durare | let's play.

[ he is returned to her, half-alive but whole -- but the strange, impossible thing is this: he is found ninety-nine years on (as young as she has remembered him when he told her her loved her and her ears rang from the rage of a defeated god) as precious cargo of a group of smugglers who did not know what they had excavated from the earth, and when he started to breathe again, underneath the clay, they were afraid and abandoned him.

perhaps zeus had breathed life anew into him; but even so, nothing explains just how he would have turned up here and now, on the heels of an old photo returned. thank you for returning him to me, she had told bruce wayne in an email three days ago, given him a scrap of a story for his trouble, and now she sits quietly by the bed she had laid him in. hers, a simple but elegant thing, a far cry from the hard ground they slept in during the war, and in a large, similarly elegant room in her penthouse in paris. the gods do not bestow gifts freely, and she cannot help but wonder at when the toll will come due, and if the price would be too high to pay.

it wouldn't. it wouldn't, not for steve, who gave himself up for the sake of the world. he saved that night, and as a result the next, and the next, and all the others that came after -- and she has never stopped loving him, not once. his watch is faithfully repaired, even when the watchmakers have run out of spare parts, even when two and three of them have gently told her that it would fetch a fine price at an auction house, and has she considered sothebys?

she commissions them now, the spare parts, and keeps the watch close. safe. it's the last thing he had given her, this measure of time and a softly uttered wish (more time, he wished they had more time and so did she), and here they are now, with her keeping vigil as he sleeps, a glass of water by his bed and his watch on the pillow by his side, a silent guardian to him as it had been hers for the past century.

she will pay for all that comes, as long as he is safe, and alive. ]

Steve. [ she murmurs softly, brushing his hair back from his head. she wonders if he can hear her. she swallows a lump in her throat, and contemplates the familiarity of this scene -- he didn't look too different when he'd washed up on the shore a lifetime ago. this time, however: ] It's me, Diana.

[He startles awake, a spy and soldier down to his very bones and he's ready for a fight that he knows nothing about but he'll fight it all the same because they won't take him, they won't crack him, he'll die first.

Which he kind of did. So there's that.

The last thing he remembers is the shaky breath in his lungs and the cold metal in his hand and the heat of the fire scorching his face. And then he's here, wherever here is and that doesn't actually matter much when he opens his eyes and his vision is filled with her.

Diana, Diana, Diana. There's no fight then. Steve relaxes in one harsh breath, his hands stop their search for a weapon, his head drops back to the pillow. It's then he realizes that everything in his body hurts and she looks different. Older, maybe. Sadder, definitely. He wonder how she saved him this time because that was a pretty tight corner he backed himself into.]

We have to stop meeting like this.

[ We have to stop meeting like this, he says, as if a hundred years has not just spanned between them, as if they had only just parted ways; but his sense of humor is not lost on her, treasured and precious and now even more so. That response gets a smile from her, dawning and hopeful, and she leans over while she reaches out, a hand resting on his forehead. ]

We really should.

[ She agrees with a soft, inexplicable huff of laughter, feeling something sting the back of her eyes, emotion flickering in her chest. It's been so long, so long, and here he is, a gift, a second chance. Dark hair tumbling over her shoulders, Diana allows herself to hope. ] Do you know where you are? What year this is?

[Well that's a weird question to ask.

Steve's forehead wrinkles in confusion, and he reaches for her without thinking much about it. Just to assure himself that this is real and not some fever dream in a hospital that's falling apart brick by brick until there isn't anything left but rubble and the cries of dying men. She feels real. This bed is definitely not a standard cot issued by the British armed forces. It's quiet here. Probably not a hospital but that's all he's got.]

I haven't the faintest idea. It was 1918 last I checked.

[ Ah, of course.

1918 -- Diana leans into his touch, pressing her cheek against his calloused palm. This is what she steals from him, just a little, before she breaks the news. His warmth, his kindness, how he looks to her, confused and lost but ultimately unhurt. Steve had been sleeping for so long, preserved in the earth, and perhaps Demeter had given him a blessing of hers, kept him safe until today.

She wouldn't know -- the gods ought to all have been dead. She opens her eyes two seconds, three later, her hand pressed against his as she thinks of just how to say it -- before she decides on pure, unfettered honesty. That's always worked relatively well with her, and Steve wouldn't appreciate being lied to. ]

We're a long way from 1918.

[No, he wouldn't appreciate being lied to. Especially not from her, even if she thought she was protecting him.

He's marveling at their hands joined together when she delivers her news. He's never really thought of himself as simple, as ordinary, as settling for the average but there's something about her and them where the little things mean everything. Holding her hand. The scent of her hair when she moves. Maybe it's because she's so extraordinary. Maybe it's because he's pretty sure he's in love with her and he's barely known her a week.]

How, uh long exactly?

Edited 2017-06-02 18:57 (UTC)

[ they say that you never forget your first love: the one who first kissed you, who showed you both the light and the dark, and in his death and sacrifice reminded you that love, love is what matters, not war. a reminder, a hope, a ray of light in the devastating darkness.

diana doesn't forget. she keeps him safe in the corner of her heart, his watch ticking quietly away in her handbag, echoing the beating of her heart. diana doesn't forget, but she comes to love another, one who had come along ninety-nine years to the day, catching her off-guard with bright blue-green eyes and a smile that is so much like his. jim kirk, he tells her with a twinkle in his eye and diana could almost swear it is him reborn, from the charming wit to the way he looks at her and says her name. he's the ghost of him, a spitting image of steve that makes her heart skip a beat -- more time, he'd said. he wished they had more time.

but they're different men even if so much of kirk resonates with steve, and she reminds herself of that all the time. her days are a little brighter all the same, and when she kisses him for the first time, her heart feels a little more full. so she kisses him again, and again, and wonders what steve would think of it all.

diana knows it's unfair, how she can't shake steve from her memory, how it sometimes clouds the time she spends with kirk. it's unfair to him, when she comes to love kirk on his own merit -- his passion for the skies, his recklessly loving nature, the depth of his emotion and his care for others, the scars he carries from so much loss. his flirtatious nature, too, and that wit -- and diana eventually finds it easier to move on.

it's still unfair, but it's easier now, when kirk fills up the spaces in her heart and it's guilt that creeps in with it; would steve forgive her for this, would he blame her? he wouldn't, he's not that kind of man, but she thinks on it all the same this morning on the day of his anniversary.

she wakes before kirk does, pulling on a robe and closing it with a sash after pressing a soft, loving kiss to his forehead. she will have to get flowers later, when she visits his grave and clears the weeds from the tombstone, knowing all the while that there's no body underneath it. she lingers by the window when she pulls open the curtains, letting the early morning light in. ]

[He may remind her of Steve Trevor but he's never met another woman anything like her before. Sure Kirk knows beautiful women. He knows women who can kick his ass. He knows several who have both qualities. Diana is just... different. She has the distinction of being one of the only people who can distract him from the Enterprise, even for a moment and that's just not easy to do.

He knows she has skeletons in her closet. Secrets that she keeps close to her chest. He's noticed that she's been getting progressively quieter over the last week. But he doesn't ask because he has skeletons and scars too and he gets it. Life isn't fair. The universe doesn't care if you grow up without a father or if you lose a lover or if your brother runs away at fourteen or if you can never go home again. He doesn't push, because he doesn't like it when people push on his scars but he wonders.

He watches.]

You're up early, [commented from the bed, still wrapped in a sheet and just a sheet (wink) and his hair looks ridiculous like it always does in the morning since he started growing it out and a little smile on his face. He has a meeting with Spock later, a promise to grab lunch with Bones, an afternoon of arguing with Scotty about how they can't do that to the Enterprise but he doesn't want to move just yet.]

Penny for your thoughts?

[ Not going to lie, Jim Kirk is another exceptional specimen of a man -- being with the captain of the Enterprise is not something that happens every day. Diana knows of history, of legends, but she does not know space, the vast reaches and limitless impossibilities and the galaxies that lie beyond.

She likes listening to him speak of other civilisations, other beings so removed from their own, and Diana is very sure that Jim's aware of just how to make use of that to get himself laid. Not that she minds all that much -- he does have much to offer, but she's more interested in what's underneath, the things he doesn't say when he's sober, the things he lets spill when intoxicated. Like his father, for one. She doesn't push him to tell her, but she makes a note of it anyway, just in case.

Jim keeps secrets, too. Skeletons locked away neatly in a closet, scars she's traced her lips over in heated nights, and the scars that don't show up physically. Diana observes him, too, her interest and fascination with him extending beyond just what she sees on the surface. No, Jim has so much more to offer, and when he speaks up, she turns to look over her shoulder, a small smile tugging at her mouth. Yes, she notices -- what a fine specimen, indeed. Leagues above average, and she's sure he knows that, too.

He looks especially handsome in the morning light, hair mussed and smiling, and she speaks up after a moment, contemplating just what to say that won't sound like a cop out or a lie. ]

I'm visiting the tomb of a friend this afternoon. [ She says at length, stepping towards him. ] You remind me a little of him.

[He hasn't used an Enterprise story to get laid in over a year, okay. He's thirty now and the captain of the Fleet's flagship. He's a mature man.

Whatever he thought she was going to say, what she actually says wasn't it. Obvious by the way his eyebrows draw together and he sits up a little straighter, something he always does when faced with something he didn't expect. Like he's preparing himself for a fight and who knows if that came from Iowa or from his years on the Enterprise. Jim Kirk doesn't like being caught off guard and his defenses show it.]

Old boyfriend? Or was he just a charming and handsome hero of the Federation too?

[ That Jim hasn't used his stories about his adventures on the Enterprise to get laid is impressive; it's the quickest way to get someone in your bed when you're the captain of the Federation's flagship with accolades tucked in your belt. Diana has done her research on him, drawn at first to the uncanny likeness, but had stayed for his innate kindness, his courage and quick wit. He is an emissary of the best of what mankind has to offer: a burning curiosity for what lay in the stars beyond, and a desire for peace.

But more than that, he's someone she has become tremendously fond of -- that he's an incredible lover definitely helps, and it's a dangerous position to be in when the good captain's reputation for womanising precedes him.

Even so, Diana takes a chance; he sparks something in her that had been so long dormant that she had privately feared had been extinguished forever, a reminder that maybe hope is not lost, that mankind won't eventually destroy themselves just because they can -- because men like Steve Trevor, Jim Kirk, they remind her of what mankind can be, good and noble in the face of calamity.

She smiles, because she's very aware of Jim's reaction -- those defense mechanisms are definitely working, and she understands. Jim, you see, leaves before he gets hurt; it's how he's always been. Diana is careful, aware. ]

He's a great man who died in the first world war. [ How distant it must be for Jim; how he will only know it as words on a textbook, questions on a test he didn't study for but excelled in all the same.

What would Steve and Diana have been to each other if they had more time? She loved him, loves him still -- but now in the way one loves a ghost, a cherished, precious memory that she cannot allow to consume her. ]

He gave his life so others could live. [ She reaches out, fingers brushing over his chin as she gently draws him in for a kiss, soft and sweet. Nothing to fear. ]

Does that remind you of someone? [ Yes, she's heard the stories. ]

[She should record the way his expression shifts, from incredulous and not quite believing her to annoyed to trying to hide it in less than ten seconds. It's a marvelous feat. Even the sweet kiss doesn't distract him into complacency.

He doesn't like talking about his dad. It's that simple. He's more or less made his peace with the fact that he's now older than his father ever was, that he could have lived a life where his dad raised him and saw him captain the Enterprise, that he has someone else's memories of it rattling around his head, that he doesn't have to be George he can just be Jim. There's nothing to gain from lamenting over a man who's been dead for thirty years and honestly. If it came down to it. Jim doesn't think he'd trade this life for the other one. Maybe that makes him selfish because then Vulcan would be around but that's what it is.

And the time he crawled into a warp core and didn't manage to crawl back out but managed to survive anyway? Well he just pretends like that never happened. It's caused a few fights between him and Bones but he sat through his mandated therapy sessions, he's proved himself capable of command again and if he has nightmares sometimes, then it's good his walls are thick. Because the alternative is to admit that death was absolutely nothing and he liked it.

The official record lists him as close to death, in critical condition but in the hands of a brilliant doctor who saved his life. He wonders how much she really knows. If she knows the real truth or the truth that Starfleet fed the public.]

It reminds me of several people. [He moves her hand from his face, gentle but firm about it.]

Starfleet is a big fan of noble sacrifices.

[ the gods don't take him away from her, after all. then again, it's still a little too early to tell when it's only been nine weeks -- the gods can sometimes draw out cruelty just because. but diana finds herself appreciating his presence with every single day that passes, helping him to acclimatize, to show him the new ways of the world.

she feels less alone in the world when he's in it, and when she returns home from a five-day mission in sudan she half-expects him to be gone, disappeared from the face of the earth as if the time they'd spent together had been a dream woven by morpheus himself. but he's still here, and she's exhausted, sadder and older, bearing the sorrows of the world in her heart as she holds on to steve's words still -- believing. always believing; even if sometimes it's harder to do.

diana cleans up, and quietly, tiredly, crawls into bed with steve. the moon is full tonight, silvery light streaming into their bedroom window, and she is only sorry that she couldn't take him with her. he can't; he's still getting his bearings, getting better, finding his place in the world. ]

Tell me about your day.

[ something good, something hopeful, something she can hold on to. ]

[Skinny jeans are an insult to men and their private parts. The world is obsessed with some woman's bottom. The American people openly mock their President on something called twitter. And twerking seems to be the new form of dance.

It's a very different world than the one he left.

Sometimes he feels like he's being kept on a leash and secluded away for his safety and protection and whatever other nonsense she wants to throw at him. He gets that she's a hero. He gets that where she comes from, women are warriors and no man can tell her what to do. But where he comes from, the man doesn't stay at home and wring his hands and do nothing either. It's hard not to feel frustrated. It's harder not to take it out on her.

He can barely drive a car. He doesn't belong on super secret missions in war torn countries, not yet, but it still sucks.]

Rap music is an attack on my ears and human decency.

[He might be starting to scratch at the walls of his confine, but when she gets close, he slides an arm around her waist. Pulls her closer.]

And don't get me started on that crap they call punk rock.

[ There's something about Steve that chafes against the new rules of this world. Diana had been given time to be accustomed to its many idiosyncrasies, so many of which Steve is experiencing unpleasantly for the very first time. Skinny jeans, Kardashians, Trump -- and she wishes she could tell him they're not corrosive, that they're harmless; things that will go away in time.

But the world becomes surges into madness as the days go by, and she's at a loss of how to explain it to him sometimes, when Steve looks like the world has just done him a great personal wrong. They try to get back on track, little by little. Diana does what she can, acclimatizes him to new technology she's learned along the way, shows him this era's modernities as best she can.

He pulls her close, and she meets him halfway, curling up in his arms with a lazy smile. She kisses him in greeting, brief but warm, and she's running her fingers through his hair, noting how it's getting a little longer now. He belongs with her, he thinks, even if he doesn't belong anywhere else for now. They'll figure it out, somehow, even if Diana's stuck on that particular conundrum. ]

Never got used to that, either. [ Her arm comes around him, and she continues with warm amusement, tangling their limbs together. ] Do you remember Charlie's love songs?

[He'll get there. Eventually. He's a spy, he's adaptable when he needs to be. The culture shock of the twenty first century won't confound him forever. But it's hard to fight the thoughts of doubt and bitterness when he learns about another world war, and all the wars sense and how so many things seem worse and not better.

It's loud and chaotic here and sometimes he misses a quiet pub in London and good men to share a drink with.

Steve smiles back at her, drops a kiss to her forehead.]

He played the bagpipes too. Did he ever treat you to that?

[ Steve is too ambitious to continue to be holed in -- too sharp and too talented to be kept away from the world, and Diana knows this. She's the one who teaches him about the world for now, the new ways, but she recognises the darkness that grows behind his eyes at everything he learns. The second world war. Gulf War. Afghanistan. Iraq. Syria. All of it revealing that the world of men didn't need Ares to introduce the darkness and evil into their hearts when they've managed on their own.

But Steve is a good man, one of the best men that the war had ever produced, and knowing that his beliefs will be eroded, challenged, the truth of his sacrifice meaning so little in the grand scheme of things making her heart ache. There is no magical pill to cure this evil, how it reaches so deeply and impossibly -- and Steve is that light in the darkness, and she presses closer, feeling the warmth of his lips against her skin. ]

He didn't sing very much after -- [ After you. Diana had kept in touch with them, but her heart had been broken and she had wanted to slip into obscurity; a silent guardian. Steve had been missed by more than just her. She pauses, then looks up at him, meeting his eyes, older and more composed than she had been when they had last been together. ] No, he didn't.

[ She smiles briefly, wanting to lighten the mood. There are so many ghosts in here, they don't have to add to them. ] Could you play an instrument?

[ Steve understands a lot about the world. He's known what it is capable of doing to a person for a long time now. He still holds tight to what his father said to him, about doing something or nothing, and even as he finds himself in a vastly different world---he has to do something.

It's a world of monsters and devils and gods beyond understanding. He knew a god once, no, he knew and angel. He wonders where she is, but there are still things far beyond his paygrade. He can't find anything on Diana Prince, and he doesn't know if that's a failure on his part to learn this new technology. Or if it is something else. Working with A.R.G.U.S. has afforded him time to get his bearings, and rebuild something close to a life of his own. They keep tabs on him, he's not stupid, he was a spy in the war, and he isn't sure why.

Just another day, and he's on an op when the Batman decides it's time he offer over some of his own information. But he sees Steve, and falters. He doesn't get why, so he just focuses on rounding up the last of these lowlifes, and getting them back to HQ. It's two days later when an encrypted message with the picture of their small band of idiots comes to his cell phone.

The correspondence is brief. No, he is not like Diana. No, he's not a metahuman. Yes, he's the same man in that picture. Do you know where Diana is? The text is a phone number, and for nearly a week he just stares at it. He's never been a coward, but he is a realist. It's been over a century.

So, he tracks her instead. He uses every ounce of his spy and stealth training, and he tries to get a glimpse of her, his angel. He's not disappointed when he does. She's just as he remembers except there's a pervasive sadness that clings to the edges of her frame, and lingers in the quirk of her mouth. He retreats before he can be found out, and eventually there is a text to her phone. The only one he can think of at the moment. ]

Who will sing for us?

[ Diana doesn't feel very angelic at all -- the state of the world is deteriorating steadily, and with each day that passes, she finds it a little harder to cling to belief that people can be more than they are; both good and bad and everything in between. Not everything, she's learned, is that straightforward even if they should be, but Diana finds her footing in protecting the people who need to be protected, in enacting justice for the ones who have been stepped on and downtrodden, to continue in her mission to help however she can.

She thinks of Steve often, still; in the darkest night when she's finished her missions and training, when the others have gone off with their own lives and she is left on her own, holding on to the worn watch that she'd painstakingly kept functional, as if its every tick is reassurance that a piece of Steve is with her still, this measure of time that she had no use for until he came along.

She misses him, every day, but there is work to be done and the world he helped to save all those years ago has to continue being protected -- this is what he would have wanted, right? There are none who came after him, no man that came close to Steve, and as the decades steadily passed, Diana simply never looked. Tonight, however, tonight is a slow night, and she'd just returned from a gala dinner hosted by someone with suspected ties to an international arms dealing ring Diana had been looking to dismantle. Leads have been scant, and Diana's in the middle of more research when her phone vibrates.

On it, a message that makes her heart skip a beat. She knows this, a lifetime ago; the morning after a night in Steve's arms, when she'd kissed him and loved him and --

-- surely not. But she had buried the others when they had passed, mourned for them as they were laid into the ground to finally rest, and --

-- she stares at it again, as if those words could spill their secrets to her if she stares hard enough, long enough.

Diana dials the number, fingers trembling as her heart races and she fights hope. Who will she find on the other end? ]

[ Steve's heart is in his throat, and his gut is twisting like the day he watched her climb out of the trenches to stride across No Man's Land. The day he realized that there was more to the war than just one mission, and then the next. That if they didn't stop to help the people who needed it, then they were no better than the enemy.

He isn't certain exactly what he expects. He's never really been one for miracles. He had watched friends settle down and find love, and he'd admitted to Diana once, as they swayed in each other's arms, that he didn't know what that was like. He remembers thinking, in that moment, that he would have liked to find out. As snow started to fall around them, and Diana witnessed it for the first time with unabashed joy and wonder, he agreed with her: it was magical.

She was magical.

He's brought out of memories of the past, and into the uncertainty of the future with the vibration of his phone in his hand. He accepts the call, and raises it to his ear, but his voice fails him. What does he say? What do you possibly say to something like this? ]

Hey, angel.

[ It's him.

It's him, right down to the tone and the inflection -- even if he's never called her that before she knows it's him right down to her bones. But from that comes a whole world of questions: how did he know her number? Why is he here? Is this a cruel trick, meant to disarm and unsettle? How did he come back? Why did he come back? Is she dreaming?

She's at a loss for words for a few precious moments, her throat tight and her heart pounding. Steve. Oh, Steve. She grips the phone so tight, presses it to her ear so hard that she fears she'll break it, that this is only a hallucination. What do you say to the first man you've ever loved? ]

Is this a dream? [ A part of her thinks it makes no sense, that perhaps this is a joke at her expense, but another part wants to believe otherwise -- magic exists, and perhaps it's magic that has brought him back to her, right on the heels of a photo she had thought had been lost forever. ] Steve.

[ Her words are tight, strained, and she wants to see him. She wants to see for herself that he's real, that he isn't something conjured up in the depths of her loneliness. She had kept him a secret up until now, locked away safely in her heart where he would belong only to her, and now... ]

[ It's true, he never called her that when they were together before, but he sure as hell thought it. He thought it when he woke up coughing up salt water on the beaches of Themiscyra. He wanted to say it, but he'd been a little too dazed and just a touch confused when she was awed by the fact that he was a man.

There's so much silence, he's worried she hung up, dropped the phone---something. Then she speaks again, and he feels like he could sob at the welling up of emotion that is tight in his chest. ]

No. No, it's not a dream. [ All he can figure is that Batman was the one that somehow orchestrated this. He'd heard of Wonder Woman, but all the files were out of his reach. He hadn't seen any actual pictures up close, but he thinks that must be Diana. Batman, Wonder Woman, and the one they called Superman fought together against Doomsday. He saw some of the hectic footage. ] It's me, yeah. It's me.

I don't know how. I'm---I've been working with---God, I have so much to tell you. [ Something or nothing, he thinks. ] I want to see you, but---A.R.G.U.S. tracks me, I've been working with them.

[ They're the first thing he remembers. ]

A.R.G.U.S. has been tracking you.

[ She echoes, a flicker of confusion, then a slow curl of anger. They have been tracking him without telling her. They must have known, they should have. If Bruce could track down that photo then surely A.R.G.U.S. would have as well -- they could have mentioned it as a professional courtesy. ]

You've been working with them? [ She clarifies. Diana knows who and what they are -- how they are amoral and without honor; but she is not naive, they are a necessary evil even if she detests their methods, because the world is full of grey and she has learned so painfully that things aren't so cut and dried.

But Steve. Steve, a reminder of different days -- when things were no less complicated but his heart had been -- Steve might be a spy but he is a good man, too, and A.R.G.U.S. corrupts. ]

Steve. [ She says again, quelling the emotions that catch in her throat. She has to keep it together. She must. ] I want to see you.

They track everything I do. They have since I woke up in their facility.

[ He has a small apartment. He's been working on getting something more "off the grid" but he doesn't know all the avenues to get by yet. He's still catching up. Still learning. ]

I didn't think I had anything else. I couldn't find you. I tried.

[ He is a good man. He's also a spy. A liar. A murderer. All of these are things that he has done, but he has done because he had to. He didn't take pleasure in it. He's not stupid. He knows they want something else and they keep a lot away from him. ]

I'm still here. [ He says quickly, as if the connection might suddenly be lost. ] Anywhere. Anywhere and I'll be there, Diana.

[ Her blood runs cold in the wake of his words; it means ARGUS has their claws in him for whatever reason she still cannot quite decipher, and this good man, who thought he didn't have anything else, had said yes because he had nothing to lose.

Diana is under no delusion as to Steve's skills. The man is a competent spy, slick and intelligent, and clearly handy with firearms. He's quick on his feet, too, and is objectively one of the best soldiers she had ever had the honor of fighting side by side with. But more importantly, he was also the first man she loved.

Is. He's on the phone with her; I'm still here, he says, and Diana feels young again, and she keeps a tight grip on the phone as if her strength could keep the connection going. Steve was here after all, hidden in plain sight.

She sends him the text of an address, encrypted in the code she knows he uses.

Tonight at eleven, the St. Regis -- and she gives him the room number: 8027. Out loud, she asks, aware that stray ears might be listening in.] Are you well?

[ Steve isn't a moron. He knows when he's being played. He doesn't know why. Maybe, on some level, he doesn't want to know. Why else would they keep Diana from him, if not to possibly use him against her.

It'll take every ounce of his skills before, and once he's honed to accompany a new world of wonders and technology, in order to make sure they don't track him to her.

His phone vibrates in his hand, and he brings it down to look at it. He doesn't need paper to write down the code, and decipher it. He and old spy and wartime buddies would trade quick messages, one of the times he was stuck in trenches with them, and it made it seem not as bad for a time. At her question, a rough chuckle ushers forth: ] I get lost a lot.

The world's a little bigger than I remember. What about you?

Edited (oops, forgot a sentence) 2017-06-03 18:57 (UTC)

[ She has to smile at that, despite herself. The world is both bigger and smaller now -- technology has come a long, long way from his time, and Diana does not envy the shock of it all. He laughs, and Diana listens with bittersweet longing; oh, how she's missed it. Him and Chief and Sameer and Charlie, when they'd cheated death to stop the war, when Diana had learned the ugliness of man.

And Steve, Steve had believed in doing the right thing anyway, and her grip on her phone loosens. There'll be dents in it, but it doesn't matter -- she can always get herself another. She contemplates his question briefly, thinks of her job in the Louvre, the life she's made for herself; how she had withdrawn from the horrors man have made -- when she's realised Ares' death had meant nothing in the grand scheme of things, because war still happened, and so many, many lives had still been lost in the process. World War 2. The Gulf. Afghanistan. Iraq. Syria. The world turns on the greed of powerful men. ]

As well as I can be. [ She muses. ] You'll find your way, Steve. You always do. [ A beat. ] I'll see you.

[ There's so much more they have to talk about in person -- it's unsafe, over the phone. ]

[ It reminds him of other times that weren't so far away from him in his memory, but further away in the scope of time. Their group, his friends, worried about him and obviously not Diana. He'd get lost without them. There are days that he very much feels lost without them. Their companionship.

Steve still believes in doing the right thing. Diana had shown him, then, that it wasn't always the mission at hand, but what you do along the way also. He can't say, that waking up in this world, and catching up on history---it hadn't been easy. He had thought nothing could possibly be worse than seeing the world at war. He had hoped, prayed, that it would end after that. He still believes that men can be good, if given the chance. If shown the way.

It doesn't make the horror in the interim easier to stomach, especially not at how easily it comes. He knows she isn't telling him details because of the unsecured connection, but it's enough to still hear her voice. ]

I'll see you.

[ With great reluctance he hangs up the phone. He makes his plans, takes the time away from ARGUS, and carefully plans ahead to make the trip. It won't be easy, especially today, when he knows how well they can track ---everything.

It takes time, but he gets there. He arrives at the St. Regis on time, after making double and triple sure that he's not been followed, and gets to the room number. He's nervous. More nervous than he had been at the little inn where they spent a night in each other's arms.

He takes a breath, swallows thickly to try and quell his nerves, and raises a hand to knock at the door. ]

[ They escape for a week to where no one can find them -- a blessed reprieve from the rigors of the world, although not all of it is bad. Steve's great grand-niece had just given birth to a beautiful, beautiful baby girl, and while Diana is fully aware of reproductive processes, the miracle of life and the purity of birth still amazes her. Of course, there is the fact that it's messy, it's painful, and it's violent. But the life that comes after it is its own kind of beauty.

The magic of motherhood, older than the gods themselves, the ability to harbor life, to birth someone with depthless potential and to bring it into the world -- well. That, and Diana really, really loves babies.

They have had to peel her from the newborn Elisabeth half a dozen times, but each time Diana returns bearing more gifts, more quiet whispers and blessings. This is Steve's family, she thinks, even if the strangeness of having a great grand uncle who is just a few years older than she is, and a decorated war hero all the way back to the beginning of the previous century. She doesn't miss the way he looks at her when she carries the babe, tucks her into her arms and coos softly, and perhaps he's thinking the same things she is -- the magic of it all, the most beautiful thing mankind can ever do.

Steve is settling better into the new world -- they have their rough patches, but Diana is hopeful; she helps however she can, gives him his space when he needs it even if it had been difficult to at first, and maybe. Maybe they'll find a way to make this work.

They're here on a beach resort in the middle of nowhere, bought out and entirely bereft of other people -- it's beautiful, a pale reminder of Themyscira but it will do. Steve needs a break, and maybe this will help.

It does, for her -- the sun and glittering blue sea lifting the weight off her shoulders, and the powdery sand under her feet reminds her of home. They enjoy each other here, released for the moment from the trappings of the world, and Diana takes his hand when they play in the surf, foamy little waves licking at their feet, their bodies.

She touches his face and kisses him, pins him to the sand and allows herself to be tackled, and here it's easy to believe this island and all its beauty belongs only to them. She's picking up a lovely, large seashell now, light fingers tracing over the vivid colors, the lines on it. ]

Look at this. [ She marvels as she steps over to where he is, holding out the shell to him as they lounge in the surf, tucking her hair behind her ear and giving him a bright smile. ] We can find enough to make a necklace for Elisabeth. And maybe one for you, too.

[In all honesty, he gave up on the dream of fatherhood and family before the war even started. But living in it, sneaking around in the filth of it, seeing the very worst that people had to offer-- that kind of solidified it. How could he in good conscience, start a family in this?

Then he met Diana and well. A lot of plans changed after that.

Not saying he wants to put a ring on it and settle down and pop out 2.5 kids. Maybe someday. He definitely would not mind spending the rest of his natural born days at her side. But he doesn't want to force her into a place in his world that she doesn't belong. She's not a housewife, he doesn't want her to be. He wants her to be exactly what she is and if that doesn't fit into normal, then well.

He's not normal either.

If she wants it, then there's a good chance he'll want it but he's not going to ask even if he notices how she much she coos over his great great (great?) niece. He missed his first niece. And the one after her too. And maybe he'll have a part in this newest one's life, or maybe he and Diana will fade to the background. His brother's grandson is an old man now. It's hard to deal with sometimes.]

I think she'd like that very much. [As much as babies can like anything but it's the thought that counts. Elisabeth can say when she grows up that she got a seashell necklace from Wonder Woman herself.]

Though I think the shells would look better on you than on me.

what if I was at peace, did you think about that?

[ Diana comes for him when she discovers where his soul resides. Hades, god of the Underworld and brother of Zeus, had needed her help with an incursion and had summoned her into his presence, and Diana had readily agreed -- with a price. Steve Trevor, plucked from the arms of death and returned to her, to the world he had given himself up for. He deserves time, he deserves to know for sure if family is what he wants.

That, and -- she cannot lie to herself -- that he is her weakness. Unrealised dreams, a wish whispered before he slipped from her grasp and became but a blazing light in the night sky. I wish we had more time. She wakes from dreams of him more and more often, her cheeks wet with silent tears.

This she does for months and months until Hades had called for her -- perhaps he, like Morpheus, knows of the dreams of all in their realm; perhaps it has only been a coincidence. But she agrees, and together with him restores balance but for a price of a life. Orpheus had failed with Eurydice, but Diana will not fail. She takes his hand, forces herself not to look back when she restores him to the living world.

Steve, brave and good and fierce, the one man that encapsulates the love of this world, the courage of his sacrifice. Diana loves him -- and in her dreams she tells him this, once, twice, whispered into his collar as if through her words he wouldn't slip away like silver smoke, chased away by Apollo's sun.

His hand feels real in hers, and she watches him carefully when they return to London, six months from the day he'd died. She feels like she's returned the heart to this ugly, smoggy city -- she feels like a piece of her has come home, but. But he comes back not quite right; it's been two weeks, and perhaps it is true that mortals who have been in death's embrace come back forever changed. They have, after all, seen what lies beyond, in the fields where even Diana cannot reach.

But he's back with her, alive, rebuilding after the war even if she's more than willing to slip back into obscurity. There still are pockets of resistance to neutralise, men who believe war is the rightful way of the world and who will stop at nothing to hurt others. They have work to do, but today feels like a bad day for Steve, the skies overcast as if mirroring his mood. ]

Steve. [ She murmurs when Etta takes her leave, closing the office door behind her. She moves towards him -- their last mission had been difficult; the scale of viciousness, the death and destruction from the last vestiges of the weapons they had hoarded from the armistice deployed on an innocent town had been painfully, devastatingly heartbreaking, but they had stopped that one too; contained the damage.

She approaches him from behind, a light touch on his shoulder, her fine brows knitted in concern. ] Steve, what's wrong?

[He's not mad at her.

He wants to be mad at her, maybe that's the problem. He wants to blame her. He wants to ask her to send him back. But for the same reasons that he took her to the front and followed her across no man's land and hijacked that plane full of poison-- he can't do any of that. He can't be mad at her for being who she is. He can't be mad at the proof that she's as affected by him as he is by her.

Steve channels that anger into other channels. Throws himself into their work. Snaps at Charlie when he's being obnoxious. Becomes just a little bit more reckless. Doesn't say please when he asks Etta to do something anymore.

And then today was horrible. It was a painful reminder of Veld, the heat of a bomb against his skin, and the most terrible parts of men all at once. It's a sharp, powerful contrast from the peace he found in the afterlife or heaven or whatever the fuck you want to call it. The fight was over there. He could take a deep breath and let it out easily. Now he's here. Now he's back, fighting the same fight he's been fighting for years and he's just goddamn tired.

He turns at her touch, which has the side effect of knocking her hand away and after a moment (probably a moment too long, because she'll notice, she sees everything) he forces a smile. He slips on a mask because he's a spy and a soldier and he has a job to do and he's not going to break. Ever.]

Everything's fine. I was just thinking we should start on the paperwork tonight.

there's a grief too terrible to name.

[ They meet often, these days. For coffee in an nondescript cafe where privacy is absolute (she made sure of that), or in a park at night; to walk, to talk -- shared experiences lend these sessions a connection that is rarely replicated.

Steve reminds her of a long-lost love, even if they look nothing alike. Their hearts are the same -- good and courageous and kind, the best of men forged from war like this. But Steve, too, had lost so many people; she had followed his origins and career with great interest, from a scrawny kid in Brooklyn, forged to become the perfect Aryan specimen, a slap in the face of the Nazis when he was unleashed on them. The perfect soldier, a man who disdained bullies and only wanted to save people who couldn't save themselves.

She sees glimpses of herself in him, too -- the belief that people can be better than they are, that the weak are to be defended, not exploited, that what matters is what you believe in. Fascinated, she had followed his trajectory, the gleam of red white and blue until it disappeared over the Atlantic. Funny how Steve Rogers, too, had sacrificed himself for the world the same way Steve Trevor had, and she wonders if he'd left a sweetheart behind, too; a love that can never be realized. The papers all reported him as disappeared -- and Diana felt echoes of a heartache. Perhaps he had someone who loved him; perhaps he had loved someone, and yet.

But Diana had hidden herself away, her hope eroded and lost in the face of the ugly darkness that has run too deep, knowing the truth: mankind don't need Ares to start wars or kill themselves, they do it pretty well all on their own. She'd paid special attention when he had been fished out of the water, defrosted and revived, and as the years came around she'd finally introduced herself to Captain America, Steve Rogers.

And she's come to realize that the sadness in him is the same as her own. They grieve on their own, quiet and private, but these moments they share together is something exceptional. She remains, and so does he; two people who have outlived everyone they have loved. Steve, who have had to learn of all the wars that had come after, that the world is a cruel and unjust place, and their sacrifices mean so little in the grand scheme of things.

And yet. ]

Hello. [ She says quietly when they meet again, hands in the pockets of a sleek black coat. This time, she finds him in a park in Metropolis, on the heels of the wreckage that was once the Sokovia Accords. She holds out a coffee to him, piping hot and just the way he likes it. ] Penny for your thoughts.

[Some months back, Steve buried Peggy Carter, and with her the hopes for a dance, a life, something more. It's been one thing after the other ever since, and it's only now that things have mostly settled that he could mourn her properly, her and everyone else he has ever lost.

He doesn't go to New York. He misses his old stomping grounds, certainly, but he doesn't feel like getting mobbed by the press at the moment. Instead he heads into Metropolis, on a motorcycle and carrying a sketchpad, recently bought—you can tell by the lack of drawings, though he hasn't drawn in some time. Too much to do.

Meeting Diana had been something of a shock. Where Steve had spent the time between the forties and the 2010s under the ice, Diana had seen all of it, the good and the bad, the best of humanity and the worst of it, and he's since grown to cherish the time they spend together, their friendship. Also the coffee, because even if caffeine doesn't work on him in quite the same way anymore, at least it tastes better than the tin can coffee they used to have to content themselves with.]

Hey. [His voice is worn and a little sad, even as he reaches out to take the coffee, sticking his pencil behind his ear the same way he used to back in Brooklyn, when he and Bucky were younger. On the page is a sketch of Peggy Carter, smiling.] Sorry I couldn't come last month. Had some cleaning up to do.

[The Accords disaster, for one thing. Checking on Bucky, for another.]

I saw the news.

[ Diana says with a small smile. She'd heard all about Lagos and the bombing of the United Nations in short order, the Accords that had created two factions. She's not too certain about what happened after that, or why, but it seems like the situation's calmed. At least, it looks that way from his presence here.

She looks down at what he's been sketching, curious to see a lovely dark haired woman. Lost love, she thinks, when she sees the haunted look in his eyes, a deep sadness that echoes with her own. ]

This must be Ms. Carter.

[ She notes, taking a seat beside him and crossing her legs. There is a bag of donuts she sets between them, but she's more interested in this particular bout of melancholy. ]

Did something happen?

[He will eat the donuts later, when he's done with the sketch. For now he looks down at the sketch, at Peggy's smile in shades of grey. His memory is objectively pretty damn good, like a steel trap, but some small part of him can't help but wonder: did he get it right? Did he get the curve of her smile, the bright fire in her eyes?

He sighs.]

Yeah, that's Peggy. [He takes a sip of his coffee, careful not to spill it on the page where Peggy smiles up at him, her likeness trapped in the forties, the days he knew her well.] I—

[He stops. Breathes out.]

We were going to go for a dance, y'know? [His Brooklyn accent fades in then, slurring some of his words together.] She was pretty insistent I give her one, before she—died.

[The smallest of hitches in his breath. God, he misses her so much.]

You'd have liked her.

[ There is a familiarity in heartbreak, and Diana commiserates. She's looking down at the sketch, the image of a lovely young woman who -- if things had turned out differently, perhaps would have married Steve, and they would have started a family together. Done all the things normal people did; breakfast, waking up to the other, everything people who are not them can never appreciate.

They will never have these things. These blessedly normal things; and Steve wears the look of a man who knows this truth intimately. Missed connections, things that will never be -- and she nods. ]

I would have, if you are that fond of her. [ Diana smiles, putting a hand lightly on his. ] It's difficult, outliving the people you love. What was she like?

i wish we had more time.

Edited (replaces image) 2017-07-14 10:10 (UTC)

let's play.

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( au ) stand by me. spoilers.

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oops nsfw

oops i love you

oops i love you more

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wrong steve welp

this steve is also perfect steve!!!!!!!

THANK

NO THANK YOU

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breaks him in