Take one: The Mango effect.

Tony should've known that the Asgardians would be fascinated with the range of fruit and vegetables that grew on Earth.

The first time Thor saw a pineapple was like a child staring at the new Furby toy. Thor was frightened and at awe at the same time.

'Stark-son, what be that?' Thor pointed at it.

They were at the markets that popped up every now and then – selling fresh produce, handmade goods – you know homely, country things. Tony is suffering from a raging hangover, sunglasses not stopping the dull thudding behind his eyes or the echoing boom of the god of thunders voice or the good natured chatter around him; Tony was not quite sure why he was out…oh wait, Clint had said he was looking pasty, and you don't call Tony Freaking Stark pasty.

Pepper and Bruce suggested some sun, tony suggested a solarium to be built in his lab – somehow, Tony lost the argument.

Anyway, when Thor had heard that there was a market,

'It will be like the ones in Asgard!'

Minus the weapons, hunted meat, and possibly potions the team had explained patiently,

'But there will be homemade jam and honey.' Clint had added cheerfully.

Speaking of jam and honey, Tony had picked up some jars of jam for the others.

Because he was a nice guy and had nothing to do with the sweet old lady who sold it to him.

Strawberry for Steve, Plum for Clint, Cherry for Natasha and he would've picked up a jar of orange marmalade for Director Fury but he had the feeling the director would throw it the moment it was in the mans hands. Jam and suits don't mix, as Tony has learnt before.

'That'll be a pineapple.' Tony huffed.

'A pine – apple…But Stark-son, it looks nothing like an apple?'

'Well, technically it's not an apple…' Tony tried to explain, clutching his head with his free hand – the other holding the bag of jams.

'Then why would they put 'apple' in the name.' Thor asked.

The thunder god picked up the yellow spiny fruit with the leaves sticking up on the top – staring at it as though it will reveal all the answers.

'Don't you have things like this in Asgard?' Tony asked tiredly, surely they had something similar.

'Nay' Thor said with a shake of the head.

Tony paused; with pursed lips did he stare at the table laden with passionfruit, rockmelon, watermelon, honeydew, star fruit, pineapples, bananas, kiwi fruit ( which Thor exclaimed loudly, 'You say this is fruit, what fruit has fur?'), pineapples, mangos and bananas.

Tony realised then all of these fruit that were often seasonal on Earth and in America for that matter so the chances Thor had lingered long enough to explore the fruit markets, and these fruit are grown in Tropical climates – Asgard doesn't have the tropics or the heat for these species of fruit to survive.

'Oh.' Tony hummed.

'They are ripe and sweet this time of year!' the vender called joyfully. Probably doing a mental, happy dance at seeing who was so interested in his stall.

'Sweet, you say?' Thor said, smile wide. Probably happy he understands the concept of 'sweet'.

'Of course, middle of the season. The middle is always the sweetest.' The Vender laughed.

'My Brother and I do like Migardian sweets.' Thor began with a small smile which Thor turned to Tony and dear god – turned on the unintended kicked puppy look. It was 5 minutes of that look till Tony finally crumbled making the god very happy and the vender a little bit richer when Tony took out some money with a sigh,

'Everything from this table, thanks.'

'What's with the bags of fruit?' Steve asked when he came into the kitchen looking at the bags.

'I've turned over a new leaf, Cap.' Tony laughed, pulling out a chopping board and a knife. Steve snorted, while the super solider picking up the mango. Yellow blushed with orange.

'In Asgard they don't grow this, and since you nag me to eat healthy…'

'I don't nag.' Steve huffed.

'Fine, you pester me about the same thing every day.' Tony conceded.

'So you got this for Thor?'

'And our local cat of mischief, if he comes for his bowl of cream.' Tony said. The genius felt like treating Loki like a stray cat that came to the house for a bowl of milk was left out was a little safer then trying to house the ex-villain – well, he still caused trouble but only when another villain was tip-toeing around his turf. Heck, the guy even helped them even if it was for his own gain.

None of the Avengers were that sure if the god of mischief has turned over a new leaf or simply he didn't like to play nice with the other villains beating around the block.

Tony would like to believe that it was the latter, and simply not because the villain was slowly plotting, strewing away at some devious plans and mooching off free food from them.

Time and time again when a shield agent tried to get him to join, they often return pink or as a chicken. 'Temporary curses' Thor had laughed at their worries.

So, Loki was in some sort of limbo, like when someone you think you know on Facebook tries to friend you but, you're not quite sure if they are who you think they are.

'Likening me to a cat are you Stark?' A voice purred too close to his ear, Tony then almost said goodbye to his little finger when the blade veered to close to his hand in his shock and surprise.

'JESUS! LOKI!' Stark hissed at the tall turning sharply at the looming, dark haired god, the green eyes glowed in amusement and crinkled at the corners in mirth. Today he wore his casual leather – before Tony met Loki had no idea there was such a thing as casual leather.

With little armour which meant that either he had no problems today or they were so minor that he saw no need for the cape, jacket, or armour. It left little to Tony's imagination with the sleeveless, fitted vest and tight pants with emerald and gold highlights.

'What are you doing? I heard children shouldn't play with knives.' Loki laughed, blowing a cool breath against the shell of Tony's ear.

Steve was oblivious to the uncomfortable closeness, humming to himself as he pulled out a smaller knife to cut one of the sweet smelling mangos.

'You the fuck are you calling child, Bambi.' Tony growled, pointing the sharp knife in mock threat at the god of lies. Loki scoffed and finally had a good look at what they were doing – Tony was thankful for the slight retreat of Loki's body against his own and tried not to think of the disappointment that came with said retreat. Bad Tony, very bad!

'What are you doing?' Loki huffed.

'Making fruit salad for desert. Want to help?' Steve asked, like the good two shoed bastard he is.

'Geez Cap, are you sure we should give him a weapon.' Tony muttered, 'Not like he tried to kill all of us two years ago.'

Steve and Loki glared at him but the god simply scoffed,

'Thank you for the offer, but I shall leave the culinary preparations to the peasants.' Loki bid them no farewell as he glided out of the room like the pompous arse he was.

, 'Never been called a peasant before.' Steve laughed, and then added 'Usually he just insults you. He must be starting to like me'

'I'm used to it now.' Tony shrugged continuing to chop, a bit furiously, 'Big slimly git…'

'You know, they used to say that when a kid picks on you it means they like you.'

'Steve?' Tony asked sweetly.

'Yes?'

'Just shut up while I have a knife in my hands okay?'

Steve saluted and continued with chopping, sickly sweet juice and nectar covered their hands and arms.

Loki's reaction to the strange fruit was more subdued then that of his adopted brothers – Tony kept on telling himself he was not disappointed. It was an exotic spread on the table, at least half was chopped up and the others left in its intact form, Bruce, Natasha and Clint was at first a little perplexed at the fresh fruit but took it gladly as a rare treat.

Loki stared curiously at the pineapple.

'Brother, that is called a pine – apple.' Thor said proudly – almost like a 'look at me, look at me! Look at what I learnt today' kind of way. Thor grabbed the bowl of pre-cut cubes of pineapple and spilled it in Loki's bowl without hearing if Loki wanted any or not.

'Tony, are you going to have any?' Bruce asked, stabbing a piece of watermelon with his fork. Thor had then given Loki pieces of banana, watermelon, and rockmelon leaving the poor god of lies staring at his flooding plate, bemused.

'I will, I will.' Tony said in a daze, flicking his fork around in a loose grip.

'Really, because you're sort of staring at Loki…' Clint said, mouthful full of green Kiwi fruit, Thor was happy to know the inside wasn't furry as well. Natasha nodding whilst opting to eat the whole banana rather than the slices – the Russian spy knew how it looked and Tony knew she didn't care. Gods, she was scary.

'Staring? I'm not staring…' Tony's eyes then landed on his salvation, 'Simply deciding I want a mango.' Tony grinned at the group picking up the whole yellow and orange blushed fruit simply because the slices would be too sticky to eat; something to divert his attention from Loki.

Loki had decided that the food Thor had all but thrown on his plate was not tampered with in anyway and began to daintily eat a cube at a time – gaze matched with Tony's as he did.

Tony gulped, and his face heated up a little. Tony tried not to be shaky when he picked up the slightly sharp knife to cut though the rubbery skin – Loki flicked his eyes to the fruit, only one to notice the slight fumble.

'And what type of fruit is that?' Loki asked with an arched brow.

'It's a mango.' Tony responded, collecting himself with his usual snark, 'What, something that we can lord the Asgardians over? Welcome to Earth, home of tropical fruit and veg.'

'And we are proud' Clint cheered, lifting up a piece of a watermelon as though to toast.

'Had we known you humans were expert farmers and could grow things that Asgard has never seen before – perhaps Odin might have been keen to take these riches.' Loki grinned, full of teeth.

'I don't think the farming industry would be too keen to be taken over by Asgard.' Tony shrugged.

'They're not too keen on anything really.' Bruce hummed.

'That's a shame.' Loki drawled, but he didn't mean it.

'Want some?' Tony had finally asked.

'Do you eat with the skin on?' Loki asked innocently enough, but with every word he twisted seduction in it. BAD TONY, BAD!

Thor was happily stuffing his face, eager to try anything – Tony was thinking of bad things when the guy's overprotective brother was seating at the same table, and said brother could beat him to next 'Thors-day' too.

'No, unless you really need fibre to remove that stick up you're…' Clint began only to stop with a smile, 'You know what, I'll let Tony help you with the dos and don'ts of eating a mango.' Natasha continued to eat the banana, like a pro in an x rated film.

Tony hated Clint, a lot.

'I'll cut a cheek for you then.' Tony said as steadily as he could.

'Oh, do you like cheeks Stark?' Loki curled his tongue on every word,

'Best part of the fruit.' Stark muttered, finally beginning to cut into the skin and in the sweet flesh inside.

'Indeed it is…' Loki gave Tony a once over, a barely flick of his eyes but as god(s) as his witness, it was a once over.

Tony paused and gave Loki a look, Loki only grinned back. Tony didn't think they were talking about the mango anymore; it was a hunch, and Tony was always right about hunches, Loki could be talking about his own 'mango cheeks' to put it mildly.

When Tony thought about it, Loki's 'mango cheeks' look pretty fine covered in leather too, and whole 'cheek' comment was not something Loki usually said – it was from a page in Tony's book.

Normally, Tony was not too slow realising that someone was hitting on him so maybe it was the fact Loki was the one doing the 'hitting' was throwing the playboy off balance. Or the Asgardian worded it a bit wrong, but this was freaking Loki – with the title of silver tongue, he would never fumble to say a word out of place.

Still, Loki hitting on him seemed a little over worldly and bizarre to the engineer.

And Tony couldn't say it didn't give him a thrill to be at the receiving end for once..

Tony wordlessly continued to cut the mango cheeks, the more he thought about it the more interested his prick seemed to get – no one would notice, the tablecloth covered his crotch.

Tony took the piece and sliced into it across and then diagonally which he quickly did the same to the other plump cheek leaving the fleshy seed on the plate in case one of the others felt like a piece but everyone was distracted to see how many kiwi fruits Thor and Clint could eat, only he and Loki had attention on the mango.

'Here' Tony passed over the cheek.

'It's sticky…' Loki mumbled, his palms cradling the cheek – the juice dripped down the pale expanse of Loki's arm.

Loki watched the sugary juice interestedly, flicking green orbs to Tony with a sly smirk – he leaned forward, poking his tongue out till it touched his forearm, following the trail of juice slowly and obscenely.

Tony's cock throbbed at the sight; the pink tongue of the frost giant flat against his flesh like a cat cleaning.

Tony wondered if the god had a rough, cat tongue and how it would feel…BAD, very bad Tony!

Tony pulled the table cloth over more just in case as his jeans did nothing to hide his arousal. Tony's mouth turned very dry as Loki continued to lick away the juice; gaze heated and only on Tony.

Loki let out a pleased sigh at the taste. Tony's cock throbbed at the sound.

'You know, the fruit is nice too.' Tony tried to sound nonchalant. Loki was about to pick up a spoon only to have Tony scoff.

'Don't do it like that.'

'Then how do you do it?'

'Like this.' Tony said, picking up his own mango cheek and pushed it inside out – the pre-cut cubes popped out easily and Tony gently tore one off from the wet inside of the skin.

'Ah. Quite ingenious.'

'Yep, we humans have dedicated our lives to figure out ways to eat things easily.'

'Well, something mortals are good at.' Loki hummed copying the movements, though the god didn't pick up the spoon again – which would've been the less messy (less sexy, less obscene looking though) but the god had followed Tony's example to the T and opened his mouth to take a piece.

Only…the god did not bite the piece of mango off, he wrapped his sinful lips around the cube of mango – licking and sucking at the sweet nectar. Loki's lids were half-lidded looking at Tony, whom had all but clouded in delirious pleasure. His member took particular interest in this vision of seduction – throbbing with need and feeling envy for the piece of mango, being sucked and played with a tongue of silver.

Some of the sweet juice dripped, and left a sticky trail from the corner of the lie-smiths mouth – Tony stared open-mouthed, eyes tracking the juice, the pale fingers of Loki collected the juice before it could stain his vest; the sexy-evil-jerk-SEXY bastard then sucked at those long digits. Loki's face was near orgasmic by now, how the hell can a guy make eating healthy look like a sin.

Oh fuck, Tony was close to ruining his pants – and Loki knew.

When the fruit salad party had ended Loki and Thor enjoying their fair share of the naturally sweetened riches of Migard – the avengers had left with full bellies feeling ridiculously healthy that tomorrow when they have a junk food day, they won't feel bad about it.

Tony couldn't move though, long since lost interest in his own piece of mango. Loki was the last to leave, lips sticky and probably tasting like mango. Loki smirked at the man that remained seated.

'Next time, Stark, perhaps you would like to share a banana with me?' Loki slyly said with no farewell vanished in a wisp of green smoke.

When Tony was sure everyone had left he called meekly,

'JARVIS?'

'Yes sir?' His AI replied.

'Can you send down DUMM.I with a pair of clean pants…like now?'

Tony was as sure as hell not moving from the table without a new set of pants.

Bloody sexy, mango, eating Loki…