— you will never be a god
He can see Thor crouched amongst the grass. It’s a strange sight, seeing someone so bulky and muscular be so gentle amongst the tall grass blades. He’s wearing Midgardian clothing, and he almost laughs at the sight. They’re from Banner’s clothes, the jacket just that little bit too small for him. Thor makes it work.
He looks broken, and he looks worn out. He’s not surprised, Thor having done so much in the fight, done so much to save people who didn’t deserve saving. People who should’ve done better. Done more so that Thor didn’t have to take the burden. But he did anyway. That was just who he was. He’d always yield the burden.
“Banner,” he yells quickly, springing from the ground. There’s something in his hands, something so small and delicate, and he holds his hands up high as he runs across the open space. There’s a lab, an open door, and he follows Thor inside to see Bruce working at a table in a white coat. There’s a million and one things on his table, tools, blueprints, boxes, mechanisms, pictures, everything.
“What? What is it?” Bruce looks up, his glasses falling from the bridge of his nose. He watches as Thor places a tiny green insect on the table, scraping away the things on the table to make room. He watches Bruce’s face fall slightly, but only ever so quickly, before he put his mask back on.
“Can you check this one? I think it’s different from the last one. It could be, Banner, it could be him” Thor says, tapping his fingers gently on the edge of the table. Bruce pauses for a second before nodding, scooping up the insect and taking it to another table under a microscope.
He walks up to Thor at the table, listening to him chatter away happily as he pins all his hopes on this tiny insect. That maybe something would finally go right for him. And he’d do anything to give Thor what he wanted, or to give him even just a sign. But he places his hand on Thor’s forearm, and Thor feels nothing at all. He’s there, but nobody can see him. Thor can’t see him, just when he needs to the most.
Banner turns back toward Thor in silence, Thor’s words dying on his lips. He puts his head in his hands and sighs, Bruce walking around the table toward him. He takes his glasses off and pulls Thor into his arms as he cries quietly. It’s quiet, almost inaudible. But he’ll always remember the sound of it, even when Thor tries to hide it. Banner’s arm’s snake round Thor’s shoulders, pressing his head into the crook of his neck.
He joins the two of them, placing himself around Thor’s body, to try and pick up the pieces he’d left behind. To try and hold Thor as he had held him when he died.
And when Banner walks away, Loki clings on tighter, only wishing Thor could feel his arms around his aching body.
-/-
— steve?
Steve sits alone in his apartment. There’s an open packet of beer on the table in front of him, and he drinks from one of the bottles. It’s almost inaudible, but the television is at a low volume, a sketchy grey image of two people dancing across the screen. He immediately recognises it and smiles.
He moves so he is sat on the sofa next to Steve, beginning to tap his fingers against the arm of the chair. He eyes the card on the table next to the beers, a race car on the front. It says Happy 10th Birthday but with an extra zero added on. From Tony, Thor, Bruce, Nat & Clint. Your family.
Steve is getting up from the sofa as his eyes move gently across the room, watching him. He walks along the hallway to what must be his bedroom, stirring for a few seconds before he walks back in, two pillows and a duvet stuffed under his arm. Steve moves the table to the side, laying the blanket flat on the ground in front of the TV. He positions the pillows on the floor against the bottom of the sofa, grabbing the sofa cushions to provide maximum comfort.
He realises what Steve is doing. Slides down the sofa onto the ground where the cushions are positioned. Steve turns the volume of the TV up to listen intently to the movie. He smiles. He even laughs, watching the movie by himself with an empty space next to him. The blue cushions occupy it, and he wriggles about trying to get comfortable.
“Oh,” he says to himself. “Almost forgot”
Steve’s gone again, heading toward the kitchen, in which he returns with two urns in his hands. When he sits back in his spot on the floor, he places the two urns next to him amongst the comfort of the cushions and pillows. “Better,” he says. “Much better. Are you guys comfortable?”
He eyes the urns, one with a B painted on, one with an S. He looks back up to Steve, placing a hand on his shoulder, as he had done so many times before. Steve couldn’t feel it, he didn’t move. He didn’t know he was there. He couldn’t sense he was there. Sense that the urns were more than just their physical presence in the room, but their spiritual ones too.
“Now who’s on your left, Cap?” He eyes Sam walk into the room, smiling as he forcefully sits next to Steve on the cushions.
And Bucky smiles back in response, a short laugh escaping his lips before it died down with sadness. “I wish he knew we were celebrating with him”
“He does” Sam responds. He does nothing but point to the urns, sat next to Steve as he watched the TV, fourth of July fireworks exploding in the near distance. “He does”
-/-
— this is no place to die
He watches Shuri cry. For days on end, it’s all she does.
He watches Nakia comfort her, staying with her for hours on end just in pure silence. Nakia wants to cry, too, but she’s silent for Shuri’s sake. And he wants to hold the both of them.
The one day Shuri doesn’t cry is Ceremony day. He watches from beside the mirror in Shuri’s bedroom; she stands in front of it admiring the corset she wore on his renouncing of status as King. She holds it to her body as she looks herself up and down in the mirror, trying to desperately not to let her tears flow upon the beads. It’s uncomfortable, why do I have to wear it?
Because this is your brother’s special day, his mother would respond.
She is just a child. Just a young, bright mind who shouldn’t have the burden of a whole country’s operative fall on her shoulders. He would kill to tell her one more time of her genius nature, of his admiration for her in his heart. To hold her when she cries, to whisper things from when they were children in her ear and tell her things would be okay.
Shuri steadies herself on the dresser under the mirror, and he places his hand on top of hers. She stays there for a minute and it’s almost plausible that she can feel him, but she moves her hand away too quickly when Okoye enters the room. It goes straight through his palm.
Okoye, standing in her honourable Dora uniform, she is the epitome of a soldier. She is stronger than Shuri on the offset, but the only thing he remembers as he faded from her grasp was the terror on her face, her guard completely falling and fear and dread filling her entire body.
“I can’t do this, Okoye,” Shuri chokes the words out, and her tears begin to fall. He watches Okoye pull Shuri toward her chest, comforting her as she cries into her arms. Tears squeeze from Okoye‘s eyes in parallel, and she sniffs before holding Shuri at arm length.
“He would want you to,” Okoye says in response. “He would want you to brave it out there, put on a smile, and accept your crown, your highness”
“It’s his country, Okoye, not mine. It’s T’Challa’s legacy” She combats, having cleared her throat of tears. He walks toward her instantly, pressing his lips to her temple as tears fall from his own eyes.
“No, Shuri,” she says. “You are his legacy”
And T’Challa agrees wholeheartedly. Not that Shuri would know that.
-/-
— i don’t wanna go
He watches the car pull up from behind the tombstone.
Aunt May sits there already, a bunch of flowers lay next to the edge of the stone. She laid out a whole picnic, with different sandwiches, potato chips, everything. He is opposite her, wishing to join in and eat opposite her, but she talks at an angle. Toward the stone, not toward him. Because to her, it’s thin air.
The car has stopped on the curb and Tony gets out, along with Ned. He aches that he can’t go near them, that he can’t hug them or tell them that he’s okay. That he’s there, right there beside them. He’s a ghost in their lives. Someone who’s disappeared. And it’s hard on him, cause he feels just as present as ever.
Ned looks forlorn. He sits next to May and she hugs him tightly, stopping her conversation with his tomb stone. She’s silent as they hug, and he feels that she let her guard down when she stopped talking. Like talking was the only thing keeping her sane. The only sense of normalcy in the entire situation. Ned had bought flowers too, and she kisses his forehead and places them next to her own bunch.
As for Tony — the bags under his eyes are evident. He’s incredibly tired — he knows it. He had seen him laying awake at night, tossing and turning in an empty bed as his demons got the better of him. It was torture, watching someone you know as a strong and pervasive leader, fall and crumble right in front of your eyes.
“Thanks for coming you guys,” May says, rubbing her fallen tears from her cheeks. “I know it’s what he would’ve wanted”
And she’s right — his three favourite people in one place. He’s overcome with joy that they are together for his sake, but the ache of guilt and sadness overpowers it completely. He wishes so badly to talk to them, to tell them he’s right in front of them.
Tony sits next to him, unaware of his bodily presence on his left. He leans close to the tombstone, tracing the letters of his name, hands shaky and brazen. He whispers one thing before leaning back toward the conversation centralised around May and Ned; “You did good, kid”
And he throws his arms around Tony’s still and stiff body as he watches, rather observes, the scene in front of him. He’s present, but not completely there. He’s visible, but he’s mentally invisible.
Just like Peter.