Leave Me Bleeding [Winter Soldier] I

Love Me [Chapter 24]

"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.