A/N
Well, this past bit has been crazy. Caught Covid again, which has been… lovely.
Disclaimer: You don't seriously think I own this, right? I put the words on the page, but no. I own nada.
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.
"Guarding from what, though?" 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."
A/N
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