It was ten days after you had visited SHIELD HQ, and you hadn't heard anything from Fury since then. You were trying to not get lulled into a false sense of security, but things had pretty much returned to normal. Except Loki's hair. You'd managed to make it look less like it had been brutally attacked by a pair of shears and more like it had been done properly. Loki had been almost as relieved as you when it had turned out alright.
The two of you were currently in a training room and he was finally allowing you to try and teleport properly, after weeks of training for it. Granted, you were only teleporting to barely a metre in front of you, but it was still exciting. Or, it would be, if you could only do it. You were trying to clear your mind, but Loki was worrying about you very loudly right next to you and you couldn't stop thinking about how hungry you were, and this was beside the fact you could feel a headache coming on.
"Are you sure you don't want to take a break?"
"I'm fine!"
"You don't look fine."
"Then stop looking."
Sometimes you wished Loki cared about you a little less. No, that wasn't true, but it did become quite tedious in training sometimes when he made you stop in case you hurt yourself every three seconds.
"Okay, stop. We can try again tomorrow." Loki said after about ten minutes, touching your arm gently. You groaned in annoyance, but knew that it would be stupid to try and carry on.
"I'll train with Nat instead. At least I can actually practice moves with her rather than just giving myself headaches and nosebleeds." you muttered.
"Magic is mentally draining, the training you do with Natasha physically drains you rather than affecting your mind."
"Yeah, but using magic is physically draining too." you argued, moving to sit down heavily on the floor against the wall.
"I suppose mental health and physical health are connected." Loki mused, sitting down next to you on a chair he conjured from mid-air.
Show off.
"Training hard are we?" Tony's voice emanated from the corridor; you both turned to look at him.
"Reindeer Games, it's for you." he continued, holding the phone he held in his hand out towards Loki. Your heart dropped. You'd known it was only a matter of time before SHIELD got in contact, but you hadn't wanted to think about what would happen when they did.
The phone vanished from Tony's hand and appeared in Loki's, who looked at you for a moment before lifting the phone to his ear. You were cheered slightly by the astonished look on Tony's face as he stared at the hand he had just been holding the phone in, but the feeling didn't last long as you listened in on the phone call.
"Right now?" Loki was asking. Even Tony felt a pang of sympathy when he heard that.
"A few days' notice might have been nice."
Fury was arguing that this was a developing situation and they couldn't have all the information all the time, and that Loki couldn't afford to be making demands. Then he told him to be on the roof in four minutes and hung up. You and Loki stared at the phone for a few seconds, and then Loki stood up and crossed the room, returning the phone to Tony.
"Thank you."
Then he walked back towards you and you stood up, correctly guessing what was about to happen as you held out a hand for him. Seconds later you were in his room and he was sitting on the edge of his bed; you followed suit and took one of his hands in yours. Neither of you spoke, until...
It's this or Asgard. Locked in a cell for eternity.
Your grip on his hand tightened, but he continued.
I'd rather be away from you for a few hours than forever.
You laughed, albeit humourlessly.
"It's not about being away from me. It's about being made to work for SHIELD because you've been blackmailed."
"It is very much about being away from you." he contradicted, pulling you towards him so that he could wrap his arms around you. You stayed like that for the two minutes you had left together, trying not to worry about what he'd be doing and how long he'd be gone for, running your fingers through his new, short hair. You'd become used to it now, and while you missed his long hair you couldn't deny that short hair suited him well. Eventually he pulled away from the embrace and kissed you. It was definitely a goodbye kiss, slow and lingering and it left you breathless.
I'll be back so soon, you won't even notice I was gone.
You smiled weakly at him.
"I love you. Be careful."
He planted another kiss on your forehead, and then he was gone. You lay back on his bed, waiting for the familiar tugging feeling in your chest.
I love you too.
You grinned, wrapping your arms around yourself. Now here was the tugging sensation, growing stronger as he left the roof in what must have been a helicopter. Ten minutes ago everything had been normal.
After a while you decided that lying on Loki's bed feeling sorry for yourself wasn't going to do you any good, so got up and went to find Nat to ask if she would train for a bit.
You won't even notice I was gone. You repeated these words over and over to yourself through training with Nat. Through dinner. Through the rest of the evening, and then through the whole night when you didn't sleep from worrying. Through the morning where you sat with Thor (who was visibly worried too) in the living room and watched the sun come up, through breakfast, through the next three hours, until finally a distraction arrived in the shape of a mission.
"Guys, get suited and booted, we're up." Tony announced, jogging into the kitchen before leaving again immediately to give JARVIS some orders. This was perfect timing. A distraction was exactly what you needed. You leapt to your feet and ran to get changed, following Buck and Clint into the corridor from the kitchen.
Five minutes later you were in the Quinjet listening to Tony tell you about the mission as you flew away from the tower. You hoped Loki didn't get back while none of you were there; the SHIELD agents might be reluctant about leaving him alone in the tower. Worry blossomed in your chest yet again, and you fought to push it down and focus on what Tony was saying.
Stolen SHIELD technology. You were to recover it and detain the people who had taken it. You wondered if this was anything to do with the secret organisation being formed within SHIELD's ranks which Fury had told you about, but you couldn't voice this query aloud because none of the others were meant to know about it.
"We're going to need to go in quietly; take them by surprise." Tony was saying, casting around for suggestions. You answered the unspoken question by turning invisible, and then reaching out to hold Nat's arm to turn her invisible too.
"Buck and I will go in with them." Steve supplied, and Bucky nodded.
A hasty plan was formed as you approached the landing area; the Quinjet became invisible as it entered the zone around the building you were infiltrating and landed a fair distance away. You all turned your earpieces on and stood up as the jet landed.
"Ladies first." Bucky grinned as the back of the jet opened into the ramp.
"You're too kind."
You exited the jet followed by Nat, then Steve and then Bucky and the rest of the team waited a while before following to surround the building in a loose circle. The four of you held on to each other as you approached the building; your magic extending across your connected arms to make you all invisible in case of CCTV. You'd never tried making four people invisible simultaneously before, and the sensation made you feel slightly lightheaded. You approached a back door and you strained to hear any thoughts coming from within the building. Luckily there was someone right on the other side of the door, presumably a security guard.
You looked to Nat, mouthing the word 'one'. She nodded and then reached out and knocked loudly on the door. A few seconds later it swung open, and for a moment the security guard peered around in confusion, not seeing the four of you stood invisibly in front of him. Then you let go of Nat's arm, making you all visible. The guard barely had time to react as Nat flew at him and Steve grabbed the door to prevent in from swinging shut. There was a thud from inside the door, and then a surprised yell.
"They're here! The Avengers, they-"
This was spoken by an unfamiliar voice, followed by another cry and then a thud. A second security guard. Who, by the sound of it, had just revealed your arrival to the whole building.
"You said there was only one!" Nat complained as you entered the building.
"I only heard one. Number two must have been asleep."
"Yes, he was." Nat replied, gesturing at the now vacated chair which was positioned by the back door.
"So much for going in quietly." Bucky supplied, gesturing at the radio the second man had used to tell whoever else was in the building.
"Keep going. We're on the roof." Tony spoke through your earpieces. You started forward down the corridor but Steve held you back.
"Let me go first."
You and Bucky followed Steve, and Nat took up the rear as you made your way deeper into the building, becoming more and more unnerved as you encountered no security guards.
"Do we have a location on the tech yet?" Nat asked over comms as you crept around another corner to find yet another abandoned corridor.
"I'm working on it. Although by looks of it we'll just be able to physically search the building without much resistance."
"Something isn't right." Steve muttered as you reached the end of the corridor.
"You're at the centre of the building now, it's a storage room." Tony told you.
"I'll look." you volunteered, turning yourself invisible before anyone could protest. You pushed the door open slowly and slipped through to the other side. Tony had been right, the centre of the building was a storage room, but it was gigantic. You were on a raised platform which ran around the whole edge of the room about twenty feet above the floor; spiral staircases reaching down to the floor were situated at six points around the platform. The room must have been about two hundred metres by a hundred metres at least, and huge storage units and shelves filled the whole space.
For a moment you were taken aback by the sheer size of the room, before snapping out of it and scanning the room for guards. You couldn't see or hear anyone.
"Tony you were right, it is a storage space. I can't see or hear anyone." you addressed the team quietly through your earpiece. As you said this however, you felt someone's presence appear on the other side of the room.
"Wait, wait. There's someone here." you whispered as the others tried to follow you into the room.
You strained to hear the faint voice which was getting closer as the person walked between the storage units. Their thoughts were muddled, and excited. Something good had happened, but there were nerves present too.
"They haven't got here yet, but it's only a matter of time. Everyone is in position... yes I know we need to leave soon, but if there's going to be a fight it's better for it to be in here."
Your breath hitched in your chest as you heard the voice. His voice. But it couldn't be...
"You alright kid?" Clint was asking you through your earpiece, and you shook your head, forgetting for a second that he couldn't see you.
The person whose voice you'd heard stepped out from behind a shelf, still speaking into a phone and completely unaware of your presence.
It was Loki.