Chapter Text
Sombra was out of options. She knew it, as frustrating as it was.
Talon had a file on her, as they did all their agents. And while Sombra was smart enough to keep it as empty as possible, they still knew far too much for comfort. They knew her bases. How she moved about the world. What she did when she was cornered.
And shit, she was cornered.
See, Sombra had spent the better half of her adult years sitting in the lap of Talon like a cat stretched in a sunbeam. She had basked in Doomfist’s protection, and offered her services in return. She came and went as she pleased, taking what she needed and giving what she wanted. As far as global terrorist organizations went, Talon had been pretty cozy… but now it was under new management.
And Marzia was not one to leave the scales out of balance. She outright made demands of her.
So Sombra left.
Which is how she ended up here.
On the run. In the sweltering heat of Cairo in July, standing at the door of her ex’s apartment, a place she knew she wasn’t welcome. She was as incognito as she could possibly be, wearing a black sweatshirt with the hood pulled far down to conceal her face. She’d “borrowed” some black jeans from Reaper before he left, and even belted tight to her waist she drowned in them. The ensemble helped disguise her figure, but it definitely didn’t help with the heat. She fixed how she was holding her bag, gripping it tighter before it slipped out of her hand. It was hard being a wanted woman.
She raised her hand– she felt utterly naked without her gloves on, and knocked on the door.
God, this was humiliating.
Fareeha answered absentmindedly, her ear pressed to her phone and chattering to someone irrelevant about something irrelevant. She glanced at Sombra and looked away, before doing a double take. Her eyes widened. Then narrowed into a squint.
“Sorry Jean, something just came up, I’ll call you back.”
She hung up the phone and shoved it into her pocket, then stepped out of the apartment, shutting the door behind her. Her demeanor shifted as she moved, stiffening from relaxed to all but aggressive.
“You've got some nerve coming here, Sombra,” Fareeha growled. She towered over the hacker and glared. Sombra couldn’t help but step back and shrink. She hated that Fareeha had that effect on her.
“I need a place to stay,” she snapped back before she could second guess this decision.
“Thats rich. Go to one of your bases.”
“No, you don’t understand–”
“I’m sure I do, and I’m not interested in–” Fareeha tried to speak over her, but was cut off. It was so like them to argue like this.
“I’m on the run–”
“And you expect me to–”
“I’m hiding from Talon.”
That shocked Fareeha into silence. Just a beat. A moment of weakness. Sombra capitalized on it. “Please, Fareeha. I’ve nowhere else to go.”
She topped it off with a cute batting of her eyelashes, pouting her lip just enough to make a beat of sympathy run through her mind. Sombra watched as she grinded her molars, frustrated. Thinking. Yes.
“I’m sure you can rent a room somewhere.” Fareeha’s response was careful, measured.
“And create a paper trail?”
“Oh my god, you’re impossible!” Fareeha threw her hands in the air out of irritation.
Sombra smirked. She knew she was winning this fight.
“Come on, it’ll just be a couple nights. Then you’ll never see me again.”
“Just a couple nights?” Fareeha looked dubious.
“I promise.” Sombra lied through her teeth.
Fareeha sighed and looked away.
There was a moment of hesitation. Then, Fareeha stepped back and opened the door. A rush of cold air hit Sombra and she sighed, pleased at the sensation. She walked right past Fareeha and into the apartment as if she already owned the place.
There was a time, ages ago, where she did.
Sombra ignored Fareeha’s sputtering at her boldness. Instead, she set her bag down right inside the doorway and marched inside. She dropped onto Fareeha’s couch and hummed. She pressed the side of her head into the cool leather and closed her eyes.
⚡︎⚡︎⚡︎
Sombra didn’t even realize she’d fallen asleep until she woke up. Her neck pinged with a pain that told her she shouldn’t have slept the way she did. She groaned and rubbed her neck as she sat up, anything to ease the sharp pain.
Fuuuck.
She rubbed the sleep from her eyes with her other hand and looked around. The room was still cool, and a couple warm lamps had been turned on since she’d fallen asleep. Through the windows, Sombra could see the sun setting against the skyline of Cairo. Her gaze dragged across the room, at how it looked exactly the same as she left it, before her eyes caught onto Fareeha. She was sitting at her small dining table, her attention split between the food she was eating and the phone she had propped up on a salt shaker. Fareeha looked up when she heard Sombra move.
“You snore worse when you lie like that.”
Sombra’s hand slid from her neck to cover her mouth, a flash of heat crossing her cheeks. Not even a hello? How rude.
“Excuse me?”
Fareeha gestured with her fork, making a small circle in the air as she pointed at Sombra.
“On your stomach. You snore.”
Her cheeks felt hot with embarrassment.
“Prick.” She grumbled under her breath, careful so Fareeha didn’t actually hear her.
Sombra pressed her hands into her lower back and stretched. Then she stood up and padded across the room to stand beside Fareeha, idling fixing her pants before they fell down. She placed a hand on Fareeha’s shoulder and craned her neck to see what the girl was watching. It was some stupid movie with fighter planes and explosions, and Fareeha seemed uniquely entrenched in it. Fareeha shrugged her shoulder to push Sombra’s hand off, and Sombra took the hint, sliding her hand down to instead grab the backrest of the chair.
They stayed like that for far too long. Just watching a movie. It felt almost domestic.
Then, the action scene ended and Fareeha paused it.
“We need to set some ground rules,” she turned to face Sombra. She gestured for her to sit down.
Sombra slid into the chair beside Fareeha and tilted her head.
“This isn’t going to be like how it was before.” Fareeha looked her down and up. “You don’t get a key. This is my space, not ours. I expect you to earn your keep. Groceries or something.”
“Are these “ground rules” just gonna be you barking orders at me?” Sombra asked in a tone that made her dismissal clear.
Fareeha growled.
“You chose to come to me. You’re welcome to leave.”
Sombra glanced out the window. Cairo was bustling with Talon. Hell, most of the world was. It was dangerous just being outside.
“No thanks.”
Fareeha sighed. She pressed her fingers against her temples and rubbed, visibly frustrated. Sombra smirked.
“You’ll sleep in the spare bedroom. I expect you to take care of the space.”
Sombra wasn’t entirely sure why surprise flashed through her. They hadn’t shared a bed in over a year, of course Fareeha would put her in the spare bedroom. It made her realize just how real this all was.
Shit, she was lucky Fareeha wasn’t making her sleep on the couch.
“Yeah, sure. Sounds good,” she crossed her arms and looked away.
“You mean it?” Fareeha raised an eyebrow.
“Yeah.”
“Okay.” It was obvious Fareeha did not believe her. Even still, she stood up and trotted into the kitchen, leaving Sombra alone at the table. She set her bowl in the sink to clean later, and returned with a second one, steam and a pleasant, spicy aroma rising from it. She placed it in front of Sombra with a harshness she, frankly, felt undeserving of. Sombra looked down at it, then back up at Fareeha. It was a simple meal, one Fareeha clearly didn’t put too much energy into. It was just a stir fry, but it looked appetizing regardless. It would certainly be better than whatever Sombra would have made herself if she were alone tonight.
“Eat, get some rest. We’ll smooth all this out tomorrow,” Fareeha accompanied her words with a general circular gesture.
Yeesh. That vagueness wasn’t at all frustrating.
“Right.”
Sombra took a bite of food and watched Fareeha move through the space with a certain level of grace. It was clear she was hesitant to leave Sombra completely alone while she ate, so Fareeha moved slowly and thoughtfully as she closed curtains, turned off unnecessary lights, and readied the space for nighttime.
Sombra watched her open the door to the spare bedroom. Fareeha glanced over her shoulder to nod at it, a quiet assurance that Sombra did in fact know where she was going. As if she didn’t already know. They locked eyes for a moment. A heartbeat or two. Then Fareeha turned her back to her and slipped into her own bedroom.
Fuck, this was awkward.
When she finished eating, Sombra had the courtesy to leave her bowl in the sink and turn off the dining room light before she retired to the spare bedroom. Well, it was her bedroom now, as much as the beige bedding and generic looking decor said otherwise. She spared no time unpacking. It wasn’t her spare clothes she was eager to get to, rather the disassembled PC she had tucked in the bottom of her bag. It took a few minutes to set the machine up, but it sure beat relying on her cybernetics… especially in this heat. She pulled up a couple holoscreens to link to the computer and sat back in her chair, arms crossed and legs tucked close to her chest. One screen monitored her bases, all of which were in the green. She wondered how long that would last. The other tracked Talon activity in the area. She hummed.
Tomorrow, she’d reach out to the others who defected. But for now, the cranked the volume up and shifted in her chair until she was comfortable enough to doze off.