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Chapter Fifteen Having Hope
★ ★ ★ ★
When Steve reached Diana'sapartment, he unlocked the door and walked through to see two black suitcases that he assumed to be the debriefing package for him and Diana. He sighed and sat down, opening it up. There were seven files in the case, each with a different name. He glanced over them when he encountered the only file that managed to completely grab his attention— Diana's.
The personnel file was full of information about the Amazonian demigoddess. Diana Prince was well known around the world, although Steve learned that she had been labeled as Wonder Woman after the end of the Second World War. She had also been inactive in the world of Man, keeping under the radar as best she could since the end of the fifties. Although there had been a few instances in which Diana had intervened in order to stop a couple malicious threats.
He read that she had been living in New York since the early fifties, Brooklyn to be exact, and would considerably travel to France and even was seen flying to her home, Themyscira. Steve couldn't help but smile when he read she had been living in his place of birth since then. As Steve continued to read, he realized how much Diana had changed and how much she hadn't. It was a miracle she looked the exact same since the last time he saw her. However, he remembered Diana telling him once that Amazonians had the gift of immortality.
Feeling a presence behind him, Steve turned around to see Diana with a white lace robe around her body. Her hair was down, something Steve only saw when she was in her uniform. Diana sighed when she saw the cases in front of Steve. "Is it a mission?"
Steve put her file down on the table and nodded, "Fury said that the Tesseract was stolen by a man named Loki."
Diana scoffed and approached the table Steve sat upon. She took the seat across of him and said, "Loki is no ordinary man."
Steve furrowed his eyebrows, "What do you mean? Is he like you?"
"More or less. Loki is the Norse God of Mischief. He feeds over the chaos he causes. I have battled him in the past and he does not back down so easily," Diana explained and opened her own debriefing package. She glanced through the files to see familiar faces she had encountered over the years.
"And what is this?" Steve asked Diana, gesturing to the case of personnel files. Diana gave an apathetic shrug as she read over them, "This is called the Avengers Initiative Program. Director Fury and Agent Coulson approached me about it over a year ago, but I have not given them an answer. The idea is to create a group of heroic individuals, to fight the fights that man have never been able to."
"And why haven't you give them an answer? All you use to want to do was save the world," Steve said to her, curious as to why the princess was so conflicted over a simple decision. Although, Steve suspected it was more than just a simple decision for her.
Diana sighed and opened her personnel file to see all the events she had been involved in. From the First to the Second World War, to major revolutions, genocides, war crimes and even her conflict with Loki in New Mexico, in which she battled alongside his brother, the Norse God of Thunder, Thor. Diana bit her lip and felt the stare of her lover's eyes on her.
"When you went into the ice, I was devastated and completely broken. For some reason, I decided to stay in Man's World; it was the only piece I had left of you. I, however, witnessed a century of horrors. And I knew that Ares, Phobos, and Deimos were no longer behind any of man's actions, so I completely lost faith in humanity. Or at least in my ability to help them. I convinced myself that humans had crafted a world where standing together was impossible. As a result, I ended up abandoning Wonder Woman and everything she stood for," Diana said to Steve, her head bowed not wanting to witness his reaction. He watched a tear slip from her eye as she reminisced in her past.
Steve felt his heart tighten— she was broken, because of him, because of the war, because of humanity itself. Diana Prince was sobered, emotionally broken, psychologically scarred, and devastated after the losses she had endured during her last battles. Steve understand why this was not just a simple choice for her, especially after the world had left her with such a dark perspective. A perspective without hope.
Steve reached across and placed his large hand over her own. He said nothing. Silence filled the room, yet when their eyes met, it was as if they had spoken all the worlds they had needed to say. Steve had the ability to speak to her her heart without having to say a single word.
"Diana, from what I can tell, Wonder Woman is who you are. I know that you are still the same, compassionate and benevolent person I met all those years ago. Yes, we have both darkness and light inside of us, that much I know. But you also know that we are so much more than that," Steve softly said to the Amazon. Diana looked away from him with a frustrated sigh. "No matter what we face, we always have hope. Hope that eventually everything will be okay."
Diana felt conflicted— conflicted over her original beliefs and the beliefs she had grown to have over the years. So much had changed since she first stepped into the outside world, yet she still felt as if anything were possible.
"Just don't give up hope. After all, we made a deal. And a deal is a promise, and a promise is—"
"Unbreakable."
Steve stared at the women, who attempted to keep a stoic face. Diana wiped a few tears that had fallen down her rosy cheeks and met his gaze again. Steve placed a hand over hers and repeated, "A promise is unbreakable."
Diana responded to him with a small nod. The two made small talk as they continued to discuss the files in front of them. Steve stared at Diana, as she told Steve the story of her arrival in Brooklyn in the early fifties and then went on to telling him small stories since his departure.
Steve gazed at her in admiration, with the thought of how lucky he was to have Diana. If there was one thing Steve Rogers would be forever grateful for, it would be that he still had Diana Prince.
