The White Wolf

XXXII

"But this is your home. We need you here. T'Challa is gone- Shuri is gone-"

"You don't need me here, Okoye. Wakanda needs leaders. I am not that. Wakanda needs you, and M'Baku."

"Please don't go. Don't leave, too."

"I can't stay. I can't go back into my home- it hurts too much without him there. I- I have to start somewhere new. Captain Rogers and Miss Romanoff say they are going to search for Thanos and find a way to bring everyone back. I have to help. I have to go with them and try. I can't just sit here and mope and cry. Please... I need to do this."

**********

The God-like man sat on the bench outside of the compound, hunched over with his elbows forward on his knees. He ran his fingers back and forth across his golden beard, his two different colored eyes- brown and blue- staring at the ground without really focusing on anything. Ava noticed him moping when she stepped outside for a breath of fresh air. 

"Hey," She said, drawing his attention. He looked up from the ground, sitting more upright in a poor attempt to hide the turmoil in his expression. "You're Thor, right?"

"Yes."

She pressed a small smile to her face and nodded her head. "You look like you could do with some company," She murmured while she walked over toward the bench and motioned to the seating space beside him. "Do you mind?"

"No- no," He shook his head a little. "Go ahead."

Ava sat down on the bench, keeping some space between them as Thor looked straight ahead, his eyes wandering over the lawn and the trees along the horizon. No birds chirped despite the cloudless, blue sky and a warm breeze in the air. Ava looked down at her hands in her lap, rolling her thumbs together as she tried to find the words to fill the silence. "What happened with Thanos... It wasn't your fault."

Thor smiled solemnly and took in a deep breath. "It was."

"It wasn't." She turned her head toward him. "We all blame ourselves, but the truth is that none of us are to blame. We did everything we could to stop him."

"I could have. I could have stopped him if I'd just gone for the head." Thor muttered and looked down at his hands again. "But, no. I was too angry. I wanted him to suffer for what he'd done. You see, my home had just been destroyed by my evil sister and a giant monster named Surtur- then Thanos attacked my ship of surviving Asgardians and killed half the people on board. He stabbed my best friend through the heart in front of me and murdered my brother. I wanted him to see my face as he died."

Ava clung to every word and nodded her head as she listened to him. She bit the inside of her cheek and took a deep breath, looking out at the horizon again. It still wasn't his fault. There was no way he could have anticipated that Thanos would still snap his fingers. "You know... If it were me, I would have done the same thing."

Thor turned his head toward her as she turned her head toward him, the two of them silently staring at each other. Thor held her gaze for a short amount of time before he opened up his mouth again to speak. "Who was that man that stood beside you? He called out your name before he... vanished."

Bucky Barnes. She looked away from Thor again, back down to her hands while she bit down on the inside of her cheek- habit of anxiety and a way for her to hide her feelings by distracting herself with the physical pain of it."My fiance." She answered softly. "He's the love of my life."