Hey, guys, how's it going? I finally got a chance to play Overwatch for two days, and I had a lot of fun. I was inspired to write a story yesterday, but I'm literally leaving the country tomorrow, so I've been rushing to churn out some words. Hope you like what I have so far.

"Sniper!" was the last thing McCree heard before he found himself in the dirt, contemplating the blazing heat of the sun looking down disapprovingly on his still form. Beside him, the girl was down, the chronal accelerator on her back belching sparks into the air. The wind was knocked out of him. The sniper had caught him unawares. The girl had paid the price.

McCree swore, rolling onto his feet. He fired six wild shots in the general direction of the sniper, whom he reckoned was posted up somewhere across the gorge that snaked along Route 66. He must've gotten lucky, as he was able to throw the girl over his shoulder before the second—and what should have been, last—shot came whizzing by. He had her slung over his shoulder now, hurrying as best he could down the baking asphalt, the sound of his spurs jangling louder than him breathing, the girl light like that, practically nothing in his arms. His fingers had minds of their own, chambering another six rounds into his Peacemaker. On his shoulder, he felt the girl stir, reaching for her own peace. Her machine pistol rattled angrily, like a startled Diamondback, but was quickly drowned out by the BOOMS of his revolver, somehow weighty and confident, a voice that made people listen. They cut behind a beat-to-hell pickup dead in the road, the windshield and driver's side window exploding as another one of the sniper's bullets took the truck, a geyser of dust erupt behind them and billowing in the win. Just ahead, he could make out the entrance, big bold letters that said PANORAMA DINER, a derelict fossil that had withered and dried-up after years of misfortune. He'd feel downright nostalgic about his old haunt if a bullet weren't likely to take his head off at the shoulders at any second.

"Keep her suppressed," he grumbled out of the side of his mouth, just now realizing he'd bitten clean through his cigar in the scuffle, spitting out the end of it. The girl grunted in affirmation, producing her pistol's twin in the other hand. She'd just about clocked the sniper's exact location by now, emptying the magazine towards their unseen enemy. Shooting upside-down like that, while they were moving, especially given her guns didn't have that kind of range, was a hell of a feat, but she seemed to have accomplished it well enough, as no superfluous holes sprouted in either one of them. He cleared the last four steps into the diner with a single bound, crashing in through the doors. They hit the ground hard, tumbling through, knocking over the set of rope stanchions standing sentinel beyond the front door. They stayed low, McCree grabbing a bench and lifting it up to barricade the front entrance. Tracer was on her feet now, despite his protests, dipping off to scout the building. Three shots in total came blasting through the northern windows, Tracer hitting the deck. McCree motioned for her to follow him into the kitchen, and they fell through the double doors. What felt like two weeks, but was probably a lot closer to two minutes passed, and the pair found themselves holed behind a rusted cooktop.

"You know this place," Tracer said. It wasn't a question.

"Yeah," he said, counting out how many shells he had left. Twelve. More than enough, he reckoned. He wanted that to be the end of it, but she wouldn't leave well enough alone.

"From your outlaw days, yeah?" No judgment in her tone. Just curiosity.

"The very same." He answered. He said nothing more, and after a moment, she seemed to take the hint.

He didn't talk much about the past. Didn't have all that much to say. He ran guns across the border. Made more money than he knew what to do with, all of it earned with blood and bullets. And he had been good at it too, boasting a rap sheet longer than a country mile. but evidently he had not been nearly good enough. And in a stroke of the Devil's luck, the day Overwatch darkened his door, they offered him a job, instead of a quick drop and a sudden stop. Maybe that's why Overwatch failed, he reckoned. Taking in thieves and murderers instead of shooting them on the spot. Wasn't that long ago the townsfolk used to lynch outlaws like him, not give them a tin star. Even before that, folks would cut the hands off thieves, a fitting punishment and a penance he himself had paid. He opened and closed the fingers of his cybernetic arm. Even after all these years, he could still feel his phantom limb there, as if it were just under the shell of metal, waiting for him. It felt itchy and cramped, and it was all he could do to not pick at the arm like a dog scratching out an old wound. But they didn't make those plastic cones for people.

"Hey, cheer up," Tracer said. He blinked. He'd gotten lost in the past again, it seemed, and she brought him back into the moment. That was kind of her thing, he realized, the nature of her abilities, walking the fine line between past and future. He never gave the girl enough credit.

"Sorry," he admitted.

"You're different now," she said, jabbing him in the arm. He shouldn't have been this easy to read. "You left that life behind you a long time ago. The world needed heroes, and you answered the call. We all did." He sighed.

"Sometimes a man thinks he can leave a part of his life behind him. He can't. It follows him home like a stray dog." He'd been all over the world by now, and yet it seemed all roads had led him back to here, back to this moment, back to this diner, where all of it had started. He would have no more of it.

McCree risked a peek, inching his head up from behind the ticket counter, where the servers handed off the orders, a few of them still hanging there, never fulfilled. He looked out past the windows, covered in soot and grime, out across Deadlock Gorge, to where the sniper had to have been. He imagined he saw a glint out there, maybe something, maybe nothing, maybe just a flash in the pan. He ducked, and not a hair too soon.

McCree's hat went flying off, and the sound of broken glass and groaning metal filled the room. The shot went over him, punching into the steel freezer door behind the pair, leaving a dent in it the size of his fist. He clicked his tongue, reaching out to scoop up his hat, still nicked and worn from years of wear, but otherwise undamaged. He affixed it to his head, always starting at the front and going backwards, keeping his greasy mop out of his eyes.

"Well, that was a close one, eh?" Tracer asked. He figured he could play it off like he meant to do that, but instead sighed.

"Yup. Damn near took my head off. She's got us pinned."

"That simply won't do," she said, her face suddenly scrunching up, a look he took to mean she was thinking.

"Got a plan?"

"No," she admitted after a few moments. "My chronal accelerator is still heavily damaged, and even with it, I'm afraid Widowmaker has us at a bit of a disadvantage."

"Up a creek, more like," he said, wanting to light another cigar, but not wanting the smoke to give away their position.

"I suppose that is one way of putting it," she said, smiling. "And what about you? What's your plan?"

"Signaled backup already. Supposin' we dig in here. Wait her out."

"How long?"

"An hour? Two?"

"I don't think Widowmaker''s agreeable to let us sit about like this. We might not have the luxury of waiting for backup."

"No, I don't think spider-lady is gonna let us camp out here unmolested," he said, scratching his beard. He didn't like to admit it, but their odds weren't looking so great. He neglected to mention any number of ways Widowmaker could flush them out of the building, like flooding the diner with her toxic gas canisters. And that was just one of her tricks they knew about. She could just as easily have some new ones up her eight sleeves. Hell, she could even go with a more mundane solution and put the building to the torch. He seemed to vaguely remember a propane tank on the opposite side of the diner, hopefully out of her immediate line of sight. If it went fireball, they'd find themselves without cover, easy targets. The girl seemed to read the thoughts writ small across his face, and grew quiet, pensive, which was a bad sign. "Besides," he said, trying out a smile like an off-the-rack jacket, not liking the way it fit. "I thought you liked calling for backup?" He elbowed her playfully, as was apparently the custom, his cyber arm nearly bowling her over, and said "What ever happened to 'cheers, love. The cavalry's here?' " She just looked at him for the longest time, wordless.

"You're making fun of me, love," she said, crossing her arms.

"What makes you say that?" he asked, dialing up the cluelessness.

"Two can play thayut game" she drawled, trading her tea-and-kettle accent for a southern one, only it was a very one-sided trade, and he hoped she kept the receipt.

"No fair," he said. "No makin' fun of my accent." She didn't really have a leg to stand on with that one, he knew, her accent just as bad as his, in its own way.

"What can I make fun of, then?" she asked, undaunted.

"Nothing at all," he shrugged. "I am beyond reproach."

"Does that mean I can't say anything about your tragically western fashion sense?" she asked, grinning.

Tragically western? He mumbled to himself, almost offended. "Not fashion. Function."

"Oh, really?" she asked, eyes narrowing beneath her orange goggles. "The poncho?"

"Comfortable. Keeps me warm. Keeps dust away."

"The hat?" she asked, trying to make him sweat.

"Keeps the sun out of my eyes."

"The belt buckle?"

"Keeps my pants from falling off. I'd say that's pretty damn functional."

"The spurs?" she asked, smiling impishly. His mouth tightened. She had him there.

"Look cool," he admitted. "Ain't much for riding. Never was."

"So there you have it," she said, trying to stifle a laugh, and not doing a very good job of it. "Consider yourself successfully reproached."

"Two can play at the fashion game," he said, nodding his head to her. "This tragically western cowpoke fails to see how skintight leggings wind up on the battlefield."

"Not skintight," she insisted, adapting an almost schoolmarm posture. "Formfitting. Allows freedom of movement, which is very important."

"Don't offer much in the way of protection, though," he mused. Even he wore a breastplate under his poncho. That was another one he'd lifted direct from Eastwood, but she didn't have to know that. His ears pricked up. There was a stirring outside the diner, something just at the edge of his hearing. Tracer leaned in, voice hushed.

"Do you hear that?"

"Yes," he said, reflexively holding up a finger of silence.

"What is it?" Metal whirring, Lurching footsteps. Something heavy. Trouble.

"Looks like she's rounded up a posse," McCree said, moving towards the back of the kitchen. Just over the sink was a small window facing out in front of the diner, presumably beyond the sniper's line of sight. Tall as he was, he had to half scramble up over the sink to get a decent view. What he found outside made him swear.

"What is it?" whispered the girl from behind him. He eyed the hunk of metal in front of the diner, an old omnic war machine. A bipedal tank with a high-powered machine gun for an arm and a cannon on its back. He'd seen enough of their kind in the war, knew how dangerous they were. This one in particular.

"Bastion," he said.

"Bastion?" she asked, incredulously. "I thought he was one of us now. A good guy?"

"Maybe somebody shoulda told him that," he said, watching as the robot transformed before his eyes. It folded over at the waist as if on a hinge, driving its feet into the ground for support. The giant cannon on its back fell forward as it locked into position. Slowly, the barrel began to spin, winding up for the pitch.

"Get down!" was all he could manage as the sound of gunfire filled the air. The bullets tore into the diner, chewing up everything they hit, the building exploding into shards and slivers of glass, metal, and plastic. They were on the ground now, as flat as they could make themselves. No more than two feet away, McCree had to scream at her to be heard.

"FOLLOW ME!" he roared, taking the girl by the arm. Whether she chose to or not, he would never know, as he yanked her hard across the room. He came to a shelf against the back wall, flinging it down where it crashed against the dusty linoleum floor. Behind it was a door, all but hidden from sight. He kicked it open, and the door flew off its hinges, sailing down into the blackness below. Without thinking, he followed it blindly into the darkness, the bullets heavy in the air, like hornets whizzing past his ears. Where the staircase should have been, his feet found nothing. He fell into the darkness, bracing himself, Tracer in tow.

The drop hadn't been far, two seconds' worth, but he hit the ground poorly, landing in a heap of broken, rotten wood. That would be the staircase, he realized. Tracer followed suit, landing on top of him, driving her knee into his chin.

"Oof" he grunted, tasting the blood in his mouth. Above them, the sound of gunfire stopped abruptly.

"Are you hurt?" Tracer hissed, feeling her way around the dark.

"Nothing but my pride," he answered, feeling out for the lighter in his pocket. It clinked to life, and the pair found themselves in what looked at first an old basement, long forgotten.

"What is this place?" she asked.

"Storeroom. Built into a small cave system. Should get us up and outside into a pass between the cliffs." He brushed the dirt off himself, scanning around the room for anything usable, but it seemed all the hardware had been scavenged years ago. He passed a cobweb hung in the corner bigger than his head, counted a pair of beetles and other crawlies entombed there, a graveyard of desiccated husks. The symbolism was not lost on him.

"I suppose I don't need to ask how you know about this place," Tracer said, more to herself than him.

"I suppose not," he said, sounding more annoyed than he intended to. In another life, the gang had run guns through the town, and the network of caves beneath it had come in handy. The owner, a woman named Debbie Shiner, let them use the basement as they needed, a favor to McCree. He'd personally dealt with her husband, a real piece of work, and she had been grateful. Standing there now, in the long picked-clean wreck of the diner, he couldn't help but feel guilty for what he'd done, as if he'd repaid her generosity with ruin. "We need to keep moving," he said, finally.

More coming at some point. Hope you like it.