Winter Widow One Shots

All Good Things Must End - Part One

The symptoms had begun months ago. At first he would loose only a few minutes here or there. A couple headaches from time to time. They were easy to ignore, and hadn't bothered or worried him at the time. But they had steadily grown. Now he was loosing hours at a time, filled with nothing. No memories of what actions he had taken during those times. His hand had begun shaking uncontrollably recently, and the head aches were becoming a constant companion.

He had told Steve first. Afraid to tell Natalia what was happening to him. Her instinct would be to fix it immediately, and she wouldn't stop until she could. It would tear her apart trying to do so. He wanted to come to her with a solution. But after months of researching with Steve, Tony, and Bruce nothing had come from it. He had claimed he was on solo missions, when in reality he had been in the lab running a dozen different tests at a time. Trying new medicines, or treatment options. None of it had changed anything. He was still dying.

While Tony and Bruce agreed that the root cause seemed to be his years as the Winter Soldier, the constant memory erasing, the experimental serum, the freezing, and overall stress on his body, they could find no solution to help him. As the symptoms were becoming more severe he knew he couldn't hide it from her much longer. Most nights he was up a half dozen times taking medicine, drinking water, searching for some frozen food in the freezer to place against his throbbing head. Whatever he could to curb the headaches. He couldn't even sit through a movie with her with out the pounding in his head.

James stood in the kitchen a bottle of ibuprofen on the counter. He stared at it trying to remember how long it had been since he had taken his last dose. Surely even if it hadn't been long enough the serum in his blood could help? Then again wasn't it possible that same serum was killing him? He closed his eyes pinching the bridge of his nose between his thumb and index finger. Why couldn't he just remember? He should have written it down. But he wouldn't because he didn't want to risk Nat seeing it.

"You took some four hours ago." She stood in the kitchen doorway wearing his shirt from the day before, her hair tied up in a messy bun. "You should be okay to take some Tylenol, you can take more ibuprofen in 4 hours if you need it."

She moved into the kitchen searching through the medicine cupboard. She stood on her tiptoes and pushed a few bottles out of the way. Finding the nearly empty bottle of Tylonel she handed it to him confused. "Didn't we just buy this last week?"

"No... I think it was a couple weeks ago." He took the bottle and reached for a glass to fill with water. He popped the lid off and poured two pills into his hand. Taking a drink of water he dropped the pills into his mouth and swallowed.

"James, maybe you should take to Stark? This is the third time this week you've had to wake up in the middle of the night to take medicine. Even with our jobs we've never gone through pain killers like this. I am a bit worried about you." She wrapped her arms around his waist and laid her head on his bare back. Her cool skin felt soothing against him. He wanted so badly to just close his eyes and relax right there.

Instead he stood silently knowing he had to tell her. He couldn't wait any longer. Even if he could hide it, it wasn't fair to her. She was a trained spy, it honestly surprised him he had been able to keep it from her this long. He couldn't keep the secret from her any longer. But he wasn't sure he was ready. Banner had estimated 2-3 months if they couldn't find something to help. And they wouldn't be good months. He'd begin loosing more and more time, as well as control on his body. They had already talked about removing his arm for his and Natalia's safety.

Slowly he turned to face her and buried his face in her hair. He took in a deep breath filled with her peach shampoo. His arms wrapped around her pulling her against him. "I already did..."