Chapter Text
Emre Sarioglu vanished once again after that night in Riyadh. Their reunion had been brief. One moment, he was the silent demon aiming to kill her with a terrifying aim. The next… he was her old friend. He stared at her, dazed and confused. He had called her “Frej.”
(No one had called her that in years.)
In those few minutes they had, Freja Skov tried to make sense of it all; the carnage, the confusion, and that glowing red symbol on his chest. It wasn’t Talon’s, and it wasn’t anything she recognized from criminal databases she’d scoured over the years. She only managed to learn two vital pieces of information before the demon returned and took off into the night.
One, Emre wasn’t fully in control of his actions. Their short conversation and the horror in his eyes at the destruction surrounding them made that abundantly clear.
Two, whoever was in control was dangerous and — more importantly — completely unknown to the world at large.
Hell would freeze over before Freja could turn to any of her contacts in Talon for help. They had been as clueless as she’d been to Emre’s motivations, or lack thereof in this case. She knew better anyway. If Talon caught wind of the sheer power Emre possessed, one that had singlehandedly leveled a satellite command center, their first priority would be to claim him for themselves.
Emre was already being used as a weapon. She wouldn’t allow him to be tossed between opportunistic hands like a common pistol.
And so — much to her chagrin — the newly reformed Overwatch was her best shot. Even if Freja knew well there would be apprehension towards her from her former colleagues; she also knew that a softhearted fool like Winston would never turn down an opportunity to help someone in dire need.
Sometimes, amiable fools were all you could rely on.
Freja’s intuition proved accurate the moment she landed her jet in the hangar of Watchpoint: Gibraltar. Winston welcomed her like an old friend in spite of the fact that the two of them had never been particularly close in their glory days. They’d worked together hundreds of times, sure, but things had always been professional. Once the job was done, Winston had his own friends to celebrate with. Freja had hers. Simple as that.
(She almost pitied the poor ape. He had been left to rot in a mothballed base for so many years that he considered her a friend. How sad.)
Vivian Chase, callsign Sojourn, intervened as the more skeptical voice, questioning Freja’s motives for her sudden arrival at their doorstep. Anyone else might’ve been frustrated at this, but not Freja. She was actually quite relieved to be escorted to an interrogation room and have her weapons confiscated until further notice. It was a sure sign that this new Overwatch wasn’t being run on good faith alone.
The interrogation itself took several hours. Chase went back and forth between grilling Freja at the table and ducking outside to consult the other agents. Freja waited patiently in the long stretches of solitary quiet and cooperated during the rapid fire question-and-answer sessions. She had nothing to hide.
Not even when the inevitable question rose:
“Have you been working with Talon?”
Freja answered plainly, “Occasionally. Some of their associates pay good money to have certain people… removed from their affairs.”
“I see,” deadpanned Chase. “A friendly reminder that they’re war-mongering criminals.”
“It’s only business, Vivian,” Freja shrugged. “Nothing personal.”
“Until now,” she retorted with folded arms.
Freja tried not to flinch. She did try.
“You know, Skov,” Chase sighed, her tone softening. “Professional or not, you’re still allowed to care about people.”
There was a solemn pause as her words hung in the air. Freja felt her head bow as if the weight of said words were pushing down on her neck.
“Whether or not I care about him, the facts don’t change,” she replied solemnly. “He’s being used as a weapon of mass destruction against his will. I think we can both agree that it needs to be stopped.”
The former captain, now acting commander, nodded, “We’ll see what we can do.”
Deals were struck and arrangements were made. Freja was given a temporary residence on Watchpoint: Gibraltar and access to all of its facilities, provided that she followed their rules. Her bounty hunting work, for instance, was to be put on indefinite pause for as long as she was staying with them. All of her communications had to be through Overwatch’s channels only. No outside calls and no conversing with any of her clients, former or otherwise, without direct permission from Chase or Winston.
The two worked diligently with the data Freja provided them, but they could only do so much with what little they had. It would be some time before they could uncover any tangible leads.
In the meantime, Freja was expected to participate in life on the base. This included attending strategy meetings, joining training sessions, and taking on rotating residential duties; cooking, cleaning, night watches, and more. And with Overwatch placed on “standby” by the International Justice Commission following the sudden retreat of Null Sector, there wasn’t much else to be done on base.
Freja would be lying to herself if she claimed she was fully satisfied with this agreement. For someone who had dictated her own terms and conditions for nearly a decade now, being reduced to the same rank as a cadet again slighted her pride in small ways. Nonetheless, she bit the bullet and did as she was told. For Emre’s sake, she could endure the tedious mundanity that filled each day on Watchpoint: Gibraltar.
She could also endure the stares, the whispers behind her back, and the general unease that followed her whenever she was within ten feet of the other agents. Ziegler, Cassidy, Wilhelm, Oxton, and Shimada were well aware of her career change since the fall of Overwatch, and they didn’t hesitate to express their disapproval to their friends amongst the newer recruits. Their words soured an already poor first impression.
That wasn’t to say that some didn’t try reaching out. Winston remained unbearably friendly towards her. Sojourn kept things professionally respectful. And a miraculously alive Ana Amari was one of the few of the old guard who actually seemed happy to see her.
(They talked for a while one night in the medbay’s stockroom. It was… nice to catch up.)
A few of the younger faces on base made their own attempts to socialize with her.
“That is an incredibly large sum of money! I did not realize bounty hunting was such a viable career on Earth,” awed the Martian girl one morning in the locker room.
Freja kept her gaze locked on her crossbow as she loaded fresh arrows, “Only if you know what you’re doing.”
The girl let out an awkward laugh before saying, “I am just glad I wasn’t one of your targets.”
“Nah,” replied Freja. “I only take the hard jobs.”
Those attempts usually ended poorly.
But whatever, it didn’t matter. Freja didn’t come to Watchpoint: Gibraltar to make new friends nor mend bridges with old ones. She didn’t need friends. She only needed allies.
So then…
…why was she so perturbed by the glare of a single scientist?
Dr. Mei-Ling Zhou. Freja had only briefly skimmed her file when reviewing the occupants of Watchpoint: Gibraltar. She was a former member of the Ecowatch branch, a climatologist with an impressive resume of work.
But nothing had struck Freja as anything she needed to concern herself with. Dr. Zhou seemed harmless enough, another friendly face that was well-liked among both the old and new guard. Around base, she carried herself with an optimistic and cheery demeanor, even while donning a lab coat.
At least until Freja entered her sights. When she did, the scientist’s bright smile, the pep in her step, and any semblance of warmth went right out the window. All of it was replaced by an icy cold scowl and nothing else.
She never spoke a word to Freja and vice versa. Yet, somehow, that silence made her feel far more uncomfortable than any gossip or insults carrying her name around the halls.
Freja knew she wasn’t liked by many on the base. But Zhou’s ire felt… different from the others.
Targeted. Scornful.
Personal.
It baffled Freja.
What the hell was her problem?
After taking a more thorough dive into the scientist’s file, Freja gathered a strong theory.
It was a difficult read, one that unfurled memories Freja had long tried to forget.
The loss of Ecopoint: Antarctica and its six crew members was yet another blow to Overwatch’s already wounded reputation all those years ago. She recalled the reporters bombarding Strike Commander Morrison with questions, the talkshow hosts exploiting the grief of the crews’ families for ratings traps, and of course, the many, many briefings that every member of Search and Rescue was forced to sit through. It was standard procedure when any operation went wrong, and the Icebreaker’s failure to perform its namesake warranted it.
Naturally, any sole survivor of such a tragedy would want answers and — more importantly — someone to blame.
But no matter where Freja’s sympathies lied, nor how justified Zhou’s anger was, this animosity couldn’t be left to fester. It would only cause problems for her down the line.
(Emre needed her. She had to ensure sleeping dogs could lie so there could be no distractions.)
That evening, Freja waited for Zhou in the corridor between the hangar and main lab. It was a route she took everyday following dinner, and she arrived right on schedule. With her attention diverted on a holopad in her hands, Freja had little trouble slipping in front of her path.
“Dr. Zhou.”
She looked up in surprise, almost sweet-looking with that doe-eyed stare. But that didn’t last long.
“Can I help you?” They were the first words Zhou ever uttered to Freja, and they were dripping in venom.
Freja didn’t allow that to deter her, and she spoke, “The Icebreaker wasn’t my responsibility.”
Zhou’s glare shattered for a split second, and she recoiled as if struck, “Excuse me?!”
Freja bit back the urge to take back such harsh words. They were cruel, yes, but they needed to be said, like ripping off a band aid.
It was for the best.
“I get it. Overwatch abandoned you and your team at the ecopoint. You found out that I was a head in Search and Rescue, and thus, you think I’m the one who called off the rescue mission,” said Freja calmly. “But you’re wrong. I was only just starting in the branch when the disaster occurred, and Antarctica wasn’t even my jurisdiction. Abandoning the Icebreaker wasn’t my, or any of my team’s, decision.”
She folded her arms and continued, “So do us both a favor, and drop this pointless grudge you have against me. It won’t do either of us any good.”
“Unbelievable,” Zhou scoffed, her gaze hardening once more. “You seriously think that’s why I don’t like you?”
Freja shrugged, “It’s the only thing that makes sense.”
“Well, I’m sorry, but you’re wrong,” she huffed. “I don’t blame you for what happened. I don’t blame anyone here for what happened to my friends. And I would appreciate it if you never talked about them in front of me ever again. Excuse me.”
She then tried to push past the bounty hunter, a terrible mistake on her part. Freja was never one to let a target go so easily.
With a swift step to the side, the hunter blocked the scientist’s path once again.
“Then what’s the real reason? I’m trying to be professional about this, Dr. Zhou. I don’t want a fight, and I don’t need this entire base pitted against me.”
Zhou flashed her a smile. It was too sickly sweet to be genuine.
“Oh, you don’t need to worry about that,” she retorted. “You do that all by yourself.”
Freja felt a twitch in her eye. The pity she had garnered for the woman before her was slowly but steadily chipping away.
“Don’t test me. You don’t want to make an enemy of me.”
Zhou released a hollow, breathy chuckle before she replied, “Ooh, scary. Were you a bully in primary school?”
Another twitch. This goddamn little shi—
She stopped herself and inhaled sharply.
Focus.
“I have important work I need to do here,” said Freja. “Stay out of my way, and I’ll stay out of yours. Can we agree on that, at least?”
“You are literally standing in my way right now.”
Freja gritted her teeth, “You know what I mean.”
Zhou rolled her eyes but sighed.
“Fine,” she said with a single nod. “Lucky for you, I don’t want a fight either.”
Zhou suddenly took a bold step closer to her. She leaned in close, standing on her toes as if that could somehow compensate for her short height.
“But if you do anything to hurt my friends, you will get one,” Zhou whispered. Her once-soft eyes were hollow and glazed over, as if frozen by the same ice she wielded in combat. “And I won’t hold back, Miss Skov.”
Freja loathed the silence that followed in her surprise. It gave time for that threat to hang in the air around them.
And yet… she also couldn’t help but relish the rush that arose from it as well; a short hit of adrenaline that came after being caught so off guard.
Freja always did love a thrill, and she had been severely lacking one since her arrival.
Her jaw cranked into a grin that clashed with her own fierce glare, “I wouldn’t dream of it, Dr. Zhou.”
Zhou said nothing else as she stepped back, gripping her holopad to her chest and hurrying on her way. The matter was over and done with.
Still, Freja watched her go.
Well, well. The kitten has claws. She bitterly mused.
And then a snort followed.
Cute.