Thor can hear Natasha's string of curse words through the com system as he surveys the area around him.
He had been dragged off a ways away from the others to ensure that no rogue bots had escaped though the main bot had been destroyed and no longer was sending out orders. However, they were unsure of what the remaining ones would do without direction so Thor had followed the last stronghold about a block and a half from the center of the action.
Eyeing the sea of bot bodies one last time, Thor makes his way back to his teammates. He wishes to make sure that Natasha is alright as the Captain has called in the medvac to check up on her.
The Asgardian's face wrinkles in disdain as he approaches and goes to pass one of the decommissioned bots. They're gun metal in color with one arm possessing a series of crude imitations of talons but nonetheless razor sharp while the other is formed like a giant claw with sharp blades, similar to scissors, in between each grasping piece. They're large, strong, vicious, but remarkably quiet.
As Thor passes the bot he reacts as split second too late as the supposedly destroyed object pops to life and uses its claw to clamp onto the left side of Thor's chest. The searing pain is immediate and radiates throughout his body, but he only grunts as he wields Mjolnir and bludgeons the foul object into ruin. The claw loosens and drops Thor to the pavement as it falls back and away from him.
Mjolnir still in hand, he stifles a hiss of pain as the front part of his armor comes apart and falls off with a clatter. The pain is sharp and intense, but Thor uses the alertness it brings to assess his injury. It is not spurting blood so it has not hit major arteries, but it is nonetheless deep and bleeding quite profusely. Using the bit of magic he knows, though he has never been overly fond of it, a strip of cloth winks into existence, slithers across his skin and binds itself around Thor's midsection to help staunch the flow. The action makes Thor clench his fists, but he deems the situation handled and using a spark from Mjolnir, he reattaches the front part of his armor to the other so his teammates will not worry. Natasha is much more fragile than he and the focus needs to be on her.
Extracting himself from the ground nearly makes Thor reconsider this thought, but he pushes through and goes to the others. When he arrives he sees them standing over Natasha amidst the wreckage and approaches slowly.
The Hulk notices him first and sneers at Thor. The Asgardian half smiles back while silently hoping this is not one of the days the Hulk is feeling playful as he has been wont to do on many occasions.
"There you are Vidal Sassoon. We were starting to wonder if they ran off with you," Tony quips after noticing Thor's presence too.
Thor stops himself from chuckling in order to not disturb his wound more than necessary, but the lack of response must strike the Captain as strange because he shifts his gaze to the god and eyes him critically. Thor smiles back at him in a way that he hopes it does not show his pain. "I am still very much here, but how are you fairing Lady Natasha?"
"Fucking brilliant," Natasha says through her teeth. "They're scratches, barely there really, but the Captain insists the medvac come for me." Natasha turns her steely gaze onto Steve. "Your concern is more painful."
"It is just a precaution," he replies simply. Her mouth twitches, but she says nothing else.
As they wait the last few minutes for the medvac to arrive, the helicopter sounds close now, Thor's head begins to feel light and his thoughts scattered. He cants his head to the side a few times and focuses on Mjolnir's power humming through him in an attempt to bring things back into focus.
It's not working. There's a short gap in Thor's vision and then the whole scene appears distant to his body as the medics takes a cursory examination of Natasha, deems her okay, and they all file into the helicopter with a now very naked Bruce.
During their trip Natasha keeps slapping the medic's hands away as he goes to attend to her wounds further while she insists she will take care of it after the debriefing with Fury at the tower. Rebuffed for a final time, the medic gives up and a hush descends upon them. Thor is quite thankful, not for the first time, that conversation is often minimal after battles and he does not have to engage with anyone. It seems too difficult a task.
Upon arrival to the tower, the group tiredly trudges down to the conference room to go over the events of the day. Unlike the others however, it's not just exhaustion and it takes Thor a considerably higher amount of effort to just follow them and simultaneously appear completely normal as Steve begins to run through their response to the threat.
Time drags on and Thor can barely focus. The metallic tang is strong in his mouth and swallowing the bitter substance makes his stomach roll with the burning ache in his side, but he says nothing about it.
Action…movement…focus. Thor's eyes attempt to roll in his head.
Focus.
With this thought he sets his hammer upon the table, but Thor is immediately aware of the egregious error he has made when he lets go of his weapons handle. Without Mjolnir's force directly coursing through him he's weak, so incredibly weak he is surprised he is still standing. Leaning against the conference table heavily now, Thor only just has the mind to stick his hand into the slight gap in his armor. When he pulls it back out it's slick with blood and he absently slides his hand across the table to brace himself as the world goes fuzzy and dark at the edges.
"I—," he manages before the darkness closes in and he collapses knocking one of the rolling chairs aside as he falls to the ground._
Author's Note:
I'd like you to know I am definitely still writing my other chapter fic on here, but my brain won't shut up about this idea so I decided to just get it out so it's less distracting.
Furthermore, this story is based off a prompt I swear I saw on avengerskink once and if you do see some version of this idea, Thor gets injured blah blah blah, let me know because I can't find it for the life of me. If not, I totally made up the fact that I saw this idea and I'm secretly filling a prompt I maybe meant to write down one day. Ooops haha.
Also, this is part 1 of two parts.
Hope you enjoyed it.