"So what's the plan again?" Annie asked as she tried to concentrate on flying the jet to a large enough clearing in the woods just beyond the Hydra base in Sokovia. Sure they had gone over these plans at least two or three times prior but Annie knew it relieved pressure of Captain America to go through it another time. Clint let out a groan from the seat beside Annie turning to give her a glare as to ask why. Allowing the autopilot to take control for just a moment or two Annie turned to sign her response. 

'Just trying to ease the tension.' 

'By giving the rest of us a headache?'

'Turn your hearing aids off then. You don't have to listen in.' Annie turned back to the controls as Steve lined up the groups again, going through a very intense plan that they all knew would fall to pieces the second they encountered the perimeter guards. 

Finding a suitable clearing seemed to be a little easier than Annie anticipated, for it would seem that this base was much more active than some of the previous ones they had infiltrated. There was more than a large enough clearing, and Annie had a little runway cleared in said clearing. And therefore, there was no time like the present to land the jet. The jet landed with a little bump but otherwise the landing was pretty uneventful.

"Textbook Annie, Textbook." Clint turned to her before letting himself up out of the chair. It took her a moment to realise he was commenting that in a positive way rather than the negative meaning the words could take. 

"Plenty of practice Barton." Her response was quick before she was silenced by Captain America, who was in the headset of a solider once again. And despite all the conversations Annie had with the man, ones of which she managed to call him by his name to his face, when she was not speaking directly to the man she found it hard to call him by his given name. He was still in some ways her idol, and her friend it was a strange relationship that she would admit, and it made it hard to call the chemically enhanced man anything else. Annie had after all done her research to determine if his whole self was a mutation but there was no evidence of the gene in his blood works. He was just a chemically enhanced soldier. 

The second the group of American battle comrades were noticed by the perimeter guards the element of surprise was lost. Not that Annie was surprised, what did catch her was just how well the guards of this base were prepared. They were much more prepared than any of the other bases they had come across as the group were met with heavy gunfire, smoke bombs and an overall increasing number of combatants. 

"Fuck they're like super prepared." Annie spoke not realising that it had been caught on her transmitter. 

"Language." Captain America scolded for the second time since they had stepped out of the plane. 

"Why do I feel like I've just been told off by my grandfather."

"Cause he's an old fart. Is nobody other than me and Summer's gonna deal with the fact that Cap said 'Language' to us both." Tony's voice came over the communicator. 

"I don't know it just slipped out." Captain America didn't even attempt to apologise too concerned about the fight occurring. 

Annie focused her attention on the bunkers where the Hydra agents were currently using as a base to shoot at  the team. She attempted to jam the guns being used, in order to bait out the agents into the field from their hiding spot. Yet her attention was suddenly drawn as she noted a silver blur passing her. A blur of which could only mean one thing. There were mutants out in the field. One of which had super speed. She rapidly attempted to contact the team to warn them in advance to keep an eye out. But she watched on as she was too late the silver blur colliding with Clint and sending him to the floor. 

Annie attempted to head over to Clint before he got hit, her urge to protect him on overdrive. There were her kind in the field and the team no longer had the upper hand. Hydra somehow had managed to get mutants amongst their ranks and Annie knew that they needed to ditch the old plan and start again. But before she could reach Clint she watched on, in horror, as he was shot. 

Annie picked up her pace to close the very small distance between them, the distance which felt like a mile in that current moment in time. Throwing herself onto the ground beside him, Annie hoped that her latest trick would work. When a shine took to the air around them Annie felt safe enough to finally be able to concentrate on Clint and assess the damage. 

"Shit, Clint." Annie could tell this hit was bad, it had bypassed the vest he wore striking the side of his chest just below his rib cage. The blood that was present also indicated that this was not a good hit, he wouldn't be walking this one off. 

"Hey Ann." Clint responded his voice weakened by the hit. 

"Hey hot stuff. I don't think a band aid would be able to fix this one." Annie tried to stay positive as she watched on. She could faintly hear in the background Natasha reporting to the team that Clint had been shot. But Annie had to focus more on applying pressure to his wound and maintaining the force field she had around them. For the bunker was still firing at the pair on the snow covered field. A loud roar would alert her to the fact that the bunker had been dealt with. 

"Not even a Teenaged Mutant Turtle one?" Clint's sense of humour still seemed to be intact which was the only thing keeping Annie positive. Sure she had seen both of her partners shot before, multiple times. But she had never seen one of them bleed this bad. 

"Rafael can't help much now baby." Annie tried to keep her tone positive despite the words she was using. Rather she tried to focus on applying enough pressure to stop the pulsing feeling she could feel from his gunshot wound. 

"Guys, Clint's hit bad. We're gonna need to evac him." Annie shared over the comms system as she realised there was very little chance that they were going to be able to return to the fight. 

"Can you get Barton to the jet?" Captain America's voice responded first.

"I'll aid Miss Summers, the sooner we're gone the better. You and Stark secure the sceptre." Thor was the one to come to Annie's aid. The woman knew she could teleport the pair to the jet, she had successfully teleported them a couple times now, just never with the other person being injured before. Having Thor waiting on them would give her the reassurance.

"Nat are you coming?" Annie turned to look through the force field to her female partner. The woman taking one look down to Clint before turning back to Annie.

"I need to stay for Banner. Clint's your problem." Natasha's words were harsher than Annie was expecting. Sure she didn't actually expect the woman to agree to come with them but the words stung more than they should have. Fighting off the urge to give the other woman the middle finger Annie turned to deal with the situation she was currently leaning over. 

"You ready for a trip baby?" Annie spoke gently to Clint hinting at what was coming next. He groaned in response and Annie took that as a yes before focusing on the jet teleporting them both away from the field and into safety. When she arrived Thor had beaten her there, as she had hoped, and had gotten the bed out so they could transfer Clint onto it. 

"If you take your eyes off him and he bleeds out, you'll wish that death could save you." Annie spoke to the God without fear. An Thor could only nod in response, he was more than aware that the young woman would keep her word. And for what development he had seen in her powers in the last year or so, he too believed that she could cause him such harm. 

Annie became impatient as she waited for the others to return to the jet. Counting slowly as she saw each one turn up, Natasha and Bruce were the first to return with Captain America and Tony taking their sweet time to join the rest of them. The second Tony had stepped on the plane the back door was slammed closed and the Jet was preparing to take off. 

"No time to waste, take your seats." Annie didn't check that everyone was strapped in before setting off. Only turning to see who had taken the co-pilots seat. She was surprised to see that it was Tony who sat next to her. But she saw the worry on his face. Annie tuned out the conversation between Natasha and Bruce, she didn't want to hear the flirtatious tone that filled each word the pair spoke to each other.  She had one partner to focus on who could have been bleeding out as she flew. She did not want to think about the one currently backstabbing them just a few feet away. 

"Hey Banner, Dr Cho is on her way in from Seoul, is it okay if she sets up in your lab?" Tony had turned to Bruce for confirmation but Annie knew that the man was going to let the doctor set up their regardless of the man's opinion. 

"Uh, yeah, she knows her way around." Bruce agreed though he also seemed to be aware he had very little choice in this. 

"Tell her to prep everything, Barton's going to need the full treatment." Tony was planning everything out so that the stressed out pilot beside him had no need to worry. And Annie could tell he was doing this to care for the injured archer and his overly worried pilot girlfriend. Therefore, she turned to the man to catch him before he moved onto his next topic. 

"Thank you." She mouthed to him only to watch his hands move in response. As 'You're welcome' was signed back to her Annie came to realise just how much of an important friend she had made in Antony Stark. 

"Jarvis take the wheel." Tony spoke once more to his AI system and Annie felt as the controls were taken out of her hand. Tony nodded her to the direction of the still groaning archer as if to tell her to get over and shut him up. 

"Yes, sir. Approach Vector set." With the AI's response Tony also stood from the co-pilots seat patting Annie on the shoulder as he went to touch the sceptre they had all been searching hard for. 

Annie decided that she trusted the AI system enough to not crash the plane before heading over to Clint. She was annoyed to see that Natasha did not seem bothered by their injured boyfriend as she spent time trying to crack the illusive personality of Dr Bruce Banner. Deciding to ignore Natasha for now, considering she did not want to start an argument in front of the rest of the team, Annie crouched beside the bed reaching out to take hold of the closest hand she could reach. Her right hand was free and therefore, she moved to place it on the side of Clint's face gently moving her thumb to try to soothe him slightly.

"Not long left now. We're nearly there. We'll get you all fixed up and then we can head back home." Annie spoke lowly trying to make her voice seem soothing but she was sure her anxiety regarding the situation was overwhelming any attempts to be calm and soothing she was doing. The sound of the jet preparing to land was enough to confirm her words as Annie looked over to see Tony sat in the pilot's seat to help aid in landing the plane if the AI needed it. He had done so without needing to consult her, aware that she had other things to tend to which were more important to her. 

And before she turned back to Clint, Annie took the moment to realise just how proud of her friend she was. Tony Stark had come a long way in the previous years and she was happy to see where he would head next.