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How To Paint A Rainbow"Cheers, love! Creativity's here!"
Hanzo popped his head around his locker's door to see Lena walk into the men's dormitory, holding up an array of make-up palettes and brushes. The young woman was already dressed up for the occasion and, Hanzo had to admit, looked lovely. Under a loose leather jacket, Lena wore a tight tank top with vertical bands in the colours of the rainbow. Her jeans, with heart-shaped patches in similar colours, were tucked into black combat boots. Hanzo glanced up. In her wild spikey hair sat huge, pink-rimmed glasses, but what struck him most of all was her confident smile beneath that. This is not her first time attending, remembered Hanzo. He ran a tentative hand through his long, loose hair. However, it is mine.Lena had asked him and Cole to come along with her and her girlfriend to the Pride Parade this year. When Cole had enthusiastically agreed, Hanzo felt he could not deny him. But the longer he spent dressing up, the more he believed he should have.
"Good morning, Miss Oxton," Hanzo greeted stiffly, closing the locker door. "Thank you for your offer to help with my attire."
"Anytime, love!" Lena eased herself on the edge of his bed and laid out the cosmetics. "But I see you managed for the most part. I love what you've done with your hair!" Hanzo gave a noncommittal grunt.
"I seem to have misplaced my hair ribbon," he offered by way of an excuse for the absence of his usually neatly tied ponytail. "I was about to go look for it, and perhaps some different clothing. I do not have any apparel as appropriate as you-"
"Nonsense, love! You look amazing with your hair loose!" Lena smiled. "And your clothes are just fine. The blue trousers match the tattoo really well! Is that one of Cole's shirts?"
Hanzo brushed a hand over the inked arm that stuck out of a short sleeved shirt. The garment depicted a rainbow over a stylised cowboy on horseback. The text underneath it read 'Save a horse, ride a cowboy', slightly stretched out across the expanse of his broad chest. "Yes, it is. It's over the top, isn't it?"
Lena bubbled with laughter. "Not for Cole, it's not!" She winked playfully. "And you wear it very well." Hanzo felt only marginally more confident at that. He walked over and sat down on the bed beside her.
"Please do not make anything too flamboyant," Hanzo warned when he watched his friend apply a royal amount of red face paint to a brush. "I do not want to be mistaken for any of Cole's accessories." Lena giggled and offered him a hand mirror.
"Here you go," she said, steadying the brush to Hanzo's cheek. "You can watch what I'm doing. You'll love it, I promise."
Hanzo followed the motion as Lena applied the first stroke. The red she had selected was that of a fresh apple, or a strawberry. Or Cole's serape, Hanzo mused.
The first time Hanzo met Cole, he had thought the man wore a cape. Some sort of disguise, or perhaps some traditional garment originating from an ancient culture. It had taken all in his power not to laugh when Genji told him that it was just a horse blanket, shamelessly copied from Cole's favourite old Western movies. Back then, Hanzo would not have thought that it would become his favourite piece of clothing. He had pulled the serape close on many lonely nights, drinking deep from the scents of gun powder, cigar smoke and something uniquely Cole that it was infused with. He would forever associate those scents and the colour red with Cole, his partner. The man he'd fallen in love with. The man whom I came out for. Hanzo smiled softly at the memory.
"Looking pleased already, I see." Lena cleaned the brush and applied it to the next colour, a bright orange. "Wait till you see this one." Hanzo watched as she painted a neat line of orange directly underneath the red. The colour reminded him of Genji, his younger brother.
Between the two of them, Genji had been the rebellious child. Having been born into an old family of Japanese yakuza, steeped in traditional values and high expectations, the brothers had little freedom in the sense of self-expression. Hanzo, as the eldest, took his position as heir to clan serious and followed traditions to the letter. Genji however, not so much. He burnt the clan's fortune up in the arcade, partied at clubs, took to wearing absurd outfits and dye his hair a neon green. One evening, Genji had returned to the estate wearing a bright orange shawl around his neck. The resemblance to a carrot was so obvious that their father's business partners present there had to excuse themselves before they could burst into a wholly unprofessional laughter. Hanzo had privately agreed with Lord Shimada Sojiro's reprimands, but a small part of him was impressed with Genji's courage to wear what he wants. To be who he is. That admiration had reached new levels when Hanzo joined the Overwatch team in Gibraltar and met the omnic monk Zenyatta, Genji's mentor and his partner. Hanzo had known Genji was pan, but to see him strong and confident enough to express his love for Zenyatta this freely had been inspirational and perhaps more than a little encouraging for Hanzo to admit his own sexuality to himself.
"And that's two," announced Lena, already dipping the brush into the next colour. Hanzo angled his head back and forth, trying to estimate the symmetry, but Lena grabbed him firmly by the chin. "Hold still, love. Here we go."This was yellow, but not quite the same shade as that of Hanzo's ribbon. It reminded him more of the accents in Angela's Valkyrie suit. Hanzo had always thought that the medic's halo-shaped HUD and hard light wings gave her an overall holy appearance. The first time agent Mercy had come to Hanzo's aid on the battlefield, he had briefly mistaken her for an actual angel. And for all her personality, she might as well be. Hanzo came to like Angela a lot, not just for her professional skill but for her kind and patient demeanour and sharp wit. He suspected that she would have been in high demand with the men if she had not dedicated her life to science. But then again, they would have been up against Fareeha in that case. Angela was bisexual and the former Helix Captain Fareeha Amari seemed to be determined to win the doctor's heart before any man ever could. Hanzo had privately congratulated Fareeha on landing herself a first date with Angela last week. He did not have to ask how it went, after spotting their broad smiles and intertwined fingers when the two women came walking into the mess hall the next morning.
"And that was number three," said Lena, leaning back to inspect her progress. "Not bad, if I say so myself. What do you think?" Hanzo held up the mirror and turned this way and that. The sets of three lines on either side of his face sat in sharp contrast to his skin and dark hair.
"It looks like war paint," Hanzo commented. "I like it. You can leave it like this."
Lena huffed a laugh. "Not a chance." She held up the brush, coated in green this time. "I'm not even halfway done. There we go."
The green added a certain kindness to the fiery colours, like fresh growth after a forest fire. It immediately called to mind the Bastion unit that Overwatch had recently recruited. A team had found it in the Black Forest near Eichenwalde, severely damaged and covered in moss and vegetation. It had even had a bird's nest perched on its shoulder. The omnic was a siege automaton built for warfare, but it had seemed so peaceful and genuine in its will to come with them, to join them. Hanzo was no expert on omnics, but this last Bastion unit behaved more human than some humans he knew. Especially its friendship with the bird, which Mei and Lena had named Ganimede, was profound and unambiguous. To him, Bastion and Ganimede represented the essence of kindness, one of nature's oldest and purest of dispositions. A reminder that while not all beings may look, speak or feel the same, they all need kindness and deserve kindness in return. No matter how dark their past.
"Now we're getting somewhere!" said Lena. "We'll have you look properly festive in no time."
"So you do think my outfit is lacking, after all," said Hanzo, narrowing his eyes in mock offence. Lena slapped the back of her hand to his arm.
"That's not what I meant and you know it," she defended, grinning. "But this is the Pride Parade. You need more colour!" Illustrating her point, Lena waved the blue-tipped brush in front of his eyes. "Now, sit still and let me work my magic."
Blue had always been Hanzo's personal favourite. He could watch the colour of the endless sky for hours, simultaneously humbled and comforted by its presence. He made an effort to incorporate the colour in his daily life as well. For his clothes he would select anything with azure accents, or navy, if possible. It complemented his dark hair and matched well with the blue dragon tattoo that coiled down his right arm. And with the dragons themselves, although their hue might be more like that of glacial ice. Mei had shown Hanzo some photos of the blue ice fields of Antarctica she'd taken during her expeditions for the Ecopoint. She shared his appreciation for the colour. In fact, they shared many aspects of their personalities as well. It had been a matter of course that Mei became his first friend at Watchpoint Gibraltar. They had been on missions together, too. Hanzo had asked if Mei would like to come along to the Pride Parade today, but she had politely declined. Not so much because she did not feel like she'd fit in, on the contrary; Mei is on the asexual spectrum, identifying as demisexual. No, she had declined because she had a prior engagement for today: attending Aleksandra Zaryanova's weight lifting championship. Agent Zarya had almost immediately won a place in Mei's heart when the athlete joined the ranks of Overwatch beside her occupation as international weight lifter and bodybuilder. Mei was in capable hands indeed, with a friend like Zarya.
"Almost there now!" chirped Lena. She took a moment to consider the next colour; indigo or purple. Then, dipping the brush in the purple pot, she said; "I'll go with this one so I can finish with my personal favourite, pink!"
Hanzo arched a brow. "I thought you preferred orange, if your field suit is anything to go by," he muttered, trying not to move his facial muscles too much.
"That's just because I wear orange better than pink," Lena replied. "Unfortunately, pink clothes make me look deathly pale, or I would have worn it more."
Deathly pale can be an aesthetic, too, thought Hanzo, thinking of a Talon agent with just that colour palette. He remembered the last time he and his team had encountered a Talon strike team, in a Don Rumbotico warehouse in Havana. Widowmaker had been among them. Amélie Lacroix. Hanzo had been briefed in about the ex-wife of Blackwatch agent Gérard Lacroix, and the circumstances of her husband's death. It was still hard to comprehend just what kind of neural reconditioning Talon had put Amélie through to get her to murder her husband, the man she had loved dearly. Small mercy that her utter absence of emotions now also prevents her from feeling grief, Hanzo quietly reflected. Their love story had turned into a tragedy. It might be for the best that the widow does not experience it as such. For better or worse.Hanzo was roused from his pondering by Lena's hand gently rocking his shoulder.
"Hey there, Hanzo. Are you alright, love?" Hanzo blinked the thought from his mind and gave a nod.
"Yes, I was briefly distracted. Did you say something?"
Lena showed him the brush, grinning. "I said, here comes the pink. Are you ready?" Hanzo rolled his eyes.
"It is not as if I can stop you." To confirm the statement, Lena pinched Hanzo's chin in her free hand and began to apply the last colour to the rainbow. "I could have used much more pink," she said, grinning slyly. "If you'd given me free rein, I would have covered you in it. You'd look just like D.Va!"
Ah, yes. Miss Hana Song. The teenage MEKA pilot had spent some time in Watchpoint Gibraltar on a few occasions, in between deployment for the Korean Army as a soldier and recordings for her next movie as an actress. Hanzo had been gobsmacked with her endless energy and diverse talents. Hana, or D.Va as she was known in the gamer community, was a former streamer and world champion gamer before her country's armed forces scouted her to pilot for MEKA, enormous battle mechs and the Korean answer to the Omnic Crisis. Hanzo had been impressed with her achievements, but could not help but feel concerned for the pressure she had to deal with on a daily basis. He suspected that Hana did not notice it, until she found a moment to relax and unwind, like she had when she was at the Watchpoint. The usually wildly energetic, soda drinking, bubblegum popping girl had calmed down around the people of Overwatch, grateful to be away from the spotlights for a moment. Her pink-and-purple suit was replaced by baggy trousers and an even baggier sweater that Lúcio had borrowed her. Buried in a pile of Pachimari plushies, she had looked more like a child than the soldier she was, and Hanzo had been glad for that. Hana needs the love and care of a family as much as any other, he knew. I'm sure I am not the only one who hopes that she will join us one day and be part of our team. Our motley family.
Just when Lena finished the last stroke with a flourish, there came a knock on the door.
"Athena, open the door please," instructed Hanzo, and the sliding doors parted to admit Emily. Lena's girlfriend wore a summer dress in the oranges and pinks of the lesbian pride flag and matching pink heels.
"Hi, you two," she smiled. "Are you about done here? Cole and I are waiting." Lena jumped up and locked her partner in a loving embrace.
"Great timing, Em," she said, gesturing at Hanzo. "We were just wrapping up. What do you think? Isn't he a looker?" Emily sized Hanzo up, rubbing a hand over her chin. She hummed thoughtfully.
"Something's missing," she decided. "But I can't really tell what."
"I know what's missin'," came a low, smoky voice from behind. They all turned to see Cole, leaning in the door opening. He was clad in his usual jeans with leather chaps and pointy-nosed cowboy boots, but the white tank top and rainbow flag wrapped around his shoulders in place of the serape were new.
So was the yellow ribbon messily tied around the crown of his Stetson.
He sauntered over to Hanzo and snaked an arm around his lover's waist, smiling cheekily. "Me."
Cole and Hanzo followed the ladies out the door, but not before Hanzo whispered to Cole the promise that tonight, he would teach him how to tie his ribbon properly.
In private.