Awkwardly non-hostile meetings

[moonshadows]

As usual, Reaper was the first one to enter and engage the enemy. Not for the glory of it or anything so stupid; although Talon dictated that his assault team was expendable, he disagreed. He could shrug off bullet wounds. Not only was that a valuable psychological weapon, but it meant he boasted a minimum of casualties on his missions and the troops were growing to appreciate that. Reaper entered first and cleared out the active defenders; his team followed on his command and served as eyes and ears as well as watching his back.

This time, it was an abandoned Overwatch facility and he didn’t anticipate much in the way of resistance. He listened as he strode into the small hangar, bootsteps echoing, and heard only a small scuff before an energy weapon perforated his torso. With all the drama he could muster, he cried out in what would have been agony and heard chuckles over the com as he ‘died’ a dramatic ‘death’. Two beats, and he dissolved into mist and re-formed with melodramatic gestures, laughing like an unhinged maniac. The final flourish was his hands filling with his signature shotguns, and he aimed at-

Shit. That visor was familiar. That was…

Fuck, that was the prototype Ramirez had been going to hand over to Talon. And the energy weapon – that was the prototype pulse rifle, in the hands of a man wearing what had been Ramirez’s favorite jacket, his pride and joy. Was it really…?

His eyes zoomed in on the hairline of the man with the prototype targeting visor. His hair had faded a bit more in the last threeish years, but that was Jack fucking Morrison.

The shotguns faded out. “One defender,” he announced to his team. “Stay where you are. Do not engage. He is equipped with stolen Overwatch tech and wearing a jacket with seventy-six on the back. I want him unharmed, both now and in any future engagements. Anyone violates that, I’ll kill them myself.”

“Understood, sir.”

“Good. I’m going in.” Reaper looked up at the confused figure on the catwalk and called out, “That hurt, you know.”

After a brief pause, he called back, “It was supposed to kill you.”

“Yeah, well, good luck with that.” He stalked towards the door into the main building.

Behind him, booted feet on the catwalk and then a ladder. They followed him as he strode down the hallway to the small laboratory.

“You got a name, old man?” Reaper growled without facing him.

“The wanted posters call me Soldier Seventy-Six.”

“That’ll do.” Because he needed to not slip and use the name of a man presumed dead.

“You’re the one they call Reaper,” S76 said.

“What gave me away?”

“Well, the mask is just a bit distinctive.”

“It’s all about style.”

The equipment was, fortunately, damaged. He wouldn’t have to fake it this time. Reaper pulled out a small thumb drive and stuck it into the-

Motherfucker. The terminal was already on.

“I’ve already taken all the data,” S76 informed him smugly.

Reaper spread his hand over the terminal’s main drive, nanites bypassing the keypad and half of the operating system. The data had been deleted. Technically. The OS didn’t remember what was on those sectors, but the files were still there. Reaper transferred them as they were. Unscrambling that mess would keep the R&D boys in Talon busy for a while.

“Next time,” he said as he pulled the drive out, “make sure the hard disk is destroyed. Just wiping the file table doesn’t un-write the data.”

S76 jerked slightly. “I’ll remember that,” he growled.

“Good.” Reaper turned to go, but a hand on his chest stopped him and he glared into the red slit of the targeting visor. “Yes?”

“Why did you tell me to destroy the disk next time?”

Reaper let the moment stretch as he considered all the things he wanted to say, but wouldn’t.

“I hate sloppy work,” he said, and dissolved into mist to flow out of the room, leaving a confused S76 staring after him.

===
===

 Three weeks later, in the middle of a heated firefight with a local security force, a pulse shot nailed one of his men in the leg. Reaper lunged to protect the fallen man with his own body, the next shot clipping his shoulder, and glared at S76 as he peered out of a doorway.

“Shoot me, not them,” he growled.

“But it doesn’t do anything to you.”

“It hurts.”

S76 leaned back in surprise. “You’d let yourself get shot to protect your men?”

“I thought I just proved that.”

The pulse rifle lowered. In the next doorway over, a security officer took aim at the fallen Talon agent and almost without looking, Reaper shot the officer in the chest.

“You need to get out of here,” Reaper told S76.

Stubbornly, the pulse rifle came back up.

Reaper sighed. “What will make you leave?”

Six shots punched into his torso like hot pokers.

“Oh, look,” he deadpanned. “You’re shooting me. Oh, the pain.”

The next shot hit just above his dick.

“Could you not?” he asked acidly, already repairing the damage. Another pair of security officers approaching from the side took shotgun blasts to the chest.

“I aimed high,” the old soldier protested.

“Not comforting. Now. Believe it or not, I’ve already killed who I came to kill and we’re just cleaning up on our way out. There’s nothing for you to accomplish here.”

The pulse rifle lowered again. “Oh.”

“Yeah. Oh. Will you leave now?”

One gloved hand scratched at the back of his head. “Yeah, I guess so,” S76 said. “Uh. See you around?”

Reaper snorted.

===
===

The convoy was already under attack when Reaper and a truckload of troops arrived to see why the convoy hadn’t reached Talon’s ambush. It was hard to make out what was going on in the smoke from the SUV that was on fire, but then he saw a familiar jacket as the lone assailant rolled behind another vehicle for cover.

“It’s Soldier Seventy-Six,” Reaper said over the com. “No one engage. I’ll handle this.”

The men in the truck relaxed as Reaper wisped over to re-form next to S76 and take out the soldier shooting at him.

“You’re too late,” the man said as he realized Reaper was right next to him. “I already killed the general.”

“I probably would have killed him anyway.” Reaper growled back casually. “I’m here for the intel he had on him.”

S76 stiffened; apparently he hadn’t known why the general had been on the move.

“I count four. Two behind that SUV, one behind the one on the left, and one hiding in the general’s vehicle. I’ll take the last two.”

Before S76 could respond, he wisped to the SUV on the left and disposed of the soldier there before wisping into the general’s vehicle and turning his former aide into a pile of bits. The intel was right where he’d been told it would be, and the general’s prosthetic pinky finger came neatly off. Reaper tucked it away and climbed out to check on S76.

Turns out S76 had solved the issue of the two hostiles by shooting at the SUV, and now there were two smoldering wrecks. S76 stood in the middle of the carnage, watching Reaper with what was probably a confused expression.

“Why don’t you attack me?” he asked as the masked mercenary approached.

Well, wasn’t that a can of worms he didn’t want to get into. “Because I know who you are.”

Behind his mask, Reaper grinned at how clearly that answer had unbalanced the other man. Or at least, he tried to. Damn toxin was still killing his cells. He started walking away to check the bodies for living cells he could scavenge.

“You can’t expect me to believe that you’re…intimidated by me,” S76 called. “Or that you think killing me would have some kind of negative repercussions or something.”

Reaper said nothing, his legs dissolving into smoke to browse the bodies as he floated over them. S76 came closer.

“Don’t tell me you think I’m going to take off this visor and bring back the glory days of…bring back the glory days and clean this mess up.”

“Of course not,” Reaper spat. “Those days are long gone.” The bodies had some useful areas; Reaper took what he could and moved over to the last two S76 had killed.

“Somehow,” S76 said warily, “it sounds accusing when you say that.”

“It is. But I’m not accusing you.”

When he turned, he could read the confusion in the way S76’s forehead wrinkled. It almost made him smile.

“Good seeing you again,” he deadpanned. “Nice shot taking out the general.”

And he wisped back to his men.

===
===

Reaper was triangulating on three snipers with really bad aim hiding in the catwalks of the warehouse when a pulse bolt nailed one of them. Immediately, he wisped over to put himself between the last two and S76.

“Damn it,” he growled, “you need to not be here. What will it take to make you leave?”

“I want to know who you are,” he answered in a tone Reaper knew all too well. Stubborn ass.

“No,” he said dryly, “you don’t.”

“Don’t tell me what I do or do not want, Reaper.” A pulse bolt went wide, but it startled the sniper into lurching out to where Reaper could shoot him. “I want to know who you are.”

Reaper sighed and shot the last sniper. “Can’t you just shoot me a lot?”

“It doesn’t really do anything to you, and we both know it. You know who I am under this visor. Who you are under that mask?”

“You don’t want to know,” Reaper warned him.

He could almost see the scowl. “Is that a threat?”

“No. I’m saying that if you find out, you’re going to regret knowing.”

A pair of security guards burst into the warehouse from an internal door; Reaper shot them in the chest and then misted over to the bodies. He knew S76 wasn’t going to let this go, and he wanted to at least have part of a face. Sure enough, once he solidified again, a hand gripped his shoulder and turned him around to face S76.

“You want me to leave,” he growled, “I want to know what you look like under that mask. That’s my price.”

Slowly, Reaper lifted his clawed gauntlets and detached the mask. He had only been able to form eyeballs and teeth, and without eyelids and gums those wouldn’t last in the black and crumbly ruin of his face, but they’d do for now.

“Now you know who I am under the mask,” he said darkly. “Leave.”

Shaken, S76 backed up and walked towards the outside door.

“Soldier Seventy-Six is leaving the building,” he informed his troops. “He is not a hostile. Do not engage if you value your lives.”

“He looks like he’s seen a ghost,” one of the men chuckled.

“He saw what I look like under my mask.”

The chuckling stopped.

“Hostiles in the warehouse clear. Let’s move out.”

===
===

Another Overwatch base, this one shuttered instead of abandoned. Reaper had only a handful of goons with him this time; stealth was better than force in this instance. He left the goons watching the entrance and misted through the cracks in the doorframe. There was something…off. Nothing concrete, just the feeling that the base wasn’t as deserted as it should have been. The facility was equipped with solar-powered systems, but if anyone had been using them, they were smart enough to leave the security system offline. Reaper took his hand out of the security panel and ghosted through the building to the server room, only to find the mainframe had been trashed. The parts that weren’t shattered were scorched or melted.

Soldier 76.

Reaper stalked down the hall, checking every room as he came to it, until he got to the living quarters and opened a door to the unexpected sight of S76’s half-naked body sprawled on a bunk, head turned away from the door. At the sound of the door opening, the man flinched and pulled the blanket up to cover himself completely.

“Haven’t you ever heard of knocking?” he grumbled, rolling over to flail at the bedside table and pull the visor under the blanket.

“You’re not supposed to be here,” Reaper said, cursing himself for letting such a dumb thing leave his mouth, but that back had been a lot more scarred than he remembered it being. “The Petras Act made all Overwatch activity illegal.”

S76 sat up, visor in place, blanket draped over his shoulders. Damn it, his chest was more scarred than it should have been, too. Reaper clenched his fists, strangling the urge to fuss over the man he most wanted to not know who he was.

“Well, that makes pretty much everything I do illegal, now doesn’t it?”

“Heh. You could say that.”

“Reaper,” he said hesitantly, “what happened to you?”

“You’re going to have to be more specific,” Reaper replied dryly.

S76 gestured to his mask. “What happened to you that you look like that?”

Under the mask, he glowered. “I survived a murder attempt.”

“That’s not an answer,” S76 protested.

Reaper growled, “Sure it is. It’s just not an answer you like. Nice job destroying the server, by the way.”

“Thanks. You on your way out, then?”

“Yeah.” After an awkward pause, he added, “I’ll be in Cairo next week.”

“Is that an invitation?”

“Or an opportunity. Or a warning.”

“I’ll be there,” S76 said. “I still want to know how you wound up looking like that.”

“Well, it’s a long story…”

S76 sat up straighter.

“…that I’m not going to tell you.”

“Reaper-”

“No. I’m leaving now.”

Before the other man could finish his complaint or think of a new one, Reaper misted down the hall and out the same way he’d entered.