Tony raised an eyebrow as Thor carried Loki into the common room. Both Thor and Loki were shirtless- Thor had a towel wrapped around his waist, and was trying to prevent Loki from kicking off his own towel. Loki wore an American flag themed towel, the kind that Tony had filled Steve's bathroom with. How Thor had gotten it was anybody's guess.
"You know most brothers don't bathe together." Tony pointed his coffee at their still-wet hair falling around their shoulders. "At least, not after the age of five or so."
"Loki requires assistance with his daily ablutions." Thor wrapped Loki's towel tighter around his waist. Loki tugged it valiantly, kicking his legs until he was in nothing but his birthday suit.
"Here on Earth, people get dressed in their rooms." Tony gave Thor a pointed look, before glaring at a camera as Jarvis began to report just how often Tony didn't follow that rule.
Loki gazed at the ceiling as Jarvis spoke.
"Loki's clothes have vanished." Thor said.
"He can do that, but you still have to manually change his diapers?" Tony asked incredulously.
Thor merely shrugged.
Loki smiled as he shook the American flag towel, grunting. The stripes disappeared, as did the red, white and blue.
Suddenly, the towel was green with silver stars, similar to those on Loki's wizard costume. "Very Slytherin," Tony remarked, impressed. "Do you do this stuff on purpose?"
Loki's squeal didn't exactly answer whether or not he'd intended to change the towel that way, but he seemed far happier with the result. He waved the new flag as if he'd just conquered the world and raised his own flag as king.
Thor wrapped the green wizard flag around Loki's hips and went to find some pants.
Loki seemed to develop a personal vendetta against clothes. He writhed while Thor tried to dress him and then tried to wriggle out of his clothes later.
He hadn't seemed to have a problem with the clothing textures before, and even now it didn't seem as though clothes were a sensory assault to Loki.
Even so, Jarvis ordered special clothes without tags, clothes with easy snaps to change Loki and the gentlest of fabrics. Loki squirmed, even more vigorous in his escape attempts. His clothes simply vanished a few more times.
It was one thing for a baby to be naked, and Tony was certainly no stranger to seeing adult houseguests in the nude, but with Loki it was simply awkward.
Though Loki seemed to have no shame about his own nakedness, and gave no clear notice of how uncomfortable it made others, they were starting to wonder if Loki was trolling them. Steve and Bruce would avert their eyes or run to find something to cover him with.
He crawled, nude, around the common floor, shaking his long hair like a horse's mane. The TV showed a horse race, one of the few things Loki showed any interest in watching.
Thor shook his head, exasperated and fond. Loki rarely imitated anybody's signs and gestures, but he copied the horses', his crawl suddenly reminiscent of a gallop.
"Were you a horse in a past life?" Bruce asked wryly, only for Thor to state, quite seriously, that Loki was an Asgardian, not an animal. Thor's tone was not as thunderous as it had been with the reporters, but Bruce held up his hands in a gesture of peace.
"Look, they're wearing clothes." Bruce pointed to the racing horses on the television, then draped the star towel over Loki's back to cover him up.
Loki crawled away as fast as he could, but kept the towel on.
On Bruce's night to cook, Loki hauled himself up to stand at the counter, fascinated as Bruce made a stewed curry. Bruce smiled, though he made sure Loki's hands stayed well away from the knife.
Afterward, Bruce tried to help Loki put vegetables into the curry pot.
Loki dropped them to the floor instead and grabbed for the simmering pot. Bruce realized quickly that having Loki help cook would mean more work and a bigger mess to clean up. Clint barged in and began literally throwing ingredients in from across the kitchen.
Loki, however, wasn't done with the pot. Thankfully, Jarvis could watch whenever Bruce couldn't, and reported Loki throwing in a metal spoon, a pepper shaker and a comb into the pot, as well as adding copious amounts of spit to the stew.
They wound up ordering pizza, though Loki shoveled the ruined stew out of the pot with his bare hands and bit a few tines off the comb. Thor abandoned his pizza to ensure Loki's safety. Eating was perhaps even messier than cooking when it came to Loki.
Of course, Loki wouldn't clean any of it up himself. Steve even tried handing Loki a rag, but Loki sat imperiously for a moment before picking bits off the floor to eat and banging the pot against the ground. One hit was so forceful that the tiles cracked and the metal pot dented.
They vowed not to let Loki near a pot again, despite the broad grin on his face.
Loki continued to put things in pots, or more specifically, his candy cauldron from Halloween. It became somewhat of a favorite pastime, especially if those objects belonged to other people. Phones, half-eaten snacks, art supplies and lipstick all made their way into the cauldron.
Somehow, he'd crammed Tony's tablet through the opening, even though it really shouldn't have fit.
"You cannot take others' belongings, brother." Thor chided. He even threatened to take the cauldron away as he dumped out the items to return to their owners. As Thor sorted through the pile of objects, Loki tossed every one he could reach back into his cauldron.
Natasha approached to reclaim her lipstick. Loki stuck the end in his mouth, though he'd left it in the cauldron right until she came over.
Tony, fed up with having things snatched from his lab, grabbed his gauntlet. "What is this? Stick of lip and gauntlet glove?"
Loki didn't smile at Tony's Macbeth parody, grabbing for the gauntlet.
"Put Thor's hammer in there." Tony suggested as he held the gauntlet out of reach.
Loki swung his fist, and Tony nodded, encouraging him to find Thor's hammer.
"Would he rule Asgard, if he lifted it?" Natasha asked. Loki spat out the lipstick, and though Natasha picked it up, she'd likely trash it later.
"He already rules my tower. If I took your stuff, you'd eviscerate me." Tony turned his gaze from Natasha to Loki. "I bet you got away with everything in Asgard, huh?"
"Says the billionaire playboy." Steve shot back, though there was no heat behind his words like when they'd first met.
They never got an answer to the question about the hammer. Loki showed no interest in Thor's hammer, despite his swinging fist sign.
Loki didn't solely covet others' possessions to stash in the cauldron. He crammed his own books in as well. Some of them shouldn't have been able to fit any more than Tony's tablet.
Once, Loki dragged his cauldron in as Bruce mediated. Bruce quickly blew out his candles as Loki stuffed Macbeth into the cauldron. Bruce slowly went back to meditating, though his peacful state of mind ended when the cauldron's contents abruptly burst into flames.
Loki squealed, watching the fire dance until JARVIS deployed the sprinklers.
At first, they thought Loki had grabbed one of Bruce's candles from meditation, but there were no candles in the cauldron. Tony's eyes gleamed with interest at the newfound power.
Thor apologized profusely, but Tony waved a hand. "I've started worse fires in the lab."
Clint eyed Loki. "I know something you can throw in the pot."
Loki stared at the stilled frame of horses lined up at the starting gates. He battered the remote, but Clint said "You've got to place your bets before the race."
Clint, Tony and Loki all sat around Loki's cauldron. The horse racing game had started as a video game Tony programmed to encourage Loki to make selections onscreen and teach numbers, but Loki hadn't played it that way.
Laying the pictures out on the floor worked a bit better- Loki was already grabbing for green-outfitted horse as Clint said "Place your bids."
"And we've got a bet for Thunder in first. How much?" Clint handed Loki a pile of fake bills, half waiting for Loki to tear chunks off with his teeth.
Loki surprised them by not attempting to eat the bills, though his bet was entirely expected. As always, he dropped his whole pile of bills into the cauldron.
Tony smirked and tossed in a handful. "I've got money to burn. Not that I'm going to lose or anything. Trojan Stark is going to place this time."
He gestured magnanimously to the rather wooden-looking horse dressed in Iron Man colors.
"I can't believe you're teaching him to gamble," Bruce shook his head, but he was hardly surprised by his friend's antics.
Tony shrugged. "He's an adult."
Clint tossed in his own bet for the purple-clad horse named Arrow, and Jarvis started the race. Loki tried pulling the money out of the cauldron right as the horses left the gate. Clint grumbled about cheaters, but he was grinning.
Clint grinned even wider when Arrow crossed the finish line first. He snatched the bills from the pot, and Loki screeched.
Clint waved the bills in a playful taunt as Loki rolled onto his back. The waving bills abruptly caught fire. Only the flames were green, like the magic that sometimes formed around Loki's hands.
Clint yelped and dropped the bills. Loki seemed just as surprised, himself. The fire extinguished when Loki snatched them up. Thor interceded, insisting Loki return the bills to Clint.
"You lost. And no, we're not going the strip poker route." Tony hesitated, as if waiting for Loki to start escaping his clothes again. After a pause, he muttered "I'm a philanthropist. Here, you're back in."
Stark passed some bills to Loki, and they immediately went in the cauldron.
Loki ended up cleaning Tony's stash out. Tony gave him a look. "Going to return the favor?"
Loki didn't hand any bills over, though he did tug at Tony's shirt. Clint lost it laughing as Tony sputtered "Hey, I told you this wasn't like strip poker!"