Prompt from @HaelTheQueen (ao3 user): Y/n overhears Tony telling cap that they are using a mind device on Loki that rips at your mind and makes you relive things and y/n busts into the room and leverages Loki's safety for her working with the avengers (maybe she has secrets powers?). And fury decides the deal is worth it but her first duty is information retrieval from Loki. 

A/N: this turned so angsty very quickly woops. the prompt was too good not to use wow. I hope you enjoy, and please send me more prompts for the next chapters!<3

...

Loki visited you (as an illusion) twice after he'd come to apologise. However, you haven't seen him now for three days. He'd looked sort of... diminished during his last visits, like he was struggling to keep his illusion up.

Thankfully he hadn't mentioned you being worried about him again. If you hadn't been worried before, you definitely are now.

You're planning on going to see Loki after work. You don't trust that he's alright, not after what Tony had said. You haven't seen Thor since he was in your office either, so you don't know how his talk with Tony had gone. If it had gone at all.

Going to visit Tony to talk to him about it was off the table. You knew that, as an Avenger, he was technically under Fury's jurisdiction, much as he tried to avoid admitting it. There's a file on your desk that you need to give to him, which you're ignoring.

You don't even want to think about going to Fury.

"Y/N, we're going for lunch. You coming?" Kate asks you, poking her head around the door and breaking you out of your train of thought.

"Yeah, sure." you say as you stand up, grabbing your bag, coat and, after a moment's hesitation, the file for Tony from your desk, before following Kate from the room. You can leave it on his desk if he's not in his office, and you have an excuse to leave quickly now if he is.

"Who's coming?" you ask, pulling your coat on as you walk down the corridor.

"Maddie, Fi, George and Dan." Kate tells you, wiggling her eyebrows at the mention of Dan's name. She has some ridiculous notion in her head that there's something going on between the two of you.

There's not, of course. You've hardly got time to be thinking about that sort of thing. You and Dan are good friends, nothing more. But apparently talking to him on the night out you'd gone on with everyone from the department meant that there was something more going on.

You make a mental note to yourself not to speak to him more than Kate might consider a normal amount while you're out today.

Everyone's waiting for you in the break room. Dan smiles at you as you enter the room. You pretend not to see, feeling bad as you smile at Fiona instead.

You walk down the corridor with everyone, chatting to Maddie, before telling them you'll catch up with them when you pass Tony's office on the way towards the elevator.

The door is slightly ajar, and you raise your hand to knock before hearing voices coming from inside.

You shouldn't eavesdrop. But you do.

"Thor isn't happy Tony, and for good reason. It's not right-"

That sounds like Steve. You mentally shake your head at yourself for calling Captain America by his first name so casually.

"You do know who we're talking about here right? The psycho maniac who tried to take over the world and blew up a good part of New York in trying to do so? Look outside, they're still rebuilding-"

"I'm not saying that he should be let free Tony, but what they're doing to him is wrong." Steve cuts across him. Your blood runs cold.

"Y/N, you coming?" Maddie calls to you from the end of the corridor. You turn and wave a hand, signalling 'I'll catch you up.'

"We need information from him, and reassurance that he really isn't going to try and escape and go feral again." Tony tells Steve.

"He was talking to Thor and Y/N about it! This isn't necessary." Steve argues.

"Regardless of what I think, Fury doesn't agree." Tony says.

"It's HYDRA tech, Tony. It'll tear his mind-"

You push the door open and walk into the room, throwing the file in your hand down on Tony's desk.

"Y/N-"

"Where's Fury?" you ask, your voice shaking.

"He- down in the cells, overseeing Loki I expect." Tony replies, standing up, "Are you okay?"

"Take me to him. Please." you say, adding the last word as an afterthought.

"I can't right now-"

"I will." Steve says, standing up. You're already halfway back to the door.

"I don't think-"

Tony's voice is drowned out by the sound of your heartbeat loud in your ears as you walk quickly back down the corridor, Steve at your heels.

The guards put up little resistance once they see who you're with, and minutes later you're bursting into the small room outside Loki's cell.

Tony was right, Fury is in there. The room is full of screens and people in white coats, monitoring. You can't look at the CCTV of the cell.

"Y/N. Rogers. What are you doing?" Fury asks, standing up. He looks guilty.

"Stop this." you tell him, fighting not to look at the CCTV footage.

"You're already on thin ice Agent; I suggest you leave-"

"She's right Fury. This is wrong." Steve says. You're so thankful for him in this moment.

"I don't know what you want me to do-"

"Stop it!" you repeat, more forcibly this time, taking a step forward. One of the guards takes a step towards you simultaneously.

"We can't just stop it now." Fury tells you. Your hands are shaking; you clench them into fists.

"I'll join the team." you blurt out.

Fury stares at you with his one good eye.

"Stop this and I'll become an agent again. That's what you want, isn't it?" you plead, hating how desperate you sound, hating what you're saying. But at the same time... not.

"Y/N, you don't have to do this." Steve says from behind you.

"I do." you respond, your voice cracking. Fury is still just staring at you.

"Stop it!" you half shout, and this time he actually does something about it.

"Open the door." he says, still watching you.

You push past the guard who had stepped towards you and wait impatiently as another guard unlocks the cell door for you.

Loki is slumped on the floor, his back against the wall. Heavy chains criss-cross the floor, cuffs surrounding his wrists and ankles and neck, chaining him to the wall.

With no illusion, he looks like a different person. He's unhealthy thin, covered in bruises with dark shadows under his eyes.

On his head sits an almost delicate looking metal contraption, thin spikes of metal pressing into his skin and glowing blue where is meets his head. His eyes are closed but his whole body is convulsing, veins standing out on his arms and temples.

There's a look of obvious discomfort on his face.

You rush to him and drop to your knees at his side, yanking the... whatever it is from his head.

"Careful!" you hear Fury say from outside the cell. Loki's eyelids flicker.

"Loki." you say, watching his head loll as he regains consciousness. Scared, you grab his chin and force his head up to look at you.

"Loki." you say again, louder, and he opens his eyes. He blinks a few times before actually seeing you. For a second you stare at each other, and then he jerks his head away from your hand.

"Don't touch me." he says. He sounds sad, rather than angry. You withdraw your hand to your chest.

Loki looks back at you, and then to the open cell door, beyond which stand Fury, Steve, the white coat people and a room full of guards.

"What happened?" he asks.

"They were torturing you." you stress, showing him the metal contraption which you still hold in your hand.

"No. They were getting information." Loki says, his voice hoarse.

"You understand, of course, that we need reassurance that you won't try to escape. And that you have no further intentions of harming anyone." Fury replies, stepping into the cell. You stay knelt by Loki's side.

"And did you get that reassurance?" Loki asks.

"Not quite."

"Then put it back on until you do." he tells Fury, before looking at you. You stare at him in horror.

"No, Loki-"

"Will it get me out of these chains?" Loki asks Fury, lifting a hand weakly.

"Maybe even this cell." Fury replies. Loki raises an eyebrow at you as though that settles it. You take a deep breath.

"You don't have to do this. We- you can talk to Thor..." you say, knowing that it's futile.

"This is quicker." Loki tells you. You just watch him helplessly.

"Put it back on."

"I won't-"

"I am asking you to do this for me." Loki says, looking at you seriously.

You stare at him defiantly for about five seconds, before clenching your jaw; steeling yourself.

"Are you sure?" you ask. Loki nods.

...

When you leave the cell, Fury is waiting for you.

"Schedule a meeting with me. We have lots to discuss." he tells you. You nod tightly, before leaving the room, Steve in tow.

"Thank you." you tell him in the elevator on the way back up to the tower.

"It's alright. It's inhumane, the way they're treating him, especially if he truly was being mind-controlled during the attack." Steve says, shaking his head.

You nod, unable to form words.

Unable to stop thinking of Loki.