Chapter Text
In July of 2046, when Paris was hit by a heatwave so thick and redolent of summer even the natives wilted at its arrival, the Ashe family holidayed in France for the first time. The first half of the week was enjoyable, dodging the sun’s harsh beat by hovering at the deep end of the private pool and spending the evenings in air-conditioned restaurants where shiny bands of omnics played classical music as they slurped up exotic soups and garlic shrivelled snails. Young Elizabeth Ashe even found herself somewhat enjoying the trip, stuffing herself to sickness on sugary pastries and clumsily babbling what little French she’d managed to pick up in class when she wasn’t volleying spit balls or carving her name into desks.
By the third day of the vacation, however, the heatwave had come to a horrific crescendo, dragging the streets of Paris to a sweaty standstill and running the faucet of entertainment dry. Mr Ashe was too hot and tired to plan activities for the day, so he lounged at the poolside making business calls, growling at employees over the phone whilst chlorine dried into his trunks. Without a nannie or any manner of shiny tricoloured knick-knacks picked up in tourist booths, Mrs Ashe hadn’t the foggiest idea of how to keep a child occupied, so she whiled away the hours licking salt and olives out of long martinis in the hotel’s downstairs bar that Elizabeth was too young to enter.
The hotel wasn’t so different from home: huge, all gold and white and peach art deco, brimming over with curly appliques and beautiful, but unwelcoming, stucco walls. She wandered aimlessly, shoes abandoned at the poolside, relishing in the feeling of her skin slowly unsticking itself from the marble floors. Staff and guests alike gave her friendly smiles and foreheads creased with sunlight and concern: “Are you lost?” “Where are your parents, mademoiselle?” and she would simply puff out her cheeks, shrug her shoulders, and continue on her way. By the time the vacation was over and she was being piled back onto the plane, she had an exact mental map of the hotel and a killer sunburn that her doctor would give her a stern look over before prescribing her more extra strength cream and reminding her to stay out of harsh light – advice she would astutely ignore well into adulthood.
France didn’t leave the best of tastes in her mouth, understandably. In fact, the only flavours the thought of France seemed to conjure were obnoxious aquamarine chlorine and unbearable garlic. She decided she never wanted to go again the moment they landed back in New Mexico and her mother nodded, “Can’t stand the French.” as her father began weighing up Italy or Thailand for next year’s getaway.
When Talon’s veritable rooster of a messenger turned up on her metaphorical doorstep and offered her a score, she was listening, when they said it was in France, somewhat less so.
The ghastly faced ghost of a woman who she’d crunched numbers with over a glass of scotch in her office had laid it out simply enough:
“We’ve been offered some rather invaluable information by a French contact.” she had said, clicking her skeletal nails against the rim of her glass. “Corentin Fosse – I imagine you’ve heard of him.” Ashe had not, in fact, heard of any such bastard in her life, but she kept a stiff lip and nodded along regardless. “In return for the assassination of two problems of his, he’s willing to hand over a hard drive full of Overwatch intel.” the woman, at that point, had finished the remainder of her drink in one gulp, her gaunt neck bobbing in a jerking manner that reminded Ashe of a turkey. “He wants it clean cut, demanded two snipers. Of course, we only have one.”
The predatory glint in the woman’s eye seemed well practiced enough, to the point that Ashe wondered if it always lingered beyond the film of her mismatched irises. She scoffed.
“You’re tryin’ to tell me that outta your whole barrel of bloodthirsty fish you’ve only got one sniper? Bullshit.”
The woman smirked, taking a moment to run a hand through her shock of orange hair.
“On the contrary, Miss Ashe, we only have one who knows what she’s doing.” she said, “Our grunts are good, but not clean. Besides,” the woman placed a holopad on Ashe’s desk, its screening pulsing with some very familiar names, “There’s plenty in it for you.”
Considering it for a moment, Ashe poured herself another glass and growled at the woman,
“Give it to me straight.”
She smiled grimly, the deep lines on her face pulling unpleasantly around her thin mouth. “Paris. You and one of our agents take out the targets over a period of two to four days. We cover your tracks, all expenses spared, and provide you with the sordid secrets of every rival gang from Santa Fe to Salem.” she remained seated for just a moment, studying Ashe closely, before standing and turning toward the door, “You have two weeks to give us a verdict, although I’m sure we’ll be hearing from you much sooner than that. Good evening, Miss Ashe.”
It took only three days of stewing over her personal values – (a debilitating love of money and violence vs her moral opposition towards the French) - and throwing shrill hyperbole at B.O.B from across the pool table before Ashe finally took Talon up on their offer, sending them a curtly worded email from the encrypted holopad they’d left her. In just a few short minutes she received a response of her own, which consisted of a date, time, location coordinates, and a thirty second detonation timer. She tossed the holopad into a waste paper bin and watched it incinerate the contents as she considered what she just agreed to.
The location coordinates led her and B.O.B to an abandoned airship hangar. Its huge green skeleton stood against the evening sky like some kind of emaciated sleeping animal, and hanging tight in its shadow until she caught sight of movement from within felt like lying in wait for disaster.
She was cautious when approaching the movement, even as she saw the familiar red haired woman standing amongst the grunts she remained stiff. In fact, she imagined that approaching that bird faced woman in any capacity required one to be at peak vigilance at all times, should she attempt to secretively remove a kidney when you weren’t looking.
“Lovely to see you again, Miss Ashe.” the woman grinned. She had far too many teeth. “My apologies for not introducing myself the last time we met. Doctor O’Deorain. Moira, if you prefer.”
Moira, she eventually came to learn as she engaged in half-hearted conversation with the doctor, was supposedly Talon’s finest geneticist, although Ashe suspected she was probably their only geneticist – or, if there had been any others, Moira had probably sliced them up into cubes and stored them in a cooler beneath her desk with plans to sneak them into work potluck stews every month. With as little regard for ethics as Ashe had for rules and a tendency to strangling all conversation to a sinister purple, Ashe figured that were the woman not so damn off putting she’d be a real catch to work with.
“Your omnic friend here is simply fantastic, may I add.” when she smiled, Moira looked like a jack o’ lantern that had been left to rot on a porch. As odd as the woman was, Ashe could not stop staring at her. “Can he talk?”
“Naw.” Ashe gave B.O.B a comforting pat on the arm, instinctively sliding herself between him and Moira. She knew damn well the woman would gut B.O.B of every last wire given the chance. “You’re more of the strong silent type, huh, B.O.B? He talks a little like Bastion units…y’know, beeps and boops.”
Moira narrowed her eyes, “Fascinating.”
There was perhaps half an hour more of devastating conversation with Moira that, at times, had Ashe fearing for the safety of her organs, when harsh whispers from the Talon grunts that shuffled around the dark aircraft caught Moira’s attention.
“Ah, here she is.” she looked toward the doorway of the hangar, where a black Jeep had rolled to a halt a good few yards away. “A word of advice: don’t say anything about her…appearance.”
As Ashe watched the heavily armed grunts pour out of the front of the car, she wondered how vigorously this supposed killing machine had been hit with the ugly stick for it to be so important that someone so efficiency oriented as Moira would think to mention it.
“But if you’re curious…” the sniper was so snuggly tailed by her apparent bodyguards that Ashe could barely get a peak of her as they approached, all she could see were a pair of exceptionally long legs swaddled in a tactical leggings. “We lowered her heart rate and body temperature.”
“You did what now?” Ashe sputtered. Moira simply chuckled darkly in response and Ashe barely had time to recover before she felt as though she were choking all over again.
The grunts parted as they approached, and striding between them, holding an enormous gun, was a woman whose skin was, from head to toe, blindingly violet.
“Elizabeth Ashe,” Moira gestured towards Ashe once the woman was in earshot, “Agent Widowmaker.”
As taken aback by the woman’s complexion as she was, that name had Ashe arching a brow.
“Widowmaker, huh?” Ashe extended a hand to the woman. As much as she appreciated theatrics, a little flourish in your step when you beat a man so hard he forgets his name is very different to naming yourself something so…on the nose. Considering the lab coat that Moira wore so tight it made her ribs look like a xylophone and the impressive array of colours splashed all over it, Ashe began to wonder if Talon was run completely by cartoon characters.
“Yes.” Widowmaker responded, tight lipped. She looked as though she were between a perpetual state of apathy and frustration – a shame really, for all the blue hue, she was a real looker.
Ashe noted that, whilst the armed bodyguards that stood diligently around her both towered over her, they held themselves with the stiff vigilance of men who knew their necks could be snapped in one fell swoop of a high heel. The woman that they circled was not a woman they had been ordered to protect, but one they were ordered to detain.
That, or simply being within five feet of Moira made everyone’s skin crawl.
“Pleasure to meet you.” Ashe attempted a smirk when Widowmaker finally accepted her hand. The shake was brief and firm.
“You do not know that yet.” Widowmaker responded apathetically before turning to Moira, “When is it time to leave?”
“Whenever you’re ready, ladies.” she said, “Although, your companion was not a part of the agreement, Miss Ashe.” Moira gestured to B.O.B, who Widowmaker barely glanced at. “I’m afraid he cannot accompany you on the mission.”
Huffing, Ashe looked over her shoulder at B.O.B who was blinking innocently down at her. He shrugged his huge shoulders.
“Fine.” she grit her teeth, “Just drive him back to the warehouse safe – you know the coordinates.”
“Oh, that won’t be necessary.” Moira waved her off with a simper, “He’s in perfectly capable hands with us. In fact, I’d love to take the opportunity to study him whilst you’re gone.”
B.O.B had certainly been blown to pieces and reassembled more time than Ashe wished to count, but she had no doubt if Moira took him apart, he’d come home with human organs, tentacles, and a Hal 9000 complex.
“B.O.B goes back to Route 66 or I ain’t gettin’ on that ship.”
Moira sighed with such great gusto that Ashe felt it warranted a kick in the gut, but she offered a sardonic smile regardless.
“Fair is fair. We’ll see he’s back by morning.” she said with one last fleeting glance to B.O.B, “Enjoy your flight.”
As rich as Ashe’s family may have been, they were never the type for hyper travel. They soaked in the luxury and frivolity of commercial flights, how first class meant they could suck their way through six prawn cocktails and two blockbuster movies before they even touched ground in a foreign country. The speed of hyper travel was more efficient perhaps, and certainly more environmentally friendly, but the amount of money they could throw at a seven-hour flight with all-inclusive three course meals looked better to their hazy eyed, fake toothed friends. As such, Ashe had never flown on a hypership before, and being strapped into a cold, rigid seat at a 90 degree angle next to a cold blooded killer with the complexion of a smurf was not exactly the most comforting of first times.
The flight took only an hour and a half, and whilst that was a stunning display of modern science and its capabilities, it was also a stunning display of just how close Ashe’ insides could get to bursting out of her mouth in a slew of projectile viscera.
When they landed, Widowmaker scoffed at her wobbly knees and muttered sans-couilles among other fanciful words that Ashe did not understand, nor care to. All she cared about right then and there was getting a damn drink in her system and then passing out cold in the safehouse.
Luckily, Widowmaker seemed to have a similar idea.
They found themselves at a quaint outdoor cocktail bar on the outskirts of Paris, sitting at an all together too small table where their knees knocked and their personal space was little to none. They spoke in low voices regarding the mission, hyperaware that a sea of people, natives and tourists alike, surrounded them. Not that many people cared to listen in, most of those who even took any notice of them sipping on their bright orange cocktails were too stunned by Widowmaker’s apparent full body frostbite to take in a word of what they may have been saying. Perhaps being blue wasn’t as much of a detriment to their cover as Ashe may have thought it would be.
In fact, Widowmaker seemed to blend into Paris and its elegant bustle with such ease, Ashe could start to believe that resembling a raspberry flavoured slushie was the norm in France. Dressed in the civvies she’d quickly changed into in a dingy public bathroom some ways out the city, Widowmaker cut a dashing figure in a deep necked sheer blouse and pair of high waisted trousers that hugged her hips so gratuitously Ashe felt it was her civic duty to avert her gaze from anywhere lower than Widowmaker’s ribcage. Even that, however, seemed a challenge, as the translucent material of her blouse unabashedly revealed her bra, where a pair of white cat eye sunglasses were clipped.
(“Telescopic technology.” she had explained as they left the public bathroom, “My visor is too conspicuous.”
“Gotcha.” Ashe nodded along, trying not to look to closely at how and where Widowmaker slipped the pair of techy shades.)
Even so, there was the odd passerby who did decide to rather loudly declare their shock at Widowmaker’s appearance, and as foreboding as Moira’s warning had been – or, quite frankly, any damn thing that came out Moira’s mouth was – Ashe couldn’t help but think that the question that came to mind was appropriate.
“What’re you gonna say if anyone asks about…” Ashe considered her words carefully, stirring her cocktail with a concerned pull to her lips, “Your complexion.”
“People tend not to.” Widowmaker said calmly, inspecting her own cocktail as if it had done something to personally offend her. “If they know what’s good for them.”
“And if they don’t?”
“Methemoglobinemia.”
“Gesundheit.”
Widowmaker placed her glass down and laced her fingers together, levelling Ashe the kind of look that made her think she’d practiced this explanation a million times before.
“A genetic mutation.” she said, face blank. “It causes the skin to take on a bluish-grey colour.”
“Huh.” Ashe said, “Why’s it do that?”
“You don’t want to know.” Widowmaker curled her lip somewhat, clear disgust flickering over her face. “But that doesn’t matter. Are you clear on the mission?”
“Crystal.” Ashe grinned with the confidence of a woman a lot less startled by the day’s overall occurrences “Damien Larue and Marceline Catoire. Take ‘em out clean, then get the Hell out of dodge.”
“Whatever that means. Yes.” Widowmaker drained the remainder of her cocktail and stood, “Shall we be on our way?”
“Yes, ma’am.” Ashe knocked back her own drink, and joined Widowmaker on the estimated ten minute walk back to the safehouse.
What a pair they must have made, waltzing through the streets like they weren’t one hell of a sight: a dark-haired Violet Beauregard with the face of a supermodel and a jaunty gaited albino who felt wildly less conspicuous than usual now that she wasn’t the weirdest lookin’ bastard on the block. As funny a thought as it was, Ashe took no notice of the stares they were no doubt getting – her head was abuzz. Realistically, she knew what her head should be fogged with – thoughts of the mission, plans to take out whatever deep pocketed bozos this Corentin wanted off his streets and out of his mind, anything but what was actually sloshing around inside her skull like chlorine and garlic.
The late afternoon heat and the meandering roads made her think of that rose gilded hotel, its tall ceilings and blue tinted windows. Paris felt suffocatingly too big and too small all at once, and she was sharing it with an assassin who she feared not because she was more than capable of killing her, but because Ashe thought she’d damn well enjoy being a little ruffed up at her hand.
Tired of staring at her own feet and getting lost in her own head, Ashe huffed,
“Where’s this safehouse anyway, Widow-“
“Amélie Lacroix.” Widowmaker hissed, “It’s Amélie Lacroix, not that ridiculous codename.”
“Not your idea then, I take it?” Ashe laughed, taken aback by her sudden intensity. Until now Widowmaker – or, perhaps, Amélie – had shown about as much emotional capacity as a football coach with a troubled childhood.
“Doctor O’Deorain.” she said, “Unfortunately enough, it seemed to stick.”
“Hey now, it’s not that bad.” Ashe lied, “It’s intimidating, at least.”
“It’s uncreative.” Amélie said, stopping in her tracks before Ashe. There is a sort of disdain in her amber eyes that feels sharp enough to puncture. “There are countless firearms named the widow maker and it is also an antiquated term used to describe a horse that bucks its riders.” she paused for a moment, breathing heavily, “Permanent codenames are also counterintuitive.”
“Not wrong there.”
“No. I’m not.” Amelie turned again, “You were saying?”
Not willing to risk her kneecaps over unwanted questions, Ashe asked again, “Where’s the safehouse?”
“Ogundimu told me we would be staying in a cheap apartment on the outskirts of the city.” Amélie said, calm and reserved as ever now that she’d managed to catch her breath. “Somewhere low profile.”
“Aw geez,” Ashe sighed, pugging her nose at what cheap apartment might entail. If she’d learnt anything from fraternizing almost exclusively with people significantly lower class than herself in her greener years, it meant cockroaches the size of your hand, floorboards that groaned like cats in heat every time you took a step, and kitschy wallpaper that peeled with black mould if you so much as breathed on it. “It’s not cheap cheap, right?”
“I don’t know.” Amélie shrugged, “I was given coordinates. Nothing else.”
“Alrighty…so long as they’re ain’t no vermin I’ll be – “ Ashe stopped mid-sentence, suddenly overcome with a gut deep feeling triggered by something: something she wasn’t quite sure of, but felt like the tail end of laughter on the wind.
“Ashe?” Amélie asked monotonously. “What is the problem?”
“You willin’ to hand those glasses over for a mo?” she extended a hand, crooking her fingers in the motherly give it here gesture that would quickly turn into a raised fist were she asking anyone else. Amélie rolled her eyes, but unhooked the glasses from her bra and handed them over anyway.
Putting them on glazed the streets in a misty, violet vignette that gave everyone the appearance of starring in a low budget adult movie filmed a good few decades ago, but also sharpened everything to the point of hyper detail. They zoomed and adjusted of their own accord every now and then, like the lens of a professional camera, and Ashe looked up and down the street continuously, trying to figure out what had piqued her interest. Had she seen a familiar face? Overheard a conversation? She couldn’t tell but her gut bubbled with such certainty that she refused to take the glasses off until she’d figured it out.
She could hear Amélie sighing loudly behind her.
“Sorry, I just thought I saw somethin’…”
“Perhaps you did, perhaps not. It does not matter. Come, we should be on our way.”
“Just give me a sec, I wanna…” Ashe trailed off as she spotted an unfamiliar man waiting in line at a bakery a few yards away. Somewhat obscured by a crowd of tourists flashing photos of a brightly coloured mural besides the bakery, the man had dark eyes and hair, stern features and broad shoulders. The underside of his head was buzzed short, and his face was punched through with metal, similar to how a lot of Deadlock grunts wore their piercings. This fella pulled it off a lot better than most of them scrawny bags o’ bones.
“Is this important?” Amélie sighed again, louder, for emphasis, “Or are you simply scouting out attractive locals.”
Ashe didn’t respond, instead zooming in on the man. There was nothing particularly remarkable about him, perhaps besides his handsome face and the impressive tattoo that sprawled across the bulge of his bicep and forearm. Put out, she was about to flick the glasses up onto her forehead when the man turned, alerted by the voice of a tall figure approaching him.
All warm smiles and brown cowlicks and splashes of freckles, Ashe knew that bastard damn well before she even saw his face proper. Of course he’d be in Paris now, being a nuisance with whatever pretty boy he’d wagged his tongue at over the counter of a seedy dive bar this time. Jesse McCree seemed to have a habit of turning up whenever she had bigger fish to fry, and loved to combat role into the spotlight like the biggest red bellied salmon of them all. She turned on her heel, yanking the sunglasses off and throwing them at Amélie. She caught them, but not without a scowl.
“Don’t throw them.” she hissed, “These are worth more than your entire career.”
“Doubt it.” Ashe said, marching past Amélie. “Now where’s this damn safe house?”