Work Text:
After Hours
The bright blue lighting from the medbay computers gave a heavy contrast against the otherwise dark lab. Despite many calling it headache-inducing, Angela had always found the dim lighting to be comforting.
After hours in the medical wing were always eerily quiet. With only the dull whirr of various technical equipment to accompany her, Angela found that she was most productive at odd hours of the night. No doubt it was due to the fact that at that hour, most of the base operations had ceased for the night. Which meant that Dr. Ziegler would not have to abandon her workflow to attend to her fellow medbay associates. Not that she minded giving an additional hand or two when needed. However it seemed she was needed an awful lot these days.
She sighed as she glanced at the time on her display monitor. 0300. She needed to stop while she could still grab a couple precious hours of sleep. There were never enough hours in the day for her.
She rose from her chair, putting her cold hand up to her temple. Her eyes were beginning to hurt. She gently shrugged off her lab coat and hung it on the wall. After gathering her notebook off her desk she retreated from her office.
I really should be getting to bed, she thought once more as she surveyed the empty lab. Her eyes narrowed when she noticed a stray case in one of the unused cubicles.
“I certainly didn’t assign anyone to this desk,” she mused.
She headed for the cubicle, already preparing the polite but firm talk she’d have to give some unlucky medic about storage etiquette and claiming unassigned workspaces.
But as she approached the desk, the lecture she had been formulating on proper lab protocols vanished. Instead, it was replaced by a flicker of confusion.
What was lying on the table appeared to be vials of biotic solution. On their own, they weren’t unusual; Overwatch kept them stocked in abundance for their medbays—especially since she was the one who had developed them.
No, what was attached to them was what she was concerned with. Small vials of her solution had been fitted with even smaller metallic points. The glistening liquid, usually a glowing gold, seemed modified, almost purpled in the light. She reached for one, holding it gently between her thumb and two fingers. Lifting it up to her eye to examine, it almost looked like—
“Bullets?” She whispered to herself, afraid that saying it louder would somehow cast it into existence. As if it wasn’t already. She was staring at it. Her further thoughts were interrupted by a sudden voice.
“Angela.” A figure slipped into the light, her shorter frame backlit by the glow of the wall display.
Although the figure’s face was obscured by shadow, Angela could recognize her anywhere. Captain Amari. Ana. Her Ana.
“I see you’re still in the habit of whispering your thoughts aloud.” Ana’s voice was softer than usual, as though she was already attempting to diffuse the tension before it sparked.
“What am I looking at, Ana? What am I holding?” Her last word cut through the silent lab. She stiffened, clutching the modified vial in her fist. “This isn’t… you didn’t… ask me. Before you did this.”
Ana’s shadowed face tilted slightly. Guilt, maybe. Or, irritation rather. “We didn’t really need to,” she clipped. “Your work is funded by Overwatch. This is an extension of it.”
Of course. The rifle. Angela’s jaw clenched, her mind racing. How could this have happened? Torbjorn had personally promised her that any modifications to her nanotechnology would be strictly for healing purposes. That was her one condition.
And these… these most certainly did not look like they were built for the sole purpose of healing.
Angela’s jaw grew tighter. She glared at Ana. “You didn’t even think to ask me,” she muttered, her voice low and sharp with disbelief.
Ana’s face, still obscured, tilted again. Amari. Calm as ever. Unflinching under Angela’s scrutiny. She took a small step closer, just enough that Angela could feel the heat radiating off her. She could just barely catch the scent of sandalwood and vanilla through the smell of gun oil and fresh dirt on her duster coat.
Angela’s stomach tightened. She wanted to step back. She should step back. Some small part of her wanted to step closer. A pulse of heat ran through her. Her unoccupied hand itched slightly, wanting to reach… but she just stood there.
Captain Amari stepped even closer. Close enough that, out of habit, Angela had tilted her chin slightly. Ana pressed just against the edge of the doctor’s personal space, calm, deliberate, and ever so unyielding. Without a beat, she slipped the modified vial from Angela’s hand.
Angela’s pulse spiked, as more heat began to flare through her chest. She hated how Ana could just do this. Walk into her lab, her space, modify her invention, and take it out of her hand without so much as a word. Ana had a talent of frustrating her. And why, why was she so good at it?
Without even a second thought, Ana turned back to the desk and began to put the vials away. Her stoic face was finally illuminated in the bright blue of the monitor. All Angela could do was stare. Stare at her big brown eyes and the furrow of her brow as she checked that the snaps on the case had shut properly.
“Ana…” Angela trailed. “How long have you been doing this?” Angela had, for the most part, deduced that this wasn’t the first time that Ana had come in after hours.
”I should have known you’d be working this late,” Ana replied. A perfect non answer.
“Why you?” Angela asked. She has plenty of others to do this for her. There was no need for her to do it personally.
“Well,” Ana chuckled softly, looking up at Angela as she set the case down, “I figured I would upset you the least.” She took a moment to observe Angela now. Her eyes raked her up and down for a few moments.
Angela’s train of thought came to a screeching halt. Her pulse stuttered as she attempted to form a coherent sentence in her head. She tried to look away. Tried to focus on the case in front of her that Ana had just finished packing. But, she couldn’t. Not when Ana’s gaze had still lingered, her expression still calm and assessing her.
Ana continued, “You don’t have to look so hurt, habibti. I really was hoping that you wouldn’t have to find this out yet.”
Find out what? Oh, just that you completely went behind my back to twist my greatest achievement into… Angela’s thoughts trailed off. She didn’t really know what those bullets even did. She wasn’t sure if she really wanted to know.
“It’s for that rifle, isn’t it?” Angela asked. She already knew the answer. The least Ana could do was confirm that.
“Think of the lives it will save, Angela. This will be such an asset to us in the field.”
Angela’s stomach turned. “You promised,” she began, barely more than a whisper. “You all promised.” Her throat felt tighter and tighter. Her voice cracked on the last word, and she hated that Ana must’ve heard it. The captain paused, frozen for a moment.
“Angela…” Ana’s tone softened. So gentle and careful, a vast departure from the captain’s usual presence. A pang hit Angela’s body. She needed to sit down. Now.
”I…” Angela began, reaching for the edge of the desk for balance. “I shouldn’t…” She attempted to swallow the lump in her throat. “I shouldn’t have expected anything better.”
As Ana stepped closer, the blue light shifted across her face again. “You know, I would never break a promise lightly.” Her eyes caught the doctor’s for a brief moment.
Angela lowered her gaze. “Lightly?” She scoffed. “Ana… these are weapons. Using my work like this—“
”—was a necessity.” Ana’s voice interrupted, once again hardened. “War does not care for idealism. It does not cater to dreamers.”
The scent of sandalwood and vanilla drifted towards her yet again. Comforting and suffocating all at once. The warm scent had now mixed with the sterile cold air of the medbay. Angela’s head spun. “I am not a dreamer,” she said, now fully grasping the edge of the desk. “I just want my biotic technology to be used for good.”
Angela watched as something in Ana shifted. The captain took a quick step forward, catching Angela’s elbows. “Angela,” she said, steadying her. “You’re pale. Sit down.” Not quite a command. A plea.
Angela’s breath trembled. The proximity was intoxicating. Too close. Too warm. Too familiar. She watched as Ana’s eyes scanned the cubicle.
“Ana…” She started, her voice barely audible.
“Easy,” Ana murmured, her grip firm yet careful. She gently brushed her thumbs on the inside of Angela’s elbows.
The doctor’s pulse quickened as her face grew flushed. She was sure her face was hot and red now. And then—just for an instant—she saw it.
Ana’s jaw tightened in a small, controlled clench, so subtle anyone else would have missed it were they any further away.
Is she… worried? Angela thought. She had never really seen her captain like this. She continued to stare at the other woman, searching her face for any further hints. She met Ana’s eyes, and for a fraction of a second, something in them shifted. The blue light caught in her dark eyes, making them look sharper, warmer—
Stunning, Angela couldn’t help but think, and that made her face feel even hotter. Ana’s stern controlled mask seemed to falter—just a flicker—her tightened jaw, a pause too long before a sharpened breath. She felt faint.
”I need to—“ was all she managed before beginning to sink.
Ana swiftly hooked the tip of her boot on a stool, pulling it from underneath the desk. She still had not removed her hands from Angela’s arms; instead she used them to guide her down onto it.
Angela’s fingers instinctively clutched the edge, trying to anchor herself, but her legs trembled beneath her. She took a shuddering breath, forcing herself to settle. Ana’s hands remained on her arms. Angela wasn’t sure if she even wanted Ana to let go or not.
Why was this so damn confusing?
She ought to be arguing more. She should be furious—outraged. And Ana… she was so calm. So impossibly composed, as if the casual corruption of her greatest accomplishment were nothing at all.
The biotic rifle was a slippery slope into weaponized medical technology. And now, with the mysterious purple solution contained in the vials, Angela feared that it had become exactly that.
Ana’s presence complicated everything—her hands on Angela’s arms grounded her in a way that made all logic falter. Maybe Ana really was the best person to send. Everything about her tangled with the anger Angela should have felt instead.
Her brow furrowed deeper. Her chest felt strange, tight, fluttering in a way that had nothing to do with rage.
Ana seemed to notice the shift. She dropped her hands down from the doctor’s arms. The air between them was heavier, charged with the awareness of proximity.
Ana had begun to shift slightly, her posture straightening as she steadied her feet. The captain wordlessly held out her hand—a quiet peace offering. “You should go and rest now,” she said, her voice soft and measured.
Angela understood perfectly: it was essentially a command. Her cold fingers closed around Ana’s warm hand.
With Ana, there really was no room for argument. Angela wanted to resist—wanted to force the conversation. Demand an answer. Demand a different outcome. A different reality where she wasn’t standing in her lab at three in the morning. Where her captain was not looking at her like that. Where Angela wasn’t so conflicted. Where her chest wasn’t tangled with frustration and something warmer.
Another unsteady breath betrayed her, and Angela then knew that any further discussion would be pointless. Her fingers tightened on Ana’s sleeve as Ana guided her from the stool. “I’m not finished talking about this,” she managed.
“I know.” Ana’s voice was soft. “And we will talk. Tomorrow.”
Angela sagged slightly. She knew Ana would keep her word. But the idea of rehashing this again was hard to think about in her exhausted state. “Tomorrow,” she repeated, still in a stupor.
Ana nodded once. She gathered the case of biotic rounds, snapped it shut, and slung it under her arm. She turned for the door, a silhouette once again in the blue glow.
Angela watched as the figure left the room, pausing for just a brief moment as she hesitated on the threshold. Almost invisible. But Angela saw it.
“Goodnight, Angela.”
“Goodnight.”
With that, the medbay hummed as the air system switched on. Leaving Angela alone with only the fading scent of sandalwood, and the pounding of her own heart.