Chapter Summary: In which some things never change, and for everything else, there's a nothing few rounds of pulse ammunition won't solve.


Gabriel opened his eyes to an unfamiliar room.

He noticed the ceiling first: a faded Overwatch logo mocking him with all of its orange and off-white glory, the surrounding concrete discolored with age. From the damp musk in the air, Gabriel was somewhere underground—or in an old, poorly-maintained building. The bed creaked as he sat up, and his body protested the movement. Black spots swam across his vision, and Gabriel lowered himself back onto the thin mattress with a hiss. Fuck, he wasn't going to try that again. Back to staring at the ceiling then.

"Stay still," a voice growled out.

Gabriel jerked upright despite the pain, startled and combative. He stared into the emotionless mask of a man who unironically wore a red, white, and blue leather monstrosity of a jacket. Why not wear a goddamn American flag with stars and stripes instead? God, was Jack's horrible fashion sense spreading? If it wasn't for the age of the other man's voice, the receding hairline, and the scar peeking out over the edge of his visor, Gabriel would have thought they could be the same person.

"I didn't spend the past five hours pulling bullets from your sorry ass only for you to undo all of my hard work." The man seated beside him leaned back in his metal folding chair; it squealed as he shifted his weight. "Stay still—or else." He had the sort of voice that would turn even the kindest words into an implicit threat. "I wasted a biotic canister on you, so if you rip your stitches, you can sew them back up yourself. Between the super-soldier serum and your nanites, you heal fast but not that fast."

"Five hours?" Gabriel croaked out.

The man beside him snorted. "Surprisingly," he emphasized, voice dripping with sarcasm, "it was difficult to pull the bullets from your body, since it was healing itself around them."

Gabriel allowed his words to sink in and toyed with the sheet covering him. He could feel bandages wrapped around his torso and leg, and from the rough fabric scratching against his thigh, he could tell he wasn't wearing the same pants from earlier. It made sense, considering the surgery, but he still felt exposed. Laid bare.

If the man beside him knew about the nanites, he knew about O'Deorain. From the sound of it, he also either knew or guessed Gabriel's involvement with the SEP, a classified, top-secret American military operation only a handful of people still alive could talk about with any sort of certainty, conspiracy theorists notwithstanding.

Gabriel, in no uncertain terms, was fucked.

He scrubbed a hand across his face as he thought, calloused fingertips rasping over his beard—it needed a trim. Badly. In Kurjikstan, he'd had no time for such civilized pleasantries. Gabriel had been too busy monitoring drone surveillance feeds, squeezing through mountain crags, and establishing a defensive perimeter. Somehow, the scared-as-shit insurgents had gotten their hands on ack-acks and missile launchers.

He considered the masked man's face, then his body. The other man held himself still, as if he could care less if Gabriel examined every inch of him, and the longer he stared, the more Gabriel began to wonder. There was only one other person in the world who knew about his nanite treatment, and in all the years he'd known Moria O'Deorain, she had never willingly shared her secrets with anyone. The only other person who might even begin to guess the side effects of the soldier enhancement program would be someone who'd experienced it firsthand.

He'd be the kind of man who would wear a God-awful patriotic color scheme without an ounce of shame.

The last time Gabriel had seen Jack, however, the man had been blond, and while he bemoaned the start of his thinning and receding hairline, it hadn't been this prominent before. Either Gabriel had been in a coma for an extended period of time or…

"Jack," Gabriel began, slow and careful, "what happened to you?"

"That's none of your—"

"Let me see you, Jack. Please?"

"That's not my name anymore," he said. Gabriel waited, and after a beat of silence, the other man unlatched his face plate and visor. That was Jack, alright. Older, yes, and scarred. Gabriel wanted to ask, but he withheld the questions for later. "Jack Morrison died. If you need to call me something…" He shrugged his shoulders. "I'm just a soldier now. What happened to me?" He echoed Gabriel's question from earlier. "I got old. That's all you need to know."

"You don't look that old."

"I got my first grey hairs at twenty, and my hair had begun to thin by thirty. I aged like hell, unlike you." Blue eyes narrowed. "Besides, it's 2080. Don't look so shocked. You said it yourself, right? Overwatch was too good for the world we saved. It would never last, and wouldn't you know? Things went to shit."

Funny how Gabriel had said that exact same thing once.

He'd study that information later. Instead, he said, "Your bedside manner's gotten worse with age."

"If you're going to complain so much, save your own sorry ass next time. You were half-dead by the time I got you stabilized." The scars on his face, the jagged gash across his lips in particular, dragged his mouth down into a snarl.

Gabriel considered moving onto a safer topic. "Do you know where Jack is? My Jack?"

"Thanks for the clarification. Never would have guessed who you meant otherwise," the other man deadpanned. "Overwatch found you alone. I assume you had a rendezvous point?"

"We did. I was supposed to return by sundown."

"Typical." Soldier scoffed. "Are you able to move?" His blue eyes narrowed.

"I thought you just said—"

"As if you'd listen," he interrupted. Well, he wasn't wrong. "Your husband," Soldier spat out the word like a curse, and if Gabriel had any illusions as to what had happened to his counterpart—if he was even still alive—he knew it had ended badly, "is in danger. You'll do whatever it takes to get back to him, even if you pretend otherwise. Even if I knocked you unconscious and tied you down, you'd find some way of getting free. It's not worth the extra hassle. I might as well help you do it properly."

"I'll manage. I've been through worse."

Soldier snorted.

Gabriel sat himself up with care. He looked up when something soft landed in his lap: a soft, dark grey long-sleeved shirt.

"That should fit. Your boots and a pair of socks are by the foot of the bed. I'll be in the hall." The silver-haired man left without another word, leaving Gabriel alone.

He tugged the shirt over his head, and it did indeed fit him well, even if it was a bit loose around the torso. He slipped his feet into the socks, wiggling his toes. It was nice to have a dry, warm pair after all this shit. Simple pleasures, Jack had used to say, and Gabriel wondered if this other version of him felt the same.

The boots, he noticed with some amusement, had been cleaned off and polished. Gabriel imagined the grizzled older man shining and buffing them with the same enthusiasm of a new recruit. Even thirty years later, Morrison would still insist on keeping everything regulation standard, prim and proper and neat as if the goddamn Strike Commander of Overwatch would have room inspections sprung on him. He snorted, wrapping his arms around himself as if to physically restrain his laughter.

When he stepped out of the room, he found Soldier leaning against the opposite wall, arms crossed over his chest. The other man gave him a once-over before he began walking down the hall. With his face plate and visor back on, it was impossible to read his face, but from the tense set of his shoulders and stiff walk, he was irritated. About what, Gabriel had no fucking idea.

As they walked, Gabriel wondered what was beyond the doors on either side of the hallway. More rooms, he surmised. As they reached an intersection, Soldier nodded at one of the women standing there inspecting a holopad, and they followed a red arrow painted above the word "Cafeteria." By the time they reached the large double-doors, Gabriel's stomach growled, reminding him the last thing he'd eaten had been an energy bar in his room just before he'd fallen asleep. It hadn't even been a good one either, since Jack had eaten all of his dark chocolate-almond bars and hadn't bought him a new box, the asshole.

They stepped through the open doors, and Soldier grumbled, "Find a seat." He jerked his thumb at the assortment of tables haphazardly placed around the room.

Gabriel moved towards an empty table in the far corner. The small, circular table for two wouldn't have looked out of place in a small bakery—the kind whose coffee didn't taste like piss-water and where he could get those stupid vanilla-chocolate éclairs Jack loved. When Gabriel sat down in one of the mismatched chairs, it squealed beneath his weight. He half-expected Jack to tease him—tease them both, really—about how civilization had learned how to create super soldiers at the expense of remembering how to engineer durable furniture, but that Jack wasn't here right now.

The reminder stung.

He observed the room, quiet and empty enough that he felt comfortable relaxing. A trio of soldiers in dark fatigues shoveled food into their mouths. The rest of the occupants kept to themselves, huddled in their small groups. Everyone seemed thin and ragged, including the man who set down a tray on the table. It barely fit, but Gabriel was too excited by the prospect of food to complain.

Rehydrated mashed potatoes, some kind of mystery meat, steamed vegetables, and a fruit cup, of all the damned things. He began eating with a quick thanks, and God, if it wasn't the blandest shit he'd eaten in a long while.

As Gabriel chugged down the glass of water, he finally noticed the bottle of hot sauce on his tray. He glanced up at Soldier, but if he was smirking beneath his face plate and visor, Gabriel couldn't tell. If he was anything like his Jack... Gabriel uncapped the lid and doused the food with the hot sauce, then shoved another spoonful of potatoes into his mouth. God, it was finally edible.

"Figured you'd need some," Soldier said at last. Gabriel watched him toy with the bottle of hot sauce, and there was an old habit that hadn't changed, it seemed. Jack had always needed something to occupy his hands when he was nervous. Was he not eating because that meant taking off his mask in public?

Once he finished, Soldier piled his dirty trays onto a rack in the corner. "Everyone takes shifts," he explained, "Though some are better at certain jobs than others. In theory, everyone capable of holding a gun is expected to run at least one patrol, but in practice, most would probably shoot out their own eye unless supervised. We're self-sufficient for the most part, but supplies are always limited, especially medical supplies. Biotics in particular."

Way to guilt trip him, Jack.

He led him outside the mess and down through the maze of halls. When they reached the armory—again, marked with a bright red paint—the pair of guards standing outside saluted them. Gabriel could see the reluctance in Soldier's posture as he returned it, too stiff, too precise. The doors hissed open, and Gabriel stepped inside. Lights flicked on in sequence, highlighting racks of weapons—a familiar and comforting sight.

"Take what you need." Soldier gestured around the room. "Meet me by the entrance when you're ready."

Gabriel felt much better armed. The heavy weight of the stocks offered him a familiar comfort, and he felt less naked with proper body armor on. He wished he had a hat of some kind to cover his head beneath his helmet, but really, he'd gotten soft working with Overwatch. Gabriel tucked a final magazine into his vest and headed out the door.

The red paint led him to the front of the base, and he noted the increase in security the closer he got to the entrance—more patrols, more guards stationed at checkpoints, more weapons. Made sense, but it still set him on edge.

He hated being watched.

Soldier waited with a heavy pulse rifle in hand, and while he'd gotten old and cranky, it seemed some things remained constant. Gabriel still had no idea why he liked the bulky thing, even if it was capable of slicing through an omnic's armor with ease.

"Let's go." Soldier nodded to the guards and stepped outside. "Stay on the path and follow me."

Gabriel shaded his eyes against the bright early morning sun and followed. They passed beneath a gate, and Gabriel eyed the concrete wall encasing the compound—intimidating, sturdy, and guard towers every few klicks. Gravel crunched beneath their feet as they walked down a narrow road that cut through a flat, open field around the base. It would be generous to say it could fit two lanes of vehicles, but it was the only entrance and exit that he could see. In the field, he spotted a few layers of ditches deep enough to slow down even a hover-tank and the magnetized anti-vehicle spikes would ground the rest and turn them into sitting ducks.

Once they passed a tall, barbwire fence, the city began to appear. Buildings, surprisingly whole and intact, lined the street. Everyone outside hurried to their destinations and avoided eye contact. Gabriel didn't blame them.

"This area's inhabited, though most stay within the base itself. Omnics haven't launched a direct assault here," Soldier said at last. "We thought it was a safe zone, but you proved otherwise. You're lucky one of our patrols ran into the omnics pursuing you."

"Guess Jack's—" he paused to think it through. "The other Jack's luck has finally rubbed off on me." God, keeping this mess straight was going to give him a headache. "Speaking of him, our rendezvous point was a grocery store of some kind, not too far from where you found me."

"I know where it is," Soldier said after a moment. It was a small comfort that at least one of them knew where the hell they were going.

Soldier led him down one street, then another and another, and the farther they walked, the more the buildings became broken facades, worn down by war and the elements. Soon, those became piles of rubble and debris. Gabriel lost count of how many disabled omnics they'd passed.

At last, they came upon the familiar grocery store, and Gabriel muttered a prayer as he stepped over an OR14 chassis. Please let Jack be seated against their barricade, dozing without a care in the world. He braced himself and stepped around the metal shelving.

No one was there.

He stared at the campfire, little more than cold ash and cinder. Jack's pulse rifle was missing, and if the idiot had actually wandered off trying to look for him, Gabriel was going to punch him the next time he saw him. It didn't matter if the situations had been reversed and Gabriel would have done the same damn thing. Jack did it, and look at where it had gotten them.

Soldier crouched down, staring down at the floor. "Talon," he said, looking up at Gabriel. "You can tell from the imprint of their boots. Look." He pointed. Gabriel squinted down at the faint markings on the ground.

"Why would Talon want Jack?" Gabriel asked. "They've mostly been associated with human trafficking, drug cartels, and black market antiquities deals. Lacroix says they've been pulling the strings behind some of the recent incidents, like funneling weapons to Kurjik rebels, but we don't have concrete evidence." His brows drew together. "Jack says Talon is just a conspiracy theory, a snipe hunt. Overwatch should spend its resources elsewhere, like recovery aid after the flooding in Rio. If Talon is real, if what we've learned is only scratching the surface…" He trailed off.

"Do you want a gold star for being able to put two-and-two together?" Soldier drawled out.

Gabriel wanted to punch him. He really, really did, but he had to remember this asshole was his one surefire way of finding Jack. He gritted his teeth, counted to ten in his head, and let out a slow breath before he spoke.

"Care to elaborate on what the fuck's happened in the past thirty years, or am I supposed to put that together on my own as well?"

Soldier sighed, and really, could the jackass sound any more put-on? "Whatever it was in the past, Talon no longer exists as a single, unified entity. After the world went to shit, Talon cannibalized itself and split off into factions. Probably always was nothing more than alliances of conveniences held together by opportunity and self-preservation. Either their plans for the Second Omnic Crisis failed, or they were as blindsided by it as the rest of the world." Soldier shook his head. "Not that it even matters anymore. There's one cell still operating in the area, but we're long past the point where there's a need to engage each other on the battlefield. The omnics have done a good job of killing everyone on their own."

"What do you mean?" His chest felt tight. Thirty years was all it took to undo their work. The lives lost, the blood shed, the sacrifices during those God-awful years… and then the omniums fucking woke up again three decades later? Fuck that shit. "Considering the ambush yesterday and the destruction of the city, I assumed something happened, but a second Omnic Crisis?"

"A few years ago, the Siberian omnium woke up. Then Detroit. It snowballed from there. For every omnic killed, a dozen replaced them. And humanity? We started losing. The United Nations reinstated Overwatch too late, and it was too bogged down in politics and incompetent leadership to make a difference."

"If the world's gone to shit, why would Talon want Jack now?" Gabriel asked, moving back to a safer topic. Soldier sat back on his haunches, staring down at the footprints. "He doesn't have any information useful to them. Neither of us knows jack-shit about this fucked up world, and any intel about Overwatch operations, security protocols, or passcodes are thirty years outdated."

"No, he doesn't know anything they'd want," Soldier agreed. "His only asset is that he looks like me." He paused, as if a thought suddenly occurred to him. "He looks like me," Soldier repeated. He rose to his feet and brushed the dust from his knees. "I need to check on something." Soldier turned on his heel. "Wait here." He stalked off, the heavy tread of his footsteps growing quieter and quieter until the crunch of gravel grew to nothingness.

Gabriel was left alone.


Jack waited for Reaper—for Gabriel—to return.

He had no idea how long he'd been restrained. No more than a few hours at most, he guessed, but without any stimulus aside from the ache in his shoulders from the stress position, Jack could only guess at the passage of time. The bindings bit into his wrists, tacky with dried blood from where he'd tried—and failed—to break them.

At some point, he'd managed fall asleep, and it was almost funny: the best sleep he'd gotten in weeks had been during an interrogation session. The dried blood on his face itched, and while his eye ached from where Reaper had punched him earlier, he'd endured worse injuries than a black eye in the past.

He tried not to think about Gabriel. His Gabriel. Jack could only imagine how he would react to arriving back at their makeshift camp to find it empty. Knowing him, the other man would start searching for him... and he'd never find him, not unless he managed to track Jack down to wherever he was being kept. Even if that happened, no matter how well they'd been trained, Gabriel didn't have the resources to sneak into a military base and single-handedly rescue him.

Maybe, somehow, Reaper would slip up and allow him to escape. Unlikely, but Jack had to stay positive. He didn't have any other options.

When Reaper finally returned, Jack just been about to doze off again. While the doors opened without a sound, the man's tense body language told Jack everything he needed to know. If the doors hadn't been automated, Jack was certain Reaper would have found a way to slam them for dramatic effect.

Black particles swarmed Reaper like a living cloud. With each step closer, the man left gouts of black smoke in his wake. Jack didn't want them to touch him. He didn't know why, but he had a gut feeling it wouldn't go well.

"Hey Gabe." He greeted the other man with a smile. "How's it going?"

"Shut up, Morrison," Reaper growled. "Let's try this again. Tell me what you know about Overwatch."

Jack shrugged his shoulders to the best of his ability. "I have nothing you want, Gabe. You know more about what's going on than I do."

"Answer the question!"

Jack fell back on silence. If he wanted answers, he would either have to ask better questions... or make him talk.

Reaper tried another tactic. "If you cooperate, Jack, I might even let you go someday."

"You know threats don't work on me, Gabe, and we both went to SERE training, so you'll have to do better than them if you want me to talk. Despite being more than capable, you haven't killed me. Earlier, you pulled your punches. You don't want me dead." Jack inhaled a deep breath, then slowly let it out. His voice, when he spoke again, was a whisper. "No, you want me to suffer."

Reaper was silent.

"Gabe—my Gabe—does it, too," Jack continued. "When he's mad about something he can't talk about, especially if it concerns me, he'll look for an excuse to get angry. Better to be angry about a meeting at five in the morning than be mad your husband had to cancel your anniversary plans, right?" Jack's lips turned down into a wry smile. "It makes sense, I guess, since you are… you were the same person. Which means I must have done something to you. Well, the older me. Seeing me here reminds you of everything you lost, right?"

Reaper snarled, but before he could answer, a familiar jingle interrupted him. On instinct, Jack tried to reach for his pocket, before the bindings around his arms and wrists reminded him that he'd been stripped of it. Not to mention, the last time he'd seen the device, it had refused to turn on.

Reaper extracted a slim communicator from his pocket. "What do you want?"

"I take it you have some unusual company," the voice on the other end said. It sounded familiar, but Jack couldn't place it.

"How did you know?"

"Call it a lucky guess." A chuckle filtered over the line, the edges of the laughter distorted by static. "Can he hear us?"

"Do you think I care?"

"That's a yes, then." Beneath his mask, Jack thought Reaper rolled his eyes. "We need to meet up. Bring your companion."

"Why the hell am I going to cooperate with you? This could all be some kind of trap."

"Not my style. You were the one that herded an army of omnics toward the old Watchpoint and forced us to abandon it so you could scavenge supplies from it, remember? Besides, if this really is happening and not part of some elaborate prank, we have bigger issues to worry about."

"Why don't I just kill him instead? Maybe you'll cease to exist along with him." Reaper unholstered a shotgun and leveled it at Jack.

"Bullshit. If you'd wanted me dead, you would have shot me long before now. If it really matters to you, let's call a truce. A temporary one, of course, until we sort out what the hell has happened."

Reaper considered the gun in his hand, then turned his gaze down to Jack. He sighed.

"Fine, fine. For the record: I don't like this at all."

"Neither do I." The voice on the other end of the line rattled off a set of coordinates, and Reaper began to tap his foot. His boots made an audible click every time the sole met the floor.

"You know, if this creates a time-paradox and causes the world to explode, it's your fault."

"It's always my fault," the voice on the other end said. The line went dead with a quiet beep.

Reaper holstered his gun and stalked over. "Behave," he growled, "or you'll arrive at the rendezvous point in a body bag."


Soldier returned to find Gabriel pacing. "Keep that up, and you'll dig yourself a nice grave," he remarked. His joints creaked as he settled down on the other side of the campfire. "Relax. He'll be joining us soon."

Gabriel opened his mouth, then closed it without a sound. Good—he was learning. Instead of wasting their time with another pointless question, he sat down and propped his chin on his hand, staring down at the campfire as if the ashes and cinder would hold all of the answers. This Gabriel didn't have the second scar on his cheek yet, and his eyes had yet to grow cold and hard whenever they saw his husband. Fewer lines around his eyes and mouth, too.

God, he looked so young.

Soldier sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "You shouldn't worry about him so much."

Gabriel looked up, his brows furrowed. "What do you mean?"

"What does worrying solve?" He met Gabriel's gaze, steady and even. "Nothing."

"One of us has to care about Jack. It won't be you." Dark brown eyes stared up at him, and he was almost impressed by the glare—the Gabriel he knew hadn't cared enough to muster up such anger in a long time. He felt nostalgic. "We've been having our difficulties lately, sure, but he's still my husband, even if I have to pretend otherwise for the sake of appearances." Soldier had noticed the ring on his finger earlier.

"He's made mistakes. Lots of them. He's going to fuck things up so badly you're going to break apart." Soldier held up a finger. "Oh, of course you won't abandon him. You're too blinded by love to see how it'll all end. Keep lying to yourself, if it helps you sleep better at night."

Gabriel scrubbed a hand across his face, inhaling a deep breath. "Jack, you're talking about yourself. Stop using the third person."

Soldier snorted. "Jack Morrison, along with Gabriel Reyes, died in the burning rubble of Zürich. Everyone has their own story for what happened that day, and each has its own scrap of truth. The Strike Commander's body was never found, and they buried him in Arlington with a hero's funeral. They drowned years of the tense hearings, tight-lipped interviews, and doctored photographs with praise and posthumous medals, as if shiny pieces of metal are of any use to a corpse."

Gabriel swallowed and stared down at the ground between them. "I don't know what happened between you two, but I'm not going to make the same mistakes. You're not the only one responsible, and if I had any doubts you were Jack, that little speech cemented it for me. Would've thought you grew out of your martyr tendencies with age, but you've always been a self-sacrificing idiot."

Soldier shrugged. "Think about the consequences—or don't. It's your choice."

They sat in silence after that.

Soon, however, two sets of footsteps approached. He reached for his rifle and waited.

"Gabe?" a voice hesitantly called out. He had to admit, it was strange hearing himself, knowing it came from a different person. Like listening to a recording of his voice, except this one would bleed if he drilled it full of pulse munitions.

A younger version of himself, beaten and bloody, rounded the edge of the makeshift barricade and immediately launched himself at the younger version of Gabriel.

Reaper followed close behind, and he stopped far enough away to take in the whole scene. His gaze, Soldier knew, kept wandering to the two men hugging each other and laughing. Soldier thought he even heard them say, "I love you" to each other like a pair of infatuated teenagers, of all the goddamn embarrassing things.

He didn't know which of them was the most pathetic, but he'd put money down on the two old men who couldn't look away if their lives depended on it.

Soldier turned his back to them and told Reaper, voice quiet and strained, "I can take it from here."

Reaper crossed his arms over his chest. "All things considered, I have a vested interest in seeing how this horror movie plays out, same as you."

He snorted. "We already have a grotesque monster, two love birds, and a cynical old man who's too old for this shit. All we need is a screaming girl."

"Don't be too hard on yourself, Jack. I was always prettier than you."

"You still are, even if you insist on wearing that mask."

In the corner of his eye, Soldier saw something move. He reached up and changed the settings on his visor, but when he looked again, he saw nothing, not even residual heat—not an omnic or a human then. Maybe some kind of rodent. Out of habit, he checked his rifle. Reaper followed his gaze, then stared down at his hand, and drew one of his shotguns from within the folds of his coat.

"You weren't exactly subtle, you know. Care to share with the class what you saw?"

"Nothing. I don't think we should stay here any longer, however, before we—"

"You just had to jinx it, huh," Reaper interrupted, drawing a second shotgun just as the rumble of an E54 filled the air. "Let me make an educated guess. You saw a sentry bot and it ran away to alert its friends. We're about to have a goddamn party."

"You two," Soldier called over his shoulder. "Stay down. You're both injured more than you'll admit. Putting on a tough guy act will only create a distraction and get us all killed." He knelt down, checked his rifle one last time, and waited.

"Keep them occupied, and I'll handle the big ones," Reaper said before he disappeared into a cloud of nanites.

Soldier inhaled a long, slow breath, and the world narrowed down to the point past his scope. Time slowed, and his heartbeat steadied. The moment the siege automaton entered his field of view, he switched off the safety, aimed, and squeezed the trigger on the exhale. The pulse munition caught it dead-center on the face plate, right in front of the central cortex. Stunned, the E54 froze in place, and Reaper took it down with a burst of close-range fire.

In some ways, Soldier felt bad for the omnics—they were outmatched, even with superior numbers. Between himself and Reaper, they kept the Bastions and OR14s away. A Slicer slipped past him, yet it didn't make it far. Gabriel, stubborn as always, put a bullet through its face plate before it could reach the barricade. Soldier only had time to grunt out, "Thanks," before the next wave of omnics appeared.

As the battle drew on, Soldier kept careful count of his ammunition. He called out the number of shots he had left, and when Reaper set a pair of shotguns down beside him, he scoffed. When he emptied his last magazine, Soldier set his rifle down and picked up one of the heavy shotguns. Useless against omnics at a distance, he knew, which meant he'd have to get closer. What a pain in the ass.

"The thirtieth wedding anniversary present is supposed to be diamonds or pearls," Soldier said, "not a gun."

"I left your diamond cufflinks back at the base. You don't have any use for them now that the world's gone to shit. The tin cans don't care about black and white dress codes or who wore it better."

"Pearls are classier," he snapped back.

Over the blast of twin shotguns, Reaper laughed. "You've gone senile, old man. Only you would find a mollusk's natural defense mechanism against an irritant romantic." The OR14 crumpled as Reaper filled its chassis with lead.

"It's a metaphor. See, I used to know this asshole who kept everyone at a distance. After knowing me for long enough, he realized we were both too stubborn to back down and decided we should be friends instead. He kept up his emotional armor for everyone else except me. Also, he thought I was hot."

"A battlefield is not the place for this kind of discussion, Morrison!" Reaper growled.

"Says the man who almost proposed to me in the middle of one." Soldier leaped backward to avoid the swipe of an OR14, the sharpened blade missing his stomach by inches.

"Spider tank inbound," Reaper called out.

"We won't last against it. Can we clear a path?" Soldier asked.

He cursed as the OR14 roared and charged forward. He dodged again and felt the blade catch against his leather jacket. Swearing, he hit the ground, and with one smooth movement, he rolled to a crouch, aimed for the omnic's head, and fired. The omnic's final cry died out as it collapsed in a smoking heap of sparking wires and metal.

"You know the answer to that," Reaper said as he finished off an E54. The bastard barely sounded winded, whereas Soldier was panting as if he'd just run a marathon. "Got any surprises tucked into your pack, boy scout?"

The silver-haired man hesitated before pulling out a handful of small, sleek grenades. He handed one to Reaper, who laughed when he saw what exactly it was.

"These EMPs should disable any electronic device within range, including any omnic caught within the blast radius. If we're willing to pay the cost, that is."

"We don't have a choice," Reaper gritted out as the spider tank appeared in the doorway.

Before it could smash through the wall, Reaper threw down the EMP. The world dissolved into a blinding flash of light, and then it grew dark. For a brief, terrible moment, he heard everything and nothing: an inhuman cry from Reaper, Gabriel's pained scream, and the shriek of a dozen omnics going offline all at once. Not for the first time, he wondered if they felt pain.

As the echo of the explosion faded to silence, Soldier inhaled a slow breath and unlatched his now useless visor and face plate. He tucked the two devices into the pocket of his jacket and squinted into the pale blur of the doorway. On the other side of the store, he heard Jack calling out, asking if Gabriel—the other Gabriel—was okay, but he paid it no mind. He had other problems.

Soldier staggered over to the front of the store where he'd last seen Reaper. He collapsed to his knees with a grunt of pain. With the adrenaline from the fight fading, his limbs felt like lead. Two firefights in less than twenty-four hours and five hours of touch-and-go surgery on top of trying to keep a compound of a few thousand people alive—he was getting too old for this shit.

"Reaper, where the fuck are you?" he called out.

No answer, but he wasn't expecting one.

Soldier squinted into the darkness, trying to notice any kind of movement. Without his visor, that was the best tactic to finding a living being. The shadows at the edge of his vision danced and blurred, and he grabbed at a dark cloud of nanites forming in front of him as if he could somehow hold them together.

Once, when they'd been on speaking terms, the other man had explained the problems he had around electromagnetic fields. Even a powerful one wouldn't completely knock his nanites offline, but it would dispel them into their base form. The first time it had happened, it had taken hours for him to regain a semi-solid mass, let alone a human shape. Quietly, he'd admitted that he was scared he wouldn't be able to pull himself back together one day and remain stuck as a gaseous, shapeless cloud of nanites. If that happened, Gabriel Reyes would truly be dead.

Soldier gritted his teeth. "You're an idiot. Always have been. You could have—" He cut himself off. No, the other man would never have gotten far enough away to avoid getting caught in the electromagnetic pulse. At least, not before the spider tank ripped them to pieces. "Gabriel, come on."

"Jack," a voice whispered in his ear. He hadn't heard it in over six years, and it made his chest ache. Not Reaper, no, but Gabriel. And the idiot said his name of all the goddamn things, even though he'd given it up long ago and buried its memory in an empty plot.

"Gabe, come back. Pull yourself together so we can go home." His voice cracked on the last word, and fuck, if he wasn't pathetic. "Please, Gabe. For me." He inhaled a shaking breath and waited. There wasn't anything else he could do.

The wisps of nanites curled around him like tendrils of smoke, a gentle and familiar caress, and he saw the dark shapes coalesce into a large mass in front of him. Long, blurred shapes became arms and legs, and the hazy outline began to grow opaque, shuddering into the familiar form of the man he'd once—the man he still—loved. When Soldier reached out with a shaking hand, he met warm, solid flesh.

"Hey," he said, his voice thick with an emotion he refused to name.

"Hey yourself," the other man replied just as softly, his lips curved into a smile. "First time in years since you've said my name, Jack."

The soldier didn't even bother to correct him for addressing him by a dead man's name. "Put some clothes on," he said as he shakily rose to his feet. Back to business.

A warm chuckle filled the space. He watched plumes of black smoke settle over tanned skin and form the familiar ensemble he'd know anywhere.

Soldier carefully picked his way behind the barricade. His boots banged against discarded shotguns and omnic parts, but he was able to find his pulse rifle and sling it over his shoulder. The strap dug into the exposed skin where he must have been slashed by an OR14.

"You two okay?" he called over.

Jack—the other Jack, he supposed—looked over at him, his blond hair a bright spot in the darkness.

"Yeah. Gabe's okay now. Not sure what happened earlier. Seems like the EMP affected him somehow." He could hear the frown in his voice, the implied question, and really, if he didn't know the truth yet, it was a blessing. Ignorance was bliss.

"Let's head back to base before we meet more of them. Can you stand?"

Gabriel grunted in reply, and that was as good an answer as anything else. It took a lot to take a super soldier out of commission—the American government had seen to that, for better or worse.

Soldier turned on his heel and began to move towards the single clear exit, a narrow hole in the wall. A tight squeeze but more than manageable. Outside, however, proved more difficult. He stumbled over something—rubble, an omnic limb, a piece of rebar?—and was only mildly surprised when he felt a hand grab him by the upper arm and haul him upright.

"Need help?" Reaper asked.

"Acuity's gone to shit," he grunted out. "Depth perception, too."

"Come on, old man. Don't want you to fall and break your hip." Reaper set a gentle yet firm hand on his shoulder and guided him forward. "Terrain's flatter over here on your left."

Soldier snorted. "Careful there. You almost sound concerned."

"I'm being practical. Why would I want to drag your heavy ass back to base?" Soldier could feel the warmth of the hand on his shoulder through the thick leather of his jacket. "Bastion chassis on your nine," Reaper murmured as he guided him to the right.

"If you did have to carry me back, consider it payment for Odessa."

Reaper's shoulders shook with quiet laughter. "At least you had a pleasant view. Fireman carrying your flat ass five klicks through hostile territory seems like punishment I don't deserve."

"Punishment, huh." For a moment, the only sound Soldier could hear was the crunch of gravel beneath their boots. "The safe word is Gardiner."

Reaper's hand on his shoulder tightened its grip, and Soldier felt cold metal talons prick his skin. A solid weight settled on his other shoulder. He felt more than heard the other man's laughter modulated through his mask.

"When I think of fucking you," Reaper choked on the words, "I don't want to envision Colonel Gardiner. Still remember her throwing me over her shoulder like I wasn't double her size and weight." Soldier grinned at the memory. The surprise on Gabriel's face when he'd hit the mat had ruined his tough-guy image for the rest of the SEP. "Give me one good reason why I shouldn't leave you here, Morrison, and let the tin cans deal with you."

"You tell me, Reyes."

"Boredom."

"How sweet of you to miss me."

"Shut up, Jack."

Rather than answer, Soldier turned to look over his shoulder. The two, moving blurs seemed farther back than before, though it was hard to judge the distance without his visor. "Hurry up," he called out, "or you'll get left behind." Then, they'd need to find their own way back.

Without warning, Reaper tensed and stopped walking. Soldier stumbled. Before he could fall onto his face, Reaper steadied him, ensured he wouldn't lose his balance, and then let him go.

"Freeze," a voice said from behind them, somewhere on their left, "unless you want a clip emptied into your spine."