Chapter Text
“Now, you know you mean more than that to them–to me–!”
His voice startled into a low laugh; a sharp, jagged cut into the space between them. Another notch in McCree’s chest. “No. They have gotten what they wanted from me.”
The marksman bristled. “And what’s that?”
Those bright red eyes looked dead into his soul through the pitch black, piercing but not cruelly so.
“An excuse.”
Jesse McCree jolts awake.
Sunlight beams down with no obstruction, a hot, thick blanket over his senses. His hat smells faintly of heated leather and sweat, his legs aching in the space between the hyper train cars. Wearily, he furls them inward, pressing them to his chest as his palms press against burning hot metal, breathing deep.
When did he doze? He can’t remember, thoughts scrambled with only one dawning realization taking up the space in his head.
Blackwatch. Not just them he dreamed of, but the figure he was speaking to. Genji Shimada.
When was the last time he thought about Genji? They had only known each other a few years; a stretch of time where a person gets intimately close to another due to circumstance, only to drift when those circumstances are removed. Never to be seen again.
Funny, how he’s seen more black clad goons using Blackwatch tactics than he’s encountered any sign of the cyborg. Gone, soundlessly, a letter and an empty room in his wake, not long before the entirety of Overwatch caved in on itself. McCree doesn’t blame him for hitting the eject button when he could, the cowboy not long to follow, yet.. it had come as a surprise to everyone.
Jesse reaches to pull out a cigarillo, letting the end make home in his teeth before lighting it.
“I’ll be damned.” he mumbles, pulling the brim of his hat lower over his features. Too much sun, the thing practically blinding him. He sighs, the fumes and the smoothness of the train lulling him back again (all eyes–don’t doze dumbass, that’s how you get shot, Jesse). “Haven’t thought about you in a while.”
He has a long way to go.
He carried himself differently.
Jesse first saw Overwatch’s pet project in the medical bay, his presence and condition kept well under wraps from the rest of Blackwatch. No one had so much as an idea what the man looked like, except the lucky (perhaps unlucky, Jesse concluded) agent who caught a glimpse of him when he was first brought in.
“A literal mess.” the agent said while he took a long drink from his canteen. They were on an overnight mission–a small squad, the usual nameless crew, all hunkered down in an abandoned building with a lamp in the middle– “Heard they’re literally rebuilding the guy, like some sort of Frankenstein. I think the thing that killed me wasn’t the fact that he was literally in pieces, but… god, he’s young. Couldn’t be far from you, Jesse.”
He wasn’t, Jesse found out. Still terrifyingly young to be stitched back together from the brink of death, all black and cream and red bleeding into the calloused and scarred skin of his flesh. Wires (literal wires, who the fuck thought about adding that?) flowed down from the back of his head and neck like flowing locks of hair, a segmented spine curving down a portion of his shoulders.
He was facing away. Angela’s voice drifted from inside the med bay, though McCree couldn’t tell what she was saying. The human-shaped-figure looked like a haphazardly built model of a man, but with none of the right materials; skin and synthetics and metal all fused together at awkward angles, displeasing to the eye. Thin ankles (were those… actual blades attached to the back?), curving up to larger thighs, the bulk of his torso fleshing out the size of his figure–-he wasn’t tall, Jesse realized-–well-built and sturdy, with black hair managing to poke past a metal lining around his head.
A walking Frankenstein, yet…
That head turned towards him, Angela’s voice silenced. Jesse only briefly caught those glaring red eyes as he bolted from the doorway.
His legs painfully thank him as he shakes them out, glad he’s made it out of the worst of his journey. Why exactly did he choose summer to move, again? It’s not like he has to come now. It’s not like he’s expected by anyone.
No security, yet. Jesse keeps his back pressed to the side of the hyper train, surveying the stop in the dwindling light of the day.
Relatively large train station, voices of passengers reverberating off every surface of the curved metal and glass dome. An overnight train ride will carry him to the next leg of the trip, one he looks forward to with neither fondness nor disgust. Overhead, the speakers call out departures and arrivals in crisp English, the marksman already missing the warm, fast clip of Spanish accompanying it. Who knows how long it will be until he sees all that again?
Before long, he’s hoisting himself back between another set of train cars, the slim bulk of machinery slowly gaining speed until the wind soared past him, the marksman sinking back into the rhythm as the sun dips below the earth.
Agent Genji Shimada was a fucking war machine.
Fast, silent, lethal–exactly what Blackwatch dreamed up for their cleanup crews, the kind of agent that was able to get the job done and do it well; in, out, go have a drink somewhere to wash it all down.
He excelled at swordsmanship, his blade and his shuriken literal and metaphorical extensions of his body. His aim was unerring, his skills easily carried over to firearms, covert op training, all basic black ops requirements practically fulfilled the moment he stepped through the door. The perfect new soldier.
Jesse kept his head bowed as he polished peacekeeper, his hands aimless as he watched the walking war machine before him sharpen his shuriken.
First realization: the shuriken were embedded in Genji’s arm, three thin slots inside an open hatch in his forearm, the top layer slid back. He kept his gaze low as he watched the man slide the weapons back into his arm; the sharp click of the prosthetic shutting cued him to return to his peacekeeper.
“You are staring.”
Not quick enough. Jesse rolled his shoulders, lifted his gun to the light as he let out a hum. “Sorry, partner, just took a glance.”
Silence. Jesse’s impressed he even heard a handful of words from the Shimada, where he came to his second realization; his voice was rough from disuse, adjusting to the vocal processors in his throat, yet… soft, the hint of an accent lining his English.
“… you want something.” Genji’s voice sat roughly in space between them, challenging.
“I don’t want nothin’, actually.” McCree drawled, nonchalant, purposefully lifting his gaze from his gun to stare at Genji,
His third realization: his eyes were dark red, no doubt enhanced by the cybernetics team (just what parts of him did they leave untouched?). Jesse stared into them, only to find the Shimada had torn his gaze away. A silence settled between them as Genji pulled out his spare shuriken to sharpen. Curiosity bubbled within the cowboy.
“So… you actually a ninja?”
Genji’s gaze went right back on him–a flash of annoyance, something Jesse finds remarkable to be able to be conveyed with eighty percent of his face covered up. “I am not one for small talk, Agent McCree.”
Oh. “Wow, you already know me?” a laugh carried McCree's words.
Genji visibly bristled with agitation. “It is not hard to know you, with that getup.” he retorted, flatly. He took a moment to pause and inspect the edge of the blade of the shuriken. “… you are not actually a cowboy, are you?”
The cowboy snorted, amused. “Nah. Done a ‘lil ranch handling in my days, can ride a horse real nice, if that counts.” he explained while he fiddled with peacekeeper’s barrel. One spin, two, three, the dial spun with soft clicks against the metal.
“… I am have received martial arts and stealth training.” Genji muttered as he sharpened the blade between his fingers. “If that counts.”
McCree looked back at him and grinned.
Here comes the roughest leg.
He presses himself between an industrial sized crate and a hard place, already missing the air whirling past his head. Long hours on the hyper train carried much of the distance easily, though it’s not exactly like he can ride them forever.
He takes low puffs of air, relaxing his muscles as the hangar door slams shut with a metallic bang, voices resonating outside as his ears continue to ring. It took some scouting to find the carrier, an hour or so lying in wait, the marksmen feeling rather blessed no one had noticed him stumble in his quick dash to board it.
Hot metal and old wood fill his nostrils.
Maybe the destination is worth the trip, but the cowboy starts to second guess himself the moment he catches the roar of the engine, the space surrounding him vibrating with its intensity.
(Slowly, Jesse breathed in, the vibrating numbing his fingers and wrists as he gripped the seat.
Eight men total. Reyes across from him, the same familiar faces he couldn’t exactly recall the names of–all dead now, anyway, scattered among the different seats. Genji was to his immediate right. The aircraft carrier momentarily jostled them during takeoff, its joints shook and creaked in the silence.
He really wished he had a cigar.)
Sadly, the scent would give away his position the moment he lands. It’s not exactly like he has a ticket to be boarding this aircraft carrier anyway. Or a passport. Not exactly like he was planning on leaving the country any time soon, after so many years in company of the familiar.
The aircraft maneuvers to the takeoff ramp, a slow and agonizing ordeal as his ears grow used to the din, his fingers flexing to keep sensation in them.
(He bowed his head, allowed his thumb to rub over the dark mud-brown lines of a skull against dark skin. Dried blood made his thumb drag unevenly across the surface, the stuff already buried beneath his fingernails. Universal fatigue quieted the men around him, stained gear and armor left untouched as they were left to their own devices. It was going to be a long flight back.)
Around him, the carrier shudders, creaks and groans as it begins to gain speed, the steady thrum of the body settling into Jesse’s core with familiarity. Weightlessness cues him to takeoff, hearing the mechanics of the tires slowly folding into the body of the carrier. His thumb scratches against the outline of the skull once more, feeling the give between smooth metal and the paint.
(Nobody was saying it, but they were all thinking it.
Jesse finally looked to his right, for the first time since they all wordlessly piled back into the carrier.
Genji was still shaking.)