durare | let's play.

[ 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?

let's play.

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