A Road Paved In Gold

by Nadin4400

Steve Trevor doesn't die in the sky in Belgium, but survival comes with the price he couldn't ever imagine. Angst. Wondertrev, Post-movie

12. Chapter 12

Author's note: Okay, so... Some of you, by which I mean all of you, have been asking me to fix the relationship between Steve and Diana for months now. Well, guess what?

To be fair, I couldn't wait to get there myself. I hope you'll cry because I did and I don't want to have suffered through this on my own.

There's some explicit reunion stuff near the end. Just a warning if it's not your thing and you'd rather skip it, or if you're a minor, which I don't want to think about.

Well, I guess you're good to go :) Thank you for your love and patience!

---

Gotham, 2017

The storm came two night later, strong and vicious, the nature lashing out at the world with frightening determination. The wind was bending the trees around the lake house in half while the thunder rolled angrily so close to the roof that it felt like it was going to shake it right off any second.

"Do not turn left," Steve said into a headpiece as he watched a grainy image of a security camera on the screen before him.

"There's also a right," Victor's voice sounded loud and clear in his ear.

"There's a staircase straight ahead of you," Alfred leaned closer to the screen across the desk, his fingers tapping impatiently against it.

Steve's stomach tightened, his mind racing. The howling of the wind outside was making the Batcave feel particularly… well, cavernous, and yet he still preferred it to the ground level of the house where the walls suddenly felt fragile under the raging gusts of wind and a heavy downpour that made him feel like they were drowning. What was Bruce thinking living in an actual glass box he had no idea.

The distress call from the S.T.A.R. Labs in Gotham came about an hour ago, and at first it seemed that it was merely a power outage issue, what with the storm practically trying to flood the entire city. Until the maintenance crew arrived to have a look only to find the building alight and half of the staff beaten up within an inch of their lives while the other half was holed up in every nook and crevice they could find while the Lab was taken over by what appeared to be a group of people who Barry described in a hushed whisper as 'freaky' – Steve found that detail particularly helpful.

Fast, strong, ruthless, and without a grain of humanity and consciousness to them, they were adamant to leave the place, even if it meant taking a few lives along the way.

"Test subjects," Bruce grunted with disgust when they came across some sort of hibernation pods in the basement with life support system hooked up to them. Steve could hear him running, his footfalls soft and almost soundless for someone his size. "Someone was trying to create their own universal soldiers." The words sounded sour in his mouth, like he bit into a lemon.

"Or meta-humans," Victor added somberly.

Steve exchanged stunned glances with Alfred.

New meta-humans…

And suddenly everything felt a thousand times more real – the intensity, the danger, the tight voices on the other end. Like the whole world zeroed in on a handful of people trying to solve this puzzle while the time slowed down to a crawl, so precious each moment was. So life-changing each of them could be.

His mind jumped to Waller. To their conversation a couple of days ago. She wouldn't do it—she wouldn't have time–

How long could it take to drug and brainwash someone out of their mind? Maybe not long, but Victor said that the place looked like it had been operating for some time. Located on the lower level that wasn't even supposed to be used, it could have remained hidden for a while, he figured. A backup plan? Her Task Force X plan had failed spectacularly, costing her not only a chunk of her ego but also the trust of the people she was meant to protect. And the League, despite her attempts, was barely under her control.

If he was honest with himself and based on what he knew about this woman, Steve wouldn't have put keeping a whole new army on ice past her. Someone – Bruce? – had mentioned hibernation pods, and given the Labs' access to resources and technology, he didn't doubt that they could probably come up with a way to keep someone in a medically induced coma for as long as they needed it.

Until the storm cut off power for however short a time and woke the subjects up.

But that was a food for thought for later, and definitely something to consider when they had more time and hopefully information. Right now, they needed to get everyone out of the facility and try to round the… whatever those people were.

"They are soldiers," Steve muttered when one of the cameras snatched an image of two men in what looked like hospital scrubs walking along the corridor, their eyes glassy, their faces nothing but stone masks that carried no trace of emotion.

"Pardon me?" Alfred turned to him.

"Soldiers," Steve repeated, his brows pulling together. "You can see it in their postures, in the way they move." Like they were on a prowl.

He wasn't sure if this was a good or bad news. On the one hand, it was one less question bumping around his head. On the other, though, they were trained to survive at all costs, they tended to be excellent at hand to hand combat, and although it factored greatly into a certain degree of predictability that the League could use to their advantage, devoid of all other instincts, they could be lethal. Especially devoid of other instincts.

He'd seen it before, in the Great War. Not a medically induced condition, but more like despair that stripped men around him off their humanity. Like they weren't going to stop at anything. They had reached their limit and had nothing to lose. Except they were not at war now.

The men paused in front of the camera and looked up, and for a second Steve got an unnerving feeling that they were staring straight him. So much so that he even drew back involuntarily. And then one of them reached for the lens and the screen went black.

"Great," Alfred muttered.

"Victor, is your father there?" Steve asked a little too loudly, getting a muttered curse from Bruce.

"No," Victor responded promptly. "Not this late. The only staff around are those burning the late night oil."

A loud noise of something like a file cabinet toppling to the floor cut him off.

And then Diana's voice barked at Barry to duck, so close that it made Steve's pulse stutter. More commotion followed dotted with grunts and yelling, although whose it was hard to tell. Arthur's war cry cut in, close to someone with a headpieces as he deemed being hooked to one of Bruce's gadgets uncool. More screams. Rapid footfalls of someone running.

"Master Wayne?" Alfred said if a little tentatively, fearful of being distracting when Bruce least needed it.

Nervous energy mixed with adrenaline was throbbing in Steve's chest, hot as lava. His hand was gripping the edge of the desk. Another peal of thunder rolled over their heads, making the whole house shake all the way down to the foundation.

"We have half of them, out of about a dozen," Victor's voice cut through the sounds Steve was no longer trying to interpret. "And all staff is safe in the back, but a few might need medical assistance. Those guys knew what they were doing. "

"Don't hurt them," Diana's order followed, muffled and too far away from them, and still like on cue Steve's heart slammed hard against his ribs. "It's not their fault. They are confused and don't know what's happening."

"Just another Friday night," Alfred muttered, rubbing his eyes, the lines around his mouth deeper somehow, his concern no longer hidden behind the ever-present façade of mild disinterest.

The problem, however, wasn't to just stop the rogue subjects, but to do it safely, seeing as how Diana was right and they were as much the victims here as the people they had turned on, but remembering that was all the much harder when someone Steve actually cared about was fighting on the front line.

His mind was still spinning, trying to put the information together. From the pieces he'd snatched here and there, it looked like someone was attempting to create new meta-humans by pumping people – who might or might not have volunteered for it on their own free will – with steroids and a chemical cocktail meant to increase their endurance and stamina and god only knew what else. During the process of transformation they were, apparently, sedated either to reduce the pain of the process or to avoid violent outbursts, but when the storm hit the city, the lightning damaged several power lines in the area, shutting down the machines they were hooked to and cutting off the drip of the sedative. The few minutes that it took the emergency generator to kick in were all they needed to wake up, drugged up out of their minds, disoriented, and desperate to get the hell out of the place that had turned them into something that they couldn't understand. There was nothing to them but heightened strength, fast reflexes, and an animal instinct to survive at any cost now.

The one thing that Steve wanted to know right now was if there was a way to really save them.

He thought back to Dr. Maru and her experiments, to the Nazi camps during the Second World War, and felt sick in the pit of his stomach. Funny how people never truly learned not to play god. Their ways grew more refined, but at the core so little had changed over the past hundred years that he was starting to wonder if they were going to keep running in circles for as long as they existed as a species, or if there was hope for them still.

Steve jolted at the sound of a loud crack upstairs, and then a flash of lightning darted toward them, a breeze of movement sending a stack of papers to the floor and the air around them was suddenly thick with static and smell of the storm.

And then Barry was lowering Victor onto the concrete floor, grimacing with exertion as he struggled not to collapse as well.

"What happened?" Alfred asked as Steve moved instantly to crouch near the Cyborg, a sick feeling growing in the pit of his stomach.

"Nothing," Victor winced, his whole body twitching slightly all over. "I'm good."

"No, he's not," Barry protested in between sucking in gulps of air, his face glistening with the rain water. "The robot man is not meant to be tossed against walls," he explained.

Steve turned to Victor, not quite certain what he was looking for. He was no medic to begin with, and Victor… Victor wasn't even human, biologically speaking. Whatever his injury was, it had to be internal, and to be completely honest, he wouldn't know how to go about it even if he knew where to start.

"I'm good," Victor insisted, frowning with one human eyebrow and waving them off. "Just… need to… I'm fine."

"Is it over?" Alfred asked Barry.

"No," Barry shook his head fanatically. "Diana said to get Vic out of the way."

Her name set Steve's inner alarms wailing. "Where is she?" He asked in a suddenly hoarse voice. "Barry, where is Diana?"

"She was with Arthur, last time I saw her," the younger man responded if a little uncertainly. "They were about to be done. There was like a storage room, kinda like a vault on the lower lever and we were trying to lure them all there, those… things." He inhaled with a shudder. "And then one of them sorta decided to play a Cyborg rugby."

"He didn't—" Victor winced.

"You stopped responding, dude," Barry interjected and then looked up at Steve. "They should be here any moment."

Steve nodded, not quite buying his feigned nonchalance, not when Barry was basically vibrating with either excitement or stress, or a combination of both. At least he didn't seem hurt. Steve looked up at the screens. And froze.

Breaking into the Labs' intranet was a piece of cake, what with Bruce's advanced toys the origins of which he tried not to think too hard about. And helpful, too, as it allowed them to tap into the live feed of the security cameras. However, it wasn't what drew Steve's attention now. It was a small red warning signal blinking in the corner of the screen.

Earlier, when the power went off, the emergency generator kicked in. But right now he could see that for some reason, when the central supply was restored, the generator didn't turn off as it was meant to, and now the place was so overloaded it was a miracle the sparks weren't flying.

Steve darted toward the workstation and swore as his fingers hit the keyboard.

"Captain…" Alfred started.

"I need to turn off the power," Steve muttered, as if saying it out loud would somehow make it happen. He could feel three pairs of eyes on him, quizzical and worried.

"Ms. Prince asked not to-" Alfred began, stepping toward Steve.

"It's a laboratory, Alfred," Steve cut him off. "What do they have in laboratories?"

"Super cool tech," Barry piped in from behind them.

"Illegal experiments?" Alfred offered, puzzled.

Steve shook his head without looking away from the screen. "Oxygen tanks."

He heard Alfred suck in a breath.

"If there is a fire…" Steve started, but refused to go any further, his imagination helpfully supplying him with a vivid picture he wasn't sure he'd be able to erase any time soon. "Ms. Prince might need to be unhappy about this some other time-Dammit!" He smacked his fist on the keyboard in frustration. "It's not responding. I need to—I have to—" He sprung up to his feet, his breath hitching. "They need to shut it off… Bruce!" He barked into an earpiece.

And it was then that he realized that he couldn't hear anything anymore. Nothing, not even the ever present sound of someone's footsteps or breathing heavy with exertion on the other side. The channel was silent.

"It's down," Alfred said before he could ask. "The communication system is down. Must be the storm…"

"Victor-"

"I can't." Still sprawled on the floor, the Cyborg grimaced in what looked like pain. "I can't connect to anything, not until I…" He trailed off with a wince.

"I could go," Barry said quickly standing up, his glance darting toward the staircase. "I'm fast."

Steve paused and turned to him, considering his earnest, eager face, his whole body still shaking slightly either from energy coursing through him, or adrenaline, or cold. They needed to turn the power off as soon as possible, and of them all, Barry had speed on his side.

"Do you know how to do it?" Steve asked.

Barry hesitated. "If you tell me…"

At that, Steve was shaking his head and running up the stairs already, ignoring Alfred calling his name and taking two steps at a time because it was a matter of minutes, perhaps, and maybe Barry was fast, but if he did it wrong, he wouldn't be helping anyone. He could kill them all.

Steve's hands were shaking with adrenalize when he rolled his bike out of the garage and into the dark driveway, its wheels skidding on wet gravel. He tried Diana's phone on the way out the door, not surprised to hear it ringing somewhere in the house – they left in a haste. And then Bruce's in a burst of wild hope, but it went to voicemail, seeing as how they were all busy.

It was up to him then.

The rain was still falling in earnest, the wind throwing angry handfuls of water at the face shield of his helmet. The handlebars were sleek and slippery in his hands, and he had to grip them tight so as not to feel like he was going to veer off any moment. The wet road glinted in the headlight of his bike while the world around him was nothing but blackness and he hoped desperately that he wouldn't get lost in the maze of unfamiliar streets as he circled around the city.

Another lightning pierced the sky, and Steve sped up, fearing the worst. If any of them hit S.T.A.R. Labs, it wouldn't stand a chance. Even now, he was half-expecting to see a blaze of fire on the horizon.

Instead, the S.T.A.R. Labs perimeter lights came into view, sooner than he had anticipated, the parking lot glistening with puddles.

He skidded to an abrupt halt, the traction of his bike on the slippery ground nearly sending him flying, and hit the ground running as he yanked his helmet off and tossed it on the grass. Frigid rain blinded him momentarily. Even from twenty yards away, the building was towering ominously over him.

This part of town was crowded with banks and business centres, bustling with life and commotion during the day, but this late at night and in the storm that was seemingly trying to eradicate the world itself, it was dark and dead silent save for the explosions of thunder and the rusting of the rain. There was something unnerving in it, in the darkness around him and the echo of his footsteps on the pavement.

A few of the second-floor windows were lit up, but the front entrance was locked and his pounding on the thick reinforced-glass door remained unanswered. He could hear muffled sounds of struggle coming from the inside, police and ambulance sirens piercing the air – Alfred must have tipped them off. Steve's breath caught in his throat, panic building up inside of him like a tidal wave threatening to drown him.

He swore under his breath, the expletives that even Charlie, known in his brave days as a cussing pro, would find impressive, and started toward the back of the building, desperately trying to remember the layout the saw captured on the CCTV camera and the floor plans that he wasn't sure they could trust. The main breaker box controlling the power supply of the building was inside, but there was also a backup one, for emergencies, although Steve didn't think that anyone could have possibly accounted for something like this when they were designing this facility.

He heard a glass break somewhere inside the building, his head snapped up automatically, and there was only so much he could so not to dash in that direction on instinct. Instead, he nearly fell, running into Batmobile, black as the night itself, parked crookedly on the lawn.

Someone screamed above him.

Breathless, Steve stumbled in the dark, hands groping along the wall, and then all but threw himself at the breaker box when his fingers grazed against the metal. He could smell the smoke already, the metal was hot when he touched it, but it was locked, too. He glanced around, looking for something to break into it with, but this far away from the street lights, everything was black and thick with shadows around him. He was running out of time.

He flexed his fingers, curling them into a fist, and hit the lock once, twice, three times, the door bending under the force of his blows. At last, something gave in inside of it and he yanked the door open with enough force to nearly rip it off, his eyes scanning the switches wildly. When he touched them, they were hot, almost melting. He could see small sparks, too. Could hear the low hum of electricity running wild.

A moment of hesitation, and Steve flipped a few switches down, burning his fingers on the melting plastic. The whole building plunged into darkness. Everything went eerily quiet for a few long moments. All he could hear was the patter of the rain all around him, heavy drops bouncing off his jacket, his hair plastered to his head.

And then a sound of a broken glass pierced the night. A window above him shattered and something – someone – went flying out of it. Steve recognized one of the subjects immediately by the swift roll along the wet grass and a predator crouch that he came up in. He looked up for a brief second and then his eyes fixed on Steve – a new target.

"Oh, hell," Steve muttered when the man lunged at him, his teeth bared and his body poised for attack. They really didn't have time for this.

The impact of collision sent Steve into the brick wall, his breath knocked out of his body. He hissed in pain when his bad shoulder took the worst of it, pain jolting down his arm and he pushed the soldier away. He stumbled as stars exploded behind his eyes, his hand groping along the wall for support. But the man wasn't done. He was coming at Steve again. And bloody hell, those people were basically superhuman and he very much was not.

His hand shaking, he grabbed onto the breaker box door and yanked at it, slamming it into the man's face. He staggered unsteadily but not from the damage so much as in surprise. Not letting him gain his bearings, Steve swung at him, punching him square into a jaw and bracing himself for another attack. However, before he could so much as blink, a glowing lasso all of a sudden wrapped around his chest. The next moment Diana herself landed gracefully behind them, her eyes blazing and her expression fierce in the pale glow of the emergency lights, and pulled hard.

The man fell back onto the concrete pathway with a dull thud, swallowed instantly by the darkness and rain. He didn't move after that.

Steve exhaled sharply.

They stood in front of one another as the pause stretched between them, separated by the veil of rainfall. His chest was still heaving, his hands flexing ever so slightly, curling into fists and uncurling again, his mind oddly empty. This was the first time he saw her in her armour since the 50's and he couldn't help but stare.

Diana glanced down at the man sprawled at her feet, which Steve found awfully ironic and more than a little hilarious, considering that it summed up the feelings of all League members toward her pretty damn accurately, albeit in a slightly more figurative sense. Then she looked up at Steve, a faint frown on her face, although he couldn't tell if it was meant for him or the situation in general.

But before either of them could say a word, Arthur appeared behind him, his eyes locked on the man sprawled on the ground.

"Nice catch, Cap," he noted gruffly, but not without approval.

"Wasn't me…" Stave started, swallowing back a comment about how much more in his element the Atlantian seemed when he was drenched, his hand clasped tightly around his trident and his face all but joyous in the fight. He truly did find his calling with the League, it seemed.

Steve hoped he didn't spear anyone in that building, or they would have some serious issues with the authorities. Amanda Waller would not be pleased.

Another shadow that leaped from the broken window effectively derailed the train of his thought, and then Bruce was standing over the man as well, his shoulders rising and falling with his heavy breathing. Steve could see a cut on his cheek, the rain washing away the blood, his eyes narrowed against the wind.

He glanced briefly at Arthur and Steve before his gaze was drawn back to Diana. "I guess we got them all," he noted.

She nodded and lifted her eyes again, but by then, Steve already stepped into the shadows and disappeared in the rain.

xoox

"Does it hurt?" Alfred asked, more curious than concerned, which, given Vic's history with surviving far worse things wasn't much of a surprise if Steve was honest with himself.

There was curiosity pulsing inside of him, too, so at least they had that in common.

Sprawled on the couch in the lounge, Victor looked up at him. "It doesn't hurt," he responded. "It's more like…. Like if you throw a laptop against a wall, you wouldn't really expect it to work as well as before, would you?"

"I wouldn't throw a laptop against a wall," Alfred noted.

"Not everyone is that considerate," Victor grimaced a little, and tried again, "Imagine your system failing."

Alfred arched an eyebrow at him. "I'd rather not."

"So how does this work?" Steve asked. Sitting across the coffee table from the couch, he leaned forward, elbow propped on his thighs as he studied the Cyborg closely. He didn't look any different, admittedly, but using his own analogy, a broken device might not either. Only one of his hands was flexing ever so slightly as if he was squeezing an invisible stress ball.

Victor turned to him. "Nano-bots will patch me up. At least I don't feel like I'm being electrocuted from the inside anymore. I'll be good as new in no time."

"Which is… how long?" Barry inquired.

"A few hours, probably."

"Would you like some aspirin, Mr. Stone?" Alfred offered graciously.

Victor shook his head. "Thanks, Alfred, but I don't think it's how this works."

"Well, then," the older man straightened up. "In that case, I better go check if Master Wayne has any bones that need to be snapped into place. Ms. Prince," he nodded at Diana who stepped into the lounge on his way out.

A brief hello, and she moved into the room. "Victor," she smiled at the Cyborg, walking over to the couch. She studied him, her head tilted. "How are you feeling?"

"Like someone broke him," Barry offered helpfully. He turned to the Cyborg and poked him in a metal shoulder. "Hey, can we reboot you?"

Victor waved his hand off. "Can we reboot you?"

"I'm not made of Nano-bots," Barry pointed out.

"My point exactly."

"Are you going to be okay?" Diana asked, nipping their bickering in the bud.

Victor tuned to her and nodded. "I am." He paused. "It's just—it's easier to be here where my father doesn't prod at me even though it's nothing," he added, and asked, "What about… those… whoever they were?"

Diana's brows pulled together, and Steve remembered Arthur mentioning the Labs' staff and night security who got a full dose of weird and had to be coaxed out of their hiding spots, not trusting the people who had attacked them to be detained and no longer dangerous. Several had to be sent to the hospital with concussion and a few broken bones, none of them coherent enough to even begin to tell their side of the story yet.

"They are under observation for now," she responded. "Once the drug they are on wears off, they will be sent into a recovery therapy to see if they can remember what happened to them and who did it."

"There was nothing in the S.T.A.R. Labs on them?" Steve looked up at her. "No records, no…"

"No," she shook her head.

"I asked dad to check," Victor spoke, his gaze darting between the two of them. "But he doesn't have the clearance."

"I bet we won't have an issue with that," Steve muttered, thinking of the magic that the Batcave contained.

Diana nodded. "Bruce will see if he can bypass their firewall, but there's a chance that whoever is behind this was careful enough not to leave any trace."

"So, we're just making meta-humans now?" Barry asked, voicing what everyone was thinking.

"Let's not get ahead of ourselves," Diana said diplomatically. "We don't know that for a fact."

"It was obvious enough last night," he pointed out.

"Waller?" Victor offered.

Steve scrubbed a hand over his face. "She is quite busy trying to sweep it under the rug right now," he said carefully, mindful of not looking at anyone in particular. "She couldn't control Suicide Squad and she can't control Justice League. It is not unreasonable to assume that her trying to keep quiet about this is an attempt to keep her record clean, but there is also a possibility that she might be tired of waiting and decided to take the matters into her own hands."

"So that's a yes, maybe," Barry summed up.

"We'll get to the bottom of it," Diana promised. She turned to Victor again and leaned in to place her hand on his cheek. "Thank you, for helping last night."

He nodded again, and even smiled, his voice softening. "Sure thing."

"And if there is anything-"

"I'll ask," he promised.

She reached for his hand a squeezed it, encouragement and affection pouring out of her eyes. Then she looked up, her eyes locking with Steve's.

"Can we talk?" She asked.

He blinked, startled, as if there was another Steve in the room and she couldn't have possibly meant him. His gaze held hers, a silent question in her eyes. Anticipation. Uncertainty. They were doing a damn good job dancing around one another without much of actual communication and he wondered what could have possibly made that change.

"Yeah. Sure, of course," he said when the pause between them grew sufficiently awkward and cleared his throat.

"In private," Diana added when he remained sitting.

Steve nodded if a little hesitantly, feeling like a moron for no reason that he could pinpoint, and rose from his seat to follow her.

"What'd you do?" Barry's whispered theatrically to his back, but Steve barely registered the question.

He thought they would to the study, or maybe the kitchen, but instead Diana headed to the garage where she pulled the driver's door of a grey Volvo open, keys in hand. She paused when Steve stopped several feet away from the car, more confused than anything at this point, watching him with one eyebrow raised. Half-dare, half-invitation.

Oh, hell, it wasn't like he had anything to lose, and his curiosity was starting to get the best of him.

Steve slid into the passenger seat without a word and she started the car, the engine purring softly under the hood as they rolled out into the driveway, gravel crunching under the tires.

"Were they the military?" He asked when they were on the highway, staring out of his window and trying not to think of a thousand reasons for Diana to ask him to come somewhere with her for a talk, none of which looked particularly bright in his mind.

There was little they could say to one another that couldn't be said in front of everyone else in the house, and he wondered if the trip was meant to make it less uncomfortable for either of them.

"It seems so, yes," she responded, her voice measured.

He nodded. "Makes sense. If you want to create enhanced soldiers, it would probably pay off to use the real ones for it."

The idea made him sick, the things he's seen before vivid and clear before his eyes. They had fought so hard for every grain of peace. He could still smell the blood on his hands, feel the recoil of the rifle ram into his shoulder, hear the echo of the gunfire so clear in his mind like someone was pulling the trigger not ten feet away from him. All this, and they were still here, in the midst of another war the people were bringing upon themselves for no reason he could think of. And still, every victory felt like merely a stepping stone leading to another battle, and another one, and another one. And there seemed to be no end to them.

Nothing was ever enough.

"Do you really think Amanda Waller is behind it?" Steve asked after a few moments.

Her fingers tapped against the steering wheel. "The question is – why would she?"

"You said so yourself – she wanted someone like you to control, but she can't control the League. I don't see anything stopping her from trying to create an army of Terminators if she is so hell-bent on power."

He saw Diana glance at him out of the corner of her eye. "I thought that having you here was meant to get Bruce to cooperate."

"Bruce doesn't seem like the type," Steve breathed.

There was something that the Batman wanted from Waller, but Steve didn't know how long they would keep up this charade without going for each other's throats. When her team arrived at S.T.A.R. Labs last night, just missing that narrow window of being useful, he did think that it was not going to end well. He wondered how close they came to having another casualty or two.

Diana bit he lip, two faint lines appearing between her eyebrows, but didn't say anything.

They hadn't spoken again until she pulled up to a curb near an old apartment building not far from the business district of Gotham. Red-brick building with bay windows and high stoops reminded Steve of the Beacon Hill area in Boston. He looked up, taking in the cheery curtains on said windows and potted plants on the windowsills and the general air of coziness that spoke of belonging, and felt a twinge in his gut. Nostalgia for the things he never had.

He followed Diana up the stoop leading to the entrance and then to the third floor where she opened one of the doors and stepped into an apartment. The large window right across the door overlooked the street and a row of similar houses on the other side of the road. He allowed himself to have a look around, noting that the place seemed spacious but impersonal. There were no knickknacks on the half-empty bookshelf, plain blinds instead of curtains, and the air smelled faintly of dust. Clearly, it had been a while since anyone bothered to open windows to let some fresh air in. Or to live here, for that matter.

"What is this place?" He asked at last, overcome with curiosity.

Diana closed the door behind them and paused hear the counter that was separating the small kitchen from the living room. She put the car keys on the countertop that, to Steve, looked like real marble. He was no expert, but the place seemed like a rare find.

"Clark stayed here when he was working on Lex Luthor's case," she answered, glancing around. "Bruce kept it after he—after Clark died so that Lois could take care of his things." Okay, that would explain the boxes in the corner, Steve thought. "I think he'll just wait for the lease to expire rather than bother dealing with it. I thought…" She trailed off and looked at him, her arms folded over her chest. "I thought it would be slightly more private than the house. It can get…"

"Hectic," he finished when she paused, searching for words. "Okay, sure." He shrugged and stared at her expectantly.

The slight frown of disapproval made its return as Diana gave him a measured look.

"What you did last night was reckless," she said. Not angry, but there was a sliver of frustration simmering right under her skin, close enough for him to catch a glimpse.

"Driving in the rain? I doubt it," he brushed her off. "I mean, statistically speaking…."

"You know what I mean," she interjected, not falling for his attempt at deflecting. "The electric doors were the only thing keeping those people contained."

"I don't think it stopped that guy that leaped out of the window," he reminded her, his heartbeat stuttering just a bit at the memory of expressionless face and dead eyes staring at him.

"He was the last one. What if they-"

"But they didn't," Steve countered. "They shouldn't have been created in the first place."

"That is not the point," Diana shook her head and leveled him with a gaze. "You could have been hurt," she added softer.

"I wasn't." Steve stuffed hands into the pockets of his pants, wishing he knew where this was coming from.

She couldn't argue with this logic and they both knew that they would drown in what-ifs if they ever allowed themselves to venture there, but there was something else that bothered her that he couldn't see yet. He watched her try to figure it out for herself, and the possibilities scared him.

"If we're a part of the team, I need to be able to trust you," Diana said at last.

Steve glanced away from her. "You used to," he muttered.

"You were not supposed to be there last night, Steve. If something happened to you-" She took a breath, her voice finding a disapproving edge, and his pulse tripped over itself. "We wouldn't—I wouldn't know to help you until it was too late."

He raked his hand through his hair. "I wasn't—" he started, trying to focus on the conversation and not her eyes watching him with careful anticipation and the fact that this was the first time in the past few weeks that they were really and truly alone without a mission or anything of that kind looming over their heads.

I don't need help.

He exhaled sharply.

"You think I don't understand that this," he gestured at the two of them, his voice something short of bitter, "is not working? You think I don't see it, Diana?" He grimaced when she glanced away. "I know that this is not about Amanda Waller or Bruce or anyone else. This is about something more and it will always be about—about-"

Us. He didn't dare say it.

Steve pinched the bridge of his nose.

They should have discussed this a while ago, he figured. They should have tried to maybe find a way to make this work before the situation escalated to a kind of crisis that could have someone killed.

"Look, I wasn't trying go against your decisions," he tried again, fighting to keep his voice even. Surely he could lay out the facts without being carried away by… her presence or something. "I just… I saw what you couldn't see, okay? The building's power system was overloaded. It was minutes away from going up in flames. And with the storm… If it did reach the critical point, someone escaping that place would've been the least of everyone's problems, believe me. If I could get to Bruce, he'd be the one flipping the switch, but the communication system was down and Victor was out of commission, so…"

He felt frustrated, tired, helpless. And standing before her and not being able to reach for her filled him with such throbbing ache that he felt it deep in his bones. Standing before her and not being able to even hold her gaze because it felt like a sucker punch was even worse, somehow.

Steve shook his head and stepped further into the room, allowing his glance to wander. A distraction as good as any to keep his mind off Diana. She used to trust him, without thinking, without hesitation, and knowing that she didn't anymore… well, that hurt almost more than everything else.

"What is it that Amanda Waller wanted from you, Steve?" She spoke behind him.

A sharp, humorless laugh bubbled up in his chest, and the sound that escaped his throat was painful even to his own ears. "From me? Nothing. I'm just her means to an end. She wants to control Bruce Wayne and thinks that getting in his good grace will make that happen." He paused, and then added, "She has some personal information about me, something she should never have found. She promised to erase it if I do something for her." His lips curled into a bitter something. "Of course, she conveniently forgot to mention a detail or two."

"Do you trust her to keep her word?" Diana asked.

"I don't know," Steve admitted, turning to look at her again. "But I'd like to try and minimize the risk of Amanda Waller or whoever might come after her using it against me."

A faint frown creased her forehead. "So, this is why you came?"

It didn't sound much like a question but he still unanswered. "Yes."

"And why you stayed?"

Steve nodded.

She pursed her lips together. "I see."

"I know this is not the most…" he started, "…desirable situation for you, and it was your boyfriend's idea to agree to Waller's offer – and trust me, I know that we both wanted him not to – but I guess we could figure out how to… maybe stay out of each other's way without jeopardizing anything for the League." And added, "It's the last thing I want, I swear."

Diana's brows knitted together in confusion. "What are you talking about?"

"I'm not trying to—to take over, or anything." Steve took a breath. "Look, I was only trying to help. I want to help. I really do, and last night-"

"No, what did you say about Bruce?" She stopped him.

Heat crept up his cheeks. Great, now they have to go into semantics.

He kind of figured out that whatever it was, the League was either completely clueless, or suspected something but didn't know it for a fact. Either way, they didn't seem to have a particular opinion on it. Not that he could blame Diana for wanting to keep her private life private and everything.

"I mean… whatever it is that you guys are."

Smooth. Very smooth. Several generations of his spy predecessors were probably rolling in their graves now, watching him crash and burn from the other side.

Diana was staring at him like he was speaking a tongue she could not understand.

She tilted her head. "We're not anything. Bruce and I, we're not – did you think we were together?"

He looked away. "I saw you. My first night in Gotham, Waller suggested we meet at the hotel that housed that charity function to give me a crash course on the best and brightest of this city… Which was a smart move, actually. You know what they say about being invisible in the crowd." Steve trailed off. "And there you two were," he cleared his throat again, "kissing."

Her face fell, the defensive lines smoothing out. "Oh."

"Yeah, 'oh'," he breathed out.

"It's not like that," Diana shook her head. "We're not… like that. We never were. That kiss was-"

He held up his hand, stopping her. "Don't say it was a mistake."

"It was not a mistake. It was nothing." Her voice was soft but decisive, without a trace of hesitation, and Steve tried real hard to ignore the flutter in his chest. "It was one glass of champagne too many and an impulse."

"Does Bruce know about that?" He didn't mean the question to sound so territorial. And yet…

"Of course."

"—because it sure as hell doesn't seem so," he finished. The way he acts around you. The way he is around you…"

"I can't tell him what to think or feel," Diana said. "Just like no one has that kind of command over me."

"And you—you live in his house," he added, as if not hearing her.

"So do other people," she pointed out. "I am only ever in Gotham on the League business. Staying at Bruce's house is merely a matter of convince." God, he hated the logic that he couldn't argue with. She paused. "So, all this time…"

"Well, to be fair, I had no reason to think otherwise," Steve admitted. His gaze skittered around "I just thought you weren't too… demonstrative in your-" passion.

He choked on the word that opened room to the kind of mental images that were to drive him insane if he let them loose. He had already spent too many a night, thinking of her in another man's arms a few walls away from him.

"I'm sorry. It's none of my business."

He rubbed his eyes, wishing that they never started this conversation at all. Wishing – shockingly – that he was at the lake house, listening to Arthur and Victor debate something or other, to Barry argue with a video game and Alfred telling them to please not put their feet on the antique coffee table, thank you very much. The list could go on and on and on. Anywhere but here, really, if only because he didn't want to think of what Diana's admittance meant and that wild satisfaction that it stirred inside of him. The one that he had no right to own.

"I shouldn't have—I didn't mean to pry," he added lamely, for lack of better ideas. "I… I respect your privacy, and if that was something that you wanted to keep to yourself…" he trailed off, all too aware of sounding more or less like a moron.

"You weren't prying." Her voice was soft. "And I told you that there is nothing happening between me and Bruce. I'd never lie to you, Steve," she said earnestly.

A laugh that escaped his mouth was short and harsh, grating even to his own ears. Steve hated the sound of it.

"Like you never lied to me about the fact that I died in Paris?" The words came out of his mouth before he knew to stop them, and now that the wound was cut open again, he couldn't help but keep twisting the knife. "On that day after liberation, when a German bomb hit out hotel. That kind of thing?"

Diana froze, all colour draining from her face.

"Because you didn't."

He met her gaze, adamant. "But I did, didn't I? I was dead when you found me." He watched anguish cross her features like a shadow. "Until I wasn't."

In the silence that fell between them, he could hear the clock ticking on the wall in the kitchen and a car honking outside, and a whirlwind of her thoughts that she couldn't structure into anything coherent. And suddenly the air was so thick he couldn't take a proper breath.

"How did you…" Diana started.

Steve looked away from her.

There was a snow globe sitting on the shelf right before him. He doubted that it was Clark's. Probably some other tenant forgot it here a lifetime ago and no one who came to live here afterwards had the heart to throw it away. It was small, the size of a tennis ball, and inside of it was a village – a church and a several buildings sitting around a town square with a fountain in the middle of it. Steve stepped toward the shelf and picked it up. He shook it, setting a snowstorm into motion, white flakes circling above the buildings and falling on the roofs and the cobbled street and windowsills.

It looked so much like Veld that he almost felt the chilly November air biting at his cheeks as they sat on the ledge of the fountain, watching the celebrations. Could hear the music spilling through the open café doors and Charlie's unsteady voice that tried to find itself again after all the time when Charlie had nothing to be joyful about. He could smell the chimney smoke and the snow, and in contract to it, the touch of Diana's hand to his felt hot as fire. There was wonder in her eyes, unadulterated curiosity the likes of which Steve couldn't remember seeing in his entire life. And his heart was beating so thunderously in his chest that he was certain she could hear it, too.

"Your mother told me," he said after a few moments, his eyes still glued to the dance of plastic snowflakes. "When we went to Themyscira."

"My mother…" Diana echoed, confused. "I don't understand. Why would she…" She paused, her breath hitching. Steve could feel her eyes on him, burning right through him, and he knew that he was cornered. That there was no way out this time.

He was so sick of lying.

He turned to her, meeting her gaze and holding it despite the fact that he could barely stand it, shame and guilt making him want to fold in on himself and cease to exist. She deserve more. So much more. More than the world itself. All the things he couldn't give her because he was not enough, it was simple as that. But he could give her the truth, at least. Maybe he could make it count for something.

And so he told her everything. About his conversation with Hippolyta and Diana's mother opening his eyes to his miraculous survival in not one, but two explosions that would have killed anyone else. About how Diana was the one who made it happen and how it came with a price neither of them had bargained for.

He had imagined that conversation thousands of times over the years, playing out his words in his mind, a smooth flow of the story that was meant to fix everything. But now that he was speaking the truth, the words kept jamming in his throat, squashed by the look of utter incomprehension on Diana's face.

She was listening to him silently, her eyes disbelieving and her posture rigid, shocked. He could hear her try and put two and two together in her mind, sometimes succeeding, sometimes failing, her logic fighting a losing battle with her heart. He could see it all in her eyes, betrayal and hurt, not only his but her mother's as well, again. How many times could one person go through something like this before they couldn't do it anymore?

Steve wondered what kept her fighting after all this time when he'd come so close to giving up. He feared that this might be the last straw. He loved her for her goodness and kindness and compassion above all else. But how much of it was still there to keep her going after mankind had let her down over and over again for a hundred years?

He tore his gaze away from her, unable to stand the things that he was seeing, feeling exposed and all the more at fault for everything that had happened between them, for having done this to her and still doing it. The air felt charged between them, thick and heavy. Like it was a living thing in and of itself, breathing and pulsing around them. Steve felt his skin prickle under her scrutiny when he spoke of the day when he walked away from her, his voice not nearly as measured as he wanted it to be. And he knew the exact moment when she couldn't stand looking at him as well.

"This can't be…" Diana whispered when he fell silent. "My mother… she ought to be wrong, I couldn't—I can't-"

"You told me you couldn't shoot lightning from your gauntlets until a certain point, either, but you're a daughter of Zeus, Diana. Is it really that much of a stretch to believe that you can grant life?"

She was shaking her head. "But why would she tell it to you, and not me?"

He paused. "She thought that it was my life, and my choice to make."

"It wasn't." Her voice was laced with accusation and contempt now.

"She thought that if you knew, you would have tried to save everyone. And if you did, it would destroy you," Steve breathed.

"How could you not tell me?" She whispered and pressed her hand to her lips.

"How could I do it?" He turned to her. "You… you gave me my life back at the cost of—of yours, your strength. And all I could do in return was take from you, giving nothing but pain back?"

Diana's brows knitted together. She rubbed her forehead. "How can you even know that it's true?"

He did think of that. He had spent years thinking of that, hoping against all hope that Hippolyta was only half-right, the good half. The one that meant that they could be together for the rest of eternity without either of them having to suffer the consequences of this decision.

Steve ducked his head and closed his eyes. He took a deep breath, willing the right words to come. At last, he had a chance to do right by her. And he needed her so desperately to understand.

"Because I had the goddamned nightmares every night after the war, everything that I'd done, everything that was done to me. All of it on an endless loop because I couldn't scratch them out of my head." He pinched the bridge of his nose until it hurt, until he couldn't stand it anymore and had no choice but to look at her. "Every single night, Diana. Until you came back, and then they were gone. Until you started having them instead."

She was staring at him in stunned silence.

"The things that you didn't understand, but I did because I lived them." He whispered, begging her to see and knowing that she couldn't. "How could I keep doing this to you?"

"You lied to me, Steve," she started and stopped, pressing her lips into a thin line. He wondered what words of blame she was trying to swallow back. "You promised you would never lie."

He felt his shoulders slump.

"What would you have done, Diana? If the situation was reversed, what would it be?"

"I'd talk to you," she said forcefully, heatedly.

"Talk to me?" Steve echoed, a sharp pained laugh clawing its way out of his throat. "Like you talked to me that time when you snuck out in the middle of the night and disappeared for 16 years?"

Her face fell. "Is that why… why you did it? Because I-"

"Christ, no," he breathed out and scrubbed a hand over his face. "No, it wasn't—it wasn't a payback. I wouldn't, no-" He took in a shuddered breath. "I didn't know what else to do," Steve admitted, his voice dropping in defiance. "But I couldn't stand hurting you any longer. I couldn't stand holding you back and thinking that if something happened to you, it would've been my fault."

"But it still hurt, Steve," she whispered. "Every day when you were gone."

She might have as well slapped him. God knew he deserved it.

"And if I told you? What if I did, what would…" He trailed off, not sure how to put it into words. Not sure if he wanted to hear her answer.

"I wouldn't care," she said simply and without hesitation. "I loved you. If what you're saying is true, if my mother was right…" The words sounded odd and foreign on her tongue as she tried to believe him, not yet succeeding. "If I loved you enough to keep your heart beating, what would any of this matter? All I ever wanted was to be with you."

Steve felt his body deflate.

It occurred to him that they both completely lost track of time. The soft light of the afternoon turned honey-gold as the sun started to dip toward the horizon, flooding the room with the kind of warmth that he wanted to bottle up and hold on to, the old rug striped with the shadows that painted an entirely new story beneath their feet.

All this time in this world, and the one thing that never ceased to amaze Steve was that time stopped for nothing. Someone's life might be falling apart, people's joys and tragedies morphing seamlessly into one another, mind-shattering and breathtaking, but the Earth would keep on spinning, not pausing for anyone. Never allowing them to catch on.

"I know," he breathed, feeling so drained all of sudden that his very bones ached with it. "Because if it was me, I wouldn't care, either. But how could I keep doing that to you, Diana? How could I save you from myself if I stayed?"

"I didn't need you to save me," she argued, looking at him like she couldn't believe what she was hearing. "I needed you to want me."

I did, I do, he thought watching her, relieved to finally have the weight of this secret lifted off his shoulders, and loathing himself beyond comprehension for having done this to her, for the unshed tears in her eyes.

"If you wanted to go, I would never have forced you to stay," Diana added. "I would never have made you do anything against your will, least of all be with me if you wanted something else for yourself. But you still should have told me. You had to have told me, Steve."

He ran his hand over his face. "What difference would it make?"

He flinched when the hurt lurking behind her eyes flared up with startling intensity.

"Well, maybe then I wouldn't have to spend nearly seventy years of my life certain that the only man I've ever loved thought that being with me was a mistake."

There was no anger to her words, no resentment, no accusation, but Steve would have preferred them to disappointment and weariness. To the bloody acceptance.

All air wheezed out of him. "I never said that it was a mistake."

"You said that we had nowhere left to go, that we couldn't have ended otherwise. What else could it possibly mean?" She looked away from him, staring instead at the floor and the ornate carpet under their feet. "If all of this is true, if you were so adamant to leave then, why would you stay now?"

"I thought that you were with Bruce," he responded softly. "I thought that you've moved on and none of this would matter anymore. You didn't want me here anyway."

Her expression hardened when she lifted her eyes again. "Don't put it on me, Steve. I waited for you, and all you have wanted since the moment when you walked through Waller's door was to escape again. I merely didn't want to be reminded of everything I wished for us to have but that we never did."

"I don't-" Steve rubbed his eyes. "I'm not trying to—it's not what I meant." He shook his head. "Do you think I wanted to be here and watch you be in love with someone else?"

"I'm not. I wasn't." She trailed off. They stayed quiet for a few moments – him running his thumb over a worn wood of the bookshelf because it made for a great avoidance technique apparently, and Diana staring at the wall because it probably beat looking at him. And then he heard her inhale shakily. "None of this matters, right?" Her voice was hard and clipped behind him. "You'll get what you want from Waller and be on your way."

Steve swallowed and turned to face her. "Yes."

And then he would spend the rest of his days thinking of how spectacularly he had screwed up the one good thing that ever happened to him and knowing exactly how much he hurt the only woman he was ever crazy about. Who still, despite everything, was his entire world.

She nodded. "I see."

Steve's gaze skittered past her.

"You know, when you called me a liar and a murderer, it was a spot on. It's all I am, all I ever was." His voice dropped. He glanced out the window because the words came easier that way, when he didn't feel as exposed as when he wanted to cross the damn room and kneel before her, taking back every hurtful word that ever fell between them. "You think I didn't know that? You think I don't know that I never deserved you? You're a princess, for heaven's sake. You're a goddess, Diana. What did I ever have to give you?"

A car drove down the street, swerving to avoid a cyclist. A gust of wind picked up an empty coffee cup and chased it down the pavement. Even with the windows closed, he could smell wet soil and fallen leaves and the cold that was yet to come.

"It wasn't your decision to make. Not like that."

"I'm not going to stay at the lake house," he murmured without arguing. Maybe it wasn't his decision to make, but someone had to make it nonetheless. "I'll find—I'll find a place and get out of your hair. I'll figure out how to take care of Waller."

Diana nodded again, lips pressed together.

"It'll be better that way," Steve added even though she didn't protest.

He could barely look at her, shame and resentment eating him up from the inside. Everything that was good in the world, everything that was worth saving – it all lived in her soul, a little weathered and frayed after her time in man's world but no less brilliant regardless. She deserved the stars from the sky, but there was only so much that he could offer.

"Very well," Diana said quietly after a moment.

This is it, Steve thought. He had finally hammered the last nail into the coffin of everything that had ever happened between them, the good things and the pain laced through the moments in time when it was too big to contain. He broke every promise he had ever made to her, except for the one to love her until his final breath, and even though his chest felt lighter somehow with the words spilled out and shared at last, it seemed like a small consolation for what was yet to come. His relief over the fact that he didn't have to watch her be happy with someone else quickly replaced by the sad truth of not being the one by her side either.

Steve stepped away from the bookshelf and the snow globe and willed himself to bottle up the memory of Veld and every day that he'd spent with her since then as tight as he could, and tried not to think of how his world was tearing at the seams all over again.

Diana turned around without a word, reaching for the car keys still sitting on the counter, and Steve followed her in silence. There was nothing else to say, and filling the silence just for hell of it felt cheap. He bet that this wasn't how she expected their conversation to go.

At the door, she reached for the knob, twisting it, but the old lock jammed, refusing to turn. Behind her, Steve stopped abruptly not expecting her to pause, nearly stepping on her heels, so close to her now that he could hear her breathe. Could catch the smell of honey and flowers on her skin and the faint scent of her leather jacket.

Diana stilled, her grip on the doorknob so tight that her knuckles had gone white, unmoving and aware of his sudden proximity, and all he could think of was how much he missed the unobstructed closeness of her. Not accidental, not the one that he tended to avoid, but her presence in its purest form.

"Did you mean it?" Steve asked quietly when several moment had passed and yet none of them moved.

She half-turned, looking somewhere past her shoulder. "Did I mean what?"

"That I was the only man you ever loved."

"What does it matter?" She whispered, still not looking at him.

His gaze followed the slope of her forehead, the flutter of her eyelashes, the line of her nose and down toward the curve of her mouth, seeping her in. Allowing himself to do it on the off chance it wouldn't happen again any time soon.

He closed his eyes.

"Everything," he said at last, a whoosh of breath that fell on her neck.

Diana turned slowly, still caught between him and the door, and looked up. He opened his eyes and found her gaze, deep and so damn beautiful that he forgot how to function. He could feel her search for words, studying him from this close – something she'd done thousands of times, but never like this. Like she was trying to reach for something deep inside of him. Steve's heart had never felt this heavy in his chest, as though his very soul was bleeding.

She reached tentatively for his face, her thumb brushing against a small faint scar on his chin underneath the faint shadow of stubble, a thin pale line – two wars and numerous battles, and he somehow managed to cut himself while shaving. God, there was so much irony to it – he remembered laughing at it as he held a towel to a careless nick that was stinging from the remnants of the aftershave on his skin and she was smiling at him from the bathroom door, no less amused than he was.

"Diana."

"I remember this," She whispered. Her fingers stroked his cheek gently as blood roared through his veins. "I remember everything."

"I'm sorry. I am so sorry…" Steve started and stumbled, a hot lump lodged in his throat and panic rising inside of him in waves. "For not knowing how to fix this mess back then… and for not knowing how to do it now."

The words were tumbling out of his mouth, frantic and hurried like he was running out of time, and his heart was hammering so fast in his chest that he could barely hear himself speak. There were words perhaps that could make her understand and he was desperate to find them.

"I didn't know what to do—I still don't, but if I stayed… if I stayed, I wouldn't be able to live with myself. And if—if I told you everything, and you'd asked me not to go, I would never-" Steve swallowed, his mouth dry. His voice was tight and hoarse, and the touch of her hand burned on his skin. "I thought it would be easier to make you hate me, I wanted you to hate me, but I can't—if I could take it back, take it all back and redo the past, I'd do it right. Somehow, I'd find a way to do it right."

Diana bowed her head when he fell silent, looking away from him, and Steve felt the ground swim beneath his feet. The urge to reach for her was unbearable.

"When you left, it felt like something tore me in half," she said quietly.

"I'm sorry." The apology fell from his lips again, earnest as it could be. "I missed you… every day, every moment," he murmured, scared to touch her even though he could all but hear her heartbeat next to him, so close she was. "I wish I knew how to make it better, how to fix it all. How to…" His mind was running in circles, making him faint. "I never thought those things that I said, that… that there was nowhere for us to go because the only thing I ever wanted was to be with you. But not like this, not that that cost-"

She lifted her face to his, tilting her head, and then she closed the distance between them. Her mouth brushed to his, soft and familiar, effectively rendering Steve completely and utterly speechless.

"I'd do it again," Diana whispered against his lips. "To have you with me, I'd do it a thousand times."

She kissed him again, her mouth moving slowly over his, breathing for him when there was no air left between them, their memories chasing one another and blossoming into something new. Her hand curled over Steve's jacket, fingers pushing into his hair, and it was all the permission that he needed to kiss her back. His palm cupped over her cheek, his hand on her hip pulling her closer still, and Christ, he missed her so much.

"Diana…"

"I never stopped waiting for you."

"I'm sorry," he murmured once more, not certain what else to say, his words punctuated by her lips touching to his. I'm sorry. He might say those words for a million years and it still wouldn't be enough. His hands curled over her wrists, pulling her hands down from his face and holding them against his chest. They were both breathless, dizzy. "Diana… you can't…"

"Can't what?" Her eyes fluttered open and she looked up. "Can't love you still?" She freed one of her hands from his grasp and curled it over his jaw. "Why?"

Because you're better than this, he was thinking. Because you deserve more.

This close to him, she was so impossibly beautiful that all he could do was stare, drinking her in.

"Because… I told you why," Steve shook his head as if there was a chance in the world that either of them could forget the past couple hours. "How can you say this after… after everything?" His voice cracked, and he sucked in an unsteady breath. He dragged his gaze away from hers and focused instead on her fingers curled over his and pressed right above his heart. "I lied to you. I hurt you. And I know my 'sorry' is not enough, can't be enough…" He started and faltered, no longer certain where he was going with this. "Surely after all this time-"

"Steve."

He wasn't sure why he was trying to convince her to push him away when the only thing he ever wanted was finally right there at his fingertips, but he certainly deserved her rejection more than her grace and the kind smile that made his heart ache.

"You are so much better than me," he added quietly. "So much more. How can you-"

Her hand swept his hair back from his face, making him still under her touch, her eyes searching his, studying him like she'd never seen him before.

"Because I'd choose it," she responded at last so softly that he barely heard her over the blood rush in his ears.

"Choose what?" Steve blinked, failing to follow.

It was getting decidedly hard to keep track of their conversation with her fingers brushing absently against his skin, making his pulse stutter with every touch. For all he knew, they could be talking about the weather, and he'd still be lost.

Diana's lips quivered, a smile that didn't quite come. "If someone asked me, I'd choose to bring you back to me. I'd choose to take your pain away," she said. "Of course, I would." Her thumb ran over his chin again. "I would always choose you." She hesitated when an afterthought dawned on her. "If you still want me."

If he still wanted her?

She was looking at him with such tenderness that he was scared to so much as blink for fear of missing even a second of it, her skin soft and warm beneath his touch and her pulse a rapid staccato under his fingertips. He thought of the first time he had laid his eyes on her and how she smiled at him in relief and wonder, so radiant that it was brighter than the sun. Thought of every morning that he'd got wake up next to her and every single thing they had ever said to one another. And he wanted more of all of that now, as much as his life could fit, be it another year or a thousand.

Steve nodded. And then again, frantically, confused by her implication – how could he not want her?

She tugged him down by the lapels of his jacket to kiss him once more. It was hasty and breathless, and he could taste tears on her lips, although there was no telling who they belonged to. He thought he was dreaming.

"I love you," Steve muttered against her mouth. "I love you, Diana."

Her breath hitched, a low sound forming in the back of her throat nearly undoing him in the best way. His hands slipped around her, snaking underneath her jacket to touch her the way he wanted for so long. He pressed her flat against the door, kissing her with reverence and urgency and some serious desperation. Lithe and languid against him, she wound her arms around his neck, her fingers tugging at his hair as she dragged her mouth along his cheek, nuzzling into the soft behind his ear.

"Diana."

He name fell from his lips like a curse and a plea, fingers flexing on the fistfuls of her clothes.

When she drew back for a shaky inhale, her eyes were glazed-over with want, meeting his briefly before she pressed her mouth to his jaw, inching it slowly toward his heck, her breath of on his skin making him weak in the knees. Desire tightened in his stomach .

Her body pushed against his, and he took a step back, and then another one, and another one into the late afternoon light of the living room. And then her mouth was on his, plying his lips open and the crazy collision from a few minutes ago turned into something purposeful, deliberate. She arched into him, and for a long, endless moment all Steve could think was finally.

There was a time quite a while back, maybe twenty-something years ago when he stopped being able to summon her voice as clearly as he used to in his mind, when the taste of her was but a ghost in his memory and the way her laughter resonated deep within him carried none of the weight that he loved so, and he wondered not without dread about the day when she would only remain in the periphery of his recollection, incorporeal. Kissing her now, though, feeling her respond to the slightest of his touches, Steve wanted to laugh at the idea of being even remotely capable of forgetting her even after a millennium. Of letting go.

Suddenly, her touch was gone, and when he opened his eyes, half-panicked and dazed in equal measure, she already let her jacket fall to the floor at her feet. He looked at her, a silent question in his gaze, a hesitation to allow her to change her mind, but she was stepping toward him and nodding and reaching to push his jacket down his shoulders and allow the gravity to take it.

"Diana," he muttered hoarsely.

His hands on her hips, he drew her to him as the fear of this moment shattering before his eyes pounded in his mind. The only man I've ever loved. The words resonated within him with achy longing. Diana's fingers brushed to his lips, skimming over his face as if she was reading him in Braille. And then they dropped to his chest, dark eyes watching him.

"I still want you," he said hoarsely, honestly.

Her gaze traveled over her face and down his body, palms running over his shoulders, and then she was tugging at his shirt and inching it up until Steve raised his arms over his head for her to pull it off and toss it aside.

She smiled, hand smoothing his rumpled hair, but her eyes were hungry and wanting. Desire careened through him with all-consuming intensity. His awareness tunnelled, zeroing in on what little space was still there between them as he drank her up with his eyes, needing to touch her, to never stop touching her, but needing even more to capture this instant, its fragility slicing right through him.

This was the moment when they needed to pause and maybe talk everything through. She had more questions, he knew it, could see it in her eyes earlier. There were words on the tip of his tongue too, waiting to be spoken. Yet none of them stopped, and when her eyes found his, he forgot what he was thinking.

"Does this hurt?" Diana asked, skimming her fingers lightly over the bruise on his shoulder that had faded from the terrifying purple to faint yellow, still tender but not nearly as bad as it was before. A slight frown creased her face.

Steve shook his head. "No, just looks bad."

She nodded and leaned down to press a kiss to it, her mouth moving to a scar above his collarbone, as gentle as she could be. His eyes closed, seeping in the feeling of her. Her lips latched on the side of his neck, sucking hard on his skin, and Steve swore quietly, his fingers bunching the back of her shirt that was one layer too many between them.

Impatience surged through him, forming into a low grunt. He felt Diana smile against his throat. She found his mouth again, kissing every promise she could make right into him, her hands moving over his chest, tracing a map of scars – a life lived with purpose. He let her, revelling in the familiar swell of belonging rising inside of him, his muscles flexing under her touch. His hands tugged at her shirt once again, more urgently, and she drew back just far enough away to peel it off before her hands cupped his face again.

"I love you," Diana whispered, nuzzling into his cheek. She kissed the corner of his mouth. "I missed you."

"I'm here," he promised.

His hands slid up her sides, gliding over the smooth skin, palms flat over her ribs. And then they were moving, one stumbling step at a time, turn between desperate urgency and the need to make every touch, every kiss count. Steve hoped she knew where they were going because he sure as hell was too busy to pay attention, focused on her hands on his body and his on hers. For all he cared, they could have just collapsed on the floor and it would've been fine with him.

Her hand slipped around his neck, fingers burrowing into his hair and, god help him, he wanted her so badly that he could barely stand it.

Steve's calves hit the mattress – how they reached the bedroom he had no idea and no time to think about it - and he lowered down to sit on the edge of it, tugging Diana to him by the belt loops until she was standing between his parted knees.

"I have never not loved you," he whispered, kissing down her sternum while his fingers worked on unzipping her pants and pushing them down her hips for her to stop out of them. "I have never not wanted you." His eyes dropped shut, his voice hoarse and low as he murmured against her skin, but he didn't care. She was here. His, at last.

He took a shuddered breath and exhaled slowly, struggling to get his heartbeat and blood flow under control. This was not meant to be over before it even started.

Diana's breath caught in her throat, a shiver drilling down her body. For a moment, he merely sat here with his forehead pressed to her skin, breathing her in, fearful of his heart bursting right out of his chest. Her hand carded thought his hair, and Steve squeezed his eyes tight, willing himself to remember this second for as long as he existed on this earth.

Her hands slid down and under his chin to lift his head to look at her, his face cradled in her palms as her thumb kept running over his cheekbone. Steve swallowed, hard. Heat flared up in her eyes, pouring into him and thrumming in his veins, and when he tugged at her hips, she slid into his lap, straddling his thighs. Her fingers dug into his shoulders for support as Steve's hands gripped her waist to keep her close.

"If you want to stop-" he started.

Diana tilted her head, her lips curving and her gaze roamed over his features before locking with his. "Why would I want to stop?"

Steve nodded, absently and distractedly, completely at a loss for words. His gaze dipped. He reached to trace the of her pale pink bra with her fingertips, laze and silk clinging to her like second skin, not even trying to stop his blood from rushing south.

Without a word, Diana reached back and unclasped it, letting it slide down her arms and fall to the floor. His mouth dropped a little in a way that went just slightly below dignified. He didn't care, having to focus all of his willpower on not touching her, yet. His gaze traveled slowly from the smooth expanse of her chest to the juts of her collarbones, up the column of her neck, past the bow of her lips and until it found the fire of her eyes once more.

Diana leaned forward until her forehead rested against his and Steve had no choice but to hold her gaze.

"I have wanted you for so long," she whispered, her nails scratching through his hair.

"Diana."

Her palm splayed over his chest, rising and falling with his breathing. She smiled, pressed a kiss to his cheekbone, his temple.

"I love you," she murmured, marveling in the freedom of being able to say it whenever she pleased.

Steve reached for the band holding her hair in a tight ponytail and pulled it off, allowing the waterfall of it to cascade down her shoulders, soft as black silk. He combed his hand through it, pulling her to him. Her cheeks were flushed, lips swollen with kisses, the heat radiating from her making it hard to think, and he hadn't even done anything yet but kiss her. Steve tilted her chin to press his lips to her, loving the taste of her, the way her mouth felt languid against his, how she arched into him when he traced his hand up from the base of her spine to the nape of her neck.

He kissed the underside of her jaw, moving his mouth to the spot behind her ear. Smiled at the small gasp and a murmured curse that fell from her tongue when his hand traced the waistline on her panties. And then his explorations came to an abrupt halt when she reached for the button of his jeans. Steve sucked in a breath and caught her wrists before Diana had a chance to undo the zipper. If she touched him now—

He shifted her weight in his arms and turned them over, his palm anchored on the base of her spine, lowering her on the bed and effectively distracting them both long enough for him to find his bearings. If she touched him when he wasn't ready he would probably - most definitely, surely - disintegrate. Except Diana was kissing him again, and he was more than eager to give her that. And so he did.

When he pulled away, breaking the kiss to look at her, Diana was dazed and more than a little desperate, her chest heaving with each ragged breath.

"Steve," she mouthed soundlessly, a plea and command rolled into one.

"You're so beautiful," he murmured, dipping his head to press a hot kiss to her neck, making her breath catch in her throat and shudder unsteadily out when his mouth moved down, marking a slow path along her clavicle and across her chest.

He didn't even notice her hands giving his jeans another push to slide them down to his thighs. He smiled, pausing just long enough to discard them and his boxers – an afterthought that didn't really matter at the moment. And then he leaned over once more to kiss a path between her breasts and down her sternum, pausing just below her navel to hook his fingers into the waistband of her panties and slide them down her legs in one swift motion.

When he looked up, he found Diana watching him, her eyes dark with want.

"God, I love you," he breathed, allowing his gaze to travel along her body from the ankles up to the slightly parted lips.

He had wanted her before. He'd wanted her pretty much non-stop from the night on the boat when they left Themyscira nearly a hundred years ago, but he couldn't for the life of him remember the last time he wanted her this badly. To the point of a dull ache in his solar plexus and tremor in his hands.

Steve bent forward, picking up from where they had left off a minute ago, tattooing a trail of kisses from her navel down, nuzzling into the silky skin between her hipbones.

"Steve," she sighed, the sound of his voice scattering around them.

It died on her lips with a soft gasp when his mouth closed around her, her back arching, fingers gripping his hair. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her bunch the sheet with her other hand, her knuckles white and her breath nowhere to be found.

"Angel," he murmured, into her skin.

He was slow and thorough, and he knew exactly what he was doing. It might not have been a big deal in the grand scheme of things, but Diana was a goddess, no less. Knowing how to coax the sounds that she was making out of her left Steve stupidly pleased with himself as he worked her up with deliberate dedication, stopping just short of pushing her over the edge until a curse in a language he didn't understand fell from her mouth and her fingers gripped his hair in a soundless command.

Steve chuckled and pressed his lips to her just the right way. Her breath stuttered, morphing into a whimper, muscles shuddering, and he was rising above her, kissing whatever skin he could reach. There were words on her lips that he didn't know, her skin slick with a sheen of sweat. He traced his tongue along her collar bone, teeth grazing gently against her throat. She smelled like sex and he was drunk on her, his own unreleased pleasure pulsing in his fingertips.

Barely coherent, she nuzzled sloppily into his cheek, kissing his jaw and pulling him down to her.

"Diana," he groaned, one hand tangled in her hair.

"I want you," she whispered almost soundlessly.

He swore, feeling her smile against his skin, her hands moving over him with impatience and urgency. She wrapped one of her legs around his hip, reeling him in – a demand that he couldn't resist, not anymore. Steve shifted against her body, pressed a kiss to her temple. She gasped into his shoulder when he pushed inside of her, hot breath on his heated skin sending a shiver down his spine. I love you, he thought. I love you so fucking much.

His fingers flexed on Diana's flesh, moving along her thigh as he kissed her throat, trying to focus on going slowly for fear of making this end too fast. Beneath him, he could still feel faint shudder of aftershocks shooting through her, her muscles spasming wonderfully around him. Steve weaved his fingers through hers and stretched her arms above her head, pressing them into the sheets and feeling her grasp tighten in agreement.

"Look at me," he said, desperate to see her. "Diana… Look at me."

Her eyes fluttered open, hazy and heavy-lidded, hungry in the way that he liked best. Her gaze swept over his features and dropped to his lips, and it was just about enough to end him if he'd only let it. She pulled one of her hands from his grip and curled her palm around his neck. Her mouth found his, her hips rocking slowly beneath him to push him into motion.

Like earlier, Steve took his time, building up the heat between them until it was nothing but a hot coil somewhere deep inside of him and then easing away, moving above her as he whispered breathless confessions into her skin, peppered with promises and the words of love until she was frantic and barely coherent and his own pleasure took over reason. He could feel her teeth grazing over his shoulder, nails digging in frenzy into the skin of his back as his pace picked up, the need to feel all of her so overwhelming it was unbearable.

He dreamed of that, dreamed of making her his again, the bliss of closeness shattered by the light of the morning and the emptiness of his bed, her ghost a constant presence that made him feel like he was losing his mind. But she was real now, her voice and her touch electrifying, and everything he had ever wanted to say to her pouring out of him like he had no control over those words.

And then her body constricted around him, tipping him into a bliss of momentary rapture, her arms catching him, breaking his fall, cradling him close, her name on his lips like a prayer.

Steve drifted back to awareness slowly to Diana's hand stroking his hair, her lips on his temple and his breath falling on her collarbone.

"I love you," she whispered when Steve managed to drag his gaze to hers, looking no less pleased with herself than he had earlier.

He smiled and tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. "I missed you," he breathed.

Her hand closed around his and she pressed a kiss to his fingers. "I'm here."

xoox

Afterwards, in the soft evening light filtering through the window, Diana couldn't stop thinking of his haunted eyes, the vulnerability that he had allowed her to see earlier. Like it was something that was spilling through the cut-open wound.

For Steve, it was a no easy feat, and she knew it. The past couple of hours proved that they still remembered the language of their bodies, slipping easily into the familiar patterns and the smooth touch of their hands – all moves rehearsed and repeated but never lacking nonetheless. He knew where to put his hands to make her forget the world, knew how to kiss her to leave her breathless, how to touch her to turn her desire white-hot and thrumming in her veins. Diana loved that he knew her better than she knew herself, her body coming alive in his arms.

Yet, after all this time she couldn't help but feel a twinge in her stomach at the thought that at the core, they were strangers now. And she itched to make the feeling go away. She wanted him back, wanted him to be completely and utterly hers again.

Right now, stretched under the sheets beside her, Steve was watching her from all of two inches away, her head resting on his pillow and their legs tangled together, sweet weight and warmth and yearned-for comfort. She studied him back, taking in the tired lines around his eyes, his weary look, the tenderness in his eyes that made her breath catch in her throat. The eyes so blue that Diana couldn't help but feel like she was in them. No one ever looked at her the way Steve did. In all of her life, he was ever the only one.

She lifted her hand and carded it through his damp hair.

"I need a cut," Steve whispered, smiling under her scrutiny.

Diana shook her head. "I like it."

He ran his thumb along her jaw. His skin was a little calloused, rougher than hers, making her wish he would never stop touching her. "You okay?" He asked.

She nodded. Hesitated. And then craned her neck to press a kiss to his brow before resting their foreheads together, crowding his space. He didn't seem to mind. "I forgot…" she murmured, feeling her eyes drop shut for fear of losing the sensation of this moment, "what it was like to be with you."

"Must've not been very memorable," he chuckled, a little amused, a little wary of her answer.

Her hand moved to rest on the back of his neck. "No, not that. I didn't forget," she said after a moment, searching for better words. "I stopped allowing myself to remember."

"Diana…"

Her eyes opened slowly, "Because if I didn't, I'd lose myself."

Steve's smile slipped, his expression growing pained. She watched his jaw work, his lips moving without a sound, struggling against the question.

"Will you be able to forgive me?"

"I don't know," she admitted and regretted saying it the second the words came out of her mouth as he went rigid beside her. From this close she could almost feel his pulse stutter.

"Do you… do you want me to leave?" Steve uttered, his voice low and resigned. "Because screw Waller," he stroked a strand of her hair, but his hand was shaking and he drew it back. "If this is too much for you, I could-"

Diana brushed her fingers to his lips, silencing him, and then tilted her face up to kiss him. "No." She shook her head and kissed him again, slowly and lazily, smiling when he responded without hesitation, his hand sliding around her waist to rest on the base of her spine.

She pulled away and lowered her fingers to trail the length of his clavicle. They needed to talk. She had questions still, things that she needed to know and answers that made sense. Everything that he had told her about his conversation with her mother was having trouble settling in her mind, so wild it seemed, and she had seen enough wild in her life to not be easily swayed. But right now his body was warm against her, his chest rising and falling steadily, and she was deliriously happy and sated and finally at peace. He loved her. And she loved him, and somehow everything else lost its importance.

They would talk, she knew that. Eventually, they would figure out how to make this work, but right now she didn't want to think about that. All she wanted to do was trace the lines of his body as they basked in the lazy afterglow and promise him whatever he wanted so long as he swore to never leave her again.

"No," Diana repeated, her eyes searching his, back irises darting between the blue ones. "How can I want you gone when I just got you back?" She smiled, but it dimmed almost instantly and his brows pulled together in response. "I just—I need time," she breathed.

Steve nodded. "Yeah… yes, of course. Anything you want," he promised quietly.

She brushed her fingertips down his cheek. "And I want you, always." Another nod, and she felt her body relax. "I love you and I'm done losing you, Steve."

A shadow that had settled over his face remained intact. She could practically hear his thoughts chasing one another, bouncing against his skull.

Steve drew back from her and rolled onto his back, his gaze drifting up to the ceiling. He tucked his arm behind his head and exhaled slowly. His lips pressed tightly together like he was trying to swallow the words wanting out, his profile a dark outline against the pale rectangle of the window behind which the shadows were deepening.

"You're doing it again," Diana whispered, moving close to him seeking his warmth. She kissed his shoulder.

Steve glanced at her. "Doing what?"

"Pulling away from me."

He didn't say anything. She could feel his unease with her skin, his fear lurking behind the façade. It was like all the words they'd said to one another, all whispers punctuated by kisses dissolved into nothing. He meant them, she knew he did, but he was also scared of them. She thought back to the time they had spent together, before. Before everything went up in flames. Thought of how careful he always was with his confessions, pouring his soul into every single one of them but wary of making promises he couldn't keep.

She tried not to think of those that fell through the cracks of their relationship, ground into dust. Life, she had learned, was merciless like that, and promises were not unbreakable at all.

Diana propped up on her elbow and looked down at him even though his eyes never shifted to her, studying him in the dimming light. His chest was rising and falling steadily as he breathed, and two faint concerned lines creased the skin between his brows. Everything about him was so familiar that just looking at him was erasing the time and space between them.

"You're not less, Steve," she said. "And I'm not more. We're just… us. That's why we work, why we always have."

"We haven't," he reminded her in a whoosh of breath, and for a moment she was overcome with fear of watching him slip between her fingers again.

"You know what I mean," she shook her head. "We have both made mistakes. It doesn't mean that we deserve to be punished for them for the rest of our lives."

"But what if-"

"What if what?" She interjected. "What if the sun falls from the sky? What if I wake up tomorrow and decide that you're not good enough for me after all?" He flinched. "You think I don't understand? You once told me you didn't want me anymore."

A shuddered breath broke out of his chest.

"And you told me that you couldn't forgive me, which, trust me, I get because I will never forgive myself, either."

"I didn't…" Diana started and faltered.

It wasn't that but she wasn't quite certain how to put into words that it might take her some time to stop waiting for the other shoe to drop. That it wasn't about him but about her as well. The art of healing one's heartache was never taught in a fight. It was the minefield that she had to cross on her own. There was no armour in that war, no shields and no swords, and every step could chip away just enough of her heart for it to disappear for good before she knew it. She needed time, but in no way did that mean that she was willing to let him go.

"I didn't mean it like that," she whispered. "I…"

"I know," he breathed, a small, humorless smile appearing on his face, the jagged edges of his voice slicing right thought her.

He knew.

He'd been there before.

"There is so little I can give you," Steve spoke after a moment. "You don't need me to protect you. You're stronger than anyone I ever knew, in every sense of that word. And it's not just my ego talking - and believe me, I have a rather inflated one - but facts. You're…" He paused. "You're a goddess, for heaven's sake. You're divine in every way I can think of, and I- If leaving was the one thing I could do for you, how could I not-"

"It wasn't," she stopped him. "You say that having this… bond with you," the words still sounded alien to her ears, "was a high price to pay. But it wasn't. It couldn't be. You think I wouldn't have done it knowingly?" Her voice broke just enough for Steve to turn to her. "You think I wouldn't have pulled you out of that plane if I could? You think I wouldn't have shielded you if I saw that bomb coming?"

He glanced away from her and then back, seemingly unable to hold her gaze. "Do you feel it?"

She hesitated as if to have a better look inside of herself in search of something that she didn't know was there a few hours ago. But what she found there was tenderness and relief and unspoken prayers to all gods she knew for bringing him back to her. All the things that had been there for so long that she had long forgotten what it was like to live without them.

"I feel... I feel scared because I don't want you to be taken away from me, and it seems like that it's all that's been happening since I met you. I'm scared not because I don't trust you, but because I don't trust you not to break my heart again for you're also the only one who can mend it." Maybe it was good that he wasn't really looking at her, after all. She wasn't used to being this outspoken, either. The key to keeping said heart whole, she had learned, was not baring it for anyone. "It frightens me to feel this way, but I don't know how to make it be otherwise."

She put her palm on his chest, flat over where his heart was beating steadily.

"Diana…"

"I told you that I loved you. That I always will." Her voice was soft, but his face contorted at her words nonetheless. Diana watched a storm of emotions sweep over his features. "Didn't you believe me, Steve? Not once?"

"I believed that you believed it," he ran a hand over his face. "You can't know-"

She brushed her fingers to his chin and turned his face to her, catching his eyes and holding his gaze. His Adam's apple bobbed in his throat as he swallowed. He was not used to letting anyone see him so exposed, not even her because enough time had passed for the old habits to get rusty and what was once a given had a to be a choice again.

There were people in Diana's life, people she cared about and who cared for her, but the loneliness that followed her across the past decades was all-consuming nonetheless. She didn't know the whole story about him yet, the questions she didn't yet know how to ask rolling on the tip of her tongue, but looking at him now she had a distinct suspicion that Steve had put a fair amount of effort into keeping whoever happened to pass through his days at arm's length as well. She could feel it in the way he carried himself, in the tiny change of his expression when he thought no one was looking.

They were small things she'd seen before, but the time really put them into perspective. All those weeks when she was busy agonizing over him not loving her anymore, and it never crossed her mind that he was thinking the exact same thing. That she had left him behind a long time ago.

Her heart squeezed fiercely, tight with so much affection it almost hurt to breathe.

"How can I ever love someone else when I love you so much?" She whispered, her voice low and earnest as she tried to put into it everything that no words could convey.

Her question wedged itself between them as Steve stared at her. She hoped desperately that it was the right thing to say to smooth out the worry lines that creased his features. Her heart skipped a beat when a moment had passed, and then another. And then—

"C'mere."

He reached for her and Diana didn't hesitate, moving to him. She settled into the warmth of his body and brushed her lips to his skin above his collarbone before tucking her face into the hollow of his throat. Steve trapped his arms around her, holding her close. She could hear his heartbeat reverberate into her, could feel his lips press to her hair, and she squeezed her eyes, wanting to never stop feeling any of this.

"I thought… I hoped that you'd moved on," Steve said a while later. "You deserved love, Diana. You deserved happiness."

"I tried," she admitted after a moment. "I have never stopped waiting for you, but I stopped believing that you'd come back. Not after a while." Diana's hand twitched a little on his skin. She drew her hand back, feeling his fingers comb through her hair. She kissed the spot right beneath his collarbone. "I tried," she repeated in a whisper. "But no one made me feel the way you did… the way you do."

Her words were simple, her soul bare.

"I'm sorry," Steve breathed.

"Don't be," she said, lifting her head to look at him.

Never wanted to stop looking at him, either.

His lips twitched again, and this time there was a familiar spark in his eyes, the one that made her chest constrict and her blood turn into molten lava. She felt his fingers strum along her spine. "No, I'm sorry for being…" Steve sighed, "glad, I guess, that it never worked out. Otherwise you wouldn't be here with me."

Diana tilted her head, allowing her lips to curve as well. "Don't be." She studied him for a long moment. "Do you remember Veld?"

Vividly, Steve thought. There were a lot of things that he'd forgotten since then – some through the passage of time, others through effort of not wanting to keep carrying the weight of them. But that night and her mouth on his and her body pressed beneath him was bright as ever in his mind, his own beacon of hope. The beginning of life as he knew it now.

He nodded, "Yes."

She brushed her hand through his hair, her expression wondrous and tender. "You've made me yours that night, Steve," she whispered. "I have never belonged to anyone else since."

"Not even-" He started and cut off. He cleared his throat.

"Not even when I was with someone else, no," Diana said.

He rose up on his elbow, capturing her mouth with his. Smiled when she hummed her approval in the back of her throat and kissed him back.

"Are you tired?" She asked against his lips, her voice raspy and wonderfully breathless.

Steve cocked an eyebrow at her. He bumped his nose against hers and kissed her once more. "No."

"Good." Diana moved to toss her leg over his hips, allowing him to pull her on top of him, his fingers tunnelling through hair and tugging her closer. "We have some catching up to do."

To be continued...

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A/N: Comments are love and I'll adore you for them forever :)