#Bert oxton is a Good

[docholligay]

OW Lena and her family love the Oxtons

HI this is 1500 words of REALLY INDULGENT GARBAGE but honestly, THANK, this is like hamburger dripping down my chin levels of personal delight and satisfaction. I AM GOING TO MAKE DINNER NOW, but I’ll do at least a few more. 

Tracer often considered, in her life, that a great deal of her happiness was a gift from her family.

It wasn’t that tragedy never fell upon the Oxtons–during the Omnic Crisis, her grandmother had been known for proclaiming that every hundred years, they flattened the East End just to hold down the noise, and there wasn’t a single generation who hadn’t lost someone to service–but when the foundation is strong, you can rebuild the rest of the house, and the Oxtons were built of strong stuff.

Her aunt, Annie, callsign Castor, had been a genuine hero, and even as a little girl, Tracer remembered looking up at her large portrait painted on the wall of the RAF museum, describing in detail how she had saved her entire squad and won the day with her own life.

“The world can always be made better, my little Lena,” her father had said, holding her hand and looking up at the image of his twin, “but we must decide what we’re willing to give for it. Comfort, your job–Annie was willing to give it all, in that one moment,” he picked her up and put her on his hip, “Did you know you remind me of ‘er sometimes?”

She’d looked up at the picture of Annie and thought for a moment, wondering how she could be like this hero.

“She was funny, and quick like you,” Bert said, answering the question she hadn’t asked, “And,” he tickled her as he teased, “a bit careless, right?”

Tracer had learned how to be good, at the hand of every family member that taught the lesson, in ways big and small.

Her aunt Lily was always ordered, at least for an Oxton, and folded Tracer easily in with her own children, and Tracer had never much felt like an only child, even if it was true. Lily helped her get her uniforms for the school season, and her husband Clive took get her hair clipped with their sons, and in general they helped Bert feel less like he was doing it on his own.

Tracer had felt wanted by everyone in her life, and it wasn’t until she was older that she realized how absolutely spoiled she had been by the vast amounts of love that surrounded her. That for all her family was simple and working-class, she had a wealth most people spent their entire lives searching for.

It was easier, when she came out, on account of her uncle Mark, the one who wore all the ugliest sweaters and laughed at his own jokes and was deeply in love with his husband, Teddy. He was the baby of the family, and a bit indulged, but this only made him more charming. He had all the advice in the world to give her, and all the assurance that there wasn’t anything even a bit unusual about it, not at all, and she was becoming quite handsome as she grew up, wasn’t she?

Yes, that made her quite spoiled, to have all those things, and she was grateful for her family over and above anything else.

Lily was a mechanic, and Mark flew cargo, but her father and mother had been fighter pilots, and Tracer was proud of that strong lineage, of the way she took after them in the most important and daring of ways.

She had only a few memories of her mother, Mary, but they were sweet ones. Weeding together in the tiny garden out behind the long-held Oxton rowhouse. Braiding her  hair for her first day of school. The way her father and mother had held her tight in the dark, fast tunnel of Big Thunder Mountain, and she had laughed and laughed, and her mother had proudly said she’d be such a wonderful pilot someday.

That was just before she got sick.

Her father had always told Tracer how much her mother had loved her, and how the greatest regret she had was not being able to see Tracer grow up, that even at six, Tracer was already becoming such an interesting little person, and it made Mary so upset to know she’d never see what kind of adult she would become.

Tracer always hoped she’d be proud of how she ended up.

She still remembered the day her mother died, how she’d known immediately, pretending to be asleep in the dead of night, when her father had come into her room and slumped down onto the edge of Tracer’s bed next to her, and just began to cry.

“Bottling up your feelings is a bit like kinking up an ‘ose, Lena,” he’d said once, sitting by her on the couch as she wept over a laundry list of things: a romantic disappointment, a poor mark, having yelled at her father over something trivial, “the ‘ose does eventually explode, doesn’t it? Just let it out, and then we can get on with it, love.”

She had loved her father very much. The day Bert Oxton died, a large part of Tracer’s heart shattered. She always felt bad for Winston, all these years later, for having to be the one to tell her, barely knowing her but knowing she only spoke to ask for him. No one else had the courage to tell her.

It took her weeks to try and speak again.

Bert had always made her feel that who she was, was an asset to this world, that the way her mind worked and the way she carried herself and the way she loved were all wonderful and beautiful things. That she was special, and if she worked hard, she could do incredible things.

He taught her how to work with her ADHD, how to trick her mind into doing the things she needed to do, without ever making her feel that the way she was needed to be corrected or stopped or changed. She never felt stupid with Bert, no matter how stupid the thing she did at that exact moment might have been.

She was a desperately loved child, and she never doubted this, however annoyed he might have been with her from time to time. He was always careful about that, and she teased him for the way he was careful to say “I love you, AND,” instead of “I love you, BUT” like any of that mattered. But it did, a little, that she never felt something she was doing wrong was an exception to his love. He was a kind and sentimental man, and sometimes, even all these years later, she missed him so very much it made her heart ache.

When she’d been accepted into Overwatch, her father had talked the family pub into showing the commission ceremony. The entire pub had erupted in a cheer when they announced: ‘Lena Oxton. United Kingdom.’ and she had accepted her new uniform.

If only he’d known how much he would grow to hate Overwatch in such a short amount of time.

She had been sitting with Dva on the roof one day. Dva never said much about her time in MEKA, and Tracer never asked, smart enough to know that people say what they want to about their service, and somehow she and Dva had ended up exchanging stories of people they’d lost in the military, the moment fragile as an eggshell.

And it must have been something in the beer, because 76 looked over and told her something he never had.

“I was the one who told your dad you were dead.”

He let it hang there, and Tracer found herself unable to say anything in response.

“I didn’t know you at the time, but I won’t ever forget it. He answered the door, and looked at me and…some psych recruit they had come with, and he said, ‘she’s my only child.’ Just that. And then he asked us to come inside, and told us he just needed three more minutes, that he could imagine you were alive. And he poured himself a beer, and sat down, and said, ‘alright then, tell me what you came here to tell me’” He took a drink of his beer. “I won’t ever forget it.”

Tracer never would either, after that sunset-dappled confession. Knowing how her father must have felt in that moment, knowing there was nothing he could do to stop what was happening.

She’d told him when she left for the mission that it was less than nothing, just rather top-secret.

Beatrix, her grandmother, always held that Overwatch killed her son. That their refusal to tell him, or anyone, where she went down, the way her body was never returned home, the way he fought to find out what happened to her, that had cracked the casing of Overwatch and shown some unsavory bedfellows, that the stress of it all had killed him, and so far as Bea was concerned, Overwatch was responsible.

Nobody would ever accuse Bea of being soft on anyone at all, least of all on a quasi-governmental institution. And she had loved her children fiercely, and carried that tradition to her grandchildren, and whenever Tracer had the slightest effect from her disability, Bea was the first to curse their name.

But most of what Tracer knew of her family was courage, and love, and acceptance, and it was all these things that made her as happy as she was, and as confident, and resilient. They had built a beautiful frame for her, something strong inside her that was difficult to crush, and every day, Tracer was thankful for that.

[docholligay]

Dear Bert Oxton: my family is trying to incorporate some new family traditions in a time where a lot of upheaval and uncertainty is happening. Do you have any suggestions on activities that can be built into traditions?

You know there was a time in my life when I might have thought, ‘There’s not really a reason to create new things, just hold on to the old ones’ but you know, getting old makes daft bastards of us all, doesn’t it? There’s nothing quite like looking across the table at your six year old and realizing you have no bloody idea how to hold the whole thing together after your wife dies.

I was lucky, in that I had my sister and her family, the whole of my family really, and so for awhile there our new tradition was “Let Lily and Clive do the cooking and sit there with a bit of a stupid expression on my face, let Mark and Teddy watch Lena after school” but you know, eventually you do have to figure something out for yourself. I was lost for a bit, really, and Lily had to shake me and remind me that my daughter was still alive, and needed me to be her dad, and was I planning on doing that, then, or did I intend to just make a cock-up of Lena’s entire childhood? Not one for mincing words, Lily, but I’m glad she did it.

So with a lot of upheaval and uncertainty, I found myself trying to create something for me and Lena, that I could come back to, that she’d kow was there, right?

ANd I think, when you’re a parent especially, there’s a lot of pressure to come up with something magical, but I didn’t find that it had to be that.

I think there can be something simple that you make special. All I did was bought us a couple of them fancy teacups from a charity shop and cut the crusts off sandwiches and we started having a formal tea every Sunday, just the two of us. Got fancier, you know, the longer we went on with it, and when Lena got older and started helping. When she was a teenager, sometimes I think it was the only time she ever told me anything, just because she was used to sitting with me every Sunday, cloth on the table. But it came from nothing, really. Was good for me, too, made me feel I was doing something.

It was more about making the space for the time, than anything special about what I was actually doing, right? Could have been eating soup in front of the telly, could have been a picnic in the park, could have been nearly anything as long as it kept us together. As long as we had something set apart from everything else, we could decide what that was. Lena’s a grown adult now and we still sit down together every Sunday, if she’s in London. Sometimes there’s a nice tart, but we’ve thrown sultana scones from Sainbury’s on a plate and called it our tea, as well.

Best of luck, but if you’re trying this hard to make it, you don’t need luck.

[docholligay]

Divided by Four: Eighteen

Basic training would begin in three weeks, and she had been bouncing about in anticipation, but for the time being, Lena Oxton, who was kicking around what she thought her callsign might be, was still a civilian pilot, walking around the tiny little plane she shared with at five other people and afforded with her hours collecting glasses and washing up Saturdays and weeknights at the pub. 

It helped that the other five were also Oxtons, and so Lena was expected to pay a fair share if not necessarily an equal one. 

It was not an impressive plane, she supposed, as she crouched by the landing gear, tightening a bolt, but she loved it nonetheless. It was only a little Cessna that wanted a bit of a new paint job and had nothing to recommend itself in the field of agility, but any blemishes against it were removed the moment she got it in the air. On the ground, she might have dreamed about owning something more along the lines of a Piper, or a Cirrus, depending on the direction she wanted to go, but Lena found that once she was in the air, her favorite plane was the plane she was currently flying. 

Which didn’t make her any less enthusiastic for the sort of planes she would fly in the RAF. 

Her mother had been a squadron leader during the crisis, and her dad was a decorated pilot, and she had the Oxton name behind her, which would either give the instructors confidence in her or make them twice as hard on her. 

Well, they could be twice as hard on her if they wanted. She was twice as good, and she knew it. She was born under a lucky star, and had the near-misses to prove it. 

“So you think you’ll get into fast-jet school?” Her dad walked around the side of the plane, running a hand across the tail to check it as he did so. 

“Oh, so you doubt me now?” Lena laughed and sprung to her feet, tossing the wrench from one hand to the other. “If I don’t, it’s you who taught me to fly, so doesn’t say much for you.” 

Bert chuckled. “No, I’d suppose it doesn’t. MIght be a bit too short, eh?”

“‘Ave you know I am the exact minimum ‘eight required, I am.” She held herself straight. “Checked just this morning.” 

Bert studied the edge of the window and smile. ‘Be sure you stand up straight.” 

Lena looked at him for a moment. “Dad,” she waited for him to look at her, “Do you not want me to go?” 

He looked at her for a long moment, scratched the back of his head, and put his hands on hips. “Lena--”

“Because I’m going any’ow. I love you, but I am going.” 

Lena and her dad had been--well, it wasn’t fair to say on their own in a family like the Oxtons, but without a mum certainly--since Lena was six years old, and mum had died. She was an only child, and he hadn’t even thought of dating until Lena herself started two years ago. It was, of course, difficult in bits, but all lives were difficult in some way, and Lena knew of no one else as close to any parent as she was. They’d spent years taking care of each other and confiding in each other, and though she never would have said so, there was a part of her that wasn’t anxious to leave, either. Her father had promised to take care of her, when her mum has died. To keep her safe. He’d dragged himself up from his own grief, and done it, and because they had learned love could be lost so easily, they rarely took the other for granted. 

So nothing was all bad, really. 

“I want you to go,” he sighed, and chuckled, ”Just wait till it’s you ‘alf past forty--”

Lena scoffed. “I’m never going to be forty--”

“Lena, please don’t say that.” She looked at his face, darkly serious, “Dangerous work, and I know that, know it better than most, but I lie awake nights quite enough without ‘aving your morbid premonitions about your own demise, love. Lost your mum, lost me sister, so could you please, as a personal favor, resolve to outlive your old dad?” 

“I was only ‘aving a go,” Lena tossed the wrench into the box, “Been talking to Parvati, ‘aven’t you? Can’t keep anything a bloody secret in this family, can I? You know, me entire bloody life I’ve been told, “She put her hands on her hips and tossed her head,  “Lena, you fly like someone aiming to be no one’s nan,” and that’s all right, innit, but if I make a bloody joke about it--” 

Bert shoved a clumsily wrapped box at her. “Happy birthday love. Please shut up and tell me you’ll be careful. Lie to me, if you must, though I’d prefer it to be the truth.” 

“I’ll be careful, Dad.” She smiled as she took the package, “Almost forgot it was me birthday.” 

“Ruddy terrible liar, you are.” He sat down on a metal box at the edge of the hangar. “Just ‘ave to keep ‘oping your skill is as good as you seem to think it is.” 

“One day,” she nodded at him a finger under the paper, ready to open it, “I will be the best pilot in the world. Going to work for Overwatch, I am, you just watch.” 

“That’s as may be, love, and I wish you all the luck, but it don’t change me concerns whether you’re wearing a roundel or a...whatever they’d call it. I suppose it’s a roundel of a sort, as well, innit? Well, you understand me.” 

Lena started to open the package. “I understand you’re a nervous old wo--Dad.” 

What she held in her hand was not, as a rule, very impressive. A small pair of aviators, rose gold on the frames, a few stray scratches across the lenses. You might have found them in a bin at any charity shop, a few pounds for the pair of them. 

“You won’t want to use them for flying, of course, too beat up for that safely, not made for the sort of acrobatics you get up besides, but I thought you should ‘ave them.” He chuckled, “What good are they doing me?” 

Lena turned them over in her hand. For as long as she could remember, this pair of sunglasses had sat on the one of the shelves in her house, next to a photo of her mother and father in their flight suits from the crisis. Lena looked back to him. 

“You sure?” 

“Didn’t want to give you ‘er jacket, as you should ‘ave your own, right? Course anything of ‘ers you want is yours, far as I’m concerned, so you can ‘ave it as well, but--”he smiled sadly, ‘She would be so proud of you. You’re a brilliant pilot, Lena, really you are. You are the best daughter we could ‘ave ‘oped for. ‘Appy birthday, love.” 

She sat down next to him, still looking at the glasses. “I’ll outlive you, promise.” 

He shook his head. “Don’t think about it in the air. Makes you a poor pilot, given what we do. Can’t think about who’s waiting for you on the ground. You know that.” He chuckled. ‘I should know that.” He grinned and slapped her knee, “I do ‘ave presents for you beyond some of your mum’s old rubbish. Eighteen! Properly an adult. Be wanting a place of your own soon, I’m sure.” 

She saw her reflection in the glasses. Eighteen years felt like so many. Forty would be twenty two more. What was a year, here and there, whatever her father said about it?

“Not if don’t you want me to go.” She smiled. “Moving’s a chore, only coming ‘ome every so often any’ow. If you’ll ‘ave me.” 

“As long as you’d like.” 

When she was older, sometimes Lena would wonder what might have happened if she’d gotten married while her father was alive. If  they simply would have swapped bedrooms and kept on with the easy rhythm of their domestic arrangement. The older she got, the more pleasant it sounded to her. But of course, they would never know, because Lena kept her promise, though Bert never got to know that. Life has a dark sense of humor that way. 

She remembered that promise, in the shifting static of time. How it had been her birthday, but her father’s wish. How, at the time, eighteen had seemed like so many years. 

So many. 

[docholligay]

Shamash answers: Writing

The question for this was one that selfishly tickled me: If you could force me to write anything, what would it be? There were many goodf answers but these were my favorites: 

An original fiction haunted house novella. Seriously, “Imaginary Friends” is among my top favorite horror pieces and I’d love to see more of that vein from you--goblinjunkyard

First of all, thank you so much!! I also really love that piece and good news! I am working diligently to polish it up and file off the serial numbers to be a short novel or a long novella--in any case I’m hoping to have it ready next Halloween, with 75% more story! 

GIVE US THE COMPLETE FAMILY SAGA OF THE OXTONS. WRITE IT LIKE YOU’RE A VICTORIAN NOVELIST WHO’S JUST BEEN SERIALIZED. Show us the courtship of Bert and Mary. Tell us of Parvati and Lena’s ridiculous childhood exploits. Write 100-word descriptions of every sweater Winston has ever received from them. What two random family members have been seething with resentment at each other for petty slights until Gran told them to cut the crap? Let us know ALL. --Regalli

If you wrote this to pander to me IT WORKED, and you both made me feel good and have a draw in for Shamash day, so. I do, in fact, have like, a ton of this written but never publish it because it’s all so very self-indulgent and I did not necessarily want to throw like, Wizard and Glass at you ahahaha. BUT ANYWAY THIS MADE ME FEEL VERY GOOD AND IF IT IS A LIE IT IS A KIND ONE. 

Sailor Moon AU where the girls are licensed ghost hunters, sometimes working together, sometimes in competition. Only some of them have actual psychic powers, the others are deluded, extra hands and eyes for tasks, or flim-flam artists. The team must resolve hauntings and occasionally solve murder mysteries. -- @nerdy-flutterings

You win the award for one of the most INTERESTING concepts introduced in this question. I think I wrote...a proposal? Somewhere? About Mina being a paranormal con artist, and Rei is constantly trying to catch her out, and this would be a good place for that sort of thing. I love the idea of going all Rose Red and having them all have different “powers,” the ones that do. Would I have Rei have premonitions? Probably, and that’s the most boring one, but think of Michiru having some capacity to communicate with the dead whether she likes it or not, or...more interestingly, think of Mako being able to take emotional signature from touching objects or people. Mina is still just a con though, and haruka still has the psychic projection of a brick. 

Noted femme Michiru, in an attempt to "be nice" and "make friends" as Mina and her wife (respectively) have implored her, offers to get a nice dress tailored for wants-to-be-femme-but-feels-too-buff-and-tall-for-it Mako, who thinks this is a trap of some kind. Michiru kindly assures her that if she wanted to "trap" her, Mako would never see it coming. Mako does not like this thought at all. (It IS a really nice dress though...) -- @wouldntyoulichentoknow

THIS IS ALSO GREAT. Michiru’s awkward attempts to be kind that in many ways just come off as “Here’s some money, go see a star war” 

I can never get enough of Mystery and Shadow AU and I love your horror writing, so I’d be curious to make you throw both together and see what happens (even if it ends up outside the MaS general canon) --- @awashsquid

Oh hmmmmmmmm what an idea!! I clearly need to write more horror, this is going to sound stupid but I had no idea y’all liked it so much! 

[docholligay]

Mother’s Day ficlets: Tracer

Everything is as within my own HON HON HON Universe, etc, etc, calm down, if you comment CONTEST IS CLOSED by I still love comments(Will be edited when closed)

“Think it goes in this way…” Bert fiddled again with the box for the cake stand, trying to figure out  the ancient engineering that made up the carboard puzzle. 

Mary laughed in a long and burbling stream as she grinned at her husband. His strawberry blonde hair was glistening in the light of the sun splashed late afternoon, his green eyes keenly studying the worn box. It was silly, she supposed, but in these moment s she remembered intimately that rush of excitement, meeting him the first time, that spark she was in him that drew her in closer. 

 “How long have you owned that thing, then?”  She set down the tea cup she’d been wiping out, but kept the tea towel draped over her arm. 

“Well, ‘aving it never made it make sense Mary, right,” He scowled at the box, “innit? No.” 

Mary walked over to where she struggled and neatly slipped the cardboard into perfect place, kissing him on the cheek as she did it. “There you are.” 

“Showing off, then?” He smiled down at her. “Terrible thing, to be such a braggart.” 

“Take it to the china cabinet, off with you.” She smacked him lightly with the tea towel. “And be a lamb and run down to the cellar for the bottle of cabernet I bought Tuesday.” 

He mumbled something in a poorly-constructed mock grumpiness about the horrible abuse he was forced to undertake for the sake of love, but hurried off into the small room off the entryway, which might have been a parlor, or a study, but mostly was just a sort of catchall and occasional guest room. 

Mary turned her careful hand back to the china in front of her, cobbled together for her small family’s happy Sunday tea, something her daughter would keep up even after both she and her husband were long gone. None of it matched, really, and some was a bit cracked, but still quite useable, Bert had assured her, and didn’t really leak. A sort of Oxton way to look at life all around, Mary had considered. Something she liked so much in them, that she never found with her own family. 

There was a wail outside the door and Lena came howling into the room, holding her stuffed sloth to her chest. Her braided pigtails were frizzy and disheveled, her sweater was dirty, her left shoe untied. 

“Lena.” Mary set down the cup. Lena was not much of a crier, even when she fell into the dirt, and for a moment Mary was worried that she’d truly hurt herself. “Where is it, love?”

But her tiny four year old was overwhelmed with the horror of it all, and could barely speak, tears falling down her face, thrusting Biscuit at her while managing a “Mummy!!” 

Mary knelt next to her daughter, and immediately saw the terrifying spectacle. Biscuit had burst a seam, and stuffing was falling out the side of him, though he smiled all the same. 

“Mummy, IURTIM!” She collapsed into another peal of tears, and Mary put her other arm around Lena, holding her tightly. 

“Oh, my girl, it’s not so bad as all that, I promise,” She kissed the top of Lena’s head, “Nothing that can’t be made right.” 

Lena nodded, still wiping her eyes, and didn’t seem to quite believe Mary, but allowed that her mother might be telling the truth nonetheless. Mary stood up, Biscuit tucked safely in one arm, and held out her hand. 

“Let’s us go up the bedroom. With a needle and thread, he’ll be as good as new.” 

Lena nodded again, slowly, and took her mother’s hand as they ascended the narrow staircase to the small upstairs that served as the living quarters. It was a nice place, and had been in the family for years, and Bert was rightly proud of it, but it was hard, coming from where she did, for Mary not to occasionally notice the close space and cracking plaster. It was only occasional, though. The house had so much life in it that it was hard to see anything else. 

“Now,” she looked down at Lena, who had calmed some with her mother’s reassurance, “How did all this happen?”

In their bedroom, Mary pulled a small mending kit out from the underbed storage, and carefully placed Biscuit on the bed. Lena held his tiny stuffed and wiped at her face. 

“I’s in the tree ‘n I fell ‘n I fell on Biscuit ‘n–” 

Mary immediately turned to her daughter. “Lena, let me look at you,” she pulled up Lena’s shirt to a few bruises forming in her side, “Oh, Lena, my girl, you mustn’t climb the tree without your father and I there, it’s very dangerous, you’ve been hurt.” 

Lena shook her head. “No, it was Biscuit was–” 

Mary tenderly touched the bruise, but Lena hardly seemed to notice. Too worked up. She’d hurt later, of course. She didn’t always notice things in the moment. 

She took Lena’s chin, staring into her wide brown eyes, still pricked with tears on Biscuit’s behalf. 

“You tell me first thing, if it hurts to breathe, or you feel dizzy, or anything, Lena. Anything. You must be more careful with yourself, all right? You’re such a little thing.” 

“Yes, Mummy, I will.” 

Mary sighed. There wasn’t much to be done, sometimes, about the way Lena simply was, whatever sort of anxiety it gave her as a parent. Her little daredevil, who suffered little from a broken arm and burst into tears when her sloth was injured. Mary took up the needle. 

“Do you want to push back in Biscuit’s stuffing?” She smiled at Lena. 

She nodded, and gently pushed the white fluff back into his body, giving him a tender kiss on the head. 

“Right. You hold his hand, while I stitch him up.” 

She ever so carefully pulled each stitch tight, trying to make it stronger than it had been before. He’d need to be washed, covered in dirt as he was, but that would have to wait until Lena had fallen asleep for the night. Lena held his hand, telling him that it was okay, and Mummy would fix him right up, and he was being very brave. It was quick work–Lena had done not so much damage as her tiny heart had imagined–and was over in a few moments, the thread knotted and snipped and Biscuit handed back into Lena’s arms. 

She looked him over, smiling happily, and hugged him tight. 

“There now,” Mary said, channeling the Oxton spirit she had come to revere entirely, “nothing so bad it can’t be repaired, right?”

Lena nodded her head insistently. 

“Right!” 

[docholligay]

*WARNING, WHINING* I have been working on this all damn day+ and I am so fucking frustrated and upset about it, none of it turned out how I wanted and I hate it AHHHHHHHH. *END WHINING*

Something for father’s day! 2,400 and change. 

Lena Oxton was a cheerful sort, resilient and funny, who could generally find pleasure in her life even in the more difficult moments. She was not particularly given to long bouts of sorrow, preferring instead to quite experience all of it at once, get it over with, and move onto more pleasant things. There was no point, she figured, in dwelling on the things that couldn’t be helped. Life was short enough as it was, even when you knew what you future might look like, and she intended to spend the two to two hundred years given to her enjoying as much as she could. 

People loved this about her. She was the sort of person who could lift the mood of a room with her bright smile and loud, lingering laughter. Her happy chatter and quick, joyful movement had more than once led someone to a smile whether they wanted to or not. She was rather legendary, for her cheer, and people always wondered at how she managed it. 

But she was still human, and sadness still found her however fast she moved and how brightly she shone. 

Father’s Day was harder for her than it should be. 

She was hardly unique, in her little group cobbled-together group. Mercy was an orphan, same as her, and she hadn’t gotten nearly so long as Tracer with her father. Winston struggled with whether or not he had a father at all, or if he were only an experiment. Jack and Ana, well, Tracer wasn’t convinced that they were born of human beings anyway. So that was a solid seventy percent of them without fathers, what reason did she have to pout about it? 

And yet, every Sunday in June, she felt that little pang, that twist in her chest that said she was never going to see her father again, that she hadn’t hardly had a chance to say goodbye, that it was her death that had killed him, if you believed her grandmother. It was a heart attack, it was a broken heart, and they could both be true. 

That was the worst of it, she thought, sitting alone, as she often preferred to on this day, rubbing at the edge of her chipped tea cup. She had lost him, but he had also lost her. Losing him might have been tolerable if he’d at least been spared that. It seemed such an unkindness, a constant reminder that life is very rarely fair. 

“It’s only a quick flight, can’t tell you much. You know.” She smiled, “Be ‘ome for Christmas this year, they promised me.” 

The last conversation they had ever had, as Tracer quickly gathered up her things from her brief furlough. She’d believed it. There was no reason to believe the Slipstream would, at least temporarily and in a fashion, kill her. Why would she think anything else? 

“Tell me, soon as you’re allowed.” He took her elbow and kissed her on the temple. “And be careful as you can be, love.” 

He did know how it worked, and so he hadn’t pressed her too hard about the secrecy of the flight. He was, to a point, used to waiting around to hear from her, and she had always, diligently, told her that she was safe as soon as she could. He was an airman himself, but he could also be a proper worrywart when it came to the subject of Tracer. He never stopped her, but he always worried for her. 

“Dad, it’s nothing.” She had giggled. “Take your girlfriend out for a night or two, maybe, forget about the whole thing, and then you’ll ‘ear from me and remember you was supposed to be nervous. Nothing.” 

She’d given him a hug and rushed out the door. That was the last time she’d ever seen his face, and she hadn’t taken the care to memorize it, to know what it felt like to hug him tight, to take note of the every syllable and they particular way he said it. She hadn’t known. 

Grief and guilt are both complicated emotions, and it often struck Tracer that she was more sullen on Father’s day than Mother’s. It made her feel disloyal and ungrateful, and so she rarely told anyone. It wasn’t that she missed her mother less. It was that losing her mother was like losing a grand opportunity. It was the trip she never took, the house she never had. She had been so young that it was a part of her, the loss, as much as her mother herself was. 

Losing her father was like having her house burn down. It had been just the two of them for so long--at least as much as any Oxton is ever “just” anything--and they had been so close. She had never even considered moving out, why would she bother paying rent on a miserable flat when she and her father got on so well, and repaired their little place together, and cooked together, and teased each other about their dating lives? Why would she go elsewhere, when here she had a place where she was always loved and appreciated for what she was? 

And then it was gone. Oh, the house was there, and it was Tracer’s now, but if she fell asleep on the couch, there was not blanket set to cover her, dinner was never waiting in the fridge, and the only message on the whiteboard on the back of the front door was the last one he’d left. 

Keys. 

Wallet. 

Phone. 

Charger. 

Call your Nan while you walk to the tube. 

I love you, Dad. 

She’d never had the heart to erase it. He hadn’t either, in the six months she was gone. She returned to London to find her room exactly as she left it, excepting her small effects returned to where they belonged, Biscuit, her stuffed sloth, safely on her pillow. 

Tracer tried to cheer herself, narrowing her eyes in frustration at her own sorrow. She would make a chicken salad sandwich, and pack a bit of a lunch, and maybe she would head over to the East London Cemetery. It had been seven years. And there had been happy Father’s Days, for her, and for him. She had been spoiled by the joy of her life, in so many ways. Even in tragedy. 

She smiled as she remembered their first Father’s Day without her mother, strange as it seemed. She hadn’t hardly been gone more than a month, and her father was still so sad. Tracer had wanted, more than anything, to do something very special for him, to help him turn his face to the sun, like he always told her to do. 

Her Uncle Teddy had been the greatest help, being that he was a baker, and he and Mark had watched Tracer so much when her mother was ill that it wasn’t unusual at all for him to offer to take her for an afternoon. Teddy adored her--him and Mark never could afford to have one of their own--and she felt the same. So she skipped next to him down to Ballard’s Baked Goods and they had whipped up a little cake, which was hardly Teddy’s speciality, and the fact that Tracer had made it with only a little guidance was obvious, but oh how she remembered the look on her father’s face when she presented it proudly to her father, with tea, which had also, she thought quite expertly made. 

“Oh, don’t I ‘ave the most wonderful girl in all of London?” He smiled, and cupped her cheek, and kissed her forehead. “Look at all this!” 

They had eaten it together, sitting side by side on a small parcel of dirt behind the house, big enough to contain a block of cement, a tree, and perhaps one square foot of grass in a strip, but Tracer had known, in that moment, that they would make it, her and her father. They had each other, and that was enough. They could make the sun shine, even when it was cloudy. 

And she had, of course, found so much love in her life. The sun was easy to find, with all the people she had in, waving away the clouds. Tracer worried about a small handful of things, but none of them were ever that she would be alone. In truth, she really should be with Winston today, given his general troubles concerning Doctor Harold, and she nearly starting walking there, sandwich in hand, before deciding that she’d just like to spend a moment with herself. Or her father. Her parents. A fair amount of relatives stretching back to the first World War. Whatever it was that did or didn’t carry on after someone died, of which Tracer was never herself quite sure. 

The sun was bright today, wasn’t it? This was a rare enough treat in London, and despite the air of melancholy inside of her, she had to smile. Fathers were walking with their children, a few of them waving and smiling at her as they did so. It was the sort of day her father would have loved, where they would run around the Victoria Park together until he collapsed onto the grass, declaring the entire thing a disaster, as Lena was wound up, and he needed to be put to bed. 

Mostly, she went back, to her memories, after the Slipstream, when she was jumping around, trying to go home. There were a few times, though, where she got home. In her time, in her place, a living ghost. Tracer never liked to remember the few glimpses she had gotten of her Dad, then. But Father’s Day, they often couldn’t be shut out. The look on his face as he brought the box of her things into her bedroom. He’d taken out Biscuit and looked at him, just for a moment, before hugging him close and sinking to the bed, sobbing. 

“Oh Lena, my girl.” 

Those four words haunted her. Haunted her almost as much as the memory of him sitting on the couch, telling her Aunt Lily that the worst of it was not that she was dead. 

“If I just,” he was red-eyed and tired, “if ‘ad her body, Lil. If I could bring ‘er ‘ome....bury ‘er with Mary. Annie.” 

Her aunt, the oldest of all of them, with no idea how to comfort her brother through his worst nightmare. She felt guilty herself, sometimes, Tracer knew. She had four of her own, an embarrassment of riches, and her little brother, with his one. She was guilty, because was glad it wasn’t her. She touched his shoulder. 

“I know, Bert, really I do. It’s--grief is like that, sometimes, right? And--”

“Lily, I don’t think she’s dead.” 

He didn’t make eye contact with her, just stared into the carpet, and Tracer had tried so hard to scream to him, but nothing came out, nothing but the sheer cold of the lack of time pouring into her throat. 

“Oh--”

He held up his hand. “I know. But I get the sense--I get the sense she’s alive, and someone’s--” he looked up at the ceiling, “Someone’s ‘urting ‘er. I don’t know ‘ow it is I know that. But I do.” 

He was at least partly right, though he didn’t live to know it. He had never gotten rid of any of her things, marked her name on the gravestone but never gave up enough hope to lay her jacket and her sloth in the ground as all he had of her. 

He believed in her, always. He believed in her from the day she was born to the day she died the first time. Even when he said he’d accepted that she was dead, he believed she might just make it. Even after everyone said he’d gone mad, even after Overwatch had tried to suppress his call for an inquiry into Overwatch’s experiments. 

Your father was right, Mercy had said once, quietly. They should have been stopped so much sooner. He never got to know that, either. 

There was a little girl across from her on the tube, chatting happily to her father, who smiled sheepishly. Too little to know the unspoken rule of ultimate silence that lived in London’s trains. Tracer gave him a big grin. 

“Nothing ever really leaves the world, Lena.” He looked dreamily off into the sunset, the calls of children still playing echoing across the green, “Just, changes form a bit. New flowers grow from the old, right? Dead leaves, well, they’re the ones fertilize the trees. No,” he shook his head, “nothing ever really leaves us. Not if we can see it. When we look.” 

She raised an eyebrow and looked at him with all the skepticism of her sixteen years. “Dad, you do know I’ve no problem with you dating, right? Believe I suggested it. No need to tell me about renewal and all that.” 

“Lena!” He snapped off his flatcap and hit her playfully on the leg. “No need to step on every tender moment.”

“I’m not, I’m genuinely trying to discover what it is you’re driving towards.” She picked at the picnic dinner in front of her, enjoying the long London evening. 

He chuckled and looked back at the sunset. “Guess I’m not entirely sure meself. It’s just--I see so many people I’ve loved, in you. The best parts of them. Your mum, of course. Annie. Even people you never knew. And I think, ‘Bert, everything stays, some’ow. Changed, but, it doesn’t leave.’ That’s what I think.” He looked back at her. “I love you, Lena. You are a wonderful part of me life. I’m a lucky man, being your dad.” 

“Dad.” She looked away awkwardly, not sure if she wanted to laugh or cry, and opted to look at the cheese on the plate and mumble. “I love you too. ‘Course.” 

She hadn’t really understood what he’d meant, then. She was too young to know, hadn’t lost enough and found it again, to see the truth in what he said. Watching the little girl with her father, she knew it had been true all along. Her father had never left her. He was still here, in the little crocuses that peeked up through the grass. In her Uncle Teddy’s concern and gentle nagging. In the way Winston happily worked with her quick little mind, and called it never a burden, but a gift. He was with her every time she lucked into West Ham seats, and when she sat down to her family tea every Sunday with her mismatched and chipped china set. When she was loved. 

He’d never left her at all. And so there was nothing to find at East London Cemetery and Crematorium, at least today. 

The train screeched to a halt, and the voice from above announced her station. She got off the train, and walked right to the line headed toward Hackney Wick. Winston would be tinkering in his lab, trying to forget the day. She’d swing by the pizza place on the way to his house, pick something up, and she’d do a better job of making him know he was loved than Dr. Harold could have hoped for. 

Tracer was a cheerful sort, resilient and funny, and she did her very best to find pleasure in her life, even through the difficult moments. This was a gift given to her, she realized as she walked through the station, by everyone who had loved her, everyone who had entrusted her with the joy of this world, to be its bearer and its champion. She was all of their greatest dreams, and they were hers. 

Somewhere against the announcements and the chatter, Tracer heard it clear as day. 

“Proud of you, Lena.”

[docholligay]

No one asked for this! Sometimes Jews can do the things they want to, as a treat! Lena and Bert, Valentine’s Day

“Why do we date women, love?” Bert tossed his coat over the back of the chair as he moved into the living room, and slumped into it. 

Lena, who would one day be Tracer, but today was simply a small thing with bright eyes and chestnut hair in a tangled fluff, looked up from her graphic novel with the wisdom of her sixteen years. “Because the alternative’s a bit grim.” 

Bert chuckled. “It’s true, and I would know, wouldn’t I?” He shook his head. “Don’t ‘ave the magic left in me, I’m afraid.” 

It had been less than a year that Bert had even tried dating. Through all of Lena’s early years, he’d not wanted to take women in and out of her life, and the idea that she might get attached to someone it didn’t work out with was more than he could bear. So he had simply devoted himself to his daughter, and his family, and his work, and it wasn’t until Lena was sixteen that he realized what had been consideration of her feelings had simply become an excuse not to try. Besides, Lena was dating, too, wasn’t she? 

It had been just the two of them for so long--in as much as any Oxton could be said to do anything alone, he supposed--that the idea of adding someone in seemed strange and a touch frightening. 

But it looked as if there was little to worry about on that particular front. 

Lena sighed heavily and tossed down her book. “‘Ave to confess I thought there might be occasion for me to go see Alfie this year,” she gave a weak chuckle that mirrored her father’s, “seems not.” 

“Could go get flowers for your Nan.” 

“Does lack a bit of what I was ‘oping for, Dad.” 

Bert leaned back and closed his eyes. “Better than what I did, guarantee that.” 

Lena leaned forward, and smiled. “‘Ow’s that, then?” 

Bert pinched the bridge of his nose, unable to look at her, knowing he fully deserved the chiding he was about to take. 

“Got reservations for that posh place all the way out on the west end. ‘Ad the money laid aside for months.” He opened his eyes, sensing Lena’s stare, “Thought I might ‘ave someone to give a bit of romance to! Your mum loved that sort of thing, every so often.” 

“Three hundred pounds of love’ll near do it for anyone,” Lena giggled in the way that could not help but make Bert smile, “Mum was a bit posh, about the edges. Bit more like ‘er family, I suppose.” 

The silence hung between them. Lena had only recently gotten back in contact with Mary’s family, and was still struggling to forgive him. Bert tried to put it up to the difficulties of teenagerhood, well acquainted with the knowledge that all children pull away from their parents some at this age, and he couldn’t expect to have the same affectionate girl who loved nothing more than to spend time with him. 

But there was a part of him that knew he failed her, in this one particular arena, by trying to protect her, and as much as Lena loved him, she was still just a touch angry with him. 

As it often did in life, Lena’s sense of cheer broke the gloom. “Suppose you can use it for a footie game, hot dog,” she giggled again, “Two, if luck ‘olds.” 

“Course. You know, Lena--” Bert stopped himself. He and Lena loved to go to games together, when they could afford it, yelling in the crowd and singing together. They’d gone ever since she was a little girl, eating God’s most expensive cheap food, teaching her all the ways of the game. It had become something for the two of them. 

But Lena had always had him, hadn’t she? They’d been to plenty of games together. 

Maybe this was something Mary might have done. 

“What?” Lena cocked her head, “You forget ‘ow to buy a ticket or something?” 

Bert looked back at her and shook his head. “Was thinking, I never really take you to fine places like this. Bit of something different, right? ‘Sides all that, aren’t you me best girl, after all?” 

Lena considered a moment. “Really want to?” She wrinkled her nose, thinking, “You and I isn’t--” 

“You do ‘ave it in your blood. Time I--time I showed you a bit of it.” 

Lena nodded and looked forward. “I won’t wear a skirt.” 

“Seeing as the only’s skirt you owns your school uniform, think that’s best. So,” He stood up and straightened, pulling his shirt down to smooth it, “Madam,” he affected the best received accent he could proffer, “Would you accompany me to dine tomorrow evening?” He bowed and extended a hand. 

Lena took his hand and stood as delicately as she knew. “Of course, good my lord.” 

They laughed, and Lena bit her lip. “Dad,” she shook her head, “You don’t ‘ave to do this. S’alright.” 

“Lena,” He tenderly put his hand on her shoulder, “I love you. I’ve made you mine in too many ways, not ours, and that was wrong of me. Kept you from things. I never meant to--” 

Lena hugged him tightly pressing her cheek to his chest. “I know, Dad. I know.” 

He kissed the top of her head, almost too tall for him to do easily now. “You’re me best Valentine.” 

Lena laughed, wiping away a tear. “Be serious, I’m you’re only Valentine.” 

He laughed again, long and loud, and hugged her tight.

[docholligay]

madegeeky replied to your post “Mother’s Day ficlets: Tracer”

This is so sweet! I love Lena and Mary's interactions and I love Lena holding Bsicuit's hand. Just adorable.

SHE LOVES HER BISCUIT

amberlilly replied to your post “Mother’s Day ficlets: Tracer”

WAIT - WAIT WAIT WAIT - Is this the Biscuit your sister made for you?!? Is that LENA'S STUFFED SLOTH BISCUIT?!?!?

IT IS

amberlilly replied to your post “Mother’s Day ficlets: Tracer”

Also: "He mumbled something in a poorly-constructed mock grumpiness about the horrible abuse he was forced to undertake for the sake of love" - I love this line. I know multiple people who grumble like this and it reminds me of them fondly.

I love that sort of fake grumpy thing, I just think it’s cute. 

amberlilly replied to your post “Mother’s Day ficlets: Tracer”

Awwwwww, my heart! Little Tracer is so adorably sincere and genuine, I love how you write her. And her faith in her parents, it's so lovely.

Lena has many strong feelings as a child, but I always like to place carefully that Lena is so secure and resilient in part because she had a very loved childhood where she knew she was valued even when she made mistakes. 

rhiorhino replied to your post “Mother’s Day ficlets: Tracer”

My kokoro ����

I DO MY BEST

rhiorhino replied to your post “Mother’s Day ficlets: Tracer”

I haven't finished but I LOVE tea sets, love them with all my heart, and I adore the image of the Oxtons having a set that's mismatched and a little worn, a little cracked in places, but the set is still good!! Just like the overwatch family! Cracked and worn and mismatched but still a family, still good!

Yes me too! ANd I love having Lena and Bert still do the family tea when Mary’s gone, and Lena carries it on after Bert dies, and so on. A passed down, chipped, cracked, loving legacy. 

proudchangelingmum replied to your post “Mother’s Day ficlets: Tracer”

Ugh, this is so sweet. Baby Tracer's complete faith in her mum to fix it, and hey, now that faith is in Winston. I only know these characters from you, so any feelings are entirely your fault.

I LIVE TO SERVE. 

[docholligay]

"Life is like a game of cards. The hand that is dealt you represents determinism; the way you play is free will." -Attributed to Jawaharal Nehru

House Advantage

I’m really frustrated with this. I want it to be more than it is, but it stubbornly is not. I TRIED. Thank you for joining us for Lesbian Visibility Prompt day, brought to you by @rhiorhino! Here are 1300 words about my precious bab, Tracer. 

On the day Lena Oxton was born, the Omnics attacked the East End.

She had been told this story many times, by many people, and it was something of a household legend. That her mother’s only regret had been that she wasn’t up in the air, that her father had been buzzing an omnic so closely it nearly pulled him down the moment she took her first breath, that she had been born because as long as there were Lenas in this world, there could always be a London. That she was the hope that this world might continue, whatever the struggle.

Tracer had taken that to heart, all of her life. And as she toddled through streets that were only recently beginning to be patched, as the strength of humanity, and Overwatch itself, an organization so deeply entwined with her that she did not yet know, began to beat the omnics back, she looked up to the sky.

“Doesn’t matter the clouds. Look close,” Bert pointed up toward the sky, “You can always see the sun, if you look for it, Lena me girl.”

Tracer had few memories of being six years old, but she always remembered this, her father looking tired and haggard, the black suit doing nothing to suit his pale complexion, balancing her on his hip as they stood a short distance away from her mother’s funeral.

Lena pointed at the sky, where she could see it, just a paler shade of grey in the clouds. You could barely see it, but it was there.

“Right.” He nodded. “That’s it.”

The sky began to spit rain, and Bert shifted Lena to the front of his body. She was heavy to carry, but he was unwilling to let go, and she drew her arms around his neck as he walked back toward the cover from rain.

“We’ll be alright, Lena. We’ll look for the sun.”

And, Tracer would later reflect, they had. Her mother had died, but her father was determined that she would have a happy childhood, where she felt plenty loved and plenty cared for, and so Bert Oxton had dedicated his life to making sure that it was true. It would have been easy to see her childhood as a tragedy, when she looked at the bare bones of it. Her mother had died, she was cut off from her mother’s parents until she was a teenager (there was proof in this world, that, as good a man as her father had been, he could still make terrible mistakes, and both Lena and he counted this as among them), from to time to time Bert was not entirely sure how he was going to make it all work financially.

But for all that, she remembered mostly the brightness of her childhood, the way her father had taught flying lessons to her teacher’s son so she could take gymnastics, the way her family always gathered for holidays, conversations peppered one over the other, the warmth of her small but endlessly cheerful bedroom.

She remembered how her father refused to let anyone tell her the way her brain worked was wrong, that if her mind was quick and agile and sometimes was like a little bird that alighted from branch to branch, then that was a gift. Their desire for her to behave they wanted didn’t make it right. Lena could learn to work in the world just as she was, whatever anyone else said.

It should have been hard, a small butch lesbian awkwardly walking toward school on skirt days, trying to hold her head high with her close-cropped hair.

“The way you are’s just the way I want you, Lena.” He’d said, and it echoed in Tracer’s ear all those years later.

For every boy that jeered at her, there was a girl that looked at her with admiration, and she always looked for them. She was there for every person in that school that couldn’t be themselves. She was there for everyone who needed to see that it was all right to be different, and besides, she had the backing of her family and her father, and they would fight for her.

She was a lesbian, and she was butch, and she was ADHD, and by God, she got through school. She wouldn’t have necessarily given herself any awards, but all the stories they told her father about how he was setting her up to fail had come to nothing. She’d never believed them.

The hand she had been dealt might not have been all aces, but poker wasn’t about having a good hand so much as it was making the best of the hand you had. Some people could have two pair and have nothing but despair. Tracer was content to have high card and a smile on her face.

They could hand her anything they wanted, Tracer often thought, and she’d find a way around it, a way to make a game of it. It was never hard for her to find the sun, always the one bouncing through the mess hall, laughing as they set up for another mission. Life threw her grounders, so she learned to golf instead. That was the Oxton way, wasn’t it? Adaptability and good cheer, in the face of everything. Tracer’d won the pot, whatever her hand.

Then she’d boarded the Slipstream.

It was six months, she was gone, but it could have been six years for how different she felt. She made it back, clawing and fighting, only to have more thrown at her. Only for the worst to drop.

Sitting in this enclosed room,this bug jar, where she lived her life now, every noise louder and touch rougher than it had ever been, Lena Oxton thought over the bombed out shell of her former life. She couldn’t leave this room. Her father was dead. She’d gotten to see her family only twice in the last two months. Her girlfriend had moved on. No one knew if she would ever be right again. That Dr. O’Deorain had said more than once she’d like to cut Tracer apart.

Tears stung her eyes as she thought over the loss of it all. Everything she’d built seemed impossibly far away as she sat in this little place on an island in the middle of nothing. If being out of time had been Hell, this was Purgatory.

She took a deep breath, and closed her eyes.

Doesn’t matter the clouds, she heard, from a man trying to find a way to put the pieces of his life back together.

She turned her thought to the small bits of green poking up from the rubble, that chair that had survived, that beam that would still hold fast. Winston seemed a kind man, and had made this room as nice as he could for her. Her family sent her letters every single day, members of the family switching off, never mind if Lena returned them. Winston was working hard on a portable sort of time lock for her. She was wearing her favorite worn Hammers shirt. She had a bag of jelly babies on the small desk, and a few jammie dodgers next to her tea kettle, and they were all fresh and soft. The birds still sang outside the one tiny window in her bug jar. Dr. Ziegler would be dead in the ground before she let Dr. O’Deorain do anything to Tracer.

Tracer walked over to the window, where the birds continued their melody. It was hard to see, the window was so small, but Tracer could tell, if she looked, that the sun was shining brightly, and she smiled.

East End got rebuilt, didn’t it? As long as there’s Lenas, there’ll be a London.

I’m still here, and I’m ready to play

[docholligay]

keyofjetwolf

replied to your post

“Life is like a game of cards. The hand that is dealt you represents...”

"On the day Lena Oxton was born, the Omnics attacked the East End." --I've no idea if this is your concept or not, but of fucking course she was.

It is all me! BUT IT SHOULD BE CANON. 

keyofjetwolf

replied to your post

“Life is like a game of cards. The hand that is dealt you represents...”

"“Doesn’t matter the clouds. Look close,” Bert pointed up toward the sky, “You can always see the sun, if you look for it, Lena me girl.”" --Such an Oxton view of the world. DID ANY OF THEM PAINT THE SUN ON THEIR PLANE BECAUSE I FEEL THEY MIGHT HAVE DONE

I FEEL LIKE IT HAD TO HAVE HAPPENED AT LEAST ONE

keyofjetwolf

replied to your post

“Life is like a game of cards. The hand that is dealt you represents...”

"Her mother had died, she was cut off from her mother’s parents until she was a teenager (there was proof in this world, that, as good a man as her father had been, he could still make terrible mistakes, and both Lena and he counted this as among them)" --Wait wait do we know more behind this? Because I'm drawing a blank, and that is UNACCEPTABLE. And if we don't already know, we will soon, yeah??

No! This is one of those stories that I know but haven’t told yet! I’m really happy that you’re interested, though!

keyofjetwolf

replied to your post

“Life is like a game of cards. The hand that is dealt you represents...”

"“The way you are’s just the way I want you, Lena.” He’d said, and it echoed in Tracer’s ear all those years later." --HEY FUCK OFF IMMEDIATELY

NO I WILL NOT

keyofjetwolf

replied to your post

“Life is like a game of cards. The hand that is dealt you represents...”

"Some people could have two pair and have nothing but despair. Tracer was content to have high card and a smile on her face." --This is a really lovely way of phrasing this. I love the intermingling of luck and effort, and Tracer's embracing of the latter.

Yes, it’s so important to me that Lena tries. That she tries consistently to be a good person and to have her life matter, and to look for the sun. That she refuses to give in to despair. 

keyofjetwolf

replied to your post

“Life is like a game of cards. The hand that is dealt you represents...”

"That Dr. O’Deorain had said more than once she’d like to cut Tracer apart." --IS THAT FUCKING MOIRA.  And also the first time you've mentioned her in Hon Hon Hon? OH MAN I CAN'T WAIT FOR HER TO BE EVISCERATED

Yes it is! and no it isn’t, but the other time was very offhand like this as well. I GOT YOU. 

keyofjetwolf

replied to your post

“Life is like a game of cards. The hand that is dealt you represents...”

"Her family sent her letters every single day, members of the family switching off, never mind if Lena returned them." --This legitimately made me tear up, I will punch you.

HER FAMILY LOVES HER AND YOU HAVE TO LIVE WITH THAT

keyofjetwolf

replied to your post

“Life is like a game of cards. The hand that is dealt you represents...”

"<i>I’m still here, and I’m ready to play" --This won't be a surprise to you, but you write Tracer with such vitality and life. Your love for her is apparent, and in an infuriatingly Tracerian way, you make it infectious.</i>

I DO LOVE HER SO MUCH

keyofjetwolf replied to your post “Life is like a game of cards. The hand that is dealt you represents...”

This was great, and a reminder to me to work harder and do better too. STILL GONNA PUNCH YOU THOUGH

BRING IT

keyofjetwolf replied to your post “Life is like a game of cards. The hand that is dealt you represents...”

This felt a particularly weird one to be reading right this moment, as I know Shit Continues Happening. But also, I know you work hard toward this particular mindset, so perhaps coming to it now was right after all. Doesn't matter the clouds, yeah?

Yeah, i refuse to give up as well, and I WILL MAKE THIS WORLD BETTER THAN IT CURRENTLY IS. OR I’LL DIE TRYING. 

[docholligay]

simplymindspace replied to your post “OW Lena and her family love the Oxtons”

THE OXTON'S. I LOVE THEM. THEY ARE ALL SUCH HONESTLY LOVELY PEOPLE.

THANK YOU SO MUCH I LOVE THEM I AM SO DISGUSTINGLY SELF-INDULGENT WITH THEM

simplymindspace replied to your post “OW Lena and her family love the Oxtons”

Plus the whole bit of each handling the other's death. I mean just, FUCK.

Poor fucking Bert and poor fucking Lena, like, they just get fucking rocked by life now and again. 

simplymindspace replied to your post “OW Lena and her family love the Oxtons”

Bert and Lena, how you write them and write of them...This will be the second time I can account for that something you wrote made me shed a tear. They have the sweetest relationship and that honest love is there and it's so strong and I feel it in every word about them. A THING I WAS NOT EXPECTING TODAY, TO CRY OVER A FICTIONAL MAN AND THE FATHER THAT HE IS AND THE RELATIONSHIP HE AND HIS DAUGHTER HAVE/HAD.

I ALSO LOVE HIM. I came up with bert and mary as half a joke, but when thinking about how confident and self-assured and cheerful and resilient Lena is, she very likely had a loving and supportive upbringing. And I just...wanted to give a character a really nice Dad. I don’t do that all too often, and I just wanted to give her that. Bert is a good person, and they really care about what happens to each other. 

thoughtfulfuri replied to your post “OW Lena and her family love the Oxtons”

Omg!! This was so beautiful and rich but freaking slay me that her dad dies knowing nothing of what happened to her ������

YES HE DIES FIGHTING TRYING TO FIND OUT WHERE HER FUCKING BODY SO HE CAN JUST BRING HIS DEAD DAUGHTER HOME.  SURPRISE

madegeeky replied to your post “OW Lena and her family love the Oxtons”

Oh, this is just lovely. ��

Thank you so much for reading!!

everybodyknows-everybodydies replied to your post “OW Lena and her family love the Oxtons”

I still don't technically go here but I need you to know!!! this felt like a hug!!! like a good long hug from someone you care about and now I've got FEELINGS THANKS

THANKS I LOVE THEM!!!

keyofjetwolf replied to your post “OW Lena and her family love the Oxtons”

THEY ARE ALL SO BEAUTIFUL AND GOOD I TOO LOVE THEM

THANK YOUUUUU

oathkeeper-of-tarth replied to your post “OW Lena and her family love the Oxtons”

And Bert is a GIFT but I just /cries over uncle Mark and his ugly sweaters for 5 years

I love gay uncle Mark and his hideous sweaters and his snappy comebacks, truly, THANK YOU FOR HELPING ME FLESH OUT THE OXTONS YOU LISTENED TO A LOT OF GARBAGE

oathkeeper-of-tarth replied to your post “OW Lena and her family love the Oxtons”

YES LOVE THEM I LOVE THEM AS WELL

YESSSSSS MY KOKORO. 

[docholligay]

A Stopped Clock: Chapter 7--Fly Away Home

Thank you so much to @katrani for sponsoring this series, which has two more parts and then is officially wrapped! This installment is 2,850 words, and you can find all of A Stopped Clock, as well as my whole OW universe, here. Hey if you read all this and was like, “Wow this is great.” may I recommend a comment? If you’re like, “no, I mean I REALLY enjoyed myself!” you can find ways of supporting me here!

Winston looked at the small bags he had packed, the things they would take as they left the only life they’d known for the last few years behind, off onto something unknown, a new life that lay amorphous in his brain.

They’d had only two weeks to get everything together, blue uniforms trying to convince Winston all the while that Overwatch really did have the best idea, there was so much risk to the organization, and you know Talon is out there, and Dr. O’Deorain has always wanted to experiment with her. This moved hinting that maybe they were moveable on the issue, maybe WInston could go with her, maybe, maybe, maybe, but Winston would hear none of it, the anger in him still fresh, knowing that even if they let Tracer off this time, the next time she, or he, or anyone was hurt, they’d be written off as soon as they became inconvenient.

“Be nice to see ‘ome again.” Tracer’s voice was quiet, but she spoke now and again, and every time she did it it filled Winston with hope.

He grinned and nodded at her. “We’ll be back before you know it.”

WInston had tried to keep his shiny veneer while Tracer recovered, but he felt it flake in places--he would not say he was a negative person, but he lacked Tracer’s ability to turn any situation into something to smile or laugh about, her quick way of turning on the light in the darkness, even if only a candle.

It frustrated him a bit, that she was so clear-headed today. The patchwork of good days and bad days was stressful enough on its own, and to have to sedate her on a day when she was doing so well, on a day when Winston could have had the time with her that had been lacking, that he was missing so much, seemed particularly cruel.

But things often were, whatever he felt about it, what they were going to be. He had learned that, over enough years in Overwatch, that sometimes you could not control what would be. Science didn’t have the answer for fate.

“You should take this, Lena.”

She looked down at it, and rolled her eyes, annoyed. “Not much point in my being alive if all I do is sleep through it, is there?”

“Lena.” He sat next to her, “It’s just--”

She sighed and drew the top of her flannel pajamas closer in to her. “I know, Win.” She slowly hand a hand through her hair. “S’just a question of what I can bear.  Tired of it.”

“You’ll get better.”

“I bloody well ‘ope--” She shook her head as she took the pills from Winston’s hand, “right. I will. Takes time, is all.” She nodded. “Time and work.”

She swallowed, and Winston helped her put on her chronal accelerator, trying to keep it loose on her body, afraid it might irritate her. She picked up the grey cardigan she loved, worn and soft and smelling of home, and gave a weak smile.

“It’ll be easier in London.” She nodded again. “I’ll be better.”

He had learned that sometimes you could not control what the world did to you, but he was always astounded at how Tracer, in her weakest moments, never let it conquer her. Her moments of doubt, and of despair, were only ever that. The world had taken her worst nightmare, and thrown her back into it, and she dug in her heels and refused to break. She was still quiet and shaky and sensitive, but there was something invincible in her, something powerful he could not name.

She slipped on her cardigan, and nodded, as the wooziness began to overtake her. “Let’s get to it already.”

__

If an airport could be said to have a back alley, that was where Tracer’s aunt and uncle were coming for them. Numbani was a fully modern, beautiful, and generally peaceful city, but you’d be forgiven for not knowing that as the weeds grew up through the asphalt, cracking and splitting it. Mark said he could set it down there, in the casual Oxton way with flying, as if it were heading to the market, and WInston had no reason to disagree.

Mark and Lily stood apart at the edge of the plane, two bookends of a family with the middle cut out. Winston had seen a picture of the four of them, from during the Omnic Crisis,smiling together in RAF uniforms, and today they stood that way, as if any moment, Bert and Annie might slip right back into the picture.

But all that emerged from the small cargo plane was Tracer’s grandmother Beatrix, a tiny but nonetheless imposing woman who had seen enough of Overwatch to last her entire life, and who was not afraid to make her loathing of the organization known. Last Christmas, she and Tracer had gotten into it over too many cups of wassail.

Mostly Winston assumed Tracer would be disappointed Beatrix been proven right, in way.

As if sensing the momentary tension, Mark grinned and waved at Winston. Mark Oxton was an easygoing man, immediately identifiable as an Oxton from his wide smile and small build, and Winston liked him immensely.

He skipped over to their side, and clapped Winston on the shoulder as he looked over at Tracer in his arms, mostly asleep. “You’ve looked better, Lena my girl,” but his smile did not fade as he looked up at Winston, “doing the right thing, bringing ‘er ‘ome.”

I don’t have any other choice, Winston did not say. Mark wasn’t wrong--Tracer loved London with everything in her, it was a part of her core, her home in a way Winston could not identify with but cherished about her, knowing where she came from and where she belonged, the way she looked whenever she returned, unable to hide her glee at being in a place that was truly her.

If he hadn’t been so desperately afraid that he wouldn’t have the money to care for her, he would have brought her back to London a long time ago. It was the first thing he’d said that had made her smile, even if it was a bit weak for her, since she returned.

But he was desperately afraid. Out of work and afraid.

Mark seemed to read his mind, in that loving and irritating Oxton way. “We’ll ‘elp you, Win. Nothing to worry about.”

Whether he was talking about the travel or Tracer’s health or the money or finishing his house, Winston was not sure, but, knowing the Oxton clan as he did, it likely meant all of that, and then some, and he was grateful.

“Thank you for coming to get us.” Winston knew that it could not have been easy, finding some way that the RAF cargo plane needed to fly to Numbani. Lily was high up in the maintenance department, so that must have afforded them some freedom, but still, Winston was fairly sure they could both lose their jobs over this.

And even more certain they didn’t care. Right was often just right, to an Oxton, whatever you paid for it.

“We take care of our own,” Lily said, in that no-nonsense way of hers. Winston often wondered if she had always been the most serious of the four, or if the Omnic Crisis had made her into what she needed to be. But then, she cracked a smile, reminding him that she was only serious for an Oxton, “Royal Air Force owes me a flight or two, I think they’d agree, though I won’t be asking, mind.”

Mark burst out a loud laugh. “Easier to ask forgiveness than permission, innit? Always tell that to Teddy, but ‘e’s a bit less impressed with it, even after all these years with me.”

Their chatter reminded him of just how much he had missed Tracer’s.

A few months ago, he thought he would be spending Christmas with them, barely able to move in her grandmother’s house but always welcomed, the scents of food and cheerful banter surrounding him in their warmth. He thought he would be telling them he was moving to London officially, and that his new place would be big enough to hold all of them, for any party they wanted to have. It should have been exciting, it should have been wonderful, it should have been a wonderful reunion instead of a worried carriage home.

Every time Winston was near to peace, he thought, something happened.

“‘’Eard about what you did to Doomfist, though,” Mark continued his chatter, “bit of revenge makes it a bit easier to swallow, I think.”

“Mark,” Lily looked over at him, “You going to help, or do I ‘ave to do the whole bloody thing by meself while you tell Winston the story of ‘is life over again?”

Mark skipped off as Tracer’s grandmother Beatrix approached him. She was small, even by Oxton standards, but Winston always found himself taking a step back when she was in the room.

“Overwatch never changes,” she said with the edge in her voice of a woman who never quite forgave a sin, “seems. ‘Ow polite of them not cut ‘er open. Might not ‘ave ‘appened that way if you weren’t about I expect, love.”

“Hi, Bea.”

He gave a sheepish smile, and her face softened, touching him on the arm. “Welcome back, Winston.”

It was welcome back to the family, not to London, and Winston felt the warmth of it, regretting that he hadn’t returned sooner.

Mark called over to them. “You three going to faff about all day, or you going to let me get back to London? Teddy’s making a roast, ‘e is, and I’d rather ‘ave that than me bag of crisps in the cockpit.”

“You ‘old your tongue, Mark.” Beatrix scowled playfully at him, but nodded at Winston. “Let’s get to it.”

“Already.” he said to himself

___

He must have fallen asleep. The sky looked different.

The plane soared above the land, turning it into a grey and green and brown blur as they drifted into the clouds. Beatrix came to sit beside Winston, looking over at Tracer, who lay sleeping on the small cot affixed to the cargo plane wall.

How they had managed anything they did with an airplane was a question that rarely crossed Winston’s mind anymore. The Oxtons were airplanes, as far as he was concerned. Tracer had talked about being a trick flyer, if Overwatch folded, though she’d rather it didn’t. But the sky was a place she’d always belong, she’d said happily.

As he considered these things, Beatrix sat across from him the plane buzzing in its dull hum, Mark chatting with Lily about something up front in the standard Oxton patter, full of excited jumps in pitch and volume, followed by wide cascades of laughter.

It felt like coming home, in a way that the direction on the map never felt.

Beatrix sat across the plane from Winston and Tracer, tugging on a thread as she tightened the patches on Tracer’s worn, loved jacket. Beatrix loved him, Winston knew, but he also knew she had little patience for his (and Lena’s, for that matter) devotion to the organization.

And now that organization had betrayed Tracer in a way that Winston felt into his bones, poisonous and seeping, how he’d let her be betrayed. It was his fault, too, and he wanted to tell Beatrix that, wanted to let her know he was sorry for what he’d done to her granddaughter.

He looked over at her for a moment, until she turned her face up to meet his.

“You were right.” Winston shrugged and gave a weak smile.

“Not ‘appy at that, you know.” She looked at him with a keen edge of judgment. “Would like to ‘ave been wrong. But after what they did to Bert...”

She was a woman familiar with loss, and not averse to it, accepting it as a part of life, and more particularly, a part of having 75% of her family in the RAF. No, that had never been the problem, that she had lost a second child, it had always been that she never felt it quite fair, what they had done to Bert, and she blamed them for his death, and Winston was the kind of coward that could never tell her, in his darkest moments, that he was grateful for everything that had happened to Tracer, back then.

If it hadn’t, Winston wouldn’t have her, and he couldn’t give that up, no matter how he hated that part of himself that whispered that.

“I know--”

“It’s more than the ‘appening itself, Win.” The nickname hurt, a little, as Tracer slept quietly and wordlessly. The one syllable was love and affection, but even if her whole family did it, to him it would always be Lena.

Beatrix sighed and shook her head.

“Me Gran ‘ad an uncle,” she looked down at Tracer,” Like Lena, ‘e was, there’s one or two, every generation, what runs a bit faster than most in the ‘ead. Me Annie was like that, you know, fast.  Gran’s mum said ‘e was funny, and sharp, brilliant pilot. Went down in the war, captured. ‘E didn’t tell them anything, three years,” she inclined her head to Winston, “‘e was an Oxton, through and through, right? Came back at the end of the war.”

“That’s good.’ Winston wasn’t sure where this conversation was meandering to, not sure he wanted the answer.

“Me great uncle was a quiet and nervous man. Barely slept. Never ‘eld a job.” She looked up at Winston. “Broke ‘im, they did. Totally. I never knew the man ‘e was, that me gran did.” She paused. “Quicker plane ‘as less armor, right?” She looked back at Tracer. “I--”

“No, c’mon,” he shook his head, interrupting her, not willing to follow, “where’s that Oxton optimism? She’ll be fine.”

She laughed. “Optimism isn’t saying everything will go your way, Win. It’s saying you’ll figure it out, whatever comes. Me great uncle was cared for, by us, for ‘is entire life. ‘E never found ‘is way to the gutter, never went it alone, and neither will Lena, whatever ‘appens. That’s Oxton optimism, that we can ‘elp, whatever it is.” She went back to the jacket. “What it isn’t, is thinking Lena’ll come right because we want ‘er to.”

Winston did not respond, but simply looked down at Tracer, his mind whirring with a dozen possibilities and excuses.

“But she’ll be ‘ome, at the least.” Beatrix smiled, seeming to regret having brought a bit too much reality to WInston’s door, “You ‘ave an idea where you’ll go? Plan for what you’ll do?”

WInston gave an inarticulate gesture. “I--I have a lot of experience with technology, and I could teach, or do research, uh, if--”

Beatrix laughed. “That’s a no if I ever ‘eard one.” Winston’s face fell, and she shook her head kindly. “We’ve a bit of money laid aside, if you should need it.”

“Thank you, Bea.” He said quietly.

“Thank you for bringing ‘er back to us.” She raised her eyebrows, “Again.”

Winston gave a low chuckle of concession, and felt his ears pop.

Tracer shook her head a moment, trying to shake off the sleepiness, and Winston wasn’t sure whether he wanted her to succeed or not. She put her hand on the side of the plane and closed her eyes.

“Feels good.”

Well, the day isn’t a total loss.

He barely felt when the plane landed. Mark was a good pilot, though he imagined that shouldn’t have surprised him.

Tracer finally shook off the haze that had consumed her, the drugs wearing off  after the 6 hours that seemed 20 seconds to Winston. No. Not 20 seconds. 20 seconds were cold and unkind, and the flight had been warm and loving even in its hardest moments. 21 seconds, maybe.

Tracer stumbled to her feet, blinking a few times, as the door dropped from the side. She pulled the chunky worn grey cardigan onto her shoulder, her hair stuck up at each angle, fluffy in the deep humidity wafting through the door already.

She took a step toward the light, a shudder running through her as the forgotten familiar cold of London crept into the plane. Winston put a hand on her shoulder, trying to hold her back, to let him go first, to let him carry her.

She waved him off, and Beatrix took his arm.

“Let ‘er be, Win.” Beatrix rose to her feet, following behind Tracer.

She staggered toward the door as it opened, and sat on the top step of the simple dropped stair woozily. She leaned forward, hands on her knees, the gentle grey of the sky easy on her eyes, the smell of it soft and familiar and wet and home in her nose, and she sighed, drawing the thick cardigan closer around her, trying to stave off the chill that reminded her of things she needed to forget, if only for now.

She looked out into the low London haze, and nodded.

“Made it.”

[docholligay]

madegeeky replied to your post: behind a cut because I’m being unnecessarily…

Okay, but now I’m imagining some event where these PR assholes force her into a dress and so she just starts going super passive aggressive because fuck you. Like, sitting on the back of the couch. Burping after downing some alcohol super fast. Shoving food in her mouth as messily as possible.

Tracer gathered up her garment bag and hurried to the studio. She wouldn’t be late. Not again. She had set no less than 6 alarms, every five minutes, and she practically beamed with pride as she walked out the door, checking that her key was wrapped around her wrist, carefully carrying her suit, neatly and newly pressed, to where the PR pictures were being taken that day.

London’s uprising had been a victory for them on multiple levels, and they intended to bank every moment on it. Tracer had been in the papers plenty when she had disappeared, and when her father had held Overwatch personally responsible for it, and there was a part of her that knew they were simply trotting her out as a way of mollifying the public outrage.

Look, she not only came back, but she is a highly successful agent. One of the best. We couldn’t say what had happened to her for the sake of public safety, no, not even to her father. Of course we regret what happened to Tracer, and whatever part the situation might have played in her Bert Oxton’s tragic death…

But, all those things being true, Tracer still believed in Overwatch, and that it could be a force for incredible good. And so she had happily agreed to be a part of the celebration.

It didn’t hurt that she adored a bit of praise, now and again, and also parties.

And so she bounced happily as she sat, careful not to wrinkle her suit or the new tie she’d purchased for the occasion–they needed to all wear black for the photo, but Tracer thought they wouldn’t object to a pop of color, a paisley silk tie in oranges and blues that was the most expensive she’d ever owned. She thought it looked very dapper.

But she’d brought a black one, just in case

She got off at her stop, humming tunelessly to herself and half-skipping as she entered. There were cameras everywhere, and her eyes lit up with excitement at the thought of being part of a real photoshoot, of being the hero people saw all over the world. It was the kind of thing no reasonable person ever expects for themselves, and now, here she was.

“Lena!” Reinhardt’s voice boomed across the studio. He was dressed in a black suit that didn’t look too dissimilar from her own, and Tracer was privately grateful that it appeared to pass muster.

Tracer waved happily. “Where do I go to get dressed?”

A man followed along behind Reinhardt and looked at her. “We may have to do something with the hair.”

Tracer held out her suit in its bag. “I’ve just ‘ad it pressed yesterday.”

He opened the bag and examined it, and Tracer’s eyes searched his face, his lips twisted in subtle disapproval.

“I’ve brought a black tie, as well.” She offered softly.

He shook his head. “Wardrobe will fix you up, I’m afraid it’s not the image we’re going for. Go see Cassandra round the corner.”

Reinhardt leaned in close to her, and offered his best whisper, which was closer to most people’s raised voice. “I think it’s a very handsome suit.”

Tracer didn’t know quite what to say. It was her first mission, London, as a field agent, and this new world was something she didn’t understand. She wanted to be a good agent, and she couldn’t figure out particularly what was wrong with the suit she owned–she’d bought it a few years ago, when she was made corporal in the RAF, and she thought it rather fine. Certainly cost as if it had been.

But, then again, they probably had designers here she had never heard of nor could dream of affording, and so, Tracer smiled and resolved herself to enjoy the pampering for the day. It wasn’t that her suit was bad, it was just common, and this was a very uncommon thing, for certain, and so there was no reason to take the whole thing personally.

She rounded the corner, bounce back in her step and smile back on her face, and met the fiercely penciled eyebrows of Cassandra, who was adjusting Mercy’s long, black offshoulder gown, which followed the lines of her body fluidly.

“Oh Angela, you look just beautiful!” Tracer giggled. “Your picture’ll be in plenty of lockers, it will.”

Mercy gave a little blush and waved her hand. “Stop.”

“No, really!” Tracer’s eyes danced with happiness. “I might ‘ave ‘ad quite the crush on you, in my day.”

“And no longer?”

“Well, you see love, I’m famous now.” She giggled and turned to Cassandra. “Ready!”

Cassandra took a bag off the rack, and handed it to Tracer, who unzipped it quickly, excited. Her face turned to confusion. “Oh miss, you must ‘ave given me the wrong bag.”

Cassandra turned over the tag, and showed it to Tracer. “Lena Oxton.”

“But,” she looked at the garment. ‘This isn’t ‘ow I dress. I’ll look a fool.”

It might have been lovely, for anyone else, a short cocktail dress with a deep v neck in a soft satin, but it made Tracer feel an imposter the second she looked at it.

Cassandra shrugged. “Overwatch was very clear about the wardrobe.”

All the bounce went out of Tracer’s body, and she frowned as she looked at it. “I haven’t worn a dress going on years.”

“Well, today is the day,” she snapped, and directed Tracer toward a dressing room, “Over there, now.”

***

Tracer looked at herself in the mirror. The dress was nice enough, and would have fit her perfectly, except for the awkward way it crisscrossed under her accelerator, reminding her of how it was strange and unusual and would forever be the first thing people noticed about her for as long as she lived. She sighed unhappily and touched the accelerator, wishing she was anywhere else.

Deflated, she put on the high heels that crisscrossed at the ankles, privately gave thanks for her youth as a gymnast, and went and sat on a chair outside of hair and makeup, waiting for the sparkly pins and tiny curls they intended to put in her too-boyish hair.

There was the creak of a heavy seat beside her, and she looked over at Reinhardt, her back still bowed as she slumped forward, elbows on her knees, her whole body carrying the weight of her disappointment.

Reinhardt looked over at her with warmth and gentleness. “Are you nervous, child? You seemed so happy!”

Tracer leaned back and looked at the floor. “I look stupid. I look like I belong ‘ere. You know,” she scowled, “Even in the bloody RAF they let me wear trousers for me dress uniform, and you know ‘ow it is about tradition, why do the right thing if we’ve done it the wrong way for 50 years, we’re well used to it by now, but even they let me wear trousers.” She shook her head. “Sorry.”

“You know, Lena,” he boomed, setting his hand on her back, “They used to make me shave my beard, for appearances.”

Tracer looked up at him. “But they don’t anymore.”

Reinhardt laughed. “I was so bad at shaving, that I cut up my face! Every appearance, my face covered in scabs!” She nodded and winked unsubtly. “They changed their mind.”

“And you won’t tell?”

“What’s to tell!? That you don’t know how to act in a dress?!” He roared with laughter again and looked at Tracer’s grin. “There’s a smile.”

“Thanks, Rein’ardt.”

“We are a team! We look out for each other.” He nodded. “You will be much more striking in the suit.”

Mercy walked up behind them. “The only thing I will be knowing is that you tried so hard to make a good impression.”

Tracer bounced up happily. It was good to be on a team.

___

Gerard threw down the magazine, the picture of the four of them on the cover, Tracer practically indecent as she sat on the back of the couch.

“They had to photoshop out the edge of her boxer brief,” Ana took a sip of her tea, “I’m not going to say I said so, except that I did.”

Gerard rubbed his temples. “Give her a suit for the next campaign.”

[docholligay]

Father’s Day

 I wrote this little series of vignettes for Father’s Day (note: I am aware Father’s Day is not universal, from its celebration to the day on which it might fall, but like...go with me here) just for something fun for today. about 1,800 words, including my five favs. The entire OW universe is here, and you can support me by leaving a comment, joining me on Patreon (where you can read an SM Father’s Day ficlet), tipping me on Ko-fi, or getting something from my wishlist. (gifts for Jill, who we all like better than me, are also here) I HOPE YOU LIKE THIS

Winston looked up at the moon at midnight. It had been so many years since it had happened, and he had always assumed he wouldn’t be hurt by it anymore, at some point, and yet that day never seemed to come.

 Some of it was the loneliness, the sense that no one could ever understand. Dr. Harold hadn’t actually been his father, right? That was what people thought. Winston was the creation of a science experiment gone horribly wrong, one that had ended with every single scientist dead, and it was really only a fluke that he had not been one of the rebels, one of those who destroyed their creators, because, at the core of it, they really were still animals, right?

 That was what they thought, he knew.

 And in ways, he wished it were true. He wished it did not hurt to see the Happy Father’s Day cards, and tried not to remember how he had discovered Father’s Day in one of the many encyclopedia that had been around the station. How he had created a small card for Dr. Harold, how Dr. Harold had proudly displayed it on his desk. How he had felt that first brush of the warmth of family, and how it had given him so much joy.

 The moon always reminded him, but especially today.

 He was not unique, he remembered, in having lost his father. It was the most common thing in the world, among his beloved team. Only D.va and Pharah could say otherwise. But people looked at them with understanding and knowing nods, while they didn’t seem to share the same with Winston, just a simple, ‘oh yes, the incident on the moon.’

 Tracer understood him, but Tracer was Tracer, and one could never take anything she thought or did as a human consensus.

 He looked up at the moon, and decided to go to bed.

  ___

 D.va sat in her room, waiting for the time to be right. When she was serving halfway around the world, there never seemed to be a convenient time to chat with her parents, and so she didn’t get to talk to them as much as she’d like.

 People always assumed that the worst parts of her job were the fighting, the never knowing what each day would bring, the thoughts of losing her comrades. And those were, yes, difficult. But it was nothing compared to the sadness she felt at leaving her family behind, even though they were proud of her, and even though she knew it was the right thing for the security of the world, she missed them terribly.

 Her father had been such a huge part of everything D.va had grown to be, her gaming, her sense of justice and her part in it, and she had never found the right words to tell him so. Telling people how much she loved them was not exactly her strongest suit--years of growing up one of the preeminent girl gamers had given her a thick skin, and sometimes a thick skin kept things from going out, as well as in.

 The little Skype alert went off, and she checked her hair quickly. She wanted to look happy and well-rested when she talked to them, and even though she was supposed to be talking to her father, there was, she thought, zero percent chance that her mother wouldn’t looking over his shoulder and thinking of all the reasons to worry about her Hana.

 The camera popped up, the light reflecting in the corners of her Dad’s glasses, and she smiled.

 “Hi Dad!”

 “It’s so good to hear from you, Hana. We’ve been reading all about the things you’ve been doing across the world, and we are so proud of you. The world is a better place because of you, you know.”

 And I’m a better person because of you.

 “I just wanted to say thanks today, Dad.” She shrugged, a little embarrassed. “For everything.”

 “You are worth everything, Hana.”

 “Dad.” She blushed. “Stop.”

 __

  Her family had gotten into the business of dying occasionally, as a family that had practically formed the RAF was wont to do, and during World War I, her family had thought it practical to buy more than a few plots out at that nice new cemetery in Newham. They were almost out of those plots now, and Tracer wasn’t sure what they’d do when they were, and no longer had the luxury of thinking that it wouldn’t be her problem.

 She poked along the narrow strip of green where Oxton began, old weathered stones bearing names she didn’t really know, and dates that seemed an impossibly long time ago. The first was 1915, she remembered, from visiting here as a child, where she had read every name and wondered what they had been like, as sure as she had wondered what her own mother had really been like. It was easy to be one thing, in stories, and Tracer hung on to the small handful of things she remembered about her mother, that weren’t stories, that she knew for real.

 It was a different sort of loss, with her father. Anyone could tell any story they wanted about him, and she could call it up in mind immediately, what he sounded like, the way he moved, the way he’d chuckle and shake his head.

 She’d often thought that losing her father was like her house burning down, and losing her mother was like never having had one in the first place. Missing versus longing. Besides, it was hard to be too upset over something that happened to everybody, eventually, it wasn’t personal, it was just how things were.

 She settled down in front of one of the newer plaques, the same five letters across the top of it as in the rest of the row. Anne, the aunt she never knew. Mary, her mother. Lena, awkwardly. And Herbert, Bert offered helpfully in quotes next to it, as if anyone who would sit here might forget. There was an RAF roundel next to each name, so common in this line that Tracer had thought, as a child, that it was simply something people put on graves. Only her name was the aberration, where her father had added the Overwatch symbol next to her roundel.

 She leaned back against the stone in front of her family’s--she always meant to leave a thank you note for giving her a relatively comfortable way to visit the folks, but she wasn’t sure how it would be taken.

 She took her sandwich out of her bag.

 “‘Appy Father’s Day, Dad. I brought nothing, but I thought you’d rather ‘ear from me than anything else, any’ow. Emily still loves me, I’ll ‘ave you know, and she’s even agreed to move in, think I may marry ‘er, if she’ll ‘ave me…”

 __

 Mercy was so very used to being alone that she never much minded it, and locking herself in her lab seemed like the best option for today, even if she did not have much of a project to work on, just putzing about the lab, here and there.

 She had wanted to go with Pharah to visit her father. And she hadn’t wanted to. Every year was like this, and every year the side that won out was a little different, and it was a sign of Pharah’s everlasting love and patience that she never pressured Mercy, just let her decide and took either answer with a cheerful nod and a kiss.

 Mostly it was that Mercy was afraid, seeing how Pharah’s father loved her, she might burst into tears right there at the table, and ruin Father’s Day.

 Her father had loved her, too, in a world that seemed a lifetime ago, growing up on the edge of Zurich, in that house with the wide wooden beams that she had known and loved so well. The way he used to quiz her on little things, and beam and laugh, loud and deep, over how clever she was. How she was his genius little girl, and there was nothing she couldn’t do, and she would change the world.

 She was so young, when it all happened, that she never could have imagined it, freshly bat mitzvah and turned out into the world, some cruel joke of a God that decided she was a woman now, she supposed, in her more bitter moments. She thought of her parents often, wheen the big and little things happened. When she graduated medical school. When she married. When the cards in shops started to proclaim about good fathers.

 Alone in the lab, she believed she could do it. That she had done it. That she could make everything mean something, including the Father’s Day card she had sent, to an address that was nothing more than a hole in the ground in Zurich.

   ____

 Pharah waited at the table. Her father was not her mother, and it was easy for her to see why they had never solemnized their involvement with each other. Her mother was regimented and would never dream of being late, wry and sly and subtle. Her father was...not.

 She often wondered what her life would have been like if he had raised her primarily instead of Ana, but then, Pharah rather liked herself just the way she was, and this other, foreign Pharah who might have been a completely different person did not necessarily appeal to her.

 Which is not to say she didn’t love her father. She did, very much, and she had come to appreciate how nice it was to have a simple and uncomplicated relationship with a parent, where she never worried how he would see her, where there was never any struggle for control of the conversation, for some dominance, where Pharah never had anything to prove.

 So she could take a little being late.

 He walked in, 20 minutes after he said he would be there, but it was impossible for Pharah not to forgive him immediately, the way his face lit up at the sight of her, the way he drew his arms around her immediately and held her tight, never intimidated by his daughter, the way others were. He saw her as his precious girl and never as a commander, and he may have been the only person on earth from whom Pharah could find that charming.

 “Fareeha! You look so good! Where is that beautiful wife of yours?” He looked about the restaurant, as if Pharah might have just been sticking her in a corner.

 “You know how hard she works, Dad.”

 “I know,” He pulled out a chair and sat down, grinning, “You’re afraid your old Dad’s going to embarrass you in front of such a pretty girl.”

 “You have already done that,” Pharah laughed, “multiple times.”

 “And still she married you. It’s that Amari beauty, we’re all suckers for it, I understand.” He picked up the menu. “What should we get, pumpkin? They make great crepes here, I know you like those.” He looked over at her and smiled. “It’s so nice to see you.”

 “Happy Father’s Day, Dad.”