The Armourer and the Living Weapon, Chapter 25: and those who no one should

[solarbird]

As with all the final four chapters, this one is below a cut for spoilers avoidance.

Text in «chevron quotes» translated from the French.

This chapter is not necessarily worksafe. cw:violence. [AO3 link]

---

Widowmaker flattened herself against the wall by the doorway as Akande ran up the stairs, past the landing, chasing the injured Tracer and her damaged accelerator, Oilliphéist and Moira keeping the remaining Overwatch contingent - and the London police - entertained a few blocks away. "Run, darling, run," she subvocalised. "I have him."

As he sped by, she threw down her mine behind him, on the landing, and stepped out - one shot, one headshot, but not one kill. That would be too easy. Too kind.

He spun, and snarled, blood running down the side of his face. "You!" he spat. "Did you think this would be so simple? You - you in particular - will pay dearly, for all of this."

"Why don't you come and show me?" she taunted, spraying automatic weaponry at his armour, so much bouncing off, glancing off, hitting the brickwork, but some, some of it making its way through.

Akande grinned evilly and raised back the Doomfist, the whine of its charging echoing through the elevated alley in the heart of King's Row. "Watch, and learn."

He charged, and Widowmaker dodged, watching him fly by, and over, and trigger the mine she'd left behind moments before. Akande coughed, heavily, bloodily, as she shot again, and he fell to the street below, landing with a painful crunch. She spun 'round, ducked down the through door, down the outdoor stairs, down to where she knew he would have to run, and met him with another mine, doubling down on the poison. As his eyes began to glaze, the neurotoxin setting in - "ça pique, n'est-ce pas?" - he swung, hitting, knocking Widowmaker back against the brick wall, hard - but not hard enough, and she laughed, raising her rifle to his right eye.

"My late husband," said Amélie Lacroix, "sends his regards." And she fired, and he fell, hard, dead, on the ground.

The assassin stepped forward to check over the body, and fired again, and again, and again, faster, into his head, into his corpse, all of Amélie's lost rage, all of Amélie's lost pain, now found, spilling out, pouring itself though bullets into the man who'd had her killed, and the last remnants of Amélie laughed, and laughed, and laughed, savagely and fiercely, «I win! I WIN! I WIN, YOU LOSE! I! WIN!» until, suddenly, she felt the hand of someone, someone dear, someone dearer, even, against her back, and she spun, seeing Lena there, Lena, who'd been so hurt, so badly, her...

"It's over, love," the teleporter said, quietly, but quickly. "He's dead. He's gone. He won't ... he won't be starting anything. At all. Ever again."

Danielle coughed a heaving laugh, through tears, through Amélie's pain. "I, I, I ..."

"I... I think I know."

"I did not. know. I needed. this. So much."

"I know," Lena said, embracing her lover, carefully, gently, held together because she had to be, because she had no other choice. "And he's done. He's down. He's dead. But this... this isn't finished. Do you remember what I said, before?"

She blinked, trying to clear her eyes, breathing hard - for her, hyperventilating. "I..."

"This morning?" Tracer encouraged.

Widowmaker nodded, breath slowing, "Yes."

"Then... c'mon. We've got one more target. Then we're done. Not before."

Widowmaker rallied herself, her real self, her now self, the memory of Amélie finally calmed, finally soothed, finally at rest. "I am always..." though it took a moment, "I am always ready to kill," she said, determinedly. "Bring..." She smiled, hungrily. "Bring it on."

Tracer nodded, and touched Overwatch comms - not that she was sure anyone would be paying attention. "Overwatch, any Overwatch, Tracer here. I'm... not sure you're listening, but if you are - the current Doomfist is down. There won't be a fourth - his hardware's about to follow him t'hell. Tracer out."

Widowmaker looked, curiously, at her lover. "His hardware?"

"We're not doin' this again, love. Nobody is." She pulled out the last of her anti-Bastion bombs, completely failing to suppress a shudder. "We'll have three seconds. Can your chain get us clear?"

"Easily," she said, grabbing Tracer around the waist with one arm, aiming towards the power station roof down the block with the other. "Whenever you are ready."

I'll never use one of these again, she thought, as she set the last of her explosives onto the Doomfist gauntlet, and Widowmaker yanked the two of them away, and clear, before it exploded into an impossible number of pieces. Never again.

-----

"You really want to pull those triggers, don't you?" Moira smiled.

They'd met at the planned rendezvous, at the planned time, but not in the planned way, Tracer, patched up, her pistols out, Widowmaker, her rifle ready, Oilliphéist, slightly less than ready, now much less so, conflicted, and afraid.

"Tracer," Emily said, hoping, "Lena - we have a plan. We can just leave, don't... please don't..."

"I... I..." said Tracer, struggling, trying, and failing. She shot the shape of Moira's head into the wall behind O'Deorain, a striking image in bullet holes, not one touching one hair on the scientist's head.

Moira turned, and looked. "Oh, that is good. Your aim has improved so much, it's just delightful."

"If it wasn't for you, Winston would still be alive, and I... will... kill..."

The scientist's shoulders slumped a little. "I am truly sorry about that - he had an extraordinary mind. I will miss it." She turned back to the Overwatch agent, looking at her with sympathy. "And he was all you had. After all - you don't remember your mother, do you, child?"

"My... mother?" Lena struggled with herself. She could aim. She thought maybe she could even punch if she could get close enough. But the trigger, god, the trigger, just pull already.

"Of course not. You, like so many other Omnic war orphans, no mothers, no fathers... like Emily, no one ever there for her, after her parents died... it's so sad, it leaves such a big hole. How could I not fill it - particularly now, with you, after what's happened?"

Emily blinked, dismayed, confused, "But... you were always... I remember... Reyes was... right? You're not my aunt?!"

"Of course I am, dear!" Moira said, with surprising sweetness, as Tracer snarled, and struggled, desperate, fear in her eyes. C'mon, damn you, acquire, sight, pull the fucking trigger...

"I remember everything you remember - and more! Things you don't remember, now, but you will, once I remind you. Oh," she waved a hand nonchalantly, "I suppose I didn't six months ago, but I do now. I'm your aunt now, and I always have been. That's what matters."

"You... do? You are?"

"The only difference is that I remember that I didn't always remember." The geneticist smiled. "I always experiment on myself, first, niece. Anything else would be unethical! So, now, I've always been there for you - just like I'll always have been there for her."

Widowmaker held her rifle at headshot. "Stop it, Moira. Now."

Moira beamed at the sniper. "Oh, my daughter's lovely wife, you too? Don't be silly. You can't kill me - we'll have been such friends, all along."

"If there's anything I am very, very good at, it is killing people."

"Yes! So wonderfully better than I'd expected. And yet..." She spread her hands wide. "Go ahead."

"I..." The first assassin did not shake, not to the untrained eye, but someone who truly understood her would know, would see, muscle fighting against muscle, nerve against nerve, at deadlock.

"Aunt Moira..." Oilliphéist asked, and, for the first time since Lena had met her, lacked any hint of euphoria in her voice. "You said you wouldn't touch Widowmaker. Not her mind."

"I didn't touch her, Emily! I changed nothing. Or, well, almost nothing. Just this. And a few other things, I suppose, but nothing involving her love of you."

"You said you wouldn't touch her."

"I know, dear, and I haven't, much. Don't worry - they'll both be so happy, just like you. Come on, help me - we'll need to sedate them both, and I didn't think I'd need my darts."

"You said," she said, raising her rifle with a hint of anger, "you wouldn't. touch. her."

"Don't be so dramatic, niece. Your loyalty is absolute! I made sure of that."

Oilliphéist thought about it, still a little confused but a lot less conflicted, and her face calmed. She nodded, and lowered her rifle just a little, looking over the sight, rather than through it. "...yes. You're right. It is," she said, as her counterparts despaired.

"See?" smiled Moira, turning back to her other two weapons. "I promise, you'll all be together, and so happy, just like her. There's nothing to worry..."

"To Widowmaker." And Oilliphéiest raised and fired, a perfect shot, clean, nothing left to chance, a shot recalculated a hundred times a second as only she and her lover could hope to manage. As the red mist which had been Moira's head showered beautifully across the room - the special product of one of Emily's most special, hardest of hardlight rounds - Widowmaker and Tracer both shrieked, and fell to the ground.

Oilliphéist smiled at the pooling blood as her aunt's body fell, dead, feeling her euphoria return. "Don't worry, auntie," she said, softly. "We'll fix it. We'll take care of everything." She stepped over to her lover, and her lover's lover, and kissed both their heads. "C'mon, c'mon, loves, it's fine, it's all over. We've got this, now. It's ours. It's all ours."

Widowmaker looked up, eyes pooling with tears, unable to speak, and Emily took her hand, kissing and nuzzling it. "I promise, love. She's gone. You can get up. Everything will be fine." She smiled at Tracer, and pulled her up, giving her a big hug. "You're so smart - you figured it all out, even before I did! I've really become quite fond of you, did you know that?"

"You... you saved us..." managed Tracer, slowly, her head feeling as exploded as Moira's actually was.

Emily kissed the former Overwatch agent's forehead, gently. "I did! Isn't it wonderful?" She smiled again, broadly. "But come on, pull yourself together. We've got to call a board meeting."

"A... a... board meeting?" said Tracer, still so fuzzy, still so confused.

"Yes. It's been a very bad couple of months for everyone, and the rank and file will need reassurance. It's time we gave it to them, time to show Talon that someone's still in charge - and that this particular someone is us."

"No! We, we can't, we're not..."

"It's the only way! We certainly can't go to Overwatch now, and if we run, if we hand Talon over to the surviving board members, we'll never know when they're coming for us. And they will be - they'll never give up." She ran a hand through Tracer's hair. "But if it's ours... then... we'll always know."

Lena collapsed again, sobbing. "This, this, this can't be happening, oh god, Winston, this..."

"Lena! C'mon, get up. I need you. We need you. Danielle needs you." She gestured over to their lover, still quietly sorting herself out, a few metres away. "Widowmaker needs you."

"Yes... No, I, I...?" She looked lost, so deeply, deeply lost, eyes unfocused, looking a thousand metres away. "What... what did she do... to... am I me? Who... who am I?"

"Lena. Look at me. Look at me, luv." She snapped her fingers, by her eyes. "Look at me. You're still you, I swear." Lena's eyes darted up, copper meeting silver. "Here," she said, pulling the pistols she'd made from their holders. "Hold these. Hold them tightly. Let them tell you." She pressed the pistols into Lena's hands, and Lena took them, automatically. "Château."

"Châteauneuf-du-Pape," Lena responded, before she could think, and shuddered, almost a spasm, involuntary, water in her eyes.

"Good girl. It's okay. Stay with me. Vaucluse."

"Signal de Saint-Pierre," she responded, again, through horror, through growing tears.

"Lavande."

"Parfum de Provence," she responded, a third time, crying uncontrollably, but somehow feeling more complete, less fractured, more whole.

"Propriétés."

"Frontière Italienne." She shook. I'm just remembering it, I'm just remembering it...

"Les éléphants"

"Palmier" Oh no, oh no, no, I'm not...

"Oliveraie."

"Montpellier." She closed her eyes, surrendered to it. "...how long have you known?"

"I didn't - not for sure, not until just now. Open your eyes. Look at me. Carcassonne."

"She's..." blinked Widowmaker, looking up. "She's..."

"Yes, beloved. She is. And she needs re-centring. Carcassonne."

"Aéroport," Lena said, quietly.

"Livraison," Emily said, encouragingly. "C'mon. Livraison."

"Metro," she whispered. "Metro."

"Centre météorologique canadien," said Oilliphéist.

"Armoiries," she said, closing her eyes and reopening them, a moment later.

"I see you," said the once-ginger.

"I see you," said the once-Tracer.

Oilliphéist smiled. "How do you feel?"

"I feel..." She stepped up, took Oilliphéist into her arms, and kissed her, fiercely. "I feel..." She closed her eyes, and reopened them, calmer, more in control. "...sad. So, so... sad. But better."

"What we just did, it didn't change you - it just... collected you. Your mind knows you're still you, and this shows you haven't been changed since you woke up. You're still Lena, just... you have the basic framework, and the bias shift you've found, and probably not much else that matters, now that Moira's gone. Do you understand?"

"No," she shuddered. "How long has this been... part of me?"

"Probably since Oasis. I watched her, I swear, I know how this works, I was there the first time, and I don't know how she did it - but... she did. But nothing major's loaded. That was... pretty clearly next."

Widowmaker stepped over, and reached out to Lena, but stopped, just short. "Is it... safe to touch you? I, I need, and I think you need..."

Lena threw herself against her lover, sobbing, "hold me, hold me, hold me, please..." and Danielle did, pulling her against herself, tight, bringing Emily in as well, nuzzling gently into her lovers' hair.

"Always."