Trust
He was still breathing hard from the long run. He had just barely succeeded.
Damn long Asgardian legs. They had taken him too fast.
But he had made it just in time.
The other version of himself had not been aware of what was happening behind his back thanks to the surrounding chaos and he was currently panting but with a God of Mischief imprisoned between the files and his body that was wide-eyed at the sight of a duplicate of Mobius.
_I don’t... need to tell you that... we don't have to make any noise, right? - he whispered in a low voice - I know... I know it sounds crazy, I know it seems delusional, but... this - he pointed around - is not our TVA. It's another TVA. And the one that you just saw is not the Mobius you know. It's another Mobius.
The God narrowed his eyes.
Obviously.
He didn't believe a thing of what he was saying.
_I... would love to stay and chat as I did with your other variants... but we have to leave soon. In this place, I have no doubt that there are things with worse character than an alligator Loki.
The Prince eyes widened again in surprise at understanding and, smiling, he lowered his hands that silenced him.
_Mo... Mobius?
The Jotun / Aesir asked him and, at his hopeful tone, he sighed in agreement.
He wasn't going to lie. He felt the same relief as that walking headache feel at see him whole and healthy. He had feared that, when he found him again, he would find that a part was missing or that he was seriously injured.
Sylvie was not a variant that will play delicately with her enemies and, if now those two were separated, it was because his Loki had become an adversary for the woman, after, surely, not agreeing on something important.
He took out the tempad, then. They had to return quickly to the TVA.
More, before being able to activate the device, he found himself locked in a strong hug by his Loki that made him let go of the air when he was squeezed by him and that his smile will widen.
He swallowed hard when he heard him talk about his crocodile version and his eyes widened when he realized that he was not facing one more mirage or deception.
Mobius was alive.
Mobius was alive.
Mobius was alright.
Mobius… Mobius had followed him.
To rescue him.
To take him back to his TVA.
_Mo... Mobius?
He asked when his hand released his lips letting him speak.
The analyst smiled, sighed and nodded, all at the same time.
It was… it was crazy.
His heart raced a thousand times per second.
"This is how Thor must feel, every time"
He told himself, remembering the multiple situations in which his brother had witnessed his supposed "deaths", only to run into him again, safe and sound, in some way. The huge Asgardian, before scolding him on any occasion, always clung to him and cried with joy at finding him alive again.
It was his turn to pass for the same.
He stretched out his hands while the other drew a tempad from his suit jacket and, fearing that, like a ghostly apparition, the analyst would disappear, he wrapped his arms around him, stifling a sob when he realized that Mobius was not a disembodied being, but a body made of flesh and blood, which transmitted heat and that, despite the bizarre situation, cautiously returned the hug.
_Okay - he heard him whisper in her ear - We can... we can take a couple of minutes. I know it must... be a bit complicated for you all this. Just breathe. In nothing you will be yourself again.
Complicated?
To be him again?
What?
He closed his eyes, biting his lower lip.
That was the difference. That was the reason why he had gotten confused.
Mobius not only did not act the way he acted. Nor did he act as he expected others to.
Sylvie.
Sylvie had been comfortable to his psyche. Another Loki. Another manipulation. Another hurricane. Another super natural being with a miserable life, who had been overcome with a purpose.
Mobius was normal.
Too normal.
When they had met, revealing that he was a pseudo detective, with a desk and a job that, by his standards, except for traveling in time and space, was depressing, he had classified him as unworthy of attention.
Normal.
Moreover, spending hours together, the analyst had been shedding layers of boredom and revealing an incisive and tremendously creative character, challenging his mind.
Mobius could see beyond his lies.
He could read between the lines of his justifications.
He was able to soothe him with one phrase and hurt him with another.
However, like his mother, Frigga, he was incapable of abusing that power in its entirety. With Mobius, there was always a limit, a respect that, in his entire life, he had scarcely received from others.
Faced with such a powerful intention to protect him, after all he had done, he had found himself totally helpless and confused.
No. He didn't want to be “him again”, right now.
He didn't need to be him.
He didn't want to be the one no one could never trust.
Nor who could ever be trusted.
He wanted to continue being Loki.
But another type of Loki.
One like the one Mobius told him he could be: anyone, whatever he wanted.
He and Loki were about the same height.
That he had always known.
Almost from the first moment his archive became his obsession.
Same height. Different eyes. Different crib. Different interests. Same humor.
He had cracked up with laughter watching his interventions in his fifteen hundred years of life. The guy was magnificent. One of the most interesting, varied and tragic lives he had ever had the chance to study at TVA.
His file then became a regular on his desk. So much so that he made a copy for himself, so as not to have to ask the archives manager for it and read it, as if it were a novel, before going to sleep.
Loki hadn't noticed it in his discussion with Miss Minutes that the only thing permanently on his desk next to the jet sky magazine was his file.
Loki, for many, was an obsession.
That is why when he had decided to integrate him as a consultant, he had tried to separate the emotional as much as possible and treat him with a certain distance and superficiality, since it was not correct that, more than half the time, he was with his mouth open, admiring his audacity and intellect.
And he had had significant challenges on that self-imposed path.
Damn it. Pompeii.
He had been very scared in Pompeii, but tremendously excited by everything they were doing and there had been a moment when, if he had given in to temptation, he would have ended up holding him by his black hair to silence him with a full-fledged kiss on the mouth.
The same thing had happened when he rescued him from the room in which he had locked him with Sif. He had heard him say that he could believe him because he was his friend and... hell, hearing Loki call someone “friend”, especially him, despite the fact that he was obviously almost desperate for Sylvie, had led him to stumble with his words and end up telling him that he could be what he wanted and whoever he wanted, as he heard the Queen of Asgard say so many times to a small and depressed Loki thanks to the asgardian context in which he had to grow up.
Not to mention the hill. When the god had embraced him as he did now. The joke had lightened the moment and diverted attention. But coming back to TVA, he would be lying if he didn't admit that he had been a little envious of Sylvie. Of the place she was obviously going to occupy next to Loki.
Obviously, he did not expect less.
One God chose another God.
He never looked down.
It was the natural order of things.
Of course, he didn't count on Sylvie acting, well… like Loki. Hurting his Loki.
He had seen red when he noticed how the God had ended lost between the timelines. Surely without a tempad. And, above all, thrown into a different TVA in which he was going to be exposed to who knows what tribulations.
That was why he had followed him. That was why he had risked getting trapped as well. That's why he had smiled when the black-haired mischief maker had looked at him in surprise. That was why he had reciprocated his Loki's effusive hug.
Of course, he did not count on that the other did not have his boundaries at all.
Nor that when separating just enough to see him in the eye, he will turn them both and leaning his back against the books, he will tilt his head, taking advantage of their similar height to give him one of the most intense kisses of his life.