Chapter Text
Every major life event, Hanzo realized, happened when he had his bow in his hands: his Father coming to tell him of Genji’s betrayal; Genji’s brush with death and subsequent return, years later; finding out the true nature of Jesse; the first of many heart-to-hearts with Genji, the soft thunk of his arrows sinking into the wooden targets acting as metronome during the slow process of healing with his brother; Jesse leaving—
His Stormbow was consistent, unchanging, and always with him, even when not. His father had taught him that a man’s weapon was more than a family legacy or a crude tool to be maintained; it was the very extension of body and soul, and for the Shimadas, represented a melding of man and beast. Like McCree.
That was how Angela found him now, notching an arrow with practiced, fluid movements as he let his mind wander over the past few months that blended together in a wash of smoke, paperwork, and the taste of iron on his tongue. (Time hadn’t been kind to Angela either; her face had become thin and drawn, and the icy gaze that would’ve sent even Jesse running had lost its edge. The ice queen was melting.)
She stood at the entrance to the range, curled in on herself with her arms wrapped around her middle, watching him with tired eyes. Hanzo would’ve made a passing comment about fixing her posture were it not for the ashen look on her face. He swallowed the fear that rose in his throat, unbidden, threatening to choke the air from his lungs.
He was lining his fourth arrow against the nock point of his bow when she spoke.
“We found him, Hanzo,” Angela’s voice was so soft Hanzo almost missed it over the sound of his heart beating against his ribs. “We found Jesse.”
Hanzo hadn’t said a word after Angela had spoken. The time it would’ve taken to formulate a thought, to force his bone-dry throat to croak out a sound let alone a sentence was too long. Far too long. These months he had spent alone, with McCree scouring the edges of the globe for Reyes and the remnants of Talon, had showed him how precious time was. Hanzo didn’t even waste time putting away his bow, choosing instead to let it clatter to the ground with metallic thud, wincing at the noise and what his Father would’ve said at the sight.
Angela’s mouth was moving, and Hanzo dimly realized she was speaking, yet the roar of blood in his ears had him struggling to read the lips her thin lips formed.
Stable. Resting. See.
Hanzo licked his lips nervously, eyes darting across from her lips to search her face. Her eyebrow was raised. She asked him a question.
See. See him?
He nodded, short and quick, making the throbbing in his head worse. When had that happened?
She returned the nod, pushing off where she leaned against the doorframe to walk over to him and take his clammy hand in her dry, cold one. The squeeze she gave was reassuring, and Hanzo was grateful for the small comfort it brought him as he followed her out of the range and towards the clinic on unsteady legs.
As they navigated the maze of halls and stairs, Hanzo wondered if the gesture had been for herself as much as him.
--
The man that was lying on the hospital bed was not Jesse.
(McCree had told him that he knew Hanzo’s scent so well he could’ve found him amongst a crowd of hundreds with by smell alone. Hanzo had laughed, cheeks flushing, thinking McCree was using his enhanced senses to backhandedly tell him to shower, but Jesse pressed an open-mouthed kiss to his shoulder, assuring him that wasn’t the case.
“I do not need to have super hearing to know a lie when I am told one,” Hanzo had said, pressing his fingers into Jesse’s side. McCree had pressed his own hand—the flesh one, the skin warm and calloused—over Hanzo’s, flattening his palm over the thick, corded muscle of his oblique.
When Hanzo had finally worked up the courage to ask what he smelled like, McCree had told him, punctuating each remark with a kiss trailed along his spine—ozone; the polish he used to make his bow gleam; so much like lavender that the smell of him alone could ward off an incoming migraine. The only difference was McCree’s own scent was mixing with his now, a fact he took great joy in pointing out to Hanzo.
He had watched McCree’s face when he entered rooms after that day, noting the subtle twitch of his nose when he caught the scent and the way the rigid lines of his back softened. McCree was calmed by his presence.)
Hanzo watches the stranger with unblinking eyes, fingers tapping a nervous staccato against his knee in time with the shrill beep of the electrocardiogram. The man’s heartrate hadn’t spiked so much as once when he entered, let alone twitched of his nose.
He had watched Dr. Ziegler ruck thick cotton sheets at his hips to allow the myriad of tubes, electrodes, and wires that were ended above and below skin to be unobstructed, allowing Hanzo to see the extent of the damage.
The man in the bed looks small, weak, and pale. More machine than man. Bandages wrap around his head and most of his face, leaving only chapped, bloody lips and a smattering of healing bruises along a razor-sharp jawline exposed. Stubble was growing back, Hanzo notes, fingers twitching to reach and feel its roughness against his skin—
The thought surprises him, and Hanzo clenches his fist and lets his nails bite bloody half crescents in the meat of his palm. The pain grounds him, only for a moment.
He continues his inventory of the Stranger, categorizing every difference between this man and Jesse: Jesse is thick, hard muscle tempered only by the softness of his belly; warm, sun-kissed skin; covered with such a thick smattering of dark hair that it is a wonder the existence of the Overwatch’s wolf is a secret. This man is thin, scarily so, with bones pressing so sharply against his skin that Hanzo fears it may cut through. His skin is paler than Jesse’s, cold to the touch, and gleaming under a thin sheen of sweat. Instead of hair, bruises, scars, and bandages seem to cover every inch of available skin. The only similarity Hanzo notices is that they’re both missing their left arm a bit above the elbow, but in place of a metal prosthetic there is nothing but an angry scar.
Hanzo grits his teeth and looks away from the man in the bed—the man that isn’t Jesse McCree—and chooses, instead, to stare out the window of the hospital room. The curtain and window are open to let it in the salty, warm air of Gibraltar in August and the setting sun casts the sky in delicate pinks and burnt oranges. Hanzo knows if he strains hard enough he can hear the spray of seafoam where the waves crash against the face of the Rock of Gibraltar and the soft cry of gulls as they try to coordinate with each other to snatch food from an unsuspecting recruit on guard duty.
McCree would like this weather.
The simple thought sends a shard of pain through him, and all at once he is consumed by thoughts of Jesse: where he is, what he’s been eating, how the tracking has been going, if he’s okay.
(It’s the dead of summer and the window is open. It had been so humid today Fareeha had asked Mei to freeze her. Yet, Hanzo’s shivering, blood like ice in his veins. His elbow hurts, why does it hurt?)
The months and months of pain and waiting, of not knowing, of cold, sleepless nights reliving old nightmares and inventing new ones –
Jesse’s eyes are unfocused, cold, and accusing. Blood is pooling around him, staining cloth, skin, and cobblestone alike. Hanzo can’t move, breathe, or speak, only watch as he struggles to breathe. Each stuttering rise and fall of his chest makes the gunshots littering his chest make sick, wet noises and bubble more blood.
“You did this,” his teeth are red and shiny with his own blood, “you told me to go and I thought so much about that night it distracted me. Now I’m dyin’ ‘cause of you. Just another one for your body count, ain’t I?”
The McCree in his dreams dies shortly after, every time. After, Hanzo can hear Reaper laughing—
The pain in his elbow has turned to a wet sensation, and he feels something dribble down his forearm.
He smells the blood before he sees it. And when he moves his gaze to his elbow, he sees impossible long nails digging into his skin. Hanzo is acutely aware that is not his hand.
At the point of each nail, where it breaks the skin, a rivulet of blood lazily trails down the dips and curves of his forearm. His eyes follow the length of nail, past bony and bloody knuckle, over tendons strained tight against skin and below an IV-line, beyond the mess of bandages, scars, and bruises. Up, now, beyond bone, sinew, and skin to the stark whiteness of fresh bandages. Hanzo thinks he imagines the glow of gold from beneath the bandage at the noticeable dip of his brow.
The steady metallic beep of electrocardiogram is replaced by its frantic alarm, breaking Hanzo’s reverie, and his eyes dart over to the screen. He swears, sweat beading at his brow as he tries to decipher the numbers flashing across the screen so fast, he can barely read them. One hundred fifty-five. One hundred eighty-eight. Two hundred flat. Two fifty. He can hear shouting, the sound of heavy footsteps, the doorknob jiggles and whoever is trying to open it can’t. When had he had time to lock that?
The pain at his elbow sharpens, nails digging and tearing as they slid deeper into his arm. When he looks back at the man, his mouth is open and blood coats his tongue and impossibly long teeth. The world seems impossibly still for a moment, and dread pools like a heavy stone in Hanzo’s gut as he watches the man’s throat work once, twice, and then scream—
Outside, high above the earth, the gulls answer with one of their own.
--
There was a tenuous peace that settled over the joint Shimada-McCree household after their discussion of McCree’s secret missions and their first night together. Hanzo flushed at the memory and ignored the frisson of heat it sent up his spine, choosing instead to busy himself with the careful task of folding laundry.
For all Hanzo loved McCree, the man was a demon to live with. His hair clogged the drains constantly no matter how much they both put effort into snaking them. To Hanzo’s horror, he threw clothes, both dirty and clean, haphazardly on the floor. He never folded laundry and figured the effort it took to keep wrinkles out wasn’t worth it if they’d get messy within five minutes of him wearing them. He didn’t even put the cap back on toothpaste.
Hanzo folded a pair of jeans a little too harshly, the snap of denim loud even for his own ears and had McCree startling awake from his nap on the couch. He blinked owlishly at Hanzo over the couch, and whatever frustration Hanzo felt at his living habits melted away at the sight of the sleep-mussed man.
“Han? S’wrong?” He looked bone-tired, and Hanzo felt a little guilty at waking him up, even if it was and accident.
“Nothing,” Hanzo smiled, the soft, special one that he reserved for McCree that had his dimples showing, “go back to sleep, Jesse.” McCree scrunched up his face, suspicious, but dutifully kept quiet and disappeared behind the back of the couch.
Jesse had come in later than expected that night, returning from a confidential place carrying out even more confidential orders to find and bring back any of the old guard that had defected to Talon. McCree had found Hanzo asleep on the couch, a book fallen open and forgotten in front of him, at the first light of morning, and Hanzo had woken to find a sullen, limping McCree bustling around the kitchen. He didn’t need enhanced sense to catch the smell of blood, smoke, and gun powder on him.
Hanzo knew better than to ask about what happened. He hated being questioned the minute he got back from missions too and oftentimes found debriefing more than enough reliving and recounting for his tastes, even if the missions went well. Hanzo had called out and saw the length of Jesse’s body go taut before his shoulders drooped and trembled in the faint glow of morning, and Hanzo knew something bad had happened.
Hanzo hadn’t even put up the usual fuss when McCree chose to sleep on the couch instead of the comfort of their bed. He understood the desperate need to be close to Jesse after any prolonged absence, the raw, empty feeling that set claws in his stomach and pulled was amplified tenfold after any Overwatch official business. He couldn’t even imagine what McCree felt.
(The morning after the bite, McCree had woken to a finger in his face and a near-hysteric Hanzo talking so quickly about ‘biting’, ‘turning’, and how he could only imagine how loud and obnoxious Fareeha would sound when she’d crow and tease him about the text that the he looked dizzy despite his laughter.
When Jesse had asked about the text, Hanzo had gone so red that McCree cried laughing at him. “Y’look like redder’n my serape,” he’d managed between peals of laughter. At Hanzo’s withering look, he at least had the good nature to look mollified.
Thankfully, though, McCree had remedied his fears of turning seeing the genuine distress Hanzo was in about the bite.
“Tried that before, back when I had the urge to make a pack, but no bite took,” Jesse looked wistful, and his voice was thick with emotion, “always figured I was meant to be alone. ‘Til now.”
Despite himself, Hanzo asked what he had meant, but Jesse just gave him a sad smile and tucked a strand of hair behind Hanzo’s ear. He had said something about how it wasn’t sadcake time it was pancake time, and left Hanzo to his thoughts and warm sheets.)
Later, when Hanzo was flossing and desperately trying to ignore the dull throb in his elbow, Jesse had slipped silently behind him and wrapped strong arms around his waist and pressed his nose into Hanzo’s hair. He felt more than heard McCree’s deep inhale, and continued flossing, dutifully ignoring the way his scalp grew wet or how McCree shook so much he accidentally made his gums bleed trying to get out a stubborn kernel on a particularly deep sob.
Hanzo held him that night, curling protectively around a shivering McCree while he whispered about the horrors he’d seen and done; all the while, Hanzo held him so tightly that he felt they’d be permanently fused together. He wished at that moment he had been able to.
If we were one, he thought, tracing the lines of McCree’s body with his eyes, settling on contenting himself to watch the soft rise and fall of his chest, I could share his burdens, make him feel and understand and always know how much I love him.
And, it was by the moonlight, the same light that McCree had claimed him, that Hanzo claimed him in turn, vowing that for as long as Jesse would have him, he would never be alone.
--
Between the muted, sad looks Satya shoots him and the icy blue of Ang—Dr. Ziegler’s gaze, Hanzo wants to claw his skin off. The two had been talking in hushed tones when he’d come in as if they expected him to stand in the hall and listen with his ear pressed to the door. Hanzo fights the urge to roll his eyes. Barely. Even if he had tried that, the clinic was over-capacity, and personnel sporting the green triage tags were complaining so loudly about the overflow making them wait outside he barely could hear himself think.
He’d been sitting now for almost five minutes, alternating between counting the seconds that ticked by and staring at the dead potted plants on Dr. Ziegler’s desk. Marigolds and hawthorns counted amongst the dead, but Hanzo was most surprised by the fact Dr. Ziegler had managed to make bunch of fake jasmines look dead. He struggles to swallow; throat painfully dry at the implication that Overwatch’s chief medical doctor and a woman described as a ‘guardian angel’ could kill a plastic plant.
An angel of death.
“Mr. Shimada,” the doctor’s voice is cool and professional, belying none of the fatigue she must feel if her wild hair and wrinkled dress shirt are anything to go by, “thank you for joining us.”
His eyes narrow, and he doesn’t trust himself to speak for a moment. A month ago, when she had spoken to him outside of that Man’s hospital room, her tone had brokered no refusal and was as steely as the grip she had had on his forearm. He chooses on nodding, feeling that’s a safe bet.
“Normally, I wouldn’t disclose mission details to someone listed as a primary contact, especially given the sensitivity of the information I am about to disclose. However, after taking your own security clearance and how we have finally accomplished our goal, I think it best you know. Everything.” Hanzo hears what she really means. I am only telling you because I know he told you, he was never good at lying to people he loves.
He meets her eyes then, fully expecting the frustration and pain he sees in them. It is the look of regret that startles Hanzo, and he wonders just who that is felt for. For letting him go, a small voice in him whispers. He decides it is better not to think if its for letting him go on the mission or out of her heart.
It is Satya’s voice that has him snapping back to attention. “The groundwork for this,” the edges of her lips quirk into a strained smile, “search and retrieval operation had been laid the minute Overwatch was even dreamed of. Reyes, O’Deorain, and Lacroix were among those with the most sensitive information that joined Talon and every minute they were working with them was more lives needlessly lost.”
Dr. Ziegler’s lips pressed into a thin line, and she steeples her fingers under her chin. “Have you ever wondered about how Jesse came to be the way he is?”
Hanzo shrugs. “Before I had met him, I did not even believe men like him could exist. How could I even begin to rationalize what I considered a fairy tale?”
“He was not born into existence, he was made. What Blackwatch did to them was criminal, and I was not strong enough to stop them.” Angela’s eyes were shiny and far away, and it took a great, shuddering breath for her to gather herself before she could press on. “O’Deorain should be punished for what she has done, she violated ethics, rights, laws. Yet Overwatch would sooner have her here in a lab working for them then face justice.”
Satya’s takes his shaking hand in hers and laces their fingers together. “I—There are others? You said them.” He has a feeling he knows who else she means, but a small part of him hopes and hopes—
“Jesse, your brother, Reyes, and I. Of those given no choice we were the ones to survive, sometimes I envy the dead,” her voice is needle-thin and the tears she fought before slither down the soft, unwrinkled lines on her face. He exhales sharply. How hadn’t he noticed? “You did not notice because you can see what you could only look at before. If you wondered too long about how I only your junior by a year yet have no wrinkles, no grey hairs, no scars, and no wounds you would go mad.”
“But how did she make him like that?” Hanzo, so consumed in his own horrible desire to know, misses the way Angela’s eyes snap to something behind him.
“O’Deorain always said Jesse was loyal as a dog to Reyes, she just made it literal.” She leans back, smoothing her rumpled dress shirt, returning her composure, and when Dr. Ziegler’s gaze returns to him, he feels like she is seeing through him instead. “Jesse,” her voice is warm, and her eyes are so soft it would’ve made Hanzo feel sick if fear and guilt hadn’t sent his stomach swooping instead. Had Jesse heard what he said? How he said it? “Take a seat, we were just talking about you.”
Beside him, Satya softly swears.
“Ang, my sister,” the voice, McCree’s, says, “where is she?”
His familiar baritone and drawl were there but tight with pain and rough with disuse. When he turns his head Hanzo is so shocked he can only numbly watch as the doctor stands and guides McCree into her own chair. He looks better than when Hanzo had last seen him a month ago, too ashamed and fearful to visit—yet, his feet carried him outside of McCree’s door so many times he could walk there in his sleep, but he never had the courage to go in. He’d put on weight and the immense damage that had left him broken and battered in the hospital bed was nothing more than a mess of fresh, angry scar tissue; even the shadow of facial hair was now a short, trim beard.
“Olivia is fine,” Satya smiles kindly, “she was thankfully unharmed.”
McCree lets out a sigh of relief. “Thank you for keeping her company.”
“You do what you can for those you love.”
Hanzo looks between the two of them. “You have a sister? You never told me.” He doesn’t even try to hide the hurt from his voice.
“Didn’t know she was still alive,” he shrugs, face so closed off and blank Hanzo feels like they’re strangers again, “’til now.”
“But how?”
“Went north to work on some ranch. Liv didn’t wanna come with me no matter how much I begged. Girl’s stubborn as a mule,” Jesse’s voice is soft and gentle as if he was afraid the memory would leave if he even spoke of it without great care, “I’d send back money every month and we’d see each other ev’ry few years. Then one day, poof. Gone.”
“Olivia has been working with us since O’Deorain and Reyes mentioned Jesse,” Satya murmurs, “without her help we would not have had the victory we did. And before you ask, no, I did not know she was this Olivia.”
This Olivia? Confusion swirls through him, the question on his lips, but she shakes her head, eyes pleading to pursue this without the others there. He chooses instead to laugh at the absurdity of his situation, the noise jagged like broken glass and twice as painful; if you had asked him where he would have seen himself when he was thirty-eight, it wouldn’t have been here.
(The here is absurd. Here, man and wolf were of one soul, a woman was timeless and immortal, a man could become clouds of smoke and was invincible, his own brother more machine than flesh and blood and sinew. There is more, so much more he does not know nor dare think about.
But here is home, family, safety; he thought of Genji, Satya and Fareeha, Zenyatta, and even Angela when she didn’t scare him. Here is love. He looks to Jesse, eyes moving along his brow, tracing the dip of his cheekbones, across the bridge of his nose.
Hanzo is struck with the sudden, terrifying realization that even if he were to go blind, he could mold Jesse’s likeness from memory. Jesse has carved out a place in his heart and burned himself into Hanzo’s memory for eternity, etching himself into the very essence of his being.
Together, using the silver of the moon, they make kintsugi.
Here is love.)
All at once he must shut his eyes against the memory of Jesse lying in a hospital bed so badly wounded that he was unrecognizable. Hanzo knows that there is no victory without sacrifice, and is unable to stop himself when he asks, “Tell me, how are we victorious?”
Who else has paid in blood?
“The highest-ranking members of Talon lay dead or are in our cells, their hideouts destroyed, their agents scattered, and their entire network of contacts is being rounded up by Overwatch operatives around the globe.” Satya’s voice is sharp as she lists their accomplishments, he takes small comfort in the fact she does not let him go. In fact, her grip gets tighter. “You are not the only one that was grieving for those they thought they lost over these past months. We mourn our dead and we do not forget their faces or names. They knew the danger but also the importance of this mission and all the ones before it, and though they went willingly, their loss is still a grievous one.”
The amount of information Satya had been privy to for this entire operation makes Hanzo’s gut churn nervously. Across from him, Angela’s face has bone white and she looks equal parts nervous and nauseous. She had no idea, either.
“All this time, you knew about these missions?” Satya gives a curt nod, and it is with a shaky voice that he asks, “Satya, how did you know?”
“Sombra’s Olivia,” Jesse’s voice is harsh and accusatory, “she told you ‘cause she loves you.”
It makes sense. He had been confused when he saw Satya here, about why Satya had started to date Som—Olivia. He hadn’t thought much of it, but Satya seemed to have a preternatural ability to turn up when Jesse had been away, Hanzo had just chalked it up to their bond of friendship.
He wrenches his hand from Satya’s grip and ignores her pleas to sit, to listen. There is more, she assures him, there are things both you and I do not yet know. But, Hanzo is done listening. He has listened to other people his whole life; his father, his teachers, the elders of the Shimada clan, dying men who were begging for their lives.
“Why would you keep this from me for all of this time?” Hanzo swipes furiously at his eyes, embarrassed by his tears.
Satya’s face twists in distress and a small part of Hanzo wonders if she is acting now, like she has for the entirety of their friendship. “No. Hanzo, we were friends even before Olivia contacted me, how could you even think—”
“You have no room to play the victim in this, Vaswani,” Hanzo spits, surprising even himself with the venom in his voice. He scowls at Satya and the anger inside of him quickly ebbs into a bone-aching fatigue, he needs to be anywhere but here.
Satya jumps when Hanzo stands so abruptly his chair clatters to the floor, and out of the corner of his eye, he can see that Jesse flinches so violently that Angela’s table shakes.
“Well, I think this is enough excitement for one day,” Dr. Ziegler steps in front of McCree, completely obscuring him from either of their view. “Jesse needs his rest, and I believe you both have things to discuss.”
Hanzo clenches his fists, furious that his leaving feels like he is tucking his tail between his legs. “I do not need your permission to leave, doctor.”
“You do not,” she admits, voice as cold as the stare she levels him with, “but you do need my permission to stay, and I believe you have both overstayed your welcome.”
He says nothing when he leaves, and the door to Dr. Ziegler’s office closes with an air of finality that even startles him.