The passage of time is strange for even the most normal people. The way it speeds up as you get older. The way some things seem to drag on forever, but others fly by in the blink of an eye.
For me and the Avengers aging so slowly - things seemed to be moving in spirals. We watched as our kids grew and then seemed to stop, looking not much younger than we still looked. Our friends all aged and then began to die and we all were still acting like we were still in our thirties. It's a strange phenomenon that not even Thor had experience with - and as we watched people pass and the world move on from needing us, we began to discuss returning to Asgard.
The thing that kept stopping us was the kids. We ended up having a lot in the end. Joining Pietro, Riley, Rose, Rebecca, Sarah, and Edwin were five more. Wanda decided she wanted to do the whole baby thing again two years after her twins were born and she asked Clint to father her next baby. It was a boy we named William Ian, though everyone just called him Billy. Three years later Natasha and Clint asked if we could add another and Thomas Paul joined the family, making Clint the only one of the men to have biological children with each of us. We thought we were all definitely done after that, and then nine years later Bruce came to me saying that he had been missing having little kids in the house and that he wondered if I'd make a baby with him. Thus Marya Alexandra was born. Each child had their own set of powers, sometimes, like with Billy and Marya, the power mimicked one of their biological parents. Other times, like with Eddie's technopathy, or Riley's command of the winds, it was just their own unique thing. Pietro - who was born before we had bonded - was the only one that had ended up being a normal human child.
Once again, we thought we were done having children after Marya, but thirty-five years after the first incident of Thor's powers going a little haywire it happened again with me. So with most of our children grown and living their own lives, I was expecting twins again. This time Steve and Thor were the unwitting fathers and perhaps a little strangely; we were all excited about it. It made me wonder if we would ever really be done. Maybe we would end up being the seed family for a planet of people. Maybe one day we could call everyone on Earth a relative.
You see, it wasn't just us having kids, most of our kids were grown and things like starting a family were in their goals too. Pietro and Riley were still generally what you would consider single. They had moved to Asgard at the age of twenty and were considered children there, and with the new frame of reference, they were in no hurry to start families of their own. Rebecca seemed happy being single and kid-free, she worked with SHIELD as an agent and quickly climbed the ladder. She reminded me of Hill in a lot of ways. Rose got married when she was twenty-five and had twins too, and they were now almost ten years old. Ziggy and Anna were their names - and god, did I love becoming a grandma. Sarah and Billy also had little ones though neither were married and while Billy was happy living with the man he had decided to start a family with, no one actually knew who Sarah had Zak with given when she did date, it was exclusively women. Eddie, who took after Tony in so many ways, had done the playboy life as he ran Stark Industries until just recently and now was living with a guy and a girl and they were talking about having kids of their own. Even Tommy was starting to talk about finding someone and we wondered if the speed that Earth moved was not the best for them. Maybe we needed to convince as many of them as we could to come to Asgard with us so that we could try and curb this need to keep up with what was happening on Earth.
We had started visiting Asgard more often. Everyone was all but retired from the superhero life - the world moved on and there were people that could do more than we ever could, and now they all just acted in an advisory capacity or if something really big happened. With the impending birth of the twins, we knew it was probably time. Then Angela showed up and took the option off the table.
"I wish to abdicate," Angela said as she sat on the couch across from us. She looked so out of place in her gold armor and winged crown.
"But sister, you only just took the throne," Thor argued. "I saw you being a fine monarch in my vision."
"And I believe I was one," Angela said. "But I grow restless. I grew up being manipulated into being a person I'm not. And now I am a queen, and I don't think I'm that either. I want to see the galaxy and find out who I am."
Thor frowned and nodded. "Of course," he said. "You deserve a chance to work that out."
"I could of course pass the crown on to Riley," Angela said. "She is the rightful heir as I have no children. But Asgard would not take kindly to a ruler that is so young."
"No, they had issue with me," Thor said. "And I was raised to rule. It has to be me."
"We were talking about moving to Asgard anyway," I said. "Maybe this is a sign?"
"You wouldn't be alone this time," Steve agreed.
Thor smiled. "If you are all at my side, then I will gladly take the role," he said, rubbing Steve's thigh. "You should start proceedings for the succession. I will prepare to join you there."
The soft hiss of the elevator opening made us all turn. Sarah hustled three-year-old Zak out of the door and the toddler came running down the entry hall towards us. She and our grandson both still lived with us. Not that anyone minded, of course. It was nice having them around still and it wasn't like we couldn't set them up with their own place and help if that's what she wanted. She liked living with her family and having them around to help them with her son and we loved having our children close. "Auntie Angela," Sarah said, with a smile. "I didn't know you were visiting."
"Hello, child," Angela said, standing and embracing Sarah as she approached. "It is a brief stop in. I just needed to talk to your parents about Asgardian business."
Zak climbed up onto Bucky and began to climb him, so Bucky stood to allow the toddler to have a better climbing frame.
"Nothing serious, I hope," Sarah said.
"Your aunt wishes to step down as ruler of Asgard," Thor said. "It is my duty to take her place."
Sarah furrowed her brow and sat, taking a cookie from the plate of snacks on the table. "What will that mean for all of you?"
"Well, honey," Sam said. "We've been talking about going there anyway. This whole lifespan thing is starting to get a little weird here. Your mom is having babies again, but you have your own son. It's hard to get a frame of reference for when it's reasonable to start doing things when you live for thousands of years and everyone around you isn't likely to get even a hundred."
"Woah," Sarah said. "That's... that's big. Does everyone else know?"
Steve shook his head. "No. We'll have to have a family meeting. But," he said. "We want as many of you that will agree to go to come with us. We're not going to force anyone to do anything they don't want to, but I think you're all going to start feeling like us eventually. I mean, look at you, you still look barely twenty."
"Yeah, I know," Sarah said. "I've already started to feel it, but more in a 'stop asking me for ID' way. I'll come. It's not like anything is tying me here. It'll be good if Zak does things more at an Asgardian pace. Won't it buddy?"
"I wike Asgawrd," Zak agreed.
"I'm not sure Becca, Rose, or Eddie are going to agree," Sarah said. "Not now anyway. And Marya is gonna be pissed..."
"Well, don't you mention it to Marya," Natasha warned. "That's our job, not yours."
Sarah put her hands up in surrender. "Jeez, Ma," she said. "I wasn't going to."
Angela stood and gave a nod. "I best return home. Call to Heimdall if you need me."
We stood with her and hugged her goodbye. "I'll see you out," Thor said, walking Angela to the elevator.
"Wow," I said, sitting back down. "It's a little surreal now it's official. Does this mean these two are going to be born on Asgard?"
"I guess so," Clint said. "Little alien babies."
"I'll want to look into their obstetrics... or whatever they call it there," Tony said, flicking open a virtual screen and tapping things into it. "You've got a history of trouble delivering, and you were going to have a c-section. I don't want you to be at extra risk."
I smiled. Even after almost forty years together, Tony still had a fiercely protective streak regarding my safety. "Yes, yes. Thank you for taking care of me."
He looked out at me from the corner of his eye and smirked. "You're welcome, dear."
"Alright, kiddo," Bucky said, flipping Zak upside down. "What do you want to do?"
"Umm..." he hummed. "Wunch?"
Bucky looked over at Sarah. "You haven't had lunch yet?"
"Nope. Was going to now," she said.
"Alright, buddy," Bucky said and tickled Zak's tummy. "Let's go get you some lunch."
"Gwandpa!" Zak squealed, flailing in Bucky's arms as the supersoldier carried the boy down the stairs toward the kitchen.
"Thanks, Dad," Sarah called, earning a small wave from her father.
"I'm so happy you're coming with us," Wanda hummed, wrapping her arms around Sarah's shoulders, and cuddling her.
"Can't lose my favorite babysitters," Sarah teased. "Besides, what's keeping me here? It's not like I can't visit my friends. Riley and Piet are here all the time."
"That's true, the galaxy is large, but it's also very small in a lot of ways," Bruce agreed.
"Alright," Steve said, opening up his holoscreen. "What needs to be done. Family dinner where we ask everyone to come with us. Packing. Checking on medical care for Elise."
"A killer send-off party," Tony added.
Steve smiled affectionately and shook his head. "Killer send-off party."
"I guess we need to figure out what to do with the properties. And if we do somehow convince Eddie to come with us, the running of Stark Industries," Sam said.
"Let's see what Eddie wants to do first," Tony said. "If he stays then that's his. I mean, even if he doesn't, the way communications are these days, he can probably run it from Asgard. We can always just keep this place here as our visiting Earth property anyway. And if any of the kids stay we can just let them figure out what to do with the other places. I mean, I'm sure Rosie isn't going to complain about having a place in Paris to take the kids on vacation still. She uses that place more than we do."
"Whatever we do with the Island we need to be careful," I said. "That employs and houses a lot of people from nearby and on most years it's breakeven. Any year that has a huge catastrophe it makes a loss. I'm worried that if we sell it'll mean a bunch of people suddenly lose their jobs."
"Don't you worry about a thing," Tony said. "There's nothing that's going to come under the header of Stark Industries that will just be abandoned to be run by anyone. I'll either leave it with Eddie, find someone I trust - like Niesha Rhodes, or I'll take the running of it with me. You know I'm never going to let go of complete control anyway."
"I think we also need to make sure that Thor knows we are there for him," Sam added. "He was relieved to give up the throne. But now he's not going to rule alone. He may still see it as something that isolates him."
"I'm sure we can handle that," Clint said suggestively. "We can make him feel really good."
"Gross, Dad," Sarah said, pulling a face as the rest of us broke down laughing. "Did you have to say that in front of me?"