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Jesse McCree was a good kid. As a child, he took care of the jobs in the house; cooking, cleaning, shopping. He was quiet and listened to what his father said without hesitance, always wanting to make him proud. Always wanting to make sure his mother could see that he could be strong, that he would take care of her.
The bedridden woman knew that he was a good kid. She knew that he would be a strong adult, knew that he would be able to support himself without her or his father around.
She also knew that he had to leave the house as soon as he was able. He wouldn't last under her husband's disgusting paws for much longer. But there was something that held him back from just leaving.
Her.
Anne - her last name wasn't McCree, Jesse chose that name - knew with clarity that her son wouldn't leave unless he had a proper prompt. He was too stubborn, too passionate. He wouldn't leave his family behind, and that both warmed and broke her heart.
So she gave him that prompt. When he was only ten, still growing, Anne took her husband's gun to her head and gave him reason to leave.
Her death.
Jesse had known that she wouldn't last much longer. He had seen the blood that stained her handkerchiefs, the coughs that rattled her body at nearly every moment. He had known that she was going to leave him, but he didn't think it would be so soon.
He didn't think it would be by her own hand.
But Jesse was a good kid. He cleaned the blood up from her bed, wrapped his mother in the white silk sheets they never used, carried her out to the back yard and dug.
He buried her, and then did what he knew she wanted him to do.
He left.
Because he was a good kid, and he would always listen to his mama.
—
As a teenager, he was a menace. He was an annoying piece of shit that everyone knew the name of. And not because he was kind.
He ran with groups, with killers and thugs and people his mother would disapprove of, and he laughed when he was given his first gun. He became a killer. He became a thug. He became someone his mother would disapprove of.
And he loved it.
But then he found himself in Deadlock, and it suddenly it wasn't fun anymore.
The laughs died down and he became hardened. He didn't care about himself, only the job, because that was how they taught him there. And he had no reason to leave.
It didn't matter to him that he was losing himself. It didn't matter to the other members of Deadlock either.
He didn't have a family anymore – his father was a memory, shoved as far back as possible – and there was no reason to be good anymore.
There was no one to make proud anymore.
And so Jesse became someone he was not.
He became the opposite of the person his mother wanted him to be. But his mother wasn't there to guide him anymore–
So he continued to kill.
He continued to drown his emotions in the blood of others.
—
At 17 he was one of the best Deadlock had. He was a fantastic shot and a precise killer. He was an ace in the hole, and he was proud of that fact. He was fine with living that way.
But then Overwatch happened, and he became a hero.
Somewhat.
Gabriel Reyes was a harsh man. He didn't care how long it took for Jesse to listen to him, didn't care when Jesse screamed at him profanities and shot at him the moment he entered the room. He just told him what to do, grabbed his wrist and shoved him to the floor.
(It reminded him of his father.)
He obeyed. Of course he did. And overtime, Jesse became McCree, and McCree was one of the best Blackwatch had.
Jesse was the old model. McCree was the new one.
Jesse felt like a distant memory, and McCree didn't really think about him.
Gabriel drilled that into him.
“You are not a member of Deadlock anymore,” his mentor, his saviour, repeated time and time again, “you are a member of Blackwatch. It would do well for you to not forget that.”
And he didn't.
McCree became useful. An asset. A person that was looked up to by the newer people joining Blackwatch.
He, for once in his godforsaken life, was necessary.
Or so he thought.
—
As a 19, nearly 20 year old, McCree walked down a hall within the base he was currently in. His footsteps were quiet, barely noticeable, but the spurs on his clinking as he moved disrupted that, causing agents to turn to face him as he walked past them loudly. Their expressions of disbelief caused by his noise was carefully concealed, having seen him at least once before.
With each step he grew closer to the door he knew contained his boss, a man known as Gabriel Reyes, who had called him to his office earlier that day. It didn’t take long for him to reach the door, being only a few rooms down from it, but he stopped as he heard voices coming from the door. He didn’t even reach his fist up to knock on the door. He just decided to wait.
“He’s still a criminal Reyes!” He heard Strike-Commander Jack Morrison, the leader of Overwatch, yell. McCree swallowed. He’d never had a good relationship with the man. Especially considering how they'd met.
He heard a loud slam. It came from where he knew the desk to be in there, and sounded exactly how he knew Gabriel threw his punches. “He is under my orders, Morrison! He has been here for nearly three years and you do not trust me on whether he should be here? Do not undermine my decisions!”
McCree went completely still. Nearly three years…?
“I don’t care! He is a danger to everyone around him. He has been an outlaw longer than he has been in Blackwatch, and I do not want my people to die because he switches sides.” Jack exclaimed. McCree was certain then. He was sure they were talking about him.
“He is necessary to Blackwatch.” Gabriel responded, “he is one of our best.” He sounded tired, like he knew that there was no point fighting back but continued to do so anyway.
McCree’s lips fell down, and he leaned against the wall. He could hear them even better after doing this. People passed by him as time passed, but they did not look his way.
“He is.” Jack agreed, and McCree’s eyes widened in surprise. They became smaller as he heard the rest of what Jack was going to say, “but he can easily be replaced. He is not a substantial part of this organisation.
“He may be a necessary part of Blackwatch, but he has no part in Overwatch.”
Silence. Complete and utter silence.
McCree stood up, and he headed back to his room. His spurs made no noise as he walked away.
As he left, a voice broke the quiet and held a harsh threat within it. “So, am I not a part of this organisation either? Is no one in Blackwatch a part of Overwatch? Is that what you’re saying, Jack?” Gabriel sounded as if he knew what the answer was, and was waiting for Jack to confirm it.
Jack sighed. It sounded like he was finally about to give up. “That isn’t what I mean, Reyes.”
“Yeah? Well, that's exactly how it sounds. Don’t pretend it wasn’t what you were thinking. We both know you don’t think we don’t need Blackwatch, but the truth is that Blackwatch is what’s holding Overwatch together.”
There was a hush as Jack took in his oldest friends words. “I'm sorry.” He said.
Gabriel snorted. “You're not.” He replied. “I think you should leave now, Morrison. I called McCree– yes, him, to my office earlier. He’s probably running late as always.”
Jack left.
McCree did not come to his office.
—
At 31 he was one of the highest members of Blackwatch. He saw underneath the underneath, the things that happened even further beyond all the death and destruction Blackwatch caused.
And he saw the tension between his boss and the leader of Overwatch. He saw how Gabriel would clench his fist close to his guns whenever the other man came by, but McCree did not say a word.
That was a mistake, he knew that now.
It was later in the year that everything began to crumble.
Jack and Gabriel fought almost everyday– with words or otherwise. Tension was high. Members of Blackwatch began to draw away from the people they knew in Overwatch.
McCree did not side with anyone.
He may respect both men, may look up to Gabriel as if the man was his father, but he was an outlaw at heart. He did what he had to to survive.
– even if it broke him. he knew that if he sided with Gabriel, helped his mentor commit the treason he was about to commit, than he would never be able to make up for his past. –
“The explosion at Overwatch HQ was an accident.”
McCree didn’t believe that. No one, especially not Reyes or Morrison, would be stupid enough to accidentally hit something explosive.
It was on purpose.
At 31, when he was just about to turn 32, Overwatch disbanded. McCree left Blackwatch, despite knowing that many of it’s members were still doing work under that moniker.
He became an outlaw. A mercenary. But he did it on his own terms. He chose whether it would do good or not. He didn’t follow orders from anyone else, he followed his own decisions.
(He pretended not to remember the words from way back, “he’s still a criminal”, and what came after that. It still played through his mind constantly, despite his attempts.)
McCree was fine with the way life was going for him.
It was five years later that he found his way, found somewhere he could really do some good.
—
Jesse McCree was an Overwatch Agent. He was the cowboy. The joking man who never took anything seriously. He was a bringer of hope to an organisation that was much smaller than it had once been.
He pretended not to notice when the members of the organisation asked what his past was like. He made sure that the younger members of Overwatch were safe even if they didn’t know he was doing so.
It was something that he had never had before. He felt much lighter, being with them. Even through the rough patches that occurred frequently, and the sorrows many of the members faced.
There were some moments, when he was alone, where he thought back to the conversation he hears when he was 19.
But more than often than not there was someone there, ready to give him a hand.
*
“You are not necessary Jesse," Hanzo had told him once, and when Jesse looked into the man's eyes that held nothing but the utmost truth. He listened to the rest of what the man said, trusting him, and he felt a smile, a true one, fall onto his face at the rest of the man's words;
”But you are wanted.”
*
And sometimes, after he was told this, he thought of something. He remembered the time he was just Jesse and thought that maybe, just maybe, his mother would be proud of the man he had become.