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Sam, Sharon, Tony, and Steve. That's been the lunch table group since freshman year. Bucky sometimes joins them, but it was almost always the same four. So when Steve crossed the lunchroom and saw that there was a group crowded around the table, Steve was more than confused. Sharon spotted him and waved him over excitedly. Tony and Sam were equally giddy. Steve was suspicious immediately. The three of them being excited together was always a bad sign. Bucky even looked excited. That was worse.
"Sorry, but Carol called dibs on blue in second period, and I have to honor it," Tony said.
"So you're willing to toss years of friendship away like that?" Rhodey asked.
"James, let's be honest: you don't want to fight me for blue," Carol warned. "It won't end well for you."
"Fine. Is green up for grabs?"
"Marking you down as green," Tony confirmed. He wrote in a notebook.
Steve sat next to Sharon and greeted the intruders: "Rhodey. Carol. Jess. Pepper. Maria." They gave small waves, and Pepper was nice enough to say, but they were all busy with Tony.
"I'll take yellow," Jess said. "It'll accentuate my plant hat."
"And it'll be easy to see you kill people," Maria said.
"You're pink-"
"And what about it?"
"Nothing! Stop being so defensive. Just saying that pink is brighter than yellow."
"Do we have a full roster?" Sam asked.
"Almost. We need one more player for an even ten," Tony said. Almost instantly, everyone turned to Steve, who was chewing on his sandwich.
"What?" he asked.
"Would you like to play a game after school with us?" Pepper asked.
"What kind of game?"
"It's called Among Us. You've heard of it, right?"
"Steve's not up-to-date on anything after Windows 95," Tony teased. "He won't learn about apps until we tell him about them."
"His Neko Atsume phase was worse than his Pokemon Go! phase. He was begging me to help him get a snapshot of Peaches," Sharon bemoaned.
"No, Pokemon Go! was worse. He and the phone were inseperable," Sam insisted.
"What's Among Us?" Steve asked.
"You'll love it. We're playing at my place after school. I'll mark you down as a yes," Tony said. "Now we have our ten. I'm driving over Pepper. Who else needs rides?"
"I got Sharon and Bucky," Sam said.
"I got Jess and Rhodey," Carol said.
"Got room for me too?" Maria asked.
"Of course."
"Steve, you can come with me," Tony said.
"So no one's going to tell me what the game is?" Steve asked.
"See you later," Carol said as she, Jess, and Maria went back to their usual table. Pepper gave Tony a kiss on the cheek and waved to the others as she and Rhodey went towards the library. Everyone else ate and ignored Steve.
"Seriously?"
"It's a game where you and others are on a spaceship and are given tasks to keep it running," Sam explained. "It's fun."
"Can't you at least show me?"
"You'll be fine," Sharon said. She leaned against Bucky. "If this guy's got it, then so do you."
"That's not fair, because I'm pretty sure you showed Bucky how to play," Steve said. Bucky shrugged and kept on eating.
And because there was a strict no phones policy at the school, Steve wouldn't have time to try learning the game beforehand. Fuck, he hated when they did shit like this to him.
"It'll be fun," Sam assured.
When they got to Tony's place, Steve, Tony, and Pepper went straight to the basement. Pepper set up chairs around the room and put cards on each. Tony took Steve's phone and downloaded Among Us for him. Pepper guided him to the leather chair in the far corner and told him to relax and wait. Steve nodded, but right away opened the app and tried to see how it works. He played the tutorial, and it seemed easy. Solve some tasks and that would be it. Then he pressed a button, and the screen was telling him to kill and jump into vents.
"Hey, what's this?" Steve asked Tony, who was messing around with his multimedia player.
"I don't know, figure it out," Tony answered without looking up.
Steve couldn't figure it out, so he decided to complete some Buzzfeed quizzes while waiting for the others. He was halfway through finding out what city he should visit based on his breakfast choices when the others came. Pepper set them up in seats. Now, the basement was huge, Steve knew, but the distance they were at was ridiculous. He would have to shout to be heard by the farthest person, who happened to be Maria. Once everyone was settled, Tony stood in the middle of the room.
"Greetings, friends, comrades, and soon-to-be enemies. We are gathered here today to do one simple thing: play Among Us without dealing with complete strangers and so we have the ability to beat the shit out of each other when we're done. To keep things fair, we're all set up far enough that we can't spy on each other's phones, and I will be blasting BABYMETAL so we can't hear who gets killed. I ask that you keep all reactions to yourself so we don't know who did what, and based on how much I've seen you guys lie, everyone but Steve will be fine. So no one look at Steve. If your character is killed, you cannot speak for the rest of the round. Those who cannot comply will be shut behind that door with the washing machine. We've done this before with no issue, so this should be a no-brainer. Now, if you'll refer to the cards Pepper made for us, you will see who has which skin color, so there's no fighting over who has what. Steve, you have to be brown. No, you cannot switch. I opened a private game for us in The Skeld. Use the code M-R-V-L-C-U to get into it. Four tasks, one-point-five speed, regular vision, double for the impostor, twenty second kill cooldowns, three emergency meetings, thirty seconds to debate, sixty to vote. And use nicknames that I can identify you with. I know some of yours already, but those who I don't, be helpful, please. When we're all confirmed to be in the same server, then we'll start. Any questions other than Steve?"
Steve raised his hand anyway, and no one else did. "How do you change the nickname?"
Tony motioned to Pepper next to him (meaning five feet away on the loveseat). "Please ask Pepper to show you. Everyone join, and then I'll play the music."
Pepper showed him where to type in his name. He did so, then asked Pepper how to join the right game. She helped him again.
He watched as everyone changed colors and hats. He entered as brown, so he guessed that he wouldn't need to worry about that. He did, however, customize himself to wear a sheriff's hat. All the little spacemen ran around the room. Tony walked around to confirm everyone had entered the space.
"Steve, did you try to type out your full name?" Tony asked. Steve looked at his character, and saw that the letters above its head said Steve Roge. "Ten character limit, Steven. No, you can't change. Let's get started." The room was filled with the sound of Japanese heavy metal, and Tony plopped into his seat between Sam and Sharon. Steve raised his hand again. Tony sighed and paused the music. "What now?"
"I thought we all had to look different. So why do three characters have caution signs on their heads?" Steve asked. He didn't ask why they chose caution signs in the first place. He knew it would be a stupid question, and he was already expecting a stupid answer.
"I'm glad you asked," Sam said. "We agreed that when we play in the same group, we will always be the caution squad, and thus dress to match. The caution squad will never turn on each other, and when we finish our tasks, we travel as a pack. We will never turn on each other, and we're ride or die." He air-high-fived Tony and Sharon. Steve shook his head. The answer was as stupid as expected. Tony continued the music. Steve looked at the other characters. The blue one had a note on its face reading 'DUM'. After consulting the color card, he saw it was Carol. He wished he'd asked her why. At least his hat was more normal than the others' signs.
The game started, and Steve was labelled a crewmember. Easy. His tasks were: fix the wires in electrical, empty the chute in O2, start reactor, and swipe card in admin. Simple enough. Steve went to admin and tried swiping his card. The first three times, he was told it was too fast. Then it was too slow. Finally, it went through and was accepted. Finally.
Then the red spaceman shot him. And Steve was a ghost. He watched all three caution signs run away in a huddle, and Steve's little brown ghost hovered over a bottom-half corpse with a bone sticking out.
"What the fuck?" Steve asked out loud. No one else noticed. In fact, most had turned away from him. Rude.
He wandered around as a ghost. No one seemed to notice his death. Everyone was occupied with their own tasks. He floated aimlessly for thirty seconds, then the huddle of caution signs returned. The screen flashed announcing his death, a new screen came up with everyone else. His was dimmed. He saw a message icon bounce with a red circle on it, and he clicked it.
CaptCarol Where
Maria Hill Where?
SaltPapper who
Rhodestar where
Not Tony brown admin
StarBucks where
CaptCarol any sus
Not Sharon not red or cyan
Not Sam caution squad was in weapons then found brown together
SaltPepper i was with yellow in electrical
Maria Hill Skip?
Not Tony no sus yet
StarBucks i say skip
One by one, everyone voted. Each person chose to skip. Steve watched, feeling helpless. He checked his character card. Tony was his killer. He stayed emotionless on the outside, as requested, but he was crushed. He was the only one who died and yet here he was, alone and helpless.
He watched everyone return to the cafeteria table. The caution squad immediately regrouped and travelled around, and Steve decided to follow them. They ran to the med bay and huddled by the computer screen. The white one (Sharon, he checked), got scanned. Black ran in to join them, then after he got scanned and went to leave, Tony chased and killed him immediately. Then the group ran out together. The Black ghost hovered by Steve, then he saw the message icon bounce again. Steve clicked on it.
StarBucks so red got you huh
Steve Roge why is your message gray
StarBucks so we can't spoil who killed us
StarBucks fair is fair
The corpse of the yellow spaceman appeared, and the voting screen followed. Steve went back into messages.
CaptCarol jess nooooooo
SaltPepper where
Rhodestar where
Not Sharon outside o2
Maria Hill Red did it.
Maria Hill I saw him on security camera.
Not Tony no you didnt
Maria Hill Yes I did.
Not Tony green sus
CaptCarol red
SaltPepper everyone vote red
Not Tony green doing fake tasks
Rhodestar no im not its red
Steve clicked out of the messages to watch everyone vote again. Three chose to vote out green, but there were four against red. The next screen showed the red spaceman being thrown into the depths of the stars.
Not Tony was The Impostor.
Victory
Steve felt proud to see his little ghost in front of everyone else at the end screen. But he had questions. So he stood up, walked over to Tony, seized the remote, and paused the music. Everyone looked up and groaned.
"What now?" Tony whined.
"Why didn't you tell me this was a survival game?" Steve demanded.
"What the fuck did you do when you said you were practicing?"
"I was bored! And you wouldn't help me!"
"Some of us are on a time crunch, so why don't you sit back down?" Pepper suggested. "You can beat up Tony for misleading you later, but for now, I want revenge, so let's go. Make sure you hit the 'Play Again' button instead of the 'Quit' one."
Steve looked around for backup, but everyone was already looking down at their phones. He dropped the remote and went back to his seat. The music played before he made it back.
He was determined to outlast them, but in the next round, he was the first one dead, again. This time, black leapt out of a vent in electrical and stabbed him with its tongue before venting away. Steve watched as black ran around the map from another room to find his body and report it. He almost threw his phone. Such a dick move.
Maria Hill Where?
Rhodestar where
Not Sharon damn steve not again
StarBucks brown in elec
StarBucks didnt see anyone around
Not Sam caution squad was in o2
SaltPepper skip?
Maria Hill I'm skipping until I see more evidence.
Steve watched in annoyance until everyone voted to skip. Dicks.
Steve decided to chase Bucky's black impostor around, to see if he could see just how he was being snuck up on. He watched Bucky survey the area until he made sure no one was looking when he took out pink. The message icon bounced. Steve clicked it.
Maria Hill ****ing ****head **********er ***hole ****nut.
Steve decided not to respond. Instead he kept following Bucky around. He wondered absently how he would kill any of the 'caution squad' if they ran in a pack, but when he disabled the communication devices, he watched as Bucky waited for a large crowd to gather around him before striking red dead, then report it immediately.
Not Tony oh **** you barnes you self righteous **********er
Not Sharon tony noooo
StarBucks idk who did it there were a lot a people
Rhodestar blue sus
Not Sam blue tried taking down the caution squad
CaptCarol not me
SaltPepper haven't seen blue all game...
Not Sharon blue
Rhodestar blue super sus
Not Sam hmm kinda sus
CaptCarol was not The Impostor.
1 Impostor Remains.
CaptCarol who tf was it
Not Tony buckaroo
Maria Hill Barnes.
CaptCarol ****er.
Steve decided to ignore the chat and follow Bucky's black around. Watched him take down orange in the reactor, then hide until green came into the room and take them out too. Then vented into another and ran across the map before someone reported him.
SpdrWmn two dead in reactor
Not Sam black and white safe
Not Sharon cyan and black safe
SpdrWmn it wasnt me
Not Sam hmmm
StarBucks yellow
Not Sharon yellow
SpdrWmn its not me !!!
Not Sam yellow
SpdrWmn **********ers !!!!!
SpdrWmn was not The Impostor.
1 Impostor remains.
Once everyone returned, Steve felt a jolt of excitement to watch Bucky be taken down by Sharon and Sam, the only remaining players. Then the oxygen was threatened, and when white and cyan ran to the first room, black ran to the second and stood outside of it. White and cyan ran to the other room, where black slayed cyan, and the group lost to Bucky. Steve looked up to see Sam, Tony, and Bucky all yelling at each other, which was barely audible over the music. Everyone else ignored it.
Steve turned his head to the side, cracking his neck. His new goal was to survive a game.
He was the first dead in the next two rounds, where Tony and Sharon were both caught.
In the fifth game, Steve's screen was different. He was the impostor. His heart thudded in his chest. He could barely play a game without dying. How was he supposed to kill?
He didn't know what to do, so he ran to the electrical room, where he was alone with pink. The kill button was lit up. He tapped it, and pink laid dead. Steve's eyes widened. Holy shit, he killed pink. And pink was Maria. He hesitated, then ran out of the room and into the security room. Red, white, and cyan were also there. Hopefully, they wouldn't turn on him. Seconds later, pink's body was reported dead. Steve took a deep breath. He wanted to try lasting longer. He wouldn't crack and confess.
Rhodestar where
StarBucks where
SaltPepper pink dead in elec
CaptCarol yellow safe she scanned
Rhodestar black safe he did weapons task
Not Tony wait
Not Tony steve isnt first dead????
Not Tony sus
Not Sharon its steve
Not Sam totally steve
Steve Roge what? no. its not me.
SaltPepper its steve
SpdrWmn omg the balls of killing maria first lol
Not Tony bruh
Steve panicked and voted for red, but it didn't matter. Eight votes were cast against him, and his little spaceman was ejected.
Steve Roge was The Impostor.
Victory
God damn it.
The next round, Steve wasn't the first one dead, nor the second. And yet, when the group went to vote, they chose him again for living. And when they saw it wasn't him, he didn't get a single apology.
SpdrWmn dont worry we wont vote you off again
SpdrWmn just messing with you
Steve Roge wish you guys wouldnt
CaptCarol yeah but then it wouldnt be as fun
SpdrWmn stick with me next round and ill vouch for you i swear
Steve Roge but what if youre the killer?
SpdrWmn then if im the killer i wont kill you if you dont turn me over
SpdrWmn deal?
Maria Hill I saw red vent.
Steve Roge deal
Not Tony no you didnt
SaltPepper you always get caught venting tony
Not Tony figment of your imagination
Not Tony was The Impostor.
Victory
Steve spent the next round running around with yellow. She didn't turn and kill him, so he assumed it wasn't her. When blue turned up dead, he finally felt safe.
SpdrWmn brown safe he scanned
Maria Hill Green is suspicious.
SaltPepper green
Rhodestar ****
Rhodestar was The Impostor.
Victory
Steve smiled. He finally survived a round! The trick was to stay with yellow apparently. So the next round, he followed her again, this time into navigation. Where he was quickly killed and left behind as yellow vented away. Orange quickly called an emergency meeting.
SaltPepper yellow vented
SaltPepper also brown died and they were with yellow so...
SpdrWmn lesson learned
SpdrWmn dont trust anyone in this game steve
SpdrWmn because theyll kill you if youre too trusting.
SpdrWmn was The Impostor.
Victory
Steve was learning slowly. He learned to go to electrical as fast as he could so no one could trap and kill him, and that if he finds himself alone with another player at the same task that he should run fast. He only learned from dying in almost every game that happened. He also learned that his friends were pretty bad impostors, save for Bucky, who was just running around as stealthily as a black spaceman could.
Rhodey was caught again, but Sam wasn't, because he had red and white to protect him. The group voted out Tony, so Sharon stood by dutifully while letting Sam kill off everyone else and win. Tony was caught quickly next round, but the real drama was when Tony, Sharon, and Sam were the last ones left in a round. Steve had been voted off for running in place by the medical bay waiting for his sample to finish processing, and he was afraid they would wait around forever while the three musketeers did nothing.
Then white killed red, and the defeat screen came up with white declared the winner.
Tony threw his phone onto his seat and started yelling at Sharon. Bucky yelled at Tony. Sharon yelled at Tony. Sam yelled at Sharon. Maria yelled at Bucky. Steve just sat and watched. Pepper rolled her eyes. Then Tony turned off the music and declared, "The caution squad is no more!"
"Finally," Jess said.
Everyone sat down, with the yellers being more disgruntled, and the music turned on again. Steve did enjoy watching the three caution-signed players run in separate directions for the first time. Maybe now he would stand a chance as the impostor. You know, if he'd ever become one again.
He thought he deserved another chance, but he kept being the crewmate. Getting killed while downloading data and starting the reactor was boring him, as was watching everyone else kill and debate. It started dragging for him.
Yellow was caught. Black was caught (by Tony, which lead to Bucky throwing a lighter at his face). Blue succeeded. White was caught. Pink succeeded. Yellow succeeded (and rubbed it in). Black was caught again (by Tony again, and the threats started getting more serious between the two). Orange succeeded. Cyan succeeded. Pink succeeded again. Orange succeeded again.
Then, finally, Steve was the impostor again. And after spending many rounds dead and shadowing the others, he felt ready to go forward and dominate.
First, he lingered around the gas can in storage, before going into electrical and killing pink. He then vented into security and sat patiently, waiting for pink to be reported. It took a while, during which red came into the room. He waited, then decided fuck it and killed red. Then he ran into the upper engine, where pink was reported dead.
StarBucks electrical
SpdrWmn where
Rhodestar any sus?
Steve Roge idk
SaltPepper skip?
Not Sharon im skipping
Steve watched gleefully as everyone skipped. He couldn't believe it! He wasn't caught! But who to kill next?
He decided black, because after Maria, Bucky was the group's best detective. He followed black into navigation, killed him, then ran into O2. Then when he was bored waiting for black to be reported, turned around and did it himself.
Steve Roge black dead in navi
Not Sam white sus
SpdrWmn any sus?
Not Sharon tf how???
CaptCarol orange safe
Not Sam red dead and you killed red before so
SaltPepper oh **** didnt even notice
Not Sharon wasnt me
Not Sharon i did garbage chute
Not Sam anyone see that?
Rhodestar no
SaltPepper no
SpdrWmn no
CaptCarol no
Not Sam hmm kinda sus of you white
Not Sharon was not The Impostor.
1 Impostor Remains.
Steve surveyed the remaining group. Five others to go. He only needed to kill four to win. He took a deep breath and ran towards security. He saw that orange was in security, and after checking that no one was in the reactor, killed orange and vented to security, waiting below to see who might come in. With luck, just as the kill time reset, green entered, and he killed green. Then he decided to report and see what would happen.
Steve Roge green dead in elec
SpdrWmn i was in admin didnt see
Not Sam quick to defend yourself
Not Sam sus of yellow
SpdrWmn its not me
CaptCarol idk its kinda sus of you
Steve Roge yeah kinda sus
SpdrWmn **** you its not me
SpdrWmn was not The Impostor.
1 Impostor Remains.
Brown, cyan, and blue returned to the cafeteria. Steve was ready to take a page from Bucky's book and cause an emergency, but he wasn't fast enough to pick when cyan called an emergency meeting. Fuck.
Not Sam blue
CaptCarol **** you its probably you sam
Not Sam not me
CaptCarol its def you
Steve couldn't believe it. He wasn't even suspected in the very end! He decided to vote for blue - he couldn't do Sam dirty like that - and smiled when blue got two votes against cyan's one and, delightfully, his none.
CaptCarol was not The Impostor.
Victory
Steve smiled at his brown spaceman. The music turned off, and everyone started yelling at each other. Sam and Sharon. Carol and Jess. Bucky and Tony. It was chaotic. Maria crossed the room and punched Steve in the arm. He grabbed it. Fuck that hurt.
"Ow, what was that for?" he asked.
"Stop killing me first, asshole!" Maria shouted. She stomped away. Bucky and Tony started shoving each other, and Rhodey threw himself in the middle before Bucky could punch Tony in the face. Sam and Carol stopped their fighting with Sharon and Jess respectively to pull the boys apart.
Pepper leaned against Steve's seat. "If we didn't do it in person, we couldn't vent out the anger from being betrayed by each other," she explained. "We tried all playing at home the other day, but then Sam drove to Bucky's house to fight. It seemed like the logical solution."
"Or maybe don't play a game that makes you so angry that you want to beat up each other?" Steve suggested.
Pepper chuckled and gave two gentle slaps to Steve's right cheek. "If only we could."