My Marvel World

Chapter Six

He was far past used to it by now. It didn't scare him, like it scared some people. His life demanded a lot of gory things, so he wasn't squeamish, but his shoulder hurt like hell.

Josephine screamed a second time, and Charlie looked up.

Rumlow had grabbed tightly onto her wrist, but that wasn't what she was screaming about. Rumlow had ran a long, crooked knife across her cheek, leaving a horizontal gash along her right cheek that could quite possibly leave a scar if it wasn't treated fast enough.

Sure, Josephine was one of the toughest people that Charlie had ever known. Her dad had shot BB guns at her when she was no older than a toddler, she had watched her mother get stabbed and taken away, she had seen all of her friends get injured more than once, she had fought in countless other battles, she was a top notch undercover assassin, and she had also survived a torture that resulted in her weapons manipulation power.

She could manipulate any type of gun or canon. Anything with gunpowder, really, although that wasn't exactly the rule. Unfortunately, this weapons manipulation didn't include knives, which wasn't exactly helpful at the moment. She already felt horrible that she had been off her guard enough to let Charlie get shot, but that's wasn't really her fault, as everyone would insist later.

Charlie narrowed his eyes again, his anger coming back at the sight of Josephine in pain, tears building in her beautiful blue-grey eyes. No matter how tough any type of person was, when someone dug a knife into the side of your face, it was going to hurt enough to make you scream.

There's only one way to do this right. Charlie thought, setting his decision.

In truth, he had been lying. He had been lying to almost everyone that he trusted. It felt horrible, to do something like that to them, but he had to. If they knew, they would have been targeted even more than they already were, which was quite a lot, in fact. He had been raised to hide things; his pain, his hurt, things that could hurt others. This was one of those things that could hurt others. Only the Starks knew, as of the day when they had all defeated Ultron, but it was necessary to show them, or else everyone they cared about would have died.

Charlie raised his left hand out, as if he was reaching for the two of them, the side that hadn't been shot by Rumlow, extending his fingers as far as he possibly could, even though it hurt his right shoulder beyond words.

He closed his eyes tight, turning his head away from looking at Rumlow and Josephine. He didn't like seeing how much this hurt people, no matter how horrible of a person they truly were. He didn't like using it at all, in fact.

He clenched his fingers into a tight, shaking fist, and Rumlow released his tight grip on Josephine. For a moment, he just looked shocked, his eyes wide open, as if he didn't understand what was going on. Then he dropped down onto his knees with a thump, dropping the crooked, bloody knife at Josephine's feet, splattering her black boots with her own blood. He shook his head, muttering the word 'no' under his breath, disbelieving of something that Josephine didn't understand.

Then he started screaming. Pained screams. Tortured screams. Screams of someone who had seen too much. Josephine would know.