[Post Infinity War piece. Any Endgame spoilers must be tagged and minor in comments]

[juststeverogers]

It starts out like a joke of questionable taste. Captain America, Black Widow, Rocket Raccoon, and Thor God of Thunder walk into the Plaza.

What that it were a joking matter. All of them are pale, beaten, and filthy. None of them says much to anyone commenting to them while they wander past people. Natasha's eyes are wide and panicked, her head turning every which way as if she could count and see all of the people passing them by. Her blonde hair is matted with blood and it hangs in clumps with ever jerky turn of her head. Steve's walking slower than Natasha, his beard and hair unkempt mess. Every step drags. His mouth hangs slightly open and moves every now and again like he might have something to say before he looks down at his feet and keeps going. Thor brings up the rear with Rocket sitting in a daze on his right shoulder, silent with a thousand yard stare that's as empty as the rest of his expression. Most of his left arm is missing, replaced by a very ramshackle prosthetic that isn't quite proportionally right for his size. In its metal skeletal fingers he carries an axe that's easily as large as Natasha is. Every now and then there is a sniffle from Rocket before he paws at his eyes and shakes his head.

Wherever these Avengers have been for the last few weeks, they've clearly been busy.

And it doesn't take much guessing to assume they've Lost.

They wander aimlessly. Eventually Rocket hops down and stops them outside a fountain. Somewhere with seating and clean water so they can tend to their injuries if they'd like. It's going to take more than anyone has to do much yet though. But they all sit. Stare. The question hangs between them all unspoken because there are no answers yet to give.

How can they possibly come back from this?

Whatever this is to them.


[This post is meant to bring several MCU muses in the comm up to Post Infinity War status. This post is OPEN TO ALL, not just Marvel characters. This is NOT meant to spoil End Game in any way. Any comments that may even IMPLY Endgame spoilers due to association with post Infinity War MUST BE TAGGED at subject level and you must talk to your OOC partner before posting them. The standard 3 weeks rule is still in effect regarding Endgame.]

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[pirateangelbaby]

You should have gone for the head.

The smug sneer echoes in Thor's mind in an endless loop, a sharp snap like a broken neck but a thousand times louder, snuffing out his righteous anger and replacing it with horror and dread, scraping him hollow. The axe in his flesh hand hums angrily, a storm with nothing to destroy, one taste of Titan blood not nearly enough to sate its thirst, but there is nothing more to give.

His new arm feels far heavier on his shoulder, pulling with a weight to rival Mjolnir in the hand of the unworthy, and Thor slumps to a seat on the edge of the fountain, weary and sick with guilt and shame. It's his fault that Thanos lives. His fault that half the universe has faded into dust.

All his fault.

[iwillcatchup]

Damn

They all look as bad as Peter felt after the fight with Apocalypse. But there is a heavy weight on their shoulders. A trauma that is unseen.

Quicksilver feels every second tick, as it is a precious moment in time. And right now, all he can do is be here for his friends.

He gets a blanket and puts it over Thor's shoulders. There is a heavy weight on the other man's shoulders. He can almost feel it. And he knows how it feels to want one more second... to feel the guilt over losing someone. To not be fast enough to save everyone. To not feel strong enough.

"Hey..." He speaks softly.

[pirateangelbaby]

Thor doesn't really seem aware of Peter at first, just sitting there his his axe lying across his knees, staring as though he could see a thousand leagues beneath the earth at his feet. He startles, just a little, when the voice reaches his ear, and lifts his head as if in a daze to look at the speaker, uncomprehending for a long moment.

There's a blanket. Where did this come from?

He's in shock for the second time in recent days, and it takes his sluggish brain a moment to put two and two together. "Thank you," he murmurs, but doesn't move to draw its warmth tighter around himself, denying its comfort. He doesn't deserve it.

[iwillcatchup]

The look of shock in Thor's eyes takes Peter's breath away. Whatever they faced -- it is beyond any words right now. And so Peter just shakes his head a little.

"I'm sorry." Those two words don't seem enough right now. Nothing does.

[pirateangelbaby]

"Me too." Thor's voice is little more than a hoarse whisper, unspeakable anguish drowning him out, and he looks down at his hands numbly. One flesh, the other glinting metal, and the thought strikes him that he really is half the man he used to be, on the outside as well as the inside, and a choked, hysterical laugh bursts from him for a moment, without a hint of mirth on his face.

[coldsong]

Loki doesn't have to ask what's happened. He remembers what happened, up until his own neck snapped. And then, a visit back to his own universe, back to Sakaar for a few brief moments, told him what happened after.

And then, a dream, shared with his own Thor confirmed his worst fears.

Too late. It's too late to stop it.

He approaches Thor in his Asgardian guise, but without armor. The fight, for better or worse, is over. Maybe vengeance will come later, but for now...for now there is only grief, and shock, and horror.

There is a blanket in his arms, and he moves as if to put it over his brother, only to stop and stare at the lost arm. That he was not expecting. Yet another price Thor paid for knowledge, perhaps, as Loki warned he might? Does that make it his fault?

Trembling, he casts the blanket around Thor's shoulders anyway. "The ones who made it through the portal are safe," he almost whispers, pale and sick with dread and pity, the latter an emotion he's ill-accustomed to.

What else can he say? There is no real comfort to be had. He knows that better than most.

[pirateangelbaby]

Thor starts violently at the familiar voice in his ear, his heart galloping heavily in his chest and he turns a wide eye on Loki, horror giving way to hope at the Aesir face of his brother, only to collapse back into sorrow and grief as he recognizes that look in the other's eyes, the dreadful burden of knowledge he's carried since Thor met him here, a terrible weight he'd only shared at the last.

It's not his Loki.

It never will be again.

And Thor feels so shamed by his ingratitude, that he cannot rejoice that his brother still lives in some parallel universe, that he drops his gaze from Loki's at once, unable to stop the tears from welling in his one good eye.

The words themselves only register a moment later, and he turns a blurred gaze back to the smudged shape of his brother, his flesh hand trembling minutely as hope hammers at his ribcage from the inside. "How many?" His voice is hoarse, and he cannot tell if it's from the screams or the way the words try to die in his throat, swallowed up in the darkness.

[coldsong]

He's never seen Thor like this. Even in his worst moments there was confidence. Determination. Underlying power even in the face of a setback.

He's never seen Thor defeated, he realizes dully. Forgive me, he tells the Norns silently. I did not realize what I was being spared.

Half the universe gone? He had a good idea what that would have looked like, even before it happened. But Thor so utterly broken and lost? Only in his worst waking nightmares has he seen anything of this kind.

He reaches for him impulsively, not caring about the dust on his skin that Loki already knows was people, and he pulls Thor close, gripping the back of his neck with one hand to stabilize him. "Three hundred and fourteen," he answers weakly, knowing it's a small number, too small, small enough to break Thor worse, but unable to lie.

And it's something. Isn't it?

"Mostly children."

[pirateangelbaby]

Up close, Thor smells of ozone and star-fire and burnt flesh, though his greatest wounds have healed by his union with the axe that rests across his knees. But even the weapon of a king cannot heal what's broken inside of him, and Thor leans heavily into the touch, though guilt swells deeper within. He does not deserve this comfort, after what he's done, yet he can't pull away, his brother warm and alive when Thor last grasped at a corpse far too fresh to be cold.

Three hundred and fourteen.

It's so few, so unbearably few. Only nearly half the children that were aboard the Statesman, and Thor hopes with desperation that others made it still to the escape pods, yet knowing in his heart that the odds are heavily weighted against them. But there are three hundred and fourteen Asgardians yet living, and if the dark void in Thor's chest allowed him to feel a flicker of happiness, he would be grateful for that.

He closes his eye a moment and lets out a breath, clinging to Loki as if he is afraid that he, too, will crumble into dust and be lost to the winds. "Thank you. For finding them. I..." His voice breaks for a moment, and he wearily rallies himself again. "Some of the escape pods must have made it also. I haven't... haven't gone to find them, yet."

[delphicbooksandbaubles]

Aal scents the air in her black German Shepard glamour, not sure how some would react to her in her wolf form right now, or in general. She can tell emotions are running high and low though.

She makes a soft canine sound and trots over toward Thor, looking for a spot to hop up next to him and just be a comforting presence however she can. She won't press him unless he wishes to talk about well anything really. Something..was weighing heavy on him..She could tell that by his posture.

[pirateangelbaby]

There's plenty of space on the edge of the fountain next to Thor, and if anything, he seems to take up less space than before, like something inside of him has collapsed in on itself, a flame guttering out in the dark. He takes little notice that he's no longer alone, his axe resting across his knees, and he holds the haft loosely in both hands, staring down at the backs of them. Metal, flesh. Half the man he used to be, outside as well as in.

[delphicbooksandbaubles]

She makes a soft whining sad sound in the back of her throat. Her eyes soften her shoulders down tail droopy ears going up and then down uncertain. This was not right. And it sorrowed her even more to see the big fellow so once full of life..so so downcast.

She hops up softly and edges closer slowly as to not spook him. She knew warriors should not be taken off guard especially when they we're in such states. "Roo?" She murmurs softly gently. A almost questioning coo. She has to fight the instinct to gently nudge at his good hand with her nose. As canine's usually tend to do.

[pirateangelbaby]

Thor's good hand is on his blind side, so he has to turn his head a lot further to see her, once the animal sounds finally snare his attention. Even in his shock and grief, he can see the intelligence in those dark eyes, but he doesn't recognize her in this shape.

He looks at the dog in silence for a long moment, but doesn't make a move to touch her, or talk about what happened unprompted. Instead he heaves a sigh, and looks back at his hands, twisting the axe between them. "I'm sorry," he whispers, and he's not sure who it's meant for.

[smartass_captain]

It's his comms officer who calls him back to the Nexus and at first its out of respect for Steve and Natasha's work during Winter that Jim hurries to go see what all the commotion is about. Whatever's happened has broken everyone sitting here but the empty stare Thor is giving in particular freezes the captain on the spot.

Jim wavers, face contorting into a grimace before he shakes his head and forces his feet to march him forward. His stomach is turning just glancing at the ramshackle prosthetic the God is using for an arm. Hopes they're not as prone as others are to infections.

There's no way any words of comfort would do more than hurt people making that face. Jim doesn't try. Instead he sinks down onto one knee so he can look up instead of down to the injured deity.

"Your arm." Every word is a strain not to let his voice break. But this is no time for the captain's personal hangups to come to surface. "You're going to need to get that cleaned and looked at."

[pirateangelbaby]

Thor doesn't respond right away, staring right through the captain like he isn't even there, but slowly the words sink through the fog wrapped around his brain and he blinks, focusing on the young man looking up at him with compassion he doesn't deserve.

The aches and pains of his body are nothing compared to what ravages his soul, and he looks down at his arm as if he'd forgotten it entirely. Such a little thing to worry about, now, though the rawness of the wound whispers that it was too soon, too soon to test it in hard-fought battle, but he hadn't had the time to recover properly and in the end it was all for nothing anyway.

"It doesn't hurt," he lies, clenching those metal fingers into a loose fist as if to prove it, but his heart is not in it and he can't scrape up the energy - or a reason - to put on a mask of false confidence. But there's nothing Kirk can do to heal his greatest agony, nothing anyone can do to take it away from him, or make it bearable. Thor will have to carry this burden alone, for the rest of his days.

His shoulders sag and he lets out a breath, moving the axe to lean against the fountain at his side, its head striking the ground with a ringing, metallic thud, and he fumbles at the catches holding the primitive prosthetic onto what's left of him.

[smartass_captain]

"Not yet, maybe."

Jim's careful to leave Thor whatever lies he needs to keep hold of what little sanity he has left after the emptiness in that gaze. Waits patiently for the man who looks so much like George Kirk to meet his gaze rather than look through him to his own personal vision of horrors on constant repeat.

The captain's lucky he's already on one knee or the shake from the axe hitting the ground would rock his steps. Not for the first time Jim finds himself feeling laughably insignificant in the face of such strength. Just how strong are the materials in that fake arm? It didn't look like it could handle a forkful of pasta let alone that axe.

"I'm going to get my CMO. My medic. To look at you. Alright?"

[pirateangelbaby]

What difference does it make if Thor is poked and prodded by healers who cannot fix him, or if he is left to despair alone? Only the reminder that others still live, perhaps, and even though it is of little comfort and he wouldn't deserve it if it was, now that he's been given the option he can't bring himself to turn the offer down.

"Fine." The word slips out of him, heavy as the axe, and he feels no lighter for having said it.

He's still unfamiliar with the arm, and it takes him several long moments to find the release, fortunate only that it's not on his blind side so he can still see what he's doing. Thor sets the prosthesis aside, another piece of himself lost, and wonders how much more he can spare before there is nothing left of him at all. He feels as though he is there already, a wraith that does not know it is no longer a man.

[liverfree]

Thor is soon joined by Prometheus, who caught sight of the quartet upon their arrival. He spares a brief, worried glance at Rocket, but otherwise his focus is entirely on his friend.

He has an uncomfortably good guess what might have caused all of this.

"Thor," he says, his voice somber and unusually subdued. He places a hand on his shoulder, mindful of the prosthetic. "I am so sorry. What can I do to help?"

[pirateangelbaby]

The hollow look in Thor's eye does not diminish when he looks at Prometheus, looking as though he has aged a thousand years since they last met, if only in spirit. It takes a long moment for him to reply, the words seeming heavier than Mjolnir ever was, even when Thor himself could not lift it.

"Nothing. It's over." Because of course his first thought would not be of himself but the battlefield, and the enemy that defeated him twice in the span of only a day, maybe two. An enemy who beat him soundly the first time, and would have died the second, if Thor had not stopped to bask in his victory. Hadn't taken his time, hadn't made the Mad Titan suffer to soothe the angry, raw wounds of his own soul. Hadn't given him the chance to use the stones anyway, hand unhindered by the axe buried in his breastbone.

Thanos' raspy words, that horrible grin, echo in his mind again and Thor cannot fully suppress the shudder that wracks him. Snap.

"We lost," Thor adds, small and quiet, as he looks down at his mismatched hands.

[liverfree]

Prometheus has never seen such a despairing look, at least not on the face of a deity. The gods on his world never lost, or at least they acted that way. But Zeus never faced an enemy who could destroy half the universe with a snap of his fingers.

The fact that Thor has and survived... well, that means something to Prometheus. Even if he doubts that Thor would appreciate knowing that right now.

"No, friend." He sits down next to Thor on the edge of the fountain. "It is never over, not so long as you draw breath. As for your people, some of them are here. The ones you sent through the portal. You have not lost everything."

[bronzemeteorologist]

"You look tired. Like you've been through a war. I know the look."

McReady's used to exhaustion. Even though he won, and he can tell this was a loss, it wasn't the kind of victory he was proud of. There had been a lot of casualties among his team, and the burdens of leadership were not easy. McReady has sympathy for Garry, at least human-Garry. The Garry the meteorologist had usurped leadership from wasn't his commander.

He and the few human crewmembers with him had defeated the Thing, but not at a heavy cost. While seeing Kinner here alive and well helped him remember that the creatures he killed weren't the people they pretended to be he'd still killed what felt like people, or damn good imitations of people.

Seeing familiar, if not friendly, faces dissolve into blue slime and red eyes is something he'll never forget.

His voice is quieter than the size of the man would suggest. "Is there anything I can do?"

[pirateangelbaby]

Thor does not seem to hear him at first, lost in whatever horrors he sees in his mind's eye. The Titan's sneer, the gauntlet raised, the metallic snap that echoes endlessly in his ears. He finally moves, raising his head just enough to focus a distant eye on the stranger. "No," he says, voice rough and hoarse. "It's over. We lost."

[bronzemeteorologist]

McReady steps back a bit. He doesn't know anything about Thanos or the Snap. Whatever happened hit this man hard, and judging from its effects it was bad. All he can tell is that there was a battle of some kind, presumably with heavy casualties, and that ended in a defeat. "I'll leave you to it. I can't say I know how you feel, but I'm sorry."

[royalraptor]

Princess wasn't actually looking to bother anyone at the moment. Was intending to go see a man about a fish in fact, but the air of those sitting by the fountain just brought her jog to a slow stop, head tilting this way and that as she took in the group. Their postures, the slump of their shoulders, the thousand-yard quality to their gazes. She didn't know them though... other than Thor.

It must have been something awful to have him looking so defeated.

So she trotted her way over, making her mind up about halfway there on what to do at least for him. She'd seen Jet look like that sometimes, and it worked for helping him, at least a little. So Thor would only have a brief moment's warning of the tiny fluffy raptor approaching, clambering up onto the fountain's edge to wedge her way under his arm and up onto his lap, stretching to rest her tiny head against his shoulder, leaning it to bump lightly against the side of his jaw with a quiet little 'woo.'

[pirateangelbaby]

Thor is not expecting his personal space to be invaded so thoroughly. Isn't expecting much of anything, to be honest, lost in a fog of his own making, his own failure. The soft feel of feathers on his hand and a small weight on his lap draw his attention, after a few moments, and he looks down to see a brightly-colored creature cuddling up to him.

The brave little warrior from weeks past, he recognizes, after several more long moments of blank staring. Slowly, his real hand comes up to rest on her soft feathery back, as if drawn there by some impulse he cannot understand. "I'm sorry," he says quietly, though this noble creature does not know what he's done. If she did, would she be offering him any comfort at all? Yet Thor can't push her away, selfishly needing even just a scrap of solace in the midst of the darkness devouring him whole.