Author's note: Once again with the M rating, folks. Chapters will get more M ratings from now on as the plot progresses. If you don't like that, please don't read.
His room was cool and dark just the way he liked it, despite the glow of the sunrise starting to turn the city rosy-golden with morning light. Steve was well rested, so his body and his mind took the opportunity to play with him before he was conscious enough to put a stop to it.
The top sheet and blanket were tangled tight around him from a night of fitful sleep. He mindlessly rolled from his side onto his belly and hugged his pillow. His skin slid against the soft sheets, then he stilled. The pressure of the top sheet twisted messily around his middle trapped him from rolling over onto his other side. He settled physically, but his mind took note.
"Harder, Rogers. Faster. This move won't work if you're hesitant," Natasha instructed him.
She stood in front of him, dressed in her clingy black combat suit. It didn't make sense that she would be wearing it in the training room, but whatever. He grabbed for her elbow. She twisted away and ducked to slide between his legs and come up behind him on the mats. He spun around to try again.
He had the correct motions in his mind now, and this time when she tried to evade, he matched her speed and got a good grip on her elbow. He had to take advantage of the sliver of a second when her body wasn't blocking the loop her arm made for him to grab.
Steve gripped hard so that when she straightened her arm and used her body weight to spin away from him, she couldn't fling loose as she normally would. As a result, the momentum of her motion pulled them both along. She tried to take advantage of it to snap him free in a different direction, but he snagged the inside of her shin with his own and brought them both down hard to the mats.
He only partially kept his weight from falling on her. The breath whuffed from her and she was fighting him before he could get her in a full lockdown. Instead of trying to pin her all over, Steve knew to focus on the most dangerous parts. His forehead pressed into hers until their brows hurt, the bones grinding together. He already had one of her hands down tight, and one of her shins pinned painfully under his.
"Faster, Nat. I've almost got you," he warned with a taunting smile. He waited until the exact right moment when he could rotate his other thigh out and pin hers. She was fighting hard, twisting and trying every angle to get at any of his soft spots or pain points, but he knew her methods and her body as well as she knew his. He matched and blocked. Knowing that he would always heal gave him the ability to partially ignore the pain she inflicted. He applied more pressure to the three points he already held and secured her other leg. Her right hand was annoying, knifing at his throat, his face, moving too fast for him to get a grip on it. He tolerated the pain of a larynx jab and started at her upper arm and forced her hand out until he had her knuckles flat against the mat.
She strained against him for only another instant. She knew when she was beat. Nat lay, panting, and waited for him to let up.
"Come on Steve, this one's over. Uncle," she said on an exhaled breath.
Steve didn't want to get up. She felt good under him. He wanted her to go on fighting him. He eased his grip so she could struggle if she wanted to. He wouldn't mind. It felt real good, with his hips almost centered on hers. The muscles of her inner thigh were soft and his exercise shorts were slick against her uniform.
"What are you doing, Rogers?" she asked him.
Steve answered her by fully aligning their hips. She couldn't miss what he was doing now. He shifted his forehead against hers so that they were staring at each other. He dared her to deny that she was interested.
"Is this what you want, Sweety?" Nat asked him.
She changed the angle of her hips so that he was cradled perfectly where he wanted to be, just the thin layers of their clothes between them. There. He could feel the heat of her. Her lips quirked up at the corners.
She'd asked him a stupid question. Of course it's what he wanted. It's all he could think about. For months, for years, it had been what he wanted. He'd had enough of her teasing. He kept her pinned and moved against her.
"Steve. Sweety, come on, you know you don't want to do this. Let us up and you can go take care of it somewhere else," she tried to tell him.
"Shut up, Nat. Shut up and take it," he growled at her.
It felt too good to stop. His subtle movements became stronger. The warm pressure gave him something to push against. Nat gave up resisting him passively like a responsible friend would do. She knew he wanted a fight, so she gave him one.
Her thighs fought against the outside of his, trying to squeeze him away and dislodge him. She tried to twist her hips aside under his weight, but he followed her every move. It was deeply satisfying to chase what he wanted. It gave him justification to push harder, to pursue. She struggled randomly, but as he sought and pushed, her twisting and evasion began to match his pattern. The jolts of pressure and friction against him became predictable and he could chase them, anticipate them.
"You found what you want?" she asked him, taunting.
He was tired of her taunting, displaying what he shouldn't have, teasing and torturing him. He gripped her hands tighter and rolled into the pressure. There. It was right there and it was hot and soft and he was going to take it.
Steve woke up straining against the twisted sheet, gripping the pillow. His mind became aware of what was happening and he went with it gladly. Relief. Ah, God! Sweet relief. He breathed through it, trying guiltily to banish thoughts of Nat. It was what any woman had that he wanted, he knew, not Nat's in particular. She was simply the most familiar to him, the easiest for his mind to fabricate a dream about.
Before his breathing slowed, he was already handling the mess. The sheets and his boxers went into the wash. He took himself to the shower, both pleased and ashamed. This was one he wouldn't have to mention in confession because he hadn't done it intentionally. It was the subject matter that bothered him. Why had it been so exciting to pin her and use her like that? It was wrong, and he mentally chastised himself for the wayward dream.
Steve hurried in the shower before the troublesome thoughts could excite him again. The problem with having an enhanced body was that his stamina and his recovery times were such that a moment of relief was only that. A moment. He felt good for right now, but it would be back sooner than he wanted. He'd learned to live with it years ago, but it was becoming harder to handle lately.
He chastised himself one more time, then hurried to get dressed for the day.
"What makes you think we can do this without changing her in some other unpredictable way? Every trial in history has ended poorly, with some unforeseen side effect." Steve questioned Tony.
He'd found Stark in his lab, at work on something to do with a quinjet modification.
"If you had bothered to read the whole file, you'd know that the last experiments were over twenty years ago. Processing power has increased exponentially since then. Bruce and I have been able to find the reason each of the other experiments failed. It was a matter of their inability to accurately forecast cellular interactions which caused the side effects. Bruce is over ninety percent certain now how his own trial went wrong. If he could do it again today, we wouldn't have the big green guy. There's something to be said for the benefits of trial and error," Tony told him.
He spun around in his chair and twirled a wooden drumstick in his hand. Steve figured that he kept random objects around while he was working so that his hands could stay busy fiddling with something while his mind worked.
"I get that. It's the ten percent that's the problem. Would you play Russian roulette with Pepper and those odds?" Steve challenged.
Tony stilled and stared off into the middle distance.
"Right. So, what percentage makes us all comfortable? We're never going to reach zero risk, Steve. Even an appendectomy runs a risk of adverse consequences. It's her heart. She needs it. At some point, the risk of the procedure becomes less than the risk of letting her go on as she is," Tony reasoned with him.
"Let me know when you are honestly ninety-five percent certain that we can fix her heart without messing up anything else," Steve said.
"There's more to it than her heart. Her liver and her bones are also damaged," Tony said.
"She's not going to die from her liver and her bones. Focus on what we can do for her heart and leave the rest alone. The less invasive we are, the better," Steve said.
Tony wanted to argue for more health benefits for the girl, but time had increased his wisdom. Steve was right. With proper care, her bones and her liver would improve slowly on their own.
"I'll tell you when," Tony said.
Steve nodded, and was about to leave the lab.
He turned back and opened his mouth to ask Tony a question of a more personal nature.
Tony waited, looking interested.
Steve changed his mind. Anything Tony said was likely to be flippant at the least, with patronizing and belittling being the most probable attitudes.
"Never mind. Thanks, Tony. I appreciate what you and Bruce have done for her. I truly do. Is she doing well at the job?" Steve asked.
"How should I know? I'm R and D, not personnel. I don't care if she's good at the job. She needs it, so she gets it. You want me to fire her if she doesn't pass a performance eval.?" Tony asked.
Steve smiled and shook his head. He nodded a goodbye to Tony, who spun around in his chair again before facing his work station.
Estrella met him for lunch at the café on the ground floor of the tower. There was a view of the street outside. The nice weather had gone on break to give them rain today. Steve sat down with his steak and fries. Estrella carried her own lunch tray of potato soup and flaky, golden rolls.
They sat and he marveled at how different she was from the huddled, bundled scruffy girl he'd first met. First, it was great to see her finally eating solid food. She wore loose-fit jeans and a roomy, thick sweater. Stark Industries had almost no dress code for its employees, and Estrella worked on a company laptop from Nat's suite, anyway.
Her hair was growing in thick and black, though none of it was longer than a quarter inch. The choker at her throat looked casual, like a vintage thrift store find, instead of a piece of Stark technology. She was still incredibly thin and frail looking, but she wasn't skeletal anymore.
Estrella threw her second roll at his face so he would stop looking at her like that.
"Quit looking at me and eat your steak, you hog. You didn't even run today. How can you eat so much?" she asked him.
He'd caught the roll in midair, so he handed it back to her. She bit it and chewed.
"Metabolism. I need the food whether I work out or not. How do you like the job?" he asked her, then put a bite of steak and some potato in his mouth.
"I love it. It gets kind of boring, now that I know what to do, but I can listen to music while I work. I can't believe they pay people for data entry. Typing is so easy," Estrella said.
He focused on his lunch to encourage her to do the same. She ate most of what was in her soup bowl and she only left half a roll uneaten. Steve's plate was clean long before hers was.
Estrella rubbed her finger round and round on the smooth surface of her heart monitor, which was hidden by her sleeve. The rain came down on the other side of the glass near their table, casting everything in an even, gray light. A minute stretched into two, and his silent presence became both calming and annoying somehow.
"I still want to draw you," Steve told her.
"Why?" she asked.
His scrutiny made her uneasy. Steve simply looking at her while they talked was fine. But when he wanted to draw, his eyes became more searching and critical. She got the feeling he was seeing things she didn't notice when she looked in the mirror.
"I don't know. It's subjective. Something in the lines, like I said the day Nat cut our hair. I don't want you to model for me, per se. I can draw you without you being there, like my sketches of Buck. Maybe I'm asking your permission to put you down on paper," Steve said.
His eyes still travelled over her face and neck, the shape of her head. She didn't like it. She was still skinny and bony and already he was looking. It worried her.
"Okay, you can draw me. But quit staring," she frowned at him. She threw the last half of her roll at him. He moved his head slightly and caught it with his mouth. With a little maneuvering of his lips and teeth, he ate it hands-free.
"Steve, you're such a freak. And a pig. Piggy, piggy, piggy," she picked at him with a sing-song voice and a smile. He grinned around his mouthful. It made him happy that she could talk to him freely. He liked to hear her soft, pretty voice, even if she was ribbing him about something.
Her black eyelashes and brows seemed to be fuller, framing her expressive eyes. It was a sign of returning health to him and he was glad to see it. It was strange how his concern about her wellbeing wasn't the same kind of worry and weighty responsibility that his work as an Avenger gave him. His responsibilities from work felt like a weight he pulled around behind him. Concern about her felt like something he carried in his arms. It was more personal and it felt better. Warmer.
"Are you growing a beard?" she asked, to maybe make him quit staring at her.
Steve rubbed at his chin and the hairs that he'd allowed to remain there. It had been five days since he'd shaved, and it was thick enough that he'd trimmed the edges of it already to keep it neat.
"I must not be doing a good job of it if you have to ask," he said. He rubbed his jaw and propped his face in his hand, his elbow on the table.
"No, no, it's good, but doesn't it look funny with the uniform?" she asked him. Then, she felt bad for questioning his grooming. She hoped he wouldn't take it as criticism.
"Probably. I don't know. I'm not sure I care. We haven't been called out in over a week. There was a mission in line, but a pre-mission recon flight showed that the target has already been hit by someone else. So, intel is trying to figure out who else is out there on the field with us. The beard might grow a little more before I suit up to see how it looks together," he said.
Steve was as relaxed as she'd ever seen him, lazing across the table from her looking like he could fall asleep propped on his hand. His short, dark blonde hair was the same color on his head and on his face. It set off his steely blue eyes in a way that his lighter, longer hair had not. His lips were pretty. She looked down at her lap and fiddled with the wrinkles of her gray sweater.
"The Beard?" she asked, belatedly calling him on how he'd described his new feature.
"Hah! Sure, I guess. The Beard," Steve said low and dramatic like a radio personality.
Estrella laughed, and Steve smiled to see her so happy.
"You've got to make a comic strip about The Beard. I want to see it! Adventures of The Beard. You could have titles like The Beard and the Pizza Promenade. The Beard and Entanglements with Fuzzy Sweater. The Beard in Bubble Gum Attacks!" she imagined.
Steve laughed too. She was delightful and he wondered how many of her thoughts he'd missed in the time he'd known her because she hadn't been able to talk. As soon as he had time, he'd draw the comics for her. She was probably joking, but it might be fun.
"The Beard and Candy Apple Surprise," Steve added to the list.
"Exactly!" Estrella chuckled, "Have you ever grown one before?"
"No. In ninety-four years, I can't say that I have. That's pretty impressive, especially since I didn't shave for seventy years. What a missed opportunity," he joked.
Estrella's smile faded. Everybody knew he'd been frozen. Now that she knew him personally, the thought of him cold and still, so suspended that his hair didn't even grow, was horrible to her. He was so alive, so energetic. It was dismal to imagine.
"Steve, in all those years, were you aware at all?" she asked, back to using her whisper. She didn't trust her voice to be steady. It was sad enough to cry over, but she didn't want to appear weepy and sentimental.
"Only at first. I'd promised my girl a dance. I knew I was going to miss it and that she was going to be feeling low. She'd be worried about me. Until I lost consciousness, I thought about what I would say to her, what I would do to make up for it. All I remember is the first few hours," Steve said.
He didn't know why he was telling Estrella. He hadn't told anyone else what it had been like. There had been pain, too, as the water sucked the heat from his body. His enhancements had kept trying to warm him, dragging the process out for hours. He'd drifted at the edge of awareness, with the crushing ache of the cold gnawing at his bones. It was a toss-up as to which had been worse, the cold or the grief of knowing that minute by minute, he was losing Peggy.
"I'm so sorry you went through that," she said.
Estrella reached across the table and took up his other hand which was lying there idle. With both hands, she pulled his across and pressed the backs of his fingers to her cheek. She wanted to press warmth into him, to know that he was warm enough. She couldn't do anything about the girl, but warmth was important. She knew that now.
Her efforts to comfort him reminded him that she had her own sorrows, her own painful past. Maybe she was kind to him because she felt the ache of the past, too. They both moved on and lived in the present, but every now and then the past caught up to them and refreshed the memories. It still hurt. He remembered the cold, and the lost opportunity. But with someone to share it, the burden was eased somehow. He hoped she'd let him help her when it was her turn.
The fact that she was touching him and had sought him out to do so gave him hope for her recovery. He still wanted to know what had happened to her, and to do what he could to make it better. Steve knew that it might not be possible to do anything about her past, just as it was impossible to do anything about his. But he could try, if she would let him.
"I know that I'm not the only one, Eya. Painful things happened to you, too. I wish they hadn't. I can't change the past any more than you can, but I might be able to help you heal. Tony and Bruce tell me that we might be able to fix your heart. It's risky, and I don't know that it's worth the risk," he told her.
"What do you mean? The doctor said it can't be fixed," Estrella said.
She let his hand drop from her face, but she curled her fingers into his palm when it rested on the table.
Steve looked around the café. There was no one around because it was after the lunch rush. Only Jarvis would hear, and he already knew.
"My blood. Bruce says we can isolate part of my blood so that you don't get the full effect. With a process he and Tony have developed, we can enable your heart to heal, to rebuild from the damage that was done," Steve told her.
"What's with your blood? I wouldn't become a super-soldier, would I? I don't want to be changed like that," Estrella said.
Steve smiled at her honesty. She made his serum enhancements sound like a communicable disease.
"That's the risky part. Since the beginning, people have been after my blood, a new version of the serum, my DNA, anything that would allow them to recreate the super-soldier program. They want to weaponize humans to fight their ego-battles for them. All of them for the wrong reasons. I told Tony that until they're sure that the risk of unintended side effects is very minimal, I won't consider it. I know you wouldn't want to be changed," he explained.
Estrella nodded. It sounded farfetched to her that they could force her heart muscles to rebuild, but then she looked at all the muscles on him. Maybe it wouldn't be so difficult. It seemed that strength had been a primary effect of Steve's enhancement. Maybe it was possible. She knew Tony Stark's devices and his problem solving ability was phenomenal.
"I'll think about it. But you can tell Tony that if he turns me into a super-woman, I'll use my powers to beat him up. I don't want to be super human," she said.
The thought of being enhanced like Steve, along with her other freakish abilities, made her squirmingly uncomfortable. Life was hard enough already.
"I know. I'll tell him," Steve assured her.
She'd never said as much, but he'd somehow known that she wouldn't want to be enhanced. It was more her style to hide, to escape notice, to be meek until she couldn't. He admired that she was accepting of her frailty. It was a sign of maturity that she could take her reality as it was rather than always hankering after the next thing dangled in front of her, like so many people did.
Estrella let go of his fingers and he slid his hand back to rest on his side of the table. Now that they'd spoken of everything they should and then some, his eyes went back to studying her again. He liked the way the orbit of her eye met her temple. The way her cheekbones curved to meet the contours of her ears.
"Go away," she told him.
She'd said it to him many times on the street, when he'd been pestering her to take care of herself. This time, instead of with a cranky attitude or a pained headache, she said it with a tolerant little smile at him. She knew he wasn't trying to be a pervert. His gaze on her was artistic and contemplative. Still, it made her uneasy. It made her think about the future, and she wanted to hold off on that for as long as she could.
"Go," she urged him, and pushed his arm out from under his face.
"Alright, alright," Steve grinned.
He cleared away his lunch things and left her alone. It sure was nice to leave her with the both of them happy lately. It made him hopeful that she'd tolerate his company one more time.
Sam already had pretty good fighting skills, though his main offense was with firearms. Steve wanted him better, wanted him as good as he could be. For what they did, Sam needed everything he could bring to a fight. It had been proven that the wings wouldn't always be there to keep him above the action.
"Again," he told Sam.
Sam came at him with a series of punches and kicks designed to get an opponent off balance and open them up for a killing blow. Steve moved as a normal human combatant should in reaction, not how he would if Sam was actually attacking him. Sam came to the opportune moment and took it. Steve fell from the blow and rolled onto the mats smiling. Sam was strong and fast, already so much better than most of the enemies they'd be facing.
"Better. Much better. Again," he said.
Steve got up and had Sam work through it again, and again. As Sam improved, Steve threw him random surprises. He caught on quickly and soon kept his balance more even and broadened his attention to watch all of Steve, not just the parts that seemed most threatening at the moment.
"Enough, man. I'm getting some water before you knock the last drop out of me," Sam said.
"Quitter," Steve teased him.
Sam walked off the mats and made a rude gesture at him. Steve chuckled.
Sam was no quitter. Steve had trained too many men to keep count of. Sam had a lot of potential and he worked it hard. He was a pleasure to work with and Steve enjoyed seeing him improve over time. Natasha could still kick his ass, but that was true for all except a very few men. Sam would get there.
Steve took a moment to get a drink, too. Not that he needed it. He wasn't sweating. Sometimes he found that it was better to act more like the other guys. Standing around unaffected by exertion or tiredness or heat or cold could be demoralizing to those who followed him, so he didn't lord it over them.
Sam was favoring the muscles of his right calf, where Steve had gotten in a pretty hard hit. It barely showed and probably hurt more than he was letting on. Steve was about to ask him if he wanted to call it a day when the door opened.
"Hey," Nat said to them.
"Hey," Sam responded.
Steve nodded at her in a brief greeting. She had her earbuds in and her hair pulled back. She looked intent on getting to the weights in the corner.
Sam watched Nat walk around the perimeter of the room with a smile of friendly appreciation. He'd tried to hide his appreciation of Nat once, but she'd called him on it painfully. So, when Nat wore clingy stuff, like the yoga pants and top she now had on, Sam openly watched, but not in a perverse way. He somehow appreciated women in a way that didn't look dirty. It was like he was looking at art or something. Natasha had a tiny smile too, as she felt Sam's attention on her. She was used to the way men reacted around her, and honesty seemed to appeal to her when she was among friends.
Steve wished he could get away with staring like that. He might train Sam on the mats, but he was Sam's student when it came to a lot of other things.
"Sam," Steve said, to get his attention.
When he had it, Steve waved Sam over toward Nat and moved toward her too. He'd had enough time to ruminate over Bucky, and he couldn't keep the secret any longer.
Nat looked aside at their approach and pulled out her earbuds. The fact that she used her earbuds so much while she was on the Avengers floors of the tower illustrated how much she trusted her teammates and Tony's security measures.
"What's up?" Nat asked them.
Sam shrugged and looked to Steve.
"I've met Bucky. He's here in the city," Steve told them.
Sam's eyebrows rose. Natasha's expression didn't change at all.
"You knew this," Steve said.
"I'm not surprised. He could have been anywhere. When did he come to you, and what was his condition?" Natasha asked.
"It was in the park, after my run last Tuesday. He's been watching me for six weeks. He's not a threat, so I'm going to recommend that we stand down and leave him alone," Steve said.
"How long did you spend with him, to determine that he's not a threat?" Natasha asked.
"It was about five minutes, but the man I met was not the Soldier. He was my friend. He demonstrated that he remembers our childhood. He knows me. In six weeks' time, you know he could have taken me out, Nat. If he was still acting under a kill order, he would have executed it by now," Steve said.
Natasha looked at him, nothing but skeptical. She knew the Winter Soldier like none of them did. Spending a calculated five minutes to show Steve that he remembered their childhood sounded like the preliminary contact for a long op. Especially after observing for six weeks. But then, Steve had a point in that fact, too. If the Soldier was setting up an inside takedown for the Avengers, he wouldn't have told Steve that he'd been watching.
Sam stood by and let them hash it out. Bucky was Steve's business and he was only along as backup. Natasha seemed to know enough to ask questions, but he didn't. Sam used the break time to flex and stretch his sore calf muscles.
Natasha took her phone and her earbuds off of her workout armband and set them on the weight bench. She slid the elastic from her hair and redid it on the top of her head instead of the back.
"Get on the mats," she said to Steve.
"Not today," he told her.
"Steve, you need to see the things I know about Barnes which you don't know. Some of his training makes you vulnerable, and I can help you with that," Natasha said.
Steve stood resolute beside the mat. He fully understood her idea, but a larger issue had come into play. The sexual overtones of his dream this morning were clouding his thinking and he couldn't afford to make a mistake of that nature with a teammate. Or a friend.
"I'm not getting on the mats with you today," he told her.
"I know that you're frustrated and that you might get hard," Nat said, "It's not a problem. I trust you."
"I'm gonna leave you guys to figure this out," Sam said. Things had just gone from interesting to awkward and he wanted no part of it. He respected both Natasha and Steve and he didn't like the vibe of where this was going.
"I need you to stay," Steve told him.
The look he levelled on his wingman had Sam standing watch. Sam was real uneasy about what he was being asked to witness, but he stayed where he was needed. They could both feel the tension coming off of the Captain, and neither had any doubt which of his personas they were dealing with. His stance and his tone made it clear.
His attention turned back to Natasha.
"Natasha, you and I are having fraternization issues. If I get on the mats with you, you won't be able to teach me anything. Can you keep me from pinning you, even exerting a full effort?" he asked her evenly.
"Only if I'm willing to injure you," she admitted.
"Think about that for a moment, in light of what I'm willing to endure to accomplish my mission objectives," he reminded her.
She could tease and joke with her teammates any time she liked. Honesty was a matter of circumstance for Natasha. But her reputation as a professional required her to admit the truth.
She'd often felt that much as Thor restrained himself while sparring with Steve, Steve also restrained himself when sparring with her. It wasn't something she knew only with her rational mind. Her body had felt it and her muscles remembered. Sparring wasn't the true test of Steve's ability. Steve tearing down concrete walls to get to her was the test. Steve bodily hauling her uphill for a half mile without the use of his lungs was the test. When sufficiently motivated, the limits of Steve Rogers' physical abilities had not yet been found.
"No, I'm not able to evade being pinned by you," Natasha admitted.
"Natasha, I'm ashamed to say that if we spar right now, either you're going to break my spirit, or I'm going to break your body. Maybe both," Steve said in defeat.
He let go of his command stance and sat down on the vinyl padded seat of the weight bench. He truly was ashamed of his lack of mastery over his own body. As team leader, it was becoming a real problem.
"That's a lose-lose," she agreed, "What I need to show you can wait until tomorrow, but you need to work on getting your tension resolved."
The three of them had given up on getting any more physical work done today. Sam understood that the need for his presence was over with, as far as ethics and oversight went. Steve looked up at him as a troubled man, not as team leader. Sam shifted into his other role within the team. As a teammate, there were things he didn't want to hear. As their councilor, he could listen to anything. Sam squatted down to get more on Steve's level. Natasha sat on the empty part of the seat beside Steve.
"Guys, I don't know what to do with myself anymore. I, uh, had some relief from this tension seven hours ago, and it's already back. It comes with the body. Nothing keeps it down for long," he admitted with a perfect Steve Rogers blush.
"Then you take care of it every seven hours. Or every six hours. Do what you have to do," Nat advised.
"He can't do that," Sam stepped in for Steve.
He went to church with the man. He understood the level of devotion Steve had to his faith. The anxiety of disregarding his belief system would be as great as the stress Steve was already feeling from the problem.
"Sure he can," Natasha said.
Steve held up a hand of truce between his friends.
"I think the key to this is mental. My body has been the same for over seventy years. It's my mind that's changed. I was always so focused on combat and victory that I had little time for indulging my…" Steve said. His words faded off, but they knew what he meant.
"And now that you have a little time to think, it wants some shore leave," Sam concluded.
"I think so," Steve nodded.
"Your team needs you, Steve. I need you to train with me. No matter what your heart says, Barnes is a potential threat. If I have to admit your dominance, then you can admit that with Buck, it's personal for you. They taught us some nasty things in the red room, and Barnes was my most thorough instructor," she said.
"I get that, Natasha. I'll train with you. But you gotta listen when I tell you 'no.'" he said.
"I can do that," she agreed softly.
"In case you're thinking about it," Sam said hesitantly, "I don't think it will do you much good to consult with your confessor on this. No priest is going to understand what you're going through. None of them have to deal with what you deal with. Their advice might do more harm than good."
Steve nodded. There was nothing for it then, but to find an outlet that was the least harmful.
"Nat," he said.
"Mmhmm?"
"Lay off on the teasing some," he told her.
"But it's so fun," she smiled at him a little, trying to bring levity to the situation.
Steve shook his head.
"You're not in here," he tapped a finger to his head, "It's not all fun.