Over the next few weeks, McCree found ways to perform more and more intricate tasks with the prosthetic arm.
There were times when he found it easier to simply do something one-handed, especially with all the training of sorts that Genji had given him. Major Stein discouraged this, and instructed him to keep practicing using the arm, even if he felt that it complicated what he was doing unnecessarily.
He got back out on the shooting range and practiced reloading his revolver, using the hook to hold the cylinder and his good arm to bring the weapon over and line the chamber up to it. The process was trickier and felt a lot more clunky than doing it with two hands had been, and that feeling persisted, though he found himself getting faster and better at it with practice.
Finally he was allowed to return to restricted duty on base. It wasn't glamorous, nor anywhere near as interesting as his work with Blackwatch- he cleaned, loaded and unloaded trucks, and occasionally served as a marksmanship instructor for the Overwatch Academy's cadets. Though he still felt desperate to return to his team, it was an enormous relief that he had a way to be useful again.
At long last, a date was set on which McCree would undergo surgery to attach electrodes to the nerves in his arm and shoulder. He had a meeting with an engineer to talk about the cybernetic arm that those electrodes would connect to, and he even got to choose some artistic features of the arm's design.
Being his old self again, a full return to active duty- those things were finally in sight. Genji had warned him that the cybernetic arm would have a learning curve of its own, and wouldn't feel quite right until he got used to it- still, McCree couldn't help but feel more and more excited with each passing day.
Those feelings abruptly dissipated when an officer knocked on his door in the middle of the night and informed him that Shimada had been severely injured. He was being rushed back to base for surgery, and the rest of the Blackwatch team's mission had been called off.
"Goddamn it, I'm supposed to have his back and I'm just sittin' here on my sorry ass!"
The mercenary was shouting loud enough to wake up everybody in his building, some of whom opened their doors and poked their heads out to see what was going on. McCree didn't care- he slammed the door shut and punched it as hard as he could.
He spent the rest of the night pacing around his quarters until the sun was peeking over the horizon. When he finally lay down and squeezed his eyes shut, sleep refused to find him. He tossed, turned, and attempted to punch his pillow into a more comfortable position. It felt like an hour was passing in between each time that he checked the clock, but somehow it was only ten minutes.
With all the appointments he'd had to go to these past couple months for wound care, physical therapy, and now preparation for the cybernetic arm, McCree had gotten to be quite familiar with Overwatch's various medical facilities. He'd learned that there was a specific building where anyone who'd had a cybernetic organ replacement was taken for treatment- a place that had the equipment to manage both the biological and mechanical systems. That was where they'd bring Genji, McCree reasoned, so that was where he headed.
"I'm here to see Shimada," he said as he approached the front desk.
The receptionist typed something into her computer.
"He's still in surgery," she said. "If you'd like to wait for him, you can go up to the third floor. There's a lounge there. I've gotta tell you, though: Shimada never allows any visitors."
"He'll allow me," McCree said in a tone that sounded more desperate than confident. "When he wakes up, you make sure they let him know that Jesse McCree is here to see him."
The receptionist looked skeptical, but nodded politely as McCree made his way up the stairs to the waiting room. He'd been in a lot of medical facilities since his own injury, and had become accustomed to the way they looked, smelled, and felt. The waiting room of this one was smaller and more simplistic than what he was used to, though the building itself looked to be about the same size. The chairs were hard and uncomfortable, even with the low expectations he had of hospital waiting rooms.
There was a strange air of emptiness around him, a building that felt cold and dead even though the thermostat was at the same setting as every other medical facility he'd seen. The lounge was empty except for him, and he couldn't see or hear any other living things- not even a potted plant.
He sank low into a chair and tried to suppress the feeling of unease that was gnawing at him. He should have insisted on being the one to train whoever was filling his position on the team right now- no, he should have insisted on returning to active duty sooner. He should have adapted to his injury better, faster, so the review board would have no reason to deny him. Of course, none of this would have been a problem if he'd carried out that one damn mission right, and not been stupid enough to mangle his arm beyond repair in the first place…
At some point - he wasn't sure how long it had been, time didn't seem to make sense at the moment - he realized that he was hungry, but he couldn't stand the thought of eating anything right now. It seemed like he was going to be sitting here for some indefinite length of time- he leaned back, pulled his hat down over his eyes, and allowed himself to drift into a restless, uncomfortable sleep.
The mercenary's fitful nap was cut short by the sound of approaching footsteps, which echoed on the tile floor. He sat up and pushed his hat up away from his face.
A scrawny young man dressed in scrubs looked into the waiting room to address him: "Agent McCree?"
"What is it?"
"Sir, Special Agent Shimada is awake. And, uh…"
The young man looked thoroughly bewildered. "He said it's okay for you to come and see him.
McCree scratched his head. Exactly how many times had Genji been in here, and how many visitors had he refused, for the staff to be reacting like this?
That was a concern for another day. The mercenary jumped to his feet- his cowboy boots made a loud thud on the tile floor, which reverberated in the largely empty space. He followed the man back down the hallway to the elevator. To his surprise, rather than going up, they rode the elevator down to the basement.
Upon exiting, the space around him felt unfinished - hard, bare concrete that seemed to radiate coldness - yet it was clear that they kept the environment sterile. An advanced air filtration system was visible running the walls and audible with its hums and whirs. Not a single speck of dust was in sight.
They made their way down the corridor and into an open expanse, where another man sat at a desk in one corner, monitoring a series of video feeds and information displays. The two walked past him, and came to a stop at a metal door just beyond the open area.
The young man who'd led McCree down here knocked twice on the door, then swiped his key card and pushed it open. "Agent McCree here to see you," he called.
McCree stepped inside, and the other man turned and walked away. The door swung shut with a soft click.
Genji's voice followed: "McCree. What can I do for you?"
The cowboy found himself standing in a dull, gray room with bright fluorescent lighting. It was twice as large - if not more - as he was used to seeing in hospitals, but much of that space was taken up by equipment. He recognized the IV pole, vitals monitor, and other things that one would expect to find in a hospital room- he also saw a wide variety of machines that he couldn't identify. One of them was connected to ports on Genji's cybernetic body; another attached to electrodes that stuck to his skin.
Genji himself lay on a padded table, his upper body tilted up at an angle halfway between reclined and seated. His hips and legs were covered by a white sheet. His metal faceplate was off, replaced by a clear plastic non-rebreather mask, which gave McCree a full view of the burn scars that distorted the lower half of his face.
The assassin's mechanical right arm had been severely damaged- most of the forearm was missing entirely, leaving behind jagged metal edges, frayed wires, and exposed machinery. The outer plating of the upper arm had been damaged as well, showing the inner mechanisms that allowed the arm to function. The exposed internal workings had been covered in plastic wrap of some kind, presumably to keep dust and other contaminants out of the delicate machinery.
The hard layer of armor that protected Genji's abdomen was off, revealing the artificial skin that had been stretched over his body when he had been burned so badly that not enough healthy skin remained to make grafts. In some areas the artificial skin attached seamlessly to his own; in others, the transition points were highlighted by thick, heavy scarring. Bandages covered the lower ribs on his left side, his left shoulder and neck, and wrapped around his upper arm on that side.
McCree realized that he had been staring. He blinked several times and adjusted his gaze so that he was focusing on the toes of his cowboy boots instead. It took him several seconds to process that Genji had asked him a question.
"What can you do for- what d'you mean? I came to see if you were okay."
Without the faceplate to obscure his expressions, Genji's surprise was obvious. He realized it quickly, and adjusted his features to a more neutral expression. "I see. I am all right- you may leave."
"What?"
McCree frowned. "I'm not goin' anywhere."
He retrieved a rolling chair from the far end of the room and took a seat at his teammate's side.
Genji simply watched him for several long, awkward seconds, filled by the hiss of the oxygen mask.
"Very well. I will allow the company, as I expect that this is the last time I will see you."
McCree's expression changed to one of alarm. "Huh? Why? You're not plannin' on dying, are you?"
The mercenary ended his sentence with a nervous laugh.
"No," said Genji. "I will not die until I have completed my mission. I refuse."
McCree didn't know much about this personal motive that drove Genji- he knew that Genji had been born into some kind of criminal enterprise, and made it his life's mission to dismantle his family's empire. Genji hated his family, it seemed; saw them and their dealings as dishonorable- and from his perspective, there was no worse crime.
McCree couldn't even begin to understand. Genji's sense of honor was complicated, and the fact that it was his blood relatives who'd committed some act of atrocity seemed to complicate it further. The cowboy himself hadn't known family until he'd co-founded the Deadlock Gang; before that, his life had been spent on the streets, occasionally getting picked up by law enforcement and bounced to another overcrowded foster house.
He wondered which was worse- living in poverty, never knowing one's real parents, or living a life of luxury with one's criminal family, knowing that what they'd done to attain their wealth was unforgivable.
Not that it really mattered. The two of them had ended up in the same place: running covert ops for Overwatch.
Genji kept going: "Having seen me here, in this state, I don't believe you will come back a second time. Now you know with certainty, beyond any trick of mind or shadow of doubt… I am not a man, not really. I'm a machine, driven by a few organic parts."
"Hold up," said McCree. "What? What? You really think I'd abandon my teammate - my friend - over having a couple of robot limbs? I'm gettin' one of those too, don't you remember?"
Genji shook his head. "It is more than that," he said. He was about to keep going, but McCree cut him off.
"I don't give a flyin' fuck if you've had every limb and every organ in your body replaced," the cowboy insisted. "You've saved my ass in the field more times than I can count… and, y'know, I've saved yours here and there, too."
He grinned. The corners of Genji's mouth pulled up into a slight smile.
"You're a good teammate, and you're a good friend. The best," McCree continued. "If I got deployed with an Omnic on my squad who was half as good at their job as you, they'd have the same respect from me as any human."
"That is… different," Genji responded with a frown. "Omnics are as they are naturally. I-"
"You're the most badass swordsman in military history," McCree interrupted before he could finish his sentence.
Genji laughed. "That is not even close to true."
"Maybe not, but it's how I see ya!"
The assassin shook his head in amusement. "Very well."