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nitewrighter · 4 years

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Gency 15?

15. “You Clean Up Well.”

Here’s some Pre-Fall New Years!

—-

“Is this really necessary?” Genji muttered as Tracer straightened his tie.

The three of them were at the headquarters of the Adawe Foundation in Numbani, more specifically at the Adawe Foundation’s New Year’s Eve Gala, a celebration that heavily centered on Overwatch. The four of them were in a lounge-like waiting room just outside the restrooms of the higher offices. Enough to give them some privacy as they did some last minute prep before heading out into the Gala.

McCree had muttered something about it being a “Victory over Doomfist” party, and Tracer had teased that McCree was bitter that he didn’t get an invite, which didn’t exactly go over well considering Blackwatch was still suspended. Jack, however, was keen to emphasize that they had caught Doomfist in Singapore over two months previously and that this celebration was largely to maintain Overwatch’s mutual support with Numbani. They knew though. The whole strike team knew. Overwatch needed that win and now it needed to capitalize on it. Genji didn’t like the idea of being in the spotlight. Only a year or so ago newscasters were looking at blurred footage of him in the Venice incident like he was some monster, some horrific amalgam of Overwatch’s scientific sins, and now he was on the posters–all gleaming armor and glowing green visor. And now a tie.

“If I can handle a tie, so can you,” said Tracer. Genji just grumbled under his breath. When Tracer wore a tie, she actually pulled it off. She didn’t look like a jigsaw of machine parts juxtaposed on a human’s suit.

“As the new strike team, we do have a responsibility to put our best faces forward!” said Winston, daintily folding his own pocket square.

Genji hesitantly brushed his fingers along his own faceplate.

“Uh… poor choice of words,” muttered Winston.

“Lena!” Genji heard a disappointed voice on the other side of the room, “Really?” His head instinctively swiveled to the doorway where Mercy was standing in a short, sparkling gold dress and a black silk cropped jacket. Genji attempted to maintain as neutral a reaction as possible to the outfit that he had never seen the doctor in. “You said I wouldn’t be the only one in a dress!”

Tracer’s lips thinned and he laughed nervously, “Well–yeah, but then Em found this frilly shirt and–well–” Tracer was stammering over herself.

“Don’t bother,” muttered Mercy.

“Sorry, Doc,” said Tracer, straightening her bowtie, “Cant help looking this good.”

“Well now everyone’s in black and I’m stuck—sticking out, and—” she glanced down at herself, then caught Genji’s visor out of the corner of her eye, then caught herself, folding her arms. “It’s fine. This is fine. I’m fine.”

She turned on her heel then, apparently all too easy with her patent leather black wedges, and paced out of the room.

“Oof,” said Tracer. Tracer looked at Genji, then at the doorway, then at Genji, then back at the door.

Genji looked blankly back at her.

“Talk to her,” Tracer mouthed, furrowing her brows and Genji nodded as if he totally knew what he would say to her (he didn’t) and he moved to follow her out the door when the door swung open and Jack walked in, looking more upbeat than he had in months. Mercy was right next to him, apparently caught right outside the door and now smiling her “maintaining-public-relations-while-dead-inside” smile.

“There’s my favorite strike team!” said Jack.

“Really?” Tracer said with a grin, “Are you sure we’re you’re favorite strike team?”

“Okay, second favorite,” said Jack, clapping her on the shoulder, “But really, I’m so glad you all agreed to this.”

“Who doesn’t like a party?” said Tracer.

I can think of two, thought Genji, glancing at Mercy. Maybe if the party wasn’t going to be four hours of stumbling through conversations with politicians Mercy might have the energy for it, but if something as little as being the only one in their group in a dress was already getting under her skin this much, it was going to be a long last night of the year. A few years ago he would probably already be drunk, hopped up on whatever party drug was fashionable at the moment, and embarrassing his entire family on the dance floor, but the dragon had burned that old Genji away. He rolled the thumb of his prosthetic hand over his knuckles as Jack and Tracer continued talking.

“And the Adawe Foundation represents some of Overwatch’s most critical ambassadorial work after the Crisis,” said Jack, “We couldn’t ask for a better crowd.” He gave a glance down to Tracer’s chronal accelerator. “Are you sure you’re all right with the–?”

“It’s been fine, Commander,” said Tracer, jamming thumb over her shoulder at Winston, “I had the big guy take a look at it special for tonight.”

Winston adjusted his glasses, “The accelerator is in optimum condition, sir,” he said, tucking in his pocket square.

“Hope you guys are ready for a lot of pictures,” said Jack, “Let’s move out.”

—

Sojourn greeted them as soon as they came out of the elevator. Mercy seemed relieved to see her in a dress–a striking asymmetrical scarlet number with her white dreadlocks swept off to one side.

“Lookin’ sharp, team,” Sojourn said, folding her arms with a smirk. Her eyes lit up at Genji, “And look at you!” She rapped a knuckle against Genji’s suit lapels, “Actual cloth? Amazing.”

“Gabriel helped find him one that fits,” said Jack.

“How’s he doing?” said Sojourn, looking at Jack.

“Gabe? Fine–he’s–fine,” said Jack, folding his arms, unsettled by the question, “He–you know, he… gets it.”

Genji felt Tracer, Mercy, and Winston’s eyes flick to him momentarily, as if he might have a better idea what was going on with Blackwatch, but the truth was he didn’t. All he really knew was that he was seeing less and less of Gabriel and Moira, and that just put McCree on edge, who was already anxious considering Blackwatch was benched and his very position with Overwatch was probationary. Genji tried to read Jack’s face in that moment. He found that Gabriel and Jack were sort of emotional barometers for each other, problems in their minds settling similar lines across their faces. Even though Jack seemed to be puffing out his chest and pushing his ‘Heroic Commander’ persona as much as his receding hairline would allow him, there was an exhaustion in his eyes.

“It’ll be all right, soldier,” said Sojourn, patting Jack’s shoulder.

“Yeah–New Year, right?” said Jack as he and Sojourn walked towards the party’s main hall with the strike team in tow.

The party itself was thankfully not as exhausting as anticipated. The next three and a half hours were a slog though. The first hour was largely Jack and Sojourn walking them around the party, introducing the strike team as a group, before splitting up and leaving them to ‘mingle.’ A word Genji dreaded. Winston and Tracer managed to keep a lot of attention off of him, and what attention was on him was gradually buffed off by his own taciturn responses. Winston on the other hand could lecture more or less indefinitely on physics, and Tracer maintained her dizzying energy, blinking around different conversations of the party, giving little quips about time travel (which of course went over well considering it was New Year’s) and generally being the charming face of Overwatch Jack had been grooming her for. Mercy on the other hand….

Genji watched from across the room as Mercy was caught in a conversation with what looked like a circle of five different dignitaries. He was impressed with how gracious and at-ease she seemed in the conversation in spite of how frazzled she had been with Tracer earlier. She wasn’t Angela in that light, he realized. This was Mercy. Angela Ziegler was all messy buns and thoughtful thumbnail chewing and weary, snarky looks from behind black-rimmed glasses when they stayed up late in the lab together–Mercy was a mask and a shield, keeping people at a distance but dazzling them with her grace and dignity.

“You still gotta talk to her,” said Tracer, brushing past him and sticking two champagne flutes in his hand.

“What?” said Genji but Tracer was already slipping back off into the crowd to take pictures with Winston and a handful of younger Adawe foundation members, leaving him standing awkwardly with the two champagne flutes. He glanced back at the crowd of five that Mercy was caught in and was slightly alarmed to see that Mercy was no longer there. When did she get the chance to slip off? He circled through the party, and found that most left him alone when he was carrying two champagne glasses because they assumed he had somewhere to go, someone to meet, and in a sense they were right, but Genji himself felt aimless and a bit stupid. He couldn’t even drink one of the champagnes, anyway–that would require taking the faceplate off and no, he was not doing that with this crowd.

“15 Minutes to Midnight!” Tracer announced cheerily from the midst of the crowd, and Genji decided to ditch his champagne glasses before he was caught holding them like an idiot when the new year was finally rung in.

A lot of the tables at the party were occupied by chatting couples, so he couldn’t just drop off the glasses there, and it felt odd to trail after one of the waiters carrying trays to put full champagne flutes on their trays–the balcony, he decided. People forgot their drinks on balconies all the time. He stepped outside and saw a familiar figure in a gold dress slumped against the guardrail of the balcony. Mercy had kicked off her heels and was looking out over the city. The exterior of the party was only marginally cooler than the interior–Numbani wasn’t exactly known for cold climes, after all. The city glittered all green and orange and gold beyond her.

“Angela?” said Genji and Mercy glanced over her shoulder at him.

“Oh,” she pushed up off of the guardrail slightly.

“I um… I got you, well, actually Tracer got you—here,” he held up one of the champagne flutes.

She smiled that weary smile and took it from him, “Thank you, Genji.”

“Is everything okay?” said Genji.

“I should apologize to Tracer,” muttered Mercy, “She looks better in a suit and it was a completely arbitrary thing to be upset about.”

“I think she understands,” said Genji.

“I should be the mature one here, not her,” muttered Mercy, “I mean–Of course she should be mature, she’s team leader, but I shouldn’t be the one getting upset over things as small as wardrobe changes, but she said she would and I would like it if people in this organization actually did what they said they were going to do–and–and–”

“It’s… not about Tracer or the wardrobe change,” said Genji, leaning against the balcony.

“I think… it’s new year’s eve. I know I’m supposed to feel like there’s a fresh start coming, but at the same time, so much feels out of my control,” she looked back over the city, “Overwatch put away one the biggest threats to world peace since the Omnic Crisis but I just… it feels wrong. It feels rotten.”

“…It feels too easy,” said Genji.

Mercy’s shoulders bunched up, “It wasn’t ‘too easy’–you were thrown into a car and Tracer had her chronal accelerator ripped off of her—”

“But Talon’s barely made any effort to restructure with him gone,” said Genji, “It operated so… complexly… before. I don’t think that Doomfist’s ascent to power would be so disruptive that it would destroy every contingency. You would think that they would be fighting harder to prove removing Doomfist doesn’t decrease how much of a threat they pose–like a wounded animal lashing out.”

“Oh thank god, you feel it, too. I thought I was just being paranoid,” said Mercy.

“Well… I’m paranoid too, so…” Genji shrugged and Mercy snickered.

She extended her glass to him, “To paranoia and the new year,” she said with a smile.

“To paranoia and the new year.”Genji clinked his glass against hers, she moved to sip her drink, then stopped, looking at him just awkwardly holding his glass.

“…you haven’t had a drink all night,” said Mercy.

“There’s a lot of politicians here. Someone should stay sharp,” said Genji.

“Genji I’m pretty sure this party has the most extensive and well-equipped security in the world. You can relax a little,” she smiled, but then her smile faded and her free hand went up to her own jaw, “Oh–your…”

“The faceplate, yes,” said Genji.

Mercy gave a glance back to the party through the and she leaned in a bit closely to him, “…Would you like to drink?”

“…yes, yes I would,” said Genji.

“Here,” Mercy set her glass down on the guardrail, then shrugged off her jacket and stepped around him, holding her jacket up and spread out as a shield between them and the party, “But you’ll have to be quick.”

Genji, seeing he was obscured from the party by the jacket, quickly clicked his faceplate off, clinked his glass against Mercy’s on the balcony, and with a quiet, “Kanpai,” gulped down his champagne. Mercy lowered her jacket as he clicked his faceplate back on and his visor slid back into place, lighting up green.

“You’ve rescued me again, Doctor Ziegler,” said Genji with a sight chuckle.

“Angel wings,” said Mercy with a grin, waving her jacket around slightly before pulling it back on. She sipped her own champagne and both looked out over the city. A pause passed between them, not uncomfortable, but both sort of navigating their own thoughts in the comfort of each other’s company.

“…it’s not that bad, you know,” said Mercy, after a while.

“Mm?” Genji glanced at her.

“Your face–the… the scarring’s not as bad as you think,” said Mercy, sipping her champagne, “I know, ultimately, it’s about what you’re comfortable with showing, and that’s what’s important–”

“And I’m a ninja,” said Genji.

“…and you’re a ninja,” Mercy conceded, grinning, “But… I like your face, Genji. I see it and I think, ‘Oh–there’s someone who has my back.’ Even with this on–” She mindlessly reached up and touched the faceplate and there was a sudden kssssh of Genji’s shoulder vents that made her flinch back. “Sorry–I shouldn’t have–”

“No, no, it’s fine, it’s fine–Numbani. It’s warm,” said Genji, tugging at his collar to release some trapped steam. He cleared his throat and glanced off. “Um… thank you. I… I like your face, too. It’s…” his shoulder vents steamed again with another ksssssh, “It’s a good face,” he managed to finish, “That wasn’t–This suit has no proper venting.”

Mercy chuckled a little. “I understand,” she said, smiling.

A din rose up from the interior of the party. “3 minutes left!” Tracer could be heard over the crowd.

“…Guess it’s getting to the final countdown,” said Genji.

“Yes,” said Mercy, her shoulders slumped a little, “We should probably head in, get the whole… strike team together for the photo-ops at midnight…”

“…right…” said Genji, not really wanting to subject himself to a flurry of camera flashes but knowing they couldn’t let Tracer and Winston down. He started moving across the balcony back to the door.

“Oh–umm before midnight—” said Mercy, catching his shoulder.

“Mm?” Genji glanced over at her.

She gave him a short, soft kiss on the side of his faceplate. “Happy New Year, Genji,” she said, pulling back, looking a bit too red for it to just be the flush of champagne.

KSSSSHHHH. Steam flooded up and out of Genji’s collar, wilting it from its sharp tailored angles to a rumpled mess. “Ah–Um…” Genji stammered, “Happy New Year to you as well, Angela,” he said. He gestured a bit helplessly at his collar, “Venting–Numbani–You know–”

“I know,” said Mercy with a grin as they headed back into the party for the countdown.

#gency

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