Chapter 3
Steve waits for Diana even after sunset. He doesn't- can't risk her leaving in secret, even if he should respect her decision to do so. Peggy spends half the time with him, warmer and friendlier now that she has had time to accept he is back.
"What is she like?" Peggy asks, and Steve doesn't think there is a way to answer that. He doesn't know Diana at all, shouldn't pretend to.
"Kind," he says, "strange."
Peggy snorts. "You seem to have taken a shine on her."
"It's hard not to like her," Steve shrugs and feels like this is about more than Diana.
"Yes," Peggy fiddles with the top button of her shirt, "I've noticed."
Steve tries to think of a way to address the strange furrow of her brow, but he fails and therefore the next minutes are spent in silence.
"Are -are you cold?" Steve stumbles out just as Peggy sighs in frustration. She huffs a laugh of some kind.
"No," she says gently, "I've gotten used to it."
Like everyone gets used to the cold when they're in the war. Of course Steve knows that.
"Steve," Peggy turns to him. "If- Your job as Captain America is done, if you want. Colonel Phillips thinks you should keep up appearances for public morale for as long as it takes for the war to clear over, but it's your decision."
"You know I can't just stop," Steve begins, but Peggy places a hand on his arm.
"Yes you can. You've done enough." Her eyes are very gentle but her hold on him is firm. "We tell Colonel Phillips you'd prefer to keep your survival off the records and you can do whatever you want. I'm sure we can convince him."
Steve smiles a bit. "We'll see."
He hears the shuffle of leaves, too deliberate be an accident from an unintentional eavesdropper. Steve turns to see Diana leaning against the plane. She's wearing a grey dress and has her hair up in a bun. She looks completely different from what Steve has already gotten used to.
"I didn't mean to listen in," Diana says. She motions between him and Peggy, a movement which seems weirdly too human on her. "But in my defense, you are blocking my plane."
Steve forcefully swallows disappointment multiple times as Peggy grins.
"It's quite late for flying, don't you think?" She says, "It would be best if you waited until morning."
Diana kicks her leg in front as she leans back to regard Peggy as if offended. "I have quite remarkable night-vision, Agent Carter. But," she smiles a bit. "I think I'll take your offer. If it is an offer."
"Of course. Not too much female company here for me to enjoy." Steve is left out of the equation as Peggy and Diana bid him good night and traverse towards where-ever Peggy's quarters are.
----
Diana sits on her provided bunk, filled with almost-nostalgia as she looks around. Not that Diana has ever actually spent a night in a military lodging, but it's familiar enough.
Agent Carter sets her jacket on a chair and glances at her. "Will you be returning to your home land first thing in the morning?"
"Ah," Diana nods. "It's not quite as simple as that, but yes, I think I will attempt to find my way back."
"Attempt to find?" Agent Carter asks, removing pins from her hair. Diana cannot fathom the need for all of them.
"Yes. I'm afraid it's not quite as simple as going where the map shows you." Diana shakes her own hair loose, unbuttoning her shoes. "Themysrcira is very well hidden and protected from the Man's world. Finding my way back won't be as easy."
Agent Carter eyes her as she wipes off her brilliant red lipstick. Diana likes the shade of it.
"That would explain why no one has heard of Themyscira."
"It would," Diana agrees and feels unreasonably disappointed once Agent Carter's lips are free of lipstick. "We prefer our privacy."
Agent Carter hums. "Steve said it was like paradise."
Diana hides pain behind a smile, and she desperately hopes Agent Carter does not see behind it.
"It would seem to be so, to one of this world. You've lived with polluted air and grey skies," she sighs, "when I first came here I found this place hideous."
Agent Carter is smiling a little. "Do you not find it now?"
"The people make up for it."
"The people? This is the second World War already in just thirty years. The people aren't that good."
Oh, Agent Carter, Diana thinks, If you'd only know. She thinks about telling her. Implying at least.
"Sometimes there are people like you and Duncan and... Steve," and it doesn't even matter which Steve she is talking of.
"He is quite good," Agent Carter agrees in a quiet voice. Diana thinks of the longing in Steve's eyes and the waver in Agent Carter's voice. She thinks of herself and Steve, at the scream she thinks was hers.
Diana sighs and her hand closes around the watch.
"He is."
----
The sound of morning wakes Diana from her light sleep, and she pushes herself into a sitting position. Agent Carter is still asleep, though Diana doesn't imagine she would be a heavy sleeper either, so she should be waking up soon as well. Diana pushes her legs straight and stretches her arms up until all the muscles in her body are stretched as tight as they go. She relaxes with a satisfying sigh.
With a careful glance at Agent Carter, Diana ties her shoes and slinks outside. She isn't entirely surprised to find Steve lurking at the front of a nearby tent. He looks tired, and is still wearing his Captain America suit.
"Did you sleep?" She asks as a greeting, because she already knows Steve can tell when someone is approaching him.
"Oh. No, not really." He grins sheepishly. "How about you? Is Peggy still asleep?"
"Yes, I slept fine, thank you." Diana glances back to her and Agent Carter's tent, "I believe she'll be waking soon as well."
Steve hums. He doesn't say anything, so Diana assumes their conversation over and travels off in search of water. Steve follows rather close behind.
"So you'll be leaving today?"
"That is the plan, yes."
Steve seems unsatisfied with her answer, but then someone calls him and he leaves, seeming even more unsatisfied. Diana finds her water and washes her face before filling up her canteen.
With a sigh of a person who is tired of getting up, she straightens herself and stands to face the sunrise.
"Princess Diana!" Struck with the oddest of flashbacks (though not especially rare) from her childhood, Diana whirls around. Agent Carter jogs up to her, hair still unpinned and merely tied back.
"Good morning, Agent Carter," Diana smiles, "I was just about to bring back water."
Agent Carter smiles softly and accepts the water Diana offers her. She takes a sip and then looks at Diana toughtfully.
"I thought you'd left without saying goodbye."
"I'm not quite that rude, Agent Carter."
"I believe you. Please call me Peggy."
"Diana."
Agent Carter smiles. They traverse back to their tent.
"Won't you consider staying here? We could do with someone like you."
Diana ignores the sudden heaviness of her chest as she makes her bunk.
"I'm tired of the war." Except it's not quite so, either. She's gone nearly half a year without engaging in any sort of combat situation, and she was already losing her mind by the time Steve crashed his plane. Maybe it's a matter of finding a balance. "But I can do something else."
----
Diana has been avoiding showing her armor in public, especially since she has had no need for it. She is well aware that the photograph taken of her, Steve, Chief, Sameer and Charlie isn't largely public, but descriptions of her have gone around. Altough, speculations of her identity have not been popular in some years.
Especially the appearance of Captain America took away the focus from Wonder Woman that had risen again as the war had begun.
She is admittedly slightly nervous. Diana tugs at the breastplate.
"Oh," comes from behind her.
Diana was left alone to change into 'something more comfortable' according to Peggy and Colonel Phillips -who wanted to know why he should let her stay and gain another mouth to feed.
Diana turns around to face Agent Peggy Carter standing at the doorway. The door is still widely open, as the handle is tightly gripped in Peggy's hand, which means the Howling Commandos also have a view of her.
Steve and Peggy's eyes are the widest from the bunch's.
"You're Wonder Woman." They say in unison, in a breathy whisper.
There is nothing left for Diana to do except place Antiope's tiara in place and face them proudly.
"Yes, I am."
The moment of hushed admiration is broken as Colonel Phillips comes down the hallway, takes one look at Diana's ensemble and turns on his heels -obviously not recognizing a perfectly good piece of armor.
Peggy comes forward, having completely missed what happened. "How?" She asks, tugging her out the changing room gently. "It's been thirty years."
"You must have been..." Steve falters off, face scrunching up, "a baby back then."
With an Agent and Captain America on each arm, Diana feels pretty flattered.
"Oh. Not.. quite," she smiles, sheepishly, "my island, Themyscira, is the land of the Amazons. Our lives are longer and larger than any human could wish for."
"Amazons," Peggy says with conviction, "are a myth."
"You'll find many myths are truer than they seem."
----
Diana is very impressive with a shield. Even more impressive she is with her lasso, golden and silken with a mind of its own.
She is magnificent and fiery, incredible in the ethereal way Peggy is grounding.
Diana wreaks havoc in the training centre, though she is controlled and contained.
"Where has she been all this time?" Dum Dum asks with an impressed whistle as Diana ends her routine on a grounding landing, shield returning to her hand.
(And Steve can't believe he hasn't heard of her. Of Wonder Woman. But he doesn't care, because she's right before his eyes, even better and stronger than he'd imagined as a child.)
"Hiding," Steve says.
----
Steve helps with the war, though Peggy and SSR keep him from the public eye. To them he is dead. But he still helps. With Diana by his side more often than not, they clean up cities, take care of rebels, and. And, when it's done, when the world doesn't need Steve Rogers anymore, Diana helps him disappear.
They meet with a man Diana calls Chief, who calls himself Chief. Chief takes him and ten others and they leave at dawn.
"Thank you," Steve tells Diana in the first morning rays, watching her.
"You're welcome," she smiles, "use your time well. Living as a dead man is harder than it sounds."
They say goodbye to each other, Steve watches as Diana raises her hood and disappears into the woods. He feels melancholic, seeing her leave. Diana has been with him for a full year, all the way from the beach of Themyscira to a forest that stretches over the borders of France and Germany.
He'll never see her again, it's what they agreed on.
----
Steve lives five years traveling the world, living a life he never thought he would, with his past and shadows of Diana and Bucky by his side. Peggy appears sometimes, as an angel on his shoulder -or maybe a demon, you can never be sure with Peggy -whispering things the real Peggy would do in situations Steve would need her quidance.
He conjured the Howlies with him one night, around the fire, laughing and drinking, finally relaxed after the war. Bucky would be there with them too, of course, and Peggy and Diana. It's a fantasy he doesn't dare visit often and still only Bucky and Diana stay for company.
He lives a good five years, turns thirty and walks into the arms of the sea.
It's how he should have gone, six years ago, and it is how he will go, now. In the freezing cold of the Antarctic, somewhere where no one could find his body.
He's pretty sure Diana would stop him, almost hopes she'll magically appear like last time and pull him out of the water into the sands of Themyscira. She doesn't but her shadow stands with Bucky a couple of yards away, watches over him.
The sea takes him without mercy, meets him halfway and curls around him in a protective hold. Doesn't let go.