Chapter Text
Sombra‘s room was dark when she slipped through the door, the only thing allowing her to orientate herself being a single violet holoscreen that was still floating above her desk. Her ocular implants shifted and buzzed slightly as the delicate circuits did their best to adjust to the low light, causing an unpleasant stinging sensation.
Grimacing, she massaged her temple with one hand while stumbling across the room to where she knew from experience her bed stood. She did her best not to trip over anything that was lying around on the floor, but it proved a rather difficult task. The thin carpet was covered in a lot of spots by clothes she hadn‘t bothered to put back in her closet, empty dorito bags and energy drink cans, cables and spare pieces of hardware. She was used to the mess, and usually she could navigate it easily enough, but tonight, exhaustion took its toll on her. Just before she could reach the bed, her toe caught on something, she stumbled, and fell over, arms flailing wildly and trying to find something to catch herself on. Her fingers met nothing but the slightly stuffy air, warmed by several of the large machines in the room, but she was lucky. She had been standing just a few feet away from her bed, and instead of landing on the floor, her fall was considerably softened by the mattress and crumpled bedsheets.
For a moment, she seriously contemplated just staying like this, without changing or even taking her shoes off. She was exhausted enough to fall asleep where she was, half on the bed, half on the floor. But then something shifted underneath her and she suddenly realized that not only the mattress had broken her fall.
„Sombra?“
Widow‘s voice was rough with sleep, and so quiet Sombra barely caught it. She scrambled to get up, allowing the woman in her bed to roll over onto her back and get a look at her nightly assailant.
„Shit. Sorry.“ Sombra managed to maneuver herself into a sitting position on the edge of the bed. Her head was still pounding. It got slightly better when she closed her eyes, which didn‘t help with the fact that she was still so tired her words seemed to fall from her lips almost of their own accord. „Didn‘t realize you were...“ She made a vague gesture, hoping Widow would be able to see it at all in the near-darkness.
The sniper in question had pushed herself up onto her forearms, only haphazardly covered by the sheets. Her golden eyes were wide open. They seemed to almost catch and reflect the faint light, like the eyes of a cat.
„I should have told you I might be here when you got back.“ Her voice was less husky now, but her tone was still the same flat softness Sombra was used to from her. She had found it off putting at first, but after years of working with her, and a few months since this had developed, whatever it was, she had learned to read Widow fairly well. Even now, she could see it in the slight tilt of her head, the frown that adorned her delicate features, though it was mostly swallowed up by the darkness.
„It‘s fine.“ Sombra fought back a yawn. „Could have guessed myself. It‘s not like this is the first time or whatever.“
That was the truth. Over the course of the past few weeks, Widow had been spending her nights here more and more often. In the evenings, she just suddenly appeared in Sombra‘s doorstep and made herself comfortable on her bed, and in all honesty, Sombra was both too shocked to say anything about it, and too intrigued.
It just wasn‘t usually at one am.
A sigh made its way past her chapped lips. Slowly, and with much more effort than it should have taken, she peeled off her coat, then her shoes, and finally the thin jumpsuit she wore underneath. Blindly, she reached for the spot on the floor where she thought she had thrown her favorite t-shirt this morning, found something soft and large, and decided it was good enough. She pulled it over her head and then crawled onto the mattress with Widow. Her clothes were left on the floor where they were. She could always pick them up tomorrow if need be. Right now, she just wanted to sleep. Her eyelids felt heavy as lead.
She felt Widow shift around to make room for her and lift up the blanket so Sombra could fit underneath it. It was almost a routine by now. On any other night, Sombra might have agonized over that fact, tried to rationalize it away as she was so terribly fond of doing, but now, all she knew was that Widow snuggling up to her beneath the covers was familiar, and comforting, and even her cool skin felt like a relief to Sombra‘s aching head. She buried her face in Widow‘s neck, an arm sloppily finding its way around her waist. Faintly, she felt the sniper‘s fingers threading through her hair.
„Why‘re you here, araña?“, Sombra murmured into her clavicle. Widow hugged her closer. She took a few moments to answer.
„I couldn‘t sleep.“
Sombra yawned again. „Sleep. Now.“ Coherent sentences suddenly seemed like an unimaginable effort. The last thing she perceived before drifting off was Widow‘s low chuckle close to her ear, and the press of cold lips to her temple, almost as if Widow knew that it hurt.
She awoke hours later with a start, and an immediate, urging sense of danger, a need to flee that was so overwhelming for a moment that she scrambled to get out of bed, almost panicking. But by the time she had managed to untangle herself from the sheets and Widow‘s arms, some clarity had returned to her. Her struggling stilled, and she forced herself to close her eyes, take deep breaths. Gradually, she realized that she was soaked with sweat, her shirt clinging uncomfortably to her back. Her heart was pounding in chest as if she had been running for her life.
There were vague images at the edges of her mind, impressions of whatever she had dreamt that had put her so on edge, but nothing concrete. There never was. It wasn‘t necessary. Sombra had an idea of what it must have been.
In the silence of the room, she could still faintly hear the roaring of the fire, the rattling of the machine guns, the groaning of her house‘s walls as it collapsed above her.
She grit her teeth against the memories she didn‘t want. Mierda. She had just wanted to sleep.
Widow shifted beside her. Sombra had to bite back a groan. Widow had always been a light sleeper, shaken out of her slumber by the slightest disturbance, the rare times she could calm herself enough to fall asleep in the first place. It was part of Sombra‘s guilt at the realization that she was responsible for waking her up, for the second time that night.
She felt the mattress shift as Widow sat up. Cold arms wrapped lightly around her from behind, Widow‘s chin resting on her shoulder.
„Tu vas bien, chérie?“
She often slipped into French when she was very tired or agitated. The language was similar enough to Spanish, and Sombra had picked up a few of Widow‘s most common phrases in the months since they had grown closer. It was enough to understand her in most cases.
„I‘m fine.“ The words came out shaky and sounded fake even to Sombra‘s own ears.
„Cauchemar?“
She exhaled deeply.
„Yeah.“
Widow‘s arms tightened around her waist. She didn‘t speak anymore. For a moment, Sombra let herself lean back into her embrace, breathe in that familiar scent of lavender shampoo with a trace of smoke under it that wasn‘t unpleasant but still seemed to follow her everywhere she went. But then she remembered that she was covered in sweat and probably smelled and felt gross, and she reluctantly wrenched herself free of Widow‘s arms.
„I... I‘ll go take a shower.“
Widow was silent, just watched Sombra force herself to get up and make her way to the adjacent bathroom on wobbly legs, eyes big and wide awake. Sombra couldn‘t bear to return her gaze.
In the shower, she turned the temperature to ice cold to cool off her overheated body. The wires running all throughout her body didn‘t exactly help. When she thought about too many things at once, or used too many of her implants at the same time, sometimes the wires ran so hot it actually physically hurt. They tended to do the same during nightmares. If Sombra looked at her arm very closely, she could faintly see thin red lines underneath her skin.
She grimaced. She‘d have to get some more biotic fluid from Moira to make sure there was no lasting damage. She hated having to go to Moira.
Her head still hurt, but for a different reason than when she‘d gone to bed. The pounding in her temples had subsided to a dull ache while she‘d slept, but now there were the fires from twenty-four years ago burning inside her mind, fires she‘d tried to forget ever since.
She stood in the shower for a few more minutes, hoping the cold water would soothe the pain, but all it did was make goosebumps break out on her skin. With shaking hands, she turned it off and reached for her towel in the half-darkness. All tiredness had left her, maybe on account of the water, maybe just because of the leftover adrenaline from her abrupt waking up. The thought of going back to bed seemed disgusting all of a sudden.
Wrapped in just her towel, she padded back into her bedroom, more careful not to step on anything this time. Widow was still awake, sitting upright in bed, the sheets pooled around her.
„Better?“, she asked quietly.
„I don‘t know.“
It was true. The panic from before had vanished, but it had been replaced with a sense of restlessness that twisted her insides and put her on edge just as much. Jerkily, she pulled open a drawer and grabbed the first set of clean clothes she came across.
„Will you come back to bed?“
Sombra paused. Everything in her screamed to say no, even thought she knew she needed the rest, she had work to do in the morning, and the mission had taken a lot out of her. But she was sure she wouldn‘t be able to fall asleep again, and the thought of lying around in bed, staring up at the ceiling for hours, seemed unbearable.
„Widow, do you want to get off this base?“
The words were out before she realized it. She looked over her shoulder nervously, trying to gauge Widow‘s reaction. Her expression hadn‘t changed.
„I need permission from Akande to leave the headquarters.“
Sombra snorted. „Who cares what Akande says?“
Widow hesitated for a moment. „What do you want to do outside?“
„I have no idea. I just... need to get out. And I‘d rather do it with you than alone.“
After another moment, Widow gave a small nod. „Okay.“
Sombra tried to keep the wave of overwhelming relief that washed over her off her face. She‘d never had a problem with spending time alone, and the big city outside didn‘t scare her. But right now, she just wanted Widow with her, and she was too winded to spend time thinking about why.
She grabbed her clothes and went back into the bathroom to get dressed while Widow pushed the sheets off and swung her legs off the side of the bed. Everything still seemed to hurt - her burned skin, her head, her own mind - but the promise of breathing in the night air and walking until her legs grew tired, Widow by her side, made it seem a thousand times more bearable.
Sombra wasn‘t sure what it was about the woman that entranced her so much. She‘d had all of Talon wrapped around her little finger the moment she‘d joined years prior. She had read every single file on their servers, no matter how well encrypted they were. At night, when she lay tangled up with Widowmaker and traced her fingers over her cold skin as she slept, she knew every nanite in her veins, every modified string of DNA, every cut Talon‘s scientists had made to make her theirs, heart, body and soul. She knew the tracking device implanted underneath the spider tattooed all over Widow‘s back. She knew the microchip in her brain. She knew the wires in her muscles, the metal ports in her temples, the circuits behind her eyes, almost like Sombra‘s own. Sombra was intimately familiar with Widowmaker‘s body on a morbid, strictly technical level, more so than she supposed the woman ever could.
Talon‘s prized project was a wretched, sad creature, the result of a modern Frankenstein-esque experiment intended to deprive her of all her humanity and turn her into a thing the Council could use. Bony shoulders, ribs showing beneath delicate skin, colored a sickly light blue. Hair down to her knees that she didn‘t cut because she had simply forgotten that she could. Hollow, empty eyes surrounded by shadows that seemed to be rooted deeper than anything Talon could have done to her body.
Except it wasn‘t that simple. It wasn‘t that simple at all, and Sombra realized that over and over in every moment she spent with Widow. She realized it again now, after she‘d snuck the two of them out of the building and onto the streets of Venice, busy even in the middle of the night, the darkness lit up with yellow and white and multicolored lights from windows and lanterns and countless other pieces of life that kept this city‘s heart beating. Sombra instantly felt better the moment she stepped out of the gate in the fence surrounding the headquarters‘ property. Venice was nothing like Dorado, where she‘d grown up, but she‘d learned to love it all the same.
A smile began tugging at the edge of her mouth as she walked, Widow close behind her. She‘d left her hair loose, making her look even more unearthly in the dim light. She was beautiful, and the realization of just how much sent a shiver down Sombra‘s spine every time she turned around to make sure she hadn‘t lost her. Widow stood out from the crowd effortlessly, and on any other night Sombra would have worried about the consequences, but not now. Now, all she could think about was the cool air filling her lungs and clearing her head of the fire, and the city throbbing with life around her, and the woman right behind her, keeping up with her easily no matter how unpredictable her movements were, how random the turns she took.
Sombra didn‘t realize she‘d reached for Widow‘s hand until the sniper‘s cold fingers were already brushing hers. For a moment, she was startled, but then Widow laced their fingers together like it was the most normal thing in the world, and that hint of a smile became a broad grin that Sombra quickly tried to hide by turning her head away, but she knew Widow had seen anyway.
This wasn‘t the first time they did this. It wasn‘t even the second or third time. The touch of Widow‘s hand was familiar by now, effortless. But the surge of wild happiness it sent through Sombra still caught her off guard every time. She remembered the time too well when they‘d had no affection for each other, instead a lack of understanding with an irrational rivalry and underlying festering animosity that had made their necessary work relationship unpleasant, to say the least. She remembered the frown on Widow‘s face that she‘d been the cause of so often. She remembered her own irritation at Widow‘s coldness, how her unfeeling efficiency had almost scared her.
It seemed incredible now. She stole a glance at the woman walking next to her, smile still lingering on her lips, and felt something warm bloom in her chest, in time with her heart thrumming against her ribcage.
How are you doing this?, she wanted to ask, the words already on her lips before she swallowed them down. Widow‘s face was neutral as always, nothing betraying what she was thinking or feeling, but Sombra felt her gently squeezing her hand, and that was more than enough.
There were a million different fates brushing for a moment in this place, a million tiny things happening that, in the bigger picture, might change everything eventually. But as long as Sombra was walking along those streets, fingers intertwined with Widow‘s, none of it could touch her, and none of it needed to.
She wasn‘t sure for how long they walked, but some time, the sky above them began growing lighter, the stars slowly vanishing, replaced by traces of orange and violet. The sun rose above the sea in Venice, a breathtaking sight that the isolated location of the headquarters deprived them of on most days. Sombra tugged Widow to a halt next to a railing overseeing the spot where the Grand Canal merged with the open sea. She leaned forward a bit, bracing herself on the railing with her forearms, and took several deep breaths of the cool air. This, she knew. Dorado was a coastal city; this smell had accompanied her everywhere she went for most of her life. If all the walking hadn‘t done the trick yet, breathing it in now got rid of the last remnants of that terrible restlessness in Sombra. Combined with the breathtaking sight before her, the rising sun painting the sky with the first dull shades of orange, the moon still visible even though the stars had already vanished, it was almost enough to make Sombra forget why she‘d come here in the first place.
Almost.
When she looked down at her exposed arms, there were still traces of red from her overheated wires. It hurt a little, but worse was knowing what had caused the burns. She was half a world away from a city that hadn‘t been burning for twenty-four years, but the flames still licked at the edges of her mind, no matter how far she ran. Pathetic.
„Beautiful.“
Widow. She was standing next to Sombra, staring out onto the sea with her usual solemn expressing, but the lines of her face seemed less harsh somehow. Her brow just a little higher. Just a little less tension at the corners of her mouth.
The first sunlight was reflected in her golden eyes, and the wind ruffled her endless hair slightly, and Sombra was already opening her mouth to respond with some horrible quip about how she was much more beautiful than the sunrise, before abruptly remembering that not only was there a possibility that Widow wouldn‘t get it, making it awkward for both of them, it was also better for everyone involved if she simply kept those thoughts to herself. It was bad enough that Widow was still holding her hand, with no sign of letting go anytime soon, and Sombra couldn‘t bring herself to do it instead.
So Sombra just nodded and remained silent, even while her mind was nearly overflowing with things to say, some of them smart, some of them funny, some of them flirty, but not a single one appropriate for the situation. Everything she could think of seemed wrong somehow, and she started to despise the silence she had initially enjoyed so much.
„I have nightmares, as well.“
Sombra turned her head in surprise. Widow wasn‘t meeting her gaze, her eyes still fixated on the horizon before them.
„You... you do?“
A small nod. Sombra turned to fully face Widow.
„About what?“
Widow was silent for a moment, and Sombra began to worry she had crossed some sort of unspoken boundary, already retreating and drawing her hand back from where it had still been holding Widow‘s.
„You don‘t have to tell me. Sorry.“
But Widow tightened her grip on her hand, not enough to hurt, but enough to make it clear that she didn‘t want Sombra to let go of it. After a few more of her slow heartbeats, she began to speak.
„I dream of a room. The ceiling is too low for me to stand up. The walls are black. There is no light. It‘s cold and the smell is horrible...“ Her voice trailed off for a moment before she caught herself, taking a deep breath.
„There is a door. It‘s too dark to see, but I can feel the thin gaps in the wall. I know what is on the other side of the door. I fear the moment it will open.“
Her words hung heavy in the air between them. Sombra had an idea what she was talking about, having read every file Talon had on Amélie Lacroix‘s kidnapping, torture and eventual neural reconditioning. In the early stages of her capture, she had been kept in a cell like that. They would have taken her out only for more of the humiliating, horribly painful and frightening procedures they put her through on a daily basis.
No wonder she had been afraid of the door opening.
A part of Sombra suddenly wanted to burst out with the whole story of what had happened all those years ago. Wanted to tell Widow about the fire and the ruins and the monsters, the memories that kept her up at night. It felt oddly wrong to keep it to herself, now that Widow had trusted her with this, these things she had probably never told anyone about, because she‘d had no one for so many years. It didn‘t feel fair.
But no matter how Sombra wanted to force the words across her tongue, they wouldn‘t come out. She exhaled sharply, frustrated, keeping her gaze locked on the water below them. So early in the morning, it was calm, the surface moved only by the wind and the water‘s natural flow, instead of by dozens of gondolas that functioned as public and private transport in Venice. A sharp contrast to the turmoil within Sombra.
A sudden gust of wind caught her hair and blew it into her face. Grimacing, she tried to tame the brown and purple mass, regretting suddenly that she hadn‘t bothered to comb it earlier. She was caught off guard when cold fingers suddenly brushed her cheek, tucking the most unruly strands behind her ear gently. Sombra turned her head to stare at Widow in surprise. The sniper moved to pull her hand away, but this time, Sombra was the one who reached up and held it where it was cradling the side of her face. The indulgence added to her guilt, but she couldn‘t help it. Widow‘s touch felt too good, too comforting, even though Sombra knew she had no right to it.
„I‘m sorry“, she sighed.
„What are you sorry for?“ The surprise in Widow‘s voice seemed genuine.
„For everything.“
She felt Widow‘s thumb lightly stroke her cheek. Instinctively, she leaned further into the touch, closing her eyes for a moment.
„Petite ombre, you should not waste your apologies on things you aren‘t guilty of.“
A small chuckle escaped Sombra‘s lips. „You‘d be surprised, araña.“
„No, I don‘t believe I would.“ The sniper‘s expression hadn‘t changed, but Sombra could tell she meant what she said. It took a weight of Sombra‘s chest she‘d barely been aware had been there, but now that it was gone, breathing suddenly felt infinitely easier.
Without thinking about it, she reached out and pulled Widow into a hug, hiding her face in the crook of her neck. For a moment, she felt her stiffen, before she exhaled, let her shoulders drop and carefully, almost experimentally wrapped her arms around Sombra.
„Thanks for coming out here with me“, Sombra mumbled against her skin. She felt her lightly shake her head.
„I... I think I needed this as much as you did.“
The sun rising behind them, and the streets slowly coming to life more and more with each passing minute, for a brief moment, Sombra couldn‘t have been happier. The knowledge was lurking in the back of her mind that it wouldn‘t last, but she pushed it to the side and tightened her arms around Widow.
She just wanted this to last. Just this once. Please.