Chapter Text
Mobius stood in front of a glowing orange time door, his hands shaking wildly.
"Well, what are you waiting for? The door is opened." Sylvie says in a bored, snarky voice.
"Yeah... I know... but are you sure this will go to the end of time and not some black hole in space."
Sylvie rolled her eyes. "Yes! It's the same door I kicked Loki out of, the same one I stepped through to come back, and the same one I shoved Renslayer through. And we all turned out fine."
Mobius looked at the Goddess blankly for a moment before turning to look back at the door. "Yeah, you did."
"So, what's wrong?" Sylvie asked.
Mobius continued to stare at the door for another minute before chuckling to himself while shaking his head. "No, you're right."
"Mobius?" B-15 said, from her place next to Sylvie, as they stood behind him in the center of the control room.
The analyst turned once more to look at the Minutemen commander. "Yeah, B?"
"If you're not sure about this, we can try something else." B-15 said encouragingly.
Mobius smiled gently at her before turning back to the door. "Nah. I got this, I just got a bit nervous, that's all. Anyway, here going nothing."
Mobius then took a step closer to the door before another voice stopped him.
"Mobius! Wait!" O.B. yelled.
Turning one more time, the analyst looked at the approaching genius curiously. "What's up, O.B.?"
"Here, take these and give them to Loki." O.B. said as he practically shoved a small leather bag into the older man's arms.
Mobius looked at the bag before looking back at the genius. "What's this? Hey, wait, wasn't this Timely's bag?"
O.B. looked a little sad as he nodded. "Yeah, but it was the only thing I had to put that stuff in."
"What stuff?" Mobius asked, opening the bag for a closer look.
"Well, I put a pen and a blank copy of the new TVA Handbook in there. You know, in case Loki wants to write stuff about the Time Tree in there." O.B. said hopefully.
Mobius smirked at the genius before looking back in the bag. The bag seemed darker now without the book and pen inside, then it should be, so Mobius reached in.
"Oh, wait, Mobius, you shouldn't..." O.B. panicked as he tried to reach for the analyst's arm.
"Oww! Shit, what the heck was that!?" Mobius yelled as he ripped his hand from the bag.
"Mobius?!" Everyone yelled as they all surrounded the analyst who was looking at the palm of his left hand.
"Oh no! You're bleeding!" Casey moaned, worried.
Mobius continued to stare at his hand, watching a few slow drops of blood slide from the cut on his palm and over his wrist, only to disappear into the cuff of his sleeve.
"Hold on, Mobius. I'm going to get the first aid kit in the hallway." Said B-15 urgently, already halfway turned towards the doorway.
But then everyone froze as they saw a faint glow coming from inside the analyst's shirt.
Mobius looked away from his hand to stare at his shirt for a moment before reaching into his collar and pulling out the now glowing ring. The beautiful emerald and topaz chips shine in gorgeous waves of green and orange.
"What's going on? Why's it glowing?" Mobius asked.
When suddenly all the alarms on the computer console started going off with an ear-splitting shriek.
"By the Gods! What is happening?" Sylvie yelled, trying to be heard over the din.
The ring in Mobius's hand suddenly started to float in the air, glowing brighter and bright, the higher it rose till it was blinding.
Mobius shivers slightly as a soft wave of energy flows over him. The energy is warm yet somehow cold, and it makes him feel like he was floating just like his ring.
He then notices the light seeming to dim from behind his eyelid and the energy around him moving to focus on his hand.
Daring to open his eyes, Mobius felt his jaw hit the floor as he watched the blood slowly move back up his arm and into the cut on his palm. Then, once all the blood was gone, Mobius starred in open fascination as the cut healed before his eyes.
Once the cut was gone, the glow around his hand started to fade slowly, as did the brilliant shine of the ring. When the light was finally gone, the ring dropped back into the analyst's hand, laying there quietly as if nothing had ever happened.
Mobius kept switching his gaze between the ring and his hand, jaw still hanging open, when suddenly he looked back up as the alarms just stopped, and the oppressive silence that followed somehow seemed worse.
"WHAT THE BLOODY HELL JUST HAPPENED!?" Sylvie screamed, breaking the tense silence around her, as she glared at Mobius.
The others in the room jumped, and Mobius seemed to have the good sense to take a step back from the agitated Goddess, clasping the ring to his chest in both of his now blood free hands.
"Hm." O.B. said, as he walked over to the analyst and held out his hand. "Mobius, may I see your hand, please?"
Mobius looked down at his tightly clenched hands for a moment before slowly moving his left hand away from his chest and into the genius's open palm.
O.B. held the analyst's hand gently in his warm calloused hands, as he turned it this way and that, closely observing every line and mark on Mobius's hand.
"Hey, Casey?" O.B. called, never taking his eyes off Mobius's hand.
"Yeah?" The younger analyst answered as he came up beside the two.
"Could you please go to the computer and see what the scanners just picked up?" O.B. asked, now starting to poke at Mobius's palm in fascination.
"Um, sure. Right away." Casey said as he quickly scurried away from his mentor and over to one of the console stations.
"What are you thinking, O.B.?" Mobius asked curiously.
"Hm?" O.B. hummed again before looking up at the analyst like he forgot whose hane he was examining. "Oh, well, I would rather wait till Casey looks at the readings... but.... I think you might already have guessed."
"Loki...." Mobius said, breathing out the name like the holiest of prayers.
O.B. nodded solemnly. "Yeah, somehow I think he....."
"Oh my god! O.B., the computer just picked up so much temporal radiation around the TVA..." Casey said frantically, interrupting the genius.
O.B. nodded. "That's exactly what I thought...."
"And... and some of the radiation was in here as well?" Casey interrupted again, this time sounding confused. "And it appeared..."
As Casey trailed off, the others in the room turned to him, only to see him staring directly at Mobius.
"He healed me somehow." Mobius said, and it wasn't said as a question, it was stated as a fact.
"But how?" Sylvie asked curiously as she now stood next to the analyst as well, watching as O.B. continued to examine his hand.
"If I had to guess, since Loki is now the Guardian of Time, then it's logical to say that Loki somehow turned back time and fixed Mobius's injury." O.B. said seriously, finally releasing the analyst's hand.
Casey suddenly appeared behind Mobius, looking down at his newly healed hand. "Did it hurt when it was being healed?"
Mobius turned slightly to look over his shoulder at the younger analyst. "No. Actually, there was no pain at all." Mobius then looked at his other hand that was holding his ring. "But why did my ring glow like that?"
"I'm not sure, that sounds like something you should ask Loki." O.B. answered with a small smirk.
"Great." Mobius said blandly as he bent down to grab the leather bag he had dropped on the floor. He then thrust it in the genius's direction with an annoyed face. "So what did I cut myself on in here, anyway?"
O.B. gently took the bag from Mobius before opening it and slowly pulling out two shiny sharp daggers.
"Loki's daggers?" Mobius whispered, breathlessly. "How? He said he lost them on Lamentis 1. So..."
O.B. gave a wordless shug as he held the items out for the analyst to inspect.
As Mobius carefully grabbed the hilts and raised the daggers closer to his face, O.B. tried to explain. "I was organizing a few things in my workshop recently when I found them sitting in a large cup with a bunch of pens. And I have no idea how they got there."
Mobius was barely listening as his whole attention was on the two sharp weapons in his hands, Loki's weapons. But then he frowned as he saw the few drops of his own blood drying on one of the blades. "Hey, Sylvie?"
"Yes?" The Goddess answered, coming to stand closer to the analyst.
"How do you clean blood off weapons? I can't give them to Loki like this." He turned saddened eyes onto the variant. "I mean, he healed me, which means he probably already knows what happened, but I don't want to upset him by giving these to him like that, and besides..."
"Alright!" Sylvie said loudly, interrupting Mobius's babbled words as she held out her hands. "Give them to me for a moment, and I'll fix them."
The analyst looked down at the blades before reluctantly holding them out for the Goddess to take.
"Oh, don't look at me like that. I'm not going to steal them." Sylvie said, annoyed. "Yes, they are beautiful blades, but I much prefer my machete to these small things."
Mobius suddenly gave a small, warm chuckle. "Yeah, that definitely proves that you and Loki are your own separate people, even if you are variants."
Sylvie gave the analyst her own small smile before going to one of the console stations to clean the daggers.
Mobius turned back to the genius, his eyes zooming in on the bag still in his hands. "Anything else in that bag?"
O.B. suddenly looked nervous, as he glanced at the Minutemen commander who had been quietly observing everyone since Mobius was magically healed.
Feeling her sudden glare, the genius reached into the bag one more time and pulled out a small shiny, copper colored object.
"No!" B-15 yelled, when the item was fully out in the open. "You are not giving Loki a tempad."
"But..." O.B. started to explain, but was cut off by the angry dark-skinned woman.
"Do you know what kind of Chaos he would cause with that?" B-15 asked angried.
Mobius suddenly laughed out loud, his deep voice echoing throughout the room.
The Minutemen commander turned her glare on the analyst. "What are you laughing at?"
Mobius took a deep breath to try and calm himself. "B, he's the god of time now. I have a feeling, especially after what just happened to my hand, that anything the tempad can do, he can probably do 10 times better. Right O.B.?"
The genius nodded enthusiastically. "Exactly! That's what I was thinking."
Casey looked at his mentor in confusion. "But, if that's true, why give him a tempad at all?"
"Well..." O.B. started, as he turned the device over a few times between his fingers. "There is only one thing I can think of that a tempad can do that Loki can't. And would also be helpful to us, especially you, Mobius."
The analyst narrowed his eyes curiously at the genius. "Oh yeah? What's that?"
"A communicator." O.B. said with a smile.
Mobius's eyes suddenly filled with tears as he looked at the tempad.
"Mobius?" O.B. said gently, placing a soothing hand on the distraught man's shoulder. "It's only in case we can't get him out right way. That way we can still talk to him. Tell him what's going on."
"Then he won't feel so alone anymore." Mobius whispered.
O.B.'s smile brightened. "Exactly!"
"Thanks O.B.." Mobius quickly shoved everything back into the bag before feeling a tap on his shoulder. Turning around, Mobius saw Sylvie standing there with a pair of sparkling daggers in her hand.
Smiling grateful to the Goddess, Mobius took the daggers by the hilts before carefully laying them inside the bag.
"You better get going, you don't want to keep our God of Time waiting." Sylvie said with a cheeky smile worthy of any Loki.
Mobius clipped the bag closed, then slung it over his head. "Right!"
Mobius then turned towards the time door then Sylvie once again opened to the End of Time, but this time it looked different.
Instead of the normal orange see-through door, now it was a shining emerald green.
Mobius looked back at Sylvie, who looked just as confused as Mobius felt.
"It's never done that before." Sylvie said softly.
Mobius then turned to O.B., who just shrugged. "I've got no idea. It must be Loki again."
"Be careful." B-15 said sternly.
Mobius gave her a salute and a smile before he turned back to the door, took a deep breath and moved to walk through.
'I'm almost there, Sweetheart. Wait for me.' Mobius thought as the doorway enveloped him in green.