What If... HYDRA Got Hold of Loki?

found family

"You could have told me you'd moved on from time travel so I didn't spend all night figuring it out."

Loki's heard the same four voices over and over, and he's done his best to make some sense of it. He's learned that one of their names is Banner and one is Rogers, and he thinks he's been able to piece together which voice belongs to which. Then, of course, there's his savior, the man who found him, and, last but certainly not least, there's her. She's his favorite. Even before she sat by his side and refused to move, she was his favorite. There's just something about her...

But this voice is new. It doesn't belong to any of the four people he's starting to get to know. That's a little weird. He didn't realize there was anybody else here.

She – the woman, whoever she is – sighs. "We can deal with that later. The universe isn't going anywhere. He is."

The man scoffs. "I'm sorry, I just solved time travel, and I don't get any 'ooh's and 'ah's or 'hey, thanks for going against your principles and helping us's?"

There's a pause.

"You really figured it out?"

"I sure did," he says. "But I hear we're too busy playing doctor to do anything with it."

"Banner told you?" she guesses.

"Mm-hmm," he hums. "I was so sure Scott was gonna come back as a baby. Him coming back with a baby? Not quite what I was expecting."

She huffs. "If this is what parenthood is like, maybe it's not so bad that I'll never have kids."

She puts a hand on his forehead, and her touch warms him from the inside. There's just something about her. He doesn't know what it is, but he loves it. He loves her, in a weird way. He doesn't know who she is, but she's special to him. He's known from her first touch that she was special.

"Banner said he's awake," the man says.

"He was earlier," she tells him. "I don't know if he still is."

There's a quiet swishing noise that he's become very familiar with since he was brought here. It's a nice swishing noise. He doesn't have much experience with nice familiar sounds like this.

"Loki, open your mouth, she says.

He does as he's told.

"See?" she says. "He's awake. He just can't..."

"Be a person," he substitutes.

"Pretty much."

Then there's a toothbrush in his mouth, brushing gently against his teeth and his gums, and he savors every moment of it. She hasn't been doing this as much as she was when Banner – he thinks it was Banner – first suggested it, but he wishes she wouldn't stop. It's what he needs right now. More than this bed, more than these blankets, more than anything, he needs this.

"I'm sorry, you're brushing his teeth?" the man asks incredulously. "The dude's got half an ounce of fat and muscle combined, and your first priority is to brush his teeth?"

"It's not about his teeth," she tells him. "It's the water on the brush. Apparently it'd be dangerous to let him drink, so..." She taps the toothbrush against Loki's tooth, and a drop of water falls off onto his tongue. "Baby steps."

"These are not baby steps," he says. "There are infant steps. There are fetus steps."

"Yeah, well, it's all we've got right now," she says. "Banner's still looking into our first actual step, but until then, we're toothbrushing it."