A/N:
In regards to the Genji cameo… opinions were almost perfectly split. One thing that most people agreed on was that I should make the choice, in the end. So I decided to postpone his re-entrance for now!

(but for how long? :)))) )

Now back to your regularly scheduled showing of The Life of Hana Song…

EDIT: For some reason this story isn't updating correctly and will not be displayed on the front page of FF's Overwatch section anymore, despite having been updated. As a note in case you get to this late, then, this chapter was uploaded on March 7th.


DVA waves brightly at the screen, though she knows her millions of viewers, however glued to their screens they may be, can't see her. "Hey everyone!"

The chat goes wild. Messages scroll by in a rainbow, ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)-filled blur. Too quickly to really read, though she can pick up a vague sense of bewilderment and excitement.

DVA grins.

She has to admit, it's real nice to be back.

Tara nudges Hana and hisses, "Hurry up! The excitement is probably killing them." The couch lets out a long-suffering creak as the older girl rocks impatiently by Hana's side, making it obvious that she was just as excited as the others.

"As you wish, madam. Let's pick up where we left off," DVA chirps cheerily into the mic. StarCraft blips up onto the holoboard screen.

"Shall we play a game?"

McCree is halfway convinced that Hana has been replaced by a clone. A bubbly, bright, smooth-talking clone engineered to be the most generically likable girl ever. Yammering away at the mic like talking to inanimate objects is second nature.

So this is why Overwatch wants the girl so badly. He watches as the word VICTORY pops up on the holoboard, much to the excitement of Tara and bored acknowledgement of Hana. Victory after victory flashes by, with the intense clicking of the keyboard acting as a sort of intermission between each.

The fastest reaction time in the world. McCree would need ten more hands to count all the practical applications of such a skill on his fingers. She would be useful to Overwatch. (She would be equally useful to Talon.)

From his position at the guest room doorway, he can only half see Tara's face. Her stunned look of disbelief has morphed into genuine excitement as she points at the screen, shouting something in Korean. Hana laughs, shouts something back, and for a moment McCree can forget what incredible danger they're in-

"-cree. Mister McCree."

Amin seems to appear out of thin air, her voice calmly robotic as always. The Omnic can be unnervingly quiet for a being of her size.

He acknowledges her with a slight chin lift. "What's going on, missus?"

Amin answers him in a sort of roundabout way. "Enjoying the view? Watching over children is always nice. It's like seeing the future grow before our eyes."

McCree snorts. "Our 'future' banks on bowls of chips and video games, then."

Amin lets out a soft, low laugh, before turning to gaze at the two. "Would that be so bad? Just relaxing all day. No conflict, and nothing to worry about." Her voice sounds wistful- a mechanical approximation of some character's longing words in some romantic chick flick. Entrenched with true, human desire.

He shakes off the odd chill it sends down his spine. "Fer old farts like me, hell yes it would be 'that bad'. Not fer Hana, though. I don't play those games, but looking at her now- even I can tell she's good at 'em."

"So you didn't know she was a good gamer before today?"

It's a thinly veiled accusation. One that McCree doesn't feel the need to refute. Call him a piece of shit, sure, because he'd blatantly lied, but he'd fess up if they caught him in the act with no hard feelings.

"Don't know nothing about Hana," he admits nonchalantly. "We met just last night. All I'm doin' is acting as a stand-in for her previous escort."

Amin's joints go click click click as she taps her fingers impatiently against her arm. "So- nothing about her parents? Family? Where she is from? Where she is going?" Her voice is imploring. "Please, McCree- she is a child."

A child.

Even if she didn't tell him herself, McCree knows that Hana's parents are irresponsible pieces of shit. Who allows their young daughter to go off with a Japanese robot-man claiming to belong to a long-dead organization?

As for where Hana is from, that's something he knows- she's from Busan. He can just imagine how that conversation would go: How do I know that? Oh, I was using a GPS tracker to watch her coordinates for the past week…

What he eventually ends up saying is, "I already told you I dunno anything."

He narrows his eyes into the blue flare of Amin's lights. "'Sides, what do you care none?"

Because the kid is as much of a stranger to Amin as she is to McCree.

"She is a person, and in need of help," says Amin smoothly. "What other reason do I need?"

The Omnic reminds him of one of those Nepalese Omnic priests. The ones that Lena always made him listen to back in Gibraltar. "Hey, Jesse, isn't this cool? Omnic equality. Imagine that!"

He'd scoffed at her and her precious Tekartha Mondotta every single time. "Things like 'Omnic equality' can't be achieved peacefully, Lena. Justice ain't gonna dispense itself."

Amin starts tapping her arm again, bringing his attention back to the present. "How long can you and Hana stay?"

Not how long are you going to stay, how long can you stay. McCree doesn't bother pretend that he's not suspicious of Amin's motivations.

"What's it to you, anyways? If I were you, I'd want my 'guests' to be outta my hair as fast as possible."

Amin's blue lights flash. There's one in the center of her faceplate, squarish and reminding him of a Bastion's eye, and a circular one on the strange metallic crest of her head. "Out of my… hair?"

He waves a gloved hand. "It's just an expression. I meant, don't you want us to leave?" After all, they'd openly admitted to being the target of a global terrorist organization. Not exactly people you'd welcome with open arms.

The Omnic seems rather offended by this, though her voice betrays nothing, as usual.

"Hana is a nice girl." She gazes at Tara and Hana, who are now intensely focused on the holoboard screen. "If you are her… guardian, than by extension, you must be a nice man. Neither of you deserve this."

McCree huffs. "Tha's debatable. I straight lied to y'all."

"To protect everyone."

Their words starting bouncing back and forth like ping-pong balls.

"I wasn't willing to protect you folks."

"To protect yourself and Hana, then."

"I'd ditch her if it came down to it."

"Only natural. You hardly know her."

"You hardly know her, and yer looking out for her."

"Unlike you, I'm not on the run."

McCree tilts his head. "We both killed people on our way here."

Even at that Amin's voice immediately pings back, synthetically reasonable as always, like an automatic answering machine. "Oh, you poor man."

Now that- that really rubs McCree the wrong way. He swings his gaze towards Amin, letting a hint of a threat seep into his voice.

"What," he growls, "do you want?"

"The same thing as you." Amin is really starting to remind McCree of Athena, with her annoyingly unflappable attitude, except with the pressing morals of Tracer somehow added on. "For everyone to be safe. People shouldn't have to run away."

He stares at her for a moment. Then he snorts and looks back towards the kids. They're letting out loud victory whoops of daebak!, whatever the hell that means.

It slips from him before he can stop it. "You'd know something about that, eh?"

Amin's lights flash again, brighter. "Pardon?"

McCree points at the lettering under her eye. He'd killed… seen enough Omnics to know about them and their ways, and how important model numbers are.

OR154's, security bots, good. Until the Omnic Crisis. Bastions, created by Torbjorn to fight for Overwatch, good. Until the Omnic Crisis.

ET-03's, simple civilians, good until-

Calm the fuck down, Jesse. ET-03s are generally harmless. It's not the Omnic Crisis anymore, he chides himself. It was a funny thing- that he'd fought in the Omnic Crisis to protect humans and robots alike, only to have these strange little feelings of distrust against them robots after winning the war.

"Yer classified as a 'free' Omnic. No masters." He takes a drag from the cigarillo, the smoke curling down his lungs and making him want to cough, and then pulls it away from his lips. "Except, for you, it's a sticker. Yer covering up yer actual number, huh? That means you had a master once. What were you? A serving Omnic?"

Amin recoils. "How-"

"It don't matter how many people you can fool with that. Least, not to me." The cigarillo dangles from his fingertips, lazy threads of smoke wisping from its end. "But the thing is, missus, even a perfectly respectable citizen like you has secrets you don't wanna splurge about, see? Same goes for me. The only difference is, yer secret still lets you settle down." McCree uses his metallic arm to gesture towards the kids. At Tara. "Have someone to care about you. Not everyone gets that luxury. I certainly don't. And neither does the kid."

The response is immediate. "I can take her in."

He nearly drops the cigarillo. "What?"

"I said, I can take Hana in." Amin's lights glow in the relative darkness of the doorway. "We are perfectly equipped to handle three people in this apartment. It will be a little cramped, but-"

Crazy. Insane. He takes back everything; Amin is most definitely not calm and reasonable.

"There's a terrorist organization after her," McCree says impatiently. "Are you 'perfectly equipped' to take care of a Talon cell?"

Amin hums thoughtfully. "You could stay with us. I assume that the gun is not entirely for show."

Instinct demands that he drop the burnt-out cigarillo and grind its smoldering tip into the carpet, until he reminds himself that firstly, he's in some lady's house, and second, he's not even wearing shoes. It's been a while since he's spent so much time indoors.

"I don't know what it is you have done in the past, Mr. McCree," assures Amin calmly. "And I can assure you that I do not care. I consider myself a good judge of character. I think you are a good man."

Oh, it would be so easy to change her mind. He's fairly certain there's still some footage left of his combat operations in London, despite his efforts to purge them off his record.

In this day and age, the world simply does not forget.

Amin forges on, earnest as can be. "If not for your sake, then stay for Hana. I… I do not know where it is you are supposed to be taking her, but even I can tell it's dangerous. If she- if you both stay here, you can lead normal lives for as long as you want. Months to years, I do not care."

The no dies on his lips as he, very foolishly, entertains the thought of staying. The thought immediately spirals out of control into an outlandish daydream.

He thinks- dreams, more like- of staying a couple months at the Lee residence. Shopping at the market. Cooking dinner, maybe- his chili con carne is to die for. Watching Tara and Hana act their age, fooling around with games and going to school. Falling for boys- or girls, whatever their preference- and generally acting like little fools.

Then once the bounty hunters catch wind of his location, vanishing into the night, leaving the little girl from that one side mission in a place that is guaranteed to be safe.

It's funnier than it is bittersweet.

"Missus," he chuckles, "I have a forty million dollar bounty on my head. Eventually, them bounty hunters will be coming to collect."

Amin tils her head. For some reason, her lack of an appropriately panicked response pisses him off.

"Let's say," McCree continues dryly, "I fend 'em off. Somehow. Then you know who's coming after us too? Talon. And 'cuz they know I'm here with y'all, they'll be sending top agents."

His arm twitches towards his revolver. A swirling pillar of smoke, a ghastly laugh, a bone-white mask-

"Tell me, missus. Have you ever met the reaper?"

Amin stares unflinchingly back. "You are in trouble. And so is Hana. Let me help you."

Do you understand, he wants to spit, what you are saying? What is wrong with you? Be scared. Turn us away.

Don't offer something so tempting.

"No." He turns away. "No. Don't even try."

This isn't the world of a dreaming sixteen-year-old boy, the one that pretends that donning a cowboy hat makes him a hero. This is a world that will never allow McCree to settle down, to stay at the same place for longer than three days.

It's the world he's created by becoming who he is- a rogue vigilante that doles out his own little brand of 'justice' wherever he sees fit.

And so it's the world that he firmly accepts with tipped hat and loaded gun.


"The first question is from 'A', calls DVA into the mic. She noisily crunches on a handful of Dorados, speaks through her chewing.

"'A' says: Where were you?" She hums loudly in pretend-thought. "And that's a very good question… Let's just say I was on vacation! I haven't had a vacation in years, as my long-time fans will know!"

The message board goes crazy. Hana half-expects the donations to start pinging in, though she hasn't enabled the donation system on Tara's holo yet. Too many security risks. Her inner sixty-year-old stingy ajumma secretly cries at all the money she's potentially losing.

"The question from 'Shavertwin1', and she says 'who's the girl that's with you? What's she saying?'" Hana raises an eyebrow at Tara, who raises an eyebrow back.

"What does the comment say?" Tara asks suspiciously in Korean.

A smile jumps to DVA's face as Tara's inquiry goes completely ignored.

She speaks into the mic with her most sarcastically cute voice. "The girl who's talking is my friend Doofus. Doofus doesn't speak English very well, and all of you who don't understand her Korean should be glad! She's a tooootal potty-mouth..."

The chat is flooded with 'KAPPA's. Tara recognizes the change in chat behavior immediately, and turns on Hana. "Hey, what did you-"

"NEXT QUESTION!" interrupts Hana, much to Tara's chagrin. She squints at the screen. "This one's from 'TraceofSilver'. Uh…. will I be streaming regularly again? Umm, no, I wish I could! But vacay's going to have to last a lil' longer, ok?"

The chat shifts from disappointment to confusion, and then to general speculation. DVA grins- that'll keep them busy for a while- before she signs off with a, "That's it for today! See you guys next time. DVA out."

She presses the power button. The holoboard screen flickers, then vanishes completely, leaving her with only the dull weight of its keyboard.

See you guys next time.

For the first time, Hana finds herself genuinely wishing that were true. Sure, she liked streaming- less for the joy of having fans and more because nothing compares to the thrill of a team-wipe- but Hana had never actively sought out contact with her viewers.

Streaming was just a job. Rarely anything more.

What if I don't ever come back? It's very possible. McCree had said so himself, and Hana is starting to trust his judgement, however grudgingly.

If she does disappear, the Internet will be left with an unsolvable mystery- one of the most popular figures in gaming vanishing, leaving behind a legacy of cryptic messages, never to be heard from again. Courtesy of Overwatch. Or Talon, depending on whoever gets ahold of her corpse in the end.

Yikes, that's… a morbid thought. Hana's fake smile twitches as she sets the holoboard down on the coffee table.

"I get it now," says Tara suddenly from beside her.

Hana turns to find that the older girl is staring at her face with an uncomfortable intensity. She's reminded of the night they first met, with Tara rudely awakening her in the middle of the night.

There's a new bandage on the girl's nose, and Hana absentmindedly wonders if it's from the taekwondo place Tara supposedly attends.

"What do you get?"

"Why I never suspected that you were DVA." Tara tucks her legs under her crossed arms as she frowns, more inquisitive than disgruntled. "You never smile."

What a peculiar thing to say. Hana rubs at the rabbit charm with her thumb, which is still tucked away in her sleeve. She does smile, and it's no different from the smile that DVA wears, except perhaps a bit more genuine. "How do you know that DVA smiles, and I don't? DVA doesn't use a webcam."

"I just watched you smile," Tara points out with a scowl. "I mean- I guess I watched DVA smile, more accurately, 'cos- ugh. It doesn't even feel right calling you two by the same name."

Hana is about to say that she and DVA are one and the same when- well, fuck. She refers to 'DVA' and 'Hana' as separate people, too.

"I smile," she says defensively. Tara immediately shakes her head.

"You don't smile, you smirk. Like you just fucked my boyfriend or something."

"Aw, thanks for your support!" chirps Hana sarcastically in a sing-songy pantomime of a DVA quote.

She gets a swung pillow to the head in response. It feels nice. Normal, even. Kind of like a pillow fight between two friends.

"I'm leaving tonight," Hana informs Tara, pawing at the pillow. Tara drops it.

"Why?" The question is painfully genuine, and while the older girl sounds gruff, Hana can detect the concern hidden throughout her words.

"I thought you said that some terrorist creeps were after you. You should just hide out here or something until the fuckers are gone."

"I can't." Hana picks up the pillow and hugs it to her chest with a sigh. "I need to get to Seoul, y'know? That's the entire point of me leaving home. Now that I have McCree with me, we can clear out all the Talon agents there and get on the subway."

Tara visibly stills. "By clearing out, do you mean-"

"Killing them." Hana smiles at Tara, and for some reason she feels bitter. "Do you still want me inside your house?"

She doesn't know why she said it- it's completely unnecessary and turns the mood into one made of ice, cold and fragile. Tara blinks at her, mouth half-open, unsure of what to say. The regret that Hana immediately feels seeping into her bones makes her cringe.

"Don't look at me like that, unnie," she laughs as she pushes Tara lightly. "I'm just kidding."

As if I could ever kill someone.


Ding.

Ding.

Ding.

The screen is too bright, and the room is too dark. She blinks blearily at the fuzzy square of white. A little pulsing red dot blinks on the screen.

Ah. How unfortunate.

She tilts her head back again into the soft cushion of her chair, closes her eyes as she speaks into the shadows. "La chica logged into her account."

The shadows speaks back.

"Where?" The voice is dark as an oil slick, with the texture of glass being slowly crushed. She's still not entirely used to its grating quality.

"Somewhere, mi amigo. I'm too perezosa to get up and see… go look for yourself."

The darkness curls out of the corner of her eye, shifting into a vaguely human form. It pauses in front of the screen, as if in contemplation.

"The apartment." His voice turns into a surly growl. "I was right."

"Never said you weren't, amigo," she chides. She swivels on her chair, slowly, lazy, to face the hologram. "But now we know exactly what room they're in, eh? Room 24. Sixth floor. Two people live there- an omnic and a girl, both civilians."

His reply is swift and dispassionate. "Tell the cell to kill them both."

She pouts, and draws her knees up to her chest in the chair. "Aw, but Gabe, they're innocents. No Overwatch affiliation."

"Get on with it."

"Okay, okay, whatever you say." She taps her earpiece, her tone more disinterested than appropriately distraught. "Theta, Sigma. I'm sending you coordinates. Kill everyone there but the girl." She turns towards the shadows. "Eeeeeven little Jessito?"

"The damn ingrate?" His voice shifts into something more menacing, as if asking what are you insinuating? "What do you think-"

Sheesh, someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed. "Yes, everyone there," she continues cheerily into the earpiece. "Gracias~!"

The line goes blip as she plucks the thing from her ear, places it on the table. The troops will mobilize immediately, if not out of fear of her, out of fear of him.

"Don't you feel sorry for Jessito?" she asks, swiveling in the darkness's direction with a kick at a table leg.

He doesn't answer. He doesn't need to. The Reaper does his job without much emotion. There are souls to reap, and whether they're his former student's souls or not matters very little.

At least… that's what he claims.

She knows better.

But oh, it's not like she has time to be concerned with such matters. A self-satisfied grin curls up on her face as with a wave of a hand, a dozen holoscreens bounce from her fingertips. Multiple shots of Hana Song in varying degrees of quality, mostly ripped from security cameras, hang in the dust-filled air.

"There's the target. Pretty little thing, isn't she?" she drawls to the darkness.

The Hanas all seem to glare at her from their respective positions. She leans in to stare at a particularly cute little photo of a cyborg handing the beaming girl a piece of goldfish bread.

Ooohhh, yes... the cyborg. And Sombra chuckles because it's funny, too funny, to imagine what the girl's reaction will be.

"Qué chica tan desafortunada."


Translation notes:

La chica- 'The girl'. Chica is a more casual word for 'girl', as opposed to 'muchacha.'

Mi amigo- 'My friend', masculine form.

Qué chica tan desafortunada- 'What an unfortunate girl.'

Perezosa- 'Lazy', feminine form.

Jessito- Adding -ito to a noun makes it diminutive in Spanish. For example, adding -ito to the word 'gato' (which means 'cat') would make it 'gatito', or 'kitten'. Same with perro (dog) into perrito (puppy) and so on. So by adding -ito to a person's name, it sounds somewhat affectionate ('Jesse' into 'little Jesse'). Of course, in this case, calling Jesse 'Jessito' is more sarcastic than anything.

Chili con carne: A spicy stew containing chili peppers, meat, tomatoes, and other various vegetables. The literal Spanish translation would be 'chili with meat' ('con' is 'with' and 'carne' is 'meat'.)

Daebak- Korean slang that is roughly equivalent to 'awesome', or 'cool.' It's a little newer in terms of Korean words, so it's frequently associated with the vocabulary of a teenager. Can be attached to the ends of sentences as a stand-alone (Damn, is he a model or something? Daebak.)

Unnie- Similar to 'oppa,' it means 'older sister'. This is what a female would call an older female; males would call an older female 'nuna'.


A/N:

Surprise, surprise! I didn't tag all those Talon agents for nothing.

Here are the in-game voice lines used in this chapter:

DVA: Thanks for your support! (played when DVA is given five upvotes to her card post-game)

McCree: Justice ain't gonna dispense itself. (played when McCree spawns into the map for the first time)

Reaper: Calling Jesse the 'damn ingrate' is a reference to Reaper's voice line, 'This is where I picked up the damn ingrate.' (played when Reaper spawns onto the map Route 66, which was frequented by Deadlock back in the day.)

Those were all from memory, so feel free to correct me on any of these if I was wrong.

A surprising amount of people have tried correcting me when I called Genji 'Mr. Suzumo' and McCree 'Matthew Mercer'! Just to clarify, they were using fake names on purpose.

I do have basic knowledge of the game (like I know hero's real names and all) because I actually do play the game- I'm a salty Diamond rank dps main stuck in elo hell :')

I appreciate everyone who tries to help, of course, but just keep in mind that if I make a mistake that seems very basic, it was probably intentional ^^