Work Text:
Sombra is not an idiot. She knows this is a trap.
But she also knows that she has no other choice than to walk right into it.
Her instincts are screaming at her, telling her to run, to abandon this small, dingy Talon base. She shoves them down as deep as she can. Cole’s survival depends on her willingness to put herself in danger to save him.
So Sombra waits, standing alone in one of the interrogation rooms. Footsteps walk by her outside, but she ignores them. The instructions Doomfist had left her had been clear, and she didn’t plan on disobeying, not when it may cost Cole his life.
It doesn’t take long until the door opens, and Doomfist walks in. “Hello, Sombra.”
“Where is he?” Sombra demands, forcing herself to look into his eyes.
Doomfist tilts his head to the side, considering. His eyes trail her body, looking for hidden weapons. He won’t find any, given that she didn’t bring them. If she had, he would have called off the deal.
“Bring him in,” Doomfist calls out, and instantly, two Talon grunts are walking through the doorway, dragging an unconscious Cole behind them.
Sombra knew, logically, that he would almost certainly be in bad shape, but that still didn’t prepare her for how it would feel to look at her injured lover. A part of her expected his wounds to fill her with sadness, or guilt, or something of the sort.
For some reason, she wasn’t quite expecting the rage that fills her so violently. It wrecks her almost immediately.
Her face is flushed and her heart is beating and her vision is fuzzy. Sparks are beginning to buzz in her skull, where her enhancements are buried. She wonders if it’s just her imagination, but doesn’t consider it for long. All she can consider is the hatred swirling through her, urging her to move, to fight, to kill. To do whatever she needs to do to fix everything.
“What did you do to him?” Sombra asks, and for all the rage simmering in her, the words come out calm. Sharp. Deliberate.
Doomfist chuckles, glancing to where some grunts are holding Cole.
Cole, covered in bruises and blood and injuries. Cole, with his legs tied up and a gag shoved in his mouth. Cole, metal arm mangled and unusable.
Sombra can’t tear her eyes away from him. He’s unconscious, and that’s perhaps the only thing making the situation bearable. The only thing preventing her from breaking down. Because if he were awake, he’d be looking at her with those honey brown eyes, and Sombra doesn't know how she would survive that.
“Surely you know Talon’s torture procedures?” Doomfist says, smirking. Sombra wants to kill him. Wants to rip him apart, watch him scream in agony as she destroys him slowly and painfully.
But she can’t. The minute she makes a wrong move, he will order the grunts to kill Cole, and Sombra can’t risk that. She has to wait for the right moment to strike.
“And what do you want from me?” she replies, trying to stop herself from trembling.
Doomfist nods approvingly. “Straight to the point. I admire that.” As he speaks, he takes a step closer to her.
“Answer me.”
A condescending chuckle falls out of his lips. Sombra’s enhancements burn her skull. She can almost feel the satisfaction she’ll get from making him suffer. “What I want is very simple. I want you to come back. We need you for a few missions.”
Sombra’s hands curl. His voice grates on her painfully, but not as painfully as the choice she’s been presented with. Go back to Talon and keep Cole alive and safe, or refuse and let him get killed. Or worse.
It should be an easy choice for her. She would do anything, anything to keep Cole alive. Except… all she can imagine is Cole’s heartbroken, betrayed face when he inevitably learns what she did. Sombra doesn’t know if he would ever forgive her for picking him over the innocent lives she’s sure to ruin on whatever missions Talon sends her on.
But what other option does she have? She can’t let Cole die. She can’t.
Her hesitation causes Doomfist to frown. Apparently, he thought it would be a no-brainer. “I don’t appreciate being kept waiting.” Sombra swallows. Her mouth opens, but nothing comes out. Doomfist sighs. “I was hoping it wouldn’t come to this.”
With a small motion of his hand, one of the guards responds by delivering a swift punch to Cole’s face. His head jerks backwards with the force of the blow, and a groan escapes him, even in his unconscious state.
Sombra’s rage multiples. Everything in her is screaming, demanding to kill them, all of them, everyone in the base. To wreak havoc until every single Talon member is dead.
It takes her a minute to think through the loathing, but when she does, she knows what she has to do. “Stop,” Sombra demands, taking a step forward. Doomfist looks at her with a raised brow. “I’ll do it,” she whispers, desperately trying to keep herself steady.
A sick, twisted smile finds its way onto his face. “Wonderful. Once you successfully complete the missions assigned to you, Cassidy will be released. Until then, he will be kept safe.”
Something bursts inside of Sombra as Doomfist speaks. She doesn’t know what causes it, exactly, but suddenly, it’s like a pressure has been released inside of her skull. Sombra screams, the fury working its way through her even stronger than before. It’s like she’s being ripped apart, and she just wants it to stop. Wants to go back, back to when Cole was fine and they were happy and nothing was wrong.
But she can’t. She’s stuck here, with Cole injured and in pain and she can’t handle it.
Sombra’s vision blacks out for a second, and everything goes blank. She doesn’t think, doesn’t move, doesn’t breathe. All she does is let herself feel the rage in all its intensity. It works its way through her for what feels like an eternity.
When Sombra comes back to herself, she can tell something happened. The lights are off, and the Talon grunts holding Cole in place are frozen, muffled screams escaping their masks. Doomfist is looking at his mechanical fist in shock, desperately attempting to move it.
It’s easy to realise that she just let out an EMP, which is surprising. Usually, she can only EMP if she’s had at least a few hours to charge it up. Letting that kind of energy out without charging it up is sure to have a negative impact on her.
But she can research that later. Right now, she has to save Cole.
Doomfist is still attempting to move his deactivated fist when Sombra leaps forward and grabs the emergency handgun he keeps in his pocket. He tries to stop her, but the dead weight of his mechanical arm throws him off balance, and he doesn’t quite catch her. Neither of the grunts can stop her, either, given their suits are electronic, so her EMP had taken them out, leaving them frozen in place.
Sombra will deal with them later. For now, she takes the handgun and points it at Doomfist’s head. “Get on your knees,” she demands. He hesitates, gaze flickering around the room desperately. Sombra takes a step closer. “Get. On. Your. Knees.” Doomfist listens this time, slowly lowering himself to the ground. Sombra can’t help the sadistic smile from gracing her face.
She begins to circle him until she’s at his back. It would be easy to kill him. To shoot him in the head and let him die like this. But he deserves far worse, she decides. She doesn’t just want to kill him, she wants to ruin him.
“I have resources,” Doomfist says, desperation lacing his tone. “I’m more useful alive than dead,” he bargains.
Sombra snarls. “Shut up.” Before he can ignore her request and continue to beg, she slams the butt of the gun into his head, causing him to slump forward, unconscious. She’ll deal with him later.
For now, she has to handle the grunts holding Cole.
The moment she turns to face them, both of them begin to struggle within the confines of their suits, desperate to escape. Sombra ignores their sniveling, glaring at them as she approaches. With a quick hack, she forces the suits to move, letting go of Cole. He slumps on the floor, still unconscious.
Sombra swallows, staring at him, before forcing herself to look away and face the grunts. “Please, Ma’am, we didn’t have a choice,” one of them says, voice trembling. Sombra stares at them.
She thinks of herself, of Baptiste, of all the other people who had been forced to do horrible things because of Talon. It wasn’t their fault, not really. With a groan, Sombra forces herself to keep her rage at bay. “I’m gonna give you control of your suits in a second, and you’re going to exit the room like nothing’s wrong. If you so much as think about telling anyone what happened in here, I will end you,” she spits out.
They both fall over themself agreeing with her, so Sombra grits her teeth and follows through on her promise. As soon as they’re out of the room, Sombra is running to Cole, observing the damage done to him.
“Cole,” she gasps, face twisted in anguish. He looked like death, covered in injuries that made Sombra want to throw up. More of his skin was bruised than not, and deep cuts and scrapes covered him. But his chest was rising and falling, and he kept twitching. He was alive.
That alone makes Sombra want to weep with joy. It has been over a week since Cole had been taken, and she had started to believe that he was… that he hadn’t… that he had died.
A sudden moan falls from his lips, and Sombra gasps, repeating his name. His face furrows before his eyes blink open. As soon as his gaze finds her leaning over him, Sombra can see how relieved he is.
Her hands hover in the air around him, hesitant and unsure. He’s already so hurt, and it feels like one wrong touch might kill him. But then he tries to speak again, and Sombra knows she has to get the gag off.
As carefully as she can, she unties the knot keeping the gag in place. As soon as it’s off, Cole is speaking. “You’re here,” he says, a small smile finding its way to his lips.
Sombra can’t breathe. His voice is rough, strangled, and, above all, relieved. “Cole.” His name is all she can think to say.
“Yeah, Darlin’. I’m right here,” he says, moving to sit up. He doesn’t make it very far, wincing as soon as he moves, a small groan of pain escaping him.
Sombra feels the rage come back at the display of pain. “I’m gonna kill him,” she mumbles, mostly to herself. Cole’s head snaps up, eyes widening.
“Wait,” he says, but Sombra is already standing and making her way to Doomfist, who’s still in a pile on the floor. “Wait, Sombra...”
Cole’s words don’t quite make it to her. She stands over the Talon leader and aims the gun at his stomach. It would take a while for a shot like that to kill him. He would be in pain for a long time until his life was snuffed out.
Her finger tightens on the trigger, but before she can pull it, Cole speaks again. “Sombra! Stop!” he begs, and it’s the pure desperation in his tone that makes Sombra turn to look at him.
“Don’t kill him, Sombra,” Cole says, urgency in his eyes. “Please, don’t.”
And Sombra wants to cry, because even after all this, after all the torture and pain and suffering he went through, he still only seems to care about her. He knows how hard she’s been trying to be a better person, knows how long it’s been since she’s taken a life. Knows how much it would upset her to fall back into old habits.
But this… this is different. He took Cole , he tortured him. How is she supposed to walk away from that? How is she supposed to do anything other than ruin him in the most painful way she can think of?
“He hurt you,” Sombra says, voice breaking halfway through the sentence.
“I know, Darlin’. But you can’t… you shouldn’t . It’s not worth it.” She casts a glance over towards Doomfist’s slumped form. All she can see is the way he must have looked while overseeing Cole’s torture. “Sombra, don’t look at him, look at me,” Cole begs. “He’s not worth it.”
“Cole…”
“Sombra,” he replies, his voice just as breathless as hers. “Please.”
It’s the pure desperation in his voice that convinces Sombra to close her eyes and take a deep breath. “Fine.” Cole sags in relief, body sinking to the floor. The small smile on his face makes her decision worth it. With no small amount of effort, Sombra turns away from Doomfist, and begins to approach Cole. “Let’s get you out of these ropes, Vaquero ,” she says, trying for a more light-hearted tone. She’s pretty sure her voice is shaky at best, and downright wrecked at worst.
“Yeah,” Cole mumbles, shifting so she has better access to the binds at his legs. Sombra makes quick work of them, untying them so they fall loosely to the floor. Then she moves on to the one holding his flesh hand behind his back.
“What hurts?” Sombra asks, looking over him closely.
“Everythin’,” Cole replies, cringing as he shifts. “But, uh, I think my arm sorta takes the cake.”
Sombra swallows, looking at the prosthetic. It was advanced, incredibly so. After all, she was the one to design it. “Can you feel it?” she asks.
“Yeah,” he admits. Sombra swears. One of the first things she had done when designing his arm was make sure he could feel things with it. Its sense of touch wasn’t the best, but it was definitely there. Having it be so mangled must be tortuous.
As gently as possible, she inspects the damage. To her relief, the piece that attaches it to his elbow is barely damaged, making it easy to remove. Immediately after she takes the arm away, the stiffness in his muscles eases. “That’s better,” Sombra murmurs, gently massaging Cole’s stump.
“Yeah,” he breathes, at least some of the pain gone from his voice.
Sombra exhales, glad to have been able to help at all. “I need to translocate you home. Can you handle that?” she asks, reaching up to tuck a strand of hair from Cole’s face, cringing when she feels how it’s matted with dried blood.
Cole winces at the question. It was no secret that translocating was unpleasant. Although Sombra was used to the pain and nausea it caused, Cole still hated it. She wished there was another way to get him home, but they couldn’t exactly just walk out of there. “I can handle it,” Cole assures her even through his pain.
Sombra nods. “Okay. I’ve got you, alright?” she says, pulling him gently so he rests on her lap.
He smiles. “I know,” he says, reaching out for her hand. “I love you.”
“I love you, too.” And with that, she translocates him to safety.
It had been a few weeks since Sombra had saved Cole, and things were… better. Not great. Not even good. But better.
Cole is no longer in excruciating pain, partly because he had healed and partly because of the pain meds he has access to. Sombra is no longer skipping meals and sleep in order to search for him relentlessly. Both of them are out of immediate danger.
Sure, Cole still struggles to move too much without the pain kicking into high gear. Sure, Sombra can’t sleep all the way through the night without having a nightmare. Sure, there is still the looming threat of Talon returning to get revenge.
But both of them were trying to stay positive, if only for the benefit of each other.
“Hey, Vaquero,” Sombra greets as she walks into the room, holding an expertly wrapped present in her hands. Cole smiles, sitting up in the bed.
“Hey yourself, Gorgeous,” he says, eyeing the present curiously. “Whatcha got for me?”
“Your new arm.”
Cole arches an eyebrow. “Already?” he asks, reaching out for the package. “That was mighty quick.”
Sombra shrugs. “I work fast.”
A frown crosses Cole’s face. “Been working on it at night?” he asks, eyebrows furrowed in a way that Sombra would consider adorable if it weren’t directed at her.
“A little bit,” she admits. Cole is not fooled by her attempts to downplay how often she’s up because of nightmares, but nevertheless, he decides to table that discussion for later. Instead, he focuses on opening up the package.
Inside the box lies an arm that looks fairly similar to his old one, with only a few modifications. Gently, Cole picks up the prosthetic and examines it, smiling widely as he does. Almost everything Sombra designs is sleek and modern, but she had given his arm a more rustic, western aesthetic because she knew how much Cole loved it. “It’s perfect, Darlin’,” he says, attaching it to his elbow. It slipped right on, a perfect fit.
“I kept the base design the same, but there’s a few new things,” Sombra says, reaching out to show him a button on the wrist that wasn’t on Cole’s old arm. “That’s a panic button. If you press it, it will send me an alert with your location.”
“Huh. Nifty,” Cole says.
Sombra rolls her eyes. “ I’m going to ignore the fact that you just said ‘nifty’,” she informs him. “And this,” she points to a button near the end of his arm, “will disable the sensors that let you feel with your arm. In case… in case it gets injured.” As she speaks, her face glazes over for a second as her memories of his last arm, mangled beyond repair come to her mind. As soon as her expression appeared, though, it was gone, replaced by a plastic smile. “Do you like it?”
Cole hesitates, clearly having picked up on her slip. “Darlin’, I love it. But…” he trails off, looking at her intensely. “You’re okay, right?”
Sombra pauses, before letting out a deep sigh. They need to have this conversation, they do, but she still hates it. Even after all this time, being honest about her feelings was one of the things Sombra struggled with.
Cole reaches out to take her hand. “I understand if things are difficult, Sombra. It’s difficult for me, too. But I don’t want you to… I just want to make sure…” he trails off for a few seconds. “You know I’m here for you, right? You don’t have to go through this alone.”
Sombra’s heart aches a bit as she looks at him. “Move over,” she says.
“Huh?”
“Move over. I wanna sit.” Cole listens to her command, giving her plenty of room to slip under the covers next to him. As soon as Sombra is there, he wraps an arm around her and pulls her in close, resting his forehead against hers.
Sombra stays silent for a couple of seconds before finding the right words. “I’m scared. Of everything happening again, but worse,” she admits. Cole nods in understanding. “And… I can’t risk that. I need to keep you safe.” When his expression turns sad, Sombra is quick to continue. “And I know that I can’t prepare for everything, and that you’re capable of taking care of yourself. I know that. I just… I worry. I try not to, but I do.”
Cole leans in to kiss her softly. “Baby,” he says when he pulls away. “I’m not askin’ you to stop worryin’. I’m just askin’ you remember that I’m here for you. If you need to talk, or be held, or cry, or whatever else, I’ll be there. You don’t have to face this alone.”
No matter how many times he tells her the same thing, it’s always a relief to be reassured that she can lean on him. “I love you so much,” she tells Cole, reaching up to cup his face in her hand and run her thumb along his cheekbone.
A goofy grin takes over his face as he leans into the comfort of her hand. “I love you, too, Darlin’.” Sombra lets herself sink into the comforting words.
The two of them aren’t good, or great, or even okay, quite yet. It will take a long while before they both recover. But until then, it’s a comfort to know that neither of them are alone. That they have someone to lean on, someone to trust, someone to support.
It’s a comfort to have each other.