Stranded

Peter blanched as he processed who’d come through.

Blonde hair, tall frame, arms rippling with muscle, shoulders hunched forward in a distinctly predatory position, the heavy scent of ozone permeating the air.

Peter barely withheld a whimper, restraining himself from taking an instinctive step back and instead crouching further into the slight shadows provided by the door’s frame. This wasn’t an ideal outcome. None of the people who could’ve entered would’ve been ideal, but, out of everyone in the tower, Peter would take any one of them over who stood before him now.

Thor’s boots - now that Peter could see them properly, he could tell that they were a modern rustic sort with steel toed tips - crunched against the mixture of glass, metal, and splintered wood that littered the ground. His hammer was held in a loose grip in his hand, his right shoulder drooping slightly lower than his left.

Peter tensed further and swallowed, the sound barely audible over the pulsing of his blood rushing through his veins and his heart pumping double time to keep him moving by pure adrenaline alone. It wouldn’t last; he knew it wouldn’t. So he waited for Thor to take another slow step forward, the man having yet to look around, and then darted ahead, flinching slightly when Thor whirled around in his peripheral but not straying off course. 

The entrance was barely a foot away, and Peter leapt for it. Something slammed into his back, barely missing his spine and resulting in an audible crunch from inside him as the impact propelled him forward with a pained scream, sending him crashing into the wall on the opposite side of the hallway. He slumped down with a wet wheeze, one side of his back pulsing in time with his heart. It felt like his entire right side had been crushed by a compactor, compressed until his ribs creaked and snapped. He had little doubt that they had.

Heavy footsteps thumped after him, and Peter willed himself upright, desperately trying to ignore how his vision whited out and how he tilted precariously to his side, instead moving one foot in front of the other - away from the sounds of the approaching.

He knew it was fruitless. It probably already had been before he’d gotten what felt like half his ribs cracked or completely broken on one side. He barely escaped from Clint who, while being an incredible sharpshooter and a skilled spy and assassin, was a baseline human. How was he supposed to escape a god who he couldn’t match in either pure strength or skill? How was he supposed to survive it? 

He felt hot and cold all over, and he let out a cough that he felt spray out over his lips and chin. He didn’t want to think about what that meant. He didn’t really have to.

A thick hand landed on the back of his neck, making an aborted sound escape Peter’s throat as all his nerves lit up before he was abruptly shoved forward flat onto the ground, his torso screaming in agony as he collapsed onto his frontside. All the air had escaped his lungs, and Peter desperately gasped to try and refill them, a wet gurgle coming out as he twisted around onto his back, leaning heavily onto his left side in a pointless attempt to alleviate some pressure off his ribs. They still throbbed heavily as if they were trying to escape through his skin with every beat of his heart.

Thor stood over him, eyes dark except for the occasional bright flashes of crackling blue that danced through them, and he had a white knuckled grip on his hammer, which was drooping even more heavily than earlier, as if he was weighed down by it. 

Peter forced himself onto his elbows and scooted backwards on trembling arms, choking out, “Thor,” with a wet rasp that tasted of nothing but the copper that sat heavy on his tongue.

The god’s lips twisted, and he took a menacing step forward, easily covering up the meager distance that Peter had attempted to gain. His nose was scrunched in a way that was not dissimilar to how Steve’s had been, looking near animalistic in his incandescent rage.

“Please,” Peter begged brokenly, raising a shaking hand and nearly collapsing under his own weight that was now only sustained by one trembling arm. 

His plea was mercilessly disregarded, Thor’s gaze remaining set in the same narrow eyed hatred as if he hadn’t heard Peter at all. The god slowly circled around him, and Peter shied away from him, curling inwards like a dying spider. He tried not to think of the sick sense of morbid accuracy within the comparison. 

A steel toed boot collided with his ribs, wrenching out a mangled scream from Peter’s abused throat, the agonized noise sounding like it was coming from half underwater as he choked on his blood, the kick sending him skidding across the linoleum floor. 

His breaths left him in short, panicked gasps as he struggled to push himself upright, as he struggled to force the blood leaking into his lungs and choking his airways to let him take another gulp of air. He collapsed back onto the ground almost immediately, his hands slipping from underneath him, already slick with the blood he’d tried to wipe off his chin and throat as he scrambled to escape the shadow that suddenly encased him.

He forced his gaze upwards to meet that of Thor’s remorseless own, and Peter tried to force out another plea, another platitude, another attempt to extend his time. Only a wet, croaking whine made its way out.

The god raised his hammer high up into the air, and Peter clenched his eyes shut, trying and failing to raise his hands to cover his head in a useless attempt at stopping it but unable to bring them into motion. So he waited for the ending blow, only to flinch heavily when he heard an echoing clang instead, bloodied palm slipping from under him and sending him crashing back onto the floor with a strangled scream.

He immediately forced his eyes to snap open despite the black dots hazing his vision, wanting - no, needing - to see what happened. To see why he was still alive - in crushing agony that felt like it was rending him in two, yes. But still alive.

For a second, he couldn’t process what he was seeing. Thor wasn’t looking at him any longer, and, although his brows were still scrunched and a frown marred his lips, it had lifted slightly, something akin to confusion alighting into the edges of his anger. He was looking down at the ground between them, and Peter had to force his gaze to lower as well, staying completely stock still so as to not regain the god’s attention. His breaths were still wet and his ribs still felt as though they’d been crunched like walnut shells, but he kept as motionless as he could. 

And then he saw what Thor was looking at.

It was his hammer. Lying there conspicuously on the floor right in front of Thor’s feet. 

A few seconds ticked by in inaction, with Peter cautiously watching Thor for any signs of movement and the latter showing no such thing. The god just stood there, head tilted slightly and gaze nearly blank below the layer of projected emotions. Peter couldn’t force down the small, hesitant seed of hope bloomed in the darkest recesses of his chest the longer it went by. Maybe Thor had gotten out of it. It was possible - even likely - that the gas wouldn’t have as long or as powerful of an effect on the god since he was, well, a god. So maybe he was breaking free. 

Peter, still hardly daring to breathe, moved as slowly as he could, reaching for the wall beside him to grip onto it with his tacky fingers, sticky from both his abilities and blood. 

Thor’s gaze immediately snapped to him, and Peter froze, eyes wide and refusing to blink as he watched Thor’s expression with complete, rapt attention, his excruciating pains almost managing to fade into the background behind his underlying, burgeoning hope.

A hope that was crushed, completely snuffed out, in a single go as Thor’s face shifted right back into pure and utter loathing, the man letting out an audible snarl and crouching down to grip his hammer with both hands.

Peter scrambled back, side burning and lungs growing shorter on oxygen as he continued to struggle with getting enough air in, and he forced himself upright, levering himself up with both hands on the wall.

Thor heaved his arms back, but they didn’t budge.

Peter’s mind stalled. 

Thor pulled and it didn’t move. 

The hammer didn’t move.

The hammer stayed on the ground.

Thor couldn’t lift Mjölner.

Peter took several faltering steps back, Thor’s attention once more locked onto his hammer with uncomprehending anger and confusion.

He set a hand on his ribs, ignoring the flare of pain and pressing against them and hoping he wasn’t shoving whichever one had already clearly stabbed into his lung further in. His steps were near silent, especially under the heavy grunting and crackling energy that was emanating from Thor. So Peter turned around and bolted.

An enraged roar sounded behind him, and Peter picked up his pace, willing himself through the searing agony that made him feel like his chest was collapsing inwards on itself as his lungs refused to expand properly and an arc of pain shot up through his nerves with every step he took. 

The thundering footsteps were getting closer, and Peter rounded the hallway into a narrow corridor, the rooms there much smaller and meant from personal unit meetings or self study. 

Without a second to waste, Peter threw open the third door on his right, barely stopping himself from slamming it closed behind him and instead shutting it with a quiet click just as Thor rounded the corner.

Peter hurriedly slinked over to the mahogany desk near the back and shoved himself in the gap where the chair was normally pushed into, curling up tightly and slapping a hand over his mouth to muffle his ragged breathing and the instinctual, agonized gasp that tried to leave his lips as his ribs shifted. He distantly knew that he had to get to medical soon or it wouldn’t matter whether Thor found him or not.

He hoped he hadn’t left a blood trail.

Then he stilled so completely when Thor’s heavy footsteps passed by his door that he felt like his heart had nearly stopped. Both his hands were clasped tightly around his mouth, fingers digging into his cheeks and eyes wide and round above them. 

The steps receded further down the hall, and Peter had a sudden, sinking realization.

He couldn’t wait for Thor to leave; the hallway was a dead-end.

That meant he had to leave now. 

Peter didn’t want to leave now.

Peter didn’t want to leave ever.

Here, in the dark, stuffed under the chair and enclosed in a way that made him feel almost covered for instead of suffocated, Peter could almost pretend that nothing about the past few hours was reality. He could pretend that Clint hadn’t tried to strangle him, that he and Sam hadn’t shattered glass on him and tried to stab him with it, that Nat hadn’t succeeded with the stabbing and tried to snap his neck, that Tony hadn’t sent his suit after Peter and nearly blown him apart with it, that Thor hadn’t crushed nearly half his ribs and would’ve killed him if his hammer had suddenly decided not to cooperate - 

Peter needed to stop repeating all of that in his head. It wasn’t healthy. He had enough of him being not healthy right now.

And it wouldn’t be healthy for him to stay cooped up either when he felt like he was halfway towards having one foot in the grave already. 

So Peter forced himself back out of his little hidey hole, leaning heavily onto the desk for a second, bracing himself, before he started to hobble back over to the door, resolutely ignoring how he shook more and more with every step closer he got to the exit.

The back of his neck felt raw at this point, as if someone had burned all the skin off of it and then branded it with an iron for good measure. It was hard to tell at this point if his senses were going off or if it was just paranoia stemming from the singed nerves lining the base of his neck.

His hand settled onto the doorknob, and he took a shaky breath, forcing himself not to choke on his blood despite how it lined the back of his throat. 

He twisted the handle and stepped out, immediately checking on Thor’s position. 

The god was still rampaging further down the hall, slamming open doors at random now and letting out incoherent noises of abject rage as he was continually met with nothing.

It almost physically hurt to turn his back towards the other - at least, hurt on top of all the other injuries Peter had accrued - but he managed, and he stumbled as quickly and as quietly as he could back towards where Thor’s hammer had been dropped, which also happened to be where the hall split into a T, two sides being dead ends and the third leading to a stairwell.

The third was what Peter was aiming for. He planned to go up a few levels to where the closest medical floor was, and he could only hope that he’d be able to avoid whoever else was up there. Maybe, if he was lucky, Thor had been the one upstairs earlier, so nobody else was there right now. 

Peter scoffed internally. As if he’d ever have that sort of luck.

He had taken a few more steps by the time he realized that he couldn’t hear anything else besides himself anymore, an eerie silence emanating from behind him. A shiver wracked down his spine, and Peter didn’t even bother looking back, instead forcing himself to move faster even as he heard an enraged roar echo down the hall. 

It only took him half a second to acknowledge that he wouldn’t be able to escape in time. Mostly because an escape would require a way for him to avoid the god after reaching a certain point, which he abruptly realized was not the case. So what if he got to the stairwell? Thor could follow him easily enough. Steve had proven as much, and Peter doubted he could repeat the same maneuver as he’d done with the other man without actually killing himself this time around.

He was suddenly hit with the visceral urge to just. Give up. 

To stop.

To let Thor catch up and beat him and end him like Peter could tell he was planning to by the dark look of finality in the god’s eyes that’d been echoed in all the other Avengers Peter had crossed thus far. 

It’d be easy. So easy.

To just fall to his knees, to take the weight off his aching limbs and his screaming ribs. To let the blood that was slowly flooding his lungs just drown him as Thor finished the deed.

‘No’ something innate rebelled inside him. 

But-

‘NO’ it bellowed, thrashing inside of him as it kept his legs pumping and his breath flowing.

No. 

He kept moving, running, persisting despite nearly every other part of him begging for him to stop.

He reached the split in the halls and turned around, gritting his teeth as he stared down Thor, who was only a few meters away now.

Peter might as well have been backed into a corner, and his emotions were in a dichotomy of overwhelming terror and a sense of a determination that he couldn’t pinpoint as to what he could apply it to.

Thor stalked closer, lips twisted into a snarl and form hunched forwards slightly, looming. 

Peter’s senses were still the ever blaring cacophony of pain and panic, and yet he moved as if he’d never been calmer. 

He bent down, baring his teeth through the searing agony of his shifting ribs, and grabbed at the hilt of the hammer at his feet. 

He tugged.

Nothing happened.

Thor stormed closer.

 “Shit shit shit shit,” Peter chanted through bloodied lips, breaths coming out short and fast. He tugged harder. “Frick fuck - please please PLEASE,” he half begged, half sobbed, turning abruptly, agonizingly desperate, more desperate than he’d been in his entire life. More desperate than he’d been the entire day , with Thor’s pace increasing to a dead on sprint and the man almost upon him.

Peter didn’t want to die.

And suddenly Peter was heaving backwards, colliding into the wall behind him with the force of his own momentum.

He didn’t have time to be dazed - he shook himself quickly, ignoring the dull ache that throbbed against the back of his skull and the never ending flashes of pain from his torso and zinging up his arms. He felt his hands still clenched one above the other in as tight of a grip he could hold, and there was still something in his grasp.

The hammer. Mjölner. 

He was holding it.

And Thor was right in front of him.

Peter swung wildly and struck the God in the cheek with the blunt head of the weapon, sending Thor flying down the hall. 

Peter whimpered out a strangled apology that was more automatic than anything as he bolted for the stairwell, not sparing Thor - who was already picking himself up from the cracked and crumbled bits of drywall - a second glance even as the god let out another enraged roar.

Only a few moments after Peter started his sprint, the hammer’s weight once again became immeasurable, and he was forced to drop it with a heavy thunk as he continued to tear down the hall. 

As he made to round a corner, he looked over his shoulder to see Thor once again trying to lift Mjölner, yet it remained grounded, and Peter was met with such a heady rush of relief that he was dizzy from it, and he listed slightly to the right even as he continued to plow forwards as fast as his stumbling gait could take him. He hoped that the god would be distracted long enough for Peter to make a decent getaway.

He hoped that he would survive whatever came after.

A dribble of blood escaped from the corner of his mouth, and Peter wondered if it was crueler to let himself believe he had a chance.