Twenty-One

"Steve!" Bucky's scream was loud enough to silence Charlotte's gasp. Her throat felt dry and she could feel her heart beating rapidly inside her chest as she watched Steve fall like a rag doll. His blond head hit the ground and Charlotte could swear that his blue eyes flashed open for a second, before they closed.

Blood was slowly starting to appear on the front of his chest and the blood slowly trailed down towards his stomach. He wasn't moving and he wasn't waking up. She felt a chill run down her spine.

Charlotte didn't care about the fact that she was about to be seen, she removed the invisibility cloak. "Steve!" she rushed towards him. She hardly thought about her surroundings or if any other bullets were flying towards them. She kneeled down next to him and began stroking his head. "Steve, Steve wake up. Wake up, now."

"Charlotte!" Bucky snapped. "What the hell are you doing here? You're supposed to be at home."

"I followed you," Charlotte said as she trailed her hand over his body trying to find the bullet. She hoped that it had exited his body, but it seemed that it was still lodged in there. "I had on my invisibility cloak, that's why I couldn't be seen. What do we do?"

Bucky bit his lip. "We need to get out of here, come on." He helped her up and he was about to get Steve when Charlotte and Bucky heard another click sound. "Take cover!" Bucky roared.

Before Charlotte could ask what he meant by that she heard the sounds of several guns firing as dozens of bullets were shot. Bucky pushed her to the ground. "Get the hell away from here now and take Steve with you." He grabbed his gun and started shooting back at the attackers that she could not see.

Charlotte did a protective spell around her and Steve and she shielded both of them with the invisibility cloak. She started dragging him by the wrists.

Charlotte could have used magic, especially since Steve wasn't exactly a light weight, but the cloak was barely shielding her. The last thing that she wanted was to bring more attention to herself. Besides the last thing that she wanted to do was to let these Hydra people know that she had magic. Charlotte had no desire to be a test bunny.

Her ankle was throbbing, at first she had thought that she had accidently hit her ankle, but when she looked down she held her breath. Blood was slowly pouring out of her ankle. A bullet had hit her and she had been so worried about Steve that she hadn't noticed.

It hurt. She wanted to remove it, which she easily could, but right now her focus was on Steve who still had not woken up. "Steve," Charlotte hissed at him. "Honey, wake up you're getting kind of heavy and also my foot really hurts." The pain in her leg was intensifying and blood was continuing to pour from Steve's mid-section.

Thankfully she was reaching the main entrance and Charlotte saw couple of Hydra guards on the floor. Tony lowered himself to the ground. "Friday, mentioned shooting. What the hell happened, Lot?"

"Steve," Charlotte sounded out of breath. "Steve and Bucky were on their way to kill whoever it is that is running this place, but they were ambushed. Someone shot Steve and he fell to the floor, I don't know if they shot him using special bullets or-I don't know what's wrong with him!" she blurted out.

"Hold your horses," Tony said. "Friday, medical analysis on Steve Rogers. Is there anything unusual about the bullet or bullets?" Charlotte saw that Tony's brow was slightly sweating, The poor man was probably just as worried as Charlotte was. But at least he was not losing his cool.

"Mr. Stark, Captain Rogers seems to have been hit by a bullet know to Hydra as the Kensi bullet. It causes major internal bleeding, if it's taken out it will cause a small explosion."

"Wonderful," Tony said through gritted teeth. "Those idiots seemed to have improved on their thinking at least. Ok, Lottie. Stay put, I'm going to get the Quinjet."

Charlotte shook her head. "That will cause too much of a commotion. The last thing that we need is more attention, especially if Bucky is still inside. Let me see if I can try to take out the bullet."

"Charlotte, this is not the best situation to use the word try," Tony said sounding annoyed. "Can you take out the bullet or not?"

"Tony, let me try. Please." Charlotte said. Her ankle was still hurting. "I know a few things, a few healing spells that I learned when I was working as an auror. Let me try to save Steve's life without putting anyone else in danger."

"Fine," Tony said after a while, but he didn't look too convinced. "But if you start getting second thoughts or start thinking that you are not going to be able to remove the bullet. Tell me and I'll get the Quinjet ready. We'll be out of here in five minutes."

Charlotte nodded. She was sweating. "Do you have a small knife? Or blade?"

"For what?"

"To make a small incision."

"Friday?" Friday produced one and Charlotte took it, she took the small pocket knife and made a small incision in the area where the bullet had entered Steve.

A black liquid poured out slowly and she didn't know if it was infected. She hoped not. Charlotte cleaned out the wound as best as she could trying to get rid of the black gunk that was covering it, but it just seemed to be coming out more and more. She decided to try one of the healing spells that she had learned from a fellow Auror, Cindy. "Remuevas Cuepa."

Both of them watched as a small black bullet with Hydra's trademark symbol slowly levitated out of Steve's body. Charlotte grabbed ahold of the bullet and quickly threw it in the opposite direction as hard as she could. She heard a mild explosion.

"Well," Tony whistled. "That went less horrible that I had expected, good job Toots."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence," Charlotte snorted as she looked at Steve's body. He was slowly stirring. "Look, Tony he's waking up."

Steve's blue eyes shot opened as he looked around in confusion. "Where am I?" he demanded. "What happened?" his vision finally cleared until it landed on both Charlotte and Tony. "Charlotte, what the hell are you doing here?" he sounded angry at he stared at her.

"Language," Tony said lightly. "Practice what you preach, Cap."

"Shut up, Tony," Steve scowled. "This doesn't concern you, what the hell are you doing here?"

"I-" Charlotte trailed off and decided to just tell the truth. "Look, I came along to see if you needed any help. I used my invisibility cloak that's why you couldn't see me."

Steve glared at her, then turned to Tony. "Did you know about this? Did you help her? I swear to god, Tony-"

"I didn't even know she was on my plane," Tony defended himself. "I'm the innocent party here. Yell at her."

"Don't yell at me. I did save your life after all."

"She's got a point there, Cap."

-End of Chapter Twenty-One-

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