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It's been a ridiculous day. First sparkly space aliens in New Hampshire, then a mutant who, for some reason, could only control tigers, and then to top it all off the call to battle had come again at one am. For camouflaging Doombots of all things.
Now it's five am and they're sat awake in a circle, there's more tension in the air than when Clint decided to take a swan dive off a thirty floor building and onto a Doombot, that wasn't expecting a crazed assassin to take it for a ride around town. It certainly wasn't expecting the colourful language if Doom's annoyed shrieks were anything to go by.
Back at the Tower they were battered, bruised and yet still ready for one more fight. It's been half an hour since they begun and already there's two shattered mugs on the floor, one slice of pizza on the wall behind Tony's head and two discarded shirts hanging off the couch.
There's a stillness in the air as the team nervously watches Jane cower under Natasha's glare.
"Make your move." the silence is broken by Natasha's hissed command.
With shaky hands, Jane drops the object in her hand onto the table. There's an audible gasp as the team sees the bright green draw two added to the pile of cards already stacked upon the table. Natasha, her face a blank mask, grabs two cards from the deck in the middle of the table, her mere silence a threat of its own.
On her left, Thor shuffles his hand and glances at Natasha out of the corner of his eye before making his move. Another bright green card makes its way onto the table, this time it's a reverse. Natasha gives the god a subtle nod before putting down a skip. Jane lets out a small relieved breath and glances over at Darcy with trepidation.
With a confident grin, Darcy ignores her friend's unease as she simply puts down a green six. The turn shifts to Bruce who's studying his cards with a small frown. Across the table Darcy spots Tony opening his mouth to comment on the current card colour. Before he can voice his bad idea Steve elbows him from the right.
Bruce, who elects to ignore his teammate's scuffle, puts down a reverse. He looks over to Darcy, on his left, who slams down a wild card with a maniacal grin. "Blue, my little smurfs, UNO."
Tony looks affronted while Thor just looks confused.
Jane glances at her hand, sighs and picks a card. The turn passes on to Natasha who calmly puts down a skip. Thor doesn't take offense to her move and smiles at Steve on his left.
Steve's smile turns into a smirk. He glances at Tony and stares into his eyes as he slowly puts down a wild draw four. There's a beat of silence before Tony jumps to his feet with a manly screech.
"I want a divorce!" he yells stabbing a finger at Steve's chest.
"We're not married." Steve responded with his smirk still in place.
"And now we never will be." Tony snapped back, sitting down again and crossing his arms with a huff.
With a victory whoop Darcy slams down a wild draw four. "I win, bitches!" she crows, pumping her fist into the air.
Clint throws down his hand with a frustrated noise. He knocks back his chair and storms off to the kitchen, stepping past a very confused Pepper Potts.
"I have so many questions for you." said Pepper. "But first. Why do I have a very angry PETA on the phone right now?"
The team collectively wince. "That might have something to do with the mind controlled tigers from earlier." Bruce admits with a sheepish smile.
Pepper takes a deep breath and walks over to the table they're all converged around. She silently points at the slice of pizza that's slowly been sliding down the wall while they were busy screaming at each other over cards.
"Game nights get very wild here." Jane responded at the same time Tony says. "It really wanted to be the new Mona Lisa."
At that moment Clint walks back into the room with two chocolate bars. One hanging from his mouth and the other one he tosses at Natasha, who catches it without looking away from the resigned CEO.
He moves to sit down, at which point Pepper notices the cards scattered over the table.
"Wait, are you guys playing UNO?" she asks, raising an elegant eyebrow.
Tony looks offended and sweeps a hand over the mess of cards. "Playing? Playing." he exclaims. "This is no game Pepper. It's a battle of wits from which true heroes are born and you find out who your enemies are."
Pepper is surprised Thor doesn't provide dramatic lighting in the background. It seems like something Tony would convince him to do.
"UNO? Really Tony?" she says sounding unimpressed. "And how many rounds have you won?"
Tony glares at Darcy who mouths 'sore loser' at him. He doesn't see Clint's back stab coming.
"One." is the archers simple answer.
Tony gives him a look of betrayal. "Fuck you too Brutus." Tony mutters while the archers proceeds to flip him off.
Pepper shakes her head with a resigned sigh. "You guys need to get some sleep." she said gesturing at Steve's naked chest, Natasha's hand gripped around a small but deadly knife and Clint's pizza smeared abdomen.
"And are you going to tuck us into bed with a story and a goodnight kiss?" Tony asked too high on adrenaline to think his words through.
A knowing smile spreads across her face. Tony recognizes his mistake too late. "I win one round against you lot, and you all go to bed."she says very matter of factly.
Not one to back down from a challenge Tony replies. "Fine." But Pepper's already pulled up a chair between Bruce and Darcy and is shuffling the deck of cards.
"Alright then. Let's begin."
They should have known better than to challenge Pepper Potts at a game of wits.
Right off the bat, five wild draw fours are put down right after each other and the unlucky victim is none other than Steve. They would have felt sorry for him, if not for the fact that ten minutes later he started a chain reaction that ended with Thor drawing sixteen cards while Natasha patted his back.
At one point Pepper and Bruce get into a reversing war that lasts for twenty seconds but will be remembered forever.
After reversing the order for the last time, Tony declares UNO only to be swamped in cards as Pepper sends Clint a look prompting him to make Tony draw four.
The round lasts a little over half an hour but caused no less than two members of the team to burst into tears and for Bruce to go green around the edges more than ten times.
When Pepper inevitably wins, Thor is already asleep and Natasha is close to burning the room down. She wins by tricking Darcy into thinking her card is red, knowing that Darcy only has green. When the colour changes, she throws her green draw two in Tony's face.
There's a stunned silence from those who are still awake.
Tony looks to be contemplating his life choices while Bruce and Jane simply blink in awe.
Pepper slowly rises out of her chair and points to the door. "Now if you'll all be off the bed."
The team rises from the table feeling bone deep tiredness and head to the door. Steve supports a burned out Tony while Natasha practically carries Clint.
Before they can all leave Darcy turns back towards Pepper. "How did you get so good at UNO anyway?" she asks blearily.
Pepper shrugs nonchalantly. "You have a lot of free time when Tony's drunk."