Leave Me Behind [Winter Soldier] III

The Price [Chapter 12]

"We may encounter many defeats, but we must not be defeated"

Maya Angelou

Seated in the sunshine, Ophelia's skin prickling with sensation, she simply couldn't take her eyes off Bucky. No matter how beautiful Wakanda was, there was nothing more beautiful to her than him. In Wakanda for a few days now, Ophelia started to develop new and old habits, getting back into her way of life before she died. Still a concept she couldn't truly understand, she accepted the chance she was given by Steve. Reaching her hand out, she held onto Bucky's, pulling him out of a dazed state.

"You know, I've been through this before," Bucky said suddenly after half an hour of the silence between them. Only the gentle winds that caused the tall grass to lean made any noise. They were miles away from the bustling city, overlooking a lake from Bucky's small cabin.

"What?" Ophelia asked, hoping to nudge his thoughts from his head because she could not glance in there anymore. It pained her to not be able to use her powers, and yet, she never used them on Bucky unless she had to. Letting him explain things to her, letting him speak, that was worth more than her power.

"This," he gestured, "all of this. You being here, alive..."

She pressed her lips tight together, not understanding.

"Thanos..." Bucky started.

Ophelia remained quiet as to not disturb his train of thought. She had to let him speak, she had to understand exactly what was troubling him. For the last few days of her new existence, she felt a strange distance between them. Something she had never felt before, and it made her ache in ways that no bullet or broken limb could cause. No carvings upon her stomach could make her feel the way this made her feel.

"He got inside my head, O. During that fight five years ago... He looked inside my head and saw you. Even in there, I couldn't protect you, O. I felt like... He invaded my mind, he violated my memories. Now all I can see is... You, waking up from the hospital when I knew you'd died. In my head, I lived out a year with you. I woke up next to you, I made love to you, I felt your hands on my skin... Part of me knew it wasn't real, and yet I clung onto it as if it was. Then I was ripped out of it, but I wasn't free from it. Even though minutes later, I... died... When I came back, when you came back, I still can't wrap my head around it."

Ophelia slowly nodded, taking in every word he said. Knowing that Bucky was conflicted, confused about what was real and what was a product of Thanos, it was the first step in helping him. Though she knew little to nothing about Thanos, she was not there for that fight, she never experienced an existence where Thanos was present, she knew Bucky. She knew his head and how it worked, she knew how to tweak a few things here and there to help him come to terms with what was in there.

"Back in the motel, all those years ago, when you were still trying to figure out who you were, how you knew Steve... There was a point where I thought you'd never remember me. You asked me if I loved you like a friend, like Steve loved you. I knew then that I had to accept that you'd never remember me, that HYDRA had done something to those memories. I hoped maybe if you got to know me from that moment on, you'd fall in love with me, but I knew deep down without you remembering what we went through together it would never be the same.

"But you did. You did remember it. Because you've always broken down those barriers that were put up." She paused to take a breath, composed herself, controlled the flooding of emotion inside of her. "I need you to promise me, like you did before, you'll never put walls up against me... Bucky, you promised me that in the motel."

Looking down at the grass, Bucky pulled his hand away from Ophelia's and wrapped his arms around his knees. Allowing him the time to process her words was painful, because Ophelia was terrified of the distance that he was placing between them.