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Andrew Maguire did not often think about resigning.
In all honesty, there were few things he loved as much as his job. It sometimes felt like being on a game show where the game changed every episode. The Starks often threw him for a loop—and were the cause of many headaches over the years. Those headaches had only ramped up now that Peter Parker-Stark was involved, because he often brought a level of chaos that was not matched by a self-preservation instinct. After years of dealing with one (1) Tony Stark, you would think that you’d be accustomed to it, but no, he was still taken aback every time Peter did something of a more surprising nature.
So in all honesty, it was really rather strange seeing Peter Parker-Stark himself lost for words at the Stark Industries Christmas Party, when everyone had bound together to play an elaborate game on the heir and part-time CEO of the company.
They’d decided on bingo—everyone got nine prompts of things they thought Peter was likely to say or do at the Christmas party, and whoever got three in a row first would get a well coveted round trip to Paris (paid for by Andrew Maguire himself because he was the one to suggest a prank, because he knew he was going to win, and because he thought he really deserved a holiday).
Soon enough, though, the lighthearted fun they’d been trying to have simply became a world of admin.
“This isn’t fair—whoever sits on his table at the Christmas party is more likely to win, more face time with him,” someone had said, when they were all sat in a conference room trying to figure out the logistics whilst Peter was away on a business trip. “It should only be non-participants sitting on that table.”
It had all supposed to be a bit of fun, but it was seemingly getting out of hand and was warranting more Tylenols than Andrew had intended when he’d suggested it in the first place. Everyone wanted to maximise their chances of getting Bingo.
The Stark Christmas Do was not supposed to be a complicated affair—it was simply a three course meal, some drinks, some mingling, and music. Quite simple, all in all. Andrew arrived at the party with no plus-one but solely sheer focus. His nerves, admittedly, were through the roof. He knew Peter well—but what if the things he’d said just didn’t happen? What if Peter wasn’t on his game with saying catchphrases like he normally did, or if he lacked his usual charisma?
If he lost, then he lost his trip to Paris. He had to win.
He’d put Peter saves a life on his Bingo sheet, one of the corners, because although it would have been unexpected from anyone else, it seemed to happen to Peter much more regularly than the average New Yorker. It wasn’t one he actually planned on ticking off, but just in case his strategy went awry, it was worth having there.
The Christmas party commenced without any one doing anything out of the ordinary, and soon enough mingling had commenced, and everyone was swarming Peter the second he was free to talk to anyone. He could see people subtly bringing out their phones or crossing off boxes on small sheets of paper throughout the room. Some people really didn’t know how to be subtle, and burst into grins whenever Peter did anything on their bingo card.
Andrew swanned around—not as stressed as he possibly should have been. He had a plan, so he mingled until it was time.
He’d asked Peter to make sure to seek him out at the party—had said he needed to talk to him about something work-related. It wasn’t a lie—the military contracts with SI needed some redesigning, but what Andrew was specifically looking for was for Peter to make some kind of scathing comment about Colonel Williamson and then also slip in his other two on the central line of his bingo sheet, winning the game. So he planned to launch a discussion about that, and no one would interrupt them if it was obvious they were talking about the intricate details of some contracts. It would have been rude.
“Andrew,” Peter greeted as he approached, glass of lemonade in hand.
“Peter!” Andrew exclaimed, slightly jittery. The conversation could cost him his trip to Paris. “It’s been too long!”
Peter looked at him a little oddly. “I saw you yesterday.”
“Time flies,” Andrew replied, looking around the room, trying to be normal. He decided to make a comment about the gala venue and the atmosphere. “This is nice, right? Not too stressful for you.”
Peter hesitated, looking like he was about to say something in response, and then stopped himself and nodded instead. There were lots of eyes on him—and daggers at Andrew whenever Peter turned his back and couldn’t see the crowd. Andrew wondered what he had been about to say.
“Shame Tony couldn’t make it tonight,” Andrew said to him, hoping to tease out of him something that would warrant him crossing off ‘Peter talks about how much he loves Tony’. It was the central square, and Andrew was relying on it.
“He had to be in Tokyo,” Peter made light conversation, appearing distracted. Maybe he felt the amount of eyes watching him. “It really is a shame. He used to hate all of these corporate events, but since we’ve made the SI ones more personal, he doesn’t mind. I love seeing him happy here, he’s really come a long way from back when Stane was running it.”
Good enough, Andrew decided, and subtly crossed off one of his boxes on the image on his phone of bingo. They’d all sent through their final Bingo grids an hour before the party commenced, to prevent cheating. It was serious.
“Shame.” Andrew shook his head. It really was a shame—Tony’s presence at Stark events was missed. He did bring a certain je-ne-sais-quoi to them all. There were often shenangians. Still, though, they never would have been able to get away with a Peter Bingo if he’d been in attendance—he had beady eyes and a tendency to notice trouble (normally he was the one causing it, so he was able to sniff it out).
“About the contracts, then?” Peter asked. He wasn’t so much his bubbly self—he kept glancing around, unfocused. The stress of hosting a gala, likely.
“Yes, sorry, I don’t want to take up too much of your mingling time with work stuff. It was just the military contracts. We need to change some of the clauses to update certain things now that Colonel James has left, he was entrusted with some activities. We asked the military to suggest candidates to fill in that role of his, and they’ve suggested Williamson.”
Andrew was not fibbing to his boss—for some reason, they’d suggested Williamson, although Peter seemed to have thought that the military had figured out by that point that if they tried to involve Williamson in any Stark Industries matters again, their contracts would terminate.
“For fuck’s sake,” Peter whispered under his breath. He let out a sigh. “Sorry, I don’t mean to be rude, but he really is a right prick.”
“I agree,” Andrew said, opening his phone behind his back to cross off the left box, internally gleeful. He’d been talking to Peter for less than five minutes and had already ticked off 2/3 of the boxes that would get him Bingo.
They discussed the strategy for the contracts for another ten minutes before coming to a decision about how to have a discussion with the military officials which wouldn’t result in them losing their minds. Eventually, though, when that was settled, Peter looked less antsy.
“So, what are your plans for over the Christmas holidays, Pete?” Andrew asked casually, whisking him away from Mark from Marketing, who was clearly angling to start talking to Peter.
“People keep asking me that,” Peter replied. But he started listed the shenanigans he had planned to get up to with his family, and talking about seeing his friends—Ned and MJ, both of whom Andrew had seen darting about Stark Industries occasionally. He chattered away, unaware of what Andrew wanted from him. In fairness, he was also very happy hearing about what else Peter was getting up to whilst he was off on break. But he was gunning for Peter to bring up something specifically.
C’mon, c’mon, mention seeing your buddy, Matthew, aka the President.
Andrew had specifically rigged Peter’s schedule over Christmas to arrange a day out with the President—especially to get his last box ticked off. It was fundamental to his strategy. He’d planned out which ones he was most likely to get and how to get them, and had arranged them accordingly. Peter’s calendar had been pretty choc-a-bloc, but some rearranging had meant that it was perfect. He’d had to do some heavy lifting to ensure that the President had had a free day, but there was nothing Andrew really loved more than hacking into secure government servers after a long day at work. It was light work compared to reading endless contracts, really.
“And I’m seeing the President on Wednesday,” Peter added, after a discussion about how he was going to spend a whole day catching up with his aunt.
“BINGO!” Andrew yelled, announcing his win to the entire room, pulling out his phone to cross off the final square as Peter spoke the fated words. There was a collective groan, and some people even seemed to be flipping him off.
Peter’s eyes were wide, confused, and his face was contorted in an unknowing expression.
“Excuse me?” Peter said, befuddled.
“Goddamnit,” Pepper mumbled under her breath, close by the pair of them, and Andrew turned around with a raised eyebrow. He had no idea that she had also been partaking, but from the disappointment in her face, it was evident that she’d somehow been a part of it too. Who had told her? They’d made the executive decision to keep it from Pepper and Tony because they’d assumed they would call the whole thing off.
Peter turned around to look at Pepper, the confusion still evident.
Andrew was grinning. He’d won. The plan had all gone successfully, and now he got to go to Paris.
Except.
There was a collective ‘ding!’ from the entire room as everyone received a text message. It was from a withheld number, but everyone could tell who it was from by the signature.
Maguire’s a filthy cheat. No bingo. His final prompt said “Mention Matthew by name’. Peter never said Matthew. -TS.
There was a collective gasp as they realised Andrew had been dethroned—the game was back on? Was it too late, now that Peter would realise what they’d been up to? Was it all over? Who would win the Paris trip?
Also, bingo! -TS
Betrayal came swiftly to the rest of the participants as they realised that, without even being present at the party, and not having been aware of the game, Tony had somehow still managed to win.
The rest of the room’s phones stopped buzzing, but Andrew continued to get messages from the same number. Tony, bragging about he was the correct winner of Bingo.
I got bingo after he called me before talking to you. He was explaining about how fucking weird everyone is being at the party (he suspects Skrulls are involved). That 2 minute conversation ticked off 8/9 of my boxes -TS
Plus, I got Bingo for you too, Maguire. I made a grid two hours ago of things that you were going to do or say. Never try and be clever at the Stark Christmas Party. -TS
P.S. Thanks for the Paris trip. -TS
That son of a bitch. Tony had outplayed him. Not only had he won the game, he’d been playing a whole other game. He’d done another layer of bingo! What had Andrew done that had been on Tony’s bingo sheet? He’d been watching him the whole time?!
Andrew was in shock. He was not, however, the only one.
“Let me get this straight.” Peter said slowly, as he looked up from his phone. Andrew looked away from the private messages and turned around guiltily to watch as the emotions played out on his face. He was clearly still confused at quite what happened. “You’ve been playing Bingo? About….me? Things that I’ve been doing?”
There was a collective nod from across the room.
Peter looked flabbergasted, and a little relieved. Andrew imagined it was nice to find out that all of his colleagues hadn’t been possessed by Skrulls.
“Is this why my schedule has been so weird recently?” Peter blinked. “Because everyone’s been messing with it? To try and win Bingo?”
Jasper Nolan looked around at the room, horrified. “Surely no one would do that.”
There were at least ten high-ranking Stark Industries employees who started looking very sheepish—including Pepper. That made Andrew feel a little better about his more dubious actions. He wondered what else they’d changed about Peter’s schedule. It was morally questionable to do so, sure, but honestly, the meetings in the conference rooms had just started to bug him a little, and they’d never specifically highlighted that as a form of cheating.
Peter shot him a look. “Jasper, you're the one who asked me to do a backflip, all of ten minutes ago.”
“You don’t mind doing a backflip normally!” Jasper proclaimed in his defence.
“This is a formal event! I can’t just do a backflip here.” Peter exclaimed back. “I can’t believe this. The one time Tony doesn’t come to a Stark Industries gala, the one time I think we might get away without any hijinks….”
“The world would collapse if there was a Stark event without hijinks,” Andrew muttered. He would know—he’d endured about 10 years of it. “Just normally it’s your hijinks.”
“Oh I see,” Peter raised an eyebrow, a cheeky grin adoring his face. You could tell he wasn’t actually offended—just deeply surprised by the actions of his staff. “Alright, then, game on. You can’t handle a Stark Industries event without shenanigans? You haven’t seen anything yet, then. It’s only going to get more chaotic from now.”
Everyone started whispering—probably in fear—and Andrew gulped.
What the hell had he started…all over a trip to Paris? He could have just taken himself on a trip! Why had he thought that bingo had been a good idea! Peter Parker-Stark was a dangerous man to get into a shenanigans battle with—and with Tony surveilling him enough to win Bingo…was he prepared for the intensity of the Starks laser-focus to be on him and ensuring he endured shenanigans?
He was practically quivering in his boots, but then he paused and thought about something. Andrew pulled out his phone surreptitiously. He scrolled through the WhatsApp group they had for the bingo, and scrolled through everyone’s bingo charts.
“Tony never sent his chart into the WhatsApp group…he didn’t follow the rules,” Andrew announced to the room. “Round two, anyone?”
There was a collective cheer, and Peter started to nod slowly.
Round two consisted, of course, of Peter being in on the game, and therefore he was attempting to saboteur everyone, at every possible chance. However, he couldn’t predict what people had written down on their charts, and some of his mannerisms were just too predictable. It didn’t take long before someone got Bingo—and this time, instead of Andrew (who’d cheated), or Tony (who hadn’t followed the rules), it was Jasper Nolan who won—he knew Peter very well from all the work they did together in the labs. He’d never been to Europe and was ecstatic about the opportunity to go, and kept thanking Andrew for the rest of the night, which made him feel much better than he had when he’d thought he’d lost the holiday to a man who could practically buy the whole of Paris itself.
(Oh, and Peter did end up doing the backflip after all. It wasn’t that formal an event).