[A/N: Another short story for my favorite pairing in OW. I saw this scene play out in my head last night and I just had to write it out]
They were on a rooftop at night, like all the other times they had met before. However, this night was vastly different from all the other nights before.
"You shouldn't trust me," Widowmaker murmured to Genji. Her eyes were downcast; she didn't dare meet his unrelenting gaze from beneath his mask. He was holding her wrists gently together with his hands just underneath his chin. She could have easily broken away from his grasp with a slightest tug in any direction, but she was absolutely powerless to him at this moment.
"I know," he answered her in a low tone, right by her ear. Her cold heart twisted inside. She felt him pulling her closer to him until her head was bowed under his. Both their hands rested on his chest, her hands tingle from the cold metal under them. She could feel the subtle hum of his artificial body's function beneath her finger tips; if she concentrated hard enough she could almost pretend to feel a heartbeat-like rhythm to it.
"Why?" Widowmaker whispered so quietly she could barely hear it herself. Moments passed and she began to wonder if she had even spoken it aloud or just imagined doing so. Genji shifted backwards from her, just the slightest movement away. He reluctantly releasing one of her wrists to free a hand. It did not slip past her notice that his thumb grazed the whole of hand as he let go.
Unable to continue looking away from him any longer she lifted her face up. Her eyes widened in surprise.
He was removing his mask.
She had only seen him once before without his mask, when she had knocked it loose off his face during a fight with him. It was a lucky hit at just the right angle that shot it almost all the way off. It dangled from his face for a long moment before clattering to the ground. She wasn't prepared for what she saw next.
His once-handsome face was horribly scarred from long gashes and discolored skin from split of burn marks. Then she saw his metal jaw and realized that he wasn't wearing a full metal suit of armour like she had previously thought; that was his actual body.
The worst was his unmasked eyes that stared back at her.
They were a vivid green that practically glowed from the shadows. She knew they would haunt her long after he left. His intense gaze left frozen even after he picked up his mask and turned his back to her. It was a painfully vulnerable and emotional moment for him that she had accidentally bared witnessed to.
Genji had turned to leave without another word and she would have let him go unhindered if a thought hadn't crossed her mind. She stepped forward.
"What happen?" Her voice was unusually thick-sounding. He paused, tilting his head to the side to meet her gaze. His green eyes burned straight through her right to her soul.
"My brother did this to me," he replied. He vanished into the shadows before she could say anymore. She was left standing their until the murky light of the rising sun started to appear.
She had a feeling that she had intruded upon something she never should have in the first place and that she should avoid further exchanges with him in the future.
Unfortunately, she had been right, but Genji didn't share the same sentiments as her.
After that encounter in his next visits he opened up to her in bits and pieces, revealing things about his life, both past and current, that she should not have been entrusted with. Things she could simply give to Talon to use against him in future fights and against the people, especially ex-Overwatch agents, that he knew. Or things she could easily use to emotionally manipulate and boring him to his knees with.
Widowmaker did neither of those things.
It didn't take long before things also began to slip from her mouth. That she loved ballet, even was an accomplished ballerina with contracts in famous theaters in Europe. Swans were her favorite animals. She used to be frightened of spiders. That she killed her own husband.
After that they both took a moment to contemplate that they were both very messed up people who. in her opinion, should keep away from one another and go through life pretending they had never encountered each other in the first place.
Genji, however, had vastly different thoughts about this than she did.
And so all of that led up to this moment in time.
There was a slight noise of metal scraping as Genji slowly remove mask from his face and looked down at her. Widowmaker's breath caught in her throat. His bright green eyes, so full of life against skin that screamed pain, froze her in place once again.
"Isn't obvious? I love you."
It was a simple statement, one that held more power than any 3-lettered sentence had any right to contain.
He was such a fool. Didn't he know she had killed her own husband? The man she had sworn to love until death do us part? His face was so honest, so willingly naive to let himself show that he completely trusted her.
She hated everyone in that moment who had ever hurt him
She hated his unnamed brother who had disfigured him, and left emotional scars that she knew had ran deeper than the worst wound his brother had inflicted upon him. It wasn't fair that someone with a heart like this was forced to hide his face and live with an metal body that lacked the ability to feel.
It wasn't fair that someone with a heart like this had decided to love someone who could not love him back. Well, she had found out life was cold and filled with twisted ironies ages ago.
Widowmaker felt Genji place his hands along her jaw, lightly cupping around her face. She flinched and shut her eyes, not wanting to meet his. He pulled her face slowly to him, closer than ever before. She did not resist him. She could feel him trembling, like he was afraid he something precious was about to slip from his grasp and be lost forever.
He kissed her.
She did not turn away.
It had truly been a long while since she had truly kissed a man, the last time had been a final good-night kiss hours before she killed Gérard in the night followed by the one she gave to his cold lips.
His lips were warm, she could feel the rough edges where scars had formed from open wounds. Hers were cold and soft. It was a slow and bittersweet kiss that they both grasped onto. She wished this moment would never end and simultaneously that it never happened at all.
It must have started raining because she could feel drops of water sliding down her face.
The kiss ended but they did not move apart. Widowmaker could feel Genji's soft breath on her face, it was warm like a summer breeze and reminded her that he was alive in ways she never could be.
She finally dared to open her eyes and glance up at him. She was surprised to find the world was blurry. She blinked twice, her vision cleared for a moment, then blurred again. She held a hand under an eye and discovered a steady stream of water there.
She looked at the sky and the moon, a blur of white, was visible. She looked back at Genji; his face was dry, only hers was damp. I'm...crying?
She could not comprehend why. She could not feel why. The mere thought of it was absurd, strange, and should not have been happening. Then again, rooftop kisses should not have been happening either.
"I don't understand..."
Genji wiped her tears away with the back of his hands. She looked up, wide eyed at him, the reflection of stars shining from them and slipping down her face.
"It's all right, you don't have to," he pressed his forehead to hers, she felt the warmth of his skin in contrast to hers.
In a moment of desperation she grabbed both of his hands and held them tightly to his chest, feeling the need to hold on to something else she'll slip away.
The world was very confusing at the moment.
She sighed.
"You shouldn't trust me."
"I know, but I still do."
[A/N: Thank you very much for reading my second ever fanfiction! If you liked it, please feel free to rate & review. Critiques are welcomed too! Btw, I'm working on a multi-chapter redemption arc for Widow ft. Genji & Zen but I have no idea when the first chap will be out.]
