Thor I: Apraxia

"You're lucky you didn't suffer more extensive brain damage," they kept telling him. Thor understood that, and he was grateful he could still touch his nose and stand on one foot and all that, but that didn't mean he couldn't mourn everything he did lose. His friends at Gravesen didn't even know the worst of it—and Thor didn't either, until he called home for the first time since the big seizure. While his English was slow and certain syllables pronounced all wrong, his Norwegian was essentially incomprehensible.

He knew what he wanted to say, the order of the words and how they should sound, but when he went to actually speak them his mouth seemingly forgot how to move. Infuriated, Thor spent most of the conversation just listening and restricted his responses to simple "Ja" and "Nei." Even those sounded off. Dr. Wong sent him to radiology for an MRI and to a speech pathologist.

Acquired apraxia. That's what they called it. Thor couldn't say it, but he mentally repeated it and internalized the phrase. The seizure had damaged the part of his brain in charge of coordinating the movement of his mouth, so it was no longer capable of something as intricate as speech. As for why his English suffered dramatically less than his Norwegian, they couldn't tell him. "The exact consequences of brain injuries are difficult to predict," was the best they could offer him.

In good news, he hadn't had any tonic-clonic seizures since the big one. Despite all their testing, they couldn't tell what caused it exactly. However, Dr. Wong did point out a key observation: Thor got concussions a lot. They'd happened more frequently in the months right after his diagnosis, when the concept of epilepsy was still so novel to the Odinsons, but even four years on he still suffered maybe one a year. Dr. Wong theorized that continued minor damage had made him more prone to severe seizures, and the big one that had destroyed his speech was due to a combination of built-up damage and the stress of the circumstances. He was confident that, as long as Thor didn't sustain any more concussions in his lifetime and continued all his medication, his seizures shouldn't worsen.

At this point, Thor didn't care what he needed to do to ease his seizures. He just wanted to go home. Bruce, Tony, Steve, Bucky, Nick, and Quill had all been discharged. Bucky would be back sometime for his next dose of chemo, but Thor missed the way things were when they were all together. Parker and Natasha made for great company, but the common room felt so empty with just the three of them in it. Looking at the gauntlet brought him joy, though. It was nice to see names with aspects returned to them instead of surrendered to Thanatos.

"How are you today?" Mor asked during their daily call, about two weeks after the big seizure.

"Good." It came out sounding more like "gud" but she probably got the point. Their calls had turned mostly into Thor listening to his family update him on the goings on back home, because when he attempted to say anything more complicated than a word or two it took five times as long as it normally did. None of them had the time for that. Loki was the easiest; even beforehand he'd babbled on and on whenever they talked on the phone, and Thor could rarely get a word in.

"Are you going to come home for summer break?" he asked.

"I duh…uh…don' knu—know." Groping for sounds, his speech pathologist called it. A characteristic pattern of apraxia. He knew what the sound should be, so he tried repeatedly to produce it despite his mouth's reluctance. It was somewhat like a stutter, only more for vowel sounds than consonants. Thor knew the seizure hadn't actually affected his intelligence, but he certainly sounded stupid now. His vocabulary had always paled in comparison to his little brother's, and now everyone would think Loki had gotten the fluency that was supposed to go to Thor. Wait a minute—that didn't even make any sense, since he and Loki weren't genetically related. He'd been a part of the family for so long that Thor sometimes genuinely forgot he was adopted. Thor had been only four when Mor and Far brought the new baby home. But that was old enough to remember it.

~0~

"Why couldn't I have another sister?" Hela griped. Even at eight years old, she was already full of attitude.

"Boys are better," Thor shot back. As grumpy as Hela was about another brother, that's how excited Thor was. Hela never wanted to play with him, but hopefully this kid would. Thor couldn't wait until he was old enough to run around with.

"Hey, no arguments. Loki is going to be a brother to both of you," Mor said sternly.

"Did you pick that name or did his birth parents?" Hela asked.

"We did," Far said.

"It doesn't bode well that you name him after the trickster god."

"You're named after the goddess of death!" Thor reminded her. "That's worse."

"Shut up. At least I'm not named after the himbo god."

"Hey!" Thor didn't know what that meant, but it sounded mean.

"Hela," Mor scolded. She crossed her arms with a huff, but fell silent.

"When does the baby come home?"

"Tomorrow."

"I can't wait!"

From the moment Mor and Far brought him home, Thor was infatuated with his baby brother. He watched Mor feed him, dress him, and play with him. When she left him out on the front porch all bundled up for naptime, Thor sat outside with him to keep him company. He didn't like to be far away from him. As a big brother, it was his job to protect his little brother, and he took that job very seriously. He wanted to be there in case something happened.

"There you are," Mor said as she stepped outside. "Have you been sitting here this whole time?"

"Yeah," he said. "I like to sit with him."

"That's very sweet of you. I'm sure Loki appreciates having such a good big brother."

"When will he be big enough to play with me?" Thor asked. It had been ages, and Loki still didn't do anything more exciting than reach for shiny things.

"Soon," Mor assured. "You two will be running around before you know it."

"Was Hela this excited for me to grow up?"

Mor nearly rolled her eyes. "Not quite. I think you'll always have her beat when it comes to enthusiasm."

"Yay! I win!"

"Don't rub it in, Thor. You have your differences, but that doesn't make anyone better or worse."

"Okay," he grumbled. Mor brought Loki inside and set him down on his blanket. Thor sat beside him. Loki fixed his blue eyes on him and reached for Thor. He let the baby close his tiny fingers around his hand and smiled. "I can't wait until you're bigger. We're going to have so much fun."

~0~

Thor had always loved his brother, despite the kid's determination to make his life miserable by hiding his things all the time. Now he couldn't even say his name. No matter how hard he tried, he could not make the sounds. The long O sound was maybe the hardest for him, followed closely by long E. Loki had both of those syllables. So far he hadn't heard Thor's failed attempt to say his name, but it was only a matter of time before he did, especially if Thor returned home anytime soon. How embarrassing, to not even be able to address him properly. Hela he could say reasonably well, but Thor had much less need to call her attention than Loki's. Hopefully with speech therapy he'd improve enough for it to at least sound recognizable.

They started him on daily sessions with a speech pathologist. Thor understood that her only goal was to help him, but he couldn't help but hate her just a little bit when she forced him to disproportionately work on the hard sounds. He felt like a complete idiot, blubbering his way through words he'd been saying since he was five. Every session, he left mentally exhausted and discouraged.

Boredom and frustration were a potent combination. Thor sat in the common room alone watching a rerun of some famous American football game. Frankly, he found it more entertaining than regular football, but he'd never let Bucky hear him say that. The door opened, and Thor glanced towards it to find Natasha slipping in on nearly silent feet. Parker followed not far behind her.

"Hi," she greeted. Thor only waved. After speech, he was tired of talking. Natasha and Parker sat down on either side of him, their gazes drifting towards the gauntlet. It looked so different with so many of the Xs now in the left column instead of the right. Natasha read his mind, saying, "I miss them too." Thor sighed his agreement. Three was such a lonely number when they'd grown used to ten.

"How are you?" Parker asked. Thor shrugged. Seizure-wise, he was doing fine, great even, given his track record. But losing ease of speech proved to be a more devastating side effect than he initially thought. "I know how hard it can be to not be able to talk."

"Me too," Natasha added. Her difficulties, Thor understood, but he looked at Parker quizzically.

"Oh, I guess nobody ever told you this. I kinda…didn't talk the first two months I was here. Dr. Wilson called it psychogenic mutism."

"I did not know," Natasha said.

"N-ether," Thor said, meaning to say "neither" but botching the vowel sound. He didn't even bother trying to put a "me" in front of it.

"Yeah, it was hard. I did a lot more listening, though."

"Yu—you prefer list-ning?"

"In some ways, yes. You learn a lot more when you're not concerned about what you're going to say next. But I do have to admit that I'm glad I'm back to talking."

"What was your first words?" Natasha asked him.

"R2D2," he said with a smile. "The name of a Star Wars character."

"Makes sense for you."

"You're better equipped than I am for advising about this," Parker pointed out. "You fought to be understood, and I didn't even try."

"Yes. Thor, you need to find words that work. Use often. I said 'All done' to mean many different things because it was one of only phrase I knew."

"M…akes sense."

"You will be surprised how versatile words can be."

"And I'm sure if you asked him, Clint would teach you sign language. You'd have to teach it to your family too, I guess, but I'm sure you could make it work."

"Or use app," Natasha suggested. "Text to speech."

"That m…ight work." Thor didn't want to go through life typing everything he needed to say, but it could definitely come in handy in moments of extreme frustration when his mouth obstinately refused to cooperate. "Thanks."

"Any time."

"Is this football?" Parker asked, glancing at the TV.

"Yes."

"Why don't we watch something less boring?"

Thor tossed him the remote, but Natasha snatched it the instant it left his hand. "Hey!" Parker cried. She shot him a devilish smirk and flipped the channels until she found Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. "Less boring," she stated.

"I guess so," Parker huffed. "But it's no Star Wars."

"Thor, do you have favorite movie?"

"Not...A-li-en."

"Why not?"

He pointed to his head and rolled his eyes back to mime the beginning of a seizure. "Flashes."

"Oh, I forgot that strobe lights can cause seizures. We'd better look up this one and make sure it's safe," Parker said.

"Is safe," Natasha answered. "I saw it before. No flashes."

"Good," Thor said.

"He looks like Dr. Strange," Natasha said, pointing to one of the characters on screen. Thor glanced at him and realized he did bear a startling strong resemblance to the neurosurgeon who'd left Gravesen not long ago.

"You're right, it does look like him," Parker said. "Weird."

Thor never expected that out of all the patients at Gravesen, it would come down to the three of them here together. He didn't think he Parker, and Natasha had ever even been in the same room alone before. Despite not being super close to either of them before, Thor was glad to have them both by his side now. As much as he wanted to go home, he didn't want to leave behind this family of friends that they'd built over the past few months.

Apparently bundling up babies and leaving them outside for nap time is common practice in many Scandinavian countries. I find that fascinating. Also, as far as apraxia goes, I did a fair amount of research on what a person with apraxia's speech pattern is like. I tried my best to convey it through text, but of course I am not perfect.