Plead the Fifth
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“Mobius, get away from me!”.
This was ridiculous. Loki knew it was ridiculous. He was running from Mobius for no reason other than the fact that Mobius had started chasing him.
Er- well, he was pestering the agent quite a bit, but what did that matter? Serves Mobius right for not paying any attention to his dear friend.
“Oh come on, Loki. You can’t run around this library forever!”, he said back, trapping Loki as the God was between a round table and a wall with Mobius standing menacingly across from him.
Loki was unwilling to go anywhere other than the library as it was empty, closed for Mobius and Loki to do ‘classified research’ without the chance of interruption (or more so closed for Mobius to do classified research while Loki sat there for… moral support or something). Though Loki had taken to poking Mobius’s cheeks relentlessly with lidded pins.
He’d been told to stop countless times, and he’d agreed to it before going right back to it countless times, so Mobius finally had enough and he simply told Loki to run before he took off after the God.
“You know I’m gonna catch you, Loki. I don’t know what I’ll do when I do, but I will catch you”.
Loki almost relaxed hearing that, knowing Mobius didn’t have a plan, but there was a twinge of disappointment in his heart before Mobius suddenly shot around the small table. By the time Loki had processed it, it was a little too late.
He tried to run the other way but Mobius’s hand had just grazed his back as he turned and almost immediately, he was on the ground.
“Get off of me, you violent beast!”, he spat as he wrestled with Mobius on the ground.
They both grabbed at each other and Loki pushed away while Mobius grabbed and tried to pull him down.
After a couple minutes of fighting for the upper hand, Mobius finally had him down, “Look at that”, he said, still having to fight a bit with his friend’s swatting hands, “I caught a Loki”.
As he picked on the God for being caught, he managed to catch Loki’s side only slightly while pinning his hands down, eliciting a yelp and visible anticipation when Loki braced himself.
“Oh”, he started, “Correction… I caught a ticklish Loki”, he smirked down at his friend, watching the way his eyes widened in nervousness.
Loki shook his head and struggled to pull his hands away from Mobius again, “Not this again, Mobius. Come on. It wasn’t fair the first time and it’s certainly not fair now.”
Mobius hummed, “And why… exactly, hm? Why isn’t it fair?”
The trickster squirmed and writhed underneath his menace of a friend, “This place is ridiculous. I mean, if I had my magic, this wouldn’t be possible!”, he said defensively.
Mobius nodded, “Mm, yeah, I guess that’s true but you wouldn’t stop me then either, would you?”, he asked, smiling a smug grin as Loki’s face flushed red.
He furrowed his eyebrows to glare at Mobius, but his heart was doing flips in his chest while his stomach fluttered with little butterflies at the teasing, “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Mobius laughed as if he was shocked, “Oh, come on, Loki! You do this little thing where you pester and prod at me until you get a reaction, and your eyes light up when you think I’m gonna retaliate, and then you just… deflate like a disappointing balloon when I go back to work”.
Loki huffed, avoiding eye contact with everything in him, “I do not pester-”, he stopped to rethink his statement when Mobius gave him a look of pure disbelief, “Alright. Maybe I pester you, but my eyes do not ‘light up’ and I don’t ‘deflate’. I’m the God of Mischief, Mobius. Mischief. I’m supposed to pester you”.
Mobius rolled his eyes, “Alright, then explain why you fight like a little girl”.
Loki made a face of confusion and suspicion.
Mobius let out an exasperated sigh, “Like you’re a little girl- You know what I mean, Loki”.
Loki shrugged, a mischievous glint shining in his eyes, “Well I wouldn’t know anything about throwing hands with little girls-”
Mobius huffed in irritation, promptly pinning Loki’s arms above his head, both wrists in just one of Mobius’s hands, “You’re doing it right now, Loki. You’re trying to provoke it”.
‘Yes, well, it’s working’
Loki’s face turned red at his own thoughts, but he hoped Mobius hadn’t noticed, “Oh you are truly ridiculous, Mobius”, he snarled, “I would hurt you if I truly fought you, and I certainly do not ‘provoke you’ into this… childishness”.
He tugged at his hands and arms as he tried to twist out from under Mobius, “Now would you please let me g-OH! NO. Mobius… no”, he writhed as a hand pinched at his side before it hovered menacingly over his ribs.
“No? You don’t want me to do this?”, he asked, dropping his hand momentarily, “Then fight me. I know you can. You could kill me right now if you wanted. There’s no reason you can’t get away from a few little tickles”.
Loki shook his head, “No, Mobius. I-I’ll hurt you, I won’t-”
Mobius laughed at the pitiful argument Loki was rambling out, “Ahh, I knew it.”
Loki swallowed nervously but he held up his defensive demeanor.
“You like it, Loki! Just admit it!”.
The God of Mischief huffed again, “I don’t. You’re crazy.”
Mobius smiled fondly, “I’ll get a verbal confession one day. For now, the unnatural red coloring of your… well your everything from your ears to your neck is enough of a confession”.
Loki stayed quiet, practically pouting at Mobius.
“Now”, Mobius said, lifting his hand once again, “Shall we get started?”
The trickster was mad. Yes. Mad. That was the word.
The word for when you’re laying underneath your best friend while his hand hovers menacingly over your ribs and you unsuccessfully attempt to bite back a nervous smile?
Yeah. Mad works.
“You know, Loki…”, Mobius started, his hand slowly descending towards Loki with wiggling fingers, “There’s one game a lot of people play, usually with their children and what not”.
Loki didn’t know where this was going, but he didn’t know that he wanted to as he stared at Mobius’s wriggly, clawing hand, anticipatory giggles bubbling in his chest.
“Maybe your older brother showed it to you, or possibly even your mom when you were much younger. Surely you’ve heard of it?”
Loki threw his head back and gritted his teeth when Mobius’s hand got close enough that it was just grazing the side of his ribs over his shirt, “Oh my God, whahat is it, Mobius?”, he wasn’t able to take much more of the anticipation.
Mobius smirked at him, “Someone’s excited to get started I guess”, he teased, pinching his ribs suddenly, just enough to make him yelp and tense his muscles, “Well, since you’re so eager, I guess I can go ahead and tell you, yeah? Yeah”.
Mobius placed his hand gently on Loki, leaning down close enough to the God that he could feel the anticipation and nervousness radiating off of him, “It’s a game that involves… a creature of sorts”.
Loki groaned as he tugged at his hands once more, just to test the waters, but the palm resting on his ribs suddenly became fingertips digging into the bones, “For fuhuhuck’s sake, Mobius, please, I’m nohohot a child”.
Mobius shrugged, “Well”, he said, his tone close to a whisper, “Nobody’s ever too old for the tickle monster”.
Loki couldn’t stop himself. He felt so warm inside. He was giggling and squirming and smiling like a fool as Mobius tiptoed two fingers up from his ribs to his armpit, where he opted to stay, circling just one finger around the hollow.
“Ihihihi hahahate you”, his face was, as Mobius said, unnaturally red as he tried to spit insults out through his laughter.
He couldn’t believe it.
He was loving this. The playfulness. The sensation. The warmth… and he couldn’t even bring himself to be in denial (at least not in his own mind. He’d never admit it to anyone else. Ever. He would deny it aloud until the day he died).
He writhed and giggled while Mobius teased his underarm, trying to curl his knees up to his chest and kneeing Mobius in the back.
Mobius jolted a bit and his hand stilled.
Loki froze, his eyes widening in pure fear,
“M-Mobius, wait, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to, you were… well, it was, it-”
Mobius cut him off, “If there’s one thing I know about my dear creature friend, it’s that he does not like to be hit, Loki”.
Loki tapped his foot nervously and very impatiently as he waited for the inevitable. His nerves were already crawling.
It just wasn’t fair. Mobius knew he was just making the trickster wait for what he wanted.
“If I remember correctly”, Mobius started as he sat up a bit, tugging Loki’s brown slacks down on his hips just a bit to untuck his white shirt easier, “This was a bad spot”, he said it almost as if it was a question, slipping a hand underneath the fabric to tease at the bare skin.
Loki held his breath, shaking his head at the agent, “You’re delusional”, he said, his voice pitched much higher than usual due to the pure anticipation running through his body.
“Oh, I’m delusional?”, Mobius asked rhetorically, “So what about this?”, he said, moving his hand to scratch slowly and teasingly at one side of Loki’s abdomen, “This doesn’t tickle?”
Loki yelped, biting his lip and letting his head fall back as he fought to suppress all the laughter that wanted so desperately to fall from his lips. He shook his head, unable to speak without his words falling apart and breaking into giggles.
Mobius laughed, shaking his head a bit at his very flustered friend, “You just keep exposing yourself, Loki. What do you expect to happen when you lie to me about it- Actually, don’t answer that. I already know what you expect, and I know what you want”.
Loki glared daggers into Mobius, or he tried to; he wasn’t doing a very good job of keeping eye contact or… looking in Mobius’s general direction.
Fingertips traced and teased around his tense abdomen, the touch so light it was similar to that of a feather. He couldn’t help it. He just had to reply, “You ahahare the wohorst friehehehend!”
Mobius huffed out a small laugh, knowing Loki certainly didn’t mean that at all, “Oh come on. You love me!”, he said, tightening his grip on Loki’s hands as he started pinching and squeezing at his sides, “And don’t lie, I know you love the tickle monster too, but, I admit, I will be a little hurt if you start to like him more than me”.
Loki squealed and squirmed and arched his back while Mobius chose to skitter his fingers around the sensitive skin right below his rib cage, “I- Ihihihi don’t like ehehehither ohohohof you, you big ohohoaf!”.
Mobius faked a pout, “Aww, well that’s just not nice. That’s no way to talk to a friend- or two friends. Especially not in this position!”.
Loki shrieked as Mobius’s hand jumped from his rib to underneath his arm in an instant, testing a spot he’d never really tickled before.
The reaction was very rewarding. The noise that escaped from Loki was hilarious as the god arched and squirmed and pulled at his arms, “OHOHOHOH MY GOHOHODS, MOHOHOBIUS, NOHOHOHOHO!”
Mobius was shocked, but he continued to dig into the sensitive hollow, “No, Loki. Oh MY God- Gods? Whatever, this is the best! I mean… you are a god! And this is certainly not the weakness I expected from you”.
Loki tried to growl between his cackles but it was just coming out as a noise that seemed very confused in itself and what it wanted to be, as it was a mixture of deep belly laughter and an angry cat.
Mobius swapped methods, wanting to know which would tickle the most as he started spidering in and around the hollow gently and quickly, rather than digging in harshly.
The reaction was instantaneous. Loki’s eyes widened as the sensation worsened, the muscles in his arms burning as he ached to protect himself, “OH FUHUHUHUCK YOU! NAHAHAHAHA, QUIHIHIHIT IHIHIT!”
Mobius gasped, still clawing and skittering away at the sensitive skin, “You are so foul mouthed today! What has gotten into you?”
He stopped for a moment and Loki gathered himself, already having prepared a snarky comment, “Well”, he breathed out heavily, “Nothing that I’m aware of but there is a vertically challenged PLATINUM BLOND DEMON ATOP ME AT THIS MOMENT”.
Mobius scowled, “Okay, first of all, I am 5’11, thank you very much. I won’t take criticism from you. The word giant is in your title, alright… knock off Avatar? Second, it’s not platinum. It’s grey”.
Loki’s expression certainly externalized his sense of confusion, “Avatar- Never mind. I don’t care enough to know. You are short.”
Mobius narrowed his eyes, pushing Loki’s wrists down with a little more pressure and tightening his grip around them, “Loki, you’re so incredibly ticklish that I almost feel bad for doing this to you… but after that, I think I’ll enjoy it quite a bit.”
Loki swallowed nervously, realizing just how much trouble he was in as he looked up at Mobius with wide puppy dog eyes.
“There’s only one way to get me to stop now”, he spoke, his tone quiet but stern, “It ends when you admit that this was what you wanted in the first place”.
……
“Oh… fuck”.
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Yes! We end with a cliffhanger and also, the idea of Mobius trying to fight a child (and losing) was hilarious to me, so enjoy that.
And don’t worry. There will definitely be a fic to fill in the blanks at the end of this one.