Diana appreciated that Thor was quiet as long as he was. Amongst the humans, that was apparently sometimes taken as being disinterested, and so oftentimes, when Diana did speak with them, it was about the human she was speaking to rather than whatever she had been speaking about. The mayflies couldn’t help it. They were only alive perhaps a hundred years if they were lucky, and that afforded them a rather narrow scope. Sometimes Diana was jealous of them, for being able to look so closely at everything, and never worry about the rest that they would never see.
And of course, men had a tendency to attempt running over Diana in the first place, talking about their own experiences or trying to make the conversation about them, and while she was not sure just why that was, she knew enough to appreciate that Thor had not. He had let her speak, and that was such a rare thing that she treasured it. She treasured the hand that came up to her cheek even more, stopping her in her tracks. They had been walking still as she’d spoken, but not now. Diana stopped, and looked up at him, and her free hand came up to hold his to her face.
She didn’t want him to take it back yet, and she gave him the same courtesy and respect of listening. Her face betrayed her thoughts as he spoke, though, every emotion flowing across her face and through those dark eyes. Her heart hurt for him, and yet she was so proud of him, though she had no right to be. What a choice that must have been, what a situation to find yourself in. Impossible, and yet here he stood, shouldering the weight of an impossible choice with impossible costs and consequences.
She remembered when she had asked him who Hel was, in a different conversation, and he’d told her it was not a person but a place. Apparently there was a person to go along with that place, though, and Diana understood that. After all, Hades had his own Underworld, did he not? She looked nearly incredulous as he described this entire thing as “a bad few years”, because he had been right. Diana was no fool, and this time, she connected the dots just fine.
They’d spoken of the Blip earlier, when half of all life had been wiped out on his world, including presumably what few friends and family he had had left after the event he had just now described to her. That he was on his feet at all stunned her, impressed her in a way that Diana had never before experienced, because who else had she ever met that could say the same? Perhaps only Hippolyta, and Diana understood then that she had never been meant to rule, had never been this inspiring or impressive in the same way.
There were so few that had ever given Diana of Themyscira the sudden urge to kneel (for what would’ve been anyone’s guess) that she fell silent for a moment, but she recovered herself quickly enough. Bless that processing speed, O Lord Zeus. Useless jerk had given her something, at least. “Every time I already think you’re the strongest person I’ve ever met, you say something else and I have to revise it,” she said finally, and she grinned up at him, his hand still on her cheek and her hand still holding it there. Their other hands were intertwined still as well.
“An apology doesn’t seem enough for all that you’ve weathered, but you have to know that you did your best. And you must also surely know that that’s more than anyone else could have done.” Diana paused, and her tone changed, became softer and more aware of what she was asking, what she was telling him. “You do know that, don’t you?” That was more than even she could have done, if the shoes had been on the other foot and she had had to do similar to save Themyscira. If she even could have made such a choice to begin with. She didn’t know that she had the strength.