Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Genji found Jesse at the usual after-mission spot — the small outdoor balcony at the top of Overwatch: Gibraltar that granted access to the satellite receivers. Jesse sat on a hard, plastic chair in front of a small card table that held his gun-cleaning supplies. He had Peacekeeper partially dismantled, and he was polishing the firearm’s inner workings with Hoppe's #9, if the nearly-overpowering smell of the cleaner’s fumes was anything to go by.

This is why Jesse was here instead of in his quarters. He always cleaned Peacekeeper after using it. “I take care of her, she takes care of me,” Jesse had said about his gun, and his room didn’t offer enough ventilation to do the job. Years ago, back when they were in Blackwatch together, Jesse had once told him that, while he liked the smell of Hoppe’s just fine, he didn’t like it enough to let it give him a raging headache. 

“Speaking from experience?” Genji had asked, and the surly, slightly guilty look Jesse threw him made him laugh. Genji had teased him for an entire week about how it figured a cowboy would get high sniffing gun cleaner.

“I didn’t do it on purpose,” Jesse had grumbled. “My room didn’t have a window.” That only made Genji laugh more, but Jesse never seemed to really mind being the butt of the joke. Not back then, when laughs for both of them were few and far between.

It was mostly quiet at the top of the Rock, with only the sound of the wind and the crashing waves far below. The sun had set mere minutes ago, and it was dark enough that Genji could just barely make out Jesse’s face under the brim of his hat. His eyes were lost in shadow, and an unlit cigarillo hung from his lips as he used a silicon cloth to thoroughly rub the cleaner into all of Peacekeeper’s nooks and crannies with a meditative ease. Jesse wouldn’t light the cigarillo until he was done, since apparently Hoppe’s #9 and its fumes were flammable and, as he told Genji, “I got no desire to burn my beard off.”

Genji didn’t ask if Jesse needed more light for his task, since he knew all too well that Jesse could clean Peacekeeper blindfolded. He’d lost a bet on it, after all.

“Howdy, Genji,” Jesse said, without looking up. His voice had that warm, easy-going tone that made Genji feel welcome, even though he knew he was intruding on what could only be called a post-mission ritual at this point. “You need me for something?”

“No,” Genji said. “I just wanted to tell you that I have decided to try and recruit Hanzo.”

Jesse actually stopped cleaning Peacekeeper and looked up. “Winston gave you the go-ahead, then?”

“He did.”

A frown tugged at the corner of Jesse’s mouth. “Does Angie know?”

“She does,” Genji said, suppressing a wince. “She reminded me – at great length, I might add – about how close I came to death, about my long and difficult recovery, and how hard it was for me to come to terms with no longer being fully human.”

Jesse whistled through his teeth; a sound of amazement. “She didn’t pull any punches, I see,” he said. He paused for a moment, moving his cigarillo from one side of his mouth to the other with a roll of his tongue, and clamping it in his teeth. “Guess I don’t need to wonder if you’ve thought this through if you’re still going after all that.” Jesse’s shadowed eyes peered at him from under the brim of his hat. “Though, for my part, I can’t help but recall a time when you told me that, with every person you struck down with your sword, you imagined them with Hanzo’s face.”

“That is true,” Genji said, “but you already know I’m not the man I was.”

“I know you ain’t,” Jesse said. “But it’s one thing to say you’ve forgiven your brother for nearly killing you, and another thing entirely to come face to face with him for the first time afterwards. There’s nearly ten years of wear and tear that have made you who you are, and I like it, because you sure seem a hell of a lot happier than you used to be. But who’s to say what those ten years have done to him?”

“Who indeed?” Genji said. “I guess I will have to find out.”

Jesse sighed and leaned back in his chair, pushing the brim of his hat up to look Genji in the face in the fading light. Genji didn’t have his face plate off, but Jesse seemed to have a knack for reading him anyway. “There are so many things that could go wrong with this, I can’t even count them all,” he said.

“You are correct,” Genji said, tilting his head as he wondered if Jesse was actually going to try to talk him out of his errand. “I am fully aware of how dangerous this could be.”

But Jesse just snorted and shook his head. “Care for some back-up? ‘Cause I’ll come with you, if you want.”

Genji smiled. “I know you would, my friend, but I believe this is something I need to do alone.”

“I had a feeling you were gonna say that.” Jesse went to rub his gloved hand over his face but stopped as he seemed to remember his gloves probably had Hoppe’s #9 on them. “Fine. I can’t say I like it, but… well, I hope it works out for you. And if you come back with him, I’ll do my damndest to be peaceable with him. But just so you know, if things go south… if he makes a single scratch on your shiny metal ass, he’ll have to reckon with my Deadeye.”

Genji felt his dragon stir uneasily within him at the mention of the Deadeye. He hadn’t seen Jesse use it since the Recall, but he remembered it all too well from their Blackwatch days. The feeling of blasting furnace heat coming from his friend, and the unearthly glow that heralded swift, sure death to any enemy within sight. Three at once, five at once, six at once… then, impossibly, eleven at once, and Genji had seen the tears of blood that leaked from Jesse’s eye afterward. Time and again. The number of enemies didn’t seem to matter. The number of bullets in Peacekeeper didn’t seem to matter.

If Jesse McCree unleashed his Deadeye on someone, or a multitude of someones, there was nothing they could do but somehow duck out of his sight in a split second, or die.

A family curse, Jesse had told him once, and the haunted, hunted look that flashed for a brief moment on the cowboy’s face kept Genji from pressing for more details. Jesse never gave up more information on the Deadeye again, but he didn’t hesitate to use it in the service of Blackwatch. And now, the recalled Overwatch.

And now he had pledged to use it to avenge him, if necessary.

“If Hanzo hasn’t changed,” Genji said slowly. “If he is still a puppet whose strings are pulled by others; if he has become as ruthless and malevolent as the clan elders…”

Genji heaved a deep sigh, feeling a fleeting touch of gratitude that the different sensations of his cybernetic lung and his flesh lung exhaling air in a rush no longer made him feel the sting of self-hatred. He had come a long way. He hoped with fervent desire that Hanzo had as well, but…

He reached behind his neck and released his face plate with a hiss of hydraulics, removing it so that he could meet Jesse’s gaze with his own eyes. “If he still desires me dead, and if this time, he succeeds… I would expect nothing less of you.”

Jesse said nothing in response. Just tipped his hat and smiled a little.

Genji saw the pain hidden behind that smile and nodded in return.

Then he left to find his brother.

The next chapter will take place immediately after the “Dragons” Overwatch cinematic, and I plan to post it on Monday.

Please read the tags. :)

This is my first Overwatch fic, and I am, quite frankly, terrified that it sucks. Criticism is welcome. Kudos and comments will be appreciated like you would not believe.

Chapter Text

When Hanzo was a child, he started sneaking out of the castle as soon as he figured out how to scale walls much sooner than his teachers anticipated. With a little brotherly instruction, Genji started sneaking out with him soon after.

They always went to the Hanamura temple because it sat in the midst of a dense patch of forest that somehow managed to survive the ruthless urbanization that surrounded it. In that little forest, Hanzo and Genji felt as free as they ever would, playing games of pretend, imagining they were super sentai fighting the evil forces of whatever had most irritated Hanzo that day. Most often, it was a clan elder.

They got away with it for several months because Hanzo was meticulous about time keeping, and he always made sure that he and Genji were back within the walls of the castle in time for meals or lessons, or any time they were expected to make an appearance.

Hanzo couldn’t remember exactly how they had been caught, but he remembered the punishment all too well. Both he and Genji were beaten with bamboo sticks that left bloody welts on their bare backs and legs. As the elder brother and the heir to the clan, his punishment was more severe, and it was over a week before he could stand, let alone walk again. He had vague, delirious memories of his mother tending to his wounds, and of Genji whispering tearful apologies. Memories of clutching his younger brother’s hand as he wept from the pain.

That experience changed the both of them, Hanzo knew. While Hanzo learned his lesson and never left the castle without permission and supervision again, Genji, on the other hand, would not be stopped. He snuck out nearly twice as often, and got into twice as much trouble, as if he was trying to be disobedient and rebellious enough for the both of them.

And now, ten years and one day after Hanzo murdered his brother for disobedience to the clan, he returned to the woods behind the Hanamura temple.

Genji was waiting for him. He sat perched on the sturdy limb of a tree they used to climb in a race to see who could reach the top first. Just a few feet away from the tree was a familiar smiling Jizo statue, protector of children and lost travelers, the stone worn and pitted with age, partially covered in moss.

Hanzo stared up at Genji for a long moment. The events of the previous night felt so unreal, like a waking dream. Or perhaps the long-expected onset of madness. But Genji was here. Not dead, his mangled body dragged away and buried ignominiously in some unmarked grave, but alive, and in the only way that made sense. Someone had found him on the brink of death, and saved him in the only way possible – replacing destroyed flesh and bone with cybernetics. Knowing exactly what damage he had done to his brother, Hanzo had no doubt that Genji was now more machine than human.

But that didn’t matter, because Genji’s presence here and now, more than anything else – even his control of the dragons last night – proved that he was not dead.

Hanzo’s heart felt tight in his chest, and his clenched jaw worked silently before he could bring himself to speak. “I knew that if you were truly my brother,” he said finally, “I would find you here.”

“I hoped that you would come,” Genji said, and under the slight synthetic tone, Hanzo recognized his brother’s voice. “Now that you are here, what will you do?” His lifted his head in a gesture that acknowledged the Storm Bow on Hanzo’s back. “Will try to finish what you failed to do ten years ago?”

“No!” Hanzo said, his eyes wide. “Absolutely not!” Flustered, he looked around trying to find a way to center his thoughts. His gaze fell on the Jizou statue that had been there since long before his birth. He and Genji had played beneath its protective gaze. “I am… at a loss. In my mind, you have been dead, by my hand, for ten years. And now you are here, real and alive…. and bearing the scars I inflicted upon you.” His undeniable joy was dampened by guilt and grief; the heavy knowledge that he was unworthy of ever feeling joy again because of his crime.

He looked back at Genji, so covered in armor, so full of cybernetics, he could easily pass for an omnic. Once, that might have disturbed him, but after he ran from the clan and travelled the word, avoiding their assassins and bounty hunters, his experiences hiding, and sometimes of necessity blending in with the poor and less fortunate, he was often the recipient of undeserved kindness that he never imagined existed in the world, and mostly from those he had once considered beneath him. It opened his mind in a way he knew would never have happened had he chosen to be a Yakuza crime lord, and it solidified his resolve.

“You say you have forgiven me,” he said, averting his gaze. “And yet I have not asked for forgiveness.”

Genji pushed himself off the branch of the tree and landed with silent grace on the ground, then walked toward him. “My master taught me that apologies from those who have wronged us are not necessary.”

“I disagree,” Hanzo said sharply. “Those wronged by cruelty and injustice deserve nothing less.”

“That may be true, brother,” Genji said softly, “All I know is that once my heart burned with hatred for you, and for myself. In truly forgiving you, my soul has quieted, and I am at peace.”

Hanzo stared at his brother, his emotions tangled and confused; joy, guilt, anger and, for the first time that he could remember, hope, clashing within him. “I am glad,” he said at last. “But that does not change that I must do now what I never thought would be possible.”

With that, he knelt before his brother, then bent forward and touched his hands and forehead to the ground. He heard Genji gasp in shock – a Shimada never prostrates himself before another, the clan elders had drilled into them both – but he spoke before Genji could protest.

“My brother. Every day for the past ten years, I have been in agony and grief, lost and without purpose. What I did to you is unforgivable, and yet you say you forgive me. I am unworthy of your forgiveness, and yet I cannot deny that I am grateful for it. Last night I told you that the world was not like the stories our father told us. I still believe that. I have seen too much to believe otherwise.”

He lifted his head slightly to see that Genji had knelt beside him, his arms outstretched toward him as if wanting to raise him up, but Hanzo shook his head as he slowly sat back on his heels, his gaze fixed on the ground. “You also said the world is changing and that I need to pick a side.” He looked up, into Genji’s face. “I choose your side, brother. For as long as I live, your cause is my cause. For as long as you allow it, I will fight by your side.”

Genji seemed stunned. He didn’t move for several moments, but then he reached behind his head, as he had last night, and released the armor covering his face. As he completely lowered his face plate, Hanzo saw his brother’s eyes, his scarred face. Hanzo recognized every scar. He had etched each of them on to his own heart long ago, and he doubted they would ever fade.

“Aniki,” Genji said, and his voice caught and trembled on that one word. He reached out and placed his cybernetic hand on Hanzo’s shoulder.

The back of Hanzo’s throat stung, and he reciprocated, placing his hand on Genji’s hard, unyielding shoulder. “My brother,” he said. He leaned forward, feeling emotionally spent, and rested his forehead against Genji’s.

In that moment, taking place under the watchful gaze of Jizo, guardian of children and weary travelers, no more words needed to be said.

Hanzo had very little to do to prepare to leave with Genji. They would be departing for Overwatch : Gibraltar in less than an hour. It did not surprise him in the least that Genji had sided with that organization. In fact, it was quite a relief. He had promised that he would follow Genji, and he meant it, even if it meant following him on to dark paths. This new, illegal version of Overwatch seemed to have the best of intentions, refusing to let world governments prevent them from protecting the innocent from those who would thoughtlessly trample them in search of power. Hanzo could respect that.

Other than his Storm Bow, he had few possessions that meant much to him. There was one item, however, that he needed to take with him, but first it needed to be rendered harmless.

He pulled out a special phone that was good for only one thing. He pressed a single button before holding it to his ear.

Sombra answered almost immediately. “Ah, Tio Hanzo! I haven’t heard from you in so long! Are you calling for a favor? Because if you are, that will be two that you owe me.”

Hanzo pinched the bridge of his nose. “Don’t call me that,” he growled. “We are not family. We are, as you say, ‘friends.’”

Hanzo had been twenty-six years old and the de facto leader of the Shimada-gumi, since his father was bedridden with illness, when this impertinent slip of a girl, no older than eighteen at most, had managed to get an audience with him. He almost threw her out before she got to show him her special talents. When she showed him how she could hack into a rival’s computer system in almost no time, and without leaving a trace, he recognized the benefits of becoming her friend.

She had become an invaluable resource over the years, but the deal was always the same. A favor for a favor. When he fled the Shimada-gumi, she kept them off his electronic trail. When she said that she needed some new upgrades, he paid for the highly-illegal surgery. This phone was his only means of contact with her.

“Well, then, mi amigo, what can I do for you?” Sombra asked, never losing her cheeky tone.

“I am calling to tell you that I have chosen to join Overwatch.”

She was silent for only a moment. “You do realize that this creates a conflict of interests, since, you know, I technically work for Talon.”

“The important word being ‘technically,’” Hanzo said dryly. He knew she was only part of Talon in an effort to amass personal power.

“I hope you aren’t thinking of breaking up our beautiful friendship. That would be so very bad. For you.”

Hanzo snorted softly. “No,” he said. “I am simply calling to inform you that, whenever I am within reach over Overwatch technology, I will be removing this phone’s power source. I will remain ‘your friend,’ Sombra, but I will not allow you to use this device to hack them.”

Sombra laughed. “You think I need that phone to hack them?”

“Not really,” Hanzo said, sighing. “But when it comes to disrupting Overwatch, I will not give you aid. In fact, I may actively work against you.”

“Well, that doesn’t sound like a very good friend to me,” Sombra said, and her voice had lost its flippant tone.

“I will be more than happy to continue exchanging favors as we have in the past,” Hanzo said. “But I am letting you know that Overwatch is off limits. I will not work against them. If you cannot accept that, then I suppose our friendship is over after all.”

“Hmm.” Sombra tapped her fingernails against the phone; an intentionally grating noise. Hanzo forced himself to be patient. “Okay, Hanzo, mi amigo más preciado. I think I can work with that.”

“I am glad to hear it,” he said. “I will check this phone every few days to see if you have left a message. If you leave a message and go more than four days without hearing from me, you may presume me to be occupied or dead.”

“What a cheerful sentiment,” Sombra said. “And what if I need your assistance sooner? I’m not the type of girl who stares at a phone waiting for a call.”

Hanzo frowned and thought for a moment. “If it is a life or death situation, and my abilities can be of genuine help, use whatever means you must.”

“Even if that means hacking Overwatch to get your attention?”

Hanzo closed his eyes and tried not to groan. “Except that. I’m sure you can come up with another means of contacting me. Something simple, like… order me a pizza with pineapple topping.”

“You like pineapple?”

“I hate it. So if I get a pizza delivery with pineapple topping, I’ll know it’s from you.”

“Ugh. Too mundane,” Sombra said. “Don’t worry, mi amigo, I’ll think of something.”

“I’m sure you will,” Hanzo said. “Until then, goodbye.”

A/N: Hanzo and Jesse will meet in the first sentence of the next chapter, I promise. In the meantime, I hope you enjoyed the set-up.

I typed most of this with a massive headache, so if you see any mistakes or problems, feel free to point them out. Also, Kudos and comments are always loved and appreciated. :)

Chapter Text

Hanzo thought he knew what to expect when he met Genji’s best friend, the infamous Jesse McCree, who currently had a bounty on his head of sixty-million dollars. “He really is a cowboy,” Genji had told him on the flight to Gibraltar, during his lengthy effort to fill him in about the people who would soon be his comrades-in-arms. “Off duty, he’s more casual about it, but when we go on missions, he looks like he stepped right out of an old spaghetti western movie. Think Clint Eastwood mixed with a bit of John Wayne, but with modern armor. And just wait until you see him shoot.”

Hanzo thought nothing more of it, too focused on fighting back his nervousness at meeting any of the recalled members of Overwatch, all of whom knew of his crime of attempted fratricide. He tried to give Genji his undivided attention as he went on to describe Angela, Lena, Winston, Torbjörn, and Reinhardt. There were also new arrivals, Jack “Soldier 76” Morrison and Ana Amari who had, until just recently, been thought dead. Apparently, the dead showing up alive and well was something of a trend these days, he thought wryly. Then there was Fareeha Amari, daughter of Ana, who officially worked for Helix International, but often helped out on Overwatch missions.

All of these people were Genji’s friends, and Hanzo was inwardly preparing to face their well-earned hatred and distain.

I am here for Genji, he kept reminding himself. It didn’t matter what they thought of him, he was here for Genji, and if Genji wanted him to fight for Overwatch, then he would fight for Overwatch, regardless of their opinion of him.

So it was with tremendous surprise, and no small amount of relief that, as he followed Genji off the Orca and on to the Watchpoint Gibraltar landing pad, he was met with a warm smile and a cheerful greeting from Lena “Tracer” Oxton herself, and Winston, the hyper-intelligent gorilla who had initiated the recall.

As they led him into the base, Winston kept thanking him for coming, for being willing to join their ranks. Ms. Oxton told him that there would be an official meeting at 1700 hours with the rest of the Overwatch members – “who just can’t wait to meet you!” she exclaimed with altogether too much enthusiasm. He was then introduced to the apparently disembodied and ever-present AI, Athena, who welcomed him and assigned him a room next to Genji’s.

Everything was happening so fast that Hanzo felt overwhelmed. Less than three days ago, he was on the run as he had been for the last ten years, only stopping in Hanamura to honor the brother he had murdered. Now he was with a very-much-alive Genji, and only an interview, a medical check-up, and some paperwork separated him from being officially inducted into an illegally recalled Overwatch.

Later, Hanzo would look back and blame the speed with which his life was completely up-ended and thoroughly shaken for what happened to him next.

“Athena,” said Genji, “where is Jesse? I want to introduce him to my brother.”

“Agent McCree is currently in the gym,” she replied, and Genji thanked her before leading Hanzo down some stairs and into a spacious room filled with exercise equipment.

The first time Hanzo saw Jesse McCree, he did not look like a cowboy. In fact, as he and Genji entered the gym, they found him wearing nothing but a pair of grey sweatpants; barefoot, shirtless, glistening with sweat, and doing one-handed push-ups with his prosthetic arm behind his back.

Hanzo had always considered himself a connoisseur of beauty, whether it be art, nature, architecture, or the human form, and as he and Genji walked toward McCree, he noticed several things at once.

McCree’s skin was a shade too dark to be just a deep tan, and as the lean, sculpted muscles of his arm and back flexed with each pushup, Hanzo could see pale scars crisscrossing his broad shoulders. He was instantly reminded of Kintsugi, the method of repairing broken ceramic with gold-dusted lacquer, often making the repaired piece more beautiful than the original. The prosthetic arm only strengthened the association, because of the Kintsugi Yobitsugi technique, where a missing piece of ceramic was replaced with a piece from another, creating a unique aesthetic.

McCree’s shaggy, shoulder-length hair hung down on either side of his face, the ends curling and dark where it laid against his damp skin. It was a deep shade of mahogany that Hanzo imagined would look nearly black when wet, but would blaze like fire in sunlight.

And, as he imagined that, he wondered what the hell was wrong with him. Yes, he could appreciate a pleasing example of the male body, but now, this moment, was certainly not the time, nor the place. Nor the person! Hanzo carefully schooled his expression, for he knew that if his thoughts showed on his face, he would end up completely mortified.

“Jesse!” Genji called, and McCree lifted his head in mid-pushup.

“Genji,” McCree said, surprised. He quickly pushed himself to his feet and grabbed a towel that was sitting on a nearby bench. He wiped the sweat from his face and hung the towel around his neck, giving Hanzo a perfect view of the fine dark hair on his chest and arms. “You’re back early. Hell, I wasn’t expecting you for at least a week.” He glanced at Hanzo for a moment. “Looks like things went well.”

“Very well,” Genji said, and Hanzo could hear the smile in his voice. “Jesse, I’d like you to meet my elder brother, Hanzo Shimada.”

As McCree turned to face him, Hanzo could see, with an almost sinking sense of resignation, that the man was handsome in a rugged, wild way, with a recently-trimmed beard that still managed to look untamed, and framed his jaw in a way that was perfectly complimentary with the rest of his appearance – but before he could think further on that, he saw a brief, tiny flash of red deep in the pupil of McCree’s right eye.

It was only through long practice at maintaining his composure that he didn’t gasp as his dragons surged within him, crowding his thoughts with their own. The dragons didn’t speak to him in words, but with impressions and emotions. Dangerous, he felt from the them both as he looked at McCree. Dangerous. Wild. Dangerous. Who? Ally? Enemy? Dangerous. Their curiosity overwhelmed their instinctive wariness, and felt like lightning sparking through his veins.

Dangerous and beautiful. That was Jesse McCree. They hadn’t even spoken a word to each other, and Hanzo already knew he was in trouble.

He quickly bowed, fearing for a moment that his composure might slip. “It is a pleasure to meet you, Mr. McCree,” he said, straightening slowly. “Genji has told me much about you.”

McCree raised an eyebrow. “Uh-oh,” he said, and glared over at Genji.

Genji held up his hands in mock-surrender and said, “Oh, don’t worry, Jesse, I saved all the good stories for later. They are so much more fun to tell when you are around.”

“Well, that’s just peachy,” McCree groused, but there was a good-natured undertone in his voice. He turned back to Hanzo and extended his hand. “Welcome to Overwatch, Shimada-san. You can call me McCree, or Jesse, whichever suits you. But none of that ‘mister’ stuff. Makes me feel like I’m in trouble.”

Hanzo took the offered hand, large, warm and calloused, and shook it as briefly as possible, trying to ignore how his dragons reacted at the touch.

Dangerous, they sang in his mind. Strong and dangerous and beautiful and we must know more.

Were those the dragons’ thoughts, or his own?  They were so entangled, he couldn’t tell.

“Very well, McCree,” Hanzo said, not daring to show any emotion on his face. “You may call me Hanzo.”

McCree seemed a little surprised at that, but the corner of his mouth curved in a grin. “Alright, Hanzo. Pleasure to meet you. Glad I didn’t have to hunt you down and kill you.”

“Jesse,” Genji moaned, face-palming.

But Hanzo understood. From McCree’s point of view, Genji had left on a mission to recruit the brother who had murdered him, with no guarantee it would have a positive outcome. “I am glad as well,” he said. “But it is good to know that Genji has someone willing to avenge him. That speaks of a rare and strong friendship.”

McCree blinked at him, stunned into speechlessness, but then he smiled; a genuine smile that lit his eyes, and not with a deadly glint of red.

Hanzo steadfastly refused to acknowledge what that smile did to his insides. Instead, before McCree could say anything else, he said, “We have interrupted your workout, and we should let you get back to it. Genji still has to give me a tour of the rest of the Watchpoint. Come, Genji.” And then, without waiting to see if his brother would follow, he turned on his heel and walked out of the gym, his heart hammering in his chest and his dragons still whispering inside his head.

He walked down the hallway, stopped without turning around, and waited for Genji. He did not have to wait long. Like the ninja he was, Genji silently appeared in his peripheral vision before stepping out in front of him.

“What,” Genji said, his voice low and angry, “was that all about?”

“What was what all about?” Hanzo said calmly, inwardly still struggling to keep his composure.

“This!” Genji gestured at his face with both hands. “Now you’re doing it to me!”

Now Hanzo was genuinely confused. “Doing what to you?”

“You’re looking at me with your resting bitch face!” Genji accused, emphasizing by actually shaking his finger at him.

Hanzo blinked. “My… what?”

“You heard me,” Genji said, and Hanzo could hear him scowling. “It’s that… that non-expression you always wore whenever the elders gave you a task you didn’t want to do. Which was always, because you hated them, and you always ended up obeying them anyway. You had your resting bitch face on the whole time I was introducing you to Jesse. We were there less than a minute! What could he have possibly done to offend you in that short amount of time?”

Hanzo opened his mouth, then closed it again as he realized he had no idea how to respond. He was still trying to process the fact that he apparently had a ‘resting bitch face’ when he was trying to conceal his emotions.

Genji paced for a moment before turning to him again. “Wait. Have you met him before? You two don’t have a history I don’t know about, do you?”

Hanzo sighed. “No. I’ve never seen him before today.”

“Was it because of the death threat? It was because of the death threat, wasn’t it. It wasn’t even a real death threat! He just said he was glad he didn’t have to kill you!”

“It wasn’t the death threat,” Hanzo said, reaching up to pinch the bridge of his nose.

“Then what was it?” Genji threw his arms in the air in exasperation. “What did he do in those few seconds to make you hate him?”

“I don’t hate him,” Hanzo snapped. “He’s fine. McCree didn’t do anything wrong.”

That seemed to take Genji aback. Then Genji leaned forward, peering carefully into his face. Hanzo had to fight the urge to step back.

“You don’t hate him,” Genji said wonderingly, apparently reading something in his expression that wasn’t a resting bitch face. He seemed confused. “But then why—”

Genji cut himself off and suddenly stood up straight, as if realization had hit him. “Maji ka,” he breathed, leaning forward again. “You like him.”

Hanzo loved his brother. He was more grateful than words could express that Genji was alive, and that they had been given a chance to be family again. But at the moment, he was having serious deja-vu of all the times that Genji had driven him absolutely mad. “This conversation is over,” he said coldly, and stepped around Genji to continue walking.

As if that would do anything to deter Genji, who zipped around in front of him again, keeping pace and walking backward. “You like Jesse McCree!” he said, and there was that unbridled glee in his voice that could only mean trouble. “That was so fast! Oh my gods, it must have been lust at first sight, am I right?”

Hanzo clenched his jaw and refrained from answering. But Genji had successfully shattered his composure, and he could feel heat creep up the back of his neck.

“You’re blushing!” Genji sounded as if Christmas had come early.

“Shut up,” Hanzo growled.

“This is the best thing ever!” Genji crowed, before lowering his voice conspiratorially. “Are you going to ask him out? I could totally help you with that.”

Hanzo stopped in his tracks. “Genji. I am not going to ask him out. You and I are both going to pretend this never happened.”

“Oh, I don’t think so,” Genji said.

Hanzo took a deep, steadying breath. “Fine. Tease me if you must, but keep it to yourself. Yes, it is true that I find McCree attractive. But I have found many people attractive without wanting to date them. I barely know McCree.”

“Well, maybe you would get to know him better if you don’t run off the next time you meet,” Genji said.

“It’s not just that,” Hanzo said. He looked down, frowning. “When McCree looked at me, I… saw something. Something in his right eye. It startled me, and woke my dragons.”

“Oh. I see.” The sudden somber understanding in Genji’s voice made Hanzo look up again. “You caught a glimpse of his Deadeye,” Genji said. “The same thing happened to me, the first time I met him. I thought my dragon was going to leave me without a summons and attack him before I could convince her he wasn’t an enemy.

“His Deadeye,” Hanzo repeated.

“It’s a special ability he has. You’ll see him use it in battle. When he uses it, any enemy within his line of sight dies, just like that.” Genji snapped his fingers.

“Why did the dragons react the way they did?” he asked. He was not going to tell Genji that his dragons had responded much differently to McCree’s Deadeye than Genji’s dragon had.

Genji shrugged. “Maybe because there’s something supernatural about it. He once told me it was some kind of family curse, but he didn’t go into detail. He really doesn’t like to talk about it.”

“Hm. Interesting,” Hanzo said. Beautiful and dangerous and we must know more.

“Interesting enough that you want to ask him out?” Genji said, and that insufferable grin was back in his voice.

He sighed. “I will make you a deal, Genji. We will both pretend that my embarrassing first encounter with McCree never happened. Then if – IF!” He emphasized the word by pointing his finger in the air. “If sometime in the far, far future – preferably after I’ve actually gotten to know him – I decide to ask McCree out on a date… I will come to you for help.”

“Deal,” Genji said instantly. “Because you may not know it yet, but this is so happening. I can feel it.”

Hanzo somehow managed to not put his face in his hands and groan.

Next time: Unaware of the consequences, Hanzo lets his curiosity get the better of him.

Thank you so much for all the kudos and comments!  They are this story's lifeblood. :)

Chapter Text

Sombra found Reaper exactly where she expected him to be – in one of the planning rooms, standing over a table covered in archaic paper documents, with no less than eight holoscreens floating before him, providing the only light in the room.

What she didn’t expect to find was Akande Ogundimu and Moira O’Deorain flanking Reaper on either side.

She grimaced inwardly as the three Talon leaders looked up at her entrance. Akande was physically intimidating, as always, and his eyes narrowed slightly as she stepped into the room. Moira looked at her with an impassive expression that somehow still managed to convey absolute distain.

As for Reaper, she couldn’t see his face because of the mask, but she always found him easiest to read. Gabriel Reyes, the former commander of Blackwatch, was scary smart, an amazing tactician, a brutal and efficient soldier, and so full of rage that it seemed to be the one constant with him. Whether he was silently going over battle plans, or in the midst of a firefight, laughing like a madman as his body dissolved and reformed while he dealt death and drained life, his fury was always so intense it was almost more tangible than he was.

And what was he so furious about? Sombra had more than a few ideas, and not all of them were in lockstep with Talon’s objectives, so she kept them to herself.

“What do you want, Sombra,” Reaper said, his inhuman voice a nerve-scraping, guttural growl.

If it were just her and Reaper alone, she would have entertained herself by stringing him on a bit, teasing him with little hints about her purpose until he was on the verge of violence. But with Akande and Moira in the room, she had little desire to linger longer than necessary.

“Just wanted to share a bit of intel,” she said, glancing at the holoscreens curiously before Moira irritably tapped her holopad, turning the screens to Talon’s logo on a black background.

Hmph, Sombra thought. Spoilsport. She could always hack them and find out what they were up to, but she wasn’t so brazen as to do it right in front of them. “I thought you might want to know that Hanzo Shimada has joined Overwatch, so, you know, you won’t be surprised when you find him fighting against you the next time you tangle with them.”

“How do you know this?” Akande asked, scowling.

“From a very reliable source,” Sombra said, barely attempting to conceal her smirk. “Apparently, the former Shimada scion finally figured out that his little brother is still alive, and went to join him. Seems he wants to try to make it up to him, for nearly murdering him ten years ago.” She sighed theatrically. “So heartwarming!”

Moira exhaled heavily through her nostrils, her mouth pinching in a frown. “Well, so much for recruiting the other dragon,” she said. She cast a side-eyed glare at Reaper. “If we had gone with my plan eight years ago, we could have both dragons working for us now.”

Reaper shook his head. “It never would have worked, and you know it.”

Moira shrugged, and inspected the claws on her right hand, as if examining a manicure. “It worked on Widowmaker.”

“Widowmaker was a civilian,” Reaper snarled. “A bubble-headed ballerina. You took her and filled her empty head with what she needed to be an assassin. If you had tried that with Genji, a highly trained ninja with a connection to an ancient dragon spirit, you would have ruined him.”

“You don’t know that,” Moira said, cold and calm. “I could have tweaked his loyalties a bit without touching his skill.”

When Reaper started to grow shadowy and wispy around the edges – a sure sign of his temper flaring – Sombra started to wish she had some popcorn. She had the impression that this was an old, well-worn argument between the two of them

“You could have cut off his connection to the dragon,” Reaper said, “because, with all your science, you still have no idea how that works.”

Moira scoffed. “You still talk about the dragons as if they are supernatural entities, when they are obviously genetic anomalies, since only the Shimada bloodline can access the ability. If you had allowed me to do research, I could have unraveled the secret, perhaps even replicated it for our use. Now, not only do we not have any dragons, they are both working for the enemy.” She gave Reaper a look that could freeze boiling water in an instant. “And you are hardly in the position to lecture me on the infinitesimal possibility of ruining someone’s potential, after what you let that harridan do to McCree.”

Sombra raised an eyebrow. This was interesting.

Reaper clenched his clawed hands. “She taught him to control it.”

“She crippled him,” Moira retorted. “You saw what he was capable of before.”

What? Sombra thought, barely holding herself back from saying it out loud. Jesse McCree was a frustrating puzzle that she had yet to solve. She had nothing on him prior to his arrest when Blackwatch took down Deadlock, and the only solid info she had on him after the fall was an unsubstantiated, yet strong suspicion that he was writing pro-vigilante op-ed pieces about his own exploits for various global news outlets under the pseudonym, Joel Morricone. What was he capable of ‘before?’ Come on, she thought at Moira and Reaper. Spill.

“Yes, I saw!” Reaper said, and the entire lower half of him had dissolved into shadow form. “I saw more than you did. McCree was a danger to himself and us, and she fixed that. You should be glad she did, now that he’s re-joined Overwatch!”

“Something else that could have been prevented, if you hadn’t put a stranglehold on my skills back then,” Moira said, sneering.

Reaper actually growled and drew himself up, obviously preparing for a scathing retort, when Akande smashed his flesh fist on the table. “Enough!” he thundered, and both Reaper and Moira stopped and looked at him.

Sombra inwardly sighed in disappointment.

Akande looked at them calmly. “Do not waste our time with pointless arguments over the past, and focus on the present,” he said, and then turned to Sombra. “We have lost an opportunity with Shimada joining Overwatch. However, you said he joined because of his brother, correct?”

“Yes,” Sombra said shortly, disliking Akande’s attention focused on her.

“Then he is loyal to his brother, and not to Overwatch,” Akande said. “Otherwise, he would have joined them before now. This particular circumstance is not as dire as it seems. Recruit the younger, and the elder will follow.”

Reaper snorted. “Genji won’t leave Overwatch, especially now that he thinks he’s been enlightened.”

“We shall see,” Akande said, then he looked back at Sombra. “Thank you for this valuable intel.”

Sombra recognized the dismissal for what it was, and threw a sloppy salute to the three Talon leaders as she slipped out the door. “Later, then,” she said, outwardly flippant, and inwardly relieved to be out of that room.

Her thoughts immediately went to the cryptic conversation about McCree, and she once again cursed the fact that Reyes was such a paranoid bastard that he had kept all the most important Blackwatch records on paper that he himself put to the flame.

Hanzo couldn’t remember much of the year following his presumed murder of Genji, and he told Genji as much as they sat together on a stony outcropping near the top of the Rock above the Watchpoint. He had stayed at the castle and played the dutiful clan puppet-leader, perfecting the mask of cold indifference that he presented to the elders. He had to convince them that, yes, he was exactly as cruel and calculating as they wanted him to be. He was brutal, imperious, ruthless and deadly, and the elders smiled, and spoke to him of plans for greater wealth; of making their enemies tremble in fear now that he had claimed his birthright and led the clan.

He played the part well. Not once did he drop the mask – not even in the privacy of his own room, for he knew that if anyone, even a passing servant, observed any outward hint of weakness, it would be his undoing. Thus he never had a moment to indulge the absolute wreck he was inside; a mangled, twisted mass of grief, rage, and self-loathing.

It took him nearly six weeks, and the aid of a certain young Talon hacker, to embezzle, rearrange assets, and secure the bulk of the Shimada fortune where the clan couldn’t reach it, and without them noticing. Together, he and Sombra stole the money right out from under the elders’ noses, and it was the one thing over which he felt absolutely no guilt. It was blood money, his by right, earned when he killed his little brother at their behest, and he would be damned if he would allow the clan a single yen of it.

Then he ran and didn’t look back.

He spent the rest of that first year hiding from clan assassins, contemplating suicide, and getting absolutely shit-faced drunk in a seedy little safehouse that he had procured in the slums of Belgium, for though he had thoroughly absconded with most of the family money, he found he couldn’t bring himself to touch it. Not for himself, at least.

In the end, he came to the bitter conclusion that suicide was not an option, as the clan might consider it an effort to restore his honor, and in turn restore their honor, and he had no desire to do anything that could please or bring honor to his hated family. Hanzo did not believe he had any honor to speak of since killing his brother, but he would do everything in his power to spit in the faces of those running the Shimada empire – perhaps even, one day, non-metaphorically.

As the first anniversary of Genji’s murder drew near, he managed to drag himself out of his alcoholic stupor and decided that, if nothing else, his dead brother deserved any amount of honor his worthless self could bestow, and that he would attempt to honor Genji in the very shrine where he was murdered. If his clan captured him… well, he would not be captured. And he wasn’t. But as he knelt and burned incense before his abandoned sword and bloodied banner, he felt hateful eyes on him. Genji’s angry spirit, he presumed, and he braced himself for an attack that never came.

“That was me,” Genji confessed. “There was Overwatch intelligence that you had been seen near Hanamura, and I went to investigate.”

Hanzo closed his eyes against the cool, salty ocean breeze. “You could have taken your vengeance upon me then, and I would have let you.” He glanced over at Genji, who had taken off his face-plate and helm to enjoy the open air. “Why didn’t you?”

Genji huffed a sound that was not quite a laugh. “Direct orders from Strike-Commander Morrison. He was in the middle of a long-game operation preparing to take down the clan and warned me that killing you right in Shimada castle – or even in Hanamura – would draw unwanted scrutiny. Almost two years later, he pulled me out of Blackwatch and had me head the operation myself. I did so gladly.”

Hanzo nodded. “That explains how the clan fell to Overwatch so quickly and thoroughly. I had wondered.”

“Well, it certainly didn’t hurt that you financially drained the clan when you left,” Genji said, a smug smile curling the edge of his mouth. “They never even came close to recouping their losses.”

Hanzo looked at his brother’s unmasked face unflinchingly. Inwardly he couldn’t help a surge of self-loathing at the sight of the scars, but he was determined to never let Genji feel that his own brother couldn’t bear to look at him. “And after that… that’s when you left Overwatch?”

“Yes. I felt too conflicted and confused about who and what I was to continue.”

Hanzo felt keenly aware that he was directly responsible for Genji’s crisis of identity, and again wondered how circumstances had managed to lead the two of them here, to this moment in time that found them sitting peacefully, side by side.

“You hadn’t yet forgiven me,” he said. “Why did you not find me and kill me then?”

Genji smirked a little. “Because I was keeping track of you and your activities.”

Hanzo frowned, confused. “That sounds more like a reason to kill me than not,” he said, “especially if you knew where I was and what I was up to.”

“Oh yes.” Genji laughed. “You have been a very busy mercenary assassin, brother. But even back then, I noticed that the contracts you accepted were very specific. You never went after someone you believed was innocent.”

Hanzo snorted, feeling strangely uneasy. How did Genji know this? “No one is innocent, brother,” he said.

“True,” Genji acceded with a nod, “but you never accepted a contract from someone who wanted another person dead out of spite, or for petty vengeance. Basically, as Jesse would say, you ‘never killed someone who didn’t need killing.’ And I couldn’t help but notice that, wherever in the world you went, you avoided luxury and lived in the most miserable places possible. Slums and ghettos, rife with poverty and crime.” Genji chuckled. “For some strange reason, crime rates drastically dropped wherever you went. And then, right before you went on the run again, some local charity would receive a mysterious, ridiculously generous donation to help improve the circumstances of the people.”

Hanzo couldn’t help but gape in astonishment. “How… how could you even know that?”

“Blackwatch, remember?” Genji grinned and tapped the side of his head. “The Shimada clan can’t compete with them when it comes to being sneaky.”

“Hm,” Hanzo said, scowling to cover how unsettled this revelation made him feel. “I seem to recall Blackwatch being exposed after a certain incident in Venice. Not very sneaky if you asked me.”

“That… was complicated,” Genji said, the grin sliding from his face. “It was basically the beginning of the end of Overwatch. There were things going on within the organization that…” He trailed off, looking troubled. Hanzo found himself torn between wanting Genji to finish his thought, and wanting Genji to reveal more about how he knew such detailed information about his personal activities on the run.

Genji sighed and shrugged. “The point is, I learned espionage from the best. I can’t say I know everything you did, because every now and then you’d figure out someone was getting too close and you’d go underground. I’d lose you for months on end, but your yearly visits to the shrine made you very easy to find again.”

Hanzo could barely believe it. For ten years, he thought Genji was dead, and in reality, Genji was alive and keeping very close tabs on him. How many opportunities did Genji have to take well-deserved vengeance on him, and yet let them pass?

“All that time,” he muttered. “I never knew.”

“Better that way, I think,” Genji said softly. “Until I went to Nepal, I was really messed up with my own issues. Part of me wanted to hate you, to kill you, to mock you for what seemed to me to be pathetic efforts to do good after what you did to me. Another part of me couldn’t help but see your genuine misery and regret. So I convinced myself it was better to let you live with your burdens than to relieve you of them with the mercy of death.”

Hanzo looked away, his heart tightening within his chest as he remembered Genji’s words from three nights ago. I will not grant you the death you wish for. You still have a purpose in this life, brother. He felt Genji’s hand settle on his shoulder.

“At the time,” Genji said, “I thought it was an excuse, and that I was being weak for letting you go. Now, I genuinely believe that you must live – not so that you can be burdened with grief, but so that you can have a chance to heal. So that we can be brothers again, the way we are meant to be.”

“Genji, I…” Hanzo stopped as his throat closed on the words. I am not worthy of this kindness. I will never wash the stain of your blood from my hands, regardless of my regret and your forgiveness. I can never do enough to make up for what I’ve done.

He looked down and took a deep breath. “I am glad you came for me.”

Genji smiled brilliantly and, even with the scarring, Hanzo thought he saw the young, carefree little brother he used to be.

“I am glad you are here,” Genji said, and then he stood. “Come. It’s almost time for the meeting, and I bet the others are gathering in the conference room already. Oh, and if you can – now, I don’t want to ask too much of you – but try to lose the RBF.”

Hanzo gave Genji a puzzled look until he realized that “RBF” could only stand for Resting Bitch Face. Scowling, he got to his feet. “I think you would have better success asking your team mates to get used to my RBF instead,” he said stiffly, “since you only recently made me aware I had one, and I see no reason to change something that is apparently such an ingrained part of me.”

Genji threw up his arms in mock-despair. “I can see it now,” he bemoaned. “My dear friends, do not take offense! My brother doesn’t actually think of you with haughty distain or cold hatred, he only looks like he does!” Genji hesitated, losing the over-dramatic pose, then tapped his chin thoughtfully. “Actually… that’s not such a bad idea. Very well, Hanzo, I will get right on that. I bet that if I asked Winston, he would let me open the meeting with that announcement.”

“Don’t you dare,” Hanzo growled, but Genji’s answering laugh told him that he was being teased. He ran one hand over his face to cover his chagrin at walking right into Genji’s trap.

Being brothers with Genji again was going to take some getting used to. And yet, at the same time, Genji seemed much like the person he was when they were both young, long before the clan had sunk its hooks so deep into his own psyche that he had believed killing Genji was a viable course of action. Again, he marveled at Genji’s capacity for forgiveness, and again he wondered how anyone, let alone his brother, could possibly think he was deserving of it.

“Hurry, Hanzo, we don’t want to be late!” Genji called, already climbing down the rock face to the Watchpoint below.

Hanzo followed, barely suppressing a groan. He was not looking forward to this meeting at all, but better to get it over with quickly.

When Hanzo followed Genji into the conference room, the first person he spotted was McCree. This time, the man looked every inch the cowboy Genji claimed him to be. He wore cowboy boots, and a red checkered flannel tucked into the trim waist of his faded jeans, which were belted with an obnoxiously large brass buckle that said BAMF. He wasn’t sitting at the table, but instead leaning against the wall, a worn, wide-brimmed hat low over his eyes and leaving his upper face in darkness, his arms crossed against his broad chest.

Hanzo only barely managed to keep himself from imagining the man shirtless, and it was a surprising act of will of which he was glad to find himself still capable.

McCree looked up, and Hanzo briefly met his gaze, nodding stiffly in greeting as nervousness ate at his stomach.

McCree, stern and unsmiling, touched a finger to the brim of his hat in a small, acknowledging salute before folding his arms again, and Hanzo could briefly see the strange red glint in his right eye that left his dragons moving restlessly within him. There was none of the warmth that existed in their first introduction, and Hanzo wondered if his foolish, cold and brisk reaction to the sight of McCree’s half-naked body – a reaction arguably made in his own self-defense – had forever tainted any possible camaraderie they might have had.

Genji guided him to a chair at the table next to Tracer, and he sat down, a tension headache building behind his eyes as he couldn’t help but recall similar meetings with the clan elders. As Genji sat down on the other side of him, he looked around the table. Winston sat on the other side of Tracer, and sitting across him was a white-haired man wearing a visor over a scarred face who could only be the presumed-dead Jack Morrison. Next to him was a regal-looking older woman with the Eye of Horus tattooed over her right eye, and an eyepatch on her left. The famous Ana Amari, he guessed.

Before he could wonder if all the people attending were present, in walked an attractive blonde woman wearing a lab coat – Dr. Angela Ziegler, the doctor who saved Genji’s life, no doubt. She was followed by a mountain of a man who could only be Reinhardt, and a stocky man with an impressive beard and a prosthetic clamp for a left arm – Overwatch’s engineer, Torbjörn.

As the three newcomers took seats at the table, Amari glanced back at McCree and gestured to the empty seat next to her. “Come and sit, Jesse,” she said with a distinct Egyptian accent. “There is plenty of room.”

“Thank you kindly, ma’am,” McCree said, tipping his hat at her in the epitome of Southwest American politeness, “but I reckon I’m comfortable right where I am.”

There wasn’t a trace of sarcasm or cruelty in McCree’s voice, and yet Genji made a soft, surprised noise in his throat. Amari frowned, looking slightly hurt, but didn’t say anything further. Hanzo got the distinct impression that he was missing a lot of subtext.

“Thank you all for coming,” Winston said, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “For our first order of business, I would like to welcome the newest member of Overwatch – Genji’s brother, Hanzo Shimada.”

There was silence as all eyes turned to Hanzo. Most of the stares he received were wary, and understandably so. “Thank you,” he said, his voice rough, “for allowing me to join your organization.”

More silence. Winston cleared his throat, gave Hanzo a friendly, if slightly terrifying smile (those fangs were huge), and said, “Why don’t you tell us a little about yourself, Shimada-san?”

If anything, the silence grew more awkward. Genji stiffened next to him and gave him a glance he recognized all too well. It was a look Genji had often given him during difficult clan meetings, whenever a terrible task was put before him. You don’t have to do this, that look said. Let’s just leave.

But Hanzo had already accepted this duty, and he found it was more important to him than any duty ever imposed upon him by the clan. If he was going to work with these people – if they were to be his team mates, and if he was to be of any help whatsoever to Genji and to Overwatch – he needed to face this head-on.

He stood, pushing his chair back, trying not to notice how several people tensed, as if wanting to reach for their weapons. Interestingly, McCree was not one of them. The cowboy didn’t even bother to look up.

“I suppose,” Hanzo said soberly, “that I should address the elephant in the room. All of you, you know who I am… or who I was. You know what I did to my brother ten years ago. Three nights ago, he came to me on the anniversary of his murder, and, thinking he was an assassin, I attacked him.”

Oh, that earned him a few glares, most noticeably from Dr. Ziegler.

“He defeated me quite handily,” Hanzo continued, a bit rueful, even as he felt a strange swell of pride in his younger brother. “He had me at his mercy, his blade at my throat. My life was in his hands. I told him to kill me, and instead he spared my life and revealed who he was.”

That made McCree look up, and he let out a low whistle. “I bet that was a shock to the system,” he said.

“Indeed.” Hanzo looked at McCree, and the intensity of the cowboy’s gaze burned within him strangely, again making his dragons stir, restless and oh-so curious, within him.

He forced himself to break eye contact, looking down and clenching his fists at his sides, focusing on the task at hand. He took a deep breath. “There is nothing in my life I regret more than what I did to Genji ten years ago,” he said. “I have lived the past decade believing him to be dead. Even now, I am weighed down with the knowledge that, had I been strong enough to defy my clan, this never would have happened, and I will live with that knowledge all my days. But you…” He looked up and met Dr. Ziegler’s startled gaze. “You saved him. You all saved him,” he said looking around the table.

“Genji spared my life when he had every right to enact vengeance,” Hanzo said quietly. “I owe him a debt I can never repay, so I have pledged my life – the life that he spared – to him. I will fight for him and for his cause, and for the people who saved his life. I understand if you doubt me and my motives, but I hope you will give me the chance to prove my loyalty to my brother, and, by extension, to you as well.”

With that, his words ran dry and he sat down in his chair, acutely aware that his hands were trembling. He had shown vulnerability to these virtual strangers, and in doing so had given them the power to use his weakness against him. If they did, it was nothing less than he deserved, but he would not allow it to sway him from his chosen course of action.

He chanced a look at McCree, and though the man’s shadowed eyes seemed to be looking at the floor again, a slight smile curved the corner of his mouth. Glancing over at Genji, he saw his brother looking at him with a strange expression that seemed a mingling of amazement and pride.

“Well spoken, lad.” Torbjörn nodded at him with grim approval. “I, for one, think you’ll make a fine addition to our ranks.”

“I think this as well,” Reinhardt said, his expansive voice somehow filling the space despite his soft tone. “It matters not who you were in the past. Only now matters, and you have chosen to follow a noble path.”

Hanzo looked at the others sitting at the table and saw that the wariness was gone. Morrison and Amari had both relaxed, almost imperceptibly. Winston was smiling, and Tracer was outright beaming at him.

He felt himself overwhelmed with a wave of disbelief. He didn’t understand. Had he not made himself clear? He asked for a chance to prove himself, but he certainly hadn’t proven himself yet. And these people were acting as if he had already passed some kind of test.  Surely these seasoned members of Overwatch weren’t so foolish as to completely throw away their caution with him.

He shouldn’t underestimate them, he realized. Perhaps they were simply hiding their caution at the moment. But for what purpose?

Winston cleared his throat to gain everyone’s attention. “Ah, well, now that we have been introduced to our newest member, we have a few more orders of business to cover. Athena, if you would, please.”

“Certainly, Winston,” the AI replied, and the wall screen at the far end of the table lit up, showing two dossiers, side by side. One showed a young woman Hanzo was familiar with – the Korean mecha pilot, D.Va, famous for successfully winning battles against the giant kaiju omnics that rose out of the sea to attack the country. The other dossier showed a young dark-skinned man with thick dreadlocks and a cheerful countenance, wielding what could only be Vishkar tech. Hanzo did not recognize him.

“I am pleased to announce,” Athena said, “that Tracer has recruited mecha pilot Hana Song, also known as D.Va, and freedom fighter Lúcio Correia dos Santos. They will be joining us here at Watchpoint Gibraltar within the week.”

“Ah, well done, Lena!” Reinhardt boomed, enthusiastically slapping his massive palm on the table. “I have seen D.Va fight. She is a formidable warrior. I look forward to welcoming her to our ranks.”

“You look forward to finally getting her autograph,” Tracer said, smirking.

“That too!” Reinhardt said agreeably.

“I have sent these dossiers to your personal data pads,” Athena continued, “so that you may read through them at your leisure and become acquainted with their histories and skills. They are both looking forward to meeting all of you.”

As Athena spoke, Hanzo was struck with the horrifying suspicion that he might have a dossier that was distributed to the people sitting around this table before he arrived. If so, what did it say?

Hanzo Shimada, age 38. Profession: Assassin for hire. History: Weak-willed, weak-minded coward who murdered his brother at the behest of his corrupt, morally bankrupt clan elders. Oh, and lest we forget, he failed at that too, leaving his brother not quite dead, but on the brink; abandoned only to be rescued by Overwatch, while, in the meantime, the impact of his despicable actions finally penetrated his thick skull and left him so consumed by grief, fury, and self-hatred that he became a hollowed-out wretch, pathetically grasping for any chance at unattainable redemption for the next decade, and—

Genji elbowed him sharply in the ribs. Before Hanzo could protest in any way, Genji leaned toward his ear. “Whatever you’re thinking about,” he whispered, near silent, “you had better stop, or I really will have to tell everyone not to take your facial expressions personally.”

Oh. Hanzo became aware that he was scowling so hard, his jaw hurt from clenching his teeth. Hanzo closed his eyes and took a slow, deep breath, consciously relaxing his facial muscles and pushing thoughts of imaginary, damning dossiers out of his head.

“Better,” Genji whispered, “but I’m starting to think that furrow between your brows is a permanent fixture. Now pay attention.”

Hanzo snorted softly at Genji telling him to pay attention in a meeting for once, and he had a feeling this would not be the last time he experienced this strange role reversal. He tried to focus as Winston turned time over to Morrison, who concisely pointed out the most egregious Talon threats growing across the globe. There was a great deal more Talon activity than Hanzo was aware of, and it was easy to see that if Talon was not stymied in some way, there would be another devastating war in the near future. The thought made him feel ill. He had travelled the world; had seen so many places, so many people who had yet to recover from the last war, the thought of another so soon left him cold.

He was willing to fight to keep a new war from happening. But even this seemed paltry payment for his crimes against his brother. He had been fighting on his own for a decade now, and what good had come from it? A familiar despair rose within him; filled him until his limbs felt heavy. He felt like laughing at his own foolishness. How could he have ever thought following his brother and joining Overwatch could even begin to redeem him for what he had done?

“We’re going to start team training exercises tomorrow at 0700,” Morrison said, and, Genji’s admonition in mind, he struggled to focus again. “It’s been a while.”

Reinhardt barked a short laugh at the apparent understatement, which made Tracer giggle.

Morrison continued, unperturbed. “We’ve all been working solo for a long time, and before we go out and take on Talon, we need to figure out how to work as a team. Focus on strengths, shore up our weaknesses. Learn to cover each other’s backs. McCree, you said that Talon was using the Blackwatch playbook when they hit that hyper-train.”

“That they were,” McCree said. “No doubt about it.”

Morrison nodded grimly. “I’d like you to work with Athena on programming the training bots with that playbook, and more. You’ve always been a good tactician. Use every dirty move and trick you can think of to take us down. I’d rather we learn the hard lessons in training rather than on the battlefield.”

Hanzo couldn’t help but notice that McCree seemed surprised at Morrison’s assignment, but after a moment, he nodded. “Think I can manage that,” he said, his voice a wry drawl.

“Good.” Morrison turned to Winston. “I have nothing more.”

Winston nodded. “Thank you, Jack. Now, is there any other business any of you would like to bring to the table?”

“The only table I’m interested in is the dinner table,” Torbjörn said, and there were echoes of agreement from around the room.

“In that case,” Winston said, grinning, “this meeting is adjourned.”

Hanzo couldn’t remember a time, even with the elders’ councils, that he was so relieved to hear those words. With growing depression weighing him down, he couldn’t get out of that room fast enough.

Genji nearly groaned aloud when Hanzo quickly got to his feet and made sure he was the first one out of the conference room almost before Winston officially ended the meeting. If Hanzo was trying to avoid drawing attention to himself, he had failed miserably, as everyone in the room stared after his abrupt exit. Genji stood to follow after, then saw Jesse raise a questioning eyebrow at him. He could only shrug before following his brother out the door.

It only took a few moments for him to catch up, even though Hanzo had made it all the way to the hallway with their assigned living quarters. To his complete lack of surprise, Hanzo’s face had settled into its apparent default expression of cold aloofness.

“I know you’ve only been here less than a day, brother,” Genji said lightly, “but I’m sure you remember that the dining hall is in the other direction.”

“I’m not hungry,” Hanzo replied, and Genji sighed. Even after all these years, Hanzo was so predictable.

“Come on,” he said. “The meeting wasn’t all that bad. I thought you did great. Surely you could see that, when you were through with your introduction, you had won everyone over. Even Jack Morrison, and he is one paranoid son of a bitch.”

Hanzo stopped in his tracks and looked at him, and Genji could see the deep, haunted shadows in his eyes.

“That is the problem, is it not?” Hanzo said. “You are all so quick to let a murderer… a kin-slayer, into your midst.”

Genji frowned, worried. He was all too familiar with self-hatred, but he had hoped that their reunion would raise his brother out of that destructive mire. “Hanzo… I’m right here,” he said softly, and he extended his hand, but Hanzo stepped out of reach, turning on his heel and heading for the door to his room. Genji followed after, trying to bite back his exasperation. “I’m alive. You didn’t murder me, brother.”

Hanzo stopped in front of his door, his back straight, fists clenched, visible tension thrumming through him. “Not for lack of trying,” he hissed between gritted teeth, and self-loathing dripped from every word. He put a trembling hand over his eyes. “Genji… you have had ten years to process what I did to you that night. You told me yourself how you hated me and wished to kill me, and how long it took for you to reach a point where you could accept your fate and forgive me.” He looked up, and Genji was shocked to see that Hanzo’s mask of indifference had shattered, his expression one of raw anguish.

“It’s been only three days for me,” Hanzo said.

Genji felt sudden understanding hit him like a blow to the chest. Of course, he thought with sudden, dismal clarity. How could he have been so foolish to have believed that saving Hanzo would as easy as convincing him to join him at Overwatch?

“Before you confronted me,” Hanzo said, his voice low and hoarse, “every night was that night ten years ago. Every day, the memory of it sharp and bright. You ask me to forgive myself, and I will try. It is the least I can do for you. Yes, you stand before me, alive, but so changed… and yet so much like how I remember you.” Hanzo turned away from  him, and a shudder wracked his strong frame. “But when I close my eyes at night, you lie in ruins at my feet and your blood stains my hands. I have lived with this for so long, I do not know how to be free of it. I do not know if I deserve to be free of it.”

“Anija,” Genji whispered. He felt shaken to his core. “I am so sorry.”

Hanzo turned, giving him a weary glare. “You are sorry? I do not recall you owing me any apologies.”

“But I do,” Genji said. “I brought you here thinking that all of this – you being here with me, being part of Overwatch, working together as brothers to do good in the world – that it would fix everything right now. My wounds have long since healed over. I did not consider that your wounds are still fresh after all this time.”

Hanzo was silent a moment, before heaving a deep sigh. “Apparently they are, even more than I realized. For that, I am sorry. I will endeavor to make sure that this will not interfere with my new responsibilities.” He pressed his hand against the door plate, the door to his quarters slid open, and he stepped through. “In the meantime, I would like to get some rest.”

“I didn’t recover by myself,” Genji said softly. “I had help. I had friends. You don’t have to do this alone. I have your back, brother.”

Hanzo turned, but wouldn’t meet his eyes. His face looked weary and haggard, but a small smile tugged the edge of his mouth. “I know. Another debt I owe you. Goodnight, Genji.”

The door slid shut, and Genji stared at it, troubled and frustrated, wishing he knew what to do to help his hurting brother. “I’ll bring you some dinner later,” he called through the door.

“No thank you,” was the low, muffled reply.

Genji frowned, but then an idea struck, and a wicked glint lit his eyes. “Fine,” he said loudly. “I’ll send Jesse over to keep you company later!”

“Don’t you dare!” Hanzo’s reply was still muffled by the door, but much more spirited.

Genji didn’t respond. He just smirked to himself as he turned and headed for the dining hall.

He was going to help Hanzo stop dwelling in the past and start enjoying the present, if he had to do it dragging him kicking and screaming.

A/N: Next time, Hanzo and Jesse have a nice little face-to-face encounter.

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Next chapter should be up in a few days. Yay, free time!

Chapter Text

Hanzo had a plan. The past few days had left him such an emotional wreck, he didn’t even know what to feel any more.  He had experienced many days like this before Genji showed up alive and well, though they were, on the whole, brought on by soul-crushing depression. This, on the other hand, was a whole new type of unpleasant. He felt like he was a rock that someone had tossed down a rocky cliff, leaving him tumbling, helplessly disoriented, each impact against the cliff chipping away at him as he fell.

He had his own private quarters and a sense of relative safety; of not needing to sleep with one eye open in case of an ambush. And so, even though it wasn’t yet seven o’clock in the evening, he planned on getting thoroughly drunk.

Hanzo knew exactly just how much sake he needed to drink tonight. He had a bottle of Wakatake Onikoroshi Tokubetsu Junmai Genshu, also known as “Demon Slayer,” and he still wasn’t sure if he liked it because of its rich, creamy flavor of berries, plums, and cinnamon, or the supremely apt name.

Six cups of this sweet 20% genshu sake, sipped slowly over the course of an hour, would leave him loose and relaxed, and just this side of unconscious. It was enough to allow him to sleep without dreams for at least the first five hours of the night. Drunken sleep was far from ideal, but it was better than the alternative. Still, it could only stave off the inevitable for so long. When the nightmare finally hit, it would be around two or three in the morning, and that would give him plenty of time to sober up completely and be ready for team training at 7 am.

He changed into some comfortable bed clothes – navy sweat pants, and a soft grey cotton t-shirt he had picked up somewhere in Malaysia that depicted Godzilla shredding on a guitar.  He sat cross-legged on his bed, sake cup resting on one knee while he balanced his holo-pad on the other, and read through the dossiers of the other members of Overwatch.

He was deeply relieved to discover that he did not yet have a dossier. As his gradual intake of sake loosened his hold on sobriety, he worked up the nerve to ask Athena about it.

“Given that much of your history is known,” she answered, “your brother thought it important that you be given the opportunity to make your own first impression.” Hanzo nodded, frowning, then paused as another thought occurred to him.

“Athena, are you always in my room?” He found the prospect of being constantly monitored by the AI deeply troubling.

“No, Agent Shimada,” Athena said, sounding almost amused. “I am like any other guest. If you call for me, I am notified, and I will come. When we are finished with our business, I will leave.”

“Ah,” Hanzo said. “That is good to know. You may call me Hanzo if you wish.” He sighed. “I believe it will take me a while to get used to being called agent.”

“Very well, Hanzo.”

Hanzo found that Athena was perfectly agreeable company – there in a moment at his call, gone as soon as his questions were answered. So it wasn’t in complete solitude that he read through each dossier (except for McCree’s, he would read that last, maybe even wait until tomorrow to read it, because who said he had to read everyone’s dossiers in one night? It certainly wasn’t because he thought that doing so might aggravate his already-aggravating fascination with the man). As he read, if some particular detail struck him as interesting, he would ask Athena for more details. Athena seemed happy enough to share anything about the recalled Overwatch members that wasn’t classified, and even found him web articles covering their exploits, allowing him to see the public’s varying perspectives on his new teammates.

A little over an hour after he began his methodical consumption of sake, Hanzo was feeling very relaxed and pleasantly buzzed as he read an old Atlas News article on Tracer’s Slipstream accident, with various scientists chiming in with their theories on what went wrong. Not exactly the stuff of grand adventure, and he wasn’t sure if it was boredom, exhaustion or alcohol that made the words blur before his eyes. He felt sleep tugging heavily at his eyes and limbs. Time to rest, then, in blessed, dreamless, drunken oblivion.

He set his tablet on the bedside table, fumbled with screwing the lid back on the sake bottle before setting it on the floor, and was about to fall back and let his head hit the pillow when there was a knock on the door.

He only knew of one person who had such horrendous timing, and he groaned aloud. “Go away, Genji!”

“Actually,” said a muffled voice on the other side of the door that was definitely not Genji, “it’s Jesse. McCree,” he added, as if unsure if Hanzo remembered him.

Hanzo remembered him. He remembered Jesse McCree plenty, thank you very much, and he also remembered Genji’s parting taunt from earlier, that he would send McCree up to “keep him company.”

Memories flooded Hanzo mind – memories of a much younger, much more reckless and pleasure-seeking Genji sending people to his room to “keep him company.” All such incidents ended with him throwing those people out of the castle, and then giving Genji a stinging lecture about having a modicum of decency, all while Genji laughed at him and told him to loosen up and enjoy himself for once.

Hanzo thought of Jesse McCree standing on the other side of his bedroom door and felt his face flush with fury and embarrassment. He got off the bed and stood, staring indignantly at his door – well, as indignantly as he could as the room dipped and swayed around him, and he realized that he might be a bit more drunk than he realized.

That was not about to stop him from giving the apparently-promiscuous cowboy a piece of his mind.

“Jesse McCree,” he shouted at the closed door, “I do not know what Genji has told you, or what kind of person you think I am, but I am not one to indulge in meaningless physical pleasure with a man just because I find him attractive!”

“Um—” McCree said, but Hanzo cut him off, not willing to hear anything from that smooth, deep voice that might convince him to open the door.

“We’re supposed to be professionals!” He stomped forward, staggering in a rather unprofessional manner. “So you can just take your rugged, handsome face,” he said, gesturing at the door as if McCree could see him, “and those… those shoulders, and, and by the heavens, do you even know what your chest looks like? Those arms? The rippling muscles of your back…” Hanzo trailed off and shook his head, trying unsuccessfully to clear the pleasant buzz – or was it an alarm? – from his mind. “Just take all of that, go away, and leave me in peace!”

There was a long silence on the other side of the door; long enough that Hanzo wondered if McCree had wisely taken his leave.

Then McCree cleared his throat. “So…” he said, his muffled voice slow and stunned. “Genji went into town with Lena for a supply run and asked if I would drop off some dinner for you. Said you weren’t feeling well. So I’m, uh… I’m just gonna leave this tray here by the door, okay?”

Hanzo suddenly, fervently wished that the great Rock of Gibraltar, or rather, the part of the Rock specifically above his quarters, would suddenly crumble and bury him.

Moments passed, and the Rock refused to comply.

Hanzo stared at the closed door, and then, like a man facing execution, plodded unsteadily forward and pushed the button on the wall that let the door slide open.

Jesse McCree was kneeling, setting a tray of food on the floor next to the door. He looked up in surprise, and Hanzo couldn’t help but notice the flush across his cheeks. McCree’s raised brows, wide eyes and cautious expression gave him the look of a man who had been minding his own business and had inadvertently stumbled upon a coiled pit viper in his path.

Hanzo steadied himself against the door frame, hoping he wasn’t being too obvious about needing the support, and looked directly into McCree’s eyes. “Forget everything I just said,” he ordered flatly.

His words seemed to shake McCree from his shock, and his wary expression slowly morphed into one of wry amusement. “Why would I go and do a fool thing like that?” he asked, getting back to his feet. “Those are the nicest things anyone’s said about me in a month of Sundays, and coming from a fine-looking man like you, I can’t help but take ‘em as a compliment.”

McCree, standing at full height, easily had several centimeters on him, and Hanzo found himself looking up instead of down. “Please don’t,” he said, weary and irritable as the alcohol left him feeling dizzy and disoriented. “They are sentiments that should have been left unspoken.”

“Yeah,” McCree said, scrubbing at his beard with one hand. “Nice as it was, this whole business has been… kinda awkward.”

Hanzo thought McCree was severely understating the matter, and would have said so, but McCree continued. “Now, I’m not sure what Genji told you about me, but I assure you, my motives for this visit are pure as the driven snow.” He gestured at the tray of food next to the door.

“Thank you, but I’m not hungry,” Hanzo said, desperately trying for dignity, but feeling like he sounded more like a sullen child.

“No,” McCree said, giving him a narrow, discerning look. “You’re just drunker than a skunk, partner. If it makes you feel any better, I’m not one to hold a man to anything he might say while he’s a good three or four sheets to the wind.”

“A drunk man’s words are a sober man’s thoughts,” Hanzo said. The words came automatically. He seemed to remember someone saying that to him on more than one occasion, and as he repeated them, he felt like he was expounding great wisdom even as the rest of him wondered how quickly he could pass out and escape this embarrassment.

McCree winced, even as he chuckled. “Yeah, you’re just digging that hole deeper, ain’t you. Maybe it’s time for you to sleep that off.”

“I was planning on doing just that, when you showed up,” Hanzo said in his most imperious voice, but the slur in his speech ruined the effect. “You interrupted me.”

McCree huffed a laugh and actually tipped his hat at him. “Well, I beg your pardon for that.”

Hanzo desperately needed this conversation to end, so he let go of the door frame, turned sharply to walk back to his bed, and would have face-planted on the floor with his first step if McCree hadn’t been there to grab his arm and steady him.

“Let go of me,” he growled as McCree guided him toward his bed. “I do not need your help.”

“Uh-huh,” McCree said. As they reached the bed, McCree continued to hold him steady with one arm while throwing back the blankets with the other. The next thing Hanzo knew, he was sitting on the edge of his bed with the covers turned down.

“I’m guessing you can handle it from here,” said McCree, and though Hanzo’s vision was blurring, he could hear the smirk in the cowboy’s voice. He didn’t dignify that with a response, and instead churlishly flopped onto the bed, turning onto his side with his back to McCree.

He didn’t want to fall asleep with McCree still in the room, but the alcohol in his veins was taking that decision out of his hands. Muzzily, he heard the slosh of sake as McCree picked the bottle off the floor. “Onikoroshi,” McCree said, reading the label. “Demon Slayer.” He heaved a heavy sigh, a sound completely bereft of his earlier humor, and there was a slight clink as he set the bottle on the side table. “Know how you feel, friend.”

Then he thought he heard McCree say, “Athena? Keep an eye on him for a few minutes, would you? I’m gonna grab a couple bottles of water and some of Angie’s hangover meds. I’ll be right back.”

“Of course, Jesse,” the AI responded warmly, and then Hanzo’s consciousness flickered out.

As Lena pulled the supply truck up to the loading bay, Genji, sitting in the passenger seat next to her, saw the glowing end of Jesse’s cigar flare in the darkness of the unlit garage. The glow briefly lit Jesse’s scowling face, and Genji knew he was in trouble.

“Uh-oh,” Lena said, catching Jesse in the truck’s headlights just as he blew the smoke out through clenched teeth. “What did you do?”

Genji looked at her, affronted. “What makes you think he’s mad at me?”

“Because I never do anything to piss him off,” Lena said glibly. “Whereas you two have a history of going for each other’s throats.”

Genji looked at her, askance. “That was one time,” he protested.

“At least three times, mate.” Lena ticked them off on her fingers. “One time at the Swiss HQ mess hall, another at a bar in Bangladesh, and yet another right here in the practice simulator.”

Genji stared a moment before spluttering, “How do you even know about the first two times? You weren’t there!”

“Word gets around.” Lena gave him a cheeky grin. “There was even a betting pool on which of you would kill the other one first. You and Jesse broke a lot of hearts when you two worked out your differences and became friends.”

“You’re joking,” Genji said, giving her a flat look. “I would have heard about a betting pool.”

“Nope!” Lena said, opening the truck door and sliding out. “I think you underestimate just how terrifying you two were back then. Anyway, I’m going to go get Reinhardt to help me unload this thing. You should go apologize to Jesse for whatever you did. Ta!” She closed the door and skipped off without another word.

Genji looked over at Jesse, and fought the urge to swallow hard, because, as another pull on the cigar lit the cowboy’s face in the darkness, he could see that the scowl was indeed directed right at him.

Well, whatever he had done, at least he and Jesse were friends now. If this had happened back in his early days at Blackwatch, there would have been real trouble that would have ended with them both in the infirmary.

He well remembered their first two fights at the mess hall and the bar. He couldn’t remember exactly how they started except that Jesse had been provoking him, and back then he was easily provoked. It had infuriated him, how the big, slow, clumsy goof of a cowboy ended up not being either slow, clumsy or goofy when attacked. Genji actually had to work to get past Jesse’s defenses, often at the expense of leaving himself open to a hit. The fights had been broken up by Reyes before any mortal injuries could be inflicted, and Morrison had wanted them both court martialed.

The court martial ended up not happening because both he and Jesse were too valuable to Overwatch and Blackwatch. After the Rialto debacle, Morrison decided that they couldn’t afford to lose two of their best agents, even if they kept trying to kill each other, especially since he still needed Genji’s help to dismantle the Shimada empire.

After the second fight, instead of getting court martialed, Genji and Jesse had bathroom-cleaning duty at separate Watchpoints for a month. That wouldn’t have been so bad, except that some of the rank and file had taken their punishment as permission to leave special messes just for them. Genji couldn’t help but wince at the memory.

It was the third fight in the practice simulator that had finally changed things. It wasn’t even much of a fight. It was more of Jesse talking him down from a violent, bitter rage. He had felt so lost at the time, not knowing who or what he was any more. In his mind, his humanity only existed in bits of flesh and bone wired to machinery. He was little more than a tool, no better than the bots he was sparring against, and he furiously shouted as much as he attacked them with nothing but destruction on his mind. Bots, equipment, computer terminals, the very walls, he slashed at all of them with impunity, wanting to ruin everything the way he was ruined.

Gone was control, gone was form and discipline, gone was his very sanity until Jesse had grabbed his arm, wrenched his sword out of his fingers – something that would not have been possible had he been in his right mind – and slugged him hard across the jaw, sending him sprawling.

Genji came to his senses lying on his back and looking up into the barrel of Peacekeeper. Jesse stood over him, his right eye glinting red. “You listen here, Shimada,” Jesse said, his voice cold and flat. “You ain’t what you used to be, but you ain’t no toaster either. You’re alive. You got a soul. And you know what? Omnics? They got souls too.” He pointed to his red eye. “I know because my Deadeye can’t kill anything that doesn’t have a soul, a shining spark of real life in it. I look at an omnic, I see that light, I can kill it. I look at a human, I can kill it. I look at an animal, I can kill it.”

“Good for you,” Genji said, glaring at Jesse, his jaw aching. “What is your point? Or do you even have one?”

Without taking his eyes off Genji, Jesse tilted his head toward the metal carnage he had unleashed. “Those bots you destroyed? I can’t take them down with anything but my natural skill. I can’t kill bots with my Deadeye. I can’t kill a toaster, or a truck, or an airship. I can’t kill something that’s just a tool or a weapon.”

Jesse raised Peacekeeper until the barrel of the gun was aiming right between Genji’s eyes. “But I can kill you with my Deadeye. You got a light in you so bright, I have to constantly fight against this damned eye’s natural urge to snuff it out. More than that, you got your dragon blazing in you like green fire. You think that dragon would stay with you if you were really any less than what you were before your brother tried to kill you?”

Jesse’s words, spoken with such absolute conviction, had left Genji stunned and speechless. He had stared up at Jesse wordlessly until the cowboy sighed, shook his head, holstered Peacekeeper, and walked out the simulation room.

Genji didn’t want to admit it at first, but that encounter changed him. Jesse, who could ramble on and on without actually saying anything just to fill the silence, and who never talked about his Deadeye, had spoken to him plainly about it for the sole purpose of trying to help him understand himself better. It opened questions in his mind that he had never considered before – questions that would eventually lead him to a certain monastery in Nepal where he would lose any last remnant of prejudice he held against omnics and would learn to accept himself, cyborg parts and all.

They didn’t become best friends right away after that. But Genji stopped giving Jesse the sullen silent treatment, and as the weeks passed, they actually had a few normal conversations. Jesse, apparently taking that as a good sign, relaxed around him, joked with him, and Genji found himself feeling more like his old self – something he hadn’t considered possible before.

A little over a month after the incident in the simulation room, Jesse had invited him to participate in a prank war against other Blackwatch personnel. There was a grim atmosphere permeating the ranks as Blackwatch was slowly exposed to the world by a rabid media, and morale amongst the agents was at an all-time low. So Jesse recruited him to help “lighten things up,” as he put it.

And lighten things up they did. He and Jesse became partners in crime in pranking Blackwatch agents, and many of the agents gleefully retaliated. There was glorious escalation on both sides, and Genji couldn’t remember having so much fun since he was a kid. It was a great game with only one unspoken rule: Don’t put anyone in the hospital.

Of course, there were some agents who disapproved and sneered at their “childish antics,” but Genji didn’t care. The Great Blackwatch Prank War of 2069 gave them something to dwell on other than the rapidly deteriorating relations between Overwatch and the UN. He and Jesse “lightened things up” so much in Blackwatch that Morrison only half-heartedly threatened them with court martial, and Reyes would glare at them whenever he saw them hanging out together. “I liked it better when you hated each other,” he would growl, but there was always just the barest hint of a smile at the corner of his mouth.

Well, they didn’t hate each other then, and they didn’t hate each other now. Genji took comfort in that as he hopped out of the truck, closed the door behind him, and headed over to where Jesse, glowering in the glow of his cigar, waited in the dark garage.

“Yo, Jesse,” Genji said, raising an arm in greeting. “What brings you out here to welcome me back on this fine evening? I thought you and Athena were going to be working on planning tomorrow’s team exercises.”

Jesse stared at him with a narrow-eyed look without saying anything long enough for Genji to really wonder what he could have done to get his friend so irritated. Maybe because he had been waiting so long for Genji to return? The ash at the end of his cigar was a good four centimeters long, with no sign of breaking off.

Finally, Jesse took another pull on his cigar and exhaled a mouthful of smoke. “So. Genji. You care to explain how it is that when I went to drop off some dinner for your brother, he thought I was there for another reason entirely?”

Genji felt completely baffled. Another reason entirely? What could Hanzo have thought that would—

He suddenly remembered his parting words to his brother, and his eyes widened. “Oh no.”

Jesse scowled. “Oh yes.”

Genji couldn’t help it. He laughed.

That did not improve Jesse’s mood in the slightest. “It ain’t funny,” he growled.

“I was joking,” Genji said, trying to swallow his laughter, knowing that Jesse wanted him to take this seriously.

“Clearly Hanzo didn’t get the joke,” Jesse said sourly. “What did you say to him?”

The laughter died in Genji’s throat as he thought about trying to explain how, back before everything went so wrong, he would send high-priced courtesans and prostitutes to Hanzo’s room in an effort to loosen him up a bit because he always worked so hard and never allowed himself to have fun. It never worked because Hanzo turned them all away.

He thought about trying to explain to Jesse that those simple, teasing words of ‘I’ll send Jesse to keep you company’ had inadvertently put Jesse in the role of a prostitute in Hanzo’s mind.

He swallowed. “Uh…” he said eloquently.

But apparently the story, or at least the general gist of it, was written in his face. Jesse groaned, looking like he’d had his worst fears confirmed. “You know what? Never mind.” He sighed. “If I’m lucky, he won’t remember any of it tomorrow. He was pretty wasted.”

Genji frowned. “Wait, he was drunk?”

“Yup,” Jesse said wearily. “Looked like he’d been wrung out of a bartender’s rag. Drinking himself to sleep from the look of things.”

Genji’s brow furrowed in concern. Jesse would know; he did it often enough himself, in spite of Angela’s disapproval, and long-standing offer of sleep-aids. Jesse said the pills made his nightmares worse, so until she came up with some meds that didn’t make him wake up screaming in the night, he’d “rather just pay the price of a hangover, thank you very much.”

Apparently, coming up with a hangover cure was easier and less time-consuming than working through the chemical intricacies of Jesse’s brain. He was shocked when Angela gave him the new medication. “If I can’t help you sleep, and I can’t stop you from drinking,” she had said, “I can at least make sure you don’t have a hangover when you need to work.” Jesse was so touched, he had taken off his hat and held it over his chest with both hands as he thanked her.

Genji sighed. “For what it’s worth,” he said, “I’m truly sorry. I did not mean for Hanzo to take my words in such a way.” He bit his upper lip, wincing. “Though… in retrospect, it’s difficult to see how he could take them any other way.” He sighed. “I will apologize to him tomorrow.”

Jesse nodded. “You do that.”

It looked like he was about to say something else, but at that moment there was a loud click, and all the lights in the garage flooded on. Jesse winced, but Genji’s eyes immediately adjusted to see that Lena and Reinhardt were looking at them as they headed toward the truck.

“Ah,” Reinhardt said cheerfully. “You boys are not fighting. Good, good! You can help us with the unloading then!”

“I’m afraid I’m gonna have to bow out on the unloading,” Jesse said, tipping his hat. “I got a date with Athena. But Genji here can help enough for both of us!” Jesse clapped Genji on the back hard enough to make him stumble forward a step. Genji gave him a half-hearted glare, and Jesse gave him a lazy smile.

“Ah, yes, you must plan for tomorrow’s training,” Reinhardt said. “Go then, we will take care of things here.”

Before Genji could protest, Lena blipped next to him and took his arm. “Come on, mate, you can’t just do the shopping and skip out on the rest,” she said, altogether too chipper as she dragged him toward the truck. Then she leaned toward him conspiratorially and whispered, “You and Jesse are still friends, right?”

“Yes,” Genji said, glancing back and smiling a little as Jesse disappeared through the Watchpoint’s main entrance. “Still friends.”

The nightmare that woke Hanzo from sleep was right on schedule. He came awake lying on his back, gasping, heart thudding in his chest, his head pounding in sympathetic rhythm. He rolled onto his side with a moan and saw that the time, floating in green numbers above his holopad on the bedside table, read 0227.

He stared at it, unmoving, the nightmare still roiling in his mind.

His nightmare rarely changed. The details often differed, but they were always variations on the same theme. Genji, lying shredded, bloody and broken at his feet. His own hands held out in front of him, stained scarlet and dripping. Sometimes Genji’s eyes were closed, sometimes they were open, staring and accusing even as the light within faded. Sometimes the sword was still in his hands. Sometimes his clan surrounded the two of them in a tight circle, cheering, clapping, congratulating him on following through with his duty all while he tore at his hair and screamed and screamed.

Tonight’s nightmare had been different.

Genji still laid at his feet, dead and broken, but Hanzo’s hands were clean. On the other side of Genji’s body, McCree knelt. He was in a full cowboy get-up, including a strange, bright red blanket draped around his shoulders. His arms were outstretched as if he wished he could take Genji’s body in his arms, but didn’t dare.

Then he looked up at Hanzo, his expression devastated, mournful, pleading. His right eye – his Deadeye – was a solid, burning spark of red, and weeping blood down his cheek.

And, in the way of dream logic, Hanzo understood that McCree had killed Genji.

McCree had killed Genji, and yet, somehow, it was still Hanzo’s fault. The guilt was all his own.

It made no sense. It was unsettling. He hated his usual nightmare, but he knew where it came from. He understood how the pain of his guilt clawed its way into his dreams and manifested in all those variations on a theme.

This… he had no idea where the hell this came from.

Well, it hardly mattered. A nightmare was a nightmare was a nightmare, and he would deal with it the way he always did.

He groped unsteadily for the lamp on the bedside table, wincing when the light came on. He squinted his eyes shut, waiting for the spikes of pain in his eyes to fade to manageable levels, then carefully levered himself into a sitting position. His stomach lurched, his head swam, and he kept his eyes closed and held very still until both sensations settled to bearable levels.

Water was first on the agenda. Get hydrated and take something for the headache. Shower, then food if he could stomach it.

Bracing himself, he opened his eyes and noticed that there was something on the bedside table that he couldn’t remember putting there. Two large bottles of water sat on top of a folded sheet of paper, upon which his name was written in English. Along side the paper was a square of folded wax paper that held two capsules of a medicine he had never seen before. Grabbing the folded square, he tipped the pills into his hand, and saw that the capsules contained a strange, goldish liquid.

Frowning, he moved the water and unfolded the paper. Inside was a note from Jesse McCree.

The memories of his last few minutes of drunken consciousness flooded back to him.

He knew from experience that grief and guilt could not kill him, but now he wondered if it was possible to die of pure mortification. Well, at least he now had an idea of why McCree had invaded his usual nightmare.

By all the gods in all the heavens, had he actually said those things to McCree? How was he ever going to look the man in the face ever again?

Hanzo held his head in both hands for a good long while, his fingers pressing against his aching temples, before he could bring himself to read the note.

McCree had surprisingly neat handwriting. He didn’t use cursive, but instead wrote in small all-caps print.

            Hanzo,                                                                                                                                      

Here’s some water for your hangover. The gold pills are Dr. Zeigler’s special hangover remedy.
There’s nanites involved, not sure how they work, but they take care of the headache, dizziness
and nausea right quick. Once they fix you up, your body will get rid of the nanites naturally,
but the side effect is that your piss will be neon orange for about a day.

Take the pills as soon as you wake up and you’ll be feeling right as rain in no time.

Genji’s been boasting about your sniper skills for weeks now. Looking forward to seeing
how you measure up. Team exercises start at 0700 sharp. See you then.

Jesse McCree                                                                                                                      

Hanzo read it twice to make sure he hadn’t missed anything. There wasn’t much he could glean from a written note, but there didn’t seem to be any derision or condescension in McCree’s words. The cowboy wasn’t taking the opportunity to joke at his expense; in fact, his straight-forward tone seemed designed to spare Hanzo further embarrassment.

He eyed the pills sitting in his palm suspiciously. A hangover cure? Dr. Zeigler didn’t seem like the type to create something so convenient for such a bad health habit as regularly getting smashed. He looked at the pills long enough that his natural paranoia started to kick in, and he began to imagine that they were poisoned or drugged. That all of this – Genji bringing him to Overwatch – was just a farce to get him here, incapacitate him, and then Genji could take slow, sure vengeance…

He was being ridiculous, and he knew it. Before his imagination could conjure up another ludicrous scenario, he swallowed the pills and washed them down with over half of one of the bottles of water. By the time he had answered the call of nature and had showered away the alcohol sweat, the hangover was almost completely gone. By the time he had dressed in loose robe and combed the tangles out of his wet hair, he felt, as McCree had said, “right as rain.”

So here he was, hangover-free, standing in the middle of his room at a little after 3 a.m. wide awake with four hours to kill before he had to present himself at team practice. He knew exactly what he wanted to do.

Sitting down on his bed, leaning against the backboard, he picked up his holopad and looked up Jesse McCree’s dossier.

It was disappointingly brief. McCree had been part of the Deadlock gang and was seventeen years old when he was arrested during the Overwatch operation that finally killed Deadlock leader Earl Cooper.

Hanzo frowned. He had never met the infamous Earl Cooper, but his father had, and the stories he told of the man were mingled with admiration and disgust. Apparently, when Cooper had taken over leadership of the then-unknown Deadlock biker gang, he had grand plans – plans that included following in Pablo Escobar’s footsteps and becoming an international crime lord specializing in drugs and arms dealing.

At the beginning of Earl Cooper’s climb to power, his main tools had been blackmail, bribes, murder, and buying the love of the people. He blackmailed anyone he couldn’t bribe, murdered anyone who tried to get in his way, and poured money into building homes and infrastructure into poor desert communities, providing jobs, and boosting the local economy. Soon local governments were in his pocket, then governors, all the way up to the US Senate.

As far as other gangs in the southern States and northern Mexico, Deadlock either absorbed them into itself, or destroyed them. All except Los Muertos, which was a powerful-enough entity to hold its own against Deadlock’s ever-growing influence. Some of the skirmishes between the two gangs were legendary.

The real turning point for Deadlock came when Earl Cooper invented a weapon of mass destruction – some sort of fast-acting bio-weapon that killed instantly upon contact. Then the real massacres started. Humans and omnics alike were slaughtered en masse at rallies protesting against him until the rallies stopped happening. Lesser gangs that didn’t fall into line were wiped out. A contingent of the US National Guard was destroyed when they laid siege to Cooper’s luxury compound.

Finally, Overwatch intervened. They stormed Deadlock Gorge and destroyed the heart of the gang, killing hundreds of gang members – including Earl Cooper. Hanzo remembered his father scoffing at the news, and saying that perhaps Mr. Cooper should have chosen a role model who didn’t end his career by being gunned down by international law enforcement.

Jesse McCree was not among those killed during the operation, and because of his youth, he was given the choice of life in a maximum-security prison without parole, or working for Blackwatch. McCree chose Blackwatch, and that was that.

No mention of his family, no story of his past; of why he joined Deadlock in the first place. Hanzo began to suspect that McCree was probably just one more war orphan that joined a gang because he had nowhere else to go.

Sighing in frustration over the lack of information the dossier provided, Hanzo turned to the internet.  Top search results informed him that McCree’s bounty was now at an even sixty million dollars, and he was wanted for… well, it was easier to list the things he wasn’t wanted for. There were plenty of articles debating whether or not McCree was a hero or villain, vigilante or criminal; whether his work in Overwatch balanced out any crimes he might have committed as a member of Deadlock.

Hanzo started to notice a pattern with opinion pieces written by one Joel Morricone, who often effervescently praised McCree’s actions in defending the defenseless – including an incident at his favorite ramen shop in Hanamura – and he couldn’t help but eye Mr. Morricone’s initials suspiciously.

The deeper he dove into the search results, the more he started to find articles about McCree that were… strange, to say the least. There were several conspiracy websites that claimed that he was one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. No one seemed to be able to agree on which horseman he was, though the majority seemed to favor Death. Some argued against that theory, saying that no one had ever actually seen McCree riding a pale horse, but the rebuttal was that the horse was a metaphor. Someone had seen him ride a black motorcycle once, so he could be Famine, they reasoned. Others said that Famine didn’t fit his persona, and besides, the motorcycle had lots of red flames painted on it, so he could be War. And what about the red serape he was often seen wearing? See? That proves he’s War.

And so on, ad nauseum.

The more Hanzo looked, the more outrageous the headlines seemed to get, and the less hope he had of finding anything actually informative.

Jesse McCree’s Deadeye is a Cybernetic Gift from Aliens to Fight Omnics
Details inside!

Breaking! Jesse “Deadeye” McCree Robs Train, Loses Payload!
Has the Infamous Outlaw Lost His Touch?

Former Overwatch Hero Jesse McCree a Pyrokinetic Responsible for Warehouse Fire?
“He was looking right at it when it exploded and burst into flames!” witness says.

There were pages upon pages of similar results. Hanzo groaned, and was about to give up on finding anything useful or true about McCree when another strange search result caught his eye.

Jesse “Deadeye” McCree Secrets Exposed!
WHAT IS THE DEADEYE?
Exclusive Interviews with Former Deadlock Captain Mateo Velazquez, and
Jesse McCree’s Own Navajo Great-Grandmother Reveal All!
Don’t miss our next issue!

Hanzo stared at the headline for a moment. This one search result had just given him more personal information about McCree than any article he had read thus far – McCree’s great-grandmother was Navajo, and she agreed to be interviewed about him. It was his most promising lead so far.

The website was called The Roswell Nexus, which was already a bad sign. It was just another conspiracy website filled with stories about UFO sightings, ghosts, and Bigfoot, and the page he’d pulled up was from the archives, with the publishing date listed as June 23^rd, 2067, Issue Number 875. Nine years ago. The main story was about how Skinwalkers had been seen several nights in a row in Borrego Pass along Navajo Service Road 48, and that travelers should take appropriate precautions.

The headline that he had touched was at the very bottom of the page, promising the story in the next issue, so he touched the link.

He was brought to The Roswell Nexus, July 11^th, 2067, Issue Number 877.

Frowning, he touched the “Previous Issue” link, and was brought right back to Issue 875 and the Skinwalker story. He tried again, this time going right into the web address and changing the 875 to 876. He was immediately redirected to Issue 877.

What sort of nonsense was this? He finally finds an article that seems like it might actually hold some interesting information, and the website keeps skipping over it?

“Athena?” he said.

There was a pause, then a soft chime announcing her presence. “Yes, Hanzo?”

“I’ve encountered a frustrating dilemma. I’m looking for The Roswell Nexus, Issue 876, and the website keeps skipping over it, taking me to the issues before and after. Would you scan the website and see if you can find it?”

“Very well,” Athena said. Then, after a moment, she said, “I’m sorry, Hanzo, but that issue does not appear anywhere on their website or their servers.”

“Perhaps there is a copy of it, somewhere else?” he asked. “Maybe a screen shot in a forum? Stashed away in some internet archive?”

“One moment, please.” Athena’s silence was several minutes longer, but still faster than Hanzo thought would be possible for her to scan through the entire internet. “I can find no trace of the file you are looking for,” she said at last, actually sounding puzzled. “Perhaps it was never posted at all.”

Hanzo had suspected as much, but it was still disappointing to hear. “Thank you for checking, Athena. I’m sorry to bother you.”

“It’s no problem,” she said. “Goodnight.” A soft chime sounded again, telling him Athena had left his room.

Hanzo wasn’t quite ready to give up. The very mystery of the absence of the one article he actually wanted to read made him press on. He went to The Roswell Nexus home page and found the contact information. All that was listed was a post office box in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and a phone number. Santa Fe was eight hours behind Gibraltar, so if it was 0432 here, then it would be 8:32 p.m. there. Still within reasonable hours to receive phone calls.

He reached for his phone, then hesitated.

Why was he doing this?

Yes, he had looked up articles on the other Overwatch members to learn more about them, with the hope that, with that knowledge, he could be a better teammate. And he had also found several strange conspiracy articles about them, especially about Winston and Tracer – mostly uncreative drivel about time travel and moon aliens. But why was he going to such lengths to track down an article about McCree that might not even exist?

If he was going to do this, he at least wanted to be honest with himself. Too many times over the past ten years, he had ignored his own motives, acting on impulse instead of taking a moment to self-reflect and question why.

So why was he doing this?

Because McCree was a mystery. Dangerous, beautiful, and completely baffling. McCree knew the worst things he had ever done, and yet seemed open and affable. McCree had responded to his humiliating, drunken confession by helping him to bed and leaving him water, a miracle hangover cure, and a friendly note. What kind of man did that?

He didn’t know, because, while McCree knew all about Hanzo, thanks to Genji, Hanzo still knew next to nothing about McCree. He didn’t know how McCree felt about the things he had said while drunk. He didn’t know if McCree was inwardly disgusted at his open declaration of attraction, and was just an expert at putting up a friendly façade, or if he was amused, maybe even flattered, but completely straight and uninterested.

And what was Hanzo supposed to do about it? He couldn’t exactly walk up to the man and say, “Hello, tell me about yourself because I’d like to know more.” After what had happened tonight? How could McCree take it, or anything like it, as anything but a pathetic attempt at flirting?

That was why he was doing this, he thought as he picked up his phone and put in the Santa Fe phone number. He wanted to read this article that claimed to know McCree’s secrets. He wanted to read what McCree’s great-grandmother had to say about his childhood – if he had grown up on the reservation; if he had always wanted to be a cowboy. What had happened to his parents. Why he ended up in Deadlock.

He wanted to know something about this man who already knew all of his deepest, darkest secrets.

He pressed the call button.

The phone rang three times before a man answered. “Dufresne,” he said.

“Mr. Dufresne?” Hanzo said. “I’m calling to speak to someone about the online magazine, The Roswell Nexus.”

“Well, you’ve called the right place. I’m the editor. What can I help you with? Do you got a good story we could run?”

“No, nothing like that. I’m having difficulty finding something in your archives—”

“Dag-nabbit, is the server down again? I swear, the server that holds the archives seems to go down every other day. Maybe if I had a competent IT guy, this wouldn’t happen!” Dufresne said, clearly turning to speak to someone else in the room with him.

“Aw, Uncle Charlie, don’t be like that.” Hanzo heard the other voice, distant and a little muffled. “The server’s up, I just checked it a few minutes ago.”

“Great, now if you could just keep it up for more than a few hours at a time, that would be magnificent!”

“Ain’t my fault you won’t invest in a decent cooling system to keep everything from overheating! Every time the temp goes over a hundred degrees outside, it’s gonna go down, I keep telling you!”

“Why, you ungrateful—”

Hanzo cleared his throat to get Dufresne’s attention. “Excuse me,” he said. “The archives are not down. There is an issue of the magazine that seems to be missing, and I am very interested in reading it.”

Dufresne went silent for a moment. “What issue?” he said, and there was a sudden coldness in his voice.

Hanzo’s eyes narrowed. “Issue 876,” he said carefully. “I can’t seem to find it anywhere.”

“And you won’t find it,” Dufresne snapped. “That damn issue caused more trouble than we’ve ever seen, even more than when we published that Vishkar-Illuminati exposé.”

“What kind of trouble?” Hanzo asked. This was turning out to be far stranger than he expected.

“The government kind of trouble, that’s what,” Dufresne said. “That issue wasn’t up more than five hours before some huge, muscled man-in-black guy showed up, confiscated Gina’s computer, notes, her recorder – scared her half to death doing it – ransacked our paper files, took our flash drives, and scrubbed the file off our servers.”

Hanzo blinked. A sinking feeling filled his stomach. “So… the government came and destroyed any trace of the file?”

“That’s right.”

“Which government?”

“Whaddya mean, ‘which government?’ There’s only one government, and that’s the New World Order.”

Hanzo somehow managed to suppress a sigh. “Of course.”

“And that ain’t even the half of it,” Dufresne continued. “The very next day, the Deadlock captain that Gina interviewed at the prison? He was found dead in his cell, his head nearly twisted right off his neck! No sign of anyone going in or out, nothing on the security feeds. That scared poor Gina something fierce, I tell you. She thought for sure she’d gotten that sweet old Navajo lady killed too, but she was fine. Nothing and no one ever bothered her, far as I know.”

Hanzo’s mind was racing. Even as Dufresne rambled on, he was looking up Deadlock captain Mateo Velazquez and finding the reports of his mysterious death in New Mexico’s maximum-security prison on July 4, 2067, the day after issue 876 was published – and then apparently scrubbed.

This mystery was turning into a full-blown white-rabbit hole. “So, there is no copy of this issue anywhere,” he said. “Not even a print-out?”

“Like I said, the man-in-black ransacked our paper files,” Dufresne said. “If there any chance a copy still exists somewhere, it would be with Gina, but you won’t ever find her. After that whole mess, she took off, changed her name, and went underground. Haven’t seen her in… going on nine years now. And she was my best reporter.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Hanzo said, and he truly was. This cursed article that he wanted to read so much seemed to be slipping farther out of his reach with every second that passed.

“Yeah, well, that’s the risk we take as reporters devoted to uncovering the truth,” Dufresne said, sounding put-upon and weary.

“Indeed,” Hanzo said. “Well, thank you for your time, Mr. Dufresne. I appreciate you answering my questions.”

He hung up before the man could respond.

Who would be so outraged over an article about Jesse McCree’s secrets that they would go to such lengths to see it destroyed within hours of it being posted? A man in black. Blackwatch?

Surely not McCree himself; he would have been recognized.

He pulled up the archives of The Roswell Nexus again, checked the bylines of issues pre-dating July of 2067, and found several articles by one Gina Rodriguez.

He looked at the clock. 0457. Three hours until he needed to be at team practice.

He got dressed, complete with Storm Bow slung across his back, and left his room, heading toward the Watchpoint’s entrance.

“Athena?” he said.

“Yes, Hanzo?”

“If anyone comes looking for me, please inform them that I have gone for a walk to enjoy the night air. My room was feeling a little stuffy. I will be back in time for team practice.”

“I will do that. Enjoy your walk, Hanzo.”

“Thank you.”

Once outside, he headed for the east side of the Rock, and quickly scaled down the jagged, vertical cliff face. He walked south along the beach for about a mile until he reached Sandy Beach. There he stopped, pulled out a phone, then opened it up and inserted the power source. Once the phone was on, he made the call.

Sombra picked up on the first ring. “Hanzo, mi amigo, calling me so soon? You’ve only been at Overwatch for a day. Don’t tell me you’ve gotten bored of it already. Or did they get tired of you?”

Hanzo ignored the jab. “I need you to find someone,” he said without preamble.

“Oh, I see, you need another favor. You still owe me for the last one, you know.”

“Then I will owe you two."

He could practically hear her smirk. “Hm. Okay, who am I looking for?”

“Her name was Gina Rodriguez. She worked for a conspiracy website out of Santa Fe called The Roswell Nexus. She stirred up some trouble, so she ran, changed her name, and disappeared back in July of 2067.”

There was silence for a moment. Then Sombra chuckled. “Jesse ‘Deadeye’ McCree Secrets Exposed! Oh, Hanzo, don’t tell me you want me to hunt this girl down just because you want to read a schlocky article about the cowboy!”

“Will you do it or not?” Hanzo growled, and Sombra laughed in delight.

“Of course, mi amigo! What are friends for? Besides, I’ve been looking at some interesting upgrade possibilities, but they are a wee bit expensive…”

“I will pay for them, of course,” Hanzo said flatly.

“Ah, gracias, my friend, gracias!”

“When you find her, leave me a message. I will check this phone every day.” Before she could respond, he hung up, opened the phone, and removed the power source, rendering it inert.

The waves against the beach were gentle and soothing. Hanzo looked beyond them to the Mediterranean, still and black and deep, and wondered what the hell he had just done.

Chapter Text

It was just after midnight when Jesse McCree finally made it back to his room after wrapping up the plans for the morning team exercises with Athena.

There was a ghost waiting for him.

He felt it as soon as he walked through the door and it slid shut behind him. A deep, unnatural cold chilled the air of his room and raised the hair on his arms in gooseflesh. There was a sudden, suffocating pressure against his lungs, making it difficult to draw breath, and a feeling of creeping dread that trickled up his spine.

Jesse scowled, clenching his teeth against an urge to chatter, and surveyed his room in an instant. The ghost wasn’t hard to find. It had fully manifested, and in doing so, had sucked away both heat and light. The corner of his room near the closet was preternaturally dark, deeply shadowed in an otherwise well-lit room. Within the darkness, a tall, void-black humanoid figure stood facing him.

“Huh,” Jesse said, glaring at the figure through narrowed eyes. His fingers twitched and, had Peacekeeper’s holster been strapped to his body, he would have had a hard time suppressing the desire to draw and shoot. Unfortunately, bullets wouldn’t make this particular unwelcome visitor go away. Nor would his Deadeye, which, ironically, only worked against the living.

“So who the hell are you supposed to be?” he asked, not expecting an answer. The few spirits he had encountered in the distant past had barely acknowledged him before fading from sight.

But this thing… it hated him. That was obvious in the way that the heavy, frigid air practically crackled with negative emotion. It was chʼį́įdii, the spirit of a dead human, and two prime candidates of who it might be came to mind. The thought that this spectral manifestation of hostility might be either of them made his stomach twist.

Then the dark figure reached a hand toward him, grasping in his direction. Alarmed, Jesse felt his strength seep out of him, sudden weakness leaving him dizzy and making his limbs feel too heavy.

“Oh, hell no,” Jesse snarled, nearly staggering. “You ain’t inflicting me with no ghost sickness, bastard.” His legs wanted to fold under him, but he forced himself to stay upright as he reached under his shirt to pull out his medicine bag.

The medicine bag was small and soft, made from tanned elk skin, and it hung from a leather thong around his neck. He didn’t always wear it. More often than not, he left it in his sock drawer – a fact that would have horrified his great-grandma, were she still alive, since she taught him to always have it on his person. But he usually only wore it when things were particularly rough; when life threw him an unexpected curve ball that he didn’t quite know how to handle.

Like Ana Amari showing up at the Watchpoint, alive and well and most definitely not dead, after he’d mourned her like she was family. Or Genji running off to Japan to try and recruit the infamous brother who tried to kill him.

Now, as this damn ghost tried to drain the life from him, he was grateful that his troubled feelings over Ana and Genji had made him reach for the fortification of his medicine bag this past week, because if it had been sitting in his sock drawer instead of hanging around his neck, he would have been completely screwed.

The medicine bag held his personal items of power and protection. A sprig of white sage. The toe bone of a small dog. A smooth piece of bright blue turquoise from the Cerrillos mine that originally belonged to his Grandma Sadie. A bullet from the first gun he ever owned. And, liberally coating the inside of the bag, tádídíín – corn pollen gathered just for him by Gigi, his great-grandma.

The ghost made a wrenching motion at him, clenching its hand in a fist, and Jesse felt his heart stutter inside his chest. Quickly, hands shaking as he spread the pouch opening with thumb and forefinger, he dipped his forefinger into the corn pollen. He touched the pollen to his head, then tongue, then gestured east, south, west and north to honor the four sacred directional mountains, sprinkling a touch of the pollen at each point.

Immediately he felt the suffocating pressure ease. His strength returned, and with it came a rush of fury at this thing that sought to subdue him.

The dark figure stopped reaching for him and seemed to shrink back, as if surprised.

Jesse smiled mirthlessly, straightened, and stepped toward it, staring into the void of its featureless face. “Leave now,” he said, his voice low and dangerous, “or I’ll make you leave, and trust me, you won’t like what that entails.”

Moments passed, and Jesse felt the dark thing push against his protections, no doubt searching for weakness. He grit his teeth and prayed that they held long enough for the apparition to fall for his bluff.

He was no medicine man. Hell, he was only one quarter Diné on his daddy’s side, with his daddy being half Mexican, and his momma being one of the whitest white women he’d ever seen. If this shadow creature decided to stick around and torment him, there wouldn’t be much he could do about it.

That is, unless he could somehow get back to the rez and contact a real Hatałii who could perform an Enemy Way ceremony to banish the dark spirit for good. But the ceremony would take days to complete, and the odds of him getting it done without putting the Hatałii, and anyone else who might help him, in danger for just associating with him, were pretty damn low.

And what would he tell the others? He’d only been here at the Watchpoint for a couple of weeks after busting his ass just to get here from the States and answer the recall. He could just imagine telling Winston, Lena and Genji that, sorry, he had to disappear for a while because he was being haunted by some dead thing with a vendetta.

It wasn’t that he thought they wouldn’t believe him. Overwatch had seen its share of weird crap over the years. What was a vengeful ghost against a hyper-intelligent scientist gorilla, a time-displaced test pilot, and a cyborg ninja with an ancient spirit dragon?

But he didn’t want to have to leave them so soon after committing to be part of the new fa—the new team.

So he stared unblinking into the black void of the creature’s face, daring it to take him on, praying that it wouldn’t.

It vanished before his eyes. A moment later, the unnatural shadows dissipated, and the cruel, cold bite in the air faded.

Jesse stood, tense and alert, waiting for some last trick, but the minutes passed and it didn’t return. He let out a slow, deep breath, forcing the muscles in his back and shoulders to relax.

“Athena?” he called.

There was a soft chime, and she answered. “Yes, Jesse?”

“You mind scanning my room for any anomalies? I, uh, want to check something.”

A moment passed, and then Athena said, “Your room temperature has dropped from twenty-two degrees Celsius, to eight degrees Celsius, and yet I cannot find anything wrong with the temperature control for your room that would account for the drastic drop in temperature.” She sounded almost thoughtful. “You knew I would find this anomaly,” she said. “Do you know the cause?”

“A ghost,” Jesse said, matter-of-factly.

“A ghost?” Athena said. “Are you speaking metaphorically?”

“Nope.” Jesse sank down onto the edge of his bed with a sigh and shucked off his boots. “A ghost, as in the spiritual remains of a dead person. Someone from my past, come to haunt me, I guess. Got rid of it for now, but I’d be much obliged if you could monitor my room and let me know if any other, uh, temperature anomalies show up.”

“Fascinating,” said Athena, and Jesse could hear a hint of awe in her synthetic voice. “Would you like me to increase the heat in your room until the temperature normalizes?”

“That would be great, Athena,” Jesse said. He smiled as the room immediately began to warm. “You’re a peach.” He briefly considered hitting the shower before attempting to sleep, but something in him balked at the idea of being naked and vulnerable so soon after his little supernatural encounter.

Instead, without turning off the lights, he climbed under his blankets still wearing his jeans, t-shirt and flannel. He put his hat in its usual spot on the bedside table. As he sank down into the sheets, his medicine bag rested over his heart, and he clutched at it, staring at the ceiling.

He immediately knew that sleep wasn’t coming. Hell, sleep wasn’t anywhere near him. Probably wasn’t even in the same country.

A ghost. An actual, freaking chʼį́įdii, in his room, just waiting for him. What the ever-loving hell. Though… to be frank, he’d been expecting to encounter one a lot sooner, considering his past.

Why now? Why today? Ana’s unexpected return from the dead earlier that week had already thrown him off kilter. And then he had prepared himself to chase Genji all the way to Japan and avenge him if his brother even looked at him wrong…

Genji’s brother, Hanzo Shimada.

Hot damn, Hanzo Shimada.

Jesse closed his eyes and groaned. Now there was a whole new tangle of confusion that he couldn’t cope with at the moment, so he pushed those thoughts away. With immense difficulty.

He was so tired, but he couldn’t turn off his brain. Ana Amari, alive and well. Genji leaving on a possible suicide mission, then coming back with his unreasonably hot, and surprisingly repentant, brother.

Wow. His thoughts had taken all of four seconds to cycle right back to Hanzo It-should-be-illegal-for-a-man-to-be-that-beautiful Shimada. No, Jesse thought. Bad brain. Think of something else. Anything else.

But his brain wasn’t having it, and he realized he needed to turn Hanzo – turn the complication of Hanzo Shimada, over in his mind.

First, there was the whole “killing his brother,” thing, and even though Genji had pleaded with him to keep an open mind, for the longest time the only things Jesse could think of in association with the name Hanzo were the months of agonizing surgeries Genji had experienced to cybernetically piece him back together because of Hanzo’s handiwork, and the bitter hatred he had seen in those glowing red eyes whenever Hanzo’s name crossed his lips.

Now, though, Genji spoke Hanzo’s name with warmth and hope, and Jesse was having difficulty switching mental gears in regards to his friend’s brother.

Meeting Hanzo in person for the first time that very morning had not helped things. First, Genji had interrupted his workout to introduce him to his brother, and boy howdy, he just loved meeting new people when he was all sweaty, smelly, and gross. He had made some poor first impressions in his time, but this undoubtedly took the cake.

Genji had also told Jesse about Hanzo’s dragons, and Jesse thought he knew what to expect because he was so used to seeing Genji’s dragon light him up from within like green fire, whenever he used his eye to see such things.

But he could only look at Hanzo’s dragons for a moment, because they shone like blazing blue stars under Hanzo’s skin, and they were scrutinizing him, and Jesse could admit, that was pretty damn unsettling.

Hanzo himself looked like a prince, and the cold, imperious gaze he turned on Jesse only reinforced the impression.

But then, icy expression notwithstanding, Hanzo had given him permission to call him by his given name, which puzzled Jesse, considering how intimate a thing that was in Japanese culture.

Then Hanzo gave Jesse the world’s briefest handshake, snatching his hand away like he had been burned the moment they touched, then turned on his heel and left, leaving him and Genji staring after him before Genji hastily apologized and raced after his brother.

Jesse had gone back to his workout, but the only thought that spun through his head for the next hour or so was, What the hell was that?

If that was how it was gonna be, two could play that game, he had thought. Hanzo wanted to treat him like some impertinent peasant, well, he’d give as good as he got. By the time the conference rolled around that afternoon, Jesse had himself good and prepared to be cool as a cucumber when it came to dealing with the elder Shimada.

Then, Hanzo had to stand up and give a sincere, heart-felt, and strikingly humble speech about Genji’s unconditional forgiveness, and his personal quest for redemption. The effort of baring his soul to this group of virtual strangers showed in the pallor of his skin and the trembling in his hands.

Jesse, leaning against the wall and watching everything from beneath the shadowed brim of his hat, couldn’t help but be moved by Hanzo’s words. That had obviously not been easy, and yet Hanzo had expressed himself without hesitation. That took a rare kind of bravery, and Jesse found himself internally echoing Reinhardt and Torbjörn’s expressions of support and welcome, even if the guy didn’t seem to like him in particular. But that was okay. He could deal with Hanzo not liking him, as long as he was good to Genji.

As Winston moved on with the meeting and everyone’s attention, including Hanzo’s, was on the screen showing the dossiers of the new recruits, Jesse, suddenly more curious than ever, decided to take another look at the dragons.

With Hanzo and Genji sitting next to each other, he could see all three dragons at once. Genji’s dragon was paying attention to the screen, just like everyone else.

Hanzo’s dragons were staring right at him, bright, unmoving, and intent.

Startled, but trying not to show it, Jesse had shifted against the wall and pushed his hat down more over his eyes.

That was seriously creepy. Why, out of everyone in the room, were the dragons staring at him? He hadn’t done something to offend them, had he? Maybe he had. Maybe that was why Hanzo had been so eager to get away from him.

And then, Morrison had to go and throw him a curve ball by asking him to teach Blackwatch tactics to Overwatch. He agreed readily, of course, because Talon wasn’t playing by any rules, and they were going to have to fight fire with fire.

But he had always gotten the impression that Jack had never fully trusted him. Huh. Maybe his days as a vigilante had given him a new perspective on things. Jesse decided not to read too much into it.

The rest of the day should have gone smoothly. He was going to have dinner with the group, then confer with Athena for the rest of the evening on the team exercises scheduled for 0700 the next morning.

Then Genji asked him to take a dinner tray to Hanzo’s room, and everything pretty much went to hell.

Jesse felt his face heat again as he thought about how Hanzo had drunkenly praised his, uh… physical attributes… all while simultaneously rebuking him for coming to his room expecting, as Hanzo put it, “to indulge in meaningless physical pleasure.”

Jesse had stood in the hallway, holding a dinner tray, staring at Hanzo’s closed door, feeling more confused and embarrassed than he could ever recall being in his entire life.

But at least now he understood that Hanzo… didn’t hate him?

Or maybe Hanzo did hate him, precisely because he found Jesse attractive? He had seemed pretty much against anything that went against “professionalism,” though it had been hard to take him seriously with the way he was barely standing upright, glaring at him blearily when he finally opened the door. Jesse would have bet anything that if he held up one finger, Hanzo would have counted at least three.

Then, when he had tried to reassure the completely-wasted man that, while he was flattered, he wouldn’t hold a drunken man’s words against him, Hanzo had stubbornly insisted that a “drunken man’s words were a sober man’s thoughts.”

Okay.

Jesse was fine. He was fine. He was not letting those words, and all their implications, spin endlessly in his head on repeat.

Well, at least he had managed to get Hanzo to lie down so he could sleep it off, and had left him with a note, some water, and some of Angie’s special hangover meds.

Jesse blinked. Shit. He had left a note. Why in the hell had he left a note? The water and the meds were self-explanatory. A note was completely unnecessary! What had he written in it? He couldn’t even remember.

He was only trying to be helpful, but what if he came across as too flirty? Or worse, too needy? What would Hanzo think when he read it?

Dear lord, he had to work with this man. He could have handled it before… that. Now he was having thoughts that were anything but professional. And it was all Hanzo’s fault.

He had tried to plan the team exercises with Athena afterward, but, to his immense frustration, he was having a hard time focusing. Finally, he had suggested that they spend the first team exercise just doing individual scenarios so that everyone could watch each other and familiarize, or re-familiarize themselves with each other’s fighting styles. Athena had agreed, and had promised to get things ready for them.

He thought about going out into the night air and pouring himself a shot of whiskey or two, to ease himself into sleep. Then he thought, a drunk man’s words are a sober man’s thoughts, and changed his mind.

And that was how he walked back to his room, completely, depressingly sober, and entered to find himself face to face with an angry ghost.

What the hell was his life, he wondered, not for the first time.

He needed to tackle his issues, hit them face-on, get them resolved so that they wouldn’t spin endlessly in his head like this, keeping him awake and unfocused.

He needed to talk to Ana. He needed to do something to close the rift between them, but before he could do that, he had to figure out how to forgive her for…

For what? Surviving? Not being dead after he had struggled so hard to come to peace with his loss?

He sighed. Stared at the ceiling, all too visible with the lights still on.

Now, Jack Morrison being alive hadn’t surprised him. He had recognized the former strike commander’s handiwork in the vigilante attacks against Los Muertos in and around Dorado. And who else but Jack would break into the defunct Overwatch Grand Mesa facility to steal back his favorite weapon?

Jesse found it wonderfully ironic that, after all his harping about rules and protocol, the big Boy Scout had gone rogue, and he wholeheartedly approved.

When he first realized that Morrison was still among the living after the destruction of Swiss Headquarters, he had held out hope that Gabe had also survived. And since Jesse had been the one who walked away from Overwatch and Blackwatch, he doubted that Gabe would look him up, so he decided to go digging, hoping to find some trace of his former commander. Hoping to somehow reconnect.

He came up with nothing. He looked for any report or rumor of a vigilante that possessed Gabe’s shadow-step ability, but the only thing that came from those searches were reports of Talon activity. The fact that Talon had somehow duplicated Gabe’s abilities was old news, ever since Rialto, and Jesse was left with an extinguished spark of hope.

Captain Amari, though… she hadn’t died in the headquarters explosion. She had been killed in a completely separate Overwatch mission to free hostages from Talon operatives. Or rather, that’s what he had been led to believe until seven days ago, when she and Morrison waltzed into the base like nothing was wrong.

When he had gotten over his shock, Jesse asked Amari if Fareeha knew, and… of course she did. She was Amari’s daughter.

And he… he was no one, apparently.

He was surprised at how much it stung. But then, what did he expect?

He was the one who walked away from Overwatch, not Ana. He saw the signs of the stressors, inward and outward, that were tearing the organization apart. Gabe and Jack, once closer than brothers, were at each other’s throats, with hardly a single civil word passing between them as they fought over ideology and where the source of the corruption was coming from.

Then people started to choose sides. Ana stood by Jack, and against Gabe. Friends were becoming vicious enemies before Jesse’s eyes, and dammit if it didn’t hurt. He couldn’t stick around to watch the only semblance of a family he had left be destroyed.

But it wasn’t like he had completely cut himself off from them, he reasoned. He wanted nothing to do with their conflict, but that didn’t mean he didn’t want anything to do with them. They had encrypted phones, messaging, and email. Before the Fall, he checked on Ana and Fareeha often enough that Fareeha told him that if he was so worried about them, he should come back.

He didn’t, of course. But he didn’t stop calling, and finally, Fareeha stopped asking. Whether it was because she got tired of needling him about it, or she finally saw the writing on the crumbling wall for herself, he didn’t know. She ended up leaving and joining Helix Security.

Genji never tried to talk Jesse into returning, but instead had kept him updated on all his efforts to lead the ever-deteriorating Overwatch in the complete destruction of the Shimada clan. He had messaged Jesse to let him know when he was leaving Overwatch to try and find peace, hinting that he, too, was growing weary of the infighting. After that, they exchanged calls and messages on a regular basis.

So Jesse knew when Genji reached the monastery in Nepal and decided to stay. He witnessed, from a distance, his friend transform from an angry and self-loathing young man into someone who knew and accepted what he was.

Jesse, always on the move, never stopping in one place long enough to make an impression on the locals unless he was in disguise, made the choice to not be jealous of his friend’s newfound stability and sense of purpose.

As for Morrison, he wasn’t on such personal terms with the Strike Commander that he warranted a phone call or a message, but Jesse kept an eye on him all the same, scanning the news for any mention of him. And there was always some mention of him somewhere, in any number of global publications.

And then there was Gabe.

Jesse could never bring himself to call Gabe, knowing that the sound of his commander’s voice – the voice of the man who had pulled him out of Deadlock and had saved his life in more ways than he could count – would weaken his resolve to stay away. Still, at the beginning of every month, he sent Gabe a short text message letting him know that no one had yet managed to collect on his sixty-million-dollar bounty; that he was still free, alive and kicking.

In the two years that passed after Jesse left, Gabe only responded once. The message was short and concise: Wish you were still here to watch my back, mijo.

Three days later, the Swiss Headquarters exploded and went up in flames, taking the Overwatch and Blackwatch commanders with it.

That final message was still on Jesse’s phone somewhere, buried under five more years-worth of saved photos and messages from the others.  Every now and then, usually around the anniversary of the explosion, he would pull it up and look at it. The sharp, stabbing ache behind his breastbone that manifested at the sight of it never seemed to lessen, and he always ended up drowning the sensation in whatever alcohol he had on hand.

One of these days, he always lied to himself, he would look at it and feel nothing.

After the destruction of Swiss Headquarters and the passing of the PETRAS Act, the rest of his friends had scattered to the winds. Jesse had forced himself to push through his shock and grief by making a greater effort to keep in touch with the others. After all, who knew when any of them could bite the dust? Any day could be their last. He had learned that lesson long ago, but losing Gabe and Jack in one fell swoop drove it home all over again.

So he knew when Lena fell in love with Emily. He had smiled at the seemingly endless stream of pics she sent him, showing off her newfound happiness. He didn’t have anything to send in return except his genuine gladness that she had found someone to love.

Winston was the hardest one to keep track of – not because the hyper-intelligent gorilla was wandering the world, but because he kept losing himself in his scientific experiments, each of which he hoped would bring some measure of peace to the world. After the fall of Overwatch, he dove even deeper into his work, and his bouts of radio silence stretched out longer and longer until he had finally initiated the recall just a few weeks ago.

Reinhardt had Jesse on an Overwatch group email list, so he, along with everyone else, was bombarded with blurry, enthusiastic selfies whenever he attended a David Hasselhoff Tribute HoloConcert – something that happened more often than Jesse thought reasonable, to be honest. But hey, he wasn’t about to rain on the big man’s parade. If anyone deserved some carefree frivolousness after all the battles he fought, it was Reinhardt.

Torbjörn regularly invited him to end-of-the-year holiday festivities, which he always politely declined for reasons he could never quite articulate… until one particular year when he found himself desperately in need of a prosthetic left arm.

Angie, angel that she was, didn’t ask him how it happened. She merely gave him that look, and he gave his look right back to her in silent communication. An unspoken agreement to leave the subject alone.

And so, as she tended to the rapid healing of his stump, and surgically implanted the nano-tech neural-nerve interface that would allow him to have a fully functional prosthetic arm, they talked about pretty much everything except how he had lost his arm.

Torbjörn wasn’t so easily put off, and asked him how it happened, of course. When Jesse flippantly answered that he lost the arm while wrestling an entire congregation of fifteen-foot-long alligators in a Louisiana swamp, the engineer snorted in disbelief, but didn’t ask again, though he did insist that Jesse visit during the holidays. That suited Jesse just fine.

When Jesse arrived in Sweden, Torbjörn’s large family welcomed him whole-heartedly, to the point where he felt genuinely overwhelmed. The rich food was delicious (even though he took a hard pass on the traditional lutefisk). The tree was like something out of a story book. The wrapped presents, the decorations, the lights, the laughter…

Leaning against the wall, content to just observe, he looked out over Torbjörn’s cheerful brood and felt like he’d fallen into an old Christmas movie.

It was… nice. And Jesse unexpectedly found himself feeling very much the outsider in spite of the warm welcome.

It was too much. It was a taste of what a real family was like – parents, children, aunts, uncles, grandparents, cousins. Having them all together was absolute chaos, yet there was an undeniable warmth to it all.

It made clear to him just how much a real family was not just some collection of folks he’d decided to mentally adopt as his, whether they knew it or not.

It also sparked the faintest, misty recollections of something he had, once, long ago, but now would never have again. Memories long untouched, purposely buried in the depths of his mind, rose to the surface against his will.

A warm fire keeping out the chill of the high desert. The smell of white sage, piñon pine, and cooking fry bread.

Momma’s fiery red hair, her sparkling hazel eyes and mischievous smile.

Daddy’s large, calloused brown hands, carefully measuring his head for a new eyepatch because the old one was worn out, then affectionately ruffling his hair.

Gigi’s voice, cracked with age, but strong and lively as she tells stories of the Four Worlds. Of First Man and First Woman. Of the Sun and White Shell Woman. Of Coyote First Angry and his many exploits and monster offspring. And his very favorite stories of the Hero Twins, Naayéé’neizghání, Slayer of Alien Gods, and Tóbájíshchíní, Born From Water.

He loves visiting Great-Grandma Gigi on the rez, and tells her he wishes he was full blooded Navajo like her. But Grandma Sadie married a Mexican man, and Daddy married probably the whitest white woman he ever did see, with Momma’s easily-burned pale skin, red hair and freckles, so he’s only one-fourth Navajo. Gigi tells him that’s enough Navajo blood to be considered Diné, but he’s still unsatisfied.

Daddy tells him to not worry about it. Be tough, Daddy says, smiling. Laugh a lot. Share with your family. Never take life too seriously except when you have to take it seriously. This is the Diné way. And even though we don’t live on the rez like your great-grandma, it’s still a good way to live life.

He agrees.

His life is one of peace. Of love. Of belonging, if only to Momma, Daddy and Gigi. He wants it to last forever.

But then….

Cold.

Dark.

Momma and Daddy whispering in hushed, urgent voices. He keeps his eyes closed as Daddy lifts him out of bed, sets him on his feet, then slips his eyepatch over his head and into place. Only then does he open his good eye. Momma picks him up and carries him against her side, even though he’s getting too big to be carried.

Sorry to wake you, baby, we’re going for a ride, you can sleep in the car, she says.  Daddy’s face is pinched and tight around the eyes in the glow of the dashboard.

The steady, lulling sound of old-fashioned tires on asphalt. Out the car window, the blazing stars in the moonless night fail to shed light on the desert landscape. All he can see are the black shapes of hills and sparse trees cutting into the sky.

Then… from outside, all around them, the terrible noise, a laugh too deep and guttural to be human. A glimpse of a tall, bipedal crooked form with ill-fitting, grey-furred skin.

The car swerves, rolls.

He didn’t mean to close his eye or fall asleep, but somehow he did. He startles awake and opens his eye at the sound of Daddy’s gun, cracking the silence six times. His arm hurts, his head hurts. He’s lying on the roof of the car because the car is upside-down.

He realizes that Daddy isn’t in the car when an unearthly snarl is followed by a shout. A scream cut short. And then Momma is there, touching his face, bringing her forehead to touch his, and she’s whispering at him, Don’t leave the car, Jesse, whatever you see, whatever you hear, you don’t get out of this car, you hear me, baby?

He nods, and she kisses him on the cheek. Before he can kiss her back, she’s shimmying out the shattered passenger-side window, then reaching back in to pull her pulse rifle out from where it rested on the bottom of the upturned seat.

He shouldn’t look, but he does anyway. He can’t see anything but the shrubs and dirt lit by the car headlights. Momma screams, a sound of raw fury, and the flash of her pulse rifle blinds him, leaving him seeing spots.

He hears growls and that snarling laugh. He hears Momma curse as her pulse rifle fires once, twice…

The sound of a scuffle in the dirt.

A solitary gasp.

Silence.

And then, the sound of wet tearing.

He can’t see, blinking against the spots in his eye. Just as well. He can suddenly smell blood.

He stays in the car. Silence falls again.

He stays and stays and stays until—

Until Torbjörn cleared his throat loudly enough to startle Jesse out of the memory.

Jesse blinked, looking around, almost surprised to find himself leaning against the wall, looking out over the chaotic mass of Torbjörn’s family. Everyone seemed to be bundling up in winter clothes for a big sledding activity. Out the windows, the sky was bright, crisp blue, and snow lay heavy and deep on the ground. He was decades and thousands of miles away from where his memories had taken him.

“You all right there, McCree?” Torbjörn asked, giving him a narrow look. “You had a pretty good thousand-yard stare going.”

“’M fine,” Jesse lied automatically, because even with the overpowering smell of the hyacinth flowers decorating the room, the faint scent of blood still filled his head. He could still feel the soft leather of his old patch covering his Deadeye. And, until he looked down at himself, he could have sworn he felt his left arm. The one he’d broken in the crash almost thirty years ago.

Jesse truly appreciated Torbjörn and his family, but he felt like he couldn’t leave the festivities fast enough, especially if they continued to evoke long-buried memories.

On top of everything, Torbjörn refused to take payment for the prosthetic, which just didn’t sit right with him. He ended up leaving the payment, along with a thank you note, in the engineer’s lab, before disappearing into the frigid Nordic night. He had only stayed three days of his intended week-long visit.

He crashed at a cheap motel in Stockholm, and woke the next morning to a gently chiding message on his phone in which Torbjörn expressed his disappointment at Jesse’s premature departure, but he also said he understood. You’re a good lad, Jesse, Torbjörn sent. Never doubt that.

Jesse stared at that message for a long while.

And then, less than four months later, he received a message from Reinhardt that Ana Amari had been killed in an Overwatch mission-gone-bad.

To Jesse, Ana had been more than a superior officer, more than a friend. She had done more for him than anyone else ever had. More than Gabe, who pulled him from the burning remnants of Deadlock and saved him from a life in prison. More than even his beloved great-grandmother, gone nearly nine years now, who secretly taught him everything she could about his Diné heritage before –

Nope, he thought, forcibly cutting himself off. Not going there. He was sorting through memories within memories, and if he had any desire to keep what little sanity he had, he refused to go near those darkened places in his head that were even worse than the car accident.

Not without a good, stiff drink or six, at least.

But Ana… she was the woman who had taken a thoroughly wrecked seventeen-year-old conscript, and had convinced him that he wasn’t a monster. Ana had taught him how to focus, how to find stillness within himself; how to find his mark, and only his mark.

Ana had taught him how to tame his Deadeye.

When Gigi died, Jesse found himself strangely at peace. Maybe it was because she had passed away quietly in her sleep at home, after living a long and full life.

When Ana died – murdered by Talon’s sniper who turned out to be a physically altered and brainwashed Amélie Lacroix, and wasn’t that just an unexpected horror – he had drowned his grief with cheap whiskey for over a week before he found the wherewithal to drag himself out that pit.

And now Ana was back. Not dead, never had been dead, just missing her cybernetic eye, and he should have been happy. If he were a better person, he would have been happy. Instead, he felt nothing but a deep, hollow ache in his chest.

It was a hard truth to face. No matter how attached his younger self had become to her, the feeling wasn’t reciprocated.

And how foolish was he, for ever believing it was?

Groaning, he rubbed his hands over his face, scratching at his unkempt beard. He felt stupid for hurting. He wasn’t a child. He hadn’t been a child for literally longer than he could remember. What did it matter that Ana, who probably didn’t even know that he had once thought of her as a parental figure when he was at his weakest and lowest, didn’t bother to tell him she wasn’t dead? She hadn’t told anyone else, either, except Fareeha, which only made sense.

He just had to pull himself together and get over it. Just like he had with all the other shit in his life. Get over it, move on. Patch things up with Ana. Keep plugging away, trying to do some good in a messed-up world.

He thought he had done pretty well at the conference earlier. He had been polite to Ana, and he really had been comfortable leaning against the wall. Still, the bare hint of pain in her expression when he turned down her offer to sit next to her was like a shiv in the gut.

Which might have hurt more, were it not for the extremely distracting fact that brand new Overwatch recruit, Hanzo Shimada, was sitting at the conference table between Genji and Lena…

And here he was again, thoughts back to Hanzo, full circle.

This was getting ridiculous.

He sat up in bed and reached to open the drawer of his bedside table. He pulled out the bottle of sleeping pills Angie had given him. They put him to sleep just fine, but tended to give him really vivid nightmares. But at this point, he reasoned, his subconscious could hardly do worse than what his conscious mind had been doing to him. He opened the bottle, took two pills and swallowed them dry.

As he fell back into bed, he finally acknowledged that it might help him sleep if he just turned the damned lights off. He had thought he could sleep with them on. Wouldn’t be much different than taking a nap in the sun, right?

Besides, his hindbrain was screaming at him that if he turned off the lights, the ghost might come back. It might come back, comfortable and unseen in the dark, where it could stand over him and drain his life away while he slept….

Jesse scowled at the thought. He was being paranoid, and he refused to let himself be ruled by fear.

Still, he didn’t think he would be leaving his medicine bag in his sock drawer any time soon.

“Athena?” he called, he called drowsily. The pills were already hitting him hard.

There was a chime. “Yes, Jesse?”

“I’m as worn out as a pair of five-hundred-mile boots. Could you get the light for me, doll?”

“Of course.”

The lights went out. “Thanks, babe,” Jesse said into the darkness. “You know that you’re the only girl for me, Athena.”

“That’s because I’m an unembodied artificial intelligence, and you’re gay,” Athena answered mildly.

“Yeah,” Jesse said, sighing wearily as he rolled onto his side. “I know.”

He was asleep a moment later.

Jesse didn’t dream.

He woke slowly, muzzily, to the sound of Athena calling his name, an unusually urgent tone in her voice. He shivered, somehow chilled even under his blankets, and managed to open his eyes in spite of his lids feeling too heavy to move.

“’thena?” he said, his tongue feeling thick in his mouth. What had Angie put in those pills he had taken? They had never affected him like this before, but his body felt sluggish, even as his mind raced to figure out what was happening.

He heard footsteps running down the hall toward his room, and then his door slid open, Angie rushing at him with her Caduceus Staff glowing gold. It was only when he felt the relief of its warm, healing influence that he realized how much his whole body had been aching. He sat upright and went to stand, but Angie stopped him with a gentle hand on his shoulder.

“Just a few more moments, Jesse,” she said.

“You’ll have to heal me while I’m moving around,” Jesse said, grateful when she acquiesced and moved her hand. He stood and grabbed his hat. “I need to see what it did.”

“See what what did?” Genji asked as he entered a moment later, then he stopped in his tracks. “What the hell? It’s freezing in here!”

“Athena,” Jesse said, as he noticed that his closet door was conspicuously wide open. “Please tell me you didn’t alert the entire base.”

“Just Angela and Genji,” Athena replied, somewhat primly, “and only after you failed to rouse at my voice.”

“Jesse, what’s going on?” Angie asked, frowning and insistent. “What happened to make your vitals crash like that? I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Jesse didn’t answer as he closed his closet door.

On the door, words were scrawled in large black letters that seemed burned right into the wood.

TIME’S UP, BOY

NO MORE SECRETS FOR YOU

“What the hell?” Genji repeated, standing just behind Jesse.

Jesse stared at the words grimly, then heaved a sigh.

“Well, shit,” he said.