Age Of Magneto

Epilogue

Ten years of growing up with heroes for parents meant that all of the kids - Peter, Kurt, Jubilee, Kitty, Katie, Billy, Tommy, Teddy, all the Guthries, etc - wanted to be heroes when they grew up, too. So once they started hitting their teenage years, that's what happened: a whole rush of junior X-Men who were so deep in Charles' Dream they practically bled peaceful coexistence.

That kept the senior X-Men busy in a whole new way. When they were kids, they were getting into trouble that meant scraped knees and pulled hair, but now? The stakes were higher, and their parents were sure to impress upon them what that meant.

And it was somehow easier to get the teenagers in their midst to understand that being an X-Man wasn't a game and that they could get hurt than it was to navigate the pitfalls of, well, raising teenagers. It helped that all of the kids had seen loss at a young age and had watched their families piece themselves together after not only Erik's rise and fall from power but everything that happened in its aftermath. That had impressed some seriousness on each and every one of them. But the desire to be older, the frenetic crushes and drama... that was something else.

Some of it was easier to deal with than the rest. Billy and Teddy had been in love since the day they met, so no one was surprised when they started actually dating once they were old enough to understand the concept. Peter pining for the little blonde girl in his science classes but never getting up the courage to ask her out was tragic and hilarious to Jan and Tony but not terrible to deal with either.

But on the other hand, Kate and Kurt seemed determined to give their parents headaches - especially when Charles was a telepath and Logan and K could scent the kids out and knew that they both liked each other. So their ridiculous insistence on trying to one-up each other dating other people to make each other jealous? That was starting to grate on everyone.

But even considering all the drama, things around the mansion and at Avengers Tower were relatively quiet. Yes, they still had big fights to contend with. Hydra, the MRD, Skrulls, Kree, Reavers... Those threats were still out there. But unlike before, the X-Men and Avengers weren't separate. Threaten one team and the other would show up to fight, too.

It was a good system. And it was a good way to show the kids a united front, a new way of doing things. A better way.

It also helped the kids to be more fully dyed in the wool of Charles' dream for peaceful coexistence, since they had grown up so completely immersed in heroes from all walks of life working together.

That cooperation did more than just show the kids how to be better heroes than the generation that came before them: it also made for more peace and stability for the senior heroes, and they took advantage of that feeling.

More than that; they ran with it.

It hadn't taken long, for example, for Scott and Jean to start having kids of their own, and Nate Summers hadn't even been born yet before - after a lot of Paige's "hints" during ballet - Clint and Natasha finally eloped too.

And after that, the next generation of heroes just kept expanding.

No one was all that surprised when Tony and Jan got pregnant less than a year after they were married - if anything, they all teased the Stark family for taking so long, considering how obvious it was that both of them were ready for that next step. Nor were they surprised when Jan wanted to start trying again almost immediately, insisting that their dark-haired little boy needed a little sister.

What was surprising, though, was that Logan and K had their own little one, a boy named James that was Logan's spitting image, before Jan got the little girl she wanted. Sure, Jan had her second son before James was born, so there was plenty of time in between the marriage and the first kid for Logan and K, but still, considering the discussion that had broken K and Tony up...