Loki was, perhaps not surprising at all, on the couch, shoes off, reading a book, and eating a platter of bacon like one kid might eat cookies. He paused mid-grab of a piece of bacon, grinned at her, and hopped up to rapidly circle her.
"Excellent! I was just at the end of that chapter! Are you going out dressed in that? You're not going out for the night in that. We can change later, though. Being a boy is kind of boring when it comes to clothes but also terribly convenient in anything I wear to a bookstore can also be club apparel just as easily. I still might steal one of your tops. No promises! Want some bacon? Thor is spoiling me with it. He's insistently pampering me. I'd complain, but we both know I'm a mooch, so of course I'm not."
Jester, liar, and a scorner of the expected, there was no difference here. Loki had rested, clung to people, then made a decision to not let people mope or feel guilty about his being lost for so long. Honestly... lost. Like he was some misplaced object. It of course had been more complicated than that, so he was doing his best to get people out of feeling obligatory guilt.
Feelings out of obligation were useless, in his thinking.
Oh, it was easy enough to call him out on his pretending that everything was dandy. Of course things were not. But the young god of chaos would be damned if he followed the expected and laid down sick for Hydra. His magic had seeped back into his bones, spark back in his eye, all cuts fully healed, food had been voraciously devoured and the captivity had done nothing to stem his caffeine addiction. He also thrived best on lies.
So if he lied and said he was fine, he thrived. So he was devoted to selling it for certain now.
"I know what we can do! When was the last time you went to a salon? I wanna hair cut and pedi! Also it would be funny trying to watch someone trim my cuticles. I need a fresh black coat! Ooh, maybe with green sparkles. Have you eaten yet?"