Work Text:
Deciding to step out of the shadows was a near impossible decision to make. Both Jack and Ana had received the recall and were nothing but put off the moment the message had come their way. Jack was content living as a ghost, working his way without another damned director breathing down the back of his neck, and he didn’t doubt that Ana needed time to sleep on things. Their talks about recall wound up brushing over why Overwatch was shut down, how dangerous it could’ve been for the world at large- Talon was trailing both of them, and there would be little means of escape for civilians if they became caught in the crossfire.
There were enough memories to last two lifetimes. With how much both of them had changed, Jack was convinced that they already did. But they weren’t all bad.
Safe within the Necropolis, alone together, the old soldiers were content to share drinks as they went over their shared histories. Jack had thrown his jacket over the side of one of the supply crates in Ana’s makeshift workshop, trying and failing to relax, leant against the wall. Amari was focused on her rifle, tweaking with what must’ve been a loose screw, half paying attention to their conversation. She’d heard what happened with him and Gabriel- but this time, she didn’t fault him for being cautious when she offered help for the stab wound. She was lucky that he trusted her with tea again- two sugars, this time.
It had been a number of days since they caught the message, ran headfirst into Reaper, and in all that time, neither soldier could settle on a final decision. Ana was the first to mention the old Strike Team- Reinhardt, and how distraught he was after Eichenwalde. Even Torbjorn had found a second family in the team and engineering crew. Jack’s mind was bought back to Liau, the few breaks all of them ever had in their line of work, and among memories returning to Jack that he was sure never existed, he lowered the mug in his hands, looking down with clouded blue eyes.
And Gabriel. Thoughts of who he used to be, before this . Bringing Overwatch back was something he’d long since lost his passion for. He wanted the other half of him back.
“I’m still not entirely convinced that they’ll need us,” Jack said, looking over at the sniper.
“They will need some adults to show them how it’s done. And you were having enough trouble holding your own the other night.” Her response was tired, almost. Both of them had been up for far too long. Jack knew it, as did Ana- and Ana wasn’t the one blessed with the stamina of a supersoldier. “I have already written to Fareeha. If we can go, the best we can do is hope for the best.”
“And if we’re followed?”
“Then we can leave, or let some of them help us in taking care of danger during our stay.”
He opened his mouth to speak, frowning as he did, but stopped himself from talking back as Ana stood up, admiring the handiwork of her rifle. She may have been half-blind, but her eye for detail hadn’t suffered in the slightest. Looking over at him, Ana couldn’t fault the concern on the old man’s scarred face.
“I’d rather sleep on it some more,” he muttered, taking a sip of his drink. Too much could go wrong too quickly; Athena could easily out both of them as who they were under their masks. “We can get back to this in the morning, yeah? They’ll keep going, doesn’t matter if the has-beens are late for the party.”
“Has-been? Speak for yourself, Jack! You weren’t the one who fixed a rifle with one eye.”
“Alright, I’m sorry! Still doesn’t mean that you don’t need some shut-eye more than I do.”
“And I thought I worried about your sleeping habits too much. What have you done with Jack?” Ana looked at him quizzically, arms folded across her chest, the amused grin on her face making it all the more difficult to take her seriously.
Jack laughed at the question, the sound deep and from the back of his throat, like the sound a dog would make before it throws up. If he was laughing at that, then he must’ve been a hell of a lot more tired than he actually thought he was. Standing up properly, Jack rolled his shoulders and made sure his cup of tea was safe. The old man still had his priorities in check.
“Just make sure you don’t pull another all-nighter,” Ana spoke, giving him a quick nod before vanishing down one hall and into another, the sniper’s own room nearer the heart of the city of the dead that they called home.
He’d stayed behind to finish his drink, efforts to overthrow the ringing of tinnitus in his ears swiftly failing him. There were always fainter sounds to focus on- desert winds or the humming of generators, but it wasn’t at all pleasant to settle on one with the constant droning. Setting the mug down on the first clear surface he saw, Jack went to click his visor into place and shrug his jacket on. He wasn’t planning on sleeping yet. Settling down enough to sleep was a challenge in and of itself.
Tugging his jacket closer to his chest, Jack had strayed off outside, climbing up the crumbling rock steps that lead to one of the spots he’d taken to frequenting. A high point of sorts; one that allowed Ana and himself to watch over Cairo from afar, the Temple of Anubis rising like a subtle omen against the night sky. He was quiet, setting himself down so he was leaning against the raised ledge. No wonder why the view had been so useful for calming him; starlight and the glow of distant buildings made it feel like he was looking like a well-executed watercolour.
And from the corner of his eye, he caught movement. Jack rolled his eyes from behind his mask, half tempted to get up and grab his rifle the moment he caught sight of a familiar cloaked figure on the Necropolis’ grounds. Even in the last place with a hint of safety, he’d still been followed, tracked down without any hope of shaking those bastards off his back. He stopped after a moment. Reaper wanted to see him dead on his own terms- tracking Morrison down in a city of the dead, unarmed saved for a pistol at his thigh, might not have been his idea of an ideal fight, but Jack realised it was smarter to stop that train of thought.
He barely knew the man Gabriel had become. What hope did he have of trying to think ahead of the wraith?
Jack stood, about to head back into the warmly-lit corridors of the Necropolis, and he would’ve managed to get there if the sound of shifting wind and metal claws clicking together. Subtlety wasn’t a strength of his with a glowing red visor making him stand out like he’d turned up to an Eyes Wide Shut party uninvited.
Turning to face the figure that had manifested itself a good few paces behind him, the best Jack could offer was to hold his hands out, letting the wraith know that there wasn’t anything he could do.
“You’re just stalking me now, I take it?” the soldier asked, ignoring the sane part of his mind that urged him to fucking run .
“I thought you’d be happier about the situation if I came alone.”
Morrison paused in confusion. What the fuck was going on with him?
“So you must think I’m doing just peachy after you shot me, huh. You’re gonna be disappointed when someone tells you that shotgun shells to the side don’t leave good impressions.” Out of caution, Jack’s eyes darted to the ghost’s hands, then back to the mask. He wasn’t armed. Why couldn’t this have happened instead of a gun being pointed to his head? “You forgot your pieces, I take it?”
“It wasn’t anything personal, ” Reaper growled, looking as if he were about to continue this line of trying to excuse himself before Morrison quickly voiced his own stance on their first meeting after years.
“Bullshit.”
“Alright. It was personal,” Reyes huffed, shaking his head. “At least let me talk, will you?”
“Floor’s all yours. Just tell me what you want. I don’t even want to fight you, Gabe- not here, but you really don’t give me much choice a lot of the time.”
Reaper balled his fist at the old nickname, adamantly refusing to let it get under his skin. He was past getting angry at that .
“Then consider this a truce. Talon isn’t listening, for once,” he began, smoke trailing off his shoulders as he spoke. With a voice that made him sound like he choked on gravel for fun, Jack found it hard not to feel on edge with what he saw as a stranger. “I couldn’t care less for the recall. I was hoping to push who I was behind me.”
Stepping closer, Jack stood his ground, watching the ghost advance with wary eyes.
“But then I saw you again. I saw that you were alive, somehow,” Reaper continued, voice lowering. He was thankful for the mask, that the best he could portray was anger. Betrayal that Jack had dared survive Switzerland. “And you bought back everything I hoped I’d forget.”
“That’s why you want me dead?”
“It’s why I thought I wanted you dead. I thought that killing you myself would mean that I didn’t have to deal with it. For some ungodly reason- maybe it’s something that should’ve died with me, boy scout, but I still want you for the world.”
Gabriel was met with stunned silence- one that pushed him back a step, hooded head lowered somewhat. He was half tempted to vanish, to dissipate into smoke and curl up and die somewhere else, rather than facing the bastard that he convinced himself was to blame for what he’d become.
A faint mutter of ‘holy shit ’ and Jack scratching at the back of his head drew the wraith out of that barely contained mess of emotion. What came as more of a surprise was seeing the man reach for his visor, clicking it off and allowing the wraith to actually see what had become of him. Scarred, grey, tired, and old- it was still Jack. Reyes wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do with the knot he felt in his chest.
“Figured you’d remember that I was crap with words,” Jack chuckled, attempting to cover how hard that had actually hit him. His clouded eyes barely focused on the mask, glancing everywhere but the skull Gabriel wore. “I still tried to call you, y’know. Years back.”
Pinching the bridge of his nose, Jack swallowed, looking the masked carrion in the eyes.
“I still missed you. Never thought I’d be the one to say that.”
It looked like Gabriel was thinking the same thing. He hadn’t planned for this to actually work - which was mostly his own fault, remembering how much of a damn softie Jack was during their golden days.
“...What now, then? I can’t stay with you. You should know that by now.” The wraith’s voice was practically a murmur by now. It was bittersweet, almost.
Shrugging his shoulders, Jack gave a slight gesture to Gabriel’s mask, finally feeling content enough to come closer. “You can take that thing off, for one. Might make this less awkward. And if wasting time sounds good to you, the stars don’t look so bad tonight.”
Rolling his eyes from behind the mask, Reyes wasn’t sure what else he expected from Jack. He didn’t count on this ever happening again. He reached to take off his own mask, sighing as he forced the one thing that stood between the world knowing what had become of Gabriel Reyes. The scarring was still there, marks embedded into his dark skin- it had gone slightly grey with death, but with Jack somehow looking paler than he remembered, Gabriel didn’t let it get to him too much. Flecks of white dotted his beard and what could actually be seen of the curls in his hair.
“Aw, that’s not fair,” Jack commented, tilting his head to the side.
“Excuse me?”
“Grey hair actually looks good on you.”
There was a slight ‘hmph’ from Gabriel as he crossed his arms, still holding that judgemental look on his face that Jack remembered.
“Well, not everyone can look this good in death,” Reyes muttered. His voice had gained some normality to it, hardly sounding as strained as it did with the mask latched onto his face. Hardly the boyband voice Jack remembered, but he wasn’t complaining in the slightest.
“Not everyone can pull off the vampire look like that, either.”
Gabriel practically buried his face in his palm.
By the time the wraith had looked up, done with making a show of himself, he blinked once he realised Jack wasn’t there. He turned around quickly, glad that he hadn’t panicked for no reason when he saw the old man perched on the ledge he was once stood at. How the hell he could miss that jacket or the mask placed by his side, Gabriel wouldn’t know. Jack craned his neck, gesturing for Reyes to join him.
And join him he did. It was a simple display of dramatics, appearing sat down beside Morrison in a billow of smoke, even if it left Jack coughing for a moment. Reyes looked a little sheepish. “You were the one to ask me to sit here.”
“Not like that,” Jack muttered, laughing between wheezes.
The soldier was able to stretch out some, relaxing after Reyes had shown off some. He was actually quiet, for once- it was a comfortable silence, not one that hung in the air like mustard gas. He allowed himself to lean against his old partner, head against the ghost’s shoulder.
Safety was hard to come by, especially now. But, sat side-by-side with Gabriel, it was a warming feeling that he didn’t want to let go of just yet.