#glitchfic

The woman’s expression went from one of casual annoyance to suspicion. “How do you know my real name?” she asked, and Sombra could feel her circuits spinning from across the room.

“Ah, I didn’t realize you were hiding it. It was just sitting there in your servers.” Sombra smiled, watching Sasha’s eyes. Really, though - if she’d been trying to hide her identity, she’d done a piss poor job of it.

“Our servers are protected,” she continued, fishing. Her feet shifted in place, the only thing giving away her concern.

“From government agencies, sure. But not from me.” Sombra chuckled, looking down casually at her nails. Fresh purple paint covered them, not a chip in sight.

“And you are?” Sasha pressed. The guns were still levied against them.

“Sombra,” she replied, letting a hint of exasperation edge into her voice.

“Your real name?”

“Nice try.”

Sasha huffed angrily like a snake, waving her hand for her coterie to lower their weapons. They did, although there was marked hesitation from some of the bearers.

“And your companion?” she continued, eyes darting to Widow.

Sombra was about to reply, but Widowmaker beat her to it. “Lacroix,” she replied, and Sombra raised an eyebrow at her candid response.

“Figured the blue skin and association with a known terrorist would tip you off,” Sombra offered, carrying the ruse further. “And really, if you need more pieces to put together this puzzle, your little coup is already doomed.”

Sasha stared at them for a good long time before responding.

“Come with me,” she said eventually. Motioning for her guards to disperse, she beckoned them forward.

Sombra grinned and nodded at Widow, and the two Talon agents followed the cyborg farther into the facility.

They joined Sasha in what appeared to be her office. The cyborg switched on a local CCTV feed, the cameras positioned to watch their every move, and Sombra could tell she was initiating a lockdown of their data.

She laughed. “Sasha, if I wanted to hack you, I’d just do it. Chill with the security. I’m here to bargain, not steal.”

Sasha glowered from her spot behind a large desk. She did not stop what she was doing, but Sombra could see her shoulders relax ever so slightly.

“Then why are you here?” she asked. The sour expression on her face highlighted the bags under her eyes, evidence of long nights spent scheming and planning her next move.

“Do you ask every hopeful cyborg that walks through the gate?” Sombra asked, pouting in feigned petulance.

Sasha was undeterred. “I do. Especially those claiming to be the world’s most notorious hacker showing up with the world’s most deadly sniper.”

“Not claiming,” Sombra corrected her with a single raised finger in the air. “Are.”

“If you say so,” Sasha evaded, but Sombra could tell she was convinced. Besides - them showing up in the underground hideaway of a group of previously-unknown extremists was too ridiculous to be fake. “So - why?”

Sombra shrugged, gesturing around the room. “A desire for likeminded company?”

“Forgive my forwardness, but you seem a bit more complex than that.”

“Now you’re just trying to flatter me,” Sombra replied, leaning against the desk. “You know, we’re not a collective like the dossiers say. Sombra is me - just me, no one else, and frankly?” She shrugged, palms on the heavy wooden desk, fingertips feeling the vibration of the computer placed upon it and the mechanical surveillance all over the compound. “It gets fucking lonely. I’m the best at what I do, sure, but that doesn’t leave a whole lot of room for chatting about the weather over coffee. No one wants to have coffee with me. They always think I’m going to steal their secrets.” She was surprised at the bitterness she was able to summon with such ease. She hadn’t known how much this fact actually did bother her. “Which, sure, I am, but not all the damn time.”

“Then why do you have Talon’s pet project with you?”

Sombra chuckled, amused yet again at how much easier it was to lie when your words were founded in the truth. “For exactly that reason,” she replied, shrugging. “I was lonely.”

Widowmaker looked at her and frowned.

Sombra glanced back and, to the sniper’s obvious surprise, took her hand. “Listen, this is a bit embarrassing to admit, but we need your help.” Widow stared down at their entwined fingers before looking back up at Sombra, her stare blank to anyone but the hacker herself who read it quite astutely as incredulity.

“My...help?” Sasha asked, her tired eyes glancing from their hands to Sombra’s face.

“We want to leave,” she blurted, summoning a blush to her cheeks. “Talon. Together.”

“You wish to leave Talon. Together.” Sasha’s eyes sparkled with intrigue and her face broke out into a grin as she realized the delectable drama she’d just been served. Sombra had been right - the woman thrived off the sensational. “I can hear Akande’s scream now.”

Widow’s gaze was ice cold on her back, but Sombra ignored her, pressing onward through her ruse. “We can’t go to Overwatch, nor would we - and the Vishkar are too closely tied to Talon, plus I maybe kinda have a beef with one of their Architechs. I’m sure my friend in Volskaya could find use for my skills in particular, but, well,” Sombra smiled playfully, “let’s just say I thoroughly burned that bridge a while ago.”

“You’re running out of organizations to betray it seems,” Sasha said, her amusement at the situation waning only slightly to make room for a healthy amount of skepticism. “What makes me believe you won’t do the same to us?”

Sombra shrugged, looking at the ground. “We’re not betraying Talon, only leaving. I guess they’ll take that as a betrayal, but really we just want to be free. Widow’s an experiment; I’m a convenience. Neither of us belong there. Who better to reach out to than the Mechali?” She looked at Widow, smiling affectionately; the one emotion she didn’t have to fake. “You understand what it means to be outsiders, and I get the feeling my particular brand of different might appeal to your cause.”

Sasha looked her over, and Sombra knew she’d taken the bait. “You’re right,” she murmured in response, her voice indicating she believed she held the power. “Let me show you something.”

Pressing a button on the wall, the room erupted into a sudden array of hard light screens, some showing live feeds of unoccupied server rooms and other places Sombra didn’t recognize. Whatever it was they were up to, the Mechali had an astounding amount of surveillance in place.

“One heck of a setup you’ve got,” Sombra commented, nodding at the tech buzzing all around her. Widow remained silent, golden eyes flashing as she kept tabs on their surroundings. Sombra could almost see her calculating vantage points and exits. “Eyeing anyone in particular?”

“We have our endgame,” Sasha answered cryptically, as Sombra expected she might. “And eyes all over.”

Sombra looked carefully at the cameras, scrutinizing them for the point Sasha was trying to make. “So it seems,” she agreed.

“Tell me what you see,” Sasha said, gesturing at the cameras, and Sombra frowned.

“I see a lot of quality networking,” she answered with flippant evasion. She had no idea what the woman was getting at.

Sasha chuckled, and Sombra realized that her question had been rhetorical: Sasha wanted to make a point. “You see humans and omnics, going about their day to day, ignorant of the third, forgotten people amongst them. Do you see us?” she asked, frowning at the screens. “Do you see the biomechanicals?”

“I see humans with cybernetics,” Sombra replied, trying her best not to shrug as she remembered she was here to make friends, not enemies. “What’s the difference?”

“Identity. The difference is identity.” She sighed, pointing at Sombra. “Are you human?” she asked.

“Last I checked.”

“Organic organs, skin, senses, abilities?” Sasha continued.

“Obviously not,” Sombra replied. “Unless people can slip through time and space without tech.”

“Then are you omnic?” Sasha asked again, eyebrow quirked, and Sombra could feel her excitement over the wisdom she was preparing to drop.

“Obviously not. I wasn’t created,” Sombra shook her head, chewing on the bait like bubblegum.

“Then what are you?”

Sombra gave her answer a respectable pause, offering Sasha the perception that she was considering the weight of her words. In reality, Sombra pondered this often - what made someone human? What made them machine? It’s not that it wasn’t a question she hadn’t considered; it was that she’d long ago decided she didn’t care.

“I don’t know,” she answered at last, knowing it was the answer Sasha wanted to hear.

“Of course you don’t. There’s no place for people like us; no sanctuary, no home. Without an identity, we are persona non-grata. We can be shoved away and ignored like orphans on a city street.” Her hand hovered over a video feed from the Numbani museum, and Sombra remembered their failed attack on the building so many years before.

Sasha turned to look at her guests, eyes burning with purpose. “Help us make a space for ourselves,” she said, eyes on Sombra’s. Her gaze was so intense it made her uncomfortable, but she forced herself not to look away. “Help us do what we need to do and you will have a home to run to once you leave Talon.”

Sombra let a grin cover her face. “Hard to say no to that deal. What do you need from us?”

“I can’t say precisely just yet, but I can contact you with details when we are ready to move,” Sasha said, reaching out to shake Sombra’s hand.

Sombra took it, trying not to cackle at the fine way her plan had come together. “Better yet, how about I contact you when I’m ready to bolt?”

Sasha laughed; clearly she hadn’t expected Sombra to give up any personal information about herself. “Fine. Don’t drag your feet though - when we roll, we roll hard.”

“We did not get the servers,” Widow said, blinking as they walked out into the morning sun. A pack of tourists was wandering nearby, and the tour guide started with obvious surprise as the two women emerged from the cistern. Sombra waved and blew him a kiss before passing by without a word.

“Yeah we did,” Sombra replied coyly.

Widowmaker frowned. “I am no tech expert, but I saw nothing but humans arming themselves for conflict.”

Sombra grinned as they left the ruins. Raising her hand, she snapped her fingers in a shower of purple sparks, revealing a small, flashing hard light chip between then. “Sasha,” she said.

“What about her?”

“She is the server.”

Widowmaker’s jaw dropped in an unexpected show of shock. “And you shook her hand.”

Sombra winked and the chip dissolved into her palm.

Widow exhaled softly, taking Sombra’s chin in her hands and kissing her soundly on the lips. “I am angry. This was all very uncomfortable. But you are brilliant.”

“Yeah, I know,” she laughed, walking down the steps away from the ruins. “Now, let’s see what she’s hiding.”

“What do you mean they are planning to take the city?” Gabriel asked, eyes burning with incredulous wisps of black biomatter.

“I mean they are planning to take the city,” Sombra replied, causing Gabe to roll his eyes at her repetition. Sombra and Widowmaker had returned that morning, Sombra having spent the entire trip home tittering excitedly over the data she’d stolen from Sasha. She hadn’t slept in over 24 hours, and Widow had taken it upon herself to keep the hacker company. They were both incredibly tired. “They see Numbani as a slap in the face - a bastion of peace for human and omnic to live in harmony, but making no room for them. So they’re gonna take it.”

“And this involves us how, exactly?” Moira asked, fingers steepled in her usual show of disdain for Sombra’s work.

Akande thought for a long time before speaking. “This is problematic. It has the potential to bring omnic and human together like never before. An attack on Numbani for the purpose of establishing a new, non-human, non-omnic sanctuary would enrage not only the unionists, but the separatists as well.”

“How much potential do these Mechali possess?” Moira asked, the faintest blush tinting her high cheekbones at Akande’s veiled admonishment.

Akande looked at Sombra. She frowned. “You know I’d love nothing more than to be glib about this, but after having wallowed eyeballs deep in this woman’s data, I think we shouldn’t underestimate them. They’ve got firepower, and they’ve got some surprising friends.” She held up a hand as Akande started to speak. “I already packed them into a nice little dossier for you, jefe, don’t worry.”

Akande grunted in response, sharing a look with Moira and Gabriel. “We will need to intercept them, then,” he said with an air of finality that Sombra recognized gratefully as the end of the mission debrief. She was using the last bit of her willpower not to fall asleep at the table.

She glanced at Widow. Of course, the spider showed no signs of flagging save for the ever so slight pull at the corners of her eyes. Jerk.

“We will convene over specifics and meet again once a plan of action has been made. Thank you, Sombra,” he said, nodding. “You’ve done well.”

“Sure did boss,” she winked, pushing back from the table. “Just maybe don’t figure it out for a few hours so I can rest, eh?”

Akande chuckled lightly and Gabriel smirked. Sombra took it as her cue to exit, tapping Widowmaker on her way past. The sniper nodded her farewell at the committee and fell into step behind Sombra.

“I suppose this means war,” Widowmaker said, expression unreadable as they ascended the stairs.

Sombra yawned, the events of the last several days hitting her like a punch in the gut. “Sure, I guess,” she replied, leaning against the sniper as they walked. “But can it mean some extended cuddles and a long, long nap first?”

Widowmaker smiled and took her hand.

Sombra glared hard at the screen. Dropping a token on the IP snaking through her web, she watched as it circled the globe in rapid purple flashes.

“Sombra?” Widow asked again, her book now closed in her lap, her expression indicating the ghost of concern.

“Sorry,” Sombra replied, shaking her head, keeping one eye on the screen. “Do you remember, a year ago, when we had a run-in with that group of cyborg separatists?”

“The Mechali,” Widow nodded slowly. “What about them?”

“Well, they just resurfaced,” Sombra replied, eyes darting around the screen. “And it looks big.”

Widowmaker raised an eyebrow, following it with the glass of wine to her lips. “What did you find?”

“Chatter, mostly, but the sort of chatter that precludes something serious. Won’t know the details until I hit their remote servers in person.”

“Where?” Widow asked, looking curiously over her glass of wine.

“Greece?” Sombra replied, shrugging, looking back at her screen. “Probably. The IP I’m tracking is pinging through a lot of locations, but there looks to be a spot in Athens that seems stronger than the rest. Decoys feel different than the real deal, you know?”

“No.”

Sombra rolled her eyes. “That was hypothetical,” she replied. “Anyway, we haven’t heard even a whisper from these guys since their failed attack on Numbani two years ago. Frankly I’d thought they had dissolved. Now they’re shouting and I want to know why.” Her screen flashed and her fingers slid to the bottom of the screen, pinching together to zoom in on an image. “Gabe has to let me check this out.”

Widowmaker watched her expression carefully for the span of several heartbeats before she set down her glass and reached for Sombra, taking her gently by the chin to tear her eyes from the screen. “I am going with you,” she insisted, eyes narrowed.

Sombra laughed, her intensity softening slightly. “Well yeah. I wouldn’t want you to be bored without me. Besides,” she shrugged, swiping Widow’s hand from her chin and giving it a kiss, “I’ll need someone to convince me not to join their weird mecha-human cult. I’m the embodiment of their ideals; I’ll bet they’d love to have me join their ranks.”

Widow let out a soft huff of distaste, part laugh, part disapproval. “And then your ego might finally attain sentience. I will get Gabe,” she said, long limbs unfolding until she was standing. She hesitated, then leaned forward to place a soft kiss on Sombra’s forehead. Turning from her, she left Sombra tapping away at her console.

“The Mechali,” Akande said, fingers steepled together in a typical show of removed emotion. “I had thought them history. Inconsequential history at that.”

“Yeah, well, history has a way of repeating itself,” Sombra shrugged. She was sprawled as usual over the tall meeting room chair, legs up, arms dangling in idle boredom. She ignored both Akande’s and Moira’s glare that she take her feet off the table, ignoring the impulse to kick off her shoes, considering that more than enough concession to their wishes.

“Refresh my memory,” Gabriel asked, rubbing his temples and growling as wisps of black smoke drifted from his head. “What, precisely, is their aim?”

Sombra shrugged and covered a yawn. “Oh, you know - bunch of heavily cybridized people who no longer feel fully human but aren’t ‘welcome’ within the omnic community coming together to establish their own separate group. The leader’s a real spitfire - Sasha Kuznetsov, been looking to break apart from the ‘oppression’ of humans and the ‘overreach’ of Omnics to create a real cyborg utopia for herself and her followers. She’s got an impressive history of failed terrorism and assassination attempts, from starting a fire at the Numbani consulate to a laughable attempt at converting Blackwatch’s own cyborg to her cause. Barring her general inability to follow through with her threats, you two would probably get along really well, Akande,” Sombra explained.

“I am not so certain of that,” Akande replied, lips pursed in thought. “A third party simply muddies the waters and leaves room for empathy. But as far as I can tell, they are not large enough to be anything more than a nuisance at this point.” His eyes shifted to Sombra. “Correct?”

“Numbers have swelled since we last clashed with them. They’re big enough to claim corporate tax exemption as a private group.”

Akande frowned. “Have they?”

Sombra shook her head. “No, but they have certainly grown, and they definitely have the drive. Frankly, if they’re employing encryption methods strong enough to tip me off, they’re up to something.” Idly rubbing a thumb along her cybernetics, she caught Akande’s eyes with utter seriousness. “Something big.”

Gabriel and Akande exchanged a glance. Moira crossed her arms, and Sombra thought she looked as though she felt left out.

“We don’t need chaos we can’t control. Not right now,” Gabe said, his voice maintaining its professional gravelly snarl. “I think an investigation of their intentions is warranted.”

“Now we’re on the same page,” Sombra replied, winking. “Let me at that sweet cyborg propaganda.”

“You say you need to go to Greece to properly access their data?” Akande finished, ignoring her glib commentary.

“If we want to know what precisely those intentions are, then yeah.” She smirked. “Also the gyros in Italy are terrible, and I have a need.”

Akande looked between Moira and Gabriel, receiving curt nods of assent from each. “Go. Take Lacroix for backup,” he said. Sombra smirked at Moira’s failed attempt at not looking annoyed at their joint assignment.

“Are we going to lose you to their cause?” Gabriel asked as they all left the room, his tone mostly joking, but Sombra thought she detected a hint of worry in it as well.

She laughed. “Well I guess that depends on how well you pay me.”

“I do not know how you do it,” Widow commented as they entered a busy little taverna in a populated section of Athens. The path there was crowded with twilight tourists sneaking a last peek at the acropolis looming above them on its hill, killing time before the nightlife kicked into gear.

“Do what?” Sombra asked, holding up two fingers as the server nodded and asked how many were in her party.

“Remember everything,” Widow replied, falling into step behind her. Sombra had disembarked their small commercial flight as Selena Santiago, hailed a taxi under the guise of Camila Santos, and checked into their small hotel just outside of Syntagma Square as Rafaela Rodriguez. Sombra hopped from name to name like they were bars in foreign towns, drunk off anonymity and the freedom it afforded her.

“Change your name enough and you don’t have to remember them, cielito,” Sombra grinned as they sat down on the patio outside overlooking the street. Like most European cities she had visited, it was bustling, and traffic was especially thick during the end of the day as businesses closed and people raced to get home to their families and loved ones. It was exciting and vibrant and she watched the cars pass with interest until their server arrived.

“Wine?” he offered the women, proffering a dented copper pitcher at the two.

“Nai, parakelo,” she said with a smile, and he took their orders, leaving the copper pitcher on the table for their pleasure. Sombra grinned - she’d always appreciated the way tavernas treated wine like water, allowing patrons to fill their glasses until they’d had enough. She wasn’t sure whether it was something done traditionally or as a way to hook tourists, but since she was rarely in Greece for very long, she figured she benefited either way.

“I didn’t realize you spoke Greek,” Widow commented after pouring herself a glass, leaning back and taking a sip of her wine. She grimaced, nose wrinkled in disgust. “What is this?” she asked.

“Well it’s not top shelf.” Sombra laughed. “And I don’t speak Greek, I speak select phrases that come in handy when shopping, or eating. You know,” she continued, shrugging, “tourist book stuff.”

“I see,” Widow nodded, eyeing her glass as though it offended her. Regardless, she took another sip, this one seeming to upset her slightly less than the first. “That does seem somewhat anticlimactic for you.”

“Hey, until I can work out an instant cerebral internal translator, I’m going to have to play the language game just like anyone else.” Sombra grinned, offering an exaggerated shrug, sitting up straighter as their waiter returned.

“Epharisto,” she nodded as he set down a plate of dolmades and olives at the center of the table as well as a lamb and tzatziki gyro before each of them. It smelled delicious, but unfamiliar, and nothing like the hearty spice from back home.

“Working?” he asked, nodding at her display.

“Always,” she smiled in response, more innocent than a college student researching a paper for school. Widow watched him coldly, and he made no move to address her before scurrying off to assist his other patrons.

“I can’t decide whether you make it harder or easier for me to do what I do,” Sombra smirked, picking up her gyro and taking a bite. It was perfect.

“How do you mean?” WIdow asked, gingerly picking up her own dolmade.

“You either scare away the mark or make me seem even more pleasant in comparison.” Widow rolled her eyes and Sombra grinned. She chewed slowly as the data file her scraping program had picked up was decrypted. It was a strong encryption, but she’d cracked harder. She watched it run, periodically jumping in for a manual override, taking sips of wine and bites of food in between.

“Am I that frightening?” Widow asked after a bit, seeming less offended and more curious.

“Babe, you’re terrifying,” Sombra laughed. As she did, a sharp ping and flash of light drew her attention. “Got ‘em.”

“You have a location?”

“You bet I do.” Hovering her hand over her screen, she pinched her fingers together and peeled off a bit of hard light, absorbing it into her skin in flecks of purple data. “And you’re never going to believe where we have to go.”

Widowmaker sighed, draining her wine glass, the smallest hint of distaste still flashing across her face, almost as an obligation at this point. “I assume I am going to hate this?” she asked.

“Sorry,” she grinned sheepishly. “Probably.”

“And where are your uncomfortable cyborgs holding out, then?”

Sombra’s grin widened. “Mycenae. Inside the cistern.”

Widow stared at her incredulously. “The cistern under the ruins?”

“Yup.”

Taking a steadying breath, Widowmaker poured herself another drink.

They arrived after dark, the ruins locked down with rope and makeshift gates that didn’t look to have changed much since the beginning of the century.

“Guess not a lot of folks are dying to get in here and cause trouble after dark,” Sombra commented, shrugging as she stepped over the pitiful barricade.

“A far cry from the Acropolis,” Widow murmured, visor in place as she scanned the area for people.

“Yeah I’ve never been yelled at for picking up rocks. Especially while watching a dog pee on the Parthenon steps at the same time.” She shook her head, illuminating the ground before them in a dim purple glow. “Preservation is weird. See anything?”

“No,” Widow replied, pressing the button at the base of her visor to disengage. Her golden eyes flashed in the light from Sombra’s cybernetics.

“Into the pit we go then,” Sombra said cheerfully as she waved Widow over to a small hole in the rock face, big enough for one person to descend at a time. She loved ancient ruins and the stories they told, but the lack of technological grid in place always made her feel a bit blind.

Which was why she was startled nearly to stumbling when she placed her hand against the wall and felt a thin, thready vibration coming from the damp rock, indicating the presence of some sort of network. With extreme caution, she connected to it, and found herself at the precipice not only of a stone staircase leading into the abyss, but a vault of data lingering just beneath her touch.

She shared this with Widow, and despite the darkness of the stairs as they slowly descended, could almost see the concerned wrinkling of her smooth brow.

“A connection,” she said, voice low but echoing regardless in the utter silence of the rock surrounding them, “in 3,500 year old ruins?”

“Hey, I’m baffled too. Best we can do is follow it I figure.” The places her fingers traced against the wall left faint glowing points of purple in their wake, like the remnants of touch witnessed through a heat sensor. It felt less like raw data and more like a guide leading to what Sombra hoped were the Mechali servers. It was the only thing that made any sense, really. If she hadn’t known they were tracking cyborgs, she’d have thought her hardware was malfunctioning.

They continued downward in silence.

The cistern itself was precisely what it said on the tin: a large body of water stretching into the darkness before them. Skirting the pool of subterranean water, she followed the lines of data to a false wall at the far end. Someone had blasted away part of the rock beneath, covering it with the hologram that was indistinguishable from the rock to anyone not approaching it with subterfuge in mind. The hard light was also modeled to feel like rock. The curators probably didn’t even know it was there.

“This is some high tech shit,” Sombra explained, awestruck as her fingers danced over the false stone. It was even damp to the touch like the rest of the cavern.

“Can you get through?” Widow asked, standing pointedly away from the walls, eyeing them with disgust.

Sombra snorted. “I said high tech, not impressive. This is kids’ stuff.” Pressing a palm against the wall, she summoned a small keypad into thin air. Her fingers danced and arcs of electricity shot from her hand into the device. There was no sound; no fanfare at all, really, as the hologram vanished from sight. It was instantaneous - one moment it was there, the next it was gone.

Sombra and Widowmaker peered into the hole in the wall of the cistern to see an unexpected anachronism: a long, sleek, metal wall, riveted together and leading down into the ground, the ceiling and ground carved from the same stone as the rest of the ancient city.

“Let’s go,” Sombra shrugged, stepping through into the hallway. Widowmaker hesitated and followed a moment later.

The metal walls glowed with internal white LEDs, making their passage comparatively easy to their descent into the cistern. As they passed over the threshold, Sombra looked back to see the hologram slip back into place behind them.

“Well done,” she said under her breath.

Widow’s frown was visible now. She activated her visor again, scanning the passage as they approached what was looking more and more like another doorway, this one made not of hard light, but of steel.

“Sombra,” she said, and her voice stopped Sombra in her tracks.

“What?” she asked.

“This place,” she said, pointing ahead of them, “is filled with people.”

Sombra stood where she was for a moment, considering the new intel. “Ah,” she replied, pursing her lips. “That makes sense. I wouldn’t leave my servers unguarded either.”

“This is more than guards, Sombra. This is,” she trailed off, peering at the door again before disengaging her visor. “This is a facility.”

Sombra stroked her chin a moment in thought. “Yeah, I’d thought that might be the case, honestly. Or at least a possibility.” Turning, she bridged the final gap to the door, reaching out to perform the same technical magic on the physical keypad as she had earlier on the hard light one.

“What are you doing?” Widow asked, standing rigidly beside her.

“What am I doing?” Sombra asked, tilting her head at Widow. “I’m going in to say hi.”

Though Venice and Fuzhou were only six hours apart in terms of time, the half-day’s flight was a slog. Talon’s operation was a particularly covert one, necessitating the use of a smaller civilian transport to avoid any unwanted attention. It could have held the pair of them and another one or two agents uncomfortably; it held them, Gabriel, Moira, and the additional six infiltration specialists only by grace of physics and flexibility alone. Between the cramped ride and the unpleasantly closer quarters of their Fujian flophouse, the trip was likely to be the more of a drain than the mission itself. When they arrived, Sombra’s suggestion they snag a brief bit of shuteye seemed fine at the time. Now, not only sore and irritated but also exhausted, it seemed very much the opposite.

“We have a half-hour,” Sombra said, a note of hope in her voice as she closed her eyes anew.

Widowmaker muffled a yawn in the other woman’s hair. “Non, cherie. Shower.”

Sombra grimaced as she offered a small, unintelligible sound of protest, something between a grunt and a whine. The sniper shook her head.

“You will be angry later if you don’t.”

“Don’t wanna’,” Sombra whined, pawing at the sniper’s back as she disentangled herself from both the hacker and the sheets. “C’me back.”

“No, you come with me,” Widowmaker chided, scooping the other woman into her arms with a tired chuckle. “This mission is going to be trash. The least we can do is look good for it.”

Sombra made a sound against her collarbone, a lone syllable of acknowledgement as much as acquiescence. “Why trash?” she managed as Widowmaker set her down on the edge of the tub. The taller woman snorted at the question, her sole response a sideways glance toward the bedroom door. Sombra nodded her immediate understanding.

“Yeah, she’s been in a shit mood.”

It had only been a handful of days since her chat with Akande and his subsequent briefing with Moira regarding the state and upkeep of her conditioning. Though Widowmaker didn’t know the particulars of that conversation, it was apparent to everyone - even her - that Moira’s regularly chilly disposition had become outright frigid as a result. For the most part, she and Sombra drank in the schadenfreude with smiles firmly lodged in the corners of their mouths; however, sharing a cramped transport with her - even in the company of others - had been unpleasant in the nicest of terms. Moira did little to hide her contempt of Akande’s decision, and the pointed glare she maintained in the sniper’s direction made it readily apparent she had every intent of making her displeasure known.

Widowmaker didn’t really care so much as find her pettiness exceptionally unbecoming.

“A mood,” she parroted, quirking an eyebrow in passive judgement, “is a word for it.”

She ascribed the root of her irritation to her not having those reflexes anymore - not in the natural sense, at least. She could be petty and take petty actions, but there was little informing such behavior beyond an self-serving want to be a thorn in another’s side - to be better, or do better, or to see another fail. She didn’t feel pettiness. Knowing Moira was choosing to stew left a sour taste in the sniper’s mouth.

“Yeah, well, she’s just pissy because you have what she couldn’t,” Sombra smirked, tugging off her shirt and tossing it in the corner of their tiny bathroom. Widowmaker tilted her head, shooting the hacker a curious glance in the mirror.

Sombra grinned, pleased as punch.

“Oh, man. I pulled some choice bits of intel from her rig; shit from her Blackwatch days and into the end of Overwatch. She definitely had something with that Ziegler lady. Got bad after the Venice blowup and the work she did on Gabe. Messy shit; ‘lack of ethics’, ‘I can’t be with someone who’d do this’ kind of shit. She doesn’t talk about it, like, explicitly, but she ain’t subtle, either.”

Widowmaker didn’t realize she was smiling until it evolved into outright laughter: part unbelieving, part relieved, and part delightfully amused. “…You think she is jealous?”

Sombra shrugged as she leaned over to grab her toothbrush, a smile tugging at the edge of her mouth. “She’s also having a weird control freak tantrum, sure, but yeah. She’s gotta’ be, even if just a little. She’s a shit, spider. Moira wants the world, and she turns into a baby when she finds something she can’t have.”

“Incroyable. I would be sad for her. If I could.”

“Eh, don’t be. She’s a grown-ass adult. With any luck, today’s the day she trips on those fucking stupid pointy shoes of hers and breaks every ankle she has. Now, help me into this shower, yeah?”

There were few joys simpler or more convenient in Widowmaker’s work than a pagoda.

Gorgeous architecture aside, all those windows made for easy tracking, which made for easy wind and velocity calculations, which made for easy sniping. Their shape nearly always necessitated the construction of a vertical perimeter, allowing her easy traversal from point to point around the building’s circumference. The only downside was her own visibility, but unpredictable and constant movement counteracted the problem well enough.

As the seventh omnic guard fell in the pagoda adjacent her position, the lights of their eyes flickering to darkness, Widowmaker smirked. She could have done this job in her sleep.

In a way, that felt very much the case. The place was practically made of glass, its interiors plainly visible even at a distance. Its courtyard entrances numbered exactly two - one northern and one southern - which made this particular perimeter a cakewalk where enforcement was concerned. If - when - law enforcement arrived, it would only become more difficult in that she’d need to move a hair faster than her already casual pace.

Luckily, fast was her forté.

“Aye, we got blues coming. ETA twelve minutes,” Sombra’s cut in over their closed communications frequency. When indeed.

“We need fifteen,” Gabriel growled. Their objective was a simple plant, albeit one with multiple targets. Another chip in the crumbling dam stemming the flood of human-versus-omnic animosity; another fuse lit in the names of conflict and evolution.

Widowmaker leaned into her weld as she picked up movement on the ninth floor. “We are secure,” she murmured, following the rapid bob of her target’s head between cubicle walls. “For now.”

Inhale. Level. Exhale. Fire.

The omnic’s cranial casing shattered outward in a burst of circuitry and metal, their body falling a mere few feet ahead of Moira as she rounded a workspace corner.

“Excellent work, Lacroix,” the geneticist observed, toeing the body aside with one pointed boot. “As always.”

“I know,” the sniper grinned.

Though Sombra passed out almost immediately upon their return to the flophouse, Widowmaker still harbored a thrum of adrenaline that left her fingers itchy and mind racing - the downside of any simple excursion. It never lasted long, but she could usually rely on wine and fresh air to assist in the suppression of that restless energy. She hadn’t brought the former; no one expected the Fuzhou mission to be so straightforward, and her expectations of any free time were accordingly minimal. The latter would have to suffice.

Locking the door behind her, Widowmaker crept quietly toward the emergency stairwell: a cramped and narrow passage lit by dim, orange bulbs she suspected hadn’t been changed in years. Their lodgings were chosen more for convenience than comfort; accordingly, luxury and even basic maintenance were secondary, if not tertiary, considerations for their current deployment. She didn’t expect anyone would want a moment’s relaxation on the building’s sun-bleached and smog-stained rooftop landing, nonetheless herself and certainly not Moira.

Yet, there she was - and there was the doctor, all elbows and angles as she leaned against the safety railing.

The sniper hesitated in the doorway, one hand lingering on the exit door’s pushbar as she considered whether to turn back. Retreat was her first and loudest instinct - not for fear, but for sheer lack of desire to engage. The part of her that understood the character and consistency of pettiness, however, beckoned her stay.

Retreat was easy. Staying was spiteful.

Widowmaker chose spite.

“Salut,” she said plainly, stepping forth from the doorway and crossing the landing. She kept a healthy distance as she joined Moira at the rooftop’s edge, leaving a few feet of comfortable, dead air between them. The doctor’s sole response was a muffled grunt, the sound toppling into the glass of neat scotch set on the railing before her.

There were no stars here to speak of; the city lights rendered the sky remained an impenetrable void of yawning off-black. Autocraft honked on the street below, the occasional laugh or clip of idle chatter sneaking through the perpetual city ambience to reach them twelve stories above. While there was likely never any real peace to be found here, Moira managed with absolutely no effort whatsoever to derail any hope for or attempt at even a moment’s peace. Widowmaker found it only appropriate she attempt the same for her.

“You are angry,” the assassin observed.

Moira glared across those few feet between them, thin lips dipping into a frown. Widowmaker refused her the courtesy of acknowledgement, leveling her gaze squarely on the city stretching before them. “You are bad at hiding it,” she added as an afterthought.

The doctor opened her mouth to speak, then closed it again as if thinking better of whatever knee-jerk reaction Widowmaker’s comment inspired. Instead, Moira deliberately returned her attention to the glass before her and lifted it to her lips. “How perceptive,” she seethed, tipping the glass back. Widowmaker watched her coolly from the corner of her eye, observed the way billboard lights bounced off sharp features while rendering others in shadow. There was an innate starkness to Moira O’Deorain that their environment only highlighted, an interplay of dark and light with very little observable graduation separating the two.

Widowmaker wondered whether Moira had ever considered the light; she wondered if the light had ever considered Moira and found her wanting. Sombra’s most recent intelligence indicated clearly it had.

“I am acknowledging you are upset,” Widowmaker tried at last. “I understand it is a kindness to do so.”

“You shouldn’t know the meaning of the word,” the geneticist snapped. “I designed you not to.”

Widowmaker finally deigned to meet Moira’s mismatched eyes, searching. There was a question in the back of her throat, clawing at her tongue: who hurt you? She knew the answer, at least on paper; but she also knew Angela Ziegler - even if only briefly - and found the potential of her doing such lasting harm to anyone unlikely. Knowing what little she did - and knowing Moira - Widowmaker suspected that it wasn’t Ziegler who’d hurt her; if anything, Moira’s own ethical failings had hurt both of them.

There it was. That was the kernel of truth she was looking for.

“Docteur,” Widowmaker began carefully, a note of hint insincere sweetness coloring her words. “Do you think you have failed?”

The taller woman narrowed her eyes. “Do not.”

Widowmaker grinned. “You do. You are upset because you think your work is, ah, imparfait.”

“It is imperfect. Clearly.”

Widowmaker laughed as Moira averted her eyes. “Akande does not think so.

“Akande’s judgement is affected by his relationship to the subject.”

“I am right here,” Widowmaker scoffed. “You are talking to me.”

Moira drained her glass and set it back down against the railing with enough force that the sniper was surprised it didn’t shatter. “And?”

“What had you hoped for?”

Moira rolled her eyes, the words falling from her mouth with precision borne of repetition. “The successful amplification of the reflexes in combination with the reduction or total elimination of neurocognitive functions which preclude the performance of an otherwise mechanically perfect killing machine: empathy, sympathy, remorse, and so forth.”

“Then you have succeeded,” Widowmaker replied casually, shrugging narrow shoulders. “I do not relate to others emotionally; I can perceive when they feel, and can sometimes guess what that feeling is based on physical cues, but I do not feel as they do out of any communal instinct. And my performance as a ‘killing machine’ is indisputable.”

It was mostly true. The details Widowmaker didn’t care to fill in were easy to omit by focusing on her relationship to Sombra. There was no reason to explain the rare echo of feeling resonating off the chasm walls which separated her mind and heart; it was irrelevant. She certainly didn’t need to mention the frequency of their occurrence.

“You are seeing Sombra; you want to convince me there is no feeling in that, Lacroix?”

Widowmaker smirked. “Only tactile ones.”

“Do not,” Moira repeated.

“You asked,” the sniper replied in cold singsong. “And I am telling. It is my hope doing so will allow you to get over yourself.”

Moira turned to face her in full this time. “Excuse me?”

“I did not stutter.”

The geneticist stepped forward, lips curled in a furious snarl that disappeared and reappeared only a few inches from the Widowmaker’s own face. Widowmaker only smiled: a cold, perfect crescent that gave the other woman pause.

“I have hit a nerve,” she noted dryly. “And I do not feel a thing about it.”

Moira hesitated, scouring the assassin’s impassive expression as if it might yield some yet unforeseen conclusion. The anger etched into the corners of her eyes faded slowly, replaced by some momentary, soft something Widowmaker couldn’t identify, but suspected was informed by memory.

“Point taken,” she huffed. “Grudgingly.”

“Bon,” Widowmaker said, turning on her heel. “I do not prefer to speak out of turn. I should like not to do it again.”

She nearly reached the door when Moira’s voice crept across the balcony, small and tired. “Lacroix.”

The sniper stopped, glancing over her shoulder and offering as much interest as a single, arched eyebrow could provide.

“I’m sorry,” she offered reluctantly.

“Accepted,” Widowmaker replied as she descended the stairs. “Grudgingly.”

Looking around the room critically as she dabbed at her forehead, she seemed more tense than usual after a run. Normally Widow was at her most relaxed after she exercised, but today Sombra could sense a stiffness to her posture that generally indicated that something was amiss. “It was more productive than expected.”

“Ominous. I know there’s more to a story when I hear it,” Sombra replied, crossing her arms and raising an eyebrow.

“It is nothing,” Widow insisted.

“Uh huh,” Sombra said skeptically as the taller woman tried to edge past her, her motions sharper than usual in a way that was subtle, but noticeable when used to her fluid grace. “What’s got you so wound up then?”

“Nothing,” Widow repeated, and Sombra nearly gave herself a headache rolling her eyes in response.

“I don’t know why you even try to brush me off anymore,” she said. “For someone with a genetically-enhanced poker face, you’re terrible at lying about yourself.”

Widow sighed, and opened her mouth to speak when one of the doors leading into the mansion from the courtyard opened and shut with a bang. A moment later Moira walked in, looking like a picture of righteous anger, from the fiery red of her hair to the pointed tips of her boots.

“Wow doc, who pissed in your Cheerios this morning?” Sombra asked with a laugh. She looked at Widowmaker for the usual smirk offered whenever the hacker sassed Moira, but was greeted only with the impassive, stoic expression she used whenever there was some strong emotion lingering under the surface that she hadn’t yet sussed out how to express.

“LaCroix,” Moira said, swallowing her rage with visible effort. “It appears as though our scheduled maintenance has been canceled.”

“Has it?” Widow asked with a note of innocence to her tone that made Sombra immediately suspicious. “I wasn’t aware.”

“I spoke with Akande and he told me it was unnecessary.” Moira elaborated, her tone indicating her suspicion mirrored Sombra’s. “I disagreed, but of course he insists that he knows best.”

“Mmm,” was all Widow replied with, her apathetic noncommittal response causing Moira’s eye to twitch involuntarily.

“I will be in my lab if you feel the need to override his decision for your own good.” She looked pointedly between Widowmaker and Sombra, lips pursed primly. “If you are not distracted.”

“I am fine, Moira. Thank you.” Widowmaker turned her back on the doctor with a finality that was atypical for her interactions with Moira, and left the room.

“Later,” Sombra added, winking and giving Moira dual finger guns before following Widow out.

“Hey, Widow, wait,” she shouted, trotting to catch up to the spider’s long, angry gait. “What just happened?”

“Come with me,” was all Widow said.

“Sure thing,” Sombra shrugged, grabbing an apple out of a basket on one of the hall tables and doing as she was told.

They walked for a bit, Sombra taking loud bites of her apple in an attempt to fill the silence, following Widow until they reached one of the many sitting rooms at the opposite end of the mansion. It was empty, and a place they rarely visited - likely because of how tacky and uncomfortable the furniture was. Sombra would have bet her cybernetic spine that it was original to when the house had been built, if the faded upholstery and lumpy cushions were any indication.

Regardless, they sat down on the dull red couch.

“She knows,” Widow said, staring at nothing in particular. She always appeared as though she wished she had a glass of wine to distract herself with. Sombra offered her the apple she’d chewed half way through; Widowmaker frowned at her in confusion.

Shrugging, she took another bite. “Care to narrow that down a bit? I’m struggling without, you know - referents.”

“Moira,” Widow clarified.

“Moira knows…” she prompted, and Widow raised one eyebrow while crooking a finger between the two of them until Sombra got the gist of what she was saying. “Oh. Ah, fuck, well,” she slumped against the couch. “I guess it was just a matter of time.”

“Everyone knows,” she continued.

Sombra nodded. “Yeah. So?” she asked, glancing over at her. “We’d hardly be the first of Talon’s operatives to get together for more than just missions and training.”

“Yes, but,” she insisted, catching Sombra’s gaze, “she considers it a failure. A...short in my system of sorts. Something she wants to fix.”

Sombra stopped chewing on her apple, feeling as though someone had doused her with a bucket of cold water. “Oh,” she replied, screwing up her face in thought. “Shit.”

“Yes. Shit.”

Sombra stood, tossing the apple behind her, ignoring Widow’s appalled look at her waste. “I’ll fry her systems,” she said, channeling her fear into action. It was a familiar transmutation; adrenaline was adrenaline after all. “I can put her back six months in data restoration and blame it on a disgruntled test subject. I’m sure she’s got plenty more of those.” She cracked her knuckles. “I’ve had some viruses up my sleeve for months waiting for this exact m-”

“Akande told her no,” Widow interrupted her.

Sombra paused mid-pacing, frowning at the other woman. “What do you mean he told her no?” she asked.

“I mean we talked, I explained my case, and he told her that reconditioning is not necessary.” Widow looked uncomfortable, rubbing the thumb of one hand with her other absently. “My performance has not been compromised. I am still a weapon of Talon’s creation, at Talon’s disposal. If I can still perform that function, then there is no need to ‘recalibrate’ me.” Widow’s voice took on a sharp, stinging edge.

Sombra stepped back over to the couch, sitting down on the lumpy cushion and putting her hand on Widow’s thigh. “You know the point was never to keep you functional; it was to keep you controlled.” Widow’s eye twitched, and Sombra knew she knew that was precisely the case. “You’re supposed to be a morally-void, emotionally-blank killing machine. It doesn’t matter to Moira that you do your job. What matters is that you’ve broken the framework she created. You found a glitch in the system, and…” Sombra frowned, looking away. “I don’t trust her to keep her hands off you, Akande’s orders or not.”

“I do not trust her either,” Widow said reluctantly.

“Do you want me to add some extra surveillance on her?” Sombra asked.

“Extra?” Widow asked, and Sombra grinned. Widow chuckled. “I should not be surprised.”

“Well?”

Widowmaker paused. “I would not say no.”

Sombra made a small fist pump in victory. “Been waiting to tighten that noose on her system forever.”

“I am glad that this situation can benefit you,” Widow replied, but her words were amused, not hurt.

Sombra grinned and grabbed Widow’s arm, leaning against her shoulder. “Hey, look on the bright side - we don’t have to be as careful now.”

“I do not wish to broadcast our...arrangement,” Widow replied, still clearly discomfited.

“Well yeah cielito, I’m not saying we make out during strategy meetings or anything, but at least we don’t have to worry the world will end if someone sees you smile at me.” She shrugged and brushed her hand against Widow’s knuckles, smirking. “Although I wouldn’t be opposed to spite-fucking on her desk.”

At this, Widow laughed and offered a full smile. “I cannot commit to such a breach in protocol,” she said, leaning in to kiss her. “...but what are you doing this evening?”

She was hardly there a second before he was off, running headlong into the first rays of  dawn without so much as a word.

Widowmaker followed.

They chased the sun’s slow ascent, a pastel spate of purples and pinks and oranges and golds staining otherwise clear Ventian waters. She paced herself by his breathing - louder, faster than hers, but every bit as practiced - and let him lead. Akande could trounce her in a sprint, but Widowmaker would always beat him in an endurance run. With no way of knowing how much he had in him, the assassin simply fell in line and waited.

That was the difference between them, she figured. Doomfist wanted to set the world on fire, to raze it in a single, concentrated act of force. For all his planning and careful strategy, there was a definitive end to the Successor’s work, and with it he, too, would burn. Akande harbored no dreams of despotism, only gunpowder: strong, volatile, and beautifully incendiary. By contrast, Widowmaker considered herself a cooler, slower-burning fire; she would persist until her work caught up with her, be it by way of a bullet or international tribunal. She required less oxygen in every sense of the word. When Akande blew up the world as they knew it and himself along with it, she would be left to watch.

Sometimes, she questioned whether that bothered her: that there would be a day when Akande’s flame would flicker while hers burnt strong. His philosophy didn’t matter to her. She lived for the function and form of her job - not the ideals she fulfilled in their execution. Those didn’t matter.

Akande, however, did.

Widowmaker struggled to qualify his exact meaning to her, and hers to him. He was as much her employer as Gabriel or Moira. The two comprised a sort of spectrum: her relationship with Gabriel was begrudgingly familial, while her rapport with Moira was frigid at best. Akande fell somewhere between the two, though he was far closer to Reaper’s extreme than the doctor’s. They engaged in heated discussions about literary romanticism over cracked eggs and fresh oats. They fought the most interesting - and challenging - sparring matches she could imagine, his mobility a hard counter to her flexibility. They ran and talked fashion and shared a deep appreciation for classical art.

They had respect - a thing neither offered another easily.

She wasn’t sure she could ascribe these attributes to friendship, but there was something like it gliding beneath the surface between them. Whatever it was, she didn’t mind it. It was more than she could say for most people.

“Stop.”

His voice rumbled between them, clipped but soft. She obeyed without a moment’s hesitation, watching the Successor’s momentum carry him a few steps further before he stopped in kind.

Akande turned to face her, a pronouncement lodged between his teeth: something he started to say and found suddenly spurious. Widowmaker blinked, brows raised in curiosity. “Ouais?”

“You are due for supplementary neural reconditioning,” he offered flatly.

Widowmaker felt something in her chest tighten as a spectre of dread closed a fist over her heart.

“Ah,” she managed, forcing herself to meet Akande’s eyes. “Well. It has been some time.”

It was true. The space between debilitating batteries of chemical and electroconvulsive treatments spanned the full length of Moira’s years-long absence. Of course, she thought. Of course Moira would return from wherever she was and attempt to wrest control of her life with one spindly claw.

Then again, even Moira operated on a cracked foundation of reason. The process was not simple, nor easy, and its invasiveness as much as its intensity would put her out of commission for weeks. There had to be a reason.

“Is my performance unsatisfactory?” Widowmaker asked, searching.

Akande shook his head.

“Even after Madrid?” she pressed.

“No,” he scoffed. “You obey orders and fulfill objectives. Your judgement in the field sound and you take risks when and where appropriate. You exceed training requirements and require little to no oversight. You are exactly as you were programmed to be.”

She watched Doomfist as he spoke, searching for clues and finding him impenetrable as ever. Sombra she could read; Gabriel, too. Moira less so, but one could generally assume of her logical, if not callous conclusions. Akande was like a fortress, his thoughts and intent obscured by walls and doors and airtight security protocols. His feelings were only ever evident in the moments they appeared - yet another similarity they shared.

“Why, then?” she asked. “Le médecin has been here months now. Shouldn’t she have performed this… maintenance earlier?”

“She didn’t think she needed to,” Akande replied. “She knows, Lacroix. I know.”

Understanding hit her, appropriately, like a meteor: a swift and devastating strike from an unplaceable beyond, unheralded and unstoppable. In its wake was a yawning hollow, a crater to catch the flood of thought wrought by its impact.

“Oh.”

A single sound was all she had; a lonely sound pressed between teeth and lips that refused to articulate the scream welling behind them. She knew it was inevitable, that Moira would notice and read the fine print. She knew, had known, had tried so hard to be careful, to avoid the geneticist’s attention beyond the scope of her duties.

Widowmaker realized with disappointing clarity that it wasn’t her performance that was unsatisfactory; it was her performance.

“Lacroix,” Akande prodded, his voice breaking through the traitorously calm beating of her heart in her ears.

She opened her mouth to reply, to offer a placatory “I understand”, but found the composite syllables coarse and unweidly. She understood, but didn’t want to accept that understanding. Refusal welled like magma, a snarl of heat bubbling beneath the ocean’s current.

“You said my performance is not unsatisfactory.”

Doomfist inclined his chin - a gesture of agreement and appraisal in equal measure. “I did.”

“And is, in fact, quite the opposite.”

“Correct.”

The seconds stretched between them as she sifted through the river of thought for a response. It reminded her of those first, pivotal moments when confronting an enemy hand-to-hand. She realized Akande wasn’t watching; he was analyzing. Evaluating. She didn’t know whether this was intended as a test, but it certainly felt like one: a qualifying exam with no clearly defined parameters for success or failure.

With no litmus test for either, she considered whether she would benefit from acquiescence, and found her conclusions anything but favorable.

Luckily, she was unafraid of taking risks; he’d said it himself.

“This would not be a problem were I not the party in question,” she wagered.

“Perhaps. But your neural conditioning—,”

“—has no observable impact on my work unless there is a universal system failure,” she cut in, recalling that single, fateful dossier given to her almost a year earlier. “It was designed that way. Even if that happened, my emotional reflexes would take years to return to normal. It is a non-issue.”

Akande eyed her with pointed curiosity. “She could make the case you are broken - that affection will lead to remorse will lead to fear. She could claim you are obsolete.”

He was reaching.

Widowmaker found her opening.

“Then I would direct her to my training evaluation and field reports. To the fact you have only a moment ago said that is not the case.”

Doomfist opened his mouth to interject, but she refused him the courtesy. “I am the best. That is what I was made to be - what was chosen for me. Moira likes percentages; mine are in my favor. I have chosen one thing, Akande. Let me have it.”

He bowed his head slightly in thought, tapping a calloused finger to his chin in an idle gesture of consideration. Widowmaker didn’t presume her ability to sway him, nonetheless Moira. At least she could say she tried.

Eventually, he sighed. “I will tell doctor O’deorain to review your records. She will find any further reconditioning unnecessary at this time.”

“Merci,” she exhaled, stifling a tired smile. “It is appreciated.”

“Breakfast?” Akande offered, as if the suggestion succeeded the most casual of conversations.

Widowmaker shook her head. “I am disgusting.”

“Me, too.”

Doomfist nodded his thanks to their server, following the aproned omnic with his eyes as they hovered a line of retreat back to the kitchen. He wore an expression of idle disbelief, brows raised slightly as he nudged one of the two cups of espresso before him toward the sniper.

“Qu’est-ce que c’est?” Widowmaker asked, accepting his offering and plucking the small spoon from its serving dish. “You are concerned? Should I kill them?”

She hadn’t meant it as a joke, but the man across from her smirked regardless.

“What?”

“It is strange,” he mused. “We do not exactly have low profiles, you and I.”

“Mm.”

“They must recognize us. One of us, at least. But, here we are.”

Widowmaker glanced over one shoulder, watching the waitstaff as they moved from counter to table and back again, exchanging pleasantries and orders with the handful of guests seated around the bar. Any one of them could and should recognize Doomfist; in fact, she did not suspect they didn’t.

Returning her gaze to her drink, the assassin shrugged and set to scooping the crema from its surface. “Who here could raise a hand to you?” she asked plainly, as if inquiring about the weather. “It would be stupid. A death sentence.”

“And you?” Akande asked, smiling.

“Please.”

“She treats you well?”

Widowmaker blinked, glancing back to Akande. “Quoi?”

“Does she?”

It was a strange question, coming from him - from anyone in Talon’s employ, really. In fact, it was the most direct inquiry anyone had made into her relationship with Sombra. Even Gabriel, who was notoriously devoid of delicacy and in possession of the very worst sense of timing, avoided anything so pointed. Then again, this was something of the the norm: for all his stoicism at work and in the field, Akande was always strangely forthcoming in the fleeting seconds he made his feelings known. Widowmaker accordingly assumed of his question a modicum of sincere interest, and indulged it carefully.

“Yes,” she murmured, setting her spoon aside. “She understands… me. What I am, where my story will end, why. She understands. And she is warm. Something I am not.”

“Warm,” the man repeated, the word slowed by uncertainty.

Widowmaker lifted the cup to her lips but didn’t drink. There was something behind Akande’s eyes, some new darkness she didn’t recognize. His expression neither changed nor faltered, but something was perceptibly different.

“Oui,” she continued. “It is not something I missed. But it is something I lack, and something I can appreciate.”

He nodded, though his expression remained unplaceable. Doomfist seemed focused, but neither on her nor their conversation; he was honing in on something adjacent it instead. Perhaps he’d found a a finer point between her words, a thought or concept she’d unknowingly brushed against?

“You are confused?” she guessed.

He shook his head. “No.”

“Then what?”

Akande watched the idle swirl of dark liquid as he turned his cup in a slow rotation. A moment later, he pushed it aside and leaned forward on his elbows, narrowing the space between them significantly. In anyone else, it would have appeared conspiratorial, maybe even intimidating. For him, it seemed oddly vulnerable. “I have sacrificed many things to get where I am,” he said quietly. “What you are talking about is among them.”

“Do you regret it?” Widowmaker asked.

“Not quite. It is more like positive and negative spaces; something’s absence is not bad, but it is noticeable. Something’s presence is not innately good, but you know it is there.”

A thin, knowing smile slipped across Widowmaker’s lips. She knew the feeling well, but hearing someone else give voice to it was validating in a way she rarely experienced. That that someone was Akande was somehow even more so.

“So, no,” Akande continued, squaring his shoulders. “I do not regret it. I made a choice as to what is important to me, and what I can live without.”

“You can make other choices,” the sniper added. “It is not unlike warfare.”

“You think so?” Something flashed across Akande’s face, even faster than normal. Widowmaker wondered whether it was that same sense of validation, that feeling of one’s isolating circumstances being anything but singular. Yet as soon as it was there, he suppressed it, pushing that hint of curiosity from his face as if it were some terrible secret worth hiding.

She wondered if it was the same sort of hope her programming was supposed to forbid.

“Cross that,” he said, the command buoyed by a note of something she suspected was sadness. “Don’t answer that. This is… inappropriate. I am sorry, Lacroix.”

She watched as he stood, sweeping one broad hand across the table to lift the tiny cup to his lips, drain it, and set it aside. He reached into his pocket and tossed a few credits on the table, then turned his back to her.  “I should get back to base.”

“Defeatism is unbecoming of you,” she said over the rim of her own cup. “As is cowardice.”

He hesitated, and Widowmaker could swear she heard him laugh: a small, bitter, self-aware sound. “You wouldn’t know a thing about it,” he sighed. “Take the day off. I’m going to go clear the doctor’s schedule.”

“Sofia,” Sombra replied, “and this is Danielle.” Sombra glanced at Widow and they followed the artist, down some stairs, and over to a long black table. Several lights floated alongside, and Tiger pushed them away to sit down on the stool by a large trunk containing another holopad and an antique-looking box. There were bottles of all sorts of color arranged on a shelf above the chest, and the station was decorated with paintings and sculptures Sombra could only assume were the artists’ own work.

“So,” they said, leaning forward and gesturing for Sombra and Widow to sit in the chairs by the wall. “What were you thinking of getting?”

“Um,” Sombra paused, not sure why she was surprised to have the question asked. Widow looked at her expectantly, and she blushed. It wasn’t often she felt out of place, but sitting here between Tiger and their artistically covered skin and Widowmaker with her macabre French scrawlings across her arms, she felt, for the first time in a while, like a complete and total outsider.

“I was thinking, I don’t know - a take on the tragedy and comedy theater masks, except maybe more...skully?” she stumbled, not sure how to describe the image in her mind. As she spoke, the artist began sketching on their holo pad, nodding for Sombra to continue. “Less silly, more anatomical, I guess,” she summed it up. The artist drew furiously for a minute or two more, pursing their lips and furrowing their brow as their pen raced across the holopad’s surface.

“Like this?” they said eventually, flipping the pad around to show a new take on the theme, with a grimacing skeleton behind a grinning one in the forefront. “It’s just a sketch, but that’s the image I got as you were talking.”

Sombra blinked, impressed. “Yeah that’s pretty much what I had in mind.”

“Perfect,” the artist beamed, setting the pad down. “Let’s get you prepped and we’ll get to work.”

“Aren’t you going to draw the final copy?” Sombra asked, worried. Widowmaker was silent, eyes on the stairs in case anyone came down them that she didn’t like the looks of.

“I certainly can,” the artist nodded, “but it might take me a little bit. Would you like to schedule an appointment for later in the week?”

Sombra looked around at the art hanging on the walls. She’d seen the artist’s work - it was why they’d come here in the first place - and she certainly didn’t feel like waiting.

“No, I mean,” she hesitated, sweating a bit, “you’re the professional. I trust you.”

The artist beamed. “Awesome. Honestly I work best when it’s a sort of collaborative, free form exercise like this. I’ll let you know how it’s going along the way, too, so if you want to add anything, we can.”

“Cool,” Sombra said, less nervous about the quality of the artist’s work and far more about the impending hour of pain she’d signed up for.

Standing up, Tiger began wiping down the table, giving Widowmaker a closer look as they did. “Where’d you get your skin work done?” they asked. Sombra could feel her nerves jumping all over in time to the buzzing of a tattoo needle somewhere else in the shop. It was a high pitched keen that grated against her already rising anxiety, and she hoped it wouldn’t be so bad when it was happening to her directly.

“Quoi?” Widowmaker replied, unprepared for the question, and even Sombra was perplexed as to what they were asking.

“Is it grafts or cybernetics?” they pressed, still making small talk as they applied the sketch of the design to the small scanner on their wrist.

“Grafts,” Sombra said, at the same time Widowmaker said “Cybernetics.”

“Cybernetics,” Sombra corrected, at the same time Widowmaker amended with “Grafts.”

They looked at one another, a thin blush creeping over Widow’s face. That tattoo artist simply shrugged and laughed.

“Trade secret?” they asked knowingly.

“Yes,” Widow replied, pulling out a book and opening it on her lap, patently ignoring Tiger’s stare. Sombra looked at them and shrugged.

“Are you ready to get started?” they asked, pulling out a thin laser device. “I just need to shave your shoulder blade where the tattoo is going to go.”

“I have hair on my shoulder?” Sombra asked skeptically, but leaned over obediently against the soft cushion Tiger had positioned for her comfort.

There was a short beep followed by the brief sensation of pressure. “Not anymore!” they chuckled. “Back in the day we had to use soap and razors for this sort of thing.”

“That feels uncomfortably intimate,” Sombra replied, stretching out on the chair, arms folded under her chin as she wrapped her legs around the single metal pole holding the chair in place.

“Not as intimate as we’re about to become.” Tiger raised the scanner at her wrist over Sombra’s shoulder, and the hacker looked over her shoulder at the mirror behind them as the device slowly imprinted a purple ink version of the sketch onto her freshly-shaven skin. “Look good? Placement ok?” Tiger asked.

“Yeah,” Sombra nodded before turning her head back forward. A moment later, she heard the sound of a tattoo gun whir to life right behind her. She jumped, and chastised herself immediately for doing so, glad it happened before needle meant flesh and not after.

“You ready?”

Stealing a peek back, she noted briefly that despite being surrounded by new technology, the machine itself must have been decades old. It was a rich red mahogany etched with pictures of flowers, clearly something used for its own inherent aesthetic value as well as the tradition that came with it.

“I guess,” she said, turning back around.

Sombra exhaled sharply, wincing against the pain as the weight of Tiger’s hand was followed by the ragged pull of sharpness. It was not the worst pain she’d felt in her life, but in the grand scheme of sensations she enjoyed compared to ones she did not, this was falling a lot more firmly into the latter category.

“Ohhh, fuck,” Sombra hissed between clenched teeth. “It feels like someone’s letting Toulouse have at my scapula. How long is this going to take again?”

“An hour or so. More if you keep squirming.”

“A complete cybernetic overhaul and this is what affects you?” Widow asked, one eyebrow raised in symmetry with the quirk of her mouth. “A needle?”

“It’s not a needle, it’s,” she hesitated, looking back at Tiger.

“Seven needles,” they replied without looking up.

“Seven needles,” Sombra echoed petulantly. “And it hurts.”

“Do you want me to hold your hand?” Widow offered in amusement, eyebrow raised over her book.

“Yes.”

Chuckling softly to herself, she reached out and took Sombra’s hand, squeezing her reassuringly as the machine buzzed on.