Unmarked Talon controlled freighter, North sea, roughly the same time
Widowmaker was walking down the dark corridors inside the freighter, heading toward the mess hall. The mere thought of Tracer's delicious scrambled eggs with bacon made her stomach grumble silently already. Amélie would have had no problem eating Lena's cooking forever, but she knew that it was impossible. Widowmaker usually didn't get to eat normal food, so she had no idea that Tracer's cooking was far from great. That may have been the reason why the improvised breakfast the Brit prepared in the safe house made Widow's taste buds explode in such an awesome firework of different flavors. She would have given a lot to share a meal together with Tracer now. Obviously more because of Tracer than the need for nourishment. She would have most likely forgotten to eat with Lena around anyway.
Then again, after a couple of hours alone on board the stuffy shuttle, Amélie was famished enough to actually want some of the tasteless, grey nutrient paste the special ops members received. It had been specifically tailored to cater to the needs of their altered physiology.
Just because Widow technically could go without nourishment for weeks, it didn't mean it was pleasant.
At least a lot less pleasant than eating the 'food' Talon provided, which in itself was unpleasant enough. Strangely the 'oh so technologically advanced' meal was still absolutely disgusting to eat. You'd think with all that science stuffed into it they could actually make it taste not like wet wall paint. Apparently that was asking for too much.
Not only was the thought of the upcoming late lunch, or early dinner, somehow repulsive, even being back inside the narrow corridors of one of Talon's swimming bases made her insides turn upside down. Widow wanted to be somewhere else entirely and it was not hard to guess were. God, she had forgotten how horrible this place actually was; all cramped and full of people who had to have done something majorly wrong in their lives to end up here. On the other hand, Talon paid good money. Very good, in fact. At least to those who came voluntarily. Not that Widow had ever seen as much as a cent for the shit she did here. Not being turned into a science project -at least more than she already was- or being tortured to death was her payment. Generous, wasn't it?
Speaking of torture, there was someone Widow knew rather well coming down the same corridor she was using. Talon's master torturer who had joined a couple of years after Widow did. They got along pretty well. She sometimes paid him a visit when she needed to vent some anger. He never told anyone. In return, she never told anyone what he liked to do to some of the prisoners... which strictly speaking wasn't supposed to happen. Since he was a member of Talon, Widow remembered most of the things related to him even after her resets. Not every little detail, but enough to cause trouble for him. So, they came to this mutual agreement. They both profited in the end.
"Widow" he nodded, stopping and yanking the blonde woman he had been roughly pushing forward back into a tight grasp. She gasped and struggled against his touch, but it was futile. Widow took a moment to notice that the blonde wasn't wearing anything apart from a soaking wet, basically see through, dirty and torn to shreds piece of a rag. There was enough blood on the formerly white fabric to make Widow worry, yet the woman wearing it didn't have a single scar on her body. Widow knew, because the ragged piece of clothing didn't do anything clothes were supposed to do. At some point this might have been a really stunning cocktail dress, but now it was just a shameful piece of wet fabric. It must have been horribly disgraceful, being paraded around the ship like that. Widow didn't even want to know where the poor thing came from just now. If she was lucky, they just hosed her down with ice water or something.
"Montgomery" Widow replied flatly. "New friend?" she asked, nodding toward the female who was desperately grabbing at Montgomery's arms, struggling not to be suffocated.
"Yes" he laughed "TTS 627, say hello to our finest hitman" he demanded, twisting her head to face Widow.
"Fick dich!" The woman hissed angrily, her blue eyes lighting up with seething rage. Widow knew that expression too well. It would soon be gone, replaced by devotion or misdirected at whoever Talon deemed necessary. She had seen that happen often enough to remember.
"A little stubborn, but she'll come around" Montgomery said with a knowing smile. They all came around in the end.
Widow just stared at the blonde. She could have sworn she had seen her before somewhere. But where? And when?
"I am sure she will" Widowmaker replied with a careless shrug, her mind occupied with figuring out where she could know that girl from.
"As they always do" Montgomery still snickered "Well, we'll be going then. There is an appointment with the drum we have to make" he said, dragging the screaming and kicking blonde away.
Amélie shrugged again and headed off to the mess hall. The entire way there she couldn't stop wondering where she had seen that woman before. It was only for a quick moment, but something seemed important. She couldn't remember. Apart from the things revolving around Tracer, her memories from before the wipe were hazy at best. Widow had to really concentrate to recall anything. But at least she had some access to the past. Not none, like before.
Still, being unable to figure this out bugged her all the way from collecting her 'meal', to actually eating that disgusting grey slime, to bringing back the dishes. Her musing about where she knew that woman from was only shortly interrupted by a group of rookies staring at her like she was a walking wonder. She shot them a deadly glare, and the merry bunch of greenhorns were quickly ushered away by an older soldier, mumbling something about keeping a distance from that freak. Widow was sure he'd tell them the old horror story of her snapping some random Talon soldier's neck because he called her pretty. She didn't mind; Amélie just wanted to be left alone.
Which she was... most of the time. The normal personal had little to nothing to do with the special operations sector of Talon, which lacked an official name, but was called the dark wing by most of its members. Highly specialized experts in their field: hackers, spies, assassins and demolition experts, all highly trustworthy professionals who carried out the most complex and demanding missions Talon wanted done. People like Widowmaker, Sombra, or Reaper. Though Reaper was a special case, since he was a freelancer, unlike Widow herself who was the polar opposite. She was basically Talon's property.
That was hardly helping her. She still had no idea where she knew blondie from, and if Widow was bothered by something, she couldn't let it go. That kind of persistence and bite was what made her a great sniper. But it also made her horribly stubborn.
Widow left the mess hall again and headed for the room Montgomery had mentioned before. The drum.
Poor girl.
Amélie found her way through the dark and complex corridors of the ship before she slipped into a small room. Purposely it was completely dark inside. Light would have ruined the effect of the semi-see through mirror installed in the room. It allowed someone to observe what was going on in the room next to the small one Widow was currently in without anyone noticing it.
It was the perfect opportunity for Widow to stare at the strange blonde for as long as it took her to figure out where she had seen her before. She grabbed an office chair and placed her perfectly shaped behind on the surface before flicking a switch to activate the speaker system. She wanted to hear what was happening on the other side; not just see it. Propping her legs up on the desk in front of her she peered through the mirror.
Luckily, Widowmaker knew full well what they did in the drum.
The blonde was hanging from the ceiling, her legs tied together and head facing downwards. Her arms were tied behind her back. Only the bottom half of her was visible from the belly to her legs. The rest of her body was submerged in a barrel filled with ice cold water. The woman was twitching and shaking for a while before Montgomery pressed a button on a control unit. A cable winch rolled up the cable fixed to the woman's legs as it slowly pulled the blonde out of the water again. She coughed loudly, spitting out more water than air.
"A moment longer and you'd be dead, you know that?" Montgomery asked calmly.
"Fick dich!" The blonde hissed, her voice sore and croaky. Amélie didn't even want to know how many times the woman had almost been drowned. But still, Amélie had absolutely no idea where she had seen her before. All she could tell now was that she was cursing in German with an accent Widow couldn't place, and that the blonde had a pretty desirable -scratch that- gorgeous body; both of which didn't really get her anywhere.
Montgomery lowered his victim back into the barrel, the cable winch working painfully slow.
Maybe Amélie was just imagining things? Maybe her mind was just playing a trick on her and she actually had never seen the blonde in her life before? Widowmaker's memory was hardly reliable. Ever since Talon had tampered with her head she was never fully certain which memory was hers, which had been placed by Talon, and which were a mere phantasmagoria of her mind, created from nothing but remnants of memories and irrational fears of her sub-consciousness. Amélie never knew. Apart from the memory of Tracer, she trusted nothing.
"You belong to us now. Your old self is no more." Montgomery said once he had pulled his prisoner up again. The look of defiance and hatred was so clear on her face, it would have been obvious to a blind man. The blonde's eyes were glowing purple, her features were tense and, considering her current situation, bound on her feet, hanging naked from the ceiling above a barrel filled with iced water, she managed to still look kind of graceful. It you considered a stern look of hatred graceful. Widow did; it showed that the nameless woman was still willing to fight.
"My name" The blonde growled, taking a deep breath which got Widows undivided attention "is Angela Ziegler! I am a member of Overwatch, and you can go and suck a bag of dicks, Arschloch!" the woman yelled at Montgomery who blinked twice. Mercy suddenly disappeared in the barrel again, her body twitching from the sudden lack of oxygen.
And Amélie face palmed hard.
Now she really wished she didn't know that woman after all.
Doctor Angela Ziegler, more commonly known as Mercy. That did ring a bell in Widowmaker's head. A very loud one as well. How could Amélie forget the reason she voluntarily subjected herself to a memory cleaning? Of course now she remembered where she had seen the blonde. It was in Tracer's apartment in London, and Mercy had been wearing one of Lena's old RAF shirts; One similar to the shirt which was now in Amélie's possession. It was her most treasured gift. And not because it was the only gift she ever got. The shirt was the single most important material object Widow had. Ridiculous, it was just a shirt, but that wasn't important to Amélie in the slightest.
Tracer's best friend was being kept here. That alone was bad news, but Widowmaker also was very much aware that Lena was currently searching for Mercy. And the way Widow knew Tracer, she'd find Angela, she'd come here, charge into the ship and then... Well, two options really: One, she'd get herself killed by Talon in the process. Two: She'd actually free Mercy. Way too late that is. And Mercy would then do what Amélie did to Gerard.
Both was absolutely unacceptable.
There had to be a third option. There had to be something Amélie could do to prevent harm from coming to Tracer. But what? Could she even do something?
Widow stared through the mirror at Angela as she was continuously submerged in the barrel. It felt like drowning just from watching. Shuddering, Widowmaker felt a headache slowly creep into the back of her brain as she was contemplating what to do. A part of her urged her to help; to do something not primarily for Mercy, but for the one person she actually felt something for. The annoying Brit, who made her feel so warm, so wanted like nothing else ever could.
For a moment, the broken expression on Tracer's face flashed into Amélie's mind, the expression she wore when that AI told her about Mercy's abduction. And Widowmaker knew she would never want to see that look on Lena's face ever again. There shouldn't be anything but a happy smile on those beautiful lips.
But there also was a part of Widowmaker yelling at her to stop this madness. She was thinking about betraying Talon. But betraying Talon had only one possible result.
Punishment.
Widowmaker didn't want to be punished again. She knew she couldn't handle going through the reconditioning program for another time. The past few years she had worked tirelessly to please her superiors; to do whatever they wanted in such a way that they were content. And now she was finally at a point where they seemed to trust her somewhat. They didn't hurt her anymore. They gave her some personal space and a bare minimum private life. As long as she complied there was no reconditioning.
That part of Widowmaker was scared out of her mind of what would happen to her should she decide to help Angela and be found out. Did she really want to betray Talon for a woman? For a human? For someone who could hurt her as well? In the end, Talon worked with a set of rules. Complying with them meant reward, defying meant punishment. It was a game Widowmaker knew by heart by now. Tracer was still new; someone she needed to trust, and someone who wouldn't be as predictable.
And yet the mere thought of Lena Oxton made Amélie shiver in excitement, her desires ignited and that insatiable hunger for her driving every fiber of her cold body back into Lena's loving arms. Amélie knew Tracer with her heart. And she knew that the bubbly Brit would never hurt her in any way. Not like Talon did and not in any other way either.
'Mon dieu, what should I do?' Widow thought, rubbing her trembling hands over her cold face. Never in her life had she been this scared of a decision before. No, that was not right. It wasn't the decision which scared her, it was the fact of how easy it was to actually make said decision, despite knowing the consequences.
Amélie's heart knew the answer from the first moment. Whatever part of her it was that Tracer always brought to life deep inside of Widowmaker, the part which made her feel alive, that newly found piece of her had decided. And Amélie would listen to that part of herself, despite what the other one thought.
She was done with Talon.
She wanted to get out, make a run for it, vanish, or do whatever else it took for them to never come after her again.
She never wanted to kill for them again in her life.
What Amélie really wanted more than anything was to be with Tracer. It was Widow's only desire; the one, single craving she had for herself. Not imposed on her by Talon, but originating solely from what Amélie wanted. Not influenced and not manipulated. Her own unfiltered desire.
It was her. Tracer.
For Lena Oxton, Widowmaker would kill. For her she would do anything. Because... well, she didn't really understand herself, but seeing Lena happy also made Amélie happy.
And that realization made Widowmaker's decision a rather easy one.
She would have to help Angela Ziegler. Both to protect Tracer and to give Lena her best friend back. If being separated from your best friend felt even half as bad as being separated from your lover, it was nothing Widow wanted to experience. And for Tracer it must have been double the pain. She was separated from both her lover and her best friend.
God, Amélie missed Lena already. There was a place in her heart growing cold whenever the bubbly Brit wasn't around, and it started hurting so bad.
She wanted to see her again. She needed to see her again. And all she had to do was grab Mercy and make a run for it.
It sounded so easy in theory.
'Just get her and run. Yeah, as if.' Widow groaned in frustration. It was never easy. Never had been, probably never would be either.
There were so many problems making that theoretically simple getaway incredibly more complicated than it would seem at first glance.
It started with getting Mercy out of that swimming bunker, which already was a lot easier said than actually done. Widow knew that full well, especially now that time was against her. She had to think of some way to quickly get Angela to Tracer before the former could be turned into one of Talon's mindless slaves... or the latter came charging in here with guns blazing.
But Amélie couldn't simply get Angela out of here either.
Why?
First of all, because there was nowhere to run off to, and secondly, because the entire ship would notice soon enough. Maybe in the middle of the night they might make it to the upper deck unnoticed. But then what? Take a dinghy and push their luck in the ice cold arctic ocean? They'd be dead before Talon would have even noticed their absence. And they would notice fast.
On top of that, all of those musings completely ignored that Talon could always track Widowmaker down. They just had to press a button and they knew where she was. And contrary to the way Overwatch handled these kinds of things, you needed only one random person to activate the system to activate Widowmaker's tracking chip. No one gave a damn about her privacy.
Luckily, Talon had removed the miniature bomb they had implanted into her neck in the beginning, because explosive detectors were starting to react to her presence. Can't have that for a stealthy assassin now, can you? At least now Amélie didn't have to worry about being blown to bits if she took the wrong alley. After long years of loyal service, Talon had become rather trusting of her recently, apparently not really caring what she was up to shortly before or after she took care of a target. Interestingly enough, that time period aligned surprisingly accurately with the time Talon hired Reaper. Coincidence? Probably.
But that trust would quickly vanish should one of the prisoners disappear along with Talon's best assassin. They would surely look up her location then.
Which would mean constant trouble.
Even if she could get rid of the tracker, as long as Talon knew she was alive, they'd search for her.
Tracer's words came back to her mind. Just fake your death.
It would be a solution. No, it would be the solution. All her problems would be gone. Somehow remove the tracker out of her neck and fake her death. When Talon thought Widowmaker was no more, they wouldn't search for her.
At least that was the theory yet again. Why was she even thinking about this right now? Hadn't she already explained the problem to Tracer? Faking one's death wasn't easy at all. You needed a perfect opportunity or meticulous planning. And there was no opportunity at hand. Widow couldn't just pull a lookalike corpse out of her ass and drop it off somewhere on the freighter.
God, she had no idea how to actually pull the stunt she was slowly planning in her mind off past a certain point. Widowmaker really wanted to live to see the end of this, but she didn't know how she would possibly achieve that.
All she knew was that she needed to think of something to protect Tracer. She quickly considered just killing Mercy and facing the trouble that would get her into. But the news of Mercy's untimely demise would most likely never reach Tracer in time. The Brit would still come to rescue a then dead Mercy. So, this particular effort would be in vain in more ways than just one.
Besides, Lena had told her lover about her best friend during breakfast. Somehow the topic of their conversation fell on Mercy. And when Tracer started talking about her best friend she had that adoring expression on her face. Lena had almost been raving about Mercy, who was always there for Tracer whenever she needed her. It was painfully obvious how much the doctor meant to Lena, how much she relied on her friendship, her support and her advice. Widow had to admit that she had gotten a tiny bit jealous of Angela Ziegler in that moment. Jealous of Tracer's best friend who made the months after the Slipstream incident bearable for her and who had always supported Lena whenever the Brit felt lost.
Getting rid of Mercy was no option.
So what to do?
To Widowmaker's eternal luck, the world was not always as unfair as it usually seemed. Sometimes, God provided a solution in just the right moment you needed it in. This time it came in the form of a loud speaker announcement.
"Attention all personal, this is your captain speaking. I want to remind everyone of the impending refueling process in the early morning. Please remember that open fire, which includes smoking, during that time is strictly prohibited. All deck activity from the times 1930 hours to 0300 hours are restricted to authorized personal only. Violations of this order will have severe consequences. Take appropriate precautions."
And then, Amélie had the perfect, ingenious idea. Widowmaker smirked her trademark smirk of doom, a large part of her tension and apprehension simply washed off her.
Here was her once in a lifetime opportunity served to her on a beautiful silver plate. She could fake her own death. Suddenly, everything seemed possible again. All the goals Widow wanted to achieve were within her grasp. She just needed to seize the opportunity. Given the now apparent circumstances faking her own demise was almost laughably easy to do for someone with her particular set of skills.
She didn't need a lookalike.
She just needed to make sure that no one would bother searching for a body. In other words, a clear 'No-way-in-hell-did-anyone-survive-that' event. And Amélie had just the perfect idea as to what that would be.
Also, wasn't Angela a doctor? She could cut the tracker out of her neck before they made a run for it. This could actually work if her timing was good enough.
And if Montgomery didn't drown Mercy before that.
It was a risk Widow had to take for now. There were quite a few preparations she had to take care of before she would go and visit Mercy.
Preparing things would be the easy part. It was just a matter of being sneaky enough, and Widowmaker was very sneaky; especially in a place she knew inside out. No one usually paid her much mind around here, and that would come in very handy.
The difficult part would be to convince Mercy to trust a wanted assassin and come with her. It wasn't like Montgomery hadn't been trying to mess with Mercy's head enough by now. Chances were the poor woman was meanwhile completely paranoid and would most likely smell a trap if Amélie tried to convince her to come and bail with one of Talon's best agents.
Widow decided to cross that bridge when she was there. She would come up with something. Something that didn't involve mentioning Tracer to Angela. They agreed to keep their relationship a secret, and Widow would try and stay true to that promise for as long as possible. Who knew what it was good for?
Amélie stood up and left the room. She smiled inwardly, knowing that there was the almost perfect solution to all her concerns right in front of her. All she had to do now was be careful and soon things would be... fine. She'd see Tracer again sooner than she though.
'Just like Tracer said. Sooner than I think. I am sure she wouldn't have guessed it would happen like this.'
All Amélie had to do was stop by the medical supply station for some tampering with their IV bags, head to the armory to acquire some things which could go bang, and procure a few items from the dressmaker.
Easy for an experienced assassin like her.
Amélie couldn't believe that she would be able to solve so many problems with one stroke and do something for herself in the process as well.
She'd get Lena's best friend out of trouble, which would make her lover very happy. She would finally get away from Talon, which would make both her and Lena very happy, and she would diminish Talon's combat power, which would hopefully make Overwatch very happy. Maybe happy enough to let her stay somewhere safe and not lock her up in some hole. Maybe. Still, that was no priority. As long as Lena was out of trouble, things would be fine.
A part of Widowmaker was still scared at the thought of defying Talon and the consequences she'd face if they'd ever find out.
But that part was silenced by Amélie's desire to be with Tracer again.
It was enough.
It had to end.
With a satisfied smirk, Widow left the small observation room.
-/-
Diskon, United Federation of Russia, 1749 hours.
The sun was slowly sinking behind a thick layer of heavy mist, slowly moving through the almost completely deserted streets of Diskon in wobbly billows. The lightning was only dim since the sun lacked its power at this hour and time of the year. Everything touched by light seemed colorless, nothing more than different shades of black and white. It must have been snowing the last few days, because there were large heaps of snow at basically every little corner of the old town.
Lena rubbed her hands together, even through her gloves her fingers felt like they were frozen solid. It was too cold. And it wasn't just any cold either, it was an all piercing cold, which made you shiver just by looking through a window. The small group had a half an hour walk behind them from the point the shuttle dropped them off to the small port town of Diskon itself.
The town was quiet, the rooftops coated with thick snow, like someone poured out icing sugar all over the place. It looked quaint, how the snow was hanging over the edges of the rooftops, forming sharp icicles on the ends. Only a few people dared to go outside, minding their own business, but that only added to the cold wintery charm of the city. The dark grey cobbles on the ground were covered with a thick layer of clear ice and snow which made a beautifully crunching sound with each step.
The group sent to rescue Mercy was standing near the port of Diskon, the large jetties deserted, some frozen over wooden barrels left behind, stubbornly bearing the weight of the heavy snow on top of them. The jet-black water of the Arctic sea was relentlessly splashing against the ice covered breakwaters and harbor walls, reminding everyone just what power was behind the tides. It must have been a ludicrous effort to keep the harbor ice-free at this time of the year. An example of how it would look like if no one bothered to do that lay right in front of the Overwatch agents. An old bark with its sails rolled up and probably frozen stiff was moored in the very front of the harbor, completely engulfed in thick ice. There was no way this ship would leave port before spring. It was like a reminder of what happens to things left uncared for. They got reclaimed by nature.
"So," McCree began, taking a deep drag of his cigar and exhaling the thick smoke into the icy air, which probably added even more volume to the white cloud. "Intelligence suggests there might be an abandoned hangar on the other side of the port with access to the water. Suppose we head there?" he asked, looking at Tracer who was gazing out over the port and the small town right next to it. It looked like time had stopped here somewhere in the middle of the 20th century. The optimist in her dared to call it nostalgic. It definitely had a certain charm.
"Njet" Zarya interrupted, trudging past Tracer and McCree with two large black kitbags slung over her shoulder. Genji appeared to follow her, carrying one of the same kinds of bags. McCree also had one, with the only person not carrying a large kitbag being Tracer. Who would have carried her share of the equipment herself, had Zarya not taken it from her, telling her that she already had to carry the burden of her best friend being kidnapped. Tracer didn't even bother arguing with the huge weightlifter. It wasn't like not carrying a few pounds of explosives, silent door charges and other highly flammable objects unsettled her. At least no one had any objections when Tracer picked up the small backpack containing Mercy's folded Caduceus staff and her Valkyrie suit. Lena adjusted the bag slightly above her accelerator, while Zarya continued. "This is my hometown. We are going to stay with my babushka. She has a small hotel nearby" Zarya smiled over her shoulder and lead the way, waving her comrades to come along "Don't worry, she won't ask for IDs."
"A convenient and most welcome coincidence" Genji said with a respectful nod as he nodded for the others to follow. Tracer just shrugged at McCree and fell in line behind Zarya, who turned left and followed the port further towards the open sea. It wasn't like a warm hotel with rooms for everyone sounded bad in any way right now, especially if the alternative was probably a shack with holes in its walls so large you wouldn't need to use a door. Hell, Tracer couldn't really feel her feet anymore it was so damn cold. If she wasn't here for a damn good reason, Lena might have already been frozen solid. The mere thought of a heated room made her shudder in excitement.
A few minutes later the group found themselves in front of a rustic hotel at the very edge of Diskon. The venerable hotel was almost built on a cliff, providing an awesome view over both the harbor as well as the open sea. Apparently the place was great from a tactical perspective as well as from a comfort orientated one.
The ice cold sea water was washing violently against the black rocks the hotel was built on, the slippery stone covered with thick ice. An ice cold wind was blowing harshly over the cliff, making the four comrades approaching the hotel shiver.
"Don't you think we will attract unwanted attention here?" Tracer called out to Zarya, trying to yell over the sound of the wind as they walked up to the front door.
"Njet. The hotel is mostly used by locals who want to sleep it off without their partners knowing. It's not too busy." Zarya reassured, pulling the front door open for Tracer to walk inside. A warm gust of air tickled around Lena's nose as she walked within, followed shortly after by her three companions.
The lobby was just like Lena had always imagined a Russian hotel would look like. She knew it was terribly cliché, and she had absolutely no reason to believe a hotel in Russia would look any different from one in Britain, but somehow when she thought about Russian hotels, she always imagined them in a certain style. With heavy, old leather chairs around small tables on a thick red carpet, with the walls boarded in a dark and heavy wood with a certain pattern. In her imagination, there always was crystal candelabra hanging from a ceiling made of the same wood the walls were, and Tracer always thought there would be an old Soviet flag hanging from the wall behind the reception.
The hotel she was in now was just like Lena had imagined it. Minus the Soviet flag. She had to smile for a moment, taking in the serious, heavy beauty of the hotel. It even smelled right, like only old hotels could smell.
Tracer's marveling was harshly interrupted by an old woman rushing toward them. She looked well over a hundred years old, and should not have been able to move this fast, but by some kind of medical miracle she apparently was. Maybe she looked just a whole lot older than she actually was. A part of Tracer doubted that.
"Aleksandra!" The old woman exclaimed, proceeding to hug Zarya before cupping her cheeks in a way only grandparents could ever pull off in a serious manner. This was definitely Zarya's babushka. Her grandmother... who was currently talking to her granddaughter in Russian. Lena naturally didn't understand a word because linguistic capacity was limited to English and little more than three words of German, two of which were curse words. Reinhardt's bad influence, obviously, not Mercy's. But Russian surely was no part of Tracer's language faculty. And even if she had been able to speak Russian, Oxton doubted she would have understood any more than now. Zarya's grandmother was talking at light speed, apparently very delighted to see the weightlifter who was trying to calm her grandmother down and inform her about the urgency of their visit.
McCree shrugged nonchalantly. He knew that kind of interaction too well. He was brought up by his grandparents since his parents had... more important things to do when he was a child. Like overdosing on some drugs. He had barely seen them in his youth and when they died, he couldn't bring himself to feel any sadness. His grandparents were his real parents.
Zarya, in the meantime, had apparently managed to stop her grandmother from talking, and seemed to explain the situation to her. At least judging from how she was gesturing toward Lena and the other two companions. Grandmother Zaryanova was nodding repeatedly before turning around and waving them all to come along.
"What did you say?" McCree wanted to know.
"I told her that we are searching for a friend of ours and that we need to stay here for a bit until we find her. I told her that no one can know we are here." Zarya replied, following her grandmother into a room in the far back of the hotel. It seemed to be some kind of conference room which hadn't been used for well over a decade. Tracer didn't mind as long as they could work undisturbed.
Grandmother Zaryanova said something to her granddaughter before she left, silently closing the door behind her. "She said she will get us keys to separate rooms should we stay for the night" The weightlifter stated, dropping her two kitbags onto the large table in the middle of the room just like McCree and Genji did before. "She also said she would make us some soup to warm us up. My babushka cooks the best Solyanka you will ever have, trust me." Zarya beamed for a moment.
Tracer nodded, unzipping the first bag and starting to spill its content onto the table. A part of her felt bad for not appreciating the good relationship Zarya obviously had with her grandmother, but right now there were much more important things to care about.
"Alright. Let's get going then. Genji, please take care of the uplink to Athena, I want the newest satellite photos as they come in. Jesse, I want you to check if Headquarters has already managed to get a blueprint of the freighter Angela is kept on. And Zarya, please find out how long the refueling procedure is most likely going to take." Lena stated, starting to pile up everything from various tech for communicating to weapons and explosives on the table in the middle of the room. "While you guys take care of that, I will set us up here. I want to strike as soon as we can be sure that the tanking procedure is fully initiated and people start to fall back into their routine."
"Ya know, kiddo, you can be pretty bossy" McCree said in his usual laidback manner, which brought him an evil glare from Tracer.
"Jesse, my best friend got abducted by Talon. I want her back now." She replied tensely, glaring at her friend with an exhausted stare. She stopped clearing out the kitbags and turned to the cowboy. She was feeling herself getting angry, and there was nothing Lena could have done against it.
It was all too much all of a sudden, and the fact that Tracer hadn't closed an eye since she woke up next to Widowmaker after her nightmare didn't help one bit. Lena had never felt so sick in her life before. Her insides felt like someone was pulling them out with a string, and her skin was constantly tingling in a very uncomfortable manner. Lena was going crazy with worry about Mercy and Widowmaker. And as much as she wanted to yell at her comrades that she wouldn't be done with saving Mercy, she had to swallow any remarks hinting toward Widowmaker. That made it even more painful. Not only knowing what was most likely happening right in this moment to Angela, but also knowing what kind of danger Amélie was possibly in. And she could share her concerns about Amélie with absolutely no one but herself. It was eating Tracer away. Her voice was turning bitter.
"I want her out of their claws! I want her back! I want her back so bad! No one deserves this! No one!-" Lena started babbling as a wave of nausea hit her. She felt so lost and so powerless, and it was killing her. The feeling of not being able to do something was probably the worst for Tracer. Her eyes were burning, and there was a sour lump in her throat threatening to choke her.
"Woah, woah. Where is this coming from?" McCree exclaimed, grabbing Tracer at her shoulders and giving her a gentle shake. She was freaking him out a little bit. Jesse had known Lena for a long time and she had never been not happy. She always smiled and always laughed. Not once had he seen her with watery eyes on the verge of crying. Suddenly, McCree felt guilty for not shutting his mouth. "Angie is my friend too, ya know? I am worried just like you are" he said, but knew this was probably not true. He was worried, of course. Who wouldn't be? Angela was a dear friend to all of them. But Tracer seemed to be out of it a lot more than anyone else was. To a degree where Jesse wondered somewhere in the back of his head if the whole 'best friends' thing between Tracer and Mercy was just a facade. They were hanging out a lot together after all, and Tracer was infamous for being a womanizer. It would explain why she reacted in such an emotional manner. Maybe they were- McCree shut that thought up. It was none of his business. "We'll get Angie back. Just lighten up a little bit." He lifted his hands off Tracer's shoulders. "I'll contact HQ and ask what you want to know. Afterward, I'll be outside and see if I can spot the tanker. You just have to relax a moment, ok? We'll kick their dirty asses; you'll see." McCree tipped his hat and was off to call the Watchpoint.
Tracer stood still for a second, taking a deep breath, before she fitfully turned around and started sorting through a huge pile of plastic explosives, a few tubes of Thermit-gel, silenced door charges, ropes, standard issue first aid kits, vacuum-packed field rations, some stimulant-injectors and various different parts of technological equipment like communicators and datapads. Lena had planned this as a silent and sneaky operation which wouldn't draw a lot of attention. But she still reasoned it would be a good idea to have some explosives handy, should they need them to open a few doors with more than a polite knock. It was what she referred to as the condom-principle. Better have and not need than need and not have.
Lena usually was meticulous when it came to organizing equipment, but now she was even more so. Doing something useful helped get her mind off the things that made her stomach convulse because of all the worries and concerns she carried around with herself. So, just to keep her fingers busy, she sorted the faint yellow packs of slightly smelly plastic explosives according to type and size, when a cold hand touched her upper arm. For a second, the cool chill it sent into her spine reminded her of Widowmaker's parky, gentle touch, and for a moment, Tracer felt her excitement skyrocket. But when she turned she discovered it was only Genji.
"I may not agree with the way our companion chose his words, but that does not mean his words don't carry a certain truth, Lena. Only in a calm soul rests a calm mind. We will need a calm mind if we want to prevail in this difficult task."
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A/N:
Ok, I admit that this didn't really get me as far as I wanted to. But then again I really want to take my time telling this arc. I guess it would feel rushed and confusing otherwise.
Anyway, that's it for today :D
I really hope you all enjoyed the chapter, a review would be much appreciated! Your support really means a lot to me and I absolutely love reading your thoughts!
Special thanks to my three wonderful angels, Azuki Rose, River Rhyme and of course the trusty beta-minion EhMattissimo. Thank you guys very much ^^
I'll see you all in the next one
o7
E82
-/-
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Translations:
fick dich = (German) Fuck you
Arschloch = (German) Asshole
babushka = (Russian) Grandmother
Solyanka = a spicy Russian soup.