Living My Life on Red Alert (Jesse McCree)
A/N: I’m pretty positive this is my longest story to date so that’s impressive? Also literally the only reason I wrote this is because I decided to osmosisly learn everything I needed to know about the universe of Overwatch without playing the game so apologies for inaccuracies in advance. Now, on with the show!
The bell above the door rang and Hale used that as good of a sign as any to get up and get to work. She had technically opened up about half hour ago, but this didn’t stop her from going really underway. She rolled off her cot she kept in the space above the diner. After landing on the ground, she dusted herself off and cleaned herself up. She tied her hair quickly into a sloppy bun and wandered down the stairs. When she arrived in the kitchen, she poked her head out of the window and found her usual sitting in his spot at the counter and was looking down at his hand, allowing his hat to cover his face. Hale smiled to herself as she pulled out the bag of coffee beans, they both preferred.
“Mornin’,” He said as he looked up. Hale came out of the kitchen and smirked. She was fond of the guy that seemed to appear every morning. He had a cybernetic right hand and some sort of scarf around his neck? She couldn’t tell, and he had some sort of accent she had only started working through.
“Morning Stranger,” she replied. She had taken to calling him Stranger both because of an old, old western movie her dad once showed her, and because they hadn’t traded names. What could she say, they got distracted between not talking about what he did for a living, not talking about what Hale did before working at a diner, and most certainly not talking about the robot Hale had stashed in the back room. Hell, they didn’t really know each other outside of extremely frivolous things. Like she knew that he had a preference toward Reese’s Peanut Butter cups (and with this discovery they had made an agreement that he could have all of hers for the rest of her life), he had liked sweet pea flowers, and took his coffee black. Besides, this routine had been going on for a couple of months it was far too late now. They were like, Gatsby and Nick. The nickname had stuck, and it was far too late to ask for his name. “The usual?” She asked.
“Of course,” He said with an easy smile. Hale started pouring the beans into the grinder and started grinding. Sure, she could’ve bought an automated, but there was something satisfying about grinding them herself. Hale was cranking and leaning against the wall. She took in her Stranger a bit more. He hadn’t shed his hat yet and had stopped lighting his cigar in the diner after the second week when Hale tore into him for it.
“Darlin, I think you’ve ground those poor beans enough.” He said. Hale snapped out of her stupor and looked down, partially to hide the blush that came from his affectionate name (a week seven development, both the pet names and her sudden affection for the cowboy) and partially to see the grounds, sure enough they were ground.
“Right, thanks.” She said. She turned on the coffee pot and set up the grounds. She adjusted her scrunchie out of habit as the coffee pot started to whir. She then was quick to pull out their respective mugs. She then disappeared into the back and started working on their pancakes, taking the batter she put in the fridge last night and lit the stove top up. “How many this morning Stranger?”
“Four should do,” he said. She nodded and started portioning them out. In doing so, she was focused on the batter and made them with care. Soon enough, 8 pancakes were made, and Hale put the pancakes on the plate. She grabbed a canister of maple syrup for Stranger. She set the plate down and passed him a fork. She then grabbed a stool and sat on a diagonal from him. This is how it was every morning since he had started coming in.
“Got any plans?” She asked. “Or at least, ones you can tell me about?” She added. Stranger chuckled and took his hat off as he started pouring syrup on his pancakes.
“Nah, could spend the day here.” He said. Hale chuckled and blushed but hid it by going under the counter and grabbing the powdered sugar. She dusted her stack and then placed it on the counter.
“You’d get called away and you know it.” She remarked. Stranger laughed and took a bite of pancake.
“You might be right about that darlin’.”
“'Course I am,” Hale said through the last bit of pancake in her mouth, “happens every time you say you’re gonna spend all day here. Maybe you should just stop saying it, so the universe doesn’t know.”
“Might have to do that, tomorrow.”
“Well see, now you can’t the universe knows.” Another laugh and Hale couldn’t help but smirk in triumph. They ate their pancakes and sipped on coffee when the machine finally stopped whirring.
“Remind me one of these days to buy you a new coffee pot, that thing looks like it’s older than both of us.” Stranger remarked as Hale poured his coffee.
“If it’s broke, don’t fix it.”
“Darlin’ I’m pretty positive it’s passed the broken point.”
“Leave my coffee pot alone, it has feelings and it will break when it’s least convenient now because you’ve insulted it.”
“I’m sorry,” Stranger said with a joking tone and a sly smirk. Hale rolled her eyes as she poured her coffee and then drowned it in flavored creamer, she had for just herself. Hey, just because she worked at an old-fashioned diner, didn’t mean she couldn’t indulge in the finer things in life. Like flavored coffee creamer. Besides, Death Wish needed it. Once they had finished their breakfasts, Hale was quick to clear the dishes, keeping the mugs, and then came back to her seat.
“Your coffee’s improved since I started coming here, what changed?” He asked. Hale flushed unexpectedly, how to tell him that she had started serving him coffee from her stash at around week 3?
“That’s because you’re drinking my preferred bean. Not the diner’s.” She settled on.
“You’re kiddin’,” he said with a look that Hale couldn’t pin, admiration? No that wasn’t it, had to be something else.
“I’m not,” she said with a nervous chuckle. She pulled the bag that she hid in the kitchen out via leaning in the window and showed it to him. “Death Wish was for a period of time the strongest coffee. I still like it; doesn’t have the aftertaste I find a lot of coffees do.” Hale passed the bag to him and she watched as he read it over.
“I’m touched darlin’, though now I feel like I should be payin’ double.” He said.
“Don’t worry about it, keeping me company first thing in the morning is enough payment,” Hale said as she took the bag back from him, ignoring the cold from his cybernetic arm, and she stashed it back. As she straightened back up and retook her seat, she noticed he was looking at her different.
“What?” She asked with a light, slightly self-conscious chuckle as she started adjusting her bun.
“Nothin’, just… what do you want to do?” He asked. Three warning bells went off in her head. But because she had an undeniable urge (read: human biology reminding her she was a warm-blooded female) to ignore all of them.
“Wanted to do a lot, settled on stability over glory. Like that old movie speech, “I could’ve been a contender,”” she said finishing it with her worst Marlon Brando impression. Stranger chuckled.
“And ya didn’t because?” He asked. Hale shrugged and rolled her ring on her pinky finger.
“Life came up, robots happened.” She said. At the mention of robots, there was beeping from Strangers side of the counter. Hale laughed. “What did I say,” Stranger laughed and rolled his eyes as he looked to see what beeped.
“Duty calls, lovely as always darlin’,” he said.
“Thanks, I’ll be here so long as patronage is continued.” She replied. He put his hat back on and stood up.
“Adios Stranger,” and with that she watched as he walked out the door and away. Hale was quick to clean up their coffee mugs and keep herself busy, seeing as no one was likely to come in any time soon.
That was until the power went out.
Hale immediately went into survival mode. She grabbed her bracelet attachments and scrambled to put them on as she dove into a broom closet. She shut the door and was greeted with a large blue robot. She smiled and then realized what she was dealing with.
“RIOT, Grace Kelly,” she whispered. The robot whirred to life. “Covert mode!” she then quickly hissed. The robot then showed a screen on its stomach with its response
“HELLO MISS EMILIA HALE, HOW MAY I ASSIST YOU?”
“Program new command voice, Stranger.” She whispered.
“READY TO RECEIVE.” She pulled out her phone and played a small recording she had taken during week eight when she was certain that this friendship was a friendship.
“What do you mean you’ve never had proper Tex-Mex.” the recording said. RIOT was silent for a minute
“Change code word, new code: James Dean.” She said.
“NEW CODE, PROGRAMED.” The door on the outside opened and she heard the clicking of blasters.
“Shut down.” She hissed. RIOT did as he was told and shut down. Hale then slipped out of the closet and tapped her bracelets together. The electric charge hovered around the bands and up the chain to her middle finger. She fished out a frying pan without making noise.
“Boss!” She’s in here!” Dammit! They had night vision.
“Time to light to this party up!” She yelled. She swung her frying pan and landed a hit, she then punched him and lit him up light a Christmas tree with electric power. That lit the kitchen enough that she could see that there were three more men in the main part of the diner. She jacked the gas up on the stove top and poured oil on it. She then quickly grabbed the lighter that muscle memory told her was next to the stove and lit the stove top. Now there was light. She ran for the main operatives in the diner space. She jumped over the counter and landed on one of them. She dove for the second, punching him with the other charge she had stored. That was two down, dammit where did the third one go.
“Not so fast,” A mechanical deep voice growled out as he grabbed her middle.
“Let go of me! You mother fucker let go of me!” She squirmed and kicked and didn’t make holding her easy. She just needed to stay alive long enough to get the secondary charge going.
“There’s something you should see!”
“We’ve got the girl let’s go!”
“Alright,” the hench said.
“Let go of me!” Hale screamed again.
“Not gonna happen,” the man holding her said. Hale could feel something strange happening and she thought of the one protocol that didn’t require rebooting.
“RIOT! PROTOCOL ONE!” She yelled one more time before she went dark.
When she came to, she was in a cage that reminded her of yet another old movie. Though this time the bars weren’t conveniently spaced to be able to show the eyes. She paced around in it like an animal. They had left her bracelets on, dumb of them good for her, and there was a camera at the far end of the room.
“CCTV or live broadcast?” She muttered.
“Aren’t you clever one, Emilia Grace Hale.” The mechanical voice said. Hale whipped around trying to find the speaker.
“Are you gonna stop being a coward and tell me why I’m in a cage, or are you just gonna sit in your control room?” She growled. She didn’t like being caged, and she liked people other than family using her full name even less.
“It won’t matter. You’ll be dead.”
“Look into the camera.” He said. At this, Hale held up six fingers and tapped her thighs
“Hey Stranger,” she said with the same ease she told him every morning. “The word’s James Dean. You’ll figure it out.” She said. She nudged the bar and got jolted with more electricity than she was expecting and went down
“Miss, I hardly think that this is a good position to be in.” Were the first words she heard when she came to. She lit up with a grin and struggled to her feet.
“RIOT! He found you, thank fuck.” She said. RIOT nodded.
“Debrief me when I’m out, I’m assuming you didn’t come alone.” She said. RIOT shot a hole in the cage that Hale quickly crawled out of.
“I am not alone, I am with a collection of former “Overwatch” agents.” RIOT stated. Hale furrowed her brow. Stranger was Overwatch? That was an unexpected development.
“Too many to calculate. You will have to settle on just escaping.”
“I can work with that, got my gear?” She asked. RIOT opened a compartment in his stomach that revealed a navy-blue coat with gold and black details, a shoulder strap with her blaster, her waist belt with here electroshock orbs, and a comms unit direct to RIOT. She slid everything on and squared shoulders.
“Centaur mode, activated.” RIOT stated as he morphed to being quadrupedal. Hale was quick to jump on and they rode up the stairs and into the main battle fray. Hale was quick to unholster her blaster and start shooting. Stranger looked up and saw RIOT and then Hale on his back with a blaster he didn’t even know she had. Granted, he didn’t even know she had a robot until about an hour ago.
“Hoverboard activated.” RIOT shifted again and was firmly attached to Hale’s feet. With the aid of the comms unit, the duo synched and dove into the main battle. She shot her way through, finding herself next to her cowboy regular who was shooting with the same amount of ease as she was, if not more.
“Need a lift Stranger?” She asked.
“You don’t look like hell darlin’,”
“Feared I would?” She said with a smirk. Battle situations tended to make her more confident than she really had right to be. Stranger chuckled. “Get on, she said offering her hand. He accepted it and got on. She pulled RIOT up and they went shooting up. They were both shooting and came to a window.
“I’ve got it!” Hale exclaimed. She grabbed an electroshock orb off her belt and set it to ‘glass break’ and chucked it at the window. The window promptly shattered, and the duo and RIOT were through.
“Where’s the rendezvous?” She asked.
“The truck!” Hale dove for the truck and landed.
“RIOT!” Mid-drop, RIOT changed back to centaur form and ran for the bus. RIOT bucked and threw the both of them into the truck. RIOT changed from again and joined them in the truck. He became a little orb and rolled over to Hale. “Deactivate.” she said. With a happy whirr, RIOT complied. Hale looked across at the man she typically didn’t see outside of the diner.
“You can just, drop me back at the diner. If it’s not burned down.” She said, nearly forgetting about the fire she lit before she got nabbed
“Nice little robot you’ve got there,” He said with a chuckle.
“Thanks, RIOT’s been in my family for years.” She said. The duo fell into silence until they pulled up to the diner. Where it was surprisingly not burned down. “Good job RIOT,” she muttered to the orb. It had followed Protocol One: Damage Control. She tapped RIOT once he rolled out of the truck and watched him shift to a GNK droid, though much larger than one would be traditionally. Hale jumped off the truck and watched as he jumped off as well.
“Guess this is goodbye,” He said with an uneasy look in his eye.
“What are you talking about, the diner’s still here.” She said.
“I’m the reason Reaper came after ya, I’m… darlin’ I’m not letting that happen to ya again.” He said. Hale laughed and for once in their several month-long friendship, initiated contact (He usually had to do it, and it didn’t start until at least week six). She held his face and brought it to look down at him.
“I have a robot. And blasters. And a past I don’t talk about. Don’t take this burden all on you. I’m sure he dug up something on me while I was out and found out who I was.” She said. She gave him a soft smile. “Besides, I can’t have you disappearing without me knowing your name Stranger, I might have to get it out of RIOT.” She added. He chuckled and kissed her forehead, which proceeded to light her up like a Christmas tree. It was tender and he was so much warmer than she expected.
“McCree. Jesse McCree.” He said. Another soft smile from Hale as she rolled it around in her head.
“Jesse McCree,” she let it roll off her tongue, “suits you Stranger.” He chuckled at her still calling him Stranger.
“RIOT managed to not let your name slip.” Good robot she thought to herself.
“Emilia Hale. Call me Hale. Or Milia if you must.” She responded. Hale watched as McCree’s face seemed to express the same process of rolling the name around in his mind.
“Emilia Hale, I like it.” He said. The duo stood there in an embrace they hadn’t expected. Hale was still holding onto McCree’s face, lightly letting her fingers play with the short hairs, and McCree had looped his arms around her waist, his cybernetic arm resting against her back. There was something about a traumatic experience that led to the release of weeks of pent up emotions that had been festering since week seven for Hale and even earlier for McCree. Hale, in a stunning turn of events, kissed him first. Lightly, as a parting gift, a way of saying goodbye. But McCree quickly recaptured her lips. Passionate, like he was quickly taking back what he had said about saying goodbye. When oxygen became necessary, he looked down at her.
“The best things in life never are. Besides, I can get used to living my life on “red alert.” Might fulfil that “could’ve been a contender” thing.” Hale said. McCree chuckled and pulled her into a hug, kissing the top of her head. Hale wiggled her head to look up at him. “I’m keeping the diner though.”
“RIOT will have to stay out of storage.” McCree said.
“Done, now just kiss me Stranger.” She said with a smirk.
