Genji arrived early as he'd been instructed. He was fully charged but had barely slept at all. He was the first one at the detention room and paced outside, sincerely hoping Hanzo would not be next. Reyes arrived with a mug of coffee in each hand.

"You drink coffee, kid?"

Genji shook his head.

"Y'do now. Drink up. You look like you've been up all night." He shoved the cup into Genji's hand. Genji looked at it. He could adjust his intake and vacuum the liquid up through one of the tubes at the back of his head, but the coffee smelled bitter and unappetising. "Right, with me." Reyes swiped his thumb across a pad and unlocked a door beside the detention room. He kicked it open with a boot then held it for Genji. Genji sloped in. A number of chairs and an old looking coffee machine were inside, along with a large window looking into the detention room. "Sit." Reyes pulled up a chair. Genji sat. "We're going to sit here. Everything else is taken care of."

Genji clutched the coffee mug for lack of anything else to do with his hands. The heat from the mug and the shape of it in his hands was faintly comforting at least. Slowly all the people he wanted nearby appeared. He saw Jesse walk into the detention room and set down a teapot and two mugs. He gave the room a look over, then blew a kiss toward the one way mirror.

"The tea was the Doc's idea. To ease the tension."

"I can't drink it." Genji said emptily. He wasn't about to start disconnecting tubes in front of his brother.

"That bastard doesn't need to know that just yet though does he." Reyes put his feet up on the sill of the window and drank his coffee.

Next came Angela. She came into the back room with Genji and Reyes, and pulled up a chair nearby. Genji felt foolish. The doctor had lots of work to do, and she couldn't very well do it if she was sitting in here watching him make an idiot of himself.

"Sorry for disturbing you, Doctor Ziegler. Please do not stay if you-"

"Genji," Angela smiled. It was gentle and reassuring. Like it had been when he was first air lifted into her clinic, and everything had been a blur of pain. She had managed to cut through that cloud of anguish and give him his options. It was hard not to trust someone who had held your life in the palm of their hand. "I'm happy to be here. Just let me know if you need anything."

Genji nodded, hoping the gesture conveyed the gratitude he felt inside. His eyes had become glued on the detention room door however, which Jesse now held open with one hand. Genji felt his heartbeat pick up. Jesse's face was sober. He titled his hat at someone beyond the door, like the way the undertaker had at the funeral for Genji's father.

A moment later Hanzo entered the room. He was dressed in a smart tailored suit with a pinstripe waistcoat and midnight blue tie. Genji looked down at himself, metal plated legs pulled up and crossed under him, hands stuffed deep in a now customary oversized hoodie that enveloped his upper body. He immediately felt under-dressed and under-prepared.

Hanzo looked exactly as he remembered him. Serene, still, unmoved and unphased by his surroundings. He seated himself in the detention room, and did not seem concerned when McCree let the door swing shut. Hanzo turned and looked straight at Genji. Genji froze.

"It's one way, kid." Reyes crossed his legs the other way on the window sill and drank his coffee noisily, "He can't see shit."

Hanzo's gaze slid away, and he gave the rest of the room a cursory glance before his eyes settled on the tea before him. He remained motionless, the tea untouched.

"Is it the wrong kind?" Angela leaned forward and squinted through the mirror, "Captain Amari said he's really fussy about tea."

Genji stared at Hanzo, sitting there, a pane of glass away. It was hard to see the man who had done this to him, and not the brother he had grown up beside for twenty-five years.

"I don't want him to see me like this." He said quietly.

Reyes opened his mouth, expression going hard. Angela raised a hand behind Genji and gave Reyes a fierce look to silence him.

"You have nothing to be ashamed of." She said gently, and drew her chair up so that she was next to Genji. "You are one of the strongest people I've ever met. And the Genji Shimada who asked for this body was a determined survivor. You are here today because you persevered in the face of overwhelming odds. No one can take that from you." She looked through the glass, "Especially not him."

Genji sat very still.

Reyes exchanged a look with Angela in which she managed to convey her insistence that he give Genji his time and space.

Hanzo interlocked his hands and placed them before him on the desk. Genji could see all the telltale signs that betrayed his brother's impatience. Genji shut his eyes tightly then drew in a long slow breath. Immediately an old familiar scene jumped to the forefront of his thought.

He was in the central room of their ancestral family home. He had just returned from an unplanned trip to Tokyo and had caught the early morning train back up to Hanamura, having stayed up all night. He was keen for a bath and then bed, or perhaps the other way round. He was here, loitering in the main room though, because he had been ordered there by the head of the clan. Given how pissed Hanzo was going to be at his unannounced four day absence in the capital, he'd decided not to provoke him any further by ignoring his summons. He waited a long time, rubbing his eyes to try and keep the sleep from them, his old shirt rubbing on his neck, and the soles of his feet aching from the night spent on his feet drinking cocktails on the thirty-seventh floor of a tower overlooking the neon Tokyo cityscape. Hanzo arrived dressed impeccably. He wore a fine kimono and hakama, with one shoulder bared to expose his intricate dragon tattoo sleeve. Genji smiled vaguely when his brother finally arrived.

"Thought you were going to make me stand here all day. Not that I don't deserve it, I know. Sorry about just taking off again after we last spoke. It was a lot. I needed a few days. But I'm back now. And so damn tired. Are you mad? I mean, I know you're mad – you're mad I didn't agree to everything you asked, you're mad I ran away, you're mad I'm generally not what everyone wants me to be, but can we do this once I've slept? I got a tea on the train and I think that one cup of caffeine is what's keeping me on my feet here."

Hanzo said nothing.

Genji shaded his eyes from the morning light seeping into the room.

"Genji." Hanzo finally said.

Genji's body relaxed, if they were at talking, he could make this right. It was always Hanzo's silences he dreaded.

"Yeah?"

There was a pause.

"Genji." Hanzo said again. And his voice was stiff. Like his movements.

Something about it sent a shiver through Genji. He realised he was afraid. He saw something in his brother's eyes. A kind of resolve. Hanzo unslung the bow from his back. Genji's eyes widened, but he still couldn't quite bring himself to believe he was seeing what he was seeing. Even as the first arrow notched on the string-

"Genji." Angela touched his arm.

Genji gave a jolt and his head snapped up. Angela withdrew her hand quickly.

"Genji, if you don't want to do this…" Angela looked at him anxiously. Reyes gave her a glare.

"No. I'm good." Genji said stiffly. He needed to do this now or he wasn't going to be able to. He stood abruptly and pulled open the door. McCree stood outside the detention room.

"You good?" His eyes betrayed the fact that he firmly believed Genji was anything but good. Genji ignored him and pushed open the door. The room was dimly lit and dominated by the long black one-way mirror. Genji sat himself down heavily on the chair opposite his brother. He pulled the strings on his hood to tighten it a little and keep his face from view, then plunged his hands into his pockets and glared straight down at the table.

There was a prolonged silence that Genji felt under no obligation to break. It was Hanzo at last that spoke. When he did, it was in Japanese, no doubt under some semblance of privacy.

"So, you are still alive."

"Am I?" Genji snapped back, painfully away of the growling mechanical texture his voice took on as it filtered through the ventilator.

There was another silence in which Genji was again unforthcoming.

"I'm just here because Overwatch and I have a common enemy. Our meeting need not be anything more than business. It suits both our purposes to co-operate in Hanamura."

Genji could feel painful things tearing inside him. He shook his head slightly, amazed at how his brother could once again partition the past from the present.

"What is it?" Hanzo asked sharply. Genji had forgotten what it was like to be in the presence of someone who could read all the minutiae in his movements.

"Leave the past in the past, is that it?" Genji was cold. Cold and hurt.

"If that is what you wish." Hanzo said impassively.

Genji hated that he could be so cool, so emotionless, now of all times. Hanzo had always been the one better at hiding, better at keeping his exterior blank, better at cutting himself off from the passion and pain of life.

"How exactly would I go about leaving the past in the past?!" And suddenly things were coming out. Explosions of the old him and the new him all entwined and mashed together, "How would I!? When I can't even walk down the street!?" He pulled his hood down and stared with red eyes at his brother. Hanzo recoiled slightly. The movement made Genji furious. He stood, pulled off his hoodie and threw it on the ground. "Take a good look!" He snarled.

Hanzo's eyes moved over him. His face remained even, but Genji knew him well enough to see the dismay in his body language, and the disapproval.

"Go on!" Genji slammed his palms on the desk, rattling the teacups. He leaned over into Hanzo's face, "Say it to my face! Tell me I should have stayed dead! I fucking dare you!"

Hanzo's eyes flashed in anger, the only indication of emotion before he controlled himself again. He did not lean back despite his space being invaded.

"You're making a scene in front of all your new friends." Hanzo's voice was soft.

"It'll be even more of a scene if I do it in fucking English." Genji said, in fucking English.

Hanzo gave him a disapproving look.

Genji slowly lowered himself into the chair again.

"As I was saying," Hanzo continued in Japanese in that same distant business tone, "You have every right to hate me. I'm not here to change that. There are simply other matters that must be dealt with also. I believe your commander has outlined the situation to y-"

"You want me to hate you."

Hanzo stopped and his expression ticked to irritation again.

"That's what this is about," Genji continued, "This charade where you pretend civil conversation is an option after what you did to me. You think my hatred will lesson your guilt. If you even have any."

"Of course I have guilt." Hanzo finally snapped at him.

"You didn't even hesitate. You didn't even-" And Genji was mortified to here his voice cracking, so immediately ploughed himself into silence.

"Of course I hesitated!" Hanzo was as heated as he was now, "Why do you think I left you waiting there for thirty-five minutes?!"

"Because you could." But in the back of Genji's mind there was a desperate stretch for that smattering of hope. He needed to hear so badly that Hanzo had doubted, that he had hesitated, that he had regrets. "Because you had the power to. Because you were showing off. Or angry. Or any number of reasons."

"I was on the balcony above, watching you."

Genji paused. That made a difference. That made so much difference.

Hanzo's face was flickering in a disturbed eddy of emotions,

"You really thought I… didn't even consider my options? That I didn't even hesitate?"

Genji looked him in the eye, and let him see the hurt and fear and vulnerability that had been haunting him every hour since they last met. Hanzo's mouth parted slightly, then he looked away sharply. He had given Genji a fraction of a window there too. A window into tortured guilt, eating away at him until it was a thing monstrous and all consuming.

They sat in stewing silence again, each raging in the cages of their minds. Genji folded his arms and slouched back into his chair. Hanzo reached for the teapot. He opened the lid, then replaced it. He flicked through a selection of teas set out in a small basket. He tutted faintly and extracted two green teabags. He slit open their tiny packets and dropped them both into the teapot. He put a hand on the lid, swirled the tea in the pot then poured out two cups. The gesture was so familiar that Genji felt some of the strung tension unwind in him. Then he remembered he couldn't drink, and share in this one small gesture of peace. He swiped his hoodie from the floor and held it to him, wrapping his arms tight around it for comfort. Hanzo nudged one cup slightly towards him, then picked up his own. He sipped quietly.

Genji looked at the cup. He could feel unstable things lurching inside him. He suddenly wished he hadn't asked for so many people to be nearby whilst this exchange took place. They'd all seen him much worse, he knew, but it was still embarrassing to think they were watching this. Genji could see the uncertainty in Hanzo's movements brought on by the untouched cup. Hanzo would be reading this as a rejection of his attempt at an olive branch. Genji pulled the cup towards him. He saw his brother's shoulders untense a little. He was still watching though.

"I can't actually-" Genji's voice was shaky. He blinked quickly and tried again, "I can't-" His voice cracked again, so he just gestured at the cup and looked away.

There was another quiet, in which Genji kept his gaze averted. He realised there was wet collecting on the sill of his mask. Fuck. Genji tilted his face at an awkward angle to drain the unwanted tears off in a direction his brother wouldn't notice.

"How do you eat and drink?" Genji was relieved to hear that Hanzo was trying and failing to hide all the distress in his voice as well.

It was strangely calming to hear that these things hurt his brother too.

"Um." Genji masked a sniff, and blinked rapidly, "A kind of tube. But the doctor is working on that. It might change in the future."

"Eating out of a tube." Hanzo repeated softly.

Shame clouded up inside Genji and he looked down. He held his hoodie closer to him and wished he hadn't taken it off in a fit of rage.

"And you're working for them in exchange for what they've done to you?"

"For me." Genji snapped, eyes still averted. "Not to me. You did this to me. They saved me."

"Saved you." Hanzo's voice was quietly mocking.

"You don't get to judge me! Not about this! Not this time!" Genji squirmed in his seat despite the anger in his outburst.

Hanzo let out a long exasperated sigh,

"Why couldn't you just-… Why is it never easy with you? You didn't have to be a model Shimada, you just had to stop dragging the family name through the tabloids."

"Oh, here we go." Genji refound some of his confidence as this old topic came up, "Come on, let's hear the justification for my murder based on a couple of parties I went to."

"It was hardly a couple of parties."

"My mistake. So what is the number exactly? What's the number that was the tipping point? When was the moment? That Genji – he's been to his sixteenth party – the number after which I can justifiably shoot him for being a nuisance to the family legacy."

Hanzo stood abruptly. Genji flinched. He heard a noise from beyond the door. Seconds later it slammed open and Gabriel Reyes walked in. He stood behind Genji's chair and pointed a shotgun sideways into Hanzo's face.

"Sit down." His voice was a low, menacing growl.

Hanzo sat down, dark eyes smouldering.

Genji took the opportunity to put his hoodie back on and folded his arms across his chest.

"Everything okay here?" Reyes said to Genji, but kept his eyes on the other Shimada.

"Yes, Commander," Genji replied in English, "Hanzo was just explaining to me why it was important that I was dead."

Hanzo glared at him.

"If that's the way this conversation's headed, then this mission is off. Hanzo Shimada, you can pack your things and fuck off back to wherever you came from." Reyes said evenly, but Genji could hear the anger behind his words.

Hanzo composed himself.

"I apologise, Commander Reyes. My temper got the better of me. It was not my intention to-"

"Apologise to him. Not me."

Hanzo looked at Genji. Genji was sullen and slouched in his chair, but his heartbeat was racing. That was the one thing he so desperately wanted to hear, but he was loathe to show it.

"There is no apologising for a thing like this," Hanzo had switched to Japanese as he looked at Genji, "It is not a thing that can be undone or forgiven. It is my responsibility to bear. I murdered my own brother. This burden is mine. I'm not asking for it to be taken away."

"I'm still alive!" Genji snapped.

Reyes looked at him inquiringly, unable to follow the exchange.

"I think we're done here, Commander." Genji said coldly. "I will take down Yakuza for you, with this man if you wish it. But I will not spend a moment longer than necessary in his company." Genji stood, "Good talk." He switched back to Japanese, "Good to know you can stick me full of arrows and not change a wink." Genji saw a shadow of hurt on Hanzo's face, but ignored it and stalked out the room.

Author Note: The only appropriate response to this story is laughter or tears, or both at once. That is all.