Arthur Baxter was not an attractive man, not in your books, at least, but his ornate silver mask did a decent job of hiding it. He was at least three years your senior, with muddy red hair clipped neatly into an almost play-boy style, and a smattering of freckles across his cheeks. He might have been considered cute when he was young, but now there was a sharp glint in his grey eyes that reminded you of a hungry shark, ready to snap at anything that looked edible. There was a cruel cut to him, but he hid it well with the honey in his words and disarming smile. In short, he was a politician. And right now, he seemed to be sniffing out an in.

"So, Winston's assistant, hmm? I must say, it seems like a lot of work for just one young woman such as yourself. Couldn't he just have your plucky little AI handle all of that?" Baxter asked, his large hand placed firmly over yours to keep you locked against his side as he led you around the ballroom. For now, it seemed he was content to use you as a piece of eye candy, just a woman to have draped across his arm for the time being. You hoped it stayed that way.

He paraded you around for a little while, sweeping you slowly past your superiors who looked up in concern. This was exactly the situation they'd hoped to avoid, and yet, here you were, trapped with the director-to-be. You'd only meant to introduce yourself, maybe answer a few questions, not to be kidnapped. You had hand signals, little signs to communicate across the ballroom, to let them know if you were in trouble, but with one hand tucked against his arm and the other occupied with your clutch, they were rendered useless. So when Ana moved to take a step forward to relieve you, a move that would surely show favouritism and put your position and yourself up for scrutiny, you were only able to manage a very short shake of your head that you hoped Baxter hadn't seen. You were fine, you had this under control for now.

"I suppose they could, sir. But I doubt it would look as good to outside officials if everything was handled by an AI, no matter how amazing Athena might be. It's always best to have a human around to provide that soft touch and compassion from time to time, isn't it?" you countered, your smile fake, but stuck firm. Baxter, it seemed, had no intention of going easy on you tonight, and you had no intention of letting him see your real views.

There were some things you remembered from Morrigan's days that seemed to be a benefit to you in this life. Politics was not one of them. Instead, you had learned from Jack, had short lessons on appearance and linguistics, how to dance around a question, how to satisfy without really giving an answer, how men like Arthur Baxter worked. He was probing you, getting a feel for your thoughts, morals, and stances on important subjects. You were an easy target, not high enough ranked to give him trouble, more pliable to his will, and a perfect subject to use to gain info on the current state of Overwatch. Perhaps he'd end up using you as an in, perhaps he'd try to persuade you with promises of promotions, leadership, sexual favours. You didn't know enough about Baxter to know what his method of choice would be, but you knew he had chosen you for a specific reason.

Now the only thing to do about it would be to satiate him without giving away your hand.

"You make a surprisingly fair point, even if you do talk a lot." Baxter sniffed, shaking his head. "But it's not as if you are exactly human, now, are you?"

Your wings twitched, and you fought the urge to punch him. 'He could be your next boss. You need to behave.' "I suppose I am not, sir," you said instead, nodding. "It is true I may not be entirely human, I do still have human emotions, feelings and-" you caught yourself as he glanced down at you, a wicked smile donning his lips. "I think and feel like a human, sir, shouldn't that be enough?" You laced your voice with sickeningly sweet overtones, raising it by a half octave.

He patted your hand. "One would think, but one could also say that about an omnic. Tell me, Miss Marsh, how would you feel if an omnic took your position?"

"I'm… I'm not sure what you're asking, sir," you said, looking up at him as he slowed you to a stop by the large windows which now showed a view of the lights above ground; a brilliantly lit up London, ready to usher in the new year. A glance around told you that you were no longer in view of Ana, Reinhardt, or Angela. He'd separated you on purpose. "If they took my job now or if they had gotten the position before me?"

"If you were replaced, Miss Marsh, do keep up. There may be some staffing changes in the near future if the UN does decide to fund Overwatch. Weak links and all of that. I'm told omnics are far more efficient in positions such as yours. Not only would it look good from an inclusivity standpoint, but it would also make things much more efficient, meaning we would no longer have need for employees like you. You must see my dilemma here. I'm sure you are a very smart woman, Miss Marsh, and good at your job. It would be a shame not to see a pretty face like yours around the office anymore, but unfortunately it is out of my hands." He busied himself with looking out the window, but you could see the plan forming in the peripherals of his vision, could see the minute movements of his eyes as they darted around the scene, thinking, calculating.

It was utter bullshit, of course. As director, it would not be out of the realm of possibilities for him to stop them from replacing staff. He wanted to scare you, but you would not be scared so easily.

You kept your mouth shut, watching him. There was no use looking for help. Even if they had sensed something was wrong, you'd already told your superiors not to brother, that you had this under control. Well, you did, for the most part, and you would continue to keep it under control until you could politely excuse yourself and go join Jesse or Han or literally anyone else.

"Unless," he sighed, turning to face you. He'd come to a decision on methods, apparently. Offering a suave smile, he slid his knuckle up the front of your throat, tilting your face up with a finger perched under your chin, and seemed to appraise your features. Your skin crawled. "Unless I could manage to put in a good word for you, as a favour. I would hate to see you go."

You smiled serenely up at him, trying to play the part as best you could. If you had to play honey trap, so be it. Morrigan's good acting would definitely help you out here, if her anger didn't win out. Perhaps you could learn more about him and his motives. That would be helpful right? "I would very much like that, sir," you said, giving his arm a squeeze and stepping closer, fluttering your eyelashes behind your mask. "But I couldn't ask you to do that, I wouldn't feel right about it." Not to mention you wouldn't be keeping this position come next year. Once you were done breaking through this brainwashing, you were handing most of your duties over to Athena so you could start studying with Angela's other students. Not that he needed to know that.

"I'm sure we could work something out, Miss Marsh," he murmured, brushing his thumb just under your lips in a way that made you instinctively want to slap him away. You hoped neither Jesse nor Hanzo were watching this. "I will let you think on it. In the meantime, you know how to contact me." He slipped a business card into your hand, nudging your chin as he pulled away. "I do look forward to working with you in the future, Miss Marsh."

You kept the smile up until you knew he was out of your hair, then made a beeline for the bathroom, feeling absolutely awful. Good info or not, honey trap was a shit role to play, and you'd known that from the beginning. But if soon to be Director Baxter had one more thing about Overwatch he liked, the organisation would be better off. All you had to do was keep him on your good side as long as you could and hope he didn't find your Morrigan files.

Your promenade with Baxter was not your last adventure for the night, nor your last surprise. The bathroom was empty when you stalked in, needing to splash some cold water on your, thankfully, water-proof face and get yourself back together. Or so you had thought. You were about halfway through the process of readying yourself to go back out into the party and continue being a political figurehead - which was as exhausting as you thought it would be - when you heard the crunching of what sounded like chips being eaten from one of the stalls behind you.

'Okay, it is way too early for someone to be that drunk,' you thought, sighing and pushing open the stall door. "Are you okay-" You blinked, looking down at the person sitting on the bathroom floor. "Bird?"

Polychrome eyes looked up at you, the bathroom lights glinting prettily off the purple hues in one of them, and a smile split their face. True to their chaotic goblin energy, Bird, dressed in a surprisingly nice suit, was sitting on the bathroom floor with their legs wrapped around one of the large chip bowls from the buffet table. A discarded plague doctor mask sat next to them, along with a bottle of questionable looking alcohol, and the bowl itself was half empty. "Whattup?"

You couldn't help but smile down at them. It had been too long since you'd seen them, too long since your last conversation. It looked like their mask and the vials had gotten to them, as they looked well, or, as well as they could look. "You're okay! Been too long since I heard from you! What are you doing in here with one of the buffet bowls?"

They nodded, popping another chip into their mouth. "Unfortunately. God has decided to let me live another day, and I've decided to make that everyone's problem," they said, offering the bowl up to you. "Whether that be through homicide or inconveniences. I decided on inconveniences on the way here."

You chuckled, taking a few chips. "Nice. Thanks for not murdering my coworkers."

They shrugged, tucking the bowl between their legs again. "Eh, I still might one day. Or I'll just keep being a pain in the ass. We'll see. You look rough, wanna join?"

You eyed the alcohol. "How much sugar does that have in it?"

Jay followed your gaze and picked up the unlabeled bottle, shrugging. "Who knows. Do you need sugar? Cuz I've got some candy in my pockets, probably melted. Snagged it from Jesse earlier."

You worried at your lip with your teeth as you weighed your options. On one hand, the more responsible hand, you could go back out to the party and continue politicking, find Jesse and Han and spend time with the two of them together for literally the first time since you started dating, and round out the year with your coworkers. The other hand, the more impulsive one that you would probably end up listening to over the responsible hand, said, fuck it, sit down on the bathroom floor with your friend and shoot the shit, maybe even get shitfaced.

Your arms and wings raised at the same time as you held your hands out in a "what am I to do?" gesture and smiled down at your friend. "Yeah, I kind of do need the sugar. Had to abandon my water to talk shop with mister big director britches," you said, stepping into the large stall to sit with them. "I don't care what you got, just hand it over."

"Hell yeah!" Bird's smile widened and they dug into their suit pockets, producing two small handfuls of mini chocolates and toffees. They laid them on the floor between you two, picking out a small toffee for themself. "Take what you need. Is that, like, a new bee thing? The sugar?"

You grabbed a mini snickers, happy to indulge in the sweet nougat and caramel as you nodded. "My metabolism kicked it way up a notch and burns through energy super quickly now, not to mention my body digests things differently and needs much higher levels of blood sugar to keep me going. Don't even get me started on how much of a strain it is with all these fucking smells. Being a bee is hard."

"Huh, and here I was thinking life as a bee-woman-hybrid-thing would be easy-beesy," they said, shooting you a huge, cheesy smile.

You groaned out a laugh and flicked your wrapper at them. It didn't go far, landing in the chip bowl instead. "That was absolutely fucking awful, I think one of my brain cells just died from hearing that," you teased, grabbing another piece of candy. It wasn't enough to fully regulate your levels, but it damn well felt good getting that sugar into your system. You really needed to get a handle on keeping your levels, well, level. "I see you got walking privileges," you said, gesturing to the communicare strapped to their wrist. "What's it like?"

"What, walking, or this hell?" they asked sarcastically, cracking open the bottle. It was rum, thank the gods. "I mean, I guess it's better than Talon, but it's also kind of worse. The doctors here care." They shuddered, taking a small swig before offering you the bottle. "Feels like I just went from one hell to another."

You laughed, taking a drink as well. The alcohol was smooth on your tongue and only burned a bit as it went down. "I'll drink to that. I went from one cushy prison cell to another. Although, this one is slightly better because I have a partner who probably indulges me way too much."

Bird frowned. "Wait, what? I thought you were, like, not a prisoner here?"

You sighed and leaned back against the stall wall, chewing on a piece of toffee. "Yeah, well, Mummy dearest had the foresight to brainwash me before sending me on an Overwatch killspree… I almost attacked Jesse when I got back…" You went quiet, thinking back to that day. It felt so awful trying to fight against the urge to kill him, like there was someone else in your body trying to take control, trying to kick you out. You shuddered.

Bird's eyes narrowed. "Well, I'm glad you didn't. I thought we agreed I was the one who gets to kill the asshole cowboy."

A laugh burst out of your chest, and you nudged them with your foot, shaking your head. "Don't get me started. I swear that idiot begs for it. He knows he's not allowed near my room because I can smell his ass and the moment I see him it's on, and what does he do? Fucking drops off my dress and mask this morning, while I was awake! Like he hadn't a goddamn care in the world!"

You didn't realise how much time had passed, how long you'd spent sitting on the bathroom floor just talking with Bird, or how much you'd drank. It wasn't the whole bottle, thank the gods, Bird had the foresight to take it away from you when it started to become obvious how little you could drink now, but your vision swam lightly and you felt a bit soupy. So much for staying mostly sober through this party. By the time Lena came wandering in to find you, all that really mattered to you was that you'd had fun, a lot more fun than you thought you would have had tonight.

Lena poked her head into the stall as you burst out in peals of laughter, amused by some stupid pun Bird had just made, and she smiled. "There you are! Jesse said you'd disappeared, and you aren't answering your phone! What are you doin' in here, love, the year's about to end!"

You gasped and smiled up at Lena, pushing yourself up quickly to take her hands. "Lena! Look at you, you look absolutely adorable! Have I ever told you that you're sooo pretty?" You giggled as you said this, giving her hands a squeeze. The words kind of came without warning, though they weren't untrue. Lena was wearing a nice suit and a small domino mask similar to Jesse's, but hers had little white pearls on it. And she was never anything but adorable.

"Oh, you're pissed, aren't you?" Lena chuckled, her cheeks turning a bright pink. "Do we need to take you back to your room?"

A sudden dread settled in your stomach and you frowned, blinking and trying to get your mind to focus. "No! No, no, no, no, I'm fine! I need… I need to see Jesse! Please, I'm okay, I can be good." You nodded, taking a deep breath. "Don't put me to bed just yet!"

"Jesse and Hanzo are just waiting outside the door, do you-"

That was all you needed to hear. Giving Lena a quick peck on the cheek, you darted around her and slipped out of the bathroom, a little wobbly on your feet.

Jesse would be lying if he said he wasn't surprised to see her come rushing out of that bathroom, wobbly and obviously drunk. He had to quickly uncross his arms to reach out and grab her elbows as she stumbled, almost immediately pressing herself against his chest.

"M'sorry, I didn't mean to 'bandon you like that," she said, a tremble to her words as she pushed herself up to look up at him. "Baxter's a prick."

He chuckled, his worry fading into relief that she was okay. After she'd waltzed off on Baxter's arm - something he knew was just work, but still made him frown - he did his best to keep an eye on her. Of course, he lost her about halfway, and by the time he found her again, Baxter practically had his hands all over her. Despite the smile she had on, Jesse could tell how it bothered her, he just didn't think it was enough to warrant her disappearing into a bathroom for nearly the whole party.

"Hey, hey, sweetheart, it's okay, I'm not mad," he said soothingly, brushing her hair back and pressing a hand against her back to help steady and support her. "Are you okay? How much did you drink?"

Lena and Jay followed her out shortly after, Jay carrying a half empty bottle of rum and a large buffet bowl with candy wrappers inside. Ah, so that's where she got the alcohol. Lena looked a bit embarrassed, a bit of lipstick smeared on her cheek, and Jesse just had to roll his eyes. So Briallen got kissy when she was drunk, huh? Well, it didn't really bother him.

"I think we're gonna take her back," he said, offering Lena an apologetic smile. "Do you think you could watch over Jay for me?"

Lena smiled back, her gaze flickering worriedly between him and the woman in his arms, before she relaxed a bit and nodded. "Yeah, no problem. You three take care, and happy new year."

They managed to get Briallen back to her room without any further incident, though Jesse just gave up trying to hold her steady and picked her up a quarter of the way there. She wrapped her arms around his neck, insisting that he keep her up. After all she didn't "want to miss the fireworks", and they "had to do it at the start of the year". What they had to do, Jesse didn't know, she got all shy and vague about it when questioned, and he didn't bother to probe.

When they got to her room, he helped her out of her dress and into some pajamas. It took a couple tries to thread her wings through the holes provided for them, but they eventually got it. He then helped her remove her makeup, another difficult task as she would not sit still for him, no matter how sweetly he asked. She clung to his side nearly the entire time, though he could tell she was starting to flag a little. Of course, the moment she sat down on the couch, she passed out. After a little bit of deliberation and a tiny bit of quick bloodwork, it was deduced that it was the low blood sugar levels that got her, not the alcohol, but Jesse had an idea the alcohol helped.

Jesse chuckled and shook his head, looking over at Hanzo, knowing that he had that stupid smile again. After all of that, he found he really wasn't as bothered as he would have been years ago. She was younger than them, from an experience and an age standpoint, so it would stand that she'd be a little less cautious about how much she drank, especially since she was still getting used to the changes her body was going through. It was also endearing, how she tried so hard to not seem inebriated, how she would whisper little things to herself and then giggle softly, laughing at her own private inside joke, and now, how she clung to him even in her sleep, wings twitching gently.

"She's certainly had a day, hasn't she?" he murmured, brushing his fingers through her hair. "Wish she would've stayed, but I understand. Baxter is a prick."

Hanzo chuckled, coming over with a large bottle of sugar water and some aspirin for her for when she woke up. "That he is. She misses you, Jesse. She will not stop talking about how she cannot wait for her treatment to be over. You are the first person she wants to see when it is declared official."

Jesse's smile widened and he reached out, taking his boyfriend's hand. "Really? Well, I'm flattered." He squeezed Hanzo's hand, closing his eyes as the archer leaned forward, pressing their foreheads together - they had long since abandoned their masks. It felt right, having her weight pressed up against him, Han's presence by his side. For the first time in over a month, the world felt right again. "Happy new year, Han," he murmured, tilting his head back to steal a kiss.

Hanzo merely chuckled, looking down at their passed out girlfriend on the couch. His eyes softened with an undeniable softness that made Jesse's heart melt. "Yes. A Happy new year indeed."