Leave Me Behind [Winter Soldier] III

This Life [Chapter 26]

"You're dislocated

Don't be like that

And you smile when you dive in

Like you're never coming back

So hold my body

Yeah, hold my breath

See your face when I black out

I'm never coming back"

"Fear of the Water" -SYML

Ophelia laid on the hospital bed and let Shuri place all sorts of electronic devices on her forehead to monitor her brain activity. In another world, Ophelia would never have let anything like that touch her again, but this was Wakanda, it was a friend who attached her to these devices, and it was her last chance at living. Sometimes, Ophelia thought that her previous life was easier. Running and fighting, surviving. It was what she was used to, and this felt different. This life was simple, and yet she was still failing at it.

"Wanda is going to remove her barrier, and I'm putting you under. From there, I'm going to implant a Kimoyo bead into the base of your skull, it'll protect your mind from the barbs that Wanda spoke of. But it will still allow you to access that part of your mind, hopefully allow you to find out where the Soul Stone is." Shuri explained all of this, but her voice wavered at the end. She added, "Ophelia...?"

"Yes?" Ophelia looked up at her with big green eyes.

"Do you really think this will work?" Shuri sounded so doubtful. 

"It has to," she said quietly. "Because I don't know what I'll do if it doesn't."

She'd heard him say that when she got into his head. Steve.

"Wanda will be here for backup, if we sense anything is going wrong. I won't pull you from your sleep, we will wait for you to wake naturally, because I don't know what damage we might do if we take you out of it," Shuri explained.

Ophelia nodded, understanding that this might be the last chance. Knowing that she might not make it out. She had never accessed her own mind, though Wanda had done it once. Her ability had changed since her return, but would she be so afflicted if she looked in her own head? Would she feel too much if she saw what her own mind had already processed? What could she find in there that she didn't already know?

"Are you sure you don't want to tell Bucky?" Shuri snapped her out of her thoughts.

"We had a good day today," Ophelia told her. "If I don't make it, then... well, at least he will have that."

"He doesn't want a good day, he wants a good life," Shuri countered. She glanced at Wanda who was sitting by the bedside. "Why are you so silent on the matter?"

"It is not my choice to make," Wanda replied.

"What would you choose?" Ophelia asked her, propping herself up on her elbows.

"I would choose to be with Vision again, if it was an option," Wanda said, her eyes downcast. Ophelia sometimes wondered if they were mirror images of each other. Unfathomable powers paired with unfathomable suffering. 

"And what if that option meant suffering? What if that option wasn't really an option?"

Wanda sighed. "I've never been given choices, they've always been taken from me. The only choice I made was the wrong one, the choice to join HYDRA. You know you never would have been killed in the first place if it wasn't for me?"

"Our choices in the past cannot determine what happens now. We've all made bad choices, Wanda, but your choice to join HYDRA has nothing to do with me."

"Ultron happened because of me, Sokovia was destroyed because of me. Zemo sought out to destroy the Avengers because of me. I was the tipping point that caused the Accords that divided Tony and Steve... Any way you spin it, it comes out the same," Wanda admitted with a flick of her head, as though she were trying to cast the feelings away, but they were attached to her.

Ophelia clutched her hand. "You know, it would be a lot easier if we just blamed HYDRA. I know I do."

Wanda chuckled, her nose scrunching on one side as she smiled. Loosening her shoulders and nodding, she said, "You're right."

"I know." When Ophelia turned to look at Shuri, she noticed the young woman was glancing at the entrance of her lab. Frowning, Ophelia asked, "Are we ready to do this?"

Shuri hesitated to turn and look back at Ophelia, but eventually forced herself to. She nodded, lips pressed tight together. Immediately Ophelia knew, Shuri didn't want to do this without Bucky present. Because should something bad happen, should Ophelia leave him behind again, it would be those who were still in Wakanda who would have to pick up his pieces. But Ophelia didn't have any other option, did she? Bucky would not give her the okay, he would never agree to it.

She nibbled her lip, wondering what else she could do. If she didn't confront the Soul Stone, she would deteriorate anyways. If she died going into her own mind today, at least she would go out with a fight.

Ophelia had been fighting her whole life, she wasn't planning on stopping now.

"Let's do this," Ophelia said sternly, an edge of anger in her voice. Not directed to anyone in the room, but to her circumstances. Her normal was fighting for basic rights, to live a simple life, to stop the suffering.

There was no more delaying, Ophelia went under, taking the pill that would open her whole mind to all influence, so she could delve into her own brain. At first there was nothing, Ophelia was lost and drowning in a sea of nothing. There was no rhyme or reason, she could see absolutely nothing, but she could sense her own existence. It was unlike anything she had done before. Entering someone else's mind, she could see the map within, follow each memory or feeling as they occurred. But her own mind was a labyrinth. 

Then there was that throbbing. Pulse. Pulse. Pulse.

Locating that gave Ophelia some ground to dig her heels into. To clutch onto and hold tight. Then her mind began to present itself, instead of searching memories, as she did so often with others, Ophelia found the feeling and gravitated towards it. That pulse began to fabricate, a redness like the neurons and stems in her brain lit up. She could see what the others told her now, the part of her brain that was surrounded by the barbs. They were so close, she could see those spikes pushing against her mind. But within her own head, she felt no pain, only that pulsing sensation.

She knew where she needed to go, she knew where a part of the Soul Stone had made itself at home. It was time for her to evict it, time for her to take back what was hers. All her life she had been owned by someone else. HYDRA, trauma, now the Soul Stone.

This life was hers, and she would die to take it back.