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Jack Morrison is eighteen the first time he realises – truly realises – that he may be something other than completely straight.
It’s not that his whole childhood was a parade of chasing girls, kiss chase at school and seven minutes in heaven – in fact, there’s very little of that, and the gift of hindsight makes him consider how simply uninteresting these things seemed to be. It’s more that he never really thought there was an alternative.
Where he was from, boys and girls grew into men and women who fell in love or simply settled. That was that. Men didn’t get married to men, women didn’t live and love each other in Bloomington, Indiana.
So it’s with a fair amount of surprise and a surprising lack of dread, that three days after meeting Gabriel Reyes at the SEP induction meeting, he finally gives some thought to the idea he might not be destined to meet a nice girl and settle down.
He says nothing, of course. Times are changing but the military isn’t the friendliest environment to people like him, never has been and probably won’t be for a damn long time. And he likes Gabriel, a lot, clicks with him on a level he’s been searching eighteen years for. Jack sees the beginning of something truly special here, a camaraderie he’d always read about in old war biopics. He’s not going to make things weird between them.
(And if he spends quite a few hours in the dark in his bunk, mind full of that wicked smile, gleaming eyes and muscles burgeoning under the effects of the SEP, that’s only for him to know.)
But still. Gabriel gets Jack thinking. Thinking about a lot of things. It’s how things start anyway.
*
They’ve got a week of leave from active duty. Every muscle in his body aches as the SEP progresses, his bones are lengthening and strengthening, his face feels pinched all the time.
Despite all of this, Jack is happy. They’re approaching the end of training now, it’s almost been a year since he signed up and he can feel the anticipation building – it can’t be long now until they’re deployed. He’s been idle, and people are dying as he gets pumped full of chemicals.
He can feel it off Gabriel too. The two of them get along better than he’d ever dreamed. They’re a nightmare in training scenarios when they’re paired up. It’s like they know where the other will be without looking, intuitively following each other’s actions.
There’s been quite a few muttered comments (and not muttered ones when the alcohol is flowing), and Gabriel laughs them off. Every time. Jokes about how he’s going to wife Jack and they’ll settle down after it’s all said and done. And what can Jack do except nervously laugh along too? It’s never going to happen.
That never stopped him wanting though, and now he’s sat at a bar with a bottle of beer, watching his best friend flirt with a beautiful blonde on the dance floor. He’s… happy for Gabriel, he supposes. He’ll get over it.
He’s so engrossed watching, that he doesn’t notice the dark-haired man appear next to him at the bar and order a scotch on the rocks.
Jack almost jumps out of his skin as the man turns to him, winks, and says “It’s lucky that I have my library card, because I’m totally checking you out.”
Jack can feel his face going bright red immediately. “W-What?” He stutters out, looking around to see if anyone’s looking. Which they aren’t.
The man is quickly going red as well. “Shit, sorry, my friends put me up to it. I knew you weren’t, fuck-“ He backpedals away from the bar, putting up the awkward finger guns. “Catch you around, I guess.”
He’s swallowed up quickly by the crowd. Jack feels his mouth tugging up into a grin at that, and finally his head is clear enough to realise, damn, he’d just been hit on by a guy. A handsome one too.
The bartender appears back at his shoulder, a tumbler in her hand, and groans. Making a decision, Jack pulls out his wallet.
“I got this one.” He tries to smile at the woman, his throat going dry as he puts down a note. “Keep the change.”
He grabs the glass and follows the path the man had taken, pushing through crowds of people. He doesn’t notice people looking as they part before him. Tall enough to see over their heads, he can’t see any hint of the man and is thinking, ‘maybe he left, I sure as hell would’, when he notices the door outside, leading to a smoking deck, where -
His admirer was stood with a bunch of friends, one of them patting him on the back, most of them grinning or laughing.
He’s the last to notice Jack standing there, two drinks in his hands, a smile on his face, and he immediately turns red when he does notice, covering his face with his hands.
Jack approaches the group and tries not to look at the women looking him up and down appreciatively. “Nobody’s ever hit on me and then finger-gunned their way out of it before.” He says, smile widening. This is new territory for him, but the alcohol is taking away the panic and the nerves. The man’s brown eyes are soft, like the warm soil they used to grow crops back at home.
The man’s eyes widen as he groans. “I’m so sorry, it was a bet, these idiots put me up to it.” He motions round to his friends – or where they used to be anyway. They’ve all moved to the other end of the area, trying too hard to not look at Jack and –
“It’s Vincent, by the way.” Finally, something of a true smile creeps onto his face, embarrassed though it may be.
Jack hands him the drink. “It’s nice to meet you, Vincent. Jack.”
The man – Vincent – grins. “What a gentleman. Buying me drinks.”
“And I tipped the bartender.” Jack winks. “You can buy the next round.”
“Oh, so there’s a next round is there?” Vincent laughs, and Jack lets himself feel wonder at another man for the first time without feeling guilty . His voice is low and soft, smooth and musical. “An excuse to go see that beautiful brunette at the bar?” There’s a laden question in there, Jack remembers the ‘I thought you were’ earlier and smiles ruefully.
“She’s not really my type.” He replies, searching Vincent for what he hopes is there.
“And what might your type be then?” Vincent answers, embarrassment gone as he tilts his head to the side. Yeah, it's definitely there.
Jack pauses, because he doesn’t really know. The sum total of what he’s worked out so far is that he isn’t really into breasts and that he spends a bit too much time thinking about his best friend in the shower.
“Well, there’s a beautiful brunette right here.” He says, turning on the charm. It certainly doesn’t feel wrong.
It’s sort of the right answer by the response he gets, although it’s not the one he was expecting.
“Do you want to get coffee sometime?” Vincent asks, and Jack’s a little surprised, was Vincent bored? Something must show on his face, because it’s followed up quickly: “My friends wanted to leave soon anyway, this isn’t really my scene either.” There’s an apologetic smile, and Jack takes half a moment to think when he already knows the answer.
“Yes. That sounds amazing.” He says and smiles widely as soon as he’s said it. It feels right, this. With Vincent. There’s a warm, sunny feeling settling in his chest that has nothing to do with beer and everything to do with this gorgeous man in front of him.
They swap phone numbers, and Jack really can’t keep this stupid grin off his face when he goes to re-find his friends.
Gabe calls him out immediately. “You met someone.” He starts grinning too, he’s been telling Jack he needs a girlfriend for months. “Who was it, I saw you chatting to the bartender. Got the number of a gorgeous brunette, did we?”
Jack doesn’t stop smiling. “Something like that.”
*
Ana Amari is a fantastic woman.
Jack works this out pretty damn fast as they’re running a training scenario and they’re partnered up, only for her to knock out Reinhardt from two hundred feet with a sleeping dart, letting Jack run in and eliminate Torbjörn as she keeps him on his feet against the turret.
They smile at each other after, before the debrief, and she looks him up and down. “Not bad.” She says, winking.
“Not bad yourself,” he replies, breathless from the adrenaline, turning to shake Torbjörn's hand and getting pulled into a bone-crushing hug by Reinhardt.
Overwatch had seemed like such a leap a couple of months ago, and now he can’t imagine his life without these weird, wonderful people. They’re an eclectic bunch; flying healers, world-famous snipers and mountainous German crusaders who can mow down people with energy shields bigger than him.
It’s strange standing amongst them – he’s just a soldier, after all, and these people have incredible, unimaginable talents. He wouldn’t trade it for the world though.
He just wishes he didn’t have to hide himself all the time. The world’s better these days – who’s got time for rampant homophobia when humanity’s at risk of extinction? – but he doesn’t want to say anything to jeopardise these new, fragile friendships. Different countries have different attitudes to people like him.
Vincent understands – he used to do the same where he worked before war broke out and he worked in a particularly stifling newspaper office. As a freelance journalist, nobody professionally can tell him his business now anyway. Why should he hide it? If one bigoted editor didn’t want his story, another would.
For Jack, it makes sense for him to keep his mouth shut. Or it would, if he was capable of that for long.
Ana invites them all round for a game of poker one night, after training. He turns up at seven, dressed in a casual button-up shirt (which Vincent had told him over Skype to unbutton at the top before lamenting how lickable Jack was - he couldn’t wait for his next leave in a couple of weeks) and dark slacks.
Ana’s rooms are sparse but cosy. There’s little furniture, but a mismatch of chairs she’s clearly borrowed from multiple places is clustered around a round metal dining table to the left of the lounge-kitchen. They weren’t allowed much decoration in their accommodations, but what little there is, is well placed. A photo of Ana and a small girl who resembled her sat on an end table next to a dark leather couch to the right. An Egyptian mural hangs on the wall behind the sleek television opposite it.
Everyone else has clearly arrived by the time Jack gets there, and there’s only one seat left at the table, wedged between Gabe and Ana herself. Reinhardt and Torbjörn are both there too, and a woman Jack has only briefly seen around before, Angela Ziegler. Gabe and Torbjörn already seem to be a couple of drinks in, voices raised and eyes sparkling.
Ana brings Jack a beer and he smiles in thanks, looking over his cards. Two pairs isn’t a terrible start, and judging by the faces around him, no one seems to have any better. Gabe and Torb both fold, Reinhardt calls his raise.
Cards are re-dealt, and now he has a full house. Feeling pretty confident, both with his cards and by the look of people around the table, Jack raises.
Ana sweeps him clean a moment later, dropping four tens on the table. He stares at her, gob-smacked, and the others all laugh at the expression on his face.
They aren’t laughing an hour later, once Ana has a huge pile of chips on the table in front of her and the rest of them are sitting with very little at all. Jack is personally quite chilly and will always despise Gabe for turning this into strip poker. His best friend looks over and winks, as though he can hear his thoughts.
Angela calls a break to restock on drinks, food, clothes, whatever, and in a rush, it’s just Ana and Jack at the table.
Ana shuffles the cards idly and Jack sips his drink.
“How did you get so good at poker?” He asks, after any tips. He’d used to think he was pretty good, but beating Gabe wasn’t really that much of an accomplishment. The man was incredibly smart but easily distracted.
“We used to play a lot in the military.” She smiles at the memory. “It’s how I met my husband.”
She looks at him. “What about you, golden boy? We don’t know much about you. You have a girl at home?”
Jack stares at her, and realises this is a woman he can trust. She won’t laugh him off, she won’t dismiss him. They’re teammates. And they’re not so close that this is a huge risk.
He shrugs. “Just my boyfriend, Vincent.” He watches her face, waiting for a reaction.
There isn’t enough time for dread to set in, as she smiles knowingly. “I wondered why you hadn’t said anything. Have you got a photo?”
The request throws him off for a minute – she was so calm, she was acting like this wasn’t really a big thing, the opposite to his mother who had wailed dramatically about the loss of her potential grandchildren for a solid ten minutes – before he remembers that he does in fact have a photo.
He pulls out his wallet and retrieves the little photo of the two of them a photographer had taken of them when they’d visited Cairo on his leave. He’d taken to carrying it everywhere, to remind him of what he was fighting for.
She looks at the two of them and grins. “You two look wonderful together. You’re going to make a lot of women very jealous.”
He smiles tentatively back. He’s beginning to understand with the right people that it can be that easy.
The other four begin to file back into the room, arguing loudly about some crappy band as they take their seats. Ana re-deals the cards, and fifteen minutes later when Jack plays a straight hand, she mutters, “Is it though” to him so only he hears, and he cracks up at her smile.
She squeezes his hand under the table and he feels a little bit safer.
*
The war is won, and now they get to rebuild the world.
Or that’s how it feels anyway. To be honest, Overwatch has very little authority – they’re a peacekeeping organisation, and while governments consult them, they don’t get to make any decisions. They’re there to keep people safe.
Jack doesn’t want to be strike commander, if he’s being honest. He feels stifled in his office. He’s not supposed to go out on missions anymore, keeps being told he’s too important to risk and he’d immediately shouted that down – he’s no more important than anyone else. And it would be good for morale for troops to see their leader in the field beside them.
If he’s being really honest, he’d outright refused the first time they’d asked him. Told them Gabe wanted it, had led them once perfectly, and would do it perfectly well again. But that’s why he’s perfect for the job, they tell him when appoint him the second time. Because he doesn’t desire it, he won’t abuse it. Reyes is too ambitious, prone to irrational decisions, which is great when you’re fighting against robots who basically run off rationality but not so much when you’re after peace, not war.
Somehow, they convince him to say yes, despite his misgivings. And when Ana is put as his second, he feels a little better.
Gabe hadn’t spoken to him in a week though, before appearing at the door to his quarters with a bottle of champagne and a sour-faced apology.
“Ana sent you, didn’t she.” Jack had asked, still miffed, but close to laughter. He hadn’t wanted this job, and now his best friend was being an ass?
“Whacked me round the back of the head and told me to grow up.” He had admitted grudgingly, and the two of them had burst into laughter a moment later before getting stinking drunk together.
They don’t really talk about it now; it’s a touchy subject. There’s no point picking a fight. They don’t really talk about a lot of things now.
He still hasn’t told Gabe about Vincent, and he knows he needs to, because Gabe is his best friend. Gabe is his best friend, and he’s thinking about asking Vincent to marry him and needs advice from the man he used to trust with everything, but he just. He can’t, there’s something holding his tongue, something he doesn’t really understand. There’s just a feeling that it really wouldn’t work out well.
That feeling solidifies, grows a form and becomes corporeal when he's sitting at a bar and laughing and Gabe turns around to yell at McCree to “quit acting like a pansy and get over here”, where he’d been dancing with a couple of women. They both laugh at his words and wink at the young cowboy who’d been getting another drink. He's standing next to a guy and draws his hand back from the man's hip like he's been stung, an awkward smile on his face.
And Jack feels sick to his stomach, ice water running down his spine and pooling in the small of his back. Ana’s the only one in their circle who knows. He’s pretty impressed no one else has worked it out – maybe they have, put the pieces together, noticed the photos and the lack of partners as everyone else had gradually found people and introduced them to the team, seen the clenched fists whenever the latest atrocity against an LGBTQIA+ person was reported. But no one has said anything, and he knows they’re all the sort who would, whatever their reaction may be.
He gets up and leaves the bar, walks to the door and leans against the wall outside. He needs air, and closes his eyes against the night sky, taking a moment to breathe. His phone buzzes in his pocket, and he checks it. There’s a message from Vincent there, asking what time he’ll be home, and he fires off a reply.
Soon, Gabe being an ass.
Seen: 12:12AM.
He doesn’t notice that someone has followed him until there’s a cough, and he starts, cursing his reflexes.
“Don’t worry, boss, s’just me.” McCree drawls next to him, and he relaxes a little.
He doesn’t know a lot about the young man, just that Gabe had recruited him for Blackwatch with the promise that Jack wouldn’t regret it. Jesse McCree was a wanted criminal, the best sharpshooter the US had seen in a good while, and a cowboy enthusiast.
“Thought you were going to dance.” Jack replies, not really sure how to talk to him.
“Wasn’t really in the mood for what was on offer.” McCree says cryptically, looking at Jack from under the rim of that ridiculous hat.
Jack looks at the man, really looks at him, and something clicks into place. The man had looked bothered at Gabe’s words as well in retrospect, and he thought Jesse had been stood pretty close to the other man at the bar.
The cowboy is watching him closely and quickly says, “Don’t get me wrong, sometimes, sure, but tonigh’ –“
“It’s fine, McCree. Gabe has never been good at seeing what’s right in front of him.” He gives him a wry smile, and the younger man makes a face of realisation.
“You too, huh? I thought you two were close as anythin’.”
Jack can feel his smile slipping. “We were. Some things though, he just wouldn’t understand.”
Jesse watches him for another moment, before sidling closer.
“Well since we’re both out here,” he drawls, his tone turning sultry. Jack looks at him with amusement.
“I’m flattered, but as your strike commander, I should tell you that I’m not on the market. And you’re a little young for me besides.” McCree’s eyes widen for a minute, before the bluster returns.
“Your loss, strike commander.” He winks before turning back to the door. Jack watches him go, a laugh bubbling in his chest. He’d have to keep an eye on that one. His phone buzzes again in his pocket, and he lets Vincent know he’s on his way back. He passes a jewellery store on his way back, and the twinkling of the diamond engagement rings stays with him all the way home.
*
Jack’s been in charge of Overwatch for a long time now, so he feels he’s pretty justified when he says that it’s probably coming to an end.
There’s nothing solid being said, but he’s in a pretty unique position to watch his life’s work fall apart in front of his eyes.
It’s a bizarre sensation, the small crumbles and creaks before the earthquake hits. One mission fails. Then another. Then a dozen have gone wrong, and he’s carrying all the blame.
Gabe doesn’t talk to him anymore, or when he does it’s sarcastic and backhanded. Their relationship can barely be called that anymore. Jack hates it, and when he’s lying awake at night on his own, he can trace it back to exactly where it went wrong. A hundred moments where they’d missed out a detail on purpose or avoided a conversation or blown off an invitation to get drinks until they were comrades, and then they were friendly co-workers, and then they were people who nodded to each other in the hall.
Ana had sat him down one evening when he’s said, again, that he’s going to stay behind and finish something up, an improved plan of attack, a membership suggestion, a million different things to stop him going home to his cold and silent apartment.
She brings a bottle of brandy, sits herself down and starts with the worst possible thing. “How’s Vincent?”
Jack doesn’t answer for a moment. Finally, he croaks, “I don’t know. I haven’t seen him for a year.”
And then there are tears he never let himself cry and Ana says nothing, just puts an arm around his shoulder and lets him sob before pouring him another brandy.
Because there’s nothing to say. He’s never been compatible with relationships. He’ll always, always, put the lives of others before his own, and if he has to throw himself on a grenade, he’ll be damned if he’s going to drag along anyone he loves.
The later years had been harder. As such a prominent, public figure, he never quite worked out how to reconcile his homosexuality with the media. So he’d just kept quiet, pushing for better LGBT+ rights where he could, punishing crimes against people like him more harshly than there was probably need for. And the world had assumed there was no one else in Commander Jack Morrison’s life. Vincent had never been able to deal with that, and Jack wasn’t going to hold him in a relationship where the world made him feel like no one.
So Vincent’s gone. Gabe’s not his anymore and he doesn’t know how to fix it. His golden hair has faded to white these days, and the lines on Ana’s face are testament to how long they’ve both been here. And Jack’s alone to watch the only thing that matters fall apart.
It’s like looking through an alternate mirror dimension when Lena Oxton appears in his life.
She’s young, and peppy, and has far too much energy. All her smiling just makes Jack feel lonelier. But she reminds him of something he thought he’d left behind.
Because she lifts the people around her up, and he suddenly remembers that’s what he was supposed to do. There’s nothing extraordinary to Jack himself. He’s just a soldier. It’s what he saw in other people that always set him apart.
He takes Lena under his wing, an approximation of the daughter he’d have liked in a different universe.
It’s late at night when he’s pacing the corridors of the Watchpoint: Gibraltar, overlooking one of Winston’s projects for a couple of months, when he hears a sniff. It’s suspicious so he follows the sound until he hears a voice.
Lena.
She’s talking on the phone, and when he finally catches sight of her, he realises she’s crying as she speaks. “Susie, please-“
Whoever Susie is doesn’t seem to be responding to the pleas, and Lena stares at her phone in shock as the line goes dead before she catches sight of Jack.
He doesn’t know what his face is doing, but hers closes off pretty sharp. “Commander, what are you doing here?” Her cockney accent is stuttered and unsure.
“Just taking a walk. Got a lot on my mind.” He figures a vague truth is better than an outright lie. He hasn’t slept well in years, an open secret amongst Overwatch’s elite. “You?”
She sighs, tears still leaking down her face. Something gives in her expression. “My girlfriend-“ She stops and shudders, “Ex-girlfriend decided she couldn’t be dating a soldier.”
Jack feels a rush of intense sympathy and understanding for the girl. Vincent’s face flashes through his mind, soft brown eyes filling with tears as Jack had told him that he couldn’t give him the life he deserved. That they couldn’t have the life Jack still dreams about in his lower moments.
“Take a walk with me.” He says, and the girl follows him, still sniffling.
There’s silence for a while. Jack’s trying to put together the words he knows he needs to say to make her feel less alone, when she breaks the silence.
“Sir, how do you hold a relationship with a job like this?” She asks, eyes wide and desperate, and Jack can’t lie to her.
His eyes fix on a point far ahead of them, fresh air hitting their face as they step out onto the moonlit deck. “I don’t, Lena. I never told you about Vincent, did I?”
He doesn’t have to look at her to know how her eyes have widened and her mouth has probably dropped open in shock, but there’s a soft gasp his enhanced hearing picks up and magnifies. He waits for her reply.
“Commander, you’re- you’re-“
“Gay, Lena.” He closes his eyes, breathes out through his nose, before putting a hand on her shoulder and squeezes. “You’re going to be ok.”
She’s looking at him, curiosity and wonder overtaking the heartbreak for a minute. “How have you done this for so long?”
He knows what she’s asking.
“Because it’s what I had to do.” He eventually manages. “The world wasn’t kind to people like us when I grew up, and old habits die hard. And I couldn’t let someone throw their life away on me, because they’d always come second to my duty.” He feels suddenly angry at himself.
“Don’t you dare make the same mistakes, Lena.” He looks her in the eye, desperate for her to hear. “You’ll find someone who puts you first and needs you, and you make them feel just as important as they make you feel.”
She’s shocked enough at his outburst to just nod. He lets go of her shoulder, staring up at the stars. “I’m an old fool. Don’t throw away the people who are important to you.”
Strangely enough, his mind’s stuck on Gabe.
*
Jack feels the ache in his bones these days. Maybe it’s a symptom of stress, because his body still responds the way he wants, but there’s a residual tension in his muscles, a set to his jaw these days that won’t leave him. He’s scarred and broken in ways which nobody has ever been able to explore, the marks of a thousand battles littering his skin and his mind.
There’re two glasses on his desk, an open bottle of brandy next to them. One glass is untouched.
He clinks his against the still one on the surface.
“Cheers, Ana.” It’s about all he can manage with the way his throat chokes up, and he drains his glass once more.
He’s come back once more without someone else, and he hates this. Until now it’s been shit. It’s been shit, but he could handle it with Ana at his side. She’s his sister, his best friend since Gabe…
Well. Was anyway.
They hadn’t found her body, but they’re having a memorial service this afternoon. Fareeha is going to speak, and Jack of course.
Gabe’s declined to come. He isn’t even surprised at this point.
There’s a knock at the door, and he looks up. Angela is standing there, a sad smile on her beautiful face. She hasn’t aged at all, and Jack vaguely remembers her asking if he wanted to live forever once. Once, he’d had someone he wanted to grow old with.
“Can I come in?” She asks, one foot inside already. Jack nods once.
She sits across from him, looking at the brandy with distaste. “How are you feeling?”
Jack snorts. “Take a guess. Don’t suppose you’ve got a remedy for this, doc?”
“I cannot resurrect without a body, Jack. You know this.” She replies, ignoring what they both knew he meant.
Silence fell again. Jack drains his glass again before Angela takes the glass away. He glowers at her, and she stares back.
“Did you know Gabriel isn’t coming to the service?” She asks, fiddling with the tumbler in her hand.
He shrugs. “He doesn’t come to anything anymore. There’s no love lost between us. I don’t expect much of him. Long as he gets the job done.”
Angela’s looking at him again now, that look she has which makes him feel like she’s looking into his mind and picking him apart. “What happened to the two of you?” She asks sadly.
“I stopped letting him into the small parts of my life. He did the same.” He said gruffly. Gabe never even looked him in the eye these days.
“What small parts?” She asks. He isn’t sure if she’s trying to make small talk or tease something out of him. He looks at her, and realises that in forty years, she’s always been there for him. And shutting people out is what led him here, to this loneliness and self-pity as he watched his life crumble around him.
He looks at her, unafraid for once, and says, “I’m gay, Angela.”
She blinks once to process, the small crick appearing between her eyebrows that meant she was solving a particularly difficult puzzle. He feels something heavy settle in his stomach.
There’s a sudden smile. “I always knew there was too much chemistry between you and him to just be friends.”
He stares at her, mind blank. What.
“And that would explain a lot about the fallout of your relationship. Because he’s not acting like himself. He’s jealous and resentful…”
“Angela, me and Gabe have never dated.” Jack’s incredulous, to say the least. Him and Gabe? That’s shut away in a little compartment that Jack hasn’t opened the door on since he was in his early twenties. It’s lost decades in the past, a what-if, a thought project for a parallel dimension, because there’s no way in this one…
But that’s a lie, isn’t it?
She’s looking at him, head crooked to one side slightly, sadness deep in her bones. “Are you ok, Jack?”
He can feel a tightness behind his eyes. “Not really.” He manages, before he’s blinking back tears.
“I wish I could heal your pain.” She sighs.
He rubs at his eyes. “I just want him back.” And he has no idea if he means Vincent or Gabe when he says it.
Three months later, he watches from the cover of trees, his sight blotchy and getting worse by the day as irreparable shrapnel damage to his retina takes its toll as a hulking blur of a man he assumes must be Reinhardt stands up and waxes poetic about what a good man he once was. His throat feels stuck as he watches his friends mourn him and he wants to go to them, comfort them. Lena is forcing a smile as she always does, he knows without seeing. He keeps watching as they unveil a statue of him.
He wants to tear it down.
The sun has almost set by the time everyone has left his grave, a memorial stone since no one has found his body. For good reason.
He’s about to leave too, a lump stuck in his throat, when he realises someone is still there. Or two people.
In the silence that has settled in the graveyard, he can hear them.
“Come on, Vince, it’s getting cold.”
His mind blanks.
Vincent came? Maybe Tracer tracked him down, or McCree followed the clues, or…
It doesn’t matter. He’s here. And so is another man, with his arm around Vincent’s shoulder.
He bites his lip, hard.
Vincent is just standing there, looking up from what Jack can make out, and doesn’t reply to his… boyfriend? Husband? It doesn’t matter really. The point is, he got to move on. That’s all Jack wanted for him really.
“Ok, I’m done.” He finally says, stepping away, and Jack has a sudden urge to go to him. He didn’t sound done, he sounds pained and Jack has a sudden realisation of what he’s done to him. What he’s done to himself.
But the moment passes, and the pair walk away slowly, arms around each in the last glow of the sun.
Jack watches them go, makes sure they’ve left, before heading to the left. It’s a last minute decision, but he hasn’t had a chance to come here before.
He isn’t the only one who’s been buried this week.
The other stone is a little older but not by much, a couple of weeks at most.
Gabriel Reyes
A loyal soldier, a brave commander, the most dedicated of men.
Rest in peace.
There aren’t many flowers here. Gabe hadn’t been well liked at the end, and he isn’t sure why he’s here now. He hadn’t lied when he’d told Angela there was no love lost between them.
Maybe he’d loved him once, or maybe he’d loved the idea of him? Who knew.
It hardly mattered now, did it?
He pulls an old, well-rubbed engagement ring from his pocket. It hadn’t been bought for Gabe, but in another world it might have been. He drops the ring next to the plaque and limps away, not bothering to look at the memorial for Jack Morrison.
He’s gone.
A lone soldier disappears into the trees.
*
Soldier:76 grunts as the spray of the shotgun blast catches his side. The wounds will heal eventually but it’ll be a bitch.
The figure behind him has evaporated by the time he spins round, his visor picking up nothing but black vapour trails.
There’s a sound like a rush of air, and he spins faster than he can remember being able to, to block a punch coming to his ribs with his rifle before he swings it round into the skull-like mask.
There’s an awful, distorted laugh as he’s suddenly staring down two shotgun barrels. He ducks just in time as the crack ricochets above his head.
It’s exhilarating, facing an opponent this good for the first time in over a year.
A year he’s been dead now, and it’ll be permanent unless he figures out a way to end this soon.
He rolls to the side as a foot comes down, and grunts in pain as the boot catches the wound in his side.
It’s enough to throw off his rhythm, and the next shot barely misses the mark of his forehead, shattering the glass in his visor instead, and that’s bad.
Soldier’s vision field has gone black and for a moment he’s stuck in his head, the panic and terror of a bomb going off beneath his feet, rubble trapping him and his vision slipping away…
“You’ve been a thorn in my side for too damn long now, 76,” a voice rasps behind him, pulling from his thoughts, and he knows he has to get the visor off, patches of light are more use than nothing else but then he’s exposing his identity…
Which will happen anyway if he dies. He unfastens the clasp and drops it, spinning into a crouch and firing his rockets at the direction of the voice as he does.
There’s a gasp, followed by a string of swears as the rockets find their mark and light up Jack’s cloud of vision with the explosions. He listens carefully, can hear something dragging themselves away – how the fuck had he survived a direct hit?
“Goddamn.. you never could give up, could you?” The voice says, except now it’s not distorted, and Jack freezes.
No way.
His mind runs away, forty-seven years ago, the first time he’d laid eyes on him and been met with an impish smile and a cruddy nickname he couldn’t remember now.
There’s forty years’ worth of drinks and duty leaves and fighting back-to-back and then arguments and secrets spilling through his mind, filling in for his ruined eyes before –
“Jack?” The voice is incredulous and angry and shocked and-
“How the fuck are you alive?” Soldier swears. Gabriel Reyes is the reason he’s a vigilante, the reason he has no sight, the reason everything fell apart.
How dare-
A stab of pain through his side reminds him he’s been perforated, and he groans as he slumps to the side, holding himself up with his right hand.
He hears Gabe – no, Reaper, Gabe died with Jack in that explosion – coming closer, and he tries to raise his rifle but there’s a scoff as Reaper says, “I’m going to help you, cabrón,” and that’s too much for him.
His ruined eye slip shut, he briefly catches a panicked swear, and then everything is lost into the fog of unconsciousness.
Jack hears the sound of angry muttering in a voice he loves to his left as he wakes, not wanting to open his eyes. He thinks he must be dreaming, Gabe is pacing and clattering something, and he knows if he opens his eyes this is going to stop. He’ll be back in the woods with no companions but regrets and memories, so he lets himself stop. Breathe.
The clattering has stopped, and there’s a sigh. “I know you’re awake, Jack.”
“No, I’m not.” He replies, childish. He knows there’s a fond smile on his friend’s face, because this is clearly a time when they’re still friends.
“I need you to get up so I can check your side.” The reply is overly patient, and Jack tries to squeeze one eye open, daring his luck.
He’s not dreaming. He also can’t see anything, and he panics for a moment before realising what this must mean, and he shoots upright on the defensive.
His side erupts with fire, and he staggers a little before a cold hand holds his shoulder and pushes him back down, surprisingly softly.
He doesn’t understand.
“Why are you doing this?” He groans, and there’s no response.
“Why-“
“Would you shut up for a minute. Christ, you’re a stubborn asshole…” Gabe mutters back, unwrapping bandages.
Jack doesn’t say anything else. What can he say to the man who destroyed everything he worked for?
Gabe has never been one for uncomfortable silences though. “God, the years haven’t been kind to you.”
Jack replies stiffly, “Explosions tend to be like that.”
The silence falls again.
He has to know though.
“Why did you do it, Gabe?” He asks softly. He’d known for years things weren’t right between them, but he’d never thought his former best friend would be the one to try and kill him.
There’s no answer, and Jack just assumes he won’t get one, before, “I was resentful. And jealous. And you shut me out.”
“I-“
“No, shut up, Jack, I swear to god.” He shuts his mouth at the fury in the man’s voice. “You wanted an answer to a question you should have asked years ago, and you’re getting one.”
There’s a sigh from a mouth he can’t see. “I didn’t understand why you got promoted and I didn’t. Talon were willing to promote me. They feed off jealousy and resentment, Jack. And I had buckets of it.”
Jack opens his mouth, and closes it again. He should have realised. He’s not the only one who’s been hurting.
There’s a moment before: “Why didn’t you ever tell me about Vincent?”
Jack’s mind whites out for a minute.
“You knew?” He chokes out finally.
He knows he’s getting a look of intense disdain, which he still remembers, line for line. “You were my best friend. And I led a covert operations unit. I’m good at finding information. I’m not stupid, Jack, no matter what you seem to think.”
“I never thought you were stupid.” He says quietly. “I just didn’t think you’d understand.”
There’s silence, Gabe sounds like he’s holding his breath.
“I loved you, Jack. Of course I’d have understood.” He drops the words in the silence; Jack’s mind whirls, re-evaluates a thousand interactions he’d almost forgotten; jokes become hiding places, slurs become defence mechanisms, resentment becomes jealousy, and it hits Jack in the face like a train.
“We’re stupid, old men.” He mutters into the bated silence, and there’s a moment of nothing and everything, before –
He’s pulled to his feet by ice-cold hands, one of which finds the back of his neck and then he’s kissing lips which are everything but cold, and he’s imagined this a hundred different ways but none of them are quite like this, two ghosts bringing each other back to life, and then Reaper- Gabriel, because this is Gabe all over, does something with his tongue which makes Jack stop thinking for a moment.
It’s how things end anyway.