Loki thought he knew pain.
“Pain is an old friend,” he’d once declared confidently.
How wrong he was.
Loki had never known true pain- not in a glorious Asgardian battle, not from the Avengers’ witless beast, not even at the hands of Thanos and his Children- until now. His every molecule was being seared from the inside out, his life force was being wrenched from within him, his seiðr was being torn from his core- he opened his mouth to scream-
And then he was, inexplicably, hurtling through blackness, then past the Loom, and he wasn’t slowing down, wasn’t in control of this at all and all Loki could do was brace for impact as his body collided with Mobius’ besuited one, sending them both tumbling pell-mell through the bay doors, which closed behind them with a final-sounding whoosh.
“Fuck,” he whispered, rolling off of Mobius to lay, panting and sweating, on the cool tile floor. Everything hurt. His body literally ached with the memory of having been molecularly disassembled so many times in so short a period. His head was pounding and the room seemed to be tilting dangerously. That couldn’t be good.
“Didn’t think you were much for cursing,” came Mobius’ gently teasing voice from somewhere to the left, mingled with the sound of a spacesuit being shed. “Although I agree with your assessment. Came way too close to losing my skin, there.”
Loki closed his eyes against the harsh fluorescent lights and took a shallow breath in through his nose. “Profanity,” he grit out, “is the language of the crude and unimaginative. And I am neither.”
“Except now, apparently,” Mobius chuckled. “C’mon, up and at ‘em. Lots to do.”
Loki clenched his teeth and sat up, only for the room to spin wildly and his stomach to lurch dangerously. He pressed the heels of his palms into his eye sockets, hard, and drew in a quivering breath.
“Loki?” Oh, hell. He had forgotten that O.B. was in the room. “Hey, Mobius, Loki doesn’t look so good. In fact, I think he looks pretty bad.”
Hurried footsteps across the floor. “You okay, man?”
“Sensational,” Loki swallowed thickly as bile threatened to rise in his throat. “Whyever do you ask?”
“Can you give us the room, please, O.B.? And hit the lights on the way out?”
Bless Mobius for knowing that the idea of anyone else witnessing this spectacle made Loki’s insides shrivel with shame, and bless him even more for turning off the lights.
The room went dark, the door closed behind O.B. and finally, blessedly, there was silence. Loki stifled a groan and leaned forward, head resting on his drawn-up kneecaps.
“Is… are you…”
“I’ll be fine,” Loki mumbled. “The timeslipping… hurts. This will pass. Probably.”
“Well, you look like hell,” came the analyst’s reply.
Loki snorted and then winced. “Yeah, well. My migraine has a migraine. So.”
A beat. “Can you stand?” Although his eyes were closed, Loki could practically hear Mobius scrunching his forehead in concern. “I’m not technically supposed to, but I could make a Time Door from here to my quarters. So you could lay down.”
Loki dragged in a shuddering breath. “Laying down… would be nice.”
An eternity of vertigo later, Loki found himself cocooned into Mobius’ bed. His king-sized, designer mattress bed. With bedding like this, Loki could almost forgive the garish TVA-orange of the comforter. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d actually slept in a real bed. With the lights dim, and the room blessedly silent, Loki was so comfortable that he could almost ignore the creeping shame of being so weak in such a crucial moment.
“The TVA…”
“Can wait.” Mobius smiled gently at him from the armchair he’d dragged beside the bed. “Remember what I said about needing a Loki who remains? You’re fine. Sleep. I’ll be here when you wake up.”
“Okay,” Loki mumbled, too dizzy to argue. The last thing he saw before dropping off was Mobius reaching for a jet ski magazine and settling in beside him.
He awoke with a strangled yell, jerking upright, covers pooling around his waist.
“Loki!” Mobius dropped his magazine. “You okay?”
Panting, Loki took a minute to orient himself. “Just…” he took a steadying breath. “Just a dream.”
Mobius tsked gently but asked no follow-ups, and Loki was suddenly overcome with gratitude that the analyst already knew these things about him, that he needed no explanation.
“You feeling better?”
Loki took stock, allowing a tendril of his seiðr to gently probe the body. “A bit. Less dizzy. I can work now.”
“That wasn’t the question. But here is a question for you, because I can’t really understand it- how did you lose that fight to Sylvie?”
“She kissed me,” Loki blurted out, suddenly feeling that it was crucial that Mobius understand what had happened.
“What?”
“Sylvie. That’s how she won the fight,” Loki babbled, ignoring the dull pain still throbbing through his temples. “She caught me off guard and then threw me through a Time Door and I-”
“Hang on,” Mobius interrupted slowly. “Do you guys… have a… a thing? That’s real?”
“No,” Loki was desperate for Mobius to truly understand. “Of course not. We never- she’s- she’s so cold, Mobius. Selfish. And she doesn’t… she can’t see the good. In. In me.”
To his horror, Loki felt tears pooling in his eyes and blinked furiously, dropping his head so that a curtain of dark curls obscured this latest frailty.
“Alright, scoot over.”
“I- what?” Loki was so taken aback that he actually lifted his face.
“I’m coming in there. Budge up.” Mobius replied nonchalantly, already clambering into the bed beside him. The bed roiled underneath them both- Loki was thankful that his nausea had subsided- until Mobius was settled, leaning against the headboard beside him, draping one arm gently across Loki’s shoulders, as though this arrangement was totally normal.
And. Maybe it was. Normal. Loki had certainly had plenty of men (and women, and- and… just- beings, okay?) in his bed. But as for Mobius… Loki hadn’t expected this. Either way, Loki wasn’t going to complain if he wanted to act on this thing that had been simmering between them since- since the start, really.
Tentatively, Loki leaned into the touch.
“So? What’s got you so upset?”
Timidity be damned, Loki burrowed his face into Mobius’ chest. “It’s a foolish thing to be upset over. Especially since we were not-” he huffed a laugh, “entangled.”
“So?”
Loki sighed, determined not to embarrass himself with tears this time. “I just would have thought that a- a me would understand me. But even she thinks I’m just… conniving. Evil.”
“She said that?” He pictured Mobius raising a silver eyebrow.
Loki nodded into Mobius’ tie, not trusting his voice for a moment. He drew a shaky breath, and mumbled, “She accused me of just wanting a throne. To rule all of time. I don’t- that’s not who I am anymore…”
Loki trailed off. He wasn’t sure how to articulate the idea that he knew, logically, that he didn’t deserve any kind of absolution, that he absolutely deserved people distrusting him, people thinking he was a heartless schemer… but he really, really was trying. And changing. Doing better. Being better. And it hurt that even a variant of himself- the one person Loki had been sure would understand- couldn’t see even an ounce of good in him.
“I know,” Mobius replied simply.
“What?”
“I know,” Mobius repeated. “I told you that you could be someone good. Looks like you took that to heart. I know you’ve changed.”
Loki swallowed hard. “You… you do?”
A firm kiss landed in the middle of Loki’s curls. “I see you.”
And if Loki’s tattered heart fluttered in his chest, that was nobody’s business. Probably just the vertigo.