Archive of Our Own ^beta

The role of story-keeper is both an honor and a burden.

At least, this is something Diana has found out, over the long century since the “war to end all wars”, as Steve had once put it. Her memory is less fallible than an ordinary human being’s, and so the role of story-keeper falls to her, most often.

As a curator, she is charged with safeguarding the cultural treasures of humanity, the heart of it bared in the artworks on display. As herself, her long years upon this world have given her a wealth of stories for safekeeping.

Stories about Etta, for example. Stories about Sameer, and Charlie, and Chief. Stories about the men Steve fought alongside once upon a time, and the family he had once had.

Stories of Steve had been one of the few things she had left of him, besides his watch. It still ticks in her drawer, and he hasn’t asked for it back.

And now he’s here, and her role as story-keeper, caretaker of memories, shifts to a new one—storyteller.

After all, stories need audiences to be told, and Steve gets drawn in easily, leaning in and saying, the brightness in his eyes chasing away his ghosts for just a few moments, So what happened next?

And so she tells him.

--

Steve amasses a small collection of books on the coffee table. Diana’s frankly impressed at how many of them are new titles to her, but then, there’s a lot of history and technology for him to catch up on—a hundred years’ worth of it, to be exact.

She can’t help but notice that a lot of them have something to do with a war, though—both World Wars, the Cold War, the wars in the Middle East that have plagued the 21st century. She can’t help but notice that sometimes he’s frowning at a book, like there’s something off about what it’s claiming.

She places a small novel on the stack, one that features werewolves and vampires battling against the backdrop of Victorian London. As novels go, it’s not the best one by far, but she passed a particularly long flight once in its pages, engrossed in the tale it told.

Steve taps her on the shoulder at breakfast the next day and says, “I just realized something about myself.”

“What?” Diana asks.

“I really like fantasy romance,” says Steve. “Was Victorian London this exciting? Wait, don’t tell me.”

“How would I know,” says Diana, with a shrug, “I was on Themyscira until 1918.”

“Oh, right,” says Steve, sitting down next to her and opening the book up. It’s much more dog-eared than it was when Diana dropped it onto his stack, and she notes with some satisfaction that he’s more than halfway through the book. “Hey, who’s she going to pick, the lord or the butler?”

The heroine’s heart lies with her beloved vampire prince turned butler, of course, but Diana says, “I am not at liberty to tell you that.”

“Oh, come on,” Steve huffs. “The suspense is killing me here!”

“On the contrary, you’ll live,” says Diana. “And—you liked Edgar Rice Burroughs’ novels.”

“He sounds familiar, yeah,” Steve says. “Did you like them?”

“Well, we were in a hurry to get to the front and to Ares, so I didn’t have the time or the inclination to read them,” says Diana. “But you read some of what Chief kept while we were in transit.”

“He kept Burroughs novels?” says Steve, leaning forward. She can see the desperate hunger in his eyes for something, anything of his past, of the life he had, and the sorrow she feels for him twists in her heart like a knife.

“He kept them for both sides of the war,” says Diana. “And, if I recall, British tea for the Germans and German beer for the British.”

“That sounds familiar,” says Steve. There’s a flicker of familiarity in his eyes, a second’s worth of recognition, before it passes once more.

“That was how you said it,” says Diana. “Charlie ended up drinking half of it, and he regaled everyone with a tale of how an ancestor of his was once arrested and sent to Australia for calling the king of England something very unpleasant.”

“He called him a bastard, among other things,” says Steve, eyes going distant. “And—did I throw something at Charlie?”

“You threw a pillow at him and told him to go to sleep before he and his voice got the army’s attention,” says Diana. “You were very unhappy.” She recalls that night, as clear as if it had happened just the day before—Charlie’s laughter, Sameer’s joking jabs, Steve’s sleep-slurred words cursing his friend out for waking him up.

“I think I sort of remember that,” says Steve. “I called him an asshole.”

“Among other things,” says Diana. “I’ve still got some of Burroughs’ novels. You missed quite a few of them, and—oh, yes, Disney made a lovely movie about Tarzan some years back. It’s not very faithful to the source, but it’s entertaining.”

“The guys who made Moana made a Tarzan movie?” says Steve. “How?”

Diana grins at him.

--

The credits roll.

“Holy shit,” says Steve.

“You should see the ones they’re putting out now,” says Diana. “Monty took me to Brave once when it came out, it was wonderful. And the archery was quite accurate as well.”

“What’s that one about?” says Steve, turning to look at her. Behind him, the last of the sunlight is fading away, and when Diana looks at him she can’t help but think of the last time she saw him a century ago.

I love you.

“A princess who wanted more out of her life,” says Diana.

“That,” says Steve, his eyes as blue as the waters around Themyscira, where once she had plucked him, “sounds weirdly familiar.”

--

The gods, Diana had been told by her mother, are dead. Ares had, in his arrogance, killed them all, though she knows Ares himself would beg to differ. Has begged to differ, in fact. There is no one now standing atop Mount Olympus keeping watch over mankind, no one now who can hear prayers and accept sacrifices.

There are no prayers left, anyway, no one who would sacrifice to the gods of ancient times, the gods Diana grew up with.

She has learned to live with that, as she has learned to live with a great many things. One might even say that she learned to live with it from her childhood onwards, when her mother told her of the death of the gods.

These days they’re not exactly at the forefront of her mind, anyway.

“That’s a lot of books,” Claire comments, when they meet up with her at the café just outside her university. “Seriously, that is a lot.”

“I missed a lot of Burroughs’ novels,” says Steve.

“I have no idea who that is,” says Claire, with a shrug.

“The man who created Tarzan, among others,” says Diana, absently, stepping into the café first and scanning the menu for something to eat. Steve follows in after her, stops and stares at the menu for a moment as if he doesn’t quite know where to start.

“The hell is a club sandwich?” he whispers.

“Not something your stomach can stand,” says Claire. “You can have the salads. Without the ranch dressing.”

“What if I said I ate a pie without throwing up yesterday?” says Steve.

“I’d call you a liar,” says Claire.

“He ate one of the pastry squares I had in the fridge when he showed up,” says Diana. “He didn’t throw that one up.”

“See?” says Steve, triumphantly.

“It wasn’t a very rich food,” Diana continues. “You should try the salad. It’s good.”

Steve stares at her, with an utterly betrayed look upon his face as if she just kicked a puppy in front of him. She smiles benignly back and only feels a little guilty about it.

“I’m being ganged up on,” he says.

“It’s for your own good,” says Claire, grabbing his arm. “Anyway, I’m starving, I wasn’t able to eat breakfast. Want anything, Diana?”

“A donut will suffice,” says Diana.

“Mock me, why don’t you,” Steve grumbles.

Diana shakes her head with a soft laugh, and turns away to see a man, with skin brown as earth and a darker suit, seated underneath a white umbrella with a piping hot espresso in front of him. Something about him—

The man looks up, and sees her.

Says, “Diana.”

Diana’s hand drops to her lasso, concealed in her purse. “Why don’t you two go on ahead,” she suggests to Steve and Claire. “I’ll find us a table.”

“Great,” says Claire. “I’ll espouse the values of paleo to my great-uncle, then.”

“What the hell is paleo?” says Steve, alarmed, as Diana steps out of the café. The man in the suit watches her impassively, patiently, as Diana marches over to his table.

“Who are you?” she asks.

“Hello, niece,” he says. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

Niece. Which means—“You’re a god,” she says, stunned. “But—my mother said that Ares killed them all. So did Ares himself.”

“They didn’t say all,” says the man, with a shrug. “Only the gods whose thrones were on Olympus.” He flicks a hand, and the seat across from him pulls itself out. “My throne, my domain is in the Underworld, and so I survived the slaughter.”

“You’re Hades,” says Diana, readying her lasso.

Hades inclines his head, raises his hands in a show of peace. “I’m not here to take anyone’s life, Diana,” he says, reassuringly, warmly. He looks to the inside of the café, where Steve is trying to bargain with Claire, and says, “Certainly not your beloved’s. That part of the job is someone else’s. I judge and guard the souls that come to me, that’s all.”

“So why are you here?” Diana asks.

Hades looks back at her, and she realizes—he’s sheepish, as if he’s been caught doing something he shouldn’t have.

“There was a breach, some time ago,” he says, finally. “Not big enough to let a god through, and to be honest many of them seem content enough to annoy me in my own domain, but you’ll have noticed the uptick in monsters.”

Like Medusa. Diana runs her teeth over her lower lip, and says, “I’ve noticed that a great deal of them should be dead. My mother may not have told the truth about my origins, but I know she told the truth about their deaths.”

“She did,” says Hades. “She might have edited somewhat in order to make it more palatable to a seven-year-old girl, but they did die the way she told you.”

“So what caused this breach?” says Diana. “I find it hard to believe that the god of the underworld would have let such a breach pass without finding some way to seal it.”

“Once upon a time, I wouldn’t have,” says Hades, with a sigh. “But I’m not as powerful as I was, Diana.” He leans forward, steepling his fingers. “Gods require prayer, sacrifice, belief, to be able to do the things we did, at the height of the Greeks’ time and the Romans’ empire.” He huffs out a breath, and says, “Certainly, there were exceptions. Ares was strongest in times of war even without worship, and I myself can still do many things without people believing in me. But it helps, that sincere belief in us.”

“So what you’re saying,” Diana starts, “is that because belief in you has waned over time, your power in your domain has diminished. Because people have stopped telling stories about you, and believing in them.” It makes sense. Stories have a certain power in them, can bring joy or sorrow or anger to who hears them, can make someone believe, and these days, the stories about the gods she grew up aren’t meant for believers.

Academics, maybe. People who just want to read or watch a good story. But real, true believers—those aren’t the primary audience, anymore.

“Why do you think Ares had to resort to influencing people to get his way?” says Hades. “I have found the breach. I’ve sealed it up already—I don’t want more getting out.” He takes a sip of his espresso, and says, “I happen to like the coffee here.”

“So what do you want me to do?” says Diana, relaxing slightly. She’s still not sure if she can trust Hades, but considering that he hasn’t moved against an innocent yet, she’s willing to hear him out.

“To keep doing what you’re doing, essentially,” says Hades. “Send the monsters and the people who have escaped back to Tartarus, where they belong. But—be careful, my niece, for some of them have powerful magics at their command, and will not hesitate to use them.” He reaches a hand out to take hers, and it’s warm, somehow. Strange, she’d always imagined the hands of death to be colder than this. “I do not wish to see you in my domain any time soon.”

“I have no plans of dying, uncle,” she says.

“No one ever really does,” says Hades. “One last thing.”

“What?”

Hades smiles, soft and warm, full of pride for her. It occurs to Diana, suddenly, that she’s seen that smile before—on Antiope’s face.

“Your aunt says hi,” he says. “And she is so very proud of you, Diana.” He glances downward, huffs out a soft laugh. “I have to go,” he says. “My wife will be cross with me, if I tarry too long and burn the bread. She’s very particular about that.”

“Wait—” Diana starts, but just like that, Hades is gone before her eyes, taking his espresso with him, the only trace he was ever there a rim of brown on the table.

“Wait for who?” says Steve, and Diana turns to see him, carrying a kale shake and a plate full of pastries. “Also, we got you one of those donuts that got dipped in chocolate. Don’t suppose you’re willing to share?”

“No one,” says Diana, looking back at the chair where her uncle, the lord of the underworld, had just moments ago been sitting in. “And it depends. Will you be able to keep it down later?”

“The salad doesn’t taste that bad anyway,” says Claire, maneuvering around Steve with the grace of a woman who has done it before. Impressive, considering she’s carrying both a bowl full of green, leafy vegetables and a croissant, with jam leaking out at one end.

“You’re just saying that to reassure me,” says Steve, but he pulls up a chair and sits down just beside Diana. “Hey, earlier—were you talking to somebody?”

Diana blinks at him, and says, “You didn’t see?”

“I just saw you and an abandoned cup of coffee,” says Steve. “And then the cup disappeared while I was watching, so I figured something was up.”

“Were you watching her the whole time?” says Claire.

“More like the windows and any exits in sight,” Steve admits. “It’s a hard habit to break.”

“Spies,” says Diana, with a shrug. She’s seen Bruce do the exact same thing, in and out of his suit. “Now, come on, let’s eat.”

--

There are stories that Diana does not know.

No one knows every story, after all. Diana keeps plenty with her, certainly, told in the ticking of a watch and the still faces in her picture. But there are stories people have not told her, about the men she used to know, about the lives they lived before and after her.

There are stories about Steve that his parents took to their graves. Some part of her wonders if they would’ve told them to their own son, if ever he showed up on their doorstep in all his patchwork glory.

Then there are stories that Steve himself knows, but keeps close to his heart.

Sometimes they slip out, though. Like so:

Someone comes into the Louvre talking a mile a minute about a painting their beloved grandfather had passed on to them recently, after a peaceful death in his bed. Diana doesn’t pay them any attention, she’s got to meet with Bouvier and tell him off about the budget cuts.

Steve’s too engrossed in a novel about Achilles and Patroclus to pay any attention either, or at least that’s how she thought of it at first.

Then the visitor says something, says a name, and Steve’s whole body goes tense, as if readying for a fight.

Diana places tentative fingers on his elbow, murmurs, “Steve. Steve.”

He relaxes, leans slightly into her touch. Then he says, quietly, “It’s a fake.”

“Hm?”

“The painting she’s talking about,” says Steve, nodding to the visitor, who’s excitedly talking about how the brushstrokes evoke a sense of hope in the viewer. “The original was lost in a house fire.”

“I heard of that,” Diana murmurs. She had been devastated to hear it, but it’s been three and a half decades since then. “There have been a great deal of rumors about its continued existence since, though. What makes you so certain it’s gone?”

“It burned with the house,” says Steve, quiet, tone slipping into something emotionless, dead. (Who the hell is—) “I know ‘cause I was there and I made sure nothing was left. At least I think I know. And—it’d be kinda distinctive even if it did survive, on account of the blood spatter.”

He looks down at his sleeves, fidgets restlessly with his fingers and his book.

“That’s really all I remember about that mission,” he says, glancing up to meet her gaze before looking guiltily away. “Of all things, huh?”

She wonders if she should press, if she should look up the scant details later to try and figure out who and why. But she catches a glimpse of the ghosts in his eyes and decides that she can sate her curiosity another time.

Instead she bumps his shoulder and says, quiet, “Would you know how to tell a forgery apart from the real thing, even in your memory alone?”

“You’re putting a lot of trust in my shitty memory here, you know,” says Steve, with a little huff of breath. Then he sighs and says, “Maybe—yeah, I guess.”

“Mademoiselle,” says Bouvier’s secretary, poking her head out from the doorway, “Monsieur Bouvier will see you now. And your secretary as well.” She nods to Steve, who gives a little wave. “He apologizes for the wait, but Monsieur Whitby was quite insistent on having his meeting today.”

Joe from Corporate. Diana’s lips thin at the thought of that small-minded, greedy fool, trying to bull over Bouvier’s reasonable protests. “Tell him that I don’t mind,” she says, instead, blandly. “I’m sure it was quite important.”

The woman leaves, and Steve looks at Diana and says, “What are the odds he’s proposed yet another cut to our budget?”

“Knowing Joe,” Diana mutters, massaging her temples, “far too high.”

“What a dick,” says Steve, with feeling.

And that, of course, is when the office door explodes outwards.

--

“Are those fire-breathing bulls?”

--

The dust, eventually, settles, with the museum still intact, though the hallways of the Greco-Roman department have been badly scorched and scored by the battle, and there’s a casualty list of artifacts to put together now too.

The Khalkotauroi are outside, yoked to a garbage truck and drowsy from being tranquilized. They are fearsome, certainly, and strike terror into the hearts of men, but Diana pets them on their heads anyway.

Diana wonders how she’ll explain this one to the rest of the League, then decides to leave the matter be. No doubt they’ll see it on the news at some point, and she amuses herself by imagining Bruce’s face when he sees the fire-breathing bulls.

She visits Steve at the ambulance first, sees him getting his arm treated for burns, and says, “Are you all right?”

“Paramedics say I should take it easy for a few days,” says Steve, “but other than maybe a mild concussion and a few burns, I’m all right.” He gives a one-shouldered shrug. “I mean, honestly, this isn’t the worst injury I’ve ever had. I think maybe that was—”

He stops, as if not quite sure how to proceed.

“That was when?” Diana asks.

“A long time ago,” says Steve. “Ask me later when we’re not surrounded by people.”

And, well, they are. There’s already five networks on the scene, and Diana expects there to be many more reporters and on-lookers and gawkers in the next few minutes. One of them turns, spies her, and says, “En parlant de Wonder Woman—”

“I have to go,” says Diana, with a sigh.

“I know, interviews to give, autographs to sign,” says Steve. “Go save the world, Diana. I’ll be here.” He smiles up at her, soft and warm, and Diana’s heart beats in time with the ticking of a watch.

--

“Trade you,” says Steve, the next day. “I’ll tell you about the most embarrassing injury I ever had and you’ll tell me yours?”

Diana looks up from her e-mails, the frantic queries after her health and the artifacts in her care spinning around in her head. “Deal,” she says. “I once broke my arm falling out of a tree in Themyscira.”

“No. Really?”

Diana props her chin up on her hand, and says, “It was a very low branch, and there was a very juicy apple. I’d snuck out again—I did that quite often when I was younger, to the point where I invariably drove my tutors to quit—so I didn’t want to call attention to myself. So I thought, well, I knew how to climb, and the branches were quite low. What did I have to fear?”

“So what happened?” says Steve.

“I fell and broke my arm on a root,” says Diana. “My mother grounded me for a week.”

Steve winces in sympathy. “Did you get the apple?” he asks.

“Alas, no,” says Diana, with a sigh. “When it was deposited on my bedside, someone had already taken a bite out of it. I still suspect Nubia to this day.”

Steve shakes his head, failing to keep the mirth off his face. “How’d you know it was her?” he asks. “And should I know her?”

“Not really, the most significant conversation either of you had was you asking her where the outhouse was,” says Diana. “And I know because she couldn’t look me in the eye for days afterwards.” She drums her fingers against the edge of her laptop, says, “I believe it’s your turn.”

“I broke my arm fighting a bear once,” says Steve.

“No,” says Diana. “Truly?”

“It was someone’s trained and starving attack bear, it was cold, and it was in Russia,” says Steve, with a shake of his head. He scrubs a hand over his face and says, with a huff of disbelieving laughter, “I don’t remember anything else about that mission, but the goddamn bear made an impression.”

“So what did you do?” says Diana, after a moment passes, managing to push past her heartsick grief for all that Steve’s been through.

“To get past it?” says Steve, as casual as if he only speaks of the weather. “I managed to get on its back, then I stabbed it in the neck with a knife.” He pauses a moment, then says, rubbing the back of his neck, “Then it fell over and I ended up breaking my arm. So that’s how I had to break into someone’s house with one arm.”

“Remind me not to let you near bears again,” says Diana, dryly, before she sighs. “But I must admit, I can only see the horror there.”

Steve looks down, fiddles with his fingers. “I know what you mean,” he says. “I don’t remember any of that mission besides the bear, I just—know it didn’t end too well for everyone in that house.”

Diana thinks, suddenly, of burning paintings, burning houses, and empty blue eyes in the midst of a battlefield.

She reaches out her hand, brushes her fingers against Steve’s. He smiles, tentative and sad, and clasps her hand in his.

--

There are stories with happy endings, stories where two people read newspapers, eat breakfasts, get jobs and grow old together, stories where everything goes right and everyone is happy at the end of it, no matter how much suffering they’ve had to go through.

There are stories with sad endings, where someone dies and someone else is left behind, mourning not only their love, but the future they would’ve had, the breakfasts and the newspapers and the rocking chairs. There are stories where even friendship is not enough to save a man from drowning in drink, and stories where everyone dies, either in battle or simply because of the passage of time and the fact of mortality.

If it continues long enough, a story that was one can then turn into the other. Diana has learned this well, over her years in the world of men, over her time as a curator. It all depends, she knows, on where you end the story.

For example: when she first told Bruce about Steve Trevor, she ended it just after Ares was destroyed. That had been when she had assumed Steve dead in the explosion, his body incinerated into so much ashes, scattered across the sky, joining with the stars.

(That had been her consolation, for a century. If she looked up at the stars, she could tell herself that his ashes were mingling with the stardust. It wasn’t one of the gods turning a beloved mortal into stars to forever keep their memory alive, but it was close.)

Something else Diana’s found over the years: take them long enough, and stories tend to twist and turn in directions she never would’ve expected them to take. That twist in Star Wars, for example, Darth Vader’s declaration of his fatherhood.

Steve’s blue eyes looking back at her across the battlefield, empty and cold, then looking back at her in her apartment, scared and lost.

She digs his watch up from her drawer, sits down at the kitchen table, and turns it over and over in her hand. It stopped ticking some time after his—after the plane blew up, as if to mark how he’d run out of time. She hasn’t tried to repair it in a hundred years, hasn’t any idea how to repair its delicate gears. For the longest time it had been the only thing she had left of him.

Only he’s here now, and at the moment hauling in the groceries, saying, “So I ran into Gustave in the lobby, and he and his boyfriend were talking about you—superhero you, not, uh, museum curator you, and apparently, Gustave’s boyfriend wants your boots—you all right?”

Diana looks up. “Your father gave you this watch,” she says, as Steve sits down across from her, setting the groceries down on the table. “And then you gave it to me.”

“I remember something like that, yeah,” says Steve, quiet. “I don’t—it isn’t specific, but—did you ask me what it was when I gave it to you?”

“No, that was much earlier,” says Diana. “After I dragged you to the shores of Themyscira.”

Steve wets his lips, and says, “Can you tell me? I remember bits and pieces, but I don’t—I don’t know which is real.” He gives a broken laugh. “Half the time I’m not sure anything I remember’s real.”

“What do you remember?” she asks, her heart breaking a little more.

“You,” says Steve, honest, pleading. “Diving in after me.”

“That’s real,” says Diana, and she begins the story, watch in hand.

--

She tells him two stories, that night: their first meeting, and their last for a century before the chaos of Luthor and Steppenwolf.

Then she presses the watch into his hand and says, “This is yours.”

Steve blinks at her for a second, then shakes his head and pushes it back into her hands. “I gave it to you, right?” he says. “I think I remember now. I gave it to you and I left. And—it’s yours now.”

I wish we had more time.

“Do you remember what you said?” says Diana.

I love you.

Steve breathes out, and says, “I do, but.”

There’s always a but. Diana steels herself for the worst, for the admission that he might not love her that way, anymore. That he might not feel the same way he used to, so long ago. She will understand, she knows, and she’ll let it, and him, and the future she once mourned, go.

“I’m not the same man anymore,” he says, instead. “I don’t know if I deserve that. I’ve done a lot of terrible things and hurt a lot of innocent people, under orders.”

“Someone told me once,” says Diana, placing the watch on the table, brushing her fingers over its leather straps, “that it wasn’t about deserve, it was about what I believed in.” She looks up and meets his eyes, sees the ghosts behind them and the grief and guarded hope. “I believe,” she says, “that I love you too.”

Steve falls quiet, and looks away. “I have no idea how to deal with that,” he says, apologetic. “But. I. If you could be patient, I could. I could try to figure it out.”

And it’s a much better answer than Diana could’ve hoped for. She smiles, and says, “Yes, of course.”

--

He takes the couch again.

She leaves the bedroom door open, just in case.

She’s just drifting off to sleep when she hears the sound of his footsteps, feels the bed dip under his weight, his back pressing up against hers as he shifts his position around.

She smiles, and falls asleep.

--

One day Diana will tell this story, about a woman and a man, separated by sacrifice and reunited a century later.

But this will be the thing she keeps to herself, for every story has a secret, private part that the storyteller keeps close to their chest:

She wakes up after he does. For a moment she’s scared he left, but then she smells something from the kitchen, and so she dresses herself and pokes her head inside the kitchen, to find him depositing slightly burned pancakes onto a plate.

She breathes out, relieved to see him still there.

“Hey, you’re awake,” he says. “I couldn’t really go back to sleep, so I figured I’d make breakfast.” He waves a hand at the coffeepot, filling up with coffee, and says, “Also, we’re out of sugar. I blame your neighbor and his boyfriend.”

“You’re just not looking hard enough,” says Diana. “I keep a jar of brown sugar beside the coffee bags, it’s very small.”

“Oh, thanks,” says Steve, and pulls the jar out after some rummaging. “So I heard they released a new Tarzan movie just last year—”

“Legend of Tarzan, yes,” says Diana. “It’s on Netflix.” She tears off a small piece of pancake, and says, “There’s quite a lot of Tarzan movies on Netflix, in fact, besides just the Disney movie and the new one.”

Steve’s eyes light up, and for a moment that light is all Diana can see. “We can make a night of it,” he says. “Just marathon all the Tarzan movies—hey, did they ever make any Barsoom movies?”

“There’s John Carter, it came out in 2012,” says Diana. “It didn’t make much sense to me, but you’d like it. It’s good for an hour or two of entertainment.”

Steve ducks his head, laughs, says something about a demigod Amazon with an alien colleague having no room to talk, and this—this one peaceful moment, with the pancakes and the coffee and the sugar and the movies and Steve’s bright blue eyes—this is something Diana wants to keep to herself, close to her heart, for as long as she lives.

So this is what people do, she thinks to herself, when there is no war to fight.