#watchpoint: geneva?

[euhemeria]

Rites of Unshared Spaces

Part One: Thoughts of Arid Paper Sea

Chapter One: Claustrophobia

She does not remember anything of what they said in the aftermath, and they have not spoken since. What could she say? I’m sorry might be a good start, for a number of reasons. But to apologize would be to invite a conversation about what happened, and that she has never quite felt ready for.

Fandom: Overwatch Rating: T Category: F/F Characters: Angela, Fareeha Warnings: N/A A slowburn Pharmercy fic wherein, after several years having not spoken to one another, Angela and Fareeha work to rekindle their friendship and along the way find something more. Also on ao3 and dreamwidth.

After a long journey, one never quite returns to the same home one left. Angela is intimately familiar with it, that queer in-betweenness, the acute awareness of all the little changes, the discomfort of expecting one thing and finding another. Aware too, is she, of the fact that even when things are perfectly preserved, she herself is changed enough that the once mundane is rendered alien. Too often, she has left for a short journey and returned someone else entirely, all that once was hers belonging, now, to some version of herself she will never be again. She knows well what it is to be a stranger in her own home.

Somehow, returning to Overwatch feels nothing like that.

It is changed, certainly, and nearly beyond recognition. Where once she was lured to join their ranks by gleaming new research facilities and the promise of funding beyond her wildest imagination, now she finds herself working with equipment that has not been touched in five years, let alone serviced in that time. There are not proper medical research facilities in Watchpoint: Gibraltar, either, not like there were in the old Headquarters. Instead, her only office is in the medical wing, which, in truth, was not built for long-term patient care, was meant to be used only in the direst emergencies before transferring patients to the far better equipped facilities in Geneva, under the watchful eyes of herself and her staff.

Her old office was so bright as to nearly be blinding, and the current one, situated half underground, is far dimmer, several of the lights in need of replacement. Despite her best attempts at cleaning it, the air still smells somewhat of disuse underneath the familiar sharp antiseptic. It is smaller, too, by far. Although her previous office was far from palatial—Overwatch never did put enough value on the sort of work done at a desk—it had, at least, space for her to meet with people when she needed to, and an adjoining conference room for those times when an office was insufficient. In this current space, she can barely fit her desk, a filing cabinet, and a second chair. It is far from comfortable, and she does as much of her paperwork as she can in the larger exam room, taking her notes as she goes.

Granted, she has had very little paperwork to do, as of yet, having not had to treat any particularly serious conditions aside from Mei’s initial injuries in Paris, and she can hardly complain about a lack of a conference room when there is no one to conference with. As of now, she is the only doctor on staff, and they have no nurses, technicians, physician’s assistants, or physical therapists to speak of. They are running a skeleton crew, at the moment—less than one.

But as few of them as are here, as empty as even this small base seems, in comparison to the bustle of the old days, already it feels like home in a way no other place has, since the shutdown. Here, the sound of Reinhardt laughing down the hall, there, the smell that lingers around Torbjörn after a long day in the workshop, and now, the familiar flash in the hallway of Lena hurrying off somewhere.

When Overwatch was shut down, Angela was glad for it, believed it for the best—thinks, still, that such was the right choice—but even then, a part of her was sad to see that chapter in her life close. In their own strange way, her squad mates became her family, and it hurt her, to leave them all behind.

But she did.

On the final night before the Petras Act went into effect, she said her goodbyes and departed for OCG, abandoning whatever she could not fit into her 20kg luggage allotment to the rubbish, and leaving no forwarding address. Overwatch had been so crushing, in those final years, so suffocating, the tension between Jack and Gabriel so thick that she could not breathe, at times, and she needed to be free of it, of any reminder of it. As best she could, she put distance between herself and those days, avoiding writing anyone, let alone calling or visiting, and with each passing month she felt the pressure lift, little by little.

It was not easy, the work she fled to, but the wide open sky as she walked from tent to tent on assignment in Venezuela gave her the chance to breathe for the first time in what felt like ages, eased the claustrophobia she suffered from in those final years with Overwatch.

When it had started, the fear, she cannot place. Or, rather, the fear itself has a simple origin—after her parents’ deaths, she had nightmares for years, dreamed she was with them as the hospital collapsed, felt the layers of concrete and debris fall in on her, crushing her slowly, slowly, slowly, each breath getting more and more difficult—but it had been in the past when she joined Overwatch, was something she had worked hard to overcome, in her teen years and early adulthood, and by the time she went into the field with Overwatch, she truly thought she was over it, was able to go to crowded indoor concerts so long as she stuck to the margins, was comfortable in elevators finally, and had even made plans with her boyfriend at the time to visit the Catacombs in Paris. She knows, now, that she was foolish to think that it was something she could get over, as simple as that, a fear she could conquer, ignoring its root cause, but she had been hopeful, in those days, and more than a little naïve, had truly thought she had laid her past to rest, and that there was no harm to be done, in continuously visiting disaster zones that reminded her of the past.

She ought to have learned quickly how wrong she was. Her third time out in the field, she was at the aftermath of a shelling in Alor Setar, spent the better part of an afternoon trying to prevent those survivors being pulled from the rubble from immediately being lost to crush and compartment syndrome. It was natural that she might have the old nightmare return, after that, if only for the night—and it was only the night, that first time, so she dismissed it. The stress of the situation would have disturbed anyone’s sleep, and they were all shaken, after that. Even with her nanobiotics, ACS mortality rates guaranteed a grueling day for everyone; it was easy to discount that first warning sign.

Looking back, she can chart the progression, but at the time, she did not want to see it. Even in retrospect, all but the most pivotal moments are difficult to pinpoint, so gradual was the decline. Rather than a linear worsening, a building of things to their inevitable conclusion, it was just an increasing frequency of bad days, until those bad days became the norm, and worse ones, which, too, became usual, and so on and so forth; perhaps more than anything, this scares her, because now she finds herself worrying, each time something happens, if it is again part of some greater pattern she cannot see.

What she knows is this: she was fine, when she joined Overwatch, or as close to fine as she has ever been, felt healthy and normal and unafraid, did not have to plan her days around her fear, was able to go and to do nearly anything she wanted, even did some things specifically because they scared her, and by the time she left, every room felt claustrophobic, even her lab.

The only safe place was the sky.

She should have run sooner, she knows that now. In her way, she did try to, left the lab for the field, took to the air, even ended her engagement, did anything she could to get out of the feeling of everything pressing down around her—anything but leave Overwatch. She must have known, she thinks, what was wrong on some level, must have realized the cause of it, but still, she did not put the blame on Jack, on Gabriel, not until the end, still thought it was her fault, somehow, assumed that the problem was her powerlessness in the face of death, did everything she could to seize control.

It did not help. She skipped the elevator for the stairs, whenever there were other people in it. She barely concealed a panic attack in the ORCA on the way back from London. She started doing her paperwork in the conference room, because her office was just too small.

Looking back, she can see how it happened, when, remembers being stuck with Jack and Gabriel in the lift one afternoon, shortly after Rialto, the tension between them so think the air felt unbreathable, remembers the argument they had, comms still on, as she, Lena, Reinhardt and Torbjörn made their way back from London, not stopping until Ana cut the channel, remembers when they came into her office, three weeks after Ana’s death, and an argument had exploded out of nowhere. She remembers, so clearly, the feeling of the walls closing in, and the air stale in her lungs as she took shorter breaths, the redness rising in her face and the way she started to sweat. She remembers that Jack and Gabriel never noticed, not even when she thought she was about to be ill, so absorbed were they in their argument; everything was collapsing in on her, and they could not see that anything was wrong.

That was the moment she realized, finally, that she needed to leave—too late. Headquarters came crashing down the next day, her worst fear realized.

She does not remember the aftermath. She knows what of it she has seen, in photographs and news footage, knows that she found her suit, somehow, that she stayed there for three days, pulling people out of the rubble, tending to the hurt, the dying, before she could do it no longer, knows she did it all with a face completely blank, unable to feel any of what was happening around her. She knows that, in the end, someone had to pull her away from a body—whose, thankfully, cannot be seen in the photographs—and that she fought them, screamed.

She knows that, after all of it, she called her ex-fiancé and left him a nearly incoherent message. She knows that he came, that he checked her into the hospital—nominally for dehydration—and that he made sure she was back in the care of her old therapist before he left. She does not remember anything of what they said, and she has not spoken to him since.

What could she say?

I’m sorry might be a good start, for a number of reasons. But to apologize would be to invite a conversation about what happened, and that she has never quite felt ready for. Even her old comrades, those who ought best to understand what it is she went through, who experienced it with her, the unraveling of their world, the constant pressure of the environment they were in and the powder keg they were sitting on, she has yet to speak to about it.

As best she could, she ran from them—ran from it all.

It felt, then, like a matter of survival, running away, felt like the only place she could breath was a thousand kilometers away from all of them, tending to strangers in disaster zones where all she had to do was step outside a tent to see the endless sky above her. She did not think, then, that she would not speak to any of them for another five years.

But she did not. With the exception of Genji, whose first letters began with important medical questions, and therefore could not be ignored, she avoided all of them. She told herself that she would get back in touch, when she felt well enough, would speak to them again when their presence was not an unpleasant reminder of all that they went through together, but the longer time went on the easier it was to just keep putting it off, and to believe that she was better off for it.

Were it not for Ana and Jack’s appearance at her doorstep, she might have continued in that way for the remainder of her life.

She still is not certain if she would have been better off for it.

Turmoil followed them, as always, led to her donning her suit again. And another kind of turmoil, afterward; in the tent, talking with Mahmoud, an old familiar feeling, the air too hot to breathe, her thoughts years away as her body betrayed her, a tear escaping before she could even realize.

No, going back would be a mistake. If one day with Ana and Jack was enough to provoke that, after her years of slow, steady progress, was enough to cut into her recovery so thoroughly—she could not possibly return to Overwatch. Not then, not ever.

Quickly as she could, she left Egypt, only briefly stopping back at her apartment to gather her things, told herself that she had to leave to prevent anyone else finding her. In truth, she was running, again, away from the feeling of Overwatch closing in, of the past catching up, of walls collapsing in on her. The thought that someone might actually pursue her was the least of her concerns, as the people she believed she was hiding from were her former colleagues, and so it came as an unpleasant surprise, a handful of weeks later, when the Recall came through, and an even more unpleasant one when an old acquaintance found her in Cyprus.

Initially, she had been happy to see Baptiste, had only worked with him for a week, in Venezuela, but remembered him fondly nonetheless; his positivity had been a breath of fresh air to her, then, so freshly out of Overwatch. He was not so happy to see her when he found her, however, and brought with him the news that Talon was tracking her—hunting her.

And there, a problem: Talon cares not for collateral damage. To be hunted means that ones mere presence in a location puts others at risk, making it nigh on impossible to do any meaningful humanitarian work. What good would it do, if she came to the site of a mudslide and saved a dozen people, two, if Talon, in pursuit of her, started a firefight that killed thirty-three more?

To go back home would pose similar dangers, would only invite an attack in another crowded area; one with better resources, perhaps, but no less innocent people or fewer potential victims of any fallout.

Where to go, then?

Only one place: Overwatch.

And so she finds herself here, in a basement office that might make anyone claustrophobic, let alone her, surrounded by she is by memories of the past.

But the familiar fear has not found her, not yet. All those years spent running, convinced that any contact with the people from her past, the ones she loved, would send her again spiraling, and instead, she finds she is fine, at least so far.

In fact, she is better than fine. For the first time in years, she finds herself among people she loves. Rather than feeling like no time passed at all, in the most negative sense, it instead feels the same in a good way. There is some momentary awkwardness, to be certain, when Lena says, “You never wrote me back!” but her excuses are accepted almost before she has uttered them, Lena excitedly remarking that, “S’alright, now I can get you all caught up in person! Em and I have…” and launching into a two hour monologue about the joys of cohabitation, and picking out wallpaper.

Reinhardt, too, seems to bare her no ill will, already aware that she did not write anyone else, either. Genji, she has nothing to smooth over with, Winston understands her need for space, Mei was in cryostasis, and Torbjörn and Brigitte are family to her, in their way. For all that Torbjörn grumbles about her having not come around, or bothered to call, she knows she is forgiven before she even needs ask.

It feels in the beginning, then, like she is coming home. For all the time that has passed, for all the different places their journeys have taken them, they have found themselves again here, and without Jack, without Gabriel, without the arguing and the anger just below the surface, it is a relief, to be again among friends, feels not like returning to the home she left, but the one from even further back that she told herself could never truly have been so beautiful as she remembered it.

Not quite the optimist she once was, she still sees the reality of their situation, knows that this peace may not last, long, once they find themselves in combat again, knows that she might soon be exposed to the sort of humanitarian crises that bother her the most, shellings, and thinks that will be the real test, how she reacts to that, will show her whether it really was the emotional tension that got to her, all that time in the first Overwatch, or if, indeed, it was the work too.

Most likely, she knows, it was some combination, but she could manage it, in MSF, the memories and the fear, had good days, and bad, but felt on the whole like she was recovering, not getting worse. If things go well here—if they can avoid the sort of conflicts that plagued them the first time, that made her feel like she was being crushed and simultaneously pulled apart—she thinks it might not be so intolerable, to stay.

If Overwatch has not become a sort of emotional sore spot for her, in and of itself.

That remains to be seen.

But, truly, what could she do if it were? Leave? And go where? Knowing that Talon is hunting her, knowing what they have done to the agents they have found—better to stay. Better to stay, no matter how miserable it makes her. Better to let herself become, again, the sort of person who sleeps with her curtains open and sneaks out of tense meetings to go outside and catch her breath under the pretense of a smoke break, with no excuse for why she does not smell of it when she returns inside. Better to live in a cage than to die like—

No. No she cannot think of it that way, cannot let herself believe she is stuck here, because then it all comes tumbling back, collapsing in on her just like she always knew it would.

They assigned her a room, a private one, since she is one of the higher ranking members to return. She says it smells moldy, and she would rather sleep in the main bunks with Lena and Mei until she is quite certain it is remediated.

There, she has to worry about her nightmares waking the others, but at least she falls asleep confident that she will wake, dreams less often of the ceiling collapsing in on her, on all of them.

Why could they not have ended up at a base where more of the compound was aboveground?

In a way, she supposes, this too feels like home. The fear is a familiar one, was common in her time in Overwatch originally, and to the years after she lost her parents, and even before that, in the earliest years of her childhood, where she fell asleep every night with the knowledge that she might not wake in time to escape the next nighttime raid.

Then, it was worse. Even the sky was no escape, the moon and the stars blanketed by the ships overhead. Now, when she wakes, she can at least sneak outside, look up, and see that the sky is clear.

It occurs to her that she feels more at home with this fear than she ever did without it.

She tries not to dwell on that too much.

But it is undeniable, the past few years feel, the longer she is here, like they were some strange interlude, and do not fit within the greater continuity of her life. Like her engagement before, they feel almost like she was playing at what life ought to be, what she thinks it is for other people, not what life has always been for her. Which is to say this: people she loves, who love her. Desire to help others, above all else. The fear that threatens to suffocate her.

It kept you alive, a therapist told her, once. It did, she knows, but it is hard not to see, too, all the ways it kept her from living. So afraid, was she, of fear itself, of what it would do to her, to be consumed by it, that she did not reach out to her friends, her only real family, for years. It made her think that the only way she could be safe, could be happy, was if she ran from everyone she knew, if she abandoned her support system in the time when they needed one another the most.

That therapist also told her to not let the fear control her, she knows, in a different conversation, only said that first part so she would stop hating herself for being afraid, for the things the claustrophobia of her teen years kept her from doing. Still, it is hard to see the value in it, now, even if she survived the places she let it take her, that need to be free of everyone, of everything she thinks is holding her down.

At least they have forgiven her, her friends. At least they have welcomed her back. She never doubted that they would, not really, knew that they loved her, but she did doubt her ability to accept that love, was afraid it would feel, again, like a kind of smothering, or that even being around them would be an uncomfortable reminder of the past, of a time when her worst fears were realized, and the world truly did collapse in on her.

So far, that has not been the case. Perhaps she really did heal, in her time away. She can separate, now, the claustrophobia, in the true sense, from the sensation of being trapped emotionally, suffocated by the tension in her working environment as she was before. She knows what she feels, now, is mostly the latter, is so because she has been forced back here by the threat to her life, not because of anything within the organization, and not because it is really bothering her, the size of the rooms she is in.

It gets worse, certainly, with stress, and so it was hard, before, to disentangle the two, but after her years in MSF experiencing only the one, she thinks she can identify, now, the difference.

What she felt, when Overwatch was ending, was not claustrophobia at all, not really, was only the culmination of the stress and the pressure of the environment, the compromises she was asked to make, the betrayals of her principles, her very self.

It is still not ideal, she knows, that she reacted so badly, suffered so much. Overwatch is, after all, is not an easy place to work, and she will no doubt have to grapple with that again, but it helps, to know she was not the only one. Ana is so different now, or seemed so when they met, and Reinhardt—they all know what happened to him. Still, he is back. If they can trust him, then surely they can trust her. She will have to be careful, this time, to not be so naïvely certain that she is only claustrophobic, and to think herself cured of that, as well, will have to be more aware of the sort of gradual decline she experienced last time, so that she can catch it before it gets to the point where it seems impossible to come back from. Before Overwatch, and after it, she worked in high pressure environments, and she knows she can do so again, particularly with the support of her friends—her family—now that she has them back.

Or, most all of them.

Cole, she thinks, might be more difficult to win back when he returns. He is more easily wounded than the rest of them, and not nearly so quick to forgive as Lena. When she called him to verify what Baptiste had told her, he was curt, insisted that she go meet up with Winston and the others for her safety, and ended the call before she could begin to say anything else. He might have been busy—she thought she heard something in the background, and it would be far from the first time he answered one of her calls in the middle of a firefight, terrible a habit as that is—but he might, too, have been angry, have been hurt. He is due to be back in a few hours time, bringing with him new recruits, and she thinks they will have to discuss it then.

Out of anyone, after all, she thinks he has the most right to be cross with her. They were close, once, and although the revelations about Blackwatch’s activities towards the end of their time together put a strain on things, before he left, she knows he made overtures towards an apology in the years since, could not stop herself from reading the beginnings of his postcards like she could avoid opening the letters sent by everyone else.

Angie, started the first one, his nickname for her she begrudgingly tolerated, only because it was him.

Angela, a few postcards later, when it became clear that his first few attempts garnered no response.

I’m sorry, said the last few, no other address needed. They both knew who she was to him.

Please, the final one, two years ago.

That relationship, she fears, might take some mending, some time. Always, their friendship was a singular one, and she thinks that it will take them a while to find their footing with one another again; their perspectives on everything have always been so very different that she fears that with so many years apart, it may be difficult to know what to say to him, when the time comes.

Still, she will try. She will meet him when he lands, will hug him, if he lets her, if he is not too angry, too wounded, smarting still from her rejection.

Eventually, she knows, he will come around.

Or perhaps sooner than eventually. Far sooner.

“Angie?” It is the first thing he says, as he departs from the ship, sounding for all the world surprised to see her there, as if he did not practically order her to return to the Watchpoint when last they spoke.

But maybe he is surprised—it is early, 03:00, and only she and Winston are there at the hangar, waiting for their ship to dock. She can see why, after years of silence, he would not have expected her to come out to meet him.

“Cole!” She hopes she sounds excited to see him, and not nearly so anxious as she feels.

She must, because he repeats her name and practically runs up to her, arms open—and stops just short of hugging her. Although she appreciates the hesitation, remembering, likely, that hugs can be intolerable to her, sometimes, on days when she feels worse, she is quick to close the gap, wants little more than to be able to hug him back, in this moment.

“I missed ya.” As if it were that simple.

“I missed you too.” Maybe it is, in this moment. Later, they will have much to discuss, apologizing and catching up to do, and it will take them some time, she suspects, to really get back to where they were, before everything, but here and now, it hardly seems to matter. He still smells the same, cigars and whiskey and beneath it all himself, and he may be less one arm—which she is certainly going to make him explain later—but he still hugs her the same way, and speaks in that familiar voice. They have both been changed by the years, that much is immediately clear, but in the face of the friendship they had, perhaps that does not matter nearly so much as Angela feared. Cole is still the same person she cared about, no matter the ways time has changed him, has changed her.

For a moment, it feels like coming home.

Then, over his shoulder, she sees an unexpected face.

“Fareeha?”

She knew Fareeha had received the Recall, but she had heard, too, from Lena, and Reinhardt, and Brigitte, that she had declined, and so it is quite the surprise to see her old friend here—if a very welcome one.

“Fareeha!” she repeats, pulling out of Cole’s arms in order to go give a proper greeting, already reaching out to touch her when—

“Doctor Ziegler,” is the response. Clipped, curt, professional as Fareeha steps around her and begins making her way out of the hangar, although she cannot possibly know where it is she is going, does not know how they have reorganized the Watchpoint in order to use it as their temporary headquarters.

For a moment, Angela is too stunned to move, just stands there watching Fareeha leave, blocking the exit of the other people still aboard the ship in the process. Then her mind and her body catch up, and she forces herself to move, to get out of the way.

Perhaps some things have changed, after all.

[segadores-y-soldados]

Since the topic has come up again, I’d like to do a brief-ish recap of the main locations listed on the map found in Jack’s office in the background of the “Uprising” comic. Blue dots appear to represent “active situations” or investigations by Overwatch.  The dots turn red when the investigation becomes an actual mission itself.

You can find another post on this from April 2018.

This is the Overwatch “mission map” that is present in the background of the Uprising comic.  These are “ongoing missions”.  They include:

A mission in Tokyo, Japan: likely the investigation of the Shimada clan

A mission in Nigeria: likely the investigation into Doomfist (Akande) following his fight with Akinjide

A mission in Cairo or Giza, Egypt: this mission is unknown but may be related to the Anubis AI confinement, or the “Overwatch official murdered” in a “Cairo incident.”

A mission in Rio de Janeiro: an unknown mission but could be related to activities that facilitate Vishkar’s work there in the future, or could be related to the revelation that Lúcio’s father made the sonic tech that Vishkar uses. This may be tech that the Talon Assassin utilizes.

A mission in Dorado, Mexico: may be related to Los Muertos or the beginning foundation of LumériCo, which Jack Morrison is actively investigating in the present-day (as Soldier: 76).

Special situations:

A mission in London, UK: this is Null Sector’s hostile takeover of London 

And:

And lastly

A mission in Switzerland.

This might be Overwatch’s investigation of itself, following the suspension of Blackwatch after the Venice mission (Retribution).  If you have read my other posts on this topic, you know that I believe the suspension was actually embraced by Gabriel Reyes because he was trying to figure out which Blackwatch agents were double-agents working for Talon (he appears to believe that Moira is one of them).

Again (because this always comes up), the blue dot in the area of Switzerland/France is NOT Chateau Guillard.  Amélie did not live there.  She lived in Paris as a ballet dancer.  In fact, she did not purchase the estate until “very recently”, likely after Recall and Masquerade.  

[wardensantoineandevka]

dualexistence replied to your post “I said I was gonna try to talk more about my fic projects, so here’s...”

I am moving to Switzerland in January and hoo boy 500 CHF equals 10 pizzas in Zürich LOL Swiss prices are weird

I’ll admit! I chose a random aesthetically pleasing number, because I have no idea how much things cost in Switzerland. And I might be diligent but I wasn’t about to research something for a one-off DM joke ;)

It’s a shame you’re not going to Geneva, that’s where I set the Year One fic, so I can exploit ask you for Geneva details lmao

[dabbledrabbleprose]

Whumptober Day 6 - Dragged Away

“This is Slipstream, ready and awaiting authorization to initiate!”

“Roger, Tracer. Standby for authorization.”

Nothing in the world was quite like flying a fighter jet, Lena thought. Commercial planes were slow, clunky, and far too soft. With long, flexible wings to buffer turbulence and agonizingly slow turns, big planes felt like flying a whale wrapped in ten feet of pillows. Helicopters were a little more fun, just on account of how different they were from a plane, but flying a chopper felt more like floating than actually flying.

But jets? Jets were fun. To strap herself into a cockpit that could explode on command, tear off the runway at 320kph before even getting airborne, then rip into the sky and feeling free, without even gravity to stop her was exhilarating. The speed alone was thrilling. With a casual push of the controls, she could break the sound barrier and go supersonic just for fun, and the g-force pushing her into her seat kept her aware of just how fast she was flying at every second.

Lena and the jet were like one being, and she could feel every jolt and pocket of turbulence as if she were feeling through the steel skin of the jet. She knew the controls so well that they were intuitive, and she could flip, dive, and spin through the air like she was controlling the plane with her thoughts.

Fighter jets were the bloody best.

Technically the Slipstream wasn’t a fighter. No guns, no missiles, but that wasn’t a problem for Lena. The plane flew better than anything in the RAF, and she got to be a member of the best peacekeeping organization in the world!

“Ground control to Tracer, commence with Slipstream testing procedure.”

“Roger, Ground Control!” Lena grinned and lined the jet up with the appropriate coordinates. The first test would be a short jump, only about a kilometer, but if she succeeded, she’d be the first person ever to teleport. “Slipstream test commencing in three…”

Her fingers flew across the control panel, expertly activating the teleportation matrix like she’d practiced.

“Two…”

The whole plane hummed, and Lena’s hair stood on end from the charged energy.

“One!”

She hit the thumb controls. Nothing happened.

Lena’s eyes flew across the control panel. She’d done everything correctly, right? Right. No, something else had gone wrong. Oh, well. That a problem for the scientists, not her. She reached for her radio controls, shoulders sagging with disappointment, when an alarm shrieked in her ear. A light on the control panel flashed red and the teleportation matrix in front of her sparked with electricity.

Uh-oh.

“Ground Control, there’s a problem with the matrix, I’m coming down to land!”

Lena changed course, racing for the Watchpoint: Geneva airstrip. The matrix crackled and sparked all over her control panel. The energy building in the cockpit grew stronger and smelled of ozone, even through Lena’s helmet.

“Roger, Tracer. Wait for clearance for Runway 04.”

“No, no! I need to land now! Something’s wrong!”

She started taking the Slipstream down in altitude, but the plane didn’t respond to her controls.

“Mayday, mayday, mayday, Slipstream unresponsive, course is headed to…”

Lena trailed off, all her military training going out the window as she watched her hand pass through the controls. She stared at her hand in horror.

“What in the…”

In a blink, the plane vanished from around her, and Lena had the horrible sensation of her stomach rising up to her throat before she plunged into freefall. She screamed. Her plane was nowhere to be seen, and her parachute had been attached to her ejector seat, which vanished with the plane. She tumbled through the air and watched with horror as the roof of the Geneva Overwatch Headquarters grew closer and closer. She positioned herself like she’d been taught in flight school, feet down, arms crossed, and aimed for the building’s skylight, hoping that breaking through the glass would slow her momentum before she became a smear on the tile floor below.

In the second before impact, Lena made the bewildering observation that, despite the fact that it was June and she’d been flying past them all morning, the mountains were inexplicably covered in snow. She hit the roof.

Except…she didn’t hit anything. Lena watched as she fell through floor after floor of the building, passing through ground and ceiling like a ghost. Her momentum finally slowed and she stood, entirely unharmed, on the ground floor. She’d landed in a conference room, surrounded by surprised faces.

“Sorry!” Lena said. She hastily took her helmet off and set it on the table. “I seem to have–”

She blinked and everyone in the room vanished. Her helmet was gone, too. The lights were off, and the window outside indicated that it was the middle of the night.

“Hello?”

No one answered. Cautiously, she tried to open the door to the conference room, but her hand passed through the doorknob. She frowned and looked at the offending hand and clasped her fingers of both hands together.

Well, that seemed to work. She felt real and solid to herself, but everything else felt like it wasn’t there. Even the ground beneath her feet didn’t feel solid, more like she was just walking on air. With a lack of other options, Lena passed through the door without opening it. She needed to find someone who could help. Not sure where else to go, she headed for Winston’s lab.

She’d never been in HQ at night. Somehow, she thought it would be busier. They were a global organization, after all. Wouldn’t there be a night shift working around the clock? Or even a janitorial staff? Instead the halls were dark and quiet. Her footsteps made no sound, only adding to the unsettling silence. Well, at least Winston would be in his lab. He lived there, after all.

As Lena walked, she grew more and more concerned. She kept passing by areas of the building that were entirely empty, even of furniture, or found rooms that looked like they were being painted. It was almost as if the building seemed unfinished. But that was ridiculous. Geneva had been Overwatch’s primary headquarters for over fifteen years.

She walked through the door to Winston’s lab and froze. This wasn’t Winston’s lab at all! Or…it was, but everything was wrong. The room was correct, of that she was certain, but it didn’t have any of Winston’s things, none of his current projects, his custom-made furniture or tractor tires, his personal belongings or pictures. Instead the lab was full of…guns? It still looked like an engineering lab, but all the projects were for weapons and armor, with a few active projects scattered about on workbenches. Lena peered at one, some kind of turret, and saw pictures thumbtacked to the wall behind the workbench. The pictures were mostly family photos, most featuring a blonde woman and a few red-headed kids.

Lena blinked, and the pictures were gone, along with the turret. She turned around and gasped. Now the room looked like Winston’s lab, with Winston himself at the center worktable, working on a circular device.

“Winston!”

His head snapped up.

“Lena!”

“Winston, what’s going on?” She rushed toward him.

“Lena, stay close! We’re constructing a–”

Winston vanished before her eyes, blinking right out of existence, along with the circular device he’d been working on. His workbench looked slightly different, and she even recognized the project he was working on, the booster pack he told her was his current project. An alarm sounded over the intercom.

“Attention all staff: Slipstream has crashed into–”

The alarm stopped and it looked like night had fallen once again. Winston hunched over a set of blueprints at the workbench against the wall.

“Winston!” She cried, and she couldn’t hold back the fear in her voice. “Winston, what’s happening to me!?”

“Lena!” He turned quickly around. “The malfunction with Slipstream’s teleportation matrix has made your timeline unstable! You’re being dragged backward and forward through time, but please stay within the headquarters! I’m designing–”

Winston vanished again. The entire lab vanished. Instead, Lena stood in the smoking ruins of a building, fires still smoldering amid the wreckage. In the distance, sirens wailed through the night. To her left, she heard someone crying, pleading, the words indiscernible through sobs and the crackle of fire. A gunshot rang out, and the crying stopped.

A footstep crunched behind her.

Lena spun around, but she was back in the lab again, intact, no wreckage to be seen. Lena broke into tears.

“Lena, it’s okay. Don’t worry, I’m here. We’re going to fix this.”

Winson’s hand passed through her, and despair clutched at Lena’s heart. She fell to her knees and sobbed.

[solivar]

Because @gnomeicecream planted this idea in my head:

Just...sit back...

...Close your eyes...

.......And just imagine what Watchpoint Geneva must have been like in the middle of Eurovision. 

[solarbird]

Old Soldiers, Chapter 12: i'm pretty sure what i saw, but i could be wrong

[AO3 link]

"I'm pretty sure I know what we're gonna see on this video," Venom said, back in her Tracer garb, but still more than a bit blue at the edges and entirely gold in the eyes. "'Cause I'm pretty sure I know what I saw." She gave Angela Ziegler a pointed look. "But... I might be wrong."

Most of the current members of Overwatch Lunar Embassy sat around a table in the ambassador's workshop - even Fareeha, though her thoughts clearly chased rabbits elsewhere. Lena glanced over with more than a little sympathy - she hardly even remembered her mother, and couldn't even imagine what it would be like to have one return from the grave.

"If everyone's ready, I'm going to start with Ana Amari's recording," Winston said, to general assent. "I haven't looked it yet - Athena's just finished deep-scanning the media for anything... inappropriate... to our systems."

-----

Jack Morrison looked at the drive containing the video. He didn't really want to play it again - it scared him. He had some ideas about why, but he didn't like them. Being a super-soldier was one thing. Being... whatever this implied... was another entirely.

He sat quietly in his temporary quarters on the small Los Muertos compound just south of the New Mexico border. He could hear Delgado outside, running her fighters through the training regimes he'd taught her, with that new man, Arturo, acting as her second. Jack smiled to himself, hearing the noise. If we're not careful, I'm going to end up with a pretty good strike team here. Already got one that's not half bad, he thought.

The former - and, arguably, again - Strike Commander looked at the drive a third time, thought, the hell with it, and linked it to his padd. A notice came up, saying the file system was damaged, and he let it repair itself, which took only a couple of minutes, and produced a slightly larger video file.

-----

Winston hit play. The large wall display showed a view through a sniper rifle - a conventional firearm, not Talon make - and Venom chuckled a little to herself. Still using the old-style scopes, grams? Good to know. Through it, from above and from two alleys situated a town that looked hot and had signs in Spanish, a group of Los Muertos fighters spilled out, led on the far side by one all too familiar white-haired super-soldier, on the near side by a woman clearly his lieutenant mirroring his actions, and through upper windows by a set of three sharpshooters. Military tactics against cheap street thugs means a battle that would end quickly, until blam, blam, blam, and all three sharpshooters were down, and there was chaos.

Morrison dodged into view, and the sniper fired, again, quickly - Venom could see Jack all but centred in her sight - and again, that blur, and then, Morrison is fine, and dodging away, and one of the fighters with him is dead on the ground.

"What th'..." said Reyes, as Mercy blinked, and looked confused. Mei looked at the screen, and back to the doctor, similarly confused. "What just...?"

-----

Morrison saw himself spill out of the passenger side of the lead vehicle, face bloodied, just as he remembered. He stopped the video, and zoomed in as far as the footage would allow - the resolution wasn't bad, but the lens wasn't great, and the image could've been shaper. Then, the blurriness got much worse, before returning to sharper focus, and his tactical visor was intact.

What the hell, he thought.

He stopped the replay, and backed up the video, and ran it again, in slow motion, frame at a time, zoomed in as before, tracking his own movement manually.

-----

"Winston, stop the replay?"

The scientist nodded, and motion stopped.

"...re-run that last shot at Morrison, slowly."

The sniper's scope tracked the soldier, a second fighter next to him, close by, but not unduly close. The shot rang out, just behind the former strike commander's motion, but still clearly a headshot. Then the blur.

-----

His visor had definitely been wrecked. Whoever took the shot had hit it perfectly, sheering right across his eyes, ripping most of it off his face without touching his skin. Hell of a shot, he thought, complimenting whoever - or, knowing Talon, whatever - had taken it. Then the blur.

He stopped the video, and studied the frame carefully. The compression wasn't too bad, but the resolution could've been better. He zoomed out, and saw the side of the truck in as sharp a focus as it had been a few frames before - just the upper part of his face became an indistinct mass.

-----

"Stop," said Venom. The video froze in place, blur still covering most of the field. She walked up to the screen. "See these?" She pointed at the sniper scope ticks around the frame, still in perfect focus. "And this?" She pointed at a perfectly-focused truck lamppost base, in the upper left corner. "This isn't recorder artefact."

Winston nodded. "I agree. Whatever this is, it's a real effect."

"Sorry luv, but the news gets worse. I saw exactly this happen," Venom said, "though my sight. I didn't talk about it yet, 'cause I figured maybe I blinked" - though she knew damn well that was impossible - "or maybe someone ran between me and Jack right as I took the third shot. But I know I had him dead in my sights, and when I fired, somebody else was dead on the ground."

"You took a kill shot?" asked Reyes.

"Third time, in that mess? Bloody right I did."

Mei looked unhappy and Gabriel frowned, but found couldn't really argue. "...fair enough."

Venom nodded. "Step through, frame at a time?"

-----

Several more frames of blur, and then, one where it seemed to thin, and then form a line along the horizontal centre of the visor, and there the visor was, again, intact, and Morrison saw himself reaching up and activating it, without a second thought, just as he remembered, during the battle.

He flipped through the last set of frames. Nothing more than what he'd already seen - a broken visor, a blur, and an intact visor, in that order. It didn't make any sense. Nothing in the Soldier Enhancement Programme could do anything like that.

Unless.

Unless it wasn't the SEP.

-----

Several more frames of blur, and then, one frame where the blur, the fog, seemed to coalesce on the right side, and then the soldier's head was to the right, apparently unharmed, and the fighter whose head had been all but out of frame was dead, on the ground, a large section cut out, almost scooped, mostly missing, and Mei made a small choking sound as the view through the scope swept from the dead fighter's body, back to Morrison's intact and dodging head, and back to the woman, and back to Morrison, before the shooter took another shot just too late, into a wall, as Morrison dove down an alley and behind a skip.

Winston blanched, and spread the key frames across the display. Gabriel looked more than a little ill, himself. "I have seen some fucked up things in my life, but that..."

Venom looked over to Dr. Ziegler, her anger controlled, but not entirely concealed. Angela said nothing, staring intently at the images. "Doc? You gonna say somethin'?"

-----

Morrison thought back to the failed defence of Overwatch Geneva, when everything came apart, falling into Angela Ziegler's lab, badly hurt, bones broken, stumbling around in the dark, the only light the emergency exit signs and his biotic field, as he grasped around, looking for the aid kits he knew had to be down here somewhere.

He remembered finding one, no, two, and applying them both, and passing out as another blast hit the base.

And then he remembered nothing until he awoke, having somehow made his way outside, having scavenged a UN uniform from one of the Talon soldiers, and feeling more than a little out of joint, like he didn't fit back together quite right, like everything was just a little off, or a little more than a little off, and he remembered putting it out of his mind and concentrating on getting away, getting as far away as possible, before Talon's UN puppets could get ahold of him, and make him pay for his defiance.

What were you working on down there, Angela? he thought to himself.

-----

"I... this cannot be happening," the doctor said.

"Pretty sure we just saw it," replied Venom.

"What are you talking about?" asked Winston.

"Angela?" the assassin prompted.

The medic shook her head. "I know what you are thinking," she said to Venom. "But you do not understand. My experimental nanosurgeons were not capable of doing what we just saw. Not even the most advanced ones."

Mei jumped in, supporting the doctor. "It's true! I knew that generation, this was not in their operating parameters."

-----

Jack pulled out his knife, pulled up his sleeve, and cut a long gash in his arm - nothing too deep, just enough to test his enhanced healing. The skin knit itself back together, normally, like it had ever since the treatments all those years ago back in California.

He cleaned his knife, put it away, and pulled out a pistol to replace it. He stared at the medium-caliber firearm, not sure he was ready to do what he needed to do, then chided himself for not being enough of a soldier. Enough of a man. It worked.

"Delgado!" he shouted.

"Yeah, Spooky?" she replied from outside.

"Pistol's acting up. Gonna fire a couple of test rounds in here, clear it. Don't freak out."

"Sure you don't want to go to the range for that?"

"It's fine, I've got a fire box."

"Oh, okay. Thanks for the warning."

"No problem."

-----

Venom pressed the point. "You're sayin' that's not some kind of experimental nanosurgeon swarm? 'Cause it looks to me like Ana made that headshot, and then somethin' stole some parts from whoever was nearby to fix it."

Dr. Ziegler rubbed her temples. "I agree that is what it looks like. But it cannot be what I made. If nothing else - I am careful! None of my experimental versions will, or even can, remain active for so long. The last time he could've had access was when the UN moved against the Geneva watchpoint, and nothing from that generation could survive."

"The evidence," said Winston, "indicates otherwise."

"It can't be!" She slammed her palms atop the table. "None of the experimental models from that era could!"

Venom narrowed her eyes at the doctor. "None of 'em? You sure about that, doc?"

Dr. Zhou leaned over to Dr. Ziegler. "I don't think you should rule it out, I could help you go over the old records, over everything that was in there when the fighting happened..."

Angela looked over to Mei-Ling gratefully. "I really don't think it's necess..." and she blinked at a thought, and looked back to Venom. Is... that what you think? Venom's face caught the doctor's surprise, as she realised that the researcher hadn't actually put it together herself yet, and the Talon assassin just nodded, and the doctor bit her lip. "...I... it has been some years, and that was a tremendously hectic - even chaotic - time. It... we should investigate. I would very much appreciate your help in that, Mei."

"Sure, Dr. Ziegler," confirmed the eco-biologist.

"Thank you," Venom replied, nodding. About time.

"God damn," said Reyes, "Could it be more than just him? Could others be... infected?"

"Absolutely not," said Angela. "My nanosurgeons would've impressed themselves with the initial contact DNA, it would be impossible for them to spread successfully. All" - she stressed, pointedly - "of my technologies rely on that. All of them."

-----

Morrison pulled up a trouser leg, pulled off his left boot and sock, and aimed the pistol at the outer edge of his foot. It'd hurt, but it wouldn't kill anybody - particularly not him. But he hesitated.

Do it, you coward, he thought to himself. God damn it, just do it.

And he fired.

The pain was brilliant and sharp, more than he expected, but muted itself quickly. He felt suddenly almost like he was in a dream, half asleep yet fully awake, as he watched his foot splatter, then turn into a greyish and pink mist, and reform, in front of his eyes.

-----

"Meanwhile," said the Talon assassin in Tracer orange and Overwatch white, "I don't think there's any safe way to bring him in alive now. I think our friends should get the next shot."

"No!" interjected Mei, with unexpected force. "That's not what we agreed!"

Tracer, or Venom, looked over to the Chinese scientist. "We agreed Overwatch gets first shot, then..."

"No!" she insisted, even more forcefully. "I will not go along with that!" She looked straight into the assassin's gold eyes. "You are not the only one he abandoned to her death. He abandoned my entire team and I want him tried for that. I want it exposed! I want my friends to be..." she choked a little, and suddenly she was crying, "I want my friends to be remembered! I want justice for them! In court, with it all exposed for the whole world to see him for the monster he is!"

Lena blinked, and blinked again, shocked by the intensity of the normally cheerful woman's outburst, and leaned forward, "Oh wow, Mei, I'm sorry, I know what..."

"No, you don't know!" The small woman shouted. "You know what it's like to disappear for years and wake up in the future but you do not know what it is like to wake up and find all of your friends dead because he couldn't be bothered to send a rescue ship! He knew we were in cryogenic suspension and still alive. At least with you, he thought you were probably dead, but with us, he knew we were alive, and just decided to let us die!"

She continued in a small, quiet voice, "And most of us did. Slowly. In the cold. As the power ran out."

Nobody knew what to say. Gabriel and Winston knew it wasn't that simple, but knew better than to open their mouths. Angela just leaned over to the smaller woman and offered her hand, and Fareeha just sat quietly next to her wife, comforting her in turn. And then Venom found her voice, at last. "I'm... I'm sorry, Mei. You're right."

Lena "Tracer" Oxton took a long, slow, deep breath, and let it out. "I withdraw my motion. Our friends will remain on stand down. Overwatch will try again."

-----

God damn you, Ziegler, the stroke commander thought, staring at his perfectly intact left foot, which moments ago he'd shot through for a second time. He shook with unreasoning fury. What the hell did you do to me?

[nitewrighter]

Gency Week Day 2: Feathers

Coming in a little late! But let’s do this! Day 2!

quick note: This ficlet/meta thingie is sort of a followup to the ‘Texts’ ask I got and takes place during the years of Overwatch’s disbandment.

---

His nickname had been ‘Sparrow’ but the feathers were from a Japanese Sparrowhawk, not a sparrow. She wondered where he had managed to get so many, yet they turned up without fail as his calling card. The first one had not even been in a letter, but had been left on his pillow the morning he disappeared from the Watchpoint. The next one (and first letter) came several months later, to her hotel room a few weeks after the explosion at Zurich and during the hearings just before the Petras Act was enacted. It was on a postcard from Numbani.

Dear Doctor Ziegler,

Reception is spotty where I am, and I am unsure if you still have access to your Overwatch comm, so this was the surest way I could reach you. I hope this letter finds you well. I have been watching the hearings on the news and I cannot imagine how difficult doing this must be after what happened in Zurich. I would come to Geneva, but considering how the public is receiving the revelations about Blackwatch, I think I should probably keep my distance. I am sorry for not writing to you sooner. I will likely have left Numbani by the time this letter reaches you. I do not think it is wise for me to linger in one place for too long, but I will be sure to remain in contact. Please stay safe and take care of yourself.

                                                                                                   --Genji

She kept the postcard in the interior pocket of the jacket she wore to the hearings. It made her feel less alone on as she spoke on the stand, and she used the postcard as a bookmark for weeks. His next letter came roughly a month and a half later, not a postcard, but an envelope, once again with the sparrowhawk feather tucked within.

Dear Doctor Ziegler,

I am sorry for falling out of contact for a while.  I have been keeping track of the news and I have reason to believe someone is hunting down former Overwatch members. I do not know how much information I can disclose to you for either of our safety. I am in good health. I have made a new friend, sort of. He won’t leave me alone. I am unsure of his motives but I do not believe he means any harm. I will keep you updated. Please stay safe and take care of yourself.

                                                                                                        ---Genji

Another letter found her a little less than a month after that.

Dear Doctor Ziegler,

I saw you on the news. It’s good to see the UN let you keep the Valkyrie suit! Or is that one new? It looks different. Your hair looks good up. I’m sure relief effort for that earthquake would have been much harder without you. It is good to see you still helping people even with Overwatch shut down. The friend I mentioned in my last letter is named Zenyatta. He is my teacher now. It’s a long story. He wanted me to let you know he really liked your commentary in that interview. I’m leaving you an address in this letter so that you can write me back. Also, I know the world needs your help, but please be careful. Whoever is hunting down former Overwatch members has struck again. They’re calling him ‘Reaper,’ but all the stories seem very exaggerated. Still, please stay safe. Zenyatta says we’re quite safe in Nepal, but we’re so far away from everything, it’s hard not to think about the others.

                                                                                                 --Genji

As soon as she received the letter she wrote him back. Well, to be fair, she wrote and threw away several drafts before finally settling with something and forcing herself to mail it.

Genji--

I can’t believe you’re living near the Shambali monastery now! What are they like? Are all of your prostheses still functioning well? Do they have cyberneticists on site? I know you’re very practiced at maintaining your own prosthetics at this point but if you run into any issues, feel free to give me a call! Are you eating enough? Can you eat or are you having difficulty again? Do they have access to clean IV nutrition if you can’t? I’m sorry I have so many questions. I thought I would be able to have more time to myself with Overwatch shut down, but I feel busier than ever and everyone else has all but fallen out of contact. Torbjörn’s back with his family and the Ironclad guild, Reinhardt’s off doing heaven-knows-what somewhere in rural Germany last I heard, McCree is... still living with a bounty on his head... But there’s no news of his arrest yet! That’s... good news? I think? I hope he’s doing all right. Tracer and Winston have taken the Petras Act very hard. I haven’t heard much word from Tracer since she’s moved back home. And Winston...well... I haven’t heard from him either. I don’t know much else, but I suppose that’s a good thing, if this ‘Reaper’ is after us. You stay safe as well. Don’t think I don’t see those articles about ‘Two mysterious omnics’ stopping violent crimes. Old habits die hard, don’t they? Please write back soon. 

                                                                                                --Angela

Their letters from there were a bit more regular. Genji left his feather in each one, and she kept every feather, taping them to the inside of her journals as she traveled. She began to send him things from her own travels--she would draw the wildflowers she saw growing out of rubble in the margins of her letters, and send him small trinkets given to her by the refugees she worked with. He kept her letters as well, tucking them in a drawer in his room to keep himself from re-reading them to pieces. They lost count of how many letters were sent over the years. If they were being completely honest with themselves, for a long time the letters were their way of letting each other know they were still alive as other Overwatch members continued to be picked off, one by one, by Reaper. 

The letters were among the few belongings he brought with him to the Watchpoint after the Recall, and he still had them when he finally moved in with her. To be honest he was a bit embarrassed about still holding onto them, and worried that she might find him a bit obsessive for it, that is, until he passed by her office in the apartment, and saw something on her desk: A mason jar, full of sparrowhawk feathers.

[noirsongbird]

Bein' greedy and promptin' again: #11, Mei Ling Zhou/Gabriel Reyes (Reaper or regular)

This set of prompts~

11. “Don’t you dare throw that snowba-, goddammit!”

Gabriel Reyes was not, on the whole, a big fan of the concept of “winter.” Growing up in LA had meant that winter wasn’t so much a thing, for him; the first time he’d seen snow it had been exciting, but now it was just sort of....cold. And wet. And inconvenient.

And yet there he was, standing outside Watchpoint: Geneva, bundled up as much as he could be. It was all sort of worth it, though, just to watch Mei spin around and giggle and enjoy the weather. Things with her were still new - but they were good, and he’d move mountains if it would make her smile.Standing in the cold for a little while? Not all that much of a sacrifice, in comparison.Except -- he narrowed his eyes, watching as she paused and scooped up some snow and started packing it together.“Mei, don’t even think about it,” he said, and she straightened, mock innocence on her face.“Think of what?” She asked.“Don’t you dare throw that snowba --” He threw an arm up to block when the thing came flying at him, “goddamnit!” But Mei was laughing and he couldn’t even be all that mad.“Fine,” he bent down and scooped up his own ball of snow. “You want to play that way? This means war, Doctor Zhou!” Mei bent to scoop up another snowball, right as Gabriel threw his, and when it hit her, it sent her into another fit of giggles.“Come and get me, Commander Reyes.”

[ao3feed-mchanzo]

Argente, Magnesis.

by maybeitsbassoon

In a world after the Omnic Crisis and the fall of Overwatch, a young boy from the Midwest tries to pursue his dreams of being a scientist by becoming an intern for his closest friend's father. However, intern became synonymous with test subject. Subject 061, AKA Argente, is experimented on for three years before a fateful trip to a Geneva hospital. It is there that Argente's doctor saves him from his imprisonment and lets him live with her. Just a few years later, Argente finds himself in the thick of Overwatch, kicking asses and taking names. Eventually they save the world. Maybe. Mysteries include the enigma named Bastion, What Happened to My FamilyTM, and How many fingers does Talon have in everyone's pudding? Stay tuned to find out!!! >:D

Words: 1357, Chapters: 1/?, Language: English

Fandoms: Overwatch (Video Game)

Rating: Mature

Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence

Categories: F/F, F/M, Gen, M/M, Multi

Characters: Original Male Character(s), Bryan "Argente" Whittaker (OMC), Angela "Mercy" Ziegler, Fareeha "Pharah" Amari, Winston (Overwatch), Reinhardt Wilhelm, Genji Shimada, Hanzo Shimada, Hana "D.Va" Song, Lúcio Correia dos Santos, Jesse McCree, Lena "Tracer" Oxton, Torbjörn Lindholm, Bastion (Overwatch), Mei-Ling Zhou, Everyone else will be here too!, I promise!!! - Character, Other Character Tags to Be Added

Relationships: Fareeha "Pharah" Amari/Angela "Mercy" Ziegler, Original Character(s) & Jesse McCree, OMC & Jesse McCree, Soldier: 76 | Jack Morrison/Reaper | Gabriel Reyes, Jesse McCree/Hanzo Shimada, OMC/OMC, Argente/Stenó, OMC & Satya "Symmetra" Vaswani, Genji Shimada/Tekhartha Zenyatta, & means platonic, / means romantic

Additional Tags: Overwatch Family, Family, New Overwatch, Overwatch Recall, Everyones here - Freeform, I hope, this is my first fanfic, be gentle my children, OMC - Freeform, Original Male Character - Freeform, I'm going for g a y, that's the end goal tbqh, Body Horror, Jesse McCree Speaks Spanish, I will take this to my grave, absurd use of metal and magnetism, Hospitals, Watchpoint: Gibraltar, my OC is gay and nervous, help him, Other Additional Tags to Be Added

from AO3 works tagged 'Jesse McCree/Hanzo Shimada' http://ift.tt/2sVANdZ via IFTTT

[ao3feed-pharmercy]

Argente, Magnesis.

read it on the AO3 at http://ift.tt/2sVANdZ

by maybeitsbassoon

In a world after the Omnic Crisis and the fall of Overwatch, a young boy from the Midwest tries to pursue his dreams of being a scientist by becoming an intern for his closest friend's father. However, intern became synonymous with test subject. Subject 061, AKA Argente, is experimented on for three years before a fateful trip to a Geneva hospital. It is there that Argente's doctor saves him from his imprisonment and lets him live with her. Just a few years later, Argente finds himself in the thick of Overwatch, kicking asses and taking names. Eventually they save the world. Maybe. Mysteries include the enigma named Bastion, What Happened to My FamilyTM, and How many fingers does Talon have in everyone's pudding? Stay tuned to find out!!! >:D

Words: 1357, Chapters: 1/?, Language: English

Fandoms: Overwatch (Video Game)

Rating: Mature

Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence

Categories: F/F, F/M, Gen, M/M, Multi

Characters: Original Male Character(s), Bryan "Argente" Whittaker (OMC), Angela "Mercy" Ziegler, Fareeha "Pharah" Amari, Winston (Overwatch), Reinhardt Wilhelm, Genji Shimada, Hanzo Shimada, Hana "D.Va" Song, Lúcio Correia dos Santos, Jesse McCree, Lena "Tracer" Oxton, Torbjörn Lindholm, Bastion (Overwatch), Mei-Ling Zhou, Everyone else will be here too!, I promise!!! - Character, Other Character Tags to Be Added

Relationships: Fareeha "Pharah" Amari/Angela "Mercy" Ziegler, Original Character(s) & Jesse McCree, OMC & Jesse McCree, Soldier: 76 | Jack Morrison/Reaper | Gabriel Reyes, Jesse McCree/Hanzo Shimada, OMC/OMC, Argente/Stenó, OMC & Satya "Symmetra" Vaswani, Genji Shimada/Tekhartha Zenyatta, & means platonic, / means romantic

Additional Tags: Overwatch Family, Family, New Overwatch, Overwatch Recall, Everyones here - Freeform, I hope, this is my first fanfic, be gentle my children, OMC - Freeform, Original Male Character - Freeform, I'm going for g a y, that's the end goal tbqh, Body Horror, Jesse McCree Speaks Spanish, I will take this to my grave, absurd use of metal and magnetism, Hospitals, Watchpoint: Gibraltar, my OC is gay and nervous, help him, Other Additional Tags to Be Added

read it on the AO3 at http://ift.tt/2sVANdZ

[soulstealer1987]

Overwatch Story Explanation

@vexedsolomon

Don’t worry I got this.

So: a few decades after the present day, possibly in the 2040s (the timeline isn’t exactly clear), this company called Omnica comes out with these robots. Called omnics. Made in omniums. Clearly they did a lot of self-promotion.

Anyway, people are all like “oh, sweet! robot slaves! how could this possibly go wrong?” because obviously things never went horribly wrong with slavery in the past, and apparently the Terminator movies didn’t exist in this universe.

Eventually it was discovered that Omnica couldn’t keep up with all their campaign promises, so the company got shut down. Omniums went with the company, although the omnics stayed active. People kept their robot slaves around for a few years afterwards, but then... the Fire Nation attacked.

Well, more like the Omnic Nation attacked, because the omniums woke themselves up, and, predictably, started churning out new omnics and attacking humanity. Considering that the omnics adapted to any strategy used against them, and literally could make tons of new soldiers, humanity started losing. No one country could hold off the omnics on their own.

Okay, that’s not entirely accurate. Russia was able to deal with the Siberian Omnium on their own, but... uh. Let’s just say they didn’t quite finish the job. And Russia was the only country that could even come close. Everywhere else? There were losing. Badly.

That’s where Overwatch came in. It was a top secret strike team, designed to get in, disable the omniums and the God Programs controlling them, and take down the omnics. It really was against the odds, but it wasn’t like humanity had anything left to lose at this point.

The strike team’s leader was Gabriel Reyes, an American from this thing called the Soldier Enhancement Program (SEP) that essentially was mass-producing Captain Americas. There was another guy from that, Jack Morrison, who actually kinda looked like Captain America.

There was a sniper from Egypt, Ana Amari, a really buff dude in armor named Reinhardt Wilhelm, and an engineer from Sweden who’d actually had a hand in building the omnics, Torbjörn Lindholm.

Actually, the strike team had six members. There was one more person, known only to us as Liao, and... that’s literally all anyone knows about them for sure. Only their name. Nothing else.Maybe Blizzard (the video game company that made Overwatch) will have mercy on us someday and reveal more info about them. For now, we don’t really know.

Anyway, Reyes, Morrison, Amari, Wilhelm, Lindholm, and Liao. These six somehow managed to get rid of the omniums, or at least disable them, and destroyed all the God Programs but one, Anubis, which was kept in containment from then on.

They were heroes, and Overwatch became public, a global symbol of peace and prosperity. For reasons unknown, Gabriel Reyes didn’t go on to become the leader of the official Overwatch, despite leading the strike team to victory. The other American guy, Jack Morrison, because Overwatch’s leader, while Gabriel Reyes went on to head Overwatch’s black ops devision, named Blackwatch.Very original name right there.

Anyway, for years, Overwatch did well. An entire generation grew up with them there, and looked up to them. But then... well, all good things must come to an end, and Overwatch was no exception. The beginning of the end for Overwatch was when this terrorist organization known as Talon kidnapped a top operative’s wife, brainwashed her, then sent her back.

Her name was Amélie Lacroix. Two weeks later, she killed her husband Gérard in his sleep, and returned to Talon, adopting the code name ‘Widowmaker’. Ironic, huh? But Talon wasn’t done. Not yet. Probably not ever.

At this point in time, at least five of the six original members were still with Overwatch, and nobody really knows where Liao was in all this, but… anyway. Ana Amari (also a sniper, in case you forgot) was on this mission with a few other people, one of which was Strike Commander Jack Morrison himself. Stuff went down, and Ana wound up left for dead… but she wasn’t. She adopted the alias of the Shrike, and continued fighting from the shadows.

However… Ana’s ‘death’ was the final nail in Overwatch’s coffin. Tensions rose between Morrison and Reyes, Overwatch and Blackwatch. Maybe it was a conspiracy. Maybe Reyes was still salty over not getting to stay the leader. Maybe they’d been dating, and they broke up. Whatever it was, they fought, and the main headquarters of Overwatch – the base in Geneva, Switzerland – blew up, and they with it.

Overwatch was gone soon after, disbanded by the United Nations… but the world clearly still needed heroes. One only had to look around to see that. Talon only got worse after Overwatch was no longer around to keep them in check, and with the addition of several corrupt corporations… yeah, the world got pretty screwed up pretty fast.

Several years later, a scientist by the name of Winston was holing out in one of the abandoned bases, called Watchpoints. This one happened to be in Gibraltar. Why was he there? Simple. Winston is a gorilla. A gorilla from the moon. But enough about him. Point is, Talon attacked in an attempt to get access to the old agent database. Fortunately, they failed, and Winston recalled Overwatch, because even if it was illegal… the world still needed heroes.

~

Hope this helps! If you need more info, just ask about what you’re confused on, and I’ll be happy to answer! :)

[segadores-y-soldados]

(Original post)

@freckledmccree I don’t believe it’s every been formally stated when the actual Petras Act was made official. My guesstimate is that it occurred soon after the Swiss Base explosion. TL;DR: I personally tend to put the Swiss Base explosion near the end of the calendar year of 2070, and the Petras Act “shortly after”, either in late December 2070 or at the very beginning of January 2071.

(source)

I do my best to interpret things that are “in-game canon” based on their seasons or other “real world events” that occur near or around the map.  For example, Dorado + the Sombra ARG puts that the Festival de la Luz (in the year 2076) occurs very shortly before Día de Muertos, which is when Sombra launches her official statement on the LumériCo website:

(Source)

Festival de la Luz is (canonically) a festival celebrating the end of the Omnic Crisis and the official end of Mexico’s “La Medianoche” blackout period.  So the official end of the war occurs sometime in October, in 2050-ish.  The objective of the map is to get the last fusion generator/fusion core to the LumériCo Power Plant: the defenders are siding with Sombra, trying to stop it, and the attackers are trying to help LumériCo get the core there.

Similarly, the Hanamura map and “Dragons” animation occur during cherry blossom season in Tokyo, which is typically late March or early April.

Maps are usually “set” around specific timeframes or reference specific important moments - which is legitimately the reason why the dev team won’t “fix” the Numbani airport, even though the museum and payload have been updated.

But now we cross into speculation territory.

For the sake of ease, I tend to place the actual explosion of the Swiss Base late in the calendar year, probably October - December of 2070.  This could be wrong, obviously, but it kinda sorta depends on how you interpret Ana’s comic “Legacy” and possibly the Practice Range:

(More under the cut.)

A lot of people automatically assume that Mercy’s “base of operations” represents where she worked for Overwatch.  This is not true.  For almost all of the Hero Profiles, “base of operations” represents where the character is currently.  When a hero does NOT currently live/work there, the profile says “(formerly)”.

For example, Zenyatta’s profile lists the Shambali Monastery, but also says (formerly).  Interestingly, Genji’s does not, which is indicated by his room in the Village map.  As another contrast, Brigitte’s says: “Gothenburg, Sweden (formerly)” - this is because she’s currently traveling with Reinhardt.

It is certainly possible that the “Swiss Base” was located in Zurich.

But I have defended - and will continue to defend - that the “Swiss Base” was located near the real world United Nations regional headquarters in Geneva:

Though this map is very small, the dot of an “active investigation” on Jack’s situation display appears closer to the French border than Zurich. 

(Before people ask, no, it is not referencing Chateau Guillard.  Widowmaker did not live at the estate, she was a ballet dancer in Paris.  In fact, she did not purchase the estate until “very recently” (post-Recall, likely post-“Masquerade”).  Chateau Guillard has one of the missing Aphrodite statues from Ilios as well, making it mostly contemporary in time with Ilios, Rialto (post-Masquerade), Petra (the map), and Ayutthaya).

As another intriguing detail:

Between the open beta period and the final live release of Overwatch, the developers specifically changes the environment of the Practice Range. During the beta period, it used environmental assets found in Watchpoint: Gibraltar, including depicting what appears to have been an open sea or open ocean.

The current practice range is now on a land-locked, semi-frozen lake surrounded by high mountains.

The practice range currently has Winston’s log in set up on the “active” PCs in the Hero selection room.  The Hero selection room also appears to be in a state of semi-disarray, and has a wide-variety of “official” Overwatch documents scattered on the ground:

The practice range also has what might be the most obscure little “environmental story-telling detail” in the entire game:

Someone has brought what appears to be several bottles of hard alcohol - maybe whiskey - and a magazine about current events to the very top of the left-most tower.

...I’m gonna take an educated guess and say it’s NOT Winston or Tracer.

It IS the exact same “bottle of whiskey” and exact same magazine that can be found in Soldier: 76′s room in Necropolis:

Closer shot:

...Interesting.

As an aside, the practice range is - as far as I know/am aware of - the only map with a “weight room.���  And Soldier: 76 somehow has a dumbbell with him in the Necropolis of Giza, of all places.  

As part of his entire “renegade vigilante” backstory, Soldier: 76 is also actively raiding old Watchpoints for supplies - he even took his new Heavy Pulse Rifle from Watchpoint: Grand Mesa.

Soldier: 76 has not joined Recalled Overwatch.  In fact, he actively thinks the entire concept is a bad one, and expresses this in his interactions with Winston and in his voicelines on Watchpoint: Gibraltar.

What exactly is he doing in “the practice range” of an unknown Watchpoint while possibly getting drunk (or attempting to do so) as he reads about the current state of global affairs?

And lastly - whether it is simple oversight from when the beta practice range was part of the Watchpoint: Gibraltar map or not - all the boxes and crates are labled:

WP-G.

A lot of details points to Jack entering whatever Watchpoint the practice range is set in, possibly getting full-on drunk as he reads about how crime is getting worse and his former agents are being targeted by Talon and governments alike, and then taking a ton of supplies from the remains of the base.

The Soldier: 76 Origin video shows what appears to be the complete destruction of the main part of the headquarters, but obviously, some buildings and other parts are still standing in the background.  If the practice range IS part of the base, then it may have been sheltered from total destruction by being built into the side of a mountain.  Granted, the video itself was made in 2015, and likely existed before the developers fully conceived of the practice range itself.  The final “layout” of the Swiss Base might be completely different at this point.

While the practice range is obviously set at or around Recall, it’s interesting that the emphasis is on how cold and frozen it is, especially when it is contrasted with the scenes from Uprising, where it is clearly warmer, possibly in the springtime (wherever it is set).

There is a time-span between Ana’s “death” in “Legacy” and the explosion of the Swiss Base where we know effectively nothing about what was occurring inside Overwatch.  We don’t even know if Genji and McCree left before or after Ana’s “death”, nor do we know when Reinhardt was pressured into retiring (possibly as a consequence of his leadership during Uprising).  We also don’t know when exactly Akande’s arrest occurs, but it is before Genji leaves (but possibly after Reinhardt retires, since Winston is on the Strike Team).

I continue to hope that an eventual Archives mission will be a co-op mode between Jack and Gabriel as they attempt to flee before the Swiss Base explodes.

Asymmetric gameplay has actually been experimented with by Blizzard in the Yeti Hunt mode and the different Deathmatch modes: it would be relatively interesting to have a few small teams of “allies” (e.g. Jack and Gabriel (??) vs Talon agents (??)) attempting to either smuggle the bomb in (Talon side) or attempting to get out (Jack and Gabriel).  A major constraint to this concept is that if it occurs inside the Watchpoint, it would be very “linear” in physicality, which is something Blizzard disliked about Uprising.

Something major occurred which Blizzard is not yet ready to reveal: whether that is Gabriel’s “betrayal” or a “super plot twist” where he and Jack attempted to flee the explosion together (or some other twist), I would actually much rather see it in gameplay than in a comic or animated short.

[segadores-y-soldados]

Just a head’s up: most OW maps are deliberately not “accurate” to a real world location, but instead attempt to capture “the spirit of the place.”  This is why the London map is “King’s Row” and not actually King’s Cross.  It’s also why even though Rialto is a real part of Venice, there are several architectural designs that reference other districts and areas of the city (it’s also why the famous Rialto Bridge isn’t in the game itself).  Michael Chu actually goes over this design intention in this video (it’s super informative and well worth a watch). So unless there’s a specific map pointing to a location in Switzerland, we’re going to be out of luck until the official Watchpoint location is revealed. Fortunately, there IS a map showing what might be the Watchpoint itself:

This is from the Uprising comic, in the background of Jack’s situation screen.  It indicates that an “active investigation” is occurring somewhere in eastern Switzerland (and it is NOT Chateau Guillard because Amélie lived in Paris before she was kidnapped).

It is implied to be at or around the United Nations regional headquarters in Geneva.

In case you missed it or didn’t want to read the long version:

Jack stops by whatever “Watchpoint” the Practice Range is located in, appears to drink very heavily as he reads the news, and then quite possibly takes a bunch of left over supplies from the base.  The first image can be found on the highest tower left of the Hero spawn in the Practice Range.

The Practice Range might be the one seen in “Uprising.”

If it is, then it is the practice range is in the Swiss Base itself.

(Which explains why he drinks that much.)

[solivar]

headcanon - post-Recall to make sure all the bad blood and bad communication doesn't happen again, whenever everyone gets too broody (Hanzo) or too testy (McCree and/or Fareeha) or too I'm-too-tough-to-talk-about-my-feelings (everyone but especially Jack), Ana organizes a base-wide water fight complete with hidden 'weaponry' and obstacle courses. She calls it the Bullshit Olympics

Not only does this sound exactly like something “present day” Ana would do, I’m absolutely sure it’s something she did back at Watchpoint Geneva, too, and inaugurated it by having Torbjorn make her a water balloon sniper rifle.

[segadores-y-soldados]

Devil in the Details

So after Michael Chu confirmed that the details on the tv in the background of the Pharah panel in Reflections were not only deliberate but also meant to hint about her location and her father’s nationality -

This tinyass image -

On a page with this much other stuff -

It made me curious about any other potential details I previously overlooked or wrote off as “just a funny coincidence” and rather surprisingly, I might have kinda found something??

I mean, there’s a shitton here but what I originally wrote off as being “just another background piece” is the map -

...These are not Watchpoints.

These are the Watchpoints that still exist at the time of Recall - you can find this map on Watchpoint: Gibraltar (I did not write these locations, but this is the clearest, head-on image I could find.)

The image from the Uprising comic 

Are active missions or points of interest.

Locations that I can determine are:

Tokyo, Japan

Cairo, Egypt (based on the other screen discussing the “Cairo Incident”)

Numbani, Nigeria

(City unknown), Switzerland (?)

Paris, France

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Dorado, Mexico

Seattle, United States

More under the cut

I wanna go through these one by one.

First up:

Tokyo, Japan

This one is pretty straight-forward.

Uprising shows us that Genji has just recently joined Overwatch/Blackwatch and is currently in training and evaluation for his new cyborg body.  Genji’s hero profile states:

“[Overwatch] saw Genji as a potential asset in its ongoing operations to combat the Shimada clan. As Genji's injuries left him clinging to life, Overwatch offered to rebuild his body in exchange for his help. He was put through an extensive process of cyberization, which enhanced his natural speed and agility and augmented his superlative ninja skills. Transformed into a living weapon, Genji single-mindedly set about the task of dismantling his family's criminal empire.”

So we know that the Tokyo mission is very likely the on-going targeted mission against the Shimada clan, since Hanamura is meant to be based in the Tokyo area.

Cairo, Egypt + Paris, France (?)

I’ve seen hypotheses that the “Overwatch official murdered - Director Petras orders full investigation into Cairo incident” is about Gérard Lacroix’s death (also supported by the pretty obvious images of Widowmaker’s cameras in the little screen).  It’s not a bad hypothesis, but there are minor details that counter this:

“After several unsuccessful attempts to eliminate Gérard, Talon decided to change its focus to his wife, Amélie. Talon operatives kidnapped her and subjected her to an intense program of neural reconditioning. They broke her will, suppressed her personality, and reprogrammed her as a sleeper agent. She was eventually found by Overwatch agents, apparently none the worse for wear, and returned to her normal life. Two weeks later she killed Gérard in his sleep.”

This leads me to believe that the Paris, France mission is actually the one about Amélie and Gérard.

Especially given that Amélie appeared to have lived and worked there.

Interestingly, a different character references “Egypt” in the very same Uprising comic:

So there’s the possibility that the Cairo Mission is an event we haven’t seen yet.

Numbani, Nigeria 

So

We know this one now.

We know that Numbani faced consistent raids and assaults from both the Scourge Doomfist, and his “Successor,” Akande Ogundimu.  It appears that at the time of Uprising, Overwatch was already planning a mission to try and arrest Akande.

And this leads me into my next few points.

The reason I picked out Paris, Numbani, Rio de Janeiro, Dorado, and Seattle of all places is because the Soldier: 76 origins video actually has this map in it.  This video is over two years old, and was released just under a year before the actual game came out.  When I first saw the video, I went, “Well, Paris makes some sense because of Widowmaker’s story, Numbani and Dorado are maps in the game and have active places in the lore, and Rio de Janeiro is Lúcio’s home city.  But what the hell is up with Seattle?”

Seattle, United States

Jumping ahead a bit, as far as I can tell, Seattle is only listed as a place of interest twice in Overwatch canon material - once, in the Soldier: 76 video, and then nearly two, real world years later in the Uprising map.  There’s no Watchpoint there, no major hero is from there, and there’s seemingly nothing in the rest of the series to connect back to it.

A tantalizing hypothesis, however, comes with Michael Chu’s confirmation earlier this week:

Originally, fans were confused as to why Fareeha Amari, a woman with Egyptian origins, whose design clearly draws inspiration from the god Horus, had the Thunderbird and Raindancer skins, which appeared to be inspired by the Thunderbird iconography from the Native American/Canadian First Nations tribes of the Pacific Northwest.

While Seattle is definitely off from the fact that Reflections has a Canadian flag in the background of Fareeha’s dinner with her biological father, it is dead-on in the middle of the Pacific Northwest, and may be “close” to wherever Fareeha’s father is from, especially if he does have tribal affiliations.  This is not to say that he or Fareeha are Americans, but rather that the Pacific Northwest may be an area of “lore activity” that we haven’t seen explored yet, and may explain how and why an Egyptian sniper encountered “a public servant” and had a child with him in the years before the Crisis.

Dorado, Mexico

Unlike Seattle, this one also feel pretty straight-forward and obvious.  Dorado is a playable map in the game itself, and features a ton of lore, notably surrounding Sombra, the power company LumériCo, the company president and old war hero Portero, and the gang Los Muertos.  

And of course, it features into the lore of a certain old soldier.

References to both Sombra and Soldier: 76 can be found scattered across the two in-game maps, both Dorado and Castillo.  Also included on the maps are references to McCree and the Junkers, who pulled off a bank heist there roughly at the same time Sombra had her LumériCo email leaks.  McCree, meanwhile, had a, uh - “much needed” drink at the Calaveras bar at the time of Reflections, shortly after the email leaks and bank heist.

Interestingly, what the Uprising map seems to imply is that well before any of the “current” events happened in Dorado, Overwatch was already doing some sort of investigation into the city - but whether that was for LumériCo, Portero, or Los Muertos, we don’t know.  

However, it is telling that the only character who seems suspicious of LumériCo besides Sombra is Soldier: 76 - Jack Morrison himself.

“I wanna know what LumériCo is up to.”

Besides Sombra, Soldier: 76 is the only character to indicate that he’s actively investigating LumériCo, and based on the files found in the Dorado Defenders’ final spawn room

It appears that LumériCo is investigating him too.

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

This one appears to be fairly straight-forward, but like Dorado, it’s the implications of what the Uprising map is hinting at that is the newest part to this story.

If you’re not aware, Rio de Janeiro is where Lúcio is from - he was born, raised, and lived in an unicorporated community (called a “favela”).  According to his background, Lúcio’s community in particular “was hit hard by the financial upheaval following the Omnic Crisis.”  Still, his community banded together and worked to rebuild their stability until, extremely recently - 

As in, after the Fall of Overwatch - 

Vishkar moved in.

In Symmetra’s comic, we learn that Vishkar attempts to get “dirt” on a rival, Brazilian company (Calado), but when their “infiltration agent” Satya fails to find anything “bad” about the CEO, Vishkar blows up the building.

Hypothetically, Overwatch “never knew about this,” because it occurs sometime in the five years since Overwatch disbanded.

But both the Uprising map and the Soldier: 76 map seem to imply that Overwatch was aware of something that was going on in Rio de Janeiro.

We know that Satya’s boss, Sanjay Korpal, was the one who gave the order to blow up Calado, and we also see him at the very end of the comic expressing a cold, orderly worldview about the nature of people in “what fits their station.”  It’s particularly horrifying when looking back at Lúcio’s profile, because once Vishkar moved in:

“Vishkar imposed controls on the residents in the name of building a more orderly society: enforcing curfews, cracking down on what the company perceived as lawless behavior, and exploiting the populace as a cheap labor force.”

There is an incredibly dark, awful undercurrent going on with Vishkar, with the implication of exploitative labor both in Rio de Janeiro and in Utopaea.  It isn’t surprising that even before the present, on-going events in Rio de Janeiro occurred, Overwatch may have been investigating the company the same way they might have been looking into LumériCo.

But, in light of Masquerade - 

In which we see someone who appears to be Sanjay Korpal in the Talon Council

(And yes, the lighting is harsh, but he appears to be wearing the same exact purple-and-white Utopaea uniform from the Symmetra comic)

An incredibly interesting, ridiculously tempting hypothesis is beginning to take shape.

Which brings me to the most interesting mission of all:

Switzerland

As a reminder, here’s the close-up map of the active missions/points of interest from Uprising again:

True, it’s such a small dot that it could be in France, it could be in Italy, but given the slightly awkward placement between the two, and the fact that it’s not clearly situated in one or the other

I’m gonna guess that it’s probably Switzerland.

Where exactly in Switzerland, I’m not sure.  Personally, I’ve always been of the mindset that the Overwatch “Swiss Base” is somewhere near Geneva, which is where the UN has a major headquarters, but Blizzard will pick or choose whatever it wants really.  What matters is that the dot for the mission appears to be somewhere in this region.

Now - this could mean a lot of things: Overwatch could be investigating a different point of interest in the region, they could be keeping an eye on the United Nations in Geneva, they could be keeping track of their own agents, etc, etc.

But let’s just cut to the most fascinating one, because that’s what we’re all here for:

As the UN investigation proceeded, Overwatch's Swiss headquarters was destroyed in an apparent accident. Among the casualties were Morrison and Reyes. The UN has steadfastly maintained that there was no foul play behind this event. However, an anonymous source has given me access to classified UN debriefings and other data that paint a different picture of Overwatch's final days.

These records indicate that a rebellion tore the group apart from within. On one side was Morrison, determined to hold together what remained of Overwatch. On the other side was Reyes, whose agenda remains unknown to this day. A battle raged between these men deep within Overwatch's base. At some point, their fighting triggered an explosion that destroyed the facility and sent the dreams of an entire generation up in flames.

Anyone who follows me knows that I don’t really believe Gabriel Reyes - now Reaper - did this, nor that I think Jack Morrison - now Soldier: 76 - did this.  All the other evidence points to another group, likely Talon, infiltrating Overwatch and destroying the base, possibly with the intention to frame and/or hurt both Commander Morrison and Commander Reyes.

“It was a conspiracy - Overwatch got hit from inside and out.” - Soldier: 76 Origin video

But as Overwatch's influence waned, rogue elements within Blackwatch sought to bring down the organization and turn it to their own ends. Wanting no part of the infighting, McCree set off alone and went underground. - McCree’s hero profile

It is believed that in her former life, Widowmaker was married to Gérard Lacroix, an Overwatch agent spearheading operations against the Talon terrorist organization. After several unsuccessful attempts to eliminate Gérard, Talon decided to change its focus to his wife, Amélie. Talon operatives kidnapped her and subjected her to an intense program of neural reconditioning. - Widowmaker’s hero profile

Though to the outside world his motives are inscrutable, there are those who claim that he is a former Overwatch agent, determined to shed light on the conspiracy that brought down the organization. [...]  Unrelenting in his search to find those responsible for Overwatch's fall, Soldier: 76 will stop at nothing to bring them to justice. - Soldier: 76′s hero profile

What the Uprising map appears to imply is that Overwatch was not only aware of the conspiracy within their ranks - 

But was actively investigating it.

In theory, this could have been extremely difficult, because both Overwatch and its covert ops/intelligence division Blackwatch were getting hit with penalties and suspensions left and right, even at the time of Uprising.  The Uprising comic shows that the UN was already in the process of “trying to investigate” the peacekeeping agency, but it also shows us that - despite the efforts of people “both inside and out” to keep the organization down, it continued to function.  It was still training new agents -

Conducting arrests

Potentially investigating corruption and human rights abuses

And with Masquerade now giving us a potentially new angle to see Reaper/Gabriel Reyes’ actions:

http://segadores-y-soldados.tumblr.com/post/163200042035/death-becomes-you

We may be looking at a very tiny, very small detail that points to the fact that Overwatch was potentially aware of its very own impending downfall - 

And was actively trying to stop the conspiracy creating it...

Or perhaps...

Infiltrate it.

I’ve been saying for awhile that Reaper’s actions with regards to certain missions are highly suspicious and - to be perfectly honest - pretty damn embarrassing for a man who has done covert operations for like, 30 years.

Unless, of course

That’s exactly what Reaper wants Talon to think.

We are told Reaper “is hunting former Overwatch agents and systematically eliminating them,” but as a reminder - Reaper has failed to kill or even seriously injure any ex-Overwatch agent in any of his canon material appearances.  Soldier: 76, Ana Amari, Winston, and Tracer are all still alive and, honestly, perfectly healthy at the end of their different encounters - hell, Reaper almost goes out of his way to actively piss Winston off (twice) and “throw” the missions.  He claims to have killed Overwatch agents in Masquerade, but as a general reminder, never believe in those “off-screen deaths,” kids.

It’s an easy plot device to bring “old soldiers” back from the dead.

And remember

Blizzard is actively trying to mislead you about certain characters:

“One of the things that we really like doing with Overwatch is playing with perspective.  We utilize perspective when we tell stories about what characters are thinking, what their goals are - and we have a lot of unreliable narrators.” - Michael Chu, GDC 2017

Blizzard loves putting references into the game and comics:

“I tend to like hiding some pretty obscure references in the game, and I get equal parts enjoyment when people don’t discover them as when they do,” [Chu] said.

Like these: http://segadores-y-soldados.tumblr.com/post/157378862270/reaper-and-soldier-american-cultural-references

If you pay close attention to the ridiculous and almost overwhelming amount of references within the game, it’s not at all surprising that some of that finally flipped over into canon source material.

Reaper and Soldier: 76 in particular are littered with pop culture and literary references - everything from Commando, to Michael Jackson, to, yes, Edgar Allen Poe.  “Red Death” Reaper is not just his second Poe reference, but his third American literature reference (the Headless Horseman being the second).

I know some people think that these kinds of essays are “reading too deep” into the references, but now that Michael Chu has outright confirmed that stuff as small as this

Can be important to a character’s background

You can bet I’m taking this moment to indulge in some bigger ideas.

Because remember, y’all:

“No one left behind.” - Reaper

The devil

“You’re the boss.” - Soldier: 76

Is in

Soldier: 76: Well. You sure take to this bad guy thing easily, don't ya? Reaper: And you sure know how to play boy scout.

The details.

[dabbledrabbleprose]

2. Cold Weather

“Darlin’, you know I love you more’n life itself, but I fail to understand how you are not freezing to death at this very moment. I’d also like to know what magic you’re using to prevent said eminent frozen demise, and beg you t’share it with your poor, frost-bitten boyfriend.”

Hanzo stood with his hands in the pockets of his canvas jacket and gave McCree a surprised look.

“It is only snow,” he said, taking a bare hand out of a pocket to catch one of the falling snowflakes. “There isn’t even wind.”

McCree made a distressed noise. “I don’t even want to think about this hellstorm with wind.”

Hanzo stared at McCree. Fat, fluffy snowflakes gently drifted around them, sparkling in the sunlight and blanketing the world in clean, calming white. “…Hellstorm?”

McCree huffed in response. While Hanzo wore only jeans, boots, and a canvas jacket, McCree was bundled up to his ears, wearing sweater and sweatshirt underneath his thick down coat, a glove on his right hand, stetson stubbornly set atop his head, and long johns beneath everything. Only a sliver of McCree was visible, brown eyes peeking out at Hanzo from under his hat and over the top of the serape, wrapped tight around McCree’s neck and face up to his nose.

“Did I stutter?” He growled, but the effect was diminished by the way the serape muffled McCree’s voice and the snow gathering on the brim of his hat.

Hanzo didn’t bother to hide his smile and looked back out over the landscape. “I suppose there isn’t much snow in New Mexico. Though I am surprised you didn’t get used to the cold after all the time you spent in Switzerland.”

“Watchpoint: Geneva had a fantastic heating system. And just ‘cause I endured the cold don’t mean I got used to it,” McCree’s narrow eyes scowled at the snow piling up on his shoulders and turned away. “C’mon. We’d better get inside before we both come down with hypothermia.”

“Why?” Hanzo asked innocently, unable to resist. “It’s quite nice out here.”

“Nice?” McCree spun on his spurred heel and gestured wildly. “You think it’s nice out here?”

“Of course,” Hanzo deliberately didn’t look at him, watching the snow instead. “I find it quite peaceful.”

“O’course it’s peaceful! Nice and calm and quiet because everything has frozen to death!”

“Mm,” Hanzo hummed noncommittally. “And here I thought the weather would cool down some of your hot air.”

Hanzo was sure McCree was giving him a Look, but elected to ignore it. For a moment, he was even able to almost hide his amused smile from McCree.

“You really telling me you ain’t cold?”

“It’s a little brisk, but yes. I am quite comfortable.”

McCree’s eyes narrowed. “You lookin’ for me to fix that?”

“Excuse me?”

Without further warning, McCree pulled his ungloved, prosthetic hand out of his pocket and shoved it up under Hanzo’s coat and shirt, slapping the cold metal against Hanzo’s bare back.

The sound that ripped itself from Hanzo’s throat wasn’t quite a shriek, but it was something very close, and the mad scramble to escape McCree’s hand was nothing short of undignified.

“Jesse! What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

Eyes sparkling, McCree gestured grandly and tipped his snow-dusted hat, then turned and ran. The snowball Hanzo threw after him took the Stetson from his head, and the resulting curses in both English and Spanish were music to his ears.

Worth it.