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Mobius pulled off his TVA-issued jacket and groaned when it made his shoulder ache. This mission had been butchered on so many levels.
But that didn't matter anymore. All that mattered was that Mobius and Loki were both back from the mission more or less fine. More or less.
Wanting to lighten the mood, Mobius turned around but the words died on his tongue when he saw Loki.
The god was turned away from him and had just pulled off his shirt.
Loki's back was covered in blue and purple bruises from the mission and the fight that ensued but that wasn't the worst part. There were scars under the bruises. Faint ones covered with more prominent ones and one horrifying looking one running down from his neck down his back.
The jacket slipped from Mobius' hand and crashed to the ground, all the stuff in the pockets clattering loudly.
Loki's shoulders shot up at the sound before he deflated with a deep sigh.
"Loki -"
"Don't. I already know. It looks horrible right?", Loki interrupted him and reached for a new shirt Mobius had laid out for him early.
Mobius' heart was actively freezing inside his chest.
"Loki where did you get those?", he asked, leaving the jacket on the floor and stepping closer.
The god turned around, faintly shaking hands buttoning up the fresh shirt, with a confused look on his face.
"I thought you watched all of my life?", Loki said, leaving the last button open under the dark bruises that adorned his throat.
"I - I did. I thought I did at least," Mobius stuttered, looking anywhere but the purple blotches colouring Loki's neck and the left side of his face, "But I never saw those scars."
Loki tipped his head to the side, brows inching even closer together.
"After I fell from the Bifrost, where was I?", he asked, clearing his throat when his voice cracked.
"New York"
A desperate, and painful looking, laugh tore out of Loki and he sat down on Mobius' couch.
Mobius didn't say anything. Just came closer slowly and plopped down next to Loki.
"I wasn't," Loki eventually said, "I wasn't in New York directly. There was - a year between that I think."
A missing year? A whole year that was missing from the TVA files? How was that even possible?
"You know about Thanos I assume?", Loki asked.
"Sure. We get some of those every now and then," Mobius confirmed, a creeping suspicion clawing its way into his mind.
"After I fell from the Bifrost, Thanos found me," Loki continued, voice dropping lower with each word.
Mobius didn't need to more. He didn't want to know any more about what happened. The context was enough.
"Loki, you don't - you don't have to tell me about that if you don't want to," Mobius assured, watching in horror how Loki's hands were shaking stronger by the minute. Now that he was watching them so closely, there also seemed to be faint scars covering parts of Loki's slender fingers.
"I don't," with that Loki stood abruptly, wincing as he did so.
"But," Mobius chimed in quickly, "If you do want to, I am here for you to talk to."
"I know," Loki nodded and took off towards the bathroom of Mobius' small apartment. Mobius didn't miss the way he was twisting his trembling hands together.
He didn't go after him. Mobius had spent enough time with Loki to know that pushing him didn't work well.
There was also the fact that a whole year of Loki's life had been wiped from the TVA files to ponder about.
What did that mean?