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I
Mobius has never actually seen him in person before, nor are there any good, clear photos of him in existence, but nevertheless he knows him immediately when he arrives at the gala. His hair is longer than it is in the only pictures that Mobius does have of him—nearly shoulder-length and wavy—but there’s no mistaking the sharp line of his nose and those cheekbones. Not that Mobius has been staring at said photos for months or anything. All long, lean lines and wide, ingratiating smiles, he practically oozes confidence and charm, easily drawing other guests into his orbit like he has his own gravitational field. He fits seamlessly into the luxurious surroundings, as if he was born to it, although there are rumors that he was not.
Mobius, on the other hand, quite clearly does not belong here. He tugs on the slightly too-short cuffs of his rented tux, because he’s not made of money and his ticket to this stupid event had to come out of his own pocket. Thanks to movies and TV people think spies are always clad in expensive, perfectly-tailored suits, but as usual, reality is significantly less glamorous than fiction. Also his previous tux got destroyed in an operation last month, and he just hasn’t had time to get a new one, nor has he been assigned an official mission that requires one. It doesn’t help that he’s just never been able to carry off a tux like some people can.
Certainly not like Loki Laufeyson can.
Grabbing a Scotch from the bar, Mobius finds an out of the way corner to tuck himself into so that he can watch Loki work the room. He’s reasonably sure that the object of his attention won’t notice him, which is certainly a benefit of looking completely underwhelming and unremarkable, at least compared to the glittery bodies that surround him. Loki lifts no fewer than five watches, three diamond tennis bracelets, and one rather sizable necklace that Mobius still doesn’t understand how its owner didn’t notice was missing. It feels strange not saying anything, itching uncomfortably beneath his skin, but he has bigger fish to fry. The very last thing he can afford to do is jeopardize the actual mission he was sent to this city for by getting involved with local law enforcement and drawing attention to himself. This is research, pure and simple.
Eventually there are speeches related to tonight’s benefit, and Mobius loses track of Loki as everyone stills and turns toward the front of the room to listen. It’s possible he slipped out to go case the vault that Mobius is sure he intends to rob sometime in the next few days. He could go check, but instead he stays put and waits for the insipid speeches to end while he sips his Scotch. Finally the hosts stop droning on, the guests begin mingling again, and Mobius considers whether he should seek out a refill for his drink.
“And who might you be?” a low voice practically purrs in his ear, its owner’s body surprisingly close.
It’s been a long time since anyone managed to sneak up on him. The cold, hard lump of discomfort in his gut at that is expected, but the burst of heat that joins it is entirely novel. There’s just something about that voice, so utterly smooth and seductive, that burns within him in a way that nothing has in a long time. He refuses to consider that it might have something to do with the voice’s owner. Somehow he already knows who it belongs to. “No one in particular,” he retorts as he turns to face his new companion.
Loki looks down at him with amusement sparkling in his grey-blue eyes and a smirk on his lips. “Oh, come now. I don’t believe that for a moment.” He pauses, his gaze raking appraisingly over Mobius’s body. “All these obscenely and ostentatiously wealthy people are here to see and be seen. But not you.”
“Are you implying that I don’t look obscenely wealthy?” Mobius counters, cocking an eyebrow at him.
That draws a laugh from Loki that sounds startlingly genuine in comparison to everything else he’s been wielding so far tonight. He nabs a glass of champagne from a passing waiter and sips it thoughtfully, that evaluating look back in his eyes. “No, and that makes you intriguing. That, and the fact that you’ve been watching me. Oh don’t worry, you were very discrete,” he adds before Mobius can even think of protesting. “I’m just very, very good at this. Any particular reason I should know about?”
The annoying part is that Loki’s cockiness isn’t unmerited. There’s a reason no one has been able to catch him, and it’s not for lack of trying. In fact, some of Mobius’s colleagues would say he is the one who punching above his weight, so to speak, and it’s possible they might be right. Mobius prefers to think they are wrong. For instance, he knows how to deal with people who pride themselves in being the smartest person in the room, and it’s usually with blunt honesty.
“Because you’re the notorious art thief known popularly as The Trickster—kind of a lackluster sobriquet, if you ask me—and you're here to case this mansion so you can rob the vault.”
Loki’s expressive eyebrows arc skyward. “Well, that is quite the fanciful story. What has led you to that conclusion?”
“I’ve been studying you for years. Quite the illustrious career, if you believe all the stories. Not sure I do,” Mobius shrugs, and Loki can’t help but smile at that. “You have a pattern, although you like to pretend you don’t. You prefer to steal from personal collections rather than museums, although pieces on loan to a museum are fair game. You usually spend a decent chunk of time in a city before carrying out the job, long enough that you can’t be tightly associated with any particular events. And you visit your targets beforehand, but always in some kind of disguise.”
“You certainly seem to have me all figured out, Mr…?” Loki prompts, his grin a little tighter than it had been.
“Agent Mobius.”
He hadn’t entirely been planning to do that. Scratch that, he definitely hadn’t been planning to do that. Really, giving a cover name was so second nature for him that he hadn’t even thought twice about it until his real one was spilling from his lips. Something about the man in front of him just seemed to draw it out of him, which should be more troubling. He does wonder if Loki will think it’s a fake name anyway. He’s gotten that before, been accused of needing to be more creative when really his parents are the ones that deserve that castigation. Thought they were really clever, they did. But whatever Loki thinks of the name, he makes no comment on it.
“A pleasure to meet you, I’m sure. I’d say Interpol, but they wouldn’t let one of their agents out on a mission in such an ill-fitting tux,” he says, somehow managing to make it not sound like an insult. “American, obviously, which rules out any number of foreign intelligence agencies. Then there’s the matter of you watching me work all evening and not saying a peep to the authorities, which suggests you’re off your leash. Perhaps quite far off it. So… FBI?”
“CIA,” Mobius admits, inclining his head.
Loki grins broadly, white teeth gleaming. “I wasn’t aware the CIA took a special interest in art theft.”
“They don’t.”
“So you’re here because…?”
Mobius coughs. “This is, ah, a personal project.”
“Is that so?” Loki says, looking entirely too delighted. His smile gets even wider, and much more predatory. “Why, I’m flattered, Agent Mobius.”
“Don’t be,” Mobius warns, doing his best to glare at the other man. He knows it’s futile; Loki can’t help but be flattered. It’s in his nature. “One day I’m going to catch you.”
“Is that so? You know, more than a few men have tried to take me down over the years.”
He doesn’t say better men, men who have resources and support of an agency behind them and who don’t have a strange, unexplainable personal stake in this. He doesn’t have to; Mobius can see the skepticism in his eyes. It doesn’t matter. “They weren’t me,” he replies simply. Something about that seems to impress the thief, like Mobius’s stubborn confidence has bought him a grudging respect. It wouldn’t be the first time.
“Fair enough,” Loki allows. He leans closer, close enough that Mobius can smell his expensive cologne, and nearly enough that he imagines he can feel the heat radiating from the other man’s body. His smirk takes on a sharper edge, and he runs a finger suggestively down the front of Mobius’s jacket. “And what, exactly, are you planning to do with me if you do catch me?”
Mobius just manages not to roll his eyes. “I imagine there’s a prison cell with your name on it somewhere out there.”
“I’m afraid you’ll have to pardon me if I decline,” Loki says with a moue of distaste, pulling away again. “So are you going to tell me why I’ve earned this dubious honor?”
“Are you going to tell me why you’ve spent all this time talking to me instead of the job you came here to do?”
Loki gives him a toothy, dimpled grin. “Like I said. You’re intriguing.”
“Likewise,” Mobius replies, trying not to think about the fact that being considered intriguing by Loki Laufeyson might not be a good thing.
II
The very last place Mobius expects to see Loki again is while he’s in the middle of a mission in Odesa. Particularly because he’s currently following members of a black market shipping collective through a maze of back alleys, hopefully to their base of operations, trying to balance on the fine edge of keeping up with them and not being seen. The streets are almost entirely deserted this late at night, so when slips around a corner and finds a tall, lean man clad entirely in black in his path, he draws his gun without thinking twice.
“I don’t think you’ll be needing that,” a familiar voice murmurs, sending a jolt of recognition through Mobius.
“Loki?!” he hisses, his eyes going wide as the thief steps into the dim light of a streetlamp. “What the hell are you doing here? Have you been following me?”
“No! Well, not entirely. I was in the area.”
“You—” Mobius sputters at the sheer audacity, then shakes his head as he holsters his gun. The trail he was on is probably already going cold. “I don’t have time for this right now, I’m in the middle of something.”
“You mean following the gentlemen from Yastrub? I should warn you that the one with the scar on his chin is a rather nasty piece of work—”
The rest of Loki’s sentence gets cut off as Mobius shoves him back up against the brick wall with a hand pressed to the middle of his chest. The position is unfortunately less intimidating than he’d hoped, what with the fact that he has to look up to glare at the taller man. “Are you involved in this somehow? I swear to god, if you are—”
“Me? Heavens, no,” Loki answers, his eyebrows knitting upward in the middle in a look that Mobius supposes is intended to convey innocence. In some other circumstance it would be almost endearing, but at the moment Mobius is too frustrated for that particular observation to make it out of his subconscious. “I may or may not have dealt with this particular operation in the past, and might have information that could be of use.”
Mobius blinks at him in surprise, momentarily caught off guard. “You… want to help me? What’s your angle, here?”
“No angle,” Loki insists. His hands had been raised up on either side of his shoulders in a show of surrender, but he lowers them slowly now, letting one drop to Mobius’s wrist where he’s still pinning Loki to the wall. Mobius expects him to try to dislodge it, but instead he just rests his hand there, long fingers curling elegantly against his pulse point. Mobius does his best to ignore it.
“C’mon, Loki. Do you think I’m an idiot? I know men like you. There’s never not an angle. What do you want?”
“Believe me, Agent Mobius, you’ve never known a man like me before. I suppose you wouldn’t believe me if I said I’m doing this out of the goodness of my heart?” Loki tries, grinning when Mobius just narrows his eyes at him. “Fine. Not that I’m admitting to anything, but it’s possible that they sometimes try to renegotiate in the middle of a job and put their, ah, clients in a bad position.”
“They extorted you for more money once they had whatever stolen art you were trying to ship, and now you want revenge. Is that it?” Mobius says dryly.
“I’m just saying that our interests currently align. And I think at this point you’ve entirely lost them, so if you want to find where they’re operating out of, you’re going to need me.”
Mobius finally steps away, pulling his wrist out of Loki’s loose grip as he does. “Christ, I can’t believe I’m doing this,” he mutters, shaking his head, his hands on his hips. This is probably a mistake. Loki’s almost certainly going to stab him in the back, metaphorically or quite possibly literally. There’s another voice inside him that tells him to take the chance, though. Maybe, just maybe, Loki will surprise him.
“Ok, fine. But let’s get one thing straight,” Mobius huffs, pointing at the other man, ”I do not need you. I might have lost them tonight—which is your fault, in case you forgot—but that is a minor setback. I’m choosing to accept your help with serious reservations.”
“Well, you certainly know how to make a man feel appreciated, Agent Mobius,” Loki says, grinning like he’s just won some small victory.
Mobius doesn’t want to consider what’s behind that. He’ll accept Loki’s help, because if he does know where the shipping outfit is located it will make his life a hell of a lot easier, but he’s not an idiot. If he’s expecting the betrayal, then he can’t be disappointed when it inevitably comes. “You want appreciation, you’re going to have to earn it.”
“Do you promise?” Loki asks, but instead of the expected suggestive grin, the words are accompanied by what seems to be a look of sincere curiosity. As if this night couldn’t get any more surprising.
Well. Hopefully not too much more surprising. Mobius tucks away his own curiosity about the increasingly complex man before him in the same place he has shoved his misgivings over this venture, and gestures down the road before them. “Let’s go.”
III
He has good reasons for seeking out Loki for this. Reasons that have nothing to do with the fact that his little preoccupation—ok, fine, call it what it is, almost an obsession—with the other man has only gotten worse since meeting him in person, and worse still they spent a night together in Odesa.
Wait, no— not like that. It was a mission, nothing more, and Mobius curses his brain for supplying that particular turn of phrase. It’s not like he wants to spend a night with Loki, that’s insane, but that fact hasn’t stopped his mind from helpfully replaying the feeling of Loki’s fingers curled around his wrist, or how he’d pressed close as they hid just outside the collective’s hideout, waiting for an opportunity to slip away so Mobius could call for backup and Loki could disappear into the shadows again.
So what if they’d worked surprisingly well together, or if Loki’s face had practically lit up when Mobius had to admit he was grateful for Loki’s help. Just because Loki hadn’t betrayed him that night didn’t mean anything had changed. He’s still a notorious criminal, and Mobius is still a CIA agent. A CIA agent who currently could really use a break in this case or else his boss is going to have his head.
Loki has been spending the last few days visiting a small museum in Warsaw that has just announced it will be exhibiting a recently-discovered original score by Fredrick Chopin, and Mobius seriously doubts he is just that interested in Romantic composers. No doubt a manuscript like that would bring a good price on the black market, not to mention the museum seems to be a bit light on security. On the day Mobius chooses to make his approach, Loki is sitting in the gallery, apparently lost in contemplation of one of the lesser manuscripts on display, but actually studying how the security guard makes his rounds. He’s dressed more casually than Mobius has ever seen him, in jeans and a rumpled button-down shirt—playing the part of a student, apparently—but the most shocking part is that his chin-length hair is currently blond. It’s should be that surprisingly, really, Loki is a chameleon, which is part of the reason he’s never been caught, but still. Blond?
“I’m not sure that hair color works on you,” Mobius says as he takes a seat on the bench next to him.
If Loki is surprised to see him, he doesn’t show it. His gaze flickers to Mobius for only a moment before the corner of his mouth twitches upward. “Lovely to see you, too, Agent Mobius.” He pauses a beat. “I take it you’re not here to indulge in a secret passion for Polish composers?”
“Nor are you, I would wager.”
“You’d be surprised.”
Mobius can’t quite suppress a snort of amusement, which in turn makes the slight curve of Loki’s lips turn into an actual smile. There’s no artifice in it, like Loki is genuinely pleased to see him, and something in Mobius’s gut lurches uncomfortably at that thought. Particularly because now that he’s here, he realizes that the tight feeling in his chest that had plagued the whole way to Warsaw had been anticipation. He’d been excited to be going to see the other man again. It’s disconcerting, to say the least.
“As pleasant as your company is,” Loki says—and yeah, let’s not unpack that right now—“I doubt you came by for a social call, either.”
In response, Mobius pulls a slim folder out of his jacket and drops it unceremoniously onto Loki’s lap. The other man stares at him quizzically for a moment before opening the folder and glancing quickly over the documents inside.
“What is your interest in Daniel Swaby?”
“I need an introduction,” Mobius says.
“And you think I can provide it?” Loki asks, cocking an eyebrow. Mobius nods. “I wish I could help you, truly, but I don’t know the man.”
“Nice try. You attended a pretty exclusive party at his villa in Monaco last year.”
“That doesn’t mean—”
“Loki,” Mobius warns.
The other man sighs. “Fine, yes, we’re acquainted. Why you think I’d be willing to introduce him to the CIA is another matter entirely. And, I have no way of contacting him, nor do I know where he’s keeping himself lately.”
“He’s in currently in Gdańsk.”
“You mean you want to go now,” Loki infers, gaping at him, then laughs as he shakes his head. “Sorry, I’m afraid I have a prior engagement.”
“Yeah, with Fredrick Chopin, I know,” Mobius says.
Loki narrows his eyes, frowning at that, and Mobius desperately ignores the part of him that wants to bring the easy smile back. “I see. Which is it, then? Are you here because you want my help, or because you want to catch me stealing something?”
“Right now, I’m hoping for your help.”
The implication, of course, is that if Loki chooses not to help, Mobius knows enough to make trouble for him. That’s somewhat true, but in reality Mobius doesn’t have the kind of evidence he’d need to bring him in, and he’s unlikely to get it even if Loki decides to go through with the theft. Loki undoubtedly knows this, so Mobius is relying entirely on whatever impulse made Loki volunteer to help him before. He’s always been too optimistic about people for his own good.
Frankly, Loki takes longer to consider the situation than Mobius expected him to. Finally he shakes his head slightly, as if at himself, then looks over at Mobius again. “I’ll do it if you answer one question.”
“Sure.”
“Why are you really after me? What am I to you?”
“That’s two questions,” Mobius points out, grinning when Loki frowns at him. Before Loki can protest, though, he answers honestly, “Maybe I look at who you are and what you can do, and I wonder why you chose this path. Maybe I want to see you do something good with your talents for once. Or maybe I just want to put a thief behind bars. Take your pick.”
Loki stares at him for a moment, his face blank, then turns his head to look into the distance. “I think you might have mistaken me for someone else,” he says quietly. “I’m not a good person, Agent Mobius.”
“But you could be, if you wanted to.”
That draws Loki’s attention back to him, but his expression remains as inscrutable as it is piercing. Mobius wonders if this is the first time anyone has ever said something like that to him.
“In Odesa, when I offered my assistance, you said you knew men like me. You didn’t believe I would want to help. So why would you…” Loki trails off, then he huffs a short laugh and shakes his head. “Unless you were just trying to get a rise out of me. A challenge, just like this one. So is this your way of trying to guide me onto the path of righteousness?”
“Is it working?” Mobius counters.
Loki smirks at him. “Ask me another time.”
“Does this mean you’ll come with me to Gdańsk?”
“You answered my question, and I’m a man of my word,” Loki tells him. “When do we leave?”
IV
Mobius had been having a perfectly lovely day. It’s one of those rare times when he has few responsibilities other than watching the comings and goings from a particular antiques shop in Ankara. He’d been parked at the cafe across the street for nearly a week now, regularly sending his reports in and doing his best not to think about the activities of a certain thief. It becomes a lot harder when said thief lowers himself gracefully into the seat opposite him at the small table.
The last Mobius had heard he was in Brussels, so what he’s doing in Turkey now is a mystery and, frankly, a surprise. He doesn’t typically deal in near-eastern antiquities. The blue three-piece suit he’s wearing is completely inappropriate for the weather, but he still manages to look at ease in it and entirely unaffected by the heat. His hair is longer—it has been nearly half a year since Poland, after all—half pulled up behind his head, and back to black.
“What are you doing here?” Mobius frowns.
He doesn’t miss the look of surprise and hurt that flashes across Loki’s face before he can hide it, and, fuck, he wishes he hadn’t seen it. He’s not letting himself get roped into whatever this is. He’s not. He turns back to his notes, not because he has anything to write, but he needs something to do that’s not looking at the man across from him.
“Hello to you too,” Loki says as he flags down a waiter. Of course he does. Of course he’s going to invite himself to join without any concern as to whether he’s interrupting anything. They sit in somewhat tense silence until the woman who runs the cafe comes out and Loki orders his coffee in flawless Turkish. Mobius waits until she’s gone before he speaks again.
“You didn’t answer my question.”
“Can’t I just want to have coffee with a friend?”
Mobius leans back and caps his pen, giving up on the pretense of his notes. “Is that what we are? Friends?”
They lapse into silence again when the cafe owner returns with Loki’s coffee, and it stretches as he dumps an absurd amount of sugar into the tiny mug. “One might think you weren’t happy to see me,” he says eventually, with careful blandness, instead of answering the question.
Mobius huffs a sharp laugh at that, unwillingly thinking of the last time they’d met. He forces a tight smile onto his face. “Of course. Why wouldn’t I be?”
The sad part is that somewhere deep within him, he is genuinely pleased to see the other man. He’d missed him in those intervening months, lord help him, which is terrifying and doing nothing to make him feel better about this situation. Functionally, nothing should have changed about their relationship, and it’s only Mobius’s stupid, inappropriate expectations—of things he had no right or reason to expect—setting him off. No wonder Loki looks so confused by this reception. Mobius takes a drink of his own coffee and tries to soften his expression into something less adversarial.
It seems to work, at least a bit. Some of the tension relaxes out of Loki’s posture, and he sits back in his chair, crossing one long leg over the other. “So, how have you been?”
“That’s classified.”
“Honestly,” Loki starts in a huff, until he catches sight of the small smile on Mobius’s lips. “Well. Keeping busy, then, I suppose.”
Mobius inclines his head—not quite a confirmation, not quite not one. “You picked up a partner,” he says in a tone of voice that he hopes is less accusatory than it sounds in his head.
Loki cocks an eyebrow at him. “Did I?”
“C’mon, Loki. Don’t play dumb. Good looking, always smirking. Essentially a female version of you.”
“Are you saying you think I’m good looking, Agent Mobius?” Loki grins, chuckling when Mobius sends him his most unimpressed look. As if Loki doesn’t already know he’s devastatingly handsome. “Her name is Sylvie, if you must know.”
“Ah, Sylvie. Lovely,” Mobius says, unable to keep the dripping sarcasm from his voice. Why does he care if Loki’s working with a partner? He shouldn’t care. He doesn’t care. It’s just— “You and your girlfriend were seen at the Michaelsen Gallery benefit the night before a rare Dali sketch, set to be part of a new exhibition, went missing,” he accuses, leaning forward and tapping a finger on the table. “But I suppose you wouldn’t know anything about that.”
“She’s not my girlfriend.”
“You know, I thought, stupidly, that you might be reconsidering the whole life of crime schtick. It had been months since you pulled a job—at least, anything big enough to be noticed—but I should have known all it would take was a pretty face batting her eyelashes at you and you’d be putty in her hands.”
Loki huffs. “I’m not—”
“I hope it’s worth it to you, really,” Mobius continues on—not bitterly, certainly not—as he sits back in his chair again, “and I’m sure you’ll be very happy—”
“Mobius,” Loki interrupts more forcefully, leaning over to rest a hand on his forearm. “She’s not my girlfriend, or my partner. You know I prefer to work alone.”
“Then who is she?” Mobius demands.
“My sister.”
That stops Mobius dead. It’s of course surprising, but more surprising—and worrisome—is the way he’s suddenly flooded with unmistakable relief. Relief at what, exactly? Not that she wouldn’t have influence over Loki, because a surely a sibling, someone bound to him by blood, has the potential to have even more sway than a lover. Nor is it relief that Loki hadn’t been involved with the Dali theft, because he hadn’t even bothered to deny that.
So that basically leaves relief that Loki isn’t fucking her, which. No. Definitely not. It’s just not possible that that is the reason his chest feels too tight and something like a smile is desperately trying to fight its way onto his lips. Loki’s hand is still resting on his forearm, and it suddenly feels absurdly hot through his thin shirt. Mobius does his best to block out that, along with any and all frankly devastating revelations, and return to the conversation at hand.
“I didn’t know you had a sister,” he manages.
Loki shrugs and pulls his hand back. Mobius absolutely does not mourn the loss of contact. “Neither did I, until very recently.”
“Are you sure? That she’s who she says she is, I mean,” Mobius asks sharply. It doesn’t seem like Loki to just take someone at their word, but family can be a tricky subject. Especially for an orphan. “If she’s trying to get something from you—”
Loki actually laughs at him, which he supposes he deserves. “She’s not hustling me. She is really my sister.”
“But she is a thief, too.” It’s not really a question. Mobius knows enough about the theft he mentioned earlier to be fairly certain she and Loki were both involved, and he doesn’t like the timing of her showing up.
Naturally, Loki doesn’t really answer. He gives a half-shrug as he sips his coffee, staring over lip of the tiny cup with an unmistakable mischief sparkling in his eyes. “You’re worried about me.”
“I wouldn’t put it that way,” Mobius says quickly. Probably too quickly.
“How would you put it, then?” Loki presses.
“I’m… concerned about influences in your life that are going to get you into trouble.”
“Worried about me,” he repeats, looking entirely too pleased with himself. Smug bastard.
V
In the end it comes down to dumb luck. Of all the scenarios Mobius had imagined that could have brought them to this point, this particular one had never come close to occurring to him. How could it? The circumstances are too absurd and unlikely, so much so that he doesn’t even realize what’s happening until it’s too late.
They’re in the same city by complete coincidence. The only reason Mobius knows this is because Loki had, not long after they’d first met, taken to sending postcards to his home address—lord knows how he got it, Mobius doesn’t really want to contemplate that—of whatever exotic locale he happens to be visiting. He never writes anything, of course, and even the address is typed, but Mobius knows it’s him. For one, quite a few of them correspond in rough timing to notable art thefts in said cities, and no doubt the others to minor or unreported ones. And anyway, who else would it be? Mobius doesn’t have prolonged cat-and-mouse games with any other notorious art thieves.
He’d had always taken the missives for the obvious taunts that they are, but he can’t deny that receiving them lately has put a smile on his face for all those reasons he’d rather not examine. When he’d gotten this one it had been a surprise, because it was the same city that he’d been due to fly to the next day for a mission. He almost never got these kinds of chances, so he had briefly tried to figure out where Loki might strike. Not that he’d have time to go after him, even if he did figure it out, but still, it paid to be prepared. Nothing really stood out to him, but that was probably because he stupidly ignored the most obvious opportunity of all.
The package that the Agency is intercepting contains a hard drive with quite a bit of sensitive information on it. Mobius doesn’t exactly know what—that knowledge is above his clearance—but it has been very strenuously emphasized that securing it is of the utmost importance, and also that there will likely be other interested parties. Hence the reason it’s not just him here, but a team of three other agents for support, and tensions are high. Perhaps he can be excused, then, for ignoring the fact that the listed contents of the package included an early Renoir, among a few other paintings of lesser significance.
He can’t ignore it when he breaks into the secure facility of the transit company to find the vault already open. He should radio immediately to his team, but something stops him. Everything is utterly silent inside, so it’s possible that whoever was here has already come and gone. If the drive is gone, he’s toast anyway, and his gut says that he’s not in any real danger, so he might as well check the vault first before raising some kind of ruckus that would draw attention to them.
The vault appears, at first glance, to be deserted. The crate they’ve come from has been pried open, its contents spread around the room. The drive isn’t visible among them, but there is, oddly, an empty gilt frame sitting on the table with a narrow plastic tube-shaped carrier resting next to it.
The significance of what he’s seeing occurs to him a moment too late. He catches a flash of movement out of the corner of his eye as he steps into the vault, the glimmer of a knife in the vault’s harsh light, but before he can react there is a blade at his throat and a hand twisting his gun arm behind his back. His assailant is taller than him and pressed close, and recognition slams hard into him at the familiar scent of his cologne.
“Mobius?” Loki hisses, nearly in his ear, sounding just as surprised as Mobius is.
He takes advantage of the shock that loosens Loki’s grip and twists away, leveling his gun at the other man as he backs slowly toward the table in the middle of the room. For a moment, neither of them says anything. Loki’s eyes flick from Mobius’s gun, to the rolled up painting on the table, and to the entrance of the vault before they finally meet his gaze again.
“I’d ask what you are doing here, but I think I have a pretty good idea,” Mobius says quietly. He nods toward the table without letting his eyes leave Loki. “Renoir?”
A tense grin flashes onto Loki’s face, at once guilty and almost self-deprecating. “You know me well.”
“Not well enough,” Mobius mutters, mostly to himself.
Christ, this is a mess. Two of Mobius’s team are outside in a van, monitoring the surroundings, ready to provide a rapid getaway, and generally standing by in case things get hairy. The third is currently keeping watch over the facility from the only entrance to this particular area. Loki is utterly trapped, and it is clear from the panic in his eyes that he knows it instinctively.
“Where’s the drive?”
That the confusion on Loki’s face looks genuine enough is not much comfort. “I don’t know anything about a drive.”
“No, I don’t suppose you would,” Mobius sighs. Keeping his gun trained on the thief, Mobius moves over to the open crate. “I wouldn’t recommend trying anything. There are three agents outside. You won’t get far.”
Loki manages a small nod, which Mobius supposes is good enough under the circumstances. He pokes around in the container, shifting paintings and looking for anything that vaguely resembles a hard drive.
“Surely the firearm isn’t necessary—” Loki starts.
Mobius’s snort cuts him off. “Right. I put my gun away, and you knife me in the back while I’m not looking.”
“I wouldn’t stab you in the back,” Loki protests. He sounds almost… offended? “Look, you said yourself, I wouldn’t get far. You staying alive is my only chance of getting out of here right now.”
He says it so practically, so coldly, like he’s done the mental calculus and Mobius’s life is worth just as much as it takes to secure his freedom. Of course it is. If Mobius thought differently—that they were friends, that Loki actually cared about what happened to him—that was his mistake.
“You actually think you’re getting out of this?”
Loki shrugs, that tense smile back on his face. “A man can dream?” Then the smile slides off his face, replaced by desperation. “Whatever you’re here for, I had nothing to do with it.”
“That I can believe,” Mobius answers as he spots the corner of a black plastic casing peeking out between two canvases. He bends down and grabs the slim drive, turning it over in his hand.
“See, that, I have no idea what that is,” Loki says, gesturing to the drive. “You’re more than welcome to it.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“Mobius, please. You know what will happen if I’m caught here, involved in whatever this is. Obviously this is no longer just an art theft. You believe me, but what are the chances that anyone else does?” Loki is speaking rapidly, obviously trying to talk his way out of this, all the while creeping closer to Mobius as he does.
It doesn’t matter that Mobius knows exactly what Loki is doing, trying to prey on his sympathies. He also knows Loki is right. The CIA will never believe he wasn’t here for the drive, and he’ll disappear deep into the bowels of some black site. Mobius wants to catch him, Loki is still a criminal and no matter what else is going on in his head, that hasn’t changed, but… not like this.
“Shit,” he mutters to himself, staring at the rolled up Renoir on the table.
When he looks up again, Loki is standing a lot closer than before, close enough to reach out and wrap those slender fingers around his wrist, just like in Odesa. He pushes Mobius’s hand—and the gun it’s holding—to the side, and Mobius lets him. Loki’s eyes are nearly grey under the fluorescent lights as they look searchingly into his, and he takes another step even closer, until only inches separate them.
It’s an act, he knows it is, Loki will do anything to get out of this, up to and including exploiting the feelings that Mobius is sure have been riding too close to the surface for a long time now. That doesn’t keep his heart from picking up speed, or his throat from tightening as the scent of Loki’s cologne invades his senses once again. Loki raises his other hand, as if to brush across Mobius’s cheek, but he never makes contact.
“Agent Mobius, do you have the package?” Mobius’s radio squawks to life, shattering the tension that had descended over the vault.
Mobius takes a step backward, pulling his wrist from Loki’s grip, and grabs the radio. “Package acquired,” he answers flatly. “I’m coming out.”
Never once does his gaze leave Loki, and the other man stares back at him just as fixedly, his face a careful mask. Mobius backs up another step toward the door, and another, finally holstering his gun. This is truly insane, what he’s about to do. After all this time, years of chasing, it comes down to this.
“I guess you found out what I would do if I caught you,” Mobius says wryly.
Loki’s brow furrows as a complicated expression flits over his face. “Mobius—”
“Don’t make me regret this,” Mobius interrupts with finality, then he leaves before he can come to his senses.
1
He doesn’t know how in the hel he got himself into this situation.
Which is to say, not the situation he presently finds himself in, in particular, about to enter a building that had recently been filled with quite a bit of gunfire. It had stopped, at least, although that doesn’t make him feel much better about things. He hates guns, and he refuses to carry one, but he’s more than familiar with why the expression ‘bringing a knife to a gun fight’ exists. There is, unfortunately, very little help for it in this moment, though.
Rather, the situation that confounds him is the one where he finds himself having fallen in love with a CIA agent. If you had told him a year ago this is where he’d be, he’d have started laughing and not stopped for a very, very long time. Certainly, there is something appealing about the idea of a dashing, suave secret agent, even to an art thief, but Mobius is… something else altogether. Mobius, with his grey hair, and his mustache, and his crooked nose, and his outdated brown suits. Mobius, who seems to cultivate an air of guilelessness so that people will purposefully overlook him and underestimate him, usually to their undoing.
Mobius, who can never manage to hide his amusement at Loki’s antics, who smiles at him like he’s worth something, who, ironically, is one of the only people he feels safe around. Mobius, who trusts him when he probably shouldn’t. Mobius, who believes in him.
Fuck.
Which brings us around to the present, and the fact that Loki wants to pretend he has no idea why he’s doing this, when really he couldn’t be any more obvious. He’s the reason Mobius is in there, anyway, and he owes him at least this much. (He owes him a hell of a lot more).
The thing about being an art thief is that people keep a lot more than art and jewels in their vaults. Most of the time Loki ignores the documents and information he finds, because he’s never wanted to get involved in that world, the world of selling sensitive information that has a tendency to lead to people’s deaths. No one dies when he steals a Picasso sketch. He can’t say what made him peek at the document holder he’d happened across during his last job, only that once he saw what was inside he knew he couldn’t pretend he hadn’t seen it. Even though he sent the photos he snapped to Mobius (anonymously, of course, he’s not an idiot), he hadn’t been sure that Mobius would be the one who was sent to go after the apparently very bad man that Loki had relieved of his art. He also hadn’t really considered the fact that, having been robbed, his victim might improve his security, and that that might lead to complications for the CIA agent responsible for dealing with it.
Even so, Loki doesn’t really know why he’s here. Mobius has a team, he has backup that will no doubt be here soon, and really Loki would be better off leaving before they show up and decide that he’s involved. But, well, he’d secretly watched Mobius go into the building, and then there had been gunfire, and now Loki is concerned, to put it mildly.
He realizes what a monumentally stupid idea this was when he enters the building and immediately gets shot at. So much for the gunfire being done. Loki dives for cover behind a sturdy, overturned table and pauses. His assailants have stopped firing, no doubt waiting to see if he is going to return it. They don’t know he’s not armed, and he’s banking on their uncertainty. Unfortunately Loki has no real clue what has happened in here or where Mobius might be, but he reasons that he should search in the opposite direction of where the bullets are coming from at the very least.
He finds Mobius in the next room, where he has apparently dragged himself behind the partially open door. There is, sickeningly, a trail of blood on the ground leading to him, but he’s conscious and lucid enough to raise his gun quickly when Loki appears in his line of sight. Loki lifts his hands in front of him placatingly, and Mobius’s gun hand drops to the floor next to him immediately.
“Loki?” Mobius hisses, far too weakly for Loki’s liking. “What are you doing here?”
“Getting you out of here. Come on, we have to go,” Loki answers. He tries to pull the agent up, grabbing one of his arms, but Mobius’s head just thumps back against the wall.
“Got a team coming,” Mobius mumbles. “Be here soon.”
“Not before those goons in the next room find you and finish the job.”
Mobius is distressingly pale, and there is a dark patch spread out across his abdomen under his left hand. They don’t really have time for field medicine, but he needs something to slow the bleeding, so Loki shrugs out of his jacket and bundles it up against the wound. The pressure makes Mobius hiss in pain, but it also seems to pull him back to the present a bit. He blinks at Loki in confusion, like he’s seeing him for the first time.
“Hold this tight,” Loki instructs, putting his left hand back over the jacket. “Now come on, we’re finding you a better hiding place until your backup arrives.”
“You can’t be here,” Mobius protests, but this time he lets himself be hauled up in a semi-standing position, leaning heavily on Loki. “At least take this,” he says, holding out his gun.
“Absolutely not,” Loki retorts, pushing it away. “You know I don’t do guns.”
Mobius only manages a half-hearted grunt in response.
Having just been here to rob the place, Loki has the benefit of knowing the layout of the building very well. He moves them deeper inside, aiming for a rear exit that he hopes isn’t being watched. This time, their luck holds, and the back of the building appears completely deserted. Depositing Mobius against a wall near the door, Loki quickly checks the other entrances to the room, listening for signs of someone approaching. For the moment, it seems they weren’t followed.
He returns to Mobius to find the man nearly unconscious again, his eyes dull and half-lidded. Loki drops to his knees next to him, and can not ignore how his own hands tremble as he reaches out to cup Mobius’s jaw. “Mobius,” he murmurs, “you have to stay awake. Stay with me.”
Mobius turns his head toward Loki, his unfocused gaze sharpening. “What are you doing here?” he asks again.
“I thought you might be in trouble. And I was right, by the way.”
“What, were you checking up on me?” Mobius laughs weakly, closing his eyes again. “Careful, Loki. I might start thinking you care.”
Loki doesn’t really know what to say to that. Of course he cares. He cares far, far too much, and he wishes he didn’t. Wishes that the thought of losing Mobius didn’t make his heart feel like it was going to crack in two, and that all of his own self-preservation instincts didn’t seem to fly out the window whenever this man showed up in his life.
When he doesn’t answer, Mobius almost sighs. “Don’t worry, I know better.”
“Do you?” Loki murmurs.
Mobius doesn’t look at him, doesn’t even open his eyes, but Loki can tell he hasn’t passed out yet. There are tight lines of pain around his eyes and mouth, and Loki hates them. He hates them almost as much as he hates the fact that Mobius doesn’t think he cares, after everything they’ve been through. His hand has slipped down to rest against Mobius’s neck now, fingers pressed lightly over his weak but thankfully steady pulse, and he doesn’t even think. Leaning forward, Loki presses a gentle kiss to the corner of Mobius’s mouth, barely more than a brush of lips, then withdraws a short distance again.
That at least makes creases of pain smooth out as Mobius’s eyes open wide and he lifts his head off the wall to stare in shock. For a moment Loki wonders if he misread things, if the spark that he’d felt between them was more one-sided than he realized. Hell, he doesn’t even know for sure that Mobius is interested in men. He could be totally, embarrassingly off base, and might have just made things painfully awkward with one of the only people he could truly call a friend.
But then Mobius raises his hand, hooks his fingers weakly into the front of Loki’s shirt, and tugs him down until their lips crash together. Mobius kisses him desperately, pressing deeply into it, and Loki responds by tilting his head to slot their mouths together more tightly. His hand slides behind Mobius’s neck and he pulls him closer, thoroughly losing himself in the slide of lips and tongues and teeth, until he hears the faint crackle of someone speaking over Mobius’s earpiece.
They pull apart and stare at each other for a second, both apparently wrought speechless. Mobius’s hand unclenches from his shirt and falls into his lap.
“My team is here,” he murmurs, still breathing hard.
Loki nods, not trusting himself to speak. His heart feels like it’s taken up residence somewhere in the vicinity of his throat. He pulls his hand away, trying not to think about the fact that he lets his finger linger as long as possible against Mobius’s skin, and pushes himself to standing. Moving almost on autopilot, he takes a step toward the rear door, pauses uncertainly, then departs without looking back.
Fuck. That just made everything a hell of a lot more complicated.
Epilogue
Mobius is nearly falling asleep at his desk when Renslayer walks by and drops a slim blue folder next to him. He startles to alertness, trying to look like he hadn’t, before giving up and scrubbing a hand over his face. He should probably get a coffee. Renslayer is still standing next to him, so he grabs the folder and starts to open it as he looks up at her again.
“What’s this?”
“Thought you’d be interested,” Renslayer says, giving a small shrug. “They picked up your pet thief in Rochester, New York.”
Mobius feels his face heat despite his strenuous objections. “He’s not my—”
“Yeah, whatever,” she cuts him off. “How’s your rehab coming?”
“Huh? Oh yeah, it’s good. Feeling good,” he replies distractedly, because he’s already looking down at the file.
Renslayer snorts softly. “Glad to hear it.” Then she walks away, and Mobius can just see her shaking her head out of the corner of his eye.
He’s far too busy reading the file in front of him to care. Sure enough, Rochester PD picked up Loki Laufeyson in what seems like a fairly standard burglary attempt. The case details are thin, and he can’t quite figure out what happened. He doesn’t really contemplate it for long, though, because there’s something much more interesting stamped at the bottom of the page. There, in bright red ink, is an official CIA imprint that reads:
Recruitment Priority: High.
Mobius is out of his chair and halfway across the bullpen before he realizes he’s even moving. “Ravonna!” he calls, shrugging on his jacket as he ducks his head into her office.
The look on her face when she glances up at him is entirely too knowing. Whatever. There’s limited time, and Mobius will be damned if he lets some other department get to him first.
“I’m going to Rochester.”