Leave Me Broken [Winter Soldier] II

Make Her Own Fate [Chapter 25]

"It was not the feeling of completeness I so needed, but the feeling of not being empty."

Jonathan Safran Foer's "Everything Is Illuminated"

         Ophelia had hardly made it out of the room when the crashing and yelling filled the previously silent base. For years it had been vacant, empty, only a holding cell for the terrible elite kill squad. Through her tear-filled eyes, she spotted a swift movement going around the corner, and something drove her to follow. Her feet picked up the pace as she darted down the hall, her gun at her side as she figured she no longer needed to protect herself. The fight behind her was not hers to intervene anymore, to risk her life in, and yet the more she thought about it, the more she hated herself for not defending Bucky. But it was his wish that she leave, to wait for him on the other end of this hate-fueled strive for vengeance.

         Tony had a right to be angry, to be devastated, Ophelia knew that. Trauma worked differently on each individual. But Bucky hadn't been in control of his life for seventy years; Ophelia knew exactly how much every single death at his hand haunted him. She knew he lost sleep over what he had done. But he had never done any of it with consent.

         Now Tony wanted to take the one person in this world who mattered to Ophelia. The first person to ever show her an ounce of compassion when she had not known what compassion had meant. The person who saw her for more than a chrysalid, more than her power. The one person she would not live without.

         She had never hated Tony Stark more than she did in that very moment.

        But in that very moment, she was distracted. As she turned around the corner, she spotted him. T'Challa was almost out of sight, about to turn around another corner when Ophelia called out to him. She was surprised to see him there, but she had an unsettled feeling within her. T'Challa had wanted Bucky dead more than most, so his presence here was unsettling and though he was walking away from the fight, Ophelia had to wonder why he was here. He hadn't shown his face and he was distancing himself from the fight; she needed answers.

        "T'Challa, stop, please..." 

         The man ceased his movements, muscles rippling in his vibranium suit. He turned and looked at her with movements that resembled the flawlessness of a feline. "You should not be here."

         "I was just about to say the same thing," she replied sternly, standing tall and making sure he knew that her weapon was simply in her hands and that she had no intent to use it. She had it for protection against the Death Squad, and now that they were gone, she had hoped she wouldn't need it at all.

            T'Challa walked closer to her, leaving only a few feet between them. "I am sorry that I tried to kill him. I was wrong."

            Ophelia blinked, cocked her head to the side.

           "They are going to tear each other apart," he informed her.

           "No." She shook her head, she refused to believe that. She turned her head back as if she could see the fight, but from all the way down here, there was only a distant crashing and banging of metal and bullets. "Help me, help me stop them from doing that."

           He shook his head. "This is not my fight."

          Feeling a rage build up in her even though she knew that he was right, she said, "It was your fight when you wanted to kill an innocent man."

            Even with his mask on, she could tell that T'Challa was jarred by her words, but they were not wrong. "Get out of here, while you can."