The man with bright blond hair led everybody down the hall towards the nearest exit. Luckily, they only ran into a few Hydra agents, who were quickly taken care of by Steve and Bucky. They knew that Hydra knew that they were gone when a minute after they started walking, alarms started blaring.

The Avengers were on edge while I was perfectly at peace. Everything had gone according to plan.

They finally reached a door and sunlight streamed in when they opened it.

"Finally!" I sigh, "Now we just walk three miles north and Maria will be there. She better have my coffee and cupcake. I'll sue her if she doesn't. I have it in writing." I rant to anyone listening.

Before I can blink, I hear gunshots shooting at us and a sudden pain in my stomach. I cry out as Steve pulls me behind a truck. I see everyone finding cover while looking for any possible weapons.

I look down at my stomach, "Fuck." I whisper, putting pressure to try to stop the bleeding. One of those sons of a bitch Hydra agent shot me.

Suddenly I'm being pulled along by Steve behind the others as we all run for cover behind the trees and into the forest. After a few minutes of running, we slow to a stop to regroup.

"Anybody hurt?" Tony asks.

"No, I normally spurt blood from my rib cage." I respond sarcastically, rolling my eyes.

When I say this, it's suddenly like everyone finally realizes that I was not only still there but that I was hurt.

Bruce is pushed towards me, "Make sure you keep putting pressure on it. There's nothing that I can do until we get to Agent Hill and the quinjet."

I nod as I look around me. We're surrounded by trees and bushes. That's it. Apparently there's no sightseeing when you get kidnapped. I'll have to talk with Maria about that. If I'm going to be kidnapped, then I'm going to be happy and have fun. No matter what Maria says when she tells me that "it's a mission, it's not supposed to be fun." Liar.

"Anyhoo, which way is north now?" I ask, hoping that somebody would know.

"This way." Steve tells me, leading us to where I can only assume is apparently north.

We walk for what seems like forever. I hold both of my hands over the literal hole in my stomach as I walk, stumbling every five seconds. Whether it was because my foot was hurt or because I was wearing only one shoe, I would never know.

Eventually we reach a clearing where I see Maria waiting beside the quinjet. She rushes over to me when she sees me holding my stomach.

"You're bleeding!" She exclaims.

"Whaaaat? Noooo?! I didn't notice!" I say, wincing as she pulls my hands away from my stomach to get a good look. Once she's done, I place my hands back over the bullet hole and watch as she looks over me, checking for more injuries.

She frowns and asks "Where's your shoe?"

"The giant mud puddle down the road demanded a sacrifice."

She rolls her eyes and leads us to the quinjet, helping me sit down and get comfortable. I end up sitting between Yelena and Kate, while everyone else fills in the rest of the seats. After everyone is settled, we take off and are on our way back to the Avengers compound.

We touch down at the compound and are immediately ushered out. Everyone is sent to the medbay, whether they were hurt or not.

The bullet gets removed from my stomach and I'm told to take painkillers for the next few weeks, though I probably won't as I hate taking any kind of medication.

I sit on the bed in the medbay for a while as I wait for Nick to show up and tell me if I can finally go home or something.

After awhile he finally shows up, it's not like we had been waiting on him or anything.

"Good to see that all of you are back safe. Thanks to Harley, we were able to locate and shut down that Hydra base." Nick tells everyone before turning to me, "Please stop getting shot, it stresses me out."

"Oh! Well if it stresses you out, I will try extra hard not to do it." I respond sarcastically. "It's like I go out everyday with a sign on me saying 'please shoot me' or something. I am definitely not trying to get shot, Nick."

Nick just rolls his eyes and turns away to discuss more Avenger stuff with everyone else, though I tune him out. I don't have to listen to him. Maria never got me my coffee or cupcake. She probably forgot. Bitch. I'm suing.

I'm brought back to reality when I notice everyone staring at me. "What'd I miss?"

"Since Hydra now knows who you are, the Avengers compound is the safest place for you to be. I've had agents pack up your apartment and bring everything to a spare room.

My jaw drops to the floor, "Excuse me?" I sputter, "I must be delirious from the blood loss. Please tell me that you did not just say that you had AGENTS pack up MY stuff and move it all to AVENGERS COMPOUND."

Nick almost looks scared for a second, "That's what I said."

Son of a bitch.

I almost can't decide if I should be happy that he cares enough about me or angry that he didn't even warn me. The whole kidnapping thing was his plan!

Before I can even start yelling at him, the door opens once again. "Oh, you're still alive." My best friend, Layla Willows, says sadly.

"Don't sound so disappointed. I might think that you don't like me." I laugh, knowing that she was just messing with me.

She walks over to me sitting on the chair next to the bed I was sitting on. "Are you sure that you're alright?" She quietly asks me.

"I'm fine. It's painful but it should heal pretty quickly. But, Fury just told me that I'm moving here." I told her.

She frowns and asks, "Why?"

"Hydra."

"Oh." She's quiet for a minute. "Does that mean we won't be able to hang out anymore?"

"Probably not for a while." I glare at Fury, though I doubt he notices since he's still talking to Steve and Tony.

She sighs before taking her phone out of her pocket. "I have to go. I'm being summoned. See you later. Bye"

"Bye." I sigh and collapse onto the pillows behind me, careful of my stomach.

"At least you'll be safe here." The dark figure who has been in the corner since we had come into the room tells me. He stands in the corner with his dark hood covering most of his face.

"Yeah… I guess so, Max." I told him.

Max has been my best friend for years, before and after he had died four years ago. He basically just follows me around and helps in any way he can, most of the time he just listens to my rants.

I sit against the pillows and pull my knees up to my chest. The doctor had forced me to take off my binder when she closed the bullet hole. I was now in my favorite hoodie, but I could feel the dysphoria lingering around the corner, though I try not to think about it.

I should probably get some sleep before I end up passing out from the lack of sleep and food, and the blood loss, but where's the fun in that. I'm complaining to HR about my cupcake. I don't even need the coffee anymore, but the cupcake… I will die before I don't get my cupcake.

I slowly swing my legs over the edge of the bed before slowly standing up, trying to avoid any unnecessary pain. Once the world stops spinning, I start walking towards the door.

"Where do you think you're going?" Nick asks me.

"Either to kill Maria, find HR, or a kitchen. Or all three. Probably all three." I mutter.

"For the last time, the coffee and cupcake was not a real contract. It was an april's fools joke from Maria. Years ago." Nick sighs exasperatedly.

"I signed papers."

"We hired you to make cupcakes and other desserts." Nick reminds me.

"Before you knew I could see dead people."

"Right. So you need to stay here and get your strength back."

"No thanks. I'll live. I did the last few times. This time is no different. I guess that I won't kill Maria." I sigh sadly. "I'll just find a kitchen or something and make my own cupcakes and coffee. Maybe I'll even go crazy and make cookies too." I say sarcastically, "But i'll be extra careful for you Nick. Because making cookies is super dangerous!"

I turn and walk out of the room, hoping to find a kitchen.

Thank you for reading! Sorry for any typos or anything.