The Guide To Moving On

Chapter 22 - Close call

*Previously*

Tony rushed forward towards the man, lasers blaring. It was just then that I saw it.

"Tony! NO" I yelled, but it was too late.

There was nothing I could do.

Steve's POV

CLICK. Oh, that's not good. Our eyes all were drawn to where the sound came from.

A bomb. No!

I looked at the timer and it had 1 minute displayed in red on the front. The leader smirked as this happened, Tony had triggered it and we had to get out of here now.

Nat rushed forward, I have never seen her move so fast. She shot the man dead in the head, killing him, grabbed a laptop on the desk for information, and then ran out of the room, the rest of us in tow.

We turned down corridor after corridor but we didn't seem to be getting any closer to an exit.

"20 seconds!" Tony reported as we ran down another corridor. I had noticed that Nat had started to slow a little and I started to get worried about her.

"I don't feel good." Nat weakly reported and she turned back towards us. I gasped at what I saw. She was dripping blood, her face was as white as a ghost and she appeared to be breathing erratically. Not good.

"There's the exit!" Clint shouted but Nat kept slowing more and more. We had mere seconds left before the bomb went off and we had to get out of there. I rushed forward and scooped Nat up in my arms as we sprinted towards the exit.

The ringing sound of the explosion burst into my ears and I made one last leap out of the door before the base blew up.

The sheer force of the explosion blasted me off of my feet and I was pushed forward onto the concrete. I tried to shelter Nat in any way possible as we came into contact with the hard ground.

I lay there for a few seconds just trying to regain my senses. I was distracted however when I heard coughing coming from somewhere next to me. I looked over and saw Nat laying there, dazed but still awake which is a good thing.

Her coughing subsided and I sat up, crawling over to her to make sure that she is ok.

"You good?" I asked before I stood up and offered her a hand to get up. She nodded, accepting it and she stood up shakily. I wrapped my hand around her waist to support her because her condition hadn't improved and she was still on the verge of passing out.

I glanced around the rest of the rumble and quickly located the rest of the Avengers. Tony was standing over Bruce who had shrunken down again and Clint was hobbling over to us.

I waited until they all made their way over to us and then we all silently stumbled our way back to the jet. Other than Nat, it seemed that everyone made it out relatively injury-free. I had a few gashes that might require stitches but it was nothing too major considering how much of a close call this mission had been.

We all piled onto the jet and Clint went up the front to pilot. I sat Nat down and grabbed a few towels to mop up some of the blood. Tony came over and started applying pressure to the wound but decided to wait until we get back to the tower to have someone look at it properly.

I thought back to the explosion and how close we had come to being blown up. All in all, this mission was far too much of a close call for my liking. Far too close.

Nat's POV

The plane journey back to the tower felt like it took forever but at last, the tower came into view. The pain in my shoulder had increased with every passing second, how I haven't passed out from blood loss is beyond me.