A/N: I mention something about Hana's beliefs regarding religion in this chapter. It's short but it's there. Generally speaking, don't let anything I write in this story influence your faith in a religion or lack thereof; these are the fictional views of fictional characters :)
Also, you may be wondering WHERE THE HELL WERE YOU, TEX? I'll explain later. First, here's a chapter twice as long as usual in compensation.
"GG," yawns Hana, falling backwards onto the pillows. Tara snorts and swings a lazy hand at Hana. Somehow the half-assed hi five manages to connect with a solid clap.
"You should go pro, dude," the older girl insists. She sits up straight to glower at the screen that details Hana's score, more like it's her enemy than something to aspire to. "Imagine all the cash you could win! You'd be positively rolling in-"
"No," Hana says firmly. She stares up at the whitewashed ceiling from her back, at the little cobwebs crisscrossing the leftmost corner of the room. "First of all, I'm not even old enough to- I turn sixteen sometime this or next year. Second, I'm gonna join Overwatch. My mind is set; there's no other-"
"You're not old enough to play friggin' StarCraft but you're old enough to go around swinging a gun?" Tara twists to fix Hana with that piercing stare, as intimidating as usual but somehow softened with something resembling concern. "Look, I don't know anything about your situation, but like boi. Even I can see that logic doesn't work. On like, any level."
Hana pushes herself into a sitting position. She knows. She's heard all of this from DVA already.
"It's not a matter of am I old enough, it's a matter of how old do I have to be to be accepted?" Hana grins at Tara. "It's a matter of are you going to treat me like a goddamn child?"
"You are a goddamn-"
"Nobody has the right to say that," Hana continues lightly. "Not anymore."
Tara gives Hana a long look. Then she shuts the holoboard with a huff.
"You're like the main character of a bad fanfic," the girl mutters. Her short, dark hair shutters over her face with every tilt of the head. "There's nothing I can really say to you, can I? I can't blame you for anything. I'm the fucking bad guy."
No, you're wrong. I've done so many things wrong.
"If I'd been kinder to my mother after she became an alcoholic," Hana offers, "I'd never be in this situation. I'd have gotten rich off of competition cash- like you'd said- and I'll be a famous idol with nothing to worry about."
It feels so damn good to just let it all out.
"One of my friends got shot because I was a little bitch during a fight, and another one of my friends is risking his neck to transport me to Seoul 'cos I can't do it on my own." There's a little DVA sticker plastered onto Tara's holoboard, grinning up at her like a cruel joke. "I'm good at playing games but because I'm on the run I can't even do that. And now I'm hiding out here instead of-"
Tara lets out a bark of laughter. Hana blinks, unaccustomed to being interrupted during one of her tirades.
She grins a crooked smile. "Fuck off, Hana Song. You're doing great."
And Hana thinks that's probably the best consolation she can get.
She wonders if she and McCree think more alike than either of them would like to admit. The decision to leave behind Amin and Tara was formed separately by each but seemed so completely obvious to both. Neither kindly Omnic nor teenage human had a place in the world of resurrected organizations and terrorism.
Neither do I, really, Hana can't help but think. Oh, well. As soon as they got to Seoul, the sooner life would become safer.
Midafternoon brings a tentative group lunch and final farewell. Tara seems more disappointed that Hana is leaving than concerned for her well-being, though Hana can't really blame her- everything she'd said about being chased by Talon must feel so disconnected from Tara's reality, which seems to consist mainly of overcooked lunches, StarCraft, and taekwondo practice.
Amin, on the other hand, is unusually quiet as she watches them eat their spicy tofu stew. She gathers the empty bowls and puts them into the dishwasher with a strange solemnity at the end of the meal.
Hana is shuffling through Tara's old shoes, trying to find a pair that fits better than her boots, when she is approached by Amin. An electronic throat-clearing alerts her to the Omnic's presence.
"I bought you a jacket."
Hana blinks at Amin as the Omnic holds up a muted pink raincoat.
"That's… for me?" She looks down at the jacket she's wearing- being Tara's, it is far too big, with the sleeves extending past her fingertips- and then looks back up at the kindly robot.
The first question that jumps to the forefront of Hana's mind is why do people think I like pink so much?, though the first thing she ends up saying is "Aww, Amin."
"Do you like it?" The Omnic's voice sounds pleased, as if a smile would be on her faceplate if she could physically express such emotions. "I don't think Tara minds you borrowing her jacket, but it's much too big for you to be convenient."
Hana slips the jacket on. To her surprise, the shiny jacket fits like a glove. A smile creeps onto her face. "Yeah. It's awesome, Amin. Thanks."
Amin hums contentedly while Hana runs her hand down the smooth fabric, a heady sense of wonder filling her head.
This is a gift.
Hana used to receive so many gifts, back when her mother and father were still together. Little things like shoes, clothes, breakfasts, lunches and dinners. There was a little souvenir shop by Father's work place that sold these little furry keychains, and he'd buy her one every month, as she was intent on collecting all forty-six.
Then Father had turned tail and run, and the absence of those gifts left a gaping hole in Hana's life for the majority of fourteen years.
It feels strange, really, that people are starting to give her things again. Genji with his rabbit charm bracelet, which is wrapped tight against the pulse of Hana's wrist. Amin with her jacket.
McCree with his gun-filched-from-a-Talon-corpse, though she thinks that had been more out of necessity and less out of friendly spirit.
Surrounded by the dusty quietness of the closet, with the buckles of McCree's boots clinking in the distance, the sense of appreciation is suddenly amplified when she realizes that these are gifts she can never return.
"I can't repay you," Hana says dully. She turns to look at McCree, who's pulling on his boots by the door, gun glinting at his hip. "I'm probably not even going to come back here, you know?"
There's an awkward silence, filled only with the slight whirring of Amin's metallic carapace.
Amin lets out a quiet sigh. She smooths out the wrinkles of the jacket on Hana's shoulder with a metallic hand.
"Gifts," The Omnic says quietly, "are not meant to be repaid."
She lets go of Hana's shoulder. Hana lets go of a breath she'd never known she was holding.
The Omnic takes a step back, her lights seeming to glow brighter than ever in the darkness of the walk-in closet. "I," she says with a light little laugh, "wanted you to stay. I tried convincing McCree of that, but-"
"I can't."
No hesitation. Amin's lights dim ever so slightly.
"But why?"
If Amin has already talked to McCree about this, then she should know why. The why being, Amin and Tara are civilians, and Hana's very presence goes against the very grain of their normal lives.
So instead of reiterating that point, Hana sighs and looks up at Amin.
"Someone promised me," she says after a moment of hesitation, "that I would make it. Not to Seoul- not to Overwatch- just, that I'd make it. And I believe in them as much as they believe in me."
She waves at the closet, the dusty shirts hanging from crooked clotheshangers. At the little apartment. At Tara and Amin. At the entire peaceful district of Busan, bustling with thousands of people going on their day-to-day-lives.
"If I- If I want to make it, I can't play it safe." Hana looks straight into Amin's glowing blue light. "I can't have all this. Life is all about compromises. My compromise is this; and because of it, I need to go."
Amin stays remarkably still, even for an Omnic, as if contesting everything Hana had just stood up for. Hana stays still as well, challenging the challenge. Shoulders squared, back straight. Refusing to break eye contact. Because this is something she truly believes.
Hana would be lying if she says the thought of staying hasn't crossed her mind at least once. She could give up on this entire endeavor. Give up on Tracer, on Overwatch, on Genji.
The world is dangerous. Amin and Tara are so nice to her. Nobody would blame her for wanting to stay.
Nobody but herself.
Because the truth is? Something feels inherently wrong about staying. Hana- not DVA, just Hana- she's truly starting to face her problems now, isn't she? She can't just run anymore. She can't stop now. I can't stop now.
As if Amin too finally understands that, she deflates.
"I understand," she says quietly, her voice a low thrill of synthetic vocal cords. "Even though I don't think it's right. I will miss you."
"I WILL TOO, YOU BASTARD!" comes the bellowing cry from the other room, and Hana nearly snorts with sudden laughter. Apparently Tara has been eavesdropping on what had otherwise been a heartfelt conversation up to that point.
All tension drains from the closet.. Hana smiles up at Amin, who tilts her head back with a low, amused sound. Together they leave the closet to face the door, where McCree is standing (and casually smoking).
Tara stands there as well, sporting her trademark scowl as though she is angry. Unlike when they first met, now Hana knows better.
Tara is not angry. She is probably as sad as Hana.
"Here." The girl thrusts a flat, black device at Hana- she recognizes it as a phone.
"What's this for?" Hana takes it from Tara and examines it. The phone is a bit primitive, as it seems to require a solid screen, but it's in working condition nonetheless.
Tara's scowl deepens, and she swipes her short locks of black hair away from her (still bandaged) face. "So that you can call me when you settle down somewhere, you goof. My number's saved on to it." She claps a hand on Hana's shoulder, causing her knees to buckle from the sheer force of Tara's arm. "If you don't call me, I'll hunt you down. Arasuh?"
Her overly hostile words simply warm Hana's heart. She's about to express her gratitude when another thought jumps to the forefront of her mind, and she spits it out without thinking: "Why do you care?"
Tara blinks at her. McCree half-turns from behind Hana, lets out a long whistle that may signal either that's actually a good question or oooh, roasted!
It's a genuine question. What did you do to deserve this kindness? Endanger their lives? whispers DVA in Hana's ear, that ever-present sarcasm rich in her voice.
Besides, Tara had been against Hana staying at the apartment from the very beginning, right? It just wasn't logical-
"Firstly, you're my StarCraft idol- DVA- meaning that there's now way I can't like you. Secondly… I mean, you're my friend." Tara frowns and puts her hands on her hips, as if she is reconsidering. "What other reason do I need?"
Hana freezes. She's aware of Amin and McCree watching her and Tara very closely.
…My friend.
The last time she'd had a friend, he'd gotten shot. Hana trembles with the sudden mixture of elation and terror, at all of the if's and when's that define their 'friendship', bonds so close to snapping but so dear to her at the same time- she acts on impulse, swamping Tara in a big hug.
Tara's arms hover awkwardly in the air over Hana for a few uncertain moments before she slowly returns the hug. Hana can't see her expression from where she is buried into the front of Tara's sweatshirt, but she likes to imagine that Tara is smiling.
Oof. And there's Amin's hug added on with a content sigh. The carbon fiber arms wrapping around the two girls are surprisingly warm.
Hana pulls away. Cracks a grin. Fights back the urge to laugh.
Somehow manages not to cry.
"See you guys around."
Tara lets out a huff of breath as she backs off, obviously flustered. Hana waves at them fake smile plastered to her face like a wet piece of paper, while McCree solemnly tips his hat at the pair, ever the typical cowboy.
His drawl is smooth and belies no nervousness. "Good day to you, ma'am. And you too, lil' miss," (directed at Tara, who snorts.)
He's the first one to step out, without a backwards glance.
And that's where they differ, she supposes. Hana can't let go of them as easily.
She takes a step out the door and looks over her shoulder. Tara's torso inclines in a short little bow, while Amin merely nods at her. Hana smiles and waves back, blows a pretend-kiss at Tara, who smirks and pretend-kisses back.
Her first-ever friends, one being more like a mother to her than her actual mother. She's never- she's never had friends before, she doesn't know how to have friends. But these people had been so patient to her, as patient as Genji or perhaps even more so.
Now she's leaving them behind.
Some deeply buried part of Hana hopes, prays for the first time in thirteen years to whatever uncaring God that may or may not exist up there, that Tara and Amin Lee stay safe. If He who had been so horrible to her throughout her life so far had any conscience whatsoever, he would shield them. They deserve that much.
They deserve it so much more than I do.
The streets are bustling with people once again, but something feels more subdued about the air. McCree is whistling a vaguely country-sounding tune, to the amused looks of Hana's fellow Koreans. He points Hana in the direction of Jungsoo Station.
"See here," he says importantly. "There's gonna be Talon there, sure, but there'll be civvies there too. The station is still in working condition-"
"The hell are 'civvies'?" interrupts Hana. Probably some kind of military jargon. McCree waves his hand, eyebrow twitching like he's annoyed.
"Civvies? Y'know, civilians. Like yer Tara and Amin." He twirls his hat on his head, a fancy little trick that must've taken ages to perfect. "Anyways, civvies can still use the station without even noticing Talon, but Talon's filtering through the system looking for you."
"And you," points out Hana. He considers this with a rubbed chin.
"Yeah," he says after a moment. "If they find me, they're gonna try killing me, too. Have you tried visiting any other station that has a Seoul route besides Jungsoo?"
To be completely honest, that hadn't even crossed Hana's mind. She thrusts her hands into her jacket pockets, feeling a bit stupid.
"No. Tracer-nim kept saying to use Jungsoo Station. Because it's the only one under Overwatch protection-"
"Yeah, yeah, Lena was always a bit of a stickler for that kind of thing. 'Overwatch protection', my ass." The sarcasm in his voice is positively frigid. McCree sets off down the street, and Hana has to jog to keep up with his long strides. "Well, the point is, there ain't a single station in Busan right now that's under her precious 'Overwatch protection'. Talon's on all of 'em; I checked. So might as well visit Jungsoo instead of another station. It's the closest one."
Hana switches from jogging to speedwalking. "You… worked with Tracer-nim before," she wonders aloud.
It's a strange realization, mostly because McCree seems much older than the British agent- no, that's not true, Hana remembers, they're about the same age… it's just that the chronal accelerator helps stick Tracer's appearance permanently in her twenties. Maybe that's what makes her such a timeless classic of a hero.
But even without taking account their looks, the difference between the two former agents is stark. McCree feels older. He talks like a cynic, he talks like he puts all his old memories on a shelf and periodically examines them closely, looking for what he did wrong- and boy oh boy, he has a lot of filled shelves. On the other hand, Tracer is filled with a vigor for life that exceeds even Hana's, who is decades younger.
"She was a chipper fella." McCree turns a right, nearly colliding with a lady in a white tracksuit walking an equally white dog. He grins it off, sending the confused-looking lady on her way. "Still is. Unlike Genji, she hasn't changed much."
Oh, that's right. McCree worked with Genji too. That's an even stranger thought- the cowboy and the cyborg ninja dude walking side by side. If McCree acts like he's older than Tracer, then Genji is the hundred-year-old cyborg ninja monk that outages them both, in both wisdom and manner of speech. She looks up at the cowboy, who's scanning the street before him as he walks.
"What was Genji like when you were working with him?" If he really did change at all…
McCree pauses and looks down at Hana, hat tilted quizzically on his head. It was a simple question, so why does he look so… uncertain?
After a long moment, McCree turns away and starts up with his walking again.
"Bitter. Angry," he says gruffly. "Didn't even speak English when he first joined up, so everyone on base thought he was mute or some shit like that. Had a difficult life, the poor guy."
Hana tries to picture an angry Genji. She almost fails, save for that one memory of Genji facing off against Mr. Seon, deadly quiet and armor gleaming in the low light.
The way McCree describes him, Genji seems more like a prisoner of Overwatch than an agent of it. That bothers her on a personal level.
"He said," starts Hana carefully, uncomfortably aware that she is treading in unfamiliar territory, "that he had his body augmented because he had to, not because he wanted to. Does that mean… he got hurt so badly, that… that level of cyberization…?"
She trails off, uncertain. McCree lets out a sigh as he takes a sharp right down an alley.
"Did Genji tell you any of this?"
Hana blinks up at McCree. The bearded man is looking directly ahead instead of making eye contact, as is usual for him. He's avoiding my eyes, she realizes.
Was this really that touchy of a subject? Genji had said very little about his past, but then again, neither had she. Only natural, really, as their histories weren't especially relevant to the mission.
Of course, that doesn't mean Hana isn't curious about it at all, especially now that McCree has brought it up. In fact, it's starting to really bother her.
She frowns as she walks. She… really knows nothing about the man, apart from his being Japanese. Genji hadn't even given her his last name, for whatever reason.
But it's difficult to imagine that Genji would withhold such information just because he doesn't trust Hana with it. No, that can't be it, she decides firmly.
"He didn't say anything because I never asked." Hana rubs at the rabbit charm with her thumb. She remembers their conversation in the rice storage shack, as if from a distant dream. "He told me he had an older brother once, though."
That gives McCree pause. "He did what?"
The fact that McCree sounds so shocked is frankly insulting. They were close. Hana and Genji knew each other. Her brow furrows as she repeats, "He told me he has an older brother. I think… I think his older brother is dead now, though." A pang of sadness shoots through her heart. "I dunno, he seemed kind of… torn up about it? So I didn't want to pry."
"Thank fucking goodness you didn't. Well, damn." McCree turns on his heel to stare at Hana, who hastily steps back. What- why does he sound so incredulous?
"What?" she snaps, suddenly feeling defensive. "Did I do something wrong?"
"No. It's-… eh, Genji tends to keep things to himself," mutters McCree, looking over Hana again. "It's just- odd."
The hell is that supposed to mean?
"Why? What happened with his brother?" McCree starts off walking again, and Hana hurries to catch up. "What did he do before he joined Overwatch?"
McCree's growl is low. "Those are his secrets to spill, missy, not mine. He doesn't mind who he was in the past, not at all, but he don't like me talking about the others in that past. Especially that brother of his."
"Holy fucking hell." Hana grabs at McCree's serape to slow him down, seizing fistfuls of the red fabric, with all the fervor of someone being left on a cliffhanger. "You can't just leave it at that!"
Unfortunately for Hana, McCree weighs almost three hundred pounds to her one hundred and ten, and her efforts are tantamount to a rabbit trying to bring down a coyote. He simply walks on, ignoring her questions, dragging her behind him by his serape.
McCree doesn't understand, Hana realizes. McCree doesn't understand that Genji trusts her. Her ninja wouldn't mind it if Hana knew things about him, right?
"Wait, McCree-"
"Sorry, little missy." He continues on, his manner suddenly brisk and professional. "That's not of any concern right now. What we gotta talk about is the formation them Talon agents will be in."
"I don't-"
"Because it's a public station and because they don't know where you and I are at any given time, most of the agents will probably be grouped up t'gether on one side of the station. If they spread out, easy pickings for me, see. An' if they're being obvious about their watchin' the station, then the civvies will notice and cops will be called. So once we get past the ticket-buying, we have twenty seconds tops to git on the tra- er, subway."
"Stop FUCKING interrupting me!" Seriously, what was-
"Hana Song." McCree whirls on his heel, sending Hana scrambling back with the sudden eye contact. His dark eyes are piercing, and her heart jumps with the stare. "Right now, we gotta focus on getting the hell outta here. We have a good chance of survivin'- Korea's too well-protected for 'em to just swamp us with sheer numbers- but still, a sect can outnumber us ten to one at any given moment. Keep your head up, eyes alert, and focus. We're not dyin' here, not today."
The protest dies on Hana's lips, and she's struggling to find something to say when the cowboy holds up a silent hand. He suddenly flattens himself against the wall, leading Hana to mirror his actions hastily, heart jumping to her throat because holy shit, is Talon just around the corner?
His tone is still brisk. "We're here. You have yer gun?"
The environment's sudden change from easygoing to sharp as a knife unsettles her.
Hana feels for the cold metal handle of the Talon revolver, tucked in a belt loop underneath the folds of her new jacket. Her hands are shaking ever so slightly. "Uh… yeah, I have it."
"So you're ready, then."
Not in a million years. "I didn't say that," she mutters.
"Then say it."
Hana tucks the fabric of her shirt around the gun, making sure it's thoroughly concealed. "It."
McCree doesn't groan in an exasperated fashion like she half-expects him to. Instead, he throws back his head and laughs.
"Yeah, you and Genji would get along just fine."
He sets off toward the station, leaving Hana feeling very confused and oddly pleasant.
The entrance to the subway is marked by arching gates and signs. It looks like a hole into the ground, with the steps descending directly to the subway trains. Hana and McCree follows a quiet stream of people into its depths with no problems.
Hana has ridden the subway exactly once before, when she was visiting her aunt in Seoul as a five-year-old girl. Things are mostly like she remembers- the huge, underground tunnel is sleek, tiled with white panels, and lined with bright lights. Guard Omnics stand in front of the subway doors, informing in calm Korean, then English, to "please step back from the opening doors." The impossibly long trains they guard are constantly affected by the ebb and flow of people- being filled, then emptied, filled, then emptied.
Hana watches the process in fascination as she and McCree step up to a scanning booth.
"Hello," intones the Omnic fixed in place at the booth from behind the glass. A blank smile has been printed onto its boxy face. "Where is your intended destination?"
"Seoul," drawls McCree. He plucks a wallet from his back pocket with deft fingers. "We're both goin' together."
"I see." The Omnic turns slowly, mechanically, towards the holoboard embedded into the side of the booth. "Please give me your credit card. Your credit card. Your credit card."
Hana blinks, attention turning towards the Omnic. It suddenly swivels back towards them in its seat, that printed smile still gleaming fakely as ever.
"Your cred- credit- c-c-c-c-c-"
Suddenly, McCree draws his gun in a blur of motion. An ear-splitting BANG, and Hana reels back as the Omnic's head jerks from the recoil of the shot.
Its torso spasms as wires fizzle and pop. There's a little hole drilled straight through the metallic sheen of its forehead.
Hana's mind freezes.
Oh my fucking god. McCree you f-
The screaming begins again, as screaming generally seems to be the first thing humans do when presented with sudden gunshot noises. Passengers stream off the train in hordes, a blur of rain jackets and bobbing black umbrellas, while McCree calmly pops a cigarillo in his mouth.
Hana's senses finally return. Because McCree had just shot a fucking subway Omnic, Talon- Talon must know-
"McCree, we need to go!" she practically shrieks. "They know we're here!" She reaches for her own gun, draws it with shaking fingers.
He tilts his head at her, eyebrow raising in an amused, absolutely irritating sort of way.
"Whatcha talkin' about? They already know we're here."
He gestures towards the Omnic he just trashed as it sputters weakly, sending sparks flying. "It recognized us, denied access, stalled 'til Talon got here- and there we go!"
He points with two fingers down the hallway, at the swarm of black suits coming down the hall. Hana nearly drops her gun.
There are a lot of them this time- so much more than she'd ever seen before. Even from far away, she can see that they have guns, but they're not shooting, confirming Hana's theory that they want her alive. She's frightened, because there's nowhere to run, meaning that there's no way out-
McCree? Not so much.
He vaults over the closed gate, sprinting with those long legs toward the subway. There are still passengers sitting there, paralyzed by the sudden commotion. Hana exhales a shaky breath as she realizes that this crazy American is still intending to board the train.
She ducks under the gate, hurtles towards the door. The subways have been completely automated since the turn of the century, meaning that Talon probably doesn't have the means to stop one of the trains in its tracks.
At least, that's what I'm fucking hoping!
McCree hits the glass window of the subway with a muted bam! Passengers shriek and reel away from the door, while McCree's face twists in confusion. He turns to the rapidly breathing Hana. "It's sealed shut!"
"WHAT?" Hana grabs at the doors, trying to pry them open, fingers scrabbling for purchase against the slippery metal.
The cowboy pulls back his fist again- this time the solid metal one- and smashes it into, through the little window, sending glass flying. Hana reflexively shields her face as she stares, because the window is too small for anyone to climb through-
"HELLO!" bellows McCree, waving frantically at the passengers within, eliciting a startled shriek. "Could somebody, y'know- open the door-"
The train begins to move, sliding slowly forwards. Adrenaline bursts in Hana's veins, she presses her hands against the door and yells, in Korean, "Please, they're going to kill us!"
Talon swarms the station; she can see them out of the corner of her eye, like a monster in a horror movie that the camera never clearly focuses on. McCree curses and pulls out his gun.
"Please," begs Hana, hands against the glass, and her voice breaks in the most heartwrenching way even without any effort put towards faking sincerity. They're so close, so fucking close, they can't just be stopped now.
The message gets across to the frightened civvies- Hana and McCree may be dangerous people with guns, but they were still human. And in dire trouble, to boot.
One of the women inside jump to their feet. Begins pulling on the door, which obviously won't open-
Another man stands, tries to help out the lady. Hana can hear them through the broken window, shouting something about the door malfunctioning.
Not malfunctioning. The realization hits Hana with all the force of a nail into a coffin- Talon doesn't need to stop the train if they can just stop us from boarding in the first place.
The subways speeds up. Hana wants to cry as it slips from her fingers, and she has to step back as it becomes a sudden blitz of glass and steel. The lady and the man yell something- an apology- that is quickly caught up in the wind of the speeding train. Too fast to board. Too fast to catch.
In the space of three seconds, Hana's chance at getting to Seoul is miles away in the dark subway tunnels.
Haaa…. Fuck.
She rubs at the rabbit charm as she turns, facing McCree. They're surrounded at all sides by Talon. Hana can count at least twenty black-suited agents around them in a loose half-circle, pinning Hana and McCree against the tracks.
Maybe it's just that they're quiet, or maybe Hana's gone deaf, because all she can hear is the thump, thump, thumping of her heart.
This seems, in all ways, like a last stand. McCree is fast but not fast enough; nobody is. His chances are slim even if Talon wants to capture them both alive, which apparently they don't. Hana is the only one they need, meaning McCree is bullet fodder either way. The only thing keeping him breathing as of the moment is Hana's proximity to him- if they open fire now, there is a very big chance that Hana will go down as well. A chance that, apparently, they can't risk.
She forces her hands to still. The cowboy stands right beside her, eyebrows furrowed, cigarillo still wisping lazy curls of smoke from its tip. Hana can't possibly know what he's thinking, but if she had to guess, it would be something along the lines of fuck. You sure got me into a damn mess, kid.
But Hana can't- she won't let him die, even if she doesn't trust or even know him. She simply can't live with the fact that she caused an ally's death. Either both of them leave this subway alive, or neither of them.
Hana's hand twitches towards Tara's phone. She has one last call to make.
Amin. I'm sorry.
Jesse McCree's arm is so fast that it nearly knocks the breath out of her, wrapping around her and pinning her to his body. Before the words what the actual fuck, you goddamn American can get out of her mouth, something cold buries itself into the side of her head.
Sadly, it's a very familiar feeling. Han doesn't need to turn her head to figure out that McCree's beloved little gun is ready to send a bullet through her skull.
"M-McCree?" Her voice comes out like an unintentional squeak. Twenty guns click into fire-ready positions, echoing loudly in the open space.
"You know the drill." McCree is- he sounds lighthearted, casual, as if he isn't about to get shot dozens of times. "Let me go or the girl dies."
"You wouldn't." The voice that comes from a centermost agent is distorted by that sound modulating thing that seems to be built into every Talon mask. "We all know-"
"-basically nothin' about me, if you'd pardon my interruption. Except that if it's between me and some girly I don't even know walkin' out of here alive, I'll pick me every single time." Hana dares a glance upwards, and yes- the smile she hears in his voice is actually there, on his face.
He continues. "I know you been after this lil' girl for a while now. And you must want her real bad if you're riskin' operation in one of the most populated area of Korea, hn? And yer boss wouldn't be that happy if she went bye-bye."
The arm around Hana's neck is positively constricting. She knows it's acting- at least, she's hoping it is- but being put in such close quarters with someone positively radiating malicious intent is making her want to jump into the ocean, scour the feeling off of her crawling skin with scratching fingernails.
She shivers.
Talon is motionless. Hana stares into the void of one of their masks. She wonders, not for the first time, if they are all secretly clones of one another like the Storm Troopers from Star Wars, and not men and women that once had families and friends.
McCree purses his lips. "So. Git outta my way."
It's gotten to the point where even Hana can't tell if McCree is acting or not. The Talon agents obviously feel the same way, as she can almost see them squirming in their combat boots. Her hands are cold, so cold, but the rabbit charm is so warm in her hand-
The cowboy takes a step forward. With a rustle like crinkling aluminum foil, Talon rearranges itself as it takes a step back, agents warily training their guns all over McCree's body.
He grins, flexes his gun hand like a butterfly. Hana can tell that all eyes just focused themselves on his gun, still aimed at Hana's head.
"Yeah, you may not be scared of me," he drawls. "But yer scared of the Reaper, aren'tcha. I've heard the stories. I've seen the corpses."
One of the Talon agents speak up again, a different once this time, though with the same mechanical voice. "If you take another step forward, we will shoot-"
"Oh, you wouldn't dare." The steel pressed against Hana's head lightens in pressure, ever so slightly, and all Hana can think is I swear if you're thinking of doing something stupid-
"It's high noon."
In retrospect, McCree says it very quietly. But in the resounding silence of the room, the words sound like he'd bellowed them.
But the loudness of the words are nothing compared to the crash of six shots, hammering off one right after the other, bringing down six agents all at once like dolls clattering to the ground. Hana hurls herself against the ground as Talon gunfire joins the echoing boom that results; the wind is knocked out of her lungs but she scrambles onto her hands and knees anyway- McCree yells over the chaos, "HANA STAY DOWN, THEY WON'T SHOOT YOU, STAY DOWN!"
Bullet sprinkle around her in a circle- even she can tell that the agents are giving her a wide berth in gunfire- while McCree rolls, yes, rolls, past her behind a telephone booth, which offers him some meager shelter from the bullet hell. Every shot he cracks off fires true, straight through some agent's helmet. One Talon agent sprints towards Hana, who is left cowering alone in the middle of the floor. McCree shouts-
It's okay, just breathe!
Hana whips out her own gun without thinking, aiming and pulling the trigger in a split second. The agent halters mid-stride like he'd hit an invisible wall, before falling like a human domino to the ground. A burning feeling races through her arms, through her veins, but it's not the feeling of poison like from the sniper. It's the feeling of power.
It feels amazing. It feels amazing. It feels- she has control over-
"MOVE!"
Hana jerks into action right when the tranquilizer dart spirals through the air where her arm had been just moments earlier. The sniper from earlier was back, apparently, but like hell Hana was going to let them hit her.
She zig-zags and leaps directly behind the booth, nearly colliding with McCree from the momentum. He reeks of his signature smoke smell, but from this close she can also smell something else- the fragrance of herbs.
"Let's wait them out," Hana says immediately. Bullets still spray around them, obviously trying to keep both of them from moving, cracking concrete with large sparks. "If they don't want to hit me, they can't do much, right?"
RATATATATAT- even with all this new pulse tech, everything sounds so loud-
"Nah." McCree suddenly whips his gun around the corner, fast as a viper; there's a resounding bang and the sound of a body hitting the floor. Twelve more to go. "I betcha the bastards have already called in reinforcements. If we sit here, we're dead- me 'specially. We hafta strike first."
Was that so difficult? McCree had that one incredible move, the one that wasn't even possible, sending six shots out all at they have that on their side, then the rest of this fight should be a piece of cake! She has to yell over gunfire to get her message across, hope inflating in her chest like a fragile balloon- "You can do that fancy thing again! Like, shoot a bunch of them at once-"
Unlike Hana, who has to pipe to be heard, his drawl is low and cuts through the noise without effort. "I can't. I… it puts a real strain on my eye."
What? She glances at him. And could it be her imagination, or are the circles under his eyes darker? The droop in his shoulders certainly wasn't there before.
McCree drops the still-smoking cigarillo from his mouth, lets it twirl onto the shiny white floor.
For some reason, the cowboy looking so tired strikes a vein of fear in Hana's heart. "Uh, dude, are you okay?"
He huffs through his nose, shifts his seat. "Never been better."
The peppering of gunfire slows as McCree and Hana give no indication of letting up. The cowboy sighs, pats down the hat low over his head. "On the count of three, roll out, and we're shooting down as many as we can. Don't get too close because incapacitatin' you from there would be the easiest thing in the world for any of 'em. Meet by the next ticket booth." He motions with his neck at it. "I'm gonna go after the sniper."
"The sniper?" Hana resists the urge to look for the elusive figure. "You found them? I haven't seen them even once this entire time." And yet they've nearly hit me so many times, she wants to add.
"Yeah, I think I know where they're hiding out." McCree cricks his neck, tenses his body, his drawl low and casual. "Three- two- one-"
On one McCree hurls himself from the shelter, his serape a crimson blur. Hana sprints in the opposite direction, gun out, aiming and firing as if she knows what in hell she's doing.
Bang- bang- bang- She hits two, and she can't tell if they've been killed or just hurt, though they yell like they're dying either way. Another one- no rush; she can take her time because they're so afraid of killing her-
A body hits the ground with a sickening finality, seemingly having dropped out of nowhere. A long rifle tumbles from its lifeless hands, similar in make to Amari-nim's but not quite as polished in its shell, as if it is a prototype of some sort. McCree had taken care of the sniper, as promised.
Blood pools by the masked sniper's head. DVA's first reaction is not horror, like Hana's- it is a blood-curdling, self-satisfied thought of good.
Instead of running for the next ticket booth, Hana ducks behind a gate pillar and begins firing from there. She's probably missing more shots than she's landing. There are no bright splashes of red blood, no neon-colored pixels spelling out her increasing kill count to indicate that she actually hit someone. Half the time she can't tell if she's hit someone or not, mostly because McCree is getting some of them before she can even pull the trigger.
One gunshot rings louder than the rest- a dull ping, like its bullet has sunk into metal- and McCree jerks back behind the booth to where she can't see him. Alarm makes Hana's heart ring like a bell; she fires off at another agent and sprints to him.
There are no visible wounds, but then again, his serape is red- she runs a hand over his cloak, checking for the telltale wetness of blood. McCree pushes her off with a grunt; she scrambles back in a buzz of panic.
"'M fine, it just got my arm. Just got startled, that's all."
True to his word, there is now a gaping hole in the center of his metallic forearm, a mess of fizzling wires and pointy metal edges. It hangs useless at his side, swaying limply from his shoulder.
Well, it's not his shooting arm. Hana lets out a little sigh of relief that somehow exhales all the oxygen from her lungs. "Ugh, thank God. I thought you got hurt."
It hurts like fucking hell.
The first thing about modern prosthetics, the thing that no one seems to understand, is that the best ones should be wired to have nerves. Pain is the driving force behind life- without a feel for it, McCree's arm could get blown to smithereens and he wouldn't even notice.
So he should be glad that Angela had taken so much time carefully replicating the human nervous system through electrostimulation in his shit prosthetic arm- he should be damn thankful-
McCree is not thankful right now.
Fire burns in that hole in his arm, razing nonexistent flesh with its wrath. He huffs, places a tentative hand over the gaping injury- it doesn't feel like an actual wound, not at all. It buzzes and hums like his arm is constantly being electrocuted. His poor metal arm had never been shot up this bad before.
But maybe it's the knowledge that the wound won't kill him- that there's no chance of McCree bleeding out, or getting an infection- that somehow lessens the pain's intensity. Makes his eyes water a little, but little else. He moves it experimentally, holding back sounds of pain when it zaps his shoulder joint.
"If you're fine, let's get out of here," says Hana with a broad grin. The front of Little Missy's fancy new jacket is covered in dust and shrapnel, as are her dark locks of hair. Her eyes are bright and earnest- a disturbing contrast to the carnage around her. "Listen. You don't hear any guns, right? We must've scared them off."
The girl is right, though they'd less 'scared them off' and more of 'outright killed three quarters of their team'. If McCree went back in time and told his three-weeks-ago self, lounging at a bar on Route 66, that he'd one day team up with a pink-jacket-wearing teenage girl to destroy an entire Talon sect, his three-weeks-ago self would laugh. Laugh and call his future self drunk. Tip back a whiskey and fall soundly asleep, drooling against the hard wood of the bar table.
How things have fuckin' changed.
They make their way out of the subway, plans thoroughly thwarted, and yet Jesse feels a small bit of pleasure because he's somehow not dead. Hana has an odd, twitchy smile on her two-shades-paler face- adrenaline, or perhaps the sudden lack of it, is most likely stringing her along on a strange ride of emotions.
Jesse feels something that maybe Genji had once felt, when the robot man was looking after her.
She's still smiling. McCree can't stand it.
"Are you okay?"
Her chatter is bubbly and bright, and so empty. "'Course! I didn't even get hit once. I know they weren't aiming for me, but… it felt like I had an invisible shield around me or something. Like, daebak." Hana grins faintly at McCree as she takes a tottering step onto the next stair. "I may not be as good at aiming as you, but because I always shoot first-"
"That's not what I meant." McCree turns to face Hana, who blinks at him in mild confusion. Something about this girl just bothers him, or maybe it's just what the girl stands for that's starting to get to him- the fact that kids can wield guns and unlike in McCree's times, not get arrested for it by the law. Become encouraged by the law to keep going, to push the violence further.
Is this really what Overwatch stands for?
"Are ya fine. Mentally."
She purses her lips, a little furrow appearing between her brows. "McCree, you know I've killed people before."
He tries to move his injured arm, curses when it sparks like miniature fireworks. Uses his good arm to point down the stairs. "This many people?"
A gentle breeze sweeps the open air, blowing the suffocating stench of blood and pulse ammunition towards the west. Night is breaking across the district, causing street lamps all over the city to flicker to life like a scattering of fireflies.
Hana's high, childlike voice is sharp as ice.
"Jesse, I'm fine."
Dare to object, her posture says, rigid against the moonlight.
All of a sudden, the air seems too cold against McCree's tan skin. He wonders if he's broached a touchy subject-
Then the subway explodes.
The only warning he has is a blinding flash of white seconds before the sounds hits- a BOOM that pounds on his eardrums like an overly enthusiastic drummer- McCree moves without thinking, bodyslams Hana to the cold cement, one arm over her back and the other clutching his hat on his head-
WHOOOSH! Fire and smoke rolls from the hole in the ground in a sudden plume, sending waves of heat slamming into McCree's back like a physical force. Hana screams something, muffled against McCree's chestplate. There's nothing but roaring in McCree's ears, the roaring of fire and flame from the hole that was once a subway, and now the entrance to motherfucking Hell.
"Where the hell do they think they're aiming?!" yells Hana, scrambling out from under McCree to a good distance away from the heat. He follows as best he can- goddamn, this arm, I gotta detach it- before he twists to observe the wreckage.
The entrance remains relatively untouched. But the inside, where the bomb's must've detonated, are completely obscured by roiling flames, blurring the air above it with heat waves. The fire spills from the mouth of the subway like a monster trying to drag itself from a pit, to feast on the fuel that McCree's and Hana's bodies provide.
Well, then. The rest of the Talon fuckers must've blown themselves up. Like Jefe always said, failure is never an option for a terrorist.
"They weren't trying to kill us. They knew it wasn't gonna get us," mutters McCree as he scrapes himself off of the ground, his metal arm giving a jolt with the motion. Masking a grimace of pain as just squinting into the flames, he continues, "Nah, they knew it was gonna cost them to clean up the mess we left behind there, so instead of bothering to do that they just blew the place up."
He waves his gloved hand in a slow rainbow across a sky of dark blues and firey reds. "Twenty firebombs equals nothing left. Smell that stench? That's burning corpses, m'friend."
Hana, against all odds, brightens like a light. "So we did it! They gave up. Look at all the shit we caused."
She waves at the wreckage, and McCree has to admit, it's an impressive sight. An odd feeling of shared pride permeates the air.
Wanton destruction of your enemies tends to do that.
Yes, that's right. McCree and Hana are both alive, untouched… well, perhaps not untouched, but he did it. He'd protected the target and his first Overwatch mission in a decade was a success.
"Fuck," whistles McCree, quietly. Under his breath.
He's mildly surprised to hear an echo of that sentiment just to his right, just a little bit louder. "Yeah. Shibal."
McCree turns to look at Hana Song. There's just the smallest grin on the short girl's face, crooked against her pale skin.
Now, McCree is no expert when it comes to foreign languages. He'd half-assed his entire sporadic trip to Korea, and neglected on all of that pre-op stuff that Blackwatch had made him do back in the day- brushing up on the culture, the language, blending in with the locals. He didn't know any words or common phrases in Korean. Hell, he didn't even know how to say hello.
But with a certainty that rings deep in his bones, for some reason that transcends language barriers- he knows- he just, he just knows- that 'shibal' is the Korean equivalent of fuck.
"Fuck," he says, louder. With more energy, and a crooked smile of his own. He plants his hands on his hips and glares down at Hana, daring her to try topping that.
Hana's grin grows wider, and she yells, positively screams into the frigid air, "Shibal!"
"Fuck!"
"Shibal!"
"FUCK!"
"SHIBAL!"
"FUCK!"
"SHIBAL!"
They're laughing like maniacs, they're laughing like idiots. The police can come rolling by any second now, and they'd see a grown-ass man in a cowboy hat and a short, skinny girl in a pink jacket shouting their heads off into the night. Surrounding by roiling smoke and glowing cinders, and the ruins of public property. The heat from the subway is searing his skin, even from twenty feet away.
Maybe they've finally gone insane.
Well, McCree thinks between choking bouts of laughter, even if the world is falling down… at least I'll have a partner.
He wipes his streaming eyes to look at Hana, who's doubled over, wheezing for breath as pathetic, breathless chuckles roll from her mouth. A little miss.
Warmth flares in his chest, hotter than the Nevada sun.
It feels damn good to have a partner.
She feels sort of like a badass. She'd shot so many Talon agents, made it out without a scratch. Sure, perhaps that was because they were trying not to damage her- in her mind, it's still a notable accomplishment.
The elusive terrorist sect hunting her down, cornering her in a dead end?
I've done it, DVA whispers to herself. I killed them all.
The little Talon pulse gun rests heavy against her jeans, surely close to out of ammunition, though she knows not how to check. Her hands are oddly clammy; she wipes them on her jeans with a tremulous sigh.
What have I done? Hana whispers to herself. I killed them all.
But DVA's mood will not be ruined. Her thoughts shoot off on the previous tangent- that if this is how things are, then- couldn't she go back and visit Amin and Tara? Surely she and McCree would be able to defend the two from Talon. The indomitable terrorist force didn't seem nearly as threatening now.
"Say, McCree," she says, turning towards the cowboy. His walk is unsteady, as if the lack of control in his mechanical arm is unbalancing the man. But when he meets her eye, there's a twinkle in there she's never seen before.
"What is it, miss?"
"We can visit them, right? The Lees, I mean. We turned away Talon once, we can do it again. I mean- once we go to Seoul, and I get my training done and shit."
McCree tilts his head, his hat nearly sliding off his skull with the movement. "Once you become an Overwatch agent. Then I s'ppose it's definitely possible. If they want to, of course."
"They'll want to." Hana checks the map leaflet- the nearest subway is a good mile away, unfortunately, and was going to take a lot of walking.
Their glorious plan was to blindly tackle another subway as soon as McCree got his shot-up arm fixed, this time armed with past experience and the knowledge that Hana was not to be harmed, no matter what. To blend in- get on the subway with a crowd-
Her new phone started buzzing against her leg, blaring a J-rock ringtone from Hana's back pocket that suits Tara more than words can express.
Hana arches her eyebrow at McCree. He shrugs back at her, an obvious it's yer call.
Against her better judgement, Hana picks it up. "Ahnyunghaseo?"
"GET TO MY APARTMENT. BRING THE COWBOY." Tara's voice hits Hana like a wall of sound, loud and genuinely afraid.
That scares her. She's never heard Tara sound like that before. "Wait," sputters Hana, her mind blanking in confusion, while McCree leans in with a curious look. "Wait, Tara, what's-"
"I don't know. I'm at my taekwondo place- I'm going there right now- Amin just called me, says there's some man at home, scary looking guy with a- a skull mask, that he's looking for you, and that I shouldn't come home. Just-" A guy in a skull mask? Hana's never seen anyone like that- Tara's voice rises, sharply, "Just hurry up, you bastard!"
The phone clicks off. Hana stares at the object in her hand, totally dumbfounded.
Could this be related to Talon? All the operatives wore masks, didn't they? But the way Tara described it, they'd just sent one agent-
McCree speaks up. "Hana, what the hell did she say?"
Hana gives him the three-second version: "Guy with a skull mask showed up at the apartment."
She looks up at McCree and her heart sinks. It's just as she feared; his skin is a shade paler and his brows furrow and it's every sign of recognition being displayed on his face at once.
As far as Hana knows, the people that elicit that sort of reaction from McCree just can't be nice.
They need to go now.
"McCree, they're in trouble. We need to leave," says Hana, panic rising in her throat again. "We need to help them-"
He crosses his arms. "No."
Hana blinks, mouth still half-open, because her brain simply cannot process what he had just said.
"What?"
"This is the only chance we're going to get." When he turns towards her, shadows seem to gather under the brim of his hat, blotting his face out with a swatch of pure darkness. "My arm's shot up. Yer almost out of ammo. If we go there- it's not just them that's going to die. D'you know who that man in the mask is?"
Hana lets out a breathless "What the fuck, McCree?"
McCree takes a step forward, towering over her, continuing in a growl. "That is the Reaper, Hana. His skillset is clearly a direct import from Overwatch- or more specifically, Blackwatch. Meaning he received the same training as me, fer way longer, and with my arm being as it is, there ain't a snowball's chance in hell that we can kill 'im. If we go to the station knowing he ain't there to stop us, we're being smart."
She refuses to be cowed. This isn't some people she doesn't know that they're talking about, it's Amin and Tara. Her words are biting- "You're a fucking coward is what you are. They helped us, and you just want to let them die?"
"HANA." McCree is practically shouting now as he seizes her by the shoulders; she jumps a foot but he doesn't let go. "I'm sorry. I don't want this either, but we don't have another fucking choice. You will be caught if you go there. That's what they want."
"That's right. I don't have a fucking choice." Hana pulls away roughly, hands trembling. The rabbit charm jingles distantly from her wrist to the rhythm of her throbbing pulse. "I need to go there. Even if you won't. I have to."
Jesse McCree's voice rises, frustrated and angry and it hurts. "Yer going to die. You can't do this, think about it, it's not logical-"
If I go, I will die. If I don't go, I will one day kill myself over the guilt, I swear to you.
She can't stand it anymore- she turns, tears away down the street; McCree's yell of "HANA!" being lost to the stamping of her shoes against the cement.
There are tears burning in her eyes, tears that she refuses to let go. She has to go. Logical? This is what's fucking logical.
I mean, we're friends, aren't we?
A/N:
AaaAAAAAHH. Where to begin.
I haven't forgotten about this story, not at all! In fact, I was working on it for most of this month- it's just been slow going because I jammed my hand on a football. Two fingers, to be exact, are broken.
So I've had to hop around the keyboard typing with one hand because the other one's taped up, and it's pretty painful to use. I now sympathize with McCree in the story…
Also, if you hadn't noticed, this is about 2.5 times longer than my usual chapters! The same will probably apply to next chapter, which will also take a while to write because my broken fingers obviously haven't healed in the space of a month.
I've still been internally thanking all the new followers and giggling like a little girl over all the comments- thank you so much, everyone. You guys are the reason why I've even bothered trying to write this chapter with only one hand.
About the next chapter… as a general warning, there'll be a lot more of everything- dark thoughts, emotional pain, injuries and gore, character introductions(!), depression, fighting and action.
No spoilers. So just be prepared.
