This story directly follows the events of the "Alive" short cinematic made by Blizzard about Tracer and Widowmaker. I strongly advice watching it beforehand on Youtube if you haven't already, as the story will be hard to grasp at first without it.

Lethality of cheerful laughter

Chapter 1

A little Slapstick never killed anybody

'Adieu Chèrie.'

The words still rang in Lena's ears. They made her sick to the stomach. Well, either that or it was another reaction of her body, still recovering from the shock of hitting solid ground.

Lena heard the engines of an aircraft above the roof she was just flung off. She could only imagine that the Talon agent who got her into this predicament used it to leave the scene.

Pain in her chest made her wince. She writhed on cold concrete, shivered and whimpered pathetically. The weight of failure and loss concerning the brutal murder of her idol, Mondatta, and her inability to prevent it crashed in on Lena. It added to the numbing, physical agony coursing through her. Tears streaked down her cheeks as she forgot about herself.

I can't just give in like that.

She had drowned in misery for what seemed like an eternity until Lena finally tried to force herself away from these destructive feelings.

Tracer is a symbol of heroism!

"…and how heroic I'm lookin' right now, eh?"

She chuckled at her own mockery, but still held onto the idea. As Lena was trying to steady herself, shakily lifting her body off the ground, she couldn't quite comprehend why she was alive at all.

Widowmaker could have easily finished her off, couldn't she?

Then realization hit her like a pair of violet heels. The skin around Lena's neck crawled with dread.

She wants me to suffer.

Hours later a beaten and partly broken figure lay on the beige couch of her London apartment. She was stiff, everything hurt. Her combat-worn outfit was sprawled across the floor. Only underwear remained.

"Oi Doc."

The greeting was aimed at the blonde women in a turtle-neck sweater and doctors overall standing in the frame of the door. Lena had left that one open for this exact occasion. The Swiss doctor with the code name 'Mercy' was the only friend she would trust in moments like these.

As she tried to wave in greeting, Lena grinned, as she would normally do, only betrayed by a painful whimper. Angela didn't approve of what she saw at all. A soft scowl practically said as much as Angela was closing the front door behind her.

"Lena Kleines, what happened?"

The doctor took long strides towards her new patient. Her blue eyes already started scanning over the ex-pilots body. At first she cupped Lena's cheek with one hand, quite motherly. Then she went on to check her patients temperature at the sternum.

"Got into a bit of a scuffle with Mondatta's killer. Blue gal didn't like that, pretty much threw me off a roof and smashed me against a wall! Can you believe it? Wouldn't one of the two have been enough?"

There was another scowl on Angela's face, this time quickly followed by a head shaking smirk. Seeing that reaction, Lena bit her lower lip while grinning.

"Unglaublich… This was Widowmaker's doing then. How do you always get into these kinds of situations? That has to be my third doctorly home visit this year. You have to promise me to be more careful!"

Lena's grin melted into a smile. She was happy to see a friendly face, even if that face was in the process of telling her off. Their relationship was special. A little bit too special to Angela's liking, since Tracer made a habit of teasingly referring to the doctor as 'Mom of Overwatch'. Much to the doctor's detriment one might add, as newer recruits were beginning to pick up on the quip.

"Anyway, I'm just relieved that you're not riddled with bullets. Where does it hurt?"

"Uhm, everywhere? I kinda hit the floor Doc."

A quick press on Lena's outer ribs made her quit the joking. The resulting yelp was just added satisfaction for Angela.

"Y-Yes, there too! But I think it's just bruised. The worst part is the right leg, I could only hobble home..."

Angela's attention quickly shifted to the mentioned body part, expertly feeling around the knee of her patient. Then her voice got stern.

"You didn't really walk home this way, did you?"

Either the pointed question or the handling of her knee made Lena wince. Of course she had forced herself home. She couldn't possibly face the people she had failed. And the dread only a near death experience can provide made her decision to flee that much easier. Lena wasn't about to tell the doctor this, though. That would've been to embarrassing.

Angela let out a heavy sigh, as the silence prevailed.

"Your femoral neck is most likely fractured, Lena. We'll have to get you to the hospital and on an operating table, preferably tonight. I'm calling an ambulance."

Lena's bright, hazelnut eyes blinked as her heart fell.

"My what is what now?!"

Angela already reached for her smartphone. It was white and had a little blue figurine dangling on a cord attached. Looked like a bird… She regarded her patient with doctorly patience.

"Your leg is out of commission for a month. 3 weeks if you go through rehab without problems."

This was hell.

What else would it be? It's boring as hell at least! The only thing missing would be the heat and demons. Demons would be fun. But there would be torture, wouldn't it? Eh, maybe this is more light pre-hell...

Her mind drifted like this for hours on end and she couldn't do a thing about it. That was not or a lack of trying though. Angela had been here again today to tell her off for running around the halls with her violet crutches so soon after the operation. This went as far as grounding her in her room.

She actually locked me in here like a child! 'Doctor's orders'...

Angela's catchphrase was still fresh in her mind. She even stationed a guard at the door.

An Overwatch agent!

Lena couldn't help but fume at the thought. She couldn't know that this guard was not there to keep her grounded, but as precaution against Talon retaliation for her interference in the Mondatta incident.

While that was an annoyance, the boredom would turn out to not be the worst about her predicament.

As she twiddled her thumbs and stared at the ceiling all by her lonely self, a kind of darkness got hold of her. Her thoughts drifted to the scene of the murder. She reenacted her own narrow blink to escape a bullet that condemned her idol, Mondatta, to death. The image of the shocked crowd around the victim along with a piercing, female scream was etched into her mind. Widowmaker had predicted her every move. Lena still heard her condescending laugh loud and clear.

'Foolish girl.'

Shivers ran across Lena's body. She felt restricted in her movement, as if caught in a web. As if she was being played with, only left alive to despair in her failure and incompetence. And that solely to the delight of the hunter. It was getting harder to breathe. Gasps filled the silence of her room. She was sweating all over, as once more black dread gripped her heart.

'You're having a panic attack, Chèrie.'

The voice in her head only agitated her more. She felt herself tremble and shake, eyes wide as Widowmaker took slow strides towards her, cupping her cheek which burned in turn, gazing into her with those beautiful, cold, amber eyes, piercing into her soul. She could feel her very being consumed by dark sensations.

A loud BANG ripped her out of those hallucinations. Lena's gaze darted over to the entrance, still breathing heavily along with her racing heartbeat. She fully expected a slender, blue form wrapped in a violet body suit entering her room to finish the job. She couldn't be more wrong.

"Oh, oops. I didn't break it, did I?"

A large, sentient gorilla called Winston was staring at the door he had just slammed open. This was probably because he didn't pay enough attention while chatting with Lena's guard. That Overwatch agent was standing outside just behind the gorilla, shaking his head. Winston carefully put the door back on it's hinges and tested a few swings to see if it still worked.

"Everything okay, false alarm, heh!"

Finally he closed the door and shifted attention to his bedridden friend. A wide, shy smile beamed towards Lena as the large scientist and new commander of Overwatch was moving closer to her bed. What he saw to his surprise were tears in the Brits wide open eyes. Her chest was heaving and her hands gripping tightly onto the bed sheet.

"Uh, hi there Tracer! Is… everything okay? I didn't scare you, did I?"

Lena blinked a few times. She looked down and was quickly becoming aware of how she must look right now. Then she burst out laughing. She laughed so hard, one might think a dam broke somewhere inside the little Brit. Then she began to cry, smiling wide in stark contrast.

"WINSTON! Come here bigguy!"

Lena sounded more merry than she looked and threw her arms wide open. Suspicion made Winston hesitate whether he should call the doctor, but the smile and the happy voice of her friend made him go in for a hug all the same.

"There you go, one fresh hug, hehe."

He wasn't very good with people, but he always tried. Winston could feel her hanging onto him as hard as she could, while he just laid a huge hand on her back that was roughly the size of her head. Lena couldn't stop herself crying. Nearly a minute went by.

"Uhm. Is everything alright, Tracer? Do you still have pain?"

"N-No pain. You can call me Lena, luv!"

He flinched a bit. Maybe she wasn't in pain, but something was clearly off about her. Lena's attempt at sounding happy wasn't very convincing, betrayed by the tears getting tangled up in his hair. He also felt a bit awkward with the name thing, as he somehow couldn't get used to it.

"Sure. But uh, Lena? There is something bothering you, right?"

The Brit stiffened a bit.

"Maybe... I can help?"

Lena wasn't so sure. She shied away from the thought that anyone could help her with the burden of her failures and the panic inducing voice in her head. Her arms retreated from the great ape and she disengaged far enough so that they could see eye to eye again. The ex-pilot only lasted or a second before she had to look away. At least her crying had stopped at some point while hugging her friend.

Lena hesitated.

"I… I dunno Winston. It's just… I couldn't do anything… I guess didn't try hard enough…"

Tears welled back in her eyes, which prompted Winston to suppress a bit of panic himself. He really wasn't good at things like this.

"That's not true Tr-uh-Lena. You did everything that was possible!"

Did I?

"We all know you're the best agent we have against Widowmaker!"

Lena winced.

Am I, really?

"Genji would've been better… even Hana…"

"Nobody knows her better than you! How often have you two fought? You probably know Widowmaker in and out by now."

Lena erupted all of the sudden.

"And she knows me! She beat me knowing when I would act! How I would act! She toys with me…"

That last sentence was whined out in pure desperation. It made sense to him either way. Winston supposed that getting used to the opponents combat techniques would go both ways. Winston had no quick answer to that predicament, so he slumped back in thought. Absentmindedly, the great ape whipped out a can of peanut butter. It somehow always helped him think.

Lena stared at Winston in disbelief.

"What?", he asked, puzzled.

After a moment, Winston recognized that this probably wasn't very appropriate. But since he already accepted that he was bad at this 'human interaction thing', he opened the container anyway and scooped right in with one of his fingers.

Lena still stared and stared some more… and cracked out an incredulous laugh soon enough at the sight of Winston's social failings. She threw herself back into her bed with force and gave into a roaring fit of laughter about this ridiculous situation. She was louder than before, piercing the walls, echoing through open windows of the neighboring wing.

The sound prompted patients, visitors and doctors alike in the proximity of her room to perk up with knowing smiles and chuckles. Everyone knew Tracer and her vibrant personality. It was impossible to escape her cheerful nature.

Even for herself. She lay there grinning wide while her tears dried up..

Why am I so serious? What happened to "Keep calm and Tracer on!"? I failed Mondatta, but that doesn't mean that I can just give up! I'm Tracer! A beacon of hope to the people! The cavalry and all that!

Winston was sucking peanut butter off his finger while being quite impressed how this ball of energy in front of him just kept cheering herself. He certainly didn't do anything special, did he?

"I have an idea."

Lena blinked a few times, still grinning happily.

"I think... it's time to improvise. You're still the best we got, you know? If Widowmaker is used to fighting Tracer, maybe Tracer needs some new moves to surprise her with. Something to exploit her weakness of biased expectations."

Lena thought about that, staring at the white ceiling of her room. It came to the sentient gorilla that his idea was bordering on an insult to her abilities, to the point that he was about to apologize. A skilled fighter like Tracer surely already thought about using feints and ruses before.

"You're a bloody genius Winston!"

The gorilla blinked a few times, startled by Lena's sudden outcry. Apparently she hadn't.

"Uh, thanks."

Kleines ~ Little one

Unglaublich ~ Unbelievable