Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

When Jamison Fawkes finally awoke, it was to an unfamiliar ceiling.  

He stared at the pockmarked panels of the ceiling tiles, the fluorescent light humming softly above, and mused internally that it looked nothing like the grey, cement ceiling and caged light bulb of his prison cell like it should.  

Muddled memories began to coalesce into a semblance of clarity in his mind. He wasn't in prison any more. That's right! They had busted out last night. He remembered the smell of smoke, the cold press of the frozen and dark night, and the sound of gunfire. He shuddered. There was more, but he did not want to think about it all too much right now. Not before he'd had some coffee. 

He pushed back the downy quilt cover and shivered in the morning chill. He rolled into an upright position and took in his surroundings. He was sitting upright in a comfortable bed on clean sheets in a small sparsely decorated room. To his left, a small window allowed in a modicum of morning light. Jamie thought he heard a gull cry in the distance. To his right, a small writing desk and chair were pressed against the sheet metal wall. A picture hung from the wall; a sea view. It was marginally more comfortable than his prison cell at least. His prosthetic arm was resting on the writing desk, his peg leg propped up against the bed. He reached for them instinctively and started to fit them back in place.  

Pushing the bed covers back revealed he was dressed in a pair of plain grey sweatpants. He vaguely remembered changing out of his bright orange prison uniform into more comfortable clothes before collapsing into bed, exhausted, sometime during the small hours of the night. The discarded prison uniform was crumpled in a heap in the corner of the room, blackened and sooty in places from last night’s escapades.  

Jamie reached upward and stretched out the muscles in his naked chest and arms, and heard a few joints 'pop', enjoying the pleasurable sensation of tension releasing as his body woke up.

Memories of the previous night's goings on started to trickle back in. It had been a whirlwind of mad dashes and just barely scraped through close-calls. By the time they had arrived in his present location, he had collapsed, exhausted somewhere between four and five in the morning. Before succumbing to sleep, he supposed he must have gone almost twenty hours without rest, their entire prison exodus fuelled almost entirely by pure adrenaline and reckless abandon.  

Jamie checked that his prosthetic limbs were fixed securely back in place and took a moment to sit and orientate himself. A quick glance at the digital clock on the small bedside table indicated it was approaching late morning—almost eleven o’clock. He rolled his shoulders and stretched, feeling reasonably well-rested. It had only been around six or seven hours of sleep, but he had never slept so soundly before.  

He took a moment to listen for any movement outside the room, but hearing none, he stood and hobbled over to the door on peg and bare foot. He half-expected it to be locked, but the door slid open with a hiss and Jamie cast a cursory glance up and down the cold, dimly lit hallway. There was no one to be seen. He was alone. He shuffled on the spot nervously. Should he wait for someone to come fetch him, or was he allowed to show himself around? He was vaguely hungry, and also anxious to find Roadie, but also aware that he was standing in one of Overwatch's high-tech base of operations. He probably wasn’t allowed to go poking around.  

Jamie shivered in the cold February air. Looking around, he saw a chalkboard affixed to the wall beneath the room number next to his door. Someone had written “Fawkes” there in perfect cursive script. The lettering was entirely too neat, he felt, for someone of his reputation. 

"So, this is home for now?" he wondered aloud, staring at the chalkboard. He'd have to see if he could find some chalk so he could come back and re-write his name in his own much more befitting chicken-scratch.  

He took a few steps down the hall and immediately detected Roadie’s unmistakable snoring from the room beside his. A similar chalkboard had also been affixed beside the door there, “Rutledge” had also been written in the same neat chalky letters. Jamie debated for a moment waking his partner in crime, but ultimately decided to let him sleep and carried on. He didn’t particularly feel like invoking the larger man’s wrath at this point, knowing he'd probably appreciate a few more hours of sleep at least. Besides, Jamie was beginning to feel hungry. Perhaps he could find something to eat that didn’t consist of prison gruel. 

He meandered for a few minutes through the twisting hallways, hoping to chance across a sign that might point him in the right direction of the facility’s kitchen or mess hall. The hallways remained eerily quiet, there was no one to ask for directions. Each corridor looked as grey and stale as the last, lined with sheet metal and lit with cold florescent lights. It reminded him a bit of a hospital corridor. He shivered again in the cool air. There was only the distant hum of air conditioning or machinery to be heard.  

Suddenly a woman rounded a corner up ahead, heels clacking against the tiled flooring. Her dark hair pulled back into an impeccably neat bun, dark skin disappearing beneath a smart form-fitting uniform. She was busy leafing through a handful of papers and trying to juggle a tablet device in the crook of one elbow. She was completely preoccupied with her paperwork, a dark scowl affixed to her face. She didn't see Jamie at first until she had almost passed him. Catching sight of his peg leg out of the corner of one eye, her head snapped up, gaze meeting his with surprise and confusion. Jamie started at the intensity of her amber-coloured eyes and watched as her face contorted into a look of disdain.  

He had hoped to ask for directions, but the expression of displeasure on the newcomer’s face almost silenced him. "G'day," he mumbled, eyebrows raised and trying to offer a weak smile.  

Her scowl deepened. She didn't reply, but instead came to a halt and watched him as he continued on his way down the corridor, her papers forgotten. She regarded him with a most calculating look, and Jamie felt almost disected under her scrutiny. He must have looked very strange in nothing but a pair of sweatpants and barefoot, dishevelled and wandering the halls of a sleek, high-tech facility. Would he be expected to wear a uniform like that as well? Christ, I hope not, he mused internally.  

He hobbled away under the woman's scrutiny. She watched him until he was out of sight and then took off at a brisk pace, looking thoroughly annoyed.

--

“You look like shit.”

Lena didn’t need to raise her head to know who it was that was speaking to her. There was no mistaking that southern American drawl.

“Leave me alone, Cassidy,” she mumbled out of the space between her arms. She was resting her head on her forearms, exhausted, with a cup of coffee perched in front of her. She had barely slept last night and now was sitting at one of the Mess Hall tables trying to use caffeine to jump start her system.

“Hangover?” Cassidy—as he preferred to be known—asked and plopped down at the same table sitting opposite her with his breakfast tray. “Doesn’t seem like you.”

Lena did lift her head at that and fixed him with a glare. “No,” she muttered. “I’m not hungover.” She tried to glare at him but the fluorescent lights were too bright so she simply rested her cheek on a propped elbow and kept her eyes closed. She cringed in his general direction instead. “I’m just tired.”

“Late night?” Cassidy asked and took a bite of his toast.

Lena rubbed her face with her palms. “You could say that,” she replied. She tried to massage her temples but that only seemed to make her headache worse. She had been up half the night because it was her responsibility to pilot one of Overwatch’s smaller dropships to pick up their two newest recruits. Their extraction had not exactly been discreet. After being pursued and fleeing across several international borders, she had successfully escorted her two charges into the Gibraltar Watchpoint and watched as they collapsed into bed. With adrenalin pumping, she had hardly been able to catch a wink herself and, wanting to be up early to debrief with Jack the next morning, she hadn’t allowed herself much rest. Besides, she wanted to make sure she was awake before the new recruits to be ready to begin their orientation. Before she had been given this assignment, Jack had been expressly clear; failure to recruit the pair was not an option. And the recruitment process included an extensive onboarding program.

Cassidy laughed at her dishevelled appearance. “Let me guess,” he began. “The strike commander roped you into picking up two new delinquents to join the ranks, huh?”

Lena’s head snapped up to stare at Cassidy, mouth agape. “How did you know about that?” she demanded to know, suddenly alert.

Cassidy snickered and hid a grin behind his coffee cup before carefully putting it down. He seemed pleased with himself for having got her to admit her involvement so readily. “News travels fast,” he said cryptically in that familiar drawl. “Heard something on the grape vine about a break out at one of Helix’s maximum-security prisons last night.” Cassidy very carefully chewed on his eggs and bacon as he fixed Lena with a calculating stare. “Word around base is there are two strangers bunking the ops barracks, and with you looking so tired and being such a top pilot and all…” He put down his fork. “...figured you had somethin’ to do with it.”

Lena frowned. Her mission assignment was supposed to be classified to anyone except senior ranking officials. Had news about the prison break spread to the media and the rest of the Watchpoint so quickly? Or was Cassidy just exceptionally perceptive? “If you know about the break out, then you know about all of the escapees?”

“Sure do,” Cassidy replied in an even tone although Lena caught the wry smile behind his raised coffee cup.

“Even...?”

Cassidy’s expression changed. “Yes, even him,” he replied solemnly, voice suddenly bleak.

Lena shared a meaningful look with Cassidy, then slumped back onto the table and groaned. Jack was going to be pissed. His instruction to be covert as possible had gone completely out of the window. She knew it wasn't her fault that one of the new recruits was particularly... explosive... and that their spectacular prison break was largely over by the time she arrived to negotiate their release, but she had a feeling Jack would not see it the same way. She heaved a sigh and decided Cassidy may as well know the truth of it all. “I have to orientate them, Cassidy. What am I going to do?”

“Why not let the Personnel Division take care of it?” he asked. Lena considered this. The Personnel & Readiness team were responsible for onboarding new staff normally, however agents were often tasked with recruiting too from time to time. Cassidy himself should understand this; he had largely moved from tactical ops to more recruitment missions in recent months. 

“I can’t!” Lena moaned. “The commander classified this as a 'covert operation' and assigned it to me specifically. Only field agents are authorised to carry out missions...” She rubbed absent-mindedly at the straps of her chronal accelerator where they were beginning to chafe her and disregarded for the moment that it was not very 'covert' to spill details of her mission to Cassidy.

Cassidy polished off his coffee and chuckled at her. “Well then, I’ll leave it up to you,” he smirked. “How hard can it be?”

“Easy for you to say!” Lena quipped. “You don’t have to orientate a madman and his nightmare-inducing bodyguard.” She rubbed at her eyes tiredly again. “You're good at this sort of thing, Cassidy. I don’t suppose you'd be interested in helping?”

“Now why would I do that?” Cassidy asked with a smile. “A gentleman of my calibre has plenty to occupy his time already. Shootin’ stuff, drinking heavily, shootin’ more stuff...”

Lena was unsure if he was making fun of her or if he was being completely serious, so she just rolled her eyes. “You could take them under your wing,” Lena suggested. “You know, like how you first joined Overwatch? You have a lot in common with them, you know? You could pay it forward, so to speak.”

Cassidy actually seemed to consider this for a moment, then shrugged. “Nah. I’m busy,” he said. “Besides, I’m sure you’ve got it all under control.”

Lena groaned again. “Thanks for nothing,” she grizzled at him. She dropped her head into her hands again. “How am I going to pull this off? I can barely understand what they’re saying half the time.”

Cassidy shrugged. “Don’t you speak the same lingo as them?”

Lena’s face scrunched up in confusion. “Uh... no? They’re Aussie. I’m British.”

“Same thing, isn’t it?”

“No,” Lena replied flatly, then added disbelievingly, "How many years have you worked abroad for Overwatch now and you still can't pick out an accent?"

“I keep telling Jack its above my pay-grade,” Cassidy said simply. He finished his coffee and stood abruptly, excusing himself to go to the practice range. “Oh,” he added before he left. “Looks like one of your charges is here by the way.” He nodded in the direction of the entrance to the mess hall.

Lena whipped her head around, suddenly alert. There was Jamison Fawkes, barefoot and shirtless, dressed in nothing but the sweatpants she had given him last night. Alarmed, Lena quickly stood and jogged over. Cassidy wished her luck over his shoulder as he departed.

Their newest agent was staring all around the mess hall in wonder. He had attracted the attention of most of the room’s occupants by this point, professional staff and field agents alike, who were staring at him and whispering to each other. He looked extremely out of place, leaning unevenly on his peg leg and barely dressed. An imposing skull tattoo was staring back at Lena from the young man’s right shoulder.

“Jamison?” Lena asked on approach. Jamie recognised her and grinned. He shook her hand with his own metal prosthesis using surprising gentleness.

“Sorry, love! I was going to bring you some clothes,” Lena continued. “I didn’t think you’d be getting up for a bit. You must be freezing!” It was February and Gibraltar was experiencing a cold snap. The Overwatch base had climate control that worked well enough but Jamie was still under-dressed for the temperature.

“S’alright,” he said. “Tracey, was it?”

Lena laughed nervously. “‘Tracer’ is my callsign. Call me Lena,” she said with a cautious smile. She hoped he couldn’t detect the nervous timber of her voice.

“Only if you call me Jamie,” he laughed.

She nodded. She was a little apprehensive about Jamison; she had heard he was obsessed with bombs and explosions. Some news reports she had read said that 'no prison could hold him.' Apparently neither could a maximum-security Helix prison. They had only spent a few brief hours in one another’s presence the previous night, and most of that time she had to concentrate on piloting the Slipstream to get them back to base, so she hadn’t had much of a chance to speak with him or his bodyguard. When they had returned to base, it was late and she had barely had time to grab them some spare sweatpants and show them to a couple of spare rooms before they were both out like lights. It didn’t leave much time for her to get to know him.

“Come with me,” she said and lead him away from the mess hall and the stares of the other staff. “First things first. Let’s get you some new clothes.”

--

Lena’s mouth formed a thin, rueful line. She found an old black t-shirt with an Overwatch logo on the front and held it up so she could inspect it. “Ah, this one should fit,” she said and tossed it to Jamie who caught it and pulled it over his head while she continued to dig through the piles of plastic-wrapped Overwatch merchandise. Most of the clothing in the storeroom was dark coloured with large Overwatch logos emblazoned on the chest. Jamie was going to look like an Overwatch poster child for a little while until they could work something else out.

Lena continued to rummage through the packets of clothing in search of more of the same size and hopefully some clothes with more varied designs. “Feel free to look around yourself. Take whatever you like,” she said to Jamie. “There’s plenty of it.”

“Cheers,” Jamie replied, looking around at the shelves that lined the walls stacked with boxes and plastic-wrapped merchandise. The small, windowless space was a bit of a mess; someone had clearly come through before looking for something and had left the room in a state of disarray. Most of the packets had not been sorted in anything that resembled order.

“I’m sorry it all looks pretty similar,” she said apologetically. Lena kicked some larger boxes of winter jackets out of the way so she could reach up high on a shelf and check the sizing on the packets sitting there. “This will have to do until we can find you some ‘regular’ clothes...”

“Don’t worry about me, love,” Jamie replied, compiling packets of t-shirts, sweatpants and hoodies. He was actually quite pleased to be given some brand-new clean clothes free of charge. "I reckon the last time anyone gave me any new clothes was when I got issued a prison uniform. This is nice by comparison!”

Lena actually laughed. "Well hopefully this is a bit more comfortable than a prison uniform." Wait, were they having a pleasant exhange? Was this famed criminal and pyromaniac who was wanted on several continents actually... nice? He laughed at her comment as he continued to peruse the shelves.

Lena chucked a few more packets at him then turned and dug around in a box until she found a pair of socks and some trainers which she also handed over to Jamie.

“That’s alright,” he said as he sat on the corner of a packing crate and pulled on one of the socks she had given him. “Only need the one,” he said, then laughed like having one leg was hilarious.

Lena flushed immediately with embarrassment. “Oh, of course,” she blurted out, glancing at his peg leg. “I'm sorry...”

Jamie laughed again. “Why would you be sorry? You didn't do it.”

'What did that mean?' Lena wondered. Did he do it? Did someone else do it? Should she ask? Would that be rude? Lena was adrift in own awkwardness so she only nodded in reply. She watched as he finished knotting his laces and stood again. “I’ve never met anyone with a... leg like that,” she commented, shooting a glance at his peg leg.

“All I need is a parrot and an eye patch to complete the look, eh?” he replied. The tension dissipated and Lena giggled.

There was a knock at the door and before Lena could say anything, it slid open automatically and an enormous man was revealed to be standing on the other side.

Jamie’s face brightened. “Roadie! You found us!” he exclaimed.

With a little trepidation, Lena stood back to allow the newcomer enough space to step into the room. ‘Roadie’ was silent as he stepped forward, but Lena sensed a strange kind of energy rolling off the man. He was wearing the same kind of sweatpants that Jamie sported, albeit in a larger size, and was naked from the waist up. Painted across the man’s enormous stomach was a rather large and elaborate tattoo which depicted a kind of motorbike engine with a cute pig head attached surrounded by the words: “WILD HOG POWER”. Roadie’s ‘outie’ belly button formed the pig’s snout. Clever use of real estate, she had to admit. Although he was sporting the same gasmask Lena had seen in his wanted poster, she could tell that he was annoyed; perhaps because he had woken up in a strange place to find Jamie missing.

“Oh, good. You’re here,” Lena squeaked, voice trembling under Roadie's aura. She craned her neck to look up at the gasmask. She fought desperately to keep her tone even. “We were just gathering some clothes together for Jamison.”

Roadie continued to say nothing.

“How did you find us, Roadie?” Jamie asked.

Again, Roadie didn’t reply. He only lifted one massive hand and extended his index finger towards the ceiling. After a moment, he slowly lowered his hand again.

“I guided him here,” came a feminine voice from somewhere above their heads.

Jamie started with alarm. “What the...?” He looked all around for the source of the new voice.

“Oh, Athena! Thank you!” Lena said with a smile. She turned to Roadie. “We were going to let you sleep a bit longer, what with the late night and all, but now that you’re here, we can find you some clothes too!”

Jamie continued to stare in confusion at the ceiling, like he was trying to decide if he was the only one that heard that robotic female voice just now. He shook his head after a moment as though to dispel his thoughts, seemed to remember where he was, and then—disembodied voices forgotten—exclaimed, “Roadie, look at all the free stuff!”

There was a quiet, muffled noise from under the man’s gasmask, like a grunt of acknowledgement. Lena was beginning to feel unnerved by the larger man’s nonverbal replies.

“Um, you’re welcome to help yourself,” Lena told Roadie. “I think we’ve got some ‘XL’ sizes somewhere...”

Again, Roadie did not respond. Lena noted that Roadie seemed to be largely stoic and silent regardless of who addressed him. “Man of few words, eh?” she asked, laughing nervously and even went so far as to elbow him in the ribs in a friendly way. Her laughter petered out when she realised she had earned no response from the large man.

"His voice is fucked," Jamie said. Lena turned wide eyes on Jamie, a little surprised by how bluntly the information had been offered to her. Jamie went on, "Inhaled poison gas. Happened years ago."

The larger man stiffened slightly, hands seeming to tense with anger as he regarded Jamie. Jamie was oblivious to having spoken out of turn. Lena glanced between the two men. The air was suddenly filled with tension.

“That’s why he wears the mask,” Jamie went on. “Purifies the air. Ain’t that right, Hoggie?” He looked up finally and patted Roadie on the arm. Roadie remained stiff and silent.

Lena looked at the larger man towering over her. Was he going to correct Jamie? Punch him? She couldn't help but be curious. Was it painful for Roadie to speak? She felt that now was not the right time to question him, for fear that she may anger the large and imposing man further. He seemed to maintain his self-control, however, and the moment passed.

“It's good that you’re here,” Lena went on, addressing Roadie. “We’ll need to get you two sorted for clothes, grab some lunch, and also head over to the Personnel & Readiness office at some point to get your contracts finalised.” Roadie seemed to be preoccupied with pulling a 5XL shirt over his head. “H.R. will be able to answer any questions you guys have about your work. Annual leave, probation, all that stuff...” Lena added.

“Probation?” Jamie asked.

“Yeah, you’ll be on probation for the first six months. P and R will explain everything...” Lena said with a wave of her hand. “At some point, I’ll also need to take you up to the Engineers Workshop, Jamie.”

Jamie’s ears perked up at that. “You have a workshop?” he asked, suddenly very serious.

“Hm? Oh, yes,” Lena said absently. “I heard you like to build things, Jamie. We are short on staff in the engineering department. We thought you might like to help out.”

Jamie looked positively delighted. “Didja hear, Roadie? They got a tinkering department!” Jamie said, clearly very excited. Roadie looked up briefly, but seemed disinterested and returned to looking for clothes among the shelves.

Lena watched them both for a little while, curious to see how they interacted together. Jamie seemed much more expressive and attentive when compared to his counterpart, happy to volunteer translations of Roadie’s nonverbal grunts or body language to Lena. Roadie on the other hand seemed to hate being fussed over and appeared to have reluctantly resigned himself to being dragged around everywhere on Jamie’s whim. Neither of the two men seemed half as scary as she had expected. Jamie seemed perfectly friendly and happy to crack a joke with anyone. Roadie maintained some self control, which was more than what Lena expected, even when Jamie annoyed him too much.

“So... uh... how long have you two known each other?” Lena asked, breaking the silence.

Jamie paused his rummaging to think about it. “Hmm, maybe... two years?” he said.

“One and a half,” Roadie corrected him in a gravelly voice. Lena almost leapt out of her skin with surprise. ‘So he is capable of speech!’ she thought, eyeing the large man.

“Oh, yeah!” Jamie laughed. “That’s right.”

Lena nodded. She was also curious though as to the nature of their relationship. “That’s a long time to be together...” she said meaningfully.

Jamie smiled and nodded, oblivious to any questioning undertones of Lena’s statement. Roadie groaned in annoyance. He turned to Lena and said, “This idiot is essentially a giant infant the universe has tasked me with babysitting indefinitely. There's nothing else." The forcefulness of his words caused Lena to nod involuntarily in agreement. 

Jamie seemed to be considering Roadie’s words. “Yeah. That’s a fair assessment.”

Lena was still getting over the fact that Roadie had just uttered the longest string of words he had ever said to her. “Oh, okay,” she mustered.

She watched them for a while longer as they continued to pull clothing from the plastic packages and cast them aside when they decided they didn’t want them after all. Lena made a mental note to ask Athena to organise for a proper clean up in here.

Jamie paused midway through trying to shrug on a dark hoodie that was apparently too small. He tugged it off. “So when do we get paid?” he asked.

Lena pursed her lips. People usually didn't join Overwatch for the money, althought the pay was good. There was a certain prestige associated with becoming an Overwatch agent which she hoped was not lost on Jamie. “You’ll both be a one-year contract, right?” she asked. Jamie nodded in reply. “There’ll be an option to extend, of course. You will be on base pay. That goes through once a fortnight. Beyond that, you earn a commission for each mission you participate in. The commission scales up if the mission is successful.”

Lena watched Jamie gather together an armful of clothing packets in his chosen size and pressed them to his chest to keep them in place. He stood ready to follow her out of the room.

“Oi, if I’m gonna be on this engineering team, do I get two pay cheques? One for tinkering, one for going on missions?” He giggled, seemingly proud of himself for thinking of something so clever.

Lena fixed him with a wry smile. “No. Your title is ‘Demolitions and Incendiaries Officer’,” she reminded him. “One pay cheque.”

Jamie shrugged. “It was worth a try!”

“I can see I'm going to have to keep an eye on you,” Lena said in a chiding tone and Jamie giggled again.

When Lena was satisfied that the men had gathered enough clothes to sustain them for the time being and were finally dressed well enough to withstand the cold, she motioned for them to follow her out of the room and she pressed a few buttons on the keypad to lock the door behind them. They headed off up the corridor.

“Hey, so what do you need a ‘Demolitions Officer’ for anyway?” Jamie asked conversationally as he jogged to keep up with his arms laden with packages.

Lena grimaced. “Oh, it’s a long story,” she replied with a sigh. “Years ago, when Overwatch was first operational, we didn’t have a demolitions expert so usually the Chief Engineer knocked something together or we made do. Last time we needed to blow something up on short notice, we just sort of winged it and ended up destroying a historic sea fort in Cuba. After that, the commander decided we needed to find someone with a bit more expertise...” Lena seemed to grimace at the memory. “We found a guy. Russian. Ex-military. Very serious,” Lena explained. “He liked to be called the 'Fusionator' as his callsign. His field of research was nuclear weapons. Nice guy.” She was quiet for a moment, seemingly lost in thought.

“What happened to him?” Jamie asked with a little trepidation. If they had been the lookout for a new demolitions man recently, something must have happened to prevent the last guy from joining the Recall.

Lena shook her head sadly. “Blew himself up last spring on a building razing project in Belarus. Such a shame.”

“Crikey,” Jamie swore. Jamie was no stranger to demolitions and incendiaries. He'd lost a few limbs to them, so he knew the risks. He wondered, briefly what he'd be blowing up as part of his new Overwatch job. It was an exciting prospect. But maybe he had not dedicated an appropriate amount of time to considering how this line of work may be a threat to the longevity of his remaining limbs. He didn’t think about it for too long as there was a tap at his shoulder. Jamie turned to see Roadie was motioning for his attention, one large index finger curled towards the smaller man.

Lena seemed pensive as she walked ahead of them, so Jamie fell back and allowed some distance to grow between them and the small woman. He turned to Roadie. “What?” he asked irritably while trying to shuffle the packets in his arms. Some had started to slip.

“Need a word with you,” the old man wheezed in his usual gravelly voice.

The two men watched Lena wander ahead, seemingly lost in thought. When Jamie was satisfied that she was out of earshot, he said in a lowered voice, “What do you think of this place? Reckon we should stay?”

Roadie was silent while he considered this, but eventually nodded. “Seems like a ligit operation. Nice people,” he said, looking at Lena. “If we’re gonna stay, we need to make sure you don’t screw it all up.”

Jamie looked offended. “Me? When have I ever screwed up anything in my entire life?”

“That one time in Dorado when...”

“Never! Exactly!” Jamie said with a decisive nod.

Roadie sighed. “You need to keep yourself under control,” he wheezed. “Stay out of trouble. If anyone works out you’re totally barking, we’re gonna be turfed out.”

Jamie suddenly looked extremely serious. He gave the larger man a three-finger salute. “I'll be on me best behaviour! Scouts honour!”

Roadie only grunted in reply. If Jamie could see his face behind the gasmask, he would have seen Roadie roll his eyes in exasperation. “One more thing,” he added. “You can’t sleep with any of the girls here. Or gents for that matter.”

Jamie flushed red with embarrassment. “’Scuse me? Who are you to tell me--!”

“I’m serious,” Roadie barked back at him. His words had become much more threatening, although he continued to speak in hushed tones lest they draw Lena’s attention. “If we get kicked out of a good gig because you shagged some bird and broke her heart, I’ll murder you.”

Jamie actually gulped. He knew Roadie didn’t make such threats lightly. “You need to give the fairer sex more credit, Roadie,” he murmured.

“You’re right,” Roadie remarked. “Who would want to shag you?”

“Oi!”

“She said we’re on six months of probation, remember?” Roadie replied, shooting a look at Lena who was still walking up ahead, thankfully still out of earshot. “That means we’re not guaranteed a job until after we get through probation. We need this to go smoothly.” He fixed the smaller man with a very pointed look. “No sex.”

Jamie huffed. If he hadn’t been holding so many packets of clothes, he might have actually shoved the larger man. “How do you always find a way to ruin everything?”

“Don’t you mean, ‘how do I always find a way to stop you from ruining everything’?” Roadie retorted

“Fellas?” Lena called from up ahead. She had finally noticed that the two men had dropped very far behind her. “Keep up! Or we’ll fall behind schedule!”

They stopped off at the barracks so Jamie and Roadie could drop off their clothes in their dorm rooms. Lena watched the two men dumped their packages unceremoniously on their beds, many sliding onto the floor, and left them there. Next, they headed over to the Personnel & Readiness Office which was really just 3 people sitting in a cramped office with a lovely view of the Gibraltar shipping lanes. Lena waited with bated breath while two contracts were signed, dated and stamped as “received.” An older lady with a thick Spanish accent gave the two Junkers a brief rundown of their expectations, working hours, and the Code of Conduct, to which they seemed to nod at appropriate moments with blank expressions. When all of the paperwork was completed, Lena expelled a sigh of relief. “Alright,” she said with a decisive nod. "Now, let's get you something to eat."

They returned to the mess hall and Lena showed them how to queue at the self-serve area. It was approaching lunch time now and staff who were lucky enough to experience a normal sleep cycle that day were beginning to gather for the midday meal. Lena loaded both Junker’s plates with steak sandwiches and chips. Jamie insisted on two cups of coffee and they found a seat at the rear of the mess hall where they could sit without attracting too many stares.

"Who pays for all this?" Jamie asked.

Lena made a strange gesture with her hands. “A complex combination of United Nations financial aid and private corporate sponsorship,” she said mysteriously.

“But essentially, it's... free?” Jamie asked.

Lena conceded by nodding at him and Jamie looked overly delighted once again. He elbowed Roadie in the ribs. ‘Free!’ he mouthed at the larger man.

The two Junkers shovelled food into their mouths enthusiastically, under Lena’s surprised gaze. Roadie ate with his mask slid slightly to one side but managing to keep his face obscured. Lena supposed this was the first time they had eaten today, so their haste was understandable. As they ate, Lena watched other staff members file into the mess hall. Sitting in a remote corner didn’t seem to help hide the new recruits from prying eyes very much. The Junkers somehow still drew attention to themselves and people were beginning to stare from across the room as they filtered through and recognised them. Lena worried for a moment what people would have to say about the two men. It seemed as though their reputation preceded them, and gossip travelled fast on base.

Finally, Lena spotted the person she had been keeping an eye out for.

“Reinhardt! Reinhardt! Over here!” She stood and waved at a tall, muscular gentleman to grab his attention as he entered the room. The man, Reinhardt, saw Lena waving and headed over to their table.

“Greetings, my dear!” he said on arrival in a thick German accent. “Ah! And these must be the new recruits! Wünderbar!” He turned to looked at the men seated around the table. “Welcome, my friends! Soon you will see what it is like to fight for honour, justice, and—”

“Reinhardt,” Lena interrupted. “Where have you been? You promised me you were going to help orientate the newbies! Did you forget?”

Reinhardt suddenly looked appropriately chastised. “Oh... um. Yes, I suppose I did until just now,” he murmured. “I was down at the gym.”

Jamie took in the newcomer’s appearance. He seemed to be, somehow, taller than Roadie. He was wearing a tank top and a pair of loose pants. Jamie could see he was exceptionally well-built despite his age. His was missing his left eye and his white hair and beard stood out around his face in tufts like the mane of a lion. He seemed friendly enough, by Jamie’s assessment.

Lena rolled her eyes at Reinhardt’s excuse. “Well, hurry up and get something to eat,” she scolded him. “After lunch, you need to show Roadhog here around the gym and the training grounds and introduce him to the other tanks.”

Jamie shot a confused look at Lena. “‘Tanks’?” he asked.

“Oh, that’s the nickname we use for the combat ops guys,” Lena replied. “The bruisers? The big, tough guys. The heavy assault types,” Lena elaborated when Jamie continued to look confused. She motioned towards Reinhardt for emphasis.

Reinhardt was looking Roadie over curiously with his one good eye. “...’Road-hog?’” he repeated it quietly to himself. The word seemed foreign to him.

Roadie took the opportunity to reach out and offered his hand for Reinhardt to shake. “Mako Rutledge,” he said. “Also go by ‘Roadhog.’” Reinhardt nodded in a bemused sort of way and shook his hand.

“‘Roadie’ is better,” Jamie chimed in.

“And this is, Jamison Fawkes,” Lena added, motioned towards Jamie.

“‘Jamie’ is better,” Jamie said without missing a beat.

“Excellent, excellent,” Reinhardt said and shook the smaller man’s hand too. He disappeared momentarily to collect a tray of food and returned so he could eat with them.

While they ate, Reinhardt regaled them and the poor souls at the next table with an overly long tale about one of his particularly heroic deeds in the German military. When he thought Reinhardt wasn't looking, Jamie leaned towards Lena so he could ask another question.

“Hey, about the engineering thing, what does that actually entail?” he whispered, while eyeing Reinhardt to check he hadn’t noticed they had stopped listening. Reinhardt was busy gesturing grandly as he described a particularly grueling hand-to-hand battle with an OR14 unit.

“Hmm? Oh,” Lena raised her head from where she had been resting her cheek against her palm and covered a yawn. “I’ll take you to the Workshop soon and you can see for yourself.”

Jamie’s eyes went wide with excitement. “Really?” he whispered back to her.

Lena nodded. “Basically, you’ll be helping to make stuff for missions and any other project work the Chief Engineer assigns to you.”

Jamie smiled widely. “And what about... personal projects?” he asked.

“Personal...?”

Jamie leaned in a little closer. “Yeah. Say I need to make something. Something important that would be helpful on one of these mission things?”

Something important? Lena considered Jamie's words carefully. Realisation struck her. “You mean, something in the vicinity of a road tire that... explodes?”

Jamie barely contained a giggle. He nodded at her knowingly and winked. “That’s it! The last one I had was confiscated by Helix. Probably been destroyed by now.” He looked melancholy at this thought, then brightened. “But no worries, I’ll just make more!”

Lena tried to hide her terror behind a blank expression with moderate success. She had researched both Junkers at length when she had first been assigned her mission to recruit them. She had heard about Jamie’s famous “RIP-tire” in police reports. It was a devastating weapon, one that was often used as a distraction while the two Junkers made a getaway. Lena was concerned that he planned to rebuild such an awful thing. But, this was what they had hired him for, wasn’t it? To blow things up? Could it really be any worse than the pulse bombs she carried into battle with her? Lena felt uneasy about it, but realised that it was ultimately beyond her rank to decide what Jamie could or couldn’t bring with himself into missions.

“Well, we can ask the other engineers...” Lena said. She tried to disguise the staccato in her voice with a light smile.

Jamie nodded again. “Ace. What I really need is stuff to build it out of. I don’t need much! Just any old sort of junk lying around that you lot don’t want.”

Lena had seen in police reports that the RIP-tire seemed to have been constructed out of second hand materials and shrapnel. “Is it really made out of junk?” she asked.

Jamie giggled again. “I’m a ‘Junker’ after all!” he replied, to which Lena only nodded numbly in response.

Finally, everyone had eaten and Reinhardt seemed to have run out of wind to fuel any more stories about his epic adventures. Lena sent him and Roadie on their way with strict instructions to tour the important areas that ‘Tanks’ would need to know about, and then return to ‘you-know-where' promptly at three o’clock for their next appointment. Jamie was going to ask what this meant, but Lena quickly distracted him by saying, “Come on, I’ll show you the Workshop.”

--

On the way up to the Workshop, Lena meandered a little bit under the pretense that she wanted to show Jamie a couple of other places on the way. She took him by the gym, the training grounds, the shower room, some meeting spaces, and even the Science wing. Jamie shook hands with many people and immediately forgot their names. Jamie got the impression Lena was stalling for time, like she didn’t want to go to the Workshop at all. Finally, she led him in the direction of the Workshop on the east side of the Watchpoint. The Workshop was set into the side of a rocky cliff face close to the larger hangars, accessible only by taking an elevator several stories up through the centre of the Rock of Gibraltar.

"Welcome to the 'Workshop,'" Lena said brightly as they finally arrived at the door outside. "Or, as I like to call it, ‘The Lion's Den.’"

Jamie had no time to wonder what she meant by that. Lena swiped her wristband against the security scanner at the side of the door. With a hiss, the door 'whooshed' open and two surprised faces looked up at the new arrivals as if on cue.

Jamie stepped into the large, cavernous workshop and looked around. There was an assortment of armour and weapons lying about in various stages of repair. The opposite wall displayed a large range of tools hanging from hooks and straps. One side of the workshop seemed to be messier than the other. The side closest to the windows was light and airy. It was absolutely spotless, devoid of any trace or hint of dirt. A woman sat there at a holographic display table seemingly producing small constructs from thin air with the aid of a sleek, white kind of gauntlet contraption which encased her left arm. A holographic diagram of the construction plan was projected in front of her.

The woman’s eyes narrowed as they came to rest on Jamie. He recognised her instantly as the woman he had passed in the hallway earlier that day. He grinned nervously. She did not return the gesture.

Standing on the side of the workshop that was littered with bits of scrap, half-finished projects and random equipment was a stout man with blonde hair and a full beard who had been soldering something before their arrival interrupted him. He lifted the visor of his welding mask to regard Lena and her guest.

"Hiya," Lena said cheerfully with a broad smile and stepped in behind Jamie. "Got a new recruit for you!"

The small man grunted and eyed Jamie up and down.

"Jamie, this is Torbjörn Lindholm, our Chief Engineer. He's also our armour and weapons designer, and resident robotics expert."

"G'day," Jamie said reaching out to shake the man's hand. The man took Jamie's hand in his and Jamie noticed the man's left arm had been replaced with a metal prosthesis with interesting attachments. "Eh! Just like me!" Jamie exclaimed, waiving his own prosthesis. The other man eyed Jamie’s right arm but did not seem impressed.

Lena coughed nervously. "And this is Satya Vaswani," Lena said as she gestured towards the woman sitting at the holographic display. "Satya is a photonic engineer. She's also on the builder’s team." Satya made no movement but continued to regard Jamie coldly from across the room.

Lena went on, "This is Jamison Fawkes. He's going to be joining the builders team too." Satya's expression seemed to slowly morph into a look of anger.

"Hi," Jamie said with a nervous wave. He received no response. The two engineers continued to take in his scraggly hair, his slept-in sweatpants, and the large Overwatch logo emblazoned across his chest with looks of confusion.

Jamie looked at Lena apprehensively and shuffled awkwardly on the spot. It wasn't exactly the warmest welcome. She shrugged apologetically in response and turned her attention back to the Chief Engineer. "Torbjörn, Jamie needs some help with a project of his. He needs to get hold of some materials to help build it. Could you help him?"

Torbjörn made a noise of annoyance that came out like "Tch!"

"Been here less than five minutes and already trying to get yer greasy mitts on my stuff," Torbjörn said with a sigh. "What do you need exactly?"

Jamie rocked back and forward on the heel of his good leg, trying to appear innocent. "Oh, not much," he said. "Just any bits of scrap you don't want."

"Scrap?" Torbjörn asked, eyebrow arched inquisitively.

"Jamie has strong feelings about recycling," Lena offered as a form of explanation.

"Oh, I'm all about recycling," Jamie said cheerfully. "Huge advocate."

Torbjörn was regarding the two with suspicion. "Right," he muttered.

"What I really need is a huge tire," Jamie said casually. "And a small motor. Like an old lawn mower or chainsaw motor would do."

Torbjörn looked confused. "A tire? Like one of those old road tires for cars?" he asked. Jamie nodded affirmatively.

Torbjörn looked thoughtful. "Haven't seen many of those around since hover caps were invented. Not many cars these days use them." He set down his welder and dabbed at his sweaty face with a rag from his tool-belt. "Same goes for motors. Haven't seen a lawn mower in years. They got these new-fangled bots now that mow grass..."

At that moment, a young woman with auburn hair came bustling in from an adjacent room with some heavy-looking welding equipment in her arms. She paused when she spotted Jamie.

"Hiya, Brig!" Lena greeted the newcomer with a wave. "This is Jamison Fawkes. He’s new. Jamie, this is Brigitte Lindholm, Torbjörn's daughter. Brigitte's specialty is armour," Lena explained to Jamie.

Realisation seemed to be dawning on Brigitte’s face. Suddenly, she looked thrilled to see someone new in the workshop. She set the welding equipment down hurriedly. "Hej hej! Are you joining the builder's team, Jamie?" she asked enthusiastically.

"Uh... yeah. I hope so," he said, quite surprised by the difference in attitude between Brigitte and her father.

Brigitte took a step towards Jamie and smiled warmly at him. "Oh, good! That's so exciting!" Jamie noticed the way Brigitte's gaze flickered to the other two engineers and the way her voice had taken on an almost relieved tone. "You can sit by me!" Brigitte motioned to her portion of the workshop where it appeared that she had been working on a monstrously large set of battle armour, too large to belong to anyone in the room.

"Brigitte," Torbjörn said thoughtfully. "Have you seen any old car tires or small motors in storage?"

Brigitte’s face scrunched with confusion. "Huh? What for, Papa?"

"Skinny here wants 'em for something," Torbjörn muttered, motioning to Jamie.

Brigitte nodded towards Jamie. "Oh, sure. We can check out the storage rooms later and see what we can find."

"Ace," Jamie said with a grin. "I've got some big plans. Hoping it all goes off with a 'bang!'" He laughed at his own private joke while the rest of the room’s occupants exchanged looks of mild bemusement.

Satya, who had said nothing so far, scoffed loudly at Jamie’s remark from her seat across the room. Everyone turned to look at her, but she otherwise maintained her silence. She regarded them coolly for a moment before turning back to her work.

"Ahem," Lena cleared her throat awkwardly.

Torbjörn was watching Satya closely. Suddenly he leaned towards Jamie with a knowing look. Jamie bent down so he could hear the shorter engineer’s next words. "Don't worry about her," Torbjörn said in a hushed tone, too quiet for Satya to hear. "She takes a while to warm up around new people." Jamie grinned and shot him a look of appreciation for the tip.

Torbjörn considered Satya again who was sitting primly in her seat, continuing to create small constructs with the use of her gauntlet. She placed each construct carefully on the table in the order that her diagram directed her. A sly grin took over Torbjörn's face. He cleared his throat to capture Satya's attention.

He chuckled before saying, "Oh, Satya? There's something on your dress..."

Satya looked up at Torbjörn and then down worriedly at her neat, blue work dress. She fixed Torbjörn with a stern look. "No. There isn't," she said firmly, clearly not amused.

Jamie released a high-pitched giggle he had been holding in. He couldn’t help it. For some reason, Satya's utter disdain was amusing to him.

Satya fixed them all with a withering look. Torbjörn only grinned in response, seemingly pleased with himself.

Sensing that she was being teased, Satya set down her work, a little roughly, and stood. She switched off her holographic display and set a course for the door, stepping widely around Jamie and setting off down the corridor with her nose in the air. The other agents watched her go with rueful grins.

“Sorry,” Jamie said, still smiling. “Sometimes I can’t contain myself.”

Lena waved his concern away. “Don’t worry about it love,” she said. “Satya can be a little... difficult... to get along with.”

“Why’zat?” Jamie asked.

Lena shrugged. “She just keeps to herself mostly. She’s here on a kind of secondment. She’s actually an external employee from another organisation.”

“Oh? She doesn’t work for Overwatch?” Jamie asked.

“No, just visiting. Helping us out. It’s hard to explain,” Lena replied.

"Enough jabbering,” Torbjörn interjected. He sized Jamie up before saying very carefully, “Before I agree to work with you, you’ve got to pass a test.”

Jamie was suddenly very nervous. “Test? But that’s not fair. I haven’t even had a chance to study!”

Brigitte, who had returned to her workstation, giggled quietly.

“Not that kind of... Lena, go and sit over there. Thank you... It’s not that kind of test, lad. I just want to see where your current knowledge is,” Torbjörn growled at him.

Lena skipped away and sat down on a crate of bolts where she could watch over proceedings. She was a little nervous about Jamie’s success here. Part of the reason why they were so short on help in the engineering department was because hardly anyone could pass any of Torbjörn’s baffling tests—save for his talented daughter and the brilliantly intelligent Satya—and he refused to work with anyone that failed to pass. It seemed less important to answer the questions correctly, and more so to answer in a way that indicated you liked to do things Torbjörn’s way.

Torbjörn turned to Jamie again. “Now, roughly how many volts would you need to cut through a three-inch-thick steel door with a plasma cutter?”

“Er.” Jamie pondered this briefly. “I’d say... around three-hundred and seventy-five.”

Torbjörn moved onto his next question without pausing. “What type of engine would you install in a Rocket Hammer?”

Brigitte jigged in her seat briefly, like she was trying to keep herself from crying out the answer. She coughed awkwardly instead to cover her sudden embarrassment. She remained otherwise silent. Torbjörn turned to regard her. “No helping, Brig,” he said.

“I wasn’t!” she protested.

Everyone turned to watch Jamie for his answer. “Um...” he began. He’d never heard of such a thing but he vaguely remembered something from Reinhardt’s story at lunch about rocket-powered war hammers being used in the German military. He could imagine based on Reinhardt’s description how one would feasibly be built. “A solid-propellant rocket?” he said nervously.

Brigitte smiled. Torbjörn nodded and went on, “What would you use as a booster in a high-level explosive?”

“Phlegmatized cyclonite,” Jamie replied quickly. “Come on. Ask me something harder.”

Torbjörn’s expression remained stern. Torbjörn indicated that Jamie follow him over to some machinery not too far away. There were three different units propped up against the wall.

“Which one would you use to help refurbish a basic omnic unit,” Torbjörn asked.

Lena went cold with dread at this. Junkers hated omnics. They preferred to destroy omnics, not refurbish them. Lena watched Jamie for his response with baited breath. Surely the mere mention of one would set him off?

Jamie’s mouth formed a thin line. He seemed calm as he considered each machine carefully while Lena watched from her crate of bolts.

Finally, Jamie decided on his answer. “None of them,” Jamie said.

He actually elicited a reaction from Torbjörn this time. “What?” Torbjörn asked, surprised, as though the answer Jamie had given shouldn’t have been an option.

“There’s no point recalibrating the inner workings, upgrading the motherboard, or modifying the different components if the basic design is faulty. You can only patch something so far before what you’ve got is one big mess. I would strip it back, build it back up again with more efficient specifications.”

Torbjörn looked angry and for a moment, Lena feared Jamie had ruined any chance of being allowed into the hallowed Workshop. Finally, Torbjörn grunted with approval. “Fine,” he said. “Unconventional, but I suppose technically that works too.”

Lena released a pent-up sigh of relief that she didn’t realise she had been holding in. She hadn’t understood much of what transpired. The extent of her engineering knowledge was limited to the courses she had taken at a flight academy on basic aerospace engineering in preparation for her pilot exam many years ago, and most of that she had forgotten in the last almost-decade of being an Overwatch field agent.

Lena watched the two men continue with a tour of the amenities. Jamie was smiling in a benign sort of way while Torbjörn finished showing him important aspects of the Workshop. They discussed a few of the half-finished projects Torbjörn had lying around, to which Jamie occasionally volunteered his own opinion on what direction the project should take or suggestions for different repair techniques and Torbjörn would nod sagely in reply. Torbjörn also took a moment to show Jamie where the equipment and storerooms were.

The two men were fussing over machines and getting into a deep conversation on the pros and cons of plasma cutters versus laser cutters when Lena’s wristwatch beeped loudly. Lena, who had almost drifted off to sleep while she waited for the engineers to finish, snapped to attention. She quickly shut off the beeping noise and looked up at Jamie. “It’s three p.m.!” she said.

“Oh. Right-o,” Jamie replied, unnerved by the intensity of Lena’s stare. "What does that mean?"

Lena grinned at him. “It's time for your physical!”

--

Jack took a sharp turn at his personal assistant’s desk, deliberately ignored her attempts to draw his attention, and took off at a brisk pace towards his office. Swiping his wrist over the authorisation pad at the side of the entrance, the door slid open and he stepped into his office. Running through his head was an ever-growing list of tasks he needed to complete before he could retire for the day, so he was very much distracted when he headed over to his desk and realised with a start of alarm that he was not the only person in the room. Sitting in one of the upholstered chairs in front of his desk was Satya Vaswani, one leg crossed over the other and looking very annoyed.

“Jesus Christ, Vaswani!” Jack exclaimed and jolted backwards with surprise. “You almost gave me a heart attack!”

The woman in question turned in her chair to regard him from beneath furrowed brows but said nothing by way of greeting. She glared at him as he strode across the room to the chair behind his desk.

He busied himself shuffling the papers on his desktop around into a tidier formation while he caught his breath from the shock. He cleared his throat after a while. Satya only stared back at him with the calculating look of a predatory bird. Jack could practically sense a dangerous kind of energy radiating off of the woman, the same kind he sometimes sensed coming from Ana when he had annoyed her too much.

“How long have you been sitting there?” Jack asked.

“Too long,” Satya replied in a flat tone.

Jack shifted uncomfortably on the spot under her calculating gaze. There was something about the young woman that made him feel like he had been caught doing something wrong whenever he spoke with her. How did she always manage to do that? He had seen many wars, trained up many unruly cadets, gone toe-to-toe with some of the world’s most hardened soldiers, and somehow this young architect always seemed to know how to put the fear of god in him.

“Well, I was at the gym so I’m sorry if you were kept waiting...” He paused as a thought seemed to strike him. “Wait a minute. Who let you in here? This is a secure area.”

Satya remained unconcerned. “Athena unlocked the door for me,” she replied.

Jack actually growled. “Athena?” he asked aloud, his tone low and dangerous.

“Sorry, Commander,” came the A.I.’s disembodied voice. “I had no choice!”

“Don’t blame her,” Satya cut in. “Not even Athena dares cross the Vishkar Corporation.”

Jack gaped in shock at the woman before him. “A— Athena!” he sputtered in anger. “You can’t just allow unauthorised personnel into my office!” He said this with his eyes cast upward towards the space above their heads, as though Athena were hanging in the air somewhere, unseen.

“I couldn’t help it!” Athena said sheepishly. “Ms. Vaswani found out that I was mining cryptocurrencies through the vending machines and she threatened to formally report me if I didn’t do what she said—!”

“Enough!” Jack erupted. He threw down the papers he had fisted in his hand onto the desktop. Satya regarded him coolly. He glared back at her. “I will not have you threatening my staff, Vaswani, and that includes Athena.”

“Fine. It will not happen again, Commander,” Satya replied calmly.

“Athena, stop cryptomining,” Jack said, his gaze turned upward towards the ceiling again. “I’ve warned you about that before.”

“Sorry, Commander...” Athena replied.

“I am here to discuss something very urgent,” Satya cut in again.

Jack took a seat with a heavy sigh. He rubbed at his face tiredly. “What is it now, Vaswani?” Although he was a man of little patience, he was beginning to grow used to the young woman pestering him with constant complaints about operations. He usually received a half dozen by email each fortnight.

“I am here to discuss the new recruits,” Satya went on. “One of them has been stationed in the Workshop.”

Jack raised an eyebrow. “Has he done something to upset you already?”

Satya nodded affirmatively. “Yes. His presence in our space in totally unacceptable. As I’m sure you will understand the gravity of this; he has failed to meet the minimum dress code.” Satya nodded firmly as though to punctuate her statement.

Jack sighed again. “It’s his first day. You will need to give him more of a chance than that...”

“And, you should know that I am aware of exactly who the new recruits are,” Satya interrupted. “Lieutenant Oxton freely gave me one of their names. ‘Jamison Fawkes.’ And I heard the other one, Mako Rutledge, spent the afternoon down in the training grounds with Lieutenant Wilhelm.” She paused for emphasis, looking very smug with her detective work. Jack’s face remained expressionless. Seeing she had earned no response from him, Satya went on in an exasperated tone, “They are criminals! It only took me five minutes of online research to discover the full extent of their very public crimes!”

Jack frowned. He knew it was going to be difficult to keep the backgrounds of the newest additions to the team a secret for long, but to have received backlash already within less than a day? “Satya...” Jack began but was cut off.

“Is this what Overwatch has come to?” Satya cried. “Hiring criminals? Shady mercenaries? Random people with literally no combat training? I’m appalled!”

“Satya—”

“My superiors will hear of this,” she said with a sneer. “Don’t think I won’t include this in my reports to Vishkar.”

“Vaswani, that’s enough.” Jack's voice had taken on an authoritarian edge. “You will make no such report.”

“And who will stop me?” she asked defiantly. “On who’s authority?”

“Mine,” Jack said as calmly as he could muster. “You know that your reports to Vishkar must be approved by myself before they can be transmitted.”

Satya's eyes were wide with surprise and anger. “This is a clear breach of trust between Overwatch and Vishkar. So, you are going to withhold this information then? I would advise you against making such a risky decision.” She looked very angry at this news regardless. “Why?”

“Because including anything in your report that could jeopardise Overwatch operations is a direct breach of the Overwatch Code of Conduct for all personnel and will result in you being court-martialled,” Jack replied, trying to keep his voice as emotionless as possible. “Outing the new recruits would jeopardise operations.”

Satya scoffed. “You cannot expect met to abide by such a flimsy pretence—”

Jack cut her off. “Vaswani,” he said her name very deliberately in a warning tone. “You will say nothing of this to your superiors.”

Satya gaped indignantly for a moment and then her mouth snapped shut with realisation. Jack had cornered her, and even though she disagreed, it was true that she could very well be court-martialled if she opposed him. She said nothing for a moment while her gaze narrowed at the man sitting on the opposite side of the desk. “How long do you hope to keep this a secret?” she asked. “They are international criminals. They are almost certainly wanted for arrest. Everyone on base is already talking about them. How long until a civilian spots them in the field and identifies them?”

Jack frowned. It was true this was probably going to be a point of contention in the ranks. Inviting two wanted fugitives to join Overwatch was risky, but the alternative could be much worse. He was very much aware that if Lena’s mission to recruit the two Junkers was a failure, the consequences could be that instead of fighting alongside them, they could very well face them on the next battlefield. Intelligence had indicated that Talon were also aggressively attempting to recruit Fawkes and Rutledge. Successfully recruiting the fugitive duo before Talon could get their claws into them was Jack’s top priority, however, dealing with the fallout from the rest of the team and keeping this from the U.N. was going to occupy a lot of his time in the coming weeks. But he didn’t want to reveal any of this to Vaswani. Their position with the United Nations was precarious enough at the present moment. The Overwatch Recall had only been initiated less than a year ago. During that time, Jack had only been present in any kind of leadership capacity for the previous five months. Getting operations back on track and up to the United Nations’ standards had preoccupied a lot of his time.

“I understand your concerns,” Jack began. “I will certainly be taking your feedback onboard...”

Jack was interrupted by a newcomer. The door slid open again and Torbjörn came strolling into the room. He paused when he saw Satya was already sitting across from the commander, apparently very upset about something.

“Oh, excuse me,” he started to say. “But I need to speak with the commander...”

“Lindholm,” Jack said tiredly. “You can’t just walk in here unannounced. We were in the middle of something.”

Torbjörn shrugged. “Door was unlocked,” he said and helped himself to a seat in the chair beside Satya’s.

Jack slid a hand over his forehead. He could feel a headache forming. “What is it now, Lindholm?” Jack asked.

Satya looked even more annoyed. “Yes, you are interrupting a very important conversation, Mr Lindholm, between myself and the commander about the new recruits.”

Torbjörn nodded grimly at this. “Ah, yes. Just what I wanted to discuss with you, Morrison,” he said.

Satya suddenly changed her tune. “Oh?” Satya began, then turned to Jack. “You see? Mr. Lindholm will explain to you why this is a terrible idea…”

“Marvellous young fellow, that skinny one!” Torbjörn said with an affirmative nod. Torbjörn clapped his hands together in an enthusiastic fashion and the words died instantly in Satya’s throat when she saw the look of delight on the smaller man’s face.

Torbjörn went on, “He fixed my magnetic levitation motor. I’ve been working on that thing for months. Couldn’t quite get the upward force to counteract gravity. He recalibrated the whole thing and got it running in under ten minutes! Imagine that!” His voice came booming out of his chest like a reverberating drum.

Satya looked positively scandalised. She sputtered for a moment at Torbjörn’s words while Jack cracked a smile. “Go on,” Jack said to Torbjörn.

“Remarkable man,” Torbjörn said, nodding to himself. “Do you know, he has no formal education? He says he did a bit of high school, never completed any tertiary schooling. But he knows machines backwards and forwards. He told me he’s spent a lot of time taking them apart. Remarkably talented for someone self-taught.”

“He’s a Junker,” Jack said by way of explanation.

Torbjörn looked like he didn’t entirely know what that meant, but he nodded anyway and went on, “I think he’ll fit right in, too. Very friendly fellow. We’ve already started discussing projects.”

Jack looked very pleased at this. He looked over at Satya to gauge her reaction. Her anger was palpable. Her arms were crossed over her chest, her fingertips drumming a beat of annoyance against her gauntlet on her right arm.

The door ‘whooshed’ open suddenly. Lena was standing in the corridor beyond Jack’s office. “Oh, hi everyone!” she chirped and strode in. “Hope I’m not interrupting anything.”

“Actually...” Jack began.

“Came to let you know the good news,” Lena said, seeming to not have heard him. She looked around for a seat and, finding none, perched herself on the edge of Jack’s desk much to his annoyance. “The mission was a complete success! Both recruits have signed contracts and have been successfully onboarded. Phew! What a relief, eh?” Lena turned to smile and the rest of the room’s occupant. She didn’t seem to notice the sour look on Satya’s face. She went on, addressing the two engineers directly, “You two must be pleased to have a new builder on the team, eh? Such a relief to have an extra pair of hands around, I’ll bet!”

Satya glared at the smaller woman.

Torbjörn nodded in reply. “Yes, we’ve needed extra help in the Workshop for a while. It hasn’t been easy with so few of us.”

Lena smiled. “Well, you’ve got a very helpful pair of hands there. Never met a Junker before, but I've heard stories. Very talented at scrapping and engineering apparently. So rare to find one outside of Oz! Imagine being able to ask questions about omnics to someone who grew up in side an omnium! It’s a fantastic opportunity to pick their brains, if you ask me.”

Satya was positively glowering at the room’s occupants. Jack, however, seemed very happy at the news. “Excellent work, Lieutenant. The recruits have been familiarized with the whole Watchpoint, I assume?” he asked.

Lena nodded. “Yep. Showed them all the common areas; the training grounds, the Rec Room, the gym, the staff kitchen, you name it,” she said with a smile. She seemed very pleased with herself. “Really lucked out, didn’t we? New demolitions guy and one ex-ALF member to join the other tanks.”

“ALF?” Torbjörn repeated with a look of confusion.

“Australian Liberation Front,” Lena explained. “A paramilitary group operating in Australia during the Omnic Crisis.”

“Ah,” Jack said. “So, he has been combat trained?” Jack said this very pointedly while looking at Satya, who frowned back at him.

“Well, yes,” Lena replied. “I suppose so.”

Suddenly the door slid open again and a tall blonde woman in hospital scrubs was revealed standing in the doorway. She looked up from her digital clipboard and seemed surprised to see so many people crammed into the commander’s office. “Oh, pardon me...” she began.

Jack motioned for her to join them. “Come in, Doctor Ziegler,” he said. “You might as well.”

Angela stepped forward and, given that all of the seats were currently taken, remained standing. “I have the results of the physicals for our two new recruits,” she said. “Despite my concerns about the environmental factors of their place of origin...”

“The radiation?” Jack asked.

Angela nodded. “Yes. Despite the obvious risk factors, they both appear to be in good health and reasonably good physical condition all things considered. I’m confident enough to say they should be fit for combat in the coming weeks, following training, of course.”

Jack fixed Satya with a particularly pleased grin. “Excellent news, Doctor,” he said. “Are there any accommodations we should make?”

“Only that Rutledge may need to be assigned a larger dorm room,” Angela said. She checked something on her clipboard. “He meets the height requirement,” she confirmed.

Satya somehow looked even more annoyed. “But I’ve been waiting to be assigned a larger room for months now!” Satya complained.

Angela looked surprised by Satya's statement. “But you don’t meet the height requirement, Satya...”

Jack covered a smirk with his hand. “I was thinking that Fawkes will need to be refitted with some more... ‘up-to-date' prostheses,” he said.

Angela nodded. “I did try to discuss this with him, but he is insistent that he wants to keep the existing prosthetic arm and the peg leg,” she said. “I can understand why. He’s eager to see field duty and doesn’t want to waste time on physiotherapy and re-learning how to walk. He’s also very accustomed to how his prosthetic arm works and is rather proud of its construction.”

Jack looked surprised. “Did he build it himself?”

“Oh, yes,” Angela replied with a warm smile. “Isn’t it fascinating? In all my years of working with prostheses, I’ve never met a patient who was able to build and maintain their own limbs for such a long time. Incredible really.”

“You see?” Torbjörn said with a laugh. “Very gifted, that young man. I can see he’ll go far.”

Satya looked positively outraged at this.

Angela folded her arms over her clipboard. “It's unusual, but I have no reservations recommending Fawkes for combat training with his existing protheses.”

“Really?” Satya interjected. “You don’t think that they could be a detriment to any mission?”

Angela regarded Satya with a look of confusion, then shook her head. “I don’t see why they would be. Although, Rutledge seems to have a little trouble speaking at length due to the strain on his voice however I don’t think it will become too much of an issue in the field so long as he keeps his need to speak to a minimum...” Angela seemed to have trailed off on a tangent, thinking aloud to herself. She tapped her chin thoughtfully. “I will need to complete some more tests to be sure, but maybe a voice box may be of use in this situation, even just as a back-up...”

“They’re odd,” Lena chimed in, looking at Satya. “But they aren’t the oddest people we’ve ever hired.”

“Have you all gone mad?” Satya erupted. Four pairs of eyes regarded her with total surprise. “You mean to tell me that you actually intend to go ahead with this disastrous idea and allow these two ruffians to join the ranks?” Her voice was almost shrill with anger.

Jack shrugged his shoulders. “The deal is done, Vaswani,” he said. “The contracts are signed.” Satya looked like she wanted to say something, but Jack cut her off, “You need to understand, Vaswani, we are a team now. Fawkes and Rutledge are to be two very valuable members. I have heard your misgivings and I have taken your opinion under advisement. Short of any actual, quantifiable wrongdoing on either of the new recruits’ parts against Overwatch staff or operations, I don’t want to hear anything further on the matter from you.” He fixed her with a pointed look while the others shifted uncomfortably. “If I do, we may need to rethink your presence here in Overwatch.”

Satya flushed red. She remained seated in her chair, positively radiating anger, staring at Jack across the desk.

Jack returned her gaze calmly. “Anything else, Vaswani?” he asked.

Satya expelled a very loud and angry sigh. She stood suddenly; face flushed with fury. “No,” she barked, turned on her heel and marched out of the office. Everyone watched her go, taken aback by the sudden outburst.

“Well, that was awkward,” Torbjörn remarked.

“The rest of you are dismissed,” Jack said. “I’ve got too much work to do.”

Everyone stood and prepared to make their way out of the room.

“Oh. And, Oxton?” Jack added. She turned to acknowledge him. “I’ve sent a message to Wilhelm and advised him to bring Rutledge to the mess hall promptly for supper. Check on Fawkes, would you? Make sure he finds his way there as well.”

“Er, sure,” Lena replied. “Now where could he have gotten off to?” she pondered aloud.

“He’s outside,” Athena chimed in. “Along the cliffs on the west side of base.”

“Thanks, Athena,” Lena said with a grin. “I’ll go find him then.” She waved goodbye to Jack and used her chronal accelerator to streak away.

Jack watched them all depart. When he was finally alone again, he dropped his head into his hands and heaved a sigh. His headache had grown in intensity. He realised that the distraction caused by his recent visitors, and the headache too, was going to delay his work and he would be stuck in the office for the next few hours to come. More pressing was the realisation that Satya had left the room in a less-than-positive mood. Jack had learnt from experience that she was not a woman to be crossed, and neither was Vishkar for that matter. He frowned with realisation; if the new recruits put so much as a toe out of line, his desk would be, at best, flooded with complaints from Satya, or, at worst, he would have formal reports and court hearings to deal with.

Jack groaned, slumping further into his hands. What had he gotten himself into?

--

When Lena found finally found him, Jamie was sitting on a large flat rock on the edge of a cliff staring out at the waters of the Alboran Sea in the late afternoon air. A few commercial shipping liners were chugging along in the distance, laden with shipping crates.

Lena decided to say nothing and simply took a seat beside him. He looked up at her on arrival and smiled. For a while, they watched the gulls riding the air currents and listened to the crash of waves below. It was cold, so Lena pulled her parka closer around herself for warmth. Jamie appeared to have grabbed a hoodie at some point from his room and was similarly bundled up.

“What a day, eh?” she said eventually.

“I’m knackered,” he replied with a laugh. Lena noted that he did seem tired, almost melancholy as he looked out over the water.

“You did well though,” Lena told him. “You know what? I was kind of scared about meeting you.”

Jamie looked up at her and nodded. “Yeah, I get that a lot,” he said amicably.

Lena went on, “But now I’m really glad you’re here, you know? I think things are going to work out.”

Jamie smiled. “Thanks for taking the time to look after us today.”

“You’re welcome,” she said with a smile. She was pleased to find Jamie was a lot friendlier than the police reports and criminal profiles she had read about him had initially led her to believe. She had thought he would need constant supervision to make sure he didn’t steal or break anything, and it was true he still needed to receive training and probably had never worked inside a military base before, but she was pleased to find he wasn’t as criminally insane as she had first assumed. Or at least not that much. “Tomorrow, I’ll introduce you to the rest of the ranks,” she said. “Don't want to overwhelm you on your first day.”

Jamie nodded. “It's nice to be out,” he said simply and Lena knew he was referring to prison. “I feel like I’ve been given a fresh start. It will be nice not to have to be on the run again.”

Lena didn’t really know what that felt like personally, but she nodded all the same.

He went on, “I just hope I can be of help.”

“You will be, Jamie,” she said quietly. They said nothing for a while, enjoying the comfortable silence. “I remember when I first joined up. I was scared out of my mind.” Lena was staring off into the distance as she said this, watching the line where the water met the slowly reddening sky. “Overwatch offered me a position where I could fight and help make the world a better place. They helped me when I was at my lowest. When I thought I’d never be useful ever again...” Lena’s voice was barely above a whisper. “But I was worried I’d never be able to live up to all the expectations. With time, I got better. They can do that for you too.”

Jamie had listened to her words with rapt attention. “What’s it like?” he asked. Lena watched him quizzically, waiting for him to elaborate. “Working here?”

“You’re gonna find out,” she said with a smile. “We’re a family here. We look out for each other. We do our best to help and protect the people who need it.”

Jamie looked like he was struggling with something internally. He plucked absent-mindedly at the sleave of his dark hoodie. “Never done much helping or protecting before...” he remarked, looking down.

“Don’t worry,” Lena said. “It will all make sense soon.”

Jamie was quiet. He took a deep breath of sea air. “Alright,” he said simply.

Lena nudge his shoulder. “Come on, let’s go grab some dinner,” she said and they both stood, dusting themselves off as they did so.

They made their way across the grass towards the entrance to the Watchpoint under the dim orange glow of the outdoor lights as the sky faded to grey. They passed between a couple of annexed buildings and headed across an open concreted area towards the base. With Lena just a step ahead, Jamie poked experimentally at the back of her glowing chronal accelerator. “Hey, think I could have a look at one of those "bombs" of yours?” he asked suddenly.

Lena whipped around, looking surprised. “How do you know about that?”

“Torbjörn mentioned something while you were snoozing back in the workshop,” Jamie said with a grin. “You didn’t tell me you were into explosives too!”

“I’m not!” Lena said, defensively. “My pulse bombs are purely for practical purposes only.”

“Come on!” Jamie said, trying to circle her for a better look, but Lena adjusted her position each time to prevent him. “I just wanna see!” he added.

“Over my dead body!” she said in mock anger, then laughed.

Lena blinked forward, with nothing but a blue streak of energy to mark her trail. Jamie stared around, confused. Where had she gone? Jamie heard her giggle and spun to see she was behind him. He tried to step towards her again, but she blinked out of reach again.

“Over here!” she laughed, and Jamie spotted her on the other side of the open area, near the door that led back inside the base. He jogged after her, but before he could reach her again, she disappeared into thin air with a swirling flash of light. Confused, Jamie turned and saw Lena had returned to where they had previously been standing. She yawned into her palm and cocked her hip to one side, like she had been waiting forever for him to catch up. “Too slow, Jamie!” she called.

Jamie laughed in reply. He had never seen anything like what Lena could do, but it was entertaining to watch. He jogged towards her again, trying to catch hold of her. Every time he got close, she disappeared before him.

Dinner was almost all but forgotten as they chased each other around the courtyard and eventually down the halls towards the mess hall. Jamie persisted in his appeals for a closer look at the pulse bombs, and Lena became increasingly more evasive with each request until eventually they collapsed from exhaustion in fits of giggles at one of the dining tables. Jamie felt sure he had made the right decision, finally.

--

A/N: this got unintentionally really long (twice as long as originally planned) but there was a lot to cover and set up for future chapters. If you can believe it, I had actually intended to include more but cut it down to this current length. I don’t think the next chapters will be as long, if this series continues. Thank you if you read the whole thing! And please let me know if it's worth writing more? Would anyone be interested in reading more of this if I continued writing chapters? .......... :|