Chapter Text
The morning snowfall had just ended, coating the ground in soft, glittering white, while the frozen lake gleamed and shimmered like a polished mirror. All around, children in fluffy, oversized coats and crude skates had gathered, laughing and playing, shoving each other across the ice as they enjoyed a rare moment of peace in the bitter depths of the Russian winter, when it was too cold for the Omnics to advance.
Many of them were unsupervised; the war had made adults a rarity, and orphans littered the crumbling streets as children’s homes struggled with their sheer numbers. Even teenagers were an uncommon sight, many having gone into the military in their desperation to have roofs over their heads, clothes on their backs and food in their stomachs.
Regardless, it was still a precious and beautiful moment of bliss, one that Lena would have appreciated much more if she wasn’t sprawling arse-first across said lake every three seconds.
“Ma cherie, are you alright?” Struggling to hold back laughter, Amélie leaned over to offer her a helping hand.
With a pout, she ignored the outstretched hand, rising shakily to her feet and promptly falling yet again. “This was an awful idea, love.”
A fond smile spread across Amélie’s face as she held out both hands to Lena, “If you were not so stubborn, you might enjoy yourself more.”
Lena flushed a vivid crimson as she looked away, wondering if the whole world could hear the thundering of her heart against her ribcage. She had been actively trying to contain her huge crush on the other agent for months, but Amélie was rendering all her efforts useless with her warm smile and beautiful, sincere golden eyes.
How could anyone not love a woman like Amélie?
Shaking the thought from her mind, Lena scrambled to her feet with all the grace of a drunken panda, her legs slipping awkwardly beneath her as she huffed, “I don’t need any help, love.”
Behind her, Amélie laughed, not unkindly, the sound fluttering like butterflies in the pit of her stomach. She was way too gay for this, and Amélie was way too beautiful, and once again her arse was kissing the ice at Mach One.
“Bollocks!”
Pressing a hand to her mouth to contain a chuckle, Amélie shook her head, “It is quite evident that you do.”
Briefly, Lena considered her options – accept her crush’s hand and possibly die of a heart attack, or bruise her bum so badly she probably wouldn’t be able to sit for a week. Neither seemed particularly appealing, but before she could make a choice, Amélie grabbed her by the wrists and pulled her to her feet.
“Steady,” she murmured, resting a hand against Lena’s waist as the girl buckled, “I’ve got you, cherie.”
Lena didn’t hear a word she had said, her brain shrieking endlessly as she felt the swell of Amélie’s breasts pressed against her. Goddess above, she was too gay for this. Her heart was combusting, and she was pretty sure her cheeks could melt clean through the ice.
“-ena, Lena, can you hear me?”
“What?” startled, she looked up at the amused expression on the other woman’s face, a little too smug and knowing for her taste. Scrambling for an excuse, she said, “My… my arse hurts.”
Okay, that was not something she should’ve said. Definitely not. Though judging from the expression on Amélie’s face, she found it absolutely hilarious. Was that a good thing? Probably, at least she didn’t look absolutely horrified…
“Just hold on to me, and I promise your arse will be fine,” she said the word exactly as Lena had, nailing the British accent perfectly, her voice doing all sorts of illegal things to Lena’s short-circuiting mind.
Blushing, Lena did as she was told, biting her tongue to keep from saying anything inappropriate. It was a rare, peaceful day and she did not want to ruin it with feelings, especially when she was skating lazily across a frozen lake hand-in-hand with the most gorgeous woman she had ever seen.
This would be enough, it had to be. Lena didn’t have any hope of getting any more.
“I’m dying,” Lena groaned dramatically as she flopped over on the couch, dressed in nothing but a tank top and booty shorts. Her signature spiky hair lay in damp streams against her forehead, matted by her perspiration. “When I die, bury me with my family…”
“I don’t think either of us will survive this mission, cherie,” Amélie’s voice was muffled by the bathroom door, “Even the cold water here is warm.”
For some reason, they had been sent to Malaysia as part of a small lookout team, and not only was nothing happening, the weather seemed to be trying its best to kill them. It was 30 degrees every damn day, and the humidity was nothing a Londoner like Lena had ever experienced before – it was like walking straight into the bowels of hell.
Even with the air-conditioner in their room cranked up to the max, Amélie and Lena were wilting, and the lack of things to do wasn’t doing them any favors.
“I’m going to kill Morrison when we get back,” Lena groaned, raising her head as she heard the toilet door creak open. “Are you- Oh.”
Lena’s mind shut down completely as she took in the sight of Amélie, in nothing but a lacy gray bra and matching panties, one hand raking slender fingers through her damp hair. It was like a scene right out of one of her wet dreams (not of Amélie, of course, it was just a woman who happened to look like Amélie, that’s all).
“Make sure you leave enough of him for me to kick,” Amélie said absently, leaning over the small kitchen counter and giving her a way-too-nice view of her perfect arse.
Struggling to swallow past the sudden lump in her throat, Lena tore her gaze away, flicking on the television and randomly scrolling through the free-to-air channels – all in Malay, unfortunately – hoping to find a distraction of any sort before a brain fart made her say something she’d regret.
Lena nearly had a heart attack when Amélie flopped down next to her, wordlessly handing her a glass of iced water, and she took long gulps in a desperate attempt to cool her head. On the television, some skinny children were digging a trench in which to bury their parents, their faces the cold, hard mask of those who had seen too much for their years. It was sad, yes, and hit awfully close to home, but Lena couldn’t think of anything but her almost-naked crush, sitting just centimeters away.
“Are you alright, cherie? You’re strangely quiet tonight,” Amélie remarked, gently resting one hand on Lena’s bare thigh.
She nearly jumped out of her skin, dropping the glass with a surprised yelp. Fortunately, it was made of some new-fangled fiberglass, stronger than human bones, so all she got was a lapful of cold water.
“I-I’m alright!” she squeaked, leaping off the couch, “I’ll just g-go… get a towel…”
Amélie merely smiled and reached out to ruffle Lena’s damp hair, her tone fond as she said, “My clumsy puppy.”
Lena bit back the words that fought to escape from her throat – Amélie didn’t mean it that way, she couldn’t possibly, she was most probably heterosexual and even if she wasn’t, she was happily married.
This would be all she would ever get, a close friendship, and if she blurted those three stupid words, she would ruin it all forever.
“Two of the usual, Matt!” Lena shouted energetically as she pushed her way into her favorite chip shop, ignoring the long, scruffy line of customers that shot daggers at her as she walked by.
“Lena, that you?” a balding man in a stained apron, Matt, Amélie assumed, came out of the kitchen, flinging his arms around Lena and lifting the tiny girl clear off the ground. “It’s been donkey’s years! Thought you were running around with those Overwatch blokes?”
“Still am,” she grinned, gesturing to the confused-looking Amélie, “We’re a little peckish and were in the area, so I thought to check up on you.”
He laughed, a deep, full-belly laugh that shook his entire body – Amélie had never met anyone who did that. Leaning in a little too close, Matt examined her, though he probably could smell her foreign-ness from a mile away. She looked extremely out-of-place in a seedy, back-alley chip shop, in her fancy fur jacket and dark purple leggings.
“Ain’t from round here, is she?” Matt asked, turning to Lena – maybe it was a thing around these parts to ignore strangers and treat them as if they weren’t really there. “Got yourself a downright great catch, though, duck.”
“We’re just friends,” Lena said, turning an impressive shade of red that would make tomatoes jealous, “And haven’t you a full house on your hands, mate? Don’t keep them waiting.”
As if suddenly noticing the long line of miffed customers, Matt nodded and headed back into the kitchen, not before seating Lena and Amélie and a corner booth with more privacy than Amélie ever expected a place like this to have.
“Best seat in the house, love,” Lena explained as she slid into the booth, a huge grin on her face. “Ah, it’s been ages since I last ate here. I can’t wait.”
“The patrons outside seem… unhappy,” Amélie observed, “Do the British practice favoritism a lot?”
“Love, it’s a chip joint. We do what we want.”
Evidently, it wasn’t something Amélie had much experience with, not that anyone would have expected her to. She was from a well-off family, well educated, well raised and well bred, definitely a cut above the common corner shop folk.
Within a few minutes, Matt came over with two baskets of fried fish and chips in wax paper. According to Lena, serving customers wasn’t something he normally did, he didn’t run some fancy, high-collar restaurant. You collected your food at the counter if you were any ordinary bloke and ate it wherever you wanted, but a regular got some special treatment.
“If you’ve ever got time to kill, duck, drop by again,” he said with a grin, “The boys are aching to hear about your adventures.”
With that, the big man disappeared back into the kitchen; leaving Amélie to stare slightly suspiciously at the greasy mess she had been served.
“It won’t kill you, love,” Lena laughed at Amélie’s cautious expression, watching as she gingerly prodded a chip with her fork. “No need for table manners here, you kinda just shovel it down any old how.”
The other patrons seemed to be doing just that, forgoing utensils for their bare hands, making Amélie shudder. And the volume at which they talked, as if they wanted the whole damn world to eavesdrop on them…! She had never seen people like this before, dirty and ragged and probably all on-the-run from the authorities for one reason or another.
Amélie had pretty much gone against most of her upbringing to traipse through back alleys in King’s Row to eat at a chip shop, something no one in Overwatch would even dream of doing for their lives, let alone for Lena. London wasn’t exactly famous for its safety or cleanliness, not after the Omnic Riots ruined most of the city and turned it into some Dickens dystopia. It made her chest all warm and fuzzy, as if her heart had turned into a kitten, to know that Amélie was willing to go so far out of her comfort zone just to make her happy.
Shoving a mouthful of chips down her throat, Lena stopped those words from escaping her, grinning with bulging cheeks at the slightly amused Amélie and watching the way the dim lighting danced in her golden eyes. She was smitten, helplessly so, but she’d rather die before admitting it.
“He’s late,” Amélie growled, the sound of her pacing audible even through the phone. “He should’ve been back six hours ago, cherie.”
“Gérard’ll be fine, love, promise,” Lena struggled to bite back a yawn, casting a glance over her shoulder at the clock. 4:31AM. She had been on the phone with her worried best friend for almost 5 hours now, trying to soothe her frazzled nerves as she panicked about her husband.
Part of Lena wished he wouldn’t come back; to be entirely honest, she almost hated him for having the affections of the woman she wanted so desperately. But Gérard made Amélie happy, they had been childhood friends and had probably never had a fight in their entire relationship, and Lena didn’t want to take that away from her.
“The last time he was this late, Doctor Ziegler almost couldn’t save him,” she replied, obviously agitated. At her feet, the couple’s white Persian yawned, not particularly concerned by her master’s lateness.
“But she did,” Lena said, trying to force as much cheer into her voice as she could with less than an hour’s sleep in the past three days, “Gérard’s a tough cookie and the Doc’s a wonder. Have a little faith in them, love.”
The sigh that escaped her was long and deep and suffering, “I know, cherie, but I can’t stop worrying.”
Spotting a faded old game board tucked halfway under her table, Lena was struck by a sudden idea. “I’m coming over with a distraction, give me five.”
“But you haven’t slept in days!”
“Not like I’ll get any sleep either way,” she replied with a grin, tucking the board under her arm while lacing her shoes with one hand. “Know what, I’ll be there in two.”
Amélie had barely put down the phone before her doorbell rang, the sound of air and time displacing setting the cat on edge. Mircalla had no fondness for the time-skipping, hyperactive agent, and liked her even less after the young woman spilled hot tea all over her. The dislike was mutual – Lena was much more of a dog person.
“You said two,” was her greeting, a small smile tugging at the edges of her lips as she took in Lena’s outfit – an oversized cartoon t-shirt and boxer shorts with bananas all over them. “You ran here in that?”
Shrugging, Lena padded into the apartment, happily ignoring the hissing cat as she plonked down on the couch, “Not like anyone could see me, love.”
Shaking her head, Amélie settled on the couch next to her, peering curiously at the faded box Lena had set on the table. Monopoly, it said in yellowing letters, and a small speech bubble in the corner heralded it as the world’s most famous family game, come to holo-board for the first time!
“How old is this thing?” she asked, wrinkling her nose as Lena brushed dust from the cover and set up the board.
“Probably older than me,” Lena replied, sticking out her tongue in concentration as she tried to figure out how to turn on the old hologram system. “Last tenant left it in the back room, I just unearthed it.”
Slipping off the couch to cuddle next to her, Amélie asked, “How do you even play this thing?”
“It’s easy, love, I’ll teach you as we go along.”
It took barely ten minutes for the game to get too competitive, playful expletives exchanged and random trinkets flung at each other as they squabbled over property and buildings. Luck seemed to be on Lena’s side, and before long she was the tycoon of London, celebrating expensive hotels in all the best properties while Amélie’s piece – a top hat – languished in jail.
As the hours flew by, Lena slowly realized that Amélie had completely forgotten about her husband – she hadn’t said his name in hours and seemed to be having a great time. If only they had met before Gérard, Lena found herself wishing, then this torturous feeling in her chest could be more than just a doomed love.
But they hadn’t, and there was no way she could ever admit her feelings.
Hollywood was probably one of Lena’s favorite places to be stationed, because little actually happened there and the cinemas were more than happy to let Overwatch agents watch movies for free. It was basically a paid vacation with the latest blockbusters thrown in, and sometimes you could get autographs of famous people.
“Sometimes I wonder why I’m always stuck with you,” Amélie said fondly as they wandered the streets, not exactly hand-in-hand but walking so closely they might as well be. Even Gérard had noticed something between them, how comfortable they were around each other and how actively they sought each other’s company, but he didn’t seem against it.
“Aww, you know you like it, love,” Lena gently butted her friend’s arm, an easy task considering their height difference.
“Well, I had to adapt or die, cherie,” she replied with a laugh, ruffling Lena’s hair to take the barbs out of her words. “You’re a very strange girl.”
“Flung out of space?”
Amélie raised an eyebrow, obviously recognizing the reference. “Yes, my strange girl, flung out of space.”
The words bubbled forth in Lena’s throat before she could stop them, “Hey, Amélie?”
“Hmm?” those piercing golden eyes snapped her out of her trance – a sudden, jarring warning of what she stood to lose by uttering the three words she had been hiding for so long.
“Wanna catch a movie?”
The plane shrieked as it fell out of the sky, warning sirens blaring as the remains of three smoking engines slowly crumbled. Most of the fuselage had been shot away, they were losing altitude fast, and the oxygen masks only provided another twelve minutes of oxygen before they would start suffocating.
Lena should have probably landed after they lost the first engine, about an hour and a half ago, along with a huge chunk of the starboard side, but she was the only plane still flying and couldn’t afford to stop while their agents fought and died on the ground. So she kept at it, with three engines running and her faithful co-pilot keeping an eye on the damaged wing, until a half dozen tracer missiles grazed their side and took out half the cockpit, the co-pilot and yet another engine.
Still, Lena flew, though she did try to drop her passengers – Amélie and a squadron of five other top-notch snipers, off to safety so they could make their way to the front on foot. Half of them had resisted, and they were now tied to chairs or crates, half-hanging out the low-flying plane and sniping every Omnic they could see.
“Can you keep us steady, Ace?” one of the snipers, a broad American built like a barn, called out. “I can’t shoot straight if I’m jerking every two seconds!”
“We’ve only got one engine left!” she yelled back, the edge of frustration and fear in her voice unnerving the snipers more than the situation at hand. Lena was always cheerful, that was what reassured them whenever they marched onto the battlefield, but she wasn’t anymore.
“If they send another dozen tracers, I reckon we’ll be blown,” she said, turning the plane sharply onto its side, leaving Amélie and the other sniper, a Chinese guy everyone called Ling, dangling from their belts for a few too many moments. “They really aren’t letting up!”
“C’mon, Tracer, you can’t get beaten by your own callsign!” the American, Charlie, shouted, firing off two more shots into the fray and gasping as the plane righted itself, the belt yanking hard around his stomach.
“You try dodging tracers with one engine and less than half a plane!” she yelled back, “Bollocks, two dozen tracers to the starboard side! Am, Ling, get ready!”
The duo barely had any time to cling onto something before the plane twisted again, gravity pulling insistently at them as they struggled to shoot as they hung almost upside down.
“We’ll hit too hard!” Ling shouted as the ground rapidly approached – they were still losing altitude at an alarming rate, and if they didn’t slow down soon, they would all die.
Lena cursed, her hands trembling, her gloves already soaked through with cold sweat. Sure, she had survived countless bad situations in planes and landed safely despite only having half the engines she normally did, but this was beyond her. She’d never been hit so badly, nor had she tried landing a plane with only the rear port engine functioning.
To her surprise, Amélie slung her gun over her shoulder and began the arduous climb to the cockpit, her voice steady as she said, “You can do this, cherie, I believe in you.”
“I can’t…!” she yelped, her voice cracking as the plane shuddered, part of the tail falling off, causing them to lurch violently like a drunk bird. “There’s no way!”
“You can!” she started when she felt Amélie’s warm arms suddenly encircle her shoulders, the stench of oil, smoke and blood mixing with the delicious, gentle smell that was undeniably Amélie.
Taking a deep, calming breath, Lena said, “Everyone, I need you inside and buckled down tight. And I mean tight.”
Without question, they obeyed, Amélie strapping herself to the seat behind Lena’s, precariously close to the gaping hole the tracers that took out half the cockpit – and the co-pilot – had left behind.
“I’m putting us into a death roll,” she explained as she forced the plane further down, ignoring the screeches of protest all the monitors were emitting. “We’re either going to end up in the hospital, or in body bags. Everyone good with that?”
She didn’t bother waiting for the team to reply, plunging the plane down at a fatal angle. As it started to tilt, broken wings struggling to find lift, Lena wondered if now was the time to tell Amélie her feelings, so she wouldn’t carry them to the grave.
The plane rolled, their last good engine shrieked, and in the cacophony of mechanical noises, Lena chose yet again to hold her tongue.