So, here's a weird idea that just grabbed me as I was immersing myself in my comics memorabilia.
Disclaimer: Nothing Marvel is mine.
Changed
To fall beyond the Bifrost was to see one's self as though through the prism of a mult-faceted diamond. Few could withstand the never-ending visions that the plunge afforded, not without forfeit of their minds or their bodies.
Loki was not able to parse up from down, much less the many and alternate truths presented to him at once.
He fell for so long that he forgot what it was to stand.
He barely noticed when he landed, for he could still feel himself moving, albeit within the confines of Midgard's orbit. He was aware of the sensation of water, but only in the way that he had been aware of the infinite realities that had unfolded before him. Slowly, his hands clawed the sea, and he tried to climb the horizon.
It was one of the most ungodly storms to hit the town of Bodø. Though its residents were used to the windy weather that comes with being on the coast, none could account for the saplings uprooted and the boats overturned in their docks. And floating in the midst of the wreckage was a young man nobody had seen before. The fishermen manage to pull him out of the water, and find that his heart was still beating, even though he was freezing cold and totally still. The yellow ambulance reached the scene in record time.
One of the men who fished him out looked at his hands and found that the flesh on his palm was beginning to peel from what was unmistakably frostbite. He flexed his hand in shock, but when he blinked, the affliction was gone. He shook his head, and watched as the ambulance pulled away.
The unidentified young man remained well below normal body temperature, regardless of what the paramedics and, later, the nurses tried. Though his heart did beat, he needed a machine to keep him breathing, and he did not respond to outer stimulae of any kind. It was bizarre, but these were the days of mutants and iron men. It seemed only a matter of time before this kind of thing started showing up in the real world, not just the television sets.
But nobody was sure if they were equipped to handle a displaced mutant if and when he woke up. As it was, there were already complications. He had changed shape three times in the past weeks, transcending gender and colour with aplomb. Right now he was a deep shade of indigo, like Nightcrawler; this was his most stable form so far, as he hadn't changed in seven days now. They tentatively labeled this his default, and the head doctor set about trying to contact an agency that could deal with the patient properly.
On the twentieth day of his hospital confinement, the patient woke up, skin slipping into an unhealthy but quite humanoid pale as he did. It was not a peaceful awakening. Gagging on the gastric tube and panicking from the unfamiliar surroundings, he had to be sedated a couple of times before the nurses were able to make him more comfortable. Despite the sedatives, he remained awake and more alert during the ordeal than he should have been. His glassy green eyes stared in dull confusion as he was propped up in the hospital bed.
"Hello, sir... welcome back," Doctor Petersson said awkwardly. "Er... do you have a name?"
The patient didn't answer. He didn't seem to understand Norwegian. The languages that the entire medical team knew combined didn't seem to be familiar to him either. He murmured something in an unknown tongue that felt unspeakably old to everyone else in the room. Then he lay his head against the pillow, shutting his eyes for a sleep far lighter than the one that had possessed him for nearly three weeks.
Doctor Petersson at last managed to procure the number for an agency that apparently dealt with this sort of thing regularly, and was talking to an agent with an extremely calming influence over the phone.
"You say he's blue and has a hardy tolerance to low temperatures. Does he vary from a typical person in any other way?" asked Agent Coulson kindly. His Norwegian was very good, too good for him to actually be from Norway.
"He was blue, for a while. He looks completely normal now. But otherwise, he seems to be human."
"So your theory is he's a mutant," said Coulson flatly. "Has he been posing any threat to other patients or staff?"
"No."
"And he has no special needs?"
"He can't understand us."
"I'll send over the best linguist I know. But if he's not volatile and in need of treatment that non-super-power-specialized doctors can provide, I'd say that a hospital is probably the best place for him right now. Proceed as you would with any other patient. Be sure to call back if there are problems you can't take care of."
The logic was very commonsense, reassuring. Doctor Petersson could see he was right. Once the language barrier was broken, the patient would be far less difficult to take care of.
Doug Ramsey enjoyed travelling by train. Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment (in the original Russian) sat on his lap, neglected for the countryside in the window. He found it endlessly amusing that he'd been to Asgard and the land of the dead before ever visiting Norway. It was another startling reminder of his incredible good luck that he was here to do this.
He was greeted at the Bodø station by Doctor Petersson, who had a tall cup of coffee in each hand.
"Douglas Ramsey, I presume. I thought you might be needing this after the journey," he said pleasantly, holding out a cup. "A small compensation for the services you have offered us."
Doug gratefully took the cup, and sipped the scalding beverage before he spoke.
"I'm happy to help, Doctor. I haven't had the opportunity to apply my skills with such immediacy in a long time. And the audio of the patient that I received from Mr Coulson is really intriguing," he said. "Whatever dialect he speaks... well, I haven't heard anything like it."
Not since Asgard, at least.
"I hope you can make something of it," Petersson said quietly. "It is quite the mystery."
"Don't worry, Doctor. I can understand it perfectly already," Doug said cheerily, and secretly cherished the look of shock on the good doctor's face. "Let's see our mystery patient, shall we? I want to know what alphabet he uses."
Crammed into Petersson's Smart car and balancing his coffee between his legs, Doug watched the landscape race by, and basked in the idea of a low-key and interesting adventure.