AN: Getting my feet wet. Title from the song of close to the same name by The Postal Service. Content pretty heavily influenced by the dialogue between Pharah and Ana; specifically the sequence Pharah kicks off.
There were about fifty good hiding spots in Watchpoint: Gibraltar that didn't require an active base. Fareeha no longer fit in a good dozen of them.
As fully established adult who had every right to be here, that no longer mattered. In theory.
As someone raised by Ana Amari, Fareeha was grateful to know the facility well enough to enjoy her morning tea on top of the perfected solitude of latticed maintenance catwalks.
Truthfully, so out in the open, it could only be called a hiding spot if someone went out searching for her. Since no one would, it was easy to switch focus and pretend that she'd chosen it for the aesthetic perks.
It was quiet. It gave her a better view of the overhanging rock formations than she'd ever been allowed during her childhood. The distant rays of the rising sun were only a head tilt away.
She'd seen all of it before. Before the recall, she'd almost stopped hoping to see it again.
Out of all the places her military brat upbringing had swept her, this was The One. This was where she knew she belonged. This had to be where she was meant to go.
When she dreamed of the day Overwatch sent her an invitation, she saw the glittering water and same towering rocks lingering above. She could hear the roar of carrier engines and constant pops coming from the practice range.
This was where they had all been at their happiest.
She remembered flying across the base on her mother's shoulders, Jack's complaints about it being no place for children following them over the intercom while Ana shouted back that it couldn't be any worse than putting one in charge. Giggling laughter filled the base, Gabriel taking a break for the first time in a week to watch them. One rare time, Reinhardt had scooped Fareeha up midway and lifted her high enough to brush the ceiling.
It was never for very long, but the moments spent in this place were shining beacons of when everything was right in the world, and justice and camaraderie reigned. They were what she aspired to honor.
None of her visions for the future had involved waking up early to brood over the thousandth time her mother questioned her career path. Before their first mission together, even.
She wasn't sure why. That had always been the one true constant of her life.
Fareeha sipped quietly at her tea, breathing in the brisk morning air and staring down at the waking base below. So far, only Brigitte and Torbjörn were visible, chattering all the way to his workshop.
She found it harder now to react harshly to her mother's opinion. Her mother was alive, for one thing. She hadn't been for too many years, and there was little Fareeha couldn't forgive in light of that. Additionally, illegally or not, she was now part of Overwatch. She was standing in the place of her literal dreams, working with living legends and several personal idols, her mother included.
That didn't make parental disapproval any easier to bear. The mortified teenager in her was still groaning over the number of ears that had caught Ana's weary comment.
It was a small blessing that Tariq and Saleh had assignments elsewhere. They'd trusted her enough to follow her here, giving up their jobs and most of their gear; they didn't need to hear their captain's mother sighing at her life choices during mission prep.
Fareeha perched her elbows against the railing, looking down below. Besides the expanse of neglected steel, there was nothing but open air, and in a perfect world, she and her squadmates would know what it was like to soar it. Years ago, when Overwatch was in its prime, Helix might have considered loaning out their state-of-the-art equipment to one of their security chiefs who had earned the organization's favor. The current climate was somewhat less flexible.
For now, she was grounded. They all were. The bordered catwalks overseeing the base came as close to free sky as she could get on her own. If she closed her eyes, letting the breeze take her and listening to the distant crash of waves–it didn't even come close.
What did come to her was the light pitter-patter that several successful operations had taught her to recognize.
She opened her eyes and looked to the top of the sheltered stairwell that had brought her here, ready when Genji made his final flip to stand a meter above her head.
He noticed her instantly-of course-but the childish part of her still relished in the slight widening of his eyes. No one was ever prepared when he dropped out of nowhere. Going by the bounce in his step following most instances, he liked it that why. She tipped her mug to him.
He quietly reached up and slid his visor back into place. "Captain Amari. I was unaware you were up here."
Fareeha smiled ruefully. "Watching the sunrise."
"Of course." He bowed his head to her. "I shall leave you to it. Privacy is a luxury that is seldom supported here."
Before he could reverse his climb, Fareeha spoke up. "We're in the wrong line of work for luxury. You're welcome to stay."
Genji didn't provide an immediate response. He stood balanced on the roof, shots of dawn bouncing off of him, looking down at her. It was impossible to tell if he was considering the suggestion, or searching for a polite way to say that he did not scale the tallest portion of a largely abandoned facility for companionship.
Fareeha was perfectly willing to accept either. Out of their new colleagues, Genji was one of the few she'd never met before. He had found his way to Overwatch during her time in the army, and while friendly, seemed more at ease keeping his distance. With everyone. Most of what she knew of him as a person came from an extremely awkward field encounter they'd shared with his brother. That remained the only positive part of the incident.
They had worked together peaceably so far, but professional courtesy guided most dialogue exchanges. She was open to opportunities to change that.
Less generously, Genji was also one of the few people within hearing range of her latest discussion with her mother, and perhaps the only one with the emotional cognizance to guess at why she was really up here. They'd arrived back at the base far past reasonable hours. She wasn't sure of how much rest he required, but it was obvious that she had abandoned any hope of making up for the late night.
Above her, he finally moved, sliding smoothly into a sitting position that shared her angle of the horizon. "Thank you," he said. To her surprise, he spoke on. "My last visit to this place held little thought of admiring its scenery."
Fareeha took another sip of her tea and didn't ask. "The last time I was here," she admitted, "everyone was taller than me." She ran her thumb over the rim of the mug. "It's nice that some problems can be outgrown."
Genji observed her for a long moment. There was a tangible pause.
"So it is."
Silence stepped easily between them. Down below, Reinhardt was lumbering his way across the path Brigitte and Torbjörn had taken. Soon, the ringing clang of steel on steel would probably scare away the seagulls roosted in the eaves. They still had the option of flying off.
An image of the look on Torbjörn's face if Fareeha asked him to recreate something as modern as her Raptora suit flashed to mind, and she smiled into her mug.
It wilted when another agent wandered out to enjoy the morning air.
"Others linger."
Fareeha glanced up, where she had the feeling Genji was making an effort not to look at her. She was more than used to the accompanying body language. Her mother regularly inspired it in half the people they knew.
"It's better than it was," she said, in lieu of a real defense.
He turned his head to her briefly. "Yet not so improved that she is willing to trust you on your own path."
The accuracy stung. Pressing against the railing more tightly, Fareeha stayed quiet for a moment, watching her mother dangling her feet over the edge of her own safety rails. Peace was still a scarcity for her. Coming back had changed so much, but never that.
Fareeha loved her life. She wouldn't sort through and pick and choose what aspects she could do without; they were all interconnected, bringing her to a place where she could do some good in the world. She had been allowed, through some miracle, to live out her dream.
Her mother had not.
It was hard sometimes, not to feel responsible for that. All of the self-righteous anger that had fueled their arguments during her teenage years was mostly gone, and now, when the topic did come up, all Fareeha could see was the wary exhaustion in her mother's eye. She hated contributing to it.
"I'm one of her failures," she said softly, not meaning to. "My mother is one of the greatest heroes the world has ever known, and all she has ever wanted is for me to be safe." She grimaced. "Life's greatest luxury. This… all of this is hard for her."
Breeze caught her hair, bringing the salty taste of the sea with it.
"You must love her very dearly," Genji said, "to keep that sympathy in mind over resentment."
Fareeha caught the loaded undertone. A lifetime of making assignments work around the clash of personal feelings had left her with several practical social skills. Not a deep inclination to use them, but it was still firmly within her skill set.
Forgoing further attempts at mock boundaries, she clambered up on the railing, handing off her mug without worrying to ask before vaulting herself up on the roof. The view wasn't any different, but it offered a dizzying sense of freedom that the sheltered catwalk couldn't compare to.
Genji handed her back her tea, continuing. "I admire that quality in you. It was one of the hardest lessons I ever learned." He paused. "I still struggle with it."
Only very practiced control stopped Fareeha from eyeing Genji's body pointedly. She had witnessed his patience with his brother firsthand. Respectfully, she kept the exact memories of the exchange from her mind, but she knew enough of the involved history that not even one of her rockets could have blasted away her skepticism. Fratricide was not the sort of thing most people would know how to excuse. Under any circumstances. She wasn't sure anyone who knew the full story would be surprised that Genji had spent years living with monks.
He shifted under the scrutiny. His second visible sign of discomfort this morning. "My brother's actions are easier to forgive than his stubbornness," he said.
Fareeha blinked. She swirled the dregs of her tea, fighting off the twitch of a grin threatening her lips.
"May I speak candidly?"
"Of course."
She dropped down from her lofty perch to a crouch, meeting the glow of Genji's visor solidly. "If my mother and I were siblings," Fareeha said, "we would have murdered each other several times over by now."
It was as far from professionally courteous as she could have possibly gone, the dead seriousness in her eyes hardly making up for it. The ensuing staring contest wasn't much better, but it was at least mutual.
There were ways to relate to your unit respectfully. This was not one of the recommended methods.
The training that elaborated on why stalled at a passing suggestion, and the soft huff of a robotic chuckle reached her ears.
"Perhaps," Genji said, a warmth to his voice that she didn't often hear, "it is a sniper proclivity."
"Perhaps," Fareeha agreed, grinning. "That must be why they need us."
She would have to hammer down his emotional cues more thoroughly in the future, but in the moment, she was certain that ebbing tension in his shoulders counted as a win.
Regardless, she thought, remembering the warmth and joy in secure arms holding her up to the sky, it was certainly the truth.
Flashing him another smile, she settled back on her haunches, breathing out her own stress from the previous evening and taking in the sights of one of her favorite homes.
The sun was shining. The sky was clear. Even her tea being nearly gone was barely a blip on her radar.
There were still those gulls, though.
They fluttered through the air, scattering gracelessly at the crashes echoing from the workshop.
She had made a much better bird. She'd always known to fly towards those noises.
"I believe your earlier assessment was flawed, Captain Amari," Genji said suddenly. "We must be living at the height of luxury to enjoy watching a sunrise with a friend."
Fifty meters beneath them, Ana was sipping tea, cajoling a grumpy Jack out into the morning glare.
Fareeha reached out her mug and clinked it against Genji's fist.