CHAPTER 1: FAMILY AFFAIRS

My name is Billy Kaplan, and I am the son of an Avenger. My twin brother, Tommy, and I, are the twin sons of Wanda Maximoff, the Scarlet Witch, and the nephews of the late Pietro Maximoff, also known as Quicksilver. The similarities between me and my mother, and Tommy and Uncle Pietro are uncanny. I inherited my mother's telekinetic, and energy manipulation abilities from my mother, as well as a the ability to teleport if I concentrate hard enough. Tommy not only has Uncle Pietro's super speed abilities, but he has the same white colored hair that Pietro had.

The three of us are a really close knit family, as my mother is very protective of us, having lost so many people in her life. Mother usually tries to keep us at arm's distance, something Tommy finds pretty annoying, but I find rather comforting. Mother has always supported me in all of my endeavors. When I was 15 and disclosed with her that I suspected that I might be gay, she reached out and hugged me, tears in her eyes, telling me she knew, and that she would support me, gay or not. It was nice, knowing that I had the support and approval of not just my mother, but one of the most powerful people on Earth.

Tommy and I weren't the only children of the Avengers however. There was also Cassie Lang, the daughter of Scott Lang, also known as the Ant-Man. Cassie was exposed to the world of the Avengers before Tommy and I were even born. Cassie is 6 years older than me and my brother, at 23 years old. Cassie also has super abilities, having the power to changer her size and mass to gigantic proportions, as well as shrink to incredibly small sizes, via exposure to the Pym Particles that Ant-Man used to gain his powers. Her father gave her these powers when she turned 18, feeling that she should have a way to protect herself in case he isn't there to protect her. Cassie is like a big sister to us, spending a lot of time at Avengers Tower with us when she would visit her dad.

—

Speaking of Avengers Tower, today is actually the annual inauguration, when the Avengers publicly welcome superheroes across the globe into the Avengers Initiative. It's a big ceremony, lots of press, and an after party where the Avengers and their families have a nice "family dinner", with the old and new Avengers. It's usually pretty fun, getting to see some Avengers who are usually busy doing their own thing, unless there's some sort of world ending crisis, like Thor and Black Panther.

And as usual, I'm running late, as evident by Tommy banging on my door like an asshole, screaming at me to hurry up cause he doesn't wanna be late.

"I'm about to get dressed now, Tommy, can you chill out," I say, with a tone of voice that just radiated 'leave me alone'.

"Well hurry up faster, asshole," Tommy says, turning the handle of my door.

"Don't come in, I'm not dressed, jesus christ." But Tommy is already in my room, and there I am, with my towel at my ankles, reflexively covering myself, as if that makes this situation any less embarrassing.

"Oh god, Billy, put that thing away!" Tommy says, covering his eyes and making a disgusted face, as if he just saw the most horrible thing in the world. "Just hurry up, man, the inauguration is in like half and hour."

"I told you I was indecent, Tommy! I'll be ready in a few minutes!" stepping into my slacks. "And Tommy, the party is literally downstairs. I can just meet you guys down there."

"Oh yeah. Sorry, bro." Tommy says, finally removing his hands from his eyes, and fully stepping into my room. "Do you even know who's getting welcomed this year?"

"Uh, Spider-Woman, Daredevil, Power Man, and Iron Fist. Basically the street level heroes." I say, finishing up the buttons on my dress shirt. "Jessica will be there too, with her boyfriend becoming an Avenger and all that."

"Jessica would have been there anyway, jackass."

Tommy is right though, Jessica Jones was always invited to these things, ever since she got close with Mom after mom helped her through something involving a "purple man". She didn't tell us the details, but Jessica is like family to us, and hopefully with her boyfriend joining the ranks, we get to see more of her.

"True. I'm ready." I say, finishing up tying the laces on my shoes. I'm wearing a black dress shirt, with little white stars on them, a black blazer, and black slacks, with black dress shoes and my black hair messed up just enough to look good. Tommy's wearing a white short sleeve polo, beige slacks, and a pair of sneakers, because Tommy refuses to wear dress shoes, no matter what the occasion is. His white hair is cut so that the sides are buzzed, almost shaved off, and the stop is pretty short, slicked back with gel. Closing the door, we start he walk upstairs to Mom's room.

When we get to Mom's room, Mom's already walking out of her room to come looking for us, which oddly enough, happens a lot of the time. Mom's wearing a long crimson dress, with a slit up the left let, and black shoes, with red soles. She pushes her curly hair to one side, and smiles, her lips a bright red. Basically, she looks as gorgeous as ever.

"Are you ready, boys?" Mom says, with her heavy Sokovian accent.

"Yeah, we were just coming to get you. You look great, Mom." I say truthfully. She does look stunning.

"And you boys look incredibly handsome. Let's do this thing." She says, giving us a loving wink, walking down towards the elevator to take us to bottom floow, to the Avengers memorial garden behind the tower, where the inauguration always takes place.

When we get there, the press is already there, taking pictures of us, the Maximoff Family. The families and friend's seats are folding chairs set up in front of a makeshift stage, in the middle of the sanctuary, surrounded by marble statues of Avengers who had died in the past. The inauguration is held here to show that even though Avengers have fallen, there will always be heroes to the burden. It's corny, really, but sweet. Mom has a seat on the stage, along with the rest of the Avengers. Tommy and I head to our seats, next to Cassie and her mom and stepdad.

"Hey guys." She says, hugging us both, earning a grimace out of Tommy.

"Hey Cassie, you excited for even MORE Avengers to be running around this place?" I say, trying to make it seem like I'm not as excited as I am to have more superheroes running around my home.

"Yeah, I guess. Iron Fist and Power Man are cool, they helped my dad out with something a while back, so I've already met them. Haven't met Daredevil, but he seems cool. I'm just excited for another girl around here. It's such a sausage fest around here sometimes. No offense." She says, apologetically but not actually meaning it.

At that, Natalia "Natasha" Romanova aka Black Widow and Clint Barton aka Hawkeye enter the room, along with Clint's wife and children. They are the last of the old Avengers to arrive, which means it's time for the inauguration to start. With that, Tony Stark takes the stage, and gives a speech about how important the Avengers are, and how the heroes that are being honored here are incredibly courageous and how their work has saved many lives. He introduces them one by one, starting with Iron Fist, then Power Man, then Daredevil, and ending with Spider-Woman. The ceremony itself is nice, and not very long. The press get their questions and photos in, and then we all head upstairs to the banquet hall, where the after party is.

My favorite part of the Inauguration.

—

The best part of the inauguration is always the after party, because of how private it is. It's just the avengers and their close friends and families. In total there's maybe 45-50 people in attendance. The set up is five tables that seat ten people. At my table is myself, Tommy, Mom, Jessica Jones and Power Man, Iron Fist, and his girlfriend Misty Knight. Power Man, or Luke Cage, as we know him as, and Iron Fist, or Danny Rand, are best friends and a crime fighting duo, formerly known as the Heroes for Hire. They were telling us stories of their adventures, and were super funny while doing it. They two of them together are a laugh riot, which should make the tower way more interesting.

My mother started going on about how nice it must be to earn your way as an Avenger being a hometown crime fighter, as she was thrown into the world of the Avengers after the Sokovia incident, something my mother never talks about. After the first few courses, Steve Rogers gave a short toast to the Avengers and their families, and let each of the honorees tonight each give a speech about how honored they were to be welcomed into the Avengers. It was nice.

That it, at least it was until the alarms started going off. The Avengers ran into a huddle in the corner, Tony explaining to them why the alarms are going off. A few minutes later, Mom came over to us and told us to head to our rooms and lock the door and not to come out unless she came for them.

"What's happening, Mom?" I asked, genuinely worried about the safety of myself and my family.

"There's a small extra terrestrial aircraft on trajectory for the tower, it's expected to crash land in a few minutes. This isn't a drill boys, get to your rooms NOW." Mom says, eyes glowing red. She begins to walk towards the hangar, clothes becoming engulfed in red energy, suddenly in her costume, cape billowing behind her.

I begin to head towards my room, but Tommy has a different idea, grabbing my wrist and dragging me towards the hangar as well.

"What do you think you're doing, Tommy! Let go of me." I shout, in protest. But before I know it he has me on his back and he's running at superhuman speeds and into the Quintet before the door closes, hiding us behind a box of emergency supplies.

"Tommy what the fuck are you doing? Mom's gonna kill us, we should be in our rooms, like she asked us to!"

"Don't you wanna go on an actual mission with the Avengers for once! We're gonna fight a spaceship how sick is that!?"

"The only thing thats sick is you." I say, rolling my eyes.

Not long after that, the Quinjet takes off, heading towards the direction of the spacecraft, hoping to veer it off course. We can't see much but we can hear the quintet firing warning shots at the space ship. That must have worked because the quintet suddenly changed directions, obviously following the ship in a new direction.

With an audible bang, the spaceship crashed. but into what I can't exactly tell, at least not until the quintet lands. When Tony finally lands the plane, the Avengers unbuckle themselves and head towards the exit, we hide further behind the box, hoping none of them would see that we stowed away on the jet. Well, we didn't hide good enough, evidently, because before we know it, Tommy and I were covered a familiar red glow, getting dragged out of the jet, and right in front of my Mother and Captain America.

"Thomas. William. What do you think you're doing? I asked you to go to your room, not stowaway on the jet!" Mom screamed, furiously.

"He made me do it. No I didn't! Yes you did!" Me and Tommy shouted at each other, in a synch only twins could have.

"We shall talk about this later. Get behind me." Mother commands, and we oblige, fearing angering her any further. From behind her we can tell that the ship crash-landed in the memorial garden, missing the building thankfully. The ship isn't very large, much smaller than the quinjet. It almost looks like an escape pod, come to think of it.

"Mom, what kind of ship is that?"

"It almost looks… Kree."

We've had run ins with the Kree before. Some were our allies, most were not. Their presence here could not be a good thing.

Tony, in full Iron Man garb, and Thor approach the ship, right as the green glass melts into the ship itself. Aiming his repulser powered glove at the opening, the Avengers are stunned to see a familiar face. Captain Mar-Vell, a Kree soldier who came to Earth's defense during a skrull invasion some time ago. Mar-Vell was injured, bleeding from his forehead, lip, and with visible bloodstains coming from underneath his uniform. One thing that we could't help but notice was the large metal pole impaled through his chest.

"Mar-Vell, are you alright? What are you doing here?" Captain America asked, signaling the Avengers to disarm their weapons. "FRIDAY, prep the med bay", He says into the radio.

"I *cough* came to warn you of a great threat, one that I fear even you may not be able to stop *cough*."

"What threa-" Mother starts, before noticing that Mar-Vell wasn't alone in the ship. Behind him was a young man, no older than Tommy and I. Just like Mar-Vell, he doesn't look Kree, he looks just like a human. He's handsome, tanned white skin, blonde hair messy and in his face, his lip bleeding, but he looked unharmed.

"Dad? Dad, are you ok?" The alien boy asks, noticing his father's injuries.

"Son. I am placing you in the care of the Avengers. They are my friends, and they will take great care of you." Mar-Vell says, looking as if he was about to pass out from his injuries.

"Dad! No! You can't leave me!."

"It will be okay, son. It will be okay." He said, placing his arm on his son's shoulder. Turning his attention to the Avengers, Mar-Vell gives the warning he has traveled so far to bring them.

"Kang is coming." Marvel says, faintly, before he slips into unconsciousness, succumbing to his injuries.

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