Summary: Mei just joined Overwatch. Zarya has her eye on her.
Warnings: Lots of F-bombs, dark humor, and a character death.
Notes: Zarya and Tracer are in an established relationship but aren't married; Zarya refers to her as her wife to be cute.

(#1)

Overwatch received a new recruit today, and every time a new recruit is brought on, all the others would attend a meeting to introduce themselves to them so they feel welcome. This is actually your first meeting, but you're just as excited and eager as everyone else to welcome the new hero.

You sit with your wife, Tracer, in the Oasis University conference room. You're all the way in the back because as the tallest, you can easily see over everyone else's head. Your wife can't, but she seemed to have found a way to see by looking between some heads.

Winston finally takes the podium as the room settles down. "Thank you for coming today to welcome our newest Overwatch recruit, Mei-Ling Zhou."

Nobody is with him. The heroes look around the room, yourself included. Even Winston is looking.

He lost the recruit, you think. How is that even possible?

"…Oh, Sorry!"

You jump a bit and quickly look next to you, and see a woman wearing an oversized coat and thick rimmed glasses, as she rose from the seat beside you that she had apparently been in the entire time to scramble to the front of the room, tripping twice over her own feet in the process (full trips too; she hit the floor face first both times).

How did you not see her there? When did she get there? How can she be cold in Iran? That couldn't be the new recruit, you think. You're pretty sure it's supposed to be Doomfist.

As you look around and realize everyone was, in fact, offering their introductions to the one in the coat, you turn to your wife for a moment. "Who even is she?"

"I'unno, love, but she seems like a nice gal. A bit clumsy, though." Tracer responds. "I'm sure Winston recruited her for a good reason."

You learn throughout the meeting that the coat girl is a Chinese ecologist, and you hear about what happened to her right before she joined Overwatch. While the room was abuzz with chatter for the past few minutes, there was a sudden silence that filled it after that story.

You hear Lucio across the room break it. "DAYUM!"

Your wife exchanges a silent nod of agreement with you. You had seen some things in the past few years yourself; you fought omnics and protected your country, seen hundreds of people die in hundreds of horrible ways, and don't forget the time you ripped a particle cannon off a fucking tank with your bare hands… but somehow, Mei had a uniquely dark experience.

In spite of that, she could giggle like a child mid-way through telling the story, and you're pretty sure it was that, not the actual story, that unsettled almost everyone in the room.

"It's no big deal," Mei answers Lucio with another laugh. "As the saying goes, 'Shit happens'."

—-

Lucio has apparently established a personal radius of space between himself and Mei. He reacts almost like a repelled magnet to maintain that radius. At the moment he's with you and Tracer in the university cafeteria. Tracer took your food as usual, because you always drink a protein shake for lunch (and you think she needs to gain a few pounds anyway). She's talking a mile a minute with frog boy, and you'd tuned them out a while ago in favor of some introspective daydreaming.

Your eyes tend to wander when you do this, usually to focus briefly on a wall, then a different wall, then a person walking by… and now your wandering eyes are stuck on coat girl (still wearing the coat? Seriously?) on the other side of the cafeteria. Symmetra and are with her. You note that they seem to be having a casual conversation, and other than the coat (you wonder for a second if it fits you), Mei seems pretty normal.

You could be mistaken, you think. Perhaps when everyone first met her, she was just nervous. People laugh when they're nervous. They smile. They wear coats indoors. That's a thing, right? You're sure it is.

Your wife pauses her conversation to give you a jarring nudge to the side. You playfully shove her back and she nearly falls over, but bounces back upright instead. She attempts to retaliate with a shove of similar force, but can't move you. As she continues desperately to do so, she asks, "Oi, Aleks, what are you starin' at? That's rude."

You respond absently, "Where do you think she got it?"

"…What? Who?" Tracer tries to follow your gaze and realizes you're looking at Mei. She raises an eyebrow. "…The coat?"

"It's really nice, I just… I…"

You can't finish your thought before an unusual alarm rings in your ear. An emergency mission? Tracer, Lucio, and your earpieces begin to beep, signalling an incoming message. You're sure , Symmetra, and Mei were also called, as they had also stopped their conversations to listen. Athena asks the six of you in the cafeteria to report to the briefing room immediately.

—-

"THIS was an emergency!?" You bleat out in frustration when the drop ship lands and the six of you find that you've been dispatched to Hollywood to escort a very expensive car into a nearby warehouse. What a waste of your ability, you think, as you all approach the set where the payload was waiting.

You walk slowly behind the other five with your cannon over your shoulder, grumbling, anything resembling a good mood that you might have had evaporated in the California heat…

…and you suddenly register that fucking Mei is still wearing her coat. Seriously? Forget Mei getting a heat stroke, you were about to die of one just from looking at her and trying to imagine how absolutely steaming the inside of that coat must be right now.

Your wife notices your discomfort and falls back a bit so she could walk beside you. "Believe me, I think this is just as stupid as you do, love."

"It's not that," you answer under your breath, motioning toward coat girl. Tracer catches on, reacting like she'd been slapped in the face.

"What in the…"

The two of you can hardly begin discussing your theories before you reach the set, cautiously standing around it and checking your surroundings first. One can never be too aware.

Lucio is the first to approach the payload itself. "Area looks clear to me, guys, let's go." Just as he finishes saying that and reaches to touch the car, your eyes catch a glass-like glint beneath it.

"Wait!" You try to stop him, but he kicks over the strange device and it shatters, releasing a dense, purple cloud of gas that chokes the DJ and puts him in a coughing fit.

Thinking quickly, you swing your cannon off your shoulder and project one of your barriers onto him. Lucio catches his breath and thanks you, the bubble allowing him to breathe fresh air long enough to recover.

You don't have to look at your wife to know that she's already put off. She knows what you saw too; a venom mine. That only means one thing…

…and it finally reveals itself, jumping from atop a building, somersaulting, and landing dramatically on one knee to meet the six on the set.

(Widowmaker. It's Widowmaker. She's the one with the mines.)

"Amelie…" Your wife greets the other woman with an ominous glare and tone that suggests a history with her.

"Lena…" The spider-woman responds, her tone just as dry and cryptic.

You have no idea what to say, or even how the two could know each other, so you back up a few steps (like the other four of you) and look on as they stare each other down. You realize how ironic it is that the set you're on is of a western style movie and nearly snicker.

There's no reason to draw weapons yet, you think, as you rest your weight against your idle cannon, but you're still ready to react. You quickly do a head count of your team… five, including you.

Where the fuck did Mei go? You couldn't miss that woman in that gorgeous coat. She definitely isn't here.

"What do you want with this car?" Your wife asks the spider-woman, a bit dramatically for the situation.

"I have no idea, but I was paid to make sure you don't move it from this lot." The oxygen-deprived sniper responds, swinging her hips as she playfully looks at your wife through her rifle's scope.

That's when you hear a noise in the distance. You notice that Lucio, Symmetra and heard it too, but can't tell what it is. It doesn't sound like a gun…

But you see the source of the noise coming toward you at what you can only assume is nearly the speed of light. You dive to the floor just in time for the object to graze the highest standing hairs on your head, and you look up just in time to witness, in pure horror, what it is.

It's an icicle, nearly a foot long and rock solid. And it's currently impaling Widowmaker's skull. Your wife is just staring in shock, a splatter of blood across her face and torso. Her eyes follow the lifeless body as it drops to the ground and bleeds out at everyone's feet. There's a long, silent pause…

"Sorry!"

It echoes from nearby, and you finally see that Mei had been watching the whole thing from the roof of a saloon. "Oh my Kaplan, I thought we were gonna fight, I'm sorry! I'm so sorry!"

None of you can talk after that. You walk solemnly alongside the payload with your wife, who hasn't bothered to clean her face off. Lucio tries to keep the mood up with music as he rides atop the car, his rollerblades covering the roof and windshield with dents and scratches. That was the first time any of you learned what Mei was even trained with, and you were all fairly intimidated by the tiny woman in the oversized coat.

When the party reaches Mei and she rejoins the group, you flinch violently as the sound of her jumping from the shingles of the saloon breaks the awkward silence. Tracer outright yelps in reaction. Then it's silent again.

The mission runs smoothly without the actual reason you were called there in the way, and you're back in Iran before you know it. You and your wife are over what you saw and happily playing a video game together in the recreation room of the university. is watching over your shoulder and cheering you on as the cute, fluffy bear-like creature on your side of the board mauls your wife's fluffy animal to bloody shreds on screen.

"Oh come on, don't sweep my team again!" Tracer complains. Hana laughs and answers before you can.

"You keep using Pokemon that are weak to this Pokemon! You gotta consider the comp, just like in training!"

"How do you even know that?" You ask.

"I've played all 143 generations of this series. The types matter," Hana explains. "Well, after generation 91, you could barely keep track of the meta because there were so many species…"

You know you asked the question, but your attention can wander sometimes, and as Tracer and discuss the game you had been playing, you wander right out of the recreation room. They know you well enough not to find it odd that unless the topic is lifting(and it rarely is), you tend to bore quickly.

It's already night and the view of the stars from Oasis is breathtaking. Your wandering ends outside of the campus and on a bench facing acres of terrace gardens and farms, backlit by the moon. The sound of cars zooming by on the nearby highway soothes you in a strange way, and you focus on it and lose track of time. There's nothing specific you're thinking about; you're just going over mental snapshots of the day, letting yourself really take it all in.

You realize that even in a country like this, it got reasonably cold when the sun was gone. After the mission earlier, you had changed out your energy suit for a tank top and cargo shorts for lounging about your current watchpoint for the evening, and that's what you still wore now.

Some kind of jacket would be really nice to have, you think. A particularly cool breeze hits you and makes you shudder.

"Are you cold?"

You feel like you've been especially jumpy today as your body jolts upright once again from the sudden surprise. Mei has been sitting with you. You have no idea how long she's been here but holy shit, she just scared the Kaplan out of you.

Her face shows extreme remorse at this. "I'm sorry! Oh gosh I'm sorry…"

"No, I'm fine," you answer her original question a bit snappily, her 'sorry's having become noise to you by the hundredth or so sorry. You were really curious about her when you first were introduced at the meeting, but the Hollywood incident conditioned you to where everything about the woman triggers your fight-or-flight response.

"Zarya…"

You have no idea how she knows your name, but it gives her your full attention. You look respectfully at her and note that she had left her gloves inside, but is still wearing… yeah.

Her hands are visible, though, (with really nicely done nails, you also notice) and as your eyes follow their movement, they light up with life at what they're seeing.

"You are not a very good liar." Icicle girl laughs. She undoes the buttons of her coat's breastflap and you really can't believe she's actually doing it, honestly.

Mei is seriously taking off her coat. You repeat it mentally over and over. You're thoroughly convinced that right now you're witnessing history, and you're beyond honored and awestruck to be.

She has to stand to get the last of the buttons, but you're frozen in place. What happens next is even harder to believe for you.

"Here, this will warm you up for now." The coat is completely off of her shoulders, and she's holding it out to you.

Your heart is actually pounding as you stare at the offering. You aren't sure you're really seeing this. You can be gullible sometimes with the others, and a select few love to use that against you. (like on Christmas; remember Christmas? That was bullshit.)

You wonder if Tracer might have put her up to this and look around the garden to see if she's hiding and watching, but you can see her and 's sillhouettes in the recreation room window.

This could be genuine, you realize, and against your better judgement, you accept that for which you longed for all day long with an absent "Thank you…" Your thumbs run over the soft fur lining it and it's just as soft as it looked when you were watching Mei creepily earlier at lunch. You jump up from the bench, holding it at arms length to admire its details up close.

Icicle girl can only watch and giggle as you trace your fingers over the patterns on the sleeves…. but her look of joy quickly becomes confusion as they suddenly clutch the sleeve and tear it from the coat. You get to work ripping that annoying fucking coat to shreds, stray bits of fur flying through the air in Mei's vision.

You might have thought it was beautiful, but you knew this was more important. When the coat has fully transitioned into a pile of fluff in your palms, you shove the remains toward the other woman.

"Oh, Sorry."

You overly mock her when you say it, dusting your hands of stray animal hair. You start to walk back toward the university, but remember something else.

You turn to Mei one last time to find her still in the same position, her sweatshirt covered in blue and white threads and hairs, her eyes wandering the floor. Even so, she's devoid of any emotion that signals to you that what you did bothered her at all. She's simply… standing there.

You point threateningly nonetheless, your accent thick with sincerity. "And don't you ever come near me, OR my wife, again."

You see her eyes flicker in your direction but she doesn't move. With that, you go back inside the university building, your posture dominant and your pace unhurried.

You know guilt when you see it. Your friends' suspicions are warranted and her near-sociopathic reaction to you is enough to prove that.

You may be gullible with your friends, but you remember the icicle that almost had to travel through your skull to go through Widowmaker's.

Her innocent smiles and soft voice don't fool you for a moment. You're Mother-fucking Russia.