Fractions of Courage

All characters belong to Marvel Comics

It was an enviable choice to make. Steve felt his stomach lurch as he stood like an immovable sentinel in the darkness of the empty bedroom, somberly glancing over at the unpacked boxes tucked in a corner. Things needed to remain hidden. Time was growing limited to prepare for the next mission, and that hour of departure was approaching, his world had to become frozen again, he was called out for a different charge. He made a promise to lifetime friend—Bucky Barnes—and yet, somehow it felt counterbalance with heartache and sacrifice.

As Steve lifted up his tattered sketchbook with possessive effort, his crestfallen gaze threatened by unshed tears brimming in his eyes as he flipped through crisp pages. The homely glow of light from his nightstand exhibited graphite drawings of the new world that he created with a vision of hope. Some pages held collections of significant times in his new life and faces that he wanted to preserve. He had to leave all of that behind as well.

"Are you sure about this, Steve?" Natasha stood in the vacant space of his door, her slender body clad in a black leather jacket and jeans. She had spent the day with him, packing up his belongings as residual silence kept them distant. He owed a lot to her, mostly for being at his side as the world unfurled into chaos, and the value of friendship was tested by a measure of words and exposed secrets. He didn't register her question, the pain that raked over his plummeting heart seemed impossible to fight against. He eluded her unreadable stare, using distractions to prevent further grief from slashing him open. Natasha sauntered near his dresser; breaching the hollow space around them as she detected the gravity of his pain. "Will, you at least talk to me, Rogers. I do deserve that from you..."

"What is there to talk about, Nat?" His voice hastened back tersely, using his commanding baritone to mask the dryness catching in his throat. His hand clutched the sketchbook, his knuckles pulsed with numbness, and his unrelenting gaze leveled with her teal eyes. He was furious with himself, mostly because he never acted on a desirable venture such as asking her for a dance. But he couldn't dare to let his heart open to embrace her; they were polar opposites—darkness and light—and she wouldn't attach herself to love, she would always run from it. "It hasn't been a good day for any of us..."

Natasha glanced at the boxes, a small hint of a frown shadowed her full glossy lips as he fought the urge to heave out a painful breath. "Is that everything you want Sam to put away, Steve," her husky voice trailed off, obscured eyes trained on the top box marked: CA. Inside was his uniforms, boots, and helmet. "Will you ever wear the Spangled shorts again?" she teased, lightening up the mood.

"Maybe one day, when I need to be a soldier again," Steve returned doubtfully, his voice delayed with a short exhale as he threw the sketchbook onto the bare mattress, only to hear a loud thump follow. There was uncertainty measured in his formal stance, the linking chains of trust that he wielded remain guarded as Natasha casually approached the boxes. She tore the duck-tape off the edge, opening the flaps.

"Nat, please, don't..." The blank look in her eyes revealed her impassive tactic to block him out. She removed the graphite helmet before he could even protest back. Looking intently at the auburn- haired spy crouched in front of the boxes, Steve's trained azure irises bore a solemn resolve on the helmet that she clutched in her hand. He felt unable to admit that the mantle of Captain America didn't deserve to be worn by him anymore. The sense of freedom became unwarranted as grief shadowed over his eyes.

"You know that you'll always be more than a soldier to me," Natasha whispered with a soft glide of her lips curving into something genuine and assuring for him to see before they parted. She gave him a resurgence of hope, a chance to embrace a real moment with her, that wasn't tied back with deception. It felt sincere to grasp, despite his vigorous efforts to remain distant from her. "That's never going to change Steve."

Steve faced the truth reflecting in her eyes and mustered enough courage to claim her shadow. "Nat—"

"Don't say anything, I'm not good with sentiments—let alone goodbyes," she interrupted, glancing back at the helmet. "Look I know this is hard for you, and there's so many questions that need answering between us, but I just want you to know that if you hadn't..." A dull ache started to blossom in her chest. "...been there when I needed a shield...my future would look pretty grim now." Her taut lips fretted into a quivering grimace, and she refused to let him go without knowing. "Thank you for saving my life, Steven Grant Rogers-"

"I'm the one who should be thanking you," Steve returned, his voice held volumes of sincerity and Natasha watched his lips quirking absently into a faint smirk. "I know you don't like hearing sentiments, not from me. I guess...I guess this kid from Brooklyn will have to think of something else to give his best girl."

Natasha felt her chest gaping open, she tore her gaze away from the fathoms of his reserved cerulean eyes. Instinctively she crossed her arms over her torso, taking up a guarded stance while trying to avoid the regret pooling in his gaze. She felt tears pricking against her eyelids as her vision was blurring. Her secured emotions couldn't become illustrated, not like this. The depth in his baritone wavered something ardent, and it made the lethal incarnate of the Black Widow feel vulnerable as the semblances of her collective, sassy nature divested away.

Sucking back a breath, Natasha felt the intolerable urge to seal a heated kiss over his lips—right at that moment they exchanged another glance. She didn't allow gravity to pull her close to his reach, she became grounded. "You don't owe me anything, Steve," her voice held restriction. "I just want you to make sure, if you heart isn't ready for this mission, I just...want you to know that despite what has happened between us, you always believed in me when no else dared to try..."

"Don't pin this one on me, Nat," Steve gravelly dismissed. "We both know there's not enough time to say what needs to be said. I knew what you mean to me...I've known for a long time and... I'm sorry that we can't share something more…at least a dance." He smiled sadly.

Natasha gave him a gentle nod, fighting off another swell of tears. All her reservations told her to run, staying with him would make the feeling of detachment bleed out of her. Steve didn't waste a second, he came to her without an invitation and brought her body into the bulk of his arms, securing her into a loving embrace. In those immeasurable moments of silence, he could feel his body moving against hers, currents of the serum pulsed through his muscles, and the softness of his breath traveled across her skin. Her hands reached out behind his back, and instinctively held him close in an unyielding grasp. She didn't want to break away and become isolated again.

She mirrored the slate blue depth of his eyes—a little daunted by the power of his beating heart. It gave her a definite conclusion of how much she needed him at her side. "We can have one now," she coaxed, her thumb brushing reverent heat over the smooth arch of his lip. "I don't care if you step on my toes...I'm wearing boots anyway..."

He couldn't let rancor and the agony of his losses overshadow his choices. He wanted to have the freedom to love, even though his time with her was in shortcoming. A boyish smirk tore into his fuller lips, he dropped his chin, feeling uneasy to grant her request admission, given the taxing circumstance. A shaky exhale dragged up from his throat, and his Brooklyn accent was lifted by a timid slur as he finally gave her an honest response. "Well, I have been practicing with the right partner, so I guess you're in the safe zone with me."

Natasha froze, she didn't say anything but stared into his eyes. She could feel the gravity of their connection returning, a fervent compromise of driven emotions leading into a storm of relentless passion. Could they fully accept each other—no guns or shields, just flesh and heart joined into a perfect sync? It was unfathomable to ponder, every moment they shared always held meaning; it wasn't a reasonable opting for distraction. She valued him as her equal and trusted him, despite his questionable motives. Nothing could be avoided. She became captured in a moment when intertwining friction breached her skin, his large calloused fingers stroked over her locked arms with such reverence, she couldn't resist melting into him.

As instincts commanded her body, she settled against the planes of his muscles. Natasha rested her head at the crest of his shoulder and listened to the roaring thump of his heartbeat; it was emitting thunderous vibrations, each one growing stronger as she dared to close her eyes. The world obscured away, and their bodies mashed together.

"Don't let me run from this..." she whispered with urgency, and those words didn't fall so easily from her lips. She was depending on him—more than ever—but not as her partner, but something greater and vividly profound. They had lost everything during the war, but never each other. She had to complete the task of her restless heart and give him a dream to fall back into again. Her lips heated against the bugled planes of his chest, as the weight of his hand stroked through her twining curls. Her senses became sated as her breath danced over his pectorals. "If you want me to stay here, then you just have to tell me, and I'll stay with you, Steve..."

"You know I want that more than anything, Nat," Steve admitted, his breath shortened into a desperate hitch. He traced her jutting curves with a slight glide of his hand as she felt his arm draped over her back, molding every line and detail of her still body; allowing ravenous heat to shape over her. Feverish sweat had seeped through his shirt, revealing to her that he was nervous to accept this desiring contact. Still, he was a gentleman at fault; not giving into the rawness of temptation as surges devoured through his body. One failed attempt to disengage, and he toppled over the mattress, pulling her down to his clumsy descent. "S'orry, I didn't mean..." a stuttering breath tore from his lips, as the tone of his skin flushed and heart sped up.

Natasha smirked at the honest volumes of admission returning to her, and felt his hands clutching over her hips, grounding her body against solid cords muscle and heated sweat. She intently watched trickling lines sluice his slackened jaw and parted lips. His blue eyes glistened with the colors of the purest ocean, holding the faintest glint of light into the black core of his pupils. Time refastened around bordering desire and had grown intoxicating to digest. Still, as she embraced that convenient moment of blissful unity, feverish assaults of emotions rattled through her. The strife of heartache kept her defenses up, and she refused to claim something that wasn't permanent.

A devious grin bled into her glossy lips as she felt his muscles clenching under her frame and she lifted her hand against the nape of his broad neck. The softness of her fingers kneaded possessively through his sheared and upswept blonde hair. Drenched tresses fell over his eyes, covering the fierce intensity of slate-blue. Urges to devour the modern-day Adonis underneath her were sizing up to the surface of her walls. She felt captive to the starving onslaught of hunger.

Fighting the desperate attempt to run in that impulsive moment, Natasha aligned her lip inches from his mouth. Her gaze seared with intensity and her heart pounded wildly as everything froze, and her vision of his angular face became a blur. Her hands went evidently down to the engraves of his shoulders, and enthralled him to make the first move. With an unstable purr of masked acceptance, "I have to admit, this wasn't your best dance move, soldier."

"Can't say it feels that way," he lightly quipped; there was a softness and relaxation in his voice that Natasha had never heard before—it was warm, genuine and exhilarating. As Steve let his gaze wander over her radiant and alluring features, he had only begun to notice his inhibitions slowly melted away. His azure orbs gleamed with something that could only be described as yearning and acceptance; a culmination of years of repressed feelings finally breaching the surface of his reserved nature. Neither tentative nor hesitant, he brought up his soft yet rugged digits to gently caress her cheek, his thumb leaving a trail of warmth as it finally reached her bottom lip.

"…Natasha." He breathed softly, they both felt themselves shiver with dangerous yet pleasant anticipation, the intensity in their gazes stirring. Her body shifted ever so slightly on top of his, as she inhaled deeply. His pulse racing feverishly, Steve averted his gaze from her alluring emerald depths, to the lush of her full parted lips hovering over him. He could take no more. The depths of blue eyes became a tempest, his large hands found purchase on both of her shoulders as he brought her in close, and eagerly his lips captured hers in a savory and affectionate interlock. Thoughts of the past fled him, of Peggy and what might have been, and there was only this blissful and liberating feeling of a newfound happiness—of love—with the woman in his arms.

It became a surge of breathless and ravenous contact, the fullness of his mouth sealed over her lips as unwavering heat merged into the depths of passion.

Wakanda, two days later...

Steve felt it; the immense ache was taxing against his heart. At first, he ignored it all entirely, but when his soulful blue eyes trained onto the severed plates of Bucky's left shoulder covered with a black cloth, Steve accepted that influx of pain. The gravity of his reserved steps were heavy as he neared the medical table, and intently watched the reformed HYDRA assassin tense like a stubborn toddler as the nurse slotted the IV tube into Bucky's wrist.

As he diverted his gaze from the saline bag attached to Bucky's laden arm, Steve knew that it would a difficult process for his best friend to awake from the endless and tortuous nightmare of the Winter Soldier's past. It seemed irrational to harbor back the mounting grief; their friendship was restored—and now everything was halted because Bucky was still under the influence of HYDRA's control. Heaving out a breathless sigh, Steve leveled his pained blue eyes at Bucky's disheveled visage, his balance was steady and pliant, despite feeling a sense of recurring detachment."You sure about this, Buck?" he finally asked.

Bucky nodded, tilted his head up slowly as his wolfish mane draped over his bristled and rugged features. A grimace edged at his lips, echoes of his voice became coherent as he leveled a gaze directly at Baron Zemo's tattered notebook with the emblem of the Russian star, unwavering the same distraught countenance of emotional strain.

"Yeah..." His raspy baritone layered with masked a dry sob until a faint chuckle replaced the arrival of his despair. He gazed up at Steve, mirroring the clearest light shone in his grayish blue eyes for a eased moment, before his narrowed stare became distant, still holding convictions of the hellish sins of his butchered past.

"I've got a messed up mind that I can't really trust." His full lips curved into a modest free smile as he looked back at Steve, holding his benevolent friend's teary gaze. He felt a measure of internal hope reach his heart as he made the infinite choice to return back into cryo sleep. "Until things get sorted out in my head, it's best for everybody that I go back under...But not forever, punk."

Steve's expression fractured as he struggled to regain control of his emotions. He had believed in those promising words, his best friend would return to him. "You know I'm gonna be here when you come back, Buck..."

Bucky smirked wistfully, and with cautious effort he slid off the table. His injured body wobbled as he regained enough balance in his footing and gradually limped toward's Steve, and held out his flesh hand reaching to grasp onto the super soldier's leather bomber jacket, as his only anchor to humanity.

Before the directing contact was met, Steve wrapped his arm sincerely over Bucky's back, easing his conjoining weight steady as they were inches apart, their chests barely touching. An overdue hug closed all the distance and the ended the coldness they both felt, and Bucky closed his eyelids before tears slipped through. He loved Steve as his little brother, that was an unshakable truth that he would carry with him. Sagging into the hard muscle of his friend's body, he bit down at his lip; mustering up the sincere volumes of a whisper to deliver peace between them. "Take care of yourself, Stevie."

Neither of them opened their eyes as their brotherly warmth grew solid and unbreakable. Steve was aware of his tears streaking over his bruised cheek; he held onto Bucky for as long as he could until a nurse broke their embrace. In a few seconds, he felt cool air grace over his battered face as the ice depths of the pod opened. He made his choice to return back into a frozen sleep. Captain America's shield wasn't needed for the new dawn the Avenger's would face. He made a heartfelt promise to his friend, and staying at Bucky's side would finally bring him back to Brooklyn. "I'm gonna be with you, Buck, till the end of the line..."

Bucky said nothing, but his teary smile full of recognition spoke volumes of the relief he felt in his soul. There were times he felt that his humanity was beyond reclamation, that the needles and electroshocks had burned away every shred of morality and decency in his hardened shell. But with Steve's guiding hand—with his friendship—redemption felt possible. The ice wouldn't lock away his humanity nor his identity this time. This time, he wouldn't be alone.

Wakanda, two months later...

Darkness traced her steps as Natasha walked past the glass walls. She was led into an underground chamber, and there she found two cyro-pods hooked up onto an elevated platform; liquid nitrogen coated against the glass. Bucky was on the left and Steve on the right, both of them secured, peaceful and unburdened as the ice had entombed their bodies into a frozen slumber. It would be years for them to awake: the war ended and they were at home.

"I understand this is difficult for you, Natasha Romonaff ," The masculine and refined voice held sentience and empathy. She accepted the presence of those volumes as solace when she refused to turn around to meet the shadow of the young king who stood behind her. T'challa had proven to the Avengers and to her, that he was a trusting alliance, and also a friend that she could depend on when the walls of grief closed around her. "My father once said that we find our true peace in those close to us...I was only a boy when my mother was taken from us. I spent days searching for her and the peace wasn't there, only vengeance."

Suddenly everything made sense to her. "I know how that feels," she whispered huskily, braving a step closer to the platform. Her teal eyes blurred as she looked back at the young king, settling her gaze on the insigna of the Black Panther hanging from his neck; a mythic existence of a protector and warrior. Much like the Black Widow's mark, he chose to carry on the mantle, not for vengeance but for something pure and worth avenging. "I want say thank you for doing this...for them..."

T'challa nodded slowly, drawing a glare on the two pods. "They are both honorable warriors fighting different battles to have peace again..." His unbidden words didn't elude from grief. Natasha noticed his hand clenching into a fist at his side, fighting a pulse of failure as his regal stance grew into reserved balance. "I couldn't give that to my father, but I can to them."

Natasha allowed silence to rob her voice, she gazed at the ice glistening over Steve's lips and fought against tears as she felt so distant from him. A glaze of wetness reflected in her eyes but instead of releasing her pain, she climbed two steps and shadowed the pod, pressing her palm flat against the glass as if searching for a pulse. Her fingers delicately framed over his cheek, much like she always did before saying goodbye. She imagined the warmth searing through her skin, and the surges of his enhanced strength calming her disobedient and restless heart that had seemed beyond repair. She wanted to say so much, even though he couldn't hear those confessions.

"Goodbye Steve," she whispered in an omission of reverence, her hand chilled against the encasing of ice, as she looked deeper into the pod. His face was still visible, his lips so beautiful and she remembered the tenderness of his boyish smile, allowing it to enter her bones as her hand lingered on his face for another long moment. Then, she walked away before tears would tag her stoic emotions, refusing to look back as the grayness of the fog blanketing over the mountain-side greeted her face and the doors sealed closed.

She glanced up at the black marble statue of the panther mounted on a rocky peak. Her teal eyes held back tears edging to fall and she felt T'challa's hand weigh down over her shoulder. It gave her a sense of open hope, knowing that somehow the captain would return to battle. Her steps grew heavier as she turned around, looking down at the dog tags resting in her palm. She lifted her hand, pressing the silver plates against her chest until she walked back to the quinjet—Wanda and Clint where standing on the ramp, waiting for her commands.

Gaining traction in another purpose-filled step, she felt a pulse of a heartbeat—so alive and strong within her barren womb. She smiled in secret, knowing that she wasn't alone, that Steve would be with her...always.

The End.