"...He'll be a typical intellectual, disagreeable and impotent.."
-Guilia (The Conformist, 1970)
Stepping back from the sudden invigoration moving everyone, Diana assesses the purpose in everyone's strides and wonders briefly how it was like. To work with a team? To know someone always had your back? To know that you never have to look over your shoulder because each person is capable and to some degree, invincible from the typical attack? She wonders how it would feel, to know that you didn't necessarily have to lose someone each time you entered the fray.
"Did you travel far to get here?" she looks up, knowing already who the person asking is before seeing them.
"From Sokovia," she reveals to Steve. His eyebrows rise up but he doesn't prod further. "Is there anything I can do to help?" she would like to lend her hand wherever she can. While in a previous decade she relied on the intel of others, time has given her a chance to learn how to carry out a basic search for missing intelligence and people.
"Ah, about that-" she smiles just as Thor clamps down a heavy hand Steve's shoulder.
"Let us leave that to the scientists and spies, shall we?" he beckons them to join him to a different floor.
"Yeah, great teamwork everyone," Tony calls out to them. "And would you mind taking back your hammer, Thor? Some of us have to rewire through the damage first to be able to work."
"Mjlnor." Diana names as Thor rolls his eyes at Stark's comment and beckons the hammer to return to his grasp. The archaic weapon easily slides out of the machinery it had embedded itself in and finds its home back at his side.
"Do you know of it?" Thor inquires as Steve guides them out of the lab. He makes a motion of needing to do something before leaving her with a god of thunder. Briefly, she wonders who would reign over the other? Her father, Zeus? Or this burly man in front of her, Thor?
"I've read about it. Your people," she searches for the word. "We thought you were only myths, legends."
Thor grins at her, a deep laughter strumming up his chest and rumbling the very walls around them. Diana decides that she likes this proclaimed god. For as overwhelming he is, he overpowers them in not just strength, but warmth as well. "And you the same, but pardon me, my lady. I've never heard of yours. What planet do your people originally hail from?"
Diana tilts her head at his question. A planet? She had never considered life beyond earth. She could believe it, she had to - she, herself is a demi-god that people would never consider existing, but life on another planet? "Earth. I was born here, Thor. My gods," she carefully goes over her words. "They exist in another plane. A different world," she keeps the answer concise. She has spent decades researching the origin of her people, of her father, but has found nothing but loose transcripts and flagrant accounts from deceased epochs. If Zeus and the others have ever lived on earth, they have wiped all accounts of it from the lips and scribblings of historians and fanatics alike.
"Another world," Thor repeats, crossing his arms. "I would have never thought," he unfolds his arms and grins at her again. "I must leave for the night, Diana, Daughter of Zeus. While Stark tinkers with his glass screens, I must continue the search physically."
"Sounds good, Thor," Steve returns to her side as he nods at the larger man. Internally, Diana wonders if the hero beside her is worthy enough to lift Thor's hammer. She has read that only the good and deserving - whatever that means, are capable of wielding the mighty weapon. "Take an ear comm to keep in touch, we might find something first and need you," he extends a closed palm and reveals a tiny circle-shaped bud.
Diana watches Thor regard it momentarily before he turns on his heel. "I will see you then," he claims, marching off.
Interestingly enough, Steve retracts his offered device with nothing but a soft sigh. "He never listens." His belays in a routine tone.
"It seems like most of your team doesn't," Diana quips, and is successful in eliciting a small smile from him.
"You would have no trouble fitting in then," he replies, then rolls his shoulders back. "Let's talk," he turns. "Not here, follow me." Steve guides them back to the wasted room that had played welcome to both Ultron and her. Returning the sofa and the table to what she supposes are their original position, she sits first as Steve offers her a small drink from the relatively intact bar.
"Drinks first, then?" She smiles at his widened eyes and continues. "It's been awhile, Steve." She observes the man nod in agreement and a kaleidoscope of newspaper headliners and magazine covers flitter through her head: the fall of SHIELD, London vortexes, murderous robots, exploding humans. While Steve has kept out of the spotlight for the most part, his comrades have not. Then again, she lifts the cup of whiskey to her lips, parched throat scorching in the wake of the drunken liquid, the life of crime and power comes hand-in-hand. One could never live without the other. "What would you like to hear first?" She opens up to him.
Steve stares down at his knees making Diana vaguely aware how close they are sitting together, but she makes no move to give him space. Old-fashioned he may have been raised to be, but Diana has shared smaller confinements with the man and does not give the proximity more than a passing glance.
"Is the scientist, Sterns….he's dead," Steve filters through his memories. "You killed him." He doesn't leave a lilt in his voice, but his eyes hold the question mark that Diana answers with a nod of her head. "Did you ever find out what he was doing? What he wanted?"
"No," Diana frowns, looking back at the cityscape behind them. Somewhere beyond the horizon, on a street of not renown, lay the afterthought of her actions - a broken brick, a stain of blood. Or perhaps, she contemplates, New York had done its job and replaced its ghosts with new buildings and gardens thriving with life. "But what is that all evil men want? Power? Control?" She surmises for Steve. "My concern is what he tampered with, Steve - Chaos."
"Chaos," Steve repeats. "i'm assuming you're not talking about the stuff that goes around here - that just happened here, right?" he almost sounds pleading, wanting her to alleviate his concerns.
"I'm sorry, Steve," she says. "Not that chaos - but the Chaos. In Greek mythology, the origin of all gods is stipulated to be from the first three - Gaea of the Earth, Tartarus of the Underworld, and Eros of the deathless god. Some think that Chaos was the origin of all three as it existed before everything else. Others think Chaos is the progeny of Erebus and Nyx," she explains. "I think...what Sterns was dealing with was exactly that."
"Which form of it? And was he successful? Did you..?" Steve narrows down the influx of information into three correct and concise questions.
Diana's eyes flicker back to the outline of New York City. "Yes, he was successful in bringing it here and I fought it when I fought Sterns, but," she meets his gaze. "I know that it is still out there, Steve. That is how I tracked your activity down in Sokovia - Chaos had been there too, influencing people, helping whoever it is that you were targeting...Fortunately, I believe it is the progeny we are dealing with. Not some all-mighty god."
"As if we didn't have enough of them running around already." Steve drops his head into his hands as if cradling a massive migraine he could no longer tolerate. "Before all this," he begins, "I only knew of one God."
Despite herself, Diana chuckles bitterly. Blessed are the ignorant, for they have nothing to worry about, she keeps the thought to herself. "I haven't picked up its trail since visiting Sokovia, but it could just be hiding again. It tends to disappear for extended periods of time after showing some activity."
"Does it know you're tracking it?" Steve asks.
Diana shrugs, feeling as ineffective as her counterpart. "There is no way to know, maybe," she offers weakly. "I came here because I wanted to warn you about Chaos, and after I saw Sokovia…"
"You want to join the team?" Steve finishes. He fixes her with a contemplative gaze before he stands up. "The Avengers," he digs through his thoughts. "They're - we're not the best. We fight, we argue, we hurt - sometimes, I think those that are against us are right. That we do more harm than good, but -"
"You're trying to do good, Steve, that is all that matters," Diana rises from her seat and joins him in his halted pacing. "You do what others cannot, and what people can't fathom they can't understand. Be easier on yourself." She is preaching, she knows, but where she has walked through the shadows of doubt and isolation, she hopes to block that particular road for Steve. From the time she has known him, she has learned to associate Steve with that undiminishable le rêve américain. During her time in the war, she had paid only a few moments in the tents of the sick. In those memorable seconds, she had seen enough of the fire that blazed in Steve and those soldiers. For despite the labored breaths they drew, they still spoke of glamorous cities and shiny new cars and life after war. Life after fighting.
Many of them had not lived to see the end of war, better yet the end of the following week - but their words never failed to impregnate the visions of golden streets and dancing heels into the minds of the weary French. They spoke of life and gave hope even beyond the grave. For her, Steve is a culmination of all their empty promises and superfluous dreams and she would hate to see it fade away by the criticisms of the faceless.
"Tony wants to see the end of us. He wanted - heck, maybe even still wants to build a protector for earth. That was the plan, that was why he tried making a robot or machine like Ultron," Steve shares the nightscape with her as he goes over his friend's previous words.
"If it is all the same to you, Steve," Diana says quietly. "I would rather not live in a world protected by metal. It sounds...cold," she concludes.
Steve turns his head, finds her just inches away, and for once - does not shy away from the proximity of a woman. "But what if it means an end to all evil?" He brings life to both his worries and dreams.
Diana reaches over and holds one of his hands, forcing him to uncross his arms - however, she cannot force herself to give the answer to his questions. While life without evil would be so enticing and tempestuous - she has found that the word evil can really only be applied to a select few. More tended to gravitate towards the middle, towards the gray line of good and bad - and those, those were the ones that needed people like Steve and his group of awkward heroes to guide them towards the better path in life.
"Am I interrupting something?" Steve jostles, retracts himself from her touch as both of them turn to meet the taunting smile of the red-haired woman. "We are past the 1940's, Steve. It's not that incriminating to hold a woman's hand," she gushes as she descends from the spiraling, metal staircase. "Do you have a place to stay, Diana?"
"Yes," she easily answers, already accustomed to the flirtatious insuintations the woman liked to spring over them. "I'm checked in at the hotel I stayed in last time."
"Shame," the redhead continues. "And here I had played one of my cards to get Tony to open one of his luxury rooms to you. I'm guessing we'll be seeing more of you then? What with more of your gods running around."
"How did you know about that?" Steve questions.
Natasha gestures at the air around them, as if pointing out an invisible presence. "Stark's got this place bugged right down to the furniture. You don't think he'd miss a chance to eavesdrop on our resident demi-goddess?"
Diana shrugs at Natasha's rhetorical question. She had expected as much. Stepping into an establishment owned by one of the world's, if not the world's only technological genius' home, she would be a fool to think that an insect's death would occur without his knowledge. "Did I pass his criminal background check?" Diana asks aloud.
Steve looks ready to rise against Stark's paranoia but before he can call the man out, a slightly static voice harkens back: "Not with Point Break destroying my tech but you can stay. Who am I to deny Steve the company of his la -"
"That's enough, Stark!" Steve turns red against the interrupted sentence and worsens at Tony's retaliating laughter echoing against the high ceilings of his building. While Diana can only smile at Steve's colored cheeks, she can see through Stark's commentary and understands that he has found what most could not, but not enough to betray her unaging existence in this world.
"Cute," Natasha reclaims both hers and Steve's attention as the broadcast ceases. "Well, we've got a few hours left to sleep. We're no good to anyone dead on our feet and Tony's already set a new system to run a continuous search for strange robots," she gestures at Diana. "Your room is by mine."
Unfortunately for the redhead and what she suspects is the bedraggled scientist-slash-billionaire, her energy reserves are larger than the average human's and she has her own leads to explore. "Have you checked on your target that you were pursuing in Sokovia? His or her acquaintance?"
There is a pause of silence before Stark's voice is replaced by someone else's. "Ultron destroyed the database. He didn't get into everything but it is going to take time to filter and piece out what he was trying to erase. I'll be using SHIELD's previously acquired data to help us out while Tony gets on tha -"
"Acquaintance?" Tony's mumbling cuts off the woman's voice.
Diana's eyes sight Natasha pantomiming the woman's name, Maria, in the distance as the sounds of Tony pushing past people resonates throughout the room. "Hey, uh Miss god-but-not-really-a-god, what do you mean by acquaintance?"
Diana shrugs. "I don't know who you were after, Mr. Stark, but my target was in Sokovia as well. It could be that those two met each other."
"And what would Ultron want to do with them?" Tony's voice sounds distant now, as if he has entrenched himself in some far off corner from everyone else.
"I do not know," Diana claims again. "But my target, Chaos -"
"Is the harbinger of death or something yatta, yatta, ad nauseum," Tony drones. "You think Ultron would go after him?"
"You called the things beyond earth the end game, who's to say that it can't come from the planet you seek to protect too?" Diana muses. "You wanted to create something to protect the world, but what if protection comes at the cost of starting over again? Chaos would have the ability to do that, especially under the command of your Ultron."
"One, not mine. Not anymore at least, and two - you may be onto something - damn - Bruce! Where is my everything?!" they hear Tony cry.
"How'd you come to that conclusion?" Natasha asks as they ignore the other scientist's caustic reply.
"Everett Sterns sought the same end, or something like it. He talked about men becoming gods and controlling everyone else. And Mr. Stark wanted something to protect everyone else. And in this day and age, to save means to control, and to control means to have power," Diana answers.
"I am tired," Tony's admission assails them once again. "But she is right. Ultron has decimated all data concerning Strucker but I've located my back-up files, a physical cloud of sorts, you could say."
"And the problem?" Natasha draws out.
"They're all in the lower floor and it's paper. Paper files, hard copies - we have to manually go through them," Tony's voice draws out on the latter half of the sentence, as if already drowning in the insurmountable information he has accumulated over the years.
"If you show me to them, Mr. Stark - I think I can help facilitate the process. I've experience working in archives, some less organized than yours," Diana offers.
"Funny," Tony's disembodied sarcasm pauses. "I'll take you up on that tomorrow - but for now. Rest. I've got programs running faster than our brains and since our resident thunder god decided to damage a portion of my lab, I'll have to complete rewiring it in order to access that area."
"Take the break while you can," Natasha adds as Tony's static fades away with his presence. "Once we start, we don't stop."
Diana glances over at Steve and he offers her a small smile in reply.
"Welcome to the team, Diana."
A/N: Rougghhhhhhhh. I'm so sorry, this transition is so rough. I've outlined the next...five chapters I believe it is and I can't wait for you guys to read them. Literally spent the last 2 weeks outlining and writing blurbs that were decidedly not the upcoming chapter, but in future chapters. They are cute - the fluff monster miraculously reared its elusive head on me and made me write fluff.
On a different note, what fandom should I write about next? I have an active (unused really) poll on my page with a list of some fandoms I am invested in, but otherwise I'm looking to finally finish my Harry Potter story while creating a new one after this one is done. Thinking of focusing on a video game, but really, I'm open to any suggests.
And last question: would you guys want me to continue this story all the way until the End Game? I could - it would make this thing long, but I could push the borders and see how far Diana and Steve are willing to go.
