The Soulmate Initiative: Book 3: Next Generation

12. Keeping record

ASH POV:

Being superheroes isn't always the life you think it'll be, it isn't just fighting, shooting, sneaking, running and shouting. Especially when you have a 6 year old, a 5 year old, a 3 year old, a 2 year old and THREE infants. Shouldn't it be easy with 11 parents, plus various Avengers and friends dropping by from time to time, even if some of them bring their kids with them too? No. It really isn't. We managed to look after Maria for 4 years, Braden for 2 years, plus Joseph and Lucy for a year before the snap, followed by raising Lucy for the duration of it. But this is different, they're taking over and before, the Avengers were less busy, especially for 2016 onwards, but now, the Avengers are relied upon. We're relied upon by both the public and our own children. So here's some of the chaos...

I turn on the camera and face it towards me "Hey, everyone. It's one of your soulmates here." I wink "While you Avengers are busy saving the world, kicking butt, talking to politicians, stopping assassinations and doing all the stuff that I'm very glad I've left behind... Gina, Candice and I get to see all the adorable, cute, proud moments. Plus the ones like these..." I head up the staircase, already being able to hear the girls screaming at each other, I arrive at the kid's playroom and pan the camera round two our two oldest girls, Lucy and Maria, screaming at each other, fighting over a doll. Behind them, little Frigga, Scarlet and Lavina have paused mid play, sitting in front of a large dollhouse we bought for them the other day. I step forward "Hey, what's going on here?" They don't stop or quieten down "Hey, hey, why you girls fighting? Look at me right now." They both try telling me at the same time that they want to play with the doll, Lucy's eyes are growing purple. Then Maria pounces on Lucy. I pull Maria off, holding her under my arm like a bag and turn the camera back around "You guys miss out on a lot, so I want to keep you updated on all the crazy. I might even record when you are here, just so one day we can look back on these videos and laugh." I smile "Love you."

When everyone's next home, we decide to have a dance party for our video diary, we head out to the second field and I set the camera up on tripod so I can join in too "We're going youngest to oldest, okay? Ready, three, two, one." I turn the music on, hit record and move in front of it with everyone else, we just dance around and have fun. After a bit of dancing together, Nian helps Lavina dance a bit, next is Prisha helping Scarlet, then Tasia helps Frigga, then Joe with the help of Stacey. Next up is Sleipnir, who gallops along and starts horseying around. Then we move onto those who can dance by themselves; first is Braden who does a bit of wiggling, followed by teleporting to a new place in front of the camera, then doing more wiggling. Next is Maria, who does a bit of ballet that she's been taught so far, then Lucy does some dancing, not as gracefully. Then we move onto us adults (if you can call us that). First is Prisha, since she's technically only 18, she does some sexy dancing, wiggling her hips. Next up are our alien soulmates, because they age a lot slower than us, so they're the next oldest; Vina struts towards the camera, looking as graceful as ever and blows a kiss to the camera; then Tasia does some weird dance she watched on TikTok, some strange app for young people these days. Now we have Warren in front of the camera, he does a different TikTok dance, one that actually looks good. Then it's Anna, who hates being reminded she's now younger than Stacey thanks to the snap, but she doesn't let that stop her from doing some advanced ballet with a jump where she does the splits. Next to dance is Stacey, who isn't very good at dancing, but she enjoys herself anyway. Then Nian joins Stacey in front of the camera, he puts his hands on Stacey's waist and Stacey puts her hands on Nian's shoulders, Nian then shows Stacey how to dance at least a little. Suzie's next up, she does some crazy hip hop dancing that'll definitely embarrass the kids when they're a bit older, and I'm sure she'll actually aim for embarrassing them, too. Candice is next, she starts dancing around, but slips on the grass and all the kids (including Sleipnir) run to her, flopping down on top of her in a big pile. It's my turn, I know Regina won't want to dance on her own, so I grab one of her hands and pull her forward with me, we dance together. Everyone else jumps back in front of the camera again and we all just dance a bit more together, before we decide to stop and go make dinner.