Author's note: Hey guys, guess who is still alive :) Gosh, I cannot believe it has taken me so long to post this story, considering it's been done for ages. I don't have an excuse, I'm just terrible at being organized.
Anyway… This is technically the last chapter. There will be a brief and entirely self-indulgent epilogue that I will share in a couple of weeks, but for all intents and purposes, this is pretty much it? I guess? It took me over 20 months to write this fic, a few more to edit it, so… for quite a long time this story had been pretty much the centre of my life and I'm feeling a bit emotional about saying goodbye to it. It taught me a lot, as a person and as a writer. I met some absolutely remarkable people because of it and for that, I will always be grateful.
And of course, I wanted to thank you all-those who stayed around from the start, those who joined this journey half-way through, and those who just discovered it. I am so very grateful for all the love and support you have shown, and it means more to me than I can express.
Well, I'm rambling… So how about you just go and read this chapter and I hope you will enjoy it :)
To say that Amanda Waller was not thrilled to find Steve sitting across from her, sandwiched between Bruce and Diana on a grey, cold morning would have been an understatement.
As it turned out, the A.R.G.U.S. headquarters was nothing like her polished office with its thick carpet and her secretary at the door. It was a bunker on the outskirts of Gotham equipped to the brim with top-notch tech that, from Steve's experience, was rivalled only by that owned by Bruce. Steve tried not to gawk, but the idea of getting his hands on it in some not so distant future was more appealing than he was willing to admit under Waller's displeased scrutiny.
Still, she listened as Bruce spoke, laying out their offer to her, her eyes darting between him, Steve and Diana. If the idea to make Steve the Justice League liaison had crossed her mind before, she clearly didn't appear to be thrilled by it now. She knew that she was losing control over them — although one might argue that she had never had any — and she most certainly did not like the feeling of it.
She asked questions, too. Threw counter-offers at them. Argued with their terms and boundaries. Steve didn't hesitate to argue back, pointing out the clauses of the agreement that he didn't like or that swayed too much, in his opinion, in Waller's favour. She was not pleased with that, either, and truth be told, he'd be lying if he didn't admit that it gave him a certain degree of satisfaction to keep a person who was very used to being in complete control on her toes.
Sitting on his right side, Diana was as still as an obelisk, watching the back-and-forth. Her face was neutral, but her eyes remained intent, and for once, Steve was glad not to be on the receiving end of one of her stares. Judging by how Amanda Waller had shifted in her seat a time or two, her eyes now trained pointedly on Steve and Steve alone, she also wished she wasn't.
Waller felt trapped, and unhappy about it. Steve could see it in the set of her jaw and her slightly narrowed eyes. She was not used to feeling either of those things, not in this place where she was practically god. There was some part of him that wished that the rest of the League was there with them to watch her squirm, the tension around them so thick in the air that he could probably cut it with a knife.
Amanda Waller had terms of her own, too. She might not have been as prepared for the meeting as they were, but she knew how to think on her feet.
The extent of her command, for instance. She wanted complete transparency and full subordination. She wanted to know where each of them was at all times, on mission or off. She wanted Steve to be one of her agents, on top of his involvement with the League — and that one was non-negotiable.
They already knew that, had seen it coming. Bruce artfully amended those conditions, bending them in the League's favour — Steve already had plans on how they could bypass them should the need arise. Waller raised a curious eyebrow at him as he spoke, outlining their own level of comfort with her involvement in their lives, but said nothing. After a few moments of tense silence, she nodded curtly, and Steve tried very hard not to smile. It hardly felt like a victory — and he was signing up for a government job, for crying out loud! — but until this moment, he hadn't truly believed that she would listen to them at all.
He was going to work with Diana again, and not covertly for a change, and he loved the idea of it. If being caught off-guard by their proposal bothered Waller, she didn't let it show. Steve had to give her that much. The woman had a poker face like nothing he had ever seen, and while their mutual dislike was thick in the air, he found himself feeling something akin to respect.
He barely resisted the urge to look at Diana, for he feared that his feelings regarding this new arrangement would be all over his face, and this was not the time, nor the place for his glee. Later, he decided. They could celebrate later.
"I have my own agents, you know that, right?" Waller had said flatly at some point. "Agents that are trained to work for A.R.G.U.S. Agents that, unlike you, I must add," her eyes bore heavily into Steve, "have not spent the past sixty years hiding from their girlfriends."
It wasn't an argument, and they all knew it. She merely needed to establish her position in this negotiation even though she had nowhere left to go and no desire to do it even if there was. Steve could see that the past few weeks had taken quite a toll on her, what with Luthor's escape and her lack of progress with the League. She would have accepted any of their conditions if that meant getting her superiors off her back, he thought.
His lips quirked ever so slightly, and for the first time in the past four hours, he had her full and undivided attention. "Are any of them trained to work with the Justice League?" he inquired.
"Are you?" she shot back, tilting her head.
He could practically hear a snide comment rolling on the tip of her tongue, but one look at Diana was enough to force Waller to swallow it.
"He will be," Bruce said, his voice final, uncompromising.
And that was it.
There were no handshakes, just a brisk nod from Director Waller indicating the end of the meeting.
And just like that, everything had changed.
xoox
Steve received papers and forms to sign the next day, complete with instructions on how to apply for a security pass and a list of contacts he would be needing to do his job. He had gone through the contract and sent it back with his amendments.
"You're mean," Diana noted as he was signing the envelope.
He looked up and grinned at her. "How many times do you think I can send it back until she snaps?" he asked.
She smirked. "What happened to the courteous and gentle man who I once pulled out of the sea?"
He couldn't help but laugh, finding himself oddly thrilled about the whole thing. Of all the things that he had lived through, the military was the last thing that he had ever expected to miss.
A request for a personal meeting came next. To brief him on his position and introduce him to his superiors and his team. Once that was done, he would officially become an A.R.G.U.S. agent, and the Justice League liaison.
In the light of all the events that had led up to this moment, it felt almost anti-climactic, although he decided not to be disappointed with that.
xoox
Paris, 2018
Months later, and Diana still could hardly believe that she wasn't dreaming. That Steve was back, and that he was hers, and they had years and years of life together to look forward to. The pain and anguish that had stayed with her for decades were still there; a hollow feeling in her chest that would make itself known when she least expected it and make her blood run cold, making her pause in her tracks so she could find her bearings once more.
And then she would see Steve's razor on the counter by the sink, or a half-finished puzzle in the morning paper sitting on the table in the kitchen, or his shoes by the door, and it would feel like being swept away by a tidal wave of relief, the feeling always leaving her breathless.
Sometimes, she would wake up in the middle of the night, her heart racing, disturbed by the dream she couldn't recall, still scared in a half-daze that she had imagined it all. The way it had happened more times than she could count while they had been apart. And then she would roll over only to find Steve peacefully asleep by her side, his chest rising and falling slowly. She would watch him sleep and she would thank her gods again and again for bringing him back to her.
They had settled into a new rhythm that felt both new and familiar, all at once, the change just out of her reach whenever Diana tried to grasp it. Yet, somehow, her life couldn't be more different from what it had been only a few months ago, suddenly bursting with colours.
She liked working with Steve. Liked the comfort of his presence that never failed to settle her heart when she was agitated, and the way the other members of the League listened to him when he spoke, her chest nearly cracking open with fierce pride. This was a man who could make her laugh like no one else in all of creation but whose mind was sharp and focused when they were on a mission. A man who stopped at nothing until peace was restored, his demeanour resolved and unwavering. She loved his strategic way of thinking, and his experience that proved invaluable even a hundred years later. But more than that, she loved the way he had stepped into the team — like he had belonged from the start.
He had told her once that the cost of things had changed far more than people's minds. Looking at the world that way, she found it hard to disagree.
In Paris, between missions, they were getting acquainted with one another again, and she allowed herself to indulge in that process.
She had learned that Steve loved sugary cereals and a mean steak and would wrinkle his nose whenever Diana would unearth Brussel sprouts from the freezer. He was a good cook but didn't enjoy it much, preferring to either cook together with her or order something. He was a music snob. Diana had never seen him more overjoyed than when he had found an antique turntable in one of those hole-in-a-wall stores scattered around the city because "music sounded better on vinyl." She pressed her lips around a smile while he fiddled with it and chose not to comment that the records he had purchased with it were all modern. It didn't seem to matter.
He loved movies with Cary Grant, and had seen all episodes of Poirot at least three times. He loved sleeping with his arms wrapped around her — a sentiment that she shared wholeheartedly. An early riser, Diana had learned not to start serious conversations or ask questions requiring actual thinking before Steve had a cup of coffee, or better two. Her offers for him to come join her on a run along the Seine at the crack of dawn were often met with a grunt and a pillow flipped over his head. Often, it made her want to crawl back into bed and wake him up in a different way. Often, she did just that.
They talked a lot, too. About films and books and music, filling in the gaps and adding to what they already knew. They made plans and allowed themselves to dream, and for the first time in a century, Diana knew exactly what she wanted from her future — a luxury that she had never allowed herself to imagine.
She had had a moment of wild panic, in the beginning, that changing her life so drastically would bring a certain degree of unease. She had tried and failed to do that before, and the fear of it had left her with a tightness in her chest. But living with Steve, being in love with him, had somehow turned out to be the easiest and most comfortable thing in the world.
She loved being aware of his presence, finding peace in hearing him move about their apartment or humming something under his breath while he worked, the sense of peace it was giving her almost overwhelming. Loved knowing that she didn't need to see him to feel his nearness, or that calling out his name would conjure not a ghost but a real man, his eyes bright and his smile making her weak in the knees.
He called her princess when he was in a playful mood, and angel when they were making love, or when he was too tired to care, but it was the way he said her name — with wonder, like a prayer — that made Diana's pulse stutter each time without fail. A hundred years later, and she still couldn't believe sometimes that he was hers.
Of all the League members, she had noticed that he got along best with Clark and Victor. Barry amused him, and she suspected that Steve felt about the speedster the way she did — affection mixed with tenderness and a dash of exasperation.
Arthur intimidated him, his booming voice and massive frame combined with his habit to speak his mind freely and without reservation, were hard to look past in search of his big heart. Their tentative relationship amused Diana to no end. Once or twice she had told him that if he didn't hesitate to walk into the German High Command without invitation then maybe he shouldn't be scared of a member of his own team, to which Steve had glowered and said that none of the Germans wielded tridents.
"He does have a point," Lois had agreed when Diana had shared that particular observation with her. "Although they would have looked very weird with tridents, don't you think?"
Bruce was a work in progress, but while the others could be easily won with conversations about sports (Victor), pop culture (Barry), or Steve's involvement in the war (Clark), it was his sharp mind and spy instincts on their missions that had softened Batman's heart. The ease with which Steve kept Waller off their backs had earned him a curt nod of appreciation — something that Diana knew wasn't easily given. She always looked away when Bruce caught her watching them lest he sees her smile.
A few months later, when there were no urgent items on Steve's agenda and her work with the Louvre had settled into a measured pace, they went to visit Arthur, just as she had promised him they would.
Sitting at a heavy, crudely assembled wooden table in a small tavern in a small village in the middle of nowhere, she watched Steve talk up a storm with Mera while Arthur smirked into his beer, his hair a wild mane and his plain shirt hanging loosely from his massive frame. Animated and engrossed, they spoke of politics and battle tactics and the League, and Diana tried very hard to fight off the tightness in her chest, like her very soul was unfurling.
She had known the man for a hundred years, and yet there were still moments when everything about him would catch her off-guard.
At some point, Arthur leaned over to her across the desk, equally amused, his eyes crinkling at the corners. "He always like that?" he nodded towards Steve.
Diana bit her lip and lifted her own mug to her mouth to hide her smile. "Sometimes," she responded vaguely. He should have seen Steve and Victor talk about football.
Arthur snorted, giving his wife and Diana's boyfriend another side-eye. "Think he'd be up for taking on my ruling duties for a weekend or two?" he mused.
"I heard that," Mera rolled her eyes at him.
Sheepish, Arthur busied himself with finishing his beer, the back of his neck flushed from something more than just alcohol and his eyes pointedly averted.
"Not my fault that stuff's boring," he muttered under his breath.
Steve looked up at Diana and grinned, his blue eyes warm with affection, and her heart soared all the way into the stratosphere.
xoox
Amanda Waller's name on the screen of Steve's phone had never become a welcome sight, but after a while, Diana's jaw had stopped clenching and her hackles no longer stood on end each time the Director of A.R.G.U.S. needed to reach him.
As it turned out, they couldn't have asked for a better person to act as a liaison between A.R.G.U.S. and the League, and Diana couldn't quite tell if it pleased Waller or infuriated her. Steve was a quick learner with a sharp mind who knew when to obey the rules and when to bend them in his favour. Working alongside Diana, he was fast and efficient, and if the Director's tautly set jawline and frown were any indication, Steve was as proficient with the paperwork as he was with weaponry. It pained Waller not to have a reason to pull the plug on their new routine, which amused Diana greatly.
She tried very hard not to be smug about it, although it was Bruce who was getting a real kick out of the whole situation — if only Waller knew how much pleasure he was getting from her inability to prove him wrong, she would never have agreed to their offer. Or so Diana suspected.
She chose to withhold her verbal judgement on the matter.
Steve came back from his first solo mission late at night.
It was April, four months after he had commenced his role as an operative of A.R.G.U.S. and Diana's own evening ended up being split between a conference call with a museum in Milan and preventing an armed robbery of a jewelry store afterwards. It was past midnight when she landed with a soft thud on the small living room balcony, jimmying open the lock that was never closed properly for this exact purpose.
Despite the late hour, her mind was wired, wide awake. It took her a moment to register the light that appeared to be on in the kitchen, and then another one to hear the noise of someone moving around there, the sound of it amplified in the stillness of the night.
It startled her, kicking her heartbeat into a rapid staccato in her chest. She set her shield down, leaning it against the couch. Her fingers tightening on the hilt of the sword as she stepped toward the soft glow of light coming from the hallway, following the sounds of someone going through the cupboards.
Steve was pushing the buttons on the coffee maker when Diana stepped into the kitchen. He caught her movement out of the corner of his eye and turned, pausing for a split second when his eyes landed on her. The brief moment of surprise shattered as a smile broke across his face, his eyes crinkling at the corners, making something snap inside of her, her relief at seeing him almost too much to bear.
She had refused to think of every bad thing that could have gone wrong in the past week and a half and her not being there to keep him safe. But he was here now. He was here, and he was fine, and—
"Steve."
"Hey."
She wasn't sure which one of them moved first, but one moment she was standing all the way across the kitchen from him, and then her sword fell to the floor with a dull thud and he was suddenly right before her, gathering her in his arms. His sigh stuttered against her chest as she buried her face in the curve of his neck and inhaled the scent of dust and wind and sunlight lingering on his clothes and clinging to his skin.
"Hi," Steve breathed softly, holding her firmly against him, his heartbeat thudding through her like it was her own.
He kissed her hair and turned his head, finding her mouth next. Diana sighed against his lips, her fingers curling over the back of his neck as she kissed him back eagerly, hungrily, like he was oxygen and she was out of breath.
Eventually, Steve drew back. Smiling, he bumped his nose against hers, his chest heaving as he searched her face, his eyes more than a little glazed over after their kiss. She felt her lips curve up at the corners, pleased to still be able to inspire that reaction in him. Zeus help her, the way he looked at her…
"This is new," Diana murmured, stroking her thumb over a week's worth of beard coating his cheeks, soft but new and unfamiliar.
"Didn't have time to take care of it," he chuckled. "Didn't expect you to be armed, either, or I'd have made sure I was more recognizable," he added, amused, his eyes flicking briefly to her sword lying on the floor.
Diana's gaze swept over his face, and she swallowed a comment about being able to recognize him in a dark room, blindfolded, if she had to.
"I didn't expect you tonight."
His eyebrows crept up, curious. "Well, I could leave now, but..."
He made a move to step away from her but her fingers curled over fistfuls of his shirt, pulling him back. She pressed her mouth to his once more, a lingering kiss that had left them both dizzy and breathless and more than a little disoriented. One that had made her mind swim, and by the time she pulled away, she had forgotten all the questions that she had wanted to ask him about his time away, those that she didn't dare bring up during their brief phone calls.
Heavens, she'd missed him so badly.
"Diana…"
"You're ridiculous, Steve Trevor," she whispered under her breath, her palms sliding over his shoulders and her breath nowhere to be found.
He snorted. "Yeah, well, you knew what you were getting into," he murmured, and she laughed.
"That I did." She didn't argue.
"Exciting night?" he asked, pushing her hair back from her face and looping it around her ear. His fingertips skittered down her cheek. Diana didn't stop him when he reached for her tiara, pulling it off and setting it down on the table.
She lifted her hand and pushed his hair back from his face, allowing her fingertips to trail along his hairline.
"It is now," she offered him a small smile, and he grinned.
She could see questions in his eyes, too. Concerns that he didn't know how to put into words. It had been odd and disconcerting to be apart even for ten days, and she wanted desperately to promise him that it would never happen again, having to bite her tongue because they both knew that that was not a promise either of them could keep.
"Hey, I—um, I got you something," Steve said suddenly.
"From a war zone?" Diana clarified.
However, she didn't stop him when he pulled away this time, walking back to his duffle bag sitting in the hallway by the front door. He picked it up and carried it to the kitchen, setting it down on one of the chairs. She watched him unzip it and move his stuff around while he looked for—
Steve straightened up, pulling a bundle of envelopes, tied together with a string. And then another one. At least three dozen letters bound together, the top ones having her name on them.
"Made a pit stop," he muttered, not looking at her, and even though he tried to keep his voice casual and nonchalant, there was a slight edge to it. As if his mouth had suddenly gone dry, his jaw refusing to cooperate as he spoke.
All the letters that he had written to her over the years, Diana realized, her mind going back to the time they had spoken about them months ago. She took one bundle from him, holding it carefully as if the letters would turn to dust in her hands.
"Steve—"
He ran his hand nervously through his hair. "I mean, you said you wanted them… that time, remember? So I thought…"
Diana lifted her face. "I do. Thank you."
"You don't have to read them," he added, rubbing the back of his neck as he made a face.
Her smile softened. "I want to."
Steve nodded. And then nodded once more. "Just… maybe not right now."
He reached for the letters and she let go when he pulled them from her hands, setting them down on the table next to the other bundles.
"Not right now," she agreed, searching his face.
He moved to her then, his hands curling over her hips. "Did I miss anything important?" he asked, his expression relaxing a bit and a small smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.
There was heat in his eyes now, the kind that made her breath catch in her throat.
Diana leaned away from him, her hand still gripping his shirt. She stepped back toward the bedroom, pulling him with her and thinking how the tiara was only the start, and how overall, she was more than willing to let him take the rest of her armour off, as well.
"Come with me and I'll show you."
xoox
Technically, Steve was not supposed to make a pit stop. Technically, he was supposed to be heading straight to Gotham for a mission debrief and to file a report. Amanda Waller was not going to be pleased with his detour and the few days of delay. In fact, he was certain that he was going to wake up to quite a few angry missed calls. Steve was fine with that. It wasn't the first time that he had bent the rules, and they both knew that it wouldn't be the last.
It felt good though, he could admit that much. It felt good to do something, to work the way he used to. He didn't always appreciate having Director Waller as his direct supervisor, the clash of their personalities and interests being one hell of a pain in the ass. He didn't appreciate certain limitations and the line of subordination, but he liked working with the League. Liked working with Diana, and even on this mission, without her, there had been a degree of exhilaration to being in the field again, and not as a rogue operative, at that.
There was freedom to it, as well, and a sense of purpose that he liked that came from knowing that he was making a difference. It had been odd to feel at home in yet another war zone, and Sameer wouldn't have missed the chance to point out the irony of it had he been around to do that. It made Steve wonder what kind of person would miss something like this, something so dark and destructive, but he chose not to dwell on it. Chose not to think of the broken parts of himself that might never mend.
One way or another, it beat looking the other way and doing nothing. And no one had promised him that it would be easy. No change was, not even a good one.
However, the main difference between his old life and a new one was that he had a place to call home now, and the enormity of that feeling was overwhelming. A place and a person to come back to. A person who was currently draped over his chest, warm and pleasantly heavy, while he combed his fingers idly through her hair, still seeing stars behind his eyes. If Waller was going to penalize him for coming here because he had spent ten impossibly long days missing Diana with an ache in his bones, then so be it.
Steve lifted his hand and tucked a piece of her hair behind her ear, his fingertips brushing along her cheek, his lips curving into a small smile. God help him, he missed her so much.
Diana stirred at his touch, turning her head to tattoo a trail of kisses along his collarbone, feather-light but making him yearn for more.
"Thought you were asleep," Steve murmured.
She hummed into his skin. "Still catching my breath."
"Maybe I should go away more often," he mused, biting back a smile.
Diana looked up, an eyebrow raised. "That's not what you said an hour ago."
He let out a small laugh. He had said a lot of things an hour ago, the mere memory of each and every single one of them making his blood run hot.
"Do you… uh, do you want to remind me what I said, exactly?"
She craned her neck and nuzzled into his, moving her mouth towards his jaw. "Tickles," she whispered, ignoring his question.
"I'll get rid of it first thing in the morning," Steve promised when she pulled back, her eyes roaming over his features until they paused on his mouth and then lifted to his eyes.
"I didn't say I didn't like it," Diana pointed out, a lazy smile stretching across her face. She rested her hand on his sternum and set her chin on top of it, watching him with unmasked fondness.
"The beard still goes, but now I'll feel bad about it," he chuckled. "I wish you'd been there with me," he confessed after a moment, twisting a piece of her hair around his finger.
Diana paused, her smile slipping. A faint frown appeared between her eyebrows as she watched him closely, as if trying to find whatever it was that she had missed earlier. "Did something happen?" she asked.
Steve shook his head. "No. No, it went well. I just… I missed you."
He watched her relax. Watched a slow smile work its way back to her face. Watch her eyes light up contemplatively. "I noticed that."
His eyes travelled over her body under the thin sheet. "Yeah?"
Diana bit her lip. "Mm-hm."
"Maybe I should go away more often," Steve repeated.
She rose up on her elbow, leaning to brush her lips lightly against his. "Show me," she whispered.
His palm curled over her cheek. "Show you what?" he asked dumbly.
Leaning into his touch, Diana turned her face just enough to kiss the heel of his palm. "Show me again how much you missed me."
He felt his lips quirk into a smile, his gaze dropping briefly down to her mouth. Maybe he should never go away again. Maybe they should never leave this room, for that matter. He'd be perfectly fine and happy with that.
He tipped her head up, finding her mouth with his, and whispered against her lips, "Yeah. Yeah, I can do that."
xoox
The next morning, Steve found Diana in the kitchen, the sunlight streaming through the sheer curtains on the windows tangling in her hair.
She was sitting at the table and reading one of his letters, her eyes moving over the page. He spotted a stack of untouched envelopes sitting in front of her, before his eyes moved to several open ones slightly off to the side.
He paused in the doorway, suddenly not at all convinced that this was a good idea, giving them to her. They were hers, in a way, but there were things in them—parts of himself that he had never shared with anyone before. Not even with Diana, and she knew damn near everything about him. Writing them had seemed like a good idea, at the time, in part because he needed to pour his thoughts out on paper before they ate him alive from the inside, and in part because he had been convinced that she would never lay her eyes on them.
Two days ago, making a detour to stop by the storage facility that housed his few measly possessions that couldn't fit in the bags that he had been taking wherever he went had seemed like something that needed to be done. A page that he needed to turn in order to keep on moving forward, hopefully reaching the next chapter of his life. And, hell, from where he was standing, that chapter looked pretty damn amazing.
Which, consequently, made Steve wonder if bringing up the past was a good plan. Maybe they'd be better off if it had all stayed where it belonged — in a dusty box that hadn't been touched in two decades. Maybe they should have—
Diana looked up, spotting him hovering in the periphery of her vision.
"Hey," Steve murmured, offering her a small smile. He ran his hand over his hair.
"Steve."
"How long have you been up?" he asked, stepping into the kitchen and trying to keep his voice casual. Trying not to stare at the stack of paper sitting near her right elbow, the words he could no longer remember with accuracy already a part of her. Trying to quell the surge of panic rising in his chest.
She turned to him and lowered down the letter she'd been holding, her eyes sweeping over the envelopes before her, a slight frown wedged between her brows.
He wanted to know what she was thinking, desperately so. If he had confessed to something she didn't want to know. If there was a way for him to take it back. If only he had thought this through beforehand, he kicked himself mentally. But even more than that, he wanted to go back in time and wake up with her still in his arms and the previous night fresh in their minds. Maybe if they'd done that, he'd be able to put a smile on her face instead of the furrow of concern.
"The address," Diana said after a few moments, her index finger tracing his handwriting on one of the envelopes. "They all have the correct address."
Steve sighed and moved towards her, crouching in front of her and folding his arms across her lap.
Diana looked down at him then, her eyes searching his. And whatever it was that she saw made her features relax, which made the tightness in his chest ease some, although it never went away completely.
"I kept an eye on you," Steve admitted, studying her, his fingers itching to reach over and touch her hair, brush it from her cheek. He swallowed. "Not always voluntarily." She raised an eyebrow at him, and he explained, "Sameer gave me two of them. Just in case, you know—In case you… in case you needed something. I wanted to know that you were alright."
He let out a long exhale through his nose and ran his hand through his hair, over his chin, realizing belatedly that the beard was still intact. His heart was pounding so hard against his ribs he suspected it could leave him with a fracture or two.
"I wasn't going to send them," Steve added after a moment, his eyes darting towards the envelopes. "But it was easier to pretend that writing them made sense when I went through all the right motions, you know. Signing, sealing…"
"Steve."
He didn't realize that he was no longer looking at her face, that his gaze was trained on the dip between her clavicles because there was confusion and questions in her eyes, and the old guilt was churning in the pit of his stomach again. It was hard to look her in the eye when he felt that way, when everything felt raw and tender to the touch, and he feared he'd see rejection and reproach in her gaze.
She reached for him, hand brushing through his hair before she cupped her hands over his cheeks and lifted his face up until he had no choice but to meet her eyes again.
"I wish you'd sent them," Diana whispered, her thumb running over the ridge of his cheekbone.
His heart slammed against his ribs once more with a hollow thud.
"I wish I'd known how," he echoed. "I messed up, Diana. I messed up when I left, and I messed up when I didn't know how to come back." He swallowed, his Adam's apple bobbing in his throat. Christ, how he was supposed to look at her when she seemed to be staring straight into his very soul? "And, let's be honest here, I'll probably mess up again."
Diana's lips stretched into a smile. She trailed her index finger down his cheek and along his jaw. "I can see that."
Steve let out a laugh that came out shaky and unsteady, and shook his head. "The beard goes, I promise." He covered one of her hands with his, holding her palm against his cheek, his eyes earnest.
"I wish you'd told me sooner," she breathed, although he had no idea which one of his confessions she was talking about, or even whether he wanted to know.
There was pain and the weight of suffering and shame hiding between the lines, the ink faded from age and the clammy air of the storage room. People and places that no longer existed anywhere but on those pages. His feelings for her spilled out in ink because she had not been there to hear him, nor would he have ever found it in him to bare his soul so completely without the buffer of paper and hundreds of miles between them.
He could feel those miles disappearing before his eyes.
She leaned forward, and Steve dropped on his knees before her, straightening up to meet her mouth half-way, his fingers sliding into her hair, framing her face. Last night had been drenched with hunger and desire and the need to find one another all over again, but right now he kissed her with reverence and devotion, trying to pour every word he had never managed to find within himself but that he desperately needed her to hear into his touch.
"It tickles, I know," he murmured almost without sound when she drew back, her hand still hovering over his cheek.
Diana laughed that wonderful, throaty laugh of hers that sent a jolt of desire down his spine, and wound her arms around his neck.
"Thank you," she whispered into his ear. "Thank you for coming back to me."
xoox
The knock on her office door came on a Tuesday afternoon two weeks later while Diana was busy cataloguing the new arrival of artifacts — a task she could have easily delegated but rarely chose to do so, taken with its calming qualities. She had excellent organizational skills and was exceptional at negotiations, but it had been the history that drew her to this line of work, the past that she wanted to stay connected to — perhaps, because her future seemed so infinite sometimes — and Diana never wanted to stray too far from that path.
She lifted her head when a quick rap on her door pulled her out of her thoughts, and the next moment it opened a crack and Pierre stuck his head inside, his expression half-exasperated and half-confused.
"There is someone here for you," he said, pushing his glasses further up the bridge of his nose.
Diana's eyes darted towards her planner.
"I don't think I have anything—"
"She said it was personal," Pierre interjected.
Diana hesitated for a moment. She was rarely interrupted by anyone who wasn't employed at the museum, and her assistant would have surely told her if her surprise visitor was one of the other curators. She thought briefly of a handful of shipment forms that needed to be signed off on and a conference call with Milan that she needed to approve. There was a new exhibition to plan and a report to complete. But technically, strictly speaking, she could spare a few minutes.
"Very well," she nodded to Pierre as she closed the catalogue form and stood up from her desk. "Let her in."
For a second, Diana's mind jumped to Selina Kyle, and then, very briefly, to Lois, coming to Paris for a surprise visit. However, the woman who walked in when Pierre stepped aside was neither of them, and even though it should not have surprised Diana, the appearance of a complete stranger in her office caught her off-guard nonetheless.
The woman was tall and poised, dressed in a pair of black jeans and a leather jacket, her dark hair pulled into a no-nonsense ponytail and a motorcycle helmet tucked under one of her arms. Her gaze swept over the glass cabinets lining the walls of Diana's office, not in surprise but in appreciation, Diana noted. And then her eyes fixed on Diana herself.
"Diana Prince?" the woman clarified, as if the plate on the door was not convincing enough.
Diana nodded to Pierre who was still hovering behind her visitor and after a moment of hesitation, his eyes darting between the two women, he retreated. Diana walked around her desk, offering her guest a polite smile and holding out a hand.
"My pleasure. And you are?"
The woman shook the offered hand, her grip firm and sure. "We need to talk."
Diana's eyebrows crept up. She stepped towards the door and closed it, ensuring their privacy, before she turned back to her visitor.
The woman's gaze swept around the room once more before her eyes locked with Diana's.
"My name is Kendra Saunders, and I believe that you have something that belongs to me."
xoox
The conversation was still running on an endless loop through Diana's mind when she stepped into her apartment that evening, no less intrigued now that she had some time to digest the information than she had been while she listened to Kendra Saunders relay her story several hours ago.
Steve was in the kitchen, the air around him filled with the smell of cooking food. Roast, if Diana was not mistaken. With grilled vegetables.
She set her purse on the table in the hallway and paused, watching him as he chopped vegetables for a salad while humming something under his breath. So at ease it gave her heart a small twinge. He was never more relaxed than when he was at home, and Diana was never more herself than when she was with him, the longing building up in her chest when she least expected it. She figured it would be a while before they were completely used to the reality of having each other again.
Tomorrow, he would be leaving for Gotham again, to meet with Amanda Waller and to run some tests with one of Bruce's prototypes — a modified jet that Bruce had spent the past several months working on, with Steve's advisory, no less. And if that were to take more than a few days, Diana was planning on joining him over the weekend. She hated sleeping on her own, hated how cold the sheets were without him and how empty the bed felt. Alone, she rarely managed to catch more than a few hours of fitful rest. An eight-hour trip, in her opinion, was a good enough solution to remedy that.
Steve looked up then, finally noticing her, and smiled, making Diana reconsider her plans, just for a second, to take the rest of the week off to go with him.
He wiped his hands on the kitchen towel and moved towards her, meeting her halfway.
"Hi," he murmured, sliding his arm around Diana's waist and dipping his head to brush a quick kiss to her lips. "When did you get here?"
"A minute ago," Diana murmured. She smoothed her palms over his chest. "Didn't want to distract you, you seemed quite preoccupied."
Her eyes swept over the bowls and pans and dirty cutlery lying on the cooking counter.
Steve smirked. "Yeah, well… everyone needs a hobby."
"Everyone needs to eat," Diana corrected him, and he laughed.
"Touché," he conceded as he moved closer, gathering her in his arms and kissing her again, properly this time, leaving her dazed and happy. "Hey," he breathed when he drew back. "Are you hungry?"
"Some," Diana admitted.
Steve nodded and stepped away from her. "Dinner's in 30." He walked back towards the fridge. "Everything alright? You seem… well, now you're the one who seems preoccupied."
She watched him pull a bottle of wine from the fridge and pick two glasses from the rack.
"I had an… interesting afternoon," she responded after a moment as she followed him, peeking curiously into one of the bowls sitting on the counter.
Steve glanced at her. "Good interesting?"
"Interesting interesting."
He poured the wine and offered one glass to her.
"A woman came by to see me today," Diana explained in response to his curiously arched eyebrow. "She claimed to be a direct descendant of the people who forged the Claw of Horus," she added, and Steve paused, turning to look at her.
"You're kidding me."
She wished she was, but it was perhaps the surreal feeling that the conversation with Kendra Saunders had left her with that somehow made it all the more real. The woman's claim had not been an easy one to accept and Diana was not eager to simply hand over a weapon of mass destruction to a stranger who, for all they all knew, intended to use it against the world.
However, the gauntlet was adorned with ancient carvings in a language that had been dead since before Diana's people had found refuge on Themyscira. And Kendra Saunders wore a pendant with the exact same symbols that, if Diana had to guess, wouldn't have been easy to come across completely by accident.
She sipped her wine while Steve processed the information. "Let me guess," he said after a couple of minutes, "she wants it back?"
"Among other things," Diana responded.
She was planning on checking the woman's story, but if it was true, if Kendra Saunders was indeed who she claimed to be—
Steve blinked at her. "Huh?"
Diana twisted the stem of her glass in her hand. The idea behind the Justice League was to gather together people with extraordinary gifts to keep the world safe. If that woman could control the power trapped held within the gauntlet and use it for protection instead of destruction—
"Diana?"
She looked up. "Hm?" She shook her head. "Sorry, I just—"
"You're thinking of bringing her up with the League," Steve prompted
It did not surprise Diana that he had caught on so easily.
She took another sip of her wine. "I might need to make sure that she's telling the truth first."
He pondered her words for a few moments and then nodded. "Does that mean you're coming with me to Gotham?" he asked, his eyes lighting up with hope.
Diana smiled. She set her wine down on the counter and moved towards Steve.
"No." Her arms slid around him and she tilted her face up, her eyes searching his. "But I do plan to make our time together count while you're still here."
He grinned at her, that boyish grin that she loved so.
"Yes, ma'am."
A/N: I'm hoping I tied most of the loose ends here :) Though I am open to questions if you have any!
Those of you who are not familiar with the Justice League comics - Kendra Saunders is Hawkgirl who is quite an important member of the Justice League in some storylines. Though I hope that because she only appears briefly, it's not very confusing :)
As always, feedback is much appreciated!
You are more than welcome to check my AO3 account here: archiveofourown users/nadin/pseuds/nadin (delete spaces) if you are interested in more Diana and Steve stories!
And thank you again for sticking around for so long, you're the absolute best :)