"You know, hope is a mistake. If you can't fix what's broken, you'll go insane."
Mad Max in "Mad Max: Fury Road"
The clouds grew thicker every minute, an ominous dark grey where as not long ago they had been flying through clear skies. Every second that ticked on, they were so much closer to the one place Ophelia never wanted to find herself back inside. Of course there were no HYDRA members still running the place, she was sure of it, but there was something far worse inside. Each time it crossed her mind, she squirmed a little bit in her seat, until it got so bad that Bucky noticed. He noticed all the little things she did, but his own mind was thoroughly distracted, and it took him quite some time to realize Ophelia's current state.
"A lot of good people were left behind today, people we needed with us," he said in a dark tone, his voice quiet. Steve's head turned ever so slightly in the pilot seat, listening to what Bucky had to say. Ophelia had her eyes focused on her hands, which were tightly tucked between her knees now. "We're short-handed, and we need all the help we can get. I want you by my side, but not in this fight."
She turned her big green eyes in his direction, realizing that he didn't know what she was capable of, and it was time to tell him. Her hands moved to the buckles that crossed over her chest in an X shape, and clutched onto the metal at the center of it, just over her chest. "I know I'm not as strong as you, as fast as you, as smart as you. I can never catch up to you, there are things that I know I'm not capable of."
"O..." He didn't like hearing her put herself down like this.
"I'm not done," she informed him, and took a deep breath. "Before you came into my life, I knew that I was going to die in the very base we're heading to right now. I didn't think I'd live to twenty-five years old with everything they put inside of me and everything they did to me. You taught me something I didn't even know existed; hope that I would make it, and I think that was one of the things that kept me alive all those years. Even when we forgot who one another was, we still looked out for each other, like you did with the Death Squad. If these last two years have taught me anything, it's that I'm not only what HYDRA made me. Part of me will always be what they've done to me, part of me will be what you've shown me, and what you -Steve- have shown me. Everyone I've ever met outside of HYDRA has shown me that I can be something different, something better."
"I thought I saw something different in the way you moved, today at the airport." Bucky had a smile on his lips, a real one.
Ophelia smiled, loosening her grip on her buckles and placing her hands in her lap. She played with her fingers, the jitter refusing to leave her. "The perfect example. I know there are parts of me still buried, and today just proved it. There are going to be things about me that I don't want to know, and might never know, but I am hoping that after all this, given that we are still alive, I need to know who I am. It was Wanda who opened my mind up to new reaches; I discovered something about myself that HYDRA did a very good job of hiding."
Bucky's eyebrows were narrowed, pulled in at the center, his smile gone as he tried to figure out what Ophelia was getting at. He had believed, up until now, that her speech was about discovering goodness inside of her, not new powers. And yet, this did not upset him, he was eager to learn exactly what she was capable of. Ophelia was like a flower in the dead of winter; something so rarely seen, and yet it was such a stunning sight that it made anyone stop dead in their tracks. To Bucky, Ophelia was a woman who stood out in so many ways, but had not grasped that about herself yet. Too many things in her life had shoved her back into the shadows, and finally the light was shining down on her, allowing her to bloom at last.
"Before you fell from the freight train," she paused, "I brought a large amount of people a lot of pain. I was able to highjack their memories, make them resurface, make them stronger, emphasize what they felt in that moment."
Bucky processed this for a minute. "Do you think-"
"That's why I kept getting inside of your head, that's why I kept getting you to remember." She smiled. "That's why they carved their symbol into me, though they were able erase my memories of what I was capable of, I was still using those powers even without the knowledge of it. They couldn't control me, just like they can't control you. Not anymore."
"You know Buck," Steve said from the front, "maybe falling from that train wasn't so bad after all."
Bucky cracked a smile, having an idea of where Steve was going with this. He glanced at Ophelia, and then replied, "How so?"
"You never would have met Ophelia otherwise."
"Maybe things turned out how they were supposed to," Bucky replied softly, knowing that Steve was right. There was no way, if given the chance, he would have opted to fall off of that train all those years ago, or to be used and abused by HYDRA. But the things that came of out it, it was like flowers blooming from decay.
"It gives me hope." Ophelia glanced out at the clouds again; the mountain was now in sight.
"I could have asked for a bigger team, but I couldn't have asked for anyone better than you two to have my back." Steve glanced behind his seat at Bucky and Ophelia. "I mean that."
Everything was on the table, and there were no more secrets holding her back. Ophelia felt that heavy weight lifted off of her shoulders, which often carried heavy burdens, and without that very weight, she knew that this fight was already starting off okay, despite complications.
Hearing the engines shifting, feeling them as they pulled back and made the jet slow down remarkably fast, she knew that they were seconds away from everything. Who knew if the Death Squad would be waiting for them, expecting them. Or perhaps they were gone already, disappeared from sight and ready to take down an empire. Knowing she could link with them, she was half tempted, but feared that somehow she might give herself away. If they had the element of surprise, they had to take it. Her powers were beyond her, she knew too little about them now, and wondered if maybe someone as in tune to their senses like the Death Squad could pick up on her being inside their heads.
The engines were killed, and the noises of the jet powering down ceased. Ophelia reached up and clasped the metal of her buckles again, so tight her knuckles grew white. And then she released her clasps, pulled her arms from the restraints and stood up from her seat. Steve and Bucky were up too, no one needed to say anything else.
Steve walked over to the side of the Quinjet near the door; written on the wall was "Romanoff" and when Steve pushed on it, a large array of weaponry was revealed. Bucky grabbed hold of the first gun that caught his eye, and Ophelia took a hand gun as well as extra clips. She preferred the small handguns; a lot of power in a small form.
Standing at the doorway, looking out at the snow ahead of them, Ophelia remembered when she first found Bucky in the snow. The snow had been covered in blood from his severed arm, it had looked crystallized and as though it were defying the snow. The warmth of the blood had melted some of the snow directly around his wound, but the snow had protected him, prevented infection from occurring. The flash freezing might have been one of the only things that kept him alive that day, although Ophelia had wondered back then if maybe he'd been better off dead. Of course, she would never wish that upon him, but knowing the pain and torment he suffered for so many years, had it been worth it? She glanced at him, and watched as Steve smiled.
What an odd time to smile.
"Remember that time we had to ride back from Rockaway Beach in the back of a freezer truck?" Steve asked Bucky and O listened intently; she knew so little about Bucky and Steve before their lives now, and had always loved whenever Bucky talked about his past. His best past.
"Was that the time we spent our train money... to buy a hot dog?" Bucky had a chuckle in his smooth voice.
Steve laughed. "You spent three dollars trying to win a stuffed bear for a redhead."
"What was her name again?" Bucky asked, glancing at Steve.
"Dolores." He didn't even hesitate; Steve really was kind to his core. "You called her Dot."
"She's gotta be about a hundred years old right now," Bucky said with an almost startled tone to his voice.
"So are we, pal." Steve laughed and slapped his hand upon Bucky's shoulder.
"You give all the girls nicknames, hey?" Ophelia grinned playfully, her tongue darting out over her lips which felt chapped in the drastic weather shift.
Bucky smiled lovingly at O; she did not speak in terms of jealousy, she never thought that way. Her words were fun, playful and a complete contrast to what they would be feeling as soon as they stepped into that base and came face to face with not only their nightmares, but their own past.
He shrugged lightly, his lips still in a smile, "What can I say? We're creatures of habit."