Meg's first word was "mama." Her second word, through much coaxing, was "dada." Her third word, to everyone's amusement and no one's surprise, was "Mine." She was looking at Jay when she said it.
"Mine," Jay replied gleefully.
"Mine," she repeated.
"Mine."
"Mine."
"Fi'ning Memo," Jay demanded from Uncle Steve.
"How do we say?" Steve prompted the tiny future billionaire.
"Pease."
The two soulmated babies sat on the floor and watched Finding Nemo. When the scene with the seagulls came on, both children shouted with laughter, and all the adults smiled.
"So that's the 'mine'," Diana said, leaning into Steve's arms as they watched their baby girl. "What I want to know is, who's the 'What time is it?'"
Steve pressed a kiss to his wife's cheek. "I guess only time will tell."
Diana turned in his arms specifically to roll her eyes at him.
When Meg was four and could read, she wanted to know what the black writing on her calf was. Diana helped her read it. "What time is it?"
Meg smiled and threw her hands up in the air. "Adventure time!" she cheered.
Diana groaned. "I hate that show. I knew we shouldn't have let Sam install the cable packages."
When Meg was seven, she grew out of Adventure Time, and wandered on to bigger and better things. So when members of her family would ask her teasingly, "What time is it?" she would reply, "Peanut butter jelly time!" and ask for a sandwich.
This was her standard reply for a while, until she started middle school. With middle school came advanced science and math classes, and with her Uncle Tony and Vision's help, she learned what time really was. Thus whenever someone asked her, "What time is it?" she would automatically reply, "Time is relative." Just to sound smart, just because she could, because seriously, who doesn't have their phone with them all the time anyway?
Meg was fourteen, and going to a private prep school. The one that fed directly into science programs at MIT, Stanford, Cal Tech, Harvard, and so on. Jay had gone here for a year to get his general education credits before going directly to MIT four years early. With his insider knowledge of how the place worked, Meg was fitting in seamlessly. She was also leading her class in US History, English Lit, and Physics. No need to wonder why she was the greatest at those three topics...
It was lunch, and Meg was sitting on the stairs in the south corner of the school, eating leftover pizza and reading a proof copy of her mom's latest book.
"What time is it?" a harried voice asked.
"Time is relative," Meg retorted instantly, her attention focused on the book.
There was a muffled thump, and then two sneakered feet appeared in Meg's field of vision. She looked up.
A girl from Meg's gym class was standing there, staring at her in shock.
"What?" Meg asked, closing the book and shoving it under her math textbook.
"You're," the girl started. "I'm Clara."
"Meg," she replied.
"We're soulmates," the girl blurted.
Meg's jaw dropped. "What! Let me see."
Clara rolled up her sleeve and showed her the black script on her forearm. 'Time is relative.'
Meg pulled down her sock to show her the words on her calf. 'What time is it?'
The two girls grinned at each other. "Hi," Clara said, sitting down next to Meg on teh stairs.
"Hi," Meg said, grinning back. "Why did you ask what time it was?"
"I needed to know, I left my phone at home and there's no clocks in the stairwells."
"Oh. It's 12:42."
Clara frowned. "I'm going to be late." She put her backpack down. "But that's okay."
Meg smiled. "Yeah."
They talked the rest of lunch and fourth period. The teachers, when informed that they were soulmates, left them alone.
"So do you have any other soulmates?" Clara asked, when they'd finished exhausting their likes, dislikes, and their mutual enjoyment of science fiction.
Meg nodded. "I have one other. Jay. We've grown up together since I was a baby."
"Oh that's really cool."
"Yeah." Meg cleared her throat awkwardly. "Can you, uh, give me a second? I need to call my mom and tell her. If you want to come over after school, that'd be great."
"Yeah, I don't have anything to do besides homework."
"All right, cool." Meg stood up and walked to the bottom of the stairs. She dug her phone out of her pocket quickly and called her mom. "Mom I found my soulmate," Meg said urgently, as soon as Diana picked up.
Diana gasped. "What? Really? At school?" She closed the screens in her office at the Avengers tower and gave her daughter her full attention.
"Yeah, she's in my gym class, and her mom named her after Clara from Doctor Who, and she's really smart, and, and, I want to tell her about us, and about Jay, but, can you do a background check mom please? Her name is Clara Collins."
"Absolutely. One second." Diana put the phone down and spoke into the air. "FRIDAY, can you run a background check on Clara Collins, fourteen years old, goes to Meg's school?"
FRIDAY ran the scan in seconds. Her parents were a pediatrician and an advertising office manager, respectively, and no one in her family had ties to superheroes, villains, SHIELD, or any government officials at all. "She is clean," FRIDAY announced.
Diana nodded. "Thank you FRIDAY." She relayed this information to Meg. "She's good, Meg. You can tell her who we are, and you can invite her over if you want."
"Okay. Thanks mom."
Diana wished she could hug her daughter through the phone. "I'm sorry that you have to ask for a background check on your soulmate before you can tell her who we are."
Meg shrugged. "It's just life, mom, it's okay."
"Okay. I love you sweetie. Can I tell your father?"
"Yeah, tell him. And tell whoever else is at the facility. Bye mom." Meg hung up and went back to where Clara was sitting. "Okay," she said, grinning at Clara brilliantly. "I'm going to tell you a secret about me and my family. You can't tell anyone, but if we're going to be soulmates you need to know this."
Clara's eyes widened and she nodded solemnly.
"All right." Meg scooted closer and lowered her voice. "My dad is Steve Rogers, and my mom is Diana Lawrence, and my soulmate is Steven Jarvis Stark but we call him Jay, and, uh, yeah. That's me."
Clara's eyes were the size of saucers. "You're Captain America's kid!"
"Shhh," Meg said. "And he's not Captain America anymore, he retired."
"But still!" Clara waved her arms around frantically. "That's awesome! You're the best soulmate ever!" She frowned. "I feel like, way too normal now."
Meg hugged her tightly. "There is no such thing as a normal person. You're amazing in your own way. And besides, I'm normal. Mom's normal. Half the superheroes are normal, they've just worked really hard or they've got special suits and stuff."
"Hm."
"No really, it's true. Mom said you could come over after school if you wanted to."
"Um, sure, I guess."
"Awesome."
The bell rang for next period, and a teacher came around the corner to give them a Look. They reluctantly separated for their classes, and promised to meet at the front of the building after school.
At 3:40, there was a silver sedan waiting for Meg in the pickup line. "Dad's back," she said cheerfully to Clara.
Clara paled. "What? He's picking us up?"
"Yeah. It's his turn because mom is in Manhattan till later."
"What do I call him?"
"Uh... I don't know. Just, Mr. Rogers, I guess, no that sounds weird, uh, Steve?"
"No way."
Steve got out of the car and opened the door for his daughter to slide in. "Hi, punkin," he said, kissing her hair.
"Hi dad." She smiled at him. "Dad, this is my soulmate, Clara Collins."
He held out a hand. "Nice to meet you, Clara."
"You too," Clara said nervously.
Meg ushered her soulmate into the back seat and they both put their backpacks in the front seat with Steve.
"Oh, I'm the chauffeur today," Steve smirked. "Where to, my ladies?" he asked, affecting a posh British accent.
Meg giggled. "Home, James."
"Right away." Steve dropped the accent. "How about we swing by for pizza and ice cream?"
"Yes!"
Steve chatted with the girls and put Clara at ease, and Meg thought her soulmate might just be feeling normal - when they pulled into the driveway, and saw three separate cars in the driveway. She groaned. "Who's here, dad?"
He frowned. "I don't know. I didn't think anyone was coming over-" he sighed. "It's Sam and Buck, we were gonna watch the game since Sam's back on this coast for a thing. I think Pietro's here too."
Meg groaned again. "When is mom coming home?"
"About six."
"Ugh. Okay."
So that's how Meg's soulmate met Falcon, Captain America, and Quicksilver in one go, and then an hour later she met the heir to Stark Industries, and then an hour after that she met Diana Lawrence, former head of accountability to the Avengers and SHIELD, now a best-selling author and consultant to the United Nations.
Clara, after some quiet fangirling, fit right in with them.