V
Amelie LaCroix struggled against the magcuff chaining her to a crate. It was about as effective as the last twenty times she'd done it, and she was still immobilized. Getting captured was bad enough. Being rendered powerless, unable to complete her mission, that made it worse. But the worst thing of all was certainly her jailer's insistence on taunting her for every moment of incarceration. The Overwatch agent, Tracer, approached from the other end of the cave, holding two steaming mugs and a ration bar. She set one of the cups down, the chipped enamel making it look older than either of them, then smiled, indicating that LaCroix should just try to relax.
How had this happened?
Every detail of every assassination Amelie LaCroix carried out created a database. Every mistake she'd made had been burned into her mind. She could nearly relive the past minutes as well as every other mission she'd ever accomplished. It was cold, but she was only perfunctorily aware of this. It didn't affect her. She only heard the snow ripping through the air, feel it blast her face. She had flipped down her tactical visor, its eight eyes displayed the frozen wastes in thermal, sonar, night-vision, and X-ray, and she still couldn't see Tracer anywhere. It was impossible, but there it was, happening.
Tracer had nearly foiled one of her missions, had succeeded in disrupting another. The killing, or rather, the failure to kill, everything related to it, and leading to it, was remembered with cruel clarity. The frustration and cold hatred of failure remained. The details, such as what had been said, were distant echoes. The mistakes here were clear all the same. Don't let Tracer live. Don't let Tracer speak.
"Hiya!"
Amelie's feet flew out from under her in a shower of frigid white. Hands suddenly grasped for her weapon. Amelie pulled the trigger, one, two, three, and a splash of red covered the snow. Tracer was gone just as suddenly as she'd appeared, reversing out of danger, still invisible. LaCroix stood, looked around, seeing no sign of her. She dropped a venom mine behind her, and kept hard eyes on the surrounding storm, doubling back to the cliff wall.
Tracer appeared again. "One more time for the prize!" she said. The smile, covered by her mask, carried in her voice. This was a game to her. Cold anger seethed, but Amelie held off on firing. She waited for her to come closer. As the strange, grasping dance commenced, she kept the gun away from Tracer, making sure never to fire. Amelie managed to rip the mask from Tracer's face in a brief moment when the exchange ebbed into her favor. She counted seconds, one, two, three, then sent one slug through Tracer's leg. She wasn't smiling now.
As expected, she recalled out of danger, appearing where she'd been three seconds ago.
"Now, where were-"
Amelie thrust the barrel of the pistol into the throat, silencing her, then kicked her to the ground. She called to mind with perfect clarity how her colleague had once immobilized Tracer. She straddled her then, one leg on each arm, so that she could not get away. She pressed the barrel to her forehead. Easy.
"Au revoir," Amelie said.
"Same," Tracer said. She disappeared. She hadn't touched the device, she couldn't have.
Amelie's shock lasted one second. It was too long. Long enough for Tracer to come from behind, to grab her arm and twist it around. The gun slid from Amelie's hand as the nerves throbbed, her fingers snapped open against their will. Amelie turned around, stumbling forward slightly as Tracer released her hold. The pistol was in pieces now, expertly disassembled. This shouldn't have surprised Amelie, either. Every cadet could take apart a weapon. But Amelie had made another mistake, she hadn't thought of Tracer as a soldier. She'd underestimated her again.
In a blue flash, the pieces disappeared before hitting the ground.
"You can look for those in a few minutes, if you like," Tracer said.
"I will kill you," Amelie said. She lunged, but Tracer blinked out and away.
"Not if you can't catch me," she taunted, even as Amelie was stopping. "No guns, remember?"
"Va te faire foutre," Amelie said.
"I don't get it," said Tracer. "Radar drone's not far away. Don't you think we ought to get back inside?"
"You're an idiot," Amelie said. "You're running because you can't fight me. You know it. You threw away your only card when you should have killed me with it."
"No way. Not my style, love," Tracer said. "I just want to talk for a minute. I saw you had that ration in your cave, that tasty?"
"Do not torture me with this. The drone is coming. It will see you."
"All the more reason to get moving, then, innit?"
Tracer turned her back, walked forward. Amelie smirked as the puff of purple sprayed from the snow. The mine she'd laid, that Tracer had just walked over. Tracer breathed in the innocuously sweet scent with confusion before realization and terror set in.
Amelie darted into the cloud, wrapping Tracer's throat in her arm while she undid the strap of the chronal accelerator with her other hand. But Tracer was gone again after only the first buckle was lifted. A shriek of rage bounced painfully in Amelie's chest as her gauntlet was pulled off and tossed into the snow.
"No more of these then for you either," said Tracer, circling back around to Amelie's front.
"I will kill you," Amelie snarled again.
"Sure, love. Come along now," Tracer said, spinning playfully. Amelie caught a glimpse of something under Tracer's nose before she wiped it away casually. A trickle of blood, stark against her fair skin.
In the relative warmth of the cave, Amelie had an opportunity to ruminate on this detail. She'd landed a few hits, but none around the face, not any good ones. Then it hit her. Tracer had been jumping through time like a frog, with more frequency than Amelie had ever seen. It was taking a toll. She was pushing to herself to her limit. Amelie remembered this as she did every useful detail.
Amelie's eyes followed the steam up to Tracer's. The pilot took a nibble off the green-wrapped brown brick of the ration bar and tilted her head, evaluating the taste. "Not bad," the face she made seemed to say.
"What's up?" said Tracer, cheek full of food.
Amelie scowled, twisted her hand slightly under the chafing magcuff.
"You don't have to be like that," said Tracer. "You know, I feel like we really connected back in London. You know, the time when you didn't just laugh and run away." Amelie didn't remember exactly what was said in London. She remembered everything, down to her own reactions to the words, but the words themselves had all been removed. They weren't necessary to understand the lesson, -Don't let Tracer speak or live- and so it was just as well that they were gone. "Standing offer, by the way. I'm taking you back to Overwatch, but you don't have to come back as a prisoner."
"I can't seem to decide how stupid you actually are." said Amelie. Her sharp tone was part shocked and part insulted. "You think for a second that anyone other than you will accept that? You might be that stupid, but Morrison isn't. He'll kill me. Whether I'm a prisoner or free."
"Jack's... not... Jack's not like that," Tracer said. She was a terrible liar, and couldn't seem hide the fact that she knew nothing. "Not anymore."
"Morrison is still a soldier," Amelie said. "Soldiers kill. And we're at war, if you haven't noticed."
"That may be true," said Tracer. "But you're on the wrong side of it." She pointed her finger, "and you wouldn't be on this side if you had a choice. They took you and made you a slave. I know you're not a killer, Amelie."
Hearing the name outside her own mind stung somehow. No one had called her Amelie in years, not while anyone knew she was looking. She was Widowmaker now, or else agent LaCroix. Amelie leaned forward and practically spat the correction. "Yes I am."
Outside, Amelie saw something change. The slightly golden blur of snow outside the cave turned purple. The ring of lights outside changed. The Icebox was no longer under its wardens' control. All according to plan, right on schedule.
Tracer must have noticed something, the shift in Amelie's gaze tipping her off that there was something more to see outside the mouth of the cave than a white blur. She started towards it, slowly, at first. Then bolting out in an almost blind, desperate rush.
Amelie used her free hand to reach under the crate she'd been resting on and removed two venom mines from their secret place, pocketing them. Maybe she could escape now. Maybe. But she'd wait until it was sure. After all, she doubted she would get another chance. These two mines were all she had. They were the trap. Amelie just had to figure out the trigger, and the bait.
Tracer certainly did seem to know a lot about Amelie LaCroix. The old Amelie LaCroix, at any rate. More than was healthy, perhaps? Amelie smirked, feeling the slightest swell of emotion in her cold chest. The bait was taking shape. In her uncharacteristic rage, Amelie had almost squandered a rapturous opportunity. Tracer wanted LaCroix, wanted her to make a choice. She'd get LaCroix then.
"What's out there?" Amelie asked, cooing like a dove.
"Why are you really here?" Lena asked, suddenly all business for once. "What are you planning?"
"I can't tell you," Amelie said.
"Come on," Tracer said, desperate for any morsel. "Talon's planned something, and you can. They can't control you anymore."
"I can't," Amelie said again, sharper, but intoning a teetering worry in it. "And yes, they can."
"We're heading back to the Orca," Lena said. She teleported to Amelie, switching the magcuff.
Amelie grabbed Tracer's wrist, but not in a combative hold. "I am afraid," she said, tightening strings of anxiety in her voice. "This is why I ran back to Talon. Why would anyone not kill me for what I've done?"
Tracer looked down at the cold hand wrapped around her arm with an uncertain expression. She stopped breathing for a moment, dumbstruck, then her breath came back, heavier than before. The girl was so close. It could be so, so sickeningly easy to end it right now, right here. But Amelie breathed in deeply, shunting herself into her old role.
"O-On your feet," said Tracer, her mind snapping back from wherever it was.
"You could snap my neck and leave me here," Amelie said, widening her golden eyes. "It would be more dignified for the both of us."
"Not my style," Tracer said again with a friendly smile, not seeming to notice that she'd said it before. "I won't let Jack touch you. You have my word."
"How can you stop him? He's-"
"He's different," Tracer interrupted. "He's… Different now."
"That's what I'm afraid of," Amelie said.
"It kills me to say it," said Tracer, reconsidering. "But you'd have a better shot- I mean a better go if you're in cuffs."
Amelie curled her lips downward in girlish distress. "If you think so…"
"Lena," she said. "My friends call me Lena. It's good to meet you proper, Amelie."
Amelie had to fight her creeping smile now. The irritation that had prickled her mind at the last mention of her name had been replaced by strange satisfaction.
Amelie slid her hand slowly down 'Lena's' wrist to her hand, and shook it, twisting the spidery smile into a nervous, tentative one, and said, "Amelie LaCroix. Pleased to make your acquaintance."