For someone who was designed expressly for the purpose of never needing a home, Widowmaker feels as close to home as she conceivably could on the rooftops of Ilios. At least, she believes that she would, were it possible.
The climate is moderate enough against her ever-frigid skin that it doesn't cause her discomfort. The breeze is slight enough that she never need worry about a gust knocking a bullet off-target. The population is dense enough to draw targets there, but small enough that finding a mark is never altogether difficult.
She supposes, in a way, that this is what home must mean for her.
There is something else about the coastal town that draws her there, however. Something she cannot place. She wonders, as she has been with increasing frequency, if it has something to do with her life before. She knows, once, she was one of the civilian populace. But, beyond what information Talon has fed her regarding her life before, there is a dense fog clouding those memories. It doesn't frustrate her because she desperately longs to be privy to that information. Certainly not. Whoever she was before, that woman is dead.
Yet there is something inherently frustrating about living with a mind that is partially cordoned off to even its owner. Something particularly frustrating to one with a mind as clinically methodical as her own.
Shaking her head as if to clear it of such thoughts, Widowmaker leans forward to gaze down the scope of her rifle once more. She's found her mark, but he's been sitting in a café for the past three hours. Too many opportunities for her bullet to catch an unsuspecting waiter in the temple.
Her intelligence on the mark is, as usual, not particularly insightful. He'd run afoul of Talon, recently. That is reason enough for her superiors to want him disposed of, so it is reason enough for Widowmaker.
After another twenty minutes of waiting, he finally moves. As his knees bend to stand, her crosshairs train on his head. A few more inches and her bullet's path would be high enough to pass cleanly through his skull without doing any collateral damage on the way out.
Three more.
Two more.
Her finger bears down gently on the trigger.
One more.
She squeezes.
Done.
Widowmaker releases a sigh, feeling her heart rate accelerate just enough for the faintest twinge of warmth to flit through her body. Holstering her rifle, she slinks deeper into the shadows as the familiar sounds of panic and horror finally begin to erupt from the street below. If there is one part of her job that tugs at her, however minutely, it is the localized terror that spreads surrounding a freshly downed mark.
But it isn't her job to clean up afterwards.
She's aiming her grappling line when she hears a sound on the rooftop behind her. She doesn't give any indication that she's heard it, but she readies herself to bolt at a moment's notice, nonetheless. At this point, drawing her rifle would take too long. She considers, briefly, the pistol strapped to her outer thigh. But that would mean dropping her grappling line, therefore eliminating her only secure avenue of escape.
It's terribly sloppy of her to even be in this situation.
Then she hears the hum.
Smiling, she drops her grappling line and draws her pistol, turning to point it at Tracer just as she flickers back into existence.
"Hiya, luv." She chirps, ever-oblivious to the gun levelled at her heart. Widowmaker sneers, watching the stupid girl closely.
"You're too late to save him." She says, allowing herself a hint of a gloating grin. Her eyebrows rise in shock as Tracer nods emphatically.
"Aw, yep. I saw that." She says with a sagely bob of her head. "Real bang-up job, that. Not a hair out of place on a single civilian. You're a master of your craft."
Widowmaker frowns.
"You're commending my successful assassination?" She asks, though it doesn't much sound like a question. She lowers her pistol. Not an interception attempt? What, then? Tracer seems to realize herself, nose wrinkling.
"Ah, I see why that'd seem odd to ya, luv." She says quickly. "Well, I'm not sure what exactly a fella like that would have to do to piss Talon off, but Overwatch 'ad 'is number, back in the day. Arms trafficker, somethin' like that."
Widowmaker cracks the barest of smirks at that.
"You ought to be grateful to me for cleaning up your trash then, non?"
Lena rolls her eyes, hooking a thumb under one of the straps hugging her narrow thighs.
"More like our leftovers, yeah?"
Widowmaker's eyes narrow. Tracer beams back at her in response. They stay like that for a moment, gold burning into molten brown. After what feels like forever, the Brit is the one to break the silence, (of course).
"Seems like we're not necessarily enemies sometimes, dunnit?" She asks, her high voice small under the vast expanse of dark sky. Widowmaker chuckles, holding her pistol aloft briefly.
"You forget yourself." She says mildly. The way Tracer's wide eyes flicker does not go unnoticed. "I have your 'number' as well. It is only a matter of time before it is called."
Tracer tenses, then uncoils muscle by muscle. Widowmaker tracks the movement in her periphery. The younger woman tries her best to be nonchalant.
"What's stoppin' you from callin' it right now, luv?" She asks. For the first time, her question isn't bared as a taunt. She's legitimately curious.
Widowmaker is, once again, stumped.
She contemplates being honest with herself. With Tracer. Instead, she sneers.
"You make for excellent training." She says, steely. "You are, admittedly, the most amusing of my quarry."
Tracer's lips bend down incrementally, at that. Widowmaker is glad to see it.
"Sounds like a load'a bullshite, if you ask me." Tracer says, her tone gratingly harsh all of a sudden. She's angry; that's an emotion Widowmaker can recognize. She's not programmed for emotional intuition, yet anger is not something she expects to see on the young Brit's face. It throws her for a bit of a loop.
Tracer shakes her head, mumbles something terse and low under her breath. Widowmaker's finger throbs to pull the trigger of her pistol. It would be so easy. Then there would be no more of this chronic annoyance. It would be back to business as usual. Her wrist twitches. She wants to do it. Every impulse that has kept her alive thus far screams at her to bury a bullet between this insufferable woman's eyes and be done with it.
There is another voice, though, and it screams at her not to.
The oddest thing about it is that it is her own voice.
She swallows hard.
"I… do not know why I play this game with you." She says, her words halting and cautious. She licks her lips, which have suddenly dried. Tracer's eyes find hers and she is drawn, seemingly on instinct, to their subtle glow. "It seems wrong, to kill you here."
The smaller woman's chest heaves, none too subtly. Widowmaker's eyes are drawn to the movement and there is that painful lurch once again. Tracer's lips part. She draws a breath in, slow and deliberate.
"We've been 'ere before, you and I."
Widowmaker frowns at that. She and Tracer? Together in Ilios? She rakes through the memories she has access to, trying to recall if Talon had ever clashed with Overwatch in the Grecian town. She's certain that they have never crossed paths here before. But there is a tug in the pit of her stomach that tells her she is wrong. She feels a ghostly sensation of thick, short hair, impossibly silky, threading through her fingers. A soft heaviness over her lips. A short gust of hot breath beneath her jaw. An ethereal warmth, molding impossibly tight against her body.
Her heart, here and now, speeds and stutters.
She takes a step back, as if burned. Another headache blooms in full at the base of her skull. Tracer takes a step forward, and Widowmaker screws her eyes shut.
"You bitch." She hisses, the vitriolic words spilling from her lips, hoping they will hurt enough to ward her away. Instead, slim fingers coil around her wrist, too warm. Widowmaker is immobilized as her palm is turned upward. A thumb skims, soft and sure, over the exposed vein on the inside of her wrist. She shudders, a sigh rattling forth from her lungs against her will.
A neatly folded piece of paper is deposited through her slack fingers, and suddenly, the hand that holds her hostage is gone. Widowmaker's eyes snap open, fixing Tracer with a look somewhere far beyond terrified.
"On your time, luv." She says, too kindly.
Blinking, Widowmaker takes two steps back before twisting around in full and breaking into a sprint. She dips to collect her grappling line, launching it toward a bell tower and jumping off the ledge of the building. She lets the tightening cord whip her through the air, far and away from this woman who has somehow managed to cripple her in every conceivable way. She whirls, aiming her pistol at the rooftop and fires until the clip is empty.
Tracer is already gone.
Widowmaker's legs nearly shatter upon impact with the body of the clock tower, but she holds herself there, unwilling to reel herself back up just yet. Her skull pounds to the threat of bursting. The piece of paper, securely trapped in the hand that holds her grappling gun, burns her with its residual warmth.
She waits for it to cool before slowly ascending to stable footing.