Epilogue: Heir to the Empire

Malibu, California – 2013

"Happy Birthday to you! Happy Birthday to you! Happy Birthday, dear Sean! Happy Birthday to youuuuuuuu!"

Among a multitude of friends and family from both S.H.I.E.L.D. and the Avengers, Sean Livingston officiated his twenty-seventh birthday, blowing out the "2" and "7" candles of a birthday cake designed after the Avengers emblem to congratulatory applause.

The party was held in Tony Stark's cliff-side mansion.

It was an event courtesy of a successful collaboration between Stark and Elendriel.

"Kudos on the arrangements," she told the billionaire Avenger. "I don't think I've seen my brother this happy since his tenth birthday."

"Glad to be of assistance," Stark said, as he handed a slip of paper to Elendriel.

She accepted it with a questionable frown. "What's this?"

"Let's just call it what it is: the bill."

Her eyes burnt infuriatingly. "Are you kidding me?!"

Despite what was the start of a rocky relationship between Elendriel and Tony, all of the attendees were having a wonderful time mingling and catching up. Most of the guests included other Avengers, such as Steve Rogers, Bruce Banner, Natasha Romanoff, Clint Barton, and even Thor. As far as fellow S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, Maria Hill and Nick Fury certainly would not have missed out.

Sean's birthday was the perfect time for all of them to reunite, having not seen much of each other since the Project Geo incident; in fact, that excursion was the topic of many conversations during the celebration.

There was only one guest missing: Ciciley.

It was not that she wasn't invited.

What happened at Project Geo changed her emotionally as it had physically, yet no one knew to what extent.

Through most of the evening, Elendriel doubted she would ever come.

Ciciley had not been there for either of her children's birthdays since 1996.

And then the doorbell rang over the music and conversing guests.

Elendriel answered it; she was comforted by the sight of her mother standing at the porch of Stark's mansion with a beautifully wrapped gift in hand and a humbled expression on her face.

"Hey, Elle," she softly said. "Can I come in?"

Elendriel could hardly believe she had to muster the courage to ask permission for such a thing. "Certainly, Moms," she permitted. "Come right in."

Ciciley cheerfully did so, setting her son's birthday gift atop the mass assortment from others he had yet to open. Regarding the pileup, she questioned to Elendriel out of curiosity and concern, "Where is the birthday boy?"

"Right out there," Elendriel pointed across the crowd towards the glass doors that led out to the balcony where Sean and Maria were engaged in an intimate moment.

"Since when has that started?!" A stupefied Ciciley asked.

Elendriel shrugged. "Tonight, I suppose. Must be her gift to him."

Ciciley knew Elendriel was only joking but, as a mother, found the joke to be in poor taste. She excused herself from her daughter's side, heading for the balcony.

She showed up just as the two lovers disconnected.

Feigning a cough, she succeeded in getting their eyes off each other and on her.

"Moms," Sean exclaimed, acting as if Ciciley had caught him with Maria in his bedroom. "When did you show up?"

"Just now," Ciciley smirked. "Happy Birthday, sweetheart."

She wedged herself in between him and Maria to give her son a big hug.

By that gesture, Maria knew it was time for her to return to the party indoors.

"I'll meet up with you later," she told Sean.

He watched her leave the balcony, giving a dejected sigh while left alone with his overbearing mother. "You're somethin' else, you know that," he griped at her. "What is it you got against Maria anyway?"

"Nothing," Ciciley sincerely remarked. "She's a nice girl with a good head on her shoulders. Matter of fact, Nicholas speaks very highly of her."

"I bet he does."

As irritated as he was by his mother's prude intervention, he was nonetheless delighted to see her there.

"Thanks for coming," he acknowledged with a smile.

"I know I've got a lot of birthdays to make up for, after Project Geo kept me from you and Elle for so long. What happened last year…Life's really given me a second chance. I'm not going to waste any of it without my children by my side."

Touched by this, Sean embraced her – a token she blissfully returned.

New Avengers Facility, New York (Present Day)

A week passed since Côn Sơn Island.

In the conference room, Ross and Fury updated the small audience of Agent X, Elendriel, and Myst on the status of Samuel Sterns.

"Rest assured, he'll be spending the rest of his unnatural-born life rotting in his cell at the Raft," Fury affirmed. "I doubt he'll think twice about escaping again."

"I doubt he'll be able to think at all," Ross reversed. "He's a total vegetable now whatever it was that kid did to him." He fixed on Elendriel. "What did you say her name was again?"

"Jade," she told him.

"What about Sterns' subjects?" Myst quizzed. "Those poor souls he woke out of that freak show in HYDRA's old base?"

"They're being kept in an installation under constant twenty-four-seven surveillance," Fury disclosed. "One of them, Yuri Topolov, asked specifically to be placed with Sterns at the Raft, so he can be his caretaker."

X grimaced in deep thought. "I still can't shake what Sterns said about what's to come for Earth: that 'great force' out there in space that oversteps the Skrulls. And something about the continuum?"

"All a bunch of nonsense from a head swollen by power and insanity," Elendriel condemned. "All we need to worry about are the Skrulls and how much of S.H.I.E.L.D. they've been able to access in the last year."

"To do that, we need a thorough investigation into each member, using the same tactics as when HYDRA was discovered in the organization," Ross advocated.

"You do realize that could take months," Fury criticized. "Months we could be spending preparing for this invasion."

"I suppose you have a better idea?" Ross rebutted.

As the two officials occupied themselves with another dispute, X picked up on another altercation taking place right outside the conference area. Ciciley was the root of it, yelling over the nurses and doctors trying desperately to get the fragile albeit recovering woman back to her room. Balanced by her I.V. pole, she still wore the pink gown from Côn Sơn Island.

X immediately intervened, careful not to attract the attention of those in the conference room as she hurried out.

"Moms, what're you doing out of your room?" She asked Ciciley.

"Don't you start with me now," Ciciley stormed. "I wanna see my grandson."

There was always a method to her madness, but this one was justified in X's eyes.

She aided Ciciley into the nursery where Oneida, who had wholly adopted her new nanny position, watched the Disney film Frozen with Karter while John was in his crib.

"Ohhhh," Ciciley gushed over her sleeping grandson. "He looks exactly like you did when you were as little as him!"

X chuckled. "Yeah, I said the same thing when I first looked at him."

"It's fitting he was named 'John,' you know," Ciciley elucidated. "It's the Irish form of your birth name, 'Sean'."

"It was," X lamented. "I can't be Sean Livingston anymore, Moms. It was the name to another face. This one…" She waved her hand up and down at her countenance. "…has more relevance to Chrissy Livingston."

Ciciley turned to her, comfortingly placing a hand to the side of X's face.

"Whether you're Sean or Chrissy," Ciciley said, "you carry the memory of two wonderful human beings both inside and out."

X beamed from her mother's sentiment. "Thanks, Moms."

The two women shared a hug.

Oneida looked on them briefly before attending to Karter once again, lovingly stroking his head.

In the far reaches of space, a Skrull command ship navigated across an asteroid belt. Its most valued passenger was Veranke, Queen of the Skrull Empire. Situated in her throne aboard the bridge, she assessed the procedures carried out by her delegates near their respective stations. The majestic view of space displayed over a spacious, spotless window.

On her occasional appointments on Earth, she sustained the human form of "Doctor Marie Nylen," the resident psychiatrist of the New Avengers Facility – a front to learn more of their Terrain foes, as well as to ensure the safety of a special person they were keeping there.

However, it was in the presence of her people she felt freer in her own skin.

"My Queen," addressed her aide, Morrat the Warlord. "Our incursion should begin post haste. The Empire wastes precious time waiting for Thanos to collect his worthless Infinity Stones."

"I disagree, Morrat," contended Dorrek, the Skrull Emperor and Veranke's father. "Thanos and his Infinity Gauntlet are the only way the incursion can be a guaranteed success. The warriors of Earth have already thwarted us twice."

"On the contrary, Father," Veranke said. "Samuel Sterns did succeed in turning Ciciley Livingston into the living time bomb HYDRA made her to be. Once she dies, Earth itself will die, and then we shall claim it."

"The Earth woman's demise will only put your son – my grandson – at risk," Dorrek reminded her.

"We will claim him before that can ever happen," Veranke pledged.

"Where are the Earth vermin keeping him?"

"In their facility. They've given him an Earth name: Karter. But he will always be Dorrek the VIII, Heir to the Skrull Empire."

Marvel Evolution