52. sorry about the blood in your mouth (I wish it was mine)

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Mobius made a mistake. Loki paid the price.

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Pairing: Loki/Mobius M. Mobius

This was a request from an anon on my Tumblr who asked for a prompt where Loki was abused by the Minutemen behind Mobius's back.

Trigger warning for violence and disturbing content.

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"What happened?" Mobius pointed at Loki's black eye. It was recent, Mobius was certain the bruise wasn't there this morning when the two joined each other's company for breakfast at the TVA's cafeteria. There was simply no way Mobius could've missed that.

Sometime between that time and now, something must've happened, when Mobius wasn't there. He found himself bothered by each scenario his brain came up with.

"An accident," Loki said. He had an edge to his voice, and he wasn't really looking at Mobius. His attention glued to the file in his hands, and the cubicle suddenly felt much smaller.

Mobius knew when his presence wasn't welcome, he was... stubborn. Maybe it was Loki's own stubbornness rubbing off on him, but leaving the matter at that, when the bruise was dark and ugly around his prisoner-turned-friend's eye, bugged Mobius more than he'd like to admit.

"What, you just fell on your face?" Mobius mentally winced at the tone his own voice suggested. He hadn't meant for it to come out that way. It was too late to take back, and Mobius knew that the second he saw the slight shift -- the emotions flashing through Loki's face -- in Loki's expression, and when he looked at Mobius, Mobius thought there ought to be a snarl.

Loki's own expression was stern, his lips pressed into a thin line. Somehow Mobius thought he'd have preferred an outright snarl. "I walked into a shelf in the archives, if you must know. Feel free to mock though,"

Mobius would have laughed, under other circumstances, because that was kind of what they did, what they had between them. They'd laughed first when the other fell, before lifting them up. Here, though, something was... off, Mobius's instinct told him that. He didn't like the way he felt, the way this whole thing felt.

"You'll tell me," he said. "If something... happened. If someone did this to you, you'll tell me, right?"

"Norns, Mobius." Loki rolled his eyes. "Now you sound like Thor," Mobius knew he didn't mean to say the name, it must've slipped, because Loki grimaced. He never directly said it, but Mobius could tell he'd been doing everything to avoid mentioning his brother. Mobius supposed it'd only bring pain, he never brought the subject up though, for Loki's own sake. It was no use when his path would most likely never cross with Thor's again.

"Everything's fine," Loki said with a sigh. His voice suggested anything but that, though Mobius had to admit Loki was doing a pretty decent job at it. Mobius's own instinct was just stronger. "No one's bothering me, alright? I'm fine."

"Yeah," Mobius wasn't completely buying that. "You're just... clumsy,"

"Or the archives are just that messy,"

Mobius chuckled. He hoped it sounded sincere. "Watch where you're going next time,"

"Point taken,"

Huh, Mobius thought. It almost sounded out of character, for someone like Loki to accept something so easily, especially something that indicated the mistake was on his part.

"Come here," he tapped gently at Loki's shoulder.

"What? Why?"

Odd, Mobius thought. Loki never hesitated when he called him. He opted against voicing his suspicion aloud, though. "Your eye, let me look at it. Come on,"

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