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“Psst. Kelly,” the voice was barely above a whisper. Agent Kelly looked around to try and place its location. A NERF dart sticking itself to her terminal screen made her look up. One of the ceiling tiles had been moved slightly, and she could see the brightly coloured tip of a NERF pistol pointing out through it. She knew who it was.
“Need your help,” Agent Barton said. He pulled the roof tile out completely and lowered down a duffle bag. “You figured out how to get above the rec room on level 10 yet?”
Agent Kelly took the bag. It was remarkably light for the volume it appeared to be carrying. She could guess what was in it. “Why do you want my help?” she asked.
“I need to stash these in a few places around the ‘carrier. You seemed like a good person to ask. Put it in the crawlspace near the door.” He put the ceiling tile back in place.
Agent Kelly looked at the duffle bag and opened it. There were several large barrels full of NERF darts and the parts to what appeared to be two of the larger guns, which had been painted in a rather pretty black and purple colour scheme. How much money was Agent Barton spending on his private NERF war? She zipped the bag back up and slid it under her desk. She’d put it where he wanted it. She pulled the dart off her computer monitor and looked at it thoughtfully. Who knew, she might get a chance to use the guns on him first.
When she went off-duty, she took the bag and wandered down to the level 10 rec room. She’d figured out how to get into it by trawling through blueprints, though in hindsight, she probably could have just asked Agent Barton. There was a cleaner’s closet in the corridor outside, and a hatch into the ceiling crawlspace in the roof of the closet. She checked over both shoulders before slipping into the closet and closing the door behind her. She climbed up into the crawlspace, and made her way through to deposit the duffle bag. It really was an ingenious hiding place. You could move two tiles and have a full scope of both the corridor and most of the rec room. She levered the corner of a tile out to look around the rec room. There was a space in the corner that would be safe - or at least the hardest to hit. She wanted to be there when he made his attack.
A couple of weeks passed, and Agent Kelly almost forgot about stashing the NERF darts. Agent Barton had staged several ambushes of corridors and briefing rooms, always seeming to target one person out of whoever was in there. It wasn’t until Agent Kelly overheard someone mention that it wasn’t fair, that they’d helped him stash the darts in the first place that she remembered. She raced to the rec room, determined that she would not be another patsy target - she’d remove the stash before he could get her. She did stop in briefly at her dorm to grab her own NERF kit and stuff it in a backpack. She’d spent a couple of hours on her time off modding them for accuracy and extra power. Just in case he was already there, she wanted to be able to shoot back.
She got a feeling it was already too late when she reached the corridor. She could see the tile above the door had been moved and heard the unmistakable noise of a NERF gun readying for fire. She was peppered with NERF darts before she could even turn around and run out of the corridor. She tried to shoot back, but only ended up decorating the partially removed roof tile with her own darts.
“Both of you, stop this madness right now.”
Kelly stopped firing as soon as she heard Agent Coulson’s order.
Agent Barton, however didn’t. With a cry of, “Madness? This. Is. S.H.I.E.L.D.!” he changed targets and fired at Agent Coulson.
Needless to say, it didn’t end well.