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Soldier: 76 had been chasing the Reaper for so long, over so many miles. So many people had died, so many people he hadn’t been able to save. He was tired. So, so tired.
To be perfectly honest, 76 wasn’t even sure why he was still at it. Why he even started. This wasn’t his job. He had no ties to Overwatch anymore, no real reason to protect it. But something drew him to the masked specter. Something had been tugging at him since the beginning, telling him to take the case. There was also the fact that despite how much he wanted to deny it he still felt a loyalty to Overwatch and a duty to protect its member. So he’d picked up the scent and followed the tracks.
Followed them all over the blasted world, for years. Always a few steps behind no matter how hard he tried.
Followed them here. To where it hurt the most to be. Home.
Or at least, the closest thing to it. 76 didn’t have a home anymore, never officially had one but here, in Watchpoint Varadero, Cuba. This was where he… where Jack and Gabriel had the closest thing to a home, where they’d been stationed together the longest. Even after avoiding where they’d actually had their bed, the abandoned facility had Jack’s head swimming with memories that made his heart ache. With his luck, the Reaper would have been gone for hours now. Trail cold once again.
Why was he still trying.
Why was he here.
Why was he still here when everyone was gone, everyone was dead and he was still here. Why him, why couldn’t Gabriel still be here...
“Why did you bring me to this place!?” he roared suddenly, almost surprising even himself. His voice echoed off the metal walls. Nothing stirred.
With even less warning, he felt hot tears prick behind his eyes and his knees shake. “Fuck,” he whispered and took a deep breath. No one was here. No one was ever going to be. The Reaper was a ghost, a true spirit that was haunting him, tormenting him. At this point, he could see no other explanation.
The hollow click of a gun being cocked behind him was deafening. The Soldier went very still. The calmness that washed over him at the prospect of an end to all this was frightening. A tear fell, itching as it trailed down his cheek.
“Just do it,” he said wearily. “You’ve won. You’ve beaten me, I’m done. I give up.”
The voice that growled back at him was cold and gritty. Something about it made the memories he was drowning in swirl even more furiously. “Never took you for a coward, old man.”
His chest tightened and his mouth felt dry. “You don’t know me.”
“Oh, I know you. I know you better than you know yourself, Jackie.”
The utterance of that old name assaulted 76 with thoughts of Gabriel. His knees buckled and hit the ground painfully. The shadows around him shifted unnaturally for a moment and suddenly the Reaper was there in front of him. At long last…
And the Soldier had no more fight left in him.
“Please,” he found himself begging. “I deserve this. I deserve this.”
The wraith cocked its head, every small movement predatory. “No,” he said, and the Soldier’s heart froze in his chest. What?
“You deserve nothing,” the Reaper hissed, and something inside the Soldier snapped.
With a yell, he launched himself at the Reaper, taking him by enough surprise that the wraith fell backwards with a very solid-sounding crash. The shotgun went spinning across the room, but the Soldier took no notice of it, focusing instead on getting the upper hand on his opponent. The Reaper was growling beneath him, tendrils of smoke wisping off him as the two of them fought, rolling across the floor.
The Soldier could taste blood in his mouth, his lip split open behind his mask from the Reaper’s blows. There was a hairline fracture across the bone-white mask the Reaper wore. Not a ghost, then, no matter how hard the Reaper tried to make himself appear supernatural. The Soldier could fight men. He was good at it.
Twisting his body, the Soldier barely avoided the Reaper’s claws, felt them graze across the thick leather of his jacket, and then suddenly he was on top of him, pressing him down into the ground with his weight, preventing the Reaper from escaping. “You have no idea what I deserve,” he gritted out through his teeth, raining blows down on that white, mocking mask. The dark pits of the mask’s eyes stared up at him, unseeing, though the Soldier knew there had to be eyes somewhere in those black depths. “I’ve never deserved anything more than this!”
He brought his fist down in another blow, and suddenly the mask split beneath his hands, cracking into two pieces before disintegrating into nothingness.
Deep brown eyes stared up at him from a ruined but familiar face, and the Soldier’s next blow faltered even as he raised his fist.
“Gabriel?” he whispered, but even as he said it, the Soldier knew it could be nothing but a trick. “You bastard,” he hissed after a moment. “How dare you wear his face!”
Those eyes narrowed. “I should have expected that response.” It was Gabriel’s voice, but the Soldier couldn’t believe it. Wouldn’t let himself believe it.
“You’re worse than I thought,” he said. “Torturing me before you kill me.”
“You want it so badly. How could you have let yourself become this?”
Unable to hear it anymore Jack tried to escape, roll away, anything. Inhumanly quicker than him, strong hands encircled his waist. He thrashed for a moment but once again the fight drained out of him when Gabriel’s voice sounded again. “Do you remember Cairo?” It said. Yes. Yes, Jack couldn’t make himself forget Cairo.
“Stop it,” he said shakily.
“When we both proposed at the same time, in Ana’s garden.”
“Shut up, how could you know that.”
“I know you, Jackie. I know about the mole on your ribs and the freckles under your hair and how much you love to kiss me.” A pause. “I know what you said to me in Zurich. When you thought you were saying goodbye.”
A sob ripped itself from Jack’s chest and without even thinking about it, without even consciously deciding to he collapsed onto the body underneath him. Clever fingers found the clasp of his visor and it released with a hiss, was gently taken away. He didn’t fight.
“Anyone could know those things,” Jack hiccuped. “Anyone could, I…”
“No, they couldn’t. You know it’s me. Stop fighting.”
“Gabriel..”
“I’m here, sunshine.”
“Fuck, Gabriel, Gabe…” Jack’s shaking fingers curled in dark fabric. A gloved hand skated over his hair.
“I’m right here.”
“I thought you were dead,” Jack said, his forehead pressed to dark fabric. “That I’d gotten you killed.”
Gabriel shifted beneath him, a hand tipping Jack’s chin up so they could look into each other’s eyes. Gabriel’s face was a ruin, but it was still him, and Jack’s heart flipped in his chest. He never thought he’d get to lay eyes on him again.
“Still here, Jack,” Gabriel said, and Jack couldn’t help it. He leaned forward, pressing their lips together, the kiss a soft, barely-there touch before he drew back. Gabriel’s lips were chapped but achingly familiar against his own.
“Sorry,” Jack said, looking away. Waiting for this dream to dissolve around him.
Gabriel pulled him back, kissed him again, slowly and it made Jack’s head spin. For the first time in years, something made the guilt that weighed so heavily on his mind slip away. Maybe he had died. Maybe this was heaven.
Maybe it didn’t matter, nothing mattered anymore. Nothing but this moment, Gabriel’s lips on his. His aimless search was over. Here, in Gabriel’s arms, the Soldier could find peace. Here, Jack Morrison could be reborn.