aperture_high | mom and dad to the rescue

mom and dad to the rescue

[ Continued from here. ]

[ Jack had been right about at least one thing. Winston's decision to reboot Overwatch and take up that mantle was the same as painting a target on his own head, and it was only a matter of time before someone came to call. Given that Talon had already come after him once, he really should have been prepared for a second attempt. Winston may have been able to scare them off the first time, but he had information and resources that apparently meant something to them, and they wouldn't give in so easily.

They'd at least been smart enough not to come to Gibraltar again. It wasn't a stronghold, exactly, but with more and more members of the new Overwatch spending their time there, it wouldn't have been wise to make another try at breaching their defenses.

No, it was only when Winston finally made that big step and ventured off the island for the first time in years that Talon took its chance and ambushed him. Even with Lena at his side, they'd been overwhelmed by sheer numbers, and Winston still remembers her calling after him as they dragged his tranquilized body away.

They've kept him under sedation ever since he got here, which means that there's no ability to unleash that inner rage and tear the place apart on his way out. Lena will come after him ("You saved me once. Only right I return the favor, isn't it?"), but who knows how long it will take her to penetrate Talon's HQ. Until then, all he can do is endure, even as they poke and prod and sometimes cut into him, aiming to figure out how he works and what makes him so different from the rest of his kind.

He's put through the wringer, and while his body can take the punishment, even it can only handle so much. When he isn't being worked on, he does what he can to rest and conserve his energy. He knows he'll need it when the eventual rescue effort comes through.

It's the sound of gunshots and yelling that yanks Winston out of a deep, sedated rest. His body thrums with pain, but that's become a near constant since his capture, and he can ignore it. He fights against the heavy restraints holding him down as he strains to hear more of what's going on outside of his cell. Could this be what he's been waiting for? ]

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[ Given that Winston's wounds had often been mended by Angela's nanites, it's been some time since he's had to actually get stitched up the old fashioned way. Not that he's going to complain. Jack seems to know what he's doing, and it shouldn't be any surprise that a man of his experience has stitched a few wounds in his day.

The cut in question is definitely too deep and wide to be left alone, and so Winston won't argue the point. He instead shifts his body so that the injured area (on his flank, creeping toward his back) is more directly facing Jack. To make it easier for both of them. ]

Contacts? [ He echoes the word and then laughs, something self-deprecating. ] Overwatch now isn't the way it was when you were in charge. All I have are the people who still believe in it. [ Who's going to want to work with a gorilla, no matter how smart that gorilla might be? It had been controversial for Jack to recruit him in the first place. Winston definitely has no clout in any political arenas or any people who owe him favors, now that everything has fallen into ruin.

Even with all those disadvantages, though, he still believes in rebuilding. And he's not the only one. Jack can dislike it all he wants, but those are the facts. ]

[Jack sighs but doesn’t outwardly comment on what Winston says. The exasperation in the expulsion of air likely says enough—it’s what they talked about at Gibraltar. How does he expect to sustain this? Resources? Security? Having people that believe in you is one thing, but there are logistics to consider.

He tries to shake those thoughts away—all that’s going to do is make him want to go back and give them a hand, think about all the little minutiae that they don’t have experience with or might not even realize needs thinking about. Instead, he tries to provide a practical solution.]

You call up Fareeha? She’s with Helix. Might be able to hook you up with someone if you ask nicely.

[Ana would kill him for suggesting this, but it’s the first thing that comes to his mind. Hell, Fareeha might not want to get tangled up in what’s ostensibly illegal operations, much less give them a line to Helix’s resources, but he has a feeling that if it’s Overwatch, she’ll jump at the chance.

Even if she refuses, Jack himself isn’t powerless.]

And I told you I could wire you some funds.

Hmm...

[ Fareeha. Of course Winston has thought of her, and not simply because she could be a good resource. She had wandered in and out of Overwatch HQ enough for them to get to know each other, but she hasn't made any attempt to reach out to him since the Recall. Maybe it's up to Winston to be more proactive, but he's also aware of how Ana felt about dragging her daughter into Overwatch activities.

In other words, he'd feel guilty. Even more so now that he knows that Ana is alive. It's something to think about, but he'll save that for later.

When Jack once again makes an offer to help in his own way, Winston frowns to himself and shakes his head. ]

I couldn't take that from you. [ Especially when he doesn't know where the money is coming from. ] If anything, I owe you after this.

[ He's figuring this out as he goes, and Jack's questions are enough to nudge Winston in the right direction, but it doesn't seem right to take hand outs from him after he's already given so much, and when he doesn't really approve. ]

[Jack immediately frowns--he isn't surprised about the dismissal of Fareeha, probably because they both know it's a bad idea, but to refuse money just speaks to pride. He can say that, because Jack is a prideful creature himself. Hell, the entire reason he's where he is now is because he never allowed the cracks to show. Had to appear nothing less than unshakeable, because there were so many people counting on him.

He sees that, now, in Winston's refusal to accept help. Jack knows better. He won't let the new Overwatch repeat his mistakes.]

You can't just--

[There's a little anger in his voice, and Jack seems to realize that, taking a moment to tamp it down, scrubbing at his jaw with a hand and covering his mouth to disguise the expulsion of air. There are I told you sos to be had, but Jack has never been one for those--no good way to learn from it. He'd rather offer what advice he can, even if he knows he doesn't have the energy for this. That he shouldn't get involved.

That he's getting involved in spite of himself, and he finds himself wishing he could just escape Overwatch's orbit, that it wasn't such an integral part of him, something that kept pulling him back after he's given his entire adult life to it.

But Winston needs guidance, that much is clear, and Jack doesn't want to leave him in a position where something like this kidnapping might happen again.]

You don't owe me anything. I'm trying to help you stay afloat, because all this is about to get bigger than what you're prepared to deal with.

[Jack doesn't really want to pull this card, but if Winston wants to dwell on the rescue, then, well. Maybe he'll lean into it.]

You're not in a position to say no to me.

Edited 2017-11-04 19:20 (UTC)

[ Oh, Commander Morrison is definitely pulling a card there. He's not the boss of anyone anymore, and yet Winston can't hide the way that his shoulders pull back and straighten in response to that tone. He'd trusted this man with everything, he owed him everything given that he'd allowed Winston to join his organization, and it's definitely not an easy thing to say 'no,' even after all this time.

Ultimately, Jack is trying to help him, and that's a good sign, isn't it? It means that over time, he might come around to this new Overwatch a little more. As things stand, Winston will accept him as an outside consultant of sorts. If he doesn't want direct involvement, that's fine, but it would be foolish of Winston to write off Morrison's advice.

While Winston doesn't exactly agree to Jack's offer, he doesn't repeat his protest, and that's as good as it's going to get for now. He glances down, fingers tracing patterns onto the stone floor. ]

Bigger how?

[ Jack may have tried to keep whatever intel he got from Talon a secret earlier, but if he really wants to help, then he needs to be a little more forthcoming with what he knows.

Whatever's coming next, Winston wants to be more prepared than he was this time. He can't always expect his old commander and captain to be able to bust in and rescue him when things go wrong. ]

[Jack knows full well what he's doing, and hates having to pull that card when he's tried to reject everything else about him that was Strike Commander Morrison, but if Winston doesn't recognize how serious this is, he isn't sure what else will do it. He watches the way Winston stiffens, and hates that it still works, but he knows what to do to get what he wants.

Winston's finally learned what Jack meant by painting a target on his back, but of course that's not going to discourage him from pushing onward with his new Overwatch. All Jack can really do is make sure something like this doesn't happen again.]

The UN, Winston.

[The truth is that the conspiracy that brought down Overwatch started at the top. He'd been blindsided with anger at the time--anger at Gabriel for overstepping his bounds and pushing the limits of what Jack was willing to excuse, but he imagines now that Blackwatch's exposure was a calculated move meant to shatter the organization's foundation. Someone wanted Overwatch out of the way, and Jack is starting to think it was (at least in part) the very people who gave them their authority in the first place.]

You think they weren't behind this in the first place?

[ It's quite the claim to make, the sort of thing that most people might write off as some sort of paranoid theory from a desperate man who wanted an explanation for how everything in his life had gone so wrong. Maybe it is that to some extent, but Winston won't dismiss it so quickly. The fact that Morrison is sharing this with him at all is a step in the right direction. If he laughs it off, that will only make him close off again.

Besides, he's a genetic experiment from the moon. It's not his place to say that something is impossible, or ridiculous. ]

I didn't... [ Think about it, but he doesn't quite get the words out, one hand lifting to run through the fur on his head.

He cranes his head around as much as he can to look at Jack, taking care not to pull at newly added stitches. ] How can you be so sure? Did you find something, before the explosion?

Never sat right with me, that the UN would come down on a covert ops division like they didn't sanction it in the first place.

[Sure, Reyes had more than crossed lines, but they were the ones who gave him the authority. Blackwatch was thrown under the bus as soon as Overwatch fell out of public favor and it wasn't convenient to have either of them anymore. He's aware that this sounds like a paranoid conspiracy theory, but he also knows that Talon has its fingers in much, much more than they ever realized.

Explaining this to someone as idealistic Winston probably makes him sound crazy, especially when he's barely begun to plumb the depths of what really happened.]

They're not on your side, Winston. I don't think they ever were.

[ There's a reason that Blackwatch had been kept distinct from Overwatch most of the time. Not that Winston hadn't known Genji and McCree to an extent, but he'd been much more likely to work alongside Lena, Angela, and Mei, just as examples.

Commander Reyes had been in a category of his own, and most of the time Winston hadn't felt comfortable speaking to him, on those rare occasions that he got the chance.

Maybe Morrison is right and something had been wrong from the start. But to demonize the entire UN seems like too much of a stretch. ]

But... think of all the projects they funded that did real good, that made positive changes in the world! [ Trying to look at Jack is a futile effort, so he gives up and faces forward instead. ] It can't all have been corrupt. [ Wouldn't Jack have noticed something that egregious? ]

[He can tell that Winston is thinking he’s overly-paranoid—that maybe this is just the wild conspiracy theory of a soldier who doesn’t know when the fight is over, someone who keeps chasing ghosts because he doesn’t know what else to do. Jack is well aware how crazy he sounds, but he also knows what he’s talking about.

Or he likes to think he does. Saying it all out loud to Winston, who has only ever believed in the cause, has him doubting himself, if only slightly.

Jack visibly tries to shake it off—something to snap him back into the moment and refute Winston all at once.]

Yeah, and who do you think pushed those projects in the first place? Not them. Me.

[It would have been very easy for Jack to keep Overwatch a military operation. He’d known from the start that it could be so much more, and devoted his tenure as Strike Commander to those advancements. He still remembers the fight to keep Angela’s technology from being weaponized. Another promise he couldn’t keep.]

It starts at the top, and it wasn’t gonna last forever. We were set up to take the fall.

[ The doubt that Winston feels comes mainly from shock at the fact that the leader of Overwatch himself would imply that the organization had been tainted even during its better days. Jack wouldn't say any of this lightly, Winston knows, and it's forcing him to reevaluate the few years he'd been an active member of Overwatch. Had all of their efforts really been for nothing...?

No, he refuses to believe that. There had still been good in Overwatch, and all of that had started with Jack Morrison, and his guidance. ]

It lasted for a long time. [ Try as he might, Jack can't simply write off thirty years like that. One of Winston's hands clenches into a fist as he lets out a breath. ] When did you realize all this?

[ Had it been before the fall? And if so, why had he left all the rest of them in the dark? Maybe they could have done something before it had all gone so wrong. ]

[The easy answer is that he realized it when everything was crumbling around him, and the conspiracy had been solidified when the shadowy figures pulling the strings from all sides saw fit to capitalize on the rift between him and Gabriel and attack their headquarters outright.

But Jack thinks it runs deeper than that, and if he owes anything to Winston at this point, it's honesty. He seems to consider something for a moment, his face scrunching up as he thinks.]

It's--

[A false start, apparently. Jack shifts where he sits, trying to figure out how he's going to say this.]

One of those things where you don't know how deep in it you are until it's too late. By the time you figure it out, you're already underwater.

[ They had never had a conversation like this, before. Maybe the closest they had come is when Morrison had first recruited Winston, and he'd asked him about why he wanted to be a part of Overwatch, and how he thought he would fit into the organization. A nervewracking sort of interview, even if Jack had been gentle and pleasant.

A far cry from how he is now, but Winston does appreciate the honesty. It makes Jack feel a little more human, a little less like a polished statue.

(As if the scars and the bitterness and the fact that he lives in a place like this didn't already give that away.) ]

Well, none of us figured it out. You shouldn't blame yourself. [ Winston certainly doesn't blame him. He might have been upset when he first found out that Jack was still alive, but the more that he hears from him, the more he understands why he hadn't been willing to face everyone.

He looks over his shoulder at Jack again, set in his resolve. ] We can work together, you know. Overwatch can draw the attention of the government and Talon, and give you an opening to investigate.

[Jack blames himself anyway, because that’s all he really knows how to do. How can he not? Overwatch had been his full responsibility, and he’d let everyone down. He should have known, somehow, that this was happening. That Gabriel Reyes wasn’t the man he thought he was. That he could have noticed all the signs and put a stop to things before they spiraled out of control.

Winston’s proposal makes sense, and there’s a part of him that wants to accept it, not only because he’s right, but because Jack has carried around a hole in himself where Overwatch used to be. Some part of him wants that feeling again. His cause. His family. Jack has to almost physically shake it off, reminding himself that even if it was safe for him to return, he has nothing left to give.]

I don’t think that’s a good idea.

[He collects the medical supplies into the bin and stands, using the motion as an excuse to extricate himself from the conversation. He’s stopped in the doorway, however, by Ana’s return, and she’s looking at him like she knows exactly what he and Winston were talking about. She keeps him from leaving and he sighs, moving out of the door and putting the tray down on one of the counters instead.

Ana enters, shrugging off her hood, mask pulling back into the headpiece.]

I hope he wasn’t too mean to you while I was gone.

[ No matter what Winston suggests or how he phrases it, Morrison turns him down. It's beginning to feel a little bit like a lost cause, but he doubts that this will be the last time that their paths cross. In the end, their goals are the same. Jack just wants to go about it in a different way.

Before Winston can make any sort of argument, Jack's making a quick retreat. Winston's going to call out after him to at least ask when he'll be able to return to Gilbraltar, but then they're interrupted by the return of Jack's masked friend.

Ana. Winston had known it was her, but seeing her face, weathered by a few more years yet hers all the same, is something else entirely.

He stands like he doesn't have a line of stitches across his back, clambering toward her with wide eyes. He shakes his head in reply to her question without really thinking about it. Jack hadn't been mean so much as difficult, but... oh, that was a joke, wasn't it? ]

Captain Amari, it's... it's good to see you again. [ Of course he has questions. But right now, he'd rather savor the relief of seeing her alive. He bows his head, something respectful and maybe even a little shy. ] Thank you for getting me out of there.

No, don't get up on my account.

[Ana holds her hands up placatingly, hoping that Winston has the sense to sit back down--his injuries aren't minor, and though the two of them have patched him up, he's going to need some time to rest and recuperate. It's possible they won't know the extent of what Talon did to him for some time, so the least they can do is not exacerbate the injuries they can see. She tries to make quick work of walking to Winston, before he can go too far across the room. A gentle hand on his shoulder tries to drive the point home.

Sit down, friend.]

And there's no need to thank us, either.

[She says that with a glance to Jack, who huffs a little and starts organizing medical supplies on the worktable.]

It's what anyone would have done. Let me make you some tea.

[ It's too late, Winston is already up, though Ana's attempt to close the distance between them at least means that he doesn't push himself too hard. He realizes that she's worried for him, but he can bounce back from injuries much more easily than a normal human. He will need to take it easy for a while, but there's no doubt in his mind that he'll be back to normal soon enough.

The warm pressure of her hand on his shoulder is more effective than her words, and Winston settles back down. Even as she moves around him, though, he turns his head (and body, as needed) to keep his eyes on her. Finding out that Morrison was alive had been shocking enough. To see both of them here now is enough to make his head spin.

Tea does sound good, so he won't stop her, but he can't stop himself from asking questions either. He's nervously quiet for a few moments as he tries to find the right words, his large hands balled in his lap as he fidgets. ]

Ana, can I ask... what happened?

[ He could have asked Jack, but they'd had other things to discuss, and it seems more appropriate to hear the story from her. Chances are that Jack would have brushed off his questions anyway. ]

[Ana looks apologetic, trying to hide it by buying herself with making the tea, but she’s never been as stone-faced as Jack. It doesn’t work, and her remorse is evident. There's no good way to begin the story, and explaining how she felt in the aftermath of that failed mission doesn't come easily, for a variety of reasons.]

I lived, obviously.

[She’s never been as good at the dry tone of voice as Jack either.]

I could not face the rest of you after I failed so thoroughly. It seemed better to disappear.

[Jack won't look at this conversation in a way that indicates he's been over this before, and lines of tension run down his arms as he pretends to busy himself with their inventory. Ana offers him a glance that more or less says it all--it seems the two of them haven't quite sorted through this issue. She tries to keep all her attention on Winston, instead.]

I know it was foolish. It's difficult to explain.

[ Ana's explanation doesn't sound so different from the small bits of information that Winston has managed to pry out of Jack. Both of them felt that they'd failed Overwatch, that they'd done more harm than good, and so they'd decided to stay in the shadows.

It's difficult to know how to comment on any of it, especially with the awkwardness so palpable in the air. Winston had been fairly new to Overwatch when it fell, so it doesn't feel like his place to speak for everyone else. ]

It's all right. [ That seems the most important thing to say. Ana is obviously guilty about this and still struggling with it, so Winston won't make it worse. ] It's just good to know that you're alive after all.

[ He glances from Ana to Jack. Both of them are doing a very good job of avoiding his gaze. ] Both of you.

[Neither of them expect forgiveness, and that much is written on their faces--Ana's a little moreso than Jack's. It's not a stark contrast, but it does highlight the way Jack feels all of this is necessary, perhaps in comparison to Ana's more open remorse. Addressing the fact that Winston is glad they're alive is a little much for both f them, it seems.]

You should get some rest.

[Her hand is on his shoulder, and she sets a mug of tea down in front of him. Jack seems to take this as his cue to leave, at least for now, slinking out one of the stone entrances and off into a deeper part of the tomb.]

You can contact Gibraltar in the morning.

[Speak to Lena himself. She imagines Winston might find that a relief.]

[ The topic is shut down just as quickly as it was brought up, but Winston can't hold that against them. The wounds are still fresh, even now that they're at least six years old.

Rest does sound good, real rest that isn't brought on by a sedative, and so Winston nods, reaching out to carefully pick up the small mug and take a sip. ]

I will. Good night, Ana.

[ He didn't even get the chance to say as much to Jack, but Winston tries not to dwell on that. There's not much in the way of places to sleep here, but there's a small pile of blankets in the corner that will do well enough. He moves over to settle onto them, doing what he can to get comfortable despite his collection of wounds. ]

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mom and dad to the rescue

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