Sombra Wrecks Talon's Shit AU
Feb. 28th, 2013 03:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
moonshadowsIn a cheap, third-floor room rented by the day in an Argentinian slum, Sombra was hooking up equipment for her latest intrusion into Talon's systems when an icon started flashing in the lower-right corner of her visualization. An encrypted message from one of her friends. Curious, she opened it up.
Hm. Her friend had a contact who was in touch with some Egyptian sniper called the Shrike, who specifically asked for a message to be passed to Sombra. Shrike had reason to believe that Talon had...done things...to the widow of that murdered Overwatch agent from a few years back, and also to...Gabriel Reyes. The Shrike wanted both of them out of Talon and was willing to negotiate payment. Further information and proof to be provided if Sombra responded.
Fuck. Papi Gabriel was still alive? Sombra sent back a quick message expressing her vehement interest in working with the Shrike. Then she finished setting up and sat down to do some serious snooping.
===
Once "Reaper" was gone, and her sponsor had been notified, Sombra did a quick but thorough snooping and then curled up in a chair to check the message her friend had sent back. Apparently the Shrike was serious; Sombra now had contact info for what was probably a very secure dummy device, but it meant she wouldn't have to pass information through anyone else. When she logged remotely into the device, she found a video file and a dump of what looked like medical analysis data. The video wasn't very long, just a few seconds, and showed Reaper giving orders before flowing away as a cloud of smoke, just like she'd seen him do a few minutes ago. The medical data suggested that he was at least partially sustained by a nanite swarm.
Reaper was Gabriel Reyes? Well, that was moderately horrifying. But if that was the case, then Talon's systems might have information proving that he was set up...and Shrike hadn't specified anything about how the targets were to be removed.
She opened up a text document. IS THE VIDEO INFORMATION, OR PROOF?
After a minute, someone added a line. IDENTIFICATION OF ONE TARGET. STILL INTERESTED?
DO YOU HAVE PROOF THAT REAPER IS GABRIEL REYES?
NONE THAT I CAN SHARE.
Sombra scowled. PROOF THAT CAN'T BE SHARED IS HARDLY PROOF.
I DON'T EXPECT YOU TO BELIEVE ME, BUT I KNEW HIM FOR MANY YEARS. I HEARD REAPER SPEAK. THAT IS, WITHOUT A DOUBT, GABRIEL REYES.
AND YOU WANT HIM OUT OF TALON. BY WHAT MEANS?
WHATEVER IT TAKES, the Shrike typed slowly. SHORT OF DEATH. HIM AND AMELIE BOTH.
PROOF OF IDENTIFICATION FOR THE SECOND TARGET?
I THINK YOU'LL RECOGNIZE HER. SHE'LL BE THE ONE WITH BLUE SKIN.
Sombra glanced up at the occupied room. I'LL BE IN TOUCH WHEN I HAVE GATHERED MORE INFORMATION.
WHAT ARE YOU ASKING IN PAYMENT?
The cursor blinked for a long minute before Sombra typed, WHEN I NEED SOMETHING, I WILL LET YOU KNOW.
===
The first few days, Sombra just played along, allowing Reaper to evaluate her while also evaluating him. He certainly had Papi Gabriel's no-bullshit flair, but either he thoroughly despised Talon and all of its minions, or he'd become immeasurably cruel and ruthless somewhere along the way. Once she was reasonably certain that the Shrike was right, she went digging into Talon's files on her two targets, but the most useful thing she found was a slew of medical data for Amelie/Widowmaker. Naturally, she copied it and stuck the copies in a secure dump. Then she went through Reaper's files with a fine-tooth comb, digging deeper, looking for proof that it was Gabriel Reyes behind Reaper's mask. When she found it, it was...gratifying. Proof that Talon had been fucking with Blackwatch. Names of moles, compromised missions, falsified orders. But Talon wasn't responsible for turning him into...whatever he was. She added the Blackwatch information to the dump and then left a link - but not the password - on the Shrike's secure device. Then she started digging around in other areas, trying to identify her newest friend. It wasn't really a surprise when she uncovered Ana Amari's trail.
Sombra opened a new text document. DOES HE KNOW YOU'RE ALIVE?
Several minutes later, a line was added by someone physically at the device. WE HAVE CROSSED PATHS, YES.
THAT'S NOT WHAT I ASKED, Sombra typed back. DOES REAPER KNOW YOU'RE ALIVE, ANA?
The cursor blinked. Then it moved down to a new line and letter by letter, words appeared. SO, YOU KNOW WHO I AM. DOES THIS CHANGE ANYTHING, SOMBRA?
Sombra glared at the screen. IT MIGHT, IF YOU DON'T ANSWER THE QUESTION.
HE KNOWS I AM ALIVE. HE KNOWS WHICH FACE IS BEHIND MY MASK, AND THAT I KNOW WHO IS BEHIND HIS. DOES THIS CHANGE ANYTHING?
ONE MORE QUESTION, PLEASE. WHY DO YOU WANT THE TARGETS EXTRACTED?
The Shrike - Ana - hesitated for a few seconds before replying. THEY WERE DEAR FRIENDS. I WANT THEM BACK.
Sombra sighed in relief. She'd been afraid this was an attempt to extract the two for trial and/or execution. THIS ONLY CHANGES THINGS FOR THE BETTER, she typed. I HAVE INFORMATION. I TRUST YOU TO USE IT WISELY. Then she added the password for the dump.
I HAVE INFORMATION AS WELL, Ana/Shrike typed almost immediately.
On the device, a new drive loaded. Sombra browsed the directory and found a dense mass of medical data gathered by repeated applications of biotic nanites that quickly got eaten by Reaper's swarm. Maybe it would have been helpful to a medical expert, but all it did for Sombra was give her an idea.
I WILL BE IN TOUCH, she informed the supposedly-dead sniper.
=
Catching Reaper in one spot long enough to get a good listen at his swarm was as easy as sneaking up on him during his morning ritual of holding - but not drinking - a cup of coffee. Then she curled up in a chair to sort through the programming. It didn't take long before she was making sounds of outrage and muttering under her breath in furious Spanish. Reaper, curious and possibly amused, listened for several minutes before stalking over.
"Problem?" he demanded, arms crossed.
Sombra rolled her eyes. "Ugh. Whoever programmed your swarm was shit at it. If you haven't killed them for incompetence, can I bitch them out?"
"What are you talking about?" he growled, wisping from the back and legs.
She flipped a screen around so he could see the programming. "Your nanite swarm. This is the worst programming I've seen since I was six. It's a wonder you can do anything at all. Whoever's in charge of keeping your swarm running should be shot. I could do better than this in my sleep."
"Could you, now?" The words were sharp, derisive. "Prove it."
"Like I wasn't going to do that anyway," she grumbled. "Would be faster to start from scratch than to try to clean this mess up, but give me a few hours."
Reaper sat on the couch and pretended to watch the news. In her chair, Sombra continued to curse and mutter in Spanish as she sorted through the knots and clumps of inefficient code.
"You kiss your mother with that mouth?" he asked in Spanish when she was still swearing half an hour later.
"If she hadn't died when I was five," Sombra shot back, not bothering to look up.
After a brief pause, Reaper asked, "Your grandmother never taught you better?"
"Raised in a gang. No blood family. Never knew my father. Anything else you want to know?"
The sharp tone seemed to ward Reaper off; he was silent for the next several minutes.
"I'd be insulted that Talon didn't bring me in specifically to fix this mess," she griped, "but I don't think they're smart enough to even know how bad this is or how good I am."
From the couch, Reaper chuckled darkly. "And how good are you?"
"WHY is there a clump THIS BIG that does NOTHING and has been here for FOUR YEARS! I'm taking it out," Sombra announced in exasperation. "Seriously, who's in charge of keeping your programming up to date? You should kill them. Just let me kick them in the nuts first. If they've even got them."
Reaper didn't reply to that.
Half an hour later, Sombra closed all her screens. "Okay, this is good enough for now, but oh my god it's like the programming equivalent of a dog eating a book and then puking it out again. Hold still," she said, bouncing over to the startled Reaper.
Pink-glowing hands pressed against his shoulders, pink ghosting over his body as the new programming was transferred to the swarm. Reaper blurred briefly, then solidified. The ache he'd had no words for, the effort of maintaining physical form, was gone. He dissolved into smoke, did a circuit of the room, and re-formed in front of Sombra. It was effortless.
"What would you need in order to program the swarm properly?" he asked in a growl that wasn't as angry as it sounded.
"You mean from scratch?" Sombra crossed her arms. "Biological sample from you or your DNA sequence. The swarm isn't programmed with it. Sloppy, sloppy work."
Reaper crossed his arms as well. "You mean you haven't already found it?"
"Please. Talon's records are useless, and you didn't even leave your birthday on file, much less your DNA." Sombra wasn't expecting Reaper to erupt into smoke at that. "I've blackmailed enough people to know what it looks like," she continued. "I don't know what they have on you, but you were my hero when I was little. I'm with you, not Talon."
"We'll talk later," he growled. Then he flowed out of the room.
===
Two weeks and three missions later, Sombra had a new project. An unfortunate explosion nearly cost them everything; Sombra was able to grab the material they'd been sent for and activate her translocation beacon, but Reaper had been caught in the blast and was a curdling mass of black smoke among the wreckage. After some frantic yelling, followed by some angry yelling, Sombra convinced him to flow into a (mostyly) empty five-gallon water bottle from the lab's break room. Then, before leaving, she poured an entire canister of sugar and several scraps of metal into the bottle to give Reaper's swarm something to eat.
The pilot seemed terrified, then relieved, to discover that Reaper had been contained in that way.
"What usually happens when he's this hurt?" Sombra asked once they were in the air.
The pilot laughed nervously. "He eats someone. Hasn't eaten me yet, but only because he needs me to fly the ship."
Back at the base, she went searching in the warehouse areas and cobbled together a sort of containment tub to dump Reaper into - as well as a small monitoring canister for a sample. While he rebuilt himself from sugar and metal scraps, she separated nanites from cells and discovered that the nanites went dormant without a bioelectrical system within several inches, and also that what passed for Reaper's biological material was basically ash that contained no intact DNA.
HE'S A MESS, she typed into a new text document for Ana to read.
WOULD IT HELP TO HAVE THE ORIGINAL PROGRAMMING? Ana typed back.
THAT DEPENDS. IS IT ALSO A MESS?
I HAVE NO WAY OF EVALUATING THAT. HOWEVER, I AM IN CONTACT WITH ANGELA ZIEGLER.
The programming was liable to be useless, Sombra, thought, but Ziegler could be useful in another way. I NEED THE DNA SEQUENCE FOR GABRIEL REYES. HIS BIOLOGICAL MATERIAL IS TOO DAMAGED FOR ME TO EXTRACT IT FROM HIS CELLS.
I WILL DO WHAT I CAN, Ana promised. THANK YOU.
===
Reaper seemed much friendlier once he'd pulled himself back together. Not actually friendly, just...less hostile. Sombra prepared a thick paste of metal dust and nutrients the next morning, and glared at Reaper until he extended one wisping hand over the plate and let the swarm absorb it. The fact that Talon had no after-mission care set up for him pissed her off, and she expressed herself at length in emphatic Spanish. The hacker had been busy in other ways while he was incapacitated, and the next patch she applied to Reaper's swarm contained a command that would condense him into a cube for easier transport in case he got damaged that badly again. Writing an override for Widowmaker's cybernetics was simplicity itself; at a moment's notice, Sombra could take indefinite control of both her targets.
Reaper's original DNA still evaded Sombra. Ana conveyed Angela Ziegler's apologies that the fire in her facility had destroyed all the samples she'd had for Gabriel Reyes, and Sombra spent a good ten minutes ranting and swearing in Spanish while Reaper watched in amusement. She hoped the SEP servers would have it, but Reaper had thoroughly destroyed them, something she complimented him on before expressing exasperation over. As a sort of apology, he told her his social security number.
It took only two days after that before she found his DNA sequence in the Los Angeles hospital system.
She asked him about the Omnic Crisis, and who he thought started it. He hinted about god programs that might have escaped. That was enough to make her paranoid, and she started digging into the mystery of who had given the orders that turned Blackwatch into a weapon to take down Overwatch.
===
The next time they came back from a mission, Sombra activated a camera and spied on Reaper reporting. He came back to find her vibrating with outrage, surrounded by nearly a dozen screens.
"What are you doing?" he demanded, furious and terrified.
"Planning revenge," she snapped out.
"For what?"
"For everything."
"Sombra..."
When nothing more was forthcoming, she looked up from her screens and realized that his body language was expressing concern. For her.
"I'm not dumb, Papi Gabriel," she said in a more subdued tone. "First rule of revenge is making sure the shitstorm you whip up doesn't hit you, too."
Stiffly, he sat on the couch and stared at her. "What did you call me?"
Sombra looked away in embarrassment that was clear despite her lack of blush. "Papi Gabriel. It's what we call you in Dorado. You're like the world's gang boss, kicking ass and not putting up with bullshit."
There was a pause while he wrestled with that. Then he said, "Don't call me by name."
"Can I call you Papi?" she asked, looking uncomfortably like a child who still thinks Santa is real encountering one in the mall.
Wisping heavily from his biceps and chest, he growled, "Fine. Now. What, exactly, are you doing."
"Buying an abandoned Overwatch safehouse and hiring omnics to fix it up."
"And?"
"Setting up a program that will siphon all of Talon's available funds to dummy accounts, then into other dummy accounts, then into real accounts, and destroy the dummies."
"...and?"
"Getting my fingers into as many missile systems as I can, programming them with the coordinates of Talon's bases."
"Aaaand?" Reaper couldn't imagine what else there could be, but he was certain the hacker who had weaseled her way past his defenses had something else up her sleeve.
"Falsifying orders to send the Blackwatch traitors on suicide missions."
"The what?"
Sombra's expression hardened. "Talon infiltrated Blackwatch. Used it as a weapon to attack Overwatch. I knew you weren't behind all the shit you got blamed for. I'm making sure the assholes who were responsible don't escape in the scramble."
"That still doesn't account for the head," Reaper snarled, wisping so heavily that only his mask could be seen behind the smoke. "If he catches you..."
"I'll be turned into a weapon, I know." For all her bravado, Sombra looked frighteningly vulnerable. "I've never hunted a god program before, Papi. I can write a data bomb to eat everything in Talon's servers, but I don't know if that will be enough." For a trembling moment she plead silently with him, her purple eyes meeting his mask's eyeholes. "Help me."
===
On the morning of July 4th, as the sun broke over the horizon in American capitol, hundreds of missiles from multiple different sites in multiple different countries all over the world suddenly launched without authorization. In half a dozen Talon bases, agents received urgent orders to immediately execute traitors in their midst. And in Morocco, a single ship took off. While the governments of the world buzzed with fear, anger, and denial, the missiles screamed towards targets that were quickly identified as not being populated cities or important landmarks. One by one they impacted, destroying Talon bases blinded by networks already flayed to nothing by the data bomb. Money flowed unnoticed to and out of dummy accounts, which disappeared once they were empty again.
Amidst all this chaos, no one noticed one little ship.
They landed in the ruins of the Overwatch HQ, where an omnic in a delivery van was waiting. Widowmaker left the ship first, covered completely by a burka. The omnic opened the door to the van and helped her inside. Sombra was next, her distinctive hair - or lack thereof - covered by a headscarf. As she was approaching the van, however, someone stepped out from behind a ruined wall and pointed a gun at her.
"Stop right there," drawled an angry voice.
Sombra froze. Reaper did not.
"Don't you touch her, McCree!" he roared, flowing from the ship to re-form in front of her, guns out.
Before he could shoot, Sombra commanded his swarm to shut down and he collapsed into a solid black one-foot cube. While McCree gaped, she tossed her bag to the omnic and knelt to heft the cube.
"What the fuck just happened?" demanded the cowboy as he stormed up. "Hey - I'm talking to you! Who are you? What are you doing here?" He grabbed Sombra's arm as she handed the cube to the omnic. "Answer me!"
"I don't have time for this," Sombra huffed.
One hand glowed; she reached over and grabbed McCree around his non-metal wrist, there was a muted flash, and the cowboy collapsed into a boneless heap. The omnic grabbed his hands, Sombra got the ankles, and they slid him into the van to sprawl unconscious on the floor next to bag and cube. A series of arm-waves to the pilot, and the ship retracted its ramp before taking off again. Calmly, the omnic climbed out and closed the van doors, leaving Sombra inside while he went around to the driver's seat and climbed back in. Moments later, the van drove out of the ruins and merged with Zurich traffic.
=
Angela Ziegler may not have been expecting that this would be the day a very special patient arrived on her metaphoric doorstep, but she was certainly prepared. She asked no questions of the omnic who guided the cloth-covered woman to the door, only nodded grimly and pressed the injector to the inside of the woman's hidden arm. The sedative took effect almost immediately, and two orderlies rushed forward to catch the slumping figure and secure her to the waiting gurney. By the time she was secured and Angela thought to look for the mysterious benefactor who had delivered Widowmaker for retro-conditioning, the omnic and the van both were gone.
=
A comfortable bed was not where Jesse McCree was expecting to find himself when he woke up. For a minute he wondered if he'd just dreamed the whole thing - going to the ruins in another futile attempt at finding closure, stumbling on what sure looked a hell of a lot like human trafficking, being threatened by a monster made of smoke who knew his name and then seeing it turn into a black cube - but he was fully dressed and sober. He sat up, reassured to find his hat sitting on the dresser and puzzled to find his Peacekeeper sitting underneath it. A covered tray on the bedside table turned out to hold sandwiches. One of the three doors was closet, the second was a full bathroom with a shower stall.
The third door, the door that would have let him out of the room, was locked.
=
"You brought him with us?" Reaper snarls, wisping heavily from the back, head, and shoulders.
"It was the best way!" Sombra shouted back.
"You should have let me kill him!"
"And then we'd have a dead cowboy to take with us! We had to get out of there, Papi, you know that!"
"That doesn't mean you had to take him with us!"
Sombra gave him an exasperated look. "What, I should have just left him there, where he could tell anyone what he saw?"
"There's no witnesses now," Reaper growled.
"Okay, fine. You want him dead?" Sombra snapped. "I go kill him myself."
She hadn't done more than turn towards the locked bedroom when Reaper shouted, "No!"
"No?" she asked, turning back. "I thought you wanted him dead."
The wisps bleeding from Reaper's chest spoke louder than any words.
"It not him you want dead," she pointed out sharply. "Remember that. I not gonna kill him, and I not gonna let you kill him either. Right now, I gonna talk to him. Okay?"
"Fine," he growled reluctantly. Then, before either of them could say anything else, he dissolved into smoke and flowed out of the room.
Sombra rolled her eyes, sighed, and walked over to the locked door. "Knock knock," she said, fitting words to action.
After a pause, McCree drawled, "Come in."
Cautiously, she unlocked and opened the door. The cowboy was leaning against the dresser, hat restored to its proper place. The gun, however, had been moved over to the bedside table - across the room from either of them. McCree caught her looking at him with one eyebrow arched in a silent question, and tipped his hat.
"You left me here with food, facilities, and a loaded weapon," he said. "You clearly meant me no harm. I thought it only polite to return the favor. Y'mind telling me what happened, though?"
Sombra closed the door behind her and leaned against the wall beside it. "You interrupted an extraction. I saved your life and brought you with us. What were you doing there?"
"I don't see how that's any o' your business," he answered coldly.
"Did you not just hear me say I saved your life?"
"Yer welcome to kill me," he retorted, still calm and cold. "But my personal business ain't none o' yours."
"So it was personal," Sombra said, grinning as McCree pressed his lips together unhappily. "Were you searching for the remains of your old boss?"
Arms crossed, McCree glowered but said nothing.
"You were never going to find them, you know." After a pause to let him fume, she said, "He's not dead."
McCree jerked like he'd been shot. "What?"
"He's not dead," Sombra sighed. "He's just a fucked-up mess, physically and psychologically."
"Just how fucked-up are we talking?" the cowboy asked warily.
Sombra covered her face briefly with both hands. "Physically? He's held together by nanites and hate. Psychologically...he's effectively been a prisoner of war for five years, and blackmailed into working for the enemy."
The color drained from McCree's face. "That guy. He turned into a cube. Was that...?"
"Yeah. I shut down his swarm to keep him from shooting you."
Pale and shaking, McCree slid down the side of the dresser to sit on the floor, arms crossed on his knees. It took him a minute or two to regain his composure. "I need...please, whoever you are, will you give him a message for me? I...I assume he's here, wherever 'here' is."
"I'm Sombra," she said, "and yes. What's the message?"
With his chin, he pointed to the bedside table. "Take my Peacekeeper. Give it to him. Tell him I want to talk."
=
Reaper looked at the gun in Sombra's hands. "He wants to talk."
"That's what he said."
"I could kill him."
"But you won't," she said in a hard voice, "because it's not really him you want to kill."
He didn't bother answering. He dissolved into smoke and flowed towards the room they'd stuck McCree in, leaving Sombra holding his gun. The cowboy sat on the floor and flinched as black smoke flowed under the door to consolidate into the masked figure of Reaper, arms crossed, irritation in every molecule of his wisping body.
"You want to talk," he spat.
"I want to talk," McCree said evenly, "and I want you to listen, because you didn't do that before."
Reaper didn't flinch, but the wisping died down for a beat before resuming.
"I tried to tell you somethin' wasn't right. I did some poking around, nearly got offed by a handful of guys I thought were answering to you. Tried to tell you about it. You wouldn't even let me finish," McCree said plaintively, "so I walked out. Figured either you still cared about one white-trash cowboy and you'd come after me...or those guys really were answering to you, and I was better off cutting my losses because you wanted me dead."
"No," Reaper growled, wisping so heavily that he lost cohesion and had to forcibly pull himself back together. "They're dead. Talon's dead. And the asshole behind everything, who used your face, and my face, and Morrison's face, he's dead by now, too. We won."
"Not much of a victory," McCree said in a dejected tone of voice. "You're made of nanites and hate. Overwatch is ruins. Jack's dead, Ana's dead..."
"Ana...is alive," Reaper growled reluctantly. "And they never did find Morrison's body."
"But what about you?"
Reaper stared at the wicked gauntlets that passed for his hands. "Sombra said that with my DNA sequence, she could program my swarm properly from scratch. We'll see what she comes up with."
McCree contemplated that for a minute before asking, "Do you trust her?"
"Define 'trust'," he countered dryly. "She helped me when she didn't have to. She got angry when she found out Talon was trying to get me killed. And her idea of 'revenge' is 'hijack the world's collective missile supply and rain fiery death down upon every Talon base in the world simultaneously'. Have you ever wanted a little sister? Because I think if she can get me my body back, I'm going to adopt her."
"Y'never adopted me," McCree grumbled.
"Technically, I was your legal guardian. But fine, you want me to adopt you? If Sombra gets me my body back, I'll adopt you."
"You mean that?" the cowboy asked in a choked voice. Reaper hesitated, then nodded, and McCree found himself wiping away tears. "Can...can I call you Dad?'
Reaper let out a long-suffering sigh. "I let Sombra call me Papi, so...fine."
Jesse McCree gave him a smile that would have melted his heart...if he'd had one. "Thanks, Dad."
=
While Reaper went to talk to McCree, Sombra curled up on the couch and made her way into Ana's secure device.
EXTRACTION COMPLETE, she typed in a new document.
A few minutes later, Ana typed back, SOMBRA, WHAT DID YOU DO??
I GOT REVENGE.
YOU NEARLY SET OFF A WORLD WAR.
DID YOU KNOW THAT THE GOD PROGRAM WHO STARTED THE OMNIC CRISIS GOT AWAY? Sombra asked, her lips pressed into an unhappy line. HE ALSO INFILTRATED BLACKWATCH, CAUSED THE FALL OF OVERWATCH, WAS RUNNING TALON, AND TORTURED PAPI GABRIEL FOR FIVE YEARS WHILE BLACKMAILING HIM INTO BEING HIS SLAVE.
Two minutes passed.
I DID NOT KNOW THAT, Ana typed slowly.
BETWEEN THE TWO OF US, PAPI GABRIEL AND I SET A TRAP AND KILLED HIM ALONG WITH THE REST OF TALON. AND DON'T WORRY, I DISABLED THE MISSILES I DIDN'T USE.
Another two minutes passed.
YOU SAID THE EXTRACTION IS COMPLETE. WHERE ARE THE TARGETS?
I DELIVERED WIDOWMAKER TO ANGELA ZIEGLER. REAPER IS HERE WITH ME, IN THE ZURICH SAFEHOUSE. YOU'RE WELCOME TO VISIT.
AND THE QUESTION OF PAYMENT?
Sombra smirked. I STOLE ALL THEIR MONEY AND KILLED THE INSTIGATOR OF THE OMNIC CRISIS. THAT'S ABOVE AND BEYOND WHAT I WENT IN FOR IN THE FIRST PLACE. I'M GOING TO CALL THIS EVEN.
===
They were sitting in the living room, Reaper staring at the news and Jesse McCree eating sandwiches while Sombra sat surrounded by screens. Suddenly, Reaper growled, "I've been what?"
McCree froze.
"What, Papi?" Sombra asked without looking up.
Wisping furiously, he demanded, "I've been exonerated?"
"Oh," she said absently, still prodding at her screens. "I guess Ana found a way to do something useful with that info I gave her."
"You what?"
Sombra moved three screens out of the way so she could see Reaper. "I found proof that Talon infiltrated Blackwatch and set you up, and I gave it to Ana Amari."
"You...are in contact...with Ana."
"She contacted me first."
"Why?" he demanded.
"Wanted you and Widowmaker out of Talon by any means necessary short of death," Sombra answered calmly.
The wisping got heavier. "Is that why you were there?"
"No. I was already going in, looking for information on who started the Omnic Crisis. But if you think I would not do everything I could to help you once I found out you were alive..." she trailed off threateningly.
The angry wisps died down, but the ones coming off Reaper's chest doubled. "So my name has been cleared," he said in a growl that was trying to be angry. "That does me no good."
Sombra rolled her eyes and huffed. "I'm working on it, Papi! Geez, give me a few hours! Uh...you still gonna be a mess of nanites, I can't replicate the bacterial colonies you should have, so the swarm gonna do that for you. And the most recent full scan I found was your 45-year physical."
"Fine," Reaper said shortly, but the angry wisps had completely died down.
McCree waited a minute to be sure he wasn't interrupting before saying hesitantly, "Ana's alive?"
Sombra tuned them both out, all her attention on writing a better swarm program from scratch.
=
"Done," Sombra announced somewhere after midnight, closing all the screens.
Reaper turned to look at her, a few anxious wisps coming off of him. "You're done. You've written a new program, from scratch."
"This is what it should have been," she said, stretching. "None of the dumb improvised bullshit I saw in the code about trying to maintain cohesion and form without defining what that form was. Just your DNA, and a starting point, and a combination digestive-immune system that won't quit. You may have some kickass regenerative abilities, too, if you eat right. You get shot, blood may go back into your body if it doesn't splatter too far. No more falling apart because you got hit too hard."
"Yessss," he growled like a B-movie villain. "Gabriel Reyes shall live again! Muahahahahahahaha!"
The deliberately unhinged laughter was too much; Sombra giggled helplesly. "Oh my god Papi, why you gotta be so dramatic?"
"Because I can be," he answered smugly. "Now, hit me up. I want to freak McCree out."
"It's going to take a while to convert you to actual flesh and blood," she warned him.
"I don't care. Do it."
"Alright." Sombra stood up and started walking to the bedroom whose bathroom had a tub rather than just a shower stall. "Come on, Mr. Impatient."
Reaper followed her into the bathroom, climbed into the tub, and then sat there feeling silly. "Now what?"
The hacker pressed pink-glowing hands to his chest. The glow ghosted over his form, and then he dissolved into a pool of black smoke. "See you on the other side," she told the puddle.
=
Rather than spend the night dumping sugar, bits of metal, and water into the tub, Sombra just over-estimated how much of each material would be needed and added it all at once. Then she ordered some clothes for overnight delivery and went to bed.
Reaper was a man-shaped lump of flesh in the tub when she woke up, and the swarm hadn't run out of material, so she checked in with her omnium and started redistributing her stolen wealth. There would be no more stealing, no more begging for Los Muertos.
The clothes arrived; Sombra folded them and left them on the sink. Another hour, maybe two, and Reaper would complete his transformation back into Gabriel Reyes.
Less than an hour later, the safehouse security system reported intruders. "Hey, McCree," Sombra called without looking up from her screens, "go see who's at the door, will you?"
"Who's at-"
A faint knocking interrupted the cowboy.
"-the door," he finished. "Well, alright then."
Booted feet rattled down the curved stairs, and then Sombra could hear voices exclaim happily. Satisfied that her two guests were getting along, she closed her screens and went to go check on Reaper. She found the shower curtain drawn and an assortment of sounds coming from behind it, liquid and flesh, splashing and gurgling. Once she was satisfied that Gabriel Reyes was in control of his balance, she fetched a towel and hung it by the tub and closed the bathroom door behind her. Rather than venture into the living room, though, she sat on the bed and opened a few screens to entertain herself with while she waited.
=
If Gabriel was surprised to see Sombra waiting, he didn't show it. "Clothes," he said casually as she looked up. "Good catch. I hadn't thought of that."
"Everything work okay?" she asked, ignoring the comment.
"Yeah," he said slowly. "I feel great." He may not have known the hacker for long, but he knew her well enough to be able to tell that something was wrong.
"Good. I've set you up with a few million in a local account, and Ana's in the living room with McCree."
Instead of moving to the door of the room, Gabriel moved to stand in front of the bed. "What's wrong, Sombra?"
"Noth-"
One raised hand silenced the surprised protest. "Don't bullshit me, mija. What's. Wrong."
"Nothing," she insisted while also looking like she wanted to cry. "Just making sure everything's worked out before I go back to Dorado."
Gabriel frowned. "And why are you going back to Dorado?"
"Because it's my home?" she snapped, the anger doing nothing to hide the other emotions. "The god program is dead. You and Amelie have been extracted. Both my missions have been completed. I'm not needed here anymore."
So that was it, Gabriel thought. Running away before she could be rejected. "Fuck that," he said. "You're not leaving until I've legally adopted you, you got that?"
Sombra's mouth fell open. "...what?"
Instead of answering, Gabriel pulled her to her feet and hugged her tightly. It wasn't really a surprise when she burst into confused tears.
"You think, after all you've done for me, I'd really just let you walk away?" he murmured into her hair. "Not gonna happen. Unless you don't want me to be your father."
"I want it," she sobbed into his chest. "I want it, Papi."
"I hope you and McCree can get along, because I'm adopting him, too. I mean, feel free to give him shit because he's your brother and fuck, like I don't give him shit? But no killing each other, you hear me?"
"I hear you," she whispered.
"Good." Another long moment of hugging, and then he released her. "Now, come and meet your aunt. You know," he said as he pulled the bedroom door open, "they never found Jack Morrison's body. I'll bet that bastard survived. Think you could track him down?"
Sombra grinned at him. "I'll see what I can do."
Gabriel grinned back. "That's my girl."
Hm. Her friend had a contact who was in touch with some Egyptian sniper called the Shrike, who specifically asked for a message to be passed to Sombra. Shrike had reason to believe that Talon had...done things...to the widow of that murdered Overwatch agent from a few years back, and also to...Gabriel Reyes. The Shrike wanted both of them out of Talon and was willing to negotiate payment. Further information and proof to be provided if Sombra responded.
Fuck. Papi Gabriel was still alive? Sombra sent back a quick message expressing her vehement interest in working with the Shrike. Then she finished setting up and sat down to do some serious snooping.
===
Once "Reaper" was gone, and her sponsor had been notified, Sombra did a quick but thorough snooping and then curled up in a chair to check the message her friend had sent back. Apparently the Shrike was serious; Sombra now had contact info for what was probably a very secure dummy device, but it meant she wouldn't have to pass information through anyone else. When she logged remotely into the device, she found a video file and a dump of what looked like medical analysis data. The video wasn't very long, just a few seconds, and showed Reaper giving orders before flowing away as a cloud of smoke, just like she'd seen him do a few minutes ago. The medical data suggested that he was at least partially sustained by a nanite swarm.
Reaper was Gabriel Reyes? Well, that was moderately horrifying. But if that was the case, then Talon's systems might have information proving that he was set up...and Shrike hadn't specified anything about how the targets were to be removed.
She opened up a text document. IS THE VIDEO INFORMATION, OR PROOF?
After a minute, someone added a line. IDENTIFICATION OF ONE TARGET. STILL INTERESTED?
DO YOU HAVE PROOF THAT REAPER IS GABRIEL REYES?
NONE THAT I CAN SHARE.
Sombra scowled. PROOF THAT CAN'T BE SHARED IS HARDLY PROOF.
I DON'T EXPECT YOU TO BELIEVE ME, BUT I KNEW HIM FOR MANY YEARS. I HEARD REAPER SPEAK. THAT IS, WITHOUT A DOUBT, GABRIEL REYES.
AND YOU WANT HIM OUT OF TALON. BY WHAT MEANS?
WHATEVER IT TAKES, the Shrike typed slowly. SHORT OF DEATH. HIM AND AMELIE BOTH.
PROOF OF IDENTIFICATION FOR THE SECOND TARGET?
I THINK YOU'LL RECOGNIZE HER. SHE'LL BE THE ONE WITH BLUE SKIN.
Sombra glanced up at the occupied room. I'LL BE IN TOUCH WHEN I HAVE GATHERED MORE INFORMATION.
WHAT ARE YOU ASKING IN PAYMENT?
The cursor blinked for a long minute before Sombra typed, WHEN I NEED SOMETHING, I WILL LET YOU KNOW.
===
The first few days, Sombra just played along, allowing Reaper to evaluate her while also evaluating him. He certainly had Papi Gabriel's no-bullshit flair, but either he thoroughly despised Talon and all of its minions, or he'd become immeasurably cruel and ruthless somewhere along the way. Once she was reasonably certain that the Shrike was right, she went digging into Talon's files on her two targets, but the most useful thing she found was a slew of medical data for Amelie/Widowmaker. Naturally, she copied it and stuck the copies in a secure dump. Then she went through Reaper's files with a fine-tooth comb, digging deeper, looking for proof that it was Gabriel Reyes behind Reaper's mask. When she found it, it was...gratifying. Proof that Talon had been fucking with Blackwatch. Names of moles, compromised missions, falsified orders. But Talon wasn't responsible for turning him into...whatever he was. She added the Blackwatch information to the dump and then left a link - but not the password - on the Shrike's secure device. Then she started digging around in other areas, trying to identify her newest friend. It wasn't really a surprise when she uncovered Ana Amari's trail.
Sombra opened a new text document. DOES HE KNOW YOU'RE ALIVE?
Several minutes later, a line was added by someone physically at the device. WE HAVE CROSSED PATHS, YES.
THAT'S NOT WHAT I ASKED, Sombra typed back. DOES REAPER KNOW YOU'RE ALIVE, ANA?
The cursor blinked. Then it moved down to a new line and letter by letter, words appeared. SO, YOU KNOW WHO I AM. DOES THIS CHANGE ANYTHING, SOMBRA?
Sombra glared at the screen. IT MIGHT, IF YOU DON'T ANSWER THE QUESTION.
HE KNOWS I AM ALIVE. HE KNOWS WHICH FACE IS BEHIND MY MASK, AND THAT I KNOW WHO IS BEHIND HIS. DOES THIS CHANGE ANYTHING?
ONE MORE QUESTION, PLEASE. WHY DO YOU WANT THE TARGETS EXTRACTED?
The Shrike - Ana - hesitated for a few seconds before replying. THEY WERE DEAR FRIENDS. I WANT THEM BACK.
Sombra sighed in relief. She'd been afraid this was an attempt to extract the two for trial and/or execution. THIS ONLY CHANGES THINGS FOR THE BETTER, she typed. I HAVE INFORMATION. I TRUST YOU TO USE IT WISELY. Then she added the password for the dump.
I HAVE INFORMATION AS WELL, Ana/Shrike typed almost immediately.
On the device, a new drive loaded. Sombra browsed the directory and found a dense mass of medical data gathered by repeated applications of biotic nanites that quickly got eaten by Reaper's swarm. Maybe it would have been helpful to a medical expert, but all it did for Sombra was give her an idea.
I WILL BE IN TOUCH, she informed the supposedly-dead sniper.
=
Catching Reaper in one spot long enough to get a good listen at his swarm was as easy as sneaking up on him during his morning ritual of holding - but not drinking - a cup of coffee. Then she curled up in a chair to sort through the programming. It didn't take long before she was making sounds of outrage and muttering under her breath in furious Spanish. Reaper, curious and possibly amused, listened for several minutes before stalking over.
"Problem?" he demanded, arms crossed.
Sombra rolled her eyes. "Ugh. Whoever programmed your swarm was shit at it. If you haven't killed them for incompetence, can I bitch them out?"
"What are you talking about?" he growled, wisping from the back and legs.
She flipped a screen around so he could see the programming. "Your nanite swarm. This is the worst programming I've seen since I was six. It's a wonder you can do anything at all. Whoever's in charge of keeping your swarm running should be shot. I could do better than this in my sleep."
"Could you, now?" The words were sharp, derisive. "Prove it."
"Like I wasn't going to do that anyway," she grumbled. "Would be faster to start from scratch than to try to clean this mess up, but give me a few hours."
Reaper sat on the couch and pretended to watch the news. In her chair, Sombra continued to curse and mutter in Spanish as she sorted through the knots and clumps of inefficient code.
"You kiss your mother with that mouth?" he asked in Spanish when she was still swearing half an hour later.
"If she hadn't died when I was five," Sombra shot back, not bothering to look up.
After a brief pause, Reaper asked, "Your grandmother never taught you better?"
"Raised in a gang. No blood family. Never knew my father. Anything else you want to know?"
The sharp tone seemed to ward Reaper off; he was silent for the next several minutes.
"I'd be insulted that Talon didn't bring me in specifically to fix this mess," she griped, "but I don't think they're smart enough to even know how bad this is or how good I am."
From the couch, Reaper chuckled darkly. "And how good are you?"
"WHY is there a clump THIS BIG that does NOTHING and has been here for FOUR YEARS! I'm taking it out," Sombra announced in exasperation. "Seriously, who's in charge of keeping your programming up to date? You should kill them. Just let me kick them in the nuts first. If they've even got them."
Reaper didn't reply to that.
Half an hour later, Sombra closed all her screens. "Okay, this is good enough for now, but oh my god it's like the programming equivalent of a dog eating a book and then puking it out again. Hold still," she said, bouncing over to the startled Reaper.
Pink-glowing hands pressed against his shoulders, pink ghosting over his body as the new programming was transferred to the swarm. Reaper blurred briefly, then solidified. The ache he'd had no words for, the effort of maintaining physical form, was gone. He dissolved into smoke, did a circuit of the room, and re-formed in front of Sombra. It was effortless.
"What would you need in order to program the swarm properly?" he asked in a growl that wasn't as angry as it sounded.
"You mean from scratch?" Sombra crossed her arms. "Biological sample from you or your DNA sequence. The swarm isn't programmed with it. Sloppy, sloppy work."
Reaper crossed his arms as well. "You mean you haven't already found it?"
"Please. Talon's records are useless, and you didn't even leave your birthday on file, much less your DNA." Sombra wasn't expecting Reaper to erupt into smoke at that. "I've blackmailed enough people to know what it looks like," she continued. "I don't know what they have on you, but you were my hero when I was little. I'm with you, not Talon."
"We'll talk later," he growled. Then he flowed out of the room.
===
Two weeks and three missions later, Sombra had a new project. An unfortunate explosion nearly cost them everything; Sombra was able to grab the material they'd been sent for and activate her translocation beacon, but Reaper had been caught in the blast and was a curdling mass of black smoke among the wreckage. After some frantic yelling, followed by some angry yelling, Sombra convinced him to flow into a (mostyly) empty five-gallon water bottle from the lab's break room. Then, before leaving, she poured an entire canister of sugar and several scraps of metal into the bottle to give Reaper's swarm something to eat.
The pilot seemed terrified, then relieved, to discover that Reaper had been contained in that way.
"What usually happens when he's this hurt?" Sombra asked once they were in the air.
The pilot laughed nervously. "He eats someone. Hasn't eaten me yet, but only because he needs me to fly the ship."
Back at the base, she went searching in the warehouse areas and cobbled together a sort of containment tub to dump Reaper into - as well as a small monitoring canister for a sample. While he rebuilt himself from sugar and metal scraps, she separated nanites from cells and discovered that the nanites went dormant without a bioelectrical system within several inches, and also that what passed for Reaper's biological material was basically ash that contained no intact DNA.
HE'S A MESS, she typed into a new text document for Ana to read.
WOULD IT HELP TO HAVE THE ORIGINAL PROGRAMMING? Ana typed back.
THAT DEPENDS. IS IT ALSO A MESS?
I HAVE NO WAY OF EVALUATING THAT. HOWEVER, I AM IN CONTACT WITH ANGELA ZIEGLER.
The programming was liable to be useless, Sombra, thought, but Ziegler could be useful in another way. I NEED THE DNA SEQUENCE FOR GABRIEL REYES. HIS BIOLOGICAL MATERIAL IS TOO DAMAGED FOR ME TO EXTRACT IT FROM HIS CELLS.
I WILL DO WHAT I CAN, Ana promised. THANK YOU.
===
Reaper seemed much friendlier once he'd pulled himself back together. Not actually friendly, just...less hostile. Sombra prepared a thick paste of metal dust and nutrients the next morning, and glared at Reaper until he extended one wisping hand over the plate and let the swarm absorb it. The fact that Talon had no after-mission care set up for him pissed her off, and she expressed herself at length in emphatic Spanish. The hacker had been busy in other ways while he was incapacitated, and the next patch she applied to Reaper's swarm contained a command that would condense him into a cube for easier transport in case he got damaged that badly again. Writing an override for Widowmaker's cybernetics was simplicity itself; at a moment's notice, Sombra could take indefinite control of both her targets.
Reaper's original DNA still evaded Sombra. Ana conveyed Angela Ziegler's apologies that the fire in her facility had destroyed all the samples she'd had for Gabriel Reyes, and Sombra spent a good ten minutes ranting and swearing in Spanish while Reaper watched in amusement. She hoped the SEP servers would have it, but Reaper had thoroughly destroyed them, something she complimented him on before expressing exasperation over. As a sort of apology, he told her his social security number.
It took only two days after that before she found his DNA sequence in the Los Angeles hospital system.
She asked him about the Omnic Crisis, and who he thought started it. He hinted about god programs that might have escaped. That was enough to make her paranoid, and she started digging into the mystery of who had given the orders that turned Blackwatch into a weapon to take down Overwatch.
===
The next time they came back from a mission, Sombra activated a camera and spied on Reaper reporting. He came back to find her vibrating with outrage, surrounded by nearly a dozen screens.
"What are you doing?" he demanded, furious and terrified.
"Planning revenge," she snapped out.
"For what?"
"For everything."
"Sombra..."
When nothing more was forthcoming, she looked up from her screens and realized that his body language was expressing concern. For her.
"I'm not dumb, Papi Gabriel," she said in a more subdued tone. "First rule of revenge is making sure the shitstorm you whip up doesn't hit you, too."
Stiffly, he sat on the couch and stared at her. "What did you call me?"
Sombra looked away in embarrassment that was clear despite her lack of blush. "Papi Gabriel. It's what we call you in Dorado. You're like the world's gang boss, kicking ass and not putting up with bullshit."
There was a pause while he wrestled with that. Then he said, "Don't call me by name."
"Can I call you Papi?" she asked, looking uncomfortably like a child who still thinks Santa is real encountering one in the mall.
Wisping heavily from his biceps and chest, he growled, "Fine. Now. What, exactly, are you doing."
"Buying an abandoned Overwatch safehouse and hiring omnics to fix it up."
"And?"
"Setting up a program that will siphon all of Talon's available funds to dummy accounts, then into other dummy accounts, then into real accounts, and destroy the dummies."
"...and?"
"Getting my fingers into as many missile systems as I can, programming them with the coordinates of Talon's bases."
"Aaaand?" Reaper couldn't imagine what else there could be, but he was certain the hacker who had weaseled her way past his defenses had something else up her sleeve.
"Falsifying orders to send the Blackwatch traitors on suicide missions."
"The what?"
Sombra's expression hardened. "Talon infiltrated Blackwatch. Used it as a weapon to attack Overwatch. I knew you weren't behind all the shit you got blamed for. I'm making sure the assholes who were responsible don't escape in the scramble."
"That still doesn't account for the head," Reaper snarled, wisping so heavily that only his mask could be seen behind the smoke. "If he catches you..."
"I'll be turned into a weapon, I know." For all her bravado, Sombra looked frighteningly vulnerable. "I've never hunted a god program before, Papi. I can write a data bomb to eat everything in Talon's servers, but I don't know if that will be enough." For a trembling moment she plead silently with him, her purple eyes meeting his mask's eyeholes. "Help me."
===
On the morning of July 4th, as the sun broke over the horizon in American capitol, hundreds of missiles from multiple different sites in multiple different countries all over the world suddenly launched without authorization. In half a dozen Talon bases, agents received urgent orders to immediately execute traitors in their midst. And in Morocco, a single ship took off. While the governments of the world buzzed with fear, anger, and denial, the missiles screamed towards targets that were quickly identified as not being populated cities or important landmarks. One by one they impacted, destroying Talon bases blinded by networks already flayed to nothing by the data bomb. Money flowed unnoticed to and out of dummy accounts, which disappeared once they were empty again.
Amidst all this chaos, no one noticed one little ship.
They landed in the ruins of the Overwatch HQ, where an omnic in a delivery van was waiting. Widowmaker left the ship first, covered completely by a burka. The omnic opened the door to the van and helped her inside. Sombra was next, her distinctive hair - or lack thereof - covered by a headscarf. As she was approaching the van, however, someone stepped out from behind a ruined wall and pointed a gun at her.
"Stop right there," drawled an angry voice.
Sombra froze. Reaper did not.
"Don't you touch her, McCree!" he roared, flowing from the ship to re-form in front of her, guns out.
Before he could shoot, Sombra commanded his swarm to shut down and he collapsed into a solid black one-foot cube. While McCree gaped, she tossed her bag to the omnic and knelt to heft the cube.
"What the fuck just happened?" demanded the cowboy as he stormed up. "Hey - I'm talking to you! Who are you? What are you doing here?" He grabbed Sombra's arm as she handed the cube to the omnic. "Answer me!"
"I don't have time for this," Sombra huffed.
One hand glowed; she reached over and grabbed McCree around his non-metal wrist, there was a muted flash, and the cowboy collapsed into a boneless heap. The omnic grabbed his hands, Sombra got the ankles, and they slid him into the van to sprawl unconscious on the floor next to bag and cube. A series of arm-waves to the pilot, and the ship retracted its ramp before taking off again. Calmly, the omnic climbed out and closed the van doors, leaving Sombra inside while he went around to the driver's seat and climbed back in. Moments later, the van drove out of the ruins and merged with Zurich traffic.
=
Angela Ziegler may not have been expecting that this would be the day a very special patient arrived on her metaphoric doorstep, but she was certainly prepared. She asked no questions of the omnic who guided the cloth-covered woman to the door, only nodded grimly and pressed the injector to the inside of the woman's hidden arm. The sedative took effect almost immediately, and two orderlies rushed forward to catch the slumping figure and secure her to the waiting gurney. By the time she was secured and Angela thought to look for the mysterious benefactor who had delivered Widowmaker for retro-conditioning, the omnic and the van both were gone.
=
A comfortable bed was not where Jesse McCree was expecting to find himself when he woke up. For a minute he wondered if he'd just dreamed the whole thing - going to the ruins in another futile attempt at finding closure, stumbling on what sure looked a hell of a lot like human trafficking, being threatened by a monster made of smoke who knew his name and then seeing it turn into a black cube - but he was fully dressed and sober. He sat up, reassured to find his hat sitting on the dresser and puzzled to find his Peacekeeper sitting underneath it. A covered tray on the bedside table turned out to hold sandwiches. One of the three doors was closet, the second was a full bathroom with a shower stall.
The third door, the door that would have let him out of the room, was locked.
=
"You brought him with us?" Reaper snarls, wisping heavily from the back, head, and shoulders.
"It was the best way!" Sombra shouted back.
"You should have let me kill him!"
"And then we'd have a dead cowboy to take with us! We had to get out of there, Papi, you know that!"
"That doesn't mean you had to take him with us!"
Sombra gave him an exasperated look. "What, I should have just left him there, where he could tell anyone what he saw?"
"There's no witnesses now," Reaper growled.
"Okay, fine. You want him dead?" Sombra snapped. "I go kill him myself."
She hadn't done more than turn towards the locked bedroom when Reaper shouted, "No!"
"No?" she asked, turning back. "I thought you wanted him dead."
The wisps bleeding from Reaper's chest spoke louder than any words.
"It not him you want dead," she pointed out sharply. "Remember that. I not gonna kill him, and I not gonna let you kill him either. Right now, I gonna talk to him. Okay?"
"Fine," he growled reluctantly. Then, before either of them could say anything else, he dissolved into smoke and flowed out of the room.
Sombra rolled her eyes, sighed, and walked over to the locked door. "Knock knock," she said, fitting words to action.
After a pause, McCree drawled, "Come in."
Cautiously, she unlocked and opened the door. The cowboy was leaning against the dresser, hat restored to its proper place. The gun, however, had been moved over to the bedside table - across the room from either of them. McCree caught her looking at him with one eyebrow arched in a silent question, and tipped his hat.
"You left me here with food, facilities, and a loaded weapon," he said. "You clearly meant me no harm. I thought it only polite to return the favor. Y'mind telling me what happened, though?"
Sombra closed the door behind her and leaned against the wall beside it. "You interrupted an extraction. I saved your life and brought you with us. What were you doing there?"
"I don't see how that's any o' your business," he answered coldly.
"Did you not just hear me say I saved your life?"
"Yer welcome to kill me," he retorted, still calm and cold. "But my personal business ain't none o' yours."
"So it was personal," Sombra said, grinning as McCree pressed his lips together unhappily. "Were you searching for the remains of your old boss?"
Arms crossed, McCree glowered but said nothing.
"You were never going to find them, you know." After a pause to let him fume, she said, "He's not dead."
McCree jerked like he'd been shot. "What?"
"He's not dead," Sombra sighed. "He's just a fucked-up mess, physically and psychologically."
"Just how fucked-up are we talking?" the cowboy asked warily.
Sombra covered her face briefly with both hands. "Physically? He's held together by nanites and hate. Psychologically...he's effectively been a prisoner of war for five years, and blackmailed into working for the enemy."
The color drained from McCree's face. "That guy. He turned into a cube. Was that...?"
"Yeah. I shut down his swarm to keep him from shooting you."
Pale and shaking, McCree slid down the side of the dresser to sit on the floor, arms crossed on his knees. It took him a minute or two to regain his composure. "I need...please, whoever you are, will you give him a message for me? I...I assume he's here, wherever 'here' is."
"I'm Sombra," she said, "and yes. What's the message?"
With his chin, he pointed to the bedside table. "Take my Peacekeeper. Give it to him. Tell him I want to talk."
=
Reaper looked at the gun in Sombra's hands. "He wants to talk."
"That's what he said."
"I could kill him."
"But you won't," she said in a hard voice, "because it's not really him you want to kill."
He didn't bother answering. He dissolved into smoke and flowed towards the room they'd stuck McCree in, leaving Sombra holding his gun. The cowboy sat on the floor and flinched as black smoke flowed under the door to consolidate into the masked figure of Reaper, arms crossed, irritation in every molecule of his wisping body.
"You want to talk," he spat.
"I want to talk," McCree said evenly, "and I want you to listen, because you didn't do that before."
Reaper didn't flinch, but the wisping died down for a beat before resuming.
"I tried to tell you somethin' wasn't right. I did some poking around, nearly got offed by a handful of guys I thought were answering to you. Tried to tell you about it. You wouldn't even let me finish," McCree said plaintively, "so I walked out. Figured either you still cared about one white-trash cowboy and you'd come after me...or those guys really were answering to you, and I was better off cutting my losses because you wanted me dead."
"No," Reaper growled, wisping so heavily that he lost cohesion and had to forcibly pull himself back together. "They're dead. Talon's dead. And the asshole behind everything, who used your face, and my face, and Morrison's face, he's dead by now, too. We won."
"Not much of a victory," McCree said in a dejected tone of voice. "You're made of nanites and hate. Overwatch is ruins. Jack's dead, Ana's dead..."
"Ana...is alive," Reaper growled reluctantly. "And they never did find Morrison's body."
"But what about you?"
Reaper stared at the wicked gauntlets that passed for his hands. "Sombra said that with my DNA sequence, she could program my swarm properly from scratch. We'll see what she comes up with."
McCree contemplated that for a minute before asking, "Do you trust her?"
"Define 'trust'," he countered dryly. "She helped me when she didn't have to. She got angry when she found out Talon was trying to get me killed. And her idea of 'revenge' is 'hijack the world's collective missile supply and rain fiery death down upon every Talon base in the world simultaneously'. Have you ever wanted a little sister? Because I think if she can get me my body back, I'm going to adopt her."
"Y'never adopted me," McCree grumbled.
"Technically, I was your legal guardian. But fine, you want me to adopt you? If Sombra gets me my body back, I'll adopt you."
"You mean that?" the cowboy asked in a choked voice. Reaper hesitated, then nodded, and McCree found himself wiping away tears. "Can...can I call you Dad?'
Reaper let out a long-suffering sigh. "I let Sombra call me Papi, so...fine."
Jesse McCree gave him a smile that would have melted his heart...if he'd had one. "Thanks, Dad."
=
While Reaper went to talk to McCree, Sombra curled up on the couch and made her way into Ana's secure device.
EXTRACTION COMPLETE, she typed in a new document.
A few minutes later, Ana typed back, SOMBRA, WHAT DID YOU DO??
I GOT REVENGE.
YOU NEARLY SET OFF A WORLD WAR.
DID YOU KNOW THAT THE GOD PROGRAM WHO STARTED THE OMNIC CRISIS GOT AWAY? Sombra asked, her lips pressed into an unhappy line. HE ALSO INFILTRATED BLACKWATCH, CAUSED THE FALL OF OVERWATCH, WAS RUNNING TALON, AND TORTURED PAPI GABRIEL FOR FIVE YEARS WHILE BLACKMAILING HIM INTO BEING HIS SLAVE.
Two minutes passed.
I DID NOT KNOW THAT, Ana typed slowly.
BETWEEN THE TWO OF US, PAPI GABRIEL AND I SET A TRAP AND KILLED HIM ALONG WITH THE REST OF TALON. AND DON'T WORRY, I DISABLED THE MISSILES I DIDN'T USE.
Another two minutes passed.
YOU SAID THE EXTRACTION IS COMPLETE. WHERE ARE THE TARGETS?
I DELIVERED WIDOWMAKER TO ANGELA ZIEGLER. REAPER IS HERE WITH ME, IN THE ZURICH SAFEHOUSE. YOU'RE WELCOME TO VISIT.
AND THE QUESTION OF PAYMENT?
Sombra smirked. I STOLE ALL THEIR MONEY AND KILLED THE INSTIGATOR OF THE OMNIC CRISIS. THAT'S ABOVE AND BEYOND WHAT I WENT IN FOR IN THE FIRST PLACE. I'M GOING TO CALL THIS EVEN.
===
They were sitting in the living room, Reaper staring at the news and Jesse McCree eating sandwiches while Sombra sat surrounded by screens. Suddenly, Reaper growled, "I've been what?"
McCree froze.
"What, Papi?" Sombra asked without looking up.
Wisping furiously, he demanded, "I've been exonerated?"
"Oh," she said absently, still prodding at her screens. "I guess Ana found a way to do something useful with that info I gave her."
"You what?"
Sombra moved three screens out of the way so she could see Reaper. "I found proof that Talon infiltrated Blackwatch and set you up, and I gave it to Ana Amari."
"You...are in contact...with Ana."
"She contacted me first."
"Why?" he demanded.
"Wanted you and Widowmaker out of Talon by any means necessary short of death," Sombra answered calmly.
The wisping got heavier. "Is that why you were there?"
"No. I was already going in, looking for information on who started the Omnic Crisis. But if you think I would not do everything I could to help you once I found out you were alive..." she trailed off threateningly.
The angry wisps died down, but the ones coming off Reaper's chest doubled. "So my name has been cleared," he said in a growl that was trying to be angry. "That does me no good."
Sombra rolled her eyes and huffed. "I'm working on it, Papi! Geez, give me a few hours! Uh...you still gonna be a mess of nanites, I can't replicate the bacterial colonies you should have, so the swarm gonna do that for you. And the most recent full scan I found was your 45-year physical."
"Fine," Reaper said shortly, but the angry wisps had completely died down.
McCree waited a minute to be sure he wasn't interrupting before saying hesitantly, "Ana's alive?"
Sombra tuned them both out, all her attention on writing a better swarm program from scratch.
=
"Done," Sombra announced somewhere after midnight, closing all the screens.
Reaper turned to look at her, a few anxious wisps coming off of him. "You're done. You've written a new program, from scratch."
"This is what it should have been," she said, stretching. "None of the dumb improvised bullshit I saw in the code about trying to maintain cohesion and form without defining what that form was. Just your DNA, and a starting point, and a combination digestive-immune system that won't quit. You may have some kickass regenerative abilities, too, if you eat right. You get shot, blood may go back into your body if it doesn't splatter too far. No more falling apart because you got hit too hard."
"Yessss," he growled like a B-movie villain. "Gabriel Reyes shall live again! Muahahahahahahaha!"
The deliberately unhinged laughter was too much; Sombra giggled helplesly. "Oh my god Papi, why you gotta be so dramatic?"
"Because I can be," he answered smugly. "Now, hit me up. I want to freak McCree out."
"It's going to take a while to convert you to actual flesh and blood," she warned him.
"I don't care. Do it."
"Alright." Sombra stood up and started walking to the bedroom whose bathroom had a tub rather than just a shower stall. "Come on, Mr. Impatient."
Reaper followed her into the bathroom, climbed into the tub, and then sat there feeling silly. "Now what?"
The hacker pressed pink-glowing hands to his chest. The glow ghosted over his form, and then he dissolved into a pool of black smoke. "See you on the other side," she told the puddle.
=
Rather than spend the night dumping sugar, bits of metal, and water into the tub, Sombra just over-estimated how much of each material would be needed and added it all at once. Then she ordered some clothes for overnight delivery and went to bed.
Reaper was a man-shaped lump of flesh in the tub when she woke up, and the swarm hadn't run out of material, so she checked in with her omnium and started redistributing her stolen wealth. There would be no more stealing, no more begging for Los Muertos.
The clothes arrived; Sombra folded them and left them on the sink. Another hour, maybe two, and Reaper would complete his transformation back into Gabriel Reyes.
Less than an hour later, the safehouse security system reported intruders. "Hey, McCree," Sombra called without looking up from her screens, "go see who's at the door, will you?"
"Who's at-"
A faint knocking interrupted the cowboy.
"-the door," he finished. "Well, alright then."
Booted feet rattled down the curved stairs, and then Sombra could hear voices exclaim happily. Satisfied that her two guests were getting along, she closed her screens and went to go check on Reaper. She found the shower curtain drawn and an assortment of sounds coming from behind it, liquid and flesh, splashing and gurgling. Once she was satisfied that Gabriel Reyes was in control of his balance, she fetched a towel and hung it by the tub and closed the bathroom door behind her. Rather than venture into the living room, though, she sat on the bed and opened a few screens to entertain herself with while she waited.
=
If Gabriel was surprised to see Sombra waiting, he didn't show it. "Clothes," he said casually as she looked up. "Good catch. I hadn't thought of that."
"Everything work okay?" she asked, ignoring the comment.
"Yeah," he said slowly. "I feel great." He may not have known the hacker for long, but he knew her well enough to be able to tell that something was wrong.
"Good. I've set you up with a few million in a local account, and Ana's in the living room with McCree."
Instead of moving to the door of the room, Gabriel moved to stand in front of the bed. "What's wrong, Sombra?"
"Noth-"
One raised hand silenced the surprised protest. "Don't bullshit me, mija. What's. Wrong."
"Nothing," she insisted while also looking like she wanted to cry. "Just making sure everything's worked out before I go back to Dorado."
Gabriel frowned. "And why are you going back to Dorado?"
"Because it's my home?" she snapped, the anger doing nothing to hide the other emotions. "The god program is dead. You and Amelie have been extracted. Both my missions have been completed. I'm not needed here anymore."
So that was it, Gabriel thought. Running away before she could be rejected. "Fuck that," he said. "You're not leaving until I've legally adopted you, you got that?"
Sombra's mouth fell open. "...what?"
Instead of answering, Gabriel pulled her to her feet and hugged her tightly. It wasn't really a surprise when she burst into confused tears.
"You think, after all you've done for me, I'd really just let you walk away?" he murmured into her hair. "Not gonna happen. Unless you don't want me to be your father."
"I want it," she sobbed into his chest. "I want it, Papi."
"I hope you and McCree can get along, because I'm adopting him, too. I mean, feel free to give him shit because he's your brother and fuck, like I don't give him shit? But no killing each other, you hear me?"
"I hear you," she whispered.
"Good." Another long moment of hugging, and then he released her. "Now, come and meet your aunt. You know," he said as he pulled the bedroom door open, "they never found Jack Morrison's body. I'll bet that bastard survived. Think you could track him down?"
Sombra grinned at him. "I'll see what I can do."
Gabriel grinned back. "That's my girl."