"Enough! Are you two even capable of acting your age?!"

Finally, Sylvie hit the breaking point and roared. The endless bickering of two Lokis that had been looping like a broken record beside her finally, mercifully, stopped.

Yang Luoluo, whose head had been buzzing from the racket, felt the entire world go quiet.

Given prior experience, God Loki shut up obediently. The Loki who had just been yelled at, on the other hand, showed zero remorse, let out a cold snort, and snapped straight back.

"Give me a break. We're all Lokis here. If anyone's being childish, we all are equally."

Sylvie ground teeth together and whipped out two long blades in a single fluid motion. The other two Lokis drew their own daggers at the same time.

Three Lokis. Three identical expressions of aggressive irritation. All aimed at each other.

The scene was deeply, profoundly bizarre.

Sylvie didn't even get a chance to snap back before a collective earth-shaking roar from the assembled Avengers cut everything off.

"What?! She's a Loki too?!"

"Don't call me by that stupid name!" The innocently implicated Loki and God Loki exchanged a glance. Sylvie sheathed the long blades with obvious annoyance. "I have a name. Call me Sylvie."

Tony Stark had already checked out entirely. From the very beginning, Tony had failed to notice the man and woman standing beside God Loki, and the one Tony had managed to overlook turned out to also be a Loki.

Tony cast a tentative look toward Mobius M. Mobius. Mobius caught it instantly, gave a quick wave of both hands, and offered an easy smile.

"I know what you're thinking. I'm not another Loki. Just call me Mobius."

That gentle smile somehow elevated the credibility of those words by several notches. It offered Tony approximately one full second of comfort before Tony went right back to questioning everything about reality.

"OMG, even a female Loki has appeared. This world really is going to end..."

Clint Barton took a deep breath, barely managed to steady Natasha Romanoff, who had gone expressionlessly blank with shock, took pity on Steve Rogers and pushed Steve's hanging jaw shut, gave Bruce Banner a comforting pat as Banner teetered on the verge of passing out, and only then squeezed both eyes shut and fell backward in despair.

Fortunately, Peter Parker had fast reflexes and caught Clint.

Thor's expression was complicated. After several seconds of visibly labored processing, Thor cautiously addressed Sylvie.

"S-Sister?"

Perhaps because Thor was so genuinely stunned, the bright sunny sky chose that exact moment to rumble with thunder.

"...Don't call me sister." Sylvie suppressed the urge to run Thor through with a blade and cast a look of pure disdain in Thor's direction. "My sister was far smarter than you."

Sylvie had been forcibly ripped away from Asgard at a very young age. That did nothing to stop Sylvie from holding high expectations for a sister's intellect, at the very least, not like this Thor, surely?

Thor, having now been looked down upon in succession by two younger brothers and a younger sister, shut down completely.

Watching Thor get verbally demolished and shrink off to the side looking utterly pitiful, Loki immediately couldn't hold back.

Sure, Thor was undeniably an idiot. But that didn't mean any random Loki off the street had the right to bully him.

Just as Loki was about to storm forward and get into it with Sylvie, a massive rumbling sound split the air. The light of the Bifrost faded, and from behind, a gentle voice cut through everything and stopped Loki in his tracks.

"Loki? You asked me to come here — what's this about — hmm?!"

Loki could swear on Thor's axe that this was the first time in living memory that he had heard Frigga's voice crack with surprise.

"Mother? What are you doing here?"

The moment Frigga's voice registered, Thor dropped every trace of gloom and jogged over eagerly to stand at her side.

"I received a message from Loki..."

Frigga still looked slightly dazed. Her bewildered gaze drifted back and forth between the three Lokis in front of her,

Sylvie was female, with an appearance nothing like the other two Lokis. And yet Frigga knew, purely on instinct, that Sylvie was a Loki too.

"So... Loki was a triplet this whole time?" Frigga murmured, and somewhere deep in her heart, a flicker of quiet reproach rose toward Odin, who had long since departed for Valhalla.

Honestly. Why only bring one back? It wasn't as if Asgard couldn't afford to raise four children.

...This kept getting more ridiculous.

Loki closed both eyes in despair.

Yang Luoluo had been watching the entire farce from the sidelines. She couldn't help the twitch at the corner of her mouth. She tugged at Loki's sleeve and lowered her voice.

"How did you think to call Frigga here too?"

Loki replied quietly, "I figured if Mother knew about this, she'd want to see them. If we missed the chance and she found out later, she might blame me and Thor for it."

Though Loki wasn't exactly thrilled about letting Frigga see the other two versions of himself either.

Loki curled a lip and said nothing more.

Thor glanced across the three Lokis, each wearing a different expression, Loki looking sour and irritated, the other Loki staring at Frigga with open nostalgia, and Sylvie still slightly dazed.

Thor stepped in quickly, leaning close to explain to Frigga in a low voice, "Loki said he didn't have any other siblings. Those two are also Lokis, from other universes, I'd guess..."

"Well. This is quite the... unexpected surprise."

After a long moment, Frigga finally came back to herself. Warm amusement broke through her eyes all at once, and it was impossible to look at her and not see how happy she was.

Frigga moved toward the three Lokis.

She looked first at Loki, who was still wearing an expression of mild displeasure, and then at Yang Luoluo beside Loki, currently buzzing with delighted curiosity at the spectacle. As the Goddess of Love, Frigga could sense the shift in the air between them without trying.

She reached over and gently smoothed a wrinkle out of Loki's clothes. Then she turned to Yang Luoluo and lowered her voice to just above a murmur, one eye dipping in a wink.

"I very much look forward to the day you call me Mother as well."

Yang Luoluo's cheeks went bright red in an instant. Loki, a beat later, was suddenly on the receiving end of deeply unfriendly stares from every Avenger in the vicinity.

Frigga moved on, stepping up before God Loki and Sylvie.

"My children." Her warm palms cradled their faces, and the look in her eyes as she took them in was full of tenderness and pain in equal measure.

Frigga didn't need sorcery. The moment she saw God Loki and Sylvie, she could simply tell how much they had been through.

God Loki blinked. A stinging heat gathered behind both eyes, and the next second tears were threatening to spill. Unable to help it, God Loki pulled Frigga into a hug and held on.

"Mother. I missed you so much..."

The voice that came out was rough at the edges. Frigga felt it, and ached. She stroked God Loki's back slowly, murmuring comfort.

"I'm here, child. I'm here."

God Loki pressed a face into Frigga's shoulder, eyes burning red, tears pooling and fought back just as hard.

There was so much to say. That God Loki had been seized by a strange and terrible organization. That while there, God Loki had watched an entire life play out from start to finish. That God Loki had finally, genuinely, made a few real friends. That God Loki had saved countless timelines. That the future waiting at the end of all of it was a throne at the center of a loneliness that had no end.

God Loki wanted Frigga to be proud. But none of it could be said, not any of the parts that would only make her grieve.

So God Loki stayed there. Face buried. Every single word stuck somewhere below the throat, unable to move. All Frigga could feel was the faint tremor running through that frame, and it settled in her chest like a dull, bruising ache.

"Sniff... sniff..."

A tiny, muffled sob broke through from somewhere behind them. Every emotion that had been building in God Loki scattered at once. God Loki turned with an irritated look to see what was happening.

Clint Barton was quietly backing away with one hand clamped over Peter Parker's mouth, clearly hoping to go unnoticed. Two tears were dangling precariously at the corners of Peter Parker's eyes.

God Loki took a slow breath.

"...What are you crying for?"

Were all Midgardian kids this sentimental?

Clint Barton would very much like to know the answer to that question too. The God of Mischief and his mother were right there having a moment, and this kid decided to wade in, for what possible reason?

Peter Parker's lower lip wobbled. One word in and the tears were already making a return visit. "It's just — it's so touching, mmph —"

Clint Barton put the hand back expressionlessly.

Nearby, Loki had a strange flash of memory: Peter Parker watching a film, exactly like this. The kid had always been like that. Feelings everywhere, all the time.

Peter Parker's small interruption did two things at once: it shook God Loki loose from the weight of the moment, and it pulled Frigga up out of her own heartache too.

She stroked God Loki's cheek once more in gentle comfort, then turned her gaze to Sylvie.

➤ Next: TVA

Chapter 130 - TVA

Unlike Loki, Sylvie had not spent over a thousand years with both parents by her side. The TVA had taken her when she was still a child, and ever since, she had spent her life running, one apocalypse after another, always one step ahead of capture.

In Sylvie's memory, the faces of her parents and sister had long since blurred beyond recognition. Years of drifting had filled her with suspicion and wariness toward everything and everyone. She had always firmly believed she didn't need family.

She could get along perfectly fine on her own.

Yet now, Frigga was standing right beside her, arms open wide, smiling as she said, "Not going to give me a hug, my child?"

Only then did Sylvie understand that everything she'd ever told herself had been self-deception. From the moment she first laid eyes on Frigga, she had barely been able to stop herself from throwing her arms around her.

"Oh, how heartbreaking. You really won't give your mother a hug?"

Frigga put on a wounded expression right on cue, her voice dropping with it, though her arms stayed stubbornly outstretched toward Sylvie.

At that, Yang Luoluo instinctively glanced over at Loki.

Mother and son, all right. Even their dramatics were completely identical. If anything, looking at the two of them side by side, Thor seemed even more like the adopted one.

Poor Thor.

"No!" Sylvie couldn't stand seeing Frigga make that face. The word burst out before she could stop it, and then she scrambled to walk it back.

"I — I mean... can I?"

"Of course you can. You are my child. My daughter. Why on earth wouldn't you?"

Frigga looked at the red-faced girl with feigned surprise, though something in her chest quietly sank.

What had this daughter of hers, from another universe entirely, been through, that even a hug could make her this uncertain?

Frigga stood there with her arms open, smiling warmly, watching Sylvie's expression cycle through a dozen different things. Sylvie wrestled with herself for a long moment, then finally gave up and threw herself into the embrace.

"Alright — I mean, thank you..."

Sylvie muttered softly into her chest. But Frigga could feel it clearly: the fabric at her front was slowly growing damp.

"No." Frigga stroked Sylvie's back in slow, gentle circles. "I should be thanking you." A soft laugh. "I never actually thought I'd have a daughter someday."

Not that Frigga ever said so, but the truth was she had envied the mothers in Asgard with daughters for a very long time.

Setting Hela aside, Hela was not her biological daughter to begin with, and Odin had sealed Hela away in Hel long before Frigga ever came to Asgard. Frigga had never so much as met Hela.

Her elder son had all the brute strength in the world and absolutely no interest in using his head. Her younger son had enough schemes packed inside him to fill several lifetimes. Every time Frigga looked at those two, she felt tired.

A daughter would have been better. At the very least, a daughter wouldn't, shouldn't, have the Asgardian guards turning up at her door every other day with reports like "The first prince and second prince are fighting again," "The first prince and second prince are fighting again again," and "The first prince and second prince are fighting yet again."

Frigga sighed.

Both Lokis scoffed at the exact same moment, shooting identical unfriendly looks at Sylvie in Frigga's arms. Thor just stood beside Frigga looking quietly wronged, and when Thor caught the teasing looks from the others, the expression got even more awkward.

Buried in Frigga's embrace, listening to that gentle, unhurried voice, Sylvie felt her whole body settle, the tight-wound coil of her slowly releasing. And then it hit her, all at once, exactly how embarrassing this scene had been.

She had actually rushed into her mother's arms in front of everyone. And then she had cried.

Oh no. That was absolutely mortifying.

Sylvie curled a little deeper into the embrace in pure resignation. The scent reached her then, sunlight and ink, and she found herself wondering whether Frigga had been in the middle of handling state affairs when she came.

Wrapped in that warmth, she was carried back without warning to an afternoon long ago. Before the TVA. Before everything. Back when she was still a small princess, growing up bright and easy under the care of her parents and her sister.

Her mother's scent had been exactly this. Little Sylvie resting across her mother's lap while Frigga told her stories, warm sunlight falling over them both, the smell of ink slipping quietly into her nose.

Oh no. She was going to cry again.

Sylvie blinked fast, forced the stinging down through sheer will, and finally pulled herself free from the embrace.

She sniffled. Quickly rearranged her face. And then she was back: the closed-off, don't-come-near-me look that was the first thing everyone had seen when they met her.

"So," Tony said, holding a fistful of popcorn, chewing, "do all Lokis switch faces that fast?"

"Trust me." Mobius had somehow drifted over to where the Avengers were standing, expression somewhere between tired and resigned. "Every single Loki is like that. I've met quite a few."

Tony shifted attention to Mobius. "Speaking of which — what's your deal with Loki, exactly?"

"Uh... friend and subordinate?" Mobius considered for a few seconds, then went with it.

"Subordinate?" Clint had been mind-controlled by Loki once upon a time, and that word still hit wrong. The expression that crossed Clint's face was not pleasant. "This isn't some kind of villain organization, is it?"

There was really no helping it. Everything Loki had done was burned too deep into their memories, and the fact that Loki still pulled pranks from time to time while living right there at the Avengers Compound made it genuinely hard for any of them to see things differently.

"What? No!"

Mobius stared at Clint with an expression that said what are you even talking about, and casually reached over to steal a few pieces of popcorn from Clint's bucket.

"I know you all have a lot of baggage with Loki. But Loki wasn't born this way."

"At the very least, the Loki on our side cannot be summed up with the word 'villain.' If you had to pick one word..."

"I'd say: hero."

Saving countless lives across thousands of timelines. How could that not be a hero?

Steve moved quickly, cutting off whatever skepticism Clint was about to fire back with. Mobius and Loki were friends. Hearing something like that would not go over well.

"Could you, uh, elaborate on that?"

Steve managed a warm smile. The moment the words were out, the whole group closed in around Mobius, expressions ranging from curious to expectant.

Mobius swallowed the last of the popcorn and looked Steve up and down.

They were the Avengers. Sharing some of the truth with them should be fine. And since Loki clearly didn't want them knowing what Loki had actually done, Mobius could just leave that part out.

"Alright, Captain America. Seeing as you're a Captain America."

"Hang on." Tony cut in, sounding genuinely annoyed. "What does 'seeing as he's a Captain America' mean? Does Iron Man not count?"

Steve let out a long-suffering sigh.

"I didn't mean it like that. You have to understand, the nature of my work means I've seen all kinds of Steve Rogers."

Mobius went on, "For example, uh... Captain Cat. Captain Pig-country. Captain Hydra. That last one, honestly, was not easy to deal with at all, the agents who brought that one in took a serious beating."

"Your Captain America here is much more reasonable by comparison."

"..." Steve was met with a round of deeply reverent stares.

Doing the best to ignore all of it, Steve latched onto something Mobius had just said.

"You mentioned your work being unusual. Would you mind telling us what exactly it is you do?"

Every head swung back to Mobius.

Mobius brushed the sugar off both palms and stood up straighter.

"Right. Allow me to introduce myself. I'm Mobius, an agent of the Time Variance Authority."

"..." Tony went quiet for a moment. "Wait. Time what? What variance?"

"The Time Variance Authority." Mobius said pleasantly. "You can also call it the TVA."

"Oh, the TVA. Got it."

Steve nodded with an expression of great confidence that meant absolutely nothing.

"...And what does it do?"

Mobius closed both eyes. Took a breath.

"To maintain the proper development of the Sacred Timeline, your timeline, we would prune or outright eliminate other timelines that were developing incorrectly, "

"Hey! Let me finish! That was all in the past!" Mobius cut in over the Avengers' rapidly shifting expressions, waving both hands. "Ever since Loki took charge of the timelines, our job became maintaining the development of all timelines, "

Mobius's hand slapped over Mobius's own mouth.

A long pause. Then Mobius looked at Tony with an expression of complete, hollow despair.

"Did I just say that out loud."

"Yes." Tony's face was blank. "You said Loki took charge of the timelines."

"Oh shit."

➤ Next: Wait for Me to Come Back