Chapter Text
Time travel: a hop, a skip, and an undignified sprawl through time and space by unrefined technology. Akande’s stomach was not a fan. His right shoulder twinged from the brunt of their landing, and his head was throbbing. Grimacing, he tightly palmed the back of his neck.
He strongly suspected that device was not designed to transport more than one.
“We're still here,” Akande scowled and climbed to his feet. The sun was slowly sinking behind the tallest of Rialto’s coastline, the Teatro Bel Canto casting long shadows over the canals. Looking in the direction of the Galleria D’arte Omnica, his mind’s eye watched the latest shipment that would drop at the service entry. His hands flexed at his sides, restless.
If anyone would know exactly how far back they had traveled, it would be her .
“This is as far as it would go.” Tracer sounded distracted. A few paces behind on the docks, she frowned at the glowing device strapped to her chest. “There's something wrong.”
“We don't have long,” Akande reminded her, voice edged with irritation.
Tracer fiddled with something in the chronal accelerator’s iris, despite Akande’s glower. No one ignored him, and certainly not in favor of toying with some stupid piece of machinery.
“Do they call it a chronal accelerator because you’re always running late?” Akande snarled, looming over her shoulder. She flinched and danced out of reach, no doubt disinterested in reliving how easily he could make a glitch of her.
“Don’t talk to me.” Tracer’s look was gratifying: disgusted, but wary. Her hands fell to her sides, clenching. “And no.”
“Just tell me if it worked.”
Tracer’s expression narrowed with spite, and she was halfway down the alley in the next blink, rushing ahead with a burst of light. “I don't have to tell you a thing.”
Is that what she thought?
The former pilot yelped as Akande landed before her, time-worn stones of the plaza crumbling under the force.
They didn't have time for this.
Akande straightened, lording every last inch of his stature over her petite frame. Tracer fell into a defensive posture, eyes wild, gloves fisted.
“Tell me,” he rumbled. If Tracer tried to obstruct him again, he would make a smear of her across the city. “Is he alive?”
Had they made it? Did they make it back in time?
Tracer's mouth thinned, stubborn jaw clenching.
At last, “If I tell you, is he gonna stay that way?”
Akande’s shoulders loosened. “Tell me where , and I will guarantee he does.”
Some of that anxiety dropped from Tracer’s face, pinching to suspicion. When her fists lowered, Akande could have removed her head from her shoulders with a single blow – a lesson for her folly.
Perhaps later.
“Why?” Her voice bled with caution – and what might have been sympathy – and he knew that she was remembering Akande on his knees, hands bloodied, shaking and human.
Why indeed?
Akande had been asking himself the same question for months.
///
“You’re new at this, so I’ll explain it to you–”
A chair scraped back from the grand oak table, the jarring, ugly sound splitting the somber propriety of Talon's Rialto council room.
“Forgive me, Mister Ogundimu, but I'm not the one who needs to be refreshed.” Sanjay Korpal smiled up at him with the placid ease of a manager waiting to patronise a petulant customer. “I've been doing this for seven years. I know what happens next.”
In his Vishkar uniform, he looked like one of Moira’s understudies, but only half as bright. Making an appearance at a council meeting in the uniform of his day job? Amateur.
Moira smirked at Korpal’s side, hiding her amusement behind hands folded in contemplation.
Akande threw his masque disguise on the table. “I was on this council when you were begging at your mother's knee.”
Korpal inclined his head, smile unwavering. “My ideas are fresh. You have been in high security isolation for almost a decade. We did fine without you. You're a footnote, Mister Ogundimu. And neither Talon nor the world needs you anymore.”
Not even his funding?
Akande sneered at the insubordination, but unease stirred in his gut.
The heads of his fellow council remained bowed under an air of disinterest. Beside him, Reaper’s claws drummed on the table; light and sharp, but unconcerned. At the table’s other end, Maximilien adjusted the cables beneath his wrist cuffs as though waiting for the dispute to resolve itself.
Did no one have anything to say to put this pup in his place?
A snort of amusement drew his attention to Moira. She pushed back in her chair, raising an eyebrow at the young man by her side. Her smirk was wide as she shared a look with Akande; she at least understood.
Sanjay Korpal was already dead. He just didn’t know it yet.
///
The first time Akande saw Lúcio Correia dos Santos, he stood in Akande’s arena: at the heart of a fighting pit, gleaming from the exertion of his contest. Beneath the bright lights in the abandoned sugar mill, Lúcio rose from his knees over his fallen opponent, and the referee took his wrist.
Months later, Akande would still remember how the earth trembled when Lúcio’s fist was thrust into the air. The crowd leaped, screaming, stamping their feet where they huddled in plastic chairs, crowded against the ring’s boundary, standing on boxes and storage containers, each desperate to share in their champion’s triumph. A haze of dust thickened the air, kicked up by worn sandals and polished boots. Akande felt their joyful roar like a boom of thunder; it resonated deep within his chest: a force of nature, enthralled and satisfied.
Rio had come to celebrate her hero’s return, and Lúcio had sated her hunger.
And so, Akande’s first and lasting impression of the infamous thorn in Vishkar’s side was a fierce capoeirista and a vivacious champion. Not the musical, hockey-punting nuisance his colleagues had painted.
Time slowed as the hard lines of Lúcio’s form eased with victory, hand still held high. He tilted his head back, eyes closing in bliss with a broad smile, and basked in the tide buoying him from all sides. The crowd’s love was ferocious.
Lúcio! Lúcio! Lúcio!
From his vantage in the long shadows against the concrete wall, Akande watched and breathed with him. Sympathetic pride swelled in his chest. For Lúcio in this moment, the world would fall away. Time would slow, blood roaring in his ears, every sense amplified. Another challenge confronted – and conquered. Akande knew this moment well.
Or he had, once upon a time.
Lúcio pressed both hands to his lips and pointed back to the crowd, hands lifting in appeal. The air electrified as he met their eyes, seeking each and every one of those who had come to see, test, and support him. “This is not my strength, but yours, my Rio! Rio por Rio para sempre! ”
The crowd’s volume was deafening. The atmosphere in this underground ring spoke for itself, but still… Akande tilted his head in study.
This was the man giving his associates a hard time?
How much power could the man pack into a such a small form? His build spoke of tight core strength and agility. The ceaseless adoration of the crowd could not have been earned lightly. Unfortunate for Akande that he only arrived in time to witness the moment of Lúcio’s homecoming glory.
Akande’s fingers tightened against his bicep, arms folded over his chest. He considered all the possible consequence of the sudden prospect dangling before him.
The crowd parted around Akande like water – as it always had and always would, he mused smugly. Even here, a world away from the continent, people knew to get out of his way.
Lúcio was laughing and grasping the shoulder of his competitor in solidarity when the roar of the crowd turned into bemused whoops, and then cheers of growing excitement.
He only looked mildly surprised when he turned and found a new challenger in his ring.
In his rich mahogany suit and dress shoes, Akande knew he was not dressed for this. But he was always fit to contest.
Lúcio sharply appraised him from his bald head to the gleaming brown Italian leather of his shoes. His dark eyes brightened with challenge. “Looking to pay tribute?”
Ah, a champion who thought they knew their worth. His favorite.
Akande smirked, blood thrumming with anticipation. From across the arena, Lúcio searched his face and slowly, ever so slowly, returned that smile. Hungry. Ready.
Without a word, Akande reached up and pulled the tie loose from his collar.
The crowd screamed and Lúcio’s previous competitor cleared the ring.
Later, Akande would muse that seven years in cramped high security had not been kind to his cardio regime. His mind was still sharp, but his body had dulled with confinement.
It was the only explanation.
Without any marking of his rank, it had been impossible to gauge Lúcio’s martial ability. Once he started moving, it was immediately obvious that Akande’s superior height was going to be a disadvantage.
While Akande often employed his strength, it made him top-heavy. He compensated with speed. He had been fast, even before the enhancements.
Lúcio was faster.
In a moment, the capoeirista was arching through the air, and Akande had surged to meet him, redirect his momentum and introduce him to the ground he hugged so close – but it was a feint. Akande’s world exploded in pain from his knee as it tried to bend sideways from a sudden impact. He buckled, a sharp blow slammed across his chest and he was tumbled on his back before he even realised Lúcio had dropped.
He blinked up at the turmoil of clouds billowing past the full moon beyond the open roof. Dust puffed in his face from the force of his own landing. He coughed, winded.
The crowd erupted in euphoria, and Akande’s ears rang, stunned.
What had just happened?
A silhouette fell across his face, blocking the harshest of the lights. Long, thick dreadlocks swayed around Lúcio’s shoulders, every bared inch of his chest gleaming with sweat.
It was difficult not to stare. Although Lúcio was playing it cool for their spectators, Akande could tell their brawl had pushed him, too. His chest heaved deep and slow to control his breaths. His hands betrayed a slight tremor, still primed on adrenaline.
Still gasping, winded, Akande glared back at the young man’s nonchalant shrug. Peering down at him, Lúcio’s mouth quirked in a cheeky grin. “Sub-optimal.”
Akande’s vision went white.
Him? Him? Nobody in his life had ever deigned to call Doomfist – to call Akande Ogundimu – anything less than… any… sub-optimal?
No winded lungs were going to keep him from reclaiming his dignity. Growling, he strained to push up on his elbows. A foot planted on his bare chest, a sharp heel digging into his sternum. Akande grasped weakly at that wrapped ankle, and fell back with a grunt.
Lúcio leaned down on his knee, dark eyes intense. “I dunno who you are or who sent you,” he purred, “But thank you for giving my people a good show.”
Akande’s ears rang. The outrage! This man didn’t know who–
He grunted in discomfort at the added weight suddenly pressing on his lungs.
“Now get out,” Lúcio snarled, searching his face. “Eu não quero esses ovos na minha bunda.”
Akande would have had a lot to say to that if he had reclaimed his breath.
If the air hadn’t split with the sudden explosion of gunfire.
One moment Lúcio was leaning over him; in the next, Akande was sucking in wheezing gasps of air. Lúcio was barking orders, rushing with the tide of the crowd, corralling them to safety. He left Akande sprawled on his back in the dirt. Despite the humiliation and indignity, Akande had to admit it had been a long time since someone had surprised him so completely.
///
"The shipment arrives in three days," Akande motioned to the sprawl of Rialto on their overhead projections, highlighting the narrow back lanes of traffic that would be their route. "Before night, if we're lucky. You can never tell with Italians."
Reclined at the table of their mobile carrier, Lacroix snorted a delicate laugh. Akande almost reminded her that her countrymen's reputation for punctuality was just as poor.
"It will arrive with the gallery's regular resupply of food and wine for their restaurant. Your job is to guide the team who will secure our arms and escort it to headquarters. No engagement. Watch their path. Report ahead and keep the way clear."
Boots kicked up on the table, Lacroix pulled a bored look of distaste. "An escort?" Gloved fingers drummed the neck of the rifle tucked against her side, polished and gleaming.
"A scout," he corrected her.
It was only her loyalty that stopped her from rolling her eyes so hard they fell out of her head.
He would find her another mission after this. Something sophisticated to satisfy her restlessness. It had been long months since Mondatta's death. Lacroix was itching to challenge herself again. Akande sympathised – he had picked his team because they were exactly the sort of people who could not remain idle, who took initiative and were resourceful.
But they could stand to learn some respect.
"Very well," Lacroix was sickly smooth in her deference, rising to her feet. Widow's Kiss hoisted against her side, barrel pointed low. "But if anyone stands in their way–"
Akande sternly pointed with two fingers, pinning those words in flight before she could assert the rest. Lacroix's gaze narrowed with her light scowl.
"Reconnaissance," Akande declared. "We can't afford to attract more attention here and now." Not when so much of the council were peering at him sideways as though they were re-assessing his place at the table. The successful delivery of these arms would go a long way to restoring the status quo. "It’s a simple operation. Let the others deal with it quietly. That's why we're paying them. Understood?"
Lacroix blinked slowly, golden eyes assessing the projection of Rialto between them. And then, as she so often concurred, "The enemies of Talon will be eliminated."
It wasn't until later, Akande realised that wasn't strictly a "yes".
///
What had Akande been thinking?
This was beneath him – seeking an audience of Lúcio's crew.
They peered from their windows of concrete and corrugated iron roof apartments, leaned in their doorways snapping gum and folding their laundry. One young woman with a pen in the thick dreads of her hair scowled at him over her glasses, and murmured to the child at her knee. That little girl took off running down the narrow alley, disappearing around the corner where a broken water pipe was trickling a steady stream the length of the entire block. It gurgled to an end down a choked drain where Akande stood at the mouth of the alley, surveying the entry of so many homes stacked upon each other.
Which one hid Lúcio?
As one, they looked at him like he was a peasant come to pay tribute. They would not be exposing Lúcio. These were more than crew; they were families living in one of the safest favelas Rio had seen in decades.
But protecting against neighbourhood violence was not the same as opposing the demolition path of Korpal's plans.
“Tell him I would speak with him,” Akande again told the woman. She seemed to be the one in the lead, stopping him with little more than a cautious greeting, unsmiling when he had entered the alley. “It's about the ones in the white towers.”
“Vishkar?” she raised an eyebrow, impatient. And with Lúcio at their lead, it was no surprise they would be unafraid to say that name or meet the eye of someone with Akande’s stature, unflinching.
He left those streets with no promise that his request would come to anything, but that was often the way of these things.
He found the answer hours later, emerging from a cafe in one of the border towns at the edge of Vishkar’s redevelopment.
Lúcio waited, leaning against his transport – an understated rental intended to draw less attention when leaving the clean lines of the asphalt. It was impossible to say how long Lúcio had been waiting: arms crossed, reflective visor down, his clothes in shades of a deep, bruised dusk. Lúcio looked at ease without looking bored, and he was dressed like any of Rio’s young up and coming professionals, riding the fastest wave of fashion and technology.
This was the DJ. With his sleeveless vest exposing the defined muscle of his arms, it wasn’t hard to believe he was the same man who flattened Akande on his back.
His expression was neutral when he caught sight of Akande. “You here for Vishkar?”
“No.” Akande held his distance, studying him. There was a new bandage on his left upper arm and fading bruises low on his collar. Akande subtly inclined his head. “And yes.”
“Aw, you're one of those,” Lúcio cracked into a quiet laugh, arms falling to his sides. He pushed off Akande's dark sedan. It was a subtle adjustment, coming to an easy rest with a wider stance, careful not to broadcast that he was prepared to fight. Too bad Akande had studied such tells all his life. “Still deciding if the contract’s worth it?”
Two million in British pounds – not for Lúcio’s head, but re-appropriation of the hardware he had stolen. Meanwhile, Vishkar also challenged him in court under more legal guises.
It was impressive that Lúcio even knew about that contract.
“I’m not a mercenary.”
Not today.
Lúcio hummed in consideration, scanning the length of him in his casual suit – Akande had dressed down since this man threw him into the dirt. “Walking into my favela and asking for me by name….” Pushing his visor back into his dreadlocks, his head canted to the side, smile curling slow and suggestive, “Didn’t think so. Unless you’re a real sucker for punishment.”
Akande found it impossible not to return Lúcio’s knowing smile. “I believe we share a common thorn. And I think you might know it, too. But your friends do not.” He gestured with open palms to the pale stone plaza around them and Lúcio's lack of an entourage. “You waited until I left your favela to speak with me.”
Lúcio’s expression fell, his shoulders dropping with exaggerated disappointment. “Ugh, you really are here on business.”
‘Time with me is never wasted’ , Akande wanted to assure him, but thought better of it. All good things had their own time. “Come.” He stepped back, showing the path to the white tiled cafe with its wooden furnishings and flowered creeping vine. Neutral. Public. “Let's talk.”
Lúcio cocked his head, assessing the option and shook his head, mouth downturned. “Too late in the day for French bread. It’s lunchtime. If you’re buying, I’ll hear you out.” He nodded across the lane where a churrascaria was firing up its grills, the smell of barbecued meat wafting thick and smoky into the street.
At the mere suggestion, Akande’s mouth watered, his stomach perking up at the vastly better option. “Good choice.”
Lúcio shrugged it off and allowed the larger man to fall in step with him. “I know.”
///
In the end, securing Lúcio's interest only took a name.
“You’re not the only one who can research,” Lúcio challenged, pushing his cutlery to the side as he finished his meal. Bruised knuckles brushed a smear of juice from the corner of his mouth, an innocent gesture. Akande caught himself staring.
A miniature holo-projection rose from the band on Lúcio’s wrist and Akande found himself looking instead at a scowling figure of himself seven years ago on the streets of Numbani. He tilted his head. It never occurred to him that he had put on some weight since the incident.
“Is that you?” Lúcio asked, watching his face.
Akande brought out his own tablet from the inner pocket of his jacket, a discreet device. He laid it flat on the table, countering with another picture – not of Lúcio, but a hard light engineer with a politely bland expression. All mirth and smugness drained from Lúcio’s face as he stared down at Sanjay Korpal’s profile. His features hardened into the purest expression of loathing Akande had seen in long years, the air around him electrifying, sharp and cold.
Akande wondered if Lúcio realised how attractive he looked like that, how many others even knew their hero was capable of such an expression.
“I don’t like this man,” Akande declared, and leaned his chin on his hand against the churrascaria’s bar, trying not to smile.
Lúcio glanced at him with suspicion and drew the tablet close with a careful touch. Reading quickly, he scrolled through the intel Akande had compiled. It was a delight to watch the wheels turn in his head. At last, Lúcio hummed in his throat with a slow, crooked smile. He turned to Akande in his chair, body language opening.
“I’m listening.”