What If... HYDRA Got Hold of Loki?

epilogue -- ''take it easy''

Loki doesn't want to do this.

He's refused to even entertain the idea for months.

But finally, Thor decided he would do it one way or another, and, rather reluctantly, Loki decided to join him, if only because he wants the ice cream that will come with it.

He's still not sure he understands what the Infinity Stones are. Thor's tried to explain them to him. He's spoken of the Tesseract and the Aether and the titan Thanos, but it's so much information. It almost doesn't feel real. Half the universe disappeared? And then they all reappeared? And the world just moved on? He's almost convinced that Thor's playing an elaborate prank on him and has insisted that everybody play along.

Still, Infinity Conez sounds delightful. He'd wanted to see the grand opening the week before, but he couldn't gather the energy to even get out of bed that day. (Thor did bring him some ice cream home, but it's not the same.) But he made a point to relax yesterday and save his strength, and now, as Thor wheels him to the ice cream parlor, he's more than ready for this Midgardian lunch.

He wishes they'd built this ice cream parlor before he arrived. It would have been nice to have a whole building dedicated to selling ice cream back when his diet consisted largely of soup and spaghetti; whatever was easiest on his throat as he tried to ease back into eating solid food.

This will be nice, though. He's had so many noodles lately – spaghetti, mac n cheese, chicken noodle soup; whatever's easiest on his throat. (Thor keeps insisting he eat something with substance now that he's been eating semi-solid foods for this long, but Loki maintains that mac n cheese is one of the Norns' greatest gifts to the Nine Realms.) Ice cream will be a nice change. Maybe he'll even be gutsy and get something with some sort of solids in it – chocolate chips or whatever else they put in ice cream. The vanilla ice cream Thor got him last week was good, but he wants something with pizazz.

He's so distracted thinking of different types of ice cream that he doesn't even realize they've reached the ice cream parlor – and, more importantly, that they're not the first ones here.

There are a few people sitting at the table outside the shop, and Loki wouldn't have even realized they're people he knows if it wasn't for the large green man with his back to them. So far, Loki's yet to meet another large green man, so he's pretty sure he knows who that is.

Loki expects them to get their food first and then join the others, but, much to his chagrin, Thor wheels him over to his friends' table without even a mention of the ice cream that Loki is so desperately and pathetically waiting for.

Thor parks Loki a couple feet away from the table, awkwardly slotted behind the bench attached to it, and his friends all rise to greet them – excluding, he notes, Pepper and her daughter, the latter focused wholly on her ice cream. Nobody else has ice cream, though, which is interesting. Are they waiting for everyone? He doesn't want to wait. He's not patient enough or invested enough to do that. Why can't they treat him like a child and give him his ice cream now?

While everyone's paying attention to Thor, Pepper gives Loki a small smile and a wave from across the table. He gives her a halfhearted wave in return, but he doesn't really know her, so it feels kind of weird to pretend he does.

Morgan looks up at him, and she cocks her head to the side, confused. She looks up at her mother. "Who's that?"

"That's Loki," Pepper says. With a gesture to his brother, she adds, "And that's Thor. You probably don't remember them. You haven't seen them in a while."

"Oh." She looks between them a few times, then shrugs and goes back to eating her ice cream.

Loki can't help but smile, just a little bit. He really didn't come here for the human interaction. He talks to Thor and Korg and Miek and Valkyrie and occasionally some of the other Asgardians, and that's more than enough social interaction for him. But he has to admit, Morgan is cute. Kids are cute, really, just in general, and she's certainly no exception.