirsty little stabbing snake.
At another point, he's jumping out of an airplane and just hoping Heimdall will catch him before he hits the ground (which he did, just as he promised, but Loki was half-convinced he was going to "accidentally" step in just a second too late so he and Thor could have a laugh).
At another point, he's watching the fireworks with his mother, daydreaming about one day having the power to do that. ("You do have the power to do it," his mother would always tell him when he'd say that. "You have the power to do whatever you want.")
And at another point, she's being brutally murdered by the Dark Elves.
Because Loki told them exactly where to find her.
Loki squeezes his eyes shut, and a tear slips down his cheek.
He's been trying not to think about that video Mobius showed him when he first got here. It was just clip after clip of his miserable life, each one worse than the last. And then, when things finally started to look up for him, he died, murdered in front of an audience of Asgardians who, honestly, will probably never mourn him even if they do survive.
At this point, he's fully convinced his life is just one big cosmic joke.
A joke that got his mother killed.
That has to be the worst part. He could deal with his own life sucking. He's used to it, even. But his mother didn't deserve this. She didn't deserve to die. She didn't deserve a son who would get her killed.
He's still having such a hard time wrapping his head around that one. He got his own mother killed. And it sounds like he did it trying to get his brother killed, too, which doesn't make it any better. It really was just fuck-up after fuck-up for him and it was his mother that paid the price.
Loki was aware of the tears streaming down his face, but it didn't bother him too much until it turned into genuine sobbing. He sits up in bed and shoves himself into the corner, his legs pulled into his chest. He tries to take deep breaths, to calm himself down so he can pretend this never happened, but it's hard when he's sobbing so hard. He kicks the blanket off and hugs a pillow to his chest, burying his face in it to muffle the noise.
He can't remember the last time he cried this hard — probably not since he was a kid. It was easier back then. His mother would always find him and she would do whatever she could to make him feel better. Sometimes it meant fireworks; sometimes it just meant a long hug. He would give anything to do that now.
But he can't.
And he never will again.
Loki squeezes his eyes shut and hugs the pillow tighter. Maybe if he tries hard enough, he can trick himself into feeling like he's hugging his mother. He may not have his magic, but he does have his pain and his desperation. Shouldn't that count for something?
He's not sure how long he sits there. It certainly lasts a while. The tears stop and start many times over, though the loud sobbing does eventually come to an end.
He's still seated in the corner of the bed, his back against the walls. His grip in the pillow has loosened, but it still rests in his arms, his head propped up on the top to catch the tears as they roll down to his chin.
The door begins to open, not very quickly or very far, and Loki quickly wipes his eyes with his sleeves. He has to give Midgard credit for these shirts; cotton works much better on tears than Asgardian leather.
With the door barely cracked open, Mobius pokes his head in the room, and Loki quickly looks away. As if crying alone in this random TVA bedroom wasn't humiliating enough, now Mobius has seen him doing it. Once again, his life is a cosmic joke.
"Loki?" Mobius says softly, and Loki winces. He hates the concern in his voice, the sympathy he so clearly has. He steps inside and gently closes the door behind him. "Are you okay?"
"I'm fine," Loki says, his voice flat.
"Mm-hmm," Mobius hums. He sits down on the side of the bed (without asking, for the record) and Loki pulls his feet in closer to give him space. "What's going on with you, Loki?" he asks gently.
"What happened to leaving me alone?" Loki asks coldly. "Decided you couldn't trust me after all?"
"I said I trusted you alone in my room; that doesn't mean I trusted you to stay here," Mobius says.
So he was always planning to come back and check on him? That would have been nice to know before his little mental breakdown.
"What's going on?" Mobius asks again. "You never get like this."
"Nothing," Loki says. "It's nothing."
"If it was nothing, you would be fast asleep by now," Mobius says. "Come on, talk to me. What's eating you?"
"I'm not in the mood for your mind games," Loki says.
Mobius raises an eyebrow. "I'm not playing any mind games. That's your thing, remember?"
"This whole thing is a mind game," Loki says. "Using me to learn more about this Variant. Well, I'm sorry to break it to you, but I don't think the 'superior Loki' is going to break down crying for you." Part of him thinks this might be a little too sarcastic, but maybe it will annoy Mobius enough that he leaves Loki alone.
"This isn't about the other Variant," Mobius says. "He's not the one crying right now because he thought no one would notice."
Wow. He didn't ask to be called out like that.
"If this isn't about the Variant, why do you care?" Loki asks, a little agitated. What is he playing at? And can he stop playing at it and leave Loki alone so he can mope in peace?
Mobius gives a small shrug. "Because I like you. I don't want to see you like this."
Loki scoffs. "If you're going to lie to me, at least make it believable." And he said he didn't play mind games. What a joke.
"I'm serious," Mobius says. "I've never had a 'bring your Variant to work' day before. It's nice to have a new friend around. You can be a real pain in the ass, but I like that about you."
Loki just rolls his eyes. Friend. Yeah, right.
"You're a real piece of work, Loki," Mobius says fondly. "Now are you going to tell me what's bothering you?"
"No."
Mobius clicks his tongue. "Right..." There's a brief pause before he asks, "Do you mind if I stay here?"
"Yes."
"Well, I'm doing it anyway." He slides back on the mattress, resting his back against the wall next to Loki.
"I don't need a babysitter," Loki mutters.
"I know," Mobius says. "But if I'm not sitting here, I gotta be out there doing work, and I don't really want to do that right now."
Loki shakes his head to himself. Alright, whatever. There's nothing he can do about it now.
They sit in silence for a while. It's weird at first, and Loki keeps awkwardly glancing over at him just to make sure Mobius isn't looking at him. He never is; eventually the agent closes his eyes and seems to drift off.
Loki watches him for a few minutes, wondering if he'll move at all, but he doesn't. He might actually be asleep. How did he fall asleep quicker sitting up than Loki did lying down after not sleeping for at least a full day? It's completely unfair.
Eventually, Loki says a quiet, "Mobius?" just to test the waters.
It seems he is awake, at least to some degree, because he hums, "Hmm?" without moving.
Loki hesitates. This is a heavy question, but he's not sure he'll be able to rest until he knows the answer. "Were there any timelines where my mother survived?"
Mobius opens his eyes and looks over at the god with a sympathetic frown. "Don't do this to yourself."
"Just answer the question," Loki says. "Please. I just... I have to know."
Mobius sighs. "I don't know. I've never seen one, so if there was, I don't think you were the Variant."
"Oh." Loki drops his gaze to the floor. Of course there wasn't. That would imply that he's capable of not fucking up and not hurting the people he loves, and that was never even a possibility. Under his breath, he mutters, "No wonder I was everyone's least favorite." His mother was the only exception, and look where that got her.
"It's not your fault," Mobius says quietly.
"How is it not my fault?" Loki asks. "I told the Dark Elves where to find her, didn't I?"
"You didn't know."
"That doesn't change anything," Loki says. "You said it yourself: I killed her. In every single timeline, I kill my own mother."
Mobius shakes his head. "I didn't mean it. I was just trying to prove a point. I was trying to get you onboard with all this. That's all."
Loki chuckles humorlessly. "You can backtrack all you'd like, but you were still right. We both know that. If what you showed me was true, I killed my mother."
"Loki..." Mobius sighs. "You were right: I was playing mind games with you. That whole conversation? That whole reel of moments from your life? I was trying to break you. I knew I wouldn't get you to with me any other way."
Loki shakes his head to himself. "Well, you did a fantastic job."
"Yeah, I see that now," Mobius says. "I'm sorry. I'm sure that doesn't mean much to you now, but I am."
"You're right: it doesn't," Loki says.
Mobius nods understandingly. "I guess I deserve that."
It becomes quiet again, and Loki makes a point of not looking at him. He'd like to pretend it's because he's mad, but he's really not. It's just easier to act mad than to admit that he's sad; that he's mourning the loss of his mother and the life he never got to live, and he feels guilty for actions he never had to commit.
It's Mobius who breaks the silence. "For what it's worth, if your mother could see who you are now and who you're going to become, I think she'd be really proud of you."
"Oh, I doubt that," Loki says.
"You know," Mobius says, "all she ever wanted was for you to become your own person; to stop living in your brother's shadow and to flourish on your own."
Loki scoffs. "Oh, you're an expert on my mother now?"
"Not in the slightest," Mobius admits. "But she said that once, after you were imprisoned. Even after your little escapade as Long of Asgard and the mess you made on earth, she never regretted teaching you magic. She just wished you'd used it — and your wit — a little better." With a small smile, he adds, "And now you are."
Tears well up in Loki's eyes, and he wipes them away with his finger. "Do you really think so?"
"I do," Mobius says. "You're a good person, Loki. She always saw that in you, even with no one else did. You proved her right in the Sacred Timeline, and you're proving her right here. She would be so proud of you."
Loki had promised himself he was done crying, but right now, he can't help it. His mother would be proud of him. She'd always loved him unconditionally, something he'd desperately needed at times, but it was just for the sake of him being him. But she would be proud now. She would look at him and he proud of who he is and what he's done — and what he's going to do — and she would be proud. And that means the world to him.
"Hey, hey, Loki..." Mobius puts an arm around him and squeezes his shoulders. "Don't cry. I was trying to make you feel better, not worse."
Loki chuckles through the tears. "You did," he says quietly. "You really did."
"Oh, good," Mobius says. "I don't like you being sad. It's weird." He carefully takes his arm away from Loki's shoulders. "Now get some sleep, okay? We have a lot to do."
Loki sniffles and wipes his eyes. "Then we should get started now."
"Loki go to sleep," he repeats. "You're exhausted — and don't pretend you're not. You are."
"Oh, believe me, I know," he says. He's beyond tired right now. "But I don't want to sleep. We have work to do."
Mobius just looks at him for a few moments, and Loki can feel the agent reading him like a book. He's good at that. It's very uncomfortable. "You think you'll start crying again, don't you?"
Loki looks away and gives a small, awkward shrug. Once again, Mobius has figured out exactly what he's thinking.
"I can stay with you, if you want," Mobius offers.
Loki sighs. "Mobius, you don't have to —"
"Hey, I got nowhere else to be," Mobius says with a small shrug. "Nowhere else I want to be, at least. There's probably stuff I should be doing, but..."
Loki cracks a smile at that. For someone who's dedicated their life to a cause and is very content with that decision, he really doesn't seem to enjoy doing it.
"I can just go sit at my desk if you want," Mobius says. "It's up to you. Whatever's going to get you to sleep."
Loki hesitates. This is such a stupid request that, honestly, he'd probably be too embarrassed to make if he were any less tired. But Mobius really does seem to want to help, so maybe...
"Could you stay here?" Loki asks.
Mobius looks a little confused at that. "Yeah, I just said —"
"No, I mean... here here."
Mobius just looks at him for a few moments, trying to figure that out. "You mean on the bed?"
He sounds so incredulous that Loki hesitates to admit that it is, in fact, what he means, but he nods.
To say Mobius looks confused would be an understatement, but, after a pause, he shrugs. "If you think that's going to help you sleep, then sure. You want me to move so you can lie down, or...?"
Loki shakes his head. "This is good." He rests his head on the pillow he's still hugging to his chest, holding it up with his knees for extra support. He closes his eyes, and immediately, a wave of exhausting washes over him. He has a feeling he'll be asleep very, very quickly.
"You know," Mobius says, "your neck is going to hurt so much when you wake up."
"That sounds like a problem for future me," Loki says.
Mobius chuckles. "Future you is going to hate present you." He puts an arm around the god and holds him close. "Sweet dreams, Loki."
Loki readjusts his position on the mattress so he's leaning in against him. He rests his head on Mobius's shoulder, and Mobius rests his on top.
"Thank you," Loki whispers. "For everything."