The Soulmate Initiative: Book 2

4. Baby, baby

LOCATION: AVENGERS MANSION

March and April are two very exciting months for the Avengers.

First is Johanna's 100th birthday, they have an all day party, just with those living there, plus Pepper, but Anna would've felt uncomfortable if other people were there anyway. There's lots of food, games and once the kids go to sleep, alcohol. Normally when it comes to birthdays there's a very populated party and guests can bring the birthday person presents, if they want, but all the Avengers buy one big, or several smaller things together, rather than each buying them an individual present. It's similar for Christmas, they do secret Santa, so each Avenger buys one present for only one other Avenger, chosen from a hat. But when it comes to special birthdays, each Avenger buys one small item for the birthday person, the special birthdays are; a new Avenger's first birthday after joining the team, and any new age ending in a 0, which works well for Tasia and Lavina because they told the Avengers that they only consider their birthdays every 10 years, otherwise it feels like every other day. So for 100th birthdays, they've decided that bigger presents are allowed and each person can buy more than one gift, but only if the gifts are supposed to go together, otherwise they have to try and convince another Avenger to buy the other item as their present.

The next big thing of 2017 is a result of Anna's birthday, which is that Suzanne discovers she's pregnant. All pregnancies are planned within the Avengers Soulmate group, but not this one. Thankfully Suzanne had already decided that at some point she wanted a child, she was thinking about bringing it up after Stacey's baby had been born. But instead, it happened a bit earlier. Another thing different with this pregnancy is the father, Nian has fathered Ashley's, Candice's and Stacey's child, but now it's Warren's turn. Everyone's so excited and happy for Suzanne, but Ashley starts panicking a bit, wondering how they're going to cope with four young children at once.

Then in April, Stacey goes into labour. The Avengers were going to move Stacey into the Avengers tower close to her expecting date, but knew they'd be found like that, so they instead called T'Challa to see if he'd help them out. As soon as the contractions began, they called T'Challa again and he came to the mansion, bringing with him a Doctor, the King was the only one given the location and he didn't even share it with the Doctor. After only 6 hours, Stacey gives birth to a blue eyed, fair haired baby boy. She names him Joseph.

Anna ends up spending a lot of her time with Stacey and baby Joseph. She keeps commenting on how similar the pair are and then starts recalling memories from before HYDRA. The baby really helps her remember, and by the end of the year, she has pretty much all of her memories back. Stacey asks Anna if she ever wants children, but Anna sadly informs her that HYDRA made it so that she can never have children. Stacey asks if it's okay to tell the others, so they know not to ever ask her that question. She lets her. So Stacey leaves Anna to cuddle with her baby, while she gathers everyone else. After telling everyone and accidently making a few of them cry, she heads back to her bedroom. Stacey finds both of them asleep. She pulls a blanket over Anna and sits in bed beside them, reading a book.