Silver N' Gold - Chapter 19 - KittenzCaboodle (2024)

Chapter Text

❢◥ ▬▬▬ ◆ ▬▬▬ ◤❢

Faruq’s eyes ached as he stepped out of the closet and back out into the brightly lit room. He briefly shielded them, being mindful of the laptop he carried. His sense of time was always warped when he had to hunker down somewhere odd for video calls - While it had only been a few minutes, it felt like he had been in that closet for, like, almost 3 years.

He stopped in the kitchen area, grabbing himself a can of tea, in addition to a small bottle of orange juice. Then, he continued to the garage, where he could hear the sounds of tinkering growing louder the closer he drew.

Peering through the open door, he paused, eyes widening at the sight and now making him question truly how long he had been in that closet. He had known that Efi was innovating all throughout this week but this… this wasn’t what he had expected.

Orisa looked… different. Gone were the horns she had so proudly worn, cables were tied together in their place at the top of her head now. Her drum sat powerless, dull, on the floor, forgotten. The shield that had been a staple of the OR-15 sat active at the edge of the garage, cracks in the hardlight showing it had been recently used for target practice.

Agent Elmahdy sat on the steps leading into the garage, leaning comfortably against the doorway. Usually, he waited for Efi to talk to him, but eyeing the discarded metal stuff and pieces around the garage prompted him to ask.

“Updating her?” he asked carefully, having learned that Efi considered this OR-15 a close friend, much more than the tool it had been created as.

Efi was quiet as she tightened a screw, ignoring him. He was used to this.

“I brought you a drink.” he said, failing to get her attention, “It’s orange juice. With the pulp.”

That had her busy hands stilling, glancing at him out of the corner of her eye. He wiggled the goods temptingly, hand extended to offer them to her. When she was working, she tended to tune him out, but he had learned a few things in his observations. Her weakness for pulp-filled orange juice being one of them.

She paused, seemingly evaluating the situation. The garage was very hot, she had been working very hard and she was very very thirsty. After doing some mental calculations, she apparently decided that a quick (very quick) break would not hurt and would in fact be beneficial for her.

Setting her tools down, she stepped closer and carefully took the item out of his hand. Faruq’s own hand now free, he cracked open his can of tea and took a sip.

“You’re hard at work,” he commented after swallowing, subtly trying to prompt her, “Having any luck?”

“I’m not sure,” she replied, twisting open the lid of the cool, refreshing drink.

“Huh. Out of everyone, I figured you would be the most sure,” Faruq said, “She is of your creation after all.”

“She is evolving. New territory now. Trying out a lot of new tech, altering her skills,” Efi replied idly, “I will have to see how it all works and how I can make it better.”

Her phrasing caught Faruq’s attention. “Improving her skills? Or sincerely altering them?” he asked, hands itching to open up his laptop and start taking notes.

He knew the moment he did, the well of conversation would dry up, so he resisted. He would have to commit what he could to memory and write it all down for his report later.

“Changing,” Efi confirmed, swallowing a thick sip of her drink, “Not all. Some. Improving the others.”

“What needed to be changed?” Faruq asked, taking in the cracked shield and discarded bongo with a fresh look, “I thought she was the defender of Numbani.”

“ Defender … that’s the problem,” Efi said, “I want her to be a protector.”

Her tone, the way she spat out the word defender… this did not go unnoticed.

“What’s the difference?” Faruq asked, trying to be casual as he sipped on his drink. This was the longest conversation they had had so far, since she had been returned, and he was really trying not to blow this chance.

“To defend , you must be attacked .” Efi said simply, “But to protect? You do as needed.”

She motioned to the cracked shield. “A shield is useless if others go around it, if they break it… it is too passive .”

Then she pointed to the bongo. “And that? It is made for empowering others to fight by your side. That relies on others to be there, to be willing to fight, to be able to,” she said, “Relying on others is a weakness, relying on that - something destructible, temporary - is weakness.”

There was something unsettling Faruq as they talked, but he couldn't quite place it. Something about the way that she spoke just now… it was different from the interviews he had seen. She looked tired now, but sleepless nights spent tinkering away would do that to anyone.

“So those… those are being altered,” Elmahdy said with an understanding nod, “Have you decided replacements or are you still trying things out?”

She ignored his question, instead replying with one of her own.

“How do you stop a man who can destroy a skyscraper in a single punch?” Efi asked him suddenly, catching the agent by surprise.

Faruq wasn’t sure if he was expected to answer. “I don’t-”

“How do you catch a man who breaks through the walls of his cell and refuses to be contained?" She continued, gaze now lingering on Orisa, "How do you beat someone determined to be undefeatable?" How do you protect a world, your world , from someone that wants to destroy it all? ”

With a sigh, she sipped at her orange juice, savoring the pulp in her mouth momentarily before she swallowed it.

“I make him stronger. That’s what he said,” she said sadly, finally turning her gaze towards Faruq, “Every time there is a draw, he somehow still wins. Every time.”

It stunned Faruq how the young girl’s eyes looked so far older than her years. The excitement of youth that should have been there had been lost to the weight of growing up too much too fast.

She paused, taking another small sip. “I’m sorry,” she said to him quietly, looking back out towards her workshop.

Faruq didn’t understand what she was saying. “Sorry?” he asked, confused, “What do you have to be sorry about? There’s nothing that you need to apologize for.”

If anything Faruq felt like he should be apologizing to her , as a representative of Helix. Helix had come to protect her. And Helix had failed.

Instead a third-party had to step in and try to save her. A third-party whom Helix was actively hunting as a wanted man. A wanted man that Faruq had let go free.

He prayed that he had made the right decision in the heat of the moment. Either Cole Cassidy was a world-class liar or the most sincere man in the world. The look in his eyes when he said that Overwatch was trying to come back… It was an honest look. The emotion was unclear, clouded by the intensity of their encounter, but for a criminal, he had honest eyes.

But even still, had Cassidy been the one to save Efi? Or had Doomfist just… let her go?

Efi shook her head, loose curls bouncing. “No, there is so much I should apologize for. How much harder have I made your lives by making him stronger? How many deaths have I caused by strengthening him and motivating him to be his worst? How many? ”

Faruq tried his best to reassure her. “Miss Oladele, that- You didn’t hurt anyone-”

“You don’t have to tell me,” she said so softly her voice was almost a whisper, “...I already know.”

A voice so quiet that a gentle breeze could have stolen it away, a voice full of nothing but utter despair.

I already know .

One sentence, one quiet little sentence, and Faruq could feel chills shivering down his spine. How much did she know? How did she know? And how many of Helix’s many injuries and deaths at Talon’s hands did she wrongly feel she was responsible for?

She turned around to face him, large brown eyes staring deep into his soul. “I hacked into Helix’s network.” She admitted, motioning towards his computer, “I needed some information, different information, but- and I saw… I saw how many... I didn’t mean to.”

There were about ten different things that she said that made Faruq’s brain want to short-circuit. He probably chose the wrong one to latch onto.

“You hacked into Helix’s network?” he asked, glancing down at his own computer. When would she have had the chance? When would she have had the time ?

She could see the confusion and clear question on his face, and did not make him wait for an answer, instead explaining -

“Not using that old thing, no, but I did use your connection to-” she paused, eyes momentarily flicking to his computer, “It would probably be easiest for us both if you didn’t include this in your report.”

“You hacked into Helix’s network?” he asked again, clutching the computer more tightly to his chest. How many levels of fired was he going to be when they found out what he let happen-

“Just a database or two. Or three. I wanted Helix’s notes,” she explained, “I had some time after dinner one day, so I took a small peek. Admittedly, please do not take this personally, hacking into Overwatch’s was harder.”

“You hacked into Overwatch’s network?” Faruq then asked, hand coming to rest on his forehead. If nothing else, then this did seem to somewhat confirm what that criminal he had let walk away had said. Overwatch was at least semi-intact. Enough for there to be something worth hacking for, at least.

Efi grew quiet. “It really would be best to not include this information on your report.” she said softly.

With that, Faruq had to agree.

“Yes, all that you just said might be, uh, best to… skip over,” Faruq hesitantly agreed, “But I do need to know how much- what you looked at. Tell me.”

She hesitated, shoulders shrinking like a child whose hand had been caught in a cookie jar. “Doomfist’s file mainly.”

That last word didn’t escape Faruq’s notice. “Mainly?”

“I also looked at Helix’s research into energy-channeled weaponry, but it didn’t help.” she admitted, “I already knew all of what you had. I’m a bit ahead, honestly.”

“Are you now?” Faruq asked curious, “Is that research part of your upgrade of the OR-15?”

She hesitated. “Are you going to tell them if I tell you?”

“Am I going to report it, you’re asking?” Faruq said slowly, “I may have to-”

“Then I’m not saying and our conversation is done,” she said abruptly, standing up suddenly.

Faruq’s eyes grew wide at the reply. His job was to talk with Efi and gauge how she was doing, what she was doing was secondary. This was the most she had opened up to him so far - he didn’t quite understand why she clammed up so suddenly.

“Why?” he asked.

“Because if I tell you, you’ll report it, and if you report it, others will see it,” she said simply, “I trust you, Mr. Elmahdy, but I do not trust Helix will be able to keep this information to themselves, and that will simply. not. do.”

Hearing that she trusted him was a huge step forward. “Who do you think we would tell?” he asked gently.

“You wouldn’t tell anyone, but it would be taken by the snakes who fight for Helix, but don’t fight for Helix.” she said, “Not every apple is sweet. Some lay rotten at the bottom of the barrel, and they ruin it for all.”

“You think there’s a traitor in Helix?” Elmahdy asked, catching on.

“There was a traitor in Overwatch, many, to take them down, and Helix, I’m sorry, is nowhere near as good as Overwatch. You don’t even have a tv show. ” Efi said, as if this was the defining factor, “But you are the closest thing to Overwatch, so that means you have to go, Talon says.”

If you had asked Agent Elmahdy before this mission, he would have told you that Helix was invincible and full of heroes in the making, people who saved lives. But two warnings in such a short period was hard to ignore, and it made him wonder if it had been like this at Overwatch too. Had they also not been able to see the forest for the trees until they all came crashing down?

The agent closed his eyes, thinking, and sighed. He placed his laptop down on the tile floor behind him and pushed it, letting it slide on the tiles and out of reach.

“No reporting, no writing it down, just listening,” he told Efi, “No papertrail to be found.”

She leaned over and looked at the laptop behind him.

“You promise?” she asked, stepping closer.

“I do.” he nodded sincerely.

“ Pinky promise?” she asked, holding her hand out towards him. His pinky gently interlocked with hers and one firm shake was given.

“Pinky promise,” he swore.

The bond of a pinky promise was eternal, one that would forever bind two souls to this moment.

She looked at him, only hesitating for a moment. It was deserved; Efi had been let down by Helix enough times already. He knew what she was risking to give him this chance.

Everything.

She was risking everything.

All because she was hoping for at least one person she could trust, confide in, and maybe even call a friend.

“Where to begin?” she murmured, turning back to face Orisa.

Faruq raised his eyebrows at this. Efi had been working tirelessly, it seemed, but only for a few days. Had she really made so many changes in that short time that she was unsure where to start? What sort of possession had had her in its grip? Had she even been sleeping?

Probably not. She probably couldn’t even sleep, not after the nightmare she had been through. And if she couldn’t sleep, then she would be working, not wanting to waste any time.

Faruq had learned a few things about Efi since their short time interacting, and one of them was she never missed an opportunity. If productivity had a picture in the dictionary, Efi’s face would be the one right beside it.

He leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees, as he watched her ponder. He waited patiently, unsure (and unprepared) for what was to come.

“Well…” Efi said, pausing a moment before she continued, “As you can see, her shield and bongo have been discarded.”

Faruq nodded, eyes drifting back to the two items that stood in the corner of her makeshift workshop. The bongo and shield had been a notable staple of Orisa’s design. To see them broken, scrapped for parts, was jarring and, though he couldn’t put his finger on why, worrisome.

Efi stared at him as if she was waiting for him to interrupt. Or maybe she was making sure that he was sticking with his promise to not document the conversation. Either way, no matter what she was looking for, she was satisfied enough to continue.

“Instead, they have been swapped for a more proactive method, to work alongside her fortify ability, which was kept. It was effective against Doomfist, unlike the other abilities. It can be a good first step to stopping him if he dares to come back,” she rambled as her eyes scanned the floor. She was looking for something, and talking absent-mindedly as she did.

She held her orange juice out, silently asking for Faruq to hold it. Most of the surfaces around were covered and full of Efi’s tinkering, so unless she wanted to put it on the floor, something it seemed like she had briefly considered, Faruq was her only option.

He silently obliged her, holding her drink in his free hand as he continued to sip at his own. His eyes were locked onto Efi, and watched as she walked back over to Orisa, picking up something that was just out of view to him, on the other side of a table.

He straightened up, concerned, as he heard her grunt and struggle to lift the item. She was nearly getting unbalanced and taken down by its weight, whatever it was.

It was nothing short of a miracle that he managed to keep his mouth shut when she stepped back into view, lugging a massive metal spear that was longer than she was tall. His body tensed, his eyes widened, but he managed to bite back the concerned questions that had started climbing up his throat.

Maybe there was a good explanation for it? Maybe it was not a spear, but rather a channeling mechanism? Efi had said that she was looking into energy-channeled weaponry, so that could serve as a conductor of sorts?

“This is the upgrade,” Efi finally said, stepping back towards Orisa with it.

“Oh?” Faruq said, finding his voice again, “What does it do?”

She looked at him like he was a touch slow. “It’s a javelin,” she said flatly, “What do you think it's meant to do?"

“A javelin?” he repeated, disheartened. A javelin was just a spear of a a different name.

Orisa and Efi had specialized in their non-lethal methods, their passive (as Efi had put it) defense of the city. But a javelin? With a sharp point like that? That had potential to be very lethal.

It was the opposite of what Efi and Orisa were known for. It made him worry about what other changes Efi had made, and just now dangerous they were too.

“So… She- You-....you have her throw it at people?” Faruq asked carefully. “It looks… quite… heavy.” He had wanted to say sharp, but had held his tongue. Part of him didn’t want to hear her elaborate on what such a sharp spear was to be used for. He could guess.

“It is very heavy. To me, anyway. Not as much to Orisa.” Efi confirmed, “ It is made of Folcantium. Quite study”

Faruq knew that word. He wracked his brain, pulling from some long ago material he had studied for his Helix entrance exam. He remembered.

“Folcantium? That… That is what the hull of the OR-15's is made from, isn't it?” he asked. Was Orisa using a spear made from fallen OR-15’s? That was kind of… hardcore, in a weird, worryingly impressive way.

She nodded. “I had some scrap pieces around, to help repair Orisa when I was rebuilding her. I didn't need all of them anymore, just a few small pieces as this new form will be invincible, so I melted them down to make the javelin.” She said, “It is sturdy. One of the strongest metals around, but not the heaviest.”

Her phrasing was interesting. Something that piqued Faruq's attention.

“What metal is the heaviest?” He asked.

“Technically, Osmium is the heaviest.” She told him, “And that is correct... Even if I don't always think so.”

Faruq wasn't sure what she meant by that. Had she foind something heavier?

Of course, leave it to Efi Oladele to have discovered a new element and just treat it like a regular Thursday for her.

Efi was frowning, the pensive look returning to her face. She shook her head lightly, jarring herself out of whatever thought was trying to take hold.

In a further effort to distract herself, she continued to brag about her renovations to Orisa.

“And the javelin it doesn't- it can- it also has other uses!” She said quickly, locking it into position into Orisa’s hand and taking a quick three large, hoppy steps backward. “She can also channel energy into it, achieve maximum rotational spin speed, which serves as an effective nullifier against projectiles, big and small, and can move forward while doing so. Much better than a shield.”

On the girls’s silent signal, Orisa quickly rotated her hand and spear, making it nothing more than a blur, which emitted a small glow. Faruq had felt the strong breeze from across the room, he could only imagine how it felt up close. He didn’t doubt Efi, he was certain it could do as she said.

“Small projectiles? Like bullets?” he asked. Efi nodded. He continued. “...Is…” His brow scrunched as he pondered, “Is Doomfist a projectile?”

It felt like a stupid question to ask, but considering how the man fought, literally yeeting his body into every fight, he suddenly wasn’t sure.

“Not in this case,” Efi said, which both frustratingly did and didn’t answer his question. “But as I’ve said, I’ve kept Orisa’s fortify in place. It will serve to nullify. Or, alternatively-”

Efi motioned, a simple point of the finger, and Orisa’s arm moved back. Then she flung the spear forward, the movement so quick that Faruq could hear it slice through the air. The spear stabbed into the discarded hardlight shield, cracks stretching across it further, and then fell to the ground. It glowed briefly, and flew back into Orisa’s hand. There had to be some kind of magnet that was powered by the energy channeling too. Smart.

“-A different method can be employed,” Efi said simply, “And once he is stunned, I’ve given Orisa the capability to overcharge her energy core and channel it into the javelin. She holds it up and rotates it, and then causes those stuck within-”

“Doomfist-” Faruq said worried about her use of a plural. Who else would ever be caught in that kind of attack?

“Right, Doomfist. Talon. Them. Him. ” Efi said disdainfully, continuing, “It would be quite difficult to escape, even for him. I would love to have Orisa demonstrate it for you, but it would probably tear a hole in the roof and crack the foundation, so it is probably best… not to do that.”

“Right. Shouldn’t do that.” Faruq agreed nervously. He almost hated to ask, but he had to know. “What about her head cables? What do they do?”

His mind was already speculating. Perhaps they had some hidden energy core-burst feature, and they funneled in additional emergency power when pulled, like a lawnmower. Or maybe they… maybe they shot lasers? They might shoot lasers-”

“Those? Oh, it’s nothing,” she said with a giggle.

Oh, they definitely shot lasers, didn’t they?

She continued, “It was just a simple redesign. To match Lucio’s style, because he’s my hero. Our hero,” she said, smiling back at Orisa, “He is a symbol of freedom. Hope. And I am hoping that Orisa can be too, even if just for me.”

She glanced back at him over her shoulder, grinning, “Plus, it looks pretty cool, right?”

Faruq waited a moment before he replied, making sure that no other hidden features, such as lasers, were mentioned. “Yes. Very cool. Stylish, even.”

He tried to keep the friendly smile on his face, but it was growing difficult. The moral ties of the pinky promise were weighing on him heavily now. It sounded like Efi had turned Orisa into a war machine.

This should be reported. Helix needed to know about these modifications. But to do so would betray her trust.

One question. He would ask her one question, and determine what to do from there.

“All this seems- is… quite impressive,” he said, trying to word it carefully, “Why did you change her so much, though? That’s… that’s a lot.”

Efi’s smile deflated, and he was worried that he had blown his chance. But a more pensive look came onto her face, and he realized that she was debating the question. Or, more importantly, how to answer.

She turned to face him and looked him right in the eye before she finally spoke, her voice quiet.

“If you had been told that everyone you care for was at risk, and had one chance to keep them safe, would you not try to do everything you could?” she asked, “Would you be able to live with yourself if you didn’t?”

Faruq’s head came to rest in his hand, his own tired eyes looking into Efi’s exhausted ones.

In such a short time, her heroes had let her down. The good guys wouldn’t have been able to win if Doomfist hadn’t let her go, not so easily. That had to have shaken her to her core, finding out that her heroes weren’t invincible, infallible, and that they couldn’t be relied on. If they couldn’t save her and her family, she would have to do so herself. It was almost a childish sentiment, but… it made sense.

He thought about his wife back home, about the daughter that they were about to bring into this world, and the life they had. It wasn’t perfect, nothing was, but it was cozy, sweet, familiar, and theirs ; he would do everything to protect it and the people he held so dear. How could he not?

Why would Efi not do the same? Why should she not get that same chance? As Efi had said, Helix could be compromised. If he reported this, he would be taking away her best chance.

He would tell Captain Amari, in person, when he returned to HQ. It wouldn’t be everything, just the general idea. Captain Amari was the only one that he could trust for sure. But it wouldn’t be officially reported, nowhere that Talon could get from a leak and learn about it.

“I wouldn’t,” he finally admitted, looking over the heavily modified OR-1-... Orisa. “So… you’re trying to win the game by changing all the rules?”

Efi’s face remained expressionless, but he didn’t like that distant look that crept into her eyes as she spoke. “He said I make him stronger. Every time we fight.” she said again, “This… It is all a gamble.”

“A gamble?” Faruq asked gently, tilting his head and resting his elbows on his knees, making himself smaller. He could recognize the thousand-yard stare in a traumatized child’s eyes. He had, unfortunately, seen it far too many times in his line of work.

Normally he would asses for injuries, scoop them up in a trauma blanket, and pass them off to someone who knew better. But in here? It was just her and him, a small child forced to bear burdens that far outweighed her and the only person around she trusted enough to talk shop with.

He knew how to comfort children in the brief moments he held them, a hug and reassurance would usually go a long way, but Efi was no normal child. Caught in the space between carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders and wanting to just be a kid, she was different. He didn’t know how to help her, but he would try to follow her lead if she gave him one.

She blinked back tears and straightened up. “Yes. If... If I make him stronger-, well, I mean, I changed everything . I changed it all. To try to stop him. But if it doesn’t?” she swallowed thickly, “If- If it does… then we’ll all be fine, but if it doesn’t? I don’t how strong he will grow. I don’t know how many others will die… But I don’t know what else to do. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, I really I am, I- just-”

She shook her head, as if trying to snap herself out of it, and straightened up. “But it will stop him. It has to.” she said decisively, “It will.”

Faruq took her cue. She didn’t want to linger on the topic, on the worry. It wasn’t healthy, but he wasn’t trained in a way to make it healthy, so there was no point in unplugging the dam if he had nothing to catch the water with. He would try to arrange something later, with someone that could help, but for now, it couldn’t be touched.

He could tell she was tired, and their conversation was drawing to a natural close. Perhaps soon after this, she would even take a nap. He would try to tempt her with cranberry juice if she didn’t, he heard that was great for sleep.

Their conversation ending, there was one last question lingering on Faruq’s mind.

“So, this will stop Doomfist. All of these pieces together or separate or…” he said, recalling her earlier question. “So is this how… exactly how do you stop a man who can destroy a skyscraper in a single punch?”

Efi stood tall, the tallest he had seen in a long time. Hands clasp behind her back, she gazed up at Orisa in adoration. Clearly proud of her work, she looked so pleased with herself despite the fatigue, like a child who had studied for many long nights and won their elementary school spelling bee.

“Simple. You can’t, ” she said, eyes still damp despite that that sad smile now beaming towards Faruq. “So you don’t let him have that punch, you don’t give him the chance-”

The chilling words were spoken without a hint of malice, recited as factual and logical statements, like the next step to take in a recipe. The soft childlike giggles of near delirious exhaustion, of the sadness of what she was about to say, that followed made it all the more horrifying.

Her teary but hopeful gaze moving back to Orisa, she continued. “You have to kill him where he stands.”

The words echoing in his head, Faruq’s blood ran cold as he finally realized who she sounded like now.

Doomfist.

She spoke just like Doomfist.

The man had gotten Efi exactly where he wanted her. He had pushed her to the brink and she was pushing back, just the way he had always planned.

Doomfist had lost every battle, but it was clear that he was winning the war, and still pulling the strings despite being hundreds of miles away.

The two of them were both gambling everything on the next encounter. Only time would tell who would come out on top.

»»——⍟——««

It should have been comforting for Cole to be back in the room he had rested in God knows how many times before.

Should have been relaxing to kick up his feet, rest on a soft mattress, and tuck an arm behind his head and pillow.

Should have been calming to keep tossing a small stress ball he had found left in the dresser, one shaped like a pig, up in the air in a repetitive motion.

But it wasn’t. None of it was.

His thoughts kept circling and Cole felt like a ticking clock. Twitchy, trying to move forward, but stuck in an endless loop of going around in circles, waiting for something to happen. Everything was moving too quickly and too slowly for his liking, and he got the feeling that nothing was going to be satisfying.

He had been trying to relax after the mission to grab the rifle prototype from the museum, and protect Efi. Trying. He couldn’t stop thinking about the encounter with Doomfist on the docks, even now, days later.

The man had been inches, centimeters, whatever measurement was smaller than that, away from killing him. He could have killed Cole using nothing more than the pinky finger on that gauntlet. Hell, being on the receiving end of just a sneeze from the man probably would have broken his leg.

So why had he stopped?

No, he hadn’t just stopped . He stepped back.

What could possibly exist on this earth that would make a superhuman man like Doomfist step back ?

It had to have been Hanzo, right? His Okami had been the only other still-alive person on that dock, other than Efi, of course. He was the only threat to be had.

Hanzo and Doomfist knew each other, at least well enough to know each other’s names, and know that they had no interest in aligning. And if Doomfist was certain that Hanzo wasn’t going to be an ally, that means he knew to regard him as a potential foe.

And even just the potential of Hanzo being an enemy in that moment was enough to force Doomfist into a draw, into pulling away and removing himself as a threat. He hadn’t wanted to risk a fight.

Because, in that moment, according to what Hanzo had told him, Doomfist didn’t want to risk dying.

That thought gave Cole pause. The thought that anything made a beast of a man like Doomfist nervous was borderline insane to him. That was like finding out that Godzilla, a monster who could raze a city with a swipe of its tail, was scared of something half its size. It was mindboggling.

It also made him wonder just what Hanzo was truly capable of. And it made him quite glad that the man was on his side. Because he got the feeling that if Hanzo didn’t want Cole alive, he would have been taken out about fifty different ways by now, at least.

He supposed that it was his job as Blackwatch - because as the only member here, he was Blackwatch - to find out more information about Hanzo. He had a name now, he could run a better search this time in the system, rather than trying to locate a temporary handle. It wouldn’t surprise him if that was brought up sooner, rather than later, especially given how he had been on, what? Two missions now? By complete accident and circ*mstance, showing up unexpectedly both times.

And, well, whoever asked better be ready to bend over and go f*ck themselves on a full-grown cactus. Because there was no way in hell that Cole was screwing one of his best friends, one of the best people in his life, over. Forget it.

Cole came here because he thought that he should, that he needed to right his mistakes that he had made the first time around. He didn’t come here to make more .

Catching the soft pig toy, Cole squeezed down on it tightly. He hoped Overwatch wouldn’t come to a point of making him choose, because in this moment, his jaw clenching and chest growing tight, he already knew the answer.

Hanzo.

It would always be Hanzo, now and forever.

But, God, did he ever hope that he would never have to pick. It was a stupid thought, of course, this limbo couldn’t last forever, but he hoped that when the time came to leave, it was at a place of peace and a future to look forward to, having made the world a better place for them both, not looking over his shoulder at what could have been.

Sitting up, setting the toy aside on the dresser, Cole kicked his feet off of the bed.

What was that son of a gun up to anyway? Had he said where he was going to next? Cole tried to think back -

Athena’s voice over the room’s speaker interrupted his brief moment of thought.

“Agent Cassidy-” it felt weird hearing the right name come out of Athena’s digital mouth after all these years - “Winston would like to speak with you.”

“Alright, fine, I was gettin’ up anyway.” Cole lied, standing and stretching his back, “What’s he up to?”

“Activity has been spotted at the Cairo outpost, and an incoming message has been received.” Athena said, “He is located at his workshop, in the cliffside tower.”

Activity is Cairo? Could-

No, he remembered what Jack had told him back in Turkey. Ana was the one making moves in Cairo. A message, though? Was she calling? Why? Cassidy had thought she was trying to move solo.

He straightened up with a worrying thought - maybe whatever she had gone to deal with was worse than even she had expected.

He wasted no time in making his way across the base, beelining it to Winston’s workshop.

Because Ana Amari was a woman who could handle just about anything damn near tossed her way, probably 99% of it.

Goddamn it, this better not be a 1% kind of moment.

He tried to reassure himself. There didn’t have to be anything wrong. Maybe she was just calling because she missed them?

Nah, if there was anything that Cassidy knew about Ana, it was that she was too good and too professional to miss anything. Not shots, not people, not even any of the folk that she had left behind. Ha.

Stepping into Winston’s lab, Cole could see Ana up on the large screen. She looked calm. Collected. Leaning back in the chair and sipping tea, even. Whatever was happening was clearly not an emergency on her end...

So why was she contacting them?

Winston heard the jingling of Cole’s spurs as he entered the room and turned to greet him. He could see the confusion on Cole’s face, so he hastened to explain.

“Hello, Agent Cassidy!” Winston greeted him, “Captain Amari-”

“Not captain-” Ana interrupted him, pausing a sip to speak, “Not any longer, Winston. Ana will do.”

The gorilla cleared his throat. “My apologies, Ana.”

“Nothing to apologize for, Winston, it’s just the way it is now,” she said matter of factly. “Now, did you have any intel or-?”

“ I didn’t, but I’ve called Cassidy in here to see if he might,” Winston said, motioning Cole closer, turning to face him, “Would you happen to, uh,-”

Ana wanted to get straight to the point. “Have you heard anything about Aken Badawi?” She asked, explaining, “He is- was a leader of a small gang around Cairo, who called themselves the Talamidh Rae. The group disbanded after their leader was jailed - however, he has escaped.”

“He raising a ruckus over there?” Cole asked, rolling the name through his head. The name sounded very faintly familiar, probably from his Blackwatch days. Maybe they had had this guy on a list somewhere sometime ago?

“I was coming here for a different reason, but on my way I’ve heard rumors that he is heavily involved in in the escalation of illegal - and dangerous - drugs circulating around the area, namely heroin,” She said, “His supply is bad, being mixed in and indistinguishable from others, and it’s leading to far too many innocent lives being snuffed out. Not only that, but it seems he is funneling the money to Talon.”

“As payback for the breakout?” Cassidy asked.

“Presumably.” Ana said, sighing, “The details are a bit fuzzy, my information is limited, or else I would have a more solid lead to follow. All of this is second-hand, if not third, information.”

“And if it weren’t all fuzzy you wouldn’t be contacting us, right?” Cole said, “Hate to say it, Ana, but my intel on the guy is gonna be out of date. Blackwatch records aren’t gonna have any of this, let alone an idea of where he may be.”

“Hm, I wasn’t sure if you would, but,” her eyes dipped south, towards his jean pocket, “...Would you know of someone that might ?”

Now he caught on.

That surprised Cole. “You saying you would back down if he was involved?”

“I’m saying that if your Okami is planning to eliminate Badawi, then I can consider the job done and focus elsewhere.” she said, “Or if it’s on his to-do list, I can take it over and he can work on other projects of his. We can help each other out if we’re on the same path, otherwise I will see this through.”

The answer was only partially satisfactory. “Would you bow out of an encounter with him, Ana, if you knew there would be one?” he asked, already starting to text Hanzo. He fell back onto a chair, sitting comfortably, while he finalized the text.

Knowing him, he wouldn’t want to be put on the spot on the phone, forced to come up with some answer in front of a crowd. He liked having his time to think. Cole would make sure that he had it.

Hey, babe. Hope you’re doing well.

Quick question for you.

Know anything about a fella named Aken Badawi?

Lemme know when you can.

Ana calmly sipped her tea before she replied, continuing their conversation.

“That man single-handedly scouted out a dictator’s base, gained the necessary intel, and would have pulled off a perfect assassination had we not been interfering…” she paused, “That sort of confidence is earned through skill and inherent brilliance. I would not bow out of a fight, Cole, not even with him, not even when I’m not sure who would walk away - if either of us would- but I am much more at peace knowing that somehow you’ve convinced this independent force of nature to be on your side.”

Now hearing that Ana, someone else that the world has once considered untouchable, the closest to peak perfection, dedication, and skill outside of the souped-up soldier program that the world had ever seen, also regarded Okami as an imposing figure was interesting.

Someone of that skill would be making a killing… well, killing . But he had only ever met Hanzo on those stupid little side gig jobs they did. Had he needed the money that badly? Surely someone as good as him would have clients lining up - there was always someone on this planet who wanted someone else dead.

It wasn’t that he didn’t have a business sense. Not like he would burn through the money or be stupid, nothing like that. And it was clear that Talon was not on his good side, something made more and more evident the longer they worked together.

If Hanzo had been acting on such a scale before, then the others would have known about him, even as only a rumor. But they didn’t and were only cautiously regarding him as an ally, which meant that Hanzo and his actions were new to them as well.

Why was Hanzo only making moves now? What had-

His train of thought was cut off when his phone buzzed in his hand.

Yes.

Unfortunately.

Know some.
Had the displeasure

of briefly meeting him

Many years ago.

co*cky. Rude.

Bully of a man.
And worst of all, he

chews with his mouth open.

Probably to show off his gold tooth

Thinks that gives him status

Or some other foolish fancy of the sort

His incompetencies got him
caught in the end,

He went to prison.

That had been a quick reply, luckily enough. Cole wasn't sure he had it in himself to sit here and be stared at by Winston and Ana, waiting for an answer.

This was much,much better than being stuck sitting around and twiddling their thumbs. Cole leaned back in his seat and began texting Hanzo back, filling him in on the situation.

He’s not in jail now.

Escaped or something.

Running a drug ring now, rumors say.

Unfortunate.

A drug ring?
I had not heard that.

I bet he’s doing a terrible job of it.

From the conversations I was subjected to,
about him, it was clear he was not a fan of details.

Saying you could

run a better one, O?

lol

Yes.

Easily.
On a larger scale too.
If I had wanted.

Funny, honey lol

I bet you coulda’ too

But I’m glad you ain’t

So

Anyway

I take it he’s not on the radar?

Not someone your looking into?

*you’re

And no.

He wasn’t.

Should he be?

Someone else is looking into him.

Wanted to make sure they weren’t getting in

you’re way

*your
I see.

Interesting.

I’m surprised I haven’t heard anything

I apologize for not being of more use.

They are free to have him

I would rather not get involved with him.

A bit busy at the moment.

Though I will help where I can.

See what I can find.

May I ask what he’s done to

grab your collective interest?

The drug ring thing mainly

Killing people with heroin

Seems like he’s selling batches of

bad dope

And funneling money Talon’s way

And there’s his first mistake.

Funneling money Talon’s way?

Well yeah

That yes.

And selling heroin, of all things.

It’s synthetic -

increases chance of a bad batch.

Too many cooks in the kitchen.

Opium is what I would have done.

Smoked instead of injected -
reduces chances of an overdose.

Plus it’s natural.

Addictive, but not quite as potent as H.

Means more repeat customers because

They want to keep chasing that high

And you don’t kill them on their first hit.

Usually.

Gonna pretend we didnt have

This convos on official OW

Channels, but good to know.

See personally?

Woulda gone LSD.

Lucy ain’t as deadly

as the other stuff

And they get dinner AND a show.

You’re cute, Cole.

Very cute.

I can keep an ear out.

Let you know if I hear anything

But I’ll try to stay out of

your co-worker’s way.

I can’t promise much.

Still tired from Numbani.

But for you I will try.

I hope that trying is enough.

Your enough, darling. =)

Always. <3

Thank you, Cole.
Stay safe, my love.

You too, babe.

You too.

Cole stared at the phone for another minute after their conversation ended, wishing that their conversation would continue. It didn’t. They were done talking for now.

But he contented himself by skimming over the conversation once more , and realizing that even though he didn’t have Hanzo here with him, it was still a relief that they could communicate whenever they pleased.

Finally, he made himself get back to the real world. Ana and Winston had been having an idle conversation between themselves, waiting to see what Cole, who had been clearly engrossed in his conversation, was going to bring to the table.

“He doesn’t know anything more than what we’ve got already.” Cole told them, “He ain’t on the trail though, working on something else, and gave you the all clear to pursue. Told me he’ll keep an ear out and let me know if he finds anything, but it ain’t at the top of his to-do list.”

Ana’s face was expressionless. Cole couldn’t figure out if she was disappointed or relieved to hear that, for once in his life, Okami was not on the case.

“Do you know what else he is working on?” Ana asked, “He seems very good at locating things that are somehow under our radar.”

“He didn’t say. I’ll bug him more later if I can,” Cole said, “And, yeah, he is. That’s why he wanted to stay out there- because he is damn good at what he does.”

“And we would only get in his way,” Ana agreed, with a sigh, “Ah, to be so young and brash again. I miss those days.”

She stared into her cup of tea, one more drained now, and continued. “Well, now that that discussion has been had, I have another favor to ask,” she said, “I think it would be helpful to have access to the systems at this base, at least for initial research, given how Talon is connected in this instance. Would you grant it to me?”

“Do you not have access anymore?” Winston asked, curious.

“No. I suppose they removed it when I was ‘dead’,” Ana replied flatly.

Cole and Winston exchanged a look. That made sense, though a dark part of Cole’s brain wondered how quickly it had been revoked. Had it been that day or had they held out hope that she would make it out? Only Jack would know, and Cole doubted he would ever be in the mood to share that.

“Oh, well, right. That makes sense. Sorry,” Winston said, already typing on his keyboard, “You must be using the generic code on the communicator, but I can add you back in and-”

Cole cut him off. “Is there Blackwatch intel on the Cairo system?” he asked.

“There could be.” Winston answered honestly.

“Then I think I get a say here, don’t I?” he said. “Ain’t just Overwatch’s stuff over there.”

Winston’s paws paused, and his shoulders slumped a bit. Cole could feel Ana’s stare on him too.

“Oh?” Winston asked, confused, “And what’s your say?”

“I think that a temp pass should be granted after I get there,” he said, “But I think I need to go out there for sure.”

Winston looked at him, curious. “You… you’re asking to be sent out on a mission, Agent Cassidy? Am I hearing that correctly?” he said, “You want to go there?”

“Yup.” Cole said, “Think I need to, honestly.”

“Over Blackwatch intel?” Winston asked, “I can always make sure that her access doesn’t let-”

“That, yeah, and, uh,” Cole said, “Need to check the files myself. See if there’s anything isolated from the main system we could use. Could be more on Badawi even, but those are my files.”

Ana looked at him, studying him carefully. “And…?” she said.

Cole tipped his hat up to look at her. “And what?” he asked.

She rolled her eye. “Do not play coy. There’s another reason. I can see it on your face.” she said, “I know you too well for you to lie to me, Cole.”

“Do you still, ma'am?” He asked respectfully.

“ I always have,” She said, “ You haven't changed a bit over the years, Cole. You're still the same strong-willed, straight-forward, easy to read man I've always known.”

Cole could feel Ana's and Winston’s eyes on him. Made no sense to make a production out of what was a simple reason, so he told them.

“Okami is in Egypt too. Told me that was where he was heading when we spoke in Numbani.” Cole explained, embarrassed his fake excuses had been caught so easily, “Probably would be best for me to be nearby if he finds out something useful for you. Or, hell, even have me be around to run interference, if you two risk crossing paths somehow. No matter what it just makes sense for me to be there.”

Winston looked concerned. “ Agent Cassidy, I admire your drive but you told me about Numbani. You look exhausted after that ordeal, and I cannot in good conscience send you to Egypt without giving you a chance to properly recuperate-”

“Winston, I appreciate the concern, but this is important,” Cole said with a tired shrug, “Besides, I can just sleep when I’m dead.”

Ana snorted. “Sometimes not even then.” She said, sipping at her tea.

“I’m just worried that you're going to exhaust yourself.” Winston continued, “ We could send Genji-”

“Have you been able to look over and tune up his armor?” Cole asked, already knowing the answer.

“No.” Winston sighed, “ I've been trying to, but Dr. Ziegler had quite a hand in its design, so it's more medical equipment than machine, certainly more than I'm qualified or feel comfortable ‘tuning up’ without any medical team members around.”

“Great! So it's settled,” Cole said, wiping his hands on his jeans before he stood, “I'll go pack - won’t take me long - you buy a plane ticket-”

“I… Since, uh, you're going to an Overwatch outpost that's fairly isolated, I can arrange to have Athena fly you over via proxy, so no plane ticket is required. It’s something I’ve been working on and testing, and I think we’re ready to use it,” Winston said slowly, “Take your time packing and you can leave whenever you are ready. Just let me know when.”

Cole glanced back at Winston and Ana, who had been closely watching this interaction. This was Winston's way of saying thanks and offering him as much assistance as their limited numbers could offer.

Winston needed to be here to meet anyone else answering the damn Recall, or at least keep the place running and manning the HQ. Even if Winston had offered to go with or for him, Cole woulda’ politely declined, and done so less politely if the gorilla had argued back.

Truthfully, Cole was glad that someone was gonna be watching the base. After his talk with Hanzo, Cole was a might bit worried about leaving Jack- Soldier 76 alone. He didn't know when the man would be arriving, but figured it safest to expect it when he would least expect it so he could try to expect it as much as he could expect to.

If he had a subtle way to ask Genji to do the same, and not risk putting him in the middle of yet another problem that wasn’t his to deal with, then he woulda’. Cole trusted him completely.

But he didn’t exactly trust Jack at his back. Didn’t think the man would stab it, but he was here for his own purposes, that much was clear. Cole would get what he could out of Jack and try to keep Jack from getting into more than necessary.

He sighed, realizing that he was going to have to make sure that the Blackwatch sections were locked up tighter than the bark on a log if he was going to even try to focus on anything else while he was away. Felt ten kinds of paranoid to, but better safe than sorry.

Because he had no doubt that as soon as Jack got what he wanted, he would run, again, leaving him to deal with the mess, again. If Cole wanted answers from him, about any of the sh*t that had gone down after Cassidy’s ass had been booted out, he was gonna need Jack to stick around, just for a lil’ while.

Yet another cat and mouse game he was stuck playing, but this time at least, with Hanzo’s insight, it felt like he was the one laying the traps this time, rather than walking into them blind.

But he would deal with all that later. Right now, he needed to figure out what exactly was going on in Cairo. He wasn’t going to get any of that done sitting around here.

Once again, already somehow, it was time to shape up and ship right on back out.

Somehow it didn’t feel like it took that long for Cole to pack. All he had to do was shove a couple of necessities, supplies, his laptop, phone, and chargers, into a bag, grab his hat and some provisions, and he was ready to set out.

Felt efficient. Quick enough. But he could feel himself dragging. He really hadn’t given himself enough time to recover after Numbani, and he was feeling it now, but after Egypt he would rest. He would try to catch a quick nap on the flight over too, see if that helped.

As Winston promised, a small ship was ready to fly out when Cole was ready. A good mobile craft size, one usually used for five-man missions. One, that Cole noted, would have more than enough room for someone to join in on the return trip.

It could be that Winston was either that hopeful that Ana was gonna join him on the return trip, or it was just that this was the smallest ship size that they had available. He wasn’t sure, didn’t have it in him to hope or guess himself either.

All he was going to do, he decided as he settled into the back seat, was research and see if he could get any idea of what either Ana or Hanzo were after in Egypt.

“ Hello!” a chipper robotic voice upfront had his hands pausing as he was mid-buckling in his seatbelt, “ This is your pilot speaking!”

Cassidy slowly finished buckling in, leaning over to take a peek up at the co*ckpit. There was a bot in the seat. A training bot. With a pilot’s hat taped to his head. Was that-?

Cole glanced over at Winston, who was starting to shut the door to the ship.

“Abpthtututututtt-” Cole spouted gibberish, the first sound that entered this mouth, waving to get Winston to stop and listen, which the gorilla thankfully did despite how nonsensical a noise it was.

He pointed towards the front of the ship, struggling to find the words at first.

“Izzat- Is that Gilbert?” he asked Winston, “Or do you have another -”

Winston looked at him, confused. “Of course that’s not Gilbert ,” He said as if it was obvious, “Gilbert drives the van , he isn’t qualified to pilot an aircraft nor would he feel comfortable trying to.”

Cassidy waited for him to continue. He didn’t, so instead Cole prompted. “So who’s this one?”

“Oh? Flying the plane, you mean?” Winston said, “That’s Lando. Lando Calbotsian”

“Lando?” Cole asked, rolling the name through his brain before he recognized it, “O-Oh, like the Scifi guy, right? That guy? That’s why he’s called Lando?”

“Uh, no? It’s because I sure hope he does!” Winston laughed as he slammed the plane door shut, opening it a moment later to clarify and reassure his nervous team mate, “Yes, it’s for the character, Cole, who is a pilot, though Athena will be piloting through him, I assure you. You have nothing to worry about. Lando is a proxy to help ensure a stable connection and to keep you company on the way over-”

Cole glanced between the training bot and Winston. “I don’t need nobody to keep me company, you hear-”

“Have a great trip! I’ll monitor what I can from my end in Egypt and elsewhere but don’t hesitate to call if you need anything. Farewell and best of luck, Agent!” Winston said, closing the door for real this time.

Cole sighed, sinking back into his seat. None of this would be an issue if Winston would just trust him to fly the carrier for once. He had only crashed them a few times during his previous training, but he was older now. More responsible too! Surely he would be better at it, if only he was given the chance.

Oh well, he might as well crack a few eggs and make a mental omelet with his time, rather than sit here and do nothing. As soon as take-off was successful and he was allowed to unbuckle and slouch all comfortably in his seat, he pulled his laptop into his lap and started typing.

He had only just started logging in when he heard a robotic noise from the front. Not noise. A voice. It was Lando saying something.

No, not just saying… singing?

“99 errors are found in the code

99 errors are found

Find one that’s wrong

Take it out in a song

100 errors are found in the code

100 errors are found in the code

101 errors are foooouuuunnnnd-”

Cole sat in his seat, listening to the song loop, marveling at how the errors just never seemed to go down, slowly closing his laptop. By the tenth loop, he was starting to crack.

“Hey! Hey, Lando!” he called out. The training bot’s song stilled, waiting for Cole to continue. Cassidy tried to debate on how to say what he needed without pissing his pilot off. “Listen, uh, that’s some nice singing-”

The bot’s head whipped around for the briefest of moments to look back at him. “Thank you.”

Cole watched the bot immediately look back away, both motions not even taking a second. “But, do you, uh, take, uh, requests?-”

The bot turned back to look at him again.

“No .” it said flatly before its eyes returned to the front.

“But”-

“I am the pilot.” The bot said, head turning back whenever he started a sentence, and looking forward again at the end of each one, “ Pilots do not take requests.”

“But pilots don’t sing-” Cole tried.

“ Yes, they do.”

“No, they don’t.”

“How do you know they don’t ?” Lando interrogated him.

“How do you know that they do?” Cole said, feeling like he was arguing with a two-year-old toddler.

Lando was silent for a long moment, staring at Cole. His short arm floundered, almost as if it was going to point at Cole, but it couldn't find anything to back up itself well enough to continue.

Hiding his smirk, Cole know that he had him now, with all that robot logic and stuff. That was the thing with these guys, everything they did operated on some kind of mathematical-

“I know because I am a pilot and that is what I do, ” the robot said, triumphantly pointing at Cole before facing forward again. Cole’s smile fell as Lando started a new song:

“This is the song that doesn't end

Yes, it goes on and on, my friend

Some people started singing it not knowing what it was,

And they′ll continue singing it forever just because-”

Cole knew better than to pick any more fights with the fella driving the plane. He knew he had lost this one. So instead he pulled some headphones out of his bag, put one of Lucio’s calmer tracks on loop, and pulled his hat low over his eyes.

He would research later, probably wouldn’t do him much good now anyway, trying to read itty bitty little text when his eyes were so tired and it was so bright out. He had underestimated just how calming Lucio’s music could be, but maybe he… maybe he needed calm right now.

Yeah, just- he should just relax his eyes and himself and rest for a bit, just a little bit, and then start reading when he…

He…

When he was…

Not

f ａｌｌｉｎｇ

ａ ｓ ｌ ｅ ｅ ｐ. . .

❖ ── ✦ ──『𓂀』── ✦ ── ❖

Captain Fareeha Amari sat in the back of the Helix aircraft carrier, thinking about the mission ahead. They (her and the crew she was currently running this mission with) had had a meeting about it this morning before shipping out, having spent the last few days otherwise preparing.

From what they had learned, it was going to quickly turn into a nightmare scenario, if they didn’t step in. How had their initial reports missed another powerful AI? It wasn’t on the level of a God AI, not as Anubis had been, but that was no excuse.

People’s lives were on the line because they hadn’t been doing their best. That was all there was to it.

No, no, she had to get her thoughts in order. It would help to review everything again, she decided. Help her get her thoughts straight and reevaluate how to best move in. She was the Captain on this mission; they couldn’t afford any stupid mistakes.

They were giving this AI the codename Petbe , at least until they learned more about it. The information they were going off of was admittedly lacking, Carmilla Thay, has been working on this mission non-stop since she had joined the team, had decoded it to the best of her ability, but they didn’t have time to waste.

Five scientists were being held hostage. Identities unknown. Information had reached Helix in a coded message that one of the hostages had managed to transmit, and that had been lucky enough to have its signal picked up by a passing Helix cargo transporter just last week. The fact that Helix even knew about this situation was nothing more than pure serendipity.

The scientists were being forced to modify the program, help to upgrade and unleash it, probably as a shoddy backup for Anubis. Attempts at stalling were getting dangerous for the individuals, so Helix needed to act.

No reports of missing scientists had been pulled, but so many brilliant minds were always moving about, this way and that, working, toiling away in personal studies or locked away focusing on large projects, it wouldn’t surprise her to hear that somehow five had been snatched.

Five wasn’t a large number in the grand scheme of things. If more scientists had been taken? Even just five more, that could have raised enough suspicion to grab attention, but just five people plucked from who knows where? Easy enough to smuggle in and out, unfortunately. Big enough to make a difference in the world, but small enough to be stolen away from it.

If time hadn’t been of the essence, she would have loved to look further into it, though, because something about it was… odd. She wasn’t sure why. Odder situations, odder jobs had occurred since she had been working for Helix, more dangerous ones too. Nothing about this one should stand out.

And she would remind herself that nothing should and that she needed to get her head back in the game. If she didn’t go in treating this as she had other missions, if she lacked any focus, then she risked the entire operation.

She was a captain now, a rank she had earned, and that meant the others here were looking to her to lead-

Her thoughts paused when she realized that, indeed, the rest of the small crew were staring right at her.

“Can I help you?” she asked, confused and amused at their rapt attention.

“Just thinking about how correct Major Yasser was when he warned about your ‘game face’,” a friendly Belarusian man at the end of the bench said with a warm grin, the large grin matching the rest of his size, “That is intense, Captain Amari.”

A younger Jamaican woman across from him piped up too, “Got anything to share with the rest of us?” she asked brightly, nose wrinkling when she smiled, “Or a pep talk? I would take’a pep talk!”

“Corporal Destin, Sergeant Nox,” Fareeha called out to the two crew members, watching as the younger woman playfully punched her coworker’s arm, “I was unaware that a pep talk was required.”

An older man, thin, occupying his time reviewing the mission brief commented, “Is there ever a terrible time for an inspirational speech before a mission?” he said calmly, peering over the holopad at her, words thick with his Indian accent

Fareeha playfully shook her head, “Sergeant Mordecai, if you so wish for an inspirational speech, then, by all means, you’re welcome to give one.”

“Oh, so you get a new piece of armor and you’re suddenly too good for speeches?” an Irish woman teased with a cheeky grin, her muscular and freckled arm motioning towards the modified raptor suit that Pharah was wearing.

“Private Samhain, it’s not my fault the boys over in R&D asked me to test out a new suit,” she said, “Do I want to be a guinea pig? No. But if me wearing this armor helps them develop their Premium Lightweight Optic Technology™ armor prototype any faster, then I’m happy to help.”

This crew had been working together for a while, were available for this mission, and came highly recommended. She had picked this team to run with herself a few times now, and their missions always went smoothly. Picking them again was a no-brainer.

The team was mostly complete, all Fareeha had done was add herself and the one piece that was missing. A technology expert. Carmilla Thay, who she had pulled from Numbani for this mission, currently sat at the front of the ship, piloting.

Once they had landed, she would run a recon drone and give them a layout for their rescue mission.

It felt nice to fit into such a pre-established group. They had welcomed her, both formally and by including her in the continual banter aboard the ship.

Sergeant Mordecai hummed, interrupting the group. “Captain, a question?”

“Proceed,” she said, giving him permission to continue.

“It looks like the perpetrator behind this mission hadn’t had any prior technology-related crimes, at least not according to Helix records,” he said. It wasn’t explicitly a question, but she understood.

“No, Aken Badawi used to run a smaller crime ring. The closest he came to tech crime was illegally transporting it,” she said, “We’ve looked into this, as it’s not Badawi’s first time breaking the law. His M.O. has clearly changed since his breakout about a five weeks ago. Bigger stuff, no clear motive, a means to an unsure end. Pretty sure he’s working for someone else now, probably because of the breakout. Owes them. Nothing concrete enough to follow, unfortunately. He’s still as slippery a bastard as ever.”

“A hostage situation is a clear escalation.” Sergeant Nox agreed, crossing her arms and leaning back in her seat, “Means he’s getting more daring, unstable, or desperate. Either way, it’s gettin’ dangerous.”

Corporal Destin’s brow furrowed. “We want this guy alive?” he said, hand rubbing at the back of his thick neck, “Sounds like it’s going to be a fight, and if he’s getting paranoid at all-”

“Hostages are the priority,” Fareeha confirmed with an authoritative nod, “It would be nice to take him in. If he’s that desperate, then maybe he could be negotiated to squeal on his ‘rescuers’.”

Private Samhain frowned. “Or, if he’s that desperate,” she began, idly shaking her leg as she talked, an indication of how much she was itching to get out on the field, “Then he’s scared of them, and there’s no way on God’s green earth he would talk.”

Fareeha nodded in agreement. “It’s hard to say. We won’t know until we get in,” she said, “Operate as if we want him alive, but kill him if needed to keep the hostages safe.”

“The mysterious five…” Sergeant Mordecai hummed, stroking his beard.

That uneasy feeling began to return to Fareeha’s gut. Her right hand idly fiddled with the necklace she wore, a slim gold chain with an Eye of Ra charm. Playing with it was a bad habit.

She made herself stop, lowering her hand as she called up to the front of the ship.

“You confirmed the legitimacy of the SOS signal, yes?” she asked Thay.

“Confirmed it myself. Listened to the recording, tracked it from there. Traced the signal to the warehouse,” the woman called back, “Came from an older Thoth Communication System, manufactured from 2027 - 2032, their outreach targeted a relatively broad range of frequencies from 155.2’s to the 159.7’s, which is why our flyer was just able to catch it. Respectfully, Captain, do you need me to start reciting serial numbers and manufacturing lots or is that enough for you?”

Fareeha listened to her rattle all of the information off. “No, no-... that’s… sufficient.” she said slowly, “Thank you.”

She should have known better than to doubt her. Thay was one of the strongest people in Helix when it came to technology and technical analysis. She had a list of success nearly as long as Fareeha’s. They were in good hands with her behind the scenes.

However, the look on Fareeha’s face musn’t have been one of pure satisfaction, because Nox leaned over to ask. “What’s on your mind?” she asked, “Doubts or-?”

Fareeha sighed, thinking over her words carefully before admitting, “There’s… a report has been made… recently,” she said, “Just a concern from angles about the potential for a… mole to have entered Helix.”

Corporal Destin sat up straighter in his seat. “Any reasons? Anything happen that’s not been redacted and shredded?”

“Nothing’s happened. Nothing really yet. Can’t argue there’s some logic in the small mistakes that have happened overall, especially regarding Doomfist’s breakout,” she admitted, “It’s still fresh on my mind, that’s all… I’ll have to look into more after this mission… None of you have seen or heard-?”

The group shook their heads. None of them had seen anything odd.

That was great news, and it could mean that the rumor of a mole was nothing more than a rumor. Or terrible news, in that whoever was in Helix was in so deep they could move unseen.

Still, she trusted the group she was with. They had too many success stories to be a risk, they had all worked hard over the years to earn their rank, with Nox being the youngest yet just as capable as the rest of the crew. It was the only reason she felt comfortable asking those around.

Sergeant Mordecai closed the mission brief. “Clearly, this mission is our priority, but do you have any plans on the return to deal with a potential traitor?” he asked, “If you don’t wish to pass it on up the chain, and risk a ghost hunt, I’m sure a trap could be laid.”

“What kind of trap are you thinking?” she asked, adding jokingly. “A box and string over a carrot might not cut it.”

“False intel for one,” he said. “Enough of us here, each with our own connections.”

Pharah caught on. “Send each of you out with a different story… just enough truth to it to make it believable, but not so much to compromise. Would be a good cast of the net to start.”

Samhain nodded. “We could each keep an ear out as well,” She added, “As Mordy said, even though we run together often, we have our own connections outside this group. We can help-”

Nox cut in. “Takes more than one pair of eyes to see the whole truth,” she said energetically, “You don’t have to fight this alone, Captain Amari. Know we have your back-”

“Because we know you have ours,” Destin finished.

Their conversation was cut short by the sound of the carrier descending. They had landed in the area, at long last. Once movement had ceased, and the carrier had landed, each member of the team slowly started assembling their gear.

Carmilla Thay began getting her own device ready. It was a pilotable drone that she was going to send in ahead of the group, to see how much intel she could attain for the team in advance, to prevent them from going in completely blind.

Watching the motorized device cross the terrain, the group knew it was only a matter of time until the operation began.

There were many factors that could keep this mission from running smoothly, Fareeha acknowledged as she calibrated her launcher. But as she looked around at all of the team members on the ship, she felt confident.

They all had each others’ backs and were here for the same reason, to save innocent people; with all of them working together, how could it possibly go wrong?

It took a few minutes, minutes that felt like they took forever, but eventually, the drone was in position, and with that, Carmilla finalized her report.

Thay then stood at the front of the group, outlining what intel she had located through the drone’s lenses.

“No movement on the outside grounds, the drone has confirmed,” she said.

Unfortunately, she hadn’t been able to get the device inside, so, instead, she then pulled up the previous intel she had gleaned via the building’s cameras before a signal interference made them inaccessible.

“Last we can tell, there were five hostages, three masked men armed watching them, Aken Badawi was near the back of the room, communicating via laptop with an unknown entity.” she said, pulling up a holographic screenshot of the space, “Front room is full of technology, warehouse layout, but full of many barriers to hide behind both for you and them, last we can tell. Could turn into a human shield situation if we’re not careful. From the audio picked up, it does sound like they’re trying to hack into the facility and awaken what we're calling Petbe.”

Thay sketched the layout on a holo-pad, letting the group see it for themselves.

Nox glanced over at Fareeha. “What formation?” she asked, “We could run a D-n-C?”

“Divide and conquer?” Fareeha pondered, “Sounds ideal. Priority would be getting between hostages and the attackers to keep them from hiding behind the hostages. Badawi is separate, so we take out the guards without risking him if we move quickly enough. We’ll need to secure him too, or at least move quickly enough to keep him from destroying the laptop. Even if he’s eliminated, we may be able to get intel off of the device.”

“Should be easy enough to crack,” Thay concurred, placing the holopad down on an open carrier seat, “Especially if you’re able to obtain the device before he has time to lock it down. However, his contact may be able to remotely reset the device, so we’ll need to anticipate that if the alarm inside goes off.”

Nox glanced over at Thay. “Can’t you just unreset it?” she asked her, “Isn’t that what you tech-y people do?”

Thay looked at her, “There are many factors involved, so I can’t say one way or another…” she paused and shrugged, “I suppose perhaps possibly if all goes perfectly… maybe?”

Destin shook his head as he tightened up the helmet on his suit. “The confidence is inspiring,” he commented quietly.

Mordecai was also finishing up with his gear. “Did you spot any live cameras? Was the nearby vicinity unoccupied or is there a potential for immediate reinforcements?” he asked.

“No cameras showed on a scan. They are offline.” Thay said, “There was a speaker system, but it seemed to be non-functional. No return on the voltage test, it’s dead. Nearby buildings seemed abandoned. It’s a small operation.”

“Coordinates?” Fareeha asked, “Need to make sure we’re at the right location.”

“Coordinates have been programmed into your suits’ systems.” Thay confirmed, “Just follow the GPS and it will take you to the building. I’ve got the drone in position to allow for eye-in-the-sky, so I can monitor and radio the team if the outside situation changes.”

“Sounds good,” Fareeha said as she pulled on her helmet. She looked at the other team members through the visor. “Ready to go?” she asked. The other team members nodded at her in return.

Her gaze shifted towards the door of the carrier, leading out to the sandy ground. The wind howled outside, a sand swirled in the breeze, shifting across the desert.

Straightening up, she addressed the crew. “Team - move out.”

As they stepped out of the ship, Fareeha couldn’t help but remember the last she time had traveled to this area. The fight against the GOD AI Anubis, which had resulted in Captain Khalil’s death.

And here they were - fighting against more fanatics who were trying to backdoor their way into the now dormant system, trying to resurrect something that should just stay dead.

Well, as long as she didn’t end up getting a promotion via casualty from this fight as well, she would live. There was no time to dwell on the past, not here and not now.

Lives were at stake. She needed to get her head back in the game to keep everyone safe. That was her job, that was her role, and it was why she was here. She was a protector, a guardian of justice, and right now evil needed its ass whooped once again.

»»——⍟——««

When the noise of the engine shut off, Cole awoke with a start.

For a moment, he glanced around at the other seats, fully expecting to see some of the old team members seated around him, as he had awoken to hundreds of times in the past. Reality came crashing back and he remembered that no, he was in the present. Overwatch was gone, and he was basically alone. There was no one else on the flight over, and he wasn’t sure when there would ever be.

He packed up his few items and headed out the back of the ship, finding that Lando had parked in the old Overwatch’s base’s hanger.

The air in the hanger was stale. Musty. Dusty. The sound of his boots on the hard floor echoed in the large chamber, and specklings of rust had started to creep on the outer bay door, though the dry desert air had minimized the damage.

It was lifeless. The sunlight shone through the open bay door, but as the door slid shut to secure the base, the bay darkened. The only light source was the emergency lights, which were just bright enough to allow visibility in the otherwise dim corridors.

To think that at one point, this base would have been full of life, full of people fighting for a better world, and now there was… just him. And Ana. A woman who let the world think she was dead, and a man that the world wanted dead. Wasn’t exactly the peak of heroism walking the halls.

The further Cole walked into the base, the more he wondered whether or not Ana was even still here. The only sounds were his own footsteps and the humming of the emergency lights above. Then he noticed a thin beam of light coming from the doorway ahead, where he recalled the big ol’ main computer residing.

Even as calmly as he walked, bag slung over his shoulder, his hand rested on his gun. This could be a trap, one that he had willingly bungled into if all went wrong, and it felt best to be prepared just in case.

He quietly pushed the door open, taking a cautious peek inside before he crossed the threshold. Inside, he could see Ana sitting comfortably on a makeshift bed, made from a packed bedroll and some blankets she must have pulled from storage, already gazing at the doorway expectantly. Cole’s walkover had been by no means stealthy, but he hadn’t even been trying to be. If he had, then he would have, like, taken off the spurs or something instead of a’ring-ting-jingling all the way over.

“Didn’t want to make use of a bunk proper?” Cole asked in lieu of a greeting as he stepped inside. There were sleeping quarters on this base. They weren’t luxurious, but they would do.

“It’s just where I set up,” she said with a shrug, sipping at some tea.

“Like you so happened to set up in a defunct Overwatch base?” he asked, his tone a bit too serious to be teasing.

“I knew where it was, and I hoped it was safe. I was right,” she explained simply, “The fact that there’s still emergency power, solar-generated, is just another blessing.”

“Hmm…” Cole didn’t say much in reply, instead changing the topic, “Why are you busting a drug lord? Even with the connection to Talon, doesn’t seem like your thing. You always seemed to be more… independent.”

“Snipers tend to be because we have to be,” She replied, “And Aken Badawi is… his tainted goods have taken out a few of my contacts, not to mention innocent civilians. His returning presence has sent a few others into hiding. The name alone is enough to silence the few still around. His return is hindering and unwanted, and the fact he’s with Talon is…”

“The icing on the sh*t cake?” Cole offered helpfully.

“Language,” Ana scolded him, “But, yes. Yes, indeed.”

“So he’s hindering your vigilante spree?” Cole said, understanding now, especially with the nod he received in reply.

If Ana had been able to handle this on her own, she wouldn’t have reappeared so soon. Between her and Hanzo, it was true that snipers did prefer to act independently after all.

Maybe that was what was peeving him off. He shouldn’t have gotten into such a snit over the intel, Ana had contributed to it, but it was just the feeling that she was using it, them, him, because of convenience that had his lips twisting to hold in the thoughts he shouldn’t say. Not here, not now.

Had she been using Jack back in Turkey? Or had Jack been using her? Or had it been a mutually beneficial kind of f*ckery that Cole and Hanzo had bumbled into and broken up? He wasn’t sure.

It should be getting his boxers bunched this badly. Ana had her reasons, and she had very good ones, including being left for dead by Overwatch.

That was a damn good reason, and Cole knew that if he had been left in her position, there was a chance he would have done the same. There was a larger chance that he would have done worse.

It spoke to her character, that she was still fighting the good fight despite the hand that she had been dealt and the eye that she had lost. But then Cole remembered how Jack, someone else still fighting, was trying to use Overwatch, Blackwatch, and him by proxy, too, and those feel-good butterflies in his tummy just flitted right away.

Made him wonder why they were fighting so hard to rebuild this thing, if the only people trying to make use of it were the ones so determined not to come back to it. The ones who had let it all fall apart in the first place.

How was that fair? Sure didn’t feel fair. But it was what it was and he wasn’t going to make it what it wasn’t by wanting it to not be what it was now when it would never be what it wasn’t.

He had to focus on the here and now, good and bad, right and what felt wrong, and just keep pushing. It would all work out in the end. It had to. Otherwise, he was just a fool.

But maybe, if being a fool meant believing in a better world for even just the briefest of moments, then being a fool wasn’t so bad.

“I’ll get my system set up,” Cole said, patting his shoulder bag, “Download whatever intel I can find, and give you what I can find that’s of use.”

He might as well play nice. They were on the same side here.

He unpacked his laptop and set the rest of his things down while it booted up. Ana watched him silently as he set up his system.

“That’s a Blackwatch device-” she began.

“Gabe kicked me out with it,” Cole said. “Never shut it off none either.”

Ana was silent. “He wanted you to have it.” she said quietly, “He must have thought there was something that you could do without the red tape.”

“Wish he had clued me in better, iffin’ that was the case,” Cole said, focusing his eyes on the screen as he began to type, “Was still pulling his boot out of my ass and wiping the dust outta’ my eyes when everything went down.”

“I wonder if he regrets it,” she murmured, gazing out a small porthole-shaped window.

Cole’s fingers stilled. That question made his mouth turn cotton and his throat grow tight. It was a thought he had buried long ago, and he hadn’t been ready for it to resurface.

He still wasn’t ready. Still wasn’t ready to hear from yet another person that Cole Cassidy had been nothing more than a waste of Gabriel Reyes’ time. Not ready to hear that his very existence had dragged Reyes and Blackwatch down to an unprofessional level, not again.

He wanted to avoid it, at least for right now. Not right now, he told himself. Not with how tired he was.

But would he even be able to sleep with those thoughts in his head? He doubted it.

Sucking in a deep breath, he made himself ask the dreaded question.

“Regrets what?” he asked hesitantly. He didn’t know what answer he wanted to hear. He knew what answer he didn’t.

Ana thought for a terrifyingly long moment before replying. “Any of it, really. The journey. The mistakes. The people.” she said, “Jack. Myself. And you... Especially you.”

Cole tried to swallow but his saliva just like thick needles, and he nearly choked on it. “Me?” he asked weakly..

“Gabriel would never claim it, but he was very good at chess. His playstyle was dastardly clever, and even if you knew it was coming, he would still win,” she said with a sigh.

“Was he eating the pieces when no one was looking?” Cole asked, the joking tone strangled by nerves.

“No, that was Emre’s favorite strategy,” Ana teased, growing serious once more, “Gabriel would make sacrifice, ones that would seem lax on his part, but was brilliant at set-ups-”

She interrupted herself.

“Cole,” she began, “What do you think is the weakest piece in chess?”

This felt like a trick question, some kind of moral lesson disguised as trivia or something. So he gave a kumbaya-kind-of answer.

“Well, I suppose they all play their part and they’re all-”

“No, Cole, if-...” She paused, “What piece would you risk losing because you need it the least?”

“The lil’ guys in the front,” he answered her question this time, “The, uh, marching fodder.”

“As most would. But not Gabriel.” she replied, “His strategy was all about the pawns, enough that every piece, save for the king, was nothing more than bait to him.”

Cole didn’t know much about chess - he was more a checkers kind of guy - but he knew a few things: Don’t eat the pieces; keep the king alive; and try not the lose the good pieces.”

Ana could see the confusion on his face. “When pawns cross the board, they can turn into other pieces, better ones, ones chosen to best fit the situation.” she said, “I think that’s how he led Blackwatch as well. He would bristle at rules and regulations, and at others infringing on his territory. But then he would improve his agents into exactly what he needed, taking more effort to create what he wanted, almost as if he wanted to prove something.”

She gazed at him, expression unreadable. “I’ve no doubt that, when he kicked you out, it was because you had crossed the board more than enough times. You got where he wanted you to be.” she said, “The only question is… what did he turn you into?-.”

“Can I be the horse?” Cole asked, almost wanting to shrink under her intense gaze.

“That is a good guess. An unpredictable piece, good at getting into and out of situations. I think that’s what you were with Blackwatch,” she agreed at first, “But now? The queen would be my guess. Full freedom to move, and one of the most powerful pieces in the game. I think he molded you and made full use of your potential, then set you loose with as much as he could to enable you to succeed where he and Overwatch would fail.”

She looked back towards the window. “He saw the writing on the wall. Maybe he even wrote it himself. Either way, Reyes was brilliant at turning insignificant pawns into some of the biggest threats on the board in the blink of an eye.” she said, “That is what I wonder if he regrets. Setting you up to where your success means his failure… Was it always meant to mean his failure, I wonder? Was this just another game to him, or did he accidentally outplay himself?”

Ana asked the question, but it was clear that it was not meant to be answered. At least not by either of them. At least not for right now.

The only one who knew for sure was dead inside and out, and would never give them that answer.

Instead Cole resumed tapping away at his laptop, establishing a connection with the isolated network in the base and skimming through the files he saw there, seeing if there was anything of use for Ana.

He tried Badawi’s name, his old gang, and drug busts, anything he could think of. All he could find were old files about Badawi’s father, who had been killed in a coup by his own son, who had been intent on taking over what little power his father had settled with and growing it as much as he could.

Nothing relevant now. Nothing of interest. Nothing of use.

“It’s all out of date stuff,” he told her, “No one’s been logging any intel in here for a long time.”

“Nothing?” she asked with a sigh. “Well, it was worth the shot. Perhaps there’s other information I can piece together, once you get your Blackwatch files protected.”

It was unfortunate, but most of the information would be out of date. Winston could only do so much catch-up, trying to log intel that was years old on a million different things, no one else would have touched it since Overwatch went defunct.

Cole sat up straighter with a thought. Sure, Overwatch had gone out for a gallon of milk and never came back, but Helix hadn’t.

Helix had been running pretty strongly, actually, and Badawi would be in their main neck of the woods… sand of the desert? Whatever. He would have been on their radar by proxy, if nothing else.

He tapped away again at the laptop, using the backdoor method to take a peek at Helix’s files. He thought he would find a tidbit or two, enough of a morsel to make use of. He didn’t expect to find a whole ass meal of intel in the first few searches.

“Helix is after Badawi,” he said, looking up and over at Ana. She frowned, thinking, though the look in her eye was one of surprise. Granted, it was an odd sentence to just throw out after hitting so many dead-ends.

“And you know this…how?” she asked. It was an expected question.

“Still have access to Helix’s files. We were never cut off-”

“And how was Overwatch not cut-off?” she asked more seriously.

“Well, ma’am, I suppose someone over there dared to believe in Overwatch enough to leave that line open,” He said honestly, “Or else it was someone who wasn’t ready to let it go.”

No matter which it was, it was clear it was yet another Amari trying to enable them as best they could.

“Fareeha,” Ana said quietly, “No one else would have thought twice about it.”

An unreadable look crossed her face, but one that, if Cole had to guess, was more sad than not. It was wiped away a moment after.

“What does Helix want with Badawi?” she asked, “I’m surprised that his drug-dealing caught their attention. They usually have too much going on to focus on the smaller things.”

Cole looked it over, but found the file depressingly scant. “Hasn’t updated.” he said, “I got a roster, I got a location, according to the GPS, they just took off from their home base-”

His words stalled as he looked over the agents’ photos. “And it looks like your Fare is heading the mission, Ana,” he said, looking over at her, “Like mother, like daughter, eh? Great minds.”

Ana looked uncomfortable. Wistful and proud, but uncomfortable. Granted, it would be an awkward family reunion, when Fareeha found out that the woman she long thought dead was not actually a zombie and had just been faking her own death and avoiding her all these years.

“It would be best to stay out of their way,” she said, “If Helix is on the case, then my work with Badawi is done. That is fine, there is always something else to do.”

Ana definitely was trying to keep distance from her daughter. The realization made Cole uncomfortable. Was he now being complicit in something without his consent? He wasn’t sure.

“I’ll, uh… I’ll… keep an eye on the file, watch for the updates as they get logged. Can keep the mission feed up too, once it’s live,” he said slowly, “Otherwise, I’m gonna just… get my intel for the next couple hours. Guessin’ you can now get yours too, whatever’s of use, I guess.”

“Yes.” Ana agreed, staring out the round window. There appeared to be a million thoughts running through her head, and Cole could guess what at least one or two of them were.

Had he been a petty man, he could have thrown the question right back at her, but politely refined. Still he couldn’t help but wonder.

Did she regret it? Any of it?

It was a good thing he wasn’t a petty man, or at least one not petty enough to ask sh*t like that.

Cole tore his eyes away from her and resumed tapping on his laptop. He wished he could do something more proactive, but they had no place to start.

They couldn’t just wander around the city, blindly looking for information, until they had an idea. That would get them nowhere fast. Much as he hated being stuck in the base, it was all he could do right now. Maybe, somewhere in these files, it could give him a hint of where to look.

It shouldn’t take too long to get the files transferred, anyway, at least not for his part of it. Once he had the system running, it would handle everything itself.

That was good. And it was bad.

That meant that it gave him time to think. Time to wander around and relive the memories once again. Time to worry about this and that and everything all at once.

And time to wonder what Hanzo was up to.

His partner was resourceful. Too clever for his own good. He had no doubt that, if Hanzo had the time to look into this, he would figure something out. He always did.

Cole just hoped he didn’t run into too much trouble getting that “something” figured out.

જ⁀➴ˏˋ°•*⁀➷

Hanzo had wandered around the city, looking for information, until he had an idea. A brilliant idea, he thought, though not the most pleasant.

Hanzo hated the smell of this hole-in-the-wall bar that he found himself walking into. It was shady and rank, but fitting, as it wasn’t too unlike the company that he had arranged to meet.

While he himself wasn’t familiar with Aken Badawi and his crew, it didn’t mean that the name had never trudged down the Shimada families halls. The main branch had been too focused on maintaining control in Japan near the end, but a cousin of a cousin or a nephew of a great aunt or some other convoluted genealogy that might as well be a branch on a different family tree did create that connection. It wasn’t familiar, but it wasn’t entirely foreign.

He knew enough, at least, to find a different lead.

Tarek Darwish.

Badawi’s second-in-command, and the man he had left to rot in prison after ratting him out for a lesser sentence. Aken’s own cousin.

Years had passed since then, and Darwish was now a free man. A free man who somehow still didn’t know better still.

Darwish’s name and location was easy to come across. Common, but whispered. Eliciting nervous glances to the side when spoken, requiring bribes to pull the stuck words from people’s throats. The man had certainly gotten himself quite a hold on the market space vendors. A pity, but not one that Hanzo could help with right now.

All that mattered was that he had managed to push his way into a meeting with Darwish, sending a message via a beggar boy for a gold coin. He gave him only a half-hour to meet and demanded an answer immediately. Darwish bit, hook, line, and sinker.

Hanzo, had told him to meet in a half hour, but didn’t arrive until thirty minutes after the initial meeting time. Darwish was a lush, according to the rumors, a glutton for booze and drugs. Give a man like that idle time, surrounded by his vices, and he would fill it with his weaknesses.

By the time Hanzo strode across the dank bar and sat down, Tarek was red in the face, and it wasn’t just the sweltering desert heat that had made his dark hair damp and cling to his forehead. It was just the two of them in here, alone save for the bartender currently in the backroom, with the afternoon crowd non-existent. Evening was most likely when this place grew busy.

Darwish was a large man, but despite how much he loved alcohol, it did not love him. He was a lightweight, one who probably hadn’t even considered ordering a meal to dilute the strong Arak he chugged while waiting.

“Finally,” Tarek spat, wiping the back of his hand across his brow as he watched Hanzo take a seat at the small table, “You ask to meet and then arrive late? Without even the decency to show your whole face? Rude little man, I know it’s you under there.”

As much as Hanzo loathed revealing himself as… well, himself, he knew that he had to put his name out to arrange this meeting. Darwish would have never bothered meeting if there wasn't something in it for him, and Hanzo might as well make use of the power his name could still wield to see if he could figure out what exactly was going on.

What it was that Darwish wanted, why he had agreed to meet so quickly, he would just have to find out.

Hanzo had had to put his name out there for a reason, unfortunately. Darwish wouldn't just meet with any unknown bounty hunter, but he would trip over his own feet to meet with a Shimada. Even the black sheep of the family, apparently.

“My sincerest apologies,” Hanzo said, wishing to defiantly pull up his mask but instead tugging it off. Angering Darwish would get him no answers, and it was just the two of them in here. It would be fine for a few minutes.

“I don’t know this town well. I couldn’t exactly ask for directions, given this bar is a speakeasy,” Hanzo explained as he set his bag down besides his feet, “I’m relieved I made it as quickly as I did, given the circ*mstances.”

Tarek glared at him but opted not to argue any longer.

“What does the disgraced Shimada brat want?” Darwish asked, unimpressed.

That Hanzo hadn’t planned quite yet, but he figured he could come up with something plausible.

“I hear your name’s grown quite popular around here. You seem like you’ve made someone of yourself after Badawi’s betrayal,” Hanzo said, “I… Well, it sounds like you’ve heard my story as well. The… everything, and you now know that I have… severed my connections with the family… among other things that were severed in the family…., and frankly, I’ve been on the run for a while, and I’m not looking to settle down anywhere, not for a long time, but I know that you, having become someone, have some power. I want to know what you offer and how much it is.”

Hanzo normally preferred not to ramble, but he was taking a page from Cassidy here. If he dominated the conversation, then Darwish’s hands would not stay idle. A sip, a sip, an eyeroll as he spoke, and a chug.

Glug, glug, glug went the bottle. The glass was filled again.

“That’s it?” Darwish asked with a laugh, “You must be truly desperate to come to me. But I’m afraid I have nothing to offer.”

“Nothing?” Hanzo asked curiously, “I’m surprised. I figured that you would still have some old contacts after Badawi betrayed the lot of you.”

“Nothing to offer you,” Darwish scoffed. “Besides, I don’t have anything to do with that rat. I vowed to never work with him again, not touch anything he’s defiled.”

“So what it is you do now?” Hanzo asked, trying to get another lead.

“I have… clients in the market. They pay… for… protection,” Darwish said, “You never know what tragedy may befall. My gang- men and I… we keep them ‘safe’.”

“I didn’t assume you worked alone.” Hanzo mused aloud, “It’s why I wanted to meet you as quickly as I did.”

“Didn’t want to meet the others?” Darwish sneered, pausing to drain his glass once more. An attempt to refill it revealed there were nothing but drips left in the bottle, and Trek frowned before he continued, “They’d love to meet you.”

“I’ve no business with them. I would like to keep it that way.” Hanzo said, “But surely, a man as enterprising as yourself would look for profitability, would you not? I’ve heard that there’s a weapon smuggling around here. The cargo was looted after a rogue group attacked-”

Darwish loudly slammed his hand on the table, silencing Hanzo.

“I said I don’t work with Badawi,” Darwish began to rant, “I don’t care what that chelb does. That traitor is dead to me. He left me rotting in jail in his place, and would not have cared if I perished in there. It would have made no difference to that bastard. I don’t care that he is family, something you should understand, I can’t! Not after he threw me under the bus to save himself. I don’t care if he sh*ts gold out of his ass, if a meteorite falls on him, or if he dies from a donkey kick to the head - I don’t CARE ANY MORE.”

The last word being roared at Hanzo, alcohol-filled spittle hitting his face, made him think that Darwish did care quite a bit, but even he knew better than to say that.

Tarek continued to rant, “He means nothing to me, and whatever he is getting himself into now is not my problem. Whatever him and Deh-El, the name I’ve heard of the smuggler, does not matter to me. It does not.” he said, “I do not even know who they are, or why the weapons matter, but I do not care to know or to find out what. Yakhsaf allah bih al’ard.”

Upon hearing this information, Hanzo grew distracted by this new realization; Badawi was handling the weapon smuggling somehow? He hadn’t heard that, he had had no idea that Aken was supposed to be involved. None of the other people he had spoken to knew about it, but Darwish did? He pondered over it while Darwish stared at the end of the bottle in frustration.

Badawi was the incompetence personified. From what Hanzo had heard of the man, he could barely walk and talk at the same time without tripping over his words or his feet. He was a criminal nepobaby who was somehow worse than Hanzo both at being a criminal and at being a nepobaby.

There was no way on earth that Badawi was coordinating attacks to steal military weaponry and managing a large-scale drug ring at the same time. It had to be one or the other.

But somehow neither was seeming like the most likely option.

The weapons had been taken, and the drugs did exist, it seemed, too many occurrences to say they didn’t, but Badawi being behind it all?… That didn’t feel right. It wasn’t adding up.

Someone else had to be involved. That made this situation far more dangerous.

Hanzo was forcibly pulled out of his thoughts by the sound of glass shattering. Darwish had slammed the empty Arak bottle down on the table, breaking it, and creating a very sharp weapon for himself.

“You know your ‘family’ has a bounty on you? Word moves quickly, especially considering the prize for your head. And look where the fates have brought you now,” Darwish said with a dark chuckle, “A hundred million. A hundred million and if you’re brought back alive, thirty million if you’re dead-.”

Hanzo laughed. Given the state of his family, last he had seen, he highly doubted that they had a hundred million spare cash laying around to just give away for something like him . He wondered in there was something about installment payments in the fine print of his bounty.

However, it was worrisome to have his name in the news, even if it was just traveling through bounty hunters, assassins, and other minor annoyances. The good thing to note was that Cole wasn’t in the line of work currently, having to leave it to help Overwatch, so it was unlikely that his name would catch Cole’s ears.

Unlikely, but not impossible. That’s why it was worrisome.

The reason that he was even here was to investigate if his family had been behind the stolen weapons, and if that was going to reach Cole’s radar, but that didn’t seem to be the case.

At least, no one around here, besides Darwish, had any idea it had even happened , so Hanzo was starting to doubt that it had . Or, if it had, it wasn’t like how people were saying it happened. It was the chatter he had heard in the seedy bars he had stopped in on his way to Numbani, but the rumor had died the closer he came.

So it was probably just an odd rumor on the wind? …Or was it?

No one else here had known, but Darwish had. He had probably only heard about it because his ear was to the ground for anything connected to Badawi. He would probably have heard if the man dislocated his pinky toe, let alone coordinating with mysterious smugglers.

He wasn’t sure what to think now. He wasn’t sure he would find the answer here. So, instead of going in a circle, Hanzo thought back to his own situation, and the new complication that had just arisen.

It was interesting that Hanzo’s family was trying to limit the reward to only assassins and bounty hunters. If they really wanted to hinder him, it would have been a public announcement to make use of any enterprising fools stupid enough to dare, but it made sense why it wasn’t.

They couldn’t reveal just how scared they were of Hanzo’s reemergence without making themselves look weak. Or… another thought… They were prioritizing him being alive… but that didn’t align with how much his mother wanted him dead, and given that she was in charge, it should have been her call.

Should have been.

It felt like someone else was behind this as well, someone with money to spare. Despite how many people Hanzo was sure he had angered, his grandstanding in Numbani was coming to mind, and there was only group that would be lashing out because of that clear statement he-

A glint of light caught his eye.

Ah. Right. The bottle.

“-The money’s mine!-” Darwish said, ready to thrust the bottle into Hanzo’s throat. Apparently he was fine with thirty or a hundred million. Honestly, no one had drive these days.

Hanzo stayed seated. A drunk man wobbly waving around a bottle didn’t seem worth bothering to stand up for.

“Put that down.” he scolded, arm relaxedly hanging over the back of his chair, “I’ve no need to fight you if you’re reasonable. You don’t honestly think you can win in that state, do you?”

Hanzo dismissively gestured towards the wasted man. This was just embarrassing, for both of them.

“I’ll kill you here and now, and will enjoy every minute of it,” the man swayed but steadied himself, the rage in his eyes a sign that he was foolishly stubborn.

“I did not walk in here with you as my enemy. I would prefer it if I didn’t have to walk out of here regarding your corpse as a fallen foe,” Hanzo told him, “The choice is yours, but your death would be pointless.”

The man sneered. “You think you can beat me,” he said, raising the bottle up, clearly intent on attempting to slash at him.

“Yes, while sitting down even,” Hanzo said boredly, picking up a knife. It was an old, dull thing, useless for most tasks, but not for what he needed. “I understand you want the bounty, but we don’t have to do this now. We can postpone it for another time. You’ve one more warning-”

“You? Beat me?” the man said, his six foot plus frame still towering over Hanzo, “You and what army?-”

The wind whistled as the bottle sliced through the air. Hanzo tossed the knife half-heartedly back onto the table, the whispered words leaving his mouth lost to a crackle of electricity he had lackadaisical channeled through the metal.

Honestly, he had only done that as a formality; he had already felt the energy simmering under his skin, ready to burst free, and really hadn’t needed to do anything. Channeling it himself was the only way he could guarantee some semblance of control. Mostly it had permission given on his part.

Permission to act, not permission to kill. Not yet.

The bottle stopped inches from Hanzo, frozen in place. Hidari stood atop the table, spanning it easily in the Rottweiler-size she had manifested into. Jaw open and maw dripping, Darwish’s throat sat between her teeth. Blood dripped onto her tongue where her sharp fangs had scrapped against and pierced his skin. The man couldn’t even tremble without risking cutting himself further.

“Do you think I am alone?” Hanzo asked, a dark grin on his face, canines on display, as he was unable to resist gloating. “I am never alone.”

“C-Call-” Darwish stuttered. The bottle fell from his hands and shattered as it hit the floor. Migi, who rested besides Hanzo’s dangling hand, slinking herself under it and letting her scaled hide brush against his fingers as reassurance, was unbothered by it, her focus purely on Darwish.

“Should I have her rip your throat out? Or bite down and let you bleed?” Hanzo mulled, hemming and hawing, his hand idly stroking Migi tauntingly, “Or skip the mess and have them drain your soul from your body in a heartbeat’s time? Decisions, decisions-”

“C-Call these things off,” Darwish said, tears of fear starting to fall down his cheeks. Hanzo could, unfortunately, smell urine now as well. The man’s bladder screaming too, apparently.

“Sit,” Hanzo demanded, watching Darwish meekly sink into his seat. The man’s hands blindly groping for the chair and table, unable to look down with the dragon’s jaw at his throat.

So now he could listen? Coward.

Darwish was dripping with sweat now, shaking as he sat in the wooden chair, the dragon’s teeth still inches from his skin, having lowered to follow his descent.

“In a moment, I shall consider calling them back,” Hanzo said, nose wrinkling from the stench in the air. Talkers could never do anything but talk, could they? Nothing to back their chatter.

Hanzo continued. “I’ve one more question, that’s come to mind, and I would like it answered honestly.” Hanzo said, “You said you avoid Badawi, yes? You avoid getting tangled up with anything he’s done? Does that mean that you know where he is ? I can’t imagine that you’ve not had someone looking into him, if you know all his business. ”

“Y-Yes,” the man gulped, swallowing thickly. Was he going to vomit as well? Could he not keep any of this liquid inside of him? “Call both off and I’ll tell you.”

Hanzo didn’t like being bargained with like this. Truthfully, it should have been him calling the shots, and normally he wouldn’t have budged. But he also didn’t want to be vomited on. Or find out what else Tarek could expel from his system. So, in this one instance, he relented.

A flick of the wrist and the dragons dematerialized, the glow on Hanzo’s tattoo fading as they vanished in a blink. They were ready to reappear if needed, and would no mercy this time, they told Hanzo.

Darwish let out a heavy breath, sinking into his seat, and then pat his pockets looking for something. Not a weapon. A comfort of sorts. Hopefully not more alcohol.

“ Speak .” Hanzo ordered, not wanting to waste anymore time.

Darwish nodded and started rambling. “I am not certain, but I have heard rumors. Strong rumors. The- there are abandoned warehouses, the company went bankrupt, on, uh, the- the…. West side of the city. Just outside the limits. The place is surrounded by a tall metal fence, signs, faded signs along it,” he said quickly, hand finally stilling, “There is an old guardhouse, where they had their security detail live on the grounds. They was abandoned as well, and - I’ve not been there, none of my men have - I have heard rumors that there is where Badawi now resides. His men, probably, would be there too. Along with your weapons most likely, though I am not sure. That was another party, from what I understand.”

That was finally something helpful. It would do.

Hanzo stood up and picked up his bag. “Thank you,” he said, “That is all I need from you.”

Darwish’s hand pulled out from his pocket. In it was not a weapon, but a small bag of white powder.

Hanzo looked between it and the bag. Tarek was a man of vices, it seemed.

“Care to join me?” Darwish asked, hands still trembling as he opened up the bag. “I treated myself today, just picked this up on the way over.”

“I shall have to pass this time,” Hanzo said, pulling his bag onto his shoulder, “I’m on a tight schedule.”

“Figured a man who grew up like you would how to indulge ,” Darwish said. “You lived a ‘snort lines off of marble tables’ lifestyle. I offer you bliss before you leave, as a friend, as a peace offering for this moment. But as soon as you step out that door, you are a foe once more.”

“As I said, regretfully, I do not have time,” Hanzo said, pulling his mask back up, where it had rightfully belonged, “I hope that next time we meet, you’re able to put up the proper fight I know you can. Make things more interesting. Regardless, it’s been a pleasure. Thank you for your time.”

Hanzo walked towards the exit confident that he was safe until he exited the building. Tarek now indulging in his heroin - Hanzo was almost certain that’s what was in the bag - was the signal that he was giving up on fighting Hanzo. For now.

A temporary peace treaty between them.

One that could be much more permanent depending on if Darwish’s drugs were the laced ones that had been floating around the area.

Certainly, Hanzo could have warned him. It was a thought he considered as he walked into the sunlight. But he brushed the thought aside as easily as he brushed away the curtain beads hanging in the doorframe.

He wouldn’t interfere. Let Darwish see where the fates brought him .

Darwish was a thorn in his side at best. A threat regardless, knowing his name and face, with no more information of use. A man like him would not be content to stick around to threatening the marketplace, not that that was ideal by any means, but he would want bigger, better. They all did in the end.

That desire could net him the worst kind of allies, ones that would make a small fry like Darwish a much larger threat, if he wasn’t careful.

Like Talon had done with Akara Yavuz. And how Hanzo was starting to feel someone had done with Aken Badawi.

For a man who seemed so deadset on avoiding anything Badawi even looked at, Darwish was freely indulging himself on what was claimed to be one of Aken’s endeavors.

Unless it wasn’t.

That story, Badawi’s drug empire, Hanzo hadn’t been able to catch a word of it. Around here, it seemed to be fiction. No one told the same story about it twice, which made Hanzo doubt it had been told the correct way even once. Whoever was telling that story was not from here.

Deadly drugs and now military-grade weapon theft? It felt like they were throwing rumor after rumor out there, using Badawi’s name, trying to see what would stick. What other rumors were there? Whose attention did they want?

Hanzo set off for the west-side of town, planning to call Cole once he had confirmed his suspicions. He wasn’t sure what he would find there, but he hoped it would be more answers than questions.

Trekking across town, wary of his surroundings, Hanzo focused on his goal. He had to get to that warehouse area. He was certain that he could sneak in unseen, as long as he was alone.

There was a worry that if he called Cole, the man would want to tag along, or at least dissuade him from entering with how bright late afternoon sun shone. But Hanzo couldn’t wait.

Well, he could if he had to. He just didn’t want to.

So now here he stood outside the tall metal fence. He had crept around to the backside, making use of the other buildings around for cover, and eyed it. There was a faded sign on it that mentioned that the fence was electrified. Would it still be? How could he test it?

We can find out for you

The dragons spoke in his head, offering to assist. They were spirit beings who thrived on electric energy.

‘Please do,” he replied. He could hear the subsequent debate.

“We don’t both need to test ” Hidari said, “ Shall I?”

“No, no, indeed not, I shall!!” Migi argued, “Me me me!!”

“Why you?” Hidari asked.

“ You got to taste that man’s blood.” Migi argued, “You got a treat already. This could be my treat.”

“For the record, it tasted disgusting,” Hidari scoffed, “But fine. Your turn.”

The debate concluded, Migi the victor, she now stood beside Hanzo, the size of a labrador, her tail wagging excitedly. She eyed the fence, studying it.

To be fair, they had never done this before. Hanzo didn’t normally utilize his dragons to be voltage testers, this was new for all of them, and in normally circ*mstances he would have tried to scale the fence already.

But something about all of this situation felt off. If Badawi was in cahoots with another person, security could be even higher than he was already anticipating. It felt like the caution was warranted. Who knew what he would find-

His thoughts were interrupted by wet slurping. Migi was licking the links on the fence, apparently the way she had decided to test for any electricity racing through the metal, wanting to suck the ‘treat’ straight into her mouth.

Hanzo could feel Hidari sighing at the sight. He himself was too surprised to comment beyond asking.

“Anything?”

“No, nudthin yed, sheems shafe, but justh mnaking shure,” she replied with a sigh, speaking while her long tongue was still sliding up the fence. Nothing. No treat for Migi.

There was a long minute of her continuing to rake her tongue up the fence, just triple-checking it juuuust in case before even Hanzo reached a point of uncomfortableness.

“If there’s nothing, then stop licking the damn thing,” Hanzo said, “I’ll get you something later. Both of you. Just. Migi. Stop. Please.”

Migi returned to him with another sigh, the experiment she wished to conduct with her tongue unsuccessful. Hanzo then scaled over the now-established-safe-but-now-also-slightly-damp-fence.

He stood still, silent, but could only hear the sound of the wind whistling through the area. This was unexpected. He had been anticipating some kind of security activity, some signs of life. Nothing.

Had Darwish lied to him? He couldn’t be certain yet. He needed to look around first, see if he could find something of use.

He cautiously walked around, looking for the building Darwish had mentioned. He found the small house, secluded, with a jeep out front. The car was clearly abandoned, top left down and full of sand. No tracks. It hadn’t been used in a long time.

He couldn’t read the sign on the door, the words having become faded through sun and sand, but it looked like a place someone would live for a short time. More so than the other buildings he had seen. This had to be the place.

He tried the door. Locked.

That wasn’t a surprise. Annoying, but not a surprise.

He crouched beside the door, dropping his guitar case next to him. Cracking it open, he rummaged through briefly, finding the lockpicks he was looking for before he snapped the case back shut. It had been awhile since he had had gotten to pick a lock, this would be good practice regardless.

There was a chance that this was just a waste of time. That there was nothing of note inside. But he had to look and see for himself, just to silence that nagging voice in his head (that wasn’t the dragons for once) that felt that this was a worthwhile endeavor.

There was no chance Badawi was running anything here, there was no one here after all, so where had the rumor come from? Rumors always had a grain of truth to them, did they not? What grain would he find here?

It took a few tries, but he heard the click of a successful unlocking. Pocketing the lockpick, he picked up his bag as he stood and slowly pushed open the door.

Rancid air flooded his nostrils, the most vile of scents, and he froze in the door way.

He knew that scent.

That putrid, disgusting, stink was the smell of death.

He made himself step inside, pulling the collar of his shirt over his masked nose in a poor attempt to further mask the scent. It did not work, not at all, but still, farther in he headed. Questions had to be answered.

The quarters were dark. Rotten food sat on the counter, a sign of a meal interrupted long ago. Chairs were knocked over, bullet holes in the wall.

And in the back of the room, he found Aken Badawi.

Well, he found what was left of him, anyway.

It was a morbid sight, his body slouched against the wall, what was left of it decomposing, his skeleton showing through the gore. Brown blood splattered the walls, around bullet holes piercing the thin plaster, the blood’s color having aged.

It was so far gone that Hanzo could have been convinced it was another man, but Badawi was not clever enough to arrange faking his own death. Besides. the frame seemed to be about the right size, from what he knew, and that gold front tooth he had once been so proud of still glimmered in what little light there was. That was enough to convince Hanzo without further inspection.

Frankly, it had to be enough, he was confident enough in his assessment anyway. If he had to look at this grisly scene, or smell it, for much longer, he was going to vomit. He had an update to give now - he would leave and call Cole.

This unfortunate discovery made his distaste Badawi lessen, just a bit. He had been judging Aken for this mess of a situation, but it was clearly out of his control. It had probably never been in his control.

Hanzo recalled what he knew of Badawi, which was admittedly not much. Badawi’s own father had been contacted by a distant member of the clan, to assist with smuggling in Egypt.

From the very little that Hanzo had heard of the meeting afterward, Badawi’s father had rejected the proposal, feeling that the endeavor would be too much to handle, a larger scale than he felt comfortable handling. He had been killed by his own son not long after that.

His father had probably rejected the offer to avoid ending up at the mercy of people much more powerful. The very fate that had befallen his son.

Aken had probably been broken out by people who had planned to use him. Or killing him and using his name however they wanted had always been the plan. It was impossible to tell right now.

Now Badawi’s name was being used however his killers’ pleased, his legacy, whatever had been left of it, destroyed, and his death meant he could never correct its course, and all for what? Some cheap trick of some kind? How…

How sad.

On his way back out, he couldn’t help but idly wonder if that could have ever been him dead on the floor there, given that he and Aken were, unfortunately, not so different in the grand scheme of things.

Living only to be used, dying once he had nothing left to offer.

A few more wrong choices made by Hanzo, and that could have very well been his tale too.

It made him appreciate being free, and the effort it had taken to finally take that freedom for himself, all the more.

The air tasted sweet outside, much better than the sour stench he had left behind. It still clung to his mask, though, and it the spirit of not dry-heaving all day, he opted to change it.

Crouching down at the corner of the building, he called Cole, tearing off his mask and digging through his guitar case while it rang.

“Hey, babe, what’s up?” Cole answered the phone.

“Do you want the bad news or the bad news?” Hanzo asked rifling through his stuff. The dark black mask had been getting hot anyway in this sun. He considered his other options while he talked.

Cole was silent on the other end of the line. “How bad?” he reluctantly asked.

“Not great,” Hanzo said. Black, mid-black, or light black? He also had very, very dark gray. That was tempting. “Badawi is dead.”

Cole was silent again. “You… you didn’t-?” he started to ask cautiously.

He understood what Cole was asking. It was a fair question. Hanzo had worded his reply poorly, so he attempted to clarify.

“I did not kill him, no. Perhaps I should have started with that.” Hanzo said, giving his shirt a sniff. The scent was faint - hopefully the sun would help to weaken it. He would rather not change out here. “Badawi is quite dead. Possibly about a month? I did not examine his remains thoroughly nor do I want to.”

“A month?” Cole repeated. He said something to someone else in the room, his voice muffled on the phone, before he spoke to Hanzo again. “Badawi’s drug ring started kicking into overdrive a three weeks ago.”

“Not unless dying made him competent,” Hanzo said, settling on a charcoal gray-colored mask, “You see, what I’m here looking into was a theft and potential smuggling of some powerful weaponry that occurred about two weeks ago, or rather it was rumored to. I can’t find much but what I have found is that it seems that is also Badawi.”

“ So he’s been the bad guy of the week, like, what, three weeks in a row now while dead? ” Cole said, starting to catch on, “ They was using his name and making him into a boogeyman. Dead men can’t argue. ”

“I imagine he is dead because he argued. Probably wanted a bigger stake, or more power, or something. Or he just became an inconvenience,” Hanzo said, hooking the mask on and shutting his case, “It’s like Akara Yavuz, but Yavuz was willing to be an obedient puppet. I would assume that Badawi was not content to be reduced to such. I suppose, if there is anything to commend him for, that would be it.

“ He acted up enough, became a threat to the operation, so they killed him.” Cassidy blew out a breath, “I wonder what they were after. Sounds like they were throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what stuck.”

“What the reasoning for all this is, I don’t know. It’s trap or some kind, it has to be.” Hanzo said as he stood. “They’ve been escalating the situations, and I imagine another is in the works. It has to be a plan of some kind by someone, what else could it be?”

Cole hummed thoughtfully, not having the answer to this puzzle either. “ Where did you find him? Where are you?” he asked.

“At a warehouse facility on the westside. Badawi is in the guardhouse on the outskirts,” he said.

“ H- Okami, can- west side? Big ass fence around the place? ” Cole asked quickly. Hanzo could barely make a sound of confirmation before Cole continued, “ Babe, you gotta get out of there. Get out now. ”

“Why?” Hanzo asked, confused. He looked around, ground was clear, sky was clear, no threats. He didn’t understand what the problem was.

“Helix is running an op in main warehouse, according to their files. You do not want to get caught up with them, Wolfy,” Cole warned him, “Hang up and we’ll talk more once you’re out.”

Again, there was nothing around.

“What are they doing here? This place is abandoned?” Hanzo asked him, “Are they also following the military-weapon lead?”

“What? Fine- They - godammit making me read at a time like this, O- they… they’re…it’s about… Badawi’s…” Cole swallowed, “... f*ck.”

Hanzo didn’t have time to ask for an elaboration.

An explosion echoed across the area. The large warehouse ignited in a blaze, debris flying, the force so strong that Hanzo - even as far away as he was - had to take a step back.

“ No. No no no, ” Cole whispered, “ No. No no no, this can’t be- she-.”

“She?” Hanzo asked. This was no longer about the generic Helix group to Cassidy. Someone of note had been inside.

“ Ana, we gotta move. Now. Fare’s in there!” Cole cried. Hanzo could hear him moving quickly now. Probably about to head out this way. “ O, do not -”

Hanzo hung up the phone and tucked it into his pants pocket. He knew what Cole was going to say. If he didn’t hear Cole tell him not to do something, then he wasn’t going against him when he did do it.

Besides, he had never met ‘Fare’, but he was aware she was an ally to Cassidy. She had been Cole’s concern when the Red Monkey gang broke out, and she was Cassidy’s only concern out of the Helix team inside.

It was clear to Hanzo now that the Helix team had been the target, he was all but certain. The rumors circulating were meant to grab their attention. Had it been to eliminate the team, he wondered as he raced towards the burning building? Or had it been to elimine ‘Fare’?

There was only one way for him to know. So in he went.

❖ ── ✦ ──『𓂀』── ✦ ── ❖

The team moved into the area in a neat, well-practiced formation. Using the jets on their suits, they quietly flew over the metal fence surrounding the warehouse area, making sure to avoid triggering any potential alarms.

Despite the report that the other buildings were abandoned, everyone kept a look out as they moved closer. You could never be sure who was lurking about, what threat had escaped noticed.

As captain, Fareeha knew that her eyes should be looking forward only, but the area felt… too quiet. She couldn’t help glancing about as the wind whistled, picking up sand and swirling it about carelessly. That gut feeling was returning and she wasn’t sure why.

Everything checked out. She had run all the checks, the situation was confirmed, the team coordinated. She had done everything right .

The team now stood at the side-entrance, the one Thay had cited as their most subtle entrance point. It would take them into the next room over, and give them a chance to act before the enemy could respond.

They assumed that the door would have to be broken into, lockpicked or knocked over, whatever was necessary. True, it would have lost the element of surprise, but it was the best route according to their eye in the sky.

But instead, they found the door unlocked. Glances were exchanged between the teammates, and that uneasiness in Pharah’s stomach did not settle. But they had to go. There were people to save, and they were the heroes to do it.

She said a quick prayer to Allah under her breath, and gave the nod to move forward. The team knew that they had to go in, and she received nods of confidence in return from her crew.

Whatever was in there, they could handle. No one was going to beat them, not if they worked together.

The door opened with a soft creak, and they started moving stealthily. As they crept in, Pharah couldn’t chase the feeling that there were eyes on them. Someone was here, but if Thay had caught sight, she hadn’t radio’d in yet. Probably getting an exact reading before calling them out, no sense in scaring the team with unknowns. Could have just been a wild animal, for all she knew.

The space was dark. Night vision was triggered on to their visors, and they could see they were in a back storage room. Through this, past all the boxes and old machinery laying around, would be the main hub in the inner quarters of the building. That’s where the hostages were being held, and that’s where the fight would be had.

“ Some movement, unsure what, fairly certain it’s nothing but be careful regardless as you proceed,” Thay radio’d in, “According to the blueprints, through the next room is a small corridor, you can use that space to split up unseen and slip into the main room. ”

The team followed the plan, silently slipping through the storage room, and stepping into a corridor. There was light now, electricity still flowing through this part of the building, at least enough to power the emergency lights.

It made sense. If the scientists were being forced to operate using large, energy-sucking pieces of technology, Badawi would be smart to have them divert any spare power from unutilized locations to their main hub.

In other words, they were about to engage with the enemy, and they had best be prepared.

Nox and Destin branched off from the crew here, heading towards the other entrance. They briefly radio’d once they were in position, and the everyone prepared to enter.

Nodding, quietly counting down, they kicked in the doors, charging in, weapons ready. Fareeha, Samhain, and Mordecai engaged from their side, with the latter two pressing in further on the right. Nox and Destin burst in from the back, weapons drawn.

The coordination had been perfect. Nothing less than expected from Helix’s best.

However, despite the impressive display, it was all for naught. The team found themselves alone in the room, no enemies - or scientists - in sight.

The interior of the room was identical to the one Thay had shown them, down to the cracks in the walls, but the items inside were different.

There were no terminals, no technology to be seen, not like in that camera picture they had studied. Instead, in the center of the room was a large tarped container, with various other crates stacked around the place.

It looks like they had packed up everything, having finished their work. Or having someone warn them Helix was coming.

Damn it, they had gotten away.

“Thay, I need an update,” Fareeha radio’d in, “Subjects are gone.”

She was only met with static. The thick concrete walls must be blocking the signal. She’d need to get closer to an exterior door to reach their teammate and get her input on the situation. How was no one left?

The rest of the team began investigating the area, seeing if there was anything useful to glean from an otherwise pointless mission. This wasn’t the first time that the had arrived late to a scene, but they were all determined to catch-up and rescue the civilians.

“Look at the floor,” Mordecai pointed out as he walked, hands clasped behind his back. There was a thin layer of dust, but there were cleaner spots lined up with where the terminals had been in the image. It was proof that the terminals had been there. But also proof that they hadn’t been for at least some amount of time. Probably moved after the camera signal was cut. How odd.

“I’m calling HQ with an update,” Fareeha decided, calling back to the team as she walked carefully, being mindful not to disturb the area while the team investigated. “Something’s off.”

Samhain and Mordecai had cracked open a smaller crate, and pulled out disassembled pieces of technology. There were the terminals.

Nox and Destin strode over to the large pile in the center, passing Pharah as she headed towards the edge of the room. Pharah then cracked open the door, standing halfway out it, and leaned against the frame, her signal slowly starting to reconnect.

She heard the sounds of Nox cutting the ties holding down the tarp, wanting to dig into the crates underneath and see what was inside. Maybe there was another clue in there?

As Pharah slowly watched the signal creep back up, her thoughts raced. How would Badawi have known? This mission had been handled with utmost care, with Pharah handling every step of its planning herself.

The likelihood of a traitor was growing by the second. She wasn’t sure how to relay that to her superiors, especially if one of them- no, here was no chance. Not those that she had looked up to…

But then again, she had looked up to Overwatch and-

No, no, all this was going to do was make her paranoid. She couldn’t keep speculating. It would do nothing but tear her and Helix apart. There had to be… damn.

Still, caution was never a bad thing. She pulled out a smaller pistol that Helix issued all their agents. She had never had to use it before, but having it in hand was comforting.

The team was almost done with their look-over. It had only taken two minutes, but there wasn’t much to look at. They would be out and on their way back to the ship in less than five.

As her communicator began connecting to the Helix network, she glanced up as Destin tugged the large tarp off, the large man removing it easily. Now exposed, the wood on the crates looked flimsy, old.

Further analysis was cut-off when she realized that her call wasn’t going through. Looking closer, she realized that the signal was gone. Completely gone. Blocked or-?

There was a loud crash in front of her. The sides of the crate fell, cracking and splintering when they hit the concrete floor, revealing a massive pile of XJ-9s hidden behind. Explosives. Strong ones.

Oh, Allah-

“We were set up,” Nox said, her brown eyes wide as she looked up from the explosives she was standing over. The look on her face was one of total fear.

It was the last sentence uttered from any in the group before the pile detonated. The explosion was blinding and deafening, and set-off a planned chain reaction.

❢◥ ▬▬▬ ◆ ▬▬▬ ◤❢

Faruq sat on the floor in front of a small coffee table, enjoying a late lunch. A plate with a large ball of fufu and a hearty serving of egusi soup sat in front of him, next to his canned tea and his laptop.

The Oladele family had offered him a seat at the table multiple times during his stay here, but, throughout the week, he always politely declined. The family was sweet, but he knew what his presence meant - it was just a reminder of how their lives had been upended so heavily and the trauma that had transpired.

It was best to minimize involvement. That way he would avoid reminding them more than necessary, and avoid integrating and risk creating a gap after he and the last few members of the team left. Sitting on the floor was awkward, but he wanted to stay out of sight and let them enjoy their meal time together.

They were kind enough to give him a plate. As the only agent routinely on-site, with the others nearby but out of sight to avoid overwhelming the family with their presence, it was only one extra meal that they had to make and they never seemed to mind. It helped that their cooking was delicious, though the lesson he had gotten on how to properly eat fufu from the child was embarrassing enough to sear itself into his memory. He would never forget how to again.

On the screen, he had pulled up Captrain Amari’s mission. He was watching for updates, waiting for her to complete the mission so he could at least indicate that there was something further they needed to discuss. No sense in interrupting her mission and burdening her with that worry now; it could wait, for just a bit longer.

Staring at the vibrant portraits, their official Helix headshots, he mused for a second on how lucky he was to have gotten Amari as his superior. He missed Captain Khalil, they all did, but Captain Amari had done excellently at filling his shoes.

He admired her. She wasn’t much older than him, but she was who he wanted to be when he grew up. Someone that confident, that strong, someone so… heroic.

Looking into her brown eyes in the portrait, he mused briefly on how there weren’t many people like her anymore. People willing to stand up for what’s right, no matter how hard the battle was.

She was just like her mother. Or, she was at least similar to the legend of Ana Amari, to the tales that had been spread far and wide before and after her death. If his Captain was trying to fill the hole that her mother had left behind, she was doing a fine job of it. More than fine. Stellar.

While he finished his meal, his eyes roamed over the other portraits, over Nox’s neat locs and beaming grin, over Samhain’s red hair, freckles, and cheeky smirk, over Destin’s dark blond crew cut and the scar that went from eye to jaw, and over Mordecai's salt and pepper hair and beard, and the intense stare of his dark eyes.

The crew was one of Helix’s best. It was why Pharah had picked them for the mission. They hadn’t had much time to prepare, but they were a crew that would succeed, no matter what.

Some of the members were younger, but it made for a good balance and they had made an elite team out of themselves. One day, Faruq hoped to be a core member of his own small, elite team, but for now was content working under Captain Amari.

Maybe one day he would be able to stand beside her, but for now, he knew he was lucky enough to be following behind someone like her.

His weekly log would be due soon. Nothing exciting, just paperwork noting if anything had happened that week. While much had, Faruq couldn’t exactly log the intense conversation he had had with Efi. His report would be rather bare, as it had been uneventful for the last few days thankfully.

They were probably going to be pulling him out of here soon, he mused as he drained the last of his tea. There wasn’t anything occurring to justify his staying much longer. All was quiet for now. He hoped it stayed that way for a long time after he was gone. As much as he had come to enjoy talking with Efi, he knew that his return would involve… unfortunate circ*mstances.

He would much rather the girl and her family have peace. For as long as they could. For as long as Doomfist would let them.

Still, he would miss speaking with her. She was sweet and interesting, and conversations with her were so fascinating. Between her age, her intelligence, and her experiences, conversing was always a unique blend of childishness and maturity that was as enlightening as it was frightening.

“What are you doing?” a quiet voice asked, startling Faruq out of his thoughts and almost causing him to choke on his mouthful of tea.

Efi stood in front of him on the other side of the low table, large brown eyes nervously watching him.

He took a moment to slap his chest, forcing the liquid he was coughing on down his throat before he tried to speak. He hadn’t even heard the girl walk over, hadn’t even felt her presence. How had she snuck up on him, a Helix agent?

He did have a ways to go before becoming an elite agent, considering he had just been caught by surprise by an eleven year old.

“Are you writing a report?” she asked cautiously, clearly itching to see what was on the screen.

“I am, but there’s nothing about you on here,” Faruq promised, correcting himself, “Well, the.. stuff that we talked about earlier isn’t anyway. You do have to be mentioned, considering you’re why I’m here.”

He tried to say it lightheartedly, trying to reassure the girl, but it clearly didn’t work. She was bouncing on her toes, knee shaking fidgetly, failing to keep all her worries inside.

“Can I see?” she finally asked.

Faruq debated it, but he did have other stuff pulled up right now. Stuff that Efi probably shouldn’t see.

“Later?” he offered, “I thought we talked because you trust me. You can trust me, Efi.” He would never lie to her.

“I know, I-... I know.” she said, looking down, as if she was ashamed for having doubted him… or ashamed that she couldn’t stop doubting him. “You don’t have to show me, I’ll just look at it all later.”

She said that so calmly and innocently. It wasn’t meant to be a threat. It was just a factual statement. It had already been established that, if Efi wanted to look later, she could .

And if she hacked in again, something Faruq did not think he could stop if she was determined, who knew what she would find? Who knew if she would go back over those deaths she felt responsible for? Who knew what else she would try to do to make it right, to keep everyone safe?

He weighed the options, and decided that just showing her was the better outcome. It would reenforce that trust, alleviate her fears, and (hopefully) prevent her from hacking in to their network again.

He didn’t even have to look at his screen to know that what he had pulled up, while obviously not for public viewing, was not the worst thing for someone else to see. It was just a live status of Captain Amari’s team’s mission, peeking through under the window where he was writing his report.

At the very least, it was nothing that would incentivize Efi to build another killer robot. Couldn’t ask for much tamer than what he had up.

“Fine,” he said with an overly dramatic sigh, spinning the laptop around the face her, “But only this once.”

“Mmm hmm,” she said, already distractedly reading over his report. She kept her feet planted, arms clasped behind her back, and leaned forward to look at the screen. Probably to show him that she wasn’t going to touch his computer, and that he could trust her too.

Her eyes scanned the screen for three minutes, lingering on the parts about her, but also absorbing all the technical details as well. She soaked up knowledge like a sponge, that one.

There was nothing exciting, just reporting that Efi was well, that Talon hadn’t returned, any new findings his team had made (none), and that all was clear on his end, except using many more professional words to say that.

“Thank you,” she said, relieved, finally tearing her eyes away from the laptop to look at him, “Who the other people on your screen?”

“Some other Helix members,” Faruq explained, wanting to turn his screen back around but allowing her one last glance.

“Ones not here, I do not recognize them. Except for that one woman. The rest look nice,” she said with a nod, asking, “Why are their pictures gray?”

…Gray?

…What?

Faruq’s heart stopped in his chest, but he kept his face neutral as he turned the screen back around to look.

All the pictures were gray.

“Oh.” he said, starting to feel dizzy, “That? The gray- That just means they’re not online to talk to right now.”

Efi nodded understandingly. “Like a chat room, right?”

“Yes. Exactly. Just like a chat room,” Faruq said, closing his laptop and slowly standing up, “I do apologize, Efi, but I just realized what time it is and I am due to call and, uh, verify with my supervisors. I do that… every other day.”

“They make you call and write?” she asked curiously.

“Yes, they do for logging purposes. It’s my homework, and they’re just like overbearing parents, honestly,” he said with a grin, now having to lie through his teeth to the girl and hating every minute of it, “And, just like parents, I will be grounded if I don’t call in soon.”

“You’re just going to say what’s in your report, right?” she asked, picking up his empty plate and can. She could see he was in a rush, as he had cleaned his own dishes every other meal.

“Just what’s in the report,” he reassured her, smile still on his face, holding out a hand, “Pinky promise.”

“Pinky promise,” she said returning his grin, hooking her pinky with his and giving it a brief shake.

“Now, please excuse me,” he said, walking past her, laptop tucked under his arm, “I need to step outside and make this call.”

His smile fell the moment his back was turned to Efi, his face giving up the weight of faking it. He had so far ensured that she hadn’t been burdened by this as well. He felt ill. He wanted to cry and scream, but he held himself together to keep it that way.

He passed through the garage in his way out, and Orisa stood, watching him walk by.

“Do you need a hug?” The robot asked.

Shoot, maybe he wasn't keeping as neutral a look on his face as he wanted.

“Can I take a raincheck on that?” he asked his stride not breaking despite how much he really did need a hug right now.

Forget the hug, he needed an adult. An adulter adult.

“Yes. You may.” Orisa replied, watching him head out the door. She didn't say anything else. Even she still seemed to realize that Faruq was in a hurry.

He walked calmly, despite how much it felt like his legs shook with every step. He resisted the urge to immediately dial in to HQ, instead stepping outside and walking away from the house, heading towards the temporary Helix base the other team members had established. As far away as we could get from little prying ears.

Despite the warm sun, he shook, hand trembling as he struggled to punch in the numbers on his communicator. Now that he was alone, not responsible for anyone but himself, he could feel the panicked tears starting to sting his eyes, his jawn aching because of the tight clenching.

There was no way.

But - as he noticed Jabari and Sayed, his other Helix team members racing outside their safehouse headquarters, beelining towards him with a tablet in their hands and a worried look on their faces - he understood that there was.

Unfortunately, there was.

Helix mission profiles were tied to the biometric readers in their raptor suits. Those readers were sensitive, able to read if you had gotten a scratch on the face as easily it could if you had been shot.

And a gray portrait meant only one thing.

Captain Amari and her team were dead.

❖ ── ✦ ──『𓂀』── ✦ ── ❖

f*cking.

Agony.

Fareeha’s eyes snapped open as she felt the scorching sand underneath her, as she lay sprawled out on the desert floor. Her head throbbed and her vision swam.

All she could see was the fire.

All she could feel was pain.

There was a searing pain against her upper chest, where it felt like the some blazing shrapnel had slipped inside her suit, pressing against her necklace, and was burning her skin. The communicator and biometrics reader on her wrist were fried, melting down into a useless blob of metal and computer chips.

The building in front of her was full of fire and smoke, with the flames getting bigger. Despite the ringing in her ears, she could hear the sound of someone approaching, with the steps growing louder.

“Really?” she heard a voice say. She knew that voice. Agent Thay.

The woman walked over and stood in front of Fareeha’s prone form, the dazed woman having been knocked flat on her back. The force of the explosion had thrown Fareeha a few feet away from the warehouse, careening her through the open doorway and out on the desert sand.

Thay crouched down in front of her, aware that Fareeha was no threat right now, hands on her knees and looked her over. The warehouse behind her becoming engulfed in flames, serving as a hellish backdrop, made the quiet woman all the more threatening.

“You survived that?” she asked with a tilt of her head, “As impressive as always, Captain.”

Fareeha’s mouth opened, moving silently as she struggled to speak. Her throat felt tight, her vision swimming. Her head had been knocked against the stone stairs she was thrown down by the blast, and she was in shock.

Thay should have been across the city, on the Helix carrier. Should have been .

The presence Fareeha had felt following them made sense. Thay had been behind them, watching, waiting to detonate that bomb. Waiting to walk through the carnage and see if she had been successful or if there was anyone left to clean up.

How could you?

She wanted to scream it at the woman, she wanted to beat this monster within an inch of her life while demanding some kind of answer for betraying them. What was the reason?

“ How-” was all her strangled, trembling voice managed to say.

It was enough, though. Thay knew what she meant.

“Had to be done,” she said with a shrug, adding, “I had my orders. That’s all there is to it.”

“Orders?” Fareeha managed to say through gritted teeth, her head throbbing,

Thay explained. “My job was to get rid of you . It would have been easier if you had been terminated for incompetence. Less bloody as well. Then we could have killed you when you were a civ, and they would have been fine,” she thumbed back towards the remains of the others, pausing, “Well, not fine, but they would have had a little longer .”

Fareeha had never felt so much anger in her life. If looks could kill, Thay would have been as dead as the rest of the team.

Thay spoke so calmly, so flatly, that she might as well have been describing the weather outside this flaming building as sunny with zero chances of rain. Instead, that even, lifeless delivery that she had been praised for as keeping calm on the coms in firefight was infuriating Fareeha to no end.

Her team, her friends , were probably dead in that building. And there wasn’t a single emotion on that evil woman’s face.

She swore right then and there that, if she survived this, this woman would die by her hand. It may have been nothing more than a false promise to herself, to let herself pretend there was anything she could do, but it was keeping her alive and breathing for now. She would chase her down to the ends of the earth to put a bullet in her brain.

“You were Helix’s golden child, especially once you became the face of the institution, more or less,” Thay said with a sigh, “They gave you time to clean up all the messes. There was no other choice... It’s not personal.”

That had been her? They had been trying to figure out what hacker breached the system to release that gang, and while they had caught the hacker, they still hadn’t found out how-

Thay had been heading the investigation. The man in prison now was innocent. It had all been her.

She was one of their upper-level technological logistical experts, who had worked with Helix for years now. Someone who had clearance to access a lot of Helix’s information.

Suddenly, all the mistakes that Helix had been making started to add up. If Thay was in cahoots, she could wipe access logs, tamper camera feeds, and let their enemies move unseen in their ranks.

They were doomed.

Helix was f*cked.

Whatever Talon had been building up was coming to a climax, a long-con where Helix had grown complacent, and this team’s death was going to just be the opening act.

“Did-.... Doomfist-” Fareeha finally said as she slowly pushed herself upright. Helix still didn’t know how he had managed to escape so easily. But she had a feeling that the answer was standing right in front of her.

“Are you asking if I let Doomfist out?” Thay asked, pausing, “No, but… actually, I won’t answer that one. I don’t want to give you the satisfaction and I’ve spent too much time talking already.”

She stood back up to her full height, pulling out her Helix-issued pistol and pointing it at Fareeha, who was barely staying upright, leaning back on her hands to support herself.

She was going to be shot by her own corporation’s gun. What an ironic way to die.

“You want to know the answer?” Thay said, her own face emotionless despite the utter defiance on Fareeha’s, the flames behind her licking higher, “Haunt me and find out-”

She was interrupted by the sound of footsteps running towards them, with someone coughing as they neared fire and smoke billowing out of the warehouse.

“Fare?” a voice called out. “Fare!”

Fareeha was confused. She didn’t know that voice, and no other agents would be here. If it was a warehouse worker, they wouldn’t know who she was, and if it was someone with Thay, then they wouldn’t have cared about her.

Looking up at Thay, she was distracted, head-turning fully towards the sound. The traitor looked wildly bewildered as well. So this wasn’t someone with her, and it wasn’t part of her plan.

While the woman was distracted, Fareeha attempted to move. Her limbs were sore, the pain from the burn on her chest ripping through her when she tried to move, and the power to the suit had been fried. It limited her movements, between the weight of the armor and the stiffness of the unpowered hydraulics in the metal.

However, she realized that, despite how prone she was, her own pistol was still within reach. All she needed was one good distraction, and she could grab it.

A man came into view. Masked, and looking as confused as the women were.

“Fare?” he asked, taking in the scene in front of him. He silently looked between them once, twice, thrice, before asking, “Which one of you is Fare?”

Both woman stared at the man, aghast. He didn’t even know who he was looking for? This man had raced towards an exploded, on-fire building, into unknown danger, calling out the not-even-full name of a woman he didn’t even know?

Thay and Fareeha’s eyes met, the two of them sharing a mutual look of “ is this masked idiot with you? ” before turning to look at him once more. Neither silently claimed him.

He looked between the two woman, studying their faces once more.

“Ah….” he said slowly, “I think I’ve figured it out.”

In a flash, a bow was drawn (seriously who used a bow these days?) and an arrow lined up, pointing at Thay. At least he had guessed right .

“Drop the weapon,” he told her. “You shoot her, and I’ll kill you.”

“Well… darn,” Thay said, “This would be a setback, except-” she pulled out another pistol and aimed it at the man. “I have a second gun.”

The man stilled, looking annoyed at this development.

“Admittedly, I’m used to most people only having one, so this was unplanned for,” the man admitted, putting his arrow back in his quiver. “Good planning on your part.”

“I do like to plan ahead,” Thay agreed, “And while the compliment is appreciated, you still have to die. This is a no-witnesses job.”

“I would rather not,” the man asked, holding up an empty bow and pointing it at Thay, something she was once again bewildered by. What was an empty bow going to do? He couldn’t pacify her with that .

The man’s eyes flicked back towards Fareeha, signaling her to be ready. For something. He had a plan. Of some kind. Or he was just crazy. Which felt just as likely.

Frankly, even without the concussion Fareeha was 99% sure she had, this was all very confusing. It felt like the blast had sent her to a Twilight Zone or some kind.

The man’s hands moved in a blur and even without arrows notched, two blue and light streaks flew through the air so quickly they were gone in a blink. They sliced through Thay’s palms, and she dropped her one of her guns with a startled yelp, the other hand clenching and wasting a shot on the sand just past Fareeha’s head.

Fareeha moved as quickly as she could, picking up her own gun, mindful to not unbalance, and firing a shot at the woman’s head, too close to ever miss.

Thay wasn’t an on-field agent, and she worked behind the scenes; she hadn’t even anticipated someone surviving the blast. No survival skills, no ability to rescue this situation now. This would be an easy kill.

This man could have taken Thay down with that surprise attack he did, whatever it was, something he seemed to be aware of, but… he must have seen the rage in Fare’s eyes. He was letting her have the shot.

Pistol raised, she clicked the trigger. The tip of the gun let out a loud pop, and what sounded like a distance whistle and crack, and the gun smoked in her hand. The heat from the blast had melted the tip of the gun shut, and the shot hadn’t been able to fire, and instead the gun had quietly exploded in her hands, the useless thing.

Thay stared at her, eyes wide, and Fareeha was expecting a returning shot to be fired any second now.

Instead, blood trickled down the sides of Thay’s face as she briefly swayed. She then crumpled and fell over onto her side, dead.

A bullet hole in the side of her head oozed blood, and the pooling puddle underneath showed that the bullet had gone straight through. It had been a clean killing blow.

Not one that they had time to admire or question, however. The fire still raged on. Fareeha didn’t know if there was another round of explosives ready to get, set up to completely destroy the warehouse. If all evidence had been erased, then, as the only planned survivor, Thay could have faked how they died.

Glancing over at the stranger, he looked surprised at Thay’s body. Apparently, he hadn’t been anticipating a sniper shot either. How many parties were in play here? This situation felt like it had turned into a bad soup.

Regardless, he refocused quickly. Despite having been here only for a moment’s time, the burning blaze near them had him shining with sweat with out the hellish heat radiated out of the building. His front bang stuck to his forehead, and his pale skin that was visible was quickly growing red from the intense heat nearby.

“We have to get out of here,” he said, glancing up and over at the raging fire before looking back down at her. “Can you walk or-?”

“Gonna be tough. Suit’s locked up.” she said, reaching back and trying to press the emergency release. It didn’t work. No power. “Without the hydraulics, moving will be… difficult.”

Impossible, more likely, but she didn’t want to admit that she was a bit stuck in her locked-up armor.

“Can you get it off?” he asked, knowing it was a stupid but hopeful question.

She looked at him, with a look that confirmed that was a stupid but far too hopeful question.

He slung his bow over his back and came to crouch beside her, further analyzing the situation. His eyes skimmed over her form, lingering on the burns just visible on her upper chest, on the skin not covered by the armor.

“How injured?” he asked, his tone more business than concerned, “Any torso or limb burns or did the armor do its job?”

“I don’t feel any any injuries below my clavicle area, just the burns there, so I’m either in shock and dying or I’m fine,” she said quickly, “But you really don’t have time to analyze this. We don’t know how many more explosives she had set up-”

“True.” he said, squat-walking around to the back of the suit, “There’s an electronic release key-”

“Yeah, but it doesn’t work now . I tried it. It was probably fried in the blast or doesn’t have power or something since, you know, kaboom -” she said, having tried to already herself, annoyed at feeling him fiddle further.

She could hear he was in pain, the idiot, touching burning hot metal with his bare hands. She didn’t know what he was doing, but he wouldn’t listen to her and he was just wasting time and-

*click*

Okay. Fine.

It kind of frustrated her that he had gotten that to work so quickly. It was a relief, obviously, but this guy completely ignoring her and doing whatever he wanted and getting the results he wanted every time was getting annoying.

With the release key active, the locking mechanisms on her suit, the ones that kept the metal flush with her body, relaxed. While the suit was still stuck in places, the grip it had on her had loosened.

She felt more grunts of pain from the man as he slipped his hands into the slim opening that had formed in the back of the suit, her typical entrance and exit point, and fought to pry it open. Then two hands began pulling at one side while his boot pushed against the other.

She could hear the metal creak and groan, and she could hear him hiss in pain. The electronics in the suit in the suit were probably locked due to a lack of power, though he was making a lot of progress on his own, more than expected.

She turned as much as she could in the suit slipping her arm out of suit’s sleeve and through the gap he was making. Arm through, twisting her torso, she was able to get a hand on one half of the suit’s back and help push.

Teeth immediately grinded together in a grimace of pain. The metal burned against her hand, and she could feel the sizzle of her sweaty palms making contact with the blazing heat of the suit, the slight buzz of the last bit of power coursing through the suit humming as they struggled.

Together, they managed to push and shove and crack the suit enough for Fareeha to slip out. It only took a minute with the two of them working together, but it felt like forever.

Having escaped that little prison, she was now clad in only a black body suit, short sleeved on top but long on the bottom, and a thin pair of sneakers. Definitely not something that would keep her alive in a second blast, even with her being outside the building. The guy wasn’t wearing anything much more protective either. They should go.

But she couldn’t stop herself from glancing back at the warehouse, into the hell that room had become. The fire raged, nearly engulfing the building by now.

But even still, she couldn’t just leave, not when there was a chance someone else may have lived through the blast. Instead, against her better judgment, she stepped closer, heading back to the doorway and taking one last look inside.

She was a hero. They were heroes. Heroes couldn’t just run away.

She knew in her heart that there were no survivors. XJ-9s were powerful and deadly explosives, and the rest of the team had been nearly standing on top of them.

If somehow the blast hadn’t killed them, or their jetpack fuel igniting hadn’t, then the heat channeling through the armor while they were trapped in there, in the middle of that raging fire, could have. Their suits hadn’t been designed to withstand that strong a blast at such a close range…

But her suit might have been.

The experimental armor might be the only reason that she was still breathing. That, and the fact she had been near an exit and was blasted outside instead of feeling the brunt of the shrapnel and… and… but… but those closer, though, they wouldn’t have-… the rest of the team…

She had to check. She had to be sure.

She would never forgive herself if she didn’t.

Her eyes scanned through the smoke, her lungs aching and wheezing as she inhaled it, looking for any sign of life, anything. The smoke filling her eyes stung, but she blinked back the pain and looked and looked and found…

No one else had made it out.

The room was full of fire and death, guts and gore, a hazy red mist hanging in the smoky atmosphere, but there were no survivors. Nothing was left of them except for the heavy weight of iron in the air.

She could see a large melted hunk of metal, the emblem barely resembling one of Helix’s. That had been one of the Raptor suits. Whose it had been, she wasn’t sure.

She didn’t look any closer. She couldn’t.

She saw what had become of the team, and stopped looking. She had to.

That … that wasn’t how she wanted to remember them, not like… what she saw, not like she saw was left .

She would never forget them. She didn’t want to.

All she hoped to forget was that last look of terror she had seen on their faces, as they realized that this was the end. That’s not how she wanted to remember that.

Their smiling faces. Their bravery. Their camaraderie. How ready they were to be heroes, how welcoming they were to her, how they had treated her than more than just a team mate. They had treated her like a friend.

That’s how she would remember them. That’s how she would keep their memories alive.

May Allah reward you well, she silently wished, praying for the fallen.

“Fare.” the man called out to her, his voice breaking the lull in her mind. It wasn’t scolding, it wasn’t hurried… it was full of understanding and patience, but a reminder that they didn’t have much time to spare. They were still in danger here.

Finally, reluctantly, she made herself walk away from the destruction. There was nothing else she could do.

The two of them headed away from the building as quickly as they could. She felt like the man would be able to move much faster alone, but that he was slowing down for her. That was frustrating. She should be better than that.

It wasn’t until they were away from the roaring blaze and the smoke that she realized how much they had been coughing and hacking. They took a second to wheeze together, sucking in the cleaner air, before Fareeha spoke.

“So-” she sucked in another breath, watching the man carefully. His elbows were on his knees, palms having been slightly burnt from her suit, and he was bent partially, coughing still. The scent of smoke would still be clinging to that mask of his. “Who are you and how did you know-”

She stopped and her head whipped around to look when she heard a sound. More running. Footsteps racing this way. Talon? Had they come to finish the job?

Fareeha reached for a gun that she didn’t have and turned, the twisting motion pulling at the burnt skin on her chest, and made her wince and hiss.

“Okami!?” a voice called out, one that she recognized, “Fare!?”

Cole Cassidy came into view, that son of a gun. He was older now than when they had last talked, as was she. There was a proper beard on his face and heavy bags under his eyes. He had grown up.

She wasn’t exactly surprised. She knew what his wanted poster looked like. She had seen it every day at work.

The biggest difference was on his poster, he had a look of indifference. But here and now? His eyes were wide, and his breathing heavy.

There were a lot of questions on Fareeha’s mind right now, but at least she had gotten one answer. At least she now knew how this stranger was calling her a nickname she hadn’t heard in years, a name that only Cole Cassidy had ever used consistently.

While it was nice to see the man that she had looked up to like an older brother, she thought as she could hear another small explosion rip through the building behind them, this was hardly the reunion she would have wished for.

Little did she know, it was about to get worse.

જ⁀➴ˏˋ°•*⁀➷

Hanzo stayed partially bent over, eyes pinched shut, silently talking to his dragons. Hidari was scolding him for his recklessness, and Migi was asking him if he was alright. The burns on his hands stung, but he could feel the dragons’ energy focusing there, trying to help speed up the healing process. It wouldn’t take them too terribly long.

He was an archer. He needed his hands to be able to fight, especially if the fight was not yet over.

“Okami!”

Through the pounding in his ears, he could hear his name being called. Cole’s voice sounded hoarse and desperate like he was forcing the words out of his dry throat and pleading to hear a reply.

And had Hanzo had a touch less smoke in his throat, or didn’t have to keep inhaling the smoke clinging to his mask, he would have replied.

This was a bad day for masks. He was going through them quite quickly today, and getting awful, headache-inducing scents caught in their fibers.

Cole came into view. He looked a mess, hair wild, shirt wrinkled and partially untucked, panting and sweaty, and he looked tired. Numbani was still weighing heavily on him. They hadn’t given him enough time to rest. The poor man.

Hanzo had hoped to see Cole again, but he had hoped the circ*mstances would have been less dramatic. He was surprised, at the very least, that Cole had come alone. Hadn’t he mentioned Ana’s name on the line?

“C- unk- ” Hanzo coughed again, trying to clear his throat, listening to Cole wheeze in kind. The man had been sprinting non-stop over here, it seemed, “Cole. She’s the only one. Alive-”

Hanzo stopped talking the minute he laid eyes on Cole’s face. There was a look in his eyes he had never seen on Cole before, one that looked positively frightened when a second explosion ripped through the far-enough-to-be-safe-but-still-too-close warehouse.

Straightening up, Hanzo started to walk towards him, growing concerned about those uneasy steps Cole was taking their way.

A subdued thud a distance behind Cole had the two men and Fareeha looking up and over that way. A small figure had just landed softly on the sand, having dropped off the last foot of the ladder she was climbing down, and pulled her hood back to look at them properly as she hesitantly walked closer.

Ana Amari. Fare’s mother.

Fare was quiet. Stunned. “Mom?” she asked quietly taking a step closer, watching the other woman adjust the rifle strap. There was no doubt who it was slowly approaching her.

“Fareeha.” Ana said quietly, confirming it was indeed her.

Hanzo then learned that her name was Fareeha and not Fare. Of course, knowing Cole, he should have expected the man to use nicknames.

“Mother.” she said again, more tersely, her steps speeding up. Cole and Hanzo exchanged a quick look. This did not look like a touching reunion in the making.

“ MOTHER!?!” Fareeha roared, racing across the sand Cole, the poor man caught between them, stuck an arm out and caught her before she could furiously bumrush her own mother.

As Cole struggled to hold back the raging woman, he looked like he would rather be anywhere else in the world right now than caught up in an Amari spat. As she tried to push him off of her, he looked like an emotionless bobblehead, but his grip stayed firm.

It wasn’t until her rage simmered down from hellfire to boiling inferno that Cole’s grip loosened. Fareeha shoved him off of her and stumbled back a step.

“Do not touch me,” she warned him, looking past him and towards Ana, “And you .”

Her voice was low. Her words were spoken with a growl and an unspoken threat, her finger pointing at the older woman accusatorily. She. was. furious.

“Habibti…” Ana said, clearly torn between walking closer to her daughter and giving her the distance they both needed to process this sudden reunion.

“You- You’ve been alive all this time? All this time? ” she asked angrily, “You’ve- you’ve- you’ve- you’ve-”

She sucked in a breath and blew it out in frustration, forcibly stabilizing her temper just enough to speak.

“You couldn’t even have sent a message? A word? Any indication that you didn’t- that you weren’t killed? ” she asked, catching sight of Cole slinking away out of the corner of her eye. “Not another step, you.”

Cole’s slinking halted unwillingly. His expression was still one that unsettled Hanzo. One that looked haunted in a distant way, even though he was looking right at Hanzo, one that silently cried out for a moment of respite that wasn’t coming.

He didn’t have time to analyze further before Fareeha continued her justified ranting and made Cole’s eyes snap to her.

“You knew? ” she hissed at Cole, “And you didn’t tell me?”

“Barely any longer, really,” Cole said quietly, eyes averting her gaze, “It was a surprise to me too.”

“But you knew .” she said frustratedly, turning back to her mother. “All this time. All this time I spent mourning you. All that time spent talking to your gravestone, reminiscing, missing you, and you’ve been alive. Probably laughing at me-”

“I would never, Fareeha-” Ana began, but stopped when her daughter shook her head at her.

“Never what? Never come back?” she asked, with a disgusted laugh, “Let me guess, if I had never almost just died , I would have never known, would I?”

Ana’s silence was enough of an answer.

“Not even a letter, not even a hint that you were alive?” Fareeha said, shaking her head again, “Not to me, not to Sam, not even to Reinhardt?”

Ana looked frustrated. Sad, but frustrated. “I couldn’t risk-”

“Couldn’t risk us knowing that you were alive and well?” Fareeha said. Her hands balled up into fists. “Just because you were dead doesn’t mean you get to do whatever you want!-”

Ana frowned, uncomfortable. Granted, Jack and Reyes hadn’t had any grand reveals to loved ones once they had come back from the dead. This experience was for Ana to suffer through alone.

Teeth clenched, Fareeha grimaced and then forced herself to try to relax.

“Forget you. I have to go- I have to-” she took a breath, “I have to contact HQ and let them know what happened. That the team is dead.”

“They know.” Cole said quietly, “...Says you’re dead too.”

Fareeha looked at him, and then back at the building. For a second, it looked to Hanzo like she was hoping, wishing with all her heart, that someone else could have made it out. If her system had been fried enough to stop reading her vitals, then maybe another’s-?

But Hanzo had seen the remains, the blood, the ashes through that doorway as equally as she had. That look of hope was immediately dashed aware by reality of what had happened.

No one else had made it out of there. She had to know that.

“Then I had better tell them I’m not-” she said decisively as she began turning back around.

Hanzo spoke up, “If you go back to Helix, you will die,” he said, “I heard what that woman said, before I distracted her. You were the target, Fareeha Amari. One dead traitor will not change their goal.”

“Shut up, I don’t even know you,” she said, whipping around to face him, “And Helix can investigate this. If I don’t tell them, they won’t even know where to start-”

“You’re trying to stop a fox in the henhouse, but walking back there, alive, means you will be nothing more than a hen in a foxhouse,” Hanzo said, “You can’t watch all angles. They will strike. You will not be prepared for when.”

“I-”

Cole cut her off. “He’s not wrong,” he said, gazing Okami’s way with that glazed, uneasy look still in his eyes, “He never is.”

Fareeha turned back to Cole now. “Then what do you want me to do? To run and hide?” she said, “Unlike some people, I am not going to run away-”

“You don’t have to run away, Habibti,” Ana said, her quiet voice still managing to silence them all, “You’re dead now. You can do whatever you want.”

Fareeha paused, stunned at her own words being thrown back at her.

“What? I’m not-” she paused to wince, adrenaline wearing down and giving way to pain. She grit her teeth and continued, “I”m going-”

“Hopefully to get that burn taken care of,” Hanzo said. His words seemed to remind her.

“You’re injured too,” she said, looking both surprised and ashamed it had slipped her mind.

“Me? No,” Hanzo said, showing his hands. It had taken some effort on the dragons’ part, less than expected, but they had healed his skin from the burns. They looked good as new, and Fareeha looked nothing short of perplexed.

Hanzo did not know if his dragon’s limited ability could assist in healing someone else, or only him, but Fareeha was not the person he would try to figure it out on. Not in a group, not in a non-life or death situation, not for someone that didn’t really matter to him. He had already done more than his part here.

He continued. “You, however, need help.” he reminded her, “I lack the skills to assist, sadly. Perhaps Cole can assist?”

Cassidy looked stunned at being thrown back into the conversation. “...Me? No, naw, I don’t have- well, maybe back at the base? Or-” he paused, turning. “Ana, you got something, right?”

Passing the torch on back, Ana was now put on the spot. She was more prepared than Cole, though, and was already reaching into her cloak, pulling out one of her grenades. She was twisting it as she stepped closer.

Have a seat, Fareeha, this will sting,” she said, “It won’t fix everything, it’s not that strong, but it is a start.”

Fareeha refused to sit. As Hanzo watched Ana crack it open and gently rub it onto the burn on her collarbone, he wondered if Ana had only been referring to the ointment.

“Perhaps there’s more we can use, back at the base,” Ana was saying as she tried to patch her daughter up. “Something stronger. There should bandages at least.”

“What base?” Fareeha asked, hissing at the pain as the liquid came in contact with her skin.

Hanzo co*cked his head. “Do you not wonder how Cole knew your team was dead?”

Fareeha frowned. “I was wondering-” she said, “The only people who would have access to that information that quickly are Helix… and… and… Overwatch.”

Dawning now lit up on her face, she looked between Ana and Cole. “No-” she began, “No way.”

“Yup,” Cole said, “You got it.”

“It’s back? You mean it? ” she said quietly, “It can’t be back.”

“It can,” Hanzo said with a sigh, “And it is.”

Fareeha turned her head to look at him, wincing as the ointment stung, “Who even are you?” she asked, “I know them, and I know why they would be here, but what’s your name, mystery guy?”

“Okami,” Hanzo said, raising a brow when she shook her head.

“I don’t do codenames with people I don’t know, unless ordered to,” she told him, “Your name. Please.”

“Nanashi, if one is required,” Hanzo said, “Do not call me it. It is a name, yes, but it is not who I am.”

She stared at him for a minute, trying to make sense of what he had just said.

“Oh. You’re one of those confusing types. Great.” she said, looking to see if the wound was better. It still looked gnarly, but it was better. Considering how bad the burn had been, though, it probably wasn’t going to completely heal without good medical care. Adequate would not be enough to undo the damage.

Fareeha looked like she was about to start interrogating Cole on his new development, but paused when she saw Hanzo raising his hand.

“What?” she asked, realizing that he was asking for permission to speak, “Go ahead.”

“I would like to be excused from the coming conversation,” he said. “It does not involve me.”

She tilted her head at him. “Okay? I am not going to stop you from leaving?”

“Good.” Hanzo crossed by her and headed towards Cole, “But I need to speak with him so just… yell at your mother, or ask her about what she’s been up to, or however else you would like to stay busy for a moment.”

She looked between Hanzo and Ana, her face twisting into a look of both defiance and yet an understanding that, yes, she really only had been yelling at her mother this whole time,

“Don’t tell me what to do,” she said defiantly.

“I wasn’t. Merely stating I wouldn’t stop you if you did,” Hanzo said, grabbing Cole’s hand and dragging him a few feet away so that they could have their own private conversation.

Cole still looked lost. Stunned and lost. More lively than the start, but that was probably out of necessity rather than being grounded.

“Talk to me,” Hanzo said quietly, gently rubbing on other man’s arms, trying to ground him.

Cole surprised him. It took a moment for the man to speak, but when he did speak, he caught Hanzo off guard.

“I am so angry with you,” he said, his voice a low but sharp whisper, “ So angry.”

“With me?” Hanzo asked, confused. “What have I done?”

“You went in there. And you didn’t-” Cole pursed his lips. His hand was balled up into a fist and his arm was shaking , “O. Christ on a bicycle. f*cking hell. ”

Hanzo was confused. Why on earth would Cole be angry?

“Have I done something wrong?” Hanzo asked, perplexed, looking back towards the women before he met Cole’s uneasy gaze, “I saved Fareeha.”

“I know you did, Wolfy, and- and thank you for that.” Cole said, shoulders sagging, hand opening and closing in frustration as he struggled to explain himself. There were about ten different emotions on his face, and it was making it difficult for Hanzo to read any of them.

Cole said he was angry, but what he was saying didn’t match how he was acting . That made it confusing.

“And I can’t- I’m angry at me too, O,” Cole said, which did not help explain anything, “I wish I could just be happy that you did that and that you’re here now, and I am, but I ain’t. Can’t.”

Cole’s hand reached towards Hanzo as he spoke, but then he hesitated. Instead, he grabbed his own shirt sleeve and gripped the fabric tightly between his fingers.

Hanzo could clearly see that there was something more that Cole wanted to say, but he was struggling with the words. The man couldn’t even look him in the eye right now, ashamed and angry.

“Do you wish to talk?” Hanzo said, leaning down and forward, getting into Cole’s line of sight. His hand rested on top of Cole’s, but the man’s fingers jumped at the sensation.

Reluctantly, Hanzo let go, realizing that contact was not wanted right now. That was unusually for the normally touch-happy man.

“Please talk to me, my love.” Hanzo begged, his hand falling back to his side.

Cole looked at him again, and the little bit of anger that had been left on his face dissipated into a sad and tired look. The expression on his face was that of pain in the heart, of longing and reluctance, of uncertainty.

“I want to, O, I-I do, but-” Cole looked past Hanzo at the others before looking back at him. Teeth briefly nibbled nervously at his lip, and he sighed, “I can’t do this now.”

“I didn’t expect you to. Not this very second. Later, when we are alone, we will,” Hanzo said, trying to reassure him and comfort him, “Scold me later, as much as you wish, but please don’t yell. I’d rather you didn’t.”

Cassidy’s heart broke at that last request, judging by how forlorn and bothered he looked by the simply request.

“I wouldn’t- Wolfy- sh*t ,” Cole sighed, hand coming to tiredly rub at his face as he grew frustrated with himself once again, “God f*cking dammit.”

Cole’s feet kicked at the desert sand. Boots toeing the dirt, he was stalling, trying to steady himself enough to keep it together. For now, anyway.

He gave up trying to broach that topic, meaning it when he said he couldn’t talk about it now, and instead asked a new question.

“Where are you staying?” he finally asked. “We can talk there.”

Despite how obvious the subject change was, it was still coming out of a place of concern for Hanzo. Cole wanted to make sure that Hanzo had somewhere safe to go, that he had somewhere to go.

“Nowhere.” Hanzo said quickly, explaining after seeing Cole look at him curiously, “I never found a place to stay. Do you have room for another?”

“Of course we do, O, of course. Come with us, but… weren’t you looking for somewhere back in Numbani?” Cole asked him. “This isn’t like you, to not be ready.”

“Too many cats on the internet, too many distractions,” Hanzo said with a shrug.

Sure, he had had a few places in mind, but that mattered little now. He had been on the move since he got here, too busy looking into this Badawi situation, trying to make Cole’s life just a little easier and see if he could solve this weapon smuggling mystery, to actually stop anywhere.

Of course, he knew of places that he could go, he had had a list of hotels ready, but there was nowhere else he would rather be than accessible to Cole. Something about the other man’s demeanor was bothering him and he didn’t want to leave his side.

Cole, at least, looked relived that Hanzo wasn’t leaving him yet. Hanzo was glad that, out of the maze of emotions and expressions that Cole was putting him through, he at least made it to the correct exit.

While the two of them finished talking, Ana and Fareeha had managed to settle their differences enough to walk over to the men together.

Well, not together, and Fareeha was limping more than walking, but they came over at the same time. That probably had to count for something.

“We are going back to the base,” Ana told them, “To see if there are any stronger medical supplies there, or at least a better topical for the burn.”

“Okami and I are coming too,” Cole told her, “He’s crashing with us.”

Ana raised a brow at them, but did not look surprised. In fact, one might even guess her surprise was the possibility that Okami would not be going back to the base with them. To her, it seemed like it had been inevitable and expected.

The group collected their things, as little as there were, and headed back towards the defunct Overwatch base.

Fareeha was in pain from being thrown from the blast so aggressively, and keeping pace was clearly a struggle, but she refused to accept help from her mother, and Hanzo knew better than to offer himself. Cole, as expected, offered Fareeha a shoulder, and helped support her on the walk back, both physically and emotionally if those aggressive sniffs, indicative of crying, were anything to go by.

She had lost her team, and had barely survived. She was a strong woman, but strong woman were allowed to cry, to feel, to weep and mourn. She was strong, but she was also human.

On the walk back, no one spoke, save for Cole attempting to quietly talk to Fareeha and comfort her as best he could. It was a noble attempt given his state.

Hanzo kept glancing over at Cole, but the man offered no reply, not even a non-verbal one. He was indeed frustrated about the situation, but was putting his own feelings aside to take care of another, because of course someone as caring as him would.

But why had he been so frustrated? Hanzo didn’t understand.

The group reached the base, the distance making it impressive just how quickly and far Cole had been running to them, but the conversation between him and Cole did not continue swiftly enough for Hanzo’s liking. Instead, Cole and Ana branched off and began searching for other medical supplies while Fareeha was forced to sit and wait in what appeared to have been a break room.

Hanzo, having no idea where exactly he was or where anything was, took a private moment to swap out his mask for a less-smoky/headache-inducing one. The charcoal color had been a bit too fitting. He swapped to a navy one.

Then, once that was taking care of, he opened cabinets to be helpful. He found lots dusty gear, moldy backpacks, rusty tools, and a large, floor-to-ceiling cabinet full of cans of soup. Lots of soup.

His searching wasn’t accomplishing much, not on his part, but he was helping in spirit, he supposed. Singular spirit. The dragons were in his head marveling at all the cans of soup and were of no help. And now he had a craving for soup by proxy, which was also of no help.

Fareeha was in the room watching him wander around, unimpressed.

“Okay, listen, you clearly don’t know where anything is-” she began.

Hanzo wanted to argue, his natural tendency, but understood that he had a closet full of soup behind him and no idea where to look for anything useful.

“-So could you just, you know, sit down and stay here and… talk with me?” She saw the confusion on the upper-half of the man’s face, “I just watched my team die, and my long-dead mother’s not dead, and I am- and, uh, I- it would be really nice to have a distraction before I lose my mind.”

That was fair. She had had an awful day. Requesting a distraction was a simple ask, and one that Hanzo could serve as this wished-for distraction for the injured woman while Cole and Ana ransacked the place. It would at least let him be of some use.

He gave up wandering around and settled down across from Fareeha, sitting down on a dusty chair. The silence between them was awkward, but Hanzo had no idea how to converse with her. She was a stranger to him, and he had no real goal with this conversation, not yet.

Starting a conversation with an equivalent of “ so… you have mommy issues too?” was probably not the best opener.

Luckily, before Hanzo could ruin yet another relationship before it began, Fareeha spoke first.

“How did you know who I was, back at that warehouse?” she asked him, “You didn’t know, but then you did-”

This wasn’t exactly how he wanted to start the conversation. Why couldn’t they just talk about the weather or something simple?

“You won’t like the answer,” Hanzo warned her, letting her know that if she wanted to know, she was going to have to mean it and that she couldn’t be angry with him if she didn’t like it.

She apparently agreed to those terms. “Tell me,” she said with a nod of her head.

Hanzo sighed before admitting it. “You look like your mother,” he told her, “Once you looked at me fully, between the look in your eyes and the look on your eye, I knew.”

Fareeha frowned, but didn’t say anything beyond “I see” . He wondered how many times she had heard she looked like her mother growing up, how many times she had looked in the mirror and seen the memory of her mother’s face. He wondered now how she felt, having the woman’s actual living face to compare to and see just how right everyone was.

He wondered, but he knew far better than to ask. Instead, he wisely stayed silent, letting her redirect how she wished.

“How do you know Cole?” she asked, changing the subject. Her tone made it difficult to tell if this was a conversation or an interrogation, and the way she fidgeted with the fake and peeling leather of the old chair she sat in did not help him decide which it was. He decided to answer carefully.

“Through… work,” Hanzo said slowly. A former Helix captain would probably not be pleased to hear he was a bounty hunter slash assassin.

“Overwatch work, or bounty hunter work?” she asked, looking at the surprised look on the upper half of his face and motioning up and down his body, “Oh, please , I mean, you don’t look like an accountant . And you know Cole. It had to be one or the other.”

Was this a trap? This sounded like a trap.

“Bounty hunter.” Hanzo answered warily.

“Yeah, that’s what I figured,” she said with a nod. She paused. “You’re a bounty hunter that uses a bow? ” At least she actually sounded impressed when asking the question this time.

“Yes.” Hanzo said, still not unconvinced this wasn’t an interrogation of some kind.

“Huh.” was all she said. Just that one noise, then nothing. Hanzo had no idea what that noise was supposed to mean.

Finally, after a long minute of musing, of peeling off a large chunk of the faux leather, she asked, “How did you shoot Thay?” Seeing Hanzo’s confused expression, she explained, “The woman that tried to blow me up and shoot me. That woman.”

Understanding who they were talking about now, Hanzo shook his head, “I did not kill her.”

“No, that’s not what I- I know who killed her. Just something else she had to take from me. That was a clean bullet through her brain, nothing less than perfect, I know that.” she said, hands held up to show she meant no harm (to him anyway), “But you shot her hands , right? That’s why she dropped the gun? There was no arrow in them or on the ground after.”

Hanzo stared at her, trying to figure out how to respond. He had hoped that she wouldn’t have noticed, wouldn’t have remembered the shot he fired in desperation, but he was not that lucky. That had been an arrow, a spirit one conjured up through the dragons, but he couldn’t say that.

“There was.” was all he said. He would offer no further explanation. He had underestimated her and her observational abilities, and would make sure not to do so again.

“Okay, cool guy, so there was ,” she said tiredly, “So why were you there? You sure got there fast.”

“Helping out Cole with something,” Hanzo said, unsure of how much intel to divulge to her. It wasn’t his information to tell. And what was his to tell he didn’t want to.

“Me?” she asked, curious, “Was I what-?”

Hanzo felt he could answer that one at least. “No.”

At least she didn’t seem upset by the reply, instead continuing to question him. “So I was a surprise then?” she asked.

“To me, you were.” Hanzo said with a shrug, “I to you as well, I would assume.”

“Yeah, you were.” she said, crossing her arms and looking him over once more, “You kind of still are. I’m gonna guess you’re not done being a surprise either.”

That brought a smile to Hanzo’s masked face. It reminded him of one of his first real conversations with Cole, in a way. She and Cole were quite similar, more so than not at least, especially when she asked her next question.

“Did you change your mask?” she inquired, “It’s a different color, right?”

“I did change it,” he told her, seeing no reason not to.

“How-...” she looked down at his shut guitar case, clearly understanding that he was not a musician, “How many of those do you have, anyway?”

It was a fair question. One he wasn’t sure of the answer.

“A lot,” he confessed, “Not certain of the total, but quite a few.”

She smiled oddly, a look of amusem*nt and confusion. “You’re an interesting guy,” she said with a shake of her head, “Nice to talk to, anyway.”

“You’re quite pleasant to converse with when you’re not yelling,” Hanzo genuinely complimented her in return.

Now she rolled her eyes at him.

“My team just passed away and I just found out my mother - who I thought was dead - has been avoiding me all these years,” she said to him, “I think I’m allowed a yell or two.”

“I didn’t say you weren’t.” Hanzo told her, surprised by her suddenly defensive tone, “It’s just more enjoyable to speak to you when you’re not.”

“Ha. Funny.” she said flatly, slumping back into her seat.

Hanzo frowned. He wasn’t trying to be funny, he was just stating a fact. Why did she think it was funny?

“It’s just so surreal, her being alive,” she continued musing about her situation, “All those years I spent making up scenarios with her surviving and how I would react and when it comes down to it… that -.. What happened was never what I pictured.”

“Did you see it going differently?” Hanzo asked her, curious and also taking advantage of moving the topic away from himself and more towards her.

“I always figured that, if she was alive, she would come home ,” Fareeha confessed, “And not involve me discovering her in what feels like the second biggest accident in her life.”

The second biggest accident? She… oh.

He thought he had read something about Amari regarding that, though his focus had been more on Ana at the time instead of the unplanned-for baby. Fareeha herself.

Awkward.

She looked down at the lump of a necklace in her hand, the chain having fused and the charm, whatever it had been, having melted and reformed into a shapeless blob that she had somehow managed to salvage. The burn from the metal - from the necklace, the shrapnel, and her own suit - was still seared into her flesh, and Hanzo wasn’t sure it would ever go away completely.

Her voice grew flat and even, her fingers toying with the remains of the necklace, “Do you even know how many times Reinhardt and I went to her grave? Once a month the first year, once a year after that, every year. We met up, remembered her, mourned her, celebrated her life, and gave each other time to talk to ‘her’, privately.”

She let the necklace slip from her fingers and fall into her lap. She didn’t pay attention to it anymore, instead her gaze now returning to Hanzo.

The man could tell that she just appreciated having someone listen to her, though, admittedly, he wasn’t able to assist much with her trauma-dumping beyond sitting across from her and trying to understand.

Fareeha continued. “I would clean her grave. Scrub off the dirt and grime, pull the weeds, make it something worthy to a symbol of her .”

A symbol to who she had thought her mother was. A symbol to the brave hero who was a victim of this war. A symbol of what Ana had meant to her at the time.

How had that view changed in the last hour? How much had her world been turned upside-down?

“Part of me,” she began and then paused, unsure how to say what she wanted. Her fingers tapped against the arm of her chair as she fidgeted and picked out her thoughts, “Part of me almost felt closer to her after she died. Does that sound crazy? ”

“No.” Hanzo said honestly, meeting her direct gaze with one of his own. “It doesn’t.”

His reply seemed to encourage her. “So you get what I mean, by that, right?” she asked, almost energized at finding someone like-minded. It probably helped that he didn’t know Ana, the way many of Fareeha’s circle would, so his replies would not be tainted with the memory of a woman they were trying to memorialize.

“Yes. I do.” he said quietly. He knew all too well.

She smiled at him, a polite full of amusem*nt more than one of sincere joy.

“You don’t talk much, do you? You’re a one-word kind of guy,” she said, “Fine then, then I have to ask, do you get what I mean or do you just understand it?”

Hanzo had to mull a moment to read the context of her question, as he was in no way as familiar with her as he was with Cole. With Cassidy, it was usually easy, but she was unknown, so he had to put more effort into making sure he was answering correctly.

Rolling the question through his head once more, he felt like he knew what she was asking, and yes, he understood , but that sounded like the lesser reply.

“I… get it,” he said slowly, explaining to make sure he was understood, “My father is dead. And I speak to him still, even though I know he is dead. Sometimes it just feels like he’s there, and some ways I can imagine he is when I need him to be, and… I am able to talk to him in ways I never felt I could while he was alive-”

“Because now he has to listen and you can pour your heart out in a way you never could before,” Fareeha finished for him, nodding, “Yeah. You get it.”

She sighed. “Sorry you also have to be a part of the dead parent club-” she paused, “Well, wait. I’m not anymore, uh, sorry, uh… This is so weird .”

Hanzo gave her a moment to ponder this realization, but, once she appeared ready, finished the thought she had been leading up to.

“Now that’s your mother is alive, you don’t even know if you know her. She’s not going to be the mother you’ve been talking to for all these years,” Hanzo said, “Is she anything like you remember? Or did you never know her at all? Does it turn out that you find she hates your guts and wishes you were dead?”

He was thinking about his own mother now, to be honest. The lie he had told himself for years, and how his own illusions had been shattered.

He thought he had known her. He never had, and yet always had.

Fareeha looked at him, biting her lip uncomfortably, analyzing him. Had that been too much personal information on his part? He had thought that they were trying to bond somehow over this, but-

“So…” she began slowly, leaning forward to look at him, “you have mommy issues too?”

Yes, that had been too much.

“I’ve many issues, so frankly I’ve lost track of specific ones,” Hanzo confessed, not really wanting to divulge any more about himself. He made an unsubtle subject change, “So. What do you plan to do next?”

“Ideally, I’d go back to Helix, report what happened, honor my team mates, find the other traitors in the ranks, and save Helix, but… I think that would be short-lived,” She said dejectedly, “As would I.”

“Mmm hmm,” Hanzo said. He had already explained to her, though it was promising that it had sunk it despite all her screaming.

“I don’t know what to do, Helix was… was everything. It’s all I ever worked towards after Overwatch was shut down… I still want to help people, obviously, so… maybe I have to become a vigilante?” she mused, “Or like, a superhero. With a mask. Like you.”

Hanzo sat up straighter, insulted. “I’m not a superhero.” he told her.

“No, Mr. ‘I ran into an explosion, saved a woman, and cracked open her armor and helped her escape before she was killed’, you’re obviously not, I’m so sorry,” she said sarcastically, “Whatever, Okami, be whatever you want to call it, I guess, as long as you keep helping people.”

The use of his handle did not escape his notice. “I thought you didn’t do codenames.”

“Not with people I don’t know.” she said with a soft shrug, “But I feel like I know you better now, so it’s fine.”

She sat there, mulling. Looking up and around at the Overwatch plaques and decor inside this tin can of a base, the answer was right in front of her. Why was she hesitating?

“Cole likes helping people too. Too much. I think it’s rubbed off on me,” Hanzo said, looking up at the same plaque she was, “That’s why he returned to Overwatch, and why he’s running himself into the ground to doing so.”

Fareeha tore her gaze from the plaque to look back at him. “And you- you’re not part of Overwatch, right?” she asked.

“No.” Hanzo answered immediately, “Not officially. I’ve… assisted in overlapping matters, but that’s because… Cole doesn’t have anyone else, really, to do it. There’s a.. Winston. And a Genji. I’m trying to remember if there are any other names I’ve heard-”

Fareeha’s eyes widened. “Wait.” she said.

Hanzo waited.

“That’s it ?” she asked, “So, like, Cole is Overwatch right now? That’s- that’s… that’s it?”

“All I am aware of,” Hanzo reiterated, “Technically he’s Blackwatch, I believe, but I have assisted Cole in multiple Overwatch missions, I suppose. He’s usually alone. You see how tired he is, do you not?”

“Yeah…” Fareeha said slowly, biting her lip in thought, “Is… my mother not with Overwatch? Or, whatever is left of Overwatch.”

Hanzo shrugged. This he did not know. “Not last I heard, when we last spoke in Turkey. That’s where Cole and I ran into her not too long ago.”

“What was she doing in Turkey?” Fareeha asked suspiciously, “What were you? ”

Perhaps it was not ideal to mention a high-level, government-disrupting assassination to a Helix captain, who was probably well aware what became of Yavuz despite how the country tried to cover it up.

“.......uh,” Hanzo hesitated before he said slowly, “...Work.”

“Work. Okay.” she said slowly in return, reluctantly forced to accept that answer, “So she must be doing that vigilante thing. I might have to do that too…”

That was not the right answer. They didn’t need any more vigilantes running around, not when they had somewhere better to be.

“I just can’t believe that Overwatch is back.” She paused to think and then shook her head, “I had always dreamed of being a part of Overwatch when I was younger, but… not like this. Never like this. Everything that’s happened… This makes my dream feel like a nightmare….”

“It’s trying to be back, but it’s not… certain, yet. Cole’s doing his best, as he always does,” Hanzo said as brightly as he could manage, “But he is just one man and here he is, running himself ragged once more, trying to make this dream a reality. Do not take this the wrong way, but he should have rested longer after Numbani-”

Fareeha stared at him. It was news to her, apparently, that Cole had been in Numbani too . She finally seemed to be understanding just how hard his Cole was working.

“He was in Numbani? I can guess what he was getting into, guess who he was talking to too, if I am to believe the report I heard,” Fareeha said with a frown, one caused by overthinking, “I’m guessing you were there too.”

“I was.” Hanzo said, seeing no harm in confirming that, not when she was asking the right questions.

“Ah. That makes sense.” she said, mulling further, “...He can’t do this alone.”

“I do not doubt his ability. He can accomplish whatever he puts his mind to,” Hanzo argued, “As long as his body can hold out, you know he will keep fighting.”

“Yeah. I do. He’s stubborn. That’s my worry.” Fareeha said with a sigh, “Because, I guess he can do it alone - alone, but, like, with you - but… he shouldn’t have to.”

Hanzo didn’t speak. He would let her come to her own conclusions from here. He was certain that she would pick the correct one.

“I-”

The conversation was cut off when Ana and Cole reentered, having finally found a more sufficient medical kit.

The focus switched to caring for Fareeha for the next few minutes. Treating the burns, numbing the pain as best they could and bandaging them properly.

Afterwards, once they seemed to be finishing up, Hanzo stood. He wished to speak to Cole now, privately, if only the others would let him.

Cole seemed uncertain on where he should be and what he should be doing. The man had talked about how important Ana was to him, and the feeling seemed at least mutual in Turkey, but now Ana’s daughter was here and she was injured. Cole was being unintentionally pushed out and he didn’t feel it appropriate to push back in somewhere he wasn’t sure he ever belonged.

The two women were in an awkward stage, and it was not something that Hanzo was keen to stand around waiting for them to figure out. They were adults, they could solve their own problems. He was about to steal Cole away so the two of them could finally talk.

Fareeha, however, spoke before he could and ruined his plans.

“Cole? You’re running Overwatch?” she asked, looking up and over at Cassidy.

“Blackwatch, really. Placeholder stuff for Overwatch more or less, running missions, but I’ll be running Blackwatch for a bit until everything gets figured out,” he explained distractedly.

“So do I ask you if I can join, or do I just… go there… and… tell Winston I’m joining?” she asked him. “Because I’m joining you, whether you like it or not. You’re not doing this alone.”

Cole blinked, and Ana was stunned as well. Hanzo was not.

“You… you wanna join?” he asked, perking up, the first sign of life Hanzo had seen since they had met up, “Well, shiet , yeah, sure! Just, uh, I’ll send Winston a heads up and you can just come on back, but I mean… are you sure? ”

It was a fair question. Fareeha was a face of Helix. She had spent years earning her rank, and the trust of others, her team and civilians, and helped make Helix what it was today. Between what she was leaving behind, and what she had gone through today, it was a fair question.

She nodded confidently.

“Yeah. Thay was a high-level officer. I doubt she was the only traitor Talon’s put in the ranks,” Fareeha said sadly, “I don’t… I don’t feel like I can save Helix from the inside. But, I think, with Overwatch’s help, there’s a chance to keep it from completely imploding and keep the dream alive for my team. That and Talon wants me dead, so I feel like other Helix agents would be caught in the crossfire again, and I don’t- Anyway. So. How do I sign up?”

There was a smile on Cole’s face, but Hanzo noticed that micro-twitch of his eye when Fareeha admitted that she too had ulterior motives for joining Overwatch. It was also about what she could get out of it, just as much as it was about the good they could do.

That had to be frustrating, knowing that yet another person was just joining to get what they could out of Overwatch, but Cole knew better than to look a gift horse in the mouth. He would take any help that he could get.

“You…” Cole paused, as apparently this hadn’t been a process he had handled before, “You already have. I’ll, uh, have Winston handle the, ah, paperwork and stuff, but to me, it’s all.. Yeah.”

He smiled at her tiredly. “Glad to have you aboard, Fare.” he said sincerely, shooting Winston a quick text about the situation. “We’ll head back tomorrow morning, after Winston reprograms the flight GPS in the bot, but for the rest of today let’s just… rest.”

“I could use the rest, today’s been… hell,” She admitted. “So, I’m in, just like that?... I figured I would have to be dead for years before I was allowed to join, like some people seem to think.”

It was unclear if Ana was more displeased at the fact that her daughter was joining Overwatch, or that her daughter was shading her while doing so.

“Fareeha-” Ana started, but stopped, instead focusing on helping to patch up her daughter as much as they could with the supplies available.

Hanzo, wanting to take advantage of the pause, leaned in close to Cole and quietly spoke.

“Cole, let’s speak now,” he said, getting that uneasy gaze sent his way again. He nodded towards the door, wanting to leave too.

Cole nodded distractedly, but he could probably feel the growing tension between mother and daughter. Neither of them would want to be caught in the middle again.

Cole’s eyes darted between the door, Hanzo, Ana, and Fareeha. “Yeah,” he said hesitantly. “But lemme make sure they don’t need nothing else-”

Hanzo snapped his fingers as if a thought had just occurred, and then spoke to Fareeha.

“There was one other name going to join Overwatch, I just remembered-’ he said, using the trump card he had been saving, “Jack, wasn’t it?”

Fareeha’s eyes widened and she looked from Hanzo to her mother.

“Jack? Jack’s alive. Jack’s alive too, mother??? ” she said, that anger returning, “Next thing you’re going to tell me is that Gabriel’s out there too, just running around and-.”

Ana’s back was to the two men, but whatever expression was on her face was enough to answer Fareeha’s question.

“Oh. my. GOD!” she yelled in frustration, quieting down to a distraught whisper, “ oh my god… ”

“We need to talk, Fareeha,” Ana was saying. She didn’t seem ready, but she would probably never be. The time had come for her to try to explain… everything.

“We do .” her daughter agreed. She wasn’t ready to hear it, but she would probably never be. But even still, the time had come for her to try to understand .

Hanzo, having made use of the distraction, had grabbed the front of Cole’s shirt and marched him towards the door. Any hesitance the man displayed, the scene unfolding behind him the cause, was dissipated when Hanzo reminded him in a harsh whisper.

That is not your problem. ” he said, “You do not need to make it so.”

Hanzo had grown quite tired of Cole trying to fix everything. He understood why, it was just in the man’s nature to try, but he was forgetting himself doing so. Hanzo would not let him forget himself, and his needs, yet again.

Between the reminder and the tugging, Cole came along willingly, leaving the others behind. Unfortunately, Hanzo still didn’t know where anything was, or where he should take them, but Cole took the lead and guided the two of them to an isolated sleeping quarters.

There was a bed, just big enough for two people to cram into and sleep, (though it would be tight), but easily big for two men to sit down and talk.

“Are you okay?” Cole asked as he climbed onto the bed, which was kind but was not the reason that Hanzo had dragged him in here.

“Fine. My day did not go as expected, and it had it’s downsides, but it is infinitely better now that I am back with you.” Hanzo replied sincerely as he sat down as well, “However, I will ask the same. Are you okay?”

Cole looked at him, his lip curling uncertainly as he looked at Hanzo.

“Hanzo, I wasn’t in that ex-, ah, I-... I-” he frowned and that distant look came back, “I’m fine.”

That was a lie. Obviously. Cassidy was lying to him.

Why?

“You are not fine. Do not lie to me, Cole, I beg you” Hanzo told him, aching to reach out to him but resisting. Cole hadn’t liked it earlier, he wasn't sure he would like it now, “What is it? What is on your mind?”

Cole rubbed at his face, clearly not wanting to have this conversation. “I’m just tired-” Another lie.

“Tiredness?” Hanzo asked, unimpressed, “You are tired, I can tell, but… This is more than that, is it not? You were angry with me, you said so yourself. Tell me why, and then lay down and rest with me.”

Cole looked reluctant, despite that longing glance at the mattress where he was imagining the two of them just peacefully laying. He wanted to lay down, but he didn’t want to pay the conversational price to do so.

He then shut his eyes, pinching them tight, and his lips screwed together. Then he let out a breath he had been holding, sighed, and then his posture slumped.

“I’m not angry with you, Hanzo. I didn’t mean it,” Cole admitted, eyes avoiding him, “That was just… the fear talking, I s’pose.”

“The fear?” Hanzo asked gently, taking in Cole’s forlorn form. “The fear of what?”

Cole’s lips twisted again, teeth nibbling at his lower one. Hesitance. Reluctance. Unease.

Finally, he spoke. “Losing you.” he confessed, his voice cracking with emotion that he was still trying to bury deep inside himself.

Hanzo wasn’t sure how to comfort him, as he wasn’t sure what was causing this anxiety exactly. “You wouldn’t have-”

Cole looked at him, his dark eyes serious. “You could have been in there, when that bomb went off. And I would have never known,” he said, “You’re good, Okami, Hanzo, but you’re not good enough to survive an explosion. And I’m not good enough to save you from one.”

Hanzo had to concede that even he would not have walked out of there. He had seen the damage done to the Helix team, and he hadn’t been wearing any protective gear, just his regular clothes. “I had no plans to enter-”

“You were on the grounds. You were that close already. You could have wandered in there, thinking that, sh*t, I don’t know, that maybe there was an answer in there too,” Cole said seriously, “And I couldn’t have done nothing about it. You can’t stop explosions-”

Hanzo studied his face, trying to read him. Was this about Overwatch? An explosion had decimated the base in the end, hadn’t it?

But Cole looked so bothered about this. More so than ever before. It had to be more than that, didn’t it? Hanzo wasn’t sure how to ask.

It turned out, he didn’t have to.

Cole was looking away from him, down at the thin blanket on the bed. Fingers twisting into the cloth, he gripped it as if it could provide him any modicum of comfort.

But the tale he would tell was not a simple bedtime story - rather, it was a nightmare come to life.

“...Her name was Liao.” Cole began quietly, quickly correcting himself with a small tsk , “Dr. Liao.”

Hanzo only vaguely knew the name. It was connected to Overwatch and she had been a higher-figure in it. Beyond that, Liao was not a figure he knew much about yet.

“...And I’m sure so many other people could tell the amazing things she did, ‘cause she did a lot , and they would tell you all about her accomplishments and stuff and-” Cole was smiling as he recalled the woman, a smile borne from pain, but his eyes were growing damp as he spoke, “But I just knew her as- ah, Dr. Liao… then Liao… then Mina… She was a friend of mine. A real good friend. A damn good one… One of the best people I was ever lucky enough to know… And I let her die.”

Cole looked miserable as he spoke. Hanzo wanted to tell him that he could stop, but he didn’t feel it was his place to. Cole was telling him this for a reason. He would let him.

“I was… was her bodyguard. Assigned to protect her. Spent a lot of time in her lab, a year or.. sh*t , I dun’know, keeping watching,” he said, blinking back tears, “She was working on a project, an AI bot gal named Echo, and, uh, we talked a lot, uh, eventually. It was- wasn’t like that at first, but I was assigned to her for a while, and y’know, you just kinda talk and get to know people-”

Hanzo wanted to hold him, but he didn’t want to interrupt. Cole meant a lot to him, enough that he could restrain himself for a few moments more, and just listen.

“She was- was such a sweet lady. So smart, so nice. And… and she listened. She cared . I didn’t have to… didn’t have to prove nothing to her for her to,” Cole said, voice wavering, “Hell, she even said I taught her things. Me? To a brilliant lady like her? No one had-... and- and she said without me the project - Echo - would have suffered. Thanked me. Talked to me as more than an agent. Hell, to her I was a person. Not an obligation. Not like I always felt I was.”

Cole’s face scrunched as he tried to hold in the tears, like a child trying to put on a brave face, trying to show that he was brave and that he wasn’t going to cry, no matter what.

“She died. Was killed in an explosion in the labs. Couldn’t save her,” Cole said, answering the coming, deserved question regarding Overwatch and the true permanence of death, “She’s gone. Gone gone. For good. Ran in there to try to save her, but she-... she had too many injuries, she wasn’t gonna-...”

Cole swallowed thickly, sniffing, looking like he was on the verge of being ill. The experience was not one that he wanted to recall, but one that he felt was best to explain so Hanzo could understand his feelings. He wasn’t just blindly reacting, and he wasn’t doubting Hanzo, but he had gone through this before.

“It felt like I lost family. Everything she did for me, and I could do nothing for her in the end.” Cole said, his voice but a whisper, those tears he was trying to hold back spilling over. His lips pinched together twisting in displeasure with himself as he felt those tears start to fall. “I held her in my arms as as she died.”

This explained everything, the fear, the anger, the unease, everything. Scared to touch Hanzo, scared he would wake up from his daze and find the man dying in his arms, just like Liao had.

Now it all, unfortunately, made sense.

Cole sucked in a shaky breath, his lip trembling, “Last thing she said ‘ was did I make the world a better place? ’ An’ I tried to tell her she did, she really really did, absolutely did , in as many ways as I could think of. I can only hope she heard me-” Cole wiped away a tear, flicking it off his finger, “but at the time I could only think ‘the world’s gonna worse without you in it’. An’ it ain’t been the same since, hard as I’ve tried to make it better. That was the beginning of the end for me and my time there, I think. Not the final nail in the coffin, but a damn big one.”

Feeling that Cole had finished, Hanzo allowed himself to reach forward and wipe away the tears that had been rolling down Cole’s cheeks as she talked. Thankfully, this time, Cole leaned into the touch.

“I’m sorry.” Hanzo said, trying his best to comfort him, “She sounded like a wonderful woman, someone as important to you as they were kind, and I’m truly sorry she’s gone.”

“It ain’t- It’s- sh*t, I’m sorry. I don’t mean to dump that into your lap, it’s my problem not yours, but I was just scared of losin’ you like that, having to hold you and try to comfort you like- I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” Cole said, his hand coming to rest on top on Hanzo’s. He was quiet, just enjoying the contact before he finally spoke again, admitting, “I’ve never told anyone that before. Just must feel that safe with you.”

Hazo stiffened, confused. “Never?”

That had sounded like a large an impactful event. How had Cole never told anyone else about it before?

“Not… not that much,” Cole confessed reluctantly, shaking his head, “No.”

Hanzo tried to pry as carefully as he could. “I’m surprised Overwatch didn’t-”

“They, well, I mean, yeah. They wanted the mission report, the facts. I gave them the facts, but she was… she was always more than just facts, ” Cole said, “And, like, there was a psych eval before I could work again, but I didn’t tell them any of that. None of it. Just said what they wanted to hear so I could go back to work.”

Hanzo did not like the sound of that. “Oh?” he prompted.

“Well, I had to. They wouldn’t have let me back on the field if I flunked, an’ then what would I have done with myself? If I- If I wasn’t able to get back out there and do my job, they wouldn’t have needed to keep me,” he said, his hand rubbing Hanzo’s “So I said what I knew they wanted so I could earn my keep-”

Hanzo had much he wanted to say. Much . He wanted to remind Cole he was more important than his work, he always had been. That he didn’t need to hide and that he didn’t need to be scared, and that Hanzo would always be there, by his side, as long as Cole would let him be, and… he wanted to say all that and more. So much more.

But he was not good at expressing himself. Terrible at it even. And amidst the burst of emotion he felt inside, he didn’t feel like parsing it into succinct pieces. No.

Unable to still himself, Hanzo tugged Cole into a hug. One hand wrapped around his back, the other pressing his face against him.

Cole laughed sadly, choking on a quiet sob, his voice muffled by Hanzo’s shoulder. “sh*t, I must sound like a wreck, if you’re the only tugging me into hugs-"

He quieted down when he felt Hanzo’s face press against him, comforting him with soft shushes and hums. Melted against him when he felt the hand rubbing up and down his back, the other gently petting his head.

This was the only way that Hanzo felt he could explain all of the thoughts and emotions racing through his mind. Cole understood every unspoken word.

“Thank you,” Cole said quietly, “I’m sorry.”

I’m sorry

Why did he keep saying that? The man had torn across the city, racing through back alleys as he sprinted towards the warehouse, panicked. The entire time he was running over, he was worried for him and Fareeha, scared that some of the people that he dared to care about had met the same fate as Liao. Adrenaline and emotions had come crashing down the minute he could stop running and see that they were alive, and relief had given way to frustration of someone so important to him putting themselves in danger.

That behavior did not demand an apology, Hanzo thought as he ran his fingers through Cole’s shaggy brown hair, but he wasn’t sure how to tell Cassidy that without sounding rude. Instead, he thought about it very hard and tried to mentally shove it into Cassidy’s brain.

There was nothing for Cole to be sorry about. Didn’t he understand that? Why didn’t he? Cole didn’t have to apologize for loving him that much.

Cole finally returned the hug, and Hanzo tugged the other man farther into his lap, holding him tighter, protecting and cherishing him in the way that he had always deserved. Cole was hunched, shrinking down as much as he could to still soak in as much of it as he could.

The touches were soft, the voices were sweet, and the presence comforting. His face was pressed against the top of Cole’s head, and he would have kissed it if the mask allowed. He tried to, and he succeeded as best as the mask would allow.

But while he held Cole gently, loving and comforting him as best he could, Hanzo’s stare was dark, fury alight indicating the rage bubbling within. He could have stared a hole through the wall with a look so fierce that would have made a bull stop charging.

Oh, how he hated Overwatch.

How he loathed those frauds who called themselves heroes. How he despised them and what they had put Cole through…

What they kept putting him through. What he kept letting them put him through.

He loved Cole. He really did. So all he could do was support him, and help him manage his return to this abusive relationship with Overwatch, in as many ways as he could.

Something that he had already been trying to do, but something that he would be sure to do even better from now on.

He held him. As long as Cole could stand it, he held him, planting masked kisses on the top of his head while plotting and thinking about what he could do next. If Cole was unwilling to protect himself from getting hurt over and over by whatever else Overwatch could throw at him, even so far as to go back them willingly, then Hanzo would keep him safe. He had to. So he would.

His thoughts were interrupted by Cole finally shifting, sitting upright, snapping him out of his dark headspace. His gaze softened as he looked at the man.

“Sorry, my hip’s aching ‘cause of the position,” he apologized as if one was warranted. This man was far too sweet for this life. For too loyal for his own good.

“That’s fine. Tell me when I can hold you again,” Hanzo said, leaning back and giving Cole the space he needed to sit up. His hands rested back on the bed now, as he casually sat.

“I will,” Cole said, eyes dipping as he thought, “Han. Can… I want to ask a favor, I guess?”

“Name it.” Hanzo said immediately. For this man? The world, if only Hanzo could make it so.

“Can- I don’t wanna put a leash on you, like you said back in Numbani, I don’t, but, uh, it would help me relax if you could keep my up-to-date on stuff?” he said slowly, “Like, I didn’t even know you were at that place until you called, an’ if you hadn’t I wouldn’t’ve known. Like, I won’t stop you or nothing, but could you, y’know, just keep me in the loop more?”

“I can do that,” Hanzo said. That was easy. Just more excuses to communicate, and it helped alleviate the worry of Hanzo’s that he was bothering him over at Overwatch. This was an order. One he was happy to follow.

“Thank you, Hanzo,” Cole said gently, “I know it’s silly-”

“It’s not.” Hanzo interrupted, “If it’s important to you, it’s not.”

Cole ran a hand back through his hair. “It’s just because I care about you, y’know?”

“I do.” Hanzo replied, finding it always a relief when Cole reiterated that the feeling was mutual.

Cole smiled at him. It was still a tired smile, but it was just a bit happier than before.

“You know, I’ve been thinking, Hanzo, and…” he paused trying to figure out how to word this, “Maybe… maybe the reason I ain’t scared to love you is because I know how… invincible you are. I know that you can take care of yourself, and you don’t need me to protect you, because, f*ck, I’m bad at that-”

“You’ve protected me before-” Hanzo reminded him.

“Yeah, because it was my fault you were in danger, and I don’t think I did that great a job,” Cole reminded him, “Anyone else in that? I don’t know if they would have walked out of there like you an’ me did.”

Cole reached out and rested his hand on Hanzo’s.

“You know, I thought for the longest time that I was going back because I had unfinished business, but maybe,” Cole’s eyes met his, “Maybe it’s because I met someone like you and I just want to make the world a better place for us. So you and me can live how we want , not how we have to.”

Hanzo looked at Cole, at his puppy-dog brown eyes, at that crooked smile on his lips, at how his hand covered Hanzo’s and brought warmth to his icy fingers.

“Anyway, uh, I’m starving. Have you had a chance to eat?” Cole said as he leaned back, as if he hadn’t just said the most romantic thing, watching as Hanzo shook his head, “We should take a look around and see what we can fin-”

“Soup.” Hanzo said, much to the dragons’ delight, “I found soup. Let’s have that.”

“Soup sounds good to me,” Cole said agreeably, starting to get off the bed. Hanzo guided him to the closet of soup, and they took a few cans, careful not to interrupt the heart-to-heart that the Amaris were having.

Tomato soup. Somehow still good, and delicious. They quickly heated some up and divided it, pouring it into clean mugs and absconding back to the sleeping quarters they had claimed as their own.

“Probably gonna lay down for a long nap after this meal,” Cole said, taking a seat on the bed, “Care to join me?”

“Of course,” Hanzo said, sitting on the bed with him after a brief stop at his guitar case. It was nearing the evening now. A good time for sleeping.

Cole sipped at his soup, but his eyes widened as he realized that the Hanzo couldn’t eat with him facing his way.

“Shoot, sorry, lemme just-” Cole was cut off by the sight of Hanzo plunking a metal straw into the soup and sipping at it from under his mask.

Cole stared at the straw. “Is that the one Lucio gave you?” he finally asked.

Hanzo nodded. “He said that using it would help save the turtles,” he replied, “I like turtles.”

Hanzo paused to take another long sip of his soup before he added, “That, and it lets me face you while we eat for once. This won’t happen every time, but it can today.”

Cole smiled at him, and while Hanzo was happy to just enjoy this meal together, he did have a question first.

“Now, just out of curiosity, Ana isn’t with Overwatch, is she?” Hanzo asked, catching sight of Cole’s curious face, “Fareeha was asking.”

“No, Ana ain’t. Don’t think she plans to be.” Cole said, “That’s… fine. We’ll manage. Just need to find someone with some medical knowhow to join. We’re lacking that, feeling it real bad right now, and if Ana ain’t comin-”

“No medical is available?” Hanzo asked concerned.

“Supplies, yes, but people, no,” Cole said, “Genji’s limited until we get him cleared, and now Fareeha’s coming back with burns. Gonna be me running mostly until we get them fixed up and back in action, but that ain’t no different from what it is now.”

“I see,” Hanzo said slowly, pausing once more to sip at his soup, “Well, let’s finish up and lay down. I think we could both use the sleep.”

“Yeah,” Cole agreed.

Both men finished their meal, just filling enough for now, and arranged themselves in the bed. Shoes were removed, bodies were pressed together, and soon Hanzo was wrapped up in Cole’s grabby limbs, where it always felt right to be.

He had planned to get up soon, sooner rather than later, but Cole was very good at making everything far too comfortable and warm and… comfortable. Soon, Hanzo felt his eyes grow heavy.

There was nothing wrong with a short nap, especially not one they both needed . His plans could wait, for just a bit longer.

Cole was here now, so here was where he belonged, for as much and as long as he could be.

❢◥ ▬▬▬ 𓂀 ▬▬▬ ◤❢

Ana had had a long evening of talking with Fareeha, trying to catch up with her and trying to make sure that she was okay. It was heartbreaking, the look of betrayal on her daughter’s face while Ana recounted everything she could. How Jack was alive, how Gabriel shouldn’t be but was, everything she could think of.

It was probably too much, too soon, but if her daughter was going to risk her life going to Overwatch, then Ana wanted her as well-informed as he could be.

They had talked late into the night, with Fareeha even opening up and telling her about what she had been up to while her mother was gone.

Her daughter had even cried, finally letting herself mourn the team she had lost. All Ana could do was wrap her up in a hug and hold her tight, something that Fareeha allowed after all the stress of the day. Losing team members was never easy, and there was nothing else that Ana could do to ease her daughter’s pain.

As she held her, she wondered how many other times Fareeha had cried, who had comforted her? Had anyone needed to? Or was she finally letting herself cry because she finally had her mother back?

Their talk had ended with Fareeha thanking Ana for the information, and leaving the remains of a necklace on a side table, saying that she needed to replace it. Even though the necklace was ruined, when her daughter headed to bed, Ana tucked in her pocket, planning to keep it with her as long as she could.

It may be the last thing she had to connect her to Fareeha, when they went their separate ways in the morning. She would cherish it.

Hours later, far too early in the morning, Ana was awake and distractedly making a cup of tea to soothe her nerves after yesterday’s scare. She had been waiting for the tea to finish steeping in her hot water for a few minutes now

All these years on the run, all the years in the military, and Ana’s body had long since been conditioned to rouse before the sun rose. This hazy time of day, when you could feel the light brimming under a thinning layer of darkness, slowly creeping as if it was a cheetah waiting to pounce on its prey. Being alone. Unfortunately alone.

Even late nights spent fretting had done nothing to change her body’s routine. The only long rest she could get was when her body was exhausted and ill, and demanded a break, or when she laced herself and forced herself to sleep in.

A woman like her should be scared of nothing and no one. And normally, she was fine. She could handle the threats, the firefights, the running, the chasing, she could be the mighty oak that could weather the storm, standing fast in the howling wind and rain.

But it was after the storm the unease grew. When the quiet felt too quiet, when all she could hear was the ringing in her ears. That is when she felt a prickle on her spine and a shiver in her nerves. When she was alone with her thoughts, and with her regrets.

Perhaps it was indeed the nothing and no one that she was scared of, that she should be.

Normally she preferred to use what little quiet time she had in the morning to clear her head, but movement distracted her.

She had thought that she was alone in the kitchen, but she now found, Okami, Cassidy’s partner, standing to her side, busy fixing his own drink.

She hadn’t heard him enter. How had he managed to get a cup, retrieve a spoon, and pull a tin of tea out of the cabinet without her noticing? Even with one eye, little escaped her notice. Then how-?

Okami seemed to feel her stare, turning around to face her.

“Good morning,” he said far too cheerily as he filled his cup with water. Fake. Why?

“Good morning,” she returned the greeting, taking a small sip of her tea as she observed him. This was the first time they had seen each other in hours, after he had dragged Cole away and left Ana alone with her daughter.

He continued to look at her, clearly wanting an opening or he was wording a budding question in his head. It bothered her. The uncertainty.

“If you’re going to ask me something, go ahead and do it,” she said, “Waiting serves no purpose other than frustrating us both.”

“Apologies, I didn’t mean to bother-” Okami seemed sincere that time, “It’s just that Cole mentioned that you would not be returning to Overwatch with him, and I was wondering… is this still the case?”

That was a question she dreaded. Mostly because her answer was firm.

“No, I do not plan to return,” she told him.

“Ah.” he said, silent otherwise as he took a step towards the microwave. He began to heat up the water, though it seemed he was as disappointed with the lack of a kettle as she was. At least he had taste.

As his cup rotated slowly in the microwave, he turned back to face her. “May I ask why?” he said, “Surely there’s little more important in your life than your daughter, who is planning to go to that organization you let fall apart.”

The guilting. How many times had she heard that in the past? It irked her.

“I do have important work than must be handled before I could even think about returning,” she huffed, “Things that I cannot do were I to return.”

Stating that she had targets to assassinate was unpleasant. She would rather it go unspoken.

“How many?” Okami asked. He caught on rather quick. Unspoken must be a language he was rather fluent in.

“That doesn’t matter,” she said, cradling the cup now between both her hands. “You don’t need to know.”

“Fewer than five?” he said, eliciting an eyebrow raise from Ana. He had been correct.

“Your reason being?” she asked, annoyed. It was three.

“Many more than that and I think that a reasonable person like yourself would understand that your talents are best used elsewhere,” Okami said, “You’re close - too close to stop - and you want to see this through. No matter the cost.”

“Perhaps,” she said, miffed at how well he was reading her, “Why does this matter to you?”

“I can help,” he said simply, adding. “I’m offering to.”

She scoffed. “I don’t need your help, and I’m not paying you to handle something I can take care of myself.” she said, insulted, “You can help Cole all you want, but-”

“Ms. Ana Amari, Overwatch’s former second-in-command, sharpshooter sniper, Egyptian security force affiliate, I am well aware that you do not require my assistance,” Okami said, watching his cup spin in the microwave“But with my help, your work could be done more quickly and-”

“I can rejoin Overwatch,” she finished for him, squinting, displeased with this conversation.

“Exactly. Now, you must understand where I am coming from, bounty hunter to bounty hunter,” Okami said, sounding too much like a used car salesman for her liking, “Many would beg for me to handle their business, but I am offering you myself, my skills, free of charge-”

“I am not answering the recall,” she said with a shake of her head. “That life is behind me.”

“Only because you keep turning away from it,” Okami retorted, looking back at her, “You need to rejoin Overwatch, they need you, and I am certain that we can come to a…. An agreement on how to best make this happen for everyone involved.”

His tone… it was overly smooth, trying to hide the force behind his words.

“Is that a threat?” she asked carefully.

Okami’s head tilted, confused.

“A threat? No,” he said with a quiet laugh, “Threats are cheap, useless things meant for nudging the weak-willed into compliance. Beneath us both, I would think.”

He paused as the microwave beep, and turned to pull his mug out, continuing to talk.

“And in this case, you either will or you won’t . Spoken threats serve no purpose. Merely muddles negotiation between two reasonable parties,” he said, as he put his tea bag into the cup, unbothered by turning his back to her, “And I feel, Bastet, that we can come to an agreement. One that benefits us both.”

“Us both?” she said as she watched him turn back around and lean against the counter far too casually, “So this negotiation is between us ? Is Cole not involved?”

“He is not. This discussion is my own choice, my own bargain I’m willing to strike to help you go back across that line in the sand you’ve drawn yourself,” Okami said, “So help me strike one.”

“There is no ‘deal’ to be had,” she said, waving dismissively, “My decision is made-”

Her eyes widened as she realized what Hanzo said.

Bastet.

He knew?

He knew.

“It seems like you’ve done a bit of research about me,” she said, trying to sound friendly despite how much that bothered her. Why would he be looking into her? She was certainly no Akara Yavuz.

“Oh, yes, that one I found out from my own digging, though I wasn’t sure before now,” he said, adding, “I appreciate the confirmation.”

He was lying. He had known. Him pretending he hadn’t and that she had just given it away was him just trying to fluster her. She was fully confident that he had known about that one…

Wait.

That one …?

“It sounds like you’ve done additional research then?” she asked. “Why? Am I on your list of targets?”

“Certainly not! I’m insulted you would ever ask,” Okami said, continuing, “I have looked into you, yes, as it never hurts to know things, does it?... You’re a friend of Cole’s, as am I. Related to Overwatch. A legend. Why would I not want to know about you? After all, one should keep their friends close-”

“And their enemies closer,” she finished.

“We’re not enemies. We have no reason to be. ” Okami said quickly, wanting to make himself clear, “We both want what’s best for those closest to us, do we not?”

She shook her head, uncertain how to continue. It was no surprise Cole had ended up with this one. They were both certainly stubborn .

“If Overwatch matters that much to you, go yourself,” she said, waving towards the door, “As you said, you have skills, why not-”

“ Overwatch is not my problem . I am busy fixing what Overwatch ruined,” Okami said, his gaze hardening and his glare sharp, “ Overwatch comes into whatever playpen they please, kicks over the blocks, pats themselves on the back, and leaves the little people they claim to protect to clean up the mess. Overwatch ruins the lives it claims to save. Or at least it did.”

Okami sighed, relaxing somewhat. “It should be different now. Cole promised it would be,” he said, “But even he can’t do it alone-”

“He has others.” Ana started to argue.

“But he needs someone like you-” Okami countered. “And he’s not the only one.”

Ana glared at him. “There are other things I have to take care of first-”

“Have there ever not been?” Okami asked sincerely, “Has there ever been a time that you felt like you’ve done enough and that you could stop and breathe?-”

“It’s my responsibility-” she began, but he didn’t give her a chance to speak.

Okami looked at her, shaking his head. “And I suppose that daughter you had by accident, the one you keep leaving behind, wasn’t?”

Ana’s head shot up, her stare hardening. “Do not-”

“ That one is public knowledge, mind you. Along with that forced shotgun wedding to that man, Sam, was it?” he said, “That was easy to find, along with your great conquests and heroics. I’m sure your daughter enjoyed your face in the newspaper kissing her, your little precious mistake, to sleep at night since you were nowhere to be found-”

Ana’s dormant motherly instincts were rearing their angry head. “Fareeha is a fine young woman who-”

“Indeed she is. I’m sure she wanted to be just like you when she was growing up,” Okami agreed, mulling, “I wonder when she stopped wanting to be? I wonder when she realized she wanted to be someone better. ”

He caught sight of her glaring at him, shaking his head despite the pain in her gaze. “Don’t act so surprised you’ve not heard this before. The others are too kind to hurt you so,” Okami said, “But I am not kind. And I am not afraid to speak the truth, despite how callous it seems.”

Ana felt ill. She hated having these regrets she had pushed down for so long thrown into her face like this. Especially from someone like this .

Someone who just wouldn’t shut up.

On he rambled, “Your daughter is someone you keep leaving behind, because you claim you had no choice-” he said, “And now here you are with a choice, and you are choosing to leave everyone behind again. At this point, you cannot claim it is an inevitable fate when you keep making it so.”

A slip in tone, a crack in the ice. Emotion? There had been emotion to that, more than the rest of his squawking so far.

This did indeed matter to him. More than he wanted to let on.

That could open an avenue of discussion, rather than both of them being on the defensive.

There may not be a resolution, but she had to try.

“Why does this matter to you? Tell me,” she said, holding up a hand to cut him off when he started to speak, “And do not claim it is about Overwatch. Or Cole. Or my daughter. Speak honestly. Why does this matter to you?”

She saw the man bristle. He realized his slip-up, drifting from the facts he had been using to try to hammer her into submission and instead creating a personal opening for her to exploit.

“You ask me to speak honestly, but honestly is exploitable,” he said quietly, “It, too, can be a weakness, if not reveal one.”

“What is said here between us, what was, can stay here between us. I won’t use it against you like you’re using my past against me,” she promised, “ That is a deal you should consider, as I’m certain Cole wouldn’t want to hear what you’ve been up to.”

Okami looked over at her. “Is that a threat?” he asked, almost teasing her.

“Not if you’re reasonable,” she replied, echoing his earlier sentiment, something that he seemed to at least appreciate the irony of.

His shoulders sagged as he sighed, silently admitting defeat.

“You’ll not like what I have to say,” he cautioned.

“I’ve not liked a single word you said so far past ‘good morning’.” she replied, “Try me.”

He swallowed, nervously dipping the tea bag up and down in the hot water. Finally, he spoke.

“You vex me,” he told her.

The answer was so basic, it almost made Ana laugh.

“I do?” she asked him.

He nodded. “You and your daughter.”

“What has my daughter done?” Ana asked, curious. Those two’s interactions had been limited. In fact, this man had saved her life. How could she vex him?

“She has gotten the chance I long wished I had,” he said honestly.

He paused again. Eyes looking down, to the side, he was thinking. Clearly, when it came to his own emotions, his own feelings, words did not come as quickly. That or he was trying to censor himself.

“You remind me of my father. He too was brave and ambitious, and he too wanted to change and protect what was his corner of the world,” Okami said, “But, to do so, he was… quite busy. Terribly so. Seeing him was rare. Talking to him even rarer.”

Okami made the motion as if he was going to drink his tea, giving himself a natural break to think, but remembered the mask. Instead, he had to lower the cup and cradle it in his hands, fingers tightening against the ceramic, his attempt at stalling now embarrassingly obvious.

“When we did see him, he was wonderful . Of course, he had his flaws, but he was my father and he loved me, I was almost certain he did. I looked up to him. He was my idol, even if he shouldn’t have been,” Okami said, “All the times I wanted to spend with him, all the times I was told ‘later’...”

“Okami stared down into his cup. “He always thought there would be “later”.” he said quietly, “There should have been, there always had been, but one day there wasn’t. Not any longer.”

Okami’s eyes met Ana’s once more.

“He’s dead.” he said flatly, “I’m near his final age now, relatively so, nearer than not.”

Ana looked the man over. He was most likely near Cole’s age. Upper 30’s or so. If his father had had him young - she did the math - then this man would have been around Fareeha’s age when Ana had had to fake her death. She wasn’t certain about that though.

“I’m sorry,” she said sincerely. It had sounded like the death was sudden, like plans and lives had been cut short unexpectedly. Not unlike her and Fareeha’s situation.

“I am sorry as well. Even back then, I understood that he was busy, we- I managed. All I wanted when I was younger was for him to see me, to be proud of me, and I never met those expectations, not as much as I wanted to,” Okami said, “I know that he will never be truly proud of me, never , and I’ve no chance to change that.”

Fingers clenched against the cup, the mug nervously shifting in his hands as he finished.

“You remind me of my father in so many ways. In the good ways. But also the bad.” he confessed, “And I see myself in Fareeha. It feels like I’m watching it happen all over again when I see you two doing… this.”

Ana recalled all that Okami had thrown at her earlier, especially the focus on her daughter. It suddenly made a bit more sense why she had been the focus. It was possible that Okami could not only relate to those experiences but had already lived them himself, and was grasping onto them in an effort to make her understand.

He now felt less like a man trying to bully her into submission and more like a child tugging on her cloak, trying to lead her back inside to where he felt it was safe.

It was childish. But it was innocent too, in a way. The most innocence she had seen out of him.

He understood the pain that Fareeha had been through, having been through it himself, and though he claimed he spoke out of logic, there was emotion too.

Fareeha vexed him because she was getting the chance he never would, and she herself vexed him because she wouldn’t give Fareeha that chance.

It all upset him because, to him, it didn’t make sense. It bothered him because he was looking it all black and white, and not seeing the grays there.

This all meant so much to him because he saw her as a chance to save his father by proxy. And it upset him that Ana wasn’t give him that chance either.

In his own crude way, cryptic as always, he was trying to give her and her daughter the second-chance he had always wanted.

But she couldn’t. If she returned to Overwatch… If…

There was nothing left for her there. Was there?

Nothing had been left behind from the Overwatch that once was. Overwatch had left behind nothing.

Nothing besides her.

She recalled the way that Cole had hugged her, back when he realized she was alive. How Fareeha said she and Reinhardt - oh, Reinhardt - had continued visiting her grave.

Those that had made the call to leave her behind were no longer in power. Only those that regretted her death, that had mourned her, remained. Was it worth hurting them for much longer to do what she needed?

“And Overwatch will fix that?” she asked him, “Is that what you think?”

“I don’t know. It may. It may not. She’s already grown much without you, a cat’s in the cradle sort.” he confessed, “For those purposes, it may not matter, though it would be overall beneficial nonetheless.”

He stared longingly at his tea. The mug must be getting colder by the second.

“All- My main goal here is to make you stop looking out at the horizon of all those ‘eventual’ goals you’ve been chasing your whole life, and, even if just for a second, look at what you’ve left behind,” he said, his eyes meeting hers, “My father got used to others chasing after to keep up, and oh how I tried, but... But people won’t chase forever. You keep walking on, without looking back or slowing down, and they’ll let themselves be left behind. They’ll find their own way. Much as Fareeha has been.”

“Your main goal,” Ana repeated, catching that wording on his part. “But not the only goal.”

“No. It never was,” he admitted. “But Overwatch, much as I loathe to admit it, does seem to be the most optimal outcome.”

She raised a brow at him. “You really do not like Overwatch, do you?” she asked, as amused as she was flummoxed, “What has it done to you?”

“Taken.” was all he said in reply. “But that’s all it ever did to anyone, wasn’t it? Taken what it wanted and left behind a mess to clean. Assuming it could be cleaned. Not all could.”

“And yet, you wish to send me there?” she asked, curious.

“That was what Overwatch did then . It’s different now. Cole promised it would be,” Hanzo said, “And he will make it so. But he cannot do it alone. The original Overwatch involved multiple parties and full support to even get off of the ground. And yet, even with that lacking, on his shoulders will rest the same expectations of success-”

“You don’t know that-”

“I do,” Okami said. He spoke sincerely. She didn’t know how he would know, but he was certain, there was no denying that. “He won’t have the same tools, the right tools, but the outcome demanded will be the same as it once was once it is found out.”

Ana shook her head, arguing. “They don’t know about Overwa-”

“They will.” that certainty again. “If it is to save lives, it cannot stay hidden. That would be impossible, as it defeats the purpose to let people perish out of fear of discovery. It will be found, it is inevitable, and it will need to be as capable as possible once it is.”

He wasn’t wrong. That was the infuriating part.

Their illegal operation would be found. Cole couldn’t be the face of it. Too many people wanted him dead to risk him revealing his “established” location, too many people considered him a criminal to trust him.

Jack wouldn’t be able to be the face, either. Too many people would latch onto his past failures as the leader and the operation would be judged as a disgraced man too prideful to stop clinging onto to the past. He had to stay ‘dead’ to Overwatch for this to work.

The same went for Fareeha, if she was going to use her “death” to root out the Helix mole. If she was forced to reveal herself she would lose that chance.

The same chance that Ana had once had. The same chance she had been running on for years…

All those years… Alone…

Had she made a difference? Her gaze drifted upward as she wondered.

Had she made enough of one to justify all that time spent being on her own? Had she made enough of a difference?

She had done much in those years. She had made good use of the time that she had been alone in the world to help save it. It was something to be proud of, and she very much was, but she also needed to acknowledge that mindless continuation would result in ruination.

And now, right here, right now was a chance to no longer run. To no longer leave that world behind, to turn around and walk into it, to see if it was willing to embrace her, to see if she was still welcome in calling that world the “home” she defended.

Would she even be welcome? Would she ever be?

She could keep running. She would never have to find out.

But then she would never know .

All those years she had spent running, chasing, fighting? They had been to protect those she held dear. She had let herself become nothing and no one, to protect everything and everyone.

But they were moving out of her reach now, and she would no longer be able to protect them from the shadows she lived in.

So to protect them now? To best keep them safe and to let them succeed? Ana Amari had to come back to life.

As Reinhardt would have said, loudly and proudly, she would be their shield.

Reinhardt…

She had hoped the man would enjoy retirement, he had fought long enough, but she knew that his spirit would not be content to be on the sidelines. There was no doubt that he would be answering the recall too. He, as well, had unfinished business to take care of.

Jack had chosen to return too, hadn’t he? Probably to help take care of Reyes, and to find his own closure.

And well, she couldn’t let them have all the fun, could she?

The answer felt simple now. Almost silly with how simple it felt.

She had to return. Those reasons, now that she let herself hear them, were far outweighing the reasons to stay on the fringes. She could provide the experience they needed, inspire the legitimacy they would lack if found as is, and be there for the people that she had had to leave behind after she had been.

And to think? She could have missed out on it all if she hadn’t been willing to listen to the lonely cry of a wolf.

“I suppose…” she began slowly, restarting the conversation. Okami had been silent while she thought, his eyes watching her face for any indication what she was thinking. “I suppose that you are right.”

“I’m rarely not,” Okami said plainly. It wasn’t a brag, just a fact to him.

Ana continued, “And I suppose that my returning would be an ideal outcome,” she said, noticing him standing up straighter, “But-”

She watched him set down the tea he was never going to drink, his attention fully on her now.

“But I still have work that needs to be done before I can go back,” she said, “Three targets-”

He knew what was coming. He pushed himself off of the counter, ready to talk business.

“How many would you allow me to take care of?” he said, bit to eagerly, “Or, give me the one that would be most time-consuming. Or the one you want to suffer the most-”

“Impertinent to think I would give you any,” she said, crossing her arms.

“Beg pardon, Amari. Impertinence was not meant, but-” He bowed, arms sweeping in a grand gesture, “I would be honored to assist you, however best serves.”

She would not be so easily manipulated by grand gestures, though the manners were appreciated.

“I’ll let you have one. He’s farther away, travel would take up much of my time,” she said, “Markus Falla. Norwegian. Resides in Uzbekistan. Do you care for the backstory?”

“No. Unnecessary. You’ve requested he perish, so the reason doesn't matter much to me,” Okami admitted, “Preferred weapon? Alone or group?”

“Alone. Hitman for hire. Prefers pistol.” she said, “Large. Muscular. Blonde. Prosthetic eye.”

“Business kill or personal?” Okami asked. Clean and quick or make him suffer, the man was asking.

“More personal than not,” make sure he suffers, was her reply.

“Noted.” Okami said with a nod, “Post-confirmation will be-?”

“He wears a bronze ring now. Taken from one of my associates. It’s his ‘trophy’,” Ana spat, “That ring will confirm it is done. I want it returned to my associate’s family afterwards. I will prepare a short dossier on the matter for you before we all leave.”

“Noted.” Okami said, “Trust it will be taken care of with utmost efficiency and priority. I trust you will hold up your end of the bargain as well?”

She was returning to Overwatch, correct? That was his question.

“Once this last matters are tended to, then I suppose I shall,” she said.

He nodded, and tucked a hand into his pocket, the other carrying his mug of tea, heading for the door. What an odd man. A good man, in his own way, but an odd one.

He had put a lot of effort into making sure she didn’t make the mistake of running again. A lot of talking to help her see the truth. A lot of convincing on his part to try to right what he felt were the wrongs, and to protect those he held dear.

“You know what I think?” she called out after him, “Speaking as a parent, as poor of one as I may be, I think that your father would be proud of you.”

The man stopped in the doorway, midstep, freezing in place. His gaze was north, but back still to her, and he was quiet. Then he spoke, softly, so softly.

“...I suppose that he would commend me for not having failed as much as I could have, and admire how I tried in the end,” the man said, “After a lecture about how far I’ve fallen and how much better I could have become, had only I tried more to be as good as he wanted me to be.”

He let out a shaky sigh, back still to her, before he continued. “But the sentiment is appreciated, as misplaced as it is.” he finished quietly, “Thank you.”

He didn’t give her another chance to speak. He didn’t need to.

She resumed sipping her tea, staring out at the desert sand, musing over all that had just transpired. How had a nameless man managed to stomp his way in here and convince her to return to the life she thought she had left so far behind?

She felt like she knew.

He reminded her of Cole in his mannerisms, but him and Cole together… it made her nostalgic for the way things had been in the better times. It made her long for those days, before it had all been torn apart.

She was nothing but a sentimental old fool in the end. That had probably been what tipped the scales farther in his favor.

He saw her like a chance to save his father, and she saw him like an opportunity to change the fate of a doomed man. Not the healthiest behavior on either of their parts, but not the worst either.

Perhaps what they all needed was just a second-chance, a redo. She was finally ready to take hers.

જ⁀➴ˏˋ°•*⁀➷

Hanzo’s eyes burned as he walked down the hall,. He tried to blink the tears and the feelings away, but was only partially successful. At least he had managed to hold in the tears for now.

His father would be proud of him? For what he had just done?

Ha.

Ha ha.

No.

No, he would not be.

“Perhaps this would have stung less if he had been more efficient?” he thought, clicking his tongue in annoyance at himself.

Duty. He should have gone with the duty angle first. It would have been the most logical one to start with, thinking it over now, and one he could have easily persuaded with given personal experience.

Ana Amari had already been operating under a strong sense of duty on her own, and going with that angle could have roped her back in faster than the brash pushing or the emotional shoving he had done.

Perhaps if he had spent less time talking and been more efficient, he would feel less bothered about this whole thing.

Of course, how was he not to feel bothered about having manipulated an old woman, one who had done her time and paid a heavy price already, to go back to this war?

Yes, he was rather certain that his father wouldn’t be proud of that one.

But it made sense , he told himself. It was best for everyone , he told himself. It was the ideal outcome, he lied to himself.

Truthfully, he hadn’t lied much to Amari. Perhaps that was why it had worked so well. He had been honest about his own view and feelings, because he knew that she would easily see through any of his lies.

But also, truthfully, he hadn’t said everything he felt. He was proud of himself for having kept those emotions only simmering under the surface, and not out on display where they didn’t need to be. He had kept it as professional as he could.

Perhaps his father would have been proud of that aspect, at least.

Because, truthfully, Ana did vex him. Both for the reason he had stated, and for one he hadn’t.

If Cole had to go back and clean up this mess, and if her own daughter was willing to fight, why did she think that she was allowed to stay out of it?

None of them would be allowed to stay out of it. They didn’t get to just screw up everything and leave it all for Cassidy to try to fix, no. No no no. No, they did not .

That was Hanzo’s new angle now. Persuading Cassidy that Overwatch was not best for him had not worked in the past, and pushing farther would alienate him. The man’s mind was made up, and rightly so. He was allowed to make those decisions.

Just as Hanzo was free to make his own.

And his own decisions now involved helping Overwatch by helping to recruit others to it. Others he didn’t really know or care about. Others that didn’t matter. Others he wouldn’t miss once they were off to Overwatch, far away from him.

Because if others were there to lighten the load, then less responsibility should fall onto Cassidy’s already overloaded shoulders. If he helped empower Overwatch, then they could complete their mission even more quickly, and get this stupid mess over with already.

Hanzo couldn’t stop the plans already in motion, and Cole’s sense of duty would not allow him to turn his back now. Hanzo was only doing what he could to help make the impossible possible, and if that involved slinking in the shadows and doing all the dirty work, that was fine by him.

Genji was with Overwatch too. That was yet another reason to find others and help shove them back into their rightful place at the head of the table they had set. To help keep him as safe as possible while not infringing on the new place his brother called home.

Hanzo had his reasons. Were they good reasons? Perhaps not, and certainly not of the altruist variety, but they were good enough for him.

Hanzo paused at the bathroom and poured out the mug of tea, rinsing the cup once it was empty. It felt wasteful, but he had never intended to drink it. It had just been an excuse for being in the kitchen at the time, to complete his goal with Ana.

Also, the way that his stomach was twisted, loathing at what he had accomplished, the underhanded manipulation he had just succeeded with, would not allow him to enjoy it. He would rather not sully the experience of drinking his favorite type of drink by mixing it with the acidic taste of guilt that was stinging his throat.

Convincing others to go back… who even was he to talk? He had run from his own situation, and he had never stopped running.

Was it fair for him to trip others trying to do the same? No.

But was it just?...

Most likely not.

But his mind was made up and it was too late to stop now. He would help get Overwatch back to the strength it was in its glory days, or as close as he could, and they would either succeed were they had previously failed, or once again become so dysfunctional that Cole and Genji would have to leave, just like before.

And either outcome was fine with Hanzo.

Certainly, he wanted Cole to succeed . That was the obvious preference. He wanted Cole to have a satisfying conclusion to that chapter in his life, to be able to look back and feel like all the sacrifices and years spent were worth it.

Hanzo just didn’t want Overwatch adding endless pages to that chapter. He didn’t want Cole to be strung along again and again, he didn’t want him pushed to the brink, he didn’t want him getting hurt, but Cole wouldn’t leave until he had felt he had done enough, whatever that meant.

That man’s strong sense of loyalty was a blessing. But it was also a curse.

Thus, others had to join to make this possible, to take some of that pressure off of him, to get it, whatever it was, done faster. It was the only logical conclusion.

Hanzo couldn’t stop this ship that it was in the water, but he could help find the crew to make the sailing as smooth as possible. A crew that he himself, unfortunately, could not join.

If Hanzo had felt that his joining made sense, and that it would be more beneficial than not, he would have considered it. It just didn’t make sense, unfortunately. Not with how much he could accomplish on the outside, not with how many issues there would be with him stepping squarely into their circle.

That, and him staying out here would give Cole a good landing place for when they kicked him out again, for when they threw him under the bus, for when they had broken him once again, if history reapeated once more. Cole wanted to make Overwatch a better place, but Hanzo wasn’t sure it would treat Cole any better this time around. He had to be ready if it didn’t.

Joining could help mitigate some of the incoming damage, but him joining would also make it harder for Cole to leave, he realized. Him staying out here would at least give the man a reason to look outside the Overwatch bubble and realize that he had a life outside of that misplaced loyalty .

Out here, he could be a reminder of what Cole was losing by going back, a reminder that he wanted to get in and get out once his job was done, a reminder that an escape was always ready and waiting for him.

So, instead, Hanzo would find the others that did fit and helpfully recruit them to Overwatch’s cause. If they had enough other people filling their ranks then surely, surely , they wouldn’t mind if Cole left once he was done.

If he pushed and shoved and stuffed the Overwatch base full of enough people, of enough other scapegoats, surely they wouldn't mind when one or two eventually left, surely.

Surely they couldn’t force Cole or Genji into another bout of indentured servitude, surely .

It wasn’t the best way to go about it, it really wasn’t, but it was only option Hanzo felt that he had available. The best option, there were quite a few other worse options that he wouldn’t even entertain. This was the best choice.

He was helping . That was a good thing. He was being helpful.

Hanzo would find people, the people who had left, the ones who were left, and go from there. Obviously, he wouldn’t be able to recruit them alone, they wouldn’t know him and he didn’t want them to, but he could learn about them. Figure out what would make them go back, find how to guide them to where they needed to go, and when given the opportunity, exploit it.

Just like he had nudged with Fareeha, just like he had pushed with Ana.

Force them back into the life that they wouldn’t let Cole leave behind. Force them to atone for the sins they wanted him to bear in their stead.

Overwatch’s survival rate wasn’t fantastic, despite how its ‘dead but not’ rate kept improving, but if he put more people in, the odds that it was someone he cared about perishing reduced. Simple mathematics.

He swallowed thickly, pausing for a second, and going over what he had just decided. It sounded insane. Those rambling thoughts didn’t even feel like his own, and yet…

They must be.

They had to be.

Who else’s could they have been?

Eyes moving north, he caught sight of his reflection in the mirror. His undereye circles were dark, but his stare was darker. It startled even him, how his emotions were coming out in a gaze sharp enough to cut.

He blinked twice, realizing how ungrounded he felt, and his hands came to rest on the sides of the sink. The porcelain felt cool in his palms. Head bowing, it felt heavy - he felt heavy. Cold. Numb.

He flicked on the faucet and ran his fingers under the lukewarm water, and rubbed it onto the upper half of his face, trying to center himself.

His eyes went back to the mirror, his hand slid down his face, shaking. Fingers curling, they caught the edge of the mask, but hesitated. And hesitated. And hesitated still.

Then they ripped it off his face before he could stop himself, tearing the cloth from his skin

And, oh , how he loathed what he saw.

He saw his father in the mirror. He saw his mother.

He saw the embodiment of that selfish kind of love that had surrounded him growing up, the only kind he knew.

He saw a man who was willing to sacrifice others to save his few. He saw someone who willing to tolerate destruction left in his wake as long as his goal was accomplished in the end.

He saw someone he didn’t recognize, and yet, deep inside, had feared he was all along.

He was selfish. He knew this. It was how he was raised, it was how he had been cared for, it was how he had been abandoned, and it was the only way he knew how to show love himself, by not giving a damn what happened to anyone else.

Just like his mother. Just like his father.

He wanted to break the mirror, smash his fist into it and destroy that reflection. But breaking the outside would not change who he was inside.

His dragons whispered in his ear, trying to calm him, reminding him how he had fought too hard to throw away all his effort now. He refrained.

But, didn’t they see? Didn’t they understand? It didn’t matter how much he struggled and tried and fought when he would always fall back to being this selfish in the end.

Maybe it had never mattered. Maybe it never would.

He was the villain. He always had been.

His fingers trailed along his cheek, leaning in closer to see if he recognized his own reflection. He wasn’t sure he did. It was him, and yet it wasn’t. He felt like a foreign entity in his own skin and it unnerved him.

Was this who he had been all along, or was he finally turning into who he was always meant to be?

But, he realized, an uneasy smile ticking onto his lips as his nails softly ran down his face, this didn’t have to be a bad thing.

It wasn’t good , he wasn’t good, but it wasn’t bad.

Nearly every tale Cole had told him about Overwatch involved the heroes letting him down time and time again. The heroes that he had looked up to demanded perfection, the heroes wouldn’t tolerate failure, the heroes had been the reason that Cole hadn’t had a choice. The reason he still didn’t feel like he had one.

But villains didn’t care. They didn’t demand perfection and they didn’t mind flaws. Villains would accept you as you were, because even if you weren’t good , you were never not good enough .

Hanzo’s grin turned toothy, revealing his sharp canines, and a new appreciation grew for the man in the mirror.

Oh, Hanzo still loathed that man in the mirror, realizing he would never be able to run from his family, from those generational chains that still rattled around his wrists, that he never be good enough to be a hero.

But Cole didn’t need any more heroes in his life, did he? Heroes kept letting him down, and it was due to the misplaced loyalty to those heroes that he felt like he couldn’t leave.

No, he had enough heroes.

Maybe what he had really needed all along was to have a villain in his corner.

Hanzo splashed water on the rest of his face, toweling it off before he pulled his mask back up, exiting that room with a bit more misguided confidence than when he walked in.

The plan was for the group to separate and go their own ways fairly soon, once the sun was a bit higher in the sky. Cole and Fareeha would return to Overwatch. Ana would take care of her business elsewhere, and Hanzo would…

Hmm.

What would he do now?

He pondered this as he walked down the hall back to the bedroom. What would be a good use of his time? Obviously, Ana’s target would be first, but that would take little time. Enough to keep him busy for a week, at most. But what after that?

Cole had said that Overwatch was lacking medical, didn’t he? Even with Ana eventually joining them, that would still be a larger hole. Ana didn’t heal people, she shot them with enough chemicals to temporarily fix them, just enough for them to keep fighting. They could do better.

Hanzo could start looking into notable members of the medical team, start learning about them at least? What he would do with that knowledge, he wasn’t sure. Again, he couldn’t do anything on his own but be ready for an opportunity to arise. But at least he would know something useful and make good use of his time.

Stepping into the room, carefully closing the door behind him, he saw Cole still splayed out on the bed. He took a minute to look him over, admiring how peaceful he lay and how the scant sunlight helped set a picturesque scene.

The shiver running down his spine was the only reason he didn’t admire longer, and instead crossed the room to climb into bed beside him. The heat of Cole’s body was enough to pierce through the numbness and let Hanzo feel something.

As quiet as he tried to be, he could feel Cole rouse as he situated himself.

“Hey, Han,” the man hummed, planting a sleepy kiss onto Hanzo’s forehead, “Hey, wolfy.”

Hanzo pressed a hand on his chest and encouraged him to lay back down with him. “Sleep, Cole, it’s too early to bother waking up,” he said, “Lay with me a bit longer, my love, that’s all I ask.”

Let him have this, as long as he could. The time to leave would come sooner rather than later, and he wanted to soak up as much of this man’s warmth as he could before he was once again wandering alone in this cold, cruel world.

Cole obliged him, he always did, and lay back down, wrapping an arm around Hanzo, pulling him close. Hanzo lay his head on Cole’s chest, his own arm wrapping around the other man in kind.

He looked up at Cole’s face before he let himself fall back asleep, thinking about how similar they were, and yet how different. About how this man somehow adored Hanzo. His love was somehow even stronger than the hate Hanzo had for himself. That must be why Hanzo loved him so much.

How Cole could look at him and see someone to love? To worry about? To fight for? How did he see someone like that, where few others ever had?

Hanzo didn’t understand, but he didn’t need to understand to know how lucky someone like him was to have a chance like that. He would savor it, and cherish it as long as he could, as long as it lasted.

To have someone so caring? He would protect with his life. They both would always protect each other, their bond that important to them both, just in their own ways.

Cole was willing to save this world for him. He was willing to fight to make it a better place, somewhere he somehow felt that Hanzo deserved.

But Hanzo?

For Cole, to keep him safe, he would not hesitate - not for a single moment - to destroy the world itself if needed.