15 Years Before Current
"Papa! Papa!" Uni laughed as he charged into the lab. The weapons lab. That should have been locked, to keep out just such an intruder. And the brown haired girl that followed him.
"Uni! We can't be in here!" Brigitte yelled, trying her best to catch the boy. They may have been the same age, but Brigette, like most girls of that age was bigger than Uni was, not that it helped her much at the moment.
"I swear, that boy can get in anywhere," Torbjorn snorted, dropping his miniature arc welder onto the workbench he was using. "Brigette, you are supposed to stay in the family dorms."
Skidding to a halt, the girl fixed her father with a dark glare. It was enough like her mother's that Torbjorn had to fight down a well conditioned flinch. "I tried to stay there! Domma left me alone with the others, Jenn got into the cafeteria somehow and made a horrible mess of the vegetables. Mable was putting toilet paper ends in the toilet and flushing it to see how much would go down before the paper ripped, Ethel smeared Winston's peanut butter all over Echo, and Fareeha and Jesse are trying to get Mary out of the vents again."
Torbjorn stared at his daughter for a long moment, his jaw open. At least until James, Torbjorn's erstwhile apprentice and current partner chuckled, scooping up his son. "I like how Overwatch, the powerful organization, peacekeepers of the world, are about to be brought down by your horde Torb," James grinned at his mentor.
"My papa is bigger than yours!" Uni laughed, crossing his arms over his chest in an arrogant fashion. Broken a bit by being held by the father in question.
"Only taller, little man," James laughed as he ground a good natured fist into his son's head. "Torb is probably one and a half me wide and could break me in half like a toothpick."
"Ah, no," Torbjorn snorted with a small smirk and shake of the head. "Idda have to do it like you were a pencil, at least."
"GODDAMN IT JAMES! The fucking guns jammed again! One of them damned near blew my arm off!" The atmosphere of frivolity evaporated in an instant as the labs doors opened, disgorging Gabriel Reyes, James's brother. "What the hell are these kids doing in a secret weapon's lab?!"
With a shocked start, James dropped his son to the floor, pushing the boy behind himself and toward Brigette. "Get Uni out of here."
Brigette nodded silently as she took Uni's, pulling him widely around Gabriel, like he was some sort of mad dog. She could feel the weight of the soldier's eyes as she stiffened her back, doing her level best to ignore him. It wasn't until the door closed behind them that her facade broke. Her held breath burst out of her as she turned a shaky gaze to Uni. The boy looked about as thrown as she felt.
"I...I don't like when Uncle Gabriel is mad," Uni whispered quietly, as if worried his voice would carry through the reinforced steel walls of the Overwatch post. "He yells...and throws stuff."
Taking a shuddering breath, Brigette glanced over her shoulder at the door. "Papa says that Gabriel doesn't mean it. He only gets like that when something goes wrong and people die. And that he always blames himself."
"It's still scary."
"Oh, my god, Uni…." Gabriel pinched the bridge of his nose as he gave his head a small shake.
"What?" the boy looked back at him with a scowl.
Gabriel hated that look. He looked just like his mother. He wasn't quite as dark as the numbani woman, but he had the same spark, the same….life. And James's oddly green eyes, so bright they almost glowed like a cat's. "You can't use a shotgun one handed."
"You do it!" Uni picked up the training version of Gab's hellfire gun and waved it around erratically. Seemed he had also inherited his mother's habit of talking with her hands.
"Yes, but I am a genetically modified super-soldier," Gab smirked as his hand blurred, snatching the gun from the boy's hands. "You are, however, a ten year old, normal boy."
Uni glared like his mother again for a long moment before snorting. "So, then maybe I should get all supered up. Maybe Brigette would stop taking my dessert….."
With a bark of laughter, Gab ruffled the boy's hair. "Probably not. She's a Lindholm. I expect her to be taking my dessert in a few years. Besides, it means she likes you."
"She does not…."
"You cheated!" Uni growled as he crossed his arms over his chest. He definitely wasn't pouting.
"C'mon," Brigette snickered, doing her best, and failing, to keep the grin off her face. "It's not my fault I'm the biggest, and the strongest!"
His frown darkening, Uni narrowed his eyes at the girl. "You're only bigger now!" he proclaimed, indignantly. "When I'm bigger I'm going to beat you! Then you'll be sorry!"
Losing her battle, Brigette laughed warmly and clapped an arm around the smaller boy's shoulder, leaning into him, which he definitely didn't like. Definitely. "Sure Uni, tell you what, when you can beat me up, I'll be your little housewife. How's that?"
"Grr…" Uni growled, looking away from her. But not pulling away. Even though he definitely didn't like it. "Fine! I'll hold you to that!"
"What the hell is wrong with you James?" Gabriel snapped, jabbing a finger into James's chest hard enough to rock the other man back half a step. "I took a chance with you! I put my reputation on the line for you! This is how you repay me?!"
"The hell Gab?" James rubbed where his brother had poked him. "I'm working my ass off here! I didn't get this job because of you anyway! Torbjorn and I have been working on six projects at once, I can't focus on your little pet!" James gestured to the heavy combat shotgun on the table next to the men. It's outer casing was dented inward, the barrel on the side warped. "You are fighting DoomFist! Your gear is going to get a little damaged!"
"You have time to work on Jack's stupid...whatever the fuck that is," Gabriel jerked a thumb at a half completed rifle on another table, before gesturing at another rifle, this time with the longer, more delicate barrel of a sniper rifle. "And a fucking magical 'healing' gun?"
With a quiet 'whoosh', the lab's door opened revealing a young man with a battered cowboy hat laughing next to uni. "- then I said, 'Sure, but the horse is probably a better fuck!'"
"Ha! Ha-" Uni laughed loudly for a moment before realizing the two older men staring at them. James had that fatherly glare that kept shifting between the two newcomers, before settling on him. "Oh…"
"Shit…" McCree swallowed as he noticed the slight twitch under Gabriel's right eye.
"I….can't….do….any...more…" Uni huffed, sweat literally pooling underneath him as his arms, shakily, pushed him up.
"Oh come on," Fareeha laughed. Uni kinda liked her laugh. It as warm and honest. And loud. That last part was annoying when it was movie night, but still…. "That was only a hundred! Just fifty more to go! When I was your age and I said that kind of thing, mom would do way worse to me. You're dad is a softie."
Okay….maybe he hated her.
Though it was hard to complain, really. She had been matching him push-up for push-up. With one arm, literally, behind her back. Her dark eyes sparkled with childish glee. She was easily the most competitive person he had ever met. It was like she took life itself as a challenge.
"Fareeha…." he whined. "You're like...eighteen. You do this shi-er...stuff….all the time! You want to work for Overwatch!"
"Of course!" Fareeha laughed again. Okay...he did still like it. "Don't you? I mean, think about it! Travel the world! Right wrongs! Do...Justice!"
"You've been reading those comics again," Uni accused, slowly lowering his knee to the ground, taking some of the pressure of his burning arms.
"Well….maybe," she grinned back with a wink. "Tell you what, you do, say, twenty more with me, and I won't tell anybody that you're looking down my shirt."