Paris was different than how he remembered.
Like, really different. With two separate World Wars tearing it down, Steve noticed how much more it had changed compared to Gotham and Metropolis. There, buidings had been taken down and had been rebuilt because they had gotten too old and rebuilding was cheaper than renovating, but here? Here building had been rebuilt because they had been bombed down! That was a huge difference.
Yet, he loved the city. It was beautiful during the Great War, but right then, with no signs of bombs marring its beauty, it was way better. They had caught a flight that had arrived early in the morning, Central European Time, and on the way to her apartment, Steve took some time to look around, only this time he was sure he didn't look like a dumbstruck child in awe of everything, like his first car ride from Wayne Manor to Gotham about a month before. It was a bright sunny winter day and the early arrival allowed him to see the sun rising as the taxi speeded on the highway from Charles De Gaulle to Paris.
Seeing the sun rise in the East had always been a welcome sight for him. He hadn't always been a spy, before those days there were nights spent in cold, muddy trenches or in cold bunk beds in military airports all over Europe, and night was always the most stressful part of the day. Seeing the sun rise was heartening for him. When he was a simple pilot, it meant no one had bombed them, when he was a spy, it meant he hadn't blown his cover.
The car ride was making him sleepy, despite the hours he did manage to sleep on the plane, when it finally stopped in front of a tall building. The cabbie informed them they had arrived and Diana quickly paid the fee. After unloading their baggage, the man greeted them with a polite adieu then drove away to catch a new passenger.
Steve took a deep breath and looked up. "So… this is where you live?"
Pulling a set of keys - traditional this time - from her purse, Diana nodded. "Yes, this is the place I call home."
"It's close to the Museum, if I remember correctly, right?"
"Close enough." She pushed the heavy wooden door like it was made of paper and walked inside the tall hallway. He could spot her mailbox immediately, it was the one bursting with envelopes. He saw her sigh and pull a handful of them out before opening the door and pulling out the rest and shut it again. "Want to come with me tomorrow? It's going to be a quiet day, I'll spend most of it replying emails and checking the new inventory, you can work on your thing."
"Why not… but only if I won't hinder your work or cause trouble with your bosses."
"Please, I'm my own boss, above me there's only the Minister of Culture and I highly doubt he'll just walk in and ask me why you're using the wi-fi."
Steve shrugged as they stepped in the elevator. "In any case, you can hold your own with him, he hasn't a chance."
"She. And really, Madame Nyssen is way above that kind of petty thing, she wouldn't be too worried about you hanging out in my office. As long as you don't break anything."
"I wouldn't dare. God, I so need a shower."
"Just give me a moment to see if everything still works, restart the heating system and the shower's all yours. I have a few phone calls to make, to see what we have to do in order to get you permanent rights to stay here in France. I don't know about you, but I have no intention to move to either Metropolis or Gotham for good," she explained during the elevator ride. "As a US citizen you don't need a tourist visa to stay here for ninety days, but if you actually want to live here, there's some bureaucracy we need to take care about."
"Is it going to be tough?" he asked her as she handed him the pile of mail so she could open the door of her apartment.
"No idea. I've been living here for the past sixty years, I just had to move around birth and death certificates to make sure people wouldn't start thinking I'm some kind of weirdo that doesn't age." She turned the key in the hold and opened the door, then let him in.
"But you don't age! How do you handle it?"
"Friends in high places and a talent for forging signatures. I wonder where that comes from."
The apartment was dark, all the windows were shut and Steve couldn't help but notice that it was really cold. She had been away for more time he had imagined. "Stay here," she told him as she closed the front door behind them. "I'll open the shutters."
It turned out the apartment was a loft. A huge open space with modern furnishing but with just enough of a classic touch that it didn't feel as cold as the apartment in Metropolis. "Wow! Love the place!"
"Really? You don't think it's too big for a single woman?"
He shrugged. "First, you're not single anymore. Second, if you like it, then it's your home, no matter what other people say." He looked around and suddenly a feeling of deja vu drilled its way in his mind, but he couldn't exactly identify from where, so he dismissed it. "Third… who cares what people think? Has anyone criticised you for being single and living in a place like this?"
"Not really. But… you know, I bought this place four years ago, it's the first place I ever owned, I had always rented property before this and some colleagues thought it was too much."
"Did you poke with an Ottoman halberd?" he asked her, more than a hint of a joke in his voice.
That made her laugh out loud as she bustled about with some kind of control panel on the wall. She pushed a lever and he heard a low pitched whistle from the plumbing as water started running in the pipes again and the heating system fired up again. "No, the Ottoman Empire isn't even my department. Anyway, come with me, I'll show you the rest of the place."
Diana just wanted to get the smell of the cramped airplane off her, but before that, she needed to shuffle her clothes around to make room for Steve's stuff. In Metropolis they had bought enough for the winter, but what about the rest of the seasons? Not to mention anything else! Was he going to start doing some sport? He would need the appropriate clothing, stuff like that. And her wardrobe was a bit cluttered with her own stuff! How the hell was she going to make room for his clothes if her own were already threatening to burst out of their confines?
"Well… I'm in trouble."
In that moment, Steve walked outside the bathroom, fresh from the shower, hair still dripping and wearing only a towel around his waist. "What kind of trouble?" he asked, pushing some wet strands away from his face.
"Look at this!" she gestured at the wardrobe in front of her. "How in Tartarus am I supposed to make room for your stuff?"
He did look at the wardrobe, hands pressed against his hips as he observed piece of furniture like he would study the battlefield. "Uhm… I suppose buying a larger wardrobe is out of question, this one seems to barely fit the space. Seems like a tough challenge. Do we have to tackle this matter right now? You look like you really need a shower and I can keep my clothes in the suitcases for a couple of days more. It's not like I need to unpack in this very moment."
She felt utterly defeated. "Seems reasonable. I'm going to shower then. We need to get groceries too, there's absolutely nothing edible in the fridge or in the pantry."
"Don't tell me there aren't take out places here in Paris!"
With a soft chuckle, she nudged his side with her elbow. "Of course there are, but contrary to popular belief, Wonder Woman loves to cook."
"Then go and take a shower. , or a bath even! Hell, running water on demand is amazing…" he mused. "I'll dress and check whatever Bruce has left me on that laptop and that other phone, take your time. I know you haven't slept much last night, not to mention on the plane. You'll feel better, and then we'll take care of more mundane stuff. Like the mail."
Diana ran her fingers through her hair and nodded. "That's the best plan I could have come up with. Give me half an hour, I should be done by then."
He took a deep breath and wrapped his arm around her shoulders, pulling her close to him. "Hey, take your time. No one's trying to catch us, we have the whole day. The… red eye flight, is that how it's called?" She nodded. "Yes, that a great idea. Even though the time zone change is a killer."
"Yes, jet lag can be a tough monster to conquer." She huffed a little then, reluctantly, pulled away from him. "Anyway… you mind if I play some music?"
Steve looked at her as if she had just said the most stupid thing in the world. "Diana, you ask me every time. I know you sing in the shower, you don't need to ask my permission!"
"Great, because I fear that if I don't have some music on, I'll fall asleep in the shower."
The risk was real. She wasn't overly tired, but flying always left her utterly devastated. Maybe it was the cramped spaces, no matter in which class she flew, or being compressed with so many people for so long… she hated long flights. No, wait, she actually hated flying, period. Always had and probably always will. As she let the scalding hot water wash away the still lingering stench of bodies forced in tight spaces for too long from her skin and hair, she had the idea that maybe she hated flying because of how Steve had died. She had entered her life crashing down on that small plane with canvass wings and he had flew away from her the same way, flying. And although he wasn't dead anymore, she still felt like planes and flying in general made her memory go back to the worst parts of her past and she would always hate flying and be worn out each time she flew because of that.
Well, nothing that a long shower and some Florence + The Machine blasting from the Bluetooth speaker couldn't cure. Nearly an hour later, when she finally emerged from the bathroom fully dressed and nearly ready to leave, she found Steve sitting on the bed typing furiously on his laptop with one hand while he held the phone with the other, nearly screaming at it.
"What do you mean? Can they do that?" He sounded outraged. "No, wait a second, that's against the First Amendment! Well, shit, this sucks. Alright, I'll… I'll make up something. When are they going to discuss this? After Christmas? Great, I have more time than what I need. Does Bruce want me to do a press conference or… oh, alright. Thanks Alfred. Oh, yes, the flight was just fine. Bit boring, but fine. Weather's great, yes. Sure thing. Say hi to Bruce and the rest of the gang, from Diana too. Thanks again, bye."
With a grunt, he swiped the screen to close the call and threw the phone on the bed. "Who the fuck did they vote last year?"
"Uh, I suppose you're referring to the current POTUS."
"And the rest of his crew! I mean… you guys save their sorry asses multiple times and they want to pass a law that would make it illegal for the JL to gather? What the flying fuck!"
"I suppose the news came out while we were flying," she muttered, sitting beside him and checking the screen of the computer as it showed the Daily Planet website. There was an article, penned by Clark and Lois together, that ranted about the proposed bill that had come out as they were above the Atlantic Ocean.
"Yes, and Alfred was so kind to call me before we heard in on the news. He said there's already a lot of stir among the population, that apparently no one wants this bill to pass and they're very vocal about it. It seems like people aren't afraid of you as much as the government is. There's a chance the bill will be pulled sooner than later, but in case they'll go forth with the discussion in January, I'll have to make my first appearance as the official speaker of the Justice League."
"Are you scared?"
He smiled. "Nah… I mean, it can't be worse than following you across No Man's Land. Believe it or not, I'm good with my words. And I have time to prepare your defence."
With a sigh, Diana grabbed the laptop and gave a quick read to the article. "It does seem unconstitutional, I doubt they'll go forth, it seems like a belated knee-jerk reaction destined to be forgotten quickly."
"But remember what happened with Superman two years ago, when politicians tried to regulate his actions? I've read stuff about that and that was crazy!" He did seem pretty angry. "This is not the way you treat someone that comes and saves you from intergalactic genocidal invaders!"
"You think the US government has ever been too kind towards soldiers coming back from war, I wasn't exactly expecting to be adored by the guys in Washington. I mean, I understand, they fear us, they don't know who we are, they can't control us."
As she flipped through different articles and blog posts that talked about this law, Steve fidgeted beside her. "Well then why propose a law that would forbid metahumans from gathering together? You said it, they don't know who you are, how can they control what you do or where you go?"
"I told you, it's a knee-jerk reaction. They're afraid and they want to show they still hold the reins of the nation. What they don't know is that the League is composed mainly by US citizens, while reading here it seems they consider us illegals. I mean… I'm the only one that's not technically a US citizen, but I have a permanent visa that allows me to come, go and stay for how long I want. Technically I could live there, if I wanted to."
He let out a low growl and crossed his arms at his chest. She couldn't help but notice his biceps flexing beneath the light blue fabric of his shirt. Gods, modern male fashion looked so good on him, no wonder she couldn't take her eyes - and her hands - off him.
"Is this what I'm going to face? Forever and always? Ungrateful politicians catering to their voting base without a gram of common sense in their vapid brains?"
"For the time being. But we have your back, don't worry about it. Now, I don't know you, but I'm starving and I'm great need of some real espresso. There's a nice place down the road just on the way to the grocery store. You in?"