Chapter Text
Loki had never truly wanted a throne, but instead, he had been haunted by the promise of one.
It was a promise whispered in the corridors of Asgard's palace, implied by all the stories Odin had told both his sons. It was a promise snarled by the Titan in the void, a deal of servitude disguised as fate. Different voices, different realms, all offering the same empty words. Approval, worth, if only he would contort himself to fit in. He collected these promises like shattered glass. He was broken in millions of pieces just like a mirror, each piece reflecting a part of him.
What he wanted, really wanted, was to be seen. To prove that he was more than the shadows he was forced to live in, that he could shine just like the perfect son that was Thor. He yearned for recognition, for love. But the game, he realised too late, was rigged from the very first move.
The board was set before he ever knew he was a player. He was stolen from people who had no stake in the game, raised as a pawn told he could be anything. The path ahead was a psychological labyrinth designed for him to fail. Every one of his attempts, every desperate but clever scheme was bound to fail. His magic, the very core of his being was deemed womanly, an artifice, a treachery. All he knew, all he took as true in this world and the next was falsehood. Loki was not the God of Lies. He was the God of being lied to.
He watched the past, his own past a thousand times. Every different version of it. The timelines were waiting there for him, in his hands. He saw himself as a crocodile, as a woman. He saw the frost giant prince he was deep inside, and the Asgardian second son he was becoming one too many times.
He watched all the branching moments, all the decisions he took where his life took a different path. A second of hesitation, a different word, a helping hand would have changed everything.
Mobius had called it with that dull voice of an administrative employé. “You’re destined to lose. It’s in your nature.” Hard truth.
Or another lie. As Loki watched, he came to an understanding. It was not destiny. It was not even his nature. Not entirely.
It was an agent of the TVA pruning what they thought should be.
Every time some people took a step in another direction, becoming too free from their narrative of the ‘Sacred Timeline’, the TVA appeared. They just pruned the branch, not trying to understand what could be. That moment of unexpected heroism? Pruned. That reign of surprisingly benevolent mischief? Pruned. Even the path where he found not a throne, but peace? Pruned with extreme prejudice.
He did not lose every time because he was Loki. He lost every time because the TVA intervened each and every time he was about to win on his own terms. His destiny was not to fail. It was to push somebody else forward. The game was not just rigged. The board was guarded by time-cops who vaporised any move they did not authorise.
Sat upon his throne of time, Loki could have changed his past. He could reach a hand into any reality and pull a single strand away. The lie of Odin for example. He could rewrite the first chapter and change every story that followed. He could act like the god he was and touch every branched reality where a version of him suffered and finally grant them the validation they craved, the love they were denied, the future they were promised. He could give them all everything they were owed.
But he did not.
Instead, he turned his gaze to the future. The multiverse was branching in all directions, so much that it was difficult to see. He did not know what he truly expected to find. Happiness or peace never lasted. Perhaps an evolution, an understanding. Hope.
But not this.
A pattern emerged from the beautiful chaos. It was slow at times, faster in other cases. Every timeline, no matter the decisions made, met the same ultimate fate. They were all doomed. Every single one.
Galactus.
The Devourer of Worlds. The Hunger That Walks.
The TVA with all their works and pruning had just shaped every reality to that ending. Loki was at the front row seat, watching the disaster coming. The irony in all that? Thanos had been right.
The Mad Titan’s maths, as twisted and genocidal as it was, now looked like foresight. Galactus was not the villain of the week. He did not want power, conquest or a throne. He was a cosmic force drawn to abundance. He came for the strongest timelines, the most vibrant and populated, the ones burning with the brightest energy. A universe teeming with life was just a dinner bell ringing in the silent void.
The Snap, the brutal killing of half of all life had kept Galactus away. Their timeline, weakened, had been less visible to that eternal hunger. I would not have been a total salvation, but it would have pushed the execution further down the line. But that was just postponing. Galactus was truly inevitable.
When the Avengers managed to bring everybody back, it was not a quiet miracle. It was like lightening a beacon in the dark directly in Galactus' direction. Where there had been a void, there was now an incredible surplus of life. The cheering, the embraces, the joy from the people of Earth were real, but they would not last. The war against Thanos was over. Another conflict was coming soon, bigger than anything before.
For all his newfound power, controlling time, Loki could only do so much. He held the timelines, and could bend them to his will. He was the sacred weaver. But he was just holding them to sustain them. He was the dam, not the solution to the flood. The pressure was constant. He needed to act. Loki was a patient man, a scholar. He began to experiment.
His first attempts were small, a touch. He tried to nudge a key moment earlier or later. He guided people toward a defensive technology way before schedule. He whispered warnings in the ears of key players. Some changes delayed the end by decades. Others hastened it. All were ultimately futile. The Devourer adapted, outwaited him. Loki’s interventions grew bolder. It did not change anything.
Loki finally came to two conclusions.
First, he realised his own error. He had been clinging to a location. But going through all that testing, he became something more. He was not holding time. He had become time. The threads were not bound to a place, but to himself. Loki could now be anywhere, everywhere, and nowhere. The work could be done from within. This was freedom, something he had given away not so long ago.
And second, after watching an infinite number of endings, a possibility seemed to emerge. A possibility so slim it was almost inexistant. There was a way to beat Galactus, a way to outmanoeuvre him.
The task ahead was unbelievable. He could not do this alone. The plan required someone with a meticulous mind, but also a friend. Mobius. The man understood systems and logistics. He would be his anchor, this moment in time Loki could always come back to. Loki hoped that Mobius would be happy to see him again, and would accept to help him in yet another crazy adventure.
Loki would also need heroes. A precise team. He was not looking for the strongest Thor, or the smartest Stark. He was looking for the right one. He needed the best versions of the heroes. But best did not mean raw might or flawless morality. It was about being the unique cog that would turn exactly as needed within the impossibly complex machine he had to build.
A version of Captain America whose strategic genius was born from a lifetime of battles, not just serum’enhanced reflexes. A Thor whose wisdom was carved from true failure, not just age. A Tony Stark whose ingenuity was fueled by a need to protect, not only to redeem himself. A Clint Barton who would know what was really important in his life before losing it to the snap. A Natasha Romanov who would find what loyalty meant before the last fall. A Bruce Banner whose alter ego would be a friend, not someone to be scared of.
Loki would need more than the team he had helped create. The Avengers were familiar but would not be enough, not this time.
He would also need the X-Men, a team that already worked like a well oiled machine. Each member had their own kind of power. He would also need the Brotherhood because when all lives were at stake, there was no good or bad anymore. Only people who would do anything to survive. The Fantastic Four were essential too, their brain and bravado. They were explorers, the one who would meet Galactus first in each timeline.
Outside the teams, he was going to need the singular talents, the wild cards. Doctor Strange, Spider-Man, Daredevil. Black Panther and the might of Wakanda would be key no doubt. The Scarlet Witch’s power might actually hold Galactus away just enough for the plan to work. Loki would need the Guardians old and new and everyone he could find along his way.
When Loki appeared in front of Mobius, time stood still. It was not a dramatic freeze, with birds stopped in mid-air and steam stopped in a perfect arabesque over the cup. It was more subtle than that. Mobius’ own heart skipped a bit. He forgot how to breathe for a second. He stood frozen, his mind not managing to understand what was happening.
One second, a second that had been carved into his very soul, he was watching a door close. A heavy gate of metal sealing shut on a silhouette of emerald and gold light. His Loki was on the other side, his friend and so much more. The God of Mischief looked resolute and sad, holding the screaming branches of a multiverse together. It was a sacrifice, Loki saying to ‘save us all.’
And the next second, without transition, no flash of light, no walking back, Loki was here. Not an astral projection, not an hallucination. Solid, real, just in front of Mobius. But he was not the God of Mischief anymore. He looked different. Not a day older, but there was some deeper in him, calmer. His battle gear quickly disappeared, replaced by a simple suit. Even the green of his magic looked richer.
Mobius’ TVA mind short-circuited. The door was closed. It had to be closed. For reality to exist, it ‘had’ to be closed. This was an impossibility, something against the rules of the TVA. A glitch in the system at the most fundamental level.
He stared, his mouth slightly opened. He was not afraid, not of Loki, not of the implication of the god being there. He just needed to understand, to have something that would make a semblance of sense at that precise moment. Not that he was not happy to see Loki. Quite the contrary.
And then Loki spoke. His voice was the same, yet different, wiser maybe. “Hello, Mobius.”
He smiled. And then he began to explain. How he had come back and why. The explanation was just crazy. The plan that followed made the explanation sound sane by comparison. Mobius listened. Because Loki had already managed the impossible after all.
“We’re going to need to find the best timeline to tackle Galactus,” Loki said, his voice confident, stripped of its normal theatrical flair. “One brimming with life that will attract the Devourer first. A reality with a strong, flexible fabric.” He placed a hand on Mobius' shoulder, squeezing slightly. “It will be our staging ground. Our workshop. And I’m going to bring everybody there. One by one.”
Loki stopped to breathe a second, his eyes never leaving Mobius’ ones. “Against their will, if I have to. This is not an invitation to a tea party. They might not come just because I'll be the one warning them. They will see the trick before they see the necessity. So I will not give them the choice to refuse.”
Then, the god’s shoulders dropped a little. “But I need you to help me,” he said, vulnerable and true. “I will always be the god of lies for them. You can be the man behind the lies, the one with the facts. And be there for them, make them work together in ways I would never be able to. I can find the perfect Thor from the branches of time, but you’re the one who can convince him to trust the hammer in his hand when the one giving the orders is me. I need you to be a gateway, the human touch. The one that will make them understand that what we will be doing is a necessary collaboration.”
Loki’s hand squeezed tighter. “I am Time itself, Mobius. But I am alone in that. I cannot do this alone.”