Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Killing Jesse McCree, he discovers, is an inexplicable kind of exhilaration.

In part, he thinks it has something to do with McCree’s skillset. From day one McCree was outlandish, roguish, talented with no real training, better than most veterans could ever hope to be and plainly carrying the potential to outshine the best. Overwatch was the sort of organization someone at the top of their field could barely hope to be assimilated into, the type that painstakingly selected only the most skilled soldiers with years under their belts, and yet McCree was snatched up like desert fruit, despite how dusty and rugged he was in comparison to Overwatch’s crisp shine. 

And it was like he was born into it. You could barely call him a grown man back then, barely more than a kid with a gun, but he was good and brilliant and undeniably fit for the rough and tumble of it. His skills aged with him like a fine wine, and so killing him begun to taste like fine liquor on the Reaper’s tongue.

There is another reason he enjoys it, but he keeps that tucked into the recesses of his mind. It hurts to think on it, makes his head pound if he holds onto the thought too long, makes something in his chest feel cut open.

His gloves don’t allow for it, but he likes to imagine that he can feel the stutter of McCree’s pulse at his fingertips, a stark contrast to his own lack of one. His body caves into smoke where McCree’s blows land, metal scratching deep into the leather of his clothes. The Reaper tightens his grip, enthralled by the man’s strength, delighted by the slow way his lips turn blue, the way his soft brown eyes turn glassy.

He stills as McCree’s hands go slack against him and, after a moment, fall weightily to the ground. The Reaper loosens his hands, and McCree’s head lolls to the side, his mouth slack and his tousled hair framing his blank face. He leans back on his knees for a better look; there is blood from McCree’s nose, caking in his mustache and staining his teeth. His six shooter lies empty and just out of reach, his hat upside down in the dust. His armor is scratched and shallowly gouged in some places, not from this fight but from many others, and there’s a thin scar across the side of his neck that the Reaper doesn’t recognize.

He wants, almost, to ask what happened there. It’s the clip of a bullet, no doubt, but he wants the story behind it, the who and how and where.

It strikes him fully then that McCree is dead, that even if he did ask, he wouldn’t get an answer. Something twists hard in his gut.

Pleasure, surely.

In the glorious expanse of McCree’s presence, the payload becomes uninteresting.

It can’t be helped, not really. The craving roots so deeply in his chest that it may as well be tangled in his lungs. He dared, once, to think that he needed it (the tells of fear, the sweat that beads at McCree’s brow, the way he struggles like an animal in barbed wire, the hard stutter of his pulse) and ended up liking the idea too much to let it go. 

Cornering an outlaw of McCree’s calibur is damn difficult, a challenge even for the likes of the Reaper. McCree is sharp and quick witted, and it brings the Reaper no small delight to know that McCree has tricks hidden up his sleeves that even he doesn’t know. Anything he lacks in mobility is made up for with innovation; the Reaper wouldn’t call Talon forces exactly up to his standards, but it doesn’t make it any less electrifying to watch McCree pick them off one by one.

This makes getting McCree alone—away from his team, all to himself—the most satisfying accomplishment he can achieve on missions like these.

He feels an adoring smile spread across his face as McCree spots him, as he notes the shifts and subtle changes in the cowboy’s posture, his expressions. This is how the Reaper knows he’ll get what he wants, how he knows that McCree is afraid, that he would eventually slip from that perfect focus and into panic and distress. 

He licks his lips and lets himself dissolve, terribly pleased when McCree bares his teeth, lip still half-curled over a cigar.

McCree unloads Peacekeeper into him with a fan of the hammer. The bullets slide through smoke, a burst of pale gunpowder mixing in with inky black. This is done more out of desperation than anything; they both know six bullets aren’t enough to slow down the Reaper, and he heals too fast for twelve to make a difference, even for someone so quick on the draw.

This makes the Reaper frown a little. McCree is usually conservative with his bullets until he has a better idea of how to handle an enemy. 

Could he be slipping? The Reaper wants to ask and doesn’t. He wonders if McCree is still silver-tongued or if he’s gotten quiet in their years apart. He wants to know if they’d fall into easy banter and almost-arguments like they used to. 

But of course, McCree would come to know his identity if he spoke. Even with the rough gravel his voice has taken on, McCree would know him, of that he was sure. 

McCree easily switches to hand-to-hand when the Reaper corners him, flips his revolver in his hand like he plans to pistol whip instead of firing. It’s almost laughable, the Reaper’s admiration at the determination not to go down easy aside. He collapses into smoke a second time and catches McCree by the throat when he reforms, thumb pressed against his jugular before he presses his gun into McCree’s side and pulls the trigger.

The rain started the night before, and it’s still coming down heavy.

Mud cakes at the ankles of McCree’s boots, splatters thick on his chaps. His hat and serape are all that keeps him dry. He slips once, comes down hard on his knee and grunts in pain, then gets to his feet and keeps running.

The Reaper chases as a wraith, playing a new game and herding McCree towards the river.

McCree stops short of the bank, feet restless in preparation to move as he scans for a place cross. Water churns below, currents raging and wild and spilling over into the grass. With his heavy clothes, with his chestplate, with his arm, attempting to swim would be suicide. 

The Reaper lands in a puff of smoke and turns solid again. The gunslinger whirls to face him, the wind whipping his hat away and rain immediately plastering his shaggy hair to his cheeks. His jaw hardens, mouth twisted in a snarl, eyes hard and fierce as he spins his last cartridge into Peacekeeper’s cylinder. 

Here they begin their dance, trampling the grass beneath their heavy boots. McCree has learned better, now, and waits for the Reaper to solidify before he pulls the trigger. The loud crack! of each shot has the hair on the back of his neck standing up. Were he anyone else, each bullet would’ve been an instant fatality, but they leave an addictive kind of hurt behind, nonetheless.

McCree finally empties Peacekeeper and tries to bolt, but the Reaper meets his gait with ease, cuts him off and sends him reeling back. He slips again, lands hard in the mud and loses his breath, and the Reaper pounces, eyes locked on the rushing water that laps at McCree’s hair.

He tangles his fingers in wavy brown, notes the silver that weren't there before—before…and forces McCree’s head into the water.

And oh, McCree fights him. He even almost bucks him off. His metal fingers grip hard enough at the Reaper’s wrist to nearly shatter the bone, and dissolving partway into smoke is all that saves him from fracture. But it’s not long before McCree’s movements go sluggish, before his iron grip goes slack and gone.

He remembers then—

Something burns in the base of his skull. The memory fades to swirls of nothingness. The Reaper grunts and gets to his feet, stumbles, and doesn’t stop to admire his work before he returns to the mission he was sent here for.

“What a strange way to kill someone,” Angela murmurs, “for a man who carries shotguns.”

Genji hauls Jesse’s body away from the bank. The weight of metal on him makes his heels sink in the mud, though he shows no effort in pulling himself free. “Very strange,” he grunts, dropping Jesse into the grass. The cowboy falls limply, his hair and serape waterlogged, his cheeks pale and his throat bruised. This isn’t the first time they’ve found him with bruises like those, ones vaguely resembling the shape of large hands.

Angela’s brows knit. “This is confusing to me. Why would he not take the body? The reward for Jesse is dead or alive, and…it’s been quite a few times now that he could’ve made off with it.”

Genji says nothing. He crouches next to McCree, looks him over and determines guns weren’t used much at all in this fight, not on the enemy’s side at least. “When Baptiste told us he was being repeatedly targeted, I was not expecting it to be so…personal.”

Angela blinks. “You think they know each other?”

Genji motions to Jesse’s neck. “These are not the wounds made by a stranger. And no stranger can fight McCree and leave unscathed.”

“How would the Reaper know McCree?”

Genji shrugs.

“Maybe it’s true, if he won’t speak of it,” she says thoughtfully. “Though I have trouble believing he would want to protect the identity of a Talon operative.” She purses her lips. “It is…extremely rare for Jesse to be our only casualty.”

“Or a casualty,” Genji adds.

“Yes,” she replies thoughtfully. “I can’t remember the last time he had an entry in the Caduceus System…even in much worse circumstances, he tended to make it out alive.”

“Then Talon has specialist operatives,” Genji concludes, “That are on par with the old blood.”

“Yes,” Angela says softly, her staff lighting up.

For a moment, Jesse’s corpse is blinding. It’s only after the light fades that he bolds upright, coughing up water and putting a hand to his throat, his bruises gone and leaving little but phantom pains behind.

In the ongoing complexities of human-omnic relations, London becomes an important and common stop for high profile packages. This ranges anywhere from Shambali monks to parts highly sought after by the omnic underground. London is a centerpiece of war between man and machine, and all Talon executives can see when they look at it is dollar signs.

In the wake of Mondatta Tekhartha’s assassination, King’s Row is, more than ever, a place of high tensions, shaky peace, and rampant opportunity. In those twisting alleyways among staggering buildings that cast heavy and wealthy shadows over those in poverty, the Reaper moves with ease and grace.

His cowboy, on the other hand, tends to falter here. In this place, where London’s punk clashes with their posh, everything about McCree sticks out as distinctly Mexican American, from his face and serape to his boots and chaps. He looks, at best, like a tourist, and at worst like a troublemaker, which tends to be the more apt description, and this doesn’t even account for how the location itself affects him.

This is where, some seven or so years ago, he was sent on reconnaissance, where an omnic with a heated sword for an arm took McCree’s off.

The Reaper imagines that McCree must be ruining the edge of his cigar between his teeth. The thought of it makes a little thrill run down his spine.

And of course, despite all his apprehensions about King’s Row, McCree makes things interesting. He’s still got a sniper’s eye even if the tight corners of the city don’t suit him best, still more clever than most even when he’s distracted by bad memories. And yet, still, Reaper has him cornered and out of ammunition in the end.

He presses the barrel of his shotgun up under McCree’s jaw. McCree grits his teeth, eyes narrowed with frustration and defiance. It is moments like these where the Reaper’s near constant rage subsides, where McCree shudders beneath him and he feels something almost akin to glee.

But McCree doesn’t struggle this time. This time, he’s still, and that makes the Reaper pause.

“Why’re you doin’ this?” McCree asks quietly.

There's simplicity in the question; McCree already knows that he's going to die, that there is inevitability in the outcome of their meetings. There's a faint tremor in his voice, so slight that the Reaper might've missed it if he wasn't so completely captivated by every little detail about him. 

And, if he's to be truthful with himself, the Reaper doesn't  know how to answer that question. Ultimately he did it because he liked it, didn't he? Was that a good enough answer? He always put utmost priority in the mission target unless McCree was around. He always channeled his thirst for violence unless McCree was around. It's complicated, he realizes...he's always pleased to see McCree on the field, even if New Overwatch as a whole was a pain in the ass, but what happens after they lock eyes is messy. The Reaper can't exactly describe the cocktail of emotions that captures him in those moments, some explosive mix of hurt and anger and nostalgia and euphoria, other than that he wants to feel it all deeply after such long intervals of feeling mostly nothing, and that killing McCree makes all of it intensify.

McCree opens his mouth to say something else, and the Reaper, in the throes of impulsiveness, lifts a clawed hand to his mask. He slides it up over the lower half of his face, watching McCree's eyes dart to his bottom lip before the mask obscures his vision, then leans in close. He hears the man exhale, slow and shaky, feels that breath ghost across his mouth before he presses a kiss down. It's light, careful, longing, and at the same time it's reminiscent of something old, hungry, deeply rooted.

McCree tastes, faintly, of whiskey, and the scent of cigars clings to his clothes.

When the Reaper withdraws and re-situates his mask, he notes the cowboy's expression has finally changed. His face has twisted, grief etched into the heavy lines of his mouth, into the crease at his brow. His next breath comes out ragged, weak, his body wound visibly tight and his eyes so misty they nearly shine.

This startles—angers?—the Reaper so much that he squeezes the trigger. McCree's blood splatters across the bone white of his mask.

“Jesse,” Genji calls.

Jesse pauses, glancing over his shoulder in surprise. Genji is the only person he can ever really count on to sneak up on him without his notice, the pads of synthetic feet near silent on Gibraltar’s smooth floors.

“Still odd, hearin’ you call me that,” he admits.

Genji falls in step beside him, his pace quick to match Jesse’s long strides. “Do you prefer McCree?” he asks.

“No, no,” Jesse says quickly, “Didn’t say I minded it.”

Genji nods, so slightly that Jesse almost misses it. “Good. How are the new recruits?”

The question surprises him. Genji has always been one, generally, who minds his own business, remaining quiet unless a conversation necessitated voicing his opinion, and even then, he often has to be asked. This makes him wonder if Genji is uncertain about the team’s capabilities, which is understandable enough, given all the new blood.

“They’re doin’ fine,” he answers, a curious lilt to his voice. “This ain’t their first rodeo, so all that’s really still in progress is workin’ with this particular set of folks.” He pauses. “Why'd you ask?”

“Because,” Genji replies, “You are leading the new recruits, and I have brought you another.”

Jesse’s brows go up. “You found Zenyatta.”

“No,” he says. Displeasure is evident in Genji’s voice, his frown clear even behind his visor. “He was not at the Shambali temple, and the other monks were not able to say where he had gone. This worries me.”

“I should say so,” Jesse mutters. They reach the door to the training area then, and Jesse punches in his access code absentmindedly. He takes a slow, stressed drag from his cigar as they continue towards the moving targets. Overwatch needs that monk…really, they need anybody they can get their hands on, but it didn’t bode well that someone with potential information about Null Sector suddenly went missing as soon as they went to look. “Who’s the recruit, then?”

“My brother,” Genji says. “Hanzo.”

A lot of things happen all at once: Jesse’s mouth falls open, he nearly fumbles his cigar, Genji puts his arm out to halt Jesse’s advance, and an arrow whizzes by his nose so quick that the hair on his arms doesn’t even have ample time to stand up.

One of the training bots to McCree’s left crumbles, an arrow sticking out of its head. Jesse’s eyes flit up to the rooftops, where a man in dark clothes stands armed with a bow.

“I thought you said this was a team of competent fighters,” he calls down, his accent as thick as Genji’s but pitched several octaves lower.

“It is,” Genji replies. He sounds unimpressed.

“I think he just tried to kill me,” Jesse says, short of breath.

“If I had tried to kill you, you would have died,” Hanzo says flatly. He jumps then, somehow managing to tuck and roll to his feet despite the length of his bow, and strides towards them with squared shoulders and a heavy scowl.

Genji speaks in Japanese. Jesse knows a little, some he learned for the big Shimada mission way back when, and some he picked up just from hearing Genji talk. He makes out, roughly, something about preferring if Hanzo didn’t shoot his friends.

Hanzo’s reply is clipped; he will not repeat himself, he says. He slings his bow across his back, eyes flitting over Jesse in a critical onceover. In English, and with clear intent to insult, he says, “I will not waste my time with the unskilled.”

Genji, to his credit, doesn’t visibly bristle. “This is Jesse McCree,” he says. “He is almost as skilled as one can be.”

“Almost!” Jesse protests.

“Then why,” Hanzo demands, “Is his death count leagues above the others here?”

It’s here that Genji goes quiet, his visor tilted in Jesse’s direction like he’s not sure how much Jesse would like him to reveal. But now Jesse’s pride has been insulted, so he deigns to answer for himself.

“Because a Talon agent’s been followin’ me around,” he answers tightly, putting his cigar back to his lips and eyeing Hanzo from beneath the brim of his hat. “Figured you’d be the last person to come crawlin’ in here, since Blackwatch had it out for you back in the day.”

Hanzo’s eyes narrow. He’s much more elegant than Jesse ever pictured him, the gray in his hair unfairly picturesque and his sharp, angular features making him look like he popped out of one of those old samurai movies. He carries himself in a way that's almost haughty, his chin lifted like he intends to look down on anyone in the room and his shoulders set back in a way that's less militarized and more expectant. Jesse looks at him and thinks the same thing he thought when he first looked at Ashe: rich kid.

The only thing that seems to not fit, between the grace of his posture and perfect grooming, is the piercings in his ears and nose, which seem just pink enough that Jesse has to consider them fresh.

“Genji asked me here,” Hanzo says after a moment. He folds his arms, tilts his head and rolls his eyes back a bit as if reluctant. “I…seek atonement.”

“Atonement,” Jesse repeats.

“What he means,” Genji says, “Is that I beat him up and made him promise to come.”

“You did no such thing,” Hanzo barks.

“Are you really alright with this?” Jesse interrupts. “I mean—”

“I have made my peace,” Genji answers, and he doesn’t seem to waver in his decision. “Master Zenyatta has helped me reconcile with what happened to me.” He pauses, then adds, “To us. And…we could use the assistance.”

That, Jesse can’t deny. And he’s being hypocritical, he knows that. He brought Baptiste in under the same pretenses, that the man wanted to atone for what he’s done and make things right. So if Genji wanted to offer that to Hanzo, even after all the bad blood between them…

Well. Wasn’t his place to stop them. 

In any case, Hanzo has looked away from Genji as if determined to ignore him, though whether that’s out of shame or the typical actions of an older brother, Jesse can’t say. “Tell me of this Talon agent,” he says.

And here is where Jesse clams up. 

Hanzo either doesn’t notice this or takes merciless advantage of it. “Your battle statistics are that of a beginner,” he says. “You eliminate targets with efficiency but lack the ability to escape with your life. How does someone like you hope to command a squadron?”

“Hanzo,” Genji says.

“Let him talk,” Jesse says, folding his arms too. “Lemme see what he thinks he knows.”

Genji goes quiet. Hanzo somehow manages to lift his nose even higher. He says, “You claim you are being pursued. And yet you have not learned how to combat your pursuer. Even a child knows repeating the actions that lead to failure begets more failure.”

“And even a kid knows better than to open his mouth before he understands the situation,” Jesse fires back.

Hanzo motions towards him, scoffing. “I asked.”

Jesse grits his teeth. After a too-long pause, during which he gathers every ounce of his patience, he says, “We’re dealin’ with Talon, here. And not your regular soldier boys. I’m talkin’ close to upper management.”

“I’m familiar,” Hanzo says gruffly. “You are not the first to seek my skills. Get to the point.”

“It’s the Reaper,” Genji says finally, when it’s clear that Jesse’s aforementioned patience is wearing thin. He glances at Jesse; they haven’t talked about this at all, but Genji isn’t stupid. He says hesitantly, “He is…someone we knew.”

Jesse looks away and lets out an aggravated huff of smoke. He intends to appear standoffish, but emotion swirls in his gut so fast it nearly makes him sick, a coagulation of grief, denial, betrayal. It's easier to pretend he imagined it, when it was only new eyes on him, but having Genji say it out loud—

It means it really is Gabriel. Gabriel who kills him and kills him and kisses him soft on the mouth and kills him again.

“And this someone manages to best the both of you,” Hanzo presses.

“Bullets do almost no damage,” Genji says, “and my sword can’t reach him. Even if it could, I can’t leave our medics unprotected for so long.”

“I see,” Hanzo says. For once, he sounds thoughtful rather than disdainful. His eyes flick elsewhere as he considers what he’s been told, and he absentmindedly tugs at his beard. Finally, he says, “Then I will partner with the American.”

“Beg your pardon?” Jesse says, just as Genji says “You will what?”

“You said yourself that your sword can’t reach him,” Hanzo says, lifting his chin again. “My dragons don’t require the touch of a weapon.”

Jesse’s mouth falls open slightly, and he glances at Genji with the expectation that he’ll be insulted. Instead, Genji tilts his head.

“That is true,” he admits, then by way of explanation, “Hanzo’s dragons are twins. They devour his arrow even before they reach the target. Even dust can’t hope to escape angry spirits.”

Jesse blinks between the both of them. Genji’s dragon shit has always gone far over his head. He doesn’t get how you pull a mystical beast out of thin air, but then…he’s got his own abilities that don’t make too much sense to other people either.

“You think that’ll work?” he asks hesitantly.

“I think it is worth a try,” Genji replies.

Hanzo nods decisively. “Then we will begin training tomorrow,” he declares, and without waiting for an answer, he whirls and scales the wall again in a flash, disappearing onto the roof. A moment later, a bot on the far side of the training grounds crumples into sparking metal.

“Unbelievable,” Jesse says irritably, and starts huffing on his cigar.

Genji seems apologetic even under the monotone of his visor. “I will watch him for you,” he says, “but I don’t believe he intends to betray us.”

“Even if he don’t,” Jesse mutters, reaching up to set his hat lower over his eyes, “can’t say I’ll take much liking to him.”

Genji laughs quietly. “Come shoot at me, cowboy,” he says, beckoning with two fingers as he turns towards the unoccupied side of the training arena. Jesse sighs and follows, pride feeling bruised, but he stands between two bots without complaint and lets Genji deflect his bullets to them.

It feels as though he hasn’t laid eyes on McCree in ages. In reality, it’s something like five months, but the time is such a slog in his desperation for contact that it feels like an eternity. It feels, he’s noticed, that he’s merely existing until that moment he spots McCree on the field, and it’s only then that he truly comes alive.

New Overwatch has invaded Monaco under the cover of darkness, most likely for reconnaissance than for actual assault. Something, the Reaper suspects, has led them to believe that Talon has connections with Null Sector, and Maximillian’s offshore accounts could be traced easily enough if the old blood thought to look…or if there was a rat among Talon operatives. Either is believable enough.

Not that it matters. What matters is that this means McCree has been brought to his metaphorical doorstep; Akande didn’t state exactly how they came to know Overwatch intended to investigate, but the Reaper took the order to guard Maximilien without complaint. 

And now he has McCree nearly in his grasp again, short on ammunition and dressed all pretty just for him, in a dark patterned suit and serape, his face hidden by silky blue.

“I’m cornered,” McCree rasps into his earpiece. The leather of his gloves creaks against the handle of his revolver, his metal fingers pinging softly against bullet casings as he reloads, fast as ever.

Laughter nearly bubbles from the Reaper’s throat. He can’t imagine what McCree expects any of his team to do. They’d never reach him in time, never have and never will. He slips to smoke and reforms, blocking off the end of the street and advancing slow, his march even and deliberate while he takes his time and watches McCree grow flustered and angry as he nears.

“Tell me why you’re doin’ this!” McCree shouts. “It’s because I left, ain’t it? Answer me, damn you!”

The Reaper casts his guns aside. McCree is too good at weaving around his shots, and he likes to use his hands more, anyway. McCree flinches as they clatter to the asphalt, fans the hammer too early. The Reaper dissolves again before the bullets hit their mark–and they would’ve, at his chest, collarbones, two at his throat and then finally, between his eyes—and McCree swears, reloading with magnificently steady hands.

But the Reaper descends on him just as he flicks the cylinder shut, snatches up the cowboy’s wrists and shoves him back against the wall of the casino. McCree grunts at the impact, his hat knocked askew and his scarf slipping from his face. The Reaper’s attention is stolen, just for a moment, to a cut on his cheek, shallow and healed but still faintly pink, like a bullet grazed him.

A ragged breath from McCree draws him back to the present. 

“Tell me why you’re doin’ this,” McCree says between his teeth. 

The Reaper’s last impulses were too much, apparently. This wasn’t going to be as fun if McCree kept interrupting their dance by asking him questions. Like always, McCree was given an inch and elected to take a mile.

The thought drums in his head suddenly, nearly distracts him from a familiar prickle at the back of his neck. It’s that same prickle he gets when he knows Widowmaker is looking at him through her scope, but…

McCree jerks his head to the side, and the Reaper sinks into ash just in time to avoid an arrow aimed at the back of his hood. But something catches; he wasn’t quite quick enough, he didn't pay enough attention. His mask doesn’t follow him when he moves, and the arrow pins it cleanly to the wall above McCree’s shoulder like an ornament. 

Rage clouds his vision. He’s been exposed, made vulnerable. Someone has interrupted him. Someone has fucking interrupted him. He reforms in a crouch, smoke spilling out of his clothes, and quickly covers his face, but it’s not enough. McCree sees the ruined, twisted skin around his eyes and gasps.

He hears light but hurried footsteps at his six, a snarl rising from deep within his throat. He whirls.

“Wait!” McCree shouts, though to him or to his approaching ally is unclear. He sounds very much like he’s about to choke.

The Reaper pauses and peers up through parted fingers, watching McCree’s face shift from horror to a pained and resigned acceptance, his brown eyes threatening to spill tears.

“Gabriel,” McCree says, voice thick and wavering, almost pleading. “Gabriel—”

The headache returns sharply, like McCree struck him. His stomach twists hard, the same twist after each time he killed the man, the same and worse. His own name pounds in his ears, or his heart does. Had he forgotten it? His name? He hasn’t thought of his own name for a long time, not since he woke on a table as Moira pumped him full of her poisons, not since—

The pain overwhelms him. He aches, he aches, his body, his mind. His gear burns at his skin, his skin feels like it’s sloughing off, the frame of him is collapsing into black ash—

He screams and flees in wisps of smoke, past the casino and the archer that stands waiting in the street. When he rematerializes, far enough away that the noise and lights from the casino can’t reach him, Gabriel doubles over and vomits.

“Why did you stand there gaping like a fool?!” Hanzo demands. “We had him!” 

Jesse stumbles out into the street, face stricken and gun slack on his hand. His eyes flit desperately over dark street corners, but the Reaper has already vanished without a trace.

Hanzo grips his arm suddenly and jerks him back, away from the open streets, and Jesse is so shaken that his body offers no resistance. Hanzo roughly whirls him around, furious. 

“You could have been killed!” he snaps. “Why did you not shoot?”

“You don’t get it,” Jesse says, pleading, his face pale. The Reaper’s —Gabriel’s— red eyes burned in his memory. He presses his hat down on top of his head, as if he might somehow lose it in his budding panic. “You don’t get it, it’s really him, he’s really alive… god, his face—”

Hanzo squeezes his arm so tight it hurts. “You need to tell me who he is,” he says sharply. “No more of this ‘someone you knew’ nonsense! I must know what I am up against if you are going to keep freezing up or stopping me when I’m protecting you!”

Jesse’s throat tightens so badly that he can only respond in a half-sob, tears welling up so suddenly that it surprises him about as much as it surprises Hanzo. “He’s supposed to be dead,” he insists, weak. “I saw the news. They listed him among the dead. I mourned him. I’m still mournin’ him.” He puts a hand over his eyes, cool metal against his flushed skin. “I knew it…first time I saw him I knew it, but I couldn’t…”

Hanzo appears taken aback by the sudden outburst of emotion, his mouth hanging open like he’s unsure of what to say before he finally lets out a slow exhale and releases Jesse’s arm. “We will discuss this later,” he says, leaving no room for argument, though his voice has softened a bit. “Dry your face. The others will ask questions.”

Jesse sniffs hard and tugs his scarf up high enough to dry his eyes, then repositions his hat so they aren’t visible at all. 

Back at base, Hanzo gives Winston a mission report in Jesse’s stead. Jesse waits to be asked for a second account, but Hanzo, apparently, gives such detail that it’s deemed unnecessary, and he’s left with the blissful privilege of suffering in peace.

Snipers are turning out to be a very consistent pain in the Reaper’s ass.

The incident in Monaco was the first of many. Killing McCree is suddenly impossible. Each time he tries, there's an arrow at his head. These aren’t shots that could kill him any more than a bullet could, but it distracts him, stops him from forming maneuvers he’d ordinarily be free to, which in turn allows McCree time to escape.

Not that he tries particularly hard to escape. It seems now that he’s more interested than ever in getting close, more interested in shouting a name the Reaper hasn’t used in years. It sickens him to hear it, makes his stomach twist into knots and his heart leap up into his throat, kicks his pulse into overdrive when it was all but nonexistent before.

Even worse, perhaps, is the way McCree and the archer—one Hanzo Shimada, the Reaper discovers—fall in tandem on the field. That’s always been a talent of McCree’s, the ability to fall into rhythm with whoever happened to be by his side, but this is…this is recurrent. This is the result of practice, training. Partners.

It makes rage roll in his gut, watching them improve together. The differences in each encounter are subtle enough that an untrained eye would hardly notice, but he sees it clear as day. He can see them starting to trust each other, can see how Shimada’s arrows can nearly touch McCree and earn no flinch, just as well as Genji’s shuriken could.

However well McCree survived going solo, he always excelled most in small teams, in duos or trios that made up for his few shortcomings. It boils the Reapers blood to know that Shimada—both of them, but especially the elder—suited him so well.

He thinks back every now and then, to the look on McCree’s face when Shimada pinned his mask to the wall, to the crack in his voice. Gabriel.

His stomach twists, and a migraine rolls in faster than he can blink.

“I will not accept this,” Hanzo insists, storming into Gibraltar’s debriefing room after having received his mission assignment. He plays at composed, though anger plainly lines his features. “You will cripple him if you send him in without me.”

Winston startles at his entry, then blinks and sighs, adjusting his glasses. “Hello, Hanzo,” he says, resigned. “It's only because you and Genji are our only real stealth agents. The rest of us aren’t uh…particularly skilled at slipping into places completely undetected.”

“Do not falsify information to convince me to go,” Hanzo bites out. “McCree is a former black operative. He has worked well enough with my brother in the past. Send him in my stead.”

“McCree tends to be…loud,” Winston says, trying his best to put it gently. “And it takes equipment for him to scale buildings, unlike you two.”

Hanzo seems flustered for a moment, trying to think up a new argument on the fly. The holomap of the mission’s location is already laid out across a table, detailing pieces in the architecture that will allow him and Genji footholds. McCree wouldn’t be able to scale something like that easily, or not fast enough to avoid detection, at least.

“He can’t be much more use to us dead,” he protests finally.

“There’s no guarantee the Reaper will be at McCree’s location,” Winston argues. He motions at the table. “We’ve sent you both out plenty of times without a confrontation. Baptiste is very capable, but we can send Mercy out with them if it'd make you feel better.”

Hanzo stabs a finger in Winston’s direction, a harsh wrinkle in his nose and his teeth visibly grit. “Your medics have not protected him once,” he snaps. “I have. He does not need healing, he needs prevention. I demand you send me with him.”

Winston looks tired. “We’re spread really thin right now, Hanzo,” he explains. “We don’t have a lot of funding or public favor. I can’t risk missions, especially stealth missions, going bad because of personal preference. I understand your worry, I really do, but…I can’t make calls as if we don’t have the Caduceus system to lean on.”

Hanzo lets out a string of swears in Japanese. 

Winston winces. “It’s…only the one time,” he offers. “If that helps.”

“It doesn’t,” Hanzo replies coldly, and spins on his heel towards the door.

They return, often, to King’s Row.

Akande remains determined to establish control in the area, never more so than after the omnic underground decided they would pursue peace over conflict. It is people most desperate for survival, he insisted, that would be the catalyst he desires, but for that desire to come to fruition, they must be kept desperate. Pushed.

The Reaper has grown to despise King’s Row. Despite the fact that its sprawling buildings provided him many advantages, he hated it because it became a damn haven for snipers. Specifically, it became a haven for Hanzo Shimada.

All this damn British architecture is laden with footholds, high vantage points, and long sightlines, which means that for every corner the Reaper could back McCree into, there is a minimum three spots from which Shimada could take aim at him. What used to be a perfect place for the Reaper became a nightmare, and he can’t even depend on Widowmaker to keep Shimada busy because she's too often occupied with dueling a vengeful Lena Oxton. 

The culmination of it all has him grinding his teeth. Even the mere thought of Shimada is near enough to set him off. And worse, it was  becoming more and more difficult for him to determine the nature of the archer’s relationship with McCree. Sure, McCree could work well with just about anyone, but what about Shimada? The once-prince of a vicious yakuza clan and a talented assassin can’t possibly have that strong of a moral code, so what exactly was it that caused him to reject Talon’s offers and advancements in favor of Overwatch if he really wasn’t inclined to run solo? And if the answer was as simple as a reconciliation with his brother, why did he have such a vested personal interest in McCree?

He blinks then, perplexed by his own thoughts, his own incessant waves of jealousy. Does it honestly matter? Shimada is an obstacle. An annoyance. What does it matter what the reasons are? The Reaper has more important things to think on. He shouldn’t care. He doesn’t.

A migraine blossoms out from the base of his skull, as if to argue with him.

“Report,” he grumbles into his comms, gritting his teeth.

Widowmaker’s smooth voice comes through crackled, a snippy have patience in French. She sounds entirely unhurried, which only grates his nerves all the more. There is silence, and then, “I have eyes on their dropship…it seems they have already departed.”

It’s close enough to hear the hum of the engines. He knows the tactic already—drop to the roofs, leap across the nearest ones until you could rappel down close by. McCree is lead, then.

More silence. After a moment, Widowmaker says, “Traitor spotted,” with the mildest tinge of amusement. 

“The sniper,” the Reaper bites out impatiently.

“He would not be much of a sniper,” she replies cooly, “if I could find him immediately.”

He snarls quietly, taps his foot.

“...Mercy spotted, flanked by Zaryanova and Pharah.”

He taps faster.

“Tracer.” A hint of annoyance, so faint it may as well not have been there.

The anger swells.

“Your cowboy.”

And like that, it’s gone.

New Overwatch has never operated with more than six team members. Sometimes there were fewer, but never more. McCree makes six. 

Shimada isn’t here.

Oblivious to the glee that courses through him, Widowmaker keeps talking into comms. “Sombra,” she says, “What is your position?”

“Where I’m supposed to be, araña. You know I’m all over it.”

He didn’t dare hope. He almost doesn’t dare to be pleased. He’s gotten so lucky. No distractions. No interruptions. No Hanzo Shimada.

“Maintain position,” Widowmaker replies, swinging her scope towards each Overwatch member as they weave in and out of her sights.

“Might want to hurry, barrendero,” Sombra goads. “They’re going to reach the supplies soon.”

“Move out,” the Reaper responds, almost immediate, and if they say anything else to him, he misses it.

Unlike recent times, McCree fights hard. There’s a new drive to him, a different flavor of determination in the way he moves that the Reaper thinks he likes, but it’s overshadowed by the way McCree shouts at him. While the Reaper revels in the harshness of his blows, he shudders too, at the way Jesse begs him to say something, the way he calls him by that name again, the way his voice sounds as though he aches down to his bones.

He swipes McCree’s legs out from under him, after he’s corralled the man away all sweet and alone. McCree’s back hits the ground and the Reaper pounces before he has a chance to recover, tangles claw-tipped fingers in Jesse’s hair when his hat falls away.

“Gabriel—!” McCree manages with a wheeze of breath, and the impact of it all—the familiarity, the way they fall on top of each other, the hands twined in wavy brown, quick breaths and Jesse McCree crying his name—snaps what little control he has left.

He realizes belatedly, the way an outside observer might realize what he’s seeing from a distance, that he is bashing McCree’s head against the pavement. He watches, dissociative, as he keeps doing it until blood pools, until it makes wet hair stick and tug at his gloves. 

He sits there for a moment, still straddling McCree’s chest, shoulders heaving as he comes down from the high. Smoke slips from beneath his armor,  bruises healing from where McCree struck him. One at his gut throbs, left there sometime during his haze of rage when McCree tried to force him off. His head pounds in time with it, memories prodding rapidly at his temples.

Another burst of faulty impulse: he bends over McCree’s body, presses a hard kiss to his slack mouth. His throat thickens. He tastes copper from McCree’s tongue, registers it as blood. He reels back and stumbles to his feet, his breath coming out half-choked, shaken, his stomach swimming and his heart stuttering to panicked life.

McCree lies at his feet, still and broken open.

He slips into wraith and flees, leaving the body there in the road, ignoring the angry crackling of his communicator and the masculine voice that calls urgently for McCree not to far away. He floats and crawls through King’s Row blindly until he finds an alley that hides him away from Overwatch, from Widowmaker’s scope, from the accusing face of the grand clock, sinks to his knees there and rips off his mask and bloody gloves before his body even fully regains its shape.

His stomach twists. He throws up.

“Agent Hanzo,” Athena begins in that irritatingly calm intonation, “Winston is currently in a meeting with—”

“I do not care,” Hanzo snaps, and storms into the meeting room anyway.

Winston and Jesse stand over the map of King’s Row, his team crowded around them as they go over the mission plan’s successes and failures. Across the map are holographic stills of the present members, scattered across the streets and facing off against Talon forces. Jesse’s figure is far off from the others, cornered away by a ghastly figure in black. 

The real thing looks haggard, bags under his eyes and his skin pale with stress, his hair wild and blood caked. His team’s been back all of thirty minutes; none of them have showered prior to debriefing, their armor sporting dirt and new scuffs and dents. 

The group collectively looks up in time to see Hanzo’s brow twitch with rage.

“Hanzo,” Jesse starts. 

“Let me guess,” Hanzo interrupts. “You are fresh from the grave.”

Jesse’s shoulders slump, and he squeezes his eyes shut and sighs as if he’s too tired to argue.

Winston clears his throat. “Hanzo,” he tries, “I know you’re upset—”

“I will not be placated by whatever you have to say,” Hanzo snaps. He all but stomps closer, stabbing a finger at the tiny cowboy on the map. “What is the meaning of this?”

Winston exhales. Jesse’s team all find something more interesting to stare at: the walls, the computer screens, and most popularly, the floor. 

After a moment, Baptiste speaks up, his brows knitted tight. “It’s my fault,” he says. “I couldn’t get to him in time.”

“Is that so?” Hanzo replies, folding his arms. “And what of the rest of you? Where was your attention while your squad leader was being stolen away?”

The rest of them flinch. Zarya sets her jaw, Hana’s fists tighten at her side, and Lena wraps her arms around herself.

Hanzo scoffs, motioning to the four of them with blatant disapproval. “You all spouted such optimism,” he sneers, “about saving the entire world from Null Sector, but a single Talon agent is enough to completely dismantle all coordination between you!” 

Baptiste scowls. “The Reaper is no mere Talon agent.”

“He is a Talon agent you must defeat if you intend to pursue this goal,” Hanzo says sharply. “What use is this pathetic group, otherwise?”

“Hanzo,” Jesse snaps. “That’s enough. Leave ‘em be.” 

Hanzo narrows his eyes at him. Jesse returns his glare, and for a moment it’s awkwardly silent except for the quiet hum of the holomap.

“Understand this,” Hanzo says, eyes sliding to Winston with a thin veneer of restraint. “Until this nonsense with the Reaper stops, you will not send him out without me again, or I will leave you without a sniper while Talon possesses a master. Am I clear?”

Winston presses his mouth into a flat line. “I can’t promise nothing will come up while you’re away.”

“Am. I. Clear?” Hanzo repeats, louder.

More silence, then another sigh. “Crystal,” Winston says, making an ‘ok’ sign, too weary to keep fighting him on it.

“Good,” Hanzo replies, satisfied and with a clear air of vindication about him. “I trust I will not have to have this discussion again.” He turns his gaze back to Jesse, scowl set firmly on his face. “You and I will speak about how to address this problem later.”

He spins on his heel and exits before Jesse, or anyone else for that matter, has an opportunity to reply. A heavy silence follows his departure, during which Jesse becomes some approximation of the elephant in the room.

He pinches the bridge of his nose. “Don’t pay him any mind,” he says. “Fancy assassins might be able to go toe to toe with Gabriel, but most of y’all don’t have that sort of training yet—”

“This Gabriel,” Zarya interrupts. “He is old Overwatch, yes? That is your relation?”

Hana blinks, watching every face in the room darken aside from Zarya’s. “Wait,” she says, incredulous. “You mean like…Gabriel Reyes? The war criminal guy?”

Jesse exhales hard and looks away. “Look, just forget it,” he mutters. “You’re all dismissed. Go shower.”

The four of them glance at each other and at Winston, who shrugs, before slowly shuffling out of the room. As he passes, Baptiste puts a hand on Jesse’s shoulder, to which Jesse only habitually tips his chin down as if to cover his eyes with the brim of his unworn hat.

Lena pauses too, her fingers laced together in obvious discomfort. “Jesse…” she says.

“Leave it be,” Jesse says quietly, and turns towards the door, not putting too much stock in the fact that this exposes his bloody hair to those he squeezes past.

It is starting, as with any addiction, to not be enough.

The months in between seeing McCree are torturous but blurred. It seems at times that he’s all the Reaper can think about as soon as his thoughts are left idle enough to wander. His insatiable desire manifests despite Talon’s best efforts, first in the gritting of his teeth underneath his mask and the incessant tapping of clawed fingers against any available surface, and growing in severity until it inevitably culminates into another mission gone wrong.

The want of it burns him, aches throughout his body and makes his slow heart stagger to racing. He craves the succulent signs of McCree’s fear, the sweat at his brow, the sweet stutter of his breath, the leaps in his pulse, the strain in his muscle..

He finds his chance in Lijiang.

He won’t be lucky again, he’s sure. The archer will be nearby if McCree is on the field. This will not stop the Reaper from desperately scouring the area for that red serape, nor from advancing towards it. He needs it, thirsts for it. This time, it will feel good. This time he will get that old satisfaction from killing McCree. This time his body will not violently reject the coppery taste of blood. 

This desperation clouds his judgment. Talon continues to go to great lengths to impede the decline. This intervention is not enough to stop him from walking into a trap.

He corners McCree easily. He’s so elated to even be near him that the ease doesn’t come across as manufactured, not until McCree stops fleeing to face him, gun arm slack and his free hand holding down his hat.

“I’ve been waitin’ for you,” McCree says, cautious but unwavering.

The Reaper stops. His heartbeat hums to life.

“Will you talk to me?” McCree asks gently, “Instead of this song and dance we’re doin’?”

The Reaper’s throat tightens. His stomach twists itself into knots. Smoke rolls off of his silhouette. For a moment, neither of them move. The Reaper feels…dissociative again, like his body isn’t attached to him. 

McCree seems to soften. The hand on his hat moves to hover hesitantly in front of him, like he wants to reach out but thinks better of it. “Are you in there, honeybee?” he asks tenderly.

Rage burns through him like a struck match, so quick and sudden that it makes the Reaper’s skin itch. “Don’t—!” he snarls, lurching forward, his whole body coiled tight. “Don’t call me that!” 

McCree raises his hands in surrender. His fingers are loose enough around the grip of his revolver that the Reaper realizes he’s not afraid. His own hands tighten on his shotguns so hard they hurt. 

“Alright, alright,” McCree says, placating. “I won’t. I know you’re sore at me.”

“Sore!”

“Sure,” McCree soothes. “‘Cause I run my mouth still, and ‘cause I left. Right?”

“You—!” the Reaper seethes, gritting his teeth. He feels himself breach the beginnings of falling apart, all of his senses out of alignment. He feels McCree’s honey-smooth voice taking him to pieces again, his form not in wraith but not solid either, a tower of sand ready to come crashing down at the slightest touch.

He reaches out—to forget again, to make it all stop, to shut McCree up—and then searing heat envelops him.

It’s over in nearly the same instant it starts, but even that is enough to feel like a small eternity. He sinks to the ground, gasping and writhing, slipping in and out of solidity and burning as though he was being dragged through a pit of hot coals. The vertigo washes over him in waves, his ears ringing, the smell of singed leather in his nose and his world off-kilter and hazy. Through wide eyes, he catches sight of McCree bathed in bright blue light, his image blurred over with twining scales that slowly fade and leave him untouched aside from mussed hair, his expression holding some strange combination of anguish and victory. 

Smoke pours from him as if he’s more vapor than human. He feels a crackle of buzzing electricity at the back of his neck and flinches, faintly hears the creak of a bowstring being drawn.

“Tempt me,” comes Hanzo Shimada’s voice, too close by for comfort. 

“Easy now,” McCree warns. There is a long, hesitant pause. Then: “Gabriel.”

The Reaper lets out a low, angry noise. His mask has fallen askew, his hood lopsided on his head, leaving him feeling so horrifically exposed that he may well be naked  here on his knees at McCree’s feet.

McCree lets out a watery exhale. “Oh, hell. Haven’t heard you sound so sick of me in years.”

“Fuck you,” the Reaper rasps, his metal claws scraping against the asphalt. “Fuck you.”

McCree crouches in front of him, his gun hanging uselessly between his knees, like the Reaper is no threat at all. “You’re cussin’ with his voice and glarin’ at me with his eyes,” he says mournfully, “but that ain’t really Gabriel talking, is it? They did something to you, didn’t they? Like they did to Lacroix.”

A growl bubbles out of his throat. Everything fades in and out of blackness. His fingers curl into fists, his head hanging between his shoulders.

“Let me help you, Gabe,” McCree pleads, quiet like he wants this private, just between them. “I know you.”

Every cell in his body seems to lurch with pain. The Reaper screams in an agony borne of two places, dissolving entirely into smoke and fleeing through and away from the tower in a stream of ash.

When he reforms, everything spins. His knees give out. His lungs strain for air, his panicked body refusing to supply it to him. 

He thinks about what he would’ve done if Shimada appeared only a second later, what he could’ve done if the archer did not stop him. He imagines with stark clarity the way he would’ve held McCree’s throat, the way his face would’ve flushed, the way his eyes would’ve rolled back.

His stomach twists in painful knots, and this time he can’t help but interpret it as a most bitter relief.