Overwatch H.Q.
The Day of the Promotion."Go talk to him," Ana whispered to Jack as he loosened his collar with a sigh of relief.
"I've tried Ana, it's not that easy. It's not like this is something I wanted; something that I took from him."
Jack looked to Ana's soft face, a flash of remorse crossed it as quickly as it left.
"I worry about him, Jack." She said, placing her hand on his at the isolated table they both sat at while the reception carried on around them. Jack could see Reyes sharing drinks with Zeigler and McCree, even from afar Morrison could read his bitterness.
"You don't think I do?" Jack turned to her, withdrawing his hand.
"You know that's not what I'm saying-" Her words were cut short as she cupped her mouth, wincing.
"Ana?" Jack shot up to put his hand to her shoulder.
"I'm fine Jack, I'm fine. Just a little sick- I'm going to blame that awful calamari at the buffet," She laughed it off as best she could.
"You look pale, Ana. Here, I'll go get something to drink." Jack made his way to the refreshments where a young man was happily serving glasses of assorted liquors and sodas.
"Commander Morrison!" The server beamed, "We have our top shelf supply for you sir!"
"Thanks kid, I'll have a water…" He looked behind him to Ana who hunched herself over, tapping her fingers on the table in front of her.
"…and get me a scotch."
"Big night huh?" The server cheerfully asked, popping a fine square bottle and emptying a healthy amount in a small glass.
"You could say that."
"Thank you Jack," Ana downed the water like she was dying, "I think I'm going to go rest now."
"Are you sure? Do you want me to…?"
"Jack. No, this is your day. Don't leave for me," She stood up to push her chair in, finishing the last of her drink.
He saw Zeigler and Reyes watching them now as he leaned in and kissed her cheek.
Ana blushed with a weak smile and patted Jack at his arm before ducking around him to leave through one of the side doors as several more suits were coming in.
That's when he made his way to his friends.
"Well look'ee here. Commander Morrison." Jesse saluted him mockingly before letting out a hoarse laugh.
"McCree, is that some contraband in that flask?" Jack asked as the cowboy took a pull.
To his surprise, he got a laugh from Gabriel.
"He'd better watch it," His friend spoke, "We're starting our Blackwatch training this week."
Blackwatch had been nothing more than a joke to describe Reyes and his group, but the way he said it then gave it an air of uncomfortable certainty.
"Is that right?" Jack asked him.
"You better believe it. I just got the notice earlier."
Jack drank the words at his tongue.
"Where did Ana go?" Zeigler asked to interrupt the lack of speaking.
"She wasn't feeling well, she retired a bit early," Morrison replied. He noticed the expression on Gabriel's face change in a way that made him feel uncomfortable…but he didn't dare explore why.
"Jack, could you get a girl a drink?" Angela asked, stepping towards him.
Her features were red, her eyes were already large with spirits.
"Careful doctor, or you'll be taking an early night too." Jack replied with conviction.
"Aren't we allowed to celebrate?" Reyes spoke for her. Confrontation in his voice.
Jack stared him down. Unsure of what next to say, but careful to choose his words.
"Oh we're allowed. In fact, that's an order." Jack put on his best smile which got a laugh from the group.
"That's one I'll gladly take," Reyes' frown began to reluctantly crack and for the first time that day, Jack felt somewhat at peace.
The rest of the evening went swimmingly for Morrison, and he assumed for his Overwatch family.
The dull nature of classical background music, muffled laughter, and the clanking of wine glasses shared over men and women in suits and uniforms soon gave way to a more relaxed afternoon just as the first few flakes of winter began to drift down from the lead-colored skies above their headquarters.
The limousines and personal jets all began to leave, much to the satisfaction of those on base who didn't wish to deal with putting on a "picture face" for the rest of the night while the ATLAS News and U.N. Media team snapped shots and rolled the cameras for everyone who walked by.
The members began to file out and go their separate ways- to kiss in the great hallways or to swap stories in the lounge, or maybe even to go outside and breathe in the crisp air from the world around them.
Jack, Zeigler, and Reyes had their place- and it was their place- ever since they had joined.
A spacious balcony on the top floor of the central building, just above the press hall, in the back of their cafeteria. It was closed obviously, but Jack's new privileges got him some generous leeway with keycard access.
"It reminds me of home," Zeigler sighed as she traced a pale finger around the rim of her glass, still bubbling from the champagne as she gazed at the mountain range in the distance- it's snowcapped peaks tracing along the clouds which were pregnant with winter weather.
"Wish I could say the same," said Reyes.
"Oh come on Gabriel, this doesn't resemble southern California to you at all?" Jack smiled.
"I'd ask you the same, but I already know Indiana is nothing but one blob of cornfields and barns."
Jack laughed at that.
"Have you two seen the states since you've been here?" Angela asked, a somber curiosity in her voice.
Morrison glanced down at his own glass, his breath trailing out like a thin smoke at his lips.
He hadn't seen home. Not since the Crisis started.
"Last I saw of home was when I waved by to my mom and dad, hoppin' on that bus on Lincoln Street to head off to California."
"Twentynine Palms." Gabriel acknowledged.
"Oorah," Jack sighed, now unable to get the homesick feeling from his mind.
"And that's where my boys met," Angela looked to both of them, "and love was born."
"Hell," Reyes took a sip and sat his drink down to pull a pack of cigarettes from his breast pocket,
"I hated ol' Jack when I first met him." He clicked his lighter and took a drag.
Jack was never one for smoking, and it was technically against the policy at the HQ…but those rules never really applied to Reyes and especially not to Jesse McCree.
"Oh you whine-bag. I was green, I didn't mean to spill that tray on you in the mess hall," Jack smiled to him as Reyes gave a comical eye-roll back with a uh-huh.
"When did the…?" Zeigler wanted to say it, but she was scared for whatever reason. Morrison couldn't blame her.
At the time, the soldier enhancement program was a taboo: a controversial action from the United States to give the Omnics hell by genetically modifying their own to a state of godliness.
Off the chart reflexes, focus, agility. You name it.
"The project. It was just under a year into our deployment." Gabriel said.
Angela was wide-eyed. Even with her incredible skills in the field of medicine and augmentation she acted like Morrison and Reyes were larger than life experiments.
"You still got your tag, Reyes?" Jack asked, leaning over the table to tap Gabriel.
"Sure do." Gabriel reached into his coat, his cigarette still dangling at his lips, and snapped off his chain to place it down on the glass surface.
REYES.
Gabriel D; O Pos
534 12 1922
USMC; L
CATHOLIC.
Sold. 76
"Sold…Soldier 76?" Angela asked through her squinted eyes as she read the tag.
"That was me," Reyes sighed with one last drag before flicking the butt over the balcony,
"Soldier 76."
"What were you, Jack?" She looked up to ask Morrison.
"Soldier 77. I went in right after Gabriel, here. He drew the short straw."
Gabriel had a good laugh at that,
"Literally, Doc. We drew straws."
"Oh, hey that reminds me, we need a picture!" Angela stood up, reaching for her digital camera as Reyes groaned and Jack shook his head.
She maneuvered around to Jack's side and hunched over, putting the camera out before them.
"Come on, take the picture with us!" She pleaded to Reyes who shook his head politely.
"I'll break that pretty little camera of yours with this ugly mug, Doc."
"He's right you know," Jack laughed as Reyes reared back and lightly punched his arm.
Even after the photo-op and the revelry, Jack Morrison was still trying to kick the growing unease in the back of his mind. When he would watch Zeigler interact with Reyes, it sparked something.
Jealousy? No. It couldn't be that…he had Ana Amari, every bit the woman Angela Zeigler was. Ana was mature, just a few years his elder compared to the younger Doctor Zeigler.
Even the nights he had wooed Zeigler over dinner and his humble stories about his life back home, she would want to hear the glory tales: The fights against the Omnics that she had missed while she was still rocketing through advanced emergency medical certifications and hopping back and forth over black tape from Germany and the United Nations regarding her membership for Overwatch.
For Jack, those weren't memories he wanted to share.
With Ana, it was different. She was a soldier, the best sniper in the Egyptian military by leaps and bounds, and she knew that the battlefield should be left as it is: a battlefield.
Not a topic of dinner party merriment.
It was comical, in a way. Reyes had his eyes on Amari since she first showed up in Switzerland, and he had his share of her. The way they could brood together, their dark eyes locking over mutual pain.
He never found out why the two had fallen apart, or their on again off again courtship that seemed to dissipate in the past few months.
Jack had left Reyes and Zeigler alone as he went downstairs, back to the fading atmosphere of the celebration when everyone would slowly begin to check in for the night.
There was Jesse McCree, one leg hitched to prop him up on the doorway leading towards the dormitory wings.
"Jesse, little late?" Jack asked him.
"Ah shucks. It is ain't it? I just couldn't help but stay up wonderin'."
"Wondering what?" Jack stood across from him, reclining back to the wall.
"What is it about this place that makes folks so…dramatic?"
"You mean what exactly, rambunctious? I mean Lena, she can be a hand-full sure and especially Rein and Torb when they get on their kicks but-"
"Nah, it ain't what I mean," McCree scoffed, "The Deadlock Gang was rambunctious. This here's different."
Morrison took a deep breath. Jesse had a way of talking in drawling circles for an hour if you didn't force him to cut to the point.
"I'm gonna mosey on outside to puff on this sucker, come join me." McCree tilted his head to the door which lead into the courtyard, and Jack followed him into the biting cold of the Swiss November air as he flicked his zippo lighter and sparked the end of his chubby cigar.
"Now I know y'all don't think much of me. A gangster. A criminal…shoot, I hear what Zeigler's called me, but don't think for a minute I'm some dummy."
"Okay."
"You and Miss Amari. Reyes and the Doc. Y'all are an incestuous bunch."
"I don't see what this has to do with anything, Jesse. It's late, and I…"
"Torb is making us some specialty weapons for our Blackwatch Op. He gave me the new sawed-offs for Reyes and ya see, I go to deliver them at his doorstop trynna' be a gentleman…and I hear he and Ole' Orphan Ana in there. In his room."
Jack clenched his jaw, his fist curling.
"Be very careful about what you're saying, Jesse."
"Woah there. I'm not saying they were…you know. But the way they was talkin. Like two people in love, in secret. I feel it's my civic duty to let my friend know about it, seein' as how that's his ol' lady."
"She's not my property. It's not like we're-"
"Oh shut it. Don't pull that crap with me Jack. I seen the way you look at her, the way she looks at you. The kind of look two people in love share. I'm not suggestin' she's bein a stray dog on you, but I just feel like you should know."
"You know so much about people, don't you. You're what, 19? 20?." Jack turned around to go back inside, to confront Reyes before Jesse cleared his throat signaling he wasn't done.
"Jack. Don't let this boil up in ya' until you explode on her or Reyes and make an ass out of yourself…and yeah, by the way, I know a thing or two about women in my few years."
Jack's turn to scoff.
"No, no. Listen." Jesse's mechanical hand clenched his belt buckle and held it up to the light.
BAMF.
"Take a gander what that really means."
"I'd rather not, Jesse."
"Guess." He insisted.
"Bad Ass Mother-"
"Bonnie And McCree Forever," Jesse cut him off, following his words with a detached laugh.
Jack wanted to make fun of him for telling such a bold faced lie, but something about the way he said it and the way his silver finger caressed the raised golden wording gave it an air of legitimacy.
"Bonnie was my Amari, Jack. I lost her to my own jealousy. I let it get the better of me one night and…when all was said and done, I had nobody. That's when the Deadlocks found me, and then well. You found me. Sure the belt is comical…but it was a joke we shared. I wear this every day to remind myself why I fight with the heroes now."
"You put 4 of our men in the hospital and nearly snapped one's arm clean off when we rounded you up and gave you a choice between death row or us. It's not like joining Overwatch was a completely conscientious decision."
McCree chuckled.
"Hell, I know. But when I'm out there fillin' these bots with hot lead, I know now that I'm doing it to preserve a future. For Bonnie, wherever she is. For humanity. Ain't you got a future to preserve besides your spotless record and a few biographies years down the line?"
