"Winston! A little 'elp 'ere?!" Tracer cries across the snow-laden plaza. She steps back, her chronal accelerator tickling through the center of her chest as she cuts through the stream of time to duck behind a car. The sound of gunfire popping against the opposite side makes her cringe, like it always does. Her breath puffs out, thick and white in the permafrost of the Russian air. The light of her accelerator is dimming. She's exhausted her abilities, for now.
Which means she really, really needs Winston.
The body of an omnic rebel soars overhead, shattering into pieces upon contact with a light post, followed by a guttural roar. Tracer heaves a sigh of relief, glancing down to see that her accelerator is recuperating relatively quickly. With a faint hum, it kicks back on after its brief respite and she whoops loudly, readying her pistols as she scrambles to her feet once again after a brief struggle to find purchase in the slushy, frozen mire.
Tucking around the now irreparably damaged car in a tight angle, she glances to her left to see Winston ripping through omnics like they're made of tissue paper.
"Right-o, then. You got it 'andled, big guy." She says to herself, casting about the square once more. She notices that Zarya isn't having nearly as easy of a time with her group of assailants; they're pressing her into a corner. There's a limit to what those incessantly rippling biceps can do, Tracer supposes.
She zips across the square, reveling in the slight lurch of her stomach as she hurtles herself through the fabric of time. She skids to a halt, sliding through the snow a pace, and neatly buries a bullet through the chest of the omnic nearest Zarya.
The one thing I don't need biceps for, eh?
"'EY! Watch 'vere you are shooting!" Zarya shouts, though Lena doesn't have to so much as look at her to know that the pink-haired behemoth is smiling.
"Not sorry!" Tracer quips, blinking from one angle to the next, picking off another omnic with a crisp headshot. She hobbles the next with a bullet through the knee, finishing the job with another expertly placed through the spinal column. It clangs to the ground as Zarya smashes the face of the last remaining omnic with the butt of her gun. Electricity cannon? Tracer isn't sure how that thing works, even now. At this point, asking would be embarrassing.
Satisfied that the immediate danger to Zarya has passed, Tracer turns to offer her assistance to Winston only to find the scientist adjusting his glasses as he lumbers toward the two women on all fours. With a furrowed brow, he pauses in front of Tracer, flicking the chronal accelerator with a giant grey finger.
"It's powering down too quickly, I've noticed." He says, his voice rumbling deep from somewhere in his chest. "We'll get that taken care of."
Tracer folds her arms, but is secretly relieved that she wouldn't have to nag him to run a tune-up this time. He's been a busy gorilla lately, that one. Tracer wonders what he's been up to. Probably not working out, if she knows Winston.
Which she does.
Brushing snow off the top of her head, she joins him and Zarya at the edge of the square, where they talk in low, hushed tones.
"It has been hard to deal with 'zem lately." Zarya is saying, her fingers rapping a sharp tattoo against the grip of her gun. "Every time 've 'zink 've are free of threat, 'zhey reorganize."
"Perhaps Zenyatta has insight?" Winston suggests, his heavy brow furrowing. "He's always been the best at talking down omnic splinter groups."
"It is impossible to get a hold of him." Zarya says, shaking her head. "Don't 'zink I haven't tried."
"Well, I imagine it's 'ard to get any old message all the way out to Nepal, yeah?" Tracer chips in, shrugging. "Zen prolly thinks we don't need 'im any more. It's been absolutely ages since any of us 'ave bothered 'im."
Winston sighs, pushing his glasses up.
"It seems as if he's needed again." He says, resigned. "If the continued rebellion is worsening here, he'd want to know at the very least."
"Especially 'vith 'vhat happened to Mondatta." Zarya murmurs in agreement. Tracer's jaw tightens, feeling a wave of nausea roll over her small frame. She tells herself it's a residual effect from using her accelerator so much in such a short time span.
"You guys go on back without me." She says, forcing herself to use her most convincing "I'm fine" voice. "I'll catch up with you in a few."
"Where are you going?" Winston asks, equal parts concern and irritation. Tracer smiles in what she hopes is a reassuring fashion.
"Just gonna check the perimeter, luv." She says, waving a hand dismissively. "Make sure there aren't damsels in need of de-stressing."
Zarya chuckles and shakes her head, turning to head back to her base of operations. Winston grunts and moves to follow, but Tracer certainly does not miss the pointed look he shoots her way. Once his back is turned, she pulls a face at the oversized scientist, then blinks her way up the fire escape of the closest warehouse. Once at the top, her gaze sweeps over the rooftops, some arching inward with the ever-growing weight of snow. Her breath billows, a pantomime of the smoke rising from the stacks of countless rows of houses. Her throat is thick and her eyes sting, sharp little pinpricks stabbing at the corners.
She can't help it. They're not Overwatch any more. Not really. But still. It was still their job to do good; to help, no matter what.
Tracer failed, that night in London. The night Amélie (no, Widowmaker) assassinated Mondatta with a bullet that she had dodged. And for what? Because of the husk of a woman she once knew?
Mondatta was the figure that had stepped in to hold together peace, however fragmented, after Overwatch was forced to disband. And now he's gone because the thought of seriously aiming a bullet at Widowmaker shattered her far more completely than any amount of bullets the assassin could have ever put in any omnic leader.
Tracer knows that it's true, so how good could she be? How could she continue to chase this specter, moving through the world in the skin of Amélie Lacroix, and still say that she's doing the right thing?
She tears her goggles from her face, gripping them white-knuckled in her small fist.
I'm not good. I never have been. It's what landed me here in the first place.
She's tried so hard to justify the things she's done. The people she's hurt. Bury the names and faces of anyone she's left broken in her wake under the work she's done. But at the end of the day, there is always his headstone and a blue-lipped snarl to send it all screaming back as soon as she begins to forget. To forgive herself.
Tracer isn't even surprised at the hallmark sound of nonsensically high heels, mutedly clicking against the snow-cradled roof. She shakes her head, wiping errantly at her eye as she slides her orange goggles back over her eyes. She barely has it in her to feel guilty at the way her stomach flips in delight when she turns to find Widowmaker silhouetted in the ambient orange of the night sky.
Barely.
"I guess rooftops are our thing now, eh luv?" She quips, hoping the constriction of her throat goes unnoticed. Widowmaker doesn't answer, instead continuing her even pace toward Tracer. Her expression is hard. Tracer shifts back an inch.
"Finally gonna kill me, then?" She hazards, hand drifting toward a pistol in warning. But Widowmaker is unarmed. Entirely.
Well, likely not entirely, but there is no rifle slung across her back. Tracer's brow knits. The French woman draws to a halt in front of her. Tracer has to crane her head back, trying to ignore the steady roil in her stomach building over their sudden proximity.
"Widowmaker." She says firmly, palm brushing the grip of her pistol.
"Lena."
There is no breath in her lungs. Her mouth is dry, crackling. Her heart thuds too slow, and the chill that has been working on her feet begins to creep up her calves.
"'Ow d'you…" She whispers, unable to string together anything more complete with the amount of air rasping about her chest. Widowmaker wrinkles her nose, dipping long fingers into a pouch at her hip. She pulls forward a folded square of paper. The same one Tracer had given her at Ilios. The younger woman's gaze flits frantically between Widowmaker and the note. Her tongue is numb, but she tries to sound it out regardless.
"You remember?"
Widowmaker frowns deeply, shaking her head. Unfolding the piece of paper gingerly, she holds it up for Tracer to read. She doesn't need to, of course.
"Non." She says, retracting her arm. "Not anything about an Amélie Lacroix. But seeing this name. I suddenly knew yours."
The last sentence is accusatory. Golden eyes narrow and so does Tracer's throat.
"I want to know why."
Tracer's mind is reeling. Too fast for even her to catch up with. She has never known what it might feel like to want to sing and vomit simultaneously, but she supposes it might feel rather like this. Lifting a trembling hand to her face, she slides her goggles down over her nose, cringing as the strap drags over her chapped ears. They dangle around her neck. Licking her lips, she steels herself.
She's thought about what this might be like, too many times to even count. No scenario she'd ever concocted could have prepared her for the sheer velocity of hope and fear burning straight through her.
Slowly, as if approaching a frightened deer, Tracer lifts her arms. Widowmaker's frown deepens, and Tracer braces for any sort of physical retaliation as her hands come to rest lightly on a pair of well-developed shoulders, holding the other woman at arm's length.
They were narrower.
"It's… a long story, luv." She says, slow and quiet as if anything louder could snap this sudden reverie in half. It absolutely could. "I'll tell it to you soon. Promise."
Widowmaker doesn't respond, her gaze rooted on one of the hands on her shoulder. Tracer tries to slide the offending intrusion away subtly. No sudden movements.
Instead, she finds herself being yanked forward by the fur-lined collar of her jacket, feet skittering helplessly over the snow. Widowmaker leans over her, eclipsing the inky orange sky as she looms. Tracer's back arches at a near-agonizing angle. Her heart hammers now. She is so close.
How long has it been?
Breath, only marginally warmer than the scant air between them, fans over her lips. Tracer keeps her eyelids firmly open, though she's railing against her every instinct. She slips her hands down over Widowmaker's arms, stopping at her wrists. She presses her thumbs lightly into the cool, exposed flesh. Despite herself, a gasp tumbles from her lips at the gentle throb of a pulse. Slower than should be possible, but there. Lifting her gaze, she takes in the familiar, glasscutter of a chin that gives way to a gently sloped jawline. Full, parted lips she has missed for too long allow a glimpse of pearl-white teeth. Her nose, turned ever so aristocratically upward at the tip, guides Tracer's gaze ever upward to eyes. Those eyes. Her eyes.
Eyes she has not seen so desperate, so alive, in years.
"You know why, Amélie." Tracer says softly, unable to move despite the way her muscles scream in protest at the way Widowmaker holds her. The taller woman's eyes flicker, and that is all the acknowledgment Lena Oxton can bear. With trembling calves, she pushes herself the remaining inch until their noses brush. Breath skitters away from both women in tandem, both sets of eyes wide and straining to maintain contact. Pressing the pads of her thumbs harder against the insides of Widowmaker's wrists, she shudders at the now undeniable thumping she feels there. Lena angles her face just so. Cool lips, softer than the snowflakes now melting in her hair, remain parted as she brushes her own against them.
Widowmaker inhales sharply, jerking her arms. Up.
They sigh where they collide. Lena notices that Widowmaker's mouth is much warmer than she had imagined. Relief pangs sharp against her ribs. She feels lips tremble as Widowmaker tilts to deepen their kiss, searching with steadily increasing fervor. Lena parts her lips, ever willing to aid her in her exploration as one arm slips out of her grasp to wind through her hair, cold fingers brushing against her scalp as she is tugged impossibly closer yet.
Lena remembers Amélie, feels her in every shudder and gasp and tug at the back of her head. She wonders if it's enough for Widowmaker to remember her, too.
Don't worry, love. I've remembered enough for the both of us.