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After all this time, Mobius really should have learned to always expect the unexpected.
An extended lifetime studying Loki— and all sorts of other Lokis, but now, specifically, his Loki— has already made him fairly relaxed. Not much bothers him. It’s easy to be easy-going, to let things roll off him without affecting him too deeply, when the sole focus of his attention will do— and is willing to do— literally anything, at any given point, if it strikes them to do so. Not much reason to be surprised by Loki when he’s seen them do pretty much everything a person can actually manage to do.
Point being, he’s watched Loki wipe out entire planets, and cry to their brother, and fail on countless occasions, and shift into more forms than Mobius can count, and deliver children, and cast magic, and win, and lose, and kill, and mourn, and scream, and fight, and smile, and love—
He’s watched Loki do everything, over and over and over, and now—
Now, he’s doing it all with them.
So, Loki, he’s used to.
Thor, he probably should’ve been paying more attention to.
“Did you hear something?” Loki calls down from upstairs, as if the entire house hadn’t just rattled and a thunderous, resonating, sonic sort of boom hadn’t reverberated through the air, nearly tangibly thick. Through every window, for a brief sunflare of a moment, lightning-bright bolts of color shine. The entire house is illuminated as if they’re inside a rainbow before everything settles again.
And Loki’s asking, ‘Did you hear something?’ as if there was just a small tremor or a distant car horn honking.
“Yeah, a little,” Mobius shouts back. More to himself, while he’s heading for the door to investigate, he adds, “If by something you mean the planet exploding, then, yeah, I heard something—”
“What was that?” Loki asks from the staircase, and Mobius whirls, hand clasped over his heart pounding in his chest.
“Don’t do that,” Mobius scolds them, heart pounding.
Ignoring his comment— knowing full well they will do that again, and probably again today— Loki only furrows their brow at him, asking, “Are you going outside like that?” and then immediately answers their own question with, “You’re not going outside like that.”
“What’s wrong with this?” Mobius asks, glancing down at himself. The colors are no more outrageous than the ones that just burst inside their house. “I like this shirt! And didn’t you p—”
“I meant unarmed,” Loki clarifies.
They sweep the rest of the way down the stairs, Frigga becoming visible in their arms, held close to their chest. This early in the morning, both she and Loki are in their pajamas, still, trailing nightgowns that Mobius suspects remind Loki of Asgard. Mobius is the only one dressed, and only because it’s part of his morning ritual, before he makes breakfast for the three of them
Frigga’s most of the way asleep in Loki’s arms, when Mobius sees her, though she does lift her head to blearily glance at him, when she senses him nearby. Or, Mobius thinks that’s what she does— senses him; she’s a lot like Loki, using magic naturally, as if it’s as easy as learning to breathe or walk or speak..
Drawing a blade magically from within the confines of their nightgown, Loki turns the weapon over to Mobius. “Use this. You know, actually— I should just come with you.”
“I can investigate myself,” Mobius tells him. “You stay here with Frigga and I’ll just—”
“Please,” Loki says. “She’s better equipped to fight off a threat than half the people on this planet.”
“Be that as it may,” Mobius says, flipping the knife in his hands so he can catch it by the handle rather than the blade, proud of himself when he actually manages to do it, “I’d rather not see my kid fighting some sort of space alien you brought here, if I can help it.”
“Who says I brought it here?” Loki demands.
Mobius laughs, and Loki trails after him as he heads for the door again. “I’m not blaming you, I’m just saying. If one of us is going to be luring some monster to the house, I’m going to guess it’s the intergalactic god that keeps pissing people off.”
“Yes, well,” Loki replies. “Beaurocrat.”
“Sounds like a dirty word when you say it,” Mobius says, teasing, and Loki shoves him towards the door from the center of their kitchen.
“Protect us, then, if you’re so keen on it,” Loki instructs him. Their tone is angling for playfully-haughty, but there’s a frisson of unease that keeps them from getting all the way there. “Go on. Kill the beasts for us.”
“Anything for—” Mobius starts to reply, glancing back towards Loki and Frigga with a grin, but he’s cut off when a knock comes on the door before he can even manage to open it.
The three of them turn back to the door, staring at it, just for a beat.
Then, Loki says, “I told you. Now it’s going to come inside and—”
“It’s knocking,” Mobius points out. “If it wanted to come in and gut us, I’m sure it wouldn’t have knocked.”
“You don’t know,” Loki says, but Mobius is already tucking the knife on the inside of one hand so he can reach for the door with the other. “Be careful.”
“When am I not?” Mobius asks him. Though he doesn’t look back, he can practically feel Loki rolling their eyes anyway. With one hand on the knob, then, Mobius leans in close to the door and asks, “Hello?”
“Hello?” comes the reply, and Mobius instantly recognizes it as Thor.
“Unbelievable,” Loki hisses.
The doorknob rattles. From the other side, Thor demands, “Why’ve you locked me out? Mobius, open this door—”
“Alright, hold on,” Mobius says, tossing the knife aside onto the counter, freeing his hands to let Thor inside. The second the door’s opened, Loki’s sweeping past him towards their brother, all crackling energy.
“Why are you traveling onto my lawn using the Bifrost?” Loki demands. “You are scorching the grass—”
“Quit complaining, you can fix it,” Thor tells him. “Besides, I have something a little bit more pressing first.” He turns sideways and says, “Alright, come on. Come here,” and Mobius is instantly on high alert.
“What did you bring here?” Loki asks outright. “What have you done now?”
“Hey, hold on,” Thor says. “This one actually isn’t even fully on me, so you can take that back, Loki, thanks. I think I’m doing the right thing, but— You’re the only one I know that I can ask about how to do this. And I kind of don’t know what I’m doing with it.”
Loki evaluates Thor for a moment. Then, they turn towards Mobius. It’s a slow movement; their eyes stay on Thor for a long, lingering beat before they actually meet Mobius’, when they pass Frigga off to him. She goes, though she’s awake now, eyes fixed firmly on Thor ahead of her.
Loki doesn’t need to speak; Mobius can read the warning in their expression, and Loki can read the agreement in his own in return.
“Alright,” Loki says, and motions Mobius back a couple of steps. He only takes one, out of deference to Frigga, though he stays close at Loki’s flank. To Thor, they instruct, “Come, now. Tell me what it is you’ve done. Who have you brought?” They lean towards the doorway. “Come along, then. Who’s there?”
At first, Mobius doesn’t even see her. He’s expecting to see somebody at Thor’s eye level, so it takes him a beat to look down, properly, when he catches the movement, and finds him looking down instead to a child’s eyes, closer to Thor’s waist than anything else, when the kid steps up next to him, wearing a colorful flash of human clothes and dark hair in braids and markings up over her eyes and her hands twisted together in front of her and a smile on her face, of all things. A tiny little bell goes off in the back of Mobius’ mind, looking at her.
For a moment, they all just stare at her.
Then, Thor nudges her forward a step and says, “This is Love.”
In front of him, this strange little girl motions backwards towards him and says, “This is Uncle Thor.”
“Oh, shit,” Loki says. To Thor, he asks, “We don’t have another sibling, do we?”
“No,” Thor tells him. “This one’s mine. Her dad,” and he mouths the words, “killed lots of people,” rather than speaking them, before continuing normally, “and asked me to take care of her, so. I have. And we’ve been doing a pretty good job so far, I think.”
“Pretty good,” Love agrees.
“But I don’t actually know what she needs in a—” Thor stops, then considers his words, for a beat. Mobius feels like he really, really should know better, by now. Expect the unexpected. Thor could’ve come in and sliced his entire head off with Stormbreaker, and Mobius would probably be less surprised than he is right now. “—a life way? Does that make sense?”
Loki stares at him, incredulous.
After a beat, they look down to Love. “And so… You are?”
As if Loki is struggling to understand, she slowly repeats, “Love,” and then turns back to Thor. “I thought you said they were smart.”
“Excuse you, little girl,” Loki says, and Love returns her attention to them, placid face pleasantly interested, eyebrows lifted as she studies them. “I’m much smarter than your Uncle Thor—”
“Uncle Thor,” Frigga echoes, from Mobius’ arms.
“Yes, darling,” Loki tells her, not missing a beat. Continuing to Love, they say, “He is the muscle. I am the mind. Come here, I’ll help you. Much more than he has, I can assure you.”
Love enters without hesitation, letting Loki motion her forwards into the kitchen. Mobius takes over, guides her the rest of the way to the breakfast table, lets her take one of the extra seats. Frigga’s placed in her high chair at her side, curiously observing Love from the side; they leave Thor and Loki in the doorway, Loki dropping their voice to hiss a low question to their brother.
“Hey,” Mobius asks the two girls at the table. Both children look up at him. “What do you like to eat? You want breakfast? I was just making muffins, if you want one.”
“Yes, please,” Love says, and Mobius isn’t entirely sure what Thor’s so nervous about. The kid seems perfectly pleasant.
“—at she is?” Loki demands of Thor in a snapping voice, only the very end audible, taking him by the shoulder and twisting him away so they can whisper something closer. Mobius sees Thor shake his head, say something back. Whatever it is, it makes the both of them smile, which has him smiling, too, unable to fight it down.
Abruptly, Mobius’ hand is yanked down. There’s no physical force touching him, only a pink-green chain of Frigga’s magic wrapping from her hand to his wrist. She pulls on him again, then motions towards the trays of muffins on the counter with a despondent point. “Please.”
“Alright, I gotcha, princess,” Mobius tells her. He ruffles her dark hair as he passes, enjoying the way she lets her head fall backward to smile widely at him, all crinkling-round baby’s features and scrunched-up nose and delight in her bright eyes. Tapping her between those eyes, he says, “Look forward, don’t let all the blood go to your head.”
She sticks her tongue out upwards before falling back down, turning to look at Love instead.
The two of them evaluate each other, for a beat.
“Who’s she?” Love asks first. She’s bluntly curious; when Mobius turns back to her with a tray of still-hot muffin options, half-crumbling where he’s piled them together, her expression is nothing but inquisitive.
“This is Frigga,” Mobius informs her. “She’s my daughter. Well, our daughter. And your— cousin? I guess?”
In all the timelines Mobius has witnessed, Thor and Loki have, occasionally, had to confront Gorr and stop the God Butcher from doing what he did best. The faint bell ringing in the back of Mobius’ head finally makes sense, and he recognizes Love, the daughter of the monster, sweet spawn of the God Butcher, the reason he does it at all.
In those timelines he witnessed, Thor also took several opportunities to look after the girl, if they succeeded in defeating Gorr. On one memorable occasion, Thor and Loki raised the child into adulthood together. She was a formidable sort of opponent, in that timeline. It’s lucky she managed to find them again, even in another world, another life, another self.
It’s not a surprise, then, that Thor found his way to Love in this timeline, too. From what Mobius remembers, he’s always been a good father to her, with or without Loki’s influence.
“Hey,” Mobius says, with that thought in mind, drawing Loki’s and Thor’s attention both to him. “C’mon, sit and eat. Life planning can happen once there’s food in your bellies.” Loki moves immediately to join him; it has Mobius smiling, at the knowledge that Loki understands he’ll only bring the food to them, if they don’t eat. At Thor’s beat of hesitance, Mobius extends the muffin plate. “It’ll help you think straight. C’mon, bud, just take one.”
Thor cracks a second later, bounding over to take a muffin in each hand before claiming the seat at Love’s side. She’s got her own blueberry muffin held in both hands, biting into it as if she’s a feral animal tearing the throat out of a prey-creature she caught in the woods.
“So,” Thor asks, around a mouthful of muffin. “What do I do now?”
“What do you do?” Loki asks. He accepts the butter dish and knife from Mobius, slides Frigga’s own plate over to themself to butter hers for her, tearing it up into small pieces without even seeming to realize they’re doing it. “You just— You do it.”
“You can take care of her,” Mobius assures Thor. “Just don’t overthink it. You know what you’re doing.”
“You think so?” Thor asks in return, and he’s terrified and excited and Mobius has never felt more like he has a brother, really, than he does when Thor’s visiting. Marrying Loki’s been a win in a lot of ways, for him, but one of Mobius’ favorites is the family that came with them.
“I know so,” Mobius promises him. “I’ve seen it, man. Like, at least half a dozen times. You never messed it up that bad.”
Thor processes that, for a second, before he laughs and glances down at Love.
“Hear that?” Thor asks her. “We’re friends in other timelines, too.”
“That’s nice,” Love tells him. She lifts her chin, meets Mobius’ eye. He’s expecting her to ask about herself in those other timelines, maybe, or to inquire about what the fuck that all might mean. Instead, though, she just points at the muffin plate and asks, “Can I have another?”
“Sure thing,” Mobius agrees, and Frigga uses a bit of her magic to long-distance shove a muffin at random off the plate. It skids across the table to land in front of Love, half-on her plate, half-collapsing on the table, in a mess of crumbling pieces.
Love grins, when she looks up at Frigga. “Cool,” she says, in the beat before asking, “Can you show me how to do that?”
“Well,” Loki tells her. “We can certainly try.”
They’re holding themself carefully, but Mobius can hear the warmth and intrigue and curiosity and, whether Loki agrees with him or not, kindness that floods their tone when they speak with the children. It has something charmed and endeared and loving twisting inside of Mobius, a spreading kind of family-sensation, a notion of belonging and understanding.
Watching Love attempt to lift a piece of muffin with nothing more than her mind while Frigga, in all of her too-young wisdom and barely-present vocabulary, tries and fails to teach her how, has something soft inside of Mobius wriggling around. He’s joyous, and maybe this isn’t how he expected his morning to go, but—
This isn’t how he expected his life to go, really, and it’s turning out alright so far.
“You don’t think I’ve made a mistake, then?” he hears Thor ask Loki, while the children are occupied with their muffins and Mobius is attempting to minimize the amount of crumbs on the tabletop as opposed to the plates.
There’s a moment where Mobius doesn’t hear any answer. He doesn’t look, because he assumes one will come once Loki’s thought it over, and he’s right. After a second, he’s rewarded with Loki’s thoughtful, “No, I don’t think so.” A smile is in their voice when they add, “You have made much, much worse mistakes than this one, regardless. I wouldn’t worry too much.”
A shuffle of a sound comes, then, and Mobius can’t stop himself from risking just a brief glance, just to see. He finds Thor leaning towards Loki, arm extended so he can grasp his sibling’s forearm for a brief moment, squeezing it.
“Thank you,” Thor tells them.
“Don’t mention it,” Loki replies. They lay their hand over the back of his, for a moment. “Quite literally, please. Do not.”
“Who would I even tell?” Thor asks. A beat later, he adds, “Actually, you know, you should come visit New Asgard again. Val’s been teaching the kids some basic self-defense. Frigga should go.”
“Frigga is a baby,” Loki insists to him. “She will not be fighting soon, thank you.”
“She’s not a baby,” Mobius replies. Loki glares sideways at him, brow furrowing, eyes narrowing. “Hey, I’m not saying give her a gun! I’m just saying, I’m sure Val knows what she could handle.”
“She does,” Love adds. “She lets me train all the time. And there’s kids like you,” she tells Frigga. “It’d be fun.”
“Fun!” Frigga echoes, grinning. It makes Love smile, too.
“Yeah,” she replies. “Lots of fun,” and tears into her new muffin-heap.
“We could come this week,” Mobius suggests to Loki. At the exasperated expression he receives in return, he says, “We don’t have any plans this weekend! It would be fun! We could—”
“Alright, fine,” Loki allows, as if they didn’t want to go already. They had suggested quite literally this morning that they visit Thor and New Asgard again sometime soon. “We can go.” He points at Thor sharply. “Next time, however, you are to tell me immediately when you do something like this.”
“It’s only been a few days,” Thor complains. Eating half of a banana muffin in one bite, he adds, muffled, “You’re so impatient, Loki,” and Mobius knew he should’ve made more. He just didn’t anticipate Thor’s arrival.
“I take it back,” Loki informs him. “I won’t be helping you.” With a wave of their magic, the kitchen door opens back up, and they motion towards it. “On your way, now, thank you.”
Frigga lifts her own hand to slam the door shut with a rush of her own magic. She succeeds, and it whumps shut roughly, rattling in its frame.
“Careful, kiddo,” Mobius tells her, while Frigga shrieks in delight.
“See?” he hears Thor comment to Love, his voice low, an aside meant only for her. “Not so bad, is it?”
“I like them,” Love whispers back to him. Mobius can’t stop smiling, hearing that; when he lifts his eyes and catches Loki watching the child, for a beat, before their eyes flick up to meet his, they smile, too. It’s a flash of a thing, curling up here and then gone, but Mobius is all the warmer for seeing it, feeling his own smile broadening in response. “Thanks.”
‘Thanks,’ she says. Thanking him for giving her a family, for introducing him to more of his, for making her part of it. Abruptly, Mobius is struck with the same sort of feeling.
Giving into it, Mobius stops behind Loki’s chair to set down the next plate of muffins. Leaning over their shoulder, placing the broad dish on the tabletop, Mobius takes care to stop and lean in, kissing Loki on the cheek. He feels the curve of their smile twist up beneath his lips.
“What’s that for?” Loki asks, muscles moving underneath Mobius’ kiss.
He tilts Loki’s face towards him properly to give them one actual kiss before they part. Loki’s eyes slip back open, green and bright and sharp, and they meet Mobius’ with a kind of light that he only ever sees here with them.
“Thanks,” Mobius says simply, echoing the sentiment Love had shared. That’s all there is to it, really. He’s thankful that Loki’s here with him; he’s thankful to be part of their family; he’s thankful.
“Well,” Loki replies. “You’re welcome,” and Mobius smiles, giving him one last kiss.
“Want a coffee?” he asks.
“Yes,” Loki responds immediately, “Thank you,” and Mobius laughs, kisses their temple, and goes to get the matching mugs Thor and Loki prefer to use when they drink together, narrowly avoiding hunks of muffin thrown by the new cousins at the table along the way, relishing in the moment.