10

And thus Loki's gastronomic journey on earth continues apace, and Tony's induction into the trials of self-denial (late in life as it comes) continues.

Loki likes anything that smells or tastes like it came out of a haystack, or a meadow of flowers, or the peak of a mountain. He loves best the flesh of young coconuts and paper-thin slices of cucumber, zucchini or melons: anything really, with a pure, clean taste.

He can generally be prevailed upon to try anything once if it was cold enough. Aspic becomes a regular at mealtimes, and he eats the hard boiled eggs that Tony stuffs in the freezer and pronounces them perfect.

He drinks iced mint tea and olive martinis by the litres. Occasionally he tolerates crepes, especially if elderflower syrup is present. All of Tony's attempts at introducing that great American meal, the take out; is met with cold indifference. They've argued over the individual merits of the sixteen different breeds of apples that Tony ordered online, and the jury is still out on avocados.

By the time another week flies past, Tony is keeping a zero-errors record that he's privately rather smug about.

By far his most astounding success is with sushi. Sashimi in particular, which Tony counts as a major win because god, there's only so muchvegetarian he can take, so he spends a great deal of time on the internet reading up on restaurant reviews.

Once as a gag, he'd taken Loki to restaurant whose cuisine had been highlighted by a number of reviewers as 'a passage in perfecting the taste of cardboard'. It's something he's lived to regret, because this place is now their default lunch joint unless Tony finds something spiffier – by Loki standards, that is.

Some of his experiments didn't turn out so well. Like the time Tony tries to introduce coffee to Loki, and almost got thrown out of the window again. (If Loki wasn't alien, he'd be British). Or the first time he persuaded him to try Chinese take-out.

'Are you trying to poison me?' the god had hissed, backing away from the tiny white carton as if it contained Asgardian kryptonite.

'Death by Chow Mien? There are faster ways to try to kill an enemy, don't you think?'

So in the end Tony had foisted Chow Mien and Sweet and Sour Pork on Thor, who of course declared it the most delicious migardian thing bar none, and subsequently insisted on Chinese take-out every time it was his turn to decide on dinner.

Steve still hasn't forgiven him for that.

The biggest surprise however, is the oysters. By the time introducing shellfish and molluscs to Loki had come around Tony has managed to lay down a sizable impressions of Loki's taste buds and how to manipulate the god (Loki being surprisingly pliable when it comes to food bribes), but the oysters throws him. There's nothing remotely clean about the taste of oysters.

Needless to say, the oysters irritate Tony a great deal.

~o0o0o~

Loki's subsequent obsession with oysters was something they argued about again and again, as Tony accepts none of the god's explanation as to why they fall into the same category as all the other dull, tasteless things he favours. Oysters are fishy and phlegmy with a coppery after-taste; they cannot by any stretch of the imagination be described as feeling 'clean'.

And thus did Asgard's god of mischief sigh untold times into his tuna belly chirashi-sushi as Tony raises yet another completelyvalid point about oyster pungency.

'You are overly concerned with categories, Man of Iron.'

'Tony.'

'You do appreciate the taste of this strangely shaped creature, do you not? In this we have an accord.'

'Yes, but it doesn't taste clean,' Tony complained. 'Oysters eat dirt and shit.'

'I really don't care,' the god of mischief retorts as he picks up a piece of paper-thin gari with slender bamboo chopsticks, as if he'd been using them his whole life.

'Here, Dancer. Behold the wisdom of Wikipedia. Oysters are filter feeders; do you know what that means? It means filter fish shit int– hey!'

His phone flys out of his grasp and into Loki's open palm, as if magnetised.

'I thought we had a deal – no magic.'

'Nobody's dying from your talking but me, Stark,' Loki huffs and proceeds to scan through the article, chopsticks jabbing the air. 'Oysters filter fifty gallons of liquid a day. They take on the flavour of the water they are harvested in, the content of the ocean. Oysters taste of your migardianoceans, Man of Iron. They do not taste of faeces, unless you have some experience you'd like to share about how you came by this knowledge.'

Tony is about to argue, but a thought strikes him. 'Fifty galleons huh. Suppose we kept them in a champagne tank.'

The god of mischief lobbs his phone back at him with a long-suffering expression. 'This conversation is at an end, Stark.'

'Tony. And I bet you could keep a bunch of oysters alive with some of that magic alien thingamajigs.'

Loki blinks owlishly, sushi forgotten. 'You wish me to assist you in creating alcoholic oysters.'

Brains salivating at the possibilities; Tony shifts into persuasive mode. 'Think of it as a scientific experiment. You like to defy the laws of nature, do you not? What could possibly be more defiled than keeping shit-eating oysters in a giant vat of champagne?'

The god's mouth quirks. 'What indeed. And in return, what am I to expect?'

'My eternal gratitude and friendship?' Tony palavers with a devilish grin, and then spilt hot ocha on his suit on when Loki replies.

'We shall see what that is worth, then, Anthony.'

~o0o0o~

Tony remembers watching Jurassic Park as a kid.

He remembers the exhilaration of imagining how it feels to have a forty feet dinosaur thunder past you whilst hiding in a bush or playing dead. The sense of wonder it entails, to observe these creatures in their natural habitat, knowing you were the first human to do so, maybe the only human who ever will.

And somewhere along the years all these fantasies and their memories must have crossed wires and short-circuited, turning Tony into the sort of guy who now enjoys having a dangerous animal in close proximity, thrilled to observe his subjects in its 'natural habitat' and never quite knowing if he is going to be part of its next meal.

However.

Movies like Jurrasic Park never told him what to do if the hero was simultaneously attracted to the T-Rex.

It doesn't tell him what to do with alien gods with smiles like scimitars and words as sharp as lies.

It doesn't tell him how to handle the way the pulse in his throat goes haywire they're sitting in some sushi bar, side by side and deceptively intimate even amidst the din of a lunch crowd, and the god of mischief is doing that black suit—green scarf thing again which brings out his eyes and the lunar shadows of his skin.

And Tony thinks it's terrible remiss of books and schools and studies, not to teach him what to do when Loki gives him that shit-eating grin (oysters, too damn many oysters) that is one quarter menace and three quarters promise, the one that exposes rows of small, sharp teeth makes him look like a shark that had been stuffed into a suit.

Really, earth's education system needs an overhaul, Tony thinks to himself as he waits for JARVIS to print out the shark-headed image he's just photoshopped onto an old photo of Loki from the New York Daily News. Maybe he'll work on that, after his little pet project with Loki was over.

Humming to himself, the billionaire draws little reindeer horns on his anthromorphic shark with a red marker and scrawls below it:

'Tsukiji Fish Market, Tokyo. TOMORROW. Stark Tower aero pad, 8 pm.'

And Tony can't help but feel terribly pleased with himself.

~o0o0o~