MC4A; Hogwarts

Stacked With: Hogwarts
Individual Challenges: Short Jog (N); Yellow Ribbon (N); Yellow Ribbon Redux (N); SHIELD MC (x2) (N)
Representations: Clint Barton; Phil Coulson; Lola; Time loop
Prompts: "It's a beautiful day to commit murder." (auction); Vision (365 Words); Stuck in a time loop (Insane Prompts)
Word count: 1,168

Just as Barton landed in Lola—after jumping off a building and causing Phil a heart attack followed by a desperate scramble for Lola's flight controls—a beam of green light hit the cherry red car and enveloped it completely. Without a sound, the car and her occupants vanished from the battlefield.

Phil blinked to clear his vision as he found himself sitting in front of his computer, the cursor blinking at him from where it rested at the start of a new sentence. It was one of the ridiculous reports he had to write up for missions relating to Barton. Too many times of writing Barton then decided to fall off a building to get the shot had made him try and be more creative with how he worded it.

With a sigh, he typed out the phrase he had decided on in the back of his mind—apparently he had grown so used to mixing the sentence up that his subconscious was working on it in the background. Barton employed a strategy that meant he was able to take the shot and quickly escape from the surrounding area. He then saved the document, grabbed his empty coffee mug, and went in search of more coffee.

As he passed by Sitwell reprimanding two junior agents for almost getting themselves killed, he frowned. That seemed all too familiar. It was almost a daily occurrence that someone nearly died at SHIELD, but not Sitwell reprimanding them, and not the same agents. Phil was sure he remembered Reams and Jester being scolded by Jasper recently.

It was only when he arrived at the breakroom and saw Barton's left foot vanishing into the ceiling vents and the abundance of flora now inhabiting the room that it clicked. Sighing, he looked mournfully at the water boiler; he already knew it was out of order and would only give him cold water. He wouldn't be getting any coffee from here. With a sharp turn, Phil headed back to his office to deposit his empty mug before going down to the archives.

He nodded to Hannah as he passed her and she smiled back at him, not asking why he was at the archives in case it was above her clearance level. It wasn't. All SHIELD agents had access to the protocol booklets and the lesser-used ones were stored in the archives so that they didn't get lost. The last time the booklet Phil was after had been used was in 1980 when Agent Hammond had encountered four people claiming to know him from the future.

Once among the stacks, Phil made a beeline for the protocol booklets and fished out the one marked Time. Not seeing the point of going back up to his office, he settled down on the floor where he stood and started flicking through the pages.

Step 1. Learn what time trouble you are having.

Phil hummed to himself in thought. He had been sent back in time approximately nine hours so it was likely either a loop or a single throw. Given that he couldn't confirm yet if he was in a loop, he decided to act on the assumption that it was a single occurrence.

Step 2. Discover why you have moved through time.

The only thing out of the ordinary (by SHIELD's standards at least) had been the beam of green light that had hit Lola just after he had caught Barton and stopped the fool from falling to his death. The thought of Barton made him wonder if the other had also been thrown back in time and as he glanced back at the list, he saw that that was the next step.

Step 3. Determine if anyone else has been moved through time with you.

Almost as soon as he finished reading the sentence, a vent a few feet away opened and Barton dropped down into the archives. That answered that question then; Barton wouldn't willingly set foot in such a boring place as the archives without a compelling reason.

"What made you realise?" he asked and Barton jumped, clearly not having expected anyone to be there.

He grinned when he saw Phil. "I'm pretty good at predicting what Hill's going to say when she catches up to me but I'm not good enough that I know exactly what she's going to say along with intonations and pauses."

"The flowers?" Phil enquired drily.

"It was a very dead space, it needed some life in it," Barton defended as he dropped down next to Phil. "Spill."

"I don't know much yet but I think we've either been thrown back in time and it will proceed as normal from here, or we're in a time loop and we'll keep going around until we break out."

"So we wait and see?"

"Pretty much."

Barton hopped to his feet and returned to the vent he had come out of. Before climbing up into it, he said, "I'm off grab some cheesecake before it's all gone seeing as I missed out last time. You want any?"

Phil almost said no. Then he remembered that Macy was in charge of the kitchen that day and that Macy made the best cheesecake. "Definitely," he said instead.

When the call went out a few hours later, Phil and Barton shared a look. This was when they would discover if time would continue progressing for them or if it would loop back around. Acting on the assumption that it would continue, they used their knowledge of future movements to aid SHIELD defend against the threat. This time there was no frantic driving of Lola to catch Barton as he fell.

There was, however, still a flash of green light.

Phil stared at the computer screen with its blinking cursor for a moment before groaning and letting his head fall onto the keyboard—uncaring of the stream of letters that was now speeding along the screen. A few moments he heard the grating above him move and the soft thump that was Barton dropping down from the vent.

"We're looping then," he stated.

Phil didn't bother moving his head to answer, resulting in a slightly muffled, "Yes."

"Huh." Phil thought that was it until Barton spoke up again a few seconds later with a completely unprompted set of words that made him wonder where Barton's brain had taken him in the momentary silence. "You what's great about living the same day over and over and being the only ones to remember it? It's a beautiful day to commit murder."

"Please tell me you don't actually plan on murdering someone SHIELD doesn't order you to."

Barton shrugged, unconcerned. "I probably won't. Still, could be fun."

"And what if we exit the loop without knowing and you've killed someone you shouldn't have."

"I hadn't thought of that." Barton grinned at Phil. "That must be why you're here to, to keep me from doing stupid things."

"I do that enough when we're not in a time loop."