A Roman Heart

72 hours later

"Mobius reminds you"

Jedediah had told him and his heart had stopped right there.

Moments earlier, Larry and the cowboy had asked him to accompany them leaving the meeting of the committee he had joined in order to improve revenue collections for the Museum in which they lived.

Along with his classes in politics and Roman law, as well as the audiences and practices, that was one of his nightly responsibilities, according to the agenda held by his aide-de-camp and assistant Marco Filipo, who, although usually did not leave him under almost any circumstance, on that occasion, had suspiciously suggested that he should remain at the meeting to then communicate the news that arose in his absence.

_Loki? Are You well? - asked Larry helping him to stand up, because the world had begun to spin.

_Yes, yes - he said hastily, although without rejecting the night guard's hand to be able to stand upright - Just... just explain one more time what you just told me.

_Okay - the cowboy spoke again - Do you remember when Ockie did not treat you well because he thought you were after the bones of ol’ Jedediah?

He nodded half laughing when he heard the flowery expressions of one of his adoptive parents, regarding the jealousy of the other.

_Well, my stubborn Roman, when he realized that none of that was happening felt terrible and, as he is, convinced Nick to give him the password to watch your series, because as a General, he cannot ...

_Planning without having knowledge of what he is facing - finished for the blonde remembering the talk he had had with his Roman father - He told me. He told me that he had seen the series.

_Larry, your turn - the cowboy told the night guard.

_ Four days ago, Octavius came to see me with Teddy, with the news that he had seen the series and that he had devised a plan to help you in which he intended...

_Bring Mobius to the Museum - he whispered feeling that the world was turning around him again - But... how?

_Easy - Jedediah told him - Romans are farsighted people, much more than any of the exhibits. They go through the museum every night and take everything that seems to be valuable with them, then they exchange it on the gift rack for bills and for some time they have been placing it in the little machine from the bank that is in one of the corridors.

_In fifty-odd years - continued Larry - They have obtained and deposited a lot of money. Enough to acquire a wax sculpture like yours, but...

_Of Mobius.

_Exactly, amigo - said the cowboy - But this sculpture suffered a delay due to the dogs on the border, because he was going to arrive with Ahk's parents and he did not arrive until today.

_He’s here? Mobius is here?

He asked both of them in amazement.

_Alive and kicking, in the library - Jedediah told him - Octavius is accompanying him while we were looking for you.

_And does he... does he know who I am?

_He knows. It seems that the fact that they build you at a certain time makes you have the memories of that time and the author of the sculpture had not finished watching the series when he finished it, so this Mobius did not go through what the Mobius at the end of your season did. He isn’t the one that you find on the last chapter of your series - the night guard explained - But, Loki, you need to be careful because he just woke up to life in the museum and that can be disconcerting and...

His brain disconnected from what the night guard was telling him.

Mobius was in the Museum.

Mobius remembered him.

Mobius was in the Museum and he remembered him.

He closed his eyes and summoned his seidr to change the Asgardian clothes he had been wearing, exchanging his evening gown for the TVA uniform.

If Mobius remembered him, the last time he had seen him, that had been his outfit.

He didn't want the analyst to see him again wearing his old-time garb.

No.

That Loki he had learned so much about didn't exist anymore.

The one who now wore the same clothes was different, but Mobius did not know what he had experienced in the Museum and therefore he was not going to interpret what was happening properly.

_Wow. That is a very cool trick. So that's how you change every day.

Jedediah commented when he opened his eyes.

He smirked.

He was a god, what did he expect?

_The library?

He asked the night guard and seeing him nod, he turned on his heel and he thrown himself towards the place.

---------------------------

Oh shit.

He said to himself when he saw the God run away to where they had indicated that his partner was.

_Larry! Compadre! Wake up! We have to follow him!

He yelled at the night guard, who blinked in surprise and started running after Loki.

As usual, the action of the man made him fall into his pocket and have to struggle to stick his head out, hanging from the fabric of his uniform jacket.

Damn gigantors.

All were so huge.

_Loki! - he shouted as soon as he could see the back of his adopted son in the wobble he was experiencing - Wait!

_Loki! You can't go in just like that! Please, understand!

Larry exclaimed, also trying to make him see reason, but zero. Nada. The Norseman was more focused on reaching the library than a horse on munching when saw a sugar cube.

Oh, they were idiots.

They were all idiots when they fell in love.

He said to himself laughing between the useless screams for him to stop.

Loki wasn’t thinking about those moments.

He was not going to listen to them.

_Oh, no, no.

Larry muttered panting in agitation as he saw Loki open the library doors with both arms, revealing a very surprised Mobius, slowly rising from his chair, accompanied by his husband and nothing more, nothing less than Ahkmenrah's father.

_We did what we could, amigo. Now we can only hope that the best happens - he said to the night guard patting his jacket, while he watched as the former Pharaoh got up and offered his hand to Octavius, to leave the room closing the door.

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The Roman had been staring at him very intently, just as the Egyptian was.

He wasn't stupid, he knew they were both measuring him inch by inch.

But there was something strange about the little Emperor. His mind seemed to be and not to be in the place. Like he was remembering something too. Finally, after a smile, he nodded in the direction of the Egyptian and the man handed him a scroll.

Parchment.

Of course.

They were people from other times.

He unrolled it and discovered that this was a simple, few-lined text, written in the languages of those present: hieroglyph, Latin and English.

It read: "Under the protection of Mars and Ra, in the American Museum of Natural History, in New York, the representative of Ahkmenrah, former Pharaoh of the sacred land of Egypt, Merenkahre and the Emperor of the Glorious Rome, Octavius Augustus, together with the Guardian of Brooklyn and custodian of the Museum Lawrence Daley, grant to the one known as Mobius the position of Legatus Legionis, with voice and vote, in the concert of the territorial leaders of the Museum"

At the foot of the edict, the signature of those involved in it appeared.

_This... this is... - he stutter as he try to question what was happening - I don't... understand.

_It is an official designation on the part of both for you - the ex-Pharaoh clarified.

_But… Why? For what? - he asked them again.

_In short, because I doubt that Loki will stay calm for a long time when he knows that you are here, we are going to have my son walking through those doors looking for you and, if I have interpreted your personality well from what I know of the story of both, the status of Loki's was one of the reasons why you didn't tell him that you loved him when you should.

The Roman told him and, despite the control that he had always managed to maintain over most of his emotions, as a veteran interrogator, he could not help but feel how his body was moved by having given the other so right on the nail.

Loki was a Prince.

That was 1500 years old.

God damn it, he thought, swallowing hard.

It should never have crossed his mind to think of him as something more than what he was: a variant he'd had to work with.

But, as he had already admitted when he was almost asphyxiated in the box and with the cowboy, the heart chooses for one, whether we liked it or not, so he gave up trying to continue discussing something that everyone already knew was happening and simply nodded , since he did not trust his own voice in those moments.

_Jedediah must have told you by now, because my husband is a romantic, even if he doesn't believe it himself, but things are different here - added the Emperor smiling.

_Yes - he accepted when listening to him - He mentioned that... he was a cowboy who had married an Emperor and that the guard and President Roosevelt were in a relationship with...

_My son, Ahkmenrah, Fourth King of the Fourth King, Lord of the Nile and the explorer and adventurer Sacajawea - Merenkahre completed - And I must add that they are very happy couples, once they have overcome the prejudices and fears that all of them had, of course.

It was crazy.

That place itself was a nexus event of particular magnitude.

In the midst of a whole different reality, there was a group of beings from different times living and interacting with each other, totally at peace and even forming lives as couples together.

And now, now they gave him a position of importance in that group so that he could do the same.

Because, although his Roman history was somewhat rusty, as he had remembered who Octavius Augustus was, he believed he could define that the position of Legatus Legionis was not exactly one of little power. Less if they explained that he would have a voice and vote among the leaders of the place.

Basically, both of them, were turning him into a kind of second in command.

_Then, you give me this to...

He began to ask them without even being able to believe it.

It was, by all accounts, something akin to being knighted in medieval times on Earth.

_So that you do not hesitate to do what your heart commands when you see him enter - the Emperor said, staring at him - So that you do not let a meaningless thing as your social position prevent you from being happy and making my son happy. Especially after everything he's had to go through.

Immediately to finish expressing it, a series of shouts and hurried steps felt out of place.

Both the Roman and the Egyptian, turned their faces with a smile on their lips towards the door.

_Loki! Wait!

_Loki! You can't go in just like that! Please, understand!

He heard that someone was shouting and his heart stopped for a few seconds, to start running a marathon in his chest afterwards.

Loki was there.

Loki knew he was there too.

Loki was in that Museum and he knew that he was also inside and… he was coming for him.

Loki.

His Loki.

The toughest, most complicated God he ever knew.

The worst headache in all his years as an analyst.

The most adventurous and delusional being he ever knew.

And… the person he loved.

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Octavius had passed by his side, standing on the hand of Ahkmenrah's father and had patted his arm whispering something that sounded like "courage son, everything will be fine", he was not sure.

He could only distinguish Mobius in this whole situation.

Mobius.

His Mobius.

That looked… something different from how he had left him on the hill, but whose eyes and expression were still exactly the same.

The doors of the library closed behind him and he put a hand to his chest realizing that he was breathing heavily as he had run like hell to the place.

_Loki! - Mobius exclaimed rushing to meet him to hold his arms - Are you okay?

He nodded when he couldn't say a word.

The lump in his throat prevented him from speaking.

What was he going to tell him?

Seriously.

What could he say to him?

All those days when he had dreamed of such a meeting, he had never thought about what he was going to tell the analyst if ever seeing him again, how he was going to explain what had happened, how he was going to justify himself.

It wasn't like he could smile at him like always, within the role that he had always acted as the God of Mischief and give him a: “You won't believe it, but I realized that I was confused with Sylvie and that I'm actually in love with you, oops”.

The man had every right to recriminate him for days about his stubbornness, his inability to control his other self, how he had left him when it was much more coherent that he had returned with him and could also tell him that he did not want to know anything with to be by his side and that he was not convinced that he wanted to live a life in that Museum with him.

He swallowed hard.

He had no right.

But it didn't matter.

Mobius was there.

Mobius knew his name.

Mobius remembered him.

And if he had to settle for watching him from a distance, as had happened with Jedediah, it was… it would have to be enough.

_Can I… can I hug you?

He asked in a cracking voice.

Even if he had no right.

Even if it was like on the hill, a gesture of friends.

He needed to have Mobius that way.

He needed it.

------------------------------------

That if he could…?

He blinked for a few seconds in surprise, while his brain reminded him of the cowboy's words when he was rescued from the wooden box: "Loki needs you", “Loki is suffering here. He's not having a good time at all”.

Or those of the Emperor who had adopted the Norse Gog while giving him that particular appointment that, according to the soldier, paved the way for him: “So that you do not let a meaningless thing as your social position prevent you from being happy and making my son happy. Especially after everything he's had to go through”

His eyes ran over Loki's well-known physiognomy.

The God looked different.

He too, he granted it.

Time had passed between the last time he passed through one of the time portals and then and his hair had grown almost to the length it was at the time of his first memory on TVA.

But the change in the Norse deity wasn't exactly physical.

Expressed itself through it, but was much deeper than that.

Loki… Loki was scared.

Since when did something scare Loki?

The Asgardian, literally, had turned his back on Mount Vesuvius in full eruption and had opened his arms with a lunatic smile while around him ash fell and lava was seen approaching in the distance, lost in the ecstasy of having had reason in his theory that it would later allow them to capture Sylvie.

Sylvie.

His feminine variant.

Oh, he was so mad at that girl.

Not for betraying Loki. That, he was sad to say, but it was to be expected. She was a Loki after all. And, of all the Lokis he had met, the one most likely to betray his variant. Sylvie had never had a stable life. She had survived because she had pushed her survival instincts to the limit, and none of them were based on trust, sacrifice, or… love.

He was mad at her because she had decided to use Loki's vulnerability to do so. Knowing that he felt reflected in her. That he saw in his actions the blindness he had experienced when he learned of Odin's betrayal, of the true feelings of who he had considered his father for so many years. That he was desperate to prevent her from going through the same thing. That lead him to end up being devoured by his own hatreds, falling into the hands of torturers and murderers, so that the heroes, from the pedestal of self-indulgence on which the heroes always stood, will point their finger at him and confirm that he was the monster who had always been told he was, just for doing what he had to do to survive.

His Loki deserved so much more.

Sylvie owed him much more than that.

So why was Loki scared?

He wanted to ask him.

And his breath stopped for a moment when he remembered what he had asked.

"Can I… can I hug you?"

The God had whispered to him as if he were asking him for something unattainable, something he did not deserve, something he was going to deny him.

Loki was afraid that he would not want, like so many others before him had not wanted, to touch him.

Loki. The tactile Loki who had not stopped putting a hand on him the entire time they will work together. That Loki believed that he did not want to approach and wrap his arms around him.

The Loki who hadn't forgotten him after his exile. That had followed the cowboy who had later adopted him all over that place because he looked like him. That had not had a good time. For which all those people he had met in those few minutes, had moved heaven and earth to get him to return to his side. Because it was evident that all of them knew that he would be sent to that place and Loki did not. They had even prepared everything so that when they met there would be no obstacles between them.

"So that you do not hesitate to do what your heart commands"

The Emperor had told him.

And for the first time in all of the existence that he will remember, he decided that his heart should command.

He released one of his arms and brought his hand to the face of the God, to part his hair, hold his neck gently and bring his face closer to be able to kiss him without obstacles.