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They gave him a kid.
They put him in a room, blank grey walls and a bright white light and a dull metal chair and a pair of handcuffs on skinny wrists. The kid’s nothing but strung out muscle and skin, and Reyes takes one look at him and his heart aches.
He snarls like he thinks he’s hot shit, cussing in Spanglish the way only people who grew up speaking it could. That only makes it worse, though, and Reyes knows he can play a scary motherfucker when he wants to, and he does want the kid to shut up.
But he doesn’t want to scare him. The kid’s shaking in his oversized boots, and he’s already tall but there’s something about him that looks fragile anyway. Reyes can’t stop staring at his hands, because they’re the most grown up thing about him. The only grown up thing, really.
This kid’s killed people. He’s killed a lot of people. If Reyes doesn’t take him, he’ll end up in jail, and young as he is it’ll be the end of his life. He’ll get out eventually, sure, but what’ll be left for him, with no education and no training and a lifetime of abuse?
Reyes wants to save him the way he hasn’t wanted to save someone in a long, long time. He also knows the kid’ll resent it if he knows, so Reyes plays bad cop the way he always does, and through it all his heart aches and aches and aches. He remembers the kids he grew up with, the ones who went to jail for throwing the wrong punch when they were barely old enough for it to count, the ones who drugged themselves because it was the only way they knew how to live and then they got arrested for it and their lives stopped mattering entirely.
He doesn’t want to have to watch it happen ever again, and Jesse McCree is sitting in that chair like a disaster waiting to happen, and he doesn’t even know.
All the kid knows is that he’s hurting, and scared, and his gang is all behind bars without him. He spits fire and stares with wide eyes, and like the fool he is Reyes decides right then and there that he’ll do right by the kid. He’s messed up already, it’s not like Reyes is gonna do more damage.
The command requires no second opinion when it comes from a founding member of Overwatch. They’ve got the kid in secure quarters in an hour, and in four he’s got clothes. His eyes go from wide to huge when Reyes presents him with his new supplies.
In all likelihood, he’s never had a thing in his life that he didn’t have to fight for. The idea of a gift, even something like clothes, clearly floors him. Reyes wants to punch everyone who’s ever hurt the kid in the teeth.
Gabriel thinks his heart’s too broken to properly break again, no matter how much the kid makes it hurt. But then after a mission he looks up at Reyes with a gaze shining through hero worship and some kinda wonder and he says, “Ain’t no one ever looked out for me like you do.”
And damn it all to hell, Gabriel Reyes can’t afford to let that get to him. He’s been getting sloppy, missing things because he worries, and he knows the UN is plotting something. But it’s hard to concentrate when he knows there’s a kid at home who loves Gabriel like he’s the father he never had, and Gabe--
It’s been a long, long time since he’s wanted to do right by someone the way he wants to do right by the kid. And if that means he’s getting weak or old or just plain unfit, he’s not so sure he minds anymore. Having a cause was always good for him. When it was the Omnic crisis, he had thrived. Now it’s Jesse, and he might not have quite so many allies in this as he had before, but that doesn’t seem to matter.
Jack pulls him aside to ask about it one day. Because Jesse’s scores are getting too good too fast, he says, and Gabriel can’t be seen showing favoritism, but then Gabe tells him “Just watch the kid fight.” Jack starts sitting in on training, which makes all the recruits hella fucking nervous. All but one.
They sit side by side and watch McCree hit targets he really shouldn’t be able to hit, and when it’s over Jack doesn’t say anything. Gabriel knows him, though, so he’s not surprised when he shows up the next day. Or the next.
When Jesse McCree returns, successful, from his first solo mission, Jack glows with pride the same way Reyes does. They’re allowed to dote, a bit, when this kid is surrounded by trained covert ops professionals from around the world, and he just outshined them all.
The downside is that when things get bad again, they get worse. Because eventually, Reyes realizes Jesse doesn’t need him anymore. All too soon he looks at Reyes, and there’s still hero worship there, but… The kid isn’t a kid anymore. Unaccountably, Reyes feels like he was cheated.
That feeling only gets worse when he is cheated, though not by Jesse McCree or fate. “Very effective, yes,” he remembers them saying. “But not the most acceptable option.” Most acceptable, of course, meaning most white.
Something deep inside Gabriel Reyes is slipping. There’s a cliff somewhere nearby, he can feel it every time Jesse looks at him and instead of wondering he’s frightened, but he’s got no idea how close it is.
One day, Jesse packs up and leaves. He hands in his letter of resignation, sure, he checks all the boxes and crosses all his T’s, but it still feels sudden. Reyes is left staring at his retreating back, wondering when it got so broad.
Glad, too. Because now the kid doesn’t have to watch him slip. Slip. Slip his way down to the point where things that seemed unreasonable are reasonable, and if it’s possible to bring someone back to life using tech, then--
Gabriel Reyes doesn’t get the chance to visit Jesse McCree. He’d wanted to, made vague plans about tracking the kid-who-wasn’t-a-kid down and finding out what kind of job and apartment he’s gotten himself. Deep down, he aches aches aches that he’s not going to get to put those plans in action. He hopes Jesse understands.
He knows Jesse doesn’t.