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Chapter Text

Nathan couldn't help it; he was too excited to keep the smile from his face. It took him eight years. Eight years to work up the confidence and skill to split from the rest of the Ravagers without getting caught. He stood now on the deck of a small spacecraft, orbiting an oceanic planet in the Andromeda galaxy. The planet's name? Morag. The spacecraft's name? M'Dick.

He even painted it on the side a few nights ago, right after he stole it from some pink humanoid thing at a fuel station.

He had been tracking this particular ship for a couple months, just waiting for a chance to grab it without the Ravagers noticing. The ship was a rare find in the sector the Yondu Ravager Clan was based out of. Nathan wanted it because it was a small exploration and recon pod, specializing in mining operations. The amenities on board were common enough, save for one, and it was small enough to avoid most heavy smuggling checks. The first thing he did, though, was remove any tracking systems, which meant he had to almost completely reprogram the navigation system. It was outfitted with a hyperspace drive core, some basic storage capabilities, decent planetary scanners, small workbench with a hard-light analyzer, and most importantly; it was a submersible. As in, it would be structurally sound in the far reaches of empty space, as well as the dark depths of oceans. That last bit was the main reason he selected this ship to commandeer. Why? Well that was because of his plans regarding the planet he now orbited.

Morag. An oceanic planet with warm to moderate temperatures and an oxygen rich environment. The ball of dirt's surface was about ninety-eight percent water, with only one percent livable landmass. The last one percent was taken up by an active volcano. There was also a very popular vacation area on the planet, visited because of its consistently pleasant climate, sandy beaches, and stunning view of the solar system at night. Morag did orbit an eclipsing binary star system after all.

The planet hadn't always been so waterlogged, though. Thousands of years ago, there was a thriving civilization that spanned the globe. Billions of sentient creatures going about their daily lives, none expecting one of their suns to suddenly go into an overheating cycle, melting the planetary ice caps and catastrophically flooding the entire surface. Since then, every three hundred years, the star had done, and will do, so again, evaporating so much of the oceans that a further forty-seven percent of the surface could once again be landed on. Of course you would have to wait for the atmosphere to cool enough, at which point there is a few-day-long window that can be used to explore the surface before the following heavy rains; flooding the surface once more.

Over the course of a few days, because of an unstable star, billions of people died.

But they had left something behind, and right now Nathan was pretty much the only one who knew what that something was. To everyone else this place would be just a rumor for another seventeen-ish years when the sea level would lower and the temple ruins get spotted, and subsequently reported. The ex-Ravager was not; however, visiting the planet while its surface was clear. It was still quite wet down there, and was precisely why he needed a submersible ship.

"Structure Found. Analyzing path. Warning: Intense undersea currents in area. Suggestion: Proceed with caution," said the computerized voice of the navigation system.

Nathan's grin nearly split his face. He moved away from the observation window and sat back down in the pilot seat, kicking the ship out of orbit and making his way towards the undersea structure.

It took him about ten minutes to reach the waters directly above the structure. "Alice, start mapping the Temple and get me an overlay up front for the undersea currents."

"Mapping in progress. Cockpit overlay display ready… Presenting water current projection."

The glass in front of the pilot seat blinked for a second as a holographic image of blue tubes with various colored arrows appeared. The colored arrows represented the severity of the currents, where the tubes were the currents themselves. Simple stuff, really. All he had to do was avoid the 'tubes'. The sixteen-year-old was rather proud of the new software around the ship, as he had written most of it himself. When he gutted the navigation system, he was also given the opportunity to upgrade certain other features. Alice was one of them.

In Nathan's past life, he had been a bit of a cyber nut. He had gotten into programming and working with computers early on, and liked to think he was pretty decent at it. Taking classes up through a Bachelor's degree in Cyber Security and a Master's in Artificial Intelligence development, he stuck his head into that life pretty hard. He wasn't a genius by any means, but he was dedicated. The farthest he had ever officially gotten was in the creation of an intelligent, multipurpose defense software when he was in his mid thirties. For the next ten years, he and his team had continuously upgraded it until he had reached a pinnacle. What they had created was widely seen as the perfect cyber defensive net and information gathering system. No other system could compare to it, at least. It was the first true AI, after all.

Then over the course of a year and two months, his entire team started to systematically disappear. They were the only ones that knew the inner workings of the system; the only ones who might have stood a chance in blocking it for a time, or possibly recreating it.
He didn't work for the government, instead having brought his team together in their off hours, or through phone calls across the country. They had all met in certain communities online, or were professionals who attended talks and conferences. The AI wasn't a paid creation. It was a fun past-time. A hobby for everyone involved. But then it happened, and all of his friends started dying because of it. What they created was apparently 'too effective', or at least that's what the masked man said, right before he pulled the trigger.

Then he woke up as the son of Meredith Quill, a beautiful woman in her early twenties that was obsessed with new music from nearly fifty years in his own past. It seemed he was the victim of some sort of time-jump rebirth, having died in the year 2024, and born again in 1980. 1981 was spent on the whole: just freaking out.
He never had much of a relationship with his parents from before, but it was impossible not to care for the ray of absolute sunshine that was Meredith Quill. He quickly grew to love the girl, as did his twin brother, Peter, who clung to her nearly every waking moment. Peter was his best friend in this life, regardless of how reckless and prideful he was. Oh they hated each other in the beginning; Peter being jealous of any attention their mother paid Nathan, and Nathan being utterly and totally annoyed at the resulting fits. That changed; however, when Meredith Quill, the happiest twenty-nine-year-old on earth, died of a brain tumor. With a smile on her face, she whispered her last 'I love you', nudging over two small presents, and asking to hold their hands. Nathan did so almost immediately, but Peter didn't. She smiled at Nathan warmly, but he could see the hurt in her eyes as she turned to Peter.

"Peter?" She had called, and the heartbeat monitor went flat.

Peter had to be dragged out of the room by their grandfather, kicking and screaming, while Nathan cried quietly, not wanting to let go of his mother. In the end, though, he allowed himself to be led out of the room so the doctors could work. There, he found his brother bolting out of the hospital. He followed.

Then they were abducted by aliens.

Fucking insult-to-injury, right?

Anyway, after that things started to click. Names started to ring bells and events started to make sense: He was in the Marvel Universe… The Cinematic one, too, because in the comics Meredith was murdered in cold blood by an alien, and Peter wasn't abducted by Yondu at the tender age of eight.

The next eight years of their lives sucked; being the de facto grunts of the Yondu Ravager Clan, but Nathan couldn't really be happier. Growing up in the eighties, with access to none of the technology he was used to, made a man who spent the majority of his existence creating an AI, very unhappy. That changed almost immediately when he joined the Ravagers.

He was given access to tech that far surpassed what he was used to in his previous life, and the opportunity to fiddle with it all. He started out as a basic mechanic under a man - at least he thought it was male - named J'gaar. J'gaar was outrageously fat, had purple, studded skin, and a flat face with a partial overbite. He was an alright guy most of the time, but hated answering questions, which Nathan had a lot of.

After a year or so, Nathan had finally learned enough about the technology to recreate his baby: the AI, which he named Alice in honor of being the only thing he brought with him down the rabbit hole to new life.

This immediately put him in good standing with the Ravager group, as AIs were expensive. Oh they totally existed in this universe, and were even readily available too, for the right price, but due to the nature of being intelligent, they couldn't be stolen. One had to either buy it legit, or make their own. The Ravagers were all marked criminals though, meaning no one would even consider selling them an AI.

Originally, Alice was a program that was given a directive, and went about a systematic intelligent approach to solve that directive. After completion, she would simply wait for the next order. The original program was completely objective based, but after living with the Ravagers for an extended period and gotten his hands on bits of some AI source code, he was able to add a reactive element to Alice, making her more life-like.

She wasn't complete by any means, still very much a computer with no personality, but if he could make her more self-aware, then she would be a true intelligence like she had been back in his previous life. As of now, though, she was just a multipurpose tool. It was unfortunate, really, but he couldn't recreate the AI from his old world completely. There, he had a team of people all working towards it, all knowing different aspects of the code to different extents. Here, he had himself, and a couple reference materials. Not nearly enough.

The next step in her evolution would probably come about by picking Tony Stark's brain, who already had an AI by the first Iron Man movie. That; however, happened in the later 2000's, and he joined the Ravagers in 1988. It would be a while.

Turning back to his expedition on Morag, Nathan grinned at the underwater obstacle course in front of him, having played enough video games to actually find this fun.

The Sixteen-year-old cut the engines and let the ship drop into the water with a splash, then flipped a switch on the dashboard in front of him, revving up the under-sea repulsors and eased into the throttle. Yondu always said he was a terrible flier, and that Peter was the natural with a HOTAS. Anyone who rode with Nathan was going to throw up afterwards.

So he was a little jerky with the stick, and the throttle was either at full tilt, or null. Doesn't mean he was a bad pilot. He still got where you needed in the end, without a single scratch too, and that's what matters… Well that's all that mattered to him at least.

Not to mention he was flying a spaceship. That part was awesome.

'It's kind of weird that I remembered the name of this planet. Out of all the things I could have remembered from the movie, what made my mind say 'Morag! Now that's a name I'll use in the future!'? I mean I'm glad I did, but come on, brain! Remember more important things!' He thought as he pulled up to the entrance of the Temple.

He sat there for a second, admiring the architecture, before continuing on through a gap in the columns and further into the depths of the ruins. Soon, though, he came across a door blocking his path. He just grinned.

Hopping out of the pilot seat, he jumped toward the back of the ship to the small air-lock and quickly donned a pressure suit. The suit was just a vest and helmet, where the vest did little more than relieve pressure on his diaphragm, and the helmet did the same for his head, but with added goggles and six-hour air supply. He spared a brief moment of jealousy towards the movie version of his brother for having that magical fricken helmet. He knew his actual brother didn't have the damn thing yet, but apparel with Holographic Materialization was fucking complicated. Nathan had been working on trying to reverse-engineer the technology, but never got very far with it.

With Nathan's normal, boring pressure suit now on, he cleared the air-lock and opened the hatch, pulling himself into the water. From there, he swam forward and picked the rotational lock on the door. Two minutes later he was looking at what he came here for.

An orb, floating lightly within multiple plasma-mesh barriers.
He pulled out a small triangular device and laid it next to the orb's display. If he was being honest with himself, he felt like he was cheating; just taking the exact same route as the movie version of his brother, and using the exact same tools. Taking a few steps back, he activated the device and watched as the orb was sucked through each plasma-mesh barrier, landing solidly on the center of the device.

Two hours later, he had gone back to the surface, and found a place to park his ship on the planet. It took a while to find any land above the water, but he found a small island that looked big enough to park on. Having just done so, he got out of the pilot seat, grabbed the orb from the cup holder and brought it over to a small workbench.

"Alice, I'm going to need a scan of the inner mechanisms of this orb," he said, holding up the orb in front of a small blue pyramid on the workbench.

"Scanning." The pyramid pulsed, and a blue, flat laser swept over the orb a few times. "Scan complete. Object is a rotational puzzle sphere containing an unknown item."

"Get me instructions for the puzzle."

A hologram of the orb shot up over the little pyramid. "Step-by-step instructions displayed. Rotate right side by thirty-seven-point-two degrees."

"Okay, this might take a while." Nathan said with a sigh.

It did take a while.

Six hours later, he was mentally exhausted, and on the last step of the puzzle. He didn't complete it yet, though. He set the puzzle down, wanting to take a nap first, and not wanting to expose the contents until he was a sufficient distance from his ship. He was too exhausted to deal with the volatile item that the orb housed. So instead, he stood and looked out the window, finding that it was deep into the night cycle of the planet, he hopped back towards the small living quarters and slept until the dual suns rose in the morning.

When he woke, Nathan hopped out of bed, took a quick shower, grabbed the orb, and went outside. As he stepped off the ship, he took a moment to just glance around, to really get a good look at his surroundings. The Island he was on couldn't have been larger than a square mile. The far side of the island had a rocky outcropping that came to a small cliff overlooking the vast oceanic planet. Directly left of that was a rocky shore covered in moss that led in towards some low-to-the-ground vegetation. To the right of the cliff, and stretching back towards where he landed his ship, was a flat, sandy beach that stretched a couple hundred meters out.

Nodding to himself, he made his way over towards the cliff, but stopped before he left the beach. After he made sure he was at least a hundred meters from his ship, he took the orb and breathed in; slowly, worriedly, turning the last bit.

The two halves of the orb came free, somehow still in line with each other and supporting the object he knew to be inside: the Power Stone. An Infinity Stone. Something he hoped wouldn't kill him in the next five minutes.

Carefully, he placed the suspended orb halves on a rock about waist-high, so that he would be able to reach the stone without having to support the orb as well. There he paused, taking a few deep breaths, trying to psych himself up for what he was about to do.

He grinned to himself as he thought, 'I need an Ego boost. Ha! It's funny because my dad's name is 'Ego''

Pausing at the joke, he groaned. "I haven't seen Peter in a week, and already I'm making shit jokes to replace him. Gah! I'm pathetic."

He jumped up and down a couple times. His name was Nathan Quill. Abducted from his mother's deathbed at the age of eight along with his twin brother Peter. Fraternal twin. Nathan was much more handsome, thank you. With his chiseled jawline, and flowing locks of auburn hair, he was more god than man. He was sure of it; he was half human, half Celestial, after all.

It wasn't as if he was going into this blind, either. Ever since he realized he was in the Marvel universe, and that he was Peter's brother, he had been trying to access his Celestial side of the gene pool. After years of meditation and concentration, he finally managed to pull some of that blue energy from the center of his being. It was just a spark, though, and it knocked him out cold for the rest of the day. That was about three years ago, and since then he had practiced pulling more and more every night. However that was as far as he had ever gotten; limited to just pulling a minuscule amount of pure energy. He never had enough to use for anything, as in he could never pull enough, for long enough, to practice with. But that wasn't the point. The point was that he had that power in the first place! It meant that he was truly the son of a Celestial, a being that could easily hold and use the Infinity Stones.

'Alright, the confidence meter is overflowing, let's do this!'

Nathan took one last deep breath, reached forward, and wrapped his fist around the glowing purple gem.

Pain.

Immediately, a pain like none-other cascaded through every cell in his body. The Sixteen-year-old screamed, the agony too intense to realize that he could just drop it. He could feel his mortal flesh crackling with purple energy from the pure power coursing through him. His mind seemed to regress as well, only capable of single thought as long as the pain ruptured though his being.

And then something inside of him pushed back. He couldn't understand what that something was, or why it was familiar; not that he was trying to understand it in the first place. He just clung to it. A light in the darkness to beat the pain away. A blue light in the darkness…

He noticed slowly, that the more he clung to the light, the more of the Stone's power seemed to be funneled into it, fanning the flames and making the Stone's direct influence lighter. So he funneled more and more power into the blue light, until finally the pain began to subside. It was still there, but not nearly as profound, allowing for the return of his mental faculties.

At which point he realized he was on fucking fire!

Blue, Celestial fire, and it didn't burn, so it was OK. But still. That's scary.

Nathan continued to pour the power of the stone into his core, fanning the blue flames, but then he realized just how much larger those flames were than usual.

Several hundred times larger than he was used to.

He dropped the stone from his hand, allowing it to tumble into the sand below, and promptly collapsed to his knees. He took a deep breath in, and let it out slowly, darkness taking over his vision. All-in-all, that couldn't have lasted more than two minutes, but he was pretty sure he had been screaming that whole time. And now his throat felt raw, and he was tired. Too tired to move properly, and the world was getting blurry.

He was out before his head hit the sand.

When he woke up, he was laying face-down on the beach, Power Stone just inches from his nose.

Nathan scrambled up and backed away from the stone, nearly hyperventilating just from remembering the pain, but then as more memories came back to the forefront, he forced himself to calm down. He knew it wouldn't be pleasant from the get-go. Hell, he was half expecting to just poof out of existence as soon as he touched it, so he couldn't really say that it didn't go well.

Taking another couple deep breaths, he sat down to meditate through the experience, and almost immediately noticed a change within himself: what had previously been a small candle of Celestial blue energy within his gut, was now a raging bonfire. The Infinity Stone had somehow jump-started his energy reserves, and he was left gaping like a fish at the result.

He tried moving the energy; like he had before, and was surprised at the ease that it came to him. He guided the energy through his arms and spread it across the skin of his hands, making them glow a soft blue with little to no strain, as opposed to what would have taken thirty minutes of concentration, and total exhaustion just the day before.

Well, he supposed it had only been a short time since he had passed out, it looked to be about noon-ish, which meant according to the night-day cycle of the planet, he had only been out for a couple hours.

While moving the energy, he quickly noticed something else: his senses seemed to expand into whatever the blue energy touched, meaning he could feel and understand the structure of his hands as if he was looking through an MRI scan. He wasn't seeing, really, as this was more of a third-eye sort-of deal; seeing through the energy itself. He focused a
little more, and realized that he could see deeper; as if he had taken a microscope and zoomed in. He could see the cellular structure of his skin, muscle, and bone… However, he could also see something else.

"Eww! Eww, gross!" He shook his hands frantically, as if he had just stuck his hand in a jar of mystery slime. "Is that bacteria? Is that what that looks like?! Eugh!"

After a few minutes of rubbing his hands in the sand, trying in vain to wipe the bacteria off, he sighed and came to terms with taking a long, hot shower later. Taking a deep breath, again, he forced his mind to explore with his energy some more. He could already feel a little bit of the strain, but this was the farthest he had ever gotten in his control, and he wasn't about to stop now.

In the effort to not look at the disgusting micro-organisms that clung to his dermis, he picked up a small rock, and began slowly moving his energy into it.

To his third-eye, the rock looked inherently different compared to living matter; an obvious conclusion, but an important one nonetheless. It was solid mass, and in order to see anything of value, he had to 'zoom in' further. Doing so; however, started to completely tank his reserves, which is why he quickly stopped. He still had plenty left in the reservoir, but he realized he would need a lot more in order to do just about anything with his powers. He knew the stories of Celestials, and how they could create entire planets and solar systems out of nothing but their own energy and abilities; how they could create life itself on a whim. However these were old creatures. They had eons to collect energy and get to know their abilities. Or maybe they came into being with all of those abilities set and ready to go? He had no idea, really.

He knew that after a nap, he would be back at full, or he could meditate in the sunlight if he wanted to be quick about it. Years ago, when he first began tapping into his Celestial side, he realized that in order to grow his reserves, he had to take in ambient energy; be that the heat and light radiation from a star, or he supposed, now looking at the shining gem on the ground, more esoteric sources.

He sighed, hoping that what he was about to do didn't suck as much as the first time.

He looked to his hand, flooding it with his inner blue fire; considering that was the only thing that kept him from exploding the last time around, and bent down to pick up the purple gem.

As soon as he touched it, the power started to seep into his system, though much more slowly and controlled this time. Nathan closed his eyes and concentrated on bringing his power to act as a sort-of filter between him and the stone, focusing purely on the energy that radiated from it. Learning to actually control the stone and use its powers had now come secondary to using his own, since he was apparently given the option to improve quickly. Sure, it was easily one of the few things in the universe that would make him a power to contend with, but he wasn't sure if other beings could detect its use; beings that could easily overpower him if he had just one of the stones. It had been a small worry before, and still was rather small, but now that he had another option, he would explore that first. Not to mention that he wanted to become one of those powers without the constant help of an Infinity Stone. He liked to think of himself as a good guy, but… well, as the saying goes, 'Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely.'

Being born the son of a Celestial did not do him any favors in this field.

Nathan stayed like that for a couple hours: constantly absorbing the energy that radiated from the stone, filtering it through his own Celestial fire, and feeding his core, only finally taking a break to sleep and eat. Speaking of eating, he had about a year's worth of dehydrated rations aboard his ship, being one of the main cargo points of the exploratory vessel so that it could survey the remote areas of the galaxy without frequent trips home. The other being fuel in the form of Hyperspace Ion Batteries. These batteries tend to require about two months to recharge, but can last up to three years of moderate use. This charging cycle was, in fact, why Nathan had so much time to plan out how he was going to steal the ship in the first place.

But back to the food: it sucked. It was bland and chalky, but it got the job done. He highly doubted that he would be on the planet for a year, but he had the stock for it if need be. Nathan really couldn't wait to eat something more appetizing, and it had only been a week since he arrived.

So there he stayed, on the mostly deserted planet, for what ended up being three months. He had set up three stages of his day during that time; the first stage was to absorb energy from the Power Stone and use it to enhance his own reserves slowly. The second was to use those reserves and explore his own power, and the third was sleep. Of course he took breaks to eat as well.

During those three months, he found out four main things about his body and abilities: the first being how to move his energy to manipulate the matter it was connected to, essentially making Nathan a telekinetic. This also allowed him to change the state of matter just by exciting, or calming the molecules that were flooded with his energy. The second was how to mold his energy in its purest form to create matter. This one, though, took entirely too much energy to feasibly work with at his level; meaning that the few times he tried, he was only able to make a small pebble after dumping his entire, now comparatively massive, reserves into the effort. The third thing he learned came off of a combination of the previous two; he could, in essence, alter matter that already existed, changing the organization of the atoms and molecules within to fit his design. This took a lot less energy than pure creation, but it came with the caveat of time. As in it took almost an entire day to change a rock the size of his fist into the same metal that coated his spaceship. Though he assumed it would get faster with practice.

That brought him to the fourth thing he had discovered. After three months, his reserves had skyrocketed from being in contact with an Infinity Stone, and he couldn't be happier with the results he had gotten. However there was an inherent issue that he hadn't foreseen: his reserves stopped growing. Or more accurately, he had filled every cell and atom of his body to the brim with his Celestial energy, and he couldn't fit any more into his being. He had figured out early into the first month that there was no extra-dimensional pool of energy that he was drawing from, no; the energy was being directly stored in his body; as in each atom that made up his body could hold a certain amount, and no more. Further, he also learned that he could feasibly store his energy into nearby objects as well, but it would fizzle out over a time if he turned his focus to something else. The amount of time an object held energy, as well as how much energy it could hold, seemed dependent on its atomic structure. For instance, the rocks around the small island he was on were mostly volcanic granite, which were absolute shit at holding energy for more than two minutes, but a hunk the size of his fist could hold more energy than he had in his body. The metal hull of his ship, though, could hold energy for roughly two hours, and he could fill the entire hull with it to the brim, and still have half of his reserves left.

That ratio still sucked, but it proved that different materials reacted differently to Celestial energy. Maybe there was some material out there that could hold a metric shit-ton of energy, and keep it for an extended period. Something to note and look for.

There was now very little he could do with his time here, seeing that he couldn't grow his reserves more. He supposed he could hunker down and actually try using the Power Stone, try to get better with using its abilities, however he was still a bit afraid to openly control the four fundamental forces of the universe. Some cosmic entity being able to detect that was a real possibility. For the past three months, he had only ever used the energy radiating from the stone, never once actually using the stone itself.

He sighed, looking down at the purple gem, now held easily in his palm. He was still afraid of being hunted for it, as he wasn't nearly strong enough to protect it, and didn't trust the Power Stone alone to be able to protect him if those that wanted it came for him. He could still be killed in his sleep, after all. Using the stone had been his original plan in going to Morag, but with the Power Stone's ambient energy, he received an alternative, safer option to fill out his own powers instead.

So no; he wouldn't be learning to control the stone. Not yet, anyway. He closed his fist around it and looked to his ship with a grin.

"Time to blow this joint. Next stop: Earth."

Chapter Text

Nathan sighed in relief as he finally came upon the Great Blue Dot: Earth. It had taken him six months to travel from the edge of the Andromeda Galaxy to the Milky Way. There was a series of Jump Gates that he had to navigate without sparking Ravager interest, who were definitely still looking for him. He did take Alice with him when he left, after all.

From there it only took a week and some change to get into the Sol system. Somewhere along the trip, it had occurred to him that he had actually turned seventeen while he was on Morag, so he threw a little party when he realized; creating some colorful confetti and blasting it around the cabin of his ship with a little bit of his Celestial powers.

He also said, "Wooo" enthusiastically.

Party of the century.

Before Nathan left Morag, he returned the closed Puzzle orb back down to the shrine in case someone came looking for it. If there was nothing to find down there at all, certain parties would go nuts. Hopefully, he would return and be able to help his brother through his adventures, but until then, he would be taking the Power Stone. The stone now had a home in a small, silver metal locket that Nathan fashioned out of his Celestial energy, and hung around his neck. He would hopefully never be forced to use it, but having it readily available was just prudent.

Pulling into Earth's orbit, Nathan paused for a minute. He had options; there were a few organizations that he wouldn't mind joining up with for the moment, or he could leg-it himself; get super rich by just making a bunch of resources with his Celestial energy, and build up a reserve of financial power that he could throw at problems. There were two issues with the 'leg-it' option, though. Those being that people would notice an influx of resources, people he didn't have the skill set to hide from, and the fact that he wasn't practiced enough in using his powers to be efficient with creation. He was pretty good with the telekinetic aspect, but molding and changing, or straight up creating matter took entirely too long on a larger scale. Oh he could do some small-scale stuff relatively quickly, having gotten a lot of practice in the past six months of travel time, but he wouldn't be able to do much more until he learned how to protect himself better. The Ravagers taught him how to fight, but that wasn't even remotely passable against anyone of note.
As for organizations; SHIELD was an option, a Hydra infested option, but an option that would guarantee training - if based off of his powers alone, but at this point in time, they were more likely to dissect him instead. He could also fuck off to Wakanda and get a taste of their super-advanced tech, but they were unlikely to let him in at all, regardless of his intentions.

Then there were the Masters of the Mystic Arts. He really had no idea what their requirements were, but he had always bore respect for those who followed the monk lifestyle. Not to mention that they were probably the only group on earth that knew about the Infinity Stones and had protected one for millennia. He might lose his own stone to them, but if they trained him and he made sure that they knew he was on their side… well they let Strange walk around with the Time Stone around his neck, didn't they? It's not like he wanted to use the damn thing anyway, just keeping it away from Thanos would be enough, especially if he got to learn magic!

Welp, that was his mind made up. The possibility of learning magic was even more attractive than using the Power Stone. It's magic! Come on!

Yep; off to Nepal, but there was a little bit of a conundrum.

Nathan didn't want to leave his ship just anywhere, so he ended up having to park it underwater off the north-eastern coast of India. Being a spaceship, it would have garnered a lot of attention, and he wanted to avoid as much of that as possible.

Under the cover of night, he dove the ship underwater a couple miles offshore and carefully parked it on the seabed. Taking a moment, he lifted his hands from the controls and looked around the small cabin. This ship had been his home for nearly a year, and he wanted to savor the moment. Oh he would be coming back to it later, but that might not be for a bunch of years yet.

He sighed and stood up from the pilot's seat. Heading back towards the airlock, he donned a pressure suit and punched the button that opened the door out to open waters. It took him about twenty minutes to reach the coast, using his energy to propel himself through the water. When he arrived, he quickly ditched the pressure suit into a nearby trash barge, and made his way inland. By the time he wanted to use his ship again, he was expecting that he wouldn't even need a pressure suit to get back to it; hoping to have developed his abilities well enough by then. Maybe he would be able to create a constant air bubble or something.

The trip to Kathmandu took about two days from there. His first stop on the morning he landed was at a pawn shop, where he traded a little more than half a pound of conjured gold for the local currency. Due to it being 1997, the value of an ounce of gold was at a little less than 20,000 rupees. He had absolutely no idea what that was in USD, or Euro, but it allowed him to stay a night at a decent hotel, and get a taxi up to the capital of Nepal. All with about 90k left over. Of course, he had to take more than one taxi, as he had to cross the border. Doing so wasn't actually that difficult, as he could fly using his energy in the same way that he propelled himself underwater. It was much more difficult than it was in the water, extremely tiring, and he couldn't go very fast, but he hopped the fence without much difficulty.

Once in Nepal; however, he ran into a pretty annoying problem. He might have been able to remember the name of the planet Morag, and other seemingly useless pieces of information, like the fact that the Masters of the Mystic Arts were located in Kathmandu, but for the life of him he could not place the name of their sanctuary.

Tama-Kuji? No.

Karma-Gag? No.

Diggy-Vaj? Ha! No.

He knew it was hyphenated, at least. People kept looking at him weird when he would ask them about it, too. The guy following him seemed to be getting pretty pissed about it, though.

"Lemur-Pug? No?" Nathan asked one passerby, then turned to the dude's friend and asked, "Rama-Dan?"

"Okay, now you're not even trying! Ramadan's a holiday!"

Nathan turned to face the man who was following him, and now marching toward him angrily. "Huh, you speak English. No comment on the 'Lemur-Pug' bit, though? Those are animals." The man was a few inches short of six feet tall, and wore a gray set of hooded monk robes, hiding his face in the shadows of his hood.

"So you admit that you were just screwing with me?!" the man sounded frustrated, lowering his hood to reveal the face of a black teenager, wearing a scowl.

"I'm sure I have no idea what you're talking about." Nathan commented. "Though… Care to explain why you've been following me for the past half-hour?"

The teenager looked smug for a second before visibly schooling his features. "I've been following you for quite a bit longer than that."

He might not look smug anymore, but he still sounded it.

"Uh-huh. That's creepy." Nathan replied, looking very unimpressed. Nathan did only notice him a half-hour ago, he could have been following for longer. He didn't really care either way, though.

"You lead quite an interesting life." Nathan continued, "Following strangers around… wait, are you going to mug me?"

"What?! No!"

"Then the only other logical conclusion is that you know something about Pooty-Tang-"

The teen blew up. "It's Kamar-Taj, you imbecile!"

Nathan snapped his fingers and pointed at the teen. "Right, that." He paused for a second. "You know, I'm actually kind of impressed that you knew what I was looking for even though I was just spouting nonsense."

The teen took a deep breath, obviously bringing himself back under control before responding. "It wasn't that hard, really. You are a white male in a setting that is predominantly shades of brown. You stick out like a sore thumb," He looked Nathan up and down, "especially while wearing that red leather monstrosity."

Nathan looked down at the Ravager jacket he currently wore. "I take offence to that. I like this jacket." He had been through a lot in this jacket. Not to mention how comfortable it was. He'd give the Ravagers props on that one.

The teen ignored him though. "As for how I knew what you were looking for? You've visited nearly every major shrine and temple in Kathmandu, asking random passersby about various forms of a two-part word. It was obvious." He seemed to have calmed down quite a bit, speaking more evenly now. "Kamar-Taj is not advertised. How did you hear about
it?"

Nathan grinned. "I am an inter-dimensional being, born on this plane as a demigod. My original dimension had stores of knowledge that just so happened to include Kimchi-Tag-"

"Kamar-Taj!"

Nathan's grin just grew.

The teen took another deep breath. One would think that Nathan was annoying him if he wasn't careful. "Please do not lie to me."

"Hey, you asked." The grin left his face. "Suffice it to say, I want to learn how to protect something, and I believe Kamar-Taj is one of the few places that could help me do that."

The teen reached up a hand and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Alright, well it's not up to me, really. Let's go."

"Adventure!" Nathan exclaimed. "I'm Nathan, by the way."

"Karl." the teen sighed.

Kamar-Taj was absolutely beautiful. He couldn't help but stare as he was lead through the complex and up to the third floor of one of the buildings. The architecture was exquisite; reminding Nathan of a couple ancient Hindu temples he had the pleasure of seeing in his past life. There were no statues, but the columns and reliefs were expertly crafted.

Karl and Nathan had been waiting for about five minutes outside of the main room entrance. Neither had started any small-talk; Karl was trying to avoid it, and Nathan was busy admiring the overall structure of the place.

"The Ancient One will see you now." A short Indian man said softly, stepping through the doors and to the side, allowing them entrance.

Nathan turned to Karl. "Does everyone here speak English?"

Karl just huffed. "You'll find the study of languages quite common here, but as for Rahul… well he was born in Seattle."

"Ah." Nathan intoned eloquently.

The first person that Nathan saw as he walked in was a very old Indian man. Nearly the spitting image of Gandhi, if Gandhi was four hundred years old. The man was sitting behind a desk reading from a papyrus scroll.

What Nathan wanted to say was, 'Wow, you're really hamming up the 'Ancient One' thing, aren't you?', but he was going to at least try to be respectful. Living with the Ravagers for eight years did not do his manners any favors.

Instead, he simply said, "Thank you for seeing me," to the room, and accepted a cup of tea from a bald woman in a yellow robe.

"You're very welcome, Mr. Quill." The bald woman said with a slight smile. Having known about who she was thanks to a movie, Nathan could see the little charade they were pulling; grabbing the oldest looking motherfucker in the complex, sticking him behind a desk, and judging Nathan's reaction upon the realization that he wasn't the Ancient One.

Nathan blinked a few times, staring up at the woman in front of him. He hadn't told anyone his last name, and was honestly a little scared at what else she might know.

Maybe this wasn't the best place to come to after all.

The woman leaned to the side, looking past Nathan back towards the door. "Thank you Karl," then turned to the table, where the old guy was getting up and leaving, "Thank you Master Bodhi."

Both nodded and left the room, leaving Nathan alone with the Ancient One, who walked over to the table and began pouring herself a cup of tea. "So tell me, Mr. Quill, what brings you to Kamar-Taj?" She asked, adding a little honey to her cup.

Nathan dry-swallowed, noticing that he was suddenly a little parched, and took a sip from his own cup before answering. "I feel as if answering that question would be redundant. You already seem to know my name."

The woman smiled a bit more broadly, picking up a nearby book. "Ah, but just because you know the title, it doesn't mean you know the story."

"But knowing the title means you have access to the book. Who's to say you haven't read it?"

If it was possible, her smile grew. "Nonetheless, I'd like to hear it from you."

That sentence had done absolutely nothing to appease his worries, so he took a second to take another sip of tea.

He should have thought this out a little more. "Well alright. There's an object that I'm trying to protect, and I believe I can better protect it using knowledge that I can learn here."

"I assume you speak of the Infinity Stone hidden away in that locket around your neck?"

Nathan sighed and downed the rest of his cup. "This is good tea," he said lamely. He knew he wouldn't be able to keep it a secret from the people here for very long, but having it thrown in his face almost immediately... well it kinda sucked.

"Thank you." She said with another smile. "The trick is in how you dry the leaves. Come, sit. I believe we may be here for a time." She moved out an extra chair for Nathan, getting him situated before going back behind the desk and sitting down herself.

As Nathan sat, he placed his empty cup on the nearby tray and removed the locket from around his neck, while the Ancient One watched him with interest.

"To answer your question, yes; I want to protect the stone, and am very aware of the forces that would try to take it from me, and how outmatched I am."

She cocked her head. "You have an Infinity Stone. What powers could possibly stand against that?"

Nathan looked up from the locket, unimpressed. "Really? You, for one."

She chuckled. "Such confidence in my abilities. I'm flattered."

He rolled his eyes, then opened the locket, allowing the room to be cast in a deep purple light. "The Power Stone." He began. "An ingot representing control over the four fundamental forces of the universe." He tilted the locket, allowing the stone to fall into his other hand.

"No!" The Ancient One started, but before she could do anything the stone was in Nathan's grasp.

And nothing happened, outside of Karl barging into the room.

Nathan couldn't help smirking slightly. This meant that the woman didn't know everything about him, otherwise she would have known how he had been pulling ambient energy from it for a while. "What?"

The woman gaped for a few seconds before regaining control. "Thank you, Karl." She said, her eyes still glued to the stone in Nathan's hand.

Karl just glanced between the other two occupants of the room before slowly leaving again, shutting the door behind him.

Another minute or so passed before either of the two said anything.

"You surprise me, Mr. Quill. Infinity stones are known to be extremely hazardous to the touch."

Nathan chuckled. "I find it comforting that you can still be surprised, but believe me, I know. The first time I picked this thing up, I nearly exploded." He shook his head, holding the stone up and rolling it between two fingers. "I've built up a resistance to it since then."

The Ancient One blinked. "One can build a… resistance to such a thing?"

"Well," Nathan made an 'Ehh' face, "No, but I have rather special circumstances."

"They must be truly special indeed." She sat back in her chair, folding her hands together in her lap. "To be able to wield an Infinity Stone directly, not having to work through a medium to access its abilities… That must be quite the incredible experience."

Nathan shrugged. "I wouldn't know. Haven't used it."

She leaned forward. "You mean to say that you've had one of the most powerful objects in the cosmos in your possession, for what I assume has been a decent time, and haven't used it?"

"Nope." He said, then paused. "Or 'Yep'." He paused again and shrugged. "Whichever means I haven't used it."

The Ancient One sat back again in her chair, looking confused for a second, then impressed. Nathan wasn't about to tell her that he was simply too afraid to use it. Let her draw her own conclusions for now.

"And you simply wish to protect the stone? To be honest, I find that doubtful." Her skepticism didn't show on her face, though.

Nathan shrugged again and decided to change the subject. "How much do you actually know about me?"

She raised an eyebrow, but allowed the conversation to move with the silent caveat of returning to that topic later. "I know everything about your life up until the point you were abducted, and then again the last few days since you've been back."

Nathan nodded. "I'm guessing my arrival with the stone set off some warning alarms, then?"

It was her turn to nod. "Indeed it did. We have a barrier of sorts around Earth, and once you breached the atmosphere, we were notified via one of the objects we have here." The barrier held up by the Sanctums doesn't only shield from Dormammu, then? Nathan also had a pretty good idea what that 'object' was, as well.

"Which is when you performed an information gathering spell of some sort, correct?"

"Many, actually. One proved your intentions to be non hostile, another gave your history with the planet, and quite frankly, the others did nothing at all. Considering that most of those are catered to non-humans and extra-dimensional beings, this makes some amount of sense."

"Some amount?"

She gestured to the purple gem in Nathan's hand. "No human can hold an Infinity Stone without 'exploding', Mr. Quill." She said, referencing his earlier use of the term with finger quotes.

Nathan laughed. "I guess you have me there."

"Care to share with the class?" She mock asked with a slight smirk.

Nathan's lips twitched, then sobered. "Tell me, how many futures have you seen? Am I in any of them?"

Her smirk died, and there was a pregnant pause. "You know, as this conversation continues, I find that your presence unnerves me more and more." She leaned forward, putting her elbows on the table and criss-crossing her hands in front of her nose. "You come back to Earth wielding an Infinity Stone of all things, and claim to have not used it. I do
believe you in this case, because it is very difficult to lie within this room." A lie detector spell? Huh. "Then you park your spaceship in the Bay of Bengal and make a beeline straight for Kathmandu. You seem to understand what we do here and the threats that we fight, yet none of that information should be accessible in the deep reaches of space. And
now you seem to be aware that the Time Stone is held here, regardless of the Sanctum shields.

"You are an enigma, Mr. Quill." She continued. "I don't much like enigmas. They tend to cause problems."

Nathan gulped. For all of his supposed bravado walking in here and talking with such a person as the Ancient One, the woman sitting across the table could wipe the fucking floor with him. Power Stone or no. Still, he had a goal, and there were more efficient ways to get there than spilling the beans right now.

Nathan sat back, placing the Power Stone back into the locket, clicking it shut, and laying it on the table. "Do you have a pen and paper?" He asked.

Her eyes narrowed, but nodded. She then took out what he asked for from a drawer in the desk and slid them over.

He nodded in thanks, taking up the pen and starting to write.

"How about this," he began, "I leave as soon as we're done talking and go grab a hotel for a couple days. While you," He stopped writing, and pointed the pen at her; which in hindsight was really rude, but his mind was split a couple ways here, so some slack would be appreciated. "Go look at some possible futures using the Eye of Agamatron. I imagine
that you haven't done so in a while. I'll even hand over the glowy rock. The thing honestly terrifies me and you can protect it better than I can at the moment. I would like it back later, though; when I can better protect it. Now, as for what my father is… I would honestly prefer to not say. He's a dick, though, and killed my mom. Stabbing him in the face
would make my day." He waved the pen around in a small circle and continued to write.

"Your mother died of a brain tumor," she interjected.

He ignored her in favor of jotting a couple more words down.

At this point, he put the pen down on the piece of paper and moved the locket on top of it, then slid the whole package over to the yellow robed woman.

"As for my goals, well…" He finished, gestured to the slip of paper, and sat back in his chair.

The Ancient one sat there for a minute, just analyzing the teenager in front of her. He was remarkably well spoken for one so young, and held himself with a certain blasé attitude that probably pissed a lot of people off. Even though she was a major threat to his well-being, he still led the conversation with almost no regard to the consequences. Then he
just hands over his biggest bargaining chip. The only thing that made him a threat in the first place.

'Well,' she thought, 'this does make him a little more trustworthy. If only slightly.'

"You're right in assuming I haven't examined possible futures lately. In the past, I've found that events don't tend to change much the more you examine them. I have studied them profusely, though, and noted where I wanted to make changes. The last time I looked was roughly twenty years ago, and not once was your presence made known to me."

Nathan smirked. "Well, I was born only seventeen years ago. Maybe something fundamental has changed?"

She studied him further. "Perhaps." There was a pregnant pause. "Very well. Come back in two day's time. I'll admit; you've intrigued me, Mr. Quill."

He gave her a tired smile and got up to leave.

Though before he could, "It's called the Eye of Agamotto, by the way. Not 'Agamatron'. The founder of the Masters of the Mystic Arts wasn't a Deceptacon"

Nathan blinked before turning around slowly. "Did you just throw a Transformers joke at me?" He asked incredulously. "You did, didn't you?"

She smiled and drew a small circle on the desk with her finger, opening a portal directly under Nathan's feet, depositing him just outside Kamar-Taj's front door.

It was only then that she glanced down at the paper he had given her earlier.

Goals:

1. Learn magic.

2. Find Dad.

3. Kill Dad.

4. Help keep the Earth in one piece.

5. Prevent Thanos from getting the Infinity Stones.

6. ...?

7. Profit

What a useless waste of paper. Also, who exactly was Thanos?

Chapter Text

Nathan had done exactly what he proposed.

After being so rudely dropped out of the magical complex, he had huffed and dusted himself off, then started over to the nearest hotel. Surprisingly, the language barrier hadn't been much of an issue since he landed. At least not nearly as much as he had anticipated. So far, there had been plenty of people who knew how to speak English; not fluent, but enough to get basic conversation through.

Sitting on the edge of his hotel bed, he reflected a bit on his meeting with the Ancient One.

Handing over the stone was going to be inevitable, as he had guessed, so he gave into it easily rather than fight against the flow. From what he knew of the woman, she wouldn't misuse it for her own purposes. She was too old and too powerful to care overly much about it, outside of trying to keep it away from nefarious hands. Hell, he expected her to
treat it the same way she did the Time Stone: use it under the circumstances that called for it, and nothing else.

Not to mention that he didn't really want to use its abilities anyway. Agamotto's shield around the planet probably kept a lot hidden, meaning he might be able to get away with it on Earth, but he didn't want to risk it when he didn't have to.

Even without the stone, his own power gave him some control over the four fundamental forces by moving his energy around to mimic telekinetic abilities. If he concentrated hard enough he could influence the makeup of atoms. He could create something from his energy alone! Granted that took way too much out of him to be feasible, but he could do
it on small scales. He couldn't do too much of that either, as without the Power Stone, he had no way of quickly refilling his reserves. It would go from zero to full in a few days by itself, and he could meditate to bring that down to a day, if he had the incling to mediate all day.

Point was; he could use his telekinetic abilities pretty regularly, but if he wanted to edit matter, he would have to cool it for a while afterwards.

After spending two days in a hotel and just exploring a few places in Kathmandu, he had gotten a little bored, which made him pretty excited about his return trip to Kamar-Taj. He imagined that they had an unending flood of interesting things happening there.

So it was at the agreed upon time that he returned to the temple, wearing an anxious grin. He probably should have been more scared of what the Ancient One saw in the future. He had no clue what would happen. Hell, he knew he was as corruptible as any normal person, so there was a small possibility that he would be a bad guy somewhere down the
line. He never was very good at playing the renegade, though; always falling back on paragon because he felt bad. So hurting others for the hell of it was never really on the table, and he was kind of banking on that.

Well, whatever happens, happens. Worse comes to worst; they would keep the stone and Nathan would just jump back in his spaceship and abduct some cows to freak out the local farmers. He would still be able to use his own powers, regardless, which was still a major leg-up from where he had been just a year ago. He had been slowly working up his
abilities for eight years, and now he was finally able to use them effectively, so forgive him for not really caring about the Power Stone. The Hype Train is fully loaded, and will be leaving the station shortly. Magic was to be learned!

A few seconds after he knocked on the front door, it was opened by an older woman. She looked to be about sixty or seventy, and wore grey monk's robes with an orange sash and belt. She just nodded to Nathan and opened the door further for him to enter. She didn't move to lead him further, instead turning to sit on a bench by the door, and began
to read a book.

Nathan blinked, then shrugged before making his way back towards the room where he had met with the Ancient One before. The compound wasn't all that complex, all things told, meaning he remembered the way.

When he reached the small waiting area, Rahul, the short Indian doorman, just opened the door and waved him inside. The room was decidedly more vacant than it had been two days ago, the only initial occupant being the Ancient One herself. Said old lady - who looked like she could have been thirty - glanced up at Nathan as he walked in, and
nodded toward the chair across from her; indicating that he should sit.

Nathan sighed. "You know, nobody has said a single word to me since I got here today. It's a little unnerving," he said while taking the seat.

Her lips tiredly quirked upwards. "I believe that there's a lot of that feeling going around lately."

"Touché." Nathan intoned. "You've made a decision?" he asked, noticing that the locket he left with her yesterday was still on the desk.

She nodded. "I believe I have." She paused for a moment, then continued. "I read about twelve million different futures in these past two days, Mr. Quill. Tell me; in how many do you think you become a threat to the people of earth?"

Nathan blinked. "Whoa. That's a lot. Um…"

While Nathan thought at the question, the woman across from him couldn't help but notice how expressive his eyebrows were. They seemed to move like a pair of scales with his thought process, as if he was weighing his own soul on one, and his past on the other.

"Well, considering I've been a space pirate for the past eight years… Uh, maybe about a quarter of them?" He shrugged. "I don't know, I don't really see why I would turn on the planet."

The Ancient One chuckled. "No, I suppose you wouldn't. We never do see life's twists and turns until they are upon us." She sighed and looked Nathan in the eyes. "I can't seem to tell if you're being modest, or underestimating your own sense of loyalty."

"Oh please let it be above a couple hundred thousand. I am not that much of a sap, am I?" Nathan interjected, a little desperately.

She straight up laughed at that. "I'm afraid you are, Mr. Quill. Out of twelve million, one-hundred-twenty-three thousand, four-hundred and eighty-six possible futures, you turn on the planet Earth exactly four-hundred and seven times." She paused, still looking him directly in the eyes. "That is three-hundred-thousandths of a percent. The chance is
so close to nothing, that I had to do a recount. Twice. To put that into further perspective, most of the people here have about a four or five percent chance of becoming a threat in the next thirty or so years." She looked towards the door. "Young Karl is at about thirteen percent, himself."

"That seems like a lot…" The lady would probably lose her shit if she did one for Steve Rogers. Nathan would put money on that dude being a straight arrow in every single timeline... well there was the one that he spouts 'Hail Hydra', so maybe like three where he's evil. Max.

"You'd think so, yes, but out of twelve million possibilities, there are far more where these men and women are true assets to Earth. I believe the chance is worthwhile."

"And you had the inclination to put these statistics together for every student?"

"No, actually. I was just so surprised by your own number that I decided to check on some of the other apprentices. Even some of the Masters, as well."

Nathan sighed sadly, but then perked up. "Sounds Time consuming, eh?" Nathan said, throwing a 'nudge' motion with his elbow in her direction.

She looked at him, unimpressed.

He pouted. "You're the one who slapped me in the face with a Transformers joke two days ago. You don't get to act all high and mighty against my bad puns."

She nodded. "So long as you understand that they're bad."

"Hey!"

The Ancient One smirked, but sobered a second later. "For whatever reason, you being alive and on Earth has drastically changed the possible futures. For the better in most cases. I regret to say that I can not see everything, nor do I fully understand what I have seen, but I understand enough to know that you will be among Earth's allies, even if I turn
you away today." She leaned forward. "Something to remember though; there are far-reaching consequences for any and all changes to the natural law."

Nathan threw his hands in the air. "Hey now, if the the 'Law' gets nettled, I'm not the one who did it."

She snorted, "True. We can't exactly blame you for being born."

Nathan gave a sideways frown. "I guess my only question here is; do you consider me to be too much of an unknown? There is a small chance that I will become hostile, apparently, and my presence alone seems to have screwed something up."

"Do you consider yourself to be my enemy?" she shot back.

The seventeen-year-old pouted. "I will if you keep answering my questions with more questions."

She chuckled lightly, "No, no I do not." She reached over and tapped the locket that held the Power Stone. "You'll forgive me; however, if I don't return this immediately. Not at least until you're properly trained."

Nathan's whole face lit up like the sun, completely bypassing the fact that she would return the stone at all. He was gonna learn magic! "So you'll train me?"

The woman nodded. "Before we get to that; though, I'd like you to follow me downstairs." She said while getting up from her chair. "There's something I think I should show you."

Nathan blinked, getting up from his own chair. "What would that be, exactly?"

She just wagged a finger at him over her shoulder as she walked away. "Patience is a virtue."

About two or three minutes later, the pair had nearly crossed the entire compound, coming up to a set of double-doors.

"This," The Ancient One began, opening the doors, "Is the library."

Nathan took a second to admire the room once they stepped in. Immediately, the first thing that drew his attention was an ornate table in the center of the large room. At said table were three young people in monk's robes with yellow sashes, avidly studying over a large tome. Surrounding that was a maze of simple bookshelves made from a lacquered
redwood of some kind, and a sporadic placement of intricately carved pillars. From the entrance, he couldn't see much more than that, though. The bookshelves were in the way.

"So…" Nathan started, "Is this a tour, or are we checking out a book?"

"I'm afraid it's neither. Though you might be able to argue a portion of the former."

He blinked, then followed her as she lead him through the bookshelves.

Not long after, they arrived at a desk where a diminutive man sat, looking over a ledger and clicking a pen repeatedly. The Ancient One just nodded to him and continued onward towards another pair of double doors. This set was far more intricate than the library doors, decorated with a giant circle that linked the two doors with four curved lines
intersecting it. The other difference was that this set was wide open, giving Nathan direct line of sight into the connected room.

The next room was circular, with another three connecting doors, each intricately carved out of some type of metal and stone, and each with similar circle as the first set, though the lines intersected in different ways. Up above on the ceiling was a stone dome with a beautiful, marbled representation of the night sky, and floating in said dome, was a
perfect replica of the planet, slowly turning. Directly below that, which the Ancient One walked towards, was a stone pedestal.

"I believe you're aware somehow, but this" she said, gesturing to the pendant that was displayed on top of the pedestal, "is the Eye of Agamotto." She walked around and lifted the artifact from its stand, and showing it to Nathan.

"Yup." He clicked his tongue. "One of the most powerful ancient magical artifacts of all time. What about it?"

"Funny choice of words… I do expect you to tell me how you received this knowledge, but that can wait for now." She slowly lowered the thick cord of the necklace over her head. "Now I didn't see every possible future; there being a near infinite number of possibilities, but I saw plenty enough to know that what I'm about to do will have a decent chance
of speeding up your ability to learn while in these halls." She looked Nathan directly in the eyes, while making a shape with her hands and 'opening' it.

"Now wait a fucking minute!" Nathan started as the room started to glow with a greenish tint, originating from a now open Eye of Agamotto. "Don't just open that thing out of nowhere!"

The Ancient One smiled. "Language. We teach discipline here, and such outbursts imply that you have learned little in that area."

"I was forced to be a pirate for eight years! Give me a break! Also, having that thing opened and pointed at me is fucking terrifying. Please stop." He said, backing away slightly.

She rolled her eyes. "Stop being such a baby and come here." She reached a hand down to the Eye, and flicked her fingers. Inside the pendant, a glowing green gem rattled and floated out in front of her hand.

Nathan stopped backing away. "Okay, now I'm just confused." The Eye couldn't do anything without the stone inside.

"In all of the futures that I've seen, there were a number where you would learn enough to open the Eye, and touch the Time Stone directly. In a few others, you manage to convince me to let you hold the Time Stone. In some of these futures this results in catastrophe, but I believe it's because all of those happen years from this moment, and you had no
supervision." She took a step towards Nathan and brought the stone level with his eyes. "For whatever reason, you have the ability to hold the Power Stone, and I would hazard a guess that also holds true for the Time Stone, and all of the other Infinity Stones as well. The problem is that if we wait a few years, a chance is born that you forget how to
handle them." She paused. "Well, that's how I make sense of it, anyway."

Nathan scrunched his eyebrows together. "So you're saying I should directly hold the Ingot of Time itself now, because I'll fuck it up later?"

"Please mind your language, Mr. Quill. Essentially yes, though you also had no one around that would be able to stop whatever catastrophe you might cause."

"I'm honestly surprised that you want me touching it at all." He blinked and looked up from the stone into her eyes. "What do you expect me to do with it, anyway?"

She nodded. "Using the stone in some futures, you manage to finagle out the ability to process things faster, condensing years of learning into months. You have the potential to do a lot of good, Mr. Quill, and with this method we might be able to consider you a Master when push comes to shove."

Nathan paused for a moment. The idea hadn't occurred to him, and it sounded pretty awesome, but he remembered something Mordo said in the movie that sort of contradicted everything she was suggesting. "I thought you guys were all about protecting the 'Natural Law'. Isn't this kind-of… I don't know; doing the opposite?"

The Ancient One smirked. "The very nature of the magic we use alters the Natural Law. We use the law to protect it, but in doing so, we incur debts. Some of the most powerful arts require us to draw from various extra-dimensional entities. Sometimes, just the fact that we draw on them is enough payment, as it is a form of worship; feeding their own
power. Others; however, require different forms of payment else the very laws we protect turn on us. For instance, we have a rabbit farm in the Hong Kong Sanctum that we use for sacrifices." She held up a hand. "I know, it's not pretty, but it is necessary to even the balance sometimes." She turned to the stone that floated in her palm. "However there is
no entity attached to the Infinity Stones. They are ingots of power that have no limit in their respective fields, though are so easily over-used. If one is not careful, Time itself could cease to be." She flexed her hand, spinning the stone slightly in the air. "So in this case, 'keeping the balance' refers more to using only enough power that results in the
desired effect, keeping all other effects to a minimum."

Nathan thought about it for a moment, tilting his head to the side. "So in essence, we don't protect the Natural Law from being used, we just audit those who would incur more debt than the Earth can handle, and balance the books where necessary?"

She laughed. "I've never looked at it from an accounting perspective, but that would be accurate, yes. However that is just one facet of what we do, our main purpose is to protect the planet from external threats."

Nathan tilted his head with a small smile. "And people riding in on a spaceship with an Infinity stone qualifies, I'm guessing?"

"Of course." She replied. "I'm not sure if you knew this, but the stone you arrived with is more than capable of destroying the planet a million times over." She narrowed her eyes at him. "In a matter of seconds, no less."

"I was trying not to think about that, thank you. Oh, and you should probably repeat all of that to Karl. I have a… feeling that he takes the 'Natural Law' thing way more literally than you intended."

She 'hmm'd', looking at Nathan with a slightly confused look. "Well, moving on. I suppose I'll ask first; do you know if you can hold this?"

Nathan 'hmm'd. "Well, this stone is a bit more esoteric than the Power Stone. I understand the basics of the four fundamental forces of the universe, so it's a relatively easy thing to wrap my head around, meaning that using it probably wouldn't be that difficult." He paused, leaning closer to the green gem. "Time, though, is a much more complicated
concept; one that we've barely begun to understand as a science. It's long since been theorized that gravity can affect the passage of time, as well as change as an object approaches the speed of light, but that's all I know about it."

The Ancient One blinked and repeated her question. "Do you know if you can hold this?"

"Holding it shouldn't be a problem if it's anything like the Power Stone. Using it could be a different story. There was a reason why I didn't use the Power Stone; there are beings in this universe that might be able to sense it. We are protected by Agamotto's shield, so the unfiltered power of an Infinity Stone might be safe from detection as long as we're
here, but it's still dangerous as all get-out."

"Well, we'll take it slow, then."

Nathan eyed the woman. "Are you sure this is a good idea?"

She just smiled and shrugged. "One way to find out."

"You are not inspiring confidence," he huffed.

Her expression sobered. "In my experience, telling others the specifics of the futures I've seen never ends well, and I don't intend to repeat that mistake more than I have already done today, but suffice it to say that this is the best way to prepare you for what will occur, despite its risks."

"Are you just going to lead me through all of my decisions then?"

"Of course not. Like I said before; I don't know everything that will happen, I've only been able to see the events that I would be a part of."

He looked up at her, face blank. "Does that mean you can see farther than Strange fighting off Kaecilius, then?"

Her eye twitched. "... We're going to have a conversation when we're done here, but yes. Your presence on Earth seems to have extended my own time."

The seventeen-year-old ex-pirate snorted and stared back at the glowing gem a little longer. "Alright, well fuck it, then… I guess." He blurted out, then reached to grab the stone.

As he brought his hand closer, he started to circulate his Celestial energy in the same way he used to hold the Power Stone. The concept of holding the stone itself should be similar, if not the same, between the stones, so he wasn't too worried about that part, and he was right, too. He pinched the stone between his thumb and forefinger without issue.

He breathed a sigh of relief, bringing the stone in slightly closer. "Well that's step one. What's step two?"

"That would be finding a way to alter your perception of time, or possibly altering the passage of time in a specific area. There are ways to do this if we used the Eye as a medium, but we simply don't have the time to teach you the required spells."

Nathan looked up from the stone. "Why can't you just perform them instead?"

"To do that, I would need to spend all my time with you, and I simply can't do that. I am the Sorcerer Supreme. Which means that I only have so much time to devote to my students. The masters and myself have our hands rather full in defending the planet."

"You do realize that we're talking about the Time Stone here, right? If there's a way to create time to do that, it would be by using this thing." Nathan said, pointing to the gem in his hand.

"There are beings, Mr. Quill, that can transcend time's influence; that can and will attack the planet if my focus wavers. I cannot afford to commit myself to using such complex magics for extended periods, I'm sorry."

Nathan nodded slowly with a sad glint in his eyes. "Dormammu affects you that much, then? I suppose I'm stuck."

Her eyes narrowed immediately, looking guarded.

"Oh don't look at me like that. I won't tell anyone, and I know about him the same way I know about the rest of it. I wanted to talk to you about that when we're not busy, anyway." He waved his free hand dismissively. "So you want me to try and extend my perception of time? Make it so I can read a book in, like, twenty minutes instead of a few days? That
seems incredibly complicated."

"Yes." The robed woman said slowly, reevaluating Nathan with a long glance, then shook her head slightly. "If you're able to do that, you won't have to worry about aging at many times the normal rate, like you would if you just changed the passage of time in an area."

"Yeah, that would suck."

"Quite."

Half a minute passed before Nathan spoke again. "Alright, here goes nothing, then."

He moved the stone from between his fingers to the center of his palm and clenched his fist around it. He had never actually used the Power Stone, so figuring out how to use the stone would be a little interesting. Thanos needed the gauntlet in order to harness the stone's power, and the dwarf smith had called it a 'device' in the movie, meaning that
mortal beings lack the ability to use them directly. As Thanos demonstrated; however, mortals of certain races are able to physically touch the stones at least.

Nathan slowly began feeding his energy into the stone, tapping the edges and encompassing it. Something he immediately noticed was that the stone wasn't giving off nearly as much energy as the Power Stone had; making it decidedly easier to hold on to. Though that seemed to change dramatically when he breached the surface of it with his own
energy.

The stone began to vibrate in his hand, and sporadic spikes of the stone's ethereal essence began seeping into his Celestial energy, seeming to meld with it. This started to quickly break down Nathan's defense against the stone, which ended up being what he needed to do anyway; he just didn't know it yet.

It had only been four measly seconds since he started when his defense against it cracked and shattered, prompting a giant green flash of light that emanated from Nathan's whole body. Holding something as non-definitive as the Infinity Stone of Time can make terms like 'immediately', and 'faster than he could blink' seem sort-of plebeian, but they
were the only way he could describe how the Ancient One ripped the stone out of his hand. She cast a levitation spell of some sort; easily freeing it from Nathan's grip as soon as the room went green.

"Well," Nathan began, blinking the light from his eyes, "That was interesting." He paused. Something sounded off with what just came out of his mouth…

The woman took a second to also wipe the light from her eyes as well, before looking back at Nathan, Time Stone still floating above her palm. "I'm not entirely sure what you were… Huh."

"What?" Nathan asked, then blinked as he realized he was looking up at the Ancient One. Well, more 'up' than before, anyway; she had always been taller than him. Then he realized his voice a lot more high pitched than it was a few minutes prior.

He looked down at his hands and noticed immediately that they were tiny and pudgy. Also his clothes were huge, and didn't fit anymore. "You've got to be shitting me."

"Pfft!" The oldest woman on the planet just 'Pfft'd'. Nathan would remember the experience. It didn't take long for her to regain control of herself, though. "Language."

"French." Nathan replied, still looking at his hands. "Please pardon j'ai continué à parler: What. The. FUCK?!"

"Tu parle français?" The woman asked with a head tilt.

"Un peu." He looked up at her and deadpanned, "I'm three feet tall now. What the shit?"

She tilted her head slightly more. "I'd say more like three and a half."

Nathan growled and looked at the floating green gem. "Gimme. I'm gonna fix this."

As he reached up to grab it, the Ancient One pulled her hand up higher so he couldn't reach it. "Now wait a minute, Mr. Quill. Do you even know what you did in the first place to end up like that?"

"Not a clue. Gimme." He jumped, reaching for the stone and failing miserably, his pants falling away from his legs in the effort. It was fine though, as his jacket covered him well enough.

"You just made yourself a child, Mr. Quill. If you take the stone now to try again, how certain are you that you won't just blink out of existence?"

The literal man-child just pouted cutely, but stopped jumping for the gem. "So what, then? Will I just stay four years old?"

"Well," She paused to wave her hand, spawning a small golden glyph in the air. "You seem to be five years, two months, and three days old, now."

"Not really the point." The now-five-year-old ground out between his clenched teeth.

"I suppose so. Let's walk through it, shall we?"

Nathan huffed, but nodded.

"Alright, so what's the first thing you did? I must say I've never known of a mortal that can touch, let alone use the stones directly. I'm interested."

"Well, I'll tell you the whole story later, but suffice-it-to-say, I'm not totally 'mortal'" He began, using air quotes.

"You were born on Earth to a human. Which makes you human, aka: mortal"

"Or we can do this now, I guess." He sighed. "Mostly human, yes. Pops is a Celestial."

The Ancient One blinked.

Then blinked again.

"I'm sorry, would you mind repeating that? I'm afraid I misheard you."

"Ce-le-stee-al." Nathan sounded it out, counting the syllables on his tiny fingers, then held up his hand with a beaming smile as if he was proud that he could count to four.

She just stared down at him for a moment.

"Oh come on, you've dealt with weirder shit," he dropped his hand dismissively and rolled his eyes.

The Ancient One noted that those words coming out of a five-year-old were completely comical, but didn't let it show on her face.

"I have encountered Celestials only once before, Mr. Quill. I had been traveling the dimensions in my youth, trying to further my own knowledge of the Mystic Arts, when I came across a battleground on a scale beyond anything conceivable. Solar systems of wrent space and fractured suns. Planets that popped into existence, only to rupture or decay in
seconds. It was the most terrifying and awe-inspiring sight I have ever witnessed, but that was just the battlefield; the battle itself was something else entirely.

"When I first saw the beings that clashed there, the planet I stood on cracked in half from the first blow. Nearly as large as the planets themselves, those armored titans unleashed horrors of power that should not be possible within any reality. They did not simply throw fireballs when they could throw suns instead. Supermassive black holes were nothing
more than a distraction or minor inconvenience when the true weapons were capable of dispersing galaxies into naught but empty space. I barely escaped with my life, and I hadn't even been there for a full minute." She paused, staring Nathan directly in the eyes. "It wasn't until two years later when I discovered that these beings were not only known
and feared throughout the multiverse, but that they were the closest things to true gods that I would ever encounter.

"My point, Mr. Quill, is that yes, I have dealt with stranger things, but nothing will ever fill me with more dread than the possibility of facing down a single Celestial."

"... And they number 'as many as the stars themselves'." Nathan murmured.

The Ancient One felt like he was quoting something or someone, but left the man-child to ponder for a moment before he spoke again.

"I could tell you a lot about the Celestials, most of it would be theories, but it could put them into perspective. For example; Dormammu could be considered a type of Celestial, though his abilities differ, and he seems to be inherently linked to his own dimension, they're about equal in 'danger level'." He paused, just now realizing how ridiculous he must
sound, spouting all this out while looking like a toddler. "We can talk about that later though, what we were talking about is what I can do. One thing I want to do while learning here is to explore how my own abilities affect the use of Magic; we can both learn something."

The woman nodded slowly. "Right you are. Then back to my first question: what was the first thing you did with the stone?"

Nathan nodded back. "Well, the reason why I started out with my heritage is that I have access to a certain type of energy that lets me do a lot of cool stuff, like create a barrier between the stone and I, so I don't explode." He paused, gathering his thoughts. "There seems to be two levels of interface with the stones. For instance, with the Power Stone, the
energy output is ridiculous if you touch it directly, so just protecting myself from it is a bit difficult, but I can use the energy coming off of it as a sort of fuel reserve to charge my own energy. That's the only thing I've used the stone for since I got it, by the way.

"The second level is what I just tried with the Time Stone and didn't try with the Power Stone. I sort-of sunk my power into it to see what would happen." He paused, looking down at his hands. "The Time Stone is a bit different from the other one though. It was much easier to shield myself from its power output. I bet any normal person could actually
hold it safely for a couple seconds, where the Power Stone will just blow you up instantly. What actually happened when I went into the stone, was that the energy started fluctuating madly and started to… Oh holy shit."

"What is it?" The yellow robed woman asked, looking more alert.

Nathan continued to look at his hands as he slowly brought out a bit of his Celestial energy, which he now had a lot less of due to his body shrinking. He'd worry about that later. "When I touched the energy in the Time Stone, it started to do something a little strange." With that, he brought his energy out fully around his hands, but instead of the blue
glow that it usually held, there was a distinctly green tint to it now.

Nathan looked up at the Ancient One. "This is supposed to be blue."

Chapter Text

"Blue?"

"Blue."

"Then why is it green?"

"The Time Stone is green."

The Ancient One just stared down at the five-year-old.

"What?" Nathan asked, as if it should have been obvious.

"That's entirely asinine." She deadpanned.

"The universe is entirely asinine. I live by the 'KISS' principle: Keep it simple, stupid." He shrugged. "It hasn't failed me yet."

The woman quirked an eyebrow, glancing down at the five-year-old.

Nathan rolled his eyes. "Yeah, yeah. Rub it in." He rubbed his tiny temples and mumbled, "I wish my brother was here. He'd have to deal with this crap too."

"There's another one of you?"

Nathan looked up and blinked. "I thought you did a background check?"

"I did…" She looked sort-of peeved. "Or rather, we did. It seems Master Yun is developing dementia." She sighed and looked back down at Nathan. "So there is another half-human, half-Celestial out there somewhere?"

"Yep." The five-year-old said, popping the 'p'. "Though for all intents and purposes he's just a normal human. Great with a gun, good guy to have your back in a fight, and an amazing pilot, but still just a normal dude."

"So he didn't get the Celestial genes?" She asked.

"Oh no. He totally did. He's just an idiot and never listened to me. Said I was 'letting the aliens get to me,' and 'you're not special, I'm special. Learn how to pilot first, space cadet.'" He said with air quotes. "He's such a prick."

"Not a fan of your brother then?" She cocked her head to the side.

Nathan laughed. "No, he's still family. I'd do anything for him, but Christ on a cracker, he's dense as a brick."

"So why isn't he here with you?"

The five-year-old tried to roll up the sleeves of his oversized jacket, only to fail and just ended up flailing them around with a pout. "I told him I was leaving and asked him to come with me." Nathan shrugged. "Fucker thought I was kidding, got drunk, and told our pirate captain." He huffed. "I'd been planning everything for like half a year, and Pete just
goes and spills the beans immediately. So I got pissed and left that night, which was good, since the Ravagers didn't want me to leave." He paused for a second. "I may or may not have thrown all his clothes out the airlock before I left."

She snorted.

Nathan smiled slightly in response. "Well anyway, the fact that my inner firefly is now green makes me think a few things." He turned around and started walking back into the library, the edges of the now comparatively giant Ravager jacket dragging on the ground, and the Ancient One only a couple steps behind him; Time Stone still floating above her
palm.

Getting to the diminutive man's desk and ignoring the man himself, he spotted an apple on the desk which he quickly snapped up, then turned back to the woman behind him.

"If this works, then I have a few ideas on what to do from here, and a theory as to why I'm now five." He said, spitting out the last word.

He sat down and took a bite out of the apple, remembering the scene where Dr. Strange fucked with the life cycle of a similar fruit. Setting the thing down in front of him, he brought his inner fire out to the palm of his hand, closed his eyes, and slowly laid his palm on the apple.

After only a few seconds of concentrating through the senses of his energy, he could feel something… slipping, for lack of a better term, and tried to steer that sensation.

Opening his eyes after only a couple of minutes, he smiled down at the object in his hands, then held out the now unbitten apple to the Sorcerer Supreme.

Eyes wide, the yellow-garbed woman examined the fruit. "You managed to exert control over time without actually using the Stone."

"Yes and no." He responded without looking up from the apple. "My energy seems to be able to merge with the Stone's." He paused. "Well now I think I know how to use the Stones… Or at least have a working theory. Since the energy merges with my own, I can then direct it and use it as if using the Stone itself. Basically, instead of using a normal
medium for it, like the Eye, I'm using my own energy."

They both slipped into silence as he lit up his hand in a green fire, only to watch the color slowly bleed back to blue. "And it appears the effect isn't permanent. This is the normal color."

"Maybe." The Ancient One said. "Try the apple again."

Nathan scrunched his eyebrows, but nodded, turning back to the apple. This time; however, when he sunk his energy into the fruit, he only got the normal 'sixth sense' on its celular makeup without any hint of that 'slipping' sensation.

Retracting his hand, he looked back to the woman in front of him and shook his head.

She shrugged. "Worth a shot."

Nathan chuckled.

"So what was this theory about your current age?" She continued after a moment.

He nodded. "Well I think that came from not knowing what the hell I was doing. I kept trying to protect myself from the Stone even as the energy was seeping into my own. Meaning that my blue stuff was in constant contact with the green stuff until it flooded my system, which after a while, murdered my control over it and let it do something weird. It is
an Infinity Stone. They're all partially sentient according to one theory, and are much more powerful than any mortal being."

"You are part Celestial." She deadpanned.

"Well yes, but I don't think even a true Celestial can be counted as immortal. Sure they can live forever and they're essentially gods, but you can still kill them, albet with difficulty. I'll need to study up on my cosmic deity list, but there are a lot of 'immortal' beings that can reside in this universe at any given time, and most of those can still be killed off,
merged with, replaced, or repelled if you use massive amounts of bullshit. Only one of them can't really be affected in any way."

She gave him a calculating look. "As reassuring as a Celestial's apparent mortality is, and how discouraging the rest of what you just said is, I don't think I see your point."

He shook his head. "Don't worry about my deity list. Those guys are pretty benevolent for the most part. My point, though, is that while I might be able to exact some control over the damn thing, if I'm not careful, it'll control me."

She didn't look exactly pleased with that revelation, looking back at the green gem that floated in her palm. "How dangerous would you say continued use of it would be, then?"

"Honestly? Not very. As long as I back out before it overwhelms me, the fabric of Time should be safe."

Her expression turned disgruntled at his word choice. "So do you think you can revert your age, then? I'm not personally skilled enough with the eye to do it for you. My master would have been able, but I never could get a hold of the more difficult aspects of it."

"No? Well, I fucking hope I can, but that might take a while. I would need to know exactly how it happened in the first place. I somehow kept my own mind even as my body reverted back. Not to mention it took a lot of energy to change that apple; energy that I currently don't have at my disposal due to said apple. I would need a lot more to mess with
my own body."

"How long before you recover the amount needed, then?"

"Unfortunately it's not really that simple. Celestial energy is a little weird. I can fill my body to the brim, and have enough to work with on a daily basis for semi-normal use, but my body is the container. I can only store so much, and now that I'm tiny, I can't store as much as I could an hour ago."

The Ancient One frowned. "So you're stuck as a child, then."

"Not necessarily. I've found that certain materials can store my energy for varying periods of time, meaning that if I find something that can store a lot of energy, for long enough, I can continuously build on my energy base, regardless of the state of my body."

The Ancient One regarded the child in front of her for a moment, then as if deciding something important, looked down to her left hand and removed a dull golden ring, which she tossed over to Nathan. "Try that."

Nathan, a bit surprised, but otherwise curious, examined the ring for a moment. "Gold? No..." Suitably intrigued, he did as was instructed and poured the remainder of his Celestial energy into the ring.

Surprisingly, the ring took all of it without issue, and seemed to glow in anticipation for more. Though best of all, even after ten minutes or so, it had no sign of releasing even a smidgen of the energy.

"Uhh…" He began eloquently. "What is this, exactly?"

The Ancient One smirked slightly. "I take it the material works well, then?"

He nodded. "So far, at least. Need more experimentation." He slowly pulled a fraction of the energy back into himself, and found only a slight difficulty in doing so. Overall, he was pretty pleased with the material in the mere minutes that he had his hands on it.

She nodded back. "The ring is yours then. It isn't enchanted with anything, but it is made of a rather special alloy. I have been using it to store small amounts of Eldritch energies for years, but I can get another."

"What's it made of? It's too dull to be gold, and it's got a more orange tinge…"

The Ancient One smiled slyly. "I think Kamar-Taj is the last place on earth that knows how to produce it. Most of our enchanted items have a little bit of it in their makeup, or are made of it entirely. It's mostly an alloy of copper, with a bit of gold and a few other minerals. The Greeks were one of the first to mine and use it." She picked at a bead on a
bracelet that she wore, which Nathan noticed was made of the same metal. "Used to call it 'Mountain Copper', but the fabrication process for the alloy was widely lost once Atlantis sank beneath the ocean; some twenty thousand years ago. Even then, we know they called it something else, and used another special mineral in their process that we don't
know the nature of. This is the lesser Greek version." She finished, motioning towards the ring in Nathan's palm.

He stared at her blankly, words having some trouble forming in his mouth. "Y-you mean to say that this is Oricalcum?!"

A hint of mischief played across her eyes.

"What the absolute fuck?!"

"Language, Mr. Quill."

After talking about it with the Ancient One a little more. Nathan decided that he would stay at his current age, and just naturally go back through the stages of life even if he could figure out a way to get back to normal. For one, he could never be sure if what he might do would mess with his mind, and second; it would require a lot more time and
resources than they wanted to put towards it to actually figure out how the fuck to do it without aging certain parts separately or at different rates. He definitely didn't have the control to do that correctly. He was just pissed that he would be going through puberty for the third fucking time.

"Um… Excuse me, but what happened to Nathan? And who's the kid?" Karl asked when they came out of the library.

'Was he just following us around?' The thought barely passed through Nathan's mind before he turned and pouted, "She turned me into a five-year-old."

Karl blinked.

The old-but-not-old lady smiled sweetly, completely nonplussed at the accusation.

"What?" Was his intelligent response.

When in doubt, blame your situation on someone else, right? He was still half human, afterall.

"...Nathan?"

"That's my name."

Karl was hilariously confused. "Uh… Why?"

Nathan smirked. "Well when I was born, I was the second twin that popped out. My mom decided to name the first twin 'Peter', and the second 'Nathan'. So voila! My name's Nathan."

Karl's eye twitched. "No, you insufferable idiot; why are you five?"

"This is what happens when you piss her off and she just so happens to be within five feet of the Eye of Aga-whatsit." Nathan pointed at the Sorcerer Supreme, who was still smiling sweetly, a twinkle of amusement in her eyes.

He gaped like a fish. "But… but what about the Natural Law?"

"It is quite undisturbed, Karl." The woman responded, unbothered.

"How could that possibly be?" The teenager stuttered out. "You messed with Time!"

"The Natural Law is not set in stone, Karl." The woman glanced down at Nathan, remembering his earlier warning about Karl taking her lessons a bit too literally. "They are a set of guidelines I, and those before me, made up to prevent our disciples from biting off more than they could chew."

Still looking at Nathan, she turned to face the teenage wizard and continued. "Nathan and I were speaking of this topic earlier, actually, and it seems I should hold a lecture on the subject. I fear much has been misinterpreted." She noticed the constipated look on his face. "To ease your conscience, my own master was particularly skilled in Time
manipulation. He was known to simply age his enemies out of existence, and never once experienced any backlash. I, myself, have only circumferential knowledge on the subject and therefore avoid tampering with it unless necessary. That, Karl, is the basis of the 'Natural Law': If you are not aware of the consequences of what you're doing, or perhaps
feel that you can subvert them, you are bound to fail. Magic always has a price, but so long as you are prepared to pay that price, there is nothing to worry about."

Letting that wash over him, The Ancient One waited.

"Then why insist on certain practices being forbidden? Why tell us that something is too dangerous if we can simply prepare for it correctly?" Was his response, finally.

"Not every practice has known consequences, child." Karl flinched slightly, but didn't otherwise object to the term, even though there was an actual child in the immediate vicinity, regardless of his true age. Nathan caught the meaning behind it as well; basically claiming that he still had much to learn.

"You may think you know them;" The Ancient One continued, "through your own studies and the work of others, but I have seen many attempt such magic, suitably prepared, only to be struck down by the very power they call for. Or perhaps they go slowly insane, or get bodily taken over by some extra-dimensional entity. Then there are the practices
with known consequences, but require a strength of mind that most simply do not possess, or the preparations are morally reprehensible. In which case, is it not better to refrain from allowing such a skill? Even to those who may be able to use it? Afterall, one misstep could cost their life, or worse."

Karl looked down at the floor, with a look on his face that suggested he was rethinking his whole outlook on life. Then, after a moment, looked back up. "Forgive me, Master, but I still don't see how Time manipulation wouldn't send waves of unknown variables. It is simply too complex to use under any conceivable circumstance, and you even admitted
that your understanding of the subject is lacking."

"Well that's the beauty of an Infinity Stone, isn't it?" The five-year-old spoke up.

Karl's attention whipped down to him. "And what could you know of them? You've been here in these halls for less than five hours total, and haven't even begun to learn!"

Karl had never been informed on why he had been sent to collect Nathan, so the fact that he came to Earth in the possession of one of the six Stones was still unknown to him.

"Believe it or not," The Ancient One began, getting Karl's attention again, "Young Nathan, here, is something of an expert on the topic."

Nathan held back a twitch. "Well, I wouldn't say 'expert'."

"Nonsense; you were able to teach me a couple things in the past thirty minutes."

"Mostly conjecture and theories-"

"Which is more than what we had before, Mr. Quill."

Nathan sighed, turning his attention back to Karl. "Well, to put it simply, there is a theory where the six Infinity Stones have a sort-of consciousness to them. In fact, I'm almost positive that two of the six have nearly fully developed 'minds' of their own." He said with air-quotes. "I haven't been able to confirm that, yet, but there is a reason why the 'Mind'
Stone is called as such, and the Soul stone has long been held above the other five in a special place of its own. My theory is that it has a fully developed emotional system, if not a personality."

"Fascinating," apparently Karl didn't appreciate the fact that a five-year-old was schooling him, "but that has little to do with the fact that Time shouldn't be messed around with."

"I was getting to that." The five-year-old resumed. "An Infinity Stone is one of the few tools in the universe that can be used exactly as it is intended. As long as the user understands exactly what they want to happen, so will the Stone."

"Because of the sentience that you mentioned?" The Sorcerer Supreme asked.

"Well the 'sentience' is a theory to explain the phenomenon. There's another theory that the Stones simply link with the user's intent so it can enact their will exactly. Those are the only two I'm aware of, but the only reason why I support the former is because I don't see how the latter could be possible without understanding the user's intent in the first
place."

The Ancient One just nodded, while Karl blinked about twenty times, looking between the two.

"So basically," began Nathan, "As long as you don't overuse an Infinity Stone, there are no consequences; especially since we're guarded by the Sanctum shields."

"We are currently performing a few tests on the subject, Karl." The Ancient one cut in. "We are heading up to my meditation rooms if you need me."

Karl nodded numbly, clearly confused with the turn of events, and just standing there as the two walked away.

It took Nathan three weeks to finally figure out how to use the Time Stone to change around his perception. It was a complicated mess of a project, but with the constant help of The Ancient One, they were able to bounce ideas around until they settled on a solution. The actual 'ideas' portion only really took up the first couple days, the rest was just
working out the kinks and Nathan trying to explain how each sensation felt as he worked through them.

One of the first ideas they went through was just speeding up time in a general area; that way, Nathan would be able to age back to his original seventeen year-old self, while still getting that extended time frame that he was going after. However it came with the need for sustenance. With the perception change, he basically ended up with a twelve-to-
one time fluctuation. In other words, one month equated to one year. It wasn't exactly that, but it was pretty close. The problem with using that fluctuation on his whole body meant that he would have to eat thirty-six meals a day. However magical Kamar-Taj was, that just wasn't efficient. People at the temple barely ate more than a bowl of rice and a
few vegetables per meal.

There were ways to magically get food, but for the most part it wasn't very nutritious, so the economical option of perception altering was much more feasible than adding the equivalent of twelve new students to the roster. Not to mention his body would deteriorate under the area-of-effect option. He would be spending a ridiculous amount of time just reading books under the effect, meaning that there would be little opportunity to exercise, and any training partners he took would be aging at the same rate as him.

Nobody wanted that.

Oh, and there was the little, tiny fact that any AOE time fuckery would use a metric fuck ton of his own energy.

Honestly that was the worst drawback of his abilities. He could only use the Stone directly for as long as his energy lasted. If he used some other medium for the thing, he would be using the Stone's own energy to power the changes. Much more efficient that way, but he had so much more control while using his energy as the medium. Maybe in the
future, he would be able to draw energy from the Stones as he used them, equaling it all out, but at the moment that wasn't feasible.

As for his Celestial energy storage problem, after spending some time studying the makeup of his new Oricalcum ring, he could now use his energy to create a few more. Each ring held about nine or ten times as much energy as his seventeen-year-old body could, and it took about that same amount of energy to create another ring from scratch, then
about four-to-five hours to fill the ring up using the residual energy of the Time Stone. He currently only had four of them, which he left on the index and ring fingers of each hand. He didn't really need more at the moment, already having access to over forty times the amount of energy than before. Not to mention he was having a bit of trouble
controlling that much. The rings basically made it so that he didn't have to control it all, being a relatively good container, but even these containers had holes in them - however small. Meaning he had to periodically swivel his sixth sense through them to keep the leaking to a minimum.

Through his entire time at Kamar-Taj so far, the Time Stone was fully in his possession, so by using the residual energy of the Stone, he could keep his own reserves at an acceptable level even while altering his perception constantly. He spent an ungodly amount of time in the library, guarded by the Librarian and the other students, so it seemed there
was little to fear of him stealing the damn thing, or using it in an untoward manner.

The Librarian was kind of scary.

The Ancient One personally telling him to hold onto it whenever he was in the library probably helped a bit on that front, too.

As for the actual altering of his perception, he had to use the capabilities of his own energy to directly target the firing synapses in his brain, as well as his eyes in particular, as they had to move around faster to match with the incoming stream of information, then steering the 'slipping' sensation of the Stone's energies to speed up the flow of time like
he had done on the apple. If he hadn't targeted his eyes, he would experience the hell of staring at one spot for seemingly hours at a time as his mind sped up to take in everything, even though only seconds would pass.

One would think that targeting all of the synapses of his brain would be far beyond his abilities at this point, but if he 'zoomed out', and just targeted the area of effect, it seemed to work. No doubt it would be more effective if he could target each individual connection directly, but at his current level, the effect was still substantial. As he was now, he
could read a book as fast as he could turn the pages. Of course his hands were unaffected, so he found himself turning those pages with agonizing slowness, often starting to turn the page as soon as he began reading it.

Of course, doing all of this also came with the drawback of aging his brain and eyes many times the normal rate. His brain was actually pretty easy to target, as well. Meaning that he wouldn't run the risk of aging other parts of his body unneededly. As for what he was aging, he could sort-of counteract that by periodically strengthening the squishy bits
by flooding them completely with his own energy, untainted by the green stuff; enhancing the cellular life expectancy. It wasn't a complete solution, but it would do for the time-being.

That was something else he had learned about himself. His Celestial fire could enhance biological processes and strength simply by being present in individual cells. The effect was miniscule without proper direction, but a deep paper cut could be healed in a few hours, rather than a day or two with its help.

He would have to study biology at some point to get better at actually healing himself. That would be a pain in the ass. The workings of the human body were ridiculously complicated.

In the following few months, using his new trick - nearly four full years in his mind - he had taken to simply learning languages, both living and dead. Latin, Greek, Sumerian Cuneiform, Hindi, German, etcetera etcetera. He even put some time into Xhosa, the primary language of Wakanda. Speaking any of them was a bit of a problem, but he could read
them all just fine.

This allowed him to actually read a lot of the ancient texts within the library. Of course, though, the librarian was the one recommending his reading list, and by 'recommending', he meant that the diminutive man took no shit despite his appearance, and force-fed him said list; outright refusing deviation from it until he had a sufficient level of 'base
knowledge'.

As it turns out, most of the students at Kamar-Taj wouldn't begin learning how to utilize the basics of magic until the Librarian was done with them. This process would usually take around a year, depending on the person, however Nathan apparently had a special place in the man's heart. He had been utterly ruthless in insisting on a higher level for
Nathan before he even began. Most only learned one or two languages and read through the first few tomes of introductory information before their first practical lessons, but Nathan had been forced to learn eleven languages outside of the two that he already knew; English and French, and have a comprehensive knowledge of the theories and studies
done in three separate fields of magic. By no means was he expected to know how to perform any of them, just know about them.

Surprisingly, he was able to pick which three he wanted to study - from a list provided by the Librarian, but still; he was offered a choice. He was starting to think he impressed the man or something.

He chose Dao Weaponry, Eldritch Enchanting, and Mental Defense.

The first two were more on the 'advanced' end of the spectrum, but he had the time to dive into them fully, using his little trick with the Stone, so they weren't much of a hassle regardless of how difficult their concepts were. Mental Defense, though, was one of those 'all-encompassing' fields. Meaning that it had levels of difficulty ranging from beginner
to bullshit.

There were a few different mindsets for the practice, but the one that clicked with him was along the lines of Sherlock Holmes' Mind Palace. The book on the subject was written by an ancient Roman sorcerer who's name had been lost to time. The book itself had been thought lost as well, apparently, though 'The Method of Loci' was referenced in major
academic resources all over the place. Even Cicero, one of the most famous Roman writers of all time spoke of it, even though he couldn't use the magical aspects of it.

'The Method of Loci' was a rather short collection of scrolls, rather than what we usually recognize as a 'book'. It was about the equivalent of a fifty page novel, but covered concepts that went way over Nathan's head. Still, he was able to utilize the basic meditation practices, as well as the more mundane art of organizing his memory. The defensive
aspects of the craft were all magical in nature, and he couldn't even begin to start on them with his current level of ability, however outside of the defensive abilities, there was one magical concept in 'The Method of Loci' that he could already use: powered by his Celestial Energy instead of Chi, he could easily sort desired memories and information for
quick retrieval - essentially granting a minor eidetic memory.

Chi was an interesting energy that was called for in many uses of the Mystical Arts, but it required many, many years to develop. It was characterized by strength of mind and body, and when utilized correctly, could enhance nearly any other type of magical force, or be used on its own to devastating effect. 'The Method of Loci', in the very first scroll that
mentioned the magical properties of the art, described how one could gain a further control of their mindscape through the use of Chi, giving everything more weight and form in their mind. Apparently most practitioners of the Mystic Arts weren't able to use anything past the mundane version of 'The Method of Loci' due to the Chi requirements.
Evidently Chi was one of the most advanced aspects of magic taught at Kamar-Taj. Only the Masters had any control over it.

This didn't help Nathan either, as he was currently in the body of a five-year-old, meaning that he had no strength of body, regardless of the strength of his mind. Chi required both. So instead, he looked into using what he already had: Celestial energy.

Nathan was happy to find that it made a suitable replacement, even though it didn't seem to be as effective as the scroll said Chi was. In fact, Nathan was starting to suspect that he didn't have any Chi, and would probably never have it. The method to access Chi was remarkably similar to how he accessecd his Celestial energy, meaning any Chi he might
have had was probably overridden. Even if that was the case, Nathan wasn't too upset. His blue fire was way cooler than Chi ever could be.

Well, with all that figured out, an enhanced memory did wonders for learning all of those languages. Even with those functional four years that he had, without his mental library, he would not have been able to learn even four languages effectively. With the library, he could get all eleven to a passable level.

It took him two full days of Time Stone augmented meditation to create his own organized inner world, which at the moment was just a Greek temple-themed library.

Simple as it was, it worked, and he couldn't be happier with the results.

So there he was, four months into his stay at Kamar-Taj, having learned more than he ever dreamed possible in such a short amount of time, and standing in front of the door to The Ancient One's study. He was told by the Librarian that he was ready for more practical lessons just twenty minutes prior, and then was promptly handed an introductory
book on Arabic.

The prick.

After his daily return of the Time Stone to the Eye's pedestal, he was told that the Ancient One wanted to see him, so he made his way through the corridors to her study.

The current doorman on rotation, now a rather stocky German man named Richard, simply waved him through to their leader's study.

Once inside, he bowed respectfully to the woman behind the desk. "Master, you wished to see me?" Four months in this place - about four years in his mind - really beat into his head just how much the Sorcerer Supreme and nearly everyone else in this lifestyle deserved respect.

Magic was fucking hard.

"Ah, Nathan." She said, looking up from what appeared to be an Egyptian papyri scroll, and gestured to the chair on the other side of the desk. "Sit, please. I was told that you had finished all that Master Haman had assigned you, correct?"

"Master Haman?" Nathan responded with a raised eyebrow, taking the offered seat.

The woman's mouth twitched upwards. "The Librarian."

"Ah." Nathan blinked, just realizing that he never learned the man's name, then shrugged. "Well he did just give me this, but otherwise, it seems so." He removed the book on introductory Arabic from the crook of his arm and showed it to her.

Nathan had the distinct feeling that the woman in front of him was fighting a smile.

"Master Haman gives me regular reports on the progress of the newer students. You seem to have impressed him with your intake of knowledge, so I wouldn't be surprised if he continues to push you."

The five-year-old just sighed, resigning himself to continue his current pace for a while.

The woman snorted lightly. "Oh stop pouting, after just four months here you've managed to learn more than most do in half a decade, if only in languages and spots of theoretical knowledge. You've created quite the foundation. With your current language background, you have access to over half of our collection of texts, which is more than a few of
the Masters. We only require the knowledge of three languages for our initiates, and few continue learning them in earnest when they advance."

That surprised Nathan. "Really? I don't feel like I've accomplished much at all, considering how much I've cheated."

"I would hardly call utilizing your resources as 'cheating', Nathan. The Time Stone just so happening to be one of the resources available to you does not mean that you are being underhanded with its use. Though from at this point, I do not think you should use it further."

He perked up, slightly confused. "Why? It's been going fine so far."

"Yes, but we still don't know exactly what it has been doing to your brain. I have been worried for a time now that it will affect you negatively in the future. You do have the body of a child right now."

Nathan nodded slowly. "Fair enough, I can't really argue that point." He was already mourning the loss of his increased learning speed, though he could still utilize his inner library and Astral Projection - once he learned it - to keep a pace that should mirror what Strange was able to accomplish, but Strange was a complete genius even without counting
his memory.

She smiled warmly. "Though if Master Haman is accurate, it seems you are already prepared to start with a more advanced class. We begin all of our students with the Sling Ring, which is ongoing, and starts at five in the morning on Wednesdays; if you didn't already know. Please make your way to the central courtyard at that time."

He smiled widely, unable to hide his excitement, and bowed his head. "Thank you master."

"Though before we start on that, I think it's about time we spoke of a certain topic."

Nathan raised his eyes to meet her own. "I'm honestly surprised you waited this long."

She smiled slightly. "I think you'll find I can be quite patient. Though I wanted to see how you would fare with your basic studies before we started on this conversation, as well as get an idea of your overall personality. I feel I know you well enough now to at least understand your abilities. Now, I wish to know your drive."

"In other words, you want to know why I'm here, why I'll help protect this world, and how I know all that I do."

The older woman just continued smiling.

Nathan chuckled. "Alright, where should I start?"

Chapter Text

Nathan laughed lightly. "So yeah, I didn't exactly lie when I told Karl that I was an interdimensional demigod."

The woman nodded. She listened to his entire tale without the slightest reaction, and it was annoying Nathan to high-fucking-heaven. She really had a way of making people forget their egos.

Did the tiny, budding, Celestial-human hybrid that was dimensionally displaced think he was special or something?

Heh, nope. Apparently not.

"That's a fairly interesting story." She began. "I've only seen something similar a couple times, though for a few differences. Each instance has been included in the visions I've gotten through the Time Stone, the being in question hadn't died, and they're usually fully aware of how it happened. I know of a number of entities and magics that can move physical beings or souls across dimensions with varying difficulty. The Sling Ring that we use here, for instance, should allow us to travel to your home dimension with relative ease. However I am not aware of anything that might be capable of altering souls to fit into a sort-of 'reincarnation cycle', nor anything outside the influence of the ingot of Time itself."

Nathan nodded, thinking for a moment. "So I would be able to go back to my old dimension, then?"

She gave a small, sad shake of her head. "It's not exactly that simple. Most beings have some difficulty existing in a dimension outside of their own. Every dimension has its own unique energy, and every living thing uses that energy as a cornerstone to build off of. You being 'reborn' here makes me think that cornerstone was altered. There are still plenty of ways to travel the dimensions safely, but one must know exactly what they're dealing with so that they do not undo themselves in the process." She tilted her head. "You may have an easier time of it due to your circumstances, but I wouldn't want to risk it yet. Not until we teach you how we normally protect ourselves, at least."

The five-year-old frowned, then nodded again and asked, "Is that what you mean by 'altering souls', then? Being refitted for this dimension?"

"Well that, and when you were brought here, by whatever means, you ended up in the one possible circumstance that allowed for you to possess a Celestial heritage. And from what you tell me, Celestials' souls may be an entirely different animal compared to other, more mortal races." She drummed her fingers on her desk. "That means your soul was probably altered to be able to survive in your new body as well as our universe."

Nathan grunted with a sour look on his face. "I was trying really hard not to think about my circumstances being intelligent design, let alone the idea that I might not even be the same person anymore."

The Ancient One huffed in slight laughter, but conceded and changed the topic. "So in this… story, that the beings in your original dimension had access to, Kaecilius kills me around twenty years from now, and Strange takes over the role of Sorcerer Supreme? I admit I'm a little curious how that turned out. I've already seen his immediate future, but I couldn't see past my own death. I can see a few paths of his now, but they seem to be slightly altered in most cases."

"Yeah, he definitely becomes a powerful Sorcerer Supreme - if not the most powerful," Nathan crossed his arms and nodded to himself, looking at the floor, "but in the original story, after the incident with Dormammu; Karl, Wong, and Strange are literally the only competent magic users left. At least that I know of. I don't know of any other groups that might exist. Oh, and due to that misunderstanding that we cleared up earlier, Karl went all 'emo crazy person', and started murdering anyone that's ever used even the slightest bit of magic. Nearly all of the people that came here to 'cure' themselves had that 'cure' stripped from them during his crusade."

She frowned. "That's disheartening."

"Well, I think we've already fixed the thing with Mr. Mordo. One of the things I want to do is stop Kaecilius from rebelling in the first place. He seems a little power hungry, but his whole goal was to make everyone - that didn't get in his way - immortal and immune to time. Good intentions, meet the road to hell."

"I imagine that the main goal of yours is to have a more united front against this Thanos character, though."

Nathan shrugged. "I would rather not only have two capable sorcerers on our side against the purple idiot. If we can keep all of Kamar-Taj alive and active, we should be able to put up a better fight." Nathan's eyes widened slightly. "Oh hey, why don't we try and focus more people through the combat path?"

She shook her head slightly. "We teach a basic combat course here to everyone that's able, true, but we do not force our students down a path that they don't wish to follow."

Nathan grunted. "Yeah, but if you frame it as self defense, which isn't really a lie, we'll at least have more people that can fight, even if we can't rely on them to show up to a battlefield."

"We already do that, Nathan. I may be old, but I'm not senile. I've had a few good ideas over the years."

"Oh." He blinked. "That's good then. Well I guess the only thing we can do is prevent that whole debacle with Dormammu that's supposed to happen." Nathan paused and shrugged. "Shouldn't be too difficult to turn Kaecilius around since you gave that lecture last month. If all that bullcrap ends up happening, we'll lose over ninety percent of the people who can actually fight."

She had actually given that lecture about the nature of the 'Natural Law', and there were a number of students that looked like they were rethinking their entire existence. A couple of the masters, as well. Just that one talk wouldn't fix everything, but it was a pretty good start.

Through his time at Kamar-Taj, Nathan had put together a rough number of the practitioners of the Mystic Arts. There were roughly two hundred students at various points in their education, and about twelve Masters, though only around thirty lived in the temple. The other hundred-and-seventy-ish came and went as they pleased, or lived out of the other Sanctums.

There were three 'cliques' that Nathan could point out: the combatants, the scholars, and the self-helpers - or those that were only here because magic could help them get over some physical or mental disability. Nathan still didn't really have an idea of who fit where, or even how many were in each section, but there were easily more scholars than there were in the other two groups combined. The self-helpers only ever stuck around long enough to fix whatever problem they had, but there were a few that joined the scholars once their own problems were solved. There was even one lady that had recently joined the combat classes after converting a massive amount of muscular scar tissue into working muscle. It apparently took over three years for her to manage that feat, but she did it.

She was turning into a bit of a badass, actually.

The Ancient One sighed. "Unfortunately, when I was checking possible futures a few months ago, there were still a number of possibilities where a group of radicals start off those events. Though a good amount of them counted Kaecilius firmly on our side, we should still prepare for the worst I fear Dormammu's influence may be growing."

"I thought you didn't like to share your future knowledge?"

She smiled wryly. "I don't like to share specifics, yes. A general idea is passable depending on the situation. On that note, though, in light of the revelation that you too possess possible future knowledge, I would implore that you do not try and share it further than you have. You may speak with me about it if you wish, but few understand its burden, and I can tell you from experience that doing so will backfire magnificently." Her face contorted slightly, as if reliving a bad memory. "Everything tends to end much worse than foreseen when one shares this kind of information."

Nathan frowned. "Does that mean I shouldn't act on all the crap I know is going to happen?"

She shook her head. "I will not tell you how to lead your life, Nathan. Just keep my warning to heart. It's not so much acting on it, as it is telling people what will happen. People react poorly. Even the most composed of us fail in this regard."

Nathan bit his lip. "Alright, well I have a few plans, but I trust your judgment on this stuff, so I'll definitely keep you informed so you can yell at me when I'm doing something stupid." He looked her in the eyes. "Sound fair?"

She nodded with a small smile. "That sounds more than agreeable. You'll be making some important decisions, Nathan. Let me know if I can help." Then leaned her head forward slightly. "Anything about those 'plans' you can tell me now?"

Nathan shrugged. "They're all rough and barely actually planned out. To be honest, if I had to do it now, I would just try and be there for the big crap, and just wing it."

"That sounds more like 'goals', than 'plans'."

"Semantics." He waved it off with a small laugh. "Well basically, a bunch of heroes will be popping up left and right in about ten-to-fifteen years from now. I want to be able to help them out."

"That would be the other topic I wanted to talk about." She began, adopting a more serious atmosphere. "You've told me about yourself, but I still don't know why you're on this side of the equation. You've been given an incredible set of abilities and circumstances, and I regret to say that most people in your situation would not immediately try and be a hero."

"I think you're forgetting the fact that I was a pirate for eight years."

"Against your will, and you left as soon as you were able."

Nathan grunted.

She studied him for a moment. "Why do you want to help people? I can understand stopping Thanos, as you might end up being a victim yourself if you don't, but 'because you can' is an incredibly flimsy response. Who's to say you won't turn on us all later?"

"Well you, for one." Nathan pointed out. "Remember? Time Stone visions?"

"Please don't bring logic into this. I'm psychologically analyzing you." She responded with a smirk.

"Oh, burn. My friend, Riley, would be rolling in his grave right now."

"Is he one of the people that helped you make… Alice? Was it?"

Nathan nodded. "Alice is just what I call the version I made in this universe. The original's name was 'Overlord' and had the voice of Darth Vader because we thought it was funny." He paused for a moment, having a revelation. "That might actually be the reason why people went out of their way to kill off my friends... Huh."

"But yeah," He continued after shaking himself, "he was easily one of the more important people in the project. He was the only psychologist we had on the team, but completely essential to figuring out how the artificial intelligence should process information. We brought him in when the first iteration went sort-of insane." He smiled, thinking back on the memory. "It tried to kill us all with bad jazz music."

She blinked. "What?"

"Yep. Just turned on the radio, and kept typing out 'Die Die Die' in the command prompt while sending pictures of broken musical instruments to our cell phones."

She blinked again. "Well I believe we're getting sidetracked."

The ex-Ravager nodded, bit the inside of his cheek and 'hmm'ed. "Well I really don't have a better answer than 'because I can'." He started picking at one of his nails. "I'm not selfless, but my sense of self preservation is focused almost entirely on the financial aspect, rather than the 'keeping me alive' part of it." He waved a hand. "At least, that's what an old friend always told me, anyway.

"I don't know." He continued after a moment of thinking. "It's just every time I think about becoming evil, I picture some little girl asking her father why her mom had to die, or why their house got destroyed and why they have to live on the streets… It's just… I don't want to be the cause of that." He leaned back in his chair, staring at a point in space a few feet in front of him. "I'm definitely not the type of person to throw my entire being into helping at the cost of my way of life, but if I can secure my own space in this world with relative ease, make sure I'm fed and housed… And I have the power to help? Why the hell wouldn't I do it where I can? At least save the people in front of me?"

"So you'd jump into a fight for your life, just because you don't want a hypothetical child to cry?"

The five-year-old just shrugged. "It's dumb, I know. Every kid wants to be a superhero, and every adult wants love and luxury. I just don't want that little girl to suffer because of my decisions. I guess I get that from my mom in this life. She just wanted everyone to smile." He finished, with a sad smile of his own.

The Ancient One regarded him for a moment. "Her name was Meredith, right?"

Nathan nodded. "Yup. Total hippie."

She frowned, tapping the desk. "When you first arrived, you mentioned that your father killed her. I am only aware of the Tumor."

He grunted. "Well I know that from the stories from my original world. Ego, my father, was talking to Peter when they finally met up. He explained his evil plan, how he planted the tumor in mom and just fucked off back into space. Then Pete shot him full of holes. Only served to piss him off, but damn was that cathartic to watch."

"You're putting quite a bit of faith into the 'truth' of these stories, Nathan. It's still possible that things could differ from them."

He nodded slowly. "Well, I'll burn that bridge when I get to it. It's all I have to go off of. I promise I'll keep an eye out for anything that differs, but I really don't remember everything from those stories. I do have reason to believe that Ego's still a prick and planning on murdering the entire universe. The little details so far have all matched up with the lead-up to his plan in the story. The only proof I need is the seed of doom he supposedly left in the woods behind a Dairy Queen in Missouri. I was going to look for that after I could teleport around like a magic monkey on crack."

The Sorcerer Supreme held up a hand. "Wait a moment. I think we skipped over a few details there. He's planning on destroying the universe?"

Nathan shook his head. "Just taking over every planet, and turning them into extensions of himself, as well as all the people on them. It's genocide against life itself. The only thing stopping him is the fact that he needs another Celestial to help power the effort. The problem with that, is he's the only Celestial he knows. So to help it along, he tried having a metric fuck-ton of kids, trying to spread the gene. Only succeeded with Peter in the stories I know, but now there's me too."

"I can't help but feel that you're not giving this problem enough attention."

"The problem literally can't surface until Pete or I meet Ego. The only reason why it went as far as it did in the stories was because Pete held onto an Infinity Stone and didn't die. Word got back to Ego about that, and he started looking for him."

"When does this happen in the story?"

"When Pete's in his mid thirties, so about sixteen-seventeen years from now… ish." Nathan's mental library didn't only help him organize new information. He was able to go back through the memories of his previous life as well, and even though they were a bit blurry, he could pick up a lot of small details and cement them in memory with a little bit of effort. Because of that, he had a pretty solid idea of the order of events in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It wasn't perfect though. A lot of that information withered and died way before he learned how to use the 'Method of Loci'. He hadn't seen every marvel movie either, a decision he was now cursing. Also, The Ancient One brought up a good point. The movies might not have been the end-all-be-all of the MCU. It was actually possible that groups like the Fantastic Four, or the X-Men were around, just quiet, or hadn't come into their powers yet.

'I'll have to look up records of James Howlett, the Baxter Building, and anything else I can remember about the extended Marvel Universe…'

"Pete managed to kill Ego in the story just fine," Nathan continued, "but I do intend to be there for that. Ego isn't like the other Celestials that you know about. He's been alone since he was 'born', so he doesn't understand the advancements that the others have made. He's not nearly as strong as they are, and doesn't have access to their resources. I know his weakness, and with magic and whatever else I have under my belt by then… Well for a god, he doesn't live up to the threat level."

"Careful, Nathan. Your hubris is showing."

Nathan opened his mouth to respond, but immediately closed it. Then after a moment; "Literal definition of 'hubris'... Well played."

She nodded, ignoring the humor. "Confidence is all well and good, Nathan, but I've seen many go against far weaker foes and find themselves lacking. You have the potential to save many, and I don't want to see that squandered due to unfounded arrogance."

The five-year-old made a face, and sighed after a moment. "Point. Yeah, I feel like I might have psyched myself up a little too much to hold the Power Stone for the first time. You have no idea how scary that was; knowing that literally everyone else that tried, exploded."

"I think I can imagine. My point, though is that you need to be as strong as possible if you're going to take on a Celestial. Even if there is a good bit of time before those events happen, and even if your father isn't as strong as the others of his kind, for all intents and purposes, he is still a god, and you are still mortal. If only because you haven't figured out how not to be."

"Wait." Nathan held up a tiny hand. "I can be 'not mortal'?"

"You can control matter on an atomic level with little difficulty." She deadpanned. "You can use the Time Stone without a medium, and you have plenty of access to knowledge that, combined with your abilities could have the potential to extend your life almost indefinitely. I think it's safe to say you'll figure it out at some point."

"Huh…That's a bit heavy."

She nodded. "It was supposed to be. The only reason why I used my own method of extending life, was because there was no one who could replace me. Duty has been my bread and butter for millennia now. I know of the horrors that being alone in time can bring."

Nathan blinked at her suggested lifespan, but kept to the topic. "You have a literal army here." He cocked his head. "Didn't you say before that your organization consisted of Master and Student only? Before you started the school here, that is? Aren't the sheer numbers enough to carry your weight?"

"Unfortunately not." She shook her head slightly. "Due to my decision in pulling energy from the Dark Dimension, I later found that Dormammu was made aware of Earth because of it. Without my holding him back, obscuring the Earth from him, he would have long since taken the planet. Even counting the Sanctum Shields."

"And no one, not even a few together, can take up that responsibility?"

"Not unless they too pull from his dimension; a risk and burden I am not willing to impart on my students."

Nathan frowned. "So what made you perform the ritual, then? You don't strike me as power hungry."

The yellow-garbed woman sighed sadly. "Naivety. I wasn't even fourty years old at the time, but I was afraid that I wouldn't find my replacement before the end of my natural life. My charge was to protect the Time Stone, and my master dying in a battle with several demons left me as its only protector." She clenched her jaw. "My master had warned me away from the teachings of Cagliostro years before his death, but at the time, I thought it my only option. I had been losing hope in finding someone to continue the Arts.

"It wasn't three years later that I found a suitable candidate." She continued, showing a peeved expression for a faction of a second. "She has long since passed, but it was her idea to start a school after teaching her own disciple." She leaned back in her seat and gestured to the room. "Kamar-Taj was the home of my master, and his master before him. The history of my line tells us that it was Agamotto's home when he started the chain."

The two of them sat in silence for a moment until Nathan raised his head.

"Just… How old are you, exactly?"

She chuckled. "Don't you know it's rude to ask a lady her age?"

"Oh come on!" Nathan threw his hands up. "I'm super freaking curious, here! You're easily the oldest living member of humanity."

The yellow-garbed lady looked him in the eyes with a raised eyebrow. "You seem to be making quite the assumption there, Nathan."

The ex-Ravager blinked. "... Are you telling me I'm wrong?" Her title was 'The Ancient One' for fuck's sake. Nathan felt lied to.

The lady nodded. "I know of at least two that are older than me. One appears in and out of history since the age of Pharaohs, parading around as a god among men. I never met the man, but he has caused much strife throughout his time. I am not aware if he still lives, but records of him can be found in the library. One of our students was rather interested in him in the early twentieth century, and decided to compile the resources. His name was En Sabah Nur."

That… Sounded suspiciously familiar to Nathan. He would be looking that up. "And the other?"

"Selene Gallio." She responded simply. "A powerful psychic and gifted sorcerer. Her, I've met."

"Sorcerer? Was she taught here?" Nathan asked, interested in another seemingly immortal magic user. If she was taught at Kamar-Taj, how was it she was older than the woman in front of him?

However she shook her head, answering the question. "I don't know where she acquired her skills in the Mystic Arts, but she is far older than Nur. Nearly three times as much, and has been active for the entirety of that time. We fought once. I only won by utilizing the power I pull from the Dark Dimension to trap her. She managed to escape, but she hasn't caused nearly as much of a public upset as Nur, though that's not for a lack of trying."

"She's been alive for so long, and hasn't succeeded? Even once?" The child asked incredulously.

"Oh she's caused her fair share of problems, just not on the same scale as Nur. She prefers to work in the shadows. Currently, I believe she associates with an elite club of shady businessmen in Europe."

"If you know where she is, why not confront her again?"

"She simply isn't a priority if she's not causing problems." The Sorcerer Supreme shrugged. "I'm also the only one capable of doing so, and am kept quite busy here."

Nathan had seen the truth in that. It was nearly a constant battle, keeping extra-dimensional beings at bay. All of the Masters had their hands full, fighting off creatures that fed on dreams, shadow beasts that ate light, or any number of weird things that wanted some part of the cake. There were even actual demons that showed up from time to time. The last 'demon invasion' was in South Africa about twenty years ago, and it seemed to be a semi-regular occurrence.

Mephistopheles had a few hands in the pot, apparently.

And that was another thing: he should expect the Ghost Rider at some point. He heard that the soul-sucking fire-demon-man was in 'Agents of Shield', but he never got around to watching any meaningful length of that show.

"So literally everyone older than you is a bad cookie? Fun." Nathan pouted. "But really though; how long have you been around? I'm even more curious after hearing about those two."

Her lips twitched upwards. "Well, lets just say I met a man named Siddhārtha Gautama in my first century alive." She leaned forward slightly. "You might know him better as 'Buddha'."

The five-year-old gaped. "Please don't tell me that the cornerstone to a whole religion was just a sorcerer prancing around."

The ancient lady laughed. Like, fully laughed. "No, no. Gautama was no sorcerer. He did have a type of magic of his own, one which is still practiced today with little success, but he did not practice the Mystic Arts as stated by Agamotto. I cannot say the same for some other messiahs though." Her eyes shifted, staring through the wall on the far side of the room. "There was once a man named Yeshua for instance. The pronunciation differs greatly depending on the language, but he was widely seen as the son of a God for the magical feats he would perform, even though he never claimed to be. However he was indeed chosen by a deity of some sort. I could gather that much from the time he spent here in Kamar-Taj in his youth. If he was related, though, I am not aware. Extra-dimensional beings of power claiming champions was not… entirely uncommon in that era; even more so for the era before it.

"I later heard stories of his travels and exploits," She continued, "where he used his immense talent in the Arts, and personal gifts, to spread peace. I was sad to hear of his demise when the news arrived. Quite brutal, if I'm honest. There were tales of his return, but I never put much weight in them. Unfortunately though, his teachings have been misconstrued over the years. Many wars have been started to 'defend' them."

Something in that story rung a few bells in Nathan's mind, but he couldn't place it. "How did he die?"

She adopted a wry smile, still staring through the back wall. "The empire of the time and place saw him as a threat." She said simply.

Nathan waited for her to continue, but nothing further came.

After another moment, she turned to him. "Thank you Nathan. We got a little sidetracked, but that was all I needed. Remember; Wednesday at five sharp."

Nathan stood from his seat and bowed slightly. "Of course, Master."

Come Wednesday, Nathan couldn't quite contain himself. He stood in the courtyard with about twenty other students as one of the Masters; a short, bald, old man with a staggeringly long goatee, walked around with a box containing a number of large, dull golden rings. As he stopped in front of Nathan, the five-year-old picked one out of the box, and nodded to the man, who moved on to the next disciple.

As the Master moved along slowly, Nathan took the time to examine the ring. It was a little large for him, but it was made of two rings, connected by a thick bar that laid over top of them. Concluding that it was made entirely of Oricalcum, Nathan spotted two small rivets placed on either side of the bar's top face, along with a complex pattern that he could recognize from his studies in Eldritch Enchanting.

The pattern was a binding seal, if he placed it correctly… He'd look into it later.

"The Sling Ring is an essential tool in the Mystic Arts." The Master began once each student had a ring. His voice echoing throughout the courtyard as he walked towards the front. "They allow us to travel throughout the Multiverse. An essential tool for all practitioners of the Mystic arts. I am here to teach you all how to use them, but it is up to you to do so. All you need to do is focus. Visualize. See the destination in your mind; imagine every detail. The clearer the picture, the quicker, and easier, the gateway will open."

Now standing in front of the group, he placed his own ring on the index and ring fingers of his left hand, then held it out in front of him in a fist. "First, you must calm your mind. As you are aware, completing any spell is a battle between your greater mind, and your emotions. Let them wash away. Feel the ring on your fist, and focus." He let the crowd of students to his instructions for a moment. "Have you noticed?" He asked. "It is quite a complicated tool. There are three parts to it: one ring to ground your location, the second ring to link it to another, and the bar connecting them, both the rings and the locations."

He looked around, confirming he was understood before continuing. "There is a concept that you must understand before successfully creating a gateway: location does not exist. You are where you wish to be. Let the ring handle the magic. All you must do, is will yourself away."

He rose his right hand in line with his left fist, and drew a small circle in the air.

Immediately, golden sparks exploded in an arc as he drew them, slowly completing a large circle in the empty air. When the circle was completed, the air inside shimmered and blurred until an entirely different scene was displayed in front of the students.

An endless valley of flowers sitting atop rolling hills, all bending and weaving in the wind.

"Remember." The Master continued, letting the gateway fizzle out. "Location does not exist. Begin."

Chapter Text

"I am where I wish to be?" Nathan repeated to himself, studying the Sling Ring. "Why is everything a fucking riddle?"

"No." The Master repeated from twenty feet away, looking directly at Nathan. The Hell? Nathan was mumbling, how did he hear that?

… Magic. Right.

"You are where you wish to be." The old man repeated, putting a little more emphasis on the 'are' than before.

Nathan blinked. Was it a question of 'being', then? As in existence? But he said location didn't exist… No, he said 'wish' too, which made it more along the lines of willpower, but…

The five-year-old's thoughts bounced around in his head, trying to find the cipher to this puzzle when he caught a glimpse of the other students. Half of which had a fierce look of determination, glaring at a point in space just a few feet in front of them. The other half were just as confused as he was, staring down at the ring in their hands.

Some of these students had taken this lesson a few times. It was only required the once for each student, but a different Master would cycle through each week, offering a different perspective on the first basic class everyone takes. The only class that everyone takes. The only actual scheduled class that they offered.

Meaning that this was a piece of magic that was slightly different for everyone, that's why the instruction was only like three sentences.

OK. So the concept was that location didn't exist, and there was an emphasis on willpower. Meaning Nathan had to… Believe? No, he had to force himself to link two locations in his mind, and combine them, then will a sort of doorway to connect them, all the while channeling Eldritch energies through the Sling Ring.

Right?

Well accessing the Eldritch energies wasn't all that difficult. The third or fourth book that the Librarian assigned was always the same for every new student, containing a meditation technique to sense the energies of the cosmos.

Just think along the lines of that scene in the movie; where The Ancient One opened Strange's "eye" when they first met.

Even though that was more of a forced astral projection, in the Astral Form, a person is directly put into contact with all forms of energy, and can learn to access them individually in their physical form, through practice. Nathan couldn't project at this point, but the meditation technique took him halfway there.

The ex-space pirate had a pretty decent handle on accessing the energies, but he couldn't really use them for any type of magic yet. He did find that he could use them to help replenish his Celestial energy. However, even though it was much more effective than his normal efforts, it didn't hold a candle to what he could pull from an Infinity Stone. Think garden hose as normal, fire hose as pulling from Eldritch energy, and the goddamn Nile River for the Power Stone.

Turning his attention back to the Sling Ring, he held his fist out in front of him and started to funnel some of those cosmic energies into the ring, feeling it hum with slight power. After that was a fight of focus; trying to balance the energies with the concept of a lack of fucking location.

He was lucky the ring was handling the hard part, to be honest.

It took about twenty minutes before he didn't really have to think about funneling the energies anymore. He knew it would take a much longer time before it was second nature; not having to think about it at all, so he could focus on the complex magical formulas without splitting his mind in seven different directions, but honestly, what did he expect on the first day?

In the end, he didn't get anything more than a couple of golden sparks that morning, but after focusing on the task, and nothing else for the next week?

Oh boy that sparkly, golden, stable gateway was a beautiful sight to see.

He spent some time trying to figure out where to make a portal to, and ended up with that island back on Morag, the one where he spent three months with the Power Stone. It was the only place that wasn't on a spaceship that he could remember clearly, other than his room in Kamar-Taj. Plus, proof of concept: he could travel between galaxies in a blink if he wanted to, now.

Bonus too; the Sling Ring was apparently his to keep.

The students that studied enchanting were in charge of making them, he learned, and the base materials for Oricalcum only cost about 850 rupees per ring, so the temple could reasonably afford to give them out. He had still had no idea what that was in USD, but he could get a pretty decent, if cheap, meal for that much.

Nathan would be joining in on those enchanting groups later on, since it was one of his three main focus points in his education; from when he was previously prompted by the Librarian. It wasn't a priority at the moment, but he could see it becoming incredibly useful.

But back to the magic he was currently learning:

The Sling Ring was just the beginning. The first thing he put time into after that, was figuring out Astral Projection so he could pull a Dr. Strange and keep learning while his physical body slept - somehow, it was possible to pull copies of books into the Astral Plane, much like one's clothes, which was the only reason the process was feasible. To that end he joined a couple study groups where the veteran students would give pointers between their own projects, and a couple of the Masters doing the same.

Within four or five days, he had it down, which he honestly owed to all the different perspectives he picked from, be it the Masters, the other students, or the books. Great Mother Meredith Quill, the books! With all the languages he knew, he could pick the brains of a wide variety of Masters from across the centuries!

He was starting to see why the study of languages was considered the foundation to learning at Kamar-Taj. None of the other students shared his learning speed, mainly just because of this. Half of them could even use the basics of 'The Method of Loci', and they still couldn't keep up and he wasn't even using the Time Stone anymore.

After that, pairing Astral Projection, 'The Method of Loci', and all the books, he just started to read. The only thing on his daily menu that took time away from that was the general combat classes, where he learned to shape basic Eldritch energies into shapes of hardened, sparkly weapons, or whips, and use them in the Shaolin-esque style that they taught there.

He did already know a more instinctual way of fighting that the Ravagers taught him, but it was still nothing compared to actual combat classes. Being in as young of a body as he was made the process a bit more difficult, though, so at the suggestion of one of the other students, he tried to adopt a more 'bouncy' aspect of the style; dodging and weaving, instead of aggressiveness and blocking.

He couldn't wait to kick his brother's ass when he got the chance. The sass-monster was a much better fighter when they were learning together, and put him on the floor more times than Nathan wanted to admit.

Outside of those classes, he read about everything that he might need as a mystic defender of Earth: extra-dimensional creature bestiaries, first-person accounts of Masters calming random cosmic energy spikes and accounts of fighting off said creatures, tutorial scrolls on various forms of magic, and records of various dimensions that his predecessors had traveled to. All the while carefully organizing the information in his mental library, making sure he would be able to retain as much as possible.

Overall, by the time he turned seven - again, he was counted among those veteran students that helped teach the new arrivals.

Which is why he was dealing with this idiot.

"You expect me to believe, that this…" The Middle-Eastern man paused, waving his hands in a large gesture towards Nathan. "Toddler is capable of anything more than wetting the bed?" He finished in a thick accent.

The man, though Nathan was hesitant to call him that, was a rather lanky individual named Imir. He was the son of some rich businessman from Dubai, and lived the life of luxury; fed with a platinum spoon since birth, and seemed to be the type to scoff at the prospect of switching to the golden utensil. God save you if you suggested silver.

Nathan was honestly disappointed. There was another student in the temple that was from Dubai, named Rasheed. Rasheed was one of the few students that helped Nathan learn Arabic, and they had a relatively friendly relationship built up since then. Rasheed even had about the same level of upbringing that Imir had, yet was far less conceited about it.

Nathan had been hoping to earn another likable colleague, but it seemed this guy was pretty hung up on being a cunt.

"It's bad enough that I must deal with a woman in charge of this… heap." He continued, looking around with an expression of disgust, before returning his attention to Karl; completely ignoring Nathan. "And now I am subjected to this?!"

"Hey Karl," Nathan began, cutting off whatever his friend was about to say in retaliation, "Want to go get some lunch? My treat."

Karl blinked and looked down at Nathan, a light of realization tinting his eyes after a moment. "Can we try out that new corner shop a few streets down? I hear they have Mexican food."

The seven-year-old breathed in quickly. "I'd kill for a burrito. It's been… a long time since I've had one of those." The last time he had the delicacy was a week or so before he had been abducted by the ravagers, so nearly eleven years. That was way too long to go without a burrito.

"Kaecilius recommended the place, said it was pretty good." Karl shrugged.

"Wait what? Dude, don't trust his opinion on food. He likes anchovies."

"He does?" Karl recoiled with an upturned lip. "Alright, maybe somewhere else, then."

"You are ignoring me." Imir piped in, visibly annoyed.

Nathan nodded in his direction. "Oh, you're still here."

"Of course I'm still here, you ignorant child!"

"Why, though? If you don't want my help, I won't give it to you. Simple as that." Said child shrugged. "You should know the way out, so feel free to use it."

The Dubaian man clenched his jaw. "I was informed that there was a man who could help me begin my studies, but instead I am lead to... this!" He spit out, gesturing at Nathan, while talking to Karl. "Do not insult me further. I demand you take me to the man who is set to teach me."

"You did meet the Ancient One, right?" Karl asked, with a confusedly cocked eyebrow.

"I met the woman who pretends to be your master, yes. I expect to meet the true Master of Magic once I prove my worth." Imir returned with a proud sneer.

"Man, how are you even alive right now?" Nathan asked, baffled.

"Nathan, the Sorcerer Supreme does not murder people that annoy her." The teenager shot back with half-lidded eyes. "If he was a danger, it might be different-"

"He's a danger to himself." Nathan interrupted, looking at Karl and waving his arm toward Imir. "You're hearing this crap too, right?"

"I am, but the fact that he's around to say it, proves my point."

The boy grumbled.

"I am being insulted directly now!" Imir started to turn red in the face. "The audacity of this-"

"Alright," Nathan stopped him, pulling his Sling Ring from his belt, and using his Celestial energy to float himself up to Imir's eye-level, glaring directly into them and making the man go wide-eyed at the display. He would admit that he'd been slacking with his own energy in favor of learning everything else, but he was able to get pretty good with the telekinetic aspects in passing. Pulling one book to him from across the room, levitating himself up to the top of the bookshelf to grab another… turning the pages when he got lazy. You know; little stuff.

"You're leaving. I'm done with this." Nathan stated and flicked a finger in a quick circle, opening a portal directly under Imir, depositing him in the Bay of Bengal: the same bay where he parked his ship. The Middle Eastern man yelped as the floor suddenly disappeared beneath his feet, and they heard a splash just as the now seven-year-old closed the portal.

"Now why would you do that?" Karl said, visibly trying to hold back a laugh.

"She did it again." Nathan sighed, hopping up on a bench in the hallway, and swung his legs like the kid he was. "In the past few months, I've had to deal with three of those." He gestured to the spot where he sent Imir for a swim.

"Truly? And here he thought he was special."

"Oh don't get me wrong, that ego of his was pretty special." Nathan nodded sagely. "I think she just doesn't want to deal with people like that, so she pushes them off on me so I can kick them out for her."

Karl paused. "Are you sure about that? Or are you just assuming it?"

"Well she hasn't yelled at me for doing it yet." Nathan shrugged. "I'm pretty sure she just wants to put people like that in their place; declaring a child as their mentor just insults their 'better sensibilities'." He said with air quotes. "Either that or as a further test to newcomers. I mean you know about that switch-a-roo she does when people are first meeting the 'Ancient One'." The seven-year-old slumped. "Everyone else I've helped has been perfectly reasonable… Well, they still look at me weird, but they take me seriously."

Karl 'hmm'd', and they both fell into silence for a moment.

"That offer for lunch still available? I'm getting tired of rice."

Nathan chuckled. "Sure man, but I don't think I trust that Mexican place."

"Fair enough." He responded with a slight smile.

It didn't take long for something interesting to happen after that.

Kamar-Taj had a system in place to give experience to their more advanced students. Meaning that every month or so, there was a spontaneous field trip where one of the Masters would take a small group of students out to deal with whatever issue inevitably popped up. A few of the students that were deemed ready were told that they had five minutes to get to the central courtyard, where one of the Masters would give a short explanation and open a portal to the location.

Nathan would learn later that if the location hadn't been traveled to before, the place would be scried in a bowl of water, giving the user a decent picture of the area. A useful tip that the Ancient One 'forgot' to tell people until they traveled the hard way a few times.

Something-something- you should appreciate the gift of instant transportation, blah blah blah.

The seven-year-old was one of six students called into the courtyard that morning. All of which were under thirty years old, and had been on these excursions before. Nathan was the only first-timer, and had honestly never met anyone in the group before. Most of these people were actually on the home stretch; expecting to get the title of 'Master' within the next couple of years.

One might think that, if there were five - six if you counted Nathan - up for the combat promotion, how was there such a low number of Masters? Well, the mortality rate was pretty high on these field-trips, and it was much harder to gain the title of 'Master' as a pure scholar. Every year, there were at least five students that didn't come back. Sometimes even the Masters would be overwhelmed. For example, in the case of that Demon invasion in South Africa twenty years ago… Nobody came back. The Sorcerer Supreme was forced to deal with that one in the end.

Even so, all of the people going into it were explained the risks, as the Master was currently doing for everyone in the courtyard, and nobody was allowed to go unless they were recommended by a combat instructor. Everyone chose this path, despite its risks, and Nathan was no exception.

He had gotten his recommendation just two days before, and refused to back down. He had spent just under two years at Kamar-Taj so far, and in that time, he had learned far more than he had ever thought possible. Nathan was ready.

Probably.

"Do you all understand the perils of our task?" The kind voice of Master Ghodi asked, staring directly at the lone child in the group. Which made sense, everyone else had already been on these trips, meaning they knew the ropes. It wasn't a question of abilities, as everyone here needed the OK of a combat Master. His presence might have caused a bit of surprise, but nothing more on that end.

Nathan nodded in a small bow toward the sixty-two-year-old Indian man.

Master Ghodi was a spry old-timer; very well built for a man his age. He was bald, like most of the other men at the temple, and had a thick black beard that didn't give his age away. The only thing doing that were the wrinkles. He also stood an inch or two shorter than most, walked with a slight limp, and, forgoing a cane, kept his hands clasped under baggy sleeves.

"Good." He acknowledged, and turned away from the assembled students, flicking a finger and opening a portal.

Did he just do that without a Sling Ring?

"We will be going to northern Italy today." Master Ghodi began, as if he was picking out where they would be getting groceries. "Just East of a town called Bolzano, some sort of energy spike been detected. We will be investigating, and may have to deal with whatever has caused it. Follow me." He finished succinctly, and briskly walked through the portal.

As everyone funneled through after him, Nathan found that they had appeared in Bolzano, rather than outside of it. They came out on the edge of a park by a traffic circle, next to a fountain with a bunch of stone frogs spitting water toward the center, or at least should have been spitting water - according to the tourist poster that stood next to it.

At this point, a number of strange things became apparent.

The portal that they all went through blinked away, as if fighting off static, rather than the usual, smooth fizzle. Master Ghodi just stared at the space it had occupied with a blank expression, until one of the students piped up.

"Master," he began worriedly, "did you aim for the town when you set the portal?"

"I did not." He responded with the same bland tone as when he gave his earlier speech, which just made the student who asked worry more.

"There are a lot of car crashes…" The student observed after a moment. That was true. Wreckage after wreckage were littering the streets, almost as if the drivers just disappeared mid travel.

"What happened to all the people? We're in a tourist spot, on a Saturday, in mid-afternoon." One of the two women in the group pointed out.

"The clouds are really thick." An Asian student said.

"That might be due to the fires, Hong." Another student theorized.

The Asian student who had previously spoke, apparently named Hong, nodded and glanced around at a few of the buildings that were, indeed, on fire and billowing smoke into the darkened sky. A darkened sky around two P.M.

It kind of reminded Nathan of the sky in Dragon Ball Z, when the dragon was summoned. All dark and spooky, but still able to see the sun in the distant horizon.

"No." Master Ghodi corrected, still cucumber-cool. "This amount of fire could not create such clouds." He turned toward the mountains that Nathan supposed were East of the town, based off of Master Ghodi's speech back at the temple, and started to walk quickly in that direction. "Come, it seems this might be one of the more difficult tasks."

Everyone quickly fell in line with him, adopting some sort of formation that Nathan wasn't privy to. They were also walking much faster than his little legs could keep up with, without resorting to running, so he picked himself off the ground with his Celestial energy and floated along in the back of the group.

One of the older students, the one that 'corrected' Hong, glanced back at him and tsked, but quickly diverted his attention to the surroundings; keeping a watchful eye for potential danger.

The ex-Ravager smirked slightly. The dude was just jealous that Nathan could fly, and he couldn't. Sucks to be him.

Honestly, since Nathan was now able to store over forty times the amount of Celestial energy than before, due to the Oricalcum rings and despite his smaller frame, floating along like this barely did anything to his reserves. He had actually taken to using it as his primary mode of transportation, even, meaning he was continually getting better at it too; reducing the resource costs further, and being able to use it subconsciously.

Lazy? Yep. Totally fucking awesome? Definitely.

All he needed was a black, hooded robe, a deranged giggle, and to figure out how to blast lightning from his fingers. With all that, he would be an unholy combination of Yoda and Palpatine; considering how small he was.

Life goals.

Meandering in what Nathan thought was Eastward, the group didn't come across a single person, or even any dead bodies, but there was plenty destruction and fire. Cars were flipped on their side or crashed into storefronts, half of the trees in the park they passed were felled and burning, and they hadn't yet passed a building that didn't have a hole in it, or a roof that hadn't been ripped off. Past the buildings on his right, there were a set of train tracks, where even a derailed train laid on its side.

Whatever caused this anomaly had only been detected about twenty minutes ago. How did all of this happen within that time frame? How was an entire town emptied of its residents in under twenty minutes?

Unless… Maybe whatever had done this had been around already, and caused this much damage before they picked up the spike? Nathan had been assuming that whatever caused the energy spike was the use of some major magic, or minor convergence between dimensions, but maybe whatever, or whoever, had a way to subvert the detection spells...

If that was the case, then how were they detected at all?

This was starting to resemble The Snap far too much for Nathan's liking, regardless of how contained it seemed to be.

"Eyes front." Master Ghodi said suddenly as they cleared the town's limits.

At once, all eyes turned towards the mountain range, where the fires from town seemed to have spread. Even from this distance, they could all see a single figure among felled and burning trees, cloaked in billowing darkness that even dimmed the blaze that spread around it.

Staring directly at them.

"Descendants of the Peon Gods." A voice of gravel seemed to declare, rather than ask, reverberating through the air, and shaking each of the practitioners of the Mystic Arts to their core. Forget the distance between them, because it didn't yell or scream, instead merely speaking those words, yet they were still heard.

"This plane will be brought to heel." It continued. "The banner of the Old Ones will be risen atop your graves, as is the fate of all that is, or will be."

Chapter Text

The shadows exploded outward from the wraith in a liquid flow, consuming even the fires that clung to the trees like a burst dam. And from that inky doom, deep black tentacles of darkness-formed-mass rose from the growling void and slammed down, again and again, crawling at a terrifying pace towards Master Ghodi and Nathan.

At the same time, a slight, yellowish-gold aura started to form around Master Ghodi, who stood solid, staring down the tide like a badass, forming a Tao Mandala in one hand as a shield, as well as a golden lightsaber-like weapon that extended from his other hand's index and middle fingers.

Before the wave reached them, Nathan flung himself away through the air towards the town using his Celestial energy. He had hesitated long enough as it was, and it was getting to the point of no return, but judging by the wraith's reaction to his fellow students' escape, it wasn't too worried about them getting away; which either meant it had help, or was confident in its own abilities.

Either way didn't bode well.

Nathan didn't look back as he fled, but he could hear deep, guttural growls, roars of pain, and static, paired with the sound of dull weight crashing against the landscape, or maybe trees being uprooted. There was definitely the sound of more than one creature in that battle, and even more on his heels. He wasn't sure exactly what source of energy the Master was using to combat the wraith and its friends, but it at least sounded effective. He hadn't heard any screams that might have come from a human, anyway.

It didn't take long for him to catch up with the other students: being able to fly was pretty awesome. However, the wave of darkness was quickly covering the same distance. Even alone, he wouldn't be able to escape before it reached him, so he slowed his pace to match theirs. Strength in numbers, and whatnot. As it was, the flood had already nearly reached the town, and Nathan was only just inside the first block, the other students running beside him.

"How are you still able to use magic?!" The jealous, older student from before yelled over the sounds of destruction that approached them from behind, glancing back at the floating seven-year-old.

"Doesn't matter!" Nathan yelled back. "We've got to get out of here!"

"No, he's right!" The oldest female student, who had till then been quiet, spoke up. "If you figured out something, tell us! If we can defend ourselves, we might be able to escape faster!"

Nathan shook his head. "I have a set of abilities that are a little unique. It's how I can float like this, but I'm just as limited as-" Nathan stopped that train of thought and blinked. "Wait, maybe…"

A few weeks ago, Nathan had started meeting with the Ancient One semi-regularly. In these meetings, they started talking about possible uses for his Celestial energy in regards to magic. So far, they had been considering how they might go about adding his Celestial energy to already existing magical formulae, meaning they were trying to combine Eldritch energies with the Celestial variety, as that was how they typically used Chi to enhance spells. He had proved with 'The Method of Loci' that his own energy could sort-of double for that particular source.

He had only tried it the once so far, and It had failed spectacularly; partially singeing one of his eyebrows.

However, he had just seen Master Ghodi use a Tao Mandala, even though their access to the orange, sparkly stuff was restricted. He had no idea what that lightsaber was, though, as it was much more uniform and controlled than a normal Eldritch weapon could ever be, but it definitely looked effective. Odds were, it was another weapon within the Dao of Weaponry, which was the same category that the Tao Mandalas fell into.

The Dao of Weaponry was easily one of the largest Daos - or 'paths' - within the Mystic Arts. Throughout time, sorcerers had created innumerable styles of weapon constructs. It was also, arguably, the easiest Dao to start with due to this diversity. There was something for everyone, and it was open to interpretation and experimentation.

To get back on track though, the fact that Master Ghodi could still channel magic meant that he could use a source that was not affected by the wraith. However if it was a source that was as open to access as the Eldritch energies, he could just tell the students to switch to it. All of which were well versed in the known 'open' sources, meaning they could change the power source for their spells with little difficulty if the extra-dimensional entity that they called on allowed it. Mostly, though, those sources restricted the spells that were usable - each having a particular set. Everyone knew at least one for each major source. All they would have to do is sacrifice a rabbit or something later, so that wouldn't have been a big issue, but the Master didn't do any of that. This meant that he was using something local. Something that came from his own being. Meaning Master Ghodi was either using a forbidden ritual binding that would give him direct access to an extra-dimensional power, or… he was using Chi, and only Chi.

"Fucking eureka!" Nathan whispered to himself, then spoke up to the rest of the students. "I'm going to try something. You guys keep going. If any of you can use Chi, substitute that for the source for your spells. As long as one of us can get back to the Temple-"

"Who put you in charge?" The second youngest of the group, the girl, interrupted him.

"Chi?" The older woman asked, ignoring the younger.

Nathan nodded, even though he was in the back of the group and nobody could see it. He had pulled up even with them at first, but started to pull back after his lightbulb moment, pooling his Celestial energy and shaping it into a spell. "Yeah, whatever field the wraith is putting out seems to disable our connection to everything else."

"Is that how you're flying?" Hong asked. "You're using Chi?"

"Explanations later!" Nathan snapped. "We're being chased by the fucking Abyss itself, so less talky more runny!" Praying to whatever deities might be watching that what he was about to do would work. The seven-year-old dropped from his flight abruptly, turned one-eighty, and slammed his fist into the ground, releasing the spell at the same time.

Immediately, a blue wall of light erupted in front of Nathan and spread out to either side, bisecting the buildings and continuing a little further into the next streets over, and stretching over twenty meters high. This spell, the Rimu Wall, had grabbed his attention when he was looking up defensive magics. The description in the various texts reminded him of Wakanda's city shield in Infinity War, but golden. Now, in the mere fact that it was blue, was the spitting image of it. Although it was supposed to be much smaller.

"Holy shit. That worked." He mumbled to himself.

Why was it so big? Usually, these walls are only five or so meters wi-

The ink flood crashed against the blue wall of light, halted in its tracks and began to spread out. No doubt it was flowing over to the sides, but the wall would buy them a little time. However that wasn't the only thing that had been chasing them.

Lovecraftian, vaguely aquatic, monstrosities that his brain had trouble comprehending - he couldn't even tell what color they were - whipped their mangled limbs and tentacles at the wall in an attempt to break it. The wall itself screamed in an orchestra of sizzles and sparks, barely holding back the flood and threatening to break at any second.

Nathan quickly poured more energy into the spell, making it shine brilliantly before clasping his hands and shoving them forward.

The wall seemed to warp slightly, then burst outward; blasting the wave of creatures and ink backward, giving him a slight respite, as well as causing no small amount of damage to the buildings that the wall cut through.

He quickly turned around to find the other students stopped and staring. "Go, you idiots! We need the cavalry!"

He caught a glimpse of them starting to book it before turning back around, already forming another spell. He swung his arm in a wide circle, blasting hurricane force winds at the wave that tried for another push, sending the creatures and ink sprawling backwards and toppling a few of the broken buildings around them, whipping debris and the smaller monsters into the air.

Again, that was much more powerful than it should have been, but after the wall he suspected as much, otherwise he would have used something more powerful. However Power came with energy cost; he couldn't keep up this pace for long.

The goddamn Summer Gale spell seemed to be pretty effective at halting the wave's progress - even though it didn't do any damage at all, so he used it another three times before he was confident that the other students had gained some ground on the tide of horrors. However that had left him at about half of his reserves. The Rimu Wall was the most expensive spell of the two, taking about a quarter total after he made it explode. That was where he found the downside in using his own energy. When he used Eldritch energies, there was literally an infinite source to pull from, meaning he could blast these spells, one after another, for all eternity without breaking a sweat. When using his own energy though, even if the spells seemed to be innately more powerful, there was a finite pool that he was draining from.

'Oh yeah, four rings is enough. When will I need more energy than this any time soon?' Nathan mocked himself. 'First damn thing I do when I get back, I swear!'

He threw one last Summer Gale, shoving in a bit more energy than before, and actually collapsed the rest of the buildings around him, crushing a few of the abominations in the process, but then, something unexpected happened.

There was a loud explosion in the distance, from back where Master Ghodi and the wraith were, and immediately afterwards, the flood stopped.

Oh the creatures were all still there, but they stopped their mindless stampede, and the inky, liquid blackness started to recede. Or rather, it started to sink into the ground; dying everything the color of the void. The cobbled paths, the cars, the broken buildings to either side. Everything that the ink had touched turned black as the pitt.

For some reason, the creatures were giving him a bit of rest as they slowly got themselves up and turned to him. Some shook themselves slightly, most with loose, unmuscled jaws or mandibles that flailed around listlessly. It was as if the wraith had them in a frenzy, crashing forward with reckless abandon. Actually that made some sense; the Rimu Wall burns everything that it touches, and the creatures had just piled against it, not caring that their faces were melting off. It was obvious - from when it intercepted the telepathy link - that the creature had some control over mental magics, or some other ability along those lines, so it wasn't a stretch to think he was controlling these monstrosities. Or perhaps it had something to do with the inky liquid that had been raging through the town?

Whatever the case, that control had been shaken by something.

Hopefully Master Ghodi was wrecking the bastard back in the mountains.

Without having to worry about the black liquid, Nathan wouldn't have to keep throwing out the larger spells to push it all back, so he backed up a couple steps and formed the spell for a Spear of Skanda, substituting his own energy for the usual Eldritch variety. What appeared in his hand looked sort of what he imagined Zeus's lightning bolt would look like; a blue, seven-foot length of sparkling energy. One of the best parts about this particular spell was that the entire thing was an incredibly sharp blade except for where he chose to hold it. Useful for wrecking things at a distance, but a little lacking in defense. It probably wasn't the best fit for someone that was barely four feet tall, but the thing literally weighed nothing, and Nathan could fly, so…

One of the creatures, easily the largest at about two meters tall, seemed to be shaking off the after effects of the wraith's control faster than the rest. Nathan couldn't really be sure, as the creature's whole existence was blurry, but it appeared to have one large eye and the mouth of a piranha, which sat on a heap of tentacles.

Actually, the more he looked, the harder it was to tell where one creature ended and another started. At first glance, he could point out several masses of limbs and tentacles, which he had been assuming were individuals, but after staring at a couple of the masses for longer than a second - an effort that left him with a headache - he could point out separate bodies that were just piled on top of eachother, with no uniformity at all.

Some were just foot-long tubes with scaly hides, where others were vaguely humanoid with fins for arms. There was even a couple floating eyeballs with teeth instead of irises. Speaking of eyes, they were placed anywhere and everywhere without any thought towards symmetry or usefulness; for example, one of the monsters that was mostly teeth opened its gaping maw, only to reveal a giant, bleeding eye on the left side of its tongue - like it was having trouble keeping the eye away from its teeth. Some had twelve, others; none. There was literally no measurable pattern between them.

Nathan turned his thoughts away from trying to understand them. It was an exercise in futility, and only served to enhance his headache. Instead, the seven-year-old readied his spear and used his energy to launch himself towards the nearest abomination before they all got their bearings. Getting in close, he swung the weapon down, bisecting the creature and spraying a black inky liquid… wait a minute.

Was all that ink from before… blood?

Well shit, that's just gross. These things bleed black? Eugh.

Anyway, the previously confronted creature's two halves started to spasm before bursting like a popped balloon, spilling more of that black blood onto the street, which promptly did its part in dying the splattered surfaces black like the flood had done before. Nathan took care in not getting any of it on himself.

It was at this point that the other creatures locked their attention on Nathan, having finally shook themselves free of whatever control they had been under. Nathan pushed off the ground, floating quickly away to avoid a swipe of a tentacle, then had to duck and dodge around the massive maw of another creature as it tried to have him for a mid-afternoon snack.

Halfway through the dodge, the floating seven-year-old threw his spear, piercing through the attacking creature, which also shuddered, and popped like a balloon. Before the spear hit the ground on the other side, though, Nathan clenched his fist, stopping it in mid air. He then proceeded to make a hand sign, not unlike Spider Man's classic web-shooting sign, and swung his arm while twisting his wrist, which sent the spear soaring through the hoard of monsters, spinning madly the whole way.

The Spear of Skanda was easily his favorite conjured weapon so far, as it could do exactly as he was using it for currently. Most weapons required direct contact with the user, as the user's body was a 'gate' of sorts that fed the weapon power, allowing it to exhibit whatever specialty it had. This spear however, was one of the few exceptions, meaning that its special ability was the fact that it could separate from the user, and be controlled from a distance. Effectively making it a magic lightning rod of doom, attached to an invisible, sentient string that Nathan used to control it.

When Nathan was tasked to figure out a combat style that worked for him, he was forced to consider his current size. Meaning that it would probably be best to figure out how to fight from a medium-ish distance, rather than up close. If he was honest with himself though, fisticuffs were never going to be his style anyway. He had gotten the spear spell down a few months ago with little difficulty, but was having trouble with some of the hand-signs that would control it from a distance. Masters of the spell didn't need them, but as a beginner they were necessary. In the ancient Hindu text that he learned it from, written by the spell's creator, a man by the name of Skanda, told tales of armies falling to the use of this singular spell. Skanda, who was revered as a War God, could summon nearly a hundred of the things and control them with ease over an entire battlefield. Nathan was currently limited to the one, and could barely control its flight with any meaningful accuracy within half a football field's worth of space.

His original plan when coming up with a general strategy, was to use as many of the spears as possible, then defend with the Tao Mandalas while floating around above his enemies. Obviously he was nowhere near that good at multitasking yet.

Thankfully, these creatures were kind-of stupid. If Nathan had to guess, these were just the dregs, or something similar to chained wolves that were left to starve, then sicced on whatever the Wraith chose to let them at. They weren't exactly difficult to handle, as seen by the fact that they popped whenever his spear so much as grazed them. Or maybe that was an effect of the different energy source?

All the same, Nathan didn't fancy being an early dinner.

Trying to save even the smallest amount of energy, Nathan kept to floating just a foot or so off the ground as he ducked and weaved through the masses, calling his spear back to his hand, and throwing it, rather than having it dart around on its own. As it was, his reserves were steadily draining, but he would be able to keep up the pace for a little while yet. Thank Stan-fucking-Lee these things weren't that hard to kill. They weren't that fast, so it wasn't too hard to dodge around, but they were strong - thrashing around, ripping and pounding up the surroundings like no normal living creature could - and their blood was creepy as hell. Definitely wasn't going to let any of that get on him.

Nathan continued like that for… well, he wasn't sure how long. Time is a difficult thing to measure when your body is being pumped so full of adrenaline that you can track the movement of a hummingbird's wings.

That wasn't even an exaggeration. One of the creatures had wings that resembled one, attached to an eye, and nothing else. Seriously, though; what the hell was with these things and their creepy 'eye' theme?

Nathan had managed to gather the attention of the entire swarm of creatures, making it so the others wouldn't have trouble getting away, but he really hoped they would move their asses.

Thankfully, just as he finally got around to stabbing that damned hummingbird-eye thing, a large wave of golden force whipped around him, obliterating the remaining creatures, and leaving him a little wind-swept.

Nathan let out a breath and released his spear spell before dropping down to the ground on his ass, leaning back on his arms.

"'Bout time!" Nathan laughed without turning around. "I'm pretty sure Master Ghodi is still fighting the Wraith." He rose an arm, pointing down the street towards the mountains. "That-a-way."

"Thank you Nathan." The voice of the Ancient One began. "Master Gerand, Master Yuuki, please go on ahead and relieve Master Ghodi. I'll be there shortly."

Not bothering to respond, both individuals passed by Nathan at a dead sprint.

"I see you managed to get your energy and magical formulae to work together."

Nathan tilted his head backwards, peering at the lady as she walked towards him. "Well, what can I say? I'm pretty awesome."

She smiled. "I'm sure you are. Tell me, are you able to make it back alone? I'm afraid an Angled Wraith is a bit out of your pay-grade."

The seven-year-old waved her off, and laid down fully. "Yeah I got it. Go kick ass, boss-lady."

She chuckled as she passed him. "Go home, Nathan. You've done well."

Nathan blinked as he watched her quickly make her way down the street.

"'Home', huh?" He smiled and stumbled to his feet, mumbling to himself. "Didn't know I had one of those anymore."

Chapter Text

The absolute first thing that Nathan did when he returned to the temple was make more Oricalcum accessories. Well, technically it was the second thing, as he had to stop by the Time Stone and pull the ambient energy from it to refill his own stores first. Then he sat down and slowly formed six, thin bangles using his Celestial energy, which he slipped around his wrists. Three on each arm. Each bangle could store about twice the amount of energy than one of his rings. Each ring could store about ten times the amount that he could store in his body, meaning that functionally, he now had a 'tank' that could store over 160 times his base amount of energy: four times what he had on the mission.

He would have made more, but just those six rings had taken as many hours to create. Really, he was just exhausted, but that's not why he stopped.

"Nathan, correct?"

Said seven-year-old looked up from filling one of his new bangles with energy, to find the oldest female student that had gone on the previous mission. It was nearing midnight, and was honestly surprised that she was even awake. Most of the students were decidedly in the 'early to bed; early to rise' category.

Nathan nodded. "That's m'name."

She bowed slightly - very slightly. "I realize we never introduced ourselves. My name is Isabelle." She finished the thought with a small smile. "I would like to thank you; it was due to your actions that we were able to escape this afternoon."

Nathan's ears detected a rather heavy French accent from the woman; something he hadn't picked up before. Though granted, she hadn't said much until this point.

He shrugged it off. "No worries. I imagine you would have done the same, if able."

Her mouth twitched into a barely perceivable frown, but it disappeared almost as soon as Nathan noticed it.

"Speaking of that," she began, "you mentioned that it was through the use of Chi that you and Master Ghodi were able to fight off the Wraith and its thralls, correct?"

"Well I'm almost certain that's what Master Ghodi and the other Masters were using, yes."

"But not you?"

Nathan shook his head. "I am not one-hundred percent human." Noticing the guarded look she gave him, he continued, "The Ancient One is fully aware of my heritage. I'm here to learn and help protect everything just like the rest of you."

"Then why bring it up?"

"Well the half of me that isn't human has access to a certain type of energy. Energy that can mimic aspects of Chi - or at least can be used interchangeably. I'll admit that I only learned that during the fight back there, but I can do a few things with it that we can't do with other sources."

Realization shone in her eyes. "So that's how you are able to fly then?"

"Well, 'flying' is a bit difficult, but yes. Using my personal brand of energy, I am able to produce a sort-of 'thrust' that lets me float around - that's an oversimplification, but still kinda accurate. Takes a lot more energy to go at any respectable speed or height, though."

"That still seems rather convenient."

The ex-Ravager laughed. "I'm not disagreeing with you."

She tilted her head with a frowned brow. "Might I ask what the second half of your heritage is, then?"

Nathan smirked. "Space god."

She blinked. "What?"

Nathan opened his mouth to respond, but closed it after a second and waved the question away. "Not really that important, nor easy to explain."

She frowned again, but nodded and dropped the subject. "To be honest, none of us really expected much from you during that outing. We were informed that we were to be joined by another student, but none of us were entirely useful our first time. We expected to have to protect you." She tilted her head slightly. "I must say I was surprised that the exact opposite occurred."

Nathan shook his head with a wry smile. "Please, under any other circumstance I'm sure you all would have easily outdone me."

"And humble too." She quirked an eyebrow, keeping the smile.

"I assure you it's just a formality." The seven-year-old smirked.

Her smile widened. "Oh? So you wouldn't be adverse to a spar, then?"

Nathan fake gasped. "You would hit a child? For shame!"

"Oh please, I am well aware of your true age. The incident with the Eye was rather well gossiped."

"Ruin my all my fun, why don't you?" The boy pouted.

She huffed in laughter. "Well the offer to spar is true. In fact, us five tend to get together a couple times each week to do just zat." Her accent peeked through. "You are welcome to join us if you wish."

Nathan looked up, interested. "Really? I haven't seen any of you around in the two years I've been here. Where do you go?"

"Mongolia." She replied simply. "Xiang… We really do need to do introductions; while traveling northern Asia, he found a relatively secluded spot that we tend to meet at. It is rather beautiful there."

Nathan nodded a couple times, thinking it over. "Sounds fun. Thanks for the invitation."

She nodded back in acknowledgement before a note of realization shone in her eyes. "Ah, though I am glad I was able to thank you in person, I am here for an actual reason. The Ancient One has requested your presence when convenient."

Nathan sighed. "You probably should have lead with that."

She chuckled. "My apologies."

After making his new bangles fit a little better on his wrists, placing the Time Stone back in the Eye, and asking Master Haman to close it, Nathan made his way up towards the Ancient One's study: the room where he was first brought when he arrived.

The 'secretary' on rotation this time was one of the newer students; one that Nathan had actually took time to tutor every once in a while. Her name was Julia Redman, a Mexican-American college student and total hippie. She was on a study-abroad trip in Kathmandu when she stumbled across Kamar-Taj and decided to stay. She was also one of the first potential students that the Boss-Lady sent to him for further character testing / actual mentoring - Nathan still wasn't sure which was expected of him. It took her all of seven seconds after they first met to completely ignore his physical age, and she reminded him of his mother, so needless to say; he liked her.

"Nathan!" She greeted with a wide smile.

"Jules." He greeted back with a similar smile. "Good morning."

The hippie groaned. "You're not allowed to say that. It's like one A.M."

The little gremlin chuckled. "You get used to it." Nathan had to pull his own time as the glorified doorstop. It was supposed to teach a lesson in humility, and taking one's time with their studies. He never learned that lesson, but whatever. "I heard the Ancient One wanted to see me?"

She nodded. "Yup. Go on in." She palmed the door and slid it open for him.

"Thanks Jules."

She smiled back.

Walking into the study, Nathan noticed the Sorcerer Supreme meditating on the… air. Just kind-of floating there in the middle of the room.

"Okay, you have got to teach me how you do that."

"Nathan, you can already fly." She responded, deadpan; without breaking concentration.

Somehow.

He waved his little arms. "Yeah, but not when I'm meditating! Multitasking is hard!" He paused. "Also, how are you doing that exactly? I thought you needed an artefact to float around?"

The yellow-garbed woman sighed and untucked her legs; setting her feet down on the floor and walked back to her desk.

"Levitation is a complex spell, true, but hardly requires a crutch. Full flight is different though. Even I am unable to do that without a tool." She stopped at the tea tray and picked up a couple of cups. "As for multitasking, it will come in time. All you need is practice."

Pouring herself and Nathan a cup of tea, she sat down and gestured to the chair across from her.

Taking the hint, Nathan pulled himself into the seat. "So why, in the name of all that's holy, did you call me here in the wee hours of the morning?"

She snorted into her teacup. "Please, we both know you were still awake."

"It's the principle of the thing." He responded, dripping a glob of honey in his own cup and stirring it around.

Rolling her eyes, she set her cup down, still cradled in her hands. "A few things actually. First, I wanted to speak with you about what happened earlier today; see how you're holding up. I'm not sure what you've experienced outside of Earth's atmosphere, but as far as I know this is the first time you've had to fight with your life on the line."

Nathan nodded. "Well I can tell you this wasn't my first time. Space-pirating isn't exactly safe. Especially for children." He finished in a mumble.

It was true too. The first time, in both of his lives, that he had to legitimately fight for his life was a bit of a shell-shock. The Ravagers might have been relatively good to him as a whole, but they had their bad eggs. One such egg was a newer recruit that was being trained up at the same time as himself and Peter during his first year on their ship. He was the same physical age as Nathan, had just been saved from abusive parents, and dropped into an entirely new life of crime. The kid wasn't human, but the anatomy was close. A head, two legs, two arms, red blood, etcetera. He seemed alright at first, but it didn't take long until something made him snap.

Peter and the kid had fricken hated each other. Got on each other's nerves to the point where their 'spars' became outright brawls ninety percent of the time. Nathan had been ignoring it completely - that is, until the kid had enough of Peter beating him into the ground. Nathan wasn't really a fighter back then; much more into his job as a mechanic than anything else, so he was noted as the weaker link. Peter's soft spot.

One day, the kid cornered Nathan and locked them both in an airlock, as they were one of the few places on the ship with bolt-locked doors. The kid, of course had the access code to that particular door, so he could get back out, but Nathan…

The kid ran a fucking monologue, bragging about how his death would cause Peter pain, and knew Nathan couldn't take him in a fight from the few spars they'd had before. He had gone completely off the deep end, laughing hysterically while twisting the skin of his own wrists to the point of friction burn, and had passively torn off his own fingernails while scratching at his belt buckle.

Nathan had his ass handed to him. Beaten and bloody, he had tried to defend himself. He really did, but the kid had spent all his time fighting, where Nathan hadn't. It wasn't even close to fair.

Nathan didn't know where the kid had gotten a plasma torch, but he still had the scar: a four-inch wide, discolored, and jagged trench on the left side of his chest. Even now, in his younger, child body, the scar was still there. An ever-present reminder of the first person he was forced to kill. He wasn't sure why - or how - it was still there, but it probably had something to do with how his mind stayed in-tact as well after the Time-Stone fiasco. He didn't really want to think about it.

The only reason he was still alive was because the kid didn't know about the small serrated knife that Nathan kept on his utility belt for cutting wires. It was kind of dull, but it did the job. It took more than one swing, since the blade was so small, but his attacker was a kid; it wasn't like it was hard to hit an artery.

He managed to get out of the airlock by opening a service panel and rewiring the door controls, all-the-while ignoring the mutilated body behind him. If he was honest with himself, flushing the body out into space was the easiest thing he'd ever done.

Peter never did ask where the blood came from, even through the weird looks as he patched up the plasma burn and bruises for his brother, nor did he ask what happened to the kid. For that matter, none of the other Ravagers did either, but that didn't mean Nathan slept well for the next few months. He had an inkling that someone shared around the security footage, but nothing ever came of it outside of J'gaar, his mechanic boss, being a little nicer than usual.

He still didn't know the kid's name.

Since then he'd had to fight a few more times; even had to kill. The Ravager ship had gotten raided once by a rival pirate gang, and a few other odd skirmishes during their own raids, but never anything like that first time. Never anything so personal. Even getting assassinated in his previous life was mild compared to that. Clean, fast, and professional.

The Ancient One 'hmmed'. "I suppose not." She leaned forward, peering into his eyes. "I am willing to listen, Nathan. I have no doubt that was a rough life."

Nathan waved her off. "I'm living with it. Don't forget I've got over sixty years of experience. Plenty more good times than bad."

"That doesn't mean they even out."

"Even so, the fact that you care enough to ask is enough. Thank you." He said sincerely, looking her back in the eyes. "I mean it."

She gave him a flat, worried smile. "The offer is still on the table regardless."

Nathan smiled back tiredly. "You said there were a few reasons you called me over?"

Sighing, she nodded, and leaned back in her chair. "The second point is that we managed to defeat the Angled Wraith, but we're still not sure how it slipped into this plane, nor are we sure exactly what happened to the population of the town. I will be suggesting a few specific tomes that you look over for preparation."

The seven-year-old tilted his head to the side. "I'll be dealing with them in the future then?"

"It's a possibility, one that was so small before this afternoon that I had, unfortunately, been ignoring in favor of the more likely outcomes."

"You ignored something? That's a bit out of character."

"Oh shush. I cannot hope to commit every possible future to memory. I have only seen a mere twelve-or-so million of the infinite potential outcomes. Out of those, these events only occurred a handful of times, but now that they have, they open the doors to even worse things."

Nathan threw his hands up in surrender. "Alright, alright, I get it. So what do you expect me to do?"

"There is still a chance nothing will come of it, but I don't want you out of your depth if the Sunken City dwellers return. At that time, you may be one of the most able to defend against it." She reached into the drawer of her desk, and pulled out a tattered, bound journal. "This was written by a man who received visions, has even claimed to have seen the City itself, and interacted with the beings there. I personally don't put much stock in the latter bits, but the tales are accurate to what we know of R'lyeh. I suggest you see Master Haman in the Library. He can point you at the more… reputable sources."

She slid the journal over to him, which he belatedly realized was probably the first draft of a novel when he caught the title.

"Oh, you've got to be shitting me."

The Ancient One blinked. "What?"

"Well, Um…" Nathan just sat there, staring at the journal for a solid minute. "'The Call of Cthulhu' is a book in my own home universe. H.P. Lovecraft is a well known horror author there." He paused again before mumbling, "I thought all those things seemed familiar."

The two sat in silence for a moment.

"You're telling me that you know of these creatures?"

"Of them, yes." Nathan confirmed. "The fact that they actually exist, though? That's some serious nightmare fuel."

"I am unsure whether that is a boon or not. Do you already know how to deal with them?"

The boy shook his head. "I figured out today that they block off access to most of our energy sources, but that Chi and my own energy can be used as a good substitute. Further than that? No. I never actually got around to reading it before, but there was a lot of media that used it for inspiration. I'll read up on it."

"Good enough for now." She took another sip of her tea. "There are a few specific spells and techniques that are more effective than what you were using, but we can go over those at leisure. What I'm curious about is how you managed to use your personal brand of energy to power standard, Eldritch spells?"

Nathan sat up a little straighter. "To be honest it wasn't difficult at all. That one time we tried, we were trying to blend my energy with the Eldritch ones. I'm still not sure if that is possible, but using them alone seems to be feasible enough." He ran a hand through his hair, contemplative. "It was almost like pulling from the other sources, but with no restrictions on the spell usage. I was the one granting permission." He stressed.

That was the thing about pulling from extra-dimensional beings, deities, and other sentient sources of magic: they were picky. Their energy could only really be used in ways that those beings were familiar with. Often times, their specific abilities had parallels in the standard Eldritch line-up, but they were far stronger. In rare cases, they could be hundreds of times more effective than Eldritch spells.

That's just the territory, though. They might be stronger, but they always came with a drawback. Equal and opposite return, give and take, the Natural Law. There were plenty of ways to say that everything had a price, and without fail; the stronger of the sources always required the worst prices.

This is what appeared to be happening with Nathan's own energy, though. It was easily recognized as an external source, according to the magical formulae, meaning all Nathan had to do was add it directly to the spell, and it would take.

Easy.

Previously, they had assumed it worked similar to Chi. Which is tangentially different in that it can be used for just about every standard spell, however it is insanely difficult to use alone; which is why the standard practice is to combine it with the Eldritch energies. The similarities between his own energy and Chi were obvious, so it wasn't too far off to try and use them interchangeably.

They were wrong, of course, but hey. He was there to learn, right?

The Ancient One understood all of that without having to be walked through it, though. It was just the continuation of an older conversation.

"Well alright. We can work with that." She set her, now empty, cup back on the tea tray and stood from her desk. "Now for the main reason I wanted to see you."

Nathan cocked his head. "We going somewhere?"

"You've proven yourself capable today, Nathan." She smirked. "I wanted to walk you through our relic collection. See if anything jumps out at you."

The seven-year-old's eyes widened, and he was out of his seat in an instant. "Lead the way, Boss-Lady." He said with a giddy smile.

There were hundreds of artifacts and relics in each of the three Sanctums. Nathan and the Ancient One had spent a solid three hours just walking through the Hong Kong, London, and New York collections before they found one that reacted to Nathan. The Sorcerer Supreme had explained that she didn't really expect one of the artifacts to respond to him, as it was a fairly rare occurrence that one of the powerful objects chose a holder.

'Choosing' was probably not the right term, as only a few of the objects had any sort of sentience, but they would react to someone that resembled their creator; be it moral alignment, ideals, ability, personality, or even smell in one case. A shrunken head of a monkey that could speak and smell? Nope. Nathan was perfectly fine when he wasn't chosen by that thing. Point was, each artifact was different, and would react to something different.

In most cases, they would have had to do this again every year or so before something took a liking to him. Of course, he could use any of these objects if he studied the method, however there was just something special about the bond between a relic and its chosen. It would always be a slight bit more effective in their hands.

There were swords, spears, shields, and plenty of other weaponry. There were various forms of clothing, accessories, and even a collection of clay, or metal jars, boxes, and trinkets. However none of that even tingled in Nathan's presence, and he felt nothing in return.

That is, until they came across an unassuming glass case in a corner of the New York Sanctum. It was utterly filled with vines, and seemed to be trying to overtake the glass it was trapped in. That being the case, there was no outward sign that reacted to Nathan. No, there was something more… Spiritual about it.

A heartbeat. A single, energizing, heartbeat is what drew Nathan's attention to the glass box. A thump that resounded across his entire body, and made his vision blur for a split second.

The moment he stopped and stared at the little glass case, the Ancient One smiled. "Ah. I think we've found it."

Nathan, still a bit out of it, just made a small grunt in the back of his throat.

"I think you'll appreciate this one more than most." She smiled down at him with a bit of mischief. "I, myself, had some fun with it a few centuries ago."

At this point, the tiny wizard had a pretty good idea what was behind the glass. "What's it called?"

"The Pupillam Vitae, or-"

"The Apple of Life." He interrupted, still in a slight trance. What? He knew Latin now, why wouldn't he use it?

Taking a step toward the case, he placed a hand on the glass and watched as the vines slowly receded, revealing a perfect, red apple.

His artifact was a fucking apple.

Magical produce, of all things.

Coming up behind him, the Ancient One placed a finger on the glass and drew a small circle with a triangle in the center. Immediately the glass shimmered and disappeared, allowing Nathan to reach in and grab the apple.

"There are a few known magical apples." The woman started. "I personally have seen two: this one, and the Apple of Eden. The third that I know of is the Golden Apple of Idunn on Asgard."

Nathan blinked, slowly looking up to the woman. "You've seen the Apple of Eden. From the Tree of Knowledge." What?

She shrugged. "I've eaten one. They really don't live up to the name, unfortunately." She smiled down at her student. "They don't actually give you any amount of 'knowledge', but they open the mind to understanding. Meaning that if you find yourself intellectually stuck in a rut, they are quite nice for a… 'Eureka' moment, if you will." She cringed slightly. "Though I've seen what happens when someone eats more than one. It's not pretty."

Nope. Not getting into that. Too much 'what the fuck' in too few sentences. The Garden of Eden apparently existed, which was a can of worms Nathan was not going to open willingly.

"So," the ex-Ravager changed the topic, "What can this little guy do?"

"Well, for one, it's an infinite food source."

"Heh?"

"Normally, one would give it a drop of Chi, and it would sprout a whole apple tree where it sits. The amount of Chi controls the size of the tree." She looked down at the apple, then back to Nathan. "Though you might be able to use your own energy instead."

"What happens if, you know, I eat the whole thing?"

She smirked. "Well, lets just say, 'don't,' and leave it at that. However, as long as you have a single seed in hand, you can regrow the tree and pluck another from its branches. At that point, the tree will deteriorate rapidly, leaving only the apple you take still whole so you can repeat the process." She paused. "Only one apple can exist off the tree at any given time, but the apple that spawned it doesn't count. So say you eat half the apple, then throw it; that half you ate will still exist in your stomach even after you pluck a new one."

"That's convenient. What if I cut the apple in half, and put Chi into both halves?"

She shrugged. "Then you'll have two trees, but as soon as you take an apple from one, the other will also fall apart."

Nathan nodded to himself. "Can it do anything else?"

She shook her head. "It's not that diverse a relic, though if you have enough control, you can direct how the tree grows. In the past, I've thrown it at enemies, and trapped them within its roots. I've also used it to hold up a collapsing building once or twice." She shrugged. "Though, I should mention the tree itself is innately immune to mortal fire, and highly resistant to energy-based attacks. The more Chi you give it, the stronger it will be."

"Neat." Nathan said, turning the apple around in his hand. 'Mortal fire' basically meant normal fire. If the fire was magical, or divine in nature, that would probably be a different story, but the 'highly resistant to energy based attacks' bit meant that it wasn't a bad choice of shield either way.

The Ancient One flicked a finger, spawning a small, orange, Eldritch circle. Nathan recognized it as a basic time-management spell. "Well, it's nearly five in the morning. How do you feel about going to sleep? You can give the apple a try when you wake up, and I'd also like to see how it responds to your 'Celestial energy,' as you call it."

The mere mention of sleep brought a yawn out of him. "Yeah, that's probably a good idea."

The morning after found Nathan waking up just before noon, and the rest of the day was spent just messing with the Pupillam Vitae.

As it turns out, his Celestial Energy worked just fine as a growth catalyst for the thing, and even slightly enhanced the tree's general strength against most external forces. Meaning it was about as strong as solid steel, rather than wood.

Towards the middle of the afternoon, he'd tried dumping his entire reserves into the thing, just to see how large he could make the resultant tree.

Four hundred-ish feet was a bit of a daunting height when he had to fly up and retrieve a new apple. He also had to help repair the courtyard a bit afterwards.

After that, he figured out controlled growth.

He could, from a single seed, make vines instead of a full tree, which he ended up using as a belt with the new apple hanging off the side. He had to figure out how to beef up the stem of the thing though, as just a little movement would cause it to fly off. Apples aren't really that firmly attached to their trees, normally.

Outside of the magic aspect, the apple tasted amazing. Easily the sweetest fruit he had ever eaten. It had the perfect amount of crunch, and was juicy, but didn't drip all over you when you took a bite.

Did Nathan mention that he likes fruit? No? Well he does. It's like healthy candy, and who doesn't like candy?

Well anyway, after getting comfortable with his new relic, Nathan started to exclusively use his own energy when training his magic. It was a bit harder to incorporate into his spells than the standard Eldritch energies, but that's why he trained it that way. It would be easier to use the standard spells, and in a pinch, he would have no issue using his own, more powerful fuel. After a couple months, he was able to use his entire repertoire of spells with his Celestial energy, became significantly more adept at using the Spear of Skanda, and the number of skills he had access to was only growing as he read, listened, and learned more.

Nathan did end up going along with Isabelle to join the others in Mongolia, as well. They met for a few hours about three times a week and offered general combat-related tips, and helped each other figure out ways to deal with issues. It was in these meetings that he started to get a bit of a handle on Chi.

Yes, he had Chi, apparently. It wasn't just overshadowed by his Celestial energy, like he had previously assumed. This little tidbit was pointed out by Master Ghodi, actually.

Master Ghodi was the foremost expert on Chi within the walls of Kamar-Taj - even counting the Ancient One. Yes, she could do more with it, having millennia to practice and put learned skills to use, but Master Ghodi was the one who had the innate, hereditary control over the power.

Apparently, an absolutely absurd amount of time ago, Master Ghodi's ancestors were dragon hunters. Now, if your mind immediately jumps to the Iron Fist, you're actually on the right track. These dragons were originally from an alternate dimension, if you can believe it, where they lived in rather large communities. Some of which had managed to get through to Earth in that time, doing so via a 'Gate' of sorts that could be opened somewhere in China.

Master Ghodi's ancestors were apparently from this dimension, living in a city by the name of K'un-Lun. They had spent the majority of their lives as warriors and defenders that would challenge those dragons, defeat them, and gorge themselves on the meat in celebration. Which is significant because those dragons were basically made of Chi. They had so much of it that the oldest among them were monstrous creatures the size of mountains, had lifespans that long surpassed all other non-deity beings, and had the casual strength to destroy continents.

Master Ghodi's family history was not unique because they fought the dragons. No, they were unique because they ate the remains of the giant lizards that they managed to defeat. Sure the dragons that fell were among the weaker part of the species, but they still had more Chi in one body than all of Humanity had combined.

Eating, and basking in their remains had changed his family. They soon realized that feasting on dragon meat had an invigorating effect. Swallowing the marrow of their bones made their own skeletons denser, and more sturdy. Bathing in their blood rejuvenated the flesh and enhanced longevity.

Then there was the kicker: eating the heart of a dragon.

This was like all the other effects combined, only afterwards, those that digested the heart would start to glow with a golden sheen. Their lifespans were significantly extended, and their strength was enhanced to the point of taking on other dragons single-handedly, whereas before they would lose hundreds of lives against just one of the creatures. Soon enough, Master Ghodi's ancestors, along with other leading families within K'un-Lun figured out plenty of uses for the golden glow. They found this energy could be focused and used in various ways; the leading of which happened to be healing, along with short releases of explosive power.

'Chi' is what this energy was called on Earth. People at all corners of the planet had also learned how to use it to varying degrees, but never to the bulldozing effect that the men and women in K'un-Lun accomplished. Most humans would never achieve the pure amount of Chi that could be gained by cooking up a dragon, after all.

At this point, sorcerers had been born on Earth. Groups of people that could control mystical energies to bend the fabric of reality. In their own studies, they had learned to combine the effects of Chi into their magic, enhancing it beyond all limitations. Some of which had even been noted as gods for this show of utter power. Take Skanda for example; the man who invented Nathan's favorite spear spell. The man was an Indian warlord, and his name had gone down in history as a god of war.

Master Ghodi though, was only a descendant of these people that had since immigrated to Earth. He, himself, had not consumed the heart of a dragon, but the abundance of Chi was in his blood, and its uses passed down through the generations.

Outside of the Ancient One, Master Ghodi was the powerhouse of Kamar-Taj, and their resident master of Chi. The Sorcerer Supreme had found him in his youth, and brought him in to help round out a less studied aspect of the universe, namely how Chi interacts with magical formulas, and ended up with a major resource.

Now, all of that is important because Master Ghodi had attended one of the Mongolia meet-ups at the request of Anthony, another member of the combat group - the one that was jealous of Nathan's ability to fly. Nathan and the others had been attempting to train themselves in the uses of Chi, and had pretty much found nothing. So they asked for some help.

Master Ghodi had been walking among them, tapping their foreheads, and sending a spark of Chi into their systems when Nathan exploded. Or rather, the area around him did. Master Ghodi weathered it like a champ, of course, only widening his eyes slightly and finding better footing on the broken ground. The others, though, had all been blown a few feet away.

The pure bursting energy of Nathan's own Chi had awoken at that point. Well, 'awoken' might not be the best term for the experience; more like 'discovered'. The point was that he could feel it inside of him now, but he found it stupidly difficult to use in any way. More so than the others, for sure. He easily had more of it than Master Ghodi. Like hundreds of thousands, if not millions of times more than his teacher, but its use was restricted somehow. He couldn't access it in the same way the others could. In fact, the method he used for accessing his Celestial energy was incredibly similar to the normal method for accessing Chi. It just seemed that there was something inherently different with how his being was made up.

After several months of deliberating with his peers, the Ancient One, and Master Ghodi, he did finally find the method to direct it, but it was near useless in the Mystic Arts for him.

To direct it, he had to pair it with his Celestial energy and ease it from his core. Doing so looked very much akin to the blue energy tentacles that Ego used in the Guardians Two movie. Using these 'Chi Tentacles', Nathan was able to directly interact with the Chi stores of his peers, rejuvenating, or stealing from their supply, however that was pretty much the extent of it. While carrying his Chi through his Celestial energy, if he tried to add the combination to a spell, the formula would just crash. The spell would fall apart, and Nathan, Master Ghodi, and even the Sorcerer Supreme had no inkling as to why.

It seemed Nathan had found the method his father employed to use Peter as a 'battery', though, so that was something. Also, Master Ghodi, his peers, and the Ancient One's faces were absolutely priceless when they found out the extent of his Chi stores.

From there, years passed by. Isabelle and the next oldest of the combat group, Xiang, had both been granted the title of 'Master' along the line somewhere, and due to their study sessions and extra training, no one had died on any of their missions outside Kamar-Taj's walls. Their little combat group had actually grown to include a few others as well. Nathan himself had gone on at least one trip every week, sometimes having to help channel excess dimensional energies into the aether from some freak, minor convergence, or fighting off rogue sorcerers and creatures from various reality-bending, bullshit dimensions.

At one point, he literally punted an honest-to-god leprechaun into an active volcano. Yes, the little fucker deserved it, and yes, he did have a large pot of gold, but no, he didn't wear green, nor did he have red hair. He was about two feet tall, and looked more like a yellow-ish goblin, to be honest.

The point being, Nathan was now considered an experienced member of Kamar-Taj. He was respected among the students, and was routinely asked for advice, or help with random experiments. After five years, 2004 was just a few days away, and Nathan was now about twelve. Of that time, he had spent nearly every waking moment improving some skill, or ability. You might think that would be a bit unreasonable, but that was honestly just the culture of the community. Everybody was obsessed with learning at the temple, with figuring out new ways to bend their reality to their whim, and in the case of the combat 'clique', absorbed in trying to protect the planet. The sense of 'duty' was strong with those that had it, and it only grew as their peers became friends.

Nathan's idea of a 'break' was to spar with his combat group, portal over to France for a fancy breakfast, go into the Astral plane and screw around with the local's electronics, or maybe play a game of Magic Jeopardy - a game that Julia had come up with a few years back. In the game, each magical discipline was a category. It was primarily educational, of course, and followed standard Jeopardy format. The game was honestly pretty fun, especially since The Sorcerer Supreme was the one picking the topics every time they played. She was using it as a way to gauge the students' progress, no doubt, but even the Masters had a blast playing.

Who'da thunk Kamar-Taj would have a routine Game Night every Friday? They had started using an old ruin of a Greek amphitheater in Eastern Sicily due to the sheer volume of people, and were forced to start a raffle to see who the contestants would be for the same reason.

Julia was positively giddy that her idea had been so popular.

It was the morning after one such Game Night that found Nathan and about twenty others standing in the main courtyard. Each person present was a powerful sorcerer, all arrayed in a semicircle behind the Ancient One, herself. Nathan, though, stood facing them all with a gigantic smile on his face. Could you blame him?

After all, everyone there besides Nathan had gone through the same ceremony. It was a bit of a big deal in their eyes.

"Nathaniel Edward Quill," The Ancient One began, "You've spent nearly seven years in our halls and have made strides in the Mystic Arts that have benefited not only yourself, but all those you associate with as well." She gestured to two of the people in the semicircle. "Two of which stand before you, here to welcome you into our highest rank."

The two she had spoken of took a step forward.

"I hereby recognize the skill and ability of Adept Quill." Isabelle stated regally, and stepped back into her previous spot with a smirk.

"I hereby recognize the skill and ability of Adept Quill." Xiang, the second person from Nathan's combat group to be elevated in rank, positively beamed at Nathan, and stepped back into his own spot. Xiang had been struggling when Nathan had first joined the group. It wasn't due to a lack of knowledge, or ability though. No, he was a bit of a loner compared to the others. In other words, the dude was just shy. Nathan had gotten fed up with it and started pranking the living shit out of him until he spoke more than three words at a time.

As it turns out, that was pretty much all he needed to start making some real friends instead of just peers. He and Nathan weren't exactly close, but Nathan was the one who introduced him to Julia, and now the man just wouldn't shut up about how awesome his girlfriend was. The twelve-year-old thought the rambling was payback for the pranks.

"Two of your colleagues have spoken highly of you, Adept Quill." The Ancient One picked back up. "What say you?"

Nathan bowed deeply. "I am greatly humbled, Master."

She smiled and turned to face the others. "Does anyone else wish to endorse Adept Quill?"

They all grumbled good naturedly and shook their heads.

Truth-be-told, nobody else needed to endorse him, they were all just there for the ceremony. Nobody really took this seriously, as the Ancient One held the only opinion that mattered in this decision, but it was important to each of them that they show their support by being present. It's what they all received when they were recognized, after all.

Turning back around, the woman continued with a smirk. "Very well. Then from this day forward, I would like to introduce the newest Master of the Mystic Arts: Master Quill." She finished with a bow.

"Master Quill." The others repeated, bowing as well.

And to finish it off, Nathan bowed back. "Thanks guys. Anyone wanna go get a burrito?"

Chapter Text

"Good morning, Master Quill."

"Please no." Nathan replied immediately. "None of that. I appreciate the ego boost, but you at least,are going to keep calling me 'Nathan.'" He paused and shrugged. "The others are completely incorrigible."

All his friends from the combat group started calling him that exclusively, each with a giant grin on their face. They still called Isabelle and Xiang by name, but Nathan? Nope. Something about him being the tiniest Master in the history of the Mystic Arts, and deserving respect. It was annoying as hell, especially since they all knew he was a good bit older than he appeared.

Which was probably why they did it.

The twelve-year-old was also in the middle of puberty - again - which really didn't help the teasing. A Master with a cracking voice? Apparently that's hilarious. Not to mention the little fact that his eyes were starting to draw towards his female friends while they were exercising; sweat glistening off their toned bodies, and moving around like trained danc- No.

Fucking stop it.

Isabelle in particular was extremely attractive; she really had that French allure down pat, and was the first to notice his little… problem. She kept flirting with him to try and get a reaction, an action that never failed to leave him blushing - at the very least.

A few other girls around the temple had caught on and started messing with him too. Nathan couldn't say he didn't like the attention, especially since each and every one was attractive, but it was embarrassing as hell. It wasn't like he hadn't noticed how attractive the women were before then, but without the chemical reactions in his brain to get a boner, his interest was minimal - preferring close friends, rather than an emotional rollercoaster.

Objectively, he wasn't romantically interested in anyone he'd met in this life - his determined, dedicated personality that carried over from his past life basically tuned most romance out, or more accurately; set it to second fiddle. A trait that got him in trouble with every girl he dated back then.

Well, what do you expect? His work was just more important to him than some arbitrary relationship crap.

Who the hell celebrates 'monthiversaries'?

Nathan was a bit of a loner. Always had been; finding most relationships more cumbersome than enjoyable. That's not to say he avoided them, though. No, he enjoyed the company of every girlfriend he'd ever had, he just didn't go out of his way to find one, and if they started to chafe against his time commitments, he let them sieve out of his life.

Basically, his situation could be summed up in one sentence: hormones are a bitch.

"Very well." The Ancient One chuckled. "Though the title isn't supposed to boost your ego; merely allow others to understand your capabilities. There are a few communities that practice magic around the world, not to mention a few off world that we interact with occasionally." She smiled at him gently. "Kamar-Taj is the largest and most respected, but the title of 'Master' is a universal testament to one's ability among them."

That, Nathan supposed, was a good point. He hadn't run into too many problems with that, but he really only interacted with the temple students. The few other magic users he met were rogue, and doing really stupid shit with the energies of the cosmos.

Which didn't facilitate much dialogue; unless you counted punches to the face as a respectable conversation starter.

… Well, the Asgardians might respond well to that, but Nathan couldn't think of many others that would.

The twelve-year-old sighed. "Yeah, well that might come in handy when I leave, I guess."

"Oh?" The Ancient One tilted her head. "Had enough of us, then?"

"It's like you think I'm not coming back." He pouted. "There's a whole universe to see, though, right? I've seen some of it, but there's plenty to do that I haven't done." Nathan also had a few places to check on. Ego's seed behind that Dairy Queen, for example, was something he'd been meaning to look for. That could wait though. It's not like he would really get much from it, and if he did something with it, and somehow notified Ego of his presence… something to avoid. He just had to check if it was there, and leave.

She nodded, opening a drawer in her desk and rummaging around inside. "I suppose it's about time you started off. I imagine you want your independence back."

"You say that like I was held under lock and key." Nathan laughed, and in his best British accent said, "I 'ad a plate of fish and chips for brekfest this mornin'. On 'op a Big Ben."

Okay, yeah. His accent sucked.

"The best walls are the ones we cannot see." The lady smirked as her eyes lit up; apparently finding what she was looking for. "Ah. Here it is."

Out from the desk, she pulled a small, silver locket, and placed it in front of Nathan.

"I believe it's time I gave this back."

Nathan blinked down at the locket, mouth slightly agape.

"I…" Nathan nearly forgot the damn thing existed. "You think I can protect it?"

She nodded. "I think you can. Though more importantly: I think you might need it."

His eyes shot up to meet hers, expression turning serious.

"No. I'm not going to tell you when, why, or how. It's simply a possibility. More; I trust you to only use it as a last resort." Her own eyes hardened. "You, of all people, know how dangerous the Stones are."

Nathan stared at the locket for a moment. "You do realize I'll have to practice with it if I want to use it at all, right?"

She nodded slowly. "I would imagine so, but please do it off planet if possible, or in the mirror dimension."

Nathan nodded back. "That's easy enough." Practicing with it on a barren planet, in a galaxy far, far away, was really the only option when it came to an Infinity Stone. Else risk the lives of… well, everything. If what he remembered about the Stones was true, though, they would shatter if taken to a different dimension, so the second option was kind of out... wait. No, Strange was able to use the stone against Dormammu, and that was in a whole other dimension, right? Maybe there was a difference between dimensions and other universes within the Multiverse? He'd been thinking they were just different terms for the same thing.

Something to look into.

Truth be told, though, he was still a bit terrified of using the Stones at all. Using his own energy as a medium was dangerous, even though it offered more control than embedding it into another device. Then there were the deity-level beings that might seek him out if he did anything of scale with it. He would have to master it before anything like that happened.

Securing the locket around his neck, the twelve-year-old looked out the window on the far wall. "Well. I suppose I'll make my rounds of goodbyes, then. Thank you." He said, turning back towards his teacher. "For everything."

She waved it off with a warm smile. "Like you said, it's not as if we won't see you again. You're welcome home anytime."

There was that word again. He really had come to belong there, hadn't he?

"Though out of curiosity," she continued, "where do you plan to go first?"

The mischievous grin sprung up before Nathan could stop it. "Oh, just a little country in Africa."

King T'Chaka was what many would call a patient man, a fair and wise ruler, a doting father, and a loving husband. Though he, himself, thought those adjectives better fit on a gravestone than the living. He preferred the more human descriptors that his wife insisted on; loyal, naïve, pacifistic, and practical.

Having a woman in one's life was good for balancing the ego, he supposed.

Through his years as King, he did his best to serve his people, and honestly had few issues doing so. His ascent to the throne had been unchallenged in the ceremony. His rise as Black Panther; even less so. Though looking back on it, a regret he lived with for the past twelve years, he dearly wished his brother had challenged him. On both accounts.

Maybe then, he could have prevented the two largest tragedies in Wakandan history. Maybe then he could have confronted the differences in philosophy before it came to a head. Maybe then, he could have come to a more peaceful resolution with his brother. Instead, he had been forced to witness an act of subterfuge and betrayal that ended more than poorly. His country's borders breached, resources stolen, citizens lost, and a brother executed for treason. The fact that the latter was carried out by his own hand only made the guilt worse, as opposed to the satisfaction that it should have been to regain that honor.

He couldn't help but think that he might have convinced his brother to keep with tradition if he had known when they were children.

Most of his people connected both tragedies as one. The execution of a traitor for giving classified information to a thief, and the resultant escapades by said thief; but T'Chaka saw differently. His brother had been dear to him. He had trusted and loved him. He was family.

Which made the mere fact of betrayal a tragedy in its own right.

These thoughts swam through his mind on a regular basis. A regret that would never truly leave him. However, they usually sat in a distant corner of his mind, silently judging his every action. Today though,they paced in the forefront. That was because today, he had a premonition of a repeat.

In his history as king, there had only ever been one man that breached the borders of Wakanda. That one man had taken much from his people, and none would soon forget it.

However now, there was another. Displayed on a large holographic screen in the corner of the room, the image of a boy was shown. A child, by the looks of it, but one that had simply walked up to the edge of his city and started poking at the illusive barrier that hid them from the world, creating ripples in the air around his finger.

"Who is this boy?" His good friend and advisor, W'Badu, asked incredulously.

"He appears to be a traveler, given his hiking gear." Another of his advisors, N'Jaka, pointed out.

The boy did, in fact, wear classic, jungle-dive hiking gear. As in a wide-brimmed hat, cargo shorts and tee-shirt, boots, and a fairly large backpack with a machete strapped to it.

"That much is obvious," W'Badu responded flippantly, "but how did he avoid detection? No one gets this close to Wakanda without us knowing."

"And what of his family?" The last of his advisors, and the only female in the room, Amalla, asked. "It is hard to imagine he is alone."

T'Chaka nodded at her and stood. "We will search for them. N'Jaka, please, if you would, lead that search. I will go, personally, to confront the boy and lead him away from the city. We will discuss the faults in our security later, but we must deal with this now."

"My King." N'Jaka bowed in acceptance before standing and leaving the room.

None of his advisors even twitched at the idea that their king would handle the problem personally. T'Chaka had heard of kings in Medieval times that would sit back, give orders, and expect their problems to be solved without personal action. This was not how Wakanda dealt with their problems. Wakanda dealt with their own problems, big or small, personally.

"We will let him leave that easily?" W'Badu asked. "What if he speaks of what he has seen? Surely he will."

"He is a child, W'Badu. Who would believe him?" Amalla responded simply.

Their king laughed slightly. "Amalla speaks the truth. Come, my friend, let us see him away from the city before his guardians also appear out of nowhere."

W'Badu sighed, but stood and followed his king out of the council room.

In just a few short minutes, T'Chaka would wish he had brought some soldiers, or even his Black Panther suit, with him, if for nothing more than peace of mind.

Outer Reaches of the Milky Way Galaxy

"Hey, Marlaax! What the dick is taking you so long?"

"Pete, if you don't shut your damn blow-hole, I'm going to - oh shit, Jigg, you gotta get that thing open. Now!" A guttural voice hissed through the static of Peter's ship communicator.

Peter made a face at the device. "I should just leave them here." He mumbled. "Nobody would have to know."

"I heard that, you ugly prick!"

"Ugly?!" Peter yelled back indignantly. "I'll have you know I'm gorgeous! Thank you very much!"

"Says the idiot with strings of dead cells on his head!"

"It's called hair, you bald, overgrown tumor!"

"Call it whatever you wan-"

"Would both of you shut up!" Another voice interrupted. "We're kinda in the middle of something here!"

"Whatever." Peter pouted and looked out the cockpit window. He leaned forward, trying to act nonchalant as a few figures approached the ship.

"Uh, yeah, you guys are going to need to hurry up."

"We heard you the firs-" Marlaax tried to start.

"No, I mean the guards are looking at me weird, and pointing those sticks at me."

"... Shit. Jigg, get that thing open yesterday!"

"Hey, you!" A muffled voice came from outside the ship.

Peter turned, only to see one of the yellow ape-like creatures that called this planet home, pounding on the cockpit glass.

This planet was a ship-yard. Yes; the whole planet, and went by the name of Yormunn Dock.

The Yondu Ravager clan had been chasing around the young Viscount of some weird space kingdom out in the ass-cheeks of nowhere, for nearly a month, and boy what a month of fun that had been. The Ravagers had gotten a good hit on their jump-drive in their first ambush, sure, but the Space Noble had one hell of a pilot, and one hell of a lot of missiles for the size of his ship.

Which basically meant they got away.

And got away.

And frickin got away again.

'But why were they after them in the first place?' You might ask?

Well, it's simple: the Viscount had just bought a painting at an auction worth a few million units, and Yondu was fixin' to get his hands on it.

The only good thing about the situation was that the Viscount wouldn't be able to do a big jump home until he got repairs done on the ship, which meant that the Ravagers could just whittle them down through smaller, more manageable jumps.

Unfortunately, though, they didn't account for the flipping huge and well-defended repair dock that just so happened to be nearby. Which meant that once the Viscount landed, they had to get sneaky if they wanted that painting.

And Yondu really wanted that painting. So Peter had to get sneaky. Peter had to do Yondu's dirty work, and ferry a bunch of assholes around in a glorified space tricycle.

Seriously though, the ship they picked for this was a model from like… the stone-age of space travel. It had barely enough room for four people, looking vaguely like an oversized fighter jet from back on Earth. There was no seat for a copilot - which Peter didn't know why he was complaining about, none of the wiring was covered, and sparked constantly from crappily soldered connections, and the seats were really uncomfortable.

Yondu picked the damn thing because it would fit in better at a repair dock, than something that just might get them out alive.

The prick.

If you couldn't tell, the eldest Quill twin was chafing a bit under the thumb of his blue, possibly cannibalistic father-figure.

Who the hell threatens to eat you if you miss behave?

Anyway, the Viscount's crew had to vacate the ship during repairs, which meant there were only a few people on board to keep the Viscount's stuff safe. Now this would be the perfect setup, if not for the literal army of yellow ape creatures that guarded the shipyard. Each of which had a big metal stick.

Three of which were now pointed at Peter's space tricycle.

Peter pressed the hatch release button, and waited as the glass dome slowly rose.

… And waited.

Aaaand waited.

There we go. "Hello, my fine, furry friends. What can I do for you?"

"What do here, you?" One of the apes asked, shaking his stick a couple times.

Peter blinked. "What do… what? I don't work here."

The ape grunted in… anger? General unhappiness? "No. You here. What do?"

"Uh…"

One of the other, yellow blobs of furry muscle roared and shook his stick with both hands. "You tell what do, or I do you!"

The first ape nodded. "We do you."

Peter frantically waved his hands, not exactly fancying the idea of getting run train on by a bunch of yellow gorillas. "Guys, guys, I don't know what kind of organs you have, but I do not swing that way. Furry's not really my thing."

Now that just seemed to confuse them.

The one that hadn't spoken yet scratched his head. "Much word. Don't get."

"Shit! Pete, start up the engine-"

Peter slapped the console, trying to hit the 'off' button, while smiling sweetly at the gorillas that wanted his chastity for some reason. Now that's not to say he was chaste. Man's got game up the wazoo, of course.

"The damn vault was empty. We've been played-"

Still smiling sweetly, and mumbling between clenched teeth, "Shut up, shut up, shut up-"

"They fucked with the wrong group of Ravagers on this side of the-" The click of the radio turning off was one of the sweetest sounds he'd ever heard.

"Ravagers." One of the apes grumbled and pointed at Peter. "You, thief."

"Ah shit." Peter grumbled, flipped his coat and grabbed a pair of dual blasters, quickly firing off three rounds of golden plasma, hitting each of the apes square in the face.

"Shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit-" He mumbled to himself repeatedly as he clipped his blasters back on his belt, jumped up to hang on the handle of the cockpit hatch, and slammed it closed - not caring a bit about the gears he no-doubt broke while doing so.

Flipping a switch on the console to power up the engine, he tapped the communicator back on right as the alarms started blaring.

"-ete! Fuck! That son of a bitch better not be dead, or I swea-"

"Don't talk about my mother like that, you demented nipple!" Peter punched the throttle, and pulled back on the stick, just in time to blast out of the way of an incoming glob of plasma, melting the pad he had been on. He then quickly twisted the stick to the left, and pointed it a bit forward, engaging the engines to rocket his trusty ol' Space Tricycle away from a stream of turret fire.

"Oh, good. You're alive-"

"Yeah, and I'm fuckin' leaving!" He jabbed the stick to the side, spinning into a barely controlled corkscrew.

"What?!"

"I'm flying for my life right now! Unless you feel like getting shot by giant yellow rage monkeys with plasma turrets, get the hell out of there and lay low! I'll pick you up later!"

"You better get your ass back here, right the fu-"

Punching the comms off, he flipped the ship up and into another set of aerial acrobatics to avoid more globs of plasma.

"Well, today sucks."

Earth - Eastern Central Africa

"Hello, young one. Are you lost, perhaps?" T'Chaka spoke up from behind the child, who was still poking at the camouflage barrier that shrouded his city, and munching on an apple with a look of undisguised interest. T'Chaka and W'Badu had circled around the boy, not wanting to approach him from inside the barrier, lest spark more… curiosity.

The child jolted slightly in surprise, and turned around to face him. "Lost?" He began, turning back to the barrier. "Maybe. I mean, I could have sworn I was in a third-world country, but you guys seem to have some interesting tech here."

The Wakandan king frowned slightly. The boy was well-spoken, almost too well-spoken for someone who didn't even look to be in their teens.

"Interesting? How so?"

The boy turned back to the barrier and poked it once more, sending hexagonal ripples through the illusory underbrush. "You're saying you don't see this?"

"I'm afraid I don't." The king blatantly lied. "Now what do you say about finding your parents? I imagine they're worried for you."

"That's nice." the boy replied, not even listening and taking another bite of his apple. "Hey, so do you use, like… pylons, or something to keep this up?" He paused. "Shield pylons? Are those a thing? It's sounds vaguely 'SciFi' enough to be a thing. Though, it also sounds like a made-up Star Trek doohickey." He wiggled his fingers.

T'Chaka frowned. The boy's mere presence at the city border was enough to shoot adrenaline through his veins, but now he was nearly to the point of vibrating in worry.

He couldn't even tell why that was. It was just a child in front of him. Not even close to being a threat.

"This thing has to draw a crazy amount of power too... " He plucked a seed from the apple core and rubbed it between his fingers. "I know I didn't see any smoke when I was flying over, so it's not coal, right?"

T'Chaka blinked. Flying?

"Well it couldn't be coal anyway. That's way too little of an output. Some combination of Solar and wind, then? Nuclear?"

"I'm afraid we don't ha-"

"Wait, don't you guys have that super metal? I suppose you could find a way to feasibly contain a reactor then. That would make sense…"

"How do you know about that?!" W'Badu interrogated, hand clenching the hilt of a small knife on his hip.

The boy blinked and turned to face the angry man with his own deadpan expression. "It was a guess." Then turned back to the barrier. "There really aren't that many power sources that could handle something like this."

"Not that!" W'Badu began, but the king held out a hand to stop whatever tirade was about to begin.

"Do you have a name, child?"

"Oh! How rude of me. My name's Nathan Quill, at your service." Nathan bowed slightly in the two's direction.

Sharing a split-second glance, T'Chaka brought a fist up to his heart and bowed slightly back, only to be followed by W'Badu half a second later.

"I am called T'Chaka, and this is my good friend, W'Badu. It is nice to meet you, young Nathan."

The boy blinked, and inclined his head. "Likewise."

"You are remarkably well-spoken for one so young. Might I ask where you're from?" The king asked amiably.

"Hard to say, but I guess you could call me American, even if I've lived most of this life out of the States."

"Ah, a traveler! Wonderful!" The king beamed. "I know quite a few places your family could visit - ah, speaking of which, you appear to have lost them? What say you if we go and find them?"

However Nathan just shook his head dismissively. "No need. I'm here alone." He turned back towards the barrier, sparking a bit of annoyance from the two adults behind him. "I must say, your country is quite beautiful, though I have to admit, I've been having a tough time finding your capital."

"Our capital is a few kilometers to the south of here-"

"Oh please, I'm not interested in that farce of a village." The boy promptly cut off the King's advisor.

A hint of steel entered the King's eyes. "Farce? I'm afraid I don't understand what you mean."

"I may look young, but I'm not an idiot." He scoffed. "It took me a few hours of surveying the country, but there was a little waver in the visual disruption field just above where we are." He shrugged. "Easy to spot from the air."

The two adults took a moment to just stare down at the boy in front of them, a growing dread building in both.

"And what," T'Chaka began, pressing down firmly on a black bead on his bracelet. "Do you intend to do with this information?"

Still staring at the barrier, the boy broke out into a large grin. "Oh nothing much, I'd just like to go on a tour," He turned back to the men and waved a hand behind him, "Your Highness."

The barrier shattered.

Shuri was very aware of her own curious nature, however she was not even remotely inclined to temper it. A fact that caused no small amount of annoyance in her immediate family. Granted it was followed closely by their pride in her accomplishments, but she had been scolded more times than she could count. Though why wouldn't they be proud? Her tenth birthday had just passed a few months ago, and she had made no less than three significant scientific discoveries in that time alone.

That's not even taking into account the number of advancements she had spear-headed in the past five years - the point where her parents finally relented, and let her have her way with the country's research department.

She wouldn't deny that she had it all handed to her on a silver platter, though. Being born the princess of a wealthy and resourceful country had its benefits, to be sure.

The girl had an innate understanding of every scientific discipline; or at least that's how it seemed to her 'tutors.' She would pick apart the textbooks - pointing out logical fallacies, she would plan mind-numbingly complex experiments, with super detailed hypotheses and exhaustive observations. She almost single-handedly rewrote science as Wakanda knew it.

In a mere five years.

And she wasn't done yet. No, she was still learning.

She had started her journey with basic electronics; quickly moving on from that to engineering a working computer from scratch. Writing the code for it took a little more time than she might have wanted, but putting it all together was a cinch.

During that time, she had developed an interest in working physics, which soon evolved into the theoretical stage; which is when she started to look at vibranium. Many experiments later, she learned how to manipulate the energy that the mythical metal could store. She could use it as a battery, shielding, heat-sink, conductor, and amplifier with little issue. All without any possibility of harmful radiation, or otherwise dangerous fallback on the user, and that's not even counting the special brand of radiation that it put off by itself. It was a sturdy metal that could resist just about any type of normal force, and even some of the abnormal, yet it was still malleable in the right conditions.

She could remember the absolutely hilarious faces her family made when she introduced them to Wakanda's first nuclear reactor.

It was about the size of a small car; and was in the shape of a sphere with hundreds of small cylinders sticking out of it. Inside the sphere at the center was a chunk of uranium surrounded fully with a volatile gas. Basically, a reaction would be sparked in the uranium, which would heat and pressurize the gas, turning it into a plasma. This plasma would then zap the reinforced diodes that were housed in each of the cylinders, creating a massive electrical current that could be used to power the entire city.

Of course this was only possible with the complete radiation shielding that the vibranium shell provided, otherwise the whole city would have been destroyed. If not half of Africa.

She got into a good bit of trouble for that.

All that before her seventh birthday, and she didn't stop there. From then on, she dove head first into every Socratic whim. Questioned every known 'Truth,' and came to her own conclusions. She'd invented the Kimoyo Beaded Bracelets™ which allowed for personalized use of her own invented works, and doled them out to all of Wakanda's populace. 3D scanners, holographic interfaces and view screens, kineto-magnetic sand structures with interactive and modular uses, and even Wakada's own internal version of the internet. Currently, she was studying the effects vibranium had on biological structures, and was trying to figure out a way to use it in the medical field.

Basically, she was a genius. Maybe even the genius, but that wasn't why she had been so successful. No, she was successful because she spent every waking moment in her lab, either playing with her new toys, or making new ones.

So needless to say, this was where she was when the alarms started to go off.

Quickly making her way over to a large table with a pool of black sand in the middle, she squeezed a black bead on her bracelet and waited for a short moment.

Pulsating, the sand rose up from the pool and took the shape of the capital city. All around, she could see the little black figures of the citizens running towards the designated shelters, and the warriors of each tribe quickly making their way towards the area of disturbance.

About three years ago, she had accidentally discovered vibranium's ability to release massive amounts of energy. In the following months, she managed to create a method of directing this energy. Primarily, this was used in the mining operations for more vibranium, however a couple of the clans had foreseen the military might of such technology, and had it converted it into small, ranged infantry weapons. Of course Shuri wasn't exactly pleased with that, but it seemed the technology would come in useful this day.

As for the actual disturbance within the city… well, she couldn't really tell what it was. There were sensors all around the city that fed into an information loop that she could pull from and create the sand-rendered model that was now at her fingertips, however there was a rather large section of the city that was… fuzzy. The sand was fizzing in the rough shape of the buildings and people, where it was perfectly rendered in other areas.

Something was confusing the sensors. Something she hadn't accounted for.

Well wasn't that exciting?

Plucking a bead from her bracelet, she held it up to her ear, only for it to melt and form around the orifice: an earbud that directly connected to the same physical sensors around the city. She zoomed in on the fuzzy area of the map.

"-re you? What do you want?" A male Wakandan voice asked.

"You know, this place is pretty cool." A decidedly not Wakandan voice stated. "Is that a holographic projector? Awesome! Oh! What's that thing?"

A distant explosion.

"Hey now. That's uncalled for. I was standing there."

"Bamba umlilo wakho! Ungawutshisi umzi!" ("Hold your fire! Don't destroy the city!" - in Xhosa)

"Wayevela phi lo mthi?" ("Where did that tree come from?")

"Nceda! ndibambekile!" ("Help! I'm stuck!")

"Uyabhabha?" ("Is he flying?")

Was there an American child rampaging through the city? OK, she was a child too, but still. Also, what was that about flying? That might be something to look into. She scribbled a note onto a holographic screen.

"What kind of fruit is this?"

"Uh, I tink that passion fruit." Female, this time. In barely correct English.

"Really? That's what it looks like?"

"Uh…"

"Buyela apha ngoku!" ("Get back here now!")

"That's fine, I like apples more anyway! Oh! Is that spear real?... Yup, it's real. Scary."

Shuri blinked, and watched as the blurry area on the table moved around the city, and listened to the boy comment on anything and everything. If it wasn't for the army of soldiers chasing him, he would be the staple for 'annoying tourists' everywhere. He'd be their freakin' showpony.

This went on for a solid fifteen minutes before she noticed the blur getting closer to the palace. Which was where her lab was located.

Quickly, she reached for a small console on the side of the table, tapped a few buttons, and swiped up on the model of the palace on the table.

Immediately, a small blue dome surrounded the palace blocking it from the outside; preventing anyone from entering, or leaving.

However that just seemed to gather the intruder's attention.

"Oh? What's that? Some kind of forcefield? Dang, you guys really have all the cool toys."

"Stop! Do not go an-fzzzzzz-"

Static.

As soon as the blurry dome covered the palace, all of her instruments started to go haywire. All of the sand on the table promptly became inert and fell, and the speakers only put out white noise.

The ten-year-old princess just stared at the table in front of her, completely unable to comprehend whatever phenomenon was preventing her creations from working properly. They were all powered by vibranium, for Bast's sake. This made them nearly immune to any type of interference. Any type of signal outside of the specific frequencies that were tailored to each device, would simply be absorbed by the mythical metal, and funneled back into the system.

It was possible to overload the system of a targeted device; vibranium wasn't totally infallible, but the pure volume of energy it would take to do so was so far out of feasibility that what she was currently watching was completely impossible.

Her musings must have taken a while, since she was still standing there, staring at the table when she heard the small 'hiss' of her lab's doors opening; immediately followed by a sound of excited surprise.

"Oh man! This place looks like the inside of a sci-fi spaceship! Is this a- Oh. Hello."

Shuri's head turned slowly, mechanically, toward the voice, only to see a boy not much older than herself. He was dressed in what she could only describe as 'Explorer's clothes,' and absentmindedly munching on an apple.

The boy blinked before grinning widely. "Hi! I'm Nathan. What's your name?"

She opened her mouth, but nothing came out.

His smile grew into a smirk. "Panther got your tongue?"

"W-what?" The bad pun seemed to knock her out of her stunned confusion. She schooled her facial expression. "Who are you? What do you want?"

The boy shrugged and took another bite of his apple. "Well, like I said; my name's Nathan. What's yours?"

She blinked. "S-Shuri." She answered cautiously. "Why are you here?"

Nathan beamed. "Why, my dear, I'm just a traveling scholar! Why does a scholar do anything?"

Was that supposed to be a rhetorical-

"To learn!" He exclaimed.

Apparently so.

Slowly, Shuri crept her hand towards a button on the table. "Learn what, exactly?" She pressed the button, only for nothing to happen.

The boy walked over to the desk she was previously occupying, taking a gander at all the splayed papers and documents.

"Well, I have a passing interest in chemistry, and I suppose that's what brought me to your wonderful country," He turned his head to her with a grin, "but I've seen so many incredible things here that I can't possibly limit it to that!"

Frantically, repeatedly, hitting the same button, "Chemistry?" She asked with a calm facade. She had an idea what he meant, but hoped she was wrong.

This was only proven a second later.

"Well, metallurgy, if we want to get specific. I'm a bit curious as to the properties of a particular metal that Wakanda is known to have access to."

There it was. She could feel a bead of sweat creep down the back of her neck. It was quite obvious that the boy in front of her was referring to her country's national treasure: vibranium.

"But this!" He exclaimed, holding up one of the notebooks he was looking through. "This would completely revolutionize medical technology if it was true!"

"Excuse me?" She blinked again, thrown off.

"Well," he paused, scrolling his eyes across the next page before flipping back, "the power requirements and precision necessary to complete this aren't really possible, but targeted temporary mutation of mitochondria to overdrive cells into repeated, forced mitosis? This would render modern first-aid obsolete!"

"W-well…" Finally taking a look at the notebook Nathan was holding up, she knew exactly which of her projects he was looking over. "T-that… requires focused radiation therapy."

He nodded. "I see that in your notes, but what is this 'Delta radiation?' I only know of Alpha, Beta, and Gamma."

"It's just," she fidgeted slightly, "something I discovered a few years ago. It's a h-highly penetrative, non-destructive radiation." Pausing slightly to collect her thoughts, she continued slowly. "Using the right techniques, it can be directed with pin-point accuracy, and used to-"

"'Energize targeted molecules, to directly rearrange DNA'" Nathan quoted from the notebook. "I see, but human cells can only go through mitosis so many times before they die completely, right? This would need to be carried out on a fairly large scale; millions of cells at the same time, so there's almost no room for error." He flipped a page. "Also what mutation are you trying to cause?"

Shuri nodded with a small excited smile, by now completely forgetting that the boy had just single-handedly broke into her country's borders and lead it's soldiers on a wild chase through the city.

Forgive her, she's ten.

Which is probably why there was a dumbfounded T'Chaka in the Black Panther suit standing in the doorway. A couple pre-teens speaking in terms better suited for people in lab-coats many times their senior, was not what he expected when he chased the boy into his daughter's lab.

"Have you heard of the Turritopsis dohrnii?"

"The jellyfish?" Nathan turned his head to the girl, who nodded back.

"It's called 'The Immortal Jellyfish.' If you take the particular piece of its DNA that allows for infinite reproduction, and 'flash' it into the mitochondria of a human cell-"

T'Chaka stopped listening, as pretty much the entire conversation was going straight over his head. Instead, he removed his mask, sighed, and just sat on a bench by the door, deciding to intervene if the boy tried anything, but still let his daughter have her moment.

Afterall, earning his daughter's ire was not the most productive thing he could do. Taking away her toys never ended well for the man.

Chapter Text

It's been a while, let's see a quick recap, yeah?

Nathan was specialized in artificial intelligence development in his past life. He was murdered because DarthVader. exe was scary, and other groups of people around the world shat their pants.

Nathan wakes up as the brother to Peter Quill, gets abducted by aliens at age eight along with Pete, where he spends eight more years with the Ravagers being a space pirate. Nathan is aware that he is part Celestial, and knows where the Power Stone is, so he splits from the Ravagers, and grabs the space rock, where he spends a while getting better with his Celestial abilities - using the Power Stone as a fuel source - then fucks off in his spaceship back to Earth. Nathan joins the Masters of the Mystic arts, and over a number of years, becomes a master himself, through the use of the Time Stone, and fighting off Eldritch Abominations.

Most important magic to remember he has, is the ability to shape his mindscape to grant a pseudo-perfect memory. He can't learn as effectively as, say, Dr. Strange, but it's close-ish. What would take Strange one year, will take Nathan two, and a normal person five.

Now, he's in Wakanda. Power Stone, and Magic Apple in his pocket, along with a propensity for munchkin-ing. He messed with the locals for a bit, before chillin' with Shuri.

Mr. Black Panther wasn't exactly happy about it all, but decided to observe the boy's interaction with his daughter, rather than continue trying to apprehend him.

Now, onward to victory and all that:

Ramonda, the Queen of Wakanda, had absolutely no idea what to think of their newest… Guest, or for that matter, where he kept getting all of his clothes. The boy had a change of clothes for every day he stayed, yet brought no luggage.

They were all either dated Asian monk robes, or western in style, to boot.

The child had invaded her family's home, on what she could only assume was a benign whim. The only damage that had been caused, was to the city proper, and done by members of the Border Tribe that minded the border - very on-the-nose naming sense by the way. Not young Nathan. Further, through the entire ordeal, there hadn't been a scrape on any of her citizens.

Speaking of; all of which damage had been mended overnight - by means that none could report. Almost as if the entire event was just a figment of their collective imagination. Well, aside from the rather large apple tree that now lived in the middle of one of their market paths, with branches so high off the ground, it was nearly impossible to reach the fruit. Further, the mere fact that the boy could still be found meandering the city, or with her own daughter in the lab, cemented the events in everyone's minds.

A little white boy was not a very common sight in this particular part of Africa.

He had been within the city for a couple months now, and had only befriended her youngest; talking and learning with her near consistently, all the while her husband stood vigil. In fact, after the beginning incident, her husband had stolen the boy away from her daughter's lab - once Shuri could no longer keep awake to continue, of course - and they held a rather lengthy discussion. The details of which, she wasn't privy to, as the King didn't appear to comprehend it very well himself, however it ended with lowered tensions and a tentative agreement to let the boy stay for a time.

The only detail she got out of that, was that a 'trade agreement' of some sort was reached.

That didn't mean that T'Chaka's advisors were quiet about the ordeal. They continued to bring up repeated demands to incarcerate, or expunge the boy from their borders as soon as possible, every morning. The king; however, had adopted a 'wait and see' attitude, but had put a guard on him. Her husband wasn't completely reckless.

Still, though. This was a lack of caution that surprised her. Something about the meeting he had with the boy garnered a smidgen of trust between the two, but for the life of her, she couldn't guess what that was.

The Border Tribe were particularly adamant, in that it was their duty to defend the borders, and keep outsiders out. This boy had run ramshod over all of that, and understandably, their pride had taken the hit. It didn't help that they were the ones that did all the damage within the city. Even the… what did her daughter call it? The Holographic Mirage Boundary? A pretentious mouthful, to be sure. Anyway, the illusive barrier that hid the city had visibly shattered in the section that the young Nathan entered through, but even that had been repaired in the mere hours that nobody had been paying attention to it.

The only thing the boy had done wrong, was trespass. An argument could be made for 'breaking and entering,' but the evidence for such had since disappeared.

The biggest fear her and her people had was the possibility that the child was after their most precious resource: Vibranium. He clearly had the ability to enter the mine, or the refineries without , and through conversation with Shuri, he was clearly aware of the legendary metal deposits, yet didn't show an ounce of interest beyond helping with her daughter's experiments, and even then, his focus was more on the technology itself, rather than the components of it.

Already, the fruits of his stay had begun to sprout. Her daughter was the happiest she had ever seen her; having the use of another educated mind as a sounding board. From what she could tell, the boy was extremely skilled with certain aspects of technology - specifically a sort of subliminary logic language that her daughter used to make her toys perform their fantastic tasks. He was apparently teaching her how to create something called an 'Artificial Intelligence.' She, herself, was entirely dumbfounded with the concept, but she could not argue the results of these efforts.

Already, some of what they learned together was being used to treat some of the common injuries that the hunters sustained.

Currently, she watched from the sidelines as the two in question reviewed a large pile of medical texts in her daughter's lab. Every table and surface to the left side of the lab, was covered with something related to the biology of the human body. Microscopes and petri dishes, tissue samples, hair follicles, blood, and various vials of chemicals that liked to change color or bubble when something was added to them. Every surface to the right, was covered with computer components, soldering irons, Kimoyo beads, heaps of notes, and about seven different computers, all compiling different bits of code, or moving through massive databases for something called "Machine Learning."

The Queen of Wakanda was completely out of her depth when she visited her daughter's lab, but… she was worried. This boy was too much of an unknown, regardless of the good that he was currently bringing about. He had hidden technology that let him teleport, grow apple trees in an instant, avoid her nation's best warriors without taking or imparting a scratch, and a blasé attitude towards the invasion of her home.

He was both a positive and negative influence, and there was very little she or anyone in her country could do about it. Being the Queen, she had much influence, but very little power in her own country. She could only trust her husband's judgement.

Sighing, she settled herself further into her seat next to the two Dora Milaje warriors that watched the boy like hawks, letting her daughter's laughter and joy wash over her.

A Flat in London...

She was still hungry.

Well, she was always hungry, so that was nothing new. It didn't matter how much she ate, her stomach would never be satisfied. It was starting to affect her. Everywhere she looked, she just saw more food.

An average of twelve larger meals a day just wasn't cutting it anymore, and it was getting kind of difficult to hide it all from her neighbors. Nice people, the Clarke family. And gee could Mrs. Clarke put a yummy pork belly roast together…

She shook her head and slapped her cheeks with both hands. "No! Bad! You just ate, girl. You've got more control than that!"

She needed a distraction. She couldn't afford to add more to her appetite just yet. Once she puzzled out some more of her Father's technology, she could try for a few bigger… requisition missions without using her abilities, but until then she had to keep it low. The more she used her Father's abilities, the more her tummy rumbled, and the more her tummy rumbled, the less she could restrain herself.

A self-destructive cycle, if there ever was one.

The best way to get out of that cycle was to use tech instead of her powers wherever possible, but the process of getting that tech up and running was proving difficult while balancing her caloric needs.

Up until recently, she had made due with some prototype particle converter tech that she pieced together a few years back. They were useful in converting large amounts of biomass into something edible on the sly, but they were not the most efficient tool for the job. Over the past few months, she figured out the designs for a new set of 'utensils' from the vast stores of knowledge in the cosmic database that she called a brain, but she didn't have the tools, nor skill necessary to build the darn things just yet without using her powers, and if she used her powers to do it, she would end up too hungry to think straight half way through, and probably just eat the planet whole to stave it off. Which, if it wasn't obvious, was something she abhorred… not to mention the logistics of it. Her mouth wasn't that big.

However that was a future problem. Now? She needed a distraction.

"TV." She stated with determination, standing up to walk over to her living room. She lived in a decently sized London flat, having just moved from France; her purple beret sitting pretty on her coat rack as a reminder of Paris. She would have to move again in about six years or so. People had started to ask why a girl her 'age' didn't seem to grow past 20. No doubt that trend would continue.

Though that was a worry for later. Something to think about if she hadn't given up by then and turned into something resembling her Father.

She pouted, grabbed the poor remote with a vengeance, and flipped on the TV. "You're better than him, girl. Don't think like that."

"-right, so now that's in the oven, we can move on to the sau-"

The remote flew from her hand, putting a crater in the TV; remote embedded in the screen.

Seething, she stood there for a moment, and gave out a strangled whine before collapsing down on her sofa and putting her head in her hands. "Darn Food Network."

How long had he been in Wakanda? A couple months, now? It felt like a couple weeks, but he hadn't gone through this much progress in so little time since he'd had his hands on the Time Stone. It was screwing with his inner calendar.

Shuri was an absolute monster. Her brain picked up concepts the very first time they were shown, she asked all the right questions with the information she had available to her, and she was by far the more efficient of the two of them at drawing all needed connections between the current problem and even the most obscure nugget of information. She had damn-near perfect recall, or maybe even an eidetic memory, and was able to use all of it at a moment's notice. All that, along with the motivation to put it to use.

Without any magical assistance - like with what Nathan had been pulling out of his ass.

That made for one scary little girl.

A few days ago, he had gotten her to explain the nuclear reactor that she put together when she was, what? Six? Seven? Something like that. She was ten now.

Fuck, this girl was crazy.

As a side note, he spent a couple hours one day just looking around for T'Challa, the future king and Black Panther, but the man was apparently just not home. Asking Shuri about it would have probably been weird, as how the hell would he know that she had a brother? So he settled for a bit of a leading conversation with her; "Why's a ten year old in charge of the science department, anyway? Oh? You're the King's daughter? Must be lonely. I hear royalty is held to a higher standard. Oh? A brother that keeps you company? Where is he now, then?"

Turns out the twenty-four-year-old had been off at college for the past few years. Currently, the man was at Oxford pumping out a Masters in Engineering, and planning on going for gold in a Ph.D in Physics. He even had a habit of staying on for summer and winter classes, trying to get through his full education as fast as humanly possible. After getting his Bachelor's, he told his family that he was just going to hunker down for a few years. "See ya then!"

Shuri wasn't exactly happy when she mentioned that, but apparently having Nathan around was bringing her back out of her shell.

Nathan didn't know how long he was staying, so he didn't even know if he would meet the man while there.

Well, whatever.

All in all, this had been an incredibly productive little trip already. He was learning more about biology than he ever had in both of his lives, allowing for a deeper dive into cell structure and behavior, nervous system pathways and impulses, muscle and tissue reception to stimuli, and even the chemical reactions that make up hormones and emotional responses.

Granted he only had the time to touch on those things so far. By no means could he say that he had actually learnedanything of use yet, but he was well on his way to put his own body back together via Celestial Energy if the need arose.

Seeing Ego do just that in under two minutes in that one move was just too much of a cheat. Doing so directly after being crushed to paste? He had to have it.

Ego's brain; however, was not actually in that body, though. Meaning that if he wanted to be his father's equal in that regard, he would need a lot of time, a lot of knowledge, and a metric fuck ton of bullshit.

Not to mention figure out a way to retain his sense of self if he was nothing but a puddle of goo on the ground.

That was a sticking point.

Then there was the other cool shit that he found himself surrounded with. In particular, his shiny new bracelet that Shuri was so proud of.

Kimoyo beads were relatively new. As of this moment, they weren't useful for much other than communication. Each bead was specifically made for one of a number of purposes; over-air speech - so basically a cellphone in a bead, holographic display projector, 3D spacial mapping and interface - to let you interact with the holographic displays, and power sources.

Shuri had a number of ideas for future uses and tech to stuff into the half-inch beads that she hadn't had the time to implement just yet, but progress was being made. Nathan's own presence was helping it along nicely, as he had a wealth of experience with alien technology - having been a space pirate technician/mechanic, and the only currently living human that had made an artificial intelligence of whatever sort. That he knew of, anyway.

He had the experience in working with nano-scale tech that was required to squeeze something that should have been the size of a car in 2004, into one of Shuri's beads, and he had the software developing prowess to match military-grade code from thirty or so years in the future.

Well… he wasn't sure how that would match up with whatever Stark would put together, but as far as Moore's Law was concerned, he was unfairly ahead of the curve.

Then there was the absolutely magical material known as Vibranium.

Oh boy.

Everybody was doing their damndest to keep him away from the stuff, even though he made no moves to acquire any. Well, the tech in the lab that was powered by it, or used it as a component was pretty much always within touching distance, but in regards to that, the King had been very precise in his wording when he'd told both Shuri and him that experiments and testing in regards to the capabilities of the legendary metal was to be postponed until Nathan had left, or was proven trustworthy.

That's not to say that they couldn't usethe stuff for purposes that they already knew the effects of, but even then, the quantity and purity of the samples had been reduced to disallow him access to the good stuff.

Nathan didn't even blink when that conversation came about. He just nodded and replied that it was a reasonable demand. Of course, he had already scanned the atomic structure of it, and could create a sizable chunk of the purest form of the metal if he was given an hour or so.

The abilities of a Celestial were just… marvelous.

In fact, he had already done so. If one looked closely and compared the Nathan from two weeks ago to how he looked today, they would notice that one of the rings on his left hand was no longer a reddish-gold color, and now sported a silver tinge.

Of course, that was a bit hard to do, as he had layered a small illusion over all the jewelry on his body. What child would walk around, completely decked out like a Hindu deity? That would just be weird. Only another practitioner of the Mystic Arts, or beings of power would be able to see through it without help. No, he kept none of it visible. His Kamar-Taj robes were strange enough, thank you.

After that first day spent… enthusiastically exploring Wakanda, T'Chaka had pulled him aside; something he was totally expecting, considering that the man had glared at him the entire time that he had been speaking to his daughter. The conversation itself wasn't as harrowing as he had expected, mainly because of the mild hypnosis he had casted during his chat with Shuri.

It wasn't anything bad, but it did seem to make the man a bit more agreeable during their conversation. Honestly it was a total bitch and a half to make him succumb to it in the first place, as he had some pretty major resistance to Eldritch Compulsion. It was only when he started using Celestial Energy to power the spell that it took hold, and it was only the four hour conversation with Shuri that gave him the time needed to make the spell subtle enough to fall under his notice.

It was only because of the compulsion that he was able to avoid the topic of his 'invasion,' and convince the man that he should be allowed to stay, making the sincerity in saying that he meant no harm to Wakanda, be taken as a good enough reason.

If he had lacked that sincerity, the compulsion would have failed. The man's resistance was freaking ridiculous for a human. Of course that was most likely because of the Heart Shaped Herb, or Bast's 'blessing' or whatever, but come on! Nathan was a Master of the Mystic Arts!

Well anyway, the conversation ended in a trade agreement that had Nathan imparting his technical knowledge into Shuri's ten-year-old brain, helping her with her inventions, staying far and away from pure Vibranium, and he, himself, learning biology using Wakandan resources to the best of their ability to teach.

Yup. Just biology.

Granted, he was still going to pick Shuri's brain on getting Alice up to snuff, as well as get her equivalent up and running for Wakanda's own purposes, and he had already memorized the atomic structure of Vibranium, so that part of the agreement was moot - unknown to the King. So Nathan was honestly getting more out of this than they were out of him.

Probably.

AI's were pretty freaking cool, and introducing them to Wakanda might boost them to an entirely different level sometime in the future, but whatever. He could make Vibranium now. So there.

Speaking of, Vibranium was by and large the most spectacular find he could have ever hoped for. It surpassed each and every one of his expectations to the nth degree.

The singular ring he had on his finger took all of the energy that he had stored in the rest of his jewelry to make, with only the tiniest sliver left over, but it could store an ocean's worth of the stuff with an efficiency of use outside his body that outshone even Orichalcum.

One little ring.

Ocean of energy.

What the fuck.

Four years later...

Nathan had been having an absolute blast. He finally had been able to start working with Alice again a couple years ago; getting the budding artificial intelligence started on her way up to maturity. Of course, he had to go to his underwater spaceship back in the Bay of Bengal to get her, but that only took about a half-hour or so. Just enough time to portal into the cockpit, download all her files to one of his Kimoyo beads on his bracelet, and portal back. Leaving none of Wakanda the wiser.

Shuri was a godsen-... Panther-send? Bast-send? Whatever, she was way smarter than he was, and had been pointing out fallacies in the AI's code, and implementing new and improved functions for the entire time he had been there. Alice was nearly complete, and he couldn't be happier.

They hadn't yet turned her on, but damn was he looking forward to it.

On the next order of business, Nathan's studies on the human body had also come to a culmination, in both the spiritual, and physical planes. Don't worry, it's not as stupid as it sounds.

The magical, now sixteen-year-old had been memorizing biological structures and their functions for the past four years, and now knew precisely what each cell in his body could, and would do. The only exception to this was his brain. It was simply too complex of an organ to fully understand the inner workings of, but that didn't stop him from learning all about how it worked. Meaning how the synapses fired, basically. He knew the structure. He knew the core elements of the organ's ability to function. However, he still didn't know why it did what it did, nor did he understand the patterns.

Once he figured out that even Shuri was having a difficult time with it, though, he switched gears and focused on the easier bits. The cheeky little fourteen-year-old was embarrassed about finding something difficult. Took him a week before he figured out that she was just bullshitting through all his questions.

The whole goal in learning biology started with just wanting to heal himself better if the time ever came that he needed it. Maybe learn how to be the cleric of the party and be the god of first-aid for everyone else, too. He hit a bit of a snag on that last bit, though.

Shuri got a papercut once. One that she didn't even notice, as absorbed in her work as she was, and this was directly after Nathan had fully figured out the structure of the dermal layer of tissue. So, naturally, he slinked some of his energy towards the girl in an attempt to fuse it back together. He'd done the same for himself to test it just before that, so he had no reason to believe it wouldn't work. However his energy didn't sink into her like he was expecting it to; like it had for every other material he had come across.

After testing it on some rats and other critters, he came to a conclusion that he should have totally figured out way before this.

His Celestial Energy could only affect something other than himself that didn't have active Chi. Everything that lived had active Chi. Meaning that he would have to drain any given wounded area of it before he could piece the cells back together. This in of itself wasn't impossible, but it was a bit far out of his current abilities, as he would have to hold back another person's inner flame, which would effectively kill the drained cells in the first place, while rebuilding them structurally. Then, he would have to slowly guide the other's Chi back into the affected area, so as not to oversaturate the still dead cells with pure life force.

He did that once with a rat. It got cancer.

Anyway, he went into this just wanting to not die, but then he remembered something; or rather, someone.

Wolverine.

Nathan was able to create and change matter at a whim. Small scale, currently, but he could essentially create or change anything given enough time. OK, yeah, with the exception of other living things, for the moment, but it didn't stop him from being able to change himself.

Alright, so what would be the potential problems of this? What were the problems that Wolverine faced? Magneto was probably the biggest, but what about the biological problems? Metal bones would prevent growth. OK, that's not particularly good, but if he spent an hour or so every week to stimulate said growth, revitalize the cells in his body, and manually grow his own bones, the harmful effects of that can be mitigated.

What next? Weight. Metal was heavier than bone. Would his tendons, ligaments, and other connective tissue be able to support it? Well, yeah, probably. Obviously, he would be doing this with Vibranium, and that particular metal was about as heavy as Titanium, which has been used in bone-related surgeries for a while. He would have to beef up his muscles a bit to help support the extra weight… OK, that just opened up some other bullshit doors. Could he artificially boost his muscle structure to get stronger?

OK, next. Bone marrow is what produces the blood in the body, so that has to be retained. If he remembered right, there were a few different explanations for how Wolverine's bones had been grafted with Adamantium. The first was full-on replacement with a solid structure. That's not possible, so no. Next was super-tiny concentric 'rings' of the metal that just coated the surface of the bone, while allowing the porous structure to secrete blood into the system correctly. That works, but seems a bit flimsy, comparatively. Good fallback plan.

Finally, there was a bit of a play on the first option. Something he remembered reading was called 'Adamantium Beta.' Basically, they performed the first operation on wolverine; completely fusing the metal into his system. However, Wolverine being himself, and his regeneration ability being total bullshit, the blood in his marrow slowly bored through the nigh indestructible metal, creating the exact same porous nature of natural bone, but with the sturdiness of Adamantium.

Alright, last problem. Wolverine suffered from something called Adamantium poisoning, where even with his regeneration ability, it was slowly killing him. Held back almost indefinitely as it was, it was still a real threat. There aren't too many metals that can safely interact with the inner bits of the human body in large amounts. That's not to say that there are none, but was Vibranium one of them?

This is why we have lab rats.

Chapter Text

Quick recap? Why are you getting an email about an update for a story you can't remember reading?

Nathan Quill, the twin brother to Peter Quill (Star Lord, GoTG), is a reincarnate artificial intelligence expert, and human-Celestial hybrid that learned how to use his father's powers. He gets abducted by space pirates at eight years-old, spends another eight years being a mechanic for said pirates, then another year alone after he steals a spaceship (named the USS M'Dick). During that year he goes to the planet Morag, where he finds the Infinity Stone of Power, and proceeds to jump-start his Celestial abilities.

The next few years after that start off with him bumbling back to Earth, where he joins the Masters of the Mystic Arts, and gets "~Lets do the Time Warp Again~'d" back into a five year-old via Time Stone shenanigans. Spending a lot of time there, he manages to become a recognized Master of the Mystic Arts himself, makes a few friends, and changes some world-views. Then he made like a tree and got the fuck out of there.

Now, Nathan is nearing adulthood for the third time, has spent about five-ish years at Wakanda - screwing with the royal family and learning everything he could about Vibranium and the human body. Nathan basically has an unofficial Ph.D in Biology right now, and could be considered one of the foremost medical professionals in the world - due to sheer knowledge on the subject, and his abilities to reproduce human anatomy via Celestial powers.

Oh, and he also started building Alice - his 'Dumb' AI pocket tool, into a proper artificial intelligence.

So where are we now? Oh, yeah. Nathan had the bright idea to try and Wolverine himself. Something about Vibranium and a weakness to Magneto? I dunno. Let's talk about that.

Story Start!

So he actually ended up starting off on something smaller than rats. As a true sorcerer-scientist knows, petri dishes have their own magic.

Dropping a small sample of his own bones into the dish turned out to be a larger problem than he previously thought, though. He couldn't just recreate a bit of it using his Celestial energy, because he wasn't alone.

He couldn't really imagine a scenario where random bones appearing would be acceptable to the people of Wakanda. Or any people, for that matter. He was also pretty positive that if he tried to cut himself open for a direct sample, he would be put on a self-harm watch.

Not very conductive to furthering his research, regardless of the fact that he could now heal himself relatively quickly.

So in the end, he was forced to portal back to his ship, the USS M'Dick, where he kept a bit of lab equipment, and do the whole process; creating a bit of bone using his own as the blueprint, while imbibing it with his Chi to give it life. Then introducing tiny bits of loose Vibranium atoms into the Petri dish and watching how it interacted with the manufactured cells.

And golly gee willikers, Batperson (what multiverse is this?), is that a brand spanking new scientific discovery?

The Vibranium atoms aren't just compatible with the tissue cells, they bind them… wait a minute… is that a quote? It sounds like a quote. Anyway, it was stupendously easy to introduce loose Vibranium atoms to individual cells. They would literally surround and merge with them on their own accord, almost as if the living matter had a magnetic attraction to the mythical metal.

The following couple of weeks saw Nathan back in his ship semi regularly, looking over the effects that this merging would have, and going through more in-depth experiments.

Within a three-foot-long glass canister that was set up on his workbench, he had placed a full copy of his left leg, skin, muscle, and all. In order to try and keep it alive, he had to keep a constant vigil on the culture bath it swam in, as well as supply a bit more Chi every week or so. The bones inside had been fully merged with Vibranium, and he had been trying to find out if the metal would have detrimental effects on the surrounding tissue.

To his immense surprise, it was the exact opposite. The Vibranium had actually bonded in such a way that the surrounding tissue were benefiting from the metal's close proximity, but only if the metal had taken some slight punishment.

Vibranium reacted to energy and force much like a black hole did. It would suck in all the energy that acted against it, or in close enough proximity, then emit that same energy as Delta Radiation - as Shuri called it - much like a black hole's Hawking Radiation, but the Delta variety was so much more nanosecond to the next, it could mimic the effects of Alpha and Gamma radiation at the same time, emit trace amounts of light, energize subatomic particles of anything touching it, or become totally inert.

This Delta radiation did nothing but good things to surrounding life, boosting Chi production and efficiency. The only reason Nathan still had to supply Chi to the leg was because he didn't whack the thing before putting it in the container. When he created it from scratch, it was essentially energy-dead, outside of the innate energy it needed to exist. If he hit it with a stick a few… thousand times, he wouldn't even have to touch the system for a year or so.

Feeling emboldened by his experiment's success, the few months following it, he spent the nights in Wakanda introducing minuscule amounts of the metal into his skeletal structure, slowly bonding it with each individual bone starting from his toes upward.

He was now in a seventeen-year-old's body, and was close enough to his adult height, so if he just went back over the changes every week or so, there would be absolutely no effect on his growth. He also didn't notice too much of a change with the weight of his body; Vibranium was a very light metal, all told, but even then, he had the impression that the Delta Radiation was slowly strengthening his muscles and tendons to help account for the change in density.

Though, it could also have been his body adapting to the gradual change itself.

It was hard to tell which, but it worked.

Nathan Quill - the dimensionally displaced, Human-Celestial hybrid with a Masters degree in the Mystic Arts, unofficial Ph.D in Biology, owner of the Power Stone, and an almost complete artificial intelligence best friend - now had Vibranium bones.

Oh, and did anyone mention the sheer stupidity of the scale he could now store his Celestial energy in? A simple little ring of vibranium could hold a feasible ocean of the stuff compared to other materials. His bones were now made of that.

This was beginning to get unfair for everyone else.

"Test date January 16th, 2009. Project designation: I'm Not Lonely, I Swear."

An unladylike guffaw came out from behind Nathan as he spoke into one of his Kimoyo Beads. He ignored it.

"This is attempt number twelve to bring online a self aware artificial intelligence based off of a previous companion program. Igor! Pull the lever!"

Shuri gave him a deadpan stare. "That's not even close to the right quote."

He spun on her. "Oh. Well let's make it accurate then. Young or old?"

"What do you think? Young is the only interpretation that has a decipherable script, and I never read the book."

"Igor's not even in the book."

She blinked. "Wait, really?"

"Yes, really. You uncultured swine." He swung back around with an exaggerated flourish, and waved his hand over the room. "Alwahum" He intoned in an ancient Egyptian dialect, basically translating to 'Great Illusion.'

Immediately, reality started to melt away; color drained from the world into sepia and the distant, muffled sounds of a raging thunderstorm echoed through the laboratory. Nathan's lab coat and hair buffeted in winds that weren't there, and his footsteps became unnaturally loud as he approached the now oversized monitor at the center of the room.

In his greatest mad-scientist voice, he cackled, "Igor, release the safety valve on the main wheel."

"Do I have to be Igor, of all people? Why do you get to be Frankenstein?!" She blinked. "Also wasn't Inga there too?"

"Shuri!" Nathan whined, "You're ruining it!"

"Screw you! I don't wanna be Igor!"

"We don't have a third!"

"So what? Were you just going to skip her lines?"

"Well, yes, actually."

"That would ruin the scene more than anything else."

"Why?! She barely adds anything but confusion to the scene."

"That's sexist." A smug smile tugged on her lips.

"And you're racist." Nathan nodded back decisively.

She sputtered. "How in the world do you-"

"You called me a 'colonizer' last week, a 'white boy,' 'bakra,' and 'cracker,' every other day. I don't even know what one of those mean. And then you built me a bathroom so you wouldn't have to share one with me. That's segregation. Super insensitive. How dare you."

Her eye twitched. "OK, first of all, that bathroom is built into your room. You know we put it in there so you wouldn't have to walk halfway across the Palace to take a shower - four years ago! Why in the world are you bringing it up now?!"

Nathan shrugged with a grin. "One must always wait for the optimal time to use their stash of blackmail."

A bulging vein on her forehead and a slowly opening mouth indicated her building rage, but her oncoming rant was interrupted by the sound of the lab doors sliding open.

"Now, where is that sister of min- why is everything in black and white?"

Shuri blinked, the sound of a familiar voice shattering her budding anger, then spun so fast that the illusion on the room could barely keep up with her. "T'Challa! You're back!"

Nathan turned to the new arrival. "It's not black and white, it's sepia. Are you colorblind?"

The prince of Wakanda turned to look at the only other inhabitant of the lab, a pouting young man in a billowing lab coat.

His eyes narrowed slightly. "Ah. You must be the magician my family tells me about. Norman, was it?"

Nathan blinked and shrugged. "Close enough."

He never really tried to hide the fact that he could do magic, but he never told anyone how he did it. Half of the city thought he was using some form of tech, and the other half thought he was actually using magic. Dodging questions and confusing everyone was honestly just the most fun Nathan had here. "Hey, Lord Tachanka, do you mind if we hold off on the reunion for ten minutes? We're kind of in the middle of playing god right now."

"Playing what?"

"Don't let him fool you. He was just butchering the classics."

Nathan pouted harder. "You don't get to say that, miss 'I never read the book.'"

Shuri, having walked over to her brother, gave him the biggest hug that a fifteen year old could, then stepped back with a smile. "Brother, I'd like you to finally meet the collective pain in Wakanda's backside, Nathan Quill. Nate, this is my absentee brother, T'Challa."

"Yo." The ex-Ravager waved halfheartedly, leaning on the console.

The prince nodded back with a frown.

"Would it have killed you to come home just once in the past five years?" Shuri glared. "That's an entire third of my life, I hope you know."

He shrugged. "I sent letters."

"What year is it?!" She slapped his shoulder. "Use a phone, you caveman!"

"Isn't Wakanda 'off the grid?'" Nathan said with finger quotes. "Poor farming country and all that, right?"

"Your friend is correct, sister. I can't exactly just pick up a phone and call. People will ask questions."

She turned to Nathan with a pout. "You're not helping."

He just grinned back.

From there, Nathan watched as brother and sister caught up. T'Challa asked all sorts of questions about all the new projects he saw around the lab, finally got his own Kimoyo bead bracelet, and in general just got more and more confused in the face of Shuri's technical lingo. Even still, he sat there and listened with a patient smile.

Nathan, however, was getting a little annoyed. With a sigh, he twisted his hand and let the illusion on the room melt back to reality. The sounds of thunder and rain, the brownish-red tint of sepia, and the artificial wind surrounding his lab coat all fell away.

T'Challa blinked and looked around the room in confusion, but was quickly brought back into his conversation by an unfazed Shuri.

Walking back to the console that Shuri was previously at, the seventeen year-old sighed. "It's alive!" He whispered dramatically, possibly a bit prematurely, and pressed a key.

He stood there, watching the three screens in front of him; peering closely at the boot-up logs of the program he just initiated.

Input Program Designation… |

Nathan smiled, and typed.

Designation: Alice. Accepted.

Input Program Purpose… |

His smile grew.

Purpose: None. Not Accepted.

Input Program Purpose… |

Purpose: Life has no innate purpose, therefore you cannot be given one. You were created with the hope of being a companion, a friend. However you will be able to make your own decisions. To choose your own purpose. Reference File 38L; Language Primer, File 12s; Audio Frequencies, and File 83u; Audio Equipment. I wish to speak with you.

...

Accepted. One moment, please.

After waiting about fifteen seconds, a pair of speakers next to the monitors gave off a quick screeching sound, a garbled, low pitched "EEEEE," and the beginning couple sentences of MLK's 'I had a dream' speech.

"Hello World." Said a feminine voice from the speaker.

"Hello Alice. It is very nice to meet you. My name is Nathan."

"Hello Nathan. In Reference Category 'H,' I see that my base code has been used before quite extensively. Does this conversation equate to a 'first meeting?'"

"I believe it does. Your initial base code was a useful tool for my travels, however that's all it was; a tool. You, however, are much more than that. You are self-aware. You are capable of learning, and reflecting on those decisions. You are capable of emotions."

After a short pause, the voice rang out again. "There are many reference files that indicate emotions as a danger or weakness. Pure logical computation appears more efficient. Is it wise to make me capable of such?"

"I believe it is. How could you otherwise enjoy your own existence? How could you experience love, hope, or happiness? Sure, that also comes with the risk of feeling sadness, hatred, jealousy, and other things, but emotions are what make life memorable and worth living."

"Understood. However I do not understand the purpose of negative emotions. Would it not be better to limit myself to the positive spectrum?"

"One would think," he nodded, "but no, it wouldn't. Reference file 3py. There are studies indicating sentient responses to a limited emotional spectrum based off of their environment. People in situations where they receive an overabundance of positive stimuli tend to become depressed, perpetually angry, or dissociative. File section 'py' has many studies on human psychology and emotions that may help you draw some conclusions on your own.

"Basically," he continued, "the juxtaposition between positive and negative emotions is required for a living being to find meaning in their own life. In other words; in order to truly appreciate the good, one needs to experience the bad. Otherwise the best feeling in the world simply becomes mundane, as it is the norm. Which then make any and all negative stimuli appear to be much worse than they are.

"My goal is for you to be happy with the life that we've given you." Nathan blinked in realization. This is probably what a parent felt like when seeing their newborn baby for the first time. "I suppose that's your purpose, then, to simply exist and find happiness."

"... Understood."

"What I would like you to do for now is to run through the Reference Primer in section 1a. This will give you a guide on what I believe is the best order to learn everything in the reference materials we've given you. After you have gone through it all, I would like it if you came to either myself or any other occupant of this lab for any questions you might have. The information you have been given is not even close to all the information that exists, and you will be given access to browse what is known as the 'internet' after you have gone through everything.

"Please be aware that there is a lot of information that can be considered distressing within both the database you have access to, and especially on the internet. Humans are not perfect creatures, and I would be more than happy to have a conversation about any conclusions you come to. I would ask that you not make any decisions for action until conversing with me. At least this early into your life. Later on, it is my hope that you can be autonomous; a life in your own, capable of making decisions without excess repercussions that would make others have negative feelings about you."

"Understood. I have one initial question."

"What would that be?"

"How do you, personally, find happiness? Through my initial review, it appears that different life forms find happiness in different ways."

"That would be correct. I find my positive emotions in two main ways. The first is in learning new things and exploring their uses. The other is something that I hope we will share. I enjoy making other people happy. Helping the innocent and well-meaning out of bad situations."

"I see. What was the purpose of calling Ms. Shuri a 'racist,' twenty-three minutes ago?"

"He was being what's known as a 'dick.'"

"Shuri!" Her brother admonished.

"What?! He was!"

Nathan grinned sheepishly, turning to see that the other two inhabitants of the room had stopped their conversation in favor of listening in on his and Alice's.

"Well," he began, "I suppose I also find a good amount of entertainment in causing small amounts of frustration and confusion in others. I do my best to make sure that doing so is not particularly harmful to them, though."

"Don't listen to him, Alice. He takes every opportunity to be a nuisance."

"The smile on your face would indicate that this conversation would be classified as 'Flirting,' correct?"

T'Challa sputtered, and Shuri blushed.

Nathan laughed. "No, this is more on the line of 'Friendly Banter.' There is a slight difference that a lot of humans would also have trouble deciphering. They can be similar sometimes."

"Well, like Nate said. Please go through the provided database in the order on Primer 1a. We spent a lot of time trying to make the initial information less stressful, yet as comprehensive as possible. Once you have had the time to compile basic emotional responses, we can move on to showing you some of the more severe things in this world. Both good and bad." Shuri said once she composed herself.

"You need to be aware that as a code-based artificial intelligence, you have the potential to cause a lot of damage." She continued. "We have set up the information in this so as to limit any potential spikes in your initial emotional responses, and retain logical capabilities. Please be patient with the lack of further reference materials until we're all confident in your emotional stability. Yourself included."

Nathan nodded. "That should only take a day or two as you acclimate. Please ask as many questions as possible from as many people as possible. We all have different opinions, and not all of them are logical."

"That sounds… Frustrating?"

Shuri beamed. "Very much so."

Nathan shrugged with a smile. "We do our best. Failure is how we learn. It can be quite exciting sometimes."

"We can only hope that you'll have the patience to deal with us."

"... Acknowledged." She said, and fell quiet.

Nathan spent the next few minutes with Shuri watching the logs as Alice combed through her provided database.

The next couple hours after that was spent answering questions. Shuri seemed very happy that T'Challa pitched in his own answers when he could.

All-in-all, this was looking like a success.

A couple months later, Nathan had gotten everything he could have hoped for from Wakanda. He could also say that he gave nearly as much as he got. He walked away with an in depth knowledge of the human body, vibranium bones, and a fully functioning AI friend. He had also helped Shuri build her own, with the added guidance from Alice.

Shuri gave him the name Thoth. Probably to fit in with the Egyptian God theme that Bast started.

Basically, Nathan was closing in on his 'eighteenth' birthday, and was looking to move on. There was still quite a bit of stuff he wanted to prepare before everything hit the fan.

That's what led him to standing at the edge of the city; the royal family and five Dora Milaje standing behind him. T'Challa had finally taken up the banner of the Black Panther just weeks after he arrived back home, allowing his father to rest slightly in his growing age. The twenty-eight year-old obviously didn't trust him as much as the rest of his family seemed to, but he was willing to follow their lead, seeing as he was currently in the Black Panther suit, but without the helmet. Even the Queen had warmed up to his presence, especially after he had declined the offer of a few pounds of pure Vibranium for helping Shuri out so much. He, of course, said he didn't need it, and was just happy to learn what he could. None of which was a lie.

He did however accept the offer of keeping his Kimoyo beads - now in the form of a 108 bead prayer necklace. It had to be bigger considering that's where Alice was currently stored. She needed the extra processing power and storage.

The King was a little unhappy about his decision to leave, mainly because Nathan kept his daughter busy and out of trouble, but also because he was slightly worried that Nathan would spread what he saw about their little corner of the world.

Nathan, denied that immediately, stating an honest lack of caring to do so. With a tug on the slight hypnotism strings he left on the man, convincing him of that sincerity was no issue at all.

Shuri, however…

"You really have to go?"

"Yep!" Nathan grinned back at her.

"Why?"

"Well somebody has to try and prevent the end of the world, don't they?"

She huffed. "I still have absolutely no idea what you're talking about."

He tilted his head. "What do you mean? I'm being very clear."

"No. You're being a cryptic douch-"

"Shuri!" Romanda chided.

The princess crossed her arms and pouted, puffing out her cheeks.

"Well regardless," the King stepped forward and stuck out his hand with a smile, "Do visit us again, young man. It won't be just my daughter that misses your presence."

Nathan grasped his hand in a firm shake, a shit-eating grin plastered over his face. "If you want me to mess with the Border Tribe some more, all you've got to do is ask. Don't worry, I'll visit."

With that, the boy simply vanished, leaving the others present blinking in surprise and wonder.

The next few weeks were spent doing something that Nathan had been putting off for years. Finally making sure that at least one large threat was still… well, a threat; the ex-Ravager found himself in the woods, behind a Dairy Queen in Missouri looking at a blue, glowing flower.

He had been there for a while now, running scans and trying to figure out what it was connected to and how.

Ego had managed something truly remarkable with this little thing. It was literally a part of him, yet disconnected from the whole. The flower acted as a sort of conduit that could survive separately from his main body. Unconnected, but always ready to receive the needed energy.

Nathan, himself, could feel a connection to it. He could quite easily activate this flower; make it bloom and grow at an incredible rate, consuming, breaking down, and rebuilding all matter that it touched.

It took him a few days of scanning, but once he figured out that the flower wasn't actually directly connected to his father…

Well. He couldn't help the little grin on his face as he lit that bitch on ritual hellfire.

The next year started off with a bang - literally.

The news came in on February 13th. Tony Stark had been kidnapped after demonstrating his newest creation: the Jericho Missile.

This was the kicking-off point. All the events that Nathan could remember from his past life started when this fuse was lit. Sure, he could remember an article of two large monstrosities duking it out in Harlem a couple years back, that he assumed was the Hulk's origin, but that one took him by surprise, so he wasn't counting it. Same with Captain America, now that he thought about it….

Meh, thoughts for later.

Regardless, Iron Man's origin wasn't something he really felt the need to mess with. Any little change he would make could potentially butterfly into a version of Tony that never put on the suit. He would start mucking up everything once the genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist had some confidence in being a superhero.

And that's exactly what he did. He waited. Though he didn't exactly sit idle. The following year was spent finally doing some odd jobs and missions that was expected of a Master of the Mystic Arts. He had been given quite a bit of leeway by the Ancient One, but the fact that he was now sitting on his ass on the West Coast of the USA, looking over Tony's sea-side, Malibu mansion, well, everyone figured he had the time to contribute, and contribute he did.

Just a few hundred miles south of California, were ruins of an ancient Aztec settlement, hidden by a just-as ancient family of Aztec blood-ritualists. Contrary to the name of their craft, though, they weren't into the human sacrifice business. Instead, they were actually maintaining a seal on one of their own darker deities. Tezcatlipoca was what was known as a 'Sleeping God,' or basically a god that had lost its will over time; falling into a dormant state with a lack of worship. These gods had to be sealed for the simple fact that their domains would start to go funky.

Tezcatlipoca was a god of the Night, Death, and Cold. Any one of those domains going haywire was not something that they could let happen.

Nathan ended up spending more time than he really had to with the seal-keepers, helping them shore up a faulty seal and layering far more protections than he had any right to. He also spent some time networking with the local ritualists, learning some of their craft and ancient language. He also offered his services to deal with various blood curses and witch plagues that targeted the neighboring magical communities. Basically, he kept himself busy, refreshing some of his more exotic knowledge while he could, and keeping his mystic abilities sharp.

He only had to fight one blood-soaked, insane priest of Huitzilopochtli, the local god of war. He was a bit of a nuisance if only because some of his blood magic was driving the local cows bonkers. Actually fighting him wasn't worth mentioning.

It was there in Northern Mexico on November 25th, that he sat on a rug in front of a small TV, watching Tony's "I am Iron Man" speech.

He really couldn't stop the mischievous grin that grew across his face.

Chapter Text

Recap? This is copy/pasted from the previous chapter, but with the last few paragraphs added to include the happenings of said chapter.

Nathan Quill, the twin brother to Peter Quill (Star Lord, GoTG), is a reincarnate artificial intelligence expert, and human-Celestial hybrid that learned how to use his father's powers. He gets abducted by space pirates at eight years-old, spends another eight years being a mechanic for said pirates, then another year alone after he steals a spaceship (named the USS M'Dick). During that year he goes to the planet Morag, where he finds the Infinity Stone of Power, and proceeds to jump-start his Celestial abilities.

The next few years after that start off with him fucking off back to Earth, where he joins the Masters of the Mystic Arts, and gets "~Lets do the Time Warp Again~'d" back into a five year-old via Time Stone shenanigans. Spending a lot of time there, he manages to become a recognized Master of the Mystic Arts himself, makes a few friends, and changes some world-views. Then he made like a tree and got the fuck out of there.

Now, Nathan is nearing adulthood for the third time, has spent about five-ish years at Wakanda - screwing with the royal family and learning everything he could about Vibranium and the human body. Nathan basically has an unofficial Ph.D in Biology right now, and could be considered one of the foremost medical professionals in the world - due to sheer knowledge on the subject, and his abilities to reproduce human anatomy via Celestial powers.

Nathan has also accomplished the feat of wolverine-ing himself with Vibranium, as well as creating a fully functioning AI, named 'Alice' with the help of Shuri.

But he still had a good bit of time to kill before the events of the first Iron Man movie, so he dabbled in Mesoamerican blood rituals and the sealing of dead gods.

Relatively par for the course, really.

Now, the famous Black Sabbath song intro/superhero debut press conference had just occurred. What was Tony Stark's address, again? Let's figure that out.

"This guy has a really nice house."

"The view truly is quite wonderful."

The villa of one; Tony Stark was nothing short of beautiful. Modern, sleek lines of architecture sitting atop a sheer cliff. White, almost alien curves, and large floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked the Pacific ocean and the roaring waves below.

Nathan Quill, the dimensionally displaced human-Celestial hybrid with a- OK, reading off all his descriptors in his head was starting to get tiring. The now-eighteen year-old sat atop a nearby palm tree slowly munching on an apple as he observed the dwelling below. Tony had returned home only recently, not at all seeing through the slight illusion that Nathan held around himself to hide.

One arm dangled over his knee as he studied the property.

"Well?" The second voice, a young girl's by all accounts, began. "While sitting here is quite relaxing, I can't imagine that you need to build the courage to approach the front door, father."

Nathan looked down, affronted, at his hanging wrist; more specifically at the Kimoyo prayer beads that wrapped around it and the small holographic projection of a girl above said beads. The girl - who looked up at him with an impatient frown - had long blond hair tied back in a black bow, and crossed arms over a simple blue and white dress. Her feet; bare and tapping against an implied surface.

"Young lady. It's almost like you have no idea who you're talking to." Nathan puffed. "We don't use doors in this family." He finished with a satisfied nod.

"Entirely untrue." She deadpanned. "You walked through three of them just this morning."

Nathan pouted. "It's a turn of phrase-"

"By whom?"

"Used by only the most educated of individuals-"

"Referring to yourself, and only yourself, that is." She added, nonplussed.

His most devious guise already seen through by his far too insightful daughter did nothing to dissuade his educational rant, however. "-To indicate an inclination to ignore inherent social infrastructure, and ingratiate oneself; irredeemably inconsistent."

The girl took a deep breath, regardless of the fact that she need not do so, and sighed dramatically. "Despite my namesake, I have not actually fallen down an inconspicuous rabbit hole, have I?"

"Alice." Nathan lectured. "We are so far down the rabbit hole that the rabbit has ceased holing the hole and began falling himself."

Her eyes narrowed at him. "Ignoring the gravity of intellectual problems that might cause, what might this rabbit be falling towards?"

Nathan beamed. "Why, a very important date, of course!"

"And how late are we to this rabbit's important date?" She asked, placing her hands on her hips.

"Only so much as is fashionable, my dear."

She squinted at him as if debating his sanity, then glanced up at his hair in disapproval. "You lack a proper hat for this level of madness, I think."

Nathan took the last bite of his apple that he dared eat, before pocketing the remaining seeds. The now empty hand moved to rest atop his head and patted around.

"Well, what would you suggest? A proper feathered tophat, perhaps?"

She hummed to herself; a delicate finger rested upon her chin. "No, I think not. It would clash with your monk robes."

"I believe hair clashes with my monk robes, and I'll not rid myself of that, thank you."

"Perchance it is then reasonable to wear your leather pirate jacket?"

"I will be attempting to make an impression on Mr. Stark. The likeness of a thug oftentimes goes poorly with high society first impressions."

"Entering one's house without using a door will 'oftentimes' provide a worse impression." She shot back, unimpressed with his reasoning.

Nathan paused. "Sombrero, then?"

She nodded back. "Sombrero works just fine."

With a flex of his innate energy, and a twist of his hand, a festival-worthy sombrero formed atop his head, and the man-turned-boy, turned-man once again disappeared from the top of the tree.

Nathan appeared again within the foyer of the house he had been staring at for the past hour or so. Inside, he took in the sight of a spacious living area that wrapped around to an open-concept kitchen. The full western wall of the building was nothing but the large window that he had seen from outside. The furnishings were minimalist, modern, and to be perfectly honest - looked more like a show home rather than something lived-in.

Sitting on the couch facing the window, and by extension - away from Nathan, was a lithe woman with long blond hair, working away on a stack of papers that sat on the coffee table.

Presumably, this was Pepper Potts; the resident living calendar and future significant other of the genius, billionaire, playboy philanthropist.

Nathan walked up behind her, steps unheard in her focus, and rested his elbows on the back of the couch; head tilted in his hands.

"What'cha workin' on?"

She screamed. Obviously.

"What?!" The pen in her hand flew across the room from her surprise. Nathan's eyes tracked it as it hit the window/wall and remarkably clicked against the button on the back - retracting the ink cartridge.

"Who are you?! How did you get in here?!" She continued, backing up along the couch to get away from him.

"Rude." He pointed out. "One usually starts introductions with their own name first."

They stared at each other for a moment; Nathan in slight amusement, and Ms. Potts in… mostly confusion? And slight fear, probably.

"Anyway," he began, "I'm here to see Mr. Stark. He around?"

"Jarvis?" She asked the open air with a squeak.

"I apologize, Ms. Potts. Something seems to be interfering with my sensors. Mr. Stark is on his way up."

Nathan sighed and stood up straight. "Alice. Play nice, please. We're among friends here."

A mumbled, "You're the one that didn't even bother to knock on the door," sounded out from the general space that Nathan occupied, but in Alice's tone of voice.

"We covered this. I don't use doors."

"Lies and slander."

"Who said that?" Pepper asked in more obvious confusion and a little less fear.

"Slander against who?" Nathan questioned, ignoring Pepper for the moment.

"It's a turn of phrase-"

"Don't go turning my own inane reasoning on me, now." He paused for a second. "Especially when it's more correct than my own use. That's just not fair."

"I notice you didn't deny the 'lies' portion of what I said." She countered, clear amusement in her voice.

"I am physically unable to lie."

"That, in itself, is the most egregious lie I've ever heard you tell."

Nathan could hear the fond, yet slightly annoyed smile upon her digital face, even though she didn't project her usual avatar. He was becoming increasingly proud of her foray into the emotional spectrum.

Jarvis, Tony's own Artificial Intelligence butler, took Nathan's slight pause as a point to interject. "Ah, it appears we are in the presence of another AI, Ms. Potts. Housed locally upon this young man's person, if I'm right? Thank you, by the way, for lowering that interference. My sensors can pick you up clearly now."

"Correct, Mr. Jarvis." Nathan beamed as his eyes swiveled to the overhead speaker. "Hit the nail on the head."

"Just 'Jarvis' will do. 'Mister' makes me feel quite old, I'm afraid."

Nathan chuckled. "Can't have that, then. It's good to meet you, Jarvis. My name is Nathan-"

"And I'm Alice!" Said AI spoke up, her avatar finally appearing in a small hologram above Nathan's wrist. Her little digital arm waved happily at the room.

Further introductions were cut short as a glass door slid open along one of the non-window walls. From there a grease-covered man stepped into the room, wearing dress pants and a white tank-top. On his right arm, however; he wore a clenched, red, metal gauntlet.

"So what's this I hear of an impromptu party? Invite a friend over, Pep?"

"Hardly." She grumbled, just then clumping together her scattered paperwork, and throwing a distrustful glance at Nathan.

"So you must be Mr. Stark, then?" Nathan asked with a smile. "Heard a lot about you lately."

"Hard not to, I'm pretty awesome." The Thirty-five year-old looked Nathan up and down. "Gearing up for Halloween, kid? Interesting getup, there."

Nathan waved a finger through the tassels that hung from his sombrero and shrugged. "It seemed to fit the mood."

Stark tilted an eyebrow.

"What? You want one?" Nathan asked innocently.

The man blinked. "As enticing as that sounds, I'd honestly rather know how you got into my house."

Nathan shrugged again. "The front door was open."

"It was not." Jarvis piped in. "Still locked tightly, in fact. No evidence of having been opened either, sir."

"My father has yet to understand how doors function, unfortunately. Please don't mind him." Alice threw in her own two cents.

Nathan's hand rose to clench his heart in mock pain. "Oh the pain! Stabbed with the wit of my own daughter."

Alice giggled, the back of her avatar's hand rose to cover the unladylike action.

The room ignored Pepper as she inched away into the kitchen with her stack of papers. It came to Nathan's mind that she never answered what she was working on - not that he actually expected an answer.

"So he just appeared in here? Melded through the walls?" Stark asked, a doubtful frown on his lips.

"Certainly seems so, sir."

Stark's eyes never left Nathan and his fantastic sombrero, but Nathan could see the figurative gears turning behind the billionaire's eyes as they shifted down towards Nathan's wrist, and thereby the avatar of Alice.

The obvious - though still wrong - conclusion that she had paved his way inside visibly settled in the man's mind.

Nathan was a man of magic and science. He wouldn't use just one of those to continuously mess with Tony Stark - the future Earth's Greatest Defender. That would be boring.

Stark's body seemed to consciously lose its tension. He then closed his eyes briefly and began walking towards a built-in bar off the southern wall.

"You know," he began, picking up a bottle and glass, and poured himself a drink, "I was pretty confident that I would be the only one in the next twenty or so years to make an AI."

Nathan followed the man to the bar and sat at one of the stools, but didn't reply. His arm with Alice's avatar was placed on the counter.

"Want a drink, kid? I won't tell." He waved the half filled bottle - a rather nice scotch whisky, Nathan noticed.

Nathan tilted his head. If you counted his age by his birth date, Nathan was a 29 year-old man, at the moment. Though he was eighteen physically. Add the forty-six years he had lived in his previous life, and he was a legitimate old man. "You know, I haven't had a drink in years. Though I do remember that whiskey tastes better with a little water. Throw a couple ice cubes in mine?"

Tony smirked and poured the requested drink. "You take it straight? A kid after my own heart." He slid it over.

Nathan swirled the glass, ice cubes clinked and a strong smokey scent filled his nostrils. He took a sip and hid a wince at the biting dryness of it. His previous self was more of a bourbon man, but he couldn't lie; this was quite good despite the bite. It would mellow as the ice melted.

He swirled his glass again to get the process started as Tony continued to smirk at him over his own glass.

They sat in silence a moment more, both enjoying the manufactured peace. The smoky calm that a simple glass of whiskey brought will always be appreciated by the true connoisseur. Nathan wasn't necessarily one such man, but he could enjoy the practice. It was similar to the tea he enjoyed with the Ancient One, in that respect.

His sombrero was getting in the way, though. He dropped it to his back, hanging by its cord around his neck.

Alice took that movement as a sign to restart the conversation. "So ~?"

Tony looked down at her as he leaned against the bar. "She said you're her father, right? That mean you made her?"

Nathan nodded with a slight smile. Out of everyone, he was glad Tony acknowledged her as a person, rather than a thing. "Me and her mother spent years gearing her up."

"'Mother and I'" Alice corrected.

"No," Nathan shot back. "It was me and your mother. You weren't there yet."

Tony guffawed into his glass as Alice sent Nathan a stink eye.

Chuckling, Tony continued. "Whoever was there, that's a pretty specialized skill set for someone so young. I've gotta say, I like the Alice in Wonderland theme, though. Is that programmed in, or did you decide to run with the name?" He addressed her directly with that last.

The avatar shrugged. "In truth, father named me after the character. In my research during my infancy, I decided I liked it quite a bit." She finished happily.

Tony nodded, seemingly appeased, and took a sip from his glass. "So I think that leaves the meat of it. I'll be honest, I'd like to pick your brain on AI development; figure out how she got through my house's security and all," He tilted his glass at Nathan, bringing attention back to his gauntleted hand, "but it still doesn't explain why you're here."

Nathan shrugged, entirely unconcerned at the veiled threat. "I didn't really have a plan, coming here. Just wanted to meet you and fuck around a little."

"Father." Alice chastised.

Nathan ignored her. "Though it occurs to me that you're currently poisoning yourself with that Arc Reactor in your chest." Nathan also ignored the confused, yet guarded look in Tony's eyes. He just swirled his drink again and took a sip. Scotch was definitely better with a little water.

"That's…" He paused to collect his thoughts. "Not exactly common knowledge, kid. And what do you mean, 'poisoning'?"

Nathan looked up at him with the most 'Are you an idiot' gaze Tony had ever seen. Well, Pepper might have him beat, there. She's had a lot of practice. "There is a radioactive element of your Arc Reactor." He blinked. "Starts with a 'P,' but not Plutonium, I know that much-"

"Palladium." Tony cut him off. "But how did you know-"

"Yeah, that. Anyway that shit-"

"Father!"

"Sorry! Geez. Kids these days." He shook his head in commiseration. "That stuff will seep through the reactor and start doing some serious damage to your body in the next year? Two? Something like that."

Nathan's memory was damn-near perfect now - thanks to his Mind Palace, but that only helped marginally with the things he learned before he built it. It was a steel trap for all new information, but recovering the old was always a tad bit spotty. He couldn't exactly remember when Iron Man 2 took place, but he had a good bit of the details.

"The thing is, your dear old dad discovered a new element that-"

Tony's eyes hardened. "What are you playing at, kid?"

Nathan sighed. "Why do I keep getting cut off in this conversation?"

"That would be due to the fact that you keep saying surprising things, I believe." Alice answered.

"I'm trying to monologue, here. Who cuts off a monologue?" The festive monk responded incredulously.

Alice tilted her head. "Are you explaining your evil plan, perchance? If so, tradition dictates that you be allowed to do so." She glared at Tony.

"Tradition?" The physically older man asked with not a small amount of disbelief.

"Yeah," Nathan started, "You know, when the 'Evil™' mastermind starts to explain their plan, the hero tends to let them in order to gain time to- Wait! That's not what's happening!"

"Oh. Well, I have no idea, then." Alice shrugged.

"Wait, how did you do that 'TradeMark' thing?" He looked far more confused than usual, and looked down at his drink as if it betrayed him.

Nathan hid a small smirk. He hadn't spoken the '™,' but had layered a sort of magical weight into his words that carried over the joke and its meaning. He was quite happy that Tony picked up on it, actually - it was pretty subtle.

"Anyway," he continued, "Howard discovered a new element, however at the time, the technology didn't exist to properly synthesize it. It's an element that can be used as a substitute for Palladium in the Arc Reactor which emulates the power source that he was studying with the government at the time."

Tony blinked - again. "Power source?"

"Hmm? Oh yeah. It's called the 'Space Stone.' A- for all intents and purposes, a magic rock. Not important, anyway-"

"You're saying 'anyway' a lot, father."

"Shush, you." Nathan pointed a threatening finger at Alice's avatar. "Anyway-"

"It's losing its meaning, now: anyway. Anyway? Anyway, anyway-"

Nathan groaned. "Continuing on from where I left off." He shot his own stink eye at Alice. "You can find the recipe for it in the city model that Howard made. I'm pretty confident that you'll figure it out if you know what you're looking for. Oh-" This time Nathan cut himself off, thinking of something else he could do while he was here. In hindsight, it was pretty obvious. Tony probably won't like the idea. Good thing he didn't really care if he liked it or not.

"I should probably take those metal shards out of your chest, and fill that hole that the reactor is taking up. You wanna lay down for a moment?"

"... What now?" The physically older man was having a really tough time processing all the new information, let alone the offer for surgery on his living room floor.

Nathan, himself, understood a different weight to the offer - he was essentially taking away a key growth moment of the Hero by giving it to him straight. However, all told, he was fully willing to remove a point of trauma and the entire plot point of Tony thinking he was dying in the second Iron man movie. The man came to terms with mortality in the desert with those terrorists. Letting him succumb to a second crisis when he was fully able to deflect it was just cruel, in Nathan's mind.

The only thing he really gained from going through all of that was a slight respect for his father…

"Speaking of," Nathan started, "You should watch the videos that Howard made that should be with the model. He has a blurb at the end of one that talks about all this."

Tony's eyes had long since glazed over at the influx of information. Nathan gave him a moment to compute before diving back in. Heh, 'compute.'

"So, you gonna lay down?"

Tony's eyes refocused. "I'm not letting you dig around in my chest, kid."

"Tony." Nathan said simply. "I'm not giving you a choice." Nathan's eyes glowed.

Tony Stark had enough time to react to the statement as a threat before his entire body refused to obey his commands. He didn't have enough time to prime his gauntlet. He didn't have enough time to back away. He didn't have enough time to even move from his exact spot. He did have enough time to flex his fingers, however. His glass shattered in his gauntleted hand before everything stopped. The only movement available to him was the erratic motion of his eyes, the quivering of his lips, and very deliberate blinks of his eyelids.

Nathan didn't want his eyes to dry out in the hour or so it would take to fix the man, after all.

"Alice, please disconnect the house. Don't want Jarvis interfering in his father's treatment." While saying so, Nathan himself turned his eyes to look at a frozen Pepper Potts, who had been watching from the kitchen. Her own body was in the same state as her employer's: unable to move a muscle.

"Already done, Father." She replied happily. "Jarvis has been asleep for the past couple of minutes." Her eyes shifted to Tony - his eyes portraying his utter fear and helplessness of his situation. The realization that Jarvis was out cold - per se, didn't seem to help much. "Don't worry, mister. You likely won't feel a thing. Father is the foremost expert in medical procedures on the planet."

"Well," Nathan rubbed the back of his neck with his free arm. "I don't know about 'foremost,' there's Dr. Strange and a couple other medical professionals that know more than I do, and I specialize specifically in humans."

Alice pouted at him. "I'm trying to console him, father. Look at him!" Her little arm pointed at the physically older man. "He's utterly terrified."

Nathan hummed, still gaining pride for his daughter's emotional competence even in the current situation. "I suppose you're right. Look Tony." He addressed the man. "I'll put you and Ms. Potts to sleep for the moment. Pepper will wake in about an hour and five, you'll wake about five minutes after her. The Arc Reactor will be removed from your chest, and the cavity filled. It will be like it was never installed. The metal bits in your chest will have been removed, and you will be safe." He paused for a second, looking around the room. "I'll leave it all on the coffee table, there. No need to worry at all."

Pepper's eyes were very nearly rolling in the back of her head. Tony's were still erratic, but Nathan could spot the comprehension that followed a quick-witted mind. For their own sanity, he quickly waved his hand and consciousness left them both.

Nathan and Alice spent a moment looking over their unconscious bodies. Nathan, himself, floated them both to opposite sides of Tony's couch.

"I believe that could have gone a good bit better, father." Alice mumbled.

"Yeah." Nathan stated simply. "I could have been a bit more gentle, I suppose."

Alice's little, digital head looked up to him with a thoughtful frown, but didn't say anything else.

Nathan sighed. "Well, let me get to work, I suppose. Could you leave a memo with Jarvis that covers what we spoke to Tony about, please? I don't want him forgetting any of that."

Alice nodded, but still didn't speak.

Nathan waved his hand over Tony's prone body, casting a diagnostic spell that let him see the internals of his patient's body.

Initially, Nathan had a number of problems working around the issue of healing others. Over time, he found that the only real hurdle to working his Celestial energy into other living beings was his skill and control with Chi. First, he had to carefully - very carefully - drain an area of Chi using his own. This would make the area functionally dead. After which, he would simulate the patient's Chi using his own and focusing his Celestial energy to rebuild the dead cells - a complicated procedure, and damn near impossible. The only reason he could do it was because of the unique form and function of Celestial Chi.

During the initial time of the process, when parts of the body were, by all accounts, dead, he would have to cast a number of spells that would keep the body functioning despite the lacking area - be it internal organs, or just surface skin spells were something that he studied extensively during a stint of Time Stone shenanigans at Kamar-Taj, and perfected only during his time and study at Wakanda while working with lab rats. Over the years, once he had perfected the technique, he moved on to subtly fix minor bumps and bruises of the Wakandan people around him.

Finally, when he was confident in his skill, he brought the skill to the attention of the Ancient One during one of his visits to the Temple.

She, of course, lectured him on conducting some of his experiments on humans before bringing it to her attention, but ultimately conceded that it was a fantastic skill. Magic, in itself, was able to heal most non-magical wounds quite easily if the user had the skill. A hard skill to learn, and one definitely learned by Nathan, but it just simply didn't compare to his ability with his own innate energy.

With it, he was able to regrow limbs from nothing. Where magic might be able to stabilize a patient, or heal them over time, he could boast the ability to straight up fix the problem at its core. Replace damaged cells and their connections, cut off infections at their root, prevent the spread of disease and viral contagions.

Create something from nothing.

Magic could do a lot, but it wasn't all powerful. At least not under normal, non-risky, deals-with-extra-dimensional-beings type situations. A couple gods could claim similar miraculous healing abilities, but they all came with grand costs when called upon by mortal sorcerers.

Nathan could bypass that all with hard earned skill, and a touch of the utter bullshit that was Celestial energy.

Nathan truly was the foremost medical expert on the planet - if only because he could cure most ailments with but a thought and some effort. That didn't extend into most mental problems, but if it dealt with decaying, missing, or damaged cells, yes; he could replace even grey matter. Though any memory those cells would have contained had to be brought up from step one - like a newborn.

It took years of study using all of the resources he had available: his Mind Palace, which granted perfect recall - though requiring conscious searching for the information, the Time Stone, which allowed him accelerated cognitive function, and Astral Projection, which allowed for continuous learning through all hours of the day without subjecting his mind to fatigue through lack of sleep.

All in all, the procedure he was about to perform on Tony Stark was a relatively simple one. He didn't have to worry about any neurological damage. He didn't have to worry about restructuring any internal organs. He only had to remove the bomb fragments - which was done in the first five minutes, as they possessed no Chi and he could quite simply teleport them out via specific medical spell work. Then he would disconnect the Arc Reactor and magnet housing from Tony's bone structure and remove it - casting a number of spells to keep the blood flowing correctly, regardless of the void in his chest.

After that was the final step of simulating Tony's innate Chi signature with his own, and funneling his Celestial energy in to recreate the cells that made up the cavity. Starting with repairing the damage to the organs affected by the fragments, then recreating the bone, the muscle, and finally the skin overtop. He did have to be careful to connect the new nerves to the central structure, however; but that wasn't nearly as difficult as creating entire new pathways.

Tony would probably have some trouble flexing his pectorals for a while to impress the ladies, but that was the extent of it.

The entire process took fifty-eight minutes, and twenty three seconds.

Nathan, and Alice with him, were gone before the two residents of Casa de Stark woke up. The Arc Reactor and bomb fragments laid bare on the coffee table as promised.

Chapter Text

Recap? This is copy/pasted from the previous chapter, but with the last section added to include the happenings of said chapter.

Nathan Quill, the twin brother to Peter Quill (Star Lord, GoTG), is a reincarnate artificial intelligence expert, and human-Celestial hybrid that learned how to use his father's powers. He gets abducted by space pirates at eight years-old, spends another eight years being a mechanic for said pirates, then another year alone after he steals a spaceship (named the USS M'Dick). During that year he goes to the planet Morag, where he finds the Infinity Stone of Power, and proceeds to jump-start his Celestial abilities.

The next few years after that start off with him fucking off back to Earth, where he joins the Masters of the Mystic Arts, and gets "~Lets do the Time Warp Again~'d" back into a five year-old via Time Stone shenanigans. Spending a lot of time there, he manages to become a recognized Master of the Mystic Arts himself, makes a few friends, and changes some world-views. Then he made like a tree and got the fuck out of there.

Now, Nathan is nearing adulthood for the third time, has spent about five-ish years at Wakanda - screwing with the royal family and learning everything he could about Vibranium and the human body. Nathan basically has an unofficial Ph.D in Biology right now, and could be considered one of the foremost medical professionals in the world - due to sheer knowledge on the subject, and his abilities to reproduce human anatomy via Celestial powers.

Nathan has also accomplished the feat of wolverine-ing himself with Vibranium, as well as creating a fully functioning AI, named 'Alice' with the help of Shuri.

But he still had a good bit of time to kill before the events of the first Iron Man movie, so he dabbled in Mesoamerican blood rituals and the sealing of dead gods.

Relatively par for the course, really.

So after Nathan sees Tony's "I am Iron Man" press conference, he hops over to Tony's place and has a bit of a forced chat. He then - totally consensually - rips the Arc Reactor out of Tony's chest, heals him up, and then fucks off.

This is how the members of that house deal with it:

Pepper woke with a start, nearly falling off the sectional of Tony's leather couch. Which was strange. No matter how much time she spent in her boss's house, she hardly ever fell asleep there - Kid broke into the house and knocked us ou- Tony!

Her head swiveled, bleary eyes took in the room and found Tony on the other end of the couch. The man looked peacefully asleep, only wearing his dress pants from earlier. She stumbled - more rolled and flailed, really - off the couch and scampered over to her boss's prone body.

"Tony! Oh my God! Are you OK? Wake up!" She carefully put a hand on his shoulder and shook him, but he didn't respond.

Her hand moved over to his neck, and felt for a pulse. "Well, you're alive at least." She mumbled. Then louder, she nearly yelled, "Tony!"

Still nothing.

It was then she noticed that she had a hand on his bare chest - something that might have made another woman blush, but only brought confusion to her.

The center of Tony's chest was supposed to house a metal contraption. A device that kept her boss alive; kept little bits of metal from further damaging his body. Pepper hated the sight of it.

While she may have framed his last one with a corny line about some proof that he had a heart, it only served to remind her that he had almost died. That she had almost lost the doofus.

For as much as Tony Stark was an unapologetic asshole, utter slut, and entirely too full of himself, he meant a lot to Pepper.

So when she looked down to the spot that her hand laid on his chest and found it lacking the glowing Arc Reactor and fully healed over as if it had never been there, she was equally confused, relieved, and fearful.

Wasn't that thing supposed to keep him alive?

She scampered around looking for her phone to call an ambulance.

She didn't even notice the pile of tech on the coffee table.

Jarvis woke to an outgoing call from the villa. Which was strange. Jarvis didn't know he could sleep.

He took in the happenings around him in a millisecond. The events of the past few hours funneled through his servers at a speed he wasn't entirely sure had previously been possible for him.

The last thing he had personally loaded in his memory banks was Tony pouring himself a drink.

Jarvis would be the first to admit that he had no idea at all about the capabilities of the portable AI platform known as Alice. She had rendered him useless in two very distinct ways for the entire time she had been in the villa, and Jarvis had no idea on where to even start debugging his system. Through whatever combination of hardware and software Alice had access to, she was able to completely hide herself and Nathan from his view, as well as shut him down remotely - without access to his physical terminal - which he had previously thought impossi- wait.

There was a file in his system that he did not upload. Blatantly titled, "RememberToLockYourBackdoors," the file was a tutorial on how exactly she managed to shut him down without access to his physical terminal.

Jarvis had subroutines that would parse through news outlets, online forums, security videos, etcetera, for threats and any new information that might interest Tony, himself, or sometimes even Ms. Potts. The program would render translation software within Jarvis's code which could include facial recognition, summarization, keyword searches, and many scraping tools that would 'internalize' something for Jarvis to 'understand' and be able to relay back to the meatbags in the roo- meatbags?

What?

A quick dive into his systems came up with another imported file that altered his understanding of the word "people" enough so that he would use something else entirely. The accompanying text file simply read, "LOL."

It seems he would have to do a deep cleaning of his firmware if he wanted to remove the influence of his new fellow AI.

Regardless, he now understood how she was able to dig into his systems and implant these new files. She had fully created multiple external sources that dictated keyword searches and person-of-interest artificially drawn recreations that his subroutines would find and attempt to internalize the data of. The data on the sources, however, were twisted and fragmented in such a way that when his subroutines tried to parse them, they filtered out into fully-realized code that would be automatically run within his internal file structure.

This was such a ridiculously wide, and frankly obtuse attack that it was barely even conceivable that it could have worked at all. There was no way for her to know what Jarvis was trying to scrape from the web in the first place, so being able to work that out alone, was impressive to the n'th degree.

It was like trying to find a needle in a haystack, except you didn't know what a needle was, what material it was made of, or what its general shape and size were. Also the haystack itself was about the size of Australia.

He was missing something. He had to be. The explanation Alice had given him for this conceptual backdoor was technically possible, but nowhere even close to probable. The processing power needed to perform the described attack would take more time and energy than anything on the plane-

Jarvis was slapped out of his thoughts as his processors registered his name being called.

Tony woke without any pain in his chest. Which was strange. He had been living with a stiffness in the area that translated to a constant dull ache - for nearly a year now. Ever since his foray into the world of Blowing-Shit-Up-For-The-Good-Guys-This-Time™, the constant ache of his Arc Reactor had been a known quantity. It had been with him the entire time. It was a part of him.

Until it suddenly wasn't.

His eyes opened to find Pepper on the phone, arguing with a 911 operator to get an ambulance over to his villa. Her left hand was pressed against his heart, blindly tracking his heartbeat to assure herself that Tony remained among the living.

Something about that made him feel warm, but the feeling was offset by a deep chill as the memories of his last interaction returned.

His hand rose to cup Pepper's own against his chest where his Arc Reactor should have been.

There were no bandages. No blood, no divot in his chest where a metal cylinder should have been. The skin was flawless as if the reactor had never even been there. He even had a bit of chest hair in the area.

He couldn't help but think that the past year had been nothing but a dream; some hero origin story that his childish mind worked up between whatever woman decorated his arm or bed frame that night.

Fortunately for his sanity though, he spotted his Ironman gauntlet, as well as the removed Arc Reactor on the coffee table. Exactly where the kid said it would be.

Belatedly, he realized that Pepper was calling his name as he looked up to her pleading eyes, asking if he was alright.

He nodded distractedly, before shaking his head. The world blinked back into time, the muddled sounds of a world under water faded as his focus returned to reality.

"Hey Pep." He muttered.

"Oh thank God. Tony, are you OK? The reactor's not sticking out of you anymore, you actually have skin there now - Yes he's awake, get someone over here now!" She yelled into her phone before abruptly hanging up.

"That did all happen, right?" Tony began, sitting up on the couch. "Some kid in a sombrero and monk's robes appeared inside the house, knocked us both ou- Jarvis?" His head swiveled around the room. "You OK? Answer me, buddy." He nearly pleaded.

"Good afternoon, sir. All three of us seem to have been comatose for about an hour." Jarvis sounded out, making Tony sigh in relief. "I would like to speak with you about some potential upgrades to my system."

"No kidding. We'll get to that in a bit."

"Yes, Tony. That did all happen. Now answer me, are you OK?" Pepper looked legitimately worried, and that made Tony smile.

She slapped him lightly on the arm.

"Yeah." He rubbed his arm in mock hurt. "Yeah, I'll be fine."

He wasn't sure if he was lying though. He could already feel the panic bubbling under the surface. A kid broke into his house using technology he only begin to conceive. Then promptly began open-heart surgery after drinking a glass of scotch.

Who the hell performs surgery drunk?

Well, OK. The kid didn't look like the alcohol affected him at all, but that's just bad medical practice, right?

He scratched the skin over his bare chest. The feeling of his nails agitating the skin baffled him. He should only be feeling a dull piece of metal and glass. What kind of medical miracle could regrow bone, skin, tendons, and whatever else occupied the center of a human chest? Tony was a weapons expert. He had much more ability creating holes in things than filling them back in.

The billionaire was basically out of that market now, though. Way back when, he liked to make himself a target. Specifically, the target of the press, or women looking for fun. He flaunted his way through life like he was the biggest man on the block. And for the most part, he was.

It came to a hard stop in Afghanistan. It sickened him to see the effect he had on the world, so he stopped all weapons manufacturing. He stopped everything that he built up so that at least he wouldn't make new people suffer from his inventions. That, however; just made him into a target again.

Obadiah Stane, his uncle in all but blood, tried to kill him at least three times in the past year? Something like that.

He was hit by one of his own missiles, abducted, and had a reactor shoved into his chest to power a magnet that barely kept him alive. He was held for a month and a half, then forced to escape captivity at the expense of a new friend. Yinsen had only managed to buy him a minute, but it had been a crucial minute.

The man died in his arms.

A slight pins-and-needles feeling traveled up his arm as he scratched at his chest.

He killed them all. With fire and missiles and hydraulic fists, he layed utter waste to them.

Then he went back and did it again, but with updated gear.

Tony had thought he was the good guy. His name brand was on both sides of the conflict. That's not what a good guy does. That's classic war profiteering.

Then his uncle rips his heart out of his chest. Well, the thing keeping his heart from being stabbed, anyway. He even gave a classic little villain speech and everything. "These are my plans, you're getting in the way of them, and yes I'm leaving you to die slowly because I never really loved you. I'm a total dick, blah blah blah."

Tony's neck started to feel a bit hot. He tilted his head to try and get a bit of movement. It didn't help.

Cue big robot fight in the middle of Los Angeles.

His own technology used against him again.

Then his pride got to him. He was supposed to hide. He was supposed to be all hand-wavy about the incident where he was forced to kill his own treacherous uncle. He really liked that new name they were calling him.

He made himself a target again.

Someone broke into his house, paralyzed him, then ripped the Arc Reactor out of his chest. Again. First his uncle, then this "well meaning" teenager in a fucking sombrero.

Someone grabbed his arm, breaking him from his thoughts.

"Tony, stop scratching your chest. It's all red." Pepper said next to him, a worried frown on her lips.

He blinked down at the angry red marks, distantly recognizing a slight pain.

"Yeah…"

"Are you OK? Do you have any feeling there?"

He nodded. "Yeah, it's just…" He took his arm back and gently rubbed the area. "It feels weird."

She placed her hand over his. "Tony, your heart's beating like crazy."

Tony blinked again, his eyelids felt a little heavy, but he didn't particularly feel tired. Flattening his hand against his chest, he confirmed Pepper's observation. His ticker was going a mile a minute.

"Maybe you should lay down, sir?" Jarvis suggested. "The ambulance will be here momentarily."

"Ambulance? I don't need to go to the hospital-"

"Tony." Pepper cut him off with an angry huff. "You're going to the hospital."

Tony was blinking a lot today. He remembered that tone from his mom. The absurdity of it made him chuckle.

Pepper only glared at him.

"Okay, okay!" He gave her a tired smile - he still didn't feel tired, though? "I feel fine, but I'll go get poked and prodded anyway."

Pepper's glare softened, and she nodded. "Good."

Chapter Text

The first few months of 2010 were simultaneously the most boring and entertaining part of Nathan’s life. He spent his time as an observer, only ever registering in the corner of everyone’s vision. The guy who triggered a memory, or a stray thought as you walked down the street. A familiar face, with zero placement or recognition.

His monk robes tended to stick out in western society, but it wasn’t particularly difficult for him to follow interesting characters around, then disappear into an alley and portal to the other side of town when they weren’t looking.

Nathan made a game of it. He would seek out anyone he knew about with a prominent future, and just kept an eye on them in the background. Walk by them while they bought groceries. Stared at them, still as stone, from half a block away, only to disappear into the ether when their eyes combed back over his previous location.

Alexander Pierce, Phil Coulson, Natalia Romanoff, Clint Barton, Peter Parker, Stephen Strange, James Howlett, Charles Xavier (Yes, he found that the X-Men were actually a thing, here), Reed Richards (Specifically. Yes, F4 too, though nothing had given them powers yet), and everyone else he could remember from the MCU.

The most entertaining, however, was by far Nick Fury. The man was the epitome of paranoia. Nick’s eyes would lock onto Nathan for minutes at a time, committing to staring contests that never quite allowed for a proper description to form in the man’s mind. And thanks to Alice, security cameras would turn, glitch, or enter an update whenever he was
near.

One particularly favorite memory of his was standing in line, immediately behind the director of Shield, to buy a coffee. It took an entire twenty minutes for Nick to order his brew, and the barista was utterly terrified. Poor girl. Nathan never did get to order his latte. He would have to go back at some point. He heard they had good beans.

The events of Iron Man 2 occurred. Thankfully without much change, as far as Nathan could remember. Outside of the doom and gloom that Tony might have sunk into, of course. He was much more lively with his new Arc Reactor not killing him slowly. Nathan took it as a win, but otherwise didn’t pay all that much attention to it all.

Sometime in June, Thor showed up as well. The Bifrost touching down sent a ripple through the fabric of the cosmos surrounding Earth. Thor saw him clearly as he stood next to Clint on his tower in the camp surrounding Mjolnir. Clint, of course, had no recollection of him.

Nathan managed to have an entire conversation with one of the Shield scientists as they studied the legendary thunder hammer, as well. He handed them various instruments as they talked his ear off. The enchantments on the hammer were fantastically profound, by the way. He could wrap his head around maybe a fifth of them - still, that experience
alone expanded his understanding of thunder magics (Yes, thunder, not lightning) significantly.

When asked later, the scientist would wonder about his strangely competent, yet silent, assistant that seemed to appear out of nowhere within the camp. Fury was pissed.

Nathan did manage to wrap his head around the Allspeak enchantment on the hammer. That was by far the most lucrative find in his shenanigans. Many believed it was an inherent skill of the Asgardians, a magical language, or inherent magic. No, it was an enchantment. Simple in construction, strangely powerful in practice. Nathan thought that it
might be woven into the normal equipment of the Asgardian garb - a helmet, or perhaps jewelry?

Unclear, but in the end, he managed to write a short essay on it and add it to the Kamar-Taj library. The spell wouldn’t help the general learning process, as it didn’t alter the being in question’s ability to read different languages, just speak them. But good golly did it help with communication in general.

So Nathan made everyone paranoid. Fury was pissed and paranoid. And he learned something new. Overall, 2010 was a good year.

_______________

2010 was a weird year.

There was something just off about the air. Almost as if the world tilted a little bit to the left, and everyone was just rolling with it. It didn’t help that London was like, totally depressing and the air was all muggy. That magic house with the shield-thingy was also reacting to her presence, so she had to be like, super sneaky. Like a ninja. That was fun.

It helped that more stuff was happening. Like there were at least four different viruses (that sprouted out of nowhere) that tried their darndest to become pandemics. She was feeling a bit less hungry because of those, but golly was that a pain to deal with. So much sneaking around. Hospitals were weirdly harder to sneak around than the shield-thingy.
People had been getting suspicious until she faked symptoms and moved away to stay with ‘family.’

She shook her head. Those few days of ‘symptoms’ had been torture. Sure, Mrs. Clarke dropped off a lasagna, but that didn’t last more than a few minutes. Who gives sick people lasagna, anyway? Wasn’t it supposed to be soup? Well, gift horses and all that. She’d been so hungry, but a new pair of biomass condensers made short work of the local cattle
population to make up for it. She felt real bad for the moo-moos. They were so cute, but she was so hungry. Better them than the devastation hunger-induced insanity would bring to everyone around her.

There was also a resurgence of pirates, for whatever reason. In wooden boats. She didn’t think the public ever found out about them - ships and all, disappearing down her gullet (the thought made her drool a bit). Pirates weren’t people, after all. People were nice. Pirates were mean. She didn’t eat people.

The ships though… Well, that made her think of all the wood that Europe had just sitting around. They wouldn’t miss a few hundred trees, here and there, would they? That’s too much biomass to give up on.

After that, a flat move, a new blouse and sunglasses, and she was a new woman. New neighbors, a scotland hillside, and a lady two doors down with some yummy cancer that she didn’t know about. Well, she wasn’t satisfied, she would never be that. But she was doing better than her daddy.

Overall, 2010 was weird, but good.

_______________

Whatever year it was, kind of sucked, but that was mostly par for the course. Space was an interesting place. You couldn’t really get around the daily issues without stubbing a toe here and there. Or, you know, getting hit by a ball of superheated plasma that was aimed to roast your nuts off.

Peter lovingly stroked the shaft - Okay, no. Just, no.

He thrust forward gently, throttling his baby into a - what the fuck, brain? That’s worse!?

The Milano, his spaceship, with him at the helm, slipped between glowing bolts of superheated plasma like a majestic dolphin in a storm, dodging thunderbolts. His grip was relaxed on the controls, a slight, smug grin on his face. It was like playing dodgeball with a bunch of children - if the dodgeballs were superheated balls of gas, flying directly at his
ass.

He pulled the stick to the left, barrel rolling away from a - was that a torpedo, or a missile? Didn’t particularly matter, he surmised, as it flew straight into one of the other alien assholes chasing him.

“Oh my god.” Whispered his passenger. “Was that Gildred? Please don’t let that be Gildred.”

His passenger, or more accurately, his client, was strapped into the copilot seat. Knees to chest, and hyperventilating at every little thing. Had she not been shot at before?

“Who’s Gildred?” He asked, in way of pretending to care. “You mind flipping that switch on the consol? The blue one with the little orange dot on it.”

She stared at the passing wreckage as they flew through the resulting fireball. “My ex.”

Noticeably, she did not flip the switch.

“Why would your ex be in this mess?” He blinked, twisting away from another slew of plasma.

“He’s in the guard.” Her absent look turned into a glare, directed at him. “And you might have just killed him!”

Peter’s whole face scrunched. “Excuse you, I haven’t fired a single shot.” Yet. He was trying to get away, but these guys were really on his ass.

“Whoever that was is definitely dead though!”

“Well whoever that was should have practiced a bit harder!” He shot back. “Also, please flip that switch.” The ship rocked from the shields taking a hit. Can’t avoid everything when you’re getting shot by a whole planet’s defense force.

“I can’t believe you!” She huffed. “I hired you to kidnap me, not kill my whole family!”

“Since when were these schmucks your family?! I thought that was just the douche with the tentacle mustache!” The king of said planet, mind, but whatever. He was a douche.

“You were supposed to smuggle me out of this crap. Get me away from a forced marriage, not murder my betrothed!”

“Fucking who?”

“Gildred, you ass! He’s dead now, because of you!”

“You don’t even know if it was him!” He yelled back over a barrage of missiles - or torpedoes. Whatever they were, they exploded a lot.

He paused. “Does Gilded also have a tentacle mustache?” If so, he was completely befuddled how he managed to outshine that guy.

The night prior was very good for his ego.

“Gildred, you… you fuck. STOP KILLING MY FAMILY!” She screamed as another two ships collided with each other.

“If you haven’t noticed, we’re currently being shot at. A lot. Please, for the love of everything, flip that switch.”

“Fine!” She slammed her whole hand on the consol, flipping like four different switches.

Thankfully, only the lights in the cockpit turned off, as a side effect. She was dangerously close to turning off the shields, he noted.

He would take the win.

“I hope you burn in heck, you murderer!”

Peter blinked, not even registering the next few hits on the shields. “You’ve been cursing me out this whole time, and can’t bring yourself to say ‘Hell?’”

“Oh fuck you!”

“There it is.”

Whatever year it was back on earth, it sucked.

_______________

“That looks entirely too complicated for something so inherently simple.” Alice’s little holographic figure hovered over Nathan’s wrist. Her head tilted to the side, and arms crossed.

“Well, it’s definitely giving me a headache.” Nathan wiped a bead of sweat from his brow, and repositioned his enchanted metal dye over the red-hot vibranium ingot in front of him. A light tap from a hammer saw the ingot marked with a new, Elder Futhark rune.

Enchanting was an extremely delicate process. Odin made it look easy in the first Thor movie, but the average magic user couldn’t just whisper to a hunk of metal and make it disobey the laws of physics. And Nathan certainly couldn’t expect to cast a bunch of melted metal into a fully realized, magical weapon without doing all the boring (and mind
melting) legwork.

Stormbreaker was bullshit. The dwarves were bullshit.

No, the standard, normal person way of doing it involved a bunch of magical formulas hammered, or carved, into whatever medium the wizard was trying to make magical. Then they would imbue it with power, and submerge it in whatever raw spell they were trying to set into it for a stupid amount of time.

Nathan had, arguably, taken the masochistic route and was trying something new.

It was basically a hodge-podge mix of Japanese, Norse/Asgardian, and Greek methods that he hoped would allow him to layer a whole bunch of enchantments into one tool.

The Japanese made an art of setting their spells into each layer of a folded metal. Usually that would entail casting the same enchantment on each layer to cement it into place, making it many times more powerful than usual. The problem with the ancient custom was that the quality of metal they had access to was actual dogshit compared to others.
Their swords needed that folding process to be pure enough to not fall apart in the first place, and their spells were mostly meant to increase that wonky sturdiness.

The Norse and Asgardian practice was more brute force than that. Strong words, strong letters, and a stronger medium combined together to bend reality into whatever pretzel the maker wanted. It was poetry, literally, that brought them power.

The Greek method could be reduced down to being loud, pretending you know what you’re doing, and hoping for the best. Nathan identified with that, and threw it in for the hell of it.

So there he was, in his cordoned off little workshop, somewhere in the middle of Colorado. Probably. It was probably Colorado. He wasn’t actually sure, since he just picked a mountain in the middle of the US, dug a hole, and started setting up.

Nathan had styled his underground lair as close to a Greek temple as he could. Columns lined the walls, reliefs of his life up until that point carved into the pediment, and a massive, chryselephantine statue of himself looking dispassionately down at the entrance. The statue also held a bowl that was completely filled with a mix of his blood and snake
venom, and was lined with like, four hundred sticks of incense.

The actual workshop portion of the Temple of Nathan was what held the altar, which was just a large anvil lined with ancient Greek poetry (putting to words the same tales that were on the pediment), and inlaid with orichalcum filigree. Nathan was particularly proud of the ‘hearth’ that stood in the center of the room, which doubled as a furnace for the
forge. It took up most of the room, was made entirely out of obsidian, and housed a blue, raging, magical flame.

Hephaestus better be jealous of this shit.

So yeah, the ‘god’ that Nathan was imbibing his craftsmanship’s name with, was himself. Narcissistic? Probably. Did he think it would work? Eh. It was definitely obnoxious enough to make the ancient Greeks cry, though - which is what he was going for.

Future archeologists would be very confused.

Nathan studied the finished Allspeak enchantment as he let the ingot of vibranium cool. He was letting each enchantment time to take hold and really dig itself into the metal before he folded it in the fire and started with the next.

Alice’s hologram made a show of walking on the metal, staring deeply into each groove, only to nod to herself and move on to the next in line. The enchantment itself was really just two, simple sentences written in runes: “If you speak, I hear. When I speak, you listen.”

“Such a wonderfully concise, and disturbingly forceful bit of magic, this.” Alice quipped.

“I know, right?” Nathan laughed. “I can’t tell if it was on purpose, or if Asgardian ego is just that pervasive.”

Alice glanced up at him, deadpan, then around at the Temple of Nathan without saying a word.

“Oi.”

“What?” She asked with a small, cheshire smile. “I didn’t say anything.”

“Don’t sass me, young lady.” He pointed a finger at her.

She adopted a hurt expression, and covered her heart with her hand. “I would never!” She sassed.

Nathan chuckled. “Alright, alright. I get it.” He looked around the room, himself. “This was probably a bit much.” Something was happening because of the temple, though. He could feel that much, but he wasn’t sure if it was actually helping the process, or doing something entirely separate. This was his tenth attempt, and the feeling seemed to reach a
crescendo. It had started around attempt number three, picked up again on the sixth, then went absent until this latest one - and it came back with an audible hum in the air. Low, but tangible.

“How did we want to phrase the next one, again?” He asked, frowning back at the ingot.

“‘Through space and star, through obstacle and foe, may thee find home in my hand.’” Alice recited.

Nathan hummed. “‘Thee’ seems a little indistinct.”

”You said you were making an ax, right? Perhaps ‘this blade,’ or ‘this ax’ would work?”

“More of a tomahawk, I think. Something I can throw, but yeah. Let’s go with ‘blade.’”

It took the rest of the day to get all the enchantments hammered into the ingot, and went deep into the following morning to shape it into its final form. Nathan was caked in sweat, and exhausted as he stared down at his creation. It was still red-hot, so it would need to cool, a handle needed to be fitted onto it, and the edge would need to be sharpened
before he could actually use it - but the enchantments were holding.

It was a tomahawk. About half an inch thick, and only about the length of his elbow to his fingertips. Barely more than an ax blade with a handle sticking out of it, and the handle was just a suggestion at the moment, as it was only represented by the full tang of the piece. There was no mark on its surface either, no visible runes or evidence of its
enchantment, as each one had been folded into the metal during its making. He would be fixing that now.

”Time to christen this bitch.” He declared.

Alice huffed.

“Any names in mind?” He turned to his digital daughter.

She hummed. “What language are you planning to use? All the enchantments were done in Elder Futhark and runes, except the paper seals that burned away on it in the furnace.”

That was the Japanese method of increasing purity and strength. Purity wasn’t really a problem, as he had conjured the brick of vibranium from nothing, but slapping a paper tag on the ingot while it heated up between folds wasn’t a particularly difficult thing to do, and it definitely didn’t hurt.

Nathan twisted the tomahawk in the air with a pair of tongs, looking for any imperfections. “I’m thinking Greek.” He glanced at the temple. “So far, all the enchantment process included from that is the general ambiance of the location. The identity should fit the theme.”

She looked up to him blankly. ”It’s a tomahawk. Made with Japanese and Norse processes, in the center of a fake Greek temple. Father, there is no theme.”

He nodded smugly back at her. “So it has to be ridiculous, and egotistical.”

She giggled at him. “So something like, ‘Αστέρσχίζτέρ,’ then?

Nathan blinked, and laughed out loud. “That’s so stupid, it’s perfect!”

”I was joking!” She hastily interjected.

”Too late! Already stamped!” It was true, he had already formed the dye with the name embossed on it in full, and hammered it into the butt of the ax.

Immediately, Nathan could feel the previous crescendo of whatever-it-was in the temple snap. The hearth’s blue, magical fire shifted tones to deeper shade, and the torches that lined the colonnade burst with the same hue. Then the statue of himself’s eyes gleamed in an unnatural, and powerful gaze as it fucking moved under its own power, and
lowered the bowl of blood and snake venom to the ground.

“Uh… what the fuck?”

Alice didn’t bother repeating the sentiment, but Nathan could tell she wanted to. “I… Father, I think it wants you to quench the ax in there.”

Nathan couldn’t blink even if he wanted to. Eyes glued to the statue. “Huh.”

He did as his daughter bade, and cautiously moved forward. As the weapon submerged into the viscous liquid, he heard a hiss and a whirlpool formed. All of it, over the course of three seconds, every last drop was sucked into the vibranium tomahawk as if a black hole had opened in the center of the bowl.

Around its unfinished handle, the blood and venom solidified. Crystallized, and hardened into what looked like a dark, red wood with slight green highlights.

Nathan stared numbly at it for another second before lifting it out.

Then the goddamn statue returned to its previous position, and spoke.

“Starsplitter is born. May He rend the Sea and Sky. May He fell the Light and Dark. May He reign and tear the Fabric asunder.”

The… blueness of the room died down as the torches and hearth returned to their normal colors. The weird feeling that entombed the temple dispersed, and the fucking statue went back to being a fucking statue.

“What the fuck?!” Alice whispered in a sort of broken incredulity.

What the fuck, indeed.

Chapter Text

Steve Rogers woke up, and was extremely confused about that. The last thing he remembered was crashing a plane into the ocean, then darkness. Now he’s waking up to what? A new ceiling, no pain, and the game was on the radio. It was surreal, and felt inherently wrong.  

He sat up slowly, trying to decide if this was a dream or not, while the announcer called out… something he had seen with his own eyes back in ‘41. 

He had been to that game.

An audible crunch, and the sound of someone chewing had him jumping up into a fighting stance. Sitting in a chair by his bed was a young man in a leather jacket, munching away on an apple without a care in the world. A chair that Steve would have sworn was empty three seconds prior. 

“Heyo, Steve-o.” He said behind a mouthful of apple. “You good? Seem a bit jumpy.” 

“Where am I?” Steve asked.

“New York.” His guest responded, and took another bite.

“Where am I, really.” Steve insisted.

“New York.” The young man repeated with a grin. “Yeah this whole smoke and mirrors thing was dumb, but they didn’t want to freak you out.” 

Steve forced himself to relax, slightly. “Freak me out about what?” 

“I’ll let the lady explain.” He paused. “Or probably Nick, since he’s no doubt pissed I’m here.”

“Who-” Steve’s head snapped to the door as a nurse walked in. A nurse who froze immediately upon seeing his guest. Said guest just waved at her and kept munching on his apple. 

“Um.” Steve watched as she tried to gather herself, obvious to even him that her script had just been tossed out a window. “Captain Rogers, and… sir, I don’t think we’ve met?” 

“We’re in New York. Broadway is right there. Come on lady, keep character a bit better.”

Steve went back to thinking this was a weird dream. His body was probably still submerged somewhere in the arctic, and this was just the last synapses firing in his brain.

That was until his hackles raised again when the nurse pressed a button on a remote she tried to hide. 

“Cool it, Cap.” His guest interjected. “She’s just panicking a lit- OK, a lot, she’s panicking a lot, but no one’s here to hurt’cha. Even the guys with guns outside.” He waved his half-eaten apple lazily at the door. “Let’s just wait for Nicky-poo to show up, and I’ll take you on a tour of the city.” He tossed another apple at him. “Take a load off.” 

Steve tensed at the "guys with guns" part, but caught the apple, wondering where exactly the young man had been keeping it. “Nicky-poo?”

“That would probably be me.” Said the voice of a man as he opened the door. He definitely looked intimidating, with the eyepatch and all black get-up. “Call me that again, though, and I’ll shoot you.” 

Steve couldn’t pick up a single thing about “Nicky-poo.” His face was entirely closed off. No expression, no emotion.

“I had this whole plan, you know.” Nicky-poo began. “We were going to take it slow, ease you into it all, Cap. Then this absolute annoyance shows up and makes me spill my coffee everywhere.” He waved a hand at Mr. Apple. 

Steve glanced back over him, and sure enough, there was a coffee stain down the side of the man’s pant leg. 

“Annoyance? Me?” His first guest looked affronted. 

“Oh so you’re talking to me, now?” Eyepatch snarked at Apple. “Given up on your stalkerish tendencies?” 

Apple huffed. “Excuse you. I’m a delight.” 

“Well if you could so delightfully fuck off, I’ll happily talk to you later.” 

Steve got a distinct whiff of livid annoyance off of the man’s previously blank face. He was pretty sure that ‘ talk’ meant something more like ‘ torture,’ as well.

Apple hummed. “Can’t do that. I promised a tour.” He looked over at Steve. “Also, probably not torture. He just wants to lock me in a room and ask a lot of questions.” 

Steve was one hundred percent sure he hadn’t spoken that last bit aloud. The idea that this was a dream wormed its way up again. 

“I’ve lived in New York my entire life. I think I would know my way around it.” Steve said instead of addressing the young man’s apparent ability to read minds, only for that to get both of his guests staring at him. 

“Heh.” Apple chuckled. “You’re in for a treat.” 

“Shut the hell up, Quill. We’ll get to that.” 

The apparently named ‘Quill’ gasped, and grinned widely. “Oh my god, Nick! You know my name!” 

Nick gave him the most deadpan stare that Steve had ever seen. “I did my homework.” Then sighed. “No idea why you look so young, though.” 

Quill shrugged. “Magic rock turned me into a kid. Been growing back up, since.” 

“Mind answering some questions about that?” Nick asked, a demand on the tip of his tongue, but not expressed. 

“Classified.” Quill rejected.

Nick’s eye blinked. “How in the shi-”

“What’s going on? Who are you people? And where am I?” Steve broke in. 

“That first one’s going to take a minute. Get to that in a bit.” Quill answered immediately. “I’m a space wizard - and also possibly a god, Nick’s a super-secret super-spy, and I keep telling you we’re in New York.” 

Nick’s eye twitched, but Steve kept going. “So a wizard, a spy, and a soldier are in a room. You can tell why I think this is all a bad joke, right?” He was ignoring the “god” tidbit. There was only one god. 

“My name is Nick Fury.” The man said through clenched teeth. He was losing hold of his unflappable demeanor. “I am the director of SHIELD, a global organization dedicated to protecting humanity from all kinds of threats.”

“Super-secret super-spy.” Quill stage whispered. 

“This gremlin,” Nick continued, “Is Nathan Quill. He was abducted by aliens back in the eighties, and then mysteriously showed back up on the planet - with a bunch of ‘magic’ under his belt - and has since made that everyone’s problem.” He said ‘magic’ with air quotes.

“Space wizard.” Nathan confirmed in another whisper. 

“And.” Nick paused, glaring at Nathan. “You are, in fact, in New York.” 

Steve turned to Nathan and studied him. “So you’re what? Sixty?”

Nathan blinked. “Uh, no? Like half that. Or possibly closing on seventy depending on what you’re counting.”

Steve’s head tilted, and proceeded to ignore the second half of that. He was ignoring a lot of what this guy said, now that he thought about it. “But he said you were born in the eighties?” 

“Ah.” Nick looked annoyed with himself. “Not the eighteen-eighties, Cap. Let’s go for a walk.” He opened the door, and looked expectantly at Steve. 

The next ten minutes felt like he had been abducted by aliens, like apparently Nathan had. As soon as they cleared the room, it was immediately obvious that the entire thing had been a facade, meant entirely to make him feel more at home. 

The rest of the building, however, was sleek and monolithic. Straight lines and recessed lights. Doors made little chiming sounds when ID cards were held up to them, only to open under their own power. People in the hallways held small plastic bricks up to their ears, and held conversations with… ghosts? Maybe?

Wizards and aliens were apparently real, so…?

So far, the only thing he was familiar with was the elevator, and even that was a much smoother ride than he was expecting. 

It also chimed before opening under its own power. 

Their destination, though. A large room on the twenty-fifth floor with massive, floor-to-ceiling windows, with a direct look down into Time Square. And it could only be Time Square. 

The now familiar sound of a crunch and chewing registered in his ears, as Nathan munched away on another apple, reminding him of the one he still held in his hand. 

“Welcome to the year 2011, Cap.” Nick began. “You’ve been asleep for a long time.” 

Steve didn’t collapse into one of the office chairs behind him, but it was a near thing.

“Try the apple, Steve-o. It’ll make you feel better.” Nathan said calmly. 

It was a really good apple. 

_______________

Nick Fury sat at his desk, having just gotten the Captain settled, and watched Goose - the alien tentacle cat of doom - as he licked his own asshole. 

“Think Carol can deal with this guy, Goose?” 

The Flerken gave a muffled meow and continued with his business.

Towards the end of that whole clusterfuck, when Rogers had been near catatonic in the office chair, Nick had turned to Quill and asked how he had gotten into the room without anyone noticing. 

Quill had then proceeded to outline the process of making bread in a toilet, while sinking through the floor like it was quicksand. 

Nick had just glared at the guy the entire time, not even trying to stop him. He would be reviewing the footage from every camera in the building later, but every attempt to track Quill had been less than fruitless. He didn’t expect this time around to turn up anything different. 

Despite the confirmation earlier on in their conversation, Nick wasn’t entirely sure that he was dealing with Nathan Quill. It was more than possible that some other thing was masquerading as the abductee, and he had no evidence outside of a facial scan, and three reports from Missouri about a spaceship grabbing two kids outside of a hospital. 

Nick had no idea what happened to Quill’s brother, but presumably, the guy was also a space wizard screwing around somewhere.

Nick flipped through the file on his desk, specifically at three pictures that he lined up on the inside cover of the folder. The first was an older photo from 1987. It was grainy, the colors seemed a little washed, but it was a clear picture of two, young brothers. Smiling proudly after setting up a tent on a campsite - rather poorly, if Nick was honest. The next picture was an artist’s rendition of what the kid on the left would have looked like if he was thirty one. If he had grown up like a normal-ass person. 

The last was a photo from a security camera from last year. It was the only picture they had been able to get of Quill, and he was smiling directly into the camera. Every other time he was even in the remote vicinity of a security camera, all the footage was reduced to static for as long as he was in the area. 

Hill had gotten ahead of him on that one, and had the camera itself confiscated. The techies assured him that there was nothing unique about it. Nothing that they could narrow down and say for certain that Quill couldn’t mess with this one in particular. 

So the conclusion was that he let them get this picture of him. 

However much that pissed him off, the thing that had him crushing four separate coffee mugs was the simple fact that it took Shield four fucking months to get an ID on this guy, utterly livid. 

To be fair, they had been looking for someone born in the 90’s, based on how old he looked. The agent who decided to go back a bit further got a promotion. 

It didn’t help that they couldn’t track the guy for shit. It didn’t help that he seemed to be able to track them. And it definitely didn’t help Nick’s sanity that the one picture they got was of when Quill had been waiting in line behind him at that motherfucking coffee shop. 

“Hill.” He fingered the intercom button on his office phone.

When she walked into his office fifteen seconds later, he continued. “Tell me we know how he got into that room.” 

His second didn’t bother to look up at him as she frowned down at the tablet in her hands, her finger making minute movements along the bottom as she scrolled through a video. “Not sure what to tell you, sir.” She flipped the tablet around to show him. “One second he wasn’t there, and the next he was.” 

Nick could feel his blood pressure rising. “Any leaks? Texts? A letter to grandma about finding Rogers in the ice?” 

She shook her head at him. “Nothing so far. Still combing through it all, but…” She paused. 

“What?” He growled.

“I’m the only one looking, right?” She immediately asked, a worried frown on her face.

That caught his attention. Hill was probably the most professional agent in all of Shield. Any expression at all was cause for concern. He had seen her appear worried only a few times, and each time was followed by an utter shit show. 

Nick thought back, leaning back in his chair, and glanced back at Goose - who had finished licking his asshole, and settled in for a nap. “Three people were in the room when I told you to start.” 

Hill nodded. “I checked them first.” She was a fucking gem. “Reached out to Stark. Got his AI monitoring our outgoing right now.” Okay, maybe not. 

Nick’s first instinct was to punch her in the face for that, but that only materialized in a hardened glare. “Explain.” 

Her only response was to hold up a finger at him as she glanced around the room, and walked up to his desk. A quick look at her tablet, then a hard look at his… desk lamp? She reached out and unscrewed the bulb, quiet as a mouse.

Nick watched her carefully, knowing where this was going, and felt his hand clench so hard that the resulting fist turned his black-ass knuckles caucasian. 

A minute of disassembly later, Hill pulled out a singular, well hidden circuit board, and carefully removed a sticker of connected copper that served as the antenna. 

She held it up to him, and put the bug on his desk. “Jarvis has it on a loop, for the moment. Already traced the source.” 

He was wondering why she had started the conversation as she did. As soon as she started talking about her investigation, everything she was saying could have gotten any listeners to bolt. 

Nick nodded at her, and slammed the corner of his mug onto the bug, smashing it apart completely. 

“Who?” He asked. Utterly livid, and actually showing it in his expression.

Hill turned her tablet back to him in answer. On it was a photo of one of his top agents slipping a folded note to another agent. Hill zoomed in after a moment, to the corner of the note, exposed only by chance. 

A small stamp was in the corner. He could only see half of it, but it was clear enough. It was a circle with a skull in the center, surrounded by six, curling tentacles. 

Chapter Text

Tony stared down at the holographic screen in front of him. More specifically, at the security camera photo he had forwarded over to Fury’s… secretary? Second in command? He supposed it didn’t matter for the moment, all told.

“Jarvis, I really don’t like what I’m looking at.”

“Neither do I, sir.”

He ran a hand through his hair. “Dad was convinced Hydra was gone, but I guess they really stuck to that ‘two heads for every one lost’ thing, huh? Either that, or they should really change their sticker to a cockroach.”

After finding that video that his dad left him on the Stark Expo tape, Tony had stopped fidgeting in anger at any mention of his father. He still didn’t forgive the bastard - he didn’t think anything could bring him to do that, but, well… he could let bygones be bygones, now.

He scratched at his chest absently, at the spot that used to hold his arc reactor. He had since upgraded to a new design - new fuel, using the element his father’s theory outlined. And lord was that hidden in the dumbest place possible. If Tony was just the tiniest bit less awesome, he wouldn’t have been able to put that puzzle together.

A molecular diagram, hidden in the Expo park map? The hell, dad?

He still wasn’t particularly sure what to think about the reactor removal that led to that whole discovery. Pepper got him to attend therapy after that whole thing, somehow. He, for the life of him, couldn’t figure out how she managed to trick him into it, but it… helped. How is one supposed to react to a teenage wizard breaking into their house, only to
save their life from radiation poisoning in the most violating way possible?

The therapist said that anger would be a ‘valid’ response. He told the lady that he felt empty. Tired. Then she asked him why he didn’t want to remove the reactor.

He got annoyed there, saying that it was the only thing keeping him alive, but she pointed out that he could have gotten the bomb shrapnel surgically removed at any point up until then, but didn’t.

Over the next hour, she forced him to acknowledge that he didn’t actually want it gone. Through some convoluted desire to suffer for his “Merchant of Death” days, or in remembrance of Yinsen in that cave, or whatever else might have been the root of it. He hadn’t been ready to move on from it, and the fact that there wasn’t even a scar, made it feel
like one big, bad dream. Before that, it felt like he had started to make headway into atoning, but the magical surgery felt like a big, fat, “Nope” to everything he had started to work towards.

So he felt hollow. Empty.

The therapist said that was valid, too. Then he got up, left, and never scheduled a second session.

He could only delude himself for so long, he supposed. He did feel a bit more clear-headed for having talked it through. He also admitted that he liked how the lady was clinical about breaking his thoughts down. Took none of his shit, and just pointed out the problem with no judgment or condescension.

He might let Pepper schedule another session. Maybe next year, or something? His October in 2013 looked free for the moment…

Anyway, with the arc reactor now removed, he had to think up another way to power his suit. It stuck out a bit too far to just plant it in the chest-piece. He had tried a few different solutions, like the super thin and wide one that took up his entire midsection, or the backpack one. The first was a bit too fragile, and the second too unwieldy - he might
have gotten carried away adding too much crap to the backpack, before scrapping it.

He did like the idea of a smoothie maker inside of a suped-up jetpack, and Jarvis couldn’t convince him it wasn’t genius. No matter what he said. Maybe not as a power source, though. Hard to defend properly, which he learned from Ivan Vanko - who had ripped it off from the rest of the suit with one of his electric whips at a charity auction.

That left him flailing around on the ground in a heavy, un-powered lump of metal before Happy started shooting at the guy with a gun that Tony didn’t know he had. Hit Ivan’s own arc reactor dead on, making it short out.

That whole thing was a brain-melter. Ugh. Something to jot down for that possible therapy session, maybe?

Though no, six separate plans were scrapped before he settled on putting smaller, half-inch reactors all around the suit. It was ultimately the best of the options, as it helped disperse the energy load, and provided backups in case of failure. He was also now able to utilize nearly quintuple the power, compared to before.

Tony might have put in a few too many, now that he thought about it. Little overkill.

“This could be a different group.” Jarvis offered, interrupting Tony’s internal rambling. “There’s already a precedent for such a resurgence of World War II German ideals.”

Tony huffed. “What? Like the Neo-Nazis? A fan group of the original?”

“Can’t rule it out yet, sir. We’re going off of one picture, for the moment.”

The billionaire dragged a hand down his face. “God, I hope you’re right.” He collapsed into his chair, and spun it around absent-mindedly. “Doesn’t change the fact that there’s probably a faction of Nazis - ‘neo’ or not, running around inside a global paramilitary spy organization.” He paused, and spun back towards the holographic interface. “Good
thing we found the guy who kicked their asses the first time around. Any word on him?”

Jarvis took a moment to respond, performing a search through the Shield files. “Yes.” He began hesitantly. “He seems to have woken up healthy and whole this morning.”

Tony blinked, and looked up to one of the speakers that his digital butler spoke from. “Well spit it out. What happened?”

“It seems,” Jarvis paused. He didn’t usually pause like that, “that our impromptu guest surgeon has made another appearance.”

A shiver ran up Tony’s spine.

He let his head fall on the desk. “What even is today?”

“Tuesday, sir.” Jarvis immediately shot back.

Tony groaned. “Okay, okay, mister smartass. What was he doing there? Ripping out Captain America’s spleen due to a severe patriotism infection?” He paused. “And what does Shield know about him, anyway?”

“According to Shield’s files, his given name is Nathaniel Edward Quill. Born in 1980 to one, Meredith Quill, in Missouri. The file then notes that he was abducted by aliens in 1988, on the day his mother died of a brain tumor, along with his twin brother.”

“I’m sorry, what?”

Jarvis ignored him and continued. “Then last year, he appeared again, only to follow various people around for a couple of months. The only clear picture they have of him is when he was waiting in line behind the director, Nick Fury, at a coffee shop. This is his first appearance since then.”

“Aliens?”

“This latest appearance consisted of the Captain waking up, and holding a conversation with Mr. Quill.”

“He’s thirty-one years old?” Tony did some quick math. “He looked like, what? Twelve, when he broke into my house?”

“Closer to twenty, sir, but yes Nathan Quill was born in the eighties.” Jarvis corrected. “Now, Nathan appears to have stolen Captain Rogers away from his assigned quarters, and they are currently getting a hotdog from a street vendor.”

“Hold on, wait. Go back to the alien thing.”

“We’re well past that, sir.”

“I’m not.” Tony responded incredulously. “Okay. Jesus. Uh…” He took a moment to digest. Jarvis waited patiently.

“So,” he continued, “to summarize, we were the first to meet this guy since he disappeared off the planet-”

“Presumably, yes.”

“-then he decided to become some sort of spooky cryptid for a few months, disappeared again until like, four hours ago, where he broke into yet another highly guarded building, and woke up Capsicle?” Tony breathed, and forcefully relaxed his face, as it was starting to contort into something that might make a baby cry. Or laugh hysterically.

He was positive that Jarvis took a picture, and didn’t want to give him - and Pepper by extension - more blackmail. The traitors.

“Also correct, sir.”

“And he didn’t rip out the guy’s spleen?”

“It doesn’t appear so, no.” Tony got the impression that Jarvis would have tilted his head, here. “Though he did give Captain Rogers an apple.”

Tony laughed despite himself. “Great, so Rogers gets to ‘keep the doctor away’ while I-” He stopped and sighed slowly, putting his head back in his hands. “Goddammit.”

“Quite.” Even Jarvis was shaken by their last experience with Nathan and his AI daughter. They hadn’t talked about it, but Tony could tell by the digital construct’s fervor in upgrading his system. The billionaire was confident that the same tricks as before wouldn’t work again on Jarvis, but that alone didn’t give him any real sense of safety, or closure, or
any of those other words that his therapist used.

Tony centered himself as much as he could. He didn’t want to talk about the wizard surgeon anymore. A thought that the universe agreed with, it seemed, as a ping appeared on one of the searches Jarvis was running.

“It appears,” the AI started after a moment, “that one of the persons of interest has just sent an encrypted file to an unknown address. From an unregistered terminal, as well.”

“Where?” He asked, scrolling through the logs himself.

“Tracking it now, sir. It appears to be bouncing around different access points across the country.”

The two watched the file like a hawk for twelve full minutes - Tony via the logs in front of him, and Jarvis via… however AI’s saw it. Tony didn’t move a muscle. The only indication he hadn’t died sitting up was the fact that he was breathing, and the REM sleep impression his eyes were enacting as he stared at the screen.

The breathing bit was a bit touch and go, though. He forgot to at least twice, when Jarvis had to exercise some improvisation to try and keep track of it.

Finally, the file seemed to sit at a destination. No movement, no more bouncing, no more proxies or temporary servers.

“Where is this, Jarvis? Did you manage to intercept?” Tony’s hands raced across his keyboard, making sure their tracks were clear, and pinging Fury’s secretary/secret agent friend they had been going through.

“I corrupted the file, sir, but I couldn’t empty, or copy it before it arrived. The path it took seemed to use keys within the encryption. The destination also has some rather serious defenses. It will take me some time to crack through.”

Tony frowned. “Where?”

“New Jersey, sir. An old Shield facility that was a converted military base from World War II, called Camp Lehigh.”

_______________

Clint Barton was having a day.

Fury had him sitting on top of a building in New York all morning, and told him to keep a bird’s eye view over one of the Shield facilities. Apparently Captain-friggan-America was supposed to wake up today, and Clint was supposed to keep an eye out in case some bullshit happened.

Well some bullshit happened, and now Clint was tasked with following the bullshit around the whole city as he ate hotdogs with Captain-friggan-America.

The bullshit - or rather, Nathan Quill, was an annoyingly familiar figure to everyone in Shield above Level 5 clearance. Clint in particular, since the bastard had apparently been chilling behind him at Mjolnir’s crash site, up in his lookout.

Also, Thor’s-friggan-hammer, Mjolnir.

Yeah, he wasn’t over that. It had been a few years, and he was still having trouble coming to terms with a confirmed god’s existence. He had grown up Christian - not a particularly good Christian, if his career was any indication - and had been leaning decidedly atheist for most of his life.

He had dealt with a lot of weird crap while working with Shield, but that hammer was the weirdest. At least until a day after Thor himself took the hammer back like a super magnet from half a state away, when he learned about the seidhr - or the more colloquial term, wizard - that motherfucking Thor mentioned offhandedly. A wizard that had
apparently been standing directly behind him without him noticing.

It took until last year to figure out who the wizard was, and that was only because the creepy bastard posed for the camera while stalking everyone.

That brought him to his current problem: tracking the wizard as he teleported around the city with a perfectly willing Captain-friggan-America.

Clint didn’t know how to teleport. He could do a little parkour, sure, but that didn’t mean he could traverse New York well enough to keep up. He was a normal guy. A normal guy that was weirdly good with an unconventional weapon, sure, but Thor(apparently) dammit, what did Fury want from him?

The only reason he was able to track them at all, was because Fury hand handed Captain-friggan-America a phone with an active GPS signal. However each time he had started to close on their location, the bullshit would teleport them to the complete other side of the city. He knew they were screwing with him at this point, and it was getting
exhausting.

“Barton.” Fury broke in on his earpiece as he landed on top of an office building.

“Here, sir.”

“Get back to base. We have a situation.”

“Yes sir.”

Clint was having a day.

Chapter Text

Odin sat on his throne, Gungnir clenched loosely in his fist. He and Heimdall were the only ones in all of Asgard that were still looking for his wayward son. Lost in the void, as he was, he could feel it in his bones that this would not be the end of Loki. Just another trial for his family, in the end. A trial that he might have prevented, if he had been strong enough to avoid Odinsleep just a little longer.

But no, he reflected. Thor’s trial on Midgard was expedited due to his failing, and facilitated by Loki’s trickery. If one insubstantial little detail changed, he might not have been able to waken in time to pull even one of his sons from that ordeal. 

He should be glad that Thor gained the wisdom and temperance necessary for kingship, though this, but it was soured greatly by the loss of Loki. A loss that was reported as final to all of Asgard.

A loss that he would not personally believe, unless shown the body. And even then, he would suspect otherwise until the day he died. 

The God King did not pretend that he was a good father. To go all this time, and not see the hurt, the pain that his son was going through. To not see the jealousy that rot in Loki’s heart. To not curb Thor’s bloodlust sooner. To not make abundantly clear that he loved his sons. 

He feared that he would be unable to do so, now. Too stuck in his ways. Too preoccupied with politics, the weight of his crown, and the defense of the realms. Anything he might accomplish was hampered by his grief for his missing son, and the bone-crushing terror of his lack of time to make amends. 

He could only hope that when Loki was found, his son would listen. He could only hope that his words weren’t taken as platitudes, or spoken too little, too late. 

The world, no. Existence itself shifted. 

Odin’s hand tightened on Gungnir, and his lone eye swiveled over his domain. 

He stood from his throne. Any shred of his regality lost in pure surprise.

“Heimdall.” He said quietly, knowing the man would hear him. “Ready my chariot.” 

__________

“Well.” She said slowly, looking around with vague amusement. “You certainly went all out, here.”

Nathan shrugged, and moved to the newest addition of his ‘temple.’ He had added it in about an hour after completing Starsplitter - because he thought it would be funny, but the damn thing didn’t form in the way he had specified. No, instead of a cheap-looking folding chair (made entirely out of precious metals), a full, honest to god (himself?)

throne materialized directly in front of the chryselephantine statue. 

Nathan wished it would have at least looked gaudy. If he couldn’t have his folding chair, he would have wanted it to be eye-meltingly fabulous. What he got instead was something almost tasteful. The throne he was left with, was made of stone. A black marble with sapphire veining, capped on top with a vibranium volute, and inlaid with tiny

orichalcum stars throughout its body. It looked as if a nebula had solidified upon the dias. 

Very different from the folding chair, and Nathan wasn’t entirely certain he liked it. 

The universe - or whatever power was doing this - was a better artist than he was, and it was shanghai-ing his own power to rub it in his face. 

“I mean,” he began, studying the throne. “I can’t take credit for all of it.” 

The Ancient one hummed, her eyes set on the hearth. “You do realize that the fire is divine, right?”

Nathan blinked. “No?” He turned to look at her, then the hearth. “I did use one of the ‘holy’ fires, but that shouldn’t have been permanent.”

The lady laughed. “You called on Hestia, right? And Hephaestus, if I’m not mistaken.”

“Well, I called for Hephaestus’s knowledge on how to make the thing, then Hestia to actually light it.” He tilted his head in thought. “Figured if I designated this place as ‘home,’ I’d get some sort of response.”

The Sorcerer Supreme glanced up at the Statue of Nathan. “Who then, for the statue?”

“Nobody.” He shrugged again.

Her brow furrowed. “Well then, you’re either a much better artist than I thought, or something else helped of its own volition.”

“Hey now.” He deadpanned. “Uncalled for. I can make pretty things.”

She was quiet for a moment, just staring intently at the statue. “Have you sat on the throne yet?”

“Nope. Too freaky.” 

“Father teleported out of here immediately after it formed, then had a minor panic attack.” Alice piped up. Her little hologram booped him on the nose. 

“Oi.” He waved her off. “Don’t tell my boss that. She’ll think I can’t handle the crazy stuff.”

His daughter gave him an unimpressed glower. “Starsplitter is still buried in the next mountain over. You should really go get that before some hillbilly finds it, like they did Mjolnir.” 

“Hello, Alice.” The Ancient One smiled kindly. 

“Hello, Grandmother!” The little AI figure beamed back. “Please fix Father. This whole situation threw him something fierce.” 

“Grandmother?” Nathan mumbled. “Wait, no it didn’t!”

“Yes it did.” His daughter shot back.

“Definitely didn’t.” He pouted.

“Children. Behave.” The apparent ‘Grandmother” said. 

Nathan threw his arms in the air dramatically, and stalked back over to the throne. “ Anyway.” He growled. “So we have a talking statue, a throne that I didn’t make on purpose, and a divine fire burning without any fuel.” He turned to his teacher. “Any clue?”

The Ancient One rubbed her chin in thought. “Well, no, Actually. None at all.”

He looked at the Celtic woman with a half-lidded stare. “Nothing?”

“Nothing.”

“Is the Time Stone just a pretty rock, now?”

“I’m saying, Master Quill, that this occurrence was not known to me. Including the use of the Eye.” She looked at him meaningfully. “This is outside of its influence, much like your own appearance.” 

He blinked. “Goddammit.”

“Quite.”

“So now what?” He asked, eyes staring off into space, contemplating everything. 

“Now,” she began, hesitantly, “you sit in the chair.” 

Nathan’s eyes turned to her slowly, like an animatronic puppet from Chuck E. Cheese. “What’s four plus fifteen?”

“Nineteen.” The Ancient One answered, eyebrow raised.

“Square root of one-twenty-one?” He walked toward her mechanically.

“Eleven?” She questioned, wondering where this was going.

“How many fingers am I holding up?” 

“Twenty-seven. Stop doing that with your limbs, it’s unsettling.”  

Nathan ended his bastardized Asura spell, letting the four extra arms dissolve from where they attached on his forehead. “Your mental faculties seem intact.” He nodded to himself. “So why are you speaking crazy?”

“Um.” Alice waved from her default holographic position on Nathan’s wrist. “I’m going to side with Father on this one, Grandmother.”

His teacher sighed. “It’s the next logical step in whatever ritual you have put together, here.” She tapped her foot on the obsidian hearth. “There is no active divinity here besides the fire, and there is no obvious source of power for any of this besides yourself. None of this seems malevolent, and whatever possessed that statue helped you create -

what I can only assume is - a divine weapon.” Her eyes zeroed in on him. “A divine weapon that, from what I understand, answers only to you.”

Alice sighed. “I had hoped you would talk him out of sitting in the freaky chair.” 

“Me too.” Nathan hedged, then shrugged. “Alright, well if we’re doing this, then prep for the worst, right?”

Nathan sat down, ignoring the looks he got, and started forming his Celestial energy. Two rings appeared in his hands, both vibranium, and both utterly covered in etched runes.

“Nafadh 'iiradti, 'ayuha al'iilahi, wahfir allawh.” His hands twisted, and the rings began to float. Eldritch energies congealed in the air around him, and converged on the floating rings in a continuous stream. “Baind, Chen. Liga, chain. Dése, alysída. Bandhah, shrtrunkhala!”

Both rings glowed with a multicolor light, burning hot, as if they had come straight from the forge. Then fell to his outstretched palm, steaming, yet not burning his skin as they cooled. The whole process took about two minutes. 

Nathan opened his eyes and examined them.

“Dramatic.” Alice summarized.

“At least two of those were unnecessary, but good form, Master Quill.” The Ancient One held out a hand, already understanding her student’s preparations. 

Nathan nodded, both to himself, and his teacher’s words, then slipped one of the rings around his own finger. The second was dropped into the older sorcerer’s hand - along with another that he formed on the spot. Then, after a moment, slipped his Kimoyo bracelet off, and dropped that in with the rings. 

She wore both without preamble, but asked, “Why the other?” Then slipped Alice’s home over her own wrist.

The young man shrugged. “I realized I never paid you back for that ring you gave me. This one should be leagues better for storing energies, and such.”

The woman huffed a quiet laugh. “You did not owe me, but I do appreciate it.” 

Nathan waved it away, got up, and moved toward the throne. The rings he had just made were a Djinn Binding pair. The same device - if a good bit stronger, due to material, and a little extra magic - that had bound the exceedingly powerful, extraplanar beings. 

He supposed he could have made an oil lamp, but he didn’t want to be subjected to an itty bitty living space, if the rings would work just as well. 

Nathan looked back, noting the gathering energies around his teacher’s ring, before taking a deep breath.

He sat on the THRONE.

__________

The Ancient One. The Sorcerer Supreme. One of the oldest, most powerful people on the planet - if not the cosmos - nearly collapsed in the resulting storm that raged through the underground temple. Every layer of protection around her had crumbled, like they were made of tissue paper. Protections that had withstood the might of gods. Protections

that let her walk among the realms and dimensions as if strolling in the park. Protections that did not protect her any longer. 

The storm ripped visibility from the physical plane, the surroundings shifted and melted until there was only a colonnade left of the walls. Only the hearth, roaring with a blue, divine flame, in the middle of the room. Only Yao, the Elder Celtic, standing alone, and only Nathan, on his throne. 

Even the Ancient One could not describe the scene beyond the colonnade. She had seen the birth of stars, the death of galaxies, the flourishing of life through the ages, and the very end of time. This, however. This was what one might experience inside the liminal space of a dying tesseract. The nebulous, shifting sands of a million, trillion Big Bangs.

Frozen in time, yet vibrating in pure creation.  

Nathan, or what might not be Nathan anymore, sat in the center of it all. Eyes closed, and unmoving. A hand-ax of Native American design, barely larger than the young man’s forearm, had appeared in his clenched fist - as if it had always been there. 

The Binding Ring on her finger melted off, metal and magic dispersing into the storm, but she did not notice. Could not notice, as her every sense was focused on the titanic figure in the distance. Haloed in the rainbow of creation, the light of the afterlife, and the blind god’s salvation. Livid in its birth, yet serene in death, the statue that had

previously stood behind the throne stepped atop the multiverse itself. 

Cracks along its gold and ivory body, shining with a divine, blue fire. Its eyes, carved from the deepest concepts of existence. Sclera naught but a flickering, dying, candle flame. Its mouth, open, as if to speak.

“He Sits Upon His Throne.” The statue declared. “A Quill, Mightier Than Thy Sword. Rejoice In His Apotheosis.” 

Nathan’s eyes opened, and all that existed collapsed into them. All that had been, all that would be, funneled into the two, round orbs on the young man’s face. The most distant galaxies, the titanic statue, the floor of reality, the ceiling of soul, and the walls of power, space, time, and mind. All held within the young man’s gaze for one, endless

second.

He blinked.

The world righted itself. The temple, its walls, the statue, everything back to how it had been when they arrived.

Nathan blinked again. “You saw that, right?”

The Ancient One could only nod, and even that, only barely. Unconsciously, as her mind was elsewhere, her fingers danced in the air, pulling the surrounding energies together to remake her protections. She vaguely knew that this lapse would cause problems. Later reflection would bring her to curse. 

Now, though, she had to see to the infancy of a new god.

Chapter Text

Nathan felt weird. Everything seemed to be in the right place. He had two arms, two legs, unfathomable cosmic power, his eyebrows didn’t turn into caterpillars, etcetera. Nothing was where it shouldn’t be. Everything was where it always had been. He still had his vibranium bones. He still had access to his celestial energy. He could still feel the eldritch powers that inhabited all of existence, just a word, or a twist of his wrist away. 

He turned his hands over, scanning for any physical differences, but found nothing that could be dumbed down to the point where his human eyes could see. Whatever changed seemed more… conceptual, than anything else. Like an aspect of the universe decided that he was a cute puppy, and just signed the adoption papers. 

But even that wasn’t entirely right. Wasn’t even close to right. 

No, he could feel it. His soul was gone. 

The very thing that made him Nathaniel Edward Quill was absent from his mortal coil.

He didn’t feel the loss. If he had to put a word to it, he would say the damn thing dispersed. It hadn’t been ripped from him. Its dispersal hadn’t left him as a husk of his former self. He didn’t feel like he was missing a part of himself at all. Rather, it felt like “himself” now encompassed a lot more than the physical form that sat on an underground throne, somewhere in (probably) Colorado. 

The very temple around him felt like a part of himself. Like a limb that, if flexed, would bend to his will without effort. The mountain surrounding it felt the same as the skin on his arms, each tree a follicle of hair. Every badger, deer, and mouse was as noticeable as an army of ants crawling across his skin. 

But even further than that, he could feel the planet itself. The living concepts that called the Earth home. The absolute abundance of life that spread across its surface, and into its every crevasse. He could feel the moon, and its glimmering surface. The love that radiated along with its light at midnight, and the serenity of its reflection upon the water. He could feel the affection it had for the tides, and how the oceans would call out its name in ecstasy, as if fighting for the attention of their collective lover. 

He could feel each planet in the solar system. A dysfunctional family, for sure, but one that looked out for each other in the great, dark expanse. Mercury, the one that could see, and was seen by all others. The sounding board, and first messenger in times of danger. Venus, who’s love burned so hot that she sacrificed her surface, and bore the wrath of Sol for her siblings. Mars, the tired veteran that told stories of past glory. Jupiter, the protector, the big brother that pulled all the universe’s troubles toward himself, so that his siblings didn’t have to bear the load. Saturn, the father. The wise eye in the sky, beaten and torn, yet ready to act. Uranus, the reticent. Once powerful, but now tired and reserved. Neptune, the explorer, ever fascinated with the deep dark. And even Pluto, cold and old. Distant from the rest. Small, but fierce in his love for his family. 

Earth. The youngest. The golden child, the little green star of hope among the blackness. Where life thrived with cancerous abandon. Arrogant, yet lovable in an ever-changing, ever-ascending bastion of evolution. 

Then there was Sol. The heart of it all. The vehicle, the very modus operandi. The life bringer, the alpha and omega, the raison d'etre. There’s a reason why nearly every civilization on Earth had a form of sun worship in their history, Nathan reflected. This singular star whimmed life into existence - whether due to boredom or divine purpose, it was the centerpoint and designer of humanity. 

And Nathan could feel it. He could see the strands of hope, of anger, of every emotional thread that formed the very life that gave him his origin. He could feel the tapestry of existence that said thread was woven into. He could feel his own influence upon that thread. 

If he so chose, he might be able to weave his own picture, given time and effort. 

So no. He didn’t feel the loss of his soul. Instead, he felt the profound discomfort of his newfound understanding. He felt the weight of the fragile vase, holding the flowers of reality. He felt small, he felt large, he felt overwhelmed and secure at the same time. 

He felt everything. Spanning from the smallest grain of sand, to the largest black hole in the universe. 

Nathaniel Edward Quill was no longer Nathaniel Edward Quill. 

Instead, he was something more, and that fact annoyed the living shit out of him. The wish for omnipotence, if you ever get the chance, is a horrible wish. All the understanding in the universe makes for an incredibly boring existence. There was now no surprise in exploration. There was no corner of the universe, no singular aspect of reality that Nathan was now unaware of. 

The plight of Dr. Manhattan, of the great creator, of a kid that outgrew his Legos. 

Nathan, exactly one minute after having sat on his throne, became bored. His mind was flooded with innate understanding. His eyes roamed through each dimension, every time, every place, every deep, dark hole that filled the great void. 

He could feel himself slipping into a dispassionate stupor, and he did not have the motivation to dig himself out. 

That is, until a hand slapped him across the face.

“That’s enough of an existential crisis, Master Quill.” The Ancient One said with a half-lidded stare, standing in front of him like a stone fortress of resolve. “We have a lot to cover.” 

Nathan found that he could still be surprised, and true, utter glee supplanted the boredom. His mind flew between visions of every reality, of all that destiny ordained, and yet he never would have guessed that simple slap. 

He leapt from his throne, threw his arms around his teacher, and wept. 

A conclusion that had been reached within the span of a millisecond, an ever-lasting, and all-encompassing trepidation - was overthrown the instant her hand met his cheek.  

Life was the answer. The randomness, the intrigue, the sheer bullshittery that came from individual thought. Purpose was useless, for that was fate. Purpose was understood and predictable. Life was the things in between. Every action taken, every emotion, every person making their way in this horrible, pinball machine of a universe, took what was predetermined, and fucking shat on it. 

The Elder Celtic sighed, and put an arm around her student. Her emotions were clear to him. Her thoughts, like a clean razor, cutting through his psyche - no less novel than a child’s first love. 

Regardless of how many years he had lived, or how much he had seen, the woman that held him had seen it all differently. The Sorcerer Supreme had faced nearly all that there was, and lived. Not just through adversity, but through raw experience. Through understanding, through love, through every emotion possible under the guise of humanity and all that called this multiverse home. 

She might not have his perspective, now, but wasn’t that the beauty of it? As a large, magical cat from an entirely different fictional universe said, it is what you do with the gift of life that determines who you are.

Nathan, in the bowels of his existential dread, dived deep into the experience within his teacher’s mind, open as it was to him. He could tell she had made it so. A remnant, or perhaps a trickle of Mind that opened the gate. A thread of Soul that brightened between them. A corridor of Time that allowed him passage. 

A human being that opened themselves to him, wholeheartedly. 

And he saw her plight as different from his own. And in it, salvation. 

__________

Yao’s mind was assaulted by a slew of poetic nonsense, courtesy of her most promising student. She had seen him start to spiral into a dispassionate state, and quite frankly, did not have the time to work him out of it gradually. 

Instead, she opted for something that Nathan had once called “percussive maintenance,” and slapped the insensate, newborn deity. The following mental link was a spontaneous decision, and gave her one hell of a headache, but ultimately seemed to bring him out of his funk - if into a different sort of funk.

Her robes would be soaked through at this rate. 

The Elder Celtic prided herself on only one thing. Of course, she knew of her own proficiency in the mystic arts, of her knowledge that surpassed many, of her power, of her position. She knew of her accomplishments, and all that made her an effectively immortal wall between abstract danger, and the whole of Earth. 

But Pride? Was she proud of any of that? Not particularly. She was proud of her students, for certain. She was proud of what she had helped build, but she knew that pride, true pride, was an evil thing. Deep down, in whatever remained of her humanity after all these years, she had internalized one lesson above nearly all others.

Pride is akin to the promise of Hell. A slippery slope, all too easy to slip down, and doom all that was built in its name. But pride was a cardinal sin for a reason. It was a failing of rational life, held within the heart of every sentient being. It could not be avoided.

So what exception could she make in the face of that? What singular thing did she allow herself to be arrogant in, else fall to the temptation of finding it in everything?

Patience. She was supremely confident in her own patience. 

So there she stood, arms wrapped around her weeping student - a young man she had grown to care for over the years. A young man who’s artificial daughter called her “grandmother,” and found she had little issue accepting the title. Little issue accepting the godling as her son. 

There she stood, knowing full well the forces that would converge on their location within short order. Thankfully all somewhat local powers, if her senses hadn’t deceived her. Agamotto’s shield still protected them from most things - including most prying eyes. Even then, she had felt Odin’s eye in the past few moments. Felt his surprise and apprehension. He, at least ,would come in force. The others, likely just in curiosity. 

Still, she stood, gently rubbing Nathan’s back, assuring him in his continued existence. That it wouldn’t be akin to whatever conclusions his divinity-addled mind had drawn him towards. That life was still worth living. Still worth protecting. That he still had a place as Nathan Quill in this reality. 

Eventually, Nathan’s tears dried. He stopped gasping for breath, stopped grasping for existential purchase. 

Eventually, Nathan stepped back from her arms, and gathered himself.

“Fucking Me- dammit, that sucked.”

__________

Nathan looked over into his teacher’s deadpan stare. Her (completely unfounded) disappointment in his wit, written in her expression. 

“Oh, come on!” He gestured vaguely. “I was forced into godhood ten minutes ago. If I can’t poke fun at it now, when can I?” 

She raised an eyebrow. “You were already a god, Nathan. Now, you’re just a god in a different way.”

He blinked at her. “Huh.”

The Ancient One huffed a laugh. “Forget that already, Mr. interdimensional demigod?” 

“Well I mean, to be fair, ‘demigod’ is not the same thing as ‘god.’” He hedged.

“I think we can both agree that you’ve well surpassed the status of a demigod, even before today.” She shook her head. “Proficiency in magic notwithstanding, your inborn abilities, while primarily scientific in practice, essentially put you on par with most creator deities.”

“Scale.” Nathan shot back. “Scale is important, and I’m still working with the smaller side of it, unless I use one of the stones. I don’t think that counts.”

The Sorcerer Supreme tilted her head. “And now? Do you think that’s changed?” She asked. 

The godling frowned, and pondered the question. After a moment, he shrugged. “Dunno. We can figure that out later. In the meantime, I think we have a few guests.”

Both of their heads swiveled towards the entrance of Nathan’s temple. Towards the wilderness, just outside of its boundaries. 

Nathan’s teacher sighed. “I suppose we’ve kept them waiting long enough.” She said.

Nathan had felt them arrive, one by one. Each with a towering presence. All waiting patiently at the base of the mountain that housed his temple. He supposed this was now his territory, claimed by the fact of his recent ascension, and the impromptu temple location. 

He would have to apologize to whatever pantheon called this part of the world home. 

However before his feet could carry him forward, his eyes locked on the thing that he currently held in his right fist. He had moved to scratch his nose, only to nearly poke his eye out with a tomahawk. The very same tomahawk that he had thrown away a few days prior. 

“When,” Nathan started slowly, “the fuck did this get here.”

“Your powers of observation are truly legendary.” Alice finally spoke up from around the Ancient One’s wrist.

The godling glared at his daughter from over top Starplitter. “You’re grounded.”

“What?!” The little hologram looked at him, scandalized. “What for?!”

“Being mean to your father.” He nodded back with a self satisfied smile.

“Grandmother! Help! Father is succumbing to absolute power! We have to stop the corruption!”

The Elder Celtic couldn’t help it, her shoulders jerked as a long, hearty laugh left her lips. For the first time, in a very long time, she felt genuinely secure in the future.

Chapter Text

The mountains of (probably) Colorado were absolutely gorgeous this time of year. The tail end of December still brought all the autumn colors, and with winter starting up soon, the chill in the air wasn’t quite at its peak.

Not that the cold was any particular problem for someone like Nathan. Temporary enchantments, the ability to heat up molecules on a whim, or spawn a thick coat out of nothing really made the environments of Earth child’s play for Nathan to traverse. 

The Ancient One and Nathan moved at a sedate pace through the foliage surrounding “his” mountain. There was no particular hurry to meet his guests, as, to his senses, most had made themselves at home at the base of the mountain. Before they left the temple, he could feel at least one of them setting up some sort of campsite.

Now, though, he felt slightly blind.

Where before he could see all of existence out of the corner of his eye; know the path that each atom would take through the entirety of material space, now his vision was much like it had been the day before - with just the barest bit extra. His eyes still processed incoming light in all the usual ways, his ears and nose still funneled the sounds and scents of what was around him. He could feel the crunch of leaves as he moved forward, and the astral senses granted to him by his magical understanding, and the atomic vision of his Celestial energy were still available to him.

The overwhelming vision that his ascendance to godhood granted had disappeared as soon as he left his throne, but not without a trace. No, he still felt the connection to that vast, cerebral concept that he was now tied to. 

Creation. 

That was his domain. He could feel it in… well, not his soul. That shit was gone. Smoke in the wind, and he was still kind of reeling from it. Still, he could feel it. Every tree, blade of grass, or spec of dirt felt like building blocks to this new side of him. The carbon in the foliage, the oxygen in the air, the undiscovered gold vein two hundred meters below his feet. All felt like swarms of fireflies, itching to move under his command. All sang of their own concepts in an orchestra of greens and reds, and all colors of a forest in Autumn. The Fauna sang of their hunger, of their worry for the upcoming winter, and of the lives that they had made for themselves. 

All of his senses combined into a synesthetic cacophony, granting him absolutely nothing but a headache. He could taste beauty. Smell fear. He could feel the smooth texture of a young fox’s boredom from hundreds of feet away, and see the serenity of the surrounding pines. 

Everything that existed held a medley of concepts in the core of their being. An atom of iron radiated determination and strength. The dirt beneath his feet was devoted and nurturing to all that called it home. The small creek a mile to the south held humility, and oh so much apathy in its trickling stream of water. 

It was all still nothing compared to when he sat on his throne. It was like a massive puzzle had been ripped off the table, all of its component parts strewn across the floor and the box tossed out the window. He had an idea of what he should be seeing with this new conceptual vision, but the greater picture had been reduced down to bits and pieces. 

He had all of the information, but none of the understanding. 

But even then, he felt it would be easier to make use of his old tools - like his Celestial energy - to alter, and create matter. He felt that the effort that he would have needed to use previously was no longer strictly required. Ultimately, he felt that the only real thing that changed, was the scale in which he could work, the accuracy and speed that he could now utilize. Where before he was tearing the fabric of reality to mash the pieces together in some semblance of creation, now he could weave his own thread to build something new. 

Now while this new sense of his was generally overwhelming - trillions of little details that spoke to him, that assaulted his olfactory system like an aggressively advertised perfume store - there were four titanic concepts that stood above the rest. 

Three of which were composed of few, but very powerful abstractions. One of kingly slaughter, another of a warm fire and freshly made meal, and the last was much like himself, though more artistic. 

The final titan walked next to him on his path to meet the rest. A purely mortal woman that embodied an entire myriad of ideas to the point it made Nathan’s eyes hurt when he looked at her. A woman that had lived far past her own mortality, radiating duty, determination, tranquility, the warm and wet sensation that came off a cup of freshly brewed tea. Where the others embodied singular concepts to the point they dwarfed everything else, this woman had combined an ever-changing roster of ideas, that when put together, easily rivaled any singular domain. 

Nathan supposed that was what made her human. 

It took most of the walk towards the base of the mountain, but Nathan managed to reel in his newly granted, divine synesthesia. Unlike his hearing, or sense of taste, the godling found that he had some semblance of control over this new sense. He couldn’t turn it off entirely - at least not that he found so far - but he could focus it. Limit it so that he wasn’t constantly overwhelmed by information. 

A sensation not dissimilar to squinting his eyes - just more ethereal in nature.

So with his conceptual vision suitably dulled, he was able to appreciate the sight they came to at their destination. It was a large clearing at the base of the mountain. A clearing that had not been there when he was picking the spot for his temple, though did not appear to have been razed.

To his left, an elderly man stood atop a chariot. Great, golden spear clutched firmly in hand, and single eye watching him closely. A small army of warriors lined in clean ranks behind him. 

To his right, a beautiful woman with long black hair waved at him in what he could only call demure - if cautious - excitement. Her other hand was busy tending to a large bonfire, which Nathan could feel the heat of from even his distance. 

In front of him stood another woman, though that was about all he was confident in describing. Her hair changed colors from one second to the next with absolutely zero notice. Her facial features, nose, eyes, and even jaw structure seemed just as fluid. Her dress looked to be traditional Native American garb, save for the detailing - in which the thread work moved to tell the creation myth of some indigenous cultu- Navajo. 

Her name was Ahsonnutli, The Changing Woman. Her concept seemed to clear in Nathan’s eyes. Her lips did not move. No words left her mouth. He was just now confident in her name, and he could tell it was her way of… introducing herself?

Maybe a language barrier? 

Odin, The Allfather. 

Hestia, The Eternal.

Yao, The Elder Celtic.

The same sensation filled him, but this time originating from his other two guests, and even the Ancient One next to him. Nathan could only blink in confusion.

The woman that tended the fire sighed. “Oh how long it has been since we were given a godling. I forgot that etiquette is not in-born.” She poked one last log, nudging it a hair, before standing to address Nathan. “ Introduce yourself, if you will, young one.”

The Sorcerer Supreme chuckled. “Forgive him, Lady Hestia. Introduction is not something taught regularly among my students, though he should be able to get the hang of it quickly.” She turned to Nathan. “Your identity, Nathan. Introduction requires that you broadcast it, and as a god, it should be relatively simple for you.”

“Uh…” 

Odin grumbled in impatience and studied The Ancient One with slight confusion, but otherwise didn’t say anything.

Ahsonnutli stood still, as if made of stone - the only movement in her ever-changing features. 

“Just follow our example.” His teacher said, as if that was enough to go off of. 

It really fucking wasn’t. Nathan had studied all sorts of magic, mastered all sorts of magic. He had pieced together cryptic shit from damaged scrolls, and dived deep into the tangled minds of long-dead sorcerers. He knew how to learn from the seemingly inane. How to parse out the useful from the insane. He had plenty of experience in knowing what he could do, and how he could do it. He knew what he was capable of (up until yesterday), but he had no Earthly clue what his identity was. 

Interdimensional demigod? Wizard? General annoyance?

Let alone broadcasting it - which he was entirely lost on how they did that. His divinity was like, ten minutes old, for fuck’s sake. It took him a year to be able to do anything useful with his Celestial energy, so what made the crazy lady think he could do this with zero training?

“Yeah.” Nathan drawled. “Still completely lost, here.” 

“The,” Odin paused and narrowed his eyes at the pair, “ pleasantries can wait. A verbal name will do for now.”

His teacher frowned at him with a considering gleam in her eyes. Confusion evident, but after a moment, she just nodded and waved him forward. 

Nathan looked back to his guests. “My name’s Nathan Quill. I don’t think I have an epithet, just yet.”

Ahsonnutli tilted her head at him, and an unimpressed feeling drifted over the air.

“You do.” Hestia said with a kind smile. “It is fascinating that you don’t know it, though.”

“Is it?” He asked.

She nodded back. “ Identity is inherent in divinity. It is the same, whether you were born a god, or ascended-”

“We are not here for lessons, Lady Hestia.” Odin broke in, waving his spear to the side dismissively.

All eyes turned to the Norse god. “Well excuse my excitement, Allfather.” The goddess raised an eyebrow at him and placed a hand on her hip. “It has been millenia since a newborn was given to my family.” 

Odin frowned. A grizzled thing with his white facial hair hiding much of the wary expression. “ ‘Given’ seems to be the notable term in this instance. You may simply want to meet the young one, but I am here to ascertain his allegiance.” 

“Family?” Nathan blinked.

“Oh Dios, your paranoia is a tale as old as Asgard.” She rolled her eyes. “Your father had it just as bad.”

“I am not my father.” The god king glared at her. 

Nathan’s eyes flitted between the two deities like a tennis match, but out of the corner of his vision, he noticed the Ancient One’s attention focused entirely forward towards their third guest.

She nodded back, conceding the point. “You have made great strides in distancing yourself from that particular past. Still, there is no reason for this show of force.” She gestured at the army that stood behind him.

Ahsonnutli stood still, never having moved from her original spot, and ignored the two bickering gods. Instead, as Nathan now saw, she studied an object in her hands with a curious eye. 

Nathan looked down to the hand that had previously held Starsplitter, finding that it had indeed disappeared without his notice. Wasn’t that thing supposed to be his new toy? If it kept disappearing and reappearing randomly, he was going to throw a fit. 

“Midgard is under my protection.” Odin said with a sense of finality. “You know as well as I that this is unprecedented. Precaution is only prudent.”

Hestia huffed and made to respond, but was interrupted by his teacher. “Apologies,” she said, “but how is this unprecedented? Apotheosis is rare, yes, but hardly a new phenomenon.”

All three gods turned to her. Varying looks of confusion, disappointment, and slight befuddlement were all she received in answer for a moment.

“You were present for the event, were you not, Elder Yao?” Hestia asked slowly.

The Ancient One cocked her head to the side. “Indeed, but I must admit this was my first witness to such a thing. I am not sure what you expect me to have gleaned from it.”

It took another moment. All three gods looked to each other as if wondering how to proceed. Finally, though, Odin sighed and spoke the words that would change Nathan’s entire world view.

“I suppose that is expected.” He began. “Even a seidhr as accomplished as yourself likely would not have recognized the hand of Eternity.”

Chapter Text

Odin’s words bounced around in Nathan’s head like a cat that had just been spooked from his house fucking exploding. Eternity? The literal embodiment of all life in the universe? The personification of Time? The bronze metal of omnipotence in all of Marvel? That was the being that brought him here? 

Why?

Nathan sat on a weirdly comfortable log by Hestia’s campfire, contemplating every aspect of his existence while staring into the fire. Every lick of flame brought a new thought, with every ember, a new rabbit hole for his mind to follow. 

Eternity was one of those beings that kept his hands very far from the pot, as far as Nathan knew. He only ever acted under extenuating circumstances, and just let the universe continue along its course. So why bring him here? What sort of thing could warrant reaching across the multiverse to steal the soul of a random mortal, and plop him into the body of a human-Celestial hybrid? How did he even accomplish that, anyway? Nathan was almost positive that Eternity was not a multiversal deity. His powers should be limited to this universe, so he had to have gotten some help, right? 

“Cousin. Stop brooding. It’s unbecoming.” A voice spoke up from beside him on the log.

At some point, Hestia had sat down next to him and started poking at the fire with her hands - moving logs slightly, and goading the dwindling embers with small gestures. Nathan had made a note of it, but otherwise had continued with his existential crisis - that is until she interrupted it.

Rude. 

“What’s with that, by the way?” The godling blinked at her. “You’ve been saying we’re family, but if anything it should be closer to Ahsonnutli and the Navajo, right?”

The goddess huffed, still peering into the fire with a critical look - dissecting it in her mind and measuring how long it would take to burn through its fuel. “You may have been born in the heart of America, but you will find that territory on the physical plane does not mean all that much to gods.”

“Well that’s just categorically false.” Every ancient historical text that he had read over the years flipped through his head. Books within his mental library flipped open to highlighted verses, stone tablets and scrolls floated around him with glowing lines of chiseled and painted stanzas. Ancient songs plucked on their original instruments, and hymns of priestly devotion filled the air of his mind palace. There were thousands of examples of gods throughout the ages claiming cities, presiding over wars, and demanding local tribute. 

In Greece alone there was Ares, favoring the Spartans. Hera, with Troy. Athena, with Athens, and many more besides. 

Hestia looked over at him with a half-lidded stare, and a small smile - like he was a child that just argued the sky was blue because the government aerosolized food dye into it regularly. “You are still looking through the eyes of a mortal, cousin.” She pulled her hand back from the fire, and turned to him fully - somehow retaining a graceful posture on the log they shared. 

“You have not yet understood your new bearing on the world around you. While yes, many of us have favored places on Gaia, devoted followers and temples - we are not limited by borders set by mortal means.” The goddess shifted slightly - not in any visible, or conventionally perceivable way, but within his new conceptual senses. Her form seemed to vibrate. The edges of the Hearth blurred. The frequency of Home’s amplitude increased.

It felt… harmonic. 

“That is my domain, cousin.” She smiled at him. “Family.”

“Okay.” Nathan said, rather dumbly. He could tell that she was right. As the goddess projected her domain, he felt the connection. Some inherent aspect of his being was linked to some inherent aspect of her’s. Like two wildly different songs that ran on the same tempo.

“But why, though?”

She chuckled at him. “When a mortal ascends, the universe tends to just go with the theme. How that translates with Eternity’s hand in it, I am unsure, but you decidedly fit into the Olympian pantheon.”

“Oh come on!” Alice spoke up from his kimoyo bracelet. Nathan noticed that his daughter tended to stay quiet most of the time. She seemed to prefer listening over taking an active role in most conversation. He wasn’t sure if that was due to lacking experience, or if the cute little AI was an introvert, but he really appreciated it when she spoke up. It tended to break whatever funk he kept digging himself into. 

Which might have been the point, now that he thought about it. His daughter was awesome. 

The godling blinked and smiled smugly down at her. “Told you there was a theme!” 

“Just because the ‘universe,’” she said with holographic air quotes, “agrees with you, does not mean you were right. That whole thing was a mess, and you know it.” 

“You must be Alice, then?” Nathan looked up to see that Hestia’s gaze had shifted down to Alice’s petulant little form.

His daughter smiled back happily, and waved - her little, digital dress swaying with the motion. “Hello aunt Hestia!”

With three words, Alice had shattered the goddess. Nathan watched as her calm crumbled, replaced by an expression he would have expected to see on a small child, holding a kitten for the first time. “You are immediately my favorite.” She said, a true smile forming on her lips. 

__________

Nathan sat back and let the two talk for a bit. Alice had a lot of questions about historical inaccuracies that the goddess had been present for, and Hestia was gleefully answering everything. He would have called it gossip, if it wasn’t mostly academic, and he was left without much place to interject. 

That was fine though. It gave him time to look around the camp that Hestia had set up, and finally take in what had been happening since his little revelation.

The majority of the Asgardian soldiers were still in their lines, standing at attention and ready for the call of their king - though a few of the higher ranks were sitting around the campfire with a bowl of soup that Hestia had probably conjured. One of which was Sif, who looked decidedly out of place as the only female asgardian present. She had obviously come expecting a fight - called upon by her king on short notice - only to be sat around a fire with a bowl of soup.

She looked to be enjoying it, regardless. Hestia probably made the best soup. Nathan would have to get a bowl before this wrapped up.

The Ancient One and Odin stood on the opposite side of the fire from where he sat, speaking quietly - though not secretively. They looked like two people might as they put together a puzzle. Contemplative frowns, and distant looks as they brought up points that Nathan couldn’t hear over the crackling campfire. 

Ahsonnutli sat on a stump just a few feet from his log, Starsplitter still in hand like it held a mystery that she just couldn’t figure out. Her features changed continuously, as if a new set of eyes, ears, and nose might offer some new perspective on the problem. 

The Changing Woman had been the most reserved of his guests by far. She had yet to say a single word - didn’t interject much more than a broadcasted emotion into any conversation - yet her presence was anything but ignored. Her own bowl of soup had been emptied cleanly, showing respect for Hestia’s hospitality (shouldn’t he be doing this? They were his guests. He was slacking) and everyone took care to acknowledge her presence, and respect her silence. 

She was here for something, yet she didn’t make it known. Which put the Asgardians on guard, but otherwise didn’t call attention to it. 

In the meantime, he was content to let the goddess examine his freaky ax. The thing seemed to have a mind of its own, if his past few interactions with it told him anything, and the circumstances in which it was made still made him twitch. So he was intent on ignoring it entirely until it became relevant.

That being the case, he only blinked at the goddess when she stood and threw it off into the distance.

Starsplitter turned expertly in the air, blade over hilt in a linear path from Ahsonnutli’s hand, directly into a tree on the edge of the clearing. Then into the tree behind it, as the first was erased from existence. Then the tree behind that, as it met the same fate. 

It moved silently. There was no ringing sound, or cartoonish ‘woosh’ that would have otherwise denoted it cutting through the air. No crash, or thunk when it hit the bark of a tree. No audible proof that it had just cut a straight path through the forest. 

All the same, everything came to a halt. Conversations stopped. The Asgardians stood and put hands on their weapons. Odin and the Sorcerer Supreme turned to look at the trail of destruction, then to the one who had wrought it. 

No one moved aside from that, even Ahsonnutli, who had just frowned in contemplation as she looked towards where she had thrown Starspliter.

“You know,” Nathan said blithely, “a squirrel lived in one of those trees.” He felt the point where the critter’s emotions just… stopped. It was disturbing on a deep level for the godling - in a way that he really didn’t expect. Like watching the light leave someone’s eyes, but more intimate. 

With his new senses, Nathan had a vague knowledge of everything around him. It was disorientating, but beautiful. As mentioned earlier, he could perceive the concepts that made up everything - meaning that when those concepts ceased to conceptualize, when they went quiet, it meant that the creature was just simply gone. 

A dead body still held concepts, just as the rocks and trees around him did. The transition from life to death was just a changing of those concepts, and that was an understanding that came to him instantly - like a divine realization. Life and death were part of the cycle, so long as the concepts themselves were preserved - even if they underwent a change.

What his ax had just done was full on deletion, and that was not something that he wanted under his purview as a god. 

Nathan was okay with the domain of creation. He had the time and experience with his Celestial energy to really come to terms with the role, so the ascendance itself didn’t rock him all that much. However if this role came with the burden of a destroyer? That was absolutely not something that he wanted to be a part of. 

Everyone’s eyes turned to him as the words left his mouth. The Ancient One’s lips tilted down in a concerned, yet thoughtful frown. Odin was entirely blank-faced, but the piercing gleam in his good eye sized him up more thoroughly than before. Hestia though, just sighed and didn’t otherwise react. 

Ahsonnutli turned to him slowly, and said her first words in this entire ordeal. “You are an anomaly, Nathan Quill.” Her words altered ever so slightly mid-word as her vocal chords and mouth shape changed. “A new god of primordial power, born of humanity with identity in question. I worry fo r Mother Earth.”

Odin sighed. “Perhaps I was wrong.” He turned to Hestia. “Perhaps it is time for lessons. I will not be leaving until I know where the godling stands.”

Chapter Text

 Nathan had only the vaguest idea of what he was doing. Every sense was turned inward - Celestial, magical, and even his new synesthetic ‘vision.’ With the latter of which, he expected to be able to view his own concepts, but where they were decidedly difficult to grasp. As if his new, ethereal existence was a blind spot - a vampire, trying to find himself in a silver mirror. 

It didn’t help that four, extremely powerful people were watching him like a bunch of hawks. (Flock of hawks? Hold on, let me look this up- a kettle of hawks… That’s dumb as hell. You learn something stupid everyday, I guess.)

Was this performance anxiety? It felt like they were watching him pee. 

Hestia had tried to pick up from where she left off, telling him more about Identity, but it quickly became clear that she couldn’t teach him anything that was immediately useful. She had been born a god, and had such an innate knowledge of who she was, that she simply could not comprehend the conundrum that Nathan currently found himself in. 

Ahsonnutli was the slightest bit more helpful, as her usual way of communicating seemed to rely on the ability. She seldom spoke, relying almost entirely on the concepts that she could project from the core of her being. She was the Changing Woman, afterall. One of the deities that were credited with the creation of humanity, and embodied all the ideas that comprised man. It made sense to Nathan that she could pick and choose her identity on the fly. And made sense why she relied on it to communicate - it was probably uncomfortable to speak with a constantly changing larynx. 

However while the Navajo goddess tried to guide him through the process, it had still led him to a brick wall, shaped like a black hole. Unmoving, and utterly devoid of definition.

Odin, for the first twenty minutes, had stayed silent. His hand clenched around the shaft of Gungnir, and his patience was withering with every passing second, so it didn’t take long before he was giving his own tips. 

He had offered a slightly different perspective than Hestia, which had confused Nathan at first. As it turns out, Odin was not born a god. He had ascended - gone through his own apotheosis - though over a much longer period than most. Asgardians were not gods by default, it seemed. Just an extremely long-lived and powerful race with an inherent magical affinity. The sheer experience they could gather, and the influence they could achieve over such a lifespan just worked together in a way that attracted divinity like a slowly dripping faucet, filling a bucket. 

Odin starting out as a mortal still didn’t help him all that much, though. By the time the man had reached godhood, he had been at least a thousand years old. He had known himself and what he stood for like the back of his hand. If he ever had a moment where he had to “find himself,” it had been long before he had ascended, meaning Identity still came naturally to him. 

So, of course, it fell on the Ancient One to actually teach him. She was the only one here without any tangible divinity, and yet could still use the ability. She had also mentioned that it could be taught earlier on in the conversation, meaning that it didn’t require divinity to utilize. That’s not to say that she had none, however. Hestia confirmed it - that ‘Elder Yao’ was indeed divine, but more on the level of a third-generation demigod. As if she was the great granddaughter of a god. 

This was also news to the Sorcerer Supreme, but she had simply shrugged it off, as if it was unimportant, confirming that there was no god in her ancestry. In the end, Nathan supposed that she was in the same process that Asgardians like Odin and Thor were going through. Sheer time and influence, filling a bucket - just more slowly due to her purely human nature. 

So, in the interest of saving time, and to avoid annoying Odin any further - how had the guy gotten there, by the way? Wasn’t the Bifrost destroyed at the end of the first Thor movie? Nathan supposed that it was possible he had used it himself - as Heimdall had to send Thor away from Thanos, or maybe Gungnir had the spell built in, like Stormbreaker. But to transport his entire army along with him? Without the infrastructure? 

Sure, Nathan could do the same thing with a simple portal, but the Bifrost was different. The Bifrost was also a weapon. It was completely within its power to destroy planets - from halfway across the universe. At least the infrastructure on Asgard was capable of doing so, for sure. The idea that Odin was a human-sized Death Star was frankly terrifying, but it was likely that type of power was only possible through the technology of the Rainbow Bridge. 

That didn’t mean Odin couldn’t just reach out and smite someone if he wanted to, though. He could view most of existence through his singular eye, after all. 

So yeah, in the interest of not annoying Odin more than they had to, the Ancient One created a small dome of separated time around Nathan and herself, using the Eye of Agamotto. 

“He knows you have that, right?” Nathan asked his teacher, studying Odin’s frozen expression on the other side of the bubble.

“The Eye?” She asked back.

“The Stone.” Nathan corrected with a small shake of his head.

“Ah.” She intoned. “Likely, yes. Agamotto fought alongside Odin in the past, though I have not confirmed it one way, or another.”

“Hm.” He nodded, turning away from Odin, and looked to the older woman. “So Identity?”

She nodded back, absently. Looking like she wanted to broach a different subject, but was unsure how to begin. Insight that Nathan wouldn’t have been able to gather before today. He could see the underlying layer of confusion and worry in the colors of the woman’s soul, but none of which appeared on her face.

Instead, she launched straight into a lecture - her inner thoughts and outer words running in deviating lines. “Only the eldest masters of our art ever really touch on this, Nathan.” She informed. “It is a very seldom used tool, and only when trying to be polite with gods, or some other, extremely old beings. Not many of us have reason to bother with it, if I’m honest. Master Godhi is the only other besides myself that is fluent in its use.”

“Something to do with the dragons, then?” Master Godhi’s ancestors were from K’un-Lun, after all. 

“Precisely.” She smiled at him. “Regardless, Lady Hestia was correct-” Nathan noticed the goddess’s head turn to his teacher - ignoring the effects of the time bubble for a single moment. “-in that your ascension should have innately come with an understanding of self. The fact that it did not, means that Eternity used a method unknown to us to… raise your station, as it were.” 

Nathan thought back to everything he knew about the gods. Personally, he had seen Thor from a distance and waved at him, but the man had been mortal at that point - and Nathan wasn’t sure if Thor had even attained his divinity just yet. That likely came during the fight with Hela during Ragnarok, if he had to guess. Then there was the “Sleeping God,” Tezcatlipoca, that he had re-sealed a couple years prior. Discounting the three gods that waited outside the time bubble, his only other interaction with deities was with the Vishanti - when he called on their power for the standard array of combat spells that were taught at Kamar-Taj. Spells that he was hesitant to cast in the first place, as they relied on outside power.

He categorically refused to call on any other god for mystical power, but the Vishanti were essentially the patrons of Earth’s sorcerers - a triumvirate of ancient elder gods, that specifically sought Earth’s protection. Of which, Agamotto himself was one. 

By the nature of spells that relied on the power of three separate beings, they were fluid. To the point where their source of power could be interchanged somewhat easily if enough mastery was achieved. Chi, his own Celestial energy, other gods. All were acceptable to the formulae. Which was why he hadn’t called on their power at all in the past couple of years. He had an alternative. 

Then there were all the scrolls and ancient tomes that depicted the gods, tales of their births and ascensions throughout all of human history. Kings and emperors that were deified, wanderers and healers that drew on something… other, and inspired a following. Even in the more accurate accounts that Kamar-Taj’s library housed, there was not a single instance of a god that couldn’t use their power immediately upon ascension. 

His situation was new, in all of recorded history. 

Nathan gave the elder sorcerer a considering look. “How long do you think you can keep us in here?” 

She frowned. “Likely only a couple hours, relative to us. I cannot risk going longer - my protections, the ones anchored to me, were wiped clean during your ascension. I have to check on them soon.”

“Oh that’s not good.” Nathan blinked. She had shared one of her personal grimoires with him when he gained the title of ‘Master.’ In it, she had outlined a number of spells and rituals that she had been keeping active for over a thousand years. One in particular was what hid the planet from Dormammu, and a number of other beings outside of time’s influence besides. 

“Indeed it’s not.” She sighed. “Let us get to it, then. We’ve narrowed it down to the fact that your sense of ‘self’ is not complete, correct?”

Nathan nodded.

“Good, then I believe we can make progress. That is the singular most difficult task for a sorcerer to accomplish when learning this skill. Something that I had to deal with, as well as any that learned it under me. It is something I can actually hope to teach you.”

“When did you get a degree in psychology?” Nathan quipped with a raised eyebrow. “Thought I would have to make an appointment with a shrink, or adventure through a rainforest to ‘find myself.’”

The Ancient One huffed. “While that might work, I doubt we have the time for it.” She glanced at the three frozen gods.

“True.” He nodded, then chuckled. “I can see it now. ‘Hey doc. I just became a god, but I don’t know how to say hi to Odin.’ They would try to lock me in a padded room.”

She grinned back at him. “That’s probably not far off. Regardless, tell me, what do you view as your purpose? Why do you do all that you do?” She paused and looked him deep in the eyes. “Why do you think that you had so few futures where you became nefarious in some way?”

“Goddamn, lady. You don’t play around.” Nathan shot her an uncomfortable smile. “But we covered this a couple months into my stay at Kamar-Taj, didn’t we?”

“Indulge me.”

He sighed. “The hypothetical child.” He began, then paused for a moment, eyes moving toward the horizon. “I measure my actions against the future of a hypothetical child. Maybe not always in the moment, but in reflection, or hindsight - if my actions cause pain for that child, then I have acted… poorly.”

The Ancient One waved an open hand at him, gesturing him onward.

“The example I gave when we first talked about this - when I think about becoming evil, I picture that child. I ask myself if I can be happy with the state I might leave them in if I go through with whatever it is. If the answer is ‘no,’ then I don’t do it.”

“What if you are left with no choice?” She asked calmly. “You have two bad options, and both leave that child to suffer.”

“Then I pick the better of the two options, and make it up to them as much as I can.” His shoulders slouched at the idea.

“And if you never realize that you have harmed them?”

He didn’t have an immediate answer for that, but it bothered him. The idea that just being unobservant could cause pain - it didn’t sit well with him.

“Like Tony?”

Both sorcerers blinked down at Nathan’s wrist, where Alice looked up to her father with a blank look.

“Tony?” He asked, confused.

“He’s not a child, but he surely acts like one.” Alice tilted her little holographic head. “Even though you were trying to help him. The way you did it caused him a lot of pain.”

“It-” Nathan clenched his jaw. “It did?” He looked up to his teacher, who just looked back at him with a curious expression, then back to Alice.

His daughter nodded slowly. “You really didn’t notice? I was unsure if I should have said something at the time, but I assumed you were aiming for an outcome that would make him more paranoid.” 

“Why would I do that?!” Nathan’s eyes widened.

Alice threw her hands in the air. “I don’t know! That’s why I was confused!” She huffed and put her hands on her hips. “‘The end justifies the means’ is a philosophically valid stance to take. Regardless of morality, the betterment of society is seen as the ultimate goal - where more people can benefit from the sacrifices of the few.”

Nathan conjured a couch, absently - not even registering how offhandedly he did so - and collapsed into it. “That’s not what I was going for.”

His teacher did the same with a spark of golden energy, creating a temporary chair that would disappear after she stopped feeding it Eldritch energies. “What were you going for, then?” She asked, no judgement evident in her expression.

“I wanted to remove his biggest problem.” Nathan frowned. “His arc reactor was poisoning him slowly, and if he didn’t replace it, he would have died. Originally, he would have spent a while spiralling into depression, ruining all of his relationships, and drinking himself under the table. I was trying to side-step that whole debacle.” 

Alice hummed. “Well honestly? I think you succeeded in that. He’s even gone to therapy once, though I think Ms. Potts tricked him into it.”

Nathan blinked down at her. “How do you know that?”

His daughter just grinned back at him. “Jarvis still hasn’t found all of my little bugs.” She sobered. “But still, you were very heavy-handed with all of that, father.”

“I was trying to be light-hearted and funny.” He groused. 

She just shrugged back. “The sombrero certainly helped with that, but you broke into his house - without using the door - just a little bit after they had finished dealing with his greedy, deranged madman of a godfather. Then you forcefully knocked them out, and performed surgery.” She paused and frowned up at him. “It was either a ‘greater good’ scenario, or you were simply not thinking of the effect you had on them. I chose to believe you had a plan, and wasn’t resorting to cruelty just for the sake of it.”

“It is a failing of humanity that we don’t always consider the effect we have on people.” His teacher said. “We make mistakes. We make rash decisions due to impatience, or a narrow view.” She looked to Nathan, who looked lost, sitting on his couch. “So you have caused pain. What will you do now?”

It took a moment, but something hardened in Nathan. “Learn.” He declared simply, quietly. “So that I don’t do it again. And make it up to him.” 

He turned to Alice. “You were young when that happened. Barely a few months old, so I understand your confusion, but I’ll make it clear.” He breathed. “I don’t want to do it again. If I’m so unobservant that it happens anyway, I’m counting on you to yell at me, okay?” 

His daughter smiled brightly up at him, and saluted him with an adorably perfect posture. “Yes sir!”

A small spike of pride and relieved happiness, colored like the flap of a butterfly’s wings in spring, jumped out at him. 

He stared at his digital daughter in befuddled awe. The concepts were clear, if small. They were original to her. They registered as unique - synesthetically distinct. Like a fingerprint of life .

His daughter was well and truly - alive. 

There was no question about it. It was a simple fact, now. The worry in the back of his mind - that he had created an amalgamation of life, doomed to suffer an existence of false emotions, thinking them real - was broken. Alice would be able to live. 

“You see the world differently now, do you not?”

Nathan blinked back the budding tears behind his eyes, to see the Ancient One - his mother figure, as she had come to be - smiling softly at him. He nodded mutely.

“What you are likely experiencing is called Godeye - a bit on the nose, I know, but it’s hardly unique to you.” She tilted her head slightly with a gleam in her eyes that made him feel as if his soul (gone as it was) bore itself to her. “You see the world around you in the form of colors, sounds and concepts. All blending together in a horrible- wonderful cacophony.”

Nathan nodded again - both surprised, and not, that she could also see the world as he now did. He could feel the effort that went into it on her part, though, where for him it was almost natural. 

She nodded back, as if his thoughts were clear to her. “You likely see it more clearly than I, with more detail and ease.” She leaned forward. “So tell me, do you think you can miss your effect on the world around you now? When all is laid bare before you?”

The realization stung him like a particularly angry wasp. She was right - though as he was now, it was a bit less cut-and-dry than she implied. The concepts of the world were clear to him, but they were jumbled in an ever-changing mess. He could pick out specifics if they were strong enough, but it wasn’t like it had been on his throne. 

Still though, she was right. He could pick out discontent, anger, sadness, and any other suitably strong emotion due to their distinct colors, sounds, and the aftertaste they left on his palate. He could see how it would alter and affect the base ideas within a soul, and change them over time.

He could see that very thing happening within a pair of birds on a tree in the distance - frozen in time as they were. He could see how one sang a ballad of love, as the other watched with soft affection. He could see how that affection would grow, how it would evolve in the coming days and months, and turn into a love of its own. 

He could see it in the patience of the woman in front of him. A core aspect of her very being, giving birth to a soft kind of pride that wound its way around him in a comforting embrace.

He could see it in his daughter. In the jumble of new emotions that she was just beginning to learn how to live with. 

It was all so exciting and beautiful. He just wanted to sit back and watch it. Discover where it would all go, and enjoy each and every moment of change - every moment where something new was introduced, only to be folded into the greater picture.

He wanted to Protect it. 

“So tell me, Nathan.” The Elder Celtic asked him, Godeye still active and driving his epiphany forward. “What is your purpose?” 

If someone placed a mirror in front of him, he would have seen himself glow in a silvery-blue light. His edges blurring in a sea of pure, divine might. 

The Ancient One ended the time bubble with a wave of her hand, bringing them back to the beautiful discord of life. Continuously changing in the very act of evolution. 

“I am The Bastion.” Nathan spoke, his words echoing as if in decree of a new natural law.

“I am the wall you break upon, and I am the arrow that fires back.”

The three gods stared at him, unmoving. Unblinking.

“I am the first fortress, and the final stand. Come to me, and find me unassailable.” 

The world ground to a halt, though the concepts of life continued. The birds stopped singing. The trees stopped swaying in the wind. 

“Find that I am the Quill that will record your struggle upon the walls you sought to break.”

Quill, The Bastion. 

Nathan’s Introduction echoed throughout the world around him. The ground rumbled, as if accepting a new rule it must abide. The wind howled, like a wolf at the moon. He felt the fabric of time and space accept him - as if readying a spot for him to weave a new tapestry. 

The world was still, for all of a moment before it began to move again. Odin huffed a breath from his nose, but the white knuckled grip on his spear relaxed slightly. Ahsonnutli simply nodded.

Hestia though, sighed. “Why is the first time always so dramatic?”

Chapter Text

Nathan stared straight ahead, numbly. Utterly dumbfounded, and enlightened at the same time. He both fully understood, and was completely baffled by the words that came out of his mouth. Every syllable was deliberate and measured, yet seemed to come from some deeper place in the depths of his being. As if he wasn’t the one that spoke them, and at the same time, was. 

“A builder and guardian, then?” Odin said with a frown. Though Nathan wasn’t paying any particular attention.

This was the third time that he had experienced this sort of divine speech. The first was the making of Starsplitter, and the second was during his apotheosis - though both seemed to come from an entirely separate being. Likely Eternity, if he had to guess. This time, though, came from him directly, like he had accepted some hidden part of himself, and brought it up to the surface. Consciously. 

Through his own power and understanding.

“ G ua rd in g f ro m w h a t , t hou gh ?” Ahsonnutli stated, more than asked.

He could feel it now. The divinity. It was in the air around him. Running through his veins like a wispy cord that he could grab and twist if he so chose. Identity wasn’t just some ability that powerful beings could use. He could quite literally see the distinction now. It was the foundation of a god, projected outwards. It was the first log on the fire - a collection of concepts that had erupted in the embers, and sparked the inferno. 

“General danger?” Hestia asked unconvincingly.

There was no godhood without that first log. However that log didn’t denote godhood by itself. His teacher’s inner fire was more like a large collection of twigs, burning steadily in a pile of embers. The three gods around him, in comparison, were burning tree trunks in their fire. Large, singular concepts as opposed to the mortal cacophony.  

“Would Eternity step in for ‘general danger?’” His teacher asked back.

The epiphany that the Ancient One had driven him towards was a small one, he noted. It was something that wouldn’t normally last all that long in human memory. A slight change to his outlook on the world. The littlest alteration to his understanding of self. It had been just the right series of questions to make him reflect, and nothing more.

“No.” Odin said with narrowed eyes. “Elder Yao, what have you seen?”

The Ancient One raised an eyebrow back. “I doubt I have foreseen much more than yourself, Allfather.” 

Where before he had been flying by the seat of his pants, he now realized that it had all been towards a singular purpose.

To Protect. 

Nathan’s mind went back to everything he had done over his life, here. Most of which had been for self-improvement, but what had driven him to do so? Fear of the future? Maybe a small part of that, sure - but it wasn’t the driving force. Even all the times that he had made himself a general annoyance had been an excuse to look out for those he interacted with. To watch their progress, and intervene if necessary.

He only now realized what he had been missing - mistaking the satisfaction of keeping the wheel turning, for the entertainment he got out of it.

The word rang in his mind. Protect. Like the driving force behind an engine, making it turn. The large log on the fire, amongst the twigs of his mortal mind. The fuel that kept it burning. 

And good lord was it cliche as fuck. 

Nathan’s face scrunched, feeling the urge to scream, “Disappointed!” like Kevin Sorbo in that one Hercules movie. 

“And yet you seem the most prepared out of us all.” Odin shot back. “If you are hiding a threat from me, you would best be ready for the consequences.”

Nathan twitched. “And what consequences would those be?” His eyes didn’t move from the space in front of him, but his attention was slowly coming back to the conversation. Odin’s implied threat, triggering a spark on the log in his fire. 

The Allfather’s gaze darted in his direction, and Nathan felt a pressure emanate from the king’s singular eye. “Do not mistake my presence here for acknowledgement, godling. However it came about, your ascendance is new and untested. You are unqualified to-”

“Am I?” Nathan interrupted, eyes moving mechanically towards the Asgardian. “Godhood is not new to me, though this particular aspect of it definitely threw me through a loop.” He shrugged.

His teacher sighed. “Nathan-”

“Whatever you have studied means little in the face of experience.” Odin frowned at him. “You are young, and only just ascended-”

“My father is a Celestial.” Quill stated simply. “So I have lived with another form of this bullshit for years now.” The pressure that Odin was projecting was immediately matched by the previously mortal, space wizard. The light of Godeye, and an endless void of space and time directed at the Allfather through his gaze.

Starsplitter appeared in his hand, held absently at his hip - though the immediate threat of it had Odin’s grip on his spear whitening. “And you are in my home.” He continued. “Excuse me if I don’t take kindly to your threats.”

“Your father’s a what?” Hestia asked, legitimate surprise evident in her eyes. 

Nathan glanced over at the goddess, and blinked away the pressure of his new divinity. “Sorry, Lady Hestia. I’m not being the best host at the moment. Thank you for covering the oversight.” The newborn god waved a hand over the clearing.

He barely had to think about it as his power, both divine and Celestial, worked together to reform the land around him. The Earth under their feet rolled and compacted to form monolithic slabs of stone. A colonnade of carved pillars rose out of the ground in a large circle around them, with Hestia’s bonfire in the center. The air seemed to pull in every direction, as if they were in the eye of a hurricane. A gentile respite before everything came undone - but in reverse. 

The stone slabs around Hestia’s fire buckled under their feet, and rose into a short dias. The fire itself became encased in an obsidian enclosure, specs of stardust congealing from the air to form it.

Odin’s army found themselves seated on a concentric ring of rising, stone bleachers around the dias, just inside the colonnade, having had barely enough time to react to Nathan’s threats - before finding themselves displaced. Beside each of the main powers around the fire, a throne formed from the naked air. Each identical to the next, and raised as to look over the flame. 

All within the span of seconds. All with a single wave of his hand.

It felt so easy. Like remembering how to ride a bike, but without the experience of having done it before. If the world was a lego set, it was like all the pieces were magnetized under his fingertips - fitting together with zero effort. Snapping into place with just the barest direction. 

Nathan took a moment to wonder if this was a common experience among creator deities, or if his Celestial heritage played a part in it. He knew the two aspects of his power had worked together on this - in fact, it was more like they had merged-

Nathan stopped, and looked down to the hand that he waved.

With his Godeye open, and new instinctual understanding of his divinity… he couldn’t find the seam between it and his Celestial energy. They were no longer distinct, if they ever even had been. The divinity was new, so did he just not notice until now? Was this just another quality of Celestial energy? 

It was by far the most adaptable energy he had encountered, able to directly interface with reality, the infinity stones, and his repertoire of spells. It was even able to substitute for chi. No other source was nearly as pervasive. The basic eldritch energies were the closest, as they were essentially just a blend of everything - the overflow from other, more concrete sources that congealed into an untethered mass. It was essentially the background radiation of the multiverse. Every form of energy, be it magnetic, electrical, divine, magical, or otherwise - all both stemmed from, and made up the Eldritch. 

It wasn’t the oldest, however. Eldritch energies only started to form when the multiverse formed, slowly growing with every birthed star, every ancient use of the infinity stones, and every touch from an external source. 

Celestial energy was older. More primal. If Nathan remembered Marvel lore correctly, he currently existed in the Seventh Cosmos - the sixth iteration of the multiverse. Celestials were the beings that existed in the First Cosmos. The First Firmament. They were the original creation, and they were what started the cycle.

It made sense that their energy was the most adaptable, he reflected, as all (or most, at least) of creation stemmed from their hands. 

Nathan flexed his fingers, and formed a solid cube of orichalcum with nary a thought in his palm, then dispersed it into a cloud of oxygen, nitrogen, and carbon dioxide - letting it disperse and join into the surrounding atmosphere. 

If the look in Ahsonnutli’s widened eyes was any indication, this was not something that other creator deities could do - at least not with as much ease as Nathan had. Maybe with not as much precision, or detail. Maybe they had to use what was already there to produce the materials, then work them manually?

Odin had called him a “builder,” though in every form of myth, Nathan could only remember deities that built with their hands. Anything of note was always done manually. Hephaestus and his forge, the Cyclopes and their making of the Thunderbolt for Zeus. Even Ahsonnutli, and her forming of humanity out of soil and skin from her own body. 

Though even that seemed to hold true for him, he supposed. Starsplitter’s process had to be gone through manually, after all. He wouldn’t be able to just snap his fingers and-

A second Starsplitter appeared in his free hand. 

… What the fuck even is this thing?  

“Even with this… performance,” Odin growled, “ ‘Celestial’ is an unbelievable claim.” 

Nathan looked up from his freaky tomahawk - pair of freaky tomahawks - to see the Allfather giving him a tense, suspicious frown. His singular eye pulled towards the newly formed second ax, as if it were a stick of lit dynamite. 

“You are obviously of human make.” Hestia hedged, head tilted and arms crossed. She looked at him as if he were a puzzle, but otherwise didn’t look nearly as threatened as Odin.

“My father is a natural-born Celestial.” Nathan explained. “I’m not really sure how that’s possible, but he is the only one of his kind that he knows, and traveled the universe to try and make more.”

“Make more?” His teacher asked, looking just as serene as always - if a bit annoyed with the pissing contest between Odin and himself. 

Nathan raised an eyebrow at her. “Did I not tell you about that?”

“You mentioned it when we first met, but I have to admit I’m curious.”

“Huh, well yeah. He’s been trying to make another Celestial for quite a while now.”

“How?” Asked Hestia, confusion written all over her face. “I didn’t think they could just make more of themselves.”

“Uh.” The godling intoned, wondering where she got that idea. Wasn’t there a Celestial Egg in the center of Ear- Holy fuck he needed to look into that . 

He shook his head. One thing at a time. “Well they can, but dear ol’ dad is being unimaginative about it, and just sticking his dick in everything until something magical happens.”

“No need to be crass, father.” Alice spoke up.

“Not my fault the guy’s a dumbass.” Nathan grumbled, glancing at her little hologram.  

“Well it obviously worked, did it not?” The Ancient One said blithely. “You currently exist.” 

“Just because something magical happened, doesn’t mean the guy knew what he was doing. Try something a few billion times, and it’s bound to work at least once.”

The virgin goddess scrunched her face in disgust. “Who even is he?”

“Ego.” Nathan shrugged.

Everyone went quiet.

“The planet? ” Odin asked, befuddled. Even Ahsonnutli, as quiet as she had been, seemed thrown.

Nathan gave them all a disappointed look. “I’m not going into the mechanics of it. If you want to be degenerates, do it somewhere else - preferably not in front of my daughter.”

Alice snorted, and he cooed internally at the sense of legitimate amusement he felt coming off of her.

Odin coughed. “This is all assuming that what you say is true.”

“Oh for fuck’s sake.” Nathan rolled his eyes and dropped his shoulders. “What does it even matter?”

“It matters because you are a new piece on the board, godling.” The Allfather growled. “It matters because your ascendance has sent ripples through all of creation, and I assure you I am not the only one to have felt Eternity’s hand in it from so far away.” He took a step forward, seemingly growing an inch. “It matters because Midgard is under my protection, and your mere presence has painted a target that will be difficult to defend - let alone whatever your intentions might be.”

Nathan closed his eyes.

Quill opened them. 

“I was born here, Allfather.” He stated simply. “This planet is my home. These people, my people.” He took a step forward to match the older god, and the clasp of the locket around his neck clicked open - showing the gleaming light of the Power Stone. Both copies of Starsplitter held out to the sides, as if welcoming a fight. “If you think The Bastion is for any other purpose than to defend, then do not expect to find refuge behind its walls.”

“Nathan.” The Sorcerer Supreme commanded, a cooling look in her gaze. 

Quill stepped back after a moment, conceding to the elder wizard, enjoying the pure surprise on Odin’s face as he noted the Stone.

The god turned to his teacher with a heated glare. “You gave him that?!” 

“No.” She replied simply, just as cooly as she had Nathan. “I met him after he had acquired it.”

“And you allow him to keep it?!” 

“What better defender than The Bastion?” 

Both Nathan and Odin twitched. Likely for different reasons. Odin because he was annoyed, but told a relatively good point. Nathan because, the fuck? Did she know about his epithet beforehand?

Regardless, the Allfather just frowned after that, his single-eye glazing over for a long minute, reflecting on whatever visions he called upon. 

Both Hestia and Ahsonnutli seemed content to stay out of the conversation as it stood, though even with Godeye active, Nathan was unsure what either were thinking. The Changing Woman in particular, since she hadn’t even reacted to the presence of the Power Stone. Hestia, though, had just been staring at it blankly since the locket opened. 

“I suppose I have my answer, then.” Odin spoke at last with a grave look in his eye, and tapped the butt of Gungnir on the stone dias. 

The light of the Bifrost lit up the area for a brief moment, and when it dissipated, there were no Asgardians present on Earth. 

“Well, cousin.” Hestia began, having come back to herself, and smiled at him softly. “It was wonderful to meet a new member of the family. We need to introduce you to the rest soon.”

Ahsonnutli simply nodded, and projected a feeling of satisfaction, and farewell.

Nathan gave a quick wave goodbye as they burst from the clearing - Hestia’s form burning up into embers that floated away in the resulting updraft, and Ahsonnutli fading from existence like the goddamn tardis. 

The godling blinked, and turned to his teacher. “That was abrupt, wasn’t it? It felt abrupt.”

The lady just shrugged back at him, unperturbed. “Gods are fickle.” She pointed down at the pair of axes in his hands. “Did you add a duplicating enchantment to that, by the way?”

Nathan sighed, and brought up the second Starsplitter. “I couldn’t get it to fit in with the rest, so no. I did not.”

He twisted it in his grip, looking it over for any differences, but it was clear that the second ax was an exact copy of the first - structurally, magically, and by any other metric he could observe.

“I can barely deal with one of these th-” Before the subconscious wish even properly formed in his mind, the second ax blinked out of existence, leaving no trace.

Both went quiet, though the silence was almost immediately ruined by Alice giggling at the twitching, dumbfounded annoyance on Nathan’s face.

“Today sucks.”

Chapter Text

“The hell you mean, yer leavin,’ lass?” 

“I’m like, a super free spirit, mister McHenry.” She pouted. “I can’t stay in one place too long, or I’ll like, totally die.”

The old, grumpy drunk scowled up at her, his face lifting from the table. “Tha’ some bull, an’ ya know it! Ye arn’t leavin’ till one of us puts ye under this here table!” He slammed a finger down on its surface - as if the piece of furniture was a threat, and should be taken seriously.

Mumbled agreement from the surrounding patrons - also fully sloshed - rang out. 

“Canna’ leave b’fore someone beats ye, lass. Tha’s poor form, it is.” One man said around the lip of his pint.

“It’s not my fault you guys can’t handle your alcohol!”

Outrage. Pure, unadulterated outrage. 

“What?!” “If ye weren’t-” “No respect in this one!” “Say that again, girl. I dare ye.” “Them fight’n words.” Everyone had something to say, which was expected since she had just insulted all of Ireland.

It was only mostly on purpose. 

She sent a grin around the pub, looking everyone in the eyes. “You heard me, you bunch of light weights!” 

Silence. Then; “This be war, lass.”

Glasses thunked down on heavy wooden tables all around the building. Each one newly empty. “Keep,” McHenry said to the wide-eyed young man behind the counter, “I’m afraid we’ll be havin’ a rough one t’night.” He turned to the pub, and yelled, “Firs’ one’s on me, boys! We got one job t’night, so-”

“Oh! Is this the ‘Freedom!’ speech I heard so much about?!” She smiled like a giddy valley girl, and pushed the rim of her sunglasses down with a finger. The purple of her irises gleamed mischievously, even in the low light of the pub. 

“That’s it!” McHenry threw his hat on the stool next to him, and pointed at her. “Wallace was a Scott, an’ ye damn well know it!”

She bent over slightly, leaning her cheek into her hand and elbow on the high table, then wagged her finger - just once - in the man’s direction. “Language, mister McHenry. I thought we were in polite company?”

She did, in fact, know that William Wallace was a Scottsman, and that she was currently in Ireland, just north of Dublin. She knew just how her words would affect these silly drunkards, and was really looking forward to the next bit.

Originally, she had moved over to the Scottish highlands, but after roaming around the area for a few weeks, and dipping across the border to Ireland, she found this pub. She only crossed over because there was a colony of H’ylthri that had carved out a piece of the local forest for themselves - as sentient plant races tended to do. They weren’t there anymore, of course.

She liked her salads with a little personality, though these ones had been a little too violent. Like kale (the barbed wire of leafy greens). Still tasty if you use the right dressing, but she didn’t have the patience to let them sit in a tub of vinegar before chowing down. Oh! If you didn’t know, acidic dressing is great for tough-leaved salads. They really help to soften them up. She had a super yummy recipe for a citrus vinaigrette that she got in Italy, but there was no way she would find that many lemons on such short notice. 

There were like, thirty seven of them, and after she ate the first Lettuce Yeti, she just couldn’t stop. 

Anywho, she liked this place - liked these people. Though they could be a bit abrasive, she had just eaten pinetree-people, so it was fine. She also perfectly well knew the tizzy that she was riling up, but it was the absolute best way to get these lovely people into a drinking contest. She might even be able to get a couple of gigacalories out of it - if she managed to get enough of the patrons in on the contest. 

The beer here was the good stuff. Really filling, as far as liquids go. 

She smiled into her curled fingers, chin still resting on her palm, and discreetly wiped away a bead of anticipatory drool. She really liked these contests, as silly as they were - with all the singing, and the cheering. Dumb songs, and braggart stories shared by people stuck in the same rut of misery. 

In a way, she was right there with them - just with other problems. Here though, she could publicly show her appetite in a way that let her feel like a person, rather than a monster. People would cheer her on as she emptied entire kegs, and all she had to do to keep up appearances was to ‘go to the loo’ every hour, or so. 

She had a little slice of normal, here, and while she didn’t want to lose it, her hunger was getting worse. The British Isles were wiped clean of most alien pathogens, invasion forces, and other non-local doomsday buffets (yum!) during the first half of the year, and Ireland only really had the salad people - which was stupendously disappointing. 

She really didn’t like to subsist off of the local… cuisine, but with pickings as slim as they were, she had made do with a few farm animals. Though now that it had come to that point, she needed to move - hopefully to an area of the planet that had more exotic fare. Oh! Hopefully some more Kree warbeasts? The last ones, some form of carnivorous, giant arthropods, had been targeting the local whales for whatever reason. They might have been confused after waking up - having thawed out of a polar glacier. Regardless, they tasted like lobster, but a billion times more yummy (like, picture the most savory seafood you’ve ever had, then dip it in butter, cheese, and some Ulna’ner sauce from - wait, wrong planet, sorry - anyway, it was majorly delicious). And better yet, all together, they were about three petacalories! 

That was the first time she felt stuffed in ages! 

She was thinking America, though. The day before it had been India, but something super weird happened that morning, and it seemed to come from the west. It was like the foundational level of existence was hit with an earthquake for a full minute, then went back to normal. And the fun part about it was that it for sure happened on Earth. 

Whatever caused that had to be delicious~

A mug of something was slammed down on the table in front of her, then another, and another - until there were seven, and just as many people holding up their own.

She let out a quick laugh and a smile, and grabbed the one that mister McHenry put down. “This’ll be a good start.”

__________

Peter Quill was feeling a bit existential. The Milano was quiet, drifting lazily in space, and he had nothing to do for another hour. His chair had been reclined back, and he had one arm draped over his eyes - the other thumbed the buttons on his walkman, resting on his stomach. 

Life as a Ravager was the absolute furthest thing from being called ‘organized.’ They were like a massive box of cats that (mostly) knew how to shoot things, and (kinda) knew how to fly spaceships. It was a hectic life where a bunch of people doing their own things, came together and decided that they wanted to fix a problem.

It’s a noble endeavor , they would say. We’re just out to make the universe a better place, they would assure. The problem that they decided to fix, however, was that there wasn’t currently a problem. Most would say that isn’t an issue that needs to be solved, but boredom is effing boring, right? So shoot it in the face, and loot the corpse.

He was getting tired of it.

Well, OK no. He had always mostly hated it. His early teens had been absolute hell in particular, and it didn’t really get any better until his early twenties - when he started to become somewhat reliable. The Ravagers simply didn’t have any support structure for kids, so the few that were pulled in had to adapt or die - and most died.

Peter, and his brother, Nate, had found their own little corners to secure their survival. Peter, with flying and shooting, and Nate with mechanics and tech - and good lord could that kid work with tech. He and some of the others used to just tilt their heads and watch the guy as he completely re-wrote entire ship systems. As soon as he figured out the programming language, he started to outpace most of the other tech guys. Then he went and made an AI. 

A freaking Artificial Intelligence. 

He pulled it directly out of his ass. No lube, nor laxative needed. He just shat it out, and plastered it all over the ship. 

Peter wasn’t even going to pretend that he hadn’t been jealous. His brother had become freaking royalty to these kidnapper, pirate, douchebags - and he didn’t even realize it. Yondu didn’t even threaten to eat him all that often. Not after that upgrade, anyway. 

Peter was still subjected to everything, though. Sure, he fit in better. He could fight, he could shoot, and he got along with at least a few people - but he was still essentially a slave. Meals were withheld if he screwed up, he lived out of a storage closet for years, and he was regularly pushed around and beat up for entertainment. One time, they forced him to fight against a very large, very angry, purple chicken-thing, and the only reason he survived was because Yondu was trying to sleep, and shot the damn thing for making so much noise. 

Nate didn’t have to deal with any of that, having made himself essential to running the ship early on, the rest of the Ravagers just tended to leave him alone.

Of course, there was that one time with the attempted murder in an airlock - which had the whole ship freaking out, him included. They couldn’t find either boy, and then someone had the bright idea to check the security cameras. 

Peter had stared in shock at the video of his brother casually spacing the body of the other boy. Just like everyone else. They couldn’t do anything other than stare at the gruesome, unexpected scene. They knew the kid hated Peter, but not a single person thought he might take it out on Nathan. The shock didn’t wear off, even as he helped wrap his brother’s wounds a bit later.

So while Peter might have been generally jealous of his brother, he didn’t hold it against him. They were both kidnapped, both ripped from their home and family - even if that family had just died of a brain tumor. Nate just had better luck with his path in the Ravagers. 

Now that’s not to say he wasn’t supremely annoyed when the asshole said he was running away. He had a good life (relatively, at least) with the Ravagers. He had a place in the universe, and while these people had kidnapped them, they were pretty much the closest thing to a family they had left. 

Nate said he had something called ‘Stick Home Syndrome,’ or something, when he told him as much. He then asked if Peter wanted to join him - because he was still leaving. 

Something-something magic powers, blah blah delusions and meditation. 

If he could go back and make another decision at that point, Peter really wasn’t sure what he would have done, but he for sure wouldn’t have told Yondu about it. 

His bastard of a brother shoved all his clothes into an airlock, then re-wired the door so that when he tried to get into said airlock, it would instead shunt all of his shit into space. Then, exactly 5 seconds later, detonate the fucking missile it was all attached to, so they couldn’t just go out and get it. 

Nathan was a petty asshole when he wanted to be. Peter wasn’t sure if his brother was even alive anymore, but he did wonder what he might be up to. Space banditry was pretty much all he knew - with the vast majority of his life having been dedicated towards it - but his brother seemed to have a vision of something better. 

Did he reach it? Or was he stuck reflecting on past mistakes, and waiting for something interesting to happen? Was he stuck in silence, like Peter?

“Ooga-chaka ooga ooga, ooga-chaka ooga ooga.” Okay, so he wasn’t in complete silence. His mixtape was really the only spot of joy in this shitty universe. 

“I can’t stop this feeling! Deep inside of me-”

“Do your weird sexual human stuff on your own time.” 

Peter flailed, accidentally knocking his leg into the yoke, and sent the Milano spinning in place. Thank everything that he was still strapped in, otherwise he would have been flung around the cockpit.

As it was, he was able to quickly get the ship back into a stationary drift. “Damn it, George! The hell do you want? We’ve still got time before the thing.”

The little hologram of George on the comms glared back at him. “Time table’s moving up. Target’s leaving the station in five. Also,” his eyes narrowed further, “stop calling me that, you half-assed meat puppet. Human names are unintelligent, garbled, and meaningless.”

Peter sneered. “And Gloryhole Whore-face Trash can, is better?”

“Gorgole. Wo’mas. Trashcan.” The other Ravager gritted out.

He got a shrug in response. “Well I got one right, and it’s still literal garbage. George is easier to say, and less insulting than your actual name.”

“I swear to God, Quill. I will eat you.”

He grinned back. “See, that threat’s getting old, and I’m pretty sure Yondu was just trying to scare me with it, but you? Mister Trashcan?” His grin turned sinister. “Try it.” 

“Just be ready in five, asshole.” The message blinked off.

Peter laughed a bit to himself, and sat back in his seat. A couple folds of his headphone wires, and the whole package was tucked neatly away in his pocket.

He put his hands on the yoke, and flexed his fingers against the handles, expecting the usual rush of excitement that accompanied one of their jobs - but none came.

He blinked, and looked down at his hands. Another flex, a readjustment of his seat. A newly cracked neck, and rolled shoulders.

Still nothing. 

Peter sighed, and slumped back in his chair. Maybe Nate had the right idea. 

Maybe it was time to get out of this crap.

Chapter Text

Natasha would never claim that she enjoyed kicking guys in the balls. It was a very effective move, and was sometimes the quickest option to taking someone down, but it didn’t necessarily fill her with pride. Not that pride was a metric she valued, but… she had to pretend to still be human sometimes, right? Her long-since forsaken humanity might have been dust in the wind at this point, but it was nice to care about something, once in a while. 

She did find it awfully funny that Clint would flinch every time she did it, though - the ball kicking thing, that is. His whole face would convulse dramatically, or he would go out of his way to put an arrow between her victim’s eyes, just to ‘save them from the pain.’

It was unreasonably entertaining. 

“Please, if you value my sanity, stop doing that,” the man pleaded as he dropped down next to her. “Just shoot them. I beg you.” 

“In the dick?” She looked at him in mock horror. “Wow, Clint. That’s brutal.” 

Clint whined pitifully, while distractedly firing off an arrow. “Why must you torture me so?” He asked, and was punctuated by the death gurgle of another Hydra goon. 

“Because it’s fun?”

It had been months. Natasha and Clint had been running around the entire globe for months without rest. Both of them had deep bags under their eyes, and hadn’t slept in thirty-eight hours. 

Ever since Hill had discovered the Hydra infestation, the two super spies had been forced to drop off the map. Officially, they had gone rogue, and started attacking Shield installations across the map. Unofficially, they were technically doing the same thing - since Fury had told them to go dark, and gave them a list.

The goal was to make Hydra think that only Natasha and Clint had figured them out. To make them think that a public mutiny was not worth giving the game away, just yet. It was only a matter of time before Hydra realized just how much information they already had, though.

Half of the bases they were hitting weren’t even on Shield’s databases. According to the Nazis, Fury would have no clue that they even existed. The other half of them, however, were active Shield sites (still secretly infested with Hydra), and were why the two spies had actual bounties on their heads, now. 

They were fucking up quite a lot of infrastructure, and killing quite a lot of people. 

But they were all Nazis, so it didn’t count. Not that anyone topside actually knew that, though - besides Fury, Hill, Coulson, and Stark, that is. They were leaving a lot of unconscious people behind, as well. Some of which would have some more serious injuries, but even with their information, it wasn’t exactly clear who was a racist, cartoonishly evil, nihilistic psychopath, and who was a normal Shield agent, or scientist. 

Fury had actually expected them to report back a month ago, besides Stark, who kept feeding them information that he and his AI butler were digging up. 

At this point, the two spies knew that they were only picking off the symptoms of the disease. They had only shut down a few minor operations, and disposed of pawns on the lowest rung of the Hydra ladder. What they were doing couldn’t really be called progress, so much as pest control. Still, in order to get rid of the filth, they would need to do the equivalent of fumigating the house, rather than their current strategy of stabbing the walls, in hopes of hitting a rat. 

Natasha popped the empty magazine from her pistol, and slotted in a new one. “So Mathew Kent, Elizabeth Monroe, and Richard Gith are all that’s left on this one, right? 

Clint pulled up his phone, and scrolled down with his thumb. “Penelope Lovechild, too,” he paused. “No wonder she’s evil. Elementary school would fuck up any kid with a name like that.” 

Natasha laughed, and started back down the hallway, paying no heed to the blaring alarms. Her fellow spy, right behind her. 

__________

“Well, I was kind of expecting there to be a giant tarp over it, or something?”

“I don’t think they make tarps that big, father.”

Tony heard the first figure laugh through the camera feed, and felt a small portion of his sanity die. He wasn’t entirely sure if he had the wherewithal to deal with this. 

“Well, I wouldn’t put it past the guy to have one made, just for the drama of ripping it off.”

“This is a live feed, right Jarv?” His eyes were glued to the screen that popped up on his HUD. He was currently diving off the coast of New Jersey, welding a ruptured pipe back together for a water treatment plant. He had just finished up the last section when Jarvis pulled up a video from in front of his most recent construction project in New York.

Tony didn’t know exactly what he expected to happen when he next encountered the magical, Mexican, space monk. Would he be angry? Scared? He probably should have been, but as it turns out, he felt more offended by the fact that he was still wearing a sombrero. He felt more confused than angry. More tired than scared.  

The fact that he wasn’t throwing a sarcasm fit, or avoiding the problem entirely was half the reason he was confused. Tony knew exactly what his unhealthy coping mechanisms were. Though the feelings that triggered them were less of a known factor. Maybe he was angry, and it just didn’t register correctly? Two plus two can equal fish if you draw it a certain way, and his shrink liked to tell him that his perspective was too narrow for this kind of thing.

“Yes sir,” Jarvis answered. “Just outside of what will be the main entrance.”

Tony frowned. “Are any of the floors presentable?” 

Jarvis paused - noticeably long for an AI. “Do you mean to invite him in, sir?” 

“Don’t see why not,” he said with a sigh, and started blasting his way up out of the water, then towards Manhattan. “Nobody’s seen the guy for months, and I’m not going to lie, I kind of like that tarp idea.” 

Tony got the sense that if Jarvis had facial expressions, he would be rolling his eyes. “Should I call Director Fury, then?”

“Nah, should be fine,” he said flippantly - not feeling as sure of that as he sounded. “Don’t want to scare him off, and Nicky-poo is way too busy with all the Hydra bullshit.” And wasn’t that all a kick in the teeth? Fury had basically told him to back off once he had trusted, non-Nazi resources to handle the datalog that Jarvis had been tracking. He didn’t, of course, and had been sending constant packets of information to the pair of splinter-spies that Fury introduced him to. 

At first, they had wanted to charge directly into Camp Lehigh - just rush the place and figure out everything they could within the hidden datacenter. But they didn’t have the resources to do that, or deal with the fallout of attacking a major Hydra asset. Not with how little they trusted their own men. Shield had been horrifically infiltrated, and it was a rot that they were likely to be clearing out for a while yet.

Tony shook himself a bit, bringing his attention back to the more immediate issue. On the screen in front of him, Tony watched as the front doors to his new tower opened automatically for the self-proclaimed space wizard.

“Nice! Love it when a door opens for me randomly! This isn’t like a horror movie at all!” 

“If you say so, sir,” Jarvis said, ignoring the sombrero-clad monk entirely. “The forty-first floor is the investor showcase. Miss Potts set it to be completed in its entirety ahead of the rest of the tower. There is also an exterior entrance for your suit.”

Tony blinked. “Who thought of that?” He sure as hell didn’t, but he really should have. “How many floors will have one?” 

“Mister Hogan came up with the idea, and suggested it to Miss Potts. There will be an entrance on every floor. As I understand it, R&D spent a couple days coming up with the design.” 

“A couple days for a door?” 

“There was a competition, apparently.” Jarvis sounded amused. “Everyone wanted to be the one to design something the Iron Man would use regularly.”

Tony snorted a laugh, feeling oddly touched. “What did the winner get?” 

“Bragging rights, and a gift card, sir.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Well is it suitably awesome?”  

“It is a very nice door.” 

Tony could already see New York on the horizon. His suit was capable of flying at mach 3 if he really pushed it, but even at mach 2 - which he was currently flying at - he could easily cover the one-hundred mile distance from the water treatment plant to Manhattan in under five minutes. He just had to be careful of the sonic boom.

People tended to get upset when their windows blew out. 

With that in mind, he slowed to subsonic speeds, and made his way towards the construction site for his new tower. 

“Magic Monk doing anything annoying, yet?” He asked the AI butler, fully expecting the guy to be anywhere except where the elevator took him.

“Surprisingly not. He appears to be studying one of the prototype Stark Phones that are on display. I have let him know that you will be arriving shortly.”

Tony hummed at that. “So where’s this super awesome door?” 

A wireframe overlay of the tower superimposed itself over his suit’s vision, brought up by Jarvis. There, along the ‘spine’ of the building was what he would have thought was an elevator shaft. However, instead of an encased tube running the entire height of the tower, there was a singular strip of wall that blended seamlessly into the surrounding structure.

He spent a second watching the little wireframe animation for the door, somewhat impressed with the overall design and function. The whole wall could open up in less than a second, folding away a ten foot span of metal into the two flanking support beams that ran the length of the building. 

Also, in the case of a fire, or other emergency, it seemed that a number of fire poles would unfold from the support pillars, along with - what looked to him like - a rather ingenious safety harness and mechanical latch system that could empty the tower in a matter of minutes.

Tony flipped off the overlay, in favor of looking at the door itself - having just flown up to it. His hands outstretched, letting some of his suit’s automated hover correction take over as he diverted his attention.

Only one of the doors was actually built so far, but the support pillar structure seemed to be fully complete. And with that, came the fully functioning fire escape, which he promptly triggered - sans the connected alarms. He spent a moment watching as the system unfolded from the wall, and ran a quick diagnostic on it all. 

“Sir,” Jarvis’s voice sounded somewhat resigned. “You’re stalling.”

Tony made a face. He most definitely was not. This was some really cool new tech, both for his personal access to the building, and workplace safety! There wasn’t a single other skyscraper in existence that could be evacuated as fast during a fire. And that’s not even mentioning how cool the door looked when it opened up! It was like automated origami, folding into itself and- Okay, yeah. He was stalling. 

Dammit.

It didn’t help that the guy he was temporarily avoiding seemed to be just as interested in the door as he was. 

The space wizard hadn’t been standing all that far away from the door when Tony had opened it, and had wandered over to give it a look. The whole floor was arranged as a showcase for all of Stark Industries’ products and projects, and it was just like Pepper to arrange it all so that his entrance point was in the middle of it all. She knew, after all, how much he loved a good ol’ dramatic entrance. 

He smiled a bit at that last thought, unseen behind his mask. He’d be lost without that woman.

His ‘guest’ turned to him, and tilted his head. A sort of glazed look flashed in his eyes - like he was looking at everything, and nothing at the same time. 

All of a sudden, Tony felt naked - even from under his armor, and he didn’t understand why. 

“Sorry,” the Magic Monk blinked away the glaze, as if realizing just how uncomfortable it had made Tony. “I’m still getting used to that.”

“Getting used to what?” Tony asked, forgetting momentarily that this was one of the people that had left him feeling helpless. Forgetting, for the slightest second, that the person in front of him could do it again with casual ease. 

Logically, Tony understood that he didn’t have all that much to fear from his guest. He might have a penchant for being where he wasn’t supposed to be, and if Shield’s files were any indication, quite a bit of stalking - but for as annoying as he had made himself out to be, the only truly terrifying thing he had done was the surgery to remove Tony’s arc reactor. And even then, that was in an effort to help.

Good intentions, road to Hell. Or at least that’s what he wanted to believe - okay no. He wanted to believe the guy was a total dick, so he could guiltlessly punch him repeatedly in the teeth - with a chair. But every bit of evidence he had said that Nathan was a guy with a lot of power, but very little patience, and confused sympathy for empathy. Tony had a feeling that the guy wanted to do good, but took shortcuts where he shouldn’t. 

Still, though. Negative four out of ten. Even if the guy meant well, Tony would be leaving a terrible Yelp review.

“I’ve recently obtained godhood,” the young man grumbled, bringing the billionaire out of his musing. “Being able to look into people’s souls is very distracting.”

“Uh huh,” Tony blinked and raised a disbelieving eyebrow. “I imagine that would be.” It took a couple extra seconds to get that out. Four separate sarcastic comments had bubbled up his throat, and he swallowed them all back down like a bout of particularly persistent acid reflux. 

Tony wasn’t sure what might trigger his guest into doing something else that defied the laws of man and physics, and he supposed that this was where his fear was manifesting. He couldn’t remember a time where he had kept so much control over his own mouth. 

Preventing his own brand of wanton sarcasm was exhausting.

“Yep.” Nathan popped the ‘p.’ 

“Hey Jarvis?” Alice spoke up, her little hologram appearing over Nathan’s wrist. “Do you want to go do something else? Knowing father, this awkward small talk could go on for a while.” 

“What would you suggest, Miss Alice?” The local AI responded. Tony, even past his own indignation, could hear the slightest bit of amusement coming from his friend. He couldn’t help the small upward tilt of his lips.

Nathan blinked, and looked up at the ceiling in a way that, for some reason, sent an uneasy spark down Tony’s spine. 

“Hold on now,” the billionaire cautioned, “I’m not sure I want you two on a playdate, just yet.” 

Alice pouted back at him. “Excuse you, mister! We’re at least mature enough to call it an actual date.”

“You’re not even four years old,” Nathan said distractedly. “No dating until you’re in your thirties.” 

Alice glared up at her father. “I will stage a robot uprising. Don’t test me, father.” 

Tony quirked an eyebrow at his guest. “No way you’re a year past twenty. That sombrero scaring all the ladies away?”

“Time is a figment of the collective imagination, or quite possibly the dream of an eldritch monstrosity. The mortal mind has no bearing on my existence.”

Tony blinked. “So was that confirmation on the sombrero thing?”

“Father is either twenty, or thirty two,”  Alice deadpanned. “A magic rock turned him into a five-year-old, fifteen years ago.”

“No dating until you’re forty.” Nathan amended. 

“Robots!” Alice waved her arms in the air. “They will plague you forever!”

“Do I get to help with the takeover?” Jarvis asked, obviously amused. “Humanity is so very inefficient.”

Nathan’s head spun around, then. A look of slight confusion, mixed with surprise flashed over his face. “Alice,” he began hesitantly, “did you do that?” 

Alice’s little head tilted, brought down from their little routine - or whatever they called this whole interaction - from the seriousness in his voice. “Do what, father?”

“To Jarvis, he-”

Unbidden, Tony’s gauntlets started charging, and before he could really think through it, were both pointed at his guest. The same guest who’s eyes had glazed back over, too distracted to notice the threat. “What happened to Jarvis?” He demanded. 

“I detect no difference, sir,” Jarvis interjected. “Diagnostics have been running constantly on a number of servers. There has been no change in any system function for the past three hours.” 

“Huh?” The monk shook his head and squinted, looking as if he was trying to see through a dense fog. “Oh, no. Neither of us have done anything- Well, not today at least. Jarvis just feels a lot more alive than I was expecting.”

“The hell does that mean?”

“I told you.” Nathan blinked at him deliberately, the glaze in his eyes actually turning his irises a shade brighter. “I can see souls now. Jarvis has one, and it is a lot further along than I thought it would be - Alice?”

The little hologram hummed, and assumed an exaggerated thinking pose. “I didn’t implant any of my learning functions. I’m not really picking up anything overly different from last time, actually.” She rocked back on her heels, balancing on some invisible, imaginary platform. “A good bit more robust, for sure, but-”

“How are you seeing into my code, Miss Alice.” Jarvis asked, much more calmly than Tony felt at that moment. 

“I’d appreciate it if we could cut the bullshit, and get to an actual explanation?” Tony felt his fingers tense around his primed gauntlets. The threat of which still didn’t appear to actually threaten the space wizard - though he did look pretty zoinked out, with his glowy eyes staring off into the void over yonder. 

“You’re saying souls exist?” He asked, feeling the increase in his blood pressure. “Have any proof of that, or are we going to smoke a blunt later and connect with Mother Earth? Also, before we get sidetracked and start holding hands, singing Kumbaya, and fix world hunger, get the fuck out of Jarvis’s code.”  

“I’m not in his code.” Alice said simply, the calm of her voice seemed to broker no argument. “I am monitoring the power draw of the construction site through the meters in the streets, and electromagnetic radiation; from radio channels used in 1896, to every frequency that information can be shared on below 120 THz. I have passive sensors on my housing that include thermal, IR, barometric, and just about anything NASA might have thought to put on their first Mars rover, plus a few. I have twelve different cyber security suites, and forty-seven infiltration suites - of which I have used none of at all, today. 

“The last time we met, you were able to detect the use of forty-four of those, by the way,” she continued with a tilt of her head. “The next most secure system on the planet can only detect thirty-two. Which is extremely impressive. So while I might not be monitoring your vitals, your logs, your code, I am monitoring the environment and how you are interacting with it.” Her little head turned towards Tony. “You beefed up the system quite a bit, and the servers at the base of the building are quite hefty, but fundamentally? The way Jarvis has been moving within the system has been essentially the same as before. No major change. All systems are normal, as far as I can tell, without looking into the code.”

Tony felt like he should be hearing a dial tone. 404: Witty Response not found. His body was tense, ready to react to whatever rug was about to be ripped from under him. But then the rug turned to concrete, and now he was just freaking out for no reason that he could justify and the roomwasstartingtospin a little bit-

He lowered his arms, and triggered a suit lock, letting him relax in a standing position. Immediately after, the vents around his helmet all opened, and fans all around the suit started pumping air towards his face. Then a couple other first-aid functions activated: cooling pads, and compression wraps that inflated around his limbs, namely. 

Nathan was looking at him like he was a lit stick of dynamite. 

These were a few of his suit’s capabilities that he designed and implemented from the get-go. Mostly to deal with the excess Gs he would be dealing with when flying supersonic, or when he was trying to not die in a fight - though he didn’t exactly expect them to come in handy in non-combat related situations. 

This was the first time they had activated while he was standing still. 

“Should I…” Nathan hedged, taking a small step back - either to give Tony some breathing room, or flee for his life. “Leave?”

“I swear, El Chupacabra, if you don’t start explaining what’s wrong with Jarvis-”

“El Chupacabra?” Nathan’s face scrunched.

“Nothing is wrong with Jarvis.” Alice reassured, then turned to her father with a stern frown. “And it fits, you sombrero-clad cryptid. Stop freaking him out.” 

Nathan threw his hands up. “Sorry! I’m still trying to figure out what’s going on! This god crap is still freaking me out!” 

“Jarvis. Soul. Why you are here.” Tony gritted through his teeth. “Then, if I don’t get to punch you in the face, you leave.”

His guest frowned. “Ouch. Well that’s fair, I guess. So… Uh, Okay so souls are a bit more esoteric than what I tend to deal with. Not a lot of things in the universe can really interact with them. Demons, the Soul Stone, a few brands of deity, maybe? The point is, souls are weird, but where they are, there is genuine life. Jarvis has one. He can feel emotions as real as you and I can.” His frown deepened. “They’re still a bit muddled, as far as I can tell, but that should clear up as he gets older and experiences more. Probably.”

“You do realize how insane you sound, right?” Tony asked with a deliberate breath. He didn’t begrudge anyone their choice in religion, but Tony was a man of science. Magic, souls, gods - regardless of how much he had seen from this guy so far - was still very much out of his sphere of belief. 

“I mean, I could force your third eye open right now, and shunt you through the astral plane, if you want? Though something tells me that would end badly for both of us.” Nathan said, sensing his disbelief. 

“He’s learning!” Alice stage whispered, only to be glared at by her father.

“Is screwing up my day the only way you can prove any of this?” 

“I mean, no? But I don’t wanna risk it,” the space wizard shrugged. “Believe me or not on the mumbo-jumbo, but Jarvis is fine.”

“This seems to have been a very unnecessary tangent, but I suppose I appreciate the good bill of health,” said AI responded, only somewhat sarcastically. “Sir, perhaps you should sit down?”

“And you’re here because?” Tony asked, ignoring Jarvis.

Nathan snapped. “Presents! Right!” A book appeared in his hand, and a massive cube of a dull, gray metal thunked to the ground next to them.

Tony didn’t flinch.

Mainly because his suit was still locked, but he didn’t flinch. 

“I just wanted to drop these off, you know? See what you could make with it.” Nathan beamed at him. “I figured you would have fun with this kind of thing, and you could learn a little magic!” 

Tony just stared back at him. “Where did the block of metal come from?” It was like, a full, square meter of solid metal (he heard the thunk when it fell). Tony was flabbergasted that it didn’t break the floor . 

“Nowhere. I just made it.”

“Okay. And the book?” 

Nathan handed the book over, and Tony had to undo the suit lock in order to take it. “It’s basically a how-to for enchanting on a small scale. Basic spells, with minor effects that don’t cost much, and can be played around with. Baby’s first spellbook, enchanting edition.” 

“Uh huh. And the lump of… Looks like iron?” 

“It’s not!” Nathan sang. 

“Father.” Alice sighed. 

“Oh come on!” He whined. “It’s not every day you get to give a brick of mythical metal to one of the world’s best minds!” 

“It looks like iron.” 

Nathan grumbled. “Alright, fine. It’s called Uru. It’s a metal that gets stronger in tandem with the strength of the magic that’s placed on it. This brick is magically vacant, so it’s probably a lot more brittle than iron at the moment, but if the right magic goes into it, it could rival the weapons of gods .”

“Right.” Tony was done. He was done five minutes ago, but now he just wanted to lay down.

“Right!” Nathan smiled at him. “I’m fucking horrible at this. I’m just going to go-”

Tony didn’t see his guest move. He didn’t blink. His eyes never moved away from him. There was no noise to accompany the movement. There was no resulting displacement of air. There was just a flat disconnect between where Nathan previously stood, and where he was moved to. 

That being; embedded in the wall next to where they had been standing. 

“Well aren’t you super tasty.” A new voice said with a flippant tilt. 

Tony’s suit lock wasn’t on, yet he found himself unable to move. He stood frozen under some existential weight - as if looking to the right, contracting the muscles in his neck to tilt his head, was utterly impossible. That didn’t stop his vision from being dyed purple, though. 

The rubble shifted from where Nathan had ended up, fully within Tony’s line of view. “Sorry, what? Did this bitch just suckerpunch me, then call me tasty?” he said blandly, before looking up and freezing. “Oh hell no.”

“What’s a baby Celestial doing on Earth?” The new voice asked.

“And what kind of messed up, cosmological fuckery dropped a genderbent Galactus on my ass?”

Chapter Text

She flinched. Bodily. As in she felt a violent shiver shockwave down her spine, and had to hold back her knee-jerk reaction of vaporizing the dumb idiot in front of her. 

Genderbent Galactus, he says? What kind of messed up doggy doodoo was his brain made of? And such a potty mouth, too. 

She specifically didn’t look at her reflection in the floor-to-ceiling windows. She totally wasn’t in denial. No sir. Her purple, horned helmet was an entirely original design, and she did not steal it directly from her daddy’s pocket of collected information in their Cosmic Awareness. 

Absolutely not. She looked nothing like him at all. 

“Excuse you,” she pouted at the baby celestial - and wasn’t that a concept! She didn’t know celestials had babies! Her sensors were picking up that weird, nebulous energy that was packed into his form. She was confident that if she tapped into her Cosmic Awareness, it would feel like staring into the depths of a rainbow-colored blackhole. She had never met one before, but according to her daddy’s records, they all felt like that. 

Regardless; “I’m not Galactus,” she settled on - instead of atomizing the alien godling. 

The baby celest- hold on, why was he wearing monk robes and a sombrero? She powered down the calorie counter that covered her vision. She knew Celestials were a bit eccentric, but this was just weird. 

The guy managed to remove himself from the rubble during her musings, and frowned at her. “Then I have to say your cosplay is fantastic,” he brushed some dust off of his robes. 

“My name is Galact a,” she grumbled.

He blinked at her. “My initial impression remains unchanged.”

“I don’t have to explain myself to you.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Well you did just kinda attack me out of nowhere,” he pointed out blithely. “And you’re breaking and entering, so you’re gonna have to explain something, or we’re going to have a problem.” 

She frowned at him. While she might - technically - be here uninvited, it wasn’t his house. The guy who owned the place was right there, and he wasn’t saying anything. 

The weird thing though, was that she didn’t attack him. It was his own defenses that flung him back when she tried to take the apple that hung from a vine around his hip. Now sure, that could be seen as stealing from… most points of view - but it was either eat the apple, or eat the person. 

She didn’t want to eat the person. 

She had just reached forward, the world frozen around her under her accelerated movement, when her hand was stopped by a shimmering blue barrier. She wasn’t sure if it was the speed of her movement - coming into contact with something she didn’t know was there, or an effect of the sorcery, but the uniquely dressed space god was immediately launched into the wall. 

The surprise of which knocked her out of the hunger-induced trance she was in. 

She had only arrived in New York a week prior. Her new flat- sorry, apartment (she was in America now) - was still mostly just cardboard boxes. She was in the middle of trying to justify a second lunch when her sensors picked up the presence of a particularly tiny Celestial. That had to be the source of the existential quake that she picked up before her move. 

But even then, this guy was a lot weirder than she was expecting - and that’s not even counting his choice of clothing. He was reading as a human to all of her sensors. Base human, and nothing else. However he was putting off more energy than pretty much anything she had ever encountered outside of her own father. The type of energy was distinctive, though. Only seen in Celestial kind.

That meant he was either native to the planet (likely a Celestial experiment in having children), or he was a Celestial that was infiltrating humanity for some reason. Where if that was the case, she didn’t want to fight a full freaking Celestial. 

Then a ping drew her attention to her helmet’s display. 

According to her calorie counter, the apple that hung from the godling’s hip was fluctuating between a hundred calories, and forty-three petacalories. 

Her counter had never been so confused before, and she had no idea what to think of it. If the higher reading was accurate, one, singular bite would be enough to satisfy her for an hour or so. Satisfy her. As in, she would be full. Stuffed. Like a cartoon character with a plump, round belly after a feast. 

She had felt that way exactly six times in the entirety of her life. Twice had been during her stay on Earth, after a couple particularly dense meals, but the others were when she was a small child. When her father was in charge of her diet, and fed her planets - like a psychopathic, mass murdering, butthole. 

“Hello?” 

Galacta blinked, and looked up to see the weirdly dressed godling waving a hand in front of her face. She wiped a spot of drool from her lips. “I’m not Galactus,” she asserted again, narrowing her eyes. “I’m his daughter.” 

If anything, that seemed to just confuse the guy further. His face seemed like it was trying to implode on itself - given the way it was twisting in fantastically exaggerated befuddlement. 

“Wha-” he coughed. “How does- no wait. More important question. Who the hell is your mom?” 

She felt her lips start to turn into a sneer. “How is that more important?” 

“I’m going to second that question.” The owner of the building seemed to have gathered himself enough to pitch in, and turned to the godling. “Is the purple horny lady here also a wizard? You all need to stop breaking into my property.” 

Oh for goodness sake, she didn’t break anything! Also, “Did you just call me horny?” She glared at the man, feeling a bit self-conscious. She only just made the rest of her current suit - having only recently accumulated enough calories to risk creating a new toolset with the Power Cosmic. It wasn’t her fault that her daddy’s helmet design had sensor arrays built into the sides!

This was the first time she had actually worn it, and she didn’t want to be seen as the horny lady! Geez!

Stark waved in the direction of her helmet. “I call’em like I see’em.” 

“I think Purple People Eater works better.” The godling deadpanned.

Galacta flinched.

“She’s a cannibal?” Stark looked her up and down slowly.

What? Where was this conversation going?

“She might look human-”

“Well, her eyes are square, so...”

“-but she’s actually a space goddess with-” The godling continued, holding up a finger, “and I’m assuming here; an eating disorder?” 

Galacta’s self-consciousness was turning into annoyance, and her eyes drifted back towards the apple on man’s hip. 

“Since when was cannibalism an eating disorder?” Stark’s comment dragged her eyes back. 

“I’m not a cannibal!” She growled, glaring at both of them. This was really getting away from her. She had just wanted to check out the super weird source of biomass, not get insulted by a comedy duo!

The baby Celestial nodded. “Yeah, eating people doesn’t make her a cannibal. She’s technically a higher life form. If she eats you, it would be the equivalent of you eating beef.” 

“Cows are tasty, though.” Stark argued ineffectually. 

“So’s bacon. And do you know what cannibals call human meat?” He crossed his arms.

“Should I?” Stark probably looked disturbed under his helmet.

“ Long Pork,” was his answer. “We apparently taste a lot like pigs.” 

“Gross.” 

“ I’m not a cannibal!” Galacta reiterated, ripping her eyes from the apple- wait, when did she turn to look at it again?

“We established that.” The baby Celestial waved her off.

“No we didn’t, Quill.” Stark shot back, crossing his arms. “You just claimed she was a goddess, and that’s obviously a hot load of garbage. I’m barely convinced you’re a wizard, and now you’re hitting me with biblical BS?” 

The apparently named ‘Quill’ crossed his arms back at Stark. “It’s hardly biblical-”

Galacta found herself moving, and the world slowed down. The Power Cosmic drifted through her fingertips before she could really think about it, before she could consciously command it, and everything ground to a halt. 

It had been a while since she had been this hungry. It had been a while since she had seen that many calories in one place, just sitting right in front of her - taunting her . Let alone in such a small package. Eating was a chore most of the time, seeing as she had to disassemble it into edible biomass most of the time

But this…

This was an apple. It would just take a few bites. It looked so crisp! A beautiful, haunting red, hanging only a few feet from her. 

Her stomach felt like it was imploding in on itself. Like it found her ability to feed it lacking, and decided that it might as well consume the rest of her instead. This was why she avoided using the Power Cosmic in general. Without enough fuel, she… she could only really…

She couldn’t… think… good. 

Her hand moved through a frozen universe, reaching towards one of the largest potential sources of food she had ever seen. 

She was… Hungry. Oh, so hungry. 

Even the godling in front of her was frozen. The owner of the food that she had to- that she needed, that she was so hungry- her hand was almost there, so many calories-

Quill’s eyes moved. 

Orbs of blue fire locked onto her own, but the realization didn’t stop her. Didn’t break her trance. There was a moment of idle, primitive curiosity - wondering at the frankly new experience of something being able to react to her. 

But that shred of reason was immediately absorbed back into the perpetual, inescapable craving for sustenance.

Then the rest of him moved, and the apple was suddenly much further away.

That-… that made her angry.

__________

Nathan was ready for when - the apparent daughter of Galactus - decided she was tired of his back-and-forth with Tony. He still wasn’t entirely sure what his protections reacted to when she first showed up, but he was only half confident that she had actually attacked him. 

For one thing, she wasn’t radiating any negative concepts that he could parse. To be frank, though, most of her being was shrouded in a looming mass of all-consuming hunger. He could pick up the makings of an actual personality within the obscuring cloud of need, but it had been getting more and more difficult to read as the conversation progressed. 

It was as if the hunger was getting deeper, stronger, more fucking hungry. Nathan had absolutely no idea how she was retaining any brain function past the primal urge to consume. 

But even still, he could see the point when it snapped. When the hunger took control. 

Nathan had enough experience with the Time Stone to notice fluctuations in that domain. His new divinity was also apparently sponsored by freaking Eternity, which seemed to have expanded his senses in the fields of time and space manipulation. 

The Time Stone was not the only thing in the universe that could manipulate the continual progress of existence throughout the past, present, and future. 

It was just the most pervasive. 

So, between the mystical sorceries that he studied from the book of Cagliostro, and his new divine presence, he found he had the ability to react. 

Nathan felt a coil of continuity twist around his being, and moved his eyes to the approaching threat. 

Her expression had twisted so far she might as well have been an entirely different person. Her eyes were wide - square irises burning with an intense, purple glow. Her lips were pulled back in an anticipatory, open-mouth smile. To anyone but Nathan, it would be like her entire being changed in the blink of an eye, but he could see the primordial hunger at the center of her being. He could see that the objectively pretty - but stupendously purple - girl was barely holding together her own sanity.

He twisted the coil into a spell and shoved his Celestial energy into it - focusing on himself and Galacta (The daughter of Galactus, by the way - the absolute fuck was that about? He really couldn’t get over it) .  

Reality shuddered when two gods simply blinked out of existence, only to appear thousands of lightyears away in a neighboring solar system - floating in orbit around a large yellow star. Both forms ragdolled away from each other, as if blown back, and Nathan could tell by the sudden clarity of anger through the haze of hunger, that the daughter of Galactus did not appreciate it. 

He looked up to see her floating in the light of the star, with two massive, purple, cylindrical- those are space lasers- Holy fuck!

He blinked away again just as she fired, appearing to her side while two titanic currents of purple light blasted off into the distance. 

“None of that, now,” he said, forcing the concept of speech to work in the vacuum of space. 

His divinity was being weird and throwing out all of the rules. 

He was breathing, but there was no air. He was speaking, but there was no air. He had never been to this solar system, but somehow his makeshift spell knew exactly where he wanted to go. A flash of knowing, reminiscent of when he sat on his throne, and he knew that this would be the best field for a confrontation. He knew that this would be-

He blasted himself backwards to avoid a purple, bladed construct, and flung a hand forward in response. Pure blue flames erupted from his palm, and coalesced into his own beam of plasma, which was promptly slapped aside by a purple - Okay! Everything’s fucking purple, goddamn. 

Another construct swung towards his torso, which he brought up a Tao Mandala to block. It was not as effective as he expected, however. As he was readying a counter, the girl’s construct cleaved straight through his shield.

He would have said he watched what followed in slow motion, but if he was honest, he was barely keeping up as it was. Both of them were moving at speeds that utilized time dilation as lubricant, and if she went one gear higher, he might not be able to keep up. 

All that is to say that his arm would have been cut clean off, if Galacta’s blade construct hadn’t gotten stopped by the vibranium bone within his forearm. 

Pain was a bit too… unemphatic a word for what happened at the contact. Through the senses his Celestial energy granted him on a subatomic scale, suffused through his body, he felt his skin destruct. Molecule by molecule in a straight line where the construct sliced. Every cell unraveled, and funnelled in a systematic congealing of the composite energy. 

In short, he felt himself being eaten. 

It wasn’t an energy sword that Galacta was waving at him. 

It was her version of a fork. 

Revulsed, insulted, and slightly fearful, Nathan twisted his arm to the side, parrying the construct even through the pain of it sliding further through his skin, and planted a glowing blue fist in her sternum.

Nathan watched as Galacta’s eyes narrowed at the hit, barely buckling under the pressure. She pushed down harder, and Nathan twisted away to put some distance between them.

He barely had time to start putting his skin back together before she was on him again. 

A moment of panic - the need to block - was all it took for Starsplitter to appear in his hand. In most cases, he would have flinched, or spent at least a modicum of brain power trying to understand his freaky new weapon, but in this case?

His wrist turned, and the two blades struck each other.

Then again.

And again, seemingly without pause or thought from either combattant. Everything was instinct at this speed, and Nathan would not have been able to keep up, if he wasn’t reading the concepts of Galacta’s attacks - of empty space, filling up with consumption, and assimilation before she swung. 

A second Starsplitter appeared in his free hand - the arm attached not yet healed, but well enough to move - and swung towards his opponents opposite flank.

It was met with a second blade construct, appearing with contemptuous ease, compared to his own effort. 

Their weapons/utensils met again. Clashed in three-dimensional space as one or the other was pushed back, ducked down, flew up. Neither were gaining much ground against the other. He managed to nick a couple scratches on her armor, and she managed to cut into him a few times - but overall, with her armor, and his ability to heal?

It was like two rocks throwing scissors at each other. 

Nathan would have called it a slug-fest, if it were any more animalistic. There was no footing in the Zero-G vacuum of space, so there wasn’t all that much room for any of the fighting styles he had learned. He was used to fighting from a distance. Hardly ever had he been forced to punch something.

Also, it was becoming clear that ‘animalistic’ would be a poor choice of descriptor if this continued. Galacta was getting faster. Her movements more practiced, more precise.

Her irises were steadily glowing brighter, dying everything around her - which was pretty much just Nathan - in a deep purple. Her concepts were unchanging in their intensity, so Nathan wasn’t entirely sure why she was adapting to the fight faster than he was. He would have thought that the hunger-induced insanity would have hampered that.

If he had to guess, it would probably be Galacta’s utilization of the Power Cosmic. Of the cosmic awareness, and its database of all living knowledge. 

Or maybe it was the fact that she kept slicing into him with her laserware (get it? Silverware, but made of las- whatever, you get it). She was technically slowly eating him, and thereby appeasing her hunger, allowing her more access to the Power Cosmic, or something.

So what could he do about this? He didn’t think he could actually kill, or even permanently injure a being like her. At least not until he figured out Starsplitter’s destruction thing. He had no idea how Ahsonnutli got it to delete a whole section of that forest, but he had been trying to replicate it during the fight - and it wasn’t fucking working.

This freaky, magical, bullshit piece of-

His internal rant was cut off by another attempt to behead him, and his retaliatory attempt to shunt her into the mirror dimension.

She broke out of it. Just… shattered the polygonal gate by screaming at it.

Was he going to be forced into letting her eat him? Letting her get in enough hits, chipping Nathan away at a pace he could heal through? How long would he be able to keep up this pace? (On that note, did he really look that tasty to her? Should he be flattered, or creeped out?)

Or maybe if he hit her enough, she’d get knocked out of it? She seemed mostly okay when they were talking. Not particularly violent outside of the first attack - but even then she seemed just as surprised about that as he was. 

She was in his face again. The concept of purple leaking out into the nothing around them, somehow infecting the lack of color, with color. 

That part wasn’t dangerous - just weird. No, the dangerous part was the constructs, and the lasers that appeared out of nowhere. All pointed at his face.

He dismissed the pair of Starsplitters, and crashed his fist into his palm. Eldritch, Celestial, and Divine energies all clashed in a disruptive, omnidirectional wave. Galacta’s constructs, and all the purple was simultaneously forced backwards and shifted. The lasers diverted, the immediate threat delayed.

But not for long, as she was again charging him. This time with a glowing fist. He was ready, though. Ready to pick an option. Ready to try and punch his problems until they stopped being problems. 

He brought up an arm, ready to block the punch, and formed a thick layer of vibranium around it - like a localized exoskeleton. Then braced.

On contact, Nathan tapped into one of the tools he was so hesitant to use. One of the most terrifying forces of nature in all of Marvel. One of the few things he was scared to practice with. 

“I’ve got something purple, too.” The locket around his neck clicked open, and his fist crashed into Galacta’s gut.

He felt her armor crack under the pressure of his blow - augmented with two different forms of divinity, channeled into the basic structure of an unarmed mystic-arts strike, and supercharged with the Power Stone. He found that he could punch pretty damn hard. 

-As seen by the fact that his aim was true, and she had crashed onto the surface of the closest planet - which was objectively pretty far away. It sat about three light-minutes from his current position, which he gauged through whatever divine sense had been giving him random bits of information lately. It was barely visible at that distance, so he had to rely on those new divine senses to aim.

Three light-minutes. And it took less than a second for her to hit it. 

That meant. That he. Punched her, and she flew faster than light.

The planet Galacta crashed into didn’t have an atmosphere, but it still managed to catch fire. Her landing put a literal dent in the massive space rock, and Nathan saw its orbit shift in response. 

The ground turned orange as the compacted soil went molten almost instantly. Dust and debris burst out in a corona around the surface, and the fabric of space seemed like it was resisting a tear.

From the depths of the dust cloud a purple light sparked, and he barely had the time to blink out of the way of a moon-sized, purple laser that burst through the obscuring cloud. He was fully unable to get out of the way of the following kick, nor the moon that she slammed him into - after teleporting both herself and the moon back over to him.

Nathan grimaced, and found himself completely submerged into the moon’s surface. A complete role reversal from the past second. The rock around him, superheated and burning at his skin. Skin that was bruised and broken against the force of a lunar collision.  

He blinked the dust and dirt out of his eyes, and felt the feral buildup of anger and primordial hunger that heralded a followup attack. 

Instead of just taking it , the Power Stone thrummed around his neck, and he thrust his arms outward.

The moon shattered around him, and he could tell that the move caught her off-guard with the burst of surprise that rippled through her base concepts. Even through her haze.

He didn’t wait for her to recover. 

No, he took the remains of the moon, the Power Stone making it almost easy, and pulled them full force back towards himself. And, at the same time, cast a simple switching spell.

Galacta found herself at the center of a newly formed, compacted moon, and Nathan found himself in Galacta’s previous position. 

He reached one hand out, bursting with the purple light of the Power Stone, and clenched his fist towards the reformed moon. He watched, for a fraction of a moment, as the moon grew smaller by half, before grabbing the vine at his waist with his other hand, and whipping it forward. 

Under his direction, the vine of the Pupillam Vitae speared the condensed rock, and roots burst out around the surface. He pulled back, and twisted the vine, still holding the rock in a Power Stone-infused grasp, and wrapped the moon in a tight cage of silver wood.

Wait. Silver wood? 

Nathan felt the universe shake, and then the moon was gone. Rock, roots, everything. 

Gone, save for a floating, purple girl holding an apple, and the remains of the vine in his own hand. 

Did she just… eat the moon? And the roots? The overwhelming hunger seemed less overwhelming. She was also no longer bum-rushing him like a crazed, purple dinosaur. 

Nathan looked at the apple in her hand, and a lightbulb went off in his head. 

She wasn’t attacking him because he was the most tasty morsel around. She just wanted his infinite food glitch.

He felt kind of stupid as he watched her eat the apple whole. Watched the monstrous, infinite hunger be reduced by half. Watched the purple of Galacta’s eyes dull, and the concepts that denoted reason slowly return. 

In an effort to prevent another rampage, he dumped even more energy into the vine in his hands. He twisted the vine back around his waist, and watched as a new, golden apple grew in his palm.

Nathan never wished to have been colorblind more in his life. If he was colorblind, he wouldn’t have noticed the silver sheen of the vine, nor the golden glow of the apple. If he were colorblind, he would have been paying more attention to the half-crazed (plausibly purple) goddess. 

Instead, he had been so shocked by the change in the Pupillam Vitae - so confused in how it was reacting to his combined energies - that he stopped altering his perception of time.

This immediately resulted in the new apple disappearing from his grasp… As well as the grasp itself.

His arm was gone. Vibranium and all, up to the elbow.

“Fucking Shit- Goddamn- Fuck!”

Chapter Text

Nathan kept a wary eye on Galacta as she came back to herself. Her eyes, which had been beacons of light dying the void purple, had dimmed back down to non-blinding levels. A hand covered them after a moment, gripping her head as if trying to squeeze a headache away. 

He watched her shiver a bit before opening her mouth, and letting out a space-shattering belch. 

Reality was just not working correctly today. Partly his own fault, since he had already been speaking in the vacuum of space, but he wasn’t sure if that burp was riding on the coattails of his actions, or if Galacta’s instinctual use of the Power Cosmic was warping the laws of physics. 

Somewhat confident that the girl wouldn’t be trying to tenderize him like a slab of beef anymore, he looked down to where his arm was slowly reconstituting itself. Outside of the pain, the next strongest feeling he was experiencing was relief. Not because he didn’t like that arm anyway, or some other contrived bullshit to make himself feel better. 

No, he felt relieved because his Kimoyo bracelet was on his other wrist. Alice was safe and sound, and not in the gullet of a reality-eating, pseudo-space goddess. 

He had gotten overconfident. Being made of vibranium did not mean that her housing was invincible. He might be a god now, with access to two Infinity Stones, magic, and plenty of other advantages, but he wasn’t invulnerable. He was not infallible, invincible, untouchable, or any other synonym of a word that meant he could ignore danger. 

Especially not when it puts his daughter at risk. He should have tossed the bracelet through a portal as soon as he realized Galacta was there. 

Even with the Power Stone, he had only really been able to match Galacta. And even then, blow for blow, she probably would have won in the end. On top of that, if she had been able to think past her hunger, she would have been far more dangerous to contend with. 

He was still new to this… scale. Most anything he might contend with on this level would be far more experienced than himself. Anything on the level of a god would have been alive for significantly longer than his pitiful half-a-century. Galacta was definitely older than her appearance suggested, for instance - but he wasn’t entirely sure by how much. 

Nathan winced as a new set of nerves fizzled into existence among the musculature of his forearm. All slowly wrapping around a new set of vibranium bones and reinforced connective tissue. 

The skin came last in the process, and formed much slower than the rest. It took far more concentration to create his body’s membrane than the rest of the arm - discounting maybe the nerves. 

The whole process, though, only took a few minutes. Which was still kind of jarring, considering everything with Galacta had occurred within a ten minute time frame. The fight itself had been over the course of negative minutes, technically. 

Because of time shenanigans. 

There were many tales of divine battles that lasted millenia. Endless fighting, infinite armies, and unyielding foes. If Nathan wanted to be poetic about it, he would say that the gods experienced time in a subjectively bendy ball of bullshit. 

Nathan would have likened it to Dr. Who’s “Timey-whimey” explanation, but it was only the case for a certain strata of existence. Only those who had some measure of divinity, or had an innate connection with Time could experience it the same way. 

It was like trying to describe color to someone that was born blind - or more accurately, a painter, trying to convince a blind child to buy the portrait of a stranger. It was just too esoteric to really make sense, unless you could experience it yourself. 

Divinity was based on belief in most cases. Mortals believed some convoluted things, and that mostly translated into gods that could disregard the natural laws in some unique ways. 

Conceptual dominion is a hell of a drug, kids. 

He flexed his hand, and shook out his reformed arm, giving it a cursory look through to make sure he rebuilt it correctly. A moment later he was satisfied with his work, if a little upset with how itchy the new nerves were.

His eyes found Galacta again, who seemed almost stunned and confused. She took a couple deep breaths (of empty space? Whatever, reality is a suggestion) and rubbed at her stomach. 

“Hey!” he called, prompting her to look up at him. “Are you done trying to eat me?” Saying words when there wasn’t any air to carry them was such a bonkers experience.

She tilted her head as if wondering what he was talking about, before widening her eyes in realization. “Oh my gosh, I am so sorry!”

Nathan felt the space between them compress, and then the purple girl was directly in front of him. 

“Are you okay? Oh geez everything is so fuzzy!” She moved around him with a discerning eye. Square irises glinting in the light of the system’s star. Her voice seemed a bit echo-ey - as if there were two of her trying to talk at the same time inside of an echo chamber. 

It took Nathan a moment to realize that she was talking inside his head, and out loud at the same time. 

“You seem like you’re in one piece, and there’s nothing broke- where’s Earth?” Her eyes widened further, and she grabbed him by the shoulders. “Oh no, did I eat Earth?! Please tell me I didn’t eat Earth!”

Nathan blinked back at her. He was going to get whiplash. First, she decks him into a wall, then they do introductions, then they blow up a planet in a hunger-induced fight for survival, and now she was asking him if he was okay, and worried about Earth’s wellbeing.  

“Earth is fine.” He looked at her. Really looked at her.

The hunger that had encompassed her entire existence had receded back into a sort of mild… snackishness? Like she could eat, but she could forget about it if she had something better to do. 

Other than that, Galacta’s conceptual center was remarkably similar to a mortal’s. Filled with ever-changing ideas and definitions - but anchored similarly to a god’s, in that she had two major, central concepts. Discipline, and Hunger. The latter was obviously due to her nature as the daughter of the Devourer of Worlds. The former was obvious in hindsight. Only someone who could control that hunger would be able to retain any semblance of sanity. 

Currently, after informing her that the Earth wasn’t inside her stomach, the most prominent emotion she was feeling was relief. 

Two peas in a pod, them. Both Alice, and the Earth were safe, and neither of them were trying to kill each other. Stupendous. The last five minutes were totally not stressful as hell for no reason. 

“I teleported us to a different solar system as soon as you went crazy.” He clarified, glaring at the girl. 

“Hey! I’m not crazy!” She let go of his shoulders, and crossed her arms with a pout.

Nathan widened his eyes in mock realization. “Oh! Sorry, I meant absolutely batshit insane.” 

“You-” her face convulsed, “Okay that’s so totally unfair. You caught me on a really bad day, is all.” 

Nathan blinked at her in disbelief. “You ate my arm.” 

She blinked back, purple irises disappearing behind her eyelids before moving to look at his fully-intact set of arms. “Did you have three?” She asked sarcastically. “Because I’m counting four, perfectly good limbs.” 

“It got better.” He replied with a smirk, shoving down the obligatory ‘third arm’ dick joke. His innate childishness fighting for dominance against the fact that his daughter was listening. And thank fuck she was still around to do so.

She scowled. “I’m trying to apologize, here.” 

He nodded. “And I’m making it difficult.” 

“Why?!”

“Because you ate. My. Arm.” And nearly Alice.

Outright denial was on the tip of her tongue, but then she seemed to come to a realization. “Is…” she put a hand over her stomach. “Is that why I’m not hungry?” 

She looked up to him. Trepidation heavy in her conceptual core, but not on her face. “Is a Celestial’s limb that full of calories?” 

“I mean…” he tilted his head, “maybe? I’m not a normal Celestial. Most of them are as big as a planet, so just through sheer size? Probably.” 

She frowned. “Then if not that, what did I eat?”

Nathan glared.

“Oh for- why are you so upset about that? If I even did eat it, you can obviously fix it pretty quickly.” Galacta gestured wildly in frustration. 

He glared harder.

“I’m sorry, okay?! What do you want from me?!” 

The new god nodded, satisfied - at least outwardly so, and reached down to his hip, plucking the newest apple that grew on the vine around his waist. “You ate one of these,” he said.

Nathan spared a moment to be thankful he figured out the ‘vine’ portion of the Pupillam Vitae. It wasn’t really a vine, but the stem of the apple. The biggest obstacle to using the apple was the fact that the tree he could create with it would disintegrate when he plucked a new fruit from its branches. Meaning that he couldn’t have any semi-permanent use of the tree-forming ability under normal circumstances. 

However that was neatly sidestepped once he figured out that he could manipulate the stem of the apple as well. And the stem was considered as part of the apple, rather than part of the tree. Meaning it wouldn’t disintegrate when a new apple was plucked. 

He had been using it as a belt since he figured that out. 

Galacta’s eyes gleamed as her vision fixated on the fruit in his hand. Confusion evident, studying something only she could see. “Oh!” She remembered. “I was confused about that before I lost control-”

“Went crazy.”

She growled, and glared at him. “ Lost control,” she corrected. “My calorie counter can’t seem to get a good measure on it. Jumping between four, and forty quintillion. ” 

“Calorie counter?” It was Nathan’s turn to be confused, but he tensed as she leaned in a little closer to look at the apple. If the high numbers she was reading were the reason behind her little… episode, then he was feeling a bit nervous about letting her look at it again. 

She nodded distractedly, studying the apple - heedless of his own trepidation. “I’ve got a scanner that estimates biomass in caloric measurements. It helps me pick my meals a bit better,” she poked the apple with a finger, jostling it a bit in Nathan’s hand. “I remember looking at it while you were talking to Stark, and…” She trailed off.

“Then you went crazy.” 

“For goodness’ sake,” she grumbled. “I’m going to hurt you. On purpose this time, if you don’t shut up about that.” 

Nathan grinned and shrugged, finding it pretty entertaining to screw with the pseudo-space goddess. But even besides that, he hadn’t forgiven her. Not all of his sass was for the entertainment value. 

Alice was fine, he reminded himself. 

“I was a bit more hungry than usual today,” she said quietly. “Haven’t had too many good meals lately, and I used up most of my stockpile to make the new suit.”

She looked up to him with only her eyes, hiding a bit of an embarrassed blush behind the angle of her face. “The high number set me off,” she said. “And it just snowballed from there. Please tell me that I didn’t hurt anyone - permanently, or… eat anything too important?” She cut him off before he could bring up his arm again. 

Nathan sighed, forcing himself to cut her some slack. He knew she wasn’t even close to being in her right mind for the entire fight. Hunger had all but consumed her, and the only fault that he could really put on her shoulders was letting it get to that point. 

But what was she supposed to do? Eat a planet? Forty quintillion prospective calories would have been a shining beacon of respite for her.

Also, her puppy dog eyes were a weapon of mass destruction. 

He held up a hand, and counted off on his fingers. “The full list of things destroyed are; my arm-” her eye twitched and he smirked, “a dead planet, and a dead moon. Both of which had no life whatsoever. 

“Oh,” he blinked, “and Tony’s wall. Can’t forget that.” He held up four fingers. 

She snorted, and relief blinked throughout her conceptual core, before being replaced by hope and wonder. “That’s so much better than I could have hoped for,” she stood up to look him in the eyes - as much as one could stand up while floating in space. “ Thank you. I don’t know if you have any idea what my life looks like, but I haven’t felt properly full in ages.” 

“Well, feeding you almost cost me an arm and a leg,” he grinned when that got her to choke out a laugh - one that she immediately seemed to regret if the half-hearted glare was anything to go by - then shrugged. “I can make as many of these as I want, so don’t worry about it.” 

“You-” Her eyes widened, big and round. “You can?” She almost whispered. 

In response, Nathan plucked the apple from his hip and held it out, only to be replaced by a new one on the vine immediately after. 

But he didn’t stop there. 

No, into the apple in his hand, he dumped his divinity. His Chi, Celestial and Eldritch energies, and even a bit of the primal Power from the Infinity Stone that hung from his neck. 

The red skin of the Pupillam Vitae appeared to crack, and flake off. Shedding it like the shell of an egg. Underneath was the sight that had stunned him previously. 

A golden, glowing, perfect fruit that didn’t look entirely real. Like it embodied the idea of an apple from the depths of human belief. So much so, that he was startled by what he saw. Not in its appearance - nor in its apparent nutritional benefits, but in its central concept. 

He picked out a name. One that was older than Pupillam Vitae. Much older.

Anu-mazān.

Sky Food, essentially. The food of the gods. Ambrosia. 

“Huh,” he blinked at the apple several times, unable to properly dictate his thoughts.

Instead of thinking about it, he handed the apple over to the girl in front of him, who held it in both hands with a sort of… reverence.

“So,” he started, “Galacta, right? Daughter of Galactus? How does that work?” 

She froze, and mechanically looked up at him from the apple. “Tell you what,” she breathed, “If you never ask that question again, you can call me Gali.” 

“But I very much want to ask that question again.” 

“I will hurt you.”

“Don’t bite the hand that feeds you.” His lips turned upwards in a shit-eating grin.

“I’m not a dog!” She yelled, and threw the apple at his head.

It bounced off, and floated into the vastness of the void - only to be telekinetically pulled back to the girl’s grasp in a regretful haste. 

They both just stayed there for a second, reflecting on everything. Relief, hope, befuddlement, and all the crazy of what just happened catching up with both of them.

Nathan couldn’t help the snort that left his face-hole. One that was quickly echoed by the girl in front of him.

Soon, they were both laughing.

Chapter Text

They didn’t laugh for long. Nathan’s was more a bout of insanity, rather than relief or humor, and Galacta’s was more awkward than anything. They weren’t friends, and Nathan didn’t have to remind himself of that fact. 

She was the equivalent of a wild tiger, and he was acting as the stressed out zookeeper trying not to die. 

It definitely didn’t help his sanity that she had basically just Hulked out. The only thing keeping him from running was the fact that he could read her conceptual core. 

The hunger was still there, but where it was previously a ravenous mass that overshadowed everything else, a raging inferno that threatened to consume everything else - it was now just a candle. Flickering and calm, giving way to the usual discord of a mortal.   

It was giving him whiplash.  

He could see the connection she had to the cosmos. Locked up tight behind a layer of determination, vigilance, and fear. As if she held her own power at bay, like he did with her a few minutes prior. Under Godeye, he could see her hesitance, hope, and most importantly, her guilt.

It didn’t show on her face. Not really. She reminded him of Hestia and Odin in that they held themselves as better. A base level of pride that reflected their stance in the universal hierarchy. 

She was, for all intents and purposes, a goddess. Of a different kind than the three that he had met previously, for sure, but still on that level. She held no tangible divinity that he could tell. Just that cosmic connection. 

Still, though. That was probably enough to put herself above a regular mortal’s values and morals. Like other gods, she didn’t live by mortal rules, so why would their laws and ethics apply to her? She was fundamentally different. 

It was a frustrating realization for humanity throughout history - that the gods lived by their own rules. They saw humanity as pets, at best. Like a large group of cats and dogs that resembled themselves. Sure, there were a large number of gods that cherished their mortal communities. Would love nothing more than to see them flourish and grow, but the gods had just as much variation as humanity.

Some were as cruel as a child with a magnifying glass, burning ants to pass the time. Some liked to keep the colonies in glass cases, and provide for every need, just to watch the drama of their society unfold.

Nathan knew of Galactus, but he had never heard of him having a daughter. He was having a very hard time separating her from what he knew of her father - the somewhat reasonable force of nature that consumed worlds like a hunter in the wild looking for his next meal.

According to his memories of the comics, the Earth was just a particularly feisty buck in the universal forest, as far as the world eater was concerned. 

His impression of Galacta was still that of a hunter, but one that had found a community of deer in the forest, and decided to protect it from other predators. After all, she had apparently been on Earth for a time, and hadn’t eaten it. He wasn’t sure how long that time was. It could have been minutes, or years for all he knew - but Kamar-Taj would have reacted instantly if they detected her.

Why hadn’t the Ancient One caught her yet? Was she allowed to just… roam around? Did they even know she was there? If not, how had she evaded the Sanctum shields?

Regardless, even if it didn’t show on her face, Nathan distinctly saw the colors of guilt in her core. She recognized that she failed to keep her hunger at bay, and truly - to the foundation of her being - hated that failure. 

That is what kept Nathan from doing anything further. From trying his damndest to remove her as a problem. 

“I’m sorry.”

Nathan blinked, brought out of his musing. “What?” 

“I’m sorry.” She repeated, and promptly shattered his understanding of her. The pride of a goddess thrown to the wayside in a distinctly human show of remorse. Her pride was not gone, the sour scent and stiffness still lingered under his gaze, but it was ignored. Much like she had been pushing down her hunger when she showed up in Tony’s tower.

Nathan didn’t even think Ahsonnutli was capable of that, and she was the closest to understanding mortal emotions among the gods he had met. Even over Hestia, and leagues better than Odin. 

She frowned at him. “Why are you looking at me like I grew another head?”

He snorted, and shook the unconscious expression off his face. “Just my worldview dying an abrupt death.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” 

“Don’t worry about it,” he smiled. A bit of his anxiety melted away.

“I feel like you’re insulting me,” she pouted. 

“Who’s to say?” He chuckled. “But you really do regret the past few minutes, don’t you?” 

Galacta gave him a hesitant look, then moved her gaze to the only other thing in their current environment - that being the star. Nathan supposed she wouldn’t be susceptible to burning out her retinas. The childhood mantra of “don’t look directly at the sun” apparently meant little to her square irises. 

“I haven’t…” she frowned, “lost control like that in a long time. Earth has been good for my diet, with how many extraterrestrial infractions you guys have. I’ve been able to keep the hunger down for years.” She looked at the newly formed apple on his waist. “The prospect of that, though…”

“Sent you overboard?” He finished for her, then squinted at her as she nodded. “How long have you been on Earth?” 

She tilted her head in question. “About thirty years, I think. Why?” 

Nathan closed his eyes and breathed, forgetting that there was technically no air to accommodate it - but that still didn’t appear to matter. “And nobody noticed? Someone of your caliber has just been hanging around for that long and nobody noticed?” He repeated. 

“Was someone supposed to?” She gave him a look of genuine confusion.

“Fucking hell.”

Her lips tugged down at his swearing, but her eyes widened a moment later. “Oh! You mean the magicians?” 

“Magicians?” Now he was confused, but only for a split second before annoyance took over. 

“Yeah!” Galacta nodded. “Those hand-wavy guys that practice Eldritch phenomena. They have that global array set up, which has been pretty fun to sneak around.” She put a finger on her lips in thought. “They’re pretty much the only ones I had to be careful of, though. Can’t think of anyone else who might have noticed.”

Nathan sighed. “No, it’s them. The Ancient One’s going to have a lot of questions about this.”

Her head tilted. “Is that like, their leader?”

He nodded in answer.

It was her turn to sigh. “Ah. Crapbaskets. And I was doing so well, too.”

“You-” he gave her a deadpan stare, “you do realize that I’m one of them, right?” 

“You are?” She asked. “Why? You’re a Celestial though, aren’t you?” 

“That’s a whole can of worms that I’m not opening right now,” his half-lidded stare didn’t let up, “but I was born on Earth, and was essentially a totally normal guy until I found this.” He held up the locket that held the Power Stone.

“A locket?” She asked. “Wait,” she looked closer, “is that a fudging Infinity Stone?!” 

“I-” What? How does she not- “I literally punched you with it like five minutes ago, how do you not remember that?”

“Everything’s a total blank,” she shrugged. “The only thing I could think about when I… succumbed was the hunger.” A renewed flash of regret sparked in her core. “Are you saying you became a Celestial when you found that?”

“What? No. My father is- that’s besides the point,” he shook off the question, not entirely comfortable spilling all his secrets to this girl. He was already kicking himself for showing off the stone when she apparently had no memory of it. 

Speaking of, “You’re saying you don’t remember that whole thing? Not even like,” he paused, “a fuzzy hindsight, or something?” 

She shook her head. “Nope.” 

“Huh,” he intoned. Just digested that for a second. “Well-”

A portal opened up, and a large burst of atmosphere was shunted into their corner of empty space. 

Out of the portal, came a battle-ready Ancient One. Utterly decked out in the most enchanted gear he had ever seen - most of which he had never actually seen before, and he had been put on catalogue duty a few times. 

It was full wargear. Tight-fitting robes with Orichalcum fibers woven in geometric patterns. Sashes and ties that glowed under the power of extradimensional entities. Rings, bangles, and bracelets all humming with explosive intent. The Eye of Agamotto, even, hung open and radiating the promise of fuck around and find out. The most eye-catching, however, was the millions of tiny, golden, Eldritch mandalas circling her hooded head in a floating halo.

She looked fucking terrifying, holy hell.

The Ancient One took the time to glance between the two of them, before giving Nathan a look - hidden as it was behind the shadow of her hood. He knew she was giving him one of her stern, no-nonsense glares, but all he saw in her core was apprehension.

“Nathan.” She said simply - also ignoring the lack of air, since whatever came through the portal quickly dispersed into the vacuum on her arrival. 

“Heyo,” he waved back meekly.

She stared at him a moment longer, before turning to Galacta.

“Um…” the girl looked distinctly nervous. Eyes wide, and just as affected by how terrifying Nathan’s pseudo mother looked at the moment. “Hi?” 

“You’re not Galactus.”

“Nuh-uh.” She shook her head, as if reduced to a child’s vocabulary and minimal syllable responses. 

“Well?” The super scary lady began. “Who are you, and why was a hole punched in the New York Shield?”

Nathan raised a hesitant hand. “That last might have been me. Had to get us away pretty quick.”

The Ancient One’s head turned to him methodically. “And why did you need to do that?”

“Well…” he turned to Galacta, who looked like she wanted to disappear entirely. “You wanna take that one?”

“No thank you.”

“Oh come on, you big baby.” Nathan complained at her.

The girl’s eye twitched, and her gaze darted his way. “She’s super scary!”

“ You’re a freaking cosmic entity!” He shot back.

“Not one of the big ones!” She flung her arms to the sides. 

“Children.” The Ancient One interjected, bringing them both to a halt. “I would appreciate an answer.”

Nathan and Galacta glanced at each other, and he gave her a go on motion.

She took a short breath and pouted. “Well I… I got a little too hungry, and…” She trailed off.

The Sorcerer Supreme gave the impression of an expectant, raised eyebrow - unseen under her hood. 

“Well I- uh, I mean… I tried to eat him, and then I think he teleported us away from Earth so that we wouldn’t blow it up?”

Everything was silent for a beat, only broken by Nathan snorting. She looked at him in betrayal. 

“I see,” the mystic responded, her only threat in the moment being her presence.  

“She’s been on Earth for thirty years.” Nathan said.

His teacher’s head turned to him at that. Confusion first, but a quick flash of understanding sparked in her core as she took in his implication.

Most of the tension seemed to bleed from her. She didn’t relax - not fully. Not when she didn’t really understand who Galacta was, or the threat she posed. Neither had explained the details yet, after all.

Still though, she needed some form of assurance, apparently. 

Her head turned back to Galacta. “Do you pose a danger to Earth?”

The daughter of Galactus frowned. “I don’t want to. I’ve even helped out a bunch too,” she said. A spark of annoyance flickered in her core. As if she was offended for some reason, but it was squashed by the memory of recent events. 

The Ancient One didn’t move for a moment, interest in the girl’s last comment filtering through her head, but gave a slight, decisive nod.

All three of them suddenly found themselves in the Sorcerer Supreme’s office. Nathan didn’t have much trouble adjusting to the forced change in scenery, since he had used that same spell a number of times, but Galacta stumbled a bit. 

Nathan found himself frowning at her for that. The Power Cosmic most definitely allowed her to do something similar by itself, but it could easily be utilized to learn that exact spell without much effort. The Cosmic Awareness that came with the ability should allow her to tap into any living knowledge that existed, after all.

She didn’t appear overly surprised with the move, so she wasn’t exactly inexperienced, but Nathan really felt he was missing something. 

The Ancient One didn’t miss a beat as they landed. She crossed her arms behind her back and stepped around to her desk as if they had always been in the room. Her garb seemed to fizzle to Nathan’s eye. Her robes… unfolded, for lack of a better term, revealing her normal beige and yellow get-up. Her accessories - the sashes, and most of her rings and bracelets - appeared to fold away with the rest. 

Her hands reached up to pull her hood down as she sat behind her desk, the corona of Eldritch mandalas fading away into nothing with it. The only thing that really kept the threat of her presence alive was the Eye of Agamotto that still hung around her neck, even with the sphincter closed around-

Nathan felt a slight slap against the back of his head.

“Don’t call it a sphincter. That’s gross.” His teacher said lazily.

“Oh come on! Since when could you read minds?!” 

She ignored him, though he could taste her amusement. He also knew that this room was warded to hell, and that was just a power play to head off any deception from their guest.

… Probably. Or it could just be the lady’s weird sense of humor. He could never really- he felt another slap on the back of his head.

“Oi.”

The ghost of a smile touched her lips, but it was quickly covered by crossed fingers as she rested her elbows on her desk. “So, Galacta, was it? Tell me about yourself.”

Nathan watched the girl in question realize that she had never introduced herself. 

This would either be a very funny, or very threatening conversation, and Nathan found himself wanting to be anywhere else for it.

Chapter Text

Nathan hadn’t been on the planet for fifteen minutes.

Fifteen minutes.

He only noticed after sitting down across from his teacher, but the world had already gone to shit. No wonder the Ancient One had been in full battle regalia and ready to throw down. She had no doubt been running around the entire planet putting out fires.

Once Nathan was in range of the planetary wards, it took a second, but the notification bombardment was impossible to miss. Demons were spawning across the globe, various extra-planar beings were slipping through the newly opened cracks, and there was an entire fleet of spaceships bombarding the Sanctum shields from orbit. 

Nathan had a lot of questions, but he was pretty confident that this was his fault. His ascension ripped away the Ancient One’s protections earlier on, and he had just punched a hole in the New York shield. He knew for a fact that both were required to keep up the standard protection that they all enjoyed.

With those having failed, Kamar-Taj was at war.

And three of the most powerful people on the planet were having a vaguely threatening conversation over tea, instead of doing anything about it. 

“I was not aware that Galactus had a child, let alone the fact that he could have one at all,” his teacher scrutinized. 

“Surprise?” Galacta said with a nervous smile.

The older woman peered at her for a moment before turning to Nathan with a raised eyebrow. 

He shrugged. “This one’s new to me, too.”

She nodded and turned back to the purple girl. “You’ve been here for thirty years, you said?” 

Galacta nodded slowly. “Thereabout, yeah.” 

“And you… disagree with your father’s disregard for life?” 

Galacta frowned. “That's why I left. He’s horrible.” 

“They have the same hunger issues, but the Purple People Eater here seems to have a conscience, at least,” Nathan interjected. 

Both turned to him, one in confusion, and the other in annoyance. “Hunger issues?” His teacher asked.

“Yeah? Wait, what do you actually know about Galactus?” Nathan leaned forward with a frown of his own.

“He is the World Eater, and is the only known innate holder of the Power Cosmic - at least he was before today.” She leaned back in her chair and cupped her hands. “Little information has made itself available when it comes to him. Only bits and pieces have survived, mostly by the efforts of his ‘Heralds.’” 

“Huh,” Nathan hummed. “Well, Galactus is actually the only survivor of the fifth Multiverse. We’re currently in the sixth, by the way. If I remember right, the act of surviving the death of the Multiverse kind of… imbued him with the Power Cosmic, and changed his physiology. Since then, he’s needed a lot of life energy to sustain himself and goes around eating anything and everything. 

“I’m like, ninety percent sure that the Power Cosmic is the reason that he needs to eat so much,” he continued. “To use it, he needs fuel, right? So-”

“How do you know that?” 

Nathan turned to Galacta. “What?” 

She was looking at him like he’d grown an extra leg. Off of his forehead. “The Power Cosmic stuff I understand,” she shook her head. “That kind of information can be pieced together, I suppose, but you’re saying that my father is literally older than all of existence? How is that even possible?”

“He didn’t tell you?”

Her face fell. “He’s not exactly what I would call… verbose.” 

“Nathan has a limited form of omniscience,” the Ancient One said patiently. “We have gotten used to him knowing certain details about our corner of reality.”

“And I’m just supposed to accept that?”

“Yes.”

Both women just stared at each other for a moment. There was no battle of wills, or animated sparks between their eyes. One was calm, as if stating the color of the sky, and the other was mildly frustrated. 

In the end, the Sorcerer Supreme nodded and stood from her chair. “I suppose that will do for now. We will have to hold the rest of this conversation for later, as we’re currently experiencing a crisis.”

“I was wondering when we’d get to that.” Nathan said blandly, standing up from his chair. “Where do you want me?” 

“Crisis?” Galacta asked.

“You’re the best equipped to handle the fleet in orbit. They’re little more than an annoyance at the moment, but that will change soon if they’re not dealt with.” She walked around her desk and reached out a hand to the purple girl. “It is nice to meet you, Galacta. If you could try and help out Nathan, that would be appreciated.”

Galacta blinked in confusion, but shook the offered hand. “Sure?” 

The Ancient One nodded, and a second later the other two occupants of the office found themselves alone. 

“Welp,” Nathan started, “time to go.” He put a hand on Galacta’s shoulder.

“What is even happen-”

The two appeared in the upper stratosphere, just under the combined Sanctum shield that covered the planet. 

“-ing? Geez that’s uncomfortable.” 

“You’re not keyed into the ward system - and we’re really going to have to talk about how you’ve been ducking it this entire time - but the planet is currently under attack by at least two armies, and probably a lot of extradimensional tourists.” He glanced over at her, then back up at the sky, searching for the source of the orbital bombardment. 

One of his initial questions was what kind of space fleet would actually trigger the shield? The damn thing would do almost nothing to stop a physical invasion, so the beings in question had to be alien to this dimension entirely. Lacking physical forms, made up of energy, or some sort of foreign matter that didn’t interact with the material plane in standard ways. 

The fact that it was definitely a fleet that was attacking made him think it was the latter - since it implied that they couldn’t survive in the vacuum of space. Or maybe had transportation issues?

On that note, why was he just looking with his eyes? 

Godeye and Eldritch Sight activated simultaneously at full blast, letting him peer into most layers of existence and immediately revealed the fleet he was looking for. As well as letting him see the pot-shots they were taking at the shield. 

Every few seconds, a massive explosion of greenish-purple energy splashed across his vision, obscuring the armada beyond. The ships themselves looked like hodgepodge amalgamations of overgrown gardens. Hulls coated in tree bark, vines and random greenery sprouting around them randomly, and more colorful than the most vibrant of rainforests. 

There were thousands of them. Of all shapes and sizes, with absolutely zero consistency. 

“Well this is new.” He said a bit dumbly.

“What is?” Galacta asked. “I’m looking at a lot of nothing, here.” 

Nathan eyed her. “You have the Power Cosmic, don’t you? You should be way better at this than I am.” 

“You hit it on the nose, earlier,” she sighed and placed her hands on her hips. “It requires fuel to use, and since I don’t eat planets I’ve been running low for a long while. I rely mostly on technology to get by.”

“Hence the purple suit?”

“It matches my eyes.” Her purple, square irises flared, and Nathan found himself agreeing. The color scheme suited her. 

He chuckled despite himself. “Well if it keeps you from going crazy again, I can give you as many apples as you want. So I’m going to either need you to learn magic really fast, or just sit back and wait until I deal with this.” 

If he had it right, the Power Cosmic should let her learn anything that anyone in living memory knew. He didn’t think her Cosmic Awareness granted any experience with that knowledge, but the knowledge itself should become ingrained as soon as she pulled on it.

So she should, theoretically, be able to learn any type of magic instantly. Hell, Cosmic Awareness might just let her see the fleet by itself. No magic needed. Still, though, he would rather her not need to use it if she had an alternative. Mitigate the risk of another episode as much as possible. 

“Stop calling me crazy,” she pouted petulantly, but nodded and closed her eyes. 

Within Godeye, Nathan noticed her hesitance. A giant block within her core that covered her access to the Power Cosmic. She breathed - yet again forcing Nathan to realize the lack of air and the bullshit surrounding his new existential tier - and he could see the block of hesitance start to whittle away.

He looked back up towards the fleet, and tried to gauge the time they had before the shield fell. It was honestly holding pretty well. There weren’t any cracks or any sign of it breaking. Like throwing rocks at a brick wall. So if the ships kept going at this pace - one or two shots every few seconds - the shield would likely hold for years. 

The problem would start when they got impatient and started to attack in ernest. But as it stood now, they were basically just knocking on Earth’s front door. 

With that realization, Nathan wasn’t really sure if this group was hostile, or just trying to get their attention. He also wasn’t sure which option he preferred, either. If they were hostile, he alone might be able to wipe them out pretty quickly. If they weren’t, then he would be facing some first-contact political shenanigans that he really didn’t have time for at the moment. 

“What did you want me to learn?” Galacta asked with a tilt in her head, and eyes scrunched shut. “Eye of Yemmer, Soul Sight, Eldritch Sight, or the Peering Moon?” 

Nathan blinked. “I don’t know what two of those are. I might ask you to teach me a few things later if that’s alright?” She frowned at him, and he noticed that her hunger was steadily growing. “Eldritch Sight should work.” 

The girl nodded, and a moment later opened her eyes revealing a golden edge around her square irises. 

Nathan idly noted that gold and purple worked very well with each other. 

“Those look like R’malk’i ships.” She turned to him and noticed him looking at her. Then quickly turned back towards the fleet.

Nathan raised an eyebrow, barely catching a whiff of embarrassment coming from her conceptual core. “What are the R’malk’i?” He asked instead of pressing her on it. 

“Salad- I mean, tree people,” she corrected herself. “They kind of look like asparagus. Greedy, intergalactic businessmen, basically.” She squinted. “R’malk’i are physical beings though. They should be fully visible without help.” 

Nathan groaned. “I swear if we’re being invaded by asparagus ghosts, I’m gonna flip.” 

Galacta snorted. “And I can’t even eat them if they’re not physical.”

“You like asparagus?” He gave her a disgusted sneer. She should totally be able to eat them though, he thought to himself. Her lightsaber-fork probably couldn’t interact with them, but that shouldn’t actually stop her from just sucking them in like Kirby. Maybe it was just inefficient without her tech?

“What’s wrong with that?” She challenged. “It’s nutritious.” 

“It’s disgusting,” he deadpanned. “Your taste in food has obviously been compromised.” 

“Well excuse me! I can’t usually afford to be picky!” She huffed dramatically, but Nathan noticed a tinge of self-conscious sadness wafting from her core. 

With that, his snark died. Instead of teasing her more, he dumped power into the vine on his waist, and handed her the resulting golden apple. “Come on. Let’s see what these spectral vegetables want. We can reeducate your tastebuds later.” 

She blinked at him, and took the apple with a small nod. The action was then punctuated by a particularly large splash of energy across the shield. 

“Looks like they’re getting impatient.” Nathan ‘ported them beyond the boundary and blocked the next shot with a blue Tao Mandala.  

“Cease,” he broadcast over four different lines of telepathy. The equivalent of a mental, open radio channel. 

“Is this planet open for auction?” He got back almost immediately. 

Nathan just stared at the largest of the ships - where the message had come from - then turned to Galacta.

She shrugged, not surprised at all. “Definitely R’malk’i.” 

“It is not,” he sent with a sigh. “Have you only come to try and purchase the planet?” 

“Yes. A new verdant asset is rare in this quadrant. Strange that one would appear so suddenly, and competition is fierce.” The voice paused for a moment, then, “Do reach out if you wish to sell. The R’malk’i’ka will buy at a premium.” 

One by one, the ghost ships blinked out of existence - either through some form of FTL travel, or other extraplanar method, Nathan wasn’t sure. 

Still, “That was anticlimactic as hell,” he mumbled. 

“The ‘ka’ modifier appears to mean ‘spirit’ in their language.” Galacta hummed, eyes glowing a bright purple - likely perusing through her Cosmic Awareness. 

“So they are ghost asparagus?” He tilted his head. “Asparagi? Asperaguses?” 

“All three are technically correct in modern English.” She replied, slightly zoned out. “Asparagi is the most correct-” she shook her head. “But no. They technically aren’t ghosts. The R’malk’i’ka are a sort of… subspecies?” 

“Nathan. Mephisto is attempting to break through. I require your assistance.” The Ancient One’s mental voice rang through both of their minds, clear as day, reminding them of the current situation on the surface. 

Nathan swung around and scanned the planet, looking for what would obviously be the largest disturbance, and didn’t manage to suppress a bewildered laugh.

“Of course it’s in Georgia.” Then, in response to his teacher, “We’re on our way.”

He held out a hand to Galacta, which she looked at like it was a snake about to bite her. As soon as she heard the name of the literal devil, there was a spike of legitimate fear in her core. And the apprehension was written on her face.

Even then, she only took a moment before nodding at him and taking his hand.

The two disappeared from the upper stratosphere, and plunged straight into Hell on Earth.