Hello everyone, Filler Text here!

I got my ass kicked by daily SAT practice this summer so this chapter has been extremely slow in the making. Whenever I read your guys' reviews about how I should update again I felt a stabbing pain through my heart because you're goddamn right I should update again, and you're goddamn right I'm not dead yet!

So here it is. Chapter 27. Plot things are poised to kick off at a much quicker pace from here on out. Enjoy.

So," McCree says with an appropriate amount of gravitas. He drums his gloved fingers against the table, drawling the words.

"Hana Song."

Across from him, Genji Shimada crosses his arms across his chest. The ventilator ports on his shoulders pop out, releases puffs of humid smoke. They diffuse into the dry air, joining the acrid smoke of McCree's cigarillo.

Genji lets out a metallic "Mmm." He sits almost uncomfortably still, staring at the peeling paint decorating the rightmost wall.

It's just the two of them, a table, and two damaged chairs, sitting in the room previously used for Seon's interrogation. Sujin and Seon are gagged and restrained, locked outside in another room from which they would not be privy to McCree's conversation with his former teammate.

It gives McCree a grim sense of satisfaction to know that his gut instinct of wanting to pummel Seon wasn't unfounded- Genji had told all about the man's lax moral code and habit of collecting protection tax from vulnerable families. Seon's injuries were well deserved.

Even so, McCree had been surprised at just how brutal Genji had been towards the man, who'd been left with missing teeth and bruises abound. Interrogation had never really been Genji's thing, except for way back in the past.

And that hardly counted. Old Genji- Blackwatch Genji- he isn't this Genji. Not even close.

"So you and Hana were pretty close, I'm guessin'," McCree comments casually. "Otherwise ya wouldn't be able to recruit her into the 'Watch. What teen girl in their right mind would wanna go off with a bastard like you?"

Genji shrugs, shoulder plates scraping slightly together. "The… accommodations at her home were not pleasant. She was quite eager to leave. Ah, but…"

McCree watches the cyborg carefully lay out a strip of knitted fabric upon the table. There are no logos or markings that would signify that it is anything more than what it appears to be…

…an obnoxiously green scarf.

McCree blinks.

"Why d'ya have that."

Genji pats it with one robotic hand. "We are still good friends nonetheless. See? She gave me a gift," he says with an air of haughtiness, as if owning the world's ugliest scarf is something to be proud of. McCree is tempted to rub his eyes as he stares at the thing, which is nearly fluorescent in its bright coloring.

"But," the cowboy continues as he scratches at his hair. "Why would Hana give ya that. It's absolutely hideous. My damn eyes are burning."

"I do not understand your question, McCree." Genji tilts his head. The neon green visor flashes, and for a moment McCree imagines he can almost see the smirk behind that shiny silver mask. "Gift exchanges are customary among friends. I imagine Hana-chan did not consider you a friend, if you received no gifts of your own?"

"Shut up, Roboy," McCree grumbles while Genji silently guffaws. "She probably hates you, if she gets ya somethin' all neon-colored like that thing. Where in hell would you even wear this? To a clown's funeral?"

Genji sits up straight, appearing to deeply ponder this question.

"I once wore it while pretending to be a crab*," he says seriously. "And then I would yell at randomly chosen unfortunate souls 'SAKE'! all up and down the dock. We- Hana and I- scared many unfortunate souls."

That raises more questions than it does answers, so instead of asking, McCree takes another drag. He's fully aware that all the cigarillos in the world wouldn't be able to help him deal with this shit.

But it still feels good, so good, to have Genji here. They went way back, the cowboy and the ninja cyborg, two criminals who were villains even among Blackwatch. McCree had killed too many of Blackwatch's own in his Deadlock days to be trusted, and Genji Shimada was such an isolationist that Blackwatch was convinced he was mute for a good half year. Never spoke to anyone, save Angie and the commander.

He'd confided in McCree later on that he hated the sound of his own voice. Didn't feel like his own, he'd said. It was some artificial rendition of what he'd sounded like in the past, made just humanlike enough to fall into the uncanny valley.

Besides, Genji wasn't inclined to make friends with people he despised. The way everyone pretended that Blackwatch didn't exist, how Gabriel Reyes and McCree and Moira and the rest were shunted aside into the shadow of 'The Greater Good'; all contributing factors to Genji's general porcupine-y nature. Everything lacks authenticity.

McCree got that. Everything did feel fake- Overwatch especially, with their Anyone can be a hero! sort of message, forcibly recruiting criminals into their ranks to play at Justice League. (Children, too. Morrison and Gabe had both been kids in the military before being subjected to the SEP, and now Hana…)

And maybe that helped bring the two together. A mistrust for the system. Sure, the pair's ideas of justice had deviated somewhat out in the field- McCree was the running-back-into-burning-buildings-to-save-the-kitten sort of guy, while Genji would've stabbed the kitten on his way out to prematurely end its suffering- but they'd maintained a tenuous friendship despite all that. More than just a casual friendship, even.

McCree, being two years Genji's senior, had privately considered himself a surrogate older brother. Someone to make up for the assholery of Genji's real brother. What happened that night Genji was flown into Overwatch with his limbs barely attached had never been made entirely clear, but Genji's hatred towards his brother had been made exceedingly so. McCree, a Deadlock whelp with no parents to speak of, was missing a family too.

They just… clicked, in that strange way. Circumstance dictated it so.

That's what was missing, McCree realizes suddenly. This is why he'd been feeling empty for the past year. The family element- the feeling that he belongedsomewhere, that someone wanted him to stay- that feeling he'd cherished so much had been gone.

"I missed you," he finds himself saying hoarsely. He twitches his damaged arm, hiding the brief wave of pain that wrinkles his brow. "Son of a doggone bitch, I missed you. I'm glad you got, uh."

He looks Genji, all white metal and glowing green lights, up and down.

"…better, pal, really."

Genji laughs. His voice becomes all low and silvery when he does that, wavering back and forth between the thresholds of a real voice and a synthetic one.

"What's this? Is the infamous カウボーイ Jesse McCree becoming sentimental?"

"I would punch you, but I wanna keep my remaining fingers unbroken," grumbles McCree while Genji chuckles.

They settle into a comfortable silence, the cowboy tapping the ashes off his cigarillo, the cyborg patting his hand on the obnoxious scarf. McCree smiles to himself. He wants it to stay this way, with everything nice and warm and friendly. He wants to sit here and bask in the metaphorical sun forever.

But he has a duty. An unpaid debt. They'd skirted around the subject long enough, and he can feel it about to surface right about… now.

He cracks his eyes open to see that Genji has stopped patting the scarf.

"Why isn't Hana with us?"

The question hangs threateningly in the air. McCree exhales a mouthful of smoke and it curls silver into the light, pressing against the dark ceiling.

They watch it fade into nothing together. In the silence, a plan already burns in their minds to get Hana Song back home.

(TW: Those with mental health issues may want to skip this half of the chapter.

Recommended music for this next portion: 'Easy Way out' by Low Roar- YouTube url + /watch?v=M_lyQ-OCIYs)

Hana wishes she knew what time it is.

The lights are still on. The lights are always on. Day or night, dusk or dawn, everything remains the same- the concrete walls, the floor, the flickering ceiling, the steady drip-drip-drip of water in the corner of her cell. Purple- Sombra- she hasn't come back since they'd last spoken, and Hana is inclined to believe that Talon really will starve her into obedience.

What they don't know, she decides grimly, is that Hana would rather keel over dead than go with the organization that has ruined her.

She swallows hard, trying to wet her sandpaper-dry throat.

There is no clock. It could've been hours since Hana had been captured. Days, even. The only thing that helps Hana keep track of passed time is the newfound growling in her stomach, a hunger hardly abated by the dripping water in the corner of her cell. Food at Amin's felt like ages ago.

Amin.

Her hands are a ghostly white, whether from poor blood circulation or coldness, anyone's guess was as good as hers. Hana holds them up to her face, and she imagines slick redness coating the slender fingers. It drips from her hands to the beat of the dripping water, drip, drip, drip, never stopping.

Murderer!

Somewhere deep in Hana's heart lives a vague hope that this is all a fever dream, the kind that you forget as soon as you wake up. To where in the past would she jump back if she could just 'wake up'? Maybe she'd wake up to Genji shaking her shoulder, cheekily shoving a mirror in her face that shows the mustache he'd drawn on her in the night. Maybe she'd wake up to the smell of burnt rubber, only for Amin to rush into her room with metallic apologies concerning some freshly made/burned food. Tara would groan and roll her eyes and complain loudly, but eat every single bite on her plate.

No sense in putting it to waste, she'd grumble. Hana, if you're not eating that, I'll have it.

Hana huddles herself into the corner, knees to her chest. She pinches the back of her hand until it draws blood.

A prick of pain. Hana checks the red blossoming out over her skin and sighs.

…Not a dream.

"The American is still out there," DVA reminds.

She sits down across from Hana, idly twirling a lock of silky hair round and round one rosy finger. Unlike Hana, DVA looks as sprightly as ever, as if she'd stepped right off a Home Living magazine cover. "Keep that chin up."

"I told McCree to get lost," Hana snaps sharply. She glares at DVA, watery dark eyes staring right into bright brown ones. "He's gone. I don't-"

"It's like you don't want to hope." DVA stands, stretching out long, shapely legs beneath her. There's a smirk on those rosebud lips, a smirk in the way she speaks, like Hana is a child being told off- she resents that.

"You're content to stew in your misery like a pathetic child. See, that's the difference between you and me. What if McCree comes back, hm? What then? Will you just sit there and cry, as you always do?"

Something in Hana's heart breaks. She doesn't want McCree to come back. It doesn't matter how great he is with his gun; he's just one man versus Sombra, Reaper, the entire Talon base… if McCree, too, dies because of her, it's.

It's over.

(it was over a long time ago.)

The door clangs open. Hana doesn't even raise her head to see who it is. Probably Reaper, here to beat the living shit out of her. He was going to yell at her,

Submit to Talon-

-pilot the MEKA-

-join Overwatch-

-go to Seoul-

-drop out of school-

-give me your money-

-stream Starcraft for us-

-stay with me-

-and again and again and again-

Is there no one in the world that sees Hana as more than a weapon? More than a plaything, a source of entertainment? What is she to the people around her?

Who, in this cold universe, sees Hana Song as a human being?

Oh, right. Hana traces the smooth stone of the rabbit charm, cold and pink against her skin. It spins in a slow circle as it dangles from the bracelet, light glinting off polished corners in all directions.

She'd gotten rid of those people were own two hands. Spread their pretty blue lights all over the floor, painting the walls with sticky black oil-

"Que tal, ¿chica? I know there aren't any games or computers and things in that cell, so it must be kind-a boring, eh?"

Sombra sits herself right down against the wall, grinning at Hana with white, white teeth. Her voice feels gratingly loud, probably because everything has been near silent for such a long time. "You never see how much someone means to people until they gone. The Internet's blowing up about you. Reddit especially. You ever check the r/DVA subreddit?"

Hana isn't interested in Sombra's mind games or misplaced recruitment tactics, so instead of listening she stares blankly at the floor. There's a spider scuttling across the ground, slowly zig-zagging across the cell. She watches it pause at her numb feet to stare inquisitively up at her, the size of her thumb and starkly black against the gray floor.

Hana used to be afraid of spiders.

"I think Reaps is impressed, though he'd never say it, ha! Still a kid, and yet here you are." Sombra tilts her head, her purple-tinged hair flopping over to the other side. "Still holdin' out, mm. After seventeen hours."

Seventeen hours. Hana files that tidbit of information away for later.

The spider begins to crawl steadily towards the edge of the cell. Her eyes are glued to its progress- unlike her, the spider is small enough to fit between the bars. In a few seconds, it would cross the threshold and be scuttling its way to freedom.

Sombra chatters on like a particularly evil parrot. Brightly colored and devious at the same time.

"We don't usually visit Korea, so there aren't any cleaners set up. Qué aburrido, ¿verdad? Me, doing cleanup. What a joke. And on top of that unholy mess, they want me to convince you-

There's sudden a blur of motion; Hana barely has time to react as Sombra pulls out something- a gun- from her lapels and RATATA blares loudly in her ears; Hana flinches and she looks sharply down, half-expecting to be riddled with bullets. (At this point, she honestly would not mind.)

The spider is now a smoking hole in the ground. Sombra woman waves her gun, a trail of hazy white smoke tracing its path through the air. Her eyes flash violet in the low light, the smile still curled on her face.

"-to listen when Talon speaks. Look, chica, don't you want to live? Eh?"

Do I?

Hana's voice is a cracking, squeaky mess, and it slithers from between her dry lips like a dying snake.

"…Why do you care?"

Sombra pouts, her long lashes batting in an uncanny imitation of Hana's mother.

"I'm not heartless, I'm bored. Until you fix your attitude and come with us," and she throws her hands into the air in a show of exasperation, "we can't move on. So either you submit now or submit later, after they pump you full of drugs and give you the Amélie Lacroix treatment. Vamos. Work with me here. They aren't giving me anything interesting to do and I'm dying."

Hana blinks at the smoking grave of that little spider. Here she is, freezing, hungry, and so stressed that her stomach feels like it's going to flip inside out, and Sombra is complaining about someone named Amélie and being bored.

Unlike the other Talon operatives Hana has seen before, Sombra is an open book, allowing herself (or some falsified version of herself) to be read by all who see her. This woman is proud. Spiteful. Arrogant. She doesn't consider herself a part of Talon, even belittling the terrorist organization, and holds enough power to be flippant towards the Reaper without getting her head blown off. She talks like a teenager, acts like a fool, and pulls it all off in the way only an experienced criminal could.

And she is bored.

Past the irritation Hana holds towards Sombra- past the anger, the pain, the sorrow that this fucking bitch had played a part in Amin's death- she sees that there is an opportunity to be had here. A shot in the dark, as McCree and his American accent would call it, but an opportunity nonetheless.

She takes the chance.

"If you're bored, do you-" Hana coughs, clearing her muddled throat.

"Ahem. Do you want to do something interesting?"

This catches Sombra's attention. She rolls her head from side to side, eyeing Hana with catlike purple irises. No doubt she wonders if dehydration is addling Hana's head.

"Not sure what you can offer me that I'd like, unless it's you following Talon orders." Those irises narrow. "Does it?"

Hana sits up straight. This is important. This is a chance. In her head she apologizes to Genji and Ana and Tracer over and over and over again, because she'd failed each and every one of the people who'd believed in her.

"No," she croaks. "No, but I promise it will be fun. It will be interesting, like you wanted."

Sombra taps the heel of her palm against the ground, head tilted in consideration. Hana prays to some forsaken God in the heavens that just this once, just this one time, he would be merciful on her and her ugly legacy. That he would make Sombra consider Hana's offer seriously. That Hana was right in assuming that what Sombra wanted was not success for Talon, but entertainment for herself, and that whatever Hana proposed would be taken seriously if it was fun for the woman, no matter how ridiculous the proposal may be.

And for the first time in Hana's short life, God answers.

Sombra purses her purple lips. There is a gleam in her eyes, one that Hana hasn't ever seen before.

"I'm listening."

Amen.

"How about we play a game." Hana's gaze flickers up to the woman.

"You give me a gun. A gun with bullets- full clip and all. And then I'll try to escape with just that, in just ten minutes."

There is silence. Sombra is obviously expecting more- some kind of caveat, some special rule that will give Hana an advantage. But there is none.

Her insides feel hollow. Hana licks her chapped lips.

"That's it," she informs Sombra after a long few seconds.

Sombra's dark eyebrows nearly escape her forehead in her incredulity. "Eh? You don't even want the cell door opened? You can't just shoot the lock out like you do in the movies, chica. Life isn't," and she chuckles a little, "a video game."

"I can escape this cell without your help if you just provide the gun." Hana smiles a little, sits up a little straighter. "Have you forgotten who I am? I'm DVA. You think Overwatch- cough- O-Overwatch would pick someone up if they don't have any special skills? As soon as I'm out of here, you're dead. Just give me the gun, and-"

"Hana," DVA says quietly. "What are you doing?"

Hana ignores her.

"You can't seriously think a gun will help you out of here," Sombra sneers. Her arms cross. "There's something else, eh? Well, it doesn't matter. You're more foolish than I thought, if you think you can escape. There is no way out."

Hana shrugs, playing it off nonchalantly.

"Oh, I dunno. I thought you wanted some fun, that's all."

"Your idea of fun is muy interesante."

"Isn't it? I've always thought it was one of my better points."

"It's a shame that your other skills aren't up to par as well." Sombra's voice is dry as acid, dry enough to sting and hurt. "Otherwise Señora Robota would still be alive, ah?"

Hana's nails bite sharply into her palms. Her breath shudders; all of a sudden it's the dead blue light pegged onto Amin's head that is shining above her, not the hanging ceiling lamp.

Not now. Focus! I can't-

"Disappointed?" DVA smirks at Sombra, combing out her bedraggled hair in an attempt to fix her worn appearance, fingers catching on every knot and tangle. "That's a mutual feeling, 'cos I never thought you'd be such a coward."

The smirk returns to Sombra's face, and instead of appearing antagonized, the woman appears more amused, as if Hana's sudden defiance is pleasing to her. "A coward. Me. I didn't refuse your bet yet, chica."

Invisible butterflies are set loose in Hana's chest when Sombra unholsters her gun. It's an Uzi, recognizable to Hana only for its use in video games, with certain segments of it painted blueberry purple in a personal touch.

Thisismychancethisismychancethisismychancethisismychance-

Sombra tosses it into the air, catching the twirling gun by its muzzle and sticking it through the bars of the cell with flourish. Hana takes it with both hands, running her fingers over the metal. It's warmed slightly by Sombra's residual body heat and from its usage in executing the spider. A thrill runs down Hana's spine; it nearly feels like a living thing.

"Well. There's your gun," says Sombra with amusement. She flips her locks of purple hair the other way and narrows her eyes, clearly anticipating something exciting to happen. "It has bullets, and it works- you saw what I did to that spider, eh? Consider that the performance test."

Hana wraps her fingers around the handle. Unlike with the Talon gun, she can reach all the way around- apparently her petite hand was around the same size as Sombra's. "When do I start?"

A nonchalant shrug. "Anytime. Go ahead."

Hana exhales for the last time, long and slow.

It wasn't the most glorious ending, nor was it placed in the most appropriate setting. Hana would've chosen a place with a view of the sky, big and dark and filled to the brim with stars, like that night she and Genji had sat down in the sun-warmed sand outside the night market so long ago. She would've wanted to be lying comfortably on her back, staring up at the world instead of directly ahead through jail cell bars.

But only heroes got storybook endings, and Hana was anything but one. She going to exit the stage selfishly. Full of anger, self-pity, and misery, with thoughts about nobody's faults but her own clouding her filthy, cracking mind.

Hana pressed the gun to her own temple.

Sombra's eyes met hers. For a moment, just one paltry instant, there was something besides indifference reflected in those deep violet depths, and the woman extended her hand with sudden lightning strike of realization.

"You-"

I win, Talon.

Hana pulled the trigger.

Translations:

Que tal, ¿chica?- What's up, girl?

Qué aburrido, ¿verdad?- How boring, right?

Vamos- Let's go

Muy interesante- Very interesting

A/N

I will enjoy reading your reviews on this chapter. Thank you for following the Life of Hana Song.
-Filler Text