Summary: "I don't care what you look like, Genji. I care that you've changed." Genji stepped away. "So have you." Then he disappeared into the night. Hanzo watched him go, thinking: Killing your brother will do that.

Hey folks! Another Overwatch story. Does not mention my OC. Enjoy and review.

My trigger/tagging/warning policy: I err on the side of caution. I tag and warn for things even if I don't think they'll be "triggering" per say, because 1) I might be wrong, and 2) some days you just don't need that kind of negativity in your life now matter how good the story is.

Rated for canon-typical violence and mild language.

Disclaimer: Blizzard owns Overwatch and all associated characters.

Warnings: blood, minor flashbacks, mentions of anti-Omnic prejudice [and implicitly whatever real-life symbolism Blizzard is expressing with that]

The tension between the Shimada brothers was thick enough to cut with Genji's sword. Every one of the heroes [and those others whom the title didn't quite fit] gathered at Overwatch's new HQ could feel it. It was impossible not to, when the brothers could barely be in the same room together, had nearly ruined missions when assigned to work together, and continued to vocally express their respective opinions at every opportunity. Hanzo was the most aggressive and temperamental, but it had to be admitted that Genji's cool indifference was just as hostile, if passively so.

It was starting to divide the team, which was something they could not afford at any time, but especially not right after an extremely convenient leak [it reeked of Talon's tactics] had revealed Overwatch's existence to world media. Attempts at mediation between the two brothers had failed; other members were beginning to take sides. On one side was McCree, who spent most of his time shamelessly, persistently and passionately flirting with an increasingly bemused/annoyed Hanzo and had managed to drag the archer into the boisterous group of heavy hitters—like Pharah and —who spent most of their leisure time together decimating the target range. Genji, on the other side, retreated to the company of the old guard [Mercy especially] and Zenyatta, rarely leaving the latter's quarters.

It was an untenable situation, and several of the more impartial members of the team convened to come up with a solution. They had no luck. Things came to the desperate point where a whisper began, its source untraceable, that Hanzo should be asked to leave—and doing that, everyone knew, would probably divide the team as much if not more than letting Hanzo and Genji's rivalry continue to poison every room they entered.

Ironically enough, Talon ended up solving the problem for them.

A peace organization from Sydney requested Zenyatta's help with outreach for Omnic rights amongst the local population—not via Overwatch but through whatever channels of intelligence Zenyatta had used prior to joining the team. He frequently left HQ for weeks at a time, with no advance notice, to attend to such calls or to simply wander, communing with humanity. This particular occasion, he stopped by the infirmary to say goodbye to Mercy and Athena while she was patching up the results of McCree's latest attempt to seduce Hanzo—two broken fingers. They both gaped at his plan to blithely waltz through Australia without backup.

"I'm a tough piece of work and even I get antsy traveling down there alone, what with this beauty." McCree held up his prosthetic arm, remembered he'd been hiding his cigar from Mercy in that hand and hurriedly slipped it back behind his poncho. Mercy rolled her eyes at him, and continued her work on his other hand as he continued. "There's so many itchy trigger fingers I can't keep track of them, and folks ain't looking for much of an excuse to scratch them, either."

"Jesse's right, Zenyatta. Australia is dangerously anti-Omnic right now, and its too risky for you to go alone."

Zenyatta nodded, taking in their counsel soberly. "I thank you for your concern. I will take care to avoid antagonizing anyone."

McCree sighed. "Your existence is gonna antagonize someone. Don't Genji usually go with ya?"

"On occasion. He is not available now; he was on the roster for the mission that left this morning."

Mercy, finished with McCree's hand, paused in her tidying up, and fixed Zenyatta with one of her signature looks. It was the look that said Either My Patients Are Going To Kill Me Or I Will Kill Them. "You're going no matter what we say, aren't you?"

Zenyatta nodded amiably.

"Then take Jesse," Mercy said.

McCree took to that suggestion about as well as a fish might take to climbing trees, but Mercy managed to turn it into a matter of honor by suggesting he was afraid to go. By mid-afternoon that day, Zenyatta and McCree were on a jet to Australia.

By mid-afternoon the next day, Athena received a signal from McCree's GPS tracker blaring its emergency beacon for back-up, which cut off abruptly an hour later. News feeds from Sydney detailed breaking news about a an terrorist group using revamped war Omnics to massacre hostages at the peace conference in the city's capitol hall.

Halfway across the world, in the middle of a delicate mission, both Hanzo and Genji received the news and calmly abandoned their posts, making their separate ways to Sydney. The first time their passed crossed was late the same night, while they each cased the terrorists defenses.

"Do not get in my way," Hanzo growled. He didn't need to look behind him to sense his brother's presence.

"I am here for Zenyatta, not for you."

"You should not be here at all." Not when half the people in this city would kill an Omnic—or near-Omnic—as soon as look at one.

"Do not presume to tell me what I cannot do. You lost that right long ago."

Hanzo prickled, turning around. Genji was crouched in the shadow of a roof arch. "You speak as if you actually listened to me in the first place."

Genji's expression was hidden by his faceplate, but Hanzo remembered the way his younger brother would tilt his head when he rolled his eyes, and recognized it now. If Genji weren't so infuriatingly calm and condescending, as he had been since he'd announced his return from the dead to Hanzo at Hanamura Castle, Hanzo was sure he'd mutter something scathing about the quality of Hanzo's past advice. Hanzo almost wished he would.

There was silence in the warm night. Hanzo was considering moving on when Genji nodded in the direction of capitol hall. "The place is well-guarded."

It was true. There was a war machine at every entrance to the capitol hall, and the whole block was cordoned off by the police. Bodies, Omnic and human, littered the building's lawn and surrounding streets. Privately, Hanzo was uncertain as to how he would break in and rescue McCree. Yes, he was rescuing the idiot cowboy. No, he wasn't sure why. [Yes, that was a lie, but Hanzo would not admit even to himself that he was growing—dragon help him—fond of said idiot.] It didn't matter; he had plenty determination with which to fuel his creativity. He most certainly did not need the help his brother was half offering now.

Hanzo stood, ready to leave. "True. Far too well-guarded for a cybernetic warrior to approach unseen. You should wait for backup."

"Of course. I suppose you plan to scale the nonexistent battlements? Or perhaps fly?" There went that condescending tone again. Hanzo for the life of him could not recognize Genji in that tone. "There is no cover for many meters all around the building, for either you or I, brother."

Something snapped in Hanzo. "Do not call me that!" he snarled. "Not while you stand there patronizing me, parroting the expressions of that Omnic of yours. Not while you act as if the word held no meaning!"

Genji did not move, but Hanzo sensed his stance suddenly become dangerous. His voice turned cold: "Zenyatta is more a brother to me than you ever were."

Hanzo took a step back, in spite of himself, barely managing to keep his expression neutral.

Genji continued: "I vouched for you with the others. I invited you back into my life. Are those not the actions of brother? I believed you would prefer a living sibling to a dead one, but apparently you were quite satisfied paying false honors to the ghost you chose to remember."

Hanzo closed his eyes, recalled a notched sword and a blood-spattered tapestry. "I mourned you every single day," he gritted out.

"You're weren't mourning me." Genji jumped down from his perch and stood in front of Hanzo, arms crossed. He'd been shorter before… before, but now with his cybernetics he towered a several inches above Hanzo. "You were mourning the loss of your own honor."

Hanzo shook his head. This argument would gain them nothing, like all the others had. There was, Hanzo was beginning to fear, nothing to gain at all between them anymore. His emotions and regrets swirled like a tempest through his brain, but he couldn't seem to voice any of them.

For a moment they stood in silence; then Genji titled his head in a contemptuous eye roll again. "If the way I am disgusts you so much, why did you come to Overwatch?"

To protect you! Like I should have before. To have a chance of seeing my brother again. Hanzo wrestled the words from his tongue. They were not something he could admit to this stranger his brother had become; no matter how desperately he wished he could. Hanzo seized each of Genji's metal arms, feeling the warm, smooth metal jerk at his grip. "You think I care about this? When you're alive?" Hanzo stopped before his voice could break. He took a deep breath. "I don't care what you look like, Genji. I care that you've changed."

Genji stepped away, brushing off Hanzo's hands. "So have you."

Then he disappeared into the night. Hanzo watched him go, thinking: Killing your brother will do that.

Sneaking past the police barricade later was easy, but sneaking past the war Omnics took careful marksmanship—an arrow for Hanzo and a shuriken for Genji—to the Omnics' few small, vulnerable spots. Here and there they spotted traces of each others' passage: a dead lookout here or there, a broken lock, the pockmark of an arrowhead or shuriken... The terrorists were Talon mooks, which at this point should have been unsurprising. Talon was behind everything these days. It was bad news for the hostages—Talon was not known for minimizing civilian causalities. In fact, judging by the body count outside, with this attack they were aiming to maximize them. The place was oddly empty of hostages—and both Hanzo and Genji keenly hoped it didn't mean they were all dead—and worryingly full of prowling Talon mooks. One at a time, even three at a time, was no trouble to dispatch, but today Talon was traveling in large, alert groups.

They did not actually cross paths until Hanzo found himself carefully searching for a way into one of the old courtrooms, [mostly because the door had a massive and very nervous group of guards outside it.] He was safely hidden on a balcony overlooking the lobby and the door, able to see in three directions. So was Genji, when Hanzo spotted him sequestered in a niche in the lobby, no doubt having come to investigate the courtroom for the same reason Hanzo had. They caught each others' eye.

Was it stupid to refuse to work together? Hanzo wondered sourly, knowing the answer already. He turned his attention away from his brother, to the Talon guards, trying to catch a hint about the contents of the courtroom from their conversations. He was just in time to see Reaper arrive, trailing black smoke and silencing the guards.

"Sir, we c-can't get in. They've got Overwatch agents in there—we m-managed to do a lot of damage taking the building… b-but then the r-robot and the hostages holed up in here." The mook reporting to Reaper was clearly intimidated. Reaper crossed his arms and inspected the door before chuckling.

"I'll get you in. Just make sure there are no survivors."

Hanzo had to suppress a growl; he would love to put an arrow straight through the man's heart, but he knew from past experience that Reaper would just dissolve and escape unharmed. With Reaper here things would get much more chancy—he was as sharp as unexpected tack on the floor and hard to put down quickly. Sooner or later, Hanzo knew, either Talon or the police barricade would notice that the war machines were no longer functioning and chaos would erupt. It was a good thing he now knew that McCree and the hostages were behind the door. [Hanzo had seen no body and therefore refused to believe McCree was not alive.] Now… how to get in? Hanzo readied a ricocheting arrow.

With his attention split between Reaper and the door guards below, Hanzo did not hear the patrol of Talon agents coming along the balcony towards his hiding place—not until he heard something strike the wall behind him. Hanzo spun around instantly and spotted a silvered-green shuriken stuck in the plaster. He also spotted the patrol, a moment before they spotted him. A moment was all Hanzo needed to surprise them. He loosed his arrow, which traveled through one agent, bounced off the floor, and wounded another. Dashing towards his attackers, Hanzo ripped Genji's shuriken out of the wall and sent it spinning into the throat of another agent. Then he knocked the wounded agent into the wall with his bow hard enough to break ribs; the agent slid to the floor with a groan. The last agent had barely enough time to bring his gun to bear on Hanzo's fleeting form before the ninja kicked him backwards off the balcony.

Trying not to think about the fact that Genji had been watching his back, Hanzo drew an exploding arrow, whose head would erupt with multiple smaller ones, and shot it into the alarmed crowd of Talon agents below—pausing a moment before releasing the arrow to shout a warning to Genji in their native tongue. Hanzo knew Genji must have broken cover to warn him, but Hanzo couldn't immediately locate him in the lobby below.

There! Genji was dancing around Reaper, trying to land a lasting blow while avoiding the shots of the Talon agents, samurai sword flashing as fast as lightning. Hanzo drew again and took aim at Reaper's unsuspecting back—but a hail of shots from the Talon agents below had him diverting the arrow their way with a curse. He fired several more before leaping down to the lobby level.

It was a chaotic fight, made up entirely of split seconds and screams and hair's breadth escapes, and Hanzo wasn't quite sure how he and Genji found themselves fighting back to back. All he knew was that it felt like old times. They whirled and turned around each other like flawlessly oiled gears, decimating Talon's ranks and steadily pushing Reaper into a corner. Hanzo barely noticed the openings he left in his defenses, knowing Genji would cover him—and he thought nothing of it when Genji reciprocated. He didn't think anything of the banter that slipped them between as easily at the thrusts and arrow strikes, old inside-jokes and teasing insults in Japanese. It felt natural like nothing had in a long time.

Then Reaper either lost his patience or grew genuinely threatened by their onslaught and suddenly cloaked himself in black smoke. When it cleared he was gone, but he didn't take long in reappearing close by, guns blazing. It was impossible to see in the typhoon of black smoke wrapped around the two ninjas; it prickled unnaturally on Hanzo's skin and stole the breath from his mouth. Hanzo could feel the bullets streaking close by and hear Reaper hissing "Die!" but the shots and sounds seemed to come from all directions.

A shot ripped along his bow arm, and Hanzo swore that—in the instant it took him to flinch and recover—he did not drop the bow but it was ripped out from his grip. Whatever happened, it was suddenly gone.

"This way!" Genji called. Hanzo hesitated, loathe to abandon his bow. He felt a bullet zip by close enough to burn his cheek; he turned to follow his brother. They darted around a corner, through a door, into a hallway, and all the way up an emergency stairwell before they stopped at the dead end for breath. Hanzo felt somewhat naked without his bow and glared anxiously down the stairwell, watching for pursuers.

"Brother, we may have bitten off more than we can chew tonight." Genji said, voice ragged.

Hanzo turned away from the stairwell, a dismissive denial on the tip of his tongue, but he choked on it when he saw Genji down on one knee, a hand on the floor to steady himself. He stopped himself, barely, from dashing to his brother's side. He had to keep an eye on the stairwell. He could see no blood, no obvious injury, and yet Genji was clearly struggling to breathe. Hanzo kept his voice even. "You've been shot."

"Twice. One's just a nuisance, but the other… my cooling mechanism has failed and I'm overheating. Quickly."

Hanzo was sure his heart was beating as loud as a drum. If he had cooperated with Genji sooner perhaps this would not have happened. Wasn't he supposed to be the one protecting his younger brother, not the other way around? "Is it lethal?" he asked.

"If you consider being unable to fight lethal, then yes. I cannot fix it myself, but if we could find Zenyatta…"

Genji trailed off. To get to the Omnic they would have to deal with Talon and Reaper. Catch 22, as the Americans liked to say. Hanzo glanced away. He was without his bow; Genji was injured. There was no clean escape and no obvious way forward. There was noise echoing in the stairwell below them. Talon would be upon them soon.

Hanzo was not abandoning his brother. Not this time.

Hanzo drew two arrows from his quiver and held one loosely in each hand. In a pinch they were serviceable daggers. He hoped the blood coating his bow hand would not sour his grip. "Stay here while I lure them off. Then slip away off the roof. The others should be on their way; they'll help you complete the rescue."

Genji looked at Hanzo for a long moment, expression hidden behind his faceplate. Then he drew his sword fluidly and held it out to Hanzo. "You're going to need a real weapon."

Hanzo stared at the sword; he would have stepped back if the stairwell railing were not behind him. A notched samurai sword, a blood-spattered tapestry. Hanzo let out a sharp breath. "I haven't touched a sword since…"

"Then it's a good thing you were always a natural at them."

Hanzo was not about to admit that his hands shook ever so slightly when he took his brother's sword, and if Genji noticed he had the grace not to acknowledge it.

Suddenly the noises below were joined by Reaper's rasping voice, calling up to them. "Death comes for you, boys."

Hanzo scowled, regaining some confidence. "That thing," he growled to Genji, "is asking for a date with the dragons."

Genji laughed breathlessly, and slowly got to his feet. "Then let us give him one."

Hanzo did not understand until Genji stepped forward and wrapped a hand around Hanzo's, closed over the samurai sword. Then he remembered. They had done this once before, as a youthful prank, a long time ago when destruction had been amusing. Three spirit dragons tearing down this cramped stairwell… now that was something to put the fear of the Shimada brothers into Reaper.

Hanzo's lips curled into a dangerous smile, the predatory smile of a hungry dragon, and he was suddenly sure that beneath his faceplate Genji's were doing the same.

Hanzo called on the power of his ancestors and spoke the ancient words to summon twin blue dragon spirits as Genji did the same to summon a single green one. "Ryū ga waga teki wo kurau!—Ryūjin no ken o kurae!" The stairwell erupted in color and sound, the roar of the dragons shaking the building. The stairwell crumbled beneath their feet as the dragons pushed downward hungrily. The brothers fell, but they felt no fear—the dragons would not drop them. It was exhilarating; Hanzo added his own laugh to the dragons' roars. The Talon agents had no chance. Reaper barely managed to dematerialize before the giant maw of a dragon snapped closed around the space he'd occupied a split second before. Hanzo knew he wouldn't be back, not tonight.

Hanzo was still laughing when the dragons spilled them out into the ground floor hall and dissipated, but he stopped when Genji sagged at his side. By now he must have been dangerously overheated. Hanzo scouted the corridor ahead as Genji caught his breath, running into a spare Talon agent. A simple strike of the samurai sword and the agent was dead, but Hanzo's thoughts jumped from the unfamiliar body before him to another, very familiar, one. This was the first person he'd slain with a sword since—

"Brother, are you well?"

It was Genji, caught up with Hanzo, who didn't know if he'd been standing still for just a moment or many minutes. His hands were shaking visibly. Hanzo shook off the distraction and buried the intrusive thoughts. "Yes, I'm fine."

Hanzo's hands did not stop shaking as he and Genji made their way—slowly, for Genji's sake—through the building to the courtroom door. They shook but did not fail him as he slew the remaining Talon agents they came across. They were still shaking when the two of them finally convinced the hostages inside to let them in. Zenyatta was sitting calmly in the center of the room, slowly and groggily coming out of the deep trance that had sealed the room but still visibly pleased to see his student. The other hostages were crowded onto pews or sitting on the floor, overjoyed at the prospect of rescue. Hanzo searched the room for McCree, brows knitted in worry until he caught sight of the cowboy lounging in the justice's seat, his feet resting on the podium. Hanzo was careful to stifle his sigh of relief. McCree's own grin when he saw Hanzo was bright enough to rival the sun.

When Hanzo inquired about the inexpertly bound wound in his shoulder, McCree drawled: "Darling, seein' your face is the only pain killer I need." Then he winked in what he obviously though was a suggestive manner and continued: "But you could kiss it better if ya wanted."

Hanzo heard a snort from behind him and knew that Genji had heard the exchange. Hanzo rolled his eyes. "Don't hold your breath, cowboy."

Later, in the infirmary back at HQ, Hanzo overheard Genji teaching McCree even worse pick-up lines than the ones he already used daily. Determine to put a stop to this subterfuge, Hanzo caught Genji's arm as he passed by to leave the infirmary. "Didn't you used to be a playboy? I would think you have better seduction techniques in your arsenal than awful pick-up lines."

Genji paused. "Are you asking me to teach you some, Hanzo?"

Hanzo growled in frustration. "Fuck off, Genji," he said—and this time, for the first time, the words held no real malice.

Hanzo would swear that behind his faceplate Genji was smirking broadly.

The tension between the Shimada brothers was still, occasionally, thick enough to cut with Genji's sword. The two were too stubborn and too unused to communicating with each other to resolve their differences overnight. They'd both changed over the years, and there was too much history between them for it all to go away after a single mission—but now it was certain there was something else between them: brotherhood.

Notes: Yes, Genji ships it.

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