Overwatch - Chronos (Tracer x Reader)

Chapter 18: In the Blink of an Eye

You exited the infirmary's glass doors, dressed in civilian clothing with a backpack slung over your shoulder. As you stared around at the street around you, you realised that five months hadn't done Numbani any good, Doomfist's arrival clearly just spread fear and panic and dark times clearly hung over. As you stood there, a faint cold breeze blew across your hair, snapping you back into the reality of your harsh situation. You'd have to head back to Site B, but you had no money on you at all, in fact you were pretty much empty apart from the clothes you were wearing. But then an idea came into head, you looked down at the pair of gloves wrapped around your hands and felt glad that the police hadn't confiscated them like they had your pistols, clearly not scanning them properly. You cracked your knuckles before beginning to walk down the street, no particular destination at the moment. It wasn't good to stay in the same place for a while, not when on the run. Wow you'd learnt a lot from Overwatch.

As you continued moving down the dark Numbani street, you looked left and right cautiously before heading into a small little alcove at the entrance of a closed bank. Like a meerkat on the lookout, you made sure to examine your surroundings before moving in front of one of the ATMs. The bank may be closed, but the cash machines wouldn't be. After checking that nobody could see you, you typed a couple of lines of code into your gloves causing a massive wad of cash to splutter out of the machine. You repeated this process several times earning yourself a couple of thousand dollars' worth, enough to keep yourself going for now. You knew it was wrong but desperate times called for desperate measures.

Little did you realise that you were being watched, a pair of figures stood in the shadows of an alleyway just across the street observing your every move. One of them was incredibly large while the other was about average size.

"You see that mate? He can hack ATMs! We need a guy like that with us" the smaller one whispered in a thick Australian accent.

"Yeah, let's keep an eye on him. Hopefully when we give him our...business proposal he'll fall for it; hook, line and sinker" the other said with a chuckle. The figures then moved backwards into the darkness, all unbeknown to you.

You stood outside the airport at Numbani, looking up at the evident scorch marks and scars in the building's walls. While it had been such a long time now, the city clearly remembered Doomfist's previous attacks and was clearly nervous for them. You could only wonder what the villain had been up to in the last five months, that's plenty of time for him to cause trouble. You shook the thought out of your head and entered the airport, walking over to the ticket kiosk. The girl there, no older than a teen, greeted you with a warm smile.

"Hello sir, I'm Efi Oladele. I'm just watching this stall while my friend is on a break. Looking to purchase a ticket?" she asked politely.

"Um yes please, do you have any flights heading to LA?" you asked, scanning the departure board above you closely.

"Let's see here, why yes we do. It sets off in just under an hour, gate twelve. Just one ticket sir?" Efi replied while typing into her computer.

"Please, how much is that?" you asked, continuing to try and watch your back.

"Well I'm guessing by your accent that you're American, so our cheapest seats cost forty dollars" Efi stated helpfully. You nodded and pulled a small wad of the cash from your jacket pocket, counting it out. You gave her fifty dollars with a friendly smile.

"Keep the extra, you've been very helpful" you stated.

"Thanks sir, this'll help me with a little project I've been working on" Efi replied, putting the ten dollars in her pocket before seeing to the next customers, a pair of men. They were an odd looking couple but right now you didn't have time to worry about that. You took a seat on one of the many uncomfortable benches near the reception and picked up an abandoned newspaper, trying to catch up on recent events.

The newspaper was not helpful, mostly political trash talk about the candidates in Numbani. Still it made an interesting read during the forty five minute wait for the plane. After what felt like forever, the call for your flight played through the tannoy system causing you to stand up and place the newspaper back on the chair for its next unlucky reader. You brushed down your jacket and headed up to gate twelve, stopping at the security gate. It was then that it struck you, the damn hacking gloves, they'd surely set off the detector. Unsure of what to do, you walked through the gate with your eyes closed, expecting the blaring alarm at any second.

"Alright, you're good to go. Next!" the guard stated, handing you your backpack. You gave a confused look until you remembered something Winston had told you months ago. He'd fitted the gloves with some sort of special dampeners meaning that they'd only appear as normal gloves, probably why the NPD didn't confiscate them either. Thank god for Winston. You passed onto the plane with no further problems and took a window seat on the near empty passenger area. You noticed the two men from before also board the plane but take a seat way behind you. It didn't strike you as odd, they must just have been going to the same place as you, that was all. After what felt like hours of pre-flight checks, the pilot finally announced the take-off and you strapped in for several hours of boredom as you headed over the Atlantic. And hopefully towards Lena.

As expected, the flight was uneventful and before you knew it you had arrived in LA. Boy had home never looked so good, even if it did seem to be in the middle of some kind of hurricane right now. You exited the airport and pulled up your hood, the rain lashing down like a whip. Luckily you were no tourist, you knew LA well and would also recognise the familiar sight of Site B when you saw it. Not wanting to waste your precious cash on a taxi, you opted to walk and followed the pavement out of the massive airport into the streets of the city. Above you the sky thundered, a rumbling premonition of something large on the horizon. Every minute or so, a flash of fork lightning would shoot across the air, lighting it up like a fire. If you'd been scared of storms, then this would not be a good day for you. Fortunately, you enjoyed watching them and even found that it gave you a rush of adrenaline to see the lightning streak across the sky.

You reached the stone platform where you'd previously stood with Lena on that magical night, expecting to see the familiar sight of a tower with blackened windows. Instead what you saw was...horrendous. The tower still stood but barely, huge scorch marks spreading up from the ground all the way up to the highest levels that still remained. The skyscraper had halved in size and the structural integrity seemed more or less non-existent. What had happened?

"Depressing sight, isn't it?" a random woman who had joined your side said.

"Uh...yeah, yeah it is. What...actually happened? I was...out of the country" you asked curiously while trying to think of an excuse that wasn't a five month coma.

"A huge fire, happened one night around...ooh about five months ago now. Police never could figure out whether it was accidental or meaningful. Weird thing was though, there were no bodies or registered survivors" she explained helpfully.

"No...bodies?" you asked.

"No, but according to the big police databases it was a registered apartment block full of people. Weird, huh? I guess someone in the CIA or FBI will have their heads rolled for it, it was a big scandal in the news" she stated before waving goodbye and leaving you with the heart-breaking sight of your fallen home. Still, no bodies. That meant that there was a chance everyone was still alive, where they were though was lost to you. It had taken you months to track down Overwatch when you'd wanted to join, now they were cornered in shadows, it would be damn near impossible. You sighed in frustration as you walked away from the platform, intending to get a coffee and think it through. Little did you realise that the two odd-looking men from before were watching you from afar with much interest...