Twilight's library was empty and quiet. Not a sound disturbed the silence, not a pony disrupted the endless rows of books.

Until a loud Whoosh resounded, bringing with it a group of chattering ponies... and humans.

"Hah!" Rainbow Dash was shouting. "I told you I was faster than Pietro! Totally whooshed Clint out of there."

Twilight, intent on her teetering pile of books (the souvenirs of their latest excursion), didn't even look up. "Yes, Rainbow."

"Hah, I bet he'd have done something dumb like just running in front of the bullets."

"Yes, Rainbow. You've been talking about nothing else for three days straight."

"Yeah, but still!" she cried, stepping out of her armor, which was approximately like Iron Man's, but adapted for a pony.

"Why'd you insist we stop here instead of just dropping you off?" Tony asked, interrupting Rainbow's ego trip.

"Well, I wanted us to have a way to get in touch. You know, so we don't end up having no contact for three years until you guys decide you need our help again."

Tony sighed. "Still upset about that?"

"We inhabited each other's bodies. I would think that would make the Elements friends with the Avengers, but apparently you still can't be bothered to come visit once in a while!" As she talked, her horn glowed, bringing over a large stack of books. "I got this idea a few years ago, when I visited an alternate dimension. Everyone there was a human, too, only they were, like, doubles of us? It was so weird, I swear. Anyway, a girl over there had this book, and if you wrote something in that book, it would appear in a different book here in Equestria. So..." A massive stack of journals thudded onto the table with the force of an elephant.

"I might have gone a teensy bit overboard, but I wanted to have a variety for different situations." The top twelve floated off the stack, surrounded by her magenta aura. Each had a symbol on it--there were the cutie marks of each of the Elements of Harmony, and symbols that were clearly intended to represent each of the Avengers. "There's a pair for each of us that got switched." As she handed them out, she listed off the pairs. "Natasha and Rarity. Tony and Rainbow. Clint and Fluttershy. Steve and Applejack. Thor and Pinkie. And me and... Oh." She glanced around the room, remembering who wasn't here. "Right, Bruce kinda went to space, huh?" She sighed.

"I'll take his," Thor offered. "I am the only member who travels the stars regularly. I have the greatest chance of meeting him."

Twilight nodded and floated it over, but everyone in the room knew that meeting him again was unlikely. It was just an empty gesture.

Twilight cleared her throat and picked up the next pair of books. One of these was decorated with Twilight's cutie mark (a large pink star surrounded by five small white stars) but the white stars were replaced with the cutie marks of each of her friends, making it a symbol for the whole group. The other had the Avengers symbol. "I don't know how quickly those will fill up with just normal chat, so I wanted to set aside a pair for emergencies. Use these to tell us you need our help or ask urgent questions."

The last six books were blank. "These are for communication between your group. Each of you gets one, so wherever you are, you can send a message to the others. I put a renewing spell on them, so when you fill all the pages, they'll erase and you can start over."

She started to hand them out, then stopped. "Wait, are Wanda and Pietro part of the Avengers now?"

"They need a little more experience before it's official, but yes, they're joining," Steve said.

"Hmm. I guess you'll need more journals, then. In fact, I should probably make backups, in case someone else joins too." She teleported away before anyone could say anything.

An awkward silence filled the room, until Tony's notebook buzzed abruptly. He glanced down at the page. It said, "Hi!"

He sighed. "Rainbow Dash, I'm right here in the room."

"I wanted to try it out!"

Starlight looked over at Wanda. "You know, maybe we should connect a journal set for us. You know, neither of us were there when it all went down, and we both do magic."

"It's not magic."

Starlight raised an eyebrow. "Suit yourself. But you can't deny it's the closest thing your world appears to have."

"Hey, speaking of, I was wondering," Tony said. "Why didn't your magic, or Twilight's, or even Rarity's, work well in our world? Rainbow and Fluttershy could still fly, and I remember that's magical. So how come unicorn magic is so much harder outside of Equestria?"

Starlight tapped her muzzle with a hoof. "Well, Twilight never fully explained it, but I think it has something to do with Discord. Something about-"

POOF!

There was a flash of pink. "I'm back! And I brought lots and lots of journals!"

Starlight grinned. "Great! Can I take two? Wanda and I were thinking we could have a pair too."

Twilight beamed. "That's a great idea! I can't believe I almost left her out. Pietro should get one, too!"

Spike bounced up and down. "Can I have it? Can I?"

"Sure!" She took four journals out of the stack, handing two to Starlight. "You know the spell, right?"

Starlight nodded, and both of them laid their books side by side. Their horns glowed brilliantly. Glowing lines connected each pair of books, and then the books themselves glowed briefly. Panting slightly, the two unicorns sat back and looked proudly at their work.

"Now we just have to emboss them," Twilight said, waving her horn. On one book, a silver bolt of lightning appeared; on the other was a burst of green flame with a scroll inside. Starlight imitated her, placing her cutie mark on one book and a burst of red on the other. She levitated the book with her cutie mark over to Wanda.

"Wait, hold on," Twilight said. "You're giving her the book with your mark on it?"

"I thought it made sense. Then she can look at the book and see who it's from. Was that not how you did it?"

"No, I gave each person their own symbol... I mean, that was how Sunset Shimmer's was. Her book had her cutie mark, Celestia's book had Celestia's. Now that I think about it more, I think your way makes more sense." Quickly she picked up everyone's books and switched them. "I wonder why Celestia did the other pair of books the way she did..."

Starlight shrugged. "Now I guess you just have to connect the other books to each other and we'll be done."

Twilight nodded and turned to the stack of journals. "A shame this spell is only usable by a single caster and not together, because this will be really, really hard." Carefully, she arranged them in a large polygon, and her horn began to glow, even brighter than before. Most of the room had to look away. It was a shame, because they missed what came next.

Bright lines connected each book to each other book. It created a massive, intricate web of connections. Slowly, the connections faded as each individual book began to glow instead. Finally, all the glow faded, and Twilight sat back, sweat rolling down her face, breathing heavily. "Whoo, I haven't had a workout like that in quite a while!"

Tony gathered up the books, counting them. "Twelve? When will we ever have that many members?"

"It could happen," Twilight panted. "And I really... don't want to have to add more... later. It was easier to put a lot in at once than to try to add a few at a time."

After a few more minutes, they said their goodbyes, Thor powered up the Tesseract, and the Avengers returned to Earth. As they landed in the new Avengers training center, Tony smacked his forehead, suddenly remembering something.

"We forgot to ask them about magic on Earth!"

Author's Note

Rainbow Dash's messaging of Tony courtesy of how I acted when I first got a phone. Starlight's logic about the books courtesy of the fact that the movies' way makes NO STINKIN' SENSE.

The ending here is a little sloppy, but I didn't have anything else to do with this chapter. The question about magic on earth will be answered in Elements of Infinity.