A Guide to Fixing Broken Things

Step Sixteen: Family

The aircraft carrier wasn't exactly the most comfortable of living situations, but they made do with what they had. Hunter started a small fire in the middle to keep them warm as night rolled in, Cass and Sylvie searched for any supplies and materials they could use, Loki "provided entertainment and moral support," and Mobius just sat down, still in shock. 
 
Sylvie found it a bit odd that he had hardly said more than a few words upon stepping through the portal. At first she had dismissed it as him merely adjusting to their new circumstances, but now she wasn't sure. Clearly something far more serious had happened between Loki and Mobius, and Sylvie was determined to get to the bottom of it.
 
"I found some food!" Cass called, and that sound of her kicking metal and objects clanging to the floor could be heard in the next room over.
 
"Oops!"
 
Sylvie bit back laughter, and together, the two of them gathered up containers of food to bring to the others, who were all sitting in a circle around the fire. Hunter was wrapped up in a blanket, which she easily opened to allow Cass to snuggle up next to her. Loki and Mobius sat on opposite sides of the fire, both silent and neither daring to make eye contact. Sylvie sat down between them, and took a bite of some type of space jerky. It was hard and dry, but after her time in the TVA without subsistence, she would eat just about anything.
 
"So," Hunter said conversationally. "How was Lamentis?"
 
Loki took a break from eating to respond, but Mobius spoke up first. 
 
"I'd rather not talk about it," he said, voice low. 
 
Hunter made an "O" shape with her mouth and ducked her head. Sylvie watched an array of emotions flit across her face in seconds- confusion, realisation, fear, and then sadness.
 
"Right." She coughed. "Well then, Sylvie, I've been meaning to ask you something."
 
When Hunter only fidgeted with her hands nervously instead of continuing, Sylvie cocked her head.
 
"Go on," she prompted.
 
"Back at the TVA, it seemed like there was some tension between you and Ravonna," Hunter said. "As if you knew each other."
 
Sylvie's entire body went rigid. Ravonna was not a topic she was exactly eager to cover at the moment- or ever, for that matter.
 
"We have a…" she paused, carefully considering her next words. " history together. We ran into each other multiple times when I was on the run. That's all."
 
"But-"
 
Sylvie threw her jerky to the ground beside her, standing up suddenly and narrowing her eyes. She had to get out and go somewhere, anywhere that wasn't here with people trying to pry at her past. That reminded her too much of times she would rather forget. 
 
"I'm actually very tired." She couldn't keep the anger from her tone, and actually felt a twinge of regret at seeing Hunter's shocked face. "I'm going to go to sleep."
 
She spun around on her heels and strutted out of the room, ducking into the first open doorway she saw and sinking down against the wall to rest her head in her hands. From the next room over, she faintly heard Loki say that he would come check on her, which was really the last thing she wanted. Still, she said nothing when Loki slipped into the room and sat down beside her. They stayed like that for a long while, just saying nothing at all and letting the silence between them grow. Then, Loki spoke.
 
"You weren't like… a thing with her, right?" He asked at last.
 
Sylvie scoffed, but said nothing, although she knew her lack of response gave Loki exactly the answer he needed.
 
"Ah." He nodded in understanding. "Do I even want to know how that happened?"
 
Sylvie huffed.
 
"She was from Asgard," she said. "At least, I thought she was at the time. Honestly, I'm not even sure anymore."
 
Loki's brow creased in confusion.
 
"Asgard? Surely I would have noticed someone like Ravonna Renslayer in Asgard," he said, and Sylvie shook her head.
 
"She wasn't in your Timeline."
 
"But that's impossible. The TVA-"
 
"Are liars. And destroyers." Sylvie glanced down at her hands in her lap, twisting the rings on her fingers out of nervous habit. "They destroyed my home."
 
Now, Loki seemed even more confused. He turned to face her.
 
"You mean Ragnarok?"
 
"Nope." Sylvie took off one of her rings, flipped it over in her palm, and then slipped it back on. "I mean before Ragnarok. Before any 'Sacred Timeline' or Time Keepers or TVA. Why do you think I want to bring the Multiverse back?"
 
Loki shrugged.
 
"Because back when I was a child, the Multiverse was all there was. Everyone's choices were their own, not just the outcome of their predetermined fate."
 
She sighed.
 
"I was just the God of Mischief, able to be whomever I pleased. And Ravonna was just a Valkyrie in training, and my best friend. I remember I wanted to be exactly like her: brave, selfless, powerful."
 
"You wanted to be like Ravonna?" Loki's voice was layered with both shock and disbelief.
 
"She was different back then," Sylvie insisted. Then, she frowned. "I thought she was, at least. But the night she became a full fledged Valkyrie, we were at her ceremony together. I remember she was bored of all the speeches, so I snuck us out."
 
Sylvie let herself smile at the happy memory, before remembering what came next.
 
"That's when she revealed herself to be working for the Time Keepers," Sylvie muttered. "I don't know how, or why, or for how long, but they had been plotting to destroy my Timeline. Something was wrong with it, apparently."
 
She took a deep shaky breath, the memories of that night all flooding back to her. Loki awkwardly placed one hand on her back in a pathetic attempt to comfort her. It wasn't helping, but Sylvie appreciated the thought. 
 
"I watched as reality crumbled around me. But for some reason, the Time Keepers didn't destroy me with it. Sometimes, I wish they had."
 
"Don't say that," Loki said instinctively, but Sylvie wasn't sure how to tell him about all those endless nights she spent crying over everything that could have been, and everything she lost. 
 
"Anyway, Ravonna took me into the TVA. Spewed the 'I'm sorry, I had to' bullshit, saying that this was for the good of the universe. She tried to kill me, but I had always been a better fighter, so I managed to escape. I've been on the run ever since."
 
"In apocalypses?"
 
Sylvie nodded.
 
"That's where I grew up. The ends of a thousand worlds."
 
"Sounds poetic."
 
Sylvie managed to laugh a little.
 
"It was the furthest thing from poetic, I can assure you."
 
"Oh, I don't doubt it."
 
The two sat in silence for a moment, and it was then that Sylvie realised she had never confided in anyone until then. It felt oddly… nice to get that pressure off of her chest and share the burden that she had carried on her own for so many years.
 
"I truly am sorry, though," Loki said, and it sounded genuine despite his penchant for lying. "You didn't deserve that."
 
Sylvie only shrugged her shoulders.
 
"Don't apologise. Just help me take down the TVA."
 
Loki chuckled.
 
"That I can do."
 
They lapsed back into silence once more. Sylvie was tempted to close her eyes and fall asleep- after all, she hadn't been lying when she said it was a long day, and using magic can be extremely draining- but Loki wasn't done talking. 
 
"You know, Mobius suggested the craziest thing to me earlier," he said.
 
Inwardly, Sylvie rolled her eyes. She should have known the topic of Mobius would be brought up sooner or later.
 
"I've been meaning to ask you about that." She waved one hand, urging Loki to continue talking. "Do tell."
 
"It's embarrassing."
 
This time, Sylvie really did do a dramatic eye roll.
 
"Well then, don't tell."
 
"Don't give me orders," Loki snapped, his posture straightening.
 
"Alright then, go ahead."
 
Loki crossed his arms over her chest, chin tilted up in childish defiance. Sylvie resisted the urge to slam her head against the wall repeatedly at the action.
 
"I'll do what I want, thank you very much."
 
It took approximately two second for Loki to relent.
 
"Fine," he said. "So he had this… this, uh, theory . About us."
 
"Okay."
 
Loki shifted next to her anxiously, and Sylvie briefly wondered what he could possibly be on about.
 
"He said that I, uh, liked you. And that you liked me."
 
Whatever Sylvie had been expecting, it hadn't been that. She burst out into laughter, choking a little at the thought. Loki awkwardly joined in, and it was then that Sylvie realised he hadn't been kidding.
 
"Absurd, right?" He said.
 
Sylvie immediately sobered up. If he was going to approach this seriously, she would too.
 
"I don't know. I mean, do you?"
 
"Do I what?"
 
Sylvie groaned at how dense her counterpart was. How they were Variants of the same people, she would never understand.
 
"Like me."
 
Loki paused, looking a little lost in thought. 
 
"I don't know," he admitted softly.
 
Sylvie frowned.
 
"You don't know?" She echoed. 
 
Loki sucked in a deep breath before letting all the words tumble out.
 
"I see a lot of myself in you, and that's never been something I was able to love," he said. "But you? You're… amazing. You're powerful, smart, brave, beautiful, good . And when I'm with you, I think maybe I'm not destined to be alone forever."
 
Something about his words struck a chord in Sylvie. She too had always been alone since her Timeline was destroyed, and it wasn't like her relationship with herself had always been a priority. When you spend every day thinking solely of how to get through the next, things like self care become secondary measures at best. But whenever she looked at Loki, she could only think of the family she had been forced to leave behind.
 
"You know, I never got a chance to have a family. They were taken from me- or I was taken from them, I suppose- and after that, I had no one."
 
Sylvie placed her hand on Loki's arm, and he looked up at her in surprise.
 
"But sitting here with you, talking about our pasts and Asgard… that's the closest thing I've had to family in a long time."
 
Loki smiled sadly, and broke their eye contact.
 
"I've never been very good at family."
 
Sylvie tilted her head to the side.
 
"And I'm new to it. But maybe we could try… together? You be the Thor to my Loki?"
 
Loki's head jolted upright and he whirled around to glare daggers in her direction.
 
"You did not just compare me to Thor."
 
He said it like it was a threat, but Sylvie didn't feel the least bit threatened. Instead, she grinned slyly.
 
"Maybe I did."
 
Loki's eyes narrowed and his lips formed into a pout.
 
"I take it all back, I hate you," he grumbled.
 
"I think we've strayed away from the point," Sylvie pointed out, but Loki wasn't listening to her.
 
"Maybe if you met my- er, our - brother, you would understand that I am much, much more superior."
 
She turned the sound of his voice out.
 
"Wonderful. Anyway, as I was saying , I think Mobius was right. We have a connection that no one else will ever have, and we do like each other, just not in the romantic sense."
 
But Loki still appeared to be lost in his own world, mumbling something about how he wasn't Thor. Sylvie reached out and snapped her fingers multiple times in front of his face, bringing him back into the present.
 
"Speaking of," Sylvie continued, emphasising each word. "Let's talk about your love life."
 
Loki made a horrified expression.
 
"With Thor?"
 
Sylvie threw her hands up in exasperation.
 
"God, no! Have you been listening to a word I'm saying?"
 
Loki shook his head, and at least had the dignity to look ashamed.
 
"I'm still hung up on the Thor thing."
 
She facepalmed. 
 
"It was a metaphor for siblings!" She said, despite it being something she assumed was blatantly obvious. "Just drop it already!"
 
Loki held up both hands as a show of surrender.
 
"Fine, fine," he said. "Consider it dropped."
 
Sylvie sighed again, then scooted so she could face Loki better.
 
"So, your love life."
 
Loki wrinkled his nose in disgust.
 
"My love life?"
 
"I mean, you are a prince," she pointed out. "Surely there must be a would-be princess. Or perhaps… another prince?"
 
Her eyes twinkled mischievously, and Loki tossed his head back and forth.
 
"A bit of both. I am, after all, incredibly attractive."
 
Loki pulled on his tie as he said that and made his voice drop lower, to which Sylvie couldn't help but giggle.
 
"I wasn't talking about attraction , I was talking about love ," she said
 
"And I thought we just established that I was quite bad at that."
 
That was a fair point, Sylvie thought, but she could tell by the slight twitch of his eye and the hardness of his jaw that he was lying.
 
"What about Mobius?" She guessed, and when Loki's eyes grew a fraction wider, she knew she had hit her mark.
 
" Mobius?" Loki practically screeched the word.
 
Sylvie smiled, her tone becoming something akin to teasing.
 
"He clearly cares about you, and I can't be the only one who notices your sexual tension."
 
Loki spluttered, unable to form coherent sentences.
 
"I- he just tried to kill me!"
 
Ah, so that's what had happened back on Lamentis. Sylvie had assumed as much based on Mobius's behaviour afterward and the dagger she had seen, but it felt rude to voice that accusation without proper confirmation. Still, it wasn't as though Loki had tried- and succeeded- at killing people before. Surely he was above holding grudges for such petty things. 
 
"Every couple goes through a rough patch."
 
Loki shook his head.
 
"We are not a couple."
 
Sylvie raised an eyebrow. Liar . 
 
"Should I go interrogate him then?" She pondered aloud, then decided, "I'm going to go interrogate him."
 
Loki looked quite fearful at that, and desperately scrambled to his feet when Sylvie stood up and began heading towards the door. 
 
"Do not interrogate Mobius," he practically begged, but Sylvie paid him no mind.
 
She turned around at the doorway, leaning against the frame to smirk at Loki.
 
"I'm doing it anyway," she singsonged, and pressed the button to close the door between them.
 
"Sylvie! Wait, Sylvie, no!" Loki tried to yell, but the door had already shut.