AN: thanks for the notes! And yes, I'm dropping the spelling accents because of how much they can derail otherwise reasonable dialogue, plus my lack of experience with some of the more foreign accents in overwatch. (You'll have to imagine widow speaking in a heavy french accent for this one) This chapter got a bit simpler and less conclusive than I was hoping but I feel like it got to the length it needed to. Cheers!

"I'm telling you, Dvas are not good for your health."

"She has like, a lifetime supply of them! Why are you picking on me and not her?!"

Lucio reclined on the couch, watching some noisy trash. White logo tee and shorts. Fluorescent orange snack crumbs coated his lips and fingertips, three or so packets of the cursed snacks named after the Korean gamer on the plush couch alongside him. Jack groaned.

No exercise (except for the morning ten mile jogs he had them do, of course), snacks of all kinds shipped in from either Hana's sponsorships or a doting Ana, and no restriction. The other day, he had even caught Hana watching an R-rated movie! Kids these days...

"Watch it, Lucy!" She had her head embedded miles into either Starcraft II or Diablo IV, talking out the corner of her mouth. "You know how he gets when he hasn't had his morning grumble!"

"True, true."

"You kids need to get more… productive hobbies, honestly. Get up, get out, run a bit. Back in my day, we-"

"Yeah, yeah, back in your day, you used to kill dozens of omnics every half minute. We get it, Mr. Morrison." Lucio yawned as loudly as he could, and 76 scowled.

He turned to regard the menace that was the youngest member of Overwatch. Flat on her belly, surrounded by a cabal of the least healthy snacks he had ever seen, and empty cans of whatever acid soda she had bulk ordered now.

With a -tweep-, the TV was off. Lucio sighed, dropping the remote and un-reclining the sofa, dropping onto his bare feet and stretching. Dva's screen continued to flash.

"So what's the status with those Talon guys you captured? They spilled anything yet?"

"Angela and Jesse are trying to figure out what's giving Reaper his strange powers. As for widowmaker, she needs to return to consciousness, so Ana is keeping tabs on her for the time being. I'm waiting for the call so I can interrogate her. Ana and her have a bit too much of a personal history for a truly unbiased interaction."

Lucio collected his snacks and tossed them in the trash, crinkling as they slid down the metal chute and were immediately sent to the incinerator.

"So what's her deal?" He touched his hand. "Why is she... blue?"

"Well.." Soldier sighed. "I suppose, as agents, you two have the right to know."

He turned away from the two, regarding an old photo perched on the wall. Lucio followed his eyes. A woman, young and beautiful, and a man, handsome and classy. The woman, he realized, was the very same Widowmaker, but without the cruelty, without the spider. The man...

"She used to be the wife of a high ranking Overwatch member. Gerard Lacroix."

"Gerard... We all liked him for one reason or another. He truly was one of my, our, greatest friends. And his wife, Amelie, was full of energy, happiness, and was one of the most harmless people you would ever have the privilege to meet. She balanced out Gerard's mischievous streak with a kind of steely commitment to idealism that I haven't seen in a long time."

A pause. "That's when she disappeared. Gerard was beside himself, for months and months, and we all were… confused, and lost. But then she showed up again, none the worse for wear, and we were all so damn relieved that we..." Jack grit his teeth. "Turned out, what we had was not, in fact, Amelie. That fact was… painfully clear when she killed her own husband in cold blood. And left. The next time we saw her, she was what she is now. I'm guessing, personally, that whatever they did to her made her the emotionless killing machine she is now."

"That's horrible!" Lucio exclaimed. He sheepishly paused. "But why is she blue though?"

"It's obvious, right? She's a night elf." Hana munched on another Cheeto.

"Night elves are more purplish." Lucio reminded.

"James Cameron's Avatar six, then." Hana amended. "Fun fact, I have a cameo in that movie! Shame it bombed."

76 shook his head. Sigh. "I thought that it'd be easy after capturing these three enemy operatives. Now there's word going on around base, no doubt perpetuated by Dr. Ziegler, that our job is to convert them to our side." He ran a hand through his hair, and his blue eyes lowered to the carpet. turned to regard him.

"Dad, you should play more Starcraft. It'll help ease the aching pain in your soul~"

"I'm not your dad. And I'm not Reaper, I don't have any 'aching pain', thank you very much."

Ring, ring. Jack brought up his comm.

"Jack, she's woken up. Says she's going to take my other eye." 's eyes lit up as she heard the maternal voice of the Egyptian lady who had earned a spot in the young woman's good graces. It took a lot of perseverance to convince Hana you were not just another schmuck, but, once you did, she can and will make you feel that additional favor with every smile and giggle.

"That's awful, Ana, I-" Jack scratched his chin.

"You know better than to feel sorry for me, Jack. Just thought you'd like to know."

"Know what?"

"Why she's knocked out." You could hear the coy smile.

"Oh."

He paused.

"Coming in anyways."

"Rowdy, this one." Ana tutted.

"I'll keep it in mind."

"Amari out."

He turned to the two young adults.

"Well, that's my cue."

Hana idly waved and Lucio grinned.

"Good luck with blueberry, pops!"

"Looks like I'm gonna need it."

When the spider awoke, she found herself back in an interrogation room full of mirrors.

She wasn't a stranger to mirrors. When she wasn't her, she used to love making herself pretty. Contours, smooth skin, eyelashes, lipstick, and at the end of it all, she was a model, a goddess in her own human skin. Men melted and women blanched, and that's how she won battles: not with guns or knives, but with a smile and a wink. That's how she won Gerard's heart, after all.

And that same beauty; eternal, effortless, stared back at her from twenty different angles in every which direction. Her eyes idly darted across each surface, sliding past the ghost of those same eyes darting around in the same place. She affixed her view on the door, her hands wiggling. She wondered if dislocating her wrist would let her out of the handcuffs. Alternatively, she could choke the first person to come through the door with the cold metal, preferably one of the physically weak members like Ziegler, feeling the life leave them before she dropped their corpse on the ground and proceeded. Alas, her mobility was restricted by more metal locks than would be strictly necessary for a hundred and ten pound unarmed woman.

Probably wasn't enough, though.

Amari had been in, just now, and Widowmaker had let her know that the animosity hadn't stopped just because one of them was now bound and cuffed. In fact, she had the power now, because Amari had so many chances to claim revenge and had been too cowardly to do anything. So many, and the old wench had taken none of them. Pathetic.

The door opened, and a living ghost stepped through. Her eyes widened a fraction of a centimeter. There was that red visor, echoing her own dead stare, fear incarnate, and a masked mouth, betraying no emotion to the assassin. Widow tilted her head with curiosity.

He pulled the chair on the opposite side of the table, and it screeched as it slid across the floor. He took a seat, and regarded her. He dropped a folder on the table with a soft thwack, and was silent.

They sat, still, for a while. Widow smiled slowly.

"Lacroix."

"Bonjour~"

Soldier: 76 was unfazed.

"So, you are now cuffed and bound. Your friends will not break you out because they are in the same situation that you're in. And we all know that you three are the only reason Talon has had any success with their operations."

"Talon is like a bird of prey. Without its beak, it may be unable to feast, but it still has claws for which to tear you and all you love to bloody shreds."

"Talon is going to die, and you with it. Widowmaker, at least."

She gave him yet another coy smile.

"Believe what you choose to believe, cherie. When the dogs come, you will realize how so very little you are in the grand scheme of it all. Your superhero band will perish and you will be burying all your friends, if your friends are not burying you first."

76 tapped his gloved hand on the table, before moving his hand over and pulling something out of the manilla folder. A photograph.

"I found this on the wall. It's you and your husband."

Widowmaker watched 76 slide the photo down in front of her. She looked down into her own, younger eyes. And then into the eyes of her husband,

"Amelie? Sweetheart, what are you doing?"

"Saying goodbye."

And then she saw those same eyes widen and then blink, tears slipping down the cheeks of her once beloved. And then there was nothing left of him.

"Yes, that's him. Gerard."

Widowmaker sighed.

"I enjoyed killing him. I don't see why you're doing this. I don't care about what I've done. I don't care about anything anymore."

"Did you care about him, back then?"

"Amelie did. You cannot believe, seriously, that I care much for that man? Perhaps my old self might have had the weakness to love as most of you people tend to do, but I am above that."

76 put his chin in his hands, interlocking his fingers.

"You know, you told me a story once."

Amelie raised one elegant eyebrow.

"Oh, do tell?"

"In this day and age, you were always a bit too pure for the world. At least, that's what I thought, before you told me about the spiders."

He continued. "You started with a little girl. Seven or eight, I think. And this little girl was afraid of spiders." Widowmaker grinned. "Why was she? Because they fear nothing, and have no emotion, no fear, no love, no appreciation for art, no appreciation for others, no empathy, no sympathy. The spider weaves a web and god forsake whatever ends up in that web. It is now dead and everything it had ever been willing to amount to is now dust in the wind."

"Ah, but I learnt something about spiders."

"What is that?"

"At the moment of the kill…They have never felt more alive."

76. "My mother told me that story, back on the farm. The spider kills because it's the only way it has to survive. Men, however… men do not eat men. Men kill because they like it. With as many killers as we have, sometimes we ask, 'why?' That's your answer. It's an addiction. And with an addiction, comes a lack of control. A submission to your base desires."

"But you are addicted as well, are you not, Morrison?"

"I don't know. Maybe, maybe not. But I know, for a fact, that you are."

Widowmaker closed her eyes.

"Do you want to know what it felt like to kill Gerard? Do you want to know how his final moments were spent, before he the way of the fly who wandered into the spider's web?"

"I do."

"It felt like I was being gifted. It felt like I had gotten a mandate from heaven itself, promising glory in the highest. It was the first kill out of dozens, but I still remember what it felt like, at that moment. He always was such a handsome man. When he was on top of me, I used to love to stare into that face and let myself soak in the beauty of the moment. " Her eyes stared into the mirror, just past the soldier.

"When I killed him, whatever pleasure I had, before… was infinitesimal. It was truly enlightening. I remember showering afterwards, washing off my former husband's blood, and when I saw myself in the mirror, I was… anew. I was never really suited for matrimony, anyways. I always prefered working alone."

Soldier: 76 didn't have much to say.

"I'm sorry."

"You're being genuine. Unfortunately, I don't care."

"I'm sorry, Amelie, for what they did to you."

"And I am sorry for the curse that you humans all share. To be so burdened by morality that you cannot see how my work is more important than any robot or man."

"Get well soon."

He left.

Widowmaker sighed.