Author's note: Hey guys, I hope at least some of you are still reading this :) Apologies for a break. I was dealing with some stuff and also I tried to finish the rest of the story before I went on with posting. Did I accomplish it? No, but I'm close!
Thank you so much for you patience! I hope that you'll enjoy what I have in store :)
Gotham, 2017
Steve woke up to the glare of the sun beaming in his face through the drapes that neither he, nor Diana bothered to close last night. He grumbled to himself and burrowed his face deeper into the pillow, not yet ready to surrender to the mercy of a new day.
His mind was hazy and his body wonderfully exhausted, tangled in the sheets that pooled around his hips and legs, more relaxed than he had been in so long he couldn't even remember. He took in a breath and then exhaled slowly, his arm closing tighter around a pillow.
And then the fog lifted, somewhat, and even in his half-slumber, Steve became aware of three things – first, it was later than he usually woke up. For the day to be this bright, it had to be at least a few hours past his regular rolling-out-of-the-bed-at-the-crack-of-dawn-after-several-hours-of-fitful-sleep routine. Second, this was not his bed. Even after his rather brief time in the lake house, he knew that the window was supposed to be on the opposite wall, comfortably far enough away from the bed for the sun not to be bothersome until early afternoon. And third – something was missing.
He scrunched his face and rubbed his eyes, blinking sleepily as he breathed in the smell of detergent from the pillowcase. He stretched under the sheets, his muscles pleasantly sore and—
The memories came rushing back in as if someone flipped the switch.
Diana.
He could still feel the taste of her lips on his and the touch her hands sliding over his body, sending a flurry of sparks along his flesh as they moved together, skin to skin. Desperate and hushed I love you whispered in the dark. His fingers in her hair and her nails scraping gently over his scalp as she held him close. Delight and rapture and bliss, peppered with affirmations of love and promises to never let go, and his name falling from her lips, the sound of which never failed to undo him.
Steve let out a long breath.
They talked and made love and then, spent and sated, they talked some more into the early hours of the morning as she lay draped over his chest, his fingers threading slowly through her hair and her voice the only thing that he wanted to hear. The one that had lost its edge eventually, slipping back into the familiar husk that was no longer laced with anguish.
Diana told him about Paris and the Louvre, and how she ended up there when her mentor from the British Museum passed away, mindful of not overstaying her welcome lest someone notice her ageless state. About the exhibitions she curated and the galleries bathed in bright sunlight, her way of trying to fit in his world when nothing else seemed to work. There were both wistfulness and fondness in her voice, and endless affection for that part of her life. If saving the world was her first and foremost priority, then the museum was certainly a close second.
She drew patterns on his skin with her fingers and spoke of the things dear to her, places she had been and people she cared about. And Steve asked her questions, curious and desperate to unfold the person she'd become without him, his own chest swelling with pride in response, which felt odd and somewhat out of place – what claim did he have on her deeds? And yet…
He told her some things, too. Things that he had never told anyone. About his time with the British Intelligence that was beyond happy to recruit him with his real history stapled on fake dates, and trying to dismantle the cruelty from the inside, leaving and coming back when his old commanding officers were gone and there was no memory left of him, and the things he had done to restore the good as best he could, fumbling sometimes because he didn't always know how. Never had a knack for it the way she did, he told Diana only to have her say that there was more goodness to him than he could see.
Nothing felt like enough but it kept him busy, kept him moving forward and helped keep his mind focused even though he never stopped looking for her face in the crowd.
And how he stepped away from it all one day when he could no longer stand seeing blood and death no matter what he did. It was getting remarkably hard to tell good guys from the bad ones and he chose to make his own rules and become his own operative, and being a spy was a skill that came in handy like nothing Steve could ever imagine.
Until Amanda Waller unearthed him somehow, dragging him back to the surface once again.
There was more – more stories, more confessions and feelings that he never knew how to put into words, but there were only so many hours in the night, and talking was the last thing he wanted to waste them on. They would make time for it, later.
Diana was the first one to fall asleep, curled into the side of his body, her head tucked under his chin and her leg curled over one of his. For a while, Steve simply lay there, with the weight of her in his arms – something he never dared to hope for anymore – and her chest rising and falling evenly as she breathed. His mind was pleasantly blank, at peace for the first time in so long that the feeling was nearly painfully alien, until he drifted off, too.
But now the sun was up and the bed was empty and he decidedly didn't like it…
Steve scrubbed a hand down his face and rolled onto his back with a sigh, turning to look at her pillow. The sheets smelled of her, of them, and that, together with the outline of her body on the vacant spot next to him reminded him . He stifled a yawn and looked around, noticing their clothes hanging from the back of a chair – Diana's doing, undoubtedly. Last time he checked, they were strewed all over the floor. They most definitely weren't focused on keeping things neat the previous evening.
His slight worry was quelled instantly by the sight of her garments in the pile – surely, she wouldn't have left naked.
And thinking about her naked made him think of other things and wonder where she was and how soon he could get her to come back to bed for another little while.
No, make it a long while.
He sat up, wincing a little when the sunlight hit him square in the face. It took Steve a moment to hear that the water running in the bathroom, and he swung his legs over the edge of the mattress and climbed out of the bed.
He padded across the room to the plain door that stood slightly ajar. He pushed it open further, stepping inside if a little tentatively, taking in the details he had missed during his brief trip to the bathroom at some point last night. A claw-foot tub that he was far more comfortable with than the shower with at least a hundred settings in Bruce Wayne's house was sitting under a frosted window with a white curtain wrapped around it and billows of steam rising over it and curling along the ceiling.
He could see the outline of Diana's body behind it, and relief that swept over him was overwhelming. It was as though he was still waiting for all of this to dissipate before his eyes, turning everything that had happened between them several hours ago into smoke and ash that he couldn't hold on to.
It didn't.
A moment of hesitation, and he stepped toward the bathtub, thinking that if she didn't want company she would simply say so. He pulled the curtain aside and climbed in, careful not to slip on the wet surface. Diana's back was to him, her face turned up to the spray of water. Still, she turned her head slightly to the side when the shower curtain moved, aware of his presence, her shoulders relaxing when she realized that it was him.
Steve adjusted the curtain behind him and stepped closer to her, and then it was just the two of them in a cloud of steam, cut off by a sheet of fabric from the rest of the world. He watched her smooth her hands over her hair before she turned to him, drops of water clinging to her skin and chasing one another down her cheeks, her chest, her arms. She smiled, and Steve moved to her, bridging the remaining distance between them.
"Morning," he whispered, smiling back. "I thought I'd dreamed you up."
Which wouldn't have been a first, if he was being honest with himself.
"I thought I had dreamed you up, too," she confessed.
Her cheeks were flushed from the steam and the hot water, and her eyes do damn radiant that his lips twitched for another second and then stretched so wide that he thought his face might crack.
Steve reached for her face, tilting it up and brushing a light kiss to her mouth – an impulse he couldn't resist, and didn't have to anymore. His arm circled her body, his hand resting on the small of her back, and Diana leaned into him, chasing his mouth when he started to draw back, her lips curved into a smile against his.
"No, all real," he said softly, bumping his nose against hers and making her laugh, his voice just loud enough to be heard over the running water.
She pressed her palm into his chest, right over his heart that was beating in earnest and found his gaze with hers. Steve breathed out. In that moment he wanted nothing more than to just look at her, drink her in, all of her, down to the droplets of water on her eyelashes. He wondered if she could feel his unapologetically escalated heartbeat, endless wonder coursing through his system as he mapped her face with his eyes.
His fingers curled over her wrist and he pulled her hand away, lifting it up and kissing her palm, his gaze locked with hers.
Diana smiled and murmured something in Greek. Heat sparked inside of him, pulsing in his blood, and Steve remembered why exactly he went looking for her in the first place. She spoke Greek to him last night as well, words without meaning murmured into his ear. There was something about the easiness with which they spilled from her lips, so unlike the measured carefulness with which she used other languages, that never failed to undo him in the best way.
"I have no idea what that was," he admitted.
Over the years, he grew to recognize I love you, I miss you, I want you, and a handful of terms of affection whispered into his skin, between chaste kisses, the meaning of the words not as important as the fire shooting through him at the sound of her voice. A few curses too, if he was being honest. He wanted to hear every word in every language that she spoke.
Her eyes crinkled in amusement, and it occurred to him that it wasn't merely about her slipping into her native tongue when her guard was down and she allowed herself to just be. No, she was very much aware of the effect it had on him, and was enjoying it immensely.
He did not mind that in the slightest.
"I never knew I could love anyone so much," she said, this time in English, as she leaned forward to press a kiss to his jaw, her hands siding down his body to rest on his hips.
"I love—I love when you do that," Steve breathed, his hands sliding up her shoulders and his voice hoarse.
She drew back to look him in the face, one eyebrow arched. "Speak Greek?"
He cleared his throat, willing himself not to get too excited, not wanting to end a moment of comfortable intimacy between them. "That, too."
That's what you get for falling in love with a goddess, Steve thought, taking a deep breath and trying hard to stay focused. How he still wanted her this badly after they'd spent hours last night reacquainting themselves with one another he had no idea. He was supposed to be drained in every way imaginable, and yet here they were. His gaze flicked down to her mouth but he dragged it up. Admittedly, not without effort. She was so beautiful he could barely think straight.
"Diana," he started, savouring the taste of her name on his tongue.
Her fingers flexed on his skin, her eyes moving between his. She smiled. "I love you," she said again. He had long lost count of how many times those words were spoken since the previous afternoon.
His heart tripped over itself. He could live to be thousands of years old and still never get tired of hearing her say it.
He leaned closer to her and whispered, "I love you, too."
She smiled and picked up a washcloth from the small shelf hooked on the wall and then pulled him closer to her under the spray of water, painting his skin with soapy foam. He let her, dropping his head occasionally to press a kiss to her shoulder, her neck, whatever he could reach, promptly ignoring her half-hearted You're being distracting, her voice laced with affection and her hand trailing idly over his skin. Let her wash his hair, too, and kiss him again as the water drew rivulets on their bodies, his hands sliding over her with easy familiarity that no time apart could have erased.
There was a mild undercurrent of tension between them still, their words tentative and new. Steve's father told him a long time ago that there was no point in dwelling on regrets. That one needed to learn from them and move on, and Steve had spent decades of his life trying to live that way. His old man was seldom wrong. But he was looking at Diana now, her fingers pushing through his hair and lathering it expertly, her lips curved into a half-smile, and he couldn't help but feel a pang of wistful longing for the wasted years and the heartache that he would never be able to reverse.
There was a lesson here too, but wishing that he had learned it sooner did nothing to take back the pain that he had caused. He only wished that they could go back to where they had left off, and if they did that maybe there was hope for them still.
Steve blew itchy suds clinging to the tip of his nose with a huff, making a face, and Diana laughed, and something warm and wonderful unfurled in his chest at the sound of it.
I will never stop loving you, he thought as she tugged him to her again to rinse everything off, her hands moving over his head, his face, through his hair, across his chest. There was not nearly enough space for them in a too small tub, and he couldn't be more grateful for her proximity, wishing that he had woken up earlier to have a chance to return the favour.
Maybe tomorrow. He silently vowed to make this a frequent occurrence.
Head ducked closer to her, still wrapped in a cloud of steam, he pressed his lips to her forehead, feeling her fingers curl around the back of his neck. Diana lifted her face to his, finding his mouth once more. A kiss was soft and languid but somehow it left him breathless and dazed nonetheless. There were a million words he wanted to say to her and no way of saying them, so he opted for the second best thing and held her against him as his lips moved over hers until the water started to run cold.
Diana turned it off and reached around him to pull the curtain open. She stepped out on the mat and he followed, reaching for the towels on the rack, the two of them cocooned in the wisps of sweet-smelling steam. They dried off in easy camaraderie, his eyes darting toward her every few second, a small smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. He had a distinct suspicion that he was, in all probability, grinning like a complete moron. And he couldn't care less.
She was the first to leave to go find her clothes, but Steve lingered, staring at her as she walked away and the droplets of water falling from her hair and sliding down her skin, and wondering how exactly they went from where they were the previous morning to this state of easy contentment like it was nothing. Like slipping into an old pair of shoes, except this was an odd way to think of a drop-dead gorgeous princess that left him with sore muscles and insatiable hunger for more.
When he walked out of the bathroom a minute later, she was standing by the chest of drawers and brushing her hair, already dressed but still barefoot. Steve pulled his jeans on and picked up his shirt, slipping it on over his head. The last time he felt this light was over half a century ago, and he didn't trust the feeling not to shatter before his eyes.
He crossed the room, waking over to her. Hands of her hips, he leaned down to kiss the back of her head.
"Do we have to leave?" He muttered into her hair.
Diana paused. "What else would we do?" She asked, a smile in her voice.
He chuckled under his breath and dipped his head to press a kiss to her shoulder. "I could think of a thing or two," he murmured as his arms slid around her waist.
Or more, if she gave him some time. Many more.
She smirked. "I'm sure you could."
A memory of the previous night flared up in his mind, startlingly bright, considering the lack of proper sleep. One of his mouth trailing down her body as she whispered his name, her hand raking through his hair while he—
Steve inhaled unsteadily and forced himself to open his eyes. He needed to stop thinking about that now, especially if they were not going to… well, engage in any of those activities at this particular time. Which was a damn shame.
"Everyone will be looking for us," Diana added.
He nuzzled into the soft spot behind her ear. "Let them," he muttered dismissively, not caring about that one way or the other.
She turned around, her hands reaching up to frame his face. "I have a conference call with Athens at noon," she said apologetically. Her palm slid to rest on the back of his neck, her fingers playing with his hair that was still damp from the shower. "But later…" she let the end of the sentence to hang between them, one elegant eyebrow lifted.
"You promise?" He pulled her closer to him, debating for a moment kissing her until later became now.
"I promise."
And a promise was unbreakable.
He paused, and then said quietly, "I want you to promise me something else."
"What?" Diana tilted her head, her smile slipping at the sight of turmoil that chased across his face. "Steve, what is it?"
He took a deep breath, trying to ignore a foul taste of the words rolling on the tip of his tongue. "I want you to promise me that if something—if anything happens to me again, you won't… you won't try to-"
"No," she interjected before he could even finish.
"Diana…"
"No."
She was shaking her head and staring at him like he was mad.
"Please."
"How can you ask that of me?" Her voice dropped, hurt and incredulous.
Steve lowered his hands from her body. "How can I not?"
He felt helpless, stupid, fumbling for words that wouldn't come.
His thoughts drifted back to the cold November night on the airfield in Belgium and his muscles aching and his lungs burning as he ran after the plane that was about to take off and destroy millions of lives. The wind was biting at his cheeks, and when Diana called out his name there was nothing that Steve wanted more than to turn around. Wanted to go back in time to the night before and the hushed whisper of their voices in the dark and a fantasy of their life together that he had weaved in his mind.
Instead, he surged forward, taking advantage of her disoriented state, knowing that if he looked back he would never be able to carry through with his plan that made Charlie turn pale and Sameer swear colourfully under when he laid it out to them several minutes earlier.
They were running out of time, and as Steve's hands closed around the rungs of the ladder attached to the plane, he thought that he was about to make a difference at last. And so instead of going back to the woman he loved with infinite devotion and holding her face in his hands and telling her time and time again how much she meant to him until his throat went raw, he climbed into the belly of the airplane and pulled the trigger so she could finish the mission of her people. He was only a grain of sand in the universe and she was a beacon of salvation to them all.
He did it then because she was important. He was asking her now to let him go if she had to for the same reason. Except he didn't know how to do it. Not when he wanted to be with her to the ache deep in his bones.
Steve pushed his hand through his hair and took a step back, unable to stand being this close to her and not touch her, not sure that he was supposed to. Not when she was looking at him like this, like—
"How can I not do it?" He repeated, gesturing at her, feeling foolish because for an articulate guy who managed to talk his way out of some shitty situations more than once he was remarkably at a loss for words. "I mean, you're… you, and I am-"
"You're what?"
He took a deep breath and looked away, hand reaching to rub his eyes. "You mean something, Diana. To the world, to-"
"And you mean something to me," she interjected. "A lot. You mean a lot to me, Steve."
"You know what I'm talking about," he muttered, shaking his head.
Diana moved toward him without hesitation, and he let her, his need for her throbbing dully in his chest. Her hands reached for him, clutching the fabric of his shirt to tug him closer to her, sliding up his chest. Her eyes searched his face, and once they found his gaze, he couldn't look away.
"I know that last night you told me that you loved me," she said quietly. "You told me that you wanted to be with me and you took me to bed and you made love to me. I know that I wanted that, too. Did it mean anything at all? All the confessions, all the promises. Or were they just the words you thought I expected to hear?"
Panic rose inside of him in a hot wave. She didn't think that, did she? She wouldn't… Last night, before sleep took him, he was agonizing over whether he trusted her to still want to be with him, even after he broke her heart the way he did. It had never crossed his mind, not even for a moment, that she might think he had doubts of his own.
Steve bowed his head until their foreheads were almost touching, his palms curling around her sides and sliding up her back. "Don't say that. You know it's not true."
"Then don't ask that of me, Steve," she whispered, her voice soft. "Please don't, I can't—I won't-" Her thumb was stroking his cheek, running over the stubble. He didn't have a chance to shave today yet.
"Diana…" he swallowed, his mouth dry.
"I want forever with you," she told him. "It's all I ever wanted, and now… How many second chances are we going to be given before we see them for what they are?"
She smoothed down his hair, her gaze roaming over his features, open and earnest, and he knew how much it cost her to bare her heart before him like that. After all this time, after everything they had both gone through, everything she had been through on her own. It must not have been an easy feat. His throat grew tight.
"It has always been you, Steve Trevor." Her voice was quiet but decisive. "It will always be."
Forever. He liked the idea of that. He could live an infinite number of lives with her, share millions of moments, and never want anything else, not for one second.
He touched his thumb to her chin. "Because of that prophecy that your mother told us about?"
Diana shook her head. "Prophecy or not, we make our own fates for the gods that map our paths are tricksters who love to confuse and deceive people. But you came back to me. You came back to me time and time again. I have no way of knowing if what my mother told you was true, if it was something within me that made it happen, but if it was… if it is, there is no price high enough for what we have." She paused. "Would you not do the same for me?"
"In a heartbeat," Steve replied without hesitation.
"Then how could I not?" She tilted her head, watching the worry lines smooth out on his face. "Do you still want me?"
"Always," he rasped.
"I am yours for as long as you'll have me."
He felt the corner of his mouth curl up into a smile. He twisted a strand of her hair around his finger. "That might be a while."
Diana smiled back at him. "Not long enough," she whispered.
Steve's heart slammed against his ribcage with enough force to leave him reeling.
He didn't believe in gods – not all of them, at least, and not the way Diana did, his experience with Ares aside. Didn't believe in fate either. He was raised to be practical and pragmatic, to rely on facts and experience rather than faith. It always seemed feeble to him, too incorporeal to take it seriously. But how else could he explain that the daughter of a god from the Olympus and a Princess of the Amazons stole a heart of a lonely spy who had long lost his way in the world that turned cruel and crumbled before his eyes?
There was no way of forcing her to make that promise, and god help him, he didn't want her to make it, either – he wanted as many years with her as could get, no matter what. Selfish bastard, he was stupidly, absurdly happy that she chose him. She had a chance to weigh her options through the experience that he wasn't a part of and see that he was in all probability not as above-average as he wanted her to think, and she still chose him.
Steve exhaled slowly. "Yeah, let's talk about that in a couple hundred years."
Diana nuzzled into him, her fingers curling over the fabric of his shirt as though she thought that he might want to escape, adamant to hold him close – something that she most definitely didn't have to worry about, not even a little – and murmured something in an ancient tongue that only her people remembered to honour.
He smiled despite himself. "What did you say?" He asked quietly, willing his body not to respond the way it tended to whenever she did that, a string of syllables sending a burst of heat through his blood.
Diana looked up, a soft smile on her lips nearly undoing him. "I'll tell you later," she said and bit her lip but it didn't stop her smile from turning into an indulgent grin when Steve swallowed visibly, his mind painting vivid images he was quite eager to make come true.
He licked his lips, having to put an almost inhuman effort into staying focused. Surely, a conference call couldn't be that important? His fingers flexed on her body, and she lifted an eyebrow in an unspoken question, looking downright smug now.
(He wondered if it was a permission to start taking her clothes off.)
"So, you really want this?" He clarified, watching her eyes flick between his.
"Of course." She tilted her head, surprised. "Steve, yes."
He cleared his throat. "And we're-"
"Together." She took his hand and laced her fingers with his, watching the fire ignite in his eyes.
Together. In that way.
He brushed his lips to her knuckles and then leaned forward, finding her mouth with his. Diana smiled, kissed him back. Her hand slipped out of his grasp to curl over his jaw, her back arching into him. Her tongue slipped past his lips and a strangled sound formed in the back of his throat – surprise and pleasure and approval. She was going to be the death of him, and he was more than willing to surrender.
His hand slipped underneath her shirt, calloused palm splayed over the base of her spine. He dropped his head to trace a path along her jaw and toward her neck, sucking hard on her skin when she threw her head back to better accommodate his couch, hands digging into his shoulders. They should have just skipped getting dressed altogether, he thought.
"Are you sure we have to-" Steve started against her throat, teeth grazing gently over her pulse point, smiling when her breath hitched in her throat.
A loud grumble of his stomach cut him off.
"Christ," he groaned when Diana laughed, and dropped his forehead onto the slope of her shoulder, his eyes squeezed shut in frustration. The mood gone in an instant. "I'm sorry," he muttered, the sound of it muffled by the fabric of her shirt. "Speak of awful timing."
"Let's go take care of this," she whispered, kissing his temple, her nails scratching through the hair on the nape of his neck.
Steve raised his head and shook it adamantly. "I'm fine."
"Liar," she whispered, catching his face between her hands, eyes finding his.
His gaze drifted instantly down to her mouth, swollen from kissing. "Yeah, well, I'm gonna give you that," he said absently, staring unashamedly at the bow of her lips.
"Steve."
"Mm?" He blinked and lifted his gaze, not even bothering to pretend to follow the conversation. He probably looked like a love-sick idiot to her. Not that he cared. This was to new and he ached for her for too long to care about anything except- "It was nothing. I'm not hungry, I swear," he assured her heatedly - a little too heatedly – as he attempted to pull her closer again. "Now, where were we…"
Diana stopped him with her hand on his chest. "When was the last time you ate?" She inquired.
He scrunched his face, considering the question for a moment. "Before you whisked me away to…" he glanced round the bedroom, "take care of other things."
"You need to eat," she pressed. He turned back to her and tilted his head quizzically. "We do," she corrected.
She was right. She was always right and he conceded it with an exasperated huff, his grip on her loosening if somewhat unwillingly.
"Right, well… to be continued?" Steve asked softly, tracing an idle pattern over her clavicle with his finger. He looked up and reached over to tuck a strand of her hair behind her ear.
Diana's smile stretched wider, the corners of her eyes crinkling in that way he loved so. So majestic he could barely take it.
"To be continued," she promised, leaning forward to touch her lips to the corner of his mouth.
He believed her.
xoox
"Donuts!" Barry exclaimed, snatching one from the box and sending sugar powder flying everywhere. He bit into it with a groan, "Gawd, this is good!"
Steve never saw anyone chew with so much concentration. It was almost like Barry's very existence zeroed in on a piece of glazed dough. The ever-hungry speedster was so easy to please it was endearing beyond measure. He bit back a smile and turned to the coffee machine on the counter, desperate to chase away the fogginess off the sleepless night from his head. Trust Alfred to have it running since early morning. God bless Alfred.
Out of the corner of his eye, he glanced at Diana who was watching the feast with amusement, arms folded over her chest and a gentle smile playing on his face. She caught him looking, and offered him a tiny nod in response to an eyebrow raised in a silent question. Without a word, Steve reached for a second cup, wondering how rude would it be to ask them all to take the food elsewhere so he could kiss her.
"You're the best mom ever," Barry muttered, tossing the last bit into his mouth and peering hungrily into the box again.
Diana smirked. "Actually, it was Steve's idea," she said.
Another donut in hand, Barry turned to Steve. "You're the best mom-"
"Please don't," Steve interjected, horrified, and raised his hand for good measure.
Diana pursed her lips around another smile.
He slid the cup toward her. She picked it up and took a sip before mouthing a soundless Thank you to him, a twinkle in her eyes effectively making him forget how to think.
Barry clammed his mouth shut, not offended in the slightest.
"Man, I miss this," Victor muttered, studying the food.
Barry swallowed and turned to him. "Yeah, dude. That's, like, the worst thing about your," he waved a donut in Victor's general direction, "situation."
Vic gave him an incredulous look. "You think?" He asked flatly.
Arthur stepped toward the counter, curious and maybe a tad more suspicious than the moment warranted. "So, what's the occasion?" He asked.
"These are just treats," Diana countered without missing one beat. "Do they need an occasion?"
"And they're also not as boring as-" Barry started.
"Careful how you finish that sentence, Mr. Allen," Alfred warned him, walking in, a newspaper in his hand, and moving straight toward the kettle.
"—as other donuts in this world," Barry finished hastily. He turned to Diana. "Bruce was looking for you last night," he informed her around a mouthful.
"I was busy," she responded evenly, sipping her coffee.
Steve coughed into his first, trying and mostly failing to keep a straight face. He was a spy, for heaven's sake. He was supposed to be able to stay calm and composed under any circumstances, and his suddenly flushed cheeks were hardly an indication of that. Under any circumstances except those, apparently. Then again, this was hardly a life-and-death emergency. He was allowed to be distracted.
"Not too busy to get donuts, thank god," he muttered.
"Yeah, we were just…" Steve started and faltered.
"Driving," Diana added, clearly enjoying the colour rising up his cheeks that he hoped he could blame on the caffeine.
He turned away, knowing that one look at her would be a dead giveaway. He already had trouble holding back that shit-eating grin that kept spreading over his face every time he thought of everything they did last night, and everything that they were going to do this night, and probably every night for the next millennium or so - he wasn't yet ready to plan past that.
Somehow, in the midst of telling her time and time again how much he loved her, he didn't consider the issue of sharing the living space with half a dozen other people who tended to be curious out of their minds and not at all conspicuous or tactful about it. And one of whom wasn't going to be overly pleased with the development in their relationship.
There was a brief moment of relief when he thought that they were going to move on to another subject, and then he all but heard the realization dawn on Barry, whose eyes grew wide, darting wildly between him and Diana for a few moments. His jaw dropped in that cartoonish way that Steve never saw happen to a real person. (Whether or not Barry was one was a big question, though.)
And then his sugar powder-coated lips split into a smile so wide that it threatened to crack his head in half. "Aw," he drawled, nearly falling off the tall bar stool in excitement. "You guys."
"What?" Arthur asked, confused. He looked at Victor, but the latter only shrugged his shoulders and turned to Barry, waiting for an explanation.
"Nothing," Steve rubbed his eyes as Diana bit her lip, barely hold back her laughter.
Christ, he should have seen this coming. Why didn't he see this coming?
"I can't believe it," Barry breathed out in awe.
"Can't believe what?" Bruce asked, appearing in the kitchen with Clark behind him.
Diana gave Barry a pointed look.
He sputtered for a moment, torn, and then span around on his stool and shoved the box into Bruce's chest. "A donut?"
Ignoring him, Bruce swept his gaze over the crowd in the kitchen, moving past the Cyborg and Alfred and the food and seemingly not seeing Arthur at all, which was pretty damn impressive considering that the Atlantian was taking up most of the space, until it landed on Diana who was leaning against the kitchen island, her shoulder touching Steve's.
There was an almost seismic shift in the air when the understanding clicked. Steve's eyes, fixed on Alfred at the moment, moved involuntarily to the man standing near the door just in time to see Bruce's lips press into a thin line. There was resignation and defiance and hurt in his eyes, and Steve wondered if he was looking at Bruce the exact same way only a few days ago.
If he was being completely honest, he didn't think about the ramifications of what had happened between him and Diana last night until she pulled up to the house with him in the passenger seat with a box from a bakery in the city balanced on his lap and he was struck by a sudden awareness that he was about to parade a victory of sorts before the man who very obviously wanted to have what Steve now had.
He'd lie to himself if he didn't admit that there was a certain degree of satisfaction to the feeling. After weeks of thinking that she was sharing another man's bed, his relief from knowing that it wasn't true was overwhelming, and there was a small and petty part deep inside of Steve that rejoiced at it. Ironically, he had Bruce to thank for it, too. If he had said no to Waller's offer all those weeks ago, Steve would have left Gotham the same night never to be heard of again.
He thought he would feel smug about the whole thing, anticipated it even. Instead, he felt almost guilty and more understanding than he had expected he might, all things considered.
There must have been some change to him because Diana tore her attention away from her conversation with Victor that had started while Steve wasn't looking and turned, her gaze finding Bruce who looked away from them immediately.
"I'm not hungry," he muttered and walked out of the kitchen.
"What's gotten into him?" Barry asked, craning his neck to look around Clark.
"He's not much of a morning person," Victor noted.
"It's 10.30," Alfred pointed out, glancing over his shoulder with a slight frown creasing his forehead.
"And we're having donuts for breakfast," Arthur added, plucking one from the box before it was too late, suddenly awfully pleased with that fact by the looks of it.
That seemed to have lifted everyone's spirits. Still, Steve's eyes lingered for another moment on the spot vacated by Bruce, his ears straining to catch any sound coming from the Batcave even though it ended up being futile.
Diana's hand brushed against his and he turned to her, reading an unspoken question in her eyes, two faint lines lodged between her brows.
He smiled, and the tightness in his chest easing by the second. "You were right," he said and jerked his chin toward the commotion and everyone speaking at once and the normalcy of it all that had snuck up on him unannounced, and suddenly he found himself in the middle of something he'd never expected to be a part of. Not after purposely running away from it for so long. He shook his head, trying to hold back a smile. "Two dozen was a good idea."
And then it was mayhem, and because it was Saturday and a late breakfast wasn't out of the ordinary, and somehow everyone was around, the air filled with the smell of coffee and sizzling bacon and scrambled eggs and conversations about everything and nothing while everyone talked over one another without much care for being heard. Napkins and salt and butter and the remaining donuts were passed around and the coffee machine was refilled, twice.
Diana picked up her cup and walked around the table where Arthur and Barry were in a heated argument over something she didn't want to get into until she reached Clark who was piling food onto his plate.
"Hey," he looked up at her.
"Hey," she peered at his meal choices with a smile. "What brings you here so early?" She glanced over her shoulder at the conversation that was only a step away from turning into a screaming match. "And don't tell me that it's the company."
Clark grinned. "What if it's the food?"
She scoffed. "Even more ridiculous. I know what Lois's cooking is like."
He found a fork in one of the drawers under the kitchen island. "She has an emergency article to finish," he explained, poking at his eggs. "Although she asked to say hi nonetheless. So, hi." He observed the near fight happening at the table and Alfred's disapproving expression and Steve's open amusement, and shook his head. "How do you live here?"
"I don't," Diana reminded him. "I live in Paris."
"And you come here to better appreciate peace and quiet?"
She looked at the group before her fondly. "Just another perk of doing what we're doing, no?"
"I hope the museum is paying for it," he chuckled around a forkful of food.
"I file it as an overtime," she responded with a laugh.
"You're in a good mood," Clark observed, and her eyes moved involuntarily toward Steve who was chatting with Victor, completely ignoring the drama unfolding before them at the other end of the table, her lips tugging up at the corners on the will of their own. "Oh," Clark breathed, an eyebrow arched. "It's like that now, huh?"
Diana's first instinct was to deny it, brush his comment off. After all, it had been less than a day, and the change in her relationship with Steve felt new and fragile and raw somehow. A fierce need to protect it at all costs that filled her chest was all-consuming as she tried to breathe around it. She wanted, in that moment, to hold onto the long-lost feeling of belonging just for a while longer, to not have to share it with anyone.
She wasn't going to keep them a secret, of course. If it took Barry all of two seconds to figure out what was going on, she was certain that the rest of the team wouldn't be far behind. For one thing, one look at Steve was enough to see that something was different, his smile wider than it ever was in all those weeks that he had been here and so radiant that it could never fool anyone. She had a strong suspicion that she looked no better than him, her very soul unfurling with every passing moment. A dead giveaway, no less. If nothing else, everyone was bound to notice them sleeping in the same room from now on.
Her mind drifted back to something Victor had said to her before, about her knowing the world better than the rest of them and still looking awfully lost. And that time with Arthur last week when he found her sitting on the deck and asked her she wanted to talk. He looked incredibly out of his element when he did it, and Diana knew that it was affection and loyalty that made him go for that question instead of offering her a beer – something that he considered a fine bonding strategy. She never said yes but it didn't seem to discourage him.
And then there was Alfred who noted that she deserved her happily-ever-after more than anyone else, which, Diana knew, was wistful and almost like a forgiveness – on Bruce's behalf, she suspected.
They would see. How could they not?
Yet, if she was speaking to someone other than Clark, she would say no, try to change the subject. She loved the League dearly, but letting people into her heart grew difficult as time passed. She only had one, after all, and it was prone to breaking when she least expected it.
But Clark – Clark was different. He might not know the loss the way she did, or even the way Lois did, but he understood how rare and precious it was to find someone who saw past their difference from everyone else, and how sometimes you needed to hold onto them with all your might so that they wouldn't slip away from you. She could hear it in his voice, see it in the way he was around Lois.
Come to think of it, he and Steve had quite a bit in common.
Clark was watching her, she could feel it, and after a moment, Diana tore her gaze away from her Captain – lest her desire to shove everyone out of the way and kiss him senseless right there and then until they were both breathless and dazed overtake her – and turned to him, smiling, unable to pretend and shaking her head because there was no need for words.
"Careful there," Clark noted with a muffled chuckle, still savouring his breakfast. "You glowing like that might burn us all."
Diana nudged him playfully with her elbow and gave him a look, but didn't have it in her to argue. She could feel it, too, the lightness the likes of which she could barely recall. There still were things she needed to think through, like her mother's revelation about the side of her that she never knew existed – and learning those truths randomly and when she wasn't prepared was starting to wear a little thin. But that was a consideration for later, one that she was going to store away like many others that came before it until the time was right.
"Are you going to tell me what you're really doing here?" She asked when he put the plate away and the debate at the table had settled into something more civil.
Clark's smile slipped a little, a frown creeping onto this face. "I heard what happened here other night," he responded. "There was nothing in the press, though."
Her jaw clenched at the memory. "Amanda Waller must be working hard to keep it from leaking out to the public," she muttered, Waller's name sounding sour on her tongue.
"You think she's behind it?" He asked.
Diana shook her head. "I don't know. I don't trust her. So far, every word she said was only half-truth, if even that."
"Were they really trying to make meta-humans?" He asked, and the disbelief and doubt in his voice mirrored her own. That idea seemed as outlandish to her as playing god – something that people never seemed to grow tired of even though they never managed to so anything but hurt themselves in the process.
Her expression hardened. "It seemed like it. Victor's father is going to try and get us more information, but he found no records so far, no proof of anything happening there at all, and the power outage that awoke them in the first place seemed to have erased the data on the chambers they were kept in."
Clark nodded, his lips pursed tight. "If someone is trying to design meta-humans, it can only mean one thing-"
"That they're doing it for a reason," she finished, dull anger flaring up in her chest.
Things happened, and sometimes they happened for a reason, and sometimes they led to people like Victor and Barry coming to exist – something that she would personally be grateful for for eternity. But nothing good ever came out of making enhanced soldiers. Of turning people into more than they were.
"Whatever it is, it's not happening," Clark said firmly as though reading her thoughts.
Diana nodded somewhat absently, but the determination on her matched his. "It's not."
"We'll get to the bottom of it," he promised.
"We will."
"Keep me in the loop," he asked. "Wish I was there."
"It was a bit of a last-minute emergency," she explained apologetically.
"Thank god," he grinned. "For a moment there I thought that you didn't like me anymore."
Diana laughed. "You have your own domain to look after," she reminded him.
He smirked. "Yeah, well, it's nice to play with the team now and then."
"You'll always be a part of the team," she promised.
Clark bumped his shoulder against hers. "And speaking of which," he sighed. "I need to find Bruce."
"Try the Batcave," she suggested.
He nodded and started to leave, but then stopped and look at her. "I never saw you like this," he said. "The whole… happiness thing, it really suits you."
She grinning and rolled her eyes just a little, thinking that she couldn't remember seeing herself like that in a very, very long time, either.
Once Clark was gone and everyone was sufficiently distracted, Diana walked over to Steve who was putting his plate in the dishwasher and tugged at the sleeve of his jacket, pulling him into the hallway, away from the prying eyes and curious questions. He followed without hesitation.
She glanced over her shoulder to make sure that were alone, and when she turned back to him, he was already crowding her space, his arms circling her body.
"Hi," he whispered.
"Hi," Diana smiled, tilting her face up to his. "I missed you."
Behind them, the kitchen erupted in a boisterous laughter, the voices of the men rising in excitement over something or the other.
Steve leaned closer to her, ignoring them entirely, his mouth meeting hers half-way. "I missed you, too."
xoox
Clark jogged down two flights of stairs, choosing to forgo the elevator, his gaze scanning the place that was easily bigger than the above-ground area of the house, taking in the assortment of devices, the almost clinical feel to it, amplified somehow by the fluorescent lights above his head.
It was quiet except for metallic banging coming from the corner where Bruce was standing on a stepladder neat Knightcrawler's massive body.
"Stop taking your frustration out on a car," Clark said.
Bruce ignored him and hit Crawler with a hammer again, the sound of it ricocheting off the walls and echoing under the ceiling.
"What should I be taking it out on?" He asked without turning.
"What crawled under your skin?"
"Regrets."
"Pray tell, Bruce," Clark folded his arms over his chest, eyeing him from below.
Bruce glanced at him briefly, but then only shook his head, "Forget it."
"You can't change her mind, you know that, right?"
Bruce paused but didn't relent. "I have no idea what you're talking about."
Like hell you don't.
"You wanna try that again?" Clark slid his hands into his pockets and squinted up at the other man. "We are not as stupid as you might think we are."
"What do you want from me?" Bruce grunted. He hit the Crawler again, the sound of it almost deafening, and swore quietly.
His tone made Clark's hackles stand on end. "What is your problem, Bruce?"
"What is it, indeed," he murmured under his breath.
"She is with Steve."
His words made Bruce freeze, his body going completely rigid.
One didn't need to be a genius to notice the way he was around Diana - softer around the edges, almost mellow somehow. One simply needed to not be blind. There was a great number of things that Bruce kept close to his vest, but his feelings for her wasn't one of them. He had that way of speaking to her, of listening to her more intently then the rest of them. It was like she calmed something inside of him with her very presence, and had the situation been different, maybe it could have meant something to them both.
But it wasn't because the next thing they knew Steve was back and Diana's eyes were on him since, and it became very clear very fast to all involved parties that whatever could have happened between her and Bruce was never meant to be.
And now Bruce was hurting and quite possibly hating himself for making one mistake that turned his world inside out and killed any hopes he might have had before they ever blossomed into something he could hold on to. And Clark felt bad for him. As a friend and a teammate, and as a person who was not unfamiliar with heartbreak. He was really and genuinely sorry.
Yet, it still wasn't a good enough excuse for Bruce's behaviour earlier. None of this was Diana's fault, and even less so Steve's. From what little Clark knew about their history, he truly believed that they had walked through hell itself in every way he could think of. They deserved to have that beautiful thing that was unfolding between them now, regardless of what someone else thought or felt.
"What does that have to do with anything?" Bruce asked flatly. "Diana's personal life is none of my—"
Clark bristled. "You said yes to the deal with Waller to piss her off because they were broken up, and now you're throwing a tantrum because they're back together?" He cut him off and shook his head in disgust. "Can you not think about yourself for two goddamn seconds?" Bruce flinched but it was not enough to make him stop. He pointed toward the stairs for emphasis. "Have you seen her up there?" He demanded. "When was the last time she was this happy?"
He didn't even realize that he raised his voice until the echo of it hit him back. He grimaced.
"This has nothing-" Bruce began.
"She deserves this, Bruce. Surely, she deserves it more than your mind games because she's in love with him. She's always been in love-"
"Are you done?" Bruce cut him off sharply, whipping around, cold anger pooling in his eyes and his voice a dangerous growl. "Did she send you here to be her advocate?" Clark said nothing. "Thought so." For a long moment, they stared at once another, and Clark thought, for a second, that the other man was doing to charge at him. Instead, Bruce pressed his lips together and exhaled slowly, regaining his control. "I had someone following me," he said quietly, almost unwillingly. "About a week ago. Not since them, though."
Clark's brows pulled together, anger seeping out of him instantly. He stared at the Batman, confused. "Who?"
"I don't know." Bruce straightened up, looking down at Clark from the height of the Knightcrawler, a frown creasing his forehead. He climbed down and walked over to the work bench to toss the hammer into the tool box. "And I asked, trust me."
Clark turned, following him with his eyes. "I'm sure you did."
"And he said that nothing that I could possibly to do to him could be worse than whoever hired him would if he opened his mouth."
"I don't even want to imagine."
Bruce shoot him an irritated look but chose to ignore his quip. He rubbed his forehead. "Needless to say, I was intrigued."
"So, what happened?"
"I let him go, and I tried following him, but he…"
"Escaped." Clark glanced over his shoulder toward the stairs. "Did you tell the team?"
Bruce shook his head with a sour grimace.
"Not even Diana?" Clark pressed.
"She seems to be otherwise occupied these days," Bruce muttered.
He actually did want to tell her, as recently as last night, but then it turned out that she wasn't around. Not till this morning. Along with Steve Trevor who was still wearing the same clothes he wore when Bruce saw him yesterday. It wasn't hard to put two and two together and he had spent the past hour or so trying not to think about it.
"Besides, I don't even know if it had anything to do with the League," he added, going for a dismissive tone.
"When doesn't it?" Clark breathed. He rubbed the back of his neck, pensive.
"He was following me as me, not the Batman," Bruce pointed out.
"There's no shortage of people who know the truth. Amanda Waller, for one thing."
"Why would she do it?"
"Why would she put nano bombs in people's skulls?" Clark countered. "You have to tell the team."
After a moment, Bruce nodded. "I know."
"I actually came to tell you that you can pick up whatever's left of your Volvo," Clark added, and Bruce look up at him with interest. "The Metropolis police doesn't need it anymore." He paused. "It wasn't an accident. They found traces of explosive residue all over the underbelly of the car. Although I don't think they'll put it into the official statement."
Bruce smirked. "Been listening outside the police station windows again?"
"You're welcome," Clark shrugged.
"You could have called."
"I heard about what happened in S.T.A.R. Labs." His small smile faded. "Talk to them. Something's up."
Bruce nodded, his face turning grim. "Something's always up."
xoox
The history of Diana's people was full of tales of beauty and passion, greed and revenge, and impossible, consuming love that moved mountains and bound lovers to one another for all of eternity, their hearts forever beating in unison. Fascinated as she was with those stories as a young girl, Diana couldn't help but look at them with a degree of skepticism. Surely they were exaggerated, weren't they? The pragmatism of her mother, the steady logic of her aunt made her look at them through a prism of practicality. Surely the ultimate happiness written in the stars could not possibly be real.
Stretched on her side next to Steve who was sprawled on his stomach across her bed, she thought of how meeting him made her reconsider that notion. It was possible, and her chest felt so full with it that she could barely stand it.
His eyes were shut, but he wasn't asleep, she knew it. The pattern of his breathing was not quite right despite being even and deep. He was merely regaining his bearings. Her fingers itched to push through his hair, trace the lines of his face, skim over his cheeks. Diana bit her lip, trying to stop her smile from spreading even wider, ridiculously pleased with herself for making him need some time to recover.
She wanted him. Even after a few hours in his arms that had left them both spent and perfectly satisfied with one another, she still wanted him so badly that it was making something inside of her ache. She had wanted other people before, some - deeply and passionately, others - with longing for the love that had left her with a gaping hole in her very soul that threatened to turn her inside out with every breath she took, seeking a semblance of what she had lost. They meant something to her, too. Something, but not enough.
With Steve, however… with Steve it was entirely all-consuming and throbbing in her blood like a second heartbeat. It should have went away, she was thinking absently, studying him. They had been together for an extended period of time after the war. Wouldn't have their desperate need for one another ebbed then? Or since then? It had been so long. A whole lifetime, even. Yet, she couldn't remember ever feeling otherwise since the first time they had lain together on the night when the world was quiet and dusted with snow.
No one had ever made her feel the way he did. No one had ever made her feel so wanted and needed and cherished and utterly adored, and she craved it. Craved it from him. Always would, perhaps.
She wondered if Steve felt the same way. If they were going to wake up one day and not want each other as hungrily as they did now, as they always had. If there would ever come a moment when she'd see him smile and not feel a sharp jolt of want shoot through her. If she'd wake up one morning and not yearn for his touch.
Maybe so, Diana thought. Maybe it was inevitable. Maybe one day their desire for one another wouldn't be so insatiable, so intense, but Diana loved it now, loved that nearly electrifying look he would give her sometimes that never failed to make her want to tear his clothes off – seven decades ago as well as now.
Steve cracked one eye open, and then another, and then he grinned at her, and just like that a spark of need surged through her like a bolt of lightning, stealing her breath away.
"See anything you like?" He drawled lazily, his smile cheeky.
She still wasn't quite certain how they made it through the rest of the afternoon. The dinner was a fun affair, fueled by Barry's incessant chatter and Arthur's quips and Victor's dry comments while Alfred attempted to keep it civil and then had to give up halfway through. And while Bruce barely looked at her and his responses to any of them were monosyllabic, she was glad that he joined them, choosing not to notice the tension hanging between them. Her own attention was scattered, snatching bits of conversation here and there but not paying much attention as all she could think of was the man sitting next to her, close enough to make the kitchen feel a little too overcrowded for her liking.
Diana excused herself right after they cleaned up after the meal, wondering how long it would take Steve to figure out that she was gone and do the same. Three minutes, as it turned out, was all it took him to end up outside of her door before she was pulling him into her room, craving to feel his hands everywhere on her body and trying so, so hard to be quieter than she wanted to be.
But that was hours ago, and the house was still and silent now, and she was sated and happy, drowning in blissful contentment wrapped around them like a cloud.
Diana laughed. "Maybe." She leaned down to kiss his shoulder, her mouth lingering on his skin just long enough for him to go still.
She smiled to herself, feeling his gaze on her, trialing over the outline of her body under the sheet. The words he'd said to her when they were making love floated back to her mind, making her skin tingle. Promised and confessions and her name repeated time and time again like a prayer. At this rate, they were not going to leave this room for a while – which, quite frankly, was more than fine with her.
Diana brushed his hair back from his face and kissed his forehead before stretching beside him again, her head resting on the heel of her hand. Her eyes traveled over his features. She was very much aware of her own attractiveness, and the fact that Steve found her beautiful - he had told her that, too, repeatedly - but looking at him now, his hair mussed and his eyes dazed and his mouth curled into a lazy smile, she couldn't think of how impossibly handsome he was. It was no wonder perhaps that her waking hours were consumed by the need to kiss him and kiss him and kiss him until they were both dazed and drunk on one another.
"You know," Steve started after a few moments, studying her, "I kind of assumed that you'd go home – to the island, I mean – after we… after I-" He left the sentence hanging between them, the guilt and grief still too thick to work their way out of his throat, a half-question that Diana understood nonetheless.
Her expression turned wistful, the way if often did when she thought of Themyscira.
The thought crossed her mind, but it was fleeting. She didn't belong there anymore, not for a long time. If she were to come back, she wasn't sure what good might come out of it.
She shook her head, her fingers tracing absently the seam of the sheet. "I couldn't," she admitted. "It reminded me too much of you."
Steve blinked, surprised. "It reminded you of me?" He repeated dumbly, his brows knitting together in confusion. "More than here?"
The tightness in her chest eased at the sight of his expression. She pursed her lips together around a smile. Hera help her, she loved this man beyond anything she could ever imagine.
Oddly enough, she couldn't bring herself to go back for that very reason. It was easy to stay busy in his world, one disaster always rolling straight into another, keeping her mind focused. But on Themyscira, there would be a shadow of him following her around the palace, his voice still echoing in the cavernous rooms, his presence subtle but real. She knew she would never be able to step into the kitchen without hearing Steve's voice there as he tried to sneak a treat from under the watchful eye of the cooks, or even wake up in her own bed without feeling his arm draped over her, or better yet – his mouth moving over her skin.
She didn't know if she'd be able to exist there. Didn't want the pity of her mother or her sisters, either. Diana was always aware that there was a risk to bringing him to the island with her, but she never could have thought that it would be one of this kind. It was so much easier to get lost here, to start anew without feeling trapped.
She told him that, watching his face grow pained. She reached over to smooth the crease between his brows with her finger, the tenderness for him tight in her chest.
"I wanted to be useful," she said. "How could I have helped if I went back?"
He nodded without much conviction.
"Steve?"
"I'm sorry," he whispered, his voice hoarse.
"Don't," she shook her head again and leaned forward to kiss him. "Don't do this to yourself. My choices are mine and mine only, and you have paid your dues in full."
She started to pull away, and he rose on his elbow, chasing her mouth. "Thank you," he murmured, finding her gaze again. "For this. For everything."
"I love you," Diana murmured, savouring the words in her mouth. It had been so long since she was able to say them freely, without holding back, without second-guessing herself. He smiled against her mouth, leaving her heart fluttering madly in her chest.
"Diana…"
Her hand curled over the back of his neck, fingers pushing into his hair as her mouth opened against his, deepening the kiss. She could feel his whole body respond to her touch, a low sound of appreciation forming in the back of his throat. Her heartbeat stuttered momentarily.
Steve's palm closed over her jaw. Her fingers curled around his wrist, his pulse fast and frantic against her skin. He kissed her, and he kissed her, and when they broke apart, they were both breathless, and he was smiling, and she was too, and if there was a moment in her future when she wouldn't want to do this every moment of her life as greedily as she did now, Diana couldn't quite imagine it. Not yet, and not for a long time, perhaps. If ever.
Her gaze locked with Steve's, she turned her face to press a kiss to the palm of his hand, watching playfulness drain from his eyes as they growing dark in an instant. And at the sight of it, her own desire sparked again with such intensity that she had to remind herself to breathe. His gaze drifted down to her lips. She watched his breath hitch in his chest, nearly intoxicated with the power to be able to inspire this kind of response in him. Without hesitation, he dipped his head to her once more, planting a kiss on her chin and then slowly and very deliberately dragging his mouth across her cheek and toward her neck.
"Wanted to do this for so long," he murmured into her skin.
She tilted her head back, feeling his smile when he nuzzled into her throat, and it would've been so very easy to pull him over her and have him press her into the sheets, making her forget the world. She turned her head, fingers buried into his hair, and his mouth was right there, capturing hers and kissing her slowly. His hand slid beneath the sheet and around her body, palm splayed on the small of her back. She had wanted to this for a very long time, too.
"I thought you were tired," Diana whispered, smiling, when he pulled back for breath.
Steve quirked an eyebrow at her. "Said who?" He grinned, his gaze sliding suggestively down her body and making it very hard for her to do a noble thing and let him rest when the only thing she wanted was to love him again and again until she convinced herself that she wasn't imagining any of this. Until she stopped being scared.
They had time, she reminded herself. She inhaled slowly and willed panic that kept building up in her chest away. They had all the time in the world now.
With a hand on his shoulder, Diana pushed him effortlessly down to lie on his back, ignoring a wounded look of protest on his face and an indignant, "Hey!" Steve pressed his lips together, a displeased frown making an appearance on his face. Her heart flipped in her chest, her mouth curving into a smile at the sight of it, so much so that she couldn't resist leaning down to kiss his pout away.
Immediately, his arm curved around her, and even though he was nowhere near strong enough to hold her there should she have chosen to pull away, she let him tug her close until she was half-draped over his chest, pressed to him curve for curve.
"That's better," he breathed.
Diana brushed her lips to his jaw. "Do you think it will ever go away?" She asked softly, her voice swallowed by the darkness around them.
"What?" He echoed, tracing his fingers up and down her spine.
"The wanting."
He stayed quiet for a moment. "Would you want it to?"
"No." She lifted her head and kissed his chest, her tongue tracing a scar running from his shoulder toward his collarbone.
Steve inhaled sharply and cursed stiffly under his breath, his fingers twitching on her skin, and she smiled. Sometimes, it was just too easy.
He didn't say anything for a few seconds as his heart hammered away under her palm.
"I don't think I'll even want you any less than I want you now. Than I've ever wanted you. I can't—Christ, I can't remember not wanting you, Diana." He let out a long breath. His eyes were trained on the ceiling but his hand never stopped moving over the expanse of her back. "That night in Metropolis, in Clark's apartment, when I saw you in those, ah… black…"
"Victoria's Secret," she supplied helpfully.
"Well, there were no secrets left, to my memory," he mumbled.
"You liked it?" Diana asked him, amused.
Steve cleared his throat, the sound of it reverberating into her. "That's not the word I'd use," he said diplomatically.
She smirked and made a mental note to wear something for him soon. Maybe tomorrow. All of her best sets were in Paris, but there was at least that one and she knew he wouldn't complain. If memory served her right, he was staring at her slack-jawed for a good fifteen seconds that night, his eyes sliding over her body, before he remembered to turn away, and unplanned as it was, she did not mind his reaction in the slightest.
"Yeah well, you looked… I don't think I even knew how to breathe." He continued. "All I wanted to do was cross that room and…" His voice trailed off, but there was no need for words, she could so very clearly picture about a thousand scenarios, all of which ended with his hands everywhere she wanted them to be.
"I wish you did," Diana whispered into his skin.
She couldn't even begin to express how much she wished he had done that.
This was good though, the closeness, the warmth of his body against hers. Truth be told, she could barely remember not wanting him either, the time of uncertainty and confusion so far gone that it was all but a faint dream now.
Steve sighed. "Look, about Bruce…" he started.
"I'll talk to him," she promised, her fingers running absently over his chest, paining the defined lines of his muscles. She didn't seem to know how to stop touching him, still unable to believe that this was real, and the elation was making her head spin.
"He's in love with you," he said softly.
"He's not-" she protected, looking up at him, but cut off when she saw him stare at the wall across from them.
"Takes one to know one," Steve noted, his fingers threading through her hair.
Diana pushed up on her elbow and shifted to fold her arm across his chest, resting her chin on the back of her hand as she watched him. He was hard to read when she first met him, years of being a spy and having to pretend being someone that he was not and living a life of a hundred different people instead of his own left a mark that was near impossible to erase. A hundred years later, and he finessed that skill to near perfection. Perhaps, it was not a bad thing for someone living his life. She only wished that he would let her in.
"Does it bother you?" She asked quietly. "That we're here?"
Steve turned to her. He reached over to loop a strand of her hair around her ear, tracing his fingertips along her cheek. She was so beautiful it made his heart ache. He thought sometimes, back in the day, and probably not without reason, that her smile alone could stop the wars and heal the wounded and fix the world the way nothing and no one else could. He wondered if he'd ever think otherwise.
Yes, it did bother him. He believed Diana when she said that she loved him, that she wanted to be with him, but Steve still couldn't help but wonder what could have or would have happened a week, or a month, or a year from now if he didn't crash right back into her life again. It was small and petty, and he hated himself for even imagining it when all she had done in the past 24 hours was show time and time again that it was him she chose to be with.
Steve Trevor was not a jealous man, and there was nothing to be jealous of to begin with, but he prided himself on his strategic thinking, he was taught to plan ten steps ahead, and there was a nagging voice in the back of his mind that given the right circumstances, she and Bruce wouldn't have taken those steps away from one another, necessarily. If nothing else, Bruce Wayne certainly thought so too, if the cold glares that he offered Steve were any indication.
"I think it bothers him," Steve offered, which was perhaps the best not-answer he could think of.
"I'll talk to him," Diana repeated. She tilted her head to brush a kiss to his chin. "Bruce is… pragmatic. He will understand."
Steve nodded and smiled, and her heart squeezed again. If she was going to react like this to every single one of his facial expressions, they were in trouble. Her gaze wandered over his features, taking in faint lines in the corners of his eyes, the bow of his mouth curved into a half-smile that she could never tire of kissing, the slope of his nose and the pale shadow of his stubble. The very same one that left raw marks on her inner thighs earlier – something that she found oddly appealing, regretful to know that they would fade away almost instantly. She wouldn't have minding if they stayed.
She bit her lip, and Steve's eyebrow crept up as though he could hear her think, and just like that she could feel the familiar tension start to build between them.
They were definitely in trouble.
"You should rest," she whispered, her hand pushing his hair back from his face.
"Not tired," he shook his head stubbornly.
"We barely slept last night," Diana reminded him.
The man did have admirable vigour and stamina, and she was fully intended to catch up on every moment that they had spent apart, but his eyes were drooping and she knew he was holding on with all his might to stay awake, and it wasn't like she needed him to actually keel over at some point.
"And I enjoyed every second of it," Steve promised, all chest-puffed proud.
"You don't need to prove anything to me, Steve," she said. And added, smiling, "You already did that, if I recall correctly. Multiple times. And you were very convincing."
He made a strangled sound in the back of his throat and squeezed his eyes shut, rubbing them with his fingers.
If she had told him that the colour rising up his cheeks and his inability to form coherent sentences was something that she found incredibly attractive, he would probably think that she was laughing at him. Maybe even scowl at her, yet here she was, trying to figure out if there was anything better than his flustered face. And so far the answer was no, there really and truly wasn't. Steve certainly was a man of contrasts. He knew full well how to make her world explode in brilliant colours, and then he would get shy about her pointing it out back to him, which only made her want to mention it again and again.
Biting her lip around a smile, she tilted her head, dubious, and he conceded with a small sigh. "This is real, right? Us. I mean, I had that dream before..." he scrunched his face and puffed out his breath.
She grinned and draped her leg over one of his and stretched over him to press a hot, open-mouthed kiss to his neck.
She grinned and draped her leg over one of his, stretching over him to press a hot, open-mouthed kiss to his neck.
"I didn't catch that," she murmured when he cursed again.
They had both changed in their time apart, and she was yet to learn the new him, but this small detail about him remained the same, and she found herself being more than a little pleased about it.
"Goddammit, Diana…" he muttered with just a tiny bit of exasperation and a great deal of purpose.
And then he grabbed her wrist and rolled them over, pinning her to the sheets. She gasped in surprise, playfulness draining out of her eyes replaced by heat.
Steve ducked his head. "Not tired," he repeated against the hollow of her throat.
Her eyes fluttered shut.
Very pleased, indeed.
To be continued...
A/n: Reviews are amazing and I will love you forever for them!
Also, tell me what you think about WW84 spoilers and photos and everything? Because I am losing my mind!
(Who is screaming? No one is screaming!)