Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Alluvium blinked into the airspace over the lighthouse and hovered toward the famous rocky cliffside, leaving a blue light trail in its wake. The technology originally developed for the ill-fated Slipstream had been perfected years ago by Winston, and what was once a 9 hour flight could now be completed in twenty minutes.

Strike Commander Pharah had spent four of those minutes taking stock of her personnel. A centering hand on Mercy’s shoulder to assure herself that her wife had made it through the mission unscathed. A quick glance over to Tracer and Kirin, where they were chatting excitedly, neither hurt. Then back to the table where Brynhildr and Mercy examined the torn and bloodied fabric on Electricus’s shoulder. He stared, embarrassed, up at the ceiling and accepted their prodding and scoldings. With the Caduceus’s assistance, the gunshot wound had already healed, and had been the only notable injury the team had sustained…

... thanks to them.

For fourteen she had been on the comm-line with Sombra and Athena, desperate for answers that neither of the typically impeccable intelligence agents were able to provide about the baffling mission the strike team had just completed.

The remaining two, Pharah spent in simmering silence.

The teleporting VTOL completed its steady hover to the landing pad cut into the cliffs and came to a stop a few feet off the ground. The ramp door opened with a soft pop as the gaskets were released, and Pharah stepped out of the ship before it even hit the ground. Making a hard right, she strode toward the stairwell, a wave of emotions flicking over her. Confusion reigned.

Athena had insisted that no audio of the pertinent parts of their mission existed. Back at Gibraltar, Sombra hadn’t heard the mysterious voice that had alerted Pharah and her team to incoming dangers, protected them by directing them around like puppets on a stage in the balmy Cairo winter. Beautifully executed counter maneuvers. Known all their callsigns, even Kirin and Electricus, two of their youngest fully-fledged agents. The voice in their comms had known all their strengths, and, more disturbingly, all their weaknesses. After Electricus had been shot, and Pharah and Mercy separated from the rest of the squad, she had feared the team’s presence might end up putting more civilians in danger and doing more damage to the protesters than the infiltrators’ violent attack would have. The voice had helped them identify the targets hidden in the crowd, had gotten them back together using easy to spot landmarks, had kept Tracer calm when she had accidentally blinked into a private courtyard. They had ended up accomplishing their goal faster than expected, protecting the civilians from the attack that would have been blamed on the peaceful protestors, separating the ill-willed infiltrators from their weapons, handing the suspects over to local authorities… It was almost too easy and for that Pharah was suspicious. If every mission could go that well…

As she reached the landing, Pharah pulled off the helmet of the Raptora and shook her head, but Sombra has no leads on the voice’s source. The sound of the Valkyrie’s wing’s caught her attention and she turned.

Mercy flew down the flight of stairs and rested a hand on Pharah’s armored shoulder, “I said wait up!”

“Sorry, I didn't hear you, I was just thinking about-”

“I know,” Mercy nodded and reached a hand up to tuck Pharah’s slightly greying bangs behind an ear. “Lets see what the others have to say, but remember, even if it was unnerving, they helped us, that was the smoothest mission we’ve been on in a long time.”

Pharah nodded and pushed back the Valkyrie's halo to press her forehead to Mercy’s. They breathed together for a few quiet moments, before Mercy saw the twinkle in Pharah’s eye as her mood shifted.

“We could use someone with a view like that,” Fareeha agreed, “We won’t be up there forever… I’d like to take you away to some island somewhere- you’ll be retiring soon since you’re so much older than I.”

Angela whacked her playfully and pushed away from her wife’s chuckling embrace, “It’s barely five years, Fareeha!”

The old joke was even more ridiculous now, as Fareeha looked beautifully every bit her mid-fifties, while the nanite-infused 58 year old could easily pass for someone in her 40s. Angela pouted and sauntered down the remaining flight of stairs to the briefing room… hips swaying, knowing full well that her wife was watching.

Chapter Text

“Escúchame pendeja, I will say it again: We. Were. Not. Hacked.” Sombra snapped.

Fareeha frowned and glared at the wall of screens, full of information. A plethora of charts and graphs that was typically a helpful friend, today might as well be Greek. The strike team and intelligence agents stood in a semi circle along one darkly painted wall near a giant Overwatch logo in the cavernous chamber used as the briefing room*. “Then how-”

“The informant used an override code,” Athena supplied.

Fareeha turned back to Sombra, “How is that not hacking!?”

Sombra shrugged. “Its someone being shoddy at keeping secrets secret , not a breach of cyber security… not my fault,” she muttered, “Resourceful and effective, if unreliable… still, I would be interested in talking to them, myself.”

“Athena,” Angela asked, “Is there anyway to track down who used this override code?”

Athena was silent for a few seconds before answering, “It is an old emergency code. To be utilized when a suspected data breach had occurred, so any resulting conversations would not be recorded.”

The tension in the room notched up a few levels, hearing Athena calmly talk about measures put in place should she, herself be compromised. Fareeha tapped on the error message in the middle of one of the displays, “Is that why the debriefing records were corrupted?”

“Ah, probably. I’ll just cross that off my to do list,” Sombra pulled up her personal holopad and pantomimed the action.

“Like you even added it in the first place,” Bridgette laughed, cuffing the intelligence agent on the arm.

“Children, behave ,” Pharah warned before the silly spat could siderail the conversation.

They watched as a few windows opened and closed on the screen, queries and searches being processed by Athena, “I have record of the specific sequence used, but not who would have had access to it. YABSA10 ADDRESSN219 3PICKMEUP38 800LUCKY7 3MISSENS6 3BAN75 HILDA1I2S4 CHINA8S352LO1 .” A string of random letters, numbers, words and phrases. It wasn’t much to go on, besides the fact that the Informant must have known of its existence during old Overwatch, something Fareeha -daughter of a founding member and self-made Overwatch fanatic expert- even hadn’t. It was likely something few people knew about then, if the code had survived Blackwatch and the Disbandment… Maybe it was worth a shot to ring up the Veterans ...

Beside Fareeha, Angela sighed. Very few people had been granted such codes, in fear of this very thing. They’d typically been for spouses of senior agents or for sole-surviving dependant family members… though in the darker days of Blackwatch before the Fall, who knows if such information had remained secure. Back then, she’d never requested one herself, there had been no need…

Angela’s thoughts shifted to her only child, in her third year at Langara on the opposite side of the world. Mercy and Pharah were two of Overwatch’s most senior active agents, high profile, with a tendency to partner up on missions so that they could watch over each other… She’d brought Pharah back so many times now, and Pharah always protected her long enough for her to heal up if someone managed to hurt her, but if anything were to happen to the both of them… like it almost had on this mission …

She shifted uncomfortably and immediately drew Fareeha’s attention. Angela deflected the oncoming concern by directing another query at Athena. “Anything else?”

Surprisingly, Athena hummed in affirmation, “Records indicate that this specific code had been activated previously.”

Fareeha clapped a fist in her palm and shot a smile over her shoulder, “Ring up the Veterans!”

Chapter Text

Fareeha scanned the cam feeds of the retired agents who had answered her summons while they read the quick brief she’d included. Among them, Torbjorn and Reinhardt were decked out in holiday sweaters. She watched them wave to Edvin and Bridgette behind her in the feeds of their holopads. Fareeha squinted and chuckled… Were they in the same room?

And of course there was Ana: lounging on a sand-blown deck with the sound of waves crashing against the coast behind her, soaking in the sunrise of the day that was coming to a close for her daughter and former squad members. Her unbound white hair billowed around her in the ocean breeze, trademark fringe flying about her face.

Ana traded a couple of snide remarks with Sombra that had the hacker smirking. She asked Angela if she’d worked out how to get nanites to reverse aging and was experimenting on herself again- because the doctor looked more beautiful than ever. She managed to both embarrass and express her pride in the Strike Commander, who tried and failed to give off the impression that the playful banter hadn’t affected her.

“Okay Ami, that’s enough,” Fareeha interrupted with a laugh when Ana made to pull up another baby picture, the other vets and her squad all rolling with laughter. “Do any of you happen to recognize this?” Fareeha rambled off the code, watching Torbjorn perk up and then quickly shake his head. Her gaze fell to Ana whose demeanor had shifted completely.

The old sniper sat still as stone, with her mouth pressed into a tight line. Overly controlled breathing from years spent watching and waiting... She was hiding something.

“Its... an emergency communications override,” Ana explained in an even tone, “For close family members to be able to reach agents, even during missions. Initially, they were specifically for hostage situations… or if there was a life or death emergency… there was an understanding that they would also need to be utilized when… in case of a data breach, mole, or other threat from inside the organization… Why do you ask, Fareeha?”

Fareeha knew there was more. She had a fair read of people: She’d been Strike Commander for over a decade, and an Amari for fifty-four, “Mother…”

Ana frowned at the formal address and sighed, “It’s Mi-… mine.”

“You used it?” Angela asked, unbelieving. The voice had clearly been disguised yes, but Ana was obviously ( ...supposedly?) on Maui, relaxing with her wife, Kamilah. The mission had been on the outskirts of Cairo- without using the technology in the Alluvium , such a travel distance in the given time would be impossible, but regardless, there was just no need-

“Call Kamilah Amari,” Fareeha commanded, her shoulders straightening with confidence, sure she was on the right track to solving this mystery.

“She wouldn’t!” Ana cried out as she fell out of frame of the holopad’s cam. Angela shot a worried glance between the screens and Fareeha, unnerved by the turn of events.

Kamilah Amari was one of Angela’s dearest friends, a mentor and confidant during Angela’s early years at Overwatch. The recent empty-nester and the orphan, overrun with injured adrenaline junkies in the understaffed med bay at Zürich... They had forged an unbreakable, familial bond during the years Ana was presumed dead as the organization she had built crumbled around them. A bond that had only been reinforced since Angela and Fareeha's union.

Now her mother-in-law answered what she had clearly presumed was a social call, making tea still clad in her robe. Her short wavy hair had lightened to a silver-grey, but her onyx eyes were still as sharp and deep as ever.

“Morning, habibti-” Kamilah had answered the call from her daughter , and upon realizing it was the Strike Commander calling- and with a sizable audience no less- her attitude shifted immediately. “Is everyone okay?” the unsaid but very much implied, because if they are, you won’t be soon , had said Strike Commander swallowing nervously and nearly forgetting why she’d called.

Ana’s cam feed, next to Kamilah’s on the screen, jogged as she moved back through the beach house in search of her wife. “Milah?”

Her mother's worried tone snapped Fareeha back into focus. “Mama,” she addressed as a way of apology, “do you recognize this code?” Fareeha asked, once again reciting the sequence, but purposefully transposing the last few characters. Kamilah clearly did, her eye twitching at the wrong digits, but she looked to Ana, head cocked, the perfect picture of confused innocence.

“Someone used that code to talk to the team on the Cairo mission earlier today… The intel they provided likely saved Edvin from one helluva painful res, if not all of their lives, considering the situation,” came Ana’s voice, the cam in her lazily held holopad capturing just part of her face as she leaned against the counter across the aisle from her wife. The distance and tension between them in stark contrast to how they’d woken up not even an hour ago.

Kamilah’s face remained stoic, “It was not me... It is close, but that is not my code.”

Fareeha sighed as she silently dismissed the other call-ins, the mood of the briefing room growing much less cheery, “What are the last five digits? Of your code?”

Kamilah said nothing.

When Ana had come to her with the treasured life line decades ago, she’d secluded Kamilah in a coat closet under false pretenses. With a dusty combat boot thumping loudly against the inside of the door, Ana had whispered the code into her ear, and warned her that its very existence couldn’t fall into the wrong hands. It couldn’t be written down, typed, recorded... heard, even by other agents… especially other agents. Even Ana was going to do her best to cloud the memory of and unlearn the code after insuring Kamilah had it right… for years Kamilah had secluded the string of sparingly-used characters even from their daughter... and now, Ana nodded and prompted her to speak, on the line, to a room full of Agents... She could see the disappointment in Ana’s face, mirrored in her daughter’s: they believed she had failed.

That she had failed them.

“Fifty-two, L-O-1,” she answered, hoping the clipped tone would conceal wobble in her lip, and confirming that the sequence used had indeed been her own. Ana could not meet her eyes, so she turned to Fareeha, in her hands and yet on the opposite side of the world, “I did not write it down. I haven’t used it in years… So, unless I suddenly started talking in my sleep, and someone besides your mother was there to listen-”

“Okay okay,” Fareeha threw her hands up in a sign of surrender, reading her Mama’s mood and treading lightly. “Whoever it was… didn’t pose a threat. If anything we’d be interested to see if this was some sort of recruitment scheme-”

“Seems like,” Kamilah snapped, tossing her teacup in the sink with enough force to shatter one of porcelin, “If they had wanted to be recruited, they would have made themselves easier to find.”

Kamilah’s window abruptly went blank as she hung up on them. Ana’s cam feed jumped at the unexpected outburst, showing her face enough to watch her eye narrow in concern at Kamilah’s retreating back, before her feed cut out as well.

Chapter Text

She had argued with herself for days over whether or not to post her shots from the protest-turned-Overwatch-mission.

Based on the subject matter, it wouldn’t have felt quite right to monetize them by tying the pieces to the advertising service she used for her more personal works. Some of which were still doing well, the “viral sensations” trickling in a few credits each day, it was enough to cover basic living expenses and the required subscription services. No, the whole point of going had been to bring attention to the conflict… but she hadn’t been the only one looking.

Overwatch had shown up… exposed and turned over the terrorists… peaceful negotiations had followed. Things weren’t going to be resolved instantly, but they were moving forward according to what her contacts had relayed… and much faster than it would have taken for any of her photos to hopefully go viral, churn up far-flung support, relying on strangers to pick up the fight… Their idea had been a desperate plan of action riddled with potential shortcomings that Overwatch had blessedly rendered moot.

They had done good. Alone, in her hotel room, on the opposite side of the world from where she was supposed to be, she allowed the pride she felt to manifest itself into a ridiculous smile. Oh, they had done so much good, but unless you had been there, you wouldn’t know about it…

You wouldn’t have caught that glimpse under the visor of the Raptora, Pharah’s eyes scanning the ground in concern as the iconic Egyptian landscape stretched out behind her, glistening in her suit like a prodigal daughter returned home. Like the promise of her udjat, she was fiercely protective, of her team, of her people, of the ideas they each fought for. The sun shone on the white and blue armor of the Mark VIII, gold accents rivalling its shine. The lifelong soldier should have seemed out of place over the dusty plazas and colorful awnings, but her posture and a lucky trick of the light changed the tone into one of hard-won peace.

They wouldn’t know the way Electricus had kept himself between threats and civilians, even if it meant staying mostly immobile and exposed… or the way said civilians called out and warned him of the upcoming attack in time for him to turn and deflect it. Or later, when he had known the next shot was coming but had turned to protect the protestor beside him and ended up catching the bullet in his shoulder instead of his shield.

Most would never even believe the beauty of Kirin’s light-form as it seemed to gallop down the street with a life of its own, gracefully dodging civilians and ramming into the hostiles with impressive horns. Golden glow as warm as a winter’s hearth, trailing flower petals and strawberries and brambly tangles of vines where its hooves struck the cobblestones. A semblance of Kirin themselves, and all the varied guardians and experiences which made them who they were.

She had shots of Mercy healing civilians and team members alike, clips of Tracer flitting through the crowd to identify the infiltrators and then Brynhildr stunning them with her mallets. When they had worked together...

She shook her head.

Objectively, these were good shots, even if she was a bit partial… You didn’t see things about Overwatch in the news anymore. There was a general understanding that they were around, sometimes they showed up when bad things happened, that was their jobs… but the organization was aging and slowly dwindling. Combine that with the lack of recent scandals and the drama of it all had died down over the last two decades.

Whether intentional or a by-product of their characters, under the leadership of Pharah and Mercy much of the ego and buster had faded from the public image of what made up a member of the organization.

To the world, they were Agents instead of Heros .

Tell that to this kid… she had thought, the clip capturing the fear on the young protester’s face from the opposite side of the hard-light barrier, as they stared at a spray of bullets inches from their head- saved by Electricus’s shield even as the shot ripped into his arm…

So she had cleaned up just a few of her favorites from that day, removed the sound, and dropped her mark in the metadata - a stylized kingfisher. She uploaded them to the server, and sent instructions for her contact back in Vancouver to share them with some Overwatch friendly newsboards.

It might not be much in the way of anonymous thank yous, but surely it couldn’t hurt. Afterall, tis the season.

Happy Holidays, Mom and Mama.

Chapter Text

Sombra had kept at the mystery of the Informant despite the dead end Kamilah had presented. The seasoned hacker was confidant that the older woman was hiding something , but that was one wasps nest she didn’t dare throw stones at.

No, her break came in the form of a simple tag alert. Overwatch kept an eye on public opinion of the organization, one aspect of which required digging through every possible news source for any implications of wrongdoing. Luckily it was something Athena was well-equipped to do. Most of the time, the feed just picked up people discussing old Overwatch and Blackwatch dealings, local news stories about Overwatch mission activity affecting traffic, the occasional civilian suing them because their vehicle got caught in a firefight.... But this alert was something new and different.

They had been recorded on missions before, of course. The original Overwatch had staffed an entire department dedicated to pumping out promotional material for its “Heroes,” but besides personal projects (mostly on Hana and Lucio’s part) that sort of attention was now left to outsiders. In more recent times, strike teams had been subjects of shaky low-res mono-cam footage, taken by what always seemed to be drunken frat kids who interspersed their unhelpful commentary with curses and vulgar puns in place of the agents’ call signs, recorded as the amateur videographer ran either away from or into the battle.

But the captures linked in these new alerts… they were works of art, by someone who clearly understood what was going on below them… and they were all taken during the exalted Cairo mission.

Even though one of the four images was from before the Informant had wormed their way into the comms with Kamilah’s code, two of the others synced up perfectly with times when the Informant had been talking to the subject of each shot. The angles would have allowed them a clear view of everything they’d relayed, and if the satellite imagery and models of the area were any indication, the watching eyes had been nestled away out of even Pharah’s sight.

Sombra was eager to trace down the origins of the files, and almost disappointed to find the owner’s mark displayed prominently in the metadata. It pointed to professionalism instead of activism. Whoever had released them was familiar with how the files and crediting worked in the modern world. Although these specific pieces weren’t tied to an ad service, a quick query pulled up the author’s profile on various accounts, with an impressive number of pieces that were. Sombra was surprised to find she even recognized a few of them already, one an amazing panning shot of Rio from the hand of the Cristo Redentor, and another playing with reflections and perspective at Lijiang Tower.

But one she hadn’t seen before drew her in. She watched the few seconds of replaying video  over and over until the twinkling light piano coming from the speakers felt like drops of precipitation on her skin. Sure the resolution was high, the stereograph imagery tricked the eye into perceiving depth, but the setting and subject is what made her feel so immersed in the captured scene that she felt like she was intruding on a special moment... A child, no older than she had been when orphaned, sat on the shoulders of what appeared to be their omnic parent, strolling through the once strife streets of King’s Row. Under a hazy full moon and neon-colored signs, the pair marvelled together at puffy drifting snowflakes, winter having cast the once hatefully vandalized walls alight with sparkling crystalline patterns alongside the colorful murals. The memorial statue of Mondatta stood behind them like a beacon as they walked on a pristine blanket of snow that was marked only by a pair of footprints that had become one.

This wasn’t just a photographer, or videographer, or mere informant… this was a journalist who made their truth known in undeniable living imagery. A journalist who was definitely ideologically aligned with their organization, had done their research, and was very actively trying to get their attention.

After briefing the Strike Commander, Sombra was given permission to track down this journalist known only as Halcyon . They were silently renowned for their stunning stereo photography and clips- short 3D videos that were sometimes accompanied by sound- of subjects and locations all over the globe. And although their work was scopious, the person behind the lens remained elusive and anonymous.

The only means of contact listed on any of the ad profiles was a student address from a college in Vancouver for one Robin Leroy. Leroy was a Communications and Marketing major, and a quick message confirmed Sombra’s initial impression - garnered from their numerous social media accounts- that they were not the journalist, but rather functioning as some sort of agent for them.

A very lackluster one. Like some twistedly asinine game, a simple query exchange took days, and often their replies didn’t actually answer any of Sombra’s questions. But with no other images forthcoming (and the Strike Commander’s rejection of her request to simply hack into Leroy’s email account) Sombra was forced to sit and wait. But eventually, armed with a carefully curated, fully fleshed out shadow company, Sombra was able to request a meeting with Halcyon under the guise of commissioning them for some promotional shots for a new development.

Sombra thinks she’s gotten a step ahead of them when the fake company’s website is suddenly accessed by someone in Iraq. She had almost finished figuring out exactly which port it was accessed from when she heard back from Leroy that Halcyon had agreed to meet the potential client at the resort in Oasis.

Altogether, the chase she had looked forward to had ended up being a bit of a let down, and Sombra was left wondering if maybe she hadn’t misjudged the would-be recruit from the start.

Chapter Text

“Hey Mama,” Fareeha sipped her morning tea and leaned anxiously over her tablet.

“Hello Fareeha.” Fareeha grimaced at the cool reception, but was thankful her mother, Kamilah, was willing to answer her call after how upset she had been the last time they talked.

“How is Hawaii?” It was late, and still yesterday for her parents, but Fareeha had wanted to keep Kamilah updated on the informer situation.

“Fareeha please-” Kamilah continued in a clipped tone that warned that she was still far from forgiven.

“Do you think Angela would like it?”

Kamilah sighed, melting at the mention of the overworked woman who was like a second daughter to her. “I imagine Angela would love it, if you could somehow make her forget there’s a watchpoint full of perpetually injured idiots waiting for her to return,” Kamilah smiled.

“I think I could come up with something,” Fareeha replied cheekily. When she saw Kamilah’s eyeroll and heard her exasperated chuckle, she continued, “Maybe we can stop by tomorrow after we see what this ‘Halcyon’ person is about.”

“...Halcyon?”

“Sombra’s pretty sure she’s tracked down the Informant from that Cairo mission, and that they’re angling for a recruitment. We were going to head to Oasis and meet with them later, get enough information to verify their identity and start the background work. Robin Leroy, their point of contact, seemed reputable enough, if a bit inept, goes to the same school as Ad-”

“Adelah.”

“Yeah… Mama, are you okay?” Fareeha held the holopad closer to face in an attempt to get a better look at her mother.

Kamilah was quiet for a few beats too long, and Fareeha grew worried. Both of her parents seemed extremely fit and healthy but still, if anything were to happen it was hard knowing they were so far away.*

“Yes habibti, I just… it’s late, I have to go. I’ll… I’ll call you back, okay? Good night.” The line went dark before Fareeha had a chance to respond to the abrupt dismissal. It was barely 9pm there, she thought with a frown as she walked back to the bedroom. An expression that grew into a wavering smile upon seeing Angela curled up on Fareeha’s recently vacated side of the bed. Fareeha brushed messy platinum waves out of her wife’s face and pressed a kiss to her forehead before sitting back down beside her.

Angela responded with a half coherent whimper and Fareeha soothed her by rubbing gentle circles on her back until Angela peeked up at her with one questioning eye. They needed to be getting ready to go but, suddenly time seemed to be moving too swiftly and Fareeha wished desperately to hold on to this moment.

“Can we drop by Ami and Mama’s later after the recruitment thing? I’m a little worried about Mama… she’s been acting a bit… odd… lately… I just want to make sure everything is okay.”

Angela reached out and entwined her hand with Fareeha’s free one, pulling it back toward her face. She stared up into Fareeha’s eyes, seeing the concern and fear threatening to dampen their beautiful depths with the knowledge that there were some things you just could not protect your loved ones from. She kissed her partner’s palm and nodded, an agreement and a understanding invitation, turning to catch Fareeha as she fell into her arms with a sob.

Chapter Text

Robin had cautioned her to be careful with this one.

Robin needn’t have bothered, Adelah already knew.

Everything seemed to check out, but Adé couldn’t shake the feeling that something wasn’t quite right with this new client. She hadn’t expected them to agree to meeting in Oasis of all places, and on such short notice. Their development would purportedly allow for easier cohabitation between omnics and humans with units for all income ranges and copious communal features to facilitate a sense of community. According to their website, they had a diverse board of volunteer directors and had partnered with nonprofit groups for funding… but the expense of meeting a photographer on the other side of the world seemed in stark contrast to their message. Adé planned on staying hidden in the upper balconies of the lobby and getting a good look at these potential clients before deciding if it was worth it to approach them. Robin had wanted Adé to come back to Vancouver so they could meet the client together. But… Adé suspected Robin was having second thoughts about working better as business partners than romantic ones, so she had deflected. She reminded them that this would be her biggest job yet: if things seemed a little impersonal with this client, that might just be how professionals worked, and the hotel lobby at the luxury resort was bustling with people and surveillance- not exactly the scene for shady dealings.

She was coming back from lunch, crossing through the peaceful little courtyard that separated the restaurant from the hotel. She made sure her scarf was wrapped over her hair securely, having nearly lost it on the way over due to the infamous winds of the sky-high breezeway. Her vintage goggle shades gave the world a warm tint as they blocked most of her face from the wind and her light jacket covered without being too restricting, one shoulder of the garment slumped down to reveal the tattoo that was her work’s mark.

Near the elevator to the observation platform, surrounded by zip cars and bustling tourists, she felt her holopad buzz with an incoming video call. Her earpiece announced the caller.

Mimi. Her grandmother Kamilah… who thought she was in Vancouver. Who thought she was still enrolled in college there...

There was no way to answer on video, not with the mid-day sun shining pleasantly down her. Maybe she could answer audio only? It was really loud here though, what time was it even supposed to be in BC? Midnight? Wait, what time was it in Maui? She checked her watch as she stepped off the curb, after eleven? Oh no. What if something was wrong? What if something had happened to Nana? What if something had happened to M-

Metal and silicone hands clamped around her shoulders and pulled as the tires on a clunky antique car squealed loudly on the asphalt. She flinched at the sudden closeness of everything, thinking for a moment that’d she actually been hit by the monstrosity.

“Watch where you’re going, techie !” came a bitter voice from behind the wheel, dropping the slangy near-slur at the sight of a human in an omnic’s arms, as if clinging to antiquated, inefficient technology wasn’t enough and he had to grasp onto ridiculous outdated ideas as well. Adé wanted to slash his rubber tires just because finding replacements would be an expensive, months long ordeal that seemed a fitting punishment for the asshole who had almost run her over.

Before she could start a one-sided argument with the quickly departing tail lights, her attention was consumed by a familiar and yet long-unheard voice, “Are you okay?”

“Teka. ”

She saw the tiny flashing exclamation mark on the omnic’s facial display before it switched to a scanning pattern- Teka was trying to facially ID her but the goggles were designed to hinder that exact function. Apparently realizing the same thing, the taller woman’s head tilted to scan down and back up Ade’s body, “Adelah?”

She hoped the goggles did as well at hiding her blush as they did at obscuring her features.

“Adé,” Teka repeated, confident, touching a finger to her hair, the dark wavy tuft that always seemed to fall across her right eye. She saw the smile bloom across the human’s face, sensors picking up the accelerated heart rate and increased core temperature, heard the amazed breathy laugh... Adelah was happy to see her.

“What are you doing here?” Adelah asked in awe, admiring the new blue-tinted silicone panels on her friend’s exposed limbs. A tunic of Overwatch white with blue and gold accents marked her as a fully fledged Agent now. She looked good in those colors, Adé thought, like they were chosen specifically to grace her.

A rapid series of patterns, memories , flicked across Teka’s display.

This wasn’t an operation, and Adelah had fairly high clearance for a civilian, so Teka saw no problem with filling her in. “Someone hacked into a strike team’s comms when they were on a mission and Sombra tracked them down,” Teka conveyed excitedly, motioning to the entrance of the hotel behind her. She continued with her story but the color had suddenly dropped from Adelah’s complexion.

The lack of anecdotes on the usual forums, no mention of physical address, the willingness of the “client” to meet under all the wrong circumstances. It was a set up, classic Sombra. She was fucked.

And now they were here to what? Serve her with a cease and desist order for the recordings? Shit, had she broken some sort of sanction and they were here to arrest her? She hadn’t hacked them!

A quick panicked scan of the area revealed Kirin, suited up and talking to an eager young kid beside a brightly lit advertisement for a nearby confectioner's shop. Pharah and Mercy arm in arm, guarding the doors to her hotel. The other two agents of the strike team must be inside, staking out the meeting spot, or had they snuck into her room, and were confiscating her equipment and destroying her recordings? A strangled cry escaped from her lips and drew her parent’s attention, recognition was imminent.

She hit the quick release on Teka’s lower arm, snatching the telescoping vault staff that was blissfully so like her own. Her only defense, left stupidly, carelessly, at the foot of her bed in her small suite. If she could get to the concourse over the courtyard she could slip in through the side doors, maybe there was still a chance at not losing everything she had worked toward for the past two years.

“Hey!” Teka called out as Adelah bolted away from her, one of her two staffs between her fingers, zip cars slowing automatically as the pedestrians threatened their paths. Pharah and Mercy were in quick pursuit, coming to their youngest team member’s assistance. Tracer blinked across the elevator opening, easily catching up to the thieving young woman as she raced to bound over the courtyard wall.

“Nice goggles, love!” Tracer called, easily matching her speed even while running backward, “Used to have a pair just like ‘em!” *

The wind caught her scarf at that moment, blowing it down around her neck, and Tracer stumbled in shock at the sudden recognition. Those were her goggles! Or, rather, they had been before she’d given them to-

Adelah extended the staff against the corner of a stair, hoping the make-shift stop would keep her and the pole from slipping out of position as she rocketed up, up, and-

Boom!

Chapter Text

Boom!

The concussive blast hit the wall a few feet below Adelah, knocking her up into the air but back toward her pursuers. Flung from her grip, Teka’s stolen staff collapsed and clattered to the ground. Adelah braced for a similar impact.

Instead, her body was caught smoothly in the confident, armor-clad arms of her mother. She’d forgotten how quiet the Mark VIII was, most of the older versions’ rockets replaced with supercharged hovertech. She risked a glance up under the Raptora’s visor and winced.

On second thought, the ground might have been more forgiving.

“Did you really think that would work?” her mother chided as they slowly descended.

“I panicked,” Adelah pouted.

Pharah was taken aback, “Why?”

“Adelah Zayirah Amari! What are you doing here !?”

They both jumped at the vehemence in Mercy’s tone as they landed, “That’s why,” Adé mumbled as Mercy continued her scolding in her native tongue.

“What do you think you’re doing? We raised you better than this, this reckless behavior -”

So they did already knew then. Adelah’s face flamed, responding to anger with like anger and flinging her own half-coherent string of accusations back at Mercy, “Its not that big a deal! Look I’m sorry I called you at work! You were going to make things worse ! I didn’t want anyone getting hurt- and sorry if those visuals were just perfect, I didn’t realize there was some law against making the lot of you look good instead of like subjects in some crazed cryptid sighting, so arrest me for trying to help, see if I-”

Adé knew she was rambling, hands held up together and pointed at the helmet of the Raptora. She watched as Pharah tilted her head all the way back to look, confusedly, at her shorter daughter from under the visor. Not the response Adelah had been expecting. She turned to Mercy, who still looked angry, but also now, confused, her head cocked to the side, gaze darting from her wife to her daughter.

“We’re not here to arrest you,” Pharah stated, pieces still falling together even as she finished the thought, “We came here to… recruit… you? ”

It was Adelah’s turn to recoil, “I am NOT joining Overwatch!”

Mercy’s eyes were wide as saucers, realizing where Adelah had been spending time, balking at the thought that they had come here today so eager to recruit the promisingly adept spotter, to put their  daughter on the frontlines. Later she would realize she didn’t make her point very clear when she rejoined the argument with, “You will stay away from conflict zones!”

Adelah barked a dark laugh at the perceived hypocrisy of it all. Did they want her tied behind a desk in some bunker?  “I will not! I’ll be fine!” She thumped her chest and gestured sarcastically between herself and Mercy, “Nanites!”

“They don’t make you invincible!” Mercy yelled back, appalled that Adelah would be so blasé about her own welfare.

“Somebody has to do it, Mother! They have to see-”

“Not you !” Mercy cried, shaking her head, “You… You’re supposed to be in school!”

The courtyard was suddenly very quiet. Pharah stood an arm's length away from each of them, Tracer and Teka looked on alongside a fair number of entertained tourists who were beginning to pull out their own phones and holopads.

Mercy and Adelah both breathed in heavy, gasping breaths, staring down each other, identical iron wills forged from the same cast.

Adelah straightened and popped her neck before continuing with precision calm, “I dropped out.”

There was still another week or two of the semester left, with hard work, Mercy shook her head, and they could pull some strings, “You can still-”

“… last year.” Adelah clarified, slamming the door on Mercy’s train of thought.

Impossible, they'd seen her off to school a few months ago...  “Last… year, what about tuition!”

“Hey,” Adelah cut in, turning to walk along the sidewalk as if they were discussing nothing more serious than a misplaced coffee order. She refused to acknowledge how uncomfortable the stares were making her, as painful memories resurfaced. Growing bored of the suddenly deescalated scene, the crowd began to disperse as the group of Agents followed Adé, walking at a calm pace. “I didn’t ask, you just assumed -”

“That money was for your education! You’ll use it for its intended purpose, or you’ll return it all! To everyone!” Mercy turned to Pharah, who pulled her helmet off to talk to Adelah as she walked.

“We may have assumed that you would have told us something of such importance, Adelah, but you did not correct the assumption, and accepted the funds under false pretenses. You know that is not right, habibti, and I am ashamed to know we raised you to ever think it would be.”

Tears threatened, Adé hated when her Mama used that tone. One look into Fareeha’s genuinely disappointed eyes and Adelah’d be back on the Alluvium and dropped off at the Langara registrar’s office before she had a chance to catch her breath.

She steeled herself and pulled on the cloak of her previous anger. “Fine. Then have it back,” she bit out, pulling up her holopad. She ignored the alerts and with a few impulsive clicks had almost completely drained her savings. She didn’t know how she’d get back home, but refused to cow down to their coddling and expectations. She had a week left paid on her Oasis suite, maybe she could activate the ad revenue on those pieces and actually make sure Robin was doing their job...

The odd group made their way back to the entrance of the hotel, Mercy still rambling statistics about who knew what while Pharah was looking distressed and upset, trying to get Adelah to look at her so they could “talk sense.” But if they had come to recruit her and not arrest her, then Adé was free to go, she knew her rights .

Adelah couldn’t hear the alarms going off in their comms, warning them of an emergency calling them back to headquarters. Didn’t see Tracer and Teka tensing up as their commanding officers ignored the summons in preference of their daughter.

Adelah straightened her scarf and pulled her jacket over her shoulder as they walked through the doors. But how was she supposed to shake them now?

“Is everything alright Ms. Halcyon? Are these people bothering you,” The concierge asked, hovering over to the paying guest to offer her hand sanitizer, complimentary mints, and a mirror to check her reflection in. She smiled gratefully at the omnic and turned back to the Agents, clearly marked in their Overwatch gear. They’d caused enough of a scene in the courtyard, how much more bad press would kidnapping a tourist from the lobby of the luxury resort earn them?

“They were just leaving, Moseby.”

The others turn to the Strike Commander, whose lips narrowed into a thin line. She nodded, putting her helmet back on.

“We’ll be in touch, Adelah,” Pharah insisted in Arabic, once again donning the mantle Strike Commander. She ushered the others out the doors, armored hand tightly entwined with Mercy’s gloved one, not so subtly dragging her away.

Teka was the last to remain, display a contemplative ellipsis, “Adé… You’d be good at this, you know. We could use you… you would do a lot of good.”

Adelah deflated at the praise, “I would never know, Teka, if it was because of me or because of who they are… I just want to be me .”

They shared a look, shared fears and doubts.

“I understand.”

“I know you do,” Adé whispered as Teka turned and jogged to meet up with the Alluvium.

Chapter Text

 When Adelah was around 11, back when Ana was still active in strike teams and Kamilah and Ana still lived in the house where they’d raised Fareeha, Kamilah would pick Adelah up from school when the girl’s parents were both on active missions. It was far from an everyday occurrence, but it happened often enough that those days had a regular routine.

They’d ride home on Kamilah’s motorcycle, taking a different scenic route each time. After helping Adelah with any homework, Kamilah would cook dinner while Ana and Adé “helped” or went out to play in the backyard. Or If Ana wasn’t home either, Adé would be more likely to actually pay attention to what Kamilah was cooking. When she got restless, Kamilah would send her out to play.

She’d call Adelah in when dinner was almost ready, to get washed up and eat together, then cuddle on the couch until her parents arrived.

Until one day Adelah didn’t return when Kamilah called her back inside.

“Adé?” she called for the second time. She took a few steps into the backyard and cocked her head… it was too quiet.

“Adelah Zayirah Amari, If you are playing a game it ends right now ,” Kamilah commanded in a voice that would have had grown soldiers quaking before her in their boots. The dishrag dropped from her hands as her eyes scanned the area, moving instinctively toward that one blasted tree with a sick sense of déjà vu. How many times had Fareeha fallen from it's too-tempting branches as a child? Her footsteps became swift and uneven as she approached it, searching the limbs where Adelah was fond of climbing- her heart nearly stopped when she spotted Adelah- laying still and crumpled near the roots.

She was breathing but unconscious, one arm clearly broken in two places. Who knew how long ago she’d sustained the injury, and likely an accompanying concussion, having been outside nearly an hour now.

Twin waves of fear and guilt threatened to overcome her.

When Kamilah reached out a trembling arm to touch Adelah’s she found the unmarred skin flush and warm, those damn nanites are healing the unset arm.

“Heal her head damn you, damn you,” Kamilah muttered, pulling out her phone and calling the Overwatch main line. She’d been a medic in the army for years, but had very limited experience with her daughter-in-law’s technology. “Come on, Ana, how do I stop them, please be there… fuck,” of course she’d be with them too. Glancing at the unconscious face of her granddaughter, she spoke the sequence that would patch her directly to an agent’s comm, and after a moment of hesitation, completed the connection with her wife’s name.

“Ana.”

“Milah ?” There was no need to ask if everything was okay, the mere fact that Kamilah was contacting her this way meant it wasn’t. With Pharah and Mercy somewhere in the air above her, Ana’s thoughts immediately shifted to her granddaughter. Full of worry, Ana missed the next few biotic darts she shot toward Genji as Kamilah quickly filled her in on what had happened. Cursing at him through her comm to stand still for a single goddamn second, she calmed Milah down enough to explain that without the Caduceus- currently with Mercy and the rest of their strike team in Mexico- there was no way to direct the nanites to a particular wound or to stop them from “healing” the arm.

“Listen to me, Milah.” The world snapped into focus. “You’re not going to like this-”

Adelah had regained consciousness in time to hear her Mimi curse and then call her Nana with a strange and yet somehow familiar sounding code. Still addled, the numbers had repeated in her head until the reason for the familiarity clicked, being very nearly the lyrics to one of Nana's Beyoncé songs. Adelah tried to laugh, surely Mimi would find that funny ... Adé opened her eyes to see tears in Kamilah’s as her grandmother reached for her broken arm.

"It doesn’t hurt, Mimi," Adelah reassured her, though it definitely looked funny. ..

Kamilah’s expression turned to steel, "I’m sorry, look away habibti," she ordered, one hand on Adelah’s elbow and the other above the first break.

"Huh- AAAHHH! " Adelah screamed and tried to pull away as Milah rebroke the bones, only vaguely aware of Kamilah’s hand moving to the next, leaning on Adelah to keep her from moving and to block her from watching. Awash with pain, her mind latched onto those numbers and letters, played them like a mantra in her head- like they lyrics they were- as Kamilah set the next break, wishing she could just black out again instead.

After waiting a few minutes for the nanites to swarm to the new injury, Kamilah moved back enough for Adé to cradle the heated arm against her chest. Kamilah scooped her up and started rocking the girl- on the line between child and teen, trying to stay strong for her even as she did the same her. She whispered reassurances into her dark, wavy hair, so much like her own, hands rubbing her back and legs by way of apology, and to check for other injuries.

She whispered promises and made silent vows to the both of them.

Kamilah's heart didn't stop racing until Adelah turned her tearstained face into her chest, all forgiven.

“Adelah- ”

“Hey Mimi,” the twenty year old answered, hearing the worry in her grandmother’s voice but unable to work up the appropriate response, “Thanks for the heads up earlier, you were about 30 seconds too late though… and you don’t need to worry about helping me talk to them, they’re definitely all caught up after today.” She sighed as she adjusted the holopad to squint into the camera, “But how did you even know?”

“I wasn’t sure until your mama mentioned Robin... Ana had told me about your-” Adé interrupted with a groan, not wanting to rehash the relationship drama Ana had helped her over the year before. “Why didn’t you tell us what you were doing, habibti?”

“After what happened freshman year, I just… wanted to do something on my own , for myself… to see if I could.”

“Is that why you sent back most of the money we sent you for your birthday?”

“No... You know it wasn’t for my birthday Mimi, it was for school. I dropped out last year, and Mama said I needed to return it.”

Adelah had enrolled with an athletic scholarship, which had been revoked when the anti-doping department of the collegiate athletic association got a hold of her bloodwork. Distraught, she'd turned to her family, and Mercy had published a scathingly critical article on how the nanites shouldn't disqualify a student who would have to go through extensive dialysis just to partially remove the healing self-replicating micro machines. Adelah had attended a single competition after being reinstated, and been subject to stares, implications of nepotism, and suggestions that she’d be better suited to the paralympic league. She’d vehemently agreed, reminding them that the only reason the leagues were kept separate was to give their precious merely human bodies a place where they wouldn't be completely outshined.

It hadn't gone over too well with the competitors or her teammates.

She’d quit the team after winning her event and never took up the multiple offers to join the open-to-all non-scholarshipped equivalent, focusing instead on the relative seclusion of her major, photojournalism. Insisting she'd simply “lost interest” in one of her favorite activities, her family had readily picked up the tab to keep her enrolled.

“I doubt that’s what she meant.”

Adelah grunted noncommittally.

“Regardless, I’ll be sending it back-”

“Mimi-”

“No. Listen to me Adé, I have seen your work, or did you forget what you got us for our anniversary last year?” Kamilah turned her holopad to the oversized print on the wall- a still of the parent and child at King’s Row. “If you can capture feelings like this, I have no doubt you will be successful in your own right. However,” she turned the pad back around to make sure she had Adelah’s attention. “I love you, and I know what it is like being out there on your own, and I will not allow you to go through that, like I did. And neither will your Nana. Our door is open to you, and we will make sure you can get here. More than anything, we need you to be safe… Be smart about the risks you are taking and be aware of the dangers you are putting yourself in. But we also want you to have the opportunity to do your best work, by... investing in you now.” Nothing could stop Adé’s tears now, and they plopped down onto her holopad like summer rain. The Amari pride was legendary, but Kamilah was giving her no room to refuse that which she so desperately wanted to accept. “You can pay us back when you are rich and famous, keep your grandmothers out of a senior’s home, yes?”

Adelah laughed and sniffled, “You two would terrorize the attendants, nobody would have you anyway.” Her voice was thick with pride and emotion. Her grandmothers were her heroes, and she’d do anything for them, “loan” or no.

Kamilah chuckled, “Probably true, you can go skydiving with me then, since your Nana keeps saying no.”

Adelah laughed and nodded, even as the return credit transfer alert popped up on her screen.

It would be no cake walk, but it was a fair start.

And she refused to let them, or herself, down.

Chapter Text

More imagery of the Cairo mission had been made available, though these ones notably came encrypted with advertising IDs. Most of the public had figured that the early freebies had been to whet their appetites for Halcyon’s captures, and the accompanying discourse about whether the journalist should have profited from the mission only made the the images go viral faster. But while a handful of the viewers were discussing the person behind the lens, the masses had taken notice of the actual subjects.

People were talking about Overwatch again. Not asking for the autographs of individual Heroes or buying merchandise, but recognizing the team for their efforts; the synergy between them and the risks they shared.

Even without the voice- Adelah’s voice - directly in their ears, the next wave of missions went smoother. Civilians were more apt to listen, to get out of the area when prompted to, to trust the agents when they insisted they were there to help.

If they missed her voice during missions, they were starved for it outside of them. Though Adelah had spoken to her grandmothers and was still active on her personal social media accounts, she'd removed herself from the family group chat. She had refused to answer any of their calls beyond a clipped “I’m fine” that had sounded so much like Angela lying through her teeth in the middle of a 14 hour surgery that Fareeha’s heart ached.

And Adelah wasn’t the only one giving Fareeha and Angela the silent treatment. Typically in the thick of social gatherings at Gibraltar HQ, Teka had instead spent the days after the Oasis fiasco sequestered in quiet corners of the commons, only answering questions when phrased as orders, and steadfastly ignoring either of Adelah’s parents when they were in the vicinity. Without any profiling work currently assigned to her, the only hint toward her activity was the fluttering data light that indicated she was connected to the Point’s wifi with studious vigor.

The next few weeks saw a lull in the number of missions Overwatch was called in on. The holidays were known for doing the opposite, but it was enough that even the Pacific Strike Team called in to comment on the phenomenon.

That's not to say they hadn't been busy, there'd been an increase in interviews and information requests from various media outlets, and with no dedicated department designed to deal with those sort of things, most of this additional work fell to Fareeha and Mercy.

Even recruitment numbers were up.

“Ash, this application has you as a ref?” Fareeha held out her holopad, showing the profile information on one of the many recruitment apps that had made its way to her inbox, Ash’s call sign, Kirin , listed in the references.

“Oh cool, yeah I talked to them at Oasis when we went to pick up Ade- er, the Informant… ” they corrected when the Strike Commander’s face reflexively scrunched up. “They’d seen Ad- uh, the … clips from Cairo, and were interested in the light-casting.”

Fareeha frowned, “The design of your atlatl is proprietary information. Satya has measures-”

“I know, Fareeha,” Ash laughed. The weapon resembled a spear thrower, and emitted both hard-light projectiles and Kirin’s more specialized semblance. “I told them Symmetra had refined it for Overwatch, and if they really wanted to see it in action they should apply. Guess they finally did.”

“Sort of,” Fareeha mumbled in reply, biting her lip.

“What’dya mean, sorta?”

“They applied a couple of weeks ago, but with everything going on I’m just now getting through the pile of these.”

“Pile? When was the last time we had more than one application under consideration at a time?”

Fareeha thought for a second before letting out a frustrated huff, “Never… not before the Cairo mission.”

Ash laughed as the Strike Commander dismissed them, “You mean, before Adé’s pictures.”

With many agents on personal leave over the winter holidays, the commanding Amaris had also been on call more often than usual. And so it was a busy, stressful, month after Fareeha and Angela had talked of visiting before they finally made it out to Hawaii for a short vacation from Overwatch.

But there was one subject they couldn’t seem to escape as they waited in the living room of Fareeha’s parents’ beach house. Adelah had happened to phone her grandparents right as they had arrived, and the older Amaris had excused themselves to take the call, leaving Fareeha and Angela to rehash the same discussion they’d been grappling with since Oasis.

“I just can’t stand the thought of her, seeking out all these dangerous places, by herself , for what? Views on the internet? And that was worth throwing her future away? She knew she was in the wrong, why else would she be lying to us?” Angela traced the outline of the child in the print on the wall, held safe on their parent’s shoulders.

“We don’t have much room to talk when comes to putting ourselves in danger, habibti,” Fareeha reminded her, wrapping an arm around her waist. “If this is what she wants to do, shouldn’t we support her?” Fareeha tapped a finger against the parent standing in the snow. Of course she wanted her daughter safe, but she couldn’t help but think back to her own young adulthood… wasn’t Adé’s happiness important, too?

“Would we be supporting her, or enabling her self-destruction?” Mercy asked her, already knowing which risk she was not willing to take. After everyone she’d lost, she would not lose Adelah.

Their contemplation was interrupted by a disapproving scoff.

“ That is one of her’s too, you know,” Kamilah said, nodding toward the print as she and Ana walked back into the room, hand in hand.

“Hey Ami, Mama,” Fareeha greeted, going to wrap them each in a hug.

Angela offered them a strained smile in welcome before realizing what Kamilah was talking about.

“ Adelah took this?”

Kamilah narrowed her eyes, “Did you not even look up her work?”

Fareeha’s face flamed, “Sombra had included some in her-”

“Hold on,” Ana felt Milah’s hand tense in her own, and pulled out her holopad. She tapped a few times to bring up a blog of Adelah’s work before handing it over to her daughter.

Fareeha and Angela started to swipe through the album, soon Angela was reaching behind her for the couch, unable to look away from the series of captivating images.

“Halcyon” had a thing for dramatic angles, daring heights, and unusual perspectives… both architectural and interpersonal. A few specific pieces were familiar, though Fareeha could not place where she would have seen them. She recognized many of the locales, mostly monuments and natural wonders… but also places where Overwatch had been called to assist. Not so many of them actually active “conflict zones,” but areas affected by natural disasters and quiet corruption. Not just during but after. Images that told of rebirth among the communities, celebrating ingenuity and perseverance.

Then they came to the images from Cairo.

This is how she sees us.

Unlike the promotional posters from Fareeha’s childhood, these images revealed a more candid perspective; highs and lows. Where the… propaganda would have been framed to make the “Heroes” seem larger than life, intimidating, and infallible. The organization’s desperate attempt to uphold that image had helped bring about its downfall, and since reinstatement they... had swung wildly the opposite direction.

It was no wonder the public had reacted.

“ Verdammt ,” Angela sighed, surprising them all. “She’s amazing,” her voice cracking with pride as their browsing was interrupted by another ad.

“And she could send all that money back because of these?” Fareeha asked with a proud smile, recognizing the advertisement for one of Hana’s companies.

“They bring her some revenue,” Kamilah clarified, “though not as much as you’d think since she’s very selective about how invasive the ads are and who she wants to benefit. No, she sent the money back because she’s an Amari.” As the women in the room were similarly named, there was no denying that they’d all more than likely do the same when faced with such a challenge. It was more than competitiveness and pride: it was answering the call when their own brand of honor was on the line.

As the ad ended, they looked back down at the next image.

Pharah and Mercy, in tandem, balanced despite their differences. Each watching over the other’s shoulder, free arms held out in mirrored protective gestures, the rocket launcher and Caduceus staff held down but at the ready. The Valkyrie's halo lay in the dirt at their feet, where a close call had ripped it off of Mercy’s head mid-flight, leaving her controlless. Pharah had grabbed her out of the air but they’d been sitting ducks separated from the rest of the team… until Adelah had contacted them, led them to the deceptively crucial piece of gear.

In the midst of the battle, she had captured them .

When the focus of the clip shifted, two young girls, previously unnoticeable, were revealed in the doorway behind them. Likely sisters, the elder held a cautious arm around the younger, who peeked out at the Agents with a wide, gap-toothed smile.

Adelah’s heart truly showed in her work. This was their daughter, this was the young woman they had raised, the best of them and so much more. To stop her from this, her own calling, would be wrong. And she’d apparently been at it for years without issue, she was a brilliant young woman, of course she knew to keep herself safe. She’d been trained by the best.

But Fareeha wanted to do more.

“We have to make this right,” Fareeha said, placing a hand on Angela’s thigh.

“I just want what’s best for her, Fareeha,” Angela said as she slumped against Fareeha, still terrified but realizing how much their obstinate reaction must have hurt their daughter.  

Fareeha nodded and looked to Ana, “Sometimes... what mothers think they want for their daughters isn’t what their daughters actually need.”

Ana nodded knowingly, “I can see now that it was always your destiny to shape Overwatch into the beacon it was meant to be.”

“Adé doesn’t want anything to do with Overwatch,” Angela stated, voice catching.

“She doesn’t want anything to do with us,” Fareeha corrected, her arm tightening around her wife.

Eyes red and watering, Angela turned to Kamilah, “ What do we do ?”

“I… am not sure, but... I know a couple of people who can probably help you figure it out.”

Chapter Text

Adelah smirked at the sign on the warehouse wall as she tugged on the straps to secure her vaulting shoes. She slipped her high tops back into her mesh slingpack along with the bag of chips and half-drank bottle of Nano Cola she’d bought from the convenience store a few blocks away.

No drones the rusting metal plate read, along with no skateboarding, no loitering, no guns... the usual for the era this place would have been built in. Despite the signs and general lack of commodities, the proximity to the wide-open airport with the mountain ridge rising dramatically on the opposite side of the runway is what brought Adelah and a slew of other photographers to this site. The cloudless sky, full of stars and zipping aircraft made for some intense timelapse skyscapes. But while others were limited to the ground, Adelah had no such restrictions.  

She slung the bag over her shoulders and stretched, giving her vault staff a few customary taps against her calf. There was an alcove that ran the full height of the building about 30 meters down the sidewalk, near where she had set up her tripod on the roof a few hours ago before the sun set. It was dark now, which made this both easier and harder… less chance of being seen, but it would also be harder to see what she was doing, so far away from the nearest streetlight. Peering up and down the mostly abandoned street, Adelah started her jog toward the dark corner, a smile on her face.

She had thought of her friend and mentor, Hana Song, when she had first seen the architectural feature, and its similarity to an obstacle in an old video game they had once played on her emulator. Adelah sprung up and extended about a third a way up the wall, already retracting her staff. She had practiced this technique long ago in the yard of Gibraltar, when Hana and most everyone else had been out on missions. That way, should she fail, nobody would be around to see her.

She angled the staff against the wall, reversing direction and pushing off again, in a single fluid motion.

Of course, back then, there’d been a safety mat dragged between the containers, one gravity had insisted she be repeatedly reacquainted with.

She carried her momentum upwards, twisting and repeating the maneuver again.

But that had been years ago now, before she’d been introduced to a much more preferred way of vertical lift...

Smiling to herself, she tucked and rolled when she reached the parapet, coming to a stop near one of the giant air handling units, its lazily turning fans creaking in the gentle wind as if snoring in its slumber.

“So that’s how you get up everywhere.”

Adelah gasped and swung her staff at the unexpected presence. It extended toward the voice but was deflected harmlessly up and over a curved metallic surface...

“Hana!” Adelah shouted in half reproach, half salutations upon recognizing the voice and domed form.

The dash lights activated as Hana laughed and slipped out of MEKA, grabbing the vault staff and tugging Adelah toward her. Enveloping the girl in a tight embrace, her hands snuck around Adelah to pin her arms in the straps of the slingpack, the other mussing up Adelah’s short hair with a few overly rigorous twists of her wrist. Hana pulled the bag in front of Adelah’s face and jutted her chin out at the chips, “Is this trash what my sponsorship has been paying for?”

“They were out of D.Vitos!” Adelah laughed as Hana dropped her in mock disgust. The jet engine of a departing plane roared overhead, and Hana’s eyes quickly moved to scan the area out of habit. Adelah’s face fell a little as she searched Hana’s, “… I always wondered if you knew when you sent that email offer…”

“I do my research, too,” Hana confirmed, finally relaxing enough to lean back against MEKA. The mech wasn’t the same model that Adelah remembered from her childhood. It’s cockpit had been modified for a lower frontal access, and a more vertical operating position. It operation was less taxing on the pilot’s body, a reluctantly agreed upon re-design after Hana had suffered a back injury during an isolated mission some years ago. However, the mech was undeniably still all her own. MEKA bore sponsorship and branding decals from throughout Hana’s career (or careers, depending on how you looked at it), as well as stickers for various causes and fandoms. StarCraft, Nano Cola, Lucio, Oasis, D.Vitos… the Overwatch logo was nearly drowned out amongst them, but Adelah could always identify it the fastest.

“So does Sombra, and she didn’t figure it out,” a little bit of pride slipped into Adelah’s voice and she hid her grin behind a gulp of her soda.

“ Sombra hadn’t seen your work before. I spent enough hours watching your povcam streams and waiting for you to finish setting up “the perfect shot” when you were supposed to be studying to recognize your style... Guess some things never change, huh?”

Adelah pursed her lips and looked away, pretending to check on the cam slowly rotating on the tripod. “There was too much going on… I had to leave.”

“You know, its nearly the 22nd century… You don’t have to go to school, to go to school… You know I didn’t.”

Adelah chuckled. “I remember uncle Jesse ‘grounding’ you from missions when you had papers due,” she teased.

“Yeah, you crawling over everything didn’t help, little gremlin.”

Adelah stuck her tongue out and Hana rolled her eyes. Adé had idolized Hana as a child, long before realizing her parents’ young coworker and honorary Amari was just as much a war hero as she was an international celebrity and 30-under-30 top businesswoman. Her scrutiny now made Adé’s reasons for dropping out feel insignificant. “I know, I probably will eventually, just so mom doesn’t disown me,” she tried to joke.

“Nobody would disown you, yeodongsaeng, ” Hana countered with all seriousness.

“... I know,” Adelah confessed in a small voice, hurriedly wiping the betraying tears from her face.

“Aaah, lighten up, Adé, I didn’t track you down just to rag on you,” Hana smiled and rubbed her shoulder, blessedly not mentioning the tears.

“No?” Adelah chuckled brokenly as Hana joined in.

“Nope, It's just really the only way to get things done if you’re on a timetable, that Robin person isn’t exactly expedient.”

Adelah bit her lip and looked away, “I told them no more in person meetings because it’d be... Overwatch.”

“Well,” Hana laughed, “They’re not Overwatch exactly , but I do have a few business proposals…” Adelah raised an eyebrow, ready to be unimpressed, “A friend of mine needs an album cover for a new-”

“ AAAhhh! Really!? Lucio’s dropping a new album!!!? ”

“Hush! Hush! You gotta keep this on the DL, think you can keep a secret?”

Adelah glared at her, throwing her arms out to encompass the otherwise empty roof and all of her own person. Hana just smiled innocently at her own joke. Adelah punched her arm, and they both burst out laughing

“So... you’re interested?”

“Uh, YES .”

“And I was wondering, if I could get some of that viral love your pieces have been showering on Bryn, Kir, and the Mama Birds.”

“...you want me to take your picture?”

“Not exactly…”

“ Hannaaaaaaaa... ”

“Okay okay, the directors want to see if better public awareness of what we deal with, will continue this little mini peace wave you accidentally created.”

“They were always against the propaganda machine. Mom was always saying that the egos and expectations they created were the beginning of the Fall... and Mama didn’t exactly disagree.”

“Maybe, but that was before they got back from Hawaii and a certain profiler cornered them with a presentation full of statistics from her social mining research.” Adelah blushed, Teka . “You know how Angela gets around statistics-”

“What did Teka say? Wait, what did I do?”

“Teka’s been pouring through social media data and cross referencing crime stats and figures from Athena’s database to determine that some positive recent trends are the direct result of your pictures and all the buzz they created. Hey, maybe your call sign can be ‘queen bee’ for all the buzz -” Hana poked her fingers into Adelah’s cheek and shoulders, mimicking a barrage of bee stings.

Adelah swatted her hands away, “Nana wouldn’t appreciate that I don’t think, and I prefer Halcy -- I mean-”

“ Ha , so you have thought about it.” Hana smiled, “Just wondering.”

“Hana please. What do they want me to do? I’m not letting anyone make any of those tacky posters...”

“Aw, you wound me sis!” Hana held her hands over her heart, “You don’t want me on your wall? How ‘bout Tek-” Adelah groaned and shoved her again. Hana just pushed her away and laughed. “Some recruitment sort of stuff, profile pics for the site, and more intriguing action shots like from Cairo but for each of us, we’ll set up a shoot or something-” Hana waved her hand dismissively and Adelah scrunched up her face at the last one.

“In action. Real missions,” Adelah countered.

Hana smirked. “I had a feeling you’d say that, Amari . You’ll have to take it up with them though,” Hana crossed her arms and leaned against MEKA, jutting her chin up toward the passing planes.

Adelah raised a confused eyebrow, scanning the air above them, missing Hana tapping a few buttons on her smartwatch.

A square of light appeared in the air about 20 meters up, a doorway into a space that shouldn’t be there. Adelah blinked rapidly until the cloaking array shuttered and deactivated, slowly revealing the exterior of the Alluvium . A figure had appeared in the VTOL’s doorway, whirling pole staff above her head, winking LED display adorably horizontal- like an old school in-line text emoticon. Adelah was vaguely aware of Hana reentering MEKA and boosting up to the platform, distracted by Teka’s almost literal appearance out of thin air.

It wasn’t until she locked hands with Teka that she remembered the camera she’d set up for the night shot, now pointing directly up at the lights and bottom surface of a stationary aircraft. “Oh! My shot!” She jerked away and ran over to retrieve the equipment, throwing an apologetic smile over her shoulder.

Teka’s face display blinked, flickering from ;) to ツ as her shoulders shook with silent mirth.

Chapter Text

“It needs to be real and genuine, or it’ll come off looking self-serving… because it will have been. That’s not the image you want… and I don’t feel comfortable being paid to turn missions into mass produced propaganda.” Adelah bit at her bottom lip, worried she’d said more than intended. She glanced over her shoulder at the row of drop seats on the far side of the VTOL. Hana and Ash were discussing something on either side of Teka, who flashed her a quick thumbs up icon when Adelah’s eyes landed on her. Adelah straightened and set her expression into something decidedly more confident before turning back to her parents.

Fareeha and Angela shared a look of their own on the far side of the table. Fareeha had been impressed with Adelah’s resolve over the past half hour, agreeing to only some of their initial ideas and refusing to compromise on points that were clearly important to her. Angela had hoped that their daughter would agree to more controlled photoshoots, but they had entered into this conversation knowing Ade would likely find that solution inadequate. But instead of a flat no, it now seemed there was something else Adelah was angling for. Angela’s hand tightened around her own before she turned back to their daughter, “Either you do want it to be real, or you don’t, you can't have it both ways.”

“Real missions. Covered as a journalist. My shots, to distribute independently at my own discretion: there can’t be editorializing of the truth.” Her voice changed inflections as she recited the well-practiced line, fully prepared for them to place restrictions anyway.

Since Hana and Teka had picked her up a few days ago, Adelah had been taking new profile shots for many of the agents’ bios… the remnants of the once robust public relations campaign of the Old Watch, but she wanted to capture more honest moments than what a photoshoot would offer for their media experiment. Their current trip to see Lucio in Rio had offered her a chance to state her case. “If the point is to match the feel of the Cairo imagery, I should get caps of everyone on missions, even if they’re not … combat missions. Preferably, really,” she smiled as she nodded to the racks where the Raptora and Valkyrie armor rested at the ready, “I doubt I’d have as much fun catching bullets as you two do.”

By the time the VTOL finished its jump and hover back to the watchpoint, it’d been settled.

Certain safety measures were to be adhered to, like the proprietary workings of some of the agents’ tech and considerations regarding tactical vulnerabilities (like the vitality of Mercy’s visor, and the motion triggers for various weapons). Fallibilities were one thing, and the Strike Commander assured her that anyone found breaking sanctions would answer to the directors. Adelah had agreed: this was still her family after all, she wasn’t looking to inadvertently get anyone hurt.

She just wanted them to be seen as real people instead of these larger-than-life personas.

“And you’re sure you don’t mind me tagging along? You’re not going to freak out when we get there and lock me in the VTOL?” Adelah asked as she tightened a modified utility belt around her waist. She’d fashioned it to hold her vault staff and povcam when she need her hands.

“...With a few considerations…” Adelah groaned as Pharah smiled from behind her visor and reached into the locker next to the one where the Mark VIII was stored when she wasn’t suited up. Alarms blared overhead as several agents hurriedly donned their combat gear and checked their weapons. Adelah wore the white and grey bodysuit from her last track meet, the school name covered with a stretchy orange band, leaving only “AMARI” exposed on her back. She tapped her pole staff against her calf as she watched Pharah fiddling with something in one of the many unassigned lockers, flicking the unruly lock of hair out of her eye as she leaned away  from her mother.

“Here we are,” Pharah smiled, pulling out the faded orange safety helmet from when Adelah had been in high school.

“Mama! No-” Adelah took a step back and bumped into Mercy, who placed a steadying hand on either of her daughter’s shoulders, strong and sure as Fareeha’s. Adé pretended not to notice the slight tremor in her mother’s hands. Mercy quickly lowered them to brush out the front flap of the Valkyrie, trying her best to push through a double-dose of her pre-mission worries.

With Adelah distracted, Pharah plopped the helmet down on her daughter’s head, flattening her curls to her forehead. “Ever-vigilant and preactive ,” she chuckled at Adelah’s petulant glare, amazed as always at how much she resembled Angela. She herded them up the stairs behind the other agents, checking over everyone’s gear and equipment as they moved toward the Alluvium .

“Here,” Mercy’s voice trembled only slightly as she tapped her holopad to Adelah’s ear comm, “You’ll be linked directly into our comms. Let us know if you get into any trouble, okay? You are familiar with the controls?”

“Uhuh,” Adé nodded, reaching up to touch the ear piece, making sure it was still easily accessible between the straps of the helmet. She grinned, the excitement of the upcoming mission finally feeling real, “This’ll be way easier than singing that code each time.”

All said, the mission went well, if a bit uneventful. Adelah got a few shots as she spent much of her time sequestered between a pair of billboards, watching the agents secure the area that had been damaged in either an attack or some sort of accident. She used the universal mount on her cam to attach it to her pole staff, getting shots from far above the billboard, the screens casting the scene in various hues as the sun set. Sombra and Athena were back at Gibraltar pouring through video surveillance. Zarya, Pharah, and Teka sorted through wreckage, helping emergency workers retrieve the injured from the rubble. Mercy led triage, and Brynhildr and Electricus kept the crowd at ease, eyes open for any potential trouble.

Adelah kept her eyes open for anyone trapped in what had been an office building, scanning the crowd for anything that could help them figure out what happened.

By Overwatch standards, uneventful was a good thing.

She kept her friends and parents spirit’s up with lighthearted banter over the comm, while Teka tried to trip her up with ridiculous puns over a private line. When the local fire marshal gave the all clear, Teka whirled up to retrieve her and they joined the others in the Alluvium , already in the air.

Chapter Text

The next few missions that Adelah covered went much the same. She was slowly building up a portfolio of the agents, and would soon have captures of every active member. This was just a temporary assignment, but she hadn’t thought much of what she’d do once her objective was complete.

Adelah had been staying in the barracks at HQ for almost a month. Adé had come to think of the Point at Gibraltar as “home” again, though she'd declined the invitation to stay in her childhood room of her parents’ quarters. It hadn't been a big decision at the time, but like so much else it had just felt like the natural thing to do.

Adelah and the other agents were goofing around on the Alluvium as it ferried out to an unpopulated area to make the space jump back to base, behavior they were all prone to indulge in after a successful mission. They sent boisterous teases and old basketballs flying across the cabin, trying to catch each other off guard, winding down as the adrenaline faded from their bodies. Adelah gave as good as she got, and batted the balls away with her staff, sending them careening every which way, bouncing off displays and into supply racks.

“Recruits clean the transport!” Electricus grumbled as his soda was knocked off the table. Nobody mentioned that Adelah wasn’t a recruit, but she only gently punted the next ball Bryn shot her way toward Teka’s waiting hands before settling down with her friends. In all honesty, they all treated her more like a recruit than a reporter, especially when Pharah and Mercy weren’t on their missions. Knowing most of the Agents since birth didn’t hurt, and she enjoyed being back in the fold of the familiar banter.

Professionalism meant she’d been talking to Pharah and Mercy when either of them were commanding officer on the missions she covered. The ice breaker of that first mission had thawed her radio silence to Fareeha and Angela. Kamilah had surreptitiously re-added Adé to the group chat on her birthday, and Adelah was sending a quick text of reassurance to her family when an alarm went off on the large overhead display.

Athena’s voice boomed over the connection: a small passenger plane had crashed into the cliffside at Deadlock Gorge. They were being rerouted to complete what would essentially be a mid-air rescue, all other equipped vehicles and teams being out of range.

The mood immediately shifted.

When they blinked into the space over the deep, umber-tinted gorge, the ship was immediately seized by heavy turbulence. Through the side door window where Adelah stood, she could see dark grey clouds hazily underlit by the rising winter sun. The striations in the russet cliffs seemed to reach out to them before Adé realized they were pitching dangerously close to impact as the wind howled about them. Tracer blinked to the cockpit to disengage the autopilot, and Adé caught the sickened look on her face, fearing what might have happened without the pilot’s timely rewind.

With Tracer at the helm, the ship steadied out enough for them to locate the wreckage.

Precariously dangling on a ledge about 20 meters from the lip of the gorge was a small passenger craft, poorly damaged, missing a wing, and faintly smoking. Spurts of rain had dampened everything, and the windchill left hints of sleet and ice in the crooks and crevices of the steeply inclined sides of the gorge. Adelah made eye contact with one of the passengers, whites of the woman’s eyes terrified, afraid to move for fear of sending them tumbling down the seemingly bottomless drop below. Despite their precaution, the windblown fuselage of the wreckage bumped against the earthen wall and bounced dangerously forward. The top and side of the hover vehicle had been ripped away, and Adelah could see straight in through the large ugly opening where another passenger lay haphazardly crumpled. Adelah’s eyes were riveted to the scene until she heard the gaskets of the side door popping.

“Teka, can you fly in this?!” Mei shouted over the squall as she prodded buttons on the control of the door.

Teka quickly analyzed the wind speed and atmospheric conditions. She nodded, extending her staff above her head and adjusting the safety sling across her shoulders. She stepped onto the door as it fell open, getting the staff up to speed. Kirin jumped away from the opening, giving the helicoptering staff much more room than required as they backed toward the opposite side of the craft. Brynhildr grasped the support along the hull for balance and braced herself in her heavy armored boots. Freezing rain pelted their faces as Mei slung herself into Teka’s harness, pulling her blaster out and flicking the toggle with her thumb.

“We need to secure it before it falls!”

Teka nodded at the Senior Officer and then they were off, flying toward the cliff face.

Bryn, Adelah, and Electricus watched from the door as Mei used her blaster to freeze the wreckage to the cliffside. It quickly became apparent that despite the frigid wind, without constant endothermic spray, the fix wouldn’t last more than a few seconds.

“Tracer, can you get any closer?” Teka called through the comms, trying to figure out how to get Mei to safety so she could retrieve the passengers.

“Too risky love! Figure something else out!”

“Maybe they could climb up my whip?” Electricus asked, holding up the weapon.

“Not long enough,” Adelah shook her head.

Brynhildr glanced frantically around the cabin. “The crane hoist. Get that door shut!” she yelled as she moved to the back cargo ramp, grabbing the heavy metal hook and hitting the release button for the ramp.

“We’re lowering the crane hoist for them to grab onto!” Bryn called to Teka and Mei.

Teka’s digital voice answered, “Negative. They’re injured and terrified civilians.”

“Send someone down with it,” Adelah urged Bryn. Their eyes glanced off Electricus’s sturdy frame, Brynhildr’s heavily clad armor, and came to a rest on Kirin. In a loose-fitting tunic and tights, they were the best chance at landing on the ruined fuselage without sending it tumbling into the shadowy depths.

“Kirin,” Adé called.

“Oh-okay ...what do you want me to do?” they asked tentatively, eyes darting to the opening.

“ Adé, Kirin’s terrified of heights ,” Teka communicated privately.

Bryn either got the same message or had realized the same flaw in this plan. She started unfastening her own armor as she moved toward her suit’s locker, “Alright, give me a second to--”

“WE’RE LOSING IT, HURRY UP,” Mei commanded, the fire in her voice driving Adelah to action. Bryn’s arms were momentarily trapped as she lifted her armor over head... Adelah skirted around Electricus and grabbed the hook from Kirin’s trembling hands, attaching it to the modified utility belt around her waist.

She was out of the door and falling towards her goal before the shouts of alarm even rang out across the comms.

Landing on the wall near the wreckage she latched onto the tiny splits in the rocky surface. From this angle, Adé could see there was a ledge just below the crash where one of the layers of sediment had been washed out more than the others. The wall here also wasn’t as steep as it had looked from the ship, though the drop was just as deadly. Climbing up the incline, she gently crawled through the the rough opening in the side of the craft. Her fingers trembled from the cold and the abuse of climbing the wall as she slipped past the injured (at least, she hoped he was just injured) passenger in the cabin and unhooked the line from her belt.

“Hey, are you okay? We’re uh, gonna get you out of here, okay? Can you hear me? Can you move?” She asked the woman who had been warily watching them from the cockpit. Her breath was coming in shallow pants, but seemed to steady as Adelah talked to her. There was blood smeared across her face from a cut near her hairline, but she nodded in response. Slowly, she unbuckled her seatbelt and stumbled into Adelah’s arms.

They tensed as the wreckage shuttered, and only breathed again when Mei refocused her blaster on the loosened part of the wreckage, freezing it back in place. Adelah slipped the loop around the passenger’s upper legs and tightened her hands around the slack cable. The nanobots were already healing the abuse to her fingers, their activity making her hands warm against the freezing digits of the terrified woman.

Tracer had pulled the ship forward, further away from the crash site but it meant the path back to the cargo bay doors would be mostly clear. “Don’t let go. It's just like a swing at the playground, okay?”

The woman nodded, but didn’t seem to quite believe her. Her eyes shot to the person behind them.

Adelah shifted to block her view, not wanting her to panic, “Don’t worry. We’ll get him next.” “Okay.”

“Ready when you are,” Adelah spoke back into her comm. The line tightened up as it retracted into the ship, pulling the woman out and away from the side of the gorge. Adelah didn’t pause to watch as she was reeled in. Instead, she had scrambled to the man, checking for a pulse. She breathed a sigh of relief upon finally finding it, faint as it was. He stirred as she looked him over, but quickly slipped back into unconsciousness. His femur looked broken or badly gouged, his pant leg was ripped and soaked with blood. His body lay in an unsettling position, and his hands were covered in shards of debris.

Adelah winced. The same extraction method was not going to work here. Even disregarding exacerbating his injuries or potentially paralyzing him, if he couldn’t hold on to the cable in these winds they risked losing him altogether.

...not that they’d be able to get the cable back into the wreckage anyway.

“Mei, can you land? He needs Teka.”

“I won’t be able to keep you two in place!”

“Just help Teka get him! I’ll stabilize it from below.”

More shouts rang out in her ear as she slipped and scrambled down the cliffside to the ledge below the wreckage. Ignoring them, knowing they were duty-bound to save the injured passenger as long as it was possible, she lodged her vault staff into a mostly dry recess, slowly extending it up until it was wedged against the underside of the small craft. It wasn’t much, but it would keep the thing from wobbling forward for the few moments the others would need.

“It’s set, go!” Adelah shouted back at them.

Mei removed herself from Teka’s sling and slipped into the wreckage. She helped Teka prepare to transport the injured man with as little jostling as possible. Together, they used the sling and Teka’s legs to secure a hold on the still unstable victim.

Mei crawled back to the top of the fuselage, training her blaster back on the melting frost connection. She turned to watch Teka flying backwards toward the cargo ramp as the omnic tried to get a visual on Adelah.

The wind increased in the few moments it took for Teka to reappear, backlit in the lowered ramp, the empty cable hook in her free hand.

Teka grabbed the slack line and fell more than flew to where her heat sensors indicated Adelah was clinging under the wreckage. She had one hand clamped around the bitterly cold vault staff to keep it elongated as her body lie precariously balanced on the makeshift support, extending at an angle nearly perpendicular to the cliff face. Teka flipped in midair, twisting the helicoptering staff in her hand, now in a position below her torso. She clipped the hook into Adelah’s belt, bringing the cable up to rest in the hand that wasn’t locked in a death grip around the staff.

Adelah’s eyes sought her out from under the orange rim of her helmet. Teka flicked her display to a pair of digital eyes, stern yet worried. It gave Adelah’s eyes something to lock onto, and they instantly lost that scared, lost look.

“Go get Mei!” Adelah commanded, so much like her fore-bearers.

The facial display flickered and Teka wrapped her hand around the back of Adé’s helmet, hinged fingers pressing against the hair at the base of her neck. She pressed her face to the front of the helmet for a few precious moments, warring with the drive to immediately pull Adé to safety.

“ Teka ,” Adelah urged as the hull started to rock back and forth in the increased wind, bits of dirt and sleet pelting her skin. Hazy fog rose up from the ravine below, masking just how far the drop would be.

Teka nodded, falling back and twisting again to be able to pick up Mei with as little disruption to the wreckage as possible.

Mei grabbed onto Teka’s sling as she hovered in place, twisting her arm around the high-performance fabric near the omnic’s shoulder before hoisting herself up and slipping a knee into the loop near Teka’s hip. Her blaster was still trained on the icey wall, but the wind was sending the endothermic spread far from its target, quickly undoing her efforts. Before they even had time to push away, the wreckage was seized by a burst of wind that sent them spinning nearly out of control. An ominous grating scrape turned into a sickening roar as the wreckage broke apart and started it nightmarish tumble down the cliffside.

“ADE!?”

“Back to the ship, Teka!” Mei commands as the omnic righted them, almost surprised when Teka actually complied. Teka zipped them up to the cargo ramp and pulled the safety sling over her head, effectively dumping the shorter woman onto the floor.

Teka had already extended her staff to jump back out again when the hoist reeled Adelah in as the sun peaked out through the clouds behind her.

The relief that Teka felt was like a physical weight being removed from her back. She’d never breathed before, but now she had the strong to desire to exhale, do something to express the maelstrom of emotions whirring within her. Energy hummed through her limbs and propelled her forward.

She strode to the dangling Amari and wrapped her arms around her, taking note of the large gouge in her helmet and smaller healing scratches and rips along her shoulders and back. Teka pulled Adelah inside as the cargo door closed, and they fell to the stairs that rose mechanically out of the angled surface.

Tracer pulled the ship away to make the jump home. There was a familiar pop and tingle of the space jump, and then Tracer reappeared in the cabin to find the agents and the two passengers sprawled across the jump seats and the wet floor, all looking to the two young women tangled on the stairs.

“You had me so worried!” Teka cried.

“You can’t get rid of me that easy,” Adelah reassured, holding onto her shoulder and wiping the dirty rain off Teka’s chrome panels. She felt Teka shake her head against her shoulder, more rain splattering down on her ruined track suit, her hand falling to the cable still clipped to her waist. “Not when you have such a good pick up line ,” Adé started dissolving into hysterical laughter before even finishing the pun, drowning out the collection of groans and snickers from the others.

Content to have her safe in her arms, Teka sat back and watched as Adelah slowly composed herself, releasing the hook and checking her over again for injuries. If she’d had any they seemed healed already, and Teka unsnapped the ruined helmet from Adé’s chin as her chortles slowed into giggly bubbles. Teka had been prepared to see a falling mask fade into panic and fear of a Recruit’s first brush with death, but found neither in Adé’s bright amber eyes. “You look happy?”

“I am! We did good!” Adelah grinned.

“We did,” Teka’s worry vanished, facial display flashing a cute little smiley face. Teka recognized this Adé too. This was how Adé acted after taking particularly good captures. Ones that would go on to be fast viral hits, getting millions of views. Ones she would have printed out as gifts like the three hanging on the walls of Teka’s alcove. Where Adé had been staying since returning to Gibraltar. “So you got a lot of good shots?”

“I...no… I didn’t take any.”

Chapter Text

The fabric of Adelah’s new suit stretched against her thighs and shoulders as she parried Teka’s staff with her own. She still wasn’t used to the elastic high-performance material spanning between her knees and elbows, even if it was smooth as silk and silent as a moth’s wings. The extra layers weren’t restrictive as much as they felt like new muscles being used for the first time.

Teka’s next blow snuck past her staff and Adelah blocked it with her arm, using the slightly weighted wrist guard to deflect the hit up and away from her torso. Satya had been working on the pieces that would eventually replace these stand-ins, messaging her every few days with detailed updated weight estimates. She’d instructed Adelah to adjust these dummy guards accordingly, so that she’d be used to moving with the correct resistance on her arms by the time the working ones were finalized. Adelah looked out over the mediterranean and wondered when that would be.

The next blow would have hit her in the temple if Teka hadn’t stopped short upon realizing Adelah was too distracted to protect herself from it, “ Bolts , Adé, put a helmet on, I swear.”

“Hana’s not done with it yet,” Adelah replied distractedly, not looking away from the cliff edge across the training grounds.

“Well no, but in the meantime-”

“Teka?” Adelah retracted her staff and snapped it to the the mag holster on her knee pad. The holder on either knee replaced the weight of her belt at hips, but the heaviest part of her new outfit was still the Overwatch logo on her right shoulder that marked her as an official recruit. “Can we fly?”

“Oh. Yeah, of course?” Teka retracted her staff into her arm and pulled out her sash.

Until Adelah could get all the pieces of her combat suit, Strike Commander Pharah had barred her daughter from vaulting, instructing her to focus on ground exercises instead. Teka’s own penchant for not remaining earth-bound with her favorite passenger had not been discussed, an oversight Adelah was more than ready to exploit as anxiety gnawed at her.

Adelah sat cradled in Teka’s lap as they hovered above the eastern ledge. Still in the shadow of the famous cliffs behind them, Adelah was calmed as much by the gentle thrum of Teka’s staff as by the soothing rustle of tree leaves behind them and gentle crash of waves against the rocks below. From here, they could watch as distant ships slipped over the line between sky and sea, unaware of the contrived threshold they were crossing.

Adelah sighed and tapped at the decal on Teka’s shoulder, “Am I doing the right thing?”

“Joining Overwatch?” Adé nodded. “You’re not an agent yet, you still have time to change your mind… your’s hasn’t exactly been a standard recruitment.”

“I made such a big deal about not joining, about creating my own path , not just following their's. I want to be me .”

“Who says you aren't? We are all products of those that come before us... some of us are just on a line that is easier to trace…”

Teka’s voice trailed off and Adelah winced. She leaned her head into Teka’s shoulder, stroking the silicone panel embedded with hundreds of pressure sensors.

The omnic was sensitive about her initial programming, her drive to document and analyze the human people around her. She too worried to what extent her creators shaped her personal motivations, and warred with the decision to embrace or reject them. Adelah knew this and understood, though she could not fully fathom exactly how Teka experienced her coding.

Despite her fears, Teka had ultimately chosen to be optimistic about the data she collected as she worked as a profiler at Overwatch, stored deep in her internal memory.

Adé wished that making a decision came as easy for herself.

“You keep thinking of this a choice you have to settle on, Adé, but it's not all ones and zeros. You can keep creating. Look at Hana and Lucio. Satya and Mei, everyone in R&D. You don’t have to choose between these two sides of yourself.”

“I know. Its just that, with that side of me, I know my merits are my own. Nobody knows who I am or where I come from, and that’s about to disappear. And here , I still wonder… like you said, I haven’t had a typical recruitment. Do you think anybody else would have had that same chance? How do I know everyone isn’t going to let my name impact how they see me?”

Teka chuckled, “Have you asked Ash? They were in the same situation, Adé, or don’t you think your mom would be very sensitive to what it's like working in the shadow of one’s mother?”

Adelah glared out to the sea, the shadow the Rock racing away from them. Adé knew Teka spoke the truth, but it didn’t change how she felt about it.

“Adelah, look at me.” Teka waited until she did, saw the stubborn threats of tears in the corner of her eyes. It hurt to know she doubted herself so. “They wanted you before they knew it was you, Adé. Back when you were just ‘the Informant.’ They wanted the person who could figure out how to contact them and then helped the team instead of exploiting them. Had Sombra so enthralled that she found evidence that it was what you wanted when there was none.

“They went to Oasis to recruit that person not knowing it was you, their daughter.

“Then when they learned it was, Mercy’s first instinct was to forbid it. I’d never seen her lose her composure like that in the middle of Overwatch business, even when she’s bringing people back to life. And despite how she feels about it, even she recognizes how much value you bring to this team.

“And Pharah watches you constantly. Makes sure you are decked out in more safety gear than any other agent, stresses over your safety until she hears everything in the debriefing. But she is determined not to hold you back, not to pressure you one way or the other.

“And yet when you asked to formally join, they gave you the application they had already mostly filled out. They could see the drive in you over the past weeks, they were long prepared for this.”

Teka wiped the tears from the corner of Adé’s eyes before continuing.

“They don’t want to babysit you Adé, they aren’t going to let someone who isn’t qualified or capable risk themselves or civilians. They need someone they can trust at their backs, and eventually… in their stead. They’re not going to hand over this organization to anyone who could jeopardize what they worked for their entire lives.

“Adelah, you got them to overcome their own worst critics-- themselves. If anything proves you earned your spot here it should be that.”

Adelah might have doubted herself, but Teka’s skills with reading people were undeniable. Her confidence was contagious and Adé was filled with the desire to prove Teka right.

“Teka… thank you,” She turned and pressed a kiss against the chest panel closest to her face and burst into laughter when Teka made a face to wink at her cheekily.