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mxvladdy · 4 years

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A Break

Part Trios. More fluff more plot! part 4 will be out eventually, I’ll still bouncing some ideas around with it as I write.

Chapters: 1-2-3-4

Steam wafted up at him, reddening his already pink tinged cheeks. It scalds the very tip of his strong nose. The contrast between his thermos and the frigid tundra air around him was violent, but worth it for the subtle aromas wafting up at him.

Smiling indulgently into his cup he took a small sip savoring the light fruitiness of the blend. It was an interesting mix of flavors, like nothing he would have found at home. Yet very reminiscent of it. The dried pear was crisp and sweet, a gentle tribute to fall as winter beat around him. The blending of it with the smokey molasses taste of the hojicha had him groaning in delight. His sweet tooth was sated by the slight undertones of chestnut and caramel. It hit the back of his throat just right warming him. You had described the tea perfectly. Sweet, strong, and complex.

Just like you. Hanzo flushes pink under his scarf recalling that absolutely radiant smile you had when presenting him with the small tin. A parting gift before his flight. Your newest house blend you said brightly tucking into his pack. It was humbling to think that he was important enough in your life to inspire such a unique gift. Let alone the idea of it gracing your shop’s walls.

Tucking himself deeper into the small alcove Hanzo took in the snowy plains. Finding his center he breathed deeply enjoying the sting of the cold air filling his lungs as the sun rose in front of him. The howling of the wind around him creates a drone as it hits the half wall protecting him. At first, he had marked this nook as a tactical sniper nest, it’s unencumbered view advantages if an attack came. After a few visits, he came up just for the peace it held. The resplendent view was always enough to soothe his frayed nerves after long bouts with his teammates.

Pink and orange lights from the rising sun bounce innocently off the crystalline surfaces of ice clinging to every surface. The rays twinkling on the snow in an almost celestial way. Further on the lights of the nearby fishing village shimmer to the north. A few boats were already setting out for the day. It was nice to be back.

The last time he had been to Russia had been for the family 'business'. A successful venture into expanding their arms trading routes with his late father. While not a leisurely visit by any means, the few times he had been allowed outside the hotel had been wonderful. Springtime in Moscow as he recalled was pleasant. The nip of the last vestiges of winter refreshing. The late season snow and frigid rains at night help to wipe the grime of the past year away, leaving the city smelling clean and virginal. He wished he could have stayed long enough to watch the city come alive.

Would you like it here in a small village? Or in a larger city? Hell, would you even like Russia at all? Hanzo takes another sip watching the last dregs swirl at the bottom contemplatively. Did you like the cold? Once you had commented that you had never seen fresh snowfall. None of any substantial quantity at least. It would be a nice thing to experience with you. Risking frostbite, he shucked his gloves digging out his com. His last internet search looking up at him. He closed it quickly, heartbeat quickening with nerves. Perhaps he’d bring that up on a later date.

Instead, he got comfy opening up a new tab perusing “This year’s hottest vacation destinations”. They were all pretty sure-but lacking something. Neither of you are big on crowds, so perhaps nothing too close to tourist epicenters… No- he needed something quiet and out of the way. He could afford to spoil you easily. Hanzo laughs to himself, already hearing your protests at the amount of money he was thinking of spending. But you deserved it and so much more for his negligence. Yes, he decided then clearing his screen his searches for more private venues. One place jumping out to him.

It was unfortunate that his dreams of taking you home would never come to fruition. Hanamura was enchanting in the wintertime. During the better years at the castle, he and Genji would often take to the rooftops. Building snowmen and inappropriate mounds of snow where the staff could not reach. Then in the evenings would snuggle close under the kotatsu, eventually drifting off after a heavy snack. Hanzo’s smile turns brittle, a wistful sigh escaping him. Taking you anywhere near Japan would be risky. Even with the elders long since buried, and the Shimada Dynasty crippled. If he were to be recognized...

No, anything that put you at risk was unacceptable. Looking back down at his com he nixed anything in the eastern hemisphere. Perhaps Scotland? He didn’t think he had a bounty there; not yet anyway.

[Apologies Agent]

Hanzo starts at the sudden voice in his ear quickly clicking off his com. As if she couldn’t see his search history whenever she pleases. “Athena,” He pressed his finger to his ear to respond. “How can I assist you?”

[Sorry for interrupting your downtime. Your brother wished for me to inform you that he is waiting for you in the commons]

Hanzo gazed blankly out into the white abyss. “What?”

[Brother-commons-now] She repeats unable to hide the mirth in her tone.

“He’s in Nepal-” He argues dumbly pressing his finger harder against his ear.

[He wished it to be a surprise. So surprise.] She disconnects then, snarky voice blowing away with the wind.

Biting back a smile he rose. It wasn’t unlike his brother to drop by unannounced. It has been his defining personality trait since birth. Heh, little shit. Packing up quickly, Hanzo takes one last look out over the last moments of peace he’ll have for the rest of the day. With a calming breath he steps off the ledge landing gracefully to the floor below with a soft womph. His mechanical legs absorb the impact with ease. Walking down the empty corridors his footsteps echoing dully against the metal walls. His teammates having already separated to go about their duties after breakfast. The thought of food making his stomach growl.

Hmmm... Genji and his foolishness could wait a little longer.

Changing directions he took a sharp turn nearly running into a crouching figure in the path. “Ah! Ms. Zhou, are you alright?” He hurries over to the young scientist.

“Morning Hanzo! Ha, yes I’m fine.” She flushes righting her askew glasses. “Wasn’t paying attention to my surroundings- uneven tiling.” Pointing at the raised title that had tripped her. Wordlessly, Hanzo knelled helping to collect the scattered papers and tablets. As she rights herself.

“Where are you headed?” He asked offering to help her carry her belongings.

“Kitchens; need some caffeine to function.” She chuckles leading the way. “Thank you by the way for the Oolong! I’m almost out, didn’t even know how much I was drinking till I was scraping the bottom of the tin. So I guess it's back to coffee for now.”

Hanzo beams inwardly. The cold hiding his flush of pride. “I’m glad you enjoy it. I'll have to order more soon.” He makes a mental note to order more for himself too.

Mei arrives first at the doors to the kitchen and turns. “Would you like to join me? It’s been ages since our last get together.” Hanzo winces, chastising himself for his negligence. It had been quite a long time since they last spoke. She had been one of the first to warm up to him. Shortly after his arrival at headquarters, she had helped him move his extensive collection of literature to his room. From there they began recommending books and articles on their particular interests to each other. Soon their little get togethers became a regular thing and earned them the title of “Overwatch Bookclub” courtesy of Hana. Even though it was only a “club” of two, neither of them minded.

He was about to agree to a bit of good company over breakfast when his com chimed. A very recognizable ringtone at that. Damn- he had almost forgotten. “Perhaps another time? Genji has stopped by and is as impatient as ever.” Hanzo bowed low in apology.

Mei waved his apology off with a smile. “No, no worries!” She brightens clapping her hands together. “Do tell him I say hello!” With a quick nod and another bow Hanzo turns back leaving the young woman to bustle about the kitchens on her own. He walks back up the halls slowly to the large commons. Warmth hits him hard wrapping himself in its comfortable embrace when he enters. The crackling of a large fire flickers bright yellow and red casting a cheery glow over the lone occupant. His brother sat beneath the sole window of the room. The large oval pane of plexiglass looking out over the glacial sea and cliffside. Genji faced towards it, long legs propped up on the small sill texting animatedly. Hanzo’s com lighting up once more obnoxiously.

“Aniki!” Genji chips turning his head to throw his scowling brother a lopsided grin. Hanzo relaxes nerves easing at seeing his little brother smile, his faceplate off and attached to his side. “Surprised!?”

“I would have been more surprised if you had called ahead.” He chuckles placing his jacket and scarf neatly over the back of the chair, sitting across from his brother.

Genji gasps, throwing a hand to his forehead. “You wound me! After all the trouble I went through to bring gifts…”

That piques his interest. His dragons rumbling in excitement. “Oh? And here I thought Nepal was nothing but bitter winds and bells.” Hanzo shot back, eyeing the satchel slung over Genji’s chair expectantly.

“Ha.Ha.” Genji replies sardonically thrusting a large heavy box in his brother’s direction. The parcel was clumsily wrapped, the paper wrinkled from its long journey. Even so, Hanzo smiles looking over at his brother for some kind of ruse.

“What is the occasion?” He slips easily into their native tongue. He peels at the tape slowly, more so to annoy his brother than to preserve the paper. The box underneath was old and worn, having been stored somewhere to age unloved. Faded watermarks and nicks littered the top cover. Some were old. Older than the others. His heart stops, throat clenching tight in realization. “Genji-” He knew this box. He knew some of the nicks in the grain. If he squints he could see the stain he made on the top right corner. Almost hearing the clatter of his tea set against the wood from all those years ago. His worn fingers trace over the grid top. The yew was just as strong and supple as when he was given it. The dragons painstakingly crafted into the sides of the box grinning up at him.

It was a shogi board. It was his shogi board. His first and last gift from his mother. It was bittersweet to recall all the days he spent playing against her in her hospital bed. Connecting over it on the lonely days when Father was out and Genji was still too young to visit. “How?” He whispers voice cracking. He thought he had lost this forever, burned no doubt with the rest of his things when he fled. It had hurt to leave it, more so than any other valuable he had.

Genji watched his brother rediscover the old game. Watching Hanzo's smile turn tender as he gets lost in a memory. Genji turns back to the window rubbing his neck unsure of what to do with this rare display of emotion. He hadn’t expected this reaction. He remembers playing it with him once or twice when he was younger. The few times he did was to humor Hanzo. He never really understood his brother's hyper fixation on it though. Video games were much more entertaining.

“Well~” He starts sunning himself. “After a relaxing time contemplating my navel with my Master. I figured I could use a bit of exercise.” He glances over at his brother flipping him a roguish smirk. Hanzo scoffs rolling his eyes trying- and failing to hide the tears misting at the corners of his eyes. Genji turns back quickly to the window, giving him a little privacy to compose himself. “Just thought I would pop by, say hello and poke at what remains of the ol’ hornet's nest.”

Hanzo chuckles wetly too engrossed in his memories to really chastise his siblings' reckless behavior. He moves on autopilot finding the hidden compartment of the board to pull out the silk bag within. It had held out better than the board thankfully. Opening it he dumps out the hand carved Koma. The alabaster and mother of pearl pieces were blessedly unblemished. He thought he had lost this forever.

“Play a round?” He interrupts his brother’s prattling. “Perhaps all these years apart have made you a better player.” He jokes, wiping quickly at his eyes and clearing his throat.

Genji laughs rising to the challenge. “Bet I could wipe the floor with you.” He drops his feet from the sill and rotates to sit properly at the table jabbing a finger in Hanzo’s face.

His brother scoffs, already setting up the board. “Please, no amount of meditation can train you to sit and focus long enough.”

“Oh, it’s so on…”

Hanzo stretches in his chair smugly hours later. The muttered curses of his brother sweet in his ears.

“You cheat.” Genji pouts helping to clean up the board before getting his feet to flex his legs.

“Hmph!” Hanzo chuckles leaning further over the back of his chair till the world turned upside down. “I do not need such tricks to best you.” He watches his brother putter around the small kitchenette.

Genji returns mocking his brother in a high pitched voice. He flicks at Hanzo’s crooked nose before he could right himself in his seat. “Ya-ya-ya. Next time will be different.” Genji drops back in his chair depositing a few plates, cups, and a tea kettle.

“Doubt it,” Hanzo rubs at his stinging nose.” I am never second best.”

“Up yours,” Genji says sticking his tongue out. “Keep teasing me and I’ll eat all the food I brought myself.”

Hanzo quiets down still grinning. “Oh? Did you go to Mia’s?”

“Ha! If I did I would have fed the deers your half.” Genji ducks out of the way of Hanzo’s kick to the shin. “No, after my little escapade I figured it was best to find a new vacation spot.” He smirks, turning his attention back to his rucksack searching for something. “Decided to take a little ‘hop across the pond’ to the states.”

Hanzo raises a brow. Oddly large jump. Well-out of the two he was the more spontaneous one. Guess some things never change. “I see-” He waits, allowing the theatrics for once. Watching his brother’s movements turn feline, mischief radiating off of him. Uh oh.

“Yeah. Thought I’d mix it up from the big cities. Lay low somewhere a bit smaller.” He peers at Hanzo, eyes alight. “Went to this fabulous little coastal town. Touristy, but quaint.” An odd tingle starts up Hanzo’s spine, his dragons going worryingly silent. “Remember the taffy we used to get from our nanny? The red and pink wrapped ones we would sneak after dinner? Thought I’d try the local ‘saltwater’ taffy.” Genji chortles pulling out the last of his surprises. “Stuff almost undid all of Angie’s hard work.” The tingle picked up to a static like buzzing pinching at his shoulders and jaw. He knit his brows staying silent. He couldn’t- “Luckily, I found this amazing little tea shop down the corner. Figured a hot drink would soften the cement gluing my mouth shut.”

Hanzo’s quib is lost on his tongue. His eyes locking onto the sapphire and gold tin. He couldn’t. Genji’s asinine tale is drowned out by the static building in his ears. The waves of sound mixing with the dizzying panic giving him tunnel vision.

The aroma hit his gut differently than it did this morning.

“Brother? You ok?” Hanzo pulled himself out of his deluge of thoughts. Gaze flicking up to his brother’s. He eyes him worryingly. His arm outstretched holding a small plate out for him. One of your signature macarons resting on it. The little pink flower on top still fresh, not having wilted from the long journey.

“You know.”

“Yes.” Genji nods simply placing the plate down in front of him. The brothers say nothing as Genji prepares and serves the tea. “She seems lovely.”

“How?” The archer hisses baring his teeth in frustration, white knuckling the table. He had been so careful. If Genji knew then who else could?

Genji sat quietly breathing deeply through his nose thinking over the words forming in his mind. He has to choose what he says carefully, watching his brother descending mentally into a panic. Locking himself down. This isn’t what he wanted to happen. Damn, should have listened to Zenyatta. He is a private man rebuilding his life, my student. Give him time and space to grow. Ugh. It was too late to go back now anyway…

“Mei-Don’t worry! She doesn’t know anything!” Genji catches himself quickly as the look of panic grows on his brother’s face. “She shared drinks with me a while back. Said you gave it to her. I know your taste in Oolong and that was not it.” He tries for levity. “You’re a grumpy old man of habit; who I know only imports from Japan. Seeing an American name had me curious.” He pauses taking a sip from his cup. It was really good tea, it matched his brother’s sweet tooth perfectly. On his little trip to the shop, Zen had gifted him a zesty lemon white tea. The smell itself was decadent and the flavor refreshingly tangy. “One web search later and a few wrong turns I found the place. You definitely have a type Aniki! Thought she was gonna put my head through the glass display case for flirting with her.”

Hanzo chokes on air. “Flirt!?” His glare turning thunderous. The urge to throttle the cyborg rising.

“I had to know!” Genji laughs, arms raised in submission. “Between the tea name, and her staunch ‘I have a boyfriend’ I got my answer.”

“No.” Hanzo corrects him jabbing a finger at his stupid polished chrome chest. “You had to stick your nose where it doesn’t belong.” He almost felt bad the deflating look crossing his brother’s face. Almost. “Genji-” He sighs running a hand through his windswept hair. “I know you meant well but I can’t mess this up. I can’t.” He pleads.

Genji frowns leaning forward in his chair. “I just wanted to see what made you so happy…” He hadn’t seen his brother this relaxed-ever. The past months had brought such a change in him. At first, Genji thought that he had finally gotten comfortable with the team. His ever present scowl had relaxed into a more contemplative frown. Still had a ways to go, but at least he's more approachable now. Team dinners and game nights had gotten a new member too. But then he started disappearing for days on end. Not on any missions, not that Genji knew of. His brother's roster was always clear when he disappeared. He assumed that it was old ‘family’ business or loose ends somewhere. But every time Hanzo came back he seemed...lighter. Happy. It was nice to see him treat himself as a person instead of a tool. “I was so excited to see that something, someone brought you some happiness. I apologize for imposing on something so private.”

Hanzo couldn’t bear to keep eye contact. “I don’t deserve it.”

Genji huffs indignantly shaking his head. “Nonsense,” Reaching over and squeezing Hanzo’s strong hand. “Redemption comes in many forms, and living a full life is part of it. You deserve a full life Hanzo, truly.”

A war of emotions crosses Hanzo’s face. They have argued about his grief, guilt so many times before. “I-” Hanzo blinks owlishly, meeting his brother’s stare. His younger sibling’s face a mask of defiant obstinates. Daring him to argue his worth. “Thank you.” He concedes covering Genji’s hand with his free one and squeezes it back. He didn’t deserve this, but he’ll take it for now.

“Excellent!” Genji’s grin returns to full blast moving back to the box of sweets. “I’ll keep it between us- well- and Zen. But you have to tell me allll about her.” He waves his serving knife threateningly.

Hanzo chuckles, pulling the cookie and suspiciously tiny slice of cake towards himself. It looks like he was here for the long haul.

At least there were snacks.

#overwatch #overwatch fanfic #hanzo shimada x reader #hanzo shimada #hanzo x reader

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formerlyrunephoenix6769 · 5 years

Text

Goal!

Summary.

Domestic Widowtracer. Lena gets a delightful surprise when Amelie watches the World Cup.

--x--

Lena sat crossed legged on the sofa, cosy in her pj bottom’s and England jersey as she slurped on her noodles, watching in fascination as Amelie yelled in French at the TV. Lena thinks Amelie is swearing now, having been on the receiving end of similar sounding words many times. Who knew that the refined French woman would become so unravelled over 22 grown ass men chasing a ball?

One of the players dived to the ground putting on a performance that an academy award winning actress would be proud of!

“Get up!” Amelie screamed, as she ran her hands through her hair, causing her usually pristine pony tail to become slightly askew. For a brief moment, Lena was convinced she could see a flush come to her partner’s cyan skin.

So this is what got the former sniper’s dander up?

One of the opposing team’s players tripped up a French striker in a way that even the former Overwatch operative was willing to agree was a wanker move. Widow jumped off the sofa screaming,

“Come on Ref!!!! Are you blind???”

Lena stopped mid chew, noodles dangling out of her mouth, chop sticks paused in mid air as Widow turned, a slightly terrifying look on her face, demanding,

“Lena, did you see that?”

Lena nodded wide eyed, not willing to admit that she had given up on following the match a good while ago having found something else far more entertaining.

“Gaaaa! Sacre bleu.”

Throwing her hands up in frustration and her pony tail bobbing, Amelie stalked from the sitting room disappearing into the depths of the apartment.

Lena returned to stirring her noodles with her chop sticks, brown eyes glued to the tv screen as the ball continued being passed back and forth. Minutes passed before suddenly a French striker, taking advantage of a Croatian mistake, broke through the opposing defence to sweetly chip the ball into the top left corner of the net. The roar of celebration in the stadium filled the sitting room.

Suspicious of Widow’s sudden quiet, Lena called out,

“Babe?”

Curiosity getting the better of her she placed her noodle bowl on the coffee table before padding barefoot through the apartment. “Babe?” she called out a little louder noticing their bedroom door slightly ajar, soft light spilling into the hallway. Peering through the door the former pilot stated,

“Babe, you just missed a goal.”

Widow was hunched over, seemingly in a world of her own, typing furiously on a light screen the back light casting her features in an eerie glow.

“Luv,” Lena asked with piqued curiosity, “Whatcha doing?”

She entered the room peering over Widow’s shoulder quickly reading the screen before in one swift move she slammed off the lightpad, exclaiming, “You can’t assassinate the referee!”

Widow’s eyes narrowed as she huffed,

“I can’t see why not! He is an idiote!”

Lena grabbed the lightpad dock holding it behind her back,

“Nope! You can’t just off some geezer willy nilly cause you don’t like their call.” Attempting to mock scald her, Lena added, “Besides I thought we said no more killing?”

Amelie pouted, “Not even a little bit?”

Lena grinned, it was a rare sight to see French woman pouting as it was usually the English girl’s tactic. God, is this what Amelie had to deal with every time the pilot gave her the puppy dog eyes when wanting to get her own way?

Widow suddenly towered over her attempting to reach round for the lightpad dock as she coaxed,

“Just let me find out where his lives.”

Lena backed up slowly, her shortness putting her at a slight disadvantage as Widow advanced, devilment in her yellow eyes grinning that wolfish grin that made Lena weak at the knees. She retreated untill her back came dead against the wall as Widow continued to stalk towards her. Still attempting to keep the last vestiges of her dignity, the British woman defiantly raised her head as Amelie leaned over her, pressing closer and cutting off any chances of escape.

Lena tried not to gulp and remained resolute as Widow’s other hand attempted to reach behind the smaller woman and craftily sneak the lighpad dock from her grasp. Plump, moist lips hovered dangerously close to Lena’s ear,

“Will you not let me play cherie?”

The hot air ghosting her earlobe, that raspy voice, caused Lena’s skin to goose bump and prickle with static. Lena squeezed her eyes shut mutely shaking her head.

“Not even a little bit?” Came the seductive growl.

Lena caught her own bottom lip between her teeth as she slightly turned her head only to find Widow’s blown yellow eyes watching her in predatory amusement. Lena’s own raked down over Amelie’s fine features finally alighting on those enticing full lips.

She could have some resolve, god damnit!

It was as if Widow could sense her weakening as she pressed her body further into the smaller woman.

“Come now my pet, don’t be foolish.”

Lena nuzzled Amelie with her nose, those alluring lips just millimetres from her own. If she didn’t do something now she was a goner. Quickly she caught Widow’s lips in a kiss, feeling how the french woman grinned into it. Just as she felt Amelie beginning to relax Lena pulled away, impishly bopping her on the nose with her fingertip,

“Nope pop!”

In the split second as Widow’s features gave way to baffled disbelief and confusion, Lena wriggled out of her position before speeding through the apartment waving the lightpad dock over her head, only to have Widowmaker hot on her tail tackling her into the sofa with an Oof, causing Lena to collapse into giggles as Amelie poked her in the ribs.

“No fair!” Lena squealed in delight.

“All is fair in love and war my cherie!” Amelie triumphantly declared, as straddling her, she wrestled the lightscreen dock from the Londoner’s grasp.

Two could play that game, Lena thought as she gripped the front of Amelie’s jersey pulling her in for a searing kiss, the lightscreen long forgotten as hands dipped below the hem of grey yoga pants only to grasp firm ass cheeks. Amelie’s eyebrows shot up and her eyes narrowed playfully, smirking down at the younger woman.

“Ah, this is how it is going to be is it?”

“All is fair in love and war!” The mussy haired pilot cheekily repeated.

Amelie laughed, it was light and breezy, a sound Lena would never stop trying to illicit.

“You win!”

“You surrender?”

“Oui!”

Lena couldnt help herself,

“Just like the French,eh? Always giving up!”

Amelie wrinkled her nose in a mock scowl,

“Right, you’re in for it!” She announced, as once again she began tickling her tormentor with earnest.

Lena let out a delighted shriek, laughing and wriggling beneath her captor before exchanging soft fluttery kisses that quickly devolved into to long and languid ones. Somewhere the Croatian crowd booed in dismay and Lena didn’t notice as one slender hand reached out activating the lightscreen and began quickly tapping away. She certainly didnt notice as later, slick with sweat, her own screams and curses coming quicker and louder, loud enough to drown out the forgotten match, a digtialised sugar skull appeared followed by an address somewhere in Moscow.

Collapsing bonlessly against the sofa, Lena snuggled closer to Amelie, sleepy eyes half lidded, she smiled that lazy smile as a French striker scored the winning goal and Amelie continued to card her fingers through her messy hair, caressing her scalp in the way that Lena liked.

“Lookit that luv, your lot won!”

Lena’s smile widened as Amelie drew her closer, lips ghosting her forehead.

“Oui, I most certainly did

(all ow fanfiction tagged under formerlyrunephoenix6769 ow fanfiction, feel free to comment/ like/ share.. written for @call-signtracer )

#formerlyrunephoenix6769 ow fanfiction #widowmaker #tracer #lena oxton #widowtracer #amelie lacroix #overwatch #overwatch fanfiction

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kbstories · 5 years

Text

Wonderful @veggietrex commissioned me to write some Blackwatch McGenji!

Somewhere For This, Death and Guns

Tags: McGenji, Pre-Slash, Blackwatch Era, post-Overwatch Retribution, Fluff

Special thanks to @gaythurmorgan for beta-reading <3

>>Read on AO3!

☕ Commission info ☕

Genji's eyes aren't always red. They had barely made it to the evac vehicle, bloodied and panting and sore, and McCree had glanced over to catch a glimpse of gray hiding beyond that haunting crimson glow.

It's the only thing on his mind, after the dust has settled and they'd gotten their asses handed to 'em by the brass – a meeting McCree had spent giving Reyes the most venomous glare he could get away with, only to be met with a huff and an eye-roll. Mind a-buzz with the day's events, McCree tossed and turned and twisted through a lousy attempt to sleep before he gave up entirely.

The common room is an amalgamation of shadows and silhouettes in the dim moonlight spilling through the windows. McCree doesn't bother hitting the light switch; this is a well-worn routine, familiar enough his hands go through the motions of making coffee all by themselves and soon, he's blankly watching the coffee grounds swirl around in that shitty French press Moira insisted they needed.

“So what they say is true, about cowboys and their coffee.”

McCree does not jump... much. Maybe he startles a little, maybe his hand twitches for his gun and some of the near-scalding almost-coffee sloshes over his fingers – he curses, “fuckin' ninja and your fuckin' sneakin'”, and no, his heart does not speed up at the rare chuckle, cybernetically distorted as it is.

“Lemme guess”, McCree grumbles, holding his hand under the rush of lukewarm water straight from the tap. Gradually, the room turns red as Genji activates the LEDs of his suit. “You been sittin' here for hours now, broodin' in the dark, waitin' for lil old me to come in...”

Genji breathes an amused hmm, nothing more. He's mysterious like that, this elusive colleague of his that McCree never expected to grow attached to and still something about the there-and-gone flashes of humor and biting commentary in the heat of battle had drawn him in. Yeah, it might just be his imagination but when he joins Genji by the rickety little thing that dares to call itself a table, flicking on the lights with a pointed look at the cyborg, there's subtle lines at the corner of his eyes that suggest he's smiling under his armor and, well...

McCree has learned to count his blessings, wherever they cross his path.

Two mugs of coffee in hand, he slides one over to Genji before taking a sip of his own. Ugh, damn that French press. “So. What d'you think of all this?”

Genji's head tilts, bird-like. McCree raises an eyebrow, really now?, but it'll be a cold day in hell before he doesn't eventually fold to the question lingering in Genji's eyes.

Less red, not quite gray either. Someday he'll figure it out.

“Ya saw what kinda shitshow that was, G. Ain't no way Morrison is gonna let this one pass and if he does, he's an even bigger fool than I thought.”

Again Genji hums, more pensive than final, the metal tips of his fingers clinking against cheap ceramic as he slowly and methodically turns the mug in his hand. “It was not ideal, sure. Even so, we have killed less deserving men than Antonio Bartalotti, you and I.”

That dark tone in his voice? It makes McCree swallow, his mouth suddenly very, very dry. “I guess”, he says, clears his throat. “Hate it when you make sense, sugar. Kinda ruins my midnight mopin' session, ya know?”

“Hah.” Genji leans forward, making the table creak. His arms are loosely crossed in front of him – remarkably close to a slouch, by his standards. “You should leave the brooding to me, Jesse. It does not become you.”

Before McCree can stop himself, he asks, “That so?”, drinking from his mug with an exaggerated sigh. “And here I was, thinkin' it makes me look like one'a them classic detective types. To catch a bad guy, you've got to think like a bad guy–”

His best gritty cime novel impersonation gets interrupted by Genji's laugh, quiet and a bit rusty and all the more precious. “You are ridiculous”, he says, genuine warmth shining through his filtered voice.

Ah, to get to know the man beneath metal and scars – McCree grins, “All part'a the charm, I hope”, scratches his neck, counts his lucky stars that somehow along the line, Genji decided to trust him with this: little pieces of himself, carefully placed and fused back together by gold.

It's tempting, to stick around and see what else he can tease out of him; he hasn't forgotten the exhaustion lurking behind his heavy eyelids, however, and Genji has to be feeling it too, cyborg or not. McCree tosses down the last of the coffee, grimacing at the taste.

“Alright, I'm callin' it a day. You comin', G?”

Genji nods, on his feet and carrying the mugs to the kitchenette's dingy sink before McCree can object. His red-gray gaze softens, then, flitting over to McCree before following the motions of his hands as he handles and cleans the dollar-store mugs like the most expensive china.

“Thank you for the coffee.”

Perhaps McCree will never know everything that goes on in that head of his; yet, when he leans in and kisses his faceplate where his cheek would be, a fleeting brush of lips against metal, Genji blinks, suddenly young and unguarded.

“You're more than welcome, darling”, McCree tells him, voice smooth despite his heart's efforts to jump out of his throat and oh, that's definitely a smile, this time.

>>Read on AO3!

#overwatch #genji shimada #jesse mccree #mcgenji #overwatch fanfiction #this was super fun to write aaaa #i'll be moving this weekend and then i'll continue with comms <3 #my stuff #commission #reblogs appreciated hhh it's not showing up in the tags...

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mel-loves-all · 6 years

Text

First Sentence Writing Meme

Thank you so much for thinking of me ladies @hope-for-olicity and @laurabelle2930 . I love your stories! I haven’t written in some time, so it was nice to revisit some of my old fics.

The Rules: write the first sentence of the last ten stories you’ve written and look for patterns. Then tag some friends.

Mayhem, Moonlight and A Merry Christmas - (Olicity) “Long, cold fingers, of the frosty December night, trailed over the bare chest and sculpted arms of the slumbering Earl of Starling, Oliver Queen.”

Shoreline - (Olicity) “Beads of sweat trickled down the center of Chief Petty Officer, Oliver Queen’s back as he and five members of his covert special forces SEAL team crept stealthily through the outskirts of the urban town.”

A Touch Unlike Any Other - (Olicity) “Oliver Queen, the Earl of Archer, concentrated on taking his next breath as he attempted to keep the piercing noises of the jubilant ballroom suppressed to a tolerable irritation.”

Under The Spell Of Moonlight - (Olicity) “Through the languor of bone deep exhaustion, Felicity could feel the vehicle ease to a complete stop.”

A Breaking Storm - (Sherlolly) “Unusual street names in London would have to include Cyclops Mews and Uamvar Street in Limehouse, Ha Ha Road in Greenwich, and Hooker's Road in Walthamstow,” Sherlock declared out loud, as he lay on his bed and stared up at the moving shadows across the bedroom ceiling.”

A Thousand ILYs - (Sherlolly) “Molly awoke, slow and gradually, through a pleasant haze of lazy, gratified bliss.”

Vivez - (Olicity) “Lady Felicity Overwatch, widow of the Earl of Smoak, a renowned beauty of the English ton and member of a clandestine network that helped smuggle aristocratic Parisian children into Britain and away from the violent, bloodthirsty mobs of the reign of terror that currently swept France, stood at the edge of the crowded ballroom and tried not to show her distaste for the decadent waste of elite society.”

Softly Comes Love - (Olicity) “The first glimpse of Nocking Point vanquished Felicity’s fears and bone-weary exhaustion, for just a brief moment, as the sunrise revealed the face of the great manor through the window of the traveling coach.”

Craving You - (Olicity) “Hot, near scalding water flowed over Oliver’s body as he walked under the shower head in the empty foundry bathroom.”

Take What Was Always Yours - (Caryl) “Daryl couldn't stop shaking as everything he was feeling went intense white."

***I don’t really see an obvious pattern other than I do tend to write angsty stories. lol. I guess I try to introduce and set the stage for the characters by either their physical location and/or current internal feelings.***

Sorry if some of you have already been tagged: @tdgal1 @theresnosafeharbor4myships @jeenonamit @mizjoely @the-sapphiresky @kylotrashforever @lilsherlockian1975 @quiveringbunny @tinaday3w @sobeautifullyobsessed @thehiddenlawyer @whoswhatsitwhich @noregretsnotearsnoanxieties @strangelock221b

#olicity #olicity fic #sherlolly #sherlolly fic #caryl #caryl fic #writing #meme

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runephoenix6769 · 6 years

Text

Goal..

. Domestic Widowtracer fic, I wrote last night to @call-signtracer

On the back of the World Cup

“Goal!”

Lena sat crossed legged on the sofa, cosy in her pj bottom’s and England jersey as she slurped on her noodles, watching in fascination as Amelie yelled in French at the tv. Lena thinks Amelie is swearing now, having been on the receiving end of similar sounding words many times. Who knew that the refined French woman would become so unravelled over 22 grown ass men chasing a ball?

One of the players dived to the ground putting on a performance that an academy award winning actress would be proud of!

So this is what got the former sniper’s dander up?

One of the opposing team’s players tripped up a French striker that even the former Overwatch operative was willing to agree was a wanker move.Widow jumped off the sofa screaming,

“Come on Ref!!!! Are you blind???”

Lena stopped mid chew, noodles dangling out of her mouth, chop sticks paused in mid air as Widow turned, a slightly terrifying look on her face, demanding,

“Lena, did you see that?”

Lena nodded wide eyed, not willing to admit that she had given up on following the match a good while ago having found something else far more entertaining.

“Gaaaa! Sacre bleu.” Throwing her hands up in frustration as, clad in grey yoga pants and a French football jersey and her pony tail bobbing, Amelie stalked from the sitting room disappearing into the depths of the apartment.

Suspicious of Widow’s sudden quiet, Lena called out,

“Babe?”

“Babe, you just missed a goal.”

Widow was hunched over, seemingly in a world of her own, typing furiously on a light screen the back light casting her features in an eerie glow.

“Luv,” Lena asked with piqued curiosity, “Whatcha doing?”

She entered the room peering over Widow’s shoulder quickly reading the screen before in one swift move she slammed off the lightpad, exclaiming, “You cant assassinate the referee!”

Widow’s eyes narrowed as she huffed,

“I cant see why not! He is an idiote!”

Lena grabbed the lightpad dock holding it behind her back,

“Nope! You cant just off some geezer willy nilly cause you don’t like their call.” Attempting to mock scald her, Lena added, “Besides I thought we said no more killing?”

Amelie pouted, “Not even a little bit?”

Lena grinned, it was a rare sight to see french woman pouting, it was usually the English girl’s tactic. God, is this what Amelie had to deal with every time the pilot gave her the puppy dog eyes when wanting to get her own way?

Widow suddenly towered over her attempting to reach round for the lightpad dock as she coaxed,

“Just let me find out where his lives.”

“Will you not let me play cherie?”

The hot air ghosting her earlobe, that raspy voice, caused Lena’s skin to goosebump and prickle with static. Lena squeezed her eyes shut mutely shaking her head.

“Not even a little bit?” Came the seductive growl.

She could have some resolve, god damnit!

It was as if Widow could sense her weakening as she pressed her body further into the smaller woman.

“Come now my pet, don’t be foolish.”

Lena nuzzled Amelie with her nose, those alluring lips just millimeteres from her own. If she didnt do something now she was a goner.

Quickly she caught Widow’s lips in a kiss, feeling how the french woman grinned into it. Just as she felt Amelie beginning to relax Lena pulled away, impishly bopping her on the nose with her fingertip,

“Nope pop!”

“No fair!” Lena squealed in delight.

“All is fair in love and war my cherie!” Amelie triumphantly declared, as straddling her, she wrestled the lightscreen dock from the Londoner’s grasp.

Two could play that game, Lena thought as she gripped the front of Amelie’s jersey pulling her in for a searing kiss,the lightscreen long forgotten as hands dipped below the hem of grey yoga pants only to grasp firm ass cheeks. Amelie’s eyebrows shot up and her eyes narrowed playfully, smirking down at the younger woman.

“Ah, it is like that , is it?”

“All is fair in love and war!” The mussy haired pilot cheekily repeated.

Amelie laughed, it was light and breezy, a sound Lena would never stop trying to illicit.

“You win!”

“You surrender?”

“Oui!”

Lena couldnt help herself,

“Just like the French,eh? Always giving up!”

Amelie wrinkled her nose in a mock scowl,

“Right, you’re in for it!” She announced, as once again she began tickling her tormentor with ernest. Lena let out a delighted shriek, laughing and wriggling beneath her captor before exchanging soft fluttery kisses that quickly devolved into to long and languid ones. Somewhere the Croatian crowd booed in dismay and Lena didnt notic as one slender hand reached out activating the lightscreen and began quickly tapping away.

She certainly didnt notice as later, slick with sweat, her own screams and curses coming quicker and louder, loud enough to drown out the forgotten match, a digtialised sugar skull appeared followed by an address somewhere in Moscow.

“Lookit that luv, your lot won!”

Lena’s smile widened as Amelie drew her closer, lips ghosting her forehead.

“Oui, I most certainly did.”

@robohero here’s what i was on about, if youre interested :)

#widowmaker #amelie lacroix #tracer #lena oxton #domestic widowtracer #widowtracer #tracemaker #overwatch fanfic #overwatch #world cup #fanfic #runephoenix6769 fanfic #longpost #long post #i might upload to ao3 and fanfic later

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while-im-home · 4 years

Text

Sunday 15/03/2020

So today I was finally hit by whatever plague has been circling my immune system. I’ve had a kind of sore throat for about 3 days and feeling like I’m burning up every now and then and this morning, I felt like I had been hit by a tonne of bricks. My body aches, I’m sweating buckets, I feel a little confused and dizzy, my sore throat doesn’t seem to be here but something is definitely up. I climb into bed and put the fan on to try and combat this hot flush I’m having. There I stayed for the rest of the day, watching YouTube on my phone all day and hoping I would feel better as the day went on. This did not happen. Unfortunately I don’t remember much of that evening other than feeling sad that this was how I was feeling.

Monday 16/03/2020

Today was hard. Today was the anniversary of my mum passing away. I felt really horrible mentally and physically today. My soul ached not just because she was gone but also because I felt too crappy to do anything to remember her by. I planned to bake some cupcakes and B had given me a wonderful gift to remember her by, a video message that can be sent into space and he was going to record me and pay to send it into space through a company he found last year and had been keeping it a secret until today. It was so sweet of him. I cried for hours that day. I spent this day in bed again, feeling sorry for myself and also a little angry as my online food shop had arrived and half of my order was missing because of those asshole panic buyers swiping all the things. I took a turn for the worse tonight. I felt as though my face and body were pressed against scalding radiators and I felt very tired and delirious. B said I didn’t feel as though I had a temperature but my cheeks felt like they were going to catch fire any second. We tried to call 111 but we couldn’t get through. A lot of other panicked people it seemed. At this point we had been convincing ourselves that there was no way I had coronavirus, I had only seen one person and I was housebound anyway due to my agoraphobia. It must’ve just been a flu. I was drifting in and out of sleep as my body battled all these horrible feelings, my arms and legs felt so heavy and ached heavily. I managed to get to sleep with a cold flannel on my face.

Tuesday 17/03/2020

I woke up feeling a little better. I didn’t feel as though I was burning up anymore but I did feel shortness of breath and I messaged my friend who I had seen around a week prior to see if she had this feeling. She did. Granted her feelings were a lot more cold based where as I primarily had a fever and an achy body. She recommended I call 111 and see what they say. I decide to do it later when B had woken up (he had stayed up really late the night previously). Thankfully B had brought my Xbox into the bedroom for me and I began a playthrough of L.A.Noire. A game I adored but had never fully finished before. I will be talking about this a lot. I flew through Traffic and Homocide that day but before I could even think about starting Ad-Vice B had woken up. He was very anxious. He takes medication for his anxiety and was late in taking it so he was in rather a bad state mentally but called 111 for me anyway as my symptoms had started to worsen again. My ear was bright red and was burning up and that slowly traveled to my cheeks again. We got through this time and the woman was rather rude to me. She said because I had a fever and shortness of breath, they were going to transfer to me to the coronavirus specialist phonelines. I was sure I didn’t have it because I don’t have a cough. And that was the main symptom. They gave them my number and eventually called me back, she was the loveliest woman ever and said that they would keep me on their radar in case my symptoms worsen or anything but until then all I can do is self isolate and rest up. I fell asleep that night struggling to breathe and woke up many times in the night because of it. It was horrible.

Wednesday 18/03/2020

I don’t remember much from today. I remember feeling short on breath all day and feeling incredibly lonely. Self isolation is incredibly isolating, who would’ve known. I miss my friends and my boyfriend. He’s being cautious with me but is still managing to be a loving and caring boyfriend. My dad visited me but didn’t come into my bedroom, was the first time I had seen him in weeks. We don’t really have the best relationship. I remember eating more than I had done the day previously. And I remember that drinking had been a problem, I was struggling to force myself to stay hydrated, I only managed to force myself to drink one cup on one of the days but today I managed to drink around 4-5 pints of water (and a couple of them had orange squash in ☺️). I didn’t feel as feverish today but I did briefly that night. I was mostly very scared because the doom the media has been churning out had kept convincing me I was going to be put in hospital or that I was going to die.

Thursday 19/03/2020

Today was bad but for a different reason. After 5 hours of sleep I was rudely awoken by my own body. I was cramping. Hard. My period had arrived and wasn’t going easy on me. I managed to go and clean myself up and get back in bed. Unfortunately one of the symptoms I get with my period is that I get bad hot flashes. I burn up. So on top of my fever, it was hard to tell if it was my fever or my period causing me to toast marshmallows. And I couldn’t even have a hot water bottle to combat the cramps without completely overheating myself. I pushed through and it got better as the day went on. My shortness of breath felt a little easier but my sore throat had returned. Win some lose some. I finished L.A.Noire properly this time. And oh. My. God. I cried. I cried hard. The ending was so... unexpected and FUCKING SAD???? I have so many thoughts and feelings and although I’m really upset with the ending, it did make me love the game even more on a deeper level. I wasn’t in the mood for another game after that and ended up spending the entire rest of the day watching 2 Broke Girls on Amazon Prime. I’m actually really enjoying it. The writing is a little off and after a while it gets very repetitive. Caroline whines about how far she’s fallen and Max says vagina. There that’s the whole show. Fr though I am enjoying it. It’s a good distraction. B went out today, we know he wasn’t supposed to but we desperately needed some groceries that our online shop couldn’t get us. He was cautious, covered his mouth and tried not to touch ANYTHING he didn’t have to or wasn’t going to purchase to keep chance of spreading whatever I have to the absolute minimal. He also got me a present to cheer me up AND as an early birthday present. It was a Yachemon plush from Overwatch, I laughed so hard when I saw it my shortness of breath got worse. Oops.

Friday 20/03/2020

Today was the best day by far. I felt so much like myself, I barely felt hot at all, my shortness of breath was practically non existent and I actually felt a lot more human, however, I do have a lot Of phlegm in my throat and have had to cough and clear it a few times, still wouldn’t say I had a cough though. I’m a little wary of the people that have said it gets worse before it gets better so am keeping to the bed for a few days longer just in case. I feel so much like myself and was even able to get up briefly without feeling like I was going to pass out! It’s a step in the right direction at least! I was still mourning the L.A.Noire ending and was feeling incredibly lonely again (a common theme, I complained of loneliness to B a thousand times even though we both know he should only really come and see me if he HAS to). But he came down to hang out with me briefly to help me pick a few games to buy from the Xbox store. We picked some that were on sale, the first 5 chapters of Life Is Strange and Mafia II. I decided to start with Life Is Strange and I’m sadly really unimpressed with it. I’m not a massive fan of games where your choices effect certain things because they make me anxious I will choose the bad endings! I’m a little disappointed that it’s a supernatural storyline, I was hoping for something a little more realistic but it doesn’t ruin the game. I love the art style and voice acting, it’s a beautiful game with a promising storyline (even if it’s not specifically my cup of tea). I think the chapters were a little short considering how much they are at original price separately but I guess I’m just lucky I caught it on sale. I’m not itching to play more but I will anyway, I just hope it gets a little better :/.

We’re all caught up. I’ll try and write a diary entry every evening. It will mostly focus on reviewing the entertainment I have and describing my symptoms and just what I get up to. I’m writing for myself and people reading it is just an extra. It’d be nice to have something to talk at like a diary for a while. Even if it’s not talking back I appreciate the social effects it’s having on me.

Anyways. I’ll post today’s diary entry either tonight or tomorrow morning. Until then we take it easy. ✌🏻

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dominodebt · 7 years

Text

seraphim

Angela feels a hand grab a fistful of her medical coat and yank her back.

She gasps and twists around—the clipboard in her hands is thick and metallic and she’s more than willing to break it over someone’s head—when her wide eyes fall upon Gabriel Reyes, who arches an eyebrow, still gripping her coat.

“The wall, Doc,” he states flatly.

Angela blinks twice at him, color creeping into her cheeks as she turns around—the tautness of her coat drops as Reyes releases her—and glances at the solid wall she’d been preparing to stride right into.

Again.

Gott verdammt

“It’s only because—” she begins, a defensive edge to her voice even though all Reyes has done is keep her from humiliating herself.

Reyes just holds up a dark hand to quiet her.

“The layout is flipped,” he supplies, because this is the fourth time they’ve met like this in Angela’s first two weeks at Blackwatch’s building. “Back at Gibraltar, that’s where your infirmary was.”

It’s true. The Blackwatch base had been constructed to mirror its law-abiding counterpart. Angela, whose feet had long memorized the path to her infirmary from any point in Overwatch’s HQ, often finds herself taking wrong turns, ending up in everything from janitor’s closets to one regrettable trip into Jesse McCree’s quarters.

An accident that she still maintains is his fault for leaving his door unlocked.

She and Reyes just look at each other then. They’ve been doing that a lot, lately—saying things without words. Communicating through a language of eyebrow dips, mouth twitches, and head tilts.

You can leave any time you want, his arched eyebrow says.

I dare you to say that out loud, her tensed jaw replies.

“If y’all are done canoodlin’ like a couple’a rookies,” an unmistakable Southern drawl has Angela preemptively rolling her eyes, “we gotta situation.”

Angela and Reyes step apart, both glaring at McCree, who tips his hat with a toothy grin.

“Morrison’s waitin’ fer ya in the war room,” he explains, and Reyes strides past him with a nod. Angela loiters behind, shooting the gunslinger a sharp look for his canoodling comment. McCree just smirks back.

“Do you think this is about King’s Row?” she asks.

McCree snorts, crossing his arms and making the Blackwatch logo he bares on his shoulder shift. “Knowin’ Morrison, this could be a call for us to pick up his damn dry cleaning.”

Angela sighs, weighing the clipboard she still holds in her hands and gently persuading herself not to whack the cowboy upside the head with it.

“Be serious, Jesse, please—”

“I honestly don’ know,” he amends, eyeing the clipboard in her hand like he’d just realized how sturdy it looked. “Could be King’s Row. Could be a million other things.” He offers her a one-armed shrug. “World of problems ‘n all that, y’know?”

Angela bites back a scoff. A world of problems indeed.

She’s preparing to turn back the opposite direction—to where her infirmary actually is—when she catches Reyes doubling back, leaning around the corner he’d turned to look back at her.

“Ange,” he calls, frowning as he peers at her from down the hall. “You coming?”

Angela hesitates—she’d never been invited to any kind of war room meeting. Not unless her expertise as a healer was needed, and Ana usually stepped in to fill that role instead.

“Um, certainly, Commander,” she calls back, cursing her unsteady reply.

McCree elbows her in the side, grinning from beneath the shadow of his hat.

“Canoodlin’,” he repeats.

Angela smacks him on the shoulder with the clipboard and goes storming after Reyes.

-0-

Reyes watches her a lot.

It’s a sensation she’s well accustomed to—eyes on her back, tracking her steps, watching her movements—and one she’s grown mostly used to. There are a million and one reasons to keep someone like her in one’s sights.

She’s seen herself after long operations or stretches of sleepless nights. She’d be slow to turn her back on someone like that too.

But with Reyes it feels less like she’s being watched and more like she’s being…studied.

Evaluated? The thought makes her chest tight.

“Hey.”

She catches Reyes’ arm as he turns to leave, and he stops immediately, looking back at her with raised eyebrows. They’ve just finished attending a meeting about the escalating situation in London, and Angela knows he’s on his way back to his quarters to get some sleep for once in his life, but she can’t stop herself.

“Are you okay?” she asks seriously, trying to search his dark eyes.

He lifts a single eyebrow at her question. “Yes?”

His hand ghosts to his ribs—a gunshot wound she’d patched up weeks ago.

“I mean with this,” she hastens to explain, waving her free hand vaguely at herself. “With me. Being here.”

Reyes’ expression flat lines—his face goes completely blank with confusion for a moment—before he’s frowning down at her.

“Yes?” he says again, shifting his weight in a way that indicates he’s planning on standing in this empty meeting room with her longer than he anticipated. “Ange, did something happen—?”

“No!” she rushes out, fingers tightening instinctually where she holds his arm. The action draws both their gazes and Angela drops his arm entirely, stepping back.

“No,” she repeats, collecting herself. “I just…sometimes it feels like you’re watching me.” A pause. “Like…like you’re looking for something.”

She watches as he tilts his head, crossing his arms as he considers her.

“Looking for what?” he asks, which isn’t really what she’d been hoping for, if she’s being honest.

Angela shrugs, a little uneasily.

“I don’t know,” she admits. “Sometimes I feel like you’re…evaluating me. Making sure I’m not going to…you know…”

He lifts an eyebrow, staring down at her in a way that implies he does not, in fact, know.

She gestures a bit uselessly with her hands.

“I’m worried you’re waiting for me to mess up,” she confesses in a rush. “So you can, I don’t know, have a reason to send me back to Overwatch.”

Reyes, to his benefit, keeps his cool. It honestly just makes Angela more nervous.

“Why do you think I brought McCree?” he asks.

Angela shrugs, frowning at the change of topic. “I believe your exact reasoning was so that he and Jack wouldn’t kill each other?”

Reyes dips his head in agreement. “That’s true, but it’s also because when I left, Jack told me to take people I wanted watching my back. I don’t have time to waste waiting for someone to mess up, or not meet my expectations.” He huffs a laugh crossing his arms. “Half the time, I don’t even meet my own expectations. It’s just part of the job.”

Angela nods slowly, digesting his words. Reyes looks away then, studying a window across the room.

“Watching you is a leftover habit,” he explains, voice much softer. “Don’t think anything of it.”

Angela quickly turns away so he won’t see whatever the fuck-all is going on with her face after a comment like that.

“Right,” she says, a bit too hurriedly. “Well, thank you for clearing that up, Commander.” She moves to stride off, but Reyes calls her back.

“And Angela?”

She turns back to face him. Reyes cocks an eyebrow.

“The only way you’re going back to Overwatch is if that’s what you decide you want to do.” He levels a look at her. “And even then, I can’t promise I’ll let you go easily.”

-0-

“It has been statistically proven a hundred times that torture does not—”

“I know, Doc!” McCree cuts her off with an annoyed look. “Believe it er not, the Deadlock Gang was pretty fuckin’ familiar with the concept.”

Tension hangs like humidity in the closed-door meeting as Angela and McCree scowl at each other from across the table.

“Angela.” The doctor snaps to attention at the sound of her name in Reyes’ voice, though the Commander is staring down at a tablet in his hands as he paces the room. “No one here is in agreement with the concept. McCree’s moral compass works just fine.” He glances up at her then, and gifts her with a quick twist of his lips despite his obvious exhaustion. “Usually, anyway.”

“Hardy har har,” McCree laughs back sarcastically, rolling his eyes. “I ain’t the shadiest motherfucker here, Reyes. Not by a long shot.”

“You’re not,” Reyes agrees, tapping commands into the tablet. “You’re also not the one suggesting we torture information out of the Omnic Overwatch picked up in their last raid.”

Angela’s stomach twists at the thought, but she holds her tongue this time.

“Can ya even torture an Omnic?” This from McCree, who has his thumbs hooked in his belt loops as he tracks Reyes’ pacing. “I mean…there’s not much to ‘em by way of emotion, right?”

Angela’s eyes flash to the gunslinger’s, her expression just this side of scalding even though she hears the genuine question in his voice. He isn’t being cruel—it’s this very same brutal honesty and coldhearted viewpoint that kept him alive when he ran with Deadlock—but it makes her snarl all the same.

“He is a highly advanced technological being, Jesse,” she tells him coolly, trying to swallow her anger. “Not a toaster.”

Reyes pauses at this—she can hear his rhythmic pacing stop—and her face grows hot when he feels his gaze, but she stares resolutely at McCree, who treats her to a flat look, void of any of his typical humor.

“I know yer pissed, Doc,” he says, and she can see him lift an eyebrow from beneath his hat. “But keep yer words outta my mouth. I say enough dumb shit on my own.”

Angela swallows hard, looking away, chiding herself.

“I’m sorry,” she murmurs, staring down at the files spread across the table. “I just…this is all very…”

She grits her teeth. Part of her—an overwhelming part, actually—wants to look for Reyes, to seek out his expression. But she knows what she’ll find if she does.

I told you Blackwatch would be like this.

I tried to warn you about this kind of thing.

I begged you to stay behind and you didn’t listen.

No. The denial cracks across her mind like a whip. You are apart of Blackwatch. You have every right to be here. Every right to be heard.

Reyes wouldn’t have let you come if he didn’t think you could do this.

“What if we get the answers another way?” she asks shortly, still staring at the papers fanned out around her. “This can’t be the only solution.”

She glances sideways, watching McCree scratch at his jaw, considering it.

“I mean,” he says, shrugging. “We’d need more intel, and to get more intel, we’d need a green light from the big Oh-Doubleya.”

OW means Overwatch, and Overwatch means Morrison. Angela grits her teeth.

“It’s not the only solution.” The doctor isn’t so disrespectful as to not look at her Commander when he’s speaking, and reluctantly raises her eyes to see Reyes staring right back at her. “It’s just the solution that Morrison asked for.”

“Fuck Morrison, then,” she bites back, a fierce immediacy to her words that makes Reyes lift his eyebrows. McCree makes a noise that sounds vaguely like he’s choking.

“What?” she demands, straightening up, crossing her arms. “Blackwatch does the dirty work, right? We were created to break laws and bend the truth anyway, weren’t we?”

She notes her own use of we, a pronoun she used to only attach to Overwatch. Reyes’ notices too, she knows—half because he notices everything, and half because his lips twitch with a smirk when it slips out.

McCree leans into her line of vision, expression doubtful.

“Ange…I really don’ think Overwatch intended themselves to be the ones we lied to,” he drawls.

She doesn’t turn, still meeting Reyes’ gaze head on.

“Even better,” she says. Her heart’s hammering in her chest. What the fuck is she even suggesting? Go behind Overwatch’s back? “Then they won’t expect it.”

Pull a fast one on Jack Morrison?—fine, maybe. His attention is always on a million other things. They could make it work.

Pull a fast one on Ana Amari?—not on your life. Not on anyone’s life.

She and McCree both look to Reyes. The Commander’s eyes are on the table—tablet forgotten—his knuckles rapping lightly against the wood as he thinks.

“There are rumors of Omnics fighting back against the uprising,” he murmurs.

Angela lifts her eyebrows. “What kind of rumors?” she asks.

“One of Overwatch’s agents found the body of an Omnic in an alleyway with a handful of dead civilians,” he recites lowly. “The civs’ wound were all to the chest. The Omnic was shot in the back.”

“Friendly fire?” McCree offers, but even he doesn’t sound convinced.

“The Omnic was ransacked for parts afterwards,” Reyes continues. “The damage was methodical and precise. Probably done by other Omnics.”

“A traitor then,” Angela suggests. “An Omnic who died protecting humans.”

“If one Omnic can reject its programming, and turn against Null Sector,” Reyes agrees with a nod. “There’s definitely more.”

“We just gotta find ‘em,” McCree points out.

Reyes glances sideways at the gunslinger then, eyebrows raised.

“You gotta find ‘em,” he corrects. “That’s your next assignment. You up for it?”

Angela stops listening as they start discussing the parameters of the mission, chewing her lip in thought as she stares down at the Overwatch reports that crowd the table, wondering why none of them had mentioned this. She wonders how Reyes knew.

Because Reyes knows everything, a voice in her head chirps unhelpfully.

She starts back to the present when the door swings shut with McCree’s exit, and Angela looks up to see Reyes watching her.

“You alright?” he asks, and she nods.

“Sorry for…” she gestures vaguely to the room. “I guess I’m still adjusting.”

Reyes considers her for a moment, tilting his head.

“You know, you’re not good enough to be here,” he tells her, and Angela’s breath gets caught in her chest, mouth falling open with indignation—she will tear this base apart if he even suggests she pack her bags how dare he—before he gifts her with a wry grin. “You’re good enough to help make us better. That’s why we listen to you. Well, that and you typically have the best plans.”

Her anger dies just as quickly as it’d blazed up. Oh.

“I didn’t know Blackwatch was supposed to be better,” she offers.

Reyes cocks an eyebrow. “Then why’d they send their best?” he counters.

Angela just watches as he flashes her a quick smile, then turns to follow McCree.

-0-

“Um, ma’am?”

Angela glances over her shoulder at the woman who’d spoken, lifting an eyebrow. It’s still a little bizarre to her—she’s used to being the elusive Overwatch doctor who never left her infirmary and took her meals alone at three in the morning. The genius that Morrison had brought in to cheat death. She had—Angela tenses, she does—consider the Overwatch strike team to be her family, and would drop anything to help any one of them at a moment’s notice.

But Blackwatch is…different.

Reyes put his faith in her—in her, not just her brains or her medical expertise—and in turn, so had the rest of the organization. It’s a large task—she’s never prided herself on her people skills, and running a group like Blackwatch demands a certain amount of social wrangling—but when she catches sight of herself in one of the many reflective services dotted around the base—scuffed combat boots, darkwash jeans, pitch-black medical coat, Blackwatch crest stitched over her heart—she’s reminded of who she is and why she’s here.

Angela squares her shoulders. A lot of people are depending on her for a lot of different things.

Well…maybe not a lot of people—unless an agent has come into her infirmary, she probably hasn’t spoken to them, and she’s rarely around in the mess hall or other communal areas—but Reyes is depending on her, and Jesse too, even if the little shit doesn’t always say so.

“Yes?” she prompts, a bit belatedly.

The woman hands her a tablet. The pair of injured agents Angela had been speaking to dutifully avert their eyes as the Blackwatch doctor takes it in her hands.

“Commander Reyes is unavailable at the moment. On assignment with Overwatch in Russia. It seemed appropriate to defer to you.”

Well there’s a concept that will keep Angela up for days.

Still, she lets her gaze sweep across the screen, frowning as she tries to get a handle on what she’s looking at. In this moment, she suddenly appreciates all the times Reyes has been given something—a document, a communication device, a laptop, a photo—without any context or preamble, and he instantly knows what it is, why he’s looking at it, and what needs to be done.

She’s not as practiced as Blackwatch’s Commander, but in a few moments, her expression clears. Security logs. She’s looking at security logs for the base.

She flicks her gaze back to the woman, trying very hard to make it not seem like she’s asking for a clue.

The woman coughs awkwardly into her fist. “You, uh, may want to check the ID logged at fifteen hundred hours,” she suggests.

Angela’s brow furrows. Fifteen hundred hours is three o’clock, which—by her unnervingly accurate internal clock—had just passed.

She drops her gaze back to the screen, searching…

“Jesse McCree,” she growls, roughly passing the tablet back to the woman as she strides past her towards the infirmary, black coat snapping behind her

She sees him before he sees her—a phenomenon not common with the deadeye gunslinger—and frowns when she sees him apparently bent over something on her operating table.

“Well, this is a surprise,” she bites out when she crosses the threshold of her infirmary, combat boots cracking under her angry footfalls. “Considering Reyes sent you to King’s Row four days ago on a six week mission.”

Her sharp tone belies her worry. What the fuck could have happened to make him pull out of a mission so early? And without calling? Jesse McCree leaves missions one of two ways: returning home with success, or being dragged bodily out of the field by Reyes after a failure.

“Jesse?” she tries to temper her tone, sidestepping him to get a better look, whole body tensed as her instincts rail at her that something’s wrong something’s wrong something’s so very fucking wrong—

He turns, and years of her chosen profession keep her expression neutral as she takes in the blood he’s covered in.

“What happened.” The words are clipped and practiced as she draws closer, scanning his injuries, cataloguing the worst ones she finds, narrowed eyes flitting between the openly bleeding wounds and the deep bruises. “Jesse, what—?”

And then she sees him. Or, at least, what’s left of him.

“Let m’ explain,” McCree coughs out.

Angela can’t look away.

There—on the hard metal of her operating table—is the mangled, bloodied body of a young man with dark hair and familiar tattoos on what’s left of his right arm.

Genji Shimada.

“Jesse, what the actual fuck—”

“I barely got him back here,” McCree rushes out. “Just hear me out, Doc.”

Angela steps closer, whole body tensed.

So McCree explains how he’d been minding his own business, getting the mission set up, then he’d heard shouting and had gone to investigate, found the dueling Shimada brothers, watched as Genji had apparently offered himself up at the end, and McCree had been compelled to chase off the older brother. When he’d turned back around, the younger brother had leapt towards him, sword drawn—

“You shot him?” Angela demands when he gets to that part of the story.

“It was a nonlethal shot to the leg!” McCree argues, a defensive lilt to his voice like he’s being accused of cheating on an exam and not hunting down a lethal heir to an empire of criminals—

“Jesse.” Angela’s voice is taut as a wire. “It doesn’t matter if the shot is nonlethal when your target is already dead.”

“He ain’t dead,” McCree snaps. His eyes dart to the boy who lies on the bed, doing a very convincing impression of a dead person. “Not that dead, anyway.”

“Jesse.” She rubs her temples with both hands. “There are not degrees of deadness.”

“You can save him!” McCree insists, stepping forward, every aspect of his body language begging for her help. “C’mon, Ange. Please.”

Angela drops her gaze back to the boy. He draws a ragged breath that sounds like he’s drowning and her mind is suddenly racing with all the different things that are doubtlessly wrong with him and he needs and IV and a drip and she’s got to stabilize him and she’s got to get her hands on some of that of Omnic biotech—

“I saw him go down,” McCree tells her lowly. “I saw the whole fight. It ain’t fair what happened to him.”

“It isn’t fair what he’s done to most people,” Angela counters softly. But even as she says the words she doesn’t believe them. Fairness is not an accurate scale. It never has been. Nothing is fair.

McCree’s staring at her—she can feel his buckshot gaze boring a hole in the side of her skull as she gazes down at the battered and broken Shimada heir.

This is a judgment call. And for once it’s all hers.

That means if it goes horribly wrong, all the blame will be on you.

Her jaw tightens.

No more orders to hide behind, Ange. Pull the trigger or don’t.

She thinks back to her first meeting with Jesse. How Reyes had railed and railed against everyone in Overwatch to spare the gunslinger and give him another chance. She’d watched silently as Reyes had vouched for him—putting his own honor and prestige at stake just so Morrison would give the okay for her to stitch the scrappy outlaw back together.

Her eyes trace the remains of Genji Shimada.

“Go get yourself cleaned up,” she tells him brusquely, turning on her heel to start collecting supplies from the corner of the room. “And tell everyone the infirmary’s closed.”

-0-

Angela finds him sitting on the steps out back, overlooking the training fields.

The morning air bites as she steps out into it, holding a blanket around her shoulders. Yesterday’s clothes are stiff with blood and sweat, but it’s nothing she isn’t used to as she steps carefully across to the staircase with two cups of coffee in her hands.

“Hey,” she greets the gunslinger softly, knocking his shoulder with the bottom of a coffee cup.

McCree jolts so badly he almost knocks the cup out of her hands, and Angela hisses as she pulls back, trying to keep the burning hot liquid off her hands.

“Easy,” she murmurs, searching his eyes when she lowers the drink back towards him. “It’s only me.”

“Sorry,” he mutters back, accepting the cup.

Still eyeing him, she flops rather ungracefully beside him on the stairs. McCree truly looks awful—still clothed in the filthy mission clothes he’d returned in yesterday, dark shadows bruising the skin beneath his eyes, hair hanging limp and matted with blood. She wonders where his hat went.

She huffs in sympathy, hands twitching with the sudden desire to card her fingers through his hair and push it up out of his eyes. The action reminds her too much of Ana.

“You need a haircut, cowboy,” she says instead, settling in closely beside him, their shoulders resting up against each other. “You look terrible.”

He just grunts in acknowledgment, taking a long sip from the coffee cup, eyes both a thousand miles away and nowhere at all.

“I’m serious,” she continues. “I just pulled an all-nighter with my arms elbow deep in somebody’s chest cavity. I know what I’m talking about.”

A short, breathy laugh—more scoff than anything—is her only answer. Angela sighs.

“Hey.” She nudges him gently, trying to draw his gaze. He glances at her blearily. “You did the right thing, Jesse, okay? A lot of people would’ve left him for dead.”

His eyes fall back on the coffee cup in his hands.

“I think a couple month ago I woulda left him fer dead,” he mutters back.

Angela allows this with a nod, idly tapping her fingers out in a silent rhythm on her own mug.

“Probably,” she agrees, because she’s not in the business of lying to those she cares about. “If it’s any consolation, a couple of months ago I would’ve been ordered to leave him for dead, and I honestly probably would have listened.”

McCree nods as he considers this, still staring out at the fields. Some Blackwatch agents are out, running drills and exercises. Angela finds herself combing the field for a familiar face, before she remembers—right. The mission to Volskaya.

Silence falls between them for a moment—soft and companionable. She wonders—off-handedly—what their relationship would be like if she hadn’t come to Blackwatch. It’s not that she can’t picture her life without McCree—she had thousands and thousands of hours logged at Overwatch before Reyes came barging in with the outlaw tucked under his arm—but she doesn’t really want to.

“He’s going to make it, you know,” she tells him quietly. She sees him holding himself tightly against the brisk morning air and shifts the blanket to throw half of it over his broad shoulders. He gives her a peeved look, which she counters with an arched eyebrow, and with a roll of his eyes he tugs it around himself.

“I ain’t a child,” he mutters, but she can see him loosen up at the extra warmth.

“Because only children get cold,” she deadpans back, taking another sip of coffee. “Naturally.”

McCree sighs. “Thanks,” he mumbles after a bit, idly picking at the edge of the coffee cup. “For…y’know…”

“It’s my duty and my privilege,” Angela answers airily. She smirks when she feels his exasperated look. “I’m teasing. Of course you’re welcome, Jesse. It’s what needed to be done.”

He just heaves a sigh, and Angela watches as he tips sideways—slumping over until his head is resting on her shoulder. Angela glances down at him with a curious look as he shuts his eyes.

“I didn’ sleep much.”

“I gathered.”

She can see his smile flash white against brown skin. Oh no.

“Did’ya spike my coffee like you did Reyes’?” he asks.

Angela sighs sharply, rolling her eyes up to the sky.

“That was one time and it’s only because he was actively refusing to sleep and I did not spike his coffee that would have killed him I just—”

But McCree is laughing—endlessly amused with himself, as always—and she lets it go with an annoyed tsk, lifting her coffee cup to her lips.

“D’ya ever regret leaving Overwatch?” he asks lazily. There’s sleep in his voice. She wonders if he’s going to remember this conversation.

“No,” she says simply, shrugging the shoulder not occupied by the gunslinger. “I love Blackwatch.”

Silence returns. Angela listens to the steady rise and fall the gunslinger’s breathing.

“Do you want to call Reyes?” she eventually asks, glancing at him. The list of things she would do on behalf of Blackwatch’s Commander is dizzyingly long—thinking about it is looking down a flight of stairs that just descends into darkness. She has no way of knowing how far she’ll go until she’s there.

But still, she’s not so arrogant or selfish as to think her relationship with Reyes—another thing she doesn’t like to mentally linger on—trumps all his other rapports. He and Jesse are impossibly close—she won’t be offended if he wants his mentor’s input on what to do with one misplaced Shimada heir. She won’t even be surprised.

Jesse sits up instead, giving her an unusual glance. Without his hat, she has a clear view of his face, and watches his strange expression.

“’M mean,” he says, still looking her over curiously, like he’s missing a joke Angela doesn’t remember telling. “I kinda thought I’d just ask you.” He offers an unsteady shrug at her continued perplexity. “Yer sorta…I mean, Reyes kinda left you with the keys to Blackwatch, an’ we all know he’ll go along with anything you decide anyway.”

Angela doesn’t know what to say, so she just stares.

The gunslinger misreads her silence, and pulls one hand off his coffee cup—the bloodstains on his gloves leave a crimson handprint that draws her gaze—to hold up in front of himself, hastily trying to save face he hasn’t lost—

“Not ‘cause like—I mean, fuck we all know—it ain’t—” McCree fumbles horribly for words, and Angela just watches, completely at a loss for what he’s trying to express to her.

“He agrees with ya because he knows yer a damn genius. Not because of—” Angela wishes she were in a place where she could better appreciate the flush that splashes across McCree’s cheeks. “—other things.”

“Other things,” she repeats, lifting an eyebrow. “Like…?”

McCree’s brown face is positively scarlet. “Yer not serious.”

Angela opens her mouth to reply, when a shadow falls over them. Her lips quirk up instead.

She turns around, facing away from McCree and missing his grumbled, “speak of the fuckin’ devil,” to look up at Reyes.

“You’re back early,” she notes, offering him a half-smile.

He nods, surveying the practice fields before dropping his gaze to hers. A small smile tugs at his lips.

“Got a weird call about some gunslinger who came back weeks early from assignment, a half-dead assassin, and a doctor who probably hasn’t slept in a good fifty hours trying to wrangle them both.” He shrugs, playing for casual. “Thought I’d check it out.”

“To be fair, the half-dead assassin didn’t require much wrangling,” Angela remarks, taking a sip of her coffee. “And I’ve only been up for thirty hours.”

Reyes just scoffs, rolling his eyes.

“Get to bed. Both of you,” he grumbles, before turning away. “Or I’ll drug you.”

McCree cackles and Angela lets her head fall back with a groan.

“It was one time!”

-0-

“Cadet Oxton,” Angela greets the girl kindly. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

The girl’s eyes are wide as she looks around—the screens in the infirmary reflect brightly off her irises—and Angela smiles lightly. She’s so overwhelmed, she’s missed the doctor’s greeting.

“Cadet Oxton?” Angela folds her arms against her chest, arching an amused eyebrow as she leans forward to level herself with the seated woman. “Lena?”

She starts, a small gasp escaping her as her gazes focuses in on Angela.

“Oh! Dr. Ziegler!” Her spine snaps to attention—eyes still flipped wide—and Angela places a thin hand on her arm before she can lift it up in a salute.

“Settle down, Cadet.” A smirk pulls at Angela’s lips as she straightens back up. “It’s only me. No need to be so formal.”

“Um, of course, ma’am,” she hastens to say, arm still hovering awkwardly, like her brain is still ordering a salute. “I—sorry, I just, I didn’t—you’re kind of a legend, ma’am, so I’m a little—”

She snaps her mouth shut then—color pooling in her cheeks and dusting the tips of her ears—and Angela just shifts her weight with a small laugh.

“Well, I don’t know what you’ve heard, but I assure you I’m nothing extraordinary.”

She glances up to see the cadet fixing her with a poorly disguised look of doubt.

“But…you’re Dr. Ziegler,” she tries, and Angela is willing to give her full marks for at least not actively trying to sound pushy. “You invented the Valkyrie suit! You were brought onto Overwatch when you were, like, nineteen!”

Angela smiles softly as she collects a clipboard carrying the cadet’s data. She’s only in for a check-up, but Morrison had sent her to Angela due to Lena’s unique relationship with time and space—and specifically her placement in it. The girl is, in Angela’s professional opinion, completely fine thanks to the chronal accelerator she wears across her chest, and the doctors at Overwatch are more than qualified.

As they should be. She’d handpicked all of them before leaving.

But Lena Oxton is bright and cheerful and enchanted by every aspect of Blackwatch, so Angela’s glad she was sent her way.

“I was twenty-three,” the doctor offers.

Lena heaves a very theatrical sigh, and Angela’s lips quirk in amusement at her dramatics.

“Still,” the cadet maintains. “You were a huge inspiration!” She shifts slightly in her seat, and Angela watches her curiously.

“You…well, stories about you…it’s part of the reason I joined up,” she mumbles, looking down at her hands, face flushed with embarrassment.

Angela pauses, looking up to stare at the young girl, touched.

“Oh,” she says. “I’m…I’m honored, Cadet, really.”

Lena shrugs like it’s no big deal.

“My town…I’m from King’s Row,” she rushes out, still not meeting Angela’s gaze. “When Null Sector rose up…and people were just dying in the streets…I couldn’t just…I had to do something.”

Angela works her jaw. She knows that feeling—perhaps a bit too well.

“Don’t worry,” she tells the other woman, giving her her best optimistic smile. “Between Overwatch and Blackwatch, we’ll have the situation under control in the very near future.

Lena cocks her head at this. “Blackwatch?”

Angela nods. “Well, yes. Overwatch rarely makes a movement in situations like this without first reviewing Blackwatch intelligence.”

Lena seems to consider her words, brow puckering in thought.

“Why did you leave, Doctor?”

Angela goes still for a moment, hands freezing over her work.

“I beg your pardon?”

She glances behind her—needing to see the woman’s face, needing to have something to read, needing some kind of control—to watch as the cadet goes absolutely scarlet, mouth snapping shut.

“I’m so sorry, ma’am, I didn’t mean—”

“It’s alright,” Angela cuts her off, voice soothing and calm. “Everyone thinks it, I’m sure.”

In truth, no one has ever outright asked her such a question. Why. Why had she left Overwatch?

“I wanted to follow Commander Reyes,” she says slowly, leaning back against the counter opposite Lena and folding her arms across her chest, frowning at the floor in thought.

Lena tilts her head, still flushed from her last social gaff, but apparently more curious than embarrassed.

“Did you work with him a lot at Overwatch?” she asks.

Angela shakes her head. “Not really,” she murmurs. “I mostly answered to Morrison. But we still knew each other very well. He was…he has this way of inspiring greatness without really any effort, it seems.”

She flicks her gaze up to see Lena watching her with rapt attention.

“I came to Blackwatch because I wanted a chance to achieve that greatness,” she finishes, shrugging. It’s not the whole truth, but not even Angela is sure she knows what the whole truth is.

Lena nods, looking like she’s pondering the doctor’s words with the utmost seriousness.

“I…I want to believe people can achieve greatness at Overwatch too,” she confesses.

Angela feels her lips curve in a slightly sharp smile.

“You can,” she says simply. “Someday you’ll be honored at Overwatch, I’m sure.”

And she means it. Cadet Oxton’s marks are already leagues higher than most recruits��.

But Lena still looks unconvinced.

“And you won’t be?” she asks.

“There’s a different kind of glory with Blackwatch,” Angela explains. “It’s…it’s the kind of thing you don’t get a medal for. You just look inside yourself, and know you’ve changed for the better.”

A beat. Angela shifts her weight.

“Can you keep a secret, Cadet?” she asks, lifting an eyebrow.

Lena blinks, caught off-guard.

“Can I what?” she asks.

“Keep a secret,” Angela repeats, studying the girl closely. “From Overwatch. Well, Jack Morrison, specifically.”

Lena’s eyes go wide. “You want me to lie to the Commander?” she asks in obvious disbelief.

Angela chews her lip for a moment. She’s going about this the wrong way.

“How fast can you actually move?” Angela questions instead, already reaching for the clipboard she uses specifically for Genji.

Lena tilts her head, considering it. “Well, with the three charges I’m allotted, I can blink about thirty feet—”

Angela lifts a hand to cut her off, and Lena falls silent with a confused look.

“How fast can you move, Cadet. Period.”

It takes a second, but then there’s a grin splitting the young woman’s face.

“I can’t be caught.” Her tone is absolute, but her eyes gleam with the thrill of a challenge.

Angela smiles back. Genji’s in sore need of some competition, and she has faith that this cadet is as fast as she claims.

“How do you feel about a spar before heading back to Overwatch?”

-0-

“Deputy Director?” Angela’s voice is riddled with uncertainty.

McCree snorts at her tone, pulling his hat down to cover his eyes as he leans back in his chair, arms folded behind his head.

“Easy on the confidence there, Ange,” he drawls, voice as heavy with sarcasm as it is his Southern accent. “No need to get such a high opinion of yerself.”

Her eyes snap to the cowboy—he’s chuckling from beneath the brim of his hat, damn him—before looking back to Reyes, who just quirks a brow at her.

“You can say no,” he says, tone betraying nothing because he’s about as good at hiding his emotions as Angela is bad at reading them. He’s like Amari that way—quiet in his expressions, a soft-spoken body language. Angela and Morrison wore their hearts on their sleeves like badges of honor, and granted, everyone—Amari, Reyes, Morrison McCree, Reinhardt, Torbjörn, Angela herself—could all be counted on to lose their heads every once in a while, but those two always played their cards close to their chests.

At first, when Angela had come with him to Blackwatch, she thought maybe she’d somehow gotten better at reading him, but she thinks it has more to do with him dropping his guard around the Blackwatch base.

Now, however, they stare at each other, an offer on the table.

“I just…” she fumbles briefly, trying to disentangle her own thoughts. “I’m not exactly trained in that way, Reyes—”

“Are you really going to bring up formal training with Jesse sitting right here in comparison?” Reyes deadpans, arching an eyebrow at her.

The legs of McCree’s chair clap sharply as he slams back down, pushing his hat out of his eyes to glare at Reyes.

“Well excuse the hell outta me, Commander,” McCree interjects hotly. “Didn’t realize we had such high expectations ‘round here. Ya wanna see my fuckin’ résumé?”

“Seen it. Not impressed,” Reyes replies, smirking at the gunslinger.

McCree flips him off, but Reyes is already looking back at Angela.

“I trust you,” he states plainly, offering a shrug. “That’s really the only requirement there is. Anything more—like, say, purely for example, being one of the leading medical authorities in the world—is just extra.”

“Extra bullshit,” McCree mutters, still nursing his pride.

Angela tilts her head. “Will I have authority over Jesse?” she asks, fighting to keep her tone neutral when the gunslinger’s gaze snaps to hers. “Just asking. No reason.”

Reyes lifts his eyebrows. “Don’t you already have authority over him?”

McCree pushes roughly away from the table, and Angela and Reyes exchange smirks.

“Alright, I get it. Y’all suck, and I ain’t goin’ outta my way to help ya next time,” he remarks, scowling as he pulls from the room.

“Do not bother Genji,” Angela calls after him with a frown. “I’m serious, Jesse, he needs rest.”

The gunslinger throws up a hand to show he hears her before ducking around the corner, out of sight.

Angela watches him go with a sigh, while Reyes just keeps his smirk.

“He makes it too easy,” the Commander murmurs, and Angela just nods in agreement.

They both stare down at the table between them, silent.

“Do you really want me to be Deputy Director?” she asks quietly, hazarding a glance up at him.

He lifts an eyebrow, meeting her gaze. “I’m not really in the business of asking for things I don’t want, Doc,” he tells her evenly.

She bites her lip, lowering her eyes.

“I get that you’re unsure,” he tells her quietly. “I get your hesitation. It’s a lot, and I’ve been asking you for a lot for a long time. But you can say no.”

“It’s just, when I think of Deputy Director, I think of Ana,” Angela explains. “And I don’t think anyone could fault me for being wary at the idea of filling a role like hers.”

Reyes dips his head in agreement. “But to be fair,” he adds, and she looks up at the sound of a smile in his voice, his dark eyes warm with humor. “Part of the reason Ana’s job is so hard is because Jack fucks up all the time.”

Angela laughs under her breath, shaking her head. “Yes, but you come with McCree,” she points out.

Reyes looks away, cursing the gunslinger under his breath, but there’s no heat to it. He pushes away to stand up, and Angela is suddenly seized with decision.

She wants this. She has no idea what this is—just like she didn’t know what Blackwatch was, or what leaving Overwatch would mean. She’d trusted the steadfast certainty of Gabriel Reyes and simply walked on.

She’d follow Reyes to the ends of the earth at this point. She’d always hated jokes about her being some kind of guardian angel but she’ll defend Blackwatch with any bit of deific powers she has.

“We can talk it over late—”

“I’ll do it,” she blurts out.

Reyes blinks, surprised, frozen halfway upright. “Wait, really?” He frowns, lowering himself back into the seat. “Ange, you can think it over if—”

“I’m not really in the business of doing things I don’t want to do, boss,” she tells him flippantly, and reaches for the documents to sign.

-0-

“Angela!”

Reinhardt’s loud voice booms through the halls, and the doctor has a brief moment to brace herself before she’s being swept up off the ground—

“Hallo, Reinhardt,” she greets him, smiling fondly as the great man hugs her tightly, laughing all the while.

“Put ‘er down, ya big hunk of armor,” Torbjörn grumbles, and Angela smiles as she’s set down with impossible gentleness to see the engineer approaching, hat drawn low over his eyes.

“Hello to you as well, Torbjörn,” she says kindly.

Her old friend just grunts in acknowledgement, and before Angela can tease him further, a streak of blue darts into the holding bay.

“Oh! Dr. Ziegler!” Lena seems to almost screech to a halt as she throws her arm up in a hasty salute, eyes wide behind her visor. “It’s good to see you again, ma’am!”

“At ease, Cadet,” Angela tells her, still laughing. Her face hurts from all the smiling. “I’m not your commanding officer.”

I’m not even an Overwatch officer, she wants to add.

It’s impossible to miss. Lena, Reinhardt, and Torbjörn are all decked out in Overwatch’s traditional blue, white, and yellow, while Angela sits in a Valkyrie suit of black, white, and red.

She and Lena sit shoulder to shoulder, their contrasting sigils brushing against each other. The Cadet is unusually quiet—and Angela studies her gloomy expression with concern.

“Lena,” she offers quietly, reaching out to lay a hand over the cadet’s tense fist. The girl snaps to attention, swinging her wide eyes over to the doctor. “It’s going to be okay.”

Lena’s throat bobs with a hard swallow, but she nods anyway.

Reinhardt moves into the holding bay then, taking a seat across from them in the enormous holding bay, Torbjörn following after.

“So,” Torbjörn drawls, leaning back in his seat to gaze at her, arching an eyebrow over his good eye. “Just where ‘n the hell have you been?”

Angela levels a flat look at him.

“Sweden,” she deadpans. “I was staying with your wife and children, Torbjörn. Didn’t they tell you? I’ve been having such a lovely time.”

Reinhardt laughs uproariously—the noise practically shaking the holding bay they’re seated in. Lena cracks a smile as well, uncertain of the inside joke but delighted at the doctor’s sarcasm.

“You must tell us everything!” Reinhardt exclaims. “Our Angela is a Blackwatch agent! And Deputy Director too! Ana was so proud she cried.”

“You were the one who cried,” Torbjörn points out dryly.

Angela just laughs again. “It’s wonderful, Rein,” she tells him. At his insistence, she spends most of the flight to London sharing stories from her time at Blackwatch—had it been a year already?—pausing when Reinhardt interjects, or Lena asks a question, always keeping an eye on Torbjörn, who takes in her tales with a neutral expression.

“I’ve never been prouder of my work,” Angela finishes with a small shrug. “Reyes and I work very well together.”

“I don’ doubt that last part,” Torbjörn returns, giving her a look too steely to be played for laughs.

Angela hears the change in tone before the others, and her eyes narrow.

“I beg your pardon?” She’s unrehearsed for masking her temper and it shows. Rein’s laughter quiets immediately, and she can feel his frown even as she gazes back at Torbjörn.

“I’m just glad to hear you’re settling in so nicely at Blackwatch,” the engineer goes on, a quiet unkindness to his voice that Angela doesn’t like.

“I have settled there,” Angela agrees, words lightly chilled. “I’ve found great success and happiness there, Torbjörn.”

He scoffs at this, and Angela’s fingers reflexively tighten on her staff.

“Oh, trust me dear, that I don’ doubt at all.”

“Torbjörn …” Reinhardt glances sideways at his friend, while Lena is looking between the two Overwatch legends with a very stark look of concern.

“Not sayin’ anything that isn’t true,” the engineer points out.

“You’re also not saying anything that needs to be said,” Angela counters.

A jolt runs through the holding bay at the carrier’s landing, and light floods the area when the doors slide open.

She and Torbjörn are still staring at each other.

Reinhardt hustles Lena out quickly, turning around to give the two of them a hard look before disappearing out into the London sun.

Angela breaks the stare down first—it’s something she learned to do with McCree ages ago—and goes to follow.

She feels a hand on her arm, and glances down even though she’s recognized Torbjörn’s touch for years.

“I don’ mean to be hard on ya,” he mutters, stubbornly avoiding her gaze. She smiles softly at his familiar gruffness. “I just…it’s hard, with ya being gone all this time. Old men like me and Rein—we worry, ya know?” He glances up at her then, single eye bright and serious. “We miss ya.”

Angela smiles. “I miss you all as well,” she tells him. And she means it. She misses Reinhardt’s bold, booming voice. She misses Torbjörn’s occasional curse rattling out from beneath a vehicle he’s working on. She misses Ana’s warm voice offering smooth instructions. She misses the slow, small smiles that would occasionally cross Morrison’s face, clearing out the worry lines.

“I’m still me, Torbjörn,” she tells him softly, wondering if the statement is for his benefit or hers. She offers him a small smile. “Really. I am.”

He smiles back at her then, patting her arm.

“I know, I know,” he assures her. “Just…keep it that way, yeah?”

She nods back. “Of course.”

A pause. He looks her up and down.

“Ya know…the black suits you,” he eventually remarks, almost to himself, before turning to head over to where Reinhardt and Lena are reviewing their orders. Angela takes a step to follow him, when there’s suddenly a voice in her ear—

“You read me, Mercy?”

Angela frowns, touching her earpiece.

“Reyes?” she asks, recognizing his voice but unsure why she’s hearing it. “Are we not using the main channel?”

“Just wanted to check in with you. Be careful out there. If things go sideways, McCree and Genji are around.” He rattles the information off, quick and confident.

Angela’s lips quirk. “I’m not going to need saving by a couple of rookies, Commander. Some faith, please.”

“I know you know I can hear ya, Doc,” McCree’s voice crackles in, annoyed. “An’ I haven’t been a rookie in years.”

“Your shooting suggests otherwise,” is Genji’s smooth reply, and Angela lifts a fist to smother her laughter from those not in on Blackwatch’s private line.

“Hey, Genji, ain’t that the cadet that laid you flat on yer ass that one time?”

“How someone wearing a cowboy hat can muster a superior tone of voice is honestly miraculous to me.”

“Focus, you two,” Reyes cuts across their bickering. “Just be glad Ana decided to stay back at HQ for this one. If she ever saw you, not even I could bail you out.”

The boys fall silent, and Angela glances over her shoulder to see the group getting ready to move.

“Anything else, Commander?” she asks. “I think we’re going to get started.”

There’s a brief moment of silence. Angela tries not to dwell on it.

“I’m watching your back,” he reminds her. She can hear the smile in his voice too. “Do Blackwatch proud out there, yeah?”

She preens a bit, knowing he’s got a camera on her somewhere.

“Always do.”

She hears his answering chuckle, before there’s a pause, and then—

“Reyes here. Latest Blackwatch intelligence indicates heavy Null Sector numbers inside the power station…”

-0-

Blackwatch’s base is fairly empty.

It feels strange, Angela reflects. The constant noise and movement of all of Blackwatch’s agents—and her place in the swing of things, not barricaded back in her infirmary—is what took the longest to get used to, but now she finds herself oddly missing it.

The King’s Row situation has been resolved, and with nothing looming on the horizon, Reyes had kicked just about everyone out, insisting they take time for themselves before he has to call them all back again for god knows how long.

Even McCree and Genji had left—though only after promising to share their location with Angela and Reyes at least once a week and not do anything excessively stupid—and Angela soaks up the silence as she and Reyes sit in her infirmary, each wrapped up in their own work.

“You always yell at me when I sit on your table,” Reyes comments, glancing across the room. Angela hooks her ankles together where her legs dangle off the side of the large metal operating table that dominates the center of her infirmary, perched neatly on its edge, focused on a tablet in her hands.

“When you clean the table everyday, then you can sit on it,” she returns, drawing a smirk out of Reyes, who had seen nothing in her expression that indicated she’d even been listening. She uses her knuckle to scroll down on the screen, text reflecting off the lenses of her glasses.

Something about her tone seems to tip Reyes off, and he lowers his papers, studying her for a moment. When she doesn’t acknowledge his gaze, he frowns.

“What are you looking at?” he asks.

He sees Angela tense—her entire being seizes up for a half second, like a string being yanked taut—before she continues scrolling like nothing had happened.

Reyes watches her, dully remembering when he would have missed such a quirk.

“Ange.”

“I still get KIA reports from Overwatch.”

The confession is quick and harsh. Reyes can only stare, holding himself stiffly in the office chair.

“Angela—”

“I have to read them, Gabe,” she murmurs. He sees her eyes narrow behind her glasses as she scrolls on. “You know that.”

He holds in a sigh—because he does know that. Just like he knows no amount of reasoning, bargaining, or plain begging will get her to stop.

This phantom guilt that she wraps herself in worries him constantly. He knows anyone else—himself included—would have folded under the weight of it years ago, but she continues on, shouldering more and more blame until he’s sure she’ll ruin herself.

It’s a testament, he decides, to her nature—both resilient and haunted—that she can manages this much remorse, and that she decides to take it on in the first place.

And while he doesn’t boast a heart as sturdy as hers, he can do his part to try and lessen her load.

The wheels of the office chair squeak as Reyes pushes himself off of her desk to go rolling across the infirmary floor. Angela glances up as he braces his arms against her knees to stop himself, before pulling closer, folding his arms over her lap and laying his head down on the back of them, her knees digging into his chest, his mess of dark hair curling against her white undershirt.

She’s completely still against him, save for the gentle swell of her breathing.

“Go on then,” he mutters, closing his eyes and settling in. “Read ‘em.”

She understands. Of course she does.

There’s a beat of silence, but Reyes knows her hesitation has nothing to do with him.

“Ramirez, Lita,” she eventually recites, and he lets go of a breath she didn’t even know he’d been holding.

-0-

It’s been a while, but Angela hasn’t forgotten her way around Overwatch.

She’d managed to haul McCree in by herself, fiercely ignoring the eyes she felt on her as she pulled the half-dead gunslinger to her old infirmary.

One blazing look from Blackwatch’s second-in-command and the medical staff in the room had vanished.

She knows it’s only a matter of time before someone—Reinhardt, Torbjörn, Ana, Morrison—comes looking for her. She works as quickly as she can, ignoring her own injuries as she tries to stabilize McCree with equipment that feels odd and foreign under her hands.

She hears the door when it opens but doesn’t turn, focus pulled entirely to the boy bleeding out under her steady hands.

“Not everyday we get a visit from Blackwatch’s Deputy Director,” Morrison remarks upon entering. Angela’s features twitch with dislike. It couldn’t have been Reinhardt, could it?

“I’m busy, Jack,” she tells him stiffly, reaching out with bloody fingers to adjust the dial on a nearby piece of equipment.

“I’ve got time.”

Angela glares down at the unconscious face of McCree, stewing.

She knows a threat when she hears one.

She turns around then, and Morrison gets his first look at her patient. He frowns, titling his head as recognition flickers across his face.

“Deadlock Gang?” he verifies.

Angela glares. “Blackwatch,” she bites back.

Morrison lifts an eyebrow at her tone.

“You’re at the Overwatch base, Angela,” he reminds her lowly, as if she’d somehow forgotten. “Mind yourself.”

“I didn’t have time to get him to Blackwatch,” she explains tightly. “I don’t want to be here anymore than you want me here. Just let me do some minor work and then we’ll be out of your way.”

“No need,” Morrison says, taking a step closer. “I’ve been wanting to chat with our friendly arms dealer for a while.”

The tension on the room shifts abruptly, and Angela’s eyes narrow.

“Leave him be, Jack,” she says, the barest hint of malice gracing her words. She takes a step forward, boots thumping distinctively in the silent room as she moves to place herself between the two men. Her black Valkyrie suit stands out boldly in the pristine white of the infirmary, and the red light it casts bathes her in an eerie crimson glow.

It’s a power play McCree can’t quite appreciate in his current state, but Morrison’s eyes narrow at the action.

There’s no sound save for the shallow breathing of McCree and the various beeps and whirrs of the equipment. She arches an eyebrow at Morrison’s increasingly dissatisfied gaze.

“I was under the impression that you didn’t much care for the outlaw, Doctor,” he tells her. There’s a careful cadence to his voice—taut with anger simmering just below the surface.

“He has a name, Jack,” Angela counters lowly. She folds her arms across her chest, watching as Morrison’s too-bright eyes flash to the Blackwatch sigil branded into her suit’s shoulder.

More silence—Angela sizes the Strike Commander up, wondering when she lost the ability to read his mood.

“You’ve changed, Angela,” he eventually murmurs, lifting his gaze from her shoulder to her eyes. There’s a darkness there that hadn’t previously been. Angela feels her chin lift—a prideful reflex she didn’t even know she possessed.

His words spark a rage in her that is tired and old, but still bares its teeth when prodded too hard.

“I have,” she agrees lowly, tone tightrope taut. “Sort of how life works.”

Morrison just sighs then, dropping his head and raking a hand through his hair. She notices it’s a more white gold than its previous blonde. She’d thought it to be a trick of the infirmary lights, but she thinks age just might be catching up with the Commander.

“Alright,” he mutters, and Angela goes tense. She doesn’t like the definitive snap of authority in his voice.

“Alright what?” she asks, assessing him sharply as she shifts her weight to the side, trying to hide McCree entirely behind her frame. The action kicks her wings out, blocking him from view.

“You can treat him here,” Morrison tells her. “Then I get to talk to him.”

Angela scowls—temper going supernova at his flippant decision. She should just accept his grace and get on with her life but something—Blackwatch? Reyes’ influence? Her own damned fucking stubbornness?—makes her dig her heels in.

“I don’t remember asking for your permission,” she tells him lowly. “And you aren’t talking to him.”

“You can’t have it both ways, Angela,” Morrison tells her, voice suddenly sharp. “You’re either an agent of Overwatch and you listen to me or you’re an agent of Blackwatch and you have no business here—”

“I can’t have it both ways?” Angela demands. “You’re the one who sweeps into our base like you’re somehow in charge in that god-awful coat when you know not a single agent there gives a damn what you say unless Reyes agrees—”

“Blackwatch was made to serve Overwatch!” Morrison shouts. “I am in charge!”

The thing, Angela’s learned, about working around death as long as she has, is you gain access to a certain expression that not everyone can wear. It’s the way your features arrange themselves after you’ve started into the face of death over and over and over again.

She fixes Morrison with such a look—a look of absolute fucking death—and speaks.

“I am not an agent of Overwatch.” Angela’s voice is dark and hollow, like the creaking of the gallows chain. “I’m the Deputy Director of Blackwatch. And I don’t take orders from you.”

Morrison gazes back at her, but at that moment, McCree returns with a gasping breath, and Angela turns her back on the Strike Commander without a second thought.

-0-

“Dr. Ziegler?”

Angela frowns, immediately pulled from her work at the unfamiliar voice, looking over her shoulder to see a man in an Overwatch uniform standing in the doorway of her infirmary, gun drawn and pointed at the floor.

McCree rises from where he’d been sitting at her desk, doodling profanities onto her whiteboard, but he’s all business in two seconds flat. Angela watches his expression harden as he crosses the floor to stand beside her, one hand ghosting towards his sidearm.

“Who’s askin’?” the gunslinger asks, a rough cut to his voice.

Angela appreciates the gesture—particularly because she herself is unarmed at the moment—but she plants a thin hand on McCree’s chest anyway, cautioning him with a look.

“Who are you?” she asks, quick-freezing her words with as much chill as she can manage. From the look of surprise that crosses the agent’s face, she can manage a lot.

“He’s with me.”

Angela goes still as the voice drifts in from the hallway, and watches as the Overwatch agent hastily holsters his weapon, looking back at whoever is approaching. The speaker must make some gesture, because he ducks out a moment later, tips of his ears bright red.

“You’ll have to forgive him,” Ana Amari says from the doorway. “Overwatch agents can get very…overzealous when dealing with Blackwatch.” She offers a thin smile. “Family feud and all that.”

“Ana.” Angela almost chokes on the name—coughs it out through stiff lips and gritted teeth.

The sharpshooter lifts a silver eyebrow as she eases into the infirmary. Angela can feel McCree’s heart hammering under her fingers where she still holds a hand to his chest.

“My, my,” the woman murmurs, smirking slightly as she takes in the scene before her. “What a sight.”

“What’s wrong?” Angela asks immediately, stepping away towards McCree to draw nearer to Ana. “What happened?”

Ana raises her eyebrows. “You tell me,” she replies. “Jack’s awfully upset with you. What’s that about?”

Angela grits her teeth, recalling her last encounter with the Strike Commander.

“That’s between us,” she forces out, though she knows it isn’t.

Ana flashes her a bright smile—all teeth.

“No it isn’t,” she corrects the younger woman. She glances over at McCree. “Jesse, put your gun away, darling, you might hurt yourself.”

Angela watches as the gunslinger hesitates, before slowly sliding Peacekeeper back in its holster.

Ana looks back to Angela. “Jack was being pushy with you the other day. He’s an asshole—it happens. I don’t blame you at all, but pulling rank on a Strike Commander?” The Captain lifts an eyebrow. “Bold choice.”

Angela glares back at her evenly. Ana continues.

“It’s in your nature to be contrary, Angela—to snarl back when taunted. To never relent and never give in.” Ana eyes her carefully. “But it is not in your nature to be stupid.”

“I’ll fight you,” Angela warns, low and steady.

McCree’s gaze snaps to hers, eyes wide with shock, but she presses on.

“I mean, not you you, but Overwatch. The UN.” She swallows, before saying the name they’re both thinking. “Jack.”

Ana just gazes at her evenly, expression a carefully fixed mask.

“And why would we fight, Angela?” the Captain asks. “Or have you decided you no longer want to be a team player?”

“Hard to be a team when things aren’t equal,” Angela retorts.

The humor dies on the sharpshooter’s face.

“You were breaking protocol,” Ana reminds her.

“The way I hear it, that’s what we were intended to do,” Angela returns. “You can’t pick and choose where Blackwatch breaks the rules.”

Ana chuckles softly to herself at that, but the sound holds no humor.

“Can’t I?” the sharpshooter muses. “Interesting. I wasn’t aware.”

Angela’s mouth falls open to snap back, when there’s another presence in the doorway.

“Ana.”

The whole room glances up to see Reyes at the door, expression cold.

Overwatch’s Captain just smiles back at him, unruffled by his sudden appearance.

“Commander,” she greets him casually, snapping what can only be called a sarcastic salute. “So good to see you.”

“Didn’t know you were scheduled to stop by,”

Ana just offers a blasé shrug, but the gleam in her eye makes Angela’s hands itch for a weapon.

“Well, Blackwatch always seems to have so much fun doing things off the books. I thought I’d give it a try.” She smiles sweetly, all graceful control and elegant calm.

“If there’s a problem with Blackwatch, you come to me,” Reyes reminds her.

Ana gives him a look of innocent confusion.

“I didn’t want to bother the Commander with something so small. I thought I’d just ask your Deputy Director. Surely she’s qualified to—”

“You’ve made your point, Ana,” Angela cuts her off, earning a quick look of blazing ferocity from the sharpshooter before her expression smooths out again.

“I certainly hope so,” she replies. She pushes hair out of her eyes, offering Angela one last glance.

“You could come home, you know,” she tells the doctor seriously. “It would clear up an awful lot of trouble.”

“Ana.” Reyes’ voice brooks no argument, and Ana smiles to herself.

“Don’t be so put out, Gabriel,” she tells him, patting the Commander on the cheek as she passes. “The offer stands for you too.”

She sweeps from the room then, and silence roars in her wake. Angela’s looking to Reyes, who just stares after the sharpshooter.

“How did she get scarier?” McCree asks woodenly, still staring at the place she’d stood.

“It’s a talent, I think,” Reyes mutters back. “Like how cartilage never stops growing? She’ll just get progressively more intimidating as life goes on.”

“She’d never hurt any of us,” Angela mutters, crossing her arms.

“Doesn’t mean she won’t make me shit myself,” McCree retorts. He looks sideways at Angela. “Whatever you did to piss ‘er off like that? Word of advice—don’ fuckin’ do it again.”

Angela finds Reyes’ eyes, and her jaw tightens.

“We’ll see,” she tells him.

-0-

Being an outsider is not exactly uncharted territory for Angela Ziegler.

Her teachers boasted endlessly about how gifted she was—how special, how elite. Systematically set aside for displaying premature levels of intellect at a young age, a rift arose between herself and her peers that never quite smoothed over. Those on the other side of the academic wall resented her bitterly, so Angela’s logical solution was to keep going up—to work harder and study longer and think faster than anyone. She took her raw genius and forcibly marshaled it into a finely tuned machine that she kept going at all hours.

No rest. No pause. Just facts and data and answers and progress. She set her sights on perfection and never accepted a degree less than that, in anything that she did.

The wall became a pedestal, then a tower, then another building entirely—one only she occupied.

The lonely life of a genius, or whatever bullshit others gossiped about behind their hands. Angela never took the time to listen—never wasted a thought on them.

So when she strides into Overwatch’s headquarters, baring Blackwatch’s symbol on her chest—a skull and a sword sewn over her heart—she has no reaction to the dozens of eyes that she feels track her movements.

Maybe that’s why she’d fit in to the shadow organization so well. She’d already existed on the fringes of society—why not just set up shop there?

She feels Morrison’s gaze on her when she enters the room, but doesn’t even spare him a look, feigning interest the week-old notes still attached to her clipboard.

“You know,” he drawls, as she pretends to tick something off of a list that’s not there. “Blackwatch is supposed to be a secret sort of thing.”

Angela arches an eyebrow at her clipboard, making more pointless, empty notes.

“I’m aware, Commander,” she tells him mildly. “My hand still aches from all the security releases I had to sign.”

She hears him sigh. Her pen scratches against the paper.

“Do you really need to parade around—?”

“I’m not parading anywhere,” she cuts him off, a touch of coolness to her voice. “I’m attending a meeting. At your request.”

She flicks her gaze up to meet his unamused frown.

“You could have worn your old Overwatch uniform,” he informs her coldly.

Ana’s standing in the corner—an observation Angela only makes now that she’s bothered to look. It unnerves her that the sharpshooter’s presence had gone unnoticed. She used to be able know the other woman’s position inherently, like a reflex.

She looks back to Morrison, trying not to think of what else she has forgotten.

“I could have,” she agrees, voice detached and chilled. “I could have also worn my Valkyrie suit, or my military dress, or desert fatigues—I could have borrowed McCree’s belt buckle and worn that.” She gives him a small smile that’s all teeth before dropping her gaze back to her notes.

She realizes—off-handedly—all she’s been doing is underlining Gabe’s name with increasing force as Morrison’s tone sinks deeper and deeper under her skin.

Morrison shifts his weight, crossing his arms.

“Still warming up to things at Blackwatch?” he asks with an arched eyebrow, like he’s just pegged her mood to perfection.

Angela lets out a smirk—abnormally sharp and maybe a little too tight. “Warming up isn’t really what I’m known for.”

Morrison stares her down. Ana is still standing with her back turned, but Angela can clearly see the way her head’s titled—the sharpshooter is hearing every word.

A silence settles over the room—uneasy and cold. Angela can’t remember feeling this misplaced at Overwatch.

“We should wait for Reyes—”

“Gabe said to start without him—”

Angela and Morrison lock gazes. Ana’s shoulder blades stick out like knives across her back.

“What do you mean, start without him?” Morrison repeats with a hard look. “He’s my go-between with Blackwatch. He has all the information I need.”

Angela’s answering glare is a cold snap—sudden, startling, and bitter in its frigidness.

“He was kind enough to pass that information to me,” she tells him tightly, fingers going white where she holds her clipboard. It’s all coming clear now, so fucking clear—

Morrison scoffs. “He passed it to you?”

“Yes.” Angela’s tone teeters on a knife’s edge. “He did.”

“So what, you’re Blackwatch’s secretary now?” The Strike Commander’s words drip with disparage.

“Jack.” Ana’s voice is quiet and sharp. She glances over her shoulder to give him a look of warning.

“You never thought I’d go with him.” Angela’s realization is faint, words so soft she wonders if her pounding heart will drown them out. “You never saw me as the wild card. That’s your problem—one of your problems, actually—you think you understand people and you don’t.”

“Angela.” Ana turns around now, voice dark with displeasure as Morrison glares openly at her.

“What are you talking—?”

Angela cuts him off ruthlessly, temper spiking, words flaring out like a flash fire. “You read my file like you were reading my autobiography. Like knowing where I was born and where I went to school and what doctors gave me their stamp of approval—”

“Angela.” Ana’s voice is a command for silence. Angela defies it without thought.

“—would tell you everything you needed to know about me. But it didn’t, did it? It didn’t tell you that I hate having the UN looking over my shoulder every time I do something they find interesting, that I hate being spoken for by Overwatch-approved representatives—”

“Angela, you are so out of line—” Morrison begins.

“It didn’t tell you my parents died in the war.” Angela can’t stop the words spilling out of herself now. “Didn’t tell you that that made me more loyal and protective than any person has any right to be.” Morrison’s eyes go wide at her words, while Ana’s narrow to slits, her jaw set stiffly as she surveys the doctor.

“And then you let Reyes go. And you didn’t think anything of it, because you thought you knew me and you didn’t—”

“That is enough Angela,” Ana again, stepping forward like she’s going to force Angela out or hold Morrison back.

“—so maybe that’s why you made Blackwatch.” Angela doesn’t know if her words are shaking or if she is. “So you could keep all your mistakes in one place, and make sure they can never—”

“Angela, leave!”

“—come back to haunt you. Maybe that’s why you hate us.” She stares him down, chest heaving. “Because every time you see this—” she slaps a hand over the Blackwatch logo like she’s pledging allegiance to a new country—one she’d kill and die for, one she’ll defend unto death “—you’re reminded of all the times you were wrong.”

She turns on her heel then, all but throwing herself out of the room, her black coat flaring out behind her like some storm she’s leaving in her wake. She feels like a livewire—ultraviolet. Too bright too hot too much—

Reyes is there, striding towards her from the tarmac—because of course he is.

Their relationship is vertigo—pushing and pulling at the same time. An endless give and take that boils down to a balancing act between pillar and pendulum.

Anger roars in her ears, so loudly she almost doesn’t hear him when he finally reaches her side.

“—the fuck did you do Ana’s been lighting my phone up since I got off the plane—”

“Good news.” Reyes breaks off with a rush of air as Angela slams the clipboard into his chest for him to take, striding past him—eyes overbright, heart beating wildly beneath her Blackwatch sigil. “The gates of hell just opened, and you’re my plus one.”

-0-

“Ange.”

Angela knows it’s Reyes without looking—his voice is a perfectly clear indicator, but so is the fact that he’s the only person alive with permission to enter her infirmary unexpected and uninvited—so she keeps working.

“Gabe,” she returns calmly, eyes skimming the document before her, ticking boxes, making notes, crossing out certain lines, underlining others.

There’s a creak as he eases forward, leaning one broad shoulder heavily on the doorway.

“Come on, Ange,” he says, voice teetering between exasperation and entreating.

“Don’t know what you’re talking about,” she says, an arch lilt to her voice that smacks of dismissal. Reyes rolls his eyes.

“Angela.” Reyes doesn’t often get curt with her, but once in a while—when she’s being particularly stubborn—his voice will take on a certain tightness. “I had to go look at the bullshit statute. McCree had to go look at the bullshit statute. Now you have to go look at the bullshit statue.”

“What about Genji?” she asks mildly, already knowing perfectly well what about Genji.

“Sure, let’s bring along the lost Shimada heir that Jack thinks is dead to Jack’s fucking statue party,” Reyes retorts, bracing one arm against the doorframe as he shifts his weight. “Why the hell not.”

She lowers her clipboard to toss him an incredulous look.

“Is that honestly what they’re calling it?” she asks. “A statue party?”

Reyes heaves a sigh. “I don’t know, Angela. They didn’t send out invitations, okay?”

She snorts, lowering her gaze once more. “I’m disappointed,” she quips. “They should have all come with little miniatures of it, so we could all have a little golden Jack Morrison wherever we go.”

Reyes just sighs again. “I will drag you there, Angela, so help me.”

That gets her attention. She lifts her eyes, arching a single brow, gazing at him from around a perpetually errant blonde curl.

“I would like to see you try.”

They wisely both decide to let that go.

“Thirty minutes, Ange. Tops. We show up, we try not to blind ourselves looking at the damn thing, we leave.” He spreads his hands. “That’s all.”

Angela gazes at him. She knows she’s going to agree eventually—they both know it—but that doesn’t mean she’s not going to say her piece.

“Firstly,” Angela begins, tossing down her documents and scowling across the room at him. “Why does he get a statute?”

Reyes rolls his eyes up to the ceiling. “Ange.”

“I’m serious! So what, he’s Overwatch’s golden boy. Super. Ana Amari’s served there for just about as long, and without her, he’d be dead. I vote she gets a statue.”

“We don’t get votes,” Reyes reminds her, finally pushing away from the doorway to stride across her infirmary.

“Then I don’t see why I should care,” she returns smartly, watching as he picks up her coat from where she’d slung it over her chair. “What are you doing?”

“Listening very patiently,” he answers, flashing a smile when she shoots him a glare. He holds up the coat for her to slip into. “Come on. I told McCree I’d pick up food for him on the way back.”

“You left him there by himself?” she demands, finally relenting and shrugging on the offered coat. “At the statue party?”

She peers up at him as she pulls her hair tie free to redo it, and after a beat he blinks, seemingly remembering that she’d asked him a question.

“Just for a minute,” he defends himself. At her pointed glare, he rolls his eyes. “Well someone had to come get our dear Deputy Director, since it became clear a half hour in that said Deputy Director was declining to show up.”

Angela just sighs as she ties off her new ponytail, tossing curly blonde hair over her shoulder. It’s getting long again. Maybe she’ll ask Ana to cut it when she sees her.

They step out of the infirmary, finding a matching pace as they make their way through the familiar halls.

“So, if the Blackwatch base mirrors the Overwatch base…” she begins, glancing up at him with a small smile as she fusses with the collar of her coat. “Theoretically…”

“Jesse already beat you to that joke,” Reyes tells her, smirking at the frustrated look she pulls. “He and Genji were very well prepared for it. They drew me a diagram.”

“Of what a Gabriel Reyes statue would look like?” she verifies, humor returning at the thought.

Reyes rolls his eyes as he holds the door out of the base open for her.

“Yeah,” he mutters as she steps past him. “And you might think, ‘I wonder what heroic pose Jesse picked for his mentor to have in this imaginary statue, since, you know, he’s the only goddamn reason Jesse’s not dead in a ditch somewhere.’”

A smirk tugs at Angela’s lips, but she smothers it.

“Naturally,” she replies. “So what did he pick?”

Reyes just reaches into a pocket on his uniform, pulling out a folded up piece of paper he passes to Angela.

It’d been drawn by Genji, she notices immediately, recognizing the style she’s seen in doodles on the edges of med charts she leaves in his room. But she also notes McCree’s messy scrawl providing various commentary.

It’s a statue of Reyes, hastily colored with what looks to be a yellow crayon. The statue is mounted on a pedestal, proudly flipping off viewers with its three-foot fingers.

“Charming,” she remarks brightly. “I think Genji captured your likeness well.”

He just gives her an annoyed look that she answers with a cheerful grin.

-0-

Reyes is shirtless in Angela’s infirmary, and she’s not really sure how they got here.

A jolt ricochets through his body as Angela presses her cold fingers to his shoulder, where she traces circles into the flesh with the pad of her thumb. His skin feels hot beneath the light pressure of her touch as she glides her fingertips across his collarbone, pausing when she reaches the notch at his jugular. His Adam’s apple visibly bobs at her sudden attention.

“See something interesting?” His voice rumbles beneath her hands.

The question draws color to her cheeks, but she tries to play it off with a look of keen scientific interest.

“Just…checking for irregularities,” she answers airily.

He wants to say more—is that how they’re playing this? A medical examination, really?—when she lays her hand flat against his sternum and Reyes finds himself mysteriously short of breath.

The doctor’s hands are strong and well-used—knotted with calluses that raise goosebumps all along Reyes’ body as she moves, fingers teasing lightly at his flesh as she does.

Angela lingers over Reyes’ heart, eyebrow lifting at the frantic beating she feels below her touch. She tries to match the sharp staccato with her fingertips—drumming them softly against Reye’s chest—and he huffs out a breathless laugh.

“Any irregularities?” he asks, half-joking. She hasn’t made eye contact with him yet. It’s unnerving.

She doesn’t reply, seemingly absorbed in the feeling of his heartbeat, face impassive.

Doubt slams into Blackwatch’s Commander, and he resists the urge to pull away from her immediately. He misread the situation. He misread it so badly Jesus fuck Reyes what were you thinking—

“Ange, look, we don’t have—”

Her other hand—which he realizes had been curled tightly in a fist by her side—suddenly shoots up to seize his own hand. He jumps slightly, frowning at the sudden action, until she guides his fingers to the underside of her opposite wrist.

Her heartbeat hammers at her pulse point—just as wild as his—and Reyes lifts an eyebrow.

“Oh,” he manages. “Okay.”

“Yeah.” Angela is still staring determinedly at the space where she holds her hand over his heart, flushing darkly. “Pretty much.”

Her hand drops down lower abruptly, apparently surprising both of them, because Reyes chokes on a strangled noise of alarm and Angela just turns redder.

But she’s made it this far and Jesus, Angela it’s not like you’ve never fucking handled bare skin before get over yourself—

She positions both of her hands along Reyes’ exposed sides, fingers splayed out, slotting them between the spaces of his ribs, feeling his diaphragm expand and contract with his steady, even breaths.

“Little overdressed, don’t you think?”

Reyes’ voice is careful—like his words will shatter whatever curiousness has fallen between them.

Angela drops her hands and steps back—she sees one of Reyes’ hands twitch up, reaching for her like a reflex—and she thinks her heart might actually crack her ribs it’s pounding so hard.

She shucks off her medical coat with an astonishing lack of grace and just hurls it in the direction of her chair. Reyes’ lips quirk, and he glances over his shoulder to see where it lands.

“Hey. I paid good money to get you that coat,” he objects, grinning as he watches the coat catch on the back of her chair for just a second before flopping unceremoniously to the ground.

“Jesse goes through jeans like they’re tissues,” she retorts, fingers curling in the hem of her shirt, tugging aimlessly in any direction but up. She’s flushing so darkly she wonders if he can feel the heat radiating from her—she wonders if her fingers had been cold when she’d—

�� The communicator in Angela’s coat goes off suddenly, and she nearly jumps out of her skin at the noise.

She crosses the room over to it, pulling it out of her coat pocket and reading the message.

“Genji,” she mutters. “He’s not doing well. That new medication must not have agreed with him.” She frowns, thinking it over, before pulling her coat back on and tying her hair back up. “I’ve gotta look into it.”

Reyes just nods, moving to reach for his shirt where it’d been discarded on the operating table—

Angela snatches his shirt before he can reach for it, holding it briefly out of his grasp.

“We are revisiting this when I’m done,” she tells him seriously, then throws his wadded-up shirt at his face.

-0-

The agent Angela is speaking to isn’t listening to her, and it’s starting to really piss her off.

She keeps staring resolutely at him, continuing her lecture about why we check back in at the conclusion of missions because if we don’t then everyone think we’re fucking dead and then Reyes has to send out a team and—

“Agent.” There’s a cold bite of authority to Angela’s voice, and the boy immediately jolts to attention, eyes snapping back to hers. She lifts an eyebrow. “I really hope whatever’s caught your eye is worth it,” she tells him, voice hard and even. “Because if I turn around, and I don’t see anything worthwhile—”

“Sorry.” Angela goes stock-still at the sound of Jack Morrison’s voice. “Sorry, Angela, it’s me.”

She turns around and sure enough—Overwatch’s Strike Commander stands in the middle of a Blackwatch corridor.

“Where’s your big blue coat, Jack?” she asks, lifting an eyebrow. “Almost didn’t recognize you without it.”

The agent behind her coughs to try and cover a laugh, and Morrison sighs.

“Can we talk?” he asks.

Angela hesitates for a brief moment—theoretically she could say no, couldn’t she?—before dismissing the agent with a sharp jerk of her head.

Morrison falls into step beside her as she leads him deeper into the Blackwatch base, shouldering open a door that’s not marked differently that any of the others, and

“Nice office,” Morrison offers.

Small talk. Angela sighs.

“I spend most of my time in the infirmary,” she explains, crossing her arms and declining to sit. “It doesn’t get much use.”

He nods to himself, sitting down on the edge of her desk, glancing around at what few personal items the room does have—a picture of her and Torbjörn from the Halloween party years ago, the prototype of her Caduceus staff mounted on the wall, a oversized Swiss flag that hangs across the front of her desk, and a candid snapshot of Genji and McCree arguing about something in the Blackwatch practice facilities while Reyes stands between them, looking directly at the camera with the face of a man who ran out of patience about a decade ago.

She’d been the one to capture the image, and it’s honestly one of her proudest accomplishments.

“You wanted to talk, Jack,” she reminds him. “So let’s talk.”

Morrison gives her a quick look before dropping his gaze to his hands.

“I knew about your parents,” he begins, and Angela feels herself tense—her body springs taut like a mousetrap—as she recalls their conversation a week ago.

She doesn’t say anything.

Morrison inclines his head, like he’s taking her silence as permission to speak further. “It wasn’t on your file, but I asked around. I was…curious, I guess. I didn’t understand how you’d come to become…well, you.”

He must read the sharp question on her face, because he hastens to continue. “Not in a bad way just…well…” he shrugs. “People don’t just wake up one day and decide to do the kinds of things you do.”

“Cheat death,” she supplies blandly, and he inclines his head in agreement.

“I poked into your upbringing, your background, talked to old teachers and classmates…” Morrison shrugs. “I guess in a way, I did think I knew you.”

Angela says nothing. Her tongue’s stuck in her jaw.

“Gabe’s a brother to me,” Morrison says. His words are casual—the loyalty he lines them with is not. “I didn’t want him to go to Blackwatch, I wanted him to stay. So I could watch his back and he could watch mine.”

There’s an unfinished part to that sentence that goes, the way it’s supposed to be. Angela hears it anyway.

“Isn’t that why you have Ana?” she forces out, because apparently, even in the most serious of situations, she just cannot keep her goddamn mouth shut.

But Morrison just chuckles. “I have Ana for a lot of reasons,” he says. “Mostly to keep me from ruining everything.”

Angela nods. Ana has official jobs and expectations but at the end of the day, she’s there to keep them all alive and bail them all out.

“I knew you were going to go with him to Blackwatch,” he admits, and Angela feels her chest go tight. He laughs to himself, shaking his head, still ducking her gaze. “I knew it, but I was so mad—so mad that I was going to lose two of my best agents—my best friends—in one day.”

Angela allows a brief bout of silence before pushing on.

“How did you know I was going to go with him?” she asks quietly.

“Reyes is a natural,” Morrison answers. “He gets people—like really gets them, on a seriously personal level, even if he’s barely met them.”

“He’s empathetic,” Angela offers by way of explanation. It’s a character trait that had drawn her to him in the first place. She could read bodies, he could read people. It intrigued her.

Morrison nods. “You two…you balance each other out. It doesn’t make sense for you to not work together.

Another pause. Angela can’t tell if she prefers this slow confession or if she’d rather him rush to get it all out at once.

“You said Blackwatch is where I keep all my mistakes,” he begins, and Angela feels her stomach bottom out.

“God, Jack, we don’t need to rehash that, do we? We both said—”

He holds up a hand to stop her, eyes still downcast.

“I…I’d be lying if I said I never resented Blackwatch,” he explains. “Lying like a damn dog. I wanted to be able to look after you—I wanted to use Overwatch to protect you and Reyes—hell, even McCree and Genji.”

Angela watches as he stares at his hands, deciding now is probably not the best moment to bring up the prodigal Shimada heir.

“But I was wrong, which—as Ana will tell you—happens a lot,” he continues. “You and Reyes don’t need Overwatch to protect yourselves. You don’t need me to protect you. If anything, I needed you to assure me that I was still—that people still—”

“You wanted to be needed,” Angela says softly. “To be a leader. But we didn’t need you.”

Morrison sighs, resting his arms on his knees as he stares up at the prototype Caduceus staff—the same one she’d presented to him all those years ago.

“Blackwatch is…necessary,” he explains slowly, brow furrowed as he studies his hands. “I’m not so naïve to think otherwise. Without the intel we get from Blackwatch’s work, all of Overwatch would’ve folded years ago.”

Angela nods in agreement.

“But Blackwatch doesn’t need Overwatch,” he continues carefully. “And I think that’s what really got me. Not saying it’s right, not saying it’s justifiable or worth defending. Just trying to give you the explanation you deserve, and offer an apology, if you’ll take it.”

An apology from Jack Morrison. Angela shrugs.

“Sure,” she agrees. A beat passes “Can I get it in writing? I’d like to frame it on my desk.”

Morrison huffs a laugh, finally glancing up at her.

“I think,” he says quietly, smirking at Angela’s very smug expression. “I think you’re very well-suited here, Deputy Director Ziegler.”

Angela feels a smile tug at her lips.

“Thank you, Strike Commander Morrison. I think I agree.”

-0-

They’re in Reyes’ office this time.

He’s sitting behind his desk, staring down at a map of the Gibraltar base that she knows he’s had memorized for years.

“We have to do something,” she tells him quietly, watching him from where she leans against the edge of his desk.

He just sighs, arms folded across his chest. “It’s not an easy situation, Ange.”

She rolls her eyes. “Right, because everything up until this point has been a cakewalk. King’s Row? Simple. The Shimada’s rebellion? No problem. Oh, and that mission to Dorado? The one that McCree almost died on? So easy—”

“Angela,” Reyes cuts her off, flicking his gaze up to hers, annoyed. “Just call me an idiot next time, okay? Saves a whole lotta time.”

His voice takes the fight out of her immediately, and she sighs as she pushes away from his desk to pace the room.

“Overwatch is falling farther out of favor everyday,” Angela points out. “Gabe, when it falls, everything we’ve done—”

“I’m not ashamed of anything we’ve done.” Reyes voice whips out low and fast, and Angela flushes despite herself.

That sentiment could be applied to so many things but you immediately go there, don’t you Angela?

“I’m not either,” she tells him firmly. “But that doesn’t mean I want it on display for the whole world. This isn’t just about us. What about Jesse and Genji? I won’t let the UN so much as look at them, Gabe. They will tear them to shreds and I won’t let them—”

“The UN isn’t touching those boys,” Reyes rumbles back, expression darkening at the thought. “End of discussion.”

Angela swallows the rest of her threats, trusting the solidness of Reyes’ resolve.

Silence falls between them—uneasy and uncertain.

“What if we took them down first.” It tastes more like a statement than a question, but she’s already said it, and she can’t take it back.

Reyes’ gaze heavy across her shoulders.

“Say again?” he requests, voice soft and low. She won’t face him.

His chair creaks as he rises from it. He steps closer and her skin prickles at his sudden proximity.

“If we take down Overwatch, we control what the UN finds afterwards,” she murmurs, almost to herself. “We could wipe Jesse and Genji from their records. Give them a chance to escape.”

His hands come up to rest on her shoulders. His touch is grounding as always, but Angela’s head is still spinning.

Why is she even suggesting this?

“You always have the best plans,” Reyes had said.

“Could we do that?” he murmurs back, chest a hard flat wall of muscle against her back. “Not just logistically, Ange. We both loved Overwatch—there are still people there worth protecting—”

“So we protect them too,” she maintains quietly. “We burn whatever they have on Fareeha. Leave behind only Rein’s battle prestige. Blackout the names of Torbjörn’s kids.” She pauses, and his fingers flex where he holds her. There’s someone missing from that list and they both know it.

A certain golden statue comes to mind. Angela works her jaw.

“Jack is Overwatch,” he tells her, as if she isn’t already acutely aware. “We can’t take one and leave the other. If Overwatch falls, Jack will follow—”

“We’ll clean Jack’s slate too,” Angela insists. “We’ll find a way.”

Family first. Always.

She turns to face him then, tilting her head back to look him in the eyes, matching Blackwatch sigils stark white against the pitch of their uniforms.

“What about us?” Reyes asks her softly, lifting an eyebrow. He sounds like he couldn’t care less. “Who’s gonna clear our names?”

She shrugs. “Who cares?” she counters, leaning forward to rest her cheek on his chest, tucking herself under his chin. “If the boys are safe, and we’ve saved what we can of Overwatch…” she trails off. “Who really cares what happens to us?”

Reyes snorts. “Spoken like a true martyr,” he deadpans, arms coming up to wrap loosely around her waist.

She shrugs in his hold. “Spoken like a member of Blackwatch,” she corrects.

She feels him press his lips to the crown of her head, and smiles to herself.

“Yeah,” he murmurs. “Yeah, you’re right.”

Wow! Three whole days late! Whoops!

Seriously though, if you follow me on twitter or tumblr you know that I kinda got slammed in a bad situation. I put up a post about it here if you're curious but I won't lie to you guys—it's not gonna affect my writing that much. The last thing I want is people to be like "Duch is begging us for money!" Duch just got fucked and made a tip jar. That's all.

Anyway, Blackwatch AU! I'm pretty happy with how this turned out, and I think some parts of it are my best pieces of writing, but I wish I'd gone harder. But then again it's already like 15k and some change so maybe I went pretty hard already.

And a big thank you to @barddog for beta’ing this for me <3

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Have a good one kids <3

don’t ask me about the title I don’t know how to title things we should know this by now I’m sorry

#Overwatch #Mercy #McCree #Ana Amari #Reinhardt Wilhelm #Torbjörn Lindholm #Genji Shimada #Angela Ziegler #Gabriel Reyes #Jack Morrison #Mercykill #Blackwatch AU #Blackwatch!Mercy #Not My Circus Not My Monkeys

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rndomdragon · 7 years

Text

the fine lines between Love and Hate -part 3

(AO3 -> http://archiveofourown.org/works/9480068/chapters/22692458) - The only time she ever feared for him was when she didn't hear her name on the roster. Angela's head snapped up when she heard her cyborg's name being called. She wasn't just going to allow that, and they had no right to just send him away without her permission. He belonged to her. He did not listen to anyone but her. It's just a quick mission, they said. No need to worry. A week was neither quick nor a guaranteed victory, but it was best not to make a scene in front of everyone, she thought. She had a reputation to keep, and anyone could take that her cyborg was her weak point. After all, killing them after the meeting, was not hard to squeeze into her busy schedule, nor would it make people think her differently. Blood was something that she could easily pushed other matters to the side to make room for. A clawed hand closed around her shoulder, and she stiffened up, knowing fully well who it was. "Don't worry, angel," Reaper growled, his voice betrayed how pleased he was with the new arrangement. "I'll take care of him." He knew how Genji was not in a sane state of mind. He was meek, and easy to manipulate, perfect for any monster such as the Reaper. She fixed his white mask with a icy stare, and smiled, but it never touched her eyes. "You can go do that, and you may regret the rest of your life." He laughed back then, saying that she could do anything worse to him in his current state. She merely responded by opening up her hand, and flexing one index finger. No action was immediate, she noted down, but it had sent the man to his knees, writhing in pain. "The nanites in your blood are my very creation." She continued to smile, sweeping her gaze across the room. "While I could not get them to separate from you, I found a way to bring you, or any of these men in the room down at a single gesture." She looked around the room once more, before releasing her hold on Reaper, and stalking out the room. The name Angel of Death, followed her out from the men whispering in the room, even weeks after. The last night they had before the mission, was spent with him curled up against her chest, as she stroked his back, and whispered comforts to him. He spoke only in Japanese, when he wanted to cry, and this pleased her. He did not want to leave her. He did not want to be anywhere without her. Separation anxiety was easier to induce than she expected, she noted down. - Angela had waited expectingly when the transport had landed, yet she did not see her cyborg exit. She questioned Reaper, knowing the man would have more than watched him, and asked of his wellbeing, in exchange for his. It was not until hours after when she found him, not at the transport, but under the spray of the training showers instead. He must have been there for hours, hot water running down his armour, sending a fine mist into the air. "Genji." She reached out to grab his arm, but flinched back when her hand met the scalding metal. Dried blood was caked between the plates of his armour and the strands of synthetic muscle, but thankfully, none of it was his. Her fingers itched to clean it off, but more pressing matters were at hand. "What is wrong?" She was met with the blank slate of his visor instead. She sighed and reached to turn the handle off, the hot water causing her skin to blossom a pink colour. She ignored the pain as she reached for his heated metal hand lead him away, back to their shared quarters in the Talon base. There, she cleaned him properly, carefully scraping the dried blood off and wiping him down. She lead him to the bed before caring for herself. Her hands had blistered over, where she made contact with the metal of his armour, but the nanites in her blood were already at work as fixing it. Dried blood was caught between her fingernails, and she carelessly cleaned it out and took a quick cold shower, scrubbing off the day's dirt and sweat. Angela lay next to her cyborg, cradling his smaller form to herself. The metal on his body had cooled to a comfortable warm. He was shaking, she realized. So broken and frail like how he used to be in the earlier days of Overwatch. She only wonders what happened on the mission which caused this to happen. She'd bet it was Reaper. "I'm a monster," he spoke, hours after they had laid there in silence. Of all things he could have said, this was the one she didn't expect. Half a decade ago, she had expected him to call her a monster, for doing this to him. Blame her for his pain, yet nothing came, just a quiet acceptance. Later into the night, she woke to a sound. She doesn't even remember falling asleep. A glass smashed to the ground, sent spinning by Genji's outstretched hand. Her eyes snapped open, focusing on his body, facing away from her, in the middle of the room. His hands were prying at the permanent metal attachments on his head. A frustrated cry escaped from his lips, as his blunt fingers did nothing but dent the metal. Nothing to relive himself from the pain. She threw the sheets off and ran to him, ignoring the pain of the glass shards digging into her feet. "Genji, stop!" She wrapped her arms around his body, hoping to keep him from hurting himself. He was too strong. Her cyborg pushed her away, making her fall. Her head hit the edge of the desk, blood already flowing from the wound, and the glass dug into her skin, yet she lay there, her eyes wide with surprise. Genji looked down at her in horror of what he just done. His eyes were distant and unfocused. She had seen him like this before, when he was scared or panicking. He fled the room, trying to escape what was happening. He pushed me, she thought. He pushed me. Her cyborg usually came back to her after. Usually. - Dawn came, the sunlight glinting off the shards of glass peppering the floor. Her head no longer hurt, just a dull throb in the background. Removing the glass was a pain, but it healed fast, with the help of the nanomachines. Washing the blood was yet another reminder of the night before, that Genji had still not come back yet. Angela didn't worry. Perhaps he had finally seen what she had done to him. Perhaps he had finally left for good. She knew it would have come eventually. - She always slept on her front, her hands tucked under the pillow. It was a habit she gained when they were on the run from Overwatch, having a gun under her pillow, always. When a hand brushed down her back, late at night, the reaction was immediate. She whipped out the gun, only to have it knocked out of the air, and her entire body to be pulled forward, arms wrapping around her in an embrace. Her head fell against the crook of a neck and she relaxed at the familiar cool metal that she felt from under her thin shirt. "Moushi wake arimasen deshita." I'm sorry. I feel terrible. "Genji." Angela tried to pull away, but the arms pulled her tighter to him. His voice was breaking around the edges, and she could barely understand the words that slurred out of his mouth. "Makoto ni moushiwake gozaimasen deshita." I'm sorry. Please forgive me. "Genji." He didn't listen, and continued to babble in his native tongue, whispering with his voice shaky until he dissolved into silent sobs that racked his body. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I wasn't thinking- Forgive me, Angel. "It's fine, Genji," she spoke, as she stroked her hand down his spine. "It's fine. No one got hurt-" but me. She kept the last part to herself, not needing her cyborg to hurt, just yet. "It's fine," she repeated. "Everything is going to all right." - It's been a week since her cyborg had left, and mere days since he came back, yet she had only found out why, recently. Tekhartha Zenyatta, they were called. An outcast monk from the Shambali, for his rather violent measures to gain control of the group after their leader, Mondatta had died. The struggle of leadership had ended up having the organization casting him out instead of harsher punishments, and they had sworn vengeance against the peace-offering group since then. The omnic had found Genji on the roof of the base, a day ago, in the pouring rain. He had reacted violently when they had approached, but they had managed to subdue him by some means with the orbs floating around their neck. She did not know exactly what they were, but the dark eerie glow that radiated off of it did not seem natural. They stood in front of her, while she eyed their choice of clothing. It was of eastern setting. While she did not know where exactly, the crown on their head, and the gold designs on the robe were universal symbols of power. Their 'face' if one could call it that, was blank, and looked bored, and when they spoke, their mouth did not move. Their eyes, however, did, and tracked you with precession but with a look of contempt, like they were above all other sentient life forms. Omnics, she thought with distaste, were man's worst and greatest creations. Zenyatta had laughed darkly, brushing off her thanks, like it wasn't up to his standards. "It is hard to find ones as broken as your cyborg. You are lucky." Their lifeless eyes gleamed with something akin to greed. "Because when you do, it isn't hard to shape their hate and pain, then hone it into a fine blade." Angela waited patiently for the omnic to finish with their speech, saying how they had envisioned a world of peace, where only the strongest survived, and everyone was ruled by an iron grip at the top. She could have cared less, while they lived in their dreams, she would change the present. But a little help couldn't ever hurt. - She slammed her hand on the hacker's desk, making her jump. "The program you made for me, will it work for omnics?" Sombra looked up at her and cursed, quickly closing off some tabs and exiting pages of coding. "Why would it matter? You aren't trying to recreate some type of omnic war, are you?" "Answer the question." She stared hard into her purple eyes. "Do it as a favour, or I can tell the higher ups about Russia." She frowned up at her, her brows knit in disbelief. "How did you know about- Lemme guess, Widow?" Angela let out a bark of laughter. How naive of her to think that she would trust Talon's assassin. "Talon has their fingers deep into Widowmaker's brain. If she knew what you did for sure, you'd be dead by now." She leaned closer to the younger woman. "A trade then. I have upgrades for your cybernetics, in exchange for information." She saw the calculations going through Sombra's head. Her technology was renowned and famous all over the world, even before she had joined Talon, and years later, it would be more advanced and would greatly benefit the hacker, but the problem here would be trust. She knew of Sombra's past, and how she had built her way up to where she was now, by trusting no one. But, she knew she would agree in the end. She always knew. Even Sombra, herself, never really knew just how good she was. Angela had to admit that her skills in infiltrating, coding and building firewalls were beyond anything she had seen, but she was just too good, and she couldn't allow that. Sooner or later, the hacker could potentially take over her own technology, and possibly turn it against her. A risk not worth taking. It was a shame. She had liked Sombra, yet she was just another pawn, like Reaper, who was under her control. The program she had written for Genji, had become her own worst nightmare. Unknowingly, when Sombra had gotten hurt and was sent to her office for treatment, she had uploaded the program into her cybernetic half, and so far, it had worked. Sombra hadn't noticed a thing, and acted accordingly whenever she spoke to her. - Angela smiled that night, the small USB weighed heavily in her lab coat pocket, as she walked down the hall. It had potential to change the world. But first, she needed a test subject. Perhaps Zenyatta will get their wish after all. A world ruled by and iron grip, but it wouldn't be him at the top. With the increasing amount of people installing cybernetics, and herself cracking the code to Talon's brainwashing secrets, nothing was out of her reach. The world wasn't too far away. -

#gency #creepy fic #Zenyatta #reaper #Sombra #Overwatch #Genji #talon mercy #talon genji #Talon people in general #look i made a thing #fanfiction #brainwashing #hacking

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ashapon · 7 years

Text

Join Overwatch

Summary: Reyes can’t be an adult about how he feels, Morrison just wants the fighting to stop. Tags: Pre-Zurich HQ Explosion, Reaper76, pre-relationship

Word Count: 2,902

Reyes knew better than to test the waters; for all the golden boy do-gooder charm and charisma that Morrison seemed to have in spades, it was clear that Overwatch’s Strike-Commander was on his last leg of patience though the day had barely started.

Oh, there was no doubt it was his fault in some fashion. Just the night previous, Morrison had gotten an earful from the higher-ups about the disrespectful conduct of some individuals under his command. That part was definitely his fault, but he was sick of not calling out assholes when he saw them.

It was unfortunate that one of the men almost solely responsible for gauging Overwatch’s capabilities and subsequently providing them with what he deemed appropriate funding was in fact a giant tool. Reyes didn’t like beating around the bush when it came to guys like that, didn’t believe that organizations like Overwatch should be so caught up in the politics and the bureaucracy of it all.

So he’d told him off, big fucking deal. He was just being honest.

Fortunately, Morrison was there in an instant to, as he put it, ‘salvage the situation’. Smooth things over with twenty straight minutes of ass-kissing. Or that’s what Reyes assumed had happened after he was ordered to leave the briefing room and stand in the hallway like a child in timeout.

Maybe not twenty straight minutes of ass-kissing. Five, tops. The rest was devoted to a furious tirade about Overwatch’s lack of professionalism and how they’d ought to keep “those filthy Blackwatch mutts on their leashes”.

Reyes really wished he’d landed a hit on the guy.

Morrison had left the briefing room looking the better part of completely exhausted, had rounded on Reyes and demanded an explanation.

In retrospect, an impish grin and the words “he started it” did nothing to help the situation.

He hadn’t spoken much to Morrison since then, not even on the journey to the photography studio in downtown Zurich. Overwatch officials wanted some of its members in on a promotional photo-op for recruitment posters, news stories, whatever the hell else. Reyes had no intention of getting his picture taken, but he knew Jack was going and he wasn’t about to pass up on the opportunity to see something fucking hilarious.

Overwatch’s best and brightest dolled up and posed mindlessly before a fluorescent green screen, trying not to blink against the blinding flashes of the camera. He promised he’d send Jesse pictures, too.

As it so happens, the studio was also providing refreshments. Reyes helped himself to a cup of fresh coffee and a cinnamon-coated doughnut while the head photographer gathered the other assembled members and explained how they would proceed.

Besides himself and Morrison, Ana Amari, Reinhardt Wilhelm, Angela Ziegler, and Lena Oxton were also present. Some more excited than others about the opportunity, bounding to their chairs and awaiting hair and make-up.

“You as well,” the head photographer squinted at him, disbelieving blue eyes and brown hair packed in a neat bun. “You are not actually here for the photo shoot, are you?”

Reyes tried not to be affronted by his skepticism; he was, after all, looking as though he’d only just rolled out of bed in a dark hoodie, jeans, his beanie. His hair had been a mess this morning, as it often was since he’d allowed it to grow a bit, but even if it hadn’t been, the hat was his go to.

He swallowed what remained of his first pastry, downed a fourth of his coffee, and shook his head.

“Nah,” he fished for a second doughnut, one with sprinkles. “Moral support, you know. Mind it I sit here?”

He didn’t really provide Reyes with an answer, instead opting to turn to his team and give some orders before summoning the first victim.

Reyes shrugged and plopped down in a seat not unlike a director’s chair, allowing glee to pull his lips into a small smile. He relished in feeling - for the moment - like an actor, because the embarrassing dream had once been there, a very potent part of his childhood.

And then, months later, he’d wanted to sing. That lasted weeks and then he’d taken up sewing.

How his mother survived his fleeting interests was beyond him, but she’d always been supportive. God, he needed to give her a call one of these days.

“You look rather pleased,” it was Ana who shook him from his reverie, a disapproving arch to her brow. “Please tell me you’re not here to put Jack in an even worse mood.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he hummed into his coffee. “Tell me he’s up first.”

Reyes cackled at the sight of Morrison conversing with the photographer.

“Hell yeah,” he leaned back in his seat, grinning. “It’s fuckin’ Christmas.”

“You are ridiculous,” it was no shock that Ana was rolling her eyes beside him. “What has gotten into you these past few days?”

His grin faded and he thumbed at his Styrofoam coffee cup.

Right, nothing got past Ana and it was likely that Jack confided in her his frustration with Gabriel’s unbearable behavior.

If Reyes was going to be honest with himself, he would say he knew one hundred percent what the hell was going on, why he was doing this. He knew and he was fucking terrified of what it meant, which was why immaturity, frustration, jealousy had all won out and taken the fucked up form of passive-aggressive deeds like, say, telling off a potential Overwatch donor just to get Morrison yelled at and pissed off and...

It was easier when Morrison was pissed off, anyway.

“Gabriel,” Ana’s hand touched his shoulder and the weight of it forced him to look over. “What is this about? Are you really mad at Jack?”

Reyes regarded her, silent, teeth toying with the delicate flesh on the inside of his cheek. He bit down, hard, and drew blood.

He was saved from confronting that particular bit of reality when Morrison and the photography team took their positions. No, he could return back to what he knew best.

Sitting up in his seat, Reyes leaned forward to prop his elbows on his knees and let out a laugh just loud enough to cause Morrison to glance his way.

“Make sure you get his good side,” he joked, winking. “Knock ‘em dead, Jackie.”

He watched the way Morrison’s expression tightened, the hope of some playful conversation fading from his eyes, replaced by resolve. The photo-op was one more thing to do on the list of many.

Reyes’ overall satisfaction was squandered by the growing mass of guilt clenching in his chest.

“Let’s do one with a three-quarter view,” the photographer instructed, waving his hand. “From the right, please.”

The entirety of Morrison’s photo shoot followed a similar pattern; Reyes made various attempts at embarrassing his friend while all the attention was on him, knowing that somewhere there was a crack in that collected and oh-so-polished facade of his. The crack had been there for days, splintering, growing deeper and deeper.

When Morrison was about done with his photos - and Ana had hissed for Reyes to keep quiet and nudged his shoulder enough times he probably had a bruise - he had stopped to talk with a few members of the crew. A small crowd had formed around him, but he was smiling, polite, charming. Always so endearing, so likeable.

Reyes had to hand it to him, it was difficult to spot the weariness in his expression, the irritation. They’d known each other for so long, he knew not to take Jack at face value.

Jack knew the same of him.

Whatever Morrison said had the group around him laughing and a particularly brave, or overly friendly, crew member placing her hand against his arm, smiling. That casual ‘oh, you’ gesture that had Gabriel frowning and tapping an impatient finger on the edge of his empty coffee cup.

Every single goddamn time.

He bit his lip, glancing away from the scene, huffing under his breath, forgetting that Ana was directly beside him. That she’d been watching him like a hawk since they’d arrived.

“Oh, no,” Ana started, her tone a mix of incredulity and something overwhelmingly sweet, something like fondness. “Gabriel, you cannot be serious.”

“I try not to be,” Reyes retorted, a weak attempt at diverting what was coming with sarcasm. “Don’t you have to get your picture taken or whatever?”

Ana went silent, but he could feel the warmth of her gaze heavy on his temple. She didn’t say anything and he wondered if it would have been easier if she had.

His agitation won out.

“For the love of...” he lowered his voice, narrowing his eyes up at her. “What? What is it?”

She hummed.

“This is about the the interview, isn’t it? The one from Zurich News?”

Reyes clenched his teeth, closed his eyes, took a deep breath. For an instant, images played against the black of his eyelids like a film reel.

Morrison, impeccably dressed, perched with an awkward smile on the edge of his seat. One of the Zurich News’ hosts sitting beside him. Close, way too fucking close. Touching his thigh with her hand and laughing when Morrison seemed flustered.

“You have to know,” she said. “Come on, now.” “I didn’t,” he insisted, chuckling. “I never imagined... it’s very flattering, though. Thank you.”

Reyes stood from his seat, shaking his head and making his way over to where the refreshments sat.

“You hear that, ladies?” The host winked at the camera. “Handsome and modest. Must be why they keep you around.”

“Must be,” another laugh.

He refilled his coffee, grimacing.

“With a face like this at the head of their organization,” the host playfully tapped Morrison’s cheek with a manicured nail. “Overwatch has my support.”

“Fuck,” Reyes cursed, hot coffee scalding his palm and spilling onto the table. “God fucking...”

Ana was right behind him and he hoped desperately that he was radiating the appropriate ‘I really don’t want to talk about this’ mood. She sighed.

The spilled coffee stained the front of his hoodie, soaking through the bottom hem, down his sleeves. He swore under his breath, shutting the machine off and staring down at the java puddle.

“You should talk with him,” Ana said at once, her voice soft. “Don’t make me do it. This can’t keep going on.”

Reyes remained silent, pacing from the room without another word.

The room he ducked into was at the far end of the studio, housed two long tables, some mismatched chairs, a few appliances, and a sink. It might have been where the crew members ate their lunches or held in-house conferences.

He closed the door behind him and tearing off his coffee-soaked sweatshirt. His beanie fell to the floor in the brief struggle but Gabriel ignored it and moved over to the sink.

There was a towel folded into a neat square, which he used to scrub vigorously at the stains. Water splashed onto the red tank he wore underneath.

What the fuck was wrong with him? What else could happen at the end of this scenario but Jack hating his goddamn guts? Was that what he wanted?

Reyes stopped scrubbing, a sigh slipping from his lips.

What he wanted, if he actually gave it any thought, wasn’t going to fucking happen. Period.

Reyes jumped when the door to the room flew open and Morrison stood at the entrance, eyebrows furrowed in concern. He let the door shut behind him, taking swift steps over to the Blackwatch Commander.

Before either of them could speak, Jack pulled Gabriel’s hand into his own, turning it over to examine the inflamed skin of his palm.

“Can I help you?”

Jack’s thumb smoothed over the skin before he guided it over to the sink, adjusting the steady flow of water to something cooler.

“I thought we should talk,” he replied after a long moment. “Can we?”

“Are we going to talk about how unnecessary this is?” Gabriel waved his free hand. “This whole ‘tending to my wounds’ bullshit?”

Jack shook his head, an eyebrow arched. Silence, apart from the running water, filled the space between them. When Jack seemed satisfied, he shut the sink off, dried off Gabriel’s hand, and inspected the wound.

His thumb glided across the tender pink skin once more. He didn’t let go, even as he spoke.

“I want to know what I did to upset you.”

Gabriel scoffed and simultaneously struggled to quell his rapid pulse.

“Not everything’s about you,” he snatched his hand free, frowning. “Hate to bear the bad news.”

“So you’re not pissed?” Jack crossed his arms. “And I must be imagining the fact that you haven’t looked me in the eye for over a week.”

Gabriel shrugged, reaching for his half-soaked sweatshirt draped on the counter.

“You must be imagining things, Strike-Commander,” he replied. “Maybe it’s all this work. You ought to get some rest.”

From the shift in Jack’s position, the nonchalance was not well-received.

Gabriel almost jumped when Jack closed the distance between them, hands braced on the counter top, caging him in.

“Excuse the fuck outta me,” Gabriel growled and this time his eyes darted up to meet his friend’s. “But I’d like to go back and have another fucking doughnut, thanks.”

He was surprised to find not anger, but something imploring in Jack’s furrowed brow, something exhausted, but still hopeful. He looked away.

“Gabe,” Jack sighed, so close that Gabe could feel the rise and fall of his chest. “Ana told me to ask you about the interview I did with Zurich News.”

Gabriel ran a hand across his face, flustered and gripping the edge of the counter.

“Why the hell would you even ask?” He bristled, mumbling. “Goddammit, Ana.”

“It was the interview.”

He fucking knows, a darker part of his mind whispered, sending his body, his muscles into a panic. When he pushed away from Jack’s hold, the man let him go.

Gabriel could feel Jack’s eyes on him as he paced, scrubbing a hand through his hair.

What could he say? What could he say? What would make sense? Pissing Jack off had done nothing, really, and it was tiring the both of them. He didn’t have the energy - emotional, mental - to keep up this bullshit anymore.

Gabriel took a deep breath and forced himself to think carefully. It was there in his mind, one of the most basic concepts tucked alongside his fight-or-flight instincts.

The best lies are based on truth.

More bullshit, it was. For both their sakes.

“I’m sick of it,” he blurted finally, standing still. “You’re more than just a goddamn figurehead for the higher-ups to show off. It isn’t like you went through hell in the S.E.P. just so you could be paraded around as the ‘face of Overwatch’.”

Gabriel made a grand gesture with his at the last bit, his tone laced with sarcasm.

“How can you deal with that shit?” He went on, scowling, spinning to face Jack. “People don’t even look at you like you’re human. I fucking know better, you’re more than just your stupid subjectively handsome face; you’re tough, you’re smart as shit, and you deserve to be more than just a symbol people can throw their shitty feelings at.”

Huffing out irritated breaths, Gabriel ignored the thought that he himself wasn’t any better than those people with their shitty feelings. His chest rose with another deep breath and he was about to fill the ensuing silence when it was interrupted by Jack.

Laughing.

Gabriel couldn’t stop himself from regarding his friend with a look akin to betrayal, his cheeks flushing in the face of what seemed like a complete dismissal of his inner dilemma. He waited - a shocking display of patience - until the laughter cleared and Jack was glancing over at him with affection.

He cleared his throat.

Jack spoke first, “You think I’m handsome?”

Gabriel’s hands flew up in an elaborate demonstration of his displeasure.

“Wow, fuck you,” he replied, his face growing warmer. “Fuck you very much. Okay, I’m going now.”

“Gabe,” Jack chuckled, reaching out as he turned away. “Hang on a sec, c’mere.”

Gabriel, who had no intention of continuing this humiliating conversation, found himself being blinded by what he eventually realized was his beanie. He struggled to pull the lip of his hat up over his eyes and was instead guided into an embrace by the hand that snagged his elbow. His shoulders, his body, his entire being relaxed into hold before he could stop it. His hands remained suspended at Jack’s side, pathetically indecisive.

“Right,” Gabriel managed, the acerbic edge of his usual sarcasm muffled by Jack’s shoulder. “You’re a hug person.”

God, it felt so good, though. He closed his eyes for just a moment, savored the scent of Jack’s stupid spiced cologne.

Gabriel schooled his expression into something other than disappointment when his friend pulled away. Jack’s smile was overwhelming and genuine, his hands still resting on Gabriel’s shoulder.

“Hey,” Morrison started, soft, kind, an all-enveloping warmth. Gabriel’s own personal star. “It’s okay, Gabe. Thank you, honestly, it... It means a lot to know I have the support of those who matter most, okay?”

Blinding, like the sun, and all Gabriel could do was nod, numb, and let himself be consumed by it.

#Reaper76 #Overwatch #Poncywriting #Poncy writes #Fics #Jack Morrison #Gabriel Reyes #Ash writes #My writing #Ashapon

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funkymeihem-fiction · 7 years

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Chapter 14

The junkers watched, heads moving back and forth steadily as they followed her pacing. She’d been walking in circles for at least a few minutes now, from one side of the tiny room to the other whilst muttering in her native language and her gaze somewhere far off. Neither of them opted to say anything further on the matter, and even Junkrat seemed to know to zip it lest he further the mental tailspin. Neither he nor Roadhog had cared much beyond a ‘Crikey, look at that’ when they had realized what happened, but neither of them had the history or loyalty to the Overwatch cause that Mei had…nor the anxiety about schedules and stolen lifespans. They figured it was best not to interrupt. She finally turned to them after a while, still looking a bit shocked and lost. “We…we need to call someone. We need to tell Winston- tell everyone that we’re okay. We’re not gone. We’re still alive.” “Workin’ on it, lovey. Place is just a bush ranger’s shit-heap, equipment here’s bodgy but I reckon I can get a signal out. But hey, we’re safe and we got provisions now. It’s near on noon so why don’t you go uh…I dunno, do what ladies do, freshen up? They got a tub and everything. And then Roadie’s gonna make us piggie pancakes. S’like regular pancakes, but they got like little ears and a face on ‘em, and then you put syrup around ‘em to make ‘em look dirty-” “But we’re still alive…” Mei wasn’t really listening, starting to wander back and forth again.

“Yeah. Yeah, we’re still alive, darl. You want to maybe have a sit-down or anything? Can go back to bed if you need? Uh, we had to ditch my teas but I can still make you a…something?” Junkrat gave his partner a bit of a baffled look, scratching his head in that telltale uncomfortable way. Roadhog looked between them, shrugged, and lumbered back into the kitchen. Junkrat scowled, sending a middle finger his way. “Thanks for the fuckin’ help, Streetpig! Yeah, just dump that shit all over her brains and leave! Yeah, great. Dipstick.” Mei finally turned his way, her expression still heartbroken. “I’m going to just…I guess I need to go think? Sorry. I’m sorry.” “You put her back in apology mode, Roadie you fucker!” Junkrat groaned, then went to warily approach her, offering out a hand. “Here, lookit. Gonna put you in the bathroom so you can get sorted, roight? It’ll make ya feel better. Hey, we’re all alive. You just sit back for a bit while I get the comms working, everything’s still good. You’re safe, I’m safe, Hog’s stupid arse is still safe, it’s good.” She let him take her by the hand and usher her towards the bathroom, nodding in a distracted way along with his words. “Sorry…No, you’re right. I guess it’s just all a bit startling. I know I didn’t have time to do any calculations during the storm but…four months wasn’t something I expected. At all. Four months. Four months went by. Gone. They’re gone. And they think we’re gone. Oh my gosh, I told them two weeks and we just vanish without a trace for so long? What if they think we’re dead? What if they tried to send help? What if-” She realized that she was entirely alone, standing and babbling to herself where Junkrat had left in her in the bathroom, and roughly patted at her cheeks to try and snap herself back into reality. She’d vaguely heard something about them all being safe for now. And they were. She had time to herself to try and work her way through it, and wandering around in a tizzy wouldn’t help. She made herself take several deep breaths, exhaling and counting to ten, before examining her surroundings. The bathroom was a tiny side room with that same awful faded wallpaper, with a bone-dry toilet and cracked sink and…she guessed technically it was a tub. When Junkrat had mentioned a tub, she had expected white porcelain or laminate, with scalding hot water and enough bubbles to smother her, perhaps a few rubber duckies for companionship… What she had was more of a wash bucket made of dull gray tin with handles on both sides, and a large plastic container of water sitting nearby. Another item caught her eye. A tube of toothpaste was sitting on the sink and she fell upon it eagerly, squeezing a dab out onto her fingertip. It had literally been months without a toothbrush, and she was eager for clean teeth. Not that she had a toothbrush here either- and she wouldn’t have used a suspicious outback safehouse’s toothbrushes even if there had been one- but a clean mouth was a godsend at this point. She began rubbing the toothpaste all over her teeth and gums, sighing happily. A tingling sensation filled her mouth, followed by a slight stinging. Goodness, Australian toothpastes must have been made stronger than what she was used to. It almost hurt. But at least her mouth would finally feel fresh and clean, and minty and…was that a hint of iron? Her brows furrowed and she held the sides of her jaw, grasping for a nearby water jug as she poured some into her mouth, swishing furiously before spitting. The water splattered into the basin of the sink, swirled with toothpaste foam and tinged with red. She stared at it for a moment before spitting again; less toothpaste, even more red. Blood. Her gums were bleeding. That was certainly concerning…But then again, she had just put strange toothpaste in a mouth that hadn’t seen proper hygiene in who knows how long. Making a face, she swished with more water and spat until it ran clean. Now for the rest of her. She struggled to lift one of the heavy water canisters, spilling a bit onto the floor as she managed to haul it to the edge of the tub, watching as it made loud glug-glug-glug noises and filled the little washtub. It may not have had floral-scented bubbles or rubber duckies, but it looked heavenly all the same. She climbed in and tried to relax, though it was just barely large enough to fit her kneeling down, and worked on scrubbing the dirt and dust from her poor battered body. The water soon ran brownish-gray, revealing skin covered in bruises and sunburns. Ugh. There was no shampoo in sight, but she tried to rinse her hair out as best she could, dunking it under the water and raking her hands through it. It was going to feel so good, finally free of all that grime… She dumped more water over her head before lifting upright, sputtering and wiping at her face before staring down at the dirty water, doing a double take. Dirty didn’t even begin to describe it. It was filthy, and there were stray hairs floating all over the surface. In fact, there were a lot of stray hairs. A lot- a LOT- of stray hairs. Too many. She hauled her dripping body out of the tub, slipping on the linoleum as she made a dash for the mirror. Standing in front of it and staring blankly at her sopping wet reflection, she lifted a hand and went to comb her fingers through her hair. They shed away at her touch, falling away in entire clumps, and her hand began shaking as it drew back with an entire chunk of dark locks still attached, leaving a bald patch behind on her afflicted scalp as it fell away onto the floor. She couldn’t help herself, grabbing another lock of hair and pulling, watching as it came away too, and again, until the floor was littered with brown strands. She looked down at her shaking hands, then back at her own shellshocked and silent reflection, before she opened her mouth and screamed.

It was high-pitched and perhaps a little overly feminine, almost comical. But it certainly caught attention. There was a ruckus of noise outside as a peg leg clattered down the hallway, before a loud pounding shook the door. “Oi, Mei! Mei, what’s wrong!” She felt over her bald spots, mouth moving but no sound coming out, even as the pounding outside continued until the door almost came loose in its bolts. There was the sound of feet moving away, before a loud announcement of, “I’m kickin’ the door down!” She found her voice again. “Don’t! Don’t k-” The feet were already moving, running straight at the door with a loud and very heroic Reinhardt-inspired “HRRRAAAH!” before there was the sound of splintering wood. Instead of the door breaking open as expected, there was instead a piercing crack, as a metal peg went straight through the cheap plywood, the force of it shoving through all the way past the knee joint, followed by the crash of a body outside, falling to the floor. There was a moan, before Junkrat’s muffled voice sounded from the crack at the bottom of the door. “Ow! I forgot which foot I kicked with! I’m stuck! Mei, can you give my peg a push! Can you- Okay, Roadie’s here now! Roadie, bust it!” “No! I said not to-” There was the sound of much heavier footsteps, drowning out her protests, before the enormous junker thrust out one huge fist and gave the doorknob a love tap. The doorknob and locking mechanism shattered instantly as the door was pushed open, dragging the unlucky Junkrat on the floor on his back as he slid along with it, still caught by the knee joint. “We’re here, love! What’s the trouble!” For a moment they just stared at one another, Junkrat’s neck craning from his position on the ground and Roadhog bending over slightly to be able to see into the doorframe. Mei stood in front of the mirror, surrounded by scattered clumps of hair and as naked as the day she was born, shining wet as she vainly tried to cover herself with both arms. She locked eyes with Junkrat, whose pupils dilated as his cheeks turned red, his jaw dropping open senselessly as if he had beheld the gates of paradise themselves. “AAAAAAHHHHH!” Mei promptly began screaming again, hunching over and backing away as she looked for anything nearby to hide behind. “Get out! Get out of here!” Roadhog bellowed and physically flailed, lifting a hand to cover the eyes of his mask as he groped blindly for the doorknob, finding it and pulling the door shut as hard as he could. Unfortunately this did not work as well as expected, and merely set Junkrat to shrieking as his leg was still firmly caught in the plywood and dragged him along, smashing his torso between the door and the frame several times as he kicked and struggled, finally managing to wrench his peg back the other way and diving to freedom as Hog slammed the door closed behind him. He lay there holding his side, groaning as fresh bruises spread over his ribs. “Think that coulda gone better. Hooley dooley, though, did you see, uh…She was all…” He flopped over onto his back, staring at the popcorn ceilings. “Like an angel, Roadie, like in the picture books. But ya know, more shiny and wet and real mad at us.” “Hair fell out.” “Huh?” “Her hair was falling out. It was on the floor.” “Ooooh…Yeah, she probably ain’t used to that part. What do we do? How do you treat a lady’s first radiation sick? Is there some sort of gentleman thing I gotta do? Do I like, leave ‘er alone or try to comfort her or what? Should I go back in there? I probably should-” Roadhog caught his hand as it moved towards the knob, grasping Rat’s entire bony arm and proceeding to drag him away down the hall. “No.”

Mei had found a small and rather unpleasantly crunchy old towel in a cabinet, and had wrapped it around her as she sat on the lid of the toilet. She was shaking all over, staring at a wet clump of hair in her fist as she felt over the bald spots around her scalp and tasted more blood in her mouth, though she couldn’t tell if it was her gums or from biting her tongue during the chaos. She felt a little odd. Not just the hunger in her gut or the certain radiation poisoning she had, or even the remnants of the ice from her cryo-stasis. This was darker and more primal and made her uncomfortable. She was mad. No, not just mad. Furious. No, more than furious. Enraged. Irate. Riled. Fènnù. Shēngqi. No, not even those. There was no word she knew in English, Mandarin, or any other language for the type of anger she felt. Usually her anger was accompanied by tears and frustration. This was something deeper and more sinister. She didn’t want to cry. She couldn’t even cry, there were no tears in her. This wasn’t just anger. It was hatred. She hated everything. She wasn’t the sort to hate. In fact, it was almost alien to her. If there was something wrong, she normally bustled about to try and fix it instead, or encouraged others to see the brighter side of things no matter how dreary the prospects. Rarely, if ever, had she ever felt this deep and hopeless void of anything else but hatred. She hated that her hair was falling out and her mouth tasted like blood and she was bruised and burned all over. She hated Australia. She hated that she had ever wanted to come here. She hated the stupid, brutish people in this stupid, brutish country. She hated herself for thinking they were ever worth helping. She hated Winston for letting her come here even though she’d forced him to. She hated Junkrat. She hated Roadhog. She hated this entire horrible roadtrip. She hated Bobbero and his stupid ugly teeth, and the way he’d tried to kill Jamison and gave them that shitty van. She hated Tilda and her bikers for making her kill them. She hated that she had lost four more months of her life, four months of time that she would never get back, added on to the life that had already been taken from her. She hated that she even cared about these horrible storms, she should have just let them rage! Rage and let them wipe out this whole godforsaken continent! She stood, hands balled into trembling fists. Most of all she hated that she was feeling hate. That she’d been driven to this and punished for wanting to do something good with her remaining life, and instead more had been stolen from her. Not knowing what else to do, she whirled around and lashed out, slapping a palm against the mirror above the sink. She glanced up and saw her reflection, red-eyed and bruised and so tired looking, with raggedy patches of her bare scalp all over. She slapped her reflection, slamming her hand against the rattling mirror several times until her fist suddenly balled up and she punched it as hard as she could. Even in her greatest rage she was weak, and instead of shattering into a billion satisfying pieces, it merely dented inward and suffered a few small cracks. Of course. The one thing in Australia that she wanted to break, and she couldn’t even accomplish that. She felt like she should want to cry, but just wasn’t able. She wanted to make it all go away, but she couldn’t. She couldn’t do anything. So she sat down on the floor, amongst the scattered locks of her hair, and tried to ignore her own dark thoughts.

Mei didn’t emerge from the bathroom for hours. Junkrat had tried once or twice to knock gently at the door and ask if things were all right, but received no answer. Roadhog told him to just wait it out and went about his business. But Junkrat was not very good at waiting. Instead he had tried to think of various ways he could cheer her up. Hog had immediately vetoed the idea of grenade juggling, which irked Junkrat because he had become extremely good at juggling and practiced often when bored, and the grenades were the most exciting things to juggle and would really wow her, but Hog still said no. He wished he had been able to bring his teas with him. Then he could have brewed an entire cauldron of strawberry tea with lots of tapioca pearls, just for her…but she wouldn’t keep it all for herself. No, she’d want to share it with him, and they could drink it together under the stars she liked so much and they could share tea-flavored kisses. But he wasn’t that fond of strawberry and he didn’t have his teas anyway, so that wouldn’t work. Barbecuing her favorite meal was right out. She didn’t like meat and the provisions at the safehouse were both out of date and not very glamorous. The only thing he had was explosives, which she didn’t like at all, and piles upon piles of broken equipment. So he began rummaging through the broken pieces of scrap and circuitry and piles of tools, trying to find something, anything, that might make her smile again. And he knew it had to be something good. He knew what to do when she was crying, he could comfort her pretty well if she was just crying. The fact that she was alone and silent…that was making him very worried indeed. Night had fallen by the time she finally vacated the little bathroom, shaking her head to Roadhog’s offers of something to eat and ignoring the pleading growls of her empty stomach. Instead she returned to the creaky iron bed, climbed in, and didn’t move for the rest of the night. Junkrat kept working.

She finally roused herself a little before noon, when the snarling of her gut reminded her that its hunger pangs could be ignored no longer. She moved with a dull slowness, tired from oversleeping and exhausted from her own anger, but when she opened the door, she found Junkrat waiting for her, one fist raised as if to knock. Blinking down at her, he tried a smile. “G’day, Mei! You really slept in! But there’s still time for piggie pancakes. And…” he sighed. “We need to talk.” She shook her head. “Jamison…Please don’t. I’m just tired. I’m tired of bad news. Please don’t say we need to talk.” “Well…your hair…” He began, and then cringed when she turned her head away as if he’d struck her. “Look. You know I think you’re gorgeous no matter how much hair you got. But me saying that won’t help you feel better because…I mean, look at me.” He leaned down to gesture to his owned scorched and balding areas on his head. “But I gotta say it anyway. And I know you feel like crap warmed over right now, because who wouldn’t? Like, everything’s that happened, it’s been shit. And it kind of reminds me of this one story I got…” She sighed, looking down at the floor. “Please, not one of your big stories again.” “So this one time, I was feeling real shit, just like you. I mean it was real bad. I was on the run from a gang because my ‘friends’ had sold me out for a zack. And when I say on the run, I mean literally, I was running for my life, which was real hard because I’d lost a leg and didn’t have this beauty of a replacement yet, so I just had a crutch. So, I guess more hobbling for my life. I didn’t have barely no supplies, no food, no water, no place to go, so I shacked up in some junkyard I found where less folks wanted to murder me. Ended up stealing food and water out of a junk dog’s bowl. Couldn’t make a fire, so ate it raw. Bam! Dysentary!” “W-what?” She was looking at him like he was crazy, but at least she’d stopped sighing and staring at the floor, so he continued. “So yeah! Spent that week shittin’ meself and crying. I’ll save you the gory details, love, it was bad. Plus, my stump was gettin’ real bad infected. So I’m stuck in this junkyard with a swollen gut, an oozy leg, dry tongue, and no pals left who don’t want to turn my carcass into coins. I got real mad. Got real mad at everything.” She just nodded. “Okay?” “So I decided I’d beat a tire with a stick I found, and it turned out that a bunch of bees had made a nest in there, and hittin’ them with a stick made them really mad. So they all came out at once, and it’s like…yeah, I hated life a lot at that point, but then I had to stop hating it because I was getting stung by a bunch of bees.” “Jamison, I have no idea where this story is going.” “Ya get it though!? I didn’t have time to hate life because I was still living, and I wanted to keep living so I was running from a bunch of bees! I mean, if I had really hated how things were that much, I would have just laid down right there and died from bees.” “Er, I really am not sure how this-” “But I didn’t! I got up and I hobbled my arse right out of there! I kept running from those bees! And you know what, I’m glad I did. Because after I got out of there, it got better. I met Hog and that was pretty good. I blew up some folks who wanted me dead, and that was also real good. I got to travel. I saw neat places and got to blow them up, really enjoyed that. Joined up with Overwatch which is okay I guess. But joining up with Overwatch means I got to meet you, darl! And let me just say…I’d gladly have a hundred days where I fucking hated existing and wished I wasn’t alive and where I’m getting stung by a bunch of bees, if it meant I got to meet you.” She turned away, but was smiling a little despite herself as she tried to piece together the sad absurdity of his story. “Your ideas of a pep talk are extremely strange and kind of romantic in a way I don’t understand at all.” He seemed heartened by her smile, nodding. “It’s like…yeah, shit sucks. But there’s some good shit too. It’ll get better, I can promise you that. I know you’re mad, real mad, about that ice eating up more of ya. But you lived through it all and you did so much that you can’t even see yet, and…you know, maybe don’t think about the ice eating you up. Because I was there, and Hog was too, and we were all together and it was more like we were all just taking a nap at the same time.” “That doesn’t even make sense but…thanks?” She offered out a hand and he took it, giving her a little reassuring little squeeze. “I’m sorry you have to keep doing this for me. I feel like I’ve been nothing but a pain for you two.” “It’s Oz, mate. Everything and everyone out here’s a pain. Including us. Me and Hog are just gonna get you through it with all four limbs still attached. Who knows, maybe one day you’ll look back on all this and laugh. That’s what I do. Besides, it ain’t all bad news. I got communications up! Aaaaaand someone else is real happy to see you! I think. I ain’t figured it all out yet.” He quickly lifted two fingers to his lips and whistled. There was a semi-familiar warbling sound as the little powder-blue drone hovered shakily into the bedroom, an antennae and circuit boards pasted onto its back. It was still dented on one side and its emoticon eyes were flickering and shifting in ‘I’m sick’ swirly symbols as it struggled to stay steady. “Snowball!” Mei brightened, holding out both arms. “You’re back!” The drone responded with a loud grinding noise that sounded more like an ancient modem starting up, rather than its usual cute beeps. It floated towards her, missed its mark, and went sailing over her head and into the far wall with a tone that sounded a bit like “BRRAAAPP.” She rushed forward to scoop it up as it tumbled down to the floor, hugging it anyway as its eyes shifted to a ^ ^ in happy recognition and uttering another loud flatulent mechanical noise. Junkrat coughed, looking to the side. “I mean, it’s a work in progress, but it’s sort of functioning again? So…it’s not all bad, right?” Her anger had subsided by now. It wasn’t entirely gone, had merely shifted into something a little more manageable. She was still frustrated and sad and far from happy, but she was at least feeling more herself again. She could already feel the tears coming on as she grasped Snowball in one arm and hugged the lanky junker with the other, uttering one of her horrid little undignified wet burbles against his chest. Junkrat’s grin returned fully, wrapping his embrace around her once more. “There she is! Aw, that’s it, you can cry and snot all over ol’ Junkrat as much as you like.” “I-I’m not s-snotty, and I’m s-sorry…” she sniffled noisily, defeating the point. “Sure. Come on, get it all out. We gotta make your SOS call later, but first…You have got to eat something, darl, your stomach sounds like it’s trying to get out of you.” He shepherded the red-faced Mei out of the bedroom and towards the kitchen. Roadhog was standing in front of the stove, wearing an apron that was far too small for him, its straps hanging uselessly at his sides as he gave his cook pan a flip. Junkrat sat Mei down before slumping down into a chair himself, beating a fist on the table. “Oi, Roadie! Give us a full stack! We’re starvin’ to death over here!” “Shut up,” the elder junker responded calmly, transferring the pig-shaped pancakes from pan to plate and setting them in the middle of the table. Junkrat barely gave Mei time to grab a few before he started dousing them in syrup and tearing into them with both hands. Mei and Roadhog chose to eat more primly, and with actual utensils. She was ravenously hungry, and even challenged Jamison for more, snagging a few more pancakes from the main stack before he could demolish them. Roadhog had partially lifted his pig-mask in order to eat once more, and without even looking her way, he paused and pulled something out of his pocket, holding it out to her. It was a makeshift headscarf, with two laces stitched on and bearing a patch with the familiar little pig-face symbol with the beady eyes and x-symbol nose on one side. He held out the crumpled mound of fabric in one huge palm, gesturing slightly up towards her patchy scalp. “Here.” She took it, running her thumb over the little pig before wrapping it around her head, tying the straps around the back of her neck and adjusting it so it hid the worst of it. It didn’t fix the problem, but not having to see it would certainly help more than he knew. Or maybe he did know. “Thank you,” she whispered. “Mm.” “BRRRT,” Snowball said.

#meihem #junkmei #meirat #fanfiction #mei #mei-ling zhou #junkrat #jamison fawkes #roadhog #mako rutledge #australia #outback #adventure #funkyfluff

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