Author's note: Hey guys, I'm afraid I have some bad news :( I got some bad news a few days ago and I'm having a pretty shit time at the moment regarding my personal life and stuff, which means I'm not really feeling in the mood for writing as much. If I'd been more organised I might have been able to carry on updating at the same rate but as it is I'm gonna start updating once a week instead of twice, just on a Wednesday and not on Saturday. I'm sorry this had to affect you guys as well as me, I'm definitely going to carry on writing because it's what I love and I don't wanna let anything get in the way of that! Sorry for the paragraph, I'll shut up now, here's chapter twenty seven <3
...
"So you're saying he deliberately got himself shot." Steve was saying.
"That's what it looked like, but that's only what I saw." Bucky shrugged.
"That settles it then. He wouldn't have done it if he didn't think he'd be okay." Tony said.
"Jumping in front of a bullet isn't exactly a thought-out decision is it though, he..." Nat stopped talking as Tony threw her a glare, which you didn't miss.
"We have to go back." you said hoarsely, looking to Tony for confirmation. You didn't get any.
This only reinforced your belief that you should've stayed in there with Loki. You knew that the team, or at least Tony, would go back for you in a heartbeat; you wouldn't even have been left behind in the first place.
"How are we going to get him out Y/N? How are we even going to get back in?"
You fought to come up with an idea, anything, but it didn't happen.
"We have to go, we need to get Ricci to SHIELD." Tony reasoned with you, gesturing at the unconscious man slumped across two seats.
"He'll be alright. He's been through much worse." Thor told you, as if that was meant to make you feel better. You'd left him, after he'd been shot, surrounded by guards who wanted to capture him. You felt sick as Tony returned to the cockpit and the jet started back towards New York.
It was five minutes or so later that you realised that you had dropped your illusion. When had that happened? Not that it mattered. You'd failed in all aspects of the stupid mission. If not for Clint and Nat, Ricci would have got away and you'd probably be stuck back at the mansion with Loki. You should have let them catch you, at least then you'd know if Loki was okay...
He would be okay. He would.
"He'll be fine." Thor was saying, for the tenth time in the last minute.
"We can't know that, can we." you replied bitterly, finally having enough.
"...I think we can." Thor said, surprising you.
"How?"
"How did you know Loki had been shot, even though you didn't see it happen?"
You hadn't thought about that yet: the metal fist which had so definitely clenched around your heart when he'd been shot and the fact that you irrevocably knew what had happened, even though you had no reason to.
"I just... it felt..." you struggled to find the words, bringing your hand to your chest and clenching your fist to try and demonstrate.
Thor was nodding thoughtfully.
"On Asgard, there's a well-known old wives' tale. It's about soulmates." he said, somewhat tentatively.
You stared at him.
"Soulmates? That's not a real thing, it's just superstition."
"That's what Loki said too."
"You talked to him about this? What did you say?" you asked quickly, feeling embarrassment rise at the thought of Thor suggesting to Loki that the two of you might be soulmates. It was a ridiculous notion.
"I only mentioned the fact that legend says soulmates can read each other's minds. And now this, you felt it when he was hurt. The tale says..."
"Will you stop. It's not a thing." you snapped. Thor fell silent.
"I'm sorry, it's just... he's - he might be in trouble, and you're sat here talking about old wives' tales." you said, a few seconds later.
"I'm sorry. All I meant was that I think we would know if something was seriously wrong." Thor replied, squeezing your shoulder.
You were ninety-nine percent certain that soulmates didn't exist, but you'd felt something when Loki was shot; you'd known he wasn't okay. The thought that you might know if something awful had happened (you didn't want to think about it) reassured you a tiny bit, even if you didn't want to admit it.
By the time you arrived back at the tower it was past midnight, and everyone was visibly tired.
SHIELD agents were waiting for you on the roof with a helicopter, and they moved Ricci from the Quinjet into their helicopter without so much as a word to any of you. You were too preoccupied to care.
You trudged to the elevator after everyone else and when you got to your floor you made a beeline for the kitchen sink, scrubbing your hands until they were raw to get every last trace of blood off of them. Then you sat on the sofa.
"Y/N, I'm only going to tell you this once. Go to bed. You're tired, and sitting here worrying isn't going to change a thing and you know it." Tony implored, sitting down next to you on the sofa.
"You're one to talk. When was the last time you got a full night's sleep?" you asked.
"She has a point." Nat agreed, entering the room alongside Steve.
"Okay, I feel like we're missing the point here." Tony said.
"I'm fine here." you said, forcing a smile.
Tony opened his mouth to argue, but before he could say anything Nat started talking about something completely unrelated. You loved her for it.
After a while the whole team had joined you in the living room, every single one of them completely shattered.
"Guys, go to bed."
"Y/N, go to bed." Tony mimicked you, and you almost laughed.
"Fine, maybe I will." you countered. Clint looked up hopefully.
"You heard the lady, let's go." he said, half standing up before getting yanked back into his seat by Nat.
"Maybe you will? Or maybe you're just saying that to get us to leave." Tony said to you.
From the armchair by the fire, Thor started snoring loudly.
"There, now I won't be alone." you stated, looking around the room expectantly.
About six minutes later, Clint left, closely followed by Bruce and Steve, and then a few minutes later Bucky, who gave you a hug on his way out which almost made you cry.
"I'm sorry doll."
Nat went next, an impressive fifteen minutes later, until only Tony remained, aside from Thor who was still snoring loudly from his armchair.
"I'm not going to say he'll be fine, I'll just say that he probably will be." he told you with a hint of a smile, and you nodded, not knowing what to say.
"Try and sleep." he said, finally standing up and walking to the doorway, where he turned around and looked at you sadly.
"Night kid." Tony said, flicking the lights off and leaving you with only the lights of the city coming through the wall to ceiling windows.
"Night Tony."
You were so tired. But you were also so worried that you still felt sick, and it was purely this which had been stopping you from passing out before now. You'd carried off some insanely difficult magic tonight, and it had drained you both physically and emotionally. But you couldn't fall asleep, you were far too preoccupied. Besides, Thor was snoring loud enough to keep you awake no matter how tired you were.
But it wouldn't hurt to shut your eyes. Just for a minute...
...
Loki's POV
It was getting light by the time he made it back to the tower.
Loki constantly found himself wondering why he was voluntarily going back there, when just a few months ago he would've done anything to get away. But he had nowhere else to go... and you were there. He hadn't stopped thinking about you since last night, in fact he was struggling to remember the last time he hadn't been thinking about you. For the last few hours though, he'd been specifically thinking about the moments after he'd been shot: your small hands covering his, the raw and palpable fear in your eyes when you looked at him, your desire to know that he was going to be okay before you left him. And you had left him, but that was okay, because in that moment he had cared more about you getting to safety than himself. A point he had proven to himself when he'd thrown himself at that idiotic man who had been about to shoot you. The fear he had felt when he'd realised what was about to happen had been unprecedented, never in his entire life had he experienced anything like it.
And that was saying something.
He hadn't meant to get himself shot however, and for a moment he hadn't been certain he would be able to make it out. But then he'd promised you. So he had.
Right now he was stood outside the Avengers Tower trying to look nonchalant (and failing miserably, he had already attracted some odd looks from passers-by), and trying to summon the energy to teleport up fifty-two floors as the first light of the day started to softly illuminate the buildings surrounding him. He doubted he would be allowed to walk in looking like he did and just go on up in the elevator, Fury would be notified, and that wouldn't be good news for his freedom. But he also wasn't sure if he was going to be able to pull this off. He knew he had lost a lot of blood, and he'd pushed his magic to the limit trying to teleport out of that mansion and then from there back to New York. He had no idea how he'd managed it, just that he had, and now all that was left to do was get up fifty-two floors. To you. If you were even up there. You might not be up there, and you might not be okay. He hadn't been sure that you or the others had even made it back safely, and he couldn't hear you, which meant you were either not up there, or asleep. He wanted nothing more than to get up there and make sure you were okay. Almost dying last night had changed his perspective on things pretty drastically; the thought of dying without ever getting to tell you how he felt, or getting to hold you in his arms, or experience how it might feel to kiss you... that wasn't a prospect he wanted to face.
This time yesterday the thought of you knowing how he felt towards you would have mortified him, but now that was all he wanted. He wanted you to know. Even if... he was what he was. He would have to tell you about his heritage too. That was the scariest part. But that wasn't his biggest problem right at this moment.
Praying that you were asleep, Loki closed his eyes and readied himself for one last effort, reminding himself of the promise he had made you.
He wasn't planning on breaking it.
...
Your POV
When you woke up, at first you thought you were still dreaming.
Half-asleep and disorientated from having not woken up in your bedroom, it took you a moment to work out where you were, taking in your surroundings in confusion for a moment. Then you spotted Thor, still sleeping in the armchair, and slowly remembered the events of last night. Your chest became very tight; you wished you could return to your worry-free dreams. But now you were awake.
When you saw Loki slumped against the wall, half hidden by the edge of a sofa on the other side of the room, it took you at least four times as long to react as you normally would have. Firstly you wondered if you were just imagining him, he physically couldn't be here... but then you remembered: it was Loki. Who happened to be a god.
Secondly it occurred to you that he appeared to be dead.
That woke you up.
You practically fell off of the sofa in your haste to get to his side, shouting at Thor to wake up as you did so. Kneeling beside Loki's lifeless form you grabbed his arm and felt his wrist desperately for a pulse, unable to find one. His arm was ice cold. Did gods even have pulses? Were you doing it right?
Thor hadn't moved. You yelled his name again furiously and threw a pillow at him; finally he stirred.
Was Loki always this cold? You knew his average body temperature was way lower than normal, he was a Frost Giant after all, but his skin literally felt like ice. Surely that wasn't normal.
You said his name. Then again, louder, wondering as you did so what the point was, he couldn't hear you... but then his eyelids twitched, and his head moved a fraction of a centimetre, and a tidal wave of relief crashed over you. He was alive.
"He needs the medical ward." Thor croaked from behind you, and you nodded mutely, searching Loki's face for more signs of life as Thor asked JARVIS to wake Bruce up and ask him to get to the ward, ASAP.
Y/N.
You barely heard it, it was so quiet, but it was there.
I'm here. I'm here.
You're okay.
You laughed out loud at that, but it sounded more like a strangled sob. Here he was, half dead on the floor after you'd abandoned him while he was injured, and he was relieved that you were okay.
I'm so sorry.
He didn't reply to that. He was either too tired to think or he hadn't accepted your apology.
Thor had to carry him to the medical ward; the fact that Loki didn't put up a fight showed just how injured he was. Bruce was already there when you arrived, hooking Loki up to machines and giving him injections the moment Thor deposited him on the bed, by which time he was already unconscious again. You found yourself wondering what you would do without Bruce.
"You guys can leave, this might take a while." Bruce told you, carefully cutting open Loki's suit to expose the gun wound underneath. The three of you froze as his entire torso was uncovered. There was so much blood, but apart from that, there was hardly an inch of skin which wasn't scarred. They were everywhere, and by the looks of it they spread to the rest of his body too.
You looked away quickly, sympathy rising in your throat and threatening to suffocate you. What had happened to him?
"Come on." Thor said to you, his voice gruff, and led you out of the room to leave Loki in the very capable hands of Bruce Banner. You found yourself thinking how ironic it was that the same pair of hands had once done everything in their power to harm the very person they were now working to mend.
It was only half past seven in the morning. You knew that a long wait lay before you.