#i already have one pissy comment but aklsj i'm not taking down the troll description

[tacticalgrandma]

So I don’t know how links are working on here anymore, but I have a new fic I’d like to share as best I can! Sombra returns to Dorado after the events of the “Hero” cinematic, and explores exactly how much she hates Jack Morrison. Primarily a character study of how she’s broken and not really about Jack Morrison at all. I’m going to post the fic as well as the link, and as always, comments & kudos would mean the world! Remember, you can leave both even if you don’t have an ao3 account.

AO3

Sombra hears about Soldier: 76’s little excursion in Dorado, of course. Tiburón texts her some pissy message about how if she isn’t too busy being a fucking sellout, maybe she could help them deal with the asshole who bashed Azabache’s head in like it was nothing. Sombra lets her jabs slide. Tib has a right to be angry. Sombra’s angry too.

She knows who Soldier: 76 is, of course. She did her reading on the SEP. One hundred participants, four survivors. Soldier: 12 died in combat. Soldier: 95 developed Stage IV breast cancer about a year after the war ended and died within the month. Soldier: 24 is present and accounted for. Soldier: 76 was never exactly subtle.

What’s funny is, she can’t figure out what game he’s playing here. He named himself something that would identify him to every person in the know in the world. And even Jack Morrison’s not dumb enough to have done that unintentionally. He’s got to have a bigger plan in mind, but when she asked Gabe what he thought it was, he just grunted and told her that Morrison never planned a goddamn thing in his life.

Sombra will figure him out, of course. In due time. Right now, she has business with Los Muertos.

-

Sombra doesn’t think the Gulf air in Dorado will ever stop feeling like home. She remembers as a kid, when the smell of burning metal and flesh permeated her world, she would sometimes catch a whiff of it and tell herself that okay, it’s still Dorado, it’s still home, things will be alright. On Rosh Hashanah, the Nieveses would march her and Patricia down to the coast and give them sheets of paper and tell them to number the ways they had wronged the world. Patricia would do so solemnly, head bowed and brow furrowed in concentration, and Sombra would toss her scraps in and crane her neck to see if she could spot fish darting around the ripples. The Nieveses would shake their heads and sigh but Sombra still took something from the ceremony. She had liked the idea of the ocean containing a part of her. Even if it was her sins.

Tiburón runs up and hugs her when she sees her, and that feels like home too. They can snipe at each other over text all they like, they’re still Muertos, they’re still family. They’ll have each others’ backs.

“How’s Aza doing?” Sombra asks. Tib loses her giddy smile and Sombra’s heart sinks

“Bad,” she says. “Still in the hospital. Migue and Luci went to visit him last week and he was talking to them then, but he crashed a couple days later. They say he’s stable but they won’t let anyone visit so I dunno. Dunno how his family’s going to pay for the bills, either.”

“It’s just him and his dad, right?”

“His sister’s in prison for the next twelve, so yeah.” Sombra’s runs her fingers through her hair and leans against the guard rail, the Gulf lapping up at the breaker behind her. Tib’s staring at her.

“What are you going to do, Sombra?” she asks.

Sombra chews on her lip. She’s struck by how much things have changed around here. Not even five years ago, she would be the one asking that question to Tiburón. Tib’s nearing her forties, practically ancient by Muerto terms, and she didn’t get there by being soft. Tib can take anyone in a fight, rally anyone to her cause, smooth over any problem with enough beer and laughter. She’s one of the ones who plucked Sombra out of the mass of grasping orphan children, cultivated her, taught her how the world really worked. She’s a god among the Muertos and Sombra idolized her.

But things have changed. Lúmerico’s just one part of a globe-spanning web that’s entrapped Dorado. The head of Overwatch is descending upon the city to get off on beating up her friends. And Sombra’s the one who rebuilt herself to play on that scale. Tib’s tough. Sombra’s not expecting her to go anywhere anytime soon. But she’s the old model, and Sombra’s the new one.

“You said he let the others go,” Sombra says. Tiburón nods.

“Yeah. Mateo got him off their tail, thank Christ.”

“How?”

“Threw a bomb at him,” Tib says with a laugh. “He just wanted to blow him the fuck up, but it ended up landing near the kid instead. Still distracted him. And she’s fine, but her mother bitched us out good.”

“Which kid?”

Tib won’t meet her eyes all of a sudden. “He didn’t mean for it to get near her,” she says. “He didn’t know she was still there.” Sombra pushes off the railing and narrows her eyes.

“Christ, Tib–”

“It’s fine, okay Olivia?” Tib snaps. “No one got hurt. Except for fucking Aza. So try to focus on that.”

Sombra stares at her and Tib meets her gaze for a moment before she drops her eyes again. All the anger Sombra had seen in her melts away and leaves behind something tired and pathetic.

“I’ll take care of it,” Sombra says. She starts to walk away.

“Sombra–”

Sombra wheels around and catches Tib flinching. “I said I’ll take care of it, okay?” she says. “When I say something, I mean it. I take care of my fucking people.”

She walks away from the pier. Tib doesn’t say anything else as she leaves.

The bakery’s just a few blocks away, in the more residential part of town near the church. Sombra smells it before she sees it and it mixes in with the Gulf air and if salt water smells like home, then baking bread smells like family. Sombra steps in through the shop door. Patricia looks up from the counter when she hears the bell above the door chime and gasps.

“Sombra!” Sombra grins and gives a wave.

“Hey, Patty.” Patricia rushes around the counter and towards Sombra. Sombra spots her flour-covered hands and apron and takes a step back. “So I’m happy to see you too, but–”

Patricia pays her absolutely no mind and crushes her in a hug. Sombra hides her smile in her shoulder and hugs back.

“It’s been so long,” Patricia says. “And the last time you texted me was months ago, and that was to send me some dumb meme about Portero. I thought something had happened to you.”

“Ah, I’m sorry.” Patricia lets go of her and folds her arms, but Sombra’s seen her cross too many times to be too affected by it. “I’ve just been really busy, shit with the job and all, and you know, didn’t want to get you guys involved accidentally–”

“Oh, stop.” Patricia waves her towards the little table near the window. Sombra sits down and Patricia hustles back behind the counter, rummaging around for something. “So what are you here for now?” she asks.

“What, I can’t just stop by and visit my dearest friend?”

“Sombra.” Sombra drums her fingers on the table and sighs.

“Well. I need to talk to Ale, actually.”

Patricia pops back up and looks at her quizzically. “Ale? What for?”

“Tib told me what happened.” Patricia’s face darkens and she dips back around the counter and walks to the table. She puts a buñuelo in front of Sombra and leans her face on her hand.

“They wrote me a check for her college fund,” she says. “And God, that’s good to have. They did seem sorry. But…” Sombra takes her hand over the table and squeezes it.

“I took care of it,” she says. “Don’t worry.” Patricia swallows hard and nods.

“You said you needed to talk to her, though?” she asks after a moment, when she’s blinked the shine from her eyes.

“Yeah,” Sombra says. “There’s some other shit I need to take care of.” Patricia nods again and stands up.

“No swearing around her,” she reminds her. Sombra rolls her eyes, Patricia rolls her eyes even harder back, and then heads through the door behind the counter. A couple minutes later, the door bursts open and a girl runs towards Sombra, her mother in a tired pursuit.

“Olivia!” Alejandra squeals. “You’re here!”

The name still takes the air from her lungs for a second. Patricia must notice because she coughs into her hand. Alejandra glances back at her, then looks back up at Sombra guiltily.

“Sorry, Sombra,” she says, emphasizing the last word in a way that would sound sarcastic without the accompanying puppy eyes. Sombra grins and musses her hair.

“It’s okay, kiddo,” she says. “It’s good to see you again.” Alejandra makes a little noise of pure excitement and hops up on the chair across from Sombra.

“Mom said you wanted to talk to me about the guy,” she says. Her eyes are jumping between the buñuelo and Sombra pushes it towards her. She grabs it and takes a bite. “Do you know him?” she asks with her mouth full.

“I might,” Sombra says. “I’m not sure. I’d like to hear what you remember about that day.”

“Sombra, it was so crazy!” A bit of buñuelo sprays out when Alejandra talks but she’s too busy gesticulating to notice. “So Migue and the others, they took my purse, so I ran after them, and then he showed up, and they were shooting at him, and he started shooting back, and then his mask did this cool red glowy thing–” Sombra nods, trying not to let her anger rise at Alejandra’s enthusiasm and dumb grin. “And then there was a truck, and they jumped on to it and threw a bomb at me, and he ran and grabbed me and got me out of the way! And he even got my purse back for me!” Alejandra finally swallows her mouthful and looks up at Sombra with big round eyes. “So? Do you know who he is? Can you thank him for me?”

She can’t take it anymore. “He put Azabache in the hospital, do you remember that part?” Sombra asks scathingly. Alejandra looks down at the remains of the buñuelo.

“Azabache, he– I don’t think he–” Sombra drops a hand on the table and Alejandra jumps.

“I don’t care what you think about Aza, he’s one of us! And we protect our own!” Sombra jabs a finger out the window, towards the Gulf, in the vague direction of wherever the hell Morrison’s fucked off to. “You think if there had been a bomb on you and a bomb on one of his buddies, he’d have picked you? You think if there had been a bomb on some rando or a bomb on you, Aza wouldn’t save you? That bastard did one thing for you and then he ran. Well, Aza’s still here, Mateo’s still here, Tiburón’s still here. When it gets down to the wire, Ale, that’s the shit that matters.”

“Sombra!” Patricia says. Sombra looks up and sees her making her way towards them. Her face is stony in a way she has to take seriously. She stands up. Alejandra pushes the rest of the buñuelo towards her. Sombra snorts.

“I’m good,”’ she says. “Just think about what I told you.” She heads towards the door.

“He saved me,” Alejandra said in a small voice. “Doesn’t that make him a hero?” Sombra turns back to her and she knows she’s just a kid, she knows she should be patient with her, but fuck, Sombra learned this shit when she was eight years old. Ale’s got to grow up sometime.

“There’s no such thing as heroes,” she tells her. “And anyone who says otherwise just wants something from you.” Alejandra says nothing and Sombra leaves, the bell above the door chiming in her wake.

-

On her way back to Venice, she thinks about Jack Morrison. She remembered growing up and hearing him called a hero a thousand times in the news. Patricia and the Nieveses had nodded along to that and so she shouldn’t be surprised by Ale being the way she is. But still, it’s fucking ridiculous. Jack Morrison isn’t special. People like Jack Morrison are everywhere.

People like Jack Morrison don’t come to Dorado to learn or to help, they come when they want to feel good about themselves. People like Jack Morrison have the world at their fingertips but run around dressed up as the little guy because they want to feel like a victim instead of a fuckup. They beat up actual little guys when they want to feel big. People like Jack Morrison ignore the hunger in Dorado until someone tries to take a crumb from their plate. People like Jack Morrison give little kids dreams about the world being just because they never want to admit how the odds were stacked in their favor.

She’d been holding on to the intel, waiting to see the best for use for it. Maybe blackmail him into telling her what she wants to know, maybe dangle it in front of the right party to get something in exchange. But you know what? Fuck Jack Morrison, and fuck people like him.

“Your ex is in Giza,” she tells Gabe. “Go get ‘em, tiger.”