Chapter Text
The first time she saw him, she fell to her knees.
Red skin, black beard, piercing stare, towering over her on a small hill. Cloak billowing around him. Only the eyes seemed off, not bulging, but slanted. And so handsome, much more handsome than the pictures she had seen. But those were only interpretations, after all.
"I tried to be good", she breathed.
She had been weak for days, and hungry, so hungry, but this was not how she had imagined dying. In the back of her head, a voice commented that she also had expected to find herself in Yan Wang's court after her demise, and not be judged in the icy desert where snow was her death shroud.
The God of Death pulled his thick eyebrows up, cloth dragging around him by the chilling wind.
"Mei-Ling Zhou?", the raspy, deep voice asked.
"Yes", she pressed out, not daring to not answer, despite her weakness.
She swayed dangerously on her knees, vision starting to fade, when Yan Wang dashed forward and held her in place.
"You are safe, now", the voice told her, closer and too comforting for what was about to come.
In her mind, past sins flashed through her inner eye. Every lie, every injustice, seemed to outshine the good she had tried to do to those around her. She would not deny her sins; maybe the punishment would be less severe.
"I found her", the voice rumbled, a beeping sound following shortly.
Of course, he had. There was no escaping the God of Death.
At that moment, Snowball had caught up to her from his hourly patrol, from which he never brought good news. With horror, she realized that her little friend started to attack the god.
"Snowball, NO!", she shrieked, hysterically.
If she hadn't had a spot in the lower parts of hell before, she sure had now.
To her surprise, he had just caught Snowball in one of his large hands. Everything was so blurry, her vision fading in and out again. Was that an amused smirk?
"Are you hungry?", Yan Wang asked, expression somber again.
She opted on telling the truth. It was no good to lie here, he would see through her anyway. "Yes."
The God let go of Snowball, who whirred in what Mei knew was agitation, but thankfully stopped his assaults.
Something with the faint smell of nuts was pressed to her lips. Fearing that her first punishment was about to begin, she braced herself.
When only the burst of flavour of an energy chocolate bar on her tongue and nothing else came, she sighed in relief. She would enjoy the sensation for as long as it lasted. Chewing the last thing she would probably taste for a while, she squeezed her eyes shut.
"Are you injured?"
Mei shook her head, weakly. Then she twitched her muscles, and except for the terrible, aching sensation of limbs being used too much, she could feel nothing wrong. "No, I don't think I am."
A hum.
Gathering her courage, she looked up at him. Was his skin really red? It seemed wrong, as if peeling itself off. His eyes were trained on her, attentive and stern, and one of his hands still grasped her shoulder, while the other held the chocolate bar in front of her mouth. It all felt off, but she couldn't figure out why or what.
Was she not dead after all? The cold in her face, the ache in her bones, the chocolate on her tongue, all seemed so real.
Suddenly, a whoosh of air made the snow around them swirl in the prettiest little storm. The stranger whipped his head to the sky, and then swooped down to engulf her with his coat. To protect her from the winds. Only then she realized how cold the surrounding air had been in her face.
Mei gasped quietly, clutching to his clothes to not tip to a side.
He surely was no god, or otherwise she would have been punished on the spot for touching him.
She risked another glance at him, but couldn't see much, only parts of his throat. There she saw the red again; it was like paint.
"Why is your face red?", she asked groggily.
A beat of silence. "It is an ointment that protects from the cold."
The voice was so warm and melodic, accentuated and so... rich.
A rumble around them, followed by a pressure wave, shook her from her thoughts. The stranger rose to his feet and dragged her with him. An aircraft disturbed the even picture of the ice desert. On it, she recognized the emblem.
"Overwatch?"
The man turned to her, eyes wide for a moment, then he cleared his throat. "Yes, I apologize. We received your distress call and calculated your estimated location."
Then he wrapped an arm around her to stabilize her while they walked the short distance to the ramp, that had just dropped open. Vaguely, she recognized Winston emerging from the dark hole, calling out her name.
The cot in the ship was a relief. Being safe and seeing her old friend again was, to be honest, not as wonderful as closing her eyes and succumbing to blissful sleep.
The god was, as Mei later found out, actually a man named Hanzo Shimada. She hadn't seen him during her short stay in the medical facilities of Watchpoint: Gibraltar, only Dr. Ziegler, who had kindly tended to her weakness. She had been glad to talk to her, in general, and about everything that had happened. The doctor had held her tightly in her arms, and she had felt a part of her ease with the comfort it gave her. She was safe now, with kind people around her.
Mei personally only knew Winston and Angela Ziegler from before, but had heard and seen enough of most of the rest to recognize at least a few, Reinhardt and Lena Oxton among them. The rest of the team was nice enough, everyone welcomed her and was compassionate about her loss.
Most of all, she was happy to be in the Watchpoint, as it was one of the established Eco-Points of the former Overwatch. With Athena's help, she and Winston had found the main lab in the complex, which she immediately had revived.
"Look at all the data", she had whispered reverently. "I can compare it to the data from Antarctica!"
Winston had been on board, and they had countless wonderful discussions about the data they found, and she brought, and how they could be related to one another.
Sadly, the scientist had a team of heroes to run these days, but he dropped by at least once a day for some "refreshing science talk".
Once, at meal time, Hana Song had asked if she didn't want to join them on missions, but Mei had been cautious.
"I don't know much about combat. My fight is in numbers and diagrams."
That had made the table laugh. Mei hadn't meant it as a joke, but could see the humor in it, so she had snickered along. Cole Cassidy, an outlaw who dressed like a cowboy and managed to be grumpy and charming at the same time, had offered to teach her "a few tricks at the shootin' range", but she had politely declined, for now.
"I have my project here to complete first, then I will think about it", she had replied warmly, and the team had agreed.
It wasn't difficult for her to make friends or at least friendly acquaintances, so she wasn't surprised that she was considered part of the team, even though she technically only lived with them for her own project.
Who, on the other hand, was only considered part of the team by half the people, was Hanzo Shimada. He kept to himself most of the time, only ever sharing space and words with his brother, and who never seemed to be happy.
Only a couple of days in, she had asked Winston what his story was, and Winston had grimaced. He hadn't found the best words to describe what had happened, but Mei had understood the gist of it.
No wonder getting included and including himself was difficult. Mei didn't know what to think of it. While killing your own brother was a terrible crime, he was clearly trying to make amends. Genji had forgiven him, had reached out and dragged him here. And Hanzo had followed.
Winston had called him hostile and aloof, but Mei knew better. Those were the tired, haunted eyes of someone on the run from himself. She had seen it only once, in one of her colleagues, Max, who had lost her husband and toddler in a car crash. In one late night, she had drunk too much and slept too little, and had told Mei about it. She believed that it was his fault they were dead, and she was alive, and would not hear anything different.
When she had smiled for the first time, Mei had felt as if the first rays of spring had started to melt the ice of winter.
Max was one of those lost to the cryostasis, so she would never be able to help her shy little tilt of lips bloom into a full laugh.
So, Mei found herself with an additional mission in Gibraltar: To see Hanzo laugh.
"For Max", she whispered to herself that night.