***

---Metropolis---

A few days later

Barnes was driving in his hellcat around the city, drifting whenever he could. Navigating his way, he headed towards a cafe he was invited to by Diana Prince.

With the information he found in Qurac, he handed it over to Batman to investigate, Doomguy's shortcomings in detective skills coming up short. He chose to push the idea to the back of his mind, to not think about the whole ordeal that a chemical weapon was in the wild.

Parking the car, he gets out and locks it, heading inside to see Diana sitting at a table by herself. The table that she had picked was isolated from the rest of the cafe, sitting in the back corner far away from the counter and entrance to make sure she went unnoticed. She was wearing her work dress, a white suit with a knee-low work skirt, as she also wore glasses. Using Clark's strategy in protecting her secret identity in contrast to Barnes' outfit consisting of a white t-shirt and black leather jacket, with black pants and boots along with fingerless gloves.

Barnes leans onto the back of the seat opposite Diana, resting one hand on the firm back while leaving his other free, and greets, “So, why’d you want to talk?” He asks.

"Well, I wanted to finish our conversation from a few days back,” Diana giggles as she takes a sip of her coffee. “I also have wanted to check this place out for a while; it’s a cosy place.”

“I mean, sure, I was also keen to hear about your people's history and upbringing,” Barnes says, pulling out the chair, dragging the two back legs across the wooden floor, and sits down.

“Well, us Amazons were created to teach the world of man love and compassion, but that was until Ares, the God of War, attacked us. He was defeated at the hands of my mother, but Zeus ordained that his son would not die. So instead, he shackled him to prevent Ares from using his psychic power to feed from war, and he became a prisoner on Themyscira,” Diana says, introducing Barnes to how the Amazons came to be.

“I was the result of a union between my mother and Zeus, my father.” Diana reveals who her father is, which came off as slightly shocking to Barnes only because he’s sitting with Zeus’s offspring, but at the same time, who hasn’t Zeus had intercourse with?

But who is Barnes to talk about the weirdness of one's parents when his father was the wrath of the Archangel Michael personified?

“Hmph, well, I want to ask, how did you get involved in World War Two? Your people are isolated from the rest of the world, so I want to know,” Barnes asks.

"Well, one day, I think around January in nineteen-forty-one, I was out horseback riding with my mother when we found a raft drifting ashore with a captain and a little yellow-haired girl. The captain died from a heart attack, but the girl was still alive, and we were afraid that Themyscira was to be discovered. Hence, my mother sent me to go out of the island, and in a few short weeks, I found out what was happening. At that time, the Allies spy network found out who I was, so they invited me to the United Kingdom to meet (1) General Eisenhower. He had me help in the landings of Normandy, as well as destroying much of the concentration camps.” Diana explains her involvement in World War Two.

“Didn’t you also serve in other wars?” Barnes enquires, remembering her telling him about her involvement in wars after World War II.

"Yeah, but only two actual wars and a few operations here and there.” Diana says, “Korean war, (2) Operation Eagle Claw, but I was done until the Bialya war happened, and that’s when I met my husband, Steve Trevor.” She clarifies her military history.

“How did you meet your husband?” Barnes asks, drinking a bit of cola.

“I was helping him and his special forces team clear out a chemical factory when it blew up; the gas was manufactured by a rogue of mine called Doctor Poison. I was incapacitated because I didn't have a gas mask, so he stayed behind to drag me out of the factory and stayed with me until I recovered,” Diana explains, eyes firmly planted down to the ground, explaining how she fell in love with Trevor.

“And before you ask, yes, he’s a bottom." Diana chuckles, understanding anyone's question when a man decides to marry an Amazon.

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“Sounds like a good life for him,” Barnes scoffs.

“I want to know more about your family’s military history, particularly your ancestor in World War Two.” Diana requests.

“My ancestor, my great grandfather, was a captain in the (3) 101st Airborne Division. After the landings of D-Day failed, the Nazis gained access to some super technology, so in a last-ditch effort, he spent the rest of the 101st and attempted to kill the German scientists trying to reverse the tech. The attack failed, which resulted in my great-grandpa falling into a coma; he woke up fourteen years later, in nineteen-sixty, when the Krauts had already conquered Earth and started colonising Venus.” Barnes starts snickering towards the end, as he then says in his laughter. “Then he killed their leadership in New Mexico with a nuke disguised as a fire extinguisher!.” Laughing at a volume that would keep the conversation between themselves.

Diana giggles at the notion that the Nazis were completely caught off guard in the worst way possible.

“I want to ask, you were raised by the Sentinels, a warrior people much like mine, but you still act like any eighteen-year-old would?” She asks

“How should I explain this... Well, there was a guy called Valen, and he trained my father when he came into the Argenta. Hell's forces eventually killed Valen's son, so he made a deal with Hell to return his son back to life, but they tricked him and took his son's heart and planned on putting it in the Icon of Sin. I hope you know what that is, but pretty much, my father destroyed the heart, which freed Valen's son’s soul, and when the Sentinels took me to be trained, he came to do it himself. He was my only real father figure and raised me as much as he trained me. He brought me snacks from earth, gave me more days off training, and I asked him why he did it.” Barnes laments on the final part, rapidly tapping the heel of his shoe on the floor.

“Why did he do it?” Diana says reassuringly, leaning back to show that Barnes can speak freely.

“He said that he owed it to my father for saving his son that he thought to raise me during those seven years,” Barnes says, showing signs of discomfort discussing his childhood.

She cares for Barnes in a way an older sister would care for her younger brother when dealing with stress or childhood trauma, and seeing how he was able to share it with her shows that he trusts her enough to tell him all of that, which made her happy.

As the two were enjoying their laughs, a blond-haired man entered the cafe with a scruffy stubble across his face. He appeared in his mid-forties with a few well-defined wrinkles on his face; he wore a long-sleeve dress shirt with a tie and wore straight-cut pants. His clothes looked as if they were freshly ironed, contrasting himself with not a single wrinkle in sight.

“Steve!” Diana gets up as Steve comes up to her, kissing each other before Barnes stands up to greet the colonel.

“Colonel Trevor, nice to meet you, sir,” Barnes says, respecting his military decorum as he stands in with his arms at his side.

“Please, just call me Steve." Steve chuckles as he reaches out with his hand, and with a firm grasp, Barnes reciprocates into a strong but friendly handshake.

“Barnes Blazko—I mean Kent” Barnes corrects himself on his identity as he shakes Steve's hand.

“Don’t worry, I already know your actual identity and what you are,” Steve chuckles as they all sit down.

“How though?” Barnes questions, intrigued and worried about how Steve knew about his supposedly secret identity.

"Well, I run a unit for hazardous environment combat; think of areas after nuclear devastation or after biological or chemical attacks. We pretty much get anything we need access to, from tactical nukes to even potentially classified information. So yeah, I was given information on what you are, but don’t worry. Beyond the justice league, it’s only me that knows,” Steve states, taking a seat to the left of Barnes.

“Hmph, the hazardous environment combat unit. Where have I heard that before?” Barnes states sarcastically, suppressing a slight chuckle from escaping his mouth.

“Yeah, we killed Gordon Freeman and defeated the combine during the seven-hour war.” Steve responds in the same tone, a smile spreading right across his face as Diana looks between the two, not understanding the reference the two were making.

“We’re referring to the Half-Life video games, Diana,” Barnes clarifies as he chuckles.

“Ugh, men and their video games, I still don’t understand why today's recreational activities give you nothing. You just sit there with your screen and play.” Diana criticises the two men in front of her, smiles still plastered on their faces.

“Dopamine, babe. When we found out how to stimulate dopamine without working, we became cavemen again,” Steve says, wrapping his arm around his wife.

The two men laughed as Diana sighed, not understanding the humour being shared between the two as she crossed her arms.

Diana starts smiling as the two men push the glass cups of their drinks together, saying “Cheers!” in unison as Steve drinks his whisky while Barnes drinks his cola.

Diana takes a sip of her wine as she enjoys watching the two men become best friends; all three at the table were warriors, but despite war being something that divides civilians, it has united soldiers.

“I wanna ask something, Barnes, how did they train you in the Sentinel Army?” Steve asks, his genuine curiosity apparent as he attempted to broach the conversation.

Barnes seemed reluctant to share as he looked over to Diana for reassurance as she gave a nod of approval.

"Well, my training was lighter than the rest of the Sentinel army; they got six hours of sleep, but I got eight…”