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She’s the most beautiful thing Mercy’s ever seen. Mercy’s seen a lot of beautiful things.
She’s also seen a lot of ugly things, things so dark they tainted her soul, the sort of things that keep you up a night. She’s sitting at a bedside right now, an innocent caught between good and bad, except maybe good and bad isn’t distinguished as she thought. Maybe it’s not distinguished at all.
Sometimes she can still feel cold lips on her cheek.
“Mercy,” says her head nurse, Catherine. “Any news on the patient?”
“Still alive,” says Mercy, and she tries to make it sound nice. Gentle, when all she really means is Not dead yet.
When she was part of Overwatch they’d call her Angela, or Dr. Ziegler, or even Ang. She’s forgotten the name so distinctly that she barely remembers to answer when a soft voice says, “Angela Ziegler.”
Mercy’s lips tug up. “Hello there, partner.”
“I didn’t think I’d see you again.”
“Well, I rather find I’ve gotten into a habit of saving your life,” Mercy says. “I find I can’t quite help it.”
“Thanks, Ang,” says McCree, and he almost smiles. “You look real awful, if you don’t mind me saying, doc.”
“I actually do mind you saying, McCree. Do you need to go back to sleep?”
“Was that a threat?”
Mercy smiles, razor sharp. “Only if you make it one.”
“Ah, there we go,” he says. “It really is good to see you, Ang.”
Mercy’s smile freezes on her face. It is good to see him – it is, and the thought surprises her a little. If he hadn’t been near dead when her contacts found him, she might never have seen him again at all. Perhaps only as words in a newspaper: Ex-Overwatch Agent Dies in Robbery.
“I wasn’t stealing nothing,” McCree says, and he actually looks like he wants her to believe it. “I was saving somebody’s life.”
“Okay,” says Mercy.
“Honestly,” he says, “I know what they say about me in the papers. Especially after the train thing. But I was doing good.”
“I believe you, Jesse,” she says, and her voice is soft. “And that’s why you should rest.”
“Angela –”
“Go to sleep, partner. I am taking care of you. I’ll be here when you wake up.”
McCree’s eyes flutter. He almost sounds like a child when he says, “Yeah? You will, Ang?”
“Of course.”
He’s asleep before she can say another word.
She looks down at him and sees the man she knew when he was a Blackwatch agent, a man who was a little more alive, a little happier. She presses a gentle kiss to the back of his hand and leaves the room, shutting the door gently behind her. Mercy takes a moment to breathe, her back pressed against the door.
“If you wanted to visit,” she says eventually, “you need only ask.”
When she opens her eyes, Widowmaker is staring back at her. Her posture is perfect, and her eyes narrow as she looks Mercy over. She’s the most beautiful, the most terrible thing Mercy has ever seen, and she wants to cry.
“If you’re here for him, Amélie,” Mercy says when Widow says nothing, “you cannot have him.”
“You could hardly fight me, little healer,” says Widow. She pauses. “But, non, I am not here for the cowboy.”
“You’re here for me?”
“In a sense.”
Widow says nothing more. She has a way of making eye contact that makes you feel like she’s not looking at you at all, but zeroing in on your soul so she can rip it out.
“I remember you,” she says.
Mercy looks away. “Ah yes, I don’t believe they took your memory as well as your humanity.”
“No, Angela,” says Widowmaker. “I remember you.”
Mercy is not sure what to say to that. She keeps her arms tightly crossed over her chest and leans back against the wall. If she doesn’t look Widow in the eye again, she won’t break.
She makes sure her voice is even when she says, “They say you can’t feel anything but death.”
“Death is its own reward,” Widow says. “And are you not the angel of death, darling?”
“I save people,” says Mercy. “I do not kill them.”
“You’re saying you’ve never killed?”
“Not like you have.”
“Lie,” says Widow, and she smiles.
Mercy says nothing to that.
“Talon would have me put a bullet in his head – you do know that, yes? If they could not recruit him first, that is.”
“He would never,” Mercy says.
“I know. And that is why I would have to kill him.” Widow cocks her head at Mercy. “I will not, though. I find you would not like that.”
“Since when do you care what I would like?”
“I am not sure, but it’s not entirely an unwelcome feeling,” says Widow. “Angela.”
“My name is Mercy.”
“You let the cowboy call you Angela.”
“The cowboy is my friend.”
“So am I.”
“No, you were,” says Mercy, and Widowmaker actually flinches. “Amélie was my friend. She had warm skin and soft lips and she didn’t try to put a bullet in my chest.”
Widow opens her mouth to reply, but she’s cut off by “Are you okay, Mercy?”
Mercy spins around to see Catherine coming down the hall towards her. She’s not dressed in her scrubs, which is strange. Mercy looks over her shoulder for Widow, but she must have been gone before Catherine had even turned the corner.
Mercy summons a warm smile. “Quite. How can I help you, Catherine?”
Catherine is still striding towards her at the same pace. She does not slow, and her smile does not drop, and Mercy takes a step back. She reaches for her pistol, which she carries only out of necessity, but Catherine slaps it out of her hands before she can even lift it up.
“Are you scared of me, Mercy?” asks Catherine. “Because you should be.” She grabs Mercy by the neck and slams her back against the wall, so hard the world spins.
“You’re here for McCree,” rasps Mercy. “For Talon?” Catherine had been her nurse for only two months, but she’d been promising. Promising healers were a rare thing in this world, especially the way it was now.
“For Talon, yes,” says Catherine. “But I’m actually here for you.”
Which means Talon hadn’t sent Widowmaker today. If Catherine was here on this mission, and Widow had been honest about not wanting to kill Mercy, then Widow had come entirely of her own accord.
The thought is a little warming even as her air is cut off at her windpipe.
Black spots cloud her vision; she opens her mouth, but nothing comes out but spluttering.
"They will be much easier to kill without you," says Catherine, just as a bullet buries itself in the back of her head. It narrowly misses Mercy on its exit, clipping her ear. Catherine’s eyes go wide, and she hits the floor hard.
Her eyes stay wide open, staring at the ceiling in shock.
Widow steps out of the shadows, gun held at her side.
“I thought you left,” says Mercy, in a way that says I almost wish you had.
“Unfortunately, darling, I do not believe you can heal yourself,” says Widow. “Somebody has to look after you.” She peers down at Catherine’s body. “She would have killed you.”
“So would you,” says Mercy, sharp.
Widow raises an eyebrow. “Perhaps.” She carefully presses her fingers to Mercy’s windpipe. “Will you be okay?”
“Yes, I – do believe so,” says Mercy. “Just some bruising.”
Widow stares at her for a moment, hands still on her neck, and then she leans in. Mercy lets her, and Widow’s lips are cool against hers, just like she imagined it. All the anger inside of her – you left me for him and what do you know about saving people and some days I miss you so much it physically hurts – sinks to the bottom of her stomach, overpowered by the overwhelming Perhaps I still love you. Perhaps I always will.
“Until next time, Angela,” says Widow.
“Yes,” Mercy says, voice raspy. Then she adds, “Amélie.”
Widow’s smile is almost kind as she turns, grapples onto the roof, and flies into the dark. Until next time.