Marvel oneshots because I'm mentally ill

With You, Always. (Loki Season 2 spoilers)

Mobius always knew that he loved life in the TVA, although it was a difficult life filled with almost nothing but work. Life on the Timeline just seemed so dull and slow comparatively. Mobius was almost embarrassed to admit it, but he was already ready to leave it for the TVA, and he hadn't even lived a year on the Timeline.

So, pulling out the TemPad he had stored away for a moment just like this, Mobius left.

He found himself in the TVA again, in the main room. The ache in his stomach disappeared (someone once told him it was homesickness), and he suddenly felt more comfortable than he had ever felt on the timeline.

Casey was the first to notice Mobius's return, jumping up to give him a hug. While people basically lined up to welcome him back, Mobius couldn't shake the feeling that something was missing. Something important. Something he needed.

The days passed quickly, and Mobius was finally happy, having things to actually do that felt actually important. The deeper into the TVA Mobius sank, the worse the sensation got. It was close to the homesick feeling, something gnawing at him. What was he missing?

Then it hit him. Loki. Loki wasn't here anymore.

Obviously Mobius had known that, but Loki was always just such a presence that Mobius had never needed to think about him missing before. And sure, he thought about the huge, green, tree of time that the Timeline had turned into, but it was hard to think about the fact that Loki was sitting there, holding everything together.

Mobius could hardly believe it, that Loki had sacrificed everything and everyone just so he could protect the entire Timeline for the rest of Forever.

The thought of Loki up there, all alone, for all eternity, was enough to make Mobius close to tears. For his own, selfish reasons, he wished Loki hadn't done that, hadn't taken that burden as his own, and had instead figured something else out so he wouldn't have to be the one up there.

Fuck this, fuck everything. Why did it have to be Loki? The first person Mobius had gotten close to since Ravonna Renslayer, who had turned out to be a traitor. Obviously since then Mobius had gotten close with other people, the whole group that helped him and Loki save the Timeline, but none of his relationships with any of them felt the same as his relationship with the God of Mischief.

Once Mobius realized how empty and lonely everything felt with Loki's absence, the days passed slower. Dragging on and on and...

While this may have been contradictory to his initial sacrifice, Loki stopped caring once he realized Mobius was back in the TVA. He was so close, yet so far away... Loki could hear him, his voice traveling through the threads of the tree Loki held.

Suddenly, nothing would stop him from seeing Mobius at least once more. Honestly, how could he expect himself to be up here for all eternity without leaving every once in a while?

So, over the next passage of time that would normally be measured as a month if you went by the way time travels in the Timeline, Loki practiced, and tweaked things, and learned.

Through trial and more trial (there wasn't much room for error), Loki figured out how to tie the strands of time together with enough magic to last for at least a few hours, leaving him free to go back to the TVA.

He waited until he knew Mobius was free from any sort of work related duties, and tied together the strands of time.

As he carefully walked down to the TVA, the clothes he had been in that really worked for being what was essentially the God of Time now, melted away, leaving him in a white button-down shirt, black pants, and black boots that went halfway up to his knees.

He walked up to the blast doors that kept him from entering the TVA, green starting to glow from his palms as he raised his hands up, pointing them at the door and pulling them apart slowly, the doors following the motion of his hands and grinding open.

Loki jumped inside, taking a gasp of the air he had missed so much while outside of space and time. He dropped his hands to his sides, the green dissolving into his hands as the doors closed behind him.

He left the room he had seen Victor Timely die in so many times and went up the stairs, leading him into the room he had seen over and over again. He had the whole room memorized at this point, down to the side of the blue computer that Mobius had written on, tracing in the dust his fear about his skin peeling off.

Loki smiled at the distant memory from centuries ago. He wished he had known how little time he had had when that happened, when he thought he wasn't going to make it back to the correct time. He would have spent even more time with Mobius-er... his friends, than he already had.

He wondered if when they had started repairing the TVA's system from the reset if they had left the precautions off that prevented the use of magic within the facility. Loki decided to test this, holding his hand out in front of him in a fist and slowly opening his fingers, tiny fireworks exploding out from his palm. Loki smiled again, the little bit of magic making him think of both his mother and the simpler time of being on a train with Sylvie, though in that moment it seemed like the most dangerous part of his life.

He closed his hand again, this time a green line that circled around him, started at the top of his head and slid downwards, turning him into a random human he had once seen but wearing a TVA hunter's uniform. Hopefully nobody would look too carefully at him.

While Loki may have missed The Time Variants Authority, he only had a limited time and he wanted to spend as much of it as possible with the people (person) that mattered to him the most, not getting questioned by random workers wondering how it was possible that he was here and not at the Tree.

Loki almost ran out of that branch of the TVA, his mind searching for Mobius's aura before he locked onto it, following it like a compass, brushing past other workers and hunters who didn't look at him twice. He realized it was taking him to a part of the TVA that he had never seen before. It looked like a bunch of apartments, squished closely together.

The compass led him to one of the doors and Loki quickly looked around before realizing he was completely alone. Only very distant sounds alerted him to the presence of actual life. He got rid of the disguise and knocked on the door, his heart pounding suddenly so much faster than it had been even a few minutes before.

"Aw man, seriously? I just got on break-!" Mobius's painfully familiar voice said from inside, sounding defeated.

The door opened anyway, Mobius standing just inside the doorway. Loki managed a shy smile and a tiny wave. "Hi."

Mobius looked up at him with wide eyes, his emotions visibly changing from mildly upset to confused to surprise. "Loki?"

Loki nodded. "Sorry it took me so long-"

"Nono, hold up. Are you- You're actually Loki and not just someone playing a trick on me, right?" Mobius suddenly looked wary, his eyes narrowing as he examined the god.

"No, Mobius, it's really me," Loki said, holding out his hand slightly. "I promise."

"How- how'd you get here?" Mobius asked, his eyes still wide.

"Lots of trial and no room for error," Loki said, not interested in going into detail. "I'm sorry it took me so long. And I'm sorry for leaving the way I did."

Mobius grinned suddenly. "Don't apologize, you did what was best for the timeline, and at least you're here now."

Loki smiled again, still as shyly as before and almost shrank, moving into Mobius to hug him, resting his head on Mobius's shoulder. "I don't have very long."

"That's alright, I understand..." Mobius hugged Loki back gently, like he was afraid of Loki shattering. "I missed you."

"I promise I'm with you, always," Loki whispered.