Prequel Preview time! This one is called the White Wolf. "Before Gravesen, Bucky grew up adjacent to his best friend's chronic illness. He understood more about that world than most kids his age, but he never imagined he'd become a part of it."
Some highlights include; varsity soccer, copious sarcasm, and the Howling Commandoes...reimagined! I look forward to sharing that story with you after Bruce's. Between writing that and some of the sequel material, Bucky actually become one of my all-time favorite characters in this AU. Until then, please enjoy the conclusion of Lightning in a Bottleneck.
Chapter 7: Einherjar
Thor seized twice on the flight over the Atlantic. Then again in his new hospital room. He was disappointed he didn't get a chance to see any of the city, but Far promised they'd go sightseeing once his epilepsy was back under control. Those first few days were a blur, since Dr. Wong wanted him weaned off all his anticonvulstants so he could analyze his brain wave patterns without anything in his system. Actually, Thor didn't remember much of the first two weeks at Gravesen because he spent a lot of it unconscious. Far went back home on day five, when Thor assured him he'd be fine on his own. The nurses here were incredibly kind and there were other kids here, though Thor hadn't yet met them. He was essentially on bedrest and lockdown until Dr. Wong could come up with a plan. His seizures were so unpredictable that Thor didn't even want to leave the safety of his bed.
Sometimes he heard laughter in the hallway and missed his friends. Saying goodbye to them had been almost as hard as saying it to his family. They texted him well wishes most days, which was nice, when Thor was awake enough to read them. Responding, though, required more energy than he possessed.
At last, after studying forty eight hours of brain activity in an unmedicated Thor, Dr. Wong laid out the plan. There existed a new drug for juvenile absence epilepsy, a title doctors still applied to Thor even though his case was like no other and likely represented a rare, as-yet-unnamed condition. Dr. Wong was going to wean in this drug and see how Thor responded.
"Sounds great," Thor said. It took another week for him to notice a decrease in seizure activity, and the team lifted his lockdown as long as he promised not to wander too far and to take it easy.
Eager to stretch his long-dormant legs, Thor took a walk the second he heard the news. The hallway was abandoned, but he heard laughter and conversation coming from a room down the hall and headed right for it. He found a bright, cheery-looking room filled with couches, chairs, a large TV, and a table around which sat four kids about his age, deeply engrossed in the game before them.
"Rogers, hand over that Longest Road," a short-haired girl demanded. A slim teenage boy wearing oxygen handed her a piece of cardboard with a grumble. The other two players, a younger boy with far too little meat on his bones and a boy in a football-patterned beanie, both high-fived the girl. Thor surmised that these must be his fellow patients here.
"Look, it's the newbie!" the girl announced excitedly. "Rogers, you know what that means."
"Don't say it," he implored.
"The ol' Rogers Razzle Dazzle," she and the boy with the beanie said in unison.
"I hate you," the boy grumbled.
"We know," the girl replied. Meanwhile, Thor stood a few feet away from the table, completely confused as to what they were talking about. Should he introduce himself? Before he could decide what to say, the girl stood and started talking to him.
"Carol Danvers," she began. "Resident patient, former prospective Air Force Academy applicant, and electrical misfire waiting to happen."
"You've already used that line," the one she'd called Rogers grumbled.
The introduction was so forward, so practiced, and said with such confidence that Thor found himself at a loss for words—for thoughts even. All he knew was that he respected the hell out of this girl even after such a brief interaction. She reminded him of Sif. This one coherent thought migrated to his mouth and before he knew it he'd blurted out, "I like this one."
Carol smiled. "I like you too. What's your name?"
"Thor."
"Like the god?" the smaller boy piped up.
"Exactly," Thor said with a grin.
"That's so cool!"
"Thank you."
"I'm Peter."
"Nice to meet you." Thor turned to the other two boys."
"I'm Steve, and this is Bucky," the oxygen-wearing boy said. Bucky waved.
"You caught us in the middle of a game," Carol explained. "If you want to learn, you can play on my team and I'll teach you."
"Sure. Thanks." Thor pulled up a chair between Carol and Peter and surveyed the board before them. It looked like the sort of game Loki would like. As they played, Carol and Steve helped explain the rules while also sustaining small talk around the table.
"That's a cool accent," Bucky remarked. "You Swedish?"
"Norwegian," Thor answered.
"That's really far from here," Peter said. "Is your family still there?"
"Yeah. My parents, my sister, and my brother. And our dog, Fenris."
"I'm sorry you have to be so far away from them."
"Are you far from your family?" Thor asked.
The postures of everyone around the table immediately stiffened and the playful energy evaporated. Thor wondered what he'd said to warrant such a reaction.
"It's complicated," Peter sighed weakly. "Can we leave it at that for now?"
"Of course." He felt horrible for stumbling into what was obviously a touchy subject for the kid.
"So, what brings you here?" Carol asked him.
Thor remembered how she'd introduced herself and answered, "Electrical misfire that already happened. Many times."
"Heart trouble?" Steve asked.
"Epilepsy," Thor corrected. "Brain trouble."
"Like a lightning storm in your head?" Peter asked curiously.
"Not quite." Lightning storms were beautiful and elegant; epilepsy was neither. It was ugly, frustrating, and rare. "It's less…cool than that."
Carol attempted to sum it up, "More like lightning in a bottleneck?"
"That's a clever way to put it," Thor remarked.
"Thank you."
"Whose turn is it?" Bucky asked, bringing everyone's attention back to the game.
"Mine!" Peter shouted. Turns out he was so excited because he won the game on that turn.
"Damn, I was so close," Bucky complained. "Good game."
"Thanks," Peter replied.
Steve helped them clean up the game for a few minutes, but then his phone buzzed with a text. He read it quickly and announced, "My dad's here. I'll see you guys later."
"Later Rogers," Carol said.
"Wait, he just gets to leave?" Thor questioned.
"I'm not technically a patient right now," Steve explained.
"Then why—?" Thor cut himself off before he could embarrass himself again by asking a rude question. Based on Steve's appearance, he'd just assumed he was a patient here.
"Why the oxygen?" Steve either read Thor's mind, or he got that question often enough to expect it. Thor nodded and Steve continued, "I'm healthy enough not to be in the hospital for the time being, but my lungs have taken a lot of beatings in my lifetime and they need a little extra help. I just visit every week to see my friends."
"And to brag about being able to leave whenever he wants," Bucky added.
"I do not brag. But I do have to go. It was nice to meet you Thor."
"You too."
Carol slid the lid onto the red box and returned it to the closet. Then, she turned to Thor with an eager glint in her eye. "Now that you're up and about, you can add your name to the gauntlet," she announced. Bucky and Peter perked up and waited expectantly. She explained the concept to him, showing off all the other names on the list and describing what each of the six categories meant. Thor wrote his name in the next empty slot and handed power, time, reality, and space to Thanatos. He held onto mind and soul. The other three patients nodded their approval. Knowing this hospital housed some really nice kids his own age made Thor miss home just a little bit less.
~0~
They had a good thing going, the four of them. Carol and Peter were always here, and Bucky most of the time. Steve visited every weekend plus one day during the week, and they always had fun together playing games, watching movies, or just talking about life and making each other laugh. If there was one thing they all managed to do despite their circumstances, it was making each other laugh. The young leukemia patient down the hall, Natasha, was released to mingle among them after spending nearly a month in isolation. She also reminded Thor of Sif in all the best—and scariest—ways.
More newbies flooded the ward: Nick and Clint—who had been here before and weren't even technically newbies—Bruce, and Quill. Thor met him for the first time in the common room on therapy dog day. He sat peacefully petting Rocket when this awkward kid with a shaved patch on his head joined him, humming some old annoying song under his breath.
"Hi," Thor greeted. He remembered how happy he'd been when the residents here welcomed him, so he thought he ought to pay it forward to this kid.
"Hey," he said.
"I'm Thor."
"I'm Peter, but I hear there's another one of those here, so you can call me Quill."
"Okay, Quill. What brings you here?"
"The dogs, duh."
"Not to this room," Thor amended. "To the hospital."
"You mean what's wrong with me?"
"Yeah, I guess." Thor hadn't wanted to put it that bluntly.
"You want the short version or the long one?"
"Whichever you feel like telling."
"Well, it all started when I had a seizure."
"Me too!" Thor interjected.
"I'm not sure why that excites you. It was the worst."
"I've just never met anyone else who's had one."
"Well, it sucked."
"I know. I've probably had close to a hundred of them in the past four years."
"It's not a contest."
"No, I know. I was just saying. But if it was a competition, just by raw number of seizures, I win."
"Whatever," Quill continued. "After that, they scanned my brain and found a whopper of a tumor. Turns out the kind I have runs in families."
"I'm sorry to hear that. Who else in your family had one?"
"My mom. She died from hers when I was nine."
"That's awful. I'm so sorry."
"Thanks. It is what it is. Being with her will be my only consolation if this whole post-surgery chemo and radiation thing doesn't work out."
Thor had never heard anyone say something so morbid in such a relaxed manner, even Carol. Frankly, it made him uncomfortable. He rushed to change the subject. "I love these markings around Rocket's eyes. They make him look like a rabbit."
Quill snorted. "Did you just say rabbit?"
"Yeah. Vaskebjørn…rabbit."
"I think you mean raccoon."
"Oh yeah! For whatever reason I can never keep those two words straight."
"For the record, I'm never letting you live that down."
"Fair enough," Thor sighed.
~0~
Living on the ward was somewhat reminiscent of a boarding school, the only major difference being the health of the residents. He called his family every afternoon (evening Tønsberg time) and updated them on how he was doing. Mor and Far talked about work, Hela said a cursory hello and handed the phone on, and Loki rambled about everything he did that day until Mor cut him off so he could get to bed on time. Thor attended school four days a week with the Ancient One, a scary woman who taught with such intensity he thought her bald head might crack like an egg, in a group with the other kids his age: Bucky, Carol, Quill, and Bruce. It was marginally less boring than school back in Norway, and the stakes were much lower. No one expected that much of them since they all had much more important things to focus on.
But even school stopped for a while when Carol died. Thor had never known anyone his age to pass away, and it hurt more than any post-seizure headache. Watching Steve, Bucky, and Parker, the ones who had known her the longest, react to her loss was heartbreaking. After the informal ceremony where Steve transferred her Xs to Thanatos, Thor seized without warning and hit his head on one of the chairs in his room badly enough to draw blood. He was glad for the unconsciousness which brought a break, however short, from the grief gnawing at his gut. The mood on the ward darkened, the residents still talking to each other but with far less ease and joy than before. Two weeks after it happened, Thor sat in his room alone, hating every second of it because he couldn't stop missing her. In a desperate effort to arouse something other than despair in his friends, he texted the group asking if anyone wanted to play Catan. He'd gotten rather good at the game since he arrived here, it being their go-to over any other game in the common room closet.
He made his way to the common room and set the board up completely randomly to make it more difficult. Quill, Bucky, and Natasha answered his summons and they began to play. The normalcy of the activity brought back some of their old lightness, and by the time Steve dragged in the new patient, they were smiling and joking just like before. Thor rather thought Carol would be proud of them.
Of course I managed to work in Thor calling Rocket a rabbit. I couldn't resist the temptation. Nor could I avoid the line "I like this one," it was too iconic to leave out.