The Battle of Themyscira, like the Battle of New York and too many others before it, etched itself into Steve's memory in a series of moments isolated from one another:
Tony's pause at the open hatch. "Anything I need to know?"
Diana smiled grimly. "If they're wearing hoplite armor, they're my sisters. If they have automatic weapons, they're probably Hydra."
"Got it." Tony flew out, and his voice came through Steve's comm. "I'm on the transport ship."
The staccato report of automatic gunfire assaulting his ears as he broke the surface after following Arthur and Diana off the quinjet and into the Atlantic - and then Arthur riding a geyser like a wave, landing on shore with a splash and a thrust of his trident that almost tore a Hydra soldier in half.
Diana flinging herself between an Amazon and one of Hydra's weapons, the weapon's blue energy beam bouncing off her bracers, and then leaping to disarm the man, crush his rifle while he was still holding it, and deliver a punch worthy of Joe Louis that knocked the man flat on his back where he lay, unmoving.
A Hydra soldier lining up his rifle to shoot at an Amazon astride a horse who appeared to be shouting orders. Steve threw his shield, and it shattered the rifle. Steve rushed forward to incapacitate the man.
Before he could take more than two steps, the Amazon had nocked and launched an arrow that went straight through the man's throat, knocking him over and pinning him to the ground.
Steve winced as he caught his shield on its rebound - the man would not have an easy or quick death - but when he met the Amazon's eyes, she simply gave him a nod, one warrior to another.
He could only return it and turn his attention to the next Hydra goon in his path.
A glimpse of sunlight off metal from high above him, and so far behind him he barely caught it in his peripheral vision. A fuller glance over his shoulder confirmed what he suspected.
"Diana! Sniper!" He shifted so that the sniper was directly behind him - a calculated risk that paid off when Diana smiled her at last - a worthy challenge smile and dashed toward him.
Steve adjusted his shield so that it rested curved face up in his hands and bent his knees just a little.
Diana leapt toward him, and just as her feet touched his shield, he straightened, lifting the shield overhead with all his strength, sending her flying toward the sniper's nest.
She'd taught him that move during the war, and they'd used it to great effect then. Steve trusted it would be no different now and turned back toward the last few Hydra troops.
An explosion off to one side that drew everyone's attention briefly.
Smoke trailed from the oddly-shaped craft, and a red-gold streak shot up from behind it.
"The crew is incapacitated." Tony's voice came clearly through Steve's headset earpiece. "Didn't want them self-destructing the boat in case there's anything useful left. Besides, destroying it would really waste the taxpayers' money."
Then it was over, as far as Steve could tell. Bodies littered the shore - more Hydra than Amazon, thankfully - but those Hydra soldiers who survived were throwing down their weapons and raising their hands in surrender.
Arthur prodded a few troops forward with his trident - none too gently, either, by the look of it. Steve couldn't blame him. Even the little bit of Themyscira Steve could see - this white sand beach, the greenery beyond, and the barest hint of stone buildings peeking over the treetops - seemed like paradise.
The blood staining the beach and the hulking ship anchored offshore were mute refutations of that feeling, and Steve hoped he could someday wipe that image from his mind as easily as he and his team had destroyed the Hydra platoon.
Tony dropped two more surviving Hydra goons in front of Steve before landing beside him. The rustle of greenery from his left told Steve that Diana would be with them shortly.
The woman Steve had saved earlier approached. Her armor had a few scrapes and dings, and blood dripped from the sword she carried.
"Thank you for your assistance, strangers," she said, her English more heavily accented than Diana's, but still understandable.
"Is anyone hurt?" Tony's voice through the loudspeaker system in his suit had a mechanical undertone. "Badly? There are medical facilities on board the ship. We can at least triage and stabilize anyone who needs it."
"Let's go see," Arthur said. "We can triage the wounded and …" he broke off, glanced at the woman who'd joined them, then gave a minute shrug. "Collect the dead."
"Only the invaders," the woman replied. "We will take care of our own."
Steve gave her a respectful nod, secured his shield on his back, and turned to follow Arthur and Tony.
Diana prodded her prisoner down the slope before her. He'd been as much a challenge as Steve - though she and Steve never had a true fight, only practice sparring.
Her prisoner had shoulder-length, unkempt dark hair and wore a facemask that covered almost all of his face, only a strip of his forehead showing above it. Most obviously, though, he had a metallic left arm - probably cybernetic, to judge by its strength when he hit her.
She'd eventually bound him in Hestia's Lasso, and that had ended the fight. Surely Steve or Tony would have questions for him, so now she took him down to where her comrades waited.
Not just her comrades waited for her, either. Her mother - no, she corrected herself immediately, in this moment Hippolyta was her queen - waited for her, and she would have to account for her actions, her return to Themyscira when she'd been told she may never return.
As she broke through the forest onto the beach, Diana straightened. She had made the only choice she could in the circumstances, and she could only hope her warrior-mother understood that choice.
Some of her sisters guarded a double handful of prisoners, and Diana encouraged her prisoner to join the others, with a word of warning to the guards that he was stronger than a typical male, before she turned to face her mother.
Diana knelt before her, head bowed. "My queen."
"You call me so - still? After you returned to Themyscira against my order?"
"The circumstances were urgent," Diana replied. "I thought it was better, this once, to ask for forgiveness than for permission. Though I did attempt to send someone in my place, once I learned Hydra's attack had begun, I could not stand idly by while my home, my sisters, needed assistance."
"Hydra. They took their name from the monster?"
"Yes, specifically the aspect that if you cut off one head, two more would take its place." Diana still had not risen from where she knelt, but now she raised her head to regard her mother directly. "I fought them once before and believed them defeated. Only recently I learned otherwise. It was my telos to finish it."
Was it her imagination, or did the queen's features soften ever so slightly?
"And you met your purpose bravely, with arete."
It was as close to a blessing as Diana could have hoped for, and she allowed herself to relax, though she remained kneeling.
Then her mother held out a hand. "Rise, daughter, and be welcome."
Diana would never admit how close she came to sagging with relief at her mother's words, but she kept her head high and her back straight as she took her mother's hand and rose to her feet.
Only then did her mother smile, and Diana thought she saw tears gathering in her mother's eyes. "Welcome home, Diana."
Then she was in her mother's arms, clinging as tightly to her mother as her mother clung to her, and Diana let out the last of her tension on a shuddering breath.
"So, hey, family reunions are great and all," Stark's voice cut across their reunion, and Diana was certain her expression mirrored her mother's stern one, "and I know you said only the enemy, but one of your people has a gut wound - a bad one. Probably could use stitches and definitely could use antibiotics."
"Antibiotics?" Her mother sounded out the word as she stepped back from the embrace to face Stark - who had raised the faceplate of his armor. "Against life? What are these antibiotics?"
Stark looked baffled for a moment before he rallied. "They're a type of medicine, they prevent infection."
"They're a stronger form of the ericacea plant, Mother," Diana said.
"Yeah, that," Stark agreed, though Diana knew he had no idea what the plant actually was. "And Hydra has plenty of them on board that ship."
Her mother frowned, then asked Diana, "Have you taken these antibiotics?"
"No," Diana answered honestly. "But I have seen them used many times."
"I took 'em, as a kid," Arthur offered. "Sometimes they taste bad, but they work. At the least, they won't make it worse."
Her mother nodded, then scanned the battlefield until she found the warrior Stark had mentioned, and those who tried to help her.
"Artemesia," her mother called. "How is Euboea?"
Artemesia rose from where she knelt beside the injured Euboea and jogged the short distance between them. Her voice was low when she answered, "Not well, my queen. She has lost much blood, and though we've stopped the bleeding, the wound got very dirty. We can only take her to Apollo's temple, clean the wound, and pray."
Her mother frowned. "Very well. Artemesia, go with the armored man, and bring back these antibiotics for Euboea."
"May I?" Stark offered Artemesia his arm, and Diana was only somewhat surprised when Artemesia looked to her for guidance.
"He will not hurt you," she said, and after a moment a still-wary Artemesia took Stark's arm.
She didn't cry out when he took off, but her expression told Diana it was a near thing.
Then her mother faced Arthur. "Well met, king of Atlantis, descendant of Atlan."
Arthur grinned. "Trident gave it away, huh? I'm Arthur."
"What happened to King Orm?"
"Made a couple of bad decisions," Arthur replied. "Almost took us to war with the surface. We couldn't allow that."
"He is dead, then?"
"In prison."
"Mercy is the best crown," the queen said in acknowledgment before turning to Steve. "Thank you, as well."
"Captain Steve Rogers, ma'am." Steve removed his helmet and tucked it under his left arm.
"Another Steve?" Diana's mother glanced at her. "At least this one didn't bring the attack with him."
Diana chuckled softly. If her mother were joking, then everything would be all right. Eventually.
"Come," her mother said. "We will feast to celebrate our victory."
WW = CA = WW
Before they could feast, though, the dead invaders had to be burned - and it was ironically fitting for Nazis to cremate their own rather than those they deemed inferior. Steve would never admit aloud the perverse satisfaction he took from that.
But - there was one prisoner who wasn't set to work. He wore body armor and a mask that covered nearly all of his face - and he was tied in Diana's lasso.
"Diana?" he asked. "Why's this one tied up?"
She rose from where she was helping one of her wounded sisters to join him. "He's as strong as you are, and fast. The lasso was - efficient."
"In the spirit of efficiency," Steve said, "we'll start questioning with him, then. Who are you?"
"Zima Soldat. Winter Soldier."
"I didn't mean your designation," Steve said. "What's your name?"
He didn't answer, and the strip of the man's forehead visible above his face mask crinkled.
"What's your name?" Steve repeated.
"I - don't - know." The words seemed torn from him, his voice weaker than it had been when he'd offered his designation.
"If you get his mask off," Tony offered over the comm, "JARVIS can run facial recognition, see if he turns up anywhere."
Steve gestured Diana forward. "Ladies first."
"Ever the gentleman." She gave him a smile that held only an edge of flirtation and started toward their prisoner.
"They did invade your home," Steve said.
A shout he found all too familiar distracted him: "Hail Hydra!"
Steve whirled, tracking the shout to the remaining Hydra prisoners, who'd apparently decided that it was better to die with their comrades than deal with the consequences of their choices.
Arthur and the Amazons seemed happy enough to help them meet that goal. For a moment, Steve was tempted to order them to capture the prisoners, not kill them - and then he remembered that he was a guest here, and the Amazons had the right to deal with the invaders however they saw fit.
At least Hydra had provoked them, so it wasn't cold-blooded murder.
"Steve -" Diana's voice broke. "We won't need facial recognition."
"What do you mean?" Steve turned back to her - and froze when he saw the face she'd revealed. "Bucky?"
"Who the hell is Bucky?" the man retorted.