Sad green eyes

7

It had been 4 days since Nat had first gotten Loki to eat something and his eating habits were slowly getting better. Nat was making him soup for lunch and dinner and yesterday she had even convinced him to eat some small bits of fruit for breakfast. Nothing much, he wouldn't eat anything that required too much chewing. He was basically on a soft foods diet. But Nat had gotten him to eat something that wasn't liquid, so small victories are still victories she reminded herself.

It was early evening when Tony Stark emerged from his lab, after being locked up in there for the past few days. The board meeting a few days prior had mostly just been people pestering him with questions about the battle and he really didn't appreciate the reminder. So he resorted to the only thing he knew that would get his mind off of things. He worked on his inventions until he had drunk too much whisky that he would fall asleep either at a workbench or on the shitty coach at the back of the workshop.

He walked into the living room to find Clint and Nat sat on the couch. "I just don't understand why you're babying him. If he's hungry he'll come out here and eat."

"I'm not sure he will." Clint just rolled his eyes. "Look I don't want Thor coming back down here and finding out that we've practically been starving his little brother."

"Is that all it is? You're worried about what Thor will think?"

Nat huffed and thought for a second before responding, "no actually, it's not. You want to know why? Well maybe it's because I'm not as heartless as everyone believes me to be. Maybe, I don't want to see someone starving to death when I can do something about it!" Nat yelled back at Clint.

This made Clint back off a bit. He clearly wasn't expecting Nat to lose her cool. Tony smiled at the look of utter shock that plastered his face, but he also was a bit rattled by the outburst. "Speaking of food." Tony interrupted as he took a seat on the couch perpendicular to the one Nat and Clint were on. "I'm thinking Chinese food tonight, you guys in?"

"Have I ever turned food down," Clint replied, appreciating the distraction from the very pissed off assassin sitting next to him.

"Fair enough. I'll order some for everyone then," he half asked looking at Nat. She still looked pissed, but she didn't object.

When the food arrived, Tony instructed Jarvis to inform everyone, which lead to the scene before him. The avengers were all seated around the dining table filling their plates with the wide selection of dishes. When Tony's plate was full, he sat down, ready to eat, but a thought occurred to him, they're not all here. "Hey Jarvis buddy, can you tell Loki to come out here, dinners here."

Nat's eyes snapped up from her plate to meet Tony's unfazed expression. She didn't say anything though and returned to eating her food.

A few minutes had passed and there was no sign of Loki. Tony was getting impatient. His curiosity was getting the better of him. He had overheard the end of Nat and Clint's conversion from earlier and he wanted to know what was going on with their resident god. He had been doing everything to avoid even thinking about him since their little encounter in the kitchen. It was all just too stressful with the press constantly trying to get answers out of him and thinking about Loki being in his tower, when the rest of the world would have him lynched, it was just too much for him at the time. But now, now he just wanted to know how the God was doing.  Not out of empathy, but out of curiosity and self-preservation. Nat made a good point earlier, Thor would kill him if Loki wasn't being looked after.

Tony was now decidedly frustrated. This was his home, if he wanted his 'prisoner' (yuck Tony hated that idea), to join them, then bloody hell, Loki was going to come out here. He pushed his chair back and strode down the hall. Nat looked like she was about to follow, but decided against it.