Eternally
Summary: Steve is young and he cannot age. Thor is eternal. They both grieve as the world crumbles around them. [Takes off after IW](One Shot)
Thor is eternal, and so is Asgard, even if his people are gone and his brother is dead. Asgard lives in his heart and his memories, carved in his soul until it is beating alongside his heart, songs of a world made of gold and people in festivities, songs of a time when life was simple and peaceful and the only thing he wanted was to become king and make his father proud.
That's not what he wants now.
He still has his friends, the Avengers, the Revengers and even the strange group of people in this ship with the speaking dog and a Groot.
That hope fades with the snap of a finger and he is left with only the original Avengers. Bruce is alive. Tony is alive. Steve is alive. Natasha is alive. He's alive. Maybe, Clint is alive as well.
They pick up the pieces. The people are shocked and Fury is gone. They rebuild what they can, with half the population erased from existence.
Life goes on as people mourn and Thor alongside them.
It's no surprise then, when Tony learns that Pepper is gone, ground into dust that flew in the breeze, that Tony is the first to go after this. The man commits suicide in a way that still screams Tony. The Iron Man suit gripping his throat till he suffocates with the arc reactor used to power electricity for the people in the cleanest way possible. Is Thor closes his eyes, he can still see the smile on Tony's face with dark purple bruises wrapped around his neck.
He died smiling as he repented for sins that were never there.
He finds Clint living on a farm and learns that his family has crumbled like ash around him. Clint yells and cries, raging and painful to watch like looking at an angry wound festering with infection. Later, Natasha and he start living together, helping each other like they've always had back when they were SHIELD.
Steve withdraws into himself and starts sketching like a mad man. He sketches the faces of everyone he's ever held close too, trying to banish images of ashes and pale faces with glowing smiles on pieces of paper. The first person he draws is Bucky, he's always been first. He is (was) the first to help him, the first to stick with him, and now the first to die. He scrambles to colour with the correct shading, his memory reaching to ensure he makes every detail right.
Bruce does what he does best and continues Tony's inventions. He cannot claim to make them. They were never his to begin with. All he's doing is repenting in his own way. He keeps the name of Stark, he starts putting up memorials of the people who fought till the end. People start blaming them and he can't refute it, too hurt to bother defending their actions.
(He doesn't disagree with them either.)
Thor starts travelling. He learns of Midgard and moves around, exploring and educating himself on the fields of interest of his friends. He takes up gardening. He takes up science. He takes up archery. He takes up martial arts. He takes up what he can and drowns himself in these new found fields. He tries to erase the guilt with information, putting aside his emotions to learnlearnlearnlearnlearn until he can name the scientific name of the pigeons that fly above head and pilot an airplane with ease.
Steve contacts him. He is finish with everyone and wants to draw Thor.
Thor accepts and the two bond overshared memories of loss as Thor smile grimly for Steve to sketch.
They promise to meet each other at this small café they met up in, only two blocks away from Steve's apartment.
Clint and Natasha became a family. It's no surprise. They have each other and understood each other the best-one agent to another. They have children and are growing old with style. They own a little place where they find comfort in making the tools they used to kill. The flames of the forge and the heat that makes them sweat allows for them to forget. Their child is energetic and speaks of a better future. He decides to become the uncle.
(He prays that he will become a better role model than Odin has ever been. He prays that the child will be reminded that they are loved and that the child won't end up hurting and lonely and lashing out like Loki had.)
He continues to meet up with Steve, who looks as young as he. They meet in the café until the staff members know their names and their faces. They talk, they reminisce and they leave. It's a cycle as Clint and Natasha grow older with grandchildren. He talks with them, heart heavy as he sees their greying hair and their wrinkles. Steve also visits, talks to them and they all meet up to talk. To Steve and to Thor, they are two men who are younger than they appear and two old friends chatting in the sun.
Bruce is too busy, with added circles around his eyes but he joins when he can. He stands tall and is stressed and they worry.
Bruce is assassinated during a press conference about the future of Stark industries and their latest project to help war veterans.
The assassin is found two days later, with haunted eyes and afraid of his own shadow, tied up like a pig and sitting in front of the CIA.
They all know who did it but they don't mention this.
Natasha and Clint came back two days later, smug with retribution in their eyes.
Thor mourns the death of another friend. Steve gets to work, sketching the Hulk and Bruce with a frenzy.
Steve sketches and sketches and sketches like it's the last thing he does in order to commit their faces to memory. He doesn't remember what Clint and Natasha look like when old, their young faces replaced with wrinkles and crow's feet. He looks through the security footage from way back when, zooming in and drawing them.
Thor asks them to record their voices, so that he will never forget what they sound like.
(Their voices are shaky. Too wobbly that he can't imagine, confident and sure Natasha saying those words. Their grandchildren look on in worry and sadness.)
Steve wakes up one night, frantic when he realizes he doesn't remember the eye colour of Tony. He calls Clint and Natasha, waking them up in the middle of the night as he breaks down, begging for them to tell him what colour it was. He begs and he sets the phone down to start sketching Tony, pulling on memories of his body stature, how he carried himself, and what the glow of the arc reactor looked like underneath his shirt.
They tell him its brown and he grabs for the brown, panicking because he's worried. Is it the right kind of brown or is it lighter? Should he make it darker? Natasha calms him down and sends him a picture of Tony look at the camera, his face plastered on a biography site.
(He can't bear the thought of looking at the date of birth and date of death, even if it's italicized, bold and written at the center top of the page.)
Thor comes back, bringing gifts with him, colouring materials that only a professional could buy. Expensive and so precious to use and Steve thanks him, gifting him a sketchbook filled to the brim with sketches of the Avengers and what Thor had told him. He sees Loki, smiling mischievously with a glimmer of brotherly love hidden behind the sharp eyes of a trickster.
Thor breaks down right there in the café. The staff averts their eyes and Steve smiles brokenly at him. They comfort each other over a cup of coffee.
Sometimes they don't meet up, too hurt or busy to be able to speak. They send each other messages through the waiters and the cashier who tell them whether or not they will be able to meet and that's alright. They have seemingly all the time in the world.
Clint and Natasha die together holding each other, Steve on one side, Thor on the other; they die surrounded by the people who love them, grandchildren circling them, understanding how close they are.
The only ones left are Thor and Steve.
Steve rushes to making sketches and has made a living of his art. He keeps the sketches of the Avengers, both old and new close to his heart.
Thor has made scientific breakthroughs. He expanded on anything relating to science, telling them and enlightening the world of what is out there. His research is used to aid the exploration of other planets. (He hopes that they will find where Thanos has gone to in order to have his revenge. And this time, he hopes to aim for the head and watch him bleed on the ground.)
They keep meeting up.
Steve has an entire room filled with drawings now, of everyone they know (knew) and he invites Thor with him, the two thinking and reflecting and catching up in the room.
(If they could close their eyes and pretend then it feels as if they are surrounded by their friends. It feels as if they're catching up everyone they love. And maybe, just maybe, they could hear their laughter ringing in their ears.)
One day, Thor arrives at the café, and sits at his usual table. He waits.
The staff are anxious, they exchange glances and start whispering to each other hastily. He ignores them.
The cashier, Tommy, approaches him, only nineteen years old and he looks guilty.
Then Thor knew that something happened.
Steve was shot in a mugging that he intervened. Thor wanted to smile if he wasn't so devastated. It's so like Steve to fall due to his righteousness. He's always been the man who wants to help whoever needs it.
He nods his head, thanks them and asks them how they knew, learning that the cashier had been one of Steve's contacts and vice versa.
They go to the funeral, watch as Steve is lowered down and he looks at the sketches, staring at the self-portrait Steve has given him remembrance for when they are separated. All the sketches of their friends, full of colour and detail that he could almost imagine them standing there, goes to him in Steve's updated will.
And as he sits in front of Steve's grave he reflects.
He is no king for his people are gone.
He is no brother for Loki is dead.
He is no friend for the last of them has died.
He is no god but a lonely man cursed to live with memories of the past.
He is no one but a ghost.
Here you go, sad and angst ridden one shot.
This came from a talk I had with my friend as we discussed how Steve would age slower and then it lead to everyone dying until Thor is the only one left. It was heart-breaking, sad and also interesting. So I wrote a fic based on this while listening to the soundtrack of 'Dear Evan Hansen' and trying to not cry. I finished this by the time 'Words Fail' finished. I hope you enjoyed, thank you for reading and have a nice day!