#|| afraid she'd kill you? / be surprised if she didn't || { about ramona }

[todoslosdiasdemivida]

It is the holidays and I am in my feelings about the Reyes family [ including the extended family ] yet again and thinking about Ramona in the house alone with only two decorations up despite how much she loves Christmas — a snowflake window hanger and one of those electric candles in the window that first Christmas when Carlos is gone and Gabe is "dead", because that was what Gabe always put up first when he helped, and she can't stand to not see them there and her staring at them until she couldn't even see them anymore because at some point she started crying. 😭😭😭

#|| afraid she'd kill you? / be surprised if she didn't || { about ramona } #|| he set fire to the world around him but never let a flame touch her || { about gabriel & ramona }

[todoslosdiasdemivida]

"We'll make it together, or we won't make it at all."

… Somehow, he thinks they both knew he wasn't just talking about that specific hell of a situation.

He made a promise, one he would make again in different words at a different time, one that he's kept to this day, as unwaveringly as the one he made then.

#|| out of chaos || { ooc } #// to cover my bases: #// please do not reblog #|| that which doesn't kill you makes you stronger || { about gabriel / reaper } #|| afraid she'd kill you? / be surprised if she didn't || { about ramona } #|| he set fire to the world around him but never let a flame touch her || { about gabriel & ramona } #// Ah yes. #// Valentine's Day is approaching. #// Time to draw stuff for my couples. #// Seems like a good time for this. #// 🔥🚁🔥 #// 🔥🥲🔥 #tw; blood #tw; fire #// This is—as always—unrefined and unfinished but #// I like it well enough for the moment. #// So have the Infamous (first) Heli Crash. #// One day (maybe) I will type this story out in earnest. #// It is such a Big Thing. #// Until then #// this is what I have. #// 😂😂😂

[todoslosdiasdemivida]

"Be safe. I'll be waiting for you."

#// please do not reblog #// just get that out of the way in case #|| out of chaos || { ooc } #|| he set fire to the world around him but never let a flame touch her || { about gabriel & ramona } #|| that which doesn't kill you makes you stronger || { about gabriel / reaper } #|| afraid she'd kill you? / be surprised if she didn't || { about ramona } #// I just #// I love them so much okay? #// probably end up having to fix this somewhere but #// as usual #// for now I am happy

[todoslosdiasdemivida]

Reaper: -says something super Edgy and Dark Lord™️ in a fight-

Ramona: -hears this at HQ over the feed from someone's comm, knowing full well that this is the same dad joke humor dumbass she married, just dialed to the other extreme- Oh my God.

#|| that which doesn't kill you makes you stronger || { about gabriel / reaper } #|| afraid she'd kill you? / be surprised if she didn't || { about ramona } #|| he set fire to the world around him but never let a flame touch her || { about gabriel & ramona } #// She gets secondhand embarrassment sometimes I swear #// If you think (my) Reyes wouldn't fall into the 'I'm hungry.' / 'Hi Hungry. I'm Dad.' category…

[todoslosdiasdemivida]

Only one page will be "finished" tonight because my hand decided to Complain to Management BUT!

A new project:

#|| out of chaos || { ooc } #|| carry on wayward son || { quick drawn } #|| please stop relentless daughter || { chronal anomaly } #// LOOK #// I HAD TO CHANGE JESSE'S TAG #// BECAUSE THEY NEEDED TO MATCH #// IT WAS IMPORTANT. #|| afraid she'd kill you? / be surprised if she didn't || { about ramona } #|| that which doesn't kill you makes you stronger || { about gabriel / reaper } #|| he set fire to the world around him but never let a flame touch her || { about gabriel & ramona }

[todoslosdiasdemivida]

I continue to be a Menace™️. Overwatch has just decided that it owns my brain, apparently. Especially these two. I love them. That is all.

[ Just a rough base color that I'll probably end up picking at later as usual but for now I'm happy with it so I will share. ]

#|| out of chaos || { ooc } #|| he set fire to the world around him but never let a flame touch her || { about gabriel & ramona } #|| afraid she'd kill you? / be surprised if she didn't || { about ramona } #|| that which doesn't kill you makes you stronger || { about gabriel / reaper }

[todoslosdiasdemivida]

Ramona, throwing something that says 'steam clean only' into the washing machine: Clothes are like partners. If they're so high maintenance they can't survive the rough and tumble of life, you don't need them.

#|| afraid she'd kill you? / be surprised if she didn't || { about ramona } #|| even the strongest crack || { crack / parody / dash commentary } #// Because I am 100% still thinking about the reblog earlier about delusional clothing #// 😂😂😂 #// Ramona's treatment of 'steam clean' clothing brought to you by conversations with quick-drawn

[todoslosdiasdemivida]

It doesn't matter which verse, Ramona has yet to get over Gabe's death, even though she has continued dating in her main verse. She'll date, even be varying levels of happy. But eventually, she ends the relationship, because there's some part of her that can't move on, can't get over the fact that they're not Gabe.

So now, here I am with the thought for the self-contained storyline of Ramona and my own Reaper… Gabe finding out about the vigilante-ing she's been doing during one of the times that he goes to check up on her. So he starts making a habit of checking up as often as he can because no matter what he might say, he does still [ love ] care about her and the knowledge that she's out there doing what she is worries him. Not that he'll admit that. There's always an excuse for it.

Then, one of the times he goes to check on her, he finds her over her head in a brawl with a street gang, clearly on the losing side, and he knows he should leave it be.

She chose this.

[ … But he can't. ]

So he drops in and kills the whole lot of them, and now Ramona is just staring at this masked man in all black who saved her, and she can't place why but she isn't scared of him. There's the adrenaline from the fight and from the general danger of this… but he didn't kill her when she could have just as easily been another body on the ground.

She pushes to her feet, eyes remaining locked on him, waiting.

"Don't you have something better to do?"

She turns a bit and spits blood where her lip got busted open before she looks to him again.

"Could be doing something a little better and maybe then I wouldn't have needed the assist, but besides that, no."

He can't quite stop the huff but he absolutely keeps what threatens to be a laugh trapped, pushed down so far it can't escape. [ She hasn't changed. ]

"You should leave this to the professionals."

A bitter laugh. "Like who? Law enforcement? The government?"

"Someone who isn't you, unless you want to leave your son with no one."

She startles. Her eyes go wide. It wasn't a threat and she knows it by the tone.

He curses himself. [ He said more than he should have. ]

"How do you know about my son?"

He turns away, internally seething at making such a stupid mistake. He knew he should have kept going. [ He knows that he couldn't have left her. ]

"This isn't the first time you've done this. Stop before you get yourself killed," he says, voice quite decidedly and intentionally colder.

"How do you know about my son?"

"Remember what I said. Next time there may not be someone to intervene."

He disappears in a swirl of dark smoke, and she's left feeling hollowed out and raw again in a way she hasn't since she received the news, since the funeral—

She stands in that alleyway for a while longer, stunned and trying to process, until finally she makes the—somewhat painful—walk home.

He remains in the shadows of the rooftops until she's safely in [ their ] her home.

She remains awake, even after she treats all of her injuries, turning it over and over in her mind until she becomes absolutely certain of one thing:

His funeral was premature.

#|| out of chaos || { ooc } #// Excerpts from the fanfiction I'll never write. #|| afraid she'd kill you? / be surprised if she didn't || { about ramona } #|| that which doesn't kill you makes you stronger || { about gabriel / reaper } #|| he set fire to the world around him but never let a flame touch her || { about gabriel & ramona } #|| some women fear the fire; some simply become it || { v; main au // ramona } #|| the reckoning draws near || { v; main // gabriel // reaper }

[todoslosdiasdemivida]

Both of these are so messily sketched and quick-color—when is my work not, for the most part? 😂—but I just. Hands are neat. They tell so much, about a person, about a relationship.

Ramona reaching out to hold Gabe's hand is very symbolic of their relationship, honestly, especially in later years. Not because Gabe didn't want to reach out, but because he felt increasingly like it wasn't fair to her to reach out when all he was doing was struggling, when nothing she could say or do would fix it anymore than anything he could say or do would fix it, so what was the point???

Then there's the almost tentative way that Genji touches in the beginning, regardless of who he might ship with. Even something so simple as hand-holding. It is done hesitantly, almost warily—as though expecting the other to retreat—but so very very deliberate. He has made the decision to take a leap of faith because he believes that he can trust the other. He hopes. Then that wariness will slowly give way to awe and a whole flood of emotions he tries to keep in check if the other person doesn't pull away, if they continue maintain contact with him without flinching away or expressing distaste. Has he accepted who he is? Yes. But that doesn't entirely rid him of the body image issues. The doubts. The insecurity. The wondering how anyone would react to seeing what remains of the man under his helmet. If anyone could want him, in any regard.

And Abby 😂 is unintentionally rough on her hands. She has plenty of scars on her hands, arms, and otherwise from the explosion that damaged her spine, and then she's gotten further injuries and scars over the years from her work both as a mechanic and as an "omnic doctor". On any given day she will have at least three or four bruises, two or three fresh scrapes, several more in various states of healing, and exactly zero idea when or how she got any them. Yet despite the callouses from years of the military and then mechanic work, she still manages to be so gentle, so delicate, with anything and everything—everyone—she touches, showing her innate drive to heal and to help rather than hurt.

#|| out of chaos || { ooc } #|| that which doesn't kill you makes you stronger || { about gabriel / reaper } #|| afraid she'd kill you? / be surprised if she didn't || { about ramona } #// Likely to post promos soon. shhhhh

[todoslosdiasdemivida]

Excerpts from the fanfiction I'll never write but occasionally feel amused enough to share:

Ramona, angrily chopping vegetables in the kitchen, muttering under her breath after an argument with Gabe.

"¿Cual es su problema? ¿Qué es mal con él? Entra, ya de mal humor, ¿y qué? ¿Quiere estar enojado conmigo? Creo que no. No hice nada. ¡Me hierve la sangre— ¡AY! ¿Por qué no cocinas tu propia cena, hm? ¿entonces que? Pinche pendejo—"

#|| out of chaos || { ooc } #|| afraid she'd kill you? / be surprised if she didn't || { about ramona } #|| that which doesn't kill you makes you stronger || { about gabriel / reaper } #|| he set fire to the world around him but never let a flame touch her || { about gabriel & ramona } #// They both can run pretty hot #// It doesn't just boil over with other people #// 😂😂😂 #// I also must continue to ask forgiveness for my Spanish #// It is so rusty #// and it upsets me 😂 #// If anyone sees something wrong at any point #// Feel free to tell me. #// I am a Disaster but I like to learn (or relearn as the case may be)

[todoslosdiasdemivida]

Gabe and Ramona are both the "You better not start a fight, but, if someone else does, we expect you to finish it" parents… followed by reflecting on what they just said and their own choices then giving the addendum, "—Though if you do start a fight, it better be for a damn good reason."

#|| out of chaos || { ooc } #|| that which doesn't kill you makes you stronger || { about gabriel / reaper } #|| afraid she'd kill you? / be surprised if she didn't || { about ramona } #|| he set fire to the world around him but never let a flame touch her || { about gabriel & ramona }

[todoslosdiasdemivida]

Sombra: You wanna know what Martina's been up to?

Reaper: Not interested.

Sombra: That's not what my tracker says.

My heart. I've heard it before. I just. 😭😭😭 I had forgotten.

#|| out of chaos || { ooc } #|| afraid she'd kill you? / be surprised if she didn't || { about ramona } #|| that which doesn't kill you makes you stronger || { about gabriel / reaper } #|| he set fire to the world around him but never let a flame touch her || { about gabriel & ramona } #// Ramona started going by Martina when she moved back to the states #// as well as picking back up her maiden name. #// Not out of Shame. #// But to make it harder to be found #// and largely to protect Carlos

[todoslosdiasdemivida]

So, I may expand on this once I'm off work, but Ramona is the actual worst at "moving on". She may, in fact, be physically, mentally, and emotionally incapable of it. She is 100% the widow who never remarries, never takes her wedding band and puts it away in some box somewhere. Not because she feels some obligation to her "deceased" husband, or she thinks "that's what he would want". But because she just can't.

#|| out of chaos || { ooc } #|| afraid she'd kill you? / be surprised if she didn't || { about ramona }

[todoslosdiasdemivida]

Insult someone my muse cares about.

Nothing is out of bounds, make them angry.

Gabriel is weak, Ramona, can't you see that? Don't you understand that he can't handle everything he insists on taking on? Dealing in secrets and misery will only lead to ruination and he's an idiot for believing that this is sustainable. Him and that stupid hick he picked up are going to be the destruction of everything. Weak, little men with egos bigger than that statue outside of Overwatch HQ.

She doesn’t know where the message originates. The number is hidden. Anonymous sender. In the end, it’s likely a good thing because if she did know, she’d likely need bail money in an hour or two. [ There’s no question that if she called, Charlie would come bail her out, but she’d still have to tell Gabe, which would likely lead to telling what had set her off like a storeroom of black powder. ]

Instead she must content herself with messaging back. 

Even mad enough to punch a hole through a wall––or to at least attempt and regret the action––her mind is working overtime, the gears whirling at breakneck speed to reason this out to any potential source. 

[ She needs to know, as much for her own personal vendetta now begun as to the end of letting Gabriel know that someone isn’t a friendly, that he needs to watch his back. ]

It has to be someone within Overwatch. Someone who knows about Blackwatch and what it does. Someone who not only knows Jesse but how he came to be here and what his role is within the organization. Someone who obviously didn’t hold any loyalty or respect for Gabe––which immediately rules out Charlie, James, Elliott, and any of the rest of their people––and apparently no awareness, understanding, or compassion either if that’s what they thought of Jesse.

Still plenty of possibilities but no absolutes.

“Mierda.”

She starts typing, all the while trying to breathe, to rein herself back.

I don’t know who the hell you think you are, pendejo, but you want to talk about ‘weak’? You’re cowering behind an ‘anonymous’ persona, talking to someone who doesn’t have a thing to say about anything, who isn’t even in Overwatch. More than that? At least I can see how you would consider yourself an authority on idiocy. You obviously don’t know the first damn thing about COMMANDER Reyes or anyone who may or may not work for him, and you sure as hell don’t know a single damn thing about ME or you’d have kept this asinine opinion to yourself rather than look this damn stupid to another person. You want to discuss policy and the overall direction of Overwatch, why don’t you grow some cojones and take it to the ones who make the decisions, pinche payaso. 

SEND.

She sits back with the phone in hand, staring at the screen.

She exhales, leans her head against the wall.

Well… She tried, at least.

#|| before the world fell apart || { v; main // ramona } #|| afraid she'd kill you? / be surprised if she didn't || { about ramona } #|| family is more than blood || { r; quick-drawn } #|| that which doesn't kill you makes you stronger || { about gabriel / reaper } #// Anon #// You really understood the assignment #// and then decided to double down on it because #// the amount of effort it took to write that and actually be able to post it afterwards was not insubstantial xD #// If any of my Spanish is off #// someone feel free to tell me #// I am So Rusty

[todoslosdiasdemivida]

Ramona, hearing about how many run-ins the various members of the team have had with "Reaper", once she's aware that he's Gabe: …… At what point do you think my husband—who ran Overwatch during the war and the black ops side afterwards—became inept? When has he ever failed to kill someone if that was his mission or intent? Wasn't that one of the problems you guys kept running into during the Blackwatch days? That he was just a little too good at it? So how are exactly none of you dead?

#|| afraid she'd kill you? / be surprised if she didn't || { about ramona } #|| that which doesn't kill you makes you stronger || { about gabriel / reaper } #// Just more to add to my take that — though it didn't start that way — Gabe is running an op on Talon now

[todoslosdiasdemivida]

I swear, I am apparently in my feels about several of my muses tonight, but none more so than Gabriel and Ramona [ AKA Martina––middle name for mine, though her canon name in Overwatch ]. 

Now, as I always state, everything below the cut here is within the self-contained storyline for my takes on them as I’m not tagging anyone and I would never throw my headcanons at anyone else and expect them to adhere, so this is solely for my Gabriel and Ramona but…

Gabriel and Ramona meet when they are both serving in the military. She’s a [ skilled ] chopper pilot and probably flew a few of his missions. 

They have a few exchanges here and there. We know Gabe likes to run his mouth, and Ramona, well, she can give as good as she gets. They end up hitting it off. 

He likes her because she doesn’t backdown and she doesn’t buckle under the pressures of the job, keeps a level head. Hell, they even have similar ideas about why they do the job. She likes him because of that dark, dry sense of humor that matches her own. The way they just seem to complement each other, like who they are as individuals just fits together.

They spend some of their leave time together, though there’s nothing official to it. They don’t bother with labels. They don’t even really try to push the relationship further. They just… enjoy spending time together.

It isn’t until around the time that her enlistment is up that they start talking a bit more seriously, that they discuss the possibility of a future and an us and a what that would mean.

She doesn’t reenlist. 

It isn’t terribly long after that Gabe makes the move to Overwatch, and they see each other whenever he’s not off trying to save the world, leading the team as strike commander. 

She can see the weight of that responsibility on him, and she does what she can to alleviate it, even if only for a time, offering him support whenever she can, sending him messages when he’s away. She never misses seeing him off on a mission unless it’s something sudden and unplanned––it’s a ritual of sorts to tell him to come home safe and she has no plans of breaking it because he always does.

It’s only once Jack Morrison takes over as leader in the aftermath of the war that Gabriel and Ramona can focus on them again.

He pops the question not long after that, and they don’t even plan a big wedding––neither of them have ever been fussy people. It’s just a small affair for friends and family at the church Ramona’s family have attended forever.

They wait a few years before starting a family of their own, and everything is wonderful.

For a time.

Slowly but surely, however, Ramona begins to see the shift.

To draw from another post I made:

The tragedy for Reyes of realizing that no matter what he does, he’ll never make the change he wants to see in the world, he’ll never achieve justice, never attain peace. For every truly heinous villain he removes, corporate or government figures who are just as corrupt if not more so—and with the added dangerous quality of being able cloak and shield themselves in politics and laws—will take their place. And then what is there? What can he do then? He can’t do anything to a legitimate political figure or government official or government-sanctioned entity. So what can he do?

He gets more and more disillusioned and jaded and frustrated and angry because it shouldn’t be like this and he can’t fix it and this isn’t what he fought and bled for all these years.

He can’t compartmentalize it because it’s consuming him from the inside out, crashing out in waves—outbursts of anger. 

His friendships with people he’s fought those wars with and bled beside becomes a nightmare because they work beside him and they see where he’s going and they can’t and won’t accept it or follow him there. Not this time. 

His marriage to the love of his life, his partner, his other half becomes strained. Loud arguments over nothing. Harsh words he didn’t mean. Breakdowns. Apologies. He’s not sleeping. Not like he should. He can’t separate himself from the job anymore and it’s destroying him and she can’t help. She can’t fix it or make it right no matter how hard she tries or how much she wants to do something, anything to make him feel less ragged and wartorn and shattered. Not this time.

Then, one day it all explodes, figuratively, literally, and then everything changes. Everything. The pain and anger that consumed him before is manifest now, physical, an agonizing and tortuous reality he faces with every breath of his body, as it constantly destroys and restores itself, tears itself apart and puts itself back together.

And he can’t go back because he’s burned those bridges and he’s done too much but going forward isn’t any better, no matter what he tells himself.

There’s no living with any of it, the past or the present.

But there’s no dying either.

Only existing in this hell.  

And she exists in her own hell, too. No one can say that she doesn’t.

No body to bury, just an empty casket. No one to help her through it, or her son. The found family they’d once had is—seemingly irreparably—shattered. The trial happens, and she has to hear all sorts of things about her husband from people she had considered part of that family, even at the worst of times. But she can’t let go. She can’t and she won’t. Let all of them be swayed, but she won’t.

They didn’t see what she saw, and even if they asked her to take the stand to tell them, she wouldn’t. They don’t deserve to know the truth. [ He wouldn’t want them to, and she won’t betray that confidence. ]

They didn’t see him cracking and breaking under the pressure, under the weight of everything that was wrong with Overwatch and with the way of the world in general. Not like she did. 

They didn’t see him fall apart. They didn’t hold him when he’d breakdown. They didn’t hear the whispered apologies as he buried his face against her shoulder and held to her like she was the only one keeping him anchored. They didn’t reassure him and coax him to bed so that he could try to get at least a few hours of sleep. 

They didn’t get awakened by the nightmares, the terrors, at two or three or four in the morning to see him in a cold sweat, eyes not quite seeing their bedroom, mind stuck in what he had dreamt––the war? a mission? both? He seldom had said, even once she managed to calm him, to guide him back.

They didn’t listen to his quiet confessions in the stillness of the night about what was tearing him apart, about the futility of it all, about the helplessness, about the doubts. 

They didn’t.

Not any of it.

So even when she tries to move on with her life, she can’t. She tries dating again, and she can’t, not with anything long-term. She does her best to raise their son, and she thinks that’s probably about the best she’s done at anything to do with living her life since it all fell apart.

In her main au, she takes up vigilante-ing at night, doing everything she can to make the streets a little safer in the neighborhood, because she’d rather die on her feet fighting for what she believes in––for what’s right––because that’s the way she’s always lived her life. [ It’s just another reason they were both similar before. ]

She isn’t enhanced, isn’t special. She’s just a former soldier, a mother, a widow who wants to protect what she has left.

Maybe it leads to her joining the recalled Overwatch, maybe it doesn’t––verse variables depending––but at the end of the day, the takeaway is that she continues the fight in his name, in his honor, in his memory…

And perhaps the worst part of it all?

Are they reunited once it’s all said and done?

… Or is that just another tragedy?

#|| that which doesn't kill you makes you stronger || { about gabriel / reaper } #|| afraid she'd kill you? / be surprised if she didn't || { about ramona } #|| he set fire to the world around him but never let a flame touch her || { about gabriel & ramona } #|| some women fear the fire; some simply become it || { v; main au // ramona } #// I #// This is fine. #// I'm fine. #// Everything is fine. #// I just #// have a lot of feelings about them #// and as basically nothing of nothing to this is canon #// except the BAREST outline #// I have done this to myself.