Chapter Text
spring
***
Amélie slathers the paint in firm, broad strokes. Her muscles ripple loose then taut with every stretch of her arm: solid, versatile, a dancer’s limb. Lena’s mouth is kind of watering.
“Oi, uh.” Amélie turns to Lena with her arm outstretched, roller frozen on the wall. Under it is a fine sheen of deep cream paint. She quirks a brow and Lena fidgets, tips the juice glasses in her hands awkwardly. “Refreshments?”
“On the table.”
“A’ight.”
“You’ve finished the bedroom?”
“Not yet.” Lena deposits one of the glasses on the coffee table. And then she turns, plants her butt on it, and watches with stretched, aching legs as Amélie carries on with her painting. Amélie’s made fine work of the living room—the coloring is even, strokes blended seamless and sure. Lena thinks of the uneven shades she’s done to the bedroom. “How do you do that?”
“Do what?”
“Paint so bloody well,” Lena says after a drink of her juice. Amélie snickers. “No, I mean it. My work’s a bit of a mess.”
“Because you rush it.”
Lena grumbles. The balcony sliding door is wide open. Wind breezes through the room in pausing, fleeting squalls like the gentle sighs of some peaceful god in the clear, blue horizon. Greens of fresh leaves hang off branches over the railings. Lena lets the air cool her down, blinks at her lover's back, thinks of picking up some flowers to spruce the place up a little.
“It’s just rolling on some paint, though.”
“Rolling on some paint with finesse, preferably, if you want it to turn out nicely,” Amélie supplies with a quick glance at Lena over her shoulder. To demonstrate, she spreads the next stroke slower. Her roller grinds faintly with friction. Her arm blooms slow to full length and the muscles bunch with exerted pressure. “The same amount of strength through a whole spread, see? It evens the paint applied to an area. Consistency is key.”
“Don’t gotta talk about painting the bloody apartment like it’s fancy work, love,” Lena mumbles around the rim of her glass. Amélie dries out the roller with a few more strokes before setting it down on the paint tray to join Lena on the coffee table. She sits, and Lena smells paint, a subtle undertone of sweat: thinks of tea and old books. Amélie sips her juice with a hum.
“I like to think things we want to turn out well require fancy work, chérie.”
“You don’t say?”
Amélie hums her affirmative. Lena watches her sidelong. “Moving in, for instance. Living together.”
Lena feels warmth broil up to her ears. She stares at Amélie’s work: the living room wall half-covered with new, cream paint. Might take the rest of the day to complete the whole place. “Want this to turn out well, do you?” she teases with a shoulder nudge. Amélie grunts half-heartedly.
“I’m sweaty,” she chides, to which Lena rubs their arms up together again. That earns Lena another grunt. “Naturally. I want this to go well.”
“Don’t you think it will?”
“Oh, it will,” Amélie professes. Lena cracks a surprised laugh. Something stutters in her chest and she scratches her side idly, grinning.
“How do you know that?”
“I have the patience for the fancy work,” Amélie says with a smirking glance. “You should know what that means.”
“Oi! My house habits aren’t that terrible!”
Amélie only scoffs and stands back up. She leaves her halved glass on the coffee table. “I brought all your laundry that you left at the chateau, just so you know. It has its own carryon.”
Lena grumbles, watches her partner go. Amélie’s started painting again. “Fancy work, then?”
“Fancy work.”
Lena stays to watch for five more minutes. Emptying her glass, she rises, proclaims, “right, fancy work,” and goes back to the bedroom to continue. A breeze rolls languid across her shoulder like the lazy titter of Amélie's laugh.
summer
***
“The paint here,” Angela observes thoughtfully with a gesture of her hand, sweeping it back and forth over the wall. “It’s uneven.”
“Not my handiwork.”
“I tried really hard!” Lena shrieks from the living room. Angela snorts. Amélie rolls her eyes and grunts and hears herself chuckle just the same. She clicks her tongue.
“Not hard enough.”
“That's what she said!” Hana hollers. It's followed by Lena's chipper giggle and Lucio’s mortified groan. Angela snickers, all too professional and lady-like, fanning her hand over her mouth.
The balcony sliding door is wrenched open. The sun beats down on the polished floors of it and creeps like jagged fingers across the living room carpets, teasing, mocking—humid, uncomfortably hot. Amélie frowns at the sight of it. Angela shoves an old bookshelf out through the bedroom doorway, and Amélie slowly follows her out.
In the living room, Lucio is attaching the last few screws onto the new bookshelf. It's bigger than their old one, a little darker, certainly shinier. The whole classy, vaguely Gothic motif, just the way Amélie likes it. Hana is scarfing down a bag of Doritos. Lena is sat next to Amélie's boxes of records and books, watching Lucio.
“It’s a good-looking bookshelf,” Angela observes, leaning on the old one—hers now, she'd asked for it when Lena told her about some furniture shopping she and Amélie did. Amélie had hoped she'd take their old, noisy bed too but Angela had only laughed like she was joking. She wasn’t. “Good eye.”
“Lena picked it out,” Amélie provides. Angela makes a sound like huh and Lena looks up at them with a cheeky smile. “I’m surprised as well.”
“Not that hard to choose for you. Literally just picked the fanciest-looking one.”
Angela may have laughed if not for Amélie grunting. She probably does, anyway—Amélie hears her cough abruptly into her fist. Lucio grins. Hana is a lot less graceful and openly cackles. Lena says, “you know I mean that with all my love, Amé,” and Amélie huffs.
“I wanted a Denelli but she wouldn't let me buy one.”
“I’m teaching her to see the beauty in affordability,” Lena stage-whispers.
“Alright,” Lucio announces once he's done. He picks himself up and stretches and drops the screwdriver into Lena's dusty toolbox. “That’s good. Yep, we're good.”
“Thank you, Lucio,” Amélie says sincerely.
“It’s no big deal,” Lucio dismisses with his boyish little smile and boyish little wave of his hand. Lena has started arranging Amélie's things on the shelf and Amélie crouches to help. When they pick up the same book at the same time, it's the most ridiculous, utterly gay moment that Amélie makes a face and Lena sticks her tongue out at her through a giggle.
Behind them, Lucio is saying I'll get this down to the truck and Angela is telling him oh, will you? Thanks, Lucio. Hana is chewing like a rabid child and is smushing her feet all over the cushions, bored. She's going to get Doritos and Doritos gremlin germs all over them.
“Want to go to the beach today?” Lena asks before Amélie could tell Hana to get off the couch. She's squeezed Barthes in with Neruda and Amélie clicks her tongue, pulling the book out to fit it with the other B's, eyebrows screwed.
“The beach? Me? In the summer?”
“A chance to wear that bikini you got at the back of our closet.” Clearly, Lena is appealing to vanity. Clearly, she knows Amélie well. “We’ll bring an umbrella. And a buttload of sunscreen.”
“The beach, me, in the summer,” Amélie repeats flatly. She's thinking about it, though sweat's already pooling at the back of her neck from the heat and it's as uncomfortable as it annoying. She chances a glance at the sunny sky out on the balcony briefly.
“Will it be… really bad?”
Amélie ponders that. Turns to Angela who's already halfway out of the apartment to ask, “a load of sun wouldn't hurt me, would it?”
Surprised, Angela pauses to blink. “Sun’s good for everyone. For you, just not too much.”
“Wanna go to the beach?” Lena pipes up.
Angela says something like yes but it's drowned by Hana's cheering of oh my God yes finally some activity thank you. Amélie is about to tell her off on the couch thing again when—
“Hey, doc! I'm heading down!”
“Be right there!” Angela shouts after Lucio. Hana scrambles out of the apartment like a Doritos-drugged golden retriever, darting right past Angela. Thank goodness for that. “Beach, then?”
Lena turns to Amélie in inquiry. To answer, Amélie waves a hand at Angela. “Ask Fareeha and the others if they'd like to come, too.”
“I'm bringing a huge umbrella and the strongest sunscreen I got,” Lena chirps as Angela sets off. Amélie gives her a smile: quirk-browed, narrow-eyed.
“Why don't you tell the sun to go away too while you're at it?”
Lena laughs and puffs out her chest, shoving yet another book into where it doesn't belong. Amélie fixes that. “I might try that. I’ve always got you. For you, anything.”
Amélie feels herself smile. Feels something soft and warm crawl from her belly to her neck, a miniature sun under cold skin, as alive and as bright as the season she so hates, the woman she so loves. She hums. “I'm counting on that.”
autumn
***
Warmth oozes from the underside of Tracer's accelerator to her stomach, her thighs, seeping through her jumpsuit. It makes her shiver in all its heat, in all its white-hot, painful leak. She clutches her diaphragm.
This place was a peaceful Surrey street once. Just people walking their dogs and children on the pavement, sunlight feeble through gray English clouds. Now it's a hellhole of bullet cases and explosions and the hoots of the Talon agents on the other side of the barrier, firing with vicious abandon. Tracer shakes out her hand and blood splatters on the stray, brown leaves on the ground.
“Tracer, hang on, I'm blocked off. Are you there? Tracer—”
“Here, Mercy. M'fine,” Tracer grinds out. A bullet pings above her head and she flinches away from the powder of shattered concrete. She hunkers lower. “Just—just do what you gotta, I can hold up here, don't you worry!”
“You know you can't and don't you try to!”
“They’re advancing. They're gonna get through!”
Soldier rumbles on the line. “Tracer, don't you dare—”
“Gotta go!” Tracer shuts off the comms, flips her pistols, and breathes twice through her mouth. It hurts, bloody hell does it hurt, but she has to hold the perimeter because Torbjorn's knocked out and she can't let these bastards through.
She springs up from the barrier—it hurts even more when another shot pierces the side of her ribs and another lances through her bicep. She shouts, keeps her eyes open to see one-two-three hostiles fall the ground but not long enough to spot one more hurling a grenade.
The neighborhood sizzles out to a blur of trees-concrete-smoke. She falls flat on her back and cries out, tears coming to her eyes. She clutches her midsection, bleeds on the concrete and dried leaves, ears ringing, vision smeared, rust and gunpowder on her tongue.
A sharper blast joins the enemy gunfire, followed by another, another—Widowmaker arrives in a flicker of purple and the deepest scowl. She slinks over to Tracer and grunts and she. Is. Pissed.
Tracer whines. In protest, more than anything. “Your post!” she gasps. Widowmaker looks at her and bares her teeth.
“Fuck my post.”
She poises her rifle atop the barrier and shoots. Tracer can only barely make out the steady dimming of the shooting from the other side, bodies falling and falling and weapons clattering. Widowmaker growls, once, when a shot grazes the side of her head and her visor cracks like a brittle shell. She's had enough of that then: she thrusts her arm forward and deploys a venom mine. When it explodes and the remnants of the hostile force scream and choke, she darts to Tracer's side.
“Is it bad?” Tracer whimpers, spread on the concrete, breathing hard and heavy. Widowmaker picks her up by the arm. “Amé, the accelerator, does it look bad?”
“No.” Tracer can't tell if she's lying. Widowmaker's face is as hard a scowl as when she arrived. “You’re fine.”
“Torbjorn,” Tracer gasps with alarm, and Widowmaker pulls back to haul him up, too. Her face is stiff. She trembles under both their weight but she says nothing. “Take him first, he needs to medical attention—”
“You need medical attention,” Widowmaker grits. She takes a deep breath and lugs forward, shaking just a little beneath the two of them.
“Amé,” Tracer murmurs. She huffs, sucks a fierce breath through her teeth and holds it. “oh, nuh, that hurts.”
“I’ve got you,” Widowmaker replies. Her voice is softer, face slacker, frightened now more than angry. Tracer can't bring herself to be absolutely certain that she sees Widowmaker's lip wobble because her vision is warping, shivering: kaleidoscope. “You’ll be alright. I've always got you.”
“I know—”
“I’ve got them. Bringing them to Mercy now, have Hanzo take over my post,” Widowmaker says into the comms. To Tracer, “don’t do that again,” she growls. She looks at Tracer now and her face is crumpled in a scowl. Still: frightened more than angry. “Don’t try to take anything like that on by yourself again. You call for me.”
A leaf crunches under Tracer's foot. She sees droplets of red on the tip of her shoes when she bends to look. “I will,” she whispers. Widowmaker lets out a breath like exasperation. Or maybe relief. Maybe both. Through it all Tracer finds the gall to smile and it’s surely out of relief. Surely happiness. Surely both. “Yeah, love, I’ll call for you.”
“You better, you idiot.”
“Mm. I promise.”
winter
***
“Lena!”
“Oi—yeah, yeah! Kitchen, hang on!”
Lena's rifling a cupboard when Amélie shuffles into the kitchen. Up on the tips of her toes, looking for that damn salt shaker, where the fuck, oh bloody hell with the utmost urgency that she very nearly drops the sugar jar. Amélie clears her throat and Lena whips around so fast Amélie flashes back, for a moment, to a time when so quick a spin meant a kick to the face closely following.
Lena looks scandalized, “oi! What're you doing up? You should be in bed!” and brandishes her ladle. “Get back to bed!”
Amélie grumbles. “I am not a disabled, Lena, put the ladle away.” She pushes past Lena and peeks into the pot on the stove, squints at the simmering concoction of floating meaty bits and vegetables. “Is this chicken soup?”
“It is—seriously, love, go back to bed. Lemme take care of this—”
Amélie wrenches open the other cupboard and takes out the salt shaker. Lena maintains her puppy-eyed scowl. “Salt.” Amélie shows her the shaker. When Lena tries to take it, she snatches it from reach and turns back to the pot. “Are you sure you’re cooking this right?”
“I know what I'm doing, now get back to bed before your eyes pop or sommat—”
“I have a fever,” Amélie supplies flatly.
“Yes, but Angela did say your anatomy's all different and we can't really be sure how well it'll react to things like this. You know how you don't like hot stuff—”
“I like you, how's that for hot stuff—”
“What I mean is,” Lena grunts in exasperation, stealing the salt shaker from Amélie to point it at her like a weapon, “you just lie down and rest and let me take care of you, alright?”
Amélie blinks at the salt shaker, cross-eyed. Lena shakes it and Amélie eventually sighs, shoulders drooping. “Very well. Can I at least just sit? Here?” She waves to the breakfast counter. “At least if my eyes pop here the rags are just within reach.”
“Haha—won’t be very funny if it actually happens, love.”
Amélie looks to the ceiling, hobbles off, plops down on a stool, and sulks. Lena turns her nose up in satisfaction and proceeds with the cooking. One eye on her tablet, propped up on the microwave displaying a page titled EASY CHICKEN SOUP RECIPE and the other on the pot.
The scene on the balcony is gray: the snowfall stopped around 11 last night but the weather forecast this morning said to expect heavier snow come tonight. The usual racket of honking cars down the street is absent. People must be in their homes, enjoying the cold, huddled up in blankets with cocoa. Or maybe they're sick, too, and their eyes are about to pop and their partners are cooking chicken soup.
Mm. That's a rather a nice image, actually.
Lena is sprinkling salt into the pot. Her whole body seems to move with every rock of the shaker because that's just Lena, always on the move, sunburst energy from the first strand of her hair to the last of her toes. Amélie smiles.
“It’s almost a year now, no?”
“Huh?” Lena is squinting at her tablet, stirring the soup.
“Almost a year. Since I moved in.”
Lena looks over her shoulder at Amélie, smiling with her quirked brows and the faint dimple on her chin. “Feel like moving out now?” she teases.
“You sound like you want me out of your hair.”
“I do, in fact, want you out of my hair and back in bed.”
“Can’t properly have soup in bed,” Amélie counters airily. Lena throws her a feigned stink eye over her shoulder and huffs, shrugging.
“Fair point. So then stay.”
Amélie hums. Lena stirs the soup patiently. Slow. Sure. Consistent. Fancy work and such. Amélie looks at the sky through the glass balcony door, slid closed, cloudy with frost. From spring to winter and again and again: “I certainly will.”