He reads a few of his obituaries, and they all start the same way - once upon a time in Indiana. Mentioning the farm as if it were some bucolic wonderland. A nostalgic, sunlit place outside of time, with lemonade and tire swings and no words for tragedy.
Jack was a farmer's son, on a working farm. He attached cows to the milk pumps in the heavy blue dark of every winter morning, with the metal so cold his hands would stick when he breathed on them. He waded through drifts in January and wore mud all through March and slapped away mosquitoes until the leaves fell. All of this while working machines in the field that could flay the skin off a careless man, could do the kind of damage he wouldn't see again until his first year in the thick of the Crisis.
It could be quiet, though, that was true enough. A lush and living sort of quiet, in the moments between choruses of frogs and crickets, with the wind rustling through the grain like a long, thoughtful tide, until it all rolled out slow into the damp-sweet smell of fresh reaping.
When he'd just turned eleven, a family on the other side of the county had died, an accident in their manure pit - the father falling in, the son going after him, and another son and farmhand quick to follow, all dead in a matter of moments. It was the right lesson to learn young - life is fragile, and good people can die for no reason at all.
Later that year, Jack had worked the farm next door for the lambing season - five dead before the first week was out, too weak for living, which was still less than they'd lost a few years before. Of course, foxes always came for the chickens, or hawks, or even a stray coyote now and then.
Life is fragile, and there's always someone looking to take advantage of that.
Jack was hardly exempt from that, given his first knife right along the belt to stick it in. Idle hands and all, and the farm needed the help, so he'd been taught to kill and pluck chickens, gut and clean the fish he caught, then rabbits - then a deer. Jack had been as happy as any boy could be, that first year he went hunting, and he'd gone out most years after for at least a few seasons - turkey, pheasant, duck - until he'd left the farm for good.
He wasn't quite sixteen, the first time he'd nearly died - that heroic obituary almost truncated to the very first paragraph. It would be the closest he'd come to checking out before Mercy was there to patch him up.
Jack had been at the top of the silo, walking down the grain, with his attention on what looked like a spoiled patch near the far wall - and then the ground beneath his feet had just slid away, sucked him down and he'd barely had a chance to shout before he was under and gone, his whole body pinned and the grain as solid as stone around him, except for the torrent trying to sneak its way down his throat.
It was luck that saved him, nothing more. His father had seen him go down, and Jack had found just enough air, an angle to tip his head and a pocket to keep breathing in until they'd been able to dig him free. He'd dreamed of it for years afterward - of towering waves of darkness, and opening his mouth to scream only to feel the grains sweep in and down and bury him alive, packing his lungs until he woke shivering and coughing, soaked in sweat.
When his nightmares finally switched to the giant, killer robots, it was almost a relief.
So it's always a little strange to him, when these people who don't really know talk about the farming life as if it were some kind of paradise, with no resemblance to anything that came after.
Jack's not going to say it wasn't beautiful, at times it was nearly perfect - but it was never really bloodless.
He's there for the unveiling ceremony - the Overwatch Museum - just in case anyone feels like trying anything. At least that's what he tells himself. He still doesn't see it coming, when they pull the curtain back and there it is - there /he/ is. Jack Morrison, larger than life, standing guard over the remnants of everything they wouldn't let him keep.
There's a gift shop.
In the back of his mind Gabriel is laughing and laughing and laughing.
Jack watches from a distance, to make sure the girl gets home safe. Everyone should have a place like that to go back to, the glow from the house radiating out into the street and he can feel the warmth of it from where he stands.
Or maybe that's just the parts of him that haven't stopped smoldering yet. At least the ribs are nearly healed. Enough.
You were a shit hero, and you're even worse when you try not to be.
He sighs. At least he hadn't lost too much time. With that minigun pointed at him, there hadn't been much a chance to throw a tracker on the truck, but these aren't exactly professionals, and they're certainly not quiet. If he can't pick up the trail by morning, it won't be their fault. Just as a long shot, Jack pops the receiver from his back pocket, searches the bandwidth with a flick of his thumb - yes, there they are. Sending frantic messages to their superiors and not even bothering to hide the signal.
God bless the idiot henchmen. There are times they practically do the job for him.
He goes back to check the wreckage for clues anyway, because there's little chance they didn't leave something behind and the police can be dodged or bribed and it'll take until morning for anyone really serious to show up - if this all doesn't disappear under a tidy private contract. No doubt it's been made worth a lot of people's time to keep looking the other way.
Halfway there, he hears a garbled, electronic moan from the shadows and Jack knows it before he sees it - wounded Omnic, standard human-size. The bot's been worked over pretty well - the violence against Omnics had never really gone away and there's been flare up after flare up lately, and it might all just die down again but Jack knows better than to hold out hope.
Dammit, Morrison. Leave it. You've done your good deed for the year. Get your head in the game.
The Omnic lets out a pathetic wheezing sound, a few sparks firing as he slumping forward - and yeah, Jack's already moving to help. It's late, there's no one here to see him being a decent person, and he'll make sure to punch the next round of thugs twice as hard.
… this is exactly like that time with the kitten.
Jack makes sure to be noticed before he gets too close, hears the whirr of the opticals taking in his outfit and the gun and he raises his hands slowly, palms out and empty.
"I'm not with them." At least his Spanish is good enough for this. "I just want to help."
It's not exactly trustworthy from a man in a full face mask, but the Omnic's in little shape to do much about it, and with a grinding noise and a swivel of gears he's falling forward and Jack catches him before he can hit the ground.
"Lean on me. Is there somewhere I can take you?"
It surprised more than a few people, that Jack Morrison never really had a problem with Omnics. He's never had much of a problem with anything that didn't have a problem with him first, and when things finally settled down it seemed clear the Omnics just wanted to live, to learn what living was all about like anyone else. It hardly makes him a saint - Jack's still aware of them, always, and any number of slight, mechanical sounds can leave him tensed and reaching for his gun before he thinks to check the motion.
Jack used to worry, of course, that the Omnics were vulnerable in a way that humans weren't, that they might turn on him again, might turn en masse against humanity whether they wanted to or not - but then there was Blackwatch and Switzerland, Amélie and Gabriel and what the hell does he think he knows about anything, really?
A human man that opens the door, gaping at Jack only for the moment it takes him to recognize who he's carrying, and Jack's Spanish isn't good enough for most of the conversation that follows, as he helps the Omnic over the threshold and into the arms of someone who will help more than he can. Someone who cares. He catches a few words - hears the Omnic say something about repairs and expenses and the man has a hand around the back of that cabled neck, pulling him close, telling him it doesn't matter - you're safe, you're home.
It's a good moment to disappear unnoticed, and if Jack should drop a few bills on the floor as he silently shuts the door - well, accidents do happen.
Well done - you're like an ATM of failure.
Maybe he is, and maybe he has a gun that can stop a tank, if he aims right - and he usually does. He's also managed to scorch a few blocks of the back half of Dorado and no one's real happy about that, and a quick search of the aftermath ensures there's going to be a few more things in a few less pieces before the dawn.
It's quiet now, with the moon slowly on the rise - but that peace is all a lie. Whatever things look like here, however still it may be, the sun's already rising on the other side of the world and the people Soldier 76 needs to stop are already up and working hard to make sure he never will.
