Disclaimer: I own nothing. Least of all this.
"I been everywhere, man, I been everywhere, man;
Cross the desert fair, man; breathed the mountain air, man;
Of travel I've a had my share, man;
I been everywhere."
- Johnny Cash
Author's Notes: Despite outward appearances, McCree is, in fact, a huge nerd. Anyone who rooms with a literal weeaboo ends up this way, sooner or later. It's just a fact of life. For that reason, and others which will become clear, he was the best choice to build a crossover with. You'll understand why later. Hopefully.
1) YOU WANT THE BALL?
In terms of days, the only way he'd ever see one worse than this was if he went through the trouble of ordering one. Not even the time Genji swapped his spurs out for jingle bells on Christmas morning could top it.
After all, back then he'd at least had Genji. Little feller was still as slippery as ever; not even the man's brother had known just where it was the cyborg had run off to. And Hanzo Shimada ran the entire yakuza, for crying out loud.
Least the trip to the East hadn't turned out to be a total loss. Them omnic monks had turned out to be more than helpful; well, as helpful as pacifists can be. Ever since, he'd felt sharper, thought harder, and drawn faster. And when a lead on his least favorite Irish scientist of all time had practically landed in his lap, he'd grabbed the opportunity by the throat and throttled it.
Although just at the moment, it could really be argued the opportunity was throttling him.
Damn but the crackpot scientist was strong.
"YOU SHALL NOT STOP MY WORK!" the floating hulk of a man shouted, "I MUST FIND THE SONG!"
If the man's giant hands hadn't been wrapped around his windpipe, his witty comeback would've been something along the lines of: Have you tried looking in Korea? Hear she's a pretty big deal around there.
Instead, he had to settle for bouncing a flashbang off the ground right into Sigma's face.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAUGH!"
The scientist dropped McCree like a hot potato, and began rubbing his eyes frantically, trying to clear his vision.
He collapsed to the ground, coughing and wheezing fit to beat the devil. "That's right...you take a minute…"
Already his mind was clicking, assessing how the rest of his friends were doing. If he was being honest, there was absolutely no way in hell he'd still be alive if Talon hadn't been unlucky enough to have Rein, Brigitte, and Tracer all come for Widow at the exact moment he'd done the same for Moira. Two traps, meant for two entirely different teams. But so far, they seemed to be doing a good job of tag-teaming on the enemies meant for the other.
Moira and Torb's kid were dancing around each other, purple streaks and swinging chains everywhere. Tracer was zipping after Widow as fast as she could; definitely looked like there was some bad blood there. And Rein…
Old Rein was getting his ass handed to him by McCree's lead: the Vishtar scientist calling herself Symmetra. Who woulda thunk that someone as clearly dressed as a researcher as that would be packing as much heat as she was?
Ah, who was he kidding. Every scientist he'd met in this line of work was exactly like that.
As Symmetra's beam ate further and further into the big guy's shield, he left hand pulled one of her blasted turrets out from...somewhere...and tossed it for the ceiling.
Where it would have a perfect line-of-sight straight down to Rein's head.
BANG!
Not if he had anything to say about it.
"BIG GUY! SWITCH!"
The German immediately used his rocket-hammer's momentum to swing into a 180, and then charge at the still-recovering Sigma. "ROGER ZAT!"
Leaving his field-of-view free and clear of all friendlies.
"You can't win;" Symmetra reloaded her...gun? Phaser? Beam? "Order will always triumph over chaos."
"I completely agree, ma'am," he slid his own moon-clip home, and snapped the cylinder closed, "But I'm afraid that from where I'm standing, I'm the one on the side of the law."
The scientist smirked. "Let's agree to disagree."
And then it all broke loose.
Fan, duck and cover, roll, hit the turret she threw to block a headshot, flashbang to cover his retreat. All the while dodging her burning ray of blue light.
Her teleporter whirred to life next to him, and he scrambled for the other side of the rock that had up 'til then been his cover. Only to realize she'd thrown it as a diversion, and her beam was still aimed solidly in his direction. Welp, so much for staying at range. Time to make like that crazy Australian had and go for the close-in.
He emptied his revolver into the teleporter still next to the woman as he ran; couldn't afford to let her sidestep him. A couple of singes, another roll, a final flashbang, and then he had her.
"There ain't no judge in the world that'll declare you anything but innocent," his metal fist closed around her throat, "so consider me your executioner. Better start begging."
"Yahi..." she gasped, "param...vasta..vikta...hai…"
"Sorry, ma'am…"
The snap of a neck.
"...But this ain't the ultimate reality yet."
The scientist gave a gurgle, and somehow managed to rasp out two final words. "Behind...you…"
He dropped her body and whirled.
Too late.
A wall of blue energy sizzled far away in front of him, separating what seemed to be the two halves of the world itself. One side containing Lena, Brigitte, Widow, Moira, and him...and the other, Sigma standing over the broken body of his friend.
Lena's cry might've shattered glass, if there was any left around to shatter. "REINHAAAAAAAAAARDT!"
It was a distraction she couldn't afford. The Widow's boot connected with Tracer's jaw...and then the butt of her rifle with Lena's accelerator. Lena went flying, the glowing blue orb on her chest now spitting dangerously.
To his surprise, between Moira and the kid, it was the former who looked the most stunned. (Later, he'd chalk it down to the kid being that much more used to the old man going down in a fight. Because the alternative was the Irish with actually caring about her old colleague, and that was just plain nonsense.) The Talon doctor took a shield bash to the torso, and then a chain flail to the temple. One more hostile, down for the count.
Now it was a 2-v-1, and the Widow obviously knew it was high time to get out of Dodge. A grapple through a broken window, and she was gone.
Sigma, however, was not.
And the mad scientist was now furiously pulling levers on his howling, glowing machine.
"THE SONG SHALL REACH IT'S CRESCENDO! AND WHEN IT DOES, I SHALL BE THE ONLY ONE TO HEAR IT! I SHALL ASCEND!"
Man, he thought to himself, this guy shouts more than the old man.
And then the wall came down, and whatever sorrow that thought had evoked vanished in the heat of gunfire.
No good; the guy still had a shield of his own. "NOW, PUNY INTELLECTS, WITNESS ME!"
A final lever was pulled, and what had been a swirling vortex of a growling black hole became a glowing, unholy blue...portal.
It was a portal.
And Sigma intended to go through it.
His bullets did nothing; the man simply ate every one with yet another of his blasted voids.
Five feet...three feet...one foot...an inch…
A mace came hurtling through the air, pushing the giant away from his goal.
"YOU KILLED MY UNCLE, YOU BASTARD!"
Five feet and ten inches of pure wrath loosed itself on the scientist; never faltering, never wavering. Right up until the scientist let out a roar of his own, and pulled a literal meteor out of thin air.
Michael Bay himself would've been proud of how everything seemed to fade into slow-motion; the giant, the mace, the rock...and Brigitte, about half-a-second away from being hurtled back through the portal. And in that half-second, he made his decision.
The rock came streaking through the air...and caught him on the left side of the chest.
And as the portal reached up to swallow him whole, the last thought that went through his mind was:
I hope someone got the plates of that trucker.
Cold air.
That was what brought him back to reality; a current of freezing air reducing his feet to ice blocks. And seeing as how he'd had the misfortune of accidentally sneaking up on Mei, he knew from experience exactly what that felt like.
But as his eyes shoved themselves open, neither the chipper ecologist nor her freeze ray came into view. Instead, he was greeted with the sight of a dark, damp, concrete holding room. No friends or enemies to be found; just him.
And with that, the events of the past twenty-four hours came rushing back.
He hissed in pain as a monstrous headache made itself known; his hands automatically went up to massage his temples and sooth it away. Or at least, they tried to. They made it about half an inch before what felt like cold steel bit into them (well, one of them). He ventured a look down…and found not only what was stopping his arms from moving, but also the reason for his current polar condition.
He'd been stripped of everything save his dignity; no shoes, no socks, no pants, no shirt, no nothing. Clamps had been fastened periodically around his limbs; ankles, wrists, biceps, thighs. And on either side of his head, pads with wicked-looking needles and wires poking out.
Hypothesis: wherever it was that crazy scientist's portal had spit him out, it didn't seem like the locals were too big on strangers. Best if he made himself scarce before they came back. After a quick look around to confirm there were no security cameras around, he went to work on the first order of business: the chair.
For some reason, the restraints on his left arm were a lot stronger than the ones on the right; seemed they'd had to deal with prosthetic wearers before. Still, they hadn't clamped his elbow down, so it couldn't have been that many. They woulda learned otherwise.
A slight twist from the shoulder down produced an audible click from the joint; some finagling and awkward squirming later, and the top half of his left arm was free. Plus built-in multitool.
He'd gotten the idea after seeing B.O.B. again for the first time in forever, and couldn't believe he hadn't thought of it sooner: hiding secret gadgets in his mechanical appendage. So far the most he'd managed to add on was a flathead screw-driver with a hook-assembly higher up that let him reload his moon-clips and revolver should his arm ever get damaged. It wasn't much, but he'd been hoping to get Torbjorn to take a look at it later.
Which was starting to look like much, much later.
Right arm first, then the legs, and finally the prosthetic itself. The latch clicked back into place, and he rose from his temporary incarceration. Second order of business: finding a way out of here.
No windows, so that was out. Two ventilation ducts; one probably for air, the other for knockout gas. Both too small to fit through. One drain, directly below the chair (three guesses what that was for). Too small again. Looked like the door was the only way out.
Hinges? On the outside. So they'd been smart enough to realize he coulda used the wall for leverage and yanked it open if it'd swung inward. Three locks, and no gaps to fit his screwdriver in. On either side of the door. The hard way it was; through the concrete. Well, more or less.
He turned back toward the chair, and began stripping parts off that looked sturdy enough to chisel with (there weren't very many). As he worked, he began to get the strangest feeling that he'd seen that specific chair before; maybe in a briefing he'd been only half-awake for. He'd try and remember later; for now, he had to move.
After a fair amount of trial and error, and a good bit of stealthy hammering (if such a thing even existed), he'd managed to clear out all the concrete around the hinge-screws. True, he couldn't unscrew 'em from this side. But that wasn't exactly what he had in mind.
One by one, he snapped off the ends of each screw, stopping every now and then to listen for coming guards. None ever came. And finally, when he judged the hinges themselves attached by only the slightest tension, he flipped himself into a hand-stand. His metal fingers dug into the concrete floor, and his feet came to rest on the door, level with the middle hinge. Deep breath in; deep breath out.
And push.
The door fell open with a clang.
He righted himself, and turned to the empty corridor.
At least, he'd thought it had been empty.
Instead, he found himself face-to-face with a hauntingly familiar mask.
"Son of a…"
And then the fight was on.
The Winter Soldier; that was who the chair had belonged to. Of course he'd recognized it; he and Genji must've watched that film a hundred times at least. At the time, they'd had no idea how close they were to ending up exactly like the characters from the movies; but later, they'd thanked their lucky stars that it had at least taught 'em how to deal with getting stabbed in the back by the higher-ups. And he was thanking 'em again, cause he knew exactly the words he needed to end this fight quickly.
He just hoped his Russian was up to snuff.
"Желание."
Dodge.
"Ржавый."
Block.
"Семнадцать."
Flip.
"Рассвет. Печь. Девять."
Kick, twist, punch.
"Добросердечный. Возвращение на Родину."
Stalemate; their hands wrapped around each other's throats.
He gasped out the final command words: "Один. Товарный вагон."
The Soldier's grip loosened. So did his.
"Солдат?"
"Я жду приказаний."
"Put me down."
Definitely shoulda phrased that better; hitting concrete hurt. "New orders, Soldier: from now on, you respond only to me."
He had absolutely no idea if that would work, but it was worth a try. "We're getting outta this rat-hole, so first things first: where's my gear?"
"All prisoners' belongings are to be stored in the armory." came the monotone reply.
"The hell why?"
"Security reasons. It was decided to give potential escapees only one potential target, for the purpose of concentrating defenses in one area."
"...I guess that works. We're still going there. But quietly. Avoid all patrols you can, and eliminate those you can't. Now lead the way."
As they made their way along, pieces began to slot together in his mind. Sigma might just have been going for the Infinity Stones; it seemed like the sorta thing a mad scientist would do. You know, open up a portal to an alternate reality just so you can obtain ultimate power, all for the low, low, cost of letting said alternate reality collapse entirely once you went back home.
Really on point for the type.
Then again, the dude had been working with Talon. Maybe they'd only given him funding if he'd promised to bring back all the HYDRA agents that were willing to help Talon once their original universe collapsed. Hedging their bets, so to speak. It was at least thirty-seven different levels of a bad idea, but it could've worked. At least now Overwatch wouldn't be as outnumbered, even if they were down one of their best members.
Nope, not enough time to think about that. Best get on with the job at hand; making as big of a nuisance of himself as he could until someone either got bothered enough to send him home, or he got his hands on the Tesseract. Whichever came first.
Fourteen empty hallways (and three occupied ones) later, they were inside the armory.
"Get yourself kitted out for a long mission, amigo," he grunted as he strapped on his chestplate, "we gotta lotta places to burn to the ground."
His precious revolver was lying in pieces; probably the result of an attempt to understand the obviously advanced weaponry. Knowledge HYDRA most certainly did not need. He scooped the scattered parts into his spent ammo bag, then began looking around for a replacement.
A black Smith and Wesson caught his eye; laser-sight already mounted. An M&P R8; eight rounds of .357 Magnum in the cylinder. Designed for use in combination with a riot shield. He'd carried something similar back in his Deadlock days, only in .45 ACP instead. It was a classic then, and a classic now. It slid home in his holster like they were made for each other (which they might as well have been).
Moon-clips, spare ammo, flashbangs, regular grenades, Arctic Warfare L96 sniper rifle (for emergencies), and as much plastic explosive as he could carry. The rest they could hopefully scrounge along the way.
"Got everything, pal?"
"Affirmative."
He took a quick top-down look at his new partner; not bad. "Grab yourself some noise-cancelling headphones, too; and all that C4 in the corner. We're taking a jet outta here, and I don't want anyone following us. You guys do have jets somewhere round here, right?"
"Affirmative. Three Learjets and a Gulfstream."
"Which one's likely to have more fuel in it?"
"The Gulfstream. It is hardly ever used."
"Perfect. Just one more question, before I decide where we're going first: what year is it?"
"The year is 2008."
Huh. "Well that's...earlier...than I thought. But we'll make it work."
He would've preferred it if Loki wasn't still running around Asgard free, but he'd take his chances. "Okay partner, time for some more orders. First, you're gonna lead the way every other flying whirligig on this base. Next, we're gonna rig 'em up one by one to blow. Third, we're stealing the Gulf and oogity-boogity-ing our way outta here. Fourth, once we're in the air, we detonate the bombs. And finally...we make for California. We got a genius, billionaire, playboy philanthropist to annoy and/or save. Comprende?"
"Understood."
"Good. Now let's roll."