Soldier: 76 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
mylawn) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
thisavrou_log2017-02-08 01:30 am
mylawn) wrote in thisavrou_log2017-02-08 01:30 am
a buddy of mine said that he saw jack morrison take his shirt off in the shower
Who: Angela Ziegler, Soldier: 76, special guest Solid Snake, extra special guests Reinhardt and Reaper and Mei
When: Early February
Where: The Ingress entrance to Eosoros and then some other places maybe
What: Basically the part of Undercover Boss where the boss stops being undercover, except with fewer monetary gifts
Warnings: Blood, medical business, an angry old man
[76 arrives on Thisavrou very, very angry.
He’s usually angry, but generally speaking, he manages to keep said anger to a low simmer if only to function on a day-to-day basis. Arriving on this new planet after the ordeal at the Midway Hub, finding that all he can really do is sit and wait for his number to be called means that anger gets the better of him, even as he attempts to settle in (but 'settling in' is for other people). 76 takes one of the security gigs on Eosoros in a bid to do something productive, and that's sort of when things come to a head.
He’s angry, and he screws up.
It’s not really his fault, he thinks. It’s easy to blame the client (too reckless, an idiot, doesn’t listen to him, gets them both in a bad situation), but probably 76 could have handled this better. He should have bailed when things started to go south or ditched the client entirely or not taken the job in the first place—the money for a security detail wasn’t worth any of that, but he’s still boiling over with ire about the whole situation and that’s enough to make him do very stupid things, like throwing himself down in order to save both their asses when the client proves too incompetent to make it through the stupid torture gauntlet.
Hindsight, however, is twenty-twenty, and he’s not exactly coherent as he drags them both back through the Ingress and is immediately sidelined for medical attention. 76, too angry to care about decorum or not making a scene, immediately makes a scene. Someone is trying to hold him down, if only to keep him from getting blood everywhere before a medic arrives. The Savrii, however, are hard-pressed to subdue an enhanced human like him, especially when he’s in absolutely no mood to listen to reason.
Under duress, 76 becomes all but feral, hissing and spitting and doing everything in his power to get out and away, even if that means ignoring the fact that he's wounded and throwing all his self preservation out the window (said like he had any to begin with). It’s only the nature of his injury that keeps him from making an effective escape, though that doesn’t mean he isn’t going to try.]
When: Early February
Where: The Ingress entrance to Eosoros and then some other places maybe
What: Basically the part of Undercover Boss where the boss stops being undercover, except with fewer monetary gifts
Warnings: Blood, medical business, an angry old man
[76 arrives on Thisavrou very, very angry.
He’s usually angry, but generally speaking, he manages to keep said anger to a low simmer if only to function on a day-to-day basis. Arriving on this new planet after the ordeal at the Midway Hub, finding that all he can really do is sit and wait for his number to be called means that anger gets the better of him, even as he attempts to settle in (but 'settling in' is for other people). 76 takes one of the security gigs on Eosoros in a bid to do something productive, and that's sort of when things come to a head.
He’s angry, and he screws up.
It’s not really his fault, he thinks. It’s easy to blame the client (too reckless, an idiot, doesn’t listen to him, gets them both in a bad situation), but probably 76 could have handled this better. He should have bailed when things started to go south or ditched the client entirely or not taken the job in the first place—the money for a security detail wasn’t worth any of that, but he’s still boiling over with ire about the whole situation and that’s enough to make him do very stupid things, like throwing himself down in order to save both their asses when the client proves too incompetent to make it through the stupid torture gauntlet.
Hindsight, however, is twenty-twenty, and he’s not exactly coherent as he drags them both back through the Ingress and is immediately sidelined for medical attention. 76, too angry to care about decorum or not making a scene, immediately makes a scene. Someone is trying to hold him down, if only to keep him from getting blood everywhere before a medic arrives. The Savrii, however, are hard-pressed to subdue an enhanced human like him, especially when he’s in absolutely no mood to listen to reason.
Under duress, 76 becomes all but feral, hissing and spitting and doing everything in his power to get out and away, even if that means ignoring the fact that he's wounded and throwing all his self preservation out the window (said like he had any to begin with). It’s only the nature of his injury that keeps him from making an effective escape, though that doesn’t mean he isn’t going to try.]
reinhardt
Jack doesn't have to talk to Angela to know how the conversation went, and he doesn't say anything to her about it in the aftermath. What he does is he finds out where Reinhardt lives, and takes it upon himself to find his way there.
The tactical gear is gone, for now, even if it makes him feel more than a little vulnerable. The least he can do is show up. Try and explain himself. Say he's sorry. Jack brings alcohol, like that's supposed to make things better, and arrives at the apartment looking more like a person than he has in a while. No mask, real clothes. Bottle in hand.
He knocks on the door.]
no subject
[He'd... been busy, in the interim. Possibly too busy. Keeping himself occupied, working. Taking short labor jobs. If he worked, then he wouldn't think too much about what had transpired.]
[About how one of his oldest friends had been lying to him. Lying to his face. How he'd buried him. Buried... so many of them. Only to have that grief thrown back in his face like this. What was next? He would turn a corner and see Balderich walking down the street? Was Torbjörn actually a very tall man, walking on his knees?]
[He's home, though, when the knock comes. It's a slow rise, and a slow march to the door.]
[The sight that greets him on the other side feels like a punch to the chest. Like he's staring at a ghost.]
[It's only his word to Angela that keeps his fist at his side. But he says nothing.]
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[Jack knows Reinhardt very well, after all. He knows what the man looks like when he's angry and upset, and this is an extremely painful combination of both. It's not exactly something he ever wants to deal with, but he brought this upon himself, and one glaring instance aside, he's never been one to shy away from consequences.]
Just...thought I'd see if you wanted to talk. Not gonna be upset if you don't.
[He won't blame him, of course. More than anything else, Jack looks tired--without the mask and the gear, the exhaustion is more than evident on his face, not that he wants sympathy for it. There's a masochistic part of him that knows he deserves to be turned away, and almost wants to be, because all of this is so much easier when they hate him for what he did.]
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[It isn't a question.]
[It's a demand. What does he want him to say? Does he want him to say it's all right? That the last years spent mourning and trying to uphold everything Overwatch stood for are all right? There was nothing wrong with this? Is he supposed to tell him he understands?]
[Because he doesn't.]
[Not any of this. Not Ana, not this. At least Ana hadn't hidden behind a mask at every single opportunity. She hadn't pretended not to know him.]
You lied. And I had to hear about this from Angela.
What do you want me to say to you, Commander?
[For the first time in his life, there is a bitterness to that last word. Like it's a curse.]
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[Jack will be adamant about that much, even if Reinhardt doesn't really mean Commander in the way that he used to. It goes deeper than just titles--he's not the person Reinhardt knew, either, and he'll be quick to remind everyone of that, when given the chance. As if his hiding behind a mask and lying didn't remind them enough.
Ana's stronger than him in that regard, maybe, but he doesn't think she shouldered nearly so much (but that could be his selfishness talking). How can he come back when there's so much work to do? How could he put them in the line of fire?]
Trying to keep everyone safe. I'm not gonna ask you to understand.
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[Like even if he wasn't denying it to Reinhardt's face, he would refuse to acknowledge him as such, in all but irony. He'd only say it to make a point. That the moment Jack even pretended to be dead, he would have ceased accepting him.]
[No, he isn't the person he knew.]
[Because the man he knew trusted him.]
I have never asked you to keep me safe. That was not your job, not to me.
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[It comes out angrier than he'd like it to, seeing as he's supposed to be the contrite one in this situation, but the words are growled out before he can stop himself. His fists clench, like that's going to help him vent the anger that threatens to bubble up and out.]
It was a conspiracy. Hell, I'd be surprised if there wasn't a bomb in HQ from the very start. If anyone knows I'm alive, they'll come after all of you to get to me.
[Jack isn't entirely sure who was fully behind what happened--what he does know is that they're not the kind of people who are easily dissuaded.]
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[He could name the others here, too. But honestly, out of all of them, who's the least likely to be swayed? The least likely to go back on his word, to stab his team in the back?]
[His own expression doesn't change. It's flat. Which is probably worse than him actually emoting, here.]
You could not trust me to have kept your secret? To have helped you? To have done something?
[The flatness cracks, there. Like ice under too much strain. One big hand gripping the door frame hard.]
... I am good enough to put you to rest. But not to trust with your survival?
no subject
[Didn't ask Reinhardt to give his eulogy, maybe. By choosing not to come back to life, however, he asked all of them to bury him. There isn't much getting around that, even if he most certainly did not intend to go out the way he did.]
I crawled out of there and I wasn't--wasn't thinking straight. Finally got my head on, but--
[That's hard to say, and Jack's shoulders slump as he admits it. He turns his palms upward as if trying to offer Reinhardt something more than empty words. He'd failed them--that's the long and short of it, and the explosion had been the final nail in the coffin. Overwatch's time had past, and he'd overstayed his welcome. They'd bury it with him, and then his people could get out from its shadow. Stop pretending like the good old days were any good at all.]
World was better off without me by then. Needed the rest of you to get on with your lives. Too dangerous otherwise.
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[This is as close to actually, legitimately angry, as Reinhardt has come, in this conversation. It's like a slap in the face. He'd poured his heart into Overwatch, into laying his friends to rest.]
[I didn't ask you to.]
[Of course he hadn't. He'd been dead. So had Ana. So had Gabriel. They had all been gone and left the rest of them to pick up the pieces. Of their lives, their organization, everything. And Jack has the audacity to write this off as if he'd done them a favor.]
You did not ask me to speak of you -- and we didn't ask you to lie to us.
To decide how we were to live, or die. We are grown people. We make our own choices!
[The doorframe creaks in his hand.]
And I will answer the Recall.
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[Doesn't mean Jack is going to keep quiet about it. He's never been one to keep his opinions to himself, and that hasn't changed in death.]
You want to throw away all the good we did on Winston's little stunt, you're free to do it. But you've got no idea how deep this goes.
[Which is something he thinks he's said to Reinhardt before, more than the others. The media fed the public an easy-to-swallow story about Reyes' jealousy and Blackwatch going off the rails. Preserve his memory. Close the book on their little peacekeeping experiment and keep people from looking any deeper. It burns Jack up inside in a way he can't quite articulate. Overwatch was his mistake--why can't they let him chase the ghosts? He's the one who's already dead.
His eyebrows are furrowed when he manages to meet Reinhardt's eyes, the scar the cuts across the bridge of his nose wrinkled up in an expression that barely contains a sort of visceral hurting, the kind that never really goes away.]
Thought you of all people might understand.
no subject
[As if they'd really saved the world. As if everything was done and laid to rest with Overwatch itself.]
You thought I would understand sitting by? Not answering the rally call? Digging in the rubble while people suffer?
[If there's hurt and ache in Jack's expression, there's mirroring pain in the remaining eye of the old Crusader. And determination. He still wore the armor. He could still carry the hammer.]
[There was still work to do. And if they did so at the risk of prison, so be it. He'll pay the price for doing the right thing.]
You run away, Jack. Ran away. Keep it up, if you wish. But I will do the job.
My story is not over.
no subject
[This time he does raise his voice, lips curling into a snarl. Jack knows he ran, but it's not for the reasons that Reinhardt thinks. If there's one good thing about being dead in the public eye, it's that he's in the perfect position to uncover what really happened.
Tilting at windmills as Reinhardt seems wont to do might feel productive, but Jack knows it's not going to accomplish anything, not until they get to the root of what went wrong. He'd expected stubborn--he doesn't think he was prepared for obtuse. ]
You don't--all of you playing hero like idiots is exactly what they're after. Thinking you're saving the world, too wrapped up in your own goddamn ego to notice we were set up to fail.
[The world doesn't want to be saved, and Jack isn't sure that Overwatch should have been the executive authority on how to do it. Bunch of super soldiers and cyborgs and geniuses and time travelers and a moon gorilla looking down on a human race pulling itself from the brink of apocalypse, and telling them what's best for them.
He takes a moment to breathe, and when he speaks again it's low, dangerous.]
I'm not gonna let that happen again.
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[The people deserved it, didn't they? Those people who still needed their heroes.]
You have no right to say this is about ego. To say such a thing to me! That I have lived, thinking all of you were dead, for my ego?
You know nothing of what has happened to us. Any of us. Do not preach to me as if skulking in shadow and ruin is better than trying to uphold justice! As best that I can!
[He's never been subtle. Maybe he expected more of the man he'd known. To be rational about it. That they're all doing what they think is right. Is best. Because there was nothing else left. No one else left. Because he'd been living in a truck with his armor and Brigitte and doing the best they could while Jack pretended.]
[While he lied.]
Go then. Go back and find that out while people suffer. While you do this, I will fight.
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[This isn't about what Reinhardt wants to do or not do--this is the bigger picture, the fact that Overwatch was taken down by someone or something that wanted them gone. The fact that they were set up for failure from the very beginning.
What he won't have is Reinhardt accusing him of doing nothing. Of not caring. Just because their particular brands of justice don't exactly line up anymore, doesn't mean that Jack has been sitting around and twiddling his thumbs while Talon wreaks havoc.]
Everything I ever did was for Overwatch.
[Jack knows, now, what happens when you put too much of yourself into a thing--when it burns up, you burn up too. Some fundamental part of him shattered when Overwatch fell, and though he knows he'll never get it back, his devotion to his people hasn't wavered. That's what's important.]
I stayed dead because otherwise they'll just hurt the rest of you to get to me. That's what they want, Reinhardt. I get to make my own choices, too.
[And he's not sure if his had been the right one, but he's certain he has more information about the issue than the rest of them, and if Jack does anything well, it's commit. He'll do anything to keep his people out of danger, even if that means hurting them himself. Better that than prison or death.]
no subject
[They were a team. They had been. Someone betrayed them? Fine, but that didn't mean ... it didn't mean they were useless. That they couldn't do something.]
[That Jack had to lie to the people who had trusted him. Who had been his friends.]
[He doesn't know what he's supposed to do with this. Like he's supposed to just accept the fact that one of his closest friends, the man he'd buried, the man he'd mourned, had been lying to his face for months, for years. For some sort of misguided notion of protecting him.]
[As if Reinhardt needed protection.]
And here? You had to continue your deception? These... people you fear have followed you here?
[He shakes his head. From the moment he heard of the Recall, his fate was decided. His story was decided. Maybe it was from the moment he refused to part with his armor.]
[Better death in battle than slow decline.]
What is it you want from me? Forgiveness? Understanding?
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[Harsh, yes, but Reinhardt doesn't want to be protected, so he can't frame it like that, and all Jack knows how to do anymore is push people away. Better him than all the rest of them. He doesn't know what he can say to make them understand that, because they're all just as self-sacrificing as he is, especially when the greater good is involved.
After a moment, he seems to realize that was meaner than he might have liked.]
I didn't come here for your forgiveness. [It might be nice, sure, but Jack doesn't need it to finish his mission. He doesn't deserve it, so he's already resigned himself to carrying on without it.
What cuts deeper is Reinhardt's apparent unwillingness to even try and understand where he's coming from. Jack's shoulders slump, and he takes a step back, as if he knows he's overstayed his welcome.]
Just thought maybe you'd understand why I had to do this. That's all.
[Of all people, given what they've been through together.]
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[In this case, it's heart before head. And all his heart wants to do is let itself be angry.]
[Especially when he gets what feels like an order. A harsh one, at that. Reinhardt almost visibly bristles, big shoulders squaring up. Shaking his head once, sharply.]
You do not give me orders any longer.
[Then he can't help it. Then all the hurt and all the grief comes shoving back to the forefront and he slams a fist into the door frame. How is he supposed to understand? Jack won't. Or can't.]
Did you really think I would understand when you assumed I would want to be looked after? I never wanted protection, Jack.
If I had wanted that, I would not be who I am.
[Given what they've been through together... he'd thought the other man would know him well enough to know that, if nothing else. Maybe that's why it stings so much.]
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He manages to hold himself back.]
God damn it, Reinhardt, this isn't about you.
[It's bigger than him--bigger than all of them, and it's not about who needs to be looked after. Jack supposes he could push more, but it's clear he's either not getting his point across or Reinhardt just doesn't want to understand. It hurts, but it's probably no less than he deserves. After a moment of looking like he might physically retaliate in response, Jack backs off, readying himself to leave. There won't be any breakthroughs today.]
Ana and I have the first plot in Region 2. Come by whenever you're ready.