Title: Sights
Rating: still PG
Pairing: Reaper/Soldier:76
Summary: Reaper goes on a mission. Widowmaker’s there too.
Warnings: S76 isn’t in this chapter and it’s all plot. 
(previous)

“We’re working together again.” Was the first thing he heard the sniper say to him. The next, accompanied by a smack from the barrel of her rifle, was: “Fool. You’re distracted.”

Reaper scowled from behind his mask. “Can it. I’m not.”

Widowmaker looked over her shoulder at him coolly, leaning on the open frame of the helicopter they were in. He wouldn’t admit it, but he couldn’t remember getting in. It was less high tech and funded than Reaper was used to, but he recalled Talon promising a lot of bloodshed, so he had taken the assignment. Only three or four Talon agents joined them, keeping to themselves in the side seats, their metal masks glowing red from the sides of his vision as they turned towards him.

Widowmaker shrugged suddenly, turning to stare out at the city below them. “As long as you do your job.”

“I don’t need you to tell me that.” Reaper grumbled.

He snapped to consciousness again in the middle of a fight, the hot smell of blood mist making his pupils dilate. Eight guards lay facedown in front of him, life heat steaming out of them in the chill night. His movements felt lighter than usual, but somehow his body felt heavy.

A slight shiver ran through him as a cold breeze washed over his bared arms. Reflexively he tried to pull his coat more tightly around himself, but grasped only air. He remembered Soldier: 76 had it, was all tangled up in it looking uncharacteristically fragile, and then he remembered a soft flash of gold and black in the morning sun, a distant memory of warm skin and breath.

“Fall back.” Widowmaker’s voice was stern in Reaper’s ear. A bullet barely grazed past him, black smoke swirling in its wake. Their vanguard of Talon agents lay scattered, fallen ahead of them. Vaguely Reaper wondered if his own stray shots had hit them.

Reaper could hear many, many more footsteps in the building in front of them now. He shook himself a little and took a step forward, fresh guns glinting in the low lamplight. More bodies heavily hit the floor as he advanced inside, the hallways snugly pressing guards to the barrel of his shotguns. Like ants, more guards filed in behind him. Talon hadn’t lied.

“You are being reckless. Why? Fall. Back.”

“Not like I can die, and it’s too late to be stealthy.”

“It is exactly the right time. I will not repeat myself again.”

“Reposition if you want a piece of the action.”

“Have you forgotten the mission?”

“This is the fastest way to complete it.”

Widowmaker scoffed at that. “‘Fast.’ How unlike you. Curious.”

“I have somewhere to be.” He found himself saying petulantly, and he could picture the arch of Widowmaker’s eyebrow from the soft breath over the comm.

There was a rush of staticky wind in his ears, and a fresh corpse fell heavily onto him from behind. Another man fell, Widowmaker’s automatic rifle filling his body with steaming bullets, clearing a path for Reaper to see her judging silhouette in the doorway. “The grave?”

Talon sure reprogrammed Amelie with jokes, didn’t they. He scowled. “Let’s just get this over with.”

Widowmaker shrugged and lowered her visor, motioning for him to continue. Reaper was glad to not have to see her eyes.

“Three on your left, one coming from ahead.”

“Got it.”

The two of them advanced steadily through the building, four shots and four bodies to every step. Their objective was on the top floor- of course it was- and Reaper felt restless from their pace. He appreciated Widowmaker’s support, but at this proximity he could hardly afford to shoot as wildly as he wanted to. Graceful as she was, they weren’t in-sync enough for her to dodge his bullets. Reaper could be reckless on his own, but her too-slight shoulder felt unreliable.

“This floor is clear. Thirty-two on the next. What are you hiding?”

“What? Nothing. Leave me the fuck alone.”

She was silent in the stairwell, and her heels were strangely soft against the stone floor, but gears were turning all-too loudly in her head.

Widowmaker wouldn’t be able to get anything out of him, and they both knew it well. Not without good reason, and especially not when the truth of Reaper’s last report was on the line. He was hardly afraid of Talon, but being on their good side had definitely afforded him a lot of indulgences. He did like his indulgences.

“One flanking. Two approaching. Where is your coat?”

Three swift gunshots. She had only brought it up now, but Reaper understood Widowmaker had to have noticed the moment he’d stepped foot on the rendezvous point. “None of your goddamn business. I was hot.”

“There is a chill tonight. Your left.”

“You sure aren’t dressed like it.”

“Sixteen reinforcements coming from behind. It is not I who is cold.”

“Well, I’m hot.”

“Two more before the stairs.” Was Widowmaker’s only response. Reaper prickled, agitation flowing through his body, petulantly desperate to defend himself.

She let him stew deliberately, through fifteen floors of nothing but commands and combat. But Reaper was prideful, not stupid, so he bit his tongue. He was finding his rhythm now. His body heated up as it filled up with angry life energy, down to his fingertips, making them tingle with vigor. It made him even more ravenous, his senses sharpened like a shark.

Working with Talon allowed him this, spilling as much blood as he wanted, having to think of nothing but killing and retrieving some worthless memento or, if he was lucky, seeing the fear in some rich politician’s eyes drain out through their skull. It made him feel like himself again, having a mission to fixate on, getting a break from thinking about Overwatch and the thousand ways his organization had failed him, how Jack Morrison had failed him, how he was presently curled up in his bed around his jacket like a cat looking peaceful like those precious few Sunday mornings, all too long ago.

“Fool!” Widowmaker hissed, a sick metallic crunch coming from behind him. Reaper’s eyes scanned the trajectory of the bullet before breaking a window with the butt of his shotgun. The top of the building was cold and windy, even as Reaper wrapped his arm around the other sniper’s neck and spattered steaming blood over his bared arms.

“I told you to pay attention.” Widowmaker’s voice was low with anger, the woman now melting into the darkness in a corner as Reaper returned. The lights in her visor were sparking brightly, illuminating her skin with yellowish light.

She was still mortal, no matter how often Reaper forgot. He gritted his teeth with shame. Losing Talon grunts were one thing; losing their prized sleeper agent was quite another. “… I’m sorry.”

Widowmaker’s chin flicked up, rare surprise plain on her face. “Sorry?”

“… don’t get used to it.” Reaper turned on his heel, the movement much less dramatic without his coat. “Stay here. You’re of no use right now.”

That snapped her out of it. “Focus this time.”

“Shut up.”

Reaper could more than handle himself, but he was still grateful he was almost at the top of the building. There were fewer guards as he ascended: they had likely come down as reinforcements to try and stop them before they got this far. He quickened his pace, wanting nothing more than to finish the mission and return home. They should have sent me alone.

The weapon safely in his charge, he made his return to Widowmaker. A faded Overwatch symbol was on the handle of the gun, and scratched off silver as he ran his claws over it. No doubt he would’ve had an encounter with Soldier:76 had the man not been in his own safehouse. A fight in close, dark quarters like this would have reminded him of their days in training.

“No complications?”

Reaper walked to the shattered window, rematerializing on the top of the next building instead of responding. Widowmaker shortly followed suit with her grappling hook, landing catlike beside him with her heels digging into the back of the fallen sniper. She turned up her nose, scraping her shoes on whatever clean concrete she could find. “Must you always make such a mess?”

“Do you ever shut up?”

Still, he couldn’t mistake the half smile playing on her lips as she passed him to sit in one of the side seats, to fiddle with her broken visor in her lap. She’d procured a screwdriver from god-knew-where. Widowmaker seemed to be in a fairly good mood, all things considered. The space in the helicopter where the now fallen lower-ranked Talon agents normally stood was filled instead with as much silence as a helicopter could muster. He realized might not get another chance.

“You know a lot about those, right?”

“‘Those?’”

Reaper tapped his forehead. “That.”

“My visor?”

“Yeah. Could… could you fix one more? If it’s not the same kind?”

“How suspicious.” Widowmaker pulled in close, conspiratorily, threateningly. “I may not report you if tell me what this is about. But if you continue to keep secrets, I will.”

He had a perfectly legitimate reason for his request. Reaper had no idea why he was so unsettled before, but the way that Widowmaker’s eerie golden gaze pierced him made his skin crawl. “I have Soldier: 76 under house arrest. His visor was shattered in our encounter.”

Widowmaker’s eyes narrowed. “You were sent for him, and he still lives. Why?”

Reaper paused for far too long. “He’s… blind. I want him to look me in the eye when I put a bullet between his.”

Widowmaker studied him, expression unreadable and unblinking, for what felt like an eternity. She was the only person in the world who he felt was closer to a corpse than he was, but he managed to hold himself steady.

“I am not concerned with your personal affairs.” Swiftly Widowmaker stood, moving to lean in her usual spot so that her ponytail flicked straight in the wind like a dagger.

“So?”

“Yes, yes. I will do it. Bring it to me.”

Orange. Blue. He could feel what was left of his heart beating faster, watching the clouds and buildings coast by through the window. The breeze whipping through the open door nipped at his arms, and he thought of his warmed coat and its familiar embrace.

“Remember.” Widowmaker’s voice suddenly ripped through his thoughts. A breath got caught unbidden in his throat. “I am trusting your judgement.”