A/N: So I've been trying to keep my Wondertrev thoughts fluffy, but. I'm me. So have some angst.
As the plane ascended, it started to rain.
He closed his eyes, letting the dark plane fade away, just for a moment.
Diana stopped swaying to look around in confusion, wide eyes darting around empty air. Steve squinted, starting to glance around, until a cold snowflake melted on the tip of his nose. He squeezed her hand to hold her in place, a small chuckle escaping him – of course this was as foreign to her as ice cream. "It's, uh, it's a snowfall."
She glanced at him, but thankfully didn't take offense at his amusement. Instead, her wariness melting away, she looked back to the soft white fluff falling around them. A smile grew on her face, wide and bright and joyful.
"Touch it," he encouraged, a smile dawning on his own face.
How long had it been, before that, since Steve had smiled so? Since the expression had been true and genuine, rather than a fake to fool or console? Since it had been at something so simple as snow and a smile?
Diana laughed then, a musical chime full, perhaps, of more purity than Steve had seen in his entire life. It echoed in his ears, reaching to the hope within, warming even his exhausted soul, chasing away even the sounds of war. The sounds that had become his life's song, and the song of so many more.
Oh, if only everyone had been able to hear that laugh, to share that purity of discovery. That single moment, Steve knew, could've ended the war, could've melted even the coldest of hearts.
"It's magical!" Diana exclaimed, the laughter's music mingling with the excited words, her eyes sparkling brighter than the stars peeking through the clouds.
Steve lifted his gaze from her to watch the snow through a view he hadn't used for a long, long time. With Diana glowing in front of him, it was like seeing it for the first time, these little miracles that fell from the sky to blanket the world in peaceful white, to decorate their lives with their clean, simple beauty.
And that, Steve thought as he aimed the gun behind him, was what he was sacrificing himself for. Not to end a war – there would always be more of those – but to save those moments. Those moments where even the strongest let their guard down, where even the most depressed were laughing, where even the loneliest found love. Those most precious of times that never lasted long enough.
He opened his eyes, the quaint town fading away, and pulled the trigger.
Sameer would have more of those moments. Charlie would have more, too. So would Chief and Etta. And, somehow most importantly, so would Diana.
As the flare of flame extinguished his last breath, he only regretted he couldn't be there to see them.