Author's note: hey guys! so meant to be got to #1 in fanfiction this week and I'm so so grateful for all of the support this story of mine is getting! It means so much to me to know that people all around the world are escaping to this world I've created and love so much, I can't even begin to describe how awesome it feels :)) thank you thank you thank you to everyone who is reading, voting and commenting, I'm trying my best to post regularly and I'll hopefully be doing that until the end, there are about ten more chapters to go I think? okay enough talking, sorry for all the sentimental rubbish ;) I hope you enjoy this chapter! 

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"Y/N, talk to us. What do you see?"

You couldn't speak, couldn't breathe. Nothing was right, this was impossible.

No, really, this was impossible. You snapped out of the initial shock you'd felt, blinking hard, and used your brain. Unfortunately that was quite difficult when you had seven people practically yelling at you through your earpiece.

You slid back through the door quietly and gestured to Bucky, Steve and Nat to follow you a little way back down the corridor.

"What did you see? What happened?" Nat asked urgently in a low voice.

"It's Loki, but-"

Nat's face dropped. Steve took a step back and raised his face heavenwards and Bucky moved forward to console you. There was a barrage of noise over your earpiece too: Tony and Clint yelling and Thor asking loudly for clarification. You were still trying to work out what was going on.

"Guys, no- shut up and listen to me!" you whisper-shouted, and all was quiet again.

"It's not Loki. I can tell, but someone's either using magic or technology to-"

You were interrupted by the sound of Tony swearing.

"The stolen tech, they're using it. The agent said it was masks which can be calibrated to look like any face, and it changes the voice too." he explained. You felt guilty for feeling relieved.

"Hang on. How we know that it's not really Reindeer Games down there?" Clint asked. You clenched your jaw, trying not to feel annoyed by the question.

"He would've seen and heard me." Beside the fact that your chest still ached, but you weren't about to mention that.

"What if he was pretending not to." Steve helpfully supplied.

"It's not hi-"

"But it..."

"He's working for SHIELD, not against them, that doesn't make any sense! He was blackmailed-"

"Yes, but-"

"It is NOT Loki!" you demanded, slightly louder than was probably a good idea. Silence again.

"Sorry." you whispered, taking a breath.

"Did he say anything?" Thor asked, sounding vaguely relieved. You internally scolded yourself for being annoyed by this fact. You yourself had felt relief only a few moments ago.

"He was telling someone on a phone that we weren't there yet, and that everyone was in position."

"So there are more masks?" Bruce asked.

"Maybe. I'm not sure." you replied.

"There are around a dozen of them." Tony said.

"Well, let's find out shall we?" Clint asked.

"Hang on, we need a plan-" Steve interjected.

"We go in and get the tech, how's that for a plan?" Tony replied.

Steve rolled his eyes.

"Let's go, visible this time." Nat told you, and strode towards the door, but you stopped her.

"Wait. I can get one of the masks off of this one guy so that we can see what we're dealing with."

"You want us to let you go in there alone?" Tony scoffed.

"I'm not alone, I have you guys for back-up." you argued, walking towards the door.

"Y/N, listen to me..." Tony said sternly.

Steve nodded to you to go ahead.

"I am listening." you replied, before pushing the door open.

Show time.

"Loki!" you exclaimed, trying to inject surprise and relief into your voice. The guy looked up in alarm and quickly hid the phone he'd been talking into behind his back. You vaulted over the railings of the platform and landed hard on the ground twenty feet below, using your magic to break your fall before standing up and jogging towards the guy. He looked terrified, or rather, 'Loki' did.

"What's wrong?" you asked, feigning concern as you neared him. He was trying not to stare at your eyes.

"No- nothing. Nothing's wrong... babe?" he said hesitantly. You gave him a pitying smirk.

"Not even close."

Panic flashed behind his eyes, Loki's eyes, and you gave a satisfied smile as you were able to conjure a knife on your first attempt without very much thought at all. The guy swung for your face and you blocked him easily with your magic once, twice, three times, before kicking his legs out from underneath him and bringing the knife down to hover over his exposed throat. You could hear doors banging open on the other side of the storage room.

"Time for that back up I think." you said to the others over comms.

You ran your finger over the side of the guys face, trying to find the edge of the mask and determinedly ignoring the fact that it was Loki's face looking up at you. Making reluctant eye contact, you realised with a jolt that this Loki had long hair, you were an idiot for not seeing it sooner. You'd blame it on the initial shock. After a few seconds you found a tiny ridge and slid your nail under it, pulling up.

"Get your hands off of him."

You yanked the mask off of the guys face, drawing a hiss of pain from him and stood up quickly, backing away in shock. Tony was walking towards you, pointing the palm of his Iron Man suit towards you. Nat emerged behind him, then Steve, then Bucky and Thor. It took you a second to work out what was going on. The door on your side of the storage room flew open and the real Avengers poured through, hesitating when they saw their doppelgangers watching them. You watched in a mixture of shock and interest as your look alike appeared from behind a storage container, staring you down.

Tony flew over to land in front of you, facing his look alike square on.

"Shit." he said.

"Language." Steve said, at exactly the same time as his doppelganger did. Your brain was working overtime. You were the only one present who could tell the real Avengers from the fake ones, being able to hear their thoughts.

"I can tell who's who." you announced, and all eyes turned to you. The guy who had been imitating Loki was getting off of the floor, rubbing his throat.

"We can't." Nat countered.

"That's the point." her look alike said, and launched herself at real Bucky. Things escalated quickly after that. Real Steve and Thor turned to defend Bucky, but their doubles intercepted them before they could do anything. Tony flew at your look alike and soon you were all locked in combat. You shoved the stolen mask into your back pocket, recognising as you did so that you should probably be treating such high-tech equipment with a tad more care, and met Clint's double with your magic, speaking over comms as you fought him.

"My double can't use magic, and her eyes aren't purple."

Nat joined in.

"Thor's has a fake Mjolnir, you can spot that a mile off, and Steve's double's shield is obviously fake. We've all trained together pretty much, so we should be able to-" she was cut off as Tony's double slammed her to the floor.

"Just go for the faces, get the masks!" Tony instructed.

You were quite easily able to keep Clint's double at bay with your magic, but the problem was that you needed to get close enough to him to get the mask off of his face.

"Thor no, it's me!" you heard Steve yell, and the unmistakable sound of Mjolnir hitting vibranium resounded across the room. Seconds later everyone was on their backs on the floor. You saw your chance and took it, launching yourself at Clint's double to tear the mask off of his face, but not before his fist had connected hard with your jaw. You reeled backwards in pain, your head spinning, clutching the mask in your hand. But Clint's double wasn't done with you yet. He stood to face you once again, this time alongside the guy who had worn Loki's face.

You sighed, shaking your head to try and right your vision, which had gone slightly blurry after been punched in the face. Before you had a chance to make a move, a figure flew over your head: a streak of black and red. A quick glance into their mind told you that it was only Nat's double, and then Clint's double and the other man were running at you.

Feeling only slightly bad, you moved your left arm towards Clint's double in a sweeping motion, flicking your wrist which sent him flying backwards into a storage container. There was a loud echoing bang, and then he slumped to the ground, unconscious.

The other guy didn't even flinch, and came at you swiftly with a knife clutched in either hand, ironically, after having tried to imitate Loki.

"Why did you choose Loki to imitate?" you asked, before he swung one knife towards your face and then the other with deadly skill and precision. You dodged both and knocked him back with your magic, conjuring another knife of your own.

"He's not an Avenger. It's not common knowledge that he's even on Earth." you continued.

"Wasn't my choice." the guy grunted, falling back before launching himself at you again. He was fighting to seriously injure, and your heart rate picked up dramatically as you realised that if this guy wasn't messing around, the others probably had orders not to either.

"Oh yeah? Who's choice was it?" you asked, or rather panted, dodging another violent slash and using a technique Nat had taught you to try and disarm him. It didn't work, and he managed to catch your arm with his next swipe, causing you to hiss in pain. Your magic swelled inside you and you sent a blast towards him which he dodged, and then swung back towards you, catching the side of your head with the blunt edge of his knife. You staggered backwards, feeling something warm and wet spill down the side of your face and obscuring your vision in one eye.

"Why would I tell you?" he sneered, coming at you again. You closed your eyes, and without really thinking about it, teleported behind him. Letting out a triumphant laugh, you used your magic to send the guy flying and knocked the knives out of his unsuspecting hands. He sprawled on the floor with a shout of pain, but scrambled straight back to his feet, apparently unhurt and cast around for his knives.

Your first mistake was that you got cocky. This led to your second mistake, which was that you let your guard down. Having been concentrating solely on the man in front of you, you'd forgotten about the other threats in the room.

You opened your mouth to say something to the man in front of you, maybe to ask him whether he was part of the secret organisation within SHIELD, but he was staring at a point just above your right hip.

You were as shocked as anyone to see the knife lodged in your side. Even as you watched, a red stain appeared and started to spread across the side of your suit.

The guy grinned a horrible smirk and launched himself back towards you, but was intercepted midway by Bucky. Then Steve was running towards you, or was it Steve's double? Nope, this was a double, his shield looked ridiculous. You made a split second decision, and yanked the knife out of your side, gritting your teeth in pain. Fully aware that taking a knife out after having been stabbed was an awful idea, you threw it to the ground. The way you saw it, you could either keep the knife in now, be rendered unable to fight and die, or you could pull the knife out, fight, and hopefully not die from blood loss. Not the most ideal situation, but you would have to make do.

You met Steve's double and were very relieved to find that he wasn't half as skilled as the man you'd just fought had been. You overcame him fairly quickly considering that you were partially blind and had just been stabbed, and looked up after you'd floored him to find that there were a lot of people lying on the floor, some with masks who still looked like the team and some of the actual team.

"We need to get out of here, tech or no tech." Steve was saying over comms, which you found odd as you looked down at his unconscious double on the floor in front of you. You bent down to retrieve the mask and groaned in pain, disguising it as a cough so the others wouldn't go into panic mode.

"I have three masks." you said, straightening up and pressing a hand to the wound in your side. When you looked down again, your hand was stained crimson red; your vision went blurry for a few seconds and you swayed where you stood. Blinking hard, you made another questionable decision.

You cast an illusion. Clint and Bruce both looked to be out cold, and Nat looked as though she'd broken something. You had to help them get out of here first. You would be fine, Asgardians healed quicker than Midgardians.

After all the masks had been counted and you were tying the thieves up, a large group of SHIELD agents arrived.

"In the nick of time." Steve muttered, and you laughed, disguising your wince of pain with a smile.

"Let's go, quickly. Who's hurt?" Tony cast around the group for any sign of more serious injuries. Clint and Bruce had come to and Thor was carrying Nat, who looked white as a sheet.

"There were three of them, I could've taken them, but-"

"I'm sure you could have." Thor was agreeing with her.

You wiped the blood out of your eye and took a step forward to follow the team out of the building. A second later you were falling, and you didn't even think to try and break your fall. Your nose connected hard with the concrete floor and a fresh bout of pain washed over you, causing you to black out for a second. You willed yourself to pass out, but annoyingly you stayed conscious and the pain remained. You had no chance of keeping up the illusion now; you felt yourself lose control and the stab wound became visible again. There was blood everywhere. Tony and Bucky were shouting, and then you were being lifted and you couldn't help the cry of pain which escaped you as the wound in your side seemed to grow even bigger.

Bucky's face blurred in and out of focus as he ran with you towards the Quinjet, and then you were lying on the sick bed, Tony's hands pressed firmly against your side. It hurt.

"M' fine." you tried to tell Tony, who was shouting at Bruce, who still looked awful from being knocked out. You made the mistake of looking back down at your side, and saw that your suit was stained dark red all across the front.

"Oh." you said dumbly, and then your head fell back and you lost consciousness for a few minutes again. When you came to Steve was doing something to your side. You grit your teeth as a sharp pain shot all the way up through your torso.

"Why didn't Tony make this thing stab proof?" you muttered, and Steve smiled half-heartedly.

"You're really hurt Y/N, try and stay still."

"You don't say." you murmured, suddenly feeling suddenly, awfully like you were going to throw up. Then your head started spinning and you squeezed your eyes shut tight, making a noise which sounded like a constricted sob in the base of your throat.

"You're gonna be okay kid." Tony told you. When had Tony got here? Steve had been here a moment ago. Tony sounded terrified. He thought you might die, you could hear him thinking it. Suddenly fear rose in your throat, so strong and terrifying that it made you gasp aloud. It wasn't your fear, you were in too much pain to be feeling any strong emotions at this moment.

"What's happening?" Tony asked loudly, sounding scared.

Y/N? Y/N please, talk to me...

Loki. Relief hit you in the square in the chest and you relaxed for a second, before you remembered that you might be dying. He must have felt you get stabbed and panicked. You loved him so much, and you tried to let him know that you were okay through your thoughts but all you could think about was the pain. You couldn't lie to him about this even if you'd wanted to.

"Y/N? Can you hear me?" Bruce was asking you, and you felt the jet touch down.

"Loki." you slurred, forcing your eyes to stay open and trying to lift your head.

"Get her downstairs, Nat too." Tony was saying, and then suddenly he was pushed aside as Loki rushed towards you. You let out a relieved sob when you saw him, which turned into a gasp of pain as the agony you were feeling in your side seemed to intensify. Your fear was reflected in his eyes.

The second he had you in his arms the pain evaporated, and you fell into the relief of not feeling anything. You'd never been more grateful for Loki's magic.

I've got you. I've got you.

You came to again minutes later as another wave of pain washed over you and you moaned in discomfort. It felt like you'd been hit by a bus. Loki was there, holding your hands tightly.

"I'm sorry, I know it hurts, I know. You're going to be fine, okay?"

You tried to focus on his face; it was blurred and swimming above you. He reached up to brush your hair, sticky with blood, out of your face. His hands were stained red with your blood. You were in the medical wing on the operating table. Bruce was moving around just out of your peripheral vision.

Sleep, love. You'll be alright now.

The darkness was already descending before he thought it. You kept a tight hold on Loki's hand as you surrendered once again to the void.