The next fortnight was one which you would rather forget.

As the days went by you became more and more frustrated; Michelle's days were long and gruelling and some days you barely managed to make it back to your hotel room before dropping the illusion and falling straight into a deep sleep. Loki was struggling less with the illusions, but no less with the fact that you'd barely interacted for the entire time you'd been in London. This was solely due to the fact that Harry was working night shifts, and Michelle day shifts. Your timetables regularly seemed to fit perfectly (or, not) around the other's, with one of you just coming off of a shift as the other arrived back from one. You couldn't help but wonder if this was a deliberate move. The head of this department (the entitled man in the suit from dinner on the first night: Agent Gregor) had not warmed to either Michelle nor Harry and on more than one occasion you'd overheard your temporary colleagues discussing this fact.

Rumours were circulating.

Eight days into this awful regime there was finally a respite: you finished your shift an hour early and when you returned to the hotel Loki still had two hours before he was due to leave. All thoughts of Fury's warnings about jeopardising the mission and the fact that you were in a building of the most evil people you'd ever met went straight out the window; you'd be damned if you weren't going to grab this opportunity with both hands.

Two positively blissful hours later you teleported back to your room and slept the best you had in a week. So maybe you didn't want to forget all of the fortnight.

Thoughts of that night and brief, sleepy conversations through your thoughts got you through the following week to the day of the meeting. You'd a bad feeling about it the minute it had been announced that morning: an 'emergency' meeting regarding the 'safety and continuation' of the organisation. Along with everyone else you were assigned to your shift with you returned to the hotel early and were directed to the board room where all the other agents were gathered around the long table in the centre of the room. Half of the agents present looked half asleep, having been working the previous night and using this afternoon to catch up on lost sleep. Harry looked slightly bleary-eyed, whereas Loki quite literally looked like he was going to fall asleep at the table. You sincerely hoped that wasn't about to happen; you barely had enough energy to keep up your own illusion these days, let alone a whole other one alongside that.

Loki raised his head and gave you an appraising look from down the table as he heard your thoughts as you sat down and you smiled uneasily in return, unseen by anyone else. The blinds were drawn so that little light was actually entering the room, you assumed that this meant the topic of the meeting was not going to be a light and breezy one. Then again, you probably could have worked that out from the urgent nature of the meeting.

Agent Gregor entered the room and closed the door abruptly behind him. The volume dropped rapidly, alongside your body temperature as he looked directly at you. You felt Loki's attention, and your own for that matter, sharpen dramatically. Finally, after what seemed like an age, the man's attention moved away from you and he strode purposefully towards the head of the table, where he slowly sat down.

Apparently nerves had begun to make you hysterical, because you were suddenly forcefully reminded of Voldemort sat at the head of a long table full of Death Eaters and a laugh bubbled inside of you. Loki was giving you an incredulous look. He looked so tired; you were aching to hold him again. Some agents had their eyes fixated on Agent Gregor, while many others were gazing at their hands, or various points along the wall.

"Among us today, are two spies."

Your soul left your body.

"SHIELD agents, no less. As we suspected."

Michelle and Harry remained entirely indifferent. You and Loki did not. You fought not to start hyperventilating; all your senses had heightened tenfold. Loki had started plotting different escape routes, all of which relied on you being able to teleport out of the building while holding the illusion which everyone else in the room believed to be Michelle.

I can't.

You're going to have to if you want to avoid a fight.

I'll fight.

No, we want to avoid fighting-

"These agents are in disguise, posing as two of our loyal agents, who are in fact dead."

The ripple of shock which passed around the room struck you as ironic. The number of innocent dead people by HYDRA's hands was uncountable, and now a mere two of their own had died and there was upset. You wondered whether these people actually believed that they were doing right.

Y/N, listen to me, we need to move quickly.

It was at that moment that you realised something was wrong.

Besides the obvious worrying fact that you were about the be exposed in a room full of murderous Nazis, something else was very, very wrong. Loki was oblivious to your thoughts, trying to explain to you how you were going to get out of the building without detection. Agent Gregor was talking again, and suddenly everyone was looking at Loki. Rather, they were looking at Harry. Fear spiked in your throat, but for some inexplicable reason you weren't afraid because he'd just been exposed as a traitor.

Time slowed down, and you were reminded of all those months ago when you'd thought you were going to die after you'd been kidnapped and that old lady had tried to have you shot. Loki had risked his life to save you then, and on several occasions since. Time to return the favour.

Several things happened at once, all in apparent slow motion. Three of the men around the table stood up, including Agent Gregor. Loki, finally realising that you hadn't listened to any of his thoughts and that something else was horribly wrong, looked at you in horror down the table as you dropped your illusion. The dread for him which you were feeling had reached such an intensity that you instinctively channelled every last inch of your magic into creating a shield around him.

Suddenly, time returned to normal. For a second, you, Y/N, not Michelle, were stood utterly defenceless in the midst of a room full of HYDRA agents, and the fear which you had felt barely a second ago had vanished, confusion taking its place. Loki, however, now looked terrified.

You locked eyes with him for a fraction of a second before the wall behind him exploded.

In reality you were probably airborne for about three seconds, but it felt like a lot longer to you. Noise ceased to exist. The air was sucked from your lungs as you were thrown backwards into space alongside the agents you'd been sat among.

That's why you'd been so scared for Loki, he had been about to die. Here was a useful side effect of this soulmate connection. At least he would be safe, the shield you'd created would take most of the shock wave for him. It was then that it occurred to you that you should probably be slightly more concerned about your own wellbeing; you'd just been sat less than twenty meters away from a bomb which had just gone off. Here was that fear again, but this time you felt it for yourself instead.

You were falling now, about to hit the floor. Above you now was the sky, grey and cloudy and vast; fire and smoke followed you from the building and then suddenly noise returned briefly, shattering all comprehension you thought you'd previously had of the word 'loud'. The little breath which you had was knocked from you as you hit the floor, a lot gentler than you'd anticipated. You didn't need to look to know it was Loki's magic beneath you, protecting you.

The burst of relief you felt was short and sweet. During your time as an Avenger you thought you had built up a pretty good pain tolerance, but the agony which suddenly enshrouded you was unprecedented. You were in too much pain to make a noise. How long you lay there for you didn't know, listening to the distant ringing noise in your ears and the grating of your lungs as you fought to breathe. The air was thick with brick dust and smoke; you couldn't see the sky anymore. You also couldn't feel your right leg, but couldn't raise your head enough to see what was wrong with it.

Finally, after what seemed like an age, figures started emerging from the dust and smoke. You recognised the uniform, these were paramedics and police officers, and now you could make out blue lights from beyond the gloom. No sirens though, still only ringing. They started moving people (bodies? You couldn't tell) from amongst the debris. You wondered if you were going to die; you felt oddly numb now, as though detached from your own body. The next time you opened your eyes, Loki was leaning over you.

Relief, you decided, was your favourite sensation. Nothing else mattered.

You were so glad he was okay, although he looked painfully pale and scared, so scared, especially when he looked at your leg, which incidentally you still couldn't feel.

If he tried to warn you before he moved to pick you up, you didn't hear him. You didn't hear the distorted groan of pain you emitted as he lifted you, nor the scrape of metal on brick that came from the large piece of steel which had five minutes previously been part of the hotel's framework, but was now lodged through your right calf.

Loki half carried, half dragged you away from the chaos, and then suddenly someone was helping him to lift you. The pain was washing over you in waves of torment, and you were helpless to stop it. Then you were in the back of a car, slumped over as Loki shouted something, trying to keep you upright. The car moved forward, this you knew because you were pressed sideways against the back of the leather interior with significant force. Loki was holding you, but his left arm was broken and he had a cracked rib. This you knew innately, without having to look or hear what he was saying. The fact that you still couldn't hear anything apart from ringing was beginning to worry you.

Then you saw your leg, and all worries about your ears vanished. It had been sliced almost clean in half by a chunk of steel framework from the hotels wall. It was huge, and it had cut right through your calf.

That did it. It didn't matter that you were suspended in your own oddly calm bubble of unfeeling and not hearing anything: seeing your leg cut almost in half was too much.

You sincerely hoped you were heading towards safety, and then you fainted.