Archive of Our Own ^beta

You will be in my house, Fareeha,
oh thunderbird, oh healer's hawk.
I will give you power to lift up your hand
before gods who are greater than you,
and the divine hunter Pharah will come into being from it.
I will give you power to embrace the two heavens with your beauty,
and with your rays of brilliant light,
and every being shall ascribe praise on to you,
you, who serve your Gods.

“You filed an annulment on my behalf?! While I was unconscious?!” Dr. Ziegler looked at the papers again, disbelieving. “That’s outrageous! Why?!”

The surprise on Moira’s face looked genuine. “I had power of attorney, and it seemed … necessary, with the two of you having gone your separate ways, and when she did not visit, while you were unconscious for so long...”

That’s right, she thought, we had taken a… time out... after, after, after… but... Mercy thought, hard, trying to tie together the various threads in her mind, the memories, not all of which meshed as well as they could, as well as she thought they should, which happened more, lately - until she’d grind at them, and grind at them, until they would - as always - snap together, suddenly, and make sense.

But one thing made sense right away.

“She should be one of us,” the goddess of life declared, looking back up. “I want her. I want her as one of us. Now.”

“She’s hardly the sort for…”

“I don’t. care. I want her.” Angela’s bronze eyes glinted, piercing. “I loved her, then. I want her, still. We, we, we have made a mistake, separating, and I will fix it, and you will help. She was my protector, my falcon, my thunderbird, and…" She smirked. "Surely, you of all people, wife, have not become the jealous type.”

Moira hmmmed with a bit of a laugh in it, thoughtful, hands together, fingers touching. “Ah, of course. That. I love you, but I do forget the physical, at times.” She shrugged. “Well! If we can take her, if we can do it safely, then - fine. If you want a... pet, I see no reason why not.”

“She will be not be a pet,” Angela said sharply, glaring. “I will not own her. She will be my, my… my right arm. My guard, my huntress. My… consort, again, as she was before. If she will still have me.”

Moira laughed. “For someone so very Swiss, you do love your classical allusions, don’t you?”

“You knew that before we got married,” the doctor said, primly, but still angrily. “There’s no reason why I cannot have a wife, and a consort who is also my wife, and I intend to do exactly that, and love both.”

“Indeed. Well. I’m sure our trio of weapons will be happy to help you bring her in. Why don’t you go ask them?”

“I shall,” she said, having already done so. She shook her head, still fuming. “I know you didn’t intend to be cruel, but you were. You’ll apologize, once she’s been settled properly.”

“Of course,” Dr. O’Deorain said gracefully, if a little overwhelmed. But she did love her wife, in her own way, and after all - her happiness matters, so much, for everything. “I am... sorry, dear. I have never really understood your relationship with her, but it was wrong of me to interfere with it. I apologise to you, now, and I will apologise to her, after.”

Mercy relaxed, smiling broadly, having what she wanted, and so happy again, all at once. “Oh, I’m… oh, I cannot wait to see her again. It has been far too long. Thank you.” She took Moira’s hand, raising it to her face, and kissed her palm, gently, nuzzling, and Moira smiled, also soothed, a part of her wondering, for just a moment, whether including herself in that particular change had been the best idea, but the rest of her not caring, delighted by it, and after that moment, that first part no longer cared either.

The geneticist watched her wife glide out of the laboratory, down the long hallway. Well, she thought, there’s nothing wrong with a little air support on our side, and Pharah is very, very good at that. She put her mind to work, thinking. A… slightly limited form of the upgrades. Something well above human, but… she’ll be attached to Angela, and not me, so something... not quite to our level. For safety’s sake. She’s too dangerous as she is.

She began running calculations, permuting gene swap sets and psychological drivers across the archived copy of Fareeha Amari’s file from Angela Ziegler’s laboratory. Yes, I think we can make this work… properly directed loyalty… the right sort of attachment to the right kind of duty, and honour… and a hint of imperiousness... She laughed a little, at herself, as the changes came together in her mind. Yes. She’s been a good candidate the whole time - and somehow, I overlooked it. How foolish of me. She shook her head, chastising herself. Perhaps I really was a little jealous, before. I’m glad that nonsense is over.

As she began to outline a procedure, she smiled. This latest permutation on iris modification should produce a nice effect - and a particularly nice range of visual acuity, as well. Useful, particularly for a desert flyer. Let’s try it here, she nodded to herself. I suspect she’ll be quite striking with sparkling opal eyes.

“Now, remember, all of you - no headshots,” bronze-eyed Mercy insisted.

The four women watched comings and goings at the Helix Security training facility where Fareeha had been stationed, her commission reactivated three days after Angela Ziegler vanished. A large facility, well outside of Cairo and its teeming civilian population. It would require a human task force of fifty or so well-trained soldiers - a good-sized platoon - to take it in a fight, assuming the trainees fled, rather than resisted. But the four studying it from a distance were most decidedly not human, and they had surprise on their side - except, perhaps, with Pharah.

“Course not, doc." Silver-eyed Oilliphéist grinned widely, bouncing a little in place. “I may not be a surgeon, but I know that much. Brains are messy!” This is going to be so much fun! she thought.

“And easily damaged,” the doctor stressed, knowing that grin, keeping her on track. “We need her intact. That said... we don’t necessarily need her to be alive the whole time."

"That simplifies things," copper-eyed Tracer noted, "in more ways than one."

"That whole bunker will collapse with just a couple of your mines," Oilliphéist said, scanning the classroom building. "And their munitions are just... everywhere. We can use that!" She giggled. "We hardly had to bring any of our own!"

"Fareeha can’t be dead for very long!" Angela insisted, sharply. "My resurrection technologies work best within the first five minutes, and I don't want to risk even that much if I can avoid it." She hummed. "I'd rather we not kill her, obviously. But if she's fleeing by air - well. I will have her back. Bring her down however you must.”

"The practice range setup... something... it is familiar," gold-eyed Widowmaker said, peering, pattern-matching. Oh! she realised, eyes glinting. "It's the approach to the Ministry. A sketch of it, key defensive positions, high points... they're training for an assault on us. How..." she chortled, darkly. "How amusing."

Tracer laughed. “Oh, that is funny, love. Guess it's good we're doin' this now!" She sucked in her lips for a moment, concentrating. "Let's try not to make it hurt, though - taking down Pharah, I mean. Not any more than it has to." The upgrades, she thought, will hurt enough.

“Of course,” the Widowmaker replied, voice cool, tone professional. “If I am to kill her - even if only temporarily - it must be perfect.”

Oilliphéist chuckled and Tracer grinned, shivering a little in anticipation of getting to take on the whole of Helix Security if she had to - or, really, if she got to. “Yeh," she said. "Let’s go be perfect.”

Fareeha had been dead.

She knew this. She'd felt the chill filling her body as her blood had dripped from a thousand rents in her Raptora's plating, the suit's HUD flickering in and out with her vision before it had all gone dark, the world impossibly heavy as it weighed down on her, alongside her failure - her inability - to protect her students. The most she'd managed was a delay, as cadets fled, herded by surviving training officers into any vehicle that had survived the initial onslaught.

She knew the woman who had been Lena Oxton would have no mercy, and neither would her companions, and indeed, they'd shown none, none at all, except, perhaps, in not pursuing the transports. They'd chased only her, and a chase, at least, she managed to give them, for a while.

But then, as she died, there had been a voice...a voice she'd known so well, murmuring as it called her back from the shadowed lands where her spirit had begun to wander. A voice that called her, a voice that could not be resisted. Breath returned to her lungs with a ragged gasp, the muscles and nerves forced to resume their function, her skin tingling as if from a mild sunburn as it was mended from the inside out.

"It was not your time," she heard that honeyed voice say, and Fareeha's heart soared for the briefest of moments, opening her eyes with her missing lover's name on her lips. But the blazing bronze eyes which stared so piercingly back into hers were not those of the woman she had loved. And in that moment - that brief moment of awareness before a different kind of oblivion - she knew that she, too, had been taken.

Lena sat next to the bed, gently wiping beads of sweat away from the occupant’s forehead, late in the night. She didn’t need to sleep so very much; not any more - she had been asleep for this, herself, and had never needed so very much sleep again, afterwards. Some, yes, of course - sleeping with Widowmaker and Oilliphéist always helped whatever mood she was in, and they made a point of it, keeping their schedules synchronised tightly. But a few hours every couple of nights was plenty.

She didn’t really remember the upgrade process itself, and having seen it a couple of times, now, that had clearly been for the best. She just remembered the slow realization of how much had changed. How unhappy she had been, before. How much more alive the world became.

“It gets easier,” Lena murmured softly to the woman who had been a friend, once. “It won’t feel that way, not at first, not unless you're really lucky, like Angela, or Emily. It’s okay to be afraid. Lady knows I was, yeh? And so was Danielle.” She ran her hand over Fareeha’s forehead again. “But it gets easier. Don’t worry. We'll help. We’ll take good care of you.”

She was glad she could be there, offering this comfort. Her wives had done their best, for her... but they were not always the comfort types. Angela was, of course, but even the goddess of healing needs rest, sometimes. And mum, bless her... well.

Mum would probably describe the whole thing as “proceeding adequately,” and to her, that would be comfort enough.

“You don’t stop being you,” Lena murmured as she took Fareeha’s hand and squeezed it. “I know you’ll worry about that. I did. But you’re still yourself. Just... more.”

Fareeha shifted in her drug induced sleep, moaning softly as she continued to sweat out the retroviral changes to her body.

“Don’t be afraid,” Lena murmured before she stood up, Emily and Danielle awaiting her outside the doorway. “Y’won’t be alone. The nurse is watching, and Angela will be back in an hours’ time. And it’ll all make sense soon.”

She glanced back at the unconscious Egyptian woman one last time before heading out. Only a few more days. That's all. She smiled. I can't wait to be friends again.

Fareeha had been lost.

She jerked, forward, up, awake, all at once, tubes and sensors flying everywhere, terribly, terribly afraid. Lena grabbed one hand, and Angela, her other, as she bolted up, so quick, not to hold her down, just to hold her hands, Lena saying, "you're safe, you're safe, you're home," Angela reaching out, saying, "It's me, it's me, it's me, beloved, it's over, you're back, you're alive, you're safe, it's all over..."

Moira had suggested strapping her down, specifically anticipating this. Angela had refused, and in that moment, was so glad she had. "My hawk, my fiercest huntress, come back to me..." Pharah spun and looked into flashing bronze eyes, eyes this time not angry, not claiming, but pleading, and her own opal eyes gazed back into them, seeing her goddess before her, and she froze, for a moment, as Angela lifted her hand to her mouth, and kissed it, nuzzling, and she calmed.

"You..." the hawk whispered.

Angela reached out, carefully, cupping her consort's cheek, and her hawk turned, and nuzzled into that hand, eyes half closed, but half open. "I... see you," she breathed.

"I see you," her goddess whispered, in return.

The hawk shuddered, heavily, heaving, fearful, wrong, but right, broken, but whole, and as yet unreconciled, still shifting, swaying, unbalanced, unsure. "What... what have I become?"

"You're still you," Lena murmured, from the other side of the hospital bed. "Just more. We all are."

"I'm, I'm, I'm afraid," she said, to her beloved.

"Do not fear. I will protect you, my hawk, even when you cannot protect yourself. I will protect you - always."