Chapter Text
When Genji finally convinced Hanzo to join Overwatch, Hanzo knew what he was in for. He was in for dirty stares from people who knew what he had done, and wary looks from people who had heard the stories. He would be going in completely alone, but that was nothing different from how he had been living for the past decade. Genji had reassured him that all was forgiven and that he would at least be by his side, but Hanzo knew he couldn’t trust that. Not that he couldn’t trust Genji, but he couldn’t trust himself to accept any kind of forgiveness shown to him or feel at ease knowing he was stealing time Genji could spend with people who hadn’t tried to kill him.
Still, the hostility he faced made him feel like the redemption he thought he had been working so hard toward had been reset and that he had to start over. At the same time, being visibly hated by someone who wasn’t himself served as a nice benchmark for how far he would have to go to achieve his desired redemption.
It was just a matter of convincing everyone he deserved it. Most of all, himself.
As soon as he was able, he volunteered for as many missions as he could. He had to start out with small ones, accompanying Genji in almost all of them, in order to prove he was trustworthy; but once he had, he worked as hard as he could to prove he was a powerful asset. He knew that if he could show he was useful, the sting of the past could possibly be replaced with the good he was doing in the present.
On his downtime, he kept to himself as much as he could, wanting to be as little of a burden as possible. He only took up as much space as he needed, only ate what was offered to him, and only left his room when absolutely necessary. The way he saw it, if he was more of a ghost than a guest, he would be harder to hate.
To his credit, it mostly worked. Many agents stopped regarding him with distain and more just started to ignore him. Once he had proven his skills with the bow, some agents even began to request his presence on missions. A rare few offered small talk in the dropship, to which he responded, grateful for a conversation that didn’t start with a guilt trip. He had never been the best conversational partner, but he tried.
By the end of his first year, he had managed to have a neutral interaction with everyone on the base, including the cowboy.
Jesse McCree had made his intentions very clear from the moment Hanzo had stepped onto Gibraltar. He had cornered Hanzo and made sure to remind him of how he saw, first-hand, what he had done to his brother and how it had destroyed him in every way and how if Hanzo even thought about betraying them or jeopardizing a mission, he wouldn’t hesitate to put a bullet between his eyes.
“If you’re lookin’ for forgiveness or somethin’, you ain’t gonna find it here,” he had practically spat before turning away, leaving Hanzo to stare after him with a well-practiced passive gaze.
From then on, McCree had always been the most critical of Hanzo and the most open with his hatred. The first couple of missions they went on together, McCree had chewed him out for every little thing until Hanzo had no choice but to snap back, only making things worse.
It didn’t help that, because he was his brother’s best friend, every time Genji invited Hanzo to accompany him somewhere, McCree was usually in tow. Hanzo had always figured it was Genji’s not-so-subtle way of attempting to bridge the gap between the two.
In a way, it worked.
In Hanzo’s imagination, when McCree finally warmed up to him enough to not scowl at his very presence, he would show it a way akin to a simple nod of acknowledgement when Hanzo made a good shot. The reality, however, had been so much better.
Genji had invited the two to his room for drinks on one of the rare days all three of them were on base. As per usual, Hanzo left most of the talking to McCree and his brother, opting to simply drink instead. Most of his attempts to speak were usually met with a sarcastic remark from McCree, so he usually just kept quiet.
However, the alcohol made his tongue become looser as the night wore on and at one point, one glorious moment, he had dared to make a joke at one of Genji’s comments. The delivery was flat and monotone, and there was a beat as the other two occupants took a moment to realize he had even spoke, and then, McCree laughed. Hanzo did not even remember the joke he had said that night, but he would never forget the warm, deep laugh that he drew from the cowboy. He still thought about it sometimes.
Since that night, McCree must have come to the conclusion that maybe Hanzo wasn’t all that bad. He stopped throwing his more intense insults, leaning more toward teasing as time went on. He still didn’t like Hanzo, and he still let him know this, but he didn’t antagonize him as much, which was something Hanzo counted as a victory.
Perhaps it was that same night when the seeds of illness had first settled into his lungs, lying in wait.
-
Several months later found Hanzo on a mission in Ilios. Overwatch had caught intel on some Talon activity in the area and sent a small squad to intercept them. Hanzo, of course, was in his usual position: as high as he could get while still maintaining some semblance of cover.
He watched the surrounding area for any signs of movement. When he found none, he nocked a sonic arrow and fired it at a building he couldn’t see behind. Sure enough, red outlines of Talon soldiers appeared, crouching just out of sight.
Hanzo frowned and activated his coms. “I have visual. There are five in the building on the northeast side of the square. They are armed.”
“Roger!” Came Lena’s cheery voice. “Only 5? I thought there would be more. I can take them all out in a jiffy with a pulse bomb.”
Hanzo hummed. “Something is wrong.”
“I hate to say it, but I agree with Shimada,” Lucio said. “This has to be a trap, right?”
“Just keep your eyes peeled, archer.” McCree’s voice was low. He was the closest one to the building and was trying not to give away his position. Hanzo could see him from where he was perched and tried not to think of the irony of the cowboy in spurs being the stealthy one.
“Should I call my MEKA now?” D.Va whispered, even though she was far from the action.
“No, stay put and don’t draw attention to yourself until we figure this out. Got it?”
Everyone sounded out affirmations.
“Good. Now,” McCree continued. “I’m gonna enter through the south door. Shimada, you keep an arrow trained on the other exit in case they try to make a run for it. Tracer, Lucio, D.Va, stay hidden until things break bad, which I have a mighty strong feelin’ they will.”
“You are going to take them on alone?” Hanzo knew he shouldn’t question their team leader, and he knew McCree could easily take on 5 targets, but in such an enclosed area where it was obviously a trap? It didn’t seem like a good idea.
“Yes, don’t question me, Shimada,” McCree shot back with no small amount of annoyance. “Just stay your position. On my mark.”
Hanzo bit his tongue and raised his bow, aiming at the entrance he was told to guard as he watched McCree head toward the building.
McCree seemed to fiddle with something on his belt, then, in a practiced motion, he kicked open the door, threw a flash bang, and before Hanzo could even process what was happening, he heard five gun shots followed by complete silence.
He was about to relax his bow when he heard gunfire coming from where the others were supposed to be stationed and Lena’s voice crackling over the coms. “McCree! It was an ambush! We need backup! Now!”
Cursing to himself, he stood up from where he was crouched, intending on moving his position so he would have sights on whoever was attacking the others, when a bullet whizzed by his arm, barely missing him and imbedding itself in the stone wall behind him. He immediately tucked and rolled, moving behind the nearest pillar.
“Shimada! Get the hell over here! We need cover fire,” McCree barked in his ear.
“Working on it.” He sent a scatter arrow in the general direction of where the bullet had come from and hoped he hit the sniper before trying to move again. He must have hit his assailant because he did not have to dodge any more bullets as he ran across the rooftops to where he knew Lena and the others were stationed.
They were effectively surrounded. Every time he took a Talon soldier down, another was there to replace them.
“Where do they keep coming from?” D.Va’s voice was slightly strained and very worried.
Hanzo heard McCree grunt and give a frustrated growl before giving the command to retreat. But even then, Hanzo could tell not all of them would make it. There were too many. They were closing in too fast.
After what felt like several grueling hours, their team managed to get within range of their ship. Lena had been able to zip on and start the engines while the rest tried to stagger closer and closer.
They were slowly getting cornered. So close, but if they dared to break ranks in an attempt to run to safety, they would surely be gunned down.
“Come on!” Lena urged.
When D.Va’s mech finally fell apart from taking too many hits and D.Va herself was exposed to the onslaught with no armor, Hanzo reached behind himself and found he only had one arrow left. Trying not to panic, he assessed their situation. Most of the soldiers were in front of them, all clustered. It was then that he knew what he needed to do.
“Head for the ship. I will take the rest.”
“Hey. I call the shots ‘round here. There’s no way we’ll make it if we turn our backs on them.”
“Trust me.”
“And why the hell should I do that?”
Hanzo jumped down to be in the front of their little group and nocked his last arrow. He knew they had no reason to trust him, but there was no way they’d make it out if they didn’t. “Just trust me. Head for the ship.”
He didn’t wait to see if McCree had another snarky comment or if he even headed toward the ship. He focused his energy and felt his dragons waking up.
“Ryuu ga waga teki wo kurau!”
Twin dragons made entirely of blue energy erupted from his bow and guided his arrow, killing all who dared to be in their path. They took out almost everyone, allowing their team the time needed to retreat.
Satisfied, Hanzo turned his back, intending to run to the ship to join everyone else when he heard McCree shout something, followed by the unmistakable ring of a sniper taking a shot. Hanzo closed his eyes and braced himself for the impact of a bullet. What he didn’t expect, however, was the impact of a body.
Someone large seemed to have fallen on him and it was only when he was able to wiggle out from under them did he realize it was McCree. And McCree had been shot.
McCree had taken a bullet intended for him.
Hanzo didn’t have time to be shocked. Not now. As fast as he could, he lifted McCree so that he could drag him onto the ship. He hadn’t even had time to check if the wound was serious. There was no time to panic.
When they were half way up the ramp, Lena began to close it and take off. The change in angle and momentum sent Hanzo stumbling forward, the weight of McCree causing him to fall fully into the ship, crashing to the ground. Lucio and Hana were quick to take him, pulling him off of Hanzo and immediately attending to his wound. Free of McCree’s weight, Hanzo pulled himself up to sit against a wall to try and catch his breath.
Lucio was frantic in trying to heal McCree, amping up his music to make the nanobots act faster, using the first aid kit kept on the ship to remove the bullet and bandage him up. Hanzo watched with rapt attention. If McCree died because of him-
No, he would not let himself think that far.
It wasn’t until Lucio heaved a sigh of relief and said, “he’s going to be alright,” that Hanzo felt himself finally take a deep, fulfilling breath.
They had made it. They were safe. McCree was going to live.
Without the roar of the battlefield and the fear of losing McCree, he was finally able to process what exactly had transpired.
McCree, a man who he thought very much disliked him, risked dying so that Hanzo would live. Why would he have done that? Hanzo was sure he had done it just because McCree was a selfless man, but even so, just the gesture made his chest feel tight with an emotion he was unfamiliar with.
No one had ever sacrificed themselves for him.
Even after everyone had settled down for the short flight back to base, assured in the survival of everyone on board, Hanzo continued to stare in wonder at the man who laid on the floor in front of him, surrounded by the warm, healing glow of whatever nano-technology came stocked with the ship. He looked peaceful. He looked almost angelic.
As soon as he had that thought, he felt his chest constrict as a cough made its way up his throat. He didn’t think much of it, placing his hand over his mouth to cover it. The exposure to debris and dust from a battlefield caused many people to cough once everything had settled down.
When he pulled his hand away, however, he found a single, blood-red rose petal laying delicately in his palm.