Words in bold=POV shift
Words in italics=El or Loki interjecting in the other's narrative
Words in underline=standard emphasis
Brackets=Loki responding to El when she interrupts his narrative
I walked up to the others with Tony, feeling rather uncomfortable as we gathered on the bridge. Frankly I hadn't wanted to come, but Tony had insisted. He and Natasha seemed rather exasperated with my lack of enthusiasm for my own role in the Battle of New York. I hadn't fought anything, so I wasn't of the opinion that I really deserved the praise that was occasionally thrown my way. Regardless, I was here now, and it was a little surreal. I already knew that my soulmate was an arrogant homicidal maniac
I think they get it. You can stop hammering that point in now.
That's the last time I'll bring it up, I swear. Aside from, you know, the times I said it to your face on Asgard. At any rate, I already knew…that. But the fact that he was a virtually immortal alien hadn't really clicked until just then. We gathered around Loki and Thor, Natasha whispering something in Clint's ear that made him smirk at Loki, who was scanning the group. Somehow he managed to smirk at me with just his eyes, making me shift even more uncomfortably. Thor nodded at us, then twisted the handle on the Tesseract's container, beaming himself and Loki away. We parted ways then, shaking hands and saying goodbyes, and I climbed into the back of Tony's cherry red Camaro as Bruce got into the shotgun seat. As we drove away, Tony looked at me through the rear view mirror and shook his head. "What?" I groaned.
"You're very difficult, you know that?" He said with a smirk. "You just met your soulmate. I'm supposed to be teasing you about that. El and Loki, kissing in a tree. K-I-S-S-I-N-G. But I can't really do that because, you know, your soulmate's a bit of an asshole who probably won't ever."
"There's more to me than being Loki's soulmate you know." I pointed out wearily. Tony laughed.
"Yeah, but that's the funniest thing." He said in defense of himself. "You sure you want to go home right away? I have some tests I want to run."
"I do have a family I need to get back to." I reminded him.
"Eh, fair enough." He admitted. "You're not abandoning me, are you?" Tony asked with a grin, turning and looking at Bruce, who rolled his eyes.
"No Tony, I'm not 'abandoning' you." He said with a shake of his head.
"Oh good, at least I'll have my science buddy with me." Tony said, faking relief. He glanced over at me. "Fury said he'd get one of his agents to pick you up and take you home in a Quinjet." I nodded my thanks.
Twelve hours later
I shifted nervously. Not long after the SHIELD agent had explained the situation and where I'd been to my parents, going into an uncomfortable level of detail (by which I mean he told the truth and had them sign nondisclosure forms) I'd been told to go sit on the couch while my siblings were being sent to their rooms. After a few minutes my parents came into the living room, my father closing the door behind him. I winced at the look on his face as my mother sat down, staring at me in disappointment. "What the hell?!" My father snapped, making me flinch.
"Sorry." I muttered, looking at the floor.
"Oh, that makes everything better!" He snapped.
"Look at us when we're talking to you." My mother said sternly. I reluctantly looked up.
"Do you even know what you're apologizing for?"
"Being me?"
"Being me." My father said mockingly. "Don't act like none of this was a choice." I swallowed hard.
"I helped save the world." I pointed out softly.
"We'll get to that in a minute." My mother said, sounding calmer than my father but just as angry. "First let's talk about what you did in Germany. We couldn't find you. Do you know how hard it was for your father and I to explain to your siblings that you weren't coming with us?"
"Sorry."
"You better be sorry!" My father snapped, still pacing. "And then…and then…magic!?" He stopped and glared at me. "You did magic?"
"I saved the world." I repeated softly.
"Because the ends justify the means. Yeah, that's what we've taught you." My father snapped sarcastically.
"It…it's just magic. It's energy."
"That's not true." My mother interrupted. "You know it's not true. Witchcraft is never a good thing."
"And to top it all off, your soulmate is Loki?" My father continued, glaring at me as if that was my idea. "The Norse 'god' of lies and chaos? Do you really think you can still claim that what you've done was right?"
I looked at them and realized that this was not going to end well. No matter what I said, no matter what I did, they were going to be mad. I'd pushed them too far, and I'd delivered the straw that broke the camel's back. I'd destroyed my relationship with my family, and I had nobody to blame but myself. So, I stood up.
"I…I'm sorry. I…didn't mean to hurt…I'll leave now. You won't have to see me anymore." I left the room, and they didn't stop me. I packed up a duffel bag, and they didn't stop me. I left the house, and they didn't stop me.
I need to go get a drink.
Sit down.
I truly am quite thirsty.
You're not an actual god of lies you know. I know when you're bullshitting, like you are now. You cannot smite my parents, now sit down.
I do not understand why you refuse to allow me to punish those wastes of flesh as they deserve.
They're family. You don't hate family, no matter what they do. And it's not like I didn't do anything to cause that reaction.
…Come here love. You did nothing to deserve that. Do you understand? You did not choose your soulmate, you did not choose to have magic, and you certainly did not deserve to be disowned for it.
Askhfladlgefadbhgohadbgol.
…Pardon?
You're really comfortable. Can I just spend the rest of the time cuddling into you?
I'm afraid the transcribing device cannot translate you talking into my chest, so I have to say no.
Fine. Let's skip ahead a little bit, shall we?
Three days later
I stared at the front door of Stark Tower, (well, 'A' Tower now considering how the majority of the letters were missing) took a deep breath, and stepped inside. Surprisingly, the doors were unlocked and there was a secretary at a desk. "Uh, El Park to see Tony Stark." I said nervously once I'd reached the desk. The secretary gave me a skeptical look, and opened her mouth to say something, but JARVIS spoke up before she could.
"Mr. Stark has been notified of your arrival Miss Park." I looked up, startled.
"He has? That was fast."
"Sir asked to be notified if any members of the Avengers Initiative arrived while he was in the building." I blinked in confusion, and opened my mouth to point out that I had no connection with the Avengers aside from being in the same building and vehicle with them a few times, but the elevator opened and Tony stepped out before I could.
"Hey kid!" He said cheerfully, grinning. "Didn't expect to see you back for a while." Then he stopped, taking in my duffel bag and my rather messy appearance, and his grin faded. "What's up?"
"Uh…I need a job." I said slowly, awkwardly. "And a, uh, place to live would be nice too." He looked at me, glanced at the receptionist, and then nodded and waved me over.
"C'mon, let me introduce you to Pepper and we can talk." He said, guiding me into the elevator with him. There was a moment's silence, then he looked at me. "How'd you get here so quickly?"
"I, uh, found a flying spell in the book." Tony did a double take.
"You can fly now?" I nodded.
"I found the spell somewhere in…Colorado I think." I said. "It takes a lot of magic right now, but with practice it should get better, and it saved my shoes a lot of wear and tear."
"Why didn't you just land on the balcony then?" I shrugged.
"Considering what just happened, I figured flying in Manhattan was probably not a good idea. So I landed a little bit upstate last night and walked the rest of the way." He glanced at my shoes.
"I see." He said, nodding. The elevator dinged revealing the penthouse was still in its somewhat wrecked state.
"Huh. I figured you would have flown in some people to get working on this right away." I said, looking around. Tony shrugged.
"Eh, it's just the living room, and it's still livable. I figure the rest of Manhattan takes priority."
"Plus he's taking the time to redesign the whole place." A woman with strawberry blonde hair said from the couch, rolling her eyes fondly.
"Well, if this is going to be headquarters it's got to get some upgrades." Tony said semi-defensively, heading for the bar. "Better security systems, stronger windows, a suite for everybody, everything. It's actually a good thing you're here." He continued, looking at me. "It means you get to have a say in what your rooms look like. Everyone else'll just have to settle for choosing the decorations." I blinked.
"Wh…what do you mean, my rooms?"
"I just said there'd be a suite for everybody, didn't I?" Tony said as if it were obvious, pouring himself some whiskey.
"Yeah but…define everybody." Tony looked at me.
"The Avengers." I looked at him, then at the woman who I vaguely recognized from the news as his girlfriend and current CEO of Stark Industries Pepper Potts. Neither of them looked like Tony was joking.
"I…I'm not an Avenger." I said, baffled. "I'm the idiot who just happened to match Loki." Tony set down his drink, a deadpan look on his face.
"Kid, I crunched the numbers. About a hundred people died during the Battle of New York. If you hadn't closed the portal the number would have been closer to five hundred."
"I didn't do any actual fighting." I pointed out. "Hell, if it hadn't been for you, Thor, and Natasha I would have died of old age and the portal would have reopened."
"First off, the Avengers are a team. That's the whole idea, to take on the threats nobody could handle alone." Tony said. "And secondly, what part of you saved about four hundred lives did you not understand?" He sounded rather exasperated at that point. I opened my mouth to protest, to point out that if it weren't for them me shutting the portal wouldn't have done any good because there still would have been Chitauri rampaging, but he cut me off. "You're an Avenger El. Deal with it." Tony said, patting me on the shoulder as he walked by. He drained his glass and set it down on the table in front of the couch before turning to look at me. "So, why are you here, and why do you need a job and a place to live?" He asked, concerned.
"Well, SHIELD felt the need to have my parents sign nondisclosure forms, despite the fact that I'm eighteen and a legal adult, so the agent that dropped me off told my parents everything. And, as it turns out, telling my Christian Fundamentalist parents that I was a witch and the soulmate of a pagan god was not a good idea."
"So they kicked you out?" Pepper asked, sounding horrified.
"Not without reason." I said with a shrug. Pepper and Tony looked at each other, then Tony looked at me.
"Alright then. Well, you'll get the…" He bent down and picked a tablet up off the table. He ran his hand over the screen, and a 3d hologram of the Tower appeared in the air. He set the tablet down and used his hands to enlarge the hologram, focusing in on the top ten floors. "Floor right below this one, west side." Tony said finally after a moment's consideration. "Until then though, we've got a guest room up here." I nodded.
"Thanks." He gave me an easy grin.
"No problem kid. That's what friends are for."
Author's Notes
Let me make one thing very clear right now. The reactions of El's parents was in no way meant to be a slam against Christianity or religion in general. It's just…well, at some point El sort of became a self-insert. In that I based her appearance (pre magic hair color change) off of mine, since I'm pretty average and that's what I wanted El to look like, and then aspects of my personality bled into her and…yeah. El is in many ways what I wish I was, though she will of course have flaws because the point of this is to entertain you guys, not me, and nobody likes boring, perfect characters.
The reason I'm bringing this up is that, when it came time for El's parents to quite thoroughly reject her, I ended up adapting the situation that happened when I came out to my parents. And then when Loki is comforting El I ended up adapting the conversation my girlfriend and I had when I told her the story for the first time. So…yeah. Not a slam on Christianity, just life translated into fiction.
As always, let me know if you feel that El has become a Mary Sue.
Thanks for reading! Please review!