"You... know my name?" The Gorilla questioned, speaking slowly with a hint of confusion in his voice.

I took a couple steps forward, fiddling with my fingers nervously as I met his gaze. "Well, yeah... I mean, you're Winston! THE Winston from Overwatch!"

"Hope, was it? I am flattered and all," Winston chuckled heartily before his expression softened into a pout. "But that was then. Sadly, I don't do that anymore."

"If you don't mind me asking," I shrugged. "What are you doing all the way out here?"

Winston studied me for a moment. I don't blame him really. A young adult female, a stranger he's never met before, just stumbles upon his hidden lab and starts asking questions? He sighed, picking up something from the floor as he began to make his way towards the table.

"After Overwatch was shut down, I was at a crossroads. I wasn't exactly sure what else I could do. I needed a place to lay low for a while, since the heat about Blackwatch's reveal was still going on. I heard about this old outpost, so I decided to hide out here," He explained, bringing out a screw driver as he began to tinker with the trinket he picked up.

"And you've been here since?" I asked, stepping beside him.

"I wasn't exactly needed elsewhere," He answered. "Besides, being here gives me an opportunity to catch up on prepping my inventions."

"What are you working on exactly?" I questioned, my curiosity getting the better of me.

It had to be something big if it was the cause of snapping me awake from my long awaited slumber from a long days work.

"It's suppose to be a shield generator. But it, uh," Winston coughed. "Exploded in my face."

"That explains the blast that woke me up." I added.

"Has anyone else noticed?" Winston asked with worry. "I would rather like for the police to not storm in here with a swat team."

I shook my head. "Not from what I saw, no. I was more surprised that it didn't wake up my brother, Dave. I know he's a heavy sleeper and all, but that was just ridiculous!"

Winston couldn't help but laugh. "Sounds a bit like myself back in the day when the alarm would go off to wake us up for a mission. I remember Tracer coming into my room to try and wake me up, like pushing me off the hammock."

I snickered at the thought, the scenario playing in my mind.

The alarm blaring off in the halls. Awhooga! Awhooga! However, despite their loud commotion, they were muffled inside Winston's room. The gorilla was snoring away in his hammock, fast asleep.

Tracer suddenly sprinted inside, the noise of the alarm getting louder as the door opened. "Winston, love, we have to go!"

That didn't even make the giant ape flinch as he snorted in his sleep, scratching his belly.

Tracer looked between the gorilla and the doorway, her eyes widened and her mouth gaped open as she couldn't believe what she was seeing.

She scoffed, quickly jogging to the other side of the gorilla and with a heavy heave, mustering all the might she could into her upper body strength, Tracer attempted to push the gorilla  off of the hammock, but to no avail.

"I can totally see that."

The two of us shared a quick laugh as the room drew silent. The noise that filled the room was the squeaking of Winston's screwdriver.

After shuffling around in my spot for a few moments, I sucked in my gut, sighing. "So, um... you want some help?"

Winston stopped his work right after I spoke, turning his head to face me. "Really?"

"Well, why not?" I suggested.

"This is fairly complicated stuff, even in this day and age," Winston recalled, bringing up from holoscreens that displayed the schematics of the invention. "Are you sure you'll be able to follow along?"

"I have a Computer Programming Degree from VanTech," I elaborated. "I'm sure it's roughly the same. I could help with the programming while work on, well... the other stuff."

I could have sworn Winston smiled at me. Not a huge one, but one of those smaller, yet also appreciating smiles. "You studied at VanTech? That's a good school."

"I like to think it is." I replied with a little smile of my own, shrugging my shoulders again.

"What do you do, Hope? What's your job?" Winston asked suddenly. "I don't mean to sound so rude, but I partly imagined that you'd be on your way home by now. It's late, won't you need to wake up early for work?"

I crackled my knuckles, an old habit I developed when I was little. I don't do it as much as I use to. Nowadays it's just when I'm a little stressed or very, very nervous. Right now? I had no idea if I was feeling any of those.

"I do repair jobs. I guess you could say it's my own little business." I answered.

"How is that working out?" He asked.

"It's enough to help get me by, for now anyways," I sighed, placing my arms on the table and leaned against it. "I've been looking for a job since I graduated. I was suppose to have a job at a company that partners with my college, and coincidentally enough, Overwatch too, but since the organization shut down, the company soon followed behind, and before I knew it, I was out of a job before I graduated."

After processing what I had just said, I panicked, looking over at the gorilla as my eyes widened, waving my hands in the air.

"I'm not saying it was Overwatch's fault or anything! That's the opposite I was going for, I love Overwatch! It actually got me excited to think that I would actually be working for them when I was done school. You were one of my favourites, and Tracer too!---"

Winston's chuckling grew even louder as he placed the screwdriver down, gently placing his large hands on my shoulders. "Hope, calm down. I know what you went, I'm not mad."

I giggled before sighing with relief. "Good, because I was worried I might get a Primal Punch to the face."

"That wouldn't be good for anyone, now would it." Winston replied as he patted my shoulder with his right hand before moving away. "You really wanted to work with Overwatch, didn't you?"

"Yeah," I nodded. "They were a huge inspiration for me."

"Overwatch may be gone, but I'm sure I can provide you with a similar proposal." Winston replied.

I raised a brow at the gorilla. "What'cha talking about?"

"You said so yourself. You're struggling to look for a job, one that I can assume that comes with better pay," Winston explained. "Why not work with me?"

"With you?" I repeated, pointing a finger at the gorilla.

"With me," he nodded. "As my assistant."

"And you'll be paying me, now exactly?" I questioned with a hint of worry.

"Overwatch may be gone, but I still have my private bank account. I'll pay you with the money from that." Winston explained.

"You do that, and in return, I'll make sure the police doesn't find you if you cause any more explosions." I added.

"With you working here, I'm sure it'll be less malfunctions than usual," Winston laughed before extending his large hand towards me. "Do we have a deal?"

"Are you kidding? I get to work with the Winston!" I exclaimed, shaking his hand. "It's a done deal!"

"Then consider yourself hired." Winston grinned.

"I suggest Miss Ivery be heading on home now," Athena finally spoke up. "It is still rather late in the night."

"Athena is right," Winston nodded in agreement before looking over at me once more, patting my side. "Run along home and get some rest. You start at noon."

"Roger that!" I saluted. "Thank you so much Mr. Winston, you won't regret it!"

The gorilla chuckled as he watched me beginning to take my leave. "Just Winston is fine."

"Right, Winston, sorry!" I apologized with a wave as I began my trek down the stairs. "Goodnight!"

I ran out of the building and sprinted across the sand. I had never felt more excited in my entire life. I had finally found a job.

And it was working with Winston the Gorilla from Overwatch.

*******

For the last week, every day before noon, I would have breakfast with my brother, finish with my repair jobs, make my delivers, head back home to gather my tool kit and some food, and make my way over to Winston's lab to get to work.

Winston gave me a quick tour around his lab when I first got back. Showed me the rest of his workshop where his old Overwatch jetpack suit was proudly displayed. It was pretty neat to be able to see that! Moving on upstairs was the "command center" as he liked to call it. That's where his super computer was located, and where Athena's system was located. She has her own little tablet where she can digitally hoop on to inside Winston's lab to help him work.

Most of the time she just monitors Winston's vitals, and it gets rather annoying for him.

Working with Winston is a lot of fun, and hugely inspiring! We're still having trouble getting his shield generator fixed, but when we're not working on that, I help him out with some of his other inventions, watch the news while eating dinner, work some more, and then Winston would see me off at about 9pm.

Every once in a while, he'll also share some of his "war stories" and adventures while he worked with Overwatch. Most of them were usually about either him, Tracer, or McCree, as he recalled them being one of my favourite members of the organization. Even shared a tale or two about John "Jack" Morrison.

It was now the final week of October, with Halloween coming up just at the end of the week. It was around 7:00pm and the two of us were once again back at it with Winston's stubborn little shield generator.

I held the device steady as Winston wielded the metal covering in place that protected all of the circuits and wires of the machine.

"Aaaand, you got it!" I announced, removing the protective googles from my face.

"Shield Generator test ready to commence." spoke Athena as Winston carefully placed the wielder aside.

"Think it will work this time?" I questioned, sounding hopeful.

"Only one way to find out," Winston hummed as he picked up the device, examining it carefully before placing it back down on the table.

With both of his hands place firmly around the sides of the device, he used his thumbs to press down on two buttons at the top, causing them to glow a bright blue shade of colour. I watched with amazement as blue ray of light shot out through the middle before forming into a small wave of energy as it shielded the device like a bubble.

"We did it!" I cheered.

Winston smiled with approval, but not before the shield began to frizzle and it suddenly vanished, multiple red signs with the highlighted words "FAILED" in bold letters lighting up as it beeped repeatedly and harshly.

"Aw come on!" I whined, smacking my forehead.

Winston cupped his chin as scanned the device. "It did activate, and lasted for a few seconds. It must need a stronger battery to maintain this kind of power."

Winston's free hand reached over to tap one of the red signs to power off the machine, but when he did, there was a sudden blinding light as the energy field dispersed, knocking the two of us down to the floor. Tools were scattered all over the floor, the shield generator resting on the gorilla's belly.

"On the plus side, it didn't explode this time." I coughed.

Winston huffed, shoving the device off of him as we both stood back up to our feet.

"Now, now, no need for that, Winston," Athena cautioned.

I began to pick up the tools from the floor as Winston jumped up on his tire swing, swinging around to relieve himself of his stress. I couldn't blame him. I'd been helping him trying to get that thing fixed for week, and so far we've made only slight improvements.

"Your heart rate is through the roof," She quickly added.

"I told you to stop monitoring my vitals, Athena," Winston spoke with annoyance, rolling his eyes as he sprang up to the second floor catwalk, making his way towards the command center.

"Very well," Athena complied.

"Now might be a good time to take a break." I suggested, placing the tools back on the table.

I quickly scurried over to the other side of the room, grabbing my backpack as I made my way up the stairs towards the second floor, making my way down the catwalk to join Winston in the other room.

I've tried using the tire swing once before. I almost made it up to catch the railing too, but it was a little hard to hang on to the rope while going up in the air, especially at such a high speed. Once I realised I wouldn't be able to reach it, I just managed to grab onto the tire at the last second, my heart pounding as I soared my way back down to the ground as Winston stopped the fire from moving, making sure I was okay.

"It has been 43 days, 7 hours, and 29 seconds since your last cardio workout," Athena explained as Winston sat inside a giant tire, grabbing a banana. "Remember, a healthy body leads to a---"

"Healthy mind, I know," Winston grumbled as he peeled his banana. "That's why I have this!"

As I walked in, Winston grabbed a plastic jar of peanut butter, opening the lid with his teeth before spitting it out. I watched as the lid rolled across the side table, joining a dozen other jar lids that were left aside.

"Wish I could eat that everyday," I mumbled.

I rolled my eyes with a tease at the display as I made my way over, sitting up on the side table next to Winston as I pulled out a plastic container and metal fork from my backpack. Inside was a fresh batch of Cesar Salad, one of my favourites. As I took a bite out of my food, Winston leaned back into his seat, cracking the knuckles of his toes before using them to tap on his touch screen keyboard, bringing up the world news.

The leading headline was; "RUSSIA BEGINS COORDINATED DEFENSE AGAINST OMNICS".

"The ongoing Omnic Crisis continues to devastate Russia. The war between humans and omnics has claimed over a thousand lives," The news reporter spoke, bringing up a bar graph on one side of the screen. "So far the international community has been reluctant to intervene--"

The first Omnic Crisis were decades ago, but more recently for the last couple of days, another one has broken out over at Russia. I don't follow the news as much as I used to growing up, but from what I've heard, a large group of the Omnic robots down there have gone rogue and started attack the humans. While there are plenty of Omnics who want to live with the human race in peace, there were some who had other ideas.

I actually knew a few Omnics at my school. We worked on a few class assignments together. I don't know why some people are so butt hurt about them. I thought they were really nice and friendly.  

After watching the news report, Winston snarled with disapproval, setting his food down as he began to type frantically into the keyboard with his fingers, a new holoscreen appeared in front of the news feed.

"Initiate Overwatch Recall?"

My eyes widened at the sight as I froze, my mouth gaped open just as I was about to take another bite of my food.

"You can do that?!" I piped.

"Every time you see news of this, we go through," Athena spoke up.  "I remind you; Recalling Overwatch Agents to active duty comes with great risk."

Athena brought up two other holoscreens. One of them was the I.J.C. logo with the "Petra's Act" text underneath. The other was a newspaper article with a photo of an Overwatch agent in police custody, the headline reading "Overwatch Disbanded".

"The Petra's act clearly states, any Overwatch activity is deemed illegal and punishable by prosecution." Athena reminded.

"I know," Winston grumbled with annoyance, rolling his eyes as he slouched in his seat.

"It's bad enough that Overwatch disbanded, but why did they have to make it illegal?" I asked. "That's just overkill if you ask me. If Overwatch was still legal, you guys would have handled this by now!"

"That's the way the world is," Winston sighed, his face hanging low before looking over to the side. "But I do miss the old days."

Following his gaze, I looked over to find some old photos. They were photos of Winston and the members of Overwatch! There was this one big one that looked like they were given an award. In the photo was Winston, of course, but as I looked at the faces of the other Agents, my lips grew into a smile. There was Tracer, McCree, Mercy, Jack, Gabriel,  McCree, Reinhartd, Ana, Torbjorn, and... was that Genji?

If I can recall, Genji was one of the more recent members of the Overwatch team. He was supposed to be an insanely talented martial artist, and an incredible swordsmen. Rumour has it he could summon a giant, green dragon just by shouting out his famous battle cry! I hardly saw him on the news, but I defiantly liked him a lot!

In another set of photos, there was Mercy and Torbjorn dressed up for Halloween, then there was a selfie with Winston and Tracer. I smiled at the photo. It seemed the two of them were really good friends. Before I was about to go back to eating, there was another photo hidden behind the selfie. It was a little hard to see, but Winston beat me to it. He reached over, gently lifting up the bottom of his selfie with Tracer to reveal the hidden photo.

It was a picture of Winston when he was just a baby, and there was a young man posing with him. He had light brown hair with matching eyes, wore a white lab coat and black glasses.

My first initial thought was; Oh my gosh, Winston looks so adorable!!!

My second thought was who the man was? Was he his owner?

I was snapped out of my train of thought when a high pitched beeping noise caught my attention. I set my food to the side, sliding off of the table as I looked over at the computer screen. A series of red texts blinking "Intruder Alert".

I typed up a combination in the keyboard, bringing up the security camera feeds. Armed men dressed in black were marching up the stairs and halls of the facility. They didn't look anything like the local police, that's for sure.

"Uh, Winston?" I gulped nervously.

Winston snapped out of his trance, taking a look at the security feeds for himself.

"I've detected intruders," Athena spoke.

"Talon," Winston growled, taking off his glasses.

"Talon... bad guys, right?" I asked.

"Affirmative," Athena answered. "Right now they are the most notorious terrorist group in the world."

My body was slowly starting to get into a panic. My hands were shaking, my palms were beginning to sweat. A terrorist group? What were they doing here?! Were they after Winston?

"Hope, it's me they're after," Winston spoke, placing a hand on my shoulder. "Hide under that table, and whatever you do, do not come out. Stay there no matter what. Understand?"

I nodded frantically. "I understand."

"Good," Winston nodded in reply as he gently pushed me to the side as I got down to my knees, crawling under the table that was closest to the window that overlooked the first floor.

"Athena," Winston spoke up. "Kill the lights."

The next thing I knew, the entire building went dark.