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Hill’s dining room table is loads better than Romanoff’s. The cards seem to float over the glass in a way Nat's half-priced Goodwill monstrosity never allowed. Less stains, less water damage. Keeping Maria's furniture was a good move, and everyone knows it. Natasha especially. Which is why the move-in last month wasn’t as labor intensive as it should have been.
“I’m ditching Betsy and Rogers the Second,” she had said. “Masha's crap is better. I'll admit it.”
“That’s so brave of you to say. I think there's a twelve-step plan for letting go of the past-”
“Shut up.”
“No.”
“Fine.”
And that was the end of it. (Thank the gods.) Because even a task force of heroes can't carry an eyesore like Betsy without snapping at least one of the legs. (Case in point: that time Nat accidentally cracked Carol’s mirror because it was “too light” and she “really thought it’d be heavier.” Along with the time Carol blew a hole in their kitchen wall because Brunnhilde made her “laugh too hard.”)
“A-hem.” Carol's makeshift cough is barely that. More spoken word than anything innate. “Are you going to check?”
Brunnhilde says, “We just started.”
“Yeah, and you've been staring at the table for at least half a minute.”
Hill raises her Americano- black and steaming- to access the corner of a coaster. She taps the material with her finger. “Can you blame her? They're mesmerizing."
“If you mention how gifted Bucky's kid is one more time, I'm going to spit into your mug when you're not looking.”
“Oh no. Spit… whatever will I do-”
“Brunn’s taking forever so I'm just going to go. Check," Carol says. She reaches forward, then purses her lips. “No, Wait.” After a quick glance at the cards in her hand, she turns her eyes to the King, Seven, and Jack centered on the table (one Diamond, two Hearts), and then back at her cards.
“Actually. I’ll do ten. You know, for funsies.”
She sets the chips down one by one; five 'Ones' and a single 'Five,' because the 'Tens' are Doritos and thus, hold more weight than off-brand Fritos ever can.
“Seriously!” Romanoff’s knees bump the bottom of the table as she complains. “New rule. She’s not allowed to take it back.”
“It was two seconds. You can’t handle a two second change?”
“Careful now. That's her trigger word," Hill says. She hides her smile with her cards (one of which is definitely an Ace. Probably. Brunnhilde is 80% sure) and flicks the edge of Romanoff's reading glasses; the frame part, not the lens, because “Eyewear is expensive, Nat. Please don't damage them in Tokyo, I beg of you.”
“Remember Octoberfest?"
“Knew you were going to bring that up. Everyone’s always on me for that beer shit, but they changed suppliers and the stuff on tap tasted like crap. 9$ for literal crap.”
“Just crap,” Carol says. She pops a Dorito in her mouth and eyes the Jack of Hearts like she wants it biblically. “It isn't literal.”
“Phhh. Potato potahto.”
Brunnhilde shoots Romanoff a side-eye, goadingly so. “Are you going to fold or keep complaining? Marv's about to win this whole thing.”
Carol huffs, “You don't know that,” and Romanoff snaps her fingers. The candle on the ledge flickers as the cool night air trickles in from the balcony.
“No, she's not. We've got a thing going. Mutually beneficial partnership and all- I can tell when she's bluffing and she's definitely bluffing.”
“Mutually beneficial?" Maria askes. "Babe, she keeps eating the 'Tens'.”
“Seriously!”
Everyone stares at Carol, who rustles a handful of chips in slow motion. “What?" she asks innocently. "I'm the bank.”
Brunnhilde just shrugs. "You heard her. She's the bank.”
“There's not a bank in this game,” Romanoff hisses. "It's poker. Take your hands out of the Doritos."
“Well, there is now-”
"No there isn't."
"Yes there is- no there isn't- I'm holding the chips right now. Yeah, and then you eat them. Stop eating them! What happened to our mutually beneficial partnership, huh?"
"Fold the friggin hand, Romanoff," Brunnhilde demands. "Or pay ten and stop complaining.”
Romanoff resignedly and pitifully disposes her cards. “Really feeling the love over here,” she murmurs. "Bullies, the whole lot of you."
"Report it to your superior. Maybe she'll do something about it."
"Oh ha-ha." Nat picks a stray piece of fur off Hill's blouse, nuzzles against her, and continues to moan about Brunnhilde’s dealing technique. Saying things along the lines of, “She’s cheating somehow, I just know it. Don’t ask me how I do,” and as Hill responds accordingly. "You're so right. It's a tragedy, what they've done to you," Brunnhilde focuses on what really matters.
Carol.
Specifically, Carol's fingers. And the red cards threaded delicately between them.
She narrows her eyes. Carol raises hers in response; playful- the look she sometimes gives Kamala when she's about to destroy her in Battleship. The stare-down is brisk, but informative: Marv is hard-core bluffing. Two rounds prior, she won with a Flush: beating everyone out with a nonchalant pattern of casual bets. (After eating one of her ‘Tens’ by accident, no less.) And last round, she had two pair with a King high. Her luck has to end one way or another, and while two can be excused, three is almost impossible.
There’s no way she can do it again.
Right?
“I call,” Brunnhilde says, only slightly wary in her decision. “And I raise you fifty. You know, for funsies.”
Carol laughs. There are tears coming from her eyes- not at Brunnhilde's words, but at the way Romanoff responds. “FIFTY!?” She lays her head on the table and pretends to pound it on the glass. Violently so.
“Pizdets[1], this is why folding was the only acceptable answer!”
“Are you saying you know when to quit?”
"Sometimes."
A slight nudge to Romanoff's arm, and a Dorito and a fluffy golden Cheeto are joining the mix. When Hill draws back, the orange staining her skin becomes that much more apparent. “I call. Feeling pretty good about this one... Carol?”
Carol’s eyes narrow. She glances at Brunnhilde’s cards, meets Brunnhilde’s eyes, winks- oh, boy- and looks back down. The inner workings of her brain are practically visceral.
She sets one of her Cheetos next to Hill's.
“No. Stop that right now. There's no way you can do it again,” Romanoff says. She’s focused on Carol's hand, wide-eyed, with suspicion in her stare. “Right? She's bluffing. Val. Val- tell me she's bluffing.”
“Don't ask me. She got me last time.”
“I saw the wink.”
“What wink?” Carol asks, winking again.
She snorts when Romanoff points a damning finger her way. “Oh my god. See!? Maria- This is what I have to deal with. This-” Romanoff waves her hand in Carol's direction. “All day every day. It isn't fair. And when Val isn't there, she and Fury are even worse half the time. They gang up on me!”
“Next card?” Carol asks. Romanoff groans. Her feet plop onto Hill's lap all at once, legs outstretched over her knees. Very obnoxious and very cat-like, even more so than Liho.
Maria pats them.
Carol clears her throat.
Brunnhilde chuckles again. "Patience is a virtue."
"I'll eat your 100s. Don't test me."
"You touch my Baked Lays and I'm taking the couch. Just you and Chewie. All alone in that big, cold bed..."
Carol pouts. "That's blackmail," she murmurs, and then she yawns. The candle is still waving in between them, surprisingly bright through all the chaos. It kind of smells like spice, now that Brunnhilde thinks about it, which reminds her of the Fall Festival last year; where Axl picked the most expensive gourd and Kobik smashed like seven pumpkins.
Liho pops up from behind the couch. Brunnhilde flips over the next card: an Ace.
Uh-oh.
"Yeah, so. I'm just gonna check," she says, failing to hide her disappointment. "Good plan? Everyone in agreement?"
Hill laughs. "Absolutely not. Carol, your move."
"Ten."
"Twenty."
"Done."
They both look at Brunnhilde, who tries (and fails) to pump herself up about the singular pair of sevens she's got going for her. Romanoff's cackle doesn't help in the slightest. "Just fold, already," she demands. "Lose with dignity."
"Don't rush me. I'll fold whenever I fold." A pause. A glance at the cat lurking in the foreground, and then a sigh. Brunnhilde admits defeat. "Okay, yeah- I fold," she says.
"And then there were two." Hill takes another sip of her coffee, exhaling loudly as she does so. "What time is it?" she asks.
"Nine, I think."
"Ugh, feels later."
Romanoff agrees. "Thought it was midnight, at least. Kind of funny the two youngest people here are the ones falling asleep... "
"It's been a rough few decades."
"A rough few Centuries," Brunnhilde says.
"You could say that again," Hill replies, with far too much gumption for a woman of forty-four, and the room falls silent. It isn't uncomfortable- far from it, in fact. The whistling from outside is relentless and musical, but in a quiet kind of way; a few people walking along the city streets down below. Loud chatter about a bar and a drag show... and some kind of indie band that 'needs to stay gatekept or I swear to god I will kill a man.'
Brunnhilde flips over the last card. Another heart: this time, a Nine.
"Carol? Your move."
Carol nods. She rubs her nose with her sweater and stretches out her arm. "Eh, I'll do twenty." She drops two Doritos on the napkin in the center, careful to avoid staining the laminated wood, and steals a third from the bag, which is slowly but surely dwindling in size.
"What say you, Maria?"
Maria- it turns out- isn't sure. (Shocker.) "Hmmm." She whispers something in Romanoff's ear, looks at her cards, glances at Carol- who is deep in yet another yawn- and finally makes a decision.
"I call."
After dropping her chips, she taps the table lightly with her cards. "Alright, Captain. Let's see what you've got..."
"Drumroll, please."
Brunnhilde plays along. She wiggles her fingers on the wood and finds herself leaning over to peer at Carol's cards. They're still hidden, because building suspense is apparently the funniest thing to do in a situation like this. And then Carol makes her grand reveal. She pops a Frito in her mouth, grins, and flips over her cards to expose a King of Hearts and a Two of Spades.
"I was bluffing," she says proudly. "My King has no chance over her three Aces."
Maria gasps. She tosses her cards on the table face up: two Aces, a Heart and a Club.
"What?! How did you know?"
Carol laughs. "You do that thing with your mouth... where you kind of smile sideways- Yeah! Like that- that right there- and when the Ace was flipped, your eyes went like this-"
She moves her fingers in two separate directions and spins them in circles. "Whooooop."
"I still won, though."
With a bright smile, Carol tilts back her head. "Yeah. I just wanted to see if I could psyche you all out again."
"I knew you had to be bluffing," Brunnhilde says. She takes Carol's cards- lingering slightly to squeeze Carol's hand- before gathering the rest. Romanoff steals a sip from Hill's mug and quickly agrees.
"Oh yeah, me too. We all knew. It was so obvious."
Hill shakes her head. "You losers folded like cowards. Don't even start-"
"New game?" Romanoff asks.
Everyone shrugs.
"Yeah, I could play another." "Sure." "Whatever works." "Maria's got all the chips now, though," and then a drawn-out pause. Brunnhilde stares, gauging everyone else's reaction as they inevitable do the same. The room is read, and the verdict is declared.
"What if," Carol says slowly. "We moved to the couch. Popped some popcorn, and maybe watched a show... Kate was saying something about this reality thing called Love is Blind-"
And everyone bolts to the living room.