Chapter Text
The office was...strange. It had a tire swing, to say the very least of its strangeness. Files were spread out on the desk, her own among them she had to assume. Mr. Winston had told her to, “try to not be surprised by anything you see at our offices”. It was now, sitting in front of a large talking gorilla, that Satya began to question the actions that had led her to this office for the first time since she had committed them. The sound of glass shattering echoed vaguely in her skull. Perhaps she should have thought things over more before coming here.
“What was that?” She asked, interrupting Mr. Winston mid sentence. He had been talking. And she certainly hadn’t been paying attention.
The gorilla adjusted his spectacles absently. “I said that you’ll have some help, Ms. Vaswani. Between our Chief Engineer, Mr. Lindholm, and the man I’m about to speak with— I think you’ll-“
He was interrupted yet again when the door to his office swung open, a grimy, lanky man without a shirt and a couple of rusty prosthetics stood in the doorway, taking a large drink from the flask in his hand as he did. Another, larger man stood behind him, he had a gas mask on and where the first man had merely confused her, this one unnerved her.
Both she and Winston jumped, but neither of them said a word as the two of them just stood there. Finally, the strange man spoke, “Is this the place I’m ‘sposed to be meeting the fella in charge?”
Winston adjusted his glasses again. A nervous habit? “Mr. Fawkes?”
The man raised his flask in a small salute. “That’s me, alright. You Winston?” He quirked a wild eyebrow.
“Yes,” the gorilla answered slowly. Then, “Mr. Fawkes, this is Miss Vaswani. I was just telling her about how you two would be working together should you choose to join us.”
Mr. Fawkes regarded her warily. He hummed. “Right,” he said, accent thickening on the word. “Well, this is ‘ma pal Roadhog.” He jabbed a thumb back towards the large man behind him, looking to Winston. “If you’re still lookin’ for a fella to blow stuff up— I’m you’re guy,” he said, displaying a wide and toothy grin at them. “But he comes with. Thems the rules.”
“Blow stuff up?” Satya echoed quietly, unable to help herself in her confusion.
“I—“ Winston didn’t quite seem to know what to do. “Miss Vaswani,” he addressed her again, “If you had no more questions, maybe you might like Miss Oxton to take you on a tour around the facility while I speak with Mr.Fawkes and his associate?” He was already fumbling around with a pager of some sort to send for the girl. “If you wait in the hallway, she’ll be there momentarily.”
Satya watched the two other men for a moment longer, before taking her papers from the desk (her contract, should she agree to things), standing up. “That would be lovely, thank you. I expect we will be able to speak again later, after I have read things over?”
“Of course, of course,” Winston told her, nodding. “Miss Oxton will tell you of anything you might need. Please, come back when you’re ready.”
Satya hummed, escorting herself out. She gave both Mr. Fawkes and his associate a wide berth as she moved past them. Mr. Fawkes grinned at her, twinkling his fingers in a wave at her as she closed the door behind her.
She had stood in the hallway only a few moments when a small girl, appeared in front of her a light trail of light streaming in her wake she moved so fast. “I’m Lena,” the girl introduced herself chirpily. “Lena Oxton. Or you can call me Tracer, too, if you’d like.” She grinned, reminding Satya of a chipper little bird.
Satya nodded. “You may call me Symmetra.” She had held the moniker for long enough, there was no reason to change it now. No reason for the woman to get too familiar with her either. She wasn’t even sure she was staying at this point. Between talking gorillas and strange men hired to ‘blow stuff up’, she was becoming more and more unsure by the minute.
“Ooh, neato. I like that,” Tracer said, nodding. “Winston wanted me to show you around, right?”
Satya merely nodded and began following her as she walked, though her pace was swift. She explained everything as they went, she talked fast as well, but Satya could keep up. “And this is Lieutenant Reinhardt,” Tracer announced as they walked into what she had previously said was the ‘rec room’.
He was a large man. Larger than the other man, Roadhog, had been even. He had a great booming voice when he spoke and a distinctly German accent. “Ah! Hello, madam!” He smiled charmingly. “Don’t listen to Lena, I haven’t been a Lieutenant in years. You may call me Reinhardt.”
She nodded politely. “Symmetra,” she said, daintingly reaching out to shake his hand. “It is good to meet you.”
“And you as well.” And he seemed to genuinely mean it. It was a bit touching if she were completely honest, but she wasn’t sure how to tell him so. Instead she looked to Tracer. “Onwards?” She questioned.
“Sure,” she chirped. “Let’s go. Should only have your room to find now, I think. This way.”
Satya was lead down several halls as they got into what Tracer said was ‘the dorms’, passing many plain doors, only with silver numbers on them to differentiate them from the others. It was a long while, but eventually Tracer stopped. The door was numbered 164612. She wrinkled her nose at it. The last number was wrong. She would deal with that later. “This’ll be your room then,” Lena told her. “Not much, but it’s home. Least for now,” she shrugged. “Athena will help you find anything you might need. Just say her name and she’ll answer” She gave a shy chuckle. “Well, least she’ll help with anything we can offer. Which-“
“Thank you,” Satya cut her off before she continued her rambling. “I appreciate your help, Lena.”
The girl nodded. “Course. Suppose I’ll let you settle in then.”
“Thank you,” she repeated and moved to go in.
Lena stopped her before she got the chance. “One more thing,” she smiled. “Dinner is at seven. Reinhardt is cooking. If you think you’d might like to join us you’re more than welcome.”
“Oh.” Satya was unable to figure out the right words for a moment but quickly gathered herself. “Yes, thank you. I’ll think about it.” She gave Lena a tight smile, before finally going into her room and closing the door behind her.
The room was not small but certainly not as large as she was accustomed to. With no windows and grey walls things did seem quite drab. She set her bag down on the equally boring bed, sitting down beside it after folding down the duvet. Noting how stiff and plain the bed was as well as the room she pondered the thought of sprucing the room up a bit. Something nicer, more colorful. Probably bedding to start... She wonder if she would remain here long enough to have call for any such things though. Her hands ran over the scratchy bedding again and she knew that would need to change no matter how long she stayed. The rough fabric would never do.
Satya sighed at herself. This place would be difficult if she stayed. Overwatch was barely functioning as is, it wasn’t as if they had the money to spend on what Vishkar has apparently thought of as bribes for her. Though she hadn’t realized it at the time.
Annoyingly, she recalled, not even for the first time that day, of the emails she had been sent from an anonymous ‘friend’ as the file had been signed. Upon reading them Satya realized they were correspondences between the CEO Guillermo and her so called friend Sanjay. ‘I don’t even have to tell her anything she’s just enough of an idiot to not notice once you give her something’. Her face flushed at the recollection, anger boiling to the surface again.
She shook her head, quickly standing up. They were cruel people. All of them. They weren’t even worth her anger. Right now she had to focus. Supposing she went to dinner she would need to unpack, shower, and change before then. Maybe even read over her contract as well. She had no time to dwell, not when there was work to be done.