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Loki was pacing the small cell like an under-stimulated tiger. At first, he had glared out at all of them, his focus never once leaving them. Now, Mobius felt as if the Variant were paying him specific attention.
Circumstances being what they were, he thought that should make him wary, if not outright afraid. Instead, every time Loki turned his bright fevered eyes on him through the hulk-proof glass, Mobius only felt his lungs seize in his chest and his hands clench into useless fists with the need to be doing something. Loki wouldn't even be in this situation if Mobius had been a bit quicker on the uptake.
They had been tracking down a variant of Jessa Chen; a biochemist specializing in botany. This variant had created a liquid-borne pathogen that they theorized stimulated the sympathetic nervous system, and specifically the adrenal glands to produce vast amounts of adrenaline and activate the fight-or-flight response. They weren't scientists, so it was only a guess, but those who were infected with it, from blue-collar workers on their break to Eddie-fucking-Brock, seemed to go on violent rampages once infected. Occasionally, victims would also spontaneously combust, although they hadn't been able to find the common factor that caused that reaction instead of the sprees of violence.
The TVA had finally tracked her down to an abandoned laboratory. Mobius and Loki had gone to help find and prune her before she managed to turn the pathogen airborne and loose it in a major metropolitan area. Mobius hadn't been paying enough attention and had triggered a tripwire that launched a dart right for his throat. It was only thanks to Loki's unnatural speed that Mobius wasn’t the one pacing the hulk-buster capsule.
Loki had caught the dart right before it met its mark, but before he could toss it away, a previously unnoticed microcharge in the dart had gone off and burst it in Loki's hand, spraying him with shards of broken glass and the infected solution. The pathogen had been all over his bloodied hand, so there was no question that it had made it into his superhuman bloodstream.
6 agents had descended upon him immediately, before he even showed any signs of reacting. They had knocked Loki to the ground and cuffed him before Mobius even had a chance to properly process what had happened. He'd pulled one of the panicked minutemen off of Loki before he realized that Loki was likely moments away from performing a repeat of New York. For his part, Loki hadn't resisted when they hauled him up and escorted him back through the time door, leaving the other team of minutemen to clean up JC1911.
When they had tossed him into this recovered artefact from an abandoned timeline, Loki had looked right at Mobius with wide, terrified eyes. The moment had been so brief, and Mobius still so numb with shock, that he wasn't sure it had happened, especially after Loki had almost immediately followed it by shifting his face into a completely blank and neutral mask. He hadn't said anything, but slowly, his expression had morphed into the cold and calculating look he wore now.
“Please, let me help him.” He begged Ravonna again as Loki slowly stalked along the glass, his eyes never leaving the two of them.
“Absolutely not.” Ravonna was staring Loki down without breaking eye contact either. Two predators sizing each other up for a feast. “As far as we've seen, Variant JC1911’s bioweapon has resulted in uncontrollable bouts of violence in every subject that has been exposed to it before they collapse from exhaustion. It's bad enough when a human is exposed, and Eddie Brock ate every living thing in his apartment building before they finally brought him down. Can you imagine what your Loki Variant could do to you if you go near him? He'd tear you limb from limb.”
“What about the couple in Nepal? Or the monk? They were exposed and they didn't turn violent.” Mobius argued. The couple in question had not gone on a killing spree, started riots, or robbed the nearest bank like so many others who had been exposed to JC1911's bioweapon, but they had torn all of their clothes off in public and fucked like bunnies for the next two hours. The monk had been even tamer; he had gorged himself on half of the food and drink his monastery had been allocated for the year. He had ended up in the hospital for it shortly after, which is when they found out that he'd been dosed too.
“Look at him.” Ravonna said, never taking her eyes off of Loki, “Even if- if the bioweapon is meant to drive victims to sate their worst urges, rather than drive them to outright violence, I don't think what he has on his mind is emptying all of our vending machines.”
Mobius was looking at him, and he could see what Ravonna was missing: that Loki wasn't just looking at them anymore. He had started examining his cell, taking in the construction of the door, the thickness of the glass. If they left him in there for much longer, he was going to find a way out, and then he would be loose in the TVA with that drug running through his system. If Ravonna was so worried what Loki might do to Mobius should he go in there, she should be twice as worried about what he would do to the TVA if he got out.
“We can't just leave him in there-
“I can, and I will.” Ravonna snapped, leaving no room for argument. “What I cannot do is sacrifice my best agent to a bloodthirsty variant, just because that variant might have been quasi-decent before this.”
Ravonna glared at Loki's discarded Variant jacket on the cot in the room, “He shouldn't even exist in the first place, and if the one good thing he did was take that bullet for you before he died, then that's his purpose well-served.”
She took hold of the back of Mobius' arm and practically frog-marched him out of the room. Mobius looked back over his shoulder at Loki framed by his cage and shrinking behind them as they left.
“No one goes into that cell.” Ravonna ordered a minuteman outside the door, “Find a way to send it through a time door. Nobody wants to watch him tear himself apart when he loses it completely.”
Mobius pulled himself out of her grip, hard and furious. He stormed back inside the room and took up position outside the cell once again, arms crossed and determined that nothing short of a moving train was displacing him from this spot. If Ravonna was so adamant that Loki be left in there to die, Mobius was going to make sure that at least he wasn't left alone.
He wasn't sure how long he stood before Casey brought him a chair. By time the last minutemen decided they could safely leave Mobius in the room with Loki, both of them sitting in silence and staring at each other, time had once again lost all meaning.
As soon as the door shut behind them, Loki’s expression morphed back into the one Mobius had barely caught a glimpse of, before. He was terrified.
His mouth moved, but Mobius couldn't hear him.
He searched around the cage until he found the switch and flipped it, next he pressed the button that would allow Loki’s voice to carry through the speakers at the top to the room at large, and Mobius' into the cage to him.
“Loki-"
“Mobius!” Loki wore the fear on his face completely without censure. “Are they really going to keep me in here? I've done nothing wrong!”
“I know, Loki. This isn't your fault at all, okay? Never think that.”
“I'm scared.” Loki said, “Please, I don't want to be alone. I don’t want to die in here.”
This was such a bad idea. He shouldn't do it. He absolutely shouldn't do it. Loki was conniving at the best of times, and he would never hesitate to use someone else's nature to his advantage. This was a bad idea. He absolutely shouldn't do it.
Mobius waited a bit longer, until he heard the guards outside start discussing their evening plans. Then he approached the cell. Loki watched him as if he were his last hope for salvation.
Mobius punched the code into the keypad and quickly slipped inside, closing the door shut tight behind him. If he was doing this, he wasn't putting everyone else in danger too.
“It's alright, you're not alone. I won't leave you alone.” Mobius promised, “Has it even started working on you yet?”
Stupid, so stupid. Even if it took longer due to Loki's Jotnar physiology, it must be coursing through him by now. He was a notorious liar; how could Mobius possibly expect the truth from him?
“I don't know. Mobius, please.” Loki took a step towards him, and Mobius stumbled back, the bones of his shoulder collided with the glass door behind him.
Loki looked crestfallen, and he stepped back.
“Sorry.” Loki apologised, he never apologized. This had to be a trick; a poor one.
Loki carefully held a hand out, palm up. “I don't want to hurt you. Please don't be scared of me.”
Stupid, so stupid, Mobius definitely shouldn't do this. Loki probably had a weapon tucked away somewhere all this time, ready to strike. Hell, he wouldn't even need a weapon, Loki could easily snap Mobius' bones in half with a single well-placed strike if he wanted to.
Mobius stepped forward and held a hand out.
Loki darted towards him so quickly that all Mobius could do was squeeze his eyes shut and wait for the white-hot agony of a blade in his chest.
Instead of a blade, he felt only arms around his back and hot breath on his throat. He opened his eyes and could see the other side of the cell over Loki's shoulder.
Loki squeezed him tight. Too tight actually, it felt like he was a mile underwater with the crushing weight of the ocean all around him.
“Loki-" He wheezed, “Too tight!”
The arms immediately loosened around him so that he could barely feel them there at all. “I don’t want to hurt you,” Loki whispered into his hair.
He had his hands fisted in the back of Mobius shirt; it pulled the fabric taut against the front of his chest. Mobius slowly lifted his arms and put them around Loki's back in turn.
Loki let out a frightened sob, and his hands turned claw-like and painful on Mobius' shoulders.
“Careful, careful! Jesus, you're strong.” Mobius hissed in discomfort, but pulled Loki tighter against his body.
Loki's hands softened again.
“I'm sorry!” He cried, “It's like I can't control myself. I- Please, don’t be scared of me. Don't hate me.”
“I don't hate you.” Mobius assured him, “Are you in any pain?”
Loki was shaking his head frantically against Mobius' shoulder, his soft dark hair tickled Mobius' throat and sent up a wave of perfume that Mobius did not recognize as the TVA standard issue shampoo. When and how had Loki stolen himself Farrah Fawcett brand shampoo?
“No, it doesn’t hurt.” Loki stopped shaking his head, and started nuzzling into Mobius' shoulder instead.
“I just want you close."
“You looked like you wanted to eat my liver earlier.” Mobius joked, not sure how well Loki would respond to him promising that he'd never leave Loki again, that he'd hold him here until the sun imploded and killed them all, if he wished it.
“No.” Loki said, “I wanted you here so badly, I was plotting how to steal you away once I got out of this blasted cell.”
“You wanted to kidnap me?”
“Only if you wanted to be kidnapped.” Loki assured him, pressing his head into Mobius' collarbone, his hard skull grinding against the thin bone. Mobius winced
“I don't want- I don't want to force you to be near me. I never want to have to force you- you deserve better.” Loki murmured into his chest, pulling Mobius close. At first it was too constrictive, making it hard to breathe, but Loki quickly gentled himself.
“Wow. Okay. Uh- this is so far from what I thought your worst impulses would be. Not feeling murder-y at all?”
“No.” Loki pouted into Mobius chest, still not moving from his curled-up position in Mobius' arms.
“Fine, good. Stellar. You're so good, Loki. This is really good.”
Loki made an absolutely indecent noise and burrowed harder into Mobius' chest. Mobius hissed again.
“Careful!”
The arms around his back slid down to secure themselves lower on his waist. One supported him between his shoulders while the other scooped him up off the ground easily from just under the swell of his arse. In two steps, Loki had ferried him across the room and deposited him on the tiny cot in the corner.
Mobius was no willowy waif, and he wasn’t used to people manhandling him. To a Jotun, however, he was hardly more effort to move than a sack of flour. With another impressive – and mouth-watering- show of strength, Loki slowly lowered him down onto the bed. It was a good thing too, because the mattress was so thin that Mobius probably would have felt every inch of the metal frame beneath, rather than bounced even an inch, if Loki had dropped him.
Loki followed him down and pressed against him, long limbs tangling with Mobius'. It was with a mixed sense of alarm and burgeoning arousal that he remembered once again the couple that had… coupled frantically once they'd been dosed with the same chemical that Loki had.
Mobius reminded himself firmly that the idea of Loki pinning him down to the bed and roughly taking his pleasure from him was concerning, and definitely not one of the hottest things he’d ever imagined. Never mind that it was professionally inappropriate due to Mobius’ position and morally unacceptable due to Loki’s altered state. With Loki's superhuman strength, sex would also be incredibly dangerous for a fragile mortal partner such as Mobius – especially considering how much trouble Loki was having controlling his strength because of that aforementioned altered state.
Ignorant of Mobius’ internal struggle, Loki pulled him unfathomably closer with a sinuous movement that pressed every inch of their bodies together. Mobius could not fail to imagine other ways that they might similarly be joined together and he felt himself stirring, even as he tried to banish the thought from his mind and keep his wits about himself. Loki was compromised, it was possible he wasn’t even conscious of the effect he could have on Mobius right now.
Above him, Loki stopped the sensuous movement and perked his head up like an overgrown meerkat.
He squinted down at Mobius like he had never seen him before and asked, with a note of what Mobius thought was completely unwarranted incredulity, “Mobius, do you want me?”
Mobius squeezed his eyes shut and tapped his head backwards against the flat pillow in self-recrimination. Space Lizards help him, but he did. He had, prior to even meeting him. He’d seen the trickster’s entire life. It would be impossible not to fall a little in love with the subject of such careful study no matter what it was. With ‘It’ being the most beautiful, complicated creature he had ever seen, with so much potential for change and good, who could possibly blame him for how much more Loki had started to mean to him since recruiting them? Ravonna is who.
Personal attachment to any Variant went against every principle the TVA was built on. Romantic entanglements were punishable by immediate pruning. And the fact that it was a Loki, the kind of Variant that most agents considered little better than cockroaches, and twice as common, would make it that much worse from her perspective.
Considering all that, he didn't have a chance to think up a remotely acceptable answer before Loki rolled his hips down against him again and Mobius had to repress the moan trying to escape from his chest.
“I’d like to take care of you, if you do.” Loki murmured against his ear, voice low and throaty.
Mobius kept his eyes squeezed shut and practically held his breath to keep himself still so he wouldn't accidentally encourage this line of questioning, or reprimand him unnecessarily while he was in such a vulnerable state of mind. An unmistakeable hand giving him a quick squeeze through his trousers ruined that right away.
He pushed up into the divine pressure and let out a grunt of mixed surprise and bliss before he could get control over himself. His eyes flicked open and he grabbed Loki's wrist as firmly as he could manage to make himself clear when he met Loki's guileless gaze and stared him down.
“Loki, stop.” He commanded, and Loki listened, waiting on his instructions with wide eyes and open trust on his face. For goodness sakes, he’d probably do whatever Mobius asked of him right now. Loki was not someone Mobius ever wanted to see as ‘suggestible’, it went against everything he stood for, and the last time he’d followed someone else’s orders without the freedom to question much, a lot of people had gotten hurt.
“You're doing a lot of stuff right now that I don't think you'd do if you were in your right mind.” Mobius continued, keeping his hold on Loki's wrist. “You wanna lay here and cuddle until this is out of your system? Fine, but we're not going any further than that.”
“But you want to.” Loki protested, expression furrowing in confusion, “And I want to do whatever you want, so you'll stay.”
“I'm staying.” Mobius promised, arousal quickly fleeing and stomach clenching miserably at Loki’s implication, “You don't have to do anything else. I'm staying with you.”
Loki blinked at him for a moment, but finally moved his hand up from where it had been holding Mobius' hip to rest against his chest instead. “Alright,”
Loki burrowed his head into Mobius' sternum, body quickly relaxing against Mobius' own. Mobius let his head fall back again and let himself breathe. Crisis of conscience averted. Now he was free to fervently wish that this cot were more comfortable. His shoulder would be killing him by tomorrow if they laid here all night, and if Loki’s reaction to the drugs in his system held, it seemed increasingly likely that they would.
His breathing had slowed down and evened out, Mobius idly wondered if he'd fallen asleep. He would deserve the rest, if he had. Loki and him had both been working themselves to the bone trying to catch the variant Jessa Chen before things got even further out of control. Not to mention the stress he must have been under being locked in here and nearly discarded for nothing other than saving Mobius' life, especially in his current mental state.
He rolled his neck to try and relieve tension and glanced down at Loki's hand on his chest. Christ, was that still his blood all over his hand? Had no one thought to clean it and bandage him?
Mobius sighed when he realized that no, of course they hadn't. Loki had been locked up as soon as they could get him back here, and Ravonna fully intended to get rid of him or let Loki do it for her himself. She probably still intended to, as she wouldn't have seen that Loki's tendencies seemed to be the exact opposite of violent under the influence of JC1911’s bioweapon.
“You really are just a big pussycat, aren't you?” Mobius mumbled under his breath, staring at Loki's back slowly rising and falling while he breathed.
Loki mumbled a vague affirmative back at him.
Mobius tapped him on his opposite shoulder and wiggled underneath him to dislodge him.
“Get up for a sec.”
Loki whined in protest and burrowed deeper into Mobius' chest, hands clinging a little painfully on his shoulder and into the meat of his chest. Mobius could see the clean lines in Loki's knuckles where the blood on his hand hadn't gotten into the natural cracks of his skin.
“Get up,” Mobius tapped him again, “I want to take care of your hand and then we can lay right back down again.”
Loki grumbled at him but obediently sat up. Mobius kept his hold on Loki's hand to offer him the contact. He turned it over and examined it, finding that the small cuts had all closed back up already because of Loki's healing factor. All that was left as evidence of the injury were tiny pink scars.
Mobius scanned the containment cube, looking for some sort of first aid kit or even just cloth for cleaning. He found none.
Clicking his tongue in annoyance, he pulled a clean blue handkerchief out from the inside pocket of his suit jacket.
“You keep a hankie?” Loki asked him, nearly sounding like his old self with the note of derisive amusement in his voice.
“Why not?” Mobius asked him back as he unfolded it and wetted it with the bottled water that had been left in here at some point. It might still be potable. Maybe.
“Rather grandfatherly of you.” Loki noted, almost sneering. Mobius grinned to see him acting like himself again, even a little. The cuddling was nice, -and certainly preferable to the alternatives- but Loki was feeling scared, and out of control, and Mobius could never be glad for that.
Mobius hummed thoughtfully, “I'm about the right age.” He quipped, having no idea how old he was. The banter felt nice though, familiar, normal.
He carefully and slowly wiped the blood from Loki's hand, turning and twisting it as necessary to remove the smears that had run between his fingers and dried in the cracks of his palm.
Slowly the handkerchief turned a rusty brown colour with every streaky bit of old blood cleaned from Loki's hand.
“There.” He said when he was finished, “That didn't take so long.”
He pocketed the handkerchief and dropped their held hands to rest on top of his thigh. Loki sat still, staring at him with eyelids lowered like he was either sleepy or trying to be coquettish. It was hard to tell which.
Neither of them spoke or looked away for a long moment. Loki seemed to simply be taking him in, and Mobius was too mesmerized by his partner in such a rare moment of openness to look away. How many years, centuries, would they have to work together before Mobius could build enough trust for Loki to let Mobius see him like this without the influence of strange drugs in his system? It was unfair that that little bit of control over his impossible situation had also been stolen from Loki. It was probably worse that Mobius was enjoying it as much as he was.
Loki brought up his other hand and touched Mobius' jaw, stroking his fingertips over the scratchy stubble growing on Mobius' face. For a brief moment, it seemed like Loki was leaning in, eyelids lowering again as if he were about to close his eyes and kiss him.
Mobius wouldn't get to find out because the door opened right then and a bar of sepia light stretched across the floor towards them. He turned towards it and Loki dropped the hand on his face, but neither of them relinquished their hold on top of Mobius' leg.
Mobius expected it to be Renslayer, come to send Loki, cage and all, through a time door into the void of space to slowly starve or freeze to death. If it weren't her, then it would be minutemen checking on them, and they would fetch her as soon as they found Mobius in the cage with Loki.
He was already planning out how he would convince Renslayer to let Loki ride this out in his mind. Citing how little they understood of both JC1911's pathogen and Loki's physiology, and using his own survival as evidence.
It turned out, that none of that was necessary. Casey’s shadow filled the band of light on the floor and the man stepped in carrying a plastic box and backlit by the hallway lights behind him.
“Agent Mobius, Ben- oh. Why are you in the cube?” Casey stopped a few feet away and looked at them both strangely. “Are you okay?”
“We're fine. What was that about Ben?” Mobius prompted, squeezing Loki's fingers between his. The callouses from his years of dagger training felt scratchy on Mobius’ own fingertips.
Ben was an analyst who specialized in biochemistry, especially viral pathways that used vector species. Plants weren't exactly his specialty, but Jessa Chen's synthesis of her pathogen using flowering gelsemium plants was still well within his wheelhouse. If Casey was coming in here to tell him, then it almost certainly had something to do with Loki's condition.
“Right.” Casey said brightly, “Ben was there, you know, and he saw what happened. He took some samples from the lab before they reset it because, – he said because he might be able to do something, and if he could, then it was his responsibility to help.”
“Anyway, he's pretty sure he can synthesize an antidote for your variant, but he needs a blood sample.” Casey waved the plastic box around, and Mobius was finally able to identify one of the blood-testing kits that they used in the field to confirm the identity of injured and escaped variants.
“What does Renslayer think about this?” Mobius asked, already standing to retrieve the blood kit from Casey.
“Well,” Casey shrugged, “It's Ben. He must have already got to her.”
Mobius knew exactly what Casey meant. Aside from being a prodigy and a genius, Ben also had an unerring ability to charm and endear anyone he set his big puppy-dog eyes on. He was the only person, other than Mobius, who could ever get Ravonna to even consider bending the rules. The only person Ben couldn’t seem to charm was Osborn down in R&D, and so it was that Osborn submitted a new conspiracy theory surrounding Ben’s influence at least twice a month, and Ben seemed to be constantly thwarting and mitigating a rather intense chemical prank war in the basement every other day.
Mobius walked up to the door and gave Casey the code to open it. The entire time, Casey kept a wary eye on Loki behind them.
“He's just… staring.” Casey mumbled, casting his own gaze down and away.
“He's having some impulse control issues – more than usual, I mean.” Mobius told him, “But he seems harmless so far. I think as long as he feels safe, he'll be pretty docile until we can get an antidote for him.”
“What if he- you know,” Casey snapped his fingers, Mobius carefully didn't wince as he remembered a very different snap viewed through the time theatre over and over again. “-and you're in there with him? What will you do?”
Mobius shrugged casually, “Try to talk him down, I suppose. Get Ben working on that antidote. I think I'll be okay; he likes me.”
Loki appeared over his shoulder in a flash, and Mobius caught his narrow-eyed glare at Casey. “What are you blathering about?” he snapped.
“Casey needs a sample of your blood to help you feel better.” Mobius explained, holding up the article case in demonstration so he could show Loki the syringe and pack of sterile needles.
Loki squinted at it in suspicion for a moment, but his eyes flicked to Mobius’ face and he must have trusted what he saw there because he deftly undid the buttons on the cuffs of his shirt and tugged the sleeve up harshly.
“Then get it done with and be gone with you. You're annoying.” He glared over Mobius’ shoulder at poor Casey.
“Play nice.” Mobius admonished him lightly, but nevertheless began preparing the syringe to take the sample. “You like Casey.”
“He isn't usually chattering on endlessly where he isn't needed.”
“Oh God,” Mobius chuckled as he took the sample, Loki barely even noticing the pinch of the needle. “You're jealous.”
Loki scowled petulantly at him and Mobius laughed some more.
“You're actually jealous. Of Casey. For talking to me. It's fine, pussycat, I'm still your cuddle buddy.”
Casey was watching this exchange with an expression that Mobius imagined was shared by children everywhere when their parents flirted in front of them.
He handed Casey the blood sample to save them all further embarrassment.
“See.” Mobius said, “Harmless. But tell Ben to hurry anyway, I'm not sure what he'll do if he gets out of here. He doesn't think of most of the TVA so favourably. Also, could you bring us some sandwiches or something from the cafeteria? We might be stuck in here a while.”
Casey mumbled agreement and left with haste. The sandwiches he eventually brought had never tasted so good as they did while Loki and Mobius sat side by side, thighs and shoulders touching while they both inhaled their dinners without any grace. (Not unusual for Mobius, but Loki would normally never be caught dead actively enjoying whatever mortal cuisine was placed in front of him when he inevitably required sustenance).
Afterwards, Loki pulled Mobius back down and resumed his quest to become the multiverse’s most dangerous limpet, and Mobius held him close, wished for Ben’s antidote to be done in record time, and hoped that Loki could hold on to this strange peace until then.
---
Loki, son of Frigga, was a master of deceptions both big and small. His first instinct was always to obscure, just in case the information he held back would be critically important to his own success.
This was all a very grandiose explanation for the fact that he was both naturally talented, and had ample experience, in feigning sleep.
Especially when the first thing he became aware of was an arm slumped around him, which was an event so rare in his long life that it immediately put him on edge.
An arm was slung loosely around his waist. The sheets he laid on smelled distinctly of nothing. And there was a stiffness in the back of his head and between his eyes that told him he had been exposed to a very strong intoxicant indeed.
These things he all took in within an instant.
It did not take long, following that, for him to remember the moment in Jessa Chen’s lab where he’d instinctively grabbed the dart out of midair before it had exploded in his hand. The soldiers at his back immediately turning on him had surprised him. And the fact that he had been surprised had terrified him.
He had recognized the Hulk’s cage as soon as they closed the door behind him, and he did not appreciate the role reversal. Then… Oh All-father. All the things he’d said and done under the influence. How embarrassing. Mortifying, really, that he’d clung to Mobius like that, so needy and pathetic. So obvious in his shameless desire for him, for love. His desperation for it was pitiful, and it couldn’t have possibly been more clear that no one else had found him worthy of love before. That in itself was of little wonder, with the desperate way he’d clung to it, to Mobius. If that weren’t bad enough, his intense sexual attraction to the man had been on full display as well during that shameful and needy moment of frottage before Mobius had so politely turned him down.
So polite. Of course, he had been. Being a gentleman was as instinctive for Mobius as being an asshole was for Loki.
Of course, now he knew, not only of Loki’s ready desire for him, but the deep chasm of desperation for basic touch and comfort – for love that he had too. At least if it were only attraction, they could move on from that, but to Loki’s great shame, he wanted a deeper emotional connection more than he could possibly express, and he wanted it from Mobius specifically .
All those soft, dangerous bits of Loki’s had been on full display last night – yesterday? What could he say to try and convince Mobius that those weren’t his deep innermost feelings that he’d just splayed out between them?
What would Mobius say when he had to look at Loki in an hour or so and remember Loki’s raw need, his bald terror, the way he’d clung to him to try and receive even a hint of comfort. Could Loki possibly convince him it was all an act? That under the influence, he had been plotting to kill everyone in the room, but had used Mobius to try and gain the trust he would need to escape the Hulk-buster cube?
Unlikely. Mobius knew him too well. Still. It might be worth a shot. Or he could at least endeavor to regain some dignity.
He very very slowly tried to extricate himself from Mobius’ hold. As sly and quick as he could be, there was no making up for an utter dearth of shock absorption in a low quality mattress. His every twitch translated through the thin piece of foam and Mobius stirred awake before Loki could even get out from under his arm.
“Loki?” He mumbled, voice deliciously raspy with sleep. Loki swallowed and tried to ignore it. He pushed every hint of emotion deep down inside and carefully arranged his perfect mask before continuing his escape.
“Loki, how are you feeling?” There was a quality to Mobius voice that Loki didn’t completely recognize. Fear?
A flash of memory struck him, nearly freezing him there at the edge of the bed. Mobius’ face awash in terror shortly after he had entered the cube in response to Loki’s pathetic pleading. How he had looked equal parts terrified and resigned when Loki had been overcome by an intense hunger for comfort and support and lunged for him.
It was urge he had never succumbed to as forcefully as he had at that moment. He’d clung to him like a child. He remembered how the fear on Mobius’ face had made him ache. He’d been devastated. It didn’t make any sense. Fear was good. Fear kept him safe. If people feared him, they wouldn’t realize how easily he could be hurt and yet at that moment, he had despised that fear.
Now, it might be the only thing that would protect him. Could he capitalize on that instinctive reaction to a monster, a predator, like him freed from convention?
“Rather lucky you had this thing just lying around.” Loki deflected, tapping once on the glass of the hulkbuster cube. “Convenient, really. Just waiting for the variant God to lose it, are you?”
“Oh, thank God.” Mobius whispered behind him, which wasn’t what Loki had expected at all.
He turned slowly and raised an imperious brow. “Thank me for what?”
Mobius was sitting up in the cot, an odd smile pulling up only one side of his mouth. “Ben’s antidote worked.”
“Pardon?” Loki asked.
“Ben, from R&D, he made an antidote for you. Don’t you remember?”
Loki tried to summon the memory, but it wouldn’t come. He could recall flashes of his time under JC1911's drug, but after some point, it was just a big hole in his memory. How much time was he missing? What else might he have to cover up for with Mobius? Being unaware of his own actions made dread creep up through his chest, into his throat.
“You’re lying again.” Mobius continued, oblivious to Loki’s sudden horror. “You’re back in control of yourself. It was awful, to see you so lost like that.”
Loki pulled his lips up in to a vicious sneer.
“What?” He taunted, “Were you so afraid of a rampaging Jötunn? No good to you if I’m off my leash, am I?”
Mobius’ smile was killed in infancy and he sat up straighter, the scratchy blanket he’d been lying under fell to his waist. Loki could see that he was in the white sleeveless undershirt he usually wore under his uniform.
“That's not what I mean.” Mobius soothed, playing the part. “I was scared for you, because I don’t imagine you would like feeling like you couldn't control yourself.”
Loki took care not to reveal how that ruffled him. How it made him want to turn back to Mobius and fall to his knees and plead once again to be held carefully. No. That isn’t who Loki is supposed to be.
“Yes, well I’m sure we’re all happy that I’m back to normal.” He snapped, turning away from Mobius. He looked so soft and warm, still sitting on the cot like that. Legs still under that thin wool blanket.
Loki could picture it now: Mobius just like this, in a bigger bed with nicer sheets, early morning sun shining low through a window, and a sleepy rasp ‘Come back to bed’. He couldn’t let himself get pulled too far into the fantasy. He needed to get control back over these urges. Like Mobius said; he was only welcome if he could master these dark and needy parts of himself. Perhaps the drug wasn’t entirely out of his system, because he didn’t recall it being so intense before.
Mobius was sticking a foot out from under the blanket. He stretched it out until the tips of his socked feet touched Loki’s shin where he still stood stiffly next to the cot.
“There were parts of it I didn’t mind.” Mobius tried to placate him and Loki morphed his face into a silent snarl.
Surely, a lie to try and secure his continued cooperation. Mobius was no fool, and Loki’s feelings had been on full display. There were few ways to interpret his actions, and Mobius could not return the regard in the same way. His actions while Loki was drugged spoke loud and clear on that. He could easily have taken Loki up on his offer, had he desired it. He could have even hid it under the guise of keeping Loki contained and predictable while under the influence of a drug they still didn’t understand. It was why he had done the rest, wasn’t it?
Was Mobius reaching out to him now, continuing the charade, a method to ensure his loyalty? His commitment to reigning in his worse impulses? It was a very Loki thing to do. To capitalize on someone else’s weakness for your own gain. He supposed Mobius was the Loki expert after all.
“Oh? Which part was that?” Loki taunted, as always needing to have the last word, to control the conversation.
“The part where you cowered from a bloodthirsty frost giant?” Loki stepped in, looming over Mobius on the cot like a threat.
Mobius blinked up at him placidly from the bed without flinching or turning away.
He leaned closer, bending down to whisper in Mobius’ ear.
“Or the part where I offered you my body for your use? Is that the part you liked best? Do you want me, Mobius?” He hissed his words like sweet poison. Would Mobius take him up on the offer now? Loki could be a good lover, for a time. He could leave first, as he had many times before. He could.
He was leaving right now, in fact. He leaned slowly away, keeping his face close enough that his hair should tickle Mobius’ jaw as he retracted. Would he see desire on Mobius’ face? Disgust? Complete apathy?
Mobius caught him with an iron grip around his collar to stop his escape. Loki could smell the remnants of Mobius’ aftershave and the traces of his own shampoo mixing together. A divine bouquet the likes he hadn’t smelled since he was ousted from Asgard.
Mobius turned his face close to Loki’s; close enough that the day-old stubble scratched against Loki’s own smooth jaw. Mobius’ voice in his ear still hadn’t smoothed out. It was just shy of a growl as he whispered back.
“I liked the part where you let me take care of you.”
Loki breathed in sharp and quick. His heartbeat, faster than humans’ on a slow day, raced and pounded underneath his skin, not helping the splitting ache behind his left eye. The grip around his collar released but somehow that made it even harder to breathe. He was unable to convince himself to move. All he could do was look over Mobius’ shoulder and try not to believe. He was far enough gone for this man -this mortal already- he could not let himself fall further.
He'd trusted the soldiers at his back, when they'd gone after Jessa Chen, and they'd thrown him in here. They would have left him here alone, possibly to be launched back into the cold lonely void of space. Only this time he would float there alone for so much longer. There was air enough to breathe in the cube for days. The temperature would fall so very slowly, so excellent was its construction. He could live without food or water for longer than a human could stay sane. And all that time as he slowly suffocated, froze and starved he would be awake to feel it. He would float for days, weeks maybe, billions of miles away from the nearest star. He would die as his father intended: cold, abandoned and alone.
Therefore it would be the height of idiocy to let himself believe for even a moment that Mobius truly cared for him beyond his usefulness to the mission. A mark of shame to the universe’s greatest liar, to fall for such a trick. But oh, how he wanted.
“I’m sorry that I didn’t earn that privilege by my own merit.” Mobius murmured. Loki was sitting far enough back now that he could see the sincerity, feigned or otherwise, on Mobius’ face.
All at once Loki let himself collapse back onto the cot, to press his head to Mobius’ shoulder and push himself into his arms. What exactly had he been trying to do here? His time might be limited, nothing mattered, and he wasn’t even supposed to be here. What was the purpose of denying himself this? Even if it was a trick. Even if it was fake. If he acknowledged that this was all a ploy by the TVA to maintain his cooperation, then he wouldn’t be taken by surprise when it turned out to be true. Until then, why deny himself the comfort?
“If it were anyone else…” Loki spoke into the warm smooth skin of Mobius’ shoulder, low enough that the noise wouldn’t carry beyond their little bubble, even without the cube.“… I wouldn’t have let them. It was only you I wanted.”
“…Loki? Are you...?”
“It’s not the drug.” Loki told him, turning his face in so he was breathing into the juncture of Mobius’ collar, “You were right; I couldn’t control myself then. Every thought became action. But I wanted you. That’s the thing I wanted most, just you.”
“Me?” Mobius repeated on a breath filled with wonder, “Why?”
“Surely you’ve figured it out, you’re no fool. You’ve watched my entire life.”
Loki could feel Mobius’ chest rise and fall with a breath, and felt the slow beat of a heart within.
“I want you to tell me. With your own words.” His voice seemed to come from all around Loki. A simple trick of acoustics and their positions. Still, it gave the words a Divine quality.
Loki didn’t know how he could possibly say what he meant. To explain it to Mobius would be to admit something out loud that he could barely admit to himself. It was too great of a truth for someone like him to be able to speak.
What could he say?
“Love is… an ear that hears you even when you cannot speak. It is a voice that will rise for you, even against something they can’t stop. It is a hand that will reach for you, expecting to get bit, only to find that you… maybe aren’t as fierce as you pretend to be, and then it is the arms that hold you closer for it.”
Mobius took a breath, quick and loud like he’d been holding off from breathing for a while, and his arms tightened around Loki, just as he’d said in his metaphor.
“Silver-tongued,” He whispered. “Loki, I know you well enough to know you won’t believe me yet, maybe for a long time, but… I love you. I have for a long time. If you want… me to take care of you, I would be honored.”
“You’re almost certainly going to regret that. I’m very high-maintenance.”
The smirk reappeared, lighting up Mobius’ eyes from within and deepening the lines next to his eyes.
“That’s alright, gives me more to do. I’m a workaholic after all.”
“I may test even your limits.”
“Go ahead. I look forward to it. No one’s out-stubborned me yet.”
“We shall s-
Mobius holding Loki’s head still and kissing him, chaste but firm, and consequently shutting Loki up, does not count as him getting the last word. Certainly not.