Silvery moonlight filtered in through lavender curtains, illuminating the crimson spreading through the once pristine sheets of a happy couple.
It was in that room that Amelie stood silently at her husband's side, watching him die. Still lying in their bed, Gerard struggled to stem the flow from the gash she'd carved in his throat by pressing his hands to the wound, but it wasn't enough. His life slipped through his fingers. And she felt nothing.
Slowly, her grip on the kitchen knife in her hand slackened, and the blade fell. Metal hit wood, resulting in a jarring din, but Gerard's pale blue eyes, locked unflinchingly on her, never moved.
Like always, she searched his gaze for blame, for hate; for bitterness or resentment, but all she found was confusion, fear, and something else. A tenderness - a yearning to understand that her mind shied away from in an act of self-preservation.
Amour.
Love.
It was a curse. If he had hated her, despised her, she would not wake at night with his name taking shape in the strangled scream sitting on the tip of her tongue.
With the last of his strength, he reached for her hand, still wet with his blood, and her body moved on its own, reaching out when his arm failed to cross the distance.
He had always been strong, good, and inequitably kind, and though it was the latter two qualities that had most attracted her to him, the first certainly hadn't diminished his chances. He'd had one of those infuriatingly low-maintenance physiques, excellent genetics and a healthy diet granting him the lean, muscled figure that seemed to come so effortlessly to him.
They'd first met when she was still a ballet instructor at a studio in Paris, before Overwatch consumed the majority of her energy and time. It was a love that only grew with each passing conversation over coffee and pastries. By the time he'd proposed, it'd become an inseparable facet of his identity, subtle but always present in the adoringly fond way in which he watched her, the brush of his hand against her shoulder, and the concern that saturated his piercing gaze now. If he could speak past the blood in his throat, he would ask her what happened, if she was alright.
The hand in Amelie's grasp twitched, a light squeeze she nearly attributed to a spasm before realizing he was trying to comfort her, to warm a heart so cold it might as well have been dead.
In reality, she waited until the startling blue eyes she'd stared into on her wedding day glazed over, until his very last heartbeat before slipping away without a sound, her palm still tingling with heat.
But in her dreams, she waits until the lungs that had breathed her name in reverence began to cool, the warmth fading from within as though the night had stolen it away.
In her dreams, where no one could hear, she screamed.
She woke in a cold sweat, a scream teetering on the edge of her lips, threatening to cross from her dreams to the waking world, but she forced it down, swallowing it like a clump of nails scraping skin on the way down. The sheets were wrapped around her in a python's grip, and she tore them off, sucking in breaths greedily with a hand pressed against her heart. Her pulse slowed quickly, a lingering trait of the conditioning Talon had put her through before the Shatterdome's Jaeger program adopted its new criminal reformation policy, whereupon they began rounding up lost causes like her, convinced that they ought to grateful for the chance to die for something greater than themselves.
After her capture, she'd been offered the choice of either supplementing the Shatterdome's dwindling supply of pilots, or rotting away in a jail cell until the end of her days.
She'd chosen battle.
It was all she knew now.
When the recruits were asked to wield bo staffs against each other to determine pilot compatibility in the Drift, she was paired with an archer – an anachronism of the time except that in the face of kaiju, no skillset was obsolete. There were no anachronisms in a world that had ceased to make sense.
To the eyes of those observing their interplay, their spar was more of an elegant dance than a clash of wills. What Amelie lacked in knowledge of the staff she made up for with the quickness and flexibility her muscles remembered from hours upon hours spent rehearsing her dance steps to perfection, but the archer was similarly light of foot, making it difficult for either to make contact, though if she didn't know better, she would say that Hanzo had no interest in surpassing her during the match. He had experience with the staff, of that she was certain, but instead of using it to his advantage, he adjusted to her rhythm, and their movements flowed and shifted in tandem, as though locked in conversation.
It soon came out that he'd once been the heir to a syndicate in Japan, and the knowledge spread through the base like wildfire, resulting in scrutiny and isolation from the majority of their peers, though it was clear to anyone who attempted to befriend him that he had zero interest in forming bonds with the other pilots. He was stern to the point of alienating himself from the other sacrifices recruits, and colder than a barren tundra. Amelie felt sorrow in him, rage and regret writhing beneath a carefully constructed façade of calm, and found herself drawn to it.
Having never forgotten the warmth of her husband's touch, though it had long faded from her skin, she had no desire to feel something similar from any other man. Nor did she wish to escape into the mind of one unburdened by sin.
That had been six months ago, before their first Drift nearly resulted in the destruction of the Shatterdome, as well as a newfound intimacy between them that grew with each passing day.
It was due to that bond that she knew Hanzo would be standing in her doorway, watching her with concern in his dark, unfathomable eyes. He padded forward without a sound, settling fluidly beside her on the mattress.
And waited.
She drew a deep, shuddering breath, grateful as always for the fixed point his presence provided. He could be grumpier than a dragon on his worst days, but he was grounding. She needed that.
Her emotions were beginning to come back to her through the Drift, along with long buried memories that refused to remain so. The guilt gnawed at her, ripping off pieces of her soul, her heart, her mind. But the archer lived with a similar pain, and was able to help her through it. They kept each other sane.
She'd seen the blood of his brother dripping from the tip of a blade held with bruising strength in a white-knuckled grip. He'd seen the blood of her husband forming a puddle at her feet. They fit together, two broken pieces with nowhere else to go.
Eventually, when her pulse had settled, her heart and lungs having slowed over time to a steady, imperturbable rhythm, she allowed herself to sag against him. He accepted the additional weight without comment or complaint, stiffening only slightly to provide her with better support.
She tilted her chin up to meet his eyes, before exhaling softly, relaxing. "You're cold, mon ami."
The archer grunted. "Does it bother you?" He already knew what she was thinking, could feel the hint of a smile pulling at her lips, though no amount of time or rest ever seemed to dull the sniper's predatory edge, nor the bitterness and self-loathing that belied even the softest of her expressions.
It wasn't their temperatures that made them compatible. If that were the case, anyone who shirked off their sheets during the cool nights in the base would be capable of partnering with her in a Jaeger. They were shattered fragments of a whole, each broken in a way that cut into anyone that came too close, and neither of them were an exception to that rule but they could withstand the pain.
According to the head scientist's calculations, there was three days before the next kaijiu attack, at which time they would be asked to use their regrets to fuel the fury and grace of their Jaeger, a long-range combatant bearing the name of the death goddess Izanami, to save the world.
But until then, the world could wait.
It had left them irreparably broken, yet they would rise to save it. Again and again. Until their hearts stopped beating.
It could allow them this semblance of peace, a brief moment of calm amidst the ever-raging storm.
So they could rise, so they could fall, the world would wait.
They woke in darkness, each encased in separate glass cylinders with thick wires extending from their limbs.
Immediately, they realized something was wrong. They remembered life pouring from their veins in crimson rivers, recalled the pain of a betrayal neither had expected or understood. They remembered death. And now, here they were. In a strange, unfamiliar place. Locked away underground.
How much time had passed since they'd drawn their last breath? It was a valid question, if only because the realization came swiftly that neither of them had inhaled once since waking. There was nothing in their chests – no heart, no lungs, no blood. Even the light they picked up and their awareness of each other seemed to come from no one source, as the knowledge simply appeared in the form of updating information-
Fact 1: They were not alone.
Fact 2: They were not alive.
Fact 3: At some point, they had ceased to be human.
The doors at the other side of the room were thrown open, allowing a tall, burly man in a beanie to stride in, then abruptly slam on a fist on a switch that flooded the room with filtered light.
They turned to the side to see each other for the first time, unsure of what to expect, and saw an omnic staring back at them, its blank faceplate forming a barrier between the outside world and the tempest of emotions roiling beneath, in ones and zeroes and empty spaces.
A thump against the glass startled the man, who stared critically at the omnic with the pulsing green lights running over its limbs and torso. The angle of its head and hunching of its shoulders said much about its feelings on the situation it'd awoken to, but it was the silent promise of future violence that gave Reyes pause. He'd known one of the synthetic humans had been programmed with the recovered memories of the younger Shimada, but the threat carried with it something that surpassed the ire of any run-of-the-mill yakuza. And if that were the case, then maybe it'd be of use to the program, after all.
"You both," Reyes started, jumping straight to the point out of a sense of respect for the men the omnics had once been, "are what the UN has come to call insurance." He stopped to let that sink in. "Upstairs, we've got a couple criminals piloting a weapon with the destructive capability of a nuke. They have no friends, no family, no loved ones, and the big wigs don't buy their 'honor amongst murderers' schtick, so they had you commissioned. Omnics programmed with the exact neural patterns of the only people the records say those two psychopaths ever gave a damn about."
He had their undivided attention now. There was no more pounding on the glass, only unblinking stares that sent a chill crawling down his back. Omnics were already too human, too alive. Make them think they're human and the line between mechanized and organic suddenly blurred, to the point that an entirely new category began to take shape.
While Reyes had never been shy about his dislike for the robots, they didn't go around wrecking buildings and eating people. Despite all his many flaws, when it came to saving the world, Marshall Gabriel Reyes had his priorities straight.
It was the only reason he hadn't slapped the UN with his resignation letter after finding out what they'd done to an old friend of his. It was crossing the line so utterly and completely that Reyes doubted they even remembered where it was, anymore, but he still had a job to do, and it didn't include saving the soul of a dead man.
Still, his gaze settled on the second omnic, who'd thus far been still and quiet, either content to listen to what he had to say or resigned to the fact that it didn't have much of a choice. When the silence began to stretch, it cocked its head slightly to the side, as though urging him to continue.
After glancing to the side in an attempt to lessen the sense of unease the omnic's eye slots were inadvertently causing him, Reyes cleared his throat. "Basically, worst comes to worst, you'll be hostages." A frown. "It's a shit idea since they already killed you once, but what can you expect from the pendejos in charge?" Making use of a flippant delivery to belie the true tragedy of government sponsorship and all the unnecessary interference it entailed usually helped to lighten the mood a little, but if anything, his tough crowd got even tougher. "Now, as far as I'm concerned, you're both viable pilots in your own right. For as long as you are under my command, your purpose will be to lesson the neuro-burden on the guys with brains to fry, which means you're going in a Jaeger. If you are damaged during a conflict, I will have you repaired, but if you are in danger… I will not risk the lives of my men to save a pair of spare omnics, and unless you are told otherwise, that is all you will ever be." It was a good thing he'd planned most of this speech beforehand because otherwise he wouldn't have been able to continue. He never got a chance to know the Shimada kid, so he didn't know if the volatile behavior was accurate, though most would react that way given the circumstances. But the other omnic was quietly studying him, storing as much information as it could to gain a better understanding of the situation before taking action, and that's just like the man he used to know. It set off a wave of nausea in his stomach that had him biting down on the inside of his cheek so he could focus on getting the last few words out. Still, when they finally did come, they came out softer than he'd intended.
"This is going to be difficult," he scrubbed his brow, hating everything, "and I understand if you want revenge," then straightened, setting his features into one of grim determination that could lead soldiers into battle, "but first we need to win this goddamn war." He slammed a fist on a control panel, and the glass retracted into the ground. The wires holding the omnics up groaned at the additional weight as they pitched forward, then snapped off entirely, resulting in the automatons falling gracelessly to the cold tile.
Schooling his features, the Marshall stared coldly down at them. "Any questions?
It was the omnic based off of Hanzo's younger brother that scrambled to its feet first, the vibrant verdant highlights in its synthetic body flaring in tandem with its anger. There was a restraint in their programming that prevented it from outright attacking, but Reyes knew well that there were always ways to get around the rules.
Before the kaijiu threatened them both into a tenuous peace, humanity's enemy had been made of metal.
Reyes rode out the vitriol in silence, waiting for the realization to set in that the UN had purposefully left the vocal synthesizers uninstalled, a safety measure so the omnics couldn't inform the pilots they were meant to Drift with about their manufactured identities.
How old had the younger Shimada been when he died? Early twenties, right?
Damn.
"Budget cuts," Reyes muttered when the omnic in yellow gently tapped its throat, asking the question its companion was too worked up to properly communicate. Or maybe Reyes was just getting sentimental in his old age. It wasn't something a stiff drink would cure, but it wasn't like it was a cure he was looking for. "Either of you want to get in a free punch, get in a Jaeger and earn it."
He turned on his heel, then paused, before finally giving into the temptation to glance over his shoulder. Hanzo's omnic was upright and shaking from head-to-toe, the very definition of fury contained within layers of security coding and metal. Almost against his will, his gaze settled on Amelie's.
It hadn't stood yet. The omnic continued to regard him with no sign of the rage or tension that one might expect, just something akin to curiosity, a desire to figure him out as though he were a puzzle in need of solving.
Reyes had seen that look enough times to recognize it, though his mind automatically supplied the dip between the furrowed eyebrows, the quizzical tilt.
The next time Reyes headed towards the exit, he didn't stop to turn around.
Introductions went about as well as could be expected.
Winston, Tracer, and Emily, the three pilots of Kong Fury, warmed to them both immediately when Reyes took them to the docking station, while Zarya refused to approach them, content to glower from a distance. Her Chinese co-pilot, Mei, nudged her for her rudeness before ignoring all protests so she could jog forward to introduce herself.
"Do not mind Zarya," she told the omnics with a gloved hand cupped around her mouth and a conspiratorial glint behind her spectacles, "she will come around."
"I vill not!" The Russian woman huffed, arms crossed over her broad torso to emphasize the rebuttal. Mei giggled.
Having observed their exchange, and ignoring its pair who feigned apathy to the extent that it could be mistaken for a common service bot, the omnic in yellow greeted them both by inclining its head towards each of them in a fond manner. Though the other omnic scoffed derisively at the gesture, Mei brightened, clapping her hands together in excitement.
After a moment, Reyes urged the omnics to move along. Mei waved a cheerful goodbye to them both, though only one even attempted to match her enthusiasm.
Though no sound disturbed the air, the omnic in yellow chuckled at its companion's consistent attempts to appear disinterested, though they were, for the most part, dreadfully unconvincing.
When they approached the pilots of American Anubis, a duo which consisted of a blond-haired, blue-eyed good ol' boy, whose pretty face decorated the magazines in gas stations and grocery stores across the globe, and Ana Amari, a former sniper for the Egyptian Special Forces with the eye of Horus tattooed around her upper and lower lids, the Marshall stepped forward, hand raised in stilted greeting.
Ana tutted at him. "You look like death warmed over, Gabriel." Narrowing her eyes, she added with the vaguest hint of a threat, "Have you been working through the night again?"
Exasperated, Reyes threw his hands up. "How else am I supposed to get all my paperwork done, Amari? You think there's enough hours in the day?!"
Startled by the outburst, Morrison glanced up from his scrutiny of their mechanical titan's foot, one eyebrow raised to half-way up his forehead. He opened his mouth to speak, noticed the exhaustion deepening the lines cutting through his friend's face, then closed it again and shrugged.
Reyes pretended not to notice. "Have any of you seen Dr. Ziegler?" He jerked a thumb towards the omnics, "These two are going to be placed in her care."
Jack made a big show of looking around for the teenaged prodigy before replying, "'fraid I don't see her, Gabe. Guess that makes us," Ana preemptively rolled her eyes, "Mercy-less." Due to his connection with his co-pilot, he was already flinching before Ana thwacked him on the arm to save his life, though the goofy grin traveling up his cheeks was wholly unaffected.
A sharp, startled exclamation distracted Reyes from voicing the lecture on professionalism he was contract-bound to give, and they turned to see the pilots of Wild Abandon playing a quick game of tag around the base of their Jaeger. Fareeha was slender and graceful in her movements, scaling the legs with a deftness brought about by familiarity and the natural strength of youth. There was a cowboy hat sitting atop her head, its brim dipping over her eyes as she dangled from the Jaeger's knee.
Having obviously only recently woken from a nap, Jesse McCree, the second youngest pilot on the base and known Western enthusiast, called up, "Now, I'm gonna give ya to the count of ten, girlie, to give me my hat back. One." She stuck the tip of a pink tongue out at him, utterly unrepentant. "Alright, fine! But don't say I didn't warn ya!" He made it about a foot off the ground before his hands slipped, resulting in the cowboy landing on his rear in an ungainly mess of muttered profanities and flailing limbs.
Reyes didn't know where to start, but Ana and Morrison couldn't hide their smiles and McCree was on his second attempt, so he gave up on the lecture. It's not like a single one of them ever listened to a word he said, anyway.
At the display, the omnic in green clapped its hands in a gesture saturated with sarcastic bite, ignoring the disapproval emanating from its companion, but Fareeha only frowned, annoyed on McCree's behalf, while the man in question merely tipped an invisible hat with a wink that oozed his characteristic charisma.
It was enough to offset the omnic, allowing Reyes to lead the pair to their pilots without any further interruptions.
The pilots of Izanami were locked in a simulation when they approached the cockpit. Reyes rapped his knuckles against the glass, calling an end to the exercise, before stepping back so the cover could rise with a hiss of steam.
He waited patiently while the pair disconnected themselves from the Drift with matching, puzzled frowns. Apparently, no one had warned them about the omnics joining their team. Why was it up to him to do everything? Honestly.
The pay for this job was so poor it was practically volunteer work, but that's what he got for signing up to save the world with a ragtag group of goofballs and the walking nukes they used to fight.
As always, Hanzo and Amelie adjusted to sudden emptiness replacing the other's presence in their minds slowly, but the omnics were new information. It gave them something to focus on while they pieced themselves back together.
Once the helmets were off and the tubes disconnected, Reyes reached in to grab their hands and help them climb out.
This last introduction was cut short, however, when before any of them could get a word out, the omnic in green lunged for Hanzo's throat.
A/N:
Canon age differences don't really apply here, so here's the basic rundown mixed in with some extra info because I adore Pacific Rim au's:
Morrison/Ana are both in their mid-to-late thirties, while Reyes is in his early forties.
The Overwatch initiative barely kicked off before the kaijiu arrived, so Reyes never felt slighted, never joined Talon, and has spent the past few years running on fumes while struggling to keep humanity's best of survival alive. You wanted to be in charge, bud.
Jesse was adapted into the program in his late teens. Now, he's about twenty-four, and Fareeha's fifteen. Ana made Reyes promise they would only be sent out as a last resort, so neither of them has seen much action.
And lastly, we have Hanzo and Amelie, who are each in their early to mid-thirties. Since they're not concerned with who takes the lead, the position of dominant pilot often alternates between them, which is why their Jaeger goes by both Izanami and Izanagi. Currently, Amelie's asserting herself as the lead during their neural bridge.
If I didn't mention anyone, assume they're the same age as they are in Post-Recall canon.