Chapter Text
Old habits die hard. John ‘Jack’ Morrison had been dead for years now—buried beneath rubble, lies, and everything Overwatch had once stood for. And yet, the beliefs he had carried all his life refused to die with him. They lingered, stubborn and unyielding, clinging to what remained of him like ghosts that refused to fade. Soldier: 76 had learned that lesson the hard way.
Every time he even considered turning his back on it all - on the mission, on the past, on the endless chase - that voice surfaced again. Quiet, steady, but impossible to ignore. It didn’t shout. It didn’t demand. It simply persisted, reminding him of who he used to be, and what he had once sworn to protect. No matter how far he tried to distance himself from that life, it never truly let him go.
And because of that… he had lost his only lead on Talon. Again.
The thought lingered longer than he liked, heavy and familiar. Still, it wasn’t a complete loss. The thugs had slipped through his fingers, vanishing back into whatever hole they’d crawled out of—but the girl hadn’t. He had made sure of that. He could still picture the way she had looked at him: frightened, confused, clinging to the thin reassurance he had offered without words. He had walked her home, kept to the shadows until she disappeared safely behind the door, back into the arms of someone who could give her a life untouched by this kind of violence.
She hadn’t been part of any of this. Just another innocent caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Unlike him.
She still had a future ahead of her - something bright, something untouched. And for once, he had managed to protect that.
His jacket, however, hadn’t been so fortunate.
Jack let out a slow breath as he glanced down at it, the damaged fabric catching the dim light of the city below. The explosion had torn through it in more than one place, leaving scorched edges and weakened seams behind. It wasn’t beyond repair, not yet, but it was getting there. He could already feel the familiar weight of the task settling in. Needle, thread, careful hands.
He had gotten far too used to fixing things that weren’t wounds.
The irony wasn’t lost on him.
Vigilante work always looked simple in the movies: clean, efficient, heroic. Reality stripped all of that away, leaving behind something far less forgiving. There were no clean victories here. Just compromises, sacrifices, and the constant grind of surviving long enough to keep going.
Money was always the first problem. It came and went in uneven bursts, rarely enough to cover everything he needed. Mercenary work helped, but only to a point. He chose his contracts carefully, sticking to jobs that didn’t cross the line he still refused to step over. Some things he simply wouldn’t do - no matter how desperate things got.
That voice wouldn’t let him.
Some nights, the cost of that decision was immediate. No food. No safe place to sleep. Just cold pavement, abandoned buildings, or rooftops like this one. It wasn’t comfortable, but comfort had stopped being part of his life a long time ago.
Maintaining his equipment was an even greater challenge. His Pulse Rifle and visor weren’t just tools, they were remnants of Overwatch, built with precision and technology most people couldn’t even begin to replicate. Keeping them functional without proper resources required constant effort, careful scavenging, and more improvisation than he liked to admit.
But even that wasn’t what weighed on him the most.
Heat suppressants were.
Jack reached up and removed his visor, the cool air brushing faintly against his face as he rubbed the bridge of his nose. His eyes closed briefly, more from habit than exhaustion. Finding a safe place to ride out his heats had become increasingly difficult over the years. It was an unavoidable reality of what he was, one that didn’t care about missions, enemies, or timing.
And with Talon in the picture, it only made things worse.
He was hunting them relentlessly. It only made sense that they would be doing the same.
At least they didn’t know everything.
Not about him being an Omega.
Most of Talon’s operatives were Betas, which worked in his favor. They couldn’t track him by scent, not with the precautions he took. Layers of conflicting smells clung to him at all times: cheap cologne, synthetic masking agents, anything strong enough to distort whatever natural trace he might leave behind. It wasn’t perfect, but it was enough.
And the few who might have noticed… never had the chance to act on it.
He had managed to secure a small supply of scent inhibitors during one of his contracts. They weren’t ideal, too general, not tailored to his physiology—but they helped. Enough to take the edge off. Enough to keep control when it mattered. He rationed them carefully, treating each pill like a finite resource he couldn’t afford to waste.
Because he couldn’t.
They would run out eventually.
And proper suppressants weren’t something he could just acquire. They required prescriptions, precise adjustments, medical oversight, things tied to an identity he no longer had. Jack Morrison was dead. As far as the world was concerned, he didn’t exist.
That made survival… complicated.
By the time he lifted his gaze again, the sun had fully set. Dorado stretched out beneath him, alive with artificial light: streetlamps, neon signs, windows glowing softly in the distance. From up here, it almost looked peaceful.
He remained on the rooftop, unmoving, watching the city settle into the night.
For a brief moment, no one was chasing him. No one was shooting at him. No one even knew he was there.
The quiet felt unfamiliar.
But it didn’t last.
The trail had gone cold, at least for now. The men he had tracked for days had retreated, likely covering their tracks and taking anything useful with them. It was a setback, but not the end. It couldn’t be.
He couldn’t afford to let it be.
Even a few days of inaction could cost him everything. Leads disappeared. Connections dissolved. People vanished. That was how Talon operated.
And he wasn’t about to let them slip away again.
Still… Dorado had its drawbacks.
The heat was one of them.
A bead of sweat formed along his hairline and slid slowly down his cheek, catching briefly on his jaw before falling away. It didn’t matter how enhanced he was, after a fight, the strain always caught up with him eventually.
He reached down and pulled at the zipper of his jacket, opening it enough to let some air in. The fabric of his shirt clung uncomfortably to his skin, damp and heavy. He grimaced slightly at the sensation. Leather had been a poor choice for this kind of climate, but it was what he had.
It always came back to that.
Making do with what was available.
He pulled the jacket open a little further, letting the night breeze cut through the lingering heat. The sudden chill sent a brief shiver through him, his muscles tightening instinctively as the cooler air met sweat-dampened fabric.
For a moment, he just stood there, breathing steadily, letting the sensation pass.
Yeah.
This life wasn’t clean.
And it sure as hell wasn’t easy.
“Incompetent idiots. Every last one of them.”
The thought simmered beneath the surface, sharp and constant, threatening to spill over at any moment. Reaper stood at the center of the room like a storm contained only by willpower, his fingers flexing slowly at his sides as he fought the urge to act on instinct. The urge to silence the irritation in the only way that ever truly satisfied him.
Strangling them would be easy.
Too easy.
He forced himself to remain still, reminding himself that the agents surrounding him were not directly responsible for the latest failure. Not entirely. Still, that did not make them useful. Their competence was questionable at best. Replaceable. Forgettable. The kind of men no one would miss beyond the numbers they filled.
The one who was responsible stood a few meters away.
The man looked like he might collapse at any second, shoulders tight, hands trembling at his sides as he faced Reaper. He had not expected this. That much was obvious. Whether he had drawn the short end of the stick or had simply been too slow to run did not matter. None of his companions were here to share the burden.
Just him.
Reaper exhaled slowly, the sound distorted through his mask. Then, without warning, his fist drove forward.
The impact against the wall cracked through the room like gunfire. Plaster shattered and fragments scattered across the floor as a jagged hole formed where his fist had struck. The man flinched violently, stumbling back a step as his already fragile composure threatened to break completely.
The scent followed.
Heavy. Dominant. Suffocating.
The unmistakable presence of a powerful Alpha flooded the room, pressing down on everyone present like an invisible weight. The Beta choked on it, his breath hitching as instinct overrode whatever training he had left.
“So tell me again,” Reaper said, his voice rolling low and thunderous through the room, every word steeped in venom, “how you managed to ruin something as simple as a delivery.”
“I... I... we...” The man’s voice faltered immediately, the words catching uselessly in his throat. Fear strangled whatever explanation he might have had.
“Now.”
The single word landed with force.
“Yes. Yes. We had it under control, I swear. Everything was loaded and ready to move. Then this guy just appeared out of nowhere.” The words tumbled out of him in a desperate rush. “He attacked us. We did not even see him coming. We barely made it out alive. He focused on the girl, and we took the chance to secure what was left of the cargo and...”
He faltered again as Reaper took a step closer.
Then another.
Each one slow and deliberate.
Closing the distance with patient certainty.
“And where,” Reaper asked, tilting his head slightly, “is this remaining cargo?”
The man swallowed hard, his gaze locked helplessly onto the mask. His chest rose and fell too quickly, panic tightening every movement.
“It came loose during the escape,” he admitted, his voice shrinking with every word. “It fell into the river.”
For a moment, there was silence.
Then Reaper laughed.
The sound tore through the room, loud and jagged, utterly devoid of humor. Even the Talon agents shifted at it, their composure slipping for a fraction of a second. It was not amusement. It was something far worse.
Slow, deliberate claps followed as Reaper turned away from the trembling man, each one echoing mockingly through the space.
“I am sorry, sir, I am sure we can recover it, or replace it, or...”
“No one is talking to you, pendejo.”
The shotgun appeared as if pulled from the shadows themselves.
A single blast cut the man off mid sentence.
Silence followed just as quickly as the violence.
What remained of him collapsed to the floor in a lifeless heap, the sound dull and unremarkable. Around the room, the other agents did not react. Not outwardly. This was not new to them.
Reaper let the weapon fall from his hand, the metal clattering softly against the ground as though it no longer held any interest.
He turned away without a second glance.
The desk in front of him creaked under the force as he leaned forward, both fists planted against its surface. Papers crumpled beneath the pressure, ink smearing where his grip tightened.
“You really should be more selective with your associates.”
The voice came from the corner, casual and entirely unbothered.
Throughout the entire ordeal, Sombra had remained seated, one leg crossed over the other, her attention split between her nails and the device in her hand. She did not even bother looking up at first.
She was the only one in the room who could get away with that.
Reaper did not respond immediately.
“If you ask me,” she continued, finally pushing herself to her feet, “you might want to deal with that self righteous soldier before chasing rare cargo again.” A faint smirk tugged at her lips as she moved toward the desk and settled onto its edge with effortless confidence. “I could handle it for you.”
Reaper’s head shifted slightly in her direction, shadows seeming to curl faintly around him with the motion.
“No.”
The word came without hesitation.
“I have trusted others to deal with him for too long. This ends with me.” His voice dropped lower, quieter, but no less dangerous.
Sombra studied him for a moment, then shrugged lightly as if the decision carried no real weight for her.
“Fine by me. I have better things to do anyway.”
She unwrapped a piece of gum and popped it into her mouth before turning toward the exit. The sharp snap of a bubble breaking cut briefly through the lingering tension as she walked.
At the doorway, she paused.
“I heard he is pretty hot,” she added, glancing back over her shoulder with a teasing grin. “So try not to ruin him too much.”
She blew him a kiss. Then she was gone.
For a moment, the room remained still.
Then a low growl rose from Reaper’s chest, quiet and controlled, carrying far more promise than any outburst ever could.
The sun had long since set, and the city had begun to settle into the uneasy calm of night, but the Reaper did not slow, nor did he pause, as he moved through Dorado like something unbound by the ordinary rules of the world, slipping between shadows, dissolving into darkness and reforming further ahead, his presence more felt than seen as he searched for any trace of the vigilante who had once again interfered with Talon’s operations.
This was not a simple retrieval mission.
This was a hunt, and Reaper intended to see it through to the end.
He did not go straight for the last known location. Instead, he swept through the city in widening arcs, moving from street level to rooftops and back again, passing through narrow alleys where the smell of waste and oil clung heavily to the air, across marketplaces now half deserted but still carrying traces of food, sweat, and human presence, and along the outer edges of residential districts where faint domestic scents drifted lazily through open windows.
Each step, each pause, each measured inhale served a purpose.
He filtered through it all.
Ignored what did not matter.
Searched for what did.
The trail was fractured, disturbed by movement, by wind, by the chaos of the earlier fight, but it was not gone, and Reaper was patient enough to reconstruct it piece by piece, following the subtle disruptions in the city’s scent profile, the lingering disturbances left behind by violence and flight.
Eventually, the traces converged.
He found the battlefield first.
The aftermath lingered heavily in the air, far stronger than anywhere else he had passed through. The sharp, acrid scent of burned material still clung to the buildings, mixed with the metallic tang of discharged weapons and the faint residue of explosives that had not yet fully dissipated. Bullet holes scarred the surrounding walls, some clustered tightly, others spread erratically, telling the story of movement, resistance, and retreat. Fragments of shattered surfaces lay scattered across the ground, and even now the place felt unsettled, as if the violence that had taken place there had not fully faded.
Reaper stepped forward slowly, taking it in, not with his eyes alone, but with every heightened sense at his disposal.
When he had still been Gabriel Reyes, he had already been one of the most powerful Alphas Overwatch had to offer, his dominance unquestioned, his presence enough to bend others to his will, but those who might have rivaled him had dulled over time, softened by command structures and administrative duties that stripped them of their edge, leaving Reyes to grow sharper with each passing mission, each fight reinforcing what he already was. Even without Blackwatch, he had been feared, not for his position, but for what lay beneath it.
Now, as Reaper, that had only intensified.
Everything about him had been pushed further.
His strength, his speed, his awareness.
And his sense of smell.
It was that sense that drew his attention now.
Beneath the overwhelming residue of the battle, beneath the lingering presence of Talon’s own agents, most of them Betas whose scents blended together into something dull and indistinct, there was something else. Something faint, almost imperceptible, something that did not belong.
Reaper stilled.
Then inhaled again, slower this time, isolating it, forcing everything else into the background until only that remained.
It was subtle.
Faint enough that no Beta would ever notice it.
Faint enough that even most Alphas would overlook it entirely.
But not him.
Never him.
The scent threaded through the air like a fragile line, easy to lose if one lacked the precision to follow it, but once recognized, impossible to ignore. It pulled at him, not with force, but with familiarity, something buried deep within his mind responding before conscious thought could catch up.
He moved without hesitation.
Leaving the battlefield behind, he followed the trail as it wound through the city, up along the sides of buildings and across rooftops where the wind threatened to scatter it, forcing him to slow, to adjust, to reacquire it each time it weakened, his focus sharpening with every step as the scent gradually grew stronger.
Familiar.
That was what made it linger.
What made it difficult to dismiss.
It stirred something he could not immediately place, something just out of reach, as if the memory tied to it had been locked away, waiting for the right moment to surface.
He crossed onto a higher vantage point, stepping onto a narrow balcony that overlooked several adjacent rooftops, and paused, scanning the distance.
There.
Movement.
Subtle, but enough.
Several rooftops to the east.
Reaper closed the distance instantly, dissolving into shadow and reappearing closer, but this time he did not advance blindly. Instead, he slipped behind cover, watching, observing, letting the scene unfold before acting.
The man stood with his back turned, posture relaxed in a way that bordered on careless, his visor and weapon discarded nearby as he stared out into the night, seemingly unaware of the danger closing in behind him.
Too easy.
Reaper stepped forward, silent, controlled, his movements fluid as he began to close the final distance.
One step.
Then another.
And then the scent hit him fully.
Stronger now.
Unfiltered.
The man had opened his jacket, allowing the night air to cool his body, and in doing so had released more of it into the space around him, the scent spreading slowly, carried by the breeze until it reached Reaper and wrapped around him before he could pull away.
He froze.
Not out of hesitation.
Out of recognition.
The world narrowed.
The present fractured.
And the past forced its way through.
Sunlight spilled across a training yard, warm and bright, catching on strands of blond hair that seemed almost golden under its touch. A figure stood across from him, steady and composed, blue eyes sharp with focus as they held his gaze without flinching.
Closer.
Too close.
Their breaths mingled in the space between them, the distance closing inch by inch, neither one stepping back, neither willing to yield, the tension thick and unspoken as it stretched between them, lingering in that fragile moment just before something might have happened.
Reyes’ hand tightening slightly at his side.
The memory shifted.
Gunfire. Commands. Movement.
Training drills executed with precision, Jack always a step ahead, always pushing, forcing Reyes to match him, to keep pace, to adapt, until the line between competition and something else blurred into something neither of them ever acknowledged aloud.
Another flash.
Close combat.
Bodies colliding, hands gripping, breath sharp and controlled, the contact lasting a fraction longer than necessary before they separated again, both pretending it had meant nothing.
Reaper’s claws dug into the wall behind him.
Concrete cracked under the pressure, small fragments falling soundlessly to the ground as the present snapped back into place.
The scent remained. Clear now. Undeniable.
Jack.
Reaper straightened slowly, his gaze locking onto the man as he turned, as if sensing something at last. Moonlight struck white hair that had once been golden, illuminating features that time and war had hardened, but had not erased.
There was no mistaking him.
Jack Morrison stood alive before him.
For years, he had been nothing but a memory. A ghost buried beneath the ruins of Overwatch. The world had accepted his death without question. Reyes had as well. There had been no body, no closure, only absence, and yet even that had been enough. Dead was dead.
And still…
He had never truly let him go.
Not in memory.
Not in instinct.
Not in the quiet, unguarded moments where the past forced its way back in.
He had wanted him.
Relentlessly.
Before the fall of Overwatch, Jack had been off limits. No one was allowed to have Overwatch’s golden boy. The dazzling commander, the Omega who had forced his way to the top through discipline and sheer refusal to be anything less than what he believed he should be.
Reyes had been obsessed.
But Jack had always pushed him away.
He had thought it was the uniform. The duty. The image. The perfect Omega leader who could not be seen belonging to an Alpha, especially one with the reputation of Gabriel Reyes. He had tried to wear him down with charm, with dominance, with the sheer force of what they were, but Jack had always held the line.
And now, that line was gone.
Jack turned fully, and the wind carried the scent stronger, flooding Reaper’s senses. It was the same scent that had haunted him for years, the memory of which could still wake him in the dead of night. Something sweet like spun sugar and clean linen, a scent so fundamentally Omega it was almost intoxicating, yet layered with something else. Something resolute. Unyielding. Jack.
An addiction, that’s what it was. An addiction that clawed at him, demanding two conflicting things at once. One part of him, a part he thought long dead, wanted to wrap himself in that scent and never let go, to press gentle kisses into soft skin and promise a world without pain. To love him.
The other, louder part, the part that was now Reaper, wanted to throw him to the ground, to rip that jacket from his body and fuck him until he screamed, to sink his teeth into the pale skin of his throat and mark him as his until the world knew who he belonged to. To claim him.
Back then, Jack had stopped him.
But this was not Jack Morrison, Strike Commander. This was Soldier: 76. A ghost. A man with no rank, no image to protect.
He was just… there. For the taking.
That fierce, magnificent Omega. So strong-willed, so stubborn, so damn sexy. He was still there, beneath the scars and the white hair. And he was alone.
His hunt was back on.
Old habits die hard.