Bonitalito: I'm glad you're liking it, and I hope you've continued to like it so far. And this is in fact pre-Ultron. In fact, I do plan on eventually including May into the Ultron canon.
Aurora (guest): Thank you! They're both super fun to write, and I'm happy to hear that I'm pulling them off well.
MidnightMystery (guest): Thanks for dropping the review, and here's the next chapter!
Gilyflower: Sorry for the wait, but I do think you'll like this chapter. Hopefully it makes up a bit for the long wait :)
TheDoctor1994: Thank you for the kind words, and for letting me know what you think about my writing and the characterization. I'm really glad that their emotions are being portrayed so well.
Lovenit (guest): I'm sorry for the wait, thank you for being patient. And to answer your question….Now!
Chels (guest): There wasn't more, but now there is. Sorry for the wait. I fully intend to continue this story and any after it, since by now I'm very attached to my characters. It may take forever and a half, but there will always be more coming until it's done :)
Eeeeaud: Good news, there's plenty more adventures and awesomeness to come, and yes, even a bit more fluff. Thanks for hanging in there!
Varsha (guest): Yess! If you're reading this, I definitely am interested in your drawing if you're still wanting to do one. Your email didn't show up (and I'm glad, since this is the internet) and I can't Private Message guests. To be completely honest, you're the biggest reason I got off my lazy butt and finally wrote another chapter.
Hey, guess what. I'm alive! So nice to see you all again after all this time. Hope you're all doing well. Once again, I didn't respond to any reviews from unnamed guests, but thank you for dropping the review and also for the kind words and encouragement. Now onto the long-awaited chapter.
Disclaimer: I own everything. It's all mine. All of it. Mmhm.
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Chapter 28
And Now We Wait
(No Matter How Painful it is)
There's nothing worse than getting your hopes up just to have them let down again. The brief, almost painful feeling exploding in your chest just to deflate with a few simple words, or an insignificant action. Fear of this disappointment almost makes hope seem likes it's not worth it. But just like there's nothing worse than disappointed hope, there's nothing better than hope realized.
…
"Any change?" Natasha walked into the motel room, food held in her hands from the breakfast offered downstairs. I took the food she held out and put it down on the bedside table.
"I shook my head in response to her question and she sat down at May's feet with a sigh.
"Look, we've done all that we can, but it's been a day and she still hasn't woken up. We don't have the material or equipment to even begin treating what they did to her, or even how much longer she can hang on like this."
My hand gripped May's a little tighter at the thought of losing her again.
"What do you suggest we do?" Her hand went back to rest on May's ankle, tapping one finger as she considered something for a moment.
"I have an idea, but you're not going to like it." She glanced away for a moment, giving me an idea of just how little I might like this idea of hers.
"I know someone who's good with tech. If anyone can help her it's him." While I couldn't deny the hope that began to rise in me, right along suspicion as she avoided giving a name.
"Who?"
"Tony Stark." Immediately images from when I was Bucky began to fill my mind of a young inventive man with a little mustache. The night I first met him flashed through my mind, followed quickly by the last night I saw him. White hair had taken the place of his dark hair, but everything else was still the same including his little mustache. And I remember…something. The image of an old car filled my mind, bringing with it a great feeling of remorse.
I shook my head sharply to dislodge the image.
"No." I told her gruffly. She clearly wanted to press the matter but she must've seen something in my gaze because she reluctantly dropped it and began to take May's vitals.
"Her heart beat's a bit slow, but other than that everything's normal."
I looked down at the girl laying in the bed. The state she was in simultaneously made my heart hang with grief and made me wish I could go back and torture anyone who had dared to lay a finger on her. Her lips were chapped and split from lack of water, and her sunken cheeks were proof of how often she had been given food. The part that broke my heart most was her hair.
I ran my hand through her jagged short hair.
Not only had they tortured her and stripped her of who she was once again, but they had chopped off her long hair in uneven spikes.
Under her clothes were dozens of new incisions and needle scars all along her arms. Many of said incisions had been sloppily sewn, or not sewn at all.
As soon as we had begun driving after getting May back yesterday Natasha began doing all that she could with what we had; applying anti-biotics to her wounds, sewing and re-sewing and forcefully giving her water.
Each new thing I read in her file to find anything else we could do to help her, only made me realize just how hopeless this all was.
The day was uneventful and deceptively peaceful. We were staying in the closest town from the destroyed Hydra base, worried that travelling any more would worsen May's condition. We stayed the day for the same reason.
Natasha and I did some light hand-to-hand training to help pass the time, but anything more would draw attention from people in the rooms around us. Other than that the red-head had me help change May's many bandages (though for certain ones she had me turn away, with the promise of death if I peeked).
The night betrayed the day's peace. We were taking turns watching May through the night in case her condition worsened. And it did during Romanoff's watch.
I woke up from the room over to her urgent cries.
"Bucky! She stopped breathing!" I was up and running, arriving at her side before my mind had time to register the situation. The red-head was already doing compressions to force her heart to continue beating.
My hands gripped one of May's as I watched Natasha open her airway and force air back into her lungs, and I watched as the woman I loved tried to give up.
"Keep fighting, May. Please. For me."
Natasha finished that and went back to compressions, but stopped abruptly as May took a ragged breath, and rushed forward to hold her neck once again to keep her airway open until her quick shallow breaths evened out again.
From there she took May's vitals again. Then I was fixed with a look that made it clear what she was going to say next.
"I'm calling Stark." She left the room, pulling a cell from her pocket, but this time I didn't oppose the idea. I could only look on as May breathed steadily and continue to grip her hand in both of mine.
"Thank you," I whispered, since she hadn't left me. Even if it meant I couldn't go with her, I'd send her off to Stark. Because I knew already that I couldn't go with them to Stark. Whether or not I was still the Winter Soldier, I was associated with a lot of bad things over the past decades.
No, I wouldn't go and chance losing Stark's help because of me.
I gripped May's hand a bit tighter before leaning in.
"You scared me," I told her. "I thought you might try to leave me alone again." She laid still, like she had been for entirely too long. "You're going to go with Natasha to Tony Stark. Howard Stark's son. Did you ever hear about Howard? He was a genius – really great with technology. I hear Tony Stark is the same." As I spoke, memories flashed through my mind of the black-haired man. The unfinished memory from before tried to surface once again, but all I could grasp was the old car and the crisp air of a slightly chilly night.
I shook my head again, focusing instead on her dainty hand inside of mine.
"He's going to fix whatever happened to you, and bring you back to me."
Romanoff's voice drifted in from out in the hall and I listened as she spoke to Stark.
"…I don't think she's got that long, Tony…no, I can't tell you that. At least not yet…yes, she's a good friend of Steve's…I can't answer that either…I know…Are you going to help or not, Stark?...Great, we'll be there. Thank you."
She ended the call and walked back into the room.
"He's sending a plane out to get her. We'll meet him in two hours." Well okay. I had expected some resistance on Stark's part, not for him to send a plane.
"How did you manage that?" She gave me a look.
"I called in a favor." She said it like it was nothing, but I knew what it meant. Having a billionaire owe you a favor isn't a little thing.
"Thank you," I told her, and she looked up to meet my gaze briefly before looking back down at May.
"I didn't do it for you." Of course, but that doesn't mean I'm not grateful.
"She reminds me of me, I guess." She reached out and smoothed some of May's hair down. "A little bit. She's been hurt in ways no one should be, but stayed so pure and…innocent. Not many people can do that." Ah, so she's doing this as a redemption of sorts for herself.
"Do you mind watching her? I'm going to try to get some sleep before heading out." I gave a nod, more than happy to spend a bit more time with May before she left me again.
…
Before I knew it I was loading May's limp form into the back of the car Stark had sent (there wasn't a driver. It could drive on its own) while Natasha stowed their things in the trunk. The sky was still dark out so there weren't any witnesses for this event.
I gazed at the girl laying in the back as the redhead joined me, hands in her sweater pockets to stave off the slight morning chill. I reached into my own pocket and handed the thumb drive to her, hoping that the information on it could help them make her wake up.
"I'll get her back to you as soon as she's better," she promised, sticking it in her jean pocket. I nodded shortly before grabbing the car door and closing it forcefully. The sooner she got to Stark the better.
"Thank you." She nodded as well before giving me one last look and getting into the driver's chair before telling the car to go manual.
I watched as the car drove away until it disappeared, then watched a little longer. Then I returned to the motel room and promptly began packing my belongings.
No way was I going to be this far from May. I'm going to New York.
…
Natasha's POV
"Agent Romanoff!" I glanced at the familiar man as I stepped out of the car now parked inside of his private jet.
"Stark. Give me a hand." I popped the trunk and handed him the suitcases, before slamming it shut and going to grab May from the back seats. She was still unconscious, but the small heart monitor Tony had included with the car assured me she was still alive.
"So this is the reason I had to drop and run. Why's she out?"
"I'll show you in a moment." As soon as she was down on the bed in the plane included for times like this I took the suitcases from him and removed her file as we sat down, opening up to the pages that concerned me and Bucky the most. The plane began moving and I moved the file closer to him.
"When they were experimenting on her they injected her with toxic levels of a lot of things. I think that's the reason she's not waking up." Tony's eyes were already scanning through the file, brow furrowing as his eyes went back and forth. The plane leveled out in the air and the little seatbelt light turned off, leaving us free to leave our seats and stand closer to May.
"Holding back all the questions I have on who she is, why Hydra's concerned, and how you managed to take on a whole Hydra base single-handedly to save her, I'm really amazed that she's even alive right now." I crossed my arms and looked down at the girl, not surprised because I already knew that and held the same concern.
"Jarvis, how long until we're back at the tower?"
"Just under two hours, sir." Tony began going through things held in the med bay, filling needles with different liquids and lining them up as he went on to the next one.
"Make it one hour."
"Of course." I flexed my legs to keep from stumbling as the plane noticeably sped up, and the growing amount of needles shifted slightly from their line. Not that anyone cared.
"Alright Romanoff, on the likely chance that she starts moving, I'm going to need you to hold her still." And with that he began injecting her with whatever was in those needles. I hovered close, watching for any change in the girl, but still conscious of what he was doing.
"What are those?"
"Antitoxins. I don't have the tech here to monitor any side-effects, and I don't have all of the ones she needs, but this'll at least keep her from kicking the can until we're in my lab."
My eyes were still on the girl so I saw as she began twitching. Just a small movement in her fingers at first, but before long I was holding her down as her body twitched sporadically, keeping her from throwing herself off the bed.
"That means its working," Tony explained, before getting rid of the used needles and going to sit in one of the cushioned chairs. He threw his feet up and flipped through a magazine as I continued to hold the girl down, hoping he was right and she wasn't actually dying in my arms right now.
"It'll only last a few more minutes." As he said that her twitches began growing smaller, until she was lying still again. I wasn't sure if it was my imagination, but her breathing had grown slightly deeper than the shallow breaths she'd been taking for the last couple days.
"How did you know which antitoxins to give her anyways?" He'd never studied this kind of thing.
"I took an educated guess." He turned a page carelessly, completely missing the look I gave him. "And I would like to point out that my worst educated guess is a lot of peoples' best educated guess." He looked up, finally catching my look, and sighed irritably.
"Don't worry. Green Rage Monster is at the tower. He's a doctor."
…
"Tony I've told you, I'm not that kind of doctor."
"You're saying you don't know how to help her?"
"No, I'm not, it's just…" the scientist let out a long, painful sigh that spoke wonders. "Put her on the table. I'll see what I can do." He hadn't finished speaking before I had set her down on the metal table in his lab, her heart monitor beeping steadily. I was strong and she was light, but dead weight is difficult to carry.
"What happened to her?" He asked, coming to stand next to her and take her vitals.
"Hydra," I told him. "They messed her up pretty bad." The graying man looked at me and I tried to pretend I didn't see the hint of fondness in his gaze. Tried, being the key word. Instead it made me slightly flattered. I pursed my lips and looked back down at the girl.
Once Bruce's hands were free Tony handed him her file, and the man gave a whistle as he read through it.
"They weren't trying to kill her?" He clarified after looking up. I shook my head.
"Not that I know of." He looked back down at the folder and tapped a finger against the side of it.
"Look, Tony, I'd really like to help her but this place isn't a hospital. I don't have any of the tech she needs and the only supplies we have are in a first-aid kit." I watched as Tony opened his mouth to point out that he had recently added a small infirmary room to take care of any minor injuries, but Bruce sent a look that sobered him. He shifted slightly and looked up as if thinking.
"Yeah, point taken. Make a list, I'll get what you need." I smirked slightly at Bruce's face, realizing that his light refusal had gone straight over the billionaire's head, and watched as he visibly relented.
"I'll get it to you in fifteen. Just warning you, it's not going to be cheap." Tony had already turned around to leave the room, waving a hand in dismissal. Because for him money existed to be dismissed. I quirked an eyebrow in amusement at his retreating back.
"Who is she to you?" Bruce asked, going through May's file once more and occasionally jotting something down on a small notebook as he went.
"She helped me and Steve in D.C. last year." His eyes lifted to mine briefly.
"This is the girl Steve was talking about?" Nod. "The one who left him and chased after that Winter Soldier guy?" Another nod, this one a bit more hesitant. At the reminder of Bucky I remembered something else that might help him help May, and I reached into one of my pockets for the little thumb drive.
"This has some information on what they did to her, too. It might help." He took the drive and plugged it into one of his many computers, turning to look at a large screen as information popped up.
"Whoa," he breathed as multiple different folders appeared, and I was pleasantly surprised as well. It looked like that scientist who blew the building had put more than just information on May's experiments on the drive. But we could search through this new information later.
"Jarvis, find anything about May on here."
"Of course." The screen cleared of the files, leaving just one labeled 'Asset 2'. "This seems to fit what you're looking for."
It became apparent after a moment that the file had the same information as the folder Bruce had left on a smaller table next to May. All except for one thing.
"Look," he said, skipping to the end of the file. "This is new." My eyes skimmed the new pages, trying to understand what was being said and described, but I'd never taken any crash courses on human experimentation, so I wasn't sure what I was looking at.
"It says here that one of their past experimentations had shown slight results, so they administered these same chemicals to see if they'd get another reaction…but that would…wait." Bruce stopped pointing out different words, translating them for me, as he seemed to realize something. He turned quickly and retrieved the folder, opening to a different page and held it up next to the screen.
"You see this chemical here and here?" He pointed to an odd collection of letters and numbers on the screen and then the paper, and I nodded though I really had no idea what I was looking at. "When they're combined at too high of a quantity they come together to form a new…" he trailed off, brain now working faster than his mouth could follow. I didn't mind, since I hadn't understood in the first place.
After a moment he looked at me with a spark of – was that excitement? – in his eyes.
"I think I know why she's not waking up." After that he began speaking to Jarvis, telling the AI what he needed brought to the tower. As he did I sent one more look at the girl on the table before leaving the lab.
Bruce's lab was connected to his living quarters on the lowest of the residential floors of Avenger's tower, and mine was directly above his. But I was headed to Stark's floor.
The elevator dinged and opened, closing after I stepped in.
"Where to, Miss Romanoff?"
"Stark's floor."
He wasn't hard to find in the rooms composing his floor. He and Pepper shared the floor but the woman in question was presently taking care of the company over-time before flying out to address a few pressing concerns for the company. The woman had her hands full, and it was apparent that Tony knew this and was trying not to complain because of it.
Said man's voice was echoing down a hallway as he spoke to someone over the phone. I didn't have to guess where the hallway led, since I already knew it led to his lab. Pepper was gone so he was stressed; he was stressed so he was in his lab. Simple.
"Yes I- you have seen the tower? Is it too tall for you to see the landing pad?…Oh, you can see the landing pad. So what's the problem?…Look kid, I can just as easily call someone else up…Good. I'm giving you twenty minutes tops." He clicked his phone off, interrupting the other person's protests at the timeframe.
The man continued to tinker on some contraption like he had been all through the call, seeming completely unfazed. But I could see past that. Ever since the aliens and the portal, he'd been a lot more stiff than before. He'd seemed to get a bit better after the whole blowing-up-people fiasco, somehow, but it was still easy to see the stress coming off of him.
"Did you need something, or are you just watching the magic happen?" I stepped out of the doorway and into the lab, approaching him silently.
"I need to talk to you about something." He didn't look up, so I pursed my lips and continued. "There's someone I need to talk to occasionally who wants their identity kept unknown," I told him.
At this he turned his attention me and away from what he had been working on before, which was beginning to look like a part of one of his suits.
"Are you saying you have a boyfriend out there that you want to keep a secret from the rest of us?" Back when I had first met Tony remarks like this mildly annoyed me. Now I know him well enough to realize he wasn't just trying to be annoying – he was fishing for more information.
"No, I'm saying that there's someone out there that I'll need to talk to who wants to stay off the radar." He grabbed an odd tool and began tossing it from hand to hand. "That means I'll need you to not monitor my calls and emails."
"What about Facebook? Instagram?" I arched an eyebrow at him and he relented.
"Alright, say I give you complete privacy like you're asking and it comes back to bite me. What then?"
"That won't happen."
"Why should I take your word for it?"
"I guess you're just going to have to trust a member of your team." He paused at that jab and stopped fiddling with the tool.
"Alright," he said abruptly. "Fine. I'm going to trust you on this one." He stopped, then nodded again, as if still coming to terms with the idea. "Yeah."
Okay then. I turned around without further ado to leave before he changed his mind.
"Just one question," he said, causing me to pause just outside of the glass door. "Why does it matter so much?" I hesitated, before deciding on an answer that wouldn't give too much away.
"May means a lot to this person, so I'll just be giving updates on her health."
…
Down in the lab Bruce worked with his new equipment and injected May with different substances aimed to cancel out the harmful effects of the toxins inside of her. He turned his back for a moment to test some of the blood he had drawn, so he didn't see her hand twitch.
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Aaand surprise! Tony is particularly difficult to catch the character for, but that just makes him more fun. Really unique guy. You'll notice that I added him onto the character list. Before you ask, this wasn't a spontaneous decision: I've been planning on including Tony since the beginning. Once I finally start back up on Black Ice you'll see more of a correlation on why.
