Author's note: First, thanks for the reviews! For Valalla: Glad you caught that ;)

This chapter weaves some scenes from the show kind of for place holders at the very beginning. I'm going to demarcate them with asterisks (*). Let me know if that's distracting!

Also, more steam ahead :)

Thanks for reading!

...

(*)

"I don't need your sympathy," said Loki, sticking his hands in his pockets. He and Mobius had just walked into the elevator from a demeaning conversation regarding his abilities as a Loki. Calling him a scared little boy, shivering in the cold. Patronizing and… accurate. Mobius had a way of digging under his skin enough to ferret out the truth. He was constantly unnerved in this place. The only time he'd found any sort of comfort was…

He pushed Mabel from his mind, which was growing increasingly hard to do. She was always there, niggling at him in the back of his brain. Flashes of her body. Visions of her eyes, that looked so sweetly into his. Her smell, so familiar it was like coming home.

But mostly, how much she seemed to believe in him.

"Good, because I'm running out of it," said Mobius.

(*)

The elevator doors closed.

Loki was silent, refusing to think about Mobius's knife-like words. He'd tried his hand at fooling the agent in the field at the 1985 Renaissance faire, but the analyst had seen through him like he was a pane of glass. He was losing his touch.

"What do you want with her?" asked Mobius suddenly, his hands folded in front of him.

"Who?" asked Loki. He'd tried to deflect this as much as possible.

"What do you want with Mabel?" he asked again.

"I don't want anything with her. What's going on with the two of you? Is she your offspring?"

Mobius looked like he was trying to remember something, then he shook his head. "She was one of my Minutemen. She's a special one, and I don't want to see her get hurt. Somehow you always end up hurting her."

"Always?" asked Loki confused.

Mobius shook his head again, as if his brain were glitching. "I meant, I could see how she could get hurt associating with you."

"You said always."

"No I didn't."

Loki huffed in annoyance. This place was so strange. "I wouldn't hurt her. We're… friends."

"Friends? You don't have any friends."

"Yes I do!" he cried indignantly.

"Name one."

"Thor."

"The brother you betrayed. Sure, we'll go with that."

"Heimdall."

"The gatekeeper of Asgard who you froze into an iceblock and almost killed. Try again."

"I got to know a very nice Chitauri chap when I was leading their army."

Mobius chuckled. "Right."

"Well… you then."

Mobius looked up at him incredulously. But there was some warmth was in his eyes. "Me?"

Loki nodded earnestly.

"Do you even know how friendship works?" said Mobius. "It usually doesn't involve manipulation."

The elevator dinged open.

(*)

"What's this then, the next step in your manipulation?" asked Loki.

"No this is your final step, your last chance."

"What's my desperate last chance require?"

"Work," said Mobius.

Loki stared at the Library table in front of him, piled with files on the Loki Variant's many TVA Minutemen murders, his heart sinking.

"Let me park you at this desk, and don't be afraid to really lean into this work. Here's a good trick for you, pretend your life depends on it. I'm gonna get a snack."

(*)

Mabel walked through the stacks of files toward the librarian. She'd finally found some time to head to the library and research her file. It was so strange, none of it made any sense. The TVA kept meticulous records, which was why it was imperative that she help them correct any discrepancy's.

She looked up between the floors and once again felt in awe of how grand and wondrous the archives were. She was a small cog in something beautiful.

Upping her pace, she moved past some of the desks and stopped. She turned. Of all the places to run into him… There was Loki, sitting hunched over a mountain of files, his eyes on a document with a wide smile on his face. He looked like a cat that swallowed a canary. He was so handsome, she could hardly breathe. She leaned her hip on the desk.

"Hi," she said.

Loki jumped, and when he saw her, his smile widened even further.

"Hi," he said. A shiver went down her spine at his excitement in his voice.

"What are you doing?" she asked, sitting across from him.

He showed her the paper eagerly, pointing to a line. "Look. I've just discovered how the Variant has been able to evade to your agents every time."

She took the paper from him. "Zero Variant Energy Detected?"

"He's hiding in apocalypses."

Mabel stared at the paper, going over the implications. "Of course, that would make sense if you're right. No one here has ever had thought to look there. You are so clever, I'm so glad you're here to help us. C-20 was my friend." She bit her lip.

"I'm sorry about your friend," he said.

She looked up at him surprised. He did seem genuinely sorry. She cleared her throat and looked at the paper again. It was the official report on the destruction of Asgard.

Something inside her hurt. She knew about this of course, but sitting with him it felt personal, anciently horrible in some deep place that didn't make sense. He must be heartbroken learning about it this way.

She put her hand on his arm. "I'm sorry you had to learn about Ragnarok this way. How awful. I can't imagine how you must feel."

"My people were gullible fools. They weren't even my people technically. I don't know why I should mourn them."

She could read him like a book and she didn't know why. He had put his proverbial mask on. The one he used when people got too close to the truth. "It's alright to feel something despite what was done to you."

He looked down at the paper on the desk and gave an almost imperceptible nod.

She sat silently while he shut down, and rebooted like a computer, her hand still on his forearm. Finally he raised his head.

Their eyes met and the world slowed down. Electricity flowed through her body and it knocked her sideways. He took her hand off his arm and held it between both of his own.

"It's impossible to stop thinking about you," he said.

She sucked in a breath as he started tracing little circles over her skin again.

Rotating her hand underneath his, she moved her fingers across his palm. "Me too."

His blue eyes lit with a fire.

Her own file be damned. She could sit here like this into eternity.

She leaned forward and touched the toe of her shoe to his under the table.

"Is this place monitored?" he asked, his timbre husky. "As in, the Timekeepers or some other authority, watching us in here?"

She knew where he was going with this. And it sent heat straight down between her thighs. "I don't think it works like that. The TVA knows we're here, just not what we're doing or what floor."

"That's interesting," he said, his voice low. He moved his foot along her shin.

Her eyes darted to his lips, curving into a smile. That face, so handsome and mischievous made her want to rebel. "I know the floor that no one ventures to," she said, raking her nail gently over his wrist. The silky tone she used shocked herself. Apparently she'd do anything to get him inside her again.

He sighed, his pupils dilating. "I have to tell Mobius about what I found," he said.

Mabel nodded, and tried to squash the disappointment. He was right. They were being completely reckless. They both had work to do, and his life depended on it, as did so many others. She removed her hand from his. "You're right. Of course you're right."

He searched her face, and she could almost see the cogs in his brain working.

"Fuck it," he said jumping from his chair grabbing her wrist, pulling her along after him. She giggled loudly and clapped her hand over her mouth. He drew her into the elevator and released her hand. "Where?" he asked.

She hit the button to take them to the floor where the 'sex crimes' section was. He kept his distance in the glass construct, but the heat between them scorched her. It was all she could do to keep from jumping into his arms.

"I want to rip your clothes off," he said quietly.

"I want you inside me," she answered.

They looked at each other. His head lowered, and she could practically feel the growl forming in his throat. The elevator dinged and the doors opened. She grabbed his hand and dragged him down the aisles until they got to her section and moved into the deep stacks.

Immediately, he was pressing her body against the endcap of the file shelf. She pushed his new TVA jacket off his shoulders and down his arms to the floor. His lips were against her hair. Not kissing, just breathing her in. "Why do you smell so familiar?" he asked. They were undoing each other's buttons, fumbling with need.

"I don't know," she said breathlessly. "Why do you feel so familiar?"

He managed to get them all unsnapped. He pulled her tie from her collar and slipped his hand inside her shirt. "Good god, you're soft," he said. His fingers found their way underneath her bra and took her breast in his hand. His long digits, and large palm grazing her nipple felt unbelievably delicious.

She moaned, and pulled his shirt from his waistband and belt, and raked her nails across his lower back underneath. "You're addicting," she said. "Not just sex. It's you. How do I stop?"

"I'd like you not to ponder that right now," he said, his other hand going to her thigh. Thank goodness she was wearing a skirt today. He slid the hem up. His fingers dragged over her skin creating waves of prickling shivers that went straight between her thighs. He pulled at her underwear, then plunged his fingers inside her.

"Loki," she gasped, digging into his shoulders with her hands. She was on her tiptoes as he searched her, pushing her toward ecstasy. She felt her thighs start to tremble.

She thrust her hand down the front of his trousers and grabbed hold of him. He sucked in a breath through his teeth.

"I want you, not your fingers," she said breathlessly.

"I won't argue with you," he said. She helped him push down the top of his pants and free himself. He picked her up and pressed her into the shelf, his face in her neck.

To feel him against her was heaven. He was ice and fire. The wantonness in his touch, the way his hands begged. The hard planes of his body that she melted into when they came together. He was so large compared to her, she felt swallowed up.

"Please." Her heat was begging, pleading. This was only her third time, and yet something deep and ancient guided her body, undulating against him to force gasps and groans from his throat.

He entered her, and it felt so good, better than before.

She nuzzled against his cheek. "Loki."

He moaned so deeply and thoroughly at the gesture, she thought he'd already come, but then he started to thrust. She could stay like this forever. She locked her ankles together behind him, forcing her hips forward so he could go deeper. Lacing her fingers in his hair, she dragged them over his scalp, then gave it a tug.

"You minx," he said with a groan, thrusting harder, her back slamming against the shelf.

The pull in her abdomen was overwhelming. She wanted them to come together. "Fill me," she whispered ragged against his skin.

"I need you," he said. "Burn it away darling."

At the sound of both their voices in each other's ears, they came. Gloriously and exquisitely, hot breath against the other's cheeks. It built like a freight train, rising over the hill, then barreling fast with heated pleasure.

They panted for what seemed like hours. He didn't let go, just held her flush against him. His arms were so warm and comforting, his fingers pressed into her like she was a lifeline.

She started tracing patterns over the nape of his hairline, burrowing her face into the crook of his neck. "I love how you hold me," she whispered with almost no sound. She wanted to kiss the amber scented skin of his neck, lick it, taste it. But somehow she knew using her mouth meant something deeper.

He pulled away and looked into her face. He was staring at her with a tenderness she'd never seen before. Like she was looking at the younger version of him. Before his betrayal, when he was just a boy, running free through the fields in Asgard. She could see him. Wild roses, he and his brother, playing tag, laughing without care. The image was so clear, it was distressing. She wanted to cry.

She was drowning in his eyes again, the depth of that ice blue calling to her, welcoming her in. He ran his fingers over her cheek, the sweetness of the gesture warming her insides. He pushed her hair back. His eyes landed on her mouth. She took a deep breath. He leaned in…

"Wait, Loki," she said.

He pulled away, confusion in his face.

"We can't kiss. I just can't."

"Why?" he asked.

"Because if you kiss me, I'll fall in love with you, and I'll never recover." Her admission hanging between them shocked her. He stared at her wide eyed.

She pushed against him, and he set her on the ground.

"Mabel…" he said.

"Don't, please." She buttoned herself up and put her tie around her neck. He pulled his belt up and stepped back. She smoothed her skirt and managed one glance up in his direction. Then finding what she saw in his face, ran down the aisle toward the elevators without him.

He'd been smiling like a fool.