"Uhm, Diana?"
When she heard Steve calling her, she was in the kitchen preparing some coffee. "What?"
"I need to get to Washington, ASAP!"
Terrified, she dropped the packet of beans she was about to grind and ran to the room they had just recently converted from her study to their study. "Why?"
"Remember the bill that would have prohibited the JL from assembling without the government permission? It has been repealed but they want to hear from you guys. They called for you or any representative to come and answer questions."
Steve was sitting at his desk, reading from his laptop. "See here?" he pointed at the screen. "It on all the news, Lois already wrote a piece on it, citing that the last time the government tried to meddle with superheroes affairs it brought destruction, death and nothing else, but this time it doesn't seem like a crusade against Superman, rather a research for answer."
"What do they want?" she asked, circling around the table to look at the screen.
"Let me see… Here's the full statement from the Senate. The Government of the United States has decided not to proceed with any castrating law against what is now known as the Justice League, the conglomerate of metahumans that seems to be fighting the battles humanity cannot fight yet. Still, the Government of the United States Of America recognizes that the Justice League and its components are a force of untested capacity and considering this, we are calling for a meeting, an official hearing, be it with the Justice League in person or with a spokesperson of their choice. While not compulsory, the Justice League is advised that in case they decide to refuse, it will be taken as an act of hostility against the authority. And then they go on. What do you think?"
"That I don't like it. What does Lois say about it?"
He moved the cursor and selected another tab on the browser, opening the Daily Planet page with the article. "Here. The last time an emissary of our government, and she seems sarcastic when she speaks about it, tried to put up an inquiry over one of our most beloved superhero we all know how it ended. With the Capitol Building up in flames and a psychotic megalomaniac unleashing a Kryptonian abomination over Gotham and Metropolis. Do they plan to do the same with the Justice League? Do they want to scare them away, order them to disband so the next time a menace bigger than all our armies combined comes we will be defenceless? And so on. She's very skeptical about this matter."
"And given what happened last time, I'm not surprised. What do you want to do?"
"I…" He rubbed his cheek with the palm of his hand. "Do you think we can contact the others? I want to ask them what I can and what I cannot say about them, and then… I guess I'll play their game and go answer their questions, as much as I can."
"I don't think it's a good idea though."
He nodded. "Neither do I. But this is my job now. I fight on a different battleground, and I fight for those that can't."
His words made her smile. Even after all those years, he still remembered her bold statement, made under the hail of mortar fire unleashed by the Germans on the French front. Or was it later in the village? Damn, she didn't remember, but it was nice to hear him express the very same concept, though a little twisted.
"We could go by ourselves, you know that. Contrary to popular belief, even Bruce can be a good diplomat, when need arises. Despite the bad temper."
"I don't doubt it, but if I can preserve your secret identities, if I have to be your face to the public, I have to start somewhere, and this is the perfect occasion."
She kissed his forehead. "If you say so. Do you need me to come with you?"
He shook his head, with a smile. "No, Angel. I think it's time I move my first real steps in 2018 by myself." He circled her waist with his arms and pulled her close to him, until she sat on his lap. "I know the drill, I just need help finding a flight and paying for it. I still haven't caught everything about online shopping and credit cards."
"Give it time, there will be more occasions for that. Alright, call the others, I'll look for the flight."
"Weren't you making coffee before I called you?"
Diana was about to sit in her desk chair to start perusing the online tickets sales, when she stopped mid-movement only to bolt out of the study and into the kitchen. Caffeine first, tickets later.
Steve left Paris five days later, on a cold January morning. Diana left him outside the check in at the Charles De Gaulle airport, with a kiss and a recommendation to keep his eyes open, that she was just a phonecall away, if he needed help. Also, he wasn't alone in the US. They had already arranged for Clark to accompany him, along with Lois, as they had a good excuse to be there, as reporters. Bruce and the others on the other hand would watch the QA on live TV.
They had everything ready, what he could and couldn't say about the identities of the members of the Justice League, their goals, their funds. They had covered pretty much everything the politicians could have asked and in case something different would pop up, Steve was good at improvising, he wasn't afraid of unprogrammed questions.
What he was afraid was his still lacking knowledge of recent history. He was completely up to date with recent superhero events, like General Zod's arrival, Luthor's attempt to kill Superman through Batman and the subsequent unleashing of Doomsday, the destruction of Midway City and the failed experiment of Task Force X, or the Suicide Squad as they had been dubbed. He was ready for questions related to those events. But if they questioned his veteran status of the war in Afghanistan and Iraq? He knew the basics, Bruce and Diana had helped him come up with a convincing story, corroborated by the fake documentation Bruce had managed to plant in the military archives, but what if he faltered?
What if someone discovered that he wasn't Captain Steven Rockwell Trevor of the US Air Force, born in 1982 in rural Wisconsin, but that he was Captain Steve Trevor, born in 1882, still in Rural Wisconsin?
That was scared him the most. If someone discovered that Flash could travel back in time, that would mess things up more than anyone wanted.
The flight was boring and long. Very long. He used the long hours to review his documentation, but after the third time he had read the folder from the first line to the last, words started mixing together.
Sighing, he pinched the bridge of his nose, shut his eyes tight and let his head fall back on the backrest. Time to change method of entertainment. Thanks to the modern marvels of technology, there was a good and stable wifi connection on the plane, so he fished the headphones in the front pocket of his backpack and searched for something to listen to.
As he searched for something on Spotify, he thought back at how people had to listen to music back in his days, how cumbersome were those vinyl disks and the gramophones, not to mention the live bands. And how much the music had changed! Not that he minded, quite the contrary he loved the variety, though he preferred some genres to others.
God this flight will never end… he thought. Good thing that, between the boredom and the lulling background noise of the plane, he quickly fell asleep and spent the rest of the flight dead to the world until the landing sequence was initiated.
When he finally passed through the TSA and got his suitcase, he found Clark and Lois already waiting for him at the gate for the flight to Washington.
"Hey guys, good to see you!"
He shook hands with Clark and hugged Lois. "It's good to see you too," she smiled. "How's Diana?"
"Submerged with work, Christmas was a hell of a mess for the Museum, the surge of tourists was insane. And she had a private commission for an upcoming exposition in Ukraine… she's overworked," he explained. "What about you? Ready for the circus?"
"We're just going to sit and report, you're going to do the hard work."
"Weapons are not allowed in the room, right?" he asked. "Then I'm going to be just fine."
"They also upped the security measure after the explosion, two years ago. It shouldn't be that bad," added Clark. "You're going to be on live television though, aren't you a little nervous?"
"Can't be worse than having to improvise for weeks at times, behind enemy lines, trying not to blow your freaking cover and having to do it in another language. I think I can manage."
One more hour of flying and they finally reached their destination. The hotel wasn't too far from the place where they'd hold the hearing, the next day, and as soon as he got the keys to his room, Steve caught the occasion to call Diana. It was about six PM in Paris, she was probably still at work.
"Hey, got Washington in one piece?" she asked when she picked up. Her voice was strange, it echoed as if she was in a large, nearly empty space.
"Yeah, it was just boring as hell. At least I was on the same flight to Washington as Lois and Clark, and they're always good company. How was your day?"
"Boring! Very boring. Mostly paperwork. I managed to get my hands on something interesting only half an hour ago." Something metallic clattered on the floor in the distance. "And Francois is trying to ruin the fun. One day or another that guy will break something more precious than a can of solvent."
"Oh you're downstairs? That explains the echo. What are you doing?"
"Remember that woman that gave me those things to clean, date and estimate? I finally got the time to finish the job and take a look at the cataphract. You should seen this thing, it's huge and it's beautiful! Last time I saw one so well preserved was on Themyscira, and I was preparing Antiope's new horse for training with it!"
"Diana, that thing wasn't well preserved. It was brand new!"
He heard her chuckle softly in the phone. "Well, sort of. Some plates were. So, are you ready for tomorrow?"
Steve put the phone on the small desk in front of the bed and pressed the loudspeaker button. "Yeah, I just need to review my file one last time so I don't mess up and I should be alright. Bruce asked me to remain for a couple of days more so I could do some interviews in case some journalist asks for one and then I'll be home by the end of the week." He took his sweater off and unbuttoned his shirt. "I'll call you if I need anything."
"Got it. Listen, I'd love to stay on the phone for hours but I need both hands to check a couple of things on the cataphract. I'll be watching you tomorrow."
"I count on that! I'll leave you to your work then. Have a good night, Angel. Love you."
"Same to you. Love you!"
With an unhappy sigh, he closed the call and sat on the bed. It suddenly hit him that this would be the first night he would spend away from her since November. Technically, since 1918. He had gotten used to her presence, her tossing and turning, the late nights and the early wake up calls. It was a bit like being in the army again, but he wasn't waking up to the voice of a drill sergeant or bombs exploding merely yards away from his position it was the ringtone of her phone. And they don't wake up to go to war, even though Diana is always ready to go and help those that need it, it's to have breakfast, read the paper - though digital and not on actual paper - and then go to work. Alright, he worked from home, she went to work, but they both had a job.
It's crazy how easily you fall into a routine when you like something, how easily you adapt, despite the initial difficulties. And he had adapted insanely quick to a situation that was completely out of his league, the polar opposite of his old life.
Now going back to sleeping alone, even if it was only for four nights?
It was the closest thing to a living nightmare he could come up with. Most of all because his nightmares were incredibly realistic and they often woke him up in the middle of the night, drenched in sweat and heart pounding against his ribs like a wardrum. It was a near nightly occurrence and even just thinking about the fact that those nightmares could come and visit him when he was so far away from her only added to the anxiety.
He had hoped he wouldn't be affected by shellshock, or post traumatic stress disorder as it as called nowadays, but as the initial, more than pleasant shock of being catapulted ahead of time and being alive when he had already come to terms with blowing up with the mustard gas, not to mention being with Diana, it had come to him too, like it had happened to Charlie.
For him it was mostly nightmares and being startled by loud noises. He could deal with the noise aspect, but the nightmares? Those were gruelling, and Diana was his anchor, she was always there to bring him back to reality, to calm him down, even by just being there. He didn't need to wake her up, those few times she wouldn't by herself, to feel better.
Maybe he wasn't ready yet.
How did his fellow soldiers deal with the stress? With the near death experiences? Diana had mentioned that the US government had never been kind to its soldiers, often neglecting to take care of them when they needed help coping, and that was in recent times, what had happened after the end of the Great War? Did his friends have a shoulder to cry on? Someone they trusted, someone they could talk to, someone who could help them deal with the horrors they had witnessed and they had carried home with them? Because surely he had brought back a lot from the trenches, the dogfights and his days as a spy, enough to fill tons thousands of books. Horror books.
He was contemplating the idea of going for a quick run to shake off the sudden surge of anxiety when the phone on the table ringed. He grabbed it and picked up the call without checking the caller ID. "Trevor."
"Hey Steve, it's Lois. Clark and I are going out for lunch, want to join us?"
Or he could go out with some friends and forget said anxiety with some company. "Uh… sure! Just let me freshen up and I'll be ready. See you downstairs."
"Sure thing. See you later!"
Yes. Going out with his friends was definitely a good idea. He clenched his fists and stood up, opened his suitcase and selected some clean clothes before heading to the bathroom. He wasn't alone, he was among friends, people Diana trusted with her life, his life. He would be fine. He would have had to step out of his comfort zone, one day or another. Better doing it with a bang.
Contrary to his expectations, that night he slept like a baby. He had spent the day with Clark and Lois, just being a tourist around DC. They visited museums, checked traditional landmarks and other things tourists usually do in Washington. They even took some pictures they sent to Diana, both to involve her and reassure her about Steve's wellbeing. She tried not to show it, but he knew she was a little worried of being so far away from him.
Anyway, between the long flight and all the walking around town, when he arrived in his bedroom and started getting ready for bed, he found himself totally worn out and when he fell asleep, he didn't wake until the alarm blared from phone as it rested on the nightstand.
"Ugh… alright…" he groaned as he got up from the bed and into the bathroom. "I'm awake…"
He went through his normal routine, showered and trimmed his beard - he had let it grow after Diana expressed her appreciation - and dressed. The hotel had offered a laundry service so he had both the dark grey suit and the blue shirt ironed. He wanted to look at his best at the hearing.
As he got dressed, he went to his suitcase to retrieve his watch, the steel monolith Diana had got him for Christmas, he found a little surprise. In a neat velvet box, beside the newer one, he found his father watch. Diana had kept it as if it was sacred, greased the leather and had professionals maintain the gears. It still ticked like the last time he had worn it. She had told him she had always kept it with her, her only link to him after he had…
There was a note, on a tiny piece of paper probably torn from the back of an envelope. Go and kick some ass. Love you. Your Ange On The Wing.
Steve smiled and pressed his lips to the tiny note. "Love you too, Diana." He folded the note and stuck it between the watch and the leather casing. With more attention he would usually dedicated to such an act, he set the correct time and and strapped it around his wrist.
"Uh… it's like I'm getting married," he mused to himself. "Something old, something new… something borrowed and something blue. Too bad it works only for the brides. Wait I think I listened to a song with a line like that..." He tried to remember the lines as he tied his his shoes, he kept reciting the line in his head until finally the melody popped up in his mind. "Ah, gotcha! Something borrowed, something blue, every me and every you!" he sang aloud.
Ten minutes later, he was ready, just in time for Clark to knock on the door to call him down for breakfast. "Steve, we're going. Are you ready?"
"I'm coming!"
He grabbed his coat and the briefcase with all the documentation then opened the door. "Here, I'm ready."
"Hey, look at that! All dapper and elegant! You're sure going to make an entrance!" said Lois, who was waiting for him just outside the door, with Clark.
"Is it too much?" asked Steve, suddenly worried. "You think I should…"
"No, it's perfect. You look great. I meant that you're going to make a good impression, and as long as you don't try to hurt anyone, everything well be just fine," she explained. "Now, breakfast. If we don't hurry we're going to be very late."
"Got it. Shall we go then?"