Amelie LaCroix/Widowmaker
Amelie lay panting in the dark. Fighting the need to scream again. That stupidcowboy! How dare he just walk away!? Pressing her eyes closed Amelie tried to find her center. To bring her mind to the state of calm she went to when lining up a kill shot.
Failure.
She'd been so close. Amelie could still feel the lust McCree held in his voice and eyes. She could taste it on his skin. He had wanted her. She knew it like she knew her own name. Why hadn't he taken her offer? Had it been too soon? Had she pushed too hard? Been too blatantly slutty? Another scream was building under her breath. She couldn't even turn around to bury it in the bedding as she had done so often as a child. Good little girls didn't wake the manor in the middle of the night with their nightmares. She wasn't so little or so good anymore. She wouldn't scream. Not until it was useful. She wouldn't scream.
Damn the cowboy for giving her a brief illusion of freedom, of control. Then snatching it back again. She was better trained than this! She had to think of something else. Anything else. Rabbits. She would think of the rabbits.
Years Ago
"Kill it papa? But it's so cute and furry!" Amelie looked dubiously at the large buck rabbit in his hutch and the sharp hunters knife her father had handed her.
"It's necessary Amelie. These are food animals, not pets. You have to be able to kill it, skin it, and prep it for cooking." Her father patiently explained as he pulled out another rabbit to demonstrate.
"It may be hard for you at first, but after you will have a lovely rabbit stew to please your mama. Rabbit is her favorite. You want to please mama don't you?"
"Maman's favorite is foie gras aux truffes."
"Impertinent!" Guillard looked at his daughter fondly. "Kill it my petit chou, and next weekend we can go hunting at the Chateau. You still like to hunt, don't you? This rabbit is like the ones you shoot in the woods."
"Yes papa, but I like to kill rabbits from far away. Killing up close is so… messy!" Amelie looked unhappily at the gushing blood the still twitching rabbit, held in one of her father's strong hands by it's back legs, was spurting everywhere.
"Blood washes away, Amelie. Blood washes away."
Here and Now
"Blood washes away." Amelie repeated her mantra, beneath her breath.
How she wished she had her lovely knife from her papa now. Or her Widows Bite. Or even a stupid metal kitchen knife. Or her gun. Her Widow's Kiss. Her gun and that stupid cowboy in her sights!
Amelie took a ragged breath and let it go again. She had other options. The cowboy wasn't the only person in the abandoned base, just the most obvious choice for a honey trap. She'd be more subtle with her next target, work it more slowly to not scare her away. The other choice was just as interested, but more closeted about it than the cowboy. But those yeux bleus célestes followed her as avidly if not more so. Slowly Amelie's breathing evened out, slowed, grew shallow as death. Sleep was an escape of sorts. Sometimes. Sometimes it was another kind of prison..
8 Years Ago
"...one of Talon's best snipers. Dr. Moira O'Deorain says she can improve on even our best."
Amelie stood ram rod straight, resisting the urge to fidget. Talon's best didn't fidget. She was going to be given the chance to go beyond the rank and file and advance into the level of elite agent that would gain her a level of autonomy that she craved above all else. All she had to do was let this Moira do whatever she wanted to do to Amelie LaCroix. Anything. Everything.
The doctor's eyes were different colored. The left cobalt blue, the right fox brown. Both glacially piercing, as she assessed Amelie with cold calculation that sent a thrill of terror though her soul. The doctor seemed to sense that fear as she smiled with cool superiority and announced, "She'll do nicely. Have her sent to the lab. Just her."
"Ma'am?"
The Talon handler seemed surprised. There were a dozen candidates in the room, but the rest seemed just as happy not to be chosen.
"You heard me. Amelie LaCroix, to my lab. The rest do not interest me. I'll begin tests immediately." Moira's disdain was cutting, "I want a full spectrum of samples. Blood. Urine. Tissue. All of it. Don't dally! My time is too valuable to be wasted."
Amelie sagged when the doctor left the room, eyes wide and staring at the lab walls with disbelief. Just her? Why? It was an honor of course… An opportunity like no other. But why did she feel that she was standing at the gates of Hell, with a graven invitation to dine with the damned?
"You heard Dr. O'Deorain" a lab tech herded her towards the examination room, "You can leave your uniform in the corner, housekeeping will pick it up with the rest of the trash."
"But… naked?" Amelie was already stripping out of the Talon dress uniform she'd put on for the selection process.
"She'll either give you something to wear if she feels like it, or she'll want you immediately accessible. Don't worry about it. You'll have bigger concerns than clothes soon anyway." the tech said, pulling out the sample and specimen containers.
Amelie didn't doubt it in the least. What the Hell had she just volunteered for?
Here and Now
Angela Ziegler / Mercy
"Amelie? Wake up! Amelie?!"
Angela pried open a blue eyelid and aimed a penlight at the black pupil beneath. It didn't constrict, nor did Amelie wake. Doctor Ziegler reached for another Healing Pack, cursing under her breath. Why hadn't she checked on the patient earlier? Verdammnis because she hadn't been thinking of Amelie LaCroix as a patient. She'd been treating the Talon operative like she was solely a captive enemy agent. Not at all like someone who'd in a short amount of time had suffered considerable amounts of physical trauma, and healing packs aside, almost no medical care.
Where had her head been? Even if Widowmaker was a prisoner, that didn't mean she wasn't entitled to at least basic care. Activating the biotic health enhancer, Angela breathed a relieved sigh as Amelie made a pained mewl and woke with a gasp.
Golden eyes glared as the Talon sniper took in the Swiss doctor.
"What!?"
"You need to stay awake Amelie. I think you might have sustained some recurring damage. Healing Packs are not a cure all." Angela explained, "Even if they cure the immediate harm, if there is a chronic cause then damage will start again after the health pack wears off."
"Oh." Amelie LaCroix shrugged. "I may require maintenance."
"Maintenance?" Angela wasn't sure she heard correctly, "What kind of maintenance."
"Upkeep? I have handlers who take care of me in downtime, they maintain my body for peak performance. I've been told if I go too long without care, I'll shut down."
Amelia's voice went quieter than normal, her eyes closing again, to Angela's distress.
"Quelle surprise. I always thought that was just to keep me from slipping the leash when I'm out in the field. Guess I was wrong. So it looks like Talon may not need to send someone to finish me after all. I'll simply perish without their intervention. How convenient for everyone all around."
" Wasss!? … What!?" Angela was properly appalled. "And you are going to just lie there and accept that?!"
Golden eyes opened again, annoyed.
"Just what would you have me do, Doctor Ziegler? I'm currently cuffed to a gurney, dependent on your whim to even use the toilet. I can't even turn on my side to sleep. So unless you plan to let me go, I may as well resign myself to the inevitable. Eventually you will run out of health packs, and I'll run out of time."
"I thought you wanted to stay ALIVE." Angela accused, "Where is that fire you had in the interrogation room!?"
"Fire eventually dies, mon ange. Not even a frozen fire like mine can burn forever."
Cursing in German Angela stalked around the room, debating with herself. McCree had come to her and confessed what had happened, or what had NOT happened with the prisoner. He had advocated releasing Amelie LaCroix, provisionally. He was convinced she might harm herself before long, in attempts to escape. Angela was inclined to agree with him. But did concern for Amelie's well being supersede the danger the assassin presented to others if granted freedom?! Did Angela as a doctor have the right to decide? As current team leader of Overwatch on site? As a rational, humane , citizen of the world?
Even Reinhardt had spoken to her about Amelie. Guilt and shame in his voice as he admitted that he originally had tried to kill the Talon agent in Marrakech. But now he was sorry because he didn't believe Amelie was responsible for her actions. Not if she had been taken by Talon and been subjected to the type of conditioning she alluded to. Even without details, now that Angela knew what to look for. Amelie's behavior was indicative of systematic abuse and manipulation on a terrifying level. The worst of it was she didn't believe she was a victim. She was never going to ask for help of her own free will. Hölle, did she even have free will as normal people thought of it?
"Fein!" Angela strode to the prisoner and dramatically ripped open the cuffs, one by one.
"FINE! You are free to go. Go back to your kennel like a good dog, and your masters may take pity on you!"
Warily, Amelie sat up, swinging her legs over the edge of the gurney.
"What is the catch, mon ange ?"
"No catch. Go!" Angela turned her head aside, glaring at the wall instead of at the no longer prisoner. "Or... stay."
"Stay?" Amelie's disbelief echoed in her half laughed reply, "Pourquoi diable would I stay?!"
"Your masters have you on a kill switch. I could disarm it if you give me the chance." Angela turned to look into Amelie's eyes, blue to golden, soul bared to soul.
"You would do that for me? The killer of your friends? The murderess of innocents?" Amelie was blunt, letting there be no question as to who or what she was.
"Give yourself to me Amelie. I will in turn give you freedom, if only you will take it." Angela Ziegler's voice was firm, her sincerity and honesty shone from her like a light from within.
"Your fellow Overwatch members may disagree." the Talon assassin brought up the obvious. "They may take this decision out of your hands entirely."
"They can try. They will not succeed." Angela was confident she could turn the tide, or if need be, stand athwart it. Already Reinhardt and McCree were willing to give Amelie LaCroix a chance to win free of Talon's grasp. Not all of the others might be convinced, but she didn't need a unanimous vote. She just needed a few strong, starwalt friends at her side, and the rest could lump it. That is, if Amelie were willing to take the risk. She could see the decision teeter totter in the amber gold of LaCroix's eyes.
to be continued