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

The new gods have risen, ready, at last, to grapple with a world of heroes. Moira O'Deorain herself has been reborn, now made one of the creations her previous self meant to rule, and she works with her wife - the goddess Mercy - and their ensemble of new deities to remake the world, to improve it... for everyone.

Of Gods and Monsters: The Arc of Ascension
Saga 12: Russia, and the Omnium
solarbird and bzarcher

The long, warm, peaceful summer has - as was inevitable - come to an end. But no one, really, could have imagined how turbulent autumn might become.

Of Gods and Monsters: The Arc of Ascension is a continuance of Of Gods and Monsters: The Arc of Creation, a side-step sequel to The Armourer and the Living Weapon. It will be told in a series of eddas, sagas, interludes, fragments, texts, and cantos, all of which serve their individual purposes. To follow it as it appears, please subscribe to the series.

The new gods have risen, ready, at last, to grapple with a world of heroes. Moira O'Deorain herself has been reborn, now made one of the creations her previous self meant to rule, and she works with her wife - the goddess Mercy - and their ensemble of new deities to remake the world, to improve it... for everyone.

Of Gods and Monsters: The Arc of Ascension
Saga 9: an unexpected break in the weather
solarbird and bzarcher

It's Mei-Ling Zhou's turn to receive an offer from the Gods in Oasis. But what will happen...

...if she says no?

Of Gods and Monsters: The Arc of Ascension is a continuance of Of Gods and Monsters: The Arc of Creation, a side-step sequel to The Armourer and the Living Weapon. It will be told in a series of eddas, sagas, interludes, fragments, texts, and cantos, all of which serve their individual purposes. To follow it as it appears, please subscribe to the series.

The new gods have risen, ready, at last, to grapple with a world of heroes. Moira O'Deorain herself has been reborn, now made one of the creations her previous self meant to rule, and she works with her wife - the goddess Mercy - and their ensemble of new deities to remake the world, to improve it... for everyone.

Of Gods and Monsters: The Arc of Ascension
Fragment e10,1: A Conversation Over Ice Cream
solarbird and bzarcher

Efi Oladele, having turned the tables on everyone, enjoys ice cream with Orisa and several of her new friends.

Of Gods and Monsters: The Arc of Ascension is a continuance of Of Gods and Monsters: The Arc of Creation, a side-step sequel to The Armourer and the Living Weapon. It will be told in a series of eddas, sagas, interludes, fragments, texts, and cantos, all of which serve their individual purposes. To follow it as it appears, please subscribe to the series.

Of Gods and Monsters
Fragment e7,3: Early February, 2078
solarbird and bzarcher

A new balance of power within Talon is being struck, but Sombra has goals of her own in mind.

---

Of Gods and Monsters is a side-step/alternate-ending sequel to The Armourer and the Living Weapon, told in a series of eddas, sagas, fragments, texts, and cantos, all of which serve their individual purposes. Eddas and Sagas appear late Sunday/early Monday, fragments, texts, and standalone cantos appear Thursday and/or Friday. To follow the story as a whole, please subscribe to the series.

Because this is a co-authored work, I'm only posting links here.

Of Gods and Monsters
Edda 3: Platinum-eyed Satya
solarbirdy and bzarcher

A new and better world needs a new and better architect to help design it, and Moira and Angela - and Tracer - know precisely who that should be. To Oilliphéist's disappointment, this acquisition doesn't involve violence - because at least this once, Talon has a much more enticing alternative to offer.

---

Of Gods and Monsters is a side-step/alternate-ending sequel to The Armourer and the Living Weapon, told in a series of eddas, sagas, fragments, texts, and cantos, all of which serve their individual purposes. Eddas and Sagas appear late Sunday/early Monday, fragments, texts, and standalone cantos appear Thursday and/or Friday. To follow the story as a whole, please subscribe to the series.

Because this is a co-authored work, I'm only posting links here.

[AO3 link]

---

[Incheon, Republic of Korea]

"Cor blimey," Lena said. "I wish she'd picked a more touristy part of town. We're too bloody conspicuous down here."

"You think you're conspicuous," her wife replied, "try being tall. At least I can check the layout."

The two of them - in carefully-chosen "hello, I am a confused European tourist" civilian clothes, with only Lena's bulky, accelerator-concealing jacket standing out in the July heat - made their way towards the front of a small restaurant in a busy commercial district not far from the industrial port.

Emily moved forward first, and looked sideways through the glass front window, spotting a small woman in very familiar colours and facepaint out of the corner of her eye, sitting in a booth near the back, facing away from the street. "I see her. She's... in her kit? Weird. But she's alone."

As Lena caught up to her, she heard a familiar voice quietly pipe up from behind. "N00bs," said the MEKA pilot, behind her, in perfectly ordinary business clothes. "That's my decoy. You gotta get good or you're in trouble. C'mon. This way. Right now, or it's off."

"Hana?" said the teleporter. "No. What's going on?"

"Come on," she repeated. "We're just going up the street. Things have changed. Follow me, or leave town, it's up to you."

Emily looked to Lena, uncertain, and her wife gave her a small shrug. "Like working for bloody MI6..." she whispered, following the woman they hoped was still their friend.

They followed her three blocks mostly east and two more blocks mostly north, settling into a booth in a nearly-identical business-worker restaurant, with nearly-identical booths. This one had a karaoke section, in back, but neither woman felt much like singing.

"What was that about, then?" asked Emily, as she and Lena slid into their side of the booth. Hana ordered a big pot of barley tea and naeng myun for everyone, and the waitress scooted off.

"Okay," said Hana, looking carefully at both of them. "We've got half an hour before the old school show up at the other restaurant. They don't want to grab you, but they want you to hand over the spider if you still have her. Do that, all's forgiven, you can come home."

"...you told them?" Lena said in a hiss, leaning forward.

"Bloody hell," breathed Emily. "It was a trap."

"You're here, not there, aren't you? And it's not a trap, they just wanna make an offer. I'm on your side, I want you to know what's coming."

"An 'offer,'" said Emily, "while unarmed, surrounded, and outnumbered. That's not how you have friends over for chat." She covered her face with her hands, looking down. "They're making all the same bloody mistakes they made last time, aren't they? Of course they are. What next, bringing back Blackwatch?"

"Well, then," said Lena, as the tea arrived. "An offer. What's the sweetener supposed to be?"

"They'll hand la blue girl over to MI6, DGSE, or CIA as-is. Nooooooo hacks required."

Lena glared at the gamer. "That a joke, luv? MI6 and the French will shoot her on sight. CIA... probably the same. Why not the Hague? Why not the ICC?"

"We tried. The Hague and the ICC won't even touch her. You picked a really unpopular spider to save."

"...yeh," conceded the teleporter, sipping at the unfamiliar tea. "I can see that."

"And the stick?" asked Emily, dreading the answer.

"No stick."

"No stick?"

"No stick. I don't like what they're doing, I really don't like what Ziegler was doing... none of the younger crowd do, we won't stand for it. We've put our... foots? down? Feets down? Whatever."

"Right," said Lena. "Thanks, for that. You've worked out some kind of entente, then - that include what Ziegler's doing?"

"We're still working on it. It's a fight and I don't know who's winning, but everybody will be in the game."

Tracer shuddered. "Well... I hope you win."

The gamer sipped at her tea. "So if you won't hand spiderbitch over..."

"Not happening."

"Then the fallback is, we can still be friends, but there's rules."

"Go on," said the teleporter, as the waitress returned with their bowls of noodles.

"Noooooooo working for her old bosses. None. You work with them, at all, you're all with them. We shoot on sight."

Emily snorted a laugh, but Lena frowned, angry. "I'm... gobsmacked. I can't believe they'd... after all we've done, they think we'd do that? The whole point of this was getting her away from..."

"C'mon! You and your wife ripped the walls off medbay to free Talon's deadliest assassin. They don't think they can make assumptions anymore."

"Bloody wonderful," Tracer snapped, not wanting to admit they kind of had a point. "They know why we..." She stopped, and shook her head - rearguing wouldn't change anything. "Fine. What else?"

"You're not Overwatch. No Overwatch logos, no Overwatch gear, don't raid Overwatch supply points, don't use Overwatch safehouses."

"Whatevs," Lena shrugged, dismissively.

"Not so whatevs," Emily said, overriding her wife. "Most of it, fair enough. But Overwatch is using my antigrav tech, free of charge. We can let that go on - if we can use empty safehouses when we need to."

"I can ask."

"It's one or the other. I don't want to get shot at by Overwatch agents in an Overwatch safehouse. If that's on the menu, I'm not eating."

"I can ask."

"Fine," interjected Tracer. "What else?"

"No team-ups with the spider when we're around. You're both out of Overwatch, but nbd, rite? Officially, you dropped out, nobody has to say why, you're fine, we're fine. We'll team up with you, we might even hire you - but not with her. Work with her where we can see it, that makes you accomplices to a world-number-one terrorist, bang. We treat you like her."

Tracer grimaced. "Oh, that's funny coming from Morrison - sorry, 'Soldier: 76.' How's that supposed to be any different? He's a wanted criminal himself, and labelled a terrorist."

"That's not fair," Song replied. "She actually is one."

"Was," interjected Kestrel.

"Is," insisted the gamer, "'til we know better."

"This is... PETRAS hasn't been repealed. Overwatch is just as illegal as everything else."

"Yeah," acknowledged the gamer, "but we get a pass. To a point. You don't. It's not fair, but that's the game."

"Unlike Overwatch, I am a security contractor, operating legally on six continents..."

"Not if they know you've got the spider," Hana said in a little sing-song.

Lena sighed, frustrated. And that, she thought, is the stick. "Fine," she said, tiredly. "What else?"

"That's it."

"You lot gonna be spyin' on us? Lookin' for a chance?"

"Nope. Blind eye. If we don't have to know, we won't know."

Lena nodded, and poked at the noodles. They didn't taste like much, but she couldn't tell whether that was the food, or the reality of the situation setting in. Even an amicable divorce was still a divorce, with all that implied - and this wasn't even all that amicable.

"There really wasn't a trap, was there?" Emily said, suddenly. "Or... was there? Is this the trap?" Kestrel looked around the restaurant. "Where's Ziegler?"

Tracer looked up at her wife. "Sweet?"

"Listen," said the flying agent.

Lena listened, and heard a soft, familiar ringing hum. "...oh. Fuck. I hear it too."

"What?" asked the gamer, already knowing the jig was up.

"Dammit, Hana - stop!"

Song put down her chopsticks. "I had to make sure you weren't under anybody's control!"

"When the bloody hell did we go missing for months?!" Kestrel demanded.

"You didn't, but I didn't know! Not for sure! I told Lena in chat - I had to know! For sure!"

"We gonna get darts in the neck now?" Tracer's gaze darted around, looking for Ana Amari, not finding her.

"What's in this tea?" asked the ginger, glaring at her cup.

"Nothing! It's just barley tea! It's good! And no! It's... I brought Mercy in. She brought a big scanner. That's it."

"You trust Dr. Ziegler to tell you the truth here?"

"I... I think she's wrong. But she's not a liar and I couldn't get anyone else qualified. Not who'd keep a secret."

"Hana's telling the truth," said Angela, closing a padded door behind her, and walking up to their booth. "I was going to appear at the other restaurant, if you chose to negotiate, but - this saves the walk. Here I am."

"Doctor," said Emily, stiffly. "Who else is with us today?"

Hana scooted over, making room, and the medic sat next to the young MEKA pilot, ignoring the question. "Hana brought me in on this meeting yesterday. So that you know, I came here early to scan you for the sorts of things I... missed... with Amélie. I did not find them."

"Why the double-bluff?" asked Lena. "Why move us down here?"

"Karaoke booths," said the doctor.

"...soundproofing," Kestrel realised.

"Apparently, inadequate."

"I have very good hearing," said the hawk.

"Amari and Morrison?" asked the teleporter.

"Ana and Jack are in Prague, at the moment, responding to rumours of a Talon action. They send their regards."

Emily let out a little heh at that. "No 'thanks' for removing Talon's best sniper from their arsenal?"

"Is she removed?"

"Yes."

"But alive."

"'Course." She did not say, "luv."

"I will relay both of those."

Lena Oxton gave the doctor a sharply pointed look. "What if you'd decided we had been... compromised?"

"Plug suit fits under regular clothes juuuuuuust fine." Hana pulled at her collar. "Hot, tho'."

The doctor smiled. "And you'll note - I haven't said anything about Fareeha's location."

"That's not what I meant, mate," said the teleporter, grimly.

The doctor raised an eyebrow. "It would... depend."

"Would it, now?" asked Emily.

"Can you honestly say you would not want me to undo the effects of Talon brainwashing upon you? Truly? "

"Not if it meant just applying another round of brainwashing," Lena snapped. "It's one thing to get somebody detoxed, sure, that's fine. Therapy, that's great - I know from PTSD. But throwing your own stamp on their brain - that's not 'undoing' a bloody thing, that's just changing the hands on the leash."

The doctor rubbed the bridge of her nose. "Lena, Emily, please, all of this has been ... far too much cloak and dagger. I apologise for that, but we did have to know. Can we stop this? Please? I am here to negotiate with you, not fight you."

"Sure, doc," said the flying agent. "Stop trying to turn people into other people, stop delivering ultimatums, stop repeating Overwatch's old mistakes, and we can all be besties again. Just tell me one thing."

"What?"

"Why'd you lie to us about your 'sedatives?'"

"I most certainly didn't!"

"'Sedative' doesn't imply 'made suggestible.' You'd already started your work, and you hid that from us."

"Oh," said the doctor, surprised, "you figured that out? I am... honestly, I am impressed. But I did not lie," she said emphatically. "I had not started my work."

"Then why that drug?" demanded the flying agent.

"Because you are both fools and I was giving you the best chance I could!" The field medic stood in the booth, hands on the tabletop, jarring the dishes. "Do you know how many of her bullets I have pulled out of our people? How many I have declared dead by her hand? I did not want you cut down, these... mistakes... or not, and if you did something truly reckless, I wanted to make sure you had a chance of surviving the night." She looked back and forth between the two former Overwatch agents. "She is not a person, she is a mechanism. A complex one, but a mechanism nonetheless. Give the correct set of orders, she kills, and you are on her kill list. But..." she said, slower, more thoughtfully, gesturing with her left hand, "I thought if she could be impressed upon you..."

"Dammit, doc," Lena interrupted, quietly, "You were wrong."

"I am not wrong, I..."

"She'd broken it herself. That's why she's never really tried to kill me, or Em. That's why Talon tried to kill her," Lena interrupted, again, rubbing her face with her hands. "That's how we know you're wrong."

The doctor blinked. "...what?"

"She wasn't supposed to get captured in Egypt," said Kestrel, picking up where Tracer left off, "she was supposed to die there. She was subverting her own reconditioning, and they'd figured it out."

"That is impossible. I have recreated some of what they did, in simulators, to learn how to undo it. It cannot just be..."

"Oh for the love of... it was. She'd done it, and Talon's termination order proves it. We were right. I was right. You were wrong," said Emily. "None of this would've had to happen if you'd just listened to me." She waved her hands around in the air by her head, wanting something to throw. "When you captured her, she was set to defect in a week. To us. In Prague, in fact. Today."

"Then the suggestibility ... did it...?"

"Make everything much harder? Yes. Thanks for that. Naught for two on those calls, Angie. Try not to go naught for three?"

Angela Ziegler sat back down, slowly. She looked at the tabletop, and at the teapot, and the noodles, and poured herself a little bit of the barley, sipping at it tentatively, in silence, for several moments. She bit her lip, put the small cup back down, and, eventually, said, "If it means anything to you... my 'three' is that neither of you show any sign of foreign neurochemical or neuromechanical influence on your brains. And I will report that back to Overwatch."

"Kinda figured that," replied Emily, slowly, "from the lack of shooting. That's one for three, then. Well done there."

"Hana," asked Lena, "how much of the rest was a lie?"

"None of it! 76 is pretty mad, Ana is real mad, we're all kinda fruck out, but some of us are more sympathetic than others. Particularly Lúcio. Particularly me."

"So," Tracer said, sadly, "a velvet divorce. That's the real offer, then?"

"The rest of us want to stay friends, but from a team standpoint... pretty much."

"Balls," said Emily.

"What?"

"Balls! I'll take the deal, but it's shite, Hana, and you have the sense to know that. Angie, I don't think you do, you were this close to wiping away a person to replace her with your version of somebody else and it's pretty clear you haven't even budged on the ethics of that..."

"'Widowmaker' was dead, either way," Zigler interjected, angrily. "She almost certainly still will be soon, you might well join her, and you have just as certainly taken my only chance of returning Amélie to her own mind. If you want to argue ethics, soldier, I am more than ready to defend my position."

There was a moment of uncomfortable silence, then a longer one, and then, "I can't believe Winston is going along with this..." said Lena, shaking her head.

"He's... still of the opinion that Widowmaker should be convinced to go along with it," Angela disclaimed, acknowledging the difference.

"Good. It's not... it's not good enough. It's just not." said Lena. "But... good. And... we'll take your terms - it's not much different than we'd do anyway."

"I do not imagine the safehouse usage will be difficult to sell to the rest of the team. Particularly," said the doctor, sipping at her tea, "if you continue to forward useful information."

"Did you raid those caches?"

"No. But we will, now."

"Probably too late, we'd hoped you'd cover our tracks, but - thanks anyway, I guess. Hana, will you tell Winston - please, please, please, just talk to me? "

"I will." She leaned forward, regret plain in her face. "I'm sorry. I had to know."

"Thanks, luv. I ... yeh. I guess I can see why." She took a deep breath, and let it out. "But if we're all done now," she said, standing, Emily just a moment behind, "we're going. Don't follow."

"We won't." Dr. Ziegler reached into her bag, and pulled out her commset. "Pharah, Mercy - Kestrel and Tracer are about to leave. We have an agreement. When they're out of range, come inside and... join us, for lunch. It's quite good. I'll give you the details in here."

As the two women walked by the table, Hana stood, saying, "Lena, please - talk to me on my chat again. Please! Okay? Please!" Then she watched as the two women left the restaurant without answering, her stomach now uninterested in the previously-delicious noodles.

«We did this wrong», she thought, sitting back down in the booth. «This wasn't how this should've gone.» She stole a glance as Fareeha walked up to Angela, helmet off, exchanging a brief kiss, and frowned. «Now I just gotta figure out how to fix it.»

-----

Widowmaker watched Tracer and Kestrel depart the restaurant, and, seeing Pharah take no offensive action, lowered her rifle away from the kill shot. She moved to discreetly track her partners along street level, to their rented vehicle.

Her comm unit clicked on. "Widowmaker, Tracer here. We're out, and en route to rendezvous."

"Tracer, Widowmaker, acknowledged. I sighted Pharah, tracking you across the venue change. I told you we should've kept in full contact."

"You didn't engage, did you?"

"Of course not. But I was ready, if needed."

"Widowmaker, Kestrel here. Thanks, love. Glad you weren't needed out there. You heard everything?"

The sniper felt a little cold, thinking of the doctor's words. "I did. I... regret it did not go better."

"No one is happy, so it's probably as fair as we were gonna get. See you back at the ship."

"Acknowledged. Widowmaker out." She hummed, thoughtfully, as she engaged her chain, heading towards the meeting point. It probably will not last, she thought, but it is good enough, for now. If I can just convince our... friends... to join us, then we will have a real chance. She smiled, for herself, and there was much more than just a breath of truth in it. I will save us, she swore. I will save us all.

Surprise! Guess what has a Chapter 2. And a Chapter 3, already a complete first draft. I did not know about any of this until the most words I have ever written in a single day (I think) came pouring out of my brain yesterday.

[AO3 link]

---

[Two months later. Watchpoint Gibraltar.]

With a tooth-shatteringly loud screech, the outer wall of the medical bay peeled away and fell towards the ocean, just as Dr. Ziegler's nurse assistants finished prepping the Widowmaker's first treatment.

"Sorry, luv," Tracer shouted, appearing in the void, one pistol aimed straight at the doctor, as the ringing, clanging metal fell, its sounds fading in the distance. "Can't let y'do that. We made a promise. Back off."

"Lena," said Angela, half-deafened, clinging to her composure, thinking, this shouldn't be happening, but backing away carefully towards her staff. "You lost this argument. I know how you feel about what's going on, but it's better than a death sentence. Do not do this."

"Can't not. I keep my promises, you know that." She fired a shot over the doctor's shoulder. "And stop moving towards your staff. Can't have that, either. What's she on?"

"A twilight sleep sedative, voluntary muscle paralysis, and saline I.V., that's all. We wanted her partially responsive and were about to administer the first dose of treatment. Lena, you do not know what you're doing, this is not a..."

"Stow it. I know she didn't consent and I know this ain't right." Tracer glanced at the closer nurse assistant. "Pull her off the drip. Right now." The assistant looked nervously at Dr. Ziegler, and Tracer decided to make it less optional by shooting the saline unit with her other pistol. "I said now, luv," and the nurse moved to work.

"She can't consent," said the combat medic. "She will murder you in your sleep, and that's if you are very, very lucky."

Kestrel swooped in, a wary eye still attentive to the skies outside. "What's the hold up? We don't have time for chats."

"I have this under control, can you get her up off the table?"

Kestrel waved her gravity blade at the nurse assistant - Odion, she thought - who moved away quite rapidly. Stepping forward, she snapped her fingers in front of Widowmaker's half-closed eyes, and saw those eyes track her fingers, just a little - somebody was in there. "Widowmaker, I'm Kestrel, I sure hope you remember me, we're getting you out of here, just like we said we would, back in London." She pulled the blue woman off the scanning bed, and onto her back. "Let's go, while we still can."

"Emily," warned the doctor, as the flying agent carried the Talon assassin towards the light transport hovering outside, "reconsider. You can't come back from this."

The flying agent paused at the gap, and nodded grimly in return, watching as Tracer backed slowly towards her, one pistol still aimed at the doctor, the other at the two assistants. "Neither can you."

Buggery hell, this isn't how I wanted this to go, thought Lena. "Sorry, doc. Just how it has to be, I guess."

The flyer's loading door closed in front of her as she stepped onto the main deck. She could see Angela diving for the alarms before it sealed, and teleported to the pilot's seat as Kestrel got Widowmaker into the crash couch. "CLEAR!" the flying agent shouted, bracing herself for evac - and Tracer lit the engines up bright.

-----

Widowmaker opened her eyes, but not too much, examining the ceiling. Another Overwatch transport, she thought. Not the same one back from Egypt. Smaller. I am no longer at Gibraltar. How long have I been unconscious? Other than a deep legsrthy, she did not feel different - but then, how would she know? She compared her thoughts, and how they felt, to memories of previous thoughts, and how they felt, and they seemed very much the same, very much unlike Amélie's, her only other reference. It would have to do, for now.

She struggled with half-aware half-memories of being in a... medical unit? And being prepped for something. And voices, some unfamiliar, some... not.

"We've lost the last of 'em," she heard Tracer say. Tracer, who had not been in Egypt, who had not been at Gibraltar... or had she been, at the end? "I'm gonna keep us in the soup, but it should be smooth enough 'till we change ships at Iwik."

Change ships? Iwik? Why would they need to...

"I'm going to check on Widowmaker." Another voice, the flying one, Kestrel, who had also been missing when she'd been taken, taken again, this time, by Overwatch, no doubt to be remade yet again, if not just killed, but whose voice she knew...

"Widowmaker, can you hear me?" The assassin heard the voice, but could not see its source - keeping some distance, perhaps. She let herself smirk, internally. Even sedated, she invoked fear. Good. "You're safe, and you're unchanged. We kept our promise. We broke you out before Ziegler could do anything. You're safe."

What?! The assassin's eyes popped open, all the way open, all at once acutely aware of her situation, before her mind snapped back to promises made some weeks ago in London, promises she did not want to believe, but couldn't quite not. Then Kestrel's face appeared over her, and she was talking, saying, "Hi. We've kept our word. Do you remember being captured in Egypt? We got you out of the Watchpoint. You're safe. Well, as safe as any of us are, now - we're all in real trouble, but since when's that new?"

The words confused her, memory of promises or not. Is it a... no, it makes no sense, this cannot be a trap, they already have me, why would they... She did her best to move, but her arms, so heavy, why...

"Oh," Kestrel breathed, "you're definitely awake now, aren't you? Probably a little panicky, too. I'm sorry, it's the muscle relaxant. They had you pretty well sedated before we reached you, but that's all, as far as we know - they were still prepping the first course of reconditioning meds when I ripped the medbay's walls open."

Widowmaker's eyes locked on Kestrel's, and she shivered, an involuntary action, and the flying agent saw it, and reached to touch, to comfort - but thought better of it. "I... wish I knew whether you found touch comforting."

I wish I did too, thought the spider, a little dismayed by her own reactions as they span round and round in her head. You... kept... your... you... kept your... you kept your... you...

"We've just got away from pursuit craft, and we're heading towards a little nature reserve in Mauritania, where we'll be swapping ships."

"...ah..." Widowmaker managed, and she remained locked on Kestrel, Kestrel, who she barely knew, Kestrel, who'd kept her word, Kestrel, who had... saved... her...

"You're tearing up a bit, can you blink for... oh, good, there y'go. Can you follow my fingers with your eyes?" Widowmaker looked at the Kestrel's fingertips and watched them trace a rectangle, slowly, around her field of vision. They were strong hands, solid, a little square, chunky, much like the rest of the hawk. Strong, and unexpectedly beautiful. Well, I suppose I know who is more butch in their arrangement, she thought, and a "heh" popped out, to as much her surprise as Kestrel's.

"She just laugh?" she heard Tracer say from outside her field of vision. "Hey, luv, you just laugh a little?"

"I think she did, yeah."

"Well, tell her after this, we're headed towards... oh, bugger..."

"What?"

"It's official. Bulletin just went out. We're listed."

"Surprised it took this long. Can they shut down the transport?"

"Nah, I changed the codes and blew the interlock, we'll be fine."

Widowmaker grimaced. Intentionally. And it worked. She tried moving her mouth, and managed, focus back on Kestrel's face, "...liffsted?"

Kestrel sighed, and sat, next to Widow's bunk, leaning close. "Word's gone out. Our personal IFF codes have been invalidated. Overwatch may be illegal, but we had a few privileges within it to revoke... we're now 'foe', not 'friend'."

"Ah." said the blue assassin. Slowly, carefully, she looked into Kestrel's eyes, and whispered, "Je... regrette."

"Don't," replied the hawk. "If Overwatch is gonna start doing things like this, I can't be a part of it anymore anyway."

"And just so y'know," called Tracer, "Talon put a termination order out on your head once Overwatch got y'to Gibraltar. No goin' back there, either."

"...how?"

"Friend of yours let us know. We'll be seein' her in a bit."

"...big mouth...?"

Tracer laughed. "Yeah, she said you called her that."

The spider tested her arms. A little movement at the shoulder, not much yet. But fingers - yes, those, those were free. She tapped at the bed, experimentally, and saw Kestrel smile when she noticed, bright like cloudbreak. "It is, then..." managed the spider, "...us, against the world?" She tried her wrists. Yes. Wrists. More quickly, now. Almost to the elbow.

Us, Kestrel thought. Already? "Sounds like."

A louder heh, and the spider found she could move her head. "Then... a challenge. Good." She gave Kestrel a fierce look; it excited the flying agent in ways she did not expect, as did the spider unexpectedly - if weakly - taking her hand in her own. "We will destroy them both, cherie," the assassin said, with utter conviction. "We cannot lose."

-----

"As far as she knew," said the Swiss doctor, some hours later, "it was just sedation." Power had not yet been restored to the medbay, but the wall had, at least, been braced and covered, and structural stability insured. She sat at a small table in medbay's small consultation room.

"So you told her nothing about the enhanced receptivity effects?" asked the hirsute scientist sitting opposite and to her right, snacking on his favourite peanut butter, with oatmeal cookies and lactose-free milk. Hoisting girders about - that was heavy labour. He deserved a treat.

"Of course not," said the doctor, sipping her coffee. "But I didn't lie, we hadn't undone anything Talon did - and it really was a sedative, just one that leaves patients a little more..." she waved one hand back and forth, "...open to ideas, while under its influence. It would've helped with our treatments of her, helped her return to who she really was."

"Nicely played," said Jack Morrison, nursing a judicious amount of Tennessee bourbon. "Hope this doesn't come back to bite us on the ass any more than it already has."

Dr. Ziegler smiled warmly at her old friend, sitting opposite and to her left. "I'd suspected Lena might do something she'd come to regret. I'd hoped she wouldn't, or if she did, I'd hoped I could talk her down. But if push came to shove... she might as well have that thin chance." She shuddered. "I think she has made a grave mistake. I do not think that... construct... is a person or can be reformed, and I wasn't lying about being killed in her sleep, either."

"You did what you could," said the soldier. He put down his glass and rubbed at his eyes. "She's always been impulsive, but this is another level. If they come at us... we'll have to assume the worst. They might as well be Talon." He put the drink down, and rubbed his eyes.

"That will not be difficult," smirked Angela. "I am quite angry, both about being held at gunpoint, and at losing my best chance to recover Amélie. And Kestrel," the doctor snorted, "she made a strongly negative impression on Gina and Odion. Gossip will insure everyone knows."

"I know their hearts are in the right place," Winston insisted. "Particularly Lena's. I think they're both being extremely foolish - but do not doubt their hearts."

"Just their judgements. And maybe their sanity," said the soldier.

The three sat quietly, for some moments, letting what happened today finally settle in as the sun went down. Morrison, thinking maybe they should've just handed the Widowmaker over to legal authorities; Winston, wishing he'd found a middle way, something to keep everyone happy, while knowing no such path existed; and Ziegler, angry, but still afraid for the two women who had, to her mind, made such a terrible mistake.

"To absent friends," Winston lifted his glass of water. "May they not become present enemies."

"I'll drink to that," said Morrison, raising the last of his bourbon.

Angela lifted her coffee cup, touching it against her friends' drinks. "To absent friends," she echoed. May they not be dead come morning.

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."