"Where'd he go?"
Thor stares at the ground, at Stormbreaker, where the Mad Titan had been just seconds ago. His head spins. He's in shock--or maybe he isn't, maybe he's just...not thinking straight. He's never been in shock before. He's never been in a situation like this. What just happened? Thor stares and stares and stares at the ground like it will offer him an answer, an assurance that he had not just doomed the entire universe to the largest loss of life it had ever seen. It doesn't. Nobody does. Nobody does, because nobody else knows what has happened either. The snap--it had not done anything. Nothing happened. Thor remembers shaking as he yelled in the face of the Titan, demanding to know what he had done. He hadn't gotten an answer, and he didn't have one now.
"Thor, where'd he go?"
The question coming a second time doesn't help him think of an answer. He looks at the Captain, frozen on the spot and eyes hollow. Empty. He doesn't have an answer to any of it.
Until he does.
"Steve?"
It's Barnes. Thor looks over the Captain's shoulder at the soldier, and all he can do is watch as the man staggers forward, and then crumbles. That's the only word for it. One moment he is there, and the next he is not. A pile of dust is left behind. Thor fazes out again as Steve kneels in the ashes.
What have I done?
Thor stands among the wreckage as the world turns to dust around him. He is alive, because of course he is. Because of course he damned the entire universe to a death that they did not deserve, one that he was supposed to protect them from. What game is this? Fate is testing him, playing some game; one that has no rules, and one that he can't win. He can't ever win. Instead he has subjected everybody to pay for his loss, to suffer and crumble to ash while somehow he gets to live. Before he had wondered, what more could he lose? What else did he possibly have to give, besides his own life? He knows now that he was wrong, so selfishly wrong.
This is loss, loss on a greater scale than any of them had seen in their lives. All around him, there is loss. The Avengers and the Wakandans alike suffer, standing amongst the ashes of their loved ones. All because Thor had gone in thinking what more could he lose? Because Thor hadn't been thinking of what they could lose. He had been selfish, he had been rash, and now he suffers for it. They all suffer for it. The world ends around him, and now, he thinks, this is it. He has lost everything. They're dead. They're all dead, because he didn't protect them.
Thunder rumbles overhead. The wind picks up. The ashes of the dead are in the air now. The dust is everywhere. The rain starts. Thor is on the ground now. He hears someone, a girl, arrive frantic to the scene; he hears her scream for her brother, and then he can't listen anymore. He knows what it is to lose now. He knows.
"Thor?"
Another voice. One of the only ones, because no one is talking much. What is there to say? Thor hears the voice, his name, but he doesn't really. The weight of a million worlds falls on his shoulders, the voices of the dead fill his ears. They're dead, they're all dead because of him. He couldn't protect any of them.
"Thor, oh God, you're okay--"
There's a hand on the side of his face now. Thor looks up, just seems to notice the rain soaking him. The hollow pit in him flickers with just a little bit of light as he sees who is crouched in front of him now. It's Bruce.
"Bruce.." he whispers, voice hardly there at all. There is a spark of emotion in his dull eyes. They fill with tears immediately as Bruce brings the other hand to his face, the same loss swirling inside him reflected in the other's brown eyes. Thor is struck with a wave of emotion more powerful than any hit he'd taken from Thanos, and that spell of emptiness ends. His hands shake badly as he surges forward and hugs the man, pressing his face into his shoulder as the downpour drenches them. Bruce is alive. Oh, God, he'd lived. He can't--he can't process that, he can't comprehend the fact that his lover is alive, breathing in front of him, and not ash on the ground. Thor shakes all over now. He's never fallen apart like this before. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry." He gasps out, voice shaking just as much as the rest of him. He's reeling, mind still lagging ten miles behind as he tries to wrap his head around this astounding loss. Thor clings to Bruce and Bruce holds onto him, and neither of them can believe that after everything crumbled, somehow they still had each other.
Thor breaks. There is no better way to describe it. There is a crack of thunder as he sobs, fingers curling into Bruce's hair as he shakes and heaves and hiccups. He realizes that he is still mumbling. still spitting out apologies like somebody who has quite lost their mind, desperation in his voice. "I'm sorry I couldn't. I'm sorry I wasn't...I'm sorry, I wanted to protect them, I'm--" He gasps, the crushing weight driving him further into darkness as he cracks and splinters and breaks.
"Thor, please, it's okay, you're okay. We're okay.." Bruce tells him, even though Thor hears the devastation in his voice. He closes his eyes tight and tears pour down his face, and each one seems to burn his skin, remind him of his sins. And how could he atone for this? The world burns, and the blame falls on him. He deserves to suffer for it, suffer under much more than the weight of his own self-hatred, and it's for that among other reasons that he leans back from Bruce's embrace. He opens his eyes to look into the other's, and his hands still shake.
"I'm sorry. . ." Thor says again, and he searches for a hint of disdain in Bruce's expression. He deserves for the other to tell him that his apology was useless in the wake of this disaster, he deserves to see anger and blame in his love's eyes and he deserves to be told to stay away. This is his fault, and Bruce has to know that. He couldn't have been far, and Thor's showdown with Thanos was hard to miss. He had to have seen the way he'd failed, the way he pushed that axe into the titan's chest and watched him bleed. But Thor hadn't killed him. He hadn't done enough. He had his mind set on making the Mad Titan suffer and choke on his own blood for what he had done to Loki, to Heimdall, to his people. He wanted vengeance, wanted to avenge his brother, but he had not succeeded on that front either. He failed everyone.
"It's okay, Thor." Bruce says in a quiet voice, and his eyes are watering but there is no trace of anything that suggests a lie. "It isn't your fault." He says softly, shaking his head faintly. His thumbs brush against his cheekbones, wiping away the tears even if raindrops take their place anyway. Thor looks at him desperately, unable to comprehend how he could possibly mean that. He had had the chance to prevent this suffering, and he'd failed to take it. "This is on all of us. We all could've done things differently, but..we didn't. And now we'll all deal with it together." Bruce continues in a small voice, looking up at Thor as the god tries to steady himself.
Instead his head falls back into Bruce's shoulder, and the world is in ashes around them but they have each other. And for now, after everything, that's enough. It's enough to keep living for, to keep fighting for, and Thor will never let that go. He won't lose Bruce, even if he hadn't been strong enough for all the ones that didn't make it.
The world is in ashes, but they have each other.