Archive of Our Own

Genji is very different from the way he was in their Blackwatch days, and Jesse is trying very hard not to lose his damn fool mind over that. It ain’t working, but it ain’t his fault Genji does things like laugh and tease and make jokes now; that ain’t something a reasonable man can be reasonably expected to reasonably handle.

It’s a big change, and not one he expected. Sometimes it’s actually a little unsettling, like someone plucked Genji out of himself and replaced him with some cheerful stranger. Jesse’ll be expecting a certain response—usually negative—and instead he’ll get a hand on his shoulder or a thoughtful answer or that unfamiliar and amazing laugh.

His poor heart is compromised.

Before Overwatch fell, they were—not together, exactly, but at least next to each other. Jesse saw a lot of things Genji didn’t show many people back then, but never anything like the ones he’s showing everyone now. He don’t rightly know how he feels about that, except for how bad he wants to see it all. Anything Genji wants to show—he wants to see it all.

This works out fine, until Winston assumes that their past experience working with each other in Blackwatch means he can just throw them at a mission and expect things to go smoothly.

To be fair, Talon never does like to let things go smoothly.

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“This is not optimal,” Genji observes as Jesse’s patting out the flames on his sleeve.

“You think, partner?” Jesse demands. It was supposed to be a stealth mission, for one. For another, their way out is on fire, along with most of the rest of the lab. And, again: him.

“I do, yes,” Genji says, seemingly unbothered. Jesse is both wooed and annoyed. This Genji is so unlike his old self, and yet somehow still just as capable of driving him to distraction.

Speaking of distractions . . .

“Do you hear that?” Genji says, turning his head. Jesse’s heart sinks.

“I hear that,” he says: the sudden sound of crying, loud and desperate.

The sound of a baby crying.

Jesse looks at Genji. Genji draws his sword. It seems like an appropriate reaction, so Jesse goes for Peacekeeper and then they both tear down the hall like men on a mission, except what they’re doing right now definitely ain’t the mission. He’ll apologize to Winston later, assuming they live. Hopefully they will, since it’d be mighty embarrassing to die on their first run back.

Incidentally, so far as the odds of their survival goes, the hall is both on fire and full of Talon agents. Genji tears through them in a green blur, his dragon wrapped around his sword, and Jesse lets Deadeye take care of the few he misses. It’s a lot of blood, but such is life. And death.

It don’t do much good for the fire, unfortunately, and Jesse nearly gets taken out by flaming debris falling from the ceiling. He manages to block it with his prosthetic, but still gets a mite singed. Genji, like always, is too far ahead to notice. It’s a bit comforting that he ain’t completely different.

The sound of crying gets louder, and Genji disappears into a doorway at the end of the hall. Jesse follows him, watching their backs. Ain’t been a Talon base yet that didn’t have a few tricks up its sleeve, in his experience.

“McCree,” Genji says in alarm, and Jesse looks into the room. There is a very small baby in a plastic box in the center of it, all hooked up to more wires and needles than Jesse ever wants to see again.

Oh, hell.

He hears boots in the hall, and Genji bristles.

“Cover me,” he says, and then does not dart into the hall and the thick of things, but goes for the baby. Jesse is so bemused he nearly forgets he’s got people to be shooting. The old Genji would already be killing a man.

Or six, McCree amends as he glimpses the amount of grunts coming around the corner. It’s too soon for Deadeye again, so this is gonna have to go the hard way. He ducks for cover and takes careful aim, and nearly gets his fool head shot off by the sniper at the back of the group.

Lovely. Just lovely.

“Genji,” he calls back warily.

“Just a minute!”

“Genji, I need a lot more than a minute here, darlin’!” Jesse takes a shot, an agent goes down, and all their friends start shooting back. It’s about how he remembers things going in the old days, though in the old days he’d be worrying about Genji getting hit because the damn fool would be right in the middle of the mess. Jesse can’t decide if he misses that or not, but he would love a Dragonstrike right now.

Or to have Gabe and Moira at their backs, but this ain’t the time to be thinking about that.

“Darling,” Genji echoes, almost musingly. Jesse knows he’s just repeating him, obviously, but his heart still skips a beat. He’s never heard Genji say any kind of endearment, except maybe mockingly or bitterly.

It really ain’t the time for thoughts like those, though.

“Genji!” he yells again, ducking behind the door just in time to avoid a fresh hail of bullets. The Talon agents are pushing forward down the hall. The sniper’s just waiting for her shot. It’s a bad combination.

“Give me your serape,” Genji says, and Jesse turns to give him an incredulous look, about to ask if he’s lost his damn mind, and is immediately confronted with the sight of Genji covered in blood and holding a gently weeping baby against his chest. His heart skips several beats, and he forgets entirely what he was going to say.

“Buh?” he manages.

“Your serape,” Genji repeats, holding out a hand to him. “I am covered in metal and body armor, it cannot be particularly comfortable.”

“Right,” Jesse says faintly. Genji didn’t even sound self-loathing saying that, which sure is a thing that just happened. He drags off his serape and passes it over, and Genji wraps the baby up and cradles them close. Jesse might die, a bit.

There’s a bit of gunfire, which reminds him he should be worrying about actually dying, and he risks a glance into the hall that nearly costs him his hat. And his head.

“Jesus!”

“It looks like there is another exit in the back of the lab,” Genji says, which might be even better to hear than “darling”.

“Sounds like a plan,” Jesse says. “Let’s hope it ain’t booby-trapped, for once.”

“But that would be boring,” Genji says with a laugh. Jesse could goddamn swoon, but it really, really ain’t the time. Obviously.

“There’s the man I know and fear,” he says, and then important-looking things start exploding and they run for it. “Did you do that?!”

“Sniper,” Genji says, and Jesse’s shooting her off the catwalk before he even processes the word. “Good shot. And no, I was rather occupied.”

“Well it ain’t good luck, so you’d best brace yourself, darlin’,” Jesse says, and that’s about when a good three squads’ worth of Talon grunts pours through the door behind them.

“Hm,” Genji says. “I wonder how well I can fight one-handed.”

“Looks like we’re about to find out,” Jesse says, and Genji laughs again. It’s very distracting, and Jesse is just gonna blame that for the weird pitter-patter thing his heart does and also for how he gets shot.

Fortunately, it’s in the prosthetic. Less fortunately, the feedback still fucking hurts.

“Shit!”

“McCree!” Genji says in alarm, and then the grunts catch up with them and things really go to shit. They end up back-to-back, the familiar sound of Genji deflecting bullets with his sword in Jesse’s ear, and he throws a flashbang with his sparking arm and fires at the stunned grunts.

“Keep moving!” he yells to Genji, because getting surrounded and stuck is the worst possible idea, and Genji leaps right over the agents in front of him. Jesse ain’t as mobile, which would be more inconvenient if Genji weren’t stabbing them in the back right now. He takes the opening Genji’s made for him, and they run.

Good news: Dragonstrike is a damn treat at clearing a path, and it ain’t too soon for Deadeye anymore.

They get out of the building and into a truck by the skin of their teeth, all the same, and Jesse honestly forgets about the baby. They don’t fuss none, they don’t cry none; they don’t make a sound the whole run, despite the gunfire and the screaming and the no doubt bumpy ride.

He remembers pretty definitively when Genji starts cooing over them in the passenger seat, though.

“There, there,” Genji croons softly, adjusting the serape around the baby as Jesse takes a hairpin turn at high speed. They may be being slightly followed. “It will not be long now.”

“Won’t it?” Jesse asks wryly, wrenching the wheel to the right. Genji catches himself against the door, careful to minimize the jarring to the baby. Jesse feels some kind of way about seeing that, but really should be keeping his eyes on the road.

“Well, I suppose that depends on how well you drive,” Genji says. “Are you any better than you used to be?”

“Considering my prosthetic ain’t quite up to snuff at the moment, I’m gonna go with ‘worse’,” Jesse says, shaking out his arm in an attempt to get it to stop goddamn sparking. The sparking is concerning.

“We should probably take a look at that,” Genji says.

“This really ain’t the time!”

“Fair enough.”

An armored truck squeals into the street ahead of them, and Jesse curses up a blue streak. Genji says something real unfriendly-sounding in Japanese and draws his short sword, and the truck barrels straight for them.

Well, this should be exciting.

He never has lost a game of chicken.

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“I cannot believe that worked,” Jesse says.

“It was your plan,” Genji says.

“Yeah, and I can’t believe it worked,” Jesse says. “Did you not notice how stupid a plan that was?”

“Your stupid plans tend to turn out better than our smart ones ever do,” Genji says. He’s wiped off most of the blood and is holding the baby in the crook of his left arm. Jesse assumes that’s because it’s the real one, unless Genji’s had a real unfortunate accident since the last they saw each other. The baby is small, tan-skinned with dark curly hair and big brown eyes. They’re still almost completely silent, aside from the occasional soft murmur. If it weren’t for that, Jesse’d think they were mute. They’re a thin, needle-marked, bruised-up little thing, and the mere sight of them’s enough to make Jesse think he didn’t shoot enough people back in that lab.

“If you say so, partner,” Jesse says. He had a bit more blood to wipe off, but they managed to steal a pickup and some clean clothes after they lost their tail, so he looks nearly presentable at the moment. Genji just looks like Genji, of course.

“We need to feed the baby,” Genji says.

“I have no idea how to do that,” Jesse says.

“You think I do?” Genji asks wryly.

“Fair enough.” Jesse tips his hat back on his head. “Well, there’s gotta be a grocery store around here somewhere, they got formula, don’t they?”

“I could not possibly tell you,” Genji says.

“. . . maybe we oughta look for a specialty store.”

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A few false starts later, Jesse is standing in the middle of an aisle full of formula and baby food without the faintest goddamn idea what he’s doing. Genji’s still in the truck, because Genji can’t look like a normal John Doe just by taking off his already damaged prosthetic. Jesse’s doing his best to look uninteresting, which would be easier if he didn’t have about thirty questions he’d like to ask the nearest employee. Unfortunately, “a one-armed man who don’t know his own baby’s age” would be a memorable thing, he’s thinking.

He decides to err on the side of caution and get the formula, since if the baby ain’t old enough for solid food they ain’t getting down any of the baby food, but a kid any age can drink. They only gotta take care of them until they can get to the emergency extraction point, after all. He really hopes he’s got the right size diapers, though; he really just guessed on those.

He heads out to the pickup with his haul, hoping no one’s gotten curious about the omnic-looking guy alone in the parking lot, and mercifully it seems no one has.

“Do you know how to feed a baby?” Genji asks as he opens the car door for him.

“I was hoping there’d be instructions, but if it comes to it there’s always the internet,” Jesse says, setting the bag on the driver’s seat and pulling out the diapers. That’s probably the most important thing, to start. They’ve both only got one arm at the moment, since Genji’s still holding the baby, but they manage to get the package open between them.

Genji lays the baby in his lap and inexpertly gets the diaper on them—her, apparently—without too much trouble. Seems like Jesse guessed right on the diapers, or at least guessed close enough. She fusses a bit, but as quiet as a mouse, and Jesse wonders why she ain’t crying proper. Babies do that at the drop of a hat, don’t they?

He don’t really like any of the answers he’s coming up with, considering the condition they found her in.

“You look very weird in a T-shirt, for the record,” Genji says.

“Thanks?” Jesse tries.

“I suppose as long as you still have the spurs, it is fine,” Genji says. Jesse really don’t know how to take . . . any of that, frankly.

“Motel?” he asks.

“Motel,” Genji confirms, swaddling the baby back up in his serape and cradling her to his chest again. Jesse takes a moment to be compromised, then tosses the rest of the supplies in the back and gets into the driver’s seat. They’ve got places to be, after all.

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There’s only a single available, of course. Jesse takes it, because they’ve dealt with worse. The bed’s a double, at least, and the front office has a crib, but that’s it for sleeping space. Unless one of them wants to sleep on top of the dresser, anyway, and it ain’t that big a dresser.

The internet and the instructions on the formula get them through feeding the baby, who latches onto the bottle aggressively and drinks the whole thing dry. Jesse’d be behaving similarly given a bottle of his poison of choice, or at least he’d like to be.

The baby’s hardly been difficult at all, aside from Genji having to fight carrying her, but her mere existence is still incredibly stressful. Normally they’ve only gotta worry about their own hides; having an innocent child around seriously ain’t helping Jesse’s nerves. Especially it ain’t helping because they’re so far out from the emergency extraction point. The normal one’s shot, of course; ain’t no way they can bring down an Overwatch plane in city limits right now. Even if it weren’t for Talon it’d be pretty risky, and with them all riled up it’s basically suicide.

He really wishes they’d managed the “stealth” part of this mission a little better.

Genji lays the baby down in the crib, and she starts quietly fussing. Genji hesitates, but steps back, and then—well, then they find out she can cry after all. Genji immediately swoops back in and picks her back up, and she’s already hiccuping out her last few sobs the moment she sees him again, reaching up urgently for him.

“There, there, little one,” Genji soothes, rocking her in his arms. Jesse is compromised. He’s mentioned that by now, yeah?

“I was starting to wonder if she ever cried,” he says, mostly for the distraction.

“Apparently she does,” Genji says as the baby burrows in adorably against his chest. “Do you think she’s still hungry? She did drink the whole bottle.”

“I ain’t got the slightest clue,” Jesse says. “Maybe? Maybe she’s just fussed ‘cause you put her down.”

“Why would that bother her?” Genji asks, audibly puzzled. Jesse can think of a few reasons, himself.

“Don’t ask me,” he says, which ain’t technically a lie. “She’s a baby. Babies like held, don’t they?”

“Do they?” Genji is clearly mystified. “Then you should be doing it. She must be uncomfortable in my arms.”

“I’ve got just as few arms as you do, I’ll remind you,” Jesse points out. Not that he wouldn’t take his turn at holding her, but—“Also, mine was still sparking last we turned it on.”

“Point.” Genji tilts his head, then looks down at the baby again. “Sorry, little one. At least the serape should be alright.”

“Ignoring the fact it probably reeks of cigar smoke, I’d expect it’d be,” Jesse says. Angela would probably have his hide for wrapping a baby up in that ratty old thing, but their baby-swaddling options are unfortunately limited.

“It does smell like you,” Genji agrees. Jesse’s not sure if that’s a complaint or just a comment. Maybe he could stand to smoke less, admittedly, though he ain’t lit up a new cigar since they picked up the baby. Seemed unwise. He could really use one, mind, so he’s probably gonna go do that once Genji gets the baby settled in.

Assuming she settles in, anyway. Don’t babies have a tendency to keep people up at night?

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Unfortunately, Jesse turns out to be right about that. The baby fusses every time Genji puts her down, and cries outright whenever he’s out of her sight. Genji ends up sitting on the bed with his back against the headboard and her in his arms. She’s restless, clearly, and trying to climb all over him, which is downright indecent at this hour of night. Tired as he is, Jesse could probably sleep through the fuss, but it don’t feel right leaving Genji holding the bag alone.

“You know, I’d love the sleep, but she’s still very sweet,” Genji murmurs, letting the baby pat at his glowing visor. The room’s dark except for the alarm clock and his various illuminated parts, but that’s enough to see at least a bit by.

“She seems to like all your pretty lights,” Jesse says, setting his hat on the nightstand and settling in on the other side of the bed. Seems like a baby’s kind of thing to like, he supposes, especially in the dark.

“I suppose she does,” Genji says. “That’s . . . unusual.”

“Unusual?” Jesse tips his head.

“Most people do not,” Genji says. “Except for the occasional fetishist, that is.”

“You’ve always been pretty, Genji,” Jesse says, the words coming out before he can think better of them, at which point he’s committed so he might as well keep going. “Lights or no, you’re the prettiest thing I seen in years.”

“You have not even seen my face in years,” Genji says wryly.

“Since when have I needed to see your face?” Jesse asks. He never really has, actually. The shadowed implications of it, once or twice back in the day in his dim-lit bunk, but never the whole thing at once. He’d usually forgotten the mask wasn’t Genji’s face, which had made every kiss in the dark a real surprise.

“I always thought it must bother you that you had not,” Genji says, his eyes on the baby. Or maybe not; if he’s looking sidelong at him, Jesse’d never know. The visor’s opaque, after all, and all one color all the way through. Plus it’s probably got night vision, same as his old eyes did.

“Not particularly,” Jesse says. “Why should it?”

“It would bother most people, I would think,” Genji says, his voice a little distant. “Considering the . . . relationship we had.”

“You didn’t wanna show me,” Jesse says. They’ve avoided talking about their relationship so far since coming back for Recall, and he ain’t sure the middle of a FUBAR mission is the smartest time to be getting into it. Still, if Genji brought it up . . . “I didn’t wanna see anything you didn’t wanna show me.”

“You make it sound very simple,” Genji sighs, brushing the baby’s hair back off her forehead. She coos at him; it’s nearly heartbreaking.

“I always figured it was,” Jesse says.

Genji laughs a little, though it’s nothing like the sweet way he’s been laughing lately and nothing like the bitter way he used to back in the day. There’s something a bit sad about it.

“Genji,” Jesse says, not really sure what he’s trying to say.

“I—” Genji hesitates, and the baby paws at his visor again. She looks real cute, all wide-eyed and lit up in soft-glowing green.

“She really does like your lights,” Jesse says, giving them both an out. At least for the moment, anyway.

“It is nice,” Genji says. “I do not . . . I have come to terms with my body being the way it is, but it has been a long time since someone thought something about me was pretty.”

There’s a lot Jesse could say to that, but he don’t. It might be a bit too much, when they’re caught in the same cramped space together and there’s nowhere for either of them to retreat. He tells himself he’ll say it back at HQ, but who knows if he actually will or not. He ain’t always been the bravest, when it came to telling Genji something too honest.

“Not that long,” he says, at least, and Genji turns his head towards him, but doesn’t say anything. The urge to kiss him somewhere is a damn strong urge, though that would definitely be too much. Hell, being in the same bed might be too much. This is actually the first time they’ve been this close to a bed together without fucking being involved, though it is very much not the time to be thinking about Genji and fucking at the same time. It’s hard not to now that that he has, though. They used to stay up all night together like this for very different reasons.

The baby curls up against Genji’s glowing chest, her little body half-covering it, and Genji dims his lights a bit. She makes an unhappy noise, and he brightens them again immediately; she coos.

“That’s cute,” Jesse says.

“She is, yes,” Genji agrees, though Jesse wasn’t just talking about the baby. Hearing Genji so much as imply something is cute is enough to distract him from clarifying, though.

“You really are different,” he says.

“I think you are the only person so far who hasn’t phrased that as a compliment,” Genji observes.

“I mean, I’m glad you’re feeling better, but I didn’t think anything was particularly wrong with you to begin with,” Jesse says.

“There were most certainly things wrong with me,” Genji says. “It’s better this way. I am better this way, that is.”

“Well, you’d know,” Jesse says, though part of him does in fact miss the old Genji. He feel a bit wrongfooted with this one, like he ain’t sure where he can step anymore or what’s safe to say. He don’t wanna do the wrong thing.

He used to worry about that a lot less, he remembers. But they’re older now, and there’s no reason to be trampling all over someone’s boundaries just so he can figure out where they are. For one thing, there’s easier ways to do that. For another, it ain’t very mannerly.

“I suppose I do, now,” Genji says, adjusting his grip on the baby carefully. Jesse wonders what her name is, and just what Talon was doing to the poor thing. “What about you, McCree?”

“Me?” He blinks, not understanding the question. “I think you’re fine.”

“No,” Genji says, shaking his head in amusement. “How are you.”

“Oh.” Jesse pauses, not really sure how to answer. No one’s asked him that question in . . . quite a while, he thinks. Not as anything more than a pleasantry, that is. Genji apparently indulges in things like pleasantries now, but it’s still pretty clear he didn’t mean it as one. “Well, I lost the arm. That’s been a mite inconvenient. Still ain’t really used to the prosthetic, to be honest.”

“I know the feeling,” Genji says wryly.

“It’s only the hand, really,” Jesse says, glancing at the stump of his forearm where the prosthetic bolts in. “Ain’t so much to lose, compared to my neck.”

“I suppose not,” Genji muses. “I saw your wanted poster.”

“Yeahhh, there’s a few of those now,” Jesse says with a wince. More than a few, depending on a body’s sense of scale.

“You always do find a way to get into trouble,” Genji says, sounding amused again. Jesse shrugs, not really sure what to say to that. Ain’t like it ain’t true.

“Well, it is my specialty,” he says.

“What else?” Genji asks. “Besides the arm and the wanted posters.”

“Not much, frankly,” Jesse says. “You’ll notice I showed up pretty quick when Winston called.”

“Nothing to leave behind?” Genji asks. “Not in five years?”

“No,” Jesse says. “Not really.”

“Hm.” Genji looks at the baby again. She might be sleeping, but who knows. “That is a shame.”

“Well, I wouldn’t have left no spouse and kids, so . . .” Jesse shrugs again. He wouldn’t be here right now, if he’d found something besides Overwatch. Genji’d be on this mission with who knows who, maybe sitting in this bed with some stranger who had no idea about anything about him.

“Is that the only thing you would not have left?” Genji asks.

“I can’t rightly say, seeing as there wasn’t really anything to put that resolve to the test,” Jesse says. Maybe if he’d made friends somewhere, settled down, gotten another job . . . maybe he wouldn’t have wanted to leave that either. But it’s hard to picture that, with the world as it is. Winston ain’t wrong. Overwatch might not be the right solution, but they sure as hell need some kind of solution, and what else are they gonna do but try?

“Fair enough,” Genji says. “I cannot say if I would have left Zenyatta, if he had not agreed to come with me.”

“Yeah, you two seem . . . real close,” Jesse says carefully, not quite sure how to phrase a question he’s been avoiding asking since he first saw them together. “Is he . . .?”

“What?” Genji tilts his head.

“He’s real important to you,” Jesse says, and Genji nods.

“He might be the most important person I have ever met in my life,” he murmurs, carefully getting up off the bed to take the baby back to the crib. “I have never met anyone like Zenyatta before.”

“Oh,” Jesse says, not sure if that’s giving him a sinking feeling or not. It’s good, he reminds himself—Genji’s happier this way. Never mind the tattered ghost of the thing they’d never quite had before, if he’s found someone that really makes him happy. If that’s even what he means, anyway. “Uh—congratulations?”

“I appreciate the enthusiasm,” Genji says wryly, laying the baby down and gingerly adjusting the serape around her as he does. Jesse tries not to watch too close, on account of his heart’s already compromised enough. He don’t need to add the embarrassment of making it any worse.

“It’s good,” Jesse says, maybe a bit too honestly. “You deserve good things, after all the shit you’ve been through.”

“Thank you,” Genji says, and then comes back over to the bed and sits down on the edge of it. “You do too.”

“Overwatch is about the best I could ever hope for, honestly,” Jesse says. It ain’t as if he’d ever really settle down, after all. Even if he tried, he knows it wouldn’t stick. “Even without Gabe and Jack and everyone else we lost.”

“I did wonder what you would do without it, sometimes,” Genji says. Jesse wants to kiss him again, but it still really, really ain’t the time for those kinda thoughts.

“Get myself on a lot of wanted posters, apparently,” he says instead, and Genji lets out a quiet laugh. Jesse kicks off his boots and lays back on the bed, folding his hands on his stomach. They’ve got the space to sleep, now, and as much as he’d like to stay up all night playing catch-up, well—they’re really gonna need that sleep. Genji hums softly, then lays down beside him. Jesse keeps his eyes real firmly on the ceiling, which would be easier if Genji weren’t rolled onto his side and looking at him. It’s—a lot. Like Genji always is.

“I suspect you got onto those wanted posters for the right reasons,” Genji says, and dims the glow of his lights.

“Thanks,” Jesse says, for lack of anything better. He wonders if Genji is about to sleep in full armor, but it seems pretty obvious he is. Honestly, he should’ve put his chest plate back on himself, but it’s a bitch to do one-handed and if he’d asked Genji for help, well—then Genji might’ve helped him, and he would’ve had to deal with that.

That would have been a lot to deal with, for the record.

He closes his eyes, the faint afterimage of Genji’s green lights reflected in the back of them, and tries to sleep. His head’s all rushing and tumbling, though, and it don’t wanna calm down. Genji’s right there and Talon could find them at any minute and he has no idea how to take care of a baby and Genji’s right there—

He hears a sniffle, and his eyes open. For one irrational instant he thinks Genji’s crying, but the next instant something starts wailing and he sits bolt-upright, hand going automatically for Peacekeeper.

“It is just the baby,” Genji says, rolling off the bed and getting to his feet with a sigh, his lights brightening again. “Nothing is actually wrong.”

“That sound is goddamn alarming,” Jesse says, forcing himself to take his hand off his gun. He feels like a cat that just got rubbed the wrong way, his hackles all up and paranoid. Genji scoops the baby out of the crib, serape and all, and she almost immediately stops crying, which is some small mercy.

“She seems to prefer being held,” Genji says as he starts to walk in small circles, rubbing the baby’s back soothingly. “I suppose Talon did not give her much of it, whatever they were doing.”

“Nothing good,” Jesse says. “You need a hand there, partner?”

“You are already down one,” Genji says wryly. “It is fine, I can handle her. Get some sleep; one of us might as well be rested.”

“Can’t say as I’d feel right about that,” Jesse says. Genji chuckles.

“Would you rather fall asleep at the wheel tomorrow?” he asks. “We have a long drive ahead of us still.”

“I ain’t that old yet,” Jesse says.

“Get some sleep, McCree,” Genji says, his voice sounding odd. Almost . . . warm, Jesse would call the tone, if it weren’t Genji using it. Except now Genji does things like exchange pleasantries and not try to get himself killed at every opportunity, so maybe that’s what it is. Either way, Jesse’s a weak enough man that it gets him lying down again.

“If you say so,” he says, but he don’t actually manage to fall asleep for a long time.

Ain’t his fault, ‘cause Genji sits down in the other half of the bed and starts singing to the baby. Some kinda lullaby, Jesse can only assume, since it’s in Japanese. Which . . . which sure is a thing alright.

Like he said. He don’t actually fall asleep for a long time.

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First thing in the morning they get in their stolen truck and get the hell out of Dodge. Jesse drives with meticulous care for the rules of the road, since getting pulled over with a baby in no kind of carseat would not end well. They should probably buy a carseat, frankly, but he’s got clue zero where to find one. Luckily, the drive goes smoothly and nothing unfortunate happens, and several very long hours later they make it to the emergency extraction point. Jesse is bored out of his skull by that point, which is a testament to how damn dull the drive was and how much attention Genji had to give the baby; normally Genji is the last person he’d be bored around.

Or at least, Genji used to be the last person he’d be bored around. Maybe that’s different, now. Or maybe he’s just getting melancholic in his old age, Jesus Christ.

They make good time to the drop ship, anyway, though the pilot gives them a funny look when she sees them and their go-bag full of bloody clothes and baby stuff and a broken prosthetic. Really, though, Jesse’s been seen doing weirder and worse. He was seventeen in this organization; he’s been seen doing way weirder and worse.

Hah. That’s kind of funny, now that he thinks of it. It’s been a long time since he was around people who know him that well.

.

.

.

“It was supposed to be a stealth mission,” Winston says, just looking at him.

“You have no way of proving we weren’t stealthy about this,” Jesse says. Winston points at the fiery crater on the satellite map. “. . . listen, boss, that could’ve been anyone.”

Genji, meanwhile, is being swarmed by everyone else in the room because baby. She fusses like crazy whenever anyone else tries to hold her, but seems to be in love with both Torbjorn’s beard and Zenyatta’s orbs. At least, she’s tried to eat both multiple times already.

At least he ain’t the only one who finds this whole situation unbearably precious. At least he’s got that.

“Where did you find her?” Angela croons, letting the baby paw at her badge.

“Talon lab,” Genji says, moving the serape enough to show a few of the bruised little needle marks on the baby’s stomach, though those seem to be fading with her fascination with hugging Zenyatta’s glowy yellow healing orb. “They had her hooked up to a truly alarming amount of wires and needles.”

“What,” everyone else says.

“. . . never mind about the crater. The crater was a good decision,” Winston says.

“Thank you,” Jesse says.

.

.

.

Genji and Angela take the baby for a checkup, since God knows what those Talon bastards were doing to the poor thing, and Jesse fills out his half of the mission report while he waits to get his prosthetic back. It’s a bit boring, but he even missed the damn mission reports while he was on the run, so he ain’t complaining.

He wonders how the baby’s taking the exam. She’s probably used to being poked and prodded at, given the way they found her, but that don’t mean she’d like it. If anything, it might mean she’d like it a lot less. He sure as hell would if he were her.

The mission report really is boring as hell.

“McCree!” Lena exclaims, appearing in the chair across from him in a blur. He wonders if anyone is ever gonna call him by his first name again in his life. Probably not, at this rate. “I was in the infirmary. I saw the baby!”

“So has most of the base,” Jesse says, a little bemused. Not that he ain’t used to Lena popping in out of nowhere, obviously, even if it’s been a few years.

“She looks so cute in your serape!” she says delightedly.

“I think she’d look cute in a burlap sack, frankly,” he says. “Most babies tend to be like that.”

“Yeah, but most babies don’t cry when Angela tries to give them a nice soft baby blanket,” Lena says with a laugh. “She wouldn’t let them wrap her in anything else without kicking up a fuss, it’s precious.”

“. . . okay, that’s a bit cute,” Jesse allows. “But that thing reeks of smoke and gun oil and it’s rough as hell, I can’t imagine it being that comfortable for a baby.”

“You sound like Genji,” Lena says with a grin. “She keeps crying when he puts her down, too.”

“Yeah, she was doing that last night too,” Jesse sighs. “He had to stay up with her. Not sure he slept at all, frankly.”

“That’s adorable,” Lena says. “Dreadful, but adorable.”

“I don’t know if Genji would agree,” he says, and she laughs.

“Have you thought about names yet?” she asks. “Genji said he hadn’t.”

“I mean, presumably she’s got one, we just don’t know it,” Jesse says.

“Yeah, but we can’t all keep calling her just ‘the baby’ all the time,” Lena says. “I mean, we could, but it’d be a bit odd.”

“It’s not like we’re keeping her,” Jesse says, and Lena raises her eyebrows at him.

“You did see Genji with her, right?” she asks. “I’m surprised he’s not already building a crib.”

“I think Torbjorn called dibs,” Jesse says. Which, admittedly, is not very “not keeping the baby” behavior for them to be going along with, but . . . well, she needs somewhere to sleep tonight, it’s way too damn late to be taking her to social services or . . . wherever, he’s actually not sure where you take an experimented-on Talon baby. He’s actually not sure it’s safe to take an experimented-on Talon baby anywhere, now that he’s thinking about it—for the baby or any impending foster family. “Hnn.”

“Hnn?” Lena repeats, tilting her head.

“Just thinking.” He shakes his head. “I don’t know, Tracer.”

“Well, what’s the alternative?” she asks, which is a pretty good point. Still.

Just . . . still.

.

.

.

Genji comes back with the baby who is indeed still wrapped in his serape, and also still cuddling Zenyatta’s healing orb like a favorite toy. Jesse is fairly certain he’s gonna need that back and equally certain she ain’t gonna want to give it up. Considering all the needle marks and bruises are gone now, though, he’d probably side with her. She looks a lot healthier in general, actually—the unhealthy lab-pallor is a little brighter, and her eyes are looking more alert. Even the soft curls of her hair seem shinier.

“Well ain’t you just the belle of the ball, little miss,” he says to her, every pun intended. She coos, and tries to bite the orb. “What’d Angie say?”

“Angela says she is in perfect health, so far as she can tell,” Genji says, sitting down and setting the baby on his lap. She hugs the orb with one hand and reaches for his glowing chest with the other; he helps her stand up on his thighs so she can touch it. “She could use more sunlight and a touch more exercise, likely, but otherwise she is the picture of health.”

“Good to hear,” Jesse says, resisting the odd urge to reach over and pat the kid’s head. “Small mercies, really, after that setup we found her in.”

“We really should have tried to figure out what they were doing to her,” Genji says.

“Not like we had the time,” Jesse reminds him, and Genji sighs.

“True,” he says. “I would just feel more comfortable knowing.”

“Angie says she’s fine, she’s fine,” Jesse says firmly. Angela ain’t been wrong yet, far as he knows. “We take her out for a walk or two, she’ll be perfect.”

“She is a baby, not a puppy,” Genji says wryly.

“Same idea,” Jesse says with a shrug. He knows about as much about puppies as he does kids, frankly. “You want me to take her tonight?”

“She will cry,” Genji says, shaking his head. “She has cried every time I have given her to someone else, strangely.”

“Ain’t that strange, you’re the one who pulled her out of that nest of wires and wrapped her up all cozy,” Jesse points out reasonably. “And fed and changed her, too. You’re probably the nicest person she’s ever met, far as she’s concerned.”

“Those are really only the basics,” Genji says.

“Sometimes the basics are all it takes,” Jesse says with a shrug. “You gotta sleep eventually, though.”

“I will sleep after we find someone to take her,” Genji says after a moment’s hesitation.

“Yeah, that might be a problem,” Jesse says. He ain’t the biggest fan of the system as it is, frankly, and that without taking into account that Talon might want the kid back. “We don’t know what Talon was trying to do to her, so we don’t know how hard they’re gonna try to find her again.”

“Angela destroyed the tracking chip,” Genji says.

“Tracking chip,” Jesse echos. “In a baby that can’t even walk yet.”

“. . . perhaps it will be a problem,” Genji says with a wince.

“Probably means they know she’s with us, too,” Jesse says. “Unless that was a real shitty tracking chip, anyway.”

“I am fairly certain we would have been identified no matter what,” Genji says. “You and I are not the subtlest members of Overwatch.”

“Yeah, whatever happened to stealth, anyway?” Jesse asks wryly.

“Fire and explosions, mostly,” Genji says, petting the baby’s back as she pushes Zenyatta’s orb against his chest, giggling to herself. Jesse needs to take a moment to be compromised, as usual. “Oh,” Genji says, sounding surprised. “Is she laughing?”

“That’s definitely laughing,” Jesse confirms.

“You like the lights that much?” Genji asks the baby, who keeps giggling. “See, this is why she cries when I put her down. No one else is this shiny.”

“Maybe she’d let Zenyatta hold her,” Jesse suggests. “Or Lucio.”

“Maybe,” Genji says. “She did try to grab Lucio’s gun, though, so he would definitely need to disarm first.”

“Says the man wearing two swords with knives in his legs,” Jesse says, amused. Genji pauses, and tilts his head.

“I do not have those anymore, actually,” he says. “The knives, I mean. Obviously I still have the swords.”

“Really?” Jesse asks. “I would’ve figured you’d keep ‘em. You’ve still got the shuriken, right?”

“I do. But I was not fighting very much when I got my last leg upgrades,” Genji says with a light shrug. “I never used them that much anyway.”

“You say that, but I still got scars from ‘em,” Jesse laughs. It’s a bit strange to think of Genji not fighting, but of course, why would he have been? He’s the one who went and got himself branded an outlaw; Genji’s been meditating in a temple and working out his issues.

“I would apologize, but you were being very annoying at the time,” Genji says, and it takes Jesse a second to catch up and realize it’s a joke, and then he laughs harder.

“Merciless!” he says.

“As always,” Genji agrees, leaning over to let the baby pat at his mask and visor and looking less merciless than he has ever looked in their lives. Jesse’s heart does something deeply inadvisable, considering he still ain’t sure if Genji and Zenyatta are together or if this Genji would even think of him the same way at all. Maybe the damaged Genji would do things this one wouldn’t.

“That girl’s got you wrapped around her little finger, don’t she,” Jesse says.

“I can empathize with being an experiment,” Genji says. “Though I was fortunate enough to be one for more benevolent purposes.”

“Really? Ain’t just ‘cause she’s cute as a button and likes you best?” Jesse asks teasingly, and Genji huffs.

“She does not like me best,” he says.

“Okay,” Jesse says. “Then who does she like best?”

“. . . I am sure I would not know,” Genji says.

“Uh-huh.” Jesse gives him an amused grin, and Genji looks back to the baby, lifting her up in his arms. She coos, and baps his face with Zenyatta’s orb. He seems baffled.

“Zenyatta is going to need that back eventually, you know,” he tells her.

“I think you’re gonna have to find her a replacement first,” Jesse says. “Maybe we can actually convince her to like something cuddly this time. Somebody’s gotta have a Pachimari toy or something around here, right?”

“She likes your serape,” Genji says. “Though you will need that back too, obviously.”

“Eh, she can have it,” Jesse says with a shrug. He’s got others. “Maybe try to wash the smoke out of it for her, though.”

“That would require her to let us take it away long enough to wash it,” Genji says wryly. “She fussed the whole time she was out of it in the infirmary.”

“She don’t seem to mind now,” Jesse says. Genji picks up the serape and holds it away from himself, and the baby makes a distressed noise and nearly over-balances trying to reach it. “A man stands corrected.”

“Mmmhm.” Genji returns the serape to his lap, and the baby immediately sits down on it, orb in lap, and whines until he wraps her up again. Jesse is really gonna have a problem if they keep her, he can already tell. Not that Overwatch is the best place to raise a baby, probably, but . . .

“I really don’t know what we’re gonna do with her,” he says.

“Nor do I,” Genji agrees, touching her little shoulder.

Well, at least he ain’t the only one.

.

.

.

In the morning, Jesse walks into the kitchen where the first thing he sees is Genji feeding the baby, which it is too damn early in the day for him to handle. There’s no sign of Zenyatta’s orb, but of course she’s still in the serape.

“Jesus,” Jesse says. “Please tell me there’s coffee.”

“Not fresh, but Mei made a pot earlier,” Genji says, tilting his head towards the coffeemaker.

“Bless that woman,” Jesse says, swooping down on it. “You sleep at all?”

“I had to leave my arm in her crib, but yes,” Genji says.

“. . . that’s a mighty strange girl you’ve got there, partner,” Jesse says, raising his eyebrows as he fills a mug.

“We have got,” Genji says as he lifts the baby to his shoulder to burp, patting her back.

“Hey, don’t look at me, she likes you best,” Jesse says, and Genji huffs at him.

“She does not,” he says. “Here, hold her for a moment, I need to clean up. I spilled some of the formula on the floor while I was making it. And myself.”

“Ain’t she gonna cry?” Jesse asks with a wince past a very necessary sip of coffee.

“Unless you want to clean up my mess one-handed, you will survive,” Genji says. There is a not-insignificant amount of formula on the floor, Jesse has to admit. Genji’ll be a lot faster cleaning it up than he would.

“Fine, but when she wakes up half the base I’m blaming you,” he says, putting aside his mug and holding out his arm for her.

“They will survive if she does,” Genji says, putting her in his arm and making sure she’s stable before letting go and turning towards the mess on the floor. The baby sniffles, letting out a soft little cry, and Jesse tries to figure out how you soothe a baby who’s used to being full of needles and wires, anyway.

“Please don’t scream my ear off, darlin’,” he says to her, jogging her up and down a bit. Babies like that kind of thing, right? She sniffles a few more times, then burrows into his chest. He tries rocking her, and she stops sniffling quite so hard, which he thinks is a good thing. Right? “Atta girl.”

“Huh,” Genji says. “I thought she would cry.”

“You call this not crying?” Jesse asks. He’s pretty sure her tears are soaking through his shirt right now.

“Compared to what she has been doing? Yes,” Genji says, wiping formula off himself. “She was screaming her head off when Angela held her. And Lena. And Winston.”

“Maybe ‘cause the serape smells like me?” Jesse shrugs, still rocking her. “Or maybe she’s adjusting.”

“Maybe she likes you,” Genji says in amusement.

“Well, it definitely ain’t that.”

Genji laughs. Jesse melts a bit, and pretends the baby is the most fascinating thing in the room. She’s pretty up there, so it ain’t hard. The baby stops crying, Genji finishes cleaning up, and a few more people trickle into the kitchen.

“Oh, she lets you hold her!” Angela says in delight. “That’s wonderful!”

“Well, it’s merciful, at least,” Jesse says. “Genji can’t carry her around forever.”

“I think she wants him to,” Angela says with a smile, coming over to coo at the baby, who stares at her with big eyes and then tries to grab her badge off her coat. Angela is smitten enough to let her. Jesse supposes he should remind her that she needs that thing, but he’d hate to upset the baby.

“Did you name her yet?” Hana asks as she and Lucio come up too, because internationally famous pop stars and professional gamers are just a thing that happens in Overwatch now, that is just the way they work. They definitely ain’t gonna be doing undercover work.

“I feel like naming her is asking for trouble,” Jesse says. “We already ain’t sure what we’re gonna do with her.”

“Keep her, duh,” Hana says, cracking her gum. It is much too early to be chewing gum, Jesse thinks. “Not like you can dump her in a normal foster home.”

“Not to say that Overwatch has never adopted a minor before, but usually the ones we take in are at least old enough to run missions,” Jesse says.

“That’s a thing?” Lucio says. “That sounds like kind of a bad idea.”

“You are looking at a living and breathing example of that thing,” Jesse says. “So maybe.”

“She would be safer here than where Talon could find her again,” Genji says, taking the baby from Jesse and mercifully freeing him up to go back to his coffee, though he does regret giving her up a bit.

“I am pretty sure Talon can find her here, on account of the tracking device you said Angie had to disable,” he says as he grabs his mug again. “Ain’t like they’ve never made it into an Overwatch base before.”

“True,” Genji says, though he sounds disappointed.

“At least we’ve got security. And we’ve got other bases,” Hana says. Which is a point, admittedly, but still.

“Perhaps I could take her to Nepal,” Genji muses. “There is a village below the monastery. It is very hard to find.”

“I think anything related to one of us would be kinda too obvious,” Lucio says. “No offense or anything, just nobody’s been being that sneaky or anything, you know?”

“Also true,” Genji says. “Mmm. I am not sure what would be wisest.”

“I mean, what, you wanna raise a kid in the middle of trying to save the world?” Jesse asks. “Sounds kind of demanding.”

“Amari did it,” Genji says, gently touching the baby’s cheek. She wraps her little hands around his finger. Jesse is compromised. “And Torbjorn raised quite a few children in the middle of trying to save the world.”

“It’s a fair sight easier with a wife, I’ll tell you!” Torbjorn calls over from the fridge.

“I am not exactly marriage material,” Genji says dryly.

“According to who?” Jesse asks, like an idiot, and Genji . . . pauses. Angela raises her eyebrows at him, and Jesse tries not to do anything stupider. “Not that I’m saying you need to get hitched to have a kid, obviously.”

“It would be easier with a co-parent,” Genji says neutrally.

“Most things are,” Torbjorn says, stomping over to get a look at the baby. She yanks his beard. It looks painful. “Ah, you’re a sweetheart, aren’t you. How was the crib?”

“Very good, thank you,” Genji says. “She slept very well, once I actually managed to get her to go down.”

“Atta girl,” Torbjorn says, chucking the baby under the chin and getting his beard yanked again.

“Someone really should name her,” Lucio says. “At least something temporary, you know?”

“Still sounds like trouble to me,” Jesse says.

“‘Trouble’ isn’t much of a name,” Angela says, lightly teasing. A few more agents walk in, and perk up at the sight of Genji and the baby. The kitchen’s getting kind of crowded, and mostly everyone seems more interested in the baby than breakfast.

“Very funny,” Jesse says.

“Oh, I’m hilarious.” Angela smiles at him. “What about Marie? She looks like a Marie.”

“Does she?” Jesse asks doubtfully. He has clue zero what a “Marie” is supposed to look like.

“Leelah?” Lucio suggests.

“Oh, that’s cute,” Hana says approvingly. Jesse is getting the sneaking suspicion this conversation is about to turn into a name-suggesting match, and sure enough it does, along with some baby-related advice from Torbjorn and Reinhardt, and a little bit more from Brigitte when she shows up. The kitchen really is crowded.

Genji takes the first chance to escape he has with the excuse he’s gotta go feed the baby, the traitor, but for some truly mystifying reason everyone decides Jesse’s still the person whose ear they oughta be talking off about all this. Some of the advice does seem pretty helpful, mind; it’s just a lot to absorb all at once.

Honestly, it’s mostly Torbjorn’s advice that’s useful, and some of Brigitte and Reinhardt’s. Nobody else has that much experience with kids, Jesse’s suspecting. Or any, possibly.

He still takes the first chance to escape he can find himself, mind. Not that he’s ungrateful, but he don’t recall signing up to be nobody’s parent.

At least, he thinks he didn’t.

.

.

.

“So what do we name her?” Genji asks later when they’re alone in the living room, because apparently this is Jesse’s responsibility now.

“I have no idea,” he says, eyeing the baby doubtfully. She’s sitting on Genji’s lap, and somehow has gotten ahold of one of Zenyatta’s orbs again. Jesse ain’t even seen Zenyatta today, but apparently he’s seen Genji and the baby.

Which is fine, and normal, and probably a good thing, even. Really.

“Nor do I,” Genji says, brushing the baby’s curls out of her eyes as she pats the orb happily. “Be gentle with that, little bird.”

“Little bird?” Jesse tilts his head. Genji shrugs.

“I do feel a little silly not calling her anything,” he says. “Pet names will do for now.”

“Fair enough,” Jesse says, though he wonders where Genji came up with that one all the same. “She eat okay?”

“Yes,” Genji says. “She took a nap afterwards. I had to take my arm off for her again.”

“That seems like a dangerous precedent,” Jesse says wryly. Genji just shrugs again.

“She is in a strange place with strange people, and who knows how long she was in that lab before that,” he says. “I do not want to deny her a comfort, strange as its source may be. Also I really did not want her to scream again.”

“Good point,” Jesse says, tipping his hat back on his head. His own arm’s still in for repairs, personally. It ain’t an emergency job or anything and they don’t have any more missions lined up, so who knows how long it’ll be until he gets it back. He can get by with just one, though, and he’s sure Genji’s even more used to that then he is. “We really should think of a name before the rest of ‘em decide by committee, though.”

“There are worse ways to be named,” Genji says.

“Sure, but if you’re keeping the kid, you really wanna be telling her that someday?” Jesse asks, raising an eyebrow at him.

“I am not sure if it is wise to keep her,” Genji says, which Jesse is almost certain means—

“But you want to,” he says.

“I imagine that is a normal response, after finding a child,” Genji says, looking down at the baby.

“Maybe.” Jesse shrugs. He’s not sure he does, but his response might not be normal. The situation sure as hell ain’t. “She probably is safer with Overwatch, even if they know we’ve got her.”

“There are still other options,” Genji says. “Surely there is some kind of protection program she could be entered into.”

“That’s assuming no weird Talon-issue side effects are gonna pop up, though,” Jesse says. “Might be a problem if that happened with no Angela or Winston on hand.”

“True.” Genji keeps looking at the baby. She keeps hugging Zenyatta’s orb, cooing contentedly over it. Jesse tries to think of the right thing to say, or at least something decisive to say. It ain’t coming, though.

“Gotta just bite the bullet and make the choice, I guess,” he says finally.

“I suppose,” Genji says. “I would make a very strange father, though. I cannot imagine . . .”

“What?” Jesse asks. “Being a dad? Why not?”

“Perhaps I am not quite as fine with this body as I could be,” Genji murmurs. “A child deserves a parent with a face. And without sharp edges.”

“You could probably get those modded,” Jesse says, and Genji lets out a quiet laugh. “I ain’t kidding, you realize.”

“No, it is true,” Genji agrees. “But there is not much to be done for my face, unfortunately, and I . . . I am not sure that would go well. Children need to see faces.”

“You realize you got a whole base full of faces chomping at the bit to babysit, right?” Jesse says. “She ain’t gonna miss out on anything just ‘cause you need the mask.”

“I do not need it,” Genji says, shaking his head. “I wear it because my face makes people uncomfortable. And . . . myself. It makes me uncomfortable as well.”

“Seems like a fair reason to,” Jesse says. This is the most he’s ever heard out of Genji about anything like this, he thinks, or at least the most that didn’t involve screaming or spite. This Genji ain’t the spiteful type, though, and he doubts he’s much of a screamer either. “She ain’t gonna know the difference, anyway. She likes you just fine as you are, so far as I can tell.”

“I suppose,” Genji says. He touches the baby’s shoulder, and she peers back at him with a soft burbling sound. She really is a quiet baby, aside from when she’s fussing for Genji. “I do want to keep her. Even discounting the fact she would probably be safest with us.”

“Well, then you should,” Jesse says. It seems simple enough, to him. Genji just shakes his head.

“I am being selfish,” he says. “Just because she likes some pretty lights does not mean I can raise her properly.”

“So what, you wanna dump her on Torbjorn?” Jesse asks, raising an eyebrow at him.

“No.” Genji touches the baby’s curls, and she grabs his hand tightly. He holds himself very still.

“I think you’d do alright with her, myself,” Jesse says.

“I would like to,” Genji says.

“Seems like the decision’s already been made, then,” Jesse says, and Genji sighs softly and wraps his arms around the baby, who reaches up to pat at his glowing chest.

“I do not think it would be the wisest decision,” he says.

“This is Overwatch,” Jesse reminds him wryly. “We don’t do the wise thing, we do the right one.”

“Do you think it would be the right thing?” Genji asks. “Truly?”

“I can’t see as how it’d be the wrong one,” Jesse says.

“Hm.” Genji touches the baby’s face again, and she coos at him. “What do you think, little bird? Would you be happy as my daughter?”

Jesse is goddamn compromised.

“You’re gonna have to name her if you keep her, you realize,” he says, trying to sound lighthearted about it. Genji pauses for a moment, then glances over to him.

“You should,” he says. “I could not have gotten her out safely alone.”

“That’s quite the gift to give a man,” Jesse says, glancing down to the baby.

“It only makes sense,” Genji says.

“Hm.” Jesse tips his hat back and looks at her for another moment—“little bird”, he thinks—and decides it’s a thing they both should do, if Genji’s talking about being responsible for getting her out. And if they both should do it . . . “Wren,” he says.

“Wren?” Genji repeats.

“Yeah,” Jesse says. “Like them little birds.”

“Hm.” Genji looks at him for a moment, and then back to the baby. He looks softer, somehow. “It is nice to meet you, Wren. Welcome to Overwatch.”

.

.

.

So Genji’s keeping the baby, and everyone is delighted, except maybe Jesse who’s a little torn about things. Wren is the sweetest little girl he ever did see, and Genji is Genji, and he’s already got enough trouble keeping his fool heart in his chest. Overwatch always was a little bit more like a family than was maybe smart to be, though, so he’s just gonna have to deal with that.

Which he can. Really.

He’s on the roof, smoking, when Zenyatta finds him. He don’t wanna do it around Wren, obviously.

“Ah, hello,” Zenyatta says. “I wondered if you would be here.”

“You were looking for me?” Jesse asks, a little surprised.

“In a sense,” Zenyatta says. “Genji asked if I had seen you.”

“Well, now you have,” Jesse says. He ain’t rightly sure what he thinks of Zenyatta, still. The man seems like a good man—“good omnic” might be the better phrasing, he ain’t sure—but he ain’t one Jesse knows much about. He still don’t even know quite what he and Genji are to each other. Genji keeps calling him his teacher, but he’s also called him the most important person in his life, so . . .

Well, come to think, Wren might be taking that place now.

Won’t be Jesse, either way.

He don’t mind that, really. He don’t have to be the most important person in Genji’s life, so long as he’s in it at all.

He might like to be a little more important than he is, though.

“Would you like me to tell him where you are?” Zenyatta asks.

“No, I’ll go find him,” Jesse says, stubbing out his cigar. “Did he tell you what he wanted?”

“Your company, I believe,” Zenyatta says, and Jesse—pauses, for a beat, and ain’t sure how to take that. It makes something in his gut feel real warm, though.

“Oh,” he says.

“May I ask you a question?” Zenyatta says.

“Just did,” Jesse drawls. Zenyatta lets out a quiet chuckle.

“I had something more personal in mind,” he says.

“Shoot, partner,” Jesse says. He don’t know what Zenyatta could have to ask him, but they hardly know each other, it can’t be too personal—

“Are you going to help Genji raise Wren?” Zenyatta asks.

—alright, so maybe it can be.

“I don’t think he needs the help,” Jesse says.

“Well, that was not quite what I asked,” Zenyatta says, sounding amused. Jesse represses a wince. True enough, he supposes.

“He ain’t asked me to,” he says. “Figured that meant he had it handled.”

“Hm.” Zenyatta folds his hands. “An interesting interpretation.”

“Seems logical enough to me,” Jesse says.

“I feel as if the two of you have something to talk about,” Zenyatta says, unhelpfully. Jesse frowns at him. “You were very close before the fall of Overwatch. Genji has mentioned you many times.”

“He has?” Jesse says, surprised again. He ain’t mentioned Genji to anyone in the past five years, except since Recall. He ain’t sure if that says something bad about him or not. The fact that Genji has, though . . .

It makes him feel a certain way, alright.

“Quite often,” Zenyatta confirms. “He has told me quite a lot about Overwatch, but he spoke of Blackwatch the most, and when he spoke of Blackwatch he spoke of you.”

“Are you trying to tell me something here, partner?” Jesse asks. Is this Zenyatta telling him to back off, or a shovel talk, or . . . ?

“I am only making an observation about my student,” Zenyatta says peaceably. Jesse don’t feel particularly threatened.

“Student, huh,” he says.

“Yes.” Zenyatta tilts his head. Jesse . . . don’t do anything, really. He wishes he hadn’t ground his cigar out quite so soon, though.

“Genji and I weren’t actually that close,” he says. “We were just closer than he let anybody else get.”

“Yes,” Zenyatta agrees. “Close.”

Jesse really don’t know what to think.

.

.

.

Genji’s sitting on the common room couch with Wren in his lap, carefully feeding her. She ain’t quite old enough for solids yet, it turns out, so Jesse was right about the formula. She’s still all wrapped up in his serape, and the sight of them still makes something in Jesse wild. The softest wild he’s ever felt, but wild all the same.

He’s already killed quite a few people for them both, but he’s willing to kill a lot more.

“Zenyatta said you were looking for me,” he says, and Genji looks up.

“Just wondering where you were,” he says. “I missed you at lunch.”

“Yeah, I didn’t go.” Jesse walks over to them and looks down at them and wants . . . a lot, is what he wants. A whole hell of a lot, almost all of which is directly in front of him right now.

“You should eat,” Genji says.

“In a bit,” Jesse says. “Zenyatta said you used to talk about me.”

“I did,” Genji says, seeming puzzled by the topic. “Probably too much, honestly.”

“How come?” Jesse frowns.

“Well . . . you were my friend,” Genji says. “I did not have many of those.”

“I still am,” Jesse says. “Though I’d imagine you’ve got a few more, now.”

“A few,” Genji agrees with a nod. “But you were my friend when I had forgotten how to have one.”

“I’d like to think I was a little bit more than that,” Jesse says, and Genji . . . pauses.

“Yes,” he says after a moment. “You were.”

Jesse sits down next to him and tries to figure out how a grown man tells another grown man that he’s in love with all the worst parts of him and still ain’t sure how to handle the best ones, or anything about what he wants. He wishes it were dark in here, so Genji might take the mask off.

So he could kiss him, he means.

But Genji’s never been as easy as all that, simple as he is at the core of things, so it ain’t no surprise things ain’t gonna be like that now.

“I like that you talked about me that much,” Jesse says.

“Do you?” Genji seems very occupied with the process of burping Wren. Jesse looks down at her, and she looks as sweet and content as anything in Genji’s arms.

“Yeah. I do,” he says, and sits down beside them. Genji turns his head to look at him, and Jesse thinks about kissing him again. They never did that much, back in the day. He wonders if this new Genji would like it better. If it were dark, he’d try and find out.

But it ain’t dark, like he said.

“I like it a lot, actually,” he says. Genji just looks at him, impossible to read with the visor in the way. Jesse wishes for something easy, but not really. “Easy” wouldn’t be Genji.

“Hold her,” Genji says, and pushes Wren into his arm, and then takes the empty bottle and leaves. Jesse . . . blinks, not really sure what to think, and looks down at Wren.

“Well, hello there, darlin’,” he says finally. She coos sleepily, and burrows into his chest. She don’t fuss or cry at all. His heart beats a little faster, and he thinks he’s in love all over again. No matter what Genji says when he asks, he’s gonna do everything he can for Wren.

He just hopes Genji’ll let him do the same for him.

Genji comes back a few minutes later, hands empty, and looks at them. Jesse still can’t quite read him. The new prosthetics don’t move quite like the old ones; all the little tells he used to know are long gone.

“I think she’s sleeping,” he says.

“She likes you,” Genji says. “She has not done that on anyone else.”

“Well, I like her, so good,” Jesse says, glancing down at Wren again. She really is the sweetest little thing, it ain’t—

Genji’s hands land on his shoulders. He blinks, and looks back to him.

“I am . . . better, now,” Genji says carefully. “But I am still not perfect.”

“Was somebody expecting you to be?” Jesse asks, bemused. He didn’t think even Genji was expecting himself to be.

“No,” Genji says. “I just—I am trying to be clear. I know I am very different, though, so . . .”

“So?” Jesse cocks his head.

“Did you like me better?” Genji asks. “Before?”

“I like you all the time, Genji,” Jesse says, and Genji lets out a breath, his shoulders . . . slumping, maybe, or maybe relaxing. It’s hard to tell, with the change in body language and the new armor in the way. “Did you like me better, before?”

“No,” Genji says. “I like you as you are.”

“Well, somebody oughta,” Jesse says wryly, and Genji squeezes his shoulders and leans in a bit and . . . and Jesse would expect kissed, if it weren’t Genji. But it is Genji, so he don’t rightly know what he does expect.

“I would think anyone should,” Genji says. “Wren certainly does.”

“Wren likes my serape and your glowy bits,” Jesse replies with a low chuckle. “And anything else anyone’ll let her grab.”

“She is a woman of refined taste,” Genji says solemnly, and Jesse catches up to the joke a moment late, but laughs anyway. God, Genji makes jokes now. He still ain’t over that. He ain’t sure he’s ever gonna be.

“You’re a treat, darlin’,” he says.

“You keep calling me that,” Genji says. “You never used to.”

“Sorry,” Jesse says, though he can’t imagine why he wouldn’t have. He thinks “darlin’” was the first thing that fell out of his mouth the first time he saw Genji again. Well, once he realized it was Genji, and not just a very friendly strange omnic. “Should I stop?”

“No.” Genji shakes his head. “I do not mind. It is . . . I do not mind.”

“Okay.” Jesse lets his eyes trail over the other’s face—the other’s mask, he guesses—and catalogues all the changes. It ain’t much like his old one, but there’s similarities all the same. “You sure I never called you that before?”

“Not, ah . . . not in public,” Genji says, taking his hands away from his shoulders, his tone nearly bashful. “Other places. But not in public.”

“I probably figured you’d hamstring me if I tried,” Jesse says wryly, and Genji lets out a soft laugh.

“I might have,” he says. “But I liked it when we were alone.”

“You did?” Jesse says. He hadn’t thought Genji’d liked anything back then, except maybe getting his rocks off with somebody who wasn’t going to stare at his cybernetics or scars. Tolerated, sure, but liked?

“I liked a lot of things about you,” Genji says. “Even though you never knew when to shut up.”

“I’m sure I have no idea what you mean,” Jesse says, and Genji sighs and cups his face in his hands and Jesse blue-screens, just a bit, because those are Genji’s hands on his face.

“Anyone else would just kiss me. Darling,” Genji says. Jesse pushes into his hands, tightening his grip on Wren so he don’t jostle her, and really, really don’t know what to do.

“Didn’t figure you’d want kissed,” he says finally.

“I do not know if I do,” Genji says. “But I want you to want to. Is that selfish?”

“Probably,” Jesse says with a loose shrug, still careful not to jostle Wren. “I like you selfish, though.”

“I have always been selfish,” Genji says, and Jesse gives him a wry look.

“And I’ve always liked you, ain’t I?” he says.

“I suppose you have,” Genji murmurs. “How much?”

“How much do I like you?” Jesse asks. “A whole hell of a lot more than you probably meant to make me.”

“I meant to make you like me very much,” Genji says. “Even when I did not like myself.”

“Well, then I must like you a whole hell of a lot,” Jesse says.

“Must you?” Genji says. He’d be close enough to kiss, if he wanted kissed.

“Yeah,” Jesse says. “But I think I can like you a little bit more.”

“I would like that,” Genji says, and then his arms are around Jesse’s neck and pulling him in—carefully, obviously, because of Wren—and Jesse don’t know what to do with himself, but don’t really gotta worry about it because he’s only got the one arm anyway, and Wren’s occupying that particular territory.

Genji’s mask bumps the corner of his jaw.

It feels just like a kiss.

“I know it’s been a while, but . . .” Jesse starts, slowly.

“I know,” Genji says, and wraps his arms around him tighter. Jesse could say something else, probably, but right now everything’s exactly how he wants it to be.

Maybe he’ll say that, later, but for the moment he’s just gonna enjoy it.