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Every time.

Every time the wielder of thunder, the great warrior and king of Asgard Thor gathered the feeble amount of strength necessary to pry his eyelids open and take in this wretched scene bathed in the fluctuating light of a portal, he found it was just too much.

Too much.

It was far too much. It was almost as though fate itself had made an error in this designated path it created. It was a rash decision, something not thought through, something Thor had grown all too familiar with in his one and a half millennium of being in fate's careful hands.

Somehow, fate had forgotten the weight of the situation and allowed something on a whim. Something impossible, something terrible, something all too much.

It was nothing.

It was just a bruise on the neck.

It was just a scrape on the knee.

It was just a sprain. It was just a cut. It was just a small burn.

It wasn't enough.

It wasn't enough to take him away.

It wasn't enough to take away all that he was to Thor.

A physical body was weak and feeble enough. Such things passed away with time, but rather, the love Thor felt was a mighty behemoth, larger, faster, smarter, stronger than this Thanos could even dream of being.

Each memory shared, each moment together spent, each word exchanged, be it through tears or smiles carried the weight and power of a thousand suns.

It was not a warrior that could simply be defeated, something that could just pass away.

It wasn't enough. It couldn't be.

Surely there was something more.

Perhaps this wasn't the end.

Perhaps he planned this from the start.

Perhaps he still had a trick up his sleeve.

It didn't, couldn't, wouldn't occur to Thor that just because he thought the world of the one lying lifelessly in front of us very eyes did not make it so.

His brother was not invincible, as much as Thor wished him to be. He was just as weak, just fragile, just as human as the rest of them, even if Thor failed to see it at times.

His dear dear stupid brother who loved to pretend to be above all else in the universe was just as capable of dying as any other.

It just never occurred to him before.

He had just let Loki, his own brother, die before his very eyes.

Somehow, Thor felt lied to, betrayed, deceived.

It just wasn't right.

Every time.

It was too much.

It was nothing.

It was everything.

It was the pill too bitter for Thor to swallow.

It was the truth too cruel for Thor to accept.