Stone for bones, tubes for lungs, white hot wires for veins. The bright fluorescent lights above her are soft and streaky, as if her fluttering eyelashes were smearing them like bristles of a brush spreading paint. She attempts to lift her hand to shield her eyes; a slight twitch of her fingers is all she is able to accomplish with her leaden limbs.
Jagged agony suddenly arcs through her sternum. It throbs in time to her heart - th-thud, th-thud. Her brow quivers, knitting in confusion and in pain. The rhythm of her heart is far faster than it should be...
Before she can recall why, a mercifully cool, metal hand comes to rest lightly on her forehead. It smooths several errant flyways back into the cascade of her unbound hair before sliding down to cup her cheek with the gentlest of touches.
"Rest."
The white lights above her are slowly replaced with an ethereal, golden light. It is soft on her eyes. Almost… familiar. A comforting embrace to soothe her pain and distress. She chooses not to fight its solace; her sleep laden eyelids slowly fall shut as it washes over her. And then the pain ebbs away.
Widowmaker drifts off once more, bathed in amber and a strange sense of peace.
She is stronger the next time her consciousness surfaces above the waves of the void - able to keep herself afloat, and no longer surrounded by endless fog.
The pain is almost as staggering as it was when she first stirred. It threatens to overwhelm her being; it grabs her by the neck and attempts to pull at her vocal cords like the strings of a marionettes. The beginnings of a whimper in her throat are quickly snuffed out by hardwired self-discipline. Whatever drugs they're using on her are either not strong enough to hinder her ability to think and act or are quickly being rendered ineffective by her body's rapid adapting to the medication.
She is alone in the room this time. Free to look around without fear of being watched, she performs one of the many assessments she's had to do on her body since being here. To see just how much damage and desecration Dr. Ziegler and the others have done to it.
Ochre-green eyes narrow in disgust. Her skin is no longer the powdery blue-violet she has become accustomed to. Her complexion is that of the woman she used to be - the flesh of a weak civilian who knew nothing about the world. No wonder her body feels so feverishly hot. The culprit for the change in flesh color comes in the form of a thin, long line of red that she finds running the length of her sternum, passing through the space between her breasts and ending just below her collarbone.
Heart surgery. She remembers now; Dr. Ziegler had said they would be removing the pacemaker on her heart and possibly replacing it with one of their own making. She remembers the raspy voice of Ana, the pain as they broke cartilage and bone, the cold that almost swallowed her whole, and the blurred face of an old friend.
She should've died on that damn table.
Returning her attention to ribbon of red on her chest, she finds that skin around the stitches is relatively smooth, rather than puckered with recent application - some healing has clearly occurred since the wound was sewn shut. The rest of her body appears to be untouched, only covered by a thin sheet. In fact, it seems oddly bare without the straps Dr. Ziegler and the others have been using to restrain her…
Wait.
Widowmaker blinks at her arms, her legs - yes, there is nothing to hold her down. She is free.
Jump started by this realization, she hastily commands her body to move - to sit up, at the very least, if standing is not possible yet. But her attempt is in vain. She trembles with the unanticipated effort, and after a few moments of hovering half an inch above where she was before, she falls back onto the pillows, exhausted.
A weak snarl forms on her face. They did this intentionally. They've weakened her severely, stripped her of command over herself - made her vulnerable - so that she cannot fight back. Why use physical restraints when they can trap in her own body?
So be it. If she cannot abscond, and no one from Talon will be coming to her rescue soon, then she will have to take more drastic measures. Ones that will harm Talon in the short term, but benefit them in the long run.
She tests her hands, her arms. Her fingers roll and bend as asked, and though heavy, her arms obey her command to lift and move as well. Good; they will be all she needs to accomplish this.
She lets her feverish fingertips pry at the sutures. At first she is ginger about it. Careful, reluctant. As if still being driven by the subconscious desire to preserve herself. Then, her mind flits to the faces of her doctors - Hilda, Matheo. Their blank faces and harden gazes they'd have as they watch her begrudgingly perform this task. They'd be displeased with the creation they'd built to be better than human instinct that so easily failed them. And then they'd be bored of her.
Widowmaker sets her jaw. No; she will meet this expectation. She will complete the objective.
Her nails sink into the wound. And then they pull. Hard.
Widowmaker's face contorts in pain as flesh and suture tear. Agony radiates through her chest, multiplying the pain already present at the site of the wound. She sinks her teeth in her lower lip to keep herself from crying out, so hard that she pierces the skin; she cannot risk alerting anyone nearby until it is too late.
The more she tugs and pulls and rips, the more blood begins to bead and trickle from the wound. Then, it begins to pour. But she does not stop. She does not hesitate. And she does not make a sound. She simply tears her wound open with unrelenting force, exposing bone and half-healed cartilage. Letting molten, burning lifeforce spill from her lips and chest without remorse.
Once she feels the gaping hole between her breasts is sufficiently fatal, she waits. Though her chest heaves and twitches in pain, she waits. The temptation to curl up into a ball and scream is strong, so strong that she nearly caves, but she doesn't; instead she grabs the side rails of the infirmary bed and holds them as hard as she can with her blood soaked hands, her knuckles turn white with the force of her grip. And she waits.
It takes several agonizing, silent minutes for the cold to start pricking at her skin. Relief washes over her at the sensation. The end is near. Talon secrets will be safe, and she will not have to suffer further by Overwatch's hand.
Widowmaker lets her head fall back against the pillow and closes her eyes. Waiting for sleep to take her one final time.
Click. Click. Click...
Heels. Approaching her little cubicle.
"Lucio, if you could meet me in the med bay so that we can give Amélie-" a startled gasp cuts a bright, feminine voice short.
Through slitted eyes she can see a blanched Dr. Ziegler halfway into her tiny room, with one hand on the com device on her ear and the other raised to cover of her parted lips in shock. Crystal blue eyes sweep over her dying body, and within moments, Angela is rushing towards her and speaking rapidly into the comlink, telling them that there's an emergency.
If Widowmaker had the energy and the anger left to do so, she'd scowl in frustration.
Objective: compromised.
It's completely smooth. So close cut that she can feel no irregularities. They had to do this, Dr. Ziegler had told her. The surgical site could get infected otherwise. Like all things the "angelic" doctor has said, Widowmaker wanted none of it.
Yet, here she is.
Widowmaker's fingertips drift along her shaven head in time to Fauré's Apres un Reve - a song that has brought on a strange sense of deja vu - and she is upset. Widowmaker should not be capable of feeling that. But she does, along with the repulsion and resentment (which she was intended to experience) she's felt since they decided to keep her as a pet project approximately three months ago.
"It won't be gone for long," Ana says casually, tucking Lucio's wretched green shaver back in the little black bag it came in. "Your hair always did grow out quickly whenever you tried shorter looks."
She wants to lunge at the weathered woman, dig her nails into her bronzed skin and scream at her about how it does not matter how her hair used to be before or if it will grow back at a quick or slow rate, for it is not the hair that matters at all - though a distant part of her is angered about its loss - but rather the reason why it was taken from her: so that they can operate on her brain. The gentle cello and piano filling pouring through Lucio's frog decal speakers, however, curb her tongue and firmly tell her twitching hands no.
Significant abscesses and damaged pathways in the amygdala and cingulate cortex, as well as other areas of the limbic system and cerebrum; chips and wires connecting to brain matter of the rest of the limbic system and the brain, all of which had been taken apart and put back together in patchwork ways it should not; a vicious cycle of growth and decay of brain matter near abscesses and gaps to keep the organ from rotting and dying. These are the things Dr. Ziegler told her that she had found from all the scans done on her head. Dr. Ziegler had also told her she was lucky to still be alive.
Widowmaker still denies the "need" for repair. Everything her doctors was to make her a better agent - to enhance her performance or to regulate her abnormal vitals as a result of all the experimentation she allowed them to do on her. Routine maintenance was required on her body, yes, but she was never on the verge of death in the decade she has worked for Talon. They were far too diligent about her health and upkeep to ever let something negatively affect her body, especially not anything that could put her life in jeopardy.
At the same time, though she will barely admit it to herself, she cannot deny that the information Mercy gave her was. Odd. It differed from what she was told by her own doctors, and they were sticklers for details. They were obsessed with making sure their patient (her) knew everything about procedures and short and long term effects on her life and work to the point of being obnoxious.
And yet, she does not know what the "damaged" parts of her mean. What purpose they serve.
Her fingertips remain on her head long after Ana removes the towel covered in her shorn beautiful locks from her lap and leaves her cubicle, running over the scars marring her scalp from previous surgeries. Tracing the circles of thought she cannot break out of.
They will come for her, she tells herself. They will come.
Widowmaker would be lying if she said that uncertainty did not linger in the back of her mind.
Smooth, shiny - bald. She remains this way for seven months, five surgeries, and a month's worth of stem cell therapy later, all the way up to the holiday season. Ten total months of captivity, and not a word from Talon. No signs, no messages, no attacks.
For once, it is not just Overwatch she feels resentment for today; it is Talon as well.
She broods under the glow of the colorful and old-fashioned glass string-lights being set up by Lúcio around the inside of her cubicle, glowering at the door as if attempting to will a Talon agent into being.
It doesn't work.
After several minutes of unsuccessful glaring she shifts her attention to the young man in green as he addresses her, saying something about how the lights gleam off her hairless head.
"If we gave it a polish a quick polish, I bet I could see my own reflection on your scalp too," Lúcio chuckles over his shoulder. He rests the last length of lights on a command hook on the wall to her right before getting off his step stool. "Don't you worry, though. It's pretty cool looking, even if it's not the kickass hair you had before. Like a less sparkly, Christmas disco ball-"
"Shut up," Widowmaker growls over the lull of Silent Night. She may not be able to hurt him still, but his most recent adjustment to his gear has given her enough of her facilities to say what she wants.
"So you're the 'bah-humbug' type, then."
"And you are a nuisance," she spits.
He nudges the step stool into the corner with the toe of his shoe before turning to face her in full, smiling playfully. "Whatever you say, Scrooge."
A small beeping tone follows. She watches him fish his phone out of his pocket, but she has already learned the meaning of that sound - it is the cue that his shift has ended.
"I know you just love my company, but I gotta go grab Zenny. I'll leave whatever's left of the carols on for you, so you can be festive while you go to sleep, too." He gives her a small wave before skating out the doorway. "Night, Amélie!"
Good riddance.
Her ochre-green eyes trace the line of colorful bulbs with contempt long after Zenyatta greets her (which she blatantly ignores) and goes into low power mode. Stewing, brewing, fuming.
Someone should have found her by now. Even if Ana or the Hindi woman, Symmetra, disabled all of the trackers on her visor and gear, Sombra could've very easily tracked her down. The former Los Muertos member is the reason they found Hanzo Shimada, who had, for all intensive purposes, barely existed on record to begin with; finding her would be a thoughtless task to the obnoxious Latina. There are only so many watchpoints the remains of Overwatch could possibly inhabit.
So why have they not come for her yet?
Uncertainty nags at the back of her mind with the lack of music, whispering things she does not want to hear. What if they've tried and failed already? What if yet decided to give up? What if they had expected her to self-terminate the moment she was taken?
What if they were never going to come?
Her throat tightens at the thought. No, that can't be right. She is one of Talon's most valued agents. She is of the same caliber as Reaper: special ops, assigned to covert missions that no one else within Talon's ranks can accomplish or be entrusted with. If he is Talon's right hand, she is its left. An irreplaceable part of the organization's body.
And yet you are here, and not there.
Widowmaker's recently trimmed nails dig half moons into her palms. Her breath quickens. No. No, could she really be dispensable to them...? Treated as if she were nothing more than the cannon fodder agents they send to their deaths if it suits the organization's needs?
If it suits the organization's needs...
Fear taints her thoughts. Does she not suit their needs anymore? Has she messed up one too many times? Were they looking for a way to dispose of her, only to find that someone did the work for them? Or did they somehow have a hand in her capture?
Her shoulders hike up, and her head begins to ring and spin and pulse. Fear transforms into paranoia. Did the stop the timer before Hanzo appeared on her last mission? Did they send Overwatch her coordinates in Nepal so that they could take her? What if she was supposed to be captured earlier, in Hakim's compound? Or better yet, killed, for she knows far too many of their secrets?
Or does she know nothing at all about Talon, making her so easily disposable in the first place?
Violent tremors shake Widowmaker's rigid body. Her head throbs sharply, like someone taking an ice-pick to her brain in an attempt to mine the questions and accusations after her. Looking for answers that Mercy hasn't been able to procure for her, or herself.
What if they aren't coming?
Her hands unclench and shoot up to hold her head, grabbing for hair that is no longer present. If they do not come to rescue her, Dr. Ziegler can do whatever she wants to her. If they do not intervene, Mercy can continue operating, trying to save a sap of a civilian who understood nothing about what she stood for and against.
If they do not come for her, Angela - Overwatch - will continue to violate, and eventually kill, a woman who is stronger.
A woman who knows better.
A whimper falls from her quivering lips as the throb crescendos in intensity. It grows until drowns out the thoughts, the questions. It starts from her brain and works its way down, spreading its needled fingers into her nerves. Feeding off the roiling fear. It wraps its hands around her throat, clenching it. A choked sound escapes her. And as it threatens to crush her windpipe, a scream.
A woman who thought she knew better.