Bet you didn't expect an update. Well, I live to surprise. Alright guys, I have a couple announcements, an apology, and a quick confession to make. I'll start with the apology. I'm sorry for how long I've continually made you guys wait for updates. It doesn't feel like it's been nearly 5 years since I started writing No One, but it has been. You've all been so patient with me and unknowingly encouraging. Next is my confession. Over the last few years I've been really struggling with anxiety and depression. It got to the point where I was having multiple panic attacks and mental breakdowns every week and sometimes I'd wake up with no motivation whatsoever to even get out of bed. Two semesters ago I got two incompletes in college (nearly four) and was warned countless times by professors to do better or I'd fail the class. Last semester I didn't think I'd survive another semester, even if it was just two classes, and so ended up taking it off and focusing on my health. It's been a long battle, and it's not one I'll ever completely win I think, but I am now ready to finish by degree and feeling better than I have in so, so many years. You guys helped. Every time I felt alone in the world I'd get a little notification that someone had reviewed and all of you left such kind words. Thank you guys.

Now on a happier note, now that I'm feeling better my motivation to write has suddenly reappeared! So a few announcements! I am currently rewriting No One, and plan on posting the first chapter soon. I started that as my first fic nearly half a decade ago, which makes me feel old, and now whenever I read the original I cringe and wonder how on earth anyone can stand reading it. Comparing the revised version and the old version makes me proud of how far my writing has come (often spurred on by you guys). Also, many times in the past I forced myself not to start up on other fics I wanted to write in favor of finishing the ones I've started. It turns out that this doesn't actually help me finish my fics, and just stops me from wanting to write. Due to that I have another couple stories that I'll be putting up. Hopefully just writing whatever I want whenever I want will keep my creative juices flowing so updates don't ever take this long again.

I've really fallen in love with my characters, and there's nothing in me that wants to let any of them go. So even if it takes another decade I do promise another update will always be on its way (unless I die, or something, because that's not really something I can control). Now without further ado,

Disclaimer: *Ahem* Own anything you recognize, I do not.

[o]

Chapter 29

Waiting For A Reaction

(But Not That One)

Back when I was a child and still being trained and conditioned by the leaders of the Red Room, death and pain were as natural to me as dancing and breathing. I didn't know that life could be any different, and by the time I was released out into the world I had been trained better than to wonder if perhaps my life wasn't so great compared to the lives of those I ended. Until Clint came along and opened my eyes to what I could have. So when May came along it was easy to see in her the pain she'd endured and the horrible things she'd witnessed. Perhaps I just wanted to be her Hawkeye.

Natasha's POV

"Bruce has done everything he can think of. He says the rest is up to May," I told Bucky through a new brick phone.

"But she's stable?" His voice was slightly muffled, as if he was outside and a slight breeze was trying to carry his voice away.

"Yes. I'll call you again as soon as there's a change." I clicked the phone shut without further ado, then tossed it onto my bed. A nap sounded pretty good right now. I hadn't slept too much with the whole May fiasco so I may just catch some shut-eye while I could, then go down and train for a bit.

It had been a couple days since we got to Stark's tower and during that time Bruce had tried everything he could think of without making things worse to help May. She was stable now, and Bruce claimed that all we could do now was continue to wait.

I can do that. I'm an assassin. Waiting is my thing.

"Miss Romanoff," came Jarvis' voice over the speakers in my room. "Dr. Banner needs you in his lab." I guess the nap would also have to wait.

I could guess a few different reasons Bruce would need me down there, but despite myself I was hoping for only one of them. I missed the girl. It would be nice to be able to talk with her again, get to know her better.

I crossed my arms as the elevator carried me down to Bruce's floor, one finger tapping a rhythm against my arm. The last time I had really talked to her was over the phone nearly a year ago, when she had called me out of the blue asking for a fake I.D. She had sounded lonely and relieved to hear a friendly voice, and I figured the assassin she had run off with wasn't exactly being good company.

Honestly, I really hadn't known her very well before she disappeared. How could I have? I had known her for the span of a few days while taking down the carriers, but she had grown on me. Somehow, I found myself fond of the quiet girl who had healed a bump on my head for no reason but to help.

As soon as I stepped into the lab I knew something was happening. Bruce was moving quickly between machines, taking note of some readings, typing in a few keys, and injecting something into the drip being fed into May's arm.

"What's going on?" He hardly spared me a glance before turning back to the machine he was currently focused on.

"Perfect timing. I think she's about to wake up and figured a familiar face would be best." As he said it May's fingers began twitching before her hands clenched into fists.

I went to her side and combed my fingers through her uneven hair.

"Hey, can you hear me? May, I'm right here. Open your eyes." Her lips twitched slightly and her eyelids scrunched up, as if trying to keep themselves closed.

"That's it. Just follow my voice. You're safe now." All of her movement abruptly stopped and I wondered if I had lost her. Then she took a deep breath and her eyes slowly opened.

…

It had been an hour since she woke up, and we still weren't entirely sure what to do. I looked down at the girl, now unconscious again and strapped down to the table with an IV in her arm. Tony had joined us and we were now wracking our minds for what could have just happened.

Her screams still rang in my ears. When she woke I tried to calm her down since I figured she would be disoriented from the change in scenery. I thought she would be scared, not angry.

"Let me get this straight," Tony said, chin still held in one of his hands while the other was hugged across his midsection. He had held this position the whole time Bruce and I had caught him up on what had happened, as well as Bruce's theories on what may be the problem.

"She wakes up and starts screaming. Not because she's scared but because she's mad. Doesn't recognize Natasha. You're worried she'll end up hurting herself so you put her back to sleep." Bruce nods. "And you think she's just disoriented from trauma." Another nod. "So what are you going to do about it?"

"We, Tony. I don't know how to treat this kind of stuff. If we're not bringing her to the hospital this is going to have to be a group effort." Tony looks down again, gazing at the close-eyed girl.

"What if you're wrong?"

"Then I'll have to come up with a different idea. Or we could bring her to a hospital where they've trained for years on how to deal with stuff like this. They can give her brain scans and all sorts of stuff that we can't do here."

"Have you called Dr. Cho? She's helped us before."

"This isn't her area of expertise either, and she's busy with her latest synthetic tissue project."

"So what now?" Bruce sighed.

"Now we change her bandages, fatten her up, and hope that the next time she wakes up she doesn't start screaming," I supplied.

"Here's the thing, though," Bruce finally conceded. "I was looking through her files and this isn't the first time she's acted like this."

He pulled her file over and opened it, laying it out so we could see.

"When they originally got her, a scientist named Zola suspected that her young age was impeding the power of her ability, so they would essentially 'age' her in isolation. Sometimes when they finally took her out she would be, well, insane. Something they did to her must've triggered this same behavior."

"Well she wasn't acting like this in D.C.," Tony interjected. "How did they fix her before?"

This time Bruce hesitated. "They electrically modified her neural pathways to force her to forget her time in isolation, reverting her state of mind to how it was before. It says here the memories taken were usually imprecise and the side effects include intense pain and spasms."

"I'm sensing a problem with this, other than the obvious," I noted, since the troubled look hadn't left a single time since he began explaining it.

"As far as I can tell, she's never been triggered by experiments before. I don't know if this way would work this time, and we'd just end up hurting her, taking memories, and potentially making things even worse.

"In other words," he concluded. "I don't know how to help her."

"But we can figure it out," Tony said. I looked down at the unconscious girl, looking so calm in comparison to when she woke up. We better figure out how to fix her or there will be a heart-broken man to mourn her loss a second time.

"For now let's start with recreating the machine to wipe her memories, since that's all we've got," Stark clapped his hands together, rubbing them as if he was ready to replicate the brain-washing chair that moment.

I sent a scalding look his way and he quickly raised in hands in surrender. "We'll have to make some changes, of course."

"It'll have to be more precise in the memories it takes and manage to alter her neural pathways in a less painful way, for starters."

"You took the words right out of my mouth."

"The only problem with that is we don't have the blueprints for the chair," I reminded him.

"No problem. If Hydra could make it I can make it better." Bruce raised his eyebrows at the man.

"I meant 'we'."

"In the meantime we can take turns watching May when she wakes up."

"Because we're not just keeping her under until it's is ready, why?"

"Tony!"

…

I was presently in the training room while Tony tried his hand at finding a way to help May while Bruce watched after said girl.

All things considered she was doing well after waking up a couple days ago. If you overlooked how she would sit and do nothing for hours, reacted strangely to random sounds and movements, had the attention span and mood swings of a toddler, didn't seem to understand most of what we said to her, and occasionally struck up conversations with someone only she could hear, then yes, she was doing okay.

In a few minutes Bruce would call down to switch so he could work with Tony, so I wanted to get as much training in as I could. Plus, I was putting off talking to Tony. I hadn't told Barnes about May's condition yet, figuring it might be easier just to show him (since the wanted ex-Hydra assassin seemed to think it was smart to follow us to New York), and needed to make sure Stark wouldn't track or monitor us.

"Miss Romanoff," came Jarvis' accented voice. "Mr. Banner would like you to come get Miss May." I smirked at the name he'd taken to calling May, since she didn't have a last name that we were aware of.

"Got it." I hit the dummy firmly in the face once more then stopped, stretching my arms above me. "Can you connect me with Stark?"

"Of course."

After a moment Stark's voice followed me through the speakers as I left the training room.

"What's up?"

"I plan on taking May out for a bit. Don't track us." I left through the sliding doors and made my way towards the elevator.

"Yeah, okay. Sounds like the perfect time for people to get their hands on her."

"If anything happens I'll call you guys. Besides, this'll help keep her away from Steve." The blonde man had been suspiciously absent for large portions of the day, it was just the problem of when he and Sam would randomly show up, since we were trying to keep her presence here in the tower hidden from the blonde and friend.

"Does this have something to do with the mysterious person concerned about her health?" I heaved a sigh and entered the elevator, Jarvis sending it down to Bruce's floor without me bothering to tell him.

"Yes, it does. I'll have her back before dark, dad," I snipped.

"See that you do." The voice cut off and I rolled my eyes. The elevator door opened and I exited, making my way to where the voices were coming from.

…

Bucky

I waited impatiently in my hotel room, tuning out the sound of the New York traffic and pacing back and forth. Natasha said to prepare myself for the worst.

She hadn't been pleased when she learned I'd followed them to New York but had still agreed to bring May once she woke up and stabilized. And apparently she'd be here in five minutes, and the room needed "child-proofing".

I went around the motel room, getting rid of anything remotely unsafe and then some. Nervous excitement filled me at the thought of seeing May again, but not knowing what would be different about her. Maybe she hated me now for not finding her sooner, or for letting Hydra take her in the first place.

A knock sounded on the door, and I fought down the panic that tried to freeze me in place. But somehow, I managed to get over there and open it for the red-head leading a brunette in by the hand.

I watched Romanoff's eyes dart around to evaluate the layout and possible escape routes before turning to face me. But May's eyes didn't do the same sweep like I had expected. In fact they didn't move at all from where they stared blankly at the floor a few feet ahead of her.

"Barnes," the spy greeted, but I didn't acknowledge it.

"What's wrong with her?" I turned my gaze to meet hers and I didn't like how she was searching my gaze as if to see if I could handle her next words. She finally sighed and broke her gaze, pulling May with her further into the room.

"You're going to want to sit down." I followed and watched as she turned the TV on and switched to a loud kid's show before leading May to sit on the ground. The girl stared up at it for a moment before her gaze fell once again to the ground.

Romanoff patted the hotel bed and I complied to sit next to her.

"From her files we've determined that she's gone insane," she stated bluntly. I blinked slowly and looked back down at the shell of the girl I used to know.

"What triggered it?" If Natasha was surprised by my nonchalance at the revelation she didn't show it.

"Hydra used some sort of machine on her that must have unblocked something they previously blocked off in her mind. We have an idea to recreate the brain-washing machine they used on her before to fix her." My jaw clenched slightly at the mention of the machine that tore my memories from me.

"The chair," I said gruffly. She quirked an eyebrow.

"Whenever I made mistakes or started showing signs of Bucky they would strap me to the chair and erase my memories until I was just a blank slate."

"They did the same to May?" I shook my head.

"From what she told me they would erase as few of her memories as they could; just enough to get rid of her insanity."

He told me all he could about the chair, its expected results, affects, and how it may have been used on May in the past based on what she'd told him. While he spoke his gaze stayed on the despondent girl on the floor and I took note of anything that could help Bruce and Tony.

Once he finished his explanation it went silent as he again observed the despondent girl. It was heartbreaking, really, that he'd been reunited with her only to realize she was still out of reach.

"You know, if we are able to get her back to normal the others will try to recruit her. Healing is a great ability, one the Avengers could use."

He met her eyes briefly, not responding. Instead of sharing his view on the topic he stood from the bed and went to her side before crouching down slowly, trying not to upset her in any way. Once settled he uncertainly reached out and carefully placed his hand over one of hers clenched on her leg.

As I expected there wasn't any reaction or indication she was even aware of his presence next to her. Then, as I watched, her head turned ever so slowly towards his own. I leaned forward and watched in amazement. The ex-assassin readily met her gaze, seemingly trying to find something in it.

"May." He said it tenderly, like her name itself was something to treasure. She didn't respond but still held his gaze as she slowly rotated her hand in his until their palms touched.

And just like that the spell was broken as her gaze once again grew distant before returning it again to the floor in front of her.

It wasn't long after that I decided it was time to head back. I had information to relay back to the others. And watching Barnes was getting depressing.

As we waited in traffic I ignored May's muttering, aside from when she mentioned 'that man.' Figuring she was recalling Barnes I tuned her back in.

"You thinking about that man from before? Hmm? He's a good friend of yours." She continued muttering past me and I wandered back on the reaction Barnes had garnered from her. It's the most I'd seen her respond to someone since waking.

An ACDC song began blasting over the stereo system and the girl jumped harshly and fell silent, now tense as a wire. After a moment I recognized it as the ring tone Stark had set for himself and pressed a button on the wheel to answer it.

"Oh good, I was worried I'd catch you with your boyfriend."

"What do you want Tony?"

"Your ETA." I glanced at the time then at the sluggish movement in the cars ahead of us.

"Why, is something wrong?"

"No, Bruce and I think we may have found something."

"I have some information that might help, too."

"Well shoot."

"I caught wind of some sort of chair that – "

"– Messes with peoples' brains? Yeah, that's what we found."

"Do you think that's how they got her back to normal before?"

"That's exactly what I think. Now that we're all in agreement I'm gonna get started on a prototype."

"Alright. We'll be there in around 20." I glanced at the girl out of the corner of my eye. "Oh and Tony, make sure Bruce does actually help."

"You're both doubters. I'm perfectly capable of making a humane brain washing machine." My lips quirked.

"Just to be on the safe side." With that I ended the call. I got out my phone when we were stopped once again and shot Barnes a quick text.

The rest of the week I was on May duty while the other two worked. Vague blueprints on the chair had been found in one of the other folders on the thumb-drive and based off that they were trying to make their own take on Hydra's machine, without the negative side-effects. The aim was to simply block of her access to those memories and the past and present pain that had been triggered while they had her, or something along those lines. The thought of what we were essentially doing to her was chilling, but I was willing to deal with it if it meant fixing her. Plus, she was a big lead in Steve being reunited with Barnes. Which had to happen soon or he'd drive everyone crazy.

…

By the time they'd finished with the actual machine they'd both grown bags under their eyes and a face full of stubble. I appreciated the priority given to it, especially since they'd never actually met the May Steve and I had known a year ago.

"You're sure this won't hurt her?" All four of us were now in the lab where a…well, it looked like a sleek silver bike helmet was being attached to May.

"Positive," Bruce replied easily. "The only thing that'll hurt is the IV so we can put her to sleep while it works. That way she won't try to fight the effects."

"How can you be so sure?" I arched a freshly plucked eyebrow.

"Because we tested it." I blinked at him in surprise, turning to Bruce for confirmation. He shrugged.

"No matter how hard I try I can't remember what I ate for lunch two days ago. Or what the outside of my first house looked like, as well as various other things like that. By that point Bruce was prepping her arm, helmet attached with multiple wires running from it to a nearby machine. I let out a long breath before nodding.

"Let's do this."

He inserted the needle quickly and taped it on securely with Tony hovering close by in case she struggled against it. The drug was fast working, and before she even realized what he had done her eyes were already lulling. Before long he was slowly easing her back onto the table as her eyes slowly shut a few moments later. I crossed my fingers, hoping that this would work.