Chapter Text
Sometime between midnight and three in the morning, someone decided to take Jesse McCree’s already impressive bounty on his head and double it.
McCree knew this because Fareeha had called him at five in the morning with the opening “what have you done now!”
It only took McCree a few seconds after waking up to come up with a list of possible offenses a mile long. Which included, but was not limited to, trying Genji’s sword which he’d been banned from touching since the cake incident, encouraging Tracer to use her speed to steal Morrison’s food, and letting Hana have a sip of moonshine.
None of these examples were the reason for McCree’s bounty. In fact, McCree had not done anything. Except for existing.
“The Deadlock gang,” Morrison told him at the meeting that morning, a picture of his new impressive bounty of the screen. This one was not from the government proper, but from an underground black market. Jesse McCree’s life, worth one hundred and twelve million dollars. Which was actually a lot higher than McCree expected. “They want your head on a platter.”
“A platter.” McCree sat at the end of the table, the subject of attention for this meeting. The rest of the gang on base had attended for the most part, except for Hana who was doing a livestream in the entertainment room. “That doesn’t seem like their style.”
“Actually they want your other arm in a bag,” Winston said. McCree grabbed his other arm, cradling it close to his chest. Ouch. “But semantics.”
“Well that’s just not right,” McCree muttered. He looked at the bounty. That was a high number. “Why they want me dead so bad? Last time I checked, they didn’t give a rat’s ass where I ended up as long as it wasn’t on their tail.”
“We think it’s new management.” Morrison again. A picture came up on the screen. McCree recognized him at once. Old guy from Deadlock. Old guy from Deadlock who he busted last month. Old guy from Deadlock who’d always hated his ass.
“Well shit.”
“That’s right.” The picture went down, placed by the normal Overwatch logo. “Given circumstances, we’ll have to be on guard from here on out. McCree, no leaving the base besides missions until we get this handled.”
McCree couldn’t help it; he actually groaned.
“Oh come on. Lockdown? Seriously?” He glared at Jack. “I’m not a kid anymore, ya know. You don’t need ta ground me for my own safety.”
“You wish to put yourself in danger when you are being targeted?” Hanzo’s voice was as dry as ever. “Have you no concern for your own life?”
“You’re one to talk, Mr. “my life is worth ten billion Yen.” McCree watched with glee as Hanzo looked away. “I read. You’re worth a pretty penny. Everyone in this room is with what we’re doin’.” He pointed to the screen, the Overwatch logo shining bright. “Everyone’s got a piece up their life up for sale on the market. I’m just a little expensive at the moment.”
“You’re a mansion with a hot tub,” Genji said from next to him and McCree immediately reached up his hand for a high five. Genji slapped it back. Across the table, Mei covered her mouth with her hand to hide her giggle.
“Don’t encourage him, brother,” Hanzo said, still not looking at the pair.
“I wouldn’t if you had told me your bounty had gone up as well.” Genji’s voice was serious now, accusing. “Is the clan truly that invested in your death?”
Hanzo didn’t answer. Another meeting interrupted by Shimada drama, McCree thought. They should get a chart. Mei could crunch the numbers and get some good statistics out of it.
“McCree is right ya know,” Lena spoke up. She never liked silence. “Not like they can find him, with how often we’re in and out of places.”
McCree couldn’t see Morrison’s face from under his mask, but he was sure if he could, the man would be scowling. Lena looked entirely unaffected. Despite her perky attitude, she was as hard as the rest of them. Just wore a softer shell over that steel.
“No trips outside the base alone. Until the bounty is down,” Morrison said. McCree sighed. Better than the alternative, but still not ideal. Babysitting. He was too old for babysitting.
“I will gladly accompany you anywhere if need be, McCree,” Genji said. McCree smirked at him.
“You just wanna kick my ass at darts.”
Genji didn’t reply, but the hum he let out was as close as McCree would get to a confession.
Later that night, he called Fareeha about the matter, letting her know everything had been settled. She wasn’t pleased when he refused her offer to help track down the man who placed the bounty, but eventually McCree convinced her he’d be just fine as agents got on the matter.
“You got better things to do, kid,” he said, leaning back on his chair, phone tucked under his chin. “Justice can’t wait on old men.”
“You’re thirty seven, Jesse.”
“You thought I was old at twenty.”
“I was thirteen.”
“Point stands.”
They chatted a little more, catching up. Proud as he was of Fareeha, he disliked they were apart so much. With Overwatch spread so thin, they rarely were in the same location for long, constantly bouncing across the globe. He understood why she was so busy, she was truly her mother’s daughter, but he missed her sometimes. She was the closest thing he had to family in the old days. Like the little sister he never had.
Which meant teasing her was always in order.
“I remember when you had that bob-”
“ Jeese .”
McCree laughed. The hour was late. “I gotta get going kiddo. Early morning.”
“How many times will I have to tell you to stop calling me kiddo?”
“Till the day I die.”
Her mouth grew into a strict line. Oh, she was going to beat his ass for that, next time they sparred. “Not funny.”
“It’s little funny.”
“Jesse.” That was her serious voice. It reminded McCree so much of Ana it hurt some days. God, he missed her. “Be careful.”
“Aren’t I always?”
The silence was telling.
“Ouch. Hit a guy where it hurts.” McCree put his hand over his heart, mock offended. “Alright, alright, look, I’ll be careful. Check round corners and everything. Even follow the stupid buddy system they got set up.”
“Promise?” Fareeha rarely asked for promises.
“Cross my heart.” That looked to appease her and Fareeha’s smile grew sly.
“You know,” she said, looking off into the corner. “Maybe you could bring your new friend of yours for protection. The archer fellow. The one who you think smells like flowers and-”
McCree promptly hung up on her. He’d made a classic mistake.
Any teasing he could dish out, Fareeha could dish right back.
After a week of being on the assassin market, McCree’s bounty went up another million.
At this point. McCree was starting to feel like the prettiest girl at the prom.
“What did you do to this man, that he wants you dead so badly?” Hanzo asked on a day to town to grab supplies. McCree was still allowed out of base, but he had to be in disguise now. Wearing long sleeves wasn’t his style, but if it let him on the move, McCree would deal.
“Did you steal something of his?” Mei was a few steps in front of them. With the rise in the bounty, McCree also now had two escorts. Now that he minded: Mei was good company. She was picking through the frozen goods in the grocery store, wearing nothing but a tank top. McCree was pretty sure she ran cold automatically now.
“What makes you think that?”
“You’re an Outlaw. Isn’t that what you do?” McCree looked at her and she smiled. “I used to watch Westerns. Someone at the old base brought them for nights between research. I loved them.”
“You’re tellin’ me you’ve seen High Noon?” McCree heard Hanzo groan. Mei nodded, a smirk on her face.
“Yes. But Magnificent Seven is better.”
“Wait, who’s your favorite. Eastwood or Wayne?”
And that was how they spent ten minutes in the freezer aisle, debating the best movies of the genre as Hanzo ran his hand across his face.
“If you must know,” McCree said when they were at the checkout, getting enough food to keep Lena moving for at least a week. “I challenged him to a shootout back in the day. Tryin’ to prove myself, you know. And he took me on.”
“He wishes you dead because you defeated him?” Hanzo sounds almost disappointed.
“Well, that and I shot his hat off his head cus I was a cocky son of a bitch,” Hanzo’s mouth dropped open a fraction and Mei clapped her hands together. Given her taste in entertainment, McCree would have to tell her stories more often. She could appreciate them. “I blown a dozen of his robberies too, so that’s probably the big reason. But I doubt he ain’t sore over that hat. It was nice.” McCree frowned. “Much have been a bitch to replace.”
“Was it nice?” Mei looked away from the cashier. McCree nodded.
“Designer.”
“If you were perhaps not so determined to show off, you may not be in this situation,” Hanzo said. McCree looked over his shoulder.
“Doubt it.” Hanzo’s scowl remained. “You’re worried bout me?”
“Of course.” And didn’t that throw McCree off guard. Hanzo could go from defensive to open in seconds, depending on if he found it important or not. McCree was still trying to get the hang of it. They were friends now, good friends he’d reckon, but the man had enough history that McCree was sure he’d spend the rest of his life digging it up. “The amount on your head is sizable. I’m concerned someone may try to claim it.”
“They’d need to be a goddamn genius.” Hanzo didn’t look convinced. “Overwatch is hard to track. They ain’t gonna find me before they find them. Just like they ain’t gonna find you.”
Hanzo’s eyebrows rose. “They’re attempting to dismantle the price on my life as well?”
“Well of course. You’re family at this point.” McCree watched as shock covered Hanzo’s features. “Oh come’on, don’t give me that look. You’ve saved our collective skins dozen times over. That’s family in my book. Ain’t that right, Mei?”
Mei looked back at them and just smiled.
“I-” Hanzo cut off. He looked downright flustered. After a few false starts, he finally spoke. “Thank you, McCree.”
“No problemo.” McCree reached forward to the candy section and placed three suckers on the conveyer. Trying to distract himself from the fluttering in his chest. He thought he’d grown out of this in middle school. Crushes. Though that might have been an understatement, given how much he enjoyed spending time with Hanzo as of late. “Now tell me, Shimada; how you feel about grape flavor? Cus I got cherry here and I’m not about to separate Mei from green apple.”
He didn’t notice the way Hanzo was staring at him, a fond smile on his face, as he blabbered away.
Another week passed. McCree’s bounty went up another thousand.
“Not another million?” McCree said, staring at the screen, in route to a new mission. “Guess they don’t like me as much. Shame.”
Hanzo responded by promptly smacking him on the back of his head.
The mission was simple, covert like all their missions were these days. Didn’t want reformed Overwatch to be picked up by the UN. They took a longer team than usual, but otherwise the job was the same. The usual. Nabbing bad stuff from the bad guys. Leaving it for the good guys. Then running off the celebrate a job well done.
They made good progress, the mission getting done in under an hour. The bad guys went down quick, and by the end of it, there were only a few left. Morrison had the main point, working with McCree, and arrows flashed above. McCree watched as one sailed into the chest of a Talon droid and grinned.
“Good shot!”
The com crackled. “You do not have to shout every time I hit my target.”
“Why not? It’s impressive!”
“It’s annoying.”
“You’re no-”
It happened all at once. A crack in the air. Morrison in front of him turning around, mouth in mid-shout. A sudden pain in his chest, like getting hit with a sledge hammer. Voices, screaming all at once as he fell, unable to stand up.
“For the Deadlock Gang!”
“McCree!”
“Jeese!”
“Jesse!”
“Shit!”
“ Jesse! ”
Huh , McCree thought as he hit the dirt. So Hanzo did know how to use his first name.
The sand stung and he couldn’t move as the world around him moved into chaos. Morrison was standing over him, gun raised.
“McCree is down!”
Angela had appeared out of nowhere, McCree thought. She lifted him into her arms, and God it hurt.
“I’ve got him.”
“I’m coming with-”
“Morrison-”
“I’m coming with. Mei, Lucio, Genji, get to the point! D.Va, Hanzo, the assassin.”
“On it!”
McCree felt himself be moved. It was harder to breath now. The word was going dark. Shock, he thought. He looked up at Angela.
“Angie?”
“You’re going to be alright McCree,” she said, looking straight ahead. “You’re going to be fine.”
McCree passed out to the sound of Morrison speaking to Angie as they ran.
He woke up in a room he didn’t recognize.
It was Overwatch, that was for sure. Had to be part of the main base, given the design of the structure. But McCree had never seen this part of the medical ward before, usually used to the lower bay with more beds.
Ending up in a part of medbay he didn’t recognize? That was never a good sign. It meant he’d gone and fucked himself up more than usual.
He tried to sit up. His chest hurt something horrible. He felt like he’d been run over. The memories from the mission came back, the bullet in the air, the shot in his chest. He gave up trying to move into a sitting position.
This wasn’t the first time Jesse McCree had been shot. But man, did it feel like the worst.
“Jesse!” Angela walked in the door in front of his room. She was in her coat, and Jesse did his best to smile at her.
“Hey doc. How bad am I?”
“Almost roadkill.” Morrison followed in after Angela. He wasn’t in his armor but his mask was still on. He walked over next to McCree and shook his head. “You gave us a scare.”
“Not my fault asshole found us.” He closed both eyes then opened one. “How did the asshole find us, again?”
Angela and Morrison looked at each other for a moment.
“A mole, we think,” Angela said. “We’re looking for them now. Which is why we put you here: security.”
They weren’t telling him something, McCree thought. There was something in the room he was missing. He looked over at the pair and frowned.
“Why is no one else here?” Morrison and Angela were silent. “Am I gettin’ the silent treatment or what?”
Angela spoke first after a moment. “Jesse...there’s a mole here. In our organization. We have a better chance of finding them if they think they-”
It hit McCree at once. He sat up straighter. Looked at Morrison. Scowled.
“You did not tell everyone I was dead.”
It came back in a moment, the feeling of burying everyone, after Overwatch. How he couldn’t bare to show up for the duo’s funeral when the thing came crashing down, too busy trying to drown himself in a bottle of whiskey. How angry he’d been when he found Morrison had been alive all this time, playing possum while he sulked around the Earth-
“Of course not.”
McCree stopped his tirade in mid sentence. “What?”
Angela was staring at Morrison as he spoke. “There’s a mole in Overwatch Jesse. We told the organization you were dead. And the press. Not everyone else.” McCree looked at him for a moment. “The core group knows, McCree. Told them personally.”
“You did?” Skepticism. “And everyone ain’t here hollering at me cus-”
“The mole is in the organization. And we’ve been known to fake this before.”
“Right.” McCree hoped Morrison could hear the venom in his voice.
“We can’t have them finding out you’re still here. Thus secrecy is essential. We can’t allow them to visit until we find the mole.”
“And how long is that going to take.”
“We’re aiming for twenty four hours. You’ve been out for three days already. We’ve made progress”
McCree stared at him for a long moment before turning to Angela. Angela hsi friend, Angela who’d worked with him since the beginning. “Angie,” he asked. “That the truth?”
Angela didn’t even falter before answering.
“Yes.”
McCree watched her face for a moment. For the tells he knew her to hide before playing cards. He saw no sign of them. At last he sighed.
“Fine. But someone get me my damn serape. The red one. It’s my favorite.” Morrison and Angela headed for the door. “And a note to everyone apologizing for my fool ass. And a newspaper: I wanna see what pictures they choose.”
They did as he asked. Except for the serape. Instead, Angela provided him the green one.
“Your red one is in the wash,” she said, apologetic. “Lena insisted.”
Later on, McCree will hate that he believed her.
They gave Genji his gun.
That was the first thing McCree noticed when he managed to snag a newspaper to get a glimpse of the outside world. He was on the front page--well his funeral was--and it spiraled into a full page spread about his life and his accomplishments. They even had photos of him as a kid. Which meant Winston had handed out the picture of McCree in a hat two sizes too big for his head, to the press.
McCree hated that photo. Almost as much as he hated the sight of Peacemaker in Genji’s holster on the front page.
Back when Overwatch had first started, McCree let Geni try his gun on the practice range once. The incident had ended with three holes in Jesse’s favorite hat, and a burst water pipe. Genji had been forbidden to touch his gun again. Jesse had explicitly left it to be buried with him for that reason.
He knew why they didn’t go for it; probably didn’t want to dig it back up with his fake corpse later. But could they have least put it in storage instead of letting Genji have it? Before he shot someone’s eye out with a cowboy impression.
Genji didn’t look up for a cowboy impression in the photo. His shoulder’s sagged, and the suit he was in reminded McCree of when they buried Ana. It wasn’t a memory McCree wanted to linger on.
He looked at everyone else. They were doing a good job acting, that was for sure. Hana’s chin was held high, but tears ran down her cheeks. Lena looked terrible, circles under her eyes. Winston looked like he was going to drop the fake coffin in the shot where they carried it to the grave. Fareeha’s hand covered her face in the main shot of the gang at the funeral, her shoulders shaking. McCree couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen her cry.
A sickening feeling started in his gut. He knew Fareeha. She could lie, but she was rare to go over the top. And she despised being seen as soft in public spaces, especially after Ana. Her emotions, she’d always told him, were her own. For her to go this far at a fake funeral...unless.
McCree thought about who’d he had seen since waking up. Angela and Morrison. No one else. Not even a letter. He’d said everyone was being kept away to hide any leads. But not even a call? Not even a letter? That was out of character. Where was Genji teasing him about getting in the way of bullets? Where was Fareeha giving him the lecture of a lifetime for scaring the shit out of her? Where was Lena with a pile of books to keep him busy?
Where was Hanzo, calling him a fool to try to make McCree forget how he’d shouted his name when a bullet ripped through his chest?
McCree’s gaze turned to the photo again. It looked so real. So true. They’d even put his hat on top of his coffin, draped with the American flag. His sense of unease growing, he looked instead to the corner of the photo with Hanzo.
He looked...terrible. There was no other way to describe it. There were circles under his eyes. His hands looked to be shaking. And right there, in the middle of the funeral, he seemed to be screaming at a woman who was wearing a hood, her face concealed from view. The shot didn’t let McCree see her face, but to see Hanzo so visibly furious. At a stranger. In public.
They didn’t. They couldn’t.
They did. And he was a fool to believe otherwise.
McCree sat back in his cot. Looked down at his bandages. It’d been close, that was for sure. It could have killed him. Anyone who saw the shot and the aftermath could easily think him dead. Unless they were told.
McCree thought of Angela. Of Morrison. So good with secrets as they got older. A better spy than a medic somedays. So sure secrets were better than the truth for a goal.
“God damn it,” McCree said, staring up at the ceiling. “They told em’ I’m dead.”