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The med bay wasn’t designed for long-term patients. The windows are too small and reveal only the featureless side of the opposite building alongside the same rockface that envelops most of the base at Gibraltar. The interior is outlined in cold blue light, making Hanzo’s skin look even paler than it already is. There’s no art on the walls, no screens. Not even a pile of reading material to take Hanzo's mind off of his mistake.
The incident was... bad. He didn’t want to admit it (especially to Genji, who wouldn’t stop looking at him like he was one foot in the grave,) but he’s never before taken a beating quite like that. Not only did the five Talon assassins refuse to go down until he was barely clinging to life, but then the building collapsed all around him.
The last thing he thought of before his vision went dark was the conversation he’d had with Cassidy in the middle the fight.
He’d never seen Cassidy— Cole —move like that before. Hanzo watched him put down six combatants within a vast range, then reload and hit six more. The speed and accuracy of his gunplay stoked a part of Hanzo already ignited from battle. “You’ve improved,” he said.
“Well now. A compliment from Shimada Hanzo,” Cole’d purred back. “And on a private channel, too. Consider me shot between the eyes.” More gunfire, then the click of Peacekeeper’s auto-loader. “You got any more in the barrel, sweetheart?”
Used to his flirting—used to it for months now—Hanzo was more than ready for a little payback. “You look good in that suit.”
Hanzo'd grinned at Cole’s obvious shock. He could so easily picture the man looking down at his own brand-new tactical gear, all its black and buckles, then turning up with that dumbfounded-but-trying-not-to-seem-so look he gets whenever someone turns his charm back on himself.
“You think?”
“I do,” Hanzo purred back; Cole wasn’t the only one who could weaponize his voice. “You are even more of a distraction than usual.”
An even deeper pause provided fertile ground for Hanzo’s doubts to start sprouting, but the laugh that rolled out of Cole a moment later was low, rich, and almost bashful . “Well. Think you just about made my day, Shimada. I’m really in your debt now.”
Hanzo opened his mouth, but Cole got there first: “Think a fancy dinner would be decent compensation?”
The three seconds he took to formulate an adequate reply were three seconds too long. The first assassin leapt on him from the platform above before he could open his mouth again.
Then things got, as Cole would put it hours later to a scrambling Mercy: “real fuckin’ hairy.”
When Hanzo finally opened his eyes again, everything hurt. Dr. Ziegler had placed a massive bio-emitter thrumming above his rib cage, which immediately made him try to ask if his organs had been permanently damaged, but he couldn’t even get a word out; overwhelming dizziness accompanied the throbbing pain. Like the time he broke his legs by falling from the castle walls and the family doctor put him under so much general anesthesia, he woke up thinking the red ceiling of the family shrine was the gate to hell.
Mercy was still in her combat gear, cheeks smeared with smoke and ash—she must’ve started working on him in the ship and hadn’t stopped since. “Try to relax.”
He must’ve at least been able to articulate one word, because then she said, “Genji is outside. You are... not ready for visitors.”
Then Hanzo closed his eyes. Dreams of battle and loss and long-dead relatives passed as dreams that last for days. When he opened his eyes again, Lúcio had taken Angela’s place.
“How ya feelin’ Mr. Shimada?”
Sore, hazy, dry: he conveyed all of this with one sour grunt.
“You’re gonna be alright. I just put you on a new drip. You should feel better in a couple hours.” His eyes were remarkably tired for one so young as they scanned Hanzo’s face. “Also got a track on just for you.”
That’s when Hanzo picked up the cool, low-fi melody pumping from multiple unknown locations. The beat put him at ease and he felt his muscles settle, even though they were still mostly numb.
As Lúcio read through Hanzo’s many injuries, Hanzo found it difficult to listen. He had only two priorities. “Genji?”
“Genji’s fine. He was here awhile ago. Everybody’s fine. Cole got you out and Lena snatched y’all up like a gull.”
That brought Hanzo to his second priority: “Cole?”
“He was here with Genji. Don’t worry, Mr. Shimada. You’ll get visitors soon. We just gotta make sure you’re stable first.”
Genji being shoved aside as Hanzo flatlines was a stark enough image to kill any notion of putting up a fight. It wasn't like he’d get very far anyway; both of his arms were elevated from the bed in careful swings, a metal object he didn’t recognize surrounded his left leg, a sort of helmet prevented him from turning his head and a stiff head-wrap felt like the only thing keeping his brains from sloughing out.
He groaned, he thinks, before he passed out again.
The next morning was better. The metal around his leg was gone, as were the slings and the helmet. A cast—some high-tech mesh that hums as loudly as the air-conditioning—still enveloped his right arm, which had broken too severely for even Mercy’s staff to return it to its once-peak state. A few warm bandages still dotted his body, injecting their medicine in timed spurts, but their needles were too microscopic to feel.
Four days later and he's still not permitted to move except for the little it takes to clean himself (with Lúcio and Dr. Ziegler’s help). They let Genji see him, but only Genji, and only for a few minutes. The brothers had just enough time to exchange a few awkward words before Hanzo was alone again. That was three days ago, and only Lúcio or Dr. Zieglar have seen him since.
Now the sun has set, he’s turned the terrible lights off and is thinking that, though he may have survived the mission, he is now liable to die of boredom. Or worse: over-thinking. Dr. Ziegler is perhaps being over-cautious on Genji’s behalf. There’s no reason he should lay here for so long when she’s seen her bring a soul back from the brink of death several times. Perhaps they have hidden reasons for keeping him here so long—
Before Hanzo’s brain can dip too deeply into paranoia, it catches on another line: Cole. He’d been so close to getting closer to Cole. He came to visit Hanzo before, but perhaps that was only out of concern for his friend that nearly died. They certainly have become friends—something like that—over the past few months. But what if his proposition has soured over the past few days?
But there’s no reason they can’t pick up where they left off. Cole must know him well enough to know that he wouldn’t back down from a conversation. Hanzo thinks he does, anyway. There’s no way to be certain of anything when it comes to Cole. It seems fitting that Hanzo would sustain such terrible injuries in the middle of flirting with him; Cole is by far the worst distraction to ever challenge Hanzo. He doesn't know if he's up to the task.
Just when the doubts are beginning to crest, Hanzo hears a soft cough from the other side of the medbay, near the side-entrance shared with Mercy’s office. “Hanzo.”
Hanzo nearly sprains his neck with how fast he whips his head in the direction of the sound, but the softness and familiarity of the voice prevents his instincts from reacting even faster, more lethal fashions. “Cole?”
“Didn’t wanna startle you.” The cowboy emerges from the shadow in a simple t-shirt, jeans, and his customary serape, looking very much as if he’d just come from training and a shower. “Knew you’d probably throw a scalpel into my eye before I’d said ‘howdy.’”
Hanzo had wheeled Mercy’s table of surgical tools closer to the bed for that very reason. Perhaps Cole knows him better than he assumed. “Very astute.”
“See, this is why I came.” The smile on Cole’s face when he gets closer is enough to heal whatever lingering weakness belabors Hanzo’s body. “More compliments.”
Hanzo can feel the flush grow in his face, though he blames it on his relative lack of stimuli over the past couple weeks. “You still have to earn them,” he mutters.
“Oh, I intend to.” Cole holds up the bag dangling from his wrist. “You like strawberry ice cream, right? I tried to get Genji to help me pair it with the right saké, but, you know him.”
Now it’s Hanzo’s turn to smile wide. “Surely Dr. Zieglar told you about how food can interfere with the bio-emitters—”
“It’s for later,” says Cole, already swaggering across the room. “Gonna put it in her freezer next to the organs.”
Hanzo chuckles. Watching Cole walk away ignites other, more delicious feelings beneath the affectionate glow at Cole bringing him ice cream. “You snuck in under risk of death just to bring me treats for later, when I could easily get them myself?”
Cole snips the freezer shut and turns his chin over his shoulder slow; his grin has turned devilish. “Had to bring you my own charming company, too.”
"I could’ve gotten that later as well,” Hanzo snorts.
“Oh, but honey,” Cole walks towards Hanzo with a dose more intent in his gait. “I didn’t wanna wait.”
Hanzo feels his own grin fade as Cole, walking behind Hanzo, brushes a hand up his casted arm, over his shoulder and across his neck. “Couldn’t stop thinkin’ about you.” He circles around to Hanzo’s other side, where the light from the window casts his front in dark shadows. “Was worried, but… also…” He has just enough room to sit on the edge of the bed, metal arm hung over his thigh. “I couldn’t stop thinkin’ about that dinner.”
The wild spirit of his own near-death experience is still alive and fluttering in Hanzo’s chest. It convinces him to put a hand over Cole’s metal one. “I am sorry I missed it.”
“Naw,” Cole croons, his voice pitched low enough to make Hanzo’s thighs shift unconsciously beneath the blanket. “We got all the time in the world.”
“Thanks to you.”
Cole’s mouth twitches clearly even in the dark; Hanzo thinks he might be so attuned to Cole’s face that he could make out his expressions even in pitch blackness. “Risk wasn’t high, considering they all left us for dead.”
“Still. Thank you. I am in your debt."
"Nah, no debt." The gunslinger upturns his hand to intertwine their fingers and Hanzo is astonished at the shiver this sends up his spine. “Wasn’t about to skip that date.”
Cole is being light, but there’s a sincerity behind it that warms Hanzo all over, moreso than the bio-emitter ever could. He didn't expect to think of Cole this much when faced with the lack of things he'd usually use to distract him from his feelings: work, booze, training. Now having him here, in this sterile environment, smelling of outdoors and the sea and tobacco and soap and his own uniqueness he can never quite wash away—Hanzo feels more than ready to sign off on a risky move.
One fist tugs down on Cole’s serape slow enough to give the man time to pull away. He doesn't; Hanzo catches the tiniest glimmer of a smile before Cole's eyes close and their lips press together. Cole holds the back of his neck to prevent Hanzo from having to strain and Hanzo lets him, feels something light release from his chest at being supported, tended to. He'd always suspected that Cole would be a caring lover, and he's never been one to turn away doting behavior.
The little breath Cole lets out when they part is immensely flattering. Hanzo kisses his bottom lip, then opens his eyes when he sucks it into his mouth. Cole’s eyebrows crease adorably right before he surges, humming, deeper and harder, using his real arm to brace himself across the top of Hanzo’s tilted bed while he receives and amplifies Hanzo’s desire. Even the sound of their kiss is amplified in that hollow space; no way to avoid the basest qualities of their touch.
It doesn’t take long for the kiss to stoke both of them to the point of greed; Hanzo can feel it in Cole’s shameless tongue, can hear it in his sighs. And he’s been greedy for Cole for months. No point in taking it slow when neither of them share the gift of time and safety. “Take this off,” he grunts, tugging on Cole’s serape.
Cole lets out another sigh, harsher this time, but uses that metal hand to press Hanzo back until his skull rests on the bed. “Maybe next time, honey,” he whispers. “You’re laid up. Let me treat you nice.”
The metal skates lower, pressing down Hanzo’s bare torso with the lightest touch. “More,” Hanzo whispers, presses Cole’s palm more firmly against his skin.
“You like a heavy hand?” Cole chuckles, rubbing Hanzo’s belly just above the elastic of his boxer-briefs. Hanzo can feel himself hardening even more quickly with the proximity of Cole’s hand to his cock. “Hope a metal arm’s enough for you.”
“If you know how to use it,” Hanzo breathes out.
Scraping across the floor; Cole has slipped from the bed to sit on one of Mercy’s wheeled stools, his natural arm still wrapped over the top of Hanzo’s bed. He leans in even closer to Hanzo’s neck, where he places a wet, grasping kiss. “I’m sure you’ll tell me where you want me.”
Cole drags that metal hand firmly back up Hanzo’s torso—a quick learner—then glides his fingers across Hanzo’s nipple. The metal is cool and surprisingly textured against Hanzo’s skin; he shivers, pushes his chest out. “Can you feel with that?”
“Sort of,” Cole drawls. “Can feel how warm you are. How much pressure I need.” He traps Hanzo’s nipple between the curve of his index finger and thumb and Hanzo moans. Cole chuckles breathlessly. “Knew you’d like that. Runnin’ around with your shirt half-off. You got any idea how much I wanted to drag you into a room and rip that thing off you? Get my mouth here?"
Once again, Cole is a fast draw; Hanzo's just about to tell Cole exactly where to put his mouth when Cole leans forward and runs his tongue over Hanzo’s now-hard nipple. Hanzo growls, snapping his arm to Cole’s hair and seizing a handful, working the muscle's malleability to its limit. Cole’s metal fingers twist the other nipple as he flicks his tongue in short bursts, humming as he sucks the skin into his mouth.
It’s ravenous and aggressive like Hanzo prefers, but it’s also sporadic; he’s teasing Hanzo, lighting up his senses only to leave him aching for more. Then he has the gall to look up at Hanzo with those dark eyes and lick his lips like a feral animal. It’s frustrating, but Hanzo’d be lying if he said it didn’t make his already-aching cock strain beneath the thin hospital blanket.
And it’s not nearly as frustrating as Cole’s talk. While Hanzo is close to bucking, Cole drags his teeth away only to pour his voice—that low, molten-honey voice—straight down Hanzo’s sensitive ear. “Fuck, I could do that all day. Would you like that?” Cole’s hand leaves his nipple to squeeze his entire pectoral again, massaging. It feels like something has cracked open and is now streaming down Hanzo’s torso, spreading across his belly and pooling in his groin. “Let me play with your chest until you’re ready to burst?”
“I would take your mouth before then,” Hanzo growls back.
“Yeah? You thought about that? Thought about gettin’ me on my knees and using me?”
Hanzo groans, cutting himself off with a grunt. “Do you ever shut up?”
“‘Course. I'll shut right up if you tell me too.”
The tone of Cole’s voice is that of a thief already holding the wallet. Hanzo can’t deny the power in the gunslinger’s low, rumbling tone; its texture, even its crude content. Maybe especially its crude content. No one has ever spoken to him so crassly. No one would dare be anything less than perfectly polite to Shimada Hanzo; even the yakuza boys he took into his bed were deferential and terrified to put one toe out of line. Hanzo isn't sure Cole even knows there are lines.
He's quiet until his silence damns him.
The smug chuckle Cole lets out is as irritating as it is arousing. He licks up Hanzo’s throat and gives him a few more sucking kisses before he adds, “Gotta admit, most times I thought about us," his metal hand snakes under the blanket to loosely circle the base of Hanzo's dick, "It was with my lips around your cock.”
Heat engulfs Hanzo’s entire body, concentrating around the sparking nerves of his lower half. “Cole—”
“It’s true.” Cole's hand drags up the underside of Hanzo's hardness, making it stand up straight. “Way you stand sometimes, never leanin’ on anything, always straight as an arrow. Wanted to see if I could make you weak in the knees." They wander higher, gripping Hanzo's waist with sudden force. "Maybe pin you down and suck you off nice n’ slow ‘til you’re coming down my throat.”
Hanzo groans with no small measure of surprise; he can so easily visualize the picture Cole is painting. Those metal fingers return to Hanzo's cock only to swirl a thumb over the dampening head. Cole has brought Hanzo from craving firm pressure to being ignited by the lightest touch, all while the physical tether of the cast prevents him from giving in to any drastic physical impulse.
“Kinda like you like this,” Cole chuckles, as if he can read Hanzo’s mind. “Lettin’ me play with you."
“I will not be so tame later,” Hanzo says through his teeth.
“Oh, I’m countin’ on it.” Cole whole-palm rubs Hanzo through his underwear as he rumbles, “Bet you’d fuck me like a hammer.”
Hanzo growls in the deepest part of his throat. He wants to elaborate on just how accurate Cole’s assessment is, but he doesn’t get the chance; Cole has tugged down the blanket, exposing Hanzo entirely, and is tugging his cock proper, looking down with his cheek against Hanzo’s temple.
“Goddamn,” Cole breathes out in reverence.
Hanzo isn’t sure exactly what’s producing such awe, but it’s enough to make him preen as well as squirm. “Stop teasing,” he huffs.
“This ain’t teasin’, Han.” Cole plays with the spongy tip of Hanzo's cock again, still staring. “I’m just gettin’ you warmed up. If you want, I’ll show you some real teasin’ later.” He presses at the underside of the head and something jolts through Hanzo from toes to brain. “Get you all tied up and beggin’ for mercy. I’m good with a rope.”
Hanzo can only suppress his gasps and try not to buck too hard into Cole’s hand. The smell of him so warm and close, the lewdness in Hanzo’s ear, the big hand on his cock—it’s like being ambushed from all sides. Then Cole kisses him again and it’s like he’s wrenching the last of Hanzo’s reservations through his mouth.
The strokes grow faster. Hanzo’s cock and Cole’s hand grow more and more slick as Hanzo throbs under his squeezing fingers, leaking more than he expected. His thighs can’t stop shifting, he can’t keep still. Cole’s voice has grown breathy; evidence of his own burning. “So wet for me,” he rasps into Hanzo’s ear. “God, look at you. Wanted to see you like this for so long. Wanted to treat you right.”
Hanzo can only hiss out the breath he’d been holding. He grabs Cole’s serape and tightens all over—just a little more, just a little longer—but then Cole lowers his hand to roll Hanzo’s balls gently in his hand.
After a string of violent Japanese, Cole rumbles back, “None of that now.” The sudden command in Cole’s voice makes Hanzo pulse; his cockhead drools with no hand to catch it. “Think you deserve a lil’ somethin’ more.”
The familiar sound of a bottle uncapping makes Hanzo shiver and chuckle at the same time. “You came with... untoward intentions, cowboy.”
“Nothing untoward about helping a fella feel good after he’s had such a hard time,” Cole replied with a faux-sympathetic lilt toward the end. “And I have it on good authority,” his metal fingers return, even more slick, rubbing circles in the space just below the base of Hanzo’s cock, “That this hand is real good for that kinda thing.”
Hanzo croaks out a laugh, cut off when Cole’s finger circles his hole. His thighs part even more, as much as they can without sliding off the edge of the bed. His grip on Cole’s serape strains the fabric.
“Yeah? That feel good?” Cole licks Hanzo’s earlobe into his mouth as he prods, pushes. Easing the warm fingertip inside, pulling out only to circle again. “You ever think about my tongue here?”
“Yes,” Hanzo gasps a little too quickly for his liking.
“Yeah. Thought you might like that. Thought about you sitting on my face, letting me get my tongue up inside you. Thought about fucking you with my tongue ‘til you’re shakin’, get you nice and ready for my cock. How big do you like 'em?”
The full-body shiver that passes over Hanzo must be obvious to Cole; Hanzo can hear the smile in his voice. “Yeah, that’s good.” A finger pushes inexorably into Hanzo and his jaw drops with each palpable inch. “Open up for me just like that. Squeezing my hand so good. Gonna pull me in so nice when I give it to you.”
Hanzo does pull him in then, groaning from the very pit of his chest. Cole’s slick metal finger pulls almost entirely out, then pushes in again, stretching as he goes. His lips drag against Hanzo’s brow, leaving kisses at his temple. “Would you like that? Wanna take my cock, baby? Let me push it in nice and slow?”
Hanzo can barely nod. His jaw hangs open, hot breath pointed at the ceiling, eyes clenched shut to better concentrate on the white-hot line of pleasure ricocheting from his insides to his fingertips and back again. He’s only dimly aware of the tenuous privacy they share; what is much more powerful is the state Cole has put him in, the clearness that is Cole’s big, warm body draped against and slightly over him, those slick words dripping down his every nerve. That thick finger making him feel exposed in the most delicious way.
Hanzo can’t help but clench with every breath. “Gonna feel so good on my dick. Gonna stretch you out so wide. Get you sloppy wet before I slide it in.” He takes his hand out only to add more lube and push two inside. Feeling around for Hanzo’s prostate until Hanzo feels his hips jump. “That the spot, baby? S’that good?”
Hanzo draws out the word long and low: “Fuck.” He raises his legs until the blanket falls to the floor, the leg closest to Cole hovering over his working bicep. He lets Cole work sounds out of him that never get quite louder than a stage-whisper, yet are unlike anything he’s ever heard from his own mouth before. He's never wanted so badly to move, but the cast on his arm traps him, leaves only his one free hand to maintain its death-grip on Cole's serape.
“Look at you,” Cole murmurs. “God, Hanzo.” His fingers start moving at a speed that Hanzo thinks shouldn’t be sustainable, but it goes on and on and on and until Hanzo is overwhelmed by sensation, shuddering, gasping. “Gonna fuck you so good. You want that? Want me to fuck you ‘til you can’t walk? Fuck my come into you?” Cole bites into the cord of Hanzo’s neck and groans.
The warbling moan that comes out of Hanzo sounds borderline mournful, even to him. It carries on with the rise and fall of Cole’s hand, crushed under teeth-clenching growls whenever the bastard jabs those metal fingers against that spot that makes his legs hitch higher, his thighs spread wider. He’s clenching the sheets so hard that they’re popping up from around the mattress, overwhelmed by such electric pressure that he thinks there might be tears in his eyes, and all the while Cole keeps drowning him in filth, fucking him with three fingers now. “Yeah, come on, Han. Just like that. Good boy. Think about my cock fucking you deep. Gonna fill you up so nice. Come on my hand, baby. Come for me.”
It doesn’t take too many more low commands for Hanzo to follow through; he paints his own stomach in an erratic spray, milked by Cole’s unrelenting arm, shuddering and groaning and leaking for far longer than he thought himself capable.
Cole lets him clench on his fingers for a generous moment, then he slips fast from Hanzo’s side. A surprised gasp shoots out of Hanzo’s chest as Cole reaches his mouth for Hanzo’s hole by leaning over one thigh and pushing up on the other. He’s got his exposed cock in his natural hand as he licks Hanzo clean from between his legs to his belly.
It’s barely a minute before he’s hissing in a sudden burst of air. Then Hanzo grabs his hips and yanks until Cole consents to come on his face; the taste that hits his tongue is almost enough to get his cock thinking about hardness again.
They’re both still panting when they meet eyes. Cole is the first one who arches in for a kiss, but Hanzo meets him eagerly. Their mingled tastes send another pulse of arousal down Hanzo’s body, but the days of quick recuperation are behind him.
For now, he is smiling and willing to let Cole shuffle across the room, zipped up. Hanzo is still smiling when Cole returns with a bunch of paper towels. “You have a gift.”
Cole looks like he doesn’t know what Hanzo’s talking about, then goes a little ruddy and re-focuses on wiping Hanzo’s torso. “Thought I might’a gone a lil’ overboard, but… you seemed into it.”
“It was,” Hanzo hums. “And I was.”
"Han." Now Cole grins like the devil. “The things I’m gonna do to you once you’re outta here.”
“Make sure you help me fix the bed, too, or Mercy will injure me enough to ensure I never leave.”
Cole does exactly that. He also holds Hanzo’s face in his real hand, swipes a thumb across his cheek and kisses him like he’s leaving on a ship tomorrow morning, though he insists that he will return after breakfast.
The medbay is just as Angela left it. She thought there were more paper towels still left by the sink, but it hardly matters; she won’t need to scrub up today. Just a quick check on Hanzo and she can dive into desk work.
“Everything looks good,” she concludes after checking his monitor. “Your color is back.”
Hanzo nods stiffly. He’s not really looking at her, but that’s par for the course. “Thank you for your hard work, Dr. Ziegler.”
“It’s not over yet. I’m going to keep you here a couple more days.”
He seems frustrated with that news, but Angela can hardly blame him. “Perhaps I—”
She’s interrupted by a shuffling and a low clearing of the throat. Even without turning, she’d know it was Cole, but she is surprised to see him holding a bag of items and holding his hat in his hand.
“Sorry, Angie.”
“Hanzo is not yet ready for visitors, Cole.”
“Y’sure?” Cole’s eyes move from her and positively sparkle on Hanzo. “He looks right as rain to me.”
Angela looks back at Hanzo, who appears similarly dopey. Well, it was only a matter of time.
“And that?” she nods towards his bag.
“Uhh,” Cole looks through his satchel, “Tea, cookies, couple face creams, comb, toothbrush… did I miss anything, Han?”
“Did you remember the book?”
“Uhp, yep, got that, too.”
Angela looks back at Hanzo, who now looks very much like a pleased lion tamer. Cole crosses the room and starts laying items out at Hanzo’s bedside table, still grinning like an idiot.
She mutters, “Wow,” to the entire room. The check-up is over. “Just try not to jostle him. His bones are still settling.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” she hears Cole mutter.
“Good, because the security cameras will tell me if you’re lying.”
The last thing Angela sees before she shuts the door to her office is Cole and Hanzo both aiming their own versions of a thousand-yard stare at the box of cookies sitting in Hanzo’s lap.