"Cease to hope and you will cease to fear."

Hecato

Bucky was asleep, seated next to Ophelia's bed with his metal hand in hers, his real hand touching her arm. His body was bent at a crooked, uncomfortable angle and his head rested against the side of her body, where he had fallen asleep listening to the comforting thrum of her heartbeat. While he miraculously slept, Shuri, T'Challa and Wanda stood off to the side watching and waiting. Waiting for the inevitable, waiting for when Bucky realized it had happened again, when he freaked out and T'Challa or Wanda would have to stop him from destroying things or hurting himself.

Like the world, or those in this small room, had taken one deep breath and was refusing to let it out in fear of what would happen if they did. As though that air could knock everything out of the delicate balance it hung onto.

"I'm going to get Sam," Wanda announced. "He should be here."

"Someone should tell M'Baku. He was very fond of her," Shuri said numbly.

"You're talking as though there is no hope," T'Challa argued, turning towards the two women. But then he realized, these two had been inside of Ophelia's head, they knew what obstacles were in the way. They knew exactly what the stone had done inside of her mind.

"There is always hope," Shuri replied, placing her hand on her brother's forearm. "We would not be here if there was no hope. But that does not mean we can afford to be ignorant."

T'Challa sighed and nodded. "I will tell him. You stay here in the instance..."

"Yes, I know, brother." As Wanda and T'Challa left, Shuri decided she needed something to try and stay awake. She stepped out for a moment, the desperate need for coffee making each foot fall move faster than the last.

***

Bucky lifted his head; something woke him up, but he wasn't sure what it was. Glancing around the room, he saw that he was alone with Ophelia, and took a deep breath. What woke him was probably people leaving the room, a door closing. He was barely asleep to begin with, ready to jerk awake at anything that might include Ophelia waking up.

Turning back to her, Bucky saw her eyes were open, pupils large at first then shrinking rapidly as they adjusted to the bright surgical lights. Her lids fluttered a few times, then she focused on Bucky and gave him a weak smile.

"Hey, Bucky," she said quietly.

"Hey, O," he replied, raising her hand to his lips and kissing the back of her fingers. Knuckles that were once bruised by his arm. Holding his lips against her soft skin, he inhaled deeply, and released that long breath, allowing himself to regain composure. Looking back up at her, knowing she was real now because he could feel what he felt last time. That sinking feeling of despair, that feeling of being able to do nothing at all to change the circumstances.

Feeling helpless was one of the worst feelings when it came to someone you loved.

And yet, as Bucky looked at Ophelia, taking in every little fine detail about her that he had taken in over their short time together, he felt calm. Whether it was her presence- she always managed to make him feel calm when he began to panic or feel angry about something- or the fact he was accepting that their lives would never be the way they wanted them to. There would be no bending this to their plans, because life would always take from them.

Accepting it sounded cruel, and yet it was easier than denial.

"How'd it go?" he asked, his voice shaking ever so slightly.

"Uhm," she paused and pursed her lips together. Tears hung at the corners of her eyes. She offered a sort of awkward little shrug. Her back was against the hospital bed so she had limited range of motion, and yet that short little jerky movement told Bucky everything. "Not great."

"Shit," he muttered, leaning his head down again and placing it against her ribs. His hand grazed over her stomach, as if he could pull her in close and keep her there forever. Absorb her and keep her in his heart forever. But he didn't need to, because she always would be, regardless of how it went from here.

"I'm not ready to give up, but I'm not so sure I have a choice in the matter," she said, placing her hand on the back of his head. Her fingers stroked through his brown hair, tickling his scalp and making shivers run down his whole body.

He loved how she could make him feel, that unconditional way he could feel at peace so long as she was beside him. But he had felt peace in other times in his life, after Ophelia, it was just hard for him to accept them at the time. He felt that he didn't deserve to feel peaceful after the life he lived. With that much blood on his hands, and with Ophelia having been dead, he didn't feel that peace was an option. That he was supposed to suffer.

He no longer felt that way.

"You need to go into cryo," he told her. He didn't want to say the other option, but it hung in the air nonetheless. They both knew it, cryo where she would remain frozen in time while Bucky lived on, until maybe the stone gave up trying to take her, or Shuri found a way to fix her. The other option was accepting that this was it, they'd prolonged the inevitable for too long, and it was time to accept it.

"I can't lose you again, not like this," Bucky whispered.

"Either way, the outcome will be the same," she replied softly. "You were made to do great things, Bucky. And while these past few months have been... bliss... I think it is time to accept what fate has in store for us."

"I can't accept that," he replied, but even as the words were coming from his lips, he knew she was right. He didn't believe in fate or pre-planned lives, but every time they tried to make a life for themselves, it was repeatedly ripped from them. This time was no different, but they could accept it, they could make it easier on themselves if they had this moment to say what needed to be said.

"You've faced harder crossroads that this, and turned out okay," Ophelia reminded him. "You've got a clean slate now, you've got Sam who not only wants you by his side, but needs you. I could see the moment I came back, you wanted nothing more than to remain here with me... But I saw when it changed. You want to get back out there, that's what you were born to do, Bucky, change the world. I always wanted it to be me, but that's not the life I was given. But you... Even before your fall, you wanted to change the world. You're a fighter, a survivor," she paused as she shifted into an upright position, biting down on her lip as the pain attacked. "You are a gift to mankind. And not in the way HYDRA wanted you to be, I want you to remember that, always."

"I will," his expression was hardened.

"You were the greatest gift I was ever given."

He looked up and smiled gently at her, he wanted to make sure that if this was really it, her last few hours or days were not filled with despair, but love.

He was, however, unable to reply in that moment.