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Genji Shimada was the furthest thing from a stranger to late nights at Overwatch HQ.
He found them to be rather peaceful. As much as he loved the company of his subordinates, their rambunctious, excitable nature at times could be a bit much to take, especially when he's seated in a mission debrief or trying to meditate in the solace of his designated quarters.
Lúcio was a sweetheart, he just... liked his music quite loud.
Hana was a genius, but too pumped up on energy drinks at early morning training.
Brigitte, Lena, and Cole, they all kept the grounds lively to say the least. They knew how to keep smiles on faces when things looked grim, and made others laugh when they were all too aware of the work yet to be done.
But, quiet time was something sacred. Zenyatta had taught Genji that much. And at one in the morning? There was plenty of it.
So, Genji pushed off his paperwork until the end of the night to give him a good reason to watch the hands on the clock find a more comfortable position.
He’d finished at around midnight, a mission report he’d promised he’d write for Cole after they took his new magnetic grenades for a test drive in Havana. It seemed that the Omnic Crisis wasn’t dissipating, but rather finding better places to hide.Their forces didn’t stand a chance against Cole’s trigger-happy finger and Genji’s newly sharpened blade.
Feeling accomplished, he had been spending the last hour laying with his arms behind his head on the long, black couch in his office. On these later evenings, he allowed himself some time to recollect before beginning the trek home. Some nights he didn’t bother and just let his eyes close, letting the smell of coffee and the sound of Angela humming down the hall serve as his alarm clock.
Angela.
Maybe she was another reason why Genji decided that late nights trumped early days.
Angela was always here, whittling herself down to the bone, even when she didn't have to. There was always something more to be done, that's what she believed. Always something there that could be improved, that could be better – she believed that she could always be better. It was something that Genji had always adored about her.
Or, well, loved about her.
His crush on the doctor was something that he just couldn’t deny, and nothing that his fellow agents didn't already know.
How the hell could he not fall for her?
Angela and her big, curious bluebell eyes were something of storybooks, a fictional sort of beauty he didn’t know could exist. Her and her pretty lips that said the brightest things he’d ever heard, paired with blonde hair and a breathtaking smile. Her diligence and strength were unlike what he's ever seen in another person, unlike what he even saw in himself. It made Genji strive to be a better agent and a better man for everyone around him.
For her.
Genji wanted to pay her a visit. He didn't even have to wonder if she was still in her office.
Genji hauled himself off of the couch and made his way through the dimly lit, quiet halls of headquarters all the way to the dining area. He allowed himself to the kitchen, and emerged with two cups of tea balanced carefully in his hands. Though he has complete faith in his cybernetic abilities, his brown eyes still followed the moving pools of liquid in the decorative china as he made the familiar journey to Dr. Ziegler’s office. He used foot to knock on the doctor's door when he arrived, and called out her name.
”Angela?" He called, and he forgot to hate the way his voice gave away the smile that encased it.
"Could you spare the time for a break?"
His heart started to race just at the sound of shuffling behind her office door. When it opened, he was greeted with the sight of a very tired - yet, effortlessly gorgeous - doctor, rubbing at her half-lidded eyes. Internally, the ninja swooned, his gaze softening and the smile he wears only growing fonder. It was an addictive sort of ache, the feeling that Angela brought to his chest.
“Good evening, Genji.” Angela said through a yawn muffled by the back of her hand, tears forming at the corners of squeezed-shut eyes. When they opened again, they fell to the two steaming cups Genji held in his hand. Her head tilted, strands of her messy blonde hair falling into the smile that had bloomed onto her face.
“Are you reading my mind? I was just about to grab myself something warm.” With that, Angela stepped to the side to allow Genji to enter, and he’s careful not to spill any of her cup’s contents as he set it down on her desk with a quiet chuckle. It looked like the most organized aftermath of a tornado, if such a thing existed, her desk cluttered with stacks of reports and manila folders.
“That’s where I know you’re just trying to flatter me, Doctor,” He mused, taking a seat down on the very clearly unused couch placed across from her desk and bringing his tea to his lips. Genji exhaled through his nose, content with how it had steeped and with his company.
“That would imply you were willingly going to take a break.” Genji teased through yet another smile. He could spend five hours or five minutes with Angela, and he’d still leave with his cheeks aching. Genji had to take another sip when she laughed, not wanting to completely look as bashful as he felt in her presence.
“Oh, come now, Genji,” The doctor shut the door behind her and moved right for her cup of tea. “I’m not that bad at detaching myself from my work.” Her legs crossed when she sat herself down next to the cyborg. Her brows twitched downward in thought and her lips pursed, and Genji tries once more to try to read Angela’s mind.
“No, you didn’t come to the cafeteria today.”
It wasn't like he waited to see her, or anything. Or only bothered to eat in the room if she happened to be there at the same time.
She laughed again and Genji only fell deeper.
Another sip.
“Alright, alright, maybe you do have a point. I’ve just found myself a bit behind, is all. We’re going to Cairo next week, and I’d really like to not return home to a mountain of things to do.” Angela raised her cup to her lips, then paused, again furrowing her brows.
“I saw that… you’re not coming. To the mission in Cairo.” She said slowly, carefully, as if she were calculating her words, and Genji didn’t know whether or her trepidation should confuse or excite him.
Angela’s observation, like all of her observations, was correct. He wasn’t going to Cairo, as much as it pained him to admit. There had been talks of reviving the duties of Blackwatch for ages, and Commander Reyes had finally been able to get his hands on some dirty work that Commander Morrison would rather not risk having his face endorse. Genji didn’t have the strongest ties to Gabriel, but the opportunity was all that Cole had been able to talk about for weeks; it would be Blackwatch’s first mission in years.
And it would be for two months.
Just thinking of two months without her felt like torture. Genji gave Angela a small nod, his mouth drawing into a thin line.
‘Tell me to follow you.’ He wanted to say. ‘My mind and body will only know where you lead.’ The possibility of this being a one-sided infatuation and nothing more bites his tongue.
It’s been months of nights like this, of late night office visits and excuses to see one another, be it Mercy passing by the firing range while he sparred with the other agents, or Genji dropping in mid-day to Angela’s office to bother her for bandages. He loved her in moments and missed her in every single in-between, but he’d rather live in these feelings than do anything to ruin their friendship.
‘To be present and appreciative with what one has,’ one of Zenyatta’s first lessons.
How does one find the balance between appreciating what they have and the ache for something more, something greater?
“No, I’m not. I would miss the departure for Rialto.” Genji finally answered after the two lingered in a moment of silence, quietly holding his hand out for Angela’s nearly emptied cup of tea. She obliged him, and after he set the two down beside him, he scooted closer to the doctor. Genji felt compelled to reassure her that he hadn’t declined the offer from Captain Amari happily, but in struggling to find the words, his heart spoke for him.
“I’d rather just be with you.”
There goes his ‘balance.’
Angela tilted her head to the side, a small smirk tugging at her lips.
“Meaning, I wanted to go with you. I wanted to go on the mission with you,” The cyborg attempted to recover as he ignored the senseless - yet, incredibly valid - need for the couch to swallow him whole.
Angela chuckled, warm and inviting and dizzying all at once, and when she leaned over to nudge him with her shoulder, Genji worried for a moment if it were possible for steam to come off of his cheeks with all of these cybernetic enhancements.
He definitely didn’t want to find out.
Genji laughs at his own slip of tongue, foolish but unsurprising. “You know what I mean. There is so much work to be done in Cairo.” He meant it, it wasn’t entirely a cover-up for his embarrassment.
Captain Amari had been away for nearly a year, doing what she could with the assistance of Helix Security International to help rebuild what the Omnics had destroyed and get resources to where they were so desperately needed. It wouldn’t be the typical line of work Genji was accustomed to, nothing that involved him taking down tens of thousands of oppressive mechanical soldiers, but would rather focus him on protecting and assisting civilians.
Angela was going for three weeks, working in one of the newly erected hospitals Captain Amari achieved to deliver to Cairo’s wounded and injured. She was a genius in medicine, and that was saying the least.
Angela would help so many people. She would be brilliant.
Genji wished he could see it in action.
“There is.” Angela tucked a few strands of hair behind her ear, and gave Genji a thoughtful nod of her head.
"I’m excited to finally be doing some field work again, Cairo is a beautiful country.” With a wistful smile, she rose to her feet, giving Genji’s knee a soft squeeze as she did. Her back faced the cyborg then, having moved a few feet across the room to shuffle through one of the piles of reports on her desk.
“I’m going to miss you.” Angela admitted almost to herself with how quietly she’d said it, so hushed that the cyborg nearly misses it in the hum of his own thoughts.
Her honesty left him at a loss for words. Genji could see how her hands continued to move from here, seemingly aimless, grouping pieces of paper and letting their edges align against the desk. Another stack, straightened, then put off to the side.
“I don’t know who’ll take care of you while I’m away.”
Genji’s heart ached.
“This is Blackwatch’s first job in nearly five years. I can’t help but think the reason it’s being revived is because you’re being sent on some glorified suicide mission.” Angela continued, but her comment didn’t condescend or come with judgment, she sounded worried. Afraid. He’d thought initially it was more of a lighter, playful sentiment, but there was something more in that brain of hers.
“I am not trying to undermine Commander Reyes, or his ability to get you all home. Doctor O’Deorain, however, I have more than a few things I could say about her.” Her worries only slipped more and more into her words, and Genji has to remind himself to stay put, to listen and make sure she feels heard; but it grew more difficult as Angela grew more exasperated.
“The woman has no sense of self-control.” Angela scoffed. “She’d use any excuse to pump you full of some neurotic, self-proclaimed ‘cure’ to the most miniscule injury.” Genji watched her shoulders rise and fall as she gesticulated with her hands.
“You saw what happened to Gabriel after he started going to her instead of me after missions. The man he was quite literally began to disappear. His heart and mind is still good, I know, I just…” She turned to face him then, her hands bracing her back against the wooden edge of the desk.
"I can't let that happen to you. Two months is a long time, Genji.”
Against his better judgment, Genji rose to his feet to close the distance between them. He couldn’t allow this. Someone as extraordinary as Angela didn’t deserve her mind to be weighed down with thoughts like these, especially not when she had so much important work to do. He wanted to soothe her, to ease her mind, and he just couldn’t do that from across the room.
He didn’t deserve such concern. He didn’t deserve the attention of a woman like her, but like hell would he discard it.
Genji stood in front of her, his hands going to rest on each side of her own. The cyborg enveloped the doctor like this, his head hung to better meet her gaze. Careful brown eyes watch as she shifts beneath him, his gaze shamelessly dusting a second too long over her slightly parted lips and the exposed, porcelain skin of her neck.
She was breathtaking, in every sense of the word. Genji nearly forgets to speak.
“I can’t tell you I’m not going to get hurt, Angela.” The cyborg spoke just above a whisper, his words warm and low and practically dripping in his adoration.
"It would be wrong of me to give you false promises, and I’m not exactly notorious for finishing a job without a scratch.” He jested in the hopes to relieve that visible weight sitting on her shoulders, and he earned a small smile for it.
“But, I do know that nothing about this,” Genji moved his head closer, gesturing to her with a small nod. “or anything about me will change.”
There was nothing in this world that could keep him from her, and he needed to be sure she knew that before she left.
“You will still be the person I trust the most, not just to patch me up.” Genji felt his self-control being chipped away when Angela smiled at him. It was small but appreciative, and he swears the twinkle in those bluebell eyes could put the stars themselves to shame.
”I will not let her get in my head.”
“I know you wouldn’t.” Angela replied in a whisper, her eyes magnetic and beautiful as she pushed herself closer to him, and Genji’s heart pounds. His breathing faltered when she raised a gentle hand to his cheek, her touch feeling nothing short of intoxicating. Genji once more ignores the nagging of his mind — which sounded a lot like his master — and drinks this moment in, turning his head to press a soft kiss to her palm. He covers her hand with one of his own.
Angela seemed equally as willing to abandon hesitation when her hand slipped from beneath Genji’s to place over his chest. The gentle whir of machinery beneath his clothes was something that may caused others to shy away from him, but never seemed to phase the doctor. She’d helped piece him back together, after all, all of those years ago.
How far they’d come.
“Just promise me you’ll be careful.” Her fingers curled loosely against the fabric of Genji’s shirt, and the cyborg swore she’d never been more beautiful. He couldn’t keep himself from closing the space between them to rest his forehead against Angela’s, so he doesn’t. Angela just barely brushes the tip of her nose against his.
“If you promise to be waiting for me when I return.” Genji answered.
Then, Angela kissed him, and the world fell quiet.
She kissed him, and it felt like the first time he’d ever been kissed. It was dangerous, the fire she so effortlessly stoked inside of him; she didn’t know just how insatiable her perfect lips slotted against his own made him feel. But he was gentle with the doctor, with his angel, his fingers featherlike when they descended the sides of her body, dusting over the rise of her hips and finding the small of her back.
Genji had been waiting for years for this moment, though he knew he’d wait thousands for a woman like her.
He says that, yet knew these two months would be absolutely hellish.
As if she could hear his thoughts, Angela slipped her arms around the cyborg’s neck once they finally parted, the two flushed and quietly catching their breath. “I promise. I’ll write to you.” She vowed, and planted a fleeting kiss to the corner of his mouth for assurance, but he already believed her.
“You will?” Genji laughs, and the smile Angela gives him in return is bright enough to rival the sun.
The cyborg knew that they both had a lot of work to be done, and in a matter of days, they’d be thousands of miles away from each other. But, instead of letting his mind wallow in how much he’ll miss late night chats with his angel, he chose to focus on how lucky he was to have something so wonderful to come home to.
“I’d love that.”