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

14. Chapter 14

Author's note: Hey, look who is still alive. I know it's been a while and technically I'm still traveling but I didn't want to make you guys wait for two more weeks or so, so here we go! Hope you will enjoy it and please let me know what you think!

---

Gotham, 2017

Slipping into their old patterns was the easiest thing. One day, the world seemed to be falling apart before Steve's eyes and nothing made sense, and then suddenly it was like the past several decades had never happened. There was comfort to familiarity, to knowing each other enough for the adjustment to the change in their relationship to not be grating, but there was also a thrill to discovering small details about one another that had come to be since 1952.

While Steve remained a drifter he had always been, Diana's life turned out being stitched together of habits and routines that fascinated him to no end. She went running almost every morning, claiming that it helped her keep her head clear. There was a path circling the lake, and even though it had nothing on the trails crazing through Themyscira, she seemed to enjoy it well enough. Although, if Steve woke up before she left, she wouldn't put up a fight if he tried to cajole her back into bed. He couldn't get enough of her – the sound of her voice, her laughter, the way her fingers would sometimes skim casually over his body and set his blood on fire.

Even away from Paris, she worked a lot, sending emails and making phone calls in more languages than he could recognize, effortlessly juggling her duties as the Curator of Antiques with her life as a heart and soul of the League. If she had allowed it, he would be more than happy to spend his days watching her, the easy grace with which she moved about the house, the way she spoke to the dealers and her assistant and the other Curators about something or other that made his mind reel.

On top of that, despite having an affinity for tea, she seemed to have a special relationship with the coffee maker in the kitchen that only tolerated her and Alfred and couldn't stand everyone else, and she could type texts faster than Barry (at his human speed), much to the frustration of the latter.

It took Steve all of three days to pick up on all of that, and when he oh so proudly laid out his observations to her at some point, she called him 'such a spy', which made him laugh until his stomach hurt.

The old things had come back, too. Those that remained dormant in his mind – like what side of the bed she preferred to sleep on, the way she tended to reach for his hand without thinking, how she tilted her head when she was curious or puzzled. All the details that he missed about her that made him ache on the inside for so long that he thought he would wither and die from a heartbreak.

She was his Diana still, the woman that he had loved for so long that he could no longer remember what it was like not to, but also so much more that Steve could hardly comprehend how one person could contain all the wonder and beauty of different worlds within her. A clash of times and contrasts. To him, she was still a Princess of the Amazons who once got confused by a revolving door, but now she was also a woman who used emojis in text messages and easily understood pop culture references. She still read the works of the Greek philosophers, in Greek, but was also fond of Lord of the Rings and the novels of Hemingway and Huxley. It was, he had to admit, a lot to wrap his mind around.

It was new, but also not, and he loved every moment of pulling everything that they were and all that they were meant to be to the surface, watching a puzzle fall into a complete picture. She was open and honest and unapologetic about her feelings, and the onslaught of quips that Steve half-expected from the members of the League never came, although he was tempted to ask if there was ever another bet going on, and maybe he and Diana deserved to be in on it. Except it didn't really matter because he had already won a jackpot, and who cared about the rest?

"It wasn't permanent, you know," she told him one night, tracing lines on his skin with his fingers, her cheek resting on his collarbone.

"What wasn't?" Steve asked, sleepy, too sated and relaxed to think straight.

"I'm not weaker than I was before." Her voice was soft, but he went still, hanging on to every word, suddenly very awake, his hand that was tracing the line of her spine frozen just beneath her shoulder blades. "I thought about it, about what you said, and I suppose it's not impossible that my mother was right, but if bringing you back cost me some strength, it came back again."

He didn't say anything for a while, just stared at the ceiling, wondering if they had wasted all this time for nothing, if he had actually ruined nearly seven decades for them both, or if she only managed to heal properly because he was not around. There was no way of knowing it for sure, and he knew that dwelling on it would only cause pain to them both, but it was hard, so very hard to not think of it. She wouldn't lie to him, and she wouldn't have said that if she wasn't sure.

Where it left him was another thing altogether.

As if the list of unforgivable things he had done wasn't long enough already.

Diana lifted her head and pulled just far enough away from him to look him in the face.

"What are you thinking?" She asked, reading his inner turmoil chase across his features, anguish and regret mixed into something that had no name.

"But what if the next time-" he started, the damned habit of thinking ten steps ahead because back in the day it was his only way to survive rearing its ugly head again.

She touched her thumb to his lower lip and smiled that divine smile of hers. "Then so be it."

He didn't speak of it again, vowing silently to himself to live forever if he had to. If that was what it took to keep her safe.

xoox

A few days after moving into Diana's room, Steve woke up just after dawn, his eyes raw and his mind as foggy as the early November day outside the glass wall of her bedroom, pale wisps clinging to the remnants of frozen grass. It was early still, but Diana's side of the bed was empty, and even half-sleep, he missed her desperately.

Steve ran his hand over his face, rubbing his eyes. He buried his nose into her pillow, hoping for the slumber to claim him once more, but it never came. He blinked his eyes open, slowly and unwillingly, waiting for his head to clear. There was a sound that he first mistook for the ever-present patter of rain against the glass, but when he turned his head, he found Diana sitting at the desk to the left from him, her fingers flying over the keyboard of her laptop.

For a few moments, he simply watched her, taking her in, all of her so achingly beautiful that he wondered half the time if he was dreaming. One of her legs was tucked beneath her thigh, and her hair was loose, falling down her shoulders in heavy waves, and she was wearing nothing but her underwear and a tank top - a very thin one - and he decided that next to having her in bed next to him and without any clothes whatsoever, this was the second best view he could possibly wake up to.

And then she looked up and saw him study her with sleepily eyes, breaking into a smile so bright and wonderful that it made his chest constrict fiercely. And Steve thought, I could never love anyone more than I love this woman.

"Hey," he croaked, stifling a yawn.

"Morning," she whispered, seemingly no longer caring about whatever it was that kept her so wildly occupied not a few seconds ago.

"Why are you up?" Steve grimaced a little. "S'early."

And they had a late night. A very last night.

"Work," she responded, amused, as she watched him fighting a losing battle. "Go back to sleep, Steve."

He rolled onto his side, claiming her half of the bed and murmured, "C'mere," in that thick, sleep-laced voice that never failed to undo her in the best way. He stretched and tucked Diana's pillow under his cheek, watching her gaze trail along the outline of his body beneath the sheet slung over his waist, weighing the options. He knew the look. He liked that look very much. He particularly liked the things that often followed soon afterwards.

"I do have responsibilities, you know that, right?" Diana pointed out, an eyebrow arched and her chin resting on the heel of her hand propped on her desk.

"Mm-hm," he hummed noncommittally, barely bothering to contain a smile that threatened to split his face in half. "At 7 in the morning?"

"It's past noon in Paris," she countered, clearly enjoying his impatience.

He scrunched his face, struggling for an argument that could tramp her sense of obligation in favour of something, well, less productive but much more fun. It was far too early for that, though. Thinking, that is. His thoughts were tumbling aimlessly into one another without much aim or purpose.

And so, he opted for looking at her, taking in the glint in her eyes and a quirk of her eyebrow and the way her tank top was hugging her body just right even though it did seem entirely excessive, all things considered.

How on earth he managed to survive without her for so long was beyond him.

At last, Diana caved in, never a fan of this game. She uncured from her seat and crossed the room, padding barefoot across the soft carpet and then lowering down on the edge of the bed beside him. The mattress dipped beneath the weight of her body, and Steve moved closer to her, reaching for her hand. He kissed her knuckles, watching her watch him with that small secret smile of hers that never failed to make him feel like he was losing his mind.

And then he dropped the pretences too because resisting the temptation was too bloody much for this early hour. He pushed up to sit and tugged her to him until she was close enough for his mouth to brush against hers.

"Hi," he said again.

"Hi," she whispered, her eyes crinkling at the corners.

God, he loved her smile. That smile alone could end wars and bring peace to the world, he thought.

His hand pushed into her hair, tangling in her black mane, the strands soft as silk between his fingers, bridging what little space was left between them. Her response was immediate, her body leaning into his touch and, encouraged, Steve bit gently at her bottom lip, coaxing a low moan out of her. She sighed softly against his lips. A wave of heat seared through him, blinding in its intensity.

"Steve," she started without conviction when his lips moved across her cheek.

"Hm?" His mouth latched on the underside of her jaw, his thumb running slow circles on the back of her neck. "It's too early to be out of bed and wear so many clothes."

Her fingers curled around his wrist, although in protest or encouragement he wasn't sure. She didn't stop him though, so he hoped it was the latter.

"I'm practically naked," Diana argued, amused.

"Not naked enough," he murmured, nuzzling into the tender spot behind her ear. "Let's fix that."

"Steve."

She drew just far enough away to be able to find his gaze, her hand resting on his ribs and making the early-morning process of putting his thoughts together into something more or less coherent nearly impossible.

Still, he sighed, although not relinquishing the physical contact, his hand merely dropping to rest on her waist. "So, what's this about?" Steve asked, his eyes darting toward her laptop that glowed in the dimness of a gloomy morning.

"A quarterly report and some shipment forms that needed my approval," Diana explained, her fingers strumming absently along his skin. "Pierre is worried about the exhibition we're opening later this month."

Pierre, her assistant. The very one who somehow always knew to call at the most inconvenient times – even more so than Barry who texted pretty much nonstop, and it was often very had to tell whether it was an emergency or a new cat meme. Having been instantly added to his contact list was an interesting experience, Steve had found out very fast.

With Pierre, on the other hand, everything was an emergency. And maybe it was, but Steve had yet to figure out how exactly he expected Diana to fix them all from across half of the world. He was curious, though. He had seen Diana in many roles – a woman, a lover, a warrior. Yet the idea of her working at the Louvre – the Louvre – intrigued him greatly and he wondered what she was like as a boss and how she was different in that role from the Amazonian demi-goddess he was far more familiar with.

She was bossy, for sure. Had been for as long as they had known each other.

"Rightfully worried or panicking because you're here and not there to supervise?" Steve clarified.

Diana laughed. "A little bit of both, I think."

"Well, he's a big boy." He paused and frowned. "He is, isn't he?"

She nodded, smiling. "He is. But some of those things are my job, not his."

"He's doing fantastic, I'm sure." His fingers curled around her neck to draw her closer, his mouth finding hers again as he thought, This is what every morning should be like for as long as I breathe.

Steve's hand slid down her neck, trailing the length of her arm before slipping around her waist.

"Steve."

"Mm."

His mouth abandoned hers and started to inch its way toward her neck once more, his teeth grazing lightly along the sensitive skin as he moved closer toward the spot that worked like magic. Her breath caught in her throat and Steve smiled to himself, feeling her resolve crumble. His fingers traced along the hem of her tank top before sliding underneath it, searching for skin. Christ, he loved her so much it almost hurt in that impossibly pleasant way that he wanted to never stop.

"Steve," Diana tried again, albeit without conviction, trailing off as her spine arched under his touch.

He inched her tank top up, and then some more, kissing his way down her neck and toward her collarbone and wanting nothing more than to pull her to him and stay in bed for another hour, or five. Or the rest of the day, for that matter. They could make good use of that.

Was the wanting ever going to go away? He had no idea. He had no idea how what he felt for her could ever go away, or even fade. How much time could one person need for something this consuming to cease to be? Several lifetimes, for certain. And he didn't want it to. Didn't want to not feel this burning for her, the need simmering beneath his skin, the elation that filled him at the mere thought of her smile. Didn't want the pricking of his skin at the sound of her voice whispering to him in the dark to ever ebb.

He turned his head, pressing his mouth to the pulse point just under her jaw, her blood throbbing rapidly against his lips. Pleased, he trailed his hand down her back and lower still, his fingers tracing the hem of her panties along the curve of her thigh, moving slowly closer to where she loved to be touched, both of them very much aware that once he got there her resistance wouldn't stand a chance. Diana muttered something he didn't catch, desire pulsing in his blood.

"Steve."

With a hand on his chest, holding him firmly in place, she pulled away and took a steadying breath, dazed – much to his satisfaction, but also amused beyond measure by his rather confused look, caused by the sudden lack of contact.

"I wasn't done," he protested and tried to reach for her, but damn the Amazon strength that, with just a small nudge, had him on his back again.

"I have a meeting with a curator of the Gotham Museum of Art in an hour," Diana said, steering the conversation in a different direction while she so very obviously tried not to laugh at the defeated look on his face. "To see if maybe we could do a collection exchange. They seem to be quite interested."

"I can be quick," Steve promised eagerly and heatedly and with as much conviction as he could muster, completely ignoring the second part of her statement. "And efficient. I can be very efficient," he added when she tilted her head and arched an eyebrow.

He grinned.

"Don't I know that," Diana smirked and leaned over to kiss the corner of his mouth, her hand still holding him against the sheets. "And I prefer to take my time with you," she whispered. "Tonight."

Steve swallowed, watching the fire flare up in her eyes, his own body responding to it in an instant.

"How about I take you for lunch when I'm done?" She offered as a truce, taking pity on his wounded expression and, well, some other parts of him.

"I'm not sure I can wait that long," he admitted, his gaze dropping to the bow of her mouth and then further down to the expanse of her skin disappearing in the cleavage of her shirt. "I'm hungry now."

She laughed and stood up, and it took him a whole of two seconds to start missing her terribly.

"You'll have to manage, I'm afraid," she said, sitting back down at the desk.

Steve turned on his side and propped up on his elbow. "Hey, how come it's always you taking me places?"

Diana glanced at him. "Because you don't know the city."

He made a face and ran his hand over his hair, trying to smooth it down and failing spectacularly. "Yeah, fair point." He paused. "But how about I take you out for a change?"

Her eyes narrowed skeptically. "Where?"

The corner of his mouth curled upwards. "I have an idea."

Diana turned off her laptop and closed it before crossed the room again until she was standing right before him, and Steve's gaze traveled unashamedly up and down her legs.

"I'm sure you do."

"Outside of this room, I swear," he added, looking up. "Unless…." He let the sentence hang between them, his suggestive tone more than a little hopeful.

She shook his head, laughed, and leaned down to kiss him once more, her hand stroking his stubbled cheek. "I'll come get you here at 1, yes?"

Steve craned his neck to chase her lips. "Yes, ma'am."

"Sleep," she murmured, her face not an inch away from his. "I promise you we won't have time for it tonight."

He smiled. "Tease."

"You started it."

He did, and he regretted nothing.

Steve chuckled, pulling her pillow closer and inhaling her scent that still lingered on it as Diana headed toward the bathroom. "Yeah, well, who wouldn't?"

xoox

By the time Diana came out of the shower and got dressed, Steve was already asleep again, sprawled diagonally across the bed with his arms wrapped around her pillow. She smiled and walked over to the bed, more than a little tempted to wake him up and allow him to get her out of her clothes this time. So very tempted. They had done that before, and the memory of those moments stirred something warm in her chest, her whole body humming with need for his touch.

However, she did mean it when she said that some of the tasks her assistant was doing now were not entirely his responsibility, and had Diana been in Paris, it would have been a different story. Here, though, her resources were limited and time zones were an issue to be considered, and it wasn't like she could take care of physically arranging the collection from another continent. Steve's amusement regarding Pierre's dependency wasn't unreasonable, and while personally, Diana found it rather endearing, she did appreciate his hard work nonetheless, and the least she could do while she was here was finish the negotiations that had started months ago and were still nowhere near complete.

If nothing else, it made her feel a little bit better about still being in Gotham even though there was, technically, no need for it and no reason for her to stay, except for the man snoring softly into her pillow right now, tangled in the sheets, and her desperate need to hold on to this time with him, like this, for just a while longer.

She had lovers after Steve, people she was comfortable with and cared about, but never once was she scared of losing anyone the way she couldn't bear the thought of losing him. She wasn't ready to let go just yet.

Lips curved into a smile, Diana crouched down near the bed. She stroked her hand through Steve's hair, mindful of not disturbing him, and then pressed her lips to his forehead, breathing him in and trying to ignore the longing building up in her chest with all her might.

No one had ever had the kind of power over her that Steve wielded, and not once was she willing to give it to anyone so gladly.

His face scrunched a little at her touch, and she whispered a quiet I love you, unable to stop herself. Unable to stop saying it, period. Needed to say it for every day that she had spent missing him, the words whispered into his skin when they were making love and repeated again and again as they lay basking in the content afterglow.

And then, after a moment of hesitation, Diana stood up before she had a chance to change her mind and crawl back into his arms, the rest of the world be damned. She walked quietly out of the room, closing the door behind her and doing her goddamn best to ignore a pang of panic in her chest. It was still new, and half the time it felt like a dream and she was terrified out of her mind to wake up and find out that he was still gone.

She got it now. Used to having him slip right through her fingers, she understood the despair lurking behind Steve's eyes, a reflection of her own fears that made her want to avert her gaze because they were too painful to see.

There was no one in the kitchen, even though the coffee machine was on and a bitter smell of the fine Arabica was hanging in the air. She was not surprised. Both Barry and Arthur liked to sleep in and Alfred often read in the study before breakfast if there were no urgent matters for him to attend to. Such as patching Bruce up after a rough night, which, if she recalled correctly, was a fairly frequent occurrence. Her gaze lingered for a moment on her semi-transparent reflection. The temperature kept going down steadily during the past week and the glass wall overlooking the dark, gloomy forest was fogged up at the corners. It was bound to snow in a week or two, she thought absently.

Diana reached for a cup holder, looking for the mug that she had claimed as hers when she stayed here for the first time, trying to decide if she could afford to have a proper breakfast, and then reconsidered when she noticed that the light over the staircase leading down to the Batcave was on.

Maybe she could stop by a coffee shop near the museum later, she decided.

Downstairs, Bruce was half-buried under the hood of the Batmobile, tugging and pulling at something that Diana couldn't see. He glanced up when he heard the sound of her footsteps before turning his attention back to the problem du jour again, although it was more than enough for her to notice his weary look and dark circles under his eyes. He was a morning person alright, when he had to be, but she still couldn't help but wonder if he was already up or still.

Diana crossed the distance between them and paused near the bumper of the car, peeking inside as well out of sheer curiosity.

"You need to sleep sometimes, you know?" She said, folding her arms over her chest.

"No rest for the wicked, or however that saying goes," Bruce muttered without looking at her.

"You don't have to take it to extremes," she noted, smiling. "Is there anything bothering you, Bruce?" She asked when it went unnoticed.

"Why would you think that?"

Ha made a grab for a wrench from the toolbox sitting atop the tubes and hoses.

"You haven't been around much lately."

In the past few days, every time she tried to catch him for a proper conversation he was either out, or on the way out, or very obviously trying to come up with an excuse to escape. If Diana didn't know any better, she would have assumed that he was avoiding her on purpose. And quite frankly, his inability or unwillingness to even meet her eyes right now spoke volumes.

Bruce straightened up and turned to the work bench, looking for something among the assortment of tools spread out there, his back to her.

"Maybe you were too preoccupied to notice," he said as he picked up a screwdriver.

"Can we talk?" She offered softly, watching the back of his head, then his profile as he leaned forward again.

"About what?"

She didn't waver. "The benefit in Gotham two months ago."

His hesitation was brief, yet it didn't escape her attention.

"What about it?" Bruce asked, his voice pointedly nonchalant, and then cursed when he dropped the screwdriver into the depths of the Batmobile, the metallic clang oddly loud in the suddenly quiet room.

Diana didn't want to do it. Regretted not doing it sooner, unbidden guilt blossoming in her chest. She didn't owe him anything, never had, but it didn't mean that she didn't see that he was hurting and that it was her fault, one way or another.

"You know what," she murmured.

This time, Bruce did look up, his gaze tired but sharp, his expression uncompromising, although she could see a flicker of doubt flash across it, like he couldn't quite decide if he should deny it or brush it off or pretend that he had no idea what she was talking about. She braced herself for either one.

He chose neither.

"It was a kiss, Diana. Not a proclamation of undying love." He pushes up to stand and picked up a rag to wipe his hands that were stained black with motor oil and dirt. "Alcohol and boredom are a dangerous combination. I should know. If nothing else, we are both aware that there is no such thing as undying love to begin with."

Everything about him was daring her to disagree.

She didn't, even though she didn't believe that it was nothing. Certainly not for him. Hadn't been for a long time. Her inability to reciprocate his feelings didn't make her blind, although it might have made her look the other way more often than not.

"You seemed to have made the decision," Bruce added when the pause started to stretch between them. He moved closer to her until they were only inches apart and she could smell cold and whiskey and that rubbery scent of the Batsuit on him. "Is there anything that I can say that can get you to change your mind?" The question was rhetorical, but there was desperate, hungry yearning behind his words.

She met his gaze, held it, wondering for just a moment—

It didn't matter, though.

"No," she shook her head.

Simple.

Honest.

He was wrong on another account, too. There was such thing as an undying love. It was real, and it was burning in her chest with such intensity that it was hard to breathe, and she never wanted for it to stop. Not even for a second. Just as she was certain that it never would.

Diana didn't say any of that, though. Knew that she didn't need to.

Bruce was a good man, and she cared for him deeply, but the matters of his heart were none of her concern, no matter how much he wanted them to be. They would have worked, she thought. In another lifetime, if the stars were aligned differently, they could have worked. Maybe. He was driven, his passion matching hers, and there were so many things that they viewed similarly. She never considered it seriously, but she toyed with the idea.

And then she would have probably hurt him when it turned out that he wasn't enough. Zeus knew it had happened before.

"What if he never returned?" He asked suddenly.

Diana felt her whole body deflate. "Don't go there, Bruce," she breathed, shaking his head.

He watched her for a long moment, and then nodded. "Why did you make it sound like he was dead, when…" he faltered not sure how to finish the sentence.

"I never said that," she countered. "You assumed because of the old photograph."

Because who wouldn't? As a rule, his people didn't get to live to be over a hundred years ago. Not often. Certainly not without ageing. So why did she feel so foul about never correcting him? For allowing him to believe a lie?

"How?" Bruce pressed, and this time there was curiosity to him.

Because I love him, Diana thought, and like always, it made her soul unfurl until it took so much space in her chest that she could barely inhale.

"It's complicated," she responded. "And it doesn't really matter."

He nodded again and stepped away from her, choosing not to push, breaking whatever spell kept them captive in a bubble of trust that burst before her eyes.

"Well, I'm glad…" He started and faltered once more. "If you're happy."

"I am." Diana looked around the cavernous room before turning back to him.

Bruce cleared his throat. "Do you still love him? After all this time?"

She didn't hesitate. "I do."

"I'm glad." He repeated and looked away. "You deserve to be happy."

They remained silent for a few moments, both searching for words that didn't seem to come.

"When I go home, he's coming with me," she said after a while.

Bruce stepped back to the work bench. "So, you'll be a package deal, then?" He asked.

She smiled tentatively, not quite certain if it was a joke, but liking his wording for some reason. "Afraid so."

His lips twitched a little, but the smile didn't linger. "You should be careful with Waller. She is going to use him against you," he spoke.

Her own smile faded as well, replaced by a slight frown. It wasn't that she never thought about it – she didn't trust that woman and wasn't going to start now. But it was one thing to merely have that thought cross her mind, and something else entirely to have someone else put it into words.

"The way you tried to?" She asked, surprised by the sharp edge in her voice.

"Diana-"

"Don't think that I forgot, Bruce. Don't think I forgot that you tried to use him to manipulate me."

He winced, his palm running over the back of his neck. "I won't. Trust me, I won't."

She squared her shoulders. "And if you do it again, I am going to walk out this door and never come back."

He exhaled slowly, his eyes earnest. "I know, and I'm grateful that you haven't already."

"I won't let Waller come anywhere near Steve," she said.

His frown deepened. "She might not ask."

Diana scoffed. "I'd like to see her try."

"She's going to have to go through all of us if she has to," he noted.

She shook her head. "It's a nice sentiment, but I'm sure it won't come to it."

Bruce's jaw set tautly.

"It is not a sentiment, and it will come to it. Because what do you think is going to happen if she can't get to him?" He asked, and this time her brows knitted together, his voice cutting deep. "She won't come for you, she's not an idiot. And she won't come for Steve because it's the same as coming for you. So, it stands to reason that she will try to do it through the next best target. Barry. Victor. The rest of us." He rubbed his forehead. "You think she's above hurting someone for her own gain? She's done it before and she's very good at covering up her tracks."

Diana's lips pressed into a tight line. "I will never let it happen."

He lowered his hand, his eyes weary. "It's not your job to keep watch. Not like that."

She was shaking her head. "What do you want me to say, Bruce? What do you want me to do?"

"I want you to understand what's at stake here."

"You think I don't?" She demanded, furious. "You think I'm clueless?"

"I think you're blindsided when it comes to Steve Trevor." The jealousy in his voice caught her off guard. Jealousy he had no right to own. "He is your Achilles heel, if you please."

Diana bristled at his accusation. "And Alfred is yours, and Barry's father is his. Lois. Mera. Victor's father. Steve is not my weakness because he loves me and I love him, he never has been." If nothing else, he had been the opposite, showing her the side of strength she never knew existed. "We all have people we care about. It doesn't make any one of them stand out among the others."

"But it does," Bruce insisted. "Waller wants more from him than she's letting on. She can't not to. He's 136 years old, for heaven's sake! However that works…." He stopped abruptly, his jaw working for a few moments. "It's all too—convenient. The timing, his sudden return after all those years…"

"Whatever it is, she won't get it," Diana said firmly, cutting him off, and Zeus help her, she felt sorry for Amanda Waller – if the woman tried to cross her path, Diana wouldn't hesitate. "Never." She bit her lip, then exhaled slowly, remembering why she was here and what this was supposed to be about. "Bruce…" she started.

"Don't," he interjected, lifting his hand up.

"You are deflecting."

His face closed off instantly.

"Don't pity me. It was a kiss. I have never expected anything from you, not then and certainly not now."

"I'm not-"

He gave her a look and Diana cut off, not wanting to lie but also unsure what the truth was anymore.

"It's better that way. For the team. For everyone. All of this," Bruce gestured vaguely around them, "it's bigger than you and I, and if he's the one…" He trailed off. This was nonsense and they both knew it, but she was not going to argue, knowing all too well that they could drown in what-ifs if they allowed themselves to. "Just be careful."

"I'm sorry," Diana said softly, for not feeling the same way or for admitting it, or for losing her temper minutes ago, she wasn't sure, but hoped he knew.

For hurting him.

There was a heavy feeling between them, and maybe she wasn't completely ready to forgive him for his words, for the things he had done, but there was fear behind his motives, not malice, she knew that much. She wasn't sure if it made it better, but it didn't make it worse.

"Don't be. It's me who should be sorry for… well, a lot of things." Bruce took a breath and then chuckled wistfully. "Your Captain Trevor is one lucky man."

She felt the tightness in her chest ease. "I would argue that I am."

The corner of his mouth twitched.

"Of course, you would."

Her gaze darted toward the staircase, and then back to Bruce. "You really need to get some sleep."

xoox

When Steve woke up again, the early morning fog that never failed to turn this place into a scene straight out of a gothic novel was gone and the sun that offered all the light but none of the warmth had crept over the treetops, flooding the bedroom with a soft glow.

He scrubbed his hand over his face and rolled onto his back, squinting around the room, half-expecting to see Diana at the desk or rummaging through the closet but not surprised when he found it empty. A pang of longing jolted through him. It had been a few hours, and he already missed her to the point of fierce ache in his chest.

There was a text from her on his phone, a quick good morning that she had sent an hour and a half ago, and Steve smiled, rereading a brief message several times. In his mind, he could easily see her typing it after she parked the car outside of the Museum or maybe in the elevator, and he hoped that she wished she was here instead as desperately as he did. He could think of a few ways for them to make good use of this morning.

Not that he expected her to cancel her life for him. It was not Diana's fault, after all, that he had crashed back into her world with the grace of a bull in a china shop. Nor was it her problem that he would much rather spend all his free time between the sheets with her making up for the lost years than do, well, anything else.

Not that Steve had nothing to do, for that matter, he reminded himself.

In the past few days, he had managed to upgrade Bruce's security system, which even Diana had a hard time getting around when they tested it and he learned - not without surprise - that she was quite spectacular at bypassing them when she needed to. He was also going to have a look at the firewall in the Batcave, as a part of his agreement with Bruce. God only knew what he had on those servers, including the half-fake file he had on Steve.

Better safe than sorry, Steve figured.

Which, come to think of it, could be a project for the morning.

Maybe.

Except that it meant going down to the Batcave, which Steve was more than a little reluctant to do. It was the one place in the house where Bruce seemed to gravitate to the most, and ever since he and Diana… well, fixed things, there was a not so discreet undercurrent of tension between the two of them.

Sometimes, he could practically hear an endless array of what-ifs running through Bruce's head. All the things that Steve refused to venture into for fear of losing his mind.

He could still try, though. It wasn't like they could keep this up forever.

At least that was the plan when he finally made his way to the kitchen only to find Victor fiddling with the coffee maker. Barry was sitting at the kitchen isle, slouched over a bowl of cereal. He glanced up from his breakfast and offered Steve a small wave.

"Morning," Steve said, pausing for just a second, curious. "It's Tuesday," he pointed out.

"Your point being?" Barry asked, shoving another spoonful into his mouth, his words garbled as he chewed.

"Aren't you supposed to be at work?"

The young man shook his head. "They're painting the lab. I'm allergic to that stuff."

"Huh," Steve blinked and turned to Victor.

"Don't look at me," Victor said. "I'm just hiding here. My dad's been a bit overbearing lately, after what happened at the S.T.A.R. Labs."

A faint frown creased Steve's forehead. "Are you doing okay?" He asked, eyeing the Cyborg with apprehension.

He still wasn't entirely sure how the healing worked for someone like Victor to begin with, but he looked fine, for a half-robot. Come to think of it, having a self-regenerating tissue was quite handy, perhaps. If nothing else, it was so much more convenient in their line of work than dealing with the vulnerable human bodies that could be easily incapacitated and took weeks to heal.

It fascinated Steve to no end. That, and the mechanics of it. Jokingly, he asked Diana the other night if he could take Victor apart to see how he worked and put him back together, and she laughed until she had tears in her eyes.

The memory made his mouth curve in a smile, slight colour rising on his cheeks. He didn't mean it, of course. Not in a literal sense.

"Yeah." Victor turned back to the coffee maker, his lips pressed together. "Considering my definition of okay."

Steve nodded. "Acting up again?" He asked, his gaze darting toward the machine.

Vic nodded. "Alfred asked me to have a look. I think it's the power cord because everything else seems to be fine, but I can't…" he frowned.

"Diana seems to be the only one who has a way with that thing," Steve said and pulled a carton of orange juice from the fridge. He could get coffee later. Or he could also ask Alfred to throw the evil thing out and get something less temperamental.

Vic chuckled. "Yeah, Di's a woman of many talents."

"Dude," Barry hissed theatrically, snapping his head up, his eyes comically wide. His pointed at Steve. "That's his girlfriend."

Victor rolled his eyes. "I didn't mean it like-"

"I know, it's okay." Steve patted him on the metal shoulder, smiling. And added, "She really is." He started toward the pantry but then stopped and turned to Victor again. "Can I ask you something?"

Vic shrugged without looking at him. "Sure."

"Does it, uh… does it hurt?" Steve gestured vaguely toward the metal parts of him, too curious to shut up now that the words were out of his mouth.

This time, Victor glanced at him, his lips curving into a faint smile. "No. Not anymore." At the counter, Barry was hanging on to every word, his breakfast forgotten. "I know it did, when I… you know, in the beginning. But I don't remember much of it, it's all blurred." He shook his head, and Steve wondered if maybe it was for the best, a blessing in disguise.

Once, back in 1917, he got shot. A graze that was more of an inconvenience than an actual injury that left him with a scar on his left shoulder. He was sent to the field hospital to have it checked nonetheless, and that experience was like nothing he had ever had before. There were people there with their limbs torn off by the mines, people with half their faces melted off in the fire. The war was a nightmare, but that tent? That tent was hell. He had never seen this much pain in one place, so concentrated and all around them. It was like a living, breathing thing, taking up the inside of the canvas tent and suffocating them all.

Steve knew that few of those men lived, but those who did – well, he could bet his very soul that they would rather not remember the days of unbearable agony. He certainly didn't want that for Victor.

"Right now, it's odd," Vic added. "It feels… okay, but strange. I do have the whole 'phantom limb' thing going on when my leg or my back would itch and it wouldn't go away for hours, and it both the most and the least human thing about this whole…" He glanced down himself and then met Steve's eyes. "Whatever this is. But no, it doesn't hurt."

"Man, this is the coolest thing ever," Barry blurted out.

Victor looked at him. "Which part?"

"The—the ghost… whatever." He lifted another spoonful of cereal to his mouth. "All of it, really."

"You think?" Victor asked flatly.

"It does sound fascinating," Steve admitted.

"And he can play video games with his brain," Barry added, for what felt like a hundredth time, to Steve's memory.

"Yeah, that's the biggest perk of being only half human," Victor deadpanned.

"Exactly!" Barry agreed, not hearing the sarcasm in the Cyborg's voice.

"I guess having built-in weaponry could come in handy now and then," Steve offered before Vic had a chance to come up with a retort.

"Yeah," Victor nodded, "and also this."

He pressed his spread-out fingers to the side of the coffee maker, his brows pulling together in concentration as if he was hooking to the machine's mainframe. And then he curled his hand into a fist and smacked the whole thing with it. It sputtered for a moment, and after a few seconds, the main console lit up and the air filled instantly with the bitter smell of percolating coffee.

"I could have done that," Alfred noted, appearing in the kitchen in that exact moment.

"You're welcome," Victor grinned at him.

"Captain," Alfred nodded.

"Alfred," Steve echoed, amused.

He grabbed a cup from the holder but paused and looked over his shoulder, having to stifle a smile.

A speedster, a cyborg, a butler, bickering about something amongst themselves.

Somewhere in the house, an Atlantian was probably still snoring away – if there was one thing that Steve noticed about Arthur it was that he decidedly wasn't a morning person. Not in the slightest. That, his distaste for the water jokes – the last time Barry suggested that he tried talking to the river cutting Gotham in half, the very one that was known for toxic waste floating in it, alongside with two-headed fish, he had to make a very fast escape because Arthur did not appreciate the humour. Or that time when Bruce asked him to part the water of the lake like in the Biblical story and Steve thought that the Batman was in for his first real flight.

And somehow along the way, while he was busy putting the broken pieces of his life back together and trying to find his heart again, they all managed to crawl under Steve's skin without him even noticing and found home there.

In a few hours, he would see Diana again, and the mere thought of her made his heart spring into a gallop. He had missed her, but he didn't realize how much until he didn't have to anymore, and being back with her left him with a sense of vertigo, the ever-terrifying sensation of free fall that he didn't want to break.

How could less than a thousand lifetimes of this ever be enough?

xoox

Their first date after the war, after Steve had healed and they returned to London, was a dinner at a small restaurant not far from his apartment that he booked on Etta's recommendation because he had never stayed in the city long enough to discover any places more sophisticated than the bars frequented by Sameer and Charlie in between their missions. The ones that supplied cheap alcohol and trouble above all else. The ones that were not suited for a princess – he chose not to think of having taken her to one before (as Etta reminded him helpfully).

They were on a mission, he had told himself. It didn't count. He was not trying to…to make an impression then. Mostly. Yet, he still yearned to fix it.

Hence, the dinner.

He remembered the red checkered tablecloths and flowers on each table and an actual menu with a selection of options - something that he was so unaccustomed to that he could barely bring himself to pick something. He remembered smiling like a moron because he didn't seem to be able to ever stop, and Diana's inquisitive gaze when he tried to come up with a sensible enough explanation as to why any of that was a big deal when they were already sharing not only their meals but also a bed since the day she had found him in that field outside of the airbase in Belgium – something that he couldn't quite put a finger on himself. He remembered the awestruck and curious look on her face and thinking that they were doing it all wrong.

Okay, not wrong but the other way around, and it both amused and scared him, the newness of it and the lack of… rules, perhaps.

He took her to bed before he took her out for dinner – and no, sharing a bland stew by the campfire on the night they stayed with Chief didn't count as one. He loved her before he truly knew her. He almost lost her before they had a chance at anything. But then again, nothing had ever been normal about them, so maybe it wasn't much of a surprise that he struggled to find his footing. Maybe it was about making their own normal, or so he was thinking as he watched her watch him in the faint light of a dancing flame that night, a tender smile on her lips and a life full of wonder stretching infinitely before them.

But that was a long time ago, a whole century, to be exact. And even though Steve still remembered that night with striking clarity, they did manage to make their own rules that seemed to have worked much better than anything he had ever learned prior to meeting her, social rules be damned. Diana didn't care much for appearances and gestures. She wanted him, she wanted to be loved, and those were the things that Steve could give her so easily and gladly that he was nearly tripping over his own feet in his haste.

And this, it turned out, had never changed.

"Okay, you have to be able to reach the handlebars comfortably," Steve was telling her now, on a cold November afternoon nearly a hundred years later, as his hands curled over Diana's, her skin warm against his palms.

He had spent the past half hour going in great detail over the anatomy of his motorcycle and showing her the switches and the clutches and the levers, making her repeat his words back to him so he knew that she got it right. It was slightly more nuanced than the car, and even though she preferred manual transmission to the automatic, as he had learned, and the principle here was very similar, he wanted to make sure-

"This is your idea of taking me out?" Diana asked, not without amusement.

Sitting behind her, his chest pressed against her back and the hair that escaped a loose bun on the nape of her neck whipping against his face, Steve let out a short laugh. "Don't tell me this is not fun." And then, unable to resist the temptation – because when was he ever? – he dipped his head and kissed the back of her neck.

"You're being distracting," she warned him, but there was a smile in her voice.

"I learn from the best," he noted, and she laughed. "Okay, so…" He cleared his throat.

"It's pretty straightforward," she said, turning her head slightly to the side.

Truth be told, this morning when he promised her that he had a plan he didn't exactly have one. He just thought that he would figure it out by lunch. It didn't bother Steve one way or another that she seemed to be the one to always choose where they went – which was her bedroom more often than not (which was something that he had no business complaining about). However, there was a burning need simmering inside of him to do something for her, break out of their routine, however non-invasive it was. It had been so long since he could have her all to himself, even for a short while, that he craved it beyond comprehension.

Neither he, nor Diana walked through the past century without emerging on the other side with more than a little bit of cynicism clinging to their bodies like a second skin. He had expected it from himself, what with the first war effectively stripping him of the delusions he might have had when he was younger and the subsequent ones leaving him with a hard shell around his soul to protect it from further pain, but seeing it in her – albeit much less pronounced and bitter than his own – was still something that Steve wasn't quite prepared for.

The fact alone didn't bother so much as sadden him. There were many things that he had always wanted desperately to shield her from, and knowing that he had failed on all accounts felt like a punch to the gut that left him breathless.

It was not his place to stop it, to get her not to give up – and god help him, he would never blame her if she had. Time was starting to take a toll on him as well. There were moments when he ached to know what his expiration date was, exactly. Queen Hippolyta made it perfectly clear that he wasn't immortal like her daughter, and there were many a night when Steve lay awake scared of closing his eyes for fear of never opening them again because there were no rules to his life.

God only knew what Diana went through on her own, what demons were lurking in her mind, haunted by the memories of pain and loss.

There was nothing that Steve could do to fix it for her.

However, he could try to coax the old Diana out of her hiding. He had never expected her to remain the same, much like he knew that he would be a different person at the end of this journey – there was no point in fighting the inevitable. But their old selves, brittle and frayed at the edges, were still there somewhere, deep down, buried under a layer of disappointment and pain and fear.

And so when she came back to get him around lunch time, he gave her knee-length skirt a sceptical look and suggested that she changed into something more practical. Intrigued, Diana obliged without arguing. And then he drove them to the harbour, nearly empty this late in the season with the chilly wind blowing from the water and angry waves crashing against the stone and concrete below, and said that it was time for her to learn how to drive a motorcycle.

All things considered, it definitely wasn't the worst idea he had ever come up with.

And there it was, a familiar glint of surprise in her eyes mixed with something that made Steve's chest fold in on itself. A feeling that was most certainly worth dying for. He wanted—

He wanted so badly for her to never stop being surprised. He wanted her to never, ever stop wondering.

The air was cold, biting at their cheeks and noses even though Steve was more than a little certain that Diana only wore her jacket because it was a social convention, to stop strangers from gawking at her. A dozen rather puzzled seagulls were floating over the water coloured in gold by the sun that no longer bothered pretending that the winter wasn't near, casting odd looks in their direction, and he felt his blood flowing in his veins like it hadn't in a very long time.

"Are you hungry?" Steve asked as Diana fiddled with the controls under the dashboard.

"Yes," she admitted, glancing at him. "A little."

"Well, maybe you could drive us somewhere later," he offered, and she smirked. "Ready?"

Diana nodded, and he caught a glimpse of another smile that took root in his chest, spreading all the way into the tips of his fingers and his toes before springing into a full bloom across his face and he was beaming like a lovesick idiot that he was. God, he was so crazy about her that his heart was about to burst.

Steve leaned forward and pressed a kiss to her shoulder, sliding his arm around her – not to be thrown off the bike if she started it too abruptly, and also because he wanted to never stop touching her. He ran his hand across her stomach. "Okay, let's do this."

It took her a few attempts, but Diana got it right after a minute or two, waving him off with, "I got this, Steve," as she brimmed with stubborn determination to figure things out on her own that he loved so.

And then… and then there was swerving, and the wind tearing at the folds of their clothes and slapping wisps of her hair against his face. And laughter. And a time or two when Steve thought that they would fly through an embankment and straight into the frigid water - and if they did, it would probably be worth it. The bike stalled; Diana had to restart it half a dozen times before she got a hang of it, and when she came too close to end of the pier, he had to grab the handlebars over her hands and steer them back to safety.

He could feel her excitement flowing in his own veins like it belonged there.

And suddenly, none of this felt like a bad idea anymore.

The past few days felt surreal, too good to be true even. It was almost like someone climbed into his head and pulled everything he had dreamt of and prayed for and made it real, and even better than anything he could ever have imagined.

However, Steve wasn't delusional about this honeymoon phase lasting forever. Soon enough, their lives would have to fall back into some sort of rhythm. Diana had a job, and he had one hell of a task cut out for him if he wanted to work with the League. Waller's radio silence bothered him more than he was willing to let on and he itched to find out what caused it. He needed to know what they were up against before it was too late, and that thought was a constant presence in the back of his mind.

But it wasn't ending today, and hopefully not tomorrow; and right now, neither of them needed to think about any of that. Not for a little while.

"I gotta admit, you weren't half bad," he said when the sun started to inch toward the horizon and the shadows around them began to grow longer and Diana finally brought his bike to a stop with a jerk.

"Not half bad?" She echoed, incredulous and mock-insulted, as Steve propped it on a kickstand and slid off, missing the close contact with her instantly.

She climbed off too and stepped to him, pulling him to her by the lapels of his jacket. Steve didn't resist, his lips stretching into a smile the moment before they met hers.

"You were good," he murmured against her mouth, drawing her closer to him by her hips.

One of her hands slid up his chest and curled around the back of his neck, her body alive and languid against his. He could taste the thrill of the past few hours on her tongue, feel it in the way her fingers slid into his hair as she kissed him.

"A natural," Steve added, smiling.

Diana hummed in agreement and then stepped back. She reached for his hand and weaved her fingers through his. They walked toward the end of the pier, listening to the cries of seagulls nearly swallowed by the furious roar of the water and the singing of the wind. Before them, the ocean was stretching endlessly all the way to the places somewhere out of their reach.

Diana paused before the railing and peered into the distance, longing for something that she couldn't quite put into words building up inside of her. Steve could feel it thrumming in her blood.

He let go of her hand and moved to wrap his arms around her from behind. He pressed a kiss to the back of her head before resting his cheek against her temple, his gaze following hers. The wind was ferocious here, but the view was breathtaking – fierce and powerful, the ocean smelling of salt and seaweed and places they couldn't see. He could certainly understand the appeal even if they were a few seconds away from being blown away.

"You were right," Diana said after a few moments. She ran her hand along the sleeve of his jacket until her fingers reached his wrist, curling around it, her touch soothingly warm. "It was fun."

Steve chuckled. "Hey, I promised you a good time."

"You always do, and you always deliver," she responded matter-of-factly, and his skin flushed at the implication she didn't even bother to hide.

The Diana he knew back in the day was far less proficient in suggestive banter, but Steve had to admit that he rather enjoyed it now, even if half the time it ended with his heart racing for dear life and him struggling for words, a quick-thinking and articulate spy that he was.

Much to Diana's immense amusement.

"You know, we could have just stayed in your bedroom," he pointed out, and she laughed, the warmth of it making his very soul unfurl in his chest. For a while, they just stood there, watching the seagulls diving toward the water and soaring back into the sky as he held her close, her body nestled neatly into the circle of his arms and his heart hammering against her shoulder blades. "Do you miss it?" Steve asked after a few minutes. "Themyscira?"

The name of the island still rolled with difficulty from his tongue. Their time spent there remained one of his most cherished memories – not so much the heavenly island as the look on Diana's face when she was there, the easiness to her, her body language relaxed and at ease. There was nothing there to warrant any worry, never had been. And yet Steve couldn't help but wonder now and then how their lives might have turned out if they never went there at all.

A pang of shame shot through him, hot and burning, making him want to claw it from under his skin. The island was Diana's home and she loved it, and she longed for it even when she didn't want to admit it. He had no right to take it away from her. Yet, if his conversation with the Queen never happened—

A sigh flowed from his chest. He wouldn't have to run away from something he never knew existed.

"I do," Diana said after a moment. "But I know they are well. It is enough."

She turned to rest her forehead against his cheek, and Steve reached absently to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear.

"Do you ever wish that we never went there?" She asked as if reading his mind.

"No," Steve responded, surprised that he actually meant it. "I wish that some things had turned out differently. I wish that your mother was wrong." He took a breath. "But no, I never wished that we didn't go. You missed them, and I wanted answers."

Be careful what you wish for, he thought. Most of the things he knew about the Greeks and their mythology was from Diana, and the awful irony of opening his own Pandora's Box through her wasn't lost on him. Speak of unexpected.

"I did," she admitted, her finger circling absently over the juts of his knuckles. "But I wanted you more."

He stayed quiet for a while, watching the water, inhaling the ocean. Diana had always been drawn to it for as long as he could remember, the wistfulness in her gaze whenever she would look at the waves crashing against the beach never escaping his attention.

I wanted you more.

"Are you cold?" Steve asked softly, tightening his grip on her.

"No," Diana shook her head, her hair brushing against his face.

He smiled. "Right. A goddess. So above our trivial human concerns."

"Doesn't mean that I don't like you holding me," she told him.

"You know, I…" Steve started and faltered. He swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry and his blood pounding fast in his ears. He could say anything now and it wouldn't matter. She wouldn't know the difference. Still, when he regained his ability to speak, he went for the truth, "I saw you once. In Paris, at the Louvre. About a decade and a half ago."

His heart was thudding in earnest by the time he fell silent to the point of him feeling dizzy.

Diana stayed quiet, and a hot wave of panic rose inside of him, making him want momentarily to turn back the time and swallow the words before they came out of his mind. With her, he always was either fumbling for words, or spilling his soul without thinking twice, and he wasn't certain which one was more frightening.

They never taught him that. When they were schooling him to be a spy, no one ever told him that there was nothing as disarming and terrifying as loving someone with everything that he was.

"I know," Diana said so softly that he almost missed it. "I saw you, too."

Steve's brows pulled together and he glanced down at her, wanting desperately to read her face but she remained staring straight ahead.

"You—you did?" He asked.

Surely, he had to have heard her wrong.

"It was April and we had just opened a new exhibition the previous week. You were standing in front of a Monet painting and looking at it like you were trying to find the answers in it unknown to mankind since the creation of the universe," she said quietly. "And I thought… for a moment, I thought that you came back for me."

Steve felt his body go rigid, and when he spoke, his voice came out hoarse and raw.

"Diana…"

"I didn't think that it was really you," she admitted, her fingers running absently over the back of his hand.

"You didn't?" He echoed.

Diana shook her head. "I used to see you often after you left. I'd notice a man with the same haircut or hear someone speak in your accent, and think…"

Her voice caught, and she trailed off. Steve pressed his lips to her temple. She turned in the circle of his arms, her hands snaking under his unzipped jacket to rest on his waist. She might not have felt the cold the way he did, but her cheeks were pink from the wind, and cool to the touch when he reached to loop a piece of hair around her ear.

It fell right back across her face moments later.

"I went to an art show in Geneva once, shortly after I moved back to Paris," she continued, taking his hand in hers and intertwining their fingers. Her eyes were watching his thumb running over her knuckles. "There was a father with a young girl, his daughter, on the plaza in front of the gallery. She ran over to him and he caught her in his arms and put her on his shoulders. She was laughing the whole time. From the back, he looked so much like you that I was certain…" Her other hand twitched on his side. "Until he turned around, I thought it was you."

Steve could see it in his mind – a sun-bathed square and the light reflecting off the windows, flocks of bold pigeons and toddlers chasing after them between congregations of tourists with cameras. And amidst them all, a woman frozen to a spot. He recalled the way he felt when he saw Bruce kiss her at the benefit and it was akin having someone stab him in the heart and twist the knife for good measure.

Whatever that encounter felt like for Diana, it couldn't have felt good.

"I'm sorry," he murmured, bowing his head closer to hers until their faces were almost touching.

"I hoped that it was you, and prayed that it wasn't," she said, her gaze drawn back to the waves, and for once, Steve wished that he couldn't see her expression. The anguish chasing across her features was unbearable. "That day, I was so jealous I couldn't recognize myself. More than I've ever been before." Her lips twitched humourlessly. "Which is ironic, considering the history of my people."

"And here I was thinking that you were above something that mundane," Steve muttered.

Diana turned to him, the concerned lines around her eyes smoothing out, her lips curving into a proper smile.

"You'd think so, but in reality, no one feels deeper or more passionately than gods." She sighed. "I knew that it wasn't you when that man turned around, but before then, I stood there and watched them. And I thought that there was nothing that I wanted more than for you to be happy. But even more than that, I wanted you to be happy with me."

Steve took in a shuddered breath and looked up from the knot of their hands. He found her gaze.

"I'm happy with you, Diana," he said quietly, his voice earnest. "I've never been happier than when I am with you. Then. Now. A million years from this moment."

It was silly thing to say. Silly and sentimental and like it came straight from one of those tacky greeting cards that people gave to each other because their own words didn't seem enough. The words that, if someone else said them, would have grated on his own ears. The words that, if said in front of Sammy and his friends, would have made him a laughing stock for weeks on end. Steve didn't care. He wanted to be tacky and sentimental, he wanted to sound like a cliché. If that was how he felt, then so be it.

Diana's features softened and a teasing comment he half-expected never came.

"I tried to find you, in the 1960's, after Etta passed away," she said after a moment. "I thought you'd come to her funeral, and when you didn't, I tried…"

Steve grimaced a little. "I'm pretty damn good at hiding."

"Yes, you are."

"I—" he cleared his throat. "I didn't know about Etta until it was too late." The memory was bitter and painful, aching still in his chest. Of all the things he would never forgive himself for, losing track of the people he loved was one of his biggest regrets. "I spoke with her daughter, about a month after…" He shook his head. "I went to say goodbye to Charlie, though. You should have seen how mad he was at me for—" his lips tugged upwards at the corners at the memory. "Well, for losing you."

Diana let out a small laugh. "I can imagine. Sameer was just as bad." She ran her hand back and forth along his side, her touch warm even through his shirt. "I saw him in Paris a few times, and the man had a foul mouth on as many languages as I could count."

"All about me?" Steve chuckled.

Diana's eyebrow arched. "Of course."

"I went to his show once, when he was touring in Belgium," Steve confessed. "He beat me with a bouquet that he received from one of his devoted admirers." She laughed again. "Said it was a much better use for it. And called me names, too, that I'm not going to repeat in the presence of a lady, and told me to go find you." He let out a breath. "I'm not saying I didn't deserve it."

"You didn't," she murmured, lifting their hands up to her mouth and pressing a kiss to his fingers. "You were hurting." The wind picked up and then died down just as suddenly, and odd calm settling over them. "Although I still wish you'd listened to him."

Steve did, too. Wished he'd listened to Etta when he called him a moron and some other unflattering words. Wished he'd listened to Sammy when he told Steve to get his 'sorry ass back to Paris and stop being an idiot' – direct quote. Wished he'd listened to Charlie whose lungs were collapsing the last time they spoke and who still managed to make Steve feel like he was the one who had drawn the short straw. The latter probably should have clued him in, but the wound was still raw and bleeding, and he chose to let it scar rather than poke at it.

"I miss them," he said.

"I miss them, too," Diana sighed.

They spoke of their friends some more, trading old stories and filling in the gaps that each of them had. Steve never met Sameer's grandkids, and Diana knew little to nothing about Charlie who seemed to be the most adamant of them all to cut the ties with the past for fear of falling into a pit of despair that the war had dragged him into all over again. He missed Etta terribly, but keeping an open communication was a tempting getaway to coming back and he was scared. Diana did, though. She never forgot, and he gave her a story from before they met for each one that she had from after he had left.

"Does the League ever remind you of them?" Steve asked when they both fell silent, realizing that he was practically shaking from the chill by that point, his toes numb cold stones in his boots.

"Sometimes," she smiled. "I think the League is far less reckless than your boys."

Amused, he shook his head. "I beg to differ." And added, "I think that if they all met, they'd have liked each other."

She let out a small laugh. "They would have," she agreed, leaning into him.

"Do you remember Veld?" He asked after a moment, his voice low. "The night after the liberation? Dancing?"

She tilted her head, curious. "Yes. Of course."

"Remember how I told you that I didn't know what life without the war was like?" She didn't say anything, but her eyes were flicking between his, waiting for him to continue. "I still don't think I do. Probably never have."

Diana let go of his hand, her gaze searching his, and it was as hard for Steve to look at her now as it was when she had first asked that question and he came up empty.

She put her hands on either side of his face, and her mouth formed into a small smile that made something snap inside of him.

"I love you," she said quietly, her right thumb running over his cheekbone. "I will always love you."

His gaze dropped from her eyes down to her mouth and the temptation was too strong to resist. He leaned forward and kissed her, her lips warm against his. She pulled him to her, weaving her arms around his neck and allowing his hands so slip underneath her jacket and around her waist, palms roaming over her back, her shoulder-blades, everywhere he wanted them to be, drawing her closer to his chest until he could feel her heartbeat as clear as his own.

She gasped against his mouth when one of his hands slipped beneath the hem of her shirt, startled by the cold of his touch to her skin. A low groan formed in the back of her throat, her lips parting against his and sending a shiver of a different kind down Steve's body. He didn't hesitate, kissing her the way he wanted to kiss her every moment of every day that they were apart, frantic and almost panicky, needing to put into his touch everything he knew not how to express with words.

Diana was the one to break the kiss, pulling back a little, her eyes dazed and dark with want when they found his, knocking what little air Steve still had left in his lungs out of him. She was breathing hard, her chest heaving against his, and although it had never been about pride with them, he was stupidly pleased to know that even after all this time he was still able to kiss her senseless, quite literally so.

"Take me back home, Steve," she whispered, and it came out as a demand, her voice hoarse, her exhales puffing out in small clouds between them.

The corner of his mouth lifted. "I thought you were hungry," he reminded her, his fingers running back and forth along the base of her spine beneath her shirt.

Diana's hand flexed, curling around a fistful of his shirt under his jacket.

"I am."

xoox

Funny how some mistakes were meant to keep biting one in the ass for as long as one lived, apparently.

There wasn't a day when Amanda Waller didn't regret forming Suicide Squad – she got nothing out of it and lost more than she wanted to admit – and yet it was the one thing that somehow seemed to haunt her no matter how much she tried to put it behind her.

If she knew to set her attention on Justice League earlier, a lot of things could have gone very differently, yet here she was, still trying to clean up the mess in Midcity while dodging everything else coming her way and seeing no way out.

And on top of that, she had managed to grossly miscalculate her steps with the League as well, which felt like a cherry on top of the crap cake of the situation she was in. When she first found the photograph and discovered that Steve Trevor was alive, he was meant to be her trump card. Instead, she was left with nothing to bargain with. Bringing him in was a mistake. The one that she couldn't fix now.

There had been nothing in his scant file on his personal relationship with Wonder Woman, and as far as Waller was concerned, Diana Prince had never been in a romantic relationship at all. She should have known better.

At the time, Waller was going for half-gratitude from a certain demi-goddess in hopes of getting in her good graces, and half-shock to shake up the seemingly established peace in the League. God knew, she needed to have an upper hand with them for once, and briefly, Bruce Wayne's reaction was almost worth it. Her own superiors had been breathing down her neck for months now, urging her to gain control over half a dozen people who could tear this city apart without breaking a sweat with no consequences whatsoever and, if nothing else, her continuous failures in that regard were starting to drive her up the wall.

Yet, what she ended up with was rejection and animosity, driving her further away from her goal than she had ever been. And she needed to fix it ASAP. There was only so much her superiors would put up with before they decided to get someone else involved, someone who, in their opinion, might be better suited for the task, but Amanda Waller had not spent several decades of her life doing her damned best to keep peace here to simply hand over her victories to anyone else and walk away.

The problem was, she was running out of time.

Ice cubes clinked softly in her glass when Waller lifted it to her lips and took a small sip, aware of the burning trail the alcohol would leave in her throat. It was almost midnight and the hallways outside of her office had been quiet for hours. She couldn't bring herself to leave though, not yet. She needed to find a way to get Steve Trevor to cooperate – of them all, she suspected, he was the only one without a personal grudge against her. Or, at the very least, it was not supposed to be a big one. She needed to get him on her side, find a way to cooperate with him. If her intel on the nature of his relationship with Wonder Woman was correct – and she suspected that it was, based on both of their reactions on the day Waller brought him in – then he was her best hope.

And if that failed… Well, there should be a way to make him compliant, she figured. They did, after all, had an agreement, which essentially made him a property of the Government of the United States, but she didn't want to use it against him unless she absolutely had to. Which, truth be told, was more likely to happen than not.

Waller chose not to think of how his girlfriend might take it yet.

A knock on the door gave her a start, making her hand jerk so that a few drops of an ember liquid spilled on the papers spread out in front of her.

"Yes?" Waller snapped, frowning at the slight nervous uptilt in her voice.

The door opened a crack and a tech whose name she never bothered to learn poked his head into her office. "Director?" He adjusted the glasses that kept sliding low on his nose.

"Yes?" She repeated coolly.

"We have a problem."

She almost laughed at that. Of course, they did. When was the last time they didn't? It only seemed like a logical ending to her already shitty day. She stifled it though, her frown deepening momentarily.

"What is it?" She demanded when the man didn't say anything else.

He crossed the room, walking over to her desk and the extended his clenched fist to her and opened it. On the palm of his hand were a few small pieces that looked like—

Waller pressed her lips into a tight line.

"Bugs," she muttered.

The man cleared his throat. "These were found on the first level. We are scanning the whole building now."

"How?" She snapped, eyes drilling into a tech who seemingly shrunk under her glare.

"We are checking the security footage—" he started.

"Nobody leaves until the building has been cleared," Waller stopped him.

He nodded. "Yes, Director."

When the door closed behind him, Waller leaned back in her chair and let a long breath through her nose, trying to clam blind rage rising inside of her.

"Bruce Wayne."

xoox

"Thank you."

Perched on the kitchen counter and wearing nothing but her panties and Steve's button-up shirt with the sleeves rolled up half to her elbows, Diana watched him rummage expertly through the freezer, searching for the stash of ice-cream that she knew Alfred always kept for her visits.

Her gaze followed the defined lines of his arms, the taut muscles of his back, lingering on the dimples that disappeared into the waistline of his jeans riding low on his hips. She bit her lip, trying to swallow a smile, and vowed silently to try and get him to be shirtless – or, better yet, naked – more often. Why on Earth was he even allowed to cover a body like this was beyond her.

She had always found Steve attractive but missing him somehow intensified it to a point where she could barely keep her hands off of him. Their relationship had never been about physicality, per se. Their connection running deeper than just sex. Diana was in love with him, she cared about him in a way she had never cared about anyone else. She missed him achingly whenever they were apart even for a brief period of time. However, it didn't hurt that she found him handsome as well, reminding her of the pictures of ancient gods from the books that filled row upon row of shelves in the library on Themyscira. Lean muscles and easy grace.

And right now, she certainly enjoyed it.

Steve glanced up at her, his eyebrow quirked and his face puzzled. His hair was tousled comically after the past few hours that they had spent reminding one another unapologetically and a with as much fervour as they could muster just how really and truly well they fit in every sense Diana could think of.

"Huh?"

"For today," she clarified, her hands gripping the edge of the counter, her legs crossed at the ankles. "I don't believe I said this. I should have."

He grinned at her. "I believe you did."

"Not in words," Diana pointed out, her head tilted ever so slightly.

"Ah-ha!" Victorious, he pulled a pint of ice-cream from the back of the freezer – Alfred's attempt to keep the other members of the League from so much as looking at it, which Diana found amusing to no end, considering that they all knew better than to even try. "You were very convincing in other ways," Steve promised, moving toward her.

It was past midnight, the house around them dark and quiet. For fear of disturbing anyone else, they chose to forgo turning on the overhead light, sticking instead to a smaller lamp over the stove that cast a warm glow around them while the corners of the kitchen remained drowned in shadows. Hunger, as it turned out, was a force to be reckoned with, and while skipping dinner in favour of far more exciting activities wasn't nowhere near Diana's list of regrets, a late-night snack seldom was a bad idea.

Steve stopped in front of her, his elbow brushing against her leg, and just like that the familiar warmth stirred in her belly as it often did even at the small touches that punctuated their routines. It amused Diana beyond measure that he would barely even look at her in the presence of the other members of the League because it was 'unprofessional' to be 'personal' in front of them, which, consequently, only made her want to put her hands all over him even more.

But there was no one else here now, Alfred and the rest of them fast asleep, and when Steve was within her reach, she draped her arms around her neck and reeled him closer, watching his eyes widen as she did so.

He was a damn good spy, and even though she might have been a little biased in her assessment, Diana was certain that she had never met anyone better. With or without her, he still singlehandedly obtained the intel to stop the Great War. With or without her, she knew that he would still go against the orders of his superiors to save the lives of innocent people. With or without her, she was sure, he would have still climbed into that airplane. He wasn't just good. He was excellent.

And yet, there was something intoxicating in knowing that he could barely ever hide his feelings when it came to her, in seeing the desire in his eyes even when he didn't mean for it to show.

"Oh, other ways," Diana echoed. "Yes, of course."

"I like other ways," he promised to her. "I like them a lot."

"Good to know," she murmured, touching her mouth to his, reminded pleasantly of the moment several hours ago when he peeled her clothes off her body only to reveal the same black set underneath them that she wore on the night they went to Metropolis, thin lace clinging so close to her skin that it was hard to tell where one ended and the other one began.

Diana watched him stare at her, slack-jawed and more than a little desperate, drinking her up as his eyes moved down her body and then back up, his rather undignified gaping making her want him even more. His need was so raw she could feel it in her core. And she promised to herself to wear something like that more often. Every day, if she could. If only to have Steve look at her the way he did tonight. She was quite adamant to make it happen for as long as he would let her.

"So, about that story that I was trying to tell you when we were so rudely interrupted," he started, drawing away from her. One hand still resting on her hip, Steve pulled open a cutlery drawer near her left thigh, fumbling for cutlery.

"You mean, when our clothes fell off?" She teased, one of her arms still slung over his shoulder.

"Hey, an interruption is an interruption," Steve brandished a spoon in her direction, and Diana laughed. "And they didn't just… fall off."

"Yes, I remember you being very diligent with removing those that didn't," she told him with as much seriousness as she could muster.

"God," Steve exhaled and rubbed his eyes. "Don't," he said, pointing at her. "Don't do that."

"What?" Diana asked innocently, her fingers running absently along the base of his neck.

"You know what," he grumbled.

She raised her hands up, biting her lip so she wouldn't burst out laughing. She took a breath. "Okay, I'm sorry. Please, keep going."

He regarded her suspiciously, but then only shook his head.

I have never loved him more, she thought, watching him, her lips pressed together around a smile.

"So, a week after I get deployed and come to London, I go to this bar around the corner," Steve continued from the moment where they had left off when something far more appealing became a priority. "The kind of place where you go looking for trouble."

He twisted the lid off the ice-cream tub.

"Were you looking for trouble?" Diana asked, curious.

He chuckled. "No, I was looking for a drink and didn't know any better." He passed another spoon to her. "So, I walk in, and there's a brawl over… At the time, I had no idea what it was over, to be honest, but it was messy and loud, and apparently it was all a fault of one particular man who no one could find." He let out a short laugh. "You know why? Because he was hiding under a woman's skirt."

A spoon reaching for ice-cream, she paused and looked at him. "You're joking."

"Honest to god truth."

She blinked, a mental image wild in her mind, and then laughed, having to clasp her hand over her mouth not to wake anyone up.

"And that is how you met Sameer?" She asked.

Steve smirked and offered her a half-shrug. "And that is how I met Sameer. The bravest man I've ever known was hiding under a skirt. And doing damn fine down there."

She was shaking her head now. "Lucky Sammy."

"Poor woman," he corrected. "She turned out being the owner's wife, and he was not pleased with any of that. Not the fight and certainly not a strange man getting closely acquainted with his wife's undergarments."

"I can't believe it," she muttered.

Diana knew about their first mission together, knew the story of them meeting Chief, and a million small moments in-between, but this… How Steve failed to mention something this impossibly entertaining was beyond her.

"As it turned out, I was the only person there not after his head," Steve added, trying to swallow back his own laughter. "Sammy lost a game of cards and couldn't pay up, and talking his way out of it didn't work out, so…"

"What happened?"

"I had to grab him and run, or they'd probably come for his blood." There was fondness in his voice that made Diana's chest constrict. "We'd been inseparable since."

He had to be feeling it too, she was thinking now. The dread and exhaustion of watching everyone he loved die. A slight crack in his voice when he mentioned their names, the wistfulness in his gaze. She saw them too for they reflected her own.

"You do know how to find trouble, Steve," she noted nonetheless, her heart full and her chest tight with affection.

He grinned at her. "You should know."

Diana hummed, a smile tugging at the corners of her lips. She was not going to argue, all things considered.

"This is delicious," she said, taking a bite of ice-cream.

Heavens bless Alfred for remembering about her weakness. He didn't have to, and she would never have asked – not at Bruce's home where he already allowed his comfort to be disturbed for the sake of the League. Which only deepened her gratitude towards the older man.

"I'm glad you're so easy to please," Steve noted.

Her eyebrow arched. "Am I, now?"

He scooped some ice-cream with his spoon and lifted it up to her lips. She licked it clean without breaking the eye contact as she watched his smile slip and his eyes turn dark. Her stomach tightened, heat starting to simmer in her veins. His hand that still rested on her side flexed, fingers digging into her skin through the thin cotton of the shirt she was wearing.

Diana's hand curled over the side of his neck. She uncrossed her ankles and pulled him to her until he was standing between her parted knees. The warmth of his mouth against her cold tongue sent a shiver down her spine, a low sound of appreciation rising in the back of her throat. He tasted of vanilla and caramel and want, and she was drunk on it, on the feeling of him, on the heat of his body under the palms of her hands.

"You are trouble, angel," Steve murmured.

"Sorry," she breathed.

"You're not."

She smiled against his lips. "Not really, I'm not."

His hands clenched the fabric of her shirt, tugging her close, and Diana thought absently that this was exactly how they ended up without any dinner in the first place. Or lunch, if she recalled correctly. Somehow, somewhere along the way, Steve Trevor had turned entirely into her sole sustenance, and she was in no hurry to have it any other way.

Her hand closed over his jaw, tilting his face up, her body responding to his touch on its own volition.

"Diana…" he started, a warning in his voice, when she buried her fingers in his hair, bowing down to kiss him properly.

"There's no one here-"

"Ohmigod!"

A yelp caused Steve to jerk away from her so fast that they both nearly tumbled down to the floor, his hand flailing to grab the marble counter to catch his balance. His blood flowing in earnest and his heart thudding in a panicked frenzy, he turned to the door to find Barry standing there, his mouth agape.

He was wearing flannel pajama bottoms with a yellow duck print and a loose Lord Of The Rings t-shirt, a pair of massive headphones sitting on his head like a perfect finishing touch. His eyes were cartoonishly wide as his gaze slid over Steve's bare chest and an endless expanse of Diana's legs peeking from under the hem of the shirt that she barely bothered to button properly, at which point his face turned scarlet red.

He looked away quickly. "Oh my god," he repeated. "I'm so sorry."

"Barry," Diana started, her smile sympathetic.

"I'm sorry," he stuttered. "I didn't hear you." He yanked the headphones off, and by now even the tips of his ears were crimson. "I—I didn't think anyone was here, this late."

"Really… sorry about that," Steve grimaced.

"No, no, it's cool." Barry's gaze darted for a second toward them, and then snapped away just as fast. "I was just—I thought I'd have a snack, because there's no such thing as a bad time for a snack." He paused, looking mortified, "Except there is, apparently. And it's not good for you, anyway. I think. Eating late, that is. So…."

"It's not—" Steve looked toward Diana's his eyes pleading. "We were just-"

"Never mind," Barry interjected, nodding more to himself than for their benefit. "I'm just gonna…" He started toward the balcony, then stopped abruptly. "Wrong way." Steve had never seen anyone put this much effort into avoiding looking at something. The Flash turned on his heel. "I'll see you later."

"Barry," Diana tried again, her voice kind, but he was already gone in a whoosh of wind that left a faint smell of ozone and a few sparks of electric discharge behind.

Steve let out a sharp breath and scrubbed his hands over his face, pushing his fingers into his hair. His shoulders slumped forward.

"I'll go talk to him," he said.

Diana's hand curled over his arm. She shook her head, finally tearing her gaze away from the dark doorway and turning to Steve. "I don't think he's going to talk to you now. Better give him some space, perhaps."

A flash of doubt rippled across his face as he debated her words, and for a moment, she thought that he was going to argue, but then he stepped back toward her. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, watching her features soften.

"Do you think we broke him?" He asked, his voice miserable and his face matching Barry's red suit.

"He'll be fine," Diana promised, shaking her head a little and trying very, very hard not to laugh. "I'll talk to him in the morning."

"No, I'll do it," Steve sighed.

Her eyebrow quirked. "Because you're a man?"

His lips twitched a little. "Because he has a hero-worship thing going on for you," he explained. "He probably won't even hear a word you'll say. He'll just… stare."

She rolled her eyes a little. "That is not true."

"Just—just trust me on this," he shook his head, feeling her hand rest on the nape of his neck.

"It's not like he doesn't know about those things," Diana whispered, scratching her nails through his hair.

A strangled sound formed in the back of Steve's throat. "Oh God…."

"He has a girlfriend…" She continued, then paused and corrected herself, "A lady friend. Iris. He is not very fond of discussing his personal life."

"And now he is all too aware about ours. Besides, it's not the same," Steve muttered, wincing. "Hell, it's like walking in on your parents-" He stopped abruptly and dropped his forehead on her shoulder with a groan. Another mental image that he didn't need. "Not that we're his…" he added, mortified. "I need to stop talking now."

He scrunched his face and Diana rubbed a soothing hand over his back.

"We weren't doing anything," she pointed out.

"We were," he protested. "Sort of."

"It was only a kiss."

"I don't think it matters," he said, his voice muffled and pained.

Diana pressed her lips to the crown of his head.

"Steve."

He looked up at her, his cheeks still flushed.

"I think we need take this party back to your room," he offered. "Just to be safe. In case someone else wakes up to get a glass of water, or… I don't know." He rubbed his eyes.

She bit her lip, studying him for a few moments and he felt his stomach drop.

"What?" He asked, lowering his hand.

Diana's eyes flicked between his.

"I have to go back to Paris at the end of the week," she said.

He blinked, momentarily confused by the sudden change of subject. Weren't they just about to discuss some sort of obligatory therapy for the Flash? He could even think of a few ways to foot the bill to Bruce.

Her words sunk in slowly.

Paris.

"Oh."

It wasn't like Steve didn't see it coming.

Diana had spent every morning this past week going through her emails and making phone calls and arranging video chats, digging through electronic catalogues that her assistant kept sending her – damn him – and signing forms and permits and other things that Steve didn't entirely understand. She had a whole life to go back to.

The only problem was that Paris was far away from Gotham. Very far away, in fact.

Was she even coming back?

For a moment, he imagined being here without her, in this house that looked like an aquarium – according to Barry, who appeared to have strong opinion about glass walls – having to endure heavy silences that tended to hang between him and Bruce Wayne.

The prospect was dreadful.

Maybe he should just leave, too. Find a place in the city-

For one unbearable moment, Steve remembered with startling accuracy what waking up without her for the past several decades had been like, his chest aching from missing her already.

"There is an exhibition coming up," Diana added, watching him, and he tried not to let his disappointment show, knowing that he was failing spectacularly. "Pierre would have a heart attack if I'm not there. And some other things that I need to take care of, on top of that. Like the recovered painting. I requested for it to be sent to the Louvre for proper assessment before we return it where it belongs." Her fingers smoothed down his hair before her hands came to rest on his cheeks, framing his face. "And I also thought that maybe you and I could have some alone time."

Steve stared at her. "Alone time?" He repeated dumbly.

Her gaze darted toward the dark hallway. "I love them, but it can be a little hectic here, no?" He nodded absently, his eyes never leaving her face. Diana turned to him. She traced the line of his jaw with her thumb. "Would you like to come with me?"

"To Paris?" He clarified.

She smiled. "I mean, you don't have to-"

"Would you want that?" He interjected before she went any further. She could have asked him to move to Neptune, and he would have followed her gladly and without a single question asked. "Would you want me to go with you?"

Diana's smile widened, blossoming into something entirely majestic.

She nodded. "I would want that very much."

To be continued...

---

A/N: Welp, this was fun and I hope you enjoyed this part! I promise you there will be actual plot soon lol I just want to enjoy fluff for a while! Feed back is awesome and I will love you forever for it!