Chapter Text
It always started the same. A shot in the wind. The sound of an agent down. And then-
“ Hello chérie. ”
Lena was sure if anyone ever called her that ever again, her first reaction would be to grab the nearest blunt object and prepare to go to war.
The mission was a usual one. Simple, Lena thought, nothing to worry about but the cold temperatures and the howl of the wind. Securing the old Talon outpost was almost like clockwork, and by the time it was done, Lena was ready to take a nap or seven.
“You know,” Genji said, stretching as they headed up a pair of stairs. The cyborg was always cheery after a job well done. “If you wanted to race-”
A gunshot. Genji ducking just in time for it to only get his arm. A flash of sparks. Genji diving off the stairs towards cover and-
“Hello chérie .”
Lena didn’t even have to think before grabbing her guns and sprinting off towards where the bullet had come from.
“Genji is down-” She said reporting as the world seemed to slow down around her. She always hated this part, the moment before real time became her time, before she truly entered the slipstream. At least when she was going forward. It reminded her of vanishing piece by piece in the cockpit, fragmented away. “Just his arm, he’ll be fine, but our sniper is still live.” The world slowed more, the proper slipstream now. Talking into her com would likely come out as static.
Another bullet rang out. Lena didn’t even have to duck, sidestepping it with ease. Easy to avoid something fast when you were faster. She darted up a pair of crates, using her speed to propel her on a nearby building and when she caught the sight of purple, she forced a smile.
Here, she was Tracer. Not Lena Oxton. Tracer. The hero. Smile wide, kiddo. Heroes didn’t have off days.
Widowmaker turned just in time for the catch phrase.
“Cheers love! The cavalry is here!”
And then is began again. Tracer vs. Widowmaker. Let them dance.
It could be described as dancing, Lena thought as she dived under Widowmaker, shooting furiously. The kind of dance those spiders who ate their mates made. Widowmaker was fast, dodging just in time, and when Lena struck out to throw her feet out from under her, a gas bomb flew in her face. She choked falling to her knees.
“Too slow, chérie .”
Lena dodged just in time as Widowmaker took a shot at her head. She would have taken another, she thought, if it wasn’t for the arrow that flew past the assassin’s head. The sound of very angry Japanese cursing.
Lena had to give it to Hanzo; for a guy who killed his brother once, he was terribly protective of the man now.
The dragons didn’t come, Widowmaker grappling off to another building before he could let them loose. Lena recovered her breath and she got to her feet, almost heaving. She heard the archer walk up behind her.
“Are you alright?”
“Just a tad winded!” She waved her hand, ignoring the look of concern from the archer. “It’s fine. I have strong lungs. All the running, you know?”
Hanzo stared at her for a moment. She didn’t move, waiting for him to either work up the nerve to whatever he wanted to say or decide against it. He went with the former, tilting his head to the side, a slight frown on his lips.
“What did she call you?”
Lena’s throat felt tight for a moment. She ignored the sensation. She couldn’t dwell on this. Not when flight with reinforcements would be here soon.
“ Chérie .” Hanzo kept looking at her. “It’s a nickname.”
“I knew that. I am curious why she has one for you.”
Someone hadn’t been informed of his Overwatch history then. Her history. They were too intertwined at this point, her and Overwatch, Overwatch and her. Lena wondered if she’d ever be able to separate the two. She doubted it, given the accelerator on her chest.
“We go back.” She ignored the raise of Hanzo’s eyebrow. “It’s complicated.”
“Complicated?”
“Enough for six novels and a film adaptation.” The archer’s gaze didn’t waver from her. “Look, anyone can tell you all about it. How about we check on your brother? I’m sure he’ll be peeved to learn he missed all the heroics.”
That got Hanzo to leave off, heading for the roof edge. He landed on the fire escape and Lena closed her eyes as she heard him walk down the stairs. She hoped someone would be able to answer his questions about Widowmaker so she didn’t have to.
She was so tired of telling that story.
“Cheers, Amélie,” she whispered under her breath before walking to the edge of the rooftop herself.
Even though she knew Widowmaker was long gone, some part of her felt like spider eyes were watching her.
Lena was fresh blood in Overwatch’s pilot program when she met Amélie Lacroix.
She met her husband first, her commander and a former pilot himself. Gérard Lacroix was a good commander, proud but not enough to ignore his own mistakes, dedicated but not to the point of losing sight of the world around him. Lena liked him at once, with his deep laugh and French accent.
She spent two months under his command before she became his friend. She spent another two before he invited her over to dinner with his family.
Lena didn’t know what to expect when she arrived at the small flat. They were stationed in London for the time being, the new pilots trained there, and she took a second before knocking on the door. A small dog could be heard from behind the oak, Kip or so the commander had told her, and when the door opened, Lena was met with Amélie Lacroix in the flesh.
Looking up at her commander’s wife Lena realized two terrible things.
The first was that her commander’s wife was terribly hot. Ungodly attractive, really. Just Lena’s type: tall, brunette, with a smile that implied it could be as sharp as a knife or as soft as a feather. The kind of girl she would hit on first at any bar.
The second, was that her commander’s incredibly hot wife, was also French.
She was so fucked.
“Amélie,” the woman said, greeting Lena with a polite handshake. Her voice was gentle, rather sweet, and Lena felt her insides twist. Oh, God, she was so gone.
“Lena,” she stammered out. The blush that hit her face a few seconds later was terribly bright. “Lena Oxton! I’m-”
“You’re the pilot?” Lena nodded. “Gérard has told me a lot about you.”
“He has.”
“Mostly that you won’t stop talking.” Amélie tilted her head and raised an eyebrow. “I’m afraid I don’t see it now.”
Oh God , Lena thought. This was how she died. Scared shitless of talking to a beautiful woman five years her senior.
“ Amélie,” Gérard came to her rescue, coming in to wrap his arm around his wife’s waist. She leaned forward to give him a kiss on the cheek. “Please do not scare my recruits. Especially my talented ones.”
Lena’s blush worsened. “I’m-’
“Please Oxton, you’re the best pilot in the fleet. And the youngest. I’m only speaking the truth.” He turned to Amélie. “Amélie likes to fly. I’m sure she’d love to hear about it.”
“I would.” Amélie smiled at that, taking a step back so Lena could walk inside. “I wanted to be a pilot when I was a girl, actually. I’m sure anything you tell me will be enthralling.”
Lena followed her inside, speaking up about her recent flight runs with Overwatch’s new planes. Amélie did turn out to be fascinated with the topic, asking a wide variety of questions, the terrier her and her husband shared resting on her lap for most of the conversation. She knew what she was talking about, Lena noticed. As the night went on, she went from the scary wife of her boss, to someone easy to talk to. A friend maybe. By the time she left, hugged by both Lacroixs, the terrier sniffing at her heels, she felt almost at home. It was her first time visiting their house. It would not be her last.
That would happen years later, when she arrived to find Gérard’s blood stained body on the kitchen floor, the terrier whimpering from the doorway and Amélie nowhere in sight.
Hanzo never came to talk to Lena about Widowmaker after that mission. In fact, when he saw her the next day, he apologized for intruding. It was a quick apology, stiff honestly, but Lena didn’t mind. He was new. He would make mistakes.
She had, when she first started out. Far too many to count.
“I heard you had a run in with our favorite sniper,” Winston asked her later, reviewing the mission. Jack had already left, he hated any semblance of being in command now, and Lena was happy for it, if only to avoid him commenting on this conversation. “Are you alright?”
“Not a scratch on me.”
Winston looked at her over his glasses. She called it his “professor” look. He hadn’t appreciated the joke. “That’s not what I meant, Lena.”
“I know it wasn’t. Won’t you let me deflect?”
“That isn’t healthy.”
“Are you a doctor as well as a scientist now?” Her quip had more bite than she intended and she leaned back on the workbench, blowing back her bangs. “It isn’t her, anyway. Does it matter?”
“You were friends. With her and her husband.”
We were family , Lena wanted to reply, but she bit her tongue. There was no use dwelling on the past. She knew that as much as everyone else. Instead she looked at Winston and shook her head.
“Amélie and I were friends. Spidey tried to shoot me over a dozen times last month and doesn’t own a winter jacket. There’s a difference.” She lifted her chin, seeing the question in Winston’s eyes. “I know the difference.”
Winston pushed up his glasses. Nodded. Conversation over, heart to heart done. He knew not to beat a dead horse. It was part of the reason Lena liked him. “Have you heard who McCree has been training with?”
Lena let herself sink into the familiarity, forgetting a cold stare and cold skin. She crossed her arms and tilted her head.
“Are you gossiping with me, Winston?”
“I’m speculating. It’s a line of scientific-”
“Gossip.”
“Lena.”
“Oh come on, Winston. What is it?”
As he told her, along with gossip about Genji’s recent shopping habits and Hana’s late phone calls in the middle of the night, she let herself forget about the mission and sink into the present.
The day Lena got her accelerator, the day her nightmare ended and she found herself in the real world once more, she spent the night at the Lacroixs.
Gérard insisted, in the room when she’d become physical once more. He’d been there for a long duration of her time living on the fringe of time, despite no longer being her commander. Amélie had stopped in too, Lena remembered, telling jokes to her as she tried hard to stay in the present.
It had been easy, to pretend to have spirits while the slipstream had her. To pretend this was another adventure, that she was fine. To tell jokes with Winston and chatter away.
It had been easy to wear a mask, when no one could see her face for long.
When the accelerator had been put on, she’d cheered. The rest of the day in the lab she’s spent hugging those she could get her hands on, savoring the feeling of being solid. When Gérard had driven her to his house, she’d taken extra time on the stairs, and almost swung Amélie around in their corresponding hug. Laughed when Kip settled onto her lap.
It was only later, when she’d woken up to the flicker blue glow of the accelerator in the dark guest room, that reality set in.
She would be like this forever. Attached to the world with this thing on her chest. Never free of it, the free of the reminder, never free of the blue glow.
For the first time since her ship began to vanish, Lena cried. No, that was incorrect.
Lena sobbed.
It was Amélie who came to comfort her, opening her door five minutes after she started crying. She didn’t hesitate before sitting next to Lena on the bed, and pulling her into a hug, Lena’s face tucked into her shoulder. Ruing the beautiful nightshirt she wore.
“I could disappear,” Lena said between sobs, clutching onto Amélie for dear life. Clutching onto this world for dear life. “I could disappear again and this thing is keeping me here-”
“You’re not going to disappear.” Amélie pulled back to look Lena in the eye. Tilted up her chin. “I will not let you. Gérard will not let you. Winston will not let you.”
“But-”
“Chérie-” Amélie said, using a nickname that would last long after her. “You are here. With me. You are safe. I promise.”
Lena would fall asleep there ten minutes later, gripping onto Amélie’s waist for dear life.
When she woke in the morning, the woman would still be there, running her fingers through her hair as sunlight began to pool through the window.
Widowmaker wasn’t Amélie.
Lena knew this. She read the papers Winston pulled, the information Ana gave her. She knew that the woman she once met all those years ago was no longer there, nothing left but a puppet for Talon to use. There was no undoing the programing. She wasn’t an idiot. She knew that if given the chance, Widowmaker would kill her, no hesitation.
But sometimes, she wondered. If only for the questions Widowmaker would sometimes ask, when she chased her across rooftops.
“How’s the girlfriend?”
“Is that Indian place still open?”
“How is the dog?”
Lena didn’t answer the questions anymore. She had at first, but when she learned Widowmaker never remembered the queries for long, she decided against it. When Widowmaker decided to probe her old life, it was only in passing not genuine interest. She only asked questions she already knew the answers to. But that didn’t stop Lena from answering them in her head.
“She dumped me after I vanished. You were there. I sobbed into the ice cream you bought for almost an hour.”
“It is and it’s gotten terrible under new management. Gérard would have hated it: they stopped serving the special for something bland. It’s not even spicy anymore!”
“Kip is old but fine. He had to get his hip fixed last year when a motorcycle hit him. He walks fine, but he has a limp. We’re no longer the speedy team.”
She didn’t ask Widowmaker questions, at least the ones she wanted answers to. She only fired off banter these days, questions meant to annoy, questions meant to prod and poke. She knew what happened if she asked anything genuine: “ why would you do this ”, taught her that much. So she held back. Her questions weren’t for Widowmaker anyway. They were for Amélie.
“Did Gérard know? Before it happened? Did he have a chance?”
“Why did you leave the dog alive? Had it not set in yet?”
“Do you know who I am?”
“Do you remember Gérard ?”
“Do you remember me?”
“Did they let you remember anything?”
After any mission where Widowmaker made it off into the wind, Lena would ask the same questions to the night sky.
She never got the answers she wanted.
On a Tuesday night, Overwatch threw a talent show.
That wasn’t quite the correct terminology. It was more like, Lena forced a talent show right after dinner to force group activity that didn’t consist of being shot at.
A handful of her comrades protested, but the enthusiasm of a few managed to win them over eventually. Reinhardt went first, determined to show his “feats of strength” and soon enough, Zarya had joined him, both of them walking around the base trying to lift the heaviest items they could find. Lúcio showed off his skate tricks, a surprise for those who were expecting music, and when Hana tried on a pair of her own and managed to keep up with him, no one could hide their shock. Winston attempted to juggle some eggs (which ended up all landing on Morrison). In the most impressive show of the night, Genji danced, pulling in Angela to perform some moves that were clearly rehearsed.
“You’re gonna have to teach me those!” Lena yelled after the dance was done, lifting up her hand for a high five. Genji slapped it back. The metal to skin contact hurt, but Lena was used to it. She smiled at Angela. “You too, Angie. When I go clubbing next, I’m borrowing that twirl.”
“We’re an underground organization,” Morrison said from his corner. He’d cleaned the eggs off his suit, but he was still sulking. Which really, was his default attitude some nights. “You can’t go clubbing.”
“I can if I wear a disguise.”
“You have a glowing particle accelerator on your chest.”
“That’s what baggy jumpers are for! Or McCree’s clothes!” She glanced over to McCree. “Jesse? You got a serape I can borrow? Something in my color?”
McCree gave her a thumbs up right as Morrison groaned.
The night went on, more alcohol being consumed as the hours ticked down. Hanzo and McCree got into a competition over darts, and Lena almost burst out laughing at the look on both their faces when Ana swooped in and trashed them both. As the night moved to a close, everyone was tired, warm, and content. The best outcome, in Lena’s opinion.
They were all tightly wound here in Overwatch. For a reason, sure, but too much tension could kill you. They needed to relax every once in awhile. And if Lena had to force monthly talent shows for that to happen, so be it.
“What’s your talent, Lena?” Hana said, after she’d beaten Genji in what looked to be the 5th round of their video game. The cyborg was still sitting on the sofa, his lights red instead of their usual green as he stared at the television. It looked like being a sore loser was a Shimada family trait, omnic training or not.
Lena looked down at the youngest member of Overwatch. She honestly hadn’t thought of performing herself, since Genji out shown any attempt she could make at dancing. And she had a feeling that being able to pop her gum without getting any on her face wouldn’t be seen as a talent. She took a sip of her drink, pondering it for a minute, and before she could see it coming, Mei bumped into her. Lena dropped the glass, and watched as it shattered on the floor.
“Aw shit-” It hit Lena at once. Her talent. Hana wouldn’t have seen this before: she wasn’t around when Lena first learned she could do this. Before anyone could say another word, Lena reached down, Grabbed a piece of the shattered glass. And fell back into the slipstream.
Going back in time in the stream was different than going forward. It was more natural, like falling back into a river with a current and letting it carry you away. Softer almost, less jarring than going in the other direction. Lena watched as her personal world rewound on itself. As the glass’ personal world, even the shards she wasn’t touching, torn back in time with her, rewound on itself.
It was hard to go backwards far, just like it was going forward. The slipstream always threw her out after a few seconds, not willing to let her screw with time for much longer. Not that it mattered: Lena only needed three seconds at most. She felt herself eased out of the stream, the blue glow of the world fading away. Looked down at her hand.
The glass, in one piece, rested there.
“Wow,” Hana said, leaning forward to get a better look at it. It wasn’t quite the same, no, unlike when Lena rewound, objects didn’t work quite the same. They carried memories of the timeline they’d escaped, scars from a time that never was. In the glass itself, almost if etched there, were lines were the fractures would have been, the glass itself tinted a little blue. Hana tilted her head and looked at Lena.
“Where’d you learn how to do that?”
“Old girlfriend’s place. Broke one of her pieces of china. Rewound in a panic and found out the plate went with me. She wasn’t too impressed though.” In fact, she’d promptly freaked out, clearly not used to the superheroics part of dating a superhero. The relationship hadn’t lasted even a week after the incident.
“Can you do that with my broken X-Box?”
Lena laughed. “If you broke it a few seconds ago, yes.” Hana grumbled, clearly wanting a different answer. “It gotta be stuff I can hold onto and drag with me. Can’t exactly carry your mech in either.”
Hana shook her head. Lena could see the battle plans she’d envisioned dying away. After a moment she spoke.
“Can you do that with people?”
Lena paused before answering, thinking it over. That was a tricky answer. Tricky enough, that Winston had given her three separate lectures on the topic with slides when they were first figuring out her abilities.
“I can, but it’s dangerous. People have to be linked with me, not to be dragged into the stream on their own. Winston said I’m something like an anchor.” She bit her lower lip. “If I have a good grip on them, it’s fine, but if I don’t and I let them go, they fall into the stream proper. On their own. Which is messy business.”
“Messy?”
Lena thought of months left in limbo, where the world wasn’t solid and time refused to make sense. Where she was a maid one moment and a pilot the next. Where she shifted from five, to thirty, to seventeen, to sixty, and back to twenty two again. Where, after escaping, she kept three watches on her for weeks, if only to make sure time hadn’t lost its grasp on her again.
“Yeah. Messy.”
Hana didn’t ask any questions after that.
Lena pulled the rewind trick on one of Amélie’s plates once. Amélie thought it delightful, and put it with her best china.
“It’s beautiful, chérie,” she’d said, when Lena asked why. “Strong despite what has happened to it. Why wouldn’t I want to keep it?”
And kept it she had, until Talon came by, and took her with them.
(The plate now rested in Lena’s room, collecting dust underneath her bed)
Two months after the talent show, Lena got shot in the shoulder. She’d been snagged in a trap and as she’d escaped, a bullet had ripped through the air, into her shoulder. Angela had patched it up well, thank you modern medicine, but the pain still lingered hours later.
She had a feeling who shot her. The bullet Angela carved out, one from the sniper rifle Widowmaker preferred, only made it official.
“She is targeting you,” Ana said, stopping by her room later, face deathly serious. “Do you know why?”
“Probably because she can’t hit me. I’m ruining her “one shot, one kill”, slogan.”
“Lena-”
“Does this make me her nemesis? Because I’ve never had a nemesis-”
“Lena,” Ana’s voice had no room for argument. “This is serious.”
“I didn’t say it wasn’t.” Lena leaned back in the hospital bed she was in, taking a deep breath. “Look, she’s likely pissed cus I keep bollocking her operations.”
“Are you sure that is it?”
Lena looked up at the ceiling lights. They gave off a yellow glow, not a blueish one, and she was thankful for it. “Does it matter?”
“If we have a motive, we can now how to avoid having it happen again.”
“Ana-”
“Lena.” A hand rested on her shoulder. Lena looked down at Ana so she could see her face. “I might be old, but my memory works fine. I know that you were friends.” Her good eye seemed to look Lena right through. “Do you think that might have something to do with it?”
Lena thought back to seeing Widowmaker for the first time. To seeing a gun in her former friend’s hands, to watching her blank eyes. She could still remember the assassin’s expression when she’d seen her for the first time.
No recognition. Nothing. Just an assassin and her target. Widowmaker and Tracer.
Not Lena and Amélie.
“No,” Lena said at last. “I’m sorry Ana, really, but, that’s not it. Trust me.”
Ana said nothing, only reached up as if to touch her eye patch.
Sometimes, Lena thought, it was hard to remember that Widowmaker had left scars on them all.
Lena was the one to rescue Amélie. After Talon.
She remembered her relief, when she found she was okay, alive. How she’d held her close as they escaped the building, guns blazing about her. She could recall her talk of seeing Gérard again, word for word, her promises of what they could do when Amélie was recovered. Talk of movie nights, dinner with the rest of Overwatch, breaking plates just to watch Lena replace them.
When Gérard arrived to take Amélie home from the hospital, Amélie had said only one thing to Lena in return since being rescued.
“Be careful.”
It took two weeks and a body on the floor, for Lena to realize what she had been warning against.
The first time Lena pulled someone into the slipstream with her, it was entirely by accident.
It was on a mission, a mission that had gone terribly south. Everything was in ruins, the payload in the wind, Talon’s agents swarming the entire area armed to the teeth. Genji had been injured, she knew, she saw McCree and him limp off with sparking robotic limbs and Reinhardt had lost a lot of blood, his armor cracked right in the middle. The call for a retreat was abrupt, Jack’s scream for it still echoing in her ears, and as Lena darted around a corner, she hoped Winston had brought his tools with him on this run.
The crackling noise that came from her accelerator, damaged with a bullet that skimmed the side, could be anything but good.
She kept the panic at bay, focusing on the task at hand. She could freak out later, safe in the base, or lost in the slipstream. Until then, Tracer, fearless Tracer, would take priority over terrified Lena. Keeping out of the slipstream was hard, the pull constant, and despite the temptation, she refused to fall into it. If she did, who knew if she’d be able to come back out.
She turned another corner, then leaped onto a fire escape to make it to the rooftop. Getting out of sight would help, especially when her accelerator was so easily noticed. Taking note of the recall point, she ran forward, leaping over buildings and onto rooftops. It felt more dangerous without the accelerator to rely on, and she desperately hoped she wouldn’t trip.
“Hello chérie-”
Lena only had a second to duck before a bullet flew over her head.
“Not now,” she said, her hands bleeding from the impact to the ground. “Not now-” Another shot rang out and she ducked to the side, looking up. There, two buildings away, red lights from a sniper mask. She couldn’t outrun her, not now. The spider had her. Either she fought, or she accepted being trapped in its web.
“Tracer here-” she said, getting to her feet, pressing the com. There was plenty of chatter going through that she’d turned out previously, something about McCree, and she hoped they would all be okay before she spoke next. “Widow sighted. I have to engage. Tell Winston my accelerator is broken and to bring a spare to the corner of Cross if I don’t show up to recall.”
“Lena!” And there was Jack. She took a deep breath, tuning him out.
“Good luck, boys.”
She ran. Taking out her pistols felt like second nature at this point and when she jumped a rooftop she ignored the feel of the pull of the slipstream. Another bullet passed and she barely dodged it. As she landed on the rooftop with Widowmaker, she emptied her clip in one round.
No hits. Widowmaker was fast. Aiming to take another shot.
Lena didn’t think. She forgot about the break in her accelerator, the danger of moving with it. Instead, she darted forward. Grabbed Widowmaker’s shoulders. Yanked her to the side as Widowmaker tried to fire a round into her chest. Fell into the slipstream, easy as falling under the water of a deep pool.
Widowmaker went with her.