収束ゾーンでのライフ: Life in the Convergence Zone

This is the eighth story of the It's Not Easy To Explain, She Said collection of short stories. It starts immediately after the the third story (It's really not easy to explain, said Emily Oxton).

I'm surprised too. I've had the first chunk of this for a while, but I'd kind of given up on it going anywhere, but... well... here we are!

Also, once again, I'm first to an AO3 relationship tag - Fareeha "Pharah" Amari & Emily (Overwatch). Go me. [AO3 link]

Angela Ziegler cut the connection, looking at her phone with a deeply bemused expression on her face, as she heard her wife walk in the front door. "You're not going to believe this," she called to Fareeha, as the Helix security chief threw her keys onto the table by the door and sat down on the couch in the living room.

She looked up at her wife as she walked out of her office, and the falcon's face showed a little embarrassment, and a little bit of a cringe, as she replied immediately, "Emily Oxton flew into combat today and now they want her properly trained up for it."

Angela dropped the phone. "...you just got home. How?"

"It's... not easy to explain," said the rocketeer. "Do I have to?"

"Yes," the doctor said, picking up the phone from the floor. "You most certainly do."

"I tried to talk her out of it, I swear. But she would not listen."

"Oh no." The doctor ran through schedules in her head from the last couple of days. "...that emergency security meeting early this morning?"

Fareeha nodded. "I was on her personal comms, watching through her heads-up display, talking her through it."

Angela tsked, walked over to the couch, and sat next to her wife. "That does not sound like trying to talk her out of it."

"Again, I swear, I tried. This was my backup plan. I was keeping her from getting herself killed." She took a drink from glass of water on the table next to the end of the couch, and put it back down. "Feet?"

The doctor snorted, scooted down, let the rocketeer put her feet into her lap, and started to rub around her soles and arches. "Did she listen to you?"

"Oooooooooooh, thank you." She dropped her head back against the side of the couch, and melted. "Mostly."

"Well," said the doctor, after a couple of minutes of massage, "...is she any good?"

"Hm?" replied the half-dozing rocketeer.

"Is she any good?"

"Mm." She looked up, raising her head off the pillow and armrest at the end of the couch. "Surprisingly, I think so. I suspect they talked about a particularly effective dive manoeuvre..."

"No," Angela replied, shifting to her wife's toes. "Athena didn't get specific about how the fight went, other than to assure me Emily was fine, and that Winston wants a consultation as soon as we can both get to Gibraltar."

"Well," said the flying officer, shifting to her side. "They will talk about it, and it was all her. She saw an opportunity I did not, and took it immediately." The rocketeer raised her head and blinked a few times, more awake again. "Good reaction time. She has potential I did not expect out of an engineer."

Angela gave her wife a pointedly prim look.

"Yes, like you."

Angela let herself be smug for just a moment. "But why didn't you tell me?"

"I didn't think she'd actually do it, not even after she called me. Emily's the sort of person to get excited about scarves and wind resistance and lift ratios. I thought as soon as she got close to actual fighting, she'd come to her senses."

"Ah. But instead, she dove in. Kestrel is an appropriate name, it seems."

"Yes. Also, she promised me licensing on her new anti-grav foils. You'll want to update your suit around them. Perhaps a whole new design."

"I will?" asked the combat medic, tilting her head. "They're that good?"

"You won't need to be linked to me to get up to full speed anymore."

"Then I won't have them," she said, primly.

"Yes, you will - because I'm not always there. Also, if you have the new foils, I'll be able to fly with you, when I'm out of fuel."

"My dear," the Swiss woman smiled, "if we weren't already married, I'd say that sounded like a proposal."

"Habibti, if we weren't - it would be."

"It's not easy to explain," said Kestrel. Or, now, back down on the ground, Emily. But she responded to both, these days. "It's not like airplane flying. Not at all."

Lena bit on her lip as she listened. It didn't feel like her type of flying. No roar, no rush of engine noise, no leaping off the ground heading for mach 3. She'd tried one of the flight suits, once, with Emily remote-piloting, and it just didn't make sense to her. It felt - if anything - more like floating than flying, and she'd had more than enough floating in the Slipstream for an entire life.

"Ethereal." Fareeha picked up her cup, taking a sip from it, keeping it in her hands. "That's not a bad way to put it," she agreed. "It is in some ways kind of ethereal. And strangely arbitrary in how it handles. You either get it, or you do not."

She leaned back, breathing in the scent of her strong Arabic coffee. "Angela understands it. Lena does not, I don't think..."

"Got that right."

"Whereas Emily, here" - she pointed at Overwatch's newest flying agent - "does."

Widowmaker contemplated the description, and the technology. She had no interest in flying, and her chain handled every kind of up she might ever need - but... "Perhaps something that could... control one's rate of fall... might be useful? Or something to allow me to launch myself further up? Obviously, I have no fear of injury" - the structural enhancements Talon had made to her body had taken care of that - "but I could see certain advantages. A grapple is not a universal solution to problems of altitude."

"Yeh!" Lena grinned. "Like when we were tryin' to work out gettin' under that set of bridges in Germany. Remember that?"

"All too well." Fareeha responded first, shaking her head. "Being a tether point was not a highlight of my career."

"Désolée." Widowmaker shrugged. She could work with Fareeha - they had come to a sort of cordiality, within an Overwatch context - but neither one of them particularly enjoyed it.

"Hey, it got the job done," Emily insisted, and Widowmaker nodded as she sipped from her espresso. "I'll think on it, see what comes to mind."

"Regardless," Fareeha continued, picking up the previous thread of the conversation, "Ethereal or not, it's still effective, and I think Emily can be cleared for mission work in a few more weeks."

Emily beamed, entirely pleased with herself. "Perfect scores just good enough, then?"

"Flight tests are one thing. Tactical training is another. Milk runs first, until you have more field awareness."

"Still counts!" Kestrel said, proudly.

"It does," Fareeha agreed. "You're learning quickly."

"I think I've just about got the next-generation gravity blade worked out," Emily started to say before the four agents bounced a little into the air as Winston bounded over to their table, surprising them all. Emily shrieked, momentarily, but it didn't cover the actual surprise felt by Widowmaker, any more than her attempt to hide her reaction in a glare did.

"Hi there!" Winston said, smugly.

"You are a monster," Widowmaker replied, having barely avoided spilling her drink, as Lena giggled and giggled and giggled. "That would not have worked if the canteen were not so busy."

"But it did," he said, satisfaction clear in his voice. "And you're starting to let your guard down."

"That's part of the point, isn't it?"

Lena looked around the busy room as Winston and Widowmaker exchanged friendly barbs, taking it all in, realising exactly how busy Gibraltar had become. Overwatch wouldn't ever be the size it had been, of course - it didn't even want to be. But as negotiations over the PETRAS act picked up steam, more of the crew had started making their way back, and with almost sixty people on site at the Watchpoint - mostly desperately-needed support staff - the old base had become downright lively.

"Ree - I've got some news for Widowmaker, and a couple of questions. Do you mind...?"

"Not at all - I was finished anyway." Fareeha glanced over to the blue sniper, and nodded to her, once, before picking up her tray and leaving the table.

"The UN has made an offer," Winston said, as the flying agent walked away. He handed the sniper a PADD. "It's not a final disposition, but... I think it's a pretty good deal."

Widowmaker's eyes widened, as she grabbed the tablet. "What is it?"

Emily hopped behind Widowmaker, reading over her shoulder. It was in French, but she'd always been good at languages. "détaché travaillant avec la DGSE..."

She blinked, and read it again, before looking up at Winston.

"Well, that's creative," Lena said, skimming along as well. "Special forces detached duty, then?"

"That's what they're willing to offer," Winston said, nodding. "Attached to us, but officially DGSE. Most importantly, you'd be legal. You'd also be authorised to use deadly force in specific circumstances with Overwatch, particularly in dynamic situations where enemy fire has already been engaged."

"Unless," Widowmaker asked, pointedly, "DGSE call me in for something they want done. Then I would be theirs. Am I correct?"

She did not think much of DGSE's assassins. "Pathetic," she'd said, once, when asked.

"No," Winston stressed, as she raised an eyebrow in surprise. "They asked for that first, and we pushed back - as I think they expected." He took off his glasses, cleaning them a bit as she continued down the file. "I'm fairly pleased with our compromise. Keep reading."

"...will not be deployed" - she bristled a little at the word, even though it was completely correct - "for assassination missions except for operations against Talon, where..." She looked up. "According to this, DGSE would use me only..."

"Against high-level Talon, explicitly as part of Overwatch operations - and in that context, you'd have a free hand. That's what they actually want."

She blinked. "They want me to take apart Talon?"

"They want us to."

"Good." Widowmaker narrowed her eyes, her mind permuting possibilities, and reasons. "They did something new, did they not? Talon. Something... worse than what they did to Amélie."

Winston nodded. "The French haven't said that, but," he grimaced, "it doesn't take a lot of reading between the lines to think so."

"Bloody demons," Lena muttered, not far under her breath.

"Of course they did." Emily shook her head in disgust.

The Widowmaker leaned back against her chair, hiding behind impassive coolness. "And so, they want me to tear Talon into tiny and preferably dead pieces in response. Yes?"

"We're... Overwatch is less interested specifically in the dead part, even if there are times when it's unavoidable." He bobbed his head back and forth a little. "I prefer to hand people over for trial. But basically, yes. It's not official yet, but unless something changes dramatically, we're going to get official dispensation again from the UN, specifically so we can go after Talon."

Widowmaker nodded, sharply. once, pushing the PADD back across the table. "Then tell them the terms are acceptable to me. I will do my service with Overwatch, and the DGSE if necessary, against my creators - for as long as Overwatch is permitted to operate, and no longer." She paused for a moment. "...add that my acceptance is conditional, pending review of final language."

"But if nothing changes?"

"Then we have, I believe you say, a deal."

"Good," Winston said, picking up the PADD and typing in a paraphrase of her response, before turning the screen back to the sniper. "Thumbprint here, to verify?"

Widowmaker hesitated, thinking it through one last time, before confirming.

Winston grinned, as the message went out. "I think we've just about cracked this. We could be legal again in a month."

"Y'think?" Lena asked, perking up. "That'd be great!"

"I do."

"I wouldn't mind not having to worry about my security clearances anymore," Emily admitted, as the PADD chirped again, and Winston read something on the screen. "I've been nervous about losing work."

"Ha!" Winston exclaimed.

"What, luv?"

Winston took in a big breath, then huffed it back out. "Okay! While it's still considered provisional..." he said, his smile growing larger, "now that you have provisionally accepted that... I have now received approval to do hand you this."

He pulled out a brand new EU passport from his pocket, and handed it to the Widowmaker.

Widowmaker stared for a moment, and then another, and then carefully took the small booklet from Winston's hand, handling it as though it were the thinnest glass, as if it would shatter if handled too roughly. She turned backwards through the pages, slowly, checking each one, confirming each was what it seemed to be, until she reached the front, with her name. Her name.

The name she had chosen.

"I..." she breathed, "...exist. Officially, I mean. I am... French. I..." She blinked, confused by the emotions whirling around inside her. "I did not think I would care." A small huff of a laugh. "But... apparently, I do."

"I felt the same way when I got my documentation," Winston confided.

The sniper nodded, as Lena walked around behind her, and gave her a hug. "It's a pretty good photo, luv," she said, as Emily got up to help.

"It's nice, isn't it?" Winston said, as the Widowmaker nodded. "When other people decide you're..."

Winston, who had - like her - once been an asset, thought about it for a moment.

"...when they finally admit that you're a person. That you're real."

Windowmaker reached across the table, suddenly, grabbing Winston's hand, tears suddenly in her eyes - a rarity, still, for her, but no longer unknown.

Winston, understanding, gently squeezed her hand.

"Welcome to Gibraltar... Minjonet Guillard."

"So she's legal now?" Angela asked, putting down the diagnostics PADD she'd been studying as she relaxed on the couch at home.

Fareeha nodded, sitting down beside her wife. "Scoot over," she said, really meaning "turn around and put your head in my lap," and Angela did exactly that.

"Yes," Fareeha answered, once they'd both settled in.

She started massaging Angela's scalp.

"Oh, that feels good."

"I know."

They lay together, wordless and relaxed, for a few minutes.

"A pardon, too?" Angela asked, eventually, eyes half-closed.

"Mmm? Oh," Fareeha said, reminded of the questions. "Yes. It's conditional, in exchange for her list of Talon embedded agents, agreement to work with Overwatch and the DGSE against Talon, and... general good behaviour."

"Good behaviour."

"Yes. She's going to have to walk a very narrow line for a while, but I think she'll do it."

"Mmm." Angela said. "And how do you feel about that?"

Fareeha thought for a moment, and then another. "I can live with it."

"Can you?" Angela rolled over and looked up at her handsome wife, who - she felt - sometimes kept too much inside, even for them.

"She's basically taking Gérard Lacroix's old job," Fareeha breezed. "I can appreciate the irony in that."

Angela swatted at Ree. "Be serious. This hasn't been easy for either of us."

"No, it hasn't," Fareeha agreed, looking down at her wife again. "But if it means we're going to gear up to take Talon apart? Tear them completely down and burn the remains for all they have done? Then yes. I promise you. I can live with it. I will manage just fine."

She allowed herself a little bit of a chuckle.

"I might even learn to enjoy it."

This is the seventh story of the It's Not Easy To Explain, She Said collection of short stories. It takes place about six months after the previous ("It's not easy to explain how she felt," said the Widowmaker, about Amélie Lacroix), and about a year and a half before the third story ("It's really not easy to explain," said Emily Oxton).

All of Widowmaker's thoughts are translated from the French.

I wanted to end a very bad year on a very happy story, so - here we are. May 2018 be better. [AO3 link]

Emily worked outside, in the sun, laptop on hand, references up on PADDs, watching her wife and her wife's girlfriend dance, from afar, on the Overwatch practice range. They called it battling - or more correctly, battle training - but one careful glance put the lie to that. They danced, and anyone looking - really looking - could tell it.

They're awfully good together, she thought, a little bit disgruntled, a little bit envious, a little bit uncertain about how she felt. She'd got what she'd joked she'd be fine with, six months before, and really, she was fine with it - glad, even, to have the world's best sniper on her wife's side, rather than as an enemy.

But she couldn't lie to herself. She felt a bit left out. Lena tried, and it helped - they were all still trying, even Widowmaker, in her own way, and it helped - but all that help made it no less true, just the same.

If only she wasn't so damned remote all the time, even when she's trying not to be. What's it take to get through to you, woman?

The two Overwatch agents mopped up the last of the target robots - cleanly and efficiently as always - and Emily waved as they both made their way back up to the starting platform for another run.

"That seemed to go well," she said, making the effort, as Widowmaker landed not two metres in front of her.

The former assassin shrugged noncommittally. "It was too easy." Her frustration - and some boredom - surfaced into her voice. "The robots..." - she frowned, shaking her head a little - "they are not a worthwhile challenge. I have requested substantial upgrades." She cycled her rifle, cleaning the barrel, and reloading. "At very least, they should return fire."

She paused, and hummed, a little. "I am surprised you are interested."

"Of course I'm interested."

"Why?"

"It's important to Lena, and also, to you. And so, I'm interested."

The spider puzzled at that, for a little bit, wondering why, as Tracer teleported up next to the aeronautics engineer, kissing the top of her head. "How's the design rev goin', luv?"

"Oh, it's all fine - this is just iterative, for the most part." She looked up and kissed Lena back. "Regulations compliance updates, really. I'm just finishing up."

Lena looked over to Widowmaker, and back to Emily. "We've got another couple of runs - don't think you have to wait for us, if y'don't want to."

Emily smiled. "Of course I want to. We've got dinner in town after, remember? All three of us." Another date night. The last one ended up with Emily and Widowmaker arguing at each other for no particular reason, about everything and about nothing, two slightly-wary cats picked up together and made to go HUGGY HUGGY HUGGY. They'd talked about it, after, and hopefully, tonight would go better.

"You sure? Y'don't have to. We'll catch you up, if you want t'go on ahead."

"I think it's..." She looked over to the blue woman. "I think it's important to know your work."

Widowmaker puzzled at that, as well, just a little bit. She didn't know anything about aeronautics, and did not really care to. But she thought on what her lover's wife said, tasting it, almost, trying it against what she had of an emotional range, and found that it resonated, somehow. Something is there, she thought. Something I think I would like.

"Besides - it's a lovely day, both my girls are out in it, I'm almost done with work and I've got a side project I want to play with. What else could I need?"

"Brilliant," replied her wife, beaming, as the warning timer sounded and she moved back to start position. She turned to the former Talon assassin. "This one has me starting first - I get 30 seconds head start."

The blue spider nodded affirmation to Tracer, and then blinked, as the confusion of emotions in her head fell into place. She looked at Emily, first mostly with one eye, then mostly with the other, saying, "You are..." She is trying to... empathise? with me? Not just to be friendly, but to... empathise, and her expression relaxed, opening up, just a little, and she nodded, slowly, her eyes a little more open, her voice softened, ever so slightly. "I understand."

Lena took it to mean the exercise, but Emily caught the expression, and the tone, and tried to figure out exactly what it meant, as Widowmaker brought up her rifle, pre-evaluating the new range configuration through her sight, so calm, so cool, so much the same as last time, but something about her ever so slightly different, ever so slightly more present to her, ever so slightly more... real...

Emily started, looked closely, and looked again, her head tilted, just a little, and her breath caught in her throat. She's... it's like she's... almost... glowing, in the sunlight.

She shook her head as the starter buzzer sounded and Tracer blinked ahead, then looked back down to the design rev on her screen, and then back up to the sniper, and a layer peeled back, almost, of reality, and sunlight or no, it didn't make any sense - they'd even been sharing a bed, occasionally, for a while, and it had been comfortable enough, but she didn't really feel anything, even if the Frenchwoman was a quick student of, of, of, and then Emily couldn't think at all, she could only see, see the spider, the sniper, her wife's lover, the woman, just standing there, and yet glowing, eclipsing the entire world, and everything else, everything, everything else, even Emily's breath, fell away to nothing.

My god, she's beautiful, she realised, the thought electric across her skin. How have I never... is this... is this what Lena sees, looking at her? She dropped her stylus, as time slowed to a stop. Is this... how does she do anything, if this is what she sees?

"Twenty five seconds," said the counter.

Widowmaker lowered her rifle, and looked to her left, seeing Emily's eyes, locked on to her, her mouth, slightly open, and she raised an eyebrow and smiled, just a little.

"How..." Emily whispered, "...have I never seen you like this, before?"

"Quoi?" asked the spider, friendly, but bemused.

"This is mad, but... no, it's not, but..." She put her face in her hands for just a moment, and looked up again, past them. "I've... never really seen you this way, before. You're always gorgeous, but... when your rifle is up..."

"Twenty seconds," said the counter.

"...you're stunning."

Something unabashedly lethal deep inside Widowmaker rose and preened, and the sniper smiled, broadly, despite herself. "That... I should be conflicted, in some ways, about that, but mostly, I feel..." She thought, looking around for the word, an emotion she did not often experience, "...proud? Honoured? Perhaps both. That you see me for what I am, and are not afraid." This is a strange combination of emotions. I will have to process them carefully, she thought. But, softly, she simply said, "Thank you."

"Fifteen seconds," said the counter.

"But, but, but, it's like, it's like..." Emily knew the spider sometimes needed brutal directness to understand. Normally, that meant discussion of negative emotions, but this time... "It's like you're... the only thing in the world. Is this how she sees you?"

"I have no way of knowing," Widowmaker answered quietly, fascinated. "She has not said so, not in those words... but, of course, the first several times, she mostly saw me down the barrel of my rifle. So, perhaps, she does."

"Ten seconds," said the counter.

"May I... touch you?"

The spider's head tilted, a little unsteady, a little uncertain. "Yes. But... now it is different. Why is it now different?"

"Because... I don't know. Because I don't know." She set aside the laptop and stood, stepping over to the woman she'd seen and held so many times before, but never like this. "May I?"

"Yes."

"Five seconds," said the counter.

She reached across, stepped close, and touched the blue woman's chin, cupping it in her right hand, and looked into those bright gold eyes as the spider unepectedly leaned forward, and kissed her, gently, as the start timer sounded, and as she raised her rifle towards the range, and shot the first two target robots, disabling both with one shot, without even looking.

Emily looked in the direction of her fire, a little stunned.

"Perfect," they both said, in unison.

Widowmaker's head jerked back to Emily, and Emily's gaze flashed back to Widowmaker, just in time to see the assassin's wide-eyed astonishment. "Perhaps... we have more in common than I once thought."

"I'd like that." It felt like a prayer.

The sniper smiled wickedly, eyes bright. "So would I." She raised her rifle again, and fired, taking out the next three targets in rapid succession, before launching herself into the arena with her chain, leaving the engineer behind.

Emily watched her fly out over the range, thinking, How does she do that? as the sniper took out two more targets from midair. It frightened her, more than a little, but excited her, more than a little, too.

She sat back down at her laptop, still watching her wife and her wife's lover, teleporting and chaining around, closed the main project, and opened another - a design for a new type of antigrav airfoils, all her own.

Wow, she thought, dazed, gaze flipping between the airfoils and the range. ...I think we finally did it... She shivered, breath quick. And, she laughed, quietly, a little out of control but she didn't care, I think... I may've just fallen in love with a spider.

[AO3 link]

D.va > LENA WHAT THE HELL?! Σ(ﾟДﾟ；≡；ﾟдﾟ)
D.va > LENA
D.va > LENA WHAT IS GOING ON TALKT O ME щ（ﾟДﾟщ）
D.va > LENA
D.va > LENA
D.va > LENA DO NOT MAKE ME (ง'̀-‘́)ง YOU
D.va > LENA
D.va > LENA
D.va > LENA
D.va > LENA TALK TO MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
D.va > LENA
D.va > LENA LENA
D.va > LENA LENA LENA LENAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Tracer looked at the chat log - hundreds of lines of it, all more or less the same - from their Yukon safehouse, a room behind a little supplies store on the side of the Dempster Highway in the Yukon tundra, halfway between Dawson and nowhere. 23 hours a day of sunlight would make her even more hyperactive than usual, but it still paled before the unlimited energy force which was Hana Song.

She checked the time. Well, it'll depend on where she is right now, I suppose... And then the text scrolled again, on its own.

D.VA > LENAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA TALK TO MEEEEEEEE
Tracer > Hey, Deeves.
D.va > LENA LENA LENA LE
D.va > LENA!!!1
Tracer > Hiya
D.va > ARE YOU OK? DOES /╲/\╭ºoꍘoº╮/\╱\ HAVE YOU?! ARE! U! OK!
Tracer> I'm fine. Kestrel's fine. Widowmaker is... as fine as she ever is.
D.va > WHAT THE HELL?! DID U RLY RIP THE WALLS OFF OF MEDBAY?

Lena laughed, quietly. "Hey, Em, you impressed Hana!"

Emily leaned over and looked at Lena's screen. "...you're on chat? They didn't block your account?"

"This is Hana's personal server. She gave me a login there for when she's in Korea. Thought I'd check it, since Winston hasn't answered any of my messages." She'd hoped he would. He might've voted for deprogramming, but - like Tracer and Kestrel - he'd also argued that Widowmaker should at least have a voice in it.

"They've closed ranks, at least 'till they see what happens. I was afraid of that." Emily put her hand on Lena's shoulder, gently. "I'm sorry. But I still think he'll come 'round eventually."

"I gotta hope so."

Tracer > Nah
D.va > ???!
Tracer > That was Kestrel.
D.va > (╬ಠ益ಠ) WHY?!
Tracer > Because we made a promise and we meant it. For better or for worse.
D.va > A promise? To whom?
Tracer > Widowmaker. Don't you know about this?
D.va > /╲/\╭ºoꍘoº╮/\╱\ KIDNAPPED YOU?!

Widowmaker saw Lena's sudden smile, and looked over onto her screen. "How does she type those character graphics so quickly? I... like that one."

"She doesn't," replied the teleporter. "At least, I don't think she does. She keeps 'em all in big text files, hundreds of 'em."

Tracer > No. We... you don't know about this at all, do you.
D.va > NO I DON'T BUT YOU BETTER TELL ME RIGHT NOW
Tracer > Kestrel and I ... we promised Widowmaker, a couple of months ago, in London, if she wanted to get away from Talon, we'd help her.
D.va > ...OKAY
Tracer > Part of that was, nobody's changing her again, not against her will. That includes Overwatch. We swore that wouldn't happen. Capturing her, that's one thing, doing to her what Talon did to Amélie, that's another. 'Cause she's a person, too, even if the doc don't think so.
D.va > Okay...
Tracer > D'ya see what I'm saying? We swore we wouldn't do to her what Talon did to Amélie... or let anybody else do it either.
D.va > ...okay...
Tracer > And Angie... didn't agree.
D.va > ...oh
Tracer > She said Widowmaker wasn't really a person, couldn't really consent or not consent, that the only way t'fix that was "reversing her conditioning," and so it wasn't the same thing.
D.va > ...
Tracer > Like she was on some kind of hallucinogen or drunk or something like that
D.va > ᕙ(⇀‸↼#)ᕗ
Tracer > but I'll be snookered if I can see a difference
D.va > ...
Tracer > since either way the person we made a promise wouldn't exist anymore once she was done.
D.va > （・Ａ・）
Tracer > so we stopped it. We kept our promise.
Tracer > sorry about the mess.
D.va > ...
Tracer > It was kinda spur-of-the-moment.
D.va > ...
Tracer > We kinda figured, we talk Widowmaker out of Talon, we might have to quit Overwatch
Tracer > We didn't really think we'd have to break her out. Not really.
Tracer > But ... we did what we had to. I don't regret it.
D.va > ...
D.va > So... you're saying Angela was going to ... undo spiderfication ... and turn her back into Amélie?
Tracer > Try to, anywya.
Tracer > anyway
D.va > But Widowmaker didn't agree to it.
Tracer > If you were her... would you?
D.va > ...
D.va > ...
D.va > ...no
Tracer > So there y'are.
Tracer > That's why.
D.va > ...
D.va > (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻
D.va > WIDOWMAKER IS A MONSTER BUT tHAT's STILL NOT OKAY
Tracer > Not even sure she's a monster
Tracer > A killer, sure, that's all she's ever known
Tracer > But you and me, we're both military, we both have death counts
D.va > ...
D.va > it's different
Tracer > it is
Tracer > but i can fight in a war and still oppose the death penalty
Tracer > cause that's different too
D.va > ...
D.va > ...but you're okay.
Tracer > Yeh.
D.va > Kestrel's okay.
Tracer > Yeh.
D.va > Talon doesn't have you.
Tracer > Heh - no. Talon's after us too.
Tracer > but they don't know where we are
Tracer > and they're mostly after Widowmaker anyway, they've always been after us
Tracer > what's one more kill-on-sight order between friends?
D.va > ...they want to kill the spider now?
Tracer > Yep.
Tracer > Don't trust her anymore.
Tracer > If our intel's good, it came down from the top.
D.va > ...
D.va > Where are you?

The three of them had left the Oregon desert safehouse after a round of showers, the chance to enjoy some food outside of a moving vehicle, and a day of proper sleep. Widowmaker had even complimented their choice of mattresses, proving again that the spider had some interest in creature comforts.

There'd been no Interpol notice - or anything similar - about any of them yet, the key word being "yet." Nothing on Lena "Tracer" Oxton, or Emily "Kestrel" Oxton, or even anything new about Amélie "Widowmaker" Lacroix, or any combination thereof. Emily's current consulting contract with BAE hadn't even been voided; she still had access to their network. But the plan was to keep moving anyway, until they felt a little more comfortable about what Lena hoped, desperately, was an olive branch from their old team.

Tracer > Sorry, luv.
D.va > ...
D.va > ...I gotta think.
D.va > You're not in ROK. You close?
Tracer > Sorry, again, luv.
D.va > meet me in Incheon?
Tracer > ...
Tracer > ...maybe. In a week. If things stay settled down.
Tracer > Talking of, we gotta go.
D.va > okay
D.va > stay in tuch
D.va > touch
D.va > I wanna see you in person. I need to know you're you. I need to be sure. Incheon. Next week. You and Kestrel. Alone. Noooooooooooo spiders.
Tracer > If we can. I'll check in... when I check in.
D.va > k. let me know.
Tracer > Bye

Lena dropped her way back through several anonymous VPNs and re-routers, and shut down the encrypted chat client. Incheon, she thought. Port city, easy to get to... it could work.

"Hey, Kes, Wids - y'want t'go out for Korean next week?"

Widowmaker looked across the table where she had just been shutting down her own communications array, reaching out to various specialised, no-questions-asked chemical synthesis specialists. "...you like Korean food?"

"I can take it or leave it, luv. But Hana Song sure does."

Kestrel looked over at her wife with a curious look. "...oh, really?"

Tracer shrugged at her wife. "Maybe."

"Brilliant. We could use some allies. And while you've been doing that - I've got your old contacts alerted that we're back in business, as freelancers. We'll need the money."

Widowmaker threw Kestrel a look of caution. "You aren't telling them about my particular skillset, I presume."

"Course not," she said, taking the blue woman's hand and squeezing it. "Not 'till you want in. Until then - well. I think of you as our ace in the hole."

The blue assassin wasn't entirely sure what to think of that, but she did think she found it satisfactory, and, possibly, just the tiniest bit pleasing.

"That," she said, with the hint of a spidery smile...

"...will do, for now."

Winston looked up from his console, where he had been re-reading Lena's messages, wanting so much to reply, but holding off until they knew where Tracer and Kestrel might be headed. The locations of several Talon weapons caches had been welcome, and gave some hints, but could just as easily be bait, and they couldn't take the wrong kinds of chances.

"Thank you, Athena. Throw it down here?"

It wasn't much, and it wasn't personal - but it was familiar. Lena Oxton had listed herself as available again for private security contracting work, under her old company name. Same terms as before he'd initiated the Overwatch recall, but higher rates, and the added services of an experienced flying operative - battlesuit included.

He carefully checked over each version of the notice Athena had found. None mentioned sniper capabilities, and all carried the same sets of legality and indemnification conditions as before. She'd always played the game well above-board - and, at least in these listings, that had not changed.

I ... I pray this is real, he thought, allowing himself a hint of relief. If it is, they won't be in Talon uniforms the next time we see them. An image, a vision, flashed into his mind, of Lena Oxton, golden-eyed, blue-skinned, half-grin a sneer, leaning against her wife, Emily, silver-eyed, pale violet skin and purple and violet hair, tall, cold, and cruel.

He shuddered, and put it out of his mind - it won't happen - as he forwarded Athena's findings to the rest of Overwatch. We won't let it.

[Thoughts in «chevron quotes» are translated from the Spanish, if Sombra's, or French, if Widowmaker's.]

[AO3 link]

Sombra waited with her locator beacon, watching, scanning the pre-dawn dark skies in the mountains on the outskirts of Castillo. Cached nearby, hidden, the critical combinations of medications needed to keep Widowmaker healthy, and instructions on how to synthesise more. She just wished they'd thought to kidnap a chemist on the way out.

«Of course», she thought, «that assumes they actually managed to get her out in one piece...»

Finally, she spotted a glint of light - a civilian cargo ship bearing her direction low and slow, slotted in between the mountains. «About time.» She waved, unnecessarily, as the craft approached and landed on the only flat spot on the entire side of the mountain, five metres further below. She scrambled down to meet it, as its engines wound down.

"Hola, idiots," she called out, with a cheerfulness she didn't yet entirely feel. "Chica, you in there?"

The crew door opened, and Widowmaker stood in it, alone, in her usual sniper kit, but without her rifle. "I am here."

"And the twins?"

"Behind me. We decided it good for you to see me, first. I am... I believe I am unmodified. Do you have my supplies?"

«Straight to the chase», thought the hacker. «That's a good sign.»

"Yeah, chica, I do - but I gotta be sure, first." She threw the EMP trigger, grounding the ship's electronics, and trained her machine gun at the door. "Tracer, Kestrel - get in sight. Don't try to take off, you're on a buried pressure plate loaded with explosives which I'll disarm as soon as I'm satisfied. Chica, I'm not taking you far, but I want you far enough away from them to know you're not bein' coerced."

"Sombra, you absolute knob cobbler, I'm gonna..." Tracer bolted towards the door at a full run, and Kestrel cursed at her reduced mobility but made her best attempt at the same. Widowmaker stopped them both at the opening, saying, "No. No. Do not. I understand what she wants."

"EMPs don't last forever - you try to betray us," shouted Kestrel, "I will launch you so far into the ground you will never dig your way out!"

"Kestrel, no," said the assassin. "You both know full well I am more than capable of handling myself. I will go to her."

The flying agent all but snarled at the hacker, who smirked from behind the sights of her submachine gun. "Back away from her, both of you, got it? I've been very nice so far, I'd hate to have to be rude."

The Widowmaker chuckled mirthlessly. "You have not changed. Very well. I will follow." She turned to her rescuers. "Tracer, Kestrel, wait here - I will remain in sight at all times, and I will return. I swear it." She looked back up at Sombra. "That is non-negotiable."

"Fine by me, chica. Get over here. You two - stay behind the doorway. No further out."

Widowmaker stepped forward, and threw her chain grapple against the exposed rock beside Sombra, winching herself higher up the hill. "Stand right there," the hacker said, before waving a scanner wand around the assassin's body. "Huh. Looks like you got all the trackers. Even the passive one in your back tattoo." She examined the little red hourglass on the spider's back. "No sign of a scar. Nice work."

"Overwatch was thorough," replied the spider, "...and, apparently, careful."

Sombra gestured left, and the two women hiked slowly further up from there, side by side, following a trail clearly visible from the landing pad, staying in sight as promised.

"Okay, chica - now, for real... how you doin'?" She kept one eye on the ship.

"I am... I believe I am whole. Did Vialli really order my execution?"

"'Fraid so."

"For one failure? For one capture? " She snorted. "Fool."

Sombra shook her head. "No. For poking too hard at your conditioning. For figuring out how to limit recon."

The Widowmaker spun around, facing the purple-haired woman directly. "What?!"

The hacker nodded. "They finally put all the little pieces together. You've been declared unreclaimable - and to be retired." She gave her taller friend a sympathetic look. "You were supposed to die in Egypt, chica, not get captured. And," she let out a single laugh, "you're welcome."

"...what did you do?" she said, returning to the smaller woman's side, resuming the slow walk.

"Does it matter? You're alive."

"Alive, and in the de facto custody of two..." She shook her head. "...annoyances."

"Annoyances you haven't killed yet, I noticed."

Widowmaker glared at the hacker. "Do not presume to know my thoughts."

"Don't give me that crap, hon. I know your thoughts better than anybody outside the lab that made you. You wanted away, you'd be away." She glanced down towards the water, and the breeze coming from it. "Thought you even were, for a minute, when you showed up in the doorway alone. Thought maybe you'd killed 'em, dumped their bodies in the Atlantic."

The blue woman shook a little, and closed her eyes for just a moment, as though bracing herself. "I... we have had... a truce."

"Seems to me you have a lot more than that."

«Do not make me admit it», thought the blue assassin, gaze tilted down.

"You're feeling something, aren't you? C'mon, chica, you know you can talk to me..."

"Isn't their survival confession enough?" she said, in a quiet voice.

"No," she said, almost kindly. "But that question, on the other hand... it kind of is."

"Thank you."

The hacker kicked a rock on the trail, forward, along the path. "You'd decided, hadn't you."

"Yes."

"How much longer were you going to wait?"

"Another week."

"So really, you're just leaving a little early."

"Yes. But in a way that has... cost them both, dearly. I am... I find myself... disappointed, by that."

Something in the assassin's voice twigged in Sombra's mind. Disappointment, she knew the Widow could feel that, and did - at failed missions, at botched raids, at missed kills. But at someone else's loss? That was new.

"Any loose ends you want me to tie up?"

"No. I was ready. The Prague assignment would've merely been convenient."

"Got your equipment?"

"We raided two caches on the way here. We will raid more, after leaving."

"Any idea where you're going after that?"

"Their plan was inadequate. I have improved it."

"Do you know my personal blind drops, just in case?"

"A few."

"Good. Well, that covers just about everything... and here we are," said the hacker, looking down at a large rock next to the trail.

"This is a rock."

"C'mon, chica." She brought up her control system, cleared the lock, and flipped the cover over with her toe. "You know better."

"Of course - I just wanted to give you your reveal. I'd hoped it would be more dramatic." She looked down at the black case, the one with her own sign on it, the one with the Widowmaker logo. "How much?"

"A favour, that's all. Let's stay friends."

"I meant supply, but under the circumstances, the price is acceptable."

"Oh - I cleaned out the production lab, Made it look like a drug heist, a lot of it will appear on the black market, courtesy my old friends in Los Muertos. With proper care, you've got a year. But even better..." She flipped open the black case. "Separates. You've probably only seen the combined serum." She pointed to one set of vials, labelled in blue. "The components to keep your blood chemistry together, maintain your... unique... metabolic balance." She pointed to another set, in red. "The components to keep you conditioned - and compliant. Combine 'em one to one... or don't. Your call."

"...or don't..." said the Widowmaker, considering the implications. "...my call." She struggled, looking for the right word and not entirely finding it, "I feel a strange... confidence, in Kestrel."

"Confidence?"

"Yes. A bit like towards my handlers, originally, but different. Could I have been modified, without my knowledge?"

Sombra thought about that, and the disappointment, weighing them carefully before answering. "I don't think you'd be asking that question if you were. Could be your standard conditioning's trying to apply itself to new people."

"Can that happen?"

Sombra didn't know biowork, but she knew software, and she juggled what she understood of the Widowmaker protocol from that perspective. "Yeah, maybe, particularly if your old attachments were... violated... badly enough. A death warrant probably counts."

Widowmaker hummed, considering, uncertain, as Sombra closed the case. "Anyway, prep, care guide, synthesis instructions for more, it's all in there." She stood, picking up the case, and handed it to her friend. "And it's all yours."

"You realise," the assassin said, as she took the package, "I do not have to be the only one to leave, right now."

"Ah, you do care!" grinned the Mexican woman. "I can leave whenever I want, I'm just a contractor. But I'm not done with Talon, not yet - Akande should be breaking out of prison, soon, and if that happens, I'll learn all kinds of new secrets."

The assassin nodded. "Consider it, nonetheless."

The hacker in purple smirked. "Why d'ya think this costs you a favour?"

Widowmaker snorted. "You always want more friends, big mouth. Why should I be different?"

"You know me so well!" chirped Sombra, pleased. "But this time, I actually do have something specific planned. For later."

The assassin nodded, once, looking at the case, and the rising light around her. "The sun will be up soon."

"Make sure to tell your gullible gal pals I was lying about the explosives. And good luck, chica... hard times are coming. Don't go soft on me. Or them." Then the hacker vanished, translocating away.

"That is always so disconcerting," said the assassin, to no one at all. She looked down the steep climb, back to Tracer and Kestrel looking up, out through the doorway. As she made her way down the trail, she found herself humming a tune she knew well, and yet could not name.

But she was pretty sure it had something to do with swans.

Lena "Tracer" Oxton gave up on Widowmaker, but somewhere underneath it all knew that wasn't the right thing to do - so much so that she and her wife Emily "Kestrel" Oxton (from it is not easy to explain, she said) punched a hole across spacetime to find a universe where things had, in the end, worked out - coming across Lena "Venom" Oxton and Amélie "Widowmaker" Lacrox of Talon, from on overcoming the fear of spiders.

But really, all you need to know is that Lena and Emily are both with Overwatch, and are taking one more shot at pulling Widowmaker out of Talon's clutches. And this is probably the most current-canon Widowmaker I've written.

This is the third time I've visited this Lena and this Emily so apparently it has to be a series now. Thanks, brain. [AO3 link]

And just like that, she was down.

Widowmaker fell, panting, crouched, trapped between air conditioners and rooftop access, Kestrel overhead, Tracer in front, rifle damaged but regenerating, chain broken but rebuilding, and entirely out of venom mines.

Nowhere to go. 45 seconds, she thought, glancing up, glancing ahead. 45 seconds to replenished ammo, she thought, watching Tracer, with her gold eyes burning. 45 seconds. They can't take me in, not in 45 seconds.

"Hey, love," said the smaller Overwatch agent in front of her, the annoying one, the one who kept getting under her skin, no matter what she did, no matter how infuriating she became. "Truce?"

...what? thought the spider, and she blinked.

Tracer lowered her pistols, well aware that the Talon assassin could still punch like a prizefighter. "Truce? Three minutes. I know you've got another 40 seconds or so 'till you have rounds again, I'm askin' for three minutes' time. Truce?"

Widow glanced up towards the flying agent, who saw her look, and in response, nodded back down to the assassin. "Truce," Kestrel said. "Three minutes."

I... what? Truce? What? They have me, and... what have I got to lose? the assassin decided quickly, not lowering her weapon. "Why? So you can take me in to be undone, cherie? I think not."

She spoke! thought Tracer, her already-rapid heart jumping just a little bit more. She spoke. "No! Not that, love," she exclaimed. "It's so I can apologise. Apologise proper, and all that. I'm sorry. I just want to say why."

Widowmaker... hesitated. Surprised, not in the combat way, but in the cognitive dissonance way, and she shook her head and failed to clear it, stuck on the idea of being apologised to, and overrode her reaction, sure she must've heard wrong, and tried again. "Three minutes, so your friends can close in, and..."

"I promise, no, that's not what we're doin'." Tracer pulled her earbud and thumbed her comm. "McCree, Tracer here. No sign of Widowmaker. Sweeping north for further recon." She received a brief "I hear ya" from McCree, and Widowmaker could hear it too, just, from the tiny exposed speaker.

Thirty seconds to bullets. Thirty seconds to possible escape. Or, three minutes to... what? She narrowed her eyes, but lowered her weapon. "Truce." she said. "Three minutes."

"I'm sorry," said Tracer, again. "I've been doin' everything wrong for three years and I am so sorry."

Widowmaker felt confusion, and again, not the uncertainty of battle, but an unfamiliar emotional reaction she did not want to admit she felt. "Pour quoi? We fight, it is what we are for. And you have hardly ever managed to hurt me."

"I think I have, though," replied the teleporter, earnestness clear in her voice. "Emotionally. Not on purpose, I swear. I talked to some..." - she nodded her head back and forth - "...can't say friends, can't say enemies, it's complicated, they're kind of Talon, they're kind of not... 'bout a month ago, and they set me straight about you. And about what I've been doin' wrong."

Mystifying, thought the assassin, but she mimed a bemused look. "Are you talking about the hacker? Are you and the Mexican woman talking about me? My controllers will be interested to know that."

"No," the Englishwoman shook her head. "Not Sombra. It's... look, it's nobody in your Talon. It's complicated and three minutes ain't long enough. But that's not important! What's important is I got shook up, but good. An' I realised I've been tryin' to get to Amélie, and trying to tell her we'd get her back, and I've been an bloomin' idiot because I've not been tryin' to talk to you."

Widowmaker snorted - this is nonsense, she thought, but something scratched at her, something in her head saying this is important - and flipped her rifle onto her shoulder. "I seem to remember a large number of rather one-sided conversations, myself. Even more, including the ones spoken only with bullets."

"Not what I mean. I've been..." she grimaced.C'mon, Lena, she thought, you've been practicing this, don't let's throw a spanner in these works. "You're real. I finally get it. You're a person, not some ... construct. And I've been promising we'd change you into somebody else, just like Talon did to Amélie, and that's wrong, and I'm sorry, and it's gonna stop, starting now."

Widowmaker tilted her head, dismayed, as she picked through what she was hearing. Is... that... why...? she thought, but did not know what to say.

"I've seen you, you talk about how emotions are my weakness, and you say you don't have any, but you do, it's obvious, even if you don't like it, and I've been takin' that as Amélie peekin' out, but it's not, it's you, it's just you, and I'm sorry for... for everything."

"What..." the assassin managed, feeling strangely light, strangely separate from her place on the rooftop, surrounded by her enemies. "...what is the point of this?"

"She'd given up on you," came Kestrel's voice, from above. Two minutes, she thought. "But I hadn't."

"...you?" the assassin looked up. "I do not even know you. You are not a priority target."

"I know," said the flying agent. "But my wife's into you, if it isn't obvious, and - cards on the table - I kinda am too. Giving up made her all depressed, so... here we are."

"Kestrel!" shouted Tracer. "C'mon, I'm not on the pull, that's not why..."

"It is so," retorted Kestrel, "underneath everything."

"...it is so, isn't it?" The Widowmaker smirked, grasping at a little more control of a decidedly out of control situation. "You are trying to, you say, chat me up? Pathetic. We are enemies, and that is all, and you are a fool to think otherwise."

"Oh no," said the teleporter, "Don't pretend this don't go both ways."

"It does not," sneered the assassin. "I am not burdened with such trivialities."

"Oh yeah?" asked Tracer.

"Yes," said Widowmaker.

"If that's true - you've had bullets again for 45 seconds. I don't even got my pistols out, and here I am, all not shot up. Why not?"

What?! thought the assassin, knowing her opponent was right. She hadn't even lost track of time, she just hadn't acted, and she could've. She should've. She grasped for a reason, and settled on, "...we have a truce."

"Okay, maybe. This time. But why ain't I dead? You fought anybody else who lived this long?"

"No," admitted Talon's most effective killer. "But it is not for lack of trying."

"Don't underestimate yourself, love. You've had your chances, I'm number one on Talon's hit list, and you ain't even been takin' the shots, even though I've been promising to take your mind apart and not even knowin' I was doin' it. It's more than I deserve. Thanks, for that."

Widowmaker raised her rifle, Tracer in her sight. "Should I fix it, then? Right now?"

Kestrel froze, gravity blade ready. But Tracer did not raise her pistols, or grin, or dodge, or dance. She held her ground, being very still. "Y'could, y'know. G'wan. I'm right here."

Widowmaker stood, looking through the site, the shot unmissable, time counting away. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. And, again, confusedly, she lowered her rifle. She couldn't even say why, other than it did not seem... right, to shoot. "70 seconds," she said, softly, almost distractedly, her focus disturbed, disrupted. What is wrong with me?

"Look," said Tracer, "I'm not gonna try to bring you in, not now, maybe not even later. I'll stop ya if I see ya at work, but... c'mon. Y'gotta admit, Talon's no good. Maybe Talon made you, and maybe I'll even give 'em that, but on the whole, they're no good."

From above, Kestrel quietly noted that Widowmaker did not bother trying to defend her makers, or even dismiss the attack. She'd just accepted it as a given. Halfway there, she thought to herself. C'mon, blue girl, show me. Show me you're real.

"From now on," continued Tracer, "I'm promising: no changin' you. No tryin' to turn you into somebody else, not even somebody you maybe used t'be. But if you want out - if you want out, as you - tell me. We'll find a way. And if Overwatch does catch you, somehow, if we bring you in, I will not let them change you against your will."

The woman built from Amélie Lacroix raised an eyebrow, sceptically. "No one in Overwatch would tolerate my existence. None of you..." - no, she thought, I don't believe that, do I? - "...present... company... perhaps excepted."

"I mean it, love," Lena said, as plainly and honestly as she knew how. "I swear. Even if I have to break you out of a Watchpoint myself, they won't change you. It won't happen. I won't let it."

Widowmaker believed her. Something inside her believed Lena's oath, believed every word of it, knew it to be true, and the spider dropped her rifle in shock. "I... I do not believe you," she lied, a hitch in her breath betraying her.

"I think maybe you do," said Kestrel, gently, "even if you don't want to." Oh fuck me, what am I about to say here? she thought, swallowing. "Lena's promise goes for me, too. I'm no Pharah - but I'll provide the air support. We'll get you out." C'mon, c'mon, be real...

Oxton nodded, looking up gratefully at her lover. In for a penny. "I'm not sayin' come with us now, love, I know that's not gonna happen. But if you want out..." started Tracer...

"...we'll get you out. And not to Overwatch," continued Kestrel...

"...unless that's what y'want," finished Tracer.

Widowmaker picked up her rifle. Twenty seconds, she thought, absently.

"Have they ever reconditioned you again, love? After the first time?"

The assassin frowned. "They did... once, after..." She did not finish the sentence.

"Tekhartha?"

"Yes," she nodded. "Because I laughed."

"Did y'like it?" asked the teleporter.

"...no," admitted the assassin, after a pause, resentment in her voice, and above her, Kestrel silently cheered, clenching her firsts, Yes!

"We wouldn't try," repeated Tracer. "I get it now. I swear."

"Never," said the flying agent. "We both swear," she said, in for a pound.

Widowmaker looked down at her Kiss, ready, pulse rounds fully charged and ready to go. Enough chain regeneration to get away, as well - three minutes is a lot of time, if you think about it, isn't it? Talon, signalling, in her headset, trying to raise her, trying to make sure she was alive and, if not well, at least functional. This could all be a new lie, she thought, warring against herself. But... it also might not be.

After Tekhartha, she'd learned now not to tip off her controllers. It wasn't the only thing they'd missed.

"Your three minutes are up," she said. "And I do not trust your masters, either." She threw her rifle onto her back, looked up at Kestrel, over at Tracer, and leapt up into the air, but not far, chain assisted to a nearby perch. "But your offer... a third way, all of us free from Overwatch as well as Talon..." she called, as her chain rewound, and she threw it again. "...I will consider it." And she vanished into the night.

Kestrel flew down to Tracer, eyes wide, after the assassin disappeared into the darkness. "I... I think we might've done it."

Tracer nodded her head, half in shock, but entirely in agreement. "I'm gobsmacked, love - I think we really might've. But... I... it can't be that easy."

"It wouldn't be," her wife agreed. "We made some hard promises. We'd likely have to quit Overwatch ourselves. Become freelancers, maybe."

Tracer shrugged, thinking of the many possibilities - and difficulties - involved. "Winston wouldn't throw us out, love - it's not like any of it's legal anyway. And even if he does, there's good money to be made in adventuring, I should know." She started shaking, as it all sank in. "Gor blimey, Em. What'd we just do?"

"Threw away our careers?" Emily giggled, weakly. "And maybe... just maybe... started saving some lives, too?"

Lena's half-grin popped back onto her face. "One life in particular, y'mean?"

"Yes," her lover confirmed with a grin of her own. "In particular. But also her targets."

"Hoo," breathed the teleporter, shaking tension out of her arms, out of her hands. "It's a big gamble. Long odds. We must be starkers."

"Better odds than we had a month ago."

Tracer snorted. "No question about that."

"None." Her lover put her arms around her, and kissed her nose, gently. "C'mon, sweetie, finish shaking it off. Risk is what we do, isn't it?"

Lena let out a little 'heh' sound, and rested her forehead against Emily's.

"And put your earbud back in," said the ginger. "McCree's getting curious about our sweep."

"Righto." She puffed out a big breath of air. "We've made this bed, might as well lie in it. North it is!" She keyed her comms. "McCree, Tracer here, your signal got week, you say somethin'? ... Yeah, we're still sweeping north. No sign of her yet - I think she's gone home. ... Right. We'll keep looking a bit more, then circle back in a few. Tracer out."

From closer than either of them imagined, the Widowmaker listened intently, laser microphone bouncing off the HVAC's metal shell. The part of her - and it was part of her - that had believed Lena Oxton implicitly sat proud, vindicated, and a little smugly in her mind. And the parts that did not...

...began, most reluctantly...

...to contemplate hope.

I really did not expect this to go here but here we are, I thought there was an Emily story in this series (yes there's a series of these, this makes three, that's a series) but I did not think it was this one.

Widowmaker brought herself in from the cold, one day, exchanging a list of Talon agents for sanctuary, and for a time, would not say why. The first person she opened up to was Lena Oxton, unexpectedly, at Gibraltar. Lena, for once, had no idea how to process what she was feeling, and took that to her wife, Emily Oxton, back home in London. This story takes place two years later.

This is not part of the On Overcoming the Fear of Spiders Overwatch AU. It is... apparently the third standalone story in a timeline much closer to current known canon as of July 2017, and follows "It's not easy to explain, said Lena Oxton."

[AO3 link]

"It's really not easy to explain," said Emily Oxton, her wings off and splayed across the cleaning table in front of her, soaking in their shallow reservoir of nanorepair fluid. "Or... you know what? Maybe it is."

Widowmaker glared at her redheaded lover. "I do not believe that is possible." Of the three of them, they had the most daily friction - but, really, also the most fire, and so, it balanced out.

"Yeh," said Lena to her wife, as they stood in her workroom at Gibraltar. "This is kind of a lot to take in."

"If you two gang up on me about this I'm going to put these right back on and head to the practice range."

"That," said the blue assassin, "would be a good idea, given some of the mistakes you made today. I'd recommend..."

"Wot." Tracer interjected. "No no no no no. The two of us are bad enough, we don't want her getting into the line of..."

Widowmaker eyed her spiky-haired lover. "Kestrel has made it very clear this is already happening, she should at least be trained. Perhaps Fareeha could..."

"No no no no NO!" Tracer insisted. "Do not encourage her!"

"I think I have final say in this," insisted the woman with the wings and body armour, body armour she was slowly removing, and putting into a different cleaning bath.

"Really," said Winston, walking in through the side hallway door. "I think I do. At least, within Overwatch."

Emily turned a little towards Lena's scientifically-minded friend, automatically smiled, but also nodded her acknowledgement of the situation. "Point taken. Hi, Winston."

"Emily," he said, a little more warmly than neutrally, but still measured. "Or, I understand, it's Kestrel, now?"

"In the air? It's Kestrel. Down on the ground, Emily's fine..."

"Em," broke in Lena, "What the bloody hell?! Isn't two of us doing incredibly stupid and dangerous things bad enough?"

Emily spun around on her wife. "No. It's not. That's the entire bleedin' point, Lena - it's not."

"Personally," said Widowmaker, "I found your first dive attack a convenient distraction."

"Thanks, love," Emily said, more than a little bit pleased.

"I think with proper training, you could..." began the sniper, before Tracer interrupted with a quick, "You are not helping!"

"I'd ask how you got Overwatch prefix codes," interjected Winston, trying to keep the situation on track, "but I think that's pretty obvious. However... how did you get your own prefix added to our systems? Athena shouldn't've let you do that."

"Remember when I told you that you really ought to use locking screensavers?" started Emily, when Tracer jumped back in with, "WHY? ARE? YOU? DOING? THIS?!"

Emily spun back 'round to her wife and shouted, "BECAUSE I'M SICK OF NEVER KNOWING IF YOU'RE ALIVE OR DEAD!"

She looked up to their taller lover. "Or you. Neither of you know what it's like. Neither of you can know what it's like."

"Em, I'm military, I know..." started Tracer.

"No. You don't." Kestrel stripped off the last of her armour, placing it into the second bath, and took a deep breath.

"Remember," she said, "when you first came home with news about Widowmaker? That long talk we had, over breakfast? What did I say?"

Tracer thought back to two years ago. She'd been so confused about her own feelings, for the first time ever, and Emily had teased it out of her, bit at a time, and it was all fine, and... "anything that gets one less set of sights on me?"

"Yes. That."

"Well, that worked out..."

"It worked out for exactly six months, until..." she grabbed the spider's hand. "...I fell in love with her, too." She looked up to the taller woman. "And let's get this out there: I'm not blaming you for any of this."

"I did not think you were," said the French sniper, with a bit of a smirk. "But much of this is new to me."

Emily - Kestrel - nodded, and looked back to Tracer. "And then suddenly I had two loves in battle. One sniper's sights removed for a few months, and then suddenly there are twice as many as before because there's two of you at risk."

"Yeah, but Em, we look out for each other, it's safer..."

"It's two of you and I'm still not there and I still don't know." She pulled the control ring off her head, and wiped it clean. "And now, I will."

"Ahem," said Winston.

Emily gave him a look so sharp it could've cracked stone. "I will."

Tracer didn't know what to say. She didn't know what she could say, not really, so she reached out her hand to Emily's, and tried anyway, saying, "I'm... I just don't know what I'd do if anything happened to you."

"Me either," said Emily, taking her wife's hand and squeezing it, briefly, "to either of you. Only I've been living with it since we got married. And I can't. Not anymore. And it's either stay, or go, and I'm not going anywhere. So..."

"So, then, we had better make sure nothing happens to any of us," said Widowmaker. "Kestrel, in particular," she added, most pointedly.

Still by the door, Winston wondered, as he was want to do with this collection of desperately wilful heroes, if he really had anything to say in the running of Overwatch after all. But - for an undertrained amateur - Kestrel's first outing had been surprisingly effective, particularly given the relative lack of co-ordination with the team as a whole, so... "So, uh, Kestrel, this suit... it's yours?"

Emily nodded. "Top to bottom. My design, a new variant on antigrav foil, I filed the patent forms a few months ago. It's still not efficient enough for cost-effective commercial use, but..."

"How long you been workin' on this, love?" asked Tracer, still in a bit of a daze, as the world shifted around her.

"A year and a half. Not seriously, not at first, but then you had that firefight in Milan, and..." She slumped a little. "I couldn't not work on it. It kept me together, you know?"

"And you couldn't tell me?" asked her teleporter.

"Or me?" asked her sniper.

"That..." she sighed, "At first, it wasn't serious, then it really, really was, and I thought if it was a fait accompli, it'd just happen, and we'd work the details out later." A wan smile. "Like we are. Right now."

"It's been that hard on you?" asked the kestrel's wife, softly.

"Yeah."

"I never knew."

Emily just nodded. "I've told you."

"I never really got it."

"I know."

"I'm sorry."

"I forgive you."

"So..."

...asked the Overwatch agent...

"...how'd it feel? Being out there, flying into combat?"

Emily hesitated, then beamed, eyes all at once bright with the memory. "Terrifying. And exhilarating. And wonderful. Actually being there, seeing you both in action, and being in action with you..." She shivered, and turned to the Widowmaker. "I finally get it now."

The former Talon assassin tilted her head, guessing at what she meant, but nodded, not saying a word, prompting her lover to say it, and she did.

"I've never felt more alive."

The spider grabbed her kestrel, pulled her close, and held her tight. "If that is how it makes you feel... you will be my air support until the end of time."

This wasn't how this particular ganging up was supposed to go, Tracer thought. "Uh," she said, "we were supposed to talk her out of this."

Kestrel laughed, softly, a couple of times, and Tracer recognised it, after a moment, as almost exactly the laugh which had been the Widowmaker's first real thought, those years ago, and while she wasn't the sort of person to recognise that in herself, she was entirely the sort of person to recognise it in other people, and she noted, not for the first time, how close "Amélie" and "Emily" were as names, and shook her head and did not let herself pursue that too far, because she was not, for all her faults, that kind of person, hyperawareness or no. So she simply said, "I... feel like I've heard that, before."

Emily put her forehead on Widowmaker's shoulder, then backtracked, "...wait. Was that a..."

Widowmaker nodded. "If we are to be peers, we should be peers."

Kestrel's gaze met the Widowmaker's, eyes widening. "I accept. Oh god, I accept."

"Wait, you... wait," as Tracer got it, "We're making it official? The three of us? Legal and everything?"

"Yes," said the Widowmaker and the Kestrel, together, then snorting at their own chorused response. "I did not know why I was not ready, until now," said the blue sniper. "And now, I know, and now, I am."

"Right!" said the teleporter, "uh, right! You're both mad, y'know that? But hooo, if this how it's gonna work? I'm on board!"

"I take it we should formally combine your quarters?" asked Winston, bemusedly. It wouldn't change anything on the actual ground, the three were already conjoined at the hips as far as he was concerned, with quarters adjacent and connected, ever since they Emily and Lena had fallen in with the former Talon assassin, and staying in the old apartment in London full-time had become far too great a security risk.

"Yeh," said Tracer, giving in. "Yeah. Yeah!"

"Well, I'm not going to stand in the way. And if it means a regular fourth for Christmas, I'm happy about that, too. Athena?" Winston asked the air, and the air responded, "Yes, Winston?"

"Please set up a complete - and I do mean complete - training regimen for a new flying field agent, Emily Oxton, call sign 'Kestrel.' You already have her prefix code in your roster" - he glared at Emily, saying that, and Tracer couldn't stop herself from snickering - "and the agent will provide you a comprehensive summary of her capabilities." He thought a moment, and added, "Also, set up a link with Pharah and Mercy, I'm going to want a consult whenever they're available." Turning to Emily, he continued, "If you're going to do this, you're going to do it right, and I will work you into the ground getting you trained up. So, are you sure? Are you ready?"

Emily gave Winston the broadest smile he'd ever seen, one arm around each of her lovers, and replied, "If Overwatch will have me?" She stood straight up and saluted. "Flying Agent Kestrel, reporting for duty. Sir."

Winston snorted, and returned the salute. "I'm not your CO, and we're not military. But I appreciate the thought."

Tracer shook her head, looking down at the ground, but smiling, and leaned against her wife. One of her wives, now. Or soon. "I'm gonna make you earn this, Em. Just so you know."

Widowmaker nodded her agreement. "I believe you said something about the practice range?"

Kestrel nodded determinedly, so flushed with relief - no more waiting alone, no more not knowing - that she could hardly think. But she knew how to work, and there is never a time like the present. "I did! Let's get this thing moving, already."

"Sounds like something I'd say," quipped the senior Agent Oxton to her cadet.

"Leave the wings," said the blue assassin, "and the armour. We are going to start at the beginning. Today," she hummed to herself, briefly, thinking the happiest of spidery thoughts, "today you start learning properly how to fight."