All the times Rumple was a hero
Shattering his ankle and limping home on it so his son wouldn’t be fatherless
Limping into a burning castle to get the dark one dagger with the goal of using it to save his son from being sent to die on the battlefield
Becoming the Dark One to save his son from being sent to die on the battlefield
Killing Hodor and his men, thereby saving Baelfire and every other child still in the village from being rounded up and sent to the battlefield
Ending the ogres war, saving the children on the battlefield and leading them all home (also his first act as the Dark One after saving Bae)
Saved Baelfire from Peter Pan who was disguised as the Pied Piper at the time
Protected Belle from Nottingham who would have raped her (twice)
Saved Belle from the Queens of Darkness
Saved Belle from being sent over the town line by her own father and Mr Smee and subsequently having all of her memories erased
Saved Belle from Hook, once in the library and once on the Jolly Roger
Saved Belle from being run over by Greg
Healed Belle after she was shot by Hook
Helped save Henry from Pan and was temporarily trapped inside Pandora’s box
Sacrificed himself to kill Pan and saved everyone in Storybrooke
Sacrificed the dagger to save Baelfire and thus lost control of himself to Zelena which allowed her to take control of him, cage him and torment him for a year which subsequently left him traumatised
Saved Belle when Zelena tried to make him murder her
Saved Belle’s heart when Regina stole it
Saved Belle from the Merida bear as an ordinary man with a limp and no powers and letting it toss him around like a rag doll and almost kill him
When he was still powerless and he and the others were marked for death Rumple gave Belle the means (a potion to help her cross the town line, the keys to his car etc) to leave Storybrooke and told her to go and live her life while he remained in Storybrooke waiting for the Dark Ones to kill him
Fought Dark Hook with no powers at all
Pulled the sword from the stone, proving himself to be not just an ordinary hero but the purest hero
Rumple was never a coward, he was a desperate man forced into desperate situations, he had no confidence in himself whatsoever because he was abandoned by both of his parents, the two people in the world who should have loved him more than anything and the people he subsequently had in his life except for Baelfire, repeatedly demeaned and degraded him.