Genji carried Nova to a place he could sit and he eased down in a chair with Nova facing him, still happily nibbling and purring, and Hanzo couldn't help but follow. "Nova! You eatin' the robot again?" Nova gasped and his head shot up to see his favorite cowboy standing a foot away. "Jesse! You're back! Oh my...oops, ah! You're back!" Hanzo watched as Nova eased off his brother's lap and sprinted to McCree, who still didn't completely trust Hanzo. Nova wiggled his hips a little and pounced on Jesse, who easily caught him and hugged him tightly. "Missed you, missed you, missed you!" Jesse laughed and closed his eyes, leaning his head against Nova's shoulder. Hanzo watched tears stream down Nova's face without making a sound, and noticed the way he clung onto the cowboy. "Christ I was getting worried, it's been almost five months!" "I know. You still haven't grown into this thing, huh?" He plucked at his serape. Nova giggled. "Nope. Didn't grow at all!" They stayed like that until Jesse saw the Shimadas looking at them with different expressions, and he walked over to them, gently setting Nova back on Genji's lap, facing away from the cyborg now. Something occured to Genji, and he wrapped his arms around Nova to subtly feel his stomach.

"Have you eaten today?" He asked, Nova tried to wedge his hand between Genji's hand and his stomach so he wouldn't feel his stomach growl, but the ninja didn't budge and he felt the hunger attack Nova, who turned barn red and curled in on himself. "Aw, Kitty needs food. Let's go get you something to eat." Genji stood and held the youngest against his body, Nova watched the cowboy and archer over Genji's shoulder. "Jesse, Hanzo, let's go." They walked to the mess hall, Jesse sneaking glares at the oldest brother when he thought Nova wasn't looking, until Nova got sick of ignoring it. "Jesse. Glare at him one more time and I'll dig your eyes out of their sockets, do you hear me?" Jesse's jaw dropped, he never heard Nova so brave he could threaten someone. "Sure thing..." Genji rubbed Nova's back and set him in a chair at one of the smaller tables. The youngest keeping a close eyes on Jesse, who squirmed under the harsh, unblinking gaze. "Nova can you eat lunch meat?" Genji asked from the fridge, "Yup." Nova answered, not looking away from the cowboy. Hanzo watched from beside the table, not wanting to sit near either of them. "Hanzo you can sit down, I'm not gonna hurt you."

"Do not treat me like a child, you could not hurt me if you wanted to." Through the huffs, Hanzo did end up sitting down beside Nova. "Will ya stop glarin' at me? Feel like you're lookin through my brain like that..." Nova smirked and said, "Leave Hanzo alone and I won't have to threaten you." Hanzo didn't know how to feel about someone defending him, especially over something as trivial as a glare. "Here you go. Eat up, Kitty." A sandwich was placed in front of Nova and he nibbled at it, taking the smallest bites Hanzo and Jesse had seen a human eat. Genji sat across from Hanzo and they formed a circle at the table. "This the first time you ate today?" Jesse asked, eyes cast down at the table. "Uh yeah. Haven't been hungry til now." "Nova, what do you want for your birthday? It's coming up soon." Genji asked, having an idea he knew the answer. "Cuddles." Genji smiled and Jesse blinked, not really believing Nova was the same terrified kid he met a long time ago. "You wanted cuddles last year and the year before that." The cyborg wrapped his arms around Nova's middle and buried his face in his shoulder.

Nova ran his clean hand through Genji's hair. "And I want cuddles this year and I'm gonna want them next year." "Aw come on, I want to give you something you'll really like!" "You don't like kitty cuddles anymore?" "I love it, but you deserve to have...well things! Presents! Sparkly things!" Now he was starting to sound like the brother Hanzo knew. He and Jesse shared an equally confused look. "Did I just hear the word birthday?" Lena asked from the doorway and Nova nearly dropped his food. "No, no you didn't." Only Genji knew when the upcoming birthday was and Nova hoped to keep it that way. "Come on, Nova! You're the only person who has a birthday that I don't know! We make it a point to celebrate everyone's birthday, you know that." "Lena we've talked about this." The shy, far too small sounding voice from Nova was more familiar to Jesse and he realized he didn't know when the day in question was either. "Come on, hermano. Tell us." Nova shook his head and abandoned his food. "Don't do this. I don't want anything. No celebration, no parties, no presents, nothing." "Come on, Love. Let us spoil you for once! You've earned it."

Lena was as persistent as ever and Nova became increasingly uncomfortable, being put on the spot. He could feel his anxiety rising and hid his hands under the table as they started to tremble. Genji, once again, pulled Nova onto his lap and held his hands. "Alright we will stop talking about it. Lena give him space." Hanzo and Jesse could see the panic attack start and Genji held his friend tightly, gently rocking him side to side. "Sorry, I forget you still have anxiety issues." Lena dragged Jesse and Hanzo away to give Genji time to calm their friend down, but Hanzo watched from the hall, thinking Nova might lash out on accident. To his suprise, Nova's entire body trembled and he gasped for air, body arching away from Genji and gripping his hands tightly. The Shimada was the one to grab his hands so he didn't use his nails on himself, and he gently murmered in Nova's ear. "You're ok, it's ok. I've got you." "Genji...Genji!" He whined, Hanzo hadn't heard such a terrified sound from Nova and he watched his brother soothe and calm the youngest with such expertise, he realized they truly depended on each other.

"Listen to me, Kitty. I am right here." Genji had let go of Nova's right hand to wrap his arm around Nova's waist and pin him down once he started to squirm. "Hold still, Kitty. Stop biting." Nova whimpered quietly and struggled to stop biting his lip. His fingers flexed as he forced himself to not dig his nails into his skin as instinct had told him to. "Nova couldn't hurt him, Genji wouldn't dream-a hurtin' Nova. They only had each other. I felt the same way about Nova as you do, when I first met him." Hanzo tore himself away from the picture of his brother calming a panicking young man, and turned to Jesse. "Really. How do I feel about him?" "You don't trust him around your brother, think he's gonna attack him or start trouble. I didn't trust him to step a toe in our base a long time ago. He could feel it and he wouldn't go nowhere near me for the longest time. Genji scared him too, but it's different with them." "What do you mean different? Are they more than friends?" "I'm not too sure 'bout that, I know that Nova's only relaxed enough around Genji to act like a cat. It's a thing between the two-a them and Nova's the one that got Genji to accept himself."

"There you go, that's it. Big, deep breaths." The pair looked back in the room to see Nova exhausted and tear-faced, gulping in air as he calmed down, slumped back against his friend. Genji wiped away his tears and rubbed his side. "Then what made you trust him? The way he jumped on you earlier tells me he cares for you as well." "It had a lot to do with his Empathic abilities. He knew when I was too mad to be around him and he avoided me so he didn't get hurt. When I calmed down or when I got sad or whatever, he was the first to notice and he always made sure I was ok and wasn't gonna hurt myself somehow. It's kinda funny, a guy who self-harms makin' sure nobody else in the world hurts bad enough to hurt themself." Hanzo thought he could attempt to be nicer to Nova since his brother cared for him, if what he just witnessed was anything to go by. Despite Nova's protests to Genji, his birthday was announced and the girls ran around gushing over him, dressing him up, and scrambling for presents.

June first, he was hiding in the corner of the room he shared with Genji, trying not to cry and ruin the makep the girls put on him. "You can do this, just breathe slow and don't bite." He looked up at Genji, who was laying on the edge of his bed and peeking over it to watch his friend. "Right, yeah." The party went easy enough, though he couldn't keep from shaking and stuttering, and Hanzo watched from a distance, feeling sorry for him. Nova was allowed to open his presents alone, so Genji made a few trips to take them back to their room. Nova thought it was over, when Hana brought out a giant cake. It was a vanilla cake with purple icing, blue flowers decorated out of icing, and the words, 'Happy birthday, we love you' in the very center. That shattered the brave face he put on and he covered his mouth with his hand, hot tears falling so fast he couldn't feel them and landing on his hand. Hana hugged him and he hugged back with his free arm. "Do you think you can cut it?" Hana asked, Nova shook his head.

"Alright, you did a good job." The agents watched him cry with a sad smile and he got another round of 'happy birthdays' from them before he was allowed to leave. He was left alone and climbed to the roof again, crying softly into his hands. He finally started to settle down when a 'whoosh' sound came from his left. His head jerked up and he saw a cloaked figure with an elongated skull mask on. They felt dangerous but showed no sign of actually wanting to hurt him. For a moment, it was silent and Nova didn't dare to move, aside from his hiccups. "Wh...what do y-you want?" "Tell me how I feel." He jumped, startled at the voice. "H-how do you know-" "Tell me." "You...you feel empty, like you're missing something important and you're sad about something that happened today a-and you're happy to see...me? How do you know me?" "I met a boy, years ago. A scared little brat who always got in the way. He was important to our missions though, and always made sure we were safe before he attacked our enemies. Hate to say it but he was like an emotional support dog. You wanna know what I liked about him?" The stranger didn't give him a chance to respond.

"He understood his purpose and refused to let his fears get in the way." A wave of familiarity hit Nova in the chest and he sobbed. "Niño, don't cry." "Papi..." Nova turned his head and covered his eyes with his arm. Reyes moved closer and gently lowered his arm. "You look well, Niño. I'm happy to see that." He held Nova against him and let him cry. "How old are you now?" "Veintisèis." "You're all grown up." As Reyes held his former agent, it reminded him of the night they met and it tore him up that he couldn't stay. "Don't tell anyone about this, or I'll have to kill you." Nova fisted the cloak material and pressed his face against the body beneath it, as if that could make him stay. "No. No don't go. Not again." "I have to go. Cuídate, mijo." Before Nova could register what happened, Reyes was gone and a box was left in his place. He crawled over and picked it up, looking all around for any sign of his former boss. When he found no trace of the man, he timidly pulled the ribbon to undo the bow, knowing it could have been a trap and a weapon might be in the box.

Once the bow was off, he took the lid off and found a picture inside. He gently grasped it and saw that the picture was of Reyes, standing behind Jesse and Genji and had his arms around them, the cowboy and Ninja had a hand on each side of Nova, and there was a card underneath the picture. 'Never forget, tu eres familia.' Try as hard as he could, Nova couldn't stop the tears as he hugged the picture to his chest. Ten minutes later, his sobs quieted and he felt numb, but happy. Hanzo's voice had him jumping out of his skin and spinning around. "Nova, I apologize. I did not mean to scare you." "I-it's fine. I'm easy to scare. You alright?" "Yes, I am fine. Why do you ask others how they feel when you are the one who is hurting?" Nova sniffled and dabbed under his eyes so he didn't smudge the makeup. "Because I don't matter and I want everyone to be ok." That surprised the archer, not believing that someone who acted the way Nova did could feel as if they didn't matter.

"You can cuddle someone and still hate yourself." Nova told him. "That is...what I wanted to talk about." The birthday boy took a shuddery breath and carefully placed his presents back in the box and closed it before waving Hanzo over. "I'm gonna be out here for a while, you might as well get comfy." Hanzo sat in front of him, keeping a distance between them for both their sake. "From everything I have heard, and seen for myself, you are a very scared person. McCree and my brother have talked about how brave you are, but I do not understand why they say that. I would like to understand." Nova chuckled. "I'm the last person who should be called brave. I'm a terrified piece of shit, I have to be around Genji at all times or Zenyatta if I can't be around Genji. I can't be alone in public, I can't do normal things. Brave isn't even on the list of things I'd ever call myself." "What would you call yourself, then?" "Cute, annoying, and stupid." Nova said it with such a relaxed posture, and a smile on his face, that Hanzo knew he meant it and wasn't saying it to tell him what he wanted to hear.

"Do you believe you have no purpose or value to others?" "Yeah but it's only partly my fault. I was raised to believe that I had to let people treat me how they wanted and I wasn't allowed to say 'no' or 'stop. Now it's...it's my comfy space. I feel better when I don't like myself. It makes me happy to know that I'm worthless but if I can help people, that...eases some of the pain. I have no worth as an individual but if I can help someone through their own pain, then maybe...maybe I did something good for once." Hanzo understood at least part of what drew his brother to Nova. "Does it truly make you happy to put yourself down like that? It does not seem like you hate yourself this much." Nova hid a laugh in his sweater. "I've gotten really good at hiding how I feel. If you really don't want me to be around your brother, I'll back off." He said it with a small smile on his face. "No, my brother is happy with you around, I do not wish to take more from him than I already have."

"Hanzo. I'm really glad he has you. Nothing's stronger than the love between siblings. I'm probably the last person you wanna hear this from, but I'm just as proud of you as I am of Genji. You've both come a really long way from your family, from the pain, and you have the chance to patch things up if you both want to. I'm gonna tell you the same thing I told him forever ago. There's parts of us that we hate...but if we keep letting ourselves hate those parts, the rest of us won't know how to function properly. You gotta find a balance between the love and hate for yourself or the things you've done. I can't take my own advice, my situation is different than yours and I wouldn't even know where to begin." "Thank you, I believe you are right. I have a second chance at life with my brother amd I should be more greatful for it, rather than bask in what once was." Hanzo watched his brother climb up behind Nova as they talked, and Genji bent down to lightly drag his finger along Nova's most ticklish spot.

He laughed at the highest pitch shriek he'd ever heard from him, and watched him jump and spin around, rubbing at that spot. "Genji! You cybernetic asshole! YOU KNOW THAT SPOT IS SENSETIVE!" Hanzo couldn't stop the chuckle that left his lips and he fought more laughter as his brother fell, clutching his sides. "I have never heard you make that sound before! Y-you had goosebumps all over you!" Nova huffed and kicked at the cyborg, who just shoved his foot away. "Ha-ha very funny." Hanzo got the idea his mischevious little brother did that often. Nova pouted and sat back down, facing Genji who was just starting to calm down. "Before you ask, everyone on the planet knows this is my weakest spot. For some reason, it's literally the most sensetive spot on my body. Even what's below the belt isn't as sensetive, and everyone loves to touch it to make me do...well what you saw. I know they don't mean anything by it, but it still gets old." "Is there anything you can wear over it to protect it?" Hanzo asked. "Not really, hey. What are you doing?"

Genji got on his hands and knees and started crawling to them, which made Nova tense a bit and back up. Hanzo wanted to step in but saw the smile on Nova's face. "Come on, forgive me?" "Pff no way." The youngest crossed his arms and huffed dramatically, like a stubborn child. Genji nuzzled his cheek at Nova's side. "Come on, pretty please?" Nova giggled. "Stop it, don't you dare." Genji pulled back and gave Hanzo a smirk, for reasons the elder didn't know, before pushing Nova's legs out in front of him, then spreading them apart a bit and laying between them, on his back, looking up at Nova with the best puppy face he could pull, even making a tiny whimper. "Nope. You can look at me like that all day, I'm really good at saying no." "Nova don't make me beg." The youngest brought his hands to Genji's temples and gently massaged, effectively cutting off his sentence and turning his tongue to goo. Nova gave a triumphant little 'hmph' as Genji leaned into the touch. "So that is how you make him stop talking." "Pfff yep. He just melts to robotic goo." Genji whined and playfully smacked Nova's arm, it just made him laugh and move one hand to thread in Genji's hair and massage his scalp.

"I have never seen someone act like this with him. How do you do it?" Hanzo's fascination mixed with brotherly jealousy. "My hands are small and weak so it's hard for me to grip things. I can't even open a jar of pickles. It's crazy but there other uses for dainty, girly hands, like this." "He has tiny girly hands and it kind of suits him." Genji had eyes shut as he relaxed against the touch. "Forgive me yet?" The cyborg asked, creaking an eye open. "Still no." "Still love me?" That made Hanzo's heart stop beating for a second. Nova gently cradled Genji's head in his hands so he didn't hit the ground and scooted back, proving to be quite flexible, as he bent down to kiss Genji's nose. "Mew." The tiny squeak of an answer made Genji grin and hold his hand up for a high-five. Nova rolled his eyes and high-fived him, before a realization made him hold Genji with one hand while the other moved to Hanzo's shoulder. "Breathe, Hanzo. Relax. We aren't dating or in any kind of romantic relationship. Breathe, buddy." That made Genji sit up and move in front of his spaced out brother.

"Anija, it's alright. Take a breath." Genji helped to ease the nerves of his slightly panicky brother and Nova scooted away to give them space. Hanzo watched him out of the corner of his eye and he didn't want to admit that it eased his racing heart. Nova knew it, he could feel it, so he picked up his present. "I'll be in our room, I wanna see what everyone got me." He hid his sadness behind a beautiful smile and Hanzo understood what he meant earlier about being able to hide his pain. "Alright. I will join you later, have some cake while there is still some left." Nova clicked his tongue and went back inside, ducking past the mess hall to his room. He shut the door and leaned on it with a sad sigh, then went to the bathroom and got his makeup off. He washed his face and let the water drip off on the walk to his tiny dresser to get a new outfit to sleep in. Aka, his pajamas. He owned one pair of jeans, one pair of shorts, one pair of PJ pants that were thin but long enough to keep him warm, one t-shirt, one tank top and his favorite sweater.

Sitting in his tank top and pj pants, he looked at the presents to his right, counting far too many for his liking. There were ten, eleven including the one from Reyes, and his heart ached. He was still struggling with it when there was a knock on the door. He opened it and came face to face with Lucio. "Oh hey. Genji there?" "No, sorry. He's up on the roof last I saw." "Alright, thanks. Happy birthday by the way." Lucio waved at him and headed off to find the cyborg, leaving Nova to blink in confusion. He and Lucio didn't really interact much, so it was a surprise that he bothered to care about his birthday. He left the door open and got to work on opening his presents. He got a CD, nail polish, eyeliner, a new shirt, and writing material from everyone and he bit his finger to keep from crying for the umpteenth time that day. "Hey, no biting." He looked up and found Genji there, at the foot of the bed.

"Is Hanzo ok?" "Yes, it was a little too much excitement for him as well. What did you get?" Nova motioned to his gifts and scooted them over to make room for Genji, who immediately picked up a black eyeliner pencil and black nail polish. "I can use these, right?" "Pff I dunno. After the way you tickled me up there...I'm kidding. Yes you can use them." His heart still hurt as he put his things in his dresser and threw away the wrapping paper, letting Genji continue to hold and examine the items in hand. "You still hurt inside, don't you?" Nova sighed and ignored the pain in his chest. "I'm always going to hurt, Sparrow. I just...figured out how to live around it." Genji opened his arms wide and his body swallowed Nova's in a hug. Nova chuckled and reached up to rub at Genji's hand. "Then I will hug you until you have no room to hate yourself." "Why? What's there to like about this thing anyway?" He motioned to himself. Genji tightened his grip and walked backwards, Nova went limp and let himself be dragged to the bathroom before Genji gently gripped his jaw and moved him to look at his reflection.

Nova whimpered and immediately squeezed his eyes shut. "No, none of that. Look. That's an order." Nova trembled and fought the urge to dig his nails in something as he creaked his eyes open and looked at their reflection. "What do you see? Don't tell me what you like or hate, tell me exactly what you see as you see it." "I s-see us. Y-your hair, my eyes, our f-faces and parts of our bodies." "Close your eyes." Nova closed his eyes and felt something press against the top of his spine before Genji whispered to open his eyes and keep them open. He whimpered softly and struggled to stare himself in the face. "Genji I don't wanna...I don't wanna look." "Why not? Just like your pain, it exists. It is there and will remain there for the rest of your life. You cannot live your life dodging your reflection, times will come where you must stare back at yourself." Nova was forced to watch himself cry as Genji stood back up and rested his chin on Nova's head, reaching up to wipe away his tears. "You are beautiful, inside and out."