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imakemywings · 7 years ago

Text

Discovery

Summary: In an effort to understand her new romantic interest better, Amelie asks Hana to show her her video games. Same verse as Rescue.

Pairing: Hana “D.va” Song/ Widowmaker | Amelie Lacroix

Other tags: AU - No Overwatch

AO3 | FF.net

As far as Amélie could tell, Hana’s computer was the last thing she looked at before going to bed at night, and the first thing she looked at waking up in the morning—the device was practically an extension of the girl. She knew this, of course, because Hana spent more time at Amélie’s apartment these days than at the room she was still technically renting from the hostel in town.

And as Amélie ambled out of her bedroom in her black camisole and gray stretch pants, she saw Hana powering through leftover pastries from the day before with her headset on, at the kitchen table with her laptop. Still dressed in her pajamas—bright pink shorts not halfway to her knee, and a baggy blue t-shirt, she was chattering away into her mic in Korean. She did chirp a greeting to Amélie as she passed by into the kitchen to make herself a cup of coffee. Without her morning coffee, Amélie was barely a human being.

“What do you even do on that thing all day?” The words were exhaled in a sigh as Amélie dropped down into a chair at the table and grabbed one of the pain aux chocolates to dip in her coffee.

“Talk! And play games,” Hana replied promptly. “I do get paid for that, you know.”

“The talking or the playing games?”

“Both! Company likes me to have a relationship with the fans,” she said. “They’re more likely to be invested and stick around if they feel like they know me as a person.” Amélie scoffed quietly.

“That would drive me insane.”

“Didn’t you ever talk to your ballet fans?” Hana asked, rapidly punching at the buttons on her mouse.

“Not the same. They had very limited contact with me and it was understood if I spoke to them, it was something I chose to allow, not an obligation. Are you playing a game right now?”

“Yeah, hang on.” Often, when Hana was focused on something in a game, she’d bite her tongue, with the end sticking out of her mouth. It looked ridiculously stupid, but Amélie was already getting used to seeing it. Finishing a round or finding a place to pause was like coming out of hypnosis: her head popped up and she smiled at Amélie, cheeks not yet sporting her customary four pink triangles. “I like it,” she said. “It’s what I’m good at, and everyone knows it. Although…” She pursed her lips in a frown. “Sometimes the contract demands do get old. But I’m lucky to have this job.” It certainly beat shooting Omnics in a real war that felt too much like a game from inside a MEKA.

Amélie nodded absently, and finished her breakfast. Hana was pulled back to attention by the sudden appearance of Amélie’s face beside hers, leaning over her shoulder. She stifled a squeak.

“What are you doing now?” she asked, an early-morning rasp still present in her low voice. Hana tried not to shiver, and pointed to the screen.

“It’s this vintage game called Dark Souls,” she explained. “When it came out, everyone complained about how hard it was, so I’ve given myself the challenge of completing it with all the toughest parameters.”

Amélie made some noise of acknowledgement in the back of her throat, and Hana un-paused the game to show her how it worked.

“See, you use this button to attack, and here’s how to open your inventory, and…” Amélie posed a few questions about the game’s lore, and Hana replied as she beat down bad guys.

“Interesting.” Amélie drew back and gathered the rest of the pastries from the table, before Hana had the chance to demolish them.

“Are you going to get ready for work now?” Hana asked, sliding her headset down around her neck.

“Mhm.” She was loading their breakfast dishes into the dishwasher.

“I’ll get my stuff.” Hana started to uncurl herself from the dining chair. Amélie waved a hand.

“You can stay,” she said. Hana’s quizzical look inspired her to elaborate. “Engage the security system when you leave.” Hana’s eyes widened and she bounced slightly on her seat.

“So uh, can I stay over tonight too?” It was a delicate dance with her and Amélie, because Hana—unused to being in a relationship—was a hesitant to push things forward, and Amélie wasn’t what one would describe as forthcoming with emotion, and all hard edges. Hana guessed there was still softness in her—she’d seen it in the way Amélie stroked her hair when they watched movies, and that she silently picked up on foods Hana liked and didn’t like, and arranged their meals accordingly. It’s just that it was like trying to view a scene through a keyhole—one could only catch glimpses, and never see the whole image.

“Mhm, if you like.”

“I can pick up groceries or something!” Hana offered, crossing her legs on the seat once more. Amélie waved a hand.

“I’ll get it.” Since she wasn’t dancing anymore, she came home at a more reasonable hour. Doing administrative work for the theater meant regular hours, at least. She had mentioned to Hana once about how much ballet practice ate up her free time, and Hana found herself selfishly glad Amélie wasn’t doing it anymore. A resignation from the job didn’t get rid of her ballerina’s legs though—no, she very much still had those. Very much.

Amélie disappeared into her bedroom, and Hana leaned on the edge of her chair, peering through the open door, but all she could see was the window and the corner of a dresser. When Amélie came back out several minutes later, wrangling her long hair, she said something and Hana had to slide her headphones off to hear it again.

“You should look at some of the museums,” she said. “The weather is supposed to be good for walking today.”

“Yeah, I probably should, huh?” Probably wouldn’t, though. Hana had found that silent art museums and long hallways of historical objects just…weren’t really her thing. But she was also sure Amélie had at least had the passing thought that she was wasting a trip to France if all she did was sit in Amélie’s apartment, or her room, playing games. The next gaming event nearby wasn’t for a month and…well, quite honestly, Hana had planned to be back home in Busan by now. Her trip had experienced an…unexpected extension. Not that she’d mentioned that to Amélie.

When Amélie emerged from the bathroom, she was the same kind of supernatural creature that Hana had first met in the bathroom of Gusteau’s two months ago. Her hair was slicked back into a high ponytail, still reaching nearly midway down her back, and she wore a loose tan dress with a sort of turtleneck collar, and thigh-high boots that made Hana sure there was still good left in the world.

“I’ll see you later?” She brushed a hand over Hana’s shoulder, the slightest hint of a question in her voice. Cheeks dusted pink like the cupcakes at the bakery on the street level, Hana nodded.

“Y-yeah, I’ll be here.” Amélie’s hand paused on Hana’s shoulder, and then she leaned in to kiss Hana’s cheek, temporarily cutting off Hana’s ability to breathe.

“Have a nice day, then.” Amélie spoke so softly Hana almost wondered if she was supposed to hear the words at all.

“H-hey! I’ll call you if I have to go!” Hana said in a louder voice, turning to look over the back of the chair. Amélie’s eyes, outlined in thick, dark eyeliner, shadowed with a shimmering purple on the eyelid, and capped with delicate mascara, met Hana’s. It lent the look to her eyes that had contributed to Hana’s first vampire? impression of her. She just nodded, and disappeared out the door.

Hana’s hand went right for her phone, and she checked yet again that she still had a note of the code to Amélie’s door, given to her three days prior. Every time she departed from or arrived at Amélie’s apartment building, she checked to make sure she had the code.

With Amélie gone, Hana did a short stream of her progress on Dark Souls, helped herself to coffee from Amélie’s coffee machine—which, for the record, had way too many buttons and levers and a spout that shot hot milk at unsuspecting people. She checked the TV, but most programs were in French and Hana wasn’t in the mood to bother with subtitles. Still, she watched the first half of Beauty and the Beast before shutting it off. The jetlag had long since worn off, but she wasn’t used to being on French time: many of her fans and friends—who lived in Asia—were asleep this time of day. So she did the only thing more interesting than getting back online—she snooped.

Even though Amélie had never once come home early, Hana still felt wary as she crept into Amélie’s room. She’d been in it a number of times before, but this was different, and bore the weight of something not strictly forbidden, but not necessarily allowed either.

Amélie’s closet and dresser had an extensive supply of black, gray, and purple clothing. Amélie’s warm skin tone could have easily supported lighter colors, but given how few of them existed in her apartment, Hana supposed it just wasn’t her aesthetic. Since she was snooping already, Hana decided she might as well go all-out, and peered into the drawers of Amélie’s dresser. It was the usual affairs—socks, pajamas, some ballet gear in the bottom drawer. The top, though, contained a collection of underwear and lingerie-looking things with spindly straps and spider webby lace that made Hana flush a bright red. Of course Catwoman had this kind of stuff lying around. She held a flimsy brassiere up cautiously, resisting the urge to press it to her chest to imagine how it might look.

There were some things atop the dresser in the same vein as the stuff that Hana had studied before in the bathroom—some pricey perfumes with elegant French names containing many apostrophes, creams for indeterminate purposes, and a few loose pieces of jewelry. She sniffed a few jars and bottles, and spritzed some rose-scented perfume on her arm before going to examine the closet.

On the shelves above the clothes, there were some small boxes, so Hana grabbed a stepping stool to fetch them down. The first just had old Christmas decorations in it. The second had photos and other small mementos.

One of the photos was Amélie on her wedding day. She was resplendent in a layered white wedding dress, her hair in the sort of ‘do that took hours to fix, and beaming as she held the arm of a mustachioed man who must have been Gérard. He looked like the few images of a man in uniform that had accompanied the many articles on his death and disappearance. Other photos in the box painted a tiny picture of their life together, and there were a number of Amélie either at ballet practice, or on the stage. Most of them were of Amélie.

There was a lone image—clearly older than the rest—of Amélie leaning back against a stretch of stone railing, younger than Hana. Perhaps fifteen or sixteen. Behind her was a beautiful lake, bordered by trees in the throes of autumn yellows, and off to the side was a sliver of an enormous building—a castle? The photo must have been from a vacation.

“She was cute!” Hana decided, although teenage Amélie looked painfully leggy. But her wry smile and emerging adolescent fashion sense made Hana smile too.

There were also pamphlets and newspaper clippings and other memorabilia from her dance career. Hana opened one to see Amélie listed as the star of Swan Lake—dancing the parts of Odile and Odette. It bore photos of her in each costume, and although Hana didn’t know much about the ballet world, she knew enough to know Swan Lake, which—she figured—made it a big deal.

“Why didn’t she tell me any of this?” Hana asked herself aloud, digging to the bottom of the box, even finding a few selfies. “What a stupid question.” As if Amélie ever told her anything personal without prodding. It wasn’t so much that she was closed off as…it was almost like it didn’t occur to her that Hana might want to know personal things about her. They were…they were something, and Hana was curious. But curiosity didn’t seem to come naturally to Amélie Lacroix.

***

When Amélie got home, Hana was on the couch, on her computer. She made some undefinable noise that acknowledged Amélie’s return, but didn’t look away from the screen until Amélie was in the kitchen.

“How was work?” she shouted.

“Fine,” Amélie called back mildly. She came into the living room with a glass of wine, and seated herself in a cream-toned leather armchair near the couch. “How was your day?” There was a detached note to her voice, as if she had grown disused to having these sorts of banal, domestic conversations and was going on autopilot as she tried to remind herself how.

“Unproductive,” Hana said with a frown. “I’ve been stuck on this one piece of Dark Souls for like, two hours. And I don’t want to look at a walkthrough. It feels like cheating on my challenge.”

“I had thought,” Amélie said quietly, in a tone that made a frown dip the corners of Hana’s mouth, gently swirling the wine in her glass, “that I would like to see some of what you do.” Hana’s look turned quizzical. “Your games. They’re important to you, aren’t they?”

“Well, yeah. I mean. They’re my job. And also my hobby. Jobby? You get the idea.” She flashed a smirk, tinged with nerves, with the sense she was babbling. Amélie’s lips twitched in a way that suggested amusement, but Hana was having to pull out all her most obscure people-reading skills to understand her. “But um, if you wanted to, you can come see. They’re pretty cool, you know. I went to this exhibit at the Museum of POP Culture in America once and it was all about the cultural influence of games, and vis-versa and the industries around games that have built up since the early 21st century. I mean, my job is proof of that!”

Hana was definitely rambling, but Amélie found herself drifting, listening to the enthusiasm in Hana’s voice and the excitement in her face, rather than jargon about video games that meant little to her.

“Let me shower then, and I’ll come see,” she said, unwinding herself from her chair and taking her wine glass into the kitchen.

“H—yeah—see you.” Record for Hana remaining calm and cool with any reminder that Amélie’s naked body existed in the same universe as her: 2. Maybe. She’d been half-asleep for one of those. It wasn’t that Hana was opposed to the idea—it’s just that sex had never ranked extremely high on her list of interests, so she had never given it much consideration. And now that she had a—whatever she had with Amélie, which was thus far undefined—she was thinking about it, and she didn’t know what to think, never mind what to say.

Burying her embarrassment under an intense online shooting match, Hana contemplated mentioning that she had found Amélie’s photos today. But that required confessing to digging through Amélie’s closet, and what would be the point of bringing it up anyway? “Ah I stumbled across some photos of you and your dead husband today elbow-deep in your closet while you were at work. It must really suck that he’s dead, you guys looked happy.”

She told herself not to be a boob, any more than she could help, and her internal monologue was promptly broken by Amélie taking a seat next to her on the couch. Hana could smell Amélie’s soap like a mist on her, and Hana wondered if she ought to have gone through with her thought to take a shower herself back at her hostel. Too late to casually sniff an armpit and check the damage (one couldn’t work up too much of a sweat sitting on a couch in an air-conditioned apartment, could they?).

“Let’s see,” Amélie said simply, crossing her legs on the couch.

“Okay!” Hana moved the laptop over to balance half on Amélie’s knee, half on her own. “Let’s stay with something simple, huh? This is a basic street fighter game. A classic. It’s got a really good format for professional competition, and it’s pretty popular in e-sports.”

“I think I’ve seen a tournament or two advertised locally,” Amelia remarked, observing the characters flashing across the screen as the game loaded.

Hana went to start up a game and then hesitated. “You know…actually, let’s make you your own profile. It’ll just take a minute.”

“Why?”

“…because I don’t want you wrecking my stats,” Hana admitted. Amélie arched a thin eyebrow.

“What makes you so sure I’m not good at this?” she asked in the kind of tone that made anyone speaking to her question the justification for their very existence.

She wasn’t good. She was terrible. Watching her blunder through the game like a starfish walking on land was a mind-altering experience.

“You’re awful,” Hana gasped in awe as Amélie was slaughtered by the computer for the third time. She gaped at the screen and then at Amélie’s look of quiet focus, her enter world shifted with the concept that Amélie Lacroix was bad at something. There were no excuses, she just…wasn’t good. She couldn’t finesse or intimidate her way around it. She was crap.

“Aren’t you supposed to encourage me?” Amélie asked, casting a somewhat peeved look sideways at Hana.

“Yeah, but…holy shit, you’re so bad. You’re a total noob!” She burst out laughing and grabbed Amélie’s shoulder, giving it a playful shake. “This is hilarious!” Amélie’s lips pursed, and Hana had to focus to realize she was pouting. “What’s that look for?”

“There is no look,” Amélie said primly, going back to the character selection screen.

“That was a look. You’re sulking! You don’t even know what it’s like being bad at something!”

“Why do you think I’m not bad at other things?” Amélie asked, looking back at Hana, who just stared.

“I mean…I don’t know. You’re you. You just seem…like you’ve always got things under control. Like with Rich. You just jumped right in and took charge of the situation.” Amélie’s face relaxed, and she gave Hana a soft-eyed look.

“That was easy for me. This…” She looked at the screen. “This is easy for you.”

“Lots of practice,” Hana said. Amélie’s words made her think, though. She had always felt lacking in social skills as a result of her anxiety, and wondered why she had such shortcomings. Sure, video gaming was a skill, one she had cultivated since childhood but…maybe it was her zone. And being an uncompromising, badass bitch was Amélie’s. She found she liked that idea quite a bit—that there was give and take with them. “Here, what if we sign you in on your computer, and I’ll fight you?” she suggested. “That’ll help you learn more than with the computer.”

They set their computers up on the coffee table, and were nearly two and a half hours into their “training session” before Amélie looked at the time and realized they hadn’t even a vague plan for dinner. They ended up ordering in, and sat with their backs against the couch as Hana continued to explain the lore and logistics of the game.

There was a film break in there, where Hana anticipated there might be some more making-out, but Amélie seemed quite focused on the screen. She sat with her arm around Hana, and occasionally stroked her hair when Hana shifted around, but when it was over, she straightened right up off the couch, collected her computer, and said goodnight.

“Did I tire you out with all that gaming?” Hana asked, though the stint had been barely a warm-up for her. Amélie tended to stare questioningly rather than asking someone to repeat themselves, and Hana was finally starting to get used to it. “You just seem…absent.”

“I’m just thinking, little bunny,” Amélie said with a faint smile, reaching out to pat Hana’s head. “Sorry if I’ve been…unresponsive.” She leaned in and gave Hana a peck on the lips to accompany her goodnight. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

“See you in the morning!” Hana smiled, and spent another couple hours online before curling up beneath Amélie’s thick throw blankets on the couch. There was another reason to spend more time at Amélie’s than the hostel—everything she owned was of vastly better quality.

In the morning, Hana woke first, which wasn’t wholly unusual. Sometimes Amélie spent whole weekends in a zombified state of sleeping. Hana had seen her take pills getting ready for work once, and wondered if it was a condition.

But when the clock hit eight and she had yet to even see Amélie yet, and knew she had work today, she had to investigate. Maybe she’d accidentally slept past her alarm? Hana knocked on the bedroom door tentatively.

“Amélie?” she called. “You in there?”

“Busy! Merde!” Hana frowned, dark brow furrowed, and wondered if that was cause for her to give Amélie space, or bust the door down.

“Do you—uh—need help?” There was rustling from inside, and then Amélie jerked the door away from Hana’s attentive ear.

“No. Just…working.” Hana peered under her arm, and saw the laptop set up on the bed.

“On what?”

“…things.”

“Is that the game I showed you last night? Were you gaming?” Amélie’s face flushed lightly. Hana’s face split in a devilishly delighted grin. “Oh my God, you were! How long have you been doing it?” She studied the bloodshot state of Amélie’s lovely hazel-gold eyes. “Hours? Amélie? Did you sleep?”

“I slept!” she replied defensively. “And,” she added smugly, “I got the MVP award.”

“You were online?”

“I thought about what you said about practice,” she replied with a shrug, looking away nonchalantly.

“I’ve created a monster,” Hana breathed, her mouth curling into an enchanted smile. “Awesome.”

Character notes!

Hana is the youngest member of Overwatch in canon, and having been a young adult in adult spaces (such as the Korean army), I feel that she probably has a bit of a complex about being treated like a kid. In many ways, she still sees herself as a child, so she's worried others also see her that way. So Amelie, who is like, the pinnacle of adult femininity, holds both a fascination and fear for Hana.

Amelie is an intense person, and you can't convince me that she wasn't that way even pre-Talon. Ballet is a cutthroat competitive business, and Amelie was highly ranked. She's ambitious and intense and she needs an outlet for that. Having quit ballet for her mental/emotional health in the wake of Gerard's death, she had nowhere to focus that energy. Now, Hana's giving her something outside of work for her to get a bit of a release--any wonder she takes to it so quickly?

#widow.va #widowsong #widowmaker #d.va #hana song #amelie lacroix #overwatch #overwatch fanfiction #overwatch femslash #rocky writes #amelie x hana #amelie lacroix x hana song #widowmaker x d.va #d.va x widowmaker

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imakemywings · 7 years ago

Text

Rescue

Summary: Hana is in the midst of what might be the Actual Worst Date Ever when she runs into a woman who Might Possibly Be a Vampire in the bathroom and decides to call on the supernatural for aid (and Amelie Lacroix proves that bitches get shit done). Pairing: Hana “D.va” Song/ Widowmaker | Amelie Lacroix

AN: My first Overwatch fanfiction! \0/ Wow! It's been a long time since I wrote for a new fandom! Okay so this piece I wrote basically because I've never seen this pairing so why not? I was actually intending to fill a prompt for a friend but I got way off-track so there may be a part 2 in the future that actually does that.

I headcanon Hana with some moderate-serious social anxiety, so if you put her in an unfamiliar situation (ie: dating), she loses her cool pretty easily. Now when she's in her zone, she's all on. No Overwatch in this AU, although it does take place after the resolution of the Omnic Crisis.

AO3 | FF.net

It was in the bathroom in the midst of an exceptionally bad date that Hana Song first encountered a woman who was, as far as she was concerned, a wholly different species.

She had ducked into the washroom of the upscale Parisian restaurant to try to formulate a game plan for the rest of the evening. It was her first date with this particular fellow, and so far it had blown. Completely. Sucked major ass. Gag me with a spoon awful.

Yet, Hana had said nothing. The closest she had come to voicing her discomfort had been a faint frown and a “That’s not very nice” before fleeing to the restroom. Without her headset on, her controller in hand, a screen between her and the enemy…without D.va, the thought of confrontation made Hana want to vomit. Each time she gathered herself to speak up, anxiety exploded in her gut and scorched her throat until no sound would come out.

Come on, woman up, Song, she tried to tell herself, gripping the edges of the sink. She had three options as she saw it:

1. Go back out, finish the date with pained smiles and awkward titters and never answer his calls again,

2. March back out, tell him each and everything he’d done that night that made her skin crawl and then stiff him with the bill for dinner, or

3. Sneak out the back door like the coward she felt like and have someone tell him she died next time he texted her.

She was gonna do it. She was gonna go back out and tell him off and boogie out the door like the kick-ass international gaming sensation that she was.

Hana’s stomach had curled itself into so many knots she might just duck into that stall for a moment first though—

Oh, who was she kidding? Not herself. If she went back out there, she was going to quietly take her seat and sit through dinner and maybe at the very end, she’d tell him she wasn’t really interested in meeting again. Polite, placating, evasive. D.va was a tank-type hero. She played offense. She brought in the glory. Hana? Hana played defense. Hana used avoidance tactics. Hana, at best, might manage a sneak mission.

There was only one other woman in the room with her: a tall, spidery kind of woman who had a cold, gothic beauty that made her look like she had clawed her way out of a Romantic novel or Victorian tragedy. She was fixing her lipstick in the mirror, a deep red that combined with her glossy black hair to make Hana think vampire?

As she tried to steady her breathing, she threw repetitive glances over at this woman, in her long, sleek black dress, and heels that totaled her height up to something over six foot. The kind of woman that exuded the “don’t even look at me” vibe. Hana compromised by only looking out of the corners of her eyes.

Maybe Hana could channel that kind of vibe too. She told herself to take deep breaths. Calm down. Quiet the tilt-a-whirl otherwise known as her stomach. She was reacting completely disproportionately and needed to get herself together and make sure she was not subject to another several hours of this night.

If only anxiety could be so easily reasoned away.

***

The young woman in the hanbok-inspired dress at the sink beside her was distracting Amélie from her failed efforts to banish the past from her mind. She had taken refuge in the restroom when the restaurant became too much—the clinking of forks on plates, the waiters silently swaying from table to table, the view of a gorgeous Parisian avenue from her seat.

Coming here, she had thought, was an important step. And she had been so sure she was ready: her nerves steeled, her mind alert, her scars healed. But the memories were pushing at the backs of her eyes, scratching the sides of her brain, playing dodgeball in her chest. Deep breaths, deep, slow breaths, and she could calm them.

No matter what she did though, she had to face a terrible truth: When she went back out to the table, it would still be empty. Gérard would not be waiting there for her with a soft smile, and eyes just for her. They would not playfully steal bites from each other’s plates, and she would not feel the instep of his foot against her toes beneath the table. The table would be unoccupied. She would finish her dinner in silence. And she would go home, where the quiet of her apartment would pick apart her mind until the morning.

Six years. She had thought six years was enough. Four was not. She had tried at the four-year mark, and broken down sobbing in the car when she pulled up to their traditional anniversary restaurant (which required a yearly jaunt to Paris), and had to go home.

Think of the good things, she told herself. Don’t dwell on the grief, but the joy. It was difficult, though. Gérard had softened Amélie, made her a better person. Without him, she couldn’t remember how to be gentle.

Shaking the thoughts clinging to her like burrs to a winter coat, she attempted to resume fixing her make-up, but she could see the big, dark eyes of the woman beside her continue to flick over in her direction. Amélie had been vaguely aware of her staring into the mirror as if into an abyss, trembling hands on the porcelain of the sink. But this girl was not her business, not her problem, and was she going to keep staring the whole time Amélie was in here?

Sharply, she looked over at the other woman, staring her down for an explanation, a greeting—whatever this quivering mess had to say to her. It took two tries to get a response: the first in French, the second in English.

“Well?” she prompted her. “Can I help you?”

***

“Oh, er, I—” Suddenly confronted, Hana stammered trying to respond. “Sorry, I’m just…having a crappy date rightnow,” she explained, flexing her right hand open and closed. “Not really looking forward to going back out there.” She let out a nervous, girlish laugh.

“…pity.” The Frenchwoman paused so long, nailing Hana to the floor with her icy gaze that she felt suitably chastised, and thought perhaps the woman meant not to respond at all. After she had expressed her one word, she went back to appraising her eyeliner in the mirror.

“Yeah I’ve uh, been thinking about ducking out the back door, actually,” Hana rambled on. The woman briefly closed her eyes and then resumed her study. “But I guess I better not keep him waiting.”

“Just block his number after this,” the woman intoned without turning. “Don’t bother with him anymore.”

“I will, I just…”

“Don’t want to see him again at all?” she guessed, looking over at Hana again. “That bad?” Hana rubbed her arm and nodded.

“It’s gonna be a flop of a night,” she said. “And he’s been a real dick.”

“Tell him that,” the woman advised. Hana was silent. The woman turned away again, nose wrinkled in disgust.

“Are you here alone?” Hana asked, uncertain why her mouth seemed to think trying to strike up a feeling of amity with this woman was going to help her.

“…yes,” said the vampire woman after an inordinate pause, her hand stilling in the re-application of her blush. Hana was quiet, taking a few breaths to fill herself with oxygen and motivation, and then blurted out:

“Could you help me?”

“Help you?” the femme fatale asked, peering at Hana in a way that made her want to sink into the floor. It was high school all over again, and this woman was one of those beautiful girls with cute accessories and a wicked tongue that Hana avoided like blue turtle shells. “What is it exactly you want me to do?”

“Um…” Hana wasn’t actually sure, only that she’d feel more confident with this chick on her side. “Never mind. Sorry. I should go, I’ve bothered you enough.”

***

Amélie looked at the pathetic scene before her, the girl clutching her skirt, her eye make-up a mess from rubbing them, most likely, eyes the size of saucers at the idea of going back outside.

Come on Amélie, Gérard whispered in her ear. Have a bit of pity for the poor thing.

Amélie sighed.

“Fix your eye make-up,” she said.

“Huh?”

“Your eye make-up, it’s a mess.”

“Oh, shit.” The young woman studied herself in the mirror and seemed to notice for the first time what all her worrying had done to her eyeshadow. “I’m just taking it off.” She grabbed a towelette, moistened it at the sink, and wiped her peachy eyeshadow off on it.

“Come with me, then,” Amélie told her when she was done soiling one of the restaurant’s towels. The other woman promptly took two steps forward, like a puppy coming to heel. “When we go out,” Amélie instructed her, “you cannot have that startled deer look. You will look calm and confident, as if this is exactly what you planned.”

The woman swallowed and nodded. “I can do that.”

“Good. Then let’s go.”

***

Despite the older woman’s instructions, Hana couldn’t bring herself to lift her face—she just knew she’d catch the eye of her date and have to leg it out the kitchen. But she breathed deep and stayed calm, keeping her eyes fixed on the back of her rescuer’s high heels. She hoped she managed ‘demure’ and not ‘about to burst into anxious tears��.

The woman who was made of some magical rock and iron—not human flesh and blood like Hana—had a prime seat. Her table sat before a massive French window overlooking one of the boulevards lined with neatly-trimmed trees and quaint old stoops. A postcard image, Hana was sure.

“Can you see him from here?” the woman of steel asked, looking down at her cellphone.

“No, but I think he can see us,” Hana muttered, looking at the candle flame fluttering between them. The other woman made some quiet signal and a waiter materialized beside the table.

“Could you bring a menu for Mademoiselle…?”

“Song,” Hana said quickly. “Hana Song.”

“Mademoiselle Song?”

“I should ask your name too, huh?” Hana said with a sheepish smile as the waiter departed.

“It’s Amélie,” she said, with the flowing French accent and sex appeal underscore. “Amélie Lacroix.” She even sounded like a super spy or something exciting. The waiter returned and handed Hana a menu with no prices listed anywhere.

“Um…”

“Order whatever you want,” Amélie said, looking at her phone again. “I owe the universe some generosity tonight.”

Hana made her choice, but as the waiter made a note of it, Amelia reached out her hand to take the menu. Whatever she looked at there Hana couldn’t say, but she told the waiter: “Bring her a glass of ’45 pinot grigio with that.” It was only after she had handed the menu off that she asked Hana, “Do you drink wine?”

“Not often, but I don’t mind trying something new,” Hana replied promptly, giving a slightly apologetic wave with her hand.

By this point, her date had noticed the women’s subterfuge, a fact Hana discerned by his sudden appearance at their table, and the hand he put down on it.

“Hana, what the hell’s going on?” he asked.

“Oh, I, uh…” Hana’s face flushed a florescent red, and she stumbled over an excuse she hadn’t prepared. “This is, uh, Amélie and…”

“Do you mind?” Amélie asked, sounding two parts polite, one part vaguely annoyed. “I’m sorry, monsieur, Hana is a dear old friend of mine and when I ran into her in the bathroom I had to steal her away.”

“Hana, what the hell?” her date asked.

“Sorry, Rich, I just—”

“Is she kidnapping you or something?”

“No, it’s just that—”

“Or are you just trying to get a free meal off me and then bail? If you weren’t interested you could have said so before I brought you over here!”

“Hana doesn’t want to see you,” Amelia broke in, all pretense of cool civility gone. “You’re rude and uncouth and your date is over. Goodbye, monsieur.”

“Hana, what the fuck?” Hana drew in a deep breath and clenched her jaw.

“Amélie’s right. We’re done.” Rich’s hand curled up on the table and Amélie spoke again.

“Monsieur, if you don’t leave us now, I will call the staff,” Amélie said. She lifted her amber-shaded eyes up to Rich’s face, utterly unfazed by his anger. “Or I will deal with you myself.” Rich looked at her, six foot-something of lean muscle and French contempt, and snorted.

“Yeah, whatever. You’re not even that hot.” He spat the last defense of a fleeing mongrel as he walked away from their table.

Hana let out the longest sigh she’d ever held in.

“Can I have a sip of your wine?” she asked weakly. Amélie passed it over, and Hana drained half of it in one go, to Amélie’s mute horror. It took Hana several minutes to recover herself, while Amélie plied her with polite questions at regular intervals to keep her from passing out into a relieved stupor.

By the time her food arrived, she was nearly back to her usual self.

“That was amazing!” she gushed, grabbing her fork. “You weren’t afraid at all! I thought you might punch him in the throat or something!”

“It wouldn’t be the first time,” Amélie said, sipping her wine. Hana thought she detected a hint of a smile on her lips.

“That would have been awesome. I would have had to get a video for my blog,” she said, shoveling down her food with all the enthusiasm of someone unexpectedly spared death row.

“You have a blog? Of course you do.” Amélie scoffed quietly, but her face was relaxed.

“What’ya mean ‘of course I do’?” Hana asked. Amélie shrugged.

“You’re the right age.”

“Didn’t you have a blog when you were my age?” Hana asked. Amélie looked thoughtful, swirling her wine around in its glass.

“Yes…yes, I did,” she said. “Hm…I haven’t thought about that in…a long time.” Hana grinned.

“That’s me, keeping it hip and fresh,” she said. “Hana Song, master of cool.”

�� By the time the waiter arrived to clear Hana’s plate, Hana knew a bit more about the woman who had rescued her, but it did nothing to dispel her air of mystery. Comparatively, Hana felt like an open book. She’d come to France for some of the local video game tournaments, a sort of working vacation, since it wasn’t strictly necessary that she compete in these. She just thought it would be fun to travel and also game. And like—Paris, right?

“We’ll share the volcano cake,” Amélie told the waiter.

“Yes, Madame Lacroix,” he said, nodding.

“They know your name here?” Hana asked.

***

The hostess who worked here now had been a waitress when Amélie and Gérard first started coming, after they had moved to Paris for work. When Amélie had called two years prior to make the reservation for one, she must have suspected something. And then this year, when Amélie turned up alone. She had only prayed that she wouldn’t get any laughing questions about Gérard’s tardiness, where she had to explain this was the last time Amélie would ever be here. After this dinner, she had no intention to ever return.

All night she had waited for that question, a remark, a look—something that would require her to give an explanation. But she supposed it wasn’t impossible they’d read about what happened, and even if they hadn’t, Amélie’s extended absence, followed by two solo reservations may have tipped them off not to ask.

“I used to come here often,” she replied softly, memories shimmering in her eyes. Hana looked at her from across the table, in Gérard’s seat, all wide-eyed youth and awe with the world. When her date had showed up, Amélie had been surprised by the wave of protectiveness that swept over her. She couldn’t tell if it was a female camaraderie thing, or if something about Hana’s soft, round cheeks and bright brown eyes inspired it.

“Oh, yeah?” Hana did seem to gather it was not something Amélie wanted to extrapolate on, and didn’t ask anything else. “Did you get the volcano cake then too?”

“No.” Amélie’s lips quivered into a smile. “The volcano cake is my preference. Before, it was cheesecake.” Gérard liked cheesecake better, and Amélie loved it chocolate with raspberry syrup, so they usually got that, and she would tell him he had it stuck in his mustache, so he would ask to borrow her hand mirror to check, even after the first few times she laughed when he looked to see nothing.

“Ever been to South Korea?” Hana asked.

“I can’t say that I have,” Amélie replied.

“Well, we have these spicy rice cakes for dessert, and they’re to die for.”

“Spicy? For dessert?” Amélie asked.

“Yeah! They’re really good,” she said. “If you ever go there, try ‘em.”

“I’ll do that,” Amelia said with a dry little laugh. The waiter arrived with their cake, and Hana grabbed the forks, thrusting one out to Amélie as she eyed the cake.

***

Hana hadn’t ever had a proper volcano cake, but she was still pretty sure this was the best one ever. She didn’t even look up for half a dozen bites, and when she did, Amélie seemed as ensconced in bliss as she was. She wiped a bit of chocolate off her lip with her thumb and sucked it clean, closing her eyes in pleasure. Hana stuffed her gaping mouth with another bite of cake. When Wonder Woman opened her eyes, she smiled at Hana, small, but genuine.

“Delicious,” she pronounced, helping herself to another bite. Hana nodded vigorously.

“You know what would go really good with this?” she asked. “Strawberries.”

“Mm, you’re right,” Amélie said. “Fresh fruit and chocolate are perfect together.”

For a moment, she had thought Amélie was softening, but some cold breeze blew over her and closed her up again before the waiter had returned to take their dessert plate and hand Amélie the bill.

“Did you drive here?” Amélie asked as she took her card back.

“No, Rich drove us,” Hana sighed. Not that the subway wasn’t a perfectly acceptable transport, but now she’d have to navigate it in her date wear, and she was tired.

“Do you want a ride home?”

“Oh no, it’s fine,” Hana said. “I can take the subway.”

“My dates do not take the subway,” Amélie said, rising to her feet like Venus from the ocean. She took her purse. “Come on, if you want the ride.” Hana followed.

Amélie put on no music in the car, and Hana’s hand twitched several times to reach out and punch on the radio, but with Amélie less than two feet away, she didn’t quite dare.

“Where are you staying?” Amélie asked when they entered Hana’s neighborhood.

“There’s a guest house, I’ve been there the last month,” she said. “It’s cool because you can meet other travelers. I even met a guy from Brazil there!”

When they reached her building, Amélie pulled up to the curb.

“You should choose your dates more carefully in the future, Hana Song,” she said.

“God, believe me, I will,” Hana said with a shudder. “This is exactly why I stay away from the mess of the dating world. Thanks, though. You were a real life-saver tonight. Are you sure you don’t want me to cover any of dinner…?”

Amélie shook her head firmly. “No.”

“Alright then, goodnight,” Hana said with an awkward smile. It was on the tip of her tongue to say something playful and cool like ‘Do I get a goodnight kiss?’ but all she managed was to stammer out, “Thanks for the date!” She couldn’t read Amélie’s expression, but it didn’t seem irritated. Nevertheless, she fumbled for the door handle and let herself out. “You can look me up online if you want!” she offered cheerfully. “I’m D.va! Period instead of an I.” She flashed a peace sign with her signature smile.

“Perhaps I will,” Amélie said, but Hana didn’t think she would. “Take care, Mlle. Song.”

“You too. And um, thanks again. You really saved me—my night.” Amélie’s eyes were gentle as she nodded.

“Goodnight.”

“Goodnight!” Hana finally managed to shut the door, and Amélie sped off in her sleek black car like some sort of French, female Batman.

Hana went straight for the shower and scrubbed the first half of the night off herself, but while she was waiting for the water to warm up, she did give her dress a little sniff to see if any of Amélie’s perfume scent lingered. Nothing. Some sweat from her mini-breakdown in the bathroom but nothing else. When she was clean, and her hair balanced in a towel on her head, she seated herself cross-legged at her desk chair and woke up her computer.

First, she had to do a Twitter rehash of the evening.

“…one of those times a real life mute button would be great…”

“...and this chick just busts in like some kind of asshole-destroying tank and tells him basically to fuck right off. Finishes up with ‘goodbye, monsieur’ conversation OVER…”

“…THEN she pays for the whole dinner, buys us dessert and offers me a ride. Girl power?? I think I love this woman…”

When she was done with that, and responding to a few messages about the evening, she switched over to a search of this Amélie Lacroix. The Frenchwoman hadn’t given her a handle or any way to find her, but Hana figured if there was anything to turn up, she could find it.

The first thing that turned up in her search was the website for Mme. Lacroix’s ballet company. The second was an old news article.

“AMÉLIE LACROIX, WIDOW OF GÉRARD LACROIX, BACKS ANNECY MAYOR’S CALL FOR GREATER SECURITY”

It only took a scan of the first two paragraphs to find something more interesting.

“…Mme. Lacroix, wife of the late Gérard Lacroix, and witness to his violent end at the hands of Omnic terrorists…” There was a link, and Hana clicked it to be redirected to an older news articles, years old.

“GÉRARD LACROIX, HIGH-RANKING FRENCH OFFICER, KILLED BY OMNIC TERRORISTS”

“GÉRARD LACROIX DEAD; WIFE RECOVERED ALIVE”

“GÉRARD AND AMÉLIE LACROIX STILL MISSING AFTER THREE WEEKS OF SEARCHING”

“GÉRARD LACROIX, TOP FRENCH OFFICER, KIDNAPPED. OMNICS SUSPECTED”

“Oh, fuck,” Hana whispered as she read through the report. She clicked around a few other links to read multiple accounts, and was faced with a regrettably clear picture.

Amelie Lacroix, now missing for almost a month, has been recovered from a hide-out in the French city of Marseilles. Wife to high-ranking army officer Gerard Lacroix, she and her husband were targeted by Omnic terrorists and kidnapped while leaving the theater in her hometown of Annecy last month. A nation-wide manhunt has been underway, and police say they had been losing hope of recovering either of the Lacroixes alive.

M. Gérard Lacroix, noted recipient of the Legion of Honor award for his dedicated work during the First Omnic Crisis, was declared dead on the scene by police. He appears to have been dead for several days at least, but a full autopsy is expected to produce more answers.

Mme. Lacroix has been transferred to Hôpital Nord where she is expected to make a full recovery. She could not be reached for comment at this time.

The grim scene investigators found inside the hide-out proves the need for greater scrutiny and tighter security in France…

One tabloid even had a photo of Amélie surrounded by police, a shock blanket over her shoulders, her face spattered with blood. Hana could practically hear the clicks in her brain as half a dozen things slid into place. “Fuck, man.”

She grabbed her headset and navigated to one of her contacts, a good friend of hers from back home. “Hey girl, I know it’s early over there, but I gotta talk to you about tonight…”

***

The silence of the apartment beat Amélie over the head as soon as she stepped in the door. She stripped, and left her dress on the floor, because she could. When she stepped out of the steaming shower, she made herself a cup of decaffeinated tea, and went to bed. She had a voicemail from Gabriel that she declined to listen to for the time being.

As she checked the weather forecast for the week on her phone, trying to occupy her mind, she remembered Hana telling her to look her up. Well, it would offer a distraction. She snuggled down under the covers and punched in Hana’s tag.

Apparently, the girl was a legend in video game circles. She was internationally ranked, and had even been recruited by the South Korean army to deal with the Omnic Crisis for her skill navigating MEKAs. Clearly, in her comfort zone, Hana was a whole different person from the one Amélie had met in the restroom. Looking at her in the pictures and videos available on Korean news sites, she actually looked—badass, despite her penchant for pink, and the whisker-like triangles she painted on her face. Nobody who went up against the Omnics was feeble of heart.

Having read her fill, she shut her phone off and put it aside. Pushing her pillow into a decent shape, and curling up into a fetal position beneath the covers, it occurred to Amélie that despite her fears earlier in the day, she hadn’t cried once the entire evening.

#D.va #Widowmaker #Hana Song #Amelie Lacroix #D.va x Widowmaker #Widowmaker x D.va #Widow.va #Overwatch #Overwatch fanfiction #Rocky writes #dva #LaSong #what even is a pairing name for them #also I have no idea what the future equivalent of twitter would be so take the same platform

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