Title: you are confined (only by the walls you create yourself)
Rating: Mature
Pairings: Jesse McCree/Hanzo Shimada, mentioned Genji Shimada/Tekhartha Zenyatta
Warnings: Canon-Typical Violence, Implied Self-Harm, Self-Esteem Issues, Minor Character Death, Slow Romance, Sexual Content. Through the whole story.
Summary: It's easy to appear cold, even if you're not — obviously, it's also easy to keep others far away by doing that. It suits you just fine; you deserve it after all. Murdering your own brother is one of the greatest sins you have committed — no, the greatest. This is nothing compared to that.
(Hanzo always was bad at lying to himself.)
Also posted on AO3 under owartsynox
A/N: Kind of a vent fic I started ~four months ago, but only now got back into to edit and continue. Due to messing my stuff up, I had to repost this and I'm sorry for the problems it may have caused! English isn't my native language.
The streets were silent and still tonight.
She couldn't spot any movement or sound — though that wasn't a surprise at this hour, was it? The moon was high on the sky and the starts bright; no normal, upstanding citizen would be up at this point of the night and even if they were, they would not find their way here. Who would dare to venture on the so-called "bad side of the town" during the night, alone? Even during the day, people avoided this place. Too afraid of the consequences of even looking here and it was just so much easier to ignore, so much safer —
There. A whisper of a movement, a stray shadow; rustle of cloth and with everything else quiet, as loud as a shout. She lifted her gaze, cursing silently — no one else was supposed to be here tonight.
His steps are silent as he arrives and she can't spot any unnecessary movement from him; just by looking at him, she can see that he is a force to be reckoned with. He moves with control, every step and breath measured, and she realizes he has been trained for this — the thought brings the familiar feeling of panic in her veins, and absently she wonders if this was a setup. There can be no other explanation; a test, to ensure she wouldn't be like the others, a failure? She tightens her hand around the hilt of a blade, trying to keep it out of sight even when the moonlight reflects on it.
"Why are you here?", she voices, trying to stall for time. Someone would have noticed she hadn't reported back in a while even if if was her fault for being distracted by the pure stillness of the night — someone would come, right? As the man lifts his arms and draws something tighter, she realizes that if this was a setup.. No one would come. The sight of the weapon drawn makes her freeze, but not for the normal reasons people usually froze at weapons (she had, after all, been surrounded by them for her whole life); it's a bow. There is only one man who would use a bow here.
"Shima—", her words never finish, blocked by the blood in her mouth as the now useless knife falls out of her grip with a resounding clatter; she weakly lifts her hand to her chest, hesitantly touching the blood on her clothes before she presses harder in an attempt to keep it inside herself as she falls to her knees. Shimada comes closer, fully out of the shadows, bow lax in his hand; his expression is mild, but his eyes.. Regretful. Even though she doesn't want to, she understands, for even a ruthless murderer would doubt themselves when killing a child, wouldn't they?
"Thank you", she says instead of asking the question that burns her tongue — or perhaps it was the bitter feeling of defeat, the iron taste of her own blood. Truly, it was a blessing; she would take death over the horrors she faced in the gang, any day, even while she usually acted otherwise. She didn't have the power, the right determination, to do it herself though the sadness in his eyes does make her feel regretful as well — but she used others, as they used her, and wouldn't let it stop her from being free.
"Be in peace", Hanzo Shimada whispers, trying to honor at least the silence that had fallen on the alleyway; he kneels just as the teenager sways, catching her with his free hand. Lowering his bow onto the ground, he turns the girl in his hands to a more comfortable position; she makes a noise, gesturing weakly at the blood that sticks to his clothes and he feels the slightly morbid feeling of wanting to laugh at that — instead, he shakes his head. She does laugh at that, shakily, before raising her hazy eyes towards the sky; for a second, he wishes he could clear the sky of clouds, so her final sight would be of the so-called freedom of a night sky. He stops the thought before it can fully form, because he cannot afford to think like that; he can't regret it and even this moment is too much to allow. Instead of actually doing anything about it, he stays with the girl until her eyes slip close and her breathing stops with his father's disappointed words lingering in his mind — with a sigh, he collects his bow from the ground after lowering the child onto the ground with a considering look around him, but in the end he leaves in order to stop his eyes from strafing towards the body once more. He feels like he should be angry at himself for letting this distract him (his father certainly would be, if he knew) but instead he feels hollow, when he turns sharply back to tug the arrow out of her chest. He doesn't clean the blood out, just stores it into his quiver — he would rather remember this wrongness, than forget about it, and while he knows he will be in trouble for it.. it makes him more human than he feels. Steeling himself once more, the Shimada Heir selects a clean arrow, before stepping out of the alleyway.
He jerks awake violently, brandishing the knife from under his pillow against someone's throat; the person doesn't move, but he doesn't freeze either which gives him the distinctive feeling that they are used to these kind of situations — he files the information away for later use, before fully even registering what is actually going on. When the archer recognizes the person leaning over him, trying to wake him up, he flips the knife's edge away from their throat. His brother's unblinking mask stares at him for a while in silence, before nimble fingers rise to click the sides to get the face-plate away. He can't see his brother completely in this light, but he can easily enough read the concern in his body language — even if Genji's body is different now (because of him, his own mistakes), it is still his brother; he has always been able to read the cyborg in their childhood and few years apart somehow hasn't changed that. Of course, he had to adapt to new quirks and the.. construct of his body, but in response Genji had needed to get used to Hanzo's own changes.
"I'm alright", Hanzo promises before his brother can even ask. For a few seconds Genji just sits there in silence, no doubt assessing him (for he is not the only one who can read their brother), before nodding slowly in acceptance — he knows his brother noticed the slight wordplay and he's grateful the man doesn't comment on it.
"We have a mission", is what he says instead, which makes the former Shimada heir blink in surprise; it's midnight and while he is used to missions in the middle of the night (as is his brother, which is why they both have been called, no doubt), Overwatch hardly sends anyone out at this hour. Rather than question it, he waves Genji away while getting up, dropping the knife on top of his pillow. He has a job to do and no matter what people say about him, he respects Overwatch enough to be quick about it.
Twenty minutes later, Hanzo feels like he should regret joining Overwatch — no matter how unofficial their partnership was. He had gotten ready for a shady mission, at the worst an assassination; what else would they need the cover of night for? And, considering his upbringing and skills, he was suited for those missions and so was his brother, if one ignored his sudden Zen. (The pun is intended, though if one asked, he would never admit that. His brother had obviously influenced him too much.)
"Are our skills really needed for a rescue mission, of all things?", he knew he might have sounded arrogant, but he also knew he didn't need to think about wording to properly express himself while speaking to his brother; Genji had an uncanny ability to always know what he meant, no matter what he said. It was freeing, in a way, to have at least one person in his life for whom he didn't need to try and censor himself; he cherishes that feeling, even if he didn't speak to Genji as often as he felt like he should. It was hard to forgive oneself after committing a sin like his —
"Are you doubting yourself, anija? That is unusual", the cyborg answered with look thrown over his shoulder and while he had his face-plate on again, Hanzo knew the other man was smirking at him. Clicking his tongue in slight irritation, he raises his eyebrows at the sudden change in language, but doesn't protest to speaking in his mother tongue. Knowing Genji, there could be a missing piece of information he hadn't been given earlier and the man was just playing it safe, even though they were technically still in safe soil. Well, at least the mission got a little more interesting. Schooling his expression to a smoother one, he gestured for his brother to continue with one hand, still trying to fasten a thigh holster of all things with his left one. (Genji, for some reason, had insisted he start carrying blades to mission. He refused to touch a sword, so his brother had compromised and gotten him throwing knives — weirdly, it was touching.)
"Truthfully, it appears we are the only ones able to do it, this time", Genji continued, pushing him inside a stealth copter; making a face of distaste at his brother (which was ignored), he sat down on one of the seats. Either he's actually learnt to keep his teasing to himself, or this is critical enough for him to get serious.
"You know Agent McCree? He's the one in need of rescuing", it felt like his brother wanted to add something along the lines of of course he is (so, it was the latter then) to that, but something held him back. While the cyborg was getting the copter online, he settled down into a comfortable position while pulling up his mental list of the agents he had made background checks on — he knew Agent McCree; knew of his skills, though not much. While he did still have his habit of doing research of everyone, not caring if they were allies or not, he knew enough about this so-called cowboy to respect his privacy. Genji considering him his friend has absolute nothing to do with that. Jesse McCree, 37, formerly of Deadlock Gang and a known bounty hunter; uses a revolver he has named Peacekeeper and is a deadly accurate shot. Twice he had felt getting McCree to try out a bow, but he had refrained from saying so.
"Has he been captured or are they just aware of him?", Hanzo asks, lurching forwards slightly as the copter launches itself off of the pad — Genji switches to automatic control, before turning to face him. He decides not to say anything about that.
"It wasn't specified. He sent out a distress signal, but from what I know of Jesse.. They're already aware of him, but haven't just captured him", the agent answer with a flippant tone, but Hanzo can read the tension in him; Genji is worrying, which means he should be worried, too — he knows both were in Blackwatch, from Genji himself, so the other one would have more knowledge of McCree's skills. It annoyed him, the lack of information (if they sent someone to scope out the enemy, it was probably safe to assume they knew nothing about them), and he clicked his tongue once again; he had never liked to work with minimal information but he had no choice here. If he did nothing, an Agent would die, and no matter how much shit he got from others because of his personality and former sins, he cared about them as allies, if not people. (How hypocritical of them to judge him for his sins; everyone had done mistakes in Overwatch, no matter what kind.)
"Usual tactics, then?", the archer asks, letting his adrenaline show up in the form of a smirk on his lips. His brother, though, he laughs out loud in delight; taking that as the approval it is, he settles down to recharge his stamina.