Pepper made the mistake of walking through the lounge on her way to the conference room between rounds.
"Pepper!" Tony yelled jovially, waving his arm over his head in greeting. "Come join us! We're doing one last super round with everyone. It's going to be unmatched by any game of Mario Kart ever played. You in?"
Pepper had kept walking as Tony spoke, and she paused in the doorway and looked back over her shoulder, glancing at the heroes draped over the furniture.
"Thanks, but I'll pass." Pepper turned to keep walking, but Tony stood up and grabbed her hand, tugging her back toward the sofa.
"Come on, Potts, it'll be fun!" he insisted, as she struggled not to drop the clipboard.
"I have to fill out your forms about the new technological developments before the press release goes out tomorrow morning!" she protested halfheartedly as she was steered back into the room.
"Come on, Pepper. I invent the technology and even I know that we haven't done anything that significant - some cleaner energy and a couple of new Iron Man Suits, at the most," Tony argued.
"Sometimes I think the write-ups are harder to do than the actual inventing," Pepper replied with a mock glare.
"Sorry, I didn't mean to stir the Potts," Tony chuckled, ushering her further into the room. She waved awkwardly at Loki as she passed the armchair, and Tony directed Pepper so they could both collapse onto the sofa, earning groans and grumbling from the other inhabitants as they tried to shift in a way they would be comfortable.
She was met with a few smiles and mutterings of "Hey, Pepper," to which she responded likewise. Pepper grimaced as Tony handed her a Wii remote and a steering wheel.
"I haven't played this in months..." she sighed, rolling her eyes.
"Don't worry about it, you'll do fine," Tony said distractedly as he passed out the controllers. "Oh, and Loki's Birdo."
"Why?" asked Natasha vaguely, sprawled out over Clint's lap with her head on the wide arm of the couch.
"Nobody likes Birdo," replied Tony simply, before turning to smirk at Clint. "Although...maybe we should let Birdbrain over here be Birdo, huh?"
Clint stiffened, and Natasha shot up from her relaxed position, now leaning over Tony dangerously with a stabilizing and comforting hand on Clint's shoulder.
"You know he's still sensitive about that," she hissed at Tony, "and I am not going to let you drive him back into some weird sort of mental relapse because, funnily enough, I don't enjoy having to drag my boyfriend out from a nest of tablecloths once a week!"
"Ooooooh, your boyfriend," Peter began, and everyone except Thor joined in with a rousing ooooooh.
"Has Natasha done something worthy of our taunting and mocking?" Thor questioned, his forehead wrinkling.
"Or maybe we should ask, what has she not done to deserve our taunting and mocking?" Loki cut in with a wicked grin, which was met with a well-practiced eye roll and a "Shut up, Loki," from Tasha's direction. Unperturbed, Loki turned back to Thor, loftily giving the rest of his explanation. "The humans enjoy mocking each other for their basic evolutionary need to pair up."
"I learned in my community college classes that evolution, invented by Charles Darwin on the Galapagos Islands, is very important to human development," Steve interjected.
"Uh, actually, only half of that was right. Charles Darwin merely recognized..." Bruce began.
"You Midgardians, with your mistaken ideas of development! You all choose to believe one man named Charles because he proclaims himself omniscient? It is taught in your so-called communal college classes that he invented the human race on an island!" Thor declared haughtily.
"None of that is true! Steve was only half right, and..." Bruce argued.
"Foolish be the Midgardians who believe such thoughtless drabble," Thor muttered to himself, shaking his head in disappointment.
The Avengers considered trying to explain the theory of evolution to Thor, but decided to simply give up on the argument and select their characters. Tony stared intently at the screen before deciding on King Boo again. Clint didn't appear too bothered by Tony's previous remarks, but he allowed Tasha to continue to comfort him on the long passed remarks as he silently selected Dry Bones from the screen.
Steve was confused again.
"Wait, what just happened?"
"Looks like you ended up with Princess Peach again, Steve."
"How do I keep doing that?!" cried Steve, holding the controller up in front of his eyes and examining it closely, turning it over in his hands.
Even with the screen modified to split into nine different sections, each person's section was somehow still plenty big enough.
"Who gets to pick first?" Natasha asked, fiddling absently with her steering wheel.
"Let's let Loki pick first," suggested Peter eagerly, sitting up. "He hasn't even gotten to play yet."
Tony opened his mouth to protest, but Pepper interrupted before he could speak.
"Why don't you take advice from someone other than yourself for once?" she suggested with a ghost of a smirk. Pepper turned to look at Loki with a friendlier expression.
"Go on, Loki, you've got this one."
Loki stared between Pepper and Peter for a moment in apparent surprise, before inclining his head slightly in gratitude.
"Thank you, Ms. Potts. Young Parker."
Peter looked absolutely gleeful, while Pepper reclined back onto the couch with a smug expression.
Since Bruce was sitting the closest to Loki, he leaned over and helped the god figure out the controller. Loki certainly learned much more quickly than Steve had. Tony stared around at his friends accusatorily; he didn't seem to enjoy the fact that they were being cordial to his enemy in Tony's own house.
Loki chose DK's Snowboard Cross as the first race. There was a slight tension in the air, hinting that there was going to be some very difficult competition in this round. Tony and Clint were winning with one round each, but Peter and Natasha were certainly good enough to steal this round in sudden death and take it all.
The race began smoothly, and it wasn't until halfway through everyone's second lap (and the end of Steve's first) until someone let out a bark of derisive laughter.
"Loki, you didn't tell us you were homesick!" Natasha said, glancing over at Loki while skillfully avoiding Clint's dropped banana peel onscreen.
Loki's eyes flicked over to Natasha, raising a slim eyebrow.
"Whatever jesting could you be hinting at?" he sighed heavily, lazily steering his kart as he spoke. Tony quickly caught on.
"Missing the cold weather from your home planet, are you?" Tony laughed, and Clint sniggered from his corner of the sofa. Pepper frowned disapprovingly, but was too focused on the game to respond.
"No," Loki pouted, sinking further down in his armchair. They passed the point on the track where the strange creatures were doing snowboarding tricks ,and Loki rolled his eyes. "Anyway, this is nothing like Jotunheim," he grumbled.
At the end of the final lap, Tony was just about to coast smugly into first place when a green turtle shell flew straight into the back of his motorcycle. His bike was just landing back on the track when a bright yellow car streaked across the finish line in front of him.
"What the hell was that?!" Tony cried, throwing down his steering wheel after managing to slide into third place, staring around at the other players. Those who had finished were looking at him with bemused expressions, except for Pepper, who was calmly watching her screen where Rosalina was dancing about in victory. The rest of the group followed Tony's shocked gaze, some of their mouths dropping open as soon as they realized who had just beat Tony at his own game.
Things were definitely getting interesting.
They raced through Koopa Cape and Delfino Square next, Pepper sliding smoothly into first place each time. She was receiving more incredulous glances and impressed smiles from the other players, as Tony sulked.
It was an unspoken agreement that Rainbow Road would be the final race and ultimately determine the winner of the tournament. Steve had basically given up once he saw the thin, twisting rainbow track suspended in outer space - without guardrails, for that matter - but was willing to give it a fighting chance.
The race was a heated one, with Tony, Natasha, Clint, and Pepper all battling for first place at the front. Consequently, this made them the main target for most of the turtle shells, so they were thrown back to around the middle of the race at the beginning of the second lap.
Thor and Loki had gotten to the front, and were hurtling neck and neck down the narrow rainbow road. Loki was concentrating on getting in the lead, and Thor was far too noble a player to try to knock Loki over the edge of the road.
However, they soon reached a hairpin turn in the road, and as a result of Thor's wide turn, he accidentally hit the front of Loki's kart, which sent Loki spinning off the side of the road and over the edge. The two gods froze, staring at Loki's screen where Birdo was hurtling down into space, unreachable.
Suddenly, Thor had thrown his controller out of his hands and lunged over to crush Loki in a hug, who remained completely impassive, arching an eyebrow at his brother.
"BROTHER! I AM SORRY I EVER LET YOU FALL! YOU DID NOT DESERVE THAT! YOU ARE GOOD AND YOU ARE MY BROTHER AND I SHALL HAVE RAILINGS INSTALLED ON BIFROST IMMEDIATELY!"
It was quite a ridiculous sight, the large armor-clad god clutching onto the other, who was awkwardly patting the top of Thor's head with the arm that wasn't pinned against his side in the confining embrace and looking for all the world as if he would rather be anywhere else but there. Thor and Loki's karts sat idly on Rainbow Road as they were ignored by the rest of the Avengers, who were all concentrating on winning.
The third lap ended with Pepper sailing smoothly across the finish line. She stood up, setting down her controller and straightening her skirt, pausing only to flash a smug smile at Tony before picking up her clipboard and striding out of the room without a word. The ones who had finished watched her go, eyebrows raised.
"You've got to hang on to that one, Stark," Natasha commented as she inched past Peter at the finish line to claim third place. She tossed her controller down onto the floor, stretching back out across Clint's lap the best she could on the crowded sofa.
Several minutes later, the only ones who hadn't finished were Thor and Loki, Thor having finally let go of Loki as they did their best to look manly again. The rest of them had even watched Steve inch his way around the course three times and finish in a spectacular tenth place, to which they had all cheered.
"Guys, I have to be at the lab at three, do you think we could move this along a little?" said Bruce finally, checking his watch and glancing over at the gods.
Thor and Loki looked at each other for a long moment, before they both nodded once and turned to the others.
"We shall cross the final boundary together," Thor declared, picking up their controllers and handing one to Loki, who accepted it solemnly.
"Oh, for the love of..." Natasha muttered, rolling her eyes. Everyone else watched the screen with a mix of skeptical and amused expressions.
The two brothers drove steadily through their final lap and a half, staying as close to the other's side as possible. They approached the finish line, rolling over the checkered barrier together.
And Thor came in eleventh place.
The Avengers waited with baited breath. Loki turned his accusatory glare to Thor, before throwing down his controller and rising to his feet in a wave of fury.
"I trusted you!" he yelled as Birdo wept onscreen in defeat. "I should have known that you would trick me for your own gain! And you believe yourself to be noble and virtuous?"
Thor's eyes were wide, and he also rose to his feet as he struggled to console Loki. "No, brother, you do not understand! I had no intention of conspiring against you! I was by your side the whole time, you know that!"
"And why should I believe you?" Loki snarled, crossing his arms and turning away from Thor in a huff.
"Dude, look," interrupted Tony, standing up. "I hate to interrupt your little family discussion here, but the game doesn't accept ties."
"I am no family of his!" retorted Loki, and everyone groaned.
"Nobody cares," intoned Clint from his corner of the sofa.
"I care!" quipped Peter, but this was largely ignored.
"Can we maybe try not to end today with a fight?" Steve asked loudly, knowing even as he did so that this was incredibly unlikely.
Author's Note: Just for anyone who's interested, I am planning to start the next story in the Recreational Avengers series soon - The Spectacular Community College Crusade! (Because if Steve is attending community college, the others will certainly have to see what all the fuss is about.)