Chapter Text
“Gabi?”
The hacker watched the wraith rise from his slouched position, replacing the bone white mask on his face. Even without turning his head, Sombra knew he was paying attention to her.
“Ready to go?” She was biting her lip in barely contained excitement. If he didn’t know her any better, Reaper would’ve thought she was pumped for the mission. But he did know her and he knew that she only got this excited when she found something challenging to hack or was messing with someone.
Kicking the box of delicate blue flowers under his cot, Reaper stood and cracked his knuckles. “As ready as I’ll ever be. Let’s just get the job done.”
She saluted, skipping back a few steps before walking after the black wraith. “Sure, no problem! Akande says we fly out in ten minutes. We’ll probably get to Hawaii in four hours, not including turbulence. You sure we can’t just take a little time to rest and enjoy the beach before the mission?”
Reaper let out a gruff sound akin to a snort. “If you get your job done, I don’t care what you do.” Sombra’s face lit up, yet before she could say anything, he added, “But if you don’t get back to the dropship before we take off, then you’re going to be left behind.”
Sombra whined, “What?! Seriously?? But extraction is the moment the mission finishes!”
“Then you’d better enjoy the beach while you can.”
Huffing, Sombra rolled her eyes, pursing her lips. She blinked before a grin blossomed across her face. Sombra began to casually examine her nails in a way Reaper knew meant she was going to say something she found “interesting”. And Sombra’s definition of “interesting” usually meant a headache for Reaper.
“You know Overwatch has been on our tail a lot lately.”
“… So?”
“That means they might show up for this mission too.”
“What about it?” Reaper grimaced behind his mask, having an idea on where this was going and not liking it one bit. He picked up his pace, knowing it was futile to try and outwalk his charge, but he sure as hell was going to try.
“You might run into some old faces. Maybe an… Old flame?”
Reaper stopped walking just outside the hanger, turning and looming over the other. “What’s your point, Sombra?” He growled, shoulders tensing.
Holding up her hands in a placating manner, Sombra grinned innocently. “Nothing bad! I’m just curious on what you’ll do if that happens! I mean if you figured out that grandpa 76 is Jack Morrison, then what’s stopping him from figuring out it’s you?” She kept her voice low, having enough brains to not let others overhear the conversation.
He rolled his eyes and relaxed marginally, “Not going to happen. I’m not the man I once was, so there’s nothing for him to notice. The only thing remotely similar is these fucking flowers. And I don’t plan on coughing them up in front of anyone anytime soon.”
The only exception to the rule grinned sheepishly, taking a step back and glancing to the loading docks. “Very true! But say someone just happened to send your little soldier boy some, do you think he’d understand what it meant? Hypothetically speaking, that is!”
Feeling his body stiffen, Reaper’s gaze narrowed at her and his form began to haze at the edges. “Sombra, what did you do?”
“Now Gabi, you know I love you, but you weren’t going to do anything! I figured a little push wouldn’t hurt! I did it for your own good!” Sombra exclaimed, taking a step back.
“Sombra!” Reaper snarled, his form growing and breaking apart into denser fog. He towered over her, crimson eyes appearing over his hazy body and glaring menacingly. Rows of sharp, monstrous teeth also began appearing, parting threateningly at her.
Grinning sheepishly, Sombra suddenly disappeared in a static haze of purple, reappearing near the ship they were boarding. “Sorry Reaps!” She called, already scurrying into the ship.
Reaper bit back a roar of rage, body shaking as he took several long moments to reign in his form before he turned into an even more monstrous eldritch horror. Shaking out his shoulders, the former Blackwatch agent stalked his way towards the ship, sending a glare towards the hacker once he boarded. Sombra sent him a sweet grin tinged with fear as she buckled herself in, clearly sensing her impending doom at the hands of her comrade.
Reaper strapped himself into his seat, ignoring the curious brow raise from Moira. He crushed down the sudden wave of anxiety gnawing away at his chest. Reaper still had a job to do and the possibility of Jack knowing his identity didn’t matter. It changed nothing; not now, not ever.
//
The plan was simple, Reaper, Akande, and Moira would infiltrate the security base. While Moira and Akande provided a distraction, Reaper would sneak through the security doors and make his way to the center chambers where the most high grade weapons were located. There he would activate Sombra’s translocator and guard her while she unlocked the doors. They were to retrieve the blueprints for the weapons, destroy all copies but the ones Sombra had, and then destroy the facility. Widowmaker would be stationed outside watching the perimeter and letting them know if anyone unwanted arrived.
It was simple and easy, almost too easy. Shoot a guard here, snap a neck there, pretty much child’s work. Reaper made it deeper into the facility without much effort, pulling out the purple translocator.
“I’m here.” He said, activating it and tossing it onto the ground.
“Roger roger!” Sombra chirped, “Heading up now!”
Her translocator beeped several times and in a glitch of purple she appeared. Without waiting for orders she squatted near the door, placing her palm on it and opening a purple screen with her other hand.
“Movement on the West side, we’re about to have company.” Came Widow’s bland tone over the coms.
“Numbers.” Akande asked, the sound of him punching the wall and it shattering heard over the com-link.
“5 coming in from the ground floor, two going around the building and out of my sights.”
“Understood. Moira and I will focus on the five. Sombra, track down the two strays and keep tabs on them. Reaper, intercept them and keep them from Sombra.” Akande ordered.
“On my way, just finishing up a little… Project.” Moira chuckled over the screaming in the background.
“Seriously? I’m kind of busy at the moment.” Despite saying this, Sombra pulled up another set of screens, typing away on it while glancing back at the first screen she had opened. Drawing up a few security cameras, she scrolled through them until she grunted. “Found them. We’ve got one Soldier 76 and one Hanzo Shimada cutting in through the North hall and aiming for our location.”
Without saying anything Reaper dematerialized, turning into an inky cloud and disappearing up one of the vents. Sombra huffed, tapping on her screen and pulling up a map of the vents. “Head left and keep going straight. You’ll want to keep on that path until you reach another crossroads. Take a right from there and another right after that.”
“Understood.” Reaper weaved through the vents, following the directions Sombra gave out as they came.
Hesitating, Sombra pressed a few buttons, muting communications with Moira, Akande, and Widowmaker. She set up a separate channel between her and Reaper, chewing on her lip before speaking.
“Hey, Gabi?”
“Focus on the job, Sombra.”
“I know, I am.” She huffed, moving back to the code flying on the purple screen. “But I wanna ask… Are you doing fine? With the… Thing?”
There was silence for several long seconds before Reaper sighed, “Private channel?”
“Mmm. Already ahead of you.”
It was then Reaper allowed a few coughs to slip out followed by another gravelly sigh. “I’m hanging in there. Just finish your job while I finish mine.”
“Any flowers yet?” She asked, eyes flickering over to the security cameras, listing off another set of directions for Reaper to follow.
“No, but I can feel them crawling their fucking way up.” He said quite bitterly.
Biting her lip, Sombra hesitated before she went back to hacking into the weapons room. “Well just be careful, ok? Get out of there if you need to. Hide in the vents or something. They can’t suck you outa them unless they’ve got a vacuum on hand.”
Reaper let out a gruff snort of amusement, rolling his eyes in something akin to fondness. “Right. I’ll keep that in mind.”
Humming, Sombra clicked her tongue, closing the screen with the cameras. “The next vent you see, drop. Closing private channel in three… Two…”
Reaper heard a click in his ear piece before sounds of Akande shouting orders to Moira filtered back in. He grunted, materializing his body enough to switch the damn thing on silent. If Akande or the others needed to get in touch with him, they’d get Sombra to work her magic. She had messed with the communicators enough to know how to bypass a simple silencing.
Following her orders, Reaper pushed his ghostly form through the vents, materializing almost instantly. He dropped to the ground with a heavy thud, body crouched in order to absorb the impact shock. Slowly he drew himself up to his full height, a hiss of exhaled air leaving his shadowy form. At the end of the hall in front of him stood Jack and Hanzo, both at the ready with their weapons drawn.
“Hate to drop in, but that’s as far as you’re going to get.” Reaper informed, hands going to his waist and grabbing the handles of the duel shot guns as they materialized. He pointed them towards the Overwatch operatives, a gun for each man.
Sharing a quick glance, Hanzo and Jack both nodded before they ran forward. Reaper had no qualms about firing off his guns, the two men of course dodging. Hanzo leapt to the side, using his momentum to place his feet against the wall and push off. He shot forward, getting close to Reaper and firing off two arrows.
Reaper dodged one, breaking his body into a cloud in order to avoid the other. He turned solid just as Hanzo sprinted past, Reaper’s clawed gloves just barely missing the ribbon trailing after the archer. Growling, he trained one of his guns on Hanzo’s back, intent to take fire just as a heavy weight slammed into his side. His aim was thrown off and his shot missed, though not by much. A few pellets from the spray managed to nick Hanzo’s arm, but probably not enough to keep him from firing arrows.
“Keep going! Make sure they don’t get into the vault!” Jack yelled, digging his feet in and giving a full-bodied shove, slamming Reaper’s chest against the wall.
Reaper snarled, eyes narrowed as Hanzo slipped around the corner quickly. Of fucking course the Shimada would be fast on his feet, it seemed to run in the damn family, enhancements or not. Obviously this was going to be a problem for their plan. He’d have to warn Sombra since he doubted he’d be able to catch up to Hanzo, not with fucking Boy Scout over here proving to be a distraction.
With as much strength as he could muster, Reaper threw his head back, managing to catch the old fool in the chin. Jack cursed, the weight against Reaper’s back slackening slightly. Using the opening, Reaper spun, backhanding Jack and forcing him to stagger to the side. Reaper didn’t stop there, bringing a leg up and kicking the other in the gut.
Jack took it like a champ, lunging forward and aiming a jab at Reaper’s mask. As they traded blows and dodged, Reaper couldn’t help but find humor in the fact that once again they’d ditched their guns in order to fist fight. He wondered if this was going to be a reoccurring thing with Jack. He hoped not, Reaper didn’t think he could handle the emotional toll of constantly running in to him. Besides, he didn’t think he could find enough excuses to convince Akande that it was just bad luck he had yet to put a bullet in the back of Jack’s head.
And speaking of bad luck, his stupid flowers decided now was the perfect time to constrict his throat. Biting back the coughs that wanted to spill free, he hit Jack in the face before shuffling back and putting distance between the two of them. He didn’t know how long he had till he would be hit by a coughing fit, so it would be better to ditch sooner rather than later.
Reaper grunted, placing a hand to his com-link, quickly turning it on as he dodged Jack’s attacks. “Sombra, you’re about to have company.”
Anything she might have said was lost to Reaper, the wraith taking a blow to the side of the head that made a popping sound from the communicator. He weaved around Jack’s punches, sending jabs and kicks of his own that were blocked or dodged just as frequently. Reaper bit back a growl, this was getting old. He’d have to break up the system, do something Jack wouldn’t expect. Just anything so he could get away from the other.
Yet before Reaper could do anything, he himself was caught by surprise. He had been anticipating for Jack to throw a left hook, his arms already raising to block the intended blow. But suddenly a fist connected to his gut, knocking the air out of his dead lungs. He coughed from the impact, feeling the tickle against his lips of a few stray petals dislodging from his throat.
Reaper stumbled back, the petals pressing against his face, but unable to escape his mask. Jack didn’t give him a moment to regain his bearings. He slammed into Reaper, the wraith’s back hitting against the wall. An arm came up to grab one of Reaper’s wrists and pinned it to his chest, all of Jack’s weight pressing against him.
“Gabe!”
It was like ice had shot through his veins, gripping his dead heart tightly and squeezing painfully. Reaper didn’t move, he couldn’t even twitch his fingers. Not a thought was able to pass through his mind other than a single phrase. ‘Oh fuck’.