Work Text:
THEN:
Jesse took one look and was scarred for life.
“My eyes!” He howled, throwing himself backwards in his chair so that the metal legs screeched on the linoleum floor of the kitchenette.
“Ha, ha. Very funny.” Gabriel’s tone of voice practically dripped sarcasm.
“Abomination! Blasphemy!” Jesse went on, getting louder as he covered his eyes. “Imposter!”
“Oh, for the love of—“
“Who are you, and what have you done with my Boss?”
“All I did was shave , Firecracker.”
Jesse rolled out of one melodramatic pose and right into another, pointing at Gabriel’s mouth.
“Shaving doesn’t knock thirty years off your face!” He roared. The clean-shaven upper lip pressed tightly against its fuller, lower mate, drawing a grim line across features that looked surprisingly young despite the scars.
“It absolutely does,” Jack said, shuffling through to get a cup of coffee. “He kept getting carded until he grew out the beard.”
“Jack,” Gabriel growled warningly.
“He was thirty-six.” Jack smiled around the rim of his mug. Jesse sat back and watched the two of them bicker good-naturedly. A part of him hungered for that same easy camaraderie, for the ability to live inside another person’s life to the extent that it was shared rather than borrowed. But then Jack laughed and clapped Gabriel on the shoulder, turning away and heading back to his own office. Jesse doubted anyone else had eyes keen enough to catch the split second of devastated longing on Gabriel’s face, but he did, and he remembered. Gabriel would — and on occasion, had — run into enemy fire rather than discuss his feeling; he would —though never when he was at any real risk — send Jesse into enemy fire for trying to discuss the feeling. It was a dangerous feeling, no doubt.
He watched Jack leave, oblivious to Gabriel’s obscured interest and the pain it caused. If that was the price, Jesse thought, he could do without that kind of feeling.
“Thirty-six, Boss?” He asked instead, snapping Gabriel’s attention back to him.
“You’re how old, and you barely have the fuzz Mother Nature gave an unripe peach?” Gabriel snorted. “Keep yapping, Firecracker. Maybe by the time you’re my age, you’ll actually look like you’ve finished puberty.”
Jesse rubbed at his dusting of stubble with a rueful grin.
“Not pulling any punches today, are you?”
Gabriel rolled his eyes.
“If covert ops pulls their punches, it’s ‘cause they want you to stick around to feel them. It’s kinder to put you down fast.” He ran his hand over his smooth jaw and sighed. “Shaving’s a quick way to throw off surveillance, Firecracker. A beard can change the shape of your whole face and add or subtract decades from your apparent age. Remember that.”
McCree did.
Oh, how McCree remembered that.
NOW:
McCree no longer has to take a quarter-step to the side when Reaper materializes in front of him, but old habits die hard, and it’s more than a little fun to watch the annoyed twitch at Gabriel’s temple when he finishes shadow-stepping and realizes he has to turn to face his target.
“Howdy, Boss,” Jesse grins and waves lazily. There’s something in Gabriel’s hands, a slim black box with no overt brand in sight. “What’s happening?”
Gabriel hands him the box with a grimace.
“I checked after Angela got me stable.” He says. “Your old razor got chipped when she was pulling it out of my arm, and she had to burn it anyway because it was covered in tainted nanites.”
“My razor?” Jesse blinks. “Hell, Boss, it was just a thing.” His voice even holds steady as he says it, though Gabriel doesn’t seem the least bit convinced that the unused razor he’d carried around for nearly twenty years was ‘just a thing’. “I’d’ve traded it in a heartbeat if it could have helped you.”
“Well, you pretty much did.” Gabriel reminds him, nudging the box. “It’s about time I kept my damn promise, and to do that, you’ll need this.”
Jesse looks down at the box and back at Gabriel.
“You’re going to have a real hard time using it if you don’t even open it.” The older man smirks. Jesse flips him off and opens the gift.
The first razor Gabriel gave him was sleek and pearl-handled, elegant and as far from a weapon as any kind of blade could be. This one isn’t quite the same, but there’s still a sense of artistry to its crafting that affirms it’s not meant for something as clumsy as killing. This razor is thick, almost blocky. The handle is ebony inlaid with silver in intricate, angular Art Deco designs. The blade is damascus steel, but subtly patterned, hollowed, and perfectly honed so that it looks sharp enough to cut sunlight.
Jesse stares at it for a solid minute, just trying to take in all the details.
“You had the same look on your face the last time,” Gabriel muses softly. Jesse tries to school his features, but the other man just drops a heavy hand on his shoulder and smiles. “C’mon. Jack’s going to loan us his bathroom, since the bastard stole the room with the best in-suite.”
Jack’s room is the one usually designated for the base commander, but prying Winston out of his lab is an exercise in futility, and no one who answered the Recall before Jack had the audacity to claim it. Jack, however, remembered the quality of officers’ quarters, and he capitalized on the others’ hesitation.
“I’m too old for a cramped bathroom,” he says from the bed where he lays reading with the assistance of his visor.
“You’re too old for a lot of this shit,” Gabriel calls back. Jesse tries to add his two cents, but the hot towel wrapped around his face muffles anything he says.
“Don’t take that tone with me, young man.” Jack says anyway.
Gabriel chuckles and continues his instruction.
“I use an old-fashioned brush,” he says, “but once you get the hang of this, you can use the damn canned stuff if you want.” Jesse rolls his eyes under the towel. “Yeah, I didn’t think so. You’ll have to pick the rest of your kit yourself to get it the way you want, though.”
Gabriel pulls the towel away and tosses it over the side of the tub. He shows Jesse, step by step, how to lather, how to hold the blade, how to pull his skin taut so that his strokes are smooth. Jesse copies as best he can; his hands are more comfortable with a gun than a blade, but the difference is due to preference, not performance. He is no stranger to the edge. It takes him a few times to get used to the grain of his wild beard, and Gabriel has to stop him from accidentally giving himself razor burn, but he makes it through without cutting his own throat.
“You’re better with that than I was expecting,” Gabriel acknowledges, pouring aftershave into Jesse’s waiting hands.
“Well, it’s still a knife, right?” Jesse grins and pats his face, then has to bite his tongue to keep from cursing. “The hell is in this shit?”
“Disinfectant,” Gabriel laughs. “And mine’s got menthol. This’ll do you for now. If your baby fuzz was anything to go by, you’ve got plenty of time to find one you like.”
Jesse shudders.
“Whenever I had to get this done for cover, the barbers didn’t use the alcohol type.”
Gabriel’s face twists with traces of guilt. McCree catches even those faint threads; Gabriel’s got a lot of reasons to feel guilty, but he won’t be one of them, so he shoulder-checks his former mentor away from the sink so he can rinse off his razor.
“I didn’t do it often,” he explains, “on account of I actually like the beard. Makes me look rugged, you know?”
The older man snorts. He only sculpted his goatee, but for his first lesson the cowboy went all the way, and the result is painfully nostalgic. Without the beard, it’s almost exactly the Jesse of long ago times watching him in the mirror. A little thicker, a little more squared off, and a little more weather-worn, but not really so much older.
“Looks like I’m not the only one plagued by ‘babyface’.” Gabriel ruffles his hair. “Go check on Jack; see what he thinks. I’ll clean this up.”
Jesse walks into the bedroom and stops short. Jack dozes on the bed, book fallen across his chest, visor barely set aside as if he was already half asleep when he tried to take it off. The older man looks peaceful for once, the lines from his nearly perpetual scowl evened out with what might be the first easy sleep he’s had in ages.
Jesse creeps closer, pacing his steps with Jack’s breathing to minimize the disruption. He eases the book out of Jack’s hands, puts the visor on the nightstand, and gets to halfway leaning over him to pull the blanket atop him when Jack suddenly shifts and inhales sharply.
“Mmm, Gabe,” he sighs.
Three things make McCree freeze like a deer caught in headlights. One, he is definitely not Gabe, not in the least. Two, Jack’s tone is strangely intimate, but also full of longing, and it really shouldn’t be possible to pack so much emotion in two little syllables. Three, he spent fifteen years sitting on the secret of Gabriel’s feelings for Jack, and after everything that’s happened in the last two, it feels too damn late to discover… whatever it is that Jack feels about Gabriel.
So Jesse strangles on his own surprise, and the noise pulls Jack a little further out of sleep. The old soldier leans into the warmth of Jesse’s space, breathing deeply. Jesse jerks backwards so quickly he falls on his ass with a yelp.
Gabriel pokes his head out of the bathroom.
“Everything all right, Firecracker?” He asks.
Jesse scuttles back and tries to remind himself that he is a grown man in his mid-thirties and not a teenager who found his parents’ stash of specialty pornography. This is made infinitely more awkward as Jack sits up and blinks, his unfocused gaze settling somewhere between the two of them.
“Gabe?” He mumbles. “How’d you get all the way over there?”
“I’ve been here the whole time,” Gabriel says. “What, did you fall asleep?”
Jack’s brow furrows in confusion.
“You were just here. I could smell your aftershave. You’re the only one who uses that scent.”
Gabriel snorts and walks over to easily haul Jesse to his feet.
“I was teaching McCree how to shave, remember?”
“Right…” Jack shakes his head and sits up straighter. He gropes around for his visor, and Gabriel crosses the room in three quick strides so he can scoop it up and place it in Jack’s hand.
“Um,” says Jesse, still not sure what exactly he’s watching. The tableau before him rests somewhere between ‘old married couple first thing in the morning’ and ‘two idiots in mutual pining’, and he knows without a doubt that if he says as much, he will die.
“I don’t like it,” Jack says with every ounce of cantankerous obstinance he’s ever mustered in his long and stubborn life.
“You haven’t even put your visor on yet,” Gabriel rolls his eyes. “You can’t judge his shave like that. C’mere, Firecracker.” He gestures for Jesse to come closer, then drags Jack’s hand up to test the smoothness of Jesse’s jaw. “See? Like silk.”
Jack's frown doesn’t fade.
“He smells like you. I don’t like it.” Jack puts his visor on and gives Jesse a more critical examination. “It looks fine, but the scent is going to drive me up the wall.”
Gabriel balks a little on Jesse’s behalf since the cowboy is too embarrassed to do it himself.
“I didn't see you offering your aftershave, Morrison,” he growls.
“He shouldn’t smell like either of us. He should get his own damn scent.” Jack stands up and heads for his closet. “Get your civvies, McCree.”
McCree looks down at his flannel and jeans.
“I’m in my civvies, sir.” He puts a little bite on the last word to get Jack’s attention, but it doesn’t work. Jack drags out a tan jacket and a tweed cap that make him look every minute of his age.
“The borrow some from someone else. You still look like that one paper towel mascot.”
Gabriel snickers. Jesse turns wounded eyes to him, betrayed.
“ Boss .”
“C’mon, Firecracker. I’ve got some things you can borrow. I think you’re about as broad in the shoulder as I am now.”
“You’re on his side?” McCree catches the subtle stillness — the opposite of a flinch, really — that flickers across Gabriel’s face.
“If he’s willing to spend time with you to take you out looking for a decent aftershave, take him up on it.” Gabriel shrugs. “It’s got to beat whatever cologne you’re using now.”
“Hanzo doesn’t mind,” Jesse grumbles.
“Doesn’t mind, or actually likes?” Silence answers Gabriel’s question for him. “Thought so. He’ll meet you in the garage in fifteen, Jack.”
Twenty minutes later, McCree feels like a damn fool as he shuffles into the garage because, while he does have the same broad shoulders as Gabriel, it turns out he’s also thicker around the middle. He’s never had any reason to feel self-conscious before, but Gabriel has a damn hourglass figure that McCree didn’t think was humanly possible. The only things in the older man’s closet that fit him are a black button-down dress shirt and a pair of charcoal gray slacks that Gabriel doesn’t remember buying. They may even be part of some long-forgotten laundry mix-up. The outfit is more formal than what’s comfortable for him. The shirt even covers his prosthetic, something he thought to be a damn near impossible feat.
“Quit standing around and find the keys,” Jack grumbles. McCree bristles.
“Keys are in the hanger box, sir. Even a man your age has to be able to remember that.”
Jack, McCree realizes, isn’t wearing his visor.
“Can’t tell ‘em apart.” Jack shrugs. “So you’re driving.”
“You’re going out like that?” McCree gapes.
“The visor isn’t part of civvies. It’s blatant military gear.”
“Just how much vision do you actually have left?”
Jack glowers in his general direction, accurate enough for his purposes.
“Blurred colors and motion, mostly.” He admits. “I’m not reading anything more than a foot away.”
“You’ve got glasses, at least, right? Tell me you have glasses.”
Jack remains stubbornly silent. McCree takes a deep, slow breath through his nose and counts to ten.
“How you lasted as long as you did as a loner vigilante, I will never know.” McCree growls. He storms to the box and takes the keys to a modest car that won’t stand out in the nearby Spanish towns.
It’s a beautiful, cool autumn day, and the miles fall away beneath a bright blue sky as they drive. They’re halfway to the city when Jack breaks the silence again.
“I lived out of old safe houses and decommissioned bases,” he says. “Couldn’t get a prescription, and I kept losing or breaking the cheap kind available at drugstores.”
McCree sighs.
“Angela could get you hooked up,” he says. “If she can’t get you near enough to rights, she’s got to know someone who can.”
“She did,” Jack holds a rigid posture that is just as telling as squirming. “I lost them, too.”
McCree laughs softly.
“I’ll help you look around when we get back, how’s that?”
Jack nods stiffly, and Jesse counts it as a win.
Shopping is the kind of adventure for which neither of them is well prepared. They start at a pharmacy and systematically reject every aftershave they encounter. Jack picks up a pair of cheap glasses and manages to lose them in the car within five minutes. McCree nearly pulls a muscle trying to get them out from the crevice between the seat and the armrest.
At the second store, they argue over whether or not Stetson aftershave smells too flowery and walk out still arguing. Jack forgets his glasses on a shelf when he takes them off to pinch the bridge of his nose, and McCree very nearly lets them go as a loss before years of paranoia remind him that he’d rather not have Soldier:76 fighting blind just because Jack is a stubborn bastard.
In the third shop, McCree pays cash for one of the decorative glasses lanyards at the counter. Jack squints dubiously at the little sunflowers that adorn the cord, but McCree pastes on a bright smile for the girl watching them behind the counter.
“C’mon, Pops, you’ve already lost them twice today,” he says, forcing his accent closer to Jack’s and hoping the older man doesn’t startle. He doesn’t, but he goes surprisingly red in the face. McCree can’t quite tell if he’s embarrassed or angry.
“I didn’t lose them,” Jack says stiffly, as only a proud old man can. “I just couldn’t get to them.”
The girl giggles, sending a sympathetic smile to McCree behind Jack’s back. He hears her laughing the entire time he and Jack bicker over bottles of aftershave and cologne.
“I don’t need cologne. I’m just looking for something with disinfectant for aftershave.”
“You smell like you sit too close to a campfire.” Jack grouses. “You’re never going to cover up your smoking habit that way.”
McCree sighs, and the girl snickers. Jack shoves a bottle at him. It smells like cookies. McCree doesn’t even deign to explain what’s wrong with that.
They break for coffee in the mid-afternoon, partly because their flagging moods need chemical boosting and partly because if they sniff one more artificial fragrance, McCree swears his nose will drop off. Jack takes his coffee black and has to hold his tongue when McCree gets a chai latte.
“It’s a nuanced flavor,” McCree protests, seeing the aborted comment still twisting at Jack’s mouth.
“You can appreciate nuance in your tea, but not your cologne?”
“If I’m going to be running around all day, I sure as hell ain’t going to do it smelling like a garden.” McCree scoffs. “‘Sides, there’s plenty of people out there who’ll remember you by the way you smell. Hard to throw ‘em off if you have clashing scents. Very distinctive, that.”
Jack pauses in front of the window of a shop, adjusts his glasses, and scowls. McCree instantly goes still, hand subtly moving to one of the many knives secreted about his person in case Jack’s seen an enemy.
But Jack just chuckles and points to the display, which highlights a variety of men’s clothing.
“Almost matches your razor,” he says. Jesse abruptly recalls that Gabriel asked Jack’s opinion on the first gift — of course he’d ask again this time around. He focuses on the clothes.
The mannequin has a dark blue shirt in a similar cut to Jesse’s but it wears a black vest overtop with a white tie. An evening cape drapes handsomely across the shoulder, Art Deco patterns faintly visible on the body and more prominent at the corners.
McCree snorts.
“Like I could pull off fancy duds like that,” he says lightly.
“From what I remember, you used to do pretty well undercover until you stopped giving a shit and decided to play cowboy all the damn time.”
McCree goes to stroke his beard and nearly startles himself when he feels his clean shaven jaw. He lets his vision refocus so he can see his reflection in the window.
He wonders, momentarily, what Hanzo would think. He tries to imagine standing together, both of them clad in stormy colors, ready to descend on the world like the full glory of nature’s fury. Hanzo always looks so neatly composed. He’s never commented on Jesse’s choice of attire — though he has, on occasion, teased about many other things — and Jesse has to mull over the possibility of the reactions he might have were he to show up dressed to the nines like that.
He only realizes Jack’s moved when he sees the older man inside, walking up to the counter. McCree follows quickly, but even so Jack has already paid for something and is receiving his change by the time he catches up.
“What are you up to, Old Man?” He asks warily. Jack just waves him to the rack of clothes matching the display.
“Since you’re here, you might as well go try ‘em on. At least see how it looks.”
The little old lady at the register gives McCree the most discerning once-over he’s ever had and then nods decisively.
“Ah. I see. I have just the hat for you. You go dress, I will be right back.”
McCree feels more outmaneuvered than in any of the times he’s walked into an ambush by professional bounty hunters. He slinks off to the rack and comes back gussied up. The addition of the vest, tie, and cape transform his look from ‘awkwardly fitting business-casual’ to ‘just under formal’, creating sleek lines from his solid build. The shopkeeper smirks and leans up on her tiptoes to put a black fedora with a blue band on his head.
“Very handsome,” she approves. “Like a hero out of the old pictures.”
Jack snickers, and Jesse very nearly blushes.
“Well, I guess I better get these, then.” He digs out a credit stick for one of the many discrete accounts he keeps for his more legitimate purchases. She runs the transaction and reads the receipt to make sure it processed correctly before nodding.
“Very good. Thank you, Mr. Morrison.”
“Mr. What?” Jack tenses, and McCree has a pang of regret for not checking which account he handed her because he’s going to have to burn this ID now that Jack knows. “But that’s my name.”
“And mine too, Pops, remember? You and Dad decided against hyphenating because the paperwork was a pain.” Jack just stares blankly, a gobsmacked expression on his face. McCree turns mournful eyes to the shopkeeper. “He hasn’t been the same since the accident. Losing Dad was a real blow. I thought maybe bringing him back here, where they honeymooned…” he trails off with a sigh. The old woman gives him a look like she’d hug him if there wasn’t a counter in the way.
“You’re a good boy,” she says. “Take care of him.”
McCree wrangles Jack out of there as quickly as he can without rousing suspicion.
“What the hell was that, McCree?” Jack demands once they’re far enough away. McCree picks the tags off his new clothes and rolls his eyes.
“It’s called a cover story, Jack. I know you ain’t got much experience with them, but—“
“She called you Mr. Morrison .”
“That’s the name on the account.”
“Jesse Morrison?”
“No.” McCree takes a deep breath; time to drop the other shoe. “Gabriel A. Morrison. That’s the ID I was using.”
Jack says nothing for a moment before he ends up dropping onto a nearby bench. He stares blankly at the street, seeing nothing for reasons that have nothing to do with the damage to his eyes. McCree gives him time and wishes he brought his cigarillos.
“You got any other covers I ought to know about?” Jack asks after a while. McCree laughs mirthlessly.
“I already gotta burn my favorite, Old Man. Don’t make me do too many at once.”
“Burn?” Jack starts.
“It ain’t much good as a secret identity if other people know about it. Pity to kill it now. Always had good luck with that one.”
To his surprise, Jack grabs him by the wrist.
“Don’t,” he says with startling fervor. “Don’t kill it.”
“It’s compromised,” McCree replies, perhaps more gently than his history with Jack Morrison warrants.
“I know. I just —“ Jack’s wistful expression shutters. “Of course. Compromised. You have to look out for yourself.”
McCree sucks in a sharp breath. He considers the years he’s known the man and the history of the things Jack has asked of him. Today has been the closest Jack has ever been to making truly selfish requests, things that have nothing to do with Overwatch or the good of others. For the first time, he regards Jack with a truly neutral eye. Jack’s losses are damning and carved across his face, yet still he stands more upright under their weight than many others who stumble the same path. Surely, suggests the voice of judgment to which McCree always bows his head, such a man should have something to hold on to. It would be such a small thing, and McCree knows how to mitigate the risk. Surely he can turn this blade away.
“I suppose it can’t hurt too much to let it stand,” he drawls, rocking back on his heels. “Hell, I may as well open it up to the team for use when one of us has to go somewhere we aren’t exactly welcome, or we don’t want people knowing we went. As part of the team, I ought to chip into the pot, right?”
Jack looks up, stoicism hastily pasted over the longing.
“I mean, y'all ain’t turned me in yet.” Jesse winks. “Probably ought to cobble a couple more together, for people who don’t want to answer to ‘Gabriel’, too. What do you say?”
“Good thinking.” Jack’s voice is hoarse, like he’s choking through another set of words.
“Yeah, I’ve been known to do that on occasion.”
It’s just a little kindness. He can give Jack that much.
They try one more shop, but their hearts aren’t in the search anymore. McCree ends up grabbing a bottle of unscented aftershave just to be done with it. By this point he’s half-decided to never bother shaving again just so it never comes up.
They head back to the car in defeat. Just before they open the doors, Jack wordlessly hands him the bag he picked up at the little clothing store.
“To go with the rest of your fancy duds,” he says. “Seemed like you could do with a different theme.”
McCree looks in the bag. There’s a blue scarf with a blossoming pattern that matches the same shade as his hatband.
“You got this before I got any of the rest of the stuff,” McCree protests, and Jack shrugs.
“Didn’t think you’d go for the whole shebang, but I guess you’ve got your father’s sense of drama,” Jack says. “So if you’re going to play dress-up as The Shadow, you might as well have the full kit.”
They stand on the cusp of understanding, at the threshold of putting years and years of disagreements both petty and valid behind them. It’s a testament to how difficult a moment it is for them that neither of them notice the thief until he grabs the bags from McCree’s hands and bolts.
“Damn punks!” Jack snarls and takes off after him like a shot. McCree takes a split second to weigh his options: the distance, the severity of the offense, the environment, the audience — or lack thereof. He’s not a sprinter, not like the thief or Jack.
He slips a throwing knife out of his sleeve and hurls it so it hits the thief in the back of the head, hilt first. The man goes down in a tumble of limbs, skidding across the pavement.
Unfortunately, Jack misjudges the distance between him and his quarry and trips over him.
McCree swears and jogs up to them, surreptitiously picking up his knife as he kneels in front of the downed thief. He catalogs details quickly; healthy build, designer clothes, outraged and affronted threats, and a series of ineffectual flails against the bulk of an SEP-enhanced body before Jack rolls away. McCree pins the thief to the ground with one hand on the back of his neck, as immovable as a mountain.
“Boy,” he drawls, “have you got the worst luck in the universe.”
There are small but significant differences from the Latin-American version of Spanish that McCree grew up with and the European Spanish spoken here. Still, he thinks he gets his point across as he smiles the way Gabriel would when the Blackwatch Commander was feeling particularly acerbic. He lays out each of the thief’s mistakes: attacking in broad daylight, picking a poor location for a run-by, hitting such an unrewarding target for the amount of effort required, and, most importantly, picking marks that are more than capable of bringing him down.
“I’ve seen a lot of criminals, some by necessity and some by stupidity.” McCree’s eyes narrow, and he turns the blade so that its edge catches the light. “You? You’re just doing this for fun, and one of these days you’re going to get someone hurt real bad for your dumb decisions… unless you learn a lesson today.”
“McCree,” Jack barks. He doesn’t need glasses to notice the dangerous edge to McCree that has nothing to do with the knife twirling between his fingers.
“We’re just chatting,” McCree replies, deceptively light.
“ McCree .” Soldier:76 commands. McCree doesn’t answer to him; never has, never will. He might comply, when the word is good and he’s of a mood, but this little wretch yanked the rug out from under him, and he’s been feeling off balance all day.
There was a time when he’d have had this sorted by now, and maybe the thief would be concussed and uncomfortably trussed up on the doorstep of the local authorities, or maybe McCree would have just taught him the old fashioned way about the importance of checking his marks before he dared to try anything as brazen. Now he looks back at Soldier’s uncompromising glare, a look no less fierce even though McCree knows Jack can barely see what he’s glaring at.
Some people come through ordeals worse than when they start, and some people hold fast. Some even come out better for it, though McCree is hard-pressed to name any. Jack… Jack isn’t one of the better ones, but he’s trying not to be worse, and that counts for something. It has to.
“I guess you’re luckier than I thought,” he tells the thief, slipping the knife back into his sleeve. “Remember that.”
He stands up, picks up the bags, and patiently ignores the sounds of the thief hightailing it. Jack leans against a nearby wall, favoring his left leg.
“Really?” McCree fights back the urge to laugh and loses, just a little bit.
“If you hadn’t sent him sprawling…” Jack growls. McCree sighs and offers Jack his arm, which Jack refuses out of either stubbornness or a different kind of blindness.
“Where are your glasses?” McCree asks, not really hoping for an answer. Jack gestures at the bits of twisted plastic all across the parking lot, and he sighs.
What a day.
LATER:
The Watchpoint Rec Room sees inconsistent use depending largely on who gets there first and how inclined everyone else is to let them do their business in peace. Few people will disturb Zenyatta’s meditation, though some may join in. More will gather when Hana plays a game; she encourages an audience, claiming it improves her performance.
That afternoon is something of an unusual case: the first person to drift in is Gabriel, his Reaper gear replaced by more casual clothing that doesn’t make him look any less intimidating, and his guns traded for a pulp novel with a cheesy cover, which does. He settles down in a corner to read and ends up falling asleep within half an hour, head tilted towards the window as if waiting for something on the horizon.
Lúcio and Satya stop short in the middle of their argument when they come in for their weekly chess match. Neither wants to wake him, but at the same time their long-standing rivalry refuses to be diverted from its nearly as long-standing traditional outlet. Rather than revert back to less constructive methods, they engage in the world’s most furiously silent game. Mei and Zarya come in next, the former easily fitting in as she takes advantage of the peace and the large table to spread out her research while the latter settles in to read one of Mei’s articles. By the time Hana slips in and starts playing a game on mute, the room is full of a lively sort of quiet.
This is why everyone knows immediately when Jack gets home.
The automatic doors of the base don’t slam, but there’s a distinct feeling reminiscent of that kind of entrance when Jack’s gruff voice echoes down the hall.
“For the last time, I said I’m fine! I’ll just ice it and see Angela in the morning.”
Someone else responds in a low murmur, too softly to be distinct.
“Don’t you start that with me. This is all your fault, anyway. Damn showboating.”
A huff and a chuckle follow. Hana pauses her game and creeps up to the door, peering into the hall.
A tall man in dark blue and black evening clothes carries Jack in a bridal lift down the hall. His dark eyes laugh even though the generous mouth above his strong jawline remains stoic. He’s handsome, in the way that movie stars of the silver screen were handsome, and Jack’s face is beet red even as he sulks in the man’s grasp.
“Bwok, bwok, chickenhawk!” Hana crows. “Old Dad picked up a hot young thing!”
Both men turn stare at her in dread, though that may also be because Reaper suddenly manifests behind her, dragging the temperature down ten degrees.
“What the hell?” All three men yell in varying degrees of horror and disbelief. Jack’s ‘Prince Charming’ drops him and immediately holds up his hands in surrender. His voice is high with panic and urgency as he faces Gabriel.
“I swear, I didn’t—“
“That hurt!”
“Why would you drop him? He’s old !”
“It was an accident!”
“What if he breaks a hip ?”
“Damn it, Gabe—“
“What if he breaks both hips?”
The rest of the team slides up to watch the onslaught of half-finished accusations and aborted protests.
“Ten on Mystery Man booking it,” Hana says.
“He is not so small. He will stand up for himself.” Zarya insists.
“I dunno, I bet he didn’t sign up for the Tall, Dark, and Deadly Ex over there.” Lúcio winces as Gabriel growls and gestures at Jack, arms trailing ash.
But ‘Mystery Man’ has sharp ears and, apparently, a knack for splitting his attention in multiple directions at once, because he turns to face the observers with an expression of gross betrayal.
“I’m sorry, who’s what now?” He asks in a much more familiar tone.
“Oh, snap.” Lúcio’s eyes go wide.
“McCree?” Hana all but shrieks.
“Who did you think it was?” Gabriel turns around to gape, clearly unimpressed by their observational skills.
“I thought the old man brought back a date!” She squeaks.
“A vigilante? Part of an unsanctioned and actually illegal operation? Bring back a civilian to the base?” Jack’s tone is scathing.
“Hey, Superman brought Lois Lane to the Fortress of Solitude,” Lúcio protests weakly.
“Fictional characters are not good evidence for your thesis!” Satya hisses.
“Oh, come on, you didn’t recognize him either!”
“Y’all honestly didn’t recognize me?” The moment of naked pain in Jesse’s voice crashes into them like a truck, made all the worse by the way he then straightens up and slides it under what they see now is a mask. Feet apart. Back straight. Shoulders relaxed. Chin up. Eyes hooded in the shadow of his hat. A smile like the desert sky, broad and dry and bright enough to kill. It’s a perfect facsimile of smug bravado and satisfied confidence, and it would be completely convincing if not for the lead guilt still sitting molten in their guts. “Looks like I haven’t lost the old ‘cloak and dagger’ touch after all. You get it, Old Man? On account of me wearing this get up? Ha! Guess that’ll show Winston, next time he says I can’t go on a mission ‘cause I don’t do incognito.”
Gabriel says nothing; he has always waited for Jesse’s masks to break on their own. Jack doesn’t have the same experience, doesn’t know to let the younger man shatter in private and in his own time.
“McCree—“ he starts, and McCree quickly holds up a hand to forestall him.
“It’s all good, sir.” He says. “Everything’s fine.”
Except it isn’t, because Lena comes zipping down the corridor and skids to a stop in front of them.
“What’s everyone doing standing around?” She asks. “Oh, have we got a guest?”
McCree’s mouth flattens for one brief second, then ratchets back into a polite smile. Hana and Lúcio wince.
“Your friend was just about to make introductions,” he says, but his accent isn’t the usual slow, Southern American-English drawl. It’s light, crisp, and rolls through his consonants, nearly identical to the accent of the woman in the shop, and it bounces gently through his upper register like sparkling cider.
Lena giggles and looks expectantly at Jack and Gabriel, missing the flicker that passes through McCree’s dark eyes.
“Firecracker,” Gabriel sighs, “don’t play head games with your teammates.”
“But Boss,” McCree says without changing his voice, “you do it all the time.”
Gabriel gestures to himself and gives McCree an incredulous scowl.
“ This is not an end-goal, boy!” He snaps. “You’re doing a lot better than me, and I’d like to see you keep it that way!”
Whatever response the younger man is about to make is lost as Lena launches herself at his face, grabbing his cheeks and pulling on them like she’s expecting a mask to come off.
“Is that really you, Jesse?” She gasps. “You look twenty years younger, at least! Who would have thought you’d clean up so nice?”
McCree pulls back, rubbing his abused face.
“Yeah, who’d’ve thought?” He mutters, smile pulled thin.
“Oh, you know what I mean!” She pouts, poking at his stomach. “I remember the fights you, Jack, and Ana used to have over getting dressed up nicely. Remember the U.N. ceremony? You tried to convince Jack that you were wearing your ‘formal jeans’!”
“And I quote, ‘But sir, no holes!’” Jack adds.
“You aren’t allowed to weigh in on this,” McCree snipes back. “You thought I was Gabriel this morning!”
The audience glances quickly between Gabriel and Jesse, confused.
Jack’s face, only just returned to its normal color, goes red again.
“I was sleepy, and you used his damn aftershave.”
Like a three-way tennis match, everyone turns to Gabriel, who flusters to be suddenly included.
“I’m not part of this argument!”
“Disqualified,” Hana declares, but in the interest of self-preservation, she does it under her breath.
As if the tension hasn’t escalated high enough, the door behind McCree suddenly slides open, and Hanzo walks into the hall.
“Has anyone seen McCree?” He asks.
Jesse’s back is still to Hanzo, and there’s no disguising the sharp slice of dread that slits his throat and lets his fear bleed out. He reins it in with heroic endeavor, but by that time Hanzo is already in motion, stepping into the center of the gathering and glancing quickly at the assembled.
He scowls.
The audience holds their breaths.
“There you are!” Hanzo huffs. “I have been looking for you all day!”
“You— you have?” Jesse gapes.
Gabriel and Jack subtly relax.
“We were going to make plans for the evening. I tried to call you. You left your phone on the nightstand.” He sighs. “I thought perhaps you went for a walk, but you did not return…”
“Sorry, darling. I guess I got swept away by, well.” Jesse gestures helplessly at his outfit, Jack, and Gabriel.
“I can see you took great care in this,” Hanzo says, “but in the future, please remember to take your phone with you as well.”
“Will do, Heart o’ My Heart.” Jesse’s smile melts into something softer, more genuine.
“It is a different look for you.” Hanzo hums. “You wear it well.”
“You saying you’d like to see me all spiffed up more often?”
“If it pleases you.” The archer’s keen eyes rake over the outfit again, this time lingering like a lover’s caress at daybreak. “It certainly has… appeals.” His gaze flickers up to Jesse’s clean shaven jaw. “I shall look forward to exploring them later. For now, are not the rest of you late to supper? If you do not hurry, Reinhardt will eat it all.” He gives a pointed look to the observers, who scramble for the mess hall. Jack and Gabriel follow at a more sedate pace, only glancing back once to make sure that Jesse seems more settled.
Once they are alone in the hall again, Jesse steps into Hanzo’s space, pressing against him as if proximity can ease the aches of his soul. Hanzo immediately presses back, brows drawn down in concern.
“What happened?” He asks.
“Nothing special,” Jesse sighs. “Just got a refresher as to why Boss only went clean-shaven for extremely deep cover.” Hanzo makes a quizzical sound and nuzzles against Jesse’s bare cheek.
“You have done this in the past to pass unnoticed. You said it was part of how you crossed the sea to answer the Recall.”
“Yeah, but it was different when there wasn’t anyone I cared about to recognize me.” Jesse’s voice is raw and low. Hanzo presses kisses to the smooth skin of his jawline.
“We know you,” he assures him. “No one forgot, and no one left you behind. They are surprised, but now they will be more aware. It is good they learn this lesson from such a benevolent teacher.”
Jesse huffs a weak laugh.
“‘Benevolent teacher’, huh? Are you sure you’ve got the right man?”
Hanzo turns a kiss into a nip.
“You are a man of many hidden depths, Jesse McCree,” he says. “I will enjoy finding as many of them as you will allow.”
Jesse’s eyes skim over the planes of Hanzo’s face, once again committing the sharp angles to the vaults of memory. The air around them is warm and comfortable, breath and heartbeats falling into rhythm together, a moment of their lives truly shared.
“Now, I believe we were going to make plans for the evening,” Hanzo says, “and unless I am mistaken, you are dressed for a night on the town.”
“Would you look at that? So I am.”
“Then we should make the most of this opportunity and enact our escape before the others discover that Reinhardt made currywurst for the third time this week.”
Distant cries of dismay filter from the direction of the mess hall, and Jesse chuckles, holding up the car keys.
“Heart o’ My Heart, I’m gonna sweep you of your feet.”
“Not,” says Hanzo, with a smirk, “if I sweep you first, Beloved.”