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A Road Paved In Gold

Chapter 26

Notes:

Welp, as promised, the very last bit of this story is here. Again, as promised, it is entirely self-indulgent because I was not yet ready to say goodbye to this fic with just the previous chapter. I really do hope you’ll enjoy it though :)

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

Epilogue

Gotham, 2018

Diana’s eyes swept over the form of Wayne Manor, looming before her, massive and grandiose despite the crumbling façade and areas that remained charred black — remnants of the fire that had destroyed it years ago. It looked poised even with the expansive scaffolding wrapped around its left wing and a dozen workers in bright orange jackets busy with turning the place into a sound structure again, the quiet of the late morning interrupted by a cacophony of hammering, drilling, and voices echoing around.

Shielding her eyes from the sun, Diana tilted her head, her eyes taking in the empty sockets of windows-to-be and new bricks that had replaced those that had crumbled away with time or under the influence of elements, the air around her thick with the smell of fresh cement and plaster and sawdust.

It had a long way to go still, but Bruce’s team had made sufficient progress in the few weeks since Diana had seen the place last. She could feel his relief, too. Not only was he bringing his childhood home to life, the guilt over his parents’ death not as prominent in his eyes anymore, but she knew that housing the League in a place as small and private as the lake house was impractical and more intrusive than Bruce was comfortable with. It certainly wasn’t a suitable long-term location.

That, and he clearly enjoyed the process, Diana mused, casting a sideways look at the man standing next to her, his gaze pensive as it took in the progress.

He stayed quiet as she spoke about Kendra Saunders, adding the details that she had learned about the woman since their encounter the previous week.

“And you’re being serious about this?” Bruce asked when she fell silent, turning to her.

Diana shrugged. “You were the one who decided to gather people with extraordinary gifts together to fight for all that is good in the world,” she reminded him.

“Yeah, I just didn’t expect you, of all people, to take it so close to heart,” he smirked. And then he handed her a hard hat. “And for the love of god, put this on.”

“Worried a brick will fall on my head, Bruce?” she teased but obediently put the proffered item on, feeling oddly joyous over it.

Bruce glowered at her. “Not even my insurance can cover injuries caused to one of the esteemed curators of the Louvre. Or Wonder Woman herself, for that matter.”

Diana smirked.

“I will try not to cause any trouble.”

“We will have to put it to vote,” he went on, shifting back to their conversation. “If she is interested and if she is a right fit…”

Diana nodded. “Of course.”

He stayed quiet for a few moments. “You want to trust someone with a weapon of mass destruction,” he noted, as if Diana hadn’t thought of it herself.

“But imagine what it would be like if it was used for good?”

In a sense, they all were weapons, powerful enough to harm thousands. Millions even. This was not about their nature, nor was it about their pasts, or the things that they had gone through to end up here, in this moment of time, doing what they were doing. Each of them had the power, and, if she was being honest with herself, enough reasons to turn on the world and lash out. Not doing so was a choice, a decision that they had all made, unable to live with the idea of taking a different path. And Diana loved them all the more for the strength that they had shown by doing so, by not following the footpaths of Lex Luthor and the likes of him.

Perhaps, there had never been hope for Lex Luthor, after all.

But it was different for the people who chose to join the Justice League — because they needed one another, and because they couldn’t bear the thought of standing back when they could change the world for the better. Not even after it had hurt them.

The roaring sound of a motorcycle engine cut through her thoughts, and she turned around, watching a black dot appear from around a bend in the road, growing bigger with each passing moment.

Bruce followed her gaze before turning to Diana again.

“We’ll talk about it tomorrow when everyone is around. Maybe noon? I’ll get Arthur on the phone,” he offered, and muttered, “provided he’s not busy talking to fish.”

Diana nodded absently.

She watched Steve’s bike zip along the road, expecting him to turn towards the lake house where Alfred was waiting for them with lunch. Instead, he turned onto the gravel lane leading towards the manor, pulling up at the end of it just as she started walking towards him.

He slid off his bike and pulled off his helmet, setting it on the passenger seat behind him, his hair sticking out in every which way. Habitually, he tried to smooth it down with his hand, but it seemed to have the exact opposite effect. Her lips stretched into a smile, curving upwards at the corners as she approached.

“You’re early,” she said.

Steve smiled. “It ended sooner than I thought it would,” he said, it being his meeting with Amanda Waller in Gotham. He lifted his hand and tapped his finger against her hard hat. “Looks good on you. Can I get me one of these?”

She’d forgotten she was still wearing it.

Diana took it off and glanced over her shoulder towards the manor. “Another ten yards, and you will be legally obligated to wear one,” she noted, turning back to Steve again.

He laughed. “I’ll take my chances.”

He moved to her then and she stepped easily into his arms, tilting her face up to kiss him, certain in that moment that she could never, ever tire of this. Steve’s palm curled over her cheek, his skin smelling of leather and wind, and Diana’s heart swelled against the inside of her chest. It was as if her ribcage didn’t have enough space to contain the wild flurry of the joy inside of her.

He pulled back and traced his thumb over her cheekbone.

“You done here?” he asked, eyes darting toward the massive form of Wayne Manor.

“I am,” Diana nodded. “Do you want to have a closer look?”

Steve squinted in the sunlight and shook his head. “I have. I’ve been here longer than you,” he reminded her. “Guess I could do without construction dust for a while.”

“Fair enough,” she conceded.

“Do you—” He glanced at his bike and then at Diana. “I thought I’d come ask if you needed a lift?”

Her eyes moved from the manor to his motorcycle and then towards the lake house peeking out from behind the trees about a mile down the road. She considered her options, and then shook her head, reaching for Steve’s hand instead, grabbing it with both of hers.

“Let’s walk.”

An odd calm settled over her, the warmth of Steve’s hand in hers and the sun on her skin easy to focus on. For the first time in a very long time, there was no crisis looming over them, no immediate danger that needed to be defused and eliminated, just the future stretching before them, free for the taking.

Tomorrow, they were going to have a meeting and decide whether expansion was in order. Diana knew already what decision they would make. They would have lunch and they’d talk, and she would point out that the house that Bruce had been working rigorously on could fit at least a hundred people, and that Bruce should be interested in filling it. Arrangements would have to be made, paperwork to be filled — she could already hear Steve groan over the latter, and the mental image made Diana’s lips stretch out wider.

Walking beside her, Steve gave her a sidelong glance. “What are you smiling about?”

Diana pressed her lips together. “Nothing.”

He didn’t look convinced, but he didn’t press.

There was no need to think of it just yet, she reminded herself.

Today, they were going to have lunch with Bruce and Alfred, and they would talk about anything but the Justice League. They would watch heavy clouds roll from the east and open up, pouring buckets of rain on them, the downpour so heavy they wouldn’t be able to see the other side of the lake, and she and Steve would have to borrow one of Bruce’s cars to get back to the city, the rain rendering his motorcycle useless.

And later that night, she would forget herself in Steve’s arms, falling asleep with the sheets tangled around them and peace in her heart.

Soon enough, Diana knew, she would have to put on her armour again and they would fight side by side, flanked by the other members of the League, united in their purpose. But for today, the promise of good food and pleasant conversation and simply being was more than enough.

--- 

Greece, 8 months later

Steve Trevor didn’t remember dying in 1918. There had been no bright light on the other side, no tunnel, no life flashing before his eyes before he had slipped into the oblivion of death, for however brief a time.

But he was wondering now, a hundred years later, if it was that fleeting dance with death that had given him the ability to see the world in such bright contrast and such vivid colours. There was the sea stretching outside his window now, so impossibly blue he couldn’t stand to look, melting into the sky where white wisps of clouds chased one another. There was a drop of white-washed houses descending towards the water and bright-red flowers on the windowsills, with specs of green and orange here and there—of orange trees in massive clay pots.

He had spent the past few days so mesmerized by it all, by the tranquillity of this place, that his head was still spinning, making him wonder if he had in fact died and gone to… well, maybe not heaven, but some other nice place.

Diana had laughed when he’d told her that, the sound that made his heart beat faster and his soul sing.

“Could a dead man get a sunburn?” she teased, her eyes crinkling at the corners and making Steve helpless against the urge to lean forward and press a kiss to the bow of her lips, tasting the sea and the sun and a million things in between.

Well, she’d had a point there. He was never going to forgo sunscreen ever again in his life.

Still, the sensation remained—and he was drunk on it, desperate to hold on to it for as long as he could. To seep in the sun—such a rare occurrence in Gotham he had forgotten what it was even like. A rare visitor in Paris, too, at this time of year. 

He stepped around the bed, and just then, his phone started to ring.

Steve’s eyes darted towards the thin curtain swaying at the balcony door and Diana’s form on the other side of it. He grimaced at the sight of Waller’s name on the screen, tempted to let the call go to voicemail. He was on a much-deserved vacation, and she knew it.

He sighed. 

Tempting…

He pressed accept and lifted the phone to his ear. “Director,” he said, dryly.

If she was going to interrupt his time with Diana, he was not going to pretend to be happy about it, though Steve suspected that Waller didn’t give a damn one way or another.

The call didn’t surprise him. There was no such thing as a break in their line of work, but the unfairness of it usually was short-lived, quelled by the sense of duty towards things bigger than his personal needs. It helped that Diana understood—perhaps better than anyone.

As he listened, absently, his gaze drifted towards Diana once more. She was wearing cut-off shorts and a white tank top, her hair down and spilling over her shoulders. Unlike him, she seemed to be impervious to sunburn, though Steve tried not to hold it against her.

And for the millionth time in the past year, he wondered how he had gotten so lucky. To have her in his life. To love her and to be loved by her. One might say that those things could not have been in the cards for a liar and a murderer and a smuggler, but god help him, there was nothing that Steve wouldn’t have done to erase the past and forgive himself for his sins as long as Diana loved him.

Tomorrow, he knew, they were going to take a boat and sail to one of the smaller islands. They would wander the narrow streets of a village with the name he would never be able to pronounce and hold hands and duck into the small shops to hide from the heat. He was going to buy her ice-cream and taste it on her lips.

And tonight, before even all that, he was going to love her with the windows open and the light breeze skating over their heated bodies and the future stretching all the way into forever before them. And he would hold her like he meant to never let her go.

If Amanda Waller ever stopped buzzing in his ear, that is.

Steve rubbed his eyes, making sure to make small sounds of acknowledgement every now and then. The good thing about the Director of A.R.G.U.S. was that she rarely wanted to hear anyone else speak but herself.

He was not going to complain about that.

It had been eight months since his appointment as the Justice League liaison, and while there were still moments when he wanted to slam his door on the way out of her office—and she was probably waiting for him to do just that, as well—they had managed to find balance. To figure out how to work around one another while avoiding crossing paths as much as it was possible.

Thinking back over the experience, it was nothing like anything he had ever imagined his life to be. Yet here he was, certain that he wouldn’t want anything else. Not for the world.

Okay, that wasn’t strictly true. If it was up to Steve, he and Diana would never leave this place. This island. This tiny apartment. He would be beyond happy if they had never even put their clothes back on for the rest of their lives but that last one was neither here, nor there, really.

Diana loved Greece. She had told him that it reminded her of Themyscira in ways she couldn’t explain. He never made her try, but he loved the soft smile that crossed her lips when she stood ankle-deep in the water at sunset, or the excitement in her eyes at the sound of Greek being spoken all around them. He had yet to understand her fondness for the local food, but by god, there was so much serenity to her here he simply wanted to bottle it up, put it in one of those snow-globe toys and give it to her, to hold on to it for as long as she breathed.

“Are we clear on that, Captain Trevor?” Waller’s voice drifted into Steve’s ear.

He grimaced, realizing that he had completely tuned out the past ten minutes of their conversation.

“Yes, Director Waller,” he responded obediently all the same.

She was likely going to email him the brief of whatever it was that she needed from him, anyway, he reasoned with himself. And he was on vacation. He was allowed to be distracted and love-sick and desperate to get off this call.

He could have sworn he heard Waller roll her eyes.

She hung up without goodbye.

Steve huffed out a breath, not surprised. Then, he found Bruce’s number, knowing that whatever was up, Batman would know. (They just knew better than to bug Diana while she was away.)

He spoke with Bruce, left the instructions on what to do, as far as A.R.G.U.S. was concerned, and asked the other man to keep him posted—but preferably not before the next week. He called the office as well, spoke to his team, to his CO, just to be safe. By the time he finally hung up for good, he was tempted to toss his phone from the balcony and into the sea.

Steve stepped towards the narrow door and pulled the curtain aside, moving out onto the narrow ledge.

Diana was standing with her hands curled over the railing, her eyes trained on the water stretching all the way into the horizon. With the sun high up in the sky, blindingly bright, Steve couldn’t even tell where the sea ended and the sky began.

He moved to her without hesitation, sliding his arms around her waist from behind and dipping his head to drop a kiss onto her shoulder, breathing in the delicate scent of her skin—coconut and lemon and everything he loved so.

She straightened up and leaned against him, melting against his chest. He couldn’t help but hold her closer.

“Everything alright?” Diana asked, half-turning her head, her fingers skittering absently along his forearm.

“Waller,” Steve said impassively. He rested his cheek against the side of her head.

“You’re on vacation,” Diana reminded him, a smile in her voice, cajoling a laugh out of him.

“Hey, you stopped that robbery two days ago,” he told her. “Technically, that was work, too.”

She laughed at that, the infectious sound that made his heart twist in his chest. He tightened his hold on her and let out a slow breath.

The world was still out there, waiting for them. It hadn’t stopped spinning because they had come to a halt, and he knew that there would always be something and someone greedy and someone in need of help. But it could wait. He knew it could.

He curled his hand over hers and wondered if there was a chance he might convince her to skip the trip to the museum that she planned for the afternoon and just stay in and—

He grazed a kiss to her hair and breathed in, taking in the smell of the sea and the cries of seagulls and the long, long stretch of the beach below.

“Is this what people do when there are no wars to fight?” Diana asked, after a long moment, her fingers running in circles over his knuckles.

Steve chuckled.

“This, and other things,” he said, the familiar words slipping from his lips with ease.

He glimpsed her smile as she asked, “What things?”

“Well, they have breakfast. They love their breakfast,” he added as she laughed. “They love to wake up and read the paper and go work. They get married, grow old together, I guess.”

Slowly, Diana turned in the circle of his embrace. Her arms slid around him as she tipped her face to his, her gaze searching Steve’s with humour mixed with something else, something that made his breath catch, dancing behind her eyes.

“What is it like?” she asked as he lifted his hand to brush away a strand of hair that fell across her cheek.

Steve bowed his head closer to hers, until they were breathing the same air and she was all he could see. 

His lips twitched a second before he pressed them to hers on, “There’s only one way to find out.”

 

The end

Notes:

Aaaaaan this is it :) Gosh, I truly cannot believe this is over. But I am also glad that I managed to finish it. In my mind, I’m opening a bottle of champagne (In reality, I’m having iced-coffee but it’ll do)

Again, I would like to thank you all for sticking around and for all the support this story received over the years. You all have been nothing but absolutely wonderful and for that, I will always be grateful.

A special massive THANK YOU goes to akajb who helped me edit this entire monster. This story wouldn’t have been what it is without her.

Preempting a possible question - there will be no sequel. I don’t know if anyone was going to ask for it, but I am really and truly done with this universe. I think this story is long enough to exist as it is. I do, however, have more content to share to please keep an eye on that :) Also a side note - a few of you asked for babies and more family stuff but… All writers have things they just don’t like writing. I hate to disappoint those of you who are after that kind of content but I don’t write kids/pregnancies/marriage. It’s just something that I am deeply uncomfortable doing. You want angst/action/adventure - I’m your person :)

Well, I suppose this is it? I am now going to work on where the lights are full time :) Please check it out if you haven’t already and if you enjoy fluffy/angst/hot moments between Steve and Diana. The fun stuff is just getting started there!

Again, thank you everyone for joining me on this journey, and hopefully, I’ll see you guys around!

Notes:

Feedback is always much appreciated! :))