Reminisce: Dear O,

October 25th, 2015

October 25th, 2015

       "Some days I used to think that she stayed with me because of some underlying need for comfort and familiarity. I was the only face of HYDRA who was ever kind to her, and people get so stuck in their habits that being ripped entirely away from HYDRA might have scared her. That's so brutally incorrect, but early on, I had those thoughts. I never once believed that she stayed with me out on convenience, no, Ophelia is better than that. She doesn't stay because she thinks she needs to fix me, or that I'm here to fix her; I realized that Ophelia stays with me because I am good.

        A good person; just writing those words is a huge change for me. I know I've done bad things, thought bad thoughts, I've hurt people and most of all, I've hurt O. But she knows that I wasn't me when those things happened, and she knows that without HYDRA in my head, I am a good person. Of course she does; she wouldn't have stayed with me if I weren't. It's realizations like this that remind me there is still so much to learn about myself, about O, and about us. We constantly work off of each other to better ourselves, to figure ourselves out, to work out the problems deep inside our heads.

         Thinking back, we've always done this, even in the dark depths of HYDRA. Back in Siberia, somehow we helped each other whether we were coherent or not. I like knowing that even when I was the Winter Soldier, I did some small things that helped her. The Death Squad, for example; I stopped her prolonged execution because I knew she didn't deserve it. I took her place because I could take it, and because I knew I deserved it somehow. I will never regret some of the things I've done, and anything I have done for Ophelia, I'd never take back. I could have left, I could have disappeared from the world when they sent me to hunt her down. But I knew she'd never have made it, not then. But together, now, I know we'll be okay."