"We accept the love we think we deserve."
-Stephen Chbosky
After Bucky had given Ophelia some water, the dull throb in her head seemed to fade to a lesser degree. Perhaps it had been the water, but perhaps it was the fact Ophelia thought she might be able to get somewhere with him now. She was alive, he had made sure of that, and slowly he would be able to remember who he was. Every wound screamed in pain, but it was far less pain than the day before; something about being in this much pain with him right there made it ease.
Bucky sat down on the end of the bed, pulling his legs underneath him and crossing them at the ankles; as far away from Ophelia as he could be while still being so close. It was almost as if he was scared of what he might do to her, and that was quite possible. With a hunched back, he looked at his hands upon his lap. Ophelia was still leaned up against the wall, her feet almost reaching Bucky at the end of the bed. She studied him, wondering how hard it must be for him to try and understand what was happening, and to accept what Ophelia was going to tell him. She had hardly touched the surface of her explanation, and he was already trying to wrap his mind around it.
"James," she started, though that name didn't sound right on her tongue, "may I call you that?"
His pained eyes met with hers, and then he shook his head.
"Bucky, then?"
He pressed his lips together, and his eyes dropped. She took that as a yes, but he didn't want to actually say the word because they both knew that he was not yet Bucky. This was up to her to figure out, no matter how long it was going to take. In such a safe place, she hoped that his mind would want to bend to accommodate the flood of memories she was going to reveal to him if she could. This was their best chance. Her heart hammered in her chest, and she realized that she was more terrified today than she was fighting him yesterday, or earlier that day. She wasn't actually sure of how many days had gone by; the dark bruises along her entire body, and open flesh wounds suggested it hadn't been many.
"Would you like to ask me questions?" she suggested. "I can't promise you answers, not all of them, but I can do my best."
Bucky tilted his head to the side and looked at her, and gave a slight nod that Ophelia would have missed if she had blinked.
"Go ahead, then," she encouraged warmly.
"What happened after the train." He posed his questions as statements, as if he were trying to make the memory form in his head. The monotonous tone to his voice made him appear as an empty shell, waiting to be filled by those memories.
"HYDRA saved your life, kept you alive." She decided to bypass their encounters; he needed to remember himself more than he needed to remember her. She was not the priority. "They turned you into their weapon, used you to... assassinate people over the years."
"I remember that," he said, bringing his lips into a grimace, as if disgusted by himself. "Some of that."
Ophelia sighed; she was not in his memory. Had HYDRA altered certain memories of his to taunt her if she found herself in this situation? She doubted it; they would have erased Steve from his memory as well. Though, Steve had known him better and longer, and might have been something not even HYDRA could erase. Ophelia on the other hand, she was only a small part of his life.
This was her chance to help Bucky get back on his feet, and if he didn't want her around after that, so be it. She wouldn't do well in this world, but she had a few people in mind who might help her begin to understand it. It didn't matter if he never remembered her, what mattered was that he remember who he was. Everything that came after, Ophelia decided, would be up to Bucky.
"You were sent in to kill Nick Fury," She worried about how he was going to take this part. She skimmed over it, not wanting to go great lengths into the detail. "He faked his death, and you were sent in to kill Steve, someone from your past."
"I couldn't..."
"I know."
"Who was he?" He asked it as if he didn't want to know, and yet there was an underlying tone that suggested he had been waiting to ask this question since the moment he decided to save her from drowning.
"Your best friend, from a lifetime ago." Ophelia knew little about Steve and Bucky's friendship, and the fragments that she knew of came from her mental bridge she had caused with Steve. "He is going to come looking for us."
"Us." He repeated her words and Ophelia's heart leaped into her throat.
"Bucky..." she paused as this question scared her, "do you know who I am?"
He looked up at her, turning his body at the waist and staring into her eyes. The dim lamp in the room offered pitiful lighting, but his blue eyes caressed her face creating serenity. Never once did he blink as he tried to remember who she was. Shifting slightly on the bed, he reached his hand up and touched her cheek; she was cold to the touch from how weakened she was. What she needed was sleep, proper medical attention, and food. Ophelia turned her head and pressed her lips to his palm, not kissing him, but not moving her lips from touching his soft skin. She had done this once before, a life time ago.
"I'm sorry... no." He sighed, as if he was disappointed that he couldn't remember her. He pulled his hand away. "Your face, I've seen it in my memories... When they come and go."
The first person who ever showed her a shred of kindness, had no idea who she was.
Ophelia was not a weak person, but after he was able to remember parts of everything else and everyone else but not her, she began to cry. Trying to hide it, she bit down on her bottom lip and looked at the light across the room, as if the dull warmth might dry her tears before they fell. They slid down her cheeks despite her efforts and she reached her hand up to wipe them away before he spotted them. Digging her teeth into her cheek to make herself stop, she inhaled a shaky breath through her nose. This ebbed the tears, but not soon enough.
"Tell me," he said, noticing her. His own eyes looked watery, as if he were about to cry.
"I'm just another faulty HYDRA experiment," she said; she knew now that HYDRA had cleared his memories of her. "My name is Ophelia."
"Ophelia..." He nodded, giving her a glimmer of hope, then shook his head. He sighed.
"You won't remember me." She pulled her good leg up, bending it at the knee and resting her chin upon her knee.
"You said things... Things I have said before."
She had used a lot of his own words on him, trying to get him to remember. She had seen Steve get through to him by saying 'I'm with you to the end of the line' and she knew that it might work. HYDRA used trigger words to get them to do their bidding, and so it was not such a long shot that something similar to that might bring back memories. It had worked in the past, and Ophelia was very aware that HYDRA's brainwashing was not without fault.
"It's like you are in my head," he continued.
"Technically I can get inside of your head," she said. "My enhancement allows for a mental bridge to form."
"Try it." He sat upright, eager and showing some emotion for the first time.
"Not tonight." She didn't want to try again, and find nothing in his head but demons battling.
When he went to argue, Ophelia raised a shaky hand. "Please, not tonight."
Understanding that it was not going to happen, Bucky finally nodded and slouched once again. They had to take this one day at a time, and rushing into things that they might not want to address could do more damage than either of them knew. Right now they were safe, no one was going to find them here, she was sure that Bucky had been smart when choosing a location to settle in for a few nights. A silence fell upon the room and there was nothing but the distant car horns and city sounds vaguely coming through the closed window.
"You said you loved me." He swallowed nervously, dropping his gaze.
Just like Ophelia, he had been made to fight and kill, to destroy, but not to love and feel, but they were both human underneath all of that. Not even HYDRA could change that. This was a topic that neither of them really understood. She knew that Bucky had more experience with love and the real world than she did, but she hadn't gotten to know enough of his past to know if he really had loved anyone.
"Yes," she said carefully.
"How could... Who could love something like me?" he asked.
This time Ophelia spotted the tears sliding down his cheeks. He still had no idea who he was, but he knew that he had done a lot of bad things. She knew the feeling; when she had been taken in by Nick Fury and the remaining trustworthy SHIELD agents, she had not felt as though she was worth keeping alive. Seeing how good other people were, and how the life she had lived only caused terror and hatred to grow within her body, it made her feel horrible. Now Bucky was encountering those same thoughts.
With a careful mind, Ophelia planned out how she was going to explain why she loved Bucky. But his question had been altered; he had asked who could love him. The answer was so simple; her. But the question ran deeper through her veins, and she could not understand who she really was. She didn't even know why she loved Bucky, and that thought scared her. If she had only fallen for him because he was the only person who ever showed her any kindness in the world, there would be nothing to hold them together if by some miracle he loved her back.
Then she remembered what Steve said, about risking your life for the person you loved. She would do it again for Bucky, but she would also do it for Steve, Sam, Natasha, Fury, even Maria and Kate who she hardly knew at all. She didn't love them, she cared about them because they were good people. But Bucky was still embedded in her mind, like a code in a computer, it would be there forever, and she knew it.
"A lot of people love you," she told him, thinking of Steve. "You were a good person, and you can get back there again."
"So..." He furrowed his brow, trying to think of the right words. "You love me like a... a friend?"
The question bit into her. She loved him more than a friend, but understood that a friend was what he needed right now. Not a lover. A friend. It would be selfish to ask for anything more.
"Yes." She left it at that, however; if he grew to love her in time, she would reveal that she truly loved him. If not, it would be easier that he believed she had no romantic feelings for him.
His blue eyes lowered, and he nodded.