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See, recently Steve had developed this theory.
It mostly centred around the fact that somehow, at some point, Tony had begun dating Loki.
Steve didn't like this.
Unlike what Clint kept saying, it wasn't jealousy - far from it - but a weird sort of disapproval. As a good Christian man, born and raised, watching Tony and his new lover commit every single one of the Cardinal Sins was just...offensive.
Therefore his theory was that the combination of Loki and Tony was literally, as Tony would put it, the highway to hell.
Heck, if you asked him, he could give you an account of when each offense had occurred.
Let's start with the obvious one.
Lust
It wasn't hard for Steve to think of examples for lust, seeing as it was pretty much what Tony and Loki's relationship was based on.
They weren't adverse to making out in the kitchen or talking dirty while everyone was trying to watch TV, and some nights you could actually hear them going at it, even though they lived a floor above everyone else. Soundproof. Yeah bloody right.
And Clint found lube hidden in the weirdest places.
The worst one was probably when Tony and Loki had gone out clubbing. It was about 3am when they made it home, and the others were all in bed like the good little Avengers they were, when Steve, Clint and Natasha woke up to a crash! from the kitchen.
Fortunately Thor and Bruce didn't wake up.
The first thing they spotted when they rushed in was the blender on the floor. The second thing they noticed was...well... Tony and Loki on the bench.
How they'd seen the felled blender before the two men was a mystery.
"Oh my lord!" Steve said, flushing furiously and diving out of the room again, closely followed by the two assassins.
They heard a laugh from the kitchen, then a low groan.
"Jeeeeeesus." Clint said, storming off the his room. "They better fucking clean up or I'm moving out."
Gluttony
Gods ate a lot. Everyone could accept that. And Tony ate very little on workshop days, which balanced out how much he ate on normal days.
However, according to the Bible, gluttony is not just overeating, but being wasteful or inappropriate with your food.
Doing body shots at an Avengers outing wasn't particularly appropriate. So much salt. So many lost limes.
Nor was dropping fruit off the roof of Stark Tower onto the balcony to watch it explode. More limes lost.
The amount of candy Loki managed to eat was horrifying, even keeping in mind he claimed it helped his magic restore faster.
And it was pretty fucking wasteful when Tony agreed to buy most of the beef in the supermarket just so Loki could build a meat dragon.
People had asked 'why quality beef? why not offcuts?'
But Loki was building a meat dragon, and not just any meat would do.
It was almost forgivable when, once he'd finished his precious dragon, he at least donated the meat to the pound in the area for the dogs to eat.
Greed
"I want one." Tony said.
He said this a lot.
This time, he was pointing at an entire circus.
"Why in the world do you want a circus?" Pepper said in disbelief, a sentiment mirrored by the other Avengers.
Tony muttered something that they didn't quite catch.
"Is it for Loki?" Clint asked shrewdly.
"Pfff. No." Tony said. "Actually, yes. But shhh."
"Why does Loki want you to buy him a circus?" Steve asked curiously.
"He doesn't like sharing the rides with the little kids." Tony explained. "Hell, I can hardly blame him. They are really annoying."
"That's a bit selfish." Steve sniffed.
"Capsicle, Bambi and I are all about the selfish." Tony grinned. "It's what makes us work."
Steve's disapproval sent ripples through the universe.
Sloth
"Tony." Steve said disapprovingly. "Didn't Pepper need you to work today?"
"Nah." Tony said, snatching a few of Loki's Skittles. Sugar-addicted gods. "Well, yeah, but Loki just copied my signature onto everything and did some mind-control whammy on Justine Hammer so she'll stop yammering on about how I stole her father's job or rights or virginity or whatever. She's full of crap."
"Shouldn't you two be doing something?" Steve asked.
"We are, Rogers." Loki said drily.
Steve could see no way in which playing strip poker in the living room was productive. Especially seeing as far as he could tell, they were both cheating ruthlessly to get the other ass naked as soon as they could.
Tony had five aces, and they were only playing with one deck. That couldn't be right.
"Come on, you two. You could be out doing charity work-" As Steve said that, Loki's eyes rolled so hard they nearly fell out of their sockets "-or helping Bruce in the lab, or teaching Thor how to use the washing machine again, or, even better, giving me a hand picking a present!"
"Who for?" Tony said confusedly.
"I told you, it's a new friend of mine's birthday." Steve groaned. "I don't know what she'll like."
"How about just taking some naked pictures of yourself? Sorry, Steve, I think we'll go and make ourselves some fun in the lab." Tony grinned, and he and his half-dressed boyfriend vanished with a green crackle.
Envy
Tony and Loki rarely got jealous of anything, seeing as they were so completely full of themselves they believed nothing could be better, but on the rare occasions they did, it was because one of them had been chasing.
Steve doubted they would actually cheat on each other, but it seemed to be their way of checking that the other still wanted them.
On the previously mentioned outing on which a great deal of body shots were done, there was a prime example of this.
Tony left for five minutes to go to the bathroom, but on the way back he got distracted talking to some girl he vaguely knew.
It was pretty clear to everyone that the darkening of Loki's face was blatant jealousy.
By the time Tony made it there, some random slut was licking salt off Loki's clavicle. She had just reached up to take the lime from his mouth when Tony roughly shoved her and her party heels away and snatched the lime himself.
Loki chuckled once the lime was free. "You were not the one who I had chosen would take that, Stark."
"Like hell I wasn't." Tony said sharply, spitting out the lime to claim Loki's lips.
Then they started making out properly and Clint groaned.
Pride
After lust, pride was probably the sin Tony and Loki were most guilty of. The only things they seemed to like more than themselves was each other.
Steve was completely used to Tony loudly declaring that he was the smartest man on Earth after spending three days locked up in his lab.
Or Loki claiming that there was no finer being than he, and proudly wearing full armour and horns about the tower.
They were worse together, though.
Probably the most notable occasion (and the one that made Clint laugh the most) was at the Christmas parade. The Avengers had to have a float, to drive all the kiddies nuts, but Tony and Loki were sitting on the back throwing candy.
"Who is your king?!" Loki shouted at the kids through a mouthful of his own sweets.
"Loki is!!" They all shrieked.
"And who is your other king!?" Tony asked through the Iron Man suit.
"Iron Man is!!" They chanted back, running along after the throat as Loki threw candy at them.
"Aren't we just the greatest?" Tony grinned at Loki, who cackled.
They leaned towards each other, but then got pelted by candy wrappers as the kids shouted "Gross! No smooching!"
Wrath
Loki was the patron god of wrath. Not like Thor, with anger that burned brightly until he was calmed down, but in his own way, ice wearing away at a rock until it cracked in half. A slow burn, but assured destruction.
If Steve was forced to pick an occasion of Loki's wrath, he'd have to go for the time Tony got hurt by Amora.
Loki didn't actually fight with the team, but nor did he actively oppose them. Chaotic neutral, in exchange for Tony.
Amora was looking for some priceless magical antique in a pawn shop in Central New York, but the Avengers kept getting in her way. Eventually, after her fifth attempt to just walk in the door had been thwarted, she snatched a bar off the window and smashed Tony in the chest with it with all of her strength, which was quite something.
Several somethings broke.
Loki had been scrying the whole thing from his position in the armchair Tony had bought him, and when he saw that he teleported there as fast as his tricky green crackling would take him.
Tearing Tony's faceplate off, he checked his lover over for injuries, and once he de-buckled the chestplate and healed his broken ribs, he whirled to face Amora.
"You." He snarled. Never mind he was only dressed in black jeans and one of Tony's shirts, shoeless, he looked terrifying. Then he waved his hands and he was in full armour and holy shit.
It was in that moment that Steve realised exactlyhow much Tony actually meant to Loki.
Normally, Loki was as much a tease in combat as he was in every aspect of life. Battle was a game, just like everything else.
This time he beat the crap out of Amora without pulling a single blast, and she actually gave up and left. The blonde temptress never just left. Not unless it suited her. But Loki was scary when he was defending the people he loved.
And he did love Tony. It was obvious how he crouched down next to him, checked him properly for injuries, healed a tiny scratch on his face, and kissed him affectionately on the lips before teleporting them both to the tower so he could triple-check his lover was okay.
Hey, maybe committing so many morally questionable acts was just their way of showing affection.