8132/Tales of Another Time and Place

Tales of Another Time and Place
Date of Scene:	02 July 2019
Location:	Unknown
Synopsis:	Diana reveals to Steve and Bucky that she once knew Joseph Rogers -- that, and when 900 years old you reach, look as good YOU will not!
Cast of Characters:	Wonder Woman, Captain America, Winter Soldier
Tinyplot:	Black Sun Rising

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Wonder Woman has posed:
After the briefing had wrapped up, Diana had done as everyone else and gone back out to the exterior of the camp where she went on a tour of the grounds and was introduced to many people within it. She was introduced to so many officers and soldiers in fact that a normal person likely wouldn't remember a single one of them, but... thats not really Diana's way, her memory allows her to do so much more than the average person.

She visited both Stark's invention area, and Archie's and was quite kind about both of their setups and anything they had to show off within.

But as the evening went on things calmed a bit, there was a gathering in the center of camp with people playing music on instruments and singing together, some silly goofing around and rough housing as well due to there being such a large number of males on-site here, its their usual sort've affair.

Diana, now, is seated off to the side of it all, she's changed into her armor (though its not visible as its hiding beneath a large black robe that looks like a cross between a jacket and a cloak, its a bit of an unusual style but she manages to make it work and look great.

What IS visible though, are those bracers that Steve had caught a glimpse of before. Shining and ornate, they're an impressive sight to see on the woman's forearms

Her eyes are scanning those gathered around, dinner's been passed out and people are hungrily eating it up while doing a little drinking as well. Diana, smile on her face, is greeting a few people passing by where she's seated.

Captain America has posed:
Once the briefing had come to a close, the Man with the Plan had lingered to iron out additional questions that had come of the information presented to him. It all seemed very...beyond the pale, though granted, the 'beyond the pale' had started with Erskine's serum those few months back and now? It seems a usual circumstance to be shooting down Komets with heaat-seeking missiles and laughing over a hand of poker with the Commandos.

Steve's had enough time to find his tent as well as change into his regimental clothing in the olive-green SSR uniform. With buttons shined and tie immaculately tucked, he emerges into the main camp area. It's a familiar scene to him now, the pockets of soldiers together -- some even with their COs -- laughing and making the best of the situation around them. He returns some catcall from Falsworth about how dapper he looks with a smart comment and a wave of his hand. Whatever the exchange was, it leaves him with a dimpled smile on his face as he continues through the open corridor.

Espying Diana, the Captain slows in his steps. He looks to one side and then sighs to himself, a sign of decision. Upon approach, he lifts a hand in brief greeting and stops before Diana. It's not quite a click of heels in his shoes, but it's close enough, what follows, and he gives her a small if slightly over-earnest smile.

"Miss Prince. Everything been cared for? Comfortable?" he asks.

Wonder Woman has posed:
The levity of the camp is a nice feeling to be immersed in, there hadn't been really any incidents that had made Diana feel the need to 'correct' anyone's place. There'd been some light hearted jabs directed her way, 'male commentary' but her rebuttals there-to had defused all of those moments and just generally earned a nice bit of bonding with the others at this camp, a camp that likely will not exist for that much longer. Diana has realized that in war these kinds of moments come and go, as do the people within them, here one moment and gone the next.

When Steve approaches her, she looks up to him, holding a metal mug between her leather wrapped palms, Diana looks up to him and she smiles at him. After a split second of registering his question she nods her head once to him. "Oh yes, very much so." She replies, her Greek accented voice is thick with a calm cheerful flavor. She looks away from Steve to where the bulk of the people are in front of the multiple camp fires.

"I do not think I have ever turned down this many marriage proposals in one singular night." She jests then as she raises her mug up to her lips and takes a sip of whatever is inside it. She then lowers it and looks back to up to Steve. "I wish these kinds of moments were more common in these situations." She tells the Captain then. She then motions to the wooden folding chair beside the one she occupies. "Please, sit." She says to him then.

Captain America has posed:
Diana's immediate reply has his smile firming on his face -- clearly, this pleases him, that at least someone in this camp had the mind to give her an opportunity to avoid the displeasures of lost luggage, rocks under one's sleeping mat, and trenchfoot. The royal's comment to follow is enough to make him laugh shortly and pink at his ears. He reaches up and rubs behind one as he glances around at his fellow soldiers.

"Ah...thanks," Steve murmurs to her offer. He takes up the seat beside her and leans back in it. His hands rub along the tops of his thighs before he relaxes them to stillness and looks over at her again, attentive. "If you're having trouble with anyone, let me know. I'll speak to them about it. Nobody should be giving you any flak, miss, not while you're here."

Wonder Woman has posed:
As Steve sits, Diana raises her cup up for another sip while he responds to her and when she finishes she lowers it back down to her black robe covered lap and just smiles softly to the sights before them and the words Steve says. "Oh, no..." She quietly replies with a little shake of her head. She turns her gaze over to look upon him and the light night time breeze tosses her dark hair here and there across her shoudlers and the sides of her face as she does so.

"The gentleman from Australia is the most... colorful with his speech, but I assured him that he would be biting off far more than he could chew if he advanced on his suggestive words much further." She cracks a light grin then, indicating that the exchange may have been mostly light hearted.

"But no, most everyone who has come up to me has been nothing but charming. Its the ones who are too afraid that make me feel bad. I catch a look or two, but then they shy away or do not seem interested. But then again, I cannot talk to everyone, even if I wish I could."

She lets her smile fade a bit then and her red lips even in a calm stare that turns back to the camp and traces around it. "What are your thoughts on the briefing given?" She asks. "I feel... that most of the people involved here in this operation may not realize how heavily guarded such items likely will be. The belief that it is all just 'hocus pocus' might lead to under estimating the situation..."

Captain America has posed:
On the midnight vespers comes the scent of woodsmoke from the small fires alongside vehicle oil and the scents of humanity itself, in sweat and cooked food. Steve doesn't look away from Diana, not at first, but when she pans away to observe the camp, he does the same. His sigh is slow and contemplative as he too studies the groupings. It's easy to pick out Dumdum's bowler in the cluster of Commandos; harder to tell if Bucky's present.

"Respectfully, Miss Prince, you'd be a mouthful to chew on if someone overstepped their bounds. I mean -- sorry, that came out wrong," he amends with a roll of his lips and close of his eyes at himself. "You're not too much for the shy ones either, but you're not too little. No, see..." A sharp huff and he shakes his head, not daring to look at Diana now.

"The briefing." Yes, the briefing, this is safe territory while the Captain unmires himself from his own mouth. "Lot of it's words, yes, until the action starts. Can't say that I've run into any real magic. Dunno what you've heard about me, but it's not magic, it's science, how I ended up like this. Sometimes it might seem like magic, but it //is// science in the end. Figure..." Now he glances over at Diana again, the ambient light catching in his true-blue eyes. "Figure they called you in for a reason, miss -- you 'nd the Shadow both, because you know things we don't. I might be good at poker, but I can't tell someone a card from their deck. You 'nd the Shadow, figure you're our aces up our sleeves if it's actually magic."

Wonder Woman has posed:
The stumbling over his words to her is both amusing and endearing to the Princess from a Paradise Island. She glances over to him, then down toward her cup in her lap which she stares at and releases a light laugh at his embarrassment to how he phrases those statements. She doesn't tease him on it though, she can tell his personality is one of great respect for everyone around him, so long as they act accordingly toward decency and honor to earn it from him. She's much the same to him in that regard.

Diana does look up again and over to him, having cleared the laughing and amused expression from her visage just a split second before. Her blue eyes land on the side of his face and she hears him speak of the magic and science. "In my experience... Magic and Science... when you delve deeply into them, are often so very similar in how they are orchestrated that it is difficult to discern what qualifies as which. It is like... two chapters, of the same book?"

A quick smile comes and goes from Diana's lips then as she raises her drink up to sip from it again. She looks back out to those playing the music on the instruments, a soft folky tune. "You know." Diana says then as she sets her cup back down upon her lap. "This reminds me of a time many many years ago. Where I sat a table in a tent not that dissimilar from the one we had our briefing inside of this evening. It was a night quite like this one, though I shared the company and conversation with an Irishman on that night."

She looks back over to Steve then. "A Sergeant by the name of Joesph Rogers." She tells him.

Captain America has posed:
Thank god there's nothing more than a blip of a laugh from the woman seated beside him; otherwise, Steve's ears would've gone siren-red and not been anything less than hot for the remainder of the night. He considers his hands in his lap briefly at her musings on the similarities between the two schools of thought, mundane and metaphysical alike.

"Suppose it might pan out like that in the end, if they're similar enough," he allows with a remaining note of dubiousness in his voice. His eyes rise from his efforts at picking away a hangnail as Diana speaks again. Her voice, while soft, is easy enough to pick out over the camp chatter. The Captain thinks he recognizes the song being played and the barest hint of a sigh plays across his vocal cords as he keeps himself from humming along. It's a winsome sound that disappears very quickly into the beat of his own heart in his ears.

Steve's chair creaks as he quarter-turns in it towards the woman in his shining bracers. With the shift of blood from his face in momentary shock, it leaves him pinked at the cheeks and bright of eye. He takes a short breath and huffs it out again. "...'m sorry, you said Sergeant Joseph Rogers? Of the 107th? How...?"

His mouth works silently before he swallows hard. The man died before he knew him -- how does this woman know of his father? Is she even talking about his father? Doubt at his own hasty reaction immediately plagues Steve.

Wonder Woman has posed:
Diana didn't know what Steve's relationship was like with his father, after she'd stopped working with Joseph she'd never seen or heard from him again. She certainly hoping for the best and that this information would be a nice little realization for Steve to have but then again... it was 30 years ago and she doesn't even look as though she's 30 years old physically. So that alone would likely be a shocker.

Another smile graces the Themysciran's lips and she lets it linger for a moment at Steve's surprised reaction. The smile fades though and the woman inhales deeply to start to explain. "I am not as my physical age would indicate to you." She quietly starts, glancing back over to him. "I am much, much older. I left my island when a man... very similar to you in spirit... arrived unexpectedly to our shores. He was a soldier, on a secret mission. A mission of great importance. I knew I had to go with him to see it accomplished, and to accomplish a goal of my own. Several goals, truthfully."

She tries to sum her own part in the story up to get to the part he likely wishes to hear most. "After it was all said and done though, the war was not yet quite finished. I was asked to help in a few more confrontations... Some of which were lead, by Sergeant Rogers of the 10yth."

"I see his spirit in your eyes now. I was not sure that you were related, of course, but now that I have had a chance to talk to you, I know now that you were." These last words are spoken softer then. "That... and admittedly I did a little research before setting out on this voyage." And another light hint of a grin is shown then.

Captain America has posed:
Translucent as Steve can be, the light from the fires and few electric lamps shows his open shock clearly as daylight would. His mouth hangs unknowingly slightly open as he looks dead into Diana's face, hanging on to her every word. His eyebrows are eloquent of his thoughts as she relates her tale. They meet, part and lift, and then gather again above his nose. Someone dropping a can of rocks behind him would be delighted to see him likely lift off the ground by a number of feet, so intent is his focus on her.

Realizing at one point how he's gathered up two handfuls of his dress pants in his sweated palms, the Captain makes himself relax in increments. Her wording, especially about the sharing of a soul -- of a drive -- this strikes home to make his eyes glitter in emotion.

That she did research? The blond soldier ends up stuttering. "W-Well, it makes sense that you'd -- you'd look into things, I guess. He was...my father, Joseph Rogers. Lost him to mustard gas." He informs the Princess of Themyscria of this in a muted tone. His eyes fall away from her and then off to one side. "Never got to meet 'im," Steve mumbles as he interlaces his hands in his lap, his shoulders taking on a roundness of a subtle slouch.

Wonder Woman has posed:
When Steve speaks Diana looks back to him after having given another glance around their immediate area. Two soldiers walk past and both of them make little gestures toward Diana and Steve, Diana responds to them but Steve completely misses it as he's so drawn in to what she says.

But when she does look back, she gets the news that Steve hadn't ever gotten to know the man. Diana's research only revealed the name of Steve's father, and she put the rest together on her own to know that they were likely related based on... just the mannerisms and the 'soul' inside Steve's eyes being the same as it was inside Joseph's own.

Diana's expression is serious and calm as she stares back at the Captain. "I am sorry." She quietly says to him then. "That wretched gas has left a terrible scar upon this world. The weapons of war are only growing more desperate every year that goes by..." She glances down at her lap then where she holds the cup with her right thumb gently stroking the side of it. A moment of debate internally leads her to make a decision.

"Here." Diana says then as she turns to the chair on the opposite side of her and she opens a leather satchel that was resting there, it had some of her other belongings inside of it. After a moment she produces something she'd packed intentionally in case this moment came.

Diana turns back to him and she offers him a folder. Inside it are three pictures. One of them is a picture of the entire 107th standing together, its fuzzy and black and white of course. The second is a picture of Diana standing with a selection of the members of the 107th, not having aged a day since then, wearing her armor and a robe very similar to what she's wearing now. And the 3rd is a picture of just Joseph though it looks as though it was taken on the same day.

"These were celebratory photographs after our last mission was completed. I returned to London shortly there after... I never saw him again." She softly says.

Captain America has posed:
With firelight gleaming along the lines of his brow and jaw, catching on his tamed flaxen hair, Steve nods at the sympathies offered. He clears his throat quietly and tucks his head a touch more, as if he might hide how deeply he's affected by the gesture -- and by the mythical chance of this beautiful woman having been present to speak to the man he never knew.

Diana's shuffling movements make him glance over and straighten in his seat, his thumbs pausing in their fidgeting crisscrossing. His mouth falls open again, wider this time, after he takes the pressed-paper folder and opens it. The folder itself trembles momentarily as Steve lets out a shakey sigh. He looks down upon the photographs in their capturing of a time before his existence in chiaroscuro. There -- there's Diana, impossibly seated next to him and having not aged a day -- she gets a bewildered glance from Steve as he looks up from the second picture and back at it -- back at her again -- back at it. Those decisive eyebrows flick up and meet once more.

He lifts the third picture up with the gentlest touch and somehow, it takes both hands to keep it steady for him to look upon it. It's...he knows that face, from dusty old frames left on the mantle of his apartment back in Brooklyn, but Joseph was much younger -- side by side with his mother. Here, he's...god, that smile. Those dimples, they're tired, but they're there. He knows that jawline and... Those eyes.

Steve rubs at his mouth and laughs quietly, almost painfully to himself. "God, that's...that's him. Same man in my mother's marriage photo."

Wonder Woman has posed:
Diana lets Steve have as much of a moment with the pictures as she can while being seated directly beside him. They're both in wooden folding chairs alongside the edge of a evening maksehift party that was thrown together in the center of the military camp. There were soldiers playing music on instruments standing near the center of 3 campfires built in a triangle of one another. Some had been dancing around them, most were just drinking and being silly soldiers on a night of relaxation before operations would begin the next day.

Steve had joined Diana on the edge of it all and the two had just been sitting and chatting for a few minutes now. Steve now holding a folder with 3 photos of proof of what Diana had just told him.

She eventually looks back to the Captain after he speaks and a smile spreads over her lips, its a warming expression, calm and sincere. "He was valiant man. Your father. He lead with the same gusto and heart that you do. Though... a much different accent laced his colorful words." Diana says, now releasing another soft laugh from within her. She glances down to the pictures in Steve's possession and then lets her eyes go back up to his.

"He would be proud of you, Captain Rogers. You are fighting the fight that he would be right now, were he able to." She doesn't want to overwhelm the poor Captain, so she leaves it at that and just raises her metal mug up to sip her drink again.

Captain America has posed:
The mention of his father's unheard brogue is enough to twist Steve's lips into something between a grimace and a smile, as if he weren't sure it was appropriate to laugh at the thought of him having been Americanized enough to lose the accent of his cradle-tongue. He glances over at Diana nonethless and meets her eyes once more. She'll likely catch just how deeply her sentiment touches him. It's enough that Steve has to look down at the picture of the man posed leaning jauntily on the remnants of a brick wall, rifle slung over his shoulder, grinning up a charming set of dimples so much like his own.

"Y'know, 't'was my Mathair who worked at keepin' th'worst of th'accent outta my voice," he says quietly with a glance over at Diana again. "It's there if'n y'listen hard 'nough. Must've kept it around th'house until I was nearin' grade school. Th'Irish weren't acceptable to a lot o'folks back then, where I lived. It's a Gaelic accent, from county Galway," the blond soldier informs her, a melancholy smile hovering on his lips.

"It, uh..." He loses track of the accent, slipping back into his far more Americanized tongue. "It means a lot to me that you'd show these to me, miss. Thanks."

Wonder Woman has posed:
Diana remains seat straight and tall in her chair, the posture and presence of a well mannered Royal blooded woman indeed... or the effects of wearing gladiatorial styled armor beneath her black and blue smooth looking robe. Probably both!

The accent taking over Steve's voice gets Diana to look upon him and to show him a very big and amused smile, her expression almost like a young child's at seeing something great for the very first time. She even laughs softly at it when he subsequently loses the accent again and returns to that Brooklyn-native voice that he's likely better known for.

"I like it." She says to him honestly. "Someday I will have to visit Ireland and meet its people in a much more enjoyable fashion. New York as well, yes? I have heard many great things, but... my time has yet kept me primarily between Europe and Great Britain." She asks of him then. "Is your mother still there now?" She has to ask, the curiosity is a little overwhelming for her to know a little bit more about the son of the soldier she once knew.

Winter Soldier has posed:
If it were just Steve, Buck'd be a jerk and sneak up on him. It turns out stealth is another of his natural talents. But since there's company.....he just comes walking up. He's cleaned up somewhat - he has this fanaticism about showering and shaving whenever he can, a fastidiousness that's flat out bizarre for an American GI in this war - and is in his own uniform, rather than the blue coat and trooper pants. "Ma'am," he says, politely, as he approaches, before venturing a little smile for Steve.

Captain America has posed:
Steve's smile dims a few watts at her question. It's an innocent one, but by the cast of his face now, the Princess might be able to guess the answer even before it leaves him, still quietly.

"Lost Mathair to TB. Tuberculosis, it's..." He gestures in a circling motion towards his chest with a pointed finger briefly. "Gets into the lungs. 1936." Which means Steve was young yet when she placed into the ground beside his father's grave. "Lived with Buck's family afterwards -- Sergeant Barnes," he explains to identify the man in question.

And then, almost as if summoned like a genie from a bottle by his name, there's Bucky himself. Steve looks up from the photos spread across the file folder on his lap but makes no attempt to hide them from his oldest friend. They're black and white, three in total: a grouping of soldiers, a smaller collection of soldiers featuring Diana herself, and then a single-person frame of one man who just //might// have elements of recognizable face and build upon closer inspection.

"Hey, Buck," Steve greets the soldier with a bigger grin. There's the minor slump of relief at a familiar face and somewhat of a distraction as well, something that Barnes won't miss. "If you can find a chair, grab one."

He does glance again to Diana as he realizes he's invited someone into conversation without asking with her first. Color blossoms at his ears -- oops.

Wonder Woman has posed:
Diana does a silent and slow 'Ah...' at hearing about the loss of Steve's mother too. She hadn't found records of that in her research prior to coming out here either. Its regrettable that she did not, but... information is a little harder to come by in this world than it is perhaps at a later date down the line! "I can tell that the two of you are very close." She says in a calm voice to Steve just before Bucky does arrive.

She looks over and up to him and then rises up after he says ma'am. She stands up to her full height now, and glimpses of that strange armor she wears beneath her robe are momentarily visible when that robe falls around her form and sways from her motions. "Diana is my name. Ma'am is not." She says to Bucky before she slowly grins and then turns to pick up her leather satchel off of the chair that was to her right while Steve was in the one to her left.

"Here, take this seat." She says then as she picks it up then by the back and moves to settle it down in front of them so that they can all face each other. "I was just going over some past experiences with the Captain... from quite some time ago."

Diana moves to sit again then and she settles her hands into her lap and sets the satchel down near her feet where the tips of her armored boots are visibly poking out from beneath her robe. "Your family took him in then, James?" She asks Bucky directly. "You were... sixteen?" She asks then of Steve. "No wonder you two act of brothers." She says then, smilingly lightly again.

Winter Soldier has posed:
He watches her rise, gaze going up and up. "I didn't think we knew each other well enough for first names, but......if you like," Buck says, mildly. "Me and my father and my sister, yes. My mother died when I was very young....and we didn't really have any family. Steve and I had been buddies for years - it made sense for him to come live with us." The pair of them sleeping in the living room of that little apartment, Rebecca in her own room, their father in his. "We lived together ever since." Until Buck went off to war.

Captain America has posed:
"Yep," confirms Steve of the brunet soldier's explanation. "Slept in the living room of the Barnes household. We've been scuffling around since we were, what..." He squints at Bucky for a second. "Very young. Knee-high to a grasshopper. Moved in when I was sixteen." The Captain shifts in his chair after nodding to Diana. The song played by the motley collection of instruments changes from a folksy ballad to something far more ribald. Cue a heating of the Captain's ears again, but he forges on as if to distract from the chorus. "Figure we're still friends because this guy doesn't know to leave well enough alone."

There's finally a bit of a light-headed quirk of his lips towards the other soldier. It fades as he closes the folder and offers it out to Bucky. "'s'pictures of...of my father," he explains, his throat wobbling in a hard swallow. "Miss Prince had 'em. She knew him."

Suprise, the warrior-princess ages well!

Wonder Woman has posed:
Once seated again, Diana's hands go back to holding that metal mug she was given earlier by a previous band of soldiers who'd come to speak with her. She grins to Bucky as he settles in. "I grew up in a society that often only addressed me with official titles. All day long, it was... as such and forever did I try to get them to simply call me by the name that my mother gave me. It was not until I was older that they finally started to come around, once I was learning how to knock some of them over." She shows a hint of a grin then and there befeore she sips her drink again.

Her eyes go back to Steve as he hands the folder to Bucky and as the drink lowers again she tips her chin to said folder of photos. "They are yours now." She tells Steve. "I brought them specifically in hopes of letting you have them.

"Knee high to a grasshopper." Diana then suddenly repeats, showing a larger grin then. "It took me quite awhile to get accustomed to these sorts of turning of phrase. I like them a lot now."

A glance is given between the two men then. "I am glad that you two found each other. I imagine that you both are providing each other with a lot of needed stability to make it through this war, and I believe we are very close to the end now..."

Winter Soldier has posed:
That last confession startles Buck visibly, and his gaze darts to Diana. Oh, he understood intellectually that she'd fought in the last war before this one....but getting it on the gut level, no. All he says in reply, though, is simply, "....Wow."

He accepts the folder of photos, starts to look through it. He never knew the man, either. "I'm glad, too," he says, simply. Then another look to the Princess. "Fair enough," he says. Even odds he never does use her first name. It'd feel too weird.

Captain America has posed:
By all accounts, the revelations of Diana's own childhood are fascinating to Steve. He looks away from Bucky to focus on the woman and listen, though he does shoot his friend a quick, empathetic grin at the shocked response -- right?! The woman's walking proof of unnatural lifespans!

Still, he sobers quickly enough and gives Diana another small, deeply-honored smile. "Thanks again, Miss Prince... Diana," he hazards on a whim, trying hard not to remind himself that Bucky's sitting nearby. Razzing may be forthcoming later. "It's a gesture that means a lot, those photos."

A sigh is blown and he pats his thighs lightly twice with both hands. "I hope you're right though, about this war being near to an end. Lots of men looking to get home to their families." His true-blues scan the campsite once more as his expression goes solemn.

Wonder Woman has posed:
The exchange between the two men makes the Princess show a quick grin to them. "You are wondering how old I am." She says to them both, knowing full well that neither of them would dare to ask her that question due to that sense of 'never ask a woman her age' that goes around amongst the kinder of the male gender in this world are still amusing to her.

Diana then leans forward just a little toward them both and she gives a quick darting of her eyes left and right beyond them to make sure no other rascals are listening. "I am going on my ninth century." She says in a not very suble whisper because she ultimately doesn't really care who knows that. She punctuates her good natured humorous attempt at telling them though by lifting her right hand up and doing a 'Shush' finger to press to her lips, her leather wrapped palm and ornate armored bracer on full display as she does that as her robe does not cover those bits of her traditional armor.

Diana then leans back into her perfected posture again and she continues to grin at the two men. A nod is given to them then. "I look forward to working with you both to make the end come even sooner. This mission will... it will go well, I am sure of it." She says then and there as she raises her drink up for another sip.