During my IW rewatch today (in prep for Endgame... ha ha I'm scared), Sam made a comment that makes it seem like he hadn't been to Wakanda at all, but I'm changing that. He and Nat totally bunked up with Steve in Wakanda for a while, so yeah!

Also, I hate writing argument dialogue.

This chapter is a little (or a lot) shorter than the first one, but the next chapter will be nice and long again! Next chapter should be up in a day or two, I just have to do a little editing.

Enjoy!

-:-

2 Weeks Later. Late June 2016

"I'm worried about Steve."

Sam looked up from the book he was reading. Natasha was pretty sure Nakia had given it to him, and she was happy to see that the Wakandans were as taken with Sam as he was with them and their country. "You said the exact same thing to me last week."

"Yeah, I know, but nothing's changed," she pressed. "You see it, too, right?"

Sam set the book down. They were sitting in one of the many lounge areas the guest apartment building offered. Steve was upstairs a couple floors, outside the labs Bucky was currently in, cryo-frozen. He had barely moved from that same sitting area overlooking the gardens since they'd gotten back from dropping Wanda off in Sokovia. Now that he didn't have the Raft rescue-op to keep him busy, Steve had been more quiet than usual.

"Of course I see it, Nat," Sam said gently. "The guy's not sleeping, if we're going to start with the most obvious thing. But I've tried talking to him, and I know you have, too. I think this is one of those things that he needs to work out with himself before he comes to either of us."

"If he comes to one of us."

Sam made a face of agreement. "That's true. If I've learned one thing about Steve since knowing him, it's that he likes to shove all this stuff down until it damn near kills him." At her concerned look, Sam held up his hands. "But then again, it might not even be that big of a deal, for all we know. That man will worry about the smallest thing for months if he can. I think worrying is just his natural state at this point."

That made her smile a little in agreement. But it didn't ease her own worry. Or her own irritation. That was part of it, she knew. She and Steve were close. She was used to being able to read him and put together what was wrong even if he didn't tell her right away. But this…whatever it was…it was eating at something deep inside him and she couldn't piece together what it was. It was pissing her off that he wouldn't open up to her.

"He's going to be fine, Nat," Sam reassured. "He just needs a little more time."

"He's had plenty of time," she muttered, getting up. "I'm gonna go talk to him again."

"Good luck!" Sam called out as she walked briskly away.

-:-

Steve was right where he'd been for weeks. His sketchbook was open to a blank page in his lap. Natasha didn't think she'd seen him draw a single thing since she'd been in Wakanda with him. Despite the fire roiling around inside of her, she tried to tamp down on it as she quietly approached him.

"Can we talk?" she said as a greeting.

Steve twisted his neck, so he could look over his shoulder at her. "Yeah, what's up?"

"Not here," she said. The guards would have to follow them down to the gardens too, but being outside, it felt more private than this empty, silent hallway. "Do you want to go for a walk?"

They did one full loop around the main garden path in silence. It gave Natasha a chance to breathe and dull her frustration before Steve spoke up. "So, what'd you want to talk about?"

She twisted her mouth, unsure how to start. "Look, I know you haven't been sleeping, and I'm getting worried—"

"I'm fine, Nat," he interrupted, tone bordering on sharp.

"Don't pull that crap on me, Steve," she shot right back, picking up her pace a little bit. "You're anything but fine. I just want you to talk to me."

She saw him shove his hands in his pockets, heard the mostly quiet exhale through his nose. "I've just been having bad dreams, is all."

"Oh, bullshit." She turned and stopped in the middle of the path. Steve halted two feet from her. She hoped that no one else was planning on coming through the gardens any time soon. Having the guards trailing a safe distance away was bad enough. "That's been your excuse for weeks. And, frankly, I'm getting a little tired of it. I can't help you if I don't know what's wrong.

She watched his jaw tighten, watched him contemplate his options. Her vision fixed on the dark circles under his eyes, the two-day old stubble that he hadn't bothered to shave off yet. It wasn't him, and it hurt her to see him like this.

Still, even though it hurt, she wanted to keep applying pressure to this. She wanted him to snap back a little, wanted him to be as frustrated with her as she was with him, if only so he would finally tell her the truth.

"I don't know what you want me to say, Nat," he started, clinging stubbornly to the wall he'd built up around himself. "I haven't been sleeping. It's not exactly anything new."

She gave a slight shake of her head, lowering her voice. "I'm not talking about your pre-existing PTSD, Steve. I know what that looks like. I'm talking about whatever happened after Berlin. You haven't told me a damn thing except that after T'Challa offered you shelter here, and Bucky went back into cryo. T'Challa caught Zemo in Siberia, so I'm assuming that's where you went after the airport. What the hell happened there that's bothering you so much?"

He straightened, not quite looking at her.

Natasha continued to press. "See? You just keep doing that. You won't even look at me. Don't you trust me?"

"Of course I trust you." The flash of fire in his blue eyes was the most emotion she'd seen from him in weeks. The intensity of his gaze caught her off guard for a moment. "I trust you," he repeated, a little softer. "It's not about that."

"Then what is it about, Steve?"

"It doesn't matter," he muttered after a beat of silence.

Natasha's irritation sparked in her veins again. "The pity-party you've been throwing yourself is really getting on my nerves, Rogers. Of course it matters. Especially if it's got you acting like this."

He met her eyes, his fire mirroring her own. "If I'm such a burden then maybe you should just leave."

She ground her teeth together, crossing her arms over her chest. "You'd be screwed if it weren't for me. You wouldn't have even made it out of Berlin in the first place. If you'd—" She stopped herself. She wanted to push him enough to open up, but she didn't actually want to fight with him. She'd never wanted that.

"No, go on." There was a flash of anger in his eyes, but she wasn't sure if it was directed at her or himself. "Say it. I know you've been thinking it for a while."

Natasha considered just walking away. But she was so mad. She took a step towards him. "If you'd just listened to me and stayed out of it after the bombing, none of this would've happened!"

"There it is," Steve countered. "How long have you been waiting to give me the 'I told you so' card?"

"Don't try and spin this around on me," she warned, voice low. "I was just trying to protect you—protect all of us. I risked everything to save you in Berlin, so don't you dare throw that back in my face by turning your back on me now. I'm just trying to help you—"

"I needed your help with the Accords!"

His tone of voice, the slight crack roughening the words, they caught her off guard, and Natasha stilled.

"I needed you to back me up when Ross gave them to us, but you sided with Tony. And then everything with Peggy and the three day deadline…there was no way in hell that I was going to sign those, especially not after Hydra and SHIELD. I would've thought you felt the same after D.C."

"I sided with Tony because it would've been a hell of a lot easier to make adjustments to the Accords from the inside—"

"And if I'd signed, a lot more people could be dead right now."

Her brow furrowed. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about Siberia." His voice was low, carefully controlled. "That's where Bucky and I went after Berlin. We followed Zemo there."

"What was even doing there?"

"Trying to unleash five other Winter Soldiers."

"What?"

"Or so we thought," Steve said, shifting on his feet. The gardens seemed to grow quiet around them. "They were all dead when we got there. Zemo had killed them. But if he hadn't, if he really had used them like we thought, a lot of people could be dead. And Ross would never have listened in time for us to actually go after him. Bucky was never the real threat—it was Zemo. But nobody cared to listen to me, because everyone was too busy trying to catch Bucky, when it was never really about that—"

"What are you talking about?" some of her anger had subsided, leaving a pit in her stomach, filled with a sense of dread. "What else happened in Siberia?"

"You wouldn't look at me the same," he whispered.

Something inside Natasha shattered. Whatever kind of fight this had been, it was over. She reached for him, but he shifted, moving out of the way of her touch. "Steve,"

"It was never about the Accords or Bucky or any of that—it was about Zemo breaking us from the inside. He wanted to tear the Avengers apart, and he did. I did."

"What do you mean?"

But Steve had taken a step back, had already started making his way back down the stone path.

"Dammit, Steve, talk to me."

"I'm sorry I dragged all of you into this." His hands were trembling as he turned, chest rising and falling a little more rapidly than before, and Natasha wondered if it wasn't just that he didn't want to talk about what had happened, but that he couldn't.

So Natasha let him go, all the fight leaving her body. Maybe Sam was right, and she would just have to wait for Steve to come to her.

She stood still in the middle of the gardens, watching the spot where Steve had been long after he'd disappeared.

-:-

Steve wandered for hours around the guest building until he finally found himself standing outside Natasha's door. He knew he shouldn't have just walked away from her earlier—she'd been doing nothing but trying to help him. But thinking about Siberia, thinking about what he'd done…his throat had gotten tight. Another one of those ghost asthma attacks sneaking up on him again, preventing him from being able to get the words out.

He'd really been trying to avoid dragging Natasha and Sam into his problems at all, but after all the thinking he'd done that afternoon, he knew it was time to tell them the truth, starting with Natasha. He hadn't been the best friend since she'd arrived, and she'd been right.

She'd risked everything for him in Berlin, and she deserved better than his silence and cold shoulder.

He didn't want to push her away anymore, because he needed her far more than he'd let on. Steve stopped outside the door to her room. He knocked, but there was no answer. He rapped his knuckles a little harder against the solid wood. Still nothing.

"Nat," he called out. He cleared his throat. "Nat, it's me. Sam told me you'd be in your room, so I know you're there. I shouldn't have walked away earlier—I'm sorry. But…I'm ready to talk now. Please, just let me in."

He braced a hand against the doorframe, waiting, listening for the sound of footsteps, of the door opening. It was silent for a long while, but he stood patiently. Natasha was stubborn, but not as stubborn as he was. He would wait all night if he had to.

Finally, after nearly twenty minutes, he heard noise on the other side of the door. Soft footsteps sounded and stopped just on the opposite side. He wondered if she was just looking through the peephole to see if he was there, if he would hear her walk away in the next few seconds.

"Please, Nat," he said again, quietly.

He took a breath, then two, and finally the knob twisted, and the door swung open. She had one hand braced against the frame, one on the door, ready to slam it in his face if he didn't say the right thing.

"Can I come in?" he asked.

She stared at him for a moment, then stepped wordlessly aside to let him in. Steve looked around her guest room as she shut the door behind him. It was pretty much the same as his own, though a few of the decorations were different, the furniture laid out in a slightly different format. She had a couch in her room, instead of an armchair, and that's where he chose to sit.

Natasha followed but didn't sit down. She crossed her arms over her chest and gave him a look that he was all too familiar with. Now it was her turn to wait, but she wouldn't wait long.

He leaned forward, bracing his forearms across his thighs. "I'm sorry, Natasha." He licked his lips, looking up at her from under his lashes. "For how I've been acting. For shutting you out. And I'm sorry for walking away earlier, and for arguing with you. I hated that."

Natasha inhaled, and her shoulders drooped as she let the breath out. All the fight left her stance, and she moved to sit down next to him on the couch. "Me too. I was trying to help you, not get angry with you."

"You had a right to be angry with me. Things are kind of a mess."

She gave a dry laugh. "Just a little bit."

"You've been wanting me to talk to you and I haven't yet because…I've been afraid of what you're going to think."

"Steve,"

He continued, keeping his eyes trained on his hands in his lap, "You already know I haven't been sleeping, but the nightmares and the PTSD, that's not all of it. A lot happened in Siberia and I…. I'm not handling it well. What I didn't tell you earlier was that it wasn't just me and Bucky in Siberia. It was Tony, too."

Natasha exhaled slowly. "Tony was there."

Steve nodded. "Yeah. He must've, I don't know. Somehow he figured out where Zemo was going, and he followed us there. And like I said, it wasn't about the damn soldiers, or the Accords, it was about us. About pitting us against each other."

"You said that earlier—what do you mean?" she asked.

"Zemo had a recording from December sixteenth, 1991."

A pause. Then, "Oh, god."

Steve looked at her for just a moment. She knew exactly what the recording had been of. But he pushed on anyway. "Zemo played the recording. Tony had to watch Bu—the Winter Soldier kill his parents. And then he asked if I knew."

"Hey, Steve, that's not your fault—"

"Yeah, but I should've told Tony. I mean I didn't know for sure that it was Bucky, but I knew enough. I should've told him—"

"Neither of us told him," she insisted. "I was there in that bunker in Jersey, too. Doesn't take a genius to piece together what Zola was trying to show us. So, it's not just on you."

Steve turned his gaze towards the floor again. "Yeah, but I should've said something. I waited too long because I didn't want to lose Bucky. He's…and, with Peggy—he's all I have left of my old life. Everyone else I knew is gone, and I didn't want to lose that. Especially after failing Bucky so many times. Nobody else knows what he went through, that it wasn't even him that did all those things. It was the Winter Soldier, it was Hydra—" He stopped himself, ran his hands down his face. "I didn't tell Tony because I just told myself that I was protecting him, and that I was protecting Bucky, because it wasn't really Bucky that killed his parents. Howard and Bucky were friends—Bucky wouldn't have done something like that."

"I know that," she murmured. "You don't have to defend Bucky to me—I know how much he means to you."

He took a shaky breath, fixing his eyes on the opposite wall. "After Tony saw the video, we fought." He clenched his hands into fists as he told her what had happened, how Bucky had gotten hurt, and she sat still beside him. "When Tony kicked Bucky, Bucky was already down and I just—I saw red. I just couldn't stop. I picked him up and threw him down, and I had the shield in my hands—"

His knuckles were white he was balling his fists so tight. Steve could still see the terrified look on Tony's face as he raised the shield up, and he hated himself for having been the cause of that look.

"I nearly killed him, Nat," he confessed, the whisper of his voice deafening in the quiet of her room. "For a second there, I wanted to. Things were so blurred for me that all I could think was that Bucky was down and Tony was the enemy. His helmet was off, and I nearly brought the shield down on his head and I—he was terrified. He was scared of me, and I gave him every right to be."

Natasha reached for his hand, curling her fingers over his fist. He didn't have the strength to fight her, so he unclenched his fingers, let her take his right hand in between her own.

"I never wanted it to come to that—this whole Accords thing, I didn't want it to end up like that."

"I know you didn't," she said gently. "None of us did."

"You're taking this awfully well considering I almost killed one of your friends." He turned his head to meet her eyes.

Natasha just continued to hold onto his hand. "Tony is my friend, yes. But so are you. And I know you, how much you beat yourself up over things."

"This isn't some mission gone awry, Nat," he said, pulling away and standing up from the couch. He started pacing in a short line in front of her. "I almost killed him. I was so selfish and blind in my own grief that I almost killed Tony. He was terrified of me because he thought I was going to do it—because I almost did!"

"Okay, first," she said firmly, moving to stand in front of him, "you need to calm down."

She gripped his forearms, making him stop, making him look at her. She ordered him to breathe, and he forced himself to take a deep breath, one after another until he didn't feel like raging around the room.

"Good." She let go of his arms. "Now, you're right. I'm not happy that you fought. It scares the crap out of me, actually, because I care about both of you. But what's done is done. You made a mistake. You both did."

"I—"

"No. You both made mistakes. I understand why Tony went after you, but I also know why you were defending Bucky. Neither of you were right or wrong. It happened, it was bad, and that's that, okay?"

She gave him an insistent look until he slowly nodded in agreement.

"Have you tried contacting him since?"

He swallowed. "Right before we left to get the others out of the Raft, I wrote him a letter. I had T'Challa send it with a burner phone, in case he needed anything."

She bobbed her head up and down. "That's good. Then that's all you can do for now, especially considering you're a fugitive."

"Just doing that doesn't feel like enough." He sighed and moved to sit down hard on the edge of her bed. He could feel his eyes burning. He could still feel the weight of his shield in his hands, right before he brought it down over the arc reactor.

Natasha approached him slowly, kneeling down in front of him and taking his hands into hers. He didn't realize they'd been shaking until her fingers wrapped around his, steadying them. "Everybody makes mistakes, Steve. Even Captain America."

"Yeah, but I don't know how to fix this one, if I even can."

"So what."

He blinked at her in surprise. He couldn't avoid her gaze when she was right in front of him. "What?"

She shrugged. "So, Tony doesn't forgive you. It wouldn't matter much anyway until you forgive yourself. Until you stop wallowing here instead of going out there and doing something, whatever that is."

"Nat—"

"Ah, ah," she scolded, squeezing his hands. "I wasn't finished. Pity parties aren't your style, which is half the reason I was so pissed at you earlier. I'm not talking about the PTSD; we've already concluded that's a whole other conversation. I'm talking about this staring at walls business because you feel so guilty about everything, even though you don't have to. You're not the only one to blame for all of this."

Steve shook his head. "I am. I broke up the Avengers, which is exactly what Tony was trying to stop me from doing—what you were trying to stop me from doing."

Natasha let go of his hands and stood, smacking him lightly upside the head. It wasn't nearly hard enough to hurt, but it surprised him. He rubbed the back of his head.

Before he could even say anything, Natasha said, "Stop being a self-sacrificing martyr. We're all to blame. The Accords…I'm sorry we didn't get more time to talk it out, and I'm sorry I didn't have your back. I wish we'd been able to work something out with the Accords, but that's over with now too, and we all made mistakes. Bucky is a different issue, but that fight in Berlin, that's on all of us, Steve." She sighed softly and took a seat next to him on the mattress. "I do still kinda wish that you'd stayed home. Maybe things would be a little less of a mess right now, but…I know you. And I get why you couldn't. It's just not you."

She tucked her hands in her lap, turning her head to meet his eyes. "You always get up in a fight. I've always admired that. You need to do it again, and stop trying to carry the weight of the world and everyone else's problems on your shoulders. Tony will forgive you. It'll probably take a while, but he will. And if he doesn't…" she shrugged a shoulder again. "Oh well. You gave him a way to reach out to you. So, even if he doesn't want your help, he knows it's there. And with our track record of world ending events," Natasha gave him a wry smile, before her expression turned serious again, "I think you and Tony will need each other sooner than you think."

Steve didn't know what to say. He knew she was right. He wasn't sure how long it would take to forgive himself, but maybe forgiveness wasn't what he needed. He just needed to pick himself back up, keep fighting, doing whatever he could to make things right.

Natasha closed her hand around his again, twining her fingers with his. The warmth of her skin seeped into his own, and he lifted his head to look at her.

"After Bruce left," she started slowly, "when all I did was stare at walls, trying to figure out what I did wrong…you're the one who snapped me out of it. You put me to work and made me remember that I was more. More than a heartbroken idiot, and that Bruce's decisions weren't my doing. That it wasn't my fault.

"What I'm saying is that you need to stop carrying all the blame for this. The nightmares, the anxiety, it's only going to persist because you're letting it control you. You need to let go of the guilt or it's gonna kill you. It's only been a month and I can already see that it's swallowing you up. So, I'm here," she said firmly, and he blinked away the tears that were starting to form in his eyes, "as your friend and your partner, to tell you that it's okay to let go. And you should, because you're not responsible for everyone else's actions. We all made our choices, Steve."

He licked his lips, wiping at his cheeks with his free hand. He cleared his throat, and pointed out quietly, "You chose to become a fugitive for me."

The corners of her mouth quirked up into a very Natasha-like smile. Her eyes were bright as she squeezed his hand a little tighter and said, "Pretty much. That was my choice, and I would do it all over again if I had to."

"So, you don't regret it?" he said, asking the question that had been sitting on his tongue since she'd arrived.

She held his gaze for a long moment. "No. I regret that I had to turn my back on Tony to do it. He's my friend, too, but…so are you. And I—" she stopped herself. Steve wasn't sure what she had been about to say, but he just watched, and waited. Natasha took a breath. "I care about you, Steve."

For some reason, his heart fell a little at her answer. He watched her throat bob gently, waiting for him to respond.

"I care about you, too," he said finally. "And I'm glad that you're here to knock some sense into me."

She grinned. "Well, someone has to."

Steve laughed softly, feeling a little lighter than he had in weeks.

"I also should tell you," he whispered, "I dropped the shield."

Natasha was silent for a moment. "What does that mean for you?"

He shrugged a shoulder. "I'm not really sure. Tony said I didn't deserve it, and I think he's kind of right. The world needed me to be Captain America seventy years ago, but now…so I guess I dropped that mantel when I dropped the shield."

"Well," Natasha said slowly, her eyes scanning his face, "maybe the world doesn't need Captain America right now, but…I still need Steve Rogers."

Steve smiled, releasing a breath. "Don't worry, you're stuck with me."

Natasha returned his smile. "Good."

-:-

A month later Bucky was moved to the Wakandan countryside. Shuri told him that she'd been working on Bucky during all her free time, and that she was sure she'd found a solution to getting the Hydra brainwashing out of his head. Steve had breathed a sigh of relief when she'd told him that. A weight that had made a home on his shoulders two years ago finally lifted. Shuri had just smiled with pride when she told him that Bucky had made excellent progress with the lab treatments, and that moving him somewhere quiet and peaceful would help with the rest.

In the month since he and Natasha had talked, they'd also fallen into a somewhat normal routine. He'd started drawing again. Not as much as before, but until the whole Accords and airport fight had a little more time to blow over, he needed something to occupy his time. He stared at the walls less, and when he found himself doing it more than he would like, he'd go find Natasha and they would walk in the gardens or turn a movie on in the entertainment center that Shuri had shown them.

They'd also started sleeping in the same bed again, and his nightmares dwindled. He knew the guards were talking, not quite sure what to make of him and Natasha, but he didn't care. Even though he was pretty sure Sam had spread half the rumors and had done so with Shuri, because he got teased relentlessly by T'Challa's younger sister. He supposed he'd rather be teased than have the Wakandans ready to kick him out at a moment's notice.

Still, once Shuri told him that Bucky was improving, and that he would only do better with time and space, Steve started talking with Sam and Natasha about leaving. It had been a couple months since Berlin. The news reports had quieted down some, and Steve didn't want to overstay his welcome. T'Challa had given him a more thorough tour of the city, had told him how to enter through the barriers that kept it hidden and protected from the rest of the world, and had also threatened him with death by General Okoye should Steve reveal to anyone Wakanda's secrets.

T'Challa had smiled a little as he said it, though Steve knew the king was serious. And he'd sworn on his life not to compromise the kingdom. T'Challa was already working on introducing the real Wakanda to the world, and Steve didn't want to mess up any of the king's carefully laid plans for doing so.

So, two weeks after Bucky was moved out of the city, Steve was on the quinjet with Natasha and Sam, ready to fly wherever they decided on first.

"Thank you, again, for everything," Steve told T'Challa, shaking the king's hand as Natasha and Sam double-checked their things and readied the jet for departure. "I can't tell you how grateful I am for your help. Especially with Bucky."

The king smiled. "The pleasure was all mine, Captain. And though I do expect some warning in advance, know that you, Ms. Romanoff, and Mr. Wilson are welcome back here."

"Thank you," Steve said again.

He stepped backwards towards the quinjet, giving Okoye and Nakia and polite bow of his head. Both women regarded him carefully, giving him small smiles. He was pretty sure the two women had grown to respect him enough, but he also knew they were happy to see him go. This was their home, not his, and he knew that.

With one last look, he turned and boarded the quinjet, the King of Wakanda disappearing as the ramp lifted up after him.

"Where to?" Sam asked from the pilot's seat.

Steve looked out the windshield at the Wakandan capital spread below. Part of him felt guilty, taking them away from the safety of the city. But he knew the three of them could handle anything. And he needed to be back out in the world doing something, helping people. He needed to give Bucky the time and space to heal, without worrying about anyone else. He needed his own time, to regain his footing.

"Wanda's in Amsterdam," he replied. "Let's start there."

"Aye-aye." Sam smiled, lifting the jet off the landing pad, and flying them away from Wakanda.