You took a second to survey the room when you stepped through the portal. It was a cold underground dungeon-like basement. Maybe the lower level of a warehouse. It didn't matter. What mattered was Loki. He was chained on the far wall from where your portal dropped you out. You ran to him with Thor on your heels while Tony and Astrid scanned the room for threats and making sure you were guarded and safe. You saw Sif's hesitation. She wanted to go to Loki too, to help her brother-in-law. She steeled herself to do her duty and turned her back on you and Loki to defend the room. You and Thor would take care of Loki and yourselves.

You reached Loki first and were immediately horrified by what had been done to him. You didn't think you could handle knowing how he'd gotten as injured as he was without being sick. And you were a healer, you thought you'd seen everything before.

Loki was hanging against the wall, bound by thick manacles on his wrists, the chain between which had been thrown over a hook in the wall, a heavy metal collar etched with runes around his neck. His feet could barely touch the floor, so he was barely breathing. He was battered and bruised, bleeding from who knew how many injuries. You could sense the broken bones. He looked starved, tortured, broken.

The thing that horrified you the most was that Balder had sewn his mouth shut.

Blood was still leaking from those wounds on his lips, from the cord woven through his lips, sewing them together.

You were hesitant to even touch him, he was so injured, but you had to in order to heal him. You wrapped your arms around him, carefully taking his weight. "Thor, get the hook," you told him firmly, since he was just standing there stupidly, staring horrified at his brother. He snapped back to himself and nodded, smashing the hook with his hammer.

Loki collapsed against you, making a small noise of pain from behind his sewn lips. It broke your heart to hear. "Shh, love. I'm here," you told him softly. Thor helped you lower him gently to the ground. Loki tried to open his eyes, though you saw how difficult it was. "I told you you was coming," you smiled at him.

"Kat, there is not much time!" Sif called to you when she saw the state Loki was in.

You nodded, you knew that already of course, but there was something you had to do first, something you had to do for your poor peacock of a soulmate before you began the full healing. You pulled the slimmest, sharpest dagger you could from the sheath at your back and carefully, so very carefully, cut the cord sewing his mouth shut. If you could heal nothing else, he would at least not scar from that. You would make sure of that. You worked quickly, but so very carefully and managed to remove the string and heal the wounds with no scarring.

You threw your healing magic into the rest of him. There was only the hint of a spark of him still there. You were running out of time. You dumped more power into him, holding him to his body as you healed it around him.

"Thor, Uncle Tony," you said softly, but even soft was enough to get their attention. They both turned. "This is an all or nothing healing. You both understand that, right? Either we both come out of this, or neither of us will." You said the words sadly, but you knew you would go through with this healing regardless of the risks.

"That is what a soulbond is, little sister," Thor replied with a hint of a smile. He understood. It was in his people's culture.

You nodded, grateful for his understanding, then turned to Tony, demanding his answer. You were doing this whether he agreed or not, but you needed to make sure he understood that.

"If you don't come through this, I'm going to kill you, imp," Tony growled. He couldn't stop you, not when he knew how much this meant to you.

"I expect nothing less,"

"Kat. It's time," Sif told you urgently. You nodded, focused briefly on the healing magic you were throwing into Loki, then you moved so his head was cradled in your lap. You took both of his hands in yours. You hesitated another moment, the words tried to throw themselves out of your mind with fear, horror, and Loki's pain. Loki had done this to save your life once, you could be strong and do it now. "Blessed be..." Sif prompted when you'd hesitated too long.

You threw all thoughts of this healing, of the torture Loki had been through, of your fear, of everything else out of your head. Instead, you thought of the last time you had said these words, standing in front of Loki in a ceremony in front of the entire court and all of Loki's family.

You took on more deep breath before you started. "Blessed be the name of Frigga, queen of Asgard, and of Odin her king." You spoke the words calmly, clearly, trying to focus on your Loki at his best, at his worst, every single facet of his being. He was the other half of your should. You knew that and understood it now. "In their names, with their power, and with joy in my heart, I make this vow. With their blessing, and with their heirs as witness, I give this gift. I choose you. To stand by your side and sleep in your arms. To guard and cherish, to bring joy to your heart. To learn with you and grow with you. Without your love, I am incomplete. I bind myself to you with these vows, willingly and wholeheartedly, free from doubt or reservation. With love I will tell you the truth as I understand it, I will honor and respect you. I will rejoice in your joys and weep in your sorrows. I will love and cherish you without cease, without pause, without hesitation for all of our days. You are my equal, my partner, my life. So I give this gift to you and you alone. I share my life and my soul with you. All that is mine is yours, I bind myself now to you, from this moment until the end of all of our days."

You leaned down and kissed him, sealing the vow, praying desperately that it would work. For a long, terrifying moment you thought that it wouldn't. Then you felt the surge of power between you. The piece of your soul that had been trapped in him when he broke the soulbond rejoiced when it was reunited with the rest of your soul. The soulbond snapped back into place like being separated was the strange thing, not being together. It was like it was always meant to be in place.

"Hurry, Kat! We don't have time! Balder knows we're here!" you heard Tony's shouts. You ignored him. The soulbond was back in place and Loki's lifeforce was draining your power far too quickly. You weren't out of this yet, just because the soulbond was back in place where it belonged. You dove into your power, throwing every drop of healing magic and power that you could muster into him. You heard roars and shouts and sounds of battle around you. You didn't even look up from Loki. You couldn't. You were too trapped in the healing spells. You didn't care that your vision was turning black. You didn't care how dizzy you were. You didn't care that you had burned through the energy that you had gotten from the awful monster-coffee concoction.

The only thing that mattered was saving Loki's life. Saving your own in the process.

"Kitten, it is time to pay attention to the world around you," a gentle voice bid, the accent was familiar, but you paid it no heed. You were a bit busy at the moment. The owner of the voice grabbed you gently around the waist, pulling you away from Loki and carefully to your feet. Your healing spells snapped when you lost physical contact with Loki. You swayed, dizzy and unable to clear the darkness from your gaze. "Focus, pet." His hands were still on you, holding your arms, keeping you on your feet. You forced your hazy mind to think, tried to focus, tried to clear your mind, your vision, anything. You blinked rapidly and your vision finally started to clear. You looked up at the figure holding you on your feet, the only reason you were standing. You was somehow expecting Thor. The accent. It had to have been the accent.

Instead, it was Balder.

Of course it was fucking Balder.

You shrank back, terrified of being in this state in front of Balder. Fear cleared your mind a lot easier than his kind words and tone had. You tried to back away from him, break his grip on you. "There is my little pet," he chuckled. He let you go, but you only managed a step backwards once before you had to lean on the wall for support. "I am not planning on harming you, pet," he told you calmly. You glared at him and reached for a dagger. "I would not do that," he warned. "You would not like the consequences." He gestured behind him. You finally saw behind him and all of your friends and family were unconscious, bleeding on the ground. You dropped the dagger and held your hands up where he could see that they were empty. "You have lost, kitten. You are out of magic, or very nearly, your friends are defeated, your lover barely alive, and you can barely stay on your feet." All of these were very valid points and points that you couldn't dispute. "Now, I could kill your friends, take you for my plans, and keep my brother just alive enough that he does not kill you with that reforged soulbond of yours. Neither of us want that, now do we?" he asked kindly. He paused, his silence demanding an answer.

"No, we don't want that," you managed to answer. Your words were slurring. How were you even still vertical? Stubbornness? That had to be it.

"I did not think so. You would be quite sad and uncooperative were your friends dead. So let us make a bargain," he said pleasantly.

You wanted to strangle him.

"What bargain?" you asked warily. You had nothing to bargain with and you were quite sure he knew it. Which meant you had to agree with whatever he wanted in order for you to survive.

"You and my little brother will come with me, that part is not up for negotiation. You come quietly and I will forget that your friends are here. I will let them go, even Thor and Sif. I will even give you Loki as a consort. You can continue healing him and you will not have to fret about his safety. You have until you lose consciousness to make a decision, pet. Come with me, or your friends die, your lover chained in the dankest darkest dungeon I can find and you will never see him again,"

"Why?" you asked. "Why bargain?" you wanted to know why he didn't just take what he wanted. You were defeated and you knew it. He was just gloating at this point.

"I want you to make the decision," he replied easily. He was having far too much fun with this. You had no choice and he knew it. He wanted you to choose to be the villain, though, to align yourself with him to save everyone you cared about. Like that would make you a villain. You would just fight him another time.

You hesitated, tried to look like you were fighting to make the difficult choice. "You'll let them live? You won't hurt Loki?" you asked, letting fear creep into your voice.

He nodded. "I give you my word," he purred.

"Then I'll come with you," you told him softly, though you hated that you had to say it.

"Wise decision" he commented. He called to someone outside of the room. A huge man came in to the room. "Make sure my Queen's lover is taken safely to her chambers," Balder ordered the man. He nodded and lifted Loki carefully in his arms, and then teleported from the room with your Loki. You stepped off the wall, towards where they had been, as if to follow after them, tears in your eyes from your mistake of letting your Loki out of your sight. "He is safe, pet. I will even have the other healers care for him until you have recovered. I do not wish for my queen to be unhappy," he added. You bit back a sniffle as you fought back the darkness overtaking your vision. "Now, let me help you home. How you are still on your feet is a mystery to me." He stepped closer and you had to reach out and hold onto him to steady yourself. You hated it. Hated all of this. And especially hated him. He pulled you to him. "Shh, you do not need to fight anymore," he whispered as he picked you up in his arms. You were too weak to fight him. You had drained too much of yourself into saving Loki, into bringing him back from the border of death. "Rest, kitten," he bid you softly, almost like he...cared.

The world spun and darkness roared around and through you. You couldn't fight anymore and had to submit to the darkness and the drastic overtaxing of your body and magic.