Author's note: It wasn't meant to take me a month to update it, sorry! I was a bit caught up on writing pt.3 to post this one. Oooops! I'll do my best to keep updates more regular :) Also thank you so very much for the overwhelming feedback on the first part! You guys rock! Hope you'll enjoy the rest of it as much :)
The healing was slow, his bones taking their sweet time to grow back together and his cuts and bruises lingering as a reminder of the last battle that changed the course of history and turned his life upside down, although not necessarily in that order. Steve had no answers still, and no one to ask the questions crowding his mind. Chief told him that the pieces of his plane were scattered over several square miles of fields and forests. He was not wearing a parachute. He was stark in the epicenter of an explosion that, had it happened on the ground, would have killed everything in a dozen-mile radius. He should have evaporated, and there was no logic and science to explain why he was still breathing.
More often than not, Steve chose not to think about it.
There were questions, after all, the answers to which were better left unknown. Not that it would have made any difference, he mused. Knowing wouldn't change anything, and he wasn't sure if it would give him the peace of mind he was seeking or not. Perhaps, there were better ways to find it. If maybe he gave it a try.
They returned to London a week later, the world still in the midst of celebrating the victory of all victories, and if the fall from the sky hadn't broken all of his bones, Etta's enthusiastic embrace when she met them at the train station nearly had.
"You are here!" She fussed, squeezing the life out of Steve and completely ignoring the crowds milling around them. "And you are alive!"
Standing next to them, Diana bit her lip, trying to hold back a smile, amused beyond measure.
You're next, Steve mouthed to her over Etta's shoulder, wincing but making no attempt to pull away. God knew they all deserved a moment of happiness after everything they'd been through, even though he wasn't sure why Etta's was about strangling him.
And like on cue, his secretary let go of him and pulled Diana into a bear hug, the one that Diana didn't resist – Steve's breath catching at the sight of affection on Etta's face. Perhaps he could relate to it all too well. And then he proceeded to ignore her knowing looks and raised eyebrows and not so subtle comments that reminded him that there was probably things too obvious to the side observers that no amount of trying could hide, the slight shift in body language between him and Diana as much on display as the sun shining high up in the sky.
No wonder Sameer was rolling his eyes the whole time and Charlie proceeded to blush profusely.
He chuckled under his breath, covering it with a cough as Diana untangled herself from Etta and they finally followed her toward the cabs lining the street through the peals of laughter and happy tears and the relief so palpable in the air it felt like blanket covering the city. It still felt surreal, like a dream he didn't want to wake up from.
xoox
On the first day of winter, he took Diana down to the seaside, the fresh ocean air a nice change from the ever-present smog of London. The day was sunny, the sky bright-blue above them even though the wind blowing from the Atlantic Ocean was nothing but merciless, biting at their cheeks and pulling Diana's hair out of a twist at the nape of her neck. She didn't seem to mind.
They bought ice-cream from a street cart (They have more flavors than one, you know) and the look of utter bliss on her face, so pure and radiant it all but blinded him, made Steve want to get her an entire parlour just so that this joy would never leave.
"Mankind is not perfect, but this? This is worth everything," Diana mumbled around a mouthful of strawberry goodness, eyes closed.
And her smile was so majestic he wanted to take a picture of it and carry it with him. Wanted to capture it in time and make it last for as long as he breathed.
Steve shook his head. "I'm glad you got your priorities figured out."
He touched his chocolate cone to her nose, making Diana squirm away from him, then leaned in to kiss it clean before planting another kiss on her lips. God, he'd never loved her more.
Tucked away from the crowds of Brighton and this late in the year, the town of Hastings was a refreshing change of pace, nearly empty and so damn peaceful Steve could hardly believe it was real. They strolled through the ruins of an old castle, perched above the sleepy streets, the half-collapsed walls and turrets sticking from the ground like sharp, jagged teeth, vacant but for the two of them. And if the morning traffic was any indication, the rest of the town was probably in London, celebrating at long last.
He watched Diana regard the remnants of what used to be a palace and a fortress in the time when she was still a child with pensive apprehension, her finger brushing against the weathered rock here and there as if she was trying to find a physical connection to the era and the people long gone, read the history as if it was written in braille, seemingly oblivious to the harsh gusts of wind, snaking through the ruins. He wanted – so badly – to see what she was seeing.
Her wrist gauntlets were peeking from under the sleeves of her wool coat, and Steve knew without a doubt that there was probably a knife hidden somewhere on her body – old habits died hard and he, of all people, knew it pretty damn well – but this was perhaps the second time since they met that Diana didn't have her shield or her armour within an arm's reach, and he wondered if she felt the difference. This, more than anything, was perhaps the surest sign of how they were truly heading toward peace.
They strode down toward the beach then, greeted by the roar of the ocean and the cries of the seagulls, soaring over the surf, wet sand sinking beneath the soles of their boots. He took her hand and Diana laced her fingers through his. She turned to him, squinting a bit against the sun and the wind, a small smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.
"We're together like that now, yes?" She inquired, an eyebrow raised.
Steve laughed and brushed a strand of hair from her cheek with his hand. "Damn straight, we are."
Ever since he woke up somewhere in Belgium on the morning after the war was done and over with, he was expecting her to bring up going back to Themyscira, her homesickness always like an undercurrent of energy around her, each mention of her home island laced with wistful longing. Had she decided to do so, he knew he wouldn't blame her, and knew he wouldn't try to stop her. Maybe this world was worth saving, at least on some level, but it didn't deserve her. That much Steve knew for sure.
However, he never asked, and Diana never brought it up, and foolishly, selfishly, he hoped against all hope that he was enough for her to stay, that he was enough, period. If maybe they never spoke about it, she wouldn't want to leave. And he hated himself for it, just a little bit, an embodiment of everything that was wrong with his kind. And he also knew he couldn't possibly feel otherwise for he wished so fiercely to give them a chance at something he couldn't put into words just yet that he'd fight all gods to make it happen, just as he knew he'd follow her to the end of the Earth if he had to.
If she let him.
Later, in the small room Steve rented for the night so as to avoid the hassle of London for a few more hours, she shrugged off her jacket and rubbed her hands together to warm them up after their chilly walk, her cheeks flushed from the wind and her gaze going to the window overlooking the cliffs and the water below now and then. And Steve wondered not for the first time if she was seeing the beach she grew up on, the grey of the North Atlantic replaced in her mind with the bright turquoise of the sea guarding her 'paradise island'.
He watched her lean fingers pull the pins out of her hair, allowing it to fall down her shoulders in a cascade of black curls, and maybe there was something to that theory than men weren't inherently multitaskers because in that moment, he could think of one thing and one thing only.
Diana turned to him, the late afternoon sun tangled in her wild mane, making it glow like a halo, a ghost of a smile on her lips, and he was very much aware of staring her like a complete moron as he tried to come up with words. Any words, really. Nice day, don't you think? Where would you like to go for dinner? He was a grown man, for heaven's sake, not an awkward teenager. Surely, he could do better than that.
However, his mind was blank, filled with white static like an empty radio station, and when she stepped toward him, her hands pushing into his hair, the only thing he could think to do – the only thing he could do – was kiss her, urgently, hungrily, like there still was gunfire raging outside their window, counting down the moments they had left.
"Captain Trevor," she murmured against his mouth not without a trace of amusement, "are you not out of commission anymore?"
Steve drew back, panting, the world spinning so fast around him he didn't know how to keep up. Rested his forehead against hers, his fingers flexing ever so subtly on her sides. "No, ma'am."
Languid and soft in his arms, and so very real, Diana pushed her hands under the collar of his shirt and around his neck, long fingers gripping the hair on the back of his head while he fumbled with the buttons of her blouse. (Jesus, why were there so many of them?!)
His fingers brushed against the lace bodice of her corset.
"Huh, this is…"
"Fashion," Diana breathed out, and added, "It's awfully uncomfortable."
Steve's lips quirked. "Well, then we should… ah, fix that."
His mouth latched on her jaw and moving toward the sensitive spot behind her ear as his fingers tugged at the thin strings keeping the tight garment in place, unlacing it without much grace.
"This thing is a crime against humanity," he muttered softly.
Diana laughed, his face caught between her palms as she kissed the corner of his mouth, her hands sliding to his shoulders to push his shirt down his arms, her nimble fingers sliding under his undershirt and pushing it up and over his head, a giggle rising in her throat at the sight of his rumpled hair, tamped down by the sheer force of need in his eyes.
And suddenly nothing was funny anymore…
"Diana…" He name slipped from his lips like a prayer.
The corset fell to the floor, followed by the thinnest undergarment she was wearing with it, her hands unbuckling his belt and making the edges of reality blur before Steve's eyes, and then he was spreading her on the sheets, the fading sunlight making her olive skin glow golden.
Naked Diana in his arms was everything, the touch of her hands sending sparks along his skin, shooting all the way through him. He kissed her, deeply and thoroughly, searing the texture and taste of her mouth in his memory for eternity and every lifetime to come.
"Let me…" He whispered when she tried to pull him to her, his mouth trailing a path along down her throat and along her collarbone, slow, deliberate kisses. His lips closed around a rosy peak of her breast as his thumb brushed over the other one. Diana's breath caught, a soft sound forming into a moan that send his mind spiralling into a place where she was the center of the entire universe. "You're wonderful," he whispered between the pecks, his hand skimming over her belly and slipping between her thighs, those two weeks he spent barely touching her suddenly impossibly long. "So beautiful…"
He could spend the rest of his life mapping her body with his lips and it would still not be enough.
A hand of her hip, he pressed a kiss to the inside of her thigh, making Diana go still, his own body humming with the need and want and something deep and primal. He glanced up to see her eyes drop shut in surrender and acceptance, ready to drown in pleasure, his own pulse stuttering in response, urging him forward. Her hand curled around a fistful of sheets and the other gripped his hair when Steve's mouth found the sweet spot, her back arching instinctively to accommodate his touch.
Hot swipe of his tongue conjured a breathless, Please – a demand, rather than a plea, and his thoughts evaporated in an instant, leaving nothing but shiny delight behind.
A low growl of approval formed in the back of his throat when she guided him where she wanted him most. "Steve…"
He felt her body tense. Close.
Earning a sound of protest, Steve pulled back, punctuating his way up her belly and sternum with hasty kisses until his mouth found hers again, his hand curling around her wrist and pinning it to a pillow above her head. Wound like a spring, his entire being throbbing pulsing with raw wanting, he needed more, all of her, now.
Heavy-lidded and dark with wanting, Diana's eyes fluttered and opened, finding his; a small nod, and Steve's fingers dug into the flesh of her thigh.
The first luscious plunge into her was bliss, ripping through him like a bolt of lightning, zinging from the top of his head to his toes. He snagged her mouth in a long kiss, swallowing Diana's whimper, her hips rising in encouragement, already teetering on a brink. Steve arched into her, finding the rhythm, catching her effortlessly when the universe fell apart around her, her whole body clenching around him, teeth digging into his shoulder – pain smearing into pleasure, leaving a mark that would stay with him for days on end, the one he would fin oddly appealing.
There was nothing about this place that bore any resemblance to Veld and the night before he died. The air didn't smell of mold and oil lamps and smoke, and there was no desperate urgency now, no primal need to feel alive. Yet, the silkiness of Diana's skin under his hands made him think of the snow melting on her hair, and the way his heart kept tripping over itself every time she laughed, and his hand curled over hers ever so gently as they danced even when the town square emptied, his cheek resting against her temple.
It was a fragile and dangerous thing, this feeling that started to blossom in his chest before he knew it was happening, the warmth he hadn't allowed himself to feel toward another person in so long it felt more like something from another life more often than not. He held on to it, fiercely, willing that night to stay with them forever.
A shiver rippled along his body as his hips stuttered, the steady rock growing frantic and Diana's nails digging into his skin as if to hold him in one piece. And then he was falling into shimmering oblivion – oh, god, yes - that shattered around them, exploding in a kaleidoscope of pleasure.
"Oh god," he murmured, breathless, one hand still clutching her wrist, another tangled in her hair.
Diana laughed, the melody of it bouncing off the wall and lighting him up from the inside; kissed him along his jaw. "Which one?"
Steve chuckled - a silly, happy sound, and nuzzled into her neck before pulling back just far enough to look at her, her cheeks flushed and her hair fanned out over the pillow, black on white. He'd never felt more alive. "All of them."
This is it, he thought, breathing her in, drinking up her smile with his eyes, his mind in pieces. This is what it feels like to have all the time in the world.
xoox
Curled into him, half-draped over his body, Diana pressed a kiss below his collarbone before resting her head on his chest, his heartbeat a rapid staccato against her own as she waited for her breath to find itself again.
"Is it always like that? Between men and women?" She asked softly when the universe settled around them, no longer exploding behind her eyes in a myriad of colours.
"Like what?" Steve's fingers were threading idly through her hair spilled over her back, the touch of his fingertips to her skin making it tingle.
She touched a faint scar crossing his shoulder, wondering absently about the story behind it. It was old, heaved, a faint reminder of what happened a long time ago. A story she didn't know, and in the back of her mind, she couldn't help but wonder if the memory of it hurt still, if there was a mark it left on him that she couldn't trace with her fingers but that needed to be found, hidden in the fabric of his soul.
"Like it's too much and not enough, all at once." Her voice sounded hollow even to her own ears, like it wasn't hers at all but merely the echo of all questions she never knew how to ask yet.
He stayed quiet for a long moment, allowing the ticking of the clock on the old dresser be the only sound breaking the silence in the room, the air around them still and somewhat electrified, the jolts of nearly current running along her skin with every breath.
"No," he said at last, planting another kiss on the crown of her head. "No, it's not. It's only like that when—when something's real. Some people live their whole life never knowing this feeling."
Her fingers flexed, brushing against his skin, as if trying to hold on to him. As if being wound around him with her entre body was not close enough. She squeezed her eyes, allowing other senses to take over, mapping the steady beating of his heart and the warmth of his skin and the scent of soap and sweat clinging to them both in her mind. She never wished for more than she had, always satisfied with the gifts of life and the gods, but this… this was new, and the fear of almost losing him was raw and fresh in her mind, and there still were moments when their small world felt terrifyingly fragile.
It took her a while to realize that she was not used to losing the people she cared for. The one lesson her mother and Antiope never taught her for loss was an uncommon occurrence for them.
"I used to wish for it, you know," Diana breathed out when Steve didn't add anything else. "The war. From the cliffs above the training grounds, it looked mesmerizing. Powerful." Her voice dropped, turning small. "I used to think that there was no glory bigger than the glory of a battle and no honour greater than the honour of yielding a sword."
"I can see the appeal of that," Steve muttered, the memories from the battle on the beach making him think of how much, in that moment, he wanted to be one of them, wanted to fly over the sand, landing strikes at the enemy with the precision of a god.
"I wanted more than that, I wanted-" Her voice caught for a moment. "My whole life, my mother was telling me that I came to be because she wanted me so much. So what if…"
"What?"
"What if I wished so much for the war that it happened?"
Steve swallowed. "No, you couldn't have," he said without a moment of hesitation, shaking his head.
"You don't know that," she murmured into his chest.
"I do, actually." His hold on Diana tightened, a little protective, a little possessive, and his lips brushed to the top of her forehead, his gaze skimming over her regal profile that was seemingly carved from marble, her long lashes throwing shadows on her cheeks as her gaze remained fixed on something that only she could see. "You have the kindest soul in this whole world, Diana. You'd never bring any harm on anyone, intentionally or not." A pause. "Unless they don't know how to dance."
She snorted and poked him in the ribs with her finger, earning a short laugh in response, and the easiness of this, the lightness of the air around them left her with a warm tightness in her chest that burned through her with a desperate desire to hold on to this feeling until the end of time.
"Besides," Steve continued, "if it was that easy – getting the things just by wishing for them… Well, there'd probably be more people winning a lottery."
Diana lifted her head, her brows furrows ever so slightly. "What's a lottery?"
"Oh… you buy a ticket and if you're lucky, you can win a lot of money," he explained, eyes darting between hers.
"Why?"
He shrugged. "Some people think it will make them happy, I guess."
"Does it?"
"Maybe. I don't know."
She scrunched her face. "It makes no sense."
"Tell that to the poor sods that keep trying," he said in a mock-serious voice, his fingers trailing along her cheek, her skin smooth and soft, the pull of her bottomless eyes luring him into the void like a siren's call.
Gorgeous.
He swallowed, his throat suddenly dry, and his mind empty. If he could just look into her eyes until his last breath, he would die a happy man.
It struck Steve then that he'd never thought they would get here, to this moment, to this feeling of consuming contentment that felt like a cocoon in the world that was made, ultimately, of chaos, and how much he craved it. Before he even knew how to put it into words, he knew he wanted this, her, them, so badly and so achingly it frightened him more than a rain of bullets and the prospect of fighting against ancient god. That, Steve Trevor knew how to handle (maybe not the god part, but he was figuring it out). The thing with Diana, though, the one that was making his heart trip in his chest, leaving him breathless and more or less catatonic – now, that was another story.
"So, I have to ask," Steve started when Diana arched her eyebrow quizzically and it occurred to him that he was probably staring at her without saying anything for quite a while.
"Mm?"
"Those, um, twelve volumes…" He paused, twisting a strand of her hair in his fingers and trying oh so hard not to smile; cleared his throat. "That's a lot to… measure up to."
She blinked, and then dropped her head down, her shoulders shaking with laughter and her hair tickling his skin, and boy oh boy, he couldn't help but swear to make it his life's mission to ensure this sound never died. Even if she was laughing at his less than stellar—
"They were not entirely correct," Diana promised, shifting to move closer to him, her face tucked into the curve of Steve' shoulder and their legs tangled together, skin pressed to warm skin. "Nothing for you to worry about."
He chuckled, a low sound reverberating through his body and into hers.
Somehow, none of them remembered about dinner.
xoox
Steve wasn't sure at what point exactly did the war become his anchor, something that he understood better than the life before or after it, however much he hated the blood and carnage. In some twisted, weird way, it made sense to him. Maybe it was true, after all, about how a person could get used to anything. There were tasks and missions, and in the end, if he got lucky, and if the gods or whatever powers that be were generous, it would be worth the effort.
Or so he used to think to get himself through the hours and days and years or what felt like a never-ending nightmare more often than not.
Technically, on the other side of the ocean, there still was a place that he used to call home, where his memories still lived, if a little faded from time. Memories of barley fields and laughter and a green-eyed girl that got him to make her promises that he believed he would be able to keep, and a hole in his heart so big he was surprised it didn't turn him inside out when he was left with nothing but fear of the future.
"Come with me," he asked Diana one morning while she was making coffee (I can't believe this is a commodity in your world and Let me try mixing it myself) in his tiny kitchen – a splash of cream, 2 spoonfuls of sugar (better 3; someone had a sweet tooth).
She looked up at him, her puzzled smile soft in the morning light, "Come where?"
Steve shrugged, his hand pushing through his hair, a speech that he oh so carefully mapped out in his head chocking him, lodged in his throat. "America." A pause. "Anywhere. You wanted to see the world…"
Anywhere you want. As long as you're with me, he wanted to say, but the words died on his lips, selfish in their essence.
She was a goddess, for heaven's sake! What could he possibly offer to her? For all his claiming that he was above average (ha!), for someone of her caliber, he was probably mediocre, at best. Hell, he probably wasn't nearly that impressive for the majority of the world, either. And yet… and yet, there was nothing that Steve wanted more than to hear her laughter, listen to the sound of her voice in the dark, deep husk of her whisper hidden in the shadows telling him the stories that sounded as magical to him as his did to her.
For as long as Steve remembered himself, he was drawn to the sky; to the vastness and endlessness of it, the freedom it embodied, and the feeling of freefalling when he was soaring so far above the ground the world seemed like a toy. It was drawing him, calling for him, and the resistance was futile – he knew that much from the start. He used to joke that he didn't choose to be a pilot; rather, the sky chose him.
It kept choosing him, over and over again.
Until it left him with a cold, uncertain feeling somewhere deep in his core.
Something happened in the sky in Belgium, and no matter how hard Steve tried to ignore it, it was still there, a nagging presence in the back of his mind. By logic and every law of physics that ever existed, not only was he supposed to be blow up. He should have been pulverized, extinguished without a trace. A blow that could have wiped out the lives of everything and everyone for miles around it epicenter should have exterminated him like he never existed at all. And if not that, if he was simply pushed out of the plane by whatever luck or coincidence, the fall should have killed him.
The fact that none of this happened was making his mind spin and his stomach clench, and more importantly, being here, now, watching the woman that patched the broken parts of him without even knowing it be amazed by something as mundane as a telephone felt like a second chance that shouldn't be wasted. And maybe all he had was this small apartment and his heart – it's broken but it's still beating and I glued it back together and you almost can't see the cracks anymore – and maybe she was celestial in every sense of the word and thus deserved the moon and the stars and everything in-between, but maybe that could be enough. Maybe…
Diana took a sip of her drink, grimacing a little over its bitterness or sweetness – learning was still a work in progress, and More is not better in this case, Diana – and put her mug down. She stepped toward him, and Steve's arms opened for her like he'd been doing it forever. Natural as breathing.
"And what then?" She tilted her face up to his.
"We'll figure something out."
xoox
England was a mess. Most of Europe was in shambles. The victory, however desired, had a bittersweet aftertaste to it – if the loss and devastation weren't nearly palpable enough, the half destroyed cities would clue anyone in on what a painful road the world took to find peace again.
Chief left straight away, having nothing left to gain in this land that was barely scraping by as it was.
Charlie returned home, too; to a small town in northern Scotland that lad little trace of the fighting and thus bore few memories of the years when his life didn't quite belong to him.
Of the three of them, Sameer was the only one who chose to stay in London, although the few times that Steve saw him, he remained vague about his plans, waving off the questions with the light-hearted I have all the time in the world to think of something. Steve never pressed.
And while Etta was bursting with questions that he, despite having years and years of experience of doing just that, found rather hard to dodge, she never once brought up his own departure, and it was obvious to him that she knew deep down that he was probably not going to stick around for too long.
That was not a topic of any discussion though, not with him at least. She dragged Diana off a time or two, for some quality girl time, she claimed, although it was hard to tell what kind of quality she was talking about. ("No, no, you're on your own," he raised his hands and even took a step back for good measure when Diana glanced at him for support the first time it happened, trying to bite back his laughter). To his knowledge, they went shopping and out for high tea, and no one got in trouble, and no one got arrested or ended up in a sword fight, so as far as he was concerned, it was a raging success.
"She thinks I'm a good influence," Diana pointed out later, looking both proud and entirely unsurprised.
"I beg to differ," Steve countered without hesitation, mock-serious. "Has she met you?" Eyebrows arched, he watched her jaw drop in disbelief. "I mean, if anything, I am the good influence here. Who taught you how to dress and dance and-" She tugged at his hand to close the distance between them and pressed her lips to his, cutting him off midsentence. "Yeah, okay," Steve muttered against her mouth when she drew back, breathless and dazed. "Etta's right. I'm wrong. Where were we?"
If his now former secretary fished anything of real importance out of Diana, he had no idea. Not that it mattered, in the long run.
"I take it London is growing on you," he noted jokingly when she voiced her desire to stay for a while.
"It has its charm," Diana responded diplomatically, which, said on a dreary and rainy day, came out more as a joke than anything else.
Steve wondered absently how much of this was her desire to help (not that there was much to do now that the god of war was defeated), and how much it was about her sensing his own hesitation to go back to patch of land that had his name on it and the memories he never thought he'd have to unpack again. She never said anything, though, and he never offered an explanation, the things that could have been but never were weighing down on him in the way he didn't quite want to touch for fear of having them collapse on him like a pile of granite blocks.
Sometimes, he felt haunted.
Who knew that falling from the sky and into the ocean could be a turning point in his life like he couldn't even imagine? If this was written in the stars somewhere, Steve mused, he wished he knew how to read that map, if only out of plain, human curiosity. There really was no limit to the wonders of the universe.
xoox
Diana's nightmares started six months later, black shapeless monsters that consumed her mind, setting the demons inside it free, the void pulling her deeper still with every breath. She would often wake up panicking and hyperventilating, her mind stuck between restless slumber and uneasy wakefulness as the beasts were clawing their way out of her head, trying to consume her whole. She didn't know where the dreams came from or how to make them set her free, and this sudden development left her more than a little disoriented.
"Diana?" Steve found her curled in the armchair one night, a book that he was pretty certain she was holding upside down in her lap. He grimaced against the light of the reading lamp and rubbed his eyes, awoken by the lack of the familiar warmth by his side. The one that had been there a few hours ago when he fell asleep. He stifled a yawn. "What are you doing?"
She glanced up and shook her head, her eyes tired and her smile a little too thin for his liking. But when she reached for his hand and her fingers curled around his, the comfort of her touch dulled the edges of his concerns, his momentary worry retreating.
"Couldn't sleep," Diana responded when he leaned in to press a kiss to her shoulder. "Go back to bed."
"Come with me."
"Soon," she promised, dark eyes holding his gaze, soft and reassuring.
Steve nodded; squeezed her hand and padded back into the dark bedroom.
He was hardy the one to judge, really. The war….it left the kind of scars that were impossible to see and that took forever and a half to heal, his own mind praying tricks on him half the time, leaving him stranded between the worlds. He'd long lost the count of backfired cars that sent him crouching behind a garden wall, thinking it was a gunshot, his senses going into an overdrive.
It took time, and effort, and then some more time to stop living the nightmare.
He wasn't blind. She wasn't sleeping well. A bad dream, she'd say every time he asked, retreating into herself if he pressed. Steve didn't want to push, choosing to think she simply needed time-
Until he woke up one night to Diana screaming in her sleep, and the moment he touched her shoulder to wake her, she had his wrist pinned to the headboard of the bed, her other forearm pressed against his throat and her eyes wild. He'd see it before, in Belgium, when there was no stopping her, the power radiating off of her body like a beacon. Her breath short and her chest heaving, she could easily squeeze the life out of him in a blink of an eye.
He wasn't scared, though; wasn't even concerned at first, more surprised than anything else, his heart pounding at such a rude awakening.
"Diana…"
The sound of his voice seemed to have broken the spell, snapping her out of whatever was holding her captive. She let go of him abruptly and scooted away, nearly tumbling out of the bed until she was backing away from him, her eyes wide in shock and confusion.
"Diana…" Steve started again, moving toward her. He kicked off the covers, the carpet soft beneath his feet.
"No," she pressed a hand to her mouth, shaking her head. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry."
"It's okay," he murmured, reaching for her, frantic.
"No, don't." She pressed her back into the wall when there was nowhere left to go, inching away from his touch, and Steve dropped his hand. "Don't." A sob bubbled up in her chest. "I hurt you…"
"You didn't," Steve assured her quickly, the panic rising inside him in tidal waves – over her, over the fear in Diana's eyes.
"I could have… I could have…" She faltered and trailed off, her hand curling into a tight fist and her throat working although no words were coming out.
Steve shook his head and took a tentative step toward her. "No. Never."
The air felt charged around them, he could feel her rapid heartbeat from a foot away. She inhaled sharply and let out a shuddered breath. He caught her gaze and held it, a steady anchor in the sea of madness. His hand brushed along the inside of her wrist, and then over her palm when she didn't pull away, fingers curling around hers. He pushed her hair back from her face, tucked unruly strand behind her ear. "Look at me." He cupped her face with his hands, thumbs brushing away the frightened tears from her cheeks. "Diana, look at me." Her lips were quivering, and his heart clenched with fierce, overwhelming protectiveness. "It was just a dream. Nothing but a bad dream."
She was shaking her head again, but when Steve pulled her to him on a soft, "C'mere," and wrapped his arms around body that was trembling with adrenaline and shock, she didn't protest, merely tucking her face into the crook of his neck. "It's okay, baby. It's over." He pressed a kiss to her hair, holding her against him until her breathing evened out, soothed by the sound of his whisper, the words not as important as the tone of his voice.
"Steve… I'm so sorry," she murmured.
"Shh. It's over."
He brushed his lips to her forehead and pulled her back toward the bed. She crawled back under the covers and climbed over what by an unspoken agreement had become his side to her own, and Steve slid in behind her. His arm slipped around her waist, and Diana rolled over to face him, her hand on his wrist that she was holding in an iron grip not a few minutes ago, now running her finger gently over it as though she was worried that even the lightest of touches would leave marks on his skin, tracing a palm-shaped print left by her hand.
"You want to talk about it?" He asked quietly, tugging her closer to him until she was nestled into his side, her head tucked under his chin and his heart beating beneath her cheek.
"No." Diana's fingers curled around a fistful of his shirt as she pressed her face into soft cotton, allowing her eyes to drop shut again. "I love you," she whispered almost inaudibly, something that Steve had to hear between his heartbeats so soft it was, the words making his pulse stutter. "I love you so much."
There was an edge to her voice, the kind of desperation that splintered his heart.
"Sleep," he breathed out, tightening his hold on her until she was all he could feel.
He himself remained awake long after her breath grew deep and even.
xoox
Two day later, he woke up to find a note on the nightstand, pressed down with his watch lest the morning breeze blow it away, knowing the moment he saw it that she was gone.
I'm sorry. Please forgive me.
To be continued...
A/N: Yeah, by the way - it's all going downhill from here, angst-wise.
But fear not - it won't last forever. Just most of the time!
Feedback is always much appreciated :))