Chapter 2
In his third year of college, Tony attended a SAC—South Asian Cub—meeting. He remembers being side-eyed by a few kids, though many didn’t care. He sat between a girl—she was Tamil—and another guy—who was Nepali. He didn’t talk much to the guy, who had his own friend group, but the girl—Teja—didn’t hesitate to talk to him.
He wouldn’t say they were close. He was only at the meeting to prove a point to Rhodey anyways, but the times he went—usually when he was bored, but trying to avoid being seen at parties—he always saw her and engaged in long conversations. It was nice.
One such conversation was when they stumbled upon the topic of astrology.
“My dad was really into that,” She recalled, “He grew up around astrologists, and actually used to skip school to try and learn under them.”
“Would he get in trouble?”
“When he got caught.” Teja smirked, “My grandmother would tell me of the times she would find the astrology books under his mattress.”
“Yikes,” Tony laughed.
It was a very interesting conversation. Mummy was never too interested in astrology, but Tony didn’t mind listening to the way others thought or believed. Something that stuck out to him was a specific practice Teja brought up.
“Nadi Jyotish,” She enunciated for him, as he wrote out the letters on a notecard to research later, “It’s a practice in India where sages' predictions are written on Nadi leaves, specifically ‘soul stories’. The idea is that it can tell you about your past life, you know reincarnation and all that? And even guide you on how to find your residential karma from your past life.”
Tony’s eyebrows furrowed together until something clicked in his brain, “Oh! Is this related to the idea of reincarnation and meditation leading to Moskha ?”
Teja clapped her hands together loudly, “Yes! Exactly!”
Tony did research that, later in his life when he had—you know—the internet. The Rishis —the group who could read and record these cards—would read you a prerecorded paragraph from a pressed palm leaf. Usually in ancient Sanskrit or Tamil, it would almost always be continuous—without any spaces—meaning it took special training.
Tony has been inwardly fascinated and wanted to go and have his leaf read, but never found the time or way to be able to go to it. After all, if the Rishti you go to first didn’t have your leaf, you would have to contact another one and then go to them. That would—after all—take time.
So Tony—when Bruce would take over driving—would forfeit his sleep for—having JARVIS—look for where he can get a reading. It wasn’t his main goal of the trip, but definitely a motivation. And a private one at that.
He’s not embarrassed per say, but he does have a reputation to keep. Plus that would be a favor in that asshole Strange’s court. And if—the man they helped fight once—didn’t want to be facial hair bros, then they were nemesis’. He doesn’t make the rules.
Now—objectively—Indian mythology is incomprehensibly complex. There’s over 100 million deities, and a route to Nirvana that requires mental strength beyond basic comprehension.
Tony knows this. He wasn’t ignorant enough to believe that he hadn’t had any prior—meaning in his past life—contact with meditation or had absolutely 0 progress in any form of Dharma before. That’s statistically impossible. In fact, he and his mom had a—slightly egotistical—idea that the reason he was so intelligent from a young age was due to past life.
But he would have never thought he was anywhere close to attaining. Merchant of Death and all.
That's why—looking down at the palm leaf engraved with his past, future, and present—he's stunned. Flabbergasted, astounded, at a loss of words but still rambling via monologue.
That he—Tony Stark—had attained.
Reached Nirvana. Was a deity.
He was a god.
Tony—stunned—lets his feet carry him out the door, ignoring the man’s cry behind him. He doesn’t register much after that.
When he does come to his senses, it’s at the jolting feeling of cold, snow freezing his open toes and wetting his sandals. His hands come to clasp at his forearms and he shivers, looking around at the mountain landscape that he now found himself on.
What?
Mountain? How the fuck did he get up here?
“What the actual—” Tony cuts off when—upon whirling around to gawk at his surroundings—comes across a temple. Or a building that looks similar to a temple.
Seeing as it’s the only building for literally miles, he treks over to it. After failing to connect to JARVIS or anyone for that matter, he takes a closer look at the building. An open temple with a pond in the middle of snow coated white granite. It’s all very elegant, with flower garlands hung around the pillars and lilies in the water. Intricate designs decorate the structure of the temple. Across the small pond—at the back of the room—he notices a hallway that’s shrouded in shadow seems to lead into the mountain.
The hair stands up at the back of his neck, Tony catalogs it as the familiar feeling of someone watching him. He whirls around, faced with a man coming up behind him.
Thin, slightly paler than him, with a bun on his head not unlike other priests or holy men. He wore a white loin cloth tied with an orange cloth belt and holy necklaces hung over his bare chest. His face was young and had holy markings Tony recognized.
“ Namaste ,” The man greets, folding his hands and bowing his head, “ Young deity. ”
Well, fuck .
“Where would he even go?” Steve exclaimed, running a hand through his hair. The Avengers had gotten all their things packed up to go to the next location, and—upon noticing Tony still wasn’t here—asked JARVIS where he was. While JARVIS had said he doesn’t believe Tony was kidnapped—per say—he doesn’t know where he went.
Naturally, this is a cause for concern, so the Avengers regrouped to where they stayed to try and track him down.
Clint sighs, wiping a hand down his face and replays the pixelated footage from street cameras.
On screen, Tony walked into a small shop situated between other buildings. He talked to a worker from what could be seen from the window then disappeared further into the store. Later—just before JARVIS notified them of Tony’s disappearance—the door opened, a quick flash of white light flitted in that area. No one walked in or out. The door opened again, and the worker came out on the street, looking puzzled based on his mannerisms and then went back into his store. Tony wasn’t there.
“Thor? You saw that right?” Clint asks, not looking away from the screen that replayed the footage again.
Steve furrows his eyebrows, “What?”
Clint goes back to the door, and lets it replay, pointing to where it flashes light, he pauses, “There. See that?” It looks like—”
“Magic?”
Clint looks at Thor with narrowed eyes, “Way to ruin my thunder.”
Steve perks up, “Was that a—a pun?”
“Man, that would have been funny if your cadence wasn’t off.”
Steve flips Clint the bird, while Thor answers, after following their banter like a sports game, “I do in fact believe that to be magic, but I can’t identify it.”
“Well that doesn’t narrow much down, thanks anyway buddy.” Clint blows out a sigh. He was hoping that if Thor could place it they could place whether it was extraterrestrial or not. If not, they could look into it being of mutant origin. Having it specified would be a lot easier.
Before anyone could add to the conversation, the door opened, Nat and Bruce coming in.
“Did you talk to the guy?” CLint asked, referring to the worker Tony was talking to.
Nat nodded, and Bruce replied, “He went to open the door after having his palm read or something, but vanished in a flash of white light. However, an older worker said Tony was in a ‘safe place’. Something about transcending.” Bruce sat next to Steve as he wipes his glasses.
“Transcending?” Steve asks.
“I might have mistranslated. He said it in Hindi, I think.”
“That might be important,” Steve ponders aloud, and Bruce shrugs, “Or it could be the words of an old man.”
They go back and forth about this for a bit, Clint and Natasha chiming in. Thor however has something else on his mind.
That white light is something he’s seen before. The bifrost—despite being rainbow—has a very similar look. A flash of light and then teleportation—however it is lacking the bridge aspect. While it could have easily been something else, Thor has a nagging feeling.
A feeling that increases when Thor gets a notification.
“Ah, lovely!” Thor says, reading the message. This draws the attention of the others.
Bruce turns to him, “Thor, wha—wait what’s in your hand?”
And that truly was the question because Thor held a screen, one that was a translucent yellow, nearly bordering on gold. It had a dim glow to it and was horizontal, fitting to the same dimensions a phone would have but scaled to Thor’s size. From what they could see it was clearly a different non-terrain language written in bubbles, not unlike text chats.
Which is what Clint pointed out.
“Thor, are you texting ?”
Thor blinks, then looks comically offended, “Of course not! I’ve been informed by a message on our trans-communication tab that the gods have welcomed a new deity!”
“Trans-communication tab?”
“New deity?” Bruce and Steve ask in unison.
“Aye, it’s a device made by the younger deities to get formal and informal messages across the nine realms faster. Loki, Hephaestus, Anansi, Saraswati, and a couple others made it long ago because they got tired of getting sent scrolls that would arrive at staggered times.” Thor explains.
“Once a scroll appeared to Aries in battle, causing him to be given away to the enemy. However, he was already losing so at least then he had an excuse for once.” Thor chuckles at the memory before continuing, “There seems to have been a reincarnated soul re-enlightened in—what you mortals refer to as—the Hindu Gods.”
“Huh,” Bruce said, “You know that reminds me—” he was cut off by Clint.
“Wait, wait, wait. So what you’re saying is—” Clint wheezes as he laughs at his own joke, “—you have a God’s group chat?”
“Oh my god,” Steve groans.
“Eyyy— ow! Natasha!”
“Wait is it like an app or?”
“Thoth named it Harmony.”
“Dude, that looks like discord.”
“Like what?”
“I wish you would all treat this with the gravitas it deserves,” Thor frowns as they laugh at the idea of a group chat for deities.
“No, no, no, wait. Do—do you guys have like—like—memes?” Clint asks in between breaths.
Immediately, Thor is met with the image Loki once sent. Thor bleeding in the background from a stab wound and Loki looking back at the viewer with a smug look on his face.
(It looks suspiciously like that image he saw of a young girl in front of a house fire.)
“Nooo ~ ?” Thor draws out, too slowly.
Clint laughs so hard he falls off the desk chair. Natasha kicks him with her shoe.
~☽.✧.☾~
‘Thor the newest is sending for you,’
“Ah, I see my reputation precedes me!” Thor exclaims, tucking the tab away.
“I’m sorry?” Bruce asks, baffled.
“I must go, I’ve been urgently summoned by the newest deity,” Thor explains to Bruce, moving to get his shoes.
“But what about Tony?” Steve asks, dismay clear in his tone. JARVIS still had no sign of Tony, though it had only been 10 minutes since they last checked.
Thor—however—is not just up and leaving the search for a dear teammate, oh no. He’s got a theory. One that he would confirm.
Here’s the thing—unlike Loki, who adores gossip at heart—he doesn’t read all the messages, only the ones that are alerts.
(He had Thoth show him how. One, because he doesn't trust Loki to do it, he’d probably prank it. And two, because Thoth wouldn’t judge or tease him for asking. Well, he’d call him stupid in many different fashions, but he calls everyone that.)
Many of the deities will take mortals on occasion, just for the hell of it. The Olympians—or ‘Greek Gods’, as Midgard called it—were especially guilty of this, as were the Midgardian dubbed ‘Egyptian deities’. It would not be a stretch that Anthony—being as gifted as he was—could have attracted the attention of a deity or two, and was taken there for a bored god’s amusement or wishes. After all, that flash of light was too close to things he’s seen before.
“I shall have Heimdal look for Tony when I return. I should not be long!” At the round of protests that results in, he shouts a reassuring, “Do not worry, my friends!” And flies off.
(The Avengers are—in fact—very worried. Thor’s words are not reassuring and neither is his disappearance.)
“Bruh,” says Clint, and Natasha—without looking—throws a pen at his nose.
Thor isn’t fond of the mountainous locations some deities claim as home. Solely because he isn’t allowed to fly up them. He has to trek up. It’s cumbersome to get to the location.
So, he’s already grateful to the newest addition to the deity line up for allowing him to directly take the Bifrost to the temple entrance.
He’s just about to open with his greeting and thanks when his eyes fall on said new addition.
“ Tony? ”
“Thor, help,” Tony whines. Sitting on the floor, he dons red jogger-like pants. It’s tied with the same colored cloth around his waist and the excess drapes between his legs. His feet were bare—henna drying in designs on them—and gold around his ankles. He also had gold jewelry lain on his bare chest and had a red tikka drawn on his forehead. Due to the kohl that traced his eyes, the brown is much more prominent and very different from when it’s normally covered by sunglasses.
“Thor, they’re putting mehndi on me,” Tony whines again, “Help! I have hair on my arms, it’s gonna hurt!” (Mehndi - Henna)
“ Tsk, stay still ,” one of the servants hisses, her bangles clinking as she grips Tony’s hand tighter and glares at him. When he apologizes, she nods and goes back to apply the henna methodically.
“Uh,” Thor stutters, “Right. This makes things a bit easier.”
“Thor,” Tony hisses between gritted teeth, “Explain, or this better not be a marriage kidnapping. If they put haldi on me, I will make you regret it.” (Haldi - Turmeric)
The places that deities exist are not often on Earth, however they do exist. Asgard is a prime example. Those gods were—in fact—extraterrestrial in that way, whether the Midgardian tales depict that or not. The Greek deities actually left Earth to go to another planet, if Thor remembers correctly.
(He probably doesn’t, Loki was the more studious of the two.)
Other pathogens are more complicated than simply being on another planet, such as the Egyptians. They span different universes altogether. Or those from Celtic mythology, who exist in between portals.
The deities are spread amongst the cosmos and beyond to put it simply. However, what does bring them together are celebrations. Typically for those of new deities.
Having new deities in the diaspora is always an event, as they are typically given their duties and accepted into the lineup of immortals. The trickle of newer deities have long since dwindled, so having there be a new one among the ranks will inevitably be a big deal.
“But there’s a huge function! It’s not so bad!”
“Thor,” Tony sighs, “I’m already so busy with my like—what—’ mortal ’ life. How am I going to juggle the duties of a deity and my own?”
“Ah!” Thor lights up at that question, “You probably won’t have duties until your mortal body dies. At least that’s what I’ve been told about the—er—Indian deities. Makes it easier if you’ve realized it before you die.”
Tony blinks, “Well, ok,” and nods, looking back at his toes.
Thor nods too—a bit awkward—the only noise that fills the room is the clinking of gold bangles and the murmurs of the servants as they dress Tony for his celebration. He’s still holding out his hands to the servants, who talk amongst themselves in mummers that neither men try to decipher. Thor traces how Tony rocks his stretched out legs on his heels, the drying mehndi catching the light and making it appear glossy upon his tawny skin. Thor can tell Tony is lost in thought, and he lets the other man be, content to just take in the room around them.
The preparation rooms are similar to that of weddings, so Thor would understand Tony’s confusion from earlier. It was decorated with flower garlands hanging from the wall and draped auspicious gold trimmed red cloths. Tony sat—slightly elevated in the flooring—and the two servants—one who looked traditionally male and the other female—were applying henna up and down his hands.
“Thor, the Avengers know where I am right?”
“Uh—”
“Thor! ”
(The Avengers—after being informed and yelling at Thor, not necessarily in that order—were invented to celebrate.)
((Tony goes back home feeling both burdened and tremendously lightened. But, Thor would be there to help him with his new form.))
(((It would be alright.)))
~ FIN ~
Art of Desi!Tony - Tumblr Link