Time Trap - Chapter Thirteen

Author: Milady Dragon

3 June 2014

London

The rest of the recording proved to be useless, although it did show that Clint, in his usual selfless manner, had leaped onto one of the intruders before they all managed to teleport away, and after he'd obviously been hit by a sonic blast from one of their guns.

There'd been a knock-down, drag-out fight between the strangers and Clint and the man that Patrick now knew was his uncle, only thousands of years older than he appeared. They'd managed to take out the man standing over Tish first, and would have gotten the best of them all if not for Bayl, who managed to get around the worst of the battle in order to threaten Tish once more. Both men had surrendered immediately, but Bayl had only been interested in taking the future uncle version until Clint had interfered and had been shot for his troubles.

Now, both were gone, and even Luke and Mr Smith and their network of sensors all over the city had failed to catch anything.

"They could be in Cardiff," Jack suggested, chewing on his thumbnail nervously. "With the Hub cut off from the outside world, I can't even ask Tosh to check for any temporal signatures."

"At least Bayl can't accomplish what he wants to do," Josh said in a valiant attempt to inject some positivity into the group around the scan table.

"Yeah," Tish agreed, "but Agent Coulson isn't gonna want to stay in the Hub indefinitely. At some point he's gonna question why Ianto's holding him." She was frustrated at her bad showing against Bayl's people, even though she really hadn't been given much of a chance to do anything. None of the Torchwood ladies enjoyed being held hostage, but the various aliens and whatnot that faced off against Torchwood had the tendency to think of them as the weaker members of the team. This was complete and utter bullshit, because Patrick wasn't afraid to admit that Toshiko could whip his ass any day of the week.

"Let's just hope we catch Bayl and get Clint and future Coulson back before that happens," Patrick sighed, trying to come up with some way to find them that didn't involve bringing the Cardiff Hub into the mix.

It seemed as if that particular issue would be taken out of his hands when there was a strange noise out from the main area of Hub2. Before Patrick was even aware of it, everyone with a weapon on them had them drawn and they were running down the corridor.

They all piled up in the entrance at the sight that greeted them.

Clint was leaning over, hands on his knees and breathing noisily through his mouth. "That was fucking rough," he was saying to his companion, voice slightly garbled.

The future Phil Coulson was pale, and he was clutching his head in one hand while the other was propping himself up against one of the workstations. "You aren't kidding," he answered thickly. "How can people travel like that?"

"It's always rougher with two," Jack piped up, dodging through the crush in the doorway while holstering his Webley. "Or should I say three?"

At their feet was the unconscious form of Juno Bayl, looking really worse for wear with a bloody nose, a scrape across one cheek, and the beginnings of a beautiful black eye.

"I'll remember that for the next time," future Coulson said dryly, straightening up and removing his hand from where it had been rubbing through his thinning hair as if to stave off a headache.

Patrick shook his head, a smile tugging at his lips as he tucked his own gun away. "I should have known you'd find a way to break yourselves out." Both were consummate professionals, and he'd heard stories of nearly impossible escapes all his life. And he was certain that, as old as his uncle must have been now, he'd only gotten better with age.

He wondered if the man had been able to escape all the time he'd been there at the Hub2, and had decided not to. It made too much sense to dismiss.

"Well," Clint replied, standing upright and resting a hand on his hip, "you know the bad guys…they just have to monologue. Makes 'em vulnerable."

"Can someone please restrain him?" Coulson requested. "I don't even want to consider having to chase him down. Oh, and we left four rather irritated flunkies back in Cardiff."

Mickey produced the zip-cuffs from somewhere on his person and trussed Bayl up a little bit tighter than was actually needed, although Bayl, being thoroughly unconscious, didn't complain.

"You have the coordinates of where you were held?" Jack demanded.

Coulson nodded. He hesitated for a second, and then removed the wrist strap he must have taken from Bayl and tossed it to Jack. "I doubt they're still there," the future Phil said, "but it can't hurt to check the area."

"Yeah, I doubt they hung around once Bayl was captured," Jack agreed. In a rare show of trust he removed his own Vortex Manipulator, passed it to the future version of Phil Coulson, and then put the fully functioning one on in its place. He punched a button on the thing, and vanished in a flash of white light.

"Luke," Patrick ordered, "I want you and Mr Smith to keep checking for temporal traces, just in case they try to infiltrate the base once more."

"You got it." The young man left the main area, hurrying back to the lab area.

Patrick turned back to the two men. Clint and this future uncle were standing side by side, as if showing a united front for the team. He wanted nothing more than to reach out and hug both Clint and Coulson; from their body language alone it was as if this version of his uncle and Clint had never parted, and it made his heart hurt, but in a good way. He didn't know if this meant that Clint was going to forgive the present iteration of Phil Coulson, but it did seem these two were on the way to reconciliation.

It made Patrick rethink his own stance on the lies, because Uncle Phil must have had a good reason to do it. He was certain there would be an explanation in the near future, if his uncle truly was at the Cardiff Hub.

"So, Bayl told you his plan?" he asked, leaning against another of the workstations nonchalantly, his arms crossed and feeling some of the tension leave him. With Clint free he no longer had to worry about that last-minute rescue that Torchwood had gotten so good at.

Clint nodded at Patrick's question. "I don't get this temporal crap, but apparently he thought that bringing two Coulsons together would do enough damage to the future so he'd be able to get away with whatever the hell he wanted."

Phil – and Patrick couldn't not call him Uncle Phil anymore, not after everything – nodded, smiling, his eyes squinting just a bit in humour. "It seems that former Director Bayl didn't do his research. He thought he'd be able to strengthen the Time Agency by weakening his future enemies. That's not true at all; in fact, he would have surely caused the Time Agency not to have been created in the first place." Phil stopped, shrugging. "Sorry, I really can't say anything else. I don't dare strain the timelines any more than they already are with my presence here."

"That's too bad," Josh grumped. "This sounds like a story I'd love to have heard."

Patrick felt the same way. He wanted to take his future uncle aside, and ask him every question he had about his being brought back to life, and about their family and just what Torchwood was doing forward in his own time. Because, if one thing Patrick was certain of, was that Torchwood was somewhere out there, and that Bayl's plan had been to weaken that future organisation by destroying any sort of partnership with SHIELD. After all, the Shieldsmen were the descendants of SHIELD, of that he was positive. It only made sense that there was some version of Torchwood out there, and Patrick desperately wanted to know what they were doing.

But, he managed to keep himself from doing just that, although there was a glint in his uncle's eye that communicated to Patrick that the much older man – immortal! – was aware of just what was going on in Patrick's own head.

"The pair of you," Martha interjected, pointing at both Clint and Future Uncle Phil, "medical bay. Now. And none of that mess about being religiously compromised if I examine you." She waggled her finger at Coulson, whose smile grew.

"Yes, Doctor," he answered dryly. "But when Jack returns, I think that will be my cue to go back to my own time. And, if you don't mind, I'd like to take my clothes and belongings back with me."

What he wasn't saying was, "I'd like to take my future tech with me so it doesn't get experimented on and the timelines get bent out of shape."

"There's something else you can take with you," Patrick commented. He nodded toward Mickey and Josh, who left the main area. In the excitement of the moment, he'd almost forgotten about John Hart.

"If you mean Bayl," Uncle Phil replied, "then of course I fully intend to make certain he doesn't escape justice again."

"I guessed that," Patrick answered dryly. "No, this is someone that was actually sent to take you back to the future."

Phil looked curious, but that turned to a frown when Josh and Mickey led a complaining John Hart into the room. "Is this the best they could do?" he asked incredulously.

Patrick wanted to laugh at the disbelief in his uncle's voice, and the confusion in Hart's. "You know me?" Hart demanded.

"Do you honestly think I didn't thoroughly investigate my adopted niece's choice in sexual partner?" A single eyebrow slid upward. "I may have never met you, but I do have quite the dossier on you, Captain Hart."

There was a sudden leer on Hart's face. "Well, Queenie didn't tell me you were so hot with the competence."

There was a low growl somewhere in the room, and Patrick would have bet everything he had in the bank that it had come from Clint. Even if his friend was still angry at all the lies, one thing was certain: Clint Barton didn't like anyone ogling his man that way, especially someone like Hart.

Hart ignored it, as did Phil, who simply said, "You call her Queenie? And she lets you get away with that?"

Hart shrugged, looking smug. "Pendragon just sounds so posh and hoity-toity I just can't resist. And she told me to give you a message." One side of his mouth quirked upward and when he spoke it was in a high falsetto that Patrick figured had to be a horrible attempt at a woman's voice. "There's no way you're missing the birth of my first grandchild, Uncle Phillip."

That caused a round of laughter among the Torchwood personnel in the room, Patrick included. It was just so ridiculous, that imitation, and it seemed to break a tension in his future uncle that he hadn't noticed until it was gone. As if Hart had passed some sort of test, one that the ex-Time Agent hadn't even been aware of judging from the sudden comprehension in his eyes.

"Medical bay," Martha ordered once again.

"And I have your things," Mickey said, holding out a black bin bag.

Phil gave him the eye, and then accepted the offering. "Do you have any idea what plastic like this goes for in the future?"

Josh was trying to stifle a laugh, while Mickey simply rolled his eyes. "Buy a spaceship on me, mate."

With that comeback, Phillip Coulson, the future Grand Master of the Imperial Order of Shieldsmen, and Patrick Delaware's immortal uncle, gave Mickey a salute that was half complimentary and half sarcastic. "I'll take two," his voice was completely and utterly deadpan, "they're small."