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“The bird is entering the nest.”
Sylvie lifted the walkie-talkie to her mouth to reply, “What the bloody hell does that mean?”
There was a moment of silence on the other line, then Loki’s voice came crackling through, “It’s an expression. You don’t know expressions?”
“Of course I know expressions. I just think that particular expression is stupid.”
“It’s not–! It’s code! It's a secret code! We’re using secret code in case our line is being infiltrated.”
Sylvie’s deadpan reply came, “Loki. We are the only people in the TVA who have walkie-talkies.”
That was true, considering the walkie-talkies came from a small quirky tourist shop in the middle of Oregon, 1997. Their visit to the shop was accidental, (They were following a lead towards Renslayer that ultimately went nowhere.) just a means to pass the time. However, it became clear to everyone on the mission just how absolutely enamored with the simple Midgardian children’s “Spy Kits” Loki was. So clear, in fact, that Mobius had purchased the small green walkie-talkies for him himself.
Loki will personally deny anyone who claims that he “jumped up and down” when he saw them. He did not, he simply stood up very quickly from the floor.
“You never know who might be crafting their own makeshift walkie-talkies.” Loki decided, then he spoke softer, “Casey’s coming your way.”
Sylvie jumped into action, ignoring his previous statement. She stuffed her walkie-talkie into her pocket, and darted down the hall, catching Casey as he turned the corner, “Casey!”
The analyst in question whipped around to face her, his face darkening in fear, “S-Sylvie!”
Sylvie was perhaps a smidge too delighted at the idea that Casey was afraid of her, “Hello there, Casey.”
“What do-” Casey stammered over his words, “What do you want from me? I mean with me? I mean-”
“Oh,” Sylvie feigned innocence, “Nothing at all. Just wanted to stop you for some friendly conversation.”
“Friendly?”
Sylvie began walking down the hall, successfully luring Casey towards their trap. He followed close behind her, wringing his hands anxiously.
“How’s your…paperwork coming along?”
Casey nodded, “Yellow.” Sylvie’s face confirmed this was not the correct response to this question. He panicked, “Wednesdays?”
Sylvie’s footsteps continued down the hall, “I asked about your paperwork, Casey.”
“Oh!” Casey all but screamed, “My paperwork! Of course!”
He did not seem inclined to finish that sentence. That was enough playtime for Sylvie, she decided, allowing them to finish the walk in silence. Casey seemed to have no complaints against following Sylvie down the hall (Although she wasn’t sure how much of that was based on his deep rooted fear of her.)
Sylvie stopped at a large brown door, labeled ‘Supply Closet’.
“I’ve got to admit something to you, Casey.”
Casey noted mutely.
“I didn’t just want to make friendly conversation..” She took a step closer to him, causing Casey to take a small shuffle back, “There’s something I need from you.”
“Th-there is?”
Sylvie’s gaze brightened, a full 180 from the past few seconds, “I need you to reach the copier paper for me in the supply room.”
This was, as expected, not what Casey thought she was going to say. Sylvie watched in mischievous delight as his face went through about 6 different emotions, landing on relief. (Short-lived, she mentally noted.) He let out a series of awkward laughs, “I- I can do that!”
Sylvie took a step out of the way, clearing the doorway for Casey. She watched with bated breath, as he grabbed the doorknob, and pulled it open, not a single thought behind those eyes.
Swinging the door open, Loki’s frame came into view. On his face, an excitedly mischievous expression. He said only one word, “Boo.”
He opened his palm to reveal a rather disgusting looking large spider. As if on cue, it jumped off of his palm, landing directly on Casey’s chest. Casey gave them their intended reaction, letting out a loud girl-ish scream. He stumbled backwards, and Sylvie rushed to move out of the way of his tumbling body.
He reached the other wall in the hallway, slamming backwards into it. His chest rising and falling in fear as he screamed, “Get it off of me! Get it off! Get it off!” repeatedly. Loki and Sylvie stood side by side watching him curiously.
“Perhaps we should tell him about its venom.” Loki told her.
“Why bother? It’ll only make it worse if he knows how venomous a single bite can be.” Sylvie responded.
Loki nodded solemnly, “It would rather scare him to know it’s life threatening.”
Casey’s screams only increased.
Sylvie smiled, “Oops.”
Loki turned to her, equally as giddy, “Oops indeed.”
Their fun was clearly coming to an end however, when a fourth voice joined the conversation, “What the hell is going on in here?”
The two variants whipped their heads around to find none other than Mobius standing displeased. They made no move to respond.
Clearly this was the wrong reaction seeing as Mobius only became angrier, yelling out, “Get it off of him!”
Loki jumped into action (seems as though that was always the case when Mobius was involved) and pulled the spider off of Casey’s chest. Casey took in a deep breath of relief, slowly sliding down the wall to sit on the floor.
Mobius rushed over, crouching down beside him, “You alright, Casey?”
Casey nodded breathlessly, a small thumbs up.
Mobius slowly stood up, turning to face Loki. He looked at him expectantly, “Anything you wanna say to Casey, Loki?”
Loki blinked, looking towards Sylvie, and then back at Mobius, “His name is Reginald.”
He held it out to Casey as if he might want to pet it. Sylvie couldn’t help herself, she actually facepalmed.
“You- Loki- I-” Mobius attempted to form about three sentences before landing on, “Stop it! Just stop! Where did you get that?”
Sylvie stepped forward before Loki could make things any worse for them, “It’s not real, it’s just an illusion.”
“That’s a lie.” Mobius said.
Sylvie challenged him, “Touch it and find out.”
It seemed as if instead of responding, Sylvie and Mobius had decided to engage in a silent staring contest. Blue met blue.
Mobius’ eyebrow twitched. Sylvie narrowed her own eyes.
Loki looked between them helplessly. Ever desperate to not be left out, “What is this? What are you doing?”
Mobius’ mouth flickered into a sideways smile. If she were not absolutely desperate to beat him at his own game, she would’ve rolled her eyes as far back as possible at the fondness of it. She really had to ask Loki about his relationship with the Agent.
“Stop it.” Loki said, “You’re both acting strange. I don’t like it.”
A moment of tense silence continued. Mobius and Sylvie at their stare-off. Casey on the floor. Loki standing beside them, awkwardly petting Reginald’s disgusting form.
Finally, almost without even realizing it, Sylvie blinked. Her jaw dropped at her own failure, watching as Mobius smiled this proud little smile. She quickly began to stutter out, “That’s not-”
“Fair is fair, Sylvie.”
“No it isn't! Fair has never once been fair!”
Loki leaned over to her, “He clearly won.”
Sylvie punched him in the bicep as hard as possible, “You’re on my side, idiot!”
Loki took a giant step back, cradling Reginald in one hand and his bicep in the other, “That was incredibly uncalled for!”
“Alright, alright, stop fighting!” Mobius hollered, gaining their attention, “Stop it. You’re children.”
“I’m actually far older than you.” Loki reminded him.
Sylvie couldn’t help herself, “Dear Gods, do you ever shut up?”
Loki pouted.
“Sylvie, stop harassing Loki. Loki, please, somehow- can you just get rid of the-” Mobius motioned to Reginald, “Can you dispose of it?”
Loki’s face flushed in betrayal, “He has a name.”
“He is a spider.” Mobius reminded him.
“I want to keep him.” Loki decided.
“No.”
“I want to keep him!”
“He’s a venomous spider!”
“He likes me!”
Sylvie added, “He does particularly like him.”
The spider in Loki’s hand seemed to nuzzle closer into his palm. Loki smiled at Mobius, although it was far too cocky to be anything but a sneer. Clearly, he had smiled too soon because the spider seemed to have other ideas.
It was clear the patience of said venomous spider had been tested enough this day, and it launched back on its haunches, and without a long enough second for anyone to warn him, the spider bit into his middle finger.
Loki let out a loud cry, and Sylvie almost immediately joined in, as if the spider was attacking her. It was entirely subconscious. Almost as if, their connection to one another was so deep that the idea of seeing him in any kind of pain was enough to push her own anxieties over the edge.
The following series of events were pure chaos.
-
Mobius sat at his desk, turning on the small yellow-hued lamp beside him in order to see the paperwork he was reading.
Time was confusing in the TVA, but nonetheless he was aware it was late. Normally, when the rest of the office was quieting down, he would simply move to his own sleeping quarters (Except of course when he was working on the Sylvie case, in which he wasn’t sure he slept for actual weeks) Today however, he had to stay late.
Seeing as a large portion of his day was spent with Loki in the infirmary after his venomous spider incident however, Mobius figured he should stay the extra mile to finish his work.
He clicked his pen absentmindedly, his eyes drifting to Loki, who was asleep on the small couch in his office.
Loki had his own sleeping quarters, he had been given them after He Who Remains was killed and the TVA as they know it quickly shifted into another mission entirely. Despite this, Mobius wasn’t sure he had seen Loki use them once. More often than not Loki simply didn’t sleep. Mobius had asked a few times about it, most of which Loki shoved off with a few snarky remarks about being a God.
There was one time however, when Loki admitted that a large reason he didn’t sleep was nightmares. Mobius found himself offering to stay with Loki while he slept. He wasn’t sure what was more surprising. That Loki had said yes, or that Mobius found it almost just as comforting to watch him as Loki found it to be watched.
Mobius wasn’t an idiot, he thought, as he reached over to tuck a stray curl out of Loki’s sleeping face. He knew there was something a bit deeper going on between himself and the God of Mischief. He also knew that Loki wasn’t an idiot either. They simply chose not to discuss their blossoming relationship. For now, Mobius was okay with that. Loki would continue to sleep peacefully, and Mobius would continue to watch him. For now, that was enough.
Loki always looked so young when he slept. There was no need to appear smarter than everyone else, no need to build his walls up to the highest level. Not when he slept. Instead, Loki always slept as though he was trying to make himself as small as possible. With fluttering eyelashes against soft porcelain skin, and a small hiccup in his breathing every now and then, Mobius took note of Loki’s bandaged hand.
He turned his body away from his desk, now simply facing Loki. He grabbed the man’s hand, holding it palm up on his own. Loki had such thin fingers. So un-godlike. So human. So real.
“I hope I’m not intruding.”
Mobius looked up from Loki to find Sylvie standing in his doorway.
“What can I do for you, Sylvie?”
Sylvie shuffled on her feet. She pulled the sleeves of her TVA issued orange sweater down over her hands, crossing her arms, “How is he?”
Mobius couldn’t help the smile crossing his face. He turned Loki’s hand in his palm to face his own, pressing their fingertips together, “He’s perfectly fine. If not a little ego bruised. The venom had absolutely no effect on him.”
Sylvie didn’t smile, she pressed her lips together into a straight line. To anyone else, she might have looked annoyed. Mobius was getting the hang of her expressions though. She was happy. She stepped further into the room.
“B-15 pruned the spider.”
Mobius let out a breathy chuckle, “Something tells me that Loki’ll find some way to be upset about that when he wakes up.”
A flicker of emotion in Sylvie’s eyes, “When he starts whining righteously about Reginald’s rights I’ll send him your way.”
“Is it always my job to clean up Loki’s mess?” Mobius found himself asking. He was almost too aware that the moment the words left his mouth they were more aggressive than he expected.
He was completely confident that Sylvie would take offense to that, and dart out of the room before he could exhale his next breath.
Instead, the unexpected. Sylvie stepped further in the room, even going as far as to take a seat on the arm of the couch. Closer to Loki than to him, Mobius noticed, but progress anyhow.
“He has an awful lot of trust in you.” Sylvie told him, motioning to Loki.
Mobius raised an eyebrow, “Are you going to give me the shovel talk right now?”
Sylvie crossed her arms, “I haven’t a clue what that is. But- he’s important to me.”
“He’s important to me too.”
“He’s-” Sylvie knew what she wanted to say, ‘He's my brother.’ Nonetheless, the words got caught in her throat. They were stuck, she wasn’t ready to say something like that yet. She decided on, “He’s naive.”
“I disagree.”
“I don’t mean in intelligence.” Sylvie argued, “Loki is smarter than anyone gives him credit for. And he’s- he’s not innocent. Surely not. But I mean emotionally-”
“He’s naive.” Mobius finished. “I suppose you might be right in that sense.”
“He feels too much. And too clearly. All the time. I’ll be damned if I let you ruin that for him. Whatever he believes he feels for you is not enough to allow you to break through his walls just to get to the core and destroy that too. Do you understand that, Agent Mobius?”
Mobius smirked, “Yaknow, when he first met you..” His eyes met Slyvie’s, “I said the same thing about you.” He spared another glance at Loki, “I have no intentions of hurting your brother.”
Sylvie stood up almost immediately. Mobius figured he had officially lost her. Instead, she nodded at him, Mobius nodded back.
She cleared her throat, and then made her way to the doorway. Just before she could fully exit, she turned back around.
“Mobius?”
“Yes?”
Sylvie swallowed around the pit in her throat (The one that felt an awful lot like she might start to cry.) and told him, “He looks cold. You ought to give him a blanket.”
She turned on her heels and left the office, closing the door behind her.
Mobius shook his head in disbelief at where she once stood.