#and both poor things and lisa Frankenstein said yes I agree

[piratekenway]

*boots down the door* HAPPY BIRTHDAY. For a prompt, what do you think would happen if Diana of Themyscira existed in the AU where Anakin spends a decade on Earth as amnesiac John Foster?

so I’m going to smash these two AUs together, bc I just love this idea and I’m gonna make like Victor Frankenstein, OG sleep-deprived desperate college student, and create A Monster.

title from P!nk’s “What About Us”.

title: we are rockets pointed up at the stars

--

The first time Diana of Themyscira meets Anakin Skywalker, he’s not Anakin Skywalker just yet. Anymore. Whichever. She doesn’t really know, per se, because she’s never had the opportunity to change her identity from the bottom-up—underneath Diana Prince and all her other aliases is Diana of Themyscira, princess, goddess, Amazon, and that has never changed.

Not the same way Anakin’s identity has changed.

What he is when she meets him, though, is a bright-eyed college student, in a Columbia hoodie, weaving in and out of the crowds and looking up, up, up at the ceiling.

She steps deftly to the side before he can bump into her, but it’s too late, his knee knocks against a bench and he goes sprawling anyway with a squawk, his papers flying.

Her mouth quirks upward, in a smile, and she bends down. “Do you need any help?” she asks.

“Please,” he says, and the two of them rearrange his papers and his things into some semblance of order quickly enough that he can still catch up with his friends. “I’m—so sorry, I didn’t see.”

“It’s all right,” says Diana. “You’re new here, aren’t you?”

He huffs out a breath, scratches the back of his neck. He’s young, she thinks, he’s never seen anything worse than a failing grade, a dead pigeon. He’s so young. “Yeah,” he says. “My friends dragged me here, I couldn’t really turn them down. Not after they said there was an exhibit here on space.”

The space exhibit, right. Diana hadn’t been responsible for that one, hadn’t even planned to go see it, had only just swung by the museum after talking to a donor because she’d wanted to check on an artifact being exhibited, but it fascinates her, nonetheless.

“Your friends have good taste,” she observes. “They’ve a rock from the moon here, did you know?”

“I know, that’s partly why I agreed to come here,” he says. “I’ve always wanted to go to space, it’s like—we were meant to be out there, y’know? Exploring, discovering, pushing the final frontier.”

“So you’ve watched a lot of Star Trek?” says Diana, amused.

He ducks his head and laughs. “Yeah, I have,” he says. “And—shit, I forgot. I’m John.” He holds his hand out. “I’m a physics major.”

“Diana,” she says, shaking his hand. “I’m a museum curator. Not for this one, I live in Paris.”

“Oh, so you’re with the Louvre?” he says, letting go. “That’s nice. All I know is that the Mona Lisa is there, so.”

“Yes, that does seem to be the main draw for many people,” says Diana, with a huff. “We do have an exhibit on clay work from Ancient Greece right now, in case someone can drag themselves away from the Mona Lisa for long enough.”

“Ancient Greece?” says John, evidently trying valiantly to keep his interest on something that’s not related to space. His eyes keep straying upward to the ceiling, tracking the constellations painted above them. “That’s—uh, pretty cool.”

“And clearly something you’re not interested in,” she says, sardonic.

John, at least, has the decency to look sheepish. “Yeah, sorry,” he says. “Most of what I know is from Professor Duke’s Philosophy classes.”

Diana can’t help it, she winces in sympathy. “I’ve met him a few times,” she says. “He’s very trying.” Which is an understatement, Duke is a rich white old man, and in Diana’s experience, those tend to be set in their ways, at the very least, which Duke is. Stubbornly so, even.

John sighs. “He’s an asshole, sorry,” he says.

“I’m well aware,” says Diana.

“Foster!” someone calls, and John startles, turns to look. “Foster, oh my god, get your ass over here and cover for us so Matt can touch the artwork!”

“He’s flirting with a girl, isn’t he?” someone else says. “Jesus Christ, it’s like Matt and his girls all over again.”

“I gotta go,” says John, with a huff of laughter. “I’m looking after some freshmen today, they’re going to get in trouble if I’m not there to terrify people.”

“You cannot possibly be that terrifying,” says Diana. It’s true enough, John might be tall and broad, but he slouches, smiles, speaks with a self-deprecating edge to his voice.

“To you,” John chuckles. “Hey, listen, do you have a pen? I’ve got some paper here.”

--

Patricia Avery is an accomplished lawyer, a woman of great renown amongst the lawyers of New York for her great integrity and her steel backbone, her compassion for the needy and her drive to do the right thing, no matter what.

She also, Diana has found over the course of their acquaintance, can be easily talked into an informal meeting with chocolate ice cream. So, well, she has good taste as well.

“So how’s your case?” says Diana, as Patricia digs a spoon into her bowl of ice cream. “I hear it’s taken an interesting turn.”

“I loathe Reyes with all my heart,” says Patricia, pleasantly. “Every time I see her it makes me weep for our legal system that she’s on track to taking over the DA’s position.”

“You have to admit, she did have a point,” says Diana.

“You’re supposed to be on my side,” huffs Patricia, with no real heat behind her tone. Her client, a witness and accomplice to a crime, isn’t having the best time of it in court right now, what with Reyes poking holes in her testimony and sowing doubt in the poor girl’s head and in the jury’s. “I swear, though, Reyes just wants to see her behind bars. And she deserves better, Diana, you know that—she’s already been kidnapped and brainwashed into being an accomplice, she doesn’t need this too.”

“I know,” says Diana, sympathetic. She could offer her help, she knows, her lariat still hangs in her apartment, but she cannot interfere in this even to help. It would hurt Patricia’s case, more than help.

Patricia sighs. “Reyes is gunning for her,” she says. “She wants a convenient scapegoat, and the worst part of it all is, the press is going along with her. You’ve seen the narrative they’re putting out.”

“You can change that,” Diana points out.

“I’m trying,” says Patricia. “But sometimes—I don’t know. I feel like it isn’t enough.” There’s something underneath her voice, the truth of her identity lurking underneath her sharp clothes, the grief of not being enough (never being enough) to effect any change, no matter how loud she shouts, how hard she pushes. “Senator or lawyer, sometimes it feels as if I can’t shout loud enough,” she says, quietly.

Diana’s hand rests over Patricia’s. The woman startles a little, surprised, but she doesn’t flinch away. “You are,” says Diana, with conviction. “Patricia. Padmé. You have made your voice loud enough in the pursuit of justice that even the deaf can hear it. You can change this narrative in the press, you can drag the truth out into the light, you can give Reyes a run for her money. I’ve seen you do it, over and over. I know you can do it now.”

Patricia stares at her, then, slowly, nods.

“Thanks,” she says, quietly. “You always know what to say to pull me out of a funk.”

“Don’t mention it,” says Diana. “You always pay for the ice cream, anyway.”

--

The second time Diana meets Anakin Skywalker, he’s earned his PhD, and it’s a year before Greenwich, before SHIELD, four before the Justice League forms, in the Avengers’ absence. He’s still not Anakin, not yet.

They meet, again, at a museum, and this time he doesn’t go sprawling in front of her.

“I’m here with Selvig this time,” he says, and his eyes are still bright, though they’re wiser now. She thinks of New Mexico, and desert sands. “How are you, anyway? I haven’t seen you in years.”

“I’ve been busy,” says Diana. “I heard you were in New Mexico.”

“Yeah, that,” says John, with a little huff of breath. He looks up once more, searching for something. “That was—wow.”

“Wow is putting it one way,” says Diana. “So. Norse gods?”

“Classified my ass,” says John, shaking his head. “Yeah, apparently. Thor was—uh. Nice.” He rubs the side of his neck, smile turning soft and sad, and Diana knows loss and longing, when she sees it. Has felt it herself, still does sometimes.

She watches John for a long moment, and says, quiet, “Come with me.”

--

She tells him: “I lost someone, once.”

She tells him: “It will always hurt like this.”

She tells him: “He may not come back.”

“He will,” he says.

“But if he does not?” she asks.

“He will,” he says, with a desperate note. “I’ll find him, if he doesn’t. But he will. I didn’t—” He stops, shakes his head. “I’m sorry for your loss,” he says. “I really am. But it isn’t the same, he’s going to come back.”

He’s so young. And yet.

Diana touches his elbow.

She tells him: “I wish you both more time.”

#words writ in starlight #asks #you ask and i write #there will be music despite everything #ow my fingers #ALSO there will be more i think??? I HOPE SO ANYWAY #words-writ-in-starlight