🍁A cold day in late autumn, which is silent and deeply lonely - from Thor! / @arkoiri
THERE’S A HEAVINESS TO THE AIR, despite these recent days supposedly carrying more hope than they have seen in years. It’s weird, really, he supposes; they fixed the world, knit it back together. Brought everyone back, fought the battle of their lives and won despite all odds. One would think that would fix everything, make everything they’ve battled for these last few years be alright again.
But, as he’s come to find out: life’s not always that easy. Grief is not always that easy. Sure, he’s relieved that they did what they did, fixed what they could, brought what they could back together. But it was only the beginning of a new kind of broken world —— one that, sure, has more hope than it did before, but the scars of the last five years have scored deep in the hide of the universe, and, perhaps more deeply, in their own souls.
Maybe he’s being a little too existential. It’s not like him, and he doesn’t like lingering in it.
The cool air is sharp and biting, but it’s bracing, and he appreciates being out in it. The colors of late fall brighten the trees, only beginning here and there to drop and litter the ground and crunch underfoot. Central Park’s gorgeous this time of year, even despite the cold —— and, for the first year in many, there’s actually people out here aside from him. Families. Some learning who their children have become in five years gone; others, relearning how to be parents again after five years of grieving. Some couples, relearning how to be together again after five long years.
Oop. There he goes again.
“ You know, ” he says, and it’s partly to fill the silence between them —— because he knows Thor has been through hell, and he scarcely knows how or where to begin. “ I spent all that time thinking that once we put things right, it’d all just feel normal again. ” A crack of a smile, a bit rueful, a little self-aware. “ Turns out, I was being a little optimistic. ” He heaves a breath out, warm exhale fogging the cool air. “ —— How you doing? ”
It’s late, at least later than he intended upons itting out here. He wouldn’t go as far to say he was mourning, but there is a heavy sadness deep within his chest that had made itself known over the past few weeks. A sadness he understood and yad had been able to ignore in the passing five years of desolate grief. A sadness linked to his own actions, or lack of, and the uncomfortable feeling of finally waking up and realising what a waste of time it had been.
Of course the underlying guilt of the pain from the last five years likely won’t go away, but it’s refreshing, he thinks, to look out and see so much joy returned to the world. Loved ones once long lost back in the arms of those who adore them. Friends, once mourned andached for, back at the table where they belong. With that comes a strange sort of grief in the Thunder God; a grief for those that canno tbe returned with the snap of a finger.
So he walks, and lets his mind wander the weaving throughts that follow, soaking up the chill breeze that soothes skin that runs hotter than most. The world is dying around them and yet the Park is thrumming with a life long thought lost. He should be happy. He should be... elated that Mjolnir stills hums in his grasp and they succeeded in bringing back all those lost souls, he should be happy that the world has returned to normal. And yet... Steve’s words pull that single string of doubt right out of his mind.
Thor turns and glances to his friend, seeing a lightness in those blue eyes that he hasn’t seen for a long time, and he smiles broadly even if the feeling doesn’t touch his own eyes. The wind kicks up, tickling through his hair that’s grown long enough for him to return the braids of fallen loved ones to the strands and he watches a gust of colourful leaves dance out of their path.
“We won!” he states with a hoyfulness trademarked long ago, but there’s a lilt to his tone followed by a deep, shoulder heaving sigh. “We defeated Thanos, we returned millions of loved ones to their empty arms all over the Galaxy, we returned our friends to the hearts they belonged and yet I cannot help this feeling that has grown since that second snap. A feeling that someting else has stirred in the darkness while I lay back on my haunches like a coward for five years.”
Coward may be a strong word, but it lingers in the cold air as leaves crunch under boot and he tips his head politely in the direction of a wide-eyed staring child. “They look to us like heroes once again Steven, and yet I fear they are misguided. The years I spent burrowed in grief, not a King but a-- a mouse, letting the world tip into darkness. A darkness I helped create and did nothing to aid the healing of.”
