Steve goes out of his way to buy Loki a new pair of pants. If his problem is that he's hot, he's probably looking for some lighter pants, so he walks throughout the entire men's clothing section of Walmart until he finds some loose cotton pajama pants. They look much lighter than his leather ones, they're probably about his size, and they're cheap. That feels like a success to him.
While he's out, he also runs to the grocery store to get more dinosaur chicken nuggets. He picks up a few things for himself while he's out, too. Grocery stores have a lot of new options that they didn't have 70 years ago. He'd like to give some of them a try — and anything he doesn't like, he can just give to one of the other Avengers. It seems there are some perks to having this many housemates.
Tony is, per usual, nowhere to be found when he gets home. He spends most of his time in his lab, much to Steve's relief. It's not that he doesn't like Tony. They just... don't always get along. Clint is out, too — Fury still calls him in at SHIELD most days, because unlike Natasha, he's not actually assigned to Stark Tower.
That leaves Natasha as the only Avenger hanging around the compound, and she just happens to be in the kitchen when he comes back. He dumps his bags on the counter and begins stocking the food away.
"You know," Natasha says, "I'm pretty sure Stark was kidding when he said you had to do your own grocery shopping."
"No, I know," Steve says. "I just have a lot of new foods left to try."
Natasha cracks a smile at that. She props her head up on her fist. "Alright, what'd you get?"
Steve begins showing her the various foods as he puts them away. "Microwavable mac n cheese."
"Oh, absolutely delicious," Natasha says. "Not as good as normal mac n cheese, but great when you don't have time to cook."
Steve grins. That's good to know. It looks good, so he hopes it tastes it. He pulls out the next piece of food. "Cookie dough ice cream?" He eyes the picture on the front of the container. It looks weird. It sounds weird, too, for that matter. But he does like cookies...
"Oh, you're gonna love it," Natasha says. "And if you don't, I will gladly eat the rest."
Steve chuckles. "Duly noted." He slips it in the freezer. The next thing he pulls out also goes in the freezer. "Apparently these are pretzels, but they're also bread." Which doesn't strike him as a very pretzel-y quality, but he does like bread.
"They sell those frozen?"
Steve chuckles. "Apparently. Wanna try one with me?"
"Oh, hell yes," Natasha says.
Steve reads the instructions on the back of the box. There's a microwave option and an oven option, and he chooses the latter just because he understands it better. He sets the oven to preheat, then goes back to sifting through groceries.
He pulls out the next thing he found. "I think these are like nachos?"
Natasha bursts out laughing.
Steve furrows his brows. "Are they not like nachos?"
Natasha smacks her fist on the table, her face beginning to turn red from laughter. "'Are they like nachos?'"
He reads the bag again, confused. "They say they're nacho cheese chips. Isn't that...?"
Natasha takes a few moments to recover her composure before saying a very amused, "No, Steve. Doritos are nothing like nachos."
"Huh." Steve eyes the bag for a minute. These really aren't like nachos? They say "nacho cheese" on the bag. How are they not like nachos? God, the 21st century is wild.
"You know what we should do?" Natasha says. "We should have a movie night. Doritos go great with movie nights."
Steve grins. "I'd like that." He thinks back to his list of pop culture things to check out. There were a lot of movies he needed to catch up on. "What about Star Wars?"
"Wow, goin' old-school," Natasha remarks. "Which I guess for you is new-school."
Steve shrugs. "Well, you know..."
"Well, hey, everybody's gotta watch Star Wars at least once," Natasha says. She leans back in her seat and nods at the last grocery bag. "What else you got?"
"Um..." Steve pulls out two bags of dinosaur chicken nuggets. "Loki finished the rest of these last night, so I got some more."
"God, that guy goes through nuggets like Barton goes through arrows," Natasha mutters.
"Yeah, he really likes these, doesn't he?" Steve agrees. He puts one bag in the freezer, but then he pauses, eyeing the bag.
"Oh, don't tell me you don't know what chicken nuggets are, either," Natasha says teasingly.
Steve chuckles awkwardly. "I know what they are. I've seen the commercials."
Natasha scoffs, a big smile on her face. "Oh my god."
Steve smiles, too, though he's definitely confused. "What?"
"You've never had a chicken nugget," Natasha says.
Steve shrugs sheepishly. "They didn't exist in the '40s."
Natasha shakes her head. "Alright, you and I are gonna go on a field trip one of these days to try all the food you've missed."
"I would love to," Steve says, and he sincerely means it. He'd love to go around trying all the food he's missed, and there are certainly worse people to spend the day with.
She gestures to the other bag. "What'd you go to Walmart for?"
"Oh, just..." He holds the bag up briefly, then drops it on the floor for him to grab later. "Something for Loki."
Natasha snorts. "You're getting Loki gifts now?"
"It's not a gift," Steve says. "It's just something he asked for."
"So it's a gift," Natasha says.
Steve shakes his head to himself. "It's just a pair of pants."
Natasha laughs. "He asked for a pair of pants?"
"He was getting hot in the leather ones," Steve says. And he's sick, even if he won't admit it. Sometimes time and comfortable clothes are the best medicine.
"Well, yeah, when he walks around all day in, like, five layers of leather, I'm not surprised he's hot," Natasha says.
"He wasn't wearing five layers of leather," Steve says. He was wearing one — half of one, even; it was literally just the pants.
"He might as well be," Natasha says, whatever that means. "When did you two get all buddy-buddy? Two days ago, you sounded like you wanted to handcuff him to the bed — and not in a fun way."
"We're not 'buddy-buddy,'" Steve says. "I told you yesterday. He's sick."
"He's a god," Natasha reminds him. "I think he can handle a little cold."
"It looks a bit worse than 'a little cold,'" Steve says.
Natasha raises an eyebrow. "Mm-hmm."
Steve crosses his arms, raising his own eyebrow in return. "What?"
"What?" she replies with a small smirk.
Steve shakes his head. "Where does Stark keep his cookie sheets?"
"I don't think Stark has ever had to bake for himself a day in his life," Natasha says.
While that may or may not be true, after a bit of searching, they conclude that he does, in fact, have cookie sheets. Steve pulls one out just as the oven finishes preheating, so he lays a few frozen pretzels on it and shoves it right into the oven.
"Who gets the third one?" Natasha asks.
Steve doesn't answer, which, really, is an answer in and of itself.
"You're making Loki a pretzel?" she says, dumbfounded.
"I feel bad!" Steve says defensively. "All he's eaten lately is chicken nuggets, and I know I don't know what chicken nuggets taste like but I'm sure he's getting sick of them."
Natasha shakes her head like a disappointed parent. "You do remember that Loki just tried to kill us not too long ago, right?"
"I know, I know," Steve says. "But if you'd seen him last night..."
"Pass," Natasha says. "I would like to never see him again, actually."
"I think he'd like that, too," Steve says. He definitely didn't seem to enjoy Steve's company, that's for sure. "Unless you want to come with me. You can stand on the other side of the wall. He doesn't even have to know you're there."
Natasha raises an eyebrow. "Are you asking me to keep you company while you go to Loki's room?"
"Not like that," Steve says. He doesn't need the company. He's more than capable of delivering Loki some pants and a pretzel. It's just... "You need to hear him. He's not okay."
"Good," Natasha says. "I don't want him to be okay."
"Nat." Steve gives her a look.
Natasha groans. "Fine, I'll go with you, but I don't care how he's doing."
"I thought the same thing until I saw him," Steve says.
"Well, you've always been more compassionate than I am," Natasha says. "Comes with the job description."