Origins (Overwatch Ashe x Male Reader)

024

"And ..." Frankie keyed a few more commands into the elaborate holo screen system she'd set up in one corner of the barn. An old-fashioned cash register sound rang out. "... sold! Our first heist is officially a success."

A cheer went up throughout the barn. Or at least, as much a cheer as we could raise, given that there were only five of us. Six, if you counted B.O.B., who responded when Julian raised a hand to the omnic for a high five.

"Way to go, everyone," Ashe beings. "I know everything on the heist didn't go exactly as expected, but we rolled with the punches, and came out of it with everything we wanted. And, according to the Arbalest internal feeds, we're ghosts. They're attributing the theft to one of the local gangs, but they have no idea which one."

"Most of this will stay in the main account, waiting to be split up once we're done. Some we'll put into equipment for the next job. But we all deserve a little fun money. It's only a taste, but there is more where this came from. A lot more."

She turned the tablet around so they could see the amount.

Cole gave a low whistle. "That's nothing to spit at."

"One job," Julian said, wide-eyed and speaking more quietly than Ashe had ever heard before. "That's from one job. I didn't earn half that in two years on the farms."

Ashe smirked. "And like I said, that's only the beginning. Arbalest isn't going to know what hit it."

Frankie practically glowed, the numbers on her screen glinting off her holo-glasses. "I wanted to believe everything you said was possible, but this, this is ... Ashe, do you understand how far we could go with the access you have? What we could accomplish with these resources? The sky is the limit!"

"Unfortunately, my birthday is the limit. My parents will be back a week or two after that, and then I'm out on my own. But until then, we're going to take them for as much as we possibly— Geez, Cassidy, are you okay?"

Cole was still staring at his account balance, a strange, slightly perturbed look on his face.

"Yeah," he nods. "It's only ... Well, I guess it's been a rough few years, and it's hard to believe this is real ... almost like seeing the end of a long, dark tunnel."

It was obvious, we all had scars from the Omnic crisis.

"Yeah, it's been ... rough," Julian agreed, with thoughtful hesitance. Frankie looked down, her joyful expression gone.

 "I'm sorry." It sounded so trite coming from her. "I know I didn't experience the war like you all did, and I can't possibly understand. But still ... I'm sorry."

"No, you can't." It was Frankie. "And consider yourself lucky because of that. My parents and grandparents. Two brothers. My auntie and her wife. We all lived in the same neighbourhood, on the outskirts of Tulsa. Omnics hit it so hard that it was like a wall of tornadoes went through. Our whole area was devastated. And we were some of the luckiest ones. We didn't lose anything that couldn't be replaced. We all walked away."

"I didn't," said Julian, fingers tracing the scarred patch along his cheek. "Walk away, I mean. But I was luckier than my parents. I got pulled from the rubble, and spent over a month in a med camp recovering. After that, I was angry. I wanted in on the war." His eyes brightened a little. "And that's what happened. Gotta say the education I got from the resistance group I hooked up with wasn't exactly conventional, but it's come in handy.

"What about you, Cole?" said Frankie. "What's your story?"

"Not much to tell that you probably haven't heard before. So if you don't mind, I'd rather not tell it. The past is the past, y'know?"

It wasn't hard to taste the guilt in the air.

"Can't fault Ashe for not going through any of that. Circumstances, everyone else is fighting a battle and half of the time we can't compare it... sure."

Franky nods. "Guess so. What about you?"

"Well. I am not exactly normal. My parents were the labcoats that experimented on me, and one person whose name I barely remember took care of me on a daily... I woke up in my facility with the hallways full of Omnics."

I mutter to myself. "Sole Survivor."

The silence ensues. I somehow thought it would help, but it didn't help as much as I wanted it to.

"But as I said"—Cole looked up suddenly, his usual charmer's smile returning—"light at the end of the tunnel."

"Oh yeah? And what's beyond the tunnel?"

"Wherever I want, I suppose." He closed his eyes and leaned up against the wall of the barn, still smiling. "Reached by transcontinental rail, first class. A nice place to lay my head down and maybe a bit of land to work."

"A farm? Really?" Ashe laughs at him.

One eye cracked open. "What's wrong with that?"

"Nothing," said Ashe. "Only I expected a bit more ... ambition from you."

She got up and went over to the hoverbikes, still dusty from the heist.

"Julian, pass me a drill, would you? So, what are you going to do with all your ill-gotten but well-deserved gains?" she asked as he handed the tool over.

He struck an excited pose. "I'm gonna buy me a house like yours, to start. Okay, well, maybe not that big, but just as fancy. With handmade silk everything, a holo screen television the size of this barn, and art made by dead folks whose names I can't pronounce. And when I'm bored, I'll blow stuff up in my huge backyard."

"Heck, we can do that now," Ashe said with a laugh. "Little explosions, though. Let's not get carried away."

"Honestly, Ashe." Frankie turned off her holo screen. "It won't kill you to take a break. We can do that in the morning."

"Won't kill me to get started on it, either. What about you, Frankie? What are your plans?"

The hacker looked wistful for a moment. "First thing, I'm gonna send some of this money to my family. But later, I wanna help rebuild. Both where I grew up, and other places. There was so much destruction left by the Crisis, it's going to take decades to fix it all. The systems I could set up for community support and security ... Let's just say I have plans." Then she smirked. "And I'm gonna travel, too. Anywhere I want. I'm gonna try food I've never tried, see things I've never seen, and hack networks that will never see me coming."

"Good plan," said Cole. "But if we have to answer, so do the two of you."

I lift my shoulders. "Don't have anything in this world that I want to buy... maybe some clothes. Kind of sick wearing dull jeans and shirts that could rip if I put them on the wrong way."

"Way to stay grounded."

"Never one for ambition." I chuckle.

I glance at Ashe, who looks like she has been sitting with that thought for a while.

"I—I've never spent much time beyond Bellerae. I guess I don't really know what's out there for me. What I do know is that we've still got plenty of work to do. But that can wait until tomorrow. Let's head back to the house to get cleaned up. How does a night at Trout's sound?"