Leave Me Broken [Winter Soldier] II

Emergence [Chapter 12]

"No matter how much suffering you went through, you never wanted to let go of those memories."

Haruki Murakami

December 2014

            "Bucky!" Ophelia called from the small stand up shower, wishing so badly to be able to lie back and actually have a bath. But this was their home, and they didn't have the luxury of a bathtub. The water was only a trickle, dropping onto Ophelia's back. She was leaning her head out of the glass door of the shower and made a face. "Bucky!"

            "What?!" He called back from the apartment.

            "I forgot a towel," she said sheepishly, half of her hoping that he wouldn't hear her from the other side of the door. 

            This was the third time this week that she had done it. Having only been in the apartment for a few short months, Ophelia was still getting used to not living in a cell. Habit was slowly fading, making room for new ones to form, but there were a lot of little things Ophelia just wasn't used to. Doing dishes, returning books to the library as she frantically tried to read way more than she could, remembering her towel when she went to shower. 

             Little things, they were slowly beginning to create a new Ophelia, one that was free for the first time in her entire life. There were good habits, and bad ones; coffee was a new addiction of hers, and she tended to brush her teeth four times a day because she could. Bucky had once commented on it, and she replied that she'd never had proper dental care, and so she did everything she could to keep all parts of her in good condition and functional.

          Bucky opened the door, holding the towel in without looking. O pursed her lips and realized she couldn't reach it. "I can't reach. I don't want to drip over the floor."

          The door opened wider, and Bucky came in wearing nothing but a pair of jeans; the glass shower doors were frosted and so he could only see her outline. His eyes studied her blurry frame for a few seconds, and he handed her the towel. Ophelia smiled at Bucky when she noticed he was looking at her; they had been living together for a few months, they had known each other for decades, they had seen each other at such vulnerable states, they slept next to each other every night, and yet they had never truly slept together. Ophelia always felt as though when they kissed, they were opening up everything they had to one another, but she suddenly realized that she was craving more. And if she was reading the signs right, Bucky had let the thought cross his mind more than once.

            "Bucky?" she said as she grabbed the towel from his hand, letting her skin brush against his shamelessly.

            "Hmm?" He dropped his eyes respectfully to the floor.

            Ophelia pushed the door to the shower wide open, stepped out, and stood there stark naked in front of him. Bucky only widened his eyes a fraction, Ophelia might have missed it if she didn't know his every expression. She smiled, then she blushed; she had never done anything like this before.

          The look on Bucky's face was soft, a look that suggested he was in awe of her, a look that made Ophelia experience a pleasure she had never endured before in her life. There were so many good things, things she had never been able to taste before. She had only cracked open a window when there were hundreds of doors to go through as well.

            "What do you see when you look at me?" she asked.

             Bucky knew the answer to the question wasn't as simple as it could be. There was so much more to Ophelia than she knew, and she was starting to realize it. The things she was doing now that she wasn't caged, Bucky was truly seeing her open up into an entirely new person. She laughed, she joked, her eyes smiled with her lips. The way she would press her finger to her lips when she was thinking hard about something or reading too deep into a fiction novel. Before the war, Bucky had seen women differently. They were always fun, they were always pretty, but they were never Ophelia. He never stayed with one woman for more than a few dates, and it wasn't until he discovered a whole new person inside of himself that he saw O.