Lena Oxton, call sign Tracer, was good at making bad decisions. She was also good at two digit multiplication, making an omelet, and finishing a season of television in one night. She was also good at finding light in a literal mindless murderer- an...
Lena Oxton, call sign Tracer, was good at making bad decisions. She was also good at two digit multiplication, making an omelet, and finishing a season of television in one night. She also liked to think she was rather good at following orders, which kept her in line and happy down her 'career path'- a physically demanding path both socially and physically. Again, it's pretty clear Lena Oxton was good at making bad decisions.
If she was bad at making bad decisions however, maybe Lena wouldn't have stepped into an airplane at ten years old and advanced quicker than her time (literally). Maybe she wouldn't have joined the air force before she was in high school- Lena laughed at the pathetic nature of this, Overwatch was certainly desperate -- and maybe she wouldn't have become a glitchy, messy mistake.
If Lena was bad at making bad decisions, maybe I could just fall asleep comfortably for once!
Lena pried her eyes open. It was dark. Of course it was dark, it was probably four-fucking-a.m. She peeled the thin blanket covering her chunky form and unleashed the constant blue glow of her chronal accelerator so she could see a little better. Her small bedroom illuminated blue. Lena sighed in defeat, raising her achy body up into a sitting position. It was dreadfully hard to sleep with a chest piece locked over your rib cage and even harder when you're too cheap to afford anything but a concrete mattress. Lena slid her long legs off the bed; the wood floors of her apartment were cold against bare feet along with the draft from an open window somewhere in the tiny apartment. Too tired to search for the window, Lena opted to just put on her jacket to embrace the cold. It wasn't even as cold as England could get- just a chilly night draft born from a sunless day before and most likely a sunless day tomorrow.
Lena found her way to her kitchen, yawning periodically. She hadn't bothered to check the actual time from her cellphone, abandoned by her bedside in the room across from her kitchen (it wasn't really a kitchen, but a kitchen and a living room. The only other rooms were her bedroom and her bathroom). Yet the sky was a stifling black and even the warm suggestions of a sun that possibly shown, hidden behind grey clouds, stayed sleeping underneath the black blanket. There were still plenty of more hours until daybreak, where Lena would make her daily rounds. Nevertheless, with the condition of her accelerator and the restlessness that overcame her as a result, she couldn't find herself sleeping anymore- like most days. However, this resolution only came with a defeated shrug and a reach for her most caffeinated tea.
Maybe this was also a bad decision. Yet Lena often found herself thinking if some of her so-called bad decisions were really so bad. She thought back- she would had never met her friends and now family had she not become a pilot; she wouldn't know Winston and Angie and Jack (God rest his soul) and she would be even more alone then she is now. Lena blinked and glanced around the dark, empty room. That'd have to be pretty lonely. Even if the over in Overwatch was more active than the special force itself, those memories lived on no matter what. Lena pursed her lips. She still fought for those memories too. She had never even thought to hang up her orange jumpsuit or lose her pistols. Maybe she did not fight for the name of the United Nations and Overwatch anymore, but she fought for everyone's rights and safety- omnics and human!
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Her mind snapped back to Kings Row on the rooftops and during the protest- to Mondatta, to the terrible concussion she suffered and the repairs to her accelerator she had to complete that she wasn't even sure she could, to her.
Lena remembered her. She knew who Amelie Lacroix was, everyone did. She was Gerard's, an agent like herself that always seemed busy, 'loving' wife. Lena passed them in the long hallways of the compounds countless times, chatting and flirting like a seemingly normal couple. Lena and Amelie had crossed paths once or twice, leading to an amicable chat, but Amelie's stark age difference of seven years and Lena's particularly childish demeanor kept them distant. The Lacroixes had been married long before Lena had joined and stayed married for longer- until Amelie up and murdered him in his sleep, of course. Lena hadn't heard much about it, she had been lost with the Slipstream when Amelie had vanished for the last time. Apparently she had been influenced, her mind broken and forced into ending the life of her beloved and abandoning her previous days with the good guys. She adopted a new persona and a sniper rifle and a vicious, cold attitude.
This was the case. Perhaps if Lena had not been in contact with her herself, she would claim it wasn't Amelie's fault. But she wasn't Amelie, Lena thought bitterly. She was Widowmaker. She was a monster, a scheming murderer that killed Mondatta along with the hope for omnics in Lena's home city. Lena hated her, she was sure of it. She hated her when she spotted the physically blue women from the roof tops and she hated her when lay, defeated, on the ground in a heap of blood and electricity. Lena hated the way Amelie had tricked all her friends into thinking she was safe when really she was a corpse in a body.
Lena realized her fists were balled, the palm of her hands white with anger. She couldn't help but grumble. She had come in contact with Widowmaker more times than just the encounter in Kings Row, each ending in either an escape or a broken bone. Just as it had once been, few words were shared and Lena could never truly understand what the woman's motives were.
Lena finished her mug and emptied the residue into the sink. It landed unceremoniously at the bottom of the drain as she watched it intently. Lena wished in that moment she could read tea leaves. It was nothing but superstition, but at this moment she found herself wishing for anything that could hint at a better life than sitting in a ratty kitchen and thinking about a woman way out of her league.
