Two SHIELD agents were waiting for you on the roof alongside a helicopter. They introduced themselves as Alfie and Sienna, and then you were climbing into the helicopter and being flown away from the tower and towards who knew where. Alfie explained that you were being taken to a SHIELD base on the other side of Manhattan, where you would board a private jet and fly to Washington D.C., where you would then become Michelle, get a taxi to the airport and fly with a commercial airline to London. Your brain struggled to keep up; you still felt as though you'd just gotten out of bed.

The helicopter journey was short, which was a good thing because you weren't enjoying it all that much: it was really loud and the headphones you'd been given to wear were too large and kept slipping. The view, however, almost made it worth it. You tried not to think about the fact that Loki was right now in one of the tiny cars moving around far below you, heading towards the JFK airport.

It didn't work. At least you weren't experiencing the horrible tugging feeling you used to get whenever the two of you separated.

A feeling of relief settled over you when you started descending to land on a runway outside what must have been the other SHIELD base Alfie had spoken of.

You weren't sure what you'd been expecting, but it wasn't to be ushered swiftly from the helicopter you'd arrived in and straight on to a private jet waiting less than forty feet away. Inside was none other than Nick Fury himself.

"What are you doing here?" you asked, trying to hide your incredulation as you looked about the luxurious interior of the plane. Everything was white, including the leather seats, save for the carpet and tables, which were light brown.

"Y/N, pleasant as ever to see you." Fury acknowledged you, gesturing for you to sit in the seat opposite him. Alfie and Sienna disappeared into the cockpit; apparently they were trained pilots as well as agents.

"Sorry. I wasn't expecting to see you." you told Fury.

"Evidently. I came to wish you good luck."

You stopped in your tracks. This was very unlike Fury. There had to be an ulterior motive at play here somewhere. He raised his eyebrows, seeming to guess what you were thinking.

"This is a very important mission. Although Loki is still considered a liability..." here you set your jaw unwittingly, "he has been working for us for a while now. He knows what he's doing. You, however..."

"I know what I'm doing. I've imitated people before, on missions and not. One time I imitated Bucky for a whole afternoon, you should have seen Steve's face when..." you trailed off. Wrong audience.

"This is your chance to pull out of this operation. You must understand that if this goes wrong, SHIELD could be massively compromised." Fury stressed, staring at you intently with his one visible eye.

"They won't catch us."

"And if they do..."

"They won't."

You said this with a conviction which was almost unwavering. Ninety percent of you was sure that you wouldn't get caught, and the other ten percent just didn't want to think about what might happen to you if you were found out. And Loki...

"Good. Don't let it happen." Fury said after a long pause, turning to look out of the window. You were surprised when you looked out of the window and the world outside was moving, having not even noticed the engines starting up.

"Uh, aren't you supposed to be getting off before we take off?" you asked Fury.

"No. I'm going to D.C. anyway today; it makes sense to travel together." he told you, reaching to fasten his seatbelt. A feeling of dismay settled over you. You'd been looking forward to having a whole hour of luxury to yourself. And instead...

"Let's see how much you've learnt shall we?" Fury asked you, revealing a copy of Michelle's file. You tried to maintain a neutral face as you fastened your seatbelt and watched the ground drop away from beneath you as the plane rose into the air and Fury began to test you. This was going to be a long hour.

When you finally touched down in Washington you'd been through every detail of Michelle's file for so long that you almost felt as if you were her. Fury had made you stare at her picture for so long that it almost felt like second nature to cast the illusion which turned you into her. You checked your watch as you stepped off of the plane. It was six thirty in the morning, so taking the time difference and flight time into consideration, it was about twelve hours before you would be able to drop your illusion. The thought made you feel exhausted.

You entered a building and were presented with a large suitcase and handbag, which according to a new agent who had just appeared alongside a whole entourage of SHIELD agents contained everything you would need for up to a month's stay in London. You didn't ask what would happen if you were required to stay over there for longer than one month, which you sincerely hoped you wouldn't have to.

"As of now, you are Michelle Cooper, agent of HYDRA. Not Y/N Y/L/N, and certainly not someone who is affiliated or has had any contact with SHIELD in any way, ever." Fury said to you. You nodded mutely, suddenly overwhelmed with nerves.

"Don't get caught." he said, before striding away through a door on the other side of the room flanked by two agents.

"Thanks, I'll miss you too." you muttered under your breath, and a young agent stood opposite you stifled a laugh. You smiled at him, and he smiled back. Thank god someone was around to lighten the mood.

Unfortunately the relapse didn't last long as you were informed that your taxi was picking you up a twenty minute walk away from the SHIELD building and you had to set off immediately. You grit your teeth and picked up the handbag and suitcase handle.

"Good luck out there." spoke the agent who had laughed, and a few of the other agents wished you good luck too. You nodded in acknowledgment and appreciation, not trusting yourself to speak, and stepped outside into the cool morning air. Correction: Michelle stepped outside into the cool morning air. She had a flight to catch.

Approximately two hours later you were sat on board the most gigantic plane you had ever seen, still reeling from the awful experience which had been getting through the airport. It had been loud, crowded and extremely hot and you'd hated every second of it. The queuing, the security checks, all of it. Your heart ached for Loki; if you'd hated it he must have had the worst time of his life. You wondered where he was right now, probably already in the air, halfway over the Atlantic. He would hate the flight too.

You, on the other hand, had accidentally charmed the man at the desk into upgrading you to first class, and were now sat watching the ground drop away from beneath you out of a tiny window for the third time since you'd woken up this morning in luxury. You marvelled at the fact that you could barely feel the fact that you were hurtling into the air at five hundred miles per hour; this was a very different experience to flying in the Quinjet. Now you thought of the team back in New York; you missed them already.

Pulling out the headphones which were provided inflight, you began browsing for the least boring looking film you could find on the TV screen in front of you. You needed to stop thinking for a while; you had six more hours to kill before you began your descent over London. Pressing play, you reclined in your chair and looked out of the window, watching Washington grow smaller and smaller below you. Your thoughts roamed immediately to Loki; this was hopeless. Concentrate on the film Y/N. No, Michelle. Michelle Cooper.

The flight went considerably slower than you had hoped it would go, but eventually you felt the plane begin to lose altitude, and for the first time in hours you could now see land when you looked out of the window. You pulled out Michelle's phone; the time had changed automatically to match the time zone you had entered. It was only three pm for you, but in England it was eight pm, and the sun was beginning to get low in the sky. The descent over London was beautiful; the views managed to distract you from your troublesome thoughts, even if only for half an hour. The minute your flight touched down to the minute you stepped out of the airport was almost exactly one hour, and you managed to find your taxi with relative ease. Thankfully exiting the airport had been a lot easier than getting though it the other way.

After about twenty five minutes of sitting in the taxi looking out of the window you began to feel a lot less stressed, even though you were approaching a hotel filled with Nazi's who you were expected to affiliate with for the next few weeks. Loki was near, you could tell. Sure enough within the next couples of minutes you began to be able to hear his thoughts; he was talking to someone but knew you were getting nearer.

When you finally arrived at the hotel it was pitch black and you were absolutely starving hungry. Your cab driver lifted your suitcase out of the back for you and went on his way, and then you were alone, in the dark outside the hotel. It looked nice enough, but you got the feeling that you were going to grow to hate it here.

Y/N.

His voice in your head was such a natural thing; being without it for even a short amount of time felt odd, unnatural. You were insanely glad that he was here with you.

Are you okay?

Yeah.

A lie.

That was all there was time for, because then he was being drawn into another conversation. You dragged your suitcase inside and checked in, sneaking a peak around the door of the dining room as you did so. Loki met your gaze; you could both see through each other's illusions as though they weren't there. Then the receptionist was talking to you again and a porter was taking your bag and leading you upstairs, and you had to turn away.

Your room was nice, it had a king-sized bed, an en-suite and small kitchen area with a kettle, fridge and other essentials. Thanking the porter you dumped your bags on the bed and immediately went back downstairs into the dining room. Now it was time to really become Michelle, there were people in this room who knew her, and the ones who didn't were bound to ask questions about her life.

The minute you stepped inside the room you were swamped by an eager crowd of HYDRA agents greeting you, and you fought to look anywhere but in Loki's direction. After twenty minutes of successful small talk a strange hush fell over the room as a large, entitled looking man in a sharp suit entered the room and stood at the head of the table, observing you all.

"Good evening. Now that we are all present I have an announcement to make before we eat."

You hoped this speech of his didn't last long; your stomach hadn't agreed with the plane food so you'd hardly eaten a thing all day, and the smells coming from the kitchen were positively heavenly.

"We've been alerted to the fact that there is a large possibility that SHIELD have become aware of our presence, and there is every likelihood that there are one or more SHIELD agents amongst us at this very moment."

A jolt of dread shot through you, and you had to fight to keep the aloof, slightly bored look on Michelle's face as a murmur swept around the room.

There's no way they can know, don't worry.

You wanted to go over to Loki so badly.

"Would anyone like to say anything before it's too late? I can only guarantee a painless death at this point, but after that... well."

You'd never had to try so hard to keep an illusion up, save maybe for the first time you ever tried it. The room became deathly silent.

"Good. Well then, if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to worry about." the man in the suit smiled, and it struck you how unnerving it was that he looked like a genuinely nice person when he smiled.

"You should all know that we have tripled security and made ID and background checks even more vigorous, and there is CCTV running almost everywhere in this and the neighbouring hotel. As I said before, this should not faze anyone who has nothing to hide."

Don't panic. Y/N, it's fine, we prepared for this.

Not like this!

"Now, let's eat shall we?" he continued, gesturing for everyone to sit down around the table. You had completely lost your appetite.

You don't know what was making you more stressed, the fact that it was now common knowledge that there were spies in the midst of this room of murderers and you just so happened to be one of those spies, or the fact that you had to pretend to be strangers with Loki for the foreseeable future. You weren't going to be able to sneak off together, not with the amount of security around.

Just before the food arrived, someone you'd got stuck talking to dragged you over to Loki, no, Harry, to introduce you. Perfect.

"A pleasure to meet you Michelle." Harry said, lifting your hand to kiss it. The swell of longing which rose in your throat threatened to suffocate you as you forced Michelle to smile politely. This was the worst torture imaginable to you, what had you done to deserve this?

Sit down, quickly.

You slid into chairs next to each other without much notice as everyone else began to sit down too, and began to make small talk so you wouldn't look suspicious while simultaneously talking through your thoughts.

How do you think they found out?

Never mind about that, Michelle and Harry are going to have to fall in love.

You bit back a smile as Loki pushed his leg against yours under the table and you returned the pressure, hard. It was going to have to do for now.