Chapter Text
Before the army, Gabriel had beautiful hair. It’s against regulation, but she puts off cutting it as long as she can, up until the day a trainer grabs her by the ponytail and puts her on the mat. “Vanity gets you nowhere, Reyes,” he tells her.
He’s got that smile Gabriel’s come to hate–little girl, it says, silly little girl. She wants to snarl in his face, spit how it’s not vanity if it’s self-preservation. She wants to tell him how she spent years coaxing and caring for this hair until its braided length brushed the back of her thighs, how her mother would spend hours teasing oil through every strand with Gabriel sitting at her feet. She wants to tell him about symbols and protection–but she knows that smile wouldn’t listen.
So Gabriel borrows a pair of clippers and shaves it all off. No more handholds for them, she thinks, no more weaknesses that they can see. It’s not the first time she’s had to decide this. It won’t be the last.
The next day, she slams her trainer into the ground and shows him her teeth.
~
When Gabriel is little, her parents have a whispered argument about who should take her to the doctor. It’s midnight, and she should be asleep, but instead Gabriel crouches outside their bedroom door and listens.
“They’ll say I’m just trying to make her like me,” her Mami hisses, and Gabriel wonders why it would be bad to be like Mami. “Asad, it has to be you.”
“What if I don’t know what to say?” Gabriel hears Baba pacing across the room. Back and forth, back and forth. “Gloria, I don’t know how to handle this, not like you–”
“You’re going to have to learn,” Mami snaps.
“I know, I want to, I just–” Baba stops, and Gabriel knows he’s throwing up his hands. “Gloria,” he says, pleading. “Gloria, it’s not that I don’t want to, it’s that I’m afraid I’ll just make it harder for her. Please, at least come with me?”
Mami must be doing that face, the one where she scrunches up her nose and narrows her eyes. It comes through in her voice. “You do all the talking, though.”
“As long as you make sure I don’t forget anything.”
“Alright. Fine.” A big sigh. “Fine.”
“Thank you.”
Gabriel hears smooching, and makes a face at the closed door. She wanders back to her bed when the kissing sounds continue.
In the morning, Mami is tense–she smiles at Gabriel like always, but it slips off her face the moment she turns away. Baba’s not much better, staring into his tea as if it holds answers to a question Gabriel doesn’t know. In the silence, Gabriel eats her breakfast.
They’re getting bundled into the car when Gabriel decides she’s had enough, the reveal of her broken rules be damned. “I don’t want to go to the doctor.”
“What? Habibti, we have an appointment–”
“He doesn’t like Mami.” Gabriel folds her arms and frowns up at them from her carseat. “I heard you talking. He doesn’t want me to be like her.”
“Oh, mija,” Mami sighs, and her smile goes soft and sad in a way Gabriel hates. “It’s okay.”
“No it’s not!” Gabriel thumps her feet against her carseat for emphasis. “You’re the best! If he doesn’t like you, I don’t like him! I don’t wanna go!”
Baba and Mami share one of those grown-up looks that mean they’re talking without saying anything out loud. Gabriel folds her arms and tries to make her face as determined as possible.
“We could always find a new pediatrician,” Baba finally offers. He reaches out to hold Mami’s hand. “Gabi has a point.”
Mami shakes her head, huffs out a helpless-sounding laugh. “This is about you, mija, not me.”
“Well I don’t wanna go.” Gabriel makes herself even more determined-looking.
“Our insurance does cover other choices,” Baba points out.
Mami laughs again, but like she’s letting something go this time. “Okay. I guess you win, Gabi–we’ll find a doctor who likes me, okay?”
“Good,” Gabriel declares. Crisis averted, she smiles up at her parents and decides she might as well push it– “Can we get ice cream?”
“Why not,” Mami chuckles, and off they go.
~
When she is sixteen, and full of pubescent fury, someone at a con tries to grab her ass. She punches the boy square in the teeth. It breaks her hand, but the howl of pain he lets out is worth it.
She won’t cry until she’s back home, when Mami and Baba have her nestled between them on the couch, making worried clucking noises over her hand. Mami gathers her up, and Baba rubs her back, and Gabriel wails. It feels silly, like she’s a little kid again. But the tears keep coming and she was scared, for a moment back there, so scared–
She sobs it out on Mami’s shoulder.
It’s three years later when the first omnium malfunctions–that’s what they call it in the news, a malfunction, even though it leads to Russia gunning down a squad of housekeeper robots gone rabid. There’s another malfunction a month later, across the globe, then another. It’s just the stirrings of what will eventually become the Crisis. But when the fifth incident occurs, it’s enough to make Gabriel scared.
She doesn’t yet have more than a seed of the part of her brain that will sense a sea change long before anyone else can read the currents–that will come with the S.E.P. But she has enough. Just enough, to stare at the recruiting posters, to remember the crack of fist against teeth.
The first omnium revolts in earnest. It’s learned, and this time what it spews out into the Russian countryside isn’t housekeepers but war machines.
Gabriel feels the waves move. The next day, she joins the army.
~
Loving Jack Morrison is exhausting. Gabriel can’t quite remember how they fell together–it’s all a haze of injections and vomiting and clammy shoulder pressed against clammy shoulder. After it all, there they are–Jack and Gabi, Gabi and Jack.
They’re well-matched as battlefield partners, better matched in bed. They look good next to each other, and the higher-ups always shuttles them to the front of the pack when they’re taking pictures to send to the brass. It’s no surprise when they’re paired together in the field.
And yet.
Loving Jack Morrison is exhausting.
He’s so hungry for her. Gabriel feels, at first, like this is something to be proud of. He’s beautiful, and she’s the one he wants. He pulls her into bed night after night and she goes willingly. In the mornings, at lunch, he asks her questions, pulls learning out of her throat. He wants to listen to her speak. She likes to be heard.
It is months before she realizes what she’s doing is teaching–trying to mold Jack Morrison into something softer and sweeter and more considerate, perhaps. Not that he’s not already soft and sweet and considerate, but he could stand to know why ‘thug’ is not the best word choice for criminals anymore. He could learn some more feminist theory besides “be nice to all ladies for the sake of being nice.” There are a thousand ways a sweet boy could hurt someone, if he just doesn’t know what to say.
Gabriel asks him, once, why he doesn’t just Google all this. She snaps it, really, after a long day of leading soldiers through mud and foliage, when her gloves are covered in a spray of blood and all she wants to do is lay down and sleep. She’d let him bruise her lips with a relieved kiss. He wants to cover her body with his mouth to make sure she’s still alive, so she manages to convince herself into it. (She fakes the orgasm so he doesn’t get his feelings hurt by her complete lack of interest. It’s easier than expected.) But the idea of decoding systematic racism for pillowtalk is even less enticing.
“I like to hear you talk,” he says. “You explain it so well.”
He does take everything to heart, Gabriel reasons. If she wants, sometimes, to do something other than lecture–well. She also has a sense of duty.
~
~
She knows, deep down, that one of the boys being picked to helm their fledgeling organization is inevitable. She’d hoped, though–wished that maybe the PR teams would take a more progressive stance, wished that her record would outshine her face. It doesn’t, and she swallows down the bile and claps Jack on the back in congratulations.
It’s harder to stomach Ana being the one to be his second. Gabriel tries to tell herself that the jealousy is because she’s no longer the one at Jack’s side. It works, almost, until the day winds to a close and she finds herself staring at Ana across an emptying conference table. She should go. Should remove herself from the bitterness welling up in her throat. She stays put.
Jack calls a goodbye from the door and they both turn to watch him leave.
“I thought you’d be the one next to him,” Ana says at last. Gabriel feels those sniper eyes studying her face. “You’re upset.”
“No,” Gabriel lies, smoothly as she can. Tucks her hands in her pockets and slouches carelessly in her chair to complete the image. “I’ll get to be more hands-on this way.”
“Yes.” Ana doesn’t blink. “You’re still upset.”
Gabriel laughs. “Why would I be upset?”
“I don’t know,” Ana replies. “But you are.”
Gabriel wants to deny it again, wants to let the truth stay quiet and secret, but it’s been a long day being passed over for things she can’t control. “You’re prettier than me,” she grinds out. Gestures at Ana, small, slender Ana, who could almost be called delicate if you don’t look too close. “You’re the picture of uncomplicated womanhood,” Gabriel adds, mouth twisting. “Better optics. Easier.”
Ana doesn’t do her the discredit of denying it. “It’s a stupid reason for choosing leaders. If it were merits alone, you would be leading us.”
“But it’s not,” Gabriel retorts.
“No,” and Ana’s grin is sardonic. “It never is.”
“Isn’t that the fucking truth,” Gabriel snorts.
Ana makes an assenting noise, nose crinkling in disgust. “Donkey’s asses,” she mutters in Arabic, and it’s enough to spur a real laugh out of Gabriel. It breaks away a bit of the tension she’s been holding in her chest. Nothing is going to change, but at least Ana is as equally upset by it as she is. It helps.
Ana’s still looking at her. She doesn’t squirm in her seat, just waits it out. She’s not a sniper, but she has patience enough.
Finally, Ana stands, walks over to stand besides her. It’s a shock when her hands cradle Gabriel’s face, callous-rough fingers stroking against her cheeks. “Do you want me to fight it for you?” she asks.
It makes something in Gabriel ease, like a bone being set back into place. For a moment, she wants to say yes, but the part of her brain that’s lain dormant since the Crisis spins up again, thinking of what-ifs and could-bes. It would be a long battle. A bitter one. And if she won, then the public eye would be on her forever–someone has to be the first, thinks Gabriel, but she’s already saved the world. Another woman can be the one to climb that mountain.
After a long while, she blows out a breath, shakes her head. “No. Thank you. But no. I… Fuck, I don’t want to be questioned for the rest of eternity.”
“Fair enough.” Ana gives her a gentle smile. “Once the negotiations are done, before the work begins in earnest. Come stay with us in Canada.”
“Jack might need me–”
“He’s a big boy, he can handle himself.” Ana strokes her fingers over Gabriel’s skin once more. When she draws away, she leaves the heat-echo of herself behind, burning on Gabriel’s cheeks. “I think you need a vacation.”
“There’s work to do,” Gabriel tries.
“Thomas has been wanting to meet you. It’s quiet. The food is good. And there’s a cabin where no one is worried about optics. You need to be treated as yourself again,” Ana says, and well–
“I’ll think about it,” replies Gabriel, and they both take it for the unspoken yes it is.
~
Gabriel’s getting used to Blackwatch being the last-ditch placement for Overwatch’s problem children. It makes sense, in way. There’s less potential for PR issues in a secret organization. There’s no tolerance for incompetence. Those who simply wash out go home after signing a stack of nondisclosure agreements. And Blackwatch’s core protects its own. Any true undesirables… disappear. It’s a tidy way for the UN and Overwatch to get rid of unsavory elements without the publicity of a court case.
Gabriel doesn’t like it. She’s told Jack as much. And yet, still they keep coming.
At least it’s on a cycle, she reflects, pulling up the next round of transfers. Gives everyone time to prepare. To brace themselves. She curls her lip, and starts reading. Somewhere in the middle of the files, she stops, brow furrowing.
Angelo Gutierrez is an anomaly. Usually, there’s a discipline record many pages long attached to these people’s official files. He just has one harassment strike, filed by Overwatch’s new medical wunderkind. It doesn’t take black ops training to see something is up.
Gabriel purses her lips, and makes a note to meet with him once the new personnel shipment arrives.
It’s three weeks later that he’s sitting in her office. He’s still in his blues, hands nervously clasped together in his lap. At twenty-seven, he shouldn’t look young, but Gabriel’s pushing fifty–anyone who hasn’t hit thirty-five seems like a kid to her. “You wanted to see me, ma’am?”
Gabriel pretends not to watch him, instead lounges back in her chair and scrolls through his files. “Tell me something, Gutierrez. What did a doctor do to be given the honor,” and she rolls the word out long and sarcastic, “to work with Blackwatch?”
His shoulders stiffen a little. “It should be in my file, ma’am.”
“Simple harassment gets you court-martialed and put on watch, Gutierrez. It takes more for someone to be transferred to Blackwatch.” Gabriel turns towards him. “What’d you do to piss off Zeigler?”
For someone named Angelo, he has a bitter laugh. “I lost my temper.”
Gabriel gestures for more.
“It was our weekly review. I–” He shakes his head. “I wasn’t happy with her. She’s been prioritizing the European candidates for the Valkyrie program and the R&D department. Several of my coworkers have been upset about it as well, but her reputation kept them from speaking up. I told her what I thought in front of the whole room.”
“Oh, kid,” and Gabriel matches his laugh for bitterness. “You never tell a white lady they’re being racist. Tell them to fix their face, and they’ll punch yours instead.”
“I thought she’d listen,” he mutters, staring down at his hands. “She’s always on about a good work environment, and encouraging feedback, and… fuck.” He glances up, adds quickly, “Sorry, ma’am.”
Gabriel waves it away, pulling up his files. “Do you want your old position back?”
“I don’t want to work with her again.”
Gabriel glances back at him, the way his shoulders have curved in, and feels the same tug that led to her bringing a rangy teenage cowboy-wannabe into the Blackwatch fold. “Well, we have a couple choices.” She waits for him to look up before continuing. “I could transfer you back into another department in Overwatch. Or, you stay here as part of our medical team. Your files say you’re qualified to be a combat medic, and if you’re comfortable with that I can pull some strings and get you approved for a Valkyrie suit.”
“She would hate that,” Gutierrez murmurs thoughtfully.
“You don’t have to decide now.” Gabriel taps a couple buttons. “I’m putting you in the visitor’s quarters and sending you the orientation schedule. Sit through it and then figure it out, okay?”
“Yes, ma’am.” He grins at her, relief making him appear even younger. “Thank you, ma’am.”