The girl across from him blinks sleepily. "Talk about… what happened? Um…" She mumbles something in Korean, shifting inside of her blanket as she scratches her head. McCree patiently gives her the time to sort out her thoughts. It's been a long week for everyone. 'Specially her.
Finally, she mutters with something resembling clarity, "Genji came to interview me two or so weeks ago. Because of, uh, certain… circumstances, he decided to take me with him right away to a motel in… whats-its-name." She snaps her fingers, a crisp sound that cuts through McCree's muddled thoughts. "Juseong Town. Then we waited-"
Against his better judgement, the cowboy pushes it. "Certain circumstances?"
Hana's hands draw the blanket closer around her. "Neh. Certain circumstances," she repeats stoically. McCree notes with more creepy fascination than interest that Hana's face is perfectly blank, as if all traces of emotion have been wiped away by a giant Wind-Ex wiper.
Trying to erase that image from his mind, McCree assumes a more comfortable position by kicking his boots onto the table and tucking his arms- one real, the other prosthetic- behind his head. The metal one presses uncomfortably into his hair.
"Care to elaborate?" he asks, words slow and casual.
"No," she replies shortly. Irritation seeps into her voice. "What does that- what does that have to do with anything?"
Jesus is she hostile. Though, really, what did he expect? Anyone in the girl's situation would be tensed up, mentally. Maybe it was just Jesse being the odd one, all smiles and quips under a hail of gunfire.
"You always were a charmer," says Ms. Amari with a voice like steel. Instead of scolding him for it, like he expects her to, she pats the hat on his head and grins. "That's a good thing. There are more situations you have to talk your way out of than shoot your way out of."
"Honestly, nothin' much. I just figger we should get to know each other if I'm gonna stick around," he explains with a lazy grin of his own.
Of course, not really. McCree was rarely diplomatic in his relationships with anyone business-related- and his 'friendship' with Hana was about as business-related as you could get.
On the other hand, most of the business-related relationships he'd had were with people in tailored suits and lots of cash, not scruffy little girls that owned next to nothing. Her situation intrigued him on a personal level. After all the kids he'd seen recruited into Overwatch were like him and Genji- criminals that had to pick between jail and Blackwatch.
They'd both picked Blackwatch, Genji to save his body and McCree to save his life, and sometimes McCree wondered if he'd have been better off safe in a cell.
Not that Overwatch is the same as Blackwatch, if you believe the media. Oh, no- Jack an' Rein an' Lena an' the rest are right saints, they are. They're too noble for the likes of Genji, an' me, an' Gabe, and they're definitely above employing children, he thinks with biting sarcasm.
And speaking of Genji, what's the big deal with him? DIsappearin' on us both.
Unfortunately, Hana is less than willing to cooperate with his little background investigation. "Michin-nom. All you need to know is that Talon's trying to kill me, or capture me, or whatever the fuck, and you have to kill them all," she snaps. "Now shall I continue?"
She frowns at him.
Nice one, McCree. Now she hates you. McCree gives her the go-ahead with a defeated nod and she continues, now slightly more ruffled.
"Then we waited out there until the extraction date came. Except, Talon attacked us-"
McCree interrupts again, this time incredulous. "They made you wait?"
"They were busy. I'm sure they had their reasons," roars Hana, red-in-the-face. Her voice peaks up, and it would've been funny how high-pitched it got if it weren't so scary. "If you interrupt me again I will shoot you."
Again…jesus. "Aw, geez. Sorry, princess," he says, hasty to appease her. He just- couldn't help it. Overwatch was many things, but dumb was not one of them. They should've left immediately. What the fuck, Overwatch?
"Don't call me that." Hana pinches the bridge of her nose, eyes closed, the perfect picture of an exasperated old lady. Except that she's what- fifteen?
A deep, meditative breath. Then-
"A- Anyways, we left, got chased by Talon, got to Busan. Then Talon cornered us in an alley. And shot Genji." She looks up at McCree to gauge his reaction.
His reaction being: surely I heard wrong.
"Tha's not possible."
She squints at him. "Pardon?"
"Tha's not possible." It's not a careful inquiry for clarification, it's an outright refusal of her statement. McCree draws another cigarillo from the carton, fumbling with a lighter as he goes.
He can almost see Genji in his mind's eye, walking down King's Row with bloody katana brandished. A mission gone bad when the cyborg had been cornered by anti-Omnic extremists who mistakenly believed him to be completely Omnic, only to end on a note of complete success when all of them were quietly wiped out.
Genji Shimada. The monster of Blackwatch that even other battle-hardened operatives avoided, back in the day. "Maybe if a hundred of those Talon fuckers jumped him, he might've gotten some dents in that fancy armor of his. But no way he got hurt from some shmucks-"
"It was my fault," says Hana. For the first time, her voice wavers, ever so slightly. "He would've been fine if… if I hadn't gotten involved."
Oh.
A hostage situation, then. He can see that happening. That same monster of Blackwatch always had a soft spot for kids. That, coupled with his tendency to throw himself at danger whenever someone was about to get hurt, made it very damn likely that the cyborg was off bleeding to the death in an alley somewhere.
Something throbs in McCree's chest, and he knows it to be worry. It chokes him up in a way that feels unfamiliar to him- no big surprise, it's been a while since he's had to think about saving someone's skin that wasn't his own.
So he grimaces and pushes away the picture of Genji choking on his own blood with the ease of one who's done it before. "Okay, go on."
Hana sighs in a deep whoosh of air. "He thought… that he would drag me down… so he left me. I found a safe spot, and bunked with some kind people there. Got Genji's transceiver, which Tracer-nim used to direct me to this station. Went to check it out tonight and that's where I fucked up- Talon found me, so I had to kill some of them, and also I lost my transceiver. And got shot."
She waves vaguely at McCree, and grinds out, "So. Thank you… for finding me and helping me out. It was, um, appreciated."
Hana is visibly more tired just narrating that story.
Jesse's impression of this entire ordeal is Overwatch fucked up. They fucked up good. They were obviously limited in resources and agents, didn't have the proper funding or materials to even defend the Russian Omnic front properly, and yet still- still had the audacity to try recruiting some kid in Asia to 'the cause' (whatever the fuck that might be now). To say that this entire venture is a grand overestimation of their abilities is an understatement. This could literally be the death of three agents- one current, one former, and one to-be.
And it's not the girl's fault in the slightest. Terrible luck. Damn terrible luck.
McCree says, a little gentler, "No problem, little missy. You did a mighty fine job for someone in your position." As sincere as possible, because all things considered? She really did handle the situation remarkably well. Problems come up on every turn of the plan, and yet she's still kickin'. Somehow.
"No. I fucked up a lot." Hana leans back against the couch, a little bundle of teenage angst- well-justified angst, no matter which way you looked at it.
"Do you think I'm ever going to get to Seoul, McCree-nim?"
He doesn't have the heart to lie to her. Not that she'd take his bullshit if he tried. "Nah, not really."
He's crossed paths with Talon before. Their encounters were few and far in between, but their absolute preparedness for any situation had always chilled him. One of their sects get wiped out? No problem, they're replaced without a bat of an eye. Someone gets poisoned? No problem, they have the antidote. Or, more often than that, someone has the antidote? They have the poison that can't be cured.
He believes, rightly so or not, that Talon has the necessary resources to do whatever they want, from inciting rebellions in Mexico to kickstarting the next Omnic Crisis.
Long ago, the only other organization that fit that description in the world had been Overwatch. Unlimited resources, operations on a global scale, a pool of talent like no other- until, that is, it got pulled apart by the Petras Act. Leaving Talon completely unchecked.
In just a single week of pursuing Hana, Talon had risked three open firefights in crowded places, lost numerous agents, and yet still kept sending them after the poor thing. Talon's cover-up work was usually impeccable, but now? Now they only did the bare basics- corpse retrieval, a little bribery, and nothing else. They cared not for the news outlets reporting on their misdeeds, they cared not that they had just revealed themselves to the South Korean government. It's become clear that all that matters to them is seizing Hana. Everything just boils down to why?
The girl in question is unnervingly comfortable with the idea that she might not make it. "That's what I thought." Her eyes open, dark as new leather. Staring, unseeing, at the flickering light hanging precariously from the ceiling.
She takes on a conversational tone. "Genji was too nice to me. He hid the truth a lot. If he thought it would frighten me, or hurt me, he'd just never mention it."
That sounded about right. Even before he'd become strangely zen, Genji was always a little too kind to certain people.
"That's called being good with children," replies McCree breezily, and Hana apparently finds that humorous because she laughs. It's an empty, tragic sound.
"Are you good with children, McCree-nim?" she snarks.
The cigarillo lights, and a little puff of smoke blooms from its cherry-red tip. "Not in the slightest, ma'am."
"Good. Then you'll tell me everything." Her voice hardens, and she leans forward, hands clasped. "If you're not a member of Overwatch, why are you here?"
That's a tricky question. McCree forces his twiddling thumbs to rest.
Guilt has a lot to do with it- he remembers with perfect clarity waking up to Tracer's loud, angry voice over the transceiver, telling him that Genji was missing (she refused to say possibly dead). That there was a fifteen-year-old girl in the middle of a Talon stake-out, completely alone.
The Overwatch agent hadn't been especially kind about it. If you'd just bloody gone in the first place, none of this would've happened, you absolute bollock!
Perhaps I'm just a romantic fool. "What makes you think I didn't live here in the first place?" he jokes. By way of reply, Hana sticks out an open-faced palm at McCree's outfit.
"That. That is what. Do you understand how absolutely ridiculous you look?"
"I assure you, this is all quite normal for where I come from," he says with an easy grin. Which isn't really the truth, because his get-up is a little too cowboy-esque even for the South.
Hana arches an eyebrow. "This is South Korea, not America, foolish cowman," she says sharply. "Now, answer me."
McCree pulls his legs off of the table, planting them firmly on the ground. He straightens his back (better admit it like a man or not at all) before he says, "I was s'pposed to pick you up with Genji, but I didn't show up. So here I am, a little late. I-"
This time it's Hana that interrupts him, not the other way around. "You- you were the person Tracer mentioned?"
McCree blinks, exhales musky cigarillo smoke. "She mentioned me?"
Suddenly Hana is on her feet, blanket falling from her grasp as she walks directly up to McCree. She's a barely-five-foot girl in a pink blouse but the aura around her is intimidating to the extreme, so much so that McCree's hand jumps to his revolver.
She stops just a foot away from him, her face a mask of fury as she yells, "If you'd shown up, Genji wouldn't have died!"
It feels as if an icy hand has closed around his heart- an uncomfortable and all-too familiar feeling. He growls, "Genji isn't dead." It was true that he bailed out, but there was no damage that couldn't be reversed, at least not yet-
"No, but he- I mean-" Hana's face crumples, ever so slightly. "He may as well be." The slowly swinging light behind the girl casts her face in darkness. The backlighting ages her by a hundred years, turning her into an ancient, bone-weary thing. "You… if you'd just… showed up, you wanjun gubjengi."
And there it is. That stabbing feeling of guilt that's been pestering him ever since Overwatch magically resurrected- that he'd failed Overwatch, that he'd failed Genji, that he'd failed Gabe, that he'd failed a child halfway across the world. It hurts, it hurts more than he'd like to admit.
It's more familiar than I'd like to admit.
"I'm sorry," he says quietly. Sincerely. "Real damn sorry. But I'm here now, and yellin' at me ain't gon' change nothing."
Hana glowers at him. For a moment, he wonders if she's going to hit him.
Finally, the girl trudges back to the couch. Wraps the blanket around her shoulders like a cape, as if she's a sad, small Superman. "Too late."
"Too late," agrees McCree. The word tastes bitter in his mouth. And there's a buzzing silence for a long, long time.
It's still dark out, but McCree can make out a glint of white in the shadows where Hana should be. Its glassy quality marks it as light reflecting off of her still-open eyes.
He should tell her to get some sleep, that she's probably exhausted. That whatever dreams may come haunt her tonight is worth the energy it will bring her in the morning.
But then he'd be a filthy hypocrite. So he slides his hat forward over his eyes as he tilts his head back, and darkness overtakes him as easy if someone turned out the lights.
Mother is crying again. Usually, Hana would just ignore her, but today It bothers her in a way she can't explain.
She approaches the kitchen hesitantly. The bruise she got from that strange man that Mother had introduced as a friend throbs on her side.
"Unma," she says, in quiet Korean. "Don't worry. Daddy will come back."
Mother is inconsolable. She clutches at the bottle with enough force to make her knuckles go white. Strands of black hair fall loose from her bun into deranged curls around her face.
"No," Mother says, words thick and muddled. She slams her hand against the kitchen table in a desperate attempt to hold herself upright. She sounds angry. Frustrated with Hana. "No, you- y-you don't understand."
What don't I understand? Hana wants to scream. "It's only been two years since he left. You can't give up already. What- Why don't I understand?"
Mother's demeanor changes like someone flipped a switch. "How old are you again?" she snaps, and Hana flinches. Why did everyone care about her age so much?
"I'm eleven."
"That's why you don't understand. You're a child," Mother growls, and then hiccups loudly. "We don't have anyone. Your nasty aunt and uncle- they've gone and ignored us, do you know that? Left me here to rot with a child I can't even support."
She takes another swig straight from the bottle, then drops it onto the table, where it rolls in a slow circle. "You. You make everything impossible. I can't move, I can't run, I can't- I can't- we don't have anyone! I don't have anyone."
I'm in your same situation, Hana wants to remind. But Mother is to absorbed in her self-pitying hellhole to think about that.
She jabs an accusing finger at Hana with a frustrated growl. "Because of you, I'm going to rot in this hellhole-"
Ding-dong. Hana freezes. Mother lifts her head, stares at the door.
Then she smiles.
"Oh, he's here. Go get the door." She turns, digging through her purse, before locating a tube of deep red lipstick. Hana watches blankly as Mother begins clumsily applying it to her mouth.
Mother turns, and glares. "Didn't you hear me? Go on, get the door!"
'Oh, he's here.'
Hana stumbles out of the kitchen, races to the door. Hope fills her lungs till they swell like balloons, threatening to lift her off the ground. Is Daddy back? Daddy-
She fumbles with the latch, and jumps back as the door swings open.
A man stands in the doorway, tall and broad-chested and handsome, just like her Dad- and- and cruel-faced, and glaring, and with a tattoo emblazoned on his arm, just not like her Dad.
"Mr. Seon," Hana blurts. Mr. Seon stares down at her.
His deep voice is curiously devoid of emotion. "What, you're going to pull the trigger?"
The trigger?
Hana looks down. Clutched in between her hands is a gun- a gun that a strange American had given to her before, from the corpse of a Talon agent.
This- this wasn't how it was supposed to go. This wasn't how it ever went. She looks at the gun, to Mr. Seon, and back. The trigger feels smooth underneath the pad of her index finger.
"You have the power to, now," says Mother from behind her, and Hana turns to be confronted with Amin Lee. The Omnic takes a step forward, voice tranquil as still water. "You have the power to end all this. If you so choose."
If I so choose.
She turns back to Mr. Seon. He's outfitted in full-body Talon gear, now, and has a gun of his own. The voice modulator box built into his uniform hums as he growls, in Tara's voice, rough and full of conviction, "You're not going to do it. You can't. You're just going to run away again-"
Hana pulls the trigger. Amin screams, and Mr. Seon's head jerks back from the impact of the bullet going through the visor. The visor that shatters, revealing the glowing green line of Genji's mask underneath…
Hana's eyes snap open to a dimly lighted motel room.
When did I doze off? She'd told herself she wouldn't, that she didn't trust the strange American enough. Hana takes stock of the situation- red blanket, check. Ratty mustard yellow couch, check. Strange American-
He's nowhere to be found. Hana frowns, and drapes the blanket over her shoulders as she stands, unsteady on her feet.
Whatever dream she'd had last night hadn't been pleasant, even though she can't really remember anything- aside from the scent of stale soju. She swallows back the bitter feeling on her tongue as she shuffles out of the room.
The scent of coffee hangs in the air, almost as thick and musty as the scent of McCree's cigar smoke. She tracks the smell down the hall, to the lobby.
Hana spots the cowboy immediately. It's almost impossible not to, as his strange hat and clinking boots make him stick out like a sore thumb, especially when he's surrounded by decidedly more fashion-conscious people milling about the lounge.
In the light, she also notices another thing: Jesse McCree is tall. He's a full head taller than most people in the room, even without the hat.
A mug rests steaming in one of his gloved hands- the source of that smell. He raises it and winks at a girl in a miniskirt with a smooth smile, sending her scurrying after her friends, completely scandalized. Unbothered by the reception, he repeats the action in the direction of a gawking young boy who undoubtedly thinks McCree is some sort of action hero.
It's only when he repeats the action a third time, towards Hana, that she realizes that she's been standing there open-mouthed for quite some time. She presses her lips together into a grimace- literally, is this man fucking crazy?- before she storms over to him.
"What are you doing here?" she hisses. The man raises an eyebrow.
"Havin' some morning coffee. Wakes you right up. Want some?" he offers in that ridiculous Southern accent.
Hana waves away the mug with a scowl. "Why didn't you wake me up?"
McCree shrugs and takes another sip. "Would be awful rude of me to cut your beauty sleep short. Besides, it's still pretty early. We have plenty of time before we hafta get on the move again. Gimme thirty minutes, an' we'll go."
It's still pretty early? Hana squints out the window, at the still-dark sky. "What time is it?"
Somehow, McCree pulls off the quip with a straight face.
"High noon."
Hana craves the sweet embrace of death.
Translation Notes:
Neh- "Yes," semiformal.
Wanjun gubjengi- Total coward ('wanjun' is total, 'gubjengi' is coward.) Handy for if you ever want to call someone a coward in Korean behind their back (which I toooootally haven't done -)
A/N:
We hit a couple of cool numbers last week!
-50,000 words!
-15 chapters!
-100 followers!
And if my chapter statistics are anything to go off of, at least 700 guests (people who are not logged into/do not have a account) are also reading along :)
So it is with utmost sincerity that I say thank you. I never expected this to get so much traction at all. Your comments and follows make my day every time- without you guys, this fic wouldn't exist.
Dragunz-
"Will you EVER update the Soldier and the Rabbit?"
(This is a very long answer post so don't bother read it if this question does not apply to you.)
To those of you who need a refresher: SATR is an indirect sequel to this fic, LOH, and I stopped updating it a couple months ago.
That's because I started both fics at the same time. I was completely wrecked from an aftergame party when I spontaneously decided to write these, creating two convoluted messes with no discernable plotline. Both were completely unplanned. Together, they were my first-ever fanfiction. I uploaded them to for the sole purpose of keeping them somewhere no one would be able to find them while I deleted them off of my computer.
I came back to them a while later, thought they were funny, edited them a little, and then proceeded to publish them on a whim. In short, some people actually enjoyed my writing, so I made the foolish mistake of trying to continue both of them at once- though I had neither the organized plot nor the time to write a story and its sequel at the same time. In the end, I just couldn't do it. SATR had some serious continuity problems that completely messed up my plans for LOH.
Time was also a REALLY big problem. I'm your average jock- I do sports basically year-round, and that sucks a lot of time and energy out of me that I could otherwise be spending on writing. (I can't even write during breaks in practices. My friends are good guys and all (read: obnoxious douchebags with good intentions), but the stereotype of the dumb quarterback has led them to believe that I am an overly masculine idiot with nothing but girls, sports, and video games on my mind. Imagine their reaction if I started bringing my laptop to team meets and working on this angsty DVA fanfiction there xD I feel their reaction would be less than positive!)
But, Dragunz-! I won't be completely abandoning SATR. That is to say, once I am finished with this fic, I will move on and write SATR sometime later. I have a bunch of things already planned out for it, which'll require me to rewrite basically everything, but it'll be a lot better than before. I'm planning to make it a lot more Soldier76-centered, with Hana being a major character (the likes of Genji or McCree in this fic) later down the road. It'll cover him entering Overwatch again, with no one knowing his actual identity.
That's that. Sorry for writing this essay of an explanation, but I think it helps to clarify a lot of things. I look forward to your comments- like, seriously, they really make my day- and stay tuned for the next chapter :)
