The light was different. There was something odd about it, it was brighter than what he was used to, it disturbed him way more than what it was supposed to to. Halfway between wakefulness and oblivion, he tried to find a reason why, but his mind was groggy, each thought sticky like maple syrup and thick as tar. What was going on? His body felt rigid, tendons and muscles wound tightly, like violin strings. He was sore all over, like after a battle.
A battle.
No Man's Land. Veld. Doctor Poison. The mission. The bomber. The… future.
"Diana!"
He woke up screaming her name, throat hoarse and panic coursing through his veins like molten fire. His fist were clenched, holding handfuls of soft, white sheets, and the room around him wasn't familiar. Where the hell was he?
Then he saw her, on the doorway of the room. Her hair was still tousled and she wasn't wearing much. "Steve!" she panted, walking inside and kneeling on the bed to reach him. "Steve, I'm here. Are you alright?"
Blind and needing the physical contact, to feel her presence real and tangible against his body, he wrapped his arms around her lithe body and held her tightly against his chest. "Yeah, I'm fine just… just a little confused. The last couple of days have been…"
"Hectic?" she prompted.
"More like a complete wreck. For a moment I thought I was… I thought I was dead. Sorry I scared you."
"It's alright, Steve. No harm done." She kissed his temple and held him as tightly as he was holding her. "Come with me, I was making breakfast."
"Oh…" He sniffled the air. "Wait is that…"
"Coffee, chocolate chip pancakes and croissants from the boulangerie down the block. It's not that good compared to the real deal in France but… hey, better than nothing!"
"God yes! And… I'm actually starving! Breakfast seems like a great idea."
Diana let him get dressed - if underclothes were considered being dressed - then led him to the kitchen. Much like the kitchen at Wayne Manor, he didn't recognize any of the appliances except for the table and the chairs, so he simply sat down and watched as Diana moved swiftly between what looked like a stove and a sleek, chromed… thing that stored food in it.
"What's that thing?" he asked her.
"That is a fridge. It keeps foods cool so they last longer."
The idea wasn't new to him, but it was cutting edge, and expensive, technology when he was alive. "Cool! Quite literally." She placed a ceramic mug in front of him and poured coffee from a pitcher, then she offered him a small jug of milk and a container full of sugar. "I had no idea you could cook."
She gave him a puzzled look. "Of course I can cook! I'm more versed in dishes from the Mediterranean sea but I can cook. I could cook even when we left Themyscira. Once Etta got me up to date with modern technology, it was easy to adapt to modern means of cooking."
"You stayed with her?"
She nodded. "Not for too long though. I didn't want to impose. We met regularly though, for years. She got a good job at the British Secret Services after you…" She kept stumbling on words every time she mentioned his death, in the past. He couldn't help but feel sorry and hurt for her. "After you died."
"Her children?"
"One died during World War II. Another became a nuclear engineer. They both had children on their own and so on. One of her greatgrandchildren actually works for me in Paris."
He grabbed one of the croissants from the plate in front of him and took a bite. "Wow! You kept tabs on each of them?"
"I tried. I lost some, but I'm quite sure it wouldn't be too hard to find any relative right now. I completely lost the Chief after the Armistice was declared. He disappeared and I never managed to track him down. Sameer managed to become a full time actor, a successful one too. Charlie became an instructor and stopped drinking."
"What about you?" he asked when she finally sat in front of him, placing a plate of neatly piled pancakes on the table between them. "What did you?"
"I studied, I caught up with the times. I found my place in Man's world. I kept a low profile and I did my part in society, as best as I could."
"Armor, shield and all?"
Diana ran her fingers through her hair. "When it was required. It didn't happen so often, but when I was needed, I donned the costume."
"I see. And now? What do you do for a living?"
It was strange, he was more curious about her day-to-day life rather than all the superheroine status she had got herself, nickname included. He knew what Wonder Woman was capable of doing, but how did the idealistic amazon he had torn away from her life had adjusted to life in the Twentieth Century?
"I told you, I'm one of the curators at the Louvre Museum, in Paris. I'm specialized in artifacts coming from the Middle East and Ancient Greece."
"Ah, right up your alley then, you grew up with them!" he exclaimed, stirring the coffee in his mug.
"Yeah, well, some colleagues don't appreciate the way I treat some of the artifacts I get, most of all the weapons. I tend to get lost in memories and wield them around the warehouse."
The mental image made him laugh, loudly. "I bet you scare them to death."
She shrugged as she cut through the piled pancakes in her plate and took a bite. "Not to death, but they tend to look at me like I'm weird or something."
"Well, if I worked in a museum, I would love to test the things I get in my hands, before putting them in a box for people to see them. It's like a soldier that doesn't test the sights of his rifle when he gets a new one!"
Diana nodded. "That's what I think too! To get a precise dating you need to feel the weapon, the craftsmanship and the quality! Of course I need to test them! I'm not going to behead my colleagues, of course, but let me wield a sword when I get one!"
The earnest in her voice made his heart swell. The wide-eyed, idealistic girl he had met was still there, beneath the stoic, solemn mask she wore when in public. He wasn't sure if she did it on purpose because that was how society nowadays required women to act, but he had noticed she was extremely posed and elegant, in everything she did. Well, the elegant part had always been there, there was finesse in her movements, an innate grace that disappeared only when she was really upset, but there was something more, something artificial in her too.
It was probably a method of self-defence, like Charlie's drinking to forget the people he killed or his own smugness in front of the dangers of war.
"God, you're so beautiful…" he blurted out, completely engrossed in his thoughts that he had forgotten what they were talking about.
"I could say the very same about you," she replied, softly.
He was smitten. Completely head over heels over her, every minute more that the one before. He'd better make the time they have together worth it, considering that, one day or another, he'll grow old and he will age, and eventually die, while she'll live on, like the immortal demigoddess she was.
Heck, that sounded both depressing and amazing at the same time.
"Well, I guess I would look better if I shaved."
"Not necessarily, but if you want we can always go shopping some more. Yesterday we got the bare necessities, I didn't think about shaving supplies."
"Oh, don't worry. It's not an immediate need. Come on, tell me more of 2017. What do I need to learn to be considered a functioning member of society?"
Diana was an amazing teacher, patient and caring. She didn't object when he repeated the same question twice or three times in a row, trying to get the detail right. He tried really hard and by noon, he could at work around household appliances with ease. He discovered that, in the end, things hadn't changed that much, it was the exterior that had changed. He even had got the hang of using the television. He knew how to use radios, and the buttons of the remote had simply replaced the knobs, it was a matter of pushing rather than twisting.
"Hey, I thought it would be harder!" he said at some point, as he surfed through the different channels on the TV, as he familiarized with the device.
"We haven't got to high tech stuff yet," replied Diana, sitting beside him as her fingers ran across the flat screen of her phone. "Give me a moment, I need to call the museum and check in with them. They know I'm in Metropolis, but they don't know I'm still alive. They must be worried out of their minds."
"Were they worried, last year?"
She nodded, vehemently, and brought the device to her ears. "Out of their minds. I forgot to call them, they thought I was dead." Someone must have picked up on the other side of the line, because she suddenly switched to French. He wasn't well versed in French as he was in German, but he could understand enough to get part of the conversation. It was very formal and extreme polite, and the voice on the other side sounded really relieved to hear from her.
She pushed her thumb over the device and evidently hung up, as she placed the phone on the coffee table. "Et voilà. Vacation extended for four more weeks. I don't have to be back until next month. Just enough time for your passport to arrive."
"Nice. I think I can get the hang of it, in a month."
"You're doing good enough. So, now you're up to date with kitchen equipment, fridge, dishwasher, toaster are good, microwave needs improvement. Bathroom, you're set too. We'll get to laundry when we need to. You seem to handle the TV quite well… ready to tackle a computer?"
That was a completely different matter. The notion that something so small could contain almost all the knowledge of humankind was so alien to him that he couldn't really believe it, thus her instruction fell to deaf ears. Television, he could understand. As she had put it, it was an evolution of the radio, that transmitted images and sound together, but a computer? That was just too far from his knowledge he couldn't really believe it.
Diana tried and tried again, to get him to maneuver that tiny slab of… plastic, she had called it, with a glass wall very similar to the television, but the idea just wouldn't stuck. Everything she did… it made no sense.
"Oh come on, Steve!" she laughed as she watched him struggle with the bare concept. "Think of it as the evolution of a book, only it's interactive!"
"Diana, come on, you watched the technology grow! This was… dumped on me!" he whined as he stared at the screen in front of him, one hand fisted in his hair and the other that tapped on the keyboard. That, he recognized. It looked a lot like a typewriter, and he was familiar with that thing.
"So let me get this straight. A computer is a device that, through complex mathematical systems, is programmed, to do things?" Diana nodded. "But what can a computer do, exactly?"
"Well, first and foremost, it's capable of calculating very fast, algebra and stuff like that becomes very easy with a computer, it works on its own. Second, you can type things through the keyboard. You can write a novel, save it and read it on that thing, without printing it. Or you can write a message and send it, like normal mail, only it runs from computer to computer. Without having to actually write it and post it. Then it does so much more than that!"
He grimaced. "Damn, it's all so complicated."
"Alright, let's try this way. Don't think about how it works, think only about what it does. You can use it to find information."
She basically broke it down to the very basics and moving from the very bottom and up, she managed to make him understand what he could do and have him perform some very basic research through the search engine. She also explained that she wouldn't insist so much about computers if they weren't so important and their use so widespread those days.
"No, Diana, I understand. It's just… it's so different from what I know that… I feel like a fish out of water."
She wrapped her arm around his shoulders and hugged him tight. "I know. It's what happened to me when you brought me to London. Not only the technology, but the society too… it was so different from the way I was brought up… a time when women didn't have a voice, when they existed but weren't allowed to live their lives the way thought was better for them? How do you think I felt?"
"Disoriented?" he proposed.
"Terrified describes it better. I was just good at hiding it."
He leaned closer to her and pressed a kiss on her lips. "I'm sorry. I keep forgetting you went through this already."
"Hey, it gets better. Come on, let's start all over again. Try a quick research. Whatever you're curious about."
He did his best, and after a bit of trial and error, he managed to open the browser. The blinking bar, which Diana called a cursor, was now staring back at him. "What can I research?"
"Whatever you want."
Groaning, he thought about it for a moment, before coming up with an idea. Slowly, he typed Wonder Woman and pressed enter. In the corner of his vision, he noticed Diana arched an eyebrow, evidently not pleased. "Oh come on, you know I'm curious!"
"Do as you please. Now, move the arrow over the words in blue and tap your finger on the touchpad. Here. This article was written by a friend."
When he saw the good old fashioned logo of the Daily Planet, unaltered from the times he used to buy the same newspaper, he drew a relieved sigh. Some things hadn't changed at all. "Lois Lane? Is this the woman you were talking talking on to, yesterday?"
"The one and only."
He read, slowly. He had to say it wasn't too bad, reading a newspaper like this. No loose pages falling over and cheap print ink on your hands. "She's quite generous with her words. She's describing you like… I don't know, like I would have described you after Veld."
"I seriously hope you wouldn't mention everything about Veld."
"Oh no, don't worry. Some details will forever remain for us, and for us only. Alright, I read this, is there anything else?"
She gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. "Just the whole world at your fingertips."
By the end of the day, Steve had learned a lot more about the amazing world of information technology, most of all its history, about how it all started as a way to automate the process of decrypting messages from Nazi Germany during World War Two. And from there, it was all a matter of opening link after link and learning new things after new things.
At one point, he realized he was laying on the couch, with a tablet - a much simpler version of a computer that looked like a book - that Diana had procured him and the sun was already setting behind the skyscrapers. And Diana was nowhere to be seen.
He set the tablet down on the coffee table and stood. In the distance he heard the sound of running water. He guessed she was probably taking a shower, but the closer he got to the closed door of the bathroom, the stranger the sounds coming from behind it got, until he realized that beneath the noise of the rumbling water, she was crying.
Panic jolted through him and, without thinking, he burst into the room. "Diana!" he called.
She was sitting on the floor of the room, still fully dressed and with her arms wrapped around her legs. She was curled over herself, shaking as she sobbed for whatever reason. "Diana…" He knelt beside her and placed his hands over her trembling shoulders. "Diana, what's going on?" he asked her, softly. "God, you're making me worry, is everything alright?"
She gave him a quick, rushed nod. "Yes…" she murmured, through quivering breaths. "Yes, I'm fine, it's just…"
"Just what? Please Diana… I've never seen you like this! Is there anything I can do for you?"
She launched forward into him and wrapped her arms around him. Her grasp on him was incredibly tight, enough to constrict his breathing. "God, Diana…" he gasped as he embraced her. "I'm here, just tell me what to do," he murmured in her ear. "I'm here, Angel."
"Don't go."
"I'm not going anywhere, Diana."
"No I mean…" she gasped for air, between the quivering sobs that wracked her. He had seen this, in soldiers coming back from the front. It was shellshock. "Don't go. Don't die, please. I can't stand the thought of losing you again, I…"
"Hey…" he ran his fingers through her long, soft hair and sighed. "Diana, I… I wish I could tell you that I won't die, ever, but I'm here now, and that's what matters most. Your friend gave us a second opportunity and I'm grateful for that, but now… I know I will die, some day in the future, but that doesn't mean we can't make the best of the time we were gifted."
"What if it's not enough?"
With a constricted sigh, Steve sat on the cool, tiled floor and pulled her to him, pressing her hear on his chest so she could hear his beating heart. "We'll make it count. We'll get the best life has to offer in this century, and we'll…" He felt the tears sting behind his eyelids and he tried to push them back. He needed to be strong for her, in a moment she couldn't be. "We'll have breakfast, read the newspaper and go to work, we'll have a boring day to day life and you'll kick ass around the world fighting aliens and super-bad people. We can have a family, the American Dream type of family if you want to, just say the word and I'll do it, just… don't think so far in the future. Let's enjoy the time we have, I'm quite sure that with all the technological advancement, people can live well beyond the average of my time."
Diana sniffled against his chest, but she seemed to relax in his his embrace. Thank God, he thought to himself. "It's not fair," she murmured.
"I know, I know it's not fair, but we can make it work. We're stronger than that. We can be great together, no, we are great together. Nothing can stop us, not even death. I've cheated it once, we can find a way to make me cheat it twice. And if we can't… well, at least I would have lived my life fully, at your side, knowing that you're happy."
"What about you though?"
"Hey, a couple of days ago I was sure I was going to die in a terrible explosion of mustard gas. Look at me now!" he laughed. "Diana, don't worry about me. I assure you, I'm the happiest man in the world, just being able to hold you like this. I thought we would never get the time together I wished for, but look at us! We can make it work. We will make it work."
"Are you sure? "
"Absolutely. And you know what I'm sure about? That a hot bath would do wonders right now, and it looks like your bathtub has more than enough room for two. Want to share?"