You woke Loki way earlier than he wanted to get up the next morning. In fact, it was only about two hours after you had finally gone to bed the night before. "Sig~" he growled, not bothering to open his eyes. You laughed as you got out of the bed, to better wrestle him out of the bed to join you. "We just went to bed,"

"C'mon, Lo, pajama party downstairs. It's tradition," you told him, grabbing his hand to drag him out of the bed.

"No, Sig," he grumbled, still not bothering to open his eyes. You ripped the blankets off of him. He ignored you. Silly frost giant was unaffected by the cold.

"If you don't get up on your own, I'm going to carry you," you threatened.

"You cannot," he replied matter of factly. "Come back to bed," he insisted, curling up to better go back to sleep.

You shrugged, unperturbed. "You're choice," you teased. He cracked open an eye at that, but otherwise didn't move. He was calling your bluff. You stepped forward back toward the bed. He shut his eye, thinking you were wisely coming back to bed. He was wrong. You grabbed the arm and leg of one side of his body and hefted his weight over your shoulders in a fireman's carry. He yelped when you lifted him from the bed. He wasn't expecting you to succeed. You laughed, checked your balance, and proceeded to walk from the suite.

"You have made your point. Put me down!" Loki protested from where he was carefully not squirming as he didn't want to be dropped.

"Stop squirming," you told him firmly as you stomped across the hall to the suite that was actually his. It was hard to walk gracefully when you had a full grown man draped across your shoulders. "You made your choice," you reminded him pleasantly as you pounded on Loki's suite door with your free hand. Thor and Sif were staying there while they were in town. Thor used to have his own suite, but he'd been living on Asgard exclusively for awhile when he had to take on his proper responsibilities.

Thor finally came to the door to answer your pounding. "Morning Thor," you greeted him brightly, while he gaped at the scene of you with a Loki draped over your shoulders. "We're all meeting downstairs in five minutes for a pajama party. It's tradition the morning after the ball," you explained. Thor looked pointedly at the pouting Loki stuck on your shoulders. "He had a choice of getting up or being carried," you explained, grinning up at Thor, who usually used that tactic on Loki. Thor just laughed.

"Thor! She refuses to put me down. Help me, brother!" Loki whined, sounding pitiful and plaintive.

"Little Brother, I, for one, am smart enough not to argue with your darling soulbond. She is frightening when angered," Thor replied pleasantly, with a small bow to you. You gave him a head bow in return, accepting his compliment. "Would you like assistance, sister dear? I know he can be quite troublesome,"

"I've got him. He's behaving for me. Thanks for the offer though," you replied with a grin.

"You are not carrying me down the stairs! You will break both of our necks!" Loki protested.

"Of course I'm not," you replied sweetly. You waved to Thor and teleported yourself and Loki downstairs to the commonroom.

There were roars of laughter and cheers of "Sigyn!" from the supers already gathered. You very carefully set Loki on your couch. He huffed indignantly and it took quite a few kisses to thaw him out again.

"How did you do that?" he asked grumpily. He finally moved over on the couch so you could join him. You poured both of you cups of coffee from one of the many pots spread around the room and got you each a plate of coffee cakes and cinnamon rolls. These were also spread around the room. Helene was well prepared for you to all be up early for this.

"What? I've carried you before," you protested. Just because you were small didn't mean you were a weakling. Loki just gave you a look. "Oh, right, you were unconscious for that event. It was in Asgard, right after you escaped from Balder. You had teleported to me and then passed out in the snow because of that stupid power he put in me," you explained. He nodded. "You had also neglected to tell me that because you're Jotun you wouldn't freeze in the cold, so I had to carry you to a cave and try to make a fire," you added.

"I did wonder, though we were a bit distracted at the time. So why are we having a pajama party at...5am?" he asked, checking the clock on the wall. He was less grumpy now that he'd gotten some coffee in him.

You gestured to the TVs which were all on the same station. "Channel 9 does this for us every year. Since we're all at the ball, we can't watch the footage, so they reair it at 5am the morning after so we can watch it. We've made a pajama party out of it," Thor and Sif joined you a minute later. Sif was half-asleep, cradled in Thor's arms. You smiled and moved closer to Loki on the couch so they had plenty of room. You also made sure they had coffee and breakfast foods and explained the party again for their benefit.

"It's starting!" Nat called. A hush fell over the crowd while you all watched the footage from the night before.

"Nat, your dress was so pretty!" you called back from where you were curling up more comfortably with Loki.

"Yeah it was!" Nat agreed. "Though you and loverboy stole the show," she grumbled, causing everyone to laugh.

The news crew announced every super as they appeared in the procession, though admittedly you and Loki got more air time than most of the others. Tony and Pepper got a lot of airtime too. The rest of the events were pretty standard, showing off the supers dancing, various celebrities in the crowd, all of the costumes and pretty masks.

Finally came the event you were all waiting to watch: the waltz. Everyone's eyes were glued to the screen. You had all worked our asses off all of the previous month to get the dance just right. It was just as gorgeous as you had imagined. Everyone's hard work was obvious. The dance was a lot longer than it had felt while you were performing it. The camera crew focused on the second group as they split off, and then the third when they split off, and finally on yourself and Loki when you did the new set of moves, and finally the proposal.

After your pajama party, you had to send Thor and Sif back home. They had only come to visit for the ball. Loki sent gave them an illusion to take with them so they could show the proposal to Frigga. She would be glad to see it. "The time is coming," Sif reminded you in a whisper when she hugged you goodbye. "Do not forget we are available to help and do not be afraid to call on us for aid." All you could do was nod and wish them a safe journey home.

*

You spent the next couple of weeks studying for your finals. It was cheating to let Loki read your textbooks too, since he had a photographic memory and anything he learned you not only learned too, but had access to later through the soulbond. You didn't care, as long as you knew the information, it didn't matter how you learned it.

You also spent all day the Saturday before exams cleaning out your apartment. You were giving it up at the end of the semester. You were never there anymore since Loki had come back. There was no reason to keep it, especially when you teleported to class most of the time anyway. After everything was sorted, you used magic and a fancy spell to put everything in storage or back in your room. The landlord at least couldn't complain about the apartment, since it was cleaner now than it had been when you moved in. Magic was a great thing.

*

You greeted Loki with a kiss after your last exam. He was holding takeout bags of Chinese. He had come to like the cute little Chinese restaurant on campus and agreed to meet you in the student center after your exam. You were standing in the middle of the most crowded building on campus, kissing like the silly college kids you appeared to be, and ignoring the kids taking pictures of you when they recognized one or both of you.

Then suddenly Loki shoved you hard away from him, his eyes wide in shock.

You stumbled backwards and fell hard on your ass, unprepared to be shoved away from him. That was so unlike him. "Lo?" you started asking, looking up to see what was going on.

The Chinese food bags crashed to the floor as screams erupted around you.

"Loki! No!" you screamed when the image in front of you finally made sense, finally cleared in your mind. Loki was falling, a spear through his chest, lightning coursing through his body, though you didn't know from where. He had shoved you away to save you from being impaled too. The shield you had put into his watch was glowing around him, but it hadn't helped.

There was only one reason for it not to have helped. Loki's magic, most of your magic, didn't work against Balder.

You couldn't focus on Balder right then though.

You ran to Loki, catching him before he hit the ground. Your shield recognized you and let you in without hesitation. "Loki? Loki! Stay with me!" you ordered him. You felt the drain of your own power as the soulbond fought to save him. You pulled the spear from his chest, trying not to think about the whimper of pain that was all he could manage. "I'm sorry, love," you whispered as you placed one glowing blue hand to the wound. You had to get him stable. Then you had to do your job. You yanked your phone out of your pocket. "Call backup!" you snapped at it. You usually hated phone voice commands, but this one was useful and all of the team's phones were programmed to recognize the command.

"I told you you would come for you, pet," Balder's voice boomed, seeming to come from all around you.

Shit.

You were out of time.

You set a healing spell on Loki, forcing it to keep working as you broke physical contact and turned to face where Balder's voice had come from.

You were grateful that the civilians had run, and pissed at Balder for attacking you when you would be least prepared for it. You should have been safe here. It was an unspoken rule, even among the villains. They didn't attack schools. No matter how evil they were, no matter what, they left the kids, even the college kids, out of their battles. Balder had ignored those rules completely by attacking you there.

Loki was still unconscious at your feet, your healing magic slowly knitting him back together. You were alone in this until backup arrived. "I'm sorry, Lo," you whispered. He would hate you for this. You knelt again, murmuring a spell he had used on you once. A portal would appear below him, that would drop him in the infirmary.

Before you had finished, before the portal had opened, Balder attacked.

You threw up shields of fire around you. Normal shields wouldn't work against Balder. Loki's magic, and any magic you had gained from Loki through the soulbond wouldn't work against Balder. You could only use your own natural abilities.

Balder hesitated at the fire shield. "You need some new tricks, pet," he sneered, reaching a hand through the flames. You only barely ducked in time to not get electrocuted by his touch. His magic and powers still worked perfectly fine against you. It was only Loki who was immune. You threw a dagger at Balder and he backed away from your shield. You threw more healing magic into Loki, watching as the wound closed. You didn't care how fast it was draining your power. You needed help to defeat Balder.

/Wake up, Loki!/ you shouted into his mind. He was finally stirring. Thank all the gods.

You spent too long in one spot while you were healing Loki. You had trusted in the fire to protect you. You should have known better. Balder had reached through it already. Balder reached through and grabbed you, ignoring the pain the flames must have caused him, holding you by the throat off of the ground. You pulled a dagger and stabbed him with it out of reflex. He howled in rage and pain and threw you across the room into a wall. Your vision swam and you cried out in pain as the blow broke through all of your shielding. You concentration on the flame shield around Loki had been shot when your head hit the wall and the shield failed.

You teleported back over to Loki, though the effort made you dizzy and almost sick. You'd hit your head sickeningly hard and you knew it was bad. Your head was bleeding, bad, the blood dripping to the floor, your vision was doubled and blurry. This was bad.

There were clones of Balder everywhere.

You didn't know if they were clones or if your vision was so messed up from your head wound.

You had three powers of your own and you used all of them then. None of them seemed to do any good, despite that you were the strongest super in existence. Most of your powers just didn't work against Balder since you'd gotten them from Loki.

"Give up, pet. You will kill yourself, and my brother if you do not," one of the Balders said reasonably.

You threw a dagger and fireball at it.

You nearly cried in relief when your reinforcements came. You crouched over Loki, defending him with fire and daggers while your head and the room spun.

You didn't see the lightning from one of the clones until it was too late. It went straight through your chest, throwing you into Tony. You gasped, trying to breathe as the energy vibrated its way through you. Tony set you gently on the ground. "Stay down, Sig," he ordered, turning to the fight when your life wasn't in immediate danger. Supers were stronger than normal humans, so even though you were bleeding from a massive head wound and had just gotten shocked with lightning, you were down but not in immediate mortal danger.

You obeyed Tony for about thirty seconds while you fought to breathe again. You couldn't move until the energy faded, until your heart decided to work properly again, until you could at least breathe.

Those thirty seconds were too long.

You struggled back to your feet, fighting for every movement.

"Loki! NO!" you screamed, stumbling a few steps forward, as you threw more fireballs. One of Balder's clones had gotten to Loki. You realized as all of the other clones vanished that this was the real one. Loki was struggling to his feet, a dagger drawn. Balder grabbed him by the throat, holding him off of the ground.

"You will join me soon, little pet, if you want your soulbond back in one piece, anyway," Balder told you softly, almost kindly. Before any of you could do anything, he teleported away, still holding your Loki.

In an instant they were gone.

"LOKI! NO!" you wailed, trying to summon the strength to teleport after them. Tony grabbed you, holding you in place.

"Kat, no, we need a plan of attack,"

"I have a plan. Attack," you snarled at him, throwing his own words from years ago back at him.. "He took Loki!"

"I know. And we will get him back, I promise you. But you're in no shape to fight. Loki will be fine while you heal and we regroup. We need a plan to go after Balder He will decimate us if we just go running off half-cocked," Tony was too reasonable for once. He had to be. He knew you were unreasonable when love was involved. He was the same way and he loved you too much to let you go. You knew he was right, but it felt like giving up, not to run off to save Loki. Before you could argue again, Tony knocked the daggers from your hands and swept you up into his arms. You didn't have the strength to fight him. You were too dizzy from the head wound to even try. "The kids will clean up here. C'mon imp, off to the infirmary, then we can go save Loki,"

You'd failed.

You'd failed Loki. Failed your soulbond, your fiancé, your love.

You had to get him back.

The world swam around you and went black. Saving Loki would have to wait until you were capable.

Hopefully it would be soon enough.