Pepper Potts felt out of her depth.
It was not a feeling that she liked.
But it was one that had become increasingly more common the longer she worked with Tony Stark. Just when she had gotten into the swing of routine as his personal assistant, Tony goes and promotes her to Chief Executive Officer of Stark Industries, and that feeling of being left adrift in the middle of the ocean would return. After she had gotten the hang of that job – which was honestly still debatable – aliens had decided to invade. Along with them came the rest of the Avengers, a very eye-opening experience in of itself, and then the wizard.
Pepper could honestly say that she was once again out of her depth.
"Where is the rest of the team? There are six of you at last count."
However, she was not the only one this time around, and she didn't know if that was a good thing or not. Packed in her office – because apparently this was where they were going to do this meeting – were three of the Avengers as well as an honest to god witch. Not exactly what she had expected to do on a Monday, but her life had taken a sharp turn towards the unexpected when Tony had announced to the world that he was Iron Man, so she probably should have seen this coming.
"They're presumably on their way." Pepper said and shot Tony a look. He gave her a small nod and Pepper took that as confirmation that he did indeed send their three wayward Avengers the message. Of the other two Avengers present, Bruce still seemed a little concerned about everything, while Thor was surprisingly relaxed. "But we can start now and fill them in when they get here."
The witch, Auror Vanessa Smith of the MACUSA – whatever that stood for Pepper didn't know – simply gave a minute shrug, and then sat a little taller in her seat. She was not what Pepper had expected a witch to look like, though what prior knowledge she had mostly came from movies and fairytales, both of which were completely biased in hindsight. The woman that sat before them was rather tall even in her seat. She looked pretty as well, her face unblemished, eyes colored like mahogany, and shoulder length hair that was tempered like fire.
Combined with the slightly dated, but distinctly American style of clothing, and it was a rather intimidating image.
"Very well, now before we begin, I need to make some adjustments." Vanessa said and did a flicking motion with her hand. Pepper watched with everyone else as a polished piece of wood that could only have been a wand suddenly appeared in the Auror's hand. It was a dark brown piece of wood, nearly black, and they all watched as it was waved through the air.
Pepper didn't notice anything changing.
"What did you just do?" Tony asked as his eyes flicked back and forth from his phone and the witch. Pepper noticed that Bruce was glancing around the room and Thor seemed entirely content, if not a little amused.
"I erected a simple privacy ward along the borders of the room." Vanessa explained. Tony and Bruce looked positively amazed, and Pepper was sure she was right along side them. She didn't even care that Thor was grinning slightly. "It is as the name implies. No one outside will hear a thing from within this room unless I allow it. Nor will anyone be able to enter without my say."
"There wasn't any noticeable increase in energy outputted from this room." Bruce said and adjusted the glasses to get a better look at Tony's phone. "Nor were there any spikes in any type of radiation. It's basically undetectable and yet clearly tangible. How?"
"Your mortal means won't be able to understand it." Thor chuckled.
"While I can't speak for Asgardian magic," Vanessa said and then held up her wand more to show it than to use it. "I can speak on wizarding magic. To simply put it, Dr. Banner, magic is unmeasurable by nonmagical means. I dare say that it's impossible to do so."
"We're gonna have to put that to the test." Tony said and wagged his phone at her. "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, which means the reverse should also apply, and from what we've already seen, there's definitely a way of measuring it."
"That actually is a point we should probably address first." Vanessa waved her wand in a distinct motion and a piece of paper shot from the tip. It flew right into her awaiting hand and was in fact a pamphlet. Right on the front were the letters MACUSA. "Since you are all people without magic, known in the magical community as No-Majs-"
"But Thor has magic?" Bruce interrupted and then immediately looked sheepish.
"Right, he does have magic," Vanessa nodded at Thor who returned the gesture. "but as of right he would still be defined as a No-Maj. That's solely based on the fact that we in the magical world previously did not know of Asgard's existence, so the definition of who has magic hasn't caught up as of yet, though I'd bet that it'll change in the coming weeks."
"No need to worry yourselves my friends." Thor said in his slightly too loud voice. Pepper wondered when he would finally catch on that no one spoke that loudly on Earth. "I know as much of the Midgardian Seiðmenn as the rest of you."
"Well, I'm not exactly sure what that word means, but I'll assume it means magic user." Vanessa looked slightly confused as she turned her attention to the pamphlet. "Anyway, the first thing we have to discuss is this, the International Statute of Secrecy." She tapped it and to their shock the black logo on the front moved. "Which as of right now you are all subject to."
"This seems kinda tame compared to what Harry made it sound like." Tony said. Pepper noticed that Vanessa stiffened ever so slightly at the mention of Harry Potter. It seemed like there was a history there.
"I'm not sure what Mr. Potter told you to expect, but this is it, and I would appreciate if you held all comments until the end Mr. Stark." Vanessa gave Tony a look. Pepper nudged him in the side just to make sure he got the message which the awkward cough indicated that he did. "Now, the basic gist about the Statute is that you cannot expose the magical world in any way to anyone who is not in the know, which applies to all No-Majs. Any No-Maj that is exposed to the magical world is Obliviated, unless they are approved to be in the know, or are the parents of magical children. There is-"
Bruce raised his hand like they were all in a classroom.
"Yes, Dr. Banner?"
"I don't understand how that works." Bruce gestured around the room. "Logic dictates that a secret won't be kept a secret when it passes more than one person. It's inevitable that someone will eventually let it slip, intentionally or not, and going by the fact that this is an international statute it would mean that there are a lot of people who have to keep this secret. How has all of this been kept a secret for so long? And why?"
"From what we've seen so far concerning magic it looks like a mighty helpful thing." Tony added.
"How the secret of magic is kept from the No-Majs is simple. If they find out when they shouldn't have, they are Obliviated." Vanessa said the word with some force. "That is something which we will get to later. The why is more complicated, but the general reason is that our two worlds were growing increasingly violent towards each other, so to prevent even more deaths the magical world simply separated itself from the nonmagical one."
Thor hummed at that. He was also nodding his head in a sagely manner oddly out of place for the boisterous man Pepper knew him to be. Then the pamphlet was handed to her, and she took in the crest which sat in the middle of the cover. The eagle's head moved as if to look at her.
"Does it still need to be used?" Pepper asked. "With recent events being what they are, I would think that the secret of magic has gotten out, seeing as we all now know that aliens exist. No offence Thor."
"I take no offence Lady Potts." That sagely look was immediately switched with the familiar smile on Thor's face.
"I don't decide if we should follow the Statute or not. That's the decision of the ICW, which we are not getting into today," Vanessa held up a hand when Tony moved to speak. "because that would take too long. All I'm here to do is to give you all the formal introduction to the magical world and to make sure you understand what you can and can't do while in it. Now, to sum it all up so we can move on, don't tell anyone about magic full stop. Just the Avengers and Ms. Potts here."
"How would we even tell if someone else knows about it?" Tony asked. "If we can't talk about it then how do we know when we're talking with another wizard?"
"Well, to answer that I'll need to explain our next topic, magical society." Vanessa pointed at Pepper's window, and they all turned to look at Manhattan. It was a great view even with all the damage and as of yet to be removed alien carcasses. "New York City is the Capital of the Magical Congress of the United States of America, abbreviated as MACUSA, and pronounced as 'Mah-cooz-ah'. It is our governing body, and it functions similarly to your own, but they are not in any way connected. Your laws are not my laws. Your president is not my president."
"Wait, I have a question." Bruce said and made an aborted motion to raise his hand. "There's been an entire other government right here this entire time? One that we've never noticed before?"
"Yes."
"You don't follow our laws?" Tony's eyebrows were nearly touching.
"No, I do not."
"Are you not an American citizen?" Pepper asked. "You said you don't recognize President Ellis as your own."
"Because he's not my president," Vanessa said. "and I'm not an American citizen, in the No-Maj sense."
"Er… JARVIS?" Tony whispered, though the fact that no one else was speaking didn't help, and they all turned to look at him. "What? Am I the only one who's curious?"
"This is becoming a habit, Tony." Bruce muttered out the side of his mouth, his eyes planted on the floor, and Pepper had the feeling that she'd need to write an apology note to whoever's privacy had been violated.
"Its fine." Vanessa said and gestured at Tony and his phone. "I am curious to see what your artificial intelligence will find out."
"You know about JARVIS?" Tony grinned at Vanessa's nod. "Cool. JARVIS, I need you to do a search for Vanessa Smith and send me everything you find, use all the information already gathered to cross-reference."
"Of course, Sir." JARVIS' voice sounded small coming from the phone.
They all watched for a moment as Tony placed his phone down onto the table between them all. Splaying his hand, images were projected into the air, and other than the ambient blue light there was nothing. Nothing?
"Ms. Vanessa Smith is not in any American database and does not have any legal documentation attached to her name or person." JARVIS said.
"Not even a birth certificate?" Bruce asked.
"I was not born in a No-Maj hospital, so I wouldn't have received one." Vanessa answered. JARVIS confirmed it a second later which had Bruce looking both confused and intrigued. "The only magicals in the United States that do have birth certificates are those who choose to live in No-Maj society and the No-Maj-born themselves, which is a whole other matter to get to, but we still have to go over how our government works first."
"I've got many questions about that." Pepper said and absentmindedly passed the pamphlet to Tony. He leafed through it while not really reading it. "How does your government work exactly? How does your economy function? Does it function alongside our own? Is there a dedicated magical military? Oh God, the implications of that alone are numerous. What about Harry Potter and the-"
"Lady Potts." Thor interrupted and held a meaty hand up. Vanessa's smile looked ever so slightly strained. "I believe that you will receive the answers you seek if you allow Lady Smith here an opportunity to speak."
"Right, sorry, it's just that its one thing to see magic done, and another to hear about the legal mechanisms governing that part of the world."
"It's good that you have questions." Vanessa said and offered Pepper a smile. "I would have been a little concerned if you, one of the most powerful No-Maj women in the world, didn't have any questions."
"About that." Tony said and tossed Bruce the pamphlet. The doctor managed to drop it. "You say that magical and nonmagical society are separate, yet you know who Pepper is, and her position as CEO of Stark Industries. How?"
"Our societies may be separate from one another, but we're hardly oblivious to what happens in the nonmagical world," The corner of Vanessa's lip quirked upward. Sort of like a half-smirk. "and as an Auror I spend a lot of time around No-Majs. Plus, it's kind of hard to miss something like Ms. Potts here become the CEO of one of the richest organizations on Earth."
"That's nice and all but enough about me." Pepper said and leaned in, elbows on her knees, hands clasped together to keep from fidgeting around. "You said that there's a magical government, this MACUSA, and that they're completely separate from the nonmagical one. You also said that President Ellis isn't your president, so that means there's a magical president?"
"Yes, President Quahog."
"Like from Family Guy?" Tony looked bemused.
"Coincidence, but most magicals wouldn't know the television program in the first place." Vanessa shrugged.
Tony looked put out by that, which Pepper ignored, and simply pressed on.
"How much power does this President Quahog have?" Pepper asked. "Did he know about the portal opening and the Chitauri coming through it? From what I've seen of them, wizards and witches would have been a great help during all of that, especially since they can do basically anything with the wave of a wand. And I don't mean to offend you, but did any other wizards besides Harry Potter fight?"
"Yes, we did fight in the battle, and several died doing so." Vanessa said and her lips were set into a thin line. She flicked her wrist and suddenly her wand was gone. "I'm sure Harry has explained some facets of the magical world to you, but he probably left most of it for the Aurors, and with good reason. The Aurors, which I am a member of, are first and foremost a policing force who are responsible for tasks like informing No-Majs of the magical world. When the portal opened and the Chitauri started to come through, we were forced into a conflict we were not explicitly trained for, and some of us died because of that. You all didn't notice any of it because magic prevented you from doing so."
"Oh, well," Pepper knew that she could say the empty words that did nothing. But Vanessa Smith looked like she had dealt with the death of her colleagues already, that she had grieved or compartmentalized those emotions, so it probably would be best if they'd moved topics. "does the magical side of Manhattan need any support? The Stark Relief Foundation is already working with the Department of Damage Control. We can coordinate with President Quahog and the MACUSA to help in any way we can."
"I've got the money to spare," Tony added. "and meeting more wizards and witches sounds nice too."
"That is a thoughtful and generous offer," Vanessa said, and Pepper could see the 'but' coming from a mile away even before the other woman spoke it. "but not something that would be possible. Your organization is a primarily nonmagical one, Mr. Stark, and any interaction between it and the magical world would be a breach of the Statute of Secrecy. There are also the economic differences to consider. Now I'm not an expert in that area, but when you work in the Woolworth Building you tend to hear some things, and the Goblins seemed all too excited with themselves."
"Goblins?" Bruce and Tony said in unison. They sound all too giddy at that. Though, Pepper was more focused on – and disappointed by – the fact that any connections and future opportunities that the Stark Foundation could have made with the MACUSA were essentially a dead end.
Then she wondered what these Goblins – and she wasn't even surprised that they existed, which was a little disconcerting – had to do with the magical economy.
"It has been some time since I've last fought a goblin." Thor mused to himself. He idly tapped the handle of Mjolnir, the hammer itself resting on the floor besides the couch. "Has there been any more rebellions since I was last on Midgard?"
"Rebellions?" Pepper swung her gaze from Thor to Vanessa. The Auror gave Thor a questioning look, before ignoring his question, and turning back to Pepper. Thor didn't seem all that bothered, because Tony and Bruce started to poke him with questions, mostly about goblins.
Thor obliged them with some enthusiasm.
"Goblin rebellions are mostly a British problem, though they haven't had one since the tail end of the nineteenth century, so no need to worry." Vanessa said with the wave of her hand, as if to dismiss Pepper's worries. "Though, in the off chance that you do meet a goblin, expect some roughhousing, and don't take anything they say to heart. Their definition of social etiquette is not the same as a human's definition."
"Okay, I'll keep that in mind." Pepper truly didn't know what to make of that but kept that to herself. "But what do they have to do with the Stark Foundation's offer being impossible? Aside from the previously mentioned breach that it would cause to the Statute of Secrecy."
"The Goblin Nation oversees Gringotts, which is the wizarding bank for the entire magical world, as well as mint the currency we use." Vanessa reached into a little pouch that Pepper suddenly noticed was attached to the woman's belt and withdrew a golden coin. "The Galleon, it's the largest denomination of wizarding currency, and used throughout the magical world. This right here is the reason why the Stark Foundation's offer won't work even if the Statute issue was resolved."
The coin was flipped through the air and Pepper caught it. She ran her thumb over the obverse side of the coin, the image of a dragon's side profile staring back at her, and when she flipped to the reverse side she was met by the face of a bearded man. There were a series of numbers to go with the bearded man, and when Pepper turned the coin back to the obverse side, she was met by words instead.
"Gringotts Bank. MACUSA." Pepper read off the coin. It clicked in her mind that she was holding real life magical currency, that the golden coin in her hand was not some Halloween toy but actual legal tender, and it was quite shocking.
"I don't know the exact conversion rate of Galleon to Dollar right now," Vanessa said, and Pepper looked up at the witch. There was an almost bashful smile to her lips. "but I know that it's certainly disproportionately high, and in favor of the Galleon against the Dollar."
"So, what your saying is the foundation wouldn't be able to financially support any offer to the MACUSA," Pepper sighed, rolling the Galleon that was worth something ridiculous in American Dollars between her fingers. "without spending an eye-watering amount of money that would negate any benefits the offer might bring in the first place?"
"Basically." Vanessa rubbed the back of her neck for a moment before taking a deep breath. "I'll admit, it's all skewed against the No-Majs and in favor of us magicals, and there's really nothing we can do about it. It's also not likely to change anytime soon, since the goblins are primarily concerned about money and nothing else, but that doesn't mean you can't visit the magical side of Manhattan and enjoy the sights."
"I'll just have to lighten my bank account by a significant amount if I ever want to buy anything."
"Again, it's not fair, but it's what it is."
Pepper frowned at that while continuing to toy with the Galleon in her hand. If economic ventures into the magical world were doomed to fail before they left the planning phase, then other options had to be pursued, because she would have to be an idiot to not see the benefits of some form of relationship between their two worlds. Harry Potter had demonstrated a wide variety of spells for them when they had visited his home. The possibilities that magic possessed were basically limitless.
Plus, in the world of superheroes and aliens, it was probably a good idea if they at least established a dialogue with the resident magicals of Earth.
Just in case another hole in the sky ripped open and grey aliens started to fly through.
"You mentioned the Woolworth Building." Pepper prompted, leaning forward in her seat slightly, and Vanessa moved to do the same. The boys were debating something to do with goblins and swords. Completely distracted in the background. "I assume that it's the building that the magical government is located?" She received a nod and pushed forth. "Would we, or I, be able to set up a meeting with President Quahog? Things are changing after all, and I think it would be best if we at least had some form of communication between our worlds."
"I can't make any promises, Ms. Potts." Vanessa said. "But I'll put in a word for you." Pepper offered the Auror a grateful smile. "There's a debate going on at the moment, about whether or not we should still keep with the Statute of Secrecy, after the revelation that aliens and other magic users exist. It's certainly a… divisive topic at the moment."
She imagined that it was. The news was still mostly covering the aftermath of the Battle of New York. Most of it was shining a positive light on the efforts of the Avengers, but there was also the side in opposition, as well as questions on just who was responsible. Loki's return to Asgard – as a prisoner or not – had certainly caused issues with the countries who had lost citizens to his attacks. It was argued that they were being denied justice, that the Avengers – especially Thor – had a part to play in that denial, and that situation had revealed some legal grey areas that had no clear solutions to.
Then there was the whole issue of the world's opinion of magic.
To say that it was tumultuous was nearly an understatement.
"Well, now that we've covered that, let's turn to how magical society functions for the common magical." Vanessa said and raised her voice enough so that the three boys actually heard her. Pepper nearly rolled her eyes at the way all three of them halfheartedly returned to the informative and necessary conversation they were having. "Now, for the Magical Congress of the United States of America, there has mostly been complete separation between magicals and nonmagicals. To the point where Rappaport's-"
A series of knocks on the door caused Vanessa to halt, and all of their eyes swung to the door as another round of knocks sounded again, which left them all in silence for a moment. Then Vanessa did that flicking motion with her wrist, her wand was suddenly in her hand, and waved through the air in a precise manner that Pepper didn't understand. Whatever it was that the Auror did, the door soon opened, and they all took in the sight of a confused Steve Rogers watching the door slowly open in front of him, with Clint and Natasha standing behind him looking more curious than anything else.
"About time you three got here!" Tony started and stood from the couch. The rest of the followed suit as the three missing Avengers walked into Pepper's office, occasionally sending the Auror a politely guarded look. Vanessa didn't seem fazed by it. Not even when the three new arrivals jerked back slightly when the door to the office was shut, and the wand waved through the air again.
"Apologies for our tardiness, ma'am." Steve said and offered a hand to Vanessa, slightly warry, but not disturbed by the fact that she had magically opened the door or that she was currently holding a wand. "Steve Rogers."
"No need to apologize, Captain Rogers." Vanessa flicked her wrist again, then shook Steve's hand, and turned her attention to the other two new arrivals. "You three haven't missed much, and I'm sure Mr. Stark with the help of his artificial intelligence has recorded the entire conversation, so no need to fear."
"That is okay for us to do, right?" Bruce asked.
"I'm sure it's fine." Tony said, though he did seem ever so slightly doubtful.
"So long as the footage and audio recordings are never viewed by a No-Maj, then it's fine." Vanessa said and then gestured for them all to return to their seats. "Now that we're all here, let me introduce myself, I am Auror Vanessa Smith of the MACUSA."
"MACUSA?" Clint asked, though he made a face at the pronunciation.
"The Magical Congress of the United States of America." Vanessa offered a smile and Pepper watched as a flurry of emotions flashed over Clint, Natasha, and Steve's faces. "So, now that we're all here, let's talk about the wonders and workings of the magical world."