Chapter Text
It had been a long few weeks. Or at least Loki thought it had been. One thing his time at the TVA, or more accurately TVAs, had managed to do was completely disrupt his sense of time. It could’ve been months since Sylvie cast him out of the citadel, just as easily as it could’ve been days or even years. The thought made him shudder. Regardless of the technical length of the period of time, it had felt excruciatingly long. Both because of the pure chaos the time had been and because of Loki’s agonizing, all-consuming, impatience to find Sylvie.
After finding himself expelled into the not-TVA, as he had started calling it, Loki went through the same general motions he had during his first TVA processing, with a few key differences. The most frustrating being that this time it required a bit more evidence and a lot more time to show not-Mobius the true nature of the not-TVA. After a delicate and lengthy manipulation campaign, he managed to drag not-Mobius to what the not-TVA considered the “prime” timeline and introduced the version of him still living within the set path of the timeline.
After that, there was no denying that he was a variant and that his all-mighty leader, the He Who Remains variant who on this branch went by “Kang” may not be as altruistic as he had thought. Not-Mobius’ revelation quickly spread through the not-TVA, aided by Loki and not-Mobius’ steady spread of whispers and rumours. Eventually, enough of the not-TVA’s workforce learned the truth of their existence to cause an all-out revolution against their leadership. In the chaos, they had even managed to assassinate their leader. Loki welcomed this, not only because of what it meant for the not-TVA’s agents but because it meant they had one less He Who Remains variant to be concerned about.
“One out of an infinite amount” Loki reminded himself, as He Who Remains’ threat of his warmongering variants echoed through his memory.
He shook the thought out of his head. It may have only been one, but one was still a win. And Loki was in desperate need of those.
After they succeeded in killing Kang, the not-TVA’s revolutionaries rapidly realized they did not have a clear plan or objective for what came next. Some agents returned to the “prime” timeline, undoubtedly creating numerous awkward conversations and headaches for their prime selves. However, most of them stayed looking for a new target, a new purpose. One Loki was more than happy to offer.
Searching for Sylvie across the multiverse alone, he knew was a fool’s errand. That hadn’t stopped Loki from trying, however his attempts only made him more acutely aware of the impossibility of the task. Yet with the entirety of the not-TVA, Loki figured maybe he had a chance. He couldn’t accept the reality of never seeing her again, never knowing what happened to her after she killed He Who Remains, never knowing if she was okay.
Loki would sometimes find himself wandering over to a monitor and just gazing at the timeline. Mesmerized as it continued to branch and splinter off in infinite directions, seemingly without end. He would try to trace where one earth began and another one ended, eventually losing his place in the madness. There was a beauty to it, or at least there would be if it didn’t serve as a constant reminder of why Sylvie pushed him away, and the hopelessness of ever finding her again.
It shouldn’t have surprised him that finding her was ultimately a miracle. Or an insane stroke of luck. Or a grand cosmic coincidence. Loki wasn’t sure which idea he preferred, he was just grateful it had happened. The irony of it all was that it wasn’t even the searchings of the entirety of the remaining not-TVA that had found her. Instead, like most significant things in Loki's life, finding Sylvie came from a mistake.
A traveller from Multiverse Branch- 64DR had stumbled into the not-TVA by accident while drunkenly trying to access a neighbouring Earth. In their interview, the traveller told a story of how they had been celebrating the death of their world’s tyrant, who they were concerned to note bore a striking resemblance to the shrine in the center of the building.
According to the traveller he had been assassinated by a horned, blonde woman. Despite not personally witnessing the act, they had heard rumours that after killing him she had been dragged off by soldiers that appeared out of orange glass doors that vanished into thin air.
Loki could feel his heart racing as he took in not-Mobius’s retelling of the traveller’s story.
“It’s not her, ” the rational part of his mind told him, but his heart had already grasped hold to the scrap of a possibility that it was. It raced as the desperation to find her met the terror at what he would find if he did.
“ Even if it is her, she pushed you away. Why would she want to see you now ?” his mind, which was swiftly becoming quite the annoyance, nagged.
But in his heart, Loki didn’t care. He knew from the moment that he saw a glint of sadness in her eyes as the time door snapped shut behind him, that Sylvie’s rage would ultimately abandon her. That she would be left with an emptiness, no accomplishment, nor gratification could ever fill. He knew how all-consuming that void could become, and he was determined to not let Sylvie go down that path. Not alone.
Still, while they cross-referenced Sylvie’s temporal aura’s with Branch-64DR’s Loki found himself imagining every possibility of what their reunion would look like. In some she was angry, pushing him away again or screaming at him for trying to stop her. In some he was the angry one, demanding an explanation as to how she could think so little of him after all their time together, after all he shared with her. But in most of them, their reunion was a mix of sadness and sweetness. Finally taking a bandage off a gaping wound, painful but healing.
The beeping of the index snapped Loki’s attention back to reality. A match . The auras had matched. They found her. In an infinite multiverse, with nothing but her aura to go off of, they had actually found her. Like the traveller had said, she had last been detected on Branch-64DR in the 31st century, assassinating that Earth’s He Who Remains or as Loki was coming to understand they tended to go by, Kang. Her aura had instantaneously been wiped from the timeline moments after, a sign she had been taken in by that branch’s TVA.
Loki felt his body drawn towards his temp-pad before he could even process the enormity of this revelation. Not-Mobius stepped in front of him right before he could reach for it, his arms out as if he was trying to calm a wild animal.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Shouldn’t we take a moment to consider our options here?” he asked. His voice, calm and steady as ever.
Loki moved to step around him, but not-Mobius matched his movement in step.
“What if she’s already been pruned?”
“She hasn’t.”
“How are you going to get to her in a TVA that doesn’t know or trust you?”
“I’ll improvise.” Loki made another grab for the temp-pad but Not-Mobius was ready for him, grabbing his wrist.
“The last time you saw each other, things didn’t end well. What if she doesn’t want to go with you?”
‘Then at least I’ll know if she’s okay,” Loki muttered, as he struggled to free his forearm from Mobius’s vice-like grip.
“What if she isn't?” he questioned with raised eyebrows.
This caused Loki to still. He stopped his struggle as he steadied his breath and met not-Mobius’s eyes.
“Then at least she’ll know she still has me,” Loki responded quietly.
Something in not-Mobius’s gaze shifted. He sighed deeply in resignation before dropping Loki’s arm and handing him the temp-pad.
“Is it appropriate to tell a god, ‘godspeed’?” he asked as Loki began punching in digits.
“I’ll take it,” Loki said with a smirk he was using to hide a growing sense of unease as he opened a time door. Loki paused at the threshold of the portal, the reality of the situation finally set in. He took one look back at the not-TVA, and the agents standing behind him.
“Thank you, Mobius. For everything.” Loki nodded, being met with not-Mobius’ grateful smile.
With that, Loki stepped through the passageway.
All TVAs smelled the same. In every iteration Loki had been to, there was a distinct scent of freshly sharpened pencils and lemon dish soap that just seemed embedded in the very essence of the TVA. This was the first thing Loki noticed as he stepped through the portal into the archives of Branch - 64DR’s TVA. The second was that this not-TVA seemed near identical in layout to the last one he had been to, including the Kang shrine centring the library.
Loki had taken to dressing the part of an analyst in his time at the last not-TVA, so no one seemed to take much notice of him as he padded through the library and ducked into one of the endless rows of archives. As much as he hated to admit it, not-Mobius might have had a point about the whole “having a plan” idea.
Loki considered his options, he figured they would be holding Sylvie in a time theatre and considering the fact that she seemingly just killed their boss, she would be under a large security detail. He felt for his two daggers, snug in their holsters. Loki didn’t care if they had all the armies of the nine realms guarding her, nothing was going to stop him from reaching her.
With the promise ringing within him, Loki stepped around the corner back into the foyer of the archives, causing him to collide head first with a young analyst turning into the row Loki had just been hiding in. She let out a surprised yelp as the sudden collision caused the stack of files she had been carrying to slip through her grasp and onto the floor.
Loki internally cringed, barely taking note of the analyst dropping to the floor and collecting her papers. He couldn’t just walk away now without looking at best rude, and at worst suspicious. As he knelt down to help her he prayed the young woman was not overly familiar with the entirety of her coworkers.
“Sorry, I’m such a clutz,” the analyst whispered.
Despite its softness, the voice caused Loki to freeze.
“Sylvie?” his voice shook.
Loki’s voice revealed his desperation as he examined the figure in front of him. In her taupe corduroy suit, adorned with a shimmering gold TVA lapel and her hair pinned back, he wasn't surprised he had failed to initially recognize her. But studying her now there was no doubt the woman in front of him was Sylvie, his Sylvie. He took in every detail of her face, desperate to memorize it gods forbid they were ever separated again. He noticed that the cut above her eyebrow that she had gotten from their time on Lamentis had healed into a pale scar. But either then that she looked identical to how he had last seen her, except the burning rage fueling her then has been replaced with something unreadable.
“Sylvie, it’s me,” Loki whispered again, slightly louder.
Sylvie stared at him for what felt like an eternity before looking over her shoulder, seemingly checking to see if anyone was approaching from behind. fter confirming they were alone she turned back to face him.
As he waited for her to say something, to say anything, Loki searched her face for any sign as to what she was feeling seeing him again. He rapidly realized he was failing to hide the pure relief he felt, as tears clouded his vision. Blinking them away Loki gazed into Sylvie’s eyes. Distantly, in a corner of his consciousness he struggled to suppress, he noticed that something was off. Something in her eyes was… missing.
A revelation slowly began to compose itself in his mind, horrifying yet even without a clear shape Loki could understand was undeniable. The uniform, the way she was wandering the TVA unaccompanied, a memory of the expression not-Mobius had upon seeing the house he grew up in. Loki’s stomach dropped.
“ Recognition ” the corner of his mind finally mustered. What was missing from her eyes was recognition.
“I think you might have me confused with someone else,” Sylvie finally responded with a cheerful lilt, interrupting Loki’s mental spiral.
“It can be hard when we’re all wearing the same colours. They’re a bit drab to me, but you know. Dress codes and such,” she smiled with a small laugh.
Stacked the rest of her files neatly she got to her feet tucked the sheets under her arm, reaching out the other to help Loki up.
“I’m Agent Angela Axal, you must be another one of the new analysts.”