The Monopoly Incident

The Monopoly Incident, as it’s come to be called, happened while the gang was still in school together.

It’s some random summer evening during lycée.  Everybody’s been getting busier and busier, but they’ve managed to all be free on the same night in the middle of July, and Marinette’s parents give her permission to have basically their entire collège class over for games and snacks.  And then Alix brings Monopoly.

They have to form teams of two, because there aren’t enough game pieces, and also not enough money.  But then Nino races home and gets HIS copy of Monopoly.  It’s a different theme, Harry Potter or something so you can tell the money apart, and eventually they start using the extra money as thousand-dollar bills.

And then it’s just a free-for-all.

Alliances are made and broken.

Friendships are (not permanently) shattered.

Some kitchen plates are shattered.

Marinette and Alya start out on a team, but Marinette is making side deals with Adrien (who is Nino’s partner) and Nino and Alya give up on the under the table promises so they abandon their original partners to become a team instead.  DJWifi puts up a valiant effort, but eventually it becomes clear that Alix and Kim are going to sweep the floor.

(Rose and Juleka did hold out pretty well, because Rose is really good at negotiating payment plans, and Max and Nathanäel held up really well until they landed on Avenue des Champs-Élysées and Rue de la Paix one after the other.  Ivan and Mylène went bankrupt almost right away, and ended up in charge of the bank because no one wanted to steal from Ivan and no one could bring themselves to steal from Mylène.)

The last holdout against Alix and Kim dominating is Marinette and Adrien, who banded together and are actually kind of ruthless together?  Marinette demands payment with a smile but a firm backbone whenever someone lands on their properties, and Adrien stacks hotels like nobody’s business, deliberately moving around where they have their money sunk based on what people are likely to land on next.  They managed to turn Boulevarde de Belleville and Rue Lecourbe into profitable investments.  Plus it helps that they can literally not be intimidated by Alix and Kim, and that they have some sort of weird telepathy thing going on.

But by the time it gets down to just the two teams, everybody starts picking sides, Team Kim/Alix vs. Team Adrienette (Thank you, Alya), and THAT’S when the night goes sideways.

Things are said that can’t be unsaid, decisions are made that can’t be undone.

And when Tom and Sabine come back from their movie to find the living room in pieces and more than one teenager in tears, they’re forced to send everyone home with extra chocolates and cookies in their goody bags, and sincere apologies for everyone’s parents.

The thing is, they didn’t expect Marinette to throw a rager because they trust her, and that’s what it looks like she did when they walked into the living room.

Marinette has to explain that they were playing Monopoly.

She isn’t grounded in punishment, exactly, but she is kept so busy in the bakery that she doesn’t have time to see her friends.

And Alya, who was cohost of the party that ended in such a disaster, has to come bright and early the next morning to help put the house to rights.

Tom has to ban Monopoly from all future parties.

Adrien grounds himself in SHAME AND GUILT.

Marinette is forced to extract him from his room so Tom can throw an apron on him and put him to work rolling croissants and pulling muffins from the oven.

(This, incidentally, is how Adrien starts working at the bakery.)

Everyone was actually pretty damn lucky that the Monopoly Incident happened at Marinette’s parent’s place, because they had a parental buffer to smooth things over when the night was on the verge of ending in complete disaster.

They were not so lucky when, a few years later and a couple months into Weekly Game Night at Marinette and Adrien’s, Juleka walks in with her Special Edition of Risk.

(That is an Incident which will live in infamy forever.)

(Risk is now also banned from all future Game Nights.)

It’s awhile after that before they can play anything other than the more benign party games.