I hum quietly to myself as I dish up dinner one evening. The Avengers are all out on a mission, so it's just me, Loki and Bucky at the moment. Loki's still a bit... how do I put it? Unpredictable. So he only goes on smaller missions where he can be kept track of. And Bucky's still only integrating into tower life, especially since Stark hates him with a passion.

"Jarvis, do me a favour and tell the boys that dinner's ready, please," I say. Right away, Miss Stacy, Jarvis complies. "Thanks." I set the table while I'm waiting for them.

They have both stated that they are not hungry

I roll my eyes and head over to their rooms. Loki's is closer, so I start there, knocking on the door. When it opens after a minute, Loki looks down at me. "What do you want, mortal?"

"Is that any way to speak to a lady?" I quip. "Food's ready." "I'm aware. I don't want it," Loki replies simply. "I'm aware," I repeat. "But I don't give a damn. I didn't waste all that time cooking for nothing."

I then notice something and frown. The tiny quirks of the corners of his lips, how his foot is turned towards the door to his room, the minuscule flickers in his green eyes...

"I don't want your food, you mewling quim," he spits, but there it is again. "You're not a bad liar, I'll give you that," I comment. "But I know you're hungry. You're just doing something in there that you don't want anyone to know about and you're just trying to get rid of me as soon as possible so you can continue."

He looks momentarily surprised that I worked it out. "Oh, and I know what mewling quim means," I add. "Frankly, you're being more of a whining cunt than I am."

Loki slowly smirks. "... I'm impressed. Nobody has been able to tell before when I lie. You could be useful to me." "Well until then you can go sit your ass down and eat or I'm searching your room for whatever's so important," I reply simply. "Unless you'd prefer me to inform Miss Grey of what you've been calling a child who just wanted to give you your dinner?"

Another silence. Another smirk of 'touché'. "You win this round, child..." he agrees, heading off to go eat.

Satisfied, I head off to get Bucky.

I knock on the door to my fellow assassin's room. "Come in," He calls. I open the door, seeing him sat on his bed, inspecting something. "Whatcha got there, Bucky?" I ask him. "Come see," He replies, gesturing me over. I sit beside him on the bed, looking at the strange item in his hand.

"What's that?" I ask again. "I don't know, I was kinda hoping you or one of the others would know," he replies, handing me the device.

I inspect it more closely. "Hm... I've seen these before. Did it come with a charger?" "It came with this," he replied, passing me a charger. I plug it all in, then after a minute I'm able to turn it on, quickly working out what it does and how to use it.

"Says it's an MP3 player. MP3 is a file format for audio, in other words it how you can store sounds on electronics. This thing plays music. Where did you get it?"

"Natasha," Bucky replied. "She got an upgrade, gave me her old one." I check out the music Natasha has still on here. It seems she decked it out for Bucky first since there's a lot of old-timey songs. There's also a workout playlist.

"Here, I'll show you how to use this after dinner," I assure him. "But you need to eat. If you don't, you're not getting dessert."

"What are you, my mother?"

"It's plum pudding."

"... yes, Mum."

He jogs out, making me laugh. Idiot loves his plums, that's how I trick him into eating when he's claiming he's 'not hungry'. Most of the time when he says that he's not hungry it actually means he's distracted by something, whether it be something small like the MP3 player or big like memories. Plums, no matter how they're served, tend to do the trick.

I follow Bucky's trail and see him and Loki are now eating obediently. Good, I've got my ridiculous pet anti-heroes sorted. "Is the food alright?" I ask them, getting started on loading the dishwasher. They both nod, faces stuffed. I chuckle. "Good."

As I work, I take note of them watching me. "Something wrong?" I ask. "Aren't you going to eat?" Bucky asks. "I'd rather eat when the work is done," I shrug. "I find it tends to taste nicer when it's not stuffed down your throat in a rush. Y'know?"

"How much more work can there possibly be?" Loki comments. "You haven't stopped all afternoon." "There's still plenty of paperwork and stuff I've gotta sort out," I sigh. "And then I've got homework to get done. I've already missed loads at school from when I ran..."

"Just take a break, nobody's going to kill you if you do," Bucky advises. We all share a look. I snicker, Loki smirks and Bucky just shakes his head, realising that we're three of the four people in the tower most likely to kill anybody.

"I think I'll just keep at it," I chuckle. "Best not to lose my momentum, anyway."

"Just make sure you have something soon," Bucky caves. "I will, domine," I assure him with a small smile, seeing that their plates are already empty. I wave my hands over the dishes and they disappear into my shadow, then the plum pudding rises up. "Voila."

While they help themselves, I take their dirty dishes and set them in the dishwasher as well. In some ways it's a good thing that between them they can eat quite quickly. It means wasting less time here.

"And I thought you guys weren't hungry," I tease after I've cleaned the kitchen and they've finished their dessert.