A/N: Hello again! Since the lovely coronavirus has kept me at home while my semester is momentarily on hold, I figured I'd finally get around to publishing something new. Enjoy!

"I've got two more over here, Cap!"

Penny Parker swung around a building and launched herself over a streetlamp, webbing up yet another tech-covered Hydra agent. She and a good majority of the team (minus Bruce and Thor) were currently fighting off a swarm of them, all of whom were loaded with heavy duty weaponry. It wasn't going great, but they were finally seeming to get an edge.

Penny snapped up another web and swung forward, a shout escaping when a bullet flew by her ear, grazing the material of her suit. She looked down.

"Uh, hey guys? I'm seriously understaffed here."

"I can't get over there," Tony's voice crackled over the comms, slightly robotic from his suit. "Who can give Underoos a hand?"

"I'm swamped, Tony." Clint said.

"Same here. These bastards are-shit!" Sam's voice cut out abruptly with a grunt, followed by an agonizing groan. Penny tried to spot him in the fight, but the group of Hydra agents around her demanded her full attention.

"Sam's down," Natasha said, followed by Sam trying to refuse in gasping sentences. "We need an evac."

Penny lost track of where the conversation went after that. She managed to disarm two of the agents before a gun whipped her across her face, sending her sprawling backward onto the concrete. Her head slammed against the pavement.

"Guys?" she choked out. Her vision warped and she stood blindly, firing her webshooters at anything that moved. "Help. Please."

"I got your six, kid." A familiar voice rang out in the comms, and a few seconds later there was a flash of brown hair and a metal arm. Bucky glanced at her briefly before smashing in the skulls of as many of the agents as he could. Penny staggered, trying in vain to help as much as she could with her sight going in and out of focus. Voices were still echoing through her comms, friendly and tense banter alike filtering through. Penny heard all of it and registered none. She thought she heard Bucky talking to her every few seconds in between punches, but she couldn't remember.

Her aim was getting more and more clumsy, her hands were shaking harder and harder. Just as she caught Bucky turning to look at her, pain exploded through her shoulder and she collapsed, a gasp caught in her throat as she hit the ground. She saw Bucky fling the gunman halfway down the street with a growl before dropping on his knees beside her. He touched her shoulder and she screamed, bucking against his hold.

"Shit, shit-alright, you're okay, kid, stay with me," he murmured, rolling her onto her back as gently as he could. Penny squeezed her eyes shut, teeth grit as waves of agony roiled over her. Something pressed down, hard, on the wound and another cry ripped itself from her throat. Bucky slipped his real hand into hers.

"Here, squeeze this."

She did, trying as hard as she could to not break his fingers. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry-" she was cut off by another grunt of pain.

"Don't be sorry," Bucky murmured, keeping steady pressure on her shoulder. "You're gonna be okay, let's get you some backup."

Penny became distantly aware of the flurry of voices talking to her and Bucky through the comms, the most prominent being Tony's panicked one.

"Spidergirl has a gunshot wound, lodged bullet, still conscious," Bucky said. "Need to get her to the jet stat."

"I've got eyes on them," Clint said. "On my way now."

Penny was going in and out of focus, the world tilting and blurring nauseatingly. She kept her eyes closed against the sensory overload. Bucky was still muttering into his comm. She could hear the last of the fight wrapping up around her. She was so exhausted...maybe they wouldn't mind if she called it a day…

"-ny!"

Bucky was shouting her name in a voice that meant he'd been saying it more than once. Penny groaned and cracked her eyes open. Bucky's brow was furrowed in concern, hair hanging in his face as he leaned over her.

"Stay awake."

And then there was a second pair of hands on her, tugging away the lower part of her mask.

"Breathe, Pen. You gotta breathe. Dang, kid, they got you good."

She tried to breathe, she really did, but choked sobs were blocking every inhale. Clint pressed two fingers to her neck, lips pressed together in concern. All traces of the usual teasing she was expecting from him was gone. "That's it, you're tough. This is nothing."

It didn't feel like nothing, but okay. Distraction methods.

Penny lay there, crying, as something was pressed to her shoulder and someone else coached her on how to get oxygen to her lungs. She had known who it was a second ago...Her head was pounding. Someone was shaking her, hard.

"Jeez, Clint, she's shaking like a leaf."

Or maybe that was just her.

"Alright, Friday? Is it safe to move her?"

A pause, in which the only sounds were her pained wheezes and the ongoing fight a few blocks down.

"Let's go."

"Okay, Penny. Bucky here is gonna carry you to the jet." Clint said. Clint. That's who that was. Was he saying something? His lips were moving, but the sound was warbled, muffled in her ringing ears. And then, before she could ask, Bucky wrapped careful arms around her, scooping her up as if she weighed nothing. Penny clenched her jaw shut and dug her fingers into her palms when her shoulder and head were jostled.

And then they were moving, jogging to the jet while Clint stayed close behind for cover. Penny fisted her hand in Bucky's shirt as she shook, and he murmured something she couldn't make out.

The next few hours were a blur. She remembered being set on a comfortable cot. Voices, lots of voices. And pain. So much pain. There had been strong hands, too, trying to hold her down while she fought to claw her way out of the excruciating feeling locked inside her.

She had one memory clear enough to decipher. She was writhing on a cot, white-knuckled fingers ripping through the sheets in vain as she begged for something, anything, to make it stop. She didn't scream-or, she didn't remember screaming. Sweat poured down her face and she whispered incoherent pleas hoarsely as someone-Natasha?- tried for the second time to run an IV in her arm.

A hand raked through her hair. "Penny. Hey, Spidergirl. Look at me." She pulled her gaze up to see Clint kneeling next to the cot, his thumb stroking her temple gently. "There you are. Hey, hey-it's gonna be okay, kiddo." he was giving her that look again-that protective, worried, near parental look. He attempted a wry smile. "How about this? You stick this hellscape out and I tell you about my mission with Natasha in Hong Kong." Penny almost missed the eyebrow Natasha raised, still focused on her IV.

"Sounds like a...lose-lose situation...to me." Penny choked out. Clint barked out a laugh.

"That's cold!"

Penny can't remember much about what happened after that. If Clint did tell a story or not, or if she said anything else. All she knew was a prick in her arm, and unbelievable, sleepy coolness.

A/N: Ending yet another chapter with the main character falling asleep? It's far more likely than you'd think.

If you're interested in more Penny fics, check out my latest: Coming Out (For You, For Me). I'm also planning on wrapping up my Author Q&A, so send in those asks now!

Thank you guys for reading, and feel free to drop in a review. :)