a sneak peak of the reaper76 fic i am writing
"You left Talon," a voice said from the shadows. A voice Reaper knew well. The asshole always seemed to be able to find him, no matter where he happened to be in the world.
He turned to see Jack leaning against the opposite wall of the alley a few yards away. He still wore the jacket and mask that made him the vigilante Soldier 76 after the fall of Overwatch, even after his identity was revealed and he took up being Jack Morrison again.
"Vendetta is a problem," Jack continued. He paused, catching Reaper's gaze, his eyes barely visible through the red glass line on his visor. " Is Akande really dead?"
In a blur of purple-gray smoke, Reaper was across the small space with a heavy arm across Soldier 76's throat. Jack didn't flinch.
"What are you doing here?" Reaper growled, anger bubbling into his voice. He felt the barrel of Jack's heavy pulse rifle press into his side. A warning. He didn't move his arm.
"I like New York," Jack said, a little calmly, a little accusatory. He shrugged slightly, his shoulder bumping into Reaper's elbow, his attitude almost cavalier, like they hadn't spent the last few years on opposite sides of global conflict. Like they weren't enemies. "The better question is what are you doing here?"
Born and raised in L.A., Reaper preferred open air rustling with the Santa Ana winds and zipping through traffic on a motorcycle to underground subways in a place with nine million people packed into three square miles, and Jack knew it. The history between them was like a tether, one he couldn't sever no matter how hard he tried.
Reaper stepped back and the barrel of Jack's gun slipped away from his long leather coat.
Footsteps echoed in the alley behind him and a hand landed on his shoulder. He didn't want to do this, didn't want to talk to Jack. Didn't want Jack to keep trying to fix things, to fix him, to fix them. The other man had been chasing him for years, as impossibly stubborn as he ever was, and Reaper didn't want to deal with him. Especially not now. The self identity he'd felt as Gabriel Reyes, Blackwatch Commander, was long gone, and he could feel his connection to Reaper slipping further away each day. Everything was a jumbled mess, and he didn't know what to do with himself. He was running away from those problems as fast as he could.
He grabbed Jack's wrist and twisted, but before he could throw Jack to the ground, Morrison landed a blow to his side, not pulling his punch. Reaper hissed in pain and used his wraith form to slide out of Jack's grasp and get a few feet away.
"Fuck off," he snapped, seconds away from reaching for his guns. They'd been avoiding killing each other for years, but that never stopped them from shooting. Tonight, he didn't want the attention. NYPD officers would respond to gun violence in minutes in this part of town.
"Fuck you," Jack spat back. "I just wanted to talk, Gabe."
The name felt like a slap in the face. He couldn't remember the last time he heard it come out of Jack's mouth. Before the explosion, certainly, before the fall. Back when they were at each other's throats in a different way, unable to reconcile their commands of Blackwatch and Overwatch. It all seemed so petty now. Inconsequential. But he had been so angry, so unbelievably-
"We used to do that," Jack said quietly. "Remember?"
"We used to yell at each other," Reaper reminded him.
"Not always. And you never tried to kill me back then, not really."
Not like now, Jack didn't say.
Reaper wished he could see Jack's face behind the mask, not just a sliver of his eyes.
"Give up, Jack," he said, his voice low and hollow. Before Jack could speak, Reaper wraithed, sending the particles of his body up to the rooftop, out of Morrison's reach.
He reconstituted his body and took one last look. Jack stared up at him.
