An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
To re-assert his dominance in Talon’s council, Akande first had to silence that young, dumb hard light engineer who kept talking back in team meetings. Unfortunately, Akande already met his monthly allocation of throwing colleagues over the ledge. Attempting to outsource the problem, Akande ends up in Rio de Janeiro: a huge mistake he will come to regret over and over again.
Co-written by @sparrowswing.
Four months later
Sanjay Korpal had not enjoyed his week.
The development project in Dorado was stalled. Again. LumériCo were nervous to renew their contract with a company rumoured to be liquidating stock. Which was a complete fabrication, and once he found the journalist who spread that lie, they would never print another word again.
But negotiations for the projects in Jordan, Wellington, and Cairns were also sidetracked.
Someone had placed the lead architects of the Jordan plant on secondment to another project. The delay was costing them thousands by the day. Someone would lose their job for this.
And then the wrong materials had been ordered for the load-bearing foundations in Wellington, and would not pass the city’s stringent earthquake-proof standards. An incredibly expensive, rookie mistake.
In Cairns, the indigenous population were leading protests, arguing Vishkar’s proposed cityscape had been cited for sacred ancestral land. And the protests were winning.
Didn’t Sanjay employ people to clear these obstacles for their better world order?
“Symmetra,” he summoned, for the second time in a minute.
Silence hummed back through the comms line.
Frowning, he tilted his wrist, checking the health of the connection on the device’s interface, perfectly fitted over the uniform of his forearm. All indicators were green. Why wasn’t she answering?
“Symmetra. I have work for you.”
Where was that girl?
The door hissed shut at his back and Dorado’s weak glow from the window illuminated the modest space of his temporary office in Castillo. He scowled, taking in the ramshackled city under the shroud of night: squat terracotta boxes pockmarked on the mountainside. No sequence. No order in their form. Why did people find this charming?
The LumériCo plant was the only beacon of progress on this primitive lip of the coast. Even Rio de Janeiro was a kinder sight by comparison with its steel and white pillars of Vishkar’s redevelopment.
When Sanjay removed Ogundimu from the equation all those months ago, it was with the promise his successor would keep the funds flowing. A bitter scowl twisted Sanjay’s mouth, thinking on the weasel of a man who now sat at Talon’s table representing Ogundimu Prostheses.
It wasn’t until Akande Ogundimu was gone that Sanjay could appreciate how much influence the man had wrought, even from behind a maximum security barrier. Ogundimu’s successor was a civil servant appointed by the company’s board of directors. He inspired neither fear nor awe, and without subservience or loyalty, the absence of Doomfist’s guiding presence was keenly felt in the tension unraveling the council.
Sanjay was not foolish enough to overlook cause and effect: with Doomfist’s death, the wolves descended on Sanjay’s house. Simple beasts who, with their small bites, had slowly cleaved the connective tissue from Talon’s larger tapestry. A masterpiece that required all its artisans working in shared - if uneasy - mission. It was a vision of which, not long ago, Ogundimu had shared part as a key architect.
Had Doomfist been the only threat keeping the lurking wolves in check?
Sinking into the chair behind his desk, Sanjay slowly deflated with a weary groan and shut his eyes, brow tightly pinched.
“Long week?”
Startling upright, he whirled, heart pounding. His hand flew to the panic button under his desk.
On the low cabinets that had previously held the projection of the Wellington model, that infernal DJ kicked back in a relaxed slouch, nodding at Sanjay’s straying hand.
“Oh, that won’t work,” Lúcio chastised, tucking one of his heels up beneath him. His gloved hand gestured from corner to corner of Sanjay’s dimmed sanctuary. Muted, neon magenta leads of light trailed from his knuckles to a thick strap on his bicep. At his back, the wall pulsed in slow washes of that sickly, purple light. “We’re in our own cone of silence here. I had some help. Sonic amplifiers, dampeners… it’s kind of our thing in the family.”
Sanjay stared at the thief on his perch. His shock soured and he pushed down the instinctual question he demanded be answered. It was clear how Lúcio had infiltrated his office: those same wolves, whoever they were, prying apart his beautiful constructions from the inside. Throwing the doors wide and unwatched.
It had been long months since Sanjay last caught sight or sound of Lúcio Correia dos Santos. After Rialto, the audio medic had gone underground, disappearing from the public scene and off their intelligence networks. Not even the social media train of devoted followers could turn up a hint of their beloved DJ.
All word on Sanjay’s mark had officially gone dark. Someone was keeping him well hidden and safe. After two months passed, Sanjay’s attentions had turned elsewhere, and the situation with Lúcio downgraded to ‘monitoring’.
Clearly, Sanjay had not been the only one planning.
The engineer sat back in his chair. It swayed with the gentle spring of its ergonomic design. He threw his arms wide. “I’m sure you’ve been waiting for this day a long time.”
Lúcio’s bright gaze sharpened, his smile thinning, cold. “You have no idea.”
Sanjay returned the sneer. “Come to return the property you stole?”
A predictable scowl darkened those famously bright features. Lúcio was a child, so easy to play. Let his masses of vapid, adoring followers believe he was just a musician, just a martial artist with a cause. Vishkar’s security logs showed that Lúcio was a simple criminal.
“Can’t steal what’s already yours.”
Sanjay rolled his eyes. “Such a simpleton, that’s not how patents and corporate property work.” God, why was he the one who had to field the rabble today? “Everything your father created while in our employment was owned by the company. He knew that. It’s in the standard terms of every contract.”
Lúcio’s expression shifted, coy and smug. “Yeah, I admit I’m not one for legal stuff, but…..” He glanced down to his heel, idly thumbing the knuckles of his other hand. “I used to know a guy. Last thing he did before he died was leave me this video. It was, damn….” Lúcio shook his head in frustration, gaze faraway. “Short. You know, he’s about to die and he leaves me the name of… a dancer. And a filedrive with a lot about you. The second part made sense, but the first….” Lúcio’s expression turned incredulous. “I thought, His last moments and he wants to pad out the dancers for my tour? I took a better look at her credentials. It started to make sense.”
Watching Lúcio slide off the cabinet to his feet, Sanjay swallowed, throat suddenly dry. If Ogundimu had truly handed over a cache of intelligence to this terrorist… the scope of what he had been privy to with his council level access could very well be damning.
But if that were true, why had Lúcio waited so long? Akande Ogundimu died months ago.
“She’d heard of me. Didn’t want anything to do with me or ‘my kind’ when I met her,” Lúcio laughed, sharp and dry. “Called me all kinds of names. And she was right: she didn’t owe me anything.”
Sanjay watched the DJ’s smile tilt into a crooked smirk. Dread sunk like a stone in his chest.
“But I showed her that drive. And, boy, she had a real bone to pick with you.”
The door to his office hissed open. In the violet and pearl of her architech uniform, the glare of his prodigy, Satya Vaswani, pinned Sanjay to his seat. Her expression was hard as stone, eyes burning like coal. He had never seen that particular look on her face. The hard line of her mouth did not bode well for him.
“Sanjay,” she greeted, voice flat.
He stole a glance to Lúcio who had not even spared a look for the newcomer, as though Satya had been expected. Could it be? Sanjay looked back at his protégé still poised over the threshold and noted with some relief that she had not brought her photon projector. Would Satya really have allied herself with this ruffian?
He slid his usual, placid smile in place.
“Satya, at last,” he rose from his seat, straightening his uniform. “We have an intruder. Please call security and inform the authorities. We’ll be relieving him of his stolen Vishkar property.”
Lúcio snorted a laugh under his breath.
Satya’s measured strides closed the distance of his office, her misdirected ire never straying from his face. Her hands folded over her front as she had countless times before, standing at attention before his desk. “I have come to remove an intruder. The role you have performed in league with terrorists insults everything this company stands for.”
Sanjay felt a deep scowl pull at his mouth. “Mind your accusations, girl. You’d do better than to trust the intelligence of a criminal.”
The hard line of Satya’s mouth turned down in her own scowl. “This intelligence is not from him, but you.” Her prosthetic hand flexed like a flower coming into bloom, and an HUD materialised in the space between them. Documents were thrown up, cascading in panels. They looked like emails and purchase orders, flying too fast for him to scrutinise.
“Fabricated.” It was easy enough to stick his standard email signature at the bottom of a few screenshots.
“Verified,” Satya corrected. A still image overlaid the documents, shimmering into motion as a video of surveillance quality. Sanjay recognised the city skyline of Rio de Janeiro in the background. They watched as the favela complex exploded in a plume of gold and black, pale reflections washing over Lúcio and Satya’s faces. Screams and car alarms rang from the video’s audio, clipping to abrupt silence. Satya glowered at him through the transparent HUD. “And you lied to me.”
She was doing a remarkable job of holding eye contact today.
“Is this the path for your better world?” Lúcio muttered.
“You’ve made me an accomplice.” Satya’s hard stare finally cracked, gazing at the frozen image, expression contrite. “And you knew. There were people in that building.”
Lúcio gestured to the array of documents. “This trail shows you ordered a survey of the prospective building site, tallying population and demographics of our people. You guys developed blueprints of the favela. You knew the right places to bring the building down. Made the whole zone unsafe. You started demolition before the job was even yours. And you used charges from one of your other projects. You Vishkar are so obnoxious you don’t trust anybody else to do the job right.”
Satya shook her head, voice firm. “This price is too high, Sanjay. You will resign your position for the honour of this company.”
A laugh escaped him before he could help himself. “Honour? You still don’t understand why this company exists, Satya. The work you performed for us. The price of building a better world is paid in sacrifice. Reborn from the ashes! If not me, someone else would have made that same call in Rio! Your hands are not clean of this, either.”
Satya straightened and turned to Lúcio, raising an eyebrow. “I think that’s sufficient for an admission. Don’t you?”
Lúcio glanced out the window, gaze faraway. Eventually, he tapped the side of his visor like he was listening to another conversation. A slow smile spread on his lips. “Apparently. Yeah.”
Sanjay looked between them, realisation dawning as his mind spun. How foolish he had been. He snarled, but Satya did not draw back at his pointed finger. “You’re also culpable, Satya.”
Lúcio folded his arms, rocking back on his heels. “Ever heard of immunity?”
“This will never stick.”
“Oh, it will,” Satya promised in that same tone that brokered the birth of cities.
Footsteps pounded the hallway and Sanjay startled as his office filled with omnics and humans flashing badges saying Interpol and Polícia Federal. Five they were in total, some sporting flags on their badges from Mexico and Brazil.
“Sanjay Korpal,” one of the federal officers from Brazil stepped forward, a petite woman in a navy suit with a high ponytail. “You're under arrest for the bombing of Calado Holdings in Santa Marta, Rio de Janeiro, and the deaths of 48 civilians."
///
All those months ago, when Satya finally had all the evidence before her, she had trembled in her chair of Alejandra’s bakery with the same silent rage simmering beneath Lúcio’s skin.
Lúcio had shared what Tracer implored as Lúcio had clung to her in Rialto, blind with grief. “They won’t get away with this. But we’re going to do it the right way.”
In the end, all that time and patience was worth it to watch Sanjay marched before television crews, cuffed and sputtering indignities.
“It is not justice for your father, but it is justice,” Satya apologised, once they had been excused by the authorities for the evening.
The breeze washing up from Dorado's shore was cool and damp. Lúcio rubbed his arms self-consciously and tried to feel grateful.
“For a lot of people. Not just him.” He managed a weak smile. “Thank you for confronting him. We couldn't have got his admission without you.”
Satya nodded in acknowledgement, hands folded before her. Before the low stone wall, she glanced to the coastline. “Order is restored. But thanks are also due to your source. Without that drive, I would still be none the wiser.”
Lúcio's throat tightened. “Yeah. Yeah, he was… he did all right. In the end.”
When his silence stretched on, Satya bowed her head kindly. “I am sorry for your loss.”
He barked a hoarse laugh. “I.... “ He sighed, shoulders deflating. “Thanks. I'm sorry your boss turned out so bad. You should take his place.”
Satya hummed in consideration. “Possibly.” Her nose lifted imperiously, chest pushing out, long arms stretching behind her back. “I am more than qualified. I'm still deciding.”
“If you should take the job?”
“... If I should stay. Sanjay’s words are troubling. We have begun dismantling the projects we found contestable, but I doubt Sanjay was the only one in Vishkar who thought as he did.”
Lúcio hesitated, watching her wring her fingers nervously. “I've got a friend you should meet. She passed me the filedrive. You two… I think you’d have a lot to talk about.”
“More ruffians?” Satya glanced at him from the corner of her eye, mouth curved in a sharp smile. “Very well.”
///
Lena looked even worse than Lúcio remembered: skin wan, face gaunt. Her eyes were shadowed with exhaustion as she leaned her chin on her hand with a tired smile, the grey London sky at her back. Her new shock of bleached blond hair didn't help her washed out appearance on Lúcio's video call.
“I wish I coulda been there to help,” her voice cracked with a cough and she cleared her throat. “I knew you could do it.”
Lúcio nodded, feeling numb in the cold, dark quiet of his Mexico apartment. Tomorrow, he would return for Brazil to help with the prosecution of Sanjay’s case.
“It’s done,” he repeated, though it didn’t feel any more real the second time he said it, nor even for sharing it with the only other person who could appreciate the scope of what they had done.
Lena and Akande had braved time more than once to save him so he could take down Sanjay himself. It was a staggering thing to wrap his head around. They thought Lúcio had to be the one to do it, as Akande had always intended. They were wrong, of course – it had cost Akande his life.
And now, it was taking Lena’s, too.
“How are you feeling?” Lena asked gently, and Lúcio laughed, loud and abrupt.
“Awful.” He smiled, watching his friend’s face crinkle with a knowing smile like it was their private joke. “You?”
Lena nodded, coughing, low and wet in her chest. “Awful.” She pulled a tartan blanket tighter around her shoulders – one of Emily’s, Lúcio guessed. “Winston says it could be any day now. I've settled everything. Aren't too many affairs while one of us is still here. As far as the law is concerned, it’s not really death. I’m okay,” she hushed before Lúcio could apologise for the umpteenth time. Her voice was gentle and at peace, “I’m okay.”
The phone’s camera tilted and he caught sight of the pair of women chasing each other in the park beyond the picnic blanket. Emily’s flame red hair was instantly recognisable, and Lúcio was sure there could be no sound as distinct as Lena’s bright laugh.
It was still surreal seeing two Lena Oxtons.
His Lena, the one travelled and worn, cracked a smile watching the pair of them. “I’m with good people. I won’t be alone when it happens.”
Lúcio sagged, the ever-present ache swelling in his chest again. “I can never repay you.”
Lena’s eyes squinted with the depth of her smile. The tip of her tongue peeked from her lips, coaxing him to smile. “You already have. Sanjay is one less monster out there.”
It didn’t make Lúcio feel any better while he watched his friend waste away to the literal ravages of time.
“I wish I was there,” he murmured.
“And I'd give you a bi-ii-ii-ii-ig hug!” she snuggled tighter into her blanket, image shaking as she jostled the phone. Her look softened, dark eyes searching. “Do you… are you sleeping any better?”
He almost regretted telling her about his nightmares, but she was the only one who could hear he dreamed about a man who terrified the rest of the world without flinching. How he would hear a car engine backfire and abruptly find himself in Rialto, shoulder throbbing as he hit the pavement, shoved to safety.
Shrugging, he reached behind to flick on the small lamp by the bed, fumbling with the switch. “Sometimes.”
“Do you still see him when you're awake?”
Lúcio bit his tongue, squinting in the lamp’s sudden glare. “Sometimes.”
“It will get better,” she soothed. Lúcio couldn't bear to look at his phone and see the sympathy in her face. It was a relief when her voice brightened, shaking the somber air, “So, what's this about a new friend?”
Lúcio bit the inside of his cheek. “Well… I thought maybe you two could talk to Satya about some options. She’s the one who really brought Sanjay down. She’s looking for some direction.”
“She’s made a bloody good start. I'd love to meet any friends of yours, love. Oi!” Lena was leaning back, waving an arm at her company the next time Lúcio looked. “Number two! Borrow you for a minute?” As her counterpart bounded over, Lena gave him a bracing smile. “You too, you know? Whenever you’re ready… you’ll always have a place with us. If you want it.”
His smile felt thin, but he nodded anyway.
///
The clock crawled over to 4:39am.
“Lúcio….” The voice echoed in the silence of his apartment, and Lúcio cupped his hands around the phone.
He squinted at the unlikely sight of Akande and Lena crowded side-by-side and exchanging a look: her encouraging, him weary. Akande sighed, bloodshot gaze returning to the camera.
“If we succeed... go home. Please, go home. Forget about,” he glanced away, waving a hand to the beautiful sunset backdrop of Rialto, “All of… this.”
Lúcio had lost count of how many times he had watched this video. Each time, his chest tightened hearing the weight of resignation in Akande’s voice. Learning that of all the people the man compelled to rise up, Lúcio was the one exception he wanted to take cover.
Beside the giant, Lena’s expression was sympathetic, her voice firm, “You know he can't.”
Lúcio shoved the phone beneath his pillow and buried his face in his hands, expression screwed up tight. He had to stop rewatching it. Without this video, it would have been impossible to believe Lena’s crazy story – working with Doomfist, braving the whirlwind of time over and over just to save him.
Both of them, giving their lives for him. In simple math, it wasn’t worth it: two for one. Why did they have to do it? Why?
He had rewatched the video at first to convince himself Lena’s story was real. Then, to find Satya. To remind himself why he had to continue. And finally, because it was the only goodbye he would ever get.
But it didn't help him sleep.
“Lúcio….”
And he had to stop.
“If we succeed….”
His eyes squeezed shut, the muffled video looping beneath the crush of his pillow. He could almost believe Akande was just a room away as he pulled the blanket over his head.
“Go home. Please, go home.”
///
Rio was always calmer at the close of its last flights for the evening. Lúcio preferred flying under the cover of night, and returning to his home city was no exception.
He liked the quiet murmur of the airport compared to the harried rush of its activity during the day. As always, someone had tipped the media about his arrival, but at night they were a smaller crowd and easier to avoid.
It helped that the airport staff allowed him to use the service routes once he passed security and immigration. Slipping the paparazzi was easy, but once he emerged on the other side, the night loomed large and long ahead of him, his chest tightening from an unexpected source.
Home had too many hands waiting to pull him in close, too many who would ask after his welfare, had he eaten, and why had he stayed away so long?
“At last,” he could hear them already. “Finally, you’re home.”
Eyes slipping shut, he imagined the soft scent of his aunt’s perfume; people who loved him better than he deserved, murmuring love and pride in his ear. His eyes burned imagining his mother’s arms around him, her relief so acute his heart would break.
“It’s over,” she would praise the Lord, and the guilt would crush his heart.
Rialto had shown him it was only the beginning.
His feet led him away from the path home and steered him until sand spilled into his shoes, waves of the Atlantic hissing and foaming ahead. Dropping his duffel bag at the shallow rise of a dune, he sank to his haunches in the sand, slumping with a heavy sigh, arms stretched out on bent knees.
Small and high in the sky, the moon was a shy sliver embanked by grey of a recent storm. Lúcio watched the clouds roll and drag in the unseasonably warm summer wind. Every summer had been hotter than the last, one of the few constants he could depend on.
Despite the humidity that clung to his skin and the heat baked into the beach, it was still beautiful. Open ocean and clean sands, a novelty in this age.
Lúcio had always wanted to bring Akande here. He imagined it in the most indulgent moments: to be seen in public with someone he’d learned to care about against all reason.
Whoever said there was no harm in dreaming… how did they explain this feeling now? It hurt. Months later, it still hurt.
He would make Sanjay hurt for it, too.
“You should have killed him,” a new voice said.
Lúcio smiled, unsurprised, and shook his head. “I'm not like you.”
He was accustomed to Akande in his head, always urging him to be more selfish, more ruthless – a comfort and a torment that had followed him for months.
Soft laughter hummed in the air, tensing his shoulders. “A pity. Though I doubt the world could survive two of me for long.”
Lúcio’s laughter ground to a chuckle, bitter and watery.
The voice continued, undeterred by his silence. “I imagine my way might have made him a martyr instead, and added another warrant to your ever-growing list.”
His eyes burned with the fresh blur of tears, mind concocting the perfect shape, size and strength of Akande’s hand when it reached out in his periphery. The illusion of warmth rose at his back with a heavy sigh above him, so familiar, so --
“Lúcio….”
The hand closed firm and solid on his shoulder.
He jumped a foot in the air and the gulls squawked, taking flight at his panicked screech.
“What the -- what?” He shoved the offending hand off and whirled, almost losing his footing in the sand, wobbled, toppling backwards. He stared, numbed with shock. “What?”
A firm grip caught his elbow, steadying him upright from his bluster.
Kneeling before him on the dune crest, the man loomed, his look searching, hands spread in uncertain question. “All right?”
The spectre was chilling; he looked like Akande. He sounded and moved like Akande, the soft frown pinching the man’s face in an expression so familiar, Lúcio’s heart constricted and shrank. Damn, that was a good simulation.
“All--?” His voice quavered behind a brittle veil of anger and lashed out, shoving the man so hard in the chest that he fell on his ass in the sand. “What are you?” Lúcio shouted, charging in to shove him again, prepared to put this imposter on his back. “Who are you?”
The other man grunted in shock, hands raised to brace against the assault. “Stop, stop -- it’s me!” and it was pitch perfect the way he recoiled, swearing with a blended glare of concern and exasperation.
Lúcio just flew at him harder, pummeling raised arms and shoulders hunched in defence. “Who are you?” his voice cracked in rage. He dove for the man’s throat, searching for the edges of a mask or whatever projected that illusion. “Take off that face!”
“Stop it!”
His hands were caught and he tried to yank free, but was seized tight.
“It’s me!”
Thrashing, Lúcio was pulled in for his effort, and that stern voice gentled; insistent.
“It’s me.”
Liarliarliar--
Terror gripped him as his heart clenched, racing. He wouldn’t look. That voice was too accurate, and the hands on his wrists too careful. Lúcio couldn’t look into his face, torn between the fear of what he would or wouldn’t find.
Dragged in close against a broad, muscled chest, he stiffened. A thick arm wrapped around his back.
“I’m sorry,” the other whispered.
It was the first hint of shame Lúcio had ever heard from him. He buckled on the edge of a sob, knees folding beneath him.
“I’m sorry,” the words were buried in his locs, then his temple, against the shell of his ear, again and again. Hands cupped his face, thumbs smearing his tears, wiping them from his face. He caught the faint scent of Akande's usual aftershave, but with a tinny undertone from his cybernetic enhancements. “I’m sorry.”
“No,” Lúcio shook, throat tight. “No, you’re… no….”
You’re not alive. You died. You died.
The flesh beneath his hands was real. The cybernetic joints and augmentations were just as he remembered: chrome latches reinforcing the man’s jaw and Adam’s apple, the hands around his clicking and softly whirring as those fine joints adjusted their hold. The hood of the man’s shirt covered the bright red markers that would have glowed at his temple and shoulder like a beacon in the dark.
It felt like something had broken in Lúcio’s mind and split him right down the middle. A hand tucked behind his head and he gratefully buried his face in the cotton of their thick, muscled shoulder.
The one holding Lúcio was real, warm and alive. And more than the face he wore, he felt like-- he smelled like Akande. Lúcio clung on tightly, a mess.
“Ọkan mi. You know me.”
Pulling back, Lúcio couldn’t imagine how gross he must have looked in that moment--face flushed, wet and blubbering, but hands tipped his chin and then he was being kissed. Even that felt like an apology, the other man firmly pressed against his front, holding him tight as he trembled.
“I wanted to tell you so many times,” Akande confessed when Lúcio had finally calmed to hiccuping breaths, and was kissed again, “So many times.” He shook his head with regret. “I’m their key witness.”
Lúcio frowned. Their?
“They made me agree: until Sanjay was brought in, I was dead to the world. Even you. Your small friend told me to disappear. She showed me proof…” Akande glanced away, gaze distant and confused. “That strange phenomenon…. You did see me die,” the hand stroked Lúcio’s cheek again, as though Akande couldn’t help himself, “Actually, you saw him die. I was here first. And I lived.”
Lúcio stared, struggling to process what the other man was trying to tell him.
A key witness? Lúcio’s “small friend”?
An image flashed before his eyes: his two Lenas smiling at him from their video call. One from the present, the other many times cycled back from the future.
Oh.
Oh.
He finally lifted his eyes and met Akande’s worried gaze. He felt hands frame his face again and Akande searched him, desperate for some kind of recognition. “Ọkan mi….?”
He buried his face in the man’s neck, too overwhelmed to speak. His hands dug into Akande’s back.
He thought Akande was dead. Lúcio knew he’d been dead.
But here he was, arms wrapped around him, secure and just as tight.
“I didn’t know if you wanted to see me,” the words fell hushed, and Lucio frowned, pulling back to look into his face. Akande sighed, looking distracted as he idly palmed the small shoulders under his hands, unable to stop touching. “I have to go back to their safehouse. I knew… I know you’d want to do this the right way, but I… I hoped you’d kill him. And if you didn’t. I didn’t want you finding out about me at the trial.”
Lúcio was livid… and numb. But maybe that was relief. All this time… and Lena had known?
Oh, someone was gonna get it.
His fingers curled hard into the larger man’s shoulderblades. “You let… I thought you died.”
The arms around him briefly squeezed, warm hand dropping to palm circles low on his back. The guilt rolled off the larger man in waves. “It was necessary.”
Lúcio scowled, eyes still wet. “I’m so fucking mad.”
Akande’s gaze fell, tense. “I understand.”
“All this time,” Lúcio growled, shaking his head. “You let me think you were dead.”
Akande moved to speak, but Lúcio cut him off, tone harsh.
“And then you just turn up. In the middle of the night. You think you can kiss me and it makes up for all these fucking months --” He shoved Akande hard in the chest, and Akande flinched, pulling his hands back. Good. Good. “I mourned for you! I even reached out to your family, but I couldn’t let-- they couldn’t know it was me. And did you know? They’ve disowned you! I was the only one….”
Lúcio shook his head, throwing his hands up in disbelief. He stole a glance to the endless, black tides as though their surge could give him strength, clarity, any kind of handle on the situation.
Akande stared at him, expression guilty and lost.
“Do you know what that’s like?” Lúcio’s voice shook, but he persevered, holding onto the outrage. “Mourning someone... when you can't tell anyone? I told… I told Lena, but-- she… she knew! And she didn’t say anything! ”
Akande’s voice was quiet. “She couldn’t. Neither could I.”
Lúcio snarled, punching him hard in the shoulder, and Akande shrank back further down the dune. “Do you have any idea what the last few months have been like? Sanjay’s dogs I had to outrun, all the people I had to push away? I needed you!”
On his knees, Akande’s face fell, hands fisting at his sides and Lúcio’s heart broke all over again to see him upset. It was not fair.
“I needed you.”
Akande didn’t get to be upset. Lúcio was the one who had mourned, Lúcio was the one… he was not going to feel bad for Akande. Except…
He angrily swiped the fresh tears escaping. “Are you crying?”
Akande’s jaw ticked and he sniffed in a very telling way, lines of his neck tensing as he swallowed thickly. “You have every right to be angry.”
Lúcio glared because, yes. Yes, he did.
But his chest ached watching the uncharacteristic vulnerability crowd Akande’s shoulders. Completely unlike the obnoxious warlord who had dragged Lúcio across the war table in that hotel all those months ago, cloying and entitled, but even then… there’d been something uncertain about him.
It hadn’t taken Lúcio long to realise that Doomfist was more sensitive than anyone realised. And how could they? When would they have had the chance? How many people had this man let close enough to see?
Eyes raising to Lúcio’s, Akande's expression was painfully uncertain, his voice barely audible. “Do you still need me?”
There. There was the man he’d fallen in love with. It had been so long since Lúcio had seen him. His mouth twisted in an involuntary scowl at the sharp wrench within his chest. He shook his head in frustration with himself. “You make me so mad.”
Akande’s shoulders dropped and his eyes dimmed. His face fell. “I understand.”
Did he?
Lúcio’s heart skipped a beat, realising he had been misunderstood when Akande looked around, expression stony, and began to rise.
“Oof!” The larger man tumbled on his back, unable to catch himself under the weight of the one who had tackled him around the chest. Coughing at the sand stirred up, tentative hands settled on his shoulders. “Lúcio?”
“Of course,” Lúcio mumbled into the man’s shirt, breathing him in; weak with the tension that seeped from his shoulders at the familiar scent.
“... What?”
Face buried in his chest, Lúcio’s arms tightened around him. “Of course I need you.”
He felt the moment Akande understood, muscles abruptly loosening with relief. Lúcio squeaked at the strong arms that closed around him like a vice and felt Akande’s face press against the crown of his hair.
“I love you,” Akande breathed, hushed.
Lúcio stilled, tilting up to stare. “What?”
Akande held his gaze, gentle touch on his cheek. The earnesty in Akande’s eyes was intense and humbling, and Lúcio felt stripped. “I love you.”
Awed, he couldn’t break away. His breath left him in a rush, searching Akande’s face, but he didn’t find any hint of deceit and he hadn’t expected to. “Wow.”
Akande arched a skeptical eyebrow.
Lúcio blinked rapidly, mumbling in his embarrassment. “Uh, I mean--”
A finger gently pressed against his lips. “You don’t have to.”
Something soft and warm was unfolding in Lúcio’s chest, soothing the edge of the bitter ache that had taken root over the last few months. “I know,” he murmured, taking that hand in his and pressing a kiss to the long life line that arched round Akande’s thumb. He held that warm palm against his cheek. “But I do. Love you.”
Akande shuddered with a sound of relief. “Thank you,” Then almost sounding like an afterthought, said, “For Sanjay.”
Lúcio smiled, a tug at the corner of his mouth. “I didn’t do it for you.”
Not only for you.
Akande chuckled under his breath. “I’m proud of you anyway.”
That warmth bloomed in Lucio’s chest and he smiled wider. “Me, too. He’s going away for life.”
“I’m going to help,” Akande insisted, and his earlier words came rushing back.
“‘Key witness’?”
“Yes.”
Lucio nodded slowly, entangling their fingers together against his cheek. “But you’re going back to a safehouse?”
“... Yes.”
“Can you tell me where?”
“... Yes?”
And Lucio laughed, because he never thought he would live to hear that sort of conflict in the man’s voice.
“No, don’t tell me,” Lucio reassured him. “Just… when this is all over. You’re coming home with me.”
Akande’s mouth quirked in a smile. “Am I?”
“I’m not asking.”
Akande’s laughter was quiet and precious. “Can you believe that less than a year ago, you were telling me to get out of your city?”
“And you’re gonna help me,” Lucio informed him, completely ignoring the tangent.
Akande sighed, but instead of weary, the sound was soft and pleased, and Lucio tipped his face up when Akande leaned in for a final kiss; a grateful benediction, “As you wish.”
And what is the best revenge, but to live and live well.
This is the second time Bellsy has faked out on Akande's death. Third time is the charm. Brace yourself, big man.
The magenta lighting of Lúcio’s usual green or yellow crossfading ability is a reference to his Reverse Amp talent from Heroes of the Storm (slowing enemies and inflicting damage over time).