An American At Hogwarts: Book Three

Bonus Chapter - New York

I emerged from the lab just over twenty hours after I got off the phone with Alexa. It was four in the morning in New York, but thanks to the time difference, her graduation started at Hogwarts in two hours, which meant for once no one batted an eye at how sideways my sleep schedule had gotten. Not even Pepper.

I'd had Jarvis put together a summary of what had happened with Alexa for everyone else in the Tower, since I knew they'd be asking her questions she didn't want to answer otherwise. Steve and a few of the others gave me heavily judgemental looks when I told them Jarvis would be filling them in and that I had work to do, but those looks had never really bothered me before. They certainly weren't going to bother me when I had much, much more important work to do than spend time answering questions that Jarvis could handle just as well.

I'd promised Alexa that I would trust her and her judgement, and let her decide what to get involved in and what to stay out of. I was going to keep that promise, but I was also going to find other, better ways to keep my daughter safe. I'd just managed to finish the first of many upgrades, which meant I could get her the updated suit when I saw her at graduation. One direct hit to the reactor wasn't going to take the whole thing offline ever again.

That was the most obvious fix, and the easiest to do something about in the time I had before Alexa's graduation, but by no means was it the last improvement I was going to make on her gear. Something tied to her vitals, or whether or not she was conscious, would probably be my next change, although how the suit reacted depending on various factors would take a little more time to determine...

"Dammit, Peter, that's not what this is for!"

"But it could be!"

The voices of my two non-biological kids pulled me out of my brainstorming, something that wasn't easy to do. But I'd learned to recognize both of their tones of voices as red flags signaling me to pay attention.

I walked over to the living room coffee table they were both hovering over. Neither of them noticed me.

"What are you two doing?"

Harley and Peter both jumped as they whirled around to look at me. Peter's eyes stayed wide, but Harley scowled almost immediately. I could see scattered, dissassembled pieces of something behind the two of them.

"I spent months planning a bunch of shit to mess with Alexa's teacher from hell the minute we set foot on the grounds. But now, according to a brief from Jarvis and not you," Harley said, giving me an incredibly aggressive stink eye. I didn't flinch, "the teacher's already gone, so all of my hard work was for nothing."

"Not completely for nothing!" Peter chimed in. "I think, if we tweak just a couple of things, we can make this do other cool stuff to help celebrate Alexa's graduation. Like making it shoot confetti!"

Harley rolled his eyes, and I wasn't sure if Peter didn't see it or didn't care, but he kept smiling all the same. I couldn't hold back a snort.

"You know she's going to kill you if you do anything at all with that at her graduation?"

"Of course," Harley snorted.

"I don't know, I think she might like it!"

"Now if you don't mind, I've got another twelve of these things to repurpose in the next two hours."

Harley didn't wait for me to respond before turning around to go back to working on whatever else he'd made, and Peter gave me one last smile before doing the same. I just shook my head and continued on my way to the kitchen. I needed coffee, immediately.

I found Pepper in the middle of a group of Avengers. She'd taken charge of the coffee supply, making sure Rogers and Barnes didn't brew anything disgusting. Their standards were lower coming from war in the forties, and they couldn't be trusted not to make the wateriest coffee you'd ever had in your life.

Barton, on the other hand, was the only other person who made coffee quite as strong as I did. He slid me a cup behind Pepper's back, which I took with a grateful nod.

"Alright, everybody, we're leaving in two hours," said Pepper, taking center stage and charge of the sitution with ease. I smiled. I loved to see her like this. "Stephen, you're responsible for opening the portal as usual. You have the copy of the directions we got from the school?"

"Of course."

"Good. I'll have snacks and some bottled coffee and lots of water to help us deal with the time change and disruption to our sleep schedules. Rhodey, Happy, Steve, and Sam will be carrying some too, in case you can't find me, or if I run out. But what is one thing that we're not going to do?"

"Wander off and cause problems for Alexa," everyone chimed. A few people were enthusiastic, everyone else grumbled. I could tell Pepper had made them practice more than a few times while I'd buried my head in the lab.

"And what is a garutneed way to cause problems for Alexa?" Pepper chimed again.

"Wandering off at all."

"So that means?"

"No wandering off, no matter what."

"Good. Glad we're understood."

I watched as the crowd of Avengers we'd somehow collected in our house dispersed now that they'd gotten their caffeine, then slowly wandered over to Pepper. She had bags under her eyes like the rest of us, but looked far more energized and awake than almost everyone else.

I leaned against the counter next to her, the two of us watching Pietro and Wanda having a hushed argument as they walked away. Pepper had her eyes narrowed in their direction, but Happy picked up on it at the same time she did. He gave her a nod, then followed the twins carefully out of the room, listening intently.

"You take care of whatever it was you were so intent on finishing?" Pepper asked, taking a sip of her own coffee as she leaned against the counter next to me, shoulder to shoulder. I felt myself relaxing, tension easing out of my muscles and a little bit of the constant noise in my brain quieting, just from being near her.

"For now," I said. I took a sip of Barton's coffee, staring at the kitchen wall as I thought. "Still more to do, though."

"I'm glad she's okay. I love who she is, and who you raised her to be, but... I hate how often the two of you just throw yourself directly into insane levels of danger. If it didn't also make me worried to know Alexa's throwing herself into the middle of things, I'd say it's karma for all the stress you've caused me since I met you."

I huffed a laugh. "Believe me, it's still karma. I don't know what I expected. She's my kid, that's for damn sure."

Pepper just hummed, leaning her head against my shoulder. We stayed like that for a few long minutes in the kitchen, enjoying the rare moment of peace and quiet that was hard to come by when all the Avengers were in the house. We finished our coffees at about the same time, then sighed in sync.

"How many of them do you think actually listened to what I told them about not wandering off and causing Alexa trouble?"

"Less than half. But Happy's gonna have them on lockdown, and Rogers'll probably be doing the same."

Pepper sighed again. "Well, I've done all I can. I'm going to go get dressed and try to hide the bags under my eyes. I have to admit, I'm looking forward to her going to school in our time zone again."

"Mm." I shrugged. "This isn't that much of a change for me."

Pepper actually snorted, and I grinned. Mission accomplished.

We still had about another hour before it would be time to go to Hogwarts for the graduation ceremony, but I could feel the energy building from everyone in the Tower. I noticed Natasha discreetly taking something from Thor, and Happy had moved on from hovering around Pietro and Wanda to hovering a half-step behind Loki, no matter where he went.

I just settled into a chair to watch the chaos. I'd done everything I needed to do before graduation. Now I just had to sip coffee and stay awake for the next hour, until I could finally see my daughter in person after all the shit she'd dealt with in the past few hours.

She might've been graduating, but I was still going to give that headmaster an earful.