The next morning, Mercy was abruptly woken up as a deep, thudding boom was heard from the floor below. Almost instantly, she pushed herself from the chair she was previously sleeping in to sprint to the source, ignoring the stiffness in her neck and back. A blonde ponytail bounced back and forth as bare feet padded down a tan stone staircase, leaving the medical wing and nearly flying to the main part of the building. She probably would have actually flown had she been wearing her Valkyrie suit. But without it, she was only human.

She arrived at the scene within the minute and halted in her tracks at the sight of three other people she had never seen before; they were most likely the recruits that Winston had called for, but Mercy still found herself not knowing what to say, or do. She wondered what conflict had allowed for an explosion, since seemingly nothing was wrong. Everyone was just standing there.

The first one was a wiry, almost bouncy man, standing on top of a suspicious-looking black spot where the explosion must have taken place. His eyes darted every which way to take in the sight of the HQ main room, and she could swear that she heard him breathing from all the way across the room. Except, no, that sound was coming from the companion beside him. A tall, rotund man wearing a hog mask to conceal his face. On his bare stomach was a tattoo of a pig, and in his hand was what looked like a hook attached to a chain. As he looked down at her, she instinctively looked away.

The last recruit was in the doorway of another side of the main room, away from the commotion. From the distance she was at, she couldn't notice any distinguishable details about him, but his entire essence screamed "soldier." The only exposed part of his body seemed to the the top of his head, as the rest of his face was masked- even his eyes, which were covered with a red visor. A heavy jacket and gloves didn't allow her to take in even an inch of his skin; all she could gather was that his hair was grayed and there was a peek of a scar atop his brow.

He seemed as surprised as she did towards the arrival of the two recruits (well, as surprised as a masked man could). He must have run to the scene like she did. "At least he seems receptive," he mused to herself.

"G'day!" the wiry man gave a two-finger salute to Mercy, who was still silent. Her reaction must have been funny to him, since he let out a rather disturbing giggle. The larger man at his side remained quiet (save for the heavy breathing that was beginning to make Angela uncomfortable). "We were called by some bloke named Winston, he here?"

"Y-yes," she blinked out of her shock to the best of her ability. "He should be in his lab. Let me go get him, please stay here."

She walked away from the scene, trying not to stare for too long at the new arrivals. The soldier hadn't spoken a word, the wiry man looked like he could start laughing at any moment, and the larger companion could probably crush her with one hand. She hadn't even thought to ask their names or what the explosion was, only realizing so when she was in front of Winston's lab. It was probably an irresponsible thing to do, but the recent change of pace was getting to her.

"Winston," she called out as the hero was overlooking his schematics, "there are some new arrivals. I think you should go downstairs."

"Ah yes," when he turned around, his eyes went to her feet. "Why are you not wearing shoes?"

Angela looked down. "Oh."

Another boom sounded from below and she remembered that she had rushed down from her office to investigate the first explosion, forgetting shoes in her panic. "I think you should just get down there and speak to them," she explained, moving away from the doorway so that he could go ahead of her.

After some investigation, Angela found out that two of the strangers had come from Australia— Junkers. They were people of the outback that made their living from the explosion debris of the Australian omnium, even as the land had been terribly irradiated. On several occasions she had tried to make her way there during her medical nomad life, but she found it nearly impossible, thanks to safety concerns. No wonder they both looked so volatile. It was also no wonder the source of the explosions was none other than the wiry man's grenades, which had fallen off of his vest and been activated. Winston decided to go straight to work on a better working utility belt for the man, almost appropriately named Junkrat.

His companion didn't speak much, and when he did, it was to introduce himself. Roadhog.

Angela prayed to herself that the two of them would stay on her side. Understandably, she was quite weary of explosions.

The final recruit, the one that Angela had blown off the day before during her time with Torbjörn, gave an introduction much like that of Roadhog. He didn't say much, and when he did, it was only his title. Soldier 76. Obviously not a name, but Angela didn't question it too much. However, as they stood there for a moment, she realized something.

Junkrat and Roadhog had left to go find their rooms when she stepped closer to 76, squinting a little bit. He seemed frozen in place as she slowly closed the distance. "You…" he was taller than she expected. From a distance, they hadn't seemed too far apart, but upon closer inspection, her eyes could only reach the bottom of his chin. "Aren't you…?"

76 gave a small sigh and hesitantly raised a hand to his mask, ready to take it off, feeling rather nervous that she had identified him so quickly. He had rehearsed what he wanted to say to her, but now that it was time to reveal his identity, he wasn't sure if he could do it.

"You're the one who was stealing our equipment in America."

The hand froze and then fell back to his side. Damn. She stepped back when his masked face nodded, and she gave a tired glare. If he had been planning something destructive, they were all screwed. Weapons had gone missing. Could she trust him at all? Then again, if he was planning something, he already had multiple chances to carry out an attempt to sabotage Overwatch. Still, she felt the need to address the issue.

"Why? Do you have anything to say for yourself?"

"...No."

He didn't want to explain his plaot of revenge to her. He didn't want to make her worried again or give her a reason to doubt his return. And he sure as hell didn't want to bring up any past pain she still had for her lost friends. Even if he were still alive, part of him had died that day, and he knew part of her had died too. He just couldn't tell her that he was hunting down the man he tried to kill that day. He couldn't tell her that even after half of a decade, nothing had changed.

She stared into his visor, expression softening. His size and his voice vaguely reminded her of Jack.

He saw that look in her eyes, and he knew he had to come clean The longer he waited, the worse it would be for them. He raised his hand to his mask again, this time with less hesitation, but before he could take it off, the sound of the others coming around made him less willing. It wasn't something to be done in front of others; he resolved to tell her first. He'd come clean about his identity with the others when the time was right.

Angela turned. Tracer had joined them.

"Hiya!" she waved to the both of them, and Angela smiled. "I heard Winston say tha' Mei is on 'er way! She migh' not stick around, seeing as how she'll be workin' on 'er climate studies, but more an' more people are comin' 'round!"

"That's amazing. I wonder how long it'll take for the rest of them to respond?"

"Not sure, but I 'ope it'll be soon."

The two women started to walk off, speaking excitedly about their old companions and new people. 76 wasn't sure what to do with himself, and resolved to spend some time alone, when Tracer turned around to face him. She offered for him to come along, and after a moment of thinking, he decided that it couldn't hurt. So the three of them walked around the building, Tracer showing him around, not knowing that he had been there before.

Angela would glance at him out of the corner of her eye every few minutes, trying to identify anything that would reveal him as someone she had already met. It couldn't be a coincidence that him and Jack could be so similar. Even as 76 looked older, there were certain mannerisms that she couldn't just shrug off. And he wouldn't act like he didn't notice her looking at him, either; it really started eating him away. Tracer, however, continued on with her tour, not noticing the silent exchange between her company.

It was nearing evening when the two were alone again; the sun was nearing the horizon and there wasn't a cloud in the pink sky as they stood there on the roof of Overwatch HQ. Tracer had left them when her hunger got to be too much to handle, leaving in search of dinner and tasking Angela with showing him the places that she may have forgotten. So Angela took him to the roof, knowing that it was unlikely they'd run into anyone else there. Despite her best judgement, there was something she had to know.

"Why are you here?"

It was perhaps a brash question, but one that needed to be answered. Overwatch heroes had a specific set of skills and talents; although many militant individuals were brave and skilled, there were few that would be considered for the Overwatch task force.

"I was called," he said softly, looking down at her face with a soft, yet unseen, expression. Next to the early sunset, she looked more like an angel than before. She was almost glowing, and as her bright blue eyes looked up at him, he swallowed hard. The nervousness was coming back just like it had before. His frazzled brain tried to remember what it was he wanted to tell her, but at the moment, he just couldn't.

His low, rough voice was sounding more and more familiar. His height and his build were too similar to that person's, that old friend's. Her heart began to swell with the possibility of seeing him again and she could help but placing a hand on his mask. If it wasn't him, this might be the biggest mistake she could make, but if he were here, she had to know. If he had been alive all this time, she had to know.

Although he instinctively tried to move back, the bigger part of him knew that she had to do this.

Jack closed his eyes, planted his feet, and allowed her to pull off the mask.