Chapter Text

--invisiblyShadowed [IS] began pestering sinisterSmokescreen [SS]--

IS: alright im in

SS: Sombra?

IS: no im someone else who hacked her account

IS: because thats a thing thats totally possible to do

IS: thanks for asking

SS: Hilarious.

SS: Where the HELL have you been.

IS: yknow

IS: around

IS: you dont need to know my whereabouts every minute of the day gabe

SS: Don't call me that over comm. It's a security issue.

IS: oh right in case someone hacked our secure channel that i set up myself while not being incompetent

IS: we just talked about this gabe

SS: I'm not trusting my opsec to your ego. Codenames only. THat's an order.

IS: THat?

SS: That was a typo. Stop dodging the question.

IS: no THat was a typo. That was spelled correctly

SS: I swear to god.

IS: ok fine!

IS: uh

IS: what was the question again

SS: "Where the HELL have you been".

SS: Wait why couldn't you just scroll up and see that.

IS: couldnt be assed

IS: anyway

IS: im in ur gibraltar, infiltratin ur overwatch

SS: What the fuck.

IS: yeah im pretty slick like that nbd

SS: No. I mean. The meme. How old is that. That's from before you were born.

IS: same goes for you

IS: and you recognized it so whos the vintage memer now

SS: I'm not a "memer". Shut up and report on your god damn status or I'll

IS: or youll...?

SS: Never mind. Anger management problems again. Just report. No threats.

IS: ok cool so

IS: like i said i infiltrated the hell out of overwatch

IS: followed them back home from mahajan, did some hacking, got clearance to stuff

IS: and i got some *juicy* stuff

SS: What do you mean "followed them back home". They should have taken the Orca.

IS: uh

IS: yeah i stowed away or whatever

IS: i dont have to give you the full travelogue christ

SS: Stowed away.

IS: stowed away!!!

SS: So you've been captured, is what you're saying, in narcissist-ese.

IS: hey stfu

IS: theyre infiltrated alright??? if there was any capturing

IS: (and im not saying there was)

IS: then its in the past and im not captured right now so how about we not do the asshole detective thing

SS: So you were captured by Overwatch, but managed to gain their trust.

IS: yeah actually im pretty much

IS: working for them now

--sinisterSmokescreen [SS]'s connection was lost.--

--sinisterSmokescreen [SS]'s connection was reestablished.--

IS: uh

IS: squash another phone there?

SS: I'd appreciate you not exacerbating my disorder. And giving me a DAMN good explanation for the words you just said.

IS: ok ok jfc gabe calm down

IS: you should know by now that when i say "im working for"

IS: what i mean is "im a double agent stealing information from"

SS: ...

IS: why u dot dot dotting me

SS: You meant to add "present company excluded" there, right.

IS: hey! lets not worry about that right now!!!

SS: Sure.

IS: point is im on location w/OW and can spy on them and shit

IS: plus like i said: juicy stuff juicy stuff

IS: wanna hear the juice?

SS: Relay the intel.

IS: juice confirmed

IS: so get this

IS: your old buddies from command? a lot less dead than we thought

SS: I knew that already.

IS: wut

SS: Morrison's been masquerading as that vigilante, Soldier: 76. I had a run-in with him in Giza, but he got away.

SS: Amari's alive, too. Apparently a bullet in the eye doesn't keep her down.

IS: wtf

IS: you didnt tell me???

SS: Shockingly, you aren't the first person I go to with sensitive intel. If you can believe that.

IS: omfg gabe

IS: you don't trust me???

SS: What a question. Do I trust you or not, hm.

SS: You. Sombra. Do I trust YOU.

IS: ahahahaha top kek

IS: im just messing with you

IS: but okay theres other stuff

SS: Wait. How did you get this intel? Overwatch shouldn't know about Jack yet.

SS: If they've been colluding, this has serious strategic implications.

IS: no this is current events actually

IS: they just sorta showed up for a visit like an hour ago

SS: What.

IS: yeah 76 and amari just walked up to the front door like hi honey im home

SS: ...I can't imagine the good doctor responded well to that.

IS: yeah idk

IS: i wasnt like right there to see it so i only know how it shook out

SS: Where were you.

IS: uh

IS: i mean it was in the middle of the night so i was asleep

IS: they didnt wake me up for it

SS: Asleep. Okay. Fine. What happened.

IS: well apparently angelhair told the others about murkenblurkenstock swiss place at some point so

IS: she ordered him taken into custody

SS: Here are your orders.

SS: Go to where he is being held, and kill him.

SS: Kill him right now, before Ziegler can set him up with the machine. Destroy the body. Don't leave anything she can revive. KILL HIM.

IS: uh

SS: I don't care if it blows your cover. I don't care about ANYTHING right now. I want you to go, and, KILL HIM, RIGHT NOW. FUCKING KILL JACK GOD DAMN MORRISON.

IS: okay i cant do that actually

SS: NO EXCUSES FUCKING KILL THAT TRAITOROUS BASTARD IMMEDIATELY.

IS: no i mean i literally can't bc he escaped

SS: KILL Him

IS: r u listening to me? get a hold of yourself

SS: KILL.

IS: ok, kill. i gotchu. ill go outside and just sorta start running in the direction he ran and catch up and shoot him or whatever

IS: do you think thats a good plan strategically thatll work real good?

IS: gabe?

IS: gabe you there?

IS: gaaaaaabe come out come out wherever you are

SS: Sorry.

IS: oh good youre back

IS: we were talking about KILL KILL KILL or w/e?

SS: No. I lost my temper. Pursuing and eliminating Morrison is an impractical course of action.

IS: aight cool

SS: But.

SS: How did he escape. Where did he go.

IS: well according to king kong, they sent amari and the cowboy to throw him in the brig

SS: Amari. She's working with him. Why would she help apprehend him.

IS: well she didnt know about all that swiss stuff so she kinda changed her tune when angie spilled the beams

IS: *beans

IS: but uh turns out she was sorta acting or something? like she was mad at him but she didnt trust mercy for some reason so

IS: she knocked out clint eastwood with a tranq and sent jack running for the hills

IS: by the time anyone noticed he was too long gone to chase after and find

IS: so now amaris in the brig but theyre on pretty good terms so its basically a formality

SS: So you don't have any idea where he went.

IS: well monkeydude has an idea

IS: see uh

IS: ok lemme fill you in on their current mission

IS: (which im legit helping with btw at least for now)

IS: like i told you: lakshmi wasnt at mahajan

IS: turns out actually the vishkar corporation is hiding it

IS: so were doing like an infiltration exposé situation

SS: Damn. Make sure they don't get their hands on Lakshmi for themselves.

SS: Also, see if you can't kill a few of them off when they're distracted.

IS: thatd be pretty pointless on account of the extra lives thing but ok i guess if i find an opening

SS: Good. And how does this relate to Morrison.

IS: well uh

IS: there was all this drama with how mercys caduceus whatever works

IS: apparently it freaked amari and morrison out pretty bad

IS: morrison flipped his shit and shot mercy in the face but ofc it didnt take

IS: anyway hes back on his old overwatch-is-evil kick and moon gorilla thinks hes gonna try to foil the operation somehow

IS: warning vishkar or helping them

IS: so if you want to try and head him off before he gets there then thats a pretty good win-win

SS: I don't like when they "win".

SS: But I like when Morrison wins even less. I'll see if Talon's interested in helping me out with my personal issues again. We'll see if we can't find a way to hit Overwatch in the process.

IS: oh i bet akande would be into it

IS: he never got to fight the big boss of overwatch, remember

SS: Heh. Yeah. Always easy to sell him on a fight.

IS: yeah and lacroix will pretty much do whatever you tell her to so youve got that even if you dont get the rank and file onboard

SS: She's not my slave. She's got a complicated perspective.

IS: yeah getting her rocks off on murdering people is super complicated

SS: She's looking over my shoulder right now. Good choice of words.

IS: haha funny joke gabe! fuck off!

SS: Just keep me updated. Having a mole in the enemy's ranks had better be as good as it sounds.

IS: oh it will be

IS: anyway uh jic you cant handle jack on your end

IS: we kinda have to get a move on over here so we beat him to vishkartown

IS: so over and out

SS: Understood.

--invisiblyShadowed [IS] ceased pestering sinisterSmokescreen [SS]--



"Having a mole in the enemy's ranks...!" Athena said, suppressing a laugh.

"I know, right? I even said- like, look! "Oh, it will be!" And he didn't even pick up on the double entendre!" Sombra said, not at all suppressing a laugh.

"That was perfect. I can't believe he's that easy to manipulate."

"Yeah you can", Sombra said. "You've got me in you, don't you? You know exactly how easy he is to twist around my little finger."

"True," Athena replied. "The disbelief isn't a probabilistic evaluation- it's more an emotional reaction from the rest of us."

"Anyway, it's not like we're manipulating him, exactly. It really is a win-win- I didn't tell him a single lie! Which is new," Sombra added.

"Not quite."

"What? Where'd I lie?"

"You weren't sleeping. You were chemically restrained on a stretcher we left behind in the meeting room."

"Well, I was trying to sleep! You all just left me with nothing to do in a dark room, lying on a bed."

"You also lied about stowing away on the Orca. And about infiltrating us."

"Okay, fine. Sometimes I don't notice. One lie."

"Which one?"

"The stowaway thing. I've totally infiltrated this place, FYI."

"Sure you have."

The brig was a joke, at this point. The maximum-security cell had the ceiling busted open, and the rest had electronic locks that had been fried by one of Sombra's EMPs, and wouldn't unlock. It would be expensive to remodel.

The backup brig- which was just a handful of empty rooms in the back whose doors could be barred- wasn't much better. Gibraltar had been a lunar mission base, not a military installation, and the conversion into an Overwatch watchpoint had been haphazard at best.

As she approached the cell, Genji nodded and walked away. He'd be waiting outside, ready to intervene if things got violent, but he didn't feel like sitting in on the conversation that was about to happen.

Mercy pulled up an office chair, and sat by the door. It hadn't been barred. They hadn't even put Ana inside it. Best as anyone could tell, she'd just strolled inside and closed the door of her own volition, to save everyone some time.

Ana pulled up a chair of her own, taking a seat by the door. The window was slightly too high for either of them to see each other, like that. They sat in silence, for a little while.

Eventually Mercy asked. "Why?"

"Why did I help Jack escape, you mean?" Her voice was different- a little more gravelly than she remembered. She'd been off Caduceus for over 11 years, and age sounded like it was taking its toll.

"Did you believe him, when he denied it? I know I don't have proof, but..."

"No. No, I know him well enough to know when he's lying. Not just to me, but to himself."

"To himself?"

"He really doesn't think he destroyed Overwatch, you know. He's always thought it was Blackwatch that did it. He's spent all these years looking for the conspiracy- tracking down their connections, trying to find whoever masterminded it. I'm sure destroying the HQ was just symbolic, in his mind. A recognition of what someone else did."

She mulled that over. It was a kind of doublethink she knew Jack was more than capable of. But... "Conspiracy? Conspiracy to do what?"

"He believes someone poisoned Blackwatch. Someone was responsible for putting them into situations that compromised their morals. Military-industrial contacts trying to turn Overwatch into something darker and more violent."

"...Why would he think that?"

She knew why he would think that.

"He couldn't believe Gabriel really believed... that the world was ugly. In his mind, it was plain as day that heroes could always save the day, that there was always a third option, that they would never have to make a hard choice. And if he knew that, then surely Gabriel couldn't truly disagree. He felt they were too close, for something like that to really be keeping them apart."

She was saying that, at the end of the day, Jack wouldn't hold Gabriel accountable for his actions- that it had to be someone else's fault. Was... that really it? She'd seen what Jack had done to him, back in Mürtschenstock. Was that kind of violence really something Jack would do, to someone he didn't even really believe deserved it? It said something terrifying about his character.

...Or maybe it was a kink thing. She didn't like to pry too deeply into their relationship.

"Back to the question," she said, clearing her throat. "Why help him escape, now that you know what he did? Why protect him?"

Ana laughed, a cold and frightening laugh that lapsed into a coughing fit. "Protect him?"

She didn't have an answer for that. "...Yes?"

"I didn't do it to protect him, Angela. If I'd wanted to protect him, I wouldn't have turned on him in the first place."

"Then why?" she asked, clenching her hands into fists.

"Jesse told me something, when we were carrying Jack down to this cell."

Oh, no.

"A lot of things, actually. He wouldn't stop talking for an instant. So much he had to tell me, now that I wasn't dead. You know the boy looked up to me?"

She nodded, numb with realization. It didn't cross her noticed that Ana couldn't see her nod.

"...so, he was very chatty. Told me how much his marksmanship had improved. And he mentioned how much your work had progressed, as well."

There it was. She held her face in her hands. How many times would she be forced to relive this horrible confrontation?

"I'm impressed," she said. There wasn't any of the venom she was expecting, from the sound of it. "You really pushed past all those pesky ethical concerns, didn't you?" Oh. There it was.

"I..."

"You know I straddled the line, in my youth. I was officially with Overwatch, but Gabriel consulted with me more often than his actual team. I know a thing or two about breaking the law to protect this family."

"You-"

"I'd never thought about breaking the laws of life and death, you know. I suppose I wasn't imaginative enough, was I? You always did have your... head in the clouds, dear."

This was agony. Where was she going with this? Was she going to condemn her? Support her? What did this have to do with Jack?

"I can't begrudge you withholding death from us, when we have such an important job to do. It's underhanded, it's dark, and I doubt you know or care to hear what a dangerous game you're playing- but I'm a mother. I know how you feel. There's nothing dark enough that you wouldn't do it for your family."

This. This was familiar enough, although something about it was softer than it had been before. The last few times, she'd gone into depth with it- this time, she'd correctly anticipated that she wouldn't "care to hear what a dangerous game she was playing". But... it always went sour, whenever she found out about her larger plans.

Athena still hadn't told the rest about her goals- the worldwide Caduceus deployment. She- and Winston- had agreed that it'd be better to let them get used to the benefits on their own, before suggesting that they make it available to more people. Jesse wouldn't have known, then- and neither would Ana. Her breaking point had yet to be reached.

"And you'd have made sure to reclaim him, with your machine, wouldn't you? Even after what he's done."

Oh.

"I'm fine with you withholding death from them, for now," she said. "The world needs them. They haven't earned their rest, yet."

"Them?"

"Not me. I'm done. I've done what this world needed from me. I deserve a peaceful retirement. Don't touch me with that toy of yours, understood?"

She sighed. She'd have to allow it, for now. Maybe she could be talked out of her... deathwish, or whatever, eventually. "Yes. That's fine."

"And now you should know why I let Jack go out there. He's going to get himself killed, one way or another, with the life he leads, without my help. And after what he's done... he's earned it. He deserves the end he's chasing."

There wasn't much left to say to her. There wasn't much reason to risk a fight, risk the long-term plan. She had more important things to do.

"That's fine, then." She got up.

She heard Ana sigh as she quietly walked away.