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tarotgalPossibly my favorite chapter in the whole series. Self-indulgence at its best...
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.
Chapter 10
Coulson sat up in bed at the sound of the buzzer. He didn’t like to believe in some greater force here, pulling the strings and watching him dance. But after dying each day for more than a week’s worth of days, he was beginning to suspect someone was doing this to him on purpose. He could believe the gunshots and the object-related deaths easily; he had been trying to figure out what the object did then and it had seemed trial and error might be the most efficient way of doing so. The fire in his apartment building had seemed so random, and he still couldn’t pinpoint exactly what he had done to cause it to happen that day and no other. But the elephant had been… strange—and this was the opinion of a man who worked for a secret organization, who lived most of the time in the air, who had spent the better part of a year sitting by the bedside of a frozen superhero from World War II, and who had been run through by an Asgardian god but lived to tell the tale. Bizarre had a whole new weight when the word was used by Agent Phil Coulson, and that elephant coming out of nowhere and trampling him in the middle of the city street had been truly bizarre.
With resolve to look both ways before crossing the street from now on during these time loops, Coulson climbed out of a perfectly nice, warm bed and made his way to the bedroom door. He grabbed his phone off the nightstand. He pulled the bathrobe off the hook and slid his arms through its sleeves. Its tie dragged on the carpeted floor as he stepped into his slippers, wiggling his toes as his feet went all the way in. He grabbed the tissue box from the linen closet and pulled out tissues as he went.
When he got to the buzzer, he answered, “Come on up,” without even waiting for Clint to introduce himself. Then he stood at his door, tissues in hand, and waited for the elevator. He’d done this before and he could do it again. But he didn’t think he could do it again forever. If there were an outside force wanting him to get it right and punishing him with fires and random elephants and who knew what other crazy, painful deaths, he thought he had better start trying to figure it out sooner rather than later. Because this repetition was already starting to get to him. How many ways were there to get up and answer the door? After a few dozen or a few hundred or even a few thousand, when would he start wishing that the deaths come sooner, easier? When would he start wishing for death to be permanent? When would he start begging for death to finally claim him?
Coulson didn’t want to get to that point. He wanted to figure this out. And that meant enlisting the help of Agent Clint Barton (despite his head cold). It meant enlisting the help of his S.H.I.E.L.D. team. And it meant enlisting the help of absolutely anyone who could help him out. Coulson was not going to be picky at this point.
He heard the elevator ding out in the hallway, doors sliding open and footsteps approaching. He heard the knock on the door, took a deep breath, raised the tissues, and opened the door. If he was going to have to do this every day, he certainly would. But he did not want to get sneezed on every single morning. That much he seemed to be able to control without causing some major catastrophe that made the building explode or leveled the city. This was just Clint Barton sneezing into a handful of tissues instead of all over his handler… and friend… and… maybe something more if Coulson was ever allowed to make it to the next day.
“Hahh-Ktshhhhh!” Clint sneezed, face planting right into the tissues; Coulson held them at exactly the right height. Clint started to draw back, but Coulson reached out and put a hand on Clint’s head, keeping him there as the second sneeze suddenly struck. “Huh huh-KIHtchhh!” This time, Coulson dropped his hand and let Clint pull back, sniffling. But as he balled up the tissues in his hand, he got a fresh tissue out of the box with his other hand. Clint took it, looking too grateful to be surprised, and blew his nose.
“Bless you,” Coulson said. “Come in. You look like you could use a warm blanket and some cold medicine.”
Hope danced in Clint’s eyes, over the folds of the tissue. “You have some?”
“No, but I can go out and buy you some,” Coulson told him, ushering him in and closing—and locking, of course—the door behind them both. It was little protection against fires or otherworldly energy weapons, but it might keep an elephant out of his penthouse apartment.
Coulson would have escorted the man to the bed again, but Clint already headed straight for the couch. He flopped down on it, hugging a couch cushion to his chest, coughing and sniffling. The one tissue Coulson had gave him was pretty well used up by then. “I started feeling sick a few days back. Thought I could kick it on my own. But it just got worse. I think I need someone looking after me. And I’d ask Tasha, but I think she’s off on an undercover op in Bulgaria.”
“So I’ve heard.”
“And I… I c-c-cah… huhhhh… I c-can’t go to the tower. Huh… huhh-EHSChhooo!” Coulson sat down on the edge of the couch and held the box of tissues out. Clint helped himself to two. After wiping his nose, he blew it, then wiped some more.
“So you needed somebody to look after you and, naturally, you thought of me? You thought I’d be free to drop everything and take care of you?”
He concentrated on rubbing his nose, buying himself some time. He didn’t—couldn’t—look at Coulson when he answered. “I had hoped you might.” He wavered, looking unsure. “Will you?”
“Yes,” Coulson answered right away. “But you need to do something for me.”
“Sure. What’s that?”
He loved how quick to answer both of them had been. “I need you to keep me alive today for as long as possible.”
Clint sat right up. The couch cushion fell to the floor. “What did you say?”
“Keep me alive. I’m stuck in a time loop. Every day I die and ever morning I wake up again here. Sometimes I tell you what’s going on. Sometimes I don’t. This time around, obviously, I’m telling you.”
“And do I usually… believe you?”
Coulson smiled. “Every time, without fail. Though it helps prove my point when Agent Hill calls me to ask me to go to the nearby museum to retrieve an 0-8-4, even though I am technically on vacation.”
“Agent—” He cut off at the buzzing sound of Coulson’s phone.
Coulson pulled it out as usual. He was about to answer it, then thought it would be a better idea to have Clint do it. He offered over the phone. “Answer it for me, would you?”
Clint looked down, obviously seeing Hill’s name on the caller ID. Warily, he answered. “This is Agent Phil Coulson’s phone, Agent Barton speaking. Go ahead.” Clint listened, and Coulson watched him listen, studying Clint’s face and tone of voice for a reaction to what this might mean to Clint. “I see.” Clint nodded to himself, because she couldn’t see him through the phone. “I’m sure he’s available, yes. He’s just looking after me this morning. I’m not feeling so hot. Sniff!” A pause. “I will tell him. But I guess he could.” A longer pause, during which Clint rubbed his gloved hand under his runny nose. “Yes. That’s just a few blocks away, I understand.” Another pause while he looked at Coulson and smiled. “You’re in luck. He just walked into the room. Here you are, Agent Hill.” He handed the phone over.
Coulson gave Clint a smile as he took the phone. “Good morning, Agent Hill. I assume you have a good reason to pull me away from the first vacation I’ve had since Tahiti? It's a magical place.”
“I’m sorry, Agent Coulson. We’re stretched pretty thin right now and could really use your help. Clint tells me the New York City Science Museum isn’t far from your present location, and there’s an 0-8-4 that was found after the Battle of New York that’s apparently acting up now. I thought you would want to be the one to bring it in for us.”
“You thought right. I’ll be over there in a few minutes.”
“Thank you. And… should I be concerned about Hawkeye?”
Coulson smiled back at Clint this time. “No, he’ll be fine once I get some medicine in him. It’s just a bad head cold, I think. Nothing to worry about as long as you don’t send him off on an operation.”
“Good to know. Thanks again, Agent.”
When Coulson hung up, he slipped his phone into the pocket of his bathrobe. “So, what do—”
“You die?” Clint interrupted. He stopped for a moment to sneeze. “Hehh… heh-eh… heh-Keschhh! Sniff! Every time loop, you die?”
“I do. I’ve been shot, burned, caught in explosions… run over.” He didn’t want to mention the elephant specifically. He didn’t even want to think about the damn elephant.
Clint stood up and put a hand on Coulson’s shoulder. “You’ll look after me, and I’ll look after you. Is it a deal?”
“Deal. I’m going to have to get dressed first—”
“Any deaths related to that?”
“None. Nothing until after the museum. Unless I don’t make it to the museum. In which case the entire city explodes.”
Clint stared at him and said, with all seriousness, “Go get dressed. Let’s go to the museum.”
Coulson dressed quickly and returned to the living room. Clint was bent almost in half, tissues pressed to his nose and mouth. “Heh-huhh-HuhShuhh! Heh-uhh… HuhShuhhhh!”
“Bless you. Ready to go? Load your pockets up with tissues. If other times through the loop are any indication, you’re going to need every single one of them.”
“Heh heh-KIHshhhh!” Clint grimaced at the idea of sneezing so much. “Maybe we should stop off for that cold medicine along the way?”
Now that was an interesting thought. A quick in and out for one item wouldn’t take so much time the 0-8-4 would come after him. And nothing about it seemed like it would cause a fire in his building, either. “I’ve never tried that before. We could give it a go. There are some things about the object I should probably tell you before we get to the museum, anyway.”
After his last encounter with the… what had Clint called the mobster? A tracksuit dracula? After his last encounter and death, Coulson instinctively felt that he should be carrying a weapon as well. But so far he’d never needed one in the morning just to go to the museum, so as long as they didn’t change anything too significant like get the researchers all riled up, they’d probably be fine without weapons again. Clint shoved another handful of tissues into his now obviously bulging pocket, and he was more reluctant to leave his weapons. “You wanted me to protect you, right? I need my sniff, sniff bow and arrows for that. Sniff!”
“Relax. As long as I make it to the museum, nothing will come after me this morning. Besides, I have a feeling they’re not going to get through museum security.”
Clint still picked up his weapons. “I’m an Avenger. I don’t take unnecessary chances. And I don’t let museum security tell me what to do.”
They started to leave, but Clint held up one finger this time, motioning for Coulson to wait. “Ehh… heh!” His breath was catching in quick, shallow gasps. “Huh! Uh!” His red, chapped nostrils were flaring. “Huhhh! Huh-uhh!” His eyes squinted shut, though he looked like he was struggling to keep them open, eyebrows arched. “Huh! Uhh! Heh! Ihhh!” His mouth dropped open as a tissue came up to cover the lower half of his face. “Ih-yehhhhh… HEH—” He paused, waiting, nose wrinkling, brow furrowing. The sneeze seemed to take forever to come. Just as Clint was starting to lower the tissue, it struck. “KEHTchuhhhh!”
“Bless you.” Coulson had seen the man sneeze hundreds of times now, but that didn’t lessen his sympathy. “You really sound awful,” he told Clint.
Clint nodded, blowing his nose repeatedly, as many times as the tissue could take, refolded in on itself after each blow. “Sniff! I really feel awful. Sniff! But I’m not dying from it. I think you have the bigger complaint right now. So let’s get going to the museum.”
Grateful for Clint’s support, though still feeling bad for the guy, they headed to the museum. But they did pop into a drug store along the way and buy a box of medicine. And he did take the time to explain the necessary facts to Clint as they walked. “The object displays energy within our visible spectrum, and started doing so this morning. The first time I encountered it, the energy went straight for me.”
“It sniff! Sniff! It killed you?”
“No. It didn’t even hurt. And when I touched the object, the visible energy went away. My team did some analysis of it on board the jet and the object is still putting out some measurable amount of energy, even if we can’t see it any more. You, however, affect it in the opposite way. If you get near it, the energy output increases until everything around it explodes.”
Clint stopped dead in his tracks. “Why are you taking me there then?”
Shaking his head, “It’s nothing to worry about until you get within a few feet of it or try to touch it. It’s fine once I put it in its protective S.H.I.E.L.D. case here.” He patted the case for dramatic effect. “I don’t know that the case is able to contain all its energy, but I’ve never had a problem with it when it’s in its case. You’re able to be close to it and everything. In fact, if one of us isn’t near it at all times, it levels the city.”
“Let’s try to avoid that this time. New York already got a bad beating sniff, sniff after the battle a few months back.”
Coulson was in agreement about this. “This object was recovered from the wreckage after the battle. S.H.I.E.L.D. should have taken charge of it then; it’s clearly an alien weapon of some sort, and it’s got to be responsible for the time loops somehow. But the researchers at the museum have at least run some preliminary tests on it in the meantime.”
“Why do you think it picked today of all days to act up?”
With a shrug, “Couldn’t tell you. Mars aligning with Jupiter? An unseasonably chilly day in late autumn? A timer that’s been counting down inside it this whole time finally went off?”
“Or the fact that we came together this morning.”
This made Coulson pause for a beat. “What?”
“We haven’t seen each other once since… since… oh… I… heh…”
“You’re going to sneeze,” Coulson said, slightly amused. Of course the moment Clint has a new theory for him, he gets interrupted in its delivery. That was just so in keeping with the way this day usually went.
Clint nodded emphatically, mouth dropping open again as he pinched his thumb and forefinger over his nose and curled his other fingers around his mouth. He tried to keep from breathing, but the gasps were too strong, too instinctive. Redness flushed into his cheeks, and he pressed his side up against the wall of the store they happened to be passing, trying—and failing—to blend in and stay out of the way of the New Yorkers passing on the street.
Having witnessed this sort of thing before from Clint, Coulson understood what he should do. He moved in front of Clint, put his arms around the man, and drew him close. Clint buried his face in Coulson’s shoulder. But he didn’t sneeze until Coulson’s hand reached up and stroked the back of his head. That was the touch that apparently let him know it was all right. “Heh-heh… heyihhhhhh… KIHXxxnghttt! Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh…”
The stifled sneeze sounded painful, but muffled into the folds of Coulson’s time loop suit. Coulson patted Clint on the back, then moved back to give him space. “Bless you, again.”
Clint sniffled, rubbing the back of his hand with the fingerless glove at his nose, which had to be making it a shade redder. “Thank you, Sir.” With a nod, Coulson put a hand on his back and led him onward toward the museum.
Hawkeye was no Captain America or Iron Man. He wasn’t a powerful Asgardian god or even a big green guy. But Clint was right; he was still an Avenger. And he was still recognized by security at the museum. After signing autographs—one for the guard’s daughter and one for the guard himself, he turned on the Clint Barton charm. “Hey, I know weapons aren’t allowed, but I’m escorting this S.H.I.E.L.D. agent on official business…” He was waved through at once, despite the beeping of the metal detector as he passed through it. Coulson, on the other hand, was stopped when he set off the alarm. He was the senior agent and had been Clint’s handler for years; he wasn’t used to this new recognition Agent Baron was getting. It would make future undercover missions more difficult. Though saving New York and the world in a public battle hadn’t hindered Agent Romanov at all it seemed. Maybe Bulgarians didn’t follow the American news as closely as their own.
Still, Coulson played by the rules. He put his badge, keys, phone, and wallet into the little tray as he followed behind. The timetable was off again, so the little girl didn’t run into him. But he did spot her on the other side of the hall, coming out of an exhibit already with her father. They couldn’t have been in there long, considering when Coulson usually ran into her—or she into him. Before heading to the lab, they swung by the restrooms. Clint took a few sips of water from the drinking fountain then swallowed two cold pills with another mouthful or two and a few jerks of his head to get them down fast. While they were there, Coulson noticed the little girl ducking into the women’s restroom; that explained things. The two S.H.I.E.L.D. agents walked around the periphery of the circular entrance hall until they got to the Authorized Personnel Only area. That security guard gave Clint a harder time about the weapons—which amounted to only about an extra twenty seconds of scrutiny. He glanced at their badges and allowed them in through the doors to the hallways swarming with researchers.
Coulson led the way to the lab, smiling as he felt Clint’s hand on his shoulder this time around again. They wove around small clumps of them in the hallway and slipped through gaps between others, reaching the laboratory before most of them. Dr. Daniels was there, though, his gaze fixed on the 0-8-4. Coulson approached while Clint hung out just inside the doorway, watching the scene from his perch where it was safe enough away.
“Agent Phil Coulson of S.H.I.E.L.D.,” Coulson introduced himself, yet again, wondering how many more times he was going to have to do this. “Dr. Daniels, I presume?” he asked, knowing perfectly well, of course.
Dr. Daniels tore his gaze from the object and its dangerous but beautiful threads of blue and purple energy. “Agent Coulson, it just started up like this this morning. What…” he noticed Coulson getting closer. “I don’t think it’s a good idea to get too close.” By the doorway, Clint tensed up.
“I will be fine,” Coulson said, hoping that statement applied more to the day and his new (albeit sniffly) protector than to the object he knew would be safe as houses in his hands. He picked the 0-8-4 up, noticing that the energy retracted, not meeting any bit of his hand as he wrapped his fingers around the shiny, silver cylinder. Coulson opened the case he’d brought along and set the object safely inside. “Dr. Daniels, I need you to send the extensive research you’ve done to S.H.I.E.L.D. so my team can work on it as soon as possible.”
“Of course,” he nodded automatically, eyes now on the small case in Coulson’s hand. “Right away.”
Boldly, Coulson headed for the door. Clint jumped a little, nervous to see the case so close. But, just as Coulson had said, it was safe for the two to be near each other now that Coulson had it. “Do you want to stop by the grocery store on the way back to my apartment?” Coulson asked, listening to Clint sniffle more. Clint had his nose pinched almost all the time now, snapping forward periodically as strong, half-stifled sneezes came at him.
“No. I want to take a closer look at the object as soon as it’s safe to do so.” He looked around, expecting danger to be lurking right around the corner. Then he pitched forward. “H’Ngttttt! Uhhh…”
With Clint at his side, looking out for danger, Coulson took out his cell phone again. He called May. “I need an unscheduled pickup in the park where you dropped me off. S.H.I.E.L.D. has me working on an 0-8-4 and I need the best and brightest on my side to figure it out.”
“Yes, Sir. Changing course now. Estimated time of arrival in twenty minutes.”
“Thank you.” He hung up, looked both ways at the intersection, checked to make sure the crossing light was set to WALK, and looked both ways again. When he was sure no cars, trucks, buses, or loose, rampaging elephants were heading his way, he crossed the street. He could feel Clint walking close to him, so close he could pull Coulson out of harm’s way at a second’s notice.
“Heh… ihh-NXxgtttt!”
Assuming he wasn’t in the middle of sneezing during that particular second. Still, he felt safer with Clint at his side than without him.
“Hungry?”
Coulson looked around. “I’m sure we can find a food cart if you’re hungry.”
“Sniff! But are you hungry? How many time loops have you been through now? You didn’t have breakfast this morning. Do you always skip breakfast?”
Coulson thought about it. He’d had a few bites to eat here and there during the afternoon while Clint had been napping or when his team had been working on the device. But he couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a meal. And he did not actually feel hungry yet, though he knew he probably should. “Let’s find a food cart and somewhere to sit and talk. You look exhausted, Agent.”
Clint nodded and sniffled, which pretty much meant Coulson was right on the mark about that. They ended up sitting on a park bench eating piping hot, foot-long hot dogs loaded with everything from ketchup and mustard to relish and onions. Clint made a dent in the tissues he had stashed in his pocket, using first his napkin then a dozen or so of them to blow his nose. The cool, crisp air outside was probably not helping and only making it run more. But he didn’t complain once.
“I think you’ll like my team,” Coulson told him between bites. He still wasn’t very hungry, but the hot dog had been a good idea for the warmth alone. As long as the hot dog didn’t turn out to be tipped with rat poison, this seemed like a good change in the course of the day’s events. “They’re no Avengers, but I hand-picked them myself. They’re a good bunch.” Coulson had a soft spot for all of them, but Skye especially, he thought Clint might get a kick out of. They were both used to doing things in a roundabout kind of way, rules be damned. But Clint had been through the S.H.I.E.L.D. Academy, and Skye still wasn’t completely trusted by the team, despite assisting them many times on operations. It would take time, he knew. And time was something he both had and didn’t have right now. But when you were stuck inside a time loop, sometimes it felt like no matter how far you got, it didn’t matter because you were just going to start over again from scratch. Unless this was the time they figured it out and stopped the loops from happening. Coulson savored the last bite of the hot dog, though it was mostly bun by that point.
“Can I get a look at the object again?” Clint asked, dabbing at his nose with a tissue.
“Sure.” Coulson didn’t see the harm in it. “Just try not to sneeze on it. I don’t know what will happen if you do, and today’s going pretty well. I don’t want to jeopardize that.”
“Got it,” Clint promised, holding his hand up as if he were taking an oath or pledge.
Coulson set the case between them on the park bench and opened it up. Clint knew better than to reach for it. And he kept a tissue at his nose and mouth so he didn’t even breathe on it directly. But the object didn’t react to having Clint so close. No visible energy sprang from it. It sat contentedly in its case, nestled in the gray foam padding that had formed all around it to keep it safe and secure.
But it would have been safer and more secure if the case hadn’t been opened at all. Because it was still sitting there when Coulson and then Clint, only a second later, felt a sharp prick on their necks.
They never made it to the rendezvous with the bus that Coulson had tried to arrange.
Instead, Coulson found himself waking up and unable to move. He sat on a chair in the center of a room, feet tied to each front chair leg. His hands were tied behind him at the wrists to each back chair leg. Thick robes wrapped around his torso three times, tying him tight to the back of the chair. Whoever had done this was good with knots; the more he strained, the less slack he got, so he stopped before it was too tight around his chest to breathe. The room was dark, apart from a single light bulb dangling overhead, and so large that Coulson couldn’t see the walls on any sides of him. It seemed an endless abyss surrounding him, so even if he miraculously broke free somehow, he wouldn’t know in which direction to go in first. He could end up running right to a dead end or, worse, toward the barrel of another gun. Worse yet, the case and the 0-8-4 were nowhere to be seen. “Hello?” Coulson called out, his voice echoing endlessly in the room.
“Hey,” came a rough voice from just behind Coulson. “Glad you woge ub at last. Sniff! I’ve beed callig for you for albost ad hour.”
“Clint?” Clint sounded horrible—twice as tired and four times as congested. That couldn’t be good. How long had they been here like this?
“Yep-heh-yep. Ihhhhhh-CHSHHHHH!” The sneeze, too, echoed throughout the large room.
“Bless you,” Coulson said softly.
Clint snuffled, laughed, and coughed all in the span of about a second. “Dod’t bother, Sir. I’b too far gode add I c-cah… hah… huh-KITSCHHHH! Snuffffffff! I cad’t s-stob sdeh… ehhh… hehhhh-EHPTISHHHHH!”
Coulson turned his head toward where Clint seemed to be. If he strained his neck, turning his head all the way to the right, he could just about make out a blurry shape with blond hair sitting about a foot away, directly behind him. Clint was too close to see properly but too far away to to be able to reach out and touch even if he strained at the rope restraints rubbing his wrists raw. “Are you tied to a chair, too?”
Once again, Clint answered in the affirmative. “Yep.” But this time he managed to do it without sneezing… at least for a good five seconds. “Ihhhh… ihh-HIHKSchhhhhhh! HEHTSchhhhhhhh! Uhhhhh… Sniff! Sniff! Bet you’re wishig you had edlisted subode else to brotect you today, ared’t you, Sir? I did a bretty boor job of it.”
“There’s still time. You may end up saving me after all.”
“Heh… dot too likely, eved without this horrible cold id by dose. Heh… huh-IHShhhhhh! Sniff! Sniff, sniff! I should have idsisted od that grocery store trib. I could use bore sniff! Sniff! bore tissues, Sir.”
“I’ll keep that in mind for next time I go through this time loop.” Coulson replied, trying to sound optimistic.
“Udless this snrfffff! Udless this is your last tibe through add you dod’t get adother do-over.”
“That’s not the way today works for me,” Coulson reassured him. “I’ll make this right tomorrow when—”
“A time loop?” The voice came from somewhere in the shadows. A cold, deep voice tinged, strangely, with mirth. “Well, that explains how confident you were when you merely waltzed into the museum and took charge of the Shandari bullet.”
Chills raced up and down Coulson’s spine, and not just because it was freezing cold here—wherever here was. He didn’t recognize the voice at all, so it wasn’t an adversary he had met before, which was both good and bad. He didn’t know who had kidnapped them, but at least it wasn’t Loki. “Who are you?”
“Ah…” From out of the darkness came a soft cackle. In Coulson’s experience, good guys didn’t cackle like that. Well, good guys also didn’t render S.H.I.E.L.D. agents unconscious, kidnap them to undisclosed locations, and tie them to chairs. So he had a pretty good idea of what he was dealing with already. The reply didn’t change his mind any. “So you don’t know who I am yet. Excellent. That will make this much more fun… for me, that is. I dare say you two won’t be enjoying yourselves much.”
“What—” Coulson began.
“Huhh-IHShhhh! HIHShuhhhhh! Huh… huh-KETCHHHHH! Uhh… sniff! Heh-EPTSHHhhhhhh! Sniff! Oh god… Sniff! Sniff!”
“Hang in there, Clint.” His hand bent back, fingers stretching, wrists pressing hard against the tight ropes, but he came nowhere close to touching Clint. He would have to settle for being that reassuring, commanding voice Clint listened to when they were on operations. “I’ve seen you in worse spots than this.”
More cackling. The sound put Coulson on edge far worse than Wolverine’s adamantium claws against a chalkboard. If he could just see the villain, that would be better than this cold, disembodied voice from the darkness. “I see,” said the voice. “So he’s the key to all of this. The best way to hurt you is through him… and that shouldn’t be hard, considering the state he’s in already.” From out of nowhere to the side of them came a small dart attached to a wire. Electrical current flew through it, straight into Clint’s left side.
The agent screamed and shook as he was tased, the sound of the chair he was on rocking as he tried to get free on top of the shout made Coulson strain again at his own bonds. “Cut it out, you bastard!”
“Now, now. Name-calling does not suit you. Why waste your time on that? If you simply tell me what I want to know, this can all end so much more quickly.”
Coulson had no intention of cooperating—not for his sake or for Clint’s. But he did want to know what this man was up to. The man presumably had the 0-8-4 now and knew something about it. Clint needed to know what the man wanted to get out of them, preferably before the man tortured Clint Barton to death. So he asked, point blank, “What do you want to know?”
The tasing stopped. Clint gasped for breath, then let out a soft moan.
“Clint!”
“Mb’okay… Sir…”
He sounded miles from okay.
“What I want to know,” the man began, “Is how you knew to activate the device today of all days.”
Coulson didn’t even have to lie. Out came the truth. “I didn’t do anything. It started up on its own this morning.”
“Liar!” Again came the taser. Again came Clint’s scream. And again Coulson tried to get free and failed.
Clint was tough. Clint was a trained S.H.I.E.L.D. agent. Clint was an Avenger. But Clint was also just a man. One who was already compromised. What if he ended up killing Clint but didn’t touch Coulson? What if he let Coulson go and the day didn’t reset? Coulson had to keep the man’s attention on him and off Clint. “So what if I am lying? You’re threatening me. You’re not giving me any incentive to cooperate. We’re trained agents here, ready to die to protect our world. I’m not about to hand any information over to you. I don’t even know who you are.”
Clint stopped screaming and, instead, coughed; it sounded moist and terribly painful, like he could start gagging at any moment.
“Agent Barton?” The sound did not let up. Chills ran, again throughout Coulson’s body. “Agent Barton? Agent Bar—Clint? Clint?” The sound let up.
Clint gave a final cough, then got his breathing under control.
Relief filled Coulson. “That’s it. Stay with me, Clint. I’m right here. Right behind you. Focus on my voice.”
“Try… heh-heh-GETSHooooo! Trying to, Sir. Sniff! I dod’t dow what tibe it is, but I thig that cold bedicide wore off.”
Despite the situation they were in, Coulson had to smile at this. “I’ll get you something stronger next time.”
“You will tell me what I want to know!” the voice boomed from the darkness, and Coulson was pleased to hear more emotion this time, even if that emotion was anger. Good. He was starting to lose his control.
“Maybe some tea as well. Do you like tea? Some strong herbal tea with honey might help clear you up.”
“Sniff! Souds great, Sir.”
“And tissues. I’ll get you all the tissues. Do you know there was one day I went shopping for tissues for you and couldn’t decide what kind to get so I got one of everything in the store—minus the floral scented ones. Those seemed like an abomination I wouldn’t let into my apartment. But I made sure you were drowning in tissues.”
Clint’s breath caught again. “Huhh… huhh… huh-uhhh…” It sounded like he was fighting it.
“It’s okay, you can let it out” Coulson soothed.
“Doe… Sir… uhhh… huhhhhhh… hah… by dose…”
Coulson closed his eyes for a moment, wishing he could will this loop finished sooner so he could at least do something to help Clint. All he could do now was talk. “We’re going to get through this, Clint. Just pretend you’re sneezing into a nice, big wad of tissues. Or one of my handkerchiefs. You liked those.”
“I huhh I did? Hehhh… uhhhh…”
“Yes. Softer on your nose.”
“Uhhh.. Huhh-HIHSchhuhh! HuhhSHIHHHhhhhhh! EhhhhKSHHHHH! Uh… huh HIHSChhhhhhhh!”
“That’s it,” Coulson said, through the sound of Clint sniffling madly.
“That’s enough!” the villain shouted through the darkness. “This banter is ridiculous and—”
Coulson cocked his head. “Ridiculous? Does this seem ridiculous to you, Clint?”
“Doe, Sir. Berfectly datural to be tied up to a chair id the biddle of a dark roob, talkig about by sdeezy head cold with you.”
“How did you activate the device?!” demanded the voice. “It just sits here, doing nothing. All of this potential and it’s dormant!”
Ah. So he knows what the device is capable of doing, but he can’t operate it. It must be blocking the man somehow since it was already tied to Coulson… and maybe to Clint as well, to some extent, though he couldn’t figure out how that would be. It definitely reacted to Clint’s presence, but Clint hadn’t been anywhere near it on that first day when it had seemed active.
A familiar buzzing, quite unlike that of the taser, filled the air. While it could have been the villain’s cell phone, Coulson was certain the sound was coming from his pocket. Dumb move, kidnapping two S.H.I.E.L.D. agents and leaving one’s phone not only on him but turned on. He hadn’t been at the pickup point where he was supposed to have been. That sound was probably Skye calling to tell him she had figured out his location and the team was about to burst in, guns blazing. There was nowhere to take cover. There was no way to warn Clint. But Coulson had a feeling Clint had already figured it out.
With a huge grunt and a scraping of wood, Clint managed to rock his chair, tipping over to his right and falling to the hard concrete floor. His right arm and right hip took the brunt of the fall, but he was over far enough for Coulson to see him, and Coulson could tell he was still alive—in pain, definitely, but still alive. Coulson tried to do likewise, but something grabbed him. He heard footsteps racing close. He heard shouts and gunfire.
Then he felt a hand on his throat. It squeezed, pressing at just the right spots to take his breath clean away. Coulson struggled, knowing that would make things worse but having no other way to fight the man off. He couldn’t manage to break free, but he did manage to turn his head just enough to catch a glimpse of the man who had taken them captive and tortured them. The voice hadn’t been familiar, but the face was.
The face was. He just couldn’t… quite… remember where… he’d seen it… before….
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.
Chapter 10
Coulson sat up in bed at the sound of the buzzer. He didn’t like to believe in some greater force here, pulling the strings and watching him dance. But after dying each day for more than a week’s worth of days, he was beginning to suspect someone was doing this to him on purpose. He could believe the gunshots and the object-related deaths easily; he had been trying to figure out what the object did then and it had seemed trial and error might be the most efficient way of doing so. The fire in his apartment building had seemed so random, and he still couldn’t pinpoint exactly what he had done to cause it to happen that day and no other. But the elephant had been… strange—and this was the opinion of a man who worked for a secret organization, who lived most of the time in the air, who had spent the better part of a year sitting by the bedside of a frozen superhero from World War II, and who had been run through by an Asgardian god but lived to tell the tale. Bizarre had a whole new weight when the word was used by Agent Phil Coulson, and that elephant coming out of nowhere and trampling him in the middle of the city street had been truly bizarre.
With resolve to look both ways before crossing the street from now on during these time loops, Coulson climbed out of a perfectly nice, warm bed and made his way to the bedroom door. He grabbed his phone off the nightstand. He pulled the bathrobe off the hook and slid his arms through its sleeves. Its tie dragged on the carpeted floor as he stepped into his slippers, wiggling his toes as his feet went all the way in. He grabbed the tissue box from the linen closet and pulled out tissues as he went.
When he got to the buzzer, he answered, “Come on up,” without even waiting for Clint to introduce himself. Then he stood at his door, tissues in hand, and waited for the elevator. He’d done this before and he could do it again. But he didn’t think he could do it again forever. If there were an outside force wanting him to get it right and punishing him with fires and random elephants and who knew what other crazy, painful deaths, he thought he had better start trying to figure it out sooner rather than later. Because this repetition was already starting to get to him. How many ways were there to get up and answer the door? After a few dozen or a few hundred or even a few thousand, when would he start wishing that the deaths come sooner, easier? When would he start wishing for death to be permanent? When would he start begging for death to finally claim him?
Coulson didn’t want to get to that point. He wanted to figure this out. And that meant enlisting the help of Agent Clint Barton (despite his head cold). It meant enlisting the help of his S.H.I.E.L.D. team. And it meant enlisting the help of absolutely anyone who could help him out. Coulson was not going to be picky at this point.
He heard the elevator ding out in the hallway, doors sliding open and footsteps approaching. He heard the knock on the door, took a deep breath, raised the tissues, and opened the door. If he was going to have to do this every day, he certainly would. But he did not want to get sneezed on every single morning. That much he seemed to be able to control without causing some major catastrophe that made the building explode or leveled the city. This was just Clint Barton sneezing into a handful of tissues instead of all over his handler… and friend… and… maybe something more if Coulson was ever allowed to make it to the next day.
“Hahh-Ktshhhhh!” Clint sneezed, face planting right into the tissues; Coulson held them at exactly the right height. Clint started to draw back, but Coulson reached out and put a hand on Clint’s head, keeping him there as the second sneeze suddenly struck. “Huh huh-KIHtchhh!” This time, Coulson dropped his hand and let Clint pull back, sniffling. But as he balled up the tissues in his hand, he got a fresh tissue out of the box with his other hand. Clint took it, looking too grateful to be surprised, and blew his nose.
“Bless you,” Coulson said. “Come in. You look like you could use a warm blanket and some cold medicine.”
Hope danced in Clint’s eyes, over the folds of the tissue. “You have some?”
“No, but I can go out and buy you some,” Coulson told him, ushering him in and closing—and locking, of course—the door behind them both. It was little protection against fires or otherworldly energy weapons, but it might keep an elephant out of his penthouse apartment.
Coulson would have escorted the man to the bed again, but Clint already headed straight for the couch. He flopped down on it, hugging a couch cushion to his chest, coughing and sniffling. The one tissue Coulson had gave him was pretty well used up by then. “I started feeling sick a few days back. Thought I could kick it on my own. But it just got worse. I think I need someone looking after me. And I’d ask Tasha, but I think she’s off on an undercover op in Bulgaria.”
“So I’ve heard.”
“And I… I c-c-cah… huhhhh… I c-can’t go to the tower. Huh… huhh-EHSChhooo!” Coulson sat down on the edge of the couch and held the box of tissues out. Clint helped himself to two. After wiping his nose, he blew it, then wiped some more.
“So you needed somebody to look after you and, naturally, you thought of me? You thought I’d be free to drop everything and take care of you?”
He concentrated on rubbing his nose, buying himself some time. He didn’t—couldn’t—look at Coulson when he answered. “I had hoped you might.” He wavered, looking unsure. “Will you?”
“Yes,” Coulson answered right away. “But you need to do something for me.”
“Sure. What’s that?”
He loved how quick to answer both of them had been. “I need you to keep me alive today for as long as possible.”
Clint sat right up. The couch cushion fell to the floor. “What did you say?”
“Keep me alive. I’m stuck in a time loop. Every day I die and ever morning I wake up again here. Sometimes I tell you what’s going on. Sometimes I don’t. This time around, obviously, I’m telling you.”
“And do I usually… believe you?”
Coulson smiled. “Every time, without fail. Though it helps prove my point when Agent Hill calls me to ask me to go to the nearby museum to retrieve an 0-8-4, even though I am technically on vacation.”
“Agent—” He cut off at the buzzing sound of Coulson’s phone.
Coulson pulled it out as usual. He was about to answer it, then thought it would be a better idea to have Clint do it. He offered over the phone. “Answer it for me, would you?”
Clint looked down, obviously seeing Hill’s name on the caller ID. Warily, he answered. “This is Agent Phil Coulson’s phone, Agent Barton speaking. Go ahead.” Clint listened, and Coulson watched him listen, studying Clint’s face and tone of voice for a reaction to what this might mean to Clint. “I see.” Clint nodded to himself, because she couldn’t see him through the phone. “I’m sure he’s available, yes. He’s just looking after me this morning. I’m not feeling so hot. Sniff!” A pause. “I will tell him. But I guess he could.” A longer pause, during which Clint rubbed his gloved hand under his runny nose. “Yes. That’s just a few blocks away, I understand.” Another pause while he looked at Coulson and smiled. “You’re in luck. He just walked into the room. Here you are, Agent Hill.” He handed the phone over.
Coulson gave Clint a smile as he took the phone. “Good morning, Agent Hill. I assume you have a good reason to pull me away from the first vacation I’ve had since Tahiti? It's a magical place.”
“I’m sorry, Agent Coulson. We’re stretched pretty thin right now and could really use your help. Clint tells me the New York City Science Museum isn’t far from your present location, and there’s an 0-8-4 that was found after the Battle of New York that’s apparently acting up now. I thought you would want to be the one to bring it in for us.”
“You thought right. I’ll be over there in a few minutes.”
“Thank you. And… should I be concerned about Hawkeye?”
Coulson smiled back at Clint this time. “No, he’ll be fine once I get some medicine in him. It’s just a bad head cold, I think. Nothing to worry about as long as you don’t send him off on an operation.”
“Good to know. Thanks again, Agent.”
When Coulson hung up, he slipped his phone into the pocket of his bathrobe. “So, what do—”
“You die?” Clint interrupted. He stopped for a moment to sneeze. “Hehh… heh-eh… heh-Keschhh! Sniff! Every time loop, you die?”
“I do. I’ve been shot, burned, caught in explosions… run over.” He didn’t want to mention the elephant specifically. He didn’t even want to think about the damn elephant.
Clint stood up and put a hand on Coulson’s shoulder. “You’ll look after me, and I’ll look after you. Is it a deal?”
“Deal. I’m going to have to get dressed first—”
“Any deaths related to that?”
“None. Nothing until after the museum. Unless I don’t make it to the museum. In which case the entire city explodes.”
Clint stared at him and said, with all seriousness, “Go get dressed. Let’s go to the museum.”
Coulson dressed quickly and returned to the living room. Clint was bent almost in half, tissues pressed to his nose and mouth. “Heh-huhh-HuhShuhh! Heh-uhh… HuhShuhhhh!”
“Bless you. Ready to go? Load your pockets up with tissues. If other times through the loop are any indication, you’re going to need every single one of them.”
“Heh heh-KIHshhhh!” Clint grimaced at the idea of sneezing so much. “Maybe we should stop off for that cold medicine along the way?”
Now that was an interesting thought. A quick in and out for one item wouldn’t take so much time the 0-8-4 would come after him. And nothing about it seemed like it would cause a fire in his building, either. “I’ve never tried that before. We could give it a go. There are some things about the object I should probably tell you before we get to the museum, anyway.”
After his last encounter with the… what had Clint called the mobster? A tracksuit dracula? After his last encounter and death, Coulson instinctively felt that he should be carrying a weapon as well. But so far he’d never needed one in the morning just to go to the museum, so as long as they didn’t change anything too significant like get the researchers all riled up, they’d probably be fine without weapons again. Clint shoved another handful of tissues into his now obviously bulging pocket, and he was more reluctant to leave his weapons. “You wanted me to protect you, right? I need my sniff, sniff bow and arrows for that. Sniff!”
“Relax. As long as I make it to the museum, nothing will come after me this morning. Besides, I have a feeling they’re not going to get through museum security.”
Clint still picked up his weapons. “I’m an Avenger. I don’t take unnecessary chances. And I don’t let museum security tell me what to do.”
They started to leave, but Clint held up one finger this time, motioning for Coulson to wait. “Ehh… heh!” His breath was catching in quick, shallow gasps. “Huh! Uh!” His red, chapped nostrils were flaring. “Huhhh! Huh-uhh!” His eyes squinted shut, though he looked like he was struggling to keep them open, eyebrows arched. “Huh! Uhh! Heh! Ihhh!” His mouth dropped open as a tissue came up to cover the lower half of his face. “Ih-yehhhhh… HEH—” He paused, waiting, nose wrinkling, brow furrowing. The sneeze seemed to take forever to come. Just as Clint was starting to lower the tissue, it struck. “KEHTchuhhhh!”
“Bless you.” Coulson had seen the man sneeze hundreds of times now, but that didn’t lessen his sympathy. “You really sound awful,” he told Clint.
Clint nodded, blowing his nose repeatedly, as many times as the tissue could take, refolded in on itself after each blow. “Sniff! I really feel awful. Sniff! But I’m not dying from it. I think you have the bigger complaint right now. So let’s get going to the museum.”
Grateful for Clint’s support, though still feeling bad for the guy, they headed to the museum. But they did pop into a drug store along the way and buy a box of medicine. And he did take the time to explain the necessary facts to Clint as they walked. “The object displays energy within our visible spectrum, and started doing so this morning. The first time I encountered it, the energy went straight for me.”
“It sniff! Sniff! It killed you?”
“No. It didn’t even hurt. And when I touched the object, the visible energy went away. My team did some analysis of it on board the jet and the object is still putting out some measurable amount of energy, even if we can’t see it any more. You, however, affect it in the opposite way. If you get near it, the energy output increases until everything around it explodes.”
Clint stopped dead in his tracks. “Why are you taking me there then?”
Shaking his head, “It’s nothing to worry about until you get within a few feet of it or try to touch it. It’s fine once I put it in its protective S.H.I.E.L.D. case here.” He patted the case for dramatic effect. “I don’t know that the case is able to contain all its energy, but I’ve never had a problem with it when it’s in its case. You’re able to be close to it and everything. In fact, if one of us isn’t near it at all times, it levels the city.”
“Let’s try to avoid that this time. New York already got a bad beating sniff, sniff after the battle a few months back.”
Coulson was in agreement about this. “This object was recovered from the wreckage after the battle. S.H.I.E.L.D. should have taken charge of it then; it’s clearly an alien weapon of some sort, and it’s got to be responsible for the time loops somehow. But the researchers at the museum have at least run some preliminary tests on it in the meantime.”
“Why do you think it picked today of all days to act up?”
With a shrug, “Couldn’t tell you. Mars aligning with Jupiter? An unseasonably chilly day in late autumn? A timer that’s been counting down inside it this whole time finally went off?”
“Or the fact that we came together this morning.”
This made Coulson pause for a beat. “What?”
“We haven’t seen each other once since… since… oh… I… heh…”
“You’re going to sneeze,” Coulson said, slightly amused. Of course the moment Clint has a new theory for him, he gets interrupted in its delivery. That was just so in keeping with the way this day usually went.
Clint nodded emphatically, mouth dropping open again as he pinched his thumb and forefinger over his nose and curled his other fingers around his mouth. He tried to keep from breathing, but the gasps were too strong, too instinctive. Redness flushed into his cheeks, and he pressed his side up against the wall of the store they happened to be passing, trying—and failing—to blend in and stay out of the way of the New Yorkers passing on the street.
Having witnessed this sort of thing before from Clint, Coulson understood what he should do. He moved in front of Clint, put his arms around the man, and drew him close. Clint buried his face in Coulson’s shoulder. But he didn’t sneeze until Coulson’s hand reached up and stroked the back of his head. That was the touch that apparently let him know it was all right. “Heh-heh… heyihhhhhh… KIHXxxnghttt! Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh…”
The stifled sneeze sounded painful, but muffled into the folds of Coulson’s time loop suit. Coulson patted Clint on the back, then moved back to give him space. “Bless you, again.”
Clint sniffled, rubbing the back of his hand with the fingerless glove at his nose, which had to be making it a shade redder. “Thank you, Sir.” With a nod, Coulson put a hand on his back and led him onward toward the museum.
Hawkeye was no Captain America or Iron Man. He wasn’t a powerful Asgardian god or even a big green guy. But Clint was right; he was still an Avenger. And he was still recognized by security at the museum. After signing autographs—one for the guard’s daughter and one for the guard himself, he turned on the Clint Barton charm. “Hey, I know weapons aren’t allowed, but I’m escorting this S.H.I.E.L.D. agent on official business…” He was waved through at once, despite the beeping of the metal detector as he passed through it. Coulson, on the other hand, was stopped when he set off the alarm. He was the senior agent and had been Clint’s handler for years; he wasn’t used to this new recognition Agent Baron was getting. It would make future undercover missions more difficult. Though saving New York and the world in a public battle hadn’t hindered Agent Romanov at all it seemed. Maybe Bulgarians didn’t follow the American news as closely as their own.
Still, Coulson played by the rules. He put his badge, keys, phone, and wallet into the little tray as he followed behind. The timetable was off again, so the little girl didn’t run into him. But he did spot her on the other side of the hall, coming out of an exhibit already with her father. They couldn’t have been in there long, considering when Coulson usually ran into her—or she into him. Before heading to the lab, they swung by the restrooms. Clint took a few sips of water from the drinking fountain then swallowed two cold pills with another mouthful or two and a few jerks of his head to get them down fast. While they were there, Coulson noticed the little girl ducking into the women’s restroom; that explained things. The two S.H.I.E.L.D. agents walked around the periphery of the circular entrance hall until they got to the Authorized Personnel Only area. That security guard gave Clint a harder time about the weapons—which amounted to only about an extra twenty seconds of scrutiny. He glanced at their badges and allowed them in through the doors to the hallways swarming with researchers.
Coulson led the way to the lab, smiling as he felt Clint’s hand on his shoulder this time around again. They wove around small clumps of them in the hallway and slipped through gaps between others, reaching the laboratory before most of them. Dr. Daniels was there, though, his gaze fixed on the 0-8-4. Coulson approached while Clint hung out just inside the doorway, watching the scene from his perch where it was safe enough away.
“Agent Phil Coulson of S.H.I.E.L.D.,” Coulson introduced himself, yet again, wondering how many more times he was going to have to do this. “Dr. Daniels, I presume?” he asked, knowing perfectly well, of course.
Dr. Daniels tore his gaze from the object and its dangerous but beautiful threads of blue and purple energy. “Agent Coulson, it just started up like this this morning. What…” he noticed Coulson getting closer. “I don’t think it’s a good idea to get too close.” By the doorway, Clint tensed up.
“I will be fine,” Coulson said, hoping that statement applied more to the day and his new (albeit sniffly) protector than to the object he knew would be safe as houses in his hands. He picked the 0-8-4 up, noticing that the energy retracted, not meeting any bit of his hand as he wrapped his fingers around the shiny, silver cylinder. Coulson opened the case he’d brought along and set the object safely inside. “Dr. Daniels, I need you to send the extensive research you’ve done to S.H.I.E.L.D. so my team can work on it as soon as possible.”
“Of course,” he nodded automatically, eyes now on the small case in Coulson’s hand. “Right away.”
Boldly, Coulson headed for the door. Clint jumped a little, nervous to see the case so close. But, just as Coulson had said, it was safe for the two to be near each other now that Coulson had it. “Do you want to stop by the grocery store on the way back to my apartment?” Coulson asked, listening to Clint sniffle more. Clint had his nose pinched almost all the time now, snapping forward periodically as strong, half-stifled sneezes came at him.
“No. I want to take a closer look at the object as soon as it’s safe to do so.” He looked around, expecting danger to be lurking right around the corner. Then he pitched forward. “H’Ngttttt! Uhhh…”
With Clint at his side, looking out for danger, Coulson took out his cell phone again. He called May. “I need an unscheduled pickup in the park where you dropped me off. S.H.I.E.L.D. has me working on an 0-8-4 and I need the best and brightest on my side to figure it out.”
“Yes, Sir. Changing course now. Estimated time of arrival in twenty minutes.”
“Thank you.” He hung up, looked both ways at the intersection, checked to make sure the crossing light was set to WALK, and looked both ways again. When he was sure no cars, trucks, buses, or loose, rampaging elephants were heading his way, he crossed the street. He could feel Clint walking close to him, so close he could pull Coulson out of harm’s way at a second’s notice.
“Heh… ihh-NXxgtttt!”
Assuming he wasn’t in the middle of sneezing during that particular second. Still, he felt safer with Clint at his side than without him.
“Hungry?”
Coulson looked around. “I’m sure we can find a food cart if you’re hungry.”
“Sniff! But are you hungry? How many time loops have you been through now? You didn’t have breakfast this morning. Do you always skip breakfast?”
Coulson thought about it. He’d had a few bites to eat here and there during the afternoon while Clint had been napping or when his team had been working on the device. But he couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a meal. And he did not actually feel hungry yet, though he knew he probably should. “Let’s find a food cart and somewhere to sit and talk. You look exhausted, Agent.”
Clint nodded and sniffled, which pretty much meant Coulson was right on the mark about that. They ended up sitting on a park bench eating piping hot, foot-long hot dogs loaded with everything from ketchup and mustard to relish and onions. Clint made a dent in the tissues he had stashed in his pocket, using first his napkin then a dozen or so of them to blow his nose. The cool, crisp air outside was probably not helping and only making it run more. But he didn’t complain once.
“I think you’ll like my team,” Coulson told him between bites. He still wasn’t very hungry, but the hot dog had been a good idea for the warmth alone. As long as the hot dog didn’t turn out to be tipped with rat poison, this seemed like a good change in the course of the day’s events. “They’re no Avengers, but I hand-picked them myself. They’re a good bunch.” Coulson had a soft spot for all of them, but Skye especially, he thought Clint might get a kick out of. They were both used to doing things in a roundabout kind of way, rules be damned. But Clint had been through the S.H.I.E.L.D. Academy, and Skye still wasn’t completely trusted by the team, despite assisting them many times on operations. It would take time, he knew. And time was something he both had and didn’t have right now. But when you were stuck inside a time loop, sometimes it felt like no matter how far you got, it didn’t matter because you were just going to start over again from scratch. Unless this was the time they figured it out and stopped the loops from happening. Coulson savored the last bite of the hot dog, though it was mostly bun by that point.
“Can I get a look at the object again?” Clint asked, dabbing at his nose with a tissue.
“Sure.” Coulson didn’t see the harm in it. “Just try not to sneeze on it. I don’t know what will happen if you do, and today’s going pretty well. I don’t want to jeopardize that.”
“Got it,” Clint promised, holding his hand up as if he were taking an oath or pledge.
Coulson set the case between them on the park bench and opened it up. Clint knew better than to reach for it. And he kept a tissue at his nose and mouth so he didn’t even breathe on it directly. But the object didn’t react to having Clint so close. No visible energy sprang from it. It sat contentedly in its case, nestled in the gray foam padding that had formed all around it to keep it safe and secure.
But it would have been safer and more secure if the case hadn’t been opened at all. Because it was still sitting there when Coulson and then Clint, only a second later, felt a sharp prick on their necks.
They never made it to the rendezvous with the bus that Coulson had tried to arrange.
Instead, Coulson found himself waking up and unable to move. He sat on a chair in the center of a room, feet tied to each front chair leg. His hands were tied behind him at the wrists to each back chair leg. Thick robes wrapped around his torso three times, tying him tight to the back of the chair. Whoever had done this was good with knots; the more he strained, the less slack he got, so he stopped before it was too tight around his chest to breathe. The room was dark, apart from a single light bulb dangling overhead, and so large that Coulson couldn’t see the walls on any sides of him. It seemed an endless abyss surrounding him, so even if he miraculously broke free somehow, he wouldn’t know in which direction to go in first. He could end up running right to a dead end or, worse, toward the barrel of another gun. Worse yet, the case and the 0-8-4 were nowhere to be seen. “Hello?” Coulson called out, his voice echoing endlessly in the room.
“Hey,” came a rough voice from just behind Coulson. “Glad you woge ub at last. Sniff! I’ve beed callig for you for albost ad hour.”
“Clint?” Clint sounded horrible—twice as tired and four times as congested. That couldn’t be good. How long had they been here like this?
“Yep-heh-yep. Ihhhhhh-CHSHHHHH!” The sneeze, too, echoed throughout the large room.
“Bless you,” Coulson said softly.
Clint snuffled, laughed, and coughed all in the span of about a second. “Dod’t bother, Sir. I’b too far gode add I c-cah… hah… huh-KITSCHHHH! Snuffffffff! I cad’t s-stob sdeh… ehhh… hehhhh-EHPTISHHHHH!”
Coulson turned his head toward where Clint seemed to be. If he strained his neck, turning his head all the way to the right, he could just about make out a blurry shape with blond hair sitting about a foot away, directly behind him. Clint was too close to see properly but too far away to to be able to reach out and touch even if he strained at the rope restraints rubbing his wrists raw. “Are you tied to a chair, too?”
Once again, Clint answered in the affirmative. “Yep.” But this time he managed to do it without sneezing… at least for a good five seconds. “Ihhhh… ihh-HIHKSchhhhhhh! HEHTSchhhhhhhh! Uhhhhh… Sniff! Sniff! Bet you’re wishig you had edlisted subode else to brotect you today, ared’t you, Sir? I did a bretty boor job of it.”
“There’s still time. You may end up saving me after all.”
“Heh… dot too likely, eved without this horrible cold id by dose. Heh… huh-IHShhhhhh! Sniff! Sniff, sniff! I should have idsisted od that grocery store trib. I could use bore sniff! Sniff! bore tissues, Sir.”
“I’ll keep that in mind for next time I go through this time loop.” Coulson replied, trying to sound optimistic.
“Udless this snrfffff! Udless this is your last tibe through add you dod’t get adother do-over.”
“That’s not the way today works for me,” Coulson reassured him. “I’ll make this right tomorrow when—”
“A time loop?” The voice came from somewhere in the shadows. A cold, deep voice tinged, strangely, with mirth. “Well, that explains how confident you were when you merely waltzed into the museum and took charge of the Shandari bullet.”
Chills raced up and down Coulson’s spine, and not just because it was freezing cold here—wherever here was. He didn’t recognize the voice at all, so it wasn’t an adversary he had met before, which was both good and bad. He didn’t know who had kidnapped them, but at least it wasn’t Loki. “Who are you?”
“Ah…” From out of the darkness came a soft cackle. In Coulson’s experience, good guys didn’t cackle like that. Well, good guys also didn’t render S.H.I.E.L.D. agents unconscious, kidnap them to undisclosed locations, and tie them to chairs. So he had a pretty good idea of what he was dealing with already. The reply didn’t change his mind any. “So you don’t know who I am yet. Excellent. That will make this much more fun… for me, that is. I dare say you two won’t be enjoying yourselves much.”
“What—” Coulson began.
“Huhh-IHShhhh! HIHShuhhhhh! Huh… huh-KETCHHHHH! Uhh… sniff! Heh-EPTSHHhhhhhh! Sniff! Oh god… Sniff! Sniff!”
“Hang in there, Clint.” His hand bent back, fingers stretching, wrists pressing hard against the tight ropes, but he came nowhere close to touching Clint. He would have to settle for being that reassuring, commanding voice Clint listened to when they were on operations. “I’ve seen you in worse spots than this.”
More cackling. The sound put Coulson on edge far worse than Wolverine’s adamantium claws against a chalkboard. If he could just see the villain, that would be better than this cold, disembodied voice from the darkness. “I see,” said the voice. “So he’s the key to all of this. The best way to hurt you is through him… and that shouldn’t be hard, considering the state he’s in already.” From out of nowhere to the side of them came a small dart attached to a wire. Electrical current flew through it, straight into Clint’s left side.
The agent screamed and shook as he was tased, the sound of the chair he was on rocking as he tried to get free on top of the shout made Coulson strain again at his own bonds. “Cut it out, you bastard!”
“Now, now. Name-calling does not suit you. Why waste your time on that? If you simply tell me what I want to know, this can all end so much more quickly.”
Coulson had no intention of cooperating—not for his sake or for Clint’s. But he did want to know what this man was up to. The man presumably had the 0-8-4 now and knew something about it. Clint needed to know what the man wanted to get out of them, preferably before the man tortured Clint Barton to death. So he asked, point blank, “What do you want to know?”
The tasing stopped. Clint gasped for breath, then let out a soft moan.
“Clint!”
“Mb’okay… Sir…”
He sounded miles from okay.
“What I want to know,” the man began, “Is how you knew to activate the device today of all days.”
Coulson didn’t even have to lie. Out came the truth. “I didn’t do anything. It started up on its own this morning.”
“Liar!” Again came the taser. Again came Clint’s scream. And again Coulson tried to get free and failed.
Clint was tough. Clint was a trained S.H.I.E.L.D. agent. Clint was an Avenger. But Clint was also just a man. One who was already compromised. What if he ended up killing Clint but didn’t touch Coulson? What if he let Coulson go and the day didn’t reset? Coulson had to keep the man’s attention on him and off Clint. “So what if I am lying? You’re threatening me. You’re not giving me any incentive to cooperate. We’re trained agents here, ready to die to protect our world. I’m not about to hand any information over to you. I don’t even know who you are.”
Clint stopped screaming and, instead, coughed; it sounded moist and terribly painful, like he could start gagging at any moment.
“Agent Barton?” The sound did not let up. Chills ran, again throughout Coulson’s body. “Agent Barton? Agent Bar—Clint? Clint?” The sound let up.
Clint gave a final cough, then got his breathing under control.
Relief filled Coulson. “That’s it. Stay with me, Clint. I’m right here. Right behind you. Focus on my voice.”
“Try… heh-heh-GETSHooooo! Trying to, Sir. Sniff! I dod’t dow what tibe it is, but I thig that cold bedicide wore off.”
Despite the situation they were in, Coulson had to smile at this. “I’ll get you something stronger next time.”
“You will tell me what I want to know!” the voice boomed from the darkness, and Coulson was pleased to hear more emotion this time, even if that emotion was anger. Good. He was starting to lose his control.
“Maybe some tea as well. Do you like tea? Some strong herbal tea with honey might help clear you up.”
“Sniff! Souds great, Sir.”
“And tissues. I’ll get you all the tissues. Do you know there was one day I went shopping for tissues for you and couldn’t decide what kind to get so I got one of everything in the store—minus the floral scented ones. Those seemed like an abomination I wouldn’t let into my apartment. But I made sure you were drowning in tissues.”
Clint’s breath caught again. “Huhh… huhh… huh-uhhh…” It sounded like he was fighting it.
“It’s okay, you can let it out” Coulson soothed.
“Doe… Sir… uhhh… huhhhhhh… hah… by dose…”
Coulson closed his eyes for a moment, wishing he could will this loop finished sooner so he could at least do something to help Clint. All he could do now was talk. “We’re going to get through this, Clint. Just pretend you’re sneezing into a nice, big wad of tissues. Or one of my handkerchiefs. You liked those.”
“I huhh I did? Hehhh… uhhhh…”
“Yes. Softer on your nose.”
“Uhhh.. Huhh-HIHSchhuhh! HuhhSHIHHHhhhhhh! EhhhhKSHHHHH! Uh… huh HIHSChhhhhhhh!”
“That’s it,” Coulson said, through the sound of Clint sniffling madly.
“That’s enough!” the villain shouted through the darkness. “This banter is ridiculous and—”
Coulson cocked his head. “Ridiculous? Does this seem ridiculous to you, Clint?”
“Doe, Sir. Berfectly datural to be tied up to a chair id the biddle of a dark roob, talkig about by sdeezy head cold with you.”
“How did you activate the device?!” demanded the voice. “It just sits here, doing nothing. All of this potential and it’s dormant!”
Ah. So he knows what the device is capable of doing, but he can’t operate it. It must be blocking the man somehow since it was already tied to Coulson… and maybe to Clint as well, to some extent, though he couldn’t figure out how that would be. It definitely reacted to Clint’s presence, but Clint hadn’t been anywhere near it on that first day when it had seemed active.
A familiar buzzing, quite unlike that of the taser, filled the air. While it could have been the villain’s cell phone, Coulson was certain the sound was coming from his pocket. Dumb move, kidnapping two S.H.I.E.L.D. agents and leaving one’s phone not only on him but turned on. He hadn’t been at the pickup point where he was supposed to have been. That sound was probably Skye calling to tell him she had figured out his location and the team was about to burst in, guns blazing. There was nowhere to take cover. There was no way to warn Clint. But Coulson had a feeling Clint had already figured it out.
With a huge grunt and a scraping of wood, Clint managed to rock his chair, tipping over to his right and falling to the hard concrete floor. His right arm and right hip took the brunt of the fall, but he was over far enough for Coulson to see him, and Coulson could tell he was still alive—in pain, definitely, but still alive. Coulson tried to do likewise, but something grabbed him. He heard footsteps racing close. He heard shouts and gunfire.
Then he felt a hand on his throat. It squeezed, pressing at just the right spots to take his breath clean away. Coulson struggled, knowing that would make things worse but having no other way to fight the man off. He couldn’t manage to break free, but he did manage to turn his head just enough to catch a glimpse of the man who had taken them captive and tortured them. The voice hadn’t been familiar, but the face was.
The face was. He just couldn’t… quite… remember where… he’d seen it… before….
