Games Men Play.
By Lothr.
Up in the Avengers Tower, New York City, New York, it was a lazy Sunday afternoon, crisp and cool as Autumn descended. The world was peaceful for the time being, and most of the Worlds Mightiest Heroes were still gathered in the tower, resting.
In the 'communal kitchen' area, Pepper Potts and Natasha Romanoff stood chatting over mugs of hot tea, pilfered from the stash Steve and Bruce kept behind the flour. If it was supposed to be secret, they never mentioned the dwinding supply of leaves, and the stash never moved.
"So, what exactly are they doing in there, anyway?" Pepper asked as she dunked her tea bag in and out of a steaming mug, nodding toward the ruckus coming from the next room. The red-headed woman standing opposite the counter rolled her eyes and smiled. "Clint and Tony decided to introduce Steve to video games today; I think it's Mario Kart." Natasha said dryly, taking a sip from her own fragrant cup.
"Hmm. Sounds like it's not going so well." Pepper mused. "Poor Steve! Do you think we ought to check on them? Make sure they're not driving him too crazy?" she suggested with a smile. The Black Widow shrugged and together they moved towards the door where all the noise was coming from. Natasha quietly turned the knob and cracked the door open, and the muffled phrases became clear:
"C'mon! How did you even do that?"
"I can see you passing me! Stop saying it!"
"What the hell?! You were frozen when video games were invented!"
Clint Barton, Tony Stark, Steve Rogers were on the couch in front of the television, each holding a controller and glued to the game. Though, while Clint and Tony were perched on the edge of the seat, cursing and sputtering, Steve was sat back against the cushions between them with what could only be a very smug smile on his face, and from the looks of it beating them quite soundly.
The two women watched in surprise as the Captain calmly guided his little character around the track over and over, littering the road with shells and banana peels, passing up everyone with ease, and landing first place for the next two races they spied in on.
After the third race, Nat quietly shut the door and they hurried back to the kitchen, smiling widely. Once reletively safe from super-spy-soldier-enhanced hearing, they looked at each other and began to laugh! "I was not expecting that!" Pepper chuckled, lifting her mug and smiling into her tea.
"Looks like they didn't either! Really though, they should have expected it. We've all read Steve's file." The ex-assassin reasoned. "Captain America was only in the service for a little over a year, but in that time he practically became the best tactician and operative the Allies had. And during the Chituari crisis, he broke into some of S.H.I.E.l.D's top security storage on the helicarrier and uncovered out the Phase 2 program before Stark even finished downloading the files. A children's video game wouldn't be much of a challenge."
Pepper nodded in agreement, and they laughed again as another loud curse sounded from the other room.
"I wonder if they'll ever ask to play games with him again?" She mused, and Natasha huffed in amusement. "They'll probably sulk in shame for a while, and then mount a campaign to find something they can beat Steve at. They're just like little children sometimes." Pepper pretended to think for a moment, and then nodded knowingly.
An hour later, after the ladies had migrated to the living area adjacent to the kitchen to chat, the door opened and the three men came out. They didn't even notice the two women peering at them from behind the couch.
"I'm not even going to pretend to understand how a guy who's jumped from the nineteen-forties into the twenty-first century can just, do whatever you just did." Clint shook his head in wonder.
"Yeah, you've been out of the ice what, a few months?" Tony added, incredulous. "Next week; we're playing Overwatch. You're going down, Rogers!"
Steve grinned. "Alright then, we'll see!" he answered before they parted ways.
After the three left, Pepper and Nat smiled again.
'You know, I don't think they realize that that game plays right into Steve's talents." Pepper remarked, and Nat could only agree as they laughed yet again.
Living with the assembled Avengers... They weren't always together, but when they were assembled, life tended to get interesting, to say the least!
Finis.