You Never Forget

...

Loki turned around slowly, wincing as bruises that were currently well on their way to turning any given colour of the rainbow protested that he shouldn't even be moving at all, only to be met with the sight of all of the Avengers - including his 'brother' - assembled in front of him, his previously Tesseract-enslaved archer aiming his bow straight at Loki's head for the second time in one day.

He felt like laughing at the irony and the helplessness he felt. Instead, he smiled, a shadow of his usual charm, and asked for the drink that he had, by rights, been offered.

Perhaps they might have humoured him. It was more likely that they would have laughed it off. They never had a chance.

A familiar wheezing sound filled the penthouse of Stark Tower. Loki's eyes widened - as did Thor's - and he wondered idly if he was going to die sooner rather than later.

To all of their confusion, the man who stepped out of the suddenly appearing Police Box was, in fact, quite cheerful.

"Oh. Oh- right. Of course. Bad timing? Actually, probably not..."

He took a good look around him, and Loki wasn't sure whether to be amused or annoyed at how excited the Doctor was to see the Avengers, naming each one with a wide grin on his face and confusing them all.

And then, his attention shifted to Loki.

"Right, you. You've been busy. Not in a very good way, either- oh, don't give me that look. No, no. I am, believe it or not, on your side." Loki wasn't sure what to believe. The Doctor turned to the others again. "And you lot! Big fan, but you could do well to pay a bit more attention. Oh, and give the poor boy a drink!"

Tony Stark looked ready to choke. "Wait, what did you just call him?"

"The first time I met those two, they were just little boys! Can you imagine that? You know, once you've seen someone like that, you never forget. Puppy fat and all that."

Stark was mouthing a very confused 'What', and the rest were trading looks. Except for the Hulk, of course, but that was only to be expected.

"Now - I hope I can trust you lot with him while I'm gone, and I will be back by the way, probably not straight away, but close enough. Chitauri, right?"

The last he aimed at Loki as opposed to the gathered superheroes, and the beaten Trickster nodded, bemused.

The Doctor, in his tweed and bowtie, ducked back into the blue ship and wheezed back out of existence.

"Okay," said Iron Man, "can anyone tell me what the HELL just happened there?"

There was a short silence.

"That was the Doctor," Thor began to explain, and looked over at Loki. Loki for his part leaned back on the steps, deciding that he was going to ignore the world for a few minutes. It wasn't as though he was going anywhere. "He is a Lord of Time," Thor continued, "and has visited myself and my brother in Asgard many a time."

"I'm gonna have to repeat myself. What, exactly, just happened?"

"...That, however, I cannot be sure of."

...

AN: Okay, so this started out as inspired by a couple of Tumblr gif sets that had Loki know the Doctor from when he was young. Then I asked myself, 'what's the most awkward moment for him to appear?' and this happened. More or less.