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“Marry me?”
The two little words slip out of him almost before he realizes what he’s said. But they hang heavy in the space between them now as they lie together in the inn’s narrow bed, and it’s too late to take them back now.
Steve cringes, wondering if a man can die from embarrassment.
To Diana’s credit, if she’s horrified or repulsed by what he just asked her she recovers quickly.
“Well,” she says, the right side of her mouth quirking up into a half-smile as she pretends to consider his offer. She runs a gentle hand through the tousled hair that sticks to his forehead and brushes it to the side. She looks amused, but definitely not angry. That's something, at least. “I’ll think about it.”
Steve groans, rolling over onto his stomach so she can’t see his face.
“I’m so sorry, Diana,” he mumbles into his pillow. “I just… I dunno. I guess I’m a bit…” He breaks off, chancing a look at her before hiding from her eyes again. “The dancing, and the beer, and the snow and… I’m just really happy right now here, with you, and…”
Happier than I’ve been in years, he thinks. Happier than I’ve ever been, even in the middle of this endless war.
He shakes his head. He can’t say any of that to her right now. He probably can’t say any of it to her ever. “I’m just… happy,” he says instead. “Can we just… um. Forget about it?”
Diana laughs, the sound like wind through the trees. She reaches down and starts to rub reassuring circles onto the small of his back, which just makes him feel even more like an idiot.
“I don’t think I’ll be able to forget it anytime soon,” she admits. “But it’s okay, Steve.”
“But it’s not,” Steve says forlornly. “We only just started…I mean… ” He trails off, cheeks going red. “And you just… Diana, a week ago you hadn’t even heard of marriage, and you just met me, and…”
And we’re in the middle of a war. And we might not make it out alive.
He looks at her again, to try and gauge her reaction to what he’s telling her. But her expression is unreadable. He sighs. “That was about the stupidest thing I could have said to you.”
Diana touches his chin and turns his face so that he has to look at her. He wonders if it’s actually possible to drown in a woman’s eyes.
“It wasn’t stupid,” she insists. She smiles at him again, so warmly that if Steve weren’t already lying down he’d be going weak in the knees. “I promise. But – maybe let’s get through this war before we talk about what comes next?”
Steve kisses her then, and he decides her idea is a good one.