A.N. This exists in the same world as "Movie Night," which means a) this doesn't follow any set timeline, so anyone popping in is possible, b) Loki is somehow a reluctant Avenger, c) there are many, many snacks. However, you don't really need to read that to understand this. I was originally going to wait to post this until I was completely done writing this, but we're all miserable right now, and a bit of laughter might be in order.
"I don't see this ending well," Bruce said, looking at Tony with something like fear in his eyes.
"What?" Tony said. "It'll be fun."
"Define 'fun,'" Pepper said.
"I don't get the problem," Tony said, opening the box and starting to set up the game board.
"Tony, have you ever played Monopoly and not had it turn into a gigantic fight where people held grudges for weeks on end?" Pepper asked.
"Sure," he said, looking at her with raised eyebrows. "What kind of weirdos are you playing with?"
"Seriously?" Bruce asked. "Because that's kind of been exactly my experience with it as well."
Tony's eyes flicked back and forth between the two of them.
"Okay," he said after a long pause, "I admit I've witnessed a few minor fights. Once or twice. Five times at the max. But not always!"
"Really," Pepper said, putting her hands on her hips and giving him a look reminiscent of a severe schoolteacher. "What other endings have you seen?"
"Well, I've passed out a few times when I was drunk. I once woke up with the deed to Park Place stuck to my cheek and a hotel jammed in my ear," he admitted.
"That I somehow believe," Bruce said as he began automatically straightening out the colorful paper money into the correct denominations and alphabetizing the different properties.
"And then there's been a few times it's spiraled into strip Monopoly," Tony admitted with a shrug.
"Strip Monopoly?" Bruce said, stopping cold to stare at him.
"What? Someone wants to get out of jail faster, trades a shoe or a shirt or their jeans for someone else's five hundred fake bucks, and it just goes on from there," Tony said, almost managing to sound innocent.
"You have literally played strip Monopoly," Bruce said, trying to wrap his head around that.
"Practically any board game can be turned into a strip version in a pinch," Tony said. "Scrabble—play the lowest word in a turn, take something off. Checkers – every checker lost equals a piece of clothing. Chess – captured piece, strip. Hangman, choose a letter not in the clue, strip. Battleship, miss a guess, strip. Chutes and Ladders—"
"Chutes and Ladders?" Bruce said, looking like he was contemplating jumping out the window.
"Oh yeah, that's a good one," Tony said, checking through the plastic houses and hotels and removing three random pieces from other games that had somehow gotten into the box. "Much more risky. You go down the chute, you take off one, two, or three things depending on the length of the slide, but if you hit a ladder, you put them back on."
"Tell me there isn't a Candyland variation," Bruce murmured sadly.
"Of course not! What are you, some kind of freak?" Tony said, looking highly offended, then he paused. "You know, now that you mention it—"
"Please, don't give him ideas," Pepper said, looking weary.
"But we're… we're just all playing regular old Monopoly tonight, right?" Bruce said, panic coloring his words.
"Brucie Bear, Peter is going to be here. No, we are not playing strip Monopoly," Tony said, straightening the Community Chest cards. "Not tonight, anyway."
"Fine," Bruce said, grabbing another bag of chips from the kitchen and prying open another container of dip. "So who all is going to be here?"
"You'll see," Tony said. "Jarvis, what time is it?"
"7:30, sir."
"Then the first load of people should be coming up in the elevator in three, two, one, ding!" Tony said, and the elevator did indeed ding at precisely the same moment.
Out stepped Natasha, Steve, Bucky, Peter, and Clint. Bucky looked like he'd lost a bet as he was carrying at least five grocery bags full of pop.
"Told you I could do it," he said to Steve while putting down all of them on the bar.
"As if I ever doubted you," Steve said, surveying the veritable avalanche of chips and dip. "I still can't get used to all this."
"What, potato chips?" Bruce asked.
"We had potato chips," Steve said. "We just didn't have twenty different kinds of potato chips. And popcorn. And tortilla chips. Wait, what are those?"
"Cheese puffs," Pepper said. "Basically, you have an array of the entire snack foods aisle from the grocery store on the corner."
"Ooo, any pork rinds?" Tony asked, looking excited.
Pepper tossed him a bag of them, which he caught.
"Sour cream and onion," Clint said, grinning and grabbing a bag. "My fave. Laura never lets me have them at home. She says they make my breath reek so bad she can't sleep."
"We aim to please," Pepper said.
No sooner were the words out of her mouth than the Bifrost erupted onto the helipad and two figures appeared out of it. Thor walked over to the glass door and knocked spiritedly.
"Good evening, friends!" he half-yelled as Bruce opened the door for him, and Loki slunk in shortly afterwards.
"Why am I here?" he grumbled, looking around.
"Yeah, why exactly is he here?" Tony asked Pepper quietly.
"This is supposed to be a team bonding night, right? And he's part of the team now," Pepper said.
"Okay, I admit watching Christmas movies with the Asgardian version of Laurel and Hardy was kind of fun, but seriously?"
At that moment, Peter ran over to the new arrivals and proceeded to hug Thor, who ruffled his hair affectionately.
"Hey, Mr. Loki," Peter said, waving.
"Good evening, Peter," and Tony noted that there was a smile on the mage's face that actually looked genuine for a moment. "I see you too have been called upon to partake in this ludicrous activity."
"It might be fun," Peter said, shrugging and then taking a tortilla chip and slathering it with salsa. "What're we doing, Mr. Stark?"
"Fury suggested we try to build team spirit through board games," he said. "Strategy, that kind of thing."
Clint glanced at the table, saw the game board, then turned disbelieving eyes on Tony.
"Monopoly?" he said. "Are you trying to incite a murder?"
"See, that's exactly what I said!" Bruce said, shoving a vinegar and salt chip in his mouth.
"I do not understand," Thor said. "Is this a disease? Monopoly?"
"No, you're thinking of mono," Peter said. "Monopoly is a board game where people pretend to be real estate moguls and buy up property around the board and charge rent and build houses and stuff."
"Sounds very capitalist," Natasha said, eyeing the board with a look of distaste.
"You've never played Monopoly?" Tony asked.
"Nope."
"Oh, this is going to be fun," he said gleefully. "Okay, everybody grab gut-destroying, highly salted snacks and the beverage of your choice, then settle in for what promises to be multiple hours of fun fun fun!"
"Unless we all kill one another first," Clint muttered, shoving guacamole on a cheese puff and chewing loudly. "Which is likely."
"Fine. Who gets what token?" Steve asked.
"Okay, obviously, I get this one because," he said, holding up the little iron and speaking in a deep, mock-serious voice, "I am Iron Man."
"See, now, I would have pegged you for the racecar. Okay, dibs on the battleship," Clint said.
"One uses a clothes iron and a battleship in this game along with… a thimble, a cat, a hat, and a wheelbarrow?" Thor asked, confused. "This is an odd assortment of items."
"It really is," Bruce said. "No idea why they were picked. They all move the same way, though, so there's no difference."
"Yes, if you play this game the boring way," Loki said, looking disdainfully at the board.
"You've played Monopoly?" Pepper asked.
"Once or twice," Loki said nonchalantly. "It tends to devolve rapidly into quarrels, but yes."
"With whom have you played this game?" Thor asked. "I have never seen it before. It is unknown on Asgard."
"Crap, I'm starting to remember this," Clint said, looking aghast. "During the invasion, when we had downtime, the henchman used to play Monopoly. Loki beat us every single damn time… but I don't remember how."
"While preparing the Earth for an alien invasion of Chitauri, you took breaks and played Monopoly?" Tony asked as though it was the craziest thing he'd ever heard.
"Yeah, but this one," he said, pointing to Loki, "had all kinds of weird rules, like the iron always moved double the number rolled, the cat moved in reverse, the battleship skipped every third space, the thimble was immune to going to jail but had to pay double rent, all kinds of stuff."
Tony moved his glare from Clint to Loki.
"Okay, so we're not doing that, although I admit it sounds insanely intriguing," Tony said. "Why would you-?"
"It's more chaotic," Loki explained. "I enjoy chaos, as you recall. Also, I get the cat."
"I really should have called that one," Tony said, handing it to him. "Bruce?"
"Racecar."
"Gotcha," Tony said, tossing it to him. "Pepper?"
"Thimble."
"Why do I date you? Who willingly picks the thimble?" he said, shaking his head. "Nat?"
"I'll take the top hat."
"Good choice, Pepper should be taking notes from you. Babe, pick sexier tokens. Bucky?"
"Dog me."
"Right. Steverino, here's your shoe."
"Why do I get the shoe?"
"Because it's old and so are you. Peter?"
"The cannon, please."
"There ya go. Who'd I skip?"
"I believe the only option left is the warrior on a horse, which seems appropriate," Thor said.
"Okay, so now that we can all read massive amounts of psychological implications into everybody's choice of token, we dole out the cash," Tony said. "Anyone object to Pepper being the banker?"
Pepper began handing out the paper money until everyone had a total of $1500 in various denominations.
"This does not resemble Midgaridan money of any kind with which I am familiar," Thor said.
"It's only pretend money," Peter said.
"I've done it with real cash a few times," Tony said, "but it's a little over the top. Plus every player has to buy in, and that's out of a lot of people's budgets."
"Just a tad," Steve said, shuddering. "I'm still paying back taxes."
"Wait, the government is charging Captain America taxes from when you were conked out in the ice?" Bruce asked.
"Yup," Steve said.
"That's nuts! You couldn't have earned anything," Bruce said.
"Nope. I had some savings in a bank account, though, and it racked up interest."
"Fascinating as Steve's tax returns are, let's play already," Tony said.
Thus began the first Avengers Game Night. Bucky won the roll to go first, and his dog landed on Oriental Avenue, which he promptly bought. After that, the sheer number of players began to make things complicated quickly. Natasha was the first to land on income tax, which she grumbled about in Russian. Clint wound up in jail almost immediately. Thor kept forgetting what direction to move his piece, and Peter secured the get out of jail free card. Loki's cat moved around the board without his hand having to touch it, though it did need a bit of supervision to make sure it didn't stray to other spaces. At one point it appeared to hiss at Bucky's dog when they were on the same spot.
"Naughty little thing," Loki said, smirking.
Over the course of the next hour and a half, ten bags of various kinds of junk food were consumed solely by Thor, who began eating bean dip directly out of the container with his fingers. The rest of them combined just about kept pace with him.
"Okay, Clint's got Boardwalk and Park Place, the first monopoly," Pepper said, handing over the property card. "Do you want to build a house?"
"Uh," he said, checking his cash, "How much is that?"
"$200."
"Nope, I'm stuck until I pass Go again," he said, then looked at Bruce, who had a pile of money in front of him. "Hey, Bruce, lend me a twenty? I'll pay you thirty back on the next turn."
"Uh oh," Peter said quietly. "And so it begins."
"Wait, did we say side deals were okay?" Tony said.
"We didn't say they are forbidden," Loki said in a slightly ominous tone. "Why, Stark? Are you worried that the reputation of your business acumen might be compromised with a little creative bartering amongst the players, not unlike real life? Hmm?"
Tony squinted and ground out, "You're on, roadkill. Fine. Anything goes short of outright theft."
"And stripping!" Bruce added quickly.
"And stripping," Tony agreed.
Loki raised an eyebrow and quietly munched on a single Cheeto.
"Oh geez," Peter said, grabbing his Dr. Pepper more tightly and chewing ranch flavor Doritos at an alarming rate from sheer nerves. "I have a bad feeling about this."
To say it got ugly would be to say Siberia is a little chilly in the winter.
Thor caved first. He hadn't been able to buy many properties to begin with and had an alarming tendency to roll doubles, landing him in jail several times. He got into an argument with Loki, claiming his brother was moving the dice, but Loki swore he wasn't. It is possibly he had his fingers crossed behind his back, but there was no evidence it was anything but bad luck. Thor, his shoulders slumping, sat back against the couch and scowled while eating an entire can of Cheez Whiz.
"Okay, which one of you owns the damn hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue?" Bucky asked.
"You do," Pepper said, pointing to the card in front of him.
"Oh," he said, relaxing. "Right."
"And I'm in jail. Again," Natasha said. "Why can't I just break out?"
"Because," Tony said. "That's why."
"It looks like a pretty flimsy jail to me," Natasha said, tipping her head. "It's literally a line."
"No."
"You're the one who said everything short of outright theft is allowed," she pointed out. "If I roll higher than a nine, I'm scaling the wall of the jail and going on the run from the police."
"This is not Dungeons and Dragons!" Tony said.
"Allow the wench to roll!" Thor yelled. "Had I thought of that plan, I would have used it myself, and it is indeed a puny prison!"
"Thanks," Natasha said, frowning, "I think."
"Dislike being called a wench?" Loki asked out of the corner of his mouth.
"I've been called worse," she said, giving him a look, "as you recall. You're still in trouble for that. I owe you on that when you're least expecting it."
She rolled an eleven and took off like a shot.
"Okay, so if you're on the lam, you can't collect rent," Tony countered.
"Money laundering operation offshore," Natasha said. "A couple of shell corporations and I'm raking it in."
"This is Monopoly, not the mob!" he yelled.
Bruce looked like he wanted to crawl under the couch and Clint couldn't stop laughing. Peter seemed to have evaporated but was actually on the ceiling, something Thor realized as stray bits of dill pickle flavored chips kept fluttering down and getting stuck in his hair.
"Fine, I'll skip rent on all my properties for my next lap around the board while I'm running from the authorities and living under the assumed name of Madame Chapeau," Natasha said.
"I think Senorita Sombrero is more alluring, but that could be the salsa talking," Clint said, hiccupping. "Yup, definitely the salsa."
"I'm going on record as saying I predicted this," Bruce said.
"Loki, I swear by Nicola Tesla's coils if your dumb cat headbutts my iron off the board one more time I am going to find a way to injure you," Tony said, rounding on the mage, who gave him an unimpressed look. "And Clint, quit double dipping!"
"I am not double dipping!"
"You so very much are!"
"What is double dipping?" Thor asked.
"Dipping a chip, taking a bite out of it, then dipping it in the dip again after your teeth have touched it," Bucky explained.
Thor looked confused and asked, "That is frowned upon?"
"Heavily," Bucky said.
"Oh," Thor said uncomfortably. "My apologies. I did not know."
"Okay, Big Mac Attack, which one did you double dip in?" Tony asked, sighing and shaking his head.
"All of them?" Thor confessed with a pained, embarrassed grimace. "I wished to try every variety of your delicacies."
The other nine people in the room all flinched at the same time. From that point in the evening onwards, they remained dip-less.
Play had continued, resulting in Steve passing Go and getting $200, Peter paying a luxury tax, Clint upgrading his houses to a hotel, and Pepper quietly acquiring the third property she needed for a monopoly, ironically Virginia Avenue.
"Okay, who owns St. James Place?" Tony said on his next turn.
"I do," Steve said, checking his properties.
"Care to sell it at a profit?" Tony asked, smiling sweetly.
"No," he said. "You've already got Tennessee and New York."
"Which means you can't build anything on it anyway," Tony said.
"Yeah, but I can block your monopoly," Steve said, returning an identical sweet smile.
"Okay, that's it, no more Mr. Nice Guy," Tony said. "Rogers, you owe rent from the last time you landed on Reading Railroad. Gimme."
"How did you pronounce that?" Loki asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Gimme?"
"No, the railroad."
"It rhymes with shedding. Like what your stupid metal cat is doing all over the board," Tony said.
"Why is it not pronounced in the usual way?" Loki asked as his cat suddenly hopped on Bruce's racecar and started doing laps of Community Chest.
"Because it isn't," Tony said, "like how the spelling of phlegm makes no sense at all or why there the b in gullible is silent."
"The b in gullible is silent?" Thor asked, perplexed.
Tony shot him a long-suffering look as Loki laughed uproariously while scarfing down cheddar flavored popcorn and Thor looked even more confused.
Slowly, people began to be winnowed out. Bruce declared bankruptcy and joined Thor on the sidelines, eating half a bag of barbeque chips.
"Okay, who do you think is going to slug someone first," Bruce whispered to him.
Thor looked appraisingly at the remaining players.
"Bucky," he said finally.
"I'm guessing Tony," Bruce said conspiratorially as Pepper's thimble went out of play as the banker declared bankruptcy. Loki's cat promptly stuck the thimble on top of Bucky's dog's head and scampered back to its spot in free parking. "You win, I'll buy you a pizza."
"And you shall receive a box of Pop Tarts," Thor offered generously, then added, "just not the chocolate ones. Those are my favorites."
"Okay, who wants to loan me $500?" Clint asked. "Nat?"
"No."
"You owe me for not following through on the order to kill you."
"This is way more important than just not killing me. I've gotten myself exonerated from escaping jail and I'm getting rent again. I'm taking Stark down."
"Fine, fine, I'm out," he said. "Just don't ask me to not shoot you again."
Clint's battleship was returned without feline interference to the box.
"What, your cat didn't want to ride it around the board?" Clint said.
"Don't be silly," Loki said dismissively. "It's a boat. Cats hate water. Now, Bucky, or whatever ludicrous name you call yourself, you have landed on my Marvin Gardens, and I will take $600 rent, if you please."
"The rent is only 360 bucks with two houses," he said, almost choking on his mouthful of Cracker Jacks.
"Yes, but I think you would prefer that I not tell everyone precisely what you were doing last night at about eight o'clock, correct?" Loki said calmly, not looking up from his deeds.
"Oh, come on!" Steve said. "Blackmail is not part of the game!"
"Wait, no, I'm kind of curious now myself," Tony said, leaning closer. "What'd you do?"
Bucky gave Tony and Loki looks of deepest loathing that would have sent most men shrieking into the night, then forked over $600.
"Thank you," Loki said.
"Buck, what were you doing?" Steve whispered just quietly enough that no one else could hear.
Bucky shook his head and set his jaw in a way that suggested he would either win the game or die in the attempt.
"Okay, I'm out," Peter said, looking at his phone while still hanging upside down from the chandelier. "Aunt May wants me to come home."
His cannon let out a tiny puff of disappointed smoke as it rolled over to the banker. Peter came down and handed his money to Pepper.
"Wait, what happens to his deeds and houses?" Bucky asked.
"Back to the bank," Pepper said.
"Wait!" Thor called out. "Lady Pepper, I will trade you a vintage suit from the 1960s in your size from the designer called channel if you hand those over to me!"
"Channel?" Pepper said, starting to sort the money into the right compartments, then suddenly looked up. "Wait, do you mean Chanel?"
"I suppose that is a possible pronunciation, like your Reading Railroad or gullile," Thor said, shrugging.
"Pepper…" Tony said warningly.
"How did you come by a vintage designer woman's suit from Earth?" she asked suspiciously.
"It's green, if that gives you a clue," Loki said nonchalantly.
The eyes of every person in the room swiveled to Loki.
"What?" he said. "I lost it in a drinking game last Tuesday. Thor thought Jane might like it, but it turns out she's not partial to the shade."
"Thanks, but I think I'll pass," Pepper said, smiling weakly.
"Fine by me," Loki muttered. "Gives me a chance to win it back. I look fantastic in that suit."
Peter left. Bruce fell asleep while using a bag of cheese puffs for a pillow. Thor, also dozing, began drooling. Clint tried stacking peanuts on both of them and got as high as twelve on Bruce before he started to turn green and he thought better of it. The wee hours of the morning arrived. At some time, Steve simply gave up.
"We're just going around and around," he said. "I'll bow out. Let's see if it makes a difference."
Loki's cat jumped into the shoe and began hopping manically around the board.
"Puss in boots," Tony said. "Cute. I'm still going to crush you."
"Okay, that's it!" Bucky yelled, pointing at Loki. "You just palmed two thousand bucks off my pile while everyone was looking at your stupid cat!"
"I did not!" Loki said, sounding offended.
"It's literally sticking out of your right boot!" Bucky said, and sure enough, the edges of four orange $500 bills were just barely visible at the top of his boot. "That's an automatic out for cheating!"
"As the banker and therefore the one semi-in charge, I have to agree," Pepper said. "You're out, Loki."
"Fine!" Loki said, pulling out the bills. "You may as well take these, too!"
He reached further into his boot and produced another $2580 in cash, three Get out of Jail Free cards, an extra set of dice, and, somehow, an entire six-pack of ginger ale.
Everyone just stared.
"All of it," Nat ordered quietly.
"Oh, whatever," Loki said, taking out a Community Chest card that would give the bearer $200.
"All," she repeated.
Loki shot her a filthy look and grumbled as he set an unopened container of sour cream and onion dip on the table.
"How in the hell?" Tony asked. "Nat, you knew he was cheating?"
"No," Natasha said. "It was just a pretty safe assumption to make."
Loki's cat walked over to Natasha's top hat, coughed, then threw up a hair ball into it before stalking off the board.
"Classy," she said. "Well, we're down to the final three."
"What year is it now?" Clint asked.
"For a second there, I thought you were about to win our bet," Bruce admitted to Thor.
"As did I," he agreed, sighing. "I may have to forego both the pleasure of pizza and of seeing my brother pummeled."
"This is arguably starting to be against the Geneva Convention. Anyone up for invoking the fifteen-minute rule?" Natasha asked.
"What, play for fifteen more minutes and whoever has the most stuff wins?" Tony asked.
"Deeds included," Natasha said.
"I'm in," Bucky said.
"Same," Tony agreed. "This is now way less a game and way more an exercise in wanting to crush you horrible people."
"Nice to see the team bonding has gone so well," Bruce said, rubbing his forehead. "It's not like I literally warned you about this."
"Okay, I'll set a timer," Pepper said, pulling out her phone. "Tony, it's your turn."
"Sorry, but you're both doomed," he said. "I do this for a living."
He rolled, landed on Chance, drew a card, and…
"'Go directly to jail. Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200,'" he read, then glared at Loki. "You did this, didn't you?"
"I no longer have a stake in the game and am merely waiting for my ride home," he said, producing a nail file out of thin air and starting to work on his left thumb. "I could not possibly care less who wins at this point."
"That wasn't a denial," Tony pointed out.
"It was not I," Loki said.
"Yeah, well, I don't trust anyone who uses a subject pronoun at the end of a sentence like that," Tony said.
"It's grammatically correct," Loki countered.
"Maybe, but it sounds really snooty," Tony said. "Fine. I go to jail. Won't be the first time."
"Whatever," Bucky said, rolling. "Okay, five. And I already own that one."
Natasha rolled, landed on one of Tony's properties, and paid the rent without comment.
The game continued, with not a lot happening, and then Pepper's alarm went off.
"And that's fifteen minutes," she said, sounding relieved. "Count up whatever you have and we get a winner. And some sleep. Finally."
"I've got $5880 in assets," Bucky said.
"Ha! $10,196!" Tony said, grinning.
Natasha quietly smiled, then said, "Same. $10,196."
"We're tied?" Tony said. "There is no possible way. Do you have any idea what the odds are on that?"
She continued smiling but said nothing.
"Geez, you are creepy," Tony said, frowning. "Do you ever blink? Okay, fine, the spider lady and I both get bragging rights, even if that whole money laundering thing was completely not in line with the game rules."
"Would it make you feel better if we did a sudden death competition for the ultimate title?" Natasha asked, giving him a pitying look.
"What kind of sudden death competition?" Tony asked suspiciously. "I'm not playing Russian Roulette."
"High roll wins," Natasha said with a shrug. "Keep it simple."
Tony paused, not blinking, then said, "Yeah, okay, on one condition."
"Which would be?"
"We throw them over our shoulder without looking."
"You do realize this has gotten completely ridiculous, right?" Steve said.
"I am now embarrassed to be an Avenger," Clint agreed, shoving twelve corn chips into his mouth at once and adding through the crumbs, "What has happened to our dignity?"
"I'm game," Natasha said. "One di or two?"
"Two," Tony said. "And make sure they aren't Loki's."
Loki rolled his eyes and continued filing his nails.
"Fine," Natasha said. "Who rolls first?"
"Ladies first," Tony said with a bow.
"Thank you."
She stood, grabbed the dice in her hand, shook them, then tossed them over her right shoulder to land perfectly on the board, scoring eleven. She turned to see the result and nodded in satisfaction.
"I just want you to know I currently hate you," Tony said, glaring at her and taking the dice. "What's your name again? Natalie? Natasha? Nessun Dorma?"
Loki began jauntily humming the aria for a moment before Tony silenced him with a look that was part annoyed billionaire, part homicidal maniac.
"Okay, here we go," he said, turning around and tossing the dice over his shoulder.
"I don't believe it," Bucky murmured.
"What? Did I get box cars?" Tony asked hopefully, then looked. "Eleven?! We're still tied!"
"We are never, ever going to leave here are we," Clint said sadly.
"Are we in hell? This is hell, isn't it?" Bruce said. "It's the tenth level. Dante's ninth was traitors frozen in ice, but there was another one below it that he missed, and it was being damned to play Monopoly for eternity."
"No," Loki assured him conversationally. "Hel has more badly Muzak-ed Aerosmith songs playing in the background. The worst we're in is some form of purgatory. Or possibly a 7-11 in rural Wisconsin. There's little difference."
Bruce looked at Loki with an expression of complete bafflement while Natasha sighed and threw one di one last time, rolling a one.
"There," she said. "For the love of all that's good in this world or any other, beat me."
"Well, now it just isn't any fun," Tony said, folding his arms, yet a second later he picked up the di and threw it anyway, saying, "but I'm still doing it."
It was a two.
To the sounds of sighs of everyone's relief, the process of picking up all the empty bottles and bags began while Pepper and Steve finished packing up the board.
"Should I burn it?" she whispered to him.
"Probably," he said just as quietly.
"So, what exactly did we all learn from this wonderful team bonding experience?" Clint asked.
"That some of us have no morals," Bruce said.
"More like some of us have no business acumen," Tony said. "Also, that I kind of hate you all."
"That if we become too absorbed in our own self-interests, it takes longer to accomplish anything, and eventually it erodes group morale," Steve said while grabbing containers of dip. "We were willing to bend the rules of the game, but only for ourselves. Had we pooled our resources, we could have evenly split everything, made improvements on every square, and ended with all of us winning. But we weren't even able to accept a tie, even when it occurred naturally. Our greed ended in destroying all but one of us, and even he wasn't happy."
Everyone stared at him.
"What are you? Some kind of Commie?" Tony asked. "That's a horrible lesson!"
"You seriously found meaning in a game of Monopoly," Clint said. "I'm impressed."
"No, you're not!" Tony said angrily.
"You are indeed worthy, my friend," Thor said, picking peanut shells out of his beard. "I do not remember eating these."
Clint looked innocent.
"There was something else," Natasha chimed in. "We also all nearly got pickpocketed blind by Loki when we were distracted by conflict and didn't even notice until it was nearly too late. We neglected one danger because we were too focused on something else."
Loki bowed slightly, saying, "I am pleased to have been of service."
"Also, give me back my bracelet before I hurt you," she said, leveling a gaze at him that could have melted a hole through brick.
Loki coughed, then took the bracelet out of his sleeve.
"Just checking your ability to concentrate," Loki said, handing it to her. "Congratulations. You passed."
"So, we're all better people now, or something," Tony said, taking a swig of root beer. "Now get out of my house."
As they were preparing to leave, Bucky made a point of standing beside Loki, and when the opportunity presented itself while everyone was distracted, he asked in a quiet yet deadly voice, "How did you know what I was doing yesterday?"
"What, shopping for Steven's birthday gift?" Loki said, barely moving his lips. "I'm certain he will enjoy the catcher's mitt. By pure coincidence, I happened to be in that sporting goods store myself, appraising the quality of Midgardian knives. I found little of interest with the exception of a Swiss Army knife. I believe it may possibly make use of a pocket dimension for all the accessories. Rather fascinating, really."
"I don't believe in coincidence."
"Nor do I, clever boy," Loki said with a wink, then wandered over to his brother.
Thor and Loki walked out onto the helipad and were almost immediately engulfed in the Bifrost. The rest of them, with the exception of Pepper and Tony, said their goodbyes and crowded into the elevator. After the doors closed, Tony's shoulders sagged.
"Pep, I'm afraid to even look at my watch. Break it to me gently. What time is it?"
"4:38."
Tony shuddered and collapsed on the couch.
"Well, at least you won," Pepper said, sitting next to him.
"Nope, that'd be Peter," he said.
"But Peter left hours ago."
"Exactly," Tony said, rubbing his head. "Never, ever let me do that again."
"We're having another game night next week," she said, looking a little ill. "Fury's orders."
"Not Monopoly," he said. "Anything but Monopoly."
"So, strip Chutes and Ladders?" Pepper said, the corner of her mouth quirking upwards.
"Are you out of your mind? No, I do not want to see any of those people naked, and Peter…"
"I meant you and me. Now," she said.
"Oh," he said, seeming suddenly much less exhausted. "Well, if you insist."
He fell asleep after the first three moves, down a single sock.