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Zarya had experienced being surrounded by the enemy, gunfire on all sides of her. She had ran through omnic forces and plowed through snow up to her knees while risking her life. Hell, she had even competed in competitions that was seen throughout the entire world.
Nothing compared to that of the loud din and number of bodies compressed into one stadium for a concert.
There were humans and omnics crowded around her from all over the world, talking and laughing and gently bumping into each other like buoys on the sea and flowing into its walls as a steady river of color and voices. Her height came at its advantage as she looked around for Lynx’s child friend and her modified OR-15 over the heads of the crowd.
She had barely even made it in time to attend at all, the flights packed and overbooked and constantly shifting so that she had only gotten into Numbani not even an hour prior and on less than three hours of sleep. She had all but thrown her bag into Lynx’s apartment before the two of them hurried down the streets to their destination, the omnic at her side with very little to say other than that they were supposed to meet Efi and Orisa there. Zarya figured it was due to their potential tardiness, and didn’t feel the need to fill it in with idle chatter that could cause them to miss anything. They were quiet throughout the entirety of their wait in line, but Zarya had been too busy staring at everything in a mixture of childlike awe and disbelief of the sheer volume of people to notice Lynx’s silence.
“I don’t see your friends,” Zarya stated, using her height to her advantage as she scanned over the heads of the crowds for Lynx’s child friend and her heavily modified OR15. “Are you sure-?”
When Zarya looked down, she blinked at the omnic beside her. Lynx was still there, but their shoulders were hunched, their ear-like contraptions so flat against the metal plating of their head that it may as well be part of its stagnant features. Their trio of lights on their forehead were dim and flickering, and when someone else bumped into them on accident, Zarya couldn’t help but notice the flinch.
It was… almost entirely too human of a reaction.
Zarya immediately reacted without even thinking about it, her fingers reaching for the hood of their jacket and pulled it over their head. She pulled them close, one arm around their shoulders as she forced her way through the crowd and through the first doorway she could find into muted lighting and thankful solitude.
The concrete muffled the sound a little, still vibrating underfoot and echoing against the tiled walls as she slumped down against a wall, taking Lynx down with her. She sat them down between her legs, wrapping her arms around their torso and tilting their head back into her chest as she folded herself around their metal and fabric frame as a physical shield against the chaotic noise around them.
Their hoodie was soft, she absently noted as Zarya buried her nose into the fabric draped across their head and pulled over most of their face. Their mechanics were humming loud now that she could hear it, overworked and grinding slightly under the stress. She never really took much thought in anything omnic related other than beating them into the ground, but she knew machines well enough that this wasn’t a good thing.
She could only think that Lynx was being overloaded, perhaps by the crowd. Zarya thought that since they lived in Numbani proper that things like crowds wouldn’t bother them. But, then again, this was an unusually loud crowd, full of humans and omnics that were entirely new and unfamiliar. And the music hadn’t even started yet. They must’ve known that this would happen- even Zarya had to admit that Lynx was far from stupid- but yet they insisted on going anyway, and invited her along as well no less.
“Why didn’t you say anything?” she whispered against their head. She felt smooth fingers curling around her arms, gripping so tight it hurt. But Zarya didn’t pull away or try to loosen their grip on her. If anything, she tucked them in closer, a low hum of an old song that her grandfather used to sing deep in her chest and throat.
She didn’t know how long she was there, the crowd white noise in her ears as she hummed along the various folk tunes that she knew in attempt to help Lynx focus on that and not literally everything else that was around them.
Weeks ago, she would have done nothing else but let them work it out for themselves, perhaps even think that they deserved it. But through the quiet messages and brushes of conversations, Zarya couldn’t think of Lynx as just a robot anymore. They were the only true friend she had, has ever had, and despite how much damage and heartache the omnics had caused for her and her people, she didn’t even feel guilty for thinking of Lynx with such surprising gentleness.
It was strange, and yet, Zarya felt a rightness to this as she closed her eyes and her hums began to mix with muffled lyrics in her native language against the fabric of their hood that assisted in shielding them away from the excess stimulations.
Perhaps she was setting herself up for another steep fall, much like she had with Katya. But Zarya could see no advantages that Lynx had in sneaking in concerns and soft jabs onto her phone and into her reports. The mission in Dorado should have been the end of it, and yet here she was, thousands of kilometers away from home just because of a single invitation of an omnic to a concert neither of them will get to see at this rate.
She would’ve left Russia in a heartbeat even if Lynx had just asked her to.
“Hey.”
The unfamiliar voice so close to her made the song in her throat to stop mid-word, Zarya’s eyes opening to blink at the man crouched before them. He had a dark complexion, his hair pulled back and full of wild, braided curls. He had very kind brown eyes and a honest face that looked at her with genuine concern. It was only by the slight shift in movement that made her notice the woman standing behind him, a soft glow of blue shining through the exposed white of her shirt behind the dark suit she was wearing. A guard, perhaps.
“You doing okay?”
“Just… overwhelmed,” Zarya replied slowly, keeping her words quiet without lifting her head from the top of Lynx’s. “Think it was too much for them. We are well, do not worry.” The sound not unsimilar to grinding sand that Lynx was emitting with every whir of mechanics and false shaky jitter of mimic breath in response to the growing roar of the crowd beyond didn’t support her claim any.
The man, who was vaguely familiar to Zarya but she couldn’t remember why, gave a thoughtful hum, giving the woman behind him a glance. She casually shrugged, bouncing on the balls of her feet in exuberant energy. He turned back to Zarya, his thoughtful frown turning into a brilliant smile.
“Why don’t you and your friend stay in the dressing room? It’s much quieter there, and you won’t be hounded by security since Miss Oxton will know you’re there. Just promise not to cause too much trouble.”
“Miss Oxton” beamed, her bouncing stop as she gave them a mock salute. “I won’t hesitate to kick you out!” Her voice was thick with an accent from somewhere in the United Kingdom, cheerful too. Didn’t make Zarya think for a second that she wouldn’t keep her word, however, no matter how joking it came out. The name, too, was familiar, although Zarya couldn’t place it and decided for now that it wasn’t important.
“I mean no trouble at all,” Zarya promised, shifting Lynx so that she could hook an arm under their legs and lift them off the floor as she rose. Oxton whistled lowly, both her head and the man’s lifting to look up at her in shock, not realizing her true size when she had been on the floor and curled up around the omnic.
“I could carry you too if you’d like.” The words came tumbling out of Zarya’s mouth before she realized what she was saying, quirking an eyebrow at the two shorter people. Oxton looked downright tempted, but she grudgingly shook her head while the man, who was shorter than even her, laughed while waving her down the corridor.
“We gotta dash if you don’t want to be late!” Oxton exclaimed with her usual cheer to her companion as he ushered Zarya into the small but warm room with mirrors, clothes, and a soft couch. “Just shout if you need anything, love!”
Zarya merely nodded as the pair disappeared behind the closed door, leaving her with Lynx in her arms. She couldn’t even hear the rumble of the crowd anymore, only the occasional tremor as their voices rose and fell.
Lynx sounded just a little better as she curled back up around them on the couch, tucking her arms around their waist as she pressed her nose against the smooth contours of their forehead that peeked out from the confines of their hood. The lights were dim, but no longer flicking in a worrying frantic array, and the grinding of their mechanics had gone to a less concerning wheeze. Their fingers were still gripping to her as if she was their lifeline, and she let them continue to do so without even a thought about how her skin will most definitely be bruised under the tight pressure.
Zarya closed her eyes, renewing the song in her chest as she pulled Lynx’s head just a little closer to her chest, the closer vibrations muting out the reverberating shouting and cheers of the crowd far beyond the thick walls as the concert began.
She hadn’t cared much for the genre of music anyway.