Avengers Loki has been tucked up comfortably in bed for the better part of the last hour, wide awake as he reads his book. It's one he took from Midgard many years ago – The Invisible Man, it's called – that he's only read once or twice, and he can't for the life of him figure out why. This is a great book; definitely one of the best fictional novels he can think of off the top of his head. He should really revisit it more often.

He's a bit confused by the knock on his door. He'd been fairly confident that Thor understood that he didn't want to join their little family meeting tonight. Maybe he's coming to see if Loki changed his mind. Maybe he's coming because they've already talked to Odin and he has something new to share. If he is, he's not overly eager to hear it.

He closes his book, his thumb holding open the page, and rests it in his lap. "Come in."

The door opens, and an all-too-familiar face pokes into the room.

Loki raises an eyebrow, making a show of his distaste. "If I'd known it was you, I wouldn't have invited you in."

Mobius doesn't seem all too phased by that. "Invitation still open, though?"

Loki rolls his eyes, but he gestures for him to come in anyway.

Mobius grins at that and steps inside, closing the door behind him. His eyes scan the room, taking it all in, and Loki finds himself wondering if he's ever seen it before. He seems to know everything there is to know about Loki. Did his chambers make the cut?

Mobius makes his way closer to the bed, but he's careful not to come too close. He keeps a respectable distance; close enough to talk, but not intruding as he does – no more than he's been invited to intrude, at least. He's good at finding that line, Loki notices. He's good at knowing just how much he can get away with.

Mobius gestures with his head to the book in Loki's lap. "Good book?"

"It's not bad," Loki replies. He actually would call it good, if he wasn't talking to Mobius about it. He wouldn't put it past the man to start a whole conversation about the thing if Loki showed any real interest in it, but he suspects that's not what he's here for. There's no point in wasting time talking about this when there's certainly something else he wants to discuss.

"Hmm," Mobius hums, a simple response that is certainly preferable to a discussion of Midgardian literature.

Loki just raises his brows. He's sure Mobius is here for a reason. He suspects he knows what it is, too. But he'd like to hear it from him before he makes any assumptions, so they might as well get to it.

Mobius slips his hands into his pockets. "Thanks for walking me home last night."

Loki cracks a smile. "I was wondering if you would piece it together." He did a remarkable job pretending to be the other him, if he does say so himself, but the charade could only last so long.

Mobius huffs a laugh. "Yeah, well, I tried to talk to my Loki about it this morning and he looked at me like I had two heads, so..."

"It was your own fault for believing your friend would apologize," Loki tells him. He must not know his Loki as well as he thinks he does.

"Oh, no, he did," Mobius says. "He apologized this morning."

Loki cocks an eyebrow. "Hm." He hadn't expected that. Though with what little he knows about whatever transpired between them, he supposes he shouldn't be surprised. If the other him really did say that Mobius doesn't belong here and it's not his home, the apology was certainly necessary.

Mobius tilts his head to the side, eyeing him with intrigue. He always seems so intrigued. It's weird. It's uncomfortable. It's oddly validating. Mobius already has a Loki – one he knows and cares for greatly. He doesn't have to take the time to get to know a second, but he does it anyway. It's both irritating and endearing, this unnecessary fixation he has.

Loki changes the subject before he can think too much about that. "I assume you told Thor to talk to me."

"Only 'cause he forced my hand," Mobius replies.

Loki gives him a weird look.

"I don't think it's a good idea to know the future before it happens," Mobius tells him. "I was going to give you just enough information at just the right time that you could keep everyone alive, but Thor, Loki, and Sylvie wanted to know everything, so..." He spreads his arms in a defeated shrug. "There you go. You know your whole future. Use it wisely."

Ah.

That would be the miscommunication, then.

"I agree," Loki says.

Mobius furrows his brows.

"I don't believe in meddling in affairs that will never come to pass," he continues. "Thor told me nothing of the future. I don't want to know it."

"Oh." Mobius gives him a weird look.

"I wasn't referring to that," Loki tells him. "You told me him talk to me. Because nobody else will." It must have been him. Thor wouldn't have invited him alone without someone to give him a nudge in the right direction.

Mobius cracks a smile. "Maybe," he answers. He certainly means yes. "Why? What'd he say?"

"He asked me to join him tomorrow in restoring the peace between realms," Loki tells him, and it's only after the words have left his mouth that he finds himself wondering why he's said it. He doesn't need to tell Mobius anything. He certainly doesn't need to tell him about his slowly healing relationship with his brother.

"Oh, that'll be fun!" Mobius says enthusiastically. Loki suspects he hasn't the slightest idea what it entails. Maybe he's seen videos, but he certainly doesn't strike Loki as a warrior. He's too small, too soft, too good-hearted. He wouldn't last a day on a battlefield.

Still, he's not wrong. It will be fun. Loki's almost sure of it. He'll get to spend the day with his brother, and, just as importantly, he'll get to murder people. There is no better way to get one's anger or frustration out than murder. And the people he murdered will be people who deserve to be murdered, which makes it even better. It will be some well-earned murder for them all.

It occurs to him that there was a time he never would have advocated for this kind of violence. He was always about defense. He didn't fear murder, of course. He's certainly killed his fair share of enemies. But he never sought it out. Not like this. Not just for the sake of doing it.

"'Broken things'..." he muses quietly, almost under his breath. That certainly was one way to describe him.

Mobius gives him another weird look – well-deserved, he will admit. He probably shouldn't have said it aloud, but it's too late to take it back now.

"I didn't mean it in a bad way," Mobius tells him.

He already knows that. He could see the fondness in his eyes as he said it the night before. He really does seem to like his broken things. But Loki had been so sure that he wasn't one of them; that Mobius had gotten that idea from the Loki he knows, the Loki who's just wrong, the Loki who hardly acts like a Loki, and then just assumed it went for every Loki. But Mobius was right, wasn't he? Loki is a broken thing. He's certainly not the person he used to be.

Loki lets out a long breath. "Do you want to sit?" he asks. "We can move to the sofa." It's easier than craning his neck up to look at him

Mobius gives him a small smile. "I'd like that."

Loki conjures a piece of paper to mark his page before letting his book rest atop his bed. He slips out from under the covers, and as he stands up, he conjures his usual leather attire, replacing the pajamas he'd been so comfortably snuggled up in.

Loki leads him to the couch, and Mobius is much too comfortable taking a seat upon it. He's not sure anybody outside his family has ever seemed this comfortable in his room. Even his (or, more accurately, Thor's) friends and the numerous men and women he's slept with over the years have always seemed rather awkward when invited to simply lounge around in the prince's room. Not Mobius, though. He always has to be the exception that proves every rule.

Loki sits down on the other end of the couch, leaving a full cushion of space between them. He just wants to talk. He doesn't want to get too close – physically or emotionally.

Loki clasps his hands in his lap. "Thor told me about Hela."

Mobius raises a brow. "I thought you didn't want to know the future."

"I don't know what she does in the future," Loki tells him. "I don't know if we ever meet, or how or when. But I know that my father raised her a murderer, then punished her for doing what she was taught."

Mobius nods slowly. "That's one way to look at it," he agrees.

"Is there another?" Loki asks, and he hopes there is. He hopes Mobius has some magical words of wisdom that will show him that he's misunderstood the situation, and that Odin is every bit the man he wants his father to be. But he doesn't know if he believes it.

Mobius just shrugs. "I don't know," he says. "I think there's always different ways to look at things. You could say he recognized that he made a mistake, that he realized that peace through violence isn't peace at all, and changed his ways. Hela was intent on keeping with the old ways, and for the safety of the Nine Realms, he had to vanquish the biggest threat to their safety."

Loki's quiet for a few moments.

He can see that. He can see how it could be a moral failing on Odin's part, but he can also see how it could have been a terrible sacrifice he had to make for the greater good. That's one of the things he hates about morality: it's so painfully subjective.

"How do you see it?" he asks.

Mobius raises his brows. "How do I see it?"

Loki nods once. His judgment won't be clouded like Loki's is from the continued lies and betrayals he's faced from his family. He'll have a more objective view of the situation; a more complete view. And though it pains him to ask Mobius for advice, he fears he needs his knowledge more than he hates his arrogance.

Mobius lets out a long breath. "I think..." He begins slowly, carefully, "that Odin is a much better king than he is a father."

Loki huffs. He's certainly not wrong.

"But I think he's trying his best to be both," Mobius continues, a bit halting in his words. "He's not good at it. He makes a lot of mistakes, and it's his kids who usually have to pay the price, but he's trying his best."

That is quite possibly the least satisfying answer Loki has ever heard.

He's trying his best.

Bullshit.

His heart is in the right place? That's the excuse Mobius is going with? How is that supposed to help? How is that supposed to right any of his many, many wrongs? Don't mind him; your father is just incompetent. Those are not the reaffirming words he was looking for.

"Have you talked to him about it?" Mobius asks.

Loki huffs and rolls his eyes. "Of course not." He's hardly even seen his father since he came home, and Mobius thinks he would have approached him within hours of learning that he's been lied to once more?

"You should talk to him," Mobius says. "About this; about your heritage; about everything."

"No," Loki says immediately. If he wanted to talk to his father, he would have gone with the rest of them to speak to him tonight.

"You'll feel better once you've cleared the air," Mobius insists. "You're in a weird state of limbo right now, walking the tightrope between all that chaos you caused last year and the peace and serenity you know you could have here, but you can't have it because just the thought of talking to your dad scares the bejesus out of you."

Loki narrows his eyes. "It does not scare me."

"Yes, it does, and that's okay," Mobius says, and he's so gentle about it, so caring, so heartfelt, it almost hurts. "You trusted him, and he lied to you and kept secrets from you – secrets like this that he still hasn't told you. You don't know what he's going to say or how he's going to react, and that's scary. But you deserve to have answers – especially about where you came from. It might not be fun, but you'll feel better when it's over and you've talked about it."

Loki clenches his jaw. "I asked for your knowledge, not your unwarranted advice." Mobius may think he knows everything, but he doesn't, and having studied his past doesn't give him the authority to dictate his future.

"You asked me how I saw it," Mobius reminds him, and he's so irritatingly patient as he speaks. "And the way I see it is that your relationship with your dad is a mess, and you're not going to be able to sort this out until you've sorted that out."

Loki glares at him. He hates that Mobius thinks he can tell him what to do like this – and, worse still, he hates that he's right. He does need to talk to his father, and it does scare him to think about and he is putting it off for that very reason. How arrogant must this man be to tell him with such confidence the objectively best way to live his life?

When Loki doesn't give him a response, Mobius adds, "You don't have to. If you don't want to talk to him, you don't have to talk to him, but this is never going to not haunt you if you don't."

Loki knows that. Of course he does. But he doesn't want to hear it – and he certainly doesn't want to hear it from Mobius.

So he changes the subject, turning the heat back onto him. "Have you talked to him?"

Mobius raises his brows. "Have I talked to your dad?"

Loki tries to ignore how ridiculous the question sounds when it comes from his mouth. "Thor said he was waiting for you before he confronted our father."

That explanation seems to help. "Thor talked to me when I got back," Mobius tells him. "I told him that he would have to drag me kicking and screaming if he wanted me there." He cracks a smile as he says it.

"Why?" Loki asks. If the other Loki and Sylvie want him there and if Thor wants him there, why wouldn't he go?

Mobius scoffs. "I just exposed your dad's biggest, darkest secret. I want to be as far away as possible when this all goes down."

Loki huffs. "You're scared of him."

"What, and you aren't?" Mobius counters.

Loki doesn't dignify that with a response. He wouldn't even know how to. He's not scared of his father. Scared of confronting his father, maybe, but scared of his father? That would be ridiculous. What would he have to be afraid of?

Although Odin has been known to banish his children...

And there is the fact that he's not even really Odin's son; he's a monster raised to play hero – and one who failed so miserably at it...

Everything he's done over the last year, really, could be a reason to be afraid. He reignited the war with Jotunheim over a petty feud with his brother. He could pass it off as concern for the fate of Asgard in Thor's boorish hands, but how could he explain sending The Destroyer after him? Or his convoluted plan to prove his worth by killing Laufey and destroying Jotunheim? And, worse still, what he did on Midgard? What he planned to do on Midgard? He couldn't explain that. He couldn't tell Odin what made him do it – who made him do it.

Maybe he is scared of Odin. He has so many strikes against him already. One more, and who knows what Odin will do to him? And nobody would even notice, which may be the worst part. Nobody would care. There would still be one Loki in Asgard – the perfect one; the social butterfly; the one with the enthusiasm of a puppy in a butcher shop with free range of its product. Nobody would care if Odin banished him; not when their favorite him is still here.

Mobius sighs. "I'm sorry; that was too far," he says, a resigned sort of sympathy in his tone. "I can say that to my Loki, but you're not..." He trails off with the shake of his head. "Don't let me push you into doing something you're not ready to do. You don't have to talk to your dad – not now, not ever, if you don't want to. You've had a rough year. Don't stress yourself out more than you have to."

Loki's quiet for a few moments. The self-awareness is nice. He knows he's getting too comfortable with him. He knows he can't treat him the way he treats the other him. They're not the same person. They don't have the same relationship with him – and, maybe more importantly, they're not coming from the same place. That changes a lot about them, he's sure.

"Do you know?" Loki asks.

"Do I know what?"

"What he did to me."

"Who, your dad?"

Loki shakes his head. "I think you know who." He knows of Thanos; he's said as much. But how much does he know? How much of Loki's life has he pried his way into? How much of Loki's trauma has he invited himself to watch?

Mobius hesitates, and when he answers, he does so haltingly. "I know enough to know that I don't want to know more."

Loki just looks at him for a few moments.

He doesn't know what answer he wanted. Mobius has no right to know at all what he's been through, but at the same time, it's nice, he thinks, to know that somebody in this world understands. He shouldn't understand, and really, it seems he only has the faintest idea, but he still understands, to some extent. He understands more than anyone else, he's sure.

It must be nice to be the other Loki. It must be nice to know Mobius as a friend. A man who knows everything is a powerful ally to have – and, he suppose, a good confidant. As ridiculous – and, dare he say, embarrassing – as the other Loki is, he does seem to have it much better. It sounds so much easier to be a pathetic, overly trusting fool. He almost wishes he were one, too.

"I'm not going to ask you to talk about it," Mobius tells him. "But if you ever want to, I'll listen – or Thor will listen or your parents will listen, or whoever you want to talk to."

"I assure you, that day will never come," Loki says coldly.

"And that's fine," Mobius assures him. "I told you, I'm not gonna push. If I wanted to talk about it, I would've brought it up myself."

Loki narrows his eyes suspiciously. He has to admit, that is sound logic. If he wanted Loki to talk about it, he would have talked to Loki about it. But it just feels... wrong. He wouldn't have said that if he didn't want to talk about it. He wouldn't have offered to talk just for the sake of offering. There has to be some goal here. There has to be a reason he's like this. Nobody is this nice just for the sake of it.

"What is it that you want from me, Mobius?" Loki asks finally. What type of manipulative game is he playing?

"I just want you to be okay," Mobius tells him. "This is a second chance, and if you mess this up, you're not going to get a third."

"Why do you care?"

Mobius just shrugs. "I like my Lokis," he says. "Broken things, remember?" He follows that with a lighthearted smile as though it's not an attack on the deepest parts of Loki's soul; an attack on everything he is and everything he once was.

Loki just narrows his eyes. This whole conversation is just... wrong. He doesn't understand it. He doesn't understand him. Mobius is nothing short of confusing and it's irritating beyond belief, but at the same time, he's intrigued, in a weird way. He doesn't understand how this man thinks, why he acts the way that he does, and he certainly doesn't want to spend enough time with him to find out – and yet, there's a part of him...

He lets out a long breath. "Our conversation is over," he says. "You can leave now."

Mobius doesn't seem the least bit offended by this. He nods once and stands up. "Thanks for the chat," he says. "I'll talk to you later?"

Loki rolls his eyes. "Unfortunately, it seems rather unavoidable," he answers monotonously.

Mobius huffs, a slight smile on his face that Loki wishes more than anything he could knock right off of him. "Goodnight, Loki," he says.

And then he leaves.

Just like that.

At least Loki knows he can be easy to get rid of.

Loki waits until the door closes, then plops himself down across the couch, face buried in a throw pillow. This is ridiculous. He is ridiculous. And now Loki has to worry about this mysterious sister of his, his relationship with his father (which is a whole crisis in and of itself), his place in this world now that he's essentially been replaced, and he has to deal with Mobius's holier-than-thou, I-know-you-better-than-you-know-yourself attitude all the while.

At least he knows he'll have a distraction tomorrow. It's just him and Thor against the world, just the way he likes it.