solarbird | The Armourer and the Living Weapon, Chapter 5 (Reply)

The Armourer and the Living Weapon, Chapter 5:
"'Hello, cherie,' said the Widowmaker, quietly, in her ear"

I'm posting this a little early because tomorrow is a very busy day, mostly for boring reasons.

Definitely not here, thought Oilliphéist, scanning the apartment through her infravision sights. But not so long gone, either.

She'd had no trouble identifying Lena Oxton's King's Row apartment. Tracer's recurring presence had never been a secret to anyone, and Widowmaker already had a pretty decent estimate of the location, before. Emily keened a little, inside, thinking of her, and her absence, and shook it off, floating back up above it, happily. Soon, she thought, smiling again.

She ghosted over to the most likely balcony, and looked in. Definitely the Oxton apartment - who else would have a charging station appropriate for a chronal accelerator? Alarmed, almost certainly, thought the assassin. Police won't be an issue, but other Overwatch agents might be. We should move quickly, when we do.

Her comm vibrated, silently, the haptics tapping against her skin, and she enabled her earpiece. "Oilliphéist here," she subvocalised.

"Hello, cherie," said Widowmaker, quietly, in her ear. "I have missed you so very, very much."

Emily gasped, entire body tingling, spinning around from the glass door, no longer subvocalising. "Oh, oh, oh, beloved, where are you? Are you nearby?" She reactivated her infravision, scanning quickly around her, near and far, without finding her lover. "I don't see you..."

"I am not where I think you are. You are in London, I suspect?"

"Of course, Moira sent..." said the newer assassin, without thinking, then, upon thinking, not caring she said it. "You are not?"

"No. Not at the moment. But I am desperate to see you."

"I am coming, I promise, I will rescue you, I will bring you home, I swear," the armourer said. "Did you get my message, the one I left via the camera?"

"Yes, I did - you were right, that one was mine."

"Can you speak freely? Are you being monitored? Tell me how to retrieve you."

"Yes, but yes - Tracer is here - and I do not need rescue. My plan has been to rescue you, once you received my gift."

"Once I re..." She blinked, and thought, and thought again, and fire, lovely fire, raged through her mind. "You... you arranged all this?"

"I was certain they would accept your petition, if I disappeared. I'm sorry you got hurt on the way out, but - it did, at least, appear to provide cover."

Emily sank to her knees, shaken, more than she imagined she could be. "You... you did all that, all on your own, just for me?"

"Yes. I was so afraid it did not work, and then, I finally saw you..."

"Oh, beloved, thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you, I am so happy, all the time, everything is..." she stretched, feeling her body, feeling every cell and sinew and rod, "...wonderful."

"They... did not disable your emotions, as they did with me? You do not need that kind of rescue?"

"No. Aunt Moira had a free hand, she left me happiness - and she wanted to give that to you, too. But I told her, there was no need, we'd already done that ourselves, oh, love, you're so brilliant..."

It worked, thought the Widowmaker, back in Gibraltar, gasping softly, quietly, sinking back into the console's chair. It worked. She smiled, as broadly as she had at Lena when she realised they'd both played each other into actual love, and Lena nodded, and squeezed the senior assassin's hand.

"Tracer," Emily said, a hard edge to her voice, "Since you are listening: you will release Widowmaker, at once. Let her come to me, freely, and I will allow you to live."

Lena shrugged, hands in the air, uncertainty on her face, and mouthed, "You gonna tell her? 'Cause she needs to know." Widowmaker nodded her agreement.

"Emily - I am not a prisoner. Lena has been aiding me in this. At first... we were using each other, but..." she swallowed, "...it became more than that, much like it did with you. I still love you, more than anything else, even the kill, but... I also love her. We want you to come be with us, and away from Talon. Talon would never permit what I have become, and I will not go back to what I was."

Oilliphéist frowned, and tilted her head, and thought, What matters most?, and thought some more. "Everything else aside... you still love me."

"More than anything I have ever known in my world."

Bliss washed over the newer assassin like luminescent ocean waves, and she closed her eyes and rocked herself, diving through the joy. "And her?"

"You'll notice... she is still alive."

Oilliphéist breathed out long and slow, accepting the statement on an almost primal level, knowing exactly what the Widowmaker meant - yes, she thought, she does, more than she is even willing to admit. She nodded, and smiled, again, though no one could see. Ah, my spider, she thought, always weaving such beautiful webs. "Then... then I don't care. If you want her, too, I don't mind. But we have to meet, in person, to work this out. Just us. I have to know you aren't being... coerced."

"Where?"

"Hoof & Haunch, King's Row, seven o'clock tomorrow night? They're already used to your new girlfriend, surely they can handle two women showing up in blue..."

My home turf, Lena thought, and smirked. And it'll be two on one, if things go south. Easy peasy. But let's not count chickens. She looked at Jesse, Jesse who'd done this kind of thing before, Jesse who had experience in King's Row, Jesse, who could shoot flies off horses at range, and mouthed, "Backup?" And he nodded, and Lena smiled. Three on one. She turned to Winston and mouthed, "Pilot and backup?" And he nodded as well. Four on one. She tries anything, she'll never know what hit her. We've got this.

"I'm willing if you are," said the Overwatch agent.

Over comms, Oilliphéist's voice, or no, Emily's, specifically, again, so familiar. "How 'bout it, Blue? Is it a date?"

Widowmaker narrowed her eyes, weighing possibilities. Emily couldn't call on Talon for support - the video showed that clearly. It would be her, possibly a few of Moira's personal agents... and not much else. All she'd need to do would be to convince Emily there wasn't any going back, and her original plan would come together, exactly as she'd planned.

I overreacted to the video, she decided. We can fix this. Most of it has already fixed itself. They could repair the rest of it, she felt sure.

Widowmaker smiled. "It sounds wonderful. We'll see you tomorrow."

"I can't wait."

-----

Lena wandered the halls of Watchpoint Gibraltar, late at night, alone, carrying Widowmaker's Kiss on her back, the assassin asleep on the double bed in in Lena's new quarters. Even with much of the new Overwatch together in one place, and generally one building, the facility felt cavernous.

She walked up to the old control centre, lately Winston's office, and looked out the bevelled window. Her flyer sat quietly, below. Tomorrow, they'd take a heavier craft, one with more gear, enough for Winston to scan for incoming hostiles from Talon, or Vishkar, or whoever else might be oh so very interested in the two products of Moira's Widowmaker process.

A door opened, and closed, behind her, and she looked back, over her left shoulder. "Hello," said Winston, loping down the hall. "I thought I heard somebody out here."

"Y'have good ears, y'know that?"

"I do."

Tracer grinned. "Ready for tomorrow, big guy?"

"Are you?"

"I think so."

"I'm surprised you're out here alone, given that you're carrying her rifle. She didn't seem to want it out of her sight, before."

"I asked her, before she went to bed. She... stocks up on sleep before missions? Does that make sense? Says it builds up cellular energy storehouses, so she doesn't have to eat or sleep in the field." Lena shifted the Kiss on her back, just to feel it move. She liked the reminder of her presence - she felt nice, an odd thing to feel about a firearm, but true nonetheless.

"How'd you get here, Lena?" asked her oldest friend.

"Flyer's right there, luv, don't you remember?" she joked.

"Lena..."

The teleporting pilot bit her lower lip, and thought. "You know the story. Thought I was playin' her. Turned out, I wasn't, I was playin' myself. Same for her."

"You raged for a month after she killed Mondatta."

"I know." She shifted the Kiss again, subconsciously.

"You're carrying the weapon that killed him."

"I know."

"And you're... fine with that?"

"It's... complicated." She pulled Widowmaker's rifle off her back, holding it gently, not putting it down. "It's... you weren't there, luv. You can't know. I screamed when I saw what she'd done. I howled. I could've just killed her, if I'd been able, and at the same time, I couldn't." She ran her hands along the firearm's bluish-grey casing. "It... it wasn't just me bein' angry, and it wasn't just me grieving... it was... I felt so... betrayed."

"Betrayed, that she did... exactly what we'd expect? Exactly what she came to do?"

"Yeh," she nodded, still looking at the rifle.

"That doesn't make any sense. Anger makes sense. Grief makes sense. How could you feel betrayed, unless..." and his eyes widened.

Lena took a big, deep breath. "Y'got there. Can't feel betrayed by somebody if y'don't care for 'em, and y'can't feel betrayed like that unless it's strong."

"Already? Then?"

Tracer just nodded.

"I... I had no idea. You barely even knew Amélie."

"Didn't know her at all, luv! Not even sure we ever met. I don't have that excuse."

"Then... how? Why? "

"Dunno. It was always just her, just Widowmaker, since the first time we ever met, but some part of me knew. Just took the rest of me a while to figure it out, that's all."

"She still killed Mondatta."

"Yeh, she did. And she didn't feel a thing, yet - least, not much of anything, other than the kill. But while all that's true... she didn't kill me, when she could've. My accelerator was barely holding me in time, I couldn't've fought her - I was done. She could've finished me, or, worse, taken me back with her, to be... transformed, like she was."

"And she didn't," he said, understanding, at last.

"And she didn't. Even hid me from her extraction team. Took me a while to figure that out, but I got there eventually." Lena pulled the Kiss close to herself, held it tightly for just a moment, and slipped it carefully back over her shoulder. "And if we can reach each other... maybe she can reach Em." She shook her head. "Emily."

"You just don't give up on people, do you?"

Tracer grinned her famous half-grin, and fuzzled her best friend's hair. "Nope! Leastways, not if I can help it."

"Never change, Lena." He patted his best friend's back. "Never change."

"Don't worry." She skitched his head a little more. "I won't."