"Alright, children, gather 'round," Tony raised his arms, up welcoming the gang as they made their way into the chairs circling the table that they normally use for official Avengers meetings. Now, the table had bowls of chips, various bottles of Cola and fruity soda, Chex Mix, and a game board covered with a dramatic velvet sheet.
It was game night in the Avengers Tower.
"I, Tony Stark, would like to welcome you all to the first official game night, a night that will (hopefully) be filled with effort! Tears! And most of all… victory. It is here at this-"
"Hurry up, Stark and tell us what the game is already." Natasha interrupted. She was eager to school all of these dorks.
"Fine. Tonight's game will be, drumroll please," the eye-roll that each crew member gave was so strong it felt like the tower would tilt to one side. Tony proceeded to tear the sheet away in a flourish "MONOPOLY!"
Oh shit.
"Monopoly?" Thor picked up the instructions and began to studiously scan the rules.
"You'll get the hang of it pretty quick, bud, don't worry." Sam reassured as he clapped Thor on the shoulder and took a seat between Nat and Steve.
"Alright, since I'm the billionaire in the room, and since this tower does in fact belong to me, I think it's only fair if-"
"I'm banker." Natasha interrupted sliding the stack of colorful money to her, she began passing out orange 500s.
"Okay then, since Natasha's banker, we'll just go clockwise from here," Bruce handed the dice to Sam.
"Hell yeah," Sam said as he rattle the dice around in the red solo cup (issued so that Tony wouldn't be able to use any kind of mechanical glove to read the die faces and predict the outcome… also they thought that Bucky might accidentally dent them with his metal arm).
Sam tapped the hat piece along seven spaces and landed on a chance.
"Sweet, okay, let's see here… blah blah blah ... collect 200!" He exclaimed as Natasha passed him two beige bills.
"Alright…" Steve shook the cup a couple times and tipped it so that the dice rolled out to a perfect ten. He slid the tiny metal dog piece over to the 'Just Visiting' section of the jail square.
Bucky scooped the dice back up in the cup and quickly spun them around in his right hand, he dumped out the two cubes that ended up showing a four and a one. He silently picked up the car piece and placed it on King's Cross Station.
"Could I buy that?" he asked already handing Nat the two hundred bills.
"Of course..." she hummed thumbing through the cards and handing him the property ticket.
"Alright! Barnes is the first to make a purchase! Let's get this show on the road!" Clint always got hyped up during any kind of game… or really anything that involved all of them in one room together.
Thor rolled a six and gingerly placed his wheelbarrow on the Angel Inslington place. "I would like to make a purchase, Lady Natasha!" he bellowed.
Natasha gave him a warm smile and accepted his 100, passing him back the property deed.
"FINALLY! You people take for-fucking-ever, let's see how the master does it!" Tony made a big show of raising the cup above his head, as he stood up and quickly spun around hurling the dice toward the center of the table. "ELEVEN! Hell yeah let's see you nerds beat that! I'll buy it." He said before he even saw what his iron piece was tossed to.
"140." Natasha said bitterly handing him the property.
Bruce retrieved the dice from the middle of the board and quickly turned the cup upside down on the table.
"Eight…" he immediately moved the boat piece to Euston Road without counting any squares. "Ten on each side," he explained and the subtle awe on all of their faces was replaced with an understanding frown or a mouthed 'oh'.
"You buying?" Nat asked, already shuffling through the properties.
"Not this time." Bruce replied calculatingly.
"Alright- hey! Barton! No grease-fingers on the cup!" She said swatting his hand away.
Clint's cheeks were stuffed with potato chips as he reached for the plastic cup.
"Fine! Whatever, man," he grabbed a napkin and swiped his fingers quickly. It didn't do any good, since Natasha could clearly still see the smudgy fingerprints left on the shiny red as his dice rolled to a three.
"One, two, three!" Clint didn't need to count out the spaced and tap his thimble on each individual square, but he found that it slowed the game and annoyed the others. Which was always fun. "Whitechapel Road… hmmm... SOLD!" he said handing Nat a 50 and a 10 with a flourish.
"Okay, then" Natasha sighed as she quickly shook the dice and let the cup tilt so that they fell past her palm and revealed two 6s.
"SHE CHEATED!" Tony accused standing up and pointing between her eyes.
"Shut up Stark," She said, refusing to look up from counting out bills to pay the 'Electricity Company' fine.
"She rolled a perfect twelve- how is that even possible? She touched the dice! I saw it." He replied, still pointing, but now looking around at the group of heroes.
"No, she didn't, there is a 1/36 chance that she would roll a twelve, and she did, give it a rest." Natasha gave Bruce a thankful nod, and he raised his cup of grape Fanta in reply.
"Whatever. Back to Sam, then." Tony said with an eye-roll as he plopped back down.
Sam rolled a nine and purchased Bow Street.
The game went on for a while, and it came apparent what each of their strategies was. Sam wasn't trying too hard, purchasing whatever sounded cool, there was no urge to win. Steve was trying to get houses on the red properties, while buying light blue spaces for backup. Bucky was going for only the train stations, and ended up in jail twice. Thor obviously had no idea what he was doing, as he was making purchases with no strategy whatsoever. Once Tony picked up on which colors the others were going for, he would try and buy the last property left in that category just to screw up their plan, not trying to win himself, but trying to prevent the others from succeeding. Bruce was focusing on buying the green and fuchsia spaces. Clint was buying everything, he mainly came just to joke with the others and eat the snacks; he had zero intention of winning. Nat had already purchased all of the yellow squares and had one dark blue, as she was working to place houses and hotels on them, so that when the other players landed she was able to charge them more.
At around 9:40 pm (an hour and ten minutes of playing, for god's sake) and Natasha had succeeded in placing as many houses and hotels on the yellow spaces, and was working on the blue properties with and even 800 dollars.
Sam had gotten the most chances and community chest cards, and was left with a rainbow of properties, and somehow had 1095dollars left.
Steve's plan to get all the red had failed (thanks to Tony) so he gave up and was now just putting hotels on the spaces that he could. He had 390 left.
Bruce had forfeited the game and was now snacking on Cheetos and watching the other Avengers play, offering advice every now and then.
Clint was focusing on making as many property-related puns as possible, and was bankrupt from getting so many fines. Thor laughed at each one, and was now just circling around the board, collecting the 200 dollar salary and community chest cards.
Bucky, now out of jail for the third time, was three spaces away from purchasing the final railroad station. Tony was 5 spaces away. And it was Tony's turn.
Bucky eyed Stark suspiciously. Tony's sly smile widened once he slid the dice out of the cup dramatically.
"NO FUCKING WAY!" Bucky yelled. The others dropped their jaws as Tony slowly hopped the iron over five squares to the Liverpool St. Station.
"Natasha, I would like to make a purchase." Tony said cool and casual as his grin widened into a full-out smile.
"FUCK YOU, STARK! THERE'S NO FUCKING WAY… HE- HE CHEATED!" Bucky continued shouting. The game's volume had already increased from a conversational tone to an I'm-trying-to-read-my-card-over-Stark's-interrupting -Clint's-crude-jokes-and-Thor's-table-rattling-laugh volume around 30 minutes in.
Steve placed his hand on Bucky's knee. "It's just a game, Buck, cool down..."
"NO THIS GUY FUCKING CHEATED!" Bucky exclaimed abruptly standing up.
Tony pulled a mock- surprised expression, complete with placing his hands on his collarbone and a gaped mouth.
"There's no way you rolled a perfect 5, Stark. We all know that you're strategy was to get everyone's last property… and now you just happen to get the exact number of spaces needed to capture Barnes's last space?" Natasha said, delaying from accepting Tony's four 50-dollar bills.
"I couldn't have cheated! I used the cup to roll the dice! I'm playing fair and square." Tony leaned across the game board to make the transaction himself.
He sat back smugly and waved the property deed in front of Bucky's eyes. Boy, did that set him off.
"FUCK. YOOOUUUU!" He yelled as he grabbed the Monopoly board and flipped it up into the air, sending small metal pieces scattered all over the table.
Bruce sat back, somewhat stunned, even though he was expecting this kind of thing, Natasha cracked a grin as Tony stood up, pushing his chair back with his eyes wide and mouth open. Sam was busy chuckling hysterically, as Steve stood up, wheezing from laughter, to put his arm around Bucky's shoulders, who was now smiling like a kid that was proud of his macaroni art. Thor's guffaw filled the entire room and shook the walls.
"AW YEAAAAH!" Clint yelled grabbing the stack of rainbow money and jumping up onto his chair, "MAKE IT RAIN!" he yelled swiping the money off his hand around the room like confetti.
"AVENGERS! WHAT IN GOD'S NAME DO YOU ALL THINK YOU'RE DOING?"
Everyone stopped immediately and spun around to find Nick Fury and Maria Hill standing in the doorway of the conference room. They all looked around at the pastel-money littered around the floor, along with the game pieces and stray chips and popcorn. The half-empty soda bottles and overturned game board didn't exactly make the whole scene look great, either.
"Game night! Without informing me or Agent Hill? Did it even cross your mind that we may want to join in and beat your asses?" Fury reprimanded, Maria looked caught-off guard at the joking words that came from the intimidating instructor's mouth. "Clean this mess up." He then spun on his heel and walked out, but not before Steve could catch the corner of his mouth twitch to a small grin.
"'Night," Maria nodded with a smile as she quickly followed.
The door slammed, and the group stood silently for a couple moments before the silence was cut with Bruce sniggering. Each person began to add their giggle to the noise until soon the whole room was filled with insane laughter as they walked around with brooms and dustpans pricking up the mess they made.
"It's official. Game night is definitely going to be a thing every week." Tony declared, and the others agreed.