I've had some people ask me how I get my inspiration. In truth, I listen to a playlist that I made on youtube (with some help from other Gency playlists lying around, but a lot of it is my own taste in music). If you want to check it out, my youtube is Mega Bear and the playlist is named Gency/Emergenji (Overwatch). I don't actually post videos, but I have a few playlists up on there if you care. There is a significant shortage on playlists like this for Gency on youtube, so I made my own :D If you want to cry lots of tears without the playlist, go listen to David Cook "When You Find You" and think of it like Angela is singing it. Heart-wrenching stuff.
Also, I may be making a Christmas one shot before Christmas is over. So if you guys like that kind of stuff, check it out when it comes.
Genji had never been hugged quite so tightly in his entire life as when Angela practically tackled him at his arrival home. The doctor had been through quite an ordeal over his few days of absence. She had cut off her hand, yes, but what was even worse was the fact that she had to then clean up the old limb. It had emptied its blood all over both the table and the floor, forcing her to scrub at the normally sterile surfaces until her hands were raw. However, nothing was worse than having to pick up the detached hand. Not only did it smell terrible after being left alone for an entire night, but it was also her hand. The trauma of the previous night was still fresh in her mind, and seeing the vile thing didn't help. She had only barely managed to dispose of it without throwing up, and the bile that rose in the back of her throat had still been a serious threat for the next few hours after that.
Genji came home a day later, which was when Angela practically tackled him. Of course, he didn't know why she was so relieved to see him, just that she was relieved. All he could assume was that she had some serious separation anxiety. He couldn't blame her, really. If anything, it made him feel guilty; if she had this bad anxiety it was likely due to how he left all those years ago.
"Did you miss me?" The cyborg asked playfully, ruffling her hair as he hugged her back.
Angela closed her eyes tightly and sighed, burrowing further into the plating on Genji's neck. "You have absolutely no idea. How did it go?"
"Interestingly." Genji commented simply before explaining further. "Hanzo has a lot of deep seeded emotions to deal with right now. He was so shocked that he tried to kill me again after finding out who I was." Angela visibly stiffened at that new information, causing her companion to chuckle kindly. "Don't worry. He wasn't actually going to. He was just confused, and his only response to confusing emotions has always been anger. I believe he will come around. I even ensured that he would have a way to contact me when he needs it."
"I-I guess that's good." Angela replied cautiously. "Are you sure that he won't use that information to contact you and hurt you?"
Genji nodded enthusiastically. "Positive. Give him a couple months and I promise he'll be here ready to reconcile."
The cyborg didn't lie. About two months after his trip to Japan, Genji's brother appeared at Angela's door. Knowing that he was almost never at his own home, Genji had given Hanzo information to get to Angela's house, but he hadn't expected the archer to arrive randomly in the middle of the night.
Angela was certainly not appreciative of that small oversight. Considering Genji never came over in the middle of the night, the fact that there was a knock at her door at one in the morning scared her half to death. She immediately grabbed her pistol from her bedside table, rolling it in her hands as she made her way to her front door, where the knocking continued. In her pajama pants and sleepshirt she cautiously opened the door, pointing the pistol at head level as she did.
"Who are you and why are you at my house?" The doctor barked authoritatively, her pistol pointing right between Hanzo's eyes. The archer was more than a little shocked at the sudden hostility and he stumbled back a few steps, unable to respond. Angela glared at him. "I don't have all day, er, I mean night. Who the hell are you?"
It didn't take the man long to regain his composure. He straightened his robes primly and corrected his posture before responding. "I'm so sorry to bother you, ma'am. My name is Hanzo, and it would seem I have the wrong house. "
Angela's eyes widened in recognition at the name as the man turned around and began to walk away. She quickly lowered her gun and reached out her other hand to grab his shoulder. "Wait, I know you!" Hanzo stiffened at being touched, but turned around all the same. "You're Genji's brother, right?"
The man nodded. "I am. May I ask who you are?"
Angela smiled slyly. "His doctor. Come on in, you've been out for a while, huh? Genji comes over almost every day, so if you wait a few hours he should be here. Get some rest while you wait."
Hanzo entered when she waved him in, but he didn't move from the entryway. "I am not tired; I should wait outside for him."
The doctor swatted his hand away from the door as he reached for it and smiled lightly. "Nonsense. It's chilly during the night around here. Let me make some hot cocoa and we can talk. My living room is over there."
"I really had not intended to disturb you; if you would just let me-"
"I'm not taking no for an answer. Go. Sit." Angela waved her hand towards the living room, and he followed obediently. She had a way of ordering people without needing to be intimidating; when Angela Ziegler commanded you to do something, you listened.
Angela was back into the living room, a steaming cup of cocoa in each hand, in about five minutes. The hot chocolate was more for herself than it was for her guest. While she wouldn't admit it, part of her panicked at the idea of any of Genji's family inhabiting the same room as she did, although he had assured her that Hanzo was harmless now, even good, perish the thought. The chocolate would soothe her nerves and allow her to be a decent host. She sat down across from the chair in which Hanzo was primly perched, like he might run at any second. He inspected the cup she set in front of him for a few seconds like it might be poisoned before drinking it, perhaps deciding that if she had really wanted him dead she would have shot him a few minutes prior.
They sat for a few moments in awkward silence before Angela decided to break it. She was the one who had encouraged him to stay and talk, after all. It was only fair that she began the conversation. She began in fluent Japanese, figuring it would probably make the man less skittish. "So, I suppose you're wondering who I actually am. My introduction earlier left a lot to be desired, I know. Drama has never been my strong suit. My name is Doctor Angela Ziegler. I was once the chief medical researcher, neurosurgeon, and general doctor for the organization of Overwatch. While I wouldn't be surprised if you haven't heard of me, since few people care much about medicine until it saves them, I also wouldn't be surprised if you had. I created the field of nanobiology, essentially."
The stoic man actually seemed moderately impressed, at least as impressed as Angela thought his passive face could display. "That still doesn't explain why I'm here," he commented quietly after mulling over her words for a second.
"Ah, that would be important, wouldn't it?" Angela quirked and eyebrow and laughed mischievously. "To be frank, I don't know exactly why you're here, either. If I had to venture a guess, I'd say it's because Genji spends a lot of his time at my home, and he didn't want to miss you if you came to his house. I doubt he expected you to show up at this time of night. You see, when Genji had his, ah, accident, I was the one that found him near-death in an alleyway. I was the one that performed the operations to save his life, and I was the one who put him in the suit that I'm sure you saw earlier. It was the only way to allow him to be able to walk again. Though I was able to save his actual limbs, I couldn't restore movement to them without outside help. Nanobiotics wasn't far along enough to allow me to do anything more." The doctor shrugged the subject off as if it didn't matter, though she knew her face betrayed her guilt. "After his procedures, the two of us went through Japan, systematically taking down the Shimada clan. I know you left the crime syndicate shortly after the accident, so I assume you have no issues with that?" Angela asked carefully, her hand moving slightly toward where her pistol was stored in the belt of her pajama pants. However, Hanzo simply nodded and waved for her to continue. "Good," her hand moved back to its previous position in her lap. "So, as you can probably imagine, the two of us are rather close. While I'm still surprised that he sent you here, it at least makes some sense." Angela set the mug in her hands down on the coffee table in front of her, folding her hands neatly in her lap. "But, I feel like there is a still more interesting question to ask. Why are you here, Mr. Shimada?" The doctor smiled kindly. "I assume it is not simply because you like my company."
Hanzo smiled oddly before setting his barely sipped hot chocolate down as well. "What a question indeed. Well, my brother's return was a surprise to me, to say the least. For nine years I just assumed he was dead. The guards that brought him out to where you found him assured me that he was, but I had never gone to see myself. And I'm so very glad that I did not. However, his return confused me. I need to know what has happened for these past years, and after I learn that, I intend to seek redemption for my past errors, though I know there is no real way to do so. My honor can never be restored, but the least that I can do is right some of the wrongs I have created in this life. I owe him that much."
Angela hummed quietly to herself for a moment, deep in thought. "You know, I could begin to tell you some of Genji's story, but part of me wonders if those tales are best left for him to explain. However, I can tell you this one thing about your brother; he has subscribed to a philosophy that I have held dear to my heart since the day that I found him. He believes, like I do, though perhaps not so strongly, that the person to whom the debt is owed gets to decide how great the debt is. Well, in most cases he believes it. He still hasn't given up the idea that he owes a debt to me, as much as I like to tell him that he simply does not." The doctor gave Hanzo, a sweet, endearing smile before continuing. "However, back on track, what I mean by all that is that Genji will decide for himself what debt you owe him. And while you may dispute whatever he decides, it is still his decision in the end. Don't pressure yourself to decide how to restore your honor. While you thought he was dead, yes, it was yours to decide. But it no longer is."
The archer paused, considering, before finally speaking. "You are a brilliant woman, Miss Ziegler. While I may not agree with you, that much is clear."
Angela laughed loudly, "And I'll tell you what I told your brother nine years ago. Please don't call me Miss Ziegler. It makes me sound like my mother." She calmed her laughter into small chuckles before continuing. "Do you have any other questions?"
"A few. How do you speak Japanese so well?" The man still seemed to have a healthy admiration for her; every word was punctured with just the slightest amount of awe.
"I picked it up while Genji was, ah, gone is the best way to describe it simply, I suppose" Angela squirmed slightly at the subject. "I'm sure he'll tell you more about that time himself. I learned it in his honor. Before that point I knew enough to get by while living in Japan, and the two of us talked mostly in English."
That question sparked hours of conversation. Hanzo wasn't very willing to give up information about himself beyond vague details, though he was happy to tell Angela anything she wanted to know about Genji. Most of what they discussed were things that Genji would call "childhood horror stories." While Hanzo had only at most slightly smiled at the memories, too many of them had caused Angela to nearly double over with laughter on more than one occasion. The cyborg hardly told her anything about his childhood due to painful memories, so in one sitting Hanzo had said more concerning young Genji than Angela had heard in the past nine years.
Angela giggled relentlessly at the stories. "He sounds like he was almost as much of a handful as he was when I found him."
Hanzo's lips turned up slightly into his seemingly default half-smile. "Oh, nothing could have been more of a handful than my brother as a teenager. You don't even know the half of it."
It was at that moment that the front door opened. "Angela?" Genji's voice called out as he walked into the small entryway, removing his face mask and closing the door with a soft click. "You weren't at meditation today, did something happen?" It was then that he walked into the living room. On the table sat two completely empty cups of cocoa while his brother sat across from his best friend. Angela was still laughing uncontrollably to the point that tears were threatening to stream down her cheeks. Hanzo was wearing his half-smile until he turned to face Genji, who had become frozen with shock. Hanzo's face fell instantly into a solemn expression.
Angela wiped at the corners of her eyes, roping in her giggling so that she could take Genji seriously. "Hanzo just showed up a few hours ago. I've been making his acquaintance for the past few hours because someone sent him to my house for some reason." The tone of her voice was unmistakably playful as she patted the seat on the couch next to her before standing up herself. "C'mon, I know that you two have a lot to talk about, and I probably shouldn't be here for it."
Genji, however, was still too shocked to respond. He stood frozen for a minute, looking back and forth between the two other people in the room, before Angela finally sighed and placed her hands on her hips. "Hanzo, can you give the two of us a minute? I know it's not a big house, but I have a guest bedroom you can go into. It's the first door on the left down there." She waved in the vague direction of the hallway. The archer nodded and made his way down to Genji's old room. Angela resumed speaking when she heard the door close. "Okay, I know it's a surprise to see him right now but it shouldn't be that much of a surprise. What's up?"
Genji blinked for a few seconds before shaking his head and looking at the blonde doctor scowling up at him. "I suppose it was just a shock to see you two talking and actually getting along. I figured you would hate him." There was a clear note of jealousy in Genji's voice, which the doctor picked up on easily. What she didn't know was whether he was jealous of her being able to get along well with Hanzo, or Hanzo being able to get along easily with her.
"Oh please, he's not that bad. He seemed really guilty, and I have a tendency to forgive people for their stupidity, something you should know well. Not only that, but he was telling me a bunch of childhood stories about the two of you. That's what was making me laugh." Angela rolled her eyes and smiled. His jealousy was more endearing than it reasonably should have been.
"I just…" he paused, unsure of what exactly to say, "I feel like he caught me while I was at my most vulnerable. With you. Now I'm not sure what to do."
Angela laughed. "If you felt that way, then you shouldn't have directed him to my house, you absolute moron. Now your brother is sitting in my guest room after seeking you out trying to right his wrongs. Don't let this opportunity sit there. Until I met him I didn't think reconciling the two of you would be possible. I thought he'd be this stone cold asshole who didn't really want to change. But I truly think he does want to be better now. So go for it. Everything will be okay, I promise." Angela grabbed one of his hands and gave it a short squeeze before letting go and stepping out of the way so Genji could see the hallway. She motioned toward the door Hanzo had entered moments before, encouraging her companion to move to the room.
Genji obeyed, but not before grabbing his face mask and clicking it back into place, which warranted a sigh from Angela. With that matter settled, he opened the door to what had once been his room and stepped inside. Angela actually tidied the room now that he was back, since he had a tendency to randomly crash at her home. Hanzo was sitting on the edge of his old bed, a photo frame grasped between two well-worn hands. It only took Genji a second to recognize it as the picture that normally sat on the bedside table, the one of him, Angela, and a child.
"You two are close." The archer commented as he heard the door open and close.
"Very." Genji said simply. There weren't proper words to describe their friendship, as odd as it was, so he figured a simple response was best.
Hanzo looked up from the picture, eyeing his brother curiously. "Are you together?"
Genji's cheeks immediately turned red. He reacted defensive before he remembered that Hanzo couldn't actually see his face. "Oh no no no. It isn't like that at all."
That half smile reappeared on Hanzo's face. "But you wish it was?"
Genji was rather unhappy at this point. This conversation was not going the way he planned, and he was not in the mood for whatever it was turning into. "I really don't think you came from Japan to give me relationship advice, brother. Could we move on?"
Hanzo nodded. "Certainly." He set the picture back down where it belonged, adjusting it until it was perfectly straight, before standing up and folding his arms. "I have come here seeking redemption. What happened all those years ago was wrong, and I knew that only weeks after it occurred. I've regretted it for years, and now that I have the chance to make my mistakes right, I wish to. Although there is no way to repay the debts that I simply must have accrued over these years, it would not be right of me not to start."
The cyborg smirked slightly underneath his mask. "Hanzo, you are not in my debt. In fact, in some ways I may be in yours. A lot has happened in the past nine years, and while not all of it has been good, it has been worth the cost I paid to get to this point."
Hanzo's eyebrows raised in confusion. "The doctor mentioned that you might say something like that, although I cannot possibly understand what you mean by it."
Genji smiled kindly. "Then let me tell you. I guess it's easiest to start where this all began. When I was lying on the street that day at death's door, an angel practically materialized out of nowhere. She simply saw me and started to help, bandaging my wounds, calling in for backup, and staying by my side even after I told her my name – who I was. Even though we probably knew each other for thirty minutes before a helicopter came to pick us up, that short amount of conversation was all she needed to convince me that life could still be worth living.
So that's just what I did. I lived it, I gave her permission to turn me into a cyborg if it meant that I'd get to use my arms and legs again, and the two of us began to systematically dismantle the entire Shimada clan. And when that was done, well, I began to have the same reaction to my own body that you probably did when you first saw me for who I was." Hanzo's cheeks turned slightly red at this statement, mostly out of shame. "No, don't feel bad. I don't blame you, because I felt the same way once. As proud as she was of what she had accomplished to save me, that didn't stop me from being ashamed. I started to feel less human, like I wasn't worth being loved. And at that point, that was all I wanted – her love – since at that point I loved her so dearly already. Everything started to make me feel paranoid, even her sometimes. It is no way to live, scared of everyone, even the one person who makes you happy.
Knowing all of this, I ran. I ran to try to find something that would make me satisfied again. Funnily enough, despite my cowardice, I found it. I made my way to an omnic monastery in Nepal and found inner peace. I had never been more tranquil in my entire life. I spent five years there without contacting anyone from Overwatch.
However, she had not had an easy time without me gone. She had not only lost me after I disappeared without a trace, but she lost the three people most important to her to death. As soon as I found out, I ran back to her. Because even though I found my peace in Nepal, my heart was with her here."
Genji tilted his head, gesturing back towards the door he had recently walked through. "You see, Hanzo, she is the reason that I forgave you. I had already accepted that I had forgiven you in Nepal, but when I came back I fully understood why I did it. I walked into this same door door and found the girl I loved sobbing on this bed because her three parental figures had died. Their deaths would have occurred whether or not I had met her, but if I hadn't met her I wouldn't have been able to be there when she needed it most. She was so close to just giving up, because everyone had given up on her. That moment alone was more meaningful to me than the over twenty years that I spent wasting my life in Hanamura. Every single second I have spent with her was worth more than a minute at what was once our home. And, for those moments, I simply cannot thank you enough. Without you I never would have met her, and she is the greatest blessing I have ever had."
Hanzo blinked a couple of times as he stared contemplatively at the floor, processing the mass amount of information that his brother had just dropped upon him. "But that does not excuse what I did," he began slowly, lifting up his gaze as he did so. "I still tried to kill you, Genji."
"So you made a mistake," Genji shrugged, "I've made a lot of those, too. But I have forgiven you for it."
"But that is not the same thing!" The archer said defensively, raising his voice and motioning emphatically with his hands. "Your forgiveness does not erase what I did. I forced my dragons to burn their own kin. I stained my own sword with your blood. I splattered that same blood all over the tapestries, for heaven's sake! Nothing changes those facts, even if you miraculously survived!" He took a couple steps back, stumbling into a sitting position and holding his head in his hands. "I just… Genji I simply cannot regain my honor from something like that. I've worked for what is now nearing ten years simply attempting, but there is no true way to do so."
A creak sounded as Genji sat on the bed next to his brother. The two shared a brief moment of silence before the cyborg spoke. "There was once, when Angela had just put me into this suit, that she explained something to me. Her colleague Winston had installed the features into this suit that make me a great assassin – the shuriken, the sheath, the stealth programming, and so on – because Overwatch decided that I was in their debt. She was so torn up about that. Not only because she had sworn never to make a weapon and they had gone behind her back to turn me into one, but that they even considered me to be in their debt in the first place. She claimed that since she believed I owed nothing, there was no debt to be paid."
"That seems rather ludicrous." Hanzo commented dryly.
"I thought so too, at first. After all that she had done for me, the days on end that she had gone without sleep, of course I owed her, especially since I knew that she probably funded a lot of the project herself. It took me years to realize what she meant, even if I couldn't fully accept it, and it was by thinking about the situation like this:
Say a poor man borrowed thousands upon thousands of dollars from an acquaintance. After using it all, he had no way to repay the lender. The man spent years in debt before the person who lent him the money eventually decided to free him of his debt, for no other reason than because he wanted to. A while down the road, the man tried to begin repaying the lender, but his acquaintance would not take the money. He refused to accept the money because he had already forgiven the debt. Is that not all there is to it? The man to whom the debt was owed had the right to alieve it if he so desired, and the debtor had almost no say in the matter. In the same way, I owed my life and more to Angela, and she simply forgave my debt. Does that make sense?"
Hanzo sighed loudly. "You're going to apply this to me, are you not?"
That got Genji to laugh. He rested his hand on his brother's shoulder. "Hanzo, I have forgiven you. The only thing I wanted from you was acknowledgement that you were sorry, and I got that already. There is nothing that you can say or do to make me go back on that decision: you owe me nothing, whether you like it or not."
"So that's it?" came the frustrated reply. "Nine years of seeking redemption and you are trying to tell me that is it? That I could travel back to Japan today and live a normal life free from guilt? I don't believe you."
"If going back to Japan was what you wanted, yes. Though I must admit that it would be nice to have a brother again." Genji squeezed his brother's shoulder before standing up. "Look, I'm not asking you to believe what I just said, at least not immediately. The man in the story tried to repay his debts for a while afterwards, too, until he finally realized there was nothing left to repay. All I want is for you to know the truth, and the truth is what I just told you. Take some time to think about it, okay?"
"Real life doesn't work like this." Hanzo spit angrily. "Real life is not some fairy tale where everyone is forgiven and we all go home happily. My hands are stained with blood that is not my own."
All that bitter response got from Genji was a shrug. "Then maybe this is a dream. Because in this reality, the one we exist in right now, you are forgiven, and that is just how it works." With that, the cyborg left the room, closing the door gently behind himself and leaving an angry, confused Hanzo in his wake.
Angela lifted an eyebrow as her companion walked into the kitchen, where she was leaning on the counter. "So?"
"He may need some time to think about everything I just dumped on him." He shrugged once more, like what just happened hadn't been serious at all. "In the meantime, weren't we going to go out for lunch today?"
The doctor's response was more than a little incredulous. "You're suggesting we leave him here? Alone, in my house? I mean, I didn't mind his company but that's a little much."
"Just lock the door to your lab and your room."
Angela thought about it for a second before sighing. "Fine. You are lucky that I'm very hungry right now."
"When are you not?" came the snarky response as the doctor made her way to her lab. Genji could practically hear her rolling her eyes, though she refused to dignify him with a response.
This had been a weird day. Genji wasn't quite sure if it was a good type of weird or not. But it had certainly been strange up to that point.
Now, people have a lot of thoughts about how Hanzo and Angela would get along. Mine is a pretty rare one to be perfectly honest. Most people hold to the idea that Angela would hate Hanzo for what he did, but I personally think that Angela would simply be wary of him for a very short amount of time before becoming cautiously optimistic at Hanzo's chances at change. After all, I believe that Angela would do anything if it would make Genji's life better. And if reconciling the brothers' relationship would make him happier, she would be on board in a flash.
After all, she believes in miracles and second chances, why does Hanzo not deserve one too? c;