Chapter Text
The afternoon sunlight drifted in through the blinds and bathed Angela Ziegler’s office in orange and pink. It glinted off the scattered medical tools and settled in her golden hair. She sat at her desk, focus held by a document on the computer screen in front of her. She absently chewed at her lower lip.
While she was grateful for the independence that it gave her, running her own hospital involved more paperwork than she liked. Her interest was always in the more practical aspects of her career, where she could stretch her medicinal wings and push at the limits of what humanity could currently achieve. She found it difficult to care about trivial issues such as those raised by the email she was currently struggling through, which was arguing the merits of switching to a different brand of sheets. She was sorely tempted to hire someone to care on her behalf.
Persistent tapping dragged her attention back to the real world. Blinking a few times, she glanced around the room. She jolted as she saw the red glare of Jack Morrison’s visor staring at her from outside her window. A window which was eight stories up. Sighing, she rose to her feet and slid it open.
“When will you learn to make an appointment?” she hissed.
He swung off the window frame and landed beside her, automatically scanning the room for threats. “When half the country doesn’t want me dead.”
She pursed her lips. “If you keep doing this, you’re going to show up during an appointment and give one of my elderly patients a heart attack.”
“I am one of your elderly patients,” he said, sinking into the seat across from her desk. He reached up and pressed a button by his temple, and the front of his visor slid forward, allowing him to remove it and place it on the desk. Dark bags hung under his eyes.
She swatted at him with a rolled up piece of paper as she went to his side. “You can’t call yourself old while you’re still able to scale the side of my hospital!” Her gaze was caught by a gash of red on his arm, congealed blood coating his thick leather jacket. Morrison flinched as she ran her fingers over the wound. “What have you done now,” she asked under her breath.
“Don’t ask,” he said, leaning forward to slip off his leather jacket. His movements were stiff and awkward, indicating that his wounds were more than just what she could see. As he slid his arm out of its sleeve, her chest tightened at how deep the cut was.
She walked over to the sink, latex snapping as she pulled on gloves. “What am I going to do with you?” She proceeded to drench a cloth in disinfectant and returned to his side. “At least Lena and Jesse have Winston watching their back. You don’t see them bleeding on my doorstep every other week.” He inhaled sharply as she began to rub the cloth onto his wound.
“So you’ve come around to their overwatch revival?”
She let out a huff. “Of course not. I’m just glad that they aren’t idiotic enough to work as some sort of lone vigilante."
“Now, what sort of moron would do that?”
She rolled her eyes, and pulled out her suture pack. Morrison eyed the anaesthetic. “I don’t need painkillers.”
“If you’re trying to impress me, you’re much too late.”
Morrison leant towards her. “The sooner I’m out of here, the safer it is for both of us. I don’t have time to wait for it to work,” he said, voice low.
She opened her mouth to argue, but caught herself. This wasn’t what it used to be like. She wasn’t patching up a war hero. She was tending to the wounds of an international criminal. She had to adapt accordingly.
She placed the anaesthetic back on the table. “Fine.”
It didn’t take long for her to be drawn into the familiar rhythm of stitching up his wound. In. Out. In. Out. At least some things hadn’t changed. The silence was only broken by the occasional hissed breath from Morrison.
“Done,” she said, tying off and cutting the thread. He rolled his shoulder back. “Now, you need to rest. If you don’t, next time I’m going to stitch you to a hospital bed.”
“I’ll try,” he said. They both knew he wouldn’t. Or couldn’t. Even after all these years, she wasn’t sure which.
A low siren began to echo through the building. Morrison shot to his feet, hand darting to his gun as he scanned the room.
“Violent intruder,” she hissed. Rising, she turned to Morrison. “You need to leave.”
Morrison furrowed his brows. “I’m not leaving you-”
“I can handle it, Jack,” she snapped. “This is my hospital.” Her expression softened as she placed a hand on his shoulder. “Whatever it is, it can’t be worse than being found aiding a terrorist.”
Morrison took a long breath, eyes locked on her. “Fine.” After another moment, he added, “stay safe.”
“You telling me to stay safe?” Angela responded, a fierce grin cutting across her face. “If you don’t let this heal, you are going to wish that whoever caused this lockdown had killed me.”
He barked out a laugh. “You haven’t changed a bit,” he said before clicking his mask on. The face of her friend was gone, replaced with the hard, emotionless gaze of Soldier: 76. With one last nod at Angela, he slid out the window and vanished.
She let out a long breath, her shoulders sinking. Jack had enough to deal with. Seeing how scared she was would only make him worry about her, and the last thing he needed was another distraction. It was the same confident mask she wore around all of her patients. She was often the only source of stability amongst the uncertainty brought by their crises.
She knew it was true for Jack.
She grabbed her holster and began to stride towards the door. It was time for her to destroy whoever was threatening her patients.