You Go, I Go

Chapter 4

They knocked on the heavy doors of the wizard's New York home and were greeted by an annoyed Dr Strange.

"So, I presume you two are the reason we have branching timelines?" he all but groaned, looking at Loki and Sylvie. "I've been expecting you all, so come in." The group of five began to walk.

"We didn't mean to cause a bother, really," Loki said apologetically.

"You're Lokis," Strange responded. "I can't particularly blame you for what's been ingrained in your timeline structure. And before you start, Sylvie, yes you are a Loki, however, I presumed you'd been over that with Mobius."

Sylvie closed her mouth, which she had been about to use to speak. "So, what exactly is the plan, wizard?" she settled on asking.

"First, we need to assemble the remaining Avengers," he stated. "What may have been weeks for you, have been days for them. They just lost Iron Man and Black Widow last week. Captain America, too, but that was his choice. A lifetime of Avengers work, and he threw it away for a lifetime with some woman. Pathetic if you ask me."

"You sound bitter," Loki stated.

"Not bitter," Strange replied. "I just find it questionable to change your life for someone who may very well be temporary."

"Permanence is never promised," Mobius stated. "Take me and Ravonna for example."

"She was right," Strange responded. "You threw away an eons-long friendship for two Lokis, who you had no idea were telling the truth or not."

"But they were," Mobius argued. "And Ravonna and I built a friendship based off of a lie, whether we knew it or not. It's a poor foundation to build a castle on a mountain made of sand."

"I suppose so," the wizard muttered, defeated by Mobius' wits. "So, we have Hulk, Captain Marvel, Scarlet Witch, Falcon, the Winter Soldier, War Machine, Ant-Man and, of course, me. There's a second Vision wandering about out there with the original Vision's memories, probably having an existential crisis."

"How convenient," Loki stated sarcastically.

"If that imbecile Hayward hadn't reconstructed Vision, this wouldn't be an issue," Stephen groaned irritably, before sighing. "Are you prepared to see your brother again?"

"I think the real question is, is he ready to see me?" Loki counteracted. "A few weeks ago, for me, I stole the Tesseract. A few weeks ago, for him, I was dead."

"Unfortunately for both of you," Kang stated, "I don't believe either of your feelings will particularly matter to my Variants. Loki, you saw what they did to that TVA."

"What?" Sylvie asked.

"One of his Variants," Loki sighed. "He went through a TVA and essentially pruned everyone. There wasn't a soul around besides myself and Kang."

"Wait," Mobius said. "You mean to tell me that one of your Variants can just vaporise entire populations at will?"

"He got his hands on a soul stone," Kang shrugged.

"Yeah, we're gonna need all the help we can get," Strange groaned. "Why is it that whenever the worlds are at risk of ending, it is always you?"

Loki put his hands up in surrender. "Look, none of this has been my fault," he pointed out. "If your Avengers hadn't scuffed the mission to retrieve the stones from every and anywhere in time, I wouldn't have gotten the Tesseract. Everything after that was just a byproduct of that mess."

The wizard rolled his eyes and conjured a whiteboard. Over the next three hours, the team of five devised a plan to defeat the Kang Variants. Before long, they were headed to the Avengers' compound. Waiting for them outside were the remaining Avengers, minus Wanda and Thor.

"Where are they?" Stephen asked.

Carol shrugged. "We haven't heard from her since Tony's funeral," she told him. "And Thor is running late. We haven't told him about..." She trailed off, looking at Loki.

The wizard rolled his eyes. "I'll go get her," he sighed in exasperation, opening a portal and stepping through.

Loki, Sylvie, Kang and Mobius looked around the outside of the compound uncomfortably. "It's a nice place you have here," Mobius stated, attempting to make small talk.

"It took a lot of manpower to rebuild after..." Bruce couldn't even finish his sentence.

"I'm sorry about Nat," Sylvie said suddenly, and necks snapped with heads turning so quickly to look at her. "It... it was a blip of time when I killed Kang - He Who Remains. I saw pretty much everything from the beginning of time to the end of the Sacred Timeline. I know you loved her. She loved you, too."

Bruce pulled her in for a hug with a sad smile. "Thank you," he sniffled. "I really needed to hear that."

Sylvie reluctantly hugged him back. "I'm sorry about Tony and Steve, too," she added, directing her attention to the rest of the group. "I know Steve's departure was a happy time for him, but I'm sure it hurt you all the same. Tony died a hero, and he would be proud of you all."

This appeared to be the point in time Thor thought best to arrive. "Friends!" his voice boomed. "What's the occasion?"

Bruce cleared his throat, moving out of the way of Thor's vision of Loki, and Thor's jaw dropped. "What trickery is this?" he demanded.

"No trickery, brother," Loki told him. "I'm really here."

"No," Thor said. "You're not my brother. He's dead."

"Technically, that is correct," Loki stated. "Your brother from this timeline did, in fact, die. I'm from the 2012 New York timeline where the Avengers lost the Tesseract. I took it and created a nexus event, so I was captured by the TVA. It's a long story."

Thor shook his head. "This isn't possible!" he yelled. "I watched you die!"

"In fairness to Loki," Carol stated, "this isn't like the other times he faked his death. He did really die. In our timeline. If anything, it's Tony and Scott's fault for botching the timeline up when they were retrieving the Space Stone."

"We don't have a lot of time to discuss this," Kang stated, speaking up for the first time. "This isn't your Loki, per sé, Thor, but he still has the same attributes as yours, minus being dead. In fact, he's upgraded, for lack of a better term. He wants to fight with the Avengers, not against you."

"We really do need to discuss the details another time," Mobius said. "There are a bunch of Kang Variants running around the multiverse trying to become the ruler of all time and space, and not a fair one, either."

Thor looked around, then settled his eyes on Sylvie. "And who are you?" he asked her.

"I'm..." Sylvie found it hard to explain it. "I'm technically a Loki Variant. But I never liked the connotation. So, I go by Sylvie."

"And you two?" Thor turned to Mobius and Kang.

"I'm Mobius," the agent told him. "I'm an agent for the TVA, which governs time, but is fairly useless in our current predicament."

"I'm Kang," the former time-lord stated. "I'm trying to help you guys take out my Variants. We're going to put Loki and Sylvie in charge of the Sacred Timeline."