It's not denial that flickers across his face when she admits her source. It's betrayal, a wounded look as if she's slapped him, shame that his friends are talking about him behind his back. Thor is not sure which is more humiliating, knowing that they're talking of him in hushed whispers or the fact that he's backslid so much that they feel the need to. He'd thought that he had a handle on things, and having it shoved in his face that his progress has slipped away from him is a hard reality to accept.

"Talking won't make this... this need go away," he says, struggling to make her understand, to put his thoughts and feelings into words even though doing so at all contradicts what he just claimed. "It won't bring Loki back, or anything else I've lost. It won't make me feel as though I know what I'm doing, with the children, with the village. I'm... so tired of waiting and worrying."