A/N: I had feels and wrote them. This is my first OW fic, so here goes nothing! Drop a review if you please:)

Overwatch

Fanfiction

Disclaimer:

I do not own Overwatch, or any of the related characters, locations, or dialog etc. The rest of the characters and ideas are mine. Enjoy and please review!

Genji's return from the dead had been enough of a shock to Hanzo's system, and the clue of his invitation to join the very illegal and barely reformed Overwatch. He wasn't sure why the hell he'd even followed the messages sent out to the encrypted comm, seriously contemplating making good use of its self-destruct button.

He could count the number of times he'd sat with the comm in hand, lips pursed and scowling at it while the option 'Format and Destroy' danced in soft blue across the screen.

He still hadn't been able to do it.

But it allowed him to keep track of the organization's movements, realizing after a few months that the only time he received a message was when there was something happening in his vicinity. Curiosity finally drove him to the site of the latest mission in oppressively-humid India, breathing in as much water vapor as air in his perch high above the agents that made their way out to the warehouse.

Hanzo's own research showed it was most likely a Talon outpost, active enough to warrant Overwatch's attention and out of the way enough for them to remain out of the public eye regardless of the outcome of the mission.

He had to admit, it was a rather interesting strategy for them to use. Their new commander might do better than Morrison and Reyes had, back in the day.

Hoping for that is foolish. Look where hoping for something better landed you, a little voice niggled in the back of his mind. Hanzo quickly shoved the thought aside, watching a few members head out of the plane they were transported in.

And what a motley crew they were – a gorilla from the Lunar Colony, a slim, orange-clad girl (young woman?), a young man with hardlight rollerblades, and an honest to gods… cowboy. Replete with the Stetson, serape, chaps, boots, and – Hanzo squinted, staring intently at the heel of the cowboy's boots.

"Spurs…?" he murmured, too shocked to keep the almost silent question locked away in his mind.

Absolutely ridiculous.

Stupid.

A grave tactical error, and one that would surely cost the team their lives and mission. Being that bold and loud was just so… American.

Hanzo rolled his eyes and shook his head. He didn't have a choice anymore, slinking through the shadows and along the roofs and beams to keep up with the team, spotting their enemies before they did and sniped the few that they wouldn't see until too late.

Overall, he was rather pleased with their success, and even the cowboy's startling stealth when it was needed. Hanzo didn't linger once they had what they wanted and cleared out, vanishing into the city.

If he didn't have a contract, Hanzo was almost always tailing the Overwatch group, watching the members change a little, but the cowboy was almost always present. Once, Genji had been on the team, and he'd turned around as an omnic dropped forwards from his hiding spot above the tea, meeting Hanzo's gaze with only a tip of his head to acknowledge his brother's presence.

After that, however, the mission statements sent to his comm were a little more tailored to a sniper's perspective, offering hiding spots and perches wherever possible, as well as meeting dates and locations before they went in.

Hanzo had walked past the coffee shop they gathered in once, swallowing hard at the sight of his brother smiling and laughing with them.

He did make his way into the pub afterwards though, taking a spot at the bar and had his own quiet celebration for the mission's success, and a contract well executed.

Missions came and went, and the team recognized his presence at their post-mission gatherings until he'd finally joined them when Genji beckoned him over one time. Introductions had been a little tense, and no-one seemed able to relax once Hanzo had joined them, but none were openly hostile.

Except maybe for the cowboy, slinging dark looks his way which Hanzo pointedly ignored for his brother's sake. He wasn't here to make friends, anyhow, only assist where and when he could.

Any yet… he made friends anyway. Lucio was annoyingly cheerful, and absolutely impossible to say no to. Tracer lit up their time with sharp wit and playful jibes that made Hanzo forget he had an image to maintain.

Genji…. Spending time with his brother took a little longer, neither of them really sure how to be around the other unless they were with other people. But they slowly came together, with several false starts and missed intentions, and a lot more of Zenyatta's help than Hanzo would later admit to. Genji's Master was certainly a very interesting omnic, and completely unlike everything he'd ever known about them.

The cowboy was harder to understand. The others seemed to suggest they were more alike than they knew, but Hanzo had yet to find anything about Jesse McCree that proved that they were any kind of similar. He had to admit though, the verbal sparring was mildly entertaining, at least.

Time passed, and Hanzo eventually abandoned his contracts for Overwatch missions, and the sharp insults turned into playful jibes between himself and McCree, the pair turning into friends as they slowly spent more time together, mostly on Winston's orders that they remain partners.

They worked well together, despite their rocky start, and they were even more formidable once they understood each other a little more. Post-mission meetings went from full-team gatherings to quiet moments in McCree's room if transport out was slow, talking and drinking until they heard the others stumble back in to their rooms, then Hanzo would leave with a smirk.

He treasured those times with McCree, losing himself in the lilt and slow drawl whenever he found it in himself to exaggerate a story he wanted to tell Hanzo, and the quiet way he'd tell his whiskey glass about the sunflowers his mother loved, and the way the sun would bleed out light in the mornings over the farm, like Hanzo was a part of something private, and yet outside of it.

He watched the laugh lines around McCree's eyes and mouth pull tight whenever he spoke of the harsher things he'd done, the people he'd killed; Hanzo listened to the slow inhale and sharp rush of air as McCree thought better of saying something, lips pursed and eyes hard and hold, shaking his head to chase the thoughts away.

Then Hanzo would fill in the silence before it got heavy, recognizing the need for a distraction. He'd start with little things, like how he missed the snow on bare cherry blossom trees in winter, or how he and Genji would sneak out of the castle to go to the arcade a few streets down. Now, though, he knew they'd never been alone, weren't as good at sneaking out as they'd thought they were. He chuckled fondly at memories of them as kids, thinking they were terribly clever to steal sweets from vendors, not realizing that their family's bodyguards were always close by to pay loyal merchants, or warn those who questioned Shimada law.

But Hanzo also slowly opened up to McCree, telling him of the things he'd done, the things he regretted now and was too blind to see then. An old mentor on his knees, silent tears for the boy he'd known, voice unwavering as he told Hanzo to remember who he was, to not be swayed by the opinions of others before he was executed by Hanzo's own hand. Fighting with Genji, yearning for the closeness his brother shared with their father and wholly unsure of how to get it, when he was doing what he had been told to.

Several times he'd started and aborted talking about that night, words too weak and few to fully explain the sharpness of the memory in Hanzo's mind, seeing it like he could see it happening right now, taste the ozone in the air and the salt of sweat, smell the oil on ancient wood and the bamboo of the tatami mats being shredded, feel the prickle of lighting over his skin and the spray of scorching blood on his face, hear the blind rage in his voice and the breathless taunting of his brother right until the end.

What was burned so deep into his memory that it was branded on his soul, though, was Genji's final, begged and quiet, 'Brother, please'. Hanzo wasn't sure he was ready to share any of that. Not for a long while still.

McCree listened through all of it, never pushing, never offering judgment – at least out loud, from what Hanzo could tell; he certainly judged his own past harshly – in the same way Hanzo had listened for him. And with time, they understood. They read each other like open books, knowing exactly when the other needed something the others couldn't give. Hanzo could see the glint in McCree's eyes and the tension in his shoulders when he needed a good bar brawl, and he knew when Hanzo's immaculate posture dropped just enough for a quiet, isolated place to get drunk and try to forget, just for the night.

Hanzo's friendships with the others slowly had him relaxing, helping shed his hang-ups of tradition versus what Hanzo wanted, and the younger members were more than happy to tease and lure him into discussions about style and personal preference, poking at him just enough to rile up his spite and do it.

Between Hana and Lucio, though, and Genji's good-natured goading, Hanzo finally added a few piercings he'd always wanted, and some that the trio insisted would look good on him. And then there was the undercut… a bold move that Hanzo had been extremely skeptical of, considering his secret love for his hair, and ended up loving the new style far more than the others did, in the end. He actually felt the changes people said they saw in him, once he'd changed his look.

McCree's staring, too, when he saw Hanzo with his new style for the first time – undercut, new, more modern clothes, double lobe piercings, and a helix on his right ear, the bridge piercing on his face, and two others tucked safely under his clothes for himself – was priceless. The cowboy's jaw had fallen slack, eyes raking over Hanzo with an unreadable expression, before he smirked and tipped his hat back with a low whistle.

"Damn, sugar. All that metal looks good on you," he'd drawled, winking before turning his attention back to Winston for the post-mission briefing, chuckling softly at Genji's scandalized gasp at no longer being the only Shimada to look good in metal.

He was smug for the rest of the week, feeling a warmth just under his ribs whenever he thought of that interaction. They had two missions in the area, discretely brought in by the government to deal with the problem, and Hanzo was comfortable enough to use the same flat he'd rented for the rest of the time they were here. The Shimada clan's assassins had mostly left him be for weeks now, which bothered him somewhat less than it should have, in hindsight.

Hanzo heard them a moment too late on the way home from a bakery, wrapped up in thoughts of the mission later the next day, and the evening spent with McCree after that.

Three dropped onto Hanzo, knocking the pastries he'd bought out of his hands as he tumbled sideways into a wall, desperate to recover. He barely ducked under an attack, hearing the dull clang of steel glancing off brick.

Shit.

Shit.

Hanzo dove out of the way again, deeper into the side alley they'd pushed him into, reaching for the knife he kept in his boot, wrenching it out in time to deflect another blow from an assassin, leaving an opening he took.

Ducking under the man's raised arm, Hanzo rammed his elbow into his stomach, following it with his knife to twist away from a kick at his arm.

Another assassin snarled, continuing their attack with a fist in Hanzo's face, head snapping to the side. They were brutal, unrelenting, and Hanzo was still reeling, more upset about the loss of his pastries than angry at the attack.

It took Hanzo longer than he would've liked to deal with them, earning more than a few cuts and punishing strikes to his body, left eye already showing signs of swelling shut when two were dead and bleeding out, one wheezing against a wall.

He tugged off the masks of the dead assassins. Young, and incompetent. Overconfident, to boot. And they almost succeeded in killing you, Hanzo added mentally, scowling at the thought.

A wet chuckle drew his attention back to the one still alive, the man fumbling for his mask. "You are still as weak as you were then, Hanzo."

He turned, swallowing down the dread and angry shame at finding one of his old mentors among the team, dropping the mask from his face. "Weak and incompetent. Barely scraping by," he sneered, wheezing through the pain.

"I am nothing like I was then,'" he hissed.

It earned him another wet chuckle, a sly grin that Hanzo'd once found encouraging. How had he ever seen it as anything but demeaning?

"No. You're nothing like then. As a boy, as a young man, as scion, you were marginally competent at least. Your heart and time made you weak –"

"I am not weak!" Hanzo snarled, lunging forwards and grabbling the front of his mentor's shirt, shaking him. "I have grown beyond the clan, I have things I never had with them! I have friends –"

"And look what friends got you. Almost killed," his mentor snickered, then hacked blood. "Can't – can't even finish a kill. You will never be rid of us, Hanzo."

He snarled, a feral cry tearing out of his throat as he snapped the man's neck, rage and panic fueling his hands to find a knife and drive it into his old mentor's chest over and over and over again, gasping at the air when his mind finally cleared.

Shit.

He'd left a mess. He didn't know who had seen.

Clean up. I need to clean this up, Hanzo thought, wiping down the blade and slipped into the familiar routine of dealing with assassins sent after him.

Hiding the bodies, removing all forms of identification, destroying their clothes…. It was a messy and arduous process that left Hanzo as paranoid as the day he'd left Hanamura. He hid in his clothes, eyes sharp and flitting from person to person, down every alley and into every shadow cast by the dawn when it arrived.

He cased his apartment before rushing in to gather only his essentials – bow, quiver, his modified cello case – and destroyed the rest. His comm, his burner phone, everything that could be used to track Hanzo down.

The rest of the day was a blur of paranoia and doing his best to work a confusing trail through the city to lose any other potential assassins.

Everyone was an enemy. Every old woman who looked at his clothes with scorn, every child who stared up at his piercings. The women who gasped in horror when they saw him, the men who pulled their partners a little closer when Hanzo passed. They were all threats, and Hanzo hadn't noticed how tightly he'd been wound until he nearly threw a man who'd walked into him in front of a car.

Activity kept his thoughts at bay for a time, but once he'd found a little hovel to hide in, somewhere easily defensible, they came in full force.

He was weak.

He was careless. He'd let his guard down and nearly paid the price for it. He finally pulled out a mirror to look at his face, throbbing and aching dully, and understood why people had been staring.

Hanzo was a mess, with a split lip and a swollen-shut eye. Sections of his face were blotched a black-purple, his silver piercings standing out in painful contrast to his abused body. There was a long but shallow cut on his cheek, and his knuckles were broken and bloody. Too many other bruises littered his body with cuts and scrapes for Hanzo to care much about treating them beyond the necessary.

He deserved it, for the way he'd let Shimada assassins find him, and attack him as easily as they had.

And for what? A box of pastries and passing familiarity with people? You cannot have friends. Remember what you did to Genji. Your own brother, he spat at himself, treating the injuries as best he could with what little he had.

The sun had long since set, self-hatred and anxiety roiling in his gut and threatening violent upset if he even dared change his position slightly, muscle cramps settling into his thighs, his prosthetic ports aching where they joined into his skin.

And then Hanzo remembered the mission he was supposed to have been on, guilt adding to the anxiety until he dry-heaved, coughing into his sleeve.

Worthless. Weak. He'd failed the others who had *counted* on him to be there. What use was he to them, anymore? He'd proven himself unreliable and uncontactable.

Jesse can make it better, a small voice in his mind insisted.

Jesse McCree is just a man. He cannot do anything about this, he argued back, body trembling and muscles screaming in protest when he stood to move, already gathering his things.

He can make it better.

"How? He's just a man. A weakness. They will use him to get to me, and he will die for it," he murmured aloud to try and silence the little voice in his mind, to stop his heart from leaping at the faint spark of hope that, maybe, he'd be able to get some comfort from Jesse. That the man would take mercy on him for his failures, his shortcomings, and just let him be in the presence of someone so much more than he could ever hope to be.

It wasn't an easy trip, and Hanzo argued with himself all the way to the motel rooms where Jesse and the rest of Overwatch was staying, the nausea lingering, anxiety clawing at his throat.

Hanzo was ready to turn tail and leave when he arrived, the black night and yellow streetlights casting shadows over his battered face and hiding the worst of the bruises, even as he tucked his chin in a little deeper into the cowl of his jacket.

He didn't expect to find Jesse outside in the cool night air, sitting wrapped in a blanket on the steps to his room, yawning widely and… waiting.

He stood in the shadows and watched Jesse scan the area around him, relaxed but attentive and snapping onto Hanzo when he stepped from the shadows into the very edge of the glow of the streetlamps.

It was a long moment when their eyes met, Hanzo unsure and waiting, almost needing permission to come closer. But Jesse's face softened into a gentle smile as he stood, arms opening to let Hanzo in.

You are weak, Shimada-san!

He didn't even realize he'd taken a step forwards. Jesse can't make it better.

You cannot be soft, Hanzo! You are our scion.

Another step, and no scorn to be found on Jesse's face, in his eyes.

Your heart is too soft. Harden it, boy.

Hanzo's heart was hammering in his throat, pounding around the lump that was forming.

You are a disgrace to mourn that waste of life! That boy was a dishonor to our clan.

Hanzo found himself standing in front of Jesse, looking up at him with the one eye not swollen shut. Jesse wasn't turning him away. He wasn't asking questions or making small talk. His arms were still wide open, the blanket no longer containing his body heat, and Hanzo could feel it dissipate.

He swallowed hard past the lump in his throat and leaned in, pressing his forehead to Jesse's chest.

Just to calm his breathing, just to force away the horrid burn in his eyes.

Except then Jesse's arms closed around him, the blanket soft and warm and hiding Hanzo from the world, and he felt safe. His breathing hitched, blowing out a slow breath between his lips to keep it under control.

Crying is weak, Hanzo. Keep your tears where no-one can see them.

I got you, darlin'. Y'ain't gotta tell me nothin', we can just sit here.

The ghost of Jesse's voice in his ear, the tightening of his arms around Hanzo, was enough to break the dam wall holding back his emotions.

He hicked and snatched at the air, silent tears streaming down his face, even past his eyes, squeezed tightly shut to try and keep the tears in check.

Jesse just held him a little tighter, somehow keeping Hanzo together even as he fell apart, tears coming hot and heavy, too burned out to be ashamed of crying loud and desperate into Jesse's shirt, arms finally coming up to clutch at the cowboy.

He didn't know how long they stood there, Jesse just holding him tighter with ever hick and sob, until Hanzo was sniffling with his face still buried in Jesse's chest.

A beard scraped through his hair, and then gentle lips pressed into his crown. "I'm here for you, darlin'," Jesse murmured. "I'll always be here for you, I swear it."

Hanzo nodded, finally lifting his face to meet Jesse's gaze again, wiping his nose on his sleeve. "Th-thank you, Jesse," he mumbled, breath stuttering when he inhaled. He'd probably ruined Jesse's shirt with his snot and tears and blood, an apology blooming and withering in his mind when Jesse smiled softly. "Let's head in, get you cleaned up real good, and you can sleep here tonight, alright?"

He nodded, though the idea of sleep seemed something far away and unreal. Jesse led him into the room, let Hanzo settle in on his own time and helped him scan the room for bugs, when he gathered his thoughts from his exhausted haze.

Jesse, for all his talking and idle chatter, knew exactly when to give Hanzo the time and the space to think and start the conversation on his own, when he was ready, and instead filled the space between them with talk of a tv show he'd seen from a couple decades back, outlining the plot and a general idea of the characters.

Hanzo wasn't really following along – it was some ridiculous love triangle between some or another supernatural siblings and a human. But it was enough to hold his attention while Jesse cleaned his wounds and redressed them, snagging a bioemitter and turned it on.

"They came for me," Hanzo said in a lull, looking down at the awful floral pattern on the bedspread.

"They?" Jesse prodded gently, clucking his tongue at Hanzo when he flinched away from the sting of antiseptic on his cheek.

"Shimada assassins. They came for me late last night. And… and they…"

Jesse nodded, smoothing a bandage over Hanzo's cheek as the bioemitter shut down. "Useless thing. Never can get more'n bruises to heal with it," he grumbled instead, tossing it to a corner.

"They are dead now. But I let them get too close. I was careless. I let –" I let my guard down. "I cannot stay and help anymore."

The cowboy froze at that, eyes snapping up to Hanzo's face with an unreadable expression. "Now hold up, darlin' – you face them assassins alone, and it's inevitable they're gonna get the jump on you."

Hanzo's expression twisted, pulling back from Jesse. "Are you calling me incompetent?"

"Han – listen, no. That ain't what I'm sayin' and you know it. Don't you go twisting my words," Jesse frowned, pointing at him and sighed when Hanzo swatted his hand away. "I'm sayin' you got friends. People who wanna help you. Let us help you. Let me help you, sugar. It ain't a crime, I swear."

He stared at Jesse for a long moment, indecisive. "But after all I have done –"

"Don't start that shit either. You're tryin', Han. I've seen it, and I know you suffer for it. I needed the help once, too, and I didn't want it. It was shoved my way anyway and thank fuck for it. But I was a kid then, and you're a grown-ass man, so I ain't gonna make you take it. Just, sleep on it? Or meditate on it or somethin'. You can't fight the world as a one-man army, Hanzo. Trust me on this," he finished, giving Hanzo's shoulder a parting squeeze before cleaning up the medical supplies around them.

"Jesse would you –" Hanzo blurted, cheeks burning with embarrassment and ploughing on before he lost his nerve. "I don't, I don't think I can sleep, and I would prefer you beside me, even if… you do not wish to remain awake."

They went through their nightly routines, dressed down in something more comfortable when they finally settled against the headboard of the double bed, making idle conversation about anything that wasn't what had just happened, creeping lower and lower, until their heads were on the pillows and Hanzo was tucked under Jesse's chin.

"I'm sorry I wasn't there for the mission," Hanzo mumbled, stifling a yawn in Jesse's chest.

"S'alright, darlin'. You came back, that's all that matters," he rumbled.

Hanzo meant to reply, but with Jesse's warmth around him, the faint tickle of tobacco and oiled leather in his nose, he drifted into sleep with Jesse.

When he woke hours later, a little too warm from still being tangled with Jesse, sunlight filtering in through the half-closed and stuck blinds, Hanzo was struck by the peace in the moment. Jesse was still asleep, the creases around his eyes and mouth softened in sleep, hair falling over his eyes. Hanzo reached up slowly, carefully tucking back thick brown hair behind the cowboy's ear, and thought that, maybe he was right.

Maybe it was time he asked for help, and maybe, just maybe, it was okay to do that.