Gene accidentally slid neatly into this niche that he had with the Young Avengers that he very clearly comes to legitimately enjoy. It's funny because Loki, at his core, is a user and most of his relationships both in canon and in Tu Shanshu are with people that could somehow give him a very real advantage in some area.
He honestly thinks there is nothing to gain from his association with Gene.
Still, he finds that he likes the snappy back and forth between them and the not-dangerous level of antagonism they have going on. He's also getting kind of territorial about it. They have a thing and he likes the thing. You could see it briefly in the thread with Iron Bianca where Loki just spontaneously went off and escalated the situation (profanity, not-so-obliquely threatening Iron Man's friends even when Bianca was right there to witness it) to redirect things away from Gene.
So tl;dr, he's kinda like a cat that's staked out a certain person in the household as theirs whether that person likes cats or not.
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He honestly thinks there is nothing to gain from his association with Gene.
Still, he finds that he likes the snappy back and forth between them and the not-dangerous level of antagonism they have going on. He's also getting kind of territorial about it. They have a thing and he likes the thing. You could see it briefly in the thread with Iron Bianca where Loki just spontaneously went off and escalated the situation (profanity, not-so-obliquely threatening Iron Man's friends even when Bianca was right there to witness it) to redirect things away from Gene.
So tl;dr, he's kinda like a cat that's staked out a certain person in the household as theirs whether that person likes cats or not.