John stood in the landing bay of the Boston base. He had spent most of the last week organizing the supplies he was planning on taking with him to Gibraltar, pulling parts off what was left of his old shuttle, and working on his new shuttle that Overwatch had given him. He saw Amélie walk up with a box of her gear before she set it down near the Overwatch shuttle they returned in.

"Are you sure you want to stay with Overwatch?" he asked her.

"I'm sure." she confirmed with a deep exhale. "The only one who might give me trouble at this point is Tracer, and even she seems to understand I was forced to do most of what I did."

"Just... be careful until I get finished out here and join everyone." he said as he pulled her into a hug. "Don't get yourself hurt." he said as he let go of her.

"What will you do until then?" she asked.

"Well I've got to finish working on the shuttle, and I have a couple projects I've been planning out for a while that I'll work on while I wait for the parts for that to arrive." he explained.

"Do I even want to know?" she said as she shook her head at his antics.

"What? It's just a new pistol... and some new armor... might be powered up, but I haven't got that far with that project yet." he said.

"What is wrong with your revolver?" Amélie asked.

"Not hitting hard enough against the Nullsec drones." he explained. "I've been drawing up digital designs for something new. Bigger caliber, more rounds, and believe it or not, semi-auto." he finished with a grin.

"You're giving up revolvers?" she asked, faking appalment.

"Not really, but I need something that will actually get through the armor of a drone. I tried denser rounds, but that just caused more kickback and didn't do much more damage. This is going to be a much larger caliber with better counterweight to offset recoil and denser rounds." he explained as he pulled up the schematics on his arm mounted computer and showed her.

"It certainly looks interesting, but will it work?"

"Well the digital tests look like a decent improvement over my revolver, but we'll have to see after I get this new one put together. The last of the parts should be here tomorrow, then I'll assemble and see how it works..."

...

The next week seemed to fly by. John was happy to have few interruptions if any, as he finished the work on the shuttle, adding the railguns to the belly of the hull, as well as the Minigun, both on hideaway systems like the Assauter had. Luckily he didn't have to do too much to upgrade the power core on the new shuttle, just a few connections to allow the stealth system to draw directly from it.

The pistol on the other hand was a thing of beauty. The unusual design turned out to work perfectly, with the 8 round .577 Armor Piercing double stack magazine sitting in front of the grip, the barrel having a built-in flash suppressor, and even the small but powerfull flashlight/lazer pointer combo built into the side of the frame working perfectly. The only thing he still wanted to do was test it out some more, but he only had a limited amount of ammo on hand for it, so he didn't think it was hugely important. It was about as anti-jam as a semi-auto pistol could get after all.

He had kept himself very busy, so much so that he barely noticed when an Overwatch shuttle landed near him as he was working on the leg of a set of armor. He lost his concentration as he watched in surprise as Angela walked down the ramp and over to him.

"You didn't answer when I called you earlier." she said with her hands on her hips, causing him to look up in surprise.

"I honestly didn't even know you called." he said as he opened up his computer and saw the notification. "Huh... how the hell did I miss that?"

"I wanted to check in on you. You haven't responded to Winston's update requests either." she said as she looked at the cluttered mess surrounding him. "What are you even working on now?"

"Power armor." he said while grinning. "Kinda like Reinhardt's but this is more designed for more extreme weather and terrain. When I'm done with it, it should be capable of walking through Australia with no issues whatsoever." he joked.

"You do remember what happened the last time we went there... right?"

"Already accounted for radiation, Angel. Still surprised I didn't get cancer from that..." he said.

"Hmm. What is this new pistol Amélie told me about?" she asked before watching him draw it from his holster, spinning it in his hand before handing it to her grip first. "Careful, it could go off with you doing that!" she exclaimed before gently grabbing it.

"Ye of little faith. The only thing safer is an unloaded musket." he teased, causing his lover to roll her eyes.

"It's heavy." she said as she turned it over in her hands and admired the design.

"Needed extra weight up front to keep the recoil from breaking my non-existent fleshy arm." he explained as he bolted a piece of framework to the leg he was building. "It fires a custom .577 armor piercing round based on the .577 Snider, which was a rifle round made to take out elephants. So needless to say using that in a handgun is normally a poor decision, but with a metal arm that can take the recoil, I may be one of the few people who could actually use it properly."

"Custom bullets? Why not use existing rounds?" she asked as she handed the gun back to him.

"Well most of what is produced now is for sport shooting or for military reserves. Most the major ammo manufacturers went under when pulse weaponry took over." he explained. "So, I gotta make or have the custom rounds made for me. Luckily I have connections." he said with a grin.

"I see." she commented as she pulled his hand into hers, causing him to look up, almost startled. "Would you like me to stay with you for tonight?" she asked with a smile.

"Angel, there's only one right answer to that..." he said as she moved in to kiss him...