"You're dislocated
Don't be like that
And you smile when you dive in
Like you're never coming back"
"Fear of the Water" -SYML
"Bucky..." she said, knowing that his name had triggered memories before. Her breath was the only thing warm about her, and when she spoke his name, it was as if it went up in smoke right in front of her. Dissipating, useless, meaningless. Just like her in the eyes of HYDRA. She could see in his stoic stance that he did not recognize her as Ophelia anymore; he saw his mission. It startled her to the point where she stood frozen, unsure of what to do or what to say.
It was too late; not a single thing altered in his eyes to show he understood when she spoke his name, not like before. Before he had only been jostled of his memories; lost but still in reach. Now they had been fried out of his mind, possibly gone forever. Replaced with ugly things, replaced with dangerous things. They hadn't bothered to waste their time with anymore verbal brainwashing; Ophelia failed her task and so they took it into their own hands as she knew they would.
They had gone all the way and shocked the humanity out of Bucky. Electricity and torture went a long way, even in just a few short days. She could see the lifelessness in his eyes even behind the goggles as he stared at her. His metal hand twitched as she took a single step backwards; it whirred and she could hardly hear it, but it frightened her. Weaponless, hungry, tired, and ready to give up, Ophelia stared at the Winter Soldier with a shattered look in her eyes. Eyes that would have looked beautiful to him in this sunlight, if he had been Bucky.
There had been something about Bucky.
Ophelia had liked it.
But that was gone.
"Please," she whispered, wondering why he had not made a move to kill her already. Did they still want her to run for her life? Did they want to witness her demise so badly that they would allow her to run away from the Winter Soldier? Unmoving, Ophelia decided that she would not give them what they wanted. No, she was not going to run and she was not going to give up; she had to try something else that would show HYDRA she was not a weapon, but a human who maybe didn't deserve life, but deserved some humanity even if it might be her last day on Earth.
The Winter Soldier remained as still as the mountain itself, but ten times more intimidating than the mountain ever would be. The mountain would remain there for many years as it had been there for many years before, it would not change with the pull of the world. It cared not for who stood upon it, nor who fell in the way of the avalanches it sometimes threw down with great power. Something told Ophelia that the Winter Soldier also didn't care who got in his way, but she wasn't going to change her mind about what she had planned. She owed this much to Bucky for showing her what she deserved, showing her kindness. Pulling his goggles off of his eyes, he revealed a wild look on his face, a crazed look that Ophelia was sure she had seen before on her own face. She studied his eyes, those sky blue eyes. They looked dull today.
Deep down, she wondered if it was an instinctual predator-prey relationship. Often times the predator could not see the unmoving prey. But Bucky's eyes were locked onto her, a tangle of emotions forming in those eyes of his now; his brows pulled down in confusion. She could not determine what he was going to do next, so she removed her mask to show off her face. Perhaps visual memory would bring him back, but he had hardly known her long enough to truly care. That was HYDRA in her head, she knew, and yet she could hardly shake the thought. Having known Bucky for little less than a week, she knew it was stupid to think he cared, and yet those few days together had felt like a break from HYDRA. Everything she said, she spoke with a tremor in her voice, but the way Bucky was able to talk to her, reminded her that she was more than this. More than HYDRA.
He remained still.
This unnerved Ophelia. "It's me, Bucky... It's O."
"O..." he echoed her words, and for a moment Ophelia thought that she had broken through.
Having been a HYDRA puppet for so many years, she should have known better. Bucky his arm over his head, behind him. She watched as the matte-black gun came out in his hand from behind his strong back. Luckily, she knew that his ribs were broken, still healing from his fall. He had weak points and as she had no weapons, this gave her a slight chance. If she could move faster than him, even with her wounded leg, she might have the same odds as someone who brings a knife to a gun fight. And those were far better odds than she had expected.
Bucky cocked the gun, pointing it at her. That was when she felt her survival instinct kick in and she tore off to the side, limping from her bullet wound. Using the large Siberian pine trees as both shields and as hiding places. She was far enough down the mountain to have the trees as shelter, and for that she was thankful. The snow muffled her steps, but also left a trail for Bucky to follow with ease. His movements were not as fast as hers; more mechanical than human. It struck terror in Ophelia more than him running would have, but she kept moving. With each shot that was fired her terror increased ten-fold; she was too distracted to count his shots, but knew that he could run out if he wasn't smart. Being the prey was harder than being the predator, as she had learned when she woke up in the snow knowing she was being hunted in some cruel jape by HYDRA.
She wouldn't go out like this, for what Bucky had said to her in that operating room, she couldn't let him fall through on his promise. Not that he would ever know he broke his promise, not anymore.
As the tall trees blotted out what little sun was still above, Ophelia knew that she had more cover here than anywhere else on the mountain, but she was still far from safety. She could hear the crunch of the snow coming near her after she had ducked behind a cluster of large pines. Her heart beat so loud in her chest she feared that it would give her location away. She no longer felt the bond between her and the Winter Soldier, which led her to believe that her path finding abilities were no longer in his system. Ophelia had one chance to make her plan of attack work, otherwise she would be face to face with death.
Above her, the clouds had come in already, and snow began to fall heavily now. The Winter Soldier entered the cluster of trees and Ophelia spotted him in her peripheral vision. Sliding between two trees, she put herself behind him. He stalked through the forested area, scanning the tracks to see where she had gone. The snow was deep, and she left deep prints, but the snow was falling almost hard enough to cover her tracks. There were vague marks left behind. It occurred to Ophelia that he was following her tracks, not using her own power to find her. She was right about her power wearing off, and she wondered, hoped, that Bucky might still be retrieved. Or futhermore, they would keep her alive for her ability as it did not last within his mind.
She came out from behind her trees and kicked Bucky in the middle of his back, the bulk of the area being his wounded ribs. The man collapsed, dropping to his knees in a forceful motion, and then wrapped his arm around his ribs, turning his head swiftly to look at her. Within a second he brought his metal arm around his body and fired a shot, narrowly missing her. So, there was nothing of the Bucky she knew left. Somehow, it didn't make fighting him any easier on her conscience, but she did not falter. She threw a punch at him, but he blocked it, in turn loosening his grip on his gun. It flew into the snow, disappearing a few inches into the powder. Ophelia made a mental note of where it had landed, she would need it. As the hand to hand combat came into play, she felt alive, but for how much longer she could not say.
They were almost in sync with their motions; fluid but always blocking the other's punch. He had the advantage of being well fed, strong, and with soldier instincts. He had the disadvantage of being wounded. Ophelia had no upper hand, this was a fight she could not win. She had never been trained well in hand to hand combat but she had picked up a few tricks here and there in her time. She wouldn't go out without a fight.
As she went for his ribs again, Bucky blocked her with a kick, sending her flying back into the snow. She sunk into the snow and was not wounded from the fall; the kick however was going to leave a bruise. If she made it out alive, that is. She spotted the gun and turned to crawl towards it, but her hand sunk into the snow, making the crawling extremely difficult and cold.
When she reached it, she pulled it from the snow and rolled onto her back to fire at Bucky. He towered over her body and looked at her, two guns pointed at her. They both looked into each other's eyes, each with a gun pointed at their heads, each unsure of what to do. She could have fired, but something in her wouldn't allow her to kill Bucky. Like the gun was made entirely frigid, she could not pull the trigger. He may not have been Bucky anymore, sure, but he had no part in what he had become. That was HYDRA's work. If she killed him, she would be hurting HYDRA's plans, but Bucky didn't deserve it. Only a few days ago he had said he would free her; maybe this was how he was going to keep his promise to her.
"Do it," she said, her tone guttural. "It is the only way you can free me."
He stared at her. His expression remained unchanged, but it appeared he could not pull the trigger either.
"Finish it, Bucky."
She saw him swallow, his Adam's apple lifting and lowering. His lips parted as if he was going to speak, but all he did was breathe heavily. His warm air fogged in front of his face, then vapourized in the air. While his eyes were wild and wide, his posture dropped, he lowered the guns and then his gaze. His gaze followed the outline of Ophelia who was still lying on her back in the snow. Then threw both of the guns down into the snow, both of them sinking slightly into the soft powder. A moment of silence filled the whole world then.
"Go," he said sternly, but quietly.
"What?" Ophelia was beyond stunned that he hadn't just put a bullet into her head, but she needed to move quickly. Her window of opportunity was likely to be thin. Deep inside she was ecstatic that Bucky was still there. "Come with me."
"I... I can't." He looked down at the snow, as if looking for the answers there. He was not quite Bucky, but he was not entirely the Winter Soldier. He was somewhere in the middle, without answers or understanding, just a gut feeling that killing this woman was wrong.
"Please. I need you. I can't survive this world alone." She would need him. To survive in the world; she would need someone else. She got up from the snow, slipped the gun behind her parka and into the waistband of her pants. She walked up carefully towards Bucky; he was there, she could feel it. Her hand seemed to move to his cheek, which was covered with a few days of stubble. It tickled her palm, but she followed through on her action. Never before in her life had she felt so inexperienced.
Her lips were frozen, nearly purple; Bucky's a crisp pink. As she went onto her tip-toes, she sunk further into the snow, but Bucky wrapped his good arm around her and pulled her close, his lips hesitant at first, and then slowly meeting with hers. Ophelia kept her eyes closed as a mental bridge formed without her even controlling it; but Bucky's eyes widened more than usual as it was suddenly all coming back to him.
Ophelia, HYDRA, the train, Steve, Red Skull.
He let go of Ophelia.
"Run, O," he said while he was still coherent.