Ophelia

Hope

Bucky stepped away from Sam after Sam placed his hand on his shoulder, showing him that while he might not see eye to eye or understand him like Steve and Ophelia did, he understood his loss and suffering and wanted no hand in making things harder for him. Bucky had to admit, though he had felt quite numb over the last few months of being awake, he was floored by Sam's words. Someone whom he never expected to be on the same page with, someone who probably could have protect Ophelia better than he did, his words sunk deep.

Spotting Wanda, whom Bucky could sympathize with on many levels, he watched as she held onto someone. This someone was not human, not particularly, but nothing really stunned Bucky anymore. He had seen him on the television, he had seen him at the airport. And what he could see right there in front of him was that Wanda loved him. Seeing such love, it pained him to know he wouldn't feel that again -even if he ever found someone else to love, it wouldn't be the same as with O. How could it? When she had her finger inside every synapse of his brain, moving around in there and playing with his mind, so gently like the ghost that she was.

Wanda saw Bucky approaching, and her head cocked to the side and her face dropped. She looked shattered, as if the news of Ophelia's death had only just been told to her.

"Vis, can you stand?" Wanda asked him.

He nodded, and painfully released his grip on her.

Wanda stepped up to Bucky, and did what he was not expecting. She embraced him, hugging him around the waist; this person he hardly knew was hugging him as tight as Ophelia had, and for a moment Bucky was able to close his eyes and pretend that it was O. Shocked, Bucky didn't hug her back by the time she pulled away, her eyebrows knitted together in a troubled crease.

"I know how it feels," she told him, her accent not unlike Ophelia's.

He dipped his head. "A lot of people do."

"No," she shook her head. "Loss for others... comes with grief. For you and I, it came with some part of us being ripped out. When I lost my brother, I thought my world ended. I found others to replace some part of what was gone, but I will never recover from his loss."

Bucky nodded. "It feels that way."

Looking between her and Vis, he told her, "You remind me of her. The lengths she would have gone- the lengths she did go to protect me... mostly from me. It's good to see that, even just a glimpse of her within you. Never let each other go, there's not enough goodness in this world to let anything get between what you two have... what her and I had."

Wanda looked back at Vision. "I won't let anything get between us."

Bucky smiled, wondering if it was preventable with what was coming.

He knew it wasn't, but hope went a long way.

Ophelia never would have gotten him out of his own head without hope.