Next Avengers: James Love Story

Epilogue

Thank you, always.

When everything had ended was the moment that life could begin again.

It still had taken years to finally communicate Ultron's downfall to the rest of the world, and longer to deal with the rest of his machines that were left behind. Ultra City still had power to run the place, even after Ultron's destruction, and with that took careful planning to be able to take back the city again. Hawkeye had left us for some time to lead his people like he had before joining us, and Torunn had gone along with him both as the strongest warrior and his girlfriend.

The rest of us had split off into groups to deal with different aspects of carrying out changes. While some of us had ventured beyond the city, Hawkeye was responsible for first creating a rescue task force, and locating any other survivors to build his people's numbers within the city. Pym and Azari had stayed as well, using Pym's tech savvy and Azari's manipulation of electricity to reprogram or shut down Ultron's machines to rebuild the city from the underground up. James, Tony and I had all left to spread the word to the rest of the world, and form relations with the societies of people that were still surviving, helping them to take back their lands as well.

Rather quickly, the world had begun to change. Cities had begun to rebuild, people had started to grow their families again, and the human race had claimed the earth as their home once more. The people of Wakanda had used Pym's reprogramming to re-access much of their lost technology and used it to help rebuild their empire with the machines that had originally been used to suppress them.

One of the first places we had returned to after claiming back the city was Ultron's trophy room in the citadel, to recover and preserve or memorialize what had been taken the day the Avengers had fallen. With the recovery of his infinity stone, my father could now return to earth safely, though much of his work was communications and relations between the rebuilding Earth and Asgard.

Once Azari had known of his people's survival, he had left Ultra City to find them to rebuild the city of Wakanda, where he later accepted and was bestowed to be their King, being the rightful heir to the Wakandan Empire. He was counseled for some years while he was preparing to become King once he had come of age, but was dedicated to provide any aid where it could be useful all around the world, as well as making sure he was included in the political and ethical functions of his counsel to help make decisions for the future of the kingdom.

Of course, all of us had kept in communication over the years, meeting over video calls and through adversaries, and visits with one another if someone was around, but everyone had grown so busy with their own affiliations that there were only a few times where all of us had been able to gather as a group in person.

The first was Azari's coronation on his 21st birthday. Thanks to Pym's reprogramming technology working together with Wakandan tech, what was left of the city had been heavily restored and rebuilt, with successful trade skyrocketing the kingdom's economy. Azari's coronation was a highly celebrated event that went on for weeks, marking a turning point in the era of prosperity that was to follow. The lot of us had stayed for a week to celebrate and enjoy our reunion, and to discuss further business with new legalities now that Azari was King, since he now had final say in his counsel, therefore being able to grant us special access and permissions to certain policies and resources.

The second was Torunn and Hawkeye's wedding. While Thor was more than ready to put on a huge Asgardian wedding, the couple had opted with a less extravagant ceremony on earth, but not without a few Asgardian touches to both ceremony and reception. The venue was actually a beautiful church with many glass windows and openings in the walls and ceilings, completely overgrown by years of vegetation, but the guest list for the ceremony was kept small. Just close friends and family actually were witness to the wedding, but the reception celebration extended to everyone of their people, both human and Asgardian. While the offer was made for Torunn to rule Asgard once she wed, she declined to be able to stay with her husband and make a life on the planet she called home with the people who became her family. Thor had respected her wishes, and is keeping rule over Asgard until the time comes where another must take his place. Torunn and Hawkeye had made incredible progress establishing a democratic government to help form and preserve order to the citizens of their regime, slowly and simultaneously returning the United States to its former glory.