Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It starts with a couch.

The couch.

The worst possible piece of furniture that Overwatch had to offer, out of all of the items at their disposal, and Jesse McCree had chosen that atrocity. Handpicked it, even.  Looked Winston dead in the eyes, pointed to the world’s ugliest couch and said, “I want that one.” No doubt in an attempt to annoy the man currently eyeing the abomination.

Hanzo glowers at it, and with its bright affront of colors, he feels as if it almost glares right back.

The sofa is red, patterned with orange and yellow stripes to form a plaid pattern similar to the palette one with a punctured lung might hack up. A spectrum of warning colors, something primal inside of him urges, bright like poisonous frogs and toxic berries. It might as well have been a sign: he was a fool for letting himself be coerced into this mission.

Legs locked, the archer’s eyes narrowed in his staring contest with the inanimate object, he tries to pinpoint the moment he went wrong.

Perhaps it had been when he had first joined Overwatch six months ago, recruited after his untimely reunion with his brother. He had spent a decade hunting down the remaining members of the Shimada Clan, picking them off one by one. Satisfaction came with his vengeance, the very same elders that had attempted to warp him into a cruel leader fell to his own hands.

But afterwards, he only felt empty. It had not brought Genji back—Overwatch had done that. Dr. Ziegler had defeated death itself, and the rest of its members had housed his brother (due to his own dearth of hospitability). Falling in line with the very same organization would be the most honorable option, offering his aid in protecting the world. The archer felt important; he was making a difference.

Perhaps the fatal flaw had been allowing himself to get closer to his fellow soldiers. No, he corrected himself, it wasn’t his fault McCree had somehow wormed his way into the other’s life, tenaciously hanging around the archer, until they had settled into a routine.

Commenting and countering, advancing and repudiation. It was like a dance; another art mastered by the eldest Shimada. But for now, they had settled for walking the perimeter of the compound, drinking, reminiscing, talking of the other members, of cultural differences, and of the horrors of sweet tea.

The rest had followed: the always good-humored and approachable Reinhardt; Lena, though she was too touchy-feely for his liking, her heart was in the right place; Hana, who made it a point to tease him every step of the way, much in the way one would a sibling; they had all ruptured his carefully constructed defenses.

They were a team.

Or, perhaps it had been the dip in Winston’s voice as Hanzo had entered the meeting room. A slight stutter, eyes flicking to the archer’s form in the door. The scientist taps the screen on the table, ending his current conversation with Athena rather abruptly.

“Shimada, right on time! Take a seat. I just put out the call, the others should arrive shortly.”

The door creaks open its full diameter, Hanzo steps through the dimly lit space before travelling to his designated seat among the sea of empty chairs. He immediately senses that something is off; there’s a shift of unpleasantness in the air, the silence is not a comforting one. Winston refuses to meet his gaze.

Before his head can even concoct the phrasing to question the scientist, the door snaps open again and the rest of the team pours in. He hears Reinhardt before he sees him, but even then, the mass of a man towering over the room (like a dollhouse in comparison) draws his attention. Pharah and Mercy stand side-to-side, talking amongst themselves, hands brushing. Hana follows up afterward, indicating her entry with the loud pop of her gum.

The resident cowboy brings up the pack, straggling behind before shutting the door and corralling the group together. A true cattle drive. McCree flashes a grin and tips his hat as he takes his seat across the table; Hanzo offer a small nod and nothing more. This is not exactly the appropriate condition for a friendly conversation.

Winston straightens his glasses, shuffles papers, and clears his throat— stalling for time. 

“Good morning everyone. I’m sure by now you all have noticed how,” a short cough, “short-staffed we are at the moment, especially after the incident in Gibraltar.” Hanzo snorted. Of course he knew, he’d have to be blind to overlook the condition his own brother had been left in, or the handful of others who were under a strict medical watch from Dr. Ziegler herself.

“Some people just can’t hold their TNT,” McCree jokes, voice low.

Hanzo gives them both the kindest of his withering looks, silently asking the scientist at the head of the table to cut to the chase.

Winston fidgets in his chair for a third time, more preoccupied with his paperwork than the agents before him. McCree shoots Hanzo a shared weary look; the cowboy could have read the scientist with his eyes closed.

Winston clears his throat again, eyes growing serious as he hits his stride, “Athena, if you will.”

The tabletop disappears, flipping over to display one large monitor. The room floods with blue light, faces lit by the grid before them.

“Thanks to a recent tip-off, we have discovered Vishkar may be in operation of a new base. Not a military base, mind you, but an information hub. Imagine it if you will: thousands upon thousands of files containing every secret Vishkar has ever swept away. Files on every soldier, other bases, new tech, future plans, you name it. If it’s top secret, it’s there.”

“So,” Hana starts, drawing out the vowel, “you want us to get in there and download everything off the servers to a drive and get out?”

Winston smiles, kind and humoring, “It’s a bit more complex than that.”

“Where is this place,” Reinhardt growls; Hanzo is convinced the man has no concept of an inside voice, “I will smash through their fortress in no time!” Mercy holds up a hand from across the table, worried more about the man’s blood pressure than the ruckus he is creating.

“Hold on, you can’t go barging in there. This needs to go smoothly. As for where it is,” Winston falters a bit as he slides a finger across the screen, the grid is replaced with a map, “we are still narrowing down the possibilities.” Hanzo recognizes the location, the outline of California, from all the tales McCree has recounted of travelling across the United States. It zooms in impossibly far until the edges disappear altogether and instead focuses on a single town. Then, as the scientist taps the screen once more, it focuses on a neighborhood.

“Bingo,” the cowboy sits up straighter, flicking the brim of his hat to look Winston in the eye. “You want us to scope the place out, find the hub, and have ourselves a little meet-and-greet?”

Winston sighs, long and drawn out. The scientist looks worn-out, fur ruffled in odd places, eyes lacking their usual cheerful glow. Hanzo wonders if Winston’s skipped his daily jar of peanut butter.

“McCree, this is not a guessing game.” A flick of his furred wrists and the map comes to life, images shifting into 3-D models until the town is painted before them clear as day. Rows of houses atop pedicured lawns, one indistinguishable from the others. White exterior, grey shutters, matching ashen roofs, two stories tall—all identical. Strictly cookie-cutter.

“But yes, it is a reconnaissance mission. It is of upmost importance that it is kept covert. Vishkar seems to be experimenting with structuring neighborhoods, think of it like one of their cities Lúcio has fought so hard to rally against, but more concise. They have not yet deployed their sonic technology, but when they do, it could control hundreds of noncombatants. We believe this neighborhood is unknowingly harboring the base.”

Pharah and McCree exchange a glance before she turns her sharp eyes to the scientist, her mouth a thin, dubious line. “How could something that big be hidden so discretely?”

“It could be concealed in a house’s cellar or it could spread underneath the entire span of the neighborhood; we don’t have enough information at the time.”

“I’ll get my shovel then,” McCree adds, leaning back in his chair. The comment helps displace the tension from the air.

“What we do know, however,” Winston continues as if the cowboy hadn’t spoken up, “is that one of these houses is harboring the entryway. And it is very likely, that one of these so called ‘unassuming homeowners’ is actually working undercover for Vishkar."

“You wish for us to play spies for you so Overwatch doesn’t make a fool of itself by harming innocent civilians," Hanzo finally speaks up.

“Blunt and to the point as always, Mr. Shimada,” Winston smiles a bit at his own comment. “You are to infiltrate the neighborhood and survey it. Be on the lookout for any suspicious activity. Once you are certain of who is the agent in the bunch, find the access point. It will have to be a quick operation, they most likely have soldiers stationed at the ready if anything suspicious occurs.”

The scientist taps the folders he had been fidgeting with before against the table until they are a neat line, “You all will have to blend right in, of course, it is an undercover operation. We have already composed your fake identites, fitting in with the common denominator in the neighborhood. No one will be able to pick you apart from the crowd.” Winston passes the folders down the line until each is holding their labelled file.

There’s a pause. Information is still being withheld.

“Most common denominator?” McCree’s question slaps the grin of off Winston’s face. He does not meet their eyes as he mutters a singular word, rushed out in a stream of air as if he wishes to avoid the topic altogether.

“Families.”

The group lapses into silence as they open the manila folders and begin to inspect their documentation. Hanzo scans meticulously through the mass of words. His eyes settle on a faked birth certificate, moving down the lines until he finds the name, his new name: Henry Yoshida.

The archer almost laughs; he certainly does not look like a Henry.

Nimble fingers skim over the layers upon layers of paperwork: an insurance card, a passport, a driver’s license… He stops at that one. Hanzo blinks. His eyes narrow in confusion. Perhaps it’s a typo, maybe Winston had misplaced something along the lines.

The name does not match his forged birth certificate. More specifically, the surname.

Eastwood?

Something about it seems familiar, but it doesn’t quite connect until his palms skirts over the next paper.

A marriage certificate.

Oh.

Oh.

“Ah!” Reinhardt’s excited shout nearly causes the archer to jump out of his skin, “Hana, you are posing as my granddaughter! My little Enkelin!”

“Don’t break a hip while you’re celebrating, Gramps.” She seems almost pleasantly surprised at the turn of events. Reinhardt would no doubt spoil her the entire mission. Of course, she’d have to stomach his odd cooking.

“Oh, it seems we are married, Fareeha,” Mercy announces lightly, but her grin is undeniable. Pharah, eyes hooded, says something under her breath that sends them both into a fit of hushed giggles.

Hanzo looks blankly at the paper once more. He and McCree lock eyes at the same moment. The room goes silent, the others becoming suddenly aware of the gunslinger’s uncharacteristic lapse in conversation.

Jesse McCree looks at him and the cowboy’s face lights up like the end of one of his god damned cigars.

In one swift motion, Hanzo stands, slamming his palms flat against the tabletop.

“This has to be a joke. You are yanking my leg.”

“It’s pullin’ my leg—” McCree starts to correct but is silenced half-way through when Hanzo hisses a sharp, “Shut up!”

Winston knew this was coming. 

“I am being completely serious, Agent Shimada. We have had similar stealthy missions before, Angela once had to pose as Hana’s single mother for an entire month before they gained intel on Talon,” he glances to Mercy, the woman confirming his statement with a nod. “It is part of standard procedure.”

“Then have one of them do it,” the archer growls.

The others begin to put two and two together.

“Oh my god,” Hana starts slowly, wolfish grin spreading to an inhuman proportion, “did you two …?”

“Get hitched?” McCree glances across the table, “Why don’t you tell ‘em, darlin’?”

Chaos erupts. Hanzo looks about half ready to leap over the table and show the cowboy what he could really do with his bow. Pharah bursts into laughter, louder this time. She genially punches McCree in the shoulder, who, in turn, shoots her a sheepish grin. Hanzo turns his icy glower in her direction; Hana “Oooh”s at them, egging on the disorder.

Reinhardt hits his fist against the table. The room quakes.

“Now,” the knight says, unfazed smile still plastered against his face as the team becomes hushed once again, “I believe our good friend Winston was about to speak.”

Winston does not shirk from Hanzo’s angry words, instead he slowly pinches the bridge of his nose as he waits for the commotion to quiet down. “I have explained how short staffed we are, yes? Those of you who are here today are the only ones available. It’s lucky Lucio has been shadowing Ms. Ziegler for so long and can run the infirmary in her absence so she may be present to heal any of you should something go wrong. That being said, we have paired you all off not at random, but because of a complex algorithm that functions from your battle techniques.”

Said algorithm was Mercy threatening to cast out all of his favorite snacks as ‘a threat to his health’ and, with her own physician’s logic, have it all tossed into the garbage can. All he had to do was pair her up with Pharah and the rest could sort themselves out.

“There has to be someone else. This is ridiculous,” nowhere else to turn, Hanzo’s at the mercy of the cowboy. “McCree, tell him how idiotic this plan is.”

McCree sports an expression Hanzo has never seen: somewhere between holding his breath and grimacing, wide eyes focused on the wall behind Winston’s head. He’s deciding his fate. He could be speared by Hanzo’s arrows until he’s strung up like a modern-day Saint Sebastian, or he could face the wrath of an honest-to-God gorilla and possibly lose his job.

“How many lives do you reckon we’ll save with this job?”

“Countless. Not only those of the town, but everyone under their control. Vishkar is a global corporation, this information could wipe them off the grid.”

Reaching for a cigar, McCree waits for the levee to break.

“Alright, I’m in.”

The flood swallows him whole. Hanzo whipping his head around to turn his snarl in the cowboy’s direction is like a punch in the gut. He’s sure he would get much worse if the archer was armed.

“This—This is unbelievable. I am an assassin. I am not here to play pretend for your amusement.”

“You are a soldier, Shimada.” Winston swats away words that would have made weaker men tremble. The scientist has tried being kind, civil, but he’s at the end of his rope. “And this is an order. You have two days to pack and that’s final.”

The archer’s eyes narrow as he takes his hands off the table. He lifts his chin higher into the air, practically bristling. 

“C’mon, honey, it ain’t gonna be that bad,” McCree is sure to enunciate the pet name. The teasing is untimely. He expects to get a grin, or at least the tiniest hint of the archer’s mood lightening. Instead he gets shouldered, hard.

Hanzo stomps out of the room without another word, leaving the cowboy’s head spinning.

Which brings him back to the couch, the one he’d been trying to bore a hole in with his eyes alone for the past five minutes. The stare could have emptied a whole room of people. Sadly, the affront of colors looks no less worse for wear.

“You’re thinkin’ mighty hard. You still upset about this whole secret agent business?”

Hanzo doesn’t offer a reply. The archer remains still, not even honoring McCree’s words by turning around. The cowboy sighs.

“We’re almost done movin’ in. You gonna help me grab the last few things or are you gonna keep givin’ me the silent treatment?”

Spinning on his heel, Hanzo finally meets the other’s eyes with his own fierce gaze. McCree takes a step back, but nonetheless stares back just as hard. It’s one of the things that puts the cowboy apart from the others—there is still the tinge of respect that comes with handling someone as commanding as Hanzo, conquering the dragon, but it doesn’t cow his own stubborn motives. It had gotten them in more than their own fair share of arguments.

McCree stands taller than him, five inches that make Hanzo begrudgingly look up at the man. He despises every last millimeter. Today, though, the man doesn’t seem so broad. Maybe it’s the lack of his chest plate, or the serape, or the hat Jesse McCree values more than his own life. Everything that made him McCree was gone, save for the lopsided grin and those big, brown eyes. Instead, he sports a t-shirt, the design riddled with some tacky phrase the archer cannot even muster the energy to care about. Then again, Hanzo hardly feels like himself in the button-up and slacks combo he had been forced to disguise himself in.

No, they were not their Overwatch selves. Here, they are Henry and Joey Eastwood (a name Winston had felt was ironic, and Hanzo had half a mind to smash the modem router in retribution). Henry runs his small business from home while Joey is, more or less, a trophy husband. They enjoy sports, grilling, and all things suburban.

If Hanzo had the opportunity to meet his own persona in real life, he would sink an arrow into his chest so far they would find him pinned to a tree the next country over.

The archer moves to sidestep him, to return to the truck. McCree’s hand clamps down on his shoulder.

“Look, I know you ain’t too fond of this situation, but think of it as a weird vacation. There’s no Winston or Morrison runnin’ you ragged, Angela is across the street instead of breathing down your neck to make sure you’re taking every vitamin humanly possible,” Hanzo actually snorts at that, McCree continues with more confidence, “no deadly missions, no nothin’. It don’t seem that bad at all.”

Hanzo moves slow, at a pace they can walk together, the closest thing McCree can get to an open invitation, “You only say that because you are not the one who will have to look after a John Wayne reject.”

McCree reaches for his hat before he remembers it isn’t on its usual perch atop his head. Instead, he places a hand over his heart in substitution.

“Babysittin’?! Is that why you think Winston tacked you onto this mission?”

They reach the rented moving van. All that remains inside of the spacious white interior is a coffee table, worn and stained from mugs and knives alike. McCree takes one end while Hanzo lifts the other. The weight is miniscule, certainly enough for the cowboy to lift with one hand. Hanzo doesn’t comment on it; perhaps it’s one of his odd American habits to prefer company.

“Why else if he did not feel you would be competent on your own?” He raises an eyebrow. The insult goes straight to Jesse’s heart.

“For your information,” the cowboy pauses as he takes a step backwards into the doorway, “I’m a wanted man. I got a bounty on my head bigger than Texas. How have I been able to escape all these bounty hunters for so long if I’m ‘incompetent’?”

“Luck.” The word comes with one of Hanzo rare smiles. That too, goes straight to Jesse’s heart.

He dodges the question altogether, knowing it holds a bit too much truth, “He paired us up because we go well together and you know it. We’re a team. I pick off all the guys on the ground with Peacekeeper and you take out the one guy who sneaks up behind me.”

“Winston chose us because we were the only soldiers available for this mission. Besides Junkrat.”

Hanzo deadpans, meeting the cowboy’s stare as the table connects with the living room carpet. For a moment they both ponder the consequences of having Junkrat assigned to an undercover mission. The archer could picture it perfectly: the neighborhood up in flames while Fawkes lounged in a pool, sipping something alcoholic in a fancy glass, utterly deaf to the destruction behind him.

They settle the table before the couch, the very same one Hanzo can still catch mocking him out of his peripherals.

“And I believe you are underestimating the numbers. The last time I checked the shooting range log I had more kills, and a better accuracy. Arrogance is not a good trait to possess, McCree.”

“I think it suits me just fine, Shimada,” the gunslinger fires back, echoing the other’s goading tone. McCree dusts off his hands, takes a gander at their newly furnished space, and whistles. “Mighty fine home we’ve got here,” he says, pushing back his imaginary hat as if it was blocking the view. “This won’t be too bad, s’long as we keep the fridge stocked.”

“And as long as we remain vigilant.” Hanzo’s voice drops its playful note, returning to the default coldness. McCree flops back on the couch with all the grace of a fish out of water. He ignores the serious comment, opting instead to spread his arms along the back of the couch and prop his boots up on the table.

Hanzo’s nose wrinkles in disgust as he swats the boots away. Another odd habit of westerners: why didn’t they just take off their shoes at the door?

He opens his mouth to chastise the man, to keep his filthy feet off the table, when the words die in his throat. 

There is a silhouette in the door frame.

They had left the door wide open.

As much as Hanzo chides McCree for being unable to take a hint, the cowboy takes one look at the archer’s face and springs to his feet. Not that it will do much good—they were both instructed to arrive unarmed as to not frighten the locals. His bow was packed deep in the bottom of a suitcase, supposed to be gathering dust until they perform their final strike. Now he’s naked, out in the open without any means of protection.

He was going to die in the middle of suburbia, fake-married to an idiot with a cowboy fetish, and in front of that awful, awful couch. 

For a moment the two stare at the intruder, frozen in place.

Then the silhouette steps forward into the light of the living room.

“Hello!” the woman squeaks the words out from behind her forced smile, one that is slowly waning from the hard stares given by the agents. They exchange a glance; she doesn’t seem like a threat, in fact she looks like every mother Hanzo has ever seen yell at their child from a sporting arena. Hair bobbed at the shoulders, a black sweater hanging from her small frame, she looks similar to some sort of exotic bird, only with bright red lipstick.

McCree rushes forward, practically leaping over the couch to greet her—Southern hospitality.

“Howdy,” he reaches to shake her hand, but finds them preoccupied, clutching a tin-foil covered dish. Without missing a beat, McCree offers a wave and a grin, “Name’s Joey. Don’t suppose you’re our new neighbor, are you?”

“Oh, yes!” She chirps excitedly, her eyes suddenly becoming much more amiable. Her blonde hair, not a strand out of place and curled up ever so slightly at the ends, bounces with every word. “My husband and I live just a few houses down, and I thought I would be the first to welcome you to the neighborhood!” She gestures to the pan; McCree is quick to take it from her.

“Smell’s great! I’ll go put this up and be back in jiffy. Sweetheart,” the man doesn’t miss an opportunity to call Hanzo pet names, “why don’t you come greet our guest?”

And then McCree is gone. Hanzo lingers for a moment, still across the living room. The woman, Grace, turns her smile on him. She does not appear to be an assassin, but the archer refuses to let his guard down. He crosses the room in confident strides, sure in everything he does, right down to his movements.

“Hi,” she offers, a little more wary. He can’t blame her too much; McCree always brings color and action into whatever he does. It’s as if the world spins much slower on its axis once he vanishes. Hanzo knows the feeling a little too well. The archer bows, schooling a smile across his face.

“I’m Grace,” she says, holding out a hand.

“Henry,” he answers, returning the handshake. Grace gives him a surprised look at the title; he certainly doesn’t look like a Henry. At least it possessed a similar ‘H’ sound, something he could still mindlessly answer to but wouldn’t give away his identity.  “Joey and I were just discussing whether the neighbors would be friendly or not.”

“Well, I certainly hope I come off that way!” She touches his arm; Hanzo flashes his teeth to keep the grimace at bay as she continues to speak, “I hope we aren’t too out of the ordinary for you. However, Derek, he lives across from me, is a bit of a thrill seeker. Once, he took a dip in his pool with his designer shoes on! Can you imagine?”

“How dangerous.” Hanzo says flatly. It takes all of his concentration not to roll his eyes.

McCree comes to his rescue, hands on his hips as he saunters towards them, “Was that apple pie I smelled? Didn’t get a real good look at it, what with the tinfoil and all.”

“Of course,” Grace answers, her shrill voice reaching new octaves. “It’s the best way I could think of saying welcome!”

“Well, aren’t you just a peach. Thanks for givin’ us a warm welcome.” His eyes turn towards the archer, McCree’s hand coming to hook around his hip and pull them shoulder to shoulder. “That pie looks almost sweeter than you, dear.”

“Joey…” it’s a warning, hissed from behind clenched teeth, masquerading as a fond retort to any onlooker. Hanzo adorns his best practiced grin, but his eyes spell out the cowboy’s doom. And yet, still, Hanzo doesn’t flinch away from his grasp.

“Aw, aren’t you two just the cutest,” Grace says as she clasps her hands together, eyes bouncing between the both of them. “How long have you two been together?”

“Got married in May. Tiny ceremony, wasn’t much more than signin’ some legal papers. But hey, we made it work. All the right people were there and all the right things were said. Figured there’s no time like the present, right Henry?”

Hanzo finds himself unable to form coherent speech. Every ounce of his perception is focused on the hand gently cupping his hip, and the paradoxical, insurmountable weight it has to it. Instead he just nods numbly.

Grace has no problem steamrolling her way over the conversation in his absence, “You picked the right neighborhood to settle down; it’s practically a paradise for young couples. It’s the perfect place to settle down and start a life for yourself, start a family.”

McCree sputters at that one.

The archer is caught between shooting an arrow through the idiotic man’s palm and standing perfectly still. He zones out of the conversation, mostly because everything that came out of the woman’s mouth was abhorrently monotonous, or at least that’s what he tells himself. Hanzo couldn’t care less about Grace’s husband’s golf swing, or their battle with termites, or that McCree’s thumb has moved a quarter of an inch upwards to ghost over his hip bone—

He pulls away altogether with a sharp intake of breath through his nose. Two pairs of eyes focus his way.

“Thank you, Grace, for the pie. I am sure we will enjoy it thoroughly. If you’ll excuse us though, we still have a lot to unpack.”

Sharp and to the point, like the arrows he carries. It was Hanzo’s polite version of ‘get out, your voice is giving me a headache’.

“Oh!” she seems almost taken aback, but after a moment Grace recovers. “Of course! Oh dear, the sun’s already set. I’ll be on my way then. But you two should definitely stop by for the monthly barbeque. And I’ll be sure to put in a good word for you with the others.”

The woman backs out of the door.

“Goodnight,” Hanzo finally cuts her off as she pauses to take a gulp of air. The door shuts before Grace can get out another word.

They do not speak until both can hear the sharp clicking of heels on pavement.

“Well, that could’ve ended on a better note,” McCree sighs. "Though, for a second there I thought I might go crazy if she said 'golf is the most interesting sport' again, bless her heart." His train of thought is derailed as the archer shoves him out of his path. Hanzo charges through the living room, prosthetic feet stomping against the hardwood flooring and into the kitchen. The cowboy bites back a curse, drags his gloved hand through his hair, where he so badly wishes his hat would be, and tails after the archer.

“What’s got you’re feathers ruffled now? I swear, you’re pricklier than a cactus.”

“You.”

The word is hissed at him; Hanzo doesn’t look up from the tea he’s furiously stirring. If the man wasn’t so dangerous with scalding water, it would have been comedic. They had had time to set up one thing in the house, and the archer had gone straight for the kettle. Figures. Jesse lingers at the threshold, afraid that hot tea might come splashing his way.

“Me? What have I done now? I was just bein’ a hospitable guest. We need to be kind if we’re gonna infiltrate these people’s lives.”

“No, not that you stupid cowboy.”

“Then what?”

Hanzo marches over to the doorway until he is face to face with the gunslinger. One hand holding a mug, the other jams a finger against Jesse’s chest. For being a good five inches shorter, chin tipped up, eyes feral, Hanzo almost manages to daunt McCree.

“You were touching me.”

McCree’s brow furrows, a twisted smile on his face like he should laugh, but the sound that comes out is bitter.

“Our mission is to act all lovey-dovey to fool Vishkar. Now, how do you suppose I go about doin’ that without layin’ a finger on you?”

“Do not fondle me like that again.”

The archer pushes past him, leaving the other sputtering in the doorway. For not the last time that night, the cowboy wishes he had his hat, simply so he could throw it down in anger.

“Fondle? Sweetheart, I’ll show you fondling—!”

“That won’t be necessary.” There is no emotion behind the words, just a coldness that settles into the atmosphere, seeps into McCree’s chest. Hanzo shoots him one last look over his shoulder, and heads upstairs, towards the bedroom.

“Wait,” the gunslinger calls after; the archer pauses. “There’s still a lot to unpack, you can’t leave this job to a single man.”

“I’m sure you will manage,” and there’s that smile—too toothy and smug. It sets his stomach in knots, gives off the same feeling he gets when Lena pulls an especially risky move while flying the transporters, as if his gut is going into free fall. “Goodnight Mister McCree.” Hanzo finalizes his words to the frozen cowboy by shutting and locking the bedroom door behind him.

“God damn,” Jesse swears under his breath once the dust has settled. His feet are still caught in the kitchen doorway. All at once, a mixture of vexation and embarrassment come crashing down on him. He doesn’t know whether to put his head in his hands or punch something.

McCree settles for the latter.

He swears, louder this time, and kicks a box when he realizes Hanzo has silently claimed the single bedroom without so much as an argument over it. God damn him. He doesn’t even know where to begin looking for blankets in the tower of boxes. McCree lights a cigar. To hell with the no smoking policy.

He’ll be sleeping on the couch tonight.

Chapter Text

Nightmares jolt Hanzo from his fitful slumber. He snaps upright, sweat-damp sheets clinging to his form, blunt nails digging crescent-moon craters into his skin. He was no stranger to these nightmares; they plagued him. It came with his job. It came with toppling so many he had stopped noting the body count. It came with being heir to a crime syndicate. It came with being Hanzo Shimada.

But nonetheless, they leave him shaken every time.

Yet another cause for alarm is waking in an unknown room. The archer's heart leaps to his throat. The covers are thrown off in a moment’s notice, Hanzo reflexively giving his body a once over. Then he is up and dashing to the exit, eyes as sharp as a hawk’s scouting for danger. He has thrown open the door and taken a few hasty steps down the stairs before the loud, throaty snores reach his ears.

Hanzo pauses.

The cowboy.

He remembers his place, remembers the day before. It all comes flooding back in visions of mangled couches and frustrating neighbors. With a sigh, Hanzo rubs the crust that has formed along his eyelids and returns to his room. The rush of adrenaline assures him there will be no more rest for tonight. The archer unzips his suitcase, procures a pair of sweatpants, and slips them on. Bouncing on the balls of his feet, he gets a feel of the fabric. The night-terror clings like a fog, drifting languidly behind his eyelids.

The first step of ridding himself of the dream is to change into something more comfortable. Remind his body of the present, to feel more secure in his skin.

The next is to wash his hands.

Hanzo repeats the list, his mantra, over again and again as he enters the master bathroom. The rules ground him, calm his pounding heart that is so perilously close to breaking the confines of his chest. He can’t help but chastise himself: what sort of fool gets so worked up over a figment of their own imagination?

The sink is porcelain, icy and smooth on his fingertips. Hanzo closes his eyes.

It’s the same dream every time.

A surge of heat—rage at his own foolishness—courses through his veins. He yanks the faucet handle to stop himself from shaking. The water runs cold against his sweaty palms, dribbles up his wrists. The liquid alone will have to do; in his hurry to one-up McCree he had not unpacked the soap. In its absence, Hanzo scraps his nails along the grooves, over the callouses.

The same dream.

It always ends the same way: blood on his hands.

He splashes water on his face as the image attempts to rear its ugly head again, flashing before his eyes. Thousands of miles away from Hanamura, reconcilement after reconcilement with his brother, and yet he still could not outrun the demons that pursued him.

Hanzo does what he always does: he shuts off the water, pretends his hands don’t feel defiled, and moves on. Proceeds to the next step.

He leaves the bathroom, pauses at his suitcase yet again, and retrieves a box made of thin, grey cardboard. Hanzo gives it a firm shake; the contents reply in kind as they bump around inside.

Half empty.

Frowning, the box safe inside his pockets, he slips from the room.

Prosthetic feet tap softly down the hardwood steps. The couch is the first thing to greet him with its unsightly colors, blinding him despite the dim lighting. And perched atop the world’s ugliest piece of furniture, slumbering like a baby, was one Jesse McCree. Hanzo prays to anything that will listen to give him strength to make it through the rest of the mission.

He finds himself holding his breath as he leans over the railing to get a better look. Boxes lay scattered across the room, some sealed, and the others gutted, their contents strung about the floor like a murder scene. It had been the gunslinger’s doing, no doubt. Another mess to clean up.

It appeared, however, in the end McCree had given up altogether. Draped over the bulky form of the cowboy is the man’s own serape. It blends in unsettlingly well with the couch, as if the sofa had finally claimed a victim. Resting over the man’s face is his signature hat. Hanzo suppresses a laugh; McCree can dig through boxes to find his favorite clothing but not blankets?

Hanzo creeps down the rest of the stairs before he realizes he’s being purposefully quiet. The archer scolds himself; sneaking around his own house like a thief in the night all for the sake of some idiotic cowboy. Of course, that doesn’t mean he halts in his actions.

He doesn’t revert to his sure-footed stride until the glass door behind him slides shut with an audible click. Lit only by the pale light of the moon and stars, Hanzo can make out the surroundings he recognizes from his brief overlook of the property at their arrival.

The porch is cement, thin but wide, stretching from the jut of the kitchen’s exterior walls to the end of the house where it is supported by two, grooved pillars. Doric, if he’s not mistaken. Three measly stairs lead down into the flawlessly barbered grass of the backyard. From there, the yard—empty, barren of toys, garbage, chairs, the only sign that the house had been uninhabited—spans until it meets a fence. The pickets protrude outwards like a ribcage from the ground, white as bone, separating their home from the next one over.

Hanzo whisks past the porch, down the stairs, and out into the backyard. The grass is plush under his weight and for a moment he likes to imagine how it would feel against his feet, curling his toes against the soil. Frigid? Wet from the dew? But he can’t. It’s another thing that came with being Hanzo Shimada.

He sits against the cold ground, cross legged. Removing the package from his pocket, the archer tugs along the carefully marked seem.

Cigarettes. It’s a filthy habit, but damn if it doesn’t help soothe his nerves. It was the final step, the end to his ritual: the cool down. He fumbles with the cigarette, weeks of disuse, and pins it between his index and middle finger. It’s only then when he realizes he hadn’t packed a lighter.

“Need a light?”

McCree’s presence does not startle him; with the training of an assassin, Hanzo knows when he’s being watched. McCree sinks to the ground next to him. With an arc of his thumb and the sound of metal rasping against metal, the gunslinger holds out his zippo. The light of the flickering flames put the moon’s effulgence to shame, casting the cowboy’s face a spectrum of reds. A color of passion, yet warning. The lopsided grin suddenly seems more pleasant, inviting.

Wordlessly, Hanzo leans in to accept the offer, holding the other’s gaze. He thinks he hears McCree’s breath stutter in his throat. The gunslinger’s hand cups around the zippo, blocking out the night wind. Cigarette meets flame. The archer takes a drag, and finally looks away as he blows smoke in billowy plumes out of his nose. The smoke rises, ebbing and flowing until it is pulled away like the tide to mingle with the horizon.

They are silent a total of four seconds before McCree speaks up.

“I’ve heard of wakin’ up early, but this is ridiculous. How many worms are you thinkin’ of catchin’?”

Hanzo shoots him the most befuddled look the cowboy has ever seen in his life. It takes all his willpower not to burst out laughing.

“It’s an expression,” he scratches nervously along his jaw before trying again.

“So what was it? Nightmares?”

“I would prefer not to speak of it.”

“Fair enough. I understand the feelin’. But if you ever want to talk about it, I’m all ears.” The man doesn’t pry like Hanzo suspects he might. Perhaps he had his own share of terrors. McCree lights a cigar, briefly looks to the ground as if considering his options, and flops into the grass.

“What are you doing?” Hanzo asks, more curious than exasperated.

“Nothin’. Just admiring the view,” and before the archer has time to decipher what he means by ‘view’, Jesse continues, “Don’t tell me you’ve never laid back in the grass before, pardner.”

That earns a scoff, “Of course I have. It is just odd to see it done by someone who is not a child.” To prove his point, Hanzo very carefully lies back. He no longer has to guess how the grass feels: it is soft and cool against the exposed shoulders of his tank top.

“There, now that wasn’t so hard.” Hanzo glances out of the corner of his eyes to find McCree’s stare not trained towards the heavens, but fixated on the archer himself. He only grunts in response. The gunslinger’s head turns skywards once more, one hand bent behind his head while his free hand brings the cigar to his lips.

For a moment, both men simply gaze upwards, thoughts of their vices drifting away like their smoke into the stratosphere.

“I’m sorry about today,” McCree mutters, voice almost lost among the tune of cicadas and crickets. “For… y’know,” the cowboy gestures with a hand what Hanzo vaguely recognizes as a cupping motion. “I never meant to make you uncomfortable,” McCree finishes. The archer recalls the moment earlier, when McCree had been so precariously close, that big, brutish hand resting against his side. The warmth from the palm was a stark contrast to the wet grass tickling his neck.

“I was not… uncomfortable. I had just not been expecting it.”

“Well, I won’t do it again, if that’s what you’re worried about. I do value your friendship, Shimada, despite what you may be thinkin’.”

The archer lets his eyes close and carefully ponders over his next words, “It is for the mission. I am not uncomfortable with our feigned displays of affection, McCree. I would not wish for it to stand in the way of us completing our task.” A sly smile draws across his lips, “However, you could warn me next time.”

Hanzo is up before McCree can reply. Advancing and repudiation; the game is afoot. Just when he thinks they might be getting somewhere, Hanzo slips through his fingers. Evades his grasp. He follows closely behind, boot catching in the glass door as it’s closed in his face.

The gunslinger is left in the same position as hours before: onlooking blankly as Hanzo climbs the stairs.

Only this time the dragon is merciful.

Jesse McCree receives a wad of blankets to the face. Once he’s recovered, sheets cradled in his arms, a pillow aimed for his head knocks his hat to the floor. Hanzo catches the man’s wide-eyed surprised look and shuts the door. It’s worth it, McCree decides later, when hears the faintest laughter from the other side.

After that, the house falls quiet for the night.

--

“Six letter word for a barrier between people? It’s got an ‘e’ in it.”

“Does this not count as cheating?”

A lack of instruction from Morrison left the two fumbling in the dark. The archer had been with Overwatch long enough to know that meant one thing: lay low. Do not engage. Proceed as previously discussed.

A lazy morning rolled into a lazy afternoon. Three days had passed without so much as a hiccup, and he could feel the restlessness rolling off McCree in waves. He wondered if , in turn, the other could sense his own claustrophobia, cooped up in the small home for so long. Though, the hours were not fully lost: out on his morning jog Hanzo met a woman named Sofia who had at least twelve protein shakes attached to her belt and was, who would have guessed, yet another one of their neighbors. Likewise, McCree had had an incident while going to check the mail (incase Morrison decided that was the best method of contact) when he got waved down by three men in polos playing badminton.

Their mission had been to infiltrate the neighborhood and survey its residents, and so far it was proceeding without a hitch, despite Hanzo’s growing annoance at the people around him. The archer wouldn’t say it, but he found himself relieved when it was just the two of them again. He could work with the volatile, lax gunslinger, but not Jillian from down the street who had more children than he had fingers and toes (which was, sadly, a small number of appendages and a large number of kids). Or with Grace, who had turned up on their doorstep more than once to badger them about some sort of monthly barbeque. The woman made it paramount that they attended, less their reputation in the neighborhood be damaged.

That is how Hanzo begrudgingly finds himself sitting against the ugliest sofa in the universe, biding his time. McCree lounges at his side, invested in a crossword puzzle.

“Course not. I’ve filled in most of the blanks, I just need you to help me finish it.”

“Fences.”

McCree slaps his hand against his forehead, “Damn it, that was an easy one! Maybe Hana’s right about me gettin’ on in years…”

“Hana says that about everyone over the age of 25,” Hanzo says with a snicker, glancing away from his book to the man seated adjacent. The puzzle catalog the cowboy was so desperate to solve is marred from one end of the page to the other with red ink, cover folded back against the creased spine. McCree taps his pen against one of the few remaining blocks, the tip of his tongue sticking out the corner of his mouth in concentration.

“A four letter acronym for missin’?”

Hanzo sighs and pulls his book closer to his face. “I thought English was your first language.”

“It’s Español, but close. C’mon, last one. I promise.”

“AWOL.”

“Thank ya kindly.” The gunslinger begins to jot the word down, but half-way through he pauses, looks over his shoulder.

“Hey, speakin’ of fences, I think we got ourselves some nosey neighbors.”

Following the cowboy’s line of sight, out the glass door, and past the yard, he could just make out the top of a head as it drops down below the fence dividing them. But more importantly, what he catches sight of in the blur of motion is binoculars. They were being watched.

“A spy from Vishkar?” he turns away as he asks, incase their observer could read lips.

“Possibly; I wouldn’t write it off. Though, some folks do get their kicks from people watchin’.”

Hanzo puts his head in his hands and groans, “Just when I thought our neighbors couldn’t possibly get more irksome.”

“Hey, at least you didn’t have to deal with the badminton posse. They spent at least ten minutes tellin’ me where all the good fishin’ spots were. And 'bout how the price of milk was risin’. Never in my life have I seen a grown man so upset over milk! It was horrible, they were all wearin’ socks and sandals. And you say my style is ‘distasteful’.”

Hanzo allows himself a small smile as he quirks an eyebrow, “Are cowboy boots really that far off from socks and sandals?”

McCree looks as if he’s been shot. After a moment of disgust he recovers, lifting his head higher in the air as he poorly combats his southern accent.

“Henry, you will not believe how wonderful the hummus samples were at the farmer’s market.”

Hanzo, in kind, responds with his own tongue-in-cheek question, “But Joey, is it vegan?”

“Why, of course! Maybe I’ll buy some for our yacht party next Sunday.”

The archer throws his head back and laughs, one hand still pressed against his face. He’s never seen the cowboy go quiet so fast. If that’s all it took to shut McCree up, he decides, maybe he should laugh more often.

This time it’s Hanzo who breaks the silence, “Are they still looking at us?”

The gunslinger nods without looking, eyes still entranced at the man before him “Yeah,” and then as a second thought, “might as well put on a show for ‘em.” Before he knows it, the archer’s book is being pushed up so McCree can settle his head in his lap.

Peaking over the page, Hanzo looks down at the man who’s engrossed in his crossword, as if he was innocent of curling up in the archer’s lap like some eager mutt. McCree sure is scruffy enough to be a mutt. If he’s being honest with himself, which Hanzo rarely is, he doesn’t mind it one bit.

“What are you doing?”

“Just relaxin’, sweet pea.”

Hanzo makes a repulsed face at the nickname. McCree crosses it off the list. The gunslinger’s hair sticks out at odd angles—some ungodly combination of hat-hair and bed-head—and splays across the archer’s thighs. Much less focused on his book, he follows the strands across his legs and wishes to smooth it down, to contain it, run his fingers through it—

“My eyes are down here, sweetheart.”

“I thought we agreed you would warn me first.”

“We never settled on a signal! I could whistle. Oh, in old movies I’ve seen people signal to each other with bird calls.” The cowboy imitates what the archer guesses is a suffocating turkey. “Not sure if I can do that one though.”

“Nothing that extensive. Perhaps just tapping me beforehand?”

The gunslinger mimes tipping his hat, “Can do.”

There is a sharp knock from the front door before it swings wide open.

McCree bolts upright at the same moment Mercy enters the house, followed by Pharah. The Egyptian woman sports an eyepatch, and for a moment the gunslinger halts, like all the breath has been knocked out of him, like he has seen a ghost. Then Fareeha flips it up and winks with her tattooed eye.

“We’re not interrupting anything, are we?” Mercy asks as if they had not practically knocked the door down and the cowboy had not sat upright from an area that was most definitely the other man’s crotch. McCree comes back to life, walking in quick strides to meet the two women at the door. Hanzo moves to shut the curtains before joining them.

“No, no,” McCree reassures them, puts his hands on his hips. “Well ain’t this just a welcome surprise! I was wondering when you two would mosey on in.”

“We would have stopped by sooner, but you know how careful Winston is about these things.” Fareeha pushes past the two of them, her grin cruel and jocular. “I almost thought he would have us complete the mission and pull out before I got to see the wild Jesse McCree domesticated.”

“Naw, pardner, you know I’m never settlin’ down.” He clasps his hat from the back of the couch just to press it over his heart. There’s a pang in his chest that can’t help remind him how much she is like her mother.

“Keep it up with the cowboy act, and no one will ever want to settle down with you. Right, Hanzo?”

All eyes turn to him, and for a moment he feels like an intruder to the conversation. The three had an extensive history that lasted two decades, but him? He had popped into their lives a little over half a year ago. Even from the look in the medic’s eyes, he knew she was still wary of him from his past actions with Genji.

Like all his feelings, Hanzo crushes it, pushes it down to deal with it some other day, “I cannot tell you how many times I have quarreled with him over that ridiculous get-up.”

“Ridiculous? Sweetheart, you’re the one with his tit out on the battlefield.”

The archer gasps as if he had touched a hot stove, “It is traditional!”

Mercy clears her throat, the two snapping their attention to the doctor. They know that look, the disappointed, almost motherly countenace. The ‘I’m-going-to-put-you-in-my-own-hospital-if-you-don’t-stop’ look.

“Fareeha and I didn’t mean to start a marital feud.” The two women catch each other’s warm stare as if there’s an inside joke between them, “We were sent to pass an order along from Morrison.”

The archer blinks, “76 contacted you?”

“Yes,” Pharah eases down onto the couch without so much as looking at its design, “Shall we discuss this over tea?”

McCree scratches at his chin, “Hey Han, we got anything other than green tea?”

He gives a curt nod, looking on as Mercy places herself beside Pharah on the couch. Not even a comment. Did anyone in Overwatch have taste?

“Yes, I also purchased Chamomile and Lavender.”

“Lavender it is! The Amari way?”

Fareeha rolls her eyes, “What other way is there to do it?”

The cowboy returns a short time later with four cups in tow, handing them out before squatting down on the floor next to the archer. Apparently, the ‘Amari way’ was to let it simmer then add milk and mint. Hanzo sputters the first time he tastes it; it’s not bad, just certainly not like the tea of his home in Hanamura. It’s sharper taste; he feels as if his nose hairs have been singed.

“So,” McCree breaks the comfortable air once they have all had their fill, “what’s the news?”

Angela takes a particularly long sip of her tea before answering, “Jack wants us to change tactics. He said it would be more beneficial for us as a team to shift from our current stakeout position, to a more investigative role.”

“The plan is to stop being so passive.” Pharah gets the look in her eye Hanzo has only seen when strategy is being discussed. It reminds him of war goddesses worshiped long ago. “Once Reinhardt and D.Va arrive later this afternoon, we are to start breaking off into our pairs and infiltrating the homes of suspects.”

“Shoot, and here I was thinkin’ my breakin’ and enterin’ days were over when Blackwatch ended.”

“I’m not very fond of the plan myself,” Angela sighs, her solemn gaze locked onto the empty tea cup cradled against her chest. “But it always goes this way with Overwatch. I come for medicine, and I leave preforming criminal activities. Such is life.”

“With the Petras Act involved, everything we do is of criminal activity.” Fareeha’s eyes close. She dances around the tender subject, but as always, is the perfect soldier—defending the direct orders of their beloved leader.

“Regardless,” the medic says as she daintily returns the cup to the table with a clink, “I must ask you all to use as little force as possible with these civilians. I realize they can be a bit… eccentric and I cannot blame you for wanting to vent your frustrations. But I don’t want any harm to befall them.”

Hanzo sits rigid on the floor, shoulders held back, “I was under the impression that Winston was the one in command of Overwatch. When did we begin to take orders from 76?” He makes no attempt to mask the wariness in his voice. This method would complete the job faster, which was what the archer had wanted from day one, but at the same time it reminded him too much of how the Clan Elders used to marionette his father.

It perplexed him how they could so easily reaccept a man who mysteriously returned from the dead.

Fareeha beats the cowboy to the punch, “Morrison is no longer in a position of power. However, Winston is open to suggestions. He may have been a soldier in the past, but he has never run something of this size.”

“Old habits are hard to buck.” McCree shrugs, “’Sides, you can’t say no to Morrison. He’s only got what’s best for the team in mind. The man’s a big ol’ softie.”

Hanzo hums in response, stacking the empty cups (receiving a small “Thank you,” from Mercy) and letting the conversation fade behind him as he makes his way to the kitchen.

“Don’t let Morrison hear you say that. You’ll be on chore duty for the next five weeks. You might never see sunlight again.”

“I’ll just tell him I got put on medical leave and need bedrest.”

“Oh no, do not send him my way.”

“What? You afraid Dad will ground you?”

“McCree.”

Said gunslinger leans back, rolls his eyes, and replies wryly, “Yes, Snookums?”

Hanzo stands in the kitchen doorway, arms crossed, giving the cowboy his trademark glower.

“Why are there dishes in the sink?”

The two women exchange a glance, concealing their grins.

“Ah, fuck,” the cowboy mutters, suddenly occupied with his beard, “Was I ‘sposed to do those?”

“Do not play stupid with me. We agreed upon dividing up the cleaning.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t see you vacuuming.”

“That is because you Americans’ vacuums are monstrous.”

“That’s not the only American thing that’s monstrous.” McCree gives away his not so subtle meaning with an eyebrow wiggle. Hanzo simply deadpans—the cowboy thinks he might see the slightest tinge of pink at the tip of his ears—and points to the kitchen door. Jesse throws his hat down melodramatically against the coffee table and ambles to the sink.

After a moment, Fareeha rises from her seat, “I’ll lend him a hand.”

McCree is definitely not pouting, mumbling something under his breath about a “hissy fit” when Pharah appears at his side. She gives no warning, simply grabbing for a spare sponge before plunging it into the warm, sudsy water.

“I see you two have settled down into the married life.”

The man flinches, words coming out in an exasperated huff of breath, “Christ on a cracker, Fareeha, I didn’t even see you come in.”

“That’s because some of us don’t wear spurs that give up our positions.” They bump elbows, and are reminded of simpler times, as if they are both 19 and 14 years old again. Hell, McCree half-expected Reyes to walk in the door and start bitching at him.

“Never thought I’d see the day when you would willingly wash the dishes with me, little lady,” he says in a hushed tone, careful not to let their voices carry.

“I am no longer little.” Pharah fixes him with a thousand-yard stare that he thinks might be the same she gives her enemies, making their blood run cold before she presses a rocket launcher to their head. McCree desperately wracks his brain to how it had come to this: how the little girl he had once known when she still had pigtails and missing teeth was now (against her mother’s  wishes) a hardened soldier that stood even taller than him, capable of making a grown man shake in his boots.

Damn, maybe he was getting old.

Sometimes he forgets how far they’ve come, how much they’ve seen. No matter the nostalgiac feeling eating away at his chest, they are not children anymore.

Pharah turns away, dismissing the lapse in conversation with a small laugh, “Besides, I didn’t want to be left alone with the brooding dragon. You sure know how to pick them. I wasn’t even aware he could smile.”

McCree can’t stop the dopey smile that spreads across his face, “Now, why do people assume that?! All it takes is a few bad jokes. He’s got the loveliest smile and—”

The gunslinger takes one look at Pharah’s countenance, the same shit-eating smile he’s seen D.Va give them, and changes the subject.

“So,” he clears his throat as he rinses off another dish, “how are things with the good doctor?”

The woman’s smile dwindles to something more reserved. Her nose crinkles as she squints, a tale-tell sign that she’s thinking hard, “Confusing.”

“Are you kiddin’ me? You two still haven’t made it official?”

“It’s more complicated than that.”

“Lay it on me.”

Fareeha congregates her thoughts, looking into the mass of bubbles that has accumulated as if it holds some wisdom for her, “Neither of us has said it. Aloud. We tease, and we flirt, and we do things couples do but, I am unsure of the situation.”

McCree nods along, always a good listener.

“Sounds to me like you two need to have a heart to heart.”

“That’s rich coming from you,” the woman says with a snort. And then, softer, “I am afraid if I bring the subject into question, it would ruin what we do have. It could be only a fling; Angela might not take it as seriously as I.”

“Hidin’ the fire is easy. It’s the smoke that’s the hard part.”

“There is no fire here, Jesse.”

“No, that’s not—! Listen, kid, I’ve known the Doc for a good, long time. And in all my years, I have never, ever, seen her not take somethin’ seriously. It will do no good hidin’ things from her, it’ll only accumulate into something you can’t control until you snap. Now’s the perfect time to sit her down and have a come-to-Jesus meeting.”

“And what about you?” Fareeha regains her smile, rinsing off the last of the dishes while the gunslinger dries, “How is your quest to tame the dragon? I think Reinhardt would find it quite admirable.”

“Ain’t nothin’ that needs tamin’. I’m merely tryin’ to... not be eaten. Maybe cuddle the dragon.”

“Smooch the dragon?” she asks.

“Smooch the dragon,” McCree confirms with a determined head nod.

“Have you, by chance, followed your own advice and talked to him about it yet?”

“Yeah, that’s a negative.” Hanzo may laugh at his jokes, but those same perfect teeth from his smiles could rip his head off just as easily. McCree thinks he might just be okay with that. Slain by a dragon was a noble death, all things considered.

Fareeha throws back her head and lets out a loud, throaty laugh before pulling the cowboy’s hat down over his face.

“Then don’t lecture me!”

“A lecture?” Even with the hat blinding his vision, the gunslinger knew that voice.

“What has he been lecturing you about? I was convinced his head was empty,” Hanzo calls. McCree could practically hear the way he was fighting to keep a smirk off his face.

“Proper hat attire,” the cowboy grumbles as he pulls the crumpled hat from his face and places it back atop his head.

“That might be the one thing you know of.”

McCree nearly gasps aloud, “Shimada, was that a thinly veiled compliment I heard?”

“How dare you accuse me! I said no such thing,” the archer feigns ignorance, turning his head to stare at the wall instead. To outsiders, it would look like outright denial, but McCree knows him too well. This is part of the joke—their dance.

McCree promptly ups the ante by pretending to swoon, falling back into Pharah’s arms.

“We might need a medic.” Fareeha tsks.

“You might need a medic,” the gunslinger responds in kind, for only the two of them to hear. He has never seen Fareeha go so beet-red in her life.

“Did someone say medic?” Mercy pokes her head in the door at the worst opportune moment. “Is he alright? Check his pulse.”

Hanzo holds up a hand to stop Angela from rushing in, “He will be fine. He is just being dramatic, as always.”

“Gotta know how to entertain, darlin’.” McCree rights himself once more as the archer approaches closer. “’Sides, if I didn’t know better, I might just say you enjoy my theatrics.” The cowboy leans until they are face to face.

Mercy clears her throat, silencing Hanzo in the middle of a retort.

“I don’t mean to cut this short, but Fareeha, the Smiths will be returning from church shortly. If we wish to investigate their home we have to act fast. We should probably get going.”

Finally recovering from her flushed face, Pharah nods. She then turns to the owners of the house, “Perhaps we will drop in again some other time.”

“Y’all are welcome here anytime. The door’s always open, but try not to disturb my beauty sleep.”  McCree gives them a small smile, a silent promise for all to go well, for them to stay safe. Mercy returns the expression, brow furrowed in concern, begging the same question.

“Please inform us if 76 or Winston contact you with any changes,” Hanzo nods to them as they crowd around the door

Pharah lets out an affable huff of breath, “We wouldn’t think of missing out on the tea and good company. We’ll let you know if anymore reports come our way. But I expect the same thing in return, yes?”

The gunslinger opens the door for them; the two women step outside. “Abby,” he says as he looks to Mercy, before his eyes glance to Pharah, “Fatima. It was good to see you both again.” Their codenames flow out in a smooth, teasing tone.

“Joey,” Mercy replies in kind, making a face before she addresses the archer, “Henry.” He does not look like a Henry. They exchange waves before the women turn and leave. The door slides shut on its hinges and once again, they are alone. Once again, Hanzo finds himself flooded with relief. 

No sooner are their guests out the door than McCree is flopping back down on his favorite, hideous furniture factory malfunction.

“Are you not the least bit worried about 76’s demands? Snooping around like petty thieves?”

McCree snorts, “You determined to clash with every order we’re given? It ain’t as bad as some, trust me. Jack Morrison is a blessing compared to Reyes.” Hanzo watches as the gunslinger provokingly mounts his feet atop the coffee table, “We do some quick surveying around and then are out before y’know it.”

Hanzo seeks to quell his unease in his companion’s words. At least they will be out of the house, kept occupied. The archer resumes what he had been doing before they had been interrupted.

Inching apart the dark fabric of the curtains, Hanzo directs his piercing gaze towards the fence.

“They are still out there,” he growls insistently, “watching us. They have to be Vishkar intelligence.”  

“Well,” the cowboy heaves himself onto his feet once again, “I think it’s high time we introduced ourselves.”

A flick of his wrist and the curtains fly apart, bright afternoon sunshine engulfing the living room. Once again, the head dives down below the fence, careful to hide from prying eyes. Hanzo does not know what McCree’s plan holds, but he would gladly play along if it meant he secured his privacy. The archer plasters on his most neighborly smile, one that does not reach his eyes, and steps outside as the cowboy holds the door open for him.

The first thing that hits him is the humidity. Hanzo almost stumbles backwards, the very air around himself feels sticky. As if, if he tried hard enough, he could reach out and pull back a handful of gelatinous ooze. The morning breeze of his daily jogs and the night air of smoke breaks made the area seem like a tundra in comparison.

McCree is virtually unaffected; Hanzo damns him and how easily he adapts to the desert climate.

The second thing Hanzo notices is that he thinks he sees fire. Though, as the two draw closer, through the absence of smoke, he recognizes it as hair. The woman is facing away from them, but her highlighted hair trickles about her back like lava.

“Now, we’re not tryin’ to pick a fight. I wouldn’t even mention the spyin’ thing. We’re just here ‘cause we got a little curious and we’re friendly people and want to get to know them,” the cowboy says. Fingers tap against the archer’s opposite shoulder before McCree’s arm is slung over them. “Comprende?”

Hanzo reluctantly nods, feeling dwarfed by the other man.

“Now laugh like I just said somethin’ funny.”

“It is hilarious that you think that would ever happen.” On cue they both chuckle, McCree’s forced through his hurt pride. The noise seems to gain the woman’s attention: she turns and greets them with a smile as they approach the fence.

She is tall, supporting garden gloves and a trowel even though the woman doesn’t have a speck of dirt on her. Perfect teeth, glossy lips, wearing heels even as she labors outside. A business-like aura emites from her presence, a methotical mother. Though something is off-putting: the way she narrows her eyes as she sizes them up, her grin practically predatorial.

“Howdy,” McCree crows as they finally reach the barrier. He holds out a hand but the woman doesn’t take it. Without missing a beat, the cowboy covers it as a wave. “My husband and I were just out for a stroll when we noticed you over here and thought we would pop by and introduce ourselves. You know, on account of us bein’ neighbors and all.”

“Hi, I’m Helen, head of the neighborhood council,” her voice is rich, as if it’s been practiced for hours. “I saw you two move in a few days ago, but I’ve been too busy with board meetings to properly welcome you to the neighborhood.” Her laugh is swift and sharp as she pulls off the gloves, “So, welcome!”

“I’m Joey Eastwood,” McCree gestures with his free hand.

“And I’m Henry, Henry Eastwood.” A flicker of confusion passes over her face as Hanzo speaks; he certainly doesn’t look like a Henry. Regardless, this time Helen extends her hand. Hanzo takes it, making an effort to seem unaffected when her red nails dig into the heel of his palm. It almost feels like a challenge.

“How has the neighborhood been treating you? Any mix-ups with the mail? Grass cut too short? Oh, what about your other neighbors? I know Grace can just talk, talk, talk!”

McCree shakes his head, “Nope. Everything seems to be perfect. It’s like a paradise.”

“That Grace woman does show up at our door quite often,” Hanzo answers truthfully, adding onto the fire. The archer does a poor job at hiding the distaste in his voice. Helen’s eyes practically light up.

“Ha, now that’s the spirit! And what about Cynthia, red house down the street? With all the cats?”

Hanzo snorts, “Why does she feel the need to dress them in sweaters?”

“Exactly! It’s July!”

“And there is also something about a summer barbeque?”

“Oh, that sad little thing? Puh-lease. We all just go so Grace will stop bothering us about it.” She laughs again, and Hanzo can’t help but be reminded of a jackal.

Helen takes a step back from the fence as she taps a finger against the side of her angular face, “I like your spunk. How about you two come over for dinner tonight as a late welcome gift? It would be just me and my husband, and you two, my treat.”

Hanzo and McCree share a brief glance, both communicating the same idea: infiltration. It was the perfect opportunity to narrow down the first of many in Morrison’s plan. All they would have to do was briefly shake the homeowner’s attention and they would be granted full access to any hidden entry point.

“That sounds like a mighty fine offer, Ma'am, as long as we aren’t intrudin’.”

“No, it would be my pleasure. Dinner’s at six,” she says as she turns, throwing a hand up in dismissal. “We’ll talk more later.”

“See you then,” McCree calls back. The two remain motionless, basking in the warm sun. The cowboy puts a hand on his hip, and shoots a grin down to the man who has still yet to remove the arm around his shoulders. Their faces are close. For the first time, Hanzo notices how many freckles dot across the cowboy’s cheeks, like his own system of constellations.

“Well, sugar,” McCree wiggles his eyebrows, “looks like we got ourselves a date.”

Chapter Text

“Cuddle bug?”

“No.”

“Dream boat?”

“No.”

“Honey bun?”

“No.”

“Big Daddy?”

“Absolutely not,” Hanzo halts in straightening his collar to look back in disbelief. McCree’s eyes light up with pure glee. “You have to be making that up. That is not a romantic endearment, I refuse to believe it.”

“I promise I’m not lyin’. What do you think Morrison called Reyes?”

Hanzo sputters, the corners of his mouth twitching as he combats a laugh. Turning on his heel, the archer refocuses his gaze towards the bathroom mirror and his wrinkled collar. “Now I know you are lying.”

His fingers, calloused from hours of practice against his bowstring, smooth over the crinkled piece of fabric for the eighth time. If only the dragons lying dormant under his skin were good at dry-cleaning, he thinks wryly. Maybe then he could attend their date—no, Hanzo mentally slaps himself, not a date—their friendly dinner with the neighbors in a cleanly pressed button-down, and not just something that had been folded away in his suitcase. If there was one thing he hated, it was disorder.

Meanwhile, the epitome of disorder shuffled beside him, changing stance as he runs a hand through his disheveled beard in the shared mirror. When Hanzo catches his reflected stare, he notices McCree’s too toothy, lopsided grin.

“What is so funny?”

“I saw that.”

Hanzo gives a small shake of his head, before repeating, “What?”

“You smiled at my joke.”

The archer scoffs, “I did no such thing.”

“I saw it, Shimada! With my own two eyes.”

“Then maybe you should ask Mercy about glasses.”

His frustration seems to finally do the trick: on the ninth try the collar sticks. Hanzo gives himself a quick onceover in the mirror; it is not his usual regal blue, but the grey suits him.

The archer turns to face the man beside him. McCree was responsible for Frankenstein’s Couch in the first place, that and his usual cowboy shtick left Hanzo diving far past the point of ‘skeptical’ and into the ‘can-this-37-year-old- adult-man-dress-himself’ zone. McCree had went with simplicity: a flannel, red and rolled up to his elbows. The telling (and tacky) skull design covered with a metal panel Winston himself had welded on before the left.

It wasn’t horrible, the archer had to give him that. It suits the gunslinger in the same way his own sleek button down suits himself. But there was one thing off—it was buttoned too low, likely used to the leisure of lounging around. It dips past the cowboy’s clavicle, displaying the very beginnings of chest hair.

He doesn’t realize his hands have reached forward until they are bundled in the fabric. It’s surprisingly soft, worn from use. Hanzo’s fingers find the plastic buttons and trail up to the unfastened pair. Ignoring the way McCree’s gaze burns into the top of his skull, the archer hooks the button into the fabric. There. He gives his finished work a pat, letting his fingers remain a bit too long against the other man’s chest.

The cowboy laughs, and Hanzo feels the oncoming resonance, deep like thunder, before he hears it.

“Now I see why they call us an old married couple,” McCree comments.

His stomach gives a sick twist of ‘why am I still lingering’ before he is all but leaping away.

“We are not married,” Hanzo replies stiffly, turning back to the mirror as he adjusts his ponytail. McCree leans in to wiggle his fingers in the other man’s face, showing of the silver ring on his left hand.

“These rings say otherwise.”

The archer lets out of huff of breath, “Henry and Joey are married. Though,” he tugs hard at the end of his hair, the tie pressing into his scalp, “if Joey keeps it up and blows their cover during this dinner, we—they are getting a divorce.”

McCree whistles, “Ouch. Is there anything Joey could do? Maybe give Henry some flowers or—shoot, what do these people like again? Frisbees? Lawn gnomes? Fancy hikin’ shoes? Joey could give him a bouquet of those.”

Hanzo bites the inside of his cheek to keep from smiling as he offers, “Perhaps they could go to Cracker Barrel as a make-up date.”

“Hey, don’t bad-mouth Cracker Barrel. The place’s sacred.” And then, after a pause, “So this is a date.”

“No, it is not a date when they are married.”

“So we’re married?”

Hanzo pinches the bridge of his nose, “No, we are not—McCree.” He finally snaps, fixing the cowboy with a hard stare. “This is serious. Do not mess this up. We need to gather intelligence on why this Helen was observing us, and whether or not they have a hidden base within their residence. Do I make myself clear?”

“Soooo,” McCree draws out the word as he’s thinking, his eyes encircling the room until they finally land on the archer. “We’re married?”

Hanzo flips the light switch and leaves him, figuratively and literally, alone in the dark.

“Well,” McCree mutters to himself, “time to start gatherin’ supplies for that bouquet.”

--

The humidity has vanished from the air, and in its place has settled a crisp cold. The wind saps what little heat Hanzo had started with. He finds himself shifting closer to the cowboy; the man is practically a heater. Desert climates: unbearably hot, then far too cold. He should have expected the erratic weather, given the man to his side who called this biome home.

Unsurprisingly, McCree babbles their entire walk to their neighbors’ house. Hanzo turns back at least three times for his ear plugs, but each time his is swayed by a strong arm wrapping around his own and a mediocre apology. That doesn’t stop the cowboy from chattering on, even as they stand on the front porch.

“Pumpkin?”

“No.”

“Sugar Plum?”

“Why are so many of these foods?” the archer groans, ringing the doorbell. To his dismay, McCree doesn’t halt, even when an upbeat, classical tune relays from inside the house instead of the usual short chime.

“That’s on account of you bein’ so sweet, darlin’,” McCree drawls, raising an eyebrow at the shorter man. Hanzo sighs, looks to his feet as he ignores the warmth in his chest, and listens to the knowing clack of shoes against linoleum.

“Well, didn’t hear you disagreein’ to that one. Darlin’ it is.”

Before the archer can make his own snappy comeback, a hand is on the door. Its opens.

On the other side is the blandest man Hanzo thinks he has even seen in his life. If the most common facial features were compiled, put in a blender, and then poured into a mold, they would be the person before them. His blond hair slicks to one side, seemingly aerosol-ed to the point where it had morphed into plastic. Hanzo and McCree simply stare, dumbfounded.

The man clears his throat, a smile stretching across his face, “I assume you are the Eastwoods? My wife has been talking about you nonstop since she met you over the fence. I’m Heath, by the way,” he holds out a hand. Hanzo, still wide-eyed, glances at it and then back at the man much in the way one would if a doll suddenly came to life: shocked and vaguely horrified.

Knocked out of his stupor first, McCree reaches forward, giving the man a sturdy shake, “I’m Joey, it’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance.” Their neighbor seems oblivious to Hanzo’s deer-in-the-headlight’s stare, and instead chuckles. He honest-to-God chuckles.

“Firm!” he says, relating to the cowboy’s grip, “I like a man who’s firm.”

McCree sputters; Hanzo elbows him in the ribs.

“And you must be Henry,” he grips the archer’s hands despite his obvious displeasure. “I could tell from the moment I saw you. Has anyone ever told you that you look like a Henry?”

Hanzo’s countenance grows absolutely murderous.

Heath continues as if nothing happened, turning back to the cowboy “You got a good arm. Did you used to play football?”

Once again, Hanzo catches the flash of an inappropriate joke forming in McCree’s head as his mouth quirks up into a smug smirk. Once again, Hanzo elbows the gunslinger. Once again, the man at the door seems contently unobservant. The archer thinks there’s some sort of pattern beginning to form.

“He did. In High school,” Hanzo speaks as the cowboy wheezes, still recovering.

“Oh really? Maybe we could throw the old pig-skin around sometime? You know, when I’m not being hounded by the wife,” Heath fakes a grimace and laughs again, loud and ringing across the empty cul-de-sac. “Why don’t you two come inside and take a load off?” He opens the door the full expanse and ushers them in, McCree tipping his hat in responce.

The inside of the house seem like something straight out of a children’s catalog as well: a dollhouse. Lofty ceilings, much higher than their own, the pristine, white walls hung with a variety of scenic paintings and family photos. Upon immediate entry, they are greeted by a set of stairs, Hanzo trails it with his eyes until it divides in opposite directions and reaches the ceiling.

They are led into the dining room, complete with mood lighting and a fireplace, where a large, oaken table takes up almost the entirety of the space. The gunslinger and archer share a look. Winston will absolutely never hear the end of this.

“Honey!” Heath calls into the bright doorway at the other end of the room. A flash of orange and Helen’s head peers out from the kitchen. She gives them a closed mouth smile, adjusts her pearls, and rushes forward.

“It’s so good to see you again,” she says amicably, but keeps her distance, hands hovering in the air. “I’m so glad you decided to drop in for dinner! The chicken will be out in five minutes, why don’t you go ahead and take your seats.”

The two sit across from each other; Heath places himself at the head. The instant Helen’s husband’s ass meets the chair, the man begins to heatedly discuss football, which, is not at all the same as the European version. Hanzo let’s McCree take this one, deciding instead to stare into the kitchen.

He watches a swath of red hair fly by once, twice more, each time carrying a different pan. So far, she is the neighbor that leans closest to the ‘bearable’ mark. To be fair, she had an advantage because she seemed interested in Hanzo favorite pastime: complaining. Helen was the only one (besides himself and the rest of the team) who seemed to reject this suburban nonsense. Or at least be sensible enough to find the absurdity in it.

But, that could very well be because she too was agent. That they were still unsure of.

The dish is placed before him with a delicate clink. Hanzo looks up; Helen stands before them as she sets the table. The woman clasps her hands together, “Dinner’s served!”

Glancing at the pans before him, the archer blinks. Chicken and vegetables. He blinks again, feels like he should rub his eyes. Maybe a pinch to his side would wake him form this nightmare.

It is, putting it nicely, inedible. No, worse than inedible.

The chicken breast is pink to the point where he ponders if Helen cooked it for only those alleged five minutes. He catches McCree’s alarmed face (“Not even deep fried,” the cowboy mouths) and kicks him under the table.

Indignant, the cowboy kicks back.

Hanzo speaks for the two of them, “It looks… enjoyable. Thank you.” He holds the gunslinger’s gaze and kicks him again, harder this time. McCree takes everything in himself not to yelp. Hanzo had brought metal legs to a fist fight (leg fight?), and it just wasn’t fair. Still, he retaliates all the same.

“Looks scrumptious as always, dear,” Heath comments, reassuring Helen’s hard work as he kisses her cheek, completely oblivious to the war waged underneath their dining room table. If her husband put up with this every night, then the archer pities the lining of his stomach. Helen giggles and takes her seat.

They continue their game of pissed-off-raw-chicken footsie for two minutes more before, reluctantly, the archer pulls back. He stares at the obstacle before himself and half-expects it to start chirping. Hanzo Shimada is daunted. He has fought countless foes, survived movie night with Reinhardt, and even put an arrow through the mall Santa version of the grim reaper himself; he could survive an undercooked meal.

Hanzo glances over to find McCree contemplating ending it all right then and there with a butter knife, his mouth slowly chewing. The archer lets out a slow breath; he has to be strong. For both of them. Cutting into the bird at an angle, Hanzo pulls off a strip of meat and gives himself no time to dwell on it before cramming the fork into his mouth.

It’s about the most damn unpleasant feeling Hanzo has ever experienced in his life, and he’s been shot before. It’s the equivalent of being punched in the mouth by one of those screaming rubber chickens. He almost sighs in audible relief as a wine glass is placed and filled before him.

For this night to go well, he’s going to need a drink. Scratch that, several drinks.

He takes a generous gulp before Helen’s eyes land on the archer. “What did you two say your lines of work were again?” she says, taking her own sip of the red wine.

Unperturbed, Hanzo stares back, “We didn’t.”

“Henry runs his own small business,” the cowboy states, recovered from the meal to compensate for Hanzo’s inadvertent reclusiveness. “It’s an online company. Works for me on account that he gets to spend more time at home. As for me, well, I like to think of myself as more of a homemaker. I sit pretty and get everything in order while he labors away.”

Heath lets out a polite laugh, “A small business? In this economy? That’s brave of you.” Hanzo would be offended by the man’s tone if he wasn’t thoroughly convinced his head was nothing but a thick mold of plastic. He’s also far too preoccupied with finding places to hide bits of chicken.

“Heath makes most of our money off stocks.” Helen adds in, “It keeps us comfortable. He goes to the office while I sort out my book club, make arrangements for the weekly neighborhood council meetings, and head the PTA.”

“That sounds like quite the balancin’ act.”

“It isn’t a feat if you’re competent enough to pull it off,” Helen takes another swig of her glass, and there is again: that jackal smile. She clears her throat, changing the topic, “So, how did you two meet?” The woman leans forward on her elbows, “I love a good love story.”

Hanzo says, “University,” the exact moment McCree practically yells, “A train!”

They lock eyes. For an uncomfortable moment, the air rings with silence.

“I was on my way to university,” the archer clarifies. “On a train.”

“I was also on this train,” McCree interjects.

“He stole it,” Hanzo lets slip, a familiar joke at Overwatch, but something that would not be taken kindly here.

“His heart, that is! I stole his heart.” McCree all but stands up in his rush to clarify, his hand hits the table with a dull thud, jostling silverware. “With my charms and good looks, of course.”

“Oh, how neat! Tell me more,” Helen glances between them expectantly. Out of everything they had prepared for, the two had not expected this.

McCree thoroughly evades the conversation by taking the most elegant route out.

He stabs a fork into his hand.

The cowboy clenches his teeth together, letting past only the faintest whimper before covering it with a sheepish laugh, “Whoops! Slip of the hand! Sorry folks, I’m clumsier than a bull in a china shop.” McCree tugs the cutlery out of his skin; blood wells, seeping through as he clutches the flesh with his metal hand.

“Oh!” Helen, wide-eyed, trails her attention to the wound, then back to the gunslinger. “There’s a bathroom upstairs. First door to the right.”

Not needing to be told twice, McCree tips his hat in thanks and bolts. At the other’s cue, Hanzo abruptly stands from his seat, chair squealing against the floor, “My apologies, I’ll go help him.” The archer ducks out of the dining room before another word can be said.

Taking the stairs two at a time, the archer catches onto the gunslinger’s arm just as he reaches the divide.

“What were you thinking?”

“I stole it? Really?” McCree hisses right back, the same infuriated tone.

“We had not discussed this previously. I panicked!”

“Yeah, so did I. But at least I didn’t tell our neighbors my husband stole a train!” And then, barely a whisper, “I didn’t even steal it, I was simply returnin’ it to the rightful owner.”

“At least I did not impale myself,” Hanzo reaches the top before the other man, taps his foot impatiently as he waits for McCree to lumber up the remaining distance. “What is it that you say? ‘Smooth’?”

“I got us out of there, didn’t I? Now, sweetheart,” his eyes narrow at the word, laced with sarcasm, “would you be so kind as to open up this door so I don’t get blood on our hosts’ doorknob?”

Hanzo scowls up at the man, too aware of the five inch distance between them. He ought to let the gunslinger open the door himself, feel the sting of pain in repentance for his actions. But McCree only returns his glare, refusing to budge. He wants a standoff.

The archer is close to leaving altogether, to letting the cowboy handle the situation on his own if he wished to be so recalcitrant.

Blood drips onto the carpet. Hanzo sighs, clenches his fists, and opens the door.

The cowboy makes a beeline for the sink, wrenches the faucet handle, and winces as warm water runs over the gash. The liquid grows opaque, an unpleasant pink staining the porcelain. Still, it is better than the carpet.

“You could not have jabbed the fork into your metallic hand, and then feigned the effects?” Hanzo says, lingering in the doorway.

“That wouldn’t be as sacrificial, now would it, darlin’? Gotta keep up the hero status. ‘Sides, I was improvisin’.” McCree shrugs as he turns off the flow of water, shaking his hands to rid the excess.

Hanzo fidgets, shifting restlessly from foot to foot, stomach churning with every drop of blood that speckles the sink. Watching the cowboy bleed gives him an awful, heavy feeling in his chest. His gut urges him to rush forwards, but his head tells him it’s a foolish decision. Finally, he utters a single word, “Move.”

He pushes the gunslinger out of the way, directing him to sit on the side of the tub. The archer slides open the medicine cabinet, eyes landing on what he had hoped for: a first aid kit. Tearing open the packet, he pulls out the damp cloth from inside before none too gently yanking McCree’s hand towards himself.

The cowboy hisses as the disinfectant reaches his puncture wound. Hanzo rolls his eyes and ignores the way his throat closes up as the man’s fingers tighten around his own. The archer unravels a bandage before meticulously wrapping it around the middle of the gunslinger’s palm.

“Christ,” McCree mutters, “we are a married couple.”

“Divorced,” Hanzo corrects, repacking the kit before returning it to its original place. “That should hold you until Dr. Zeigler may heal you later.”

“If I knew you would treat me this nicely, I would have injured myself sooner.”

“Don’t be foolish, I am simply doing this so it goes by faster. Your injury has more than one use.”

McCree’s head tilts in confusion.

“We have limited time,” Hanzo explains, “to gather intelligence on this house, while our hosts believe we are still treating your wounds, before they grow suspicious. I believe five more minutes at most. We must search for any signs of affiliation with Vishkar, or at least a spare key or entryway.”

“Snoop around,” the man rolls his shoulders, regaining his sloppy smirk as he, for once, has to gaze up to meet Hanzo’s brown eyes. “Got it.”

The bathroom door slides open a crack. The two peek out, vigilant as silence stretches before them. The hallways are empty, the stairwell barren; Hanzo gives the ‘all clear’ signal before they push through. Another gesture, a jerk of his head, silently discerning that the archer will take the doors on the left, and the cowboy checks the ones to the right. Hanzo’s feet soundlessly pad across the carpet. McCree’s however make enough noise to rouse the dead. 

“Take off your boots,” Hanzo hisses as he tugs open the first door: a laundry room. It’s average, nothing out of the ordinary, a simple washer and dryer combo. He notes an abnormal amount of sweaters, multicolored, all piled in a stack with their sleeves tied together. Bland outfits for the blandest shoulders, he thinks.

“Now’s not the time to be assessin’ my fashion choices, sweetheart.”

“Those metal bits keep making noise.”

“They are called spurs,” McCree defends indignantly, “and they are part of the aesthetic!”

Hanzo grits his teeth together, “Do not make me forcibly remove them from you.”

The next door he finds is the master bedroom.

Like the rest of the house, it is spacious. A four poster bed stretches to the ceiling, white canopy hovering like mist. Hanzo takes a step inside, and a moment after, when his own search becomes fruitless, the gunslinger follows.

McCree halts at a dresser, snorts, and turns around to display his findings: a photograph. Helen and Heath stand close together, her hands pressed against his shoulder as they face what once was a camera, but is now open air. What makes it horrendous is not their awkward posing, but their outfits: some of the ugliest Christmas sweaters Hanzo has ever had the misfortune of laying his eyes on and matching red reindeer antlers.

“Halloween ideas,” the cowboy snickers, dangling the photo in front of the other’s face. With a small smile of his own, Hanzo smacks the hand away, returning the photo to its original post. “C’mon, I’ll even let you be Heath.”

“I would be dead before I put that on.”

“Sounds like a weird funeral to me, but okay.” They hold each other’s warm gaze until it is abruptly interrupted.

“Are you two okay up there?”

They freeze. Helen’s voice is faint. They both simultaneously let out a relieved sigh: she is still downstairs. But not for long.

McCree ducks his head out of the door, “Yes Ma’am, we’re fine and dandy! My hand is just givin’ me a little trouble is all.” Then, he pivots to the archer, speaking quieter, “She’s onto us.”

“Be quiet.” Hanzo holds up a hand, silencing the gunslinger. “I will go downstairs and distract them. For the time being, you will have to continue the search on your own. We may scavenge the lower areas later, permitted you find a key.”

“You want me to go lookin’ alone? But you won’t be around to keep me from doing stupid shit.”

“My thoughts exactly.” It was true, Hanzo was sure that half the reason Morrison let him stay on the team was the fact that, over time, the archer had become a walking manifestation of Jesse McCree’s impulse control. He pauses in the doorway, looking over his shoulder. This time, the archer’s voice is borderline fond, “Stay away from forks.”

Hanzo is a fickle summer storm; words venomous or facetious, eyes sharp and menacing or, on those precious, rare occasions, soft. The air crackles with ionization as he leaves the room. McCree watches him go. Standing bewildered and slaw-jawed as Hanzo leaves him with his stomach in knots is starting to become a bad habit. One that even tops cigars.

--

The first thing Hanzo’s eyes lock onto as he enters the room is the couch.

Oh, the couch.

It’s sleek, modern and elegant. It is not a horrendous plaid pattern, it is not stained and scarred from years of misuse by the world’s top hitmen and heroes, but white. It doesn’t look like something stitched together in a lab, or something Tim McGraw’s less fortunate cousin chose just to get under the skin of his Japanese associate. It looks like a normal sofa. He almost weeps tears of joy.

Perched on the farther end is Helen, legs crossed as she swirls her wine glass. With a perfectly manicured hand, she pats the cushion next to her. Hanzo obeys, only because after weeks of his senses being assaulted by the Bane of the Sofa Industry, the white couch looks like a mirage.

“Where’s Heath?” the archer asks lightly, placing himself on the other end.

“He went to find a first aid kit; we usually keep one in the basement for emergencies.”

“There is no need for that,” Hanzo takes the glass of wine as he is offered it, the cool stem resting between his fingers. “I have already taken care of it. Joey is simply cleaning up after himself.” He clears his throat, before starting again, “My husband is the clumsiest man I have ever met. It surprises me that he has gone so long without sticking himself in the hand.”

Helen throws her head back and cackles. The sound is harsh and far too loud, like that of a cartoon witch. Hanzo stops dead in his tracks; his light joke was not nearly that funny. Something about her demeanor is superior, cruel. She knows too much. A Jackal grins back at him.

“What do you take me for, an idiot?”  

Hanzo returns the question with his own cold stare. He is not afraid, not in the slightest. They had come prepared: a dagger strapped to his prosthetic calf, Peacekeeper saddled in a shoulder holster under McCree’s flannel. Backup was only a few houses away.

The archer knows he could win this fight. So instead of signaling the alarm, he leans back against the perfect couch and savors the wine, confident in his own abilities. The dragons grow restless, writhing under his skin. After a moment, he speaks up, “How much do you know?”

“I know you’re hiding something. Everyone in this neighborhood has their own set of nasty secrets, it’s practically the currency.” Another swirl of her wine glass, Hanzo watches the red spiral into a maelstrom. “It’s only fair you’ve got some too. So what is it? Marriage not working out? Disagreements about children? Is he cheating on you?”

Not for the first time that night, Hanzo balks.

Helen doesn’t know; she was just intrusive. The binoculars simply those of a nosey neighbor. To her, he is still Henry.

“No,” Hanzo chooses his words carefully, “it’s none of those things.”

She grins into her wine glass again, “That’s fine. Secrets are meant to be kept. But it will slip. I run this neighborhood, I know everything about everyone.” Helen shrugs, checks her nails. “But I see you have your own set of qualms with the rest of the residents. As do I, half the time I don’t understand why I don’t just slam the door in their faces.”

The archer snorts, feeling a little looser from his drink, “Perhaps you find it fascinating.”

“What do you take me for, a sadist?” Helen drops her voice as she leans in closer, as if telling an intimate secret, “Well, maybe just a tad. But can you blame me? Have you seen Luke Thomas’ hair? Ugh, it’s a disaster. You can’t look away from it—”

“But you also wish to look away? Yes, I understand. Like a car crash.” He meets her sly glance, “It looks as if the sections of his bangs are in a feud and refuse to communicate with each other.”

“Like they have separate area codes!” She adds, topping their glasses off.

“Do you know the man who is always wearing golf clubs? I have never once seen him without them strapped across his back. Who does that?”

“Oh, that’s Grace’s husband Brad! You know, I’ve even seen him driving with them on? Not that I blame him; if I had Grace constantly hounding after me I would need a weapon to shoo her away with too.” She laughs at her own joke. “Husbands around here can be so ridiculous. I mean, you should know.”

Hanzo’s smile drops.

“Excuse me?”

Helen holds her nose up higher in the air, taken aback, “You know,” her eyes flick over him once, head to toe before her brow furrows.

“I assure you I do not know.” He sits up straighter, shoulders squared back as the archer’s cold glare returns.

She clicks her tongue, “Well, no offense, but you can’t excuse that scruffy beard. Or the hat.”

Setting his drink down on the table, Hanzo very slowly folds his arms against his chest. He lets the silence hang, satisfied as the way it make Helen squirm. The woman has stepped over a threshold that was allowed access by no one but himself: insulting McCree.

“What about your husband, Helen?” the archer keeps a tight frown as he looks her dead in the eye. “Did his hair come in a plastic box too or was it sold separately like his personality?”

Mouth hanging open, Helen sputters and gasps like a fish. Her face grows an angry shade that rivals even that of her hair. Hanzo keeps his composure, refusing to be the first to back down from their glaring contest. Had no one ever said anything remotely scathing to her before?

Heath picks that exact moment to step the lounge, the same empty smile painted on his face as if he fresh off the conveyer belt. A phrase of the cowboy’s pops into Hanzo’s head: 'speak of the devil'. He doesn’t quite understand the meaning, something about an occult summoning he assumes, but it doesn’t quite fit. The devil is already present in the room and she is wearing the most expensive pearls he thinks he has seen since his father’s funeral.

“No dice,” her husband offers, “I couldn’t find that kit for the life of me!”

“Don’t worry about it,” the drawl drifts in from down the hall before McCree enters the doorframe, silhouetted by the light emitting from behind. Pride stirs in the archer’s chest and this time, he doesn’t try to quell it. “I know how to patch myself up.”

Satan herself, Helen, clears her throat as the cowboy sits down, “I don’t know what the custom is where you two come from, but isn’t it rude to wear a hat indoors?”

McCree blinks, he falters, “Oh.” His hands reach up to take it off, but at the last second Hanzo catches his wrist.

“Joey, I think it looks good on you. You should keep it on.”

The cowboy looks even more astonished by the archer’s statement, then his expression flashes to concern. Hanzo didn’t just hand out compliments left and right. Was he sick? McCree thinks back to the chicken from earlier and feels it would make much more sense then what was currently unfolding.

“Honey, let him wear it,” Heath comments, oblivious as ever as he snakes an arm around his wife’s shoulders. She sits stiffly, silently furious, he can see it in her eyes. Hanzo simply sits back and thinks of how a perfect couch like this deserved a better set of owners.

“Besides, it suits you! It helps with your cowboy theme,” the doll finishes.

The archer wonders if they can even fit it out the front door. Maybe a window. There had to be some way.

McCree lights up at the mention of his favorite topic in the world, “You know about that stuff? Did you watch a lot of westerns or…?”

“Afraid not, I only know of the team from Dallas.”

“Oh, that’s Texas. Not all cowboys come from Texas. Actually, the majority of ‘em come from south of Texas.”

“Really?”

Hanzo pays no mind to the conversation. Instead, he opts to look Helen directly in her enraged eyes and pour his wine out into a nearby potted plant. Smug, he raises an eyebrow, challenging her to say something. Her hands fist into her dress, but she remains silent.

“Oh, you’re out. Let me top you off!” Heath leans forward, uncorks the bottle, and pours more into Hanzo’s glass. He nods in thanks.

This one, too, becomes plant food. The woman before him looks angry enough to burst from sure will-power.

Helen stands up so hastily the couch shoves back an inch at the sudden force. Her lips pull upward, displaying that vicious, feigned jackal smile. The woman clasps her hands together, “I don’t know about you three, but I am beyond exhausted. It’s been great having you over, I’m glad you could make it for dinner, but I’m afraid I have to ask you to leave.” She turns pointedly to the archer, “So I may get some rest.”

Rising as well, Hanzo finally understands the satisfaction of being taller than someone, “There is no need to apologize. I have been feeling rather ill myself since Dinner.”

“What’s wrong? Are you not accustomed to homemade meals?”

“No, I am just used to dishes actually being cooked—”

There is a tap at his waist again, and then McCree’s arm, dragging him back towards the door. Helen stomps after, nose to nose with the archer, heels clacking against the floor the very same way a guillotine slices necks. Heath obediently follows, incognizant of the brawl about to break out in his house.

“It’s been lovely having you in our home, but I’m sure you’ll be glad to get back to your barn.”

“Perhaps you should get some sleep tonight, Helen. That will help those dreadful bags under your eyes.”

“Goodbye! Have a nice night,” the man calls before his wife slams the door in their face.

Hanzo doesn’t realize how tight the cowboy has been holding on until he tries to move and finds his feet dangling an inch from the ground. For a split second, he allows himself to be held, back flush against the cowboy’s wide chest.

It comes as a sigh, “McCree. Put me down.”

The cowboy mutters a quiet, “Oh,” as if he hadn’t been aware of his own actions. Strictly impulse. “Right.”

Hanzo’s metallic feet hit the ground with a tiny click, so different from the thundering of Helen’s high heels. The archer takes a shaky breath, keeps his arms rigid at his side, and stalks down the steps.

“Whoa, sweetheart,” McCree catches up with him too easily; the archer glares down at the other’s longer legs, “hold your horses.” The gunslinger’s hand wraps tight around his wrist. Hanzo opens his mouth to remind him of their agreement when he is cut off.

“Han,” the cowboy says, and for once he looks serious, “don’t let her rile you up. She ain’t worth your time.” McCree pauses, fumbling for words, “You’re better than that.”

“I was defending your honor!” Hanzo hisses, trying to pry himself from faux-husband’s grip.

Jesse makes a face hardly legible in the orange-glow of the streetlights, “What?”

“She was being extremely rude about you.”

It takes a moment for it to sink in. Hanzo had almost been charged for assault because some soccer van, PTA mom had insulted him, Jesse McCree. The cowboy makes an odd, almost strangled sound, and then he’s howling with laughter, doubled over.

“Never, in all my life,” the cowboy manages through gasps of breath, “did I expect the Hanzo Shimada to stick up for me.”

“It’s not funny,” the archer gives him an indignant shove.

“It is a little bit,” McCree insists.

“She was being vile.”

Shrugging, the gunslinger continues, “So? Didn’t seem like a nice lady to begin with. She was showin’ her ass—”

“I assure you, that was not the problem.”

He clarifies the cultural swap of idioms between them, “It’s just a sayin’. She was showin’ off her true colors, particularly nasty colors if you ask me. Helen was probably just jealous you got a suave outlaw husband.” McCree wiggles his eyebrows, feeling the other man relax as they fall back into their habit of joking. He drops his hand down, a moment of fleeting contact between their palms. To his surprise, Hanzo lets him linger.

“I mean, her husband, bless his heart, the lights were all on but nobody was home.”

“What?”

“He doesn’t have both oars in the water?”

“What?”

“He was dumber than a sack of hammers. Another reason to be jealous. You’re lucky you got someone like me around.”

Hanzo snorts, “To babysit?”

“No, because I’m the perfect man.” McCree pulls a cigar from his shirt pocket and lights the end in one fluid motion. “Besides, did you see their couch? Ugliest God damn thing I’ve ever seen in my life.”

Hanzo considers homicide for the second time.

--

“안녕! This is D.Va, signing on.”

“Well I’ll be! I ain’t heard your voice in a dog’s age,” McCree says as he situates the comm in his ear. “You two finally moved into our ‘own little slice of heaven’?”

“Jesse!” One moment he’s pushing the earpiece farther into his head, and the next he’s snatching it out. Still, the gunslinger is no less excited to hear Reinhardt’s booming voice, even if it meant everyone within a twenty mile radius heard it as well.

When his eardrum finally recovers and he slides the comm back in, there is a touch of disappointment in the knight’s voice, “Why were you absent from our welcome party?”

“Yeah, this big lug made some Franzbrötchen just for you! How could you break his heart?”

“Aw, hell,” the cowboy sheepishly scratches at his beard, “I would have, but me and Hanzo had our own affairs to deal with.”

“Ohhh, a date?” Hana practically purrs into the comm.

“Of sorts. I ‘spose you could call it that.”

“McCree stabbed himself with a fork to get out of an uncomfortable conversation (“Same,” D.Va interjects) and then spent the rest of the night hiding in the head of the PTA’s bathroom,” Hanzo finally speaks up. “If that is what you qualify as a proper date, then I feel bad for your partners.”

“Hey, you said you wouldn’t tell anyone!”

The cowboy can hardly hear Hana’s reply of, “Ouch, Hanzo just got play of the game,” over the sound of Reinhardt’s laughter.

Outside, standing guard on the dewed lawn, McCree glances down towards the basement window. The tiniest sliver of light passes by as Hanzo inspects the building from the inside.

Heath and Helen hid their spare key under the doormat, the same as every other suburban family. Breaking in had been a breeze, the two fast asleep upstairs by 9 pm. But watch duty made him anxious, especially when it was the archer who stood alone, risking exposure. Hanzo could very well take care of himself, hell, even do a better job than McCree. But still, it made him antsy.

“Focus,” Pharah’s sternly reminds, voice crackling over the comm. “This is a mission; save it for when you are back in your bases. Does anyone actually use this line to relay serious information?”

“You didn’t hear us complainin’ when you were flirtin’ with the Doc.”

“Jesse J. McCree,” Mercy warns, “would you like me to take twice as long the next time you need stitches?”

“No Ma’am,” he zips his lips, “I hear ya loud and clear.”

“Agent Hanzo reporting in,” the voice seems louder, projected from another source besides the comm in his ear. Heart leaping to his throat, McCree spins around; he would never get used to how silently Hanzo could appear. It was, in his own words, ‘some real ninja shit’.

“Ah, Shimada!” It’s the archer’s turn for Reinhardt’s bellowed greeting. “Did you discover anything of interest? Häschen and I can rush over if there is trouble.”

“That will not be necessary,” Hanzo says, catching McCree’s questioning stare and shaking his head. “I could not find anything pertinent to the mission.”  

“Oooh, but did you find anything weird?” They hear the telling pop of chewing gum over the comm, “Old home videos, spooky alters, weird magazines?”

“Please don’t answer that,” McCree begs the man at his side, “I don’t need a mental image of what weird magazines get Helen hot and bothered.”

“It was only a home gym, I assure you. No sign of Vishkar interference.”

“No sign here, either. Just weird old people junk. Ugh, they even have a VCR! This thing is ancient.”

Pharah’s sigh fills their ears, “We will meet soon to discuss our next options, cross out what remains of the list, and regroup. For now, McCree, Hanzo, check the perimeter for anything suspicious.”

“Roger that,” the cowboy tips his hat to the air. Then to Hanzo says, “Looks like you and me are going for a little nighttime stroll.” He offers out the crook of his arm. The archer scoffs and walks right past it.

“I don’t know what just happened, but I can feel the rejection from over here.”

“Hana, you’re killin’ the mood!” McCree growls into the receiver. “Alright, I’m turnin’ off the comm. I will be back in contact if we find anything fishy.”

“Don’t be afraid to call if you need anything! I am here to protect,” Reinhardt cheerily calls over the line.

“You got it big guy,” the cowboy replies before turning it off. To his surprise, Hanzo copies the motion, severing their line to the rest of the team.

It’s only them. Alone together.

McCree looks to the sky, hands in his pockets, as they make their silent rounds about the perimeter. The crescent moon hangs proudly in the sky, its phase one of those ‘w’ words he always mixed up in school. But it doesn’t remind him of this now. For the moment, it means peace, all smooth with no sharp edges. Like the curve of a trigger or the arc of a bow.

The cowboy recalls the night previous when he had found Hanzo in the yard, eyes grim and face ashen. How, whenever they seemed to get close, to gain even the smallest bit of something more (what exactly, Jesse hadn’t a name for it), the dragon had bolted. But, he was here, now, at his side in the starlight, and that in itself was extraordinary.

“What does the ‘J’ stand for?”

Hanzo’s voice snaps him out of his trance. “M’sorry, what was that?”

“Jesse J. McCree. What does the ‘J’ stand for?”

Without missing a beat, the gunslinger hooks his thumbs in his belt loops, “Justice. And it ain’t gonna dispense itself. Hence the name.”

The archer stares at him as if can’t decide whether he’s joking, or if it seemed like just the right amount of over-the-top attitude to fit in with McCree’s personality. To the cowboy, this all goes unnoticed; he is far too preoccupied assessing Hanzo’s sharp features in the dull light. It catches the grey hairs that fan his face, transforming them into strands of silver, like whiskers stemming off a dragon.

“You are lying.”

“Am not,” Jesse assures. The light does not allow much past a foot in front of his face, but he can make out the white fence, and the way Hanzo’s hand leisurely tap against their splintered edges with every step.

“If you will not tell me the truth, I will have to assume something for you.”

“Suit yourself, partner.”

Hanzo lets his fingers drag while he thinks, the gunslinger subconsciously follows the movement.

“It is Joey, isn’t it?”

Barking a laugh, McCree’s eyebrows rise until they rival the height of his hat, “No more than yours is Henry.” The archer pauses in his march to glare pointedly at the gunslinger, and then quickens his pace. The cowboy easily falls back in line with the other’s thin, metallic, chicken legs. “What,” he gains a tone that mimics that of Heath from earlier in the evening, “has anyone ever told you that you do not look like a Henry?”

At Hanzo’s silence, he babbles on, “It must’ve been one of Winston’s off days when he thought up that kicker.”

“For a scientist, he was not very creative in the naming process,” the archer finally speaks up.

“Well, I’ve got this theory, that the reason he has these great stashes of peanut butter, is because they give him super mind powers.”

The comms crackle back to life, not by his own hand, but wirelessly.

“Agent Hanzo? Agent McCree? We are starting to get worried over here. Do you have anything to report?” It’s Pharah’s voice again, only it doesn’t retain its hard, business-like edge from before. He hangs on her words; they are worried.

“We’re hunky-dory over here, what about you—”

McCree considers himself an observant fellow, knew expressions from his days interrogating enemies in Blackwatch, could spot a poker tell from a mile away. Hell, he even considered himself skilled at reading his team’s emotions. But at the moment, his vision was split thin: partially focused on the voice in his ear, and the one in his head that was so utterly captivated by the dragon’s presence.

He should have paid better attention.

If the carefully manicured lawn was invisible in the dead on night, so too was the pond that lay in wait at the curve of the property. McCree stumbles, one foot over the edge. The world pivots. In an attempt to right its axis again, the cowboy snatches onto the closest thing for leverage.

Unfortunately, that closest thing is Hanzo Shimada.

With a startled cry, they plunge into the murky water.

Both resurface, gasping at the shock, the cowboy’s fists balled into the archer’s shirt. Shivering from the plummeting temperature, they stay close for only a moment longer before Hanzo gives him a sharp shove. McCree slips—cowboy boots are not designed for underwater grapples—and falls under once more. When he reaches sweet air again, the first thing he gets is an earful.

“You idiot!” Hanzo is as infuriated as a drenched cat, and at the moment, also bears a striking resemblance to one. A string of Japanese leaves his lips, no doubt curses, but they fall empty on the other. So he switches back to insulting him in English, “Do you not think before you act? Do you have a single pinch of common sense in that thick head of yours?”

The cowboy holds his hands up in surrender, “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to, I was just grabbin’ at what I could get to. I thought you were a fence post.”

“Sorry does not dry my clothes,” Hanzo hisses right back. There is something beyond anger in his words. With a start, the gunslinger realizes its exhaustion—the man worn down from their grueling work. They spent all day undercover with the White Family Stereotype, broke into houses, and just when they are on the cusp of returning home, they tumble straight over the edge of a grimy pond.

As if transfixed by a sudden epiphany, McCree wildly flounders in the water.

The archer sighs, hand wiping water from his face, “What is it now?”

“Can’t find my hat.”

“You pulled us in a pond and you are worried about that—that thing?”

“It’s important to me, sweetheart, hold on. Don’t bite my head off.” His palm claps down on something wet (unsurprising), but sturdy. His fingers immediately recognize the worn brim of his hat. He plucks it out of the muddy water, dumps it of its contents, and holds it out as if he has won the lottery.

McCree then proceeds to very delicately place it atop Hanzo’s head.

The archer pauses, mid-rampage. His face scrunches up, pupils drifting upwards at the waterlogged cowboy hat then to the waterlogged cowboy himself. McCree smiles back at him. The absolute absurdity of the situation hits him.

Sopping wet, next to his fake husband, the cowboy enthusiast, as they stand chest-deep in the head of the PTA and Neighborhood Council’s secret pond. And he’s wearing a Stetson.

It starts slow, a snort, a few huffs of breath, but it slowly builds into a deep laugh until he’s gasping, orchestra reaching its crescendo. His life is a god damn mess, and it’s ridiculous. McCree carries that same stare, the one reserved only for his prized possession, but now it’s turned his way.

“What’re you laughin’ at?”

The gunslinger receives a splash of water to the face as an answer. Retribution. McCree doesn’t move, fixed in place in bewilderment. Another direct hit, and Jesse finally shifts.

The archer doesn’t have time to get away before the cowboy lunges, kicking his feet out from under him as they both fall back into the pond. They rise and topple, twisted in each other, breathlessly laughing all the while. Hanzo feels McCree smile against his neck, the gunslinger bear-hugging his way into control, and shivers with something that has nothing to do with the temperature.

Their fun doesn’t last long—out of the corner of his eyes, the archer spots a light as is flicks on. Upstairs, the master bedroom. McCree must have spotted it too by the way they both stiffen. A warning beacon from a lighthouse; their ship is about to crash into the coast.

Another light—the hallway—flickers on, basking the yard in a sickly yellow tint. The person in the house is on the move, slowly making their way to the commotion.

“Aw hell, we gotta go.” And then, a more insistent tug, “Now.”

McCree grabs his hand, pulls them out of the pond, and runs.

Adrenaline combined with his previous giddiness make for an unpleasant cocktail: one part panic, and two parts exuberance. He is aware of every beat of his own heart—McCree’s as well. Hanzo is anchored by the fingers so tightly gripping his own, guiding him across the lawn, hopping over the fence, and dashing as fast as his legs will carry him back to their own porch.

They pause there, pressed flat against the wall as their neighbor’s porch lights come to life. Illuminated red, he can see the pinprick of Helen’s greenish, face-mask shielded head. There is only the sound of the crickets and their own labored breaths, his hand still in McCree’s clasp. Idly, the notion passes over him that Heath was right, the cowboy did have a firm grip.

The moment passes; Helen goes back inside, the lights flicker out one by one, and Hanzo snatches his hand away. The night succumbs to darkness once again. The adrenaline wears off, all semblance of his former elation has seeped out of his body, fleeting happiness.

Now, he is cold.

Hanzo sits on the porch steps, body heavy and exhausted. The archer rests his head on a hand, elbow propped against his knee. Had he been foolish to join Overwatch? How much longer would he have to live like this, running around and making a fool of his reputation, playing house, trivial missions of no substance. When would he be used for something important, a way to atone, to make a difference?

It all comes crashing in at once. Suddenly, the blood is on his hands again, flashing before his eyes.

He doesn’t notice McCree has disappeared for a short time indoors until something thick and wooly is draped over his shuddering shoulders. The archer pulls the fabric closer around him and looks down to the red in his palms. Not the color of Helen’s fiery hair or the blood he saw in his dreams, but a deep red, etched with a golden pattern; the color of warmth.

“Now I see why you wear this,” Hanzo mutters as the gunslinger sits next to him. “It is a towel.”

McCree lets out an amused huff through his nose, “Figured you didn’t want me goin’ through your room soaking wet to look for the real thing.”

Hanzo waits until the silence between them meanders into a quiet comfort, conversation long thought as drifted away before he replies.

“It will do.”

--

The rabbit and the knight stand behind the hideous sofa, watching the scene play out on the porch. Though, not intentionally. They had only went to assuage Pharah’s nerves. And, to be fair, after the sudden shout and the malfunction of the comms, a quick check-in would soothe everyone else’s nerves as well. What they had expect was screaming, maybe even blood, but not the sight before them.

Hana’s mouth hangs open, eyes sparkling, “Lúcio is not going to believe this!”

“It would be best not to spread what we have stumbled upon,” Reinhardt advises, the moment of wisdom displaying what he had learned from age. However, it doesn’t hide the fact he looks as ecstatic over this development as the girl at his side. “Let them have this moment. They can take their time and tell us on their own, ja?”

Pausing as a hand twice the size of her own rests on her shoulder, Hana begrudgingly nods.

“Fine, but I get to paint your nails.”

Reinhardt laughs, considerably quiet as they try not to disturb the peace. Against the others’ assumptions, the knight could speak softly when needed. He wouldn’t have fought Hana over the topic anyways. Pink was a color that suited him.

“Deal.”

Chapter Text

Arcadia.

Hanzo finally learns the name of the gated community they are monitoring on one of his morning jogs, passing by the hand-painted sign that marked it in bold, cursive letters: Arcadia. Underneath, in smaller letters, ‘Welcome to all good neighbors!’

He has to halt from doubling back to retrieve his bow and demolish the thing himself.

The archer had chosen a new route in the carefully segmented streets. An easy feat, considering the way the houses blurred and the streets wove together; every corner was virtually indistinguishable from the next. It was labyrinthine. Its Minotaur his next door neighbor, who he had definitely not chosen this passage for the explicit reason to pass by her house.

But this morning, he had slept longer than he had meant too.

It became a habit to stay up until the early hours of the morning, whether by restlessness or his own waking nightmares. They came more frequently (his hypothesis was that it had to do with how little he had seen of Genji), though were fleeting. There was always a hand to steady him, to share company and a serape in the cold, just when he felt so shaky the archer thought he might lose himself. As much as Hanzo relished in their midnight meetings, and he didn’t use the word ‘relish’ lightly, they were beginning to take their toll.

Jolting awake two hours late, his hand shot up to the sticky note clinging to his forehead. Sloppy handwriting, no doubt McCree’s, gave him an idea as to why the house was so silent.

Brunch with Richard and Harper, come join the party when you wake up!

Hanzo crumpled the note up and shoved it deep within the cushions of the couch, sating the monster with an offering.

The archer rose with a purpose; Harper and Richard were D.Va and Reinhardt’s poorly constructed codenames. Brunch was, well, probably brunch, considering the sheer amount of food Reinhardt seemed to stockpile with every meal. Though, he had sneaking suspicion there might be news from Morrison.

His jog is too late in the morning to spot Helen, however he does see Heath, the man with a personality that fit somewhere between that of a golf club and a Windows 95 computer. Hanzo dashes by fast enough to escape the dullest conversationalist on the block and doesn’t halt until he recognizes the house before him.

It’s cookie-cutter, the splitting image of the house beside it and so on. But what stands before it, a blemish in the tediously trimmed lawn, is a lemonade stand. It was one of Reinhardt’s many building projects that included, but were not limited to: a bookshelf, a Chippendale style wardrobe, a rocking chair (requested by McCree himself), and an entire deck; the man seemed to be adapting well to his cover story.

But the lemonade stand had been beseeched by Hana, not something of his own design. Though, the knight might have opted out of creating a torture device if he had known of her true plans.

In the past week, D.Va had somehow been saddled with every child in the neighborhood.

A day-care service of sorts, but with the least capable person possible running it. Perhaps it was the fact that she was the only teenager in the neighborhood and the adults had wished to keep their babysitters traditional. Nonetheless, the parents had flocked to her, and the kids were absolutely enthralled with her presence. The Good (debatable) Witch of the North to their munchkins.  

McCree had explained the situation with some proverb about a horse mouth and a present, but Hanzo had no idea what that was even close to meaning and instead, considered it this way: Hana found an opportunity and she seized it.

And thus the lemonade stand had been born. Parents, desperate to support their own community and boost their children’s spirits, now forked over their cash by the fistfuls for a cup of sour water. D.Va ‘allowed’ the kids to run it, but kept 70% of the profits for herself. Not for the money, but for the soul entertainment of it all.

But that was not its only benefit.

Hanzo’s jog slows until he stops before the stand, a hand coming to rest against the sanded wood.

He peers over the girl, lounging in a reclined chair behind the booth. D.Va’s eyes are shielded by star-shaped sunglasses, brown hair sprawled about her shoulders. She has forgone her usual war-paint and jumpsuit, and instead lazes in a t-shirt with the words ‘we are gamers’ across the front. The archer almost mistakes her for asleep until a cheeky grin spreads across her face. There is something perpetually sly in Hana’s smile, as if she knows more about him than himself.

“Good morning, Mr. Henry,” she calls, leaning back on her elbows as the glasses are pushed to the top of her head. Hanzo frowns; the children had chosen the nickname, and Hana refused to let it wither and die.

“Good morning, Harper,” the archer gives her the same tongue-in-cheek tone he gives the rest of the neighborhood, like the soulless voice a cashier gives customers. “It is pleasant seeing you here.”

“What a coincidence. Imagine, meeting me at my own home.” She sits up, tosses a hesitant gaze towards the children running the lemonade stand, before refocusing her attention on the man before her, “John Marston has been waiting for you.”

Hanzo nods, “I am aware. He left a note.” He turns away from Hana’s prying eyes, her knowing smile only growing larger. “But that is not the only reason for my visit.” The archer crosses his arms, staring at the young woman from the side of his eyes, “I crossed paths with Jillian yesterday.”

D.Va laughs, “You mean the mother of five of my little gremlins?”

“Precisely,” he pauses, lips drawing into a thin line. “She let slip a question of my ‘former husbands’.”

“And you assume it came from me?” She presses her knuckles against her jaw, feigning a wide-eyed, innocent countenance.

Hanzo deadpans. The stand not only focuses on selling overpriced sour water, but is a center for gossip.

With another giggle, she leans forward, “Alright, so I may have told her you had eight previous husbands who all mysteriously disappeared, leaving you the sole heir to their fortunes. I also said McCree was actually from New Hampshire and has been faking his accent the entire time.”

Before he can even fathom as to why, D.Va silences him with a lemonade flyer to the face.

“Gossip is the way of the neighborhood; you give a little, you get a little.” He can pinpoint the mischief in her eyes; to her it’s another game, yet another that she excels at.

Before he can think better of it, Hanzo’s finds himself asking, “Do you know anything of Helen?”

“That she’s mean-spirited with a heart twice as frozen as her quiche at board meetings. Oh, and her husband is having a fling with the maid.” She shrugs as if the information is useless to her, but the archer has struck a gold mine.

Hanzo struggles to keep his face stoic, “Excuse me?”

“Yeah, Lakelynn told me all about it. You’d be surprised what kids repeat, which is why I keep my streams PG-13.”

The man shakes his head in exasperation; he needs answers, “You mean Heath? Heath is being unfaithful?”

“Ew, his name is Heath?” She crinkles her nose, “Who names their kid Heath? ”

“Heath is Helen’s husband!”

Hana’s grin grows downright malicious. The archer glowers, but D.Va had been impervious to the look since day one. She only points to the lemonade stand.

With an annoyed huff of breath, Hanzo fishes out a twenty and slaps it onto the counter. He takes the lemonade he gets in return and pour it out onto the sidewalk.

The girl’s lips slowly unseal, “This woman, Helen, has book club meetings every week at the club house. Heath is left home alone. This is also the same time the maid is scheduled to clean. You can imagine the rest.”

Hanzo slowly takes in the information, one fact at a time. He remembers her words from their dinner-gone-wrong, how she had been convinced at least one factor was wrong with every married couple’s relationship. If she had a weakness, this was it.

Nodding, the archer makes to leave.

“Hey, wait,” the girl calls, pulling her sunglasses back down. “I know you didn’t want that just ‘cause you’re curious. Let me know when you nerf her. Her son, Aughyst, is a real brat. He keeps eating all of our sugar packets. Figures it’s gotta stem from somewhere.”

Hand on the door handle, Hanzo allows himself to give the younger girl some semblance of a smile, “Thank you for your assistance.”

Hanzo enters the house to peals of laughter; Mercy’s light giggles (no doubt a hand pressing over her mouth), Reinhardt’s resonant laugh, a series of snorts that can only be from Pharah, and then laugher he himself has been close enough to feel rumbling in the cowboy’s throat. Warmth blossoms in his stomach.

He rounds the corner into the living room, but keeps his distance, watching the scene play out before him. The knight is perched in a chair of his own making, the wood creaking under his mass as he leans back and clasps his chest. Pharah and Mercy sit on a couch (dark green, oblong; strange, but not in the repulsive way their sofa is), Fareeha’s arm loosely thrown around the back of the furniture, and by extension, Angela’s shoulders.

Standing in the middle of the floor, wiping tears from his eyes, is McCree.

“Alright, alright. One more.” The cowboy holds up two fingers.

“Two words…” Reinhardt calls, the gunslinger giving him an enthusiastic nod.

McCree vaguely gestures to himself.

“Brokeback Mountain,” they all call in unison.

The gunslinger removes his hat, instead placing it over his heart as he wipes away fake tears, “Y’all know me too well.”

“I was under the impression this was a meeting, not a game of charades.” Hanzo makes his presence known, stepping forward with the slightest hint of a grin. All eyes turn to him and his dramatic entrance, the cowboy fixated on him with an unreadable expression.

“The note said brunch,” McCree rushes forward to meet him, eyes growing even brighter. “I didn’t promise nothin’.”

“I do not see food, either.”

“That’s because he ate it all.” D.Va calls as she points at McCree. The young woman files in after Hanzo, no children in sight. She must have left them to run the stand on their own. The archer wonders how much citrus it takes to start a fire.

“Well, I ain’t one to turn down a warm meal.” The cowboy leans closer, “Unless it’s Helen’s. Though, it’s not so much as warm as it is still breathin’.”

Hanzo makes an attempt to strangle a laugh before it bubbles out, soft and sonorous. McCree beams; the rest of the team simply stares in shock. He swears he spots Angela grimly pass Reinhardt a wad of cash.

Clearing his throat to disperse the tension in the room, Hanzo starts again, “My apologies for arriving later than expected. I was sleeping.”

“Sleeping?” Pharah’s eyes flicker between the cowboy and the archer, biting her lip to keep from smiling, “So you two didn’t get much rest last night?” With a genial slap to the arm, Mercy fails her attempt to look unamused by the other woman’s statement. Hanzo frowns, glancing at McCree to find the gunslinger’s face reddening.

“Y’all hush up,” the gunslinger defends him, “Ain’t like that.”

“My business does not concern any of you,” the archer fixes the group with his cold stare.

The room falls silent once more, eyes wide. Hanzo had William Tell-ed their perception straight off their heads. Pinning the man down was as pointless as grasping his arrows from the air; he’d always soar high over their heads, just out of reach. Crossing his arms, Hanzo continues on a second note, “Was there a reason I was brought here?”

Pharah nods, taking the initiative, “Yes. You arrived just in time, actually. Morrison is briefing us today, reviewing our actions.”

“Jack is coming here?” Reinhardt drops the hat he has been crocheting, head tilting to the side, “Should I have made some coffee?”

“Given he is the staple of Overwatch,” she sighs, “and refuses to take off his visor to disguise himself, no, he will not appear in person. He has entrusted me with a holopad for emergencies and will use it to project himself.”

“Ah, hologram Morrison,” McCree scratches at his beard, “do you think I could punch through him when he starts goin’ on a tangent about ‘back in my day,” the cowboy gives a half-hearted Jack Morrison impression, “or do you think he’d notice?”

Hana snorts, taking her seat beside Hanzo on the floor, “Just because he’s blind doesn’t mean, you know, he’s blind .”

“Why don’t you test out your theory for yourself,” Pharah motions to the round device resting on the table as it begins to glow cerulean. It’s metal, numerous buttons littering the outer rim, with a hollow center that emits the radiance. A flash of light, the words ‘Soldier 76’ appear in a white font, encompassed by a blue triangle. With a finger steady from years of medical practice, Mercy pushes a button on the apparatus.

The screen compresses. When it widens again, it brings along the image of the former strike-commander from the waist up. The moment he appears on screen, Fareeha salutes.

“At ease,” he says, voice like a blender full of gravel with just a dash of Indiana. They cannot see his face behind the mask, but Morrison doesn’t do as well of a job as he thinks at hiding the exasperated fondness in his tone, the way one might address a child. The same way he addresses the whole team.

Morrison looks over his shoulder, head bobbing along as he counts his soldiers (children). When all is accounted for, he stands in a way to face them as a whole, arms folded behind his back.

“Status report?”

“Ain’t lookin’ too good, partner.” McCree speaks up, “We’ve been at it for weeks.”

“And still nothing?”

“No siree, not even a speck of Vishkar influence. Y’all sure you got the right place?”

The commander grumbles something deep in his throat, forehead creasing. “How many homes have you folks checked?”

“Around twenty,” Mercy answers, “but we have yet to check much of the surrounding cul-de-sacs.”

“How many does that leave?”

Angela’s voice drops low, eyes askance, “Around forty, Jack.”

“Forty?!” Reinhardt booms, hand smacking into the table. Everything but the holopad crashes to the floor. Hanzo was astonished the table itself didn’t buckle under the force, though he supposes it is the knight’s equivalent to gently placing a tea cup in a saucer.

“This is ridiculous! Why have we not just charged in and made our appearances known? We would get the location of the information hub much faster.”

“You will find it,” Hanzo warns, “but only because of how many soldiers will be pouring out of the headquarters. Then what will we do?”

“Shimada is right,” 76 nods his head, the closest one could get to open approval. “There are civilians. Vishkar had no problem leveling slums for their plans, they ain’t gonna have a problem taking hostages or maybe even lives. We don’t need any more blood on our hands than there already is.”

“So,” D.Va looks more serious than Hanzo’s think he’s ever seen her—well, besides that one game of Mario Kart. “Do you want us to just sit here?”

Soldier 76 pinches the bridge of his nose, “No. I need you to all do as much as you possibly can, get as much recon done as possible. We have a time limit.”

“Time limit?”

“Extraction is in a week. I suggest you all give your best to find the hub before then.”

“But chief, that’s like,” McCree pauses to do the calculations on his fingers, “four houses a day.”

“Six,” Hanzo corrects.

“Whatever,” the cowboy shakes his head, “the point bein’, we don’t have time for that. Are we just gonna let these people keep their base in civilian territory? Ain’t that against all kinds of UN violations?”

“It is,” Jack answers with a sigh, “but none of us can bring it up at a hearing without having our asses hauled out because of the Petras Act. Besides, I figure if we did the place would be packed up and gone before anyone else could get out to investigate it.”

“We can’t just run away! Overwatch doesn’t quit.” Hana stands, staring down the commander. The archer knows she is not only speaking on her behalf, but on Lúcio’s as well. “We’ve been working so hard! Let me get my mech in there, then we can really get some critical hits. If I get a new wave of Vishkar and it gets difficult, I can just self-destruct my mech and solve our problems altogether!”

Soldier 76 looks about ready to snap his own visor in frustration, “Agent Song, how many times must I tell you that function is only for extreme conditions?”

Hana rolls her eyes, crossing her arms, “Whatever, Dad.”

“There are more missions that require our attention.” Morrison’s practically growling now, “I like it about as much as you all do, but I can’t just have half my team playing house for another month—people are dying.”

“People will die here as well,” Hanzo looks to D.Va, then to McCree, “it would be disgraceful to run away as such.” The cowboy shifts closer, ever protective, nodding in approval.

“We are down half the team as well as our head medical expert and some of our hardest hitters. We can’t afford to leave you stationed here any longer. Extraction is in a week; that is final.” Morrison then turns to Pharah, “Amari, I expect regular reports as usual. Over and out.”

Jack Morrison cuts the signal off without so much as a goodbye. The screen goes blank once again. Hana groans, dramatically falling back into her chair. She puts her face into the pillow and screams, Reinhardt moving to pat the top of her head.

When she finally resurfaces, face red, D.Va mutters, “Why is he so difficult?”

“I wouldn’t think too much on it Hana,” McCree fumbles with a cigar for a moment before he catches Mercy’s sharp glare and pockets it. “I bet Winston drank out Jack’s #1 Dad mug, and that’s why he’s being bitter.”

“Or he’s just cranky like every other senior citizen, no offense Reinhardt.”

“Do not worry about it, Enkelin. I get discounts for that!” He gives her a small smile, “Jack is under a lot of stress at the moment, give him time. I’m sure that even if this mission is a failure, he will come and crush Vishkar himself, ja? Just as he did with Los Muertos. You will see in due time.”

Reinhardt straightens up, his head nearly banging against the ceiling before stooping the slightest bit, “Would any of you like tea? I may even have some pastries left.” The knight gestures in the direction of the kitchen, displaying his recently painted, hot pink nails. Hanzo’s eyebrows raise amiably; it suits the man.

“Not for long,” McCree grins, hearing that roar of peeling laughing from the knight once more.

“I will have to send you… Ah, what do these people call it? A box?”

Reinhardt busies himself with asking what the team would like; Amari tea seems to be the general consensus.  Hanzo, however, assures him that green tea will do just fine, even gives a small bow in thanks. McCree couldn’t care less that he’s staring, he’s too focused on the way his stomach twists when the archer gives Reinhardt a smile. The cowboy stands, drawn to the other, compelled like magnets.

There is a tug on his sleeve; it is not a part of their signal. Not Hanzo’s hand, but Angela’s.

Wrenched away from the gravity of Hanzo, McCree finds himself face to face with Dr. Ziegler. The medic’s smile doesn’t meet her eyes as she jerks her head in the direction of the porch, a secluded place. Suddenly, McCree gets the message: we need to talk .

Wordlessly, he follows, lighting a cigar as he goes to calm his nerves. McCree bites down against the end; he shouldn’t feel like a scolded kid anymore, not when the person leading him in for what he can only guess to be an intervention is his own age and half his height. But god damn, if her eyes aren’t fierce, dissecting him with every movement. It’s no wonder people so easily buckle under her scorn.

She turns down his offer of the chair, leaving them to stand side to side, looking over the newly furnished deck.

“So,” Angela breaks the stretching silence, “you are determined to court Mr. Shimada?”

“Which one?” McCree jokes in reply.

They both know the answer to that question.

After a lull in conversation, the cowboy continues, “Is this the part where you give me the birds-and-the-bees chat? Do you want me to saddle a condom on a cucumber?”

Mercy sighs, “No, I only wish you had told me beforehand so I wouldn’t have lost the bet.”

“What,” the cowboy quirks an eyebrow, “you bet against me or somethin’?”

“I bet that you wouldn’t have the guts,” she gives him a fleeting smile, something warm, a reminder of the old days. They had been closer back then, before the fall of the original Overwatch. She had been so full of life, so eager to help. Now she only seems tired. War changes people, the cowboy thinks sullenly.

McCree shakes his head, letting out a laugh that’s more bitter than he means it to be, “Don’t worry, Doc, I’m sure you’ll be on the winning side of that deal. He don’t even like me in that way.”

Dr. Zeigler raises an eyebrow, incredulous, “What do you mean? He’s been flirting back with you.”

“Nah,” the cowboy refutes as he leans back against the rail, “it ain’t like that. I mean, I’d like to, but I’m not gonna ruin our friendship. It took so long just to pick him apart from his dragons, you know? Don’t want him bein' on edge around me anymore.”

“I believe the fact that he’s not trying to bite your head off like the rest of us,” the medic says, “is only more proof that the dragon has a soft spot for you. I’ve certainly never seen him laugh that hard before you came into his life.”

“He’s got a dry sense of humor, I got a dry sense of humor-- we just connect. That’s just how he is. Trust me, I know him better than you do.”

Angela’s smile flickers, replaced by something hard in her eyes as she turns her full attention to the gunslinger.

“Do be careful. These things,” she ponders over the words carefully, chewing on her bottom lip, “they change people. It’s dangerous. You know how these sort of relationships complicate Overwatch.”

The gunslinger blinks, takes it all in before the medic delivers the final blow.

“It does not always work out for the better.”

McCree tenses, almost chomping through the end of his cigar. Heat bubbles up from the pit of his stomach, sweltering, closing his throat. His face contorts, brow drawn together, losing all semblance of his normal demeanor.

After a moment of wrangling his temper, he finally speaks.

“Are you comparin’ us to Reyes and Morrison?”

Mercy holds up her hands, voice low as she attempts to douse the fire, “Jesse, I didn’t mean—”

Whereas Hanzo’s anger is a cold wrath, McCree’s is blistering, “Angela. I am not Reyes.” He punctuates every word, hand gripping the railing so tightly he think it might splinter into a thousand pieces. “I saw the fall out with my own two eyes. What in the world would make you think I would ever duplicate somethin’ like that?”

“You’re right.” Her gaze trails the floor, shoulders slumping. “You are not Reyes.”

“Then you’ve got nothin’ to worry about.”

“That was not what I meant,” Mercy wrings her hands as she speaks, “I only meant to remind you of how easy it is to lose one another. Stationed here we forget the battles that await us back home. We are still soldiers, Jesse. Hell awaits back home. Too many good people have been lost. I should know, I patch bullet wounds centimeters off from vital organs every day of my life. Becoming attached is not the wisest decision.”

“Is that why you won’t make a move on Fareeha?”

If looks could kill, McCree would be dead ten times over with the glare Mercy shoots him. Angela reaches up, snatches the cigar from his mouth, and stomps it out on the floor.

“How many times have I told you to stop smoking? Those things will—”

“‘They’ll kill me someday’, yeah, Doc, I know the lecture. You’ve been givin’ it to me since day one.”

“And you still refuse to follow my professional advice.” Another sigh, “You are a stubborn man, McCree.” Angela moves to leave, turns her back on the cowboy as she reaches once more for the door. Before her hand closes around the knob, she turns back.

“Do not cause more heartbreak than is needed, Jesse.”

--

Hanzo and McCree gather themselves, say their goodbyes to the rest of the team (a hug from Fareeha for Jesse; a hug from Reinhardt to the both of them when he decides to lift the two up at the same time), and the two depart, once again Henry and Joey. They take the long route back to their house, which Hanzo has long since stopped battling to call it ‘Overwatch’s rented home’, the back of their hands brushing with each step of their stroll.

“So, how did the 7^th husband die?” the cowboy asks, knocking into the other with a shoulder.

Hanzo has the best poker face McCree thinks he has ever seen, completely feigning disinterest, “A tragic Vespa accident. He was too busy drinking flavored water to pay attention.”

“The 8^th?”

“One of the chicken statues from the kitchen mysteriously broke over his head.”

“That’s awful, those things are vintage!”

That earns him a snort from the archer, “At least it did not damage the adjacent pig statues.”

The gunslinger looks down from the corner of his eyes. He’s playing a dangerous game when he asks, “What about the 9^th?”

Hanzo is quiet for a long moment, “He got away unharmed.”

“And why is that?”

“Because we are divorced.”

It’s Jesse’s turn to laugh, “I thought we’d settled that!” He shakes his head. “Fine, then, if Henry and Joey were still together, how would Joey go?”

The archer stops altogether, halting on the sidewalk as he turns to face McCree, “Are you implying Henry murdered every one of his ex-husbands? I’m insulted.”

“Ain’t no such thing as a tragic Vespa accident where the guy just happened to get taken off by a wreckin’ ball. Someone had to pay off that construction company.”

Stepping nearer, Hanzo stalks forward until they are flushed chest to chest. The cowboy scrapes back, his heels on the edge of the sidewalk, but the archer once again closes the distance. Heart pounding in his ears, McCree can only look on helplessly as the other man leans in, close enough to feel the archer’s breath ghost over his lips.

“Poison in his steak at Texas Roadhouse. He dies in the middle of that horrid song, the Cotton Eyed Joe.”

“Hell of a way to go,” the gunslinger mutters, but not about the imagined scenario, about the dark eyes staring him down so close to his own. He’d gladly die a thousand deaths by that gaze alone. Hell, he’d gladly go listening to Cotton Eye Joe as long as it meant that he got to enjoy the archer’s proximity a little longer.

In one swift movement, Hanzo grips the brim of the cowboy hat and yanks it down over McCree’s face. The gunslinger falls.  

Hanzo springs back, allowing himself a quiet laugh as he resumes his calm stride down the sidewalk, the cowboy left sputtering in the dust.

When McCree catches back up again, they fall back into their slow pace.

“So an arsenic death, huh? Alright, that’s fitting, Joey probably deserved it for cheating so much at scrabble, but what makes you think no one will drive him to the hospital?”

This time, the archer can’t hide his grin, “Because they only believe in Alternative Medicine.”

McCree had never found a more ridiculous phrase to make his heart skip a beat.

At the moment, the two had been too caught up in each other and their wry humor to notice they were passing the home of their absolute favorite neighbor. Hanzo only pauses when he hears the familiar clicking of heels.

“Henry,” the alias is called with the same fondness one might chide a dog in. The archer stiffens, turns on a heel.

A week and a half after first contact and they had constructed a ritual.

It goes like this: he would jog by at precisely 8 am, catching Helen in the middle of watering her bed of Foxgloves. As if sensing his presence, she would turn, give a brief moment of eye contact, and then drag her index finger across her throat. Hanzo would only allow a polite smile and wave in return. That seemed to rile her more than any retaliation could.

But this morning he was too late for Helen; the devil seemed to have retreated back into hell. Hanzo had prayed she would be holding up a PTA meeting.

“Good afternoon, Helen,” the archer answers without even the slightest hint of his hatred.

“Actually,” a bob of blonde hair bounces out from behind Helen, supporting a clipboard, “It’s only just now 12:00!  So, not after noon,” the woman chirps happily. Hanzo recognizes her as Grace, the woman who first welcomed them, and the one who had been so insistent at pestering them. How could he forget when she was on his doorstep every other day? But when had she become one of Hell’s Ruler’s Lackeys?

“So,” McCree flicks the brim of his hat upwards, “high noon?”

“Precisely!”

“It is good to see you as well, Grace.” Hanzo cuts off the awful joke before it can play out any further. “What brings you to this side of the neighborhood?”

“What, does she need some excuse to hang out with me?” Helen laughs, but the archer itches to answer her hypothetical question in honest. It certainly wasn’t for the company, or the food; he couldn’t imagine the woman possessing any positive traits.

“Actually I was just making my weekly rounds!” Grace smiles far too bright for her own good, clipboard clenched so tight in excitement it might snap, “I’m in charge of making sure everything is up to regulation. You know, inspecting property, issuing fines.”

She stops with a gasp, “Oh! Which reminds me!”

Grace unclips a stack of papers from the clipboard before shoving them into McCree’s hands. Startled, he flips through them; page after page is fine print, all except for the very front where a single, bolded word stands out against the rest: ‘WARNING’. The archer and cowboy share a confused look before turning it in the blonde woman’s direction.

“What is this?” Hanzo asks, on his tip-toes to look over the gunslinger’s shoulders.

“It’s just a warning from the Neighborhood Association. Technically, it would be a fine for how long you two were out of conduct, but I thought since you’re still relatively new here, we should give you a free pass this time,” Grace explains, rocking back and forth on her heels.

Hanzo stares back blankly at them; one woman happily chattering away, and the other, Helen, eyes narrowed in a smug countenance.

“Uh, I’m sorry, I’m still not getting this,” the gunslinger says, waving the papers with an apologetic smile.

Helen reaches forward, placing a hand on McCree’s shoulder, “It’s alright, dear. Reading can be hard sometimes.”

Smoke practically billows out of Hanzo’s nose. None too gently, he pries Helen’s hand off the other’s shoulder. How dare she touch his cowboy. Hanzo falters. No, he assures, no not his. Not his at all. The archer blinks; where had that come from?

Grace clears her throat, drawing their attention again, “Your mailbox is in violation of the Neighborhood Association’s code. It was a good thing Helen caught it while I was on the clock, otherwise you might be facing a serious penalty!”

McCree looks like he doesn’t know whether to be more befuddled out of the quick stream of words from Grace’s mouth, or Hanzo’s actions. “What’s wrong with our mailbox?”

“The font is too big. On your mailbox. It’s thirteen Calibri when it should be twelve.”

Hanzo fights back the urge to roll his eyes so hard they pop out of his head. Instead, he offers a rebuttal, “Helen, I am surprised you could even determine that. I figured at your age, you would need reading glasses for such thing. How old are you, fifty? Sixty ?”

“Thirty-seven,” she offers back through a clenched, venomous smile.

“Anyways,” Graces interrupts, “I really must be going. You two should change your mailbox, before someone with real power notices it and takes action. Oh! And you should read the rest of the ordinances, just to make sure nothing else is out of place!”

She procures said handbook. From where, Hanzo can’t say. All he knows is that it weighs enough that if it were to plummet from the top of a bookshelf, it would kill any stranger that wandered into its path. Maybe he should return Helen’s favor and offer to hold the book club in his house.

Then Grace files back into her golf cart, turns on the definitely illegal sirens glued to the top, waves back, and sets off at a pace of a whopping 5 mph. They wait until she’s turned a corner at the Jefferson’s house a block away to jump at each other’s throats.

Helen scoffs, nodding her head in the gunslinger’s direction, “I’m surprised this one has managed to stay around for so long.”

“Are you referring to your spray tan?” the archer shoots back, taking a step closer to McCree. The cowboy grimaces, glancing between the two of them. He knows better than to confront Hanzo when he’s on a warpath. Meanwhile, the archer has half a mind to snatch the handbook from the gunslinger’s palm and chuck it at Helen’s head.

“No, I’m talking about your ninth husband.” Another sharp, jackal laugh, “Is this one your last?”

“Not all of us settle with our high school boyfriends. And yes, he is.”

“At least Heath actually has taste.”

“At least I let my husband dress himself.” Hanzo snorts, “Yours came prepackaged.”

“I have ears you know,” McCree adds, stepping in. “Y’all need to take a step back before somethin’ you regret happens. This ain’t gonna end pretty.”

“’Ain’t’ isn’t a word,” Helen hisses.

The cowboy pauses, fixes her with a hard stare, and rolls up his sleeves, “On second thought—”

Heath, clueless Heath, picks that exact moment to throw open a window and lean out of it. The three freeze; Hanzo with a death grip against the back of the cowboy’s shirt, McCree poised for a fight, Helen, halfway through a retreat.

“Howdy, neighbors!” Heath calls, a poor attempt at the gunslinger’s own accent. McCree sheepishly waves back, letting his arms drop to his sides.

“Nice to see you let Heath out of his box today,” Hanzo says dryly; Helen’s triumphant grin drops.

“We should hit the trail. Got lots of thing to do. You know, stuff. Movies to watch and clap when they’re over.” McCree is tugging him away again, edging backwards the way one would avoid a tiger. In reality, it’s because he cannot force himself to spend another moment talking to these people.

Helen throws her weight to one side, arms akimbo, “Bye you two! Don’t stay out too long, you wouldn’t want to ruin that farmer’s tan!”

“Maybe you should go inside too, Helen,” the archer calls over his shoulder. “I believe the heat is starting to get to you.”

They are too far away to hear her next scathing remark, and care too little to turn back.

“Size fourteen font, my ass,” McCree grumbles under his breath, hands dug into his pockets. They turn at their mailbox, following up the path to the house.

“At least it is not Comic Sans,” Hanzo sighs. The cowboy pauses, shooting the other a look of incredulity.

“Hanzo Shimada, did you just old-school meme at me?”

The archer keeps his eyes trained on the cement, his face unreadable, “No.”

McCree simply shakes his head, opening the door for the other man as he mutters a quiet, “Lord, help me.”

--

It’s four in the morning when McCree gets the idea.

Hanzo, however, does not know of this. He remains peacefully unaware, sound asleep in his bed. That is, until he is awoken by the loudest banjo strumming he thinks he has ever heard, reverberating from somewhere beyond his door.

The archer springs to his feet, eyes wild, hair splayed, a dagger (procured from under his pillow) gripped in his palm, completely ready to murder the assailant who was, by the sound of it, most likely Blake Shelton.

He straightens, blinking wearily at the door.

Hand on the doorknob, he tugs it open, and is immediately assaulted by the oncoming song. Amongst the gruff singing, he picks out the words “tractor” and “blue jeans” and a third rural thing. Hanzo’s heart sinks.

Oh no . Country music.

He promptly slams the door shut again, back barricaded against it for good measure. Still, the beat carries relentlessly, pulsating even through the wooden panels.

The first thought that pops into his head is what sort of home intruder breaks in just to barrage his ears with country music? Is it some odd kind of Psychological warfare? Then it hits him; it isn’t a burglar, or an assassin, but Texas Pete himself.

Hanzo presses the heels of his palms into his eyes and groans. The cowboy was going to be the death of him.  Or, he was going to be the death of the cowboy, if he managed to catch him first and suffocate him with his own hat.

The archer steels himself, clenches his jaw, and throws open the door once more. Once again, music bombards his ears as he marches down the steps, past the Couch of Mistakes, and into the kitchen, following along like a furious victim of the Deep South version of the Pied Piper.

McCree is perched on a stool, propped against the kitchen counter as he nods his head along to the musical equivalent of their horrid sofa. Hanzo clears his throat in the doorway, and then, when he realizes the gunslinger can’t hear him, crosses the distance and slams his palm on the counter.

“If you do not turn that filth off this second,” the archer snarls as he pushes up against the marble, leverage so he can tower over McCree, “I will not hesitate to strangle you with your own belt.”

Face lighting up in absolute delight, the cowboy spins around, “Don’t threaten me with a good time, sweetheart.”

Hanzo scoffs, the tips of his ears burning. Before he can interject with another threat, the gunslinger yells over the music, his mouth going a mile a minute.

“Han, you’re not gonna believe what I just found.”

“Have you lost your mind,” Hanzo shouts back, spitting in fury. “Some of us are trying to sleep.”

“Slow down, sweetheart, let me explain. I think you’re gonna really like this.” The cowboy ushers him to the other side of the bar before the archer can argue again, then rushing back to his seat on the other side. McCree gestures to the item resting between them: the handbook.

Their eyes meet. Hanzo’s frown deepens. The gunslinger only smiles wider.

“You are blaring the worst kind of music at four am because... of this manual?"

“Hey, Josh Turner is a classic,” McCree defends, flipping through the infinite pages in the book. “I’m playing the music because the handbook says not to.”

Hanzo sighs, rubs his temples, “Why would you do that? Are you trying to get us fined?”

“Right on the nose!”

The archer is too fucking sleep deprived to put up with the cowboy’s antics, and his expression shows exactly that.

“Grace arrived to give us a warning, right? But she said we were lucky that ‘someone with more power’ didn’t find out about the break in the code first.”

“You are not making any sense.”

“Higher ups? Vishkar? They run this place, they gotta be the higher ups she was afraid of. So,” McCree practically bounces in his seat, pointing to a list of rules in the book “I figure, there’s more than one way to skin a cat. If we break every ordinance we possibly can, and gain the attention of the higher ups, we might be able to narrow down who’s a double agent.”

“So, you are playing this garbage because—”

“Because anything 90 decibels is forbidden. Plus, I’m sure it will piss Helen off.”

Eyes growing wide in recognition, Hanzo sits up straighter, suddenly feeling wider awake than he had all day.

“Look, I know it sounds a bit farfetched, kinda stupid too considerin’ we’ll probably be fined,” McCree runs a hand through his hair, placing his hat on the counter. “But Winston can deal with all that. It’s the best shot we got to uppin’ our chances with this restricted schedule.”

The archer stands from his chair as he begins to pace, “It is not… the worst idea I’ve ever heard. I believe it has a solid chance.” He pauses in his steps, spinning on his heel to face McCree, “It could work. What exactly did you have in mind?”

McCree gives a short laugh, tapping the book once again, “Darlin’, I got myself a whole list right here.”

--

“Henry,” McCree calls, quelling his laugh in his throat, “would you prefer a casserole for dinner tonight or salad? Oh, maybe even a nice coleslaw!”

Hanzo doesn’t even glance back as he throws the third bottle of mayonnaise in the shopping cart, “As long as they are organic and non-GMO, Joey. Maybe with a side of,” he pauses to think of the blandest foods he can conjure, “yogurt and saltines.”

The cowboy shakes his head, shoulders shaking with his effort to keep a straight face, “Nah, that’s too spicy.”

Now that got Hanzo laughing. McCree thinks it’s the most beautiful sound he’s ever heard.

Once ‘Henry and Joey’s’ food for the week was settled, they make their way towards their true destination. Hidden deep within the discount aisle, under unpopular toys and romance novels like buried treasure, was exactly what they were looking for.

The cashier (“bless his heart,” McCree says under his breath) gave them a look of shock and mild disgust as the two slapped four boxes of assorted Christmas lights on the conveyer belt.

Hanzo taps against the gunslinger’s palm before taking it in his own.

“We like to get in the spirit early,” McCree offers as an explanation to their cashier who is paid too little to deal with this.

“It’s July,” the cashier says as he raises an eyebrow, but nonetheless bagging the boxes.

“As you can tell,” Hanzo says flatly, expression matching his tone, “we are very festive people.”

--

Helen draws back her curtains as she balances against the cushy pillows of the window seat. Clutching her binoculars in such a way as to not chip her exemplary red nails, she glances towards her neighbors. Though she doesn’t have the best vantage point, she can just make out their front lawn and the two men loitering there.

It’s only 2 pm, and the Eastwoods are at it again, single handedly destroying the neighborhood.

She was on her third cup of soy milk, strolling by her window when, out of her peripherals, Helen had spotted him. Henry, whose name she was almost certain wasn’t Henry. The man had crouched low to the ground, gripped the base of their mailbox, and heaved it straight out of the ground, unearthing a good chunk of lawn with it. Helen didn’t know where to begin: with the fact that changing the font didn’t take that much effort, or, that if they were simply replacing it, there was no need to uproot the whole post altogether.

What sort of small business owner was capable of that feat of strength? The housewife couldn’t imagine how Joey simply went around his day completely ignorant to it; even now, without her binoculars, she could see the cowboy in the yard, absolutely enthralled.

But what she really wanted to see was their project; the two were standing in just the way to block her view.

Helen shifted to the other side of the window, craning her neck to get a better angle. She could see a box, a rather large one at that, and the previous mailbox slain in the yard.

When the two men sidestep to marvel at their work, Helen drops her binoculars. They clatter to the floor with a series of dull thuds. But it’s okay, she reassures herself, she doesn’t need them to see the monstrosity before her. It almost makes her wish she were blind.

As if the country music stunt wasn’t enough the previous night.

Moss green fades to off-white, and God, it even shimmers long the unsightly pattern. It’s an unsightly oblong form, nothing like a normal mailbox. In fact, it is not an average mailbox at all.

The mailbox is a fish.

Or, well, it’s shaped like one, the latch forming along its obscenely large lips, continue into fins, and then finally a tail. Helen looks on as Henry painstakingly stencils new words onto the side, in size fourteen Calibri. The housewife snatches up her binoculars once more to read the text beneath the gills.

‘The Eastwoods,’ and then beneath that, ‘Pleased to be your neighbors!’

She pans over just in time to catch Henry staring back at her with a smug look.

He waves.

Helen screeches in absolute fury, closing her curtains once more before dashing off to her phone.

--

“Residents shall not alter the exterior of their home in any way that has not been approved beforehand by the council?”

“Check; painted the door bright red.”

“Residents shall not, in any way, alter their lawns (including lawn ornaments, flora, play areas, etc.) without first seeking approval of the council?”

“Done and done. Good eye for spottin’ that bogo bargain for a pack of lawn gnomes and yard flamingos. We look mighty fancy.”

“Residents may only be allowed holiday light through the months of November through January, between the hours of six and eight pm?”

“By my account, sweetheart, its 9:30 in the middle of July.”

Hanzo pauses before checking it off, pencil hovering above the handbook. He looks to the cowboy adjacent to him, elbow propped against one end of the Plaid Nightmare. “Are they on?”

“Uh,” the gunslinger scratches the back of his head, skewing his hat, “that’s a negative. I-I thought I’d wait for you. It will be a pretty sight out there, figured you might wanna come witness it for yourself. You know, with me.”

Hanzo cocks his head a bit to the side as he analyses the other man. Finally, he closes the handbook and stands, “Very well.”

McCree nods, his smile infectious. He takes Hanzo by the hand, no taps, and leads him outside.

They stand barefoot at the very edge of the lawn. Fresh dew marks their toes, the cold night of the desert settling into their skin once again. The archer finds himself pinned next to the bass mailbox. He figured if their home was already tacky enough with the couch inside and the simple presence of the gunslinger, he might as well be the tackiest. Couldn’t be the best, so they became the worse, stooping to the level of those around them. In their own odd way, it’s sacrificial.

Hanzo squints into the darkness, scanning the dim exterior of the house. He knows for a fact McCree had been up on the roof earlier, nailing in the long ropes of wire, but now he couldn’t make out a thing in the starlight.

Clasping onto the neon orange extension cord, McCree reappears at his side.

“Would you like to do the honors, partner?”

Eyes focusing on the tawny arm before him, Hanzo rakes his gaze over the dips and curves, the chestnut hair dotting the man’s forearm. The archer takes a deep breath through his nose and directs his eyes back to the cowboy’s hat instead.

“It was your idea, it is only fair you see it through.”

“Alrighty,” McCree steps in line with the bass mailbox, crooked grin aimed at the archer. “You might not want to look directly at it. We could cause an electrical outage and wipe out half the town with how bright these suckers are gonna be.”

Hanzo furrows his eyebrows, “How many are out there?”

“Oh, I dunno. Stopped counting around 1,000.”

“What?”

“Here we go!”

McCree holds each end of the plugs at arm’s length before slamming the cords together. They click. The connection sparks; the cowboy drops it to the ground, startled. With a whiff of burning ozone, the house lights up.

Blinding had been an understatement. Their home is so bright, Hanzo doesn’t think even fifty pairs of D.Va’s star-shaped sunglasses could have blocked out its radiance. He swears, for a moment, the sun is put to shame.

The light immersing the entire neighborhood is similar to most of the people residing there: it’s white.

They both stumble back, Hanzo clutching onto the side of McCree’s flannel to steady himself. When their vision returns, fading to something other than pure, inescapable white, Hanzo finally views the marvel that is their house. Bulbs, white and fat twist along the gutters, not only lining the roof, but dangling down, covering every other foot of the house in a string of white. Their home is a kitschy Jupiter, surrounded by bright, celestial moons.

They light not only their house, but engulf the whole block with its luminescence.

The Christmas lights stutter, and the entire neighborhood falls pitch black. Then, down the street, machinery groans, back-up generators screeching in anguish. The lights flash on once more and stay that way.

“It’s a Christmas miracle,” the cowboy shakes his head in awe, removing his hat in respect.

Hanzo lets out a laugh that is more heavy breathing than anything.

“I feel like we should have eggnog,” McCree comments. “Maybe even some matching sweaters and reindeer antlers.” The cowboy sits on the curve of the road, pats the vacant spot next to him. Hanzo’s expression softens. He takes a seat.

“So,” the gunslinger holds up the conversation on his own, “what did you get me?”

Tongue-in-cheek, Hanzo replies, “I sold my bow to buy you a new set of spurs for your awful boots.”

“Aw shoot, and here I sold my awful boots to buy you new arrows.”

Hanzo leans against the cowboy’s shoulder, all too aware of the contact. Surely, by now, people have noticed the small star burning in their neighborhood, have rushed to their windows to gape at the spectacle, maybe even called the fire department. They would not be able to distinguish one strand from the other, only a ball of light replacing the home that was once there, two silhouettes side by side in the middle of the street.

“We are a curse on the power company,” the archer mutters.

“You know,” McCree says after a lengthy pause, “I finally figured out the name of this ol’ place. It’s called Arcadia.” He smiles, “It means something akin to ‘paradise’.”

The archer snorts, “This place is no paradise.”

“Yeah,” the cowboy agrees so quietly Hanzo thinks he might have imagined it, along with tinge of melancholy that comes with it.

And, well, if McCree’s hand rests atop of Hanzo’s own while he’s laughing and lingers long afterwards, neither of them mention it.

Chapter Text

They wait.

And wait.

Hanzo and McCree have discussed the shopping list twice, dictated a new system of chores since Hanzo had discovered—and been horrified by—the garbage disposal, and solved five new crossword puzzles (a six letter word melodramatic: cowboy) all before the note is slid through the mail slot.

It flutters soundlessly to the floor, skirting along the wood until the letter hits the back of the plaid abomination that is their couch. For a moment, their eyes are glued to the piece of paper, frozen in place.

The archer breaks the spell as he dashes to the door, metal feet skidding to a stop before throwing it open on its hinges.

The porch is vacant. Their visitor had vanished into thin air without so much as a means of transportation.

“Fuck,” McCree mutters, and then louder, eyebrows pinched together in a scowl, “Oh, fuck.”

“What?” Hanzo’s behind him in an instant, a hand snatching his forearms back so he can get a good look at whatever has tipped the cowboy over the edge. The archer manages to pry the slip of paper from his fingers, eyeing the spot where it had rested on the floor, before snapping back to attention.

There is no return address, no signature. All in all, it’s less than twenty words: their ‘names’, their offenses, and the massive fine, all topped off with a smeared red stamp of approval from the Neighborhood Association. The rest of the paper remains a spotless, starch white.

There is no signature, no means to track who was at the top issuing these slips in the first place.

The plan has failed.

“Fuck,” Hanzo agrees, letting the paper fall back to the floor.

For a flash, he sees the fear of God in McCree’s eyes before the cowboy’s head is in his hands.

“Morrison is gonna tan my hide.”

--

By the time Jack Morrison is done tearing them a new one, Hanzo’s vocabulary of insults has increased tenfold: reckless, irresponsible, impulsive, etc. Even the rest of the team had retreated to the safety of the kitchen, out of the commander’s line of fire— his uphill battle raged against the bull-headed Jesse ‘Justice’ McCree.

Half the time Hanzo is convinced that Morrison is so pissed beyond possible belief that his forehead vein might burst, and for the other half Morrison speaks in a soft, disheartened tone. The same a father would use to tell his children he was ‘not angry, just disappointed’.

In the end, Morrison fixes him with a hard, unreadable look.

“Don’t get yourself killed out there, kid. Either of you.”

With the shrill hum of static, the screen flickers into nothingness, blue light fading to a dim glow. The device, in the absence of the hologram, no longer looks like a high-tech communication device, but a fancy coaster.

Once the former squad commander has vanished, the gunslinger’s feigned smile drops. McCree folds his arms against his chest, hands digging into his elbows. The expression doesn’t suit the cowboy—something about it makes Hanzo’s heart twist. He blinks, takes a step towards the other man, and places a hand on his arm. A small gesture of comfort.

The two are interrupted as a curtain of brown hair peers out from the kitchen doorway.

“Is Dad finished yelling at you yet?” However, Hana doesn’t wait for their answer; she’s already throwing herself face-first onto their vile sofa, something that could have curdled the hardest criminal’s resolve to fear. The archer retracts his hand, slipping away as easily as he had come.

“Yeah, same argument as always,” McCree explains, making his way over to perch atop the armrest. “Don’t get killed, keep your elbows off the table, don’t make me turn this car around… Same old, same old.”

D.Va rolls over to look up at the cowboy, “Did he give you shit about your Animal Crossing Nightmare Lawn?”

McCree purses his lips, “I was going more for a Clark Griswold feel.”

“Regardless, it’s tacky and I both love and hate it. Mostly hate.”

“Hana!” Reinhardt files in sideways in order to fit his shoulders through the doorway, “Don’t say that! It reminds me of the villages out in the countryside that I used to visit when I was only a tyke. Back then, you could see the exact layout of the town, lights stretching out for miles…”

“Where you had to walk up a hill both ways in the snow?” The girl’s grin was enough to soften the already light scolding, not that the knight could have kept it up for much longer anyways.

“It’s a winter wonderland,” Angela says, accent skewering the words with a district ‘v’ sound as she lingers in the door with Pharah. “The fish was a nice touch.”

McCree takes off his hat, gesturing it in the archer’s direction, “That detail was Han’s idea.”

Hana bolts upright with a melodramatic gasp, “What? Really? I knew you had it in you!” She offers her hand up. The archer very tentatively high-fives her.

“Did Morrison ground you both, then?” Fareeha intervenes.

“Sure did,” the gunslinger returns his hat to its post atop his head.

“Oooh!” Hana clasps her hands together. “Someone just got adopted!” then, she leans in closer to Hanzo to explain, “If he puts you in time-out it means you’re officially one of his kids. Though, I thought you would have married in.”

Before he can ask what her last comment means, Reinhardt claps a massive hand on his shoulder, “Welcome to the family!”

“The first of many groundings,” Pharah shakes her head, stepping through to join the rest of the team. “How many times have you been grounded Jesse? Forty-two?”

The man in question grins, flicking up the brim of his hat, “Forty-three. Don’t go lowerin’ my record.”

"I would never dream of such a thing." 

Before Hana can mention her own rising record, there’s a knock at the door.

A short beat, three raps of knuckles before they succumb to silence again.

The team exchanges quizzical glances across the room.

“Are you expecting visitors? Besides us?” Fareeha questions, her rigid posture ready to spring in the threat of an attack. The archer can’t blame her; Morrison’s words about being wary of Vishkar ring in his ears. Though, knowing the neighborhood, there was slim chance the person beyond the front door could actually be deadly. Unless it was Helen with more raw chicken.

“It could be Grace,” Hanzo finally sighs, “her barbeque is in six days and she seems to grow more frantic by the hour.”

“Or back-up; Jack mentioned somethin’ about them droppin’ by because of our little ‘stunt’.”

The doorbell rings again, this time with more urgency. The room remains silent and still.

Hana is the first to make a move, jumping over the back of the couch before pressing an ear to the door.

“Password?” she demands, loud enough for the visitor to hear.

There is a sigh from the other side, some faint scuffling before a voice, “Up, up, down, down, left, right—”

Her eyes light up. D.Va opens the door, screeches in delight, and promptly throws herself at the newcomer. Hanzo almost mistakes it for a battle cry, rising to his feet before he spots the face mirroring Hana’s delight, dreadlocks pulled into a secure ponytail high on his head.

“Lúcioooo!” she laughs, jumping onto the musician’s back, “Why didn’t you tell me you were gonna be in the neighborhood? Are you here for a gig?”

He seems completely unaffected by the impromptu piggy-back ride, “Pshh, you think these people have any taste in music?”

His rhetorical question goes unfounded as they are both lifted up into Reinhardt’s sculpted arm with the knight’s cry of, “Lúcio! What a pleasant surprise!”

“Thanks big guy,” the musician hardly manages to get out, lungs constricted from the bear-hug. “It’s good to see you too.” With one more gleeful squeeze, Reinhardt takes the hint and sets the younger agents back down.

“Then why are you here instead of the base?” Hana presses, still attached.

“Why don’t you take a look at these sweet new uniforms we got and answer that for yourself?” Lúcio gestures to his black shirt; it lacks the color and creativity of his usual attire. Instead, the only piece that sticks out against the bland fabric is the logo in the top left corner.

“TV repairmen?” D.Va reads aloud, scrunching up her face.

“Yep! Overwatch really went all out with these disguises, even got a van! But what really matters is the sound system.” He winks, making an 'okay' sign with his hand. 

“Must have come out of the peanut butter fund,” McCree steps in, tipping his hat to the musician. “Welcome to our humble abode. I’m assumin’ you’re the reinforcements Morrison was yappin’ about?”

“You got it!” The musician’s teeth ought to glimmer; the smile he shoots back is too perfect. “Well, me and Mr. Roboto here. We were both called in to help out.” Lúcio jerks his thumb over his shoulder as Genji steps through the front door.

There is a beat of silence.

Hanzo feels everything in the room stills.

His chest constricts, heart heavy. The archer knows he will never get used to the concept of his brother being alive. Moments when he least expects it, motions as ordinary as washing the dishes or chatting on the phone with Genji continue to throw him through a loop.

Some wounds never heal correctly.

They ignore the elephant in the room. No, not elephant, something bigger, like a whale, or a brachiosaurus.

Instead, McCree makes up for the awkward pause, snaking past the musician to clap the younger Shimada on the back, “Well ain’t you a sight for sore eyes! I thought you we’re gonna stick around in that hospital bed for so long, you were gonna become part of the sheets.”

Genji’s lights glow a little brighter, “As if you could ever get me out of your hair that easily.”

“You’d just Naruto-run out as soon as Mercy opened the clinic doors.”

“You better believe it.”

And with that the moment of tension passes, though Hanzo still holds himself rigidly.

“Yes, this is all very well,” Mercy pushes between the reuniting friends, “but you should not have left the medical ward this early. You are due for at least another full week of bedrest.”

“Angela,” Genji lets slip the tiniest bit of boyish charm from the old days, “Winston thought I was fit to do some recon.”

His attempts fall flat; Angela gives him a hard stare in return, immune, “Winston is not a doctor.”

“But I am!” Lúcio says, letting Hana drop back onto the couch. “Sorta! In training. I came prepared, though.” He taps against the toolbox in his hand, no doubt concealing his sound equipment. “If Genji gets feelin’ nasty then I got some beats that will fix him right up.”

“And you are here if anything serious happens,” Pharah brushes her shoulder against the medic’s. “At least he is eager to get back on the field; I say let him do as he pleases. Genji can judge for himself.”

“Besides, I would never let anything get to him in the first place!” Reinhardt announces, miming swinging his massive hammer with a wide smile. “There is no cause for concern!”

The rest of the room distracted, the younger Shimada makes his escape. In three quick strides, machinery whirring as he approaches, Genji comes to rest at Hanzo’s side at the far end of the room. Genji approaches him first; it is never the other way around.

They have broken into factions. Reinhardt, unaware of his own strength as he claps Lúcio on the back once more with a laugh, Hana contemplating videoing the interaction; Pharah’s dark eyes hold a playful quality, muttering something to McCree that sends the cowboy sputtering. Angela, giving in to join in with the blows to McCree’s self-image.

He looks on for a moment. The cold feeling of being a stranger has subsided, clinging to far corners of his brain like a distant memory, a ghost. They are a team, his team. His friends. He has not simply been thrust into the throes of Overwatch, he belongs in it.

“Brother,” Genji interrupts his thoughts. Hanzo grunts in acknowledgement, glances over, and taps the name tag pinned to the flimsy shirt. The archer raises an eyebrow.

“Greg? You don’t look like a Greg.”

Genji sighs, the robotic quality of the action the only hint he had changed in ten years, “I am aware. Winston couldn’t even give me a cool ninja name. I’m sure you got a cool ninja name assigned to your fake papers.”

Hanzo deadpans, “You don’t even know the half of it.”

They are not yet brothers. They haven’t regained that fragile equilibrium they once had in Hanamura, but what matters is that bit by bit, hurdle by hurdle, the two Shimadas are beginning to reclaim what was lost long ago. There are moments of fighting, screaming, where Hanzo will stomp off for weeks without so much of a word to his brother.  But then there is also this: quiet moments that remind Hanzo so much of home.

In the lull of conversation, the archer catches McCree’s eyes. Something about this strikes a similar chord: home, but perhaps in another place. The man sends him a wink and finger guns in return. Hanzo pointedly ignores it.

However, Genji refuses to let the gesture slide.

“Hm, McCree is quite the charmer, wouldn’t you agree?”

Hanzo snorts, “Do not stroke his ego with such lies.”

“Ah, but see, you are picking up on his idioms.”

“A slip of the tongue,”

“I bet he wouldn’t mind a slip of your tongue.”

That earns the cyborg a light shove, and a sharp “Genji,” from the archer. The chiding only seems to spur him on more.

“Soon you’ll start going to honky-tonks and wearing boots. You might even end up liking—”

“Do not say it.”

“—country music.”

“How dare you.”

Genji laughs at his own joke, hands on his hips with his head thrown back. The noise differs from when they were children, but nonetheless, Hanzo allows himself a private smile. Another echo of the past.

“How is vacation treating you? I would say which season of vacation, but your lawn ornaments clash with both ideas. All ideas, actually.”

“If this is a vacation,” Hanzo says, “then I am a fool for being dragged into it.”

“More like lassoed,” Genji comments back. “How is your… roommate? I warned him against wearing boots indoors. And about the lack of a rice cooker.”

A snicker, “Well, he did not heed your words.”

Genji’s gaze is prying, unrelinquishing of the conversation. The archer cannot change the subject now, not when his brother knows him far too well for his own good. He sighs; there is no point in lying.

“It has not been as awful as I had first perceived it to be. McCree is draining, a bit of a handful, but it is not out of spite.”

There is more he could let slip; that the man is kind to a fault, who understands Hanzo’s creeping despair and can raise his spirits like spinning straw into gold, or any one of the various habits the archer had taken careful note of. He could let slip how he was coming to find himself comfortable in the cowboy’s boisterous company.

Instead he clears he throat and offers this: “He talks too much.”

Genji bites back a laugh as he shakes his head, aware he knows more about his brother than the man himself has even realized. For once, he’s glad his visor hides the smug quirk of his lips; to watch the events unfold between his brother and the cowboy will be interesting to say the least.

--

“Repeat it.”

“Do I really have to?”

“You were the one asleep through the mission briefing,” Hanzo grumbles, shouldering his bow.

“Not my fault Mercy has the dullest debriefing voice,” McCree shoots back.

“I heard that,” Fareeha and Angela call over the comm line in perfect unison.

He holds back a groan, tapping through the points on his fingers, “Get in. Search for evidence while Paul and Linda are asleep. Nab anything of importance for further analysis. And get out in one piece."

“Very good,” Hanzo throws him a bone: a rare compliment and a smile before cracking open a window the Jones’ family had neglected to lock. The archer slides in first; if anyone could make the deplorable art of breaking and entering a smooth, clean job, it’s him.

McCree enters with much less finesse; the cowboy’s just thankful he manages to hit the ground feet first. When his eyes adjust to the dim cover of night they operate under, he lets out a short, low whistle.

“Y’all never said these guys were loaded in the files.”

Hanzo snorts, “Did the gold plated ‘live, laugh, love’ sign above the door evade you?” He smacks away the gunslinger’s hand when he moves with outstretched arms in the direct of a vase. “And do not touch anything.”

“You heard the man, McCree,” D.Va’s voice crackles to life in their ears, “hands off. That means even off of each other, you two.”

“Yeah, Han,” the cowboy grins cheekily, “stop touching me.”

A sigh, “I am nowhere near you.” He steps away for emphasis, motions to the space between them.

“Brother,” another voice, this time Genji’s adding his input, “please keep it professional. We are on a mission.”

He can practically hear how tight Hanzo’s teeth are clenched, “I assure you all, I am keeping my hands to myself.”

“Sweetheart, stop caressing my thigh. You heard ‘em. Wait until we’re back at home.”

“I am not—,” Hanzo seethes, but is cut off short by the unmistakable sound of footsteps.

Footsteps that are neither his, nor McCree’s.

The archer’s voice dies in his throat.

A shadow, broad shouldered, the perfect silhouette of the man of the house, looms at the end of the hall and grows steadily smaller with each step forward. Hanzo’s eyes pinpoint the means of entry: the staircase, sharp and angled out in their direction.

They have few precious seconds before being spotted, and even fewer escape routes. Careless, Hanzo scolds. Each mission had been so tedious and drawn-out, he had allowed himself to become inattentive.

McCree is quicker to take initiative. Any lesser man, and Hanzo wouldn’t have let him. But this is the cowboy. He is across the room in a heartbeat, guiding Hanzo backwards, throwing open the nearest door, and plunging them both into the darkness of the closet. The gunslinger clicks the door shut behind them just as the downstairs light comes to life.

It’s only there, in the pitch-blackness, that the pair register Reinhardt’s words through the comm: “Are you two all right? I thought I heard commotion on your end.”

Hanzo opens his mouth to answer, but the sharp squeeze from the gunslinger’s hands on his hips warn him against it. He catches the slow shake of McCree’s head. Their mutual understanding runs deeper than spoken words, enough to translate: stay quiet. Funny, Hanzo blinks, shouldn’t that piece of advice be the other way around?

A shadow darts across, then another. A pair of feet, floorboards creaking underneath their weight, obscure the thin sliver of light leaking from underneath the doorway. Hat half-concealing his face, McCree’s eyes track the noise with his pupils, his back pressed flat against the door.

The cowboy’s stern expression doesn’t drop until the footsteps have long sense passed and they hear the distant roar of the microwave. He lets out a long slow breath, shoulders slumping forward in relief as the casual, crooked grin reclaims his features.

“A midnight snack?” Hanzo asks, jerking his head in the direction of the footfalls.

“Gotta work in the daily cheese sampling platter,” the cowboy replies dryly, tipping his hat back. Then his grin doubles, “I’ve heard of close calls,” he gestures to the nonexistent distance between them, “but I get the feelin’ this ain’t what they meant by it.” Hanzo grimaces harder than is humanly possible at the pun.

The comm crackles in their ears, thankfully drowning out McCree's bad jokes. The channel resounds static before Pharah’s voice calls, “Hello? Agent Hanzo? Jesse? Do you copy? Over.”

“We copy,” Hanzo whispers back, voice almost inaudible.

“Hanzo,” its Mercy this time, “speak up, we can hardly hear you over the line. Should we intervene?”

“Nah,” McCree says, “we’re just in a bit of a pickle at the moment. Don’t need any help, remain on stand-by. Over and out.”

With a click, he thumbs the communicator off. It takes all of two seconds before Hanzo is on his case again. 

“A bit of a pickle?” Hanzo hisses, “We could be discovered any second.”

“Relax. Don’t you got some freaky ninja shit or something that can hit his pressure points and put him right to sleep?”

Hanzo’s eyes narrow in exasperation, “I have a knife. Do you want me to stab him? Do you want me to stab our neighbor, McCree? Is that what you had in mind for our escape?”

The cowboy blinks. And here McCree thought getting stuck in a closet with Hanzo would result in something sexy. In reality, it only resulted in more lip, and not even the kind he was after.

But McCree can’t help himself.

“What, was that one a little too close for comfort?”

With a subdued growl, Hanzo shoves the gunslinger. Or at least, tries to. He severely miscalculates the distance between them, sending the archer ricocheting off McCree’s chest in the opposite direction. He stumbles, elegant dragon almost slipping.

Catching himself on a shelf, Hanzo manages to halt his descent. Something rectangular digs into the meat of his hand. Bent-over backwards in an awkward and unpleasant angle, his wide eyes find the cowboy’s. Then arms are being looped around him, pulling him back to his feet until they are flushed chest to chest.

Hanzo slicks down his hair, holds his head high and shoulders back, eyes daring the gunslinger to call him out. McCree holds back a laugh, reminded of his childhood cat taking one misstep off the top of the fridge and smacking onto the floor before getting up and trotting away like the mistake was all part of his plan. He wonders how much of Japanese folklore features dragons falling flat on their scaly asses.

Instead, he takes the more sensitive route.

“Shimada, that may have been one of the most spectacular fuck ups I have ever had the pleasure of watchin’.”

Okay, so maybe not the most tactile string of words to come out of his mouth. But that should be a given for the cowboy. Hanzo’s hands tense against his chest, ready to strike out again.

“Whoa there,” McCree leans in closer, “don’t want a reoccurrence of that last event, do you?”

“I was reaching for my knife,” Hanzo mutters, voice hard, “I was going to take your advice and put it to good use.”

“Harsh, sweetheart.” The threat doesn’t wipe the grin off his face, he’s accustomed to them by now.

The pitter patter of bare feet on tile return just outside their hiding place.

The shadow crosses the door and halts.

Hanzo’s pinned hand stills along with the rise and fall of the cowboy’s chest. McCree holds his breath, eyes shut, willing the person so precariously close to uncovering their secret to take two measly steps back and continue on with his night.

Whether by divine intervention, or just dumb luck, the homeowner does just that: leaves, none the wiser to the two secret agents cooped up in his storage closet, pressed up against… Hanzo takes a moment to take inventory, feeling backwards with his free hand—golf clubs? Of course they are golf clubs. He might as well have asked if fish breathe underwater.

Sandwiched between a bag of golf clubs and a cowboy: Overwatch was truly an eventful experience. Still, he’d take it over their couch any day.

Only when the footfalls have retreated upstairs, and they hear the telling click of the bedroom door slide shut, does McCree let out his breath. He fumbles blindly for a moment, removing his cybernetic hand from Hanzo’s hip until it clinks against metal.

“Bingo,” the cowboy turns the doorknob. The hallway reappears, blissfully spacious compared to the previous. The two move as a unit: creeping into the house once more, peering around the corner, and only relaxing when the coast is clear.

“Yet another problem avoided thanks me,” McCree settles his skewed hat on his head, “You’re welcome.”

“Luck,” Hanzo corrects. As if startled, his eyes flicker down, and then back up again.

The archer clears his throat.

“Oh,” the cowboy mutters lamely, realizing his hands were still clinging to the other man’s hips. “Sorry, my bad.” He pulls away reluctantly, praying it doesn’t show. He wants to smooch the dragon, not have his head bitten off and left for dead in the suburbs. So he lets go, takes a step back, and focuses on the most interesting thing possible: the floor.

Another stroke of dumb luck: the comm beeps.

McCree presses against the device in his ear, “Sorry for leavin’ you guys hangin’, I just got out of the closet.”

“Congratulations!” Reinhardt applies with an abundance of enthusiasm. “Though, I was unaware that was a new thing.”

“Jesse, you came out years ago. I was there.” Pharah comments dryly.

“As was I,” Genji agrees.

“Everyone was there,” Mercy sighs into the comm.

The gunslinger rolls his eyes, glad for once the rest of the team can’t see the stupid grin plastered across his face, “Will y’all ever quit teasin’ me?”

“Never.” D.Va calls, smirk apparent even through his ears.

“Couldn’t even if I wanted to,” Lúcio adds in.

Across the room, unaware of the friendly ribbing, Hanzo battles the collapsing feeling in his stomach, as if the world is somehow a colder place when he is not connected to the cowboy. In his moment of confusion, his hands clench, one palm curling around something.

He blinks, unfolds his palm and holds the item before his eyes.

“Whatcha got there?” McCree asks, leaning over his shoulder as he squints at the small object in the other man’s hand. Hanzo holds it up higher, silhouetted against the hallway light.

“I believe,” the archer says, lowering the grey rectangle once more, “this is a flash drive.” He turns, hand open for McCree to inspect it himself.

In the middle of the sleek surface is a brand: a blue ‘V’, adorned with a large, light crystal hovering above the logo. He’d know that symbol anywhere. After all, it had been shown in every debriefing, on numerous missions lining the uniforms of the enemy, the very reason for their visit in the first place.

Vishkar.

“Is this what I think it is?” McCree’s eyes search Hanzo’s for any hint of a joke, any sign that this was too good to be true.

Hanzo only gives him a soft smile in return; a silent promise. It’s true.

They had found their evidence.

--

“The drive will be in Winston’s hands shortly,” Mercy explains once they’ve all grouped back together at the designated meeting place: the lemonade stand. “Satya was kind enough to let us borrow one of her smaller teleporters for this specific use, and is connecting it back home as we speak.”

“We will have results soon then?” Hanzo asks, arms crossed tight across his chest. Tension practically radiates off of him. Not that the team could blame the archer; he had been the one to find their holy grail after all. If it wasn’t a fake, it could be just the clue they needed to proceed with final raid, and then recovery.

They could be going home as soon as the next morning.

Something about that doesn’t settle right with Hanzo: packing up and leaving, gone without a trace. He pushes down the way his stomach twists. Just another job, he reminds himself. Another step towards redemption.

“Surely this drive is the real deal,” the cowboy voices as he breathes out a cloud of smoke, lit cigar burning idly in his hand. “No one just has Vishkar information drives just laying around their home. This has gotta be our big break.”

“Have patience. Winston will be able to point us in the correct direction,” Reinhardt pats him on the back, the cowboy’s cigar tumbles to the ground from the force of it. With a muttered curse, McCree stomps it out with the heel of his boot, refusing to meet Angela’s smug look.

“In this house,” Pharah runs through it again, steepling her fingers, “you found nothing out of the ordinary? No odd doors, hatches, hastily covered openings?”

Hanzo shakes his head, “No deviations, identical to any other house on the block.”

“Well, to be fair the only part we got a good look at was the inside of the closet. And maybe the hallway.”

“We could send out a second team,” Lúcio suggests, still bouncing on his heels in anticipation. “Scope out the place real quick and rush back before the sun rises. In and out before anyone notices.”

“It could work,” Genji agrees. “I would also like to volunteer for—what did you call it?”

“Breaking and Entering: Speedrun Edition,” Hana clarifies, earning a snort from the musician.

Mercy firmly intervenes, “No. For all we know it could be some sort of decoy or dud. Winston will know what this drive contains soon enough after Athena has done some decoding. I suggest,” the medic demonstrates the very same voice she uses when ‘suggesting’ an injection induced nap to those who refuse to get bedrest, “that we stay put in our current positions.”

McCree grimaces. “What, so you just want us to stand around with our dicks in our hands?”

“That can’t possibly be an idiom. This has to be some sort of conspiracy against me,” Hanzo drags a hand over his face, trying to drown out D.Va unbridled giggling.

“Vulgar, but it is,” Angela sighs. “I don’t expect you to do quite that, but do refrain anything idiotic or hasty.” The medic’s eyes focus directly on Jesse, her intentions clear: no more Christmas or fish mailbox incidents.

Reinhardt lets out a thoughtful hum, fingers running through his beard. He perks up as if struck with an idea, snapping his fingers, “How about we all head inside and await Winston’s confirmation over some drinks? There is no point in separating when Winston will want to contact all of us in a few short hours, ja?”

“That sounds like a good idea if I have ever heard one,” Pharah nods along, giving them her first smile of the night. “Wine?”

“Wine, beer, whatever your preference,” Reinhardt motions to the door.

“We have a cabinet.”

That’s how Hanzo finds himself sipping wine with none other than the BFG (big friendly German), watching, but not so much as listening, as McCree entertains an engrossed audience of Genji, Hana, and Lúcio with tall-tales.

From the corner of his eyes, he spots Mercy try to subdue a very clingy and far-gone Pharah. The two women are cuddled up on the stairs, Fareeha’s arms wounds so tightly against the medic they might as well overlap a second and third time. Hanzo smiles against the rim of his glass, downing the remainder of his second glass. It took them long enough. He wonders whether he should congratulate them in person or simply write the wedding invitations himself and save them the hassle.

With a broad sweep of his arm, Hanzo is drawn back into the cowboy’s story.

“There I was,” McCree casts his solemn gaze across the room, “headin’ back to my campsite in the middle of the night, when I hear the most ungodly noise. The kind of sound that hurts the back of your teeth, like somethin’ yowlin’ in agony. And as I get closer, I start to realize it’s my horse. Never, in all my life have I heard a horse scream in such a manner. Still get goosebumps thinkin’ about it today.”

McCree shudders for effect. The archer takes in Hana’s petrified face, the girl clutching onto Genji for support. Hanzo holds back a laugh; a taste of her own medicine so it would seem.

“So I dash in,” the gunslinger speaks so suddenly Lúcio jumps in his seat, “guns ablazin’, ready to kick out some coyotes, but by the time I get there it’s gone. Vanished. I run my usual pat down for Clementine, check her back, her hooves. I get about a quarter of the way down one of her back thighs before I notice the bite marks.”

Another pause, McCree twisting the gap in conversation to aid in his dramatics. He holds up his hand, flicking down two fingers.

“Three of ‘em, puncture marks that is. Arranged like a triangle, mighty deep and each one still bleedin’. Now, I’m no doctor, that’s why we got Angela here.” He motions over his shoulder to the medic, “but she’s a bit busy at the moment so I’ll tell you myself.”

He leans in across the coffee table, the rest of the room gravitating with him, “Ain’t no creature in the desert, or any other place in the world, that has three fangs right in the middle of its face. Not in that arrangement, not meant to drill that deep.”

Then McCree sits back, takes another gulp of his drink, and gives the three his practiced thousand-yard stare.

“And?” Genji urges. Hanzo swears he sees the antennas atop his head twitch in anticipation.

“Chupacabra,” the cowboy states matter-of-factly.

D.Va snorts, snapped out of her trance, “Oh, come off it. Of all the monsters to pick, a Chupacabra? Really?”

McCree raises his right hand, “I swear it’s the truth. Those things span from California to Mexico to Texas. Even in Santa Fe. They take up anything that’s desert, lookin’ for stray livestock or other things dumb enough to wander into their path.”

His eyes flash, “Like rabbits.”

“Okay, now I know you’re just messing with me!” Hana chides, giving a genial punch to McCree’s arm.

“I’d just be careful walkin’ outside at night if I were you, little missy. Don’t know what kind of things lurk out there.” McCree wiggles his fingers in feigned menace. Genji hovers a hand under the cowboy’s whiskery chin, the green glow emitted giving off the same effect as a flashlight under one’s face.

That’s all it takes; McCree breaks his serious façade with a deep laugh. The rest follow, even Hanzo finds himself grinning along, hiding his smile behind the glass. Warmth floods the pit of the stomach, something he blames on the wine and certainly not because of the way McCree’s face lights up.

Reinhardt sighs so softly, the archer mistakes him for another teammate. He has never heard the man do something quiet in his life.

The knight’s lips pull upwards the slightest bit, wistful, “I will miss this.”

That doesn’t quite satisfy Hanzo’s questioning stare, “What do you mean?”

“Missions like these come and go, a bit too fast for my liking.” He sets down his massive mug, “As much as I love the thrill of battle, protecting my family, it is nice to take these breaks every once in a while. No fighting, just, this.” Reinhardt motions to the rest of the group, joking amongst themselves, huddled close together. “I will be sad to see it go so soon.”

That slinking, cool feeling returns, the warmth draining from his body. In a short amount of time, maybe even tomorrow morning, they will be on the transporter back to Gibraltar. He will leave Arcadia behind, the world’s ugliest couch and all. He will relinquish being an Eastwood.

The feeling claws its way up his throat, digging in, threatening to choke him. Hanzo drowns it with another glass, retreating into the pleasant buzz he is beginning to perceive just below his skin.

He needs a cigarette. Some comfy pants.

And maybe another drink.

 --

The moment Genji rises from his seat, arms full of dishes from the table, Hanzo takes his place. More specifically, he leans against McCree. The cowboy blinks back surprise, an arm hooking around his metallic one, a cheek pressed against his shoulder.

“Howdy,” he jokes, sharing an amused look with Lúcio before turning back to the man pressed against his side, “Ain’t seen you around these parts in a while.”

“We live in the same house,” Hanzo speaks slowly, like his tongue is tangled in his mouth. “I see you and that dumb cowboy hat every day.”

“Hey, there’s nothing wrong with my Stetson. She’s my pride and joy,” McCree defends.

The archer hums in response, his free, uncoordinated hand resting atop McCree’s head for a split second. Then, in one swift motion, he pulls the hat free and tosses it across the room. Mercy gives an indignant squawk as it smacks her in the face.

“Ridiculous,” is all Hanzo manages to say before burrowing closer.

Hana’s smile spans from ear to ear, “Oh. My. God.”

“Is he…” Lúcio asks, trailing off as he bites his lips to stop from laughing.

“Yep,” McCree answers, “Drunk as Aunt Deborah at Christmas Dinner.”

Swapping an amused look with the musician, D.Va says, “Wow, I never took Hanzo for a wine mom.”

Hanzo sits up, suddenly the regal, scowling dragon once more, “Pfah, I am not… whatever that is. Nor am I intoxicated. I simply took what Reinhardt allowed me to have.” Reinhardt, who is passed out and loudly snoring in his reclining chair, fails to vouch for him.

Lúcio tosses a blanket in the knight’s direction before turning back around, “You know, I went to this rave one time where I could see the bar from my set-up. I saw these two girls stack at least fifteen shot glasses on their drunk friend’s forehead before they toppled over. It’s part of why I don’t drink.”

“You would be dead before anyone could try that with me,” Hanzo growls, even as he wobbles the archer keeps his intimidating aura.

“Yeah. We’d have to wait ‘til he’s sleeping.” McCree says, earning a constricting squeeze to his arm.

“I have weapons at my disposal.”

“Your bow is still packed back at the house, darlin’.”

“I am always armed.”

McCree snorts, “You and what army?”

Hanzo, dark eyes narrowed and mouth pinched into the most serious countenance he can manage, forms his hand into a finger gun and dramatically points it in the cowboy’s direction.

McCree sputters, tries his damnedest not to laugh, catches the earnest look on Hanzo’s face, and completely loses it. He clutches his chest as he laughs, body shaking with the effort. Surprisingly enough, at least to Hana and Lúcio, Hanzo doesn’t end his life right then and there. Instead, the archer succumbs as well, nuzzling closer as he allows his own quiet laughter to fade against the cowboy’s neck.

Genji picks that precise moment to walk back in through the kitchen doorway. He freezes, does a double take, would rub his eyes if they were not behind his visor. His brother, in a good mood AND initiating public displays of affection? There can be only one explanation.

“He is drunk,” he says simply, pausing before the couch.

“As a skunk,” Lúcio confirms.

“And we still haven’t heard from Winston?”

“Not a word.” Lúcio shakes his head, “I’m startin’ to think I should have stayed behind just to give Athena a hand with gettin’ it through their software. At this rate they won’t be through until sunrise.”

“That may be for the best,” his gaze comes to rest at Hanzo. “I believe some of our members will be incapacitated until then.” Genji frowns; his brother does not drink for fun. His brother drinks because he thinks about his life.

McCree doesn’t have to see Genji’s face to know what the man is feeling; he mimics the same concern. Is there something he doesn’t know?

Said concern doubles, almost triples, when Hanzo giggles, honest to God giggles. He points to McCree’s sullen face, losing his balance halfway and ending up poking the cowboy on the nose, “TFW no cowboy hat…”

“Oh, no. He’s memeing,” Genji laments; Hana and Lúcio remain slack-jawed. “You have to take him home. Immediately. It only goes downhill from here.” The younger Shimada fetches the cowboy’s hat from the stairwell.

Genji pulls his brother up, the man muttering in Japanese as he wobbles. With his prosthetics, Hanzo has the grace of a newborn deer. He stumbles; the whole team rushes to catch him, each steadying a different part of the man.

“I am fine,” Hanzo says stiffly, obviously not fine. They help him to the door, McCree with a firm hold around his waist as Hana opens the door.

“I got this wicked hang over cure, come see me in the morning and I’ll fix Shimada right up!” Lúcio calls, giving the cowboy a pat on the back as they make their way out the door.

“Yeah, and make sure he doesn’t die!” Hana adds enthusiastically, waving from the doorway.

Genji helps them past the last few stairs leading off the stone porch, before he pauses. He offers one final piece of advice: “Godspeed,” before ducking back inside of Reinhardt’s home and closing the door in his wake.

For once, it is not McCree to break the steady silence between them.

“You will hate me in the morning for this.” Hanzo Shimada is pouting. The archer practically falls slack in his grip while McCree fumbles for the right thing to say, turbines smoking in his brain. “Perhaps you already hate me.” He looks down to the asphalt under their feet, “I would not blame you.”

Finally, the gunslinger manages, “Cut that out, Shimada. There ain’t a single bone in my body that dislikes you. I don’t think I could bring myself to hate you even if I tried. You know that, right?”

Hanzo doesn’t answer, only places a hand on the cowboy’s opposite shoulder to steady himself. McCree tightens his grip, thankful that Hanzo is too far gone to scold him over his forgotten use of their warning system.

“Where did your hat come from?”

“It doesn’t just disappear forever when you lob it at the nearest person. I got it back,” McCree clarifies, tipping the item in question.

A snort, “You are a ridiculous man.”

“So you’ve said before.”

“And I will say it a million times over: everything about you is ridiculous.”

“Sweetheart, you say it so fondly, I’m startin’ to think it’s a compliment.”

“Perhaps it is,” the coy look Hanzo gives him, dark eyes looking up through darker eyelashes, is enough to almost make his heart stop. He’s starting to think he’s breached the single scale in the dragon’s armor when the archer pulls himself from McCree’s grip altogether, pausing in the middle of the street.

“Is Helen outside?”

“Hanzo, it’s 2 in the mornin’.”

“She could be awake. I am just checking. I do not think I could stop myself from ripping her highlights out in my current state.”

“Han—”

“She wears heels to hide her cloven hooves.”

“I know.”

“She once started a conversation with, ‘want to know some coleslaw facts’. Coleslaw facts, McCree.”

“She only listens to NPR and has those little stick-figure families on the back of her minivan. I know, Hanzo. Trust me.”

“We should go tear them off. No one would know.”

“No,” McCree holds out the vowel, hands on the archer’s shoulders to steer him back in the direction of their home. “Not tonight. Maybe some other time, but for now we gotta get you home and into bed.”

Hanzo groans, allows the cowboy to guide him the rest of the walk home, only forcing the man to pause once to give the fish mailbox a gentle caress. Then it’s up the stairs, through the bright red door, and back in their living room.

“Home sweet home,” McCree mutters.

Hanzo gives a short bark of a laugh, “Henry would want that embroidered on a couch pillow.”

“I can picture Joey with the needlework now,” the cowboy humors him, releasing the unsteady archer. “We need to focus gettin’ you settled for the night.” McCree eyes the stairwell, and then a slightly swaying Hanzo.

He comes to one conclusion: he’s going to have to carry the dragon.

McCree moves, prepared to toss the inebriated man over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes.

Hanzo is faster, snatching the gunslinger’s outstretched arm and flipping him. McCree’s back hits the floor, the man giving a sharp wheeze as the breath is knocked out of him. He coughs, sputters, grabs at his chest.

“What the hell was that for,” he manages between harsh breaths. Hanzo looks down his nose at McCree, eyes narrowed, carefully toeing at his ribcage. Somewhere in-between the unsteady footsteps and the laughter, the cowboy had forgotten his companion was a trained assassin.

“I thought you might be planning a surprise attack.”

“Christ, Shimada, I was just gonna lift you!”

“Oh,” Hanzo offers instead of an apology.

Sighing, McCree heaves himself back off the floor, “Well, c’mon then. Let’s get you to bed.”

“No.”

“What?”

“Do not lift me.”

“Why the hell not?”

“It is dishonorable.”

The cowboy places his hat on coffee table, running a hand through his tangled locks. Jesse McCree has half a mind to fireman’s carry Hanzo’s ass up the stairs despite his protests. He exhales slowly, wrestles with his temper. Even if Hanzo wasn’t exactly in the right state of mind, he would have been just as difficult.

“Okay, how about this.” McCree guides the archer to the couch, pressing on his shoulders to make the man take a seat, “You can sleep here on the couch, and I’ll fix something up for myself on the floor.”

“No.”

McCree feels like banging his head against the wall, “And why not?”

“Because it mocks me.”

Another sigh, “The couch?” The wall is looking more favorable by the second.

“Yes. I’m certain it is going be the death of me,” Hanzo says in such a serious tone all the cowboy can do is put his head in his hands.

“I’m certain you are going to be the death of me, sweetheart.”

The archer blinks, thoroughly stumped, “What makes you so convinced?”           

Hanzo doesn’t understand the magnitude of his question, how it makes McCree clam up, as if he’s a kid staring Death down the barrel of his gun all over again. The cowboy bites the inside of his cheek, slippery as an eel, evading the answer on the tip of his tongue. There are some things better left unsaid.

“Because, I got a feelin’ in my gut,” he offers instead of the truth, then turns the subject on its head. “Where are you sleepin’ tonight, Han? It’s either the couch or the floor, pick your poison.”

Belligerently, Hanzo lies back, “I will be taking the plaid poison.”

“Alrighty,” McCree nods, “I’ll go get you some blankets.”

Before he can leave, a hand fastens around his wrist. Hanzo’s hand.

“Halt.”

The cowboy turns back, exasperation leaking through the cracks, “C’mon darlin’, you gotta get some sleep.”

“You are the antidote.”

McCree shakes his head, at a loss for words, “I’m sorry?”

Hanzo rolls his eyes as if it’s the simplest thing to understand in the world. Then, he gives a sharp tug.

McCree does not ensnare the dragon; it happens very much the other way around. One moment he is on his feet and the next he is not, pinned beneath the 200 pounds of muscle and self-hatred that is Hanzo. Once again, it’s a lot less sexy than he has imagined; it’s more of the fact that Hanzo needs a pillow and is too impatient to settle for anything else.

The cowboy stills, lets the archer bend and curl how he wants until the man is sated: nestled in the crook of his arm, his head on the gunslinger’s chest. Hanzo breathes a content sigh, huddles closer. Jesse himself begins to unwind, despite the fact he feels as if he has gifted a thief the key to his ribcage and is praying his heart isn’t pilfered.

“Why do they call you a cowboy and not a cowman,” Hanzo says, voice slurred ever so slightly. “You do not even ride cows.”

McCree gets halfway through explaining it derives from the Spanish word vaquero, before he notices Hanzo is fast asleep against his chest.

“Lord have mercy,” he mumbles against the top of Hanzo’s inky hair, “he’s gonna be the death of me.”

--

McCree awakes in the afternoon to a dead left arm, drool on his shirt, and the insistent beeping sound of a new text on his phone. The archer is still nestled close. For a moment, he doesn’t think he could get happier.

However, this is short lived.

He slides out from under Hanzo, unlocking his screen with a thumb before scrolling through his inbox.  He clicks on the contact “Lil Sis’ with a rocket emoji: Pharah. Her words are precise, blunt, and to the point.

‘The drive was empty. Possibly a decoy. I will keep you updated. Stay low today, Jack’s orders.’

His blood runs cold; all that work for nothing.

Another dead end.

What the cowboy doesn’t feel is the couch dipping behind him. Nor does he catch the archer’s eyes as they flicker over the message, reading through each word. When McCree finally does glance back, he startles, heart nearly jumping out of his chest.

“Hey,” McCree offers lamely.

Hanzo stares at him dead in the eye, rises, and leaves without a word.

The next eight preceding hours are some of the longest in McCree’s life.

Hanzo runs down three of them, taking the longest shower in history. He hears the archer turn off, pause, and restart the water no less than seven times. The cowboy considers calling up world record books, not only for the time, but for the amount their water bill will be this month. With the complimenting fee from the electric company, Winston should expect nothing less.

He realizes about five hours in, three of Hanzo showering and two of locking himself away upstairs, that the other is actively avoiding him. Wracking his brain, McCree whittles down another hour and a half recalling every event of the night, anything and everything said.

Where had he slipped up?

What had he done to make Hanzo revert back to his original, distant self? Had they not spent tentative months overcoming the status of ‘strangers’, only to wind up here, just as withdrawn?

It hits him amidst a bitter laugh; maybe they are getting divorced.

McCree is no coward; if he is anything, it is a fool who faces things with a bit too much tenacity.  

So, after steeling himself and a lot of pacing, he marches upstairs and knocks on Hanzo’s door.

There is no answer.

“Hey, Han? Hanzo?”

No response. McCree clears his throat and tries again.

“Are we gonna talk this out? If I said or did anything last night that upset you, I’m sorry. Just tell me what I did wrong.” He swallows his pride, “Please?”

The silence is deafening.

McCree takes off his hat, holds it anxiously in a hand, thumbing against the fabric, “We didn’t—we didn’t do anything last night if that’s what you’re wondering. We didn’t… knock boots.” He curses himself for picking the worst metaphor for sex possible, grimacing as he slumps against the door.

“Listen, sweetheart,” the cowboy starts, a hand on the door knob. He’s shocked speechless when it actually turns, unlocked through his whole apology. He waits for it to slam in his face, to hear Hanzo yell out for him to freeze from the other side. But he is met with no resistance.

He enters. Stops in his tracks.

The room is empty.

“That bastard,” McCree mumbles, boots clinking against the carpet as he moves to stare out over the lawn. A breeze brushes in, past the open window frame and into the vacant room, and the even emptier yard below.

Hanzo had plunged down a two story wall just to avoid discourse.

--

His first stop is at Reinhardt’s.

Hanzo breezes in and out the door so fast D.Va mistakes him for the Chupacabra, ripped from a game of StarCraft with an undignified gasp before falling out of her seat. All in all, he only mutters two words: “Hangover cure.”

Lúcio points him in the direction of the fridge, the archer uncovering a thermos adorned with a sticky note that featured his name and a smiley face.

He snatches it and dashes back out the door.

Jogging down the street, Hanzo drinks it all in one go, grimaces at the taste. Not his best idea, but it does quell his nausea. As for the sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach, well, that doesn’t go away quite so easily. Not even when he’s lapped the neighborhood three times.

On the fourth he sees her: red hair tied in a high pony-tail, plastic weights in either hands, still wearing those god damn high heels.

Helen.

She spots him, slows to match his pace, and holds the eye contact, like two boxers circling the ring, testing which one will be the first to strike. Hanzo is not one to back down from a challenge.

“Good morning Helen. Lovely day for a jog.”

“Henry,” Helen acknowledges curtly. “I haven’t seen you around. I figured you had gone blind from your little incident on Monday.”

“Joey and I were simply getting into the spirit. My eyes are still intact.”

“Dressed like that? I think your vision left you years ago.”  

Hanzo steadies himself, taking a deep breath. He doesn’t need this right now, doesn’t have time for it, especially with his pounding headache.

“Have you heard the forecast for today, Helen? An eighty percent chance of rain. Do you have an umbrella?”

“Why, did the money from your last husband’s will run out? Can't even afford an umbrella?”

“No,” Hanzo keeps his voice steady, his eyes betraying his true intentions, “I was only worried you might melt.”

Helen squeezes her weights so tightly, the archer is convinced synthetic sand will burst from the pressure, “You know, I called the fire department about your house. They wouldn’t even believe that someone could be so mindless to pull a stunt like that.”

“You can only call them so many times over a burnt casserole before they stop arriving at all, Helen.”

“How’s your husband? Were the Good and the Bad already taken?”

“How’s your husband? Have you tried out some of the interchangeable hairstyles yet or have you just settled for Mediocre Blond?”

Helen’s jog has become more of a furious stomp, Hanzo’s headache pounding with every sharp click of her heels, “It was good to see you Henry, but just like you ruined the neighborhood, you are ruining my after dinner jog. Goodnight.”

Watching her go, Hanzo lingers on the curb as she enters the house and slams her door shut. He grits his teeth together as he feel rage build. The dragons urge him on; facing withdrawal from their usual battles, they are forced to settle on a petty fight with a housewife. And there's no time like the present. 

He tosses the thermos to the asphalt.

She picked the wrong day to mess with him. Hanzo is the right amount of pissed and emotionally compromised to be galvanized into action.

Hanzo marches down the walkway leading to her house, taking extra care to step on her flowers, before ringing the doorbell. The musical chime only adds to his fury.

Helen throws open the door, mouth open as she stares at the archer before her. Hanzo steels himself, the force of his glower making the woman’s words die in her throat. It is no matter, he doesn’t need her input. He is only here to pass along some news.

“Your husband is fucking the maid.”

He reaches for the doorknob and closes the door himself, taking one last glance to savor the aghast look on Helen’s face.

Then he is gone again. 

--

McCree suddenly feels very much like a trophy husband as he sits on his favorite couch, anxiously fidgeting, waiting for the archer to return. He’s made up his mind: he’s going to confront Hanzo, no way around it.

Of course, all semblance of the conversation he had carefully stitched together goes flying out the window when Hanzo finally arrives. More specifically, when McCree gets a look at the man’s frazzled expression.

The cowboy stops dead in his tracks, “What’s wrong?”

“Everything,” Hanzo hisses.

McCree pauses. He’s had the plan in the works for quite some time, especially after Hanzo’s comment at the dinner party. He shakes his head, guides the man to the table. He’s gonna need to take a seat for this. Desperate times call for desperate measures.

“Alright, darlin’, I think I got somethin’ that will cheer you up.”

--

The neighborhood is soundly asleep in their beds when Hanzo and McCree break into Helen’s home.

“It’s not robbery if we don’t take anything,” McCree explains. “Just some… interior design. Except exterior.”

They unscrew the doorframe, slip the couch out, and replace the door all without waking their bountiful suppliers. Once that’s finished, there’s only one thing left to do: drag the couch out onto the lawn and wait for the morning. The sprinklers will take care of the rest.

In the meantime…

McCree flops back onto the ivory sofa, patting the empty space next to himself. Hanzo, instead, takes the far end. But the cowboy will settle for nothing less.

He lays back, sure to rub his muddy boots against the cushions before settling his head in Hanzo’s lap.

“See? What did I tell you? No one even noticed we broke in.”

“I didn’t doubt that part,” Hanzo sighs, giving in to McCree's whims as he absentmindedly curls his fingers through the cowboy’s brown locks. “I am only surprised that Heath was not asleep on it.”

“What was that, sweetheart?”

“Nothing.” The archer’s blunt nails drag ever so slightly over his scalp. McCree hums happily in response.

A moment passes where all falls quiet once more. Hanzo focuses on the sky, letting his hands slip from the cowboy’s hair. He finds his thoughts drifting to the myths his father used to tell Genji and him before he grew too sick to visit every night.

One in particular stands out: a pair of stars as contrasting as the sun and moon, forever locked in an endless pursuit, chasing the other across the night sky. Never breaking the pattern. Never catching up or falling behind.

Hanzo closes his eyes. Is this how he and McCree are fated to act once they return, always out of the other’s grasp? They will be assigned different bases, separate missions, only allowed passing glances. Five days is all he has left. 120 hours. Had this been their only haven?

“Is this because of Genji?” McCree finally asks, knocking Hanzo from his thoughts like a comet from orbit. He puts himself back together. 

“Partially.” Then, stiffly, “Do not speak of what you don’t understand.”

“What? You think I wasn’t the first person after Mercy to hear the full story? Genji told me all about it. I’m no stranger to what happened between you two.”

He wonders to what extent McCree understands. Did he know that neither wanted the power the Shimada-gumi held, how Genji had always snuck back bits and pieces of the outside world so his brother could attempt some semblance of a normal life, how one was groomed from birth for the weight of the clan, but still ill prepared when he was shoved into place after his father’s untimely deathl? How similar they once were long ago? How Hanzo had let his bitterness consume him until he realized too late he’d destroyed the one person who he had ever allowed close to himself?

How scared he is that he might fall into the same pattern again.

There are too many variables, too many people willing to find a direct fault in either of them.

It comes down to this: he could have walked away, even if it meant being slaughtered along with his brother. But he had murdered Genji out of his own volition. There was no doubt in his mind who was at fault, his guilt was a precise indicator.

“I ain’t gonna water it down for you,” McCree mutters, and that’s fine, it’s what Hanzo wants. It’s better than the rest of the team tiptoeing around the subject as if it is nonexistent. “What you did was fucked, Han. He’s one of my best friends, I’m not gonna put it any other way. But the defining factor in this situation is that he forgave you.”

The cowboy lets out a laugh that is more heaving breathing than a sound, “Honestly, if he hadn’t have forgiven you, we wouldn’t even be having this conversation right now. We’d get along about as well as Junkrat and Bastion.”

“But that’s beside the point.” His smile becomes sour. McCree turns the opposite direction, so the archer cannot see his face. “You wanna hear a story?”

Hanzo snorts despite himself, “Would you stop your pestering tongue if I said ‘no’?”

McCree’s laugh is short, half muffled by his thighs, “You got me there, darlin’.”

The man pauses, collecting his thoughts. 

“Deadlock wasn’t exactly the nicest place in the world,” McCree begins. “I mean, hell, you oughtta know bein’ raised in a crime syndicate and all. Point is, they weren’t friendly people. Shoot first, ask questions second; didn’t matter who the hell you were. Can’t tell you how many times I saw kids younger than myself get their skulls blown to bits because they got mixed in with the wrong people or over an honest mistake. The gang just didn’t give a damn.

When I got in with Blackwatch, I thought it was gonna be different. Thought, ‘hey, Jesse, here’s your one chance at a clean slate, to not be a criminal for the rest of your life’.”

He pauses, swallows thickly, “But it wasn’t.”

“We did the dirty work. Kidnapping, torture, assassination, you name it. If there were bodies on the street from ‘fightin’ the good fight’, Blackwatch was behind it. And Reyes, bless his heart, he did what he could with what little we had. Went off his rocker a little after he lost his position, but he stuck up for us, kept together his rag-tag group of criminals. Hell, I thought we were close enough to be kin until the end there.

Things went South. I suppose that's what happens when you force men and women to keep in the shadows for so long, when we have to do everything Overwatch is too ashamed to admit to and still mop up the blood at the end of the day. There was talk of an inside job. Of an explosion. And then Gabe was gone. Jack too. I remember thinking ‘this is no redemption, I’m just diggin’ myself further in a hole’. And I sure as hell wasn’t gonna be following in his footsteps, bloodthirsty and bitter. So, in very much the same way you did, I left.”

McCree shrugs, turns his gaze back towards Hanzo, “Do you see what I’m getting’ at?”

The archer’s brow furrows, “Not… entirely.”

“I did some terrible things back in the day, and I gotta remember them. It’s the price you pay. Our burden. But what makes the difference is that I’m workin’ on redemption, we both are. You ain’t like those murderers who rot in jail and feel guilty for the rest of their lives because you actively try to make up for the past. You have a chance.”

“Are you attempting to make me feel better?” Hanzo asks, voice flat. “It will do no good.”

“Hanzo,” his name is spoken so earnestly it hurts, “you don’t gotta keep lettin’ yourself fester like this. Genji sees the good in you; I see it too. Think of how many lives you’ve saved just in the few past months in Overwatch.”

“And how many more were lost at my hand?” He spits, shakes his head in disbelief. “How many have suffered because of me?”

“If you want a list of people who suffer because of yourself, you're number one.”

“I have to keep myself in check.”

“For what? You’re not a bad person. After all these years you deserve a bit of closure and happiness too.”

“McCree, you are not fit to judge what I do and do not deserve.”

The cowboy sits up lightning fast, “Darlin’, you deserve the world.”

“No, I don’t!” Hanzo’s voice cracks as he shoves the other man back. The air crackles between them, as if lightning had struck the moment the archer's palms had connected with the cowboy. They stare from either side of the couch, Hanzo’s chest heaving, hands clawed against the plush of the sofa, as if he was pinned in the corner of some dark alley.

Crickets fill in the silence.

“God damn,” McCree finally mutters, “I don’t think I’ll ever understand you.”

Hanzo snaps his gaze away, “Perhaps it is better that way.”

The cushions dip, the cowboy slowly making his way forward once more. He doesn’t crowd Hanzo like before, gives him space.

“No, it’s not. I took this job because, not only did I think it would be a good chance to kick ass and take names, but because you were a part of it. Hell, Hanzo, I can’t tell you how much I’ve enjoyed this. Do you know how many great stories I’ll have to tell when we get back? I mean, how many people go on an undercover mission and wind up purposely stabbin' a fork through their hands to escape a dinner party? How many people can say they put enough lights on their house to put the stars to shame?”

“Or that they survived a month with Helen?” Hanzo adds weakly.

“Exactly!” McCree puts a hand on his shoulder, “I wanted us to become closer; I already knew what you were like and I wanted to see what more I could learn.” He licks his lips, suddenly looking nervous, “You don’t gotta cut yourself off from the world, Han. You can open up. Emotions ain’t a sign of weakness, I mean look at me.”

The archer actually laughs at that one, “You may not be the best example.”

McCree clutches at his chest, feigns falling over, “Ouch! There you go again, sweetheart, shootin off those arrows of yours. Straight to the heart.”

“You are lucky there is not one in your head.”

“Don’t you gotta have an apple up there first?”

“How silly of me,” Hanzo agrees as he rolls his eyes. “You are right, how else will I be able to claim your head injury was an ‘accident’.”

“Another husband bites the dust.”

McCree’s loud, laugh, ringing through the night air brings him to three conclusions.

One: Hanzo doesn’t want to leave. He doesn’t want to abandon the mission and their home and depart their fabricated lives forever. They had settled into a comfortable routine, a cycle he wished to remain unbroken. Their good fences and not-so-good neighbors were something he had become accustomed to. Despite it all, the archer enjoyed the preposterous atmosphere, brawling with Helen, spending time with McCree.

And McCree. Oh, he liked that part a little too much.

Hanzo Shimada is not stupid; he recognizes the feeling that makes his gut churn and his insides delightfully warm all at the same, dizzying pace. He knows the thrill, the fear. Their dance sped up to a frightening tempo, threatening to send them both waltzing straight off the edge of a cliff.

He likes McCree. Likes their marriage charade, likes the fleeting touches, likes the inside jokes that make him throw his head back and laugh harder than he has in ten years. Likes that they understand each other without it ever having to be said.

God help him, he even likes the ridiculous cowboy hat.

The second realization isn’t so much an epiphany as it is an action.

Hands finding the ratty serape tossed around McCree’s shoulders, Hanzo takes a fistful of the fabric and drags him down.

The kiss is many things, but above all, it is desperation. Hanzo’s at the end of his rope. It’s a ‘weeks—months, even—of pent up emotions, all careful crammed away, until now’ kiss. A ‘in four days we will be ripped apart for an indefinite amount of time and I don’t know if I can handle that’ kiss. A ‘do not forget what we had here’ kiss. Shocked, all McCree can do is hold on for the ride, until, much too soon, Hanzo is pulling away.

They do not separate far, Hanzo still clinging to his serape, McCree’s wide eyes searching the archer’s. He is still trying to wrap his head around the situation. 

When the cowboy speaks, his voice is hoarse, timid, “That wasn’t—that wasn’t just Henry and Joey, right?”

“This is you and I. No one else. If that is... acceptable,” Hanzo mutters, brushing his splayed fingers up McCree’s chest, past his neck, and into the scruff that resides along his jaw, inviting. The cowboy shudders, calloused palms finding the small of the archer's back.

“Oh, thank God. You don’t have to ask me twice, sweetheart.” McCree pulls him back in. The two grapple in the darkness, hands clutching, tugging closer until there is no space between them. The kiss is more coordinated, slow; it’s reassurance. McCree will not leave so easily.

A single phrase rings in his ears: smooch the dragon. Pharah won’t believe this.

Hanzo comes to the third conclusion after being backed against the armrest, the cowboy pulling away to press his lips to the slope of his neck. Threading his fingers into McCree’s hair, Hanzo gives a pleased sigh, the epiphany striking him at the most inopportune moment.

Helen’s couch was the most uncomfortable thing in the world. Though, the gunslinger does dull this fact.

It's as if, even in her absence, Helen is determined to make him suffer. Above all, Hanzo finds himself missing the worst piece of furniture in the history of humanity: their couch. No longer The Couch. Their's. Its warning colors seem so much more inviting then the stainless white of Helen’s couch. Not to mention, their monstrosity was actually snug.

Pushing against the cowboy’s shoulders, the archer manages to sit up once more. McCree rises, eyes still half-lidded, crooked grin flashing in his direction.

“I thought perhaps dragging Helen’s property onto her front lawn just to get under her skin would make me feel better,” Hanzo says, voice low.

“Well, did it?” McCree asks. The question underlines what remains unspoken: did I help?

“A bit," the archer says, his smile coy. "But it is much too firm for my taste.”

“But not too firm for Heath’s taste.” McCree revels in the fact the way he can so easily draw peals of laughter from the archer, pressing one more kiss to the top of his head. He climbs to his feet, pulling Hanzo along with a hand, “Shall we continue this inside on our own couch, Henry?”

“Only if we leave this one for the sprinklers, Joey,” Hanzo replies just as dryly.

“Sweetheart, you got yourself a deal.”

They walk back to their home, over the picket fence, bumping shoulders the entire stroll.

“You know,” McCree says, as his boots finally hit their own familiar backyard, “Has anyone every told you that you don’t look like a Henry?”

Hanzo doesn’t bother to conceal his smile.

“Never.”

Chapter Text

“Darlin’, did we pick up hair ties at the store?”

“I wrote them down on the list. Whether you retrieved them or not is of your concern.”

From the next room over, McCree groans. “But they don’t sell any hair ties at Whole Foods, Henry! Do you think you could lend me one of your spares?”

“No,” comes Hanzo’s flat response. “You will lose it.”

He doesn’t mean to be terse with his—boyfriend? Lover? Associate whom he occasionally sneaks kisses from when the rest of the team isn’t paying attention? The two didn’t have a name for their relationship, and Hanzo was okay with that. They both knew of their mutual attraction, of their limits, and that was good enough. Not that the archer would mind a label; it would certainly help with what he would tell Genji when the time presented itself.

Lover, boyfriend, whatever the title, McCree— Jesse mattered. Still, he wasn’t going to relinquish his only spare hair tie for the man.

“Sweetheart, you’re killing me here,” the cowboy calls melodramatically. Hanzo’s ears pick up the sound of boots scuffing across the bathroom tile, making their way to the kitchen.

“You will wear your hat anyways.” He rolls his eyes.

Hanzo really should focus on the problem at hand: kicking Helen’s ass at her own game.

Said game was being neighborly at the barbeque. And that pertained to bringing the perfect appetizer to the gathering.

Not that it was much of a competition. The archer was certain he could slap any three items picked at random onto a stove and it would still beat Helen’s cooking. And most of the neighborhood’s, for that matter. He could place a raw egg on the plate and they would marvel at the new and innovative healthy meal—a deconstructed omelet.

Hanzo had prepared for the task in two ways: marathoning thirteen seasons of Cutthroat Kitchen while pillowed against a certain cowboy’s chest, and harassing his brother for a family recipe he could only vaguely recall. Genji had exactly what he needed—their late mother’s seafood korokke .

Spatula prodding the frying dumpling, Hanzo tries to tune out all interferences. He needs absolute focus. But McCree himself is a walking distraction. The click of his spurs, the smell of something earthy and wild, as if the desert had never left and simply become a part of him, the way the air seemed more pleasant when he entered a room.

“How about we trade? I’ll take your hair bow, and you can take my Stetson? Or you could always let that pretty hair of yours down.” Hanzo turns when he spots McCree out of the corner of his vision, leaning back against the counter. The cowboy appears how he always is: a fashion disaster. Only this time it’s more intentional.

If today was their last day, then they were going all out. No holding back. Full on ‘white-dad-at-a-barbeque’. Though, much to Hanzo’s dismay, Jesse can never seem to get his collar right.

With a sigh, he steps away from the stove, deft fingers flattening the ruffled fabric.

“I am beginning to think you do this on purpose.”

McCree’s grin is downright wolfish as he looks down at the archer, “Alright, sweetheart, you caught me red-handed.” Hanzo knows that look, has found himself very familiar with it as of recently. That look leads to the couch, leads to several more bruises along the cowboy’s clavicle, which leads to his food burning.

Instead, Hanzo turns and busies himself with the korokke once more.

The gunslinger heaves a sigh, putting his diverting nature to good use. He snakes his arms around Hanzo’s middle until the archer’s back is flush against his chest. McCree’s head comes to rest against his companion’s shoulder, eyes following his every movement as he stirs the oil. Hanzo leans back against him; the tiniest bit of affection, but it goes a long way.

McCree lets his eyes slide shut, content to stay hugged around Hanzo forever.

“Hey, Han?” he asks, quieter than usual.

“Hmm?”

“When all of this is said and done, let’s go out,” he leans forward, enough to gauge the archer’s reaction.  “On a date. A real date with a big fancy restaurant. No pryin’ neighbors, no Overwatch. Just us.”

Hanzo remains silent, simply watching the way the stove crackles.

“If we’re gonna do this, I want to do this right. Nice and slow-like,” McCree continues. “I intend to treat you like you deserve.”

With a snort, Hanzo allows his hand to rest against the ones looped around his waist, “I accept. But only if I can pick the establishment.”

“Sweetheart, I could take you to a Denny’s parkin’ lot at 3 AM and it’d still be a nice date with company like yours.”

“If our first date is a Denny’s parking lot at 3 AM there will not be a second one.”

McCree hides his sharp bark of laughter in Hanzo’s throat. For a peaceful moment, they stay that way, wrapped up in each other, the cowboy smiling into his neck, both thinking of the promise the future holds. The archer removes the final dumpling from the pan and remains perfectly still.

Hanzo starts slowly, as if the words don’t quite want to leave his mouth. “What if we are stationed at different bases after this mission is over?”

“Then I’ll sneak out in the middle of the night,” McCree is quick to shove his fears aside, swaying them both to a reassuring, tuneless beat. “I’ll come find you. You’ll know it’s me because I’ll be the one with a huge radio over his head blasting Carrie Underwood.”

Hanzo finds himself smiling along, entertaining the idea. “And if someone finds you? If Morrison learns that you abandoned your post?”

“Morrison ain’t that bad of a guy, just a bit overprotective. But , if that happens, we’ll put his couch out on the front lawn for the sprinklers.”

“How romantic,” Hanzo offers dryly.

“You know me, always a romantic at heart,” McCree loosens his grip. “We’ll make it work. I promise.” Before he can pull away altogether, Hanzo spins in his arms so they are face to face. His scorching gaze sweeps over the length of the cowboy’s face.

“Do not make promises you cannot keep.”

A slow shake of his head, McCree leans in closer. “I promise. Cross my heart and hope to die.”

Hanzo bridges the gap between them with a chaste kiss, hands light on the other man’s shoulders. The kisses shared between them are still tentative, slow. A new experience for both parties. No one had ever held Hanzo so gently before; the amount of care Jesse puts into every tiny movement leaves him shaken. Two assassins, two ex-criminals, both too tender for their own good. Cautious of ruining one of the few good things in their lives.

“Jesse,” Hanzo says as he pulls back, eyes still shut, forehead resting against McCree’s, noses bumping.

“What?” the gunslinger questions, cracking open an eye.

“Put it down.”

Sheepishly, McCree drops the dumpling back to its place on the plate. “Sorry. Couldn’t help myself.”

--

“Nancy, I absolutely adore this trail mix you brought! It’s just so… fun!”

“That’s because I sprinkled in a handful of M&Ms. But don’t tell Cynthia, I heard she’s trying to watch her figure. It’d be a pity if she were to dig them all out of the bags and leave the Brazilian cashews for the rest of us.”

“Maybe she wouldn’t need help watching her figure if she stopped sneaking her children’s after-school snacks at midnight when she thought everyone was asleep.”

“Sandra!” The name is accompanied by a slap to the arm. “We’re supposed to be civil! This is a neighborhood social.”

“I’m just being reasonable. Honest, Janis.”

“I wouldn’t let my child have afternoon snacks if they weren’t on the honor roll. You have to keep them disciplined some way, you know. Why do you think Martha William’s car has the same honor roll bumper sticker from two years ago? Because little Nayvie was never asked to join back after 5th grade. Not to mention, he tries to steal my 48-month old’s favorite toys. No discipline.”

“Nancy! You are wild tonight!”

“Just wait until Grace breaks out the wine.”

For the fifth time within the hour, Hanzo contemplates unsheathing the knife tucked away beneath his shirt and stabbing someone. Maybe even Grace herself, just for throwing this cookout.

Before him stands the four horsemen of the apocalypse: Nancy, Janis and Sandra Stevens, and Jessica. War, Famine, Death, and Conquest—respectively, all having a ‘friendly discussion’ about their neighbors. The worst part is, Hanzo doesn’t think he would mind entering his own thoughts into the conversation. Martha William’s car decal is tacky and her son is a menace.

Instead, he stands on the edge of their vicious circle, mouth full of one of the thirty odd cheesecakes provided. Hanzo almost lets out a sigh of relief when Pharah steps next to him, mouth flat but eyes friendly.

“You looked in need of a rescue party,” she mutters, quiet enough for only him to hear. He lets his plastic fork clink against the plate.

“If this barbeque goes on for much longer, it will be these people in need of the rescue party.”

“I understand the feeling,” she laughs darkly, reaching in for a bite of his cheesecake with her own fork. Hanzo allows it only because he’s pretty sure she could snap him in half with her bare hands.

Fareeha catches his gaze with a knowing look. “I have not seen you out of the house, Henry.”

“My husband and I have been doing some summer cleaning,” Hanzo shoots her a hard look. Translation: still grounded. Though, Pharah seems hung up on the word ‘husband’, mouth twitching to fight the smile off her face.

“How is Abby?” he diverts her attention quickly. Angela . Something Fareeha can’t resist: the doctor, her new girlfriend. Very few things can make Pharah lose her edge, trained to be a soldier through and through, but the subject of the medic, however… The grin starts small but spreads like an infection, until her eyes crinkle in a soft expression.

“She is… amazing.” Pharah fumbles, clears her throat, “She is good. We are both good.” Her eyes regain their sly quality. “How is Joey?”

“He is also good.”

“I thought he would be a little better than good at the moment.”

Hanzo tries not to sputter and fails. He manages to swallow the rest of his food before he chokes. How dishonorable would it be to die at such a dull cookout?  

He clears his throat, speaking as if he’s stepping on eggshells. “How much has he told you?”

“Enough,” she speaks with the slightest lilt in her voice, teasing. “I know he has succeeded in his quest to ‘smooch the dragon’.”

Hanzo scoffs. “Smooch the dragon?” A phrase only the cowboy could have concocted.

“Yes, and he didn’t even require my help. Just a little advice.”

“Advice?”

Her smile grows once more. “That you are not as scary as you seem.”

“I could say the same for you,” Hanzo mutters, finishing the last of his dessert. Then he hears something that catches his attention.

“Did you see what Helen cooked up?”

“You mean the same thing she brings every year?”

“Sandra,” Janis warns, gripping her wife’s hand with more force. The women fall into a lapse of silence, eyes narrowed, glancing around as if Helen were lying in wait, ready to pounce. Hanzo holds back a laugh; so Helen sparks fear in the other residents, too. As well as the pure of heart, puppies, and probably every resident of Vatican City, no doubt.

He’s not going to let the opportunity slip away so easily. “Did she bring something peculiar?”

“Well,” Sandra bites her lip in anticipation, enveloping the archer into the conversation without as much as a pause—a sort of housewife osmosis. “For the past three years Helen has made the same thing: apple crumb cake.” Hanzo sneaks a glance at the table; sure enough, he spots it, more mound than cake.

“It’s atrocious.”

“Jessica! Manners!” Sandra corrects, then leans in. “It’s really bad. Even with all her practice, she never gets better. You’d think someone would have complained by now. Helen’s crumbs are more like solid bricks.”

“She uses pears but still calls it an ‘apple crumb’. I’m convinced she doesn’t know the difference between the two but honestly I’m too scared to ask at this point.”

“Every year we make fun of Bonnie and her store-bought pie,” Nancy adds, “but at least she knows her limits! And that her food is actually edible.”

“Unsurprising,” Hanzo comments dryly. “I’ve suffered through being her dinner guest. Helen couldn’t cook if her life depended on it. Even the things she buys at the store are undercooked. Everything she touches loses its seasoning.”

Pharah’s mouth is frozen somewhere between agape and smiling in disbelief. The housewives share a glance, then they turn to him, eyes crackling with a sort of feral delight.

“You have a grudge against her too? Oh, I understand why. She never puts her trashcans out at the right time. And I’ve even caught her once or twice with over ten items in the ‘ten items and under’ line at the grocery store.”

“She lets her children watch PG-13 movies with the screens in her minivan. Sometimes I get a peek at them when I drive a little too close and have to cover my Lakelynn’s eyes.”

“One time, she came to my house and didn’t refill the Brita water filter pitcher.”

“I have never seen her eat anything besides Greek yogurt and raw chicken. I find it deeply troubling,” Hanzo says as he elbows Fareeha’s side, seeing as the woman had temporarily short-circuited at his comment. She knew Genji used to make similar statements about Morrison’s cooking, but Pharah hadn’t expected pettiness to run in the family.

Out of the corner of his eye he spots it: the Stetson.

There, the person he has been waiting to leave the grilling area for nearly an hour finally moseys away. It was for their own safety, really. If he had to hear Heath say the word ‘football’ one more time in that overjoyed voice of his, Hanzo might violently decapitate someone.

“Excuse me,” Hanzo mutters, eyes set on the cowboy hat bobbing through the group of people. One of the many skills the archer is proud of is parting a crowd with a single glance. He does this now. None dare stand up to his challenge. To be fair, these people have probably never faced something worse than having to wave their hand an extra time in front of an automatic paper towel dispenser.

In a few, measured strides, he has navigated around the pool that lies in the center of the yard, and halts before the table amassed with food. At the other end stands McCree, plate piled high, shoveling appetizers into his mouth. Hanzo knows he’s plunged headfirst into madness when he finds it oddly endearing.

“You are supposed to try these one at a time instead of heaping it all onto one plate,” Hanzo says as he pauses beside the other man. Jesse smirks at him, or tries to with his cheeks full.

“Wasn’t aware you were accustomed to backyard barbeque etiquette.”

The archer scoffs. “Please, I have manners.”

McCree swallows the rest of his food, leaving the plate empty. “Apologies my good ol’ Southern charm doesn’t extend to rich neighborhood parties. Can’t say I’ve exactly been to one before. Have you?”

Hanzo fixes him with a hard stare. “Countless.”

“Huh. Learn somethin’ new every day.”

Still, the cowboy humors him. He goes back down the line, careful to maintain exaggerated eye contact with the archer as he takes the smallest possible particle of cake. It’s worth the hassle when Hanzo snickers.

“Be careful with that thing.” He warns as Jesse retrieves his fork. The utensil is almost too big for the cake.

His face falls. The cake . More specifically, Helen’s cake.

Just as McCree spears the desert with the same effort an archeologist chips their tools into solid rock, Hanzo slaps it out of his hands.

They look on in silent awe as the plate sails over the fence, blotting out the sun for a moment, and taking the hazardous materials with it. He never hears it land. Perhaps it never does. Some say that Helen put so much cinnamon and vanilla extract into the cake that it ate straight through the center of the Earth, and is still, to this day, floating above the Indian Ocean, burning a hole into the ozone layer.

The two watch the fence for any sign of movement, struggle, some sort of battery, half-baked talons clawing their way up the pickets. When the monster does not form, they look at each other in silence.

McCree lets out a long whistle. “Mind tellin’ me what that was for, sweetheart, or did you just lose your temper at it?”

“ Helen ,” is all that Hanzo manages. Looking back over the fence, and then to the archer’s grave expression, Jesse puts two and two together.

“Goddamn,” he shakes his head incredulously, “you just saved my life.”

“To let you take a bite of that would have been too cruel.”

He takes Hanzo’s hand into his own. “How can I ever repay you?”

“I can think of a few ways,” this time, it’s the archer who’s smiling. McCree returns it just as bright, bringing the hand secured in his palm to his lips. He wiggles his eyebrows; Hanzo rolls his eyes, but nonetheless allows their fingers to remain woven together.

“Oh-my-god,” the phrase is said in one breath, rather than an actual sentence, “they’re flirting again .”

Hana shoulders her way into their pocket in the crowd, one hand curled around a plastic cup, and a finger pressing into her ear. Hanzo’s eyes drag from her hand, to meet her gaze. Laughter resounds from the comm piece in his ear.

She answers his silent question, “Genji asked me to keep him updated while he waits in the van with Lúcio.”

A scoff, “And you mark this as something worth his attention?”

The girl flashes her teeth, “Of course!”

“Can’t you whippersnappers leave a couple of old men out of your business?” McCree asks before being cut off once more, D.Va holding a hand up to silence him as a voice floats through the communicator.

“Let McCree know I’m sending him all the romance songs I got. He’s gonna need it.”

“I heard that. Your connection is not private,” Hanzo hisses back to Lúcio.

McCree presses against the button, “I appreciate that partner, I really do. Careless Whisper is on there, right?”

“Jesse!”

A brief pause while the team takes the outburst in, and then Genji is sputtering over the radio, “Oh, so it’s ‘ Jesse ’ now?”

“Are you all aware this channel is used for emergencies only? Like if you were to spot a Vishkar employee while very obviously speaking into your comm?” Mercy swoops in at the last moment with a scolding; a literal guardian angel. And perfect timing too—Hanzo fumbles for words, staring wide-eyed at McCree.

The cowboy clutches his heart, mouths back ‘ Jesse ’. Hanzo ponders Jesse’s chance of survival while pressed face-down into Helen’s apple crumb cake. The possibility is slim. Maybe negative; even his ghost could get poisoned from such a thing. But nonetheless, he considers the action.

“C’mon Angie,” Jesse says in their defense, “let ‘em have a little fun. It’s the last day we’re stationed here.”

“Exactly,” she sighs in response, “which is all the more reason you should remain alert. This would be our last chance to sort out the spy from the neighbors. Or their last chance to pull something drastic.”

“We’ll keep our eyes peeled,” he reassures, locking eyes with her across the yard. With that final promise, he lets his hand fall from his communication device back to his side.

“At least you still got me!” Hana points out, smug, leaning into Hanzo’s side.

“Do you recall the Standing Death of Benkei?” Hanzo asks suddenly.

D.Va’s eyebrows furrow, entirely lost. “Huh?”

He snorts. “I suggest you move on. It would be unwise to fall to the same fate as he did.”

That must have clicked, because Hana’s face shifts from confused to something more amiable. “Oh please, you’re too fond of me to do such a thing!” She punctuates her words with a squeeze to his arm.

Hanzo doesn’t dare let slip the truth, that she reminds him all too much of a teenager long ago, one with brilliant green hair, heart as light and as free as a sparrow. It didn’t help that they shared the same affinity for chocolate (though not nearly as severe as Lúcio’s sweet tooth), or arcade games. Her eyes still held light, much like his before they followed in the footsteps of Cain and Abel. Instead, Hanzo gives her a long, hard look.

In the back of his mind, he prays that Hana Song will never have her spark taken away from her.

“Alright, alright!” she laughs, smirking as she turns on a heel. “I’ll leave you two to do gross old men things in private. But I expect one of your date nights to be playing Mortal Kombat with me! Family game night!” Then she is leaving, guiding herself back to Reinhardt, the easiest to pick out from the crowd. They are left alone once more.

McCree reclaims his attention with a cough, thumb brushing over Hanzo’s knuckles. “I think Angela may be onto somethin’. We might be able to save Morrison some trouble in the long run. Everyone in the neighborhood is here, so the mole should be here too, right?”

“What are you saying? Do you want us to go on one final scoping mission?” Shimadas don’t back down from a challenge, especially not one so close within their grasp. And yet, something about this makes him feel particularly uneasy. The dragons under his skin flail around with something more akin to anxiety than hunger.

“Nah,” the cowboy shakes his head, “as much as I enjoy your company, darlin’, it might draw some unwanted attention for both of us to slip away.”

Hanzo leans against him, shoulder pressing against the radiating warmth. “What is your plan?”

“Dunno. Sneak in a take a look around. As long as the homeowners are distracted and everyone is out here, I might be able to pick somethin’ up we missed before. Besides, I don’t know how much more I can take of this place. Brad called me over to his grill and there ain’t a pig in sight. Why call it a barbeque if there’s no pork? These people just ain’t right.”

The archer gives a light laugh. “And what does the main course appear to be?”

“Turkey burgers. Well, more like charcoal. With Salt. Lots of it. Speakin’ of which, I’m glad we’re leavin’ after this little party considerin’ I almost got into a fist fight with Dustin Carter over whether salt was a spice or not.”

“Hm, that makes two of us. Nancy believes her trail mix is ‘fun’ and ‘innovation’ just because she added a handful of stale M&Ms.”

“Nancy wouldn’t know fun if it punched her in the mouth. Just like Dustin Carter wouldn’t know seasonin’ if I punched him in the mouth,” McCree offers. “I’ll be glad to get home to my chili powder.”

“And I to my rice cooker,” Hanzo quips with a fond smile. Jesse’s eyes meet his own, his expression softening.

His hand appears on the small of Hanzo’s back, angling them closer. It’s McCree who initiates this time. His face hovers inches from Hanzo’s own, eyes darting towards the crowd before coming back to those dark eyes once more. A silent plea for permission. Hanzo falls victim with a nod before lips are pressed into his own. He hums his approval, hands settling against Jesse’s chest.

After a moment the archer pulls away, McCree grinning against his lips before the pressure has dissipated. “Hold down the fort for me, would you, Han?”

Hanzo agrees. “If I must. Do not think the carrier won’t leave without your presence if you linger too long.”

“Wouldn’t dream of missing out on our date, sweetheart.” He tips his hat, giving the other man one more reassuring hand squeeze, letting their arms extend until they can no longer touch. Not long after, McCree is lost to the crowd.

The archer sighs, alone once more. He should find a more strategic position to be a lookout, keep an eye on Vishkar like Angela had suggested. Perhaps beside someone he could at least partially stand. He leaves, moving for what he recognizes as Reinhardt’s head towering above the crowd when he gets caught up along the way.

It is by pure chance that the first person who spots him is the last he wants to interact with.

Helen is standing near the edge of the swimming pool, crouched like a snake in waiting, a piece of her own cake in one hand and a glass of diet Coke in the other. She greets him with a smile much too wide for his liking, bearing her fangs. He would have pushed her aside if she didn’t look ready to follow him around for the rest of the afternoon if he chose the impolite thing to do.

Instead he halts, giving his stiff greeting: “Helen.”

“Henry.”

The woman keeps his withering gaze as she picks up one of his korokke dumplings and bites into it. Helen chews for a moment, thoughtfully, before making a face.

“This is so… ethnic. It tastes odd.”

Hanzo holds out his hands. “There is no reason to be afraid. This is what we call ‘edible food’. You might not be familiar with it.”

Helen frowns, tosses the rest of the dumpling in the pool.

“What,” the archer counters. “Was it too spicy for you?”

“It was overcooked. Just be glad one of us has taste.”

Hanzo snorts at that one. “Yes. One of us.”

Helen switches topics effortlessly, “You can close your curtains, you know. They have that function. You should use them more often. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve accidentally gotten a peek of you and your husband’s,” she gives him a scathing onceover, “activities.”

For a brief moment, Hanzo considers breaking McCree’s rule of taking their relationship slow. Just how vocal could he get the cowboy to be on their couch? Surely loud enough to keep Helen awake throughout the night.

“If you don’t wish to witness our private affairs you could turn your head. Or even get someone to close your curtains for you. Perhaps the maid.”

He looks on as Helen falters, fumbles for what to say, and then in a flash regains her spirit. Only this time, the grin is much too smug, almost predatory. “Actually, I’ve been meaning to thank you about that.”

Hanzo blinks, “What?”

“For alerting me to my husband’s pastimes.” Helen squares her shoulders back, “It’s a funny predicament actually. You see, Heath wasn’t the only one drawn to outside sources.” She pauses dramatically to take a sip from her glass. “I also took an interest in our maid, Haeyleiygh.”

Hanzo’s eyes grow almost comically wide.

“So now,” she continues, swirling her diet coke in the crook of her hand, “I suppose we have a new member to our family. We are even discussing moving out of Arcadia altogether. It’s that funny? None of this would have been possible without your little interference. I really should be thanking you.”

Helen’s grin grows softer, if Hanzo didn’t know any better he might have said it was genuine, “So. Thank you.”

It’s an accident. Truly, it is. That’s what he tells himself afterwards; he just happens to knock Helen off balance.

Happens to just hook his foot behind her ankle and simply forgets to grab the hand reaching out for his own. Forgets to help steady the woman again. And no, that’s definitely not a conceited smile on his face as she falls backwards, the archer is just too shocked to react.

With all the grace of a falling tree, Helen plummets into the pool.

It’s the splash heard around the entire state of California, but the vicious screech that follows is ten times more ungodly. It pierces ear drums, snaps necks, all eyes turn to Helen’s drenched perm and dripping mascara. Hanzo takes that as his cue to leave and slinks away into the gathering crowd with the precision only a master of avoidance could obtain.

A shout goes up from the crowd, damning the person who had been nearest to Helen during her fall, “Rebecca! How could you!”

Then another voice, Helen’s, accompanied by the telltale sound of wet hands scrabbling against the concrete patio, “Rebecca.” Another screech, then two of them, Hanzo glancing back only long enough to catch a glimpse of Helen holding another woman by the hair.

“Fuck it up, Rebecca!” comes the shout that is unmistakably D.Va’s.

Nothing better than a good old fashioned neighborhood barbeque witch-hunt. And to think, McCree was missing out on the spectacle. If the cowboy had been present, Hanzo knew the man would be at the edge of the crowd, side by side with Genji as the two took bets.

Hanzo isn’t given much more time to think of Jesse’s absence; a hand presses around his wrist, light but urgent.

He expects Helen, perhaps to drag him down to the bottom of the pool, or a teammate to congratulate him on his actions, but for the second time that evening Hanzo is greeted by someone he least expects.

The homeowner herself, Grace, stands before him. Only now, instead of her normal bubbly attitude, she looks small. Shoulders hunched, eyes never remaining too long on a particular object; she’s the walking definition of unease. The woman straightens herself, as if she remembers the whole neighborhood could be picking up on the slightest hint of weakness.

“Henry! I haven’t seen you all day. I’m glad you could make it to our little gathering,” she clears her throat, eyes darting back to the crowd before resting on Hanzo’s. “Do you think you and I could have a word? In private?”

Hanzo almost rolls his eyes. What, was she going to criticize him for shoving Helen in? Get him fined by the Neighborhood Association for a second time? Instead, he contains his sigh and humors her, giving a curt nod.

Relieved, Grace tightens her grip on the archer’s wrist and pulls him away from the pool, past the edge of the crowd, beyond the snack table, and to the side of the house. Away from everyone else, he notes. In fact, from the angle of the outer walls and the fence, he’s positive no one can even see their meeting.

“I need to ask you something.”

--

McCree stares at the wall.

Despite what many seem to think, he is perceptive. A dead-eye in more ways than one. And above all, he certainly has more wits than people give him credit for. Which is the reason he’s the one who finds it when so many others have walked past without a clue.

But the discovery also comes with luck. The cowboy just happens to spare a glance to the blank space beside the stairs, letting the painting slip from his fingers and swing against the nail holding it in place.

He stares at the wall, sickly yellow like the rest of the interior, tapering off at the embellished baseboards.

Jesse has broken into an insurmountable number of houses in the two months of his stay in Arcadia, and if there’s one thing he’s learned, is that it’s a cookie-cutter neighborhood. The architect understood their customers, saw that they would fall prey to trends, and designed a handful of houses. Then, like a pattern, scattered the similar structures throughout the town.

He knows there should be a door there, just as there is one in his own home, or the fifty other homes created in the very same fashion. The gunslinger’s eyes scan the wall once more, looking for an outline against the wallpaper.

Anyone less couldn’t have spotted the shadow, the slightest hint of unevenness.

McCree raps his knuckles against the space, an ear pressed into the wood.

The sound reverberates, echoes back to him. Hollow. There is a door.

He plucks his boot knife from where the name implies, feels for the dip—no more than a centimeter thick—and plunges the blade into the wall. He carves away at the paper until he cuts a line as tall as he is in the wall. Fingers slipping under the flimsy material with ease, Jesse rips it back.

The door stands before him, no different from any other. It’s wooden, painted white to match the décor, but the spiraling etches of wood peek through in splashes of color.

McCree takes a step back, steadies himself, and returns the knife to its sheath. Eyes narrowing at the object blocking his path, his calloused fingers skirt along the door handle, the other coming to rest on Peacekeeper.

He thinks to the comm in his ear. Does he need backup for a simple investigation? He’s done much more difficult tasks on solo ops.

No need to alert the team when nothing is certain , the cowboy thinks to himself. Especially not when it will worry them half to death. Or risk exposure.

And with that, his twists the doorknob. Jesse plunges down the dark stairwell.

--

Hanzo finds himself tense, Angela’s warning repeats in his mind. Anyone could be a spy. Anyone. Perhaps even the woman before him. He scratches idly along his sleeved forearm, brushing against the knife concealed there.

Finally, Grace breaks the silence. “Have you seen Brad today?”

Every suspicion Hanzo has is thrown out the window. “Your husband?”

“Yes.”

He thinks back to earlier in the afternoon, when he had first arrived and McCree had headed off to see the catastrophe on the grill for himself. Hanzo had seen Brad then while stealing glances at the cowboy. The man had looked no different from his usual self: short, dark hair, sports jersey on, golf clubs strapped to his back, laughing as the fire grew ever higher.

“I saw him briefly at the grill. I assumed he would have remained stationed there until it was time to eat. Why?”

“Did he look unhappy to you?”

Hanzo sighs. The woman is wearing thin on his already slim patience. Brad didn’t seem like a man smart enough to hide behind a façade. “He looked as he always does.”

Grace’s face shifts to something akin to panic. “Does he always look unhappy?”

“No,” Hanzo starts, pinching the bridge of his nose. How could he put this gently? Her husband always looked how McCree had once described him: ‘a few fries short of a Happy Meal, if you catch my drift’. But that wasn’t reassuring in the slightest.

Hanzo has more important things to do than worry about Brad’s wellbeing. “Grace,” he starts with a small shake of his head, “I really should be going—”

“Wait!” She latches onto his wrist again; the archer is really starting to grow tired of Mercy’s ‘don’t harm civilians’ rule. Grace fidgets, drops his arm once more, “I-I just…” The woman takes a deep breath, the next words coming out in a jumbled rush.

“Brad and I might get a divorce.”

He pauses, quirks an eyebrow. “What?”

Grace takes a deep, shuddering breath, “We have been going to couples therapy for a few months now. I’m sure you’ve heard all about it, Helen and Cynthia are particularly fond of spreading the word.” Another shaky inhale, “But we have been doing better. Or so I thought, at least. Nothing seems to be working, we keep fighting and yelling. I just don’t know what to do anymore.”

Hanzo blinks. “My apologies for your marriage, but how on Earth does this involve me?”

Wiping a tear from the corner of her eye, Grace checks around the corner and steadies herself once more. Her eyes focus on the man before her.

“I w-wanted to ask you,” she pauses, gives a bitter laugh, “how do you and your husband get along so well? Do you have anything that could help me?”

Hanzo feels his heart sink. How could he have been suspicious of the woman before him? Sure, Grace was irritating, especially with her constant badgering. But the big day of her barbeque had come and how was she spending it? Sobbing over her marriage.

He has never been the best at comforting people, especially someone who he knows far too little about for her to suddenly spill the secrets of her marriage. The archer carefully reaches out and gives Grace a few taps to the shoulder. After all, that’s what people do, right?

“Joey and I,” he starts, trails off. What about them could be put in words? They are as different as the moon and sun, and yet Hanzo would be content to chase McCree the way the celestial bodies tail after each other. And, in the very same way, they are not so different. They both have their pasts, their shared interests, their failures, and their grim jobs. Both thrust into the world at an age far too young. McCree understands without ever needing an explanation.

It’s the way McCree drags Hanzo out under the sky when he’s feeling down, tells him jokes, hums songs, points out constellations. Or the way that Hanzo steadies Jesse when there is nothing else to keep him afloat; with a hand in his hair and Hanzo’s dark eyes on his own how Jesse feels he could take on the world. Or maybe the way their hands fit so perfectly together.

“We connect,” he says simply. The archer never in his wildest dreams imagined him being the one giving love advice. He himself was still learning to open up, and the process was terrifying . Letting oneself be vulnerable in hopes that the other will do the same. It’s displaying weaknesses and trusting another not to let you fall. “I cannot offer much in the ways of our relationship, but we understand each other. You have to be friends on some level before lovers.”

“That would be the problem then.” Bitterness seeps into her tone, defying her forced smile. “We’ve been together since high school. I hardly know him anymore. People change.”

“Then I would suggest rekindling that. You both have to come to an understanding on your own accord.”

Grace nods. “That’s better advice than I’ve gotten from three months of marriage counseling. Thank you.”

Hanzo allows himself a small smile, “You’re welcome.”

“It just seems so natural between you and McCree.”

“Well, Jesse can be quite—”

Hanzo stops. His blood runs cold.

McCree.

Grace’s voice rings in his ears. McCree. The name beating in his head like his own thumping heart. McCree, McCree, McCree— a dismal mantra . Like nails in a coffin. His wide eyes jerk up to meet her smile. Grace’s expression has shifted to something cruel.

The gun is pulled and aimed at his chest before Hanzo can blink.

McCree. A slip up. She knew his real name. Knew they were agents. The rat had been hiding in plain sight all along.

“Got you,” is all she offers, somewhere between solemn and mocking. Grace presses the tip of the gun against his chest with more force. Metal bites into skin. Hanzo does not stumble. He refuses to show any sign of weakness, to give away how fast his heart is beating. Instead, he holds his chin up higher.  

But not even Hanzo can shy away from a gunshot.

He flinches, eyes squeezing shut as it resounds through the air, dissipating amongst the wind until it blends with the eerie quiet. He expects the hot wash of blood, the sharp, wrenching pain in his chest, expects to catch the last glimpse of this world before his vision fades to black.

But there is nothing.

His eyes snap open to meet Grace’s. The woman is just as shocked, jaw hung open.

He drags a hand over his chest. No wound.

The gun remains perfectly still in Grace’s hand. No smoke, no recoil. She had never fired.

Before she can react, Hanzo’s hand is in his sleeve. His fingers scrape along the sharp edge of the blade concealed within.

Metal whistles through the air. The shriek is silenced before it ever leaves her vocal chords.

Hanzo embeds his dagger in Grace’s throat. The puncture is skilled, precise. Years of training leave him with profuse knowledge on the exact location of the carotid artery.

She stumbles, drops the gun, clutches her neck, and falls. A weak spurt of arterial spray splatters the perfect lawn, along with Hanzo’s clothes.

Hanzo takes a step back, chest heaving. He toes the pistol away; the body at his feet still twitching.

In his mind, one question rings out, even above his own rapid breaths.

If that had not been Grace’s gun, then whose?

The first thing he notices is the muttering, how the ringing has stopped, and in the absence of silence people have begun to question. Accompanying the whispers is footsteps, sandals crunching against the grass.

Hanzo launches himself over the fence and into the street. As soon as his prosthetics hit cement, a shrill scream pierces the air.

They had found Grace.

“We have been compromised,” he hisses into his comm. Hanzo keeps low, dashing across the street. How optimistic the archer had been when he left his weapon stowed away at their home, packed and ready for the flight back to Gibraltar. Too hopeful , he scolds. He should have never allowed himself to get comfortable.

“I can see that,” Pharah grits back. Through her earpiece he can pick out the commotion of the mob. Panicked voiced flood over the fence, shouting, people losing all sense of manners to fight over first rights to the exit.

Marching past his beloved bass mailbox, Hanzo presses two fingers into his ear, “It was Grace. She was the agent from Vishkar.”

A brief moment of static crinkles through the system, before a new voice joins the fray. The low, almost growling tone that can be only Winston.

“Athena is receiving readings of activity from the base. What happened out there?”

“We were discovered,” D.Va cries, out of breath. From the corner of his eye, Hanzo spots her make a break for her own residence. He knows the mech awaits for her inside. It too had been discarded, the same as Storm Bow, or Reinhardt’s hammer. The team had broken their first rule—they were caught off-guard.

“We’ve got foot soldiers being shipped out at an alarming speed. Possibly omnics.” Winston had been correct in assuming Vishkar had stationed agents nearby for this exact purpose.

“ETA?” Mercy asks, voice reaching a high level reserved only for alarm.

Winston gulps, “Five minutes, give or take.”

“How could they have been ready so fast?” Reinhardt bellows.

Hanzo throws open the red door. “A setup. We’ve been fooled.”

Pharah yells something in her native tongue, and though the archer doesn’t understand it, it is unmistakably explicit. She readies her rockets, suit enveloping her in the push of a button (something of Winston’s design). “Roll Call.”

“Genji?”

“Lúcio and I are both present.”

Hanzo lets out a sigh of relief; his brother was safe. One less person to worry about.

“Kind of caught up with crowd control!” He hears Lúcio call over the yelling in the streets, followed by the slam of a car door. “But we’ll be there ASAP.”

Hanzo slams the door shut, taking the stairs two at a time.

“Reinhardt?”

“I am here and ready to take action!”

The suitcase is propped against the end of the bed, every last piece of clothing meticulously folded and stored away inside. It seemed the most appropriate place to hide his beloved bow.

“D.Va?”

“Online! Just suited up. I’m on my way.”

Hanzo tears through the apparel, scattering it across the room. For once, he could care less about the mess. He only halts in his rampage when his hands feel the familiar cool metal, wrapped inside his kyudo-gi.

“Angela?”

“I am standing right next to you.”

“I don’t make protocol!” Fareeha takes a deep breath, “Hanzo?”

With the flick of his wrist, Storm Bow unfolds in all its glory. “I am here.”

He can practically hear Pharah checking off the mental list as she goes down. Hanzo rushes down the stairs, throwing open the front door once more.

“McCree?”

The comm falls silent. Hanzo’s stomach plummets.

“Agent McCree, do you copy?” Pharah’s voice rises, borderline desperate.

Dead air.

The color drains from his face, but that doesn’t stop him from putting out a call of his own, voice forced to remain unwavering.

“McCree. Answer!”

He expects Jesse to suddenly round the corner, tell a bad joke, nuzzle into the top of the archer’s head, and then flop onto the ugly sofa.

But this does not happen. McCree is nowhere to be found.

“Shimada-san.” Lúcio this time, just as breathless as the others. “Was he with you?”

Hanzo shakes his head. “No. I have not seen him since—”

The ground quakes, cutting the archer off mid-sentence. A carrier lands, the side of the cargo container lacking the Overwatch logo. Not one of theirs. Instead, it bears a bright blue ‘V’, the same symbol that had been marked on the hard drive.

But Hanzo does not care in the least, not even when omnics spill out, enough to overwhelm them. He is content to fight an entire army to get to where he needs to. To get to Jesse.

In his ear, Pharah’s voice buzzes once more, “Agent McCree has gone AWOL.”

--

Ten minutes ago, McCree took his first step into the dark path of the basement stairs, aided by the light from his biomechanical arm and the doorway. The only problem now is that the blue glow doesn’t go much farther than a few feet. That, and the staircase is seemingly endless. At least the light from the door was enough to give him a faint idea of the area. Still, every click of his boots has his heart jumping in his chest, fingers tapping against Peacekeeper restlessly.

He has yet to touch his comm. No sense in riling up the whole team and giving away their position if it was just a case of poor remodeling. He wouldn’t put it past Brad and Grace. Lúcio was right, these people had absolutely no taste.

And, is it just him, or is the hallway getting smaller? The stairs narrower, creaking with disuse at his clunking footsteps? His arms feel as if they are pinned to his sides. He feels like the cement is closing in, encasing him with it.

McCree lets out a slow breath through his nose. Now was the worst possible moment to let his head get to him.

The cowboy clutches at Peacekeeper. He can do this. He has to do this. If this is their only lead, McCree won’t let the mission end in vain. Especially if the sooner he investigates and skedaddles, the sooner he can curl up with Hanzo back at the base. Maybe even finish that word puzzle from the newspaper.

He smiles despite himself, tilts his hat back. It will be good to get home.

The idea is short lived.

There is a rustle of movement, a shadow.

McCree spins on his heel in time to catch a silhouette in the doorframe.

With the unnerving precision of a person taking their time, savoring the moment, the door shuts. The last bit of light, along with Jesse’s hopes for an easy fight, disappear.

He pivots his arm, fumbling against the walls, eyes wide as he tries to get a view of the creeping intruder. It’s useless. More than anything, he’s announcing his presence. A perfect, glowing target painted on his back for the figure to aim at.

Swearing, McCree paws at the mechanism, eyes wide and focused on the darkness, trying to get some sort of clue as to where the intruder would appear. His heart thumps in his ears, threatening to leap out of his chest. Holding back a frustrated cry, his fingers slip against the metal.

In a fit of fear and rage, he slams his arm into the wall. With the sound of whirring machinery, the blue glow flickers once, twice, then plunges him into darkness.

He holds his breath.

The blackness consumes the slender passage; not a speck of light escapes its grasp.

For the first time McCree notices how phenomenally cold the staircase is. Enough to send a shiver down his spine, see his breath in the proper lighting. But for now it is pitch black. The kind of darkness that not only deadens the senses, but leaves one disoriented. One hand braced against the rusted railing, and the other hovering above Peacekeeper, the cowboy can’t tell up from down.

The stairs before him creak.

McCree’s heart stops. But that doesn’t halt his hand from darting to his belt, quickest draw even in the absence of light.

He fires.

The smell of gunpowder and a spark, a burst of light. A flicker to illuminate the agent. The bullet misses. Ricochets off the side of the wall. Concrete explodes, pelting the side of his face with bits of rubble. The cowboy’s missed his shot, but he’s got what he needs—a fleeting moment of vision.

Well, he’s not called a deadeye for nothing.

McCree stumbles backwards, avoiding the whoosh of a fist through the air. He retaliates with his finger against the trigger. The motion grounds him, all muscle memory and hell roaring in his ears.

This time the bullet finds its mark.

A hiss of pain. Jesse swings his fist for good measure, knuckles connecting with flesh.

Then he waits.

He listens, eardrums shot to hell from years of firing Peacekeeper.

He takes a step back.

Bad decision.

The breath is knocked from his lungs as a foot kicks the center of his chest. Knocked off balance, walls too slick to find purchase, McCree falls. He manages to strike every stair on the way down, something giving a sickening crunch in his descent.

“ If you are not more careful, cowboy, someday you will slip up,” Hanzo’s voice taunts in his ears.

Well, damn , is the only thing he can think in retaliation.

He might have to put off that word puzzle for a while.

After what seems like an eternity, McCree hits the floor. Hard. The basement is cold and damp, something he hopes can be attributed to humidity problems.

He wheezes, pushes himself up on his elbows. White light, blinding and hot flashes behind his eyes.

Slumping back down, he lets out a strangled cry. McCree clutches at his chest, clamping over the searing stab of pain and rights himself again. Broken rib, he guesses. The gunslinger stands, wobbles. Make that plural— ribs .

McCree’s in the middle of a coughing fit, whether spurred on by his broken ribs pressing into something vital, or his bad habits finally catching up to his lungs, when the lights flash on. Too intense. He sputters again, straining against his shattered ribs. McCree tastes blood in the back of his throat.

When he dares open his eyes again, a man stands at the final stair.

But not just any man; the cowboy could point out the slicked back, almost plastic blond hair from anywhere. The only imperfection that looks like it hasn’t come straight out of a box is the way a faint bruise begins to tinge his right eye.

“What in the hell?” is all McCree manages; no point in hiding his befuddlement.

“What? Did you think I stayed in this town for the company?” Heath rolls his shoulders, flashes that same doll-smile.

“You were the agent?”

“One of them. I’m not exactly an agent, no more than you are an innocent man. I’m a bounty hunter looking to make a deal. And gosh golly, do you have a price on your head. Can only imagine what you had to do to rack up that kind of reward,” Heath drops off the final step, designer shoes clacking against the cement. “Vishkar’s paying me for a job I would have gone after on my own, so that’s a bonus.”

The color drains from McCree’s face. “One of them? There are more of you?”

The other man sighs as if it’s the dullest conversation in the world, “That’s what you get when you recall a team of vigilantes. Vishkar wouldn’t have one person stationed down here, ready to surrender information. From what I gather you’re not the first to try and extract the data. Talon, militaries, you name it. They have more than just lists of names and weaknesses on these servers, Mr. McCree.”

McCree gulps. He has to let his team know that a few feet above ground lies more agents, already aware of the situation at hand. It’s a trap that could lead to massacre. He needs to warn them. But, as he reaches for his ear, he finds it empty. The comm must have fallen in his descent, most likely cracked and sparking in some corner of the room.

Heath follows his movements with a trained eye, “There’s no point in contacting them. These walls aren’t soundproof—by now someone’s heard your reckless aim,” the man nods to the trickle of blood from the side of his shorts. “My partner, you know her as the indomitable homemaker Grace, is already on the move.”

“Grace too?” McCree shakes his head, “I knew I had a bad feelin’ about her. Swear to God that apple pie was poisoned. What about Helen?” He must be out of his mind, having a conversation with his captor like it’s the most normal thing in the world.

Heath laughs, an ugly sound, “No. But I should recruit her; she could kill a man with that withering stare of her’s.”

“More like ten.”

“An army,” the man agrees, fondness in his tone. His smile twitches. “Don’t try to get on my good side. There’s a man in Santa Fe that wants you hanged, and I intend to hand you over.”

“Fair enough,” Jesse sighs. He regrets it when his lungs give another sharp pain, followed by a pitiful wheeze. “Least you could do is stop talkin’ my ear off though with your villainous monologue or whatever.”

“Well, the poster does say dead or alive.”

Heath unzips his fanny pack and pulls a gun from its confines. McCree laughs despite himself. Of fucking course. The sound dies in his throat the moment Heath points the pistol between his eyes. His own trusted revolver, Peacekeeper, lies on the floor a few feet away.

The cowboy slowly raises his hands.

“You know, you’re not all that bad of a fellow, McCree. It’s too bad you had to have the biggest bounty I’ve seen in years . You seem better than the majority of the people in the industry. I’d hate to have to kill you myself.”

“I’d hate to have to die,” Jesse returns.

Heath snorts. “The Princess Bride?”

“Yeah,” he nods sheepishly.  He plays it off, keeps up the idle banter. He needs his weapon, needs to get Heath incapacitated, but above all he needs more time. The cowboy has gotten out of tighter fixes before, he just has to put his mind to it. Think , he berates himself.

“Odd choice of final words but,” Heath moves his finger to the trigger. “I’ll take it.”

“Wait!” McCree yells, holds his breath when the bounty hunter moves the gun back. “Can I get a do-over? I’d like to go out heroic. Humor a man’s last wish, would you?”

Heath relents, waves the gun in the very same way he would motion with his hand if it was empty, “Well, go on. Any last words?”

He pushes his thumb against the rim of the Stetson, flashing his trademark crooked grin.

“Just one,”

McCree’s gaze loses its mirth, shifting into something lethal. Past the the larger-than-life personality, past the humor, past the dazzling smile, Jesse is a killer. Something his enemies too often forget. Heath swears he sees the man's right eye glimmer red underneath the shadow of his hat. The face of an outlaw. In that moment, he’s the deadliest person in the room. It’s enough to put a cold sense of dread in Heath’s stomach.

“Draw.”

McCree rolls out of the way of the first shot, shoulder hitting the cement before curling around, landing on his feet again. Jesse’s fingers find Peacekeeper the same moment the transport lands.

Dust rains from the ceiling, the single light fixture spinning wildly as the ground convulses. Both men are thrown off—the cowboy, unsteady at the sudden upheaval, pitches forward on his side; Heath left hacking up the grime that had made its way into his lungs.

When all falls still one again, they lock eyes.

Heath raises his pistol.

McCree is faster. Desperate, he fans the hammer.

Two out of three bullets hit their mark, piercing the center of Heath’s chest.

For a moment, he hangs in the air, eye bulging. He looks from McCree’s face, to the barrel of his gun, and cracks a smile. Heath makes an unpleasant gurgling sound in the back of his throat, takes a step back. Then another, before losing his footing. It rolls out of his fanny pack, small and unintelligable in the dim lights, skitters across the floor until it rests at Jesse's feet. He bends over to snatch it up, more reflex than anything. But McCree doesn't get a chance to inspect the object, his eyes snap back to attention as Heath gives a violent wheeze. It's his last.

Falling back, Heath hits the floor with a dull, wet thud.

He doesn’t get back up.

McCree holsters Peacekeeper, spinning the gun once for good measure. His heart thumps in his chest, blood still rushing in his ears. The cowboy lets out a relieved sigh. The breath stutters in his throat, pain shooting through his body.

Something more than just a few broken ribs.

Wincing, his flesh hand skims over the source, dulled by the rush of adrenaline. He pulls his fingers back sticky with blood.

“Oh,” McCree mutters, watching the dark stain grow beneath his shirt. “Oh.”

Maybe Heath’s shot hadn’t missed after all.

Abdominal wound, somewhere along the line between his chest and stomach, to the left of his bellybutton and just a touch higher. The room tilts; he stumbles with it. Palm pressing into the wound, the gunslinger ignores the biting burst of pain that follows. McCree knows too well it will be far past overwhelming when the initial shock wears off.

If he makes it through the blood loss.

The odds aren’t looking good, and seem to be growing steadily worse when he hears methodical clanking against the stairwell. The cowboy knows what the sound means before he even sees them with his own eyes. Years of combat in Blackwatch have left him too familiar with it.

Omnics. A whole fleet of them.

McCree blinks wearily, unsure whether they are real or he’s seeing double. Maybe hallucinating. It could very well be the blood loss.

They beep and whir in his direction, panels in their arms folding back to reveal the submachine gun underneath. They are not so different from Overwatch’s own, friendly Bastion. Only these support Vishkar’s logo, sensors red and trained at McCree.

One omnic or ten, he’s not going down without a fight. He raises Peacekeeper, ready to face the music, either from the blood steadily pooling in his hand or from the squad of omnics. 

“Say goodnight.”

A burst of light pushes the thought from his head.

McCree can count the number of times he’s seen the dragons on two hands, but the deep, bone-chilling fear that accompanies their ethereal forms is something he will never adapt to. Especially when they are pointed in his direction, swirling, clawing their way through the air.

The blue entities creep closer, dreamlike, scattering sparking bits of omnics in their wake.

The most unsettling part of the twins isn’t the gnashing fangs or their leisurely pace, sure in their destruction. It’s the sound. Thunderous at first, as if the world is splitting in two, even the Earth falling prey to their warpath. Then, silence. Not even the flow or air or the ringing in his ears, eerily quiet as the vacuum of space before twirling to the next victim.

The omnics explode without a sound. Not even a whimper. McCree almost feels bad for the bastards.

Then those blue eyes are focused his way. Jesse stands perfectly still, albeit trembling, rooted to the spot.

The dragons wash over him with the sensation of a cool breeze, something too severe to be pleasing. He shivers, despite trying his hardest to stand tall and unafraid, to be worthy of their appraisal. Slowly, they envelop the cowboy, bodies not entirely solid but somehow still there against his skin, their celestial presence commanding.

A hum splits the silence, resonating from deep within the dragon’s throat.

One parts from the other, sniffing his wound, whiskers trailing along McCree’s side. It takes everything in him not to jump away, to pull himself free from the ionized air. The other nudges its snout long his ribs, inspecting the damage, much in the very same way the gunslinger had done moments before.

They mutter something in Japanese, low and barely intelligible through the growl. Jesse numbly shakes his head, unable to break eye contact.

The dragon sighs. “Your luck has run out, Jesse McCree.”

“Had to happen eventually,” he tries to smile, but it comes out more as a grimace, too aware of the throbbing increasing in intensity with each pulse of blood. The dragon hums again, eying him quizzically before glancing back to their master.

“You are breaking your promise.”

McCree’s smile drops, lets his eyes fall closed.

“I know,” he says, almost inaudibly. His voice shakes.

The second dragon swivels to face the cowboy, words as sharp as barbs, “And you give in? Go out without a fight? How can you be defeated so easily when you know what awaits you? Know what will happen to those you leave behind?”

“It ain’t exactly my choice,” Jesse says, gesturing to the growing bloodstain. “You think I wouldn’t fight like hell to see him again?”

The dragons are silent for a long moment.

This time they speak in unison. “There is still much for you to do. It is not every day one wins our favor. Do not take this blessing so lightly.” They mutter something else, falling back to their first language.

It’s cryptic; McCree doesn’t bother to try and decipher their meaning. He may not understand their riddles, but he understands the look in their eyes. Sorrow, remorseful. All 300 times more evident and surreal against the beasts’ faces. The dragons have taken pity on him.

It seals McCree’s fate.

All at once, the light is gone, the basement growing dim once more. The only sign the dragons had ever existed was the crackling air, filled with energy. Jesse still feels the static coursing through him.

So too returns sound. No longer deafened by the roar or the twisting vortex, the first thing he hears are footsteps. Metallic. Familiar. Running his way.

But there is also something else. At the very edge of the room.

McCree’s eyes snap open as he raises Peacekeeper. He pulls the trigger.

Hanzo halts. Behind him, an omnic falls to the damp floor, sparking and smoking.

The gunslinger whistles, pushing his hat up with his gun before holstering it. “Missed one, sweetheart. You got it backwards this time.” His voice comes out weaker than expected, fragile. Not a second later, the world pitches forward on its axis.

He smacks against the wall with a small groan before his knees buckle. McCree crumples to the floor and, to Hanzo’s horror, leaves a smear of blood coating the wall in his wake.

He’s cold. The ground is cold, the air is cold, his limbs seem to seep coldness. When a spark of fleeting warmth dusts across his cheek, he nuzzles into it, blindly chasing. It takes McCree a long moment to realize someone is calling his name, and even longer to realize it’s coming from that beautiful voice. Hanzo’s.

“Jesse!”

“Han?” he mutters, eyes cracking open once more. All at once, the pain comes flooding back, full-force this time. It burns. It really fucking burns. He’d always heard cautionary tales about gunshot wounds to the stomach, how they are the most visceral, the most painful, but nothing compares to this. McCree clenches his mouth shut and chokes back the scream that rips from his throat.

Chest heaving, tears pricking his eyes, he moves to clamp a hand over the hole in his abdomen. Instead, what he finds is another hand already blocking the blood flow. Hanzo. How could he forget?

He grits his teeth, eyes bleary through the sharp, stabbing feeling in his gut. McCree does his best to ignore it. But the sight before him is even more gut-wrenching.

He’s never seen Hanzo in such disarray, the cool and collected archer reduced to panic. Wide, brown eyes that should never have that look of concern marring their irises stare back into his own. It is the same countenance of frightened passion given to him in the dim moonlight, so many and so few nights ago on Helen’s couch.

Hanzo is fearful Jesse will leave him. He’s absolutely petrified .

“McCree. Jesse ,” Hanzo’s voice is soft, steady despite his shaking hands delicately prodding along McCree’s frame, looking for other wounds, “you have to get up. We have to go. Now.”

“Darlin’.”

“We have to get outside before this house collapses.”

“Sweetheart.”

“Mercy will know what to do, she can heal you.”

“Hanzo.”

“Get up!”

Hanzo slides his arms under the cowboy’s shoulders, pulling him to the wall, trying to right him back to his feet. McCree gives an anguished shout, slumping back as it morphs into a muffled sob. Hanzo meets his gaze as he lets the man back down to the floor. McCree shakes his head, puts on a smile. It’s pitiful. The powerful man, his cowboy, reduced to this—life withering away into a puddle at his feet.

They both know he isn’t going anywhere.

Dying is not what it seems like in movies, and certainly not like in Westerns. It’s debilitating, ugly, leaving McCree wheezing with each breath. It’s utterly terrifying. He attempts to lose himself in Hanzo’s voice, rising in octave as he grows more desperate, almost yelling into the comm. He’s speaking too fast—the gunslinger, sluggish, only manages to catch bits and pieces.

“I need Angela,” and “too much blood, something close range,” and “please, hurry”. He doesn’t think he’s ever heard the archer beg before, much less at his expense.

“Hey, Han,” he tries, voice hoarse. Weak, McCree laces his own fingers with the man in question.

“Jesse, you shouldn’t be talking.”

“Would you do me a favor and get my hat? I think it fell off when I hit the wall.”

Hanzo swallows thickly, eyebrows pinched together as he gives a sharp nod. McCree doesn’t know if he passes out or if Hanzo is just that fast, but by the time he opens up his eyes again there is a hand over his own once more, and a hat being held before him.

“Thank y’ kindly,” Jesse slurs, plucking the hat from the archer’s hands. He reaches up the most he can manage and fixes it atop Hanzo’s head. He sits back with a thoughtful whistle, admiring his work.

“Sweetheart, that hat suits you better than it ever did me. Mind holding onto it for me?”

“You are not ,” Hanzo takes a deep, shaking breath. “I will hold it for you until Mercy arrives, yes?”

“Mmm,” McCree hums in response. As if an afterthought, a hand is on the back of his head, angling his neck up before letting it drop again. Instead of the jagged, cold ground, he is met with soft fabric, his head nestled in Hanzo’s lap. The cowboy only wishes it were under better circumstances.

“I’m sorry,” he croaks as fingers slip along his scalp, run through his hair. Hanzo’s other hand anchors him, still pressing down on the wound.

“There is no need to apologize.”

“No, darlin’, I really messed up big time. Broke my promise. I’ll be regrettin’ it for the rest of my life.”

Hanzo shakes his head, tries to hide the way his voice breaks when he asks, “What?”

“Didn’t even get to take you on that proper date. Remember?”

“I remember,” the archer assures, bring his hand from Jesse’s hair to cup his cheek. “When you are in better shape, we will go. Texas Roadhouse, Wholefoods, Cracker Barrel, one of your ugly American themed restaurants, I do not care. We can go wherever you wish to go.”

McCree’s eyebrows shoot up at that one. “Even Denny’s at 3 am?”

“Of course, you stupid cowboy.” Hanzo laughs, but it sounds broken. “Anywhere.”

“Do I get to kiss you goodnight at your door?”

“Yes. I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

“Hmm, that’d be nice,” Jesse mutters as lips reach down to meet his own, slow and gentle.

Hanzo rights himself again, putting more pressure on McCree’s gunshot wound. But—his grip keeps slipping, and oh God, there’s so much blood, seeping through his fingers, staining his clothes. And it’s sticky and wet, but above all warm , warm like the man underneath him when he had been pressed against his chest, fast asleep. But this time in all the wrong ways: the warmth is slipping out and leaving Jesse gasping and cold beneath his palms.

With a sickening realization, it hits Hanzo that he’s become accustomed to suburban life. To their Arcadia. There’s not a threat like the one on a battlefield, people don’t get ripped away from each other. Hell, the most he’d had to deal with was some raw chicken and his own clouded emotions. But now, he’s been hurled back into the real world. He'd trade anything to go back to the beautiful atrocity that is their couch. 

People die. Blood is spilt. He’s seen more deaths than births, more lacerations than smiles. All of that had been forgotten with McCree, with their home here.

He doesn’t want Jesse to go. Doesn’t want him to become another name on the long list of the fallen, a number on the body count, a flag-covered grave lowered into the ground. Another death to regret. Another anniversary to keep. Another vigil to uphold.

The ring on his left hand feels heavy as it clinks against Jesse’s own. His hands are bigger than Hanzo’s, but far too cold, too limp.

What he says is, “Jesse McCree, don’t you dare leave me.”

What he means is ‘I love you’. 

What he is greeted with is silence.

Chapter Text

It’s a pity, McCree thinks with a weak smile, that the last thing he will ever see is Hanzo’s distraught face, or the hand that desperately clings to his own. A damn shame. He’d like to make him smile again, hear that laugh once more.

Poker nights with Reinhardt and Torbjorn. Genji accusing him of cheating at cards, but no less jovial about it. Mercy’s gentle, and sometimes not so gentle, berating of his bad habits. Hana kicking his ass at any and every video game. Joking with Lúcio, introducing him to old movies. Hell, even Morrison’s paternal advice.

Tea with Pharah, the gentle teasing. He’s going to miss her too.

Stolen moments with Hanzo.

Too many regrets. He wishes he could have only lived a little longer. Then again, Jesse thinks of the crimes he’s committed, narrowly escaping both Deadlock and Blackwatch; maybe he got more time than he deserved. He’d always known he would go out this way, and what better way than in the arms of a lover?

He figures, soon enough, he’ll be up (or possibly down) there with Gabe and Ana, tossing back a drink.

McCree loses feeling of the hand around his own, sees Hanzo snatch it back as his fingers go numb. Eyelids drooping, he lets them flutter closed without a fight.

The second his eyes shut, he is not met with darkness, but with blinding light. Blue. And for once, warm.

--

A gasp from behind his back wrenches Hanzo out of the frozen moment in time. He snarls, hand reaching for his dagger once more as his head whips around to face the attacker.

His eyes go wide.

It’s as if he’s seen a ghost. Or an angel.

“Agent Shimada,” she says, voice quiet, a tone he hasn’t heard since his mother passed. “Hanzo.” Angela stands before him, wings spread, suit casting her in a golden, celestial glow. A halo. She slowly reaches out, his eyes tracking every inch of her careful movements until she places her hand over the hilt of the blade.

Hanzo shakes his head, knife clattering to the floor.

“Please,” he croaks. “Help him.”

Danger averted, Mercy rushes to Jesse’s opposite side, a blur of light.

“Pull up his shirt,” she orders, and Hanzo dutifully follows. Fingers still trembling, reluctant to let go of the cowboy’s palm, his hands find the hem of McCree’s shirt. Now would be the time for one of Jesse’s inappropriate comments followed by an eyebrow wiggle. But the man below them remains as silent as the grave.

It’s too methodical, detached. There’s no passion behind slipping a hand up his shirt, no breathy laughter against his lips. Just fear: primal, heart-stopping fear. He feels sick.

Hanzo tugs.

It’s worse than he could have imagined.

Hanzo is not a squeamish man: he’d lost that when he’d cut his brother to pieces. But he knows a serious injury from a flesh wound. His eyes flicker up past the blood matting McCree’s shaggy abdomen to find Angela’s own. She winces, expression giving away that the gunshot is the former.

Wordlessly, the archer pulls the ribbon from his hair and offers it up. Mercy takes the patterned fabric, balling it up into an undignified wad before sponging up the excess blood. Under less dire circumstances, he would have been insulted. But at the moment, he’s frantic.

Tearing his eyes away from the still seeping wound, Hanzo’s gaze rests on McCree’s face. Eyes closed, head lolled to the side, mouth slightly parted. It would be so easy to pretend he’s only sleeping. Any moment he’ll begin to snore. His stomach gives a sickening twist. Hanzo doesn’t want to face the possibility that it’s not as simple as that.

“He’s alive.” Angela reads his mind, eyes narrowing in concentration as she swabs around the wound. “Still breathing. But just barely.”

The words breathe air into Hanzo’s lungs again.

The house quakes around them, just as quickly sucking the breath back out again.

The single light swings wildly, emitting a high-pitched squeal as bits of the ceiling rain down above them. A crack splits up the wall, growing, stretching its fingers towards the support beams. Buildings were one of the highest casualties for Overwatch; they toppled so easily against Reinhardt’s hammer, or D.Va’s mech, or Pharah’s rockets. All which were left to fight off the unrelenting fire from the enemy.

Hanzo looks back to the faint rise and fall of Jesse’s chest. Still breathing.

“We have to move him.”

“I must stabilize him first,” Mercy insists. “We cannot risk further injury.”

The ground shakes again; another rocket. The light fixture circles above them like a buzzard. Hanzo’s ribbon is soaked a vivid red, concealing the dark patterned woven into the cloth.

“I need you to put pressure on the entry wound, can you do that?” She’s holding his hand through the procedure, guiding him like a child. He’s far too desperate to notice. Hanzo holds back the bile rising in his throat when his palms connect against the wound, sticky with blood.

He presses down, feeling the faint thump of a pulse in the viscera. Hanzo swallows thickly.

Mercy rises, lips moving in a silent prayer, and raises her staff.

It’s nothing like the dragons. When Hanzo releases them the sky opens up in a torrential downpour that never comes. Instead, electricity crackles through his mind, then his arm, until it’s too much to hold back and tears through the air. This is not the work of ancestral magic, but of a machine. The yellow bolt of light connects to Hanzo, and then snags onto McCree.

The feeling is unpleasant, cold—like iodine poured into a wound before burning hot. The chill makes him feel alert; the Caduceus system is a miracle of modern science. Hanzo is hyperaware of his environment, of Mercy’s determined eyes, of the tremors wracking through the walls.

Jesse gives a weak groan, more of a vibration in his chest than anything. There is still hope.

“As long as I am connected to him the bleeding should cease. The internal damage and infection is another story.”

“He will live?” As much as Hanzo wants it to be a demand, it comes out as a question.

“If we move fast enough. You will have to lift him—carefully!” Mercy reaches out her free hand as Hanzo kneels down, slipping a hand under the cowboy’s lower back. McCree’s metal fist scrape against the concrete, tightening. With more caution, Hanzo’s left arm moves to cradle his neck. He swears the dragons on his arms pulse as the tattoo brushes Jesse’s shoulder blades. However, the motion of actually lifting the man never comes.

Jesse remains limp on the floor as another blast, louder than all the others, sends the crack winding skyward. They watch as its slithers up, up, up, and meets the barrier high above their heads. The cement splits. The ceiling rushes down to meet them, and all Hanzo can do is look up in horror.

For the first time in a long time, he does not wish to die.

At the last moment, Angela’s prediction comes true before her eyes. They will end the same way as Jack and Gabriel as the roof caves in.

Hanzo doesn’t see what happens next. He is too focused on Mercy’s face, her poorly concealed sorrow, then on Jesse’s, still dead to the world—he has failed them, let someone else slip through his fingers.

Later though, he recalls the distant thundering just on the cusp of his hearing.

A shout close enough to leave his ears ringing.

Then his vision is filled with a burst of light.

Reinhardt hunches above them, shouldering his shield, roaring aloud with the deafening clatter of debris. Hanzo does nothing more than stare up blankly at the knight before him—Reinhardt gives him a gritted smile in return, and angles the light shield higher.

Another form joins his, not a living one as much as mechanical. D.Va’s mech braces between the floor and the shield. It gives Reinhardt the advantage he needs, enough to heave the rubble from the top and brace for the next shaking blow.

There are hands against his arm, urging him up. A voice insistent in his ear. Hanzo blinks, feels sluggish as his head shifts around. The world comes back to him in an unpleasant rush of voices and the sound of concrete snapping.

“Hanzo!”

He is not dead.

Another sharp tug, this time he registers the voice—Hana’s, on the verge of tears. The shield above them begins to crack.

“We have to get out of here! The whole place is coming down.”

Adrenaline kicks in. Hanzo rushes to his feet, countenance smoothing back to his practiced hard stare.

“Assist me with McCree,” he orders, D.Va scrambling to loop her arm under the gunslinger’s armpit with Hanzo on his opposite side. The archer locks eyes with Angela, then with Reinhardt before giving a sharp nod to the stairs.

They make a break for the exit. Angela is at their heels, golden bolt of energy fastened to the half-dead cowboy. Arms trembling, Reinhardt moves; the rubble moves with him. He shifts his palms along the underside of the cracking shield, skirting the edge. Reinhardt gives one final heave with a shout and dives for the stairs.

Not a second after Mercy’s hand clamps against his own and pulls the knight to safety does the room collapse.

Hanzo watches as D.Va’s mech takes hit after hit, abandoned along with the shattered remains of Reinhardt’s shield. Something about the remnants of pink scattered along the splinters of concrete and wood makes his heart twist.

A beam strikes the ground of the entryway, and moments later, it is filled in with debris like a deadly game of Tetris.

The stairwell grows dim, filled only by the sickly light of the Caduceus staff and the sounds of their own labored breathing.

Hana abandons her post under Jesse’s shoulder, instead opting to clutch onto the hem of Hanzo’s shirt, shivering against his side. He pulls her into as much of a hug as he can manage with one arm, blood rushing in his ears, beating a single word in time with his heart: alive. Shivering in the dark, bleeding and bruised, they are alive.

But only just barely.

Wordlessly, they all decide to save the celebrations for later. There are more important tasks at hand. Said task breaks the uneasy silence with a rattling wheeze.

“What’s wrong with him?” Hana demands as Hanzo pulls the injured cowboy closer, scooping up the underside of Jesse’s knees with his free hand. He takes the lead up the stairs, Mercy following at his heels. The bolt from the staff remains ever attached to McCree’s chest, a cold reminder of his failing health.

“He’s sustained major injuries,” Mercy mutters, a failed attempt to keep her voice inaudible to the archer. “A gunshot wound, a few broken ribs, I have no way to tell the full extent until we get aboard the transport.”

“Then we must hurry,” Reinhardt adds, still out of breath. Hanzo’s ahead of them, already taking the steps two at a time. He can see the faint outline of the door in the distance. It’s reachable; they can make it. He thinks of the dragons, hovering over McCree much longer than needed, swirling around his form. He thinks he heard their rumbling voices among the roar of blood in his ears, saw Jesse’s mouth move in response, that same crooked smile despite everything.

Hanzo prays to them now, to the ethereal beings just beneath his skin. Keep him safe.

“What happened?” D.Va whispers again, voice on the edge of a whimper. Hanzo shoves open the door at the top of the stairs and pauses. He looks over his shoulder to the team below him, silhouetted by the light streaming in from the door, framing him against the darkness.

“An ambush.” He keeps his head high, hides the way his voice threatens to shake. “Vishkar would have come for us next, disguised. And we would be none the wiser. He saved us.”

“And we will save him,” Angela refutes, standing at Hanzo’s side as they step into the light.

The house around them has all but collapsed; by some miracle the doorway was spared. The roof remains mostly stable, bits of sunlight peeking through the cracks and holes of what will ultimately come tumbling down. Broken glass crunches under Hanzo’s synthetic soles as he pads through what remains of the hallway; the wall separating it from other rooms has crumbled, along with most of the floor.

There’s no point in using the front door when a hole twice the size of the frame has been blown into the outer wall, edges still smoldering. Hana steps forward, pistol raised, gives a quick survey of the outside, and motions for them to follow.

The backyard is something straight out of an apocalyptic warning. Plates scattered, tables and chairs pushed back but still intact; people had retreated from the scene so fast they had left personal items. The grass is charred, but what is more troubling is the bits of omnic, severed parts still sparking. There is no mistaking Mercy’s horrified gasp. Suburbia turned into a battlefield.

“They’re back!” a figure Hanzo recognizes as Pharah (though with more cuts and bruises and soot than armor) calls, pushing her way through the rubble. She stops. He gets to experience firsthand the way the relief drains from her face, along with its color, leaving in its wake cold dread.

A trained soldier with the look of a scared child.

She picks up her pace. Breaks out into a sprint. Pharah’s palms clutch at Jesse’s slack face, fingers pressing against his jugular. She meets Hanzo’s eyes. He looks away first, swallowing down a lump in his throat.

“Lúcio.” Pharah’s voice is as cold as ice and twice as hard. “Retreat back to the transport and begin preparing the OR immediately.” Her defenses are impenetrable, something built up from years of practice. Only the slight tremble of her hands gives her away.

She turns to Hanzo next, one finger jammed into her ear. “Genji, makes sure the area is clear, then rendezvous back on the ship. As for the rest of you…” Pharah stops to gives her team a quick onceover, a headcount.

“Let’s move.”

The journey to the transport is easy enough. Reinhardt and D.Va flank the team, Pharah leading, but no opposition comes. Hanzo briefly catches a flash of dreadlocks through the open hatch of the carrier, the roar of the engine drowning out the sound of skates on metal. Then he is being ushered in, guided to the back.

The next moments occur in a blur, like a hellish fever-dream. McCree is taken from him, he doesn’t know by who, possibly Pharah, but he is very keenly aware of the chill, the way he feels empty. Things appear in and disappear from his field of vision almost simultaneously. There is a gurney, and then Jesse resting upon it. Hanzo has enough time to brush a lock of sweat slicked hair from the gunslinger’s face before the man is wrenched from his grasp. Then they are gone.

He tries to follow, but a hand is pressed to his chest, shoving him back.

“You don’t wanna go back there, Shimada.” Lúcio’s own wide eyes meet Hanzo’s. “It’s not gonna be pretty.”

Lúcio disappears into the OR, leaving Hanzo dumbfounded. Seconds before the transport’s hatch closes, a flash of green light zips inside.

“All clear,” Genji reports, sheathing his katana. “Hostile agents eliminated. And if we are fast enough, we will miss the next wave.” He falls dead in his tracks when he spots his brother, blood plastering Hanzo’s clothes to his body. Before the question can leave his lips, Lúcio makes his second round through the hull, this time adorning gloves.

“Does anyone in here have blood type A negative?”

The shout is met with silence typical of people scrambling to remember their blood type. It stretches out before them like a canyon. Lúcio fumbles, clutching the clipboard so hard it might snap in two. Footsteps break his panic before it can rise past the unease in his stomach.

A newcomer steps into the room, hand raised, volunteering. White hair thin and ruffled, red visor masking the scars littered across his face. Every step in his stride suggests that of a perfect, even march. Hanzo stiffens as the room grows tense with the new presence. How long had he been here?

Jack Morrison clears his throat, but for all the help it does, his voice still sounds like someone blending gravel. “I’m O negative.”

Relief floods Lúcio’s expression. “That’s perfect.”

The musician motions for Jack to follow, the old soldier giving a brief nod to Hanzo as he strides by.

As Morrison is lead away, Pharah loses all of her finely crafted composure, a hurricane in a bottle finally let free. In a flurry of muttered curses and clenched fists, she paces around the carrier. She demands answers: Where was he? How did this happen? Who did this? And most importantly, where are they now?

“Dead,” Hanzo reassures. He can’t bring himself to recount the ambush, bring back the flashes of McCree withering before his eyes. It makes it all the worse that the cowboy isn’t there to defend himself, to tell the tale and laugh it off as another escape from Death’s icy grip.

If Fareeha wasn’t the one stomping and swearing, Hanzo knew he would be in her place. But now he’s tired. He feels the weight of the situation, feels how old he is for the first time in years. He’s so absorbed in the scene playing on repeat in his head that he almost misses Genji sitting next to him. Almost. But Hanzo knows the face of his past mistakes.

“Hanzo…” It’s not a question, or a demand. It’s an anchor. The tone reminds him of after their father’s death, or when the elders would push Hanzo too far. Genji had always been there to ground him more than any cigarette ever could. The bad habit was only a replacement, and a poor one at that. Despite the years of hatred and regret between them, they are still brothers. 

Hanzo hooks his hand around Genji’s arm and keeps it there the rest of the flight. It’s enough.

It’s not until the transport finally lands back at Gibraltar that Hanzo notices he is still wearing McCree’s hat.

--

Hanzo has paced the corridor outside the med bay so many times, there should have been a trail worn into the linoleum. He’s halfway through his 32^nd round, Stetson in hand, fingers worrying along the brim, when Lúcio steps through the double doors. They swing back and forth, clicking together eerily like the steady beep of a declining heart. Hanzo has to stop himself from lunging at the musician, clench his teeth to keep from demanding answers. He’s sure Lúcio is familiar with his questions anyway.

He looks tired, Hanzo realizes. His eyes have lost their accustomed glimmer of cheerfulness, shoulders sagging, mouth pulled into a tight frown. The moment he spots the archer at the edge of the hall, he puts on his best reassuring half-smile.

What Mercy needs to teach him, Hanzo thinks wryly, is a bedside manner.

Hanzo is Hanzo, and Lúcio expects nothing less. The archer jumps right for the throat, skipping over formalities, over sympathies.

“Is he dead?”

Lúcio clicks his tongue. “To be honest, if McCree was dead, I’d probably be bawling in some corner of the operating room instead of coming out here to tell you the good news.”

“And that news would be?” Hanzo leans forward, desperate.

“He’s stabilized. Got him hooked up to every machine in the place, plus an IV pumping him with blood. You can thank Mr. Morrison for that one.” Lúcio tacks off the list on his fingers, looking up every so often to gauge Hanzo’s reaction. “We are doing the best we can.”

“And the bad news?”

Lúcio looks down, hands restless. Jesse’s phrase pops into Hanzo head so easily now: ‘bless his heart’. Lúcio may be the worst liar he’s ever met, and Hanzo had practically done it for a living.

Lúcio sucks in a deep breath. “He’s still losing blood, and the internal trauma may be too delicate to use the Caduceus System on. What Angie is worried about at the moment is infection. After we got him stable, we put McCree under for a brief operation. It’s nothing unusual around the base, a standard bullet removal, but it’s a bit more complicated from point blank. Those are hardly ever clean.” Lúcio redirects his eyes to the floor. “And given the area of entry… it can be particularly messy.”

Hanzo takes a step forward, ignores the surprised squeak Lúcio makes when the archer’s hand clutches onto his shoulder, and does his best to look intimidating. To someone who doesn’t know him, it’s an easy feat. But for those who do know Hanzo Shimada, the act is transparent.

He’s scared.

“Is he going to make it?”

Lúcio gulps, “Yes. I-I wouldn’t…” He trails off, regaining composure. “I’m not gonna let him die on me, if that’s what you’re asking. And I’m pretty sure Mercy would reach into the afterlife and drag his sorry chap-wearing butt back here if he so much as tried.”

“Lúcio!”

The sound is muffled, but there is no mistaking Angela’s stern voice. The musician shoots him one more apologetic grimace, and slips from Hanzo’s grasp.

“You know, he was mumbling about you before we put him under.” Lucio lowers his voice, retreating towards the doors. “Something about ‘not wanting to miss it’, if that has any meaning for you. It’s all gonna work out, Hanzo, I promise.”

He ducks his head out the door one last time, eyes fixed on something behind Hanzo, before leaving with a reassuring nod of his head. It’s only then that the archer notices the small crowd of people gathered behind him—the team, his team.

For once he doesn’t shy away from Reinhardt’s hug, and only struggles the slightest bit when his synthetic soles are pulled off the ground. The moment his feet hit the floor, Hana lunges to his side.

“So? What did Lúcio say?”

Hanzo falters, looks to the faces surrounding him—even Genji in the back gives him a thumbs-up. They are hopeful. He feels something akin to hope finally wash over himself as well.

“Dr. Ziegler is worried about infection, and they had to operate,” he starts slowly, “but Jesse is expected to make a full recovery.”

Reinhardt’s shout echoes through the hallway, maybe even all of Gibraltar. “Wunderbar!”

“Like I said: no reason to worry.” Hanzo’s head swivels to the edge of the group, the gravelly voice that had gone unnoticed until now. Jack stands a little taller as the attention shifts; a commander with his troops, through and through. “He’s been through worse.”

The group stares at him expectantly. A clear sign: elaborate. And, oh, does Morrison deliver.

“I saw the kid trip and break his pinky on his belt buckle once.”

“I’m sorry, what?” Hana breathes, face lighting up like a million suns. She catches Hanzo’s eyes, both of them reveling in a new addition to the infamous ‘young McCree’ saga.

“To be fair, I tripped him,” Genji adds. “But with how awful that thing is, we’re lucky it didn’t blind anyone first.”

“Smacked right into the side of the wall. Legend says he still has the ‘F’ imprinted on his finger. Angela gave him a framed copy of the records.” Morrison shakes his head, visor obscuring his faint smile.

Hana and Hanzo share a look: with Jack around, Fareeha isn’t the only able one to recount embarrassing stories of their teammates. And with that, the floodgates break. Arms open wide, Hana lunges for him. She goes to pull the archer into a hug of her own when she pauses, snaps her fingers. Hanzo can almost see the lightbulb above her head.

“Oh! We should let Ms. Amari know he’s okay, I’m sure she’ll be glad with the news.”

“Not at the moment. She’s busy,” Jack explains. “McCree briefly woke up for the transfusion, and just managed to slide this into my hand before he passed out again.” Morrison holds it up into the light. It’s small, rectangular, almost completely concealed by his gloves. The former strike commander holds it out; Hanzo takes it.

There’s no mistaking the blue ‘V’ on the front: Vishkar’s emblem. Suddenly it clicks. The drive—the actual drive. The reason for the mission.

“Pharah’s helping Winston decode it. It should be all the information we were trying to gather. And if the Hub is destroyed, then it may be the only copy.”

“Where…?”

“Beats me, you’ll have to ask him yourself.”

Hanzo scoffs and shakes his head; even unconscious the cowboy was full of surprises. He glances through the windows of the doors, for a glimpse, a hint of what’s going on beyond. Against the stark white walls, in her white scrubs, platinum blonde hair almost blending in with the room around her, he spots Angela take off a pair of gloves with a grimace.

A very red pair of gloves.

His heart leaps to his throat. He knows a little too well whose blood it is.

Morrison must see it too, because suddenly he stiffens. Hanzo can’t see the man’s eyes through the tinted visor, but he catches the way his mouth tightens, his brow creases. He’s worried.

Suddenly he can’t focus on anything but that red. On his hands, splattered on the dark basement wall, pooling under the man himself. He sees in red. First Genji, and now McCree.

The walls are closing in. Hanzo’s fingers curl into the Stetson, rumpling the brim.

“Hanzo,” Hana tries, barely above a whisper. She reaches out a hand, but before it can land Hanzo wrenches away. He takes a few hesitant steps backwards, turns on his heel and stalks off with as much composure as he can muster.

“Let him go,” Genji mutters. “My brother prefers to deal with this sort of thing in solitude. He will come back when he’s ready.”

Not long after he’s turned the corner, out of sight of the rest of the world, he bolts. It’s what he did as a child, what he did after murdering his brother, what he did when he first arrived at the Watchpoint. Like the castle of his childhood, Gibraltar has a handful of nooks and crannies where he can hide, avoid confrontation. And much in the very same fashion of Hanamura, he’s had them ruined, infected by a person.

And so he runs, only to find there is nowhere to run to. No place to hide that McCree hasn’t tampered with, hasn’t left a piece of himself in Hanzo’s memories. The bridges high overhead of the loading bay, towers looking over the vast shoreline and rocky cliffs, Hanzo’s own room.

There is only one place he can think to go: the source of his problems.

He reaches for the door, half expects it to lock, to reject his fingerprints. To his surprise it slides open before his hand even makes contact.

“Athena?” Hanzo mumbles more out of surprise than anything.

“Welcome back Agent Hanzo,” the A.I calls. Her voice is higher than usual, perhaps with amusement? Is Athena teasing him? “Your heart rate levels are high, would you like me to notify Dr. Ziegler?”

Oh yeah, definitely teasing.

“That won’t be necessary. I just need some time to think.” He pauses. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome Agent Hanzo.” Hanzo swears he hears the slightest tinge of amusement in her voice as he steps into the room. The door slide shuts and Athena falls silent.

He’s been in McCree’s room before, briefly for drinks, but something about being alone makes it intimate. Hanzo thought living with the cowboy for months would have prepared him for this, but he still finds himself coming up short.

First of all, it’s not nearly as filthy as he thought it might be. There are clothes scattered about, mostly occupying a single chair, but there are still patches of floor. The dresser top is organized with various trinkets, what can only be described as cowboy memorabilia: a cowboy boot shot glass, and no less than three cactuses. A bottle of hot sauce (for emergencies). Two framed photos on his bedside table—one Hanzo vaguely remembers being taken.

 It perfectly captures the team, gathered around the table, prepared for a massive breakfast. Reinhardt, the one taking the selfie, is hugging Jesse tight around the shoulders with his free arm. Hanzo snorts; the cowboy is wearing his atrocious ‘kiss the cook’ apron. Hana peeks into the edge of the frame, making an ugly face at the camera, Lúcio beside her following suit. Genji is squatting (of course), hands steepled, just in front of the mountain of pancakes. Pharah and Hanzo sit at the table with matching looks of disdain.

Despite himself, Hanzo smiles. The picture feels like home.

The second is something he’s never seen before. Hanzo snatches it up immediately, running his fingers along the image: A boy who, judging by the Stetson far too big on top of his head, must be Jesse McCree, only far younger. Hands resting on his gaudy belt buckle, finger pointing in a gun as he winks at the camera—not much has changed. Next to him, mid-eye roll, is a man he only recognizes from reports. Tall, broad shoulders, beanie covering the top of his head—Reyes.

Hanzo slumps onto the unmade bed, returning the framed photo to its post. With the utmost care he places the Stetson on the post at the end of the bunk. He lies back; the bed is much too small for him, let alone Jesse. How did he even manage to sleep?

Then again, he wasn’t exactly picky. Hanzo feels fondness warm his chest. But there is something else residing alongside it.

The room is so utterly, for a lack of a better word, Jesse. It’s brimming with personality.

With life.

Hanzo allows his eyes to slide shut, confident that despite the odds, the cowboy will pull through. He has to.

--

Angela rolls her shoulders, kneads her gloved fingers against the heel of her palms, listens to the squeal of sterile rubber. It’s a nervous tick, but one that grounds her. And at the moment, she certainly needs it

“One more time,” she whispers, half to herself, and half to her patient. Not that he can hear her.

She goes over his vitals, watches his heart monitor, checks his I.V’s and replenishes the bags, prods at the wound itself—stitched up and bruised, but beyond that, the bleeding had stopped—and covers McCree back up. Jesse’s chart in hand, Mercy goes over it for the nth time this evening, scanning for the smallest detail missed. She stalks a loop around the medical ward, checking that her tools are sterile and in place, that she is ready for any and every emergency. That she will not lose her patient, not this time.

Angela returns to her perch, hovering in the doorway to her office, watching the slow rise and fall of McCree’s chest. A fever, she reminds herself. Not unconscious, not comatose, but sleeping. On enough painkillers to tell her his deepest and darkest secrets if she asked, but sleeping.

She takes a deep breath, rolls her shoulders back. “One more time.”

Just as she takes her first step back to McCree’s side, a figure blocks her path. Tall, lean, out of her usual armor, hair braided back into a short plait—Angela steps back. A pleasant surprise; one of the most pleasant for the good doctor.

“Another late night at the office?” Fareeha asks, lips giving away the slightest hint of a smile. She already knows the answer. It’s not the first time she’s found Angela pulling an all-nighter, dishing out medical advice (correction: threats), but never following through herself. With a hum, Angela tosses a fond glance in her girlfriend’s direction before sidestepping out of the way.

“I’m afraid so,” she sighs.

“There’s no reason for you to run yourself ragged all night. Jesse isn’t going anywhere.”

Angela shoots Fareeha a flat look, eyebrows raised. “Like Jesse McCree has never evaded my care far before I release him. Or that you have never assisted him in said attempt.”

“That was only one time!”

“That I know of.”

“Okay, perhaps twice. Three at most.”

“Exactly my point,” the doctor concludes, bridging the gap between her and her patient. She looks to the IV, and then to McCree’s pale face. Infection. The fever hadn’t broke yet, and there was no way to tell the other symptoms as long as he remained asleep. She had given him antibiotics, a shot to fight the infection. She knows it will take, that there will be no allergic reaction; she’s been Jesse’s doctor for years, she knows her patient. And yet the question of it gnaws away at her.

“He wouldn’t like you making all this fuss over him.”

Angela snorts. “Which is why I do it. Someone has to.”

“I could say the same for you.” Fareeha reaches out, slowly laces their fingers together.  “You’d hook yourself up to the Caduceus system if it only meant you couldn’t work yourself to death.”

“Don’t touch me, I’m sterile,” the doctor mumbles, but in no way fights it, only presses closer.

“I’ll get you new gloves later.”

Angela lets herself be wound into a loose embrace. Fareeha rests her cheek against blonde hair. For a moment the silence of the medical ward doesn’t seem so deafening.

And then comes the inevitable. The question she’s been asked hundreds of times over her career.

“Is he going to make it?”

Angela pulls back, looks her lover in the eye. There’s no use in lying. Fareeha deserves better.

“I hope so.”

They unravel from each other, slowly, unwillingly. Mercy clutches McCree’s chart, eyes focused down, but mind somewhere else altogether.

“How long have you been awake, Ang?”

Angela is silent for a long moment. When was the last time she slept? Did the five minute nap half hanging over the kitchen sink, in-between coffee breaks count? She was sure it had been more hours ago than the number of coffee cups she had had during the night, which was impressive. Angela walked the fine line between insanity and unconsciousness that can only be achieved either by bashing your head into the wall several times, or by being awake for three consecutive days with a only a stomach full of coffee and sheer, medical willpower. When the doctor is in, she stays in, God damn it.

Finally Fareeha shakes her head. “You can’t stay up all night like this.” There’s a finality to her words, similar to a command on the battlefield. Something Angela has never taken well too.

“I have before and I will again.”

“And if he wakes up tomorrow? Or there is an emergency?” Fareeha pauses, smooths her thumb over the crinkle above Angela’s nose. “I have a proposition for you. How about you go rest on a spare bed for a few hours, I’ll keep an eye on McCree, and then I’ll wake you up and I’ll go and rest. We can do it in shifts, yeah?”

For a moment Angela is skeptical, but then a yawn gives her away. “You’ll wake me if anything goes wrong?”

“Of course.”

“And you’ll wake me in four hours for my shift?”

“Yes, I will.” Fareeha says, knowing good and well it’s a lie. The doctor doesn’t nearly get as much rest as she needs, too busy putting others before herself. Lúcio will arrive first thing in the morning, and until then, Pharah knows how to check a pulse.

She presses a quick kiss to Angela’s temple, “Get some rest.”

--

He dreams of dragons.

Long, winding, leading him through his path in and out of consciousness. Occasionally they double back, sniff at his abdomen, muttering in Japanese what he can only assume are phrases meant to calm him. It’s not often that Jesse McCree feels small, but here the darkness spans far into the horizon, engulfing it, with only the light of the dragons to be his guide. He walks in their monstrous wake, every step sending ripples along the void, strangely absent of the jingle of spurs.

He dreams of Hanzo.

They guide him there, into a room of darkness, black as far as the eye can see. That is, save for a drop of color in the middle. As he grows closer however, the pigments arrange themselves in a familiar fashion. And, he will admit, it is atrocious. Reds, yellows, and sickly oranges all crossed together to form a plaid pattern.

The Couch. Stout, littered with wear and tear, all the colors of a Skittles bag sitting in a hot car for a week. Awful as ever; he loves it.

But to be honest, how ugly it is is dimmed significantly by the man lounging upon it.

Reading glasses, hair pulled into a bun, a book laid open on his lap—Hanzo. He sits on the far end, elbow propped against the armrest with his chin resting on his knuckles, engrossed in his reading. McCree doesn’t know if he’s ever been so happy to see something so calm and domestic in his life.

Jesse pulls his hat from his head, holding it against his chest, pleading.

“Sweetheart…” he starts, but is silenced when Hanzo holds his hand up. His palm practically skims Jesse’s nose. For a moment there is nothing. Not a sound; McCree doesn’t dare to breathe. Then Hanzo uncaps a pen, taps it against the page.

“A six letter word for foolish.”

There is a beat of silence that seems to last for an eternity, all the while, the cowboy staring dumbfounded at his lover.

McCree gulps, fumbling for his composure like a bar of soap in the shower. “What?”

 “A six letter word for foolish.” Hanzo’s eyes find his own, dark and alluring as ever, crackling with underlying amusement. Jesse is utterly hypnotized. “It is a puzzle, cowboy. I thought you prided yourself in solving them.”

He’s speechless, stupefied by the man before him. But McCree’s never been one to back down from a challenge.

“Uh...” Jesse scratches his chin, plops down on the couch, “Stupid?”

“No. Too simple. The word we are looking for has an ‘o’ in it.”

He leans in closer, using the book as an excuse to touch the archer. “Idiotic?”

Hanzo leaps up, just out of reach. He clicks his tongue, teasing. “Too many letters.”

“Moron?” Jesse springs up after him. The chase is on.

“Hm, not quite.” A coffee table appears and settles before them, blocking the cowboy’s path. He sidesteps, rounds the corner. Hanzo circles around in the opposite direction. The world’s most frustrating game of keep away.

McCree lets out a hiss, throws his hands up in the air. “C’mon Han, just give it to me. This is crazy, I don’t even know where I am!”

Hanzo pauses, holds his head a little higher.

“A four letter word for protected?”

“What?”

The archer’s stare grows colder, on the verge of his famous full-body eye roll. “The next question. You heard what I asked of you.”

Jesse runs a hand through his hair, tosses his hat onto the coffee table. So this is how it’s gonna be, huh?

“I dunno. Safe?”

Hanzo gives the slightest nod of approval, but doesn’t move to pencil the answer in. They stand in the darkness for a moment, shadowed by the ugly sofa, regarding each other with intent. For once, McCree doesn’t act first, lets himself simmer. It occurs to him Hanzo is playing a game—a riddle.

“Look,” McCree says. “I don’t know how I even got here—”

“A six letter word for an entity left behind after death. In this usage, associated with ancestral figures.”

The wheels in Jesse’s head begin to turn. What the hell, he’ll play along.

“Ghost?”

Hanzo shakes his head, the slightest clue.

McCree leans over the table. “A spirit.”

No confirmation, the archer rolls right into the next question. “Mythological creature known for their long, scaly forms.”

And then it clicks. He understands the game.

“Dragons.” McCree pauses, adding it up. “Spirit dragons. They brought me here?”

The beginnings of a grin start to form on Hanzo’s lips; he jots down something in the crossword.

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

“You may be stumbling upon the answer. Think hard, it is all laid before you.”

So he does. He thinks back to every word Hanzo has said to him since he entered the room. Thinks to before then, flashes in and out. Morrison, then Angela, then Hanzo himself. His own dying words, breaking the promise.  Wheezing for air. The pain in his abdomen.

The dragons, ethereal, celestial spirits, shattering the Earth in two, chiding him for his poor sense of timing. Being enveloped in the warm, blue glow.

In the back of his head, he hears Hanzo’s voice from long ago. Before Arcadia. Back when all they had were long nights spent on the Gibraltar cliffside or holed up in their rooms, downing bottles until the last drop.

“I’ve been meanin’ to ask you somethin’ about that,” he points to Hanzo’s tattoo. The man lowers his glass, raises an eyebrow. And hell if McCree isn’t giddy in the fact Hanzo didn’t bite his head off just for mentioning it.

“Genji said somethin’ about communicatin’ with his dragon. Uh, do you—”

He’s interrupted by a snort, before Hanzo begins. “I may occasionally consult the spirits, but it is no conversation. What is it you say? ‘Like talking to a brick wall’? They speak in riddles and leave me to decipher their clues on my own.”

Riddles. A crossword.

“Safe…” Jesse mutters, dragging a hand through his hair.

The realization makes him freeze. Like an arrow to the heart.

“Hanzo you didn’t.”

The man in question has nothing to say, doesn’t even spare the cowboy a glance as he evades his grasp once more.

“They kept me safe? Kept me alive through all of this? Sweetheart it—it already drains you enough just to have them take out bad guys, how did you manage to get them to heal me? Why would you do that to yourself?” This time when he reaches, Hanzo lets him win, lets Jesse grab him by the shoulders and pull him close, eyes searching. “Why?”

“You know why. Three words,” Hanzo whispers, hold his gaze for a long while. There is something soft in those dark eyes, something sad. “But you’ll have to find them out in your own time.”

As easily as he fell into McCree’s arms, he twists out. Hanzo gives him one last fleeting gaze, drops the crossword book onto the couch, turns on his heel, and begins to walk away. By the time McCree realizes he’s leaving, the man is too far to catch.

“By the way,” Hanzo calls at the brink of the dark horizon, glancing over his shoulder. “I filled the rest in for you.” He smirks, one that McCree will remember long after he opens his eyes, and disappears. The archer’s words ring out, echo around him, only halt when McCree’s fingers find the book, lift it to his face.

“Six letter word for foolish,” he reads aloud.

“Cowboy.”

Then he wakes up.

--

McCree is given a few days to recuperate, to give him some proper rest and break his fever. He wonders if his dreams have anything to do with that—the fever. But there is another part of him, somewhere he can’t pinpoint, that argues against it, that knows the truth.

The first day he is confined with Angela, receiving the scolding of a lifetime, one only paled in comparison to Ana Amari’s when he lost his arm. That day, he had been so heavily reprimanded, Ana had screamed until he died and then dragged his soul back just to do it again. This time it’s a bit different. Mercy glares at him for two hours, until she finally breaks, turns away and tries to hide the wobble in her voice.

“I thought we had lost you.”

“Not gettin’ rid of me that easily, Doc.” And then, with his arms open, “C’mere.” With a sharp, stifled sob, Angela meets him in the middle. Allows herself a rare moment to get swept up, sniffles into his shoulder. Then she surprises him with a squeeze strong enough to put a crocodile in a headlock.

“Watch my McRibs,” he chokes out, patting Angela on the back as she rights herself. The doctor stifles a laugh, one that sounds dangerously close to a sob. She stands there for a moment, eyes locked on her hands, letting the silence stretch between them.

“What would the world say if I let Jesse ‘Justice’ McCree die on me?”

Jesse snickers at that. “They probably wouldn’t be complainin’. Someone’s gotta pay my tab though.”

“Hush.”

The rest of the day is spent in and out of naps, collecting Angela’s lectures. ‘Jesse, don’t eat so fast or you’ll get a stomachache’, or ‘Jesse, stop trying to get up, you’ll tear your stitches’, and his personal favorite: ‘Jesse, for the love of God, don’t you dare smoke in my hospital. I’ll take away your arm again, just try me.’

The second, Lúcio wakes him up with contraband: actual edible food (he almost leaps up to pull the man into a bear hug because, holy fuck, that just might be one of Mei’s cupcakes).

“Here you go, my man. Also don’t tell Angie, I think I’m finally on her good side.”

Mouth full of the most delicious thing he’s had in ages, McCree mimes a zipper over his lips. Edible food; he’s spent so long without it, the idea of it seems unreal, like a mirage in a desert. It’s a luxury he hasn’t had the chance of partaking in a particularly long while. Jesse realizes with a start that he’ll never be forced to stare into the unholy face of Helen’s baked goods again, never to grapple with a deceivingly caustic piece of pie. He almost laughs aloud; Hanzo will be absolutely ecstatic about the news—

Hanzo.

Now that’s a sobering thought.

“Hey Lúcio,” McCree calls, the musician momentarily turning away from his stitches. “How is, uh… How is Hanzo takin’ all this?”

Lúcio averts his gaze, suddenly invested in rewrapping the gunslinger’s wound. The focus is too telling, too deliberate.

“To be honest with you, I haven’t seen him in a few days. But I wouldn’t worry about it, dude. He’s always off doing his own thing, and I’m down here in medical. We probably just aren’t meeting up in the middle.”

McCree nods, tries to take his advice, but finds it difficult when a cold feeling settles in his stomach. He clenches and unclenches his hands from the bedspread, letting Lúcio work in silence.

Only time will tell.

On the third day, Angela decides Jesse’s immune system is well enough to allow visitors. The moment the doors open a sea of people flood in.

Hana is the first through the door, making a beeline for his bed, twenty-odd pink balloons trailing after her. He’s surprised she doesn’t float away when she launches herself halfway across the room and into a hug. Mercy hisses something about his stitches, but there’s no malice behind it. Not that they would listen anyways.

Fareeha is close behind her, physically prying Hana out from around McCree. She pulls him into a tight if-the-stitches-didn’t-rip-before-then-they-surely-did-now hug. If her meaning is to give affection, and to remind him that she can snap his neck with the flick of her wrist if he so much as tries a stunt like that again, then McCree understands loud and clear. Especially when it rolls into an immediate lecture about the importance of working as a team and friendship.

Jack Morrison stands at the foot of his bed, the visor gone from his face. And if he has the slightest ghost of a smile at the familiar chaos of it all, well, no one teases him about it. It’s only acknowledged with a small smile from McCree, struggling to pull away from Fareeha’s choke-hold.

Reinhardt is crying. Violently. Lúcio and Hana stand on either side, doing a poor job of consoling him. Said consoling is mostly comprised of frantically flailing and motioning to the other for help.

Genji brings in a cactus, places it in the window (next to Lúcio’s orchids), and is this close to doing a sick flip in the air and dive-bombing onto his best friend, when they notice a new presence.

All eyes turn to the man hovering in the doorway, trembling hands clutching a cowboy hat.

Hanzo keeps his gaze focused on the man in the hospital bed, refusing to break as he strides forward. The crowd parts like the sea before him, making a direct path. The archer takes measured steps, slow, at his own pace, metal feet connecting with linoleum.

Pausing at Jesse’s side, Hanzo holds out the hat. The room holds its breath. McCree sits up straighter in his bed, hopeful.

Hanzo places it on the cowboy’s head.

And then promptly grabs the brim and shoves it down over his face. McCree sputters, tries to push it back up and recover, but not before Hanzo starts his rampage.

“What were you thinking?” the archer seethes. “Running headfirst into trouble like that? Without calling back up!”

“Honey,” McCree attempts, but is cut off.

“You weren’t thinking, that’s the problem! Of all the irresponsible,”

“Sugar,”

“—self-sacrificing,”

“Darlin’,”

“—impulsive,”

“Sweetheart.” McCree uses the rant as a distraction, bringing the man closer, hands on his hips, until they are inches away. Hanzo goes willingly. Grabbing the hem of Jesse’s hospital gown, Hanzo drags him up the last few millimeters, bridging the gap between them.

The kiss is short lived, interrupted as Genji cheers as loud as humanly (cyborg-ly?) possible. Hanzo snatches a pillow from behind Jesse’s head and chucks it across the room in his brother’s direction, before letting himself be pulled back down. This time, McCree is sure to shield their meeting behind his hat, just the smallest sense of privacy.

The tension dissipates from the room as quickly as it came.

Lúcio leans over to Hana, voice low. “So, do you think they do this every time, or…”

“I’m just hoping they will get a room,” she replies, smile undeniably wide, the last few words yelled loud enough to interrupt the couple.

Hanzo rights himself, clears his throat, glowering right at Hana. She grins through it, watches the archer’s stony disposition evaporate as soon as McCree slips Hanzo’s hand into his own. Morrison and Angela share a knowing look and shake their heads.

Reinhardt only cries harder.

Chapter Text

They get their date.

Fancy, proper, just as promised. McCree makes reservations at a small, quaint restaurant in Gibraltar, overlooking the sea. Hell, there are even candles. Wine. A real date. No Overwatch, no Arcadia. No Henry or Joey.

Just them.

“It’s no Denny’s.” Hanzo heaves a melodramatic sigh. “But it will do.”

McCree laughs so hard he nearly falls out of his chair.

They take it slow. Normal. McCree orders chicken and it’s a surprise to him when it’s actually cooked. Yes, the bar is that low.

He walks Hanzo back to the dorms, commentary strictly limited to normal things (the weather, current events, exactly how long it takes to nail over 1000 Christmas lights to the roof of a house in perfect detail). For the night, they pretend to be normal.

They stop at McCree’s door first. The cowboy turns, thumbs hooked in his belt as he flashes his crooked grin, one that has been sorely missed.

“So.”

“So?” Hanzo echoes, “Now what?”

“Well,” Jesse begins, taking his hat off. “If romantic comedies have taught me anything, around this time we get that nice lull in the drama for the first kiss. But let’s be honest, that move on Helen’s couch was better than the entirety of Adam Sandler’s career. So we’re past that point.”

Hanzo nods along in approval, nose scrunching up as he thinks. “Perhaps it’s time for the boom box then?”

“Nah, I don’t think ‘She Think’s My Tractor’s Sexy’ has the same effect.” McCree crowds his space, brushing the hair from Hanzo’s face. “Guess I could settle with the goodnight kiss cliché, if y’aint opposed to it.”

Hanzo gives a thoughtful hum, twisting his fingers into the serape before dragging McCree back. The door slides open behind the archer—something he’ll have to thank Athena for later—continuing until the back of his knees hit the bed.

They fall, tumbling together with a surprising amount of grace that comes with mutual understanding, as if they’ve been practicing the steps all their lives. Jesse’s hands bracket on either side Hanzo’s head, while the archer preoccupies himself with lazily dragging his palms up the other man’s chest before hooking over his shoulders.

With an affectionate rumble somewhere deep within McCree’s chest that Hanzo feels more than hears, Jesse nuzzles against his neck. He laughs, loud and unrestrained, beard scraping along his skin. Ticklish. McCree eats it up—smiling into the archer’s neck, trailing kisses up his jawline.

Hanzo cups the man’s face in his hands as he pulls back, meeting Jesse’s fond smile with one of his own.

“So much for taking it slow,” Jesse drawls, offering a half-hearted shrug. He’s not sorry in the least.

Gently scratching along the cowboy’s scruff, Hanzo offers up a coy reply, “We can slow down if you wish. I imagine this is uncustomary for the first date.”

“Yeah, a bit. Unless you wanna wake up beside them in the mornin’.” He sits up a bit more, looking almost sheepish, “Which, of course, I’d love to do with you, sweetheart.  Wouldn’t want to mess this up.”

“Weren’t you going to ask to kiss me goodnight at my door? Isn’t that what you said?”

McCree gives a huff of a laugh. “Yeah, but now we’re in my bed and it seems kind of pointless.”

Hanzo sits up, folds his legs underneath himself. Normal, he reminds himself. Tonight they aren’t agents, or bounty hunters, or criminals-- just two men who thrive in each other’s company.

“The offer still stands.”

McCree’s stomach twists, ties itself in knots. It’s been a little less than two weeks since they’ve returned. Even after all this time, Hanzo can still make him nervous, make his heart leap to his throat. Wide eyed, he nods, fights his tongue to muster up the right words, and wipes off his sweaty hands. He feels ridiculous; they’ve kissed before, even been past that. And yet, he still cares so much for the man before him, waiting patiently with a smile reserved only for him.

Jesse musters up his courage and speaks. “Can I kiss you?”

It’s soft, and so genuine, it’s all Hanzo can do to take McCree’s face into his hands and guide him to his lips.

In their line of work, they don’t get tenderness. They don’t get slow kisses. They can’t afford the luxury of showing their heart, of anything other than fast, and biting, and to the point. They don’t get to be gentle.

Hanzo is doing his best to amend that.

The kiss is different from their first; the desperation is gone. This time they linger, find a leisurely rhythm and rock in time, chasing each other’s lips and sharing air. Hanzo traces the familiar outline of Jesse’s body, fingertips skimming flesh, leaving goosebumps in their wake. McCree feels like he might melt into the touch.

They break apart as Hanzo laughs, quiet and breathy.

Jesse bumps their noses together, eyes soft with an unspoken question.

The archer shakes his head, laughs again, a little louder this time, before resuming where he left off. There’s no need for explanation. He’s happy, and that in itself is a miracle. A small battle won. A normalcy he’s never known.

When they meet again the air has changed. Heat envelopes their grapple. Hands roam as they press more hurriedly against each other, picking up the pace so fast it makes Hanzo’s head spin. In a blur, McCree’s shirt is gone, thrown across the room and lost forever.

That’s when Hanzo first sees it—the mark.

He goes stiff as a board, frozen in place, eyes wide, something akin to dawning horror encroaching his features.

 “What?” McCree says, twists, chases the sight until he nearly topples off the bed. 

“Be still.”

“What?”

“I said hold still,” Hanzo hisses, guiding Jesse away from the edge of the bed with a hand. The archer moves, cautiously, as if his eyes could be deceiving him, until he has full view of McCree’s back and the patch of skin in question.

“Han,” Jesse’s voice changes from a playful lilt to something serious. “What is it?”

In truth, Hanzo doesn’t know. But he has some faint idea.

Staring back up at him from the gunslinger’s right shoulder blade is a tattoo, inked a stark white against his tawny skin. One he’s seen before. Two dragons, not as intricate as his own, but familiar nonetheless. They are locked in a circle, devouring each other: the clan’s symbol.

He inhales sharply through his teeth, reaches out to touch the ouroboros. The dragons stir beneath his skin, sending a jolt of electricity up his arm the moment his fingers graze the tattoo. Hanzo jerks backwards.

“Hanzo.”

Static still crackling through his veins, it takes Hanzo a moment to right himself before he finds his voice.

“It’s a tattoo.”

“Oh.” McCree physically relaxes. “Well yeah, I got a few of those. Like the horse shoe on my—”

“Jesse.”

“—thigh. I was gonna say thigh.”

Hanzo deadpans, all too familiar with Jesse’s keen sense of bad taste.

“I am aware of your tattoos, and this one is new.” Hanzo reaches over to the nightstand and snatches his phone. He snaps a quick photo—with the low lighting in the room it’s not his best work, but with the right Instagram filter it’s decent—and passes it to the half-naked cowboy.

McCree replies with a litany of colorful swears, eyes glued to the photo. “I don’t even remember gettin’ this one.” He struggles to recall the last time he got blackout drunk at a bar and didn’t wake up with some odd, new marks. And occasionally, new facial hair.

“That’s because you did not get it voluntarily. And it was not my own doing, for that matter.” Hanzo moves his thumb in a smooth circle, chasing the design. “You’ve been marked by the dragons.” The archer navigates his way to the headboard, propping himself up against a pillow.

“So you do know what this is?”

“Somewhat. It is extremely uncommon,” Hanzo admits. He pauses, looks away, something hesitant in his tone. “My mother had one.”

McCree bites his tongue. Family is not an easy discussion with Hanzo. Quite frankly, asking a Shimada about their family is like asking the team to get on the payload. It’s suicide. Or, in some cases, fratricide. So he waits, gives the archer time to decide how he wants to proceed. All he can offer is his arm, carefully snaked around the other man’s shoulders.

It’s a tender subject, both the tattoo and his mother. Something that Hanzo has skirted around, even left conversations altogether if it became a topic. The only exception to that rule was Genji, and even then it wasn’t a frequent discussion. He sighs, gathers himself; McCree deserves an answer. He’s been patient with him thus far.

“It is by no means a thing of ownership, if you are concerned about that. They have marked you because they deem you a person fit for their power. Meaning they will protect you, will come to your aid even though you are not their master. You may call upon them if you are in need. This happens very rarely. The first and last instance I can recall this occurring was with my mother.”

Hanzo sucks in a deep breath.

“My mother received it after an assassin made their way into our home and threatened her life.” He recalls the memory of hearing the story, pressed into the edge of her hospital bed, following every word. Hanzo can only hope he is retelling it with as much accuracy and captivation.

“My father,” the word is said less fondly, “heard her scream but was not able to reach her in time. However, his dragon did. She said it saved her from the mercenary. In return, the dragon left a mark on the back of her hand as a promise to return should harm befall her again.” His smile gains a mournful edge to it. “Our dragons were always very fond of her, believed her just as worthy, if not more.”

A little snippet of information, a glimpse into the past. They do not speak of family, neither him nor Jesse. But this is a step.

After a long moment, McCree whistles. “Well I don’t know about an assassin, but your dragons talked to me if that counts. Twice, actually.”

Hanzo bolts upright, eyes wide. “They what?”

“Well, more talked at me. They wound me up so tight in their riddles I was lucky to find my way out.” He shrugs, blind to the honor he has been bestowed. For centuries, men had murdered those working for the Shimada Clan, seeking power through the secrets of the dragons. And here McCree comes, walking right up and talking the dragons into favoring him. 

The archer thinks for a minute, mind reeling. Baffled, the only words that come to his mind are to ask, “What did they say to you? Tell me.”

So, he does. Jesse tells him about the dragons washing over him after Hanzo arrived and dispatched the Vishkar omnics. How the dragons were sure to berate him about his poor timing, how he guesses in that moment they sealed his fate. He talks about blacking out and them guiding him through his unconscious, always looping back when he fell behind to help him get right back up again.

McCree leaves out the part with Hanzo, still unsure if it was some creation of his unconscious, the dragon’s using a familiar face to speak with him, or something different altogether. Jesse lingers on the last phrase of the Hanzo from his dream, the words heavy on his tongue. He decides to save that for some point in the future.

As he wraps up the tale, Hanzo burrows closer to him, pressing against his side. Warmth sprouts in his chest, takes root there, threatening to wind up his throat and spill everything on his mind.

“The dragons,” the archer mumbles against the skin of his shoulder. “They have accepted you.”

Scratching at his chin, McCree casts his gaze toward the man cuddled against him. “Is that a good thing?”

“The best you could hope for. It means they trust you. The dragons know you will not abuse their power.” Or their master, Hanzo doesn’t say, but the words linger in the air, unspoken but not undetected. A bond of trust.

“So it’s kind of like meetin’ the family. But… without all the...” McCree rolls his wrist, gesturing, fumbling for the least offensive term.

“Without all the murder? And the yakuza? Just the family’s guardian dragon spirits accepting you instead of a probably poisoned dinner with my father?”

“Yeah. That. Just meetin’ two giant lizards.” McCree drags a hand down his face, “Christ, didn’t know it was so hard to date a Shimada.”

Hanzo leans forward to meet his eyes, warmth in his gaze. “What? Are you telling me your family doesn’t have an ancestral spirit passed down for generations that you may summon in the wake of catastrophe?”

“I mean, we got arthritis. That runs in the family. Does that count?”

Jesse receives a playful swat for that one, something he concedes he maybe deserves for the awful joke. But it lacks its usual strength. He looks at Hanzo; eyes half-lidded, blinking to keep himself focused as his head lolls on and off of McCree’s shoulder again. That’s what he gets, the cowboy supposes, when he plans date night after a mission.

As Hanzo makes himself comfortable, a sense of ease settles over him. A weight lifted from his shoulders, like finally letting out a breath of air.

And with it, Hanzo realizes how heavy he feels, how exhausted.

Jesse gets the clue without Hanzo ever needing to speak.

McCree slides back down to the mattress, pulling Hanzo after him before tugging the covers over the two of them. Eyes still firmly closed, Hanzo blindly searches for warmth, scooting closer until he’s succeeded in his expedition and firmly planted his face in the crook of Jesse’s neck. McCree hugs him close, knowing he’ll wake up with a mouthful of black hair and a cramp in his right arm, but it’s worth it.

With Hanzo, it’s always worth the trouble.

The archer’s calloused fingers come to circle around the fresh mark of the dragon. McCree shivers. When Hanzo does speak, his voice is heavy, garbled by sleep.

“Tell me what you’re thinking about.”

“Mei’s cupcakes.”

Warm laughter against his collarbone. “Anything else?”

“You,” McCree states matter-of-factly, snuffling against Hanzo’s dark hair. “Us.”

Hanzo hums, hands sliding lower, thumbing the scars against the other man’s back. “What about us?”

Jesse thinks back to a time, not so long ago, when he was on the run. From Overwatch, from Deadlock, from mercenaries sent for his head—even from himself. Long nights spent in someone’s bed, never lingering too long, gone just before his feelings begin to catch up with him.

And now he’s stopped running. In a way, they both have.

Before he can answer, he feels the heavy breathing against his neck and Hanzo’s soft snores, signaling the man finally dozing off. McCree lets his head hit the pillow with a small laugh of his own.

It can wait until morning.

--

“So there I am,” McCree says, wiggling his fingers, lost in his own storytelling. “In the middle of an honest-to-God cowboy duel. I mean, you always said how those old Clint Eastwood films would never help me with anything. But there I was. Could have sworn I even saw a tumbleweed roll on by. A Spanish guitar was playin’ in the distance—”

“Get on with it.”

“We were underground but I swear I heard an eagle screech!”

Jack knows Jesse is milking the story, just the slightest bit. And by ‘milking it’ he means stealing the whole damn cow. He’s from Indiana: he knows what that looks like. But then again, it has always been that way. Morrison rolls his eyes, takes a long sip of his coffee before leaning back against the counter. “And? Then what? The clock struck noon?”

“Nah, but now that you mention it I kinda wish it had.” He sits back, slaps a hand on the counter.

“So you get hit in the head one too many times and then had your weird cowboy fantasy, and then?”

McCree’s smile grows wider. “I spoke. Talked up a storm.”

Jack snickers. “When do you ever stop?”

“A little bit after I got shot. But I’ll get to that,” McCree jokes morbidly.

The cowboy clears his throat, gathers his thoughts. “I was thinkin’ to myself, that I can’t talk my way through this guy, he’s too invested in the price on my head. But, I do talk enough to buy me some time, to let him think he’s got me where he wants me. To drop his defenses. Play the part of happy-go-lucky idiot. You won’t believe what people will do if you get them smilin’ enough. And when he was unsuspectin’…”

He lets his voice fall soft, interrupting his dramatic pause for a sip of his mug, before beginning again, full blast.

“Bang! Rolled right out of the way of his shot, and had just enough time to grab Peacekeeper. Now—this part’s real important—the exact same moment I find my footing, the transporter lands.”

Morrison raises an eyebrow, unimpressed.

“I’m gettin’ to it old man, hold your horses,” Jesse reassures. “The hasty landin’ is enough to shake the whole damn house. Like the god damned Earth splittin’ in two. We both fall over. Heath gets up faster, scrambles to his feet. But not before I put two in his chest.”

Jesse catches Morrison’s eyes. “That’s the moment he had to drop it.”

Hook, line, and sinker. McCree’s grin widens as the man across the counter from him leans in. Now Morrison is interested.

“See, the way I figure it, Heath wasn’t even supposed to be down there. I know how to run ops, Jack, you know I know. So I gotta know how they run ops. And I’ll tell you, rule number one, especially for a group that’s only interested in their own gain, is to keep the team together.”

McCree starts to light a cigar, but Morrison reaches across the table and slaps it away.

“Don’t smoke inside.”

“Okay, Angela. Next you’re gonna be hookin’ me up to six I.Vs and yellin’ about my sleepin’ habits. The outfit would suit you though, especially the wings.” The cowboy sighs, but relents. He pockets his lighter once more.

“Anyways, Heath knows his top priority is protectin’ the information. And it just so happens the party they’re hostin’, swarmin’ with Overwatch agents, is a few feet above the hub. Not the best place for a trap. He takes matters into his own hands, slips down while no one is lookin’, and backs up all the info onto a drive.

“He knows his team better than Vishkar does, knows someone will get reckless and it’s only a matter of time before the house collapses like a stack of cards. If the hub gets destroyed, that information will be useful to no one, not us, and not Vishkar. We’ve got a motive.

“But then something happens he doesn’t expect: he spots me go into the house. Heath can’t afford that risk. If Overwatch were to get the information, then they no longer have the upper hand. He gives Grace the careful instruction to do away with Hanzo while he takes care of me.”

McCree pulls a flask out of his holster, adding more to his coffee. Morrison smiles the tiniest bit; he’s been doing the same all night. Similar vices for their similar burdens.

“So he created the drive?” Morrison asks, mostly for the reports he’ll have to make to the UN. It’s one thing if Overwatch broke in to steal information, but another thing altogether if they found it.

“You betcha. And when he slumped over onto the ground, it slid out of his pocket. Or fanny pack. Hell, I don’t know where he would keep it; probably the fanny pack. Maybe a secret compartment in his Birkenstocks.”

Another long drink. “Anyways, this is the part where it starts to get fuzzy. I’m layin’ there, bleedin’ out, and it’s right before I pass out. Just finished my famous last words, just, uh-” McCree goes a little red in the face “-finished sayin’ my goodbyes. To Hanzo. And the pain gets overwhelmin’. I’m on the verge of blackin’ out, grabbin’ at anything—Hanzo, the floor—when I feel it. Still in my palm. Next thing I know I’m in the hanger with you, and I open my hand to find the drive.”

McCree shrugs, folds his arms over the countertop. “And now we’re here.”

“Kid, if you don’t have the craziest luck of any person I’ve ever met.” Morrison shakes his head and stands, reaches back to grab the half empty coffee pot. With that kind of fortune, Jesse could play Russian roulette against himself and win with a fully-loaded chamber. He refills his own cup before sitting it on the kitchen counter. Waves his hand in a silent offering.

“Not all luck. But, heh.” McCree cracks a grin at that one. “Reyes used to say the same thing.”

And there it is—the elephant in the room. McCree might as well unleashed a stampeding herd through the kitchen. Especially with the look Jack throws his way.

The conversation they’ve avoided since Morrison arrived at the watchpoint. Ghost stories of a dead man. Gabriel Reyes haunts them both, long after his death. Jesse’s done his fair share of dying, he’s not about to tiptoe around the issue much longer.

“He used to take me to underground poker tournaments, see how much I could win before someone called me some choice words and the guns had to be drawn.” McCree takes a drink directly from the pot to ease the tension. It just leaves him with a mouthful of scalding coffee and a disgusted look from Jack Morrison.

He nearly chokes, trying to explain further, before he steels himself and continues. “It was a hell of a good time. And practically how we paid for the ops, what with how little funding Blackwatch got. Sometimes we even had a little left over to treat ourselves. Sometimes we’d get ice cream, or Reyes would get just enough fabric to patch up the bullet holes.” He shrugs. “Little things.”

“Really?” Morrison asks, too quiet. He’s fading fast. Just when Jesse thinks he’s gotten all the information he can wring out from the man before him, two things happen.

Something typical, followed by a miracle.

Jack sighs, but there’s a change in his voice. “That sounds like Gabe.” McCree swears the man sounds fond of the thought.

Silence sits heavy, and then—

“He used to talk about you a lot. All the time. Every mission he would come back either bragging about your progress or cursing about how stubborn you were. It was even worse when you weren’t assigned together. He would call me, on our emergency line, just to grouch.” He laughs, but it’s a fragile thing, “Nearly gave me a heart-attack every damn time.”

“Jack,” McCree says with a sharp inhale. He didn’t expect to open the floodgates, just wanted to churn the water a bit.

“He cared about you. I mean it. You were-” Jack clears his throat, clenches his jaw, voice rough. “You were like a son to him.” To me, he doesn’t say.

“The second I saw the paperwork, saw the video of your interrogation, I knew. He had a soft spot for things like that. Figured he’d seen a bit of himself in you. Gabe was bound to take you under his wing. It’s where the nicknames started,” he laughs, not nearly as happy as it should sound. “The Dads.” Morrison drinks, not from his cup, but straight from his flask. “You gave him something to believe in again, before it all went to hell.”

“You loved him.” McCree says, not a question but a statement. Jack cracks a smile, can’t quite meet Jesse’s eyes, so he opts to stare into his mug.

“Of course I did.”

Another long sigh. Jack is beginning to think every breath he takes is a sigh, an attempt to rid his mind of his worries. Of the past, of what could come. It’s part of growing old. They may as well have Reinhardt build another deck and sit him in a rocker so he can yell at kids to get off his property. He could retire. Maybe Hawaii, maybe anywhere, as long as it’s not Florida. He shudders at the thought—anything but Florida.

Twenty-odd years span before him. Jack runs a hand down his scarred face; God, he’s gotten old.

“Kid,” Morrison finally speaks. “What are you doing down here? It’s 3 am. Don’t you have places to be? Like a bed?”

McCree snickers, quiet enough to keep the peace, “Nightmare. Aren’t as bad as they used to be, but well, it’s not the easiest environment to fall back asleep in. You know how it is. Thought to myself maybe I should let Hanzo have the bed to himself for a bit.”

“You’re sharing a bed?”

“Well, uh,” Jesse sputters, caught off-guard, the tips of his ears turning red. “Yeah. I mean, we’re like… Ain’t no fraternization laws, so—?”

Jack waves the conversation away before the man can embarrass himself further. “I mean the bed. Isn’t it a twin?”

“Yessir.”

Morrison makes a disapproving noise in the back of his throat. Now that brings back memories.

“You got a meeting in the morning, McCree. Why don’t you try and get some shut eye before then.”

The cowboy grins, scooting his chair back to put his mug in the sink, “You don’t gotta ask me twice. Night Jack.”

Morrison only grunts in response, waving him away. But before Jesse’s out the door, he decides to bestow some advice.

“McCree.”

“Hmm?”

He pauses, fumbling with the words. He never has been good at this kind of thing, “Keep the people in your life close to you. Don’t let things go so easily.” Don’t let people leave so easily. Translation: Don’t make the same mistakes I did.

It’s a conversation for another night. One that McCree will be glad to have.

“You’ve got it boss.”

“And don’t let Angela catch you out at this time of night. Just because she let you leave the medbay doesn’t mean you’re off bedrest! She’ll take away your arm again!” But McCree is already gone, heading back to a warm bed, with another warm body waiting on him. Jack sighs, rests his forehead against the cool counter.

“What am I gonna do with you?”

--

Hanzo sits in the cafeteria, occupying one of the handfuls of circular, more intimate tables provided. He takes a long sip of his tea, easily filling the silence. Satya is the first to interrupt the delicate balance, frowning as she looks over her teacup.

“Henry?”

Hanzo frowns. “Yes.”

“Henry?” Mei echoes from beside him, hot chocolate steaming in her mitted grip.

 “Yes. Henry.”

“Bweep Boop?”

“Yes,” Hanzo confirms Bastion’s question. “The name I was given was Henry.”

“Zweep doo-woop.”

Head in his hands, Hanzo responds, “Yes, I’m aware I don’t look like a Henry.”

He watches as Mei bites her lip, trying, and failing, to keep her laughter subdued.

Satya, blunt as ever, gives him a flat look. “I hate it.”

Mei erupts into giggles.

“You are not the first,” Hanzo agrees. “At least you did not get called it every day for months.”

“Oh, it’s not that bad! Really! I mean Winston could have put a little more effort into the name.” A series of beeps on Bastion’s part interrupt Mei. She quickly makes an adjustment. “Okay, maybe a whole lot more effort. At least something cultural, but it’s still cute. Better than Joey.”

Bastion shoots them a look that Hanzo would describe as skeptical if the omnic only had facial features. Over the last few months and the meetings of their little club, they have all quickly learned how to pick up on Bastion’s emotions. With another long beep, Bastion picks up the tea cup before him, brings it to his face plate, and sets it back down untouched.

Bastion can’t exactly drink tea, but they humor him. There’s a cup for Ganymede as well, which he prefers to use as a bird bath.

“I am disgusted by Vishkar’s new policies.” Satya speaks, enunciating her revulsion with each word. “They must have fallen apart after my departure. They are getting desperate. To think they would sink as low as mercenaries.” She catches herself, holds up a hand. “I don’t mean to offend.”

“You don’t. These people had no code of ethics, no honor.” Hanzo waves away her concerns, but he’s touched by it nonetheless.

Their sort of friendship was an odd one, brought about by keeping each other’s initial hostility in check (and being the only ones with the guts to call the other out on it). And then, somewhere along their twisted path, the two had found a mutual struggle.

The memory strikes through him with as much clarity as if the events are unfolding before him. Hanzo had found her boarded up in a far corner of the cafeteria at some ungodly hour of the morning. He’s not one to reach out, but Hanzo knows a cry for help when he sees one.

Her hands were shaking, clutching a piece of paper so tightly the slightest jerk could rip it from her fingers. A mission briefing—Vishkar. Hanzo places himself a few feet away, not overwhelming, but a presence. When she finally speaks (shaky at first, voice wavering and catching on consonances) he’s nearly startled from his seat.

“How do you know,” Satya had managed between strangled gasps, “when you get better? How?”

Hanzo had given her a long, hard look.

“I don’t have your answer. I am still struggling myself.”

That’s where it started.

Slowly, Satya discovered the faults in her former employers, unraveled Vishkar’s crimes, was a key factor in bringing them to their current standing. She had found a new identity and home, integrated with her teammates. Hanzo had travelled on a similar path; watching their progress became a sort of amiable competition between the two of them.

Somewhere along the way, Bastion had fallen in. Hanzo appreciates the way the omnic picks up on his need for silence, or when the racket of the base gets too much for Satya to bear. Their shared affinity for nature is a bonus, though Bastion leans more towards bird watching and sometimes his feet get caught in the craggy rock on Hanzo’s hikes.

More than once Hanzo catches Bastion zoning out for a moment, lights flickering before jolting back into the present. He offers his brother’s help, teaches the omnic how to meditate and concentrate through his episodes. It’s not always a pleasant experience. But they manage.

Mei watched their growing gathering for a long time until she finally rallied the courage to join. They accept her the second she asks. From then on she bakes for every session. Helps tinker with Satya’s new turret system. Talks for long hours with Bastion over climates, over the flora and fauna that reside in those climates.

“Baking helps me.” Mei says after Hanzo finds her shut inside her lab after the fifth consecutive day with a mountain of untouched cookies. “Sometimes,” she pauses to take off her glasses, wipes them down, “I think too much.” It’s only then that Hanzo notices the redness around her eyes.

They talk for a long time in their native tongues, switching between Chinese and Japanese for the mental challenge it takes. For keeping their minds at bay. Invites her on a hike so she can feel the sunshine on her face, know she’s not isolated in Antarctica once again. They both are too familiar with loss. But they manage.

And Hanzo, well, he’s learned to make friends outside of his brother and one (1) persistent cowboy.

Their friendship is an odd one, but it’s not as if any of them have ever had anything on the remote cusp of normal.

It’s still a mostly recent development. A work in progress. But they manage.

They are all a little damaged. But they manage.

“Boop boop bweep!”

Bastion’s enthused chime breaks his thoughts.

“Yeah, and the chicken part!” Mei agrees hastily.

“I would have walked out and caught a flight back to the base the next morning,” Satya says over another long sip of tea, pushing her elegant black hair over a shoulder. “Mission or not, I couldn’t have even stomached the sight of it. Winston can reprimand me if he likes. I’m sure the write-up would be far from imaginative, even given the circumstances.”

“Oh no, Winston would agree with you. He’d probably even pay for your plane ticket!” Mei comments, refilling their cups. “You can’t exactly cook peanut butter, but I’m sure he understands.”

“And that woman-”

“Helen,” Hanzo interjects.

“Yes, this Helen.” Satya briefly closes her eyes, crosses her legs, and folds her hands in her lap in an action Hanzo has seen only once before a man fled screaming; a meticulously schemed intimidation tactic. Or just for being extra petty. “I would have put her in her place.”

There is an understanding when their eyes meet. “Believe me, I thought about it.”

Mei laughs. “But it couldn’t have all been awful. It must have nice to be stationed out west this time of year! Nice and warm, the perfect kind of weather.” She leans on a hand, looking pleased just dreaming about such a climate. He can picture it perfectly: sandy beaches, California sun, Mei dressed to the nines in her biggest coat and snow boots, still not warm enough.

“Bwoop beep?”

“I’m afraid I didn’t have much time to study the outside,” Hanzo grimaces. “Not that I received a proper view of it. The neighborhood was very neatly groomed, trees, hedges, and grass. However, there were quite a few birds from what I heard in the morning…”

He’s halfway through explaining the wildlife to Bastion when Hanzo catches a glimpse of the dawning frown on Satya’s features. One that signals an unexpected guest. Bastion beeps something between an alarm bell and a greeting.

“Y’all havin’ another one of those weird tea cult meetings that I’m uninvited from?”

Hanzo knows the voice without looking, catches Satya’s wary smile.

“Uninvited and banned are two very different things, Agent McCree.”

“Aw, c’mon now, Vaswani. You know you can call me Jesse. And I threw a flashbang at Morrison one time to get out of kitchen duty, and suddenly I’m banned from the cafeteria for life.” He gives a sheepish grin, tilting his hat back. Before the conversation can turn sour, he quickly intercepts it, turns it around and spins it into gold. “Mei, by any chance were those your cupcakes that made their way to me in medical?”

Mei’s clap of excitement is muffled by her mittens. “Yep! I hope they were okay. There are still some more left in the fridge if you’d like.” McCree glances back at the door, ready to bolt for the kitchen, before the climatologist practically falls out of her chair.

“Wait! You have to save some for Zarya though, okay?”

“Is she gettin’ back from her mission today?” He turns, casting a small, knowing grin Hanzo’s way before leaning against the table.

“Yeah! And I just, you know, wanted to give her a good welcome home! She’s got quite the sweet tooth.”

“Does she now?”

Satya clears her throat, fixes the cowboy with a hard stare. “Will that be all?”

“Ah, right.” McCree rubs the back of his head. “I actually came to steal Hanzo for a bit. Kinda urgent. Top secret information.” Hanzo shoots him a questioning look, brow furrowed, but rises nonetheless. A series of beeps follow their departure.

“We’ll be safe, Bastion, don’t worry!”

Hanzo waits until they are out of the cafeteria and far into the labyrinth of halls to pick up the conversation.

“Well?”

“God damn, we’re really losin’ this cutest couple contest.” Jesse flashes him a lopsided grin. “You’re gonna have to pick up the hobby of bakin’ if we wanna compete. Or at least get those ugly matchin’ t-shirts. Not that I’m complainin’.”

The archer gives a short bark of a laugh, “I was unaware of such a contest. I thought you dragged me out for urgent matters.”

“This is urgent, sweetheart. We’re losin’ our status as Overwatch’s power couple.”

“Tragic.” Hanzo rolls his eyes as the cowboy bumps into his shoulder. “Don’t you have a follow-up appointment scheduled? I believe I saw Angela looking for you earlier.”

McCree clicks his tongue and finger-guns in the other man’s direction. “Well she’s not gonna find me, ‘cause you and I have a date.”

“A date?”

He shrugs, “Well kinda. Sorta. Reinhardt found some terrible old Schwarzenegger film and wants to play it in the rec room. I figured I’d humor the guy, but not without draggin’ you down—I mean, along with me.”

Hanzo halts. “I will accompany you, but only under one condition.” McCree’s smile becomes something softer, more reserved, using the opportunity to pull the other man closer.

“It’s always conditions with you, ain’t it darlin’. What did you have in mind?”

The archer hums, leans in. “Steal me an extra cupcake.”

--

McCree falls asleep five minutes into the movie. At least now the archer has a footrest, and a comfy one at that. Even if it does snore. Hanzo thinks it’s a blessing in disguise for the cowboy. He doesn’t have to sit through two hours of cheesy one-liners and over the top explosions. Which, to be honest, actually sounds like something Jesse would find riveting.

The cowboy has his head in a hand, elbow propped on the corner of the couch. A small puddle of drool accumulates under his jaw. There is nothing appealing about it whatsoever.

 Hanzo finds it unreasonably charming.

The thought is interrupted by a stifled laugh from the next couch over. The floor practically shakes; even the knight’s muffled laughter could cause tinnitus. Yet McCree remains soundly asleep. With a grin spreading his entire face, Reinhardt gestures—or, well, tries too—to the sleeping cowboy.  “Does he do this often?”

It’s only then that Hanzo notices.

Reinhardt’s question goes unanswered; the archer can’t do much but stare.

The knight’s left arm is hung in a sling, held at an angle with the strap carefully looped around his neck. His shield arm. From his position, Hanzo can just barely make out the signs of sloppy handwriting (Angela’s), and a cluster of crude pink scribbles (Hana’s).

“Oh, this?” Reinhardt waves his arm, avoids Hanzo’s prying eyes. “I was helping Hana with some new moves. She wanted to learn how to charge, and she’s quite the fast learner. Gave me a run for my money with those rocket thrusters of hers! Knocked me straight into the wall! I’m surprised she didn’t break my hip!” Reinhardt brags like she’s his own. There must be some grain of truth to his words. But not all of it.

The movie picks this to be the perfect time to roll the credits, volume dying down.

“Is that what you told Dr. Ziegler?” Hanzo calls his bluff, keeps his stare focused on the knight’s head until Reinhardt is forced to meet it.

“Y-Yes.”

“And how did you really fracture it?”

“A sprain,” Reinhardt corrects. He smiles, looks back to the blank television, knows he’s been beat. “Back when the house was crumbling down. The weight of the rubble when I pulled away twisted my wrist. It’s nothing.”

Hanzo’s frown deepens. “Why did you not alert Lúcio or Mercy sooner?”

The knight shakes his head. “There were more important cases for them to focus on.” McCree interrupts their conversation with a particularly loud snore, head slipping from his hand before smacking into the couch with a resounding thwack. There is a beat of silence, before the snoring picks up again. Still asleep. Still alive.

Reinhardt chuckles. “You see what I mean?”

“You didn’t…” Hanzo’s eyebrows furrows as he grasps for the right words. “Why did you come back for us?” More precise meaning: why did the team come back for Hanzo? It’s something that’s been eating at him. They knew they could have been injured, even died, and yet they still took the risk. Came back in the middle of the walls falling in on them. Sacrificed everything for the archer and cowboy. Risked it all for someone like himself, Hanzo thinks. Why?

Reinhardt, befuddled, looks at him like it’s the simplest thing in the world.

“Because you are family. Both of you.”

Hanzo is blindsided, the admission hitting him like a particularly hard shove into a pool at a barbeque. It nearly knocks the breath from his lungs. The last answer he expected.

“Oh,” is all Hanzo can manage, barely a whisper.

Because suddenly he has a family. Not a clan, not a crime syndicate, but people who care for him, even after the job is said and done. His heart twists; people who despite everything, want him around. He takes a stuttering breath, Reinhardt too engaged in choosing the next movie to notice. 

Hanzo looks to the knight sorting through DVDs, to the man curled up at his side, and realizes he would do the same. For Reinhardt. Or Pharah. Or anyone else on the team—in his family. He would risk his life if it meant saving theirs, spending a little more time with the misfit group they have strung together against all odds.

A family.

Genji forgives him. People care about his wellbeing. He has a family now, better than his original.

Hanzo thinks this is what the beginnings of redemption feels like.

Reinhardt clears his throat, looks over his shoulder. “Now this one, ‘Total Recall’, I know you are going to like this. Do you feel like another movie?”

Hanzo nods, throat still tight. “Yes. That would be nice. Thank you.”

Reinhardt knows he means it in more ways than one.

“You’re welcome.”

--

The domesticity of Arcadia must have rubbed off on them.

That’s the only way to explain it.

Hana is the first to notice, grabbing a snack before going back to her stream, only to stumble upon the McCree humming as he does the dishes (a tune unmistakably Billy Ray), and Hanzo attempting not to sway along as he dries.

She almost slips into shock right then and there, swears she’s hallucinating for a moment. McCree doing chores without being threatened? Absolutely unheard of. And as for Hanzo …  she thinks back to a time long ago, when he first arrived at Gibraltar. How he would hide away and refuse even the tiniest social interaction. As if to prove her point, the archer turns to her, rolls his eyes at the off-key tune, and returns to his work.

Hana grins, and steps quieter on her way out to avoid interrupting them again.

On Wednesdays, Hanzo does the laundry and McCree folds, sometimes accompanied by Bastion (the omnic is years ahead of both of them in terms of skill, but appreciates the help). It’s not without incident. Once Hanzo washes D.Va’s jumpsuit and Mei’s white undershirt in the same load, resulting in an ugly, deep lavender color. Bastion beeps in a tone that is unmistakably disappointed as he shakes his head. It’s not as if Hanzo’s even touched a washing machine in his life before this; there were maids for that.

But he’s learning. Until then, the base buys darker clothes. 

One day they get back late, after dinner, still filthy from their mission that morning. All Hanzo wants to do is take a long shower, unhook his prosthetics, and fall asleep wrapped around his cowboy. Jesse couldn’t agree more.

He’s explaining this plan to McCree as they open the door to their shared room, and stumble upon a surprise.

A new queen-sized mattress, a frame, pillows, sheets—all courtesy of Jack Morrison.

McCree may or may not cry.

Maybe just a little bit.

Okay, he definitely cries, but Hanzo is sworn to secrecy not to speak a word of it and promises to collaborate on getting Morrison the best set of golf clubs money can buy for Christmas. Maybe a matching sun visor and ugly argyle socks that come up way too high for pants that short.

There’s a new sense of union spreading through the base. Late rec room nights with Reinhardt, and now with more people than they can sit on the couches. There are days designated for movies, poker (which McCree absolutely revels in), and even video game tournaments. People rarely break off for dinner: instead, they push all the tables in the cafeteria together and feast that way.

Talk spreads of bringing on new team members. Morrison mentions some old contacts that might be willing to join the fight. Winston has a few of his own in mind, adding onto their family. Genji has pitched the idea to his sensei, an omnic by the name of Zenyatta, a monk from a temple high in the mountains of Nepal. Zenyatta is more than thrilled at the idea of bringing peace to the world. Overwatch welcomes them with open arms.

On weekends, the Shimada brothers rise with the sun, walk the silent hallways, relish in the moment of peace before the chaos begins. They meet on a secluded path, hidden within the rocky cliffside and bring in the new day together. The sun peeking above the water, casting the surface in an arrange of pinks, reds, and oranges. Waves lapping gently at the shore.

New beginnings, holding all the promise of the world.

“Do you remember that mission in Dorado a few weeks back?” Genji asks one day, faceplate removed, taking small bites of his toast with natto spread. Hanzo holds his gaze; time to time he still flinches, expecting to see that young, smiling face with the unruly green hair, but he no longer shirks away from his mistakes.

Hanzo is no longer who he was years ago, and neither is Genji.

The green hair is a welcome change. It was certainly A Look, but paired with the orange attire, his brother had looked like a carrot when he wore it in his younger days. Or some anime protagonist. Hanzo says a small prayer of thanks under his breath that he himself learned to part his hair somewhere other than the direct middle of his head.

He leans forward to refill their cups. “You mean the ambush? That we barely escaped?” With Genji’s confirmation, Hanzo grimaces. “Yes, I remember. A little too well. We did not prepare nearly enough for defense.”

“Back on the payload, I was covering Mercy while she patched up Zarya, and suddenly there was smoke. And no, Jesse wasn’t nearby, it wasn’t that kind.” Genji sits back against his heels; Hanzo can practically hear the motor turning in his head. Or, maybe that’s just his cooling fans kicking in.

“I have never come across anything like it. It reeked of death.”

“So,” Hanzo comments dryly. “Like your room after Father bought you the new Pokémon game and you stayed there for a week.”

“Precisely.”

Hanzo gives a huff of a laugh, throws an amused look in his brother’s direction. “So this smoke?”

“It surrounded us. Like a fog. We could hardly see past it. Zarya was concerned it might be some sort of noxious gas, and then… The smoke solidified. And before me was a man.”

The archer gives a thoughtful hum as he eats the fried egg lying on top of his rice. Waits until he swallows to question, “Talon’s newest head for hire? I believe his call sign was ‘Reaper’?”

“Yes. He’s hard to miss. And Angela just stood there, gawking at him.”

“How could you not with that mask? It’s like Talon hired an ex-Hot Topic manager to challenge us.”

Genji snorts, voice raising in pitch, an unflattering mimicry. “I know the perfect way to hide my identity! A skull.”

“He could be a diversion,” Hanzo suggests. “In the same way a car accident is a distraction.”

“You don’t want to see it but you can’t look away!”

They both laugh, Genji wheezing through the fit. “You’re not the one who almost trips over his guns! You get to stay nice and safe in some tower while I have to face this—this Black Parade reject who throws his guns on the ground when he’s done with the rounds.”

“He just throws them?”

“Literally tosses them to the ground! Does he not know how to reload?” Genji throws his hands up in the air, tossing tea in the process. Hanzo narrowly avoids it, pouring his brother yet another cupful.

“Assassins these days have absolutely no taste.” He catches his brother’s eyes, not the metal, but his real eyes. The familiar brown, like his own but lighter, so full of mirth it almost threatens to encompass his face. “Do you know who this new agent reminds me of?”

Genji’s smile rises with his own, until they speak in perfect sync. “Takagi Hinata.”

“He was always so grumpy!” Genji cheers, laughing so hard he nearly spills his tea again. “And, and he had those ugly ties.”

“Atrocious,” Hanzo agrees, carefully moving the tea set far away from his brother. “And the worst aim in Japan. It is beyond me how he found his way into guard duty. Or how Father hired him.”

“I had almost forgotten about him.”

“Hm, I figured you would have remembered him better than I. You two were, if I recall, very familiar with each other.”

Genji quirks an eyebrow, staring out against the rising sun. “I was very familiar with his credit card number.”

Hanzo chokes on his tea, sputters, and decides to set his dishes down for good.

The last rays of light catch the water’s surface, refracting, sending pigments that light up the cliffside in an unearthly golden glow. For a moment they take it in, flowers swaying in the breeze, Ganymede chirping his wake up call somewhere not too far away. There is always work to be done, but for now they have this sacred piece of time to themselves.

“Do you miss it?” Hanzo says before he can catch himself, breaking the lull in conversation. “Hanamura,” he offers in explanation. “Home.”

Genji looks over his shoulder, eyebrows furrowed in such a way it occurs to Hanzo he truly has grown up.

“Brother, this is my home.”

Hanzo gulps.

As the sun claims its corner of the sky in the East, it occurs to Hanzo that perhaps that’s not such a foreign concept to him, either.

“Oh, Hanzo.” Genji’s back is still turned to him, rising from his place in the quiet, scattering pebbles as he climbs to his feet. “I have a proposition for you.”

“Hm?”

“Zenyatta will be arriving sometime next week. He was the one who helped me find balance at my worst. He’s wonderful at assisting people with whatever clouds their mind. I was just,” Genji taps his index fingers together, nervous, “I was wondering if you would be interested in a meditation session with him and I. It might help clear your mind.”

Hanzo gives him a onceover, eyes locking onto his brother’s visor as it slides back into place. Genji prepares himself for an argument, for rejection, for Hanzo stomping off and avoiding him for the next few days. Instead, Hanzo does the unthinkable.

He agrees.

--

He misses it sometimes, about as much as anyone can miss their second home. Misses the morning jogs, coming home to warm tea and the occasional word puzzle. Misses the bass mailbox, and the Christmas lights, and the long picket fences. Misses feeding the stray dogs against the neighborhood codes, and Jesse making fun of him for it.

McCree texts him that they should get a dog. Or seven. Hanzo reminds him that Winston is strictly against animals at the base. In reply he gets a 15 minute long video of a gorilla in captivity handling a puppy with the utmost care. He grins at that, and leans back against the railing.

A meeting was held a few days ago at the Gibraltar base, but not the usual with the too long powerpoints embellished with only the finest clipart, or the ones that put entire teams to sleep in a matter of minutes. Winston spoke of a return mission. A check in on the inhabitants of Arcadia, to be sure they have rid the suburbs of Vishkar influence. Though Satya insists Vishkar would leave no trace and would not return, Winston persists. He suggests that members of the former crew assist, since they are familiar with the territory.

Hanzo downright refuses.

There was a part of himself he left in Arcadia, among the flowers in the garden, or the scratches in the linoleum. Or the couch. The Couch. He’s content to leave that sliver of his life there in peace. Truthfully, he knows if he returns he might not shake the idea of living a life like that one day. Something small but decent. A real life. A real couch. Normal.

So he turns it down. As does Hana and Pharah. Angela is too busy running the infirmary to accompany the transport. That leaves McCree and Reinhardt, with the airline expertise of Tracer. Finally, a team who may be entertained instead of fearful for their lives at her attempted barrel rolls.

He sips gingerly from his glass, saving the rest for Jesse’s return. It shouldn’t be long. Hanzo stares out over the expanse of the ocean, looking for any signs of the transport. Soon now, he’s sure of it.

McCree had called him an hour ago and eagerly filled him in on what Hanzo had missed out on.

Their neighbors, what was left of them, were doing fine if not thriving in the violent overthrow of the totalitarian power figures in the neighborhood. Some had left: the man two houses down from them who insisted on wearing sports shorts and long white socks every day of the year had packed his bags and caught the next bus out. As well as Sandra, the woman whose house was so full of coupons Hanzo would sometimes catch them piling up past the windows. However, some had stayed, such as their good friend lady-down-the-street-who-tried-to-make-McCree-put-a-dollar-in-the-swear-jar-when-he-stubbed-his-toe-outside-her-house.

The children Hana had forced into a kind of early 19^th century, pre-labor laws, industrialized America version of a lemonade stand miss her dearly. Hanzo promises he’ll relay that information as soon as Hana takes a break in training to beat Genji in DDR, which, could take years, if not centuries.

Then McCree slips into the juicy tidbits of information Hanzo has silently been longing for the entire conversation.

Their fish mailbox is still up, and their Christmas lights, and their red door. In the month they have been away it has become something of local urban legend. No one dares move into the property; McCree doesn’t think renters even attempt to touch it. Rumors are that it belongs to the ghosts of two men who had taken the neighborhood by storm. Hanzo thinks there may be some truth to that.

He catches himself smiling at the thought. In some way, it still belongs to them. Perhaps they can use it for a safe house should there ever be any Talon activity on the west coast.

The rubble that was Grace’s house had been cleared away and rebuilt as if nothing had ever happened. The residents are still unaware of what occurred that fateful day of the barbeque: there are whispers of conspiracy, but they will never know the full extent. It is referred to in the shadows as ‘The Great Barbeque Tragedy’. Hanzo thinks the real tragedy were the people who attended.

As for Helen, accounts differ.

“And believe me,” McCree had reassured. “I did my fair share of snoopin’ around.”

The most solid account they can find that seems to match up with other stories is that she packed her bags and left with her children and mistress. Escaped to the next town over, to start a new life and continue ruining others with her baked goods and God complex. Maybe there, she can find an accomplice who will listen to Jimmy Buffet with her and hopefully lead her down the path of righteousness that is buying premade dinners. And not poison her plants with cheap wine.

And somehow, deep down, part of Hanzo wishes her well.

He pauses, lasts maybe two whole seconds before cracking up at his own joke.

Just kidding, he hopes she’s more flammable than her cooking.

Hanzo puts down his glass as his phone buzzes in his pocket. A new message from none other than Jesse McCree. His mouth twitches upwards into the ghost of a smile as he opens it and finds a blurry photo of the top half of McCree’s and Tracer’s faces in what can only be the Gibraltar hanger.

It’s captioned eloquently:

“where r u???”

Quickly, he responds, “enjoying the sunset.”

“meet u in the room then,” is the reply he receives almost immediately, followed by several heart emojis. Hanzo gives a bemused huff before pocketing the phone again and making his exit. He crosses through the dining hall, and the kitchen, before deciding on a shortcut through the rec room.

Satya is engaged in a 1000-piece puzzle as she calls Hanzo over to help. With a small shake of his head, he waves her away. Perhaps another time, but right now, he’s a man on a mission. He makes his way to the stairwell, is about halfway up before he hears Hana’s “Ohhhhhhh!”s.

With the arrival of the new members, or maybe just with his newfound socializing skills, the base is packed. It’s a stark contrast to their residency in Arcadia.

“Not a thing out of place, just the way we left it, ‘cept for the dust and all. A word puzzle book still by the couch, and a box of tea in the cabinet,” McCree had said in his call. “Even dishes still in the sink!”

Hanzo had sighed. “Now that last part is your fault. It was your day to wash them.”

“Sorry, sweetheart, I was a little busy gettin’ shot. I’ll see if I can work it into my schedule next time. I got ‘bein’ shot’ at four, and ‘talkin’ to dragon spirits’ at 4:30, but I can try to squeeze it in.”

“I’m sure you’ll manage,” Hanzo had offered dryly.

Now he wonders how much had truly remained untouched. Their mailbox? Not completely; he’s sure Helen would have waged her war with it before fleeing, at least to work out some aggression. He could picture her grappling with it, wrestling its hard, unmoving shell, fumbling for it like a real bass. Hanzo snorts aloud, reaching the door.

But there is one thing he’s absolutely certain hasn’t been moved, not even touched. No one would dare risk the radiation poisoning. And that thing is—

He turns the door knob.

--the couch.

It ends how it began: with the couch.

His eyes widen.

The Couch sits directly across from the door, pressed against the far side of the wall. It’s just as he’s remembered it; the couch’s bright, clashing colors might as well be a physical attack on the senses, particularly his sight. It’s got a glare to it, like staring too long into the sun; Hanzo takes a step back out of precaution. 

It’s followed him home.

Hanzo stares, and the couch stares back.

But this time he’s ready. He’s been ready for this moment for a long time.

He reaches into one of the pouches along his kyudo-gi, finding the blade he kept concealed for emergencies. This is an emergency if he’s ever heard of one. Hanzo readies his knife, high above his head, and lets out a yell reserved only for battles to the death.

He plunges the blade deep into the fabric of The Couch, half surprised when it doesn’t bounce back from pure fear of touching the disgrace of the furniture world. Instead it sinks in with ease, ripping into the soft stuffing underneath. Hanzo pulls it back, ready to slay the beast, when a hand grabs his wrist.

There are only two people on Earth brave enough to stay his hand, and one has died at least once for it. The second one only has one metal arm instead of two (or a whole body for that matter). The hand that grips his own is flesh and blood.

The knife clatters to the ground. Hanzo spins on his heel to face the cowboy, who doesn’t look as surprised as he should.

“Did you just pull a knife on a sofa?”

“It came back for me,” Hanzo hisses his explanation. McCree raises an eyebrow, his mouth a thin, amused line. Trying not to laugh, shaking with effort.

“Well, so much for the surprise.” He drops the archer’s wrist, kicks the knife. It skitters under the couch.

“No!” Hanzo shouts, staggering back as if McCree had just armed the thing.

Jesse plops down on the offending sofa as if he had no anxiety whatsoever about being stabbed by a piece of furniture. “It didn’t follow nothin’. I brought it back.”

For a moment, Hanzo’s brain short-circuits.

“Why?” Hanzo hisses, a murderous glint in his eye. And not just for the couch.

“Sentimental reasons. Got some good memories attached to this couch. It’s the best wingman I’ve ever had.” He grins, flattening his palm against the new tear as if patting a dog, encouraging the affronting furniture. “Plus it ties the room together well. You should have seen what I had to do to convince Reinhardt to help me bring this thing into the carrier. It almost didn’t fit through the door.”

“You come into my home, you bring the bane of my existence back from exile, for sentimental value?”

“Well, yeah. You know there were a lot of firsts on it.” He catches Hanzo’s deathly expression and puts his hands up, “Hang on a second, don’t go puttin’ me in the dog house. You’re the one who brought a knife to a couch fight.”

“And I won.” Hanzo drops his gaze, glowering down at the offending object in question. He almost expects it to snap at his fingers.

McCree gives a short laugh, resting his arms along the back of the couch. “And what were you gonna do after that? Toss it off the cliffside and watch it sink into the ocean?”

The archer is quite for a long moment. “Maybe.”

He strikes that from his list of revenge plans.

“Look, why don’t you just sit down, and give the couch one more shot. I mean… it’s not the worst lookin’ piece of furniture—”

Hanzo slowly turns his head to look Jesse in the eyes. He raises an eyebrow.

“Okay, yeah, that’s a lie. My bad. It’s terrible. But you gotta give it a chance! It’s still awfully comfy. Especially with your favorite person on it.”

“It’s laughable you believe yourself to be my favorite person. Especially after you’ve made my worst nightmare a reality.”

“Ouch!” McCree clutches his chest, head lolling back against the top of the couch. “I thought you took all that anger out on the couch! My heart ain’t a sofa; you don’t have to stab it. Not even a little compassion after I just got back from a mission?” Jesse pulls his hat down over his face, feigning something he came so close to not too many days ago.

Hanzo’s cold exterior melts, pulled into the ebb and flow of their banter. There is no longer a chase, no longer nearly colliding only to leap out of reach the moment they got too close. Instead they gravitate, fall in line with each other in harmony. A simple, steady rhythm in measured counts. Like that of a heartbeat, or a waltz.

With practiced ease, Hanzo falls into Jesse’s lap, fingers curling around the brim of the Stetson before pulling it away altogether. McCree cracks an eye open, shattering his façade.

“If you do not want to live in the ‘doghouse’ then why are you so insistent on playing dead?” Hanzo hovers above him, a faint smile tugging at the corners of his lips.

McCree draws in a gulp of air. “Seems fittin’ I’d die beneath you.”

Hanzo hums thoughtfully, giving the quip no attention as he laces his fingers up the back of Jesse’s head, into his hair, still tangled and messy from the mission. Sighing, McCree lets his arms fall loosely around Hanzo’s middle, leaning forward until his forehead meets collarbone.

“I will be sure to call Mercy. Perhaps she can gives us a second opinion.”

“Speakin’ of Mercy...” The gunslinger’s breath tickles across his chest. “She’s cleared me for extended missions. Which, you might find useful here soon.”

Hanzo leans back, disentangles himself from Jesse, and gives him a hard look. Curse the man, he knew the archer too well, knew his insatiable hunger for being the eyes and ears of the base. To put it simply, for gossip. And he needed to know it now. He maneuvers off of McCree’s lap, almost surprised when his skin meets couch and isn’t dissolved into a puddle of viscera by the acidic vat of colors.

Jesse waits until Hanzo is comfortable, legs draped across the length of the couch, and across his lap, before he begins.

“I heard there was a briefin’ called yesterday. Real official business: Morrison, Winston, Angela only. But our sweet, precious, innocent Hana just happened to overhear a bit of the conversation. And by that I mean the whole thing.”

Hanzo snickers. “What, was she hiding in the vents?”

“More like under the table. How she managed to avoid her hand bein’ crunched by Jack’s famous anxiety tappin’ is beyond me. But-” He holds up his hands, catches Hanzo’s intense interest out of the corner of his eyes. “With a little help from Vaswani, and a few reports Winston received, they don’t think Arcadia was the only place under Vishkar’s control.”

Hanzo sits up straighter with a look of disbelief. “Another town?”

“Towns. Maybe even cities. That’s what the drive hints at, other locations Vishkar’s been experimentin’ with. Not an info hub this time. Similar to what Lúcio talked about in Rio: they offer to build a nice neighborhood and end up enslavin’ the entire population.”

A deep breath. “So, I was thinkin’, we might be the right people for the job. We had success with the last one, ‘cept for The Incident.” Said incident was titled that because it was a lot easier to say than I-almost-bled-out-in-your-arms-and-it-was-not-a-good-time™.

“That depends on how many housewives I will have to deal with.” Hanzo trails a hand along the lines of the couch, the seams, where they come together and dip past the cushions.

“And that depends on which fake I.D you’re breakin’ out. If it’s Henry, then he doesn’t have the best track record.”

Hanzo grimaces. “They swarmed me.”

“It was one and you tripped her into a pool and murdered her husband.”

“You murdered her husband.”

McCree tips his hat back, defeated. “Alright, you got me there. But the man was a livin’, breathin’ mall mannequin. Certainly dressed like one. I thought he might catch on fire from all the hairspray when he pulled the trigger.”

“He would have done that anyways the moment he tasted my Korokke.” Hanzo says dryly. “Too spicy.”

“Honey, that man would have thought lettuce is too spicy.”

“That’s why we only use kale, Joey.” He moves to flick McCree, but Jesse is faster, intercepting his hand before pressing it into his own. He locks their fingers together, swaying back and forth as far as their elbows will allow.

McCree clicks his tongue, grimacing as he speaks. “I’m thinkin’ of retirin’ Joey, actually. I mean, I can’t be the dutiful spouse and homemaker with that nasty divorce goin’ on. We’d have to drop off the couch at Joey’s house every other weekend. Plus I hear alimony’s a pain”

“We could say Joey was added onto Henry’s body count, which we all know was the plan all along,” Hanzo says slowly. “Or, they could have settled their differences.”

McCree furrows his eyebrows, head tilting ever so slightly. “How?”

Hanzo shrugs his shoulders, “Like every other suburban married couple solves their problems.” He pauses, locking eyes with Jesse.

“Couples therapy?”

“An affair,” Hanzo says flatly.

Now that catches him off-guard. McCree throws his head back and laughs, the sound reverberating through his chest.

“I was gonna suggest maybe a watered-down margarita and some yippy purebred dog. But I like this idea.” He leans down, eyebrows wiggling with dangerous intent. “I could be Raúl, your foreign coworker who you eloped with after one passionate night.”

Hanzo holds his composure for maybe half a second before it cracks, laughing as Jesse slips into his first language, rolls his r’s, twisting under the attention. When he recovers, he finds McCree staring down as him so tenderly, it’s as if he might break. Hanzo gulps.

In the last few months he has changed. Redemption: he’s not quite there, but it’s a work in progress. He’s opened up, learned to accept and be accepted by the people around him. His family. Learned to talk through his emotions. But this, the tightening in his chest, is something he’s not ready to discuss. Not just yet.

The archer sits up, bringing McCree with him.

“I enjoy your… enthusiasm, but something doesn’t seem to fit. It feels wrong to separate them.”

Jesse shrugs, folds his arms behind his head, “Can’t have Henry without Joey.”

They are interrupted as the sound of footsteps, fast and pounding, reach their room. Followed up by laughing, nearly full on cackling, as a loud, unintelligible shout rings out from somewhere downstairs. Hana rushes by their open door, nearly doubled over in laughter, Lúcio at her heels. Not a moment later, Jack Morrison storms the stairs, pauses in the doorway, gives them a furious, squinted glance over, and sprints down the hall.

“I’d bet my bounty they have his visor.” McCree comments, smirking as a particularly loud and unintelligible screech echoes down the hall. Morrison is practically blind. They should stop them, or at least point the poor man in the right direction.

But they don’t.

Jesse stretches out, scratches his beard, and would put his feet up on a table if they only had one. “I’m just glad it wasn’t Winston who came stompin’ by.”

Raising an eyebrow, Hanzo shoots him a flat look. “Did you eat all of the bananas? Or are you afraid of getting another mundane alias?”

“Somethin’ like that,” McCree mutters, raking a hand through his hair. “Let’s just say the big guy’s got it out for me and leave it at that.”

Hanzo blinks. He’s seen Winston furious only once, and that lead to the scientist ripping apart their enemies and then immediately apologizing for it. Hanzo refused to touch peanut butter for a week. Jesse doing something so drastic that it would send Winston into that kind of fury, while entirely possible, would take a lot of effort. And scheming.

“What did you do?”

McCree’s demeanor changes the moment his attempted redirection falls flat. He shifts restlessly in his seat, glances at Hanzo out of the corner of his eyes before staring at his boots.

“I kinda lost that ring. You know, the ones we were given for the mission.” He tiptoes around the real significance of the rings, at least in the eyes of civilians. Jesse glances up to gauge Hanzo’s reaction, but the archer remains stoic, if not slightly curious.

“I wore it for the return mission so I wouldn’t be bombarded with questions, and it just disappeared. Always did slip off so easily from the ol’ metal hand.” He shrugs, like it will smother his regret. As if Hanzo won’t notice the bitter tinge to his words. “Pretty sure Winston wanted it back so he could pawn it off for our electrical bill. He’ll probably come after yours next.”

“Then I will tell him I misplaced mine as well.” Hanzo says as if it’s the simplest solution in the world.

“Wait,” Jesse shakes his head, eyebrows furrowed, “You lost yours too?”

Hanzo rolls his eyes, “No. But he doesn’t need to know that.” Even now, the rings sits heavily in a pouch on his kyudo-gi. Not that he’s about to admit that he keeps it close to him, or its sentimental value. It’s just that-- a ring, except in every way it’s not.

McCree huffs, shakes his head in amusement. “Well ain’t you full of surprises.”

With a small, content sigh, Hanzo leans back into the couch, letting his head rest against the overstuffed cushions. Nestling against the fabric to achieve maximum comfort. The cloth is worn, but soft, with all the quality of that of an especially loved item. It’s horrible.

“See? It’s not such a bad couch after all,” Jesse remarks.

Hanzo makes a noncommittal noise. It’s something that he’ll never confess, not even after hours of grisly torture, but The Couch isn’t so bad. It’s comfy, soft, dips in all the right places. Also it helps that it does bring back fond memories, days spent lounging with McCree, entertaining themselves in whatever way possible, waiting on orders.

The Couch has incorporated itself into his life and he both hates and loves it. Mostly hates.

Completely hates. Absolute unfathomable hatred.

“It’s not all that horrible lookin’ either. It’s a bit like an ugly lumberjack fantasy, but if you stare at it for long enough the colors sort of blend together into this bright orange.”

Hanzo only stares. “I believe you should see an optometrist.”

“Yeah,” McCree rumbles, scratches through his scruff. “Probably. Still a good sofa though. It’s got its problems, especially this hole right here. You know, the one that looks like it got into a prison fight with a toothbrush shiv. That big tear.” He motions to the hole Hanzo tore earlier in his scrabble with the couch, refusing to break eye contact the entire speech. “Wonder where it could have come from.”

Adopting his best innocent look, Hanzo stares right back. “I have no idea what happened.” Despite his best efforts, he is unable from keeping his grin at bay.

“If you hate it that much, I guess you could take it down to the shooting range and put it to good use. Maybe settle your differences over a glass of wine. Or hey-” McCree snaps his fingers. “Trip it into a pool and murder its husband.”

Hanzo lets him continue, lost to the conversation as his hand dips between the cushion and armrest. He nearly jumps when he feels something cold and metallic embedded deep within the crevice. Reaching down again, Hanzo finds the object—small and round, something he’s familiar with the moment he touches it. He owns one that matches it.

He only realizes Jesse has been staring at him, awaiting his input, when he glances back up. Cunning as ever, Hanzo encloses his palm around it without any sign of what has just transpired.

Jesse sits up with a start, nearly displacing Hanzo from his throne on The Couch, conversation lost. “Wait a second, I forgot to tell you! Something about our house in Arcadia did change.”

“What?” Hanzo pushes himself up, eyes snapping to attention.

“The fences are down.”

A smiles works its way onto Jesse’s face, small, but genuine, an emotion Hanzo can’t quite articulate. Whatever it is, it’s infectious. “Don’t know how it happened, maybe with panic in the crowd, or the collateral damage, or hell, it could have even been the Neighborhood Association for breakin’ all their rules. But they’re gone. Must have happened somewhere along the way.”

“Isn’t that the way it always happens?” Hanzo asks, expression softening. Somewhere along the way things change. Either the fences, or their relationship, or the process of healing. It’s very gradual until all at once it suddenly isn’t. It’s the very essence of life.

The emotion washes over Hanzo, and now he recognizes it, an old friend: resolution. It’s a kind of budding hope, not yet rooted, but starting to take the form of something bigger. It’s a welcome solace.

Hanzo sighs, not in the way one would do when exhausted, or frustrated, but when life seems to finally fall together.

In his epiphany, he scoffs, holds Jesse’s warm gaze for a long moment. “The fences are gone,” Hanzo repeats, softer this time.

With one hand Hanzo pulls McCree’s hand down, and with the other he deposits Joey’s ring in his open palm. Jesse knows what it is without ever needing to see for himself. He blinks once, twice, eyebrows hovering somewhere between surprised and confused.

“I believe,” Hanzo says as he pulls away, “that this belongs to you.” And then all at once he’s springing up from the couch, marching across the room, and out the door. Gradual and then suddenly isn’t. He pauses, hand on the doorframe as he looks over his shoulder.

“I suppose we should discuss this new mission with Winston, before he appoints other agents some bland names. We are the most suitable candidates for the job. If Vishkar has infected other communities then we must finish what’s been started. I see it only fitting that you accompany me. Henry wouldn’t mind a partner.” Hanzo pauses, brown eyes cutting through McCree like a knife. Or an arrow. It’s a favorable death. He’d gladly die a thousand times by that stare alone.

“Are you coming?”

No more barriers. Nothing blocks their path from taking the world by storm. The fences are gone.

McCree closes his hand around the ring, gives the couch one last loving pat. He grins like there’s no tomorrow. Which for them there is. And very surely a next day after that, and so on.

“Sweetheart, you don’t have to ask me twice.”