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

El's POV 1st person

I want to make one thing perfectly clear here. I am not brave. Not really. Stupid and with poor impulse control? Yes, very much so. Ludicrously overprotective of my younger siblings? Yeah. Brave though? No, not really, I'm still scared of lots of stuff. Heights namely. Really don't like high ledges. Anyway, back to my original point in writing this down. Lately my life's taken a turn for the weird, and I figured I'd document it, if only because writing it down makes me feel less crazy. Occasionally I'll be interrupted

Interrupted? I was under the impression that you invited me to give a more complete depiction of events.

…As I was saying, occasionally I'll be interrupted by my partner in this nonsense

Good to know that you view our relationship as nonsense.

First of all, we both agree that the way our relationship started was bull crap. Second of all, for someone who was objecting to me saying that they'd be interrupting me, you sure are cutting me off a lot.

…My apologies. I'll wait until it's my turn to 'speak', shall I?

Thank you. You are unbanished from the couch tonight.

I was being banished to the couch tonight?

…

Sorry. By all means, continue.

Anyway, back on track. So, I was in Stuttgart Germany on 2012. My grandmother had died the year before, and in her will had left my parents enough money that they could justify splurging to go on a family trip to Europe, which was something they'd always wanted to do but were too thrifty to do so despite our more than decent financial situation. Unfortunately (from their point of view) the will made it clear that they had to bring the whole family, including me. Unlike my parents, my grandmother did not hate me, even if she refused to call me El, preferring my birth name, which I will not be writing down until I absolutely have to. At any rate, we were at an art showing…thing in Stuttgart (I didn't speak German back then, so I was a bit lost) when he showed up. Loki waltzed in, smacked one guy to the ground with his staff, and then threw the professor who was speaking (I assume he was a professor anyway. Once again, I didn't German at the time) and slammed some device down onto his eye, which made the poor guy start convulsing violently, at which point everyone rightfully freaked out and started running away, myself and my family included. Unfortunately for us, he followed, shifting his clothing from a rather nice looking suit to something that looked like a background character in a weird 1970's or 1980's movie. A police car came rushing towards the scene, but he flipped it with a blast of blue energy.

And then he started making clones (holograms actually, but I didn't know that at the time) that herded us into a tight group. "Kneel before me." He demanded. We milled around, but nobody actually kneeled. "I said…KNEEL! " He yelled, making a flash of blue light from his staff. And so people began kneeling. Except for me. I crouched, fishing through my bag. I knew two things. Firstly, that there was a crazy guy who had superpowers, a big ego, a terrible fashion sense, and absolutely no problems with killing people in front of us. And two, that two of my younger brothers had ADHD and very little sense of self preservation, and I did not want them to die because the crazy guy decided he didn't like them fidgeting, so I needed to provide a distraction. I began slowly making my way forward as he surveyed the crowd, chuckling. "Is not this simpler?" He asked as I finally got a hold of my pepper spray. "Is this not your natural state?" I got level with him. "It's the unspoken truth of humanity that you crave subjugation." At which point I stood up and sprayed him in the face with the pepper spray until it stopped coming out.

Loki's POV, 3rd person

Loki reeled back as the mortal girl sprayed him in the face with the acidic liquid. Enraged that this little human would dare attack him, however trivial the attack, he lashed out with his free hand, grabbing her by her shirt and lifting her up. It wasn't enough to just kill her, he needed to make her feel small first, to realize just how much of an ant she was. And then, she spoke. "Killed by an extra from Caligula. Huh, didn't see that coming." Shocked, Loki dropped her and took a step back, staring. Those were the words. The words written on his right forearm, the words that he'd been puzzling over ever since he'd entered adolescence and the Soulmark had appeared. The words had made no sense, there was no Caligula in the history of Asgard. They still made no sense to him, but now he knew why. "You must be joking." He spat. "A mere mortal?" As soon as the last word left his mouth, the girl stopped scrambling back from him and stared up at him in shock.

El's POV, 1st person

"You must be joking. A mere mortal?" I stopped and stared up at the madman, stunned. Those were the words that were wrapped around my right ankle like a bracelet, the words that had confused the crap out of me ever since they first appeared when I was thirteen. Back before the Age of Superheroes, the idea of one person calling another a 'mere mortal' was just weird. And the psychological effect of knowing that your soulmate was going to be repulsed by you when you met wasn't very good either. I think that the utter bizarreness of my Soulmark was one of the reasons my parents didn't like me very much, but I never really asked so I can't know for sure.

At any rate, further thought and action was cut off by a man in a blue suit dropping down from the sky in between Loki and I. My eyes got wider as I recognized Captain America from my history books, one of the few subjects I'd done well at in school. "You know, the last time I was in Germany it saw a man standing above everybody else." He said casually, walking towards the Caligula man. (I didn't know Loki's name at the time, sue me. It wasn't exactly public knowledge yet.) "We ended up disagreeing."

Loki's POV, 3rd person

"The soldier." Loki mocked, aiming his staff. "The man out of time." He'd wondered when one of these so called heroes would show up. The appearance of the girl had changed his plans slightly though. He needed her to come along, his sense of curiosity demanded it. What could there possibly be to this girl that made her worthy of being his soulmate?

Loving the arrogance there. It's really attractive.

[Now who's interrupting?]

Why aren't you writing your sections in 1st person?

[Three reasons. One, it's your record, not mine. Second of all, it comes off too much like a villainous monologue when I do it. And three, this is not a part of my life that I'm particularly proud of. Writing it as an unattached narrator makes reliving it slightly easier]

Aw, come here.

[Hugs don't cure everything. All the same, thank you Sweet. Now, where was I? Ah yes]

"I'm not the one who's out of time." The soldier said as a human aircraft came into the area, a gun lowering from the underbelly.

"Loki, drop the weapon and stand down." A female voice demanded over a projection system. Loki snorted slightly and rolled his eyes before shooting a blast of energy from his staff, forcing the craft to take evasive maneuvers. Captain America threw his shield at Loki, forcing the Asgardian back a step, then rushed forward. Loki, used to sparring with Asgardians when he was forced to practice physically fighting, had no problem fending off the man, strong as he was. Just as he'd forced the Captain to the ground, loud Midgardian music began playing from the human craft, and the one they called Iron Man flew in, sending out a burst of energy that knocked Loki off his feet. His original plan had been to play completely helpless, but he needed to bargain now, so he kept hold of his staff.

"Make a move reindeer games." Iron Man said flatly, weapons at the ready and aimed at Loki. The Asgardian looked at them, keeping his staff pointed at the ground and generally trying to present an air of 'not a threat at the moment, but could be a threat soon'.

"I will surrender," He said slowly. "If, she comes with us." The girl, who was, incredibly enough, still in the square and standing relatively nearby with her can of pepper spray in one hand looked at him, startled.

El's POV

My family had run off in the confusion, leaving me behind. Not that I blamed them in the slightest. I would have told them to run if they'd been so stupid as to stay quite frankly. This left me with nothing more than a can of pepper spray (and my book, but I hadn't found anything in it that would have been useful in this situation at that point in time. More on that later.) All the same, when Captain America went down, I inched closer, hoping to give him a little respite. Hopefully this Loki wouldn't want to kill me quite yet, because of the whole soulmate thing. So I was there when Iron Man knocked the madman on his ass, and when said madman demanded that I come with them. "You're not exactly in a position to make demands." Captain America pointed out. Loki just raised an eyebrow and twitched his staff ever so slightly, reminding them that he was still armed. "Why do you want her?"

"We…have complimentary Soulmarks." I muttered. It wasn't something that thrilled me. Captain America's eyes widened, and he looked from me to Loki and back again.

"Pretty sure you're not going to get congenial visits where you're going." Iron Man said dryly. I glared at him.

"Even if he could get them the only Happy Time partner he'd have is his right hand." I snapped.

"Those are my terms." Loki said blandly. "Either take them, or things get…messy." There was a moment's pause as the two heroes looked at each other, and then at me.

"Ma'am?" Captain America asked slowly. I sighed, pinching the bridge of my nose with my free hand. If they were willing to negotiate, I couldn't exactly say no. I had enough of a conscience to not want to put more people at risk just so I wouldn't have to be on the same plane as this Loki guy.

"Fine. But I want a ride home when you've got…whatever this is sorted out." I said, putting the pepper spray back in my bag. Loki smirked and carefully set down his staff, his Caligula outfit dissolving in gold light as he did so. I felt a sudden urge to wipe that smirk off his face, but if Captain America couldn't knock him down, I knew I couldn't do it. And I'd wasted enough pepper spray as it was. So I ignored him and followed the three men into odd plane thing setting down on the square. A woman came out as another soldier ran and grabbed his staff. The woman frowned and looked me, then at the two heroes.

"Who's she?"

"Condition of Loki's surrender." I said dryly, walking up the ship's ramp and sitting down on the seat closest to the pilot's seat.

"Pretty much, yeah." Iron Man said, taking off his helmet and following me up. (Which left me with the weird question of, did I call him Iron Man, or Mr. Stark? It's like when you're growing up and you know your best friend's parent's first name. Do you call them Mr. and/or Mrs. or their first name? Ultimately I decided to just call him Mr. Stark until someone told me not to.) As I strapped myself in Captain America (Steve Rogers if I remembered correctly. I figured I'd call him Captain Rogers) shoved Loki into his own seat and strapped him in before walking off to talk to Mr. Stark. I looked at Loki, frowning as I studied my apparent soulmate. He…was kind of really really handsome. Frankly if he wasn't an arrogant, homicidal maniac I'd say that he was really pretty hot. But he was, and I do try to take a person's personality into account when I start crushing on them, so he lost of his hotness as a result. I shook my head and pulled my book out of my bag.

Loki's POV

Loki's head snapped up as the girl pulled out a thick book from her bag, which was barely big enough to accommodate the tome. The amount of magic emanating from the text was immense, filling the small craft in waves. His interest in his apparent soulmate immediately doubled. A regular mortal should have been destroyed by the amount of magic that was filling the air around her, let alone the amount that the book was pouring directly into her. Where had she found one of the Great Tomes? He pushed the thought aside for the moment, instead looking her up and down. To his disappointment, she was no great beauty. Not by Asgardian standards at any rate.

She was about as tall as Sif from what he could tell, but without the same strong build. Instead she was rather slender, her build not suggesting that she often performed any vigorous physical activity. Not unlike his own really-not unfit, but not athletic. Her hair was dark brown, very thick and long, falling just past her shoulder blades, her skin pale, though not as pale as his, and her eyes a gray-blue. She was dressed in what Loki assumed was the current Midgardian fashion, an elegant black dress and similarly colored high heeled shoes, an outfit that looked fine enough but didn't really stand out in any noteworthy way. Her chest, admittedly, was on the larger side but not exceptionally so. Ultimately she wasn't someone he'd have looked twice at if she was in a crowd, even if she had been Asgardian. But she was his soulmate, which meant that she had to have something that was exceptional about her. He hoped there was more to her than just the fact that he owned that book, whatever it was.

Author's Notes

Hey guys! Thanks for reading! So, this is my first story like this so please be kind when you review, but still let me know if you think that it's crap. I really don't want El to become a Mary Sue, so please let me know if you think she's leaning that way. I will explain where she got that book Loki's so interested in, don't worry. It's actually a plot point.

If you know of any good Loki redemption fics, please point me their way.

Once again, thanks for reading! Please review!