A/N: hey guys, please call me out on any spelling or grammatical errors in the last two chapters, I'm speed writing to try and get this story finished before my uni workload ramps up! I really hope you enjoy them and the next few chapters, can't believe this book is almost finished after over a year ;(<3
...
Unfortunately, indefinitely wasn't as long as you'd originally hoped for it to be.
You spent most of your days inside (your leg was healing quickly but Loki wanted you to rest completely until it was fully healed), or sat on the balcony which looked out over the sea and the beach, watching the last holidaymakers of the year having fun before the weather turned. You lost count of how many books you read, having spent days with your feet propped on Loki's lap, both of you reading. After a few days your leg was feeling good enough for you to venture outside; you went after dark so you wouldn't have to cast an illusion while you walked.
After a few moonlit walks on the coast with Loki you decided you loved the ocean. It was the happiest you'd been all year; not that you weren't usually happy, but not having to worry about Loki had become a rare luxury in the last half year.
The phone Agent Shawcross had given you remained untouched for an entire blissful week, until exactly a week after you had arrived, it rang. You leapt up from the sofa and snatched the phone from the drawer you'd put it in in the kitchen; Loki watched in interest and trepidation.
Unknown number.
You pressed the green button and raised the phone to your ear.
"Hello?"
"Y/N, good to hear you're alive." Fury said.
...
A little under three hours later a car pulled up outside to take you home. You were going to miss it here, but you now hadn't seen the team for just under a month, and you were ready to sleep in your own bed again.
The flight home was a lot more comfortable than the flight over had been, possibly because you were back in a private jet and not on a noisy, crowded, hot commercial airplane. You'd never been so thankful for leg room before in your life.
When you landed in New York it was five o' clock in the afternoon, but it felt a lot later to you. Skipping the airport this time (Loki was insanely relieved) you were put straight into a taxi and driven not to the tower, much to your disappointment, but to SHIELD HQ, where an oddly happy looking Fury was waiting for you. Maybe happy was a bit of an overstatement, he was perhaps frowning slightly less than usual.
"Welcome back agents." he greeted you, and Loki opened his mouth to no doubt remind Fury that he was not one of his agents and then closed it again when you threw him a look. You followed Fury to his office and sat in the exact same seats that you always did.
"It's been a while since we were last sat here." Fury mused, looking at you both. Loki raised an eyebrow. He must have been in a good mood if he were reminiscing, you didn't think you'd ever heard him do that before. Usually it was straight down to business.
"I suppose you want to know what happened then." Fury told you rather than asked, pulling a file which had been on the table towards him. Not really, you thought, what you really wanted was to get home and see everyone and go to sleep. You nodded nevertheless, and Fury began to talk.
It had been as you'd expected, another anti-HYDRA organisation had got drift of the fact that there was a meeting taking place in central London and decided to take a more radical form of action than SHIELD, aka deciding to blow the meeting room up while everyone was in it, killing almost everyone in the room. Unfortunately they had not decided to check if there were any undercover agents within the building, a fact which Fury was not pleased by and assured you was being dealt with 'accordingly'.
As he talked, a phone began ringing on the table next to him. The first time it rang he gave it an odd look, silenced it and carried on talking to the two of you. The second time it rang he ignored it completely, but the third time he snatched it up mid-sentence and spoke angrily to whoever was on the other end.
"What?" he asked angrily, at the same time as the door burst open and several SHIELD guards came pouring into the room.
"Sir-"
You and Loki felt it first, a split second before the others, reaching for each other simultaneously as a loud explosion rocked the building.
Quite hilariously, Loki's first thought was not again. Rather rapidly after you thought that you realised that there was not much funny about the situation.
"It's HYDRA sir, we're almost certain of it, we need to get you-"
Loki was three steps ahead.
"Y/N can get you all out quicker. I'll go down and see what I can do downstairs."
"No." you said, tightening your hold on his arm.
"Yes." Loki told you; you both stood up. Screams and yells were echoing from the streets below, and then there was another loud bang and a tremor, bigger than the last one had been.
Get as many people out as you can and make sure the team get here quickly.
"Loki-" you spoke over his thoughts to you, trying to hold on to him as he pulled away from you.
Quickly Y/N. And then he was gone. Your head span, thirty seconds ago you'd been daydreaming about what you were going to have to eat when you got back to the tower.
"-need to contact the Avengers..." Fury was saying.
"No you don't, they'll already be on their way." you said, snapping back into reality. People were most likely dead or seriously injured downstairs where the explosion had come from, Loki was right, you needed to be fast. Ignoring the protests from the SHIELD guards, you grabbed hold of Fury and one of the other guards and teleported them to safety about two blocks away.
"How dare- Y/N! I need to get back-" Fury protested, yanking his arm from your tight grip.
"You need to stay safe above anything else and you know it, SHIELD need you. Keep him away from HQ." you said sternly, first to Fury and then to the SHIELD guard, and then you teleported back into the building. Chaos was reigning. People were throwing things out of windows for no apparent reason, threating people on the streets below who were gathering around the scene of the explosion. You hoped the team would be here soon, Nat would sort them out in no time.
The next ten minutes passed in a blur of teleporting SHIELD agents to safety; you began to feel quite dizzy after a while, a combination of both yours and Loki's efforts. He was currently holding the groundwork of the building together.
"You'd think they'd have better security in a place like this, wouldn't you? I mean it is the headquarters of a secret spy organisation."
"Tony, maybe now's not the time."
"Just trying to lighten the mood, someone's gotta keep the laughs coming."
Resisting the overwhelming urge to turn and launch yourself at Tony, you settled for throwing him a big smile to show him that you were okay (ish, considering the circumstances), and continued to search for agents who were unable to get to safety. It was another five minutes before you felt Loki really beginning to struggle.
Y/N, I appreciate that you are preoccupied, but if this building goes down...
I know. I'm coming.
"Kid! Heads up." Tony's voice emanated from somewhere to your left, and then an earpiece was flying towards you.
"Thanks!" you yelled as you caught it, and then he was gone again. You hastily shoved the earpiece into place and turned it on, smiling at the familiar chaotic outburst of voices.
"I'm going down to help Loki hold the building up, are you guys...?" you stopped trying to make yourself heard over the chorus of 'Y/N!? How are you? Are you hurt?', and a second later you were next to Loki in the bowels of the building, he looked pale and was surrounded by magic.
Don't look.
Why?
You looked at him and he looked back at you; his expression and pale eyes told you all you needed to know.
Trust me.
Some agents, or what was left of them, hadn't been as lucky as the ones you'd managed to teleport away on the upper floors. Your stomach twisted and you concentrated on Loki's face.
Whoever did this knew what they were doing, they've gone for the two most stable points of the building. I need you to go to the other one.
You were over there in an instant, looking at your shoes and nowhere else, terrified of what you might see if you looked up. Trying not to think about it, you closed your eyes and let your magic wash over you, holding nothing back. It was easy to tap into Loki's magic, it felt as natural as using your own, and soon enough you were holding the groundwork together with relative ease, something you knew wouldn't last.
Thank you.
"Y/N, talk to us!" Nat demanded over the earpiece.
"I'm okay, my leg got busted up pretty badly but I'm all in one piece. For now." you added as an afterthought.
"And Loki?" Bucky asked. Your heart swelled at the thought of the team being even slightly worried about Loki, who was currently pretending to be indifferent to the fact he had been asked after.
"He's okay too."
Five minutes later, you were beginning to feel the pressure of the building which you were holding up. Loki was trying to distract you.
How long has it been since you held a building up? You're getting out of practice.
You laughed through gritted teeth.
Almost a year now. I try not to make a habit of it.
You concentrated on the sound of the team's voices in your ear, thinking about how glad you were to be home despite your current precarious situation. The minutes dragged by, the team seemingly no closer to getting everyone out of the building.
Y/N, you can do this.
Loki was right, you could do this, you were doing it, the question was how much longer you were going to be able to keep on doing it.
Every second felt like ten; you found yourself counting them just to distract yourself from the pain.
You were shaking by the time you got to fifty-eight, eyes closed, every ounce of your concentration set on keeping your magic flowing into the foundations of the building. If you were to give up now Loki wouldn't be able to hold it on his own; his magic may be more powerful than yours but he'd been down here for fifteen minutes even before you'd arrived.
There were still people in the building. You had to hold on. Loki was talking to you but you couldn't hear him, even in your own mind. All you could hear was your heartbeat. You suddenly had a horrible thought: how were you and Loki going to get out from down here when the building eventually did come down? And it was going to come down, soon. The foundations of the building were now completely useless, being held down only by yours and Loki's magic. You seemed to spend a lot of time worrying about other people and not a lot of time worrying about yourself at the moment.
The team's voices were a blur of sound in your mind as you felt your knees beginning to buckle. A horrible crunching noise emanated from above you as you crashed to your knees, feeling pain shoot through your kneecaps and up your legs. Loki was talking to you urgently now, saying your name, but your brain was too preoccupied to take in what he was saying to you.
Hold it. Hold it. Hold it...
...
When you came to, you were lying on the ground. You could hear sirens.
You were really cold; a violent shiver ran through you and almost forced you to sit up. Every part of you ached. As you opened your eyes, you wished you hadn't. SHIELD HQ was gone, and there were people everywhere, most of them covered in dust and injured. Cries and screams pierced the air.
Loki.
Where was he? You turned your head, wincing as pain shot down your spine. That didn't feel good. Loki was slumped against the wall behind you, eyes closed. He was breathing. You closed your eyes again.
The next time you opened them Thor was there. You could feel yourself going into shock; your body was shutting down.
You let it.