A/N: I accidentally uploaded a rough draft for ch 14! If it looks familiar to you, please ignore this message. If not, I sincerely apologize for the inconvenience! The main difference will be that I just split ch 14 into two parts (minor changes)! I also hope all of you are doing super well c: Anyhow...
Lena rummaged through the soldiers' belongings, salvaging any equipment that might be of use to her. Widowmaker's hybrid assault and sniper rifle rested on her leg. Widow figured Lena might need more firepower than her.
She nearly dropped the satellite phone she found, desperately waiting for the intelligence center to pick up. "Agent Lena Oxton here. Obscurely leaving the perimeters of the target location. We need a secure pickup at 39 5' N, 28 49' E. How fast do you think you can provide that?"
"Oxton? Oxton! Standby," Lena could hear the operator at the other end calling over his colleagues. He heaved a fatigued sigh after a painfully long moment of chatter on the other end, betraying his commanding disposition. "Could take a little over one hour-"
"We don't have an hour to spare. Make it quicker."
"Lena?" Tracer opened the door and practically jumped into Genji's arms, his "Lena?" being the second most beautiful sound she had heard all day.
Lena noticed Genji's questioning glances at the three bodies on the floor. Everyone began talking amongst themselves, before Tracer announced, "I'm gonna need every single one of you to stay quiet. We're leaving. Genji, Dee, and Pharah, you're each limited to a weapon posted against this wall. Our ticket out of here is downstairs. Bastions are disabled. Team B, trail at the end of the group. Team A, line up in the front with me. How many are original hostages?"
"Fourteen of the original twenty hostages are here," Genji affirmed. "The location of the remaining six are unconfirmed."
Lena sighed heavily. "They're deceased. Team A?"
"Eight of the original eight, you included."
"Team B?"
"Ten of the original ten."
The sound of a distant explosion rattled some of the hostages. "No living personnel are on this side of the plaza, as far as I'm concerned," Tracer urged, reloading her weapon. "Head out, double file line. Quickly, please!"
They reached the exit without any commotion and all went towards the clearing at a pace that was impressive, especially considering the unfortunate weather conditions. The hostages with fewer articles of clothing huddled close together and shared blankets that were provided to them. Any miscellaneous items were simply left, and the rest of the team's original equipment were lost.
"We're not that far from the clearing," Tracer assured everyone after some time, her tone upbeat and enthusiastic. "Ten more minutes, now."
Everyone just about fainted when Lena secured a location within the wooden clearing. Lena placed Widow's gun at her feet, before sitting on a recently fallen tree.
"Agent Oxton online. We're at the designated location," Lena confirmed, speaking into the satellite phone. "Time until pickup?"
"Approximately six minutes and forty seconds."
Everyone just about jumped out of their spines when the distinct sound of gunfire rang out in the near distance. Tracer grabbed her weapon from the ground, before she raised her voice. "Where's the source of the gunfire? Team A, immediate advance guard and a protective formation. Team B, trail the group."
Lena spun her entire body around as she heard a horrifying scream come from that general direction.
"Genji, you're coming with me to investigate. Pharah, guide the group further down into the clearing. Inform intelligence of your new coordinates," Lena ordered, speaking rapidly. "If those are Nevar's men, Shimada and I will stall his forces. Do not waste any time boarding or waiting for us."
"Are you sure, Lena?" Pharah asked.
"We'll be careful! Team A, get a move on."
Widow stopped digging her nails in the man's arm and instead reached for her weapon at her waist.
The other soldier noticed what she was doing far too late. Widowmaker forced the safety tab down with her thumb and blindly shot multiple times, hitting his hip in the process. He fell to the ground, hollering in pain. The soldier holding Widowmaker in a choke removed one of his hands away from her neck in order to remove the handgun from her hand.
Widow slammed her heel in his boots, before chucking the handgun further into the wooden clearing, knowing that she had a risk of injuring the infant if the man attempted to pry it out of her hands.
Seeing the assassin toss the gun prompted the shot soldier to move past his tormenting pain and retrieve the weapon. He slumped to the ground as he was shot again, this time by Lena.
Lena rushed over to help Widow, grabbing the baby just in time as Widow fell unconscious. The soldier choking Widow didn't stand a chance as Genji pried the man off of her and finished him off.
"Ah, shit! Set her on the ground!" Lena ordered, making ineffective attempts to quiet down the distressed baby.
Lena handed Genji the girl, before she kneeled down beside Widowmaker, immediately putting her in a recovery position. Widow's eyes were rolled to the back of her head, and her body was slightly twitching.
"Representative from Eruk's Emergency Medical Unit Online. Everyone accounted for minus Lena Oxton and Genji Shimada are on an aircraft headed for Gibraltar," a representative confirmed over his intercom. "Main intelligence is determining the severity of Nevar's riposte. Our team may not be able to send another pickup for another twelve hours. However, we stowed away a van in the aircraft and had it unloaded. You will have to manually maneuver the land vehicle yourselves, but it's the best chance you have at leaving the area as inaudibly as possible."
"Twelve hours..." Genji ruminated.
"Either we drive or we have a definite rendezvous with the rest of Nevar's men," Tracer remarked. "Agent Oxton responding. Is the vehicle at the updated extraction point?"
"Yessum. The keys are tied onto the vehicle's windshield wipers."
"It's settled, then. En route with two other civilians Genji and I encountered, also."
"We'll design a route from the updated point to Boraq Trauma Center."
"Genji and I will contact intelligence after we reach point. Agent Oxton offline."
"Lena?" Widow lethargically muttered, reaching out for Tracer's face. She needed to feel something definite, tangible.
"Oh, thank the lords," Lena exhaled. "How are you feeling? Can you get up?"
"I feel fine..." Widowmaker made eye contact with Genji for a fraction of a second, before Lena helped her sit up.
Lena noticed a patch of crimson on the snow, which prompted Widow to subtly move her leg in order to conceal it.
The damage was already done. Lena widened her eyes, before hurriedly ripping off a piece of her shirt and covering the wound. "You're shot!"
"It scraped me. I'll be fine. You need to go. Now."
"We need to go."
"We. Huh," Widow huffed, nearly scoffed. "As if-"
Widow yelped as Lena promptly lifted her into a fireman carry, both surprised at Widow's lack of resistance. Tracer grossly overestimated Widowmaker's weight, lightly stumbling as she adjusted her on her shoulders.
"Sorry, love! I should have clarified that it wasn't a request!" Lena beckoned Genji to follow her with her head.
Sunlight was virtually nonexistent as the group made their way through the forest, the canopies of endless greenery naturally obscuring any line of sight the enemy would have in an aerial view. Nobody, not even the infant, made a sound above the crunch of a fallen twig or an airy pant.
Tracer stopped walking. "Amélie?"
"Mmm?"
"Hear anyone nearby?"
Widow stared at the ground as she concentrated for a few seconds. "No. But, do you want to know what I don't hear?"
"What?"
"The sound of you putting me back down."
"Oh, for the love of-" Lena began, before Widow placed her hands underneath one of Tracer's arms and swiveled herself to the ground, wincing slightly as she landed.
"Look, we're near. Will you hand me your gps, s'il vous plait?"
Genji side-eyed Widowmaker, a sliver of sunlight illuminating her golden eyes momentarily. She punched several digits into the GPS as she guided the group, unconcerned with any objective other than pinpointing the exact location of the van.
Genji and Tracer followed Widowmaker as she maneuvered through a thick, clunky patch of shrubbery. Lena sprinted past her as she grabbed the keys and yanked on the door handle, struggling against the frost that kept the door sealed shut, before prying it open with Genji's help.
"Genji Shimada reporting in. Made it to the vehicle at extraction," Genji said through the com as Lena looked for the keys. It was the first time he spoke since the last conversation with the intelligence center.
"Sending locations for the next point," someone responded immediately, under instruction from Commander Morrison's office, who was more than notified of the situation by this point.
"What is the status on the enemy?"
"Forces assumed to be retreated, sir."
"Genji. Amélie," Lena interrupted. "The taillights on this dinosaur don't work. I need you two to keep your eyes and ears peeled in the back of the van and the side windows while I pilot- erm, drive. Was that Pharah?"
"No. It was someone in central." Genji pressed on the com again, this time acknowledging intelligence. "Transferring the call to Agent Lena Oxton. Standby."
Genji and Amélie situated themselves in the back of the van, barely shutting the doors before they took off, startling the baby.
Widow gently grabbed the infant from Genji's arms, rhythmically swaying her back and forth to the tune of the livening engine.
Tracer whooped and hollered as the taillights began to slowly, but surely, brighten as the relic of a vehicle woke up.
"You both can relax a bit, but keep your eyes peeled. Always stay ready to encounter anyone," Lena shouted over her shoulder, before turning her focus back to the man speaking through the com from central.
"I've heard stories about you," Widow stated, fully acknowledging Genji for the first time. "Man made into machine."
Genji gave her an empty look. "Funny. I could say the same thing about you."
Widow settled back in her seat, absorbing his words and ignoring the pestering pain crawling throughout her leg. "Her name is Thea," Genji said, beckoning towards the baby.
Widow perked up. "Quoi? Why was she left alone in that storage unit?"
"Apparently she was purposefully left behind when the original hostages were transferred. One of the first things her mother did was ask Lena if she was safe."
"What did Lena tell her?"
"She told her that Thea was with someone she trusted."
"Thea..."
Genji knew about the things Widow was capable of doing, of the atrocities she had already committed. For some reason, he always regarded her as somewhat of a ghost story- not sure if even the intelligence world was completely certain of her existence, or if she was merely a ruse intended to discourage cadets from poking their heads out in front of an enemy's line of sight.
Yet, here she was, in flesh and veins and blood, handling an infant, of all things, with an unbelievable amount of care and love and patience. She was as mystifying as she was discomforting, as lethal as she was arresting. The old Genji would not have been able to tell if he would want to find out more about her or if he would want to nope right out of the fucking car with Lena and Thea.
Genji unfastened his seatbelt and checked the back of his seat, which contained a first aid kit and a cooler with a few drinks and sandwiches.
"There is a med kit here, as well as a cooler. Want something to drink very quick, Lena?" Genji asked. "There are water bottles, soda... there are spirits?"
"A water, please. Amélie-"
"Booze."
"You just about got knocked the fuck out, and that's what you want to drink?!" Lena exclaimed.
"Last time I checked, I'm the one that busted your sorry ass out of Eruk while your little Overwatch friends were playing grab-ass and blame-the-politician. You owe me this drink."
"You're not getting any liquids until Genji treats your wound and determines if it is safe for you to consume any."
"It's a scrape."
"Oh, right," Lena said, remembering that she hadn't made any formal introductions. "Genji, this is Amélie. Known more widely by her former alias Widowmaker. Amélie, this is Genji. A trusted friend and ally."
"Formerly?" Genji vocalized.
Widowmaker and Tracer glanced at one another through the rear-view mirror, an unspoken mutual agreement between them. Widow let Lena speak. "Explanations later, injuries first."
Widow posted her injured leg on the seat adjacent to Genji, before she peeled back the makeshift bandage. "Oh," Widow said, unable to elicit any other wordy reaction.
"Doesn't really look like a scrape," Genji commented. "May I inspect it?"
Widow looked up to see if Lena was watching them, but she was preoccupied with the pressing matter of getting them out of the middle of nowhere. "Yes."
Genji could feel Widow's body heat, or lack thereof, radiating from her calf as his fingers worked to undo the rest of the bandage. "Based on the location of your wound, I would have expected more blood."
"My physiology is buying me some time. I'm going to bleed out eventually..."
"Give me the girl, please." Genji placed Thea in another seat, before he pulled out a tourniquet from the med kit. Widow groaned.
"Distance to trauma center, Lena?" Genji inquired.
"Seventy minutes. Maybe forty."
Genji peeled off the rest of Amélie's bandage as he prepared the device. "Have you ever used a tourniquet on yourself or someone else?"
"I've seen others use them enough to expect immense agony and suffering. I've also seen most trauma victims die regardless of a tourniquet application."
"I am sorry that has been your experience. I have applied enough tourniquets to trust them with my life in battle, and I have saved most soldiers I have treated."
"Trust isn't exactly my forte."
"Dying is your only other alternative. You do not have to trust me, nor the tourniquet. But, you do not have the luxury of a pleasant choice."
Widow waved the go ahead signal to Genji, clamping down on her armrest with her hands.
Genji gave Widow a commiserative look. "Talk to me."
"What?" she asked.
"Keep your mind away from the pain. Ask me a question. Start a discussion."
Amélie loosened her grip a bit on the armrest, her train of thought taking a new turn. "Why are you helping me? Do you know who I am?"
"I have heard of you." Widow breathed out a string of creative curse words as he began to work on her leg. "However," he added, "I will not let an ally of Lena bleed out if I have the ability to halt it."
Amélie bit down hard on her thumb, keeping her eyes away from her leg and out the window, observing the pellets of snow slam into the side of the car. Genji exuded a rare, raw undertone- a harmonious one. He seemed ready to listen, and she needed to talk. "Do you believe in fate, Genji Shimada?"
"Hmm. I am not sure. It is hard for me to believe that the ethereal forces at play have predetermined our fate. I like to think that there is always an element of choice in regards to the future."
"I used to believe that as well. But, now, it feels as if I'm just... I don't know. Dancing around fate."
"What do you mean?"
Amélie rested her head on the window and closed her eyes. "Keeping the dance analogy. I have, or had, been a dancer my entire life. And although many dances were based on routine and rote memorization, I always found a way to make every dance my own. You can repeat the same tune one hundred times, and I will perform one hundred different dances.
As I grew older, I began to see similarities between dancing and living. I may not choose what tune life will play, but I will choose how I will dance to it. I will choose my course."
Amélie tightened her eyes, before coming to a wrenching conclusion. "I'm going to die relatively soon regardless of this wound. My life is predetermined. It always has been. And I can only dance around fate for so long before it sucks me in and consumes me..."