Slight pain with an itch shot through Hana's finger, making her suck in a breath. She almost instinctively dropped the stack of papers in her arms but, at the last second, managed to keep her faculties about her. There was something there that made her want to scream and crawl into bed over a tiny papercut, but then again, she did drip and smear those tiny droplets of blood on her blueprints. Satya needed those to be immaculate, and Hana was quickly running out of ink.

She sighed and looked over at her monitor. Lúcio was sitting there with Satya, reading over some extra notations added to schematics. What they were doing felt impossible but necessary, and somewhere deep in her mind, she wondered if anything they were doing was going to be worthwhile or just a big mistake with a lot of fallout.

"Satya, I smudged these."

The elegant woman wrinkled her nose and then looked up, her eyes widening. "Hana, you're bleeding!"

Hana shrugged. "Only a papercut, sorry."

Satya shook her head. "No, no. No need for apology. They will be fine. I will re-annotate them. Please, disinfect that before it gets too germy." Her thin lipped smile almost seemed judgmental, but Hana knew that it was concern and an inability to look any other way.

Hana did as she was told, contemplating how the three of them had become such a tight-knit group so quickly. Something inside her rustled when she thought of Lúcio, Satya, and herself, but she was almost afraid to say anything.

Almost.

She thought she could see it there in the quiet blushing of the other two matching her own. Their laughs and their concerns all melding together, and Hana wondered if she was just desperate for companionship or if she really felt something else. She smiled to herself as she washed her hand and pulled out a box from under the sink for a bandaid. Since Lena had been gone…

Her heart sank.

She'd thought about her less and less as time went on. She'd spent the first several nights without sleep. Nights? No. She'd spent almost a week wide awake, unable to find respite until she'd started regularly communicating with Lúcio and Satya. They'd been integral to her survival, as much as she didn't want to admit it. These three weeks had given her so little rest… So little reprieve…

Lena was gone, and she could have been dead, as far as anyone knew.

But…

Something told Hana that Lena was far away doing dangerous things with dangerous people. That'd been why Hana developed a crush on Lena in the first place. Lena knew, but she declined Hana's affections. Eventually, they'd become close friends, and now…

Now, Hana didn't know who Lena was to her. Once, she'd idolized Lena and Lena's willingness to put herself between everyone and a battle, and now, it just seemed stupid and childish. Why did Lena want to endanger herself so badly? Why didn't she want to rely on her teammates? Didn't she trust them?

Doesn't she trust me?

These thoughts sometimes still kept Hana awake, but it was working well into late January, and they had to keep moving as a group on their new project.

A decisive victory had to be made in Brazil or else, they might lose one of their biggest allies in that part of the world. The whole of the United States, with the exception of a few minor states, rejected Overwatch. They'd been taken over by Talon, but then again… Talon wasn't Talon anymore even though they operated under the same name.

She didn't know what the others knew since they insisted on keeping things from her, but she wasn't about to go spread a panic. It was well understood that Reyes would take over Talon eventually, but Hana was sure that it had already happened. The troops moved differently. The messages being sent changed their code, making her spend three days trying to crack it before she roped in Satya to try to help. Together, they'd managed to decipher the majority of messages, but learning a new code had taken entirely too long and so many messages slipped by.

Hana was only one person.

Winston had been trying desperately to reconfigure a satellite still in orbit, making it able to do what they needed it to do.

They were building a teleporter.

Unwillingly, Hana let Torbjörn look at her mech and her schematics and her personal alterations. She'd not had a backup since she'd been with the Korean army, and her own needed quite the tune-up.

The Overwatch team, as big as it was now, would take off to help Lúcio and Satya and the people's rebellion against their leaders. Hana was realistic. She didn't think Lúcio would come with her once it was all over. Quite frankly, she was enjoying these moments as best she could since she couldn't fathom their relationship lasting past this section of their lives.

No matter what she really wanted.

She would pay like she always did.

She looked down at her finger and then up at the mirror in the collective bathroom. Her hair was thin. Under her eyes was dark. She looked underfed and malnourished. She barely looked like a living person. She looked like…

Maybe Lena would like me more if I looked like this all the time.

She shook her head. Thinking about Lena wouldn't do anything except make her sad. The only option was to keep moving forward and not thing about the drawing-ever-nearer dissolution of her relationship.

Her thoughts turned back to the sunshine happy man that called her his love and wondered how an insecure youth could ever keep his eye. She wondered how Satya could blush and laugh at her jokes. She wondered how they could all look at each other that way and still call themselves friends.

Exhaustion rolled over Hana like a pounding wave. She needed sleep soon. She was running on about three hours of sleep and eighteen of being awake. But then again, she didn't want to sleep and miss that precious dwindling time with Lúcio.

Then again, she couldn't see why it mattered.

She was tired.

So very tired.

In so many ways.

She wandered back down the hall and waved tiredly at a passing Angela, who smiled in her quiet way and moved on. Everyone had changed since Lena had gone.

Everyone had become more distant.

Like they knew that the mass grouping of them all would eventually dissolve.

Lena had just started the process.

She slipped back into her room and found Lúcio and Satya laughing at something.

"Hana, you won't believe this. Okay so, this guy…"

Hana smiled and sat back down at her desk while Lúcio intermittently laughed and told his story. She might not have long left, but that was no reason to not enjoy what they had now.

"Lulu?"

"Yeah?" Lúcio smiled his brilliant smile and someone walked behind him, pausing.

Though it was slightly muffled, she heard. "What did she call you?"

Lúcio answered back in his native tongue, and Hana thought she could pick out something like "She doesn't know what that means!" But she did. She laughed for a second, but gravity soon washed back in like a gentle wave of boulders falling from a high place.

Her smile faded. "Can I talk to you about something like… really important?"

Lúcio waved the man on and turned back to Hana with a faint blush. "What's up?"

"Lúcio…" She bit her lip. She didn't want to talk about it all, but if she left it alone, it would keep eating at her. She made a sound between an "argh" and an "eugheghhuegh."

His eyebrows knit together and he frowned. "Hana, we don't have to-"

She put up a hand to which he stopped talking. "Lúcio, are we okay?"

He pulled away from the screen a little, eyes wide. "Of course?"

Her stomach twisted and her heart sank with the words on her tongue. "What happens after this?"

Lúcio wheeled back and ushered himself to just offscreen, probably to one of his other desks and returned with a box on his lap, which he set on his desk in front of his camera. She watched his muscular arms and admired the way he carried himself with or without his leg-suit. Apparently, at some point, Angela had made it for him after the accident he'd had, which was so similar to the explosion he'd saved her from. Sometimes, she wondered if he hadn't saved her if he would still be able to use his legs. Some kind of cosmic payoff, probably.

Before the accident, he'd rolled around on stage for fun, light up pants and weird glow lights on rollerblades, all for show. Part of Hana thought it was really cute. Another part thought it was a little more than ridiculous.

After the accident, he'd led a group… still disabled, yet somehow… to steal Vishkar tech. The tech had been a much clunkier version of the legs he now used as an exoskeleton. He had to control the former set, more or less, with joysticks individually attached to each leg. He functioned that way for a good while until Angela had gotten ahold of him and gently informed him that she could hook a nicer set to his nervous system.

For several weeks, Lúcio thought Angela was joking.

Then, she proved her stuff.

He didn't wear them all the time. When he was around a base camp, he preferred to roll around in his tricked out wheelchair, making himself a giant, glowing frog target.

"Hana?"

She looked up, turning red. The way he said it sounded like he'd said her name once before. "I know I'm being-"

He held up a hand with confident, understated power. Sometimes, she forgot he was a star and a leader. Sometimes, she forgot he was more than just… her Lúcio. "Hana, this box has everything you've ever sent me in it."

She blinked, heart skipping.

"I know you don't send things often, given that it's unsafe, but… I keep your letters. I keep those bits of paper with your perfume on them. I read over your notes almost every day, and I can never wait to hear your voice." He paused and went to another box, a larger one, and opened it. He pulled out a scrapbook, and the tension building within Hana burst in a bubble of shocked laughter. She couldn't imagine Lúcio sitting down and scrapbooking. He smiled at her. "Before you get ahead of yourself, Satya did this for me. She said that it was rude for me to just keep clippings in a box." He opened it and showed her the first page.

A newspaper front with Hana Song in Lúcio Correia dos Santos' arms, the heading reading MUSIC IDOL AND FREEDOM FIGHTER RESCUES GAMING IDOL AND MILITARY ASSET. She looked ridiculous, staring up at Lúcio as he raised his weapon overhead, sonic wave erupting and diverting a large bit of debris away from the two of them. She scoffed involuntarily, a pang of irritation eating at her suddenly. She was no damsel in distress, no matter how anyone painted her. This looked like a B-grade movie poster, not a newspaper frontpage.

Lúcio smiled warmly at Hana's noises of dissent and turned the page to a clipping of her flipping out of her mech, pistol in hand. It was a grainy, black and white picture, but it was still very clearly her. He flipped through page after page of her and her accomplishments, her trophies, her medals. Articles on the internet and newspapers alike.

Her lip stung, and she realized that she was chewing on it to the point that where it was already cracked split open and started bleeding. She relinquished her hold on it and sat there, looking down, unable to look up at the screen without showing her thoughts in her eyes and on her face. She sighed.

"I guess that… I'm just… worried that you won't want me when you don't need us anymore." She laughed at herself, her stomach rolling with anxiety and turmoil. It felt so stupid to say out loud, but the fear was there, growing and feeding and getting too hard to bear alone.

"Hana…" He looked down, closing the book delicately and replacing it in its box. "I don't know why you would think that, but I can promise that I'm not going anywhere. I can promise that we're okay."

She didn't move or look back at him directly, instead watching him from her peripheral vision. She didn't trust herself.

That's what it really all came down to, wasn't it?

"Lúcio… I have to trust you."

He frowned. "Is this about Satya?"

Hana felt butterflies begin to swarm in her stomach when thinking about the beautiful lady. She had… some definitely weird feelings there, but that wasn't the issue at the moment. "Not right now, no." She looked back at Lúcio. "I'm having trouble feeling like I belong, that's all."

Her heart felt a little lighter, though, knowing that Lúcio still valued her like he did.

He scratched at his scruffy chin for a second before smiling wide. "Well, I can guess that everyone there values you and needs you and wants you around and…" He shook his head with that same warm, inviting smile. So different from the grim look of determination he had in that newspaper frontpage… "I know that I want you around, and I know that Satya wants you around."

Hana opened her mouth to say something, and felt something hit the back of her throat. Her throat all but panicked and her lungs decided it was a great time to spasm. Ah, breathing in your own spit… She hacked for a few seconds before managing to take a swig from the water glass on her desk, and she took a breath before looking up red-faced and smiling. It wasn't a forced smile. The warmth from Lúcio ebbed some of the frosty chill in her heart and allowed the ground to thaw. It was easier to smile when talking to him.

Curiosity goaded her and poked at her, offering wonderful topics to choose for the turn of the conversation, and they all focused on the same thing. Something that he said… No… The way that he said it…

"Do you…" She covered her face, smiling more out of embarrassment now than happiness. Her middle and ring fingers rubbed at her tired, gritty eyes. She could use a nap. She could blame that as the root cause of her butterflies and her embarrassment. Her wandering thoughts that led her down a path to thinking about Lúcio's strong arms around her, his naked chest on her side and Satya there beside them, sleeping with her hair so undaintily disheveled. Her eyes widened at her own revelation, and her heart leapt into her throat. "I think I might have feelings for Satya."

Her heart beat loudly in her ears and her temples throbbed in time with that deafening drum beat. Lúcio sat back, shock on his face melting away into a warm, knowing smile. The pounding stutter-stepped and resumed. She loved seeing him smile like that. But… Wasn't he angry with her? Wasn't she being unfaithful? Wasn't she making trouble? Shouldn't she just be happy with having someone as good as he was to love her?

The pregnant silence burst, overdue.

"You have no idea how relieved I am to hear that."

Hana just sat there for a moment, hearing the words but not registering them or comprehending them. She could almost hear the squeaky hamster wheel turning in her mind furiously. That poor hamster was so shocked and startled that it just plain fell off the wheel, though. Her voice sounded distant and shaky to her own ears. "What?"

"Hana, I… I think I might, too?" It came out more as a question as the lovely young man on the screen looked away. He looked up sharply. "Not that I don't still have feelings for you I just-"

Hana dragged her hands down her face, that confused white space in her head fuzzing out and dissipating into clarity. And laughter. Genuine laughter. "Oh my god, Lu, I know that."

Smiling, he looked away, his cheeks reddening. "I didn't want you to think that I didn't."

She reached for her water glass and nearly dropped it. Her hands were shaking. Then she realized that most of her body was shaking. Her laughs were shaky too.

Lúcio began laughing though he still looked away. "This has been so confusing for so long. I just…" He slapped his forehead. "Oh, shit, I was supposed to call her tonight. We have plans to mobilize soon."

Hana's laughing stopped suddenly, but her body still trembled. "I can send her a message, if you want?"

He shook his head. "No, this is more important. Our relationship is more important."

Hana couldn't hold back her smile, though it was small and fragile. Hell, her feelings were turned upside down and shaken in boxes that said "CAUTION: FRAGILE."

"Lu, you think our relationship is more important than a revolution?" She couldn't help the sarcasm in her tone. That was who she was. She clenched her fist and looked down.

It had been so long since she felt like the person that she once was. It had been so long since she wasn't worried about dying all the time. It had been so long since she could sleep without being afraid. It had been so long since she could breathe without a massive weight on her chest…

It wasn't much… but admitting something was there within her when she looked at Satya… when she thought about them all together… Something about that lifted some of the weight off of her chest and made her gritty, tired eyes a little less heavy. Knowing that Lúcio supported it - felt the same, even - also helped enough to where she thought she might be able to sleep that night.

Words tumbled out of her mouth, the dam broken and unbidden. "Should we tell her?"

Lúcio shrugged. "I mean… maybe we should figure it out before saying anything."

Hana frowned, that heavy, cold, lead ball dropping back into her stomach. "I think I've figured it out in the last few minutes, and I think we should tell her."

That warm smile dissolved that angry pit in her stomach a little - a seemingly endless tide of ebbing and surging strong enough to make her feel a little sick through her giddiness.

They would figure something out.

"I- I'm sorry, what?" Large, beautiful eyes blinked rapidly and shifted between two points on her screen, slightly off from the direction of her camera. Her hair fell lazily around her shoulders and softened the sharp angles of her face. Hana liked that look a lot even though she knew why Satya kept her hair pinned back most of the time except before bed.

"We…" Hana chewed on a nail for a moment under Satya's shrewd gaze. "We talked about it, and we thought it might be better if you knew rather than us just… being… creepy or something."

Satya didn't speak, just watched with wide, confused eyes.

Lúcio quickly added, "We don't really expect you to have any kind of thoughts about it yet or at all, really, but we couldn't just keep this from you since you're our teammate and having undisclosed feelings might…" He trailed off, uncertain.

"Fuck it up," Hana finished helpfully.

Satya barked a startled, nervous laugh. "I… do not know if I know how I feel about this. I might… need some time to consider this."

Hana waved her hands emphatically and, with embarrassment, noticed that the half-hanging bit of nail on her right middle finger flew all the way off and somewhere onto the carpet. "Go sleep on it. We kept you up too late."

Satya hesitated, reaching her hand out but pausing. "I want you both to… know… that this is new territory for me, and I… am…" She looked away, a feather-light blush tickling her cheeks. "I am very flattered. Please, get some rest tonight, and I will call tomorrow."

They all exchanged goodnights, and the screen showed a phone sitting in a cradle not a second later. Hana sat looking at the screen with fraying knots in her stomach threatening to become cepholopodian tentacles and climb out of her esophagus.

She typed a quick message to Lúcio.

[1/30 2:33 im p tired]

[1/30 2:34 Do you want to go ahead and sleep?]

Hana paused for a long minute, legs still folded up under her in her netted game chair. She fiddled with the mascot charm hanging from her headphone jack. Phones pretty much were custom made these days… It took out a lot of company gaffs and problems with marketing to have them custom ordered. She rolled the phone over in her hands casually, running her slowly steadying fingers down the back of it. She preferred something substantial for a communication device unlike Lena, who always preferred something more closely related to malleable hard light. Very much like her.

Her trembling fingers pressed gently against the back, stilling completely. She missed Lena.

Bad.

She flipped her phone back over and started a message.

[1/30 2:40 i think im gonna make a phone call]

Brrp brrp. Brrp brrp. Brrp brr-

"'Ello?" A pause. Heart fluttering. Panicked breathing after complete cessation. "Hana!"

Hana sat there breathless and confused. A familiar face looked back at her, but there was so much that was… different. Roots shone at the base of garishly pink hair that fell over artfully gapped eyebrows, too long from the way it was usually kept and too full of hair gel. Sweat beads glistened in the low, artificial light of what only could have been a bar.

"Lena…" Hana managed to whisper.

Her heart managed to jolt back to life.

"Hana, I-" Lena looked away, obviously looking at something or someone, muttered a thanks, and took a drink from the bar, sipping a little more of a slurp than a sip. "I wasn't expecting you to call. Is everything okay?"

"Lena… are you in a bar?"

Lena rolled her eyes. "If you can call it that. Really I'm just sitting here waiting on a contact to show the fuck up. If she doesn't get here soon, I'm leaving." She furrowed her eyebrows and looked more serious. "Hana, what is it? You look…"

"Tired," Hana defended smoothly. Encroaching terror began creeping upon the edges of her mind. Why had she called? Why had she bothered? Why didn't Lena sound more…

Why wasn't she dying to come back home?

Lena frowned her trademark frown. "Hana, I know I haven't been the best or around, but if I know anything about you, that's a little more than tired. Is everything okay back h-" She stopped herself. "Back at base?"

She can't even bring herself to call this her home anymore…

The sarcastic, bitter creature that constantly ate at her insides whispered to her. She's abandoned you completely.

Hana shook her head. "It's been a long day. Satya, Lúcio, and I have been working on a teleport-"

Lena's eyes widened and her face paled even more than it was. "Hana, this line isn't secure."

Hana frowned. "What do you mean? Of course it-"

Lena shook her head gravely, looking a few years older than only moments before. "Overwatch isn't as safe as we thought. There's a bug inside Athena. A sleeping thing… Some kind of surveillance software that's practically untraceable, if I heard right."

Like a gas stove clicking then flaring to life, Hana's rage piqued. "What did you say." It was more of a command than anything else.

Lena blinked, and Hana felt her shoulders grow tight, her back rigid.

"You mean, you just casually came across that information and were just going to pass it to me like it was no big deal?" Her voice wasn't loud. She usually raised her voice when she was angry but this was… Something much colder.

Passion usually drove outbursts for Hana, but this was something entirely different. It was a lot more focused than her usual outbursts. Much more precise. She knew what made her angry in this moment.

"Hana, that's not-"

"But it's exactly what you did." She fought herself to not hang up on Lena, knowing full well that she might not hear from Lena again after that. "Lena, you've just been hanging me with things for months. Why can't you tell someone that can actually do something about it? Why come to me and just throw all your shit on me?" She laughed incredulously in a scoffing huff. That chunk of ice that replaced the lump in her throat felt thick, hard, and unyielding. "Lena, they say I act like a child. No, I don't think they've looked at you lately. I've been trying to hold everything together here, but everyone has lost hope. Jack has been talking about leaving. Angela has pulled away again. Genji insists that they need to leave to get back to…" Hana waved a hand impatiently. "Whatever they do. Jesse has been sulking ever since you left, and Mei is suddenly talking about going north to another outpost to look for environmental data. Zarya is talking about going with her." She pinched her nose and closed her eyes for a long moment. "What we need most right now is solidarity because of what we plan to do in Brazil."

Lena started waving her free hand frantically, eyes wide.

"Lena, I don't give a single fuck if this line is secure or not. You need to know what. you. did. to. us." Hana snorted and leaned back in her chair. "You don't think, Lena. You never have. I fucking looked up to you once, and I hope you know that. And I sure as fuck hope you know that I don't now. You didn't even ask how I was. You didn't ask how I've been doing. You told me that I look bad." She paused, shaking her head. "Of course I look bad, Lena. I've been pulling days and days with no sleep, and I lost my best friend to the fucking reality of who she is. I've been working with creepy Torbjörn day and night and his super fucking racist comments about my friends. I've found solid evidence of something that I've been chasing for over a year, now, and I can't tell anyone about it. I'm trying to hold this team together by myself because no one else seems to want to make the effort."

Her fist found itself pounding against her desk after every sentence and increasingly in intervals. Lena's eyes had started to water, but Hana didn't feel like stopping. That bitter flower blooming inside her was only fertilized by seeing that Lena could feel remorse in any way.

"You left, and we all fell apart. It's been… over a month since you disappeared, and this much damage has come this quickly." Hana shook her head, feeling that flower wilt as tears jumped from the corners of Lena's eyes and ran down her cheeks a little before she rubbed them away almost angrily. "I don't know how long you plan on being gone, Lena, and I don't know what will be left when… if you get back."

Lena looked away, her too thin face seeming haunted from Hana's words. Her eyes seemed… darker. Her thin lips pressed together and wormed their way under her teeth at random intervals. She seemed so… haggard.

"Where even are you?" Hana's voice felt so… accusatory even to her own ears.

Lena's voice was quiet and strained with forced cheer. "A pub."

The ice block that Hana's heart had become melted away. She folded her legs back up under herself. Her anger was usually short lived even if it had been building for a long time. "Looks like you could use a drink."

Lena rolled her glassy, bloodshot eyes. "Yeah, you could say that." She remained quiet for a time, sipping on something that looked a bit watered down. "Hana, I'm sorry."

Hana shook her head, paused, then nodded. "You should be."

Lena winced, the pub's low light casting gruesome shadows over her sallow cheeks. "I know," she whispered. "I… talked with Athena about it, and I should have at least told you what I was planning to do instead of runnin' off like a bloody idiot."

Her accent seemed… thicker to Hana, which made Hana smile a little. She remembered watching clips of old Overwatch promos and hearing Lena's sweet voice and delightful accent, but over the years, it had flattened out considerably. Hana couldn't help but smile a little even though she was still mildly irritated at Lena.

Lena shrugged and blinked a few times, her brown eyes still watering from time to time. "I don't think this contact is gonna show up."

Hana frowned. "Should you go?"

Lena shook her head tiredly. Her shoulders slumped along with the rest of her posture. "I've been in this bar pretty much all night and most of today, love. 'Spose I should go and rest, but nah."

Quiet rolled over Hana, subtly and peacefully usurping her irritation in favor of a more contented regime. "Where are you sleeping?"

Lena blushed. "Uh, um… Well… You see." She laughed genuinely. "I might be bummin' around with some internationally wanted criminals."

Hana's mind blanked for a second before she barked a laugh. "As you do."

Lena rubbed at her forehead before knocking back the rest of her drink and pulling on her jacket with one hand. "I mean, I'm bein' serious, mate. Right alongside these two fuckers, and I don't really know what's goin' on. Ran into them today and they just… Boop. Picked me up." She shrugged. "I was planning on running all the way to Alice Springs, but they decided they were going that way and would drive me instead. Cut my trip from several weeks into a few less."

Hana frowned. "Where?"

Lena shook her head, and her eyes turned to over her phone screen, presumably to the opposite side of the pub, and changed from their tired, glassy brightness to hard and suspicious. "Hana, I have to go."

The bitter flower inside Hana perked up a little. Of course she does…

"Yeah… I should sleep…" But Hana didn't really want to hang up the phone. "Lena?"

Lena looked agitated but spared a glance back.

"Can you promise that you'll call back soon?"

Lena nodded curtly as she opened her mouth, but a purring, caramel covered voice seemed to interrupt Lena's attempt to speak.

"I'm surprised you waited this long to speak to me, querida. Oh, who are you talking to? Is it that sweet little plum Hana?"

Lena's jaw twitched in gritted teeth, and unease started twisting Hana's insides. She thought she'd heard that voice somewhere before, but where?

"Hana, stay safe. Don't forget what I said. Tell Winston." She smiled, but the dark look in her eyes unsettled Hana. They followed what was presumably the other voice's owner then lightened again. "And Hana?"

"Yeah?"

"I miss you, and I'm sorry for everything I've put you all through. Hollow words right now, but I'll be home as soon as I can."

Anxiety drilled away slowly with its twisting drill bit in Hana's stomach as the call clicked off with a low beep beep.

Hana looked at her bed longingly after a moment, but shoved herself out of bed. She needed to go relay Lena's message to the only one who knew Athena as well as herself.