… Okay, nothing I say right now can justify the delay in this update. So, I'm sorry, alright? And I promise that I will never leave a chapter pending like this again. I'm not even going to give any excuses.

Random fact of the chapter: Have you guys watched the new generation of Marvel animation, with Avengers Assemble, Ultimate Spider-man and Hulk and the Agents of S. M. A. S. H.? It's pretty good, but I'm still not sure if I prefer it or Earth's Mightiest Heroes. Okay, that wasn't really a good fact thingy, but I'm a little pressed for time right now. I'll modify the chapter later.

Enjoy:

Chapter 8: Of dominoes and nervous breakdowns

Fury walked in. Click. Doing! A spring shot up into the air and hit a little red lever. Fury followed the spring's path with his eyes. Nothing happened. Fury slowly raised an eyebrow. Tony coughed awkwardly.

"Okay, that wasn't supposed to happen. Or… something was supposed happen. JARVIS! Deploy!"

Fury, out of instinct, slid into a defensive stance and had his hand half-way to his pistol before he remembered that he had to be cautious with these kids. They could, admittedly, blow him up. And it was at that moment that a Coke can fell onto a switch and Fury reacted on instinct. Or rather… freaked. Duvfm, duvfm, duvfm, duvfm, bullets flew from his gun's barrel like lightning, as Fury pivoted around, shooting at anything that moved and anything that didn't.

"Mr. Furry! Hey! Don't shoot us! It was just a joke!"

Tony, of course, thought that Fury was trying to kill them, not realizing that he had simply cracked. Click! Click! Fury had run out of bullets. But that didn't stop him. He simply slid another magazine out of his pocket, and loaded the gun.

"Shots fired in the playroom. Repeat, shots fired. All personnel on the 63rd floor, report to the playroom immediately!"

Agent Sitwell's voice rang through the comm. device in Maria's ear. She looked up from her laptop immediately, motioned hastily for Coulson to stay, and immediately ran out of the room checking the bullets in her semi-automatic.

"JARVIS! What's the situation?"

"Director Fury appears to be having a mental breakdown."

"WHAT?"

Oh, yeah. Fury had been uneasy ever since his response team had been reduced to a bunch of toddlers. She had known that he was on the verge of a meltdown.

"Stream a live video from the playroom to my phone, JARVIS."

She took out her phone, still running, and watched as Fury wheeled around in a circle, shooting everything in sight. Stark was behind a sofa, some robotic arms assembling… a toddler sized Iron Man suit onto him. Wow. Steve had quickly found out that his plastic shield was no match for bullets, and was now behind Stark's sofa, pleading with him to hurry up. Hawkeye and the Widow were in the middle of things, dodging bullets as they launched suction cup dart after suction cup dart at Fury's head, which did nothing to slow him down on his rampage. Bruce was behind an armchair, trying desperately not to hulk out, while Thor, brave as usual, tried to 'prove' that he could beat fury's bullets with a plastic hammer. Crap.

She finally reached the playroom. A few agents had gathered outside, waiting for her to give the signal. She, however, motioned for them to stand down, as she tip-toed over to the door.

"JARVIS!" Tony's voice rang from inside. He looked absolutely panic-stricken now, as a bullet of Fury's had hit a motor in the assembly arms, and they had malfunctioned, leaving half his suit on him, "Deploy! Plan C!"

Tony hoped desperately that three was a charm as he watched the bowling pin fall. C'mon, c'mon, c'mon, c'mon. Clunk! The pin hit a line of dominoes. Oh, thank god. Tatatatatatatatatatata the dominoes started to fall, streaming around the room in a fluid line… then Fury shot at the line, obliterating a few dominoes, and breaking the line. Damn.

"Steve! The dominoes! Get them running again. I'll put the suit on. Clint! Natasha! Cover him!"

"Done!"

"On it!"

Steve raised his shield and made a break for it. Clint, to cover Steve, aimed… aimed… aimed... and fired a dart that stuck right on Fury's eye patch and made him mad.

"Ghhrraaaahhh!"

Bullets flew in Clint's general direction – all missing completely. And, at just that moment, Fury ran out of bullets. He hastily reached inside his coat for a fresh magazine… and pulled out a shiny hand-sized, thin box – the hard-drive. Tony gasped, "Thor! The drive! Natasha, distract Fury! Hawkeye, get Bruce to calm down!" Then he started muttering to himself c'mon, c'mon, c'mon, as he fervently tinkered with the arms, almost hacking at it with a screwdriver.

Thor immediately launched himself at Fury's legs, smacking them with hollow plastic for all he was worth. Tony mentally face palmed. Snatch the hard disk. Not hit him. God. "Natasha, Thor, switch positions!"

Natasha immediately dived behind an armchair that Fury was in front of. Thor, having finally caught Fury's attention, danced surprisingly nimbly around Fury's legs, occasionally giving one of them a swing with his hammer. Steve, seeing his chance, dove for the line of dominoes, landing a few feet away. Fury had hastily stuffed the hard disk back into an inner pocket, stuffing a fresh magazine back into his gun, seemingly pulling it out of nowhere. Steve threw his plastic shield at the domino line, only to have it deflected by a bullet from Fury.

Maria looked inside through the windowed door, and blinked. What the hell?

Natasha climbed over the chair's back, landing like a cat on the seat. Great. He'd put it back into his pocket. Hawkeye, meanwhile, had run for Bruce, looking around desperately for anything that would calm Bruce down. "Tony! What does Bruce need to do?"

"He's got to modify the trap a little. He can remove the part where the coat is meant to be snagged. Fury will get trapped a little quicker."

"Okaayyy… Bruce, buddy, come on. The trap need to be modified, you know you want to do it. You know you want to."

Bruce looked at him, and the green tinge in his eyes receded slightly."O-Okay. What am I supposed to do?"

"Remove the part of the trap that's supposed to get Fury's coat of."

"Of course, to save time. There was a flaw in the trap that if Fury could get over his shock in time, he could have broken out quite easily."

"Uhh… shock?"

Bruce grinned almost evilly.

"You'll see."

Yeah, I have absolutely no right to a cliffhanger right now, but I'm only putting it in because I have no time to write any more right now, and really want to upload another chapter to feel less guilty. Thanks for guilt-tripping me. Really, no sarcasm, no offense, thanks for pushing me back to writing.