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Genji felt a bag hit him, causing him to spring up in bed. Adrenaline spiked through him and he was prepared for a fight, but his muscles relaxed slightly when he saw Commander Reyes standing in his doorway, arms crossed.
“Get dressed and meet me at the elevator,” Reyes said bluntly, before turning and walking out, shouting over his shoulder, “Now!”
Genji blinked away a bit more, confusion muddling his mind. When everything finally registered, he got up out of bed and carefully unplugged his cords from their charging port. He opened the bag that had been thrown at him, finding a set of scrubs inside.
Quickly he cleaned himself the best he could without a shower, dressed, and rushed down the halls of the Blackwatch base. The rooms flashed past him in a blur, and he wondered if the others had been woken up too. Lieutenant Lacroix's door had the “Do Not Disturb” light on above it, and both McCree and Guillard’s doors were closed. They were all probably still asleep and Reyes was just being a hardass on him like he often was.
Genji reached the small hall that held the only exit from the underground base. Reyes stood in front of the elevator, in his own set of scrubs, looking at the clock impatiently. Genji carefully approached, and refused to shrink back when Reyes met his eyes with an annoyance.
“You are cutting it close,” Reyes said. Then he turned towards the elevator to call it down to them.
Genji remained silent through the whole ride up, but when they started walking through the dark halls of Overwatch proper, he couldn’t help but ask, “Commander, where are we going this late at night?”
“Where do you think?” Reyes sneered. “I wouldn’t give you a set of scrubs to change into for nothing. Use your head, agent.”
Genji shut up quickly, sensing something different than usual in the air. Reyes was always gruff and hot headed at the best of times, but this was different. He was genuinely upset about something.
“Consider this a part of your training,” Reyes said. He pulled out a keycard as they approached the area of medical Genji had only been in once. He didn’t have any memories of the area, he just knew it was where he had been taken after being retrieved from Hanamura. It was where Doctor Ziegler had operated on him.
The door slid open easily, and Genji had to blink blearily at the sudden artificial light intruding his senses after walking through the dark HQ. Reyes led him inside without issue, making sure the door closed and locked behind them before moving on to continue leading the way down the halls and corridors.
The woman at the nurse’s station didn’t bat an eye at them. All she did was pressed a button that opened another set of doors for them, speaking into a comm to report “Reyes has arrived.”
Reyes lead him down another couple halls before they reached a large box structure. Reyes nodded to it, telling him to step inside, and wait for him on the other side when he was finished.
Gnji still didn’t understand any of what was going on, but he knew when to not question an order. He stepped into the box, refusing to startle as the door closed behind him, trapping him inside that white walled thing.
“Please close your eyes and mouth,” an electronic voice said. Genji barely had time to comply before the air started moving rapidly around him, small pricks of something hitting his skin repeatedly. AFter a minute, everything stopped, and Genji risked opening his eyes.
“Please take the mask provided,” the voice spoke again. “Do not remove it in this area. If you have to, please replace it at a proper sanitation station.”
A small compartment in the door opened, depositing a medical mask Genji quickly pulled on according to instruction. Another few seconds passed before the door in front of him opened, and he was let out into the hall on the other side. He only had to wait there for a moment before the door opened again and Reyes stepped out.
“Sanitation,” Reyes explained as they started walking together again. “They have stations like that everywhere in this area. They’re marked on maps in blue, so there’s no excuse to not use them every hour you’re here.”
Genji simply nodded his understanding. Reyes hummed in approval, and raised his wrist to a scanner on the wall. The implanted device under his skin glowed a light blue before the panel on the wall chimed and turned green. One last door opened, and Genji stepped inside behind Reyes, ignoring the nerves rising up in him.
The room they came into was small, more of a hall than anything, with one wall made completely of glass. The hall curved as it went, and it took Genji longer than he wanted to admit to realize it was one big circle that went around the room below. It was an observation room.
Reyes walked down the hall until they were positioned in front of the action below. His eyes were cast down at the operation, and Genji struggled a moment before looking down as well.
There were several doctor’s present in the operation room. Most were crowded around the patient on the table, whose face was obscured from Genji by none other than Doctor Ziegler herself.
Her hair was hidden beneath a blue covering, a small contraption on her head that seemed to be made up of different levels of magnifying glasses and scopes. Up to her elbows was covered in blood, and Genji couldn’t help but wonder if this was how she looked operating on him. So focused she didn’t care about the blood on her, working so quickly the other doctors struggled to keep up. Her hands practically danced across the open chest of the patient, working on muscle memory as she repaired whatever damage had been done.
His attention quickly focused on the patient after he managed to shake away those thoughts. He looked down at the anonymous person, finding their cut open chest revealed mechanical components over their heart and lungs, everything held together by wire and smaller devices.
“An advanced pacemaker is what you can think of that as,” Reyes said beside him, almost startling him. He tore his eyes away from the patient and doctors to watch Reyes. His eyes were more focused than Genji had ever seen, a tense awareness in every inch of his being.
“This agent needs those machines to keep their heart beating and lungs moving,” Reyes continues. “There’s a device in their throat as well, but that didn’t need the retouching that everything else did.”
“What happened to them?” Genji couldn’t help the question.
“They were too close to a biological weapon when it went off during the war,” Reyes explained. “Damn thing tore apart their lungs, but because they didn’t display anything being wrong, no one bothered to keep an eye on them. They kept living in a warzone without treatment, breathing in the toxic fumes and gas poisons in the air. By the time the war ended, their body didn’t have the ability to filter out toxins any more. They started coughing up blood that looked closer to tar, but still no one took them in to get checked up on.”
Reyes’s arms flexed where they were crossed, and under the mask Genji could see his jaw tightening. He pressed on despite it, “Someone finally took them in, and they had to get an emergency kidney transplant. The devices originally put in them to keep them going failed repeatedly. It was a miracle they lived long enough to be picked up by Overwatch. By the time they got here, we had to regrow new kidneys and a new liver for them from scratch. Before Angela even joined up with Overwatch a couple years later, she managed to rework the machines inside them completely as a favor for us as her family friends. They were able to filter the shit in their blood, and the air they took in to take some of the pressure off their new kidneys and liver. They artificially beat their heart and keep their lungs taking in steady breaths, and send a constant feedback report to Angela. She has to go in and rework the machines every couple months based on the feedback she receives.”
“If it was years before Doctor Ziegler joined Overwatch, she would have been younger than eighteen,” Genji said.
“That’s right,” Reyes nodded. “She was seventeen. Still in med school, but none of us ever doubted her. I think you know well by now that she’s a prodigy in her field.”
Of course Genji knew. He was living proof of it. He had been made aware very quickly by Torbjorn during one of his check ups on his fully mechanical components that Doctor Zigler designed his entire body, and worked almost completely alone on everything involving his multiple operations. Torbjorn and the other doctors’ only hands in it had been getting the mechanical components that Doctor Ziegler didn’t have the time to make on her own.
“No one else would have been able to save you,” he remembered Torbjorn telling him. “You’d better get your head on right and start being kinder to her, because that girl is the only person on earth who could have remedied that much damage.”
Genji had yet to take his advice, and it hit him harder than ever seeing her work on this patient. She had been treating the same person for nearly a decade. She had kept someone else besides him alive and with enough quality of living from them to be an Overwatch agent.
He wondered if they were upset at her for the ways their life had been changed, or if he was alone in his treatment of the doctor. He decided then and there it didn’t matter, he was going to treat the doctor much better the next time he saw her, he was going to make up for the months of anger she had endured with the patience of a saint.
Genji looked back down to the operation, forcing his breathing to stay steady as he watched the blood further stain the doctor’s gloves, the mechanical pieces carefully edited by her and the other doctors. If he focused hard enough, he thought maybe he could hear the ticking of a tightly wound clock keeping the patient alive.
The doctors moved to give Doctor Ziegler room, and Genji felt the air sucked from his lungs when she moved so that he could finally see the face of the patient.
He knew that face. Past the covered hair, and mask tightly kept over their nose and mouth, he knew that face. He saw that face every day, saw it smiling and laughing, and trying to draw him out of his shell. That face had tried for months to break down the walls Genji had carefully built, and on multiple occasions had gotten close to doing so. But that face didn’t belong here, it didn’t belong connected to a body so wrecked by the effects of a war they could have only been seven during the time of.
Jesse McCree was laying on the operating table, Doctor Ziegler’s hands in his chest. He was laying there with this “advanced pacemaker” in his chest, kept alive my the machines.
“He never told me,” Genji couldn’t help but whisper.
“He didn’t think it would make a positive difference,” Reyes said, and suddenly his behavior made so much sense. This was a man Genji knew Reyes considered his son. Seeing him like this every few months had to be nothing short of hell on earth.
“He has a tendency to minimize his own pain and issues for others,” Reyes said. “How he saw it with you was that you have it so much worse. He didn’t think you would appreciate him telling you about his own struggles.”
Genji could have choked at that thought. Jesse had chosen to tell him nothing. He had chosen to keep this huge part of himself quiet so that he could be Genji’s confidant and friend instead of his equal, someone who could relate to his pains.
Genji watched as Doctor Ziegler continued about the operation, moving slower as she got to the more delicate parts. He saw her consistently checking his heart and breathing rates, keeping him stable as she worked.
“You’re not alone, you know,” Reyes said, regaining his attention even though he didn’t look away. “Jesse struggled with similar issues to what you are when he first got his implants. Angela struggled too, when she got her prosthesis and implants.”
That got Genji to look at the commander, eyes wide. Reyes saw his expression and shook his head with a sigh, “For a ninja you lack basic observation skills. Angela lost both of her legs in the Crisis after they were crushed and infected. She also lost the majority of her hearing and eyesight due to infection and a severe concussion. She got her legs pretty soon after losing them, but she had to wait until she was eighteen to get the implants that gave her back her hearing and the majority of her eyesight.”
Reyes fully turned to him now, and Genji looked up at him in a loss for words. Luckily, Reyes had no intention of letting him speak. This was a time to listen.
“Jesse also had a prosthetic eye I’m sure you’ve never heard about,” Reyes said. “Captain Amari has an eye that’s cybernetically enhanced. You know Torbjorn is missing one of his arms, he didn’t used to wear around that claw though. He used to have a prosthesis that looked like a normal hand, trying to make everyone forget about the accident that made him need it. Lieutenant Wilhelm had to get enhancements on his remaining eye so that he wouldn’t lose his depth perception. Commander Morrison, Lieutenant Wilhelm, Captain Amari and I all were in programs that fundamentally altered our biology and made us dependent on technology to keep ourselves going.”
Reyes’s hand landed heavily on his shoulder, and Genji felt like he would be crushed under the weight of it. As well as Reyes’s stare.
“I know it feels like it, but I can promise you that you are nowhere near alone in what you are going through,” Reyes said, his voice leaving no room for argument. “If you look around while walking down the hall around here, I can promise you will find someone going through something similar. People all around you are there for you, if you only let them be. A good place to start would be letting Angela and Jesse down there be there for you like they have been trying to. You may not see it, but those to have risked life and limb to keep you safe, and have put their own mental health in jeopardy to be your friends. They care about you, the least you could do is recognize that they might need someone to care about them in return.”
Reyes turned back to the operation, his eyes settling back at his son.
“Your new assignment is spending at least an hour a day with Jesse, Angela, or any other person here as a friend,” Reyes said. “You must document this time in a journal and turn it into me at the end of every week. Am I understood?”
Genji nodded.
“Then you are dismissed,” Reyes said. “Go back to bed. I don’t want to see your face again until you are fully rested.”
Genji spared one last glance down at the operation, his feet hesitating to move. He forced himself to obey his orders, tearing his eyes away from the scene below.
~~~
Genji woke up the next day much later than he should have, finding the wakeup call hadn’t been played in his room. Reyes had said he didn’t want to see Genji until he was fully rested, he supposed. He wondered if Reyes had completely cleared his schedule for the day after the events of the night before.
He dragged himself up from bed, unplugging and slipping on a pair of house slippers as he stood. He pulled on a hoodie, making sure his wires were safely tucked into it so they wouldn’t get in his way. It had been a long time since he had last slept in, and he could feel his stomach protesting him missing breakfast as he moved out of his room.
Before he could move towards the kitchen, however, he heard the TV playing from the living room. He redirected his path without much thought, and went to stand in the doorway of the room.
The TV was playing an old western Genji didn’t know the name of. He knew it was one of the classics, having seen the main character’s face before, but he still didn’t know. He added it to his todo list to study up on westerns so that he would know what the hell to talk about with the cowboy.
Speaking of, there on the couch Jesse was lying, propped up slightly by the pillow behind his back and under his head. One arm rested over his stomach while the other was tucked against the couch by his side. Genji was almost entirely certain the hoodie Jesse wore was one of the commander’s, and the sweatpants were definitely Commander Morrison’s considering Genji knew neither Jesse nor Commander Reyes had ever attended the United States Military Academy. His hair was down and splayed out across the pillow he rested his head against. Genji couldn’t see all of his face, but from what he could Jesse was watching the movie, looking dull, and drained, and nothing like the energetic, charismatic and friendly man Genji knew.
Genji moved slowly into the room, making sure that Jesse could easily see him coming. When he had just entered Jesse’s peripheral vision, he saw the man perk up and turn to him with a wide smile.
“Look who decided to finally show his face,” Jesse said. Genji wouldn’t have been able to hear it, had he not seen Jesse the night before on that operating table, but there was a slight weight to his southern drawl, the effects of pain medication working through his system, and anesthetic still trying to wear off.
Genji didn’t know what to say. He just stood there, staring down at Jesse, so clearly trying to hide his orders not to move his chest too much.
Jesse was patient, smiling up at him and waiting for some kind of response. Genji knew if he gave it enough time, Jesse would start talking on his own. INhis time knowing the cowboy, he had found he didn’t like the silence very much and easily filled it when needed. However, Genji didn't intend on making Jesse wait that day.
“You just went through intensive surgery last night, how can you be smiling right now?” Genji asked.
To his credit, Jesse’s smile didn’t waver. It seemed to grow, even, as he spoke, “Because I’m happy to see my friend.”
Genji rolled those words over in his head for a while, then finally sighed and shook his head, “You ridiculous cowboy.”
“You know you love me,” Jesse said. Then carefully, slowly, he moved his legs up to make room for Genji on the couch. Genji did protest like he usually would, and instead filled that space and guided Jesse’s legs over his lap.
“What are we watching?” Genji asked. He tried to shake off how shocked Jesse seemed that he had actually stayed.
“ The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly ,” Jesse said, looking back to the screen. “It’s one of my favorites. I always watch it after an operation.”
“I can see why you like it,” Genji hummed. "You must really identify with The Ugly.”
Jesse gasped in mock hurt and threw a pillow at Genji that he easily dodged.
While Genji laughed, he heard someone else enter the room. He didn’t have to look up to know who it was, simply based on the clicking of heels he now knew were molded into the woman’s feet.
“Angie, he’s bullying me while I’m trying to just follow your orders,” Jesse whined.
Doctor Ziegler chuckled and Genji watched as she grabbed the thrown pillow off the floor. She walked over to the couch and hit Genji over the head with it, making him laugh harder.
“No picking on the patient,” Doctor Ziegler lightly scolded.
“No promises,” Genji said.
Doctor Ziegler rolled her eyes, then fell down into the armchair nearby.
Genji settled into the domestic atmosphere, and let the warmth find a home in his chest.