Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction using characters from Marvel. I do not own any part of Marvel; I am just a fan of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, this story is for entertainment only, and is not part of the official story line.
Author's Notes: Hello, to all those who have come to this story, Welcome!
To those of you that have come to this story because of my first Marvel fan fiction Home, there are some notes that I would like to point out; this is not a true "rewrite" of Home, it does have some of the same characters and elements of that fan fiction but it is not a total rewrite. Instead I had asked myself this question "How did Odin break Loki's spell?" I was also more interested in Orla's background so it came out here and I wanted to put more ground work in the MCU with character development.
If you are here for a pairing between Thor and Orla it will not be for a few more chapters...or will it?
Also (last note) this first chapter is a lot of background information so it may be long as it is the set for the rest of the fan fiction.
Chapter 1:
A long sigh blew out of Orla Glenn's mouth as she trudged up the steps to her workplace, Shady Acres Care Home. Her soul was heavy as she lifted her access card to the wireless reader. The door clicked open with a hiss and Orla let another sigh escape from her lips as she pulled open the door before slipping into the bright hallway from the dark outside. Her shoes squeaked on the floor as she made her way to the office to clock in after her leave of absence. Dread pooled in her stomach as she unconsciously tugged at her scrubs to straighten them. A woman's loud laugh sounded from the nurses desk right around the corner from the office and Orla slipped past the doorway to avoid her fellow nurses for a few moments longer. After clocking in and putting her dinner and nighttime snacks in the fridge Orla faced her locker, apprehension building in her stomach.
It had been 3 weeks since she had taken a leave of absence due to her mother's unexpected passing. Orla had returned from working her regularly scheduled 10 hour night shift one morning to find her mother on the kitchen floor dead. Life suddenly became a whirlwind as Orla was instantaneously thrust into an investigation into her mother's passing and legal complications. The cause of Cliodhna's passing was an undiagnosed Stage 4 Ovarian cancer. Two weeks after Orla had found her mother the funeral was held and one more week of legal mumbo jumbo before Orla was required to return to work.
The hardest part, Orla was discovering, was going back to her and her mother's shared apartment and going through her mother's personal things. But it had to be done, Orla had to go through her mother's paperwork in order to get the legal nightmare under control which was placing a figurative on top of Orla's shoulders. It was a level of responsibility in which Orla was not prepared for.
The stress had been piling higher and higher and an escape from it had been found when Orla found some of her mothers' old research on Norse mythology. Orla turned through the many pages of familiar characters; she had been drawn to them from a young age when Cliodhna had told her, in response to her many questions, that it was Orla's father's heritage. It was one of the few things that Cliodhna had ever told Orla about her father.
Orla had spent the better part of that afternoon before work buried in her mother's very detailed research on a 12th century legend about a powerful warrior from Asgard who was part of the Berserker Army. He had chosen to stay on Earth after falling in love with Earth and its people. The most interesting part was that Orla had found an old letter tucked into the pages of Cliodhna's research. The letter had never been sent but it's contents were greatly eye opening for Orla.
Cliodhna had been a teachers assistant to a professor of Norse mythology at the University of New York. The letter explained to this Professor Elliot Randolph, that since he had been transferred to the University of Seville in Spain their taboo relationship was over, but Cliodhna was continuing her research into Norse mythology without his help.
The letter seemed to end there but a new section had been added some time later in a different pen but Orla recognized the penmanship as her mother's. It seemed that Cliodhna had something more to say to her old flame.
Cliodhna had come to the conclusion that this Professor Elliot Randolph was the Asgardian Berserker in the 12th century myth. She concluded the letter with questions of possible Asgardian-Human cross breeding. The letter ended there but a baby picture of Orla was included.
It didn't take long for Orla to connect the dots and immediately began to question her mother's mental stability. Half Asgardian and half Human? The very idea was outrageous. But Orla had begun to piece together a timeline of her early years in an effort to try and figure out her mother's mental state. When Orla's very religious Catholic grandparents had learned of Orla's birth and no husband in sight they swooped in on Cliodhna and her newborn daughter. Taking charge they forced Cliodhna to move back to Ireland with them where Orla could be raised under a roof with a father and a mother. Orla remembered the relationship between her mother and her grandparents being strained. Now that Orla knew of her possible heritage she truly began to wonder about her mother's mental state. The pile of stress on Orla grew almost overwhelming as Orla tried to wrap her head around her heritage and her mother's possible undiagnosed mental illness.
Orla was drawn out of her chaotic thoughts as the night supervisor stepped into the office with her. "Welcome back, how are you feeling?"
Overwhelmed, stressed, and tired. "Fine." Orla forced a light tone in her voice to put her manager at ease. "Ready to be back out there."
"Good, good." Sierra was looking at her phone in her hand and not paying attention to Orla, "We've needed you these past three weeks."
They always needed her here but Orla would never voice that statement out loud. "Did anything interesting happen while I was gone?"
Sierra's head snapped up at Orla's words, her eyes twinkled with amusement. "For once, yes. A man was found on the front steps one night. No one knows how he got there but he is in room 139."
"Found on the steps…"
"Bewildered and confused. He hasn't said a word since being here so we are calling him John Doe."
"Who is his nur-?"
Sierra cut her off, "Gaby."
Orla nodded and shut her locker, "Well I am going to start my rounds."
"Sure," came the nonchalant reply as Sierra was already absorbed back into the world of her phone.
Orla had only taken a few steps into the nurses stations when a cackle sounded behind her. "Oh look who finally decided to come back to work.
"So glad you could grace us with your presence."
Orla gathered in a deep breath to calm the hackles she felt rising at the duo of voices behind her. She took a second fortifying breath as she finished gathering her patients folders and turning around. "Hello Gaby, Alex." She didn't give them any chance to jump on her sudden disappearance from work and chose a subject in which would distract them. "I heard about the John Doe patient who was found on the steps, I missed all the excitement."
"Actually he was brought in by a slender black haired man." Gaby shot back.
Alex countered back, "No he was found on the front steps."
The argument drew another nurse from down the hall and she stepped toward the nurses station. "Were you here to see this man bringing in the John Doe?" Rosa interrupted.
"You know I was." Gaby challenged loudly.
Orla stood by quietly as the three broke out in argument about how this mysterious John Doe was brought in or found.
"Ugh, you guys at this again?" Sierra stepped out of the office annoyed. "Why does it matter? Get your rounds done." Her voice held a tone of authority and annoyance.
Orla nodded silently and quickly slipped out of the communal area as tensions rose from the difference in opinion. Orla's thoughts whirled with the conflicting information about this new patient and wondered about it as she started her rounds. It wasn't until she was halfway done when she finally shook all thoughts of this new mystery patient from her mind. He wasn't one of her patients so Orla had little chance to interact with him.
The hours slipped by slowly as Orla fought with her thoughts of her mother's discovery and Orla's secret wonderings if her mother was delusional. Orla's focus on her work was hard to come by as she kept thinking about her mother's research. She knew her mother wouldn't make the assumption of Professor Randolph being Asgardian if her research wasn't sound. But if Orla accepted her mother's findings that would mean she would have to accept that her father was this Elliot Randolph and he was Asgardian making her half-Asgardian.
Orla didn't have time to start processing the implications of her mother's findings as all the nurses were called to room 139 to help subdue the John Doe.
"Orla, grab his left arm.' Gaby barked at her the moment she rushed into the room.
The room was a cluster of activity and Orla got her first look at the mysterious patient who had either been found on the steps of the care home or brought in by a long black haired and slender young haired man.
Immediately Orla noticed the patch over the man's right eye, his remaining left eye danced around the room in a staccato type fashion as he lashed around in his bed. Some of the other nurses rushed into the room behind Orla as she grabbed the old man's thrashing arm.
"He's strong!" Alex exclaimed as she latched onto one of her legs.
Orla agreed as she focused on maintaining her hold on the man's arm. She had had the exact same thought from the moment she took hold of him. The cloth of the man's clothing was not letting Orla get a good hold on his arm as she strained to hold him down and get the restraining cuff over his wrist.
The old man broke Gaby's hold on his right arm with a garbled vocalization and thrashed rapidly across his torso. Orla looked up at Gaby's wordless warning shout as the man's forearm connected against Orla's forehead. The skin to skin contact zapped like electricity through both of them in a millisecond before Orla collapsed on the floor unconscious.
The old man was frozen for a few seconds which was long enough for the nurses to properly restrain him before he recovered from the strange zap that occurred before he started thrashing again.
"Get that puta out of here!" Gaby basically yelled as she found to place an IV to administer some benzodiazepine lorazepam to calm him down. The one security guard grabbed Orla under the armpits and drug her unconscious form from the room. He drug her to a chair and sat her in as Sierra came up next to him to check Orla over for injuries. Beside the state of unconsciousness and a forming bruise on her left temple Sierra could find no other injuries on her subordinate staff member. After trying a few tricks such to wake Orla up to no effect Sierra let her be as she figured that the hit to the head was taking a toll on the already stressed out Orla.
Meanwhile Orla dreamt; dreamt of a golden city stretching upward into the crystal blue sky. Gleaming pyramids, statues and columns all led to a many-tiered structure resembling a towering pipe organ in the center of this majestic city. Cutting a straight path through the center of the city was a rainbow bridge made of glimmering colored crystal. This bridge led to a massive golden palace with ornately carved hallways that were filled with richly decorated rugs and tapestries. Lines of weapons and golden uniforms filled the niches in the stone archways of the halls. All of this led Orla straight into a brightly lit golden throne room but the seat was empty. On the steps leading to the empty throne were three people, one woman and two men. The middle aged woman stood at the top step in a flowing golden dress, her bright golden locks were braided and pinned up around the crown on her head. ON the middle of the steps was a tall man whose muscles bunched out from under his short tunic with a flowing red cape accenting his tall form even more. His yellow hair was pulled back into a half ponytail and was long enough to touch his shoulders. A hammer hung from a leather strap on his belt.
The next man was a slender black haired man who stood at the bottom of the steps. He wore a golden helmet with two long horns curling forward then to the back. The gold on his clothes was subdued due to the green shade he wore with his flowing overcoat.
The three stood tall and silent in the golden hallway. A roar sounded suddenly from around the area that startled Orla from the dream
Blinking hard a few times it took Orla a very long minute for her to figure out where she was. She was lounging awkwardly in a plush chair looking up at the bright hallway light. Slowly moving as her head began to pound Orla straightened until she had both feet stabilized on the floor underneath her. She held her head in her hands as she hunched over in the chair as she blinked hard again a few times. Flashes of that golden and gleaming pyramid like city remained burned behind her eyelids. A fresh wave of sorrow filled Orla as she focused on the people from her strange dream. When she thought back on it and focused on the woman the sorrow grew almost unbearable.
Thoughts of these people and city remained at the forefront of Orla's memories as she was excused from work for the rest of the night after she was checked out by Sierra. But even after Orla went home she was mentally exhausted after the short work night and haunted by continued dreams of that strange golden city.
The next work at night Orla tired to keep her nose to the grindstone but the ribbing from the coworkers kept her distracted along with her thoughts of her mother's research and haunted by dreams of that golden city.
Orla was completing her hourly rounds at 3 am when she took a small moment to peek into room 139 at the old man who had knocked her unconscious. He was sleeping or induced into sleep as Gaby drugged him to keep him from being violent. Orla stood in the middle of the hallway and stared at him through the open doorway. A strange sensation buzzed in Orla's head and she shook the fresh wave of memories from her mind. She didn't have time to waste by staring at a man who was not her charge. But Orla couldn't shake the feeling that something had occurred when he knocked her unconscious.