Whatever Aphrodite had given them, it affected Lois so quickly she had gone from totally sober to smashed drunk in the span of a couple of minutes. Her sister had warned Diana, it would give her a bad hangover the next day but no harm would befell her, or at least nothing that lots of water and a painkiller couldn't cure. And evidently, Steve was in the very same situation.

The Gods only knew what the hell was going on, and Diana felt the sudden urge to go home and collect her thoughts about it, but before that, she had to get Lois home safe and sound, and retrieve Steve from Clark's custody.

"Gods Lois, one foot in front of the other, we're almost there!"

"Hey what's the rush? Clark's not coming home anytime soon!"

Diana shook her head. Damn, she was as drunk as a sailor on shore leave. "He's coming home too, I called him. Oh, there he is!"

The hulking figure of Lois' fiance turned a corner, not fifty meters ahead of them, holding up Steve's limping body as he walked to the front door of their building.

"Hey, Diana! Thanks for calling, how is she?" he asked when they both reached the door, fishing in his pocket for the keys. Steve hung limply from his shoulders, but he seemed to be able to make some steps. In the dimly lit street, his face looked flushed and sweaty, and his eyes unfocused. For a moment, she had a clear idea of Dionysius' parties could do to a mortal.

"Talkative and rambling. The standard drunk. What about him?"

Clark opened the door and they slipped inside. "Talkative and rambling. Whatever your uncle gave him, got to his head really fast!"

Diana jolted. "My uncle?"

"Yeah, Hades, the God of Underworld or whatever he does when he doesn't run my favourite bar just around the corner! Want to hand her over?"

She nodded. "Yeah, why not? She gets handsy when she's drunk."

He chuckled. "Don't I know it?" he replied as they carefully moved Steve and Lois from one support to another. The moment she moved her arms around Steve's torso, he immediately sagged in her arms and hid his face in the crook of her neck. "God you smell so good," he whispered, his voice slurred by intoxication was a complete far cry from the sultry tone he had clearly attempted.

She groaned as she tried to keep him upright. "Come on Steve, not now."

In the corner of her vision, she noticed that Clark was having a bit of a hard time himself as they waited for the elevator, with Lois being all handsy and flirty. It took them both a good deal of effort to get them inside Lois' apartment. With little ceremony, Clark picked her up and deposited her on the couch, slipping her heeled shoes off and unbuttoning the first two buttons of her white shirt. "Stay here, I'll get you a bucket in case you need to throw up."

Diana instead set Steve on an armchair and tried to straighten him in his seat, but ended up sitting in his lap with him nuzzling her neck and tickling her to no end. "Oh come on Steve you were born two centuries ago, show some good ol' manners of your time!" she laughed when he did bite her neck, albeit playfully.

"Hey guys get a room!" laughed Lois. "Hey, where's my Superman?"

"Here, Lois. I'm here!" Clark came back from wherever he had gone with a bucket in each hand. "Nice to see you made yourself comfortable."

Diana chuckled. "I tried, but he seems like one of those misbehaving drunks." She accepted the bucket from him and held it close in case he needed to empty his stomach. "What happened?"

He shrugged. "Wish I knew. One moment we were pondering the inevitability of death or something like that, the next he was smashed drunk after one single shot of whatever the guy gave us and we're told he's sort of immortal and the owner of my favourite bar is Hades. Does that make sense?"

"With her," interjected Steve as he pointed at Diana. "More than you may think. I mean… flying on an island full of immortal women, hidden somewhere in the middle of the Mediterranean sea? Makes no sense right? Well, I did!"

Diana slapped his chest . "Hey, that's where I grew up!"

"I know, I've been there, and it beautiful!" he slurred, making a wide gesture with both hands. "And the food… don't get me started about the food. Never eaten better in my life."

"Tell him, Diana," added Lois, snuggling close to Clark. "Tell him about Themyscira."

"Yeah, tell me. I'm curious. Oh by the way, are you hungry? I mean, we can order in or I can cook something."

She shook her head. "No, I'm perfectly fine. Anyway, yes… Themyscira. As Steve said, it's an island magically hidden in the Mediterranean sea, between Cyprus, Greece and Turkey. If you get close to it you'll find the thickest fog you'll ever see in your life and if you're brave enough to push forward…"

"...you'll see the greatest beaches of the whole world!" added Steve. "The coast is… God it's just so freaking beautiful! Can we go back? You know the way, right?"

"Of course I know the way." She kissed his cheek and he blushed a little bit. "We'll see as soon as you get your passport. We'll need a boat though, or you plan to crash land there again?"

"I think I'll choose sailing over crashing every day!"

They all laughed hard, and Lois was gasping for air when she finally managed to get a grip on herself. "God, he's good looking and has a sense of humor," she said, climbing over Clark's lap and nestling herself beneath his chin. "You picked a good one!"

"Oh look who's talking!"

Lois giggled a little. "You know Steve… I've never seen her smile. Not like this at least."

Steve's fingers flexed against her side. "Wait what?" he looked up at her, lips parted in an O of disbelief. "No come on it's impossible! This giggly girl here?" He gently tickled her on the sides and she did giggle, right on cue.

"Now, but before you came back?" She shrugged. "She's always been… I'm not gonna say you were cold, you've never been cold, just… distant? I mean… when this guy here," and she pointed at Clark. "When he died she was there for me, from the first moment, I would have probably done something stupid, if it weren't for her last year. But in more than a year I never saw her laugh. Smile? Yes, but always brief, halfway there. Look at you now!" she exclaimed and nearly lost her balance, if it hadn't been for Clark holding her upright. "Alright, it's probably that thing Melanie gave us but… you're glowing! You sure you're not pregnant?"

Used to Lois' lack of filter when she was inebriated, Diana laughed the last remark off as a joke, but Steve wasn't used to her and most of all wasn't used to making jokes about certain subjects at all, and given his own state of inebriation, he startled in his seat as electrocuted. He moved so fast Diana felt like he was pushing her away from him. "Hey Steve calm down it was just a joke!"

He shook his head, like a puppy shaking off excess water off his pelt. "Sorry, sorry… I just… I was caught off guard." He cleared his throat and settled back against the padding of the armchair. "I just need to get used to this century. God, my head hurts like hell."

Clark smiled. "Don't worry, she's not always like this. Whatever you've been given, it's potent, I've never seen her like this! By the way, I'll go grab some water. You two need to drink something or tomorrow you'll wake up more rigid than a wood log."

"Clark, stay there, I know where you keep things. You need anything?"

"A glass of water would be nice, thanks, Diana."

She gathered four glasses from a cabinet and filled a pitcher of fresh water, then she returned to the living room and set everything on the coffee table. "There we are. How much did he drink?"

"Not much. Before the shot of whatever your uncle gave us, four pints. He surely couldn't drive, but he was way more sober than he is now. And he doesn't look even half bad, at the moment! You should have seen how fast that thing got to his head."

"Even mine!" added Lois, with a high pitched chirp.

"The buzz is nice though," said Steve. "Back in the day we had crappy alcohol that made you forget everything for hours and made you do the most stupid things and then you threw up even your first turkey roast."

Lois groaned. "Sounds like college parties!"

Clark wrapped his arms around her waist. "Calm down, we can hear you!"

Diana handed her and Steve a glass of water each. "I so fear the hangover tomorrow…" she murmured.

"Won't be the first," replied the former pilot. "And I fear it won't be the last." Clark was right, he was sobering up quite fast, she had to give his liver some credit. He downed the glass of water and set it on the table in front of him, his movement way more coordinated than before. "Diana, if what Hades said is true, whatever was in that shot was made by your father!"

She rolled her eyes. "Yes, so what?"

"What do you think was in there?"

"No idea. Has Hades said anything about it?"

Clark shook his head. "No, except that his brother made it and that it would link his fate to yours and that as long as you two are together, he won't age. He also said something about the Gods having tried to find a way to bring him back for quite some time, before Flash solved the problem by bringing him forward in time altogether."

"But why will he be immortal only if they are together?" asked Lois.

"In case I die, he won't be forced to be immortal and watch everyone around him, people he cares about, die of old age while he remains thirty years old forever," explained Diana. "Believe me, I've been doing this for quite some time and… it hurts, way more than you may think."

"Makes sense…"

"Hey, it's way more than I could have hoped!" he exclaimed. "I was content enough with twenty or thirty years, anyway."

"Life span's got a lot longer than that, Steve," Lois told him. "You look like a healthy guy, I bet you could have lived way beyond eighty years of age, splendidly."

"And be the creepy old guy with the smoking hot girlfriend, young enough she could be his granddaughter? Please, no!"

"That's a good point!"

About an hour later, Steve's head had cleared enough so they could go home. They said goodbye to Lois and Clark, with the promise of meeting again at Bruce's fundraising gala, the next week.

As they walked back to the car, Steve leaned heavily on her, but his steps were safe on the ground. "You think you can take the car ride back home?"

He gave her a brief nod. "Just don't go too fast."

In the end he fell asleep in the car. When she parked in the designated spot in the garage beneath the building complex where she had lived when in Metropolis - one that rented cars to the tenants who came to the city only for short business trips - he was sleeping soundly against the glass panel at his right. He even snored a little bit. For a moment, she lost herself, looking at his rugged features finally relaxed after the long day and even longer night they just had. Did she have the heart to wake him from his slumber?

Unfortunately, she had to. She almost dragged him to the elevator, but during the ride up, he fell asleep again against her. Shaking her head, at that point she simply picked him up and carried him towards the front door, when they arrived at their floor. Given the late hour, she doubted she'd see anyone, coming or going. That building was used pretty much as a fancy hotel by rich people that lived out of town when they needed to be in the City, much like herself. Most of her business were in Paris, she lived there, her things were there, but Bruce had insisted on buying her the three room apartment when they had started working on their little project nicknamed Justice League. She had no idea who lived across the floor, or in the apartment right beside her own.

Still holding Steve in her arms, she managed to swipe her purse close to the RFID keypad and the received picked the radio signal coming from the card inside her wallet, and the door opened with a soft click.

"Here we are," she whispered as she walked in and shut the door with a swift kick of her heel. "Let's get you in bed., shall we?"

He groaned when she set him down on the mattress and started taking his clothes off. "Hey greedy girl, no need to rush things!"

She managed to refrain from bursting into a boastful laughter. "Steve, you're still drunk and you can't sleep with a shirt and jeans on. There's nothing greedy in taking them off."

"You say that because…" he groaned again, louder this time. "You say that because you're not on this side of the scene."

Smiling, he pushed him until he was flat on his back and moved to take off his pants. "See? Greedy."

The funny thing was that he wasn't really awake, only on the verge of consciousness, enough to sustain a conversation he would not remember and next morning she would have a lot of fun retelling all the nonsense he had said. When she was finally done he curled beneath the duvet and she proceeded to fold his clothes, before stripping herself and changing in her normal sleeping attire. She quickly took care of things in the bathroom before moving back in the bedroom. He was curled on his side, one arm beneath the pillow and the other extended to her side of the bed. "Come to bed…" he mumbled.

"Just a moment," said Diana as she set the alarm on her phone, then she slipped beneath the covers herself. "Here I am."

With a grunt, Steve turned on his back and immediately pulled her close to him. "Is it true?"

"What?"

"What Lois said, about you never laughing before I came back."

Diana took a deep breath and settled comfortably with her head on his chest. "Could be. I have no idea."

"Was it because of me? Of what I did that night?" he mumbled against her forehead.

Taking a deep breath, Diana wrapped her arm around his torso. "Really, I don't know! Maybe I… I don't really know. I didn't take it well, that's true. Etta tried her best to cheer me up but there was like a dark cloud around me and I couldn't really get out of there, it was like a cage and… maybe I never managed to get out of that cloud. It thinned, it dissipated a little, but… yeah, I guess Lois was right."

He sighed. "I'm sorry Diana."

"For what? For saving the world from at least another year of war? For sparing countless soldiers an atrocious death? You had to, no need to be sorry about it."

"Still, I'm sorry. Whatever happened after I blew that thing up… you didn't deserve it."

She lazily skimmed a thin, faded scar on his chest with her finger and he shivered beside her. "I just… I trusted you to be my guide in a world I didn't know, but that I wanted to know… and you weren't there. And then so much crap happened, between the rebuilding, the Great Depression then the War. I lost hope in humanity, maybe that's why I stopped laughing. Everywhere I looked, every person I met… I only saw the potential evil they could do. For a long while, most of all during World War Two, when I spent years getting people away from the Nazi's concentration camps or trying to save them before they even arrived there… I lost hope. That's what made me stop laugh. The humanity I once wanted to save."

"Strage," Steve groaned. "Sounds like me when I landed at your doorstep. I… I had seen so much shit during the war, heard even more home with my dad being in the army too before he settled and became a farmer… It was you, you gave me hope. Your absolute trust in humanity's ability to be intrinsically good…" How could he use such a word while half asleep and drunk was a mystery she was never going to solve. "That's why I did it. You inspired me, Diana, you gave me back the hope I had lost… you motivated me to do the right thing."

She chuckled, feeling a sudden blush heating her cheeks. "Would you think I'm selfish if I told you that, sometimes, I wished I wouldn't have inspired anything in you, that night?"

"Not selfish. Human. Not exactly a bad thing."

"And you really think of me as a human?" she asked. "Knowing who my parents are?"

"Who cares…Thanksgiving dinner will be a little awkward, but I don't care." He buried his nose in her hair and breathed deep. "God, you smell so good… I so wish I wasn't this drunk…"

"Me too. Sleep now, Steve. We'll talk more tomorrow."

"Will I still be immortal tomorrow?"

"I daresay you will be. Immortal and hungover. What a killer combination…"

Steve laughed, softly, a drowsy sound that made her heart soar. "There's only killer thing in the room. And no, I don't mean you or your sword."

"And what would it be?"

"Your legs…" he replied, his voice fading a little bit. "God, I love your legs… and don't get me started about your ass I..."

As she barely stifled a boastful laugh, he fell asleep with a grunt and didn't finish the sentence, but Diana had a very clear idea where he was going. And with a contented sigh, she let herself fall asleep herself, with a sense of calm she hadn't felt in decades washing over her and lulling her to a fitful, restful sleep.