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melodious-madrigals · 4 years

Text

big spoon, little spoon

Prompt fill for @wondertrevnet‘s Lockout Bingo.

Fandom: Wonder Woman Pairing: Diana/Steve Prompt: Fluff Word Count: 3351 Rating: T? (Some really obliquely referenced sexism, I guess.) Summary: 5 times Diana and Steve were disgustingly cute and very happy (+0 times that they weren't because this is fluff). Literally just fluff, Steve & Diana loving each other a lot. Idk what else to tell you. This is part ii of lost love (sweeter when it’s finally found), and you can read the first chapter here.

Find this fic below the cut or on AO3.

***

Notes: Takes place a year or two after Hades deposits Steve in Diana's living room. I'd planned a vaguely angstier fic for my next release, but then I had such a shitty 72 hours that I did not want anyone to feel anything but fluffy, so I rearranged the line-up. please enjoy 3k words of wondertrev being happy and loving each other very much.

***

Even in the modern age, Diana remains partial to keeping track of things the old fashioned way. She has a Google calendar like every professional, of course, but all her meetings are also written neatly in a little diary she keeps; her personal life and JL extracurriculars are also neatly coded and transcribed in their own colors in the planner. She writes grocery lists and to-do lists on spare bits of paper, and takes meeting notes in a leatherbound notebook, unless specifically required to be working on an electronic document. She finds there's something satisfying about seeing the ink in front of her.

Yesterday, for example, she jotted a quick to-do list on a sheet of notepaper, and then tacked it to the fridge, so she'd remember to do items three (water succulents on the kitchen and bathroom window sills) and five (check cream level after Steve finishes his coffee) before she leaves in the morning.

She glances over the other eleven items, mentally ticking off what can be completed today while she's running errands on her way to work, and her eyes land on the last line.

There, scrawled in curling letters under her own tight font, is an addition that certainly wasn't there last night: 14. Kiss your husband.

She smiles. That one she'll have no problem checking off.

Steve's out on the terrace, still sipping his coffee, halfway through a crossword puzzle. She swoops in without warning, dropping a quick kiss to his lips, and then another to the top of his head, before whipping out her list and checking off number fourteen.

"Wait, come back," says Steve, setting down the paper.

"I don't know; I'm having a very productive morning and I've already checked it off," Diana teases. "I might have to move on to other things."

"No fair," he pouts.

"The post office is open already," she continues blithely, brandishing the to-do list. "I should probably go there directly."

In a flash, Steve has leaned forward and snatched the list right out of her hands.

"Steve!" she cries, and lunges for it, but by the time their little scuffle is over and it's back in her hands, 15. Let your husband kiss you is scrawled messily along the bottom.

"Well," she says, smirking despite herself, "if the list says so, I can't argue."

"I'm glad you've seen sense," says Steve, leaning in with a gleam in his eye.

She doesn't manage to tick anything else off before work—ends up rushing not to be late, in fact—but she's always felt it's important to be thorough when completing tasks.

***

ii.

It's rainy and gross, the weather just cold enough that it's unpleasant, but not so cold that the rain has turned into snow or sleet. Unfortunately, it's a Thursday.

When Diana's alarm goes off, she groans, and sticks her head under a pillow, and then pulls the duvet over them both.

"Play hooky with me," Steve says sleepily from next to her.

"I cannot just skip work."

"And how many sick days do you have accrued?" asks Steve, who knows perfectly well that the number is high, because Diana doesn't get sick the way mortals do.

Diana mumbles something from under the pillow.

"What was that?"

"...a lot," she says, grudgingly. "But that would be lying; I'm not sick."

"Mental health days are a thing now," reasons Steve. "And how many projects are due today?"

"You know perfectly well there's nothing big until next Wednesday."

Steve burrows under the duvet, so that they're face to face and hidden from the outside world.

"Are we going to do anything productive?"

"Not a damn thing."

"Yes, I suppose that does sound nice."

"Excellent! I lie for a living. I'll telephone both our jobs."

Steve gets up, and Diana rolls into the warm spot he left behind. She can hear the soft murmur of his voice though the wall, and five minutes later he's slipping back into bed, a self-satisfied smile on his face.

"All set."

She snuggles into him, and they fall back to sleep to the patter of the rain.

When Diana wakes up the second time, it's raining harder still, but there's the soft glow of the bedside lamp. Steve's sitting up, still in pajamas, reading.

She must've been more tired than she thought, because it's rare that Steve wakes up first.

Diana blinks back the sleep in her eyes and takes a moment to appreciate the picture Steve paints, with his tousled hair and reading glasses. He looks soft and sleepy and perfect, and suddenly she's extremely glad he convinced her to take the day off.

Steve glances over at her, and looks mildly surprised to find she's awake.

He bookmarks his page with care, and then leans over and grabs a steaming mug that was outside her line of vision, offering it to her.

"I did not even hear you get up to make coffee."

"You clearly needed the sleep," Steve says.

"Maybe." Diana sighs, "I suppose I should not lay in bed all day."

"Then I've got just the thing." He offers her a hand, and she lets him lead her out of the bedroom.

In their living room, instead of the normal furniture configuration, there's a glowing mass of sheets. It seems that Steve has taken it upon himself to make a blanket fort, and has decorated it with a string of lights he must have found at the back of the closet. She really can't believe she slept through this.

"You have been looking at Pinterest again, haven't you?"

"No comment."

"It's lovely."

"There's nothing inside, yet. I thought we could do that bit together."

It's perfect, so she says so.

They pull some cushions off the couch and drag their duvet in too, and all of a sudden, the blanket fort is complete and they have a wonderful little rainy-day nest.

"Breakfast in blanket fort?"

She bites her lip and nods. "But in a minute," she adds, catching his hand in hers before he can move away, and for a moment, they lay on their backs, enjoying the flickering lights.

***

iii.

Diana walks into a massacre.

"What happened here?" Deep red stains cover half the visible surfaces.

Steve looks up, guiltily.

"I spilled cold water on one of the hot jars, and it exploded."

"So just to confirm, none of it is your blood?"

"It's one hundred percent cherry preserves."

Diana breathes a sigh of relief. "That is far easier to fix," she says, slipping her arms around his waist from the back and swooping in to kiss his cheek.

Steve spins in her arms to face her. "It was a rookie mistake. With the amount of jam I've made in my lives, it should never have happened."

Diana sweeps a bit of the exploded cherry preserve off of his cheek with her thumb, and then ducks out of his hold to taste it.

"It is excellent."

Steve grins affably, and rinses both his hands and the rag he's holding. "Good, there are a dozen more jars of it cooling in the dining room."

"Only a dozen?" asks Diana in genuine surprise, because Steve has been known to go a little overboard when it comes to making jams.

"Plus a dozen each of raspberry and blueberry preserves."

"Ahh," she says, nodding. That makes a great deal more sense.

"I already cleaned up the glass, and was going to wipe everything down and start on the peaches. Care to join me?"

Diana knows next to nothing about canning and preserving and jellying, but she missed it last year when the Justice League called her out of town unexpectedly. There's no way she's missing it again this year.

"Tell me where to start," she says, smiling.

"With clothes you don't mind getting dirty, for one. As I've clearly demonstrated," Steve jokes, gesturing at his aproned (and sticky) body.

Diana glances down at her several-hundred euro suit, and then makes for the bedroom. "I'll only be a moment."

"I've got nothing but time!" Steve calls after her, jovially.

When she comes back out—now dressed in an ancient t-shirt that she's stolen back from Steve (after he stole it from her last year) and jeans so soft they're practically threadbare—she pauses in the doorframe, watching Steve. He's mostly mopped up the cherry preserves, and he's humming as he towels up the bit that somehow managed to get on the backsplash.

He's probably been at this for hours, and despite the mishap, he's still in an excellent mood. It makes her smile softly.

He catches her eye just as he hits the chorus of the soft '80s song he's singing, and he pulls her behind the island and spins her around. She laughs and plays along, and they rock back and forth a few times, Diana joining him on the last chorus as he hands her an apron.

"If you want to start pitting the peaches, I'll finish cleaning the pot."

They chat about their days as they work (Diana gets a play-by-play of the events leading up to the exploding jar, and Steve gets a run-down on the passive-aggressive email war she's having with the British Museum), and eventually Steve comes over to help her pit and cut the fruit.

Once everything has been dumped into the large copper jam pot, they turn up the radio and dance around the kitchen to old music, stirring intermittently until the peach compote has simmered down and thickened enough that it's time to jar and let it set.

"That was fun," Diana says, as they finish the washing up. Their dining room table has been completely overtaken by jams and preserves cooling in quaint-looking Mason jars, but it's worth it.

"I'm hoping to make elderberry jam still this year, and apple jelly in the late autumn, if you'd like to join me," Steve says, a dish-towel flung over his shoulder. (It's very cute.)

"It's a date," Diana declares, and she sees his eyes flick to her lips.

A second later, their lips meet, slow and languid, and Diana sighs into the kiss. Steve's lips taste vaguely sweet, a little like the peach jam they'd swiped samples of while they worked, and hers probably do too.

If Steve's lucky, he might be able to steal the t-shirt back yet this evening.

***

iv.

There's tittering outside her office, which—if Diana had been paying attention—would've tipped her off twenty minutes ago to the fact that Steve is here. Her interns are a bit of a gossipy bunch this year, and they've all taken a shine to Steve. (Apparently he's the most interesting thing to happen to the office, and the presence of the seemingly straight-laced Mme. Prince's charming significant other is always cause for news in a way little else is.)

As it happens, she's in the middle of updating the care manuals for several artifacts that are about to be going on loan, and misses all the signs until there's a distinctive tap on her door, and Steve lets himself in.

She's always pleased to see him, and doubly so since he's been away for the past ten days on a mission with ARGUS.

"Hello, my love," she says, and leans forward over the desk to give him a quick kiss, before returning to her paper.

A moment later, she looks up, doing a spectacular double take. "You are home early!" exclaims Diana, moving out from behind her desk to give him a proper hug and another kiss.

Steve laughs, and kisses her a third time, on the nose.

"We were in and out without any loose ends to take care of. It went as smoothly as could be expected."

"I'm glad you're home."

"Me too. Care to celebrate with a quick dinner?"

Diana sighs. "I would love to, but these need to be sent out early tomorrow morning."

"Oh, come on. You need to eat at some point. Besides," says Steve. "I've still got the time dilator we found on mission if you need to get the reports done later."

"Steve," she scolds, although there's very little heat to it. "You are not considering used banned tech just for a little extra time with me tonight."

"To have dinner with you at a reasonable hour? I absolutely am." He looks at her imploringly. "We'll just slip out to the little Thai place you love and be back in an hour or two."

Diana has known she was going to give in from the moment he suggested it, but she still scrunches her face a little. "Oh, all right." Steve's victorious smile is actually adorable, and they pass a lovely couple of hours catching up on the last few days.

They get back to her office around 21h00, and instead of leaving, Steve pulls out his laptop.

"You don't have to," Diana protests. "It's late."

Steve just shrugs. "I need to work on my mission report anyways."

Diana acquiesces, simply because she's not-so-secretly pleased to have the company.

(They only have to use the time dilator once.)

Later, after Diana has everything squared away, they decide to walk home, despite the distance and the hour.

They amble along the Seine, arm in arm. The soft light of Paris never gets old, especially the way the hazy reflections ripple in the river. For all the madness of the afternoon, it's been a good day. Diana leans her head on Steve's shoulder, and they stroll on.

***

Midway through her diatribe, Diana flops down in front of him, and leans against his legs, seeking comfort in her frustration. Steve's hands immediately find her hair, and he gently starts rubbing circles into her scalp as she continues the impassioned rant that began a while ago in the kitchen, "—and it is infuriating, because it is not my department, you understand? The only recourse is to file an official complaint, but that could take ages and ages and until then, they are using an outdated method that could potentially cause lasting damage to the artifacts!"

Steve hums sympathetically when Diana pauses to take a sip (well, a swig) of wine, and he splits a bit of her hair to start braiding as she adds, "These are pieces of cultural history, Steve. They should be treated with the utmost respect so that they last for generations to come to tell our history, and instead Michel is going to keep using a compound that will eventually compromise the integrity of the color!"

Steve knows there's a lot of complicated inter-departmental politics and squabbles that mean there's no good way to address the problem.

"—and the way he treats Sophie!" Diana huffs, a clear indication that they're back to Michel—a frequent source of frustration—but on a personal note this time.

"Hair tie," interjects Steve, and without missing a beat, she flicks one off her wrist and hands it to him so he can finish off the braid neatly.

"It is disgusting, and she does not wish to file a complaint, which I understand is her choice, but it still makes me cringe. I wish he would try it on me, because I would break his—"

Diana's phone pings, cutting her off, and she sags against Steve.

"You know you can keep going," Steve says, trying to keep the amusement out of his voice, because the content of the rant isn't funny, but the situation is. Several weeks ago, they'd decided to try cutting back on work talk in an effort to keep a healthier work-/home-life balance, and almost invariably, one of them blows through the artificially-imposed time limit. (For reference, Diana holds more blow-throughs, but it was him yesterday, and the day before.) "You don't actually have to stop just because the timer went off."

"It was my idea," Diana says ruefully, running her hand down the tight French braid, subconsciously checking it, "and I still maintain it is a good plan, I am just—"

"Very passionate about things you perceive to be injustices, big or small, yeah, I know," Steve grins. This isn't anything new.

Diana twists around to face him, and rolls her eyes at his expression. "You love me for it."

"Yeah, I do," says Steve, still smiling.

Diana sighs. "The conversation will still be here tomorrow, and I will probably still be annoyed. There is little use in continuing now."

"Unless you want to rant," Steve points out. "That's valid."

"I do, but it will not actually make me feel better. It is not cathartic if it just makes me angrier," says Diana. "Best to step away."

"Want me to set up a bath?"

"No, just come cuddle with me in bed."

"I'll never say no to that."

"Yes, but you have to be the big spoon this time," Diana says.

"I still won't say no, even if little spoon is by far the superior of the two."

Her ensuing laugh rings through the apartment, and her hand skims along the plait again.

"Almost as good as Selene's," she muses, and Steve takes it as the compliment that it is: Selene is an Amazon friend known for the intricacy and skill of her braiding techniques.

"Okay, one good thing about today?" prompts Steve, once they're curled up in bed. They've begun making it a habit to practice gratefulness each evening before bed. Steve read about it in a mindfulness book, and when he'd mentioned it offhandedly, Diana had immediately been on board. "Other than the fact that it's over," he adds, seeing the look on Diana's face.

"You," says Diana, reflexively.

"You say that every night," laughs Steve.

"It does not stop being true."

"I think it's supposed to be something different, each time. To accumulate things you're grateful for."

Diana grumbles, but does pause to come up with something else. "The magnolia trees I pass on my walk to work," she says, finally. "They are in bloom right now, and they brighten my day."

If Steve could answer you, or even say the little smile on Diana's face as she speaks, without sounding like a hypocrite, he would. "I found a little patisserie up by the Bastille that has these lovely little raspberry pastries."

"Mmmm," says Diana, smiling. "You do love raspberries." Then, after a pause, in a softer voice: "The fact that I get to take little things for granted, now, and pretend I do not have to specify the little things for which I am grateful. I know I am not supposed to say you, but I am grateful that you are holding me now."

They talk drowsily for a bit, but soon succumb to sleep.

Here's the thing.

It's Steve's personal policy to never lie to Diana. That's, like, a pretty basic relationship foundation thing, and it's not something he's ever had trouble with.

But there's one white lie that he doesn't suspect he'll ever come clean about: despite what he tells Diana, he doesn't actually think being little spoon is better than being big spoon.

He likes to hold her, likes getting to nose at her neck and loop his arm around her waist. (Big spoon is also less prone to overheating, which does happen sometimes.)

But Steve also knows that Diana sleeps better as big spoon, that being able to physically hold on to him in her sleep is comforting, a balm after years of night terrors and bad dreams and waking up to empty sheets. It's a small price to pay, in the end, knowing that him being the little spoon makes her happy.

It's a secret he'll take with him to the grave.

Steve wakes up in the dead of night, the shadows still long over the bed, the ambient light from Paris's streetlamps a soft glow along the bottom of the windows. It's the foggy sort of waking that means it'll be easy to slip back under, a mere footnote in the night. Just before he drifts off again, he notices that he's now the little spoon. He sighs contentedly, smiles, and falls back asleep.

#wondertrev #wondertrevbingo2020 #wondertrev fanfic #wondertrev fic #diana x steve #steve x diana #fluff #pure fluff #steve just loves diana so much #just quarantine things #lenci writes

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onthesandsofdreams · 4 years

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From Now On [1/4]

Pairing: Steve x Diana Rating: T Summary: Diana is summoned by her mother to her personal solar chamber, and she doesn’t know what to expect. Well – that’s not entirely true. She knows to expect a personal announcement for her engagement. Her mother’s council have began to make noise about her marriage and children.

Diana has always known that it was bound to happen, that doesn’t make it easier to accept that she will not get to pick. Because if it were up to her, she would not hesitate to pick Steven of the House of Trevor, son of a Duke and an heir on his own right. Words: 1684 Notes: For the @wondertrevnet Lock Out Bingo. Square: AU. [WonderTrev Bing Masterlist]

Read @ AO3

Diana is summoned by her mother to her personal solar chamber, and she doesn’t know what to expect. Well – that’s not entirely true. She knows to expect a personal announcement for her engagement. Her mother’s council have began to make noise about her marriage and children.

They had known each other since babyhood, and Diana knows well what kind of man Steve is. He’s kind and compassionate, calm and passionate, fierce in battle and wise in council. He’d be an excellent match for her, but she never spoke anything of a potential match and now… well, no use of crying now.

Diana knocks on her mother’s door. “Come in, Diana.” Her mother’s voice is calm, measured and betrays nothing.

Diana enters and closes the door behind her, “You wanted to see me, mother?”

Hippolyta smiles, opens her arms. “Yes, dear child, there’s much we must speak of.”

Diana walks into her mother’s arms, feels as she is embraced tightly and she returns, tucks her face in the crook of her mother’s neck. “I am listening.”

Hippolita pulls back, her eyes and face are serious and Diana swallows the knot at her throat. “Your engagement has been finalized.”

Diana does her best not to cry, instead she gives a jerky nod. “Whom am I to wed?” She does her best to make sure that her voice doesn’t shake. And she’s thankful for the years of training she’s received with her mother and tutors.

Hippolyta grabs Diana’s face between her hands, “I know this is not what you’d like, but you are a princess, a queen-to-be, we out of all people have so little freedom. If I could, I’d let you choose your consort, but the pressure grows and I had to pick for you.”

Diana watches her mother. “I understand, mother. I trust your judgment.”

Hippolyta searches her eyes, but Diana doesn’t look away. Then Hippolyta gives Diana a tiny smile. “Your future husband, is no other than Steven of the House of Trevor.”

Diana freezes, she’s sure that she has just misheard. She blinks, then searches her mother’s face, Hippolyta’s smile grows and she knows, her mother’s not lying. Her heart begins to beat loud and fast within her chest, hope blooms and she allows herself a tentative smile. “Mother?”

Hippolyta laughs at her tone, then kisses Diana’s forehead. “Do you think me blind, child? That I have not seen how you search for him? How he looks at you? I am old dear daughter, I know what I am seeing without needing words. Your darling Steve is to be your husband.”

Diana grins, her shoulders relax and feels like a weight has been lifted from them. “Truly?”

“Yes, child, truly.” Hippolyta takes Diana’s chin and holds her. “I’m not blind, you love him and I dare say he loves you too.”

“And you approve?”

“He’s of noble blood. And more importantly, a good man. You’ve both grown together, he’s no stranger to me and I rest easy to know he’d not complain about not being King. I will rest easy knowing that he will not stab you and take your crown. I approve, yes.”

Diana launches herself at her mother, “Thank you mother.”

Hippolyta embraces her daughter just as fiercely. “Be happy my love, be happy.”

***

Steve comes to the palace three days later. Diana does her best to be polite and well mannered, they are in public, after all, it could hardly do that she throw herself at his arms. As much as she’d like to, they are being watched by the whole court and some of the public.

“Welcome, Lord Steven,” Diana greets him, she’s smiling and so is he. “I hope you can make a home out of Olympia.”

Steve grins widely and knees, takes her hand in his and gives it a kiss, “My thanks my Princess, I am sure I will make a home out of Olympia, after all, it’s my bride’s home, it’s only fitting I make it so.”

Diana’s grin doesn’t fade and she just can’t wait for them to be alone, “Then come my Lord, allow me to show you your new chamber.”

Steve offers his arm and Diana takes it, she guides him through the palace, not that he needs to, after all, he’d spend a great deal of time in it already. He knows it by heart and she knows it. The court follows them inside, but only a servant shadows them when they make their way towards the family wing. And for the lack of words, their walk is not awkward, the silence suits them well.

Once they reach Steve’s chamber, they come to a halt. “I’ll leave you to your rest Steve,” Diana speaks softly. “I’ll be seeing you at the welcoming dinner.”

“Of course,” Steve says just as softly. “See you in a bit.”

Diana, feeling quite mischievous, gives him a quick kiss to his lips and all but volts. Steve is left at the door with a silly grin on his face.

***

Diana and Steve met at his door once more, she had chosen to wear a deep scarlet gown, her jewels were gold and inlaid with rubies, her hair was braided in the fashion she loved and wore a simple tiara that matched the rest of her jewels.

Steve was quite the handsome sight himself, he’d donned his uniform, the blue an almost perfect match to his eyes. “You look so beautiful.” He said, voice full of awe while he offered his arm.

Diana smiled and took his arm. “And you look quite handsome. Shall we?”

“As my Princess wishes,” Steve said and they made their way to the palace ballroom.

Diana looked around, her mother had surpassed herself. White flowers adorned everywhere, from centerpieces to garlands that hung from the ceiling and the pillars. White silk linens and tablecloths were set with gold plates and cutlery.

Dinner passed in a blur and Diana felt a tad nervous. She knew that she and Steve would’ve to open the dance floor, but not only with a simple dance, oh no, it would’ve be a public proposal and then they would open the dance floor.

The time came faster than what Diana would’ve liked. A moment she was finishing dessert, the next her mother had quietly nudge her. Then Hippolyta stood, at once, the hall felt silent. Diana always admired her mother’s ability to command a room.

“My dear people,” Hippolyta began. “I thank you all for coming, for tonight we celebrate a very special occasion. Diana…”

Diana stood and so did Steve. She took his hand and they walked to the center of the ballroom. Once there, she could feel the eyes of everyone just… watching and waiting. “My Lord Steven,” she began. “For years we have known each other, and I have come to make the decision of asking if you would marry me.”

Gasps went up. Not everyone knew of the betrothal deal Diana knew, and she couldn’t help but to smile a little, it would seemed that her mother had outwitted some people, again.

Steve knelt, never taking his eyes off her. “My Princess, you honor me greatly with your proposal. And I’m very honored in accepting it. I hereby swear to always strive to be a good husband and consort.” As he spoke, Steve reached into his pocket and pulled an engagement ring. It was an oval sapphire, clear blue, a perfect match to his eyes.

Diana smiled and offered her hand, and watched as Steve slid the ring with care. And once the ring was in place, Steve gave her hand a kiss and then stood. Diana nodded, at once the music began and they began swaying.

Both of them had only eyes for each other, the world disappeared for a moment. And they danced until late the evening, changing partners here and there, accepting well wishes and congratulations. But they always came back to one another.

***

It had been two weeks since the formal announcement, Diana was the happiest she’d ever been. The prospect of marriage didn’t scare her anymore, she knew that she had a good partner in Steve and there was nothing to be afraid.

One night after dinner, Steve asked her to walk with him in the gardens. Steve directed her to their favorite fountain, there, he stood and looked at Diana with such tenderness, that she found herself blinking back tears.

“Diana,” Steve began. “I know we had to be the circus monkeys, but,” he reached into his pocket and pulled another ring and went to his knee. “Would you make me the honor of marrying me?”

Diana beamed, “Of course!” The ring, Diana noticed was one that spelled ‘Beloved’ with colored jewels set in yellow gold. This time, she offered her right hand and Steve slid the ring.

Steve rose and all but lifted her off the ground. “I am the happiest man alive!”

Diana laughed freely, holding onto him. “As am I! I feared the worst when mother announced that I would wed, only to find that it was to be you!”

Steve gave her a cheeky grin, “And you can’t take it back.” Diana laughed again. “Wouldn’t dream of it. I love you,” she said and cupped his face with her hands. “I would have no other.”

“I would have no other myself.” Steve’s intensity took her breath away. “Our story starts now Diana, from now on.”

Diana nodded and kissed him. Steve returned the kiss eagerly, his lips gliding with hers in perfect synchrony. She deepened their kiss, their tongues fought for dominance, warm and wet against the other, teeth clashing. They only parted when they ran out of breath.

“From now on,” Steve said.

“From now on,” Diana agreed, breathlessly.

#wondertrevbingo2020 #wondertrev #Diana x Steve #Diana Prince #steve trevor #diana & hippolyta #queen hippolyta #wonder woman fic #au: royalty

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ao3feed-wondersteve · 4 years

Text

all the tales the same (told before and told again)

read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/2x48Jff

by melodiousbirdsandmadrigals

A series of one-shots written for @wondertrevnet's wondertrevbingo2020

Ch. 1 - Prompt: Firsts. Steve finds out that Diana missed out on an important part of childhood (and, frankly, adulthood) and endeavors to rectify that.

Words: 1460, Chapters: 1/?, Language: English

Fandoms: Wonder Woman (Movies - Jenkins)

Rating: General Audiences

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Categories: F/M

Characters: Diana (Wonder Woman), Steve Trevor

Relationships: Diana (Wonder Woman)/Steve Trevor

Additional Tags: wondertrevbingo2020, fluffy oneshots, prompt: firsts, Don't copy to another site

read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/2x48Jff

#IFTTT #ao3feed #fanfic #wondertrev #wonder woman #wondersteve #diana prince #steve trevor #diana of

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ao3feed-dianasteve · 4 years

Text

all the tales the same (told before and told again)

read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/2x48Jff

by melodiousbirdsandmadrigals

A series of one-shots written for @wondertrevnet's wondertrevbingo2020

Ch. 1 - Prompt: Firsts. Steve finds out that Diana missed out on an important part of childhood (and, frankly, adulthood) and endeavors to rectify that.

Words: 1460, Chapters: 1/?, Language: English

Fandoms: Wonder Woman (Movies - Jenkins)

Rating: General Audiences

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Categories: F/M

Characters: Diana (Wonder Woman), Steve Trevor

Relationships: Diana (Wonder Woman)/Steve Trevor

Additional Tags: wondertrevbingo2020, fluffy oneshots, prompt: firsts, Don't copy to another site

read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/2x48Jff

#IFTTT #ao3feed #fanfic #Wonder Woman #diana/steve

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melodious-madrigals · 4 years

Text

of communication and cats

Written as part of @wondertrevnet‘s Lock Out Bingo.

Fandom: Wonder Woman Pairing: Diana/Steve Prompt: texting Word Count: 2552 Rating: T Summary: Steve and Diana adopt a cat. Steve is exceptionally bad at texting. The two converge more often than you'd think. (Aka miscommunication, but like. Low stakes.) Mostly fluff. In-universe for lost love (sweeter when it’s finally found) which you can read here.

Find it below the cut or on AO3.

***

Notes: not really a texting fic, just a very loose definition of "fulfilling" the prompt because it includes some texts, lol.

***

Don't be mad, but says the preview on her push notification from Steve's latest message. Not exactly an auspicious start, given his propensity for doing reckless things.

Diana massages the spot between her eyebrows where tension headaches start, and decides she needs to just bite the bullet and look at the text. (It can't be too bad if he's still able to text about it, right?)

Swiping down, she taps on the message.

Don't be mad, it says, but I found this little one abandoned, and I was *going* to ask if we could keep it but then I fell in love. Sorry, no takebacksies, but I will let you help me name it.

Attached is a picture of a fluffy black kitten curled up against Steve's chest. The angle is funny—clearly an attempt at a one-handed selfie while also holding the kitten—but it's one of the most precious things Diana has ever seen. The kitten's tail is wrapped tight enough to be gently touching its own nose. It's so adorable that Diana thinks she might cry.

The message is a little over an hour old, and Diana goes to text back when more messages come through.

Vet says: It's a girl! 🎈

Then, She has a great big personality, with a photo attachment of the kitten—vet office clear in the background—looking extremely indignant at her current circumstances.

I look forward to meeting her, Diana types back.

When Diana gets home, she finds a veritable explosion of cat toys and products across their living room and kitchen. At the epicenter, on the couch, is Steve, asleep, with a tiny little ball of black fur tucked up under his chin. If Diana had previously had any reservations about their new kitten (she hadn't, really), they would have been erased upon seeing them like this.

She snaps a quick picture, and then goes into the kitchen, pulling out vegetables to start dicing for the evening meal.

Twenty minutes later, Steve wanders in, the kitten now cradled against his chest.

"She's about six weeks," says Steve. "Which is a little early, but the vet says that other than needing to be fed, she looks healthy. She didn't appreciate her first round of shots, but she did appreciate the salmon pâté slurry I gave her afterwards."

"Poor thing. She was abandoned?"

"I think so," says Steve. "I actually saw her yesterday, hiding in the same spot, but they say not to move kittens, you know? because sometimes the mother is just off hunting. But she was alone yesterday and crying, and she was doing the same when I passed by today, and I couldn't just leave her there."

"You did the right thing, Steve. So, about her name."

Steve looks away guiltily, and Diana just knows that he's already named the cat.

"The vet needed a name to start her file," Steve mumbles. "I thought Bast would be cute."

Diana purses her lips, trying not to smile. "She already has you worshipping her like a goddess; it fits." Then she breaks, and starts laughing. "I'm not mad, Steve! About the cat or the name."

Steve looks relieved, like he didn't really think this would be a fight, but wasn't sure. They've talked about getting a pet before, but have always decided against it because of how much they travel.

"I already talked to Aisha and Marguerite," he says, referring to the couple who lives across the hall. "They said that they would watch her when we go out of town, as long as they also get to play with her while she's still a kitten."

"That reminds me, we should have them over for dinner this weekend. Or next, if they aren't free."

Steve shakes his head. "Next weekend's bad. I've got a work thing Friday night, and we're going to the concert at the Madeleine on Saturday with the Giraudets."

Diana makes a little humming noise as she pulls several spice jars from the cabinet. "Am I coming to your work function?"

"Only if you want, but I'd love to have you. You can't hit Floyd, though."

Diana wrinkles her nose at the mention of his co-worker. "We can go out for late night kebab afterward," she decides. "As a reward for putting up with him."

"Génial," says Steve, at the same time that Bast wakes up and meows loudly. "Apparently we haven't been paying her enough attention."

"Hello, Bast," Diana says, and the kitten meows again.

"Here, take her; I'll finish supper," offers Steve.

The kitten squeaks as Steve transfers her, then settles into Diana's arms, looks up at her, and slowly closes her eyes and falls asleep again.

They're cat people now, apparently.

Bast, as it turns out, is a very affectionate cat. She wants to be held, constantly, and when she isn't being held, will toddle up to one of her people and scream until they finally do pick her up. She also likes sleeping tucked up under Steve's chin, which Diana finds absolutely hilarious because Steve is not—and has never been—a back sleeper, but now, more often than not, she finds him falling asleep on his back so as not to disturb Bast.

Bast is most definitely Steve's cat, but she likes Diana well enough. Often, she perches on Diana's left shoulder when she's working on her laptop, and peers at the screen like she's reading the artifact dossiers too.

Sometimes, if Diana is very lucky, Bast will curl up in her lap instead, nose still tucked into the curl of her tail, and purr. Most of the time, Bast perks up as soon as Steve gets home, and prances over to greet him with an affectionate headbutt.

"I see how it is," Diana says, one day, when Bast lifts her head at a sound outside the door that turns out not to be Steve, and Diana swears she looks disappointed. "You like him best."

Bast simply looks at Diana with her big round eyes and blinks once, which Diana suspects is cat for 'duh'.

"Oh, all right, I cannot blame you," Diana sighs, "I like him best too."

Bast presents her chin, and Diana obliges her with a scritch.

("That was a cat-kiss," Steve says later, of the blink, laughing. "Bast was basically telling you she loves and trusts you, and you thought it was sass.")

It's a perfectly ordinary day, and perfectly ordinary days are very easily ruined.

For the day in question, it's the We need to talk that shows up from Steve, causing Diana's nerves to go haywire. She really doesn't think they're fighting about anything, but 'we need to talk' is universally a bad thing, right? They're usually pretty good about handling their problems in constructive ways, and they're excellent at talking through things, but there's a certain permanent ominous quality to 'we need to talk' that fills her with dread.

But when Diana unlocks her phone, she finds: We need to talk about how adorable Bast is right now, along with a picture of the cat in question with her paws crossed over her eyes, and the tiniest tip of her tongue visible between her teeth, like she didn't quite pull it all the way in when she closed her mouth.

Diana laughs, shows the picture to her interns, and sends back She looks so angelic. Like she didn't start caterwauling at four a.m. this morning and wake me out of a dead sleep.

She's a cat, replies Steve. They're always perfect little angels, even when they're not.

"That cat has you wrapped around its paw," Diana says that afternoon, when she comes home to find Steve making a special meal for Bast. "That had better not be the hake I bought at the market this morning."

"Of course it isn't. I filleted that and have the rest cooking down in the stock." He tilts his head toward the lidded pot on the stove. "This is just a little treat for being three months old." He says the last bit to Bast in a slightly sing-song voice.

She loves this man, she really does.

Diana is having a very long day and thinking about Bruce Wayne in a rather uncharitable way. (He is, after all, the reason she had to extend her business trip to the States and is not currently home with her husband and their cat.) She's dirty and tired, and trying desperately not to be bitter about it, because she doesn't approve of feeling bitter about things, when her phone buzzes.

The setting it's on means that the text can only be from Steve, while everyone else is filtered out by 'do not disturb'. Checking her surroundings surreptitiously, she pulls out her phone.

Diana help I'm dying reads the preview and Diana's heart drops into her stomach, body immediately prepping for a supersonic flight and going into panic mode because she's too far away, an hour or two at least from whatever Steve has gotten himself into now—

Diana help I'm dying at how fricking cute Bast is and I need you to be too, Steve has written. I can't even. Underneath is a minute long video of Bast, and Diana nearly hurls her phone across the room before the relief takes over. She almost throws up as she comes down from the adrenaline spike, too.

After a couple of deep breaths, Diana hits the dial button, and Steve picks up on the first ring, right as rain.

"Did you watch it? Isn't she just the best?" he exclaims.

"You need to work on how you start your texts, Steve," she says instead of answering. "Do you know how it popped up on my phone? 'Diana help I'm dying.'"

Steve sucks in a breath sharply enough that it's audible even across the tinny connection. "Oh, Gods. I'm so sorry, Diana."

Between his contrition and the fact that he's clearly okay, Diana feels her anger evaporate. She can't count the number of times that Barry—just for example—has used 'I'm dying' or 'DEAD' or 'deceased' to indicate various emotions that are not death-based. It's only normal that Steve would pick it up.

"No, I also overreacted," she admits. "I have not slept properly in two days and was not really thinking."

"I'll still work on it," Steve promises. "Seriously, watch the video; she's such a weirdo. It'll make your day better."

"Okay, I will."

"Hey, are you okay? Do you want to talk?"

"I am just ready to be home," Diana says. "I really shouldn't talk now, but hopefully I will be home before morning."

"Okay, Angel. Love you."

"Love you too."

The call disconnects, and then Diana hits play on the video. It's shot in their kitchen, and it's dark enough out that Steve has the overhead light on. Bast is in the middle of the floor, spinning in circles chasing her tail, or maybe the shadow of her tail, Diana can't quite tell. She suppresses a laugh as Bast starts spinning the other way. Dammit, Steve's right. She really is cute.

Day brightened, Diana taps out. Give her a kiss for me, we both know how much she loves those.

Two minutes later, a photo pops through of a very disgruntled looking Bast with the caption 'post-kiss', and Diana squashes down another laugh.

She's home by one in the morning, their time, and only has to move Bast a little bit to climb into bed next to Steve.

One of the reasons Diana was originally hesitant to get a cat was how much they both travel for work, and this month has been absolutely non-stop for her. In the past three weeks, it feels like she's only been home about three days. Fortunately, this is her last trip for another month (or at least, her last scheduled trip; JL business has a nasty way of popping up at inconvenient times), and Steve's job has been largely quiet on the travel front, lately.

She's got one more day to get through, and then it's just her normal job. She might even take a personal day or two.

She's just about to go into another meeting when her phone buzzes. Urgent! Read me NOW says the preview of Steve's message, and Diana immediately thumbs open her lockscreen, pausing before she enters the room, just in case she needs to dart back out.

We love you! ♥️💕 reads the rest of the message, and underneath is an attached photo of Steve and Bast. He's holding her up so that their faces are pressed together, and Bast has decided to be a perfect angel for Steve, looking directly into the camera. Diana swears she's even smizing next to Steve's own grin.

I know we talked about this, says another message that pops up while she's looking at the picture, but we wanted to make sure you saw that right away.

And then, We miss you.

A smile inches its way across her lips, and she sends back a quick selfie with a cat ears filter and a miss you too scrawled along the bottom before ducking back into the meeting.

It's Bast who hears her first, because when she opens the apartment door, Bast is sitting squarely in front of it. She lets out an indignant yowl, and then puts her front paws up on Diana's legs, asking to be picked up.

Diana shoves her suitcase inside the door, closes it, and obliges, and Bast settles in against her chest.

"She's clearly forsaken me," says Steve, who's just come out of the bedroom. "Hey you," he adds, leaning in over Bast to give her a kiss.

"Give it five minutes," Diana replies, because even though the cat looks comfortable now, her moods are mercurial.

"Mmm," Steve hums, clearly in agreement. "Hey, before I forget: can I see your phone?"

She shifts Bast (who looks up at her reproachfully) so that she can free a hand and pull her phone out of her pocket to give to Steve.

"I've been fiddling with mine, and I figured out how to turn the preview off of the push notification," he says.

Diana lets out a startled laugh. "That's probably a more secure setting anyways," she says. "Go ahead. I look forward to the moment when every third text from you will no longer induce panic."

"The future is now," Steve deadpans, and Diana has to set an affronted Bast down so that she can give Steve a proper hug, because she's glad to be home.

The next morning, Diana sneaks out early to their favorite boulangerie for a couple of pain aux raisins. She's in line when her phone pings.

Swiping it open, she taps on the notification and sees (in full, this time, thankfully): Mayday, mayday, mayday, the cat has taken your spot. There's Bast—stretched out so long across the bed that it almost looks like someone put her on a medieval torture rack—looking very pleased with herself because she's taken up the entire half of the bed that is Diana's.

A small smile creeps over her face as she steps forward to order. She's got a spot to reclaim, a cat to snuggle, and a husband to kiss good morning; she hasn't got any time to waste.

***

#wondertrev #wondertrevbingo2020 #wondertrev fanfic #steve x diana #diana x steve #fluff #lenci writes

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melodious-madrigals · 4 years

Text

dancing

Another one-shot for @wondertrevnet’s wondertrevbingo2020.

Prompt: dancing Word Count: 2306 Rating: General Audiences Summary: Being Bruce’s friend lands Diana in some pretty interesting places, including a masquerade ball, and she finds herself dancing with a handsome stranger. But there’s a certain magic to anonymity that might keep it from becoming something more…Three years, three dances, plenty of fluff.

Find it below the cut or on AO3.

***

2018

Being Bruce's friend lands Diana in some pretty funny places, she's found.

Once, it was just outside an Antarctic research lab in the middle of a penguin colony. Once, it was the in-palace bowling alley of an Emirati prince. By comparison, a masquerade ball is fairly tame.

He claims it's so he has an extra pair of eyes, but she wonders if maybe he's just tired of going to these events alone.

They dance the first dance together, a proper waltz with perfect posture and 20 centimeters of distance in their frame.

"If you could stay here and mingle," he says as the dance ends, voice low and gruff, "that would be excellent."

She nods, and makes her way along the perimeter of the ballroom floor, doing a mental catalogue of the entrances and exits while telegraphing that she could use a dance partner.

It works. Before she's even reached the refreshment table, she's asked back onto the dance floor.

The third dance in, a dark-haired man with an almost-full Venetian mask asks her to dance. She was just about to circle back and find Bruce, but the detailing on his mask—cogs and swirling time-hands, like a deconstructed antique clock—is the most striking she's seen all night, and on a whim, she accepts.

It's a mistake, or maybe it isn't.

Her partner turns out to be horribly, unfairly diverting. He's witty and intelligent, and a naturally gifted dancer (even if he's not a technically perfect one). Diana finds she hasn't smiled this much in a long time, as one dance somehow turns into three while they spin across the floor.

They somehow get into a light-hearted argument about the relative merits of various breakfast foods, and she finishes an impassioned defense of pancakes only to find him grinning at her, and it seems natural, familiar, and for a second she wishes she could see his eyes better, wondering if and how they might crinkle with his smile—

"If you say so, Angel," he says, interrupting her train of thought.

"Angel?" she laughs, and he nods at the golden wings on her mask, slightly reminiscent of armor she once wore. (She chose the mask because it fit the theme and also because it obscured her hairline, and cheekbones; if Bruce really has brought her for surveillance, she's coming prepared.)

Partway through the evening—their fifth dance, or maybe their sixth—she sees Bruce has descended back into the main ballroom. He gives her a little nod, and she takes it for what it is: an acknowledgement that so far, everything is fine. It suits her well; she didn't really want to stop chatting with the mystery man.

They end up talking for the rest of the night. His humor is dry and his opinions are good, and there's something about him that she can't quite put her finger on. Maybe it's the zinging, insuppressible attraction she feels, the likes of which she hasn't felt since—well, it's been awhile, anyways.

There's a waltz winding down when his question comes. "Will you let me take off your mask, when the evening is over?"

She wants to, she thinks. But this night has been so magical, and for a second, because of the uncanny similarities, she's allowed herself to imagine that this stranger is Steve. She doesn't want that to end. Wants to keep this perfect memory to herself, just this once.

"No."

"Why?" It's not accusatory, the way men often are. She doesn't get the sense that he's angry about it, just that he wants to know.

They're still swaying in gentle circles when she says, "You sound a little like someone I knew, once upon a time."

"I won't press," he says, "but I do have a request. Next year, if you're here, if we find each other again—would you consider it?"

He gently disengages and kisses the back of her gloved hand.

"My mum used to tell me that at this time of year, anything is possible. Just think about it, would you?" He says, backing away.

"How would we even find each other?" she calls after.

The man shrugs. "A minute ago you weren't even considering it. I can take my chances with fate. Goodbye, Angel."

For a moment, she thinks she's going to run after him. Diana is intimately acquainted with fate, and it's never done her any favors. But she lets him go. She'll forget all about this in a few weeks.

Sighing, she moves in the opposite direction to look for Bruce. Just because she's been otherwise occupied doesn't mean she hasn't been surveying the room like he asked, but there's been nothing suspicious. She'll check in with him, and go home.

She's in need of a bubble bath, and maybe a good cry while she's at it.

***

2019

Diana, whose memory is crisp as a fresh-fallen autumn leaf, does not forget the stranger she danced with for most of the evening. She wonders, sometimes, what would have happened if they'd unmasked. It would have become real, would've led to disappointment. Still, there are days that she forgets why she said no.

On one of those days, she texts Bruce.

Didn't think it was your thing. Happy to have you, though, arrives five minutes later.

She's just booked herself for another dance.

Her dark-haired stranger isn't there.

She's looked for him, but despite taking several turns around the room with people who are the right build, she hasn't found him.

It was stupid to assume she might find him, that he'd even be here, that he even remembered, a year on.

She ducks out of the ballroom, past a thick velvet curtain, and out a door onto a terraced patio leading down into the garden. The blast of cold air is a welcome respite from the stuffiness of the ball, the sticky warmth of so many humans in a confined space.

She looks to the sky, and takes a deep breath. She's suffered disappointments far greater than this one. Up above, the night is clear, and the stars are bright. Keep calm and carry on, as Etta would say.

Diana has nearly collected herself enough to march back into the ballroom when the door opens and light and music from the party spill out.

It's a tall blonde man in an intricate Venetian mask and long coattails. He looks nearly as surprised to see her as she is to see him.

"Sorry," he splutters. "Didn't mean to interrupt. I can just—"

"No," Diana interjects. "I was just about to go."

The man pauses first, and Diana doesn't catch up 'til a second later, as she's moving towards the door and he says, stunned, "Angel?"

"But you've got dark hair," is what falls out of her mouth without her brain's permission, even though there are plenty of other things to say, including I didn't think I would find you or even just hi.

Half of his mouth quirks up in a smile. "That was part of last year's costume. This is the real stuff," he says, gesturing vaguely at his head.

"Oh."

"You know," he says, still smiling, "I didn't think you would come."

"I thought about not attending."

"I'm glad you did."

"I think I am, too."

"Would you care to dance?"

"What, out here?" She has to admit it's appealing: there are no other party-goers under the stars, but the faint strains of music can still be heard.

She accepts his proffered hand, and just like that, they're pressed up against one another, twirling 'round and 'round the terrace until Diana's head is thrown back in an exuberant laugh. This is the feeling she was chasing, coming back here.

As the soft strains from inside signal slower music, their dancing becomes less frenetic, and soon they are swaying in place, barely moving at all.

He's staring at her openly, but she can't quite make herself meet his gaze. She's not used to this sort of instant attraction skimming through her veins, disrupting her judgement.

"I did this, once," says her dancing partner, just barely above a whisper. "One or two lifetimes ago."

"Tell me about her," Diana murmurs, because she doesn't think she can bear admitting that she has, too.

"Kind, and passionate," he says without hesitation. "Expressive eyes."

"What happened?"

"We were victims of circumstance, each bound by our own duties."

Diana is about to question him further when she feels something hit her cheek. She looks up.

It's snowing.

Big, fluffy flakes are falling gently, sticking to their clothes and hair.

Ache balloons from deep within her, pressing against her chest, her diaphragm, her breastbone, clawing to get out. She wants to scream with the sudden weight of the memories. It is too much, these human emotions; they are going to drown her.

She pushes away.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I can't—"

"What's this?"

As she pulled away, her sleeve must have slipped, revealing a watch that very much does not go with the masquerade aesthetic, one that she can't bear to take off.

"Not part of my costume. I have to go." She's pulled out of his grasp, has turned on her heel, is halfway to the door.

"I wish we had more time!"

The words stop her dead in her tracks in a way no others could.

"What did you just say?" It comes out a little strangled. She can hear him moving behind her, but she can't turn around. It's just her mind playing tricks on her.

"I wish we had more time," he says again, firm.

There's blood rushing in her ears, and she's suddenly acutely aware of the racing thrum of her pulse. If she turns around and it isn't Steve, she's going to be crushed, gutted.

"Diana, please," his voice is soft, pleading.

Slowly, cautiously, Diana turns around. When she opens her eyes, it's him. Steve. Unmasked, and staring at her like she's hung the moon and all the stars, like she is a celestial body herself.

"I found you."

His hands come up, ever so delicately, cupping her cheek before moving into her hair. She feels the fastening of the mask give way, and then he's removing it with such care and precision that it doesn't catch on a single strand of hair.

"That's better." It's barely a whisper, nothing more than an exhale of air, but it unfreezes her.

And suddenly, she's in his arms, holding on for dear life, as he whispers soft comforts into her ear.

It's really, truly Steve.

Maybe this is her life; maybe she only gets him for a few weeks every half-century or so. She'll still take it over the alternative.

***

2020

The orchestra strikes its first note, and the man in front of her bows grandly, offering his hand.

Diana accepts it, and he pulls her into a crisp, swirling box step, his eyes shining behind this year's mask, one that only serves to amplify their already deep blue.

"It's a little cliché, don't you think?"

"Dancing with you? Never."

"Steve!" she laughs. He can be such a flatterer. "I mean being at the ball. What is the point of being at a masquerade if your identity is not actually a secret?"

"Dancing with you," Steve says again. His mask does an excellent job of obscuring his facial features, but she can still see the laughter in his eyes.

"Incorrigible!"

"You wouldn't have me any other way."

She stops their complicated step pattern, right in the middle, and he crashes into her as a result, their bodies pressed together. "No, I would not."

The rest of the dancers swirl on, but they stay there, on the margins of the floor, just swaying, more in time with each other than with the music.

They end up making several turns around the ballroom, laughing their way through most of it. Steve likes to be spun just as much as he enjoys spinning Diana, so they draw a few stares with their antics. As the song comes to a close, Steve dips Diana dramatically, luxuriating in her bright peal of laughter, then kisses her nose as he pulls her back up.

The music fades out, and a new, slower tune takes its place. "Do you want to sneak out and make breakfast-for-dinner at home?"

"You do realize how long I spent on this outfit?"

"Yes. So, pancakes?"

"Obviously."

They slip out of the ballroom, giggling like children, and into the cold, crisp winter air. It's not snowing this year, but there's already a layer on the ground, shiny and frozen and making the world look like a holiday card.

Steve turns and immediately makes to remove Diana's mask.

She laughs but doesn't stop him. "Every year. What is your vendetta against my masks, hmm?"

"Can't see your face." He says it so plainly, so genuinely that she can hardly tease him for it.

"Steve, that's what a mask is for." Okay, maybe she can find a little bit of something to tease him with, in her bemusement.

He brushes an escaped curl back behind her ear, gazes directly into her eyes.

"Your face is so beautifully expressive, Diana. I don't want to miss out on it."

"Steve." She ducks her head, blushing, her smile fond.

"See, right there. The crinkle around your eyes. The way you scrunched your nose. You're just proving my point."

She can't help it; she kisses him, slow and deep, right there on the pavement under a glowing street-lamp. It's languid and soft, but consuming enough that eventually they break apart, in need of air.

"I believe I was promised pancakes," Steve says, forehead still pressed against hers.

Her grin, she thinks, must be blinding, because she's so incandescently happy. "Yes, I believe you were."

They walk home, hand-in-hand.

#wondertrev #wondertrevbingo2020 #diana x steve #just quarantine things #lenci writes

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melodious-madrigals · 4 years

Text

firsts

My first (ha!) little one-shot for the @wondertrevnet‘s wondertrevbingo2020

Prompt: firsts Word Count: 1460 Rating: General Audiences (+one swear word, I guess) Summary: Steve finds out that Diana missed out on an important part of childhood (and, frankly, adulthood) and endeavors to rectify that.

Read below the cut! Or on AO3.

***

"When is your birthday?" Steve asks, one morning, slightly out of the blue. "I've just realized that I have no idea."

Diana looks up from her computer, where she's reading the news. (Steve was a little disappointed to learn, when he woke up in the 21st century, that print newspapers are somewhat obsolete, but their morning routine hasn't suffered too much for it.)

"I don't either," Diana admits.

"Wait, what?"

"My mother used to tell me her story about my birth—creation—but she never said when it was."

"You mean—you didn't celebrate?"

Diana laughs. "No, we didn't. Time is a slightly different concept on Themyscira. We track the seasons and the years, but they do not mean nearly so much as they do here."

"But you never—you never got a party? You never got a cake?"

Diana shakes her head. "We rarely fêted an individual; when we celebrated, it was about the community."

It makes sense, from what Steve knows about the Amazons, but it still shocks him that no one ever celebrated Diana's existence. (He does that quietly every day, but he generally thinks everyone should. He also can't believe that no one thought to celebrate when she was a child.)

"Really," says Diana. "It's hardly an issue."

"Out of curiosity, what does your passport say, then?" Steve asks, because he knows he's seen her passport, but can't for the life of him remember anything except her unfairly attractive picture. (No one's government-issued ID should look that good, not even a goddess's.)

"Oh," says Diana. "My mother once made mention that the olive trees were in blossom when I came to be, and that usually happens at the end of April into May, so I just chose the first of May, back in 1918, and never changed it."

"At least you get your birthday off every year," says Steve.

"A happy accident, yes." Assuming the conversation has reached its natural end, Diana goes back to her article and Steve stares into his coffee cup, scheming.

Steve's family, back at the end of the 19th century, was not wealthy by any stretch. His father was a farmer, and his mother was an immigrant who came to the country with literally nothing but the clothes on her back. He and his siblings worked before and after their school day, and everything they had was homemade or secondhand or both. But every year, without fail, his mother made each of them a birthday cake and managed to make the day special.

He can't imagine ignoring a child's birthday, and even though he knows it wasn't a malicious thing on Hippolyta's part—simply a difference in priorities—he can't help but be indignant on Diana's behalf.

It's a simple solution, really. May 1st is coming up.

He's going to make Diana a birthday cake. And throw her a birthday party, while he's at it.

He makes detailed plans, and sends invites to their friends, emphasizing that it's meant to be a surprise party. There's a fine line to walk between big enough to be a proper party, and low-key enough that it's something she'll genuinely enjoy.

He decides, in the end, to make it like one of their house parties, but slightly bigger, and with cake.

He has a little bit of trouble deciding what her first birthday cake should be.

Carrot cake is a contender, but doesn't scream 'birthday' to him, and lemon, though delicious, seems too formal, somehow. He ends up back at chocolate, and decides to spruce it up with raspberries. (He watches Bake Off, okay? He knows you need good flavor balance.)

Steve has several elaborate excuses planned for what Diana may need to leave the apartment to get, so that everyone can arrive for the surprise. As it turns out, he needs none of them.

"You're going into work? Diana, it's a national holiday!" he exclaims.

"Not in the United States," she says simply. "And the MET is being very difficult about the piece we're trying to get on loan from them for the upcoming exhibit. If I miss this meeting they've suddenly called for, they will use it against us."

"What time will you be home?" asks Steve, dismayed and trying to calculate the time difference.

"Six, maybe seven if I'm lucky. Later if I'm not. I have no idea how long they have budgeted for arguing about trades."

Steve knows from experience that this is optimistic, and will skew towards the later end of her estimate. The Americans are second only to the British in terms of both their unwillingness to part with artifacts for even the smallest amount of time and general bitchiness.

Since Steve has 18h30 earmarked as the arrival time, he pleads, "Please try to be home by seven. And call, on your way home, so that I can have wine chilled."

"Will do," says Diana, and kisses him on her way out the door.

In the end, it all works out in his favor. People like to be fashionably late, so the last stragglers are arriving at quarter past seven when Diana calls to say she's finally on her way home.

"We reached an agreement, finally," she says, the pleasure apparent in her voice. "And we did not even have to go beyond the pre-approved inducement reciprocal-loan pieces!"

"That's excellent! I'll see you soon. We'll celebrate."

Diana is none the wiser to his cheeky comment.

"Bisous, ciao."

Fifteen minutes later, Steve has everyone wrangled and ready, when he hears the key in the door.

"Happy birthday, Diana!" everyone shouts as she enters.

"What's all this?" The shock on her face is evident, and there's confusion too, but so far he doesn't pick up on any annoyance.

"We're celebrating your existence," announces Steve, from his spot at the back of the room, "because you make each and every one of our lives better, Diana. Plain and simple. Happy birthday, love."

A cheer goes up, and friends crowd to hug Diana and offer greetings.

He can see her smile from across the room, the way her eyes light up as she hugs her friends and chats with them. Satisfied, he slips into the kitchen to arrange some of the food, and make sure the cake is ready for the rousing chorus of happy birthday that'll come in due time.

He's put lots of candles in the cake, and written Happy Birthday, Diana! in neat cursive across the top of the third tier, and piped raspberry-flavored buttercream roses around the bottom. It's pretty spectacular work for an amateur, if he does say so himself.

Their friends tell her to make a wish and blow out the candles, and her eyes meet his, bright in the low light and full of promise, just before she turns and manages to extinguish all of them in one breath. Her friends cheer again, and they cut the cake.

(It tastes pretty good, too.)

Later, she finds him on their terrace, chatting with Amélie from down the hall, who quickly extricates herself to go find more punch, and possibly her wife, Meriem.

Diana knocks her shoulder gently against his. "You made me a birthday cake," she says, sounding a little choked up.

"I did," he says lightly.

"I've never had a birthday cake before."

The way she says it, Steve's heart breaks just a little bit again. Never mind celebrating on Themyscira, she's been in a world that very much does observe birthday culture for a hundred years and no one has ever thought to make her a cake? "It was high time you got one, obviously."

"You're miraculous, you know?"

"Okay, the cake wasn't that good."

A desperate little laugh escapes her throat. "This isn't really about the cake. Which was excellent, by the way. It's just—you. You made me my first birthday cake and threw me my first birthday party, just because you could."

"Wow, the bar is so low." He's trying not to telegraph how appalled he really is, but Diana continues as though he hasn't spoken.

"And you did it in a way that I would enjoy."

"I'm not going to dignify that with a response. You know what? No, I am: there'd've been no point to doing it if you were going to be miserable."

Diana snorts, because this whole thing is so Steve. Quietly, deeply thoughtful, with a little bit of self-deprecating bravado. "I love you."

"I love you too, and I'm going to aggressively make you a cake on every birthday from now on."

Another proper laugh bubbles up. "I suspected as much."

She gets a birthday cake every year after, without fail, although none of them ever taste quite as sweet to her memory as the first one.

***

Fin!

#wondertrev #wondertrevbingo2020 #fluff #Diana x Steve #lenci writes #lmao i bet firsts was meant to be like first meeting or first kiss or first time but i am here to bring you NONE of that

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onthesandsofdreams · 4 years

Text

Between the Witch & the Hunter

Fandom: Wonder Woman Pairing: Steve x Diana Rating: T Summary: Diana looked at the house once more, it seemed so… innocent. Looking around, she couldn’t even say that the town in which it was located was strange. On the contrary, it was one where community was important, were the people were distressed at the amount of killings that had happened in the house. No one would approach the house, unless they had to. And now, here they were. “And people don’t hear anything?” Words: 1705 Notes: For the @wondertrevnet‘s Lock Out Bingo, Square: Music. Chapter 2 out of 4. [WonderTrev Bingo Masterlist]

Read @ AO3 | Previous Chapter

“Steve, are you sure that this is the house?” Diana arched a skeptical eyebrow, looking at the house, it was quite… normal. It was painted a soft yellow and had a nice little flower garden.

“Yes,” Steve answered. “People have been invited to this house, next thing we know, murder happens.”

Diana looked at the house once more, it seemed so… innocent. Looking around, she couldn’t even say that the town in which it was located was strange. On the contrary, it was one where community was important, were the people were distressed at the amount of killings that had happened in the house. No one would approach the house, unless they had to. And now, here they were. “And people don’t hear anything?”

Steve turned towards her and shook his head, “The only information we have, is that people come, everything seems fine for a day or three, then… nothing. We know that a boy heard some strange music once, but we can’t be sure if it means anything.”

“I see,” Diana was puzzled, in all her years as a witch she had never encountered such a strange thing.

“I can tell you something though,” Steve continued. “ARGUS doesn’t think the killings are at random.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, that three of the people who have died, are high profile politicians. Two others are prominent members of the city. Everyone is starting to side eye one another, as you can imagine, it’s not helping the mood for those in the Government.”

“And the reason why we’re here,” Diana guessed. “Is to take the place of the next would-be victims.”

“Yes.”

“Then I hope we can stop whatever it is that’s in here.” Diana sighed. “I’d hate to know that I failed and people are in worst danger.”

“The family is in hiding, worst case scenario, we have made preparations to fake their deaths.”

“Let’s go inside then.”

Diana and Steve walked into the house. She began to look around the place, it was quite the cozy home, soft pastels and white was all over. Pictures of nature, plants and indoor flower pots laid everywhere. There was no sign of anything amiss, which put her up on her guard, she couldn’t sense anything strange or supernatural. But then again, she could expect peace for at least a day or two, before whomever was doing this decided to unleash whatever it was.

“Do you want the master bedroom?” Steve asked her.

“How have people been killed?”

“In the basement, I don’t know how it happens, but all the victims have always been found in the basement.”

“You don’t mind? Me taking the master?”

Steve shook his head, “Nah, it’s fine.”

“Thank you, then.” With that, Diana made her way to her room, much like the rest of the house, it seemed so… charming, so homely and cozy. Painted in a soft shade of green, with floral bedding and beige carpeting and white furniture, it was comfortable. But she couldn’t ignore the danger that lurked beneath the pretty veneer. She readied her things, her inherited silver dagger, her crystals and herbs, her chalk and her sword. Whatever it was in this house, it wouldn’t grabbed her unprepared.

***

They were in the house for four days before it happened, Diana awoke to the faint sound of music. Her hand immediately reached for her gun and sword, her hands felt clammy and she was beginning to feel dizzy. And that is when she knew what it was. The music was meant to control her and lure her into the basement. She jumped out of bed, rushed towards her crystals and took an amethyst pendant and wore it like a tiara, relief was almost instantaneous.

Then she remembered Steve, cursing silently, she grabbed another amethyst and rushed towards Steve, gun and dagger on one hand. When she reached him, he was still asleep and the music was higher now. “Steve,” She hissed, trying to wake him.

“Uh,” was Steve’s reply.

Diana shook him once more, seeing him open his eyes and look at her, she felt some relief, the spell had not taken a hold of him yet. “Steve, something’s coming for us, it’s the music.”

Steve’s eyes widened and bolted upright, “How can we…?”

“Wear this,” she said and pushed another amethyst pendant at him. “It will prevent you from feeling dizzy and drunk on the melody. Grab your stuff, we have a monster to hunt.”

Steve didn’t need to be told twice. He jumped out of bed, grabbed his special gun, his large dagger and strapped them to himself. “Let’s go then!”

Carefully, they made their way down to the basement, and as they did, the music was coming on louder and to Diana’s ears, sounded like a command. She could feel her heart racing, this was so different from anything that she’d ever done. Her hand was in the pommel of her sword.

And then, there was a sudden chill and just like it appeared, it vanished and it was replaced with heat. It was almost like a furnace. “Steve… this is bad,” she whispered.

“I figured it out myself,” Steve whispered back.

The lights went out and there was a chuckle, immediately Diana drew her sword and Steve raised his gun, “Show yourself!” Steve commanded. “Whomever is there, show yourself.”

A few steps away from Diana, a figure took shape. It was a man who wore a horned helmet, leather armor and a small chain around his left wrist, “Well, well, well,” the man said. “If it isn’t my sweet little sister herself.”

Diana froze, she didn’t have siblings. “I don’t know who you are,” she said. “I have no siblings.”

“Oh you do,” the man mocked. “But I see that mommy dearest decided to lie.”

“My mother’s not a liar,” Diana snarled. “Do not speak ill of my mother.”

“Then how come, she didn’t tell you who your father was, little sister? Because let me tell you, daughter of Zeus, Godkiller… people lie.”

Diana wants to scream, Steve is giving her side looks, he looks quite grim. “Lies,” She hisses.

The man chuckles once more and launches himself at them, Steve immediately opens fire, but the bullets only grace him, Diana gathers her wits enough to summon a shield and the man crashes against it, but there are cracks in it. So, she pushes him away as best as she can.

“Oh little sister, that is not going to help you much. After all, simply witch spells can hardly do anything against me, Ares.”

Oh fuck. Diana wants to curse, she’s never fought a god before. She has always had her devotion to Hecate, she’s a witch after all. But fighting a god? She’s not sure she will be able to do anything. She’s not inclined to believe his words, not unless she speaks with her mother first.

Ares laughs at her face, then raises a hand and sends a wave of energy that sends Steve against the wall, where he crashes with a grunt and lays still. “Steve!” She cries out. “Leave him alone!”

“Join me, and I might consider it!”

“Never! I could never hurt anyone! And I won’t let you hurt anyone else.”

“A pity,” Ares raises his hands and sends another wave of energy at her.

Diana raises her sword, and oddly enough, it cuts through the energy and wipes the smile out of Ares’ face. Diana concentrates, thinks of all the spells her mother and aunt taught her. She reaches in, desperate to stop Ares and unleashes a wave of energy herself, the whole house shakes, but Ares winds up on the floor against the wall. She’s not sure the house will survive this battle. But she takes her chance, rushes towards Ares, sword raised does her best to stab him. But Ares is strong and catches her sword between his hands, they struggle for it, but she knows what she must do, she kicks him in the stomach.

The distraction is enough and he lets go, her sword goes through him and his eyes go wide. As if disbelieving that she has managed to kill him, blood comes from his mouth and begins to convulse.

Until he shatters into pieces and she is thrown backwards, her head hits the wall and all goes black.

***

“I can’t believe that it’s over,” Steve says as the look back at the house. It has cracks all over the walls and has been declared a hazard.

“It’s not,” Diana says and lifts the small chain. “Ares was not the man behind the killings, he was the weapon, nothing more.”

“Fuck,” Steve curses.

“My thoughts exactly.”

“Can we track the person who did this?”

Diana hesitates, but nods slowly. “That’s why I’m keeping the chain, I’ll do my best to see if I can track the master. It has to be someone strong, otherwise Ares would not allow this servitude.”

“Or he was a bastard that wanted to kill people and took the chance.”

“That too,” she whispers. “But still, it should take a little while to backtrack and find the mastermind.”

Steve says nothing, instead, he load their stuff into the car ARGUS has given them. Diana takes one more look at the house, then walks into the car and gets in, puts her seat belt on.

“You ok?” Steve says as he starts the car. “With all of…”

Diana knows what he means, she sighs. “My mother confirmed it, I don’t know what to do.”

“Yeah, can’t imagine thinking you know who you are, then finding out you’re something else.”

“You’re fine with this?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?” Steve raises his eyebrows, but never takes his eyes off the road. “You’re still Diana Prince, you’re still a witch and you’re still a good person. That’s all that matters.”

Diana smiles, “Thanks.”

“What are friends for?”

Friends. Diana hesitates for a moment, but it strikes her that yes, Steve Trevor is a man whom she could be friends with. Regardless of his nature as a hunter. He’s a good man. “To buy each other milkshakes, specially when one finds distressing news about oneself.”

Steve gives a hearty laugh, Diana smiles.

#wondertrevbingo2020 #wondertrev #Diana x Steve #Diana Prince #steve trevor #ares #wonder woman fic #au: supernatural #au: witches & wizards #au: monster hunters #between the witch & the hunter

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onthesandsofdreams · 4 years

Text

Between the Witch & the Hunter

Fandom: Wonder Woman Pairing: Steve x Diana Rating: T Summary: Diana is pressed against her door, hand hovers above her handle and wonders what possessed her to agree to work with a hunter. Then she remembers that people are dying, and that she is not heartless and won’t do anything and pretend all is fine. “Swear it to me,” she says at the end. “Swear it on your life.” Words: 1546 Notes: @wondertrevnet‘s WonderTrev Lock Out Bing. Square: AU. Chapter 1 out of 4. [WonderTrev Bingo Masterlist]

Read @ AO3

“Listen miss Prince,” Steve Trevor starts. “I know you have no reason to trust me, but I swear on my honor, I will not hurt you. I’m not here to kill you.”

Diana is pressed against her door, hand hovers above her handle and wonders what possessed her to agree to work with a hunter. Then she remembers that people are dying, and that she is not heartless and won’t do anything and pretend all is fine. “Swear it to me,” she says at the end. “Swear it on your life.”

From behind her door, she hears Steve Trevor sigh, “Can you open a crack, so you can see my hands as I swear?”

Diana considers this and her shoulders slump, she knows that she must open a bit of the door. “Fine, but try anything and I will defend myself.”

“I would not expect anything less,” Steven Trevor says.

Diana moves where she can see and opens the door a bit, she watches as Steve Trevor jumps a bit, then looks at her to the crack she’s opened and gives her a charming smile. Damn it, he’s handsome. She watches as he carefully rises his hands, then walks two steps back, the smile softens on his face.

“I, Steven Rockwell Trevor, do solemnly swear not to hurt you, miss Prince. On both my honor as a Trevor and on my life.”

Diana nods then, satisfied at the fact that Steven has given his full name. She could use her magic to protect herself if she must, names have power and Steven has just given her the power to hurt him terribly. He must be a brave one… or an idiot. “Then you may come in.” She says and steps aside, opening the door to let him in.

Steven Trevor walks in and remains near the door, his movements are slow and measured, “Thank you miss Prince. I know this is a hard choice for you, but we truly appreciate your help.”

Diana gives him a skeptical look, “I’m sure you could’ve found someone else.”

Steven Trevor shakes his head, a rueful look on his face. “No, I’m afraid we didn’t. Thanks to less than ethical – ha! - hunters, no witch in town wished to aid us. But I swear, we at ARGUS aren’t mindless killers. We only go after those who are true problems.”

Now it’s Diana who gives him a skeptical look, “If that’s for me to lower my guard, mr. Trevor, it won’t work.”

Once more, Steven shakes his head. “No miss Prince, it’s the truth. My team and I work honestly, if you are not causing trouble or hurting others, we leave you alone. We only intervene in situations like these…”

Diana knows what he’s speaking about. There have been several killings in town, and she knows well enough to know, that they point at one thing: Supernatual intervention. Demonic, most likely. “Assuming I believe you,” she sighs. “What do I get out of this?”

“Payment and our gratitude,” Steven says easily. “And should you ask for it, our protection and permanent employment.”

Diana’s eyes narrow. “Protection, employment?”

“Yes miss Prince, this is not the first time we work with witches or wizards and those who aid us, have the choice to work for us,” Steven doesn’t miss the look Diana gives him. “But not to kill others, but for investigations on demons or monsters!” He rushes out.

Diana arches her eyebrow, wary and tense. “Only demons or monsters?” She asks.

“Yes. No witch or wizard, we will ask no such thing of you. Vampires, demons, werewolves, monsters? Yes.”

Diana knows that it’s almost too good to be true, so she looks at Steven. He stands tall and proud, head held high – but there’s no arrogance in his stance -, eyes are still and are not shifting, clear of any lie, he stands still and only moves his hands in slow and measured movements. The behavior of a man who knows he’s being evaluated, and the behavior of a man who knows long hunts, she sighs, “Fine. I will help you, I can’t turn my back on needless suffering.”

The smile that Steven Trevor gives her is radiant, and Diana feels the need to silent chide herself, for his already handsome face is made lighter and she thinks that his face looks much nicer with a smile.

Steven extends his hand, “May I shake your hand miss Prince?” He still doesn’t approach her.

Diana extends her hand, she gives tiny steps towards him until she reaches him. Places her hand in his. His hand is warm and his grip is both gentle and firm.

“Welcome aboard, miss Prince.”

“Don’t make me regret it,” Diana warns him.

Steven’s face grows solemn. “Never.”

An hour later Diana has her bags packed, says a prayer to Hecate and hopes that her mother is not too angry at her.

*****

Her room in ARGUS headquarters is small, but comfortable. “If there is anything that you should need, miss Prince, all you need to do is ask.” Steve says and then leaves her alone to settle in.

The first thing Diana does is unpack, makes an altar for Hecate and once more, she says a quick prayer.

Half an hour later, there’s a knock on her door, “Who is it?”

“It’s me miss Prince.” Steven’s voice comes through.

Diana opens the door, “You know, if we’re to work together, you probably should simply call me Diana.”

Steven nods, “I didn’t want to assume I could. And well, why don’t you call me Steve, no one but my mom calls me Steven. And I’m here to bring you to meet the team, and so you can grab something to eat.”

Diana arches her eyebrow, but begins to follow him, “Steve,” She says, savoring the name. “So… you’re my minder?”

Steve actually laughs, “No, Diana, far from it. Simply being polite, I didn’t want to overwhelm you,” he then shrugs his shoulders. “Besides, I figure that it would be easier for you, at least you know me and that I have sworn not to hurt you. The team that will work with us has been notified and they are prepared to swear too.”

Diana is impressed, she wouldn’t have thought that his whole team would do that. “That… is very kind.”

Steve gives her another dazzling smile. “You’re to work with us, and trust is important.” They walk into a small dining are, and there are three men and a woman sitting down on a table with food trays in front of them, chatting quietly. “Boys, Etta,” Steve says, calling their attention. At once, they look at them. “Let me introduce you to miss Diana Prince,” Steve says. “She’s the witch who has graciously agreed to help us, and the one whom you’re about to swear no harm.”

Diana watches as they stand, one by one they swear to never hurt her. She commits their names to memory, Charlie, Sameer, Napi and Etta. “A pleasure to meet you all,” she says. “I hope we can work well.”

Etta gives her a kind smile, “I’m sure we will deary, come sit, we’re about to eat. Steve, go get the lady some food.”

Steve doesn’t protest, he simply gently pushes her towards the table and he walks off in search of food. Diana sits, stiff and wary, but Napi – or Chief, as he prefers – begins talking with her, his nature is kind and she feels oddly at ease with him. It’s then when Steven places a tray in front of her with a smile.

They eat, chatting about everything and Diana lowers her guard just a bit. Enough to have polite conversation with them and laugh at a joke Charlie made. Food is consumed and only then, do they excuse themselves, leaving her and Steve alone.

“They seem nice,” Diana says as Steve escorts her back to her room.

“They are,” Steve says easily. “They truly are the best team anyone could want. And tomorrow I’ll give you a proper tour of ARGUS, but it’s late.”

They’re at her door when Diana asks, “Steve, why haven’t you asked me to swear no harm in turn?”

Steve smiles easily, “Because, I wanted you to see that we wouldn’t harm you. That we mean our words, if you wish to swear, then go ahead, if not, well, that’s fine.”

Diana mulls his answer, she knows what he means. A show of trust. She then nods, lifts her hand up and keeps two fingers up, the rest she bends downward, touching the ring finger to her thumb. “I, Diana Artemis Prince, do solemnly swear no harm on Steven Rockwell Trevor, nor his teammates. I swear on my honor as a disciple of Hecate and on my life.”

The smile that Steve gives her is radiant, then he bows to her, “Thank you Diana, I will tell the team. I will leave you to your rest. If you need anything, my room is no.305”

Diana enters her room once he leaves, changes to her pajamas and climbs into bed. She’s tired and can feel the lure of sleep growing, “Hecate, please, keep me safe. Don’t make me regret trusting him.”

That night, strangely enough, Diana sleeps soundly.

#wondertrevbingo2020 #wondertrev #Diana x Steve #steve trevor #Diana Prince #wonder woman fic #au: monsters & hunters #au: witches & wizards #au: supernatural #between the witch & the hunter

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melodious-madrigals · 4 years

Text

WondertrevBingo2020 Prompt Masterlist

Thank you to @wondertrevnet for hosting this quarantine event!

Love at first sight

Texting - Steve and Diana adopt a cat. Steve is exceptionally bad at texting. The two converge more often than you'd think. (Aka miscommunication, but like. Low stakes.) On Tumblr and AO3.

Omg they were quarantined

Promises

Colors

Truth or Dare

Steve’s resurrection - In the aftermath of the battle with Ares, Diana remembers a story from her childhood that sends her on a quest to fix what seems to be unfixable. (My take on a descent into the Underworld, Orpheus-and-Eurydice style.) On Tumblr and AO3.

Steve’s resurrection (again) - Diana accidentally saves her uncle, and he, in turn, decides to bestow her with a gift—but it's actually a good one? On Tumblr and AO3.

Fluff - 5 times Diana and Steve were disgustingly cute and very happy (+0 times that they weren't because this is fluff). Seriously, just fluffiness in various scenarios; part ii of the entry above (Steve’s resurrection [again]). On Tumblr and AO3.

Music

Firsts - Steve finds out that Diana missed out on an important part of childhood (and, frankly, adulthood) and endeavors to rectify that. Mostly fluff. Find it here on Tumblr. Also available on AO3.

Crossover

Dancing - Being Bruce’s friend lands Diana in some pretty interesting places, including a masquerade ball, and she finds herself dancing with a handsome stranger. But there’s a certain magic to anonymity that might keep it from becoming something more…Three years, three dances, plenty of fluff. On Tumblr and AO3.

There was only one bed

Pregnancy

Hurt/comfort - Diana gets injected with an alien venom that sends her into a fevered delirium, and her mind conjures up the person she wants to see most...or does it? On Tumblr and AO3.

#wondertrevbingo2020 #wondertrev #wondertrevnet #just quarantine things #lenci writes #my fic

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onthesandsofdreams · 4 years

Text

Between the Witch and the Hunter

Fandom: Wonder Woman Pairing: Steve x Diana Rating: T Summary: Out of curiosity, one day Diana asks, “What would happen if someone comes after me? For being a witch, I mean.” Steve looks at her in the eyes. “Then I would come for you. I promise you Diana, I would come and bring you back.” Words: 1853 Notes: For @wondertrevnet‘ Lock Out Bingo. Square: Promises. Fills my first full bingo. Which you can see here. Chapter 4 out of 4. [WonderTrev Bingo Masterlist]

Read @ AO3 | Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3

To Diana, promises are sacred. As a witch, she is bound by them in the same way that she may bound others to them. That is why she believes Steve Trevor when he says, “Diana, we will find Isabel Maru, I promise. She won’t hurt anyone else.”

It��s not only his words that convince Diana, but his eyes. They are clear, free of any sort of deception and always look at her in her own eyes. There’s no reason why not to believe Steve, he’s more than proven true in the time she’s been with ARGUS and working with him directly. The mass killing of people at the gala still weight heavily on her mind, but Steve reassures her and she believes him. Steve is a good man, and if someone understands, it’s him.

There has also been a shift to them. Diana is not a fool, she knows that she’s falling for Steve. But she has her reservations – of course she does! Steve Trevor is a monster hunter and she’s a witch. Those two professions rarely mix. Those two sort of people rarely date. Diana knows of a grand total of two such couples.

But Diana also reads people better than most, and something inside her heart whispers that Steve Trevor feels the same, even if he won’t speak of it yet. It’s in the way he looks at her, in the way his hand holds her a moment too long, how he hurries to check on her, the tone of his voice and it leaves her breathless.

Out of curiosity, one day Diana asks, “What would happen if someone comes after me? For being a witch, I mean.”

Steve looks at her in the eyes. “Then I would come for you. I promise you Diana, I would come and bring you back.”

His answer is so simple, so honest and so painfully true that it almost feels like someone is squeezing her heart. Diana’s face softens. “Thank you Steve, I believe you.”

***

It’s one of Diana’s rare outings when it all comes to a head.

Diana is running low on some herbs and flowers for her potions, so she decides to go and get them. Steve offers to come with her, but she laughs and says that it’s not necessary, she knows the woods well and she should be back before they even notice she’s gone.

Steve reluctantly lets her go alone.

Diana drives two hours out of the city, the forest is beautiful during the summer and she relishes the alone time. Not that she minds the company of Steve, quite the opposite really, but she also values her time alone.

Diana wonders around, harvests some mushrooms, dandelions and other plants she will need. Allows herself a moment to clear her head before heading back to her car. Feels the sunlight on her face and breathes the clean air.

Once Diana makes her way back into her car, she notices another one, but she doesn’t care. It’s a wonderful day to visit the forest, hears some footsteps behind her, but doesn’t turn. That is her biggest mistake. It happens, one moment she’s unlocking the car, the next she feels a strong hit on the back of her head that unbalances her, she struggles to turn and fight off her attacker. It’s Isabel Maru. And she receives a handful of powder to her face.

As soon as the powder hits, Diana knows she’s truly in trouble. It’s sleepdeep, a power made of several plants that weakens the body and send you into a deep sleep. She sways as she stands, then, she slides down, fighting the weight of sleep as much as she can, but her limbs feel heavy and her mind is blanking out. A few moments later, Diana lays sleeping on the floor.

***

When Diana comes to, she finds herself tied to a chair in an empty room. Still groggy, she does her best to release herself, but the rope is made of an unknown material and much to her woe, it’s stronger than common rope.

“You won’t get out,” Dr. Isabel Maru’s voice make Diana go still. “That rope is made with steel threads, a fantastic discovery of mine, you see.”

Diana waits until Dr. Maru is in front of her to speak. “Steve will know this is a tramp,” she says with confidence. “And he won’t come.”

Dr. Maru chuckles, “He sounded quite worried when I spoke with him, so I’m sure he’ll come and I’ll be ready to take him down.”

Diana wants to curse, but she simply levels Dr. Maru with a calm look. “If that’s the case, he won’t come alone.”

“Oh no, I’m hoping he will bring his team with him. What a best way to rid the world of ARGUS’ best team? And all because a witch,” the smile that Dr. Maru gives her is twisted and makes her scar more prominent.

Diana has never been shallow enough to judge someone by their looks, but in this case, she’s sure that Dr. Maru’s outside matches her inside. “They are better than what you think. You won’t get away with everything you’ve done.”

Dr. Maru shrugs and begins to walk towards the door, “I’m ready. But you won’t make it out from here. Sweet dreams.”

As soon as Dr. Maru walks out the door, a gas is released and Diana does her best to hold her breath, but there’s only so much she can do, the gas puts her to sleep faster than what she’d like.

And for the next hours? Days? Diana wakes, only to be gassed again. She’s weaker than she’s ever felt before. And she worries.

‘Steve,’ Diana thinks. ‘Come find me.’

***

Diana wakes to screams and loud noises. The gas, whatever it is, has been making her weaker, but she still struggles to untie herself. “Steve,” she tries to yell, but her voice is nothing more than a rasp. “Steve, I’m here.” She swears to herself to learn to do astral projection if she gets out of here.

But the sounds Diana hears are loud, and her voice is still heavy with sleep. “Steve!” She tries over and over again, until she hears silence. Only hears people shuffling about. And then, the door is busted open and Steve rushes in, like a knight in a fairy tale.

“Diana!” Steve yells and rushes towards her. “Thank God, are you ok?” He asks, but doesn’t wait for her to answer to begin untying her from the chair.

“I’m fine,” Diana replies, thankful that she has not been gassed one more time. Her head’s clearer now. “Just… tired and so weak.” Diana is loathe to admit to her weakness, but she knows that Steve will not hold it against her.

“That’s fine,” Steve somehow manages to untie her. “I have you, you’re safe.”

“You promised,” Diana tells him. The rope falls off her and she begins to move her limbs.

Steve stands in front of her, a small smile on his face, “I did.” He watches her struggle for a bit, then moves to her side and slides and arm around her, “can you walk?”

“No, my limbs feel like gelatin.”

“No worries then,” Steve says and lifts her up in his arms.

Diana resist the urge to call him ‘her knight’. Because if knights were still a thing, Steve would be one of them, she’s sure. “Thank you,” she says and rests her head on his shoulder.

Steve get them out of Dr. Maru’s base, and immediately rushes Diana to the paramedics on the scene. Rides with her in the ambulance and stays with her during the whole ordeal. Diana has never been more thankful for anyone ever.

***

Diana is ordered rest, a week’s worth of it. The three days that she was under Dr. Maru have weakened her considerably, but it’s nothing that she won’t overcome. Steve rarely leaves her side during her week off. He’s the one who brings her meals – never forgets dessert –, brings her books to read, keeps her company and does everything he can to make her feel safe.

It’s Steve who tells her that Dr. Maru is imprisoned. That Diana will eventually be called as a witness, but she doesn’t have to worry too much.

Diana has made the choice to pursue this relationship. No matter what, Steve Trevor is a good man. One of honor and one she can trust, even in her weakest moments. One she feels safe with.

Funnily enough, it’s Steve who makes the first move.

“Did you know,” he says one day, as the walk together in the gardens outside of ARGUS. “That my mother is the hunter I inherited my powers?”

Diana freezes, she always thought that he had gotten them from his father. Hunters usually came from the paternal line. “No.” She says and waits.

Steve scratched the back of his head. “Yeah. My mom is awesome, but my dad? Well, my dad was a wizard.”

Diana’s head snaps towards him. “Impossible.” But at the same time, it made sense. Steve was far too accepting of magic. Too calm, too... Gods be damned. Steve respected magic. Steve didn't treat witch and wizards as monsters.

Steve laughs, “No Diana, I’m a halfling as they call us. Unfortunately, my father passed away when I was young, and I didn’t inherited his powers, my mom’s blood won out, I guess.”

Diana’s eyes are wide. “How…?”

Steve’s smile is dazzling, “Not every mixed marriage tells, my parents didn’t want to be on the radar so they didn’t ever mentioned it. As far as the world could tell, my dad was a humble shop owner.”

Diana feels like someone just pulled the rug from under her. Then she shakes her head and laughs, that makes sense. What better way to pass unnoticed, but to never have to admit the whole truth? Once her laughter abates, she asks, “Why are you telling me this?”

Steve grows serious, but his eyes are full of love and Diana can read the answer in them. “Because I love you, in this year that we have been working together, I have fallen in love with you.”

Diana is thankful that her feelings are not unwanted. She smiles. “Good thing then, because I love you too.”

Steve’s face lights up, like a boy with a new toy. But it’s his eyes that keep drawing her in, so full of love and tenderness. “May I kiss you?” He says as he caresses her cheek.

Diana doesn’t respond, but draws closer and gently touches her lips to his. For a moment, neither move, and then their lips meet and they pour into that kiss all the feelings they have for one another. It’s perfect in it’s own way.

They only part when breath becomes a necessity, but they still rest their foreheads against each other. They hold one another, unwilling to let go.

“Whatever comes,” Steve says. “We’ll face it together.”

Diana smiles. “Of course.”

As it turns out, there’s something that could be, between the witch and the hunter: Love.

#wondertrevbingo2020 #wondertrev #Diana x Steve #Diana Prince #steve trevor #isabel maru #wonder woman fic #au: witches & wizards #au: monster hunters #au: supernatural

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onthesandsofdreams · 4 years

Text

Between the Witch & the Hunter

Fandom: Wonder Woman Pairing: Steve x Diana Rating: T Summary: “Listen Diana, I believe you, but this man… well, we’re in a bit of trouble if he’s the responsible one.” “Why?” “Because,” Steve starts, staring at the sketch. “This man is a congressman.” Words: 1573 Notes: For @wondertrevnet‘s Lock Out Bingo, Square: Dancing. | Chapter 3 out of 4 [WonderTrev Bingo Masterlist]

Read @ AO3 | Chapter 1 | Chapter 2

It took Diana seven agonizing months to figure out who had bound Ares.

Steve had been a good sport about it, “At least it’s not a god doing the killing, we’ve had more chance to beat whomever is doing this, take it easy.”

But Diana was not taking it easy. She was full of determination, she wanted the killer found and jailed, she could and would not stand for injustice, much less gleeful murder. The only upside was, that she had the time to deal with the realization that she was a demi goddess. But that didn’t change her sense of identity, she was a witch first, daughter of Hippolyta, nice to Antiope, she would keep on keeping on. That didn’t mean, she was happy. It was quite the strange thing, to feel like the rug had been pulled from under her. Steve had been a good friend, they had grown closer in her time working at ARGUS and with him. He was funny, honest and respectful; he was also honorable and incredibly loyal. She liked that about him.

Diana did her best to ignore how her heart would race whenever he was close. It was best to ignore that, she didn’t want to give herself the false security that he could love her. He was a hunter and she was a witch, there could nor would ever be anything between them. It broke her heart a little.

On the first week of the seventh month of her search, it finally paid off. She managed to combine two of her abilities to track the killer. When she describe the man to the sketch artist, Steve had frown. “Damn it.”

“What?” Curiosity had gotten the best of her.

“This man, you sure it’s him?”

Diana frowns offended and glares, “Yes, Steve. I am sure.”

Steve raised his hands in a pacifying manner, “Listen Diana, I believe you, but this man… well, we’re in a bit of trouble if he’s the responsible one.”

“Why?”

“Because,” Steve starts, staring at the sketch. “This man is a congressman.”

Oh that is a problem, Diana understands now his worry. “And how should we go about it?”

Steve sets the sketch down and grins, “He will be throwing a party soon, hopefully, we’ll be able to lure him away from all the glitz and arrest or kill him.”

“Can we get in? I mean, if he’s a congressman, wouldn’t it stand to reason he’d be protected?” Diana frowns once more, she doesn’t know well how the game of politics, much less how much or little politicians are protected.

The grin Steve gives her grows, “Diana, we’re ARGUS. We can say that we’ve identified a thread to him, go there and mingle for a bit, get him alone and we’ll get him.”

“Would my word count for anything?” She is afraid, she can identify the man and she knows the magic well, she knows that magic doesn’t lie. And the bond that the chain Ares wore is clear as day.

“Yes, because you’re with us.” Steve’s voice is gentle. “Because you signed the contract, the government knows that if we hire anyone, we stand behind them full force. You won’t be treated badly Diana, I promise.”

Steve’s words settle into her bones and relief washes over.

***

Steve and Diana are the ones who will attend the dance, Etta couldn’t get more tickets to the gala. But she gets her a wonderful blue dress, it’s really lovely and she knows that it will look good on her.

The day of the gala arrives and Diana readies herself. Spells her sword, makes her as small as a pocket knife and hides her in her tight. She is ready by the time Steve knocks on her door. The look that Steve gives her doesn’t go unnoticed by her.

Diana says nothing, simply smiles and takes his arm. They have a killer to get.

***

The hotel where the gala is taking place is one of the finest places Diana’s ever seen. Everything’s gold and glitters under the lights. The man, congressman Ludendorff stands at the microphone and gives a welcoming speech, but all she sees is a killer who had no problem getting in bed with Gods. Much less Ares of all of them.

They sit down for dinner, Diana’s stomach feels in knots so she simply has bits and pieces. Steve however, does finish his whole plate. They chat with their table companions for a while. Until the music changes.

Diana and Steve take to the floor once the music changes. They sway and dance, for a moment, Diana can shut the world out and pretend there are no problems. The world narrows down to her and Steve. About how nice it feels to simply sway in Steve’s arms, to simply allow the music to wash over them.

That only last for an hours. After that, Never taking their eyes off their target. The man is walks around the hall like he owns it, she refuses to scowl at him. There is no need to alert him of her dislike.

“Should we arrest him now?” Diana asks, while she has accompanied Steve to other smaller missions, this is so unlike anything she’s ever done.

“Not yet, too soon,” Steve whispers at her. “We have to wait at least a couple of hours, sorry.”

Diana resists the urge to roll her eyes. “I understand.”

***

They wait several hours, and much to Steve’s worry, they see him talk with a woman with a scar in her face. Diana doesn’t know who she is, but judging at how on edge Steve has gotten, she’s bad news. “Who is she?” She whispers.

Steve never took his eyes off the woman, “Her name is Isabel Maru, she’s a doctor, who has been on our radars for a while, but we haven’t been able to pin something to her.”

“Is it bad that she’s here?” Diana whispers again and looks at the woman, she’s attractive and that scar doesn’t take it away, but it makes an impression for sure.

“Yes, if those two are working together… something’s going down. And they are going outside, that’s not good, let’s follow in a minute.”

It’s the longest minute of Diana’s life. But once Steve gives the go ahead, they walk fast and begin searching for them, they find Maru and Luderndorff in the back garden of the hotel. They begin to approach, but then Maru nods and runs. “Fuck,” Steve says. “Keep Luderndorff speaking if you can, she worries me more.” Then rushes off to try and stop Maru.

Diana approaches Ludderndorff, she’s on edge. And he seems so calm, unworried. As if he had been expecting them, “Congressman Luderndorff, you’re under arrest. I’m Diana Prince with ARGUS.”

The man has the gall to laugh, then he touches his ear. “Do it Isabel.”

No sooner than he speaks those words, Diana hears an explosion. She looks back, the hotel is still standing, but she can see some gas coming out of the windows. “What did you do?” She rushes forward and grabs Luderndorff by the collar.

The man shrugs, as if this were a game. “What I needed to do.”

No sooner than he says that, Diana feels a gun pointed at her stomach, but she has her magic as an advantage. She summons the wind, and Luderndorff is airborn and then dropped, the impact makes him loose his gun and she takes the advantage of grabbing her sword and restoring it to its proper size. Luderndorff is fast for a man his age, he crawls for his gun and points it at her once more.

Diana moves towards him, never in a straight line. She moves almost erratically, she won’t give him a clear shot. “You are a monster,” she hisses. “Who do you think you are to kill?”

“I am better, I am making a better world,” Luderndorff says and shots. He misses her, but that doesn’t stop him. He shots until he’s out of bullets.

Then, in desperation or anger runs towards her. Diana stands tall and raises her sword, Luderndorff tries to hurt her, but she keeps him at bay with her sword and spells. It’s almost a different sort of dancing.

But Luderndorff pulls something, and Diana stills. It’s another detonator. But she will be damned if she allows him to use it. She casts an illusion spell and Luderndorff begins to frantically look everywhere. “Stand back! Or the whole place goes to hell!”

Diana doesn’t hesitate anymore, she rushes forward and impales Luderndorff on her sword. ARGUS had given the order to bring him dead or alive. She’s picking dead. Grabs the detonator out of his hand and watches as he gasps for air, then sways and falls dead at her feet.

***

Three minutes later, Steve rejoins her. “We lost Maru,” he says and Diana can tell he’s angry himself.

“What did she do? Inside the hotel, I mean.”

“Gas. Everyone in the gala is dead.”

“Gods above,” she whispers and feels like a failure.

Steve sees her face fall, places his hands gently on her shoulders. “Hey, we’ll get her. She can’t escape us now, we know she’s involved and we witnessed what she did. She’ll be easier to track.”

Diana gives him a weak smile.

Steve smiles back at her. “So much for a night of dancing.”

Diana can’t help it, she snorts.

#wondertrevbingo2020 #wondertrev #Diana x Steve #Diana Prince #steve trevor #isabel maru #luderndorff #wonder woman fic #au: supernatural #au: monsters & hunters #au: witches & wizards #between the witch & the hunter

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melodious-madrigals · 4 years

Text

lost love (sweeter when it’s finally found)

Another contribution for @wondertrevnet‘s Lock Out Bingo.

Prompt: Steve's resurrection (again, lol) Word Count: 1637 Rating: T Summary: Diana accidentally saves her uncle, and he, in turn, decides to bestow her with a gift—but it's actually a good one?

Find it below the cut or on AO3.

***

Note: Based loosely on this tumblr post (but adapted for present rather than WW84). Another "Steve's resurrection" for the pile, but later in-universe chapters will fulfill other prompts (promise!). Set in a covid-free AU because I'm tired. PS: WW84 is vaguely mentioned, and tbh the story is probably WW84 compliant, since we all know Steve’s going to die a second time (no, I'm not bitter about it, you are).

***

At the beginning of her mission, Diana didn't set out to save her uncle. That was just a nice bonus to thwarting another villain.

She's honestly not surprised that Hades is still alive; in fact, she's long suspected that more of the Gods lived than the Amazons' stories let on. The thing that surprises her is that he got so badly caught up in this particular—and relatively minor—villain's scheme. (It's frankly a bit unbecoming.)

"I rather appreciate your assistance, dear Niece," Hades had said, after she'd freed him.

"It was a happy accident," Diana had said in response, as truthfully as she could.

"Still," Hades had replied loftily, waving a hand. "It will not go unrewarded."

Diana, who was no stranger to the misguided things the Gods often thought of as "gifts", had tried to protest, but Hades had disappeared without so much as a flash of light before she could get the sentiment out.

She had gone around for several days extremely wary, but in the end, nothing had come of it. Another lofty, broken promise by a flighty god is, after all, nothing new. Indeed, the lack of "reward" is probably in and of itself a better reward than any he could offer.

That had been a decade ago, right before she had begun her involvement with what would become the Justice League. So much has happened since then that she's forgotten about the whole encounter, hasn't thought about it in years. She has little reason—or desire—to ponder what Hades' idea of a reward might have been.

So when he shows up in her office at the Louvre one stormy night, it takes her a second to place why he's showed up.

"Ah, Diana," he says, "how lovely to see you again." As if they've just casually bumped into each other at the market, instead of the fact that he had to manifest into her office with purpose for the encounter to take place.

"Uncle," she says, warily, because even though she is the Godkiller, there's no reason to go around angering them on purpose. "To what do I owe the pleasure of your visit?"

"Well, you see, I'm afraid I promised you a reward for freeing me some time ago, and never delivered."—Oh, thinks Diana, oh no.—"The paperwork down in the underworld is horrendous, you see, and there's been an uptick due to the new trend to not vaccinate, but I've finally dug myself out of the hole the accumulated while I was gone plus the current bit, and I've come to make good on my promise."

Diana tries to be subtle in her rejection. "As much as I appreciate the sentiment, Uncle, there's really no need—"

"Nonsense! It's a done deed; I've just come to inform you that you'll find it in your apartment when you return home."

"Oh, well…thank you," Diana fumbles for her words, trying to be civil, even though she dreads what she'll find. It'll be a three-headed puppy, or a cursed obsidian scrying bowl, or a pomegranate tree whose fruit explodes, or something equally difficult and bizarre.

"Think nothing of it!" says Hades lightly, either ignoring or oblivious to her discomfort. "And now I must away—it's my night off and Persephone's waiting. I really only popped up to inform you. Do head home soon, won't you?"

And then, just like that, he's gone, leaving Diana with an empty office and a cluster headache.

She files away a few papers and then sets out for home, too, because she really needs to deal with whatever Hades' gift is. When she reaches her apartment, she says a hasty bon soir to the doorman, and then unsheathes her sword in the lift. She's not about to walk in unprepared.

She enters as stealthily as possible, clearing each space as she goes along, until she rounds the corner into her living room—

—where she promptly drops her sword, letting it clang noisily on the floor, a true testament to just how shocked she is.

Because there, on her couch, looking every bit like he belongs there—like this is normal—is Steve Trevor.

Time slows to a standstill, or maybe her mind just goes into overdrive. It's been more than thirty-five years since she saw him. Since he died, a second time. Since her heart broke a second time.

Her first response is shock, pure and unadulterated.

Her second is that she's not sure that she can do this again.

When she got Steve back, only to lose him again, her heart didn't just break. It shattered, shattered into a million little shards, some of which might have drifted away into the wind. She spent years trying to glue the bits back together, and she did it, she really did, but she thinks that it might be a little misshapen and lumpy. A valiant effort, but what's left is not quite whole.

And this—this right here is exactly the sort of present a god would unwittingly give. A double edged sword, just as likely to harm you as help you. Diana's not sure that she can take losing him again. Not sure that she could recover from that pain, a third time. Not sure that the risk is worth what's left of her heart.

Watching him die, giving him up, seeing him sacrifice himself was the hardest thing she's ever had to do, and she's not equipped to do it again.

It has been perhaps a second since the sword clanged to the ground, and she's decided that she can't let him in, not again.

From across the room, Steve looks up. "Surprise," he says, smiling. His big blue eyes are crinkled at the edges, his grin is pulled just a little lopsided.

One word. All it takes is one word, and her resolve crumbles. She can't give that up, not again. She'll do whatever she has to in order to keep him safe, this time.

Steve will always be worth the risk, the pain.

Diana takes a steadying breath.

"Welcome to Paris, my love."

He doesn't move, but does say, in a far-away voice, "The last time I was here was the autumn of '16."

"It might be a little different."

Steve ducks his head, a little smile on his face at her cheek. "Look, I know it's been a long time," says Steve. "Again. I can go, if you—"

"Stay."

He locks eyes with her, and the world comes to a swirling halt. It's just them, and there's too much distance after so long. Like the pull of a magnetic field, they're across the room, colliding together, holding on tight.

She has Steve back.

"I don't really remember the afterlife," Steve says, sometime later, when the first wave of emotion has subsided a little, and they're properly coherent again. "I could sort of feel time passing, er, abstractly, but I couldn't tell you what happened. And then yesterday—I think it was yesterday, it feels like it might be yesterday—I was summoned to Hades' palace, and they did—all sorts of things to me. Sort of—uploaded things to my brain. I know all sorts of things about the last hundred years. The last decade. My memories are my own, but it's like they gave me a crash course on everything else."

He blinks, then looks at her imploringly.

"Like—computers. Can you even believe the things that they do?"

"No," she says, softly, because it's true: she's lived for millennia, and it's just in the past few years that technology has taken off in unprecedented ways.

"They seem unfathomable to me," he continues, almost dazed. "But I know exactly how they work. I can code." Then, "I know what coding is," he amends with awe.

His eyes go a little unfocused.

"Anyways, the next thing I knew, I was sitting on your couch and—corporeal, I guess? I suddenly had to breath. Which—that's not something you really think about doing, but I guess I didn't have to in the Underworld, because it had stopped being second nature."

Diana almost chokes, because keeping him alive is going to be harder than she thought if he's already forgetting to breathe.

Steve must see her expression, because he backpedals. "I mean, it was easy to start doing again! I love breathing." He winces immediately, recognizes it as overkill, veers onto another subject. "Do you know why I got brought back this time? No one said."

Diana exhales roughly. "Nothing quite so dramatic as last time. Hades decided he owed me a favor, and this was how he chose to follow through."

"Huh. That sounds like it could stick."

"That's certainly my goal, yes." She reaches out and twines their fingers together, and he gives her hand a light squeeze, a pressure she returns.

"Tell me about this you," he says, after a pause.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, I've fallen hopelessly in love with you twice, and I'm looking forward to doing it all over again. Tell me about this version of you."

He drags their hands up and kisses her fingers, and she lets her eyes flutter shut.

She thinks about all the things that she could say. Her stint in Istanbul. The job she took at the Louvre. The formation of the Justice League. But what of this is intrinsic to her, and something Steve wouldn't already know, or suspect? "I got very involved in woodworking in the early two-thousands," Diana says, and lets the conversation go from there.

Outside, Paris thrums loud and vibrant, a city full of light and liveliness. Inside the apartment it is quieter, but for the soft sound of their voices, late into the night.

For once, a God has gotten a gift spectacularly right.

***

#wondertrev #wondertrevbingo2020 #wondertrev fic #diana x steve #steve x diana #hades is the least problematic major greek god #(fight me)#fluff #just quarantine things #lenci writes

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melodious-madrigals · 4 years

Text

the choiceless hope in grief

My latest contribution to @wondertrevnet‘s Lock Out Bingo challenge.

Prompt: Steve's resurrection Word Count: 4678 Rating: T (swearing) Summary: In the aftermath of the battle with Ares, Diana remembers a story from her childhood that sends her on a quest to fix what seems to be unfixable. (My take on a descent into the Underworld, Orpheus-and-Eurydice style.)

Find it below the cut or on AO3.

***

The dust has barely settled on the battlefield when the sun rises, it's golden rays peeking through the ashes and the morning mist.

Diana lands on what's left of the runway, the hard pavement crunching under the force of her boots, tethering her back to the Earth.

There are shouts, and then out of the rubble come Charlie and Sameer and Napi, bruised and bleeding, but looking little worse for the wear, overall.

They are alive.

Steve is not.

(Are those his ashes, causing the bleeding red of the sunrise, off to the northeast?)

"Diana!" cries Sameer, rushing forward to check that she's okay. It's more than she deserves.

"Steve," Diana croaks, when they're in front of her, properly. "I failed him. I'm sorry."

"You didn't fail him," says Sameer, immediately.

"He did what he knew was right," adds Napi. "There is honor in that."

Honor. There's honor in a well fought death. There's honor in dying for a cause, on the battlefield. There's honor in sacrifice. That has always been in the teachings of her people.

But fuck honor. To hell with sacrifice, when she should've been able to save him. He had to do what he knew to be right because of me, she thinks, because I did not act quickly enough. But she doesn't know how to verbalize this, doesn't know how to make them see that she is not something to be looked at in awe.

That's how they're looking at her right now—in awe, as if she is some ethereal hero, some benevolent goddess come to solve their woes. She is not. (She is just Diana. She has failed.)

Charlie, of all of them, is the one to touch her arm lightly, and despite how desperately angry she is, she can't bear to throw off his touch. It would hurt him, not her, and she can't abide that. She has caused enough anguish already.

She allows them to guide her off the airstrip, back to a nearby town, and in doing so, succumbs to her exhaustion, her numbness.

She has never experienced a greater triumph. But she has never known such failure, or such sorrow.

The dust has barely settled in her mind, the fog and numbness starting to retreat, the ashes of her failures swept up to be tightly stored away, when she remembers a story that her mother told her, eons and eons ago. It is like light racing through her veins, hope bubbling and burning across the mists of despondency and sorrow.

It brings her to her knees, grounding her in the full impact of its implications.

"Diana?" asks Charlie.

"I failed him," she whispers. "I failed him, but I will fix this."

"Not everything can be fixed," says Napi, uneasily.

But Diana is resolute, now.

Once upon a time, in a land far darker than this one, in a time of war and strife and primordial beasts, there existed no delineation between the realms. The barriers between the Underworld and Earth and Olympus were weak, and it allowed great creatures, terrible creatures, to roam unfettered, to wreak havoc and spill blood.

And the Gods, in their infinite wisdom, sought to rectify this. They did not, after all, want monsters to roam in the night, destroying their temples and shedding the blood of the people who worshiped them. They filled in the cracks, and made it harder to travel from one plane to another. Little by little, the once permeable borders were patched up, until they were uncrossable, but for a couple of select entrances that were well fortified and heavily guarded.

Over time, the horrors were sent to the Underworld, imprisoned in the deepest depths of Tartarus, and the world knew something like peace, until the petty squabbles of man became wars, and humanity ravished its own lands all by itself.

The entrances to the realms of the Gods, meanwhile, were lost over the millennia, faded away, or sealed permanently, or buried by the sands of time. Death became the only way for a mortal to transverse the planes.

Except, here's the thing about these stories, these rich oral traditions: So long as they are being told, they exist in someone's living memory.

Sometimes, there exists a corner of the world where such fantastical notions are not lost to time immemorial.

"Not everything can be fixed," says Napi, uneasily. Maybe his people had their own version of these stories. Maybe he feels the tug of them, deep in his bones, because he's not entirely of this world either (a child of two realms, like her, but not quite, either).

"I need to get to Themyscira," Diana declares with a fervor that none of them have heard since before Ares was defeated, and Steve died.

"Darling, they're still trying to clean up the armistice and the War," Etta titters. "They're hardly running trains."

"Then I will journey alone," Diana says. "Do you have the boat that we arrived on?"

"It should be at the dock, still," says Etta nervously. "Diana, I don't like this."

"I have to go home, Etta," Diana says seriously. "I cannot stay here."

"Oh, well." Etta's lip wobbles. "We'll be sorry to see you go, of course. But we'll do everything we can to get you home."

Three days later, Diana is setting sail in the same boat that brought them to London.

Once upon a time, the Gods entrusted their strongest, bravest warriors with a doorway down to the deepest pits of Hades. Part of their sworn duty was to protect it, and keep it from revealing what was within to the rest of the world. They knew that certain death lay beyond, and they upheld their sacred duty to guard the portal, year after year, millennia after millennia.

And so, tucked away on a long-forgotten island, there is one remaining gateway on Earth that has not been lost to memory and the turning of the seasons. In a grotto on the very westernmost shore is a slab of stone that can, by some great feat of strength, be moved just enough to reveal a passage that goes directly to Tartarus.

Tucked away on a little island called Themyscira, forgotten by man and populated by the fiercest warriors that exist, is a primordial horror known only as Doom's Doorway.

On the boat, day and night blend together. She doesn't sleep, not really. Every time she closes her eyes, she sees Steve, and Ares, and Antiope, her fallen Amazonian comrades, the children who laughed in the square of Veld, the old woman who smiled softly at her and gave her a room for the night and told her that she'd grown up in the village, and was glad she saw it free again before she died.

He sees ghosts, echoes Napi's voice, soft in her ear.

For all that her people believe in shades of the dead, she finally understands what it means.

The sailing itself is not difficult, and Diana knows the island's position based on the stars. Being left alone with her thoughts, however, is another story.

She did not realize how much she relied on Etta and Charlie and Napi and Sameer in the days after the battle. Even in her haze, they were there to offer comfort and jokes and tea.

Now, Diana has no distractions, nothing to pull her out of her head, where the guilt festers, goes septic.

There are so many things that Diana cannot fix. She cannot go back and save Veld. She cannot go back and prevent the deaths of her sisters, cannot deflect the bullets they took or staunch the blood they spilt on the soft white sands of the island. She suspects that she cannot even ask for Antiope’s soul, because Antiope is probably reborn already, fierce and ready to face a new life.

But Steve.

She clings to this single hope.

This she can fix, maybe.

She just has to walk into Hell to do it.

Someone must spot her boat from the cliffs, because she’s met by a party of Amazons at the dock.

"Diana!" her mother flings herself at her, and though Diana allows herself to be hugged, she does not return the embrace. There are too many broken things between her and her mother, now, to feel any comfort from it. "You have returned to us!"

When the Queen pulls away, Diana says, "I am only passing through. I am here for Doom's Doorway."

Her mother's eyes narrow, her face pinches. Thousands of years ensconced on an island have not dulled Hippolyta's ability to draw connections about the outside world.

"The pilot." Said like a dirty word.

"His name was Steve," Diana snaps, not proud of the fact that her voice breaks when she says his name. "And he sacrificed himself to save millions of lives."

"Diana, I cannot let you do this."

"What I do is no longer up to you." Chin held high, eyes blazing, she looks every bit the avenging warrior princess.

"This is madness!"

"I am walking through that doorway today," says Diana, voice deadly calm. "It would be a better use of your resources to backstop the doorway behind me, but if that is not the path you choose, I will not hesitate to remove anyone who gets in my way."

Gone is the little girl who napped on her bed and clamored for her stories. In her place is a tired, heartbroken woman with a resolve of steel.

"Diana, as your Queen— "

"Have you forgotten that I am the Godkiller, Mother?"

Hippolyta falls silent. That is the one thing she could never forget, no matter how hard she tried.

Diana only visited this part of the island once or twice, as a child. The slab of rock that is Doom's Doorway is imposing, ominous. With a battalion of Amazons at her back, ready in case of unknown horrors, she pushes the portal open.

She feels the tingle of residual magic, of vestigial godly power, even now, millennia later. Beyond is a dank tunnel, humming with the energy of the beasts that await.

She slips inside, hears the Amazons' efforts to close the doorway. Little by little, the sunlight disappears, and she is left to descend into the inky blackness alone.

Once upon a time, there was a woman who descended into the pits of hell, and faced down the creatures that frighten the monsters that parents use to scare their children at bedtime.

But the vicious creatures that haunt the dark, the stuff of incalculable nightmares—they are used to being the most fearsome, the most deadly. They have ruled supreme here since the Age of Heroes, their foe long dead now, crumbled to dust and nothing but a haunting echo in the wind.

These monsters, they fight savagely, tooth and claw and sometimes tail and wings, territorial and spoiling for a fight, for a hero to take down, for a chance at escape.

But what they do not have is resolve, or love. They do not have ache blooming in their chests, or love blossoming in their hearts. They do not have the whisper of a memory, tucked safely away, of low lights and swaying bodies and magical, feathery snowflakes dancing in the air. They do not have the lingering imprint of a touch, soft and steady and kind, against their cheek, or the sting of a cool metal watch, pressed desperately into their hands.

Diana shows up on their turf and wins.

Physically spent, Diana staggers out of Tartarus and into the Asphodel Fields. She has a long cut down her right bicep and bruising across her cheek, but she is very much alive and has fought her way through every beast that Hell could throw at her.

(They have all felt the bite of her sword, the sting of her wrath, the determination of her will.)

Asphodel boasts no beasts of legend; instead, spirits flock to her, sensing her light, her warmth and power—but these are not malevolent, simply shades that have found something to break up the monotony of existence here.

It's disorienting in its own way, because as they feed on her energy and get stronger, they're able to whisper, and so there's a whole chorus of barely-intelligible words around her, like wind through long grass, cacophonous but never quite a symphony.

She's not sure how long she walks—time doesn't exist in the same way, here—but she finally spies Hades' residence. The palace is made of obsidian, and soars high into the cavern, its spires lost in the twisting darkness.

Diana pummels the door once, twice, three times, and the sound echoes through this corner of the Underworld. The door—previously locked tight—creaks open, and Diana steps into the shadowy palace.

The long halls blend together, and then suddenly, she is deposited into a sparkling, brilliantly lit throne room. There are two thrones, both in use, their occupants swathed in shimmering robes.

Persephone and Hades, holding court. She knew they'd still be alive, if any of the gods were.

"I desire to come in peace," says Diana, stopping only when she is directly in front of the dais.

"That's not the same thing as actually doing so."

"No, it is not," she agrees. "I have come for Steve Trevor. How we proceed is up to you."

"It's been a long time since someone has come here in search of reclaiming a soul," Hades muses.

"It has been a long time since someone killed a God, and I did that last week," says Diana with more confidence than she feels. "I will accept a task or a challenge," she continues, "if that is what you desire, but I am not leaving here without Steve."

"You think highly of yourself."

"Hubris is not my fatal flaw," says Diana, pointedly. "Mine is that I will burn down kingdoms to save someone that I love."

Hades appraises her for a few moments, then sighs. "Very well. I'm feeling magnanimous today. I'll collect the soul of Steve Trevor, and we'll negotiate from there."

He's there and then he isn't, like he slid into a shadow and vanished. Diana eyes the spot from which he disappeared, and then slides her appraising gaze over to Persephone.

For all the lore might claim otherwise, the Underworld seems to suit her sister. She's got a commanding presence but is utterly relaxed, comfortable and sure of her place.

"You went to great lengths to get here."

Diana examines her, mulling over a response.

"So did you, once upon a time."

Persephone smirks.

"The things we do for love. This mortal, is he worth it?"

Diana shrugs helplessly. "To me he is."

Persephone looks contemplative. "We love differently than the humans do."

"Is it not just a matter of perspective?"

Persephone's lip twists and she looks pleased, but before she can answer, Hades re-solidifies on the throne and with him is—

"Steve."

He's translucent, more nothing than anything, but it's definitely him and he's growing more stable, more person-like with every second he spends in the presence of three gods.

"Diana?" He sounds a little confused, but it's still music to her ears, the timbre of his voice comforting. For the first time in—what has it been? Days? Weeks?—she feels like she can breathe. "Did you die too?"

"No, my love, I am here to bring you back," says Diana, fighting to keep her voice steady. She doesn't get to break down yet. The journey is only half done, and bitter challenges still lie ahead. "I've come to bring you back to the world of the living, but I will not do so without your permission."

"I'll come," agrees Steve immediately. "Anywhere you lead, I would follow."

"Touching," interrupts Hades, drolly, "truly, it is, but I've got better things to do, and no inclination to stay here any longer. An Orpheus agreement will do just fine. Standard terms. No looking back, or I get to keep the soul."

He waves his hand, and then saunters out of the throne room.

"Good luck," mouths Persephone, and then follows him.

"Steve," says Diana seriously, meeting his gaze, "we have very little time. The second we leave this room, I can't look back. It's going to be a very long, very tough journey."

"I'll keep talking to you," Steve promises.

"Good. I will see you on the other side, my love." Diana takes a deep breath, locks eyes with Steve one last time, and then turns and strides out of the room.

Once upon a time, the myths said that the ascent from the Underworld was too quiet. That because poor Orpheus could not hear the footsteps of Eurydice's shade, he went mad with doubt, and, second-guessing Hades' boon, turned to check, only to lose her forever.

If only the myths were true.

It would be kinder than the reality.

The first part of the journey, across the plains of Asphodel, is uneventful. She wants to be able to look at him, but it's not an overwhelming desire. She lets herself believe, for a moment, that this might work.

It's not long after they cross back into Tartarus that things deteriorate, and rapidly. Up until this point, things had been quiet, save for the occasional word or anecdote from Steve to confirm his continued presence.

Behind her, there's a grunt, like someone has taken a sucker punch, and then scuffling, and a whimper.

I'm in pain. She's sure Steve's just said it, schools herself before she whips her head around to check.

Please, Diana. It's his voice, she's sure of it.

She's not sure at all. It's him, but just a little wrong, two degrees to the left.

"Steve?"

More groans.

"I'm here, Diana."

That one's him, maybe.

Why are you doing this? I was part of the problem, you thought so yourself.

She's not sure why he's bringing this up now, but she probably deserves it. Anxious and on edge, she replies, "You were not part of the problem; I should never have implied it."

"Diana?" Confusion, and—pain? "What are you talking about?"

There are snarls, suddenly, and otherworldly hissing, and more whimpers that can mean only terrible pain.

"I—" she starts, suddenly unsure, "I'm sorry."

Help me.

"You're sorry? I'm sorry."

Horrible sounds, and then sobs, soft, like he's trying to conceal it.

She cannot look back.

On this journey, there are no monsters for her to fight. She has slain them all, sent them back to the deepest recesses of the Underworld to cower and lick their wounds.

There is nothing to rip at her skin, to spill her blood, to feel the sharp bite of her steel. Nothing to vanquish. No foe to face down.

But this is the truth of the world: Not all monsters are corporeal. Not all monsters are corporeal, and everything comes at a cost.

"Do you want me to turn around?"

It is an unbearable question, but one she must ask. He shouldn't have to suffer for her, because of her.

"No," says Steve, voice tight. What is he enduring that he isn’t telling her?

Yes, say the hissing voices that sound like Steve.

Turn around, Diana.

Don't make me go through this.

She whimpers, disoriented.

"Whatever they're telling you, it's a lie," pleads Steve, but his voice sounds pained, jagged around the edges. "Listen to me, Diana, this voice right here."

You wouldn't help me then, and you're not helping me now, when I need it. You're being selfish.

"I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry."

"You don't need to be, Diana, not even a little bit."

If you loved me, you would let me go.

"I could do it, for you," Diana chokes. "I could let you go, if you wanted me to." It would break her, but she would do it.

"Don't even think about it."

Please. Please, I don't know how much more of this I can take.

She cannot suppress the sob that claws its way up her throat.

"We can make it, Diana. You can make it."

Look back, look back.

Let me go; it would be worth it to see your face one more time. If you love me, let me go.

It's getting harder to tell what's real, what's illusion. She's never wanted to turn her head so much, to check.

"You were the first time that I had hope, real hope, in four years. If anyone can do this, it's you."

She treads on, wincing at every sound she hears, wracked by guilt.

Diana has never been more grateful to see a slab of rock. She's itchy, almost, from resisting a peek over her shoulder, and shaking from the stream of groans, of sobs, of torture behind her, even as Steve does his best to pretend like he's not enduring extreme pain. She wishes it had been her instead that the Underworld was hurting.

Doom's Doorway is even heavier from the inside. It takes everything in her, every ounce of strength, both goddess and mortal, to move it even a centimetre.

But slowly, slowly—inhibited by the fact that she has to squeeze her eyes shut to make sure she doesn't accidentally look at Steve—the slab of rock moves.

One centimetre, then two, then five, and then there's shouting on the other side, and Diana has never been so relieved to hear her compatriots in her life.

"It is Diana of Themyscira," she calls.

With one more massive push, and the last bit of her strength, she moves the slab far enough to the side to allow for the passage of a person. She slips out, into the bright shine of the sun, and staggers three steps before falling to her knees.

She covers her eyes, sensitive to the blinding light, and weeps, exhaustion overtaking her.

Shouts of secure the doorway! reverberate around the grotto, and a legion of Amazons must fall in line, because the scrape of rock becomes audible.

"Diana," says a voice behind her, softly.

She shakes her head, unwilling to turn. She doesn't believe it's over. After all this, she's not sure it's true, that this is it, that they’re safe.

"Diana, the doorway is closed. We're in the sunlight. It's over."

A hand touches her shoulder, solid and warm. Tangible.

A shadow falls over her as he moves around her, and then there’s a thud as he lands on his knees in front of her.

“Diana,” he whispers, “you did it. We’re safe.”

She lowers her hands slowly, and when her eyes open, Steve is in front of her. She gasps, a shaking, shuddering thing, and then pulls him into her arms, a fresh wave of sobs overtaking her in her relief.

A pair of strong arms come up around her, and she leans into his embrace, holds him close and marvels at the fact that he’s solid and there in her arms. That she somehow, against all odds, succeeded.

She pulls back, just enough to look at him. He’s sooty, and looks a little worse for the wear, as though perhaps he was restored precisely as he was in the seconds before the explosion. (She sees no trace of their ascent.) Indeed, he’s wearing a grin, and there’s light in his eyes, and when she touches his face, he sighs a little, involuntary, and she did it.

“It feels good to be alive,” says Steve in his trademark bemused deadpan, and a startled laugh escapes her.

His eyes darken, and before she can convince herself not to, she kisses him, slow and deep. He responds enthusiastically, nipping gently at her lower lip, pulling her even closer so that they’re entirely tangled together.

There are plenty of things to discuss, but they have time for that later. They have time. For now, she can enjoy the kiss.

Myths do not have happily-ever-afters. They have lessons, warnings, morals: do not anger the Gods, do not go against the natural order of things, do not be prideful. Their conclusions are, more often than not, woeful. Show me a happy myth, and I’ll show you someone who’s missed the point.

But this is not a myth.

Fairytales do not show life, as it really is. They end at the bit where it seems like things are just beginning, and tell us instead that everything remains just so for the rest of time, expect us to believe that conflict no longer exists, when that’s not how life works. They hide the messy bits, and in doing so, hide the parts that make the happily-ever-after worth it.

This is not a fairytale, either.

There is no happily-ever-after, but there is happy. There is no moral, but there is growth, and self-reflection, and the promise of doing better today than yesterday. It’s all anyone can hope for, really.

She was gone from Themyscira for more than a week, convincing everyone that she'd died. She's ready to set sail right away, bring Steve back to his friends in London, but Steve convinces her to stay a few days, citing the fact that he'd really like another go at the "magic healing pools." She knows that it's really for her.

The first thing they actually do is fall into bed, exhausted. After all, Steve's just come back from the dead (it takes rather a lot of energy) and she's gone days without sleep, her eyes itchy and leaden. She holds him close the whole night, and sleeps better than she has in ages.

The conversation, later, with Hippolyta is difficult.

"You're leaving again, aren't you." Her mother always knows.

"Yes, Mother."

"There's nothing I can do to make you stay."

"I will come back." She means it, too. Broken things can be fixed, and she loves her mother, even though she's still angry.

"Be safe, my daughter."

Etta almost falls over when she opens the door and finds them both standing there. She wastes no time in getting messages out to Sameer and Napi and Charlie that they need to come at once.

“He is whole,” says Napi, later, sitting down next to her at the impromptu celebration dinner Etta has thrown together, and she knows that he doesn’t mean physically.

“I would not have brought him back if he was not going to be.”

Napi sits with that for a moment, contemplating. “I wasn’t sure what you would have been willing to do, Diana. And there was no guarantee—we lose something when we die.”

“Yes, and no,” says Diana. “I was lucky. Steve believed in the Greek gods at the moment of his death, and it meant the whole of him was there to find again.”

Napi hums. “Intention,” is all he says.

“Precisely.”

They sit in companionable silence for a while, watching Steve and Charlie and Sameer arguing over some card game or another that they're playing.

It's nice, not feeling like there's a tank resting on her chest.

The World of Man is still strange and new. It is still confusing and frustrating and logic-defying. There is a social code she doesn't understand, and after learning, often doesn't want to follow. (But she has someone to face it with, again.)

She has plenty of work to do: Ares had years to poison humanity, and as someone very dear to her once said, people aren't just one thing. They're more complex than just good or bad, and they need compassion. Kindness is the only way forward. Love is the only way forward. It will be a struggle, but the things that are worth it always are. (She knows that all too well.)

The dust has barely settled on the War, on the pain that it caused each of them, but Diana finds herself getting to work, with the promise of each tomorrow. There's time, now, to figure things out, to learn what humanity can be like with no wars. This is no place for myths and fairytales, maybe, but Diana gets a new beginning for them to relish.

#wondertrev #wondertrevbingo2020 #Diana x Steve #steve x diana #1918!fix-it #just quarantine things #lenci writes

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melodious-madrigals · 4 years

Text

hold me (like you’ll never let me go)

Round three of my fic for @wondertrevnet‘s wondertrevbingo2020!

Prompt: Hurt/Comfort Word Count: 1803 Rating: T, probably? (Fever, referenced injection, a few curse words) Summary: Diana gets injected with an alien venom that sends her into a fevered delirium, and her mind conjures up the person she wants to see most…or does it? Notes: in this Year Of Our Covid 2020, i have stopped trying to make Steve's resurrection plausible and/or pristinely executed. he just. shows up because it's What We Deserve. this author is broken. deus ex machina. peace out.

Find it below the cut or on AO3.

***

It happens when Diana gets injected with something not of this world.

Anyone but her would be dead in an instant; instead, as her body fights the thing from the inside out, she’s sent into something of a fugue state, untethered from everything except the pain.

Reality bends around her, and her thoughts feel disjointed, fragmented. She’s seen what fever does to human bodies, and distantly connects it to what’s happening to her now, but then there’s a wave of pain and her body shakes and she loses her grasp on any coherent thought.

Everything is too bright, and sounds and color becomes distorted. She thinks she moves—or someone moves her—because the surface she’s laying on has too much give to be the hard rock of the battleground pumice field they were on.

In the midst of her fevered delirium, someone touches her cheek.

“Easy, easy there.” It’s a voice that she hasn’t heard in decades, but one she isn’t surprised her mind is conjuring for her now.

“Have I died?” It takes two, three, four slurred attempts for the words to actually come out, and in a language not dead to the modern world.

“No, Diana, you haven’t, you’re fighting, you’ve gotta keep fighting,” Steve’s voice pleads, and with a Herculean effort, Diana forces her eyes open, because maybe if the alien serum has conjured up his voice, it’s conjured up his body, too. She’s longed to see the blue of his eyes again.

There’s too much light, and she blinks back the stabbing pain it sends ricocheting through her skull, and then she’s rewarded by his face, earnest and swimming in front of her. Oh, how she’s missed it.

“My love,” she whispers—thinks she whispers, anyways. She blinks again, and everything goes dark, and the next thing she knows—

“Stay with me, Diana. Please, stay with me.” He’s begging her, a desperate quality in his voice that she’s not even sure he achieved on the airfield.

It’s funny, because he didn’t stay with her, he died, and now he’s telling her that she has to stay alive, keep fighting, go on by herself—

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, love. I know you’re angry that I left you, but I need you, and you’re stronger than this, Diana, I know you are.”

She’s not angry, she’s just still nursing the pieces of a broken heart, one that she suspects will never be quite whole.

“Fuck. Diana, I’m so sorry. I just—I need you to be strong, one more time. Please.” His voice breaks, and she hates that sound, hates how distressed he is.

And it hurts so much. Her veins feel like they’re on fire, and everything aches. She wishes she could keep the thoughts straight and ordered in her head. It feels like it would be so easy to just let go, to make it stop—

“I know I have to stay,” she whimpers, “but I am tired of living in a world that doesn’t have you in it. I don’t want you to be gone again when I wake up.”

Diana hears a sob, and she’s not sure if it’s her or him. It doesn’t really matter.

She keeps fighting, and when the knives in her veins subside and the throbbing of her head decreases, she allows herself to slip into the cool, dark, welcoming abyss of unconsciousness.

Diana slides back into consciousness slowly. The last minutes, hours, days seem hazy; she knows they existed, but her usually crisp recollection is relegated to a murky mire, as though someone put cellophane over her memories and shoved them into a dark cupboard.

She should probably be glad of how muddled her memories are, given how much pain she was in. She does remember, unfortunately, that she saw Steve during her fever dream.

It’s left an entirely different kind of ache in her chest, one that makes her feel like she’s going to burst from the sadness of it.

Now that she thinks about it, the rest of her body feels heavy, and she’s acutely aware of every point of contact with the bed under her, as though she’s just done a twisted mindfulness exercise. Someone’s gripping her hand, too. She can feel the pressure of their hands, warm against her skin, and there’s the faint sound of deep, even breathing. Whoever’s next to her is asleep. She’s having trouble opening her eyes, but she feels safe, so she can let them stay closed just a little longer.

When Diana hears the breathing beside her hitch, the telltale start of waking, she tells herself that she needs to open her eyes. Any moment now.

A hand gently brushes a strand of hair back from her face.

She opens her eyes to Steve’s face hovering in front of hers.

Diana goes through a couple of seconds of thoughtless shock. That can’t be right. Unless…

“I really did try not to die,” she croaks. Her vocal cords feel rough and scratchy.

A half smile twitches onto Steve’s face. “You didn’t die, Diana. I’m actually here.”

At this, she does the only logical thing there is to do, and bursts into tears.

It’s too much for her to take, too good to possibly be true, and she’s already feeling wrung out and totally out of control of her emotions.

Steve pulls her into a hug, soothes her until she starts to calm down, whispers quiet affirmations in her ear, that he’s here and not going anywhere—

A thought hits her and she stiffens. “Oh my gods, my team!”

“All okay,” assures Steve. “The thing was apparently vulnerable while it dosed out its venom, and they were able to take it out while it was busy with you. Vic thinks maybe it had a way of sensing the point of mortality, because they figure that you got at least ten times the dosage and counting of its other victims. They killed it before it was done with you. Gives a whole new meaning to take one for the team.” He tries to smile, but it just comes across to Diana as forced and pained.

“They are okay,” Diana repeats, brain still a little foggy. She suddenly has to see it for herself; as much as she trusts Steve, she has to talk to each of them, make sure they’re really okay, that they’re not hiding an injury like Barry did that one time last year—

Before Steve can react, Diana stands and takes three shaky steps towards the door, only to see fireworks exploding in front of her eyes. Her vision goes black for a second and the headrush overtakes her. Diana feels her legs go slack, and then there’s a pair of solid arms coming to steady her, to sweep her up.

She blinks, and Steve’s holding her.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

“To find my team.”

“You were whammied with a still-unknown alien substance that at a tenth the dose you got has a one-hundred percent mortality rate, minus you. Please sit down. They can come to you.”

Once he says it in that incredulously weary tone, it makes perfect sense. Of course they can come to her. She nuzzles her face into Steve’s neck, brings a hand up awkwardly against his chest so she can feel his heartbeat under her fingertips. She still feels a little light-headed.

“Please don’t be another dream,” she whispers, already feeling a tug from the deep undercurrent, threatening to pull her back into sleep.

“I’m not. I’ll get the others and be right back.”

She feels him drop a soft kiss on the top of her head, and then he deposits her on the bed. Diana thinks maybe she tries to stay awake, but everything goes dark.

She snaps back into consciousness much quicker this time, and when she opens her eyes, there are three people next to the bed.

“Welcome back, Sleeping Beauty,” says Bruce, and panic and dread flood through Diana’s body, lighting her nerve-endings on fire.

“Arthur is fine,” continues Bruce, who must mistake the stricken look on her face for concern over the missing member of their team. “He just had to get back to Atlantis.”

“He sends his love,” says Barry, cheekily.

“Bruce—” Diana says desperately, and he must understand suddenly just from her tone, because he softens just a little.

“Barry, Vic, out.”

They leave without protest or quip, which in and of itself is so monumental that if it had been anything else she wanted to talk to Bruce about, it would have to wait to marvel over that.

“He’s in the shower, Diana,” Bruce says as soon as they’re alone. The breath leaves her in a whoosh of air, and she almost starts crying again.

“I wasn’t sure—”

“That’s understandable; you were pretty out of it. He’s real.”

Diana takes a sharp breath to try to steady herself. She trusts Bruce with her life, but she doesn’t feel comfortable crying in front of him.

“You’ve been pretty out of it for a little over two days,” he continues bluntly. Bruce always gives it to her straight. “He didn’t leave your side once, and he should be back in about"—he checks his watch—"nine minutes.”

“How—”

“I don’t know.” It must kill Bruce to admit, because he hates not knowing things. “He found us, and then refused to leave your side. All I know is that his biological signatures match Steve Trevor’s, and he verified every detail I could think of, including the story behind that photograph you have. I have no reason to believe it’s not him.”

Diana nods, and Bruce, reticent to personal conversations on his best days, gets up to leave.

“Diana?” he says, pausing as he’s about to exit the room, “I’m glad you’re okay.”

It’s as close to heartfelt as she suspects she’ll ever see him get.

* A damp Steve does, indeed, emerge from the bathroom a few minutes later, in clean sweats and still toweling off his hair.

She pats the mattress, and he slips under the covers next to her. They lay like that, side by side, fingers twined together and thighs touching.

“I’m sorry,” says Diana, breaking the silence that has fallen, “I don’t know why I’m still so tired.”

“Angel, you almost died.”

“And you’re alive.”

She squeezes his hand, and he returns the pressure, picks up on her unasked question.

“It’s certainly a story,” he promises. “But for another time.”

“How about over breakfast in the morning?” she suggests, and she can feel rather than see the grin blooming over his face.

“You know, I love a good breakfast,” says Steve, and she curls into his side.

This time, Diana falls asleep naturally, to the rhythmic thrum of Steve’s heartbeat and the promise of tomorrow.

***

#wondertrevbingo2020 #wondertrev #Diana x Steve #hurt/comfort #just quarantine things #lenci writes

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