Chapter Text
Mobius has always been an orphan.
This fact isn’t new.
Well, okay. In some distant memory, maybe there had been an uncle, some male figure that was present, he supposes, though for the most part, Mobius remembers primarily growing up without… you know, parents. And it wasn’t too bad, you know? Sure, it wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows by any means, but Mobius had learned quickly that if he behaved just right, stayed out of everybody’s way, a lot of things tend to work themselves out.
So yeah, foster care really could’ve been better, but it wasn’t really horrendous in his case – thank god, right?
Never mind that he was apparently ‘given’ into foster care with the weirdest name ever, Mobius M. Mobius. The middle name quite literally is just that, M.
Yeah, weird.
Mobius is eleven when he first meets Dr. Roger Willis and his wife, Dr Jana willis.
They’re… an okay couple too, for the most part, he thinks. In truth, at some point in his life, maybe quicker than he’d like, Mobius tends not to put too much of his hope in any so-called interested adoptive parents. And he gets the stereotypes, truly, that parents tend to veer towards younger kids as well, which, you know, Mobius gets. They’re cuter, he guesses, and they’re much more vulnerable anyhow. Kids like Mobius should be able to understand if they’re not picked.
Well anyway, Dr. Willis – both of them – are still kind of cool. They are really the only few sets of couple or parents who had really tried to talk to Mobius, which was a bit exciting when he’d spent his whole life getting by with barely-interested foster families or overwhelmed ones. It wasn’t always that he could just talk about all the books he’d kept and probably-kind-of-not steal from the library.
He told Dr Willis that it wasn’t like everything else wasn’t exciting, but books were really interesting in their own right. “It’s like a world of its own, you know?” He told them when they had pulled out his set of Roald Dahls and Lemony Snicket across the table, with Mobius feeling a tad shy knowing that he definitely kept half of them past due its return date.
As a habit, Mobius tries not to own too much. Some jacket he likes, maybe some socks, and a few books – whatever he has at the moment – that he could slip into the worn bag he’d dragged around since he was about eight years old. That was enough.
Dr Jana Willis seems thrilled when she’d gone through whatever small collection Mobius had amassed for himself.
“I’m a fan of literature myself,” she tells him, proud, smiling a big smile that really makes her cheeks go round. A sign of healthiness. Mobius has always felt he’s a bit too small for his age.
“Really?” He asks Dr. Jana instead, who smiles wider at his boggled expression.
“Mhm,” she replies, just as Dr. Roger adds, “She teaches literature, in fact. Do you know what’s a lecturer, Mobius?”
He shrugs, eventually chooses to shake his head. Mobius tries to ignore the heat capturing both his ears from the fact that no, he doesn’t know. He has always felt like that; like he should know more things than he does. Maybe that’s why he likes reading so much. School is– is fine, but it isn’t always as encouraging or as helpful like school counselors would often tell you it is, and Mobius never really likes thinking about it when he returns home, whichever home that would be. So homeworks was always been traded for something else. Reading, more often than not.
If some older kids in the same house were kinder, then maybe it’d be music. Sometimes, it’d be – he doesn’t know – a video game. Though that instances are very rare.
“A lecturer means I’m just a teacher, but to older people. Those who go to universities. Do you know what that is?” It’s Dr. Jana who explains.
That, he knows. “It’s like school, right? But – for after high school. You can get diplomas after that. The scroll things.”
Dr Jana and Dr Roger laugh, probably not meanly, though Mobius’ ears heat again, embarrassed.
“That’s right, Mobius.” Dr Roger tells him, bumping their shoulders together, and that makes the embarrassment less obvious. In fact, Mobius finds himself smiling along.
“I have a lot of books at home,” Dr Jana says in the end. “I’d love for you to see them one day. How does that sound?”
A month after, that’s exactly what Dr Roger and Dr Jana do. Along with Sophia from the agency, they had come on over to collect Mobius from his current foster home so they could invite him to their house for a tour and lunch. That’s when Mobius first meets Verity, Dr Roger and Dr Jana’s firstborn daughter, who turns out not to be too fond of her full name and prefers to go by Bee.
Mobius hates realizing that the sight of Bee makes whatever hope in his stomach drops.
Because, see, the thing is… It isn’t as though he had hoped Dr Roger and Dr Jana were childless, but… it still stings, to be given this slight impression that they might like him. That they might like him enough in fact to– to maybe… to maybe adopt him, but how could they have thought so when they had a perfectly healthy child of their own to look after? To care for?
And judging by the lines of framed pictures happily depicting a cherished family down some of the halls, surely they love Bee very, very much.
Maybe Mobius is some… passing fancy. A kid they find fascinating to have conversations with, though only to pass the time. Maybe that’s all.
Still. It’s great to go somewhere with so many books, as Dr Jada promised.
Her office, as she had described, is lined so fully with books. Of course, the majority of them look intimidating, with thick spines and impressive titles, some Mobius couldn’t wrap his tongue around – University books, Dr Jana explains later – but the few that he could, he had knelt immediately to trace his fingers and pull out so he’d be able to read the cover in full. The Bridge to Terabithia, he reads from one. The Lightning Thief.
Something he’d always wanted to read!
“You’re blushing,” Bee speaks from out of nowhere, causing Mobius to jump. He hasn’t realised she had come into the office when Dr Jada and Dr Roger had walked out to speak with Sophia.
“No, I’m not,” he replies, immediately solemn, but only because he’d been caught he thinks. He’s sure any other time he’d like to befriend Bee.
Mobius has always liked talking to people too. It’s just unfortunate not a lot of them tend to… stick around. He keeps to himself a lot in the end.
“You are,” Bee sounds exasperated. She’s two years older than him – an information the Willis couple gladly shared during lunch – and at the top of her class. She plays the piano, and loves martial arts. She’s currently taking taekwondo, claimed Dr Roger then as Bee looked unimpressed and bored.
“You really like books, huh?” She asks some more, and he could feel the heat of her stare down his back. Mobius might be sweating.
He shrugs in turn. “It passes the time.”
For a moment, silence envelops them again, though Bee doesn’t walk away. She stays crouched next to him, watching him maybe as he tries not to pick at the book he’s holding out of nervous habit.
“My parents really like you,” says Bee in the end.
That gets Mobius to whip his head up, “What?”
“Yeah,” she shrugs, nonchalant, tracing one finger across the spine of the perfectly lined-up books. “They’ve been talking about you for, like, months. They really like you.”
“I don’t…”
“I mean, I guess I can’t say I’m thrilled that there’ll be one more person in the house, but I think they’ve been wanting to have another kid for like, ages. Ever since I was a kid myself. So.” She shrugs, still so blatantly honest and relaxed. Mobius feels none of that, especially the latter. “Still thought they’d adopt some toddler though, but I don’t mind someone closer to me in age too. Do you do any sports, by the way?”
Mobius opens his mouth and stammers, and– and maybe he should be more coherent, more composed than this, but really, how could he? He never– he never thinks–
Mobius had always thought he’d be just that, someone people pass by. Easily spoken with as much as you would easily forget him. And he’s made peace with that. He had it all planned out, even. Move around a bit because that’s simply the nature of foster care for the lot of it until he gets to a community college, if he could afford it. Then some good, steady job. In an office, if he’s lucky. In a jetski store, if he’s luckier. (What, those always look so cool, okay?)
A week after, Mobius moves in with the Willis.
A year after that, he is officially adopted into the family. Both Dr Jana and Dr Roger cry when Mobius first calls them Mom and Dad that day in court, while Bee insists she never sheds a tear. She was still the one to insist they take a bunch of pictures with her new camera after everything has been officialised. Mobius hangs the memory in a nice frame in his room, while Dr Roger insists on putting two in the hallway of their house. They take another Christmas picture later that year, and it became three.
When Mobius is thirteen, he meets Loki.