Chapter Text
In the five years Hermann Gottlieb has worked at the Time Regulation Agency’s only base, commonly deemed the Shatterdome, he’s managed to meet Newton Geiszler three times, and three times only. It’s especially ironic, given the fact that they work – well, used to work – in the same department (of sorts), but then again, Logistics involves less theoretical science than you’d expect, and it’s mostly a lot of recon and back-and-forth business, so it’s incredibly rare that the two of them end up back at the base at the same time, or the same time.
The fact that Agent Geiszler happened to be the one who recruited Hermann to begin with slightly complicated matters. The first time they’d met, Hermann had just turned twenty-two, and things were…decent, for once. He was studying for three degrees at Oxford, had somehow managed to get a girlfriend (god knows what Vanessa was even thinking), and, through some brilliant stroke of luck, he’d avoided speaking to his father for four years. And in the midst of this pleasant-ish thing known as life, it was an oddly sunshiny yet frigid December afternoon when the door of his flat was kicked in by somebody who didn’t look remotely capable of kicking in anything, let alone a door.
“Hermann Gottlieb?” inquired the man who Hermann would later know as Newton Geiszler, somewhat of a screw-up and genius extraordinaire. “I mean, of course it’s you.” He ran a hand through his already-mussed dark hair and laughed nervously, gaze wavering between Hermann’s face and the broken pieces of door strewn about. “Oh, yeah, sorry about the door. It’s just…god, you look happier. Than you were…will be…were. Comparatively.”
“I am happier,” blurted Hermann because it was true, before registering the incongruous ‘will be’. The other man started laughing, genuinely this time. It was horrifically squeaky and probably contagious when being used in front of people who were not Hermann Gottlieb.
“Well,” the man finally managed, “happiness is relative, and like hella temporal.”
“So I’m happier now…compared to when, Mr…erm…wait? Have we met?”
“Nope!”
“Oh.”
“Mmhm…and by the way, you’re coming with me.”
Hermann gaped; the fact that his flat no longer had a door had just properly registered in his brain. “Is this a – a botched kidnapping?” he asked, unfortunately conscious of the fact that you probably shouldn’t accuse a kidnapper of botching a kidnapping when he was potentially in the middle of not botching the kidnapping of you. He gauged the distance to the window and the much greater distance from the window to the ground before gulping miserably.
“Kidnapping…well, kinda. Not really. Your life is not currently in any danger, I promise. And I rarely lie. I, like, can’t do a poker face at all – never could, even if my life depended on it, so if I ever ask you to play cards with me ever, don’t you dare let me. I’m Newt, by the way. Newton Geiszler.”
“I’m Hermann – “
“Yeah, I know.”
Hermann turned very red. “I suppose that’s true.” His tone was as dignified as he could manage under the circumstances, except he was still blushing. It kind of ruined the effect.
“Why don’t you sit down?” Newt kindly asked, ushering Hermann to one of his own straight-backed chairs while pulling a face. “The furniture totally suits you,” he said, rolling his eyes. “Minimalist, in the bad way.”
Hermann quickly rethought his situation. A high-speed escape out the window was probably not an option any more. There was a seventy-six-point-two percent chance he couldn’t have made it before, and that number was rising dramatically.
“Your hair looks nice like this,” Newt said conversationally. “Don’t cut it. Well, nothing I say can stop you from cutting it, but I hope you really regret it in the future when – I mean if – you do cut it.”
“Oh. I guess…thank you? Ness likes it this way – “ he stammered in response.
“Ness, Shmess. Let’s cut to the chase. First things first, I’m here to hire you. Full-time.” Newt grinned suddenly, a quick flash of teeth that would’ve seemed predatory if he didn’t have dimples.
“Any company that has you in it would not have a position I might be remotely interested in,” Hermann shot back.
“Dude, ending a sentence on a preposition? So not your thing. And it’s not a company.”
“Fantastic,” Hermann muttered in a tone that made it obvious that the only thing he would find less fantastic than the fact that it wasn’t a company would be a giant sea monster attacking London via the Thames.
“You’re really sexy when you’re sarcastic; you should try it more often,” Newt deadpanned.
Hermann hated Newt’s guts and his hair falling into his eyes and the way his glasses were slipping down the bridge of his nose. But most of all his guts. He breathed deeply, in and out and in and out, and tried to avoid punching this…thing. And tried even harder to avoid thinking another 'and,’ because Hermann Gottlieb rarely was one for run-on sentences.
When he was certain that Hermann wasn’t going to punch him, Newt continued. “It’s not a company; it’s more of an…agency. Think James Bond. MI-whatever number that is. Five? Six? Twenty? I have no clue.”
“Me? Secret agent material?” scoffed Hermann.
“No, like, your IQ is off the charts,” Newt said with utter seriousness, perhaps even a little awestruck. Or jealous. Or some strange combination of the two. “I’ve read up on you. Which is why I - we want you.”
“You still haven’t said what you want me for,” Hermann pointed out icily.
“Another preposition? Nice going, seriously.”
Hermann pursed his lips and lowered his eyebrows and said nothing, because he was above all this.
“Anyways, you should probably sit down for this.”
“I’m already sitting down.”
“Huh,” Newt mused. “Then I should sit down.” He took a perch on the arm of Hermann’s chair. It was narrow and wooden and looked intensely uncomfortable but he didn’t even wince.
“So, Hermann – I can call you Hermann, right?”
“No, you most certainly cannot – “
“Do I look like I care?” Hermann craned his neck to the side and spared him a short glance; Newt did not look like he cared in the least. “So, Hermann, did you know that time is a very strange concept?”
“Please don’t give me a lecture on relativity.”
“I wasn’t going to give you a lecture on relativity!”
(Lovely - Newton Geiszler was that type of person who used repetition to disguise his lack of wit.)
“Good, because I would’ve kicked your nose in if you tried to give me a lecture on relativity!”
(Apparently Hermann Gottlieb was that type of person too.)
“But time,” Newt began again through gritted teeth, “is a very strange concept.” He sighed. “I didn’t expect you to be, like, this irritating, man.”
“I, like, didn’t expect you, like, to be, like, this irritating either, like – ” Hermann spat in Newt’s face mockingly, which in retrospect was in awfully bad taste.
But Newt bit his lip not unattractively and quirked an eyebrow, which was disconcerting, to say the least. “That’s more like it, Hermann.”
“More like what?”
“It.”
“Oh.”
Newt dimpled at Hermann again. “And by the way, time travel is realistically possible. I’ve done it. I regulate it. Not time travel, time. I regulate time. Yeah, that’s basically it. You can too. You will, I know it. Take the job, come with me, end of story. Yes?”
Hermann stood from his chair, knocking Newt’s knees in the process, before realizing that standing was a ridiculous idea and sitting back down, knocking his knees again.
“Was that too sudden? Do you need proof? I thought you’d be okay with this; I’ve seen your research – “
“You…out,” muttered Hermann in a very breathy whisper, the kind that Vanessa claimed she found devastatingly sexy, though Hermann assumed she meant sexy in a scenario that didn’t involve a potentially very confused person literally kicking down his door and insisting he had a…a time machine.
“I’ll make you some tea,” Newt said worriedly. He lowered himself from the arm of Hermann’s chair; for a few seconds, the only thing that could be heard was the ticking of the clock, and then Newt started distractingly banging cupboard doors open and shut.
“What part of ‘out’ do you not understand?” Hermann demanded shakily after the tumult temporarily subsided.
“What part of moderation do you not understand?” Newt countered. “There’s like a million different boxes of tea in here! Like you have nothing else in your kitchen, what the actual – “
“Leave my tea the hell alone!”
“I was trying to help you; you’ve just had a nasty shock – “
“Having you break into my house and make me bloody tea after breaking into my house is not going to remedy anything!”
“The tea wasn’t going to be bloody, but there are knives here; I can see what I can do about the blood thing if you really want, dude,” Newt said seriously.
The fact that Hermann honestly preferred a Newton Geiszler who was expounding on about goddamn time travel to this Newton Geiszler was rather worrisome.
“Tell me about this job thing, then – “ Hermann ventured tentatively, just as Newt obliviously blurted, “Ooh, blood orange tea! That’s pretty weird, huh?” He whisked one nice-looking and one chipped mug out of a cabinet, filled them with water, and turned on his heel to plop them in the microwave – the microwave, honestly!
(Hermann Gottlieb rarely thought in exclamation points, but the microwave was a crime against both tea and humanity.)
Newt started steeping the teabags after a minute of silence demarcated by the microwave timer, this minute likely commemorating the death of Hermann’s sanity. Because Hermann was reasonably (ninety-nine-point-two percent) sure that neither he nor Ness had bought blood orange tea at any point in time. The thought that tea was miraculously appearing in his cupboard was less horrifying than the thought that Newt carried random samples of his own tea in his pocket to spring on unsuspecting bystanders and pass it off as not his own tea. And the fact that it was less horrifying was somehow even more horrifying.
“How d’you take it?” Newt finally asked, sticking his nose into the refrigerator. “Oh wait, milk and no sugar, right? And a little – “
“ – Bit of honey,” Hermann finished in tandem with Newt, very shaky and very confused.
“Good, so that hasn’t..won’t…hasn’t changed!” Newt’s tone was jarringly bright as he plopped ten sugar cubes – fine, Hermann counted, so yes,it was exactly ten – into his own tea mug.
Hermann nearly gagged at the sight; Newt took a sip and actually gagged. Licking his lips musingly, he left his mug on the counter and took Hermann’s with him.
Returning to his perch on the arm of the chair, he distractedly took a sip of Hermann’s tea and nodded appreciatively before coming to himself. “Oh. Um…yeah, sorry. You can drink from the other end. I’m not like sick or anything…at least I don’t think? That wasn’t very reassuring, huh. I’m not sick, Hermann, I promise. No creepy futuristic space diseases.” He fiddled with his glasses and gave a sad little excuse for a giggle. “I mean, if you don’t want the tea anymore, I’ll drink it in a heartbeat. It’s really good. As tea goes, I mean, ‘cause I’m a coffee person…”
“Your caffeine preferences are the least of my worries,” Hermann said haughtily while taking a hesitant and prim sip. The tea wasn’t bad, actually. In fact, it was, to quote the other man, ‘really good.’ The problem was that someone like Newton Geiszler with the words ‘ego complex’ practically written all over his face (and actually written on his tie along with several other choice phrases in permanent marker or something) did not need to know that he could make really good tea.
But judging by the way Newt eyed the twitch of Hermann’s lip, it was unfortunately obvious that he knew.
“Dude, no need to thank me or anything,” he said with a smirk.
“You did break into my flat…”
“You are so hung up over that!”
“And you have a lot of explaining to do, Geiszler. My door, and the ‘future’ rubbish, and my door – ”
“Wow, now you want an explanation?”
“Geiszler – “ Hermann warned.
“Okay, okay, I guess tea can actually calm you down…I’m really good at this, apparently – “
“Geiszler!”
“God, you’re hot when you’re angry – and did you know that time is constantly in flux?” Newt abruptly switched tacks. “So like, at this moment, the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs could never have hit Earth?”
“That was – “
“Sixty-five million years ago, yeah. And it could be happening now! Cool, huh?”
Hermann looked like he was about ready to faint again. “I…I like linear things,” he explained weakly.
“It’s not not linear! It’s just that, well, every point on the line is a completely different dimension, kind of – well, no, but screw where it is on the line, it’s constantly happening. The past isn’t over, it’s changing!” His voice rose to an excited squeak. “Is that any better?”
“You think that’s helping?”
He groaned. “Hermann, Hermann, Hermann. Open your mind, man.”
“Don’t tell me to open my mind – “
“I’m telling you to open your mind like a man, dude – “
“That’s sexist, and don’t ‘dude’ me again or I’ll – “
“Shush, dude. This thing is legit; I’ve met Al Capone, and he was a dick.”
“You – ?“
“I’ve said too much,” Newt whispered while overdramatically widening his eyes. Hermann scowled.
“Sorry, couldn’t resist. So anyways, our job is to keep the past and the future in sync with what should actually be happening so the world doesn’t explode or whatevs. Our base is out of dimensions in general, which I don’t really get because I hate physics, but we basically exist in no time, which is really cool. Well, not ex-act-ly, it feels no different than when we’re in time. But we’re like in a pocket – “
“Who are you to decide what should be happening?” cried Hermann, cutting short Newt’s ramble. “By whose standards? How do you even know that all of your ‘agents’ come from the same 'timeline'? Maybe there are multiple right timelines that don't ruin the universe beyond repair! I call bullshit.”
Newt cracked a smile at Hermann’s impassioned shriek of ‘bullshit,’ and patted him on the shoulder. “Whoa, you’ve got morals. Or you like disagreeing with me and you have no morals at all…but at least you’ve managed to believe that this is real now – “
“No, I haven’t – “
“But basically, we act under the assumption that any change to the established timeline is going to eventually make the world…universe, really…blow up. Butterfly effect and all. So there’s only one right timeline, because all of our agents are from a world that…well…hasn’t blown up. You follow?”
“I think so,” Hermann said earnestly, noting with mingled self-pride and terror that he seemed to be taking this whole explanation remarkably well, considering everything.
“So in Logistics – that’s my department, and yours too if you come with me, which you will – we track these changes, and if the universe ends up exploding, we go to each original change and un-change it.”
“Un-change?”
“I meant ‘change it back’,” Newt huffed. “We-ell, we don’t do the actual changing. We go in do recon and figure out exactly how other agents can do the changing, and they swoop in, totally badass, and get all the damn credit. It’s ridiculous sometimes. Like, Raleigh – I mean, Agent Becket – had to go a few hundred years into the future once to stop some guy from wearing mismatched socks on his first date, so he and whoever it was he was on a date with could actually hook up – ‘cause when he wore a red sock and a blue sock it did not go over well – and then they’d have some kid who turned out to be important or something. No clue how he even finished the sock thing because he didn’t follow my plan – my plan was shit; I think there was some weird halfhearted seduction crap involved to get into that dude’s house? Raleigh wouldn’t tell me how he did it, or speak to anyone for a week, I swear.” Newt dropped his voice slightly. “If you ask me, I think Raleigh fell in love with what’s-his-face, which kinda makes sense because when I did the snooping around bit, I was so distracted ‘cause what’s-his-face was freaking attractive. Not that I blame Raleigh, the kid’s like nineteen. Oh, but not that seduction’s something you’ll have to do or anything, ‘cause you’d suck at it, so yep, I hope that didn’t scare you off – “
“That’s a low blow, Geiszler – “
He shrugged with a casual, “So, you in?”
“What’s the…catch? Beyond the seduction thing?”
Newt laughed delightedly. “I thought you’d think the job itself was the catch, you spoilsport. This is a good sign.”
“Shut it,” groaned Hermann, because ‘shut it’ sounded a lot classier than ‘shut up,’ which was infantile and belonged in the mouths of children in primary school who pulled each other’s hair and screamed. “The catch?”
“No catch. See, Hermann, the people who take this job are people who run. We’ve all got something we want to leave behind, and I know your something.”
Hermann swallowed; this was getting into dangerously iffy territory, dangerously fast.
“You, Hermann Gottlieb, think you’re not wanted – and you’re right.”
“My god, Geiszler, I have a girlfriend and I’ve had an engagement ring burning a hole in my pocket for a month – “
“It’s too soon, isn’t it? You guys are, like, really young – “
“I love her! And – “
“And you’re afraid she doesn’t love you, or that she’s lying through her teeth because how can anybody love you? Forcing her hand with a piece of metal won’t help anything,” said Newt, shaking his head.
Hermann was reasonably sure that Newt had no right to shake his head disapprovingly like that, because childish and immature bastards had no rights at all to speak of.
“And besides, it doesn’t matter,” continued Newt, “because when you join the agency, everyone back here is going to think you died.”
Hermann spluttered, “You’re faking my death?”
“Look at that, you’re talking like you’ve already decided you’re taking the position!”
“So you are faking my death?”
“We don’t have to do anything – people always tend to assume the worst. Glass half-empty and all that shit. You probably see a half-empty glass as completely empty, which just goes to show.”
“Geiszler…”
“You can call me Newt.”
“I’d rather not, honestly. But…”
“Yes, Hermann, I was at your funeral. Went right before I came here, actually. It’ll be in…two weeks, I think.” Newt fiddled with the clunky-looking device on his wrist, presumably to verify that. “There was no body, obviously, and Vanessa wasn’t there, and your sister…um…Karla, right? She made a very nice speech full of platitudes…and crap, basically. And your dad had a chair in the front and he didn’t cry at all.” Newt glanced quickly at the blood draining from Hermann’s face. “I told you, we’re all running from something, and you’re not good at it yet, but you’ll learn. We cut and run – the cutting’s a science, but the running’s an art, dude. And the art is what you need to practice. You’re going to come with me and cut all ties to here, common knowledge, but I don’t think you can properly leave this all behind just yet and that’s totally okay.”
“This speech sounds rehearsed,” Hermann spat out after a few minutes.
“It was.” Newt gave a wan excuse for a grin.
Hermann hesitantly opened his mouth to say something, and Newt placed a finger over his lips; it was a reasonably average finger, but it was warm and cold and inkstained and perfect and horrible all at the same time. “Yeah, duh Hermann, it’s against protocol for you to leave Ness a note to ‘explain’ things, and yeah, of course I’m going to let you break protocol. I don’t believe in protocol. She wasn’t at your funeral; she probably knows you’re not…dead dead. And I’ve got one pen with a few drops of ink left in it, and I might as well kill the pen for you, man. Okay?”
“Thank you, Geiszler,” he said softly.
“Don’t mention it. Like, don’t. I could totally get fired for this.”
“Good.” Hermann smiled for the first time since his door got kicked in, a small smile that still managed to light up his face and spread to his eyes, and vindictively plucked the pen from Newt’s shirt pocket. “That’s the best news I’ve heard all day.”