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Sombra doesn't let anyone touch her implants.
She bears them proudly, though. They are medals, declaring this is her body, flesh and bone and ones and zeros, and she is untouchable.
Widow touches her everywhere, practiced, knowing, careful but not soft (never soft). She hovers over the graft in her spine and never directly touches it, until she does.
They're naked and sex-worn and Widow's ghosting her fingers down Sombra's back. She doesn't hate this; Sombra has stopped feeling the urge to flinch when the cold teases too close to her hardware and she doesn't know when this started, but supposes it no longer matters.
What's important is that it's there now, an uneasy comfort.
"Careless to have these so exposed," Widow murmurs. Her breath is cool, fluttering at her sweat-slicked shoulders. With the windows closed, it is a welcome relief.
She hums as Widow's palm rests against the small of her back, thumb stroking over an old scar that she's never asked about. She could fall asleep like this; wonders if Widow would allow it.
"You'd be so easy to spot in the dark."
"I'm seen when I want to be seen." Sombra's response comes out raspy, hazier than she would have liked but she supposes that Widow doesn't care either way.
She makes a low, breathy sound and says, "cocky," but there isn't any bite in it. Her hand disappears then, leaving goosebumps in the wake of her touch. "Any good sniper would take you out the moment you appear."
"Good thing I have a better one watching my back."
Widow does not respond and the silence carries gently for what feels like minutes, Sombra already dozing when she hears, quietly,
"Yes."
"You have terrible form."
Sombra, panting on the ground, closes her eyes. Her bones ache, her mouth is dry and she's sure her arms will not want to bend tomorrow.
She's never agreeing to this again.
Widow almost looks like she enjoys knocking Sombra down again and again, mouth curved wicked anytime she catches a fist, sees a kick long before it swings toward her. Sombra can't effectively translocate within such close quarters and Widow knows the gym too well to spot her if she tries. It's too fair a fight.
"Not unlike how you slouch in front of your video games."
She isn't sure why Widow had dragged her here so early, if only to punish her for a sloppy stance, for tight movements and reactions that one could only call human. Sombra had told her that this isn't her style — she doesn't brawl, but Widow only shrugged, and?
This is what she gets for spending the night.
"What, are you gonna tell me how I sit too close to my monitors next?"
Widow remains quiet, and when Sombra peeks with one eye, she's regarding her with almost the same turn of mouth, wicked but milder, painted tender with an expression that isn't altogether unkind. Sombra wonders how she might coax that look back another time, at the cost of something less painful than the bruise she can already feel pulsing at her waist.
"Lève-toi."
She stands, but ends back on the ground shortly after.
"You and Widow."
"Me and Widow?" Sombra knows where this is going — knew where it was going before she sat down — but she looks at him with brows raised, faux-inquisitive. Gabe knows that she knows, and she knows that he knows that she knows and it's a whole thing that Sombra enjoys the immaturity of.
Gabe watches her back, humorless.
"She's off limits."
She's not a fucking object, but.
Saying so would come off too genuine, and Sombra is nothing if not difficult to level with. She swallows the thought down.
Instead,
"Didn't realize your operatives were so tightly leashed."
Gabe shakes his head, then leans back in his chair. Without his cloak, the guy isn't so scary. Sombra wonders, not for the first time, what he might have been like before. She never dwells too long, but she knows the names of his wife and his kid and his next door neighbors and something about it all makes her grieve with him, if only a little.
Maybe she's stuck around Talon for too long.
He tells her, "You know what she is" and Sombra's response comes almost too quickly:
"Capable of making her own decisions."
Gabe's expression shifts, still humorless, but maybe a little more sympathetic. It makes Sombra want to vomit. "Not always," he responds evenly; a fact that even Sombra can't rewrite into something less cruel.
Sombra doesn't say anything else. She's read Widow's file.
Gabe knows she's read Widow's file, and she knows he knows and so now this whole game feels trite.
"Okay," he says eventually, with finality, like he hadn't expected a very long conversation. Sombra begins to think she might have overestimated how much she knew about him.
"Okay?"
"No one else knows. Or cares, but you understand what happens if they think she's become compromised."
(She's read too much of Widow's file.)
Sombra nods.
Sombra wonders if the schedule Widow keeps is of her own making.
Widow does not talk about Amélie and Sombra never asks, but she'd be lying if she said she didn't know about the man called Lacroix and the birth of Talon's Widowmaker. (Widow does not ask and Sombra never offers.)
She knows that Amélie did not want this and that Talon took the ability to want from her. That Talon took the ability to choose and the ability to feel and many other things in exchange for a rifle and an unmatched focus, and Sombra considers that perhaps it's impossible to compromise someone so ruthlessly made.
When she isn't deployed, Widow's schedule is simple.
Gym, target practice, sleep. Food and showers and...other activities find their way in between, but at 2pm, Widow is perched at the top of a building with her rifle trained at an aimlessly roaming bot 900 meters away. She could make that shot with her eyes closed.
The solitude is definitely a preference, Sombra decides — one that she enjoys interrupting whenever she can, relishing in how Widow doesn't seem to notice it getting easier and easier to do so.
"You're not so sneaky," she says when Sombra walks onto the roof, gravel crunching softly under every step. She adjusts one of the knobs on her scope, then tilts the sight of her rifle almost imperceptibly to the left and Sombra suddenly understands what Widow had meant by alive. Sombra's only ever on the ground when Widow is set loose but now, seeing her so settled into this routine is oddly calming. She almost seems pleased, which is new and strangely, contagious.
"Who says I was trying to sneak up on you?" Sombra kneels to set her bag down, not missing the way Widow's eyes have started to track her. She starts to feel a flush creep up her neck, down her spine, but Sombra shakes her head and wills it away. Later, perhaps.
"What do you want?"
"Got some studying to do. Know anything about the Adawe Foundation?"
"What?"
"I need the fresh air, and I never get to see you work." Sombra approaches, offering her a simple, carefully made ham sandwich. Widow stares at it, then nods toward the space beside her rifle. Sombra sets it down and reaches into her bag for another one. "How about some company?"
Widow considers for a moment, looking at Sombra like she isn't sure if she's being fucked with. (The answer is no — Sombra has something else in mind to repay her for the gym.) She reaches for the sandwich, and Sombra takes the invitation to set up beside her. She sits on the ground, her back to the roof ledge and kicks her feet out. Lunch tastes like deli meat and butter and it's pretty okay for something Gabe wouldn't stop gawking at.
"This isn't terrible," Widow says, echoing the thought.
Sombra nods. "I think it's the butter."
Widow turns to face her, chewing. She tilts her head. "The what?"
"That's how you make it right?"
Widow blinks, impassive. She doesn't respond, and instead puts the sandwich back down, kneels in front of Sombra and kisses her.
She tastes like fucking butter, but she also tastes like Widow, and her fingers are pressing into her temple and her lips are soft and Sombra remembers to kiss back after she processes all those things.
Widow pulls away and settles back on the ground. She regards Sombra quietly, and then uses her thumb to swipe crumbs away from the corner of her mouth.
"Next time, I will make the food," she says as she stands. Widow takes another bite from her food, shaking her head and smiling a little. "A proper jambon-beurre deserves better than...whatever bread this is."
"Ah, but I get points for trying."
Widow leans down and kisses her again (tasting like butter, again). "Oui."
Widow calls them clean kills, but they're never really that clean, up close.
One moment, their target is reading the morning newspaper on his penthouse balcony, humming tunelessly, and the next, he's hunched over a pool of blood flowing across the table, soaking the Sunday crossword and drip, drip, dripping onto his thousand dollar loafers. Widow gets him in one shot, like always, but it still makes a mess.
"Confirmed," Sombra says as she finishes up with the man's computer. "Ok, we're clear. Beaming up to you in a flash."
On the other end of her comms, silence.
Sombra waits.
"Spider, are we good?"
Sombra leaves her translocator a few feet behind where Widow sets up, specifically because she likes the view. She tells her this once, toward which Widow had frowned but hadn't told Sombra no, so she gives herself the pleasure in thinking that Widow likes that she likes the view.
Her name is Lena, alias Tracer, and she has Widow backed against the rooftop ledge. Sombra slips in unnoticed and doesn't see it at first, until she moves closer and catches sight of the pistol pressed into her stomach, Tracer's finger firmly curled around the trigger. Widow towers over her, standing straight and sharp even in the face of a bullet to the gut and a 40-story drop. Her expression betrays no indication of fear, but Sombra knows her well enough to see that she is unnerved.
"You have a tell."
Widow stops trying to re-clasp her bra, so the thing hangs loose across her chest as she scowls. "I do not have a tell."
"Yes you do, when you're upset, the corners of your mouth pull just a little further back than your usual pissy frown." Sombra grins. Widow tilts her head. Her mouth twitches. "I know because I'm usually the cause."
What she knows of Tracer is mostly limited to what she can find on the internet and what Widow has told her, but it all paints a clear enough picture: Lena Oxton would never shoot someone point blank.
Still.
She can't really make out what they're saying but Tracer begins to raise her voice and Sombra hears herself more than thinks about saying something along the lines of being a bad good guy.
"Pretty sure you're not supposed to shoot someone who isn't even armed."
Belatedly, it occurs to Sombra that she should have crippled Tracer's speed before giving her position away. Her gun is already drawn, but Tracer disappears once, twice, and in the blink it takes for Sombra to aim and fire, she's already in her space.
Sombra leans against the rooftop door and sinks to the ground bleeding, but not too much. She's fine.
Widow regards her seriously for a moment, then circles the roof. "She's gone."
Hurts like hell but feels like it's just a leg wound, all flesh and no tech. Good.
Sombra breathes out, feeling a little self-conscious when her exhale catches on nothing and Widow just watches her, gaze unfocused.
"Guess I was fair game," Sombra says, then leans her head back against the wall and closes her eyes. She suddenly feels so warm.
She hears Widow inhale sharply, and opens her eyes as she reaches for her comms. "We're finished here. Pick us up." She kneels, shooing Sombra's hand away from where it's pressed against her outer thigh. Widow motions for Sombra to give her her jacket.
"Don't rip it, I just got the thing."
Widow rips it, taking a long swatch of polyester and pulling tight until Sombra winces in earnest. She stops, looking at Sombra with a little more presence; still unreadable.
She says, "Tell O'Deorain she'll be needed," and finishes securing the tourniquet, gentler but not soft (never, never soft).
Sombra hears Reaper ask why, but Widow doesn't respond. She stands again and walks away to fetch her rifle.
"Why didn't you take her out."
Sombra waits for her to turn around again, but Widow continues to look back toward the dead man's penthouse. She considers another moment, wondering what she's supposed to tell her.
She'd do the same for Gabe. Probably for Akande. Maybe not Moira, but the doc would never be so easy to kill anyway.
This is different, and she supposes she should have known that Widow would see it too.
"You're not gonna make me say it, are you?"
Widow turns to face her. Her jaw slackens like she's going to say something but the chopper draws near, loud and suffocating and the thought dies there. Instead, Widow kneels down again and hooks Sombra's arm around her neck, pulling them both up and toward their ride.
Widow doesn't speak to her on their way back to base, so Sombra fills the time talking to Gabe about Tracer. "Little fucking mosquito, that one."
"Hmm."
"Cute butt though."
"Hmm."
"So you agree, right."
Akande visits her first (and last, because no one else drops by but who's counting). He knocks at the open med bay door and doesn't wait for her to answer before moving to stand beside her bed. He regards her like a doctor would an unruly regular. Unimpressed, mostly sick of seeing her. It would be off-putting if she were the kind of person to be intimidated by a man like him. She isn't, and he doesn't command much intimidation anyway.
"How's the worker's comp here? Forgot to look into that when I signed my contract."
"Widow says Oxton got the better of you."
Sombra hums. What else did Widow say, she wonders.
"I feel like a proper Talon goon now, thwarted by those damn Overwatch agents."
Akande doesn't respond.
"Well, not thwarted. Our guy is still dead, data still made it to your terminal, et cetera et cetera. Bad guys win again, no?"
"How did she manage to catch you off guard?" He's not even looking at her when he asks, eyes floating above her and around the room. But Sombra knows when she's being observed.
She considers the extent of what Widow told him; thinks, absurdly, of what Gabe had said.
Sombra shrugs. "Usually we're antagonized before the deed."
Akande looks at her then, inscrutable. "Perhaps you are less clever than you think." Sombra doesn't look away.
"In any case, yes, job well done." Akande straightens, clasping his hands behind his back. "Moira says your recovery shouldn't take longer than a few days. I have sent you the details of a new job, if you are interested."
Sombra nods. She's not thinking about Widow, refusing to look at her their entire flight back. "I think I can pencil something in."
"You'll be expected in Athens on Tuesday."
She's gone for three weeks and Gabe seems to be the only one to have remotely missed her.
Well. He acknowledges that she'd been gone, and it's nearly the same thing.
It's late when she slips into the kitchen to find him in sweats, sitting in front of two disassembled shotguns neatly arranged by size on the dining table. Gabe huffs when he sees her, making a comment about how she looks burnt. Forget your sunscreen, Colomar? He makes room on the table for her and tosses a cotton rag in the now-empty space.
She's exhausted.
"When was the last time you cleaned your gun?"
He adds, "Or are you too preoccupied," and doesn't look up from his task, so Sombra takes a seat and pulls her weapon from its holster. She begins to take it apart and ignores Gabe's hum of approval at how clean the pistol appears because she does actually perform regular maintenance on all her tools, Reyes.
For a moment though, Sombra feels strangely sentimental about the whole deal. She might almost call this nice.
She isn't looking for Widow. (Really.)
"They sent her to Amsterdam."
"I didn't ask."
Gabe begins to reassemble his shotgun, eyes focused on aligning barrel with stock when he says, "Neither did she, about you."
"Trying to hurt my feelings?"
"Yes." Gabe fixes her with a look she seems entirely too sincere, that reeks of I'm sorry and I told you so and Sombra has surely been with Talon too long because she can fucking tell. "She's back tomorrow."
Sombra's neck-deep in the compound fridge, scavenging for something remotely edible when she gets the feeling that she's being watched.
From the doorway, Widow blinks at her. Her fingers are wrapped around the strap of her black duffel, unwashed hair pulled into a loose bun and her eyes are tired. "You're back."
Sombra asks, "Did I do something wrong?" and so she guesses they're talking about it.
Widow frowns, but the look isn't quite as intimidating as it used to be, a little hollow at the edges of her eyes, looser around her mouth. Widow turns to leave and says "Not here" before walking away and Sombra follows, abandoning any hope of a decent lunch.
Widow keeps her room like a prison cell, each of her few possessions with a designated storage area, each with a function. Try as she might, Sombra could never quite nudge her toward something less sterile.
"What about Degas? Would liven your walls, make the room pop, you know? I bet I could steal you something from the Musée d'Orsay."
Widow tilts her head at Sombra's poor pronunciation. "An awful sound from such a pretty mouth."
Sombra only shrugs.
"What makes you think I want that?"
"He's French," she offers, an answer in and of itself.
"And you," Widow says, leaning forward so her hair curtains Sombra, looking up as Widow straddles her waist. She rakes short fingernails down the sides of Sombra's breasts, her ribcage, digging her thumbs into the soft, sensitive skin below her stomach and Sombra bites down a gasp. "Have Kahlo on your walls. Perhaps a copy of Love in the Time of Cholera ."
She did, once. To her mother's pride, the Colomars housed a humble collection of Kahlo self-portraits, hardbacks with selections from Rosario Castellanos and Octavio Paz. Olivia's favorite was, unquestionably, "The Other," but Widow wouldn't know all of this and she doesn't want to bring it up. (She considers that maybe she would want to, one day.) "That's Colombian, but touché."
Widow arches a brow. "Better."
Sombra tries not to think of then. She considers her now, looking at the empty space behind Widow like a project to take on. Her future, maybe. "Am I boring you?"
Even her bedside table stands barren.
Mostly barren.
Sombra's underwear is easy to spot — neon green clashes vibrantly against white walls and white bedsheets, and it's folded neatly and singularly beside Widow's table lamp. Widow does not acknowledge it.
Sombra closes the door behind her, leaning back against it as Widow continues to face away. A few weeks ago, being ignored in Widow's room wouldn't have been an invitation exactly, but it wouldn't have not been an invitation.
This, however, feels a lot like a rejection.
"It's finished. Us."
Sombra hums. "I like to be looked at when I'm getting dumped."
Widow turns around. She looks vaguely upset for a second and then, doesn't. The dip in her brow pulls lower, sharper; her jaw tightens and she says, "You're compromised."
"What does that matter?"
"What does my reason matter," Widow counters, a little exasperated, a little deflated. Sombra shrugs, shaking her head. "I don't have your privilege, Sombra."
"Would you like it," she asks almost reflexively, unsure of what she's trying to get at but suddenly determined to try and give whatever it is to her.
Widow sneers. "Please. Don't go there."
"Okay." Right. Sore subject; shouldn't have brought that up.
Sombra swallows hard, but the tension in her throat does not disappear. "Why is it a problem if I…" she gestures around the space in front of her.
"If you fuck up, it will come down on me."
"How?"
"Talon is not stupid. You would do well to stop underestimating them."
"Wish people would stop telling me that," she says, mostly to herself. "Your success rate is higher than the Grim Fucking Reaper. They wouldn't reset you just like that."
Widow sneers at her again. "I am not interested in making that wager."
What's irritating is that she's developed a preference.
Sombra has gotten comfortable needling through Widow's no-bullshit demeanor and watching as the furrow in her brow lifts and the lines around her mouth smooth out. She's gotten used to kissing Widow, unexpectedly pliant and responsive whenever she stepped into her space, pressed her hands under the slopes of her breasts.
What's also irritating is how easy it is for Widow to draw a line and say, that was then, this is now.
"She's getting close. You have 90 seconds."
Sombra's nearly finished with the data extraction, but it's gone slower than she'd like. Helix's security protocols have proven to be a bitch to counter, even on what should technically be an employee's personal machine. She ends up fighting it for what feels like twice as long as the whole thing should have taken. Sombra never panics, but the back of her neck starts to prickle with heat. "Seems like they were expecting something like this."
"Can you finish it or not?"
"Watch me."
The progress window blinks.
96%
96%
97%
"I have her in my sight. She's heading to you."
98%. Almost there.
"Sombra."
"Quiet," she says, surprising herself with the sudden frustration. "Give me a second."
"If she sees you I cannot take her out." Widow hesitates or the line breaks for a second, but what she says next comes quieter. "Talon needs her alive."
More than you, she doesn't add, and Sombra considers whether Widow would really sit and watch her die.
Not that she'd be so easy to take down, but.
Done. Sombra shakes her head and files that for later.
"Good thing she's not going to see me." She cloaks herself, just as she hears the apartment lock click and sees the door push open. The computer continues to heave loudly.
The occupant — tall, dark, and already vaguely annoyed at something, scowls when she notices the intrusion. Sombra moves away from the computer, stepping toward the middle of the room to get a better look at the Helix grunt.
Fareeha Amari readies her pistol and flicks the lights on. "I can smell your sweat," she says. "Show yourself." She points the weapon right at Sombra, but continues in an arc as she surveys the room. Then, she disappears down the hallway and the apartment goes silent — Sombra loses track of her.
Shit.
"Merde. Sombra—
She swipes at her earpiece and looks around, taking cautious steps to peek down the hallway.
Still no sign of Amari. Sombra slips into the master bedroom, closing her eyes as she settles behind the wall. Now or Widow's going to leave her behind.
She takes a silent breath and begins to translocate.
"You," Fareeha growls, appearing just as Sombra triggers the device.
She doesn't feel the shot until she does, as she corporealizes in front of Widow and stumbles back on her ass. Not the best look.
Her right arm stings sharp and familiar, but nowhere near the pain of a bullet to the leg. Just a graze this time.
Widow doesn't look at Sombra, entirely too focused on disassembling her rifle. "I've called for evac."
"Cool."
Sombra stands, pulling her hand away from the wound and wiping blood on her tights. "She's a quick shot."
Widow frowns at her gun, but doesn't acknowledge the comment further and alright, maybe they're talking about this now too.
"Hey," Sombra says, suddenly frustrated again. "We got what we came for and you didn't have to not shoot the sniper's kid. What's your issue?"
Widow does not respond.
Then,
"Is this your way of acting out."
"Come again?"
Widow winces at herself. She shakes her head, "Never mind."
"Okay, question. If she had gotten to me before I could…" Sombra trails off and Widow packs her rifle away. "Would you have let her?"
Widow meets her gaze then, but remains silent. The corners of her mouth twitch.
"Gotcha. No hard feelings, I know what I signed up for."
Widow sighs. She nods at nothing, then looks again at Sombra when she says, "I'm sorry."
"Sure, let's go. I've got first dibs on giving my briefing last."
Sombra steps away but Widow takes hold of her, grasping her forearm. She squeezes once. "Sombra, I'm sorry."
She's bored and hungry and running out of ways to pass the time while she gathers the will to move. She might feel a migraine growing behind her eyes, but this is a problem secondary to the food and movement situation.
She begins to swipe through classified-but-decryptable mission briefings — a strange and mostly curious habit that she picked up a week after (temporarily) leaving Talon.
(Akande had waved her off and Gabe huffed, but happened to be around to help lift her equipment bag into the taxi.
Widow was — she's not sure where.)
Sombra catches herself staring too long at a recent mission failure.
Moderate head injury sustained.
Gibberish, jargon, nonsense.
Confined to bed rest for 5 days, pending a 2nd examination.
Sombra doesn't make the trip back to base — she sees the line and will not be the first to cross, but surely there's no harm walking it.
"Yes," she hears after three rings.
"Doc give you any fun drugs?"
Silence.
"She dosed me up with morphine the first time I got shot. Makes you loopy, feels really good." Sombra chews on her lip, then frowns at herself. "The second time, I wouldn't stop asking about the Amaris until she shot me up again."
In the continued quiet, it occurs to Sombra that this was probably a bad idea, but just hanging up seems childish.
"Ever been to Mexico? I've had an angry Russian tracking me around the world for the last few months. Kind of the longest I've been courted." Still, nothing. "Might show her my hometown after all this effort."
Sombra pauses. She considers that a lost connection might be plausible enough, and anyway Widow wouldn't care if she just —
"Seen when you want to be seen," Widow says, wry but not mocking. "You do not think it arrogant to assume the RDF are easily lured?"
"Oh. Thought you weren't listening." Sombra presses the heel of her hand between her brows, pushing into the tension that's suddenly appeared.
"I always listen," comes her response.
Sombra hums, if only to make a sound that isn't one of dumb surprise and ah, and there's the migraine. It pulses dull and loud behind her eyes. When she blinks, she begins to see flecks in her vision. She closes her eyes, keeps them closed.
"Sorry to tease, but I gotta scram."
"Okay."
"Promise I'll give you the unabridged version next time I'm in town but I'm curious about how you got to the whole RDF conclusion."
"Sombra."
"Hmm?'"
"The wound was not serious." Widow pauses. "Thank you. For calling."
Widow hangs up first, which is good because Sombra thinks she might have made that dumb sound after all.
"Her name is Aleksandra. Big. Short, pink hair, look on her face like she's always ready to snap someone's neck."
The girl nods, examining the photo that Sombra pings to her phone. She zooms in on the woman's surly expression, then taps away and swipes to the next photo: an omnic in a turquoise jumpsuit. "Travel buddy, though he's often the recipient of her death stare, go figure."
It's a nice day — seasonably warm and clear, perfect for a mid-morning pastry and favor-slash-mission briefing. No one gives the woman with half a skull of tech a second look and Sombra feels at once gratefully anonymous and bitterly forgotten on a street she could describe with her eyes closed.
Across the café table, Alejandra sips her latte. She licks her lips, then levels a semi-serious glare at Sombra. "What did you do?"
"Eh." Sombra shrugs. The concha in front of her is lukewarm now but the taste still satisfies, doughy and sweet, sugar clinging to her lips without coating the back of her mouth like the only ones she could find near base. "I'm blackmailing her boss. She's not very happy about it." At the girl's deepening frown, Sombra adds "You know me. Got a plan."
Alejandra hums, unconvinced. She absentmindedly picks at her pastry, then puts her hands in her lap, becoming small as her shoulders sink down. Sombra's chest pulls for the kid. She isn't used to missing people.
(The number comes to a grand total of two).
"Been a while since you last came by."
Sombra takes another bite of the concha. She rubs her index and thumb together, distracting herself from a conversation she doesn't want to approach.
"For good reason," she says after a beat.
"A reason you refuse to share. Some grand conspiracy that you can't even let others help you uncover." Alejandra sighs. "They took from us too."
Sombra reaches across the table, wiggling her fingers until Alejandra meets her halfway. "I have a plan. I promise."
"Okay." The girl shrugs halfheartedly, squeezing Sombra's hands. "Say you achieve this secret goal. Will you come home after?"
Sombra isn't sure where that would be.
Olivia was born here, and Olivia died here and she's not convinced that she wants to be connected to such a place anymore.
Alejandra seems to see this too. She takes her hands back and stands, looking so oddly grown for a girl Sombra has seen in a onesie and a bib. "See you around, Sombra."
She's in Los Angeles, marveling at the disgustingly rich display of luxury electric cars on Rodeo Drive when it happens.
A heat rolls up her body, slowly and suddenly and too similar to the feeling that she's been spotted while cloaked, which doesn't make sense because she's intentionally visible in the middle of a crowd of tourists.
Beside her, her mark frowns down at his phone, crunching numbers and percentages and outcomes in his Fortune-500 head. Sombra knows what it'll all lead back to — she's banking on it. He'll get to the same conclusion eventually.
He runs his hand through thinning grey hair. Shakes his head, taps at his phone and Sombra's back pocket buzzes, and her heart skips.
Nothing happens.
She braces for she doesn't know what, but nothing happens, and just like that, the job is done.
It doesn't feel entirely unlike dodging a bullet.
"You were in California."
She gives Widow the courtesy of a talk talk in the semi-privacy of her own room, though this is mostly because it's where she finds her. It's long past midnight and Sombra overrides her lock to get inside, but Widow doesn't sleep and Sombra doesn't care.
Widow is in bed — rather, on her bed sat cross legged as she pores over a pile of documents stamped CONFIDENTIAL. She never leaves her room with her hair down, which could be why Sombra loses her train of thought for just a moment, instead thinking about how the look kind of softens the cut of her cheeks. Widow's hair usually smells like coconut shampoo in the evening.
"What?" she answers, unperturbed by the interruption. Her gaze meets Sombra first, then she tilts her chin up to face her wholly, revealing the healing cut under her eye.
Sombra considers asking, but this isn't why she's here and something tells her Widow wouldn't answer anyway.
"Tell me how this is different from London."
It isn't, and Sombra takes a strange pleasure in watching that truth work its way through Widow's mind. Widow won't allow it out so easily, though. She takes the scattered documents and slips them into a manila folder, tossing the brief to the ground. She looks at Sombra then, searching.
"You want to do this again," she says flatly.
Sombra waves a hand across her chest and flicks the Los Angeles mission report to her monitor. Her screen wakes, proudly displaying the photo of a man with a thick red X slashed through his portrait. Widow's eyes flick toward it and back. "Yeah, I do."
"Okay. You put our mission in jeopardy." Widow says it quietly, wearily, and neither of them seem to be convinced by the sound.
"You killed him and I stole his work. Mission success no matter what so try again araña."
"You had a clean shot at Tracer. You could have also taken a major Overwatch player off the board, but instead you ran your mouth — for me.
Sentiment gets the weak killed," Widow adds, oddly venomous. "It's what killed her."
"That's not what killed Amélie. You don't believe that." The corners of Widow's mouth pull. "And I am more capable than you seem to think."
"You're a cocky brat."
"Both can be true. I don't fail."
"Volskaya," Widow responds too quickly, before she realizes that this is a path Sombra has architected, a wall that she has been backed into. She grimaces, then corrects herself with what she already knew. "You didn't fail at Volskaya."
"I didn't fail in London."
Widow nods once. She passes her hands over her face and then looks at Sombra in a way that urges her to come closer — not vulnerable, not even welcoming but something less acidic than the last time she was in this room. She approaches the foot of the bed. Widow appears uncharacteristically petulant looking up at her.
"I killed him that night. The result is the same."
Sombra shakes her head. "You could have killed him that afternoon. You'd have tracked him the entire day. That crowd, those tourists — would have been chaos. A perfect shot."
Widow sighs. She swallows.
"It wouldn't have been perfect."
Sombra tilts her head, regarding Widow closely as she says, "Because."
"You're not going to make me say it."
Sombra hums. She's heard what she wants, but now she's not sure she knows what she's supposed to do with this.
"No." She smiles small and crooked, victorious and defeated and exhausted. "I won't."
"What do you want from me," she says eventually.
"Nothing."
When Widow only continues to watch her, expectant, Sombra says it again. "I've never asked you for anything."
"Yes," she says. "I know.
What do you want from me now."
Sombra thinks about Widow, tracing a path down her spine without an effort to avoid her grafts. She's not home, but strangely, the word tastes less foreign in her mouth than it used to.
"I want you to come here."
Widow ungracefully scoots forward to the foot of the bed, feet on the ground, knees opening as Sombra steps between them. She reaches down, palm curling around her cheek. Widow presses against her hand and looks up at her, mouth parted, with a gaze that Sombra could only call soft.
(Never to her face though.)
"Okay," Widow says. "Now what?"
On her stomach, Sombra drifts. It's at once familiar and not; easy comfort. Widow shuffles beside her to face the ceiling. She laces her fingers together under her head and takes a shallow breath in.
She says, "I didn't want to risk shooting you," and tilts her head to face Sombra. The angle is a little awkward, so Sombra closes her eyes.
She hums. The declaration sounds nice.
"I don't consider this. With other people."
Sombra mumbles, half into her pillowcase, "I have that effect on the girls I sleep with" and she expects a glare, but Widow only huffs quietly. "It's not the worst thing. This."
"To what this are you referring?"
"Me being in love with you."
Sombra watches her as she says this, and Widow only blinks, at first.
She turns on her side, presses her hand under Sombra's shoulder and pushes her onto her back in one smooth, strong motion that Sombra doesn't protest against. Widow leans forward and kisses Sombra, slowly, with intent. Her hand is cool against Sombra's jaw, her knee firm as she pushes up Sombra's thigh.
When she pulls away, she says "Perhaps you're right. I should like to find out," and sure, okay.
Sombra might stay a while longer.