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tarotgalIn which I steal an image from Window of Opportunity and then present you with a much more disturbing one. LOL
Title: Assess & Acquire
Author: tarotgal
Fandom: Marvel CMU (Avengers & Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.)
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Pre-Clint/Coulson
Spoilers: For the first Avengers movie and the first episode of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
Warning: Character death. A lot of character death.
Summary: When Clint Barton shows up unannounced on Phil Coulson’s doorstep, Coulson is forced to change his vacation plans. So when a simple mission to assess and acquire an object of unknown origin comes up, he figures there’s no reason he should turn that down. Naturally, things are never as simple as they seem.
Author’s Notes: Written for NaNoWriMo 2014 all in one month (a first for me!). This story is finished but will be posted in pieces. Total word count: 73,274.
Chapter4
The buzzer woke Coulson, who sat up at once, gasping and shaking. He was not fond of this situation he had found himself in. Repeating a day over and over again was draining, but actually dying each time around was so much worse. And of the deaths so far, that last one ranked right up there. The look on Fitz-Simmon’s faces as they had told him what they’d done, knowing they were about to die along with him. His team. He had dragged them into this mess, and he’d had to watch his team die right in front of him because of what he’d decided to do with his day. How long could this go on? How many times would he have to die? How many times would he have to watch others die? Innocent people… friends… people he cared about. The door intercom buzzed again.
Clint Barton.
Pulling himself out of bed, Coulson headed for his door. He thought about getting dressed, but he’d already wasted too much time lying in bed, speculating about his fate. Clint would be impatient, probably pacing around, definitely eying the building to see if he could scale it safely. So Coulson skipped the suit this morning, but he did stop briefly to put on the slippers that were, as always, at the bedroom door. He threw on his bathrobe as he walked, cinching the green tie tie around his waist. And he grabbed the chevron-covered tissue box from the linen closet, ripping it open and pulling one out.
He pressed the button on the panel by the door. “Good morning.”
“Agent Coulson, it’s me.”
Of course it was. “Come on up, Agent Barton.” He pressed the button to unlock the building door for Clint and then unlocked and opened the door to his apartment. How many times was he going to do this? Already it was beginning to feel like he was just going through the motions. Coulson rested his forehead against the wall for a minute as the elevator whirred in the hallway.
The elevator dinged and Clint spoke to Coulson’s neighbor. Then he walked toward Coulson. As the elevator doors closed, Coulson saw the man’s eyes close as well. He held up the tissue just as Clint fell forward. “Hahh-Ktshhhhh!” His nose planted right into the tissue instead of all over Coulson.
He straightened up, pulling back.
“Bless—”
“Huh huh-KIHtchhh!” The second sneeze sprayed forward, and Coulson grimaced. Two sneezes. Why hadn’t he remembered that second one? Coulson took another tissue out of the box and handed it over. “Let me guess: you’re not allergic to cats?”
Clint rubbed the tissue under his nose and shook his head. “I wish. How did you know I was going to sneeze?”
This was his opening, his opportunity. Clint would understand. And then Clint would want to stay with him all day. And though Coulson liked the idea of being with Clint and keeping an eye on him, what he didn’t want was to see Clint die in front of him again. “How long have I been your handler, Agent Barton? I could hear the congestion in your voice. So is it a bad head cold or the flu?”
Clint shrugged and tilted his head forward. “Do I feel like I have a fever?”
Coulson stared at his forehead for several moments before he realized Clint wanted him to put his hand there. Fitz-Simmons would probably comment about how that wasn’t a scientific tool for measuring accurately, and Coulson wasn’t even sure he could determine just by touch, but still he reached out and cupped his hand to Clint’s forehead. Then he flipped his hand over, pressing the back to Clint’s forehead. He still had no idea, but it did feel warm. “Maybe,” he said, finally.
Apparently satisfied with the noncommittal answer, Clint shook off the touch. “Can I stay at your place? I need someone to look after me and make sure I—”
“No tissues on the floor. No shoes on the couch. Got it?”
Clint nodded, rubbing again at his nose with the tissue Coulson had previously given him.
“I’ll get you some blankets now, and when I go out I’ll pick up whatever you need.”
“You’re going out?” For days now they’d gone through similar routines, but this was the first time Coulson was sure that Clint was pouting, actually pouting. “You’re supposed to be off this week, aren’t you? I thought you were off…”
Coulson wondered if that were the main reason he had come to Coulson in the first place—not because Tasha was unavailable, but because Coulson was on vacation and supposedly would have the time to take care of him. But then he remembered that first night, that death, and that kiss. Even when someone is dying, you don’t kiss like that unless there’s something more there. It was just a question of what that something was. “I thought I was, too. But an 0-8-4 has turned up and I’m the only one who can investigate it. I need to recover the item and bring in my team. As soon as they figure out what it is, I’ll be free to enjoy the rest of my time off.” Though ‘enjoy’ was a strange word to use when it now was synonymous with ‘hand tissues to my sniffling house guest.’ “I’ll try not to be gone all day.” Coulson ducked back down the hallway to get changed and retrieve the same blankets and pillow. He forced the pillow into the pillowcase on his walk back to the living room, knowing this time around that Clint wouldn’t do it on his own.
By the time he’d covered Clint with two blankets and relocated the trash can from the bathroom beside the couch, his phone gave that familiar buzzing sound. Remarking to himself that this was good timing, just in case he couldn’t stop what was going on today and had to do this again, Coulson answered the phone. “Agent Coulson here.” He tried to sound surprised and a bit reluctant when he found out yet again about the 0-8-4. But, naturally, he told Agent Hill he would recover it.
“Hehtchhhhh! Hehshuhh!” Clint sneezed, as though the cold itself was staging a protest to this decision.
As soon as he was off the phone with Hill, he called his team. Though he didn’t want the jet exploding again, it seemed safer in their hands than at the museum where it could take out so many civilians. Plus, the lab on board would be much better equipped to figure this object out, as long as they didn’t subject it to gamma radiation again. “May, I’m going to need you to make a return trip a little sooner than expected. Pick me up where you dropped me off in an hour?”
“Hehh… hehhhKetchh!” Yes, it definitely seemed like Clint’s cold didn’t like the idea of him leaving. “Hehh-Ketchhhh! HehShuhhh!” In fact, it had acted up last time when he’d been on the jet, and all Clint had needed to do was call and hear from Coulson in order to make it back down again.
Coulson sat down on the couch, rubbing the butt of one hand against his forehead. He was seeing patterns that were meaningless instead of getting to the real truth of things. And the real truth was that there was a device that had somehow latched onto Coulson to make him repeat this day over and over again. It had to be stopped—sooner rather than later, if Coulson had a choice. Which meant he’d have to tell Fitz-Simmons and probably the rest of his team what was going on.
“I’ll be back as soon as I can,” Coulson promised, rubbing Clint’s arm through the blankets. “Call me if you need me. Promise?”
Clint’s small nod came with a shrug and a snuggle further beneath the blankets.
“That’s an order, Agent Barton. If you need me, call me. I’ll have my phone on the whole time.”
This time when Clint nodded, it was a little more spirited, resolute. Coulson took that as a good sign.
“Try to sleep this off. I’ll be back before you know it.” Coulson got up, straightening his tie, and headed for the door. He was as far as the door, hand on the doorknob, when his phone buzzed again. Coulson froze. It was too early for Fury to be calling about the operation down at the docks. It might be Agent Hill calling back to tell him something they’d only just touched on during their first phone call. Or it might be May or someone else on the team following up on his incredibly vague mention of a case. If he were a betting man, he’d put money on the latter; as soon as Skye found out there was a case, she’d want to be all over it. He wouldn’t be surprised if somehow she hacked into S.H.I.E.L.D.’s system to find out it was an 0-8-4 and to be waiting for him in the restricted section of the museum when he arrived. But once he dug his phone out, he found that it was neither of these parties. Coulson gave a small smile and answered his phone. “I’m still here.”
“I know.” Clint’s voice from behind Coulson came a split second before the one over the phone, creating an eerie echoing effect. “You said to call if I needed you. Sniff! Sniff! I need you. Sniff! I know you’re on a mission, but can’t I tag along?”
Coulson considered what it would look like to show up at the museum with a sniffly agent in tow. Clint would have to put on a suit and get cleaned up a little, at the very least. No one would take him seriously in a hooded sweatshirt and sneakers—sneakers that were on on the couch, Coulson had to take a moment to acknowledge. But, on top of that, he wasn’t sure how Clint was going to react to seeing how the energy strands reacted to Coulson. Coulson still wasn’t sure he liked that part of it himself, and the other researchers at the museum seemed shocked by it both times. He wasn’t sure he wanted someone who knew him, someone who knew what he’d been through during the Battle of New York, to witness it. “Maybe next time. Your job right now is to rest and feel better. Mine is to go to the museum and grab an 0-8-4.” He softened a little, remembering the last time he’d spoken with Clint over the phone. Coulson hung up and turned around to find Clint out from under the blankets a little, holding his phone in one hand and rubbing his nose with a tissue in the other. “Maybe we can do dinner and then a movie.”
Clint’s whole face brightened significantly. He nodded in agreement then tossed the tissue into the trash can, making the basket.
Satisfied he was leaving Clint in as good a position as he could, Coulson headed back out and managed to make it to the museum again without his phone going off.
The museum was busy, but no little girl collided with him this time. The brief delay at home with Clint seemed to have put him on a slightly different schedule. Sure enough, when he stood in the museum’s atrium and looked around, he spotted the little girl with her brown pony tail bouncing behind her as she and her father walked toward the exhibit hall dedicated to ancient cultures. For a moment, Coulson thought about the mummies entombed in that exhibit hall, all of whom had died hundreds of years ago and stayed dead. He wondered what that was like, and the thought sent a chill through him.
The same security guard looked at his badge and gave him the same wave through to the authorized personnel only section of the museum. The same researchers were huddled around the object in the same room. The same chief researcher gave him the same handshake. And the same strings of blue and purple light shot from the object. Deja vu did not come close to describing how this felt. But it was pretty clear that he was the only one who felt anything at all, or else they were all excellent actors.
This time, he ignored their stunned gasps as he went straight for the 0-8-4 and picked it up. The energy lights disappeared at once. He popped the object into the S.H.I.E.L.D. case and snapped the clip shut. “Dr. Daniels, I would appreciate if you could send us the results of whatever tests you’ve performed on this object since the museum acquired it. I’m sure you were thorough, and I wouldn’t want my team duplicating any of your hard work.”
The man nodded, his eyes still registering shock at the way Coulson had manhandled his research subject. “Of course. I’ll send them to S.H.I.E.L.D. immediately.”
“Thank you. You’ve been very helpful.” With that, Coulson strode out of the museum, case and object in hand. He headed straight for the park, by way of a hot dog cart. He wasn’t all that hungry, but he couldn’t remember the last time he had had something to eat. His body must be resetting each day along with the world around him, otherwise he’d be famished by now. He ate the hot dog as he watched the harness drop down from the jet as it hovered above him in the park. S.H.I.E.L.D. technology was fantastic, but it hadn’t managed teleporting yet.
Coulson pitched the hot dog wrapper in the nearest trash can, strapped himself into the harness, and tried to enjoy the sensation of being lifted off the ground and into the air. After all he’d been through, it was one of the simplest pleasures to take in, the rush of wind around him, the way the city pulled away beneath him. He thought of Clint, always wanting to be at the highest points, atop buildings or in rafters. He wondered if that was one of the reasons Clint had chosen to invade Coulson’s penthouse apartment.
“Welcome back, Agent Coulson. Did you miss us already?” Skye stood with her arms crossed, a smile on her face, as Coulson extricated himself from the harness system.
“Absolutely. Besides, how many opportunities to save the world did you have while I was gone?” He lifted the case a little in his way of gesturing to it. “I need Fitz-Simmons’s help on an urgent identification.”
“Urgent?”
Coulson nodded. “Yes. They’ve only got today to do it, otherwise I’ll probably die. Again.” He passed her, heading for the lab, but after a few seconds, he heard her steps as she followed behind.
Fitz-Simmons were just as thrilled by the object this time as the first time around. “I know you’ll want to shoot it with gamma radiation,” Coulson told them, “but you can’t. It’s highly sensitive and will cause the device to explode, taking the entire jet with it.”
Fitz thumbed through the research notes on his pad, brow furrowed. “How do you know that?”
“Because that’s what happened yesterday when you ran the test.” Coulson set the case on the table and flipped the clasp to open it. “This thing is somehow making me—and only me—repeat days. I’m stuck in a time loop, which is a good thing, in actuality, because I keep dying but I don’t stay dead.” No one spoke. They all stared at him. They didn’t even look at the object. After a minute of awkward silence, Coulson cleared his throat and spoke again. “I would prefer you figure out what this is and why it’s doing what it’s doing sooner rather than later. I’d prefer to end these loops today and not wake up this morning for a fifth time.”
With an understanding nod, Simmons rooted around in a desk drawer. She pulled out a thermometer. “Any other symptoms? Dizziness? Disorientation?”
“What?”
She popped the thermometer into his mouth. Unable to answer while it was stuck under his tongue, he shook his head. They were wasting time. He pointed at the object, trying to get them to redirect their attention, when Ward walked in. “Hello, Sir. Did you call us back because you’re feeling under the weather and needed Fitz-Simmons to work on a cure for the common cold? If so, I want it on the record that that is a poor allocation of S.H.I.E.L.D. resources, but I’m on board. A cold can be pretty nasty.”
Coulson thought of Clint back at the apartment, sneezing and, hopefully, sleeping by now. He hadn’t called Coulson back, so that was a good sign. But Coulson also hadn’t stopped by the store to get him medicine, and he seemed to need that. He hoped the man would be able to hold out until the evening. Poor Hawkeye.
The thermometer beeped, and Simmons pulled it out. “Completely normal.”
“You sound disappointed,” Coulson told her.
“Occam’s Razor: the simplest solution is usually the best one. Now there might be something really wrong.”
“There is something really wrong. I’m repeating the same day over and over again because of this thing.” He gestured to the 0-8-4 that everyone seemed to be ignoring. “Figure it out and you’ll be able to stop this.”
Fitz had a hand on his chin, rubbing his forefinger against the curve in little strokes. “Assuming this is actually happening. Forgive us, Sir, but time travel… it’s just not possible. Recent studies have proved—”
“This isn’t time travel exactly, it’s a time loop. And I’m stuck in it unless you can figure out what this thing is.” This time, he pointed emphatically at the object. “Just start there, all right? If you really can’t find anything at all suspicious, then you can call me crazy and ship me off to that special place agents retire to when they’ve lost their minds.”
Ward looked visibly uneasy at this joke, and Coulson’s two scientists still looked skeptical. But that seemed to be enough to start them toward studying the object instead of studying him.
Strangely enough, Skye was the only one among them who seemed ready to believe what Coulson was going through. She had her arms crossed over her chest, but her head was cocked at an angle. “A time loop? Can you prove it? Do you know what I’m about to say? Do you know what’s going to happen next?”
He shook his head. “This is only my third time through… fourth counting the first day before time reset itself. This is the first time I’ve told you all about this.”
Skye looked… was that an expression of hurt?
“I didn’t want to involve you if I didn’t have to. I thought I could figure this out on my own. But I don’t even know where to start with this thing, and my staring at it isn’t going to help—I know that much.”
The jet banked slightly; given that he practically lived on board now, Coulson barely noticed, but it was an indication that they’d reached an altitude where May could put the jet on autopilot. So she was probably going to be on her way back to see what the mission was all about as well. “Maybe we should give these two some room to work and we can talk about this somewhere else?” Coulson suggested.
And that was how he found himself playing poker with May, Skye, and Ward. He could think of a number of people he would be less likely to win a hand of poker against, but he had absolutely no intention of actually playing to win. He wished he had a photographic memory, but he would just have to rely on his S.H.I.E.L.D.-trained one in order to help him out. At first, he thought he would memorize each card in each hand, but then he realized he needed a better system, so he concentrated on just the winning hand each time. First it was Skye with three aces. Then there was Ward with a pair of kings. Then Skye with a royal flush. Then May with three eights.
When his phone buzzed, he answered it immediately. He believed so much in Fitz-Simmons that it didn’t occur to him that it wasn’t them calling already. “What do you have for me?”
“For someone on vacation, you sure sound eager for a mission.”
Damn it. “Sorry, Director Fury. I thought…” He closed his eyes. There was no way to complete that sentence, but he couldn’t look any of his team members in the eye right now. “Never mind.”
“Look, there’s something going down by the docks. We need our best marksman on it, but we can’t get a hold of Agent Barton. You were his handler; do you know where he might be?”
“He’s out of commission, Sir. He’s really sick. He couldn’t be stealthy right now if his life depended on it.”
“You sure about that?”
“Absolutely. He’d get us both killed.” Coulson shivered, realizing it wasn’t entirely a lie. He knew Clint would be able to contain his cold well enough while on a mission. But if Clint had been at the top of his game, that bullet might not have found its way to Coulson’s chest that first day.
“All right. Enjoy your vacation.”
Briefly, Coulson thought about telling Fury what was going on. He wondered if the man somehow knew he was back on board the bus, already back to work. But telling his team this time around was enough; he didn’t know how Fury would react and saying too much now might mean not being able to follow up with Fitz-Simmons. So Coulson didn’t say a word about the time loop. “Thank you, Sir. I’m trying.”
“Don’t make me send your ass back to Tahiti now.”
“It’s a magical place,” he answered, though not exactly sure why.
When he hung up and slid his phone back into his pocket, he realized everyone had gone silent, watching him. “You didn’t tell Fury what’s going on?” May asked.
“It would take too long to get him to believe it.”
“Unlike us?” Ward looked skeptical but amused.
Coulson nodded toward the cards, indicating that they should keep playing.
“Tell me again how this is going to help the case,” May said, dealing out the next hand to each of them.
“Not the case. It’s going to help me. If Fitz-Simmons can’t come up with a solution and I have to live today over again, I’ll just insist we play cards. Then I’ll be able to call up the winning hands and make you believe I’m in a time loop. That will save, well, time.”
“And it will make us all believe that you are suddenly psychic, not in a time loop,” she said. Coulson looked down at his hand. He had nothing; again. “I fold,” he said with a sigh. “Fine, what will it take to convince you?”
Ward shook his head. “I don’t know if there is anything, Sir. We’ve seen some strange things, but never time travel. We’re usually investigating the strange, not part of the case ourselves.” Skye caught Coulson’s gaze for a moment then looked away.
“It’s not unusual for us to be stuck in the middle of things. The unique thing this time is that I seem to be the only person who realizes it and remembers from day to day.”
Ward held up a hand. “Okay, okay, even if this is true, what could be causing it? Time travel is pretty powerful. It would take something huge to cause this. What do we know that’s capable of such a thing. Do you think it’s Loki?”
Coulson genuinely had no idea. “Loki… Thor would have told us if Loki had escaped.”
“Assuming Thor could contact us. What if he—”
“There’s no evidence that it’s Loki. The 0-8-4 looks advanced and it’s made out of some unidentifiable metal, but it doesn’t seem to be Asgardian in origin.”
This sort of speculating was getting them nowhere. He wished he were back home, shopping for supplies and taking care of Clint. At least there he’d be making some sort of progress toward an end. This was just painful. Besides, Loki had been responsible for his death the first time; Coulson didn’t like the idea of him being behind all of the other ones as well. Loki had too much of an ego to sit back and do this to Coulson; he’d want to get right up on the stage and show you exactly who was to blame for your misery. Though why he would want to target Coulson specifically, Coulson had no idea. Maybe he was just the easiest pickings from the team that had tried to take him down. But, deep down, he didn’t think this was Loki’s doing. Maybe it wasn’t even personal, just that the 0-8-4 had happened to target him.
Or maybe it had to do with the few minutes he’d been dead before. Maybe it knew somehow. Maybe it could sense this about him. Maybe it had no intention of ever letting him break out of this loop, so he would always have to live this day over and over. Or maybe there was some magical chain of events that would unlock the next day for him.
But he still thought his best bet was to figure out what the object was and try to shut it down. If the object was what was causing it, that is.
His phone buzzed again. Excitement seized Coulson when he saw it was a text from Fitz. “They have something.” The card game was abandoned immediately, ended almost as quickly as it had begun.
“Have you figured out what it is?” Coulson didn’t have time to dance around the subject. “Have you figured out how to stop it?”
Fitz and Simmons exchanged a look, which was not a good sign. Fitz even looked a bit guilty as he replied. “It’s not an answer so much as a theory.”
That was something, at least. And a theory of theirs was worth a lot in Coulson’s book. “All right. Let’s have it.”
Simmons gestured toward the 0-8-4 where it sat on the lab table, almost exactly where it had been on Coulson’s previous day when it had exploded, taking down him and his entire team. “What does this look like to you?”
No one spoke, but Coulson was pretty sure they were all thinking the same thing. At least, he did until Skye blurted out “a giant, silver dildo.”
Simmons let out a small shriek of laughter and clapped both her hands to her mouth. But she couldn’t contain the laughter, especially every time her eyes fell upon the object. She tried to get herself under control, regulate her breathing. “M’sorry. I just… haHA!” She giggled, looking helplessly at Fitz for help. “I’m picturing…”
He nodded, understanding, and started laughing as well. “Galactus?”
“Yes!” she said from behind her hands, and they laughed together.
Not for the first time, Skye seemed to be out of the loop. “Who’s that?”
“We’ll tell you some other time. But apart from… a silvery phallus, what does this resemble?” Both she and Fitz stared straight at Agent Ward this time.
Ward took a few seconds then shrugged when he answered, “A bullet.”
“Ex-actly.” Fitz’s Scottish accent came out stronger as he slowed the word down for added emphasis. “And if there’s a bullet, there has to be a gun. One’s not much good without the other, is it?”
The pregnant pause that followed this gave them all time to think, to try to come up with something else—anything else. But this made more sense to Coulson than almost anything had since the time loops had begun. “A weapon. You’re saying you think this is part of a weapon?”
They both nodded.
“Is it likely this time loop is part of the weapon, or could it be an unintended consequence?”
“Don’t know just yet. Still need to figure out how this baby works.” Fitz manipulated the table display, easily paging through graphs and stats and schematics.
“Wait, what was that?” Simmons asked, grabbing his arm.
He paged back, and they both stared at what looked like scientific gibberish to Coulson.
“Sir,” Simmons said, looking at him through the holographic projection. “Could you step closer to the object?” Coulson did. “Interesting. Now touch it?” Coulson did. “Now back away… slowly.” Coulson did, and both Simmons and Fitz cocked their heads slightly to their right, his left.
“What is it?” Skye asked before anyone else had a chance to do so.
“The energy readings,” Simmons said. “They fluctuate significantly whenever Agent Coulson gets near. I think he’s correct. I think it is tied to him somehow.”
“But there isn’t any of that energy coming out of it right now, those teal and purple strands that were there this morning at the museum that alarmed all the scientists.”
“The levels are low, but significant enough to show up on our instruments briefly. I think that’s because you’re here, Sir. You’re in close proximity to it.” She smiled at him through the display. “Care to test my theory?”
Coulson didn’t want to die again. He didn’t want to watch his team die again, even from afar. But if Fitz-Simmons had a theory, that was more to go on than he’d had since this whole thing started. So he took a deep breath, looked at his team—the curiosity and concern on each of their faces—and closed his eyes to keep himself from chickening out. “You need me to leave, don’t you?”
Twenty minutes later, he was taking the bridge out of the city when he saw the explosion in Lola’s rear view mirror. The teal and purple bursts of energy were small in the distance, but they reached out in his direction, causing explosion after explosion—cars, buildings, anything with the potential to explode went up in an impressive display of flames and sparks. Traffic was stopped on the bridge as people panicked, running, screaming. The sound of sirens filled the air, and the S.H.I.E.L.D. helicarrier appeared overhead.
“Please let this day repeat,” Coulson said, worried but somehow at peace as well. This was a theory, only a theory. But, deep down, he knew. And when his end came, in teal and purple light, he owned it.
Title: Assess & Acquire
Author: tarotgal
Fandom: Marvel CMU (Avengers & Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.)
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Pre-Clint/Coulson
Spoilers: For the first Avengers movie and the first episode of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
Warning: Character death. A lot of character death.
Summary: When Clint Barton shows up unannounced on Phil Coulson’s doorstep, Coulson is forced to change his vacation plans. So when a simple mission to assess and acquire an object of unknown origin comes up, he figures there’s no reason he should turn that down. Naturally, things are never as simple as they seem.
Author’s Notes: Written for NaNoWriMo 2014 all in one month (a first for me!). This story is finished but will be posted in pieces. Total word count: 73,274.
Chapter4
The buzzer woke Coulson, who sat up at once, gasping and shaking. He was not fond of this situation he had found himself in. Repeating a day over and over again was draining, but actually dying each time around was so much worse. And of the deaths so far, that last one ranked right up there. The look on Fitz-Simmon’s faces as they had told him what they’d done, knowing they were about to die along with him. His team. He had dragged them into this mess, and he’d had to watch his team die right in front of him because of what he’d decided to do with his day. How long could this go on? How many times would he have to die? How many times would he have to watch others die? Innocent people… friends… people he cared about. The door intercom buzzed again.
Clint Barton.
Pulling himself out of bed, Coulson headed for his door. He thought about getting dressed, but he’d already wasted too much time lying in bed, speculating about his fate. Clint would be impatient, probably pacing around, definitely eying the building to see if he could scale it safely. So Coulson skipped the suit this morning, but he did stop briefly to put on the slippers that were, as always, at the bedroom door. He threw on his bathrobe as he walked, cinching the green tie tie around his waist. And he grabbed the chevron-covered tissue box from the linen closet, ripping it open and pulling one out.
He pressed the button on the panel by the door. “Good morning.”
“Agent Coulson, it’s me.”
Of course it was. “Come on up, Agent Barton.” He pressed the button to unlock the building door for Clint and then unlocked and opened the door to his apartment. How many times was he going to do this? Already it was beginning to feel like he was just going through the motions. Coulson rested his forehead against the wall for a minute as the elevator whirred in the hallway.
The elevator dinged and Clint spoke to Coulson’s neighbor. Then he walked toward Coulson. As the elevator doors closed, Coulson saw the man’s eyes close as well. He held up the tissue just as Clint fell forward. “Hahh-Ktshhhhh!” His nose planted right into the tissue instead of all over Coulson.
He straightened up, pulling back.
“Bless—”
“Huh huh-KIHtchhh!” The second sneeze sprayed forward, and Coulson grimaced. Two sneezes. Why hadn’t he remembered that second one? Coulson took another tissue out of the box and handed it over. “Let me guess: you’re not allergic to cats?”
Clint rubbed the tissue under his nose and shook his head. “I wish. How did you know I was going to sneeze?”
This was his opening, his opportunity. Clint would understand. And then Clint would want to stay with him all day. And though Coulson liked the idea of being with Clint and keeping an eye on him, what he didn’t want was to see Clint die in front of him again. “How long have I been your handler, Agent Barton? I could hear the congestion in your voice. So is it a bad head cold or the flu?”
Clint shrugged and tilted his head forward. “Do I feel like I have a fever?”
Coulson stared at his forehead for several moments before he realized Clint wanted him to put his hand there. Fitz-Simmons would probably comment about how that wasn’t a scientific tool for measuring accurately, and Coulson wasn’t even sure he could determine just by touch, but still he reached out and cupped his hand to Clint’s forehead. Then he flipped his hand over, pressing the back to Clint’s forehead. He still had no idea, but it did feel warm. “Maybe,” he said, finally.
Apparently satisfied with the noncommittal answer, Clint shook off the touch. “Can I stay at your place? I need someone to look after me and make sure I—”
“No tissues on the floor. No shoes on the couch. Got it?”
Clint nodded, rubbing again at his nose with the tissue Coulson had previously given him.
“I’ll get you some blankets now, and when I go out I’ll pick up whatever you need.”
“You’re going out?” For days now they’d gone through similar routines, but this was the first time Coulson was sure that Clint was pouting, actually pouting. “You’re supposed to be off this week, aren’t you? I thought you were off…”
Coulson wondered if that were the main reason he had come to Coulson in the first place—not because Tasha was unavailable, but because Coulson was on vacation and supposedly would have the time to take care of him. But then he remembered that first night, that death, and that kiss. Even when someone is dying, you don’t kiss like that unless there’s something more there. It was just a question of what that something was. “I thought I was, too. But an 0-8-4 has turned up and I’m the only one who can investigate it. I need to recover the item and bring in my team. As soon as they figure out what it is, I’ll be free to enjoy the rest of my time off.” Though ‘enjoy’ was a strange word to use when it now was synonymous with ‘hand tissues to my sniffling house guest.’ “I’ll try not to be gone all day.” Coulson ducked back down the hallway to get changed and retrieve the same blankets and pillow. He forced the pillow into the pillowcase on his walk back to the living room, knowing this time around that Clint wouldn’t do it on his own.
By the time he’d covered Clint with two blankets and relocated the trash can from the bathroom beside the couch, his phone gave that familiar buzzing sound. Remarking to himself that this was good timing, just in case he couldn’t stop what was going on today and had to do this again, Coulson answered the phone. “Agent Coulson here.” He tried to sound surprised and a bit reluctant when he found out yet again about the 0-8-4. But, naturally, he told Agent Hill he would recover it.
“Hehtchhhhh! Hehshuhh!” Clint sneezed, as though the cold itself was staging a protest to this decision.
As soon as he was off the phone with Hill, he called his team. Though he didn’t want the jet exploding again, it seemed safer in their hands than at the museum where it could take out so many civilians. Plus, the lab on board would be much better equipped to figure this object out, as long as they didn’t subject it to gamma radiation again. “May, I’m going to need you to make a return trip a little sooner than expected. Pick me up where you dropped me off in an hour?”
“Hehh… hehhhKetchh!” Yes, it definitely seemed like Clint’s cold didn’t like the idea of him leaving. “Hehh-Ketchhhh! HehShuhhh!” In fact, it had acted up last time when he’d been on the jet, and all Clint had needed to do was call and hear from Coulson in order to make it back down again.
Coulson sat down on the couch, rubbing the butt of one hand against his forehead. He was seeing patterns that were meaningless instead of getting to the real truth of things. And the real truth was that there was a device that had somehow latched onto Coulson to make him repeat this day over and over again. It had to be stopped—sooner rather than later, if Coulson had a choice. Which meant he’d have to tell Fitz-Simmons and probably the rest of his team what was going on.
“I’ll be back as soon as I can,” Coulson promised, rubbing Clint’s arm through the blankets. “Call me if you need me. Promise?”
Clint’s small nod came with a shrug and a snuggle further beneath the blankets.
“That’s an order, Agent Barton. If you need me, call me. I’ll have my phone on the whole time.”
This time when Clint nodded, it was a little more spirited, resolute. Coulson took that as a good sign.
“Try to sleep this off. I’ll be back before you know it.” Coulson got up, straightening his tie, and headed for the door. He was as far as the door, hand on the doorknob, when his phone buzzed again. Coulson froze. It was too early for Fury to be calling about the operation down at the docks. It might be Agent Hill calling back to tell him something they’d only just touched on during their first phone call. Or it might be May or someone else on the team following up on his incredibly vague mention of a case. If he were a betting man, he’d put money on the latter; as soon as Skye found out there was a case, she’d want to be all over it. He wouldn’t be surprised if somehow she hacked into S.H.I.E.L.D.’s system to find out it was an 0-8-4 and to be waiting for him in the restricted section of the museum when he arrived. But once he dug his phone out, he found that it was neither of these parties. Coulson gave a small smile and answered his phone. “I’m still here.”
“I know.” Clint’s voice from behind Coulson came a split second before the one over the phone, creating an eerie echoing effect. “You said to call if I needed you. Sniff! Sniff! I need you. Sniff! I know you’re on a mission, but can’t I tag along?”
Coulson considered what it would look like to show up at the museum with a sniffly agent in tow. Clint would have to put on a suit and get cleaned up a little, at the very least. No one would take him seriously in a hooded sweatshirt and sneakers—sneakers that were on on the couch, Coulson had to take a moment to acknowledge. But, on top of that, he wasn’t sure how Clint was going to react to seeing how the energy strands reacted to Coulson. Coulson still wasn’t sure he liked that part of it himself, and the other researchers at the museum seemed shocked by it both times. He wasn’t sure he wanted someone who knew him, someone who knew what he’d been through during the Battle of New York, to witness it. “Maybe next time. Your job right now is to rest and feel better. Mine is to go to the museum and grab an 0-8-4.” He softened a little, remembering the last time he’d spoken with Clint over the phone. Coulson hung up and turned around to find Clint out from under the blankets a little, holding his phone in one hand and rubbing his nose with a tissue in the other. “Maybe we can do dinner and then a movie.”
Clint’s whole face brightened significantly. He nodded in agreement then tossed the tissue into the trash can, making the basket.
Satisfied he was leaving Clint in as good a position as he could, Coulson headed back out and managed to make it to the museum again without his phone going off.
The museum was busy, but no little girl collided with him this time. The brief delay at home with Clint seemed to have put him on a slightly different schedule. Sure enough, when he stood in the museum’s atrium and looked around, he spotted the little girl with her brown pony tail bouncing behind her as she and her father walked toward the exhibit hall dedicated to ancient cultures. For a moment, Coulson thought about the mummies entombed in that exhibit hall, all of whom had died hundreds of years ago and stayed dead. He wondered what that was like, and the thought sent a chill through him.
The same security guard looked at his badge and gave him the same wave through to the authorized personnel only section of the museum. The same researchers were huddled around the object in the same room. The same chief researcher gave him the same handshake. And the same strings of blue and purple light shot from the object. Deja vu did not come close to describing how this felt. But it was pretty clear that he was the only one who felt anything at all, or else they were all excellent actors.
This time, he ignored their stunned gasps as he went straight for the 0-8-4 and picked it up. The energy lights disappeared at once. He popped the object into the S.H.I.E.L.D. case and snapped the clip shut. “Dr. Daniels, I would appreciate if you could send us the results of whatever tests you’ve performed on this object since the museum acquired it. I’m sure you were thorough, and I wouldn’t want my team duplicating any of your hard work.”
The man nodded, his eyes still registering shock at the way Coulson had manhandled his research subject. “Of course. I’ll send them to S.H.I.E.L.D. immediately.”
“Thank you. You’ve been very helpful.” With that, Coulson strode out of the museum, case and object in hand. He headed straight for the park, by way of a hot dog cart. He wasn’t all that hungry, but he couldn’t remember the last time he had had something to eat. His body must be resetting each day along with the world around him, otherwise he’d be famished by now. He ate the hot dog as he watched the harness drop down from the jet as it hovered above him in the park. S.H.I.E.L.D. technology was fantastic, but it hadn’t managed teleporting yet.
Coulson pitched the hot dog wrapper in the nearest trash can, strapped himself into the harness, and tried to enjoy the sensation of being lifted off the ground and into the air. After all he’d been through, it was one of the simplest pleasures to take in, the rush of wind around him, the way the city pulled away beneath him. He thought of Clint, always wanting to be at the highest points, atop buildings or in rafters. He wondered if that was one of the reasons Clint had chosen to invade Coulson’s penthouse apartment.
“Welcome back, Agent Coulson. Did you miss us already?” Skye stood with her arms crossed, a smile on her face, as Coulson extricated himself from the harness system.
“Absolutely. Besides, how many opportunities to save the world did you have while I was gone?” He lifted the case a little in his way of gesturing to it. “I need Fitz-Simmons’s help on an urgent identification.”
“Urgent?”
Coulson nodded. “Yes. They’ve only got today to do it, otherwise I’ll probably die. Again.” He passed her, heading for the lab, but after a few seconds, he heard her steps as she followed behind.
Fitz-Simmons were just as thrilled by the object this time as the first time around. “I know you’ll want to shoot it with gamma radiation,” Coulson told them, “but you can’t. It’s highly sensitive and will cause the device to explode, taking the entire jet with it.”
Fitz thumbed through the research notes on his pad, brow furrowed. “How do you know that?”
“Because that’s what happened yesterday when you ran the test.” Coulson set the case on the table and flipped the clasp to open it. “This thing is somehow making me—and only me—repeat days. I’m stuck in a time loop, which is a good thing, in actuality, because I keep dying but I don’t stay dead.” No one spoke. They all stared at him. They didn’t even look at the object. After a minute of awkward silence, Coulson cleared his throat and spoke again. “I would prefer you figure out what this is and why it’s doing what it’s doing sooner rather than later. I’d prefer to end these loops today and not wake up this morning for a fifth time.”
With an understanding nod, Simmons rooted around in a desk drawer. She pulled out a thermometer. “Any other symptoms? Dizziness? Disorientation?”
“What?”
She popped the thermometer into his mouth. Unable to answer while it was stuck under his tongue, he shook his head. They were wasting time. He pointed at the object, trying to get them to redirect their attention, when Ward walked in. “Hello, Sir. Did you call us back because you’re feeling under the weather and needed Fitz-Simmons to work on a cure for the common cold? If so, I want it on the record that that is a poor allocation of S.H.I.E.L.D. resources, but I’m on board. A cold can be pretty nasty.”
Coulson thought of Clint back at the apartment, sneezing and, hopefully, sleeping by now. He hadn’t called Coulson back, so that was a good sign. But Coulson also hadn’t stopped by the store to get him medicine, and he seemed to need that. He hoped the man would be able to hold out until the evening. Poor Hawkeye.
The thermometer beeped, and Simmons pulled it out. “Completely normal.”
“You sound disappointed,” Coulson told her.
“Occam’s Razor: the simplest solution is usually the best one. Now there might be something really wrong.”
“There is something really wrong. I’m repeating the same day over and over again because of this thing.” He gestured to the 0-8-4 that everyone seemed to be ignoring. “Figure it out and you’ll be able to stop this.”
Fitz had a hand on his chin, rubbing his forefinger against the curve in little strokes. “Assuming this is actually happening. Forgive us, Sir, but time travel… it’s just not possible. Recent studies have proved—”
“This isn’t time travel exactly, it’s a time loop. And I’m stuck in it unless you can figure out what this thing is.” This time, he pointed emphatically at the object. “Just start there, all right? If you really can’t find anything at all suspicious, then you can call me crazy and ship me off to that special place agents retire to when they’ve lost their minds.”
Ward looked visibly uneasy at this joke, and Coulson’s two scientists still looked skeptical. But that seemed to be enough to start them toward studying the object instead of studying him.
Strangely enough, Skye was the only one among them who seemed ready to believe what Coulson was going through. She had her arms crossed over her chest, but her head was cocked at an angle. “A time loop? Can you prove it? Do you know what I’m about to say? Do you know what’s going to happen next?”
He shook his head. “This is only my third time through… fourth counting the first day before time reset itself. This is the first time I’ve told you all about this.”
Skye looked… was that an expression of hurt?
“I didn’t want to involve you if I didn’t have to. I thought I could figure this out on my own. But I don’t even know where to start with this thing, and my staring at it isn’t going to help—I know that much.”
The jet banked slightly; given that he practically lived on board now, Coulson barely noticed, but it was an indication that they’d reached an altitude where May could put the jet on autopilot. So she was probably going to be on her way back to see what the mission was all about as well. “Maybe we should give these two some room to work and we can talk about this somewhere else?” Coulson suggested.
And that was how he found himself playing poker with May, Skye, and Ward. He could think of a number of people he would be less likely to win a hand of poker against, but he had absolutely no intention of actually playing to win. He wished he had a photographic memory, but he would just have to rely on his S.H.I.E.L.D.-trained one in order to help him out. At first, he thought he would memorize each card in each hand, but then he realized he needed a better system, so he concentrated on just the winning hand each time. First it was Skye with three aces. Then there was Ward with a pair of kings. Then Skye with a royal flush. Then May with three eights.
When his phone buzzed, he answered it immediately. He believed so much in Fitz-Simmons that it didn’t occur to him that it wasn’t them calling already. “What do you have for me?”
“For someone on vacation, you sure sound eager for a mission.”
Damn it. “Sorry, Director Fury. I thought…” He closed his eyes. There was no way to complete that sentence, but he couldn’t look any of his team members in the eye right now. “Never mind.”
“Look, there’s something going down by the docks. We need our best marksman on it, but we can’t get a hold of Agent Barton. You were his handler; do you know where he might be?”
“He’s out of commission, Sir. He’s really sick. He couldn’t be stealthy right now if his life depended on it.”
“You sure about that?”
“Absolutely. He’d get us both killed.” Coulson shivered, realizing it wasn’t entirely a lie. He knew Clint would be able to contain his cold well enough while on a mission. But if Clint had been at the top of his game, that bullet might not have found its way to Coulson’s chest that first day.
“All right. Enjoy your vacation.”
Briefly, Coulson thought about telling Fury what was going on. He wondered if the man somehow knew he was back on board the bus, already back to work. But telling his team this time around was enough; he didn’t know how Fury would react and saying too much now might mean not being able to follow up with Fitz-Simmons. So Coulson didn’t say a word about the time loop. “Thank you, Sir. I’m trying.”
“Don’t make me send your ass back to Tahiti now.”
“It’s a magical place,” he answered, though not exactly sure why.
When he hung up and slid his phone back into his pocket, he realized everyone had gone silent, watching him. “You didn’t tell Fury what’s going on?” May asked.
“It would take too long to get him to believe it.”
“Unlike us?” Ward looked skeptical but amused.
Coulson nodded toward the cards, indicating that they should keep playing.
“Tell me again how this is going to help the case,” May said, dealing out the next hand to each of them.
“Not the case. It’s going to help me. If Fitz-Simmons can’t come up with a solution and I have to live today over again, I’ll just insist we play cards. Then I’ll be able to call up the winning hands and make you believe I’m in a time loop. That will save, well, time.”
“And it will make us all believe that you are suddenly psychic, not in a time loop,” she said. Coulson looked down at his hand. He had nothing; again. “I fold,” he said with a sigh. “Fine, what will it take to convince you?”
Ward shook his head. “I don’t know if there is anything, Sir. We’ve seen some strange things, but never time travel. We’re usually investigating the strange, not part of the case ourselves.” Skye caught Coulson’s gaze for a moment then looked away.
“It’s not unusual for us to be stuck in the middle of things. The unique thing this time is that I seem to be the only person who realizes it and remembers from day to day.”
Ward held up a hand. “Okay, okay, even if this is true, what could be causing it? Time travel is pretty powerful. It would take something huge to cause this. What do we know that’s capable of such a thing. Do you think it’s Loki?”
Coulson genuinely had no idea. “Loki… Thor would have told us if Loki had escaped.”
“Assuming Thor could contact us. What if he—”
“There’s no evidence that it’s Loki. The 0-8-4 looks advanced and it’s made out of some unidentifiable metal, but it doesn’t seem to be Asgardian in origin.”
This sort of speculating was getting them nowhere. He wished he were back home, shopping for supplies and taking care of Clint. At least there he’d be making some sort of progress toward an end. This was just painful. Besides, Loki had been responsible for his death the first time; Coulson didn’t like the idea of him being behind all of the other ones as well. Loki had too much of an ego to sit back and do this to Coulson; he’d want to get right up on the stage and show you exactly who was to blame for your misery. Though why he would want to target Coulson specifically, Coulson had no idea. Maybe he was just the easiest pickings from the team that had tried to take him down. But, deep down, he didn’t think this was Loki’s doing. Maybe it wasn’t even personal, just that the 0-8-4 had happened to target him.
Or maybe it had to do with the few minutes he’d been dead before. Maybe it knew somehow. Maybe it could sense this about him. Maybe it had no intention of ever letting him break out of this loop, so he would always have to live this day over and over. Or maybe there was some magical chain of events that would unlock the next day for him.
But he still thought his best bet was to figure out what the object was and try to shut it down. If the object was what was causing it, that is.
His phone buzzed again. Excitement seized Coulson when he saw it was a text from Fitz. “They have something.” The card game was abandoned immediately, ended almost as quickly as it had begun.
“Have you figured out what it is?” Coulson didn’t have time to dance around the subject. “Have you figured out how to stop it?”
Fitz and Simmons exchanged a look, which was not a good sign. Fitz even looked a bit guilty as he replied. “It’s not an answer so much as a theory.”
That was something, at least. And a theory of theirs was worth a lot in Coulson’s book. “All right. Let’s have it.”
Simmons gestured toward the 0-8-4 where it sat on the lab table, almost exactly where it had been on Coulson’s previous day when it had exploded, taking down him and his entire team. “What does this look like to you?”
No one spoke, but Coulson was pretty sure they were all thinking the same thing. At least, he did until Skye blurted out “a giant, silver dildo.”
Simmons let out a small shriek of laughter and clapped both her hands to her mouth. But she couldn’t contain the laughter, especially every time her eyes fell upon the object. She tried to get herself under control, regulate her breathing. “M’sorry. I just… haHA!” She giggled, looking helplessly at Fitz for help. “I’m picturing…”
He nodded, understanding, and started laughing as well. “Galactus?”
“Yes!” she said from behind her hands, and they laughed together.
Not for the first time, Skye seemed to be out of the loop. “Who’s that?”
“We’ll tell you some other time. But apart from… a silvery phallus, what does this resemble?” Both she and Fitz stared straight at Agent Ward this time.
Ward took a few seconds then shrugged when he answered, “A bullet.”
“Ex-actly.” Fitz’s Scottish accent came out stronger as he slowed the word down for added emphasis. “And if there’s a bullet, there has to be a gun. One’s not much good without the other, is it?”
The pregnant pause that followed this gave them all time to think, to try to come up with something else—anything else. But this made more sense to Coulson than almost anything had since the time loops had begun. “A weapon. You’re saying you think this is part of a weapon?”
They both nodded.
“Is it likely this time loop is part of the weapon, or could it be an unintended consequence?”
“Don’t know just yet. Still need to figure out how this baby works.” Fitz manipulated the table display, easily paging through graphs and stats and schematics.
“Wait, what was that?” Simmons asked, grabbing his arm.
He paged back, and they both stared at what looked like scientific gibberish to Coulson.
“Sir,” Simmons said, looking at him through the holographic projection. “Could you step closer to the object?” Coulson did. “Interesting. Now touch it?” Coulson did. “Now back away… slowly.” Coulson did, and both Simmons and Fitz cocked their heads slightly to their right, his left.
“What is it?” Skye asked before anyone else had a chance to do so.
“The energy readings,” Simmons said. “They fluctuate significantly whenever Agent Coulson gets near. I think he’s correct. I think it is tied to him somehow.”
“But there isn’t any of that energy coming out of it right now, those teal and purple strands that were there this morning at the museum that alarmed all the scientists.”
“The levels are low, but significant enough to show up on our instruments briefly. I think that’s because you’re here, Sir. You’re in close proximity to it.” She smiled at him through the display. “Care to test my theory?”
Coulson didn’t want to die again. He didn’t want to watch his team die again, even from afar. But if Fitz-Simmons had a theory, that was more to go on than he’d had since this whole thing started. So he took a deep breath, looked at his team—the curiosity and concern on each of their faces—and closed his eyes to keep himself from chickening out. “You need me to leave, don’t you?”
Twenty minutes later, he was taking the bridge out of the city when he saw the explosion in Lola’s rear view mirror. The teal and purple bursts of energy were small in the distance, but they reached out in his direction, causing explosion after explosion—cars, buildings, anything with the potential to explode went up in an impressive display of flames and sparks. Traffic was stopped on the bridge as people panicked, running, screaming. The sound of sirens filled the air, and the S.H.I.E.L.D. helicarrier appeared overhead.
“Please let this day repeat,” Coulson said, worried but somehow at peace as well. This was a theory, only a theory. But, deep down, he knew. And when his end came, in teal and purple light, he owned it.
