Safe with you

Monopoly

I'd never imagined that I would find myself playing board-games with a group of superheroes, and yet that was exactly the predicament I had found myself in. Seven of us were crammed around a tiny. camping table that had been pulled from the very back of a storage cupboard. We were sat shoulder to shoulder, jostled by any other movement that others made. We were playing Monopoly, which was... eventful, to say the least. I was sat between Tony and Thor, with Bucky on Thor's other side, Steve next to him and who also sat next to Bruce, and Wanda crammed between Bruce and Tony.

Much to everyone else's disgust, I was the happy owner of the light blue, yellow and green streets with hotels on all nine properties. The rest of the properties were owned by the others which meant that it was getting steadily more expensive to take trips around the board - it was almost preferable to be in jail so that you didn't have to pay rent to the others.That wasn't to say that it had been a clean game. Wanda had been fined several thousand dollars for casting an illusion over us where she had bought the majority of the properties and was charging three times the rent every time someone landed on anything. Friday eventually alerted Tony to the scam, but only when most of us were down to our final dollars."Wanda!" Tony had exclaimed, startling the witch enough for her to lose her control of the illusion. "You can't win with illusions! It's not fair!"

I glanced down at the remnants of my money - three dollars were all I had left. I gaped at the witch across the table, gobsmacked with disbelief. The redhead was pouting in her chair as Steve and Tony berated her for not following the rules before she indignantly retorted that it was making the game more interesting than if she'd let us play without it. I cracked a smile at that, and met the equally amused eyes of Bucky across the table. We shared a grin but my attention was diverted back to Wanda as she returned all the money back to the rest of us and we were forced to restart the game with strict instructions from mother-hen Steve that 'cheating is will not be tolerated' because it's 'bad' and 'not a display of sportsmanship'.Tony wouldn't let the issue drop though, and periodically side-eyed Wanda to remind her not to cheat.

We were able to restart eventually and it went as smoothly as Monopoly can until Steve dramatically stood from the table, chair pushed back and hands slammed down onto the table.

"Tony, you can't not pay me rent because I'm in jail! That's cheating!"

"You're a criminal though, I don't have to pay you!"

"That doesn't mean anything! I still get my rent money when I'm in jail!"

"No you don't, you don't get anything because you're in jail! No money for you!" Tony retorted, holding all of his money to his chest as if it would stop Steve from getting his money.

"No, he's got a point - in Asgard our criminals actually have to pay to be kept in jail. Criminals don't get rewarded for bad behaviour," Thor chimed in, earning a satisfied smile from Tony who proceeded to stick out his tongue at Steve.

"Exactly, thank you Thor. In real life, you don't get paid for being naughty," Tony argued smugly, making Steve throw up his hands in exasperation.

"This isn't real life though! This is a game and I'm entitled to my rent money!" Steve cried, going red in the face.

Tony also stood, leaning over the table so he and Steve were face to face, both looking as though they would throw hands. I pulled Tony down by the back of his shirt into his chair as quickly as I could while Bruce did the same to Steve, both of us concerned that this was getting too serious for just a board game.

"Maybe we should stop playing..." Bruce offered, only to be glared at by the two leaders.

"I'll grab the rules then," I interjected, eager to see this argument ended so that we could keep playing and I could win.