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When Olivia is five years old she watches her parents' insides paint the street bright red. This is my home, she thinks as the colors run, towards her and away and in every possible direction. Some of the shrapnel cuts her hands. Some of the shrapnel clings to her palms and leaves marks.
Olivia doesn't remember their last words. Olivia remembers their faces. Left intact. Unblemished. The explosion was quick.
The fire, however, isn't.
It starts with a spark, behind her in one of the houses, travels to the streets in silence until the back of her neck heats up. A sharp pain. Olivia moves, sluggish, moves ahead and the fire follows. Scars on her legs where it bites and gnaws away.
When she reaches the corner she turns, foolishly, desperately. The fire takes its time with the fresh corpses, eats its fill. Olivia watches for too long. Not long enough to see the ashes.
#
They test his reaction to fire first.
"Can you feel this?" they ask as they hold a flame to his fingertips, nothing more, just a hint of the heat. He recoils, dissolves, doesn't find a shape for another minute.
"Positive," they say and write it down. "Describe the sensation, if you can."
He can't. Part of him never escaped from the rubble. Part of him stayed. His skin tingles until there is no skin, until the smoke moved. Merciful. He watches indifferent faces watch him and the cold still isn't enough.
"It's going to pass," he says with half a throat. "I'll be functional in a few weeks."
"Weeks?" they ask.
"Weeks."
Disapproval. He doesn't drop his gaze. Black irises. Smoke, always the smoke. Most of them falter, step back.
"I'll finish the job," he says and they listen. "I always do."
#
Sombra frowns at Doomfist.
"I don't need a babysitter. You can just send me, I'll get in and out before you know it."
"I'm not going to send just you," Doomfist says, disinterested. "As I made very clear."
"Don't choose the doctor or I will thunder dome this mission."
"You have no say in who I'm going to choose. But I suppose it's your lucky day."
When Sombra walks into the dropship she sighs.
"Could be worse."
"Haven't heard that in a while," Reaper says and nods at her. "I'll take it."
She sits down across from him, rests her chin on her palm and smiles. Not quite performative.
"I'm kidding. You're growing on me. Laugh at my jokes a little more and we'll be best friends in no time."
"Make better jokes, then," Reaper says but there's little irritation. He sits hunched over, almost mimicking her.
"Tired, jefe?"
"I know better than to answer that."
"Aw," Sombra says and a small part of the sting is genuine. "I don't exploit every single weakness, you know. I can be nice."
"I don't need you to be nice right now, I need you to do your job."
She rolls her eyes.
"Suit yourself."
Reaper doesn't reply, doesn't move much for the entire duration of the flight. When they land and the doors open she curses under her breath.
"Yeah," he says. "I'm also not a fan."
"You could have mentioned we were going to be dropped in the middle of nowhere."
"The faster we start walking the sooner we'll be back at the base."
"Yeah, yeah. Lead the way, jefe."
Reaper doesn't react to most of her chatter on the way there except for the occasional vague hum. Sombra pokes at the hornet's nest but comes out unscathed. Repeats the process. Frowns, eventually, as they reach a warehouse in the wasteland.
"This looks like a trap."
"No doubt about it."
"This is a Deadlock one, isn't it?"
Reaper bristles.
"Yeah," he says. "One of the last active ones, if our sources can be believed."
"So we're looking for weapons."
"Blueprints for weapons. They have it all on paper, not digital. Harder to get. Give me an update on the security."
Sombra nods, pulls up her screens, and hacks into the system.
"Not a lot to speak of," she says. "Couple sirens. Tripwires. You could go ghost and get the doors open so nothing gets triggered. I'll shut off what I can from outside."
Reaper goes, a shadow among shadows. Half a minute later the metal front door slides open. Sombra waves.
"Hi again."
"Hey. Let's go."
The warehouse is built like a maze. Small rooms with low doorways leading to smaller rooms and another three exits. Sombra frowns as she passes the first crate of ammunition, the next one holding fusion cores.
"This is a lot of money just sitting around," she says. "No reason to abandon it. If there's no people guarding it there's something else in here, jefe."
"Their leader has an omnic butler. Not a stretch to think they have more than one."
"If it's anything like a Heavy, we can take it out."
"One, yeah. Any more and-"
Reaper doesn't finish his sentence. He's the first to step through the narrow doorway and the blast of fire hits him from the left, a maelstrom of blue flames. Blow torches, Sombra's mind supplies unhelpfully as she stares and stares.
Reaper's splitting scream of terror echoes in her ears. He dissolves, pulls himself together. His panic continues as the flames die down, continues as he scrambles for safety, away, far away.
Sombra watches the fire spread to the crates to her right. She's alone in the room. It's cold her in the night in the middle of the day, in this warehouse in a ruined street. Sombra freezes. Numbly watches as the flames approach. Old friends. They beckon as they envelop her, promise her safety. She doesn't move. Muted, faded colors. Muted, faded her.
Reaper grabs a hold of her shoulders and pulls her back. His claws dig into her jacket but she feels no pain. Lets him drag her out the door, into the wastes, into a ditch. The warehouse going up in flames is not enough to wake her. Reaper is, though.
Sombras come to pressed into a corner, a spot between a boulder and a dirt wall, her legs propped up. For a second she blinks, the heat of the inferno on her tongue, the back of her eyes. Then she follows the line of her right arm, down to where her fingers clutch at the singed sleeve of a black coat. Her hearing returns, pushes out the ringing.
Reaper talks to himself as whispers in the static of his voice, as a ghost in the machine. The same phrases over and over in Spanish and then English. Sombra knows the words. Can't understand them. Stays where she is with wide eyes and the tremor running through them both. Huddled together without touching, her fingernails carving lines into the fabric of his coat.
The fire behind them dies down. The other fire, the one that burns in her brain, never will.
#
"So," Sombra says on the ride back. "That happened."
"If by 'that' you mean us completing the mission then yes. That did happen."
She opens her mouth but Reaper nods towards a spot on the roof of the ship. Cameras.
"Good thing I came along," she says and the tremor in her voice is non-existent. "You're getting old, jefe, that last enforcer almost took your head off."
Reaper laughs.
"Yeah. It almost did."
They meet a good few miles away from Talon's current main base. An abandoned cliff. Sombra drops onto the harsh stone surface next to Reaper. Sighs, loudly.
"Cat's out of the bag, huh?"
"At this point I don't think there is a bag," he says. "There's just a cat now."
Sombra bursts out laughing.
"Was that a joke? Did you just-"
"I do make jokes, yeah."
"Not when I'm around."
"No offense," Reaper says and it's amused. "But you don't exactly come across as trustworthy."
Sombra gasps.
"Wow. I had no idea."
"Doesn't mean much in Talon, granted. Or coming from me."
"Might be the owl mask. Or the claws."
"Might be."
They sit in silence, staring out into the wastes and Sombra scoots a little closer.
"You know who I am," Reaper says, finally. "So I don't think I need to explain a lot."
"Talon hasn't given me any files on you."
"They don't need to give you anything for you to get the information."
She chuckles.
"They, not we?"
"Yes."
"You're right though, Mister Reyes. I know who you are."
Reaper huffs.
"I died in a fire," he says without looking at her, head turned towards the power lines in the distance, spanning miles and miles and never ending. "I was stuck underneath a collapsed building for a while and couldn't stay dead. Just kept burning for hours."
Sombra shifts, clasps her hands together.
"Ouch."
He laughs. Not entirely bitter.
"Yeah. It was pretty ouch."
"If you're telling me this because you expect-"
"You don't need to tell me what happened to you," he says. "It's none of my business, anyway."
"Then why?"
Reaper shrugs.
"What are you gonna use it for? Talon is already aware of it."
The wave of nausea cuts through the feeling of companionship quick. It shows on her face for a second too long.
"I'm not gonna tell them about you," he says. "They don't need to know."
Sombra frowns at the mask.
"What do you want in return?"
"Nothing. There's something you could help me with but I won't let them know even if you refuse."
"That's awfully kind of you."
Reaper laughs, quietly, another time.
"I can be nice."
Sombra forces herself not to smile. Not yet.
"What do you need help with? Information, I'm guessing?"
"Not quite," he says and turns back towards the sky. "How would you feel about a source inside Talon's council?"
#
The knock on her door doesn't startle her.
"Come in," Sombra says and keeps painting her nails. "Unless you want to sell me cleaning products. I have enough brushes."
Reaper enters and closes the door behind him.
"I'll note that for the record."
"To what do I owe the honor of your visit?"
He doesn't come any closer to where she is sitting on the mattress among her many bunched up blankets. Trails along the walls, not fully facing her.
"I heard about what happened on your end on the mission today," he says as he reaches a moody painting that Sombra drew little caterpillars on. She tenses up immediately, keeps applying polish to her nails.
"Are you gonna lecture me?"
Reaper hesitates. Glances over his shoulder.
"No. I was worried."
Sombra drops the brush. A few drops of black paint spill on her leggings, on the covers, on her exposed hands. It drips and when she scrubs at it it doesn't go away.
"You can't just hit me with that kinda thing out of nowhere, jefe," she says and shakes her head. "Or at all."
"I do recall you complaining everything I say is too vague."
"Yeah, because it is. You're edgy and cryptic. That's your whole thing."
"I am," Reaper says and turns to her, leans back against the wall. "But I'm also worried about you."
Sombra stares at him from within the mess of spilled paint.
"You make it so, so easy," she tells him and her voice is freezing cold, "to hurt you. You know that, right?"
He crosses his arms over his chest.
"I think you're smart enough to understand that targeting me is never going to hurt me much."
"You-"
"I'm not here to talk about me," Reaper interrupts her, still calm. "I'm here because you almost got killed in another fire."
Sombra flinches. Turns her sticky painted fingers on the sheets and watches them draw a mosaic from far away. Curls her fingers in the fabric and clings to it.
"It's already a risk to work with someone else in Talon," she says to no one in particular, the burn scars on her arms. "Making friends is-"
Reaper nods when she trails off.
"Tactically unwise. I know."
"Scary," Sombra finishes. "Is what I was gonna say."
"That too."
"Tactically unwise?"
He shrugs.
"You're with Talon for a reason. You have a goal and everything you do is supposed to get you closer to it. I'm no different. Getting attached to people isn't going to help."
"Well," Sombra says and stares at the paint, running, drying, seeping in. "Sucks to be me, then."
She takes a deep breath.
"C'mon, Gabe, you don't have to just stand in the corner. Grab a chair and wallow in misery with me."
Reaper takes two steps to the side, pulls over a chair and sits down. Keeps a distance between them. Sombra shakes her head at him again. Reaper laughs and sounds tired enough for the both of them, drained and worn thin. The sting is palpable this time. It eases, slowly, as time passes.
When the nail polish tips over entirely Sombra unravels with it, a few short minutes, a scream that pierces none of the walls, reaches no one outside. The skin on her arms is burnt raw and peeling underneath her jacket and the scars on her fingers haven't healed. Reaper leaves only once to return with supplies from her medicine cabinet. She mouthes a thanks because her voice is gone. When she tries to apply aloe vera her hands shake too much. Sombra grinds her teeth so hard they screech together.
"Do you need help?"
It takes her an eternity to nod. Reaper walks over and removes his gloves, methodical, deliberate. Clenches his scarred hands a few times. The smoke moves between his fingers like an electric current.
"Not optimal, either," he says, bitter. "But it'll have to do."
Sombra watches his practiced movements. How careful he is. Her throat aches as she forces out a few words.
"You have a son, don't you?"
"I do. Haven't seen him in a while, though."
"I'm not-"
She coughs.
"I'm not trying to replace him," Reaper says and wraps the gauze around her wrist. "That's not what this is."
"Then what is it?"
"Me being a sentimental idiot."
Sombra laughs as loud as her throat lets her.
"Not just you," she says.
#
Reaper gets hit with a sleep dart and Sombra abandons her position without a second thought. Translocates to a balcony and hacks the Helix agent high up in the air, disables their jump jets and watches them take cover once they hit the ground. By the time the hack wears off Reaper is back on his feet, retreats with Sombra and Helix's security keys.
"Thanks," he says on their ride back. A hint of disbelief.
Sombra gives him a thumbs up.
#
"Take your meds."
"You take your meds," Sombra says without looking up from her ebook reader. "I'm not falling apart. And stop frowning at me."
"I'm wearing a mask."
"I know you're frowning."
"And I know you're not taking your meds."
Sombra sighs.
"Okay, okay, fine. I'll do it the next time I get up."
Reaper throws two bottles onto the couch next to her. One water, one pills. Crosses his arms over his chest
"You said your migraines were getting worse again since you replaced the implants. It won't help with the ones in your spine but-"
He trails off.
"Thanks," Sombra says and gives him a tired smile.
"It's not to make me feel better."
"It was a genuine thanks, Gabe."
Reaper sighs, as well. Sits down next to her, hunched over, as he does.
"Yup," Sombra says and takes a pill. "Still idiots."
#
Reaper's mask cracks when he is hit in the head with a rifle. It gives under the blunt force. Sombra catches no glimpse of what's underneath because he turns into smoke, retreats. She follows.
"Am I really that predictable?" he asks out at the edge of the desert, turning his back on her.
"It's my job to find who doesn't wanna be found."
Reaper laughs but stops abruptly when she trails around him.
"Don't look at this."
"I'm not gonna think less of you if your face is kinda fucked up, you know."
Sombra nudges him to turn around, a hand on his shoulder. He does so with a sigh. The bottom part of the mask is all gone and so is a lot of the skin. Leaves too many teeth. His lip is bleeding both blood and smoke, a trickle of deep red. When she reaches up to remove the rest of the mask Reaper lets her.
"Don't say I didn't warn you," he mutters and blinks with pitch black eyes. "I wear it for a reason."
Sombra reaches into her pocket and pulls out a handkerchief. Reaper accepts it. Dabs at his split lip. The blood calms.
"You look fine," she says.
"I expected a joke at this point."
"I'm not gonna joke about your illness, Gabe."
He smiles with the grace of a dead man and she mirrors it. When the blood is gone the smoke stays.
#
One of their missions drags on for a day longer than expected. By the time the dropship arrives Sombra can barely stand, staggers and groans when the migraines spike. Her eyes close faster than she can force them open. She sits down next to Reaper and when she falls asleep it is curled up with her head resting on his leg. He drapes his coat over her and none of the bad dreams reach her.
#
When Sombra is thirty-four she walks the dark alleys of Dorado again. Just one more corner, one more house. The paint on the buildings coming up is bright and vibrant, smells fresh if she closes her eyes. Another thirty steps and she sits down in the middle of the street cross-legged. Her palms rest idle on her knees.
"This is the furthest I've gone," she says. "One more step and I'll-"
Reaper sits beside her, behind the same invisible barrier. Sombra draws it on the ground in front of her, a wobbly stroke and an uneven line in the dust.
"How long has it been?"
"Last time I was here was before I joined Talon," she says. "So what, eight years? Nine?"
"About that, yeah."
"Wild."
"Very."
"I feel kinda bad not coming here earlier, not gonna lie."
"I assume it was to protect your identity," Reaper says. "They'd understand."
Sombra snorts but the splinter in her heart stays.
"Bold claim."
"Correct claim."
She sticks her tongue out at him and Reaper laughs, quiet, for the deceased.
"I barely remember what they were like," she says. "Their faces, yeah. Not gonna forget those. But all the rest? Kinda went up in flames."
"You don't need to feel bad about that. You don't choose what to forget."
"Yeah. I just-"
Sombra cuts herself off. The sorrow runs deep.
"You wish there was more left," Reaper says.
"I don't wanna complain, a lot of people got less lucky than I did. A lot of people from here. I'm still gonna complain though. Even if I got you now."
"Your replacement dad."
"You're not my replacement dad," she laughs. "You're my dad. I just have one that died four steps ahead and one that's dead but still around."
He puts an arm around her shoulder and Sombra leans against him, tugs his coat around herself. It's not cold out here in the empty street. It doesn't have to be.
"They'd be proud of you," Reaper says. "You're a good kid."
"Not sure if they wanted their daughter to be a criminal."
"Details."
She laughs, nestled up against him, her fingers drawing vertical lines over the horizontal one. The dirt comes off easily.
"Sleep well, you two," Sombra says. "I'll bring flowers next time."
#
Reaper returns to base. Sombra finishes up her work- surveillance tapes and many of them- and saunters over to his room.
"Gabe? You okay?"
He looks up and smiles with an ease that makes her smile back immediately. The smoke pours from his face, deeper scars, the void staring back. Reaper smiles, anyway.
"I'm good."
"Why are you hurt, though? Is the cowboy okay?"
"You answered your own question."
Sombra sits with him.
"You talked it out?"
"I told him who I am. After he almost got burned."
Her eyes narrow.
"Burned, jefe?"
"I'm good," Reaper insists. "I didn't have time to freak out properly."
"Not about the fire, at least."
"Oh yeah. The rest of the panic was still on schedule."
Sombra wraps her arms around him. Rests her head on his shoulder and Reaper in turn rests his cheek against her hair.
"Just don't forget about little old me now, Gabe."
"I told you. I'm not replacing him. And I'm not gonna replace you. People can have multiple kids. Even if they're-"
He trails off.
"You're a good dad," Sombra tells him. "Dead or alive. Don't think it matters to either of us."
Reaper hums and she feels it in the cybernetics, the skin below.
"Good to hear."
"Just don't go into the fire again," Sombra says and her voice drops, quiet, a wisp of smoke. "I won't, either."
Reaper twitches, relaxes.
"I won't."
#
The lamps in one of their old hideouts haven't weathered the storms. There's candles in the cabinets, an engraved lighter on the table. Reaper shudders.
"It was a gift," he says and doesn't touch it. "Gone to waste, I guess."
Sombra leans against his side.
"They'll understand."
Such a small thing. Such a small flame. Neither of them reaches out. Reaper sighs.
"I'll get more batteries. You can just-"
"No," Sombra says. "I'm coming with you."
He laughs, pleased and somber and static.
"Good."
"Let's go, Gabe."
She tugs him along, into the darkness of the hallways. The shadows cling to them, as they always do.