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It was a thing that took a large measure of getting used to, waking up each morning and realizing that yes, she was dating Angela Ziegler.
It wasn’t a bad thing to get used to. Quite the contrary, it was more that Fareeha still couldn’t believe that someone like Angela would like her. Would be interested in her. Would actually want to date her back. Of all things, how?
Even around her toothbrush, Fareeha felt the silly grin start to form.
Every chance she got to spend privately with Angela was even more treasured than before, something secret and special and Fareeha already coveted it more than what she had fully realized.
Angela was at the forefront of her mind when she woke in the morning, and the last thing she thought of before falling asleep. Fareeha had never once imagined feeling this way about anyone, feeling as if her world suddenly revolved singularly around this one person. It scared her when she sometimes thought too much about it. What if this was a mistake? What if it all went sour? What if something happened to either one of them? There were so, so many unknowns, and Fareeha had never felt so acutely aware of her utter lack of expertise in this area of her life.
And yet, and yet…
Fareeha’s spare hand curled slightly at her side, as if instinctively seeking out another set of fingers to twine around.
Never had she felt like this before in life, and she’d be damned if she was just going to let go of it, no matter the trepidation and uncertainty. Angela...Angela was something complex, unique, and special.
Fareeha spat the toothpaste from her mouth, wondering not for the first time just what it was that Angela saw back in her, how it was that someone so brilliant and amazing was interested in her of all the people in the world. Not that she was complaining. It was baffling, yes, but…
The now familiar giddy warmth swelled from within her chest, tingling with a touch of adrenaline. Fareeha straightened, watching her reflection grin back at her. She’d have to put that smile away before she hit her morning training session, or people might think she was going loony. Last thing she needed was raised eyebrows and questions at just why she’d been smiling so much more than usual in the past month or two.
Her smile was reserved for one person, and one person only.
Angela accepted the coffee with one hand, and with the other reached up to unerringly cup the back of Fareeha’s neck and draw her down until their lips finally met. For someone who professed to no prior experience, Fareeha was a fast learner, pleasantly so. Angela allowed a pleased sigh to escape her lips when they finally broke the kiss, though she did not miss the way Fareeha’s cheeks flamed a darker shade than normal, and how her eyes still darted nervously around the medical bay.
“At ease, Fareeha,” suggested Angela, now finally resting back into her chair sipping from her coffee. She nodded toward the security camera feed of the outside hallways that ran on one of her computer monitors. Installed originally for safety reasons, it now also served a secondary purpose. “This is my medical bay. I know when anyone is here or not.”
“Right, of course.” Fareeha leaned against the edge of Angela’s desk, looked properly abashed, now sipping from her own paper cup.
It was a risk, true, and one that made even Angela glance briefly toward the closed doors. Without any current missions or personal appointments, there was little enough reason for anyone to come barging unannounced into Angela’s workspace, but it was a constant possibility. And while Fareeha was by and far her only usual visitor, it was not to say that other members of Overwatch didn’t periodically like dropping in on their chief medical researcher every now and then.
Still, it was a small risk, and one that Angela was willing to take for the time being. The moments she and Fareeha were able to spend alone and in privacy were limited enough as it stood. They couldn’t even spend regular nights together lest someone start picking up on just how frequently the two of them emerged from the same quarters.
Really, it was hardly fair, but something that both of them had agreed on. Their relationship was still so new, so much that they were still figuring out just between the two of them. The last thing that was needed was for them to have to deal with Jack and Overwatch’s official policies about intra-personnel dating...and the rules prohibiting it. As long as they kept things under wraps, it was far easier for everyone—both knowing and unknowing—if Angela and Fareeha could explore the new bounds of dating one another secretly.
Which of course came with the inevitable tradeoff of having to ensure everything remained hidden for the time being. An unfortunate reality, but a necessary one. And if it allowed Fareeha the time and comfort to settle herself more and explore dating more...well, Angela had no problems with that.
Particularly when work inevitably meant periods of separation. One of which would be starting later today.
Angela would be leaving while Fareeha was still in her afternoon training. There was work to be done in Prague, and the nature of this mission called for Angela and Angela’s expertise in nanomedicine specifically. She and Jack wouldn’t be back for at least a week, even if the work went without any hiccups.
Hardly the first time a mission would separate them since they’d started dating, and certainly not the last, but this would be a longer run than the usual, and it was the first time Angela would be leaving headquarters rather than Fareeha.
Normally when Angela stayed behind, she just threw herself wholly into her work. Cancer theranostics, tissue rejuvenation, cyberization implants...biomedical engineering was a never-ending field of new discoveries and technologies and methodologies, and the resurgence of Overwatch had had a dismal effect on Dr. A. Ziegler’s high impact publication output. It was easy enough to drown herself in the endless piles of work and research to be done.
So there was a measure of trepidation to the prospect of leaving Fareeha behind instead.
“I’ll miss you.”
The admission was barely above a whisper, soft enough to nearly be missed. Angela jerked her head up and around, and Fareeha looked down, as if embarrassed.
How sweet.
Angela stood, setting her coffee aside for the time being. She cupped Fareeha’s cheek with a hand, and then the automatic words of reassurance she was going to speak fell away. Neither of them needed that.
“As I will miss you, too, doubtlessly.”
Angela kissed her again, intending for it only to be a quick thing, but reason bowed out from conscious thought when Fareeha returned the kiss back.
Angela laced her hands around Fareeha’s neck, pushing up on her tiptoes to deepen the kiss again, and again, and again. Her tongue swiped at Fareeha’s lower lip in silent askance, and was rewarded a moment later. Tentative and yet eager, and, god, but it was all Angela could do just to...
Only when a small sound escaped Fareeha, her fingers tightening and gripping down hard on Angela’s hips, did Angela recall with a sharp internal reproval that they were still in the med bay. And anyone could theoretically just stroll in at any given moment, particularly if she was too otherwise preoccupied to take notice.
Come on, Angela, you’re not a mooning teenager.
Except that Fareeha had an alarming propensity to make her feel just like that.
The way her lips glistened, and her eyes followed Angela with a kind of deep, burning heat that made Angela want to do very questionably stupid things. Like drag her soldier into the privacy of her personal office and lock the door very tightly behind them.
Dammit.
This was a dangerous habit to be falling into if they both intended to keep things as quiet as possible, which they did. Still, it was with no small measure of regret that Angela took a step back. She forced her hands to wrap around the muted warmth of her coffee cup, even though they itched for the heat of Fareeha’s skin instead.
Yet sweethearts all across the world said their goodbyes like this. Weren’t they at least entitled to the same?
A sigh passed her lips, louder than Angela intended, and Fareeha’s soft chuckle said that she’d seen straight through Angela’s thoughts.
Fareeha leaned down just enough to press a small kiss to Angela’s head. It was simple and chaste, but Angela still hummed and closed her eyes into it. Good god, but a part of her was already unhappy she was leaving this behind, even if it was for only a week.
“Only a week,” repeated Fareeha out loud, as if reading her mind.
Fareeha flopped ungracefully back into her mattress, splaying her limbs out across the sheets. For once, she didn’t appreciate the luxury of all the extra sleeping space. She rolled over onto one side, then the other, then finally returned to laying on her back, staring up at the fan on the ceiling.
She wanted to be able to turn over, to wrap one arm around a certain slim waist, to bury her nose into soft hair that smelled of floral shampoo and just let herself drift gently into sleep.
Guh. Only four days so far, and this is what the separation had made of Fareeha Amari? Even Hana had made an offhand comment today about how out of sorts Fareeha seemed. Pathetic.
Fareeha pushed her cheek into a pillow instead, brow furrowed and a frown tugging at her lips. She didn’t like feeling so preoccupied like this. Oh, she certainly thought of Angela a lot when Angela was stuck here and it was Fareeha was on a mission, but that was the difference, wasn’t it? Fareeha wasn’t use to sitting around at base without Angela around. No mission to focus on left her restless and uneasy, and gave her far too much time to ruminate on her own thoughts...which was never a good thing.
Even now her mind turned southward. Surely Angela had never had this sort of difficulty when Fareeha was the one away. All they had exchanged in the time since Angela had left had been a series of on and off text messages, and the fact that Fareeha felt so uncharacteristically needy for more frustrated her to no end. Angela was out on business, of course she wouldn’t have much time for frivolities, especially with Morrison by her side. Fareeha didn’t want to be unreasonable.
The fan blades whirred slowly overhead, her thoughts pensive and swirling with them.
She reached for her phone, fingers hovering over the small touch screen, and then dropped it back onto her sheets. No. Angela was probably completely swamped with work, not moping in bed like this. The last thing she needed while she was neck deep in a mission was for Fareeha to be bothering her.
Fareeha gritted her teeth, failing to will away fragile sense of longing and loneliness in her breast.
She just needed to put away her phone and go to sleep already. This wasn’t what she or Angela or anyone on Overwatch needed—a grumpy and sleep-deprived woman in a Raptora suit.
Fareeha had just angrily put her phone onto her nightstand when it began ringing. It was the ringtone she had specifically set for Angela’s cell phone.
In the blink of an eye, Fareeha shot upright and the phone was against her ear.
“Angela!” Her voice came out a tad more breathless than what she intended, and she already felt the grin pulling right across her face.
“Guten Abend, Fareeha.” Even through the phone, her voice was warm. “I hope I didn’t disturb you. I know it’s getting late.”
“Not at all,” replied Fareeha automatically. Really, it could be two in the morning and she wouldn’t have cared. “No later than it is for you.”
She leaned back into the headboard, closing her eyes and trying to imagine Angela right beside her, rather than separated by a distance entire countries wide.
“How have you been? How is the work going?”
“Mm...you know how any mission is. More than enough to go around and then some.” There was a pause. “I’m afraid we will almost certainly be here the full week, if not a bit longer.”
Fareeha swallowed, pushing away the momentary disappointment. These were their jobs after all. Nothing had changed from months earlier but her perception. “It happens. I hope it is at least progressing well.”
“Very well actually!”
“Oh?”
Angela laughed into her ear, rich and pleased. “Ah, Fareeha, you don’t need to pretend to be interested in the finer details of nanomedicine research!”
Her cheeks burned, but not uncomfortably. “Maybe I just like hearing you talk about things that you like,” she murmured. It was the truth. Angela was a veritable prodigy, and Fareeha hadn’t a hope and a dream of understanding even half of the things that Angela was a world expert in, but it didn’t make it any less appealing. The way Angela’s eyes would light up and sparkle when she started going over some new discovery, words slipping past her lips as if she couldn’t explain fast enough. Fareeha closed her eyes and relished the image. That was just one of the many things she so loved about their resident doctor. “Unless you want to talk about something else?
Laughter again, but soft. “You’re sweet.” Then a pause. “So is this where I should be asking you what you’re wearing instead, hm?”
Angela’s voice dropped in pitch, sending an instantaneous shiver across Fareeha’s skin, but the rich amusement present in her voice immediately made Fareeha laugh back and slide down onto her pillow. Something tight in her seemed to relax, suddenly more at ease.
“Why, Doctor Ziegler, how scandalous of you!”
They chatted for a few minutes more, Fareeha truly caring less about what they spoke of and more about simply hearing Angela alive and well on the other end of Europe. But the muffled sound of a yawn also didn’t escape her notice, and she grinned into her phone after the third time. “You should get your rest, Angela. I know you must be busy.”
“Fareeha…” Angela’s voice held an unmistakable whine, but also what Fareeha very clearly now recognized as exhaustion.
“Get some sleep, Angela,” she insisted, voice just as soft but firm as when she would pull Angela away from her medical bay office. “And you’ll be home soon.”
A thought that made warmth bloom out from within her sternum.
There was a sigh across the line, and Fareeha waited. Angela sighed again, conceding. “You’re right. But I am still glad I got to hear your voice.”
“Me too.”
“Sleep well, Fareeha.”
That earned a smile.
“Good night, Angela.”
Fareeha, set her phone down on her nightstand with a gentle sigh of her own, and then turned off the light. This time, sleep came to her swiftly and readily.
“So, it seems things are better between you and the doctor then, yes, Amari?”
Fareeha stopped rubbing her hair dry with her towel, peering around her shoulder and the locker room toward Zarya. She fingered a lock of her own dark hair, which would be well in need of combing to combat her post-shower tangles. Zarya had simply run one hand through her short and spiky dyed hair, and looked ready to go. Unfair, but a definite benefit to having such short hair, Fareeha supposed, though she was in no inclination to cut hers any shorter.
She considered the question, not really because there was any need to consider it, but more to give herself the time rub her face with the towel so she might not accidentally betray herself while thinking of Angela.
“Much better,” she commented around the cotton. Much better especially now that Angela was back at headquarters. She paused a moment. “Thank you for asking.”
A hand clapped onto her still bare shoulder. “No thanks, Amari! I am glad things have gotten better in the past few months. For both of you. I would have been sad to see a friendship ruined over feelings beyond anyone’s control.”
Friendship. Right. That. Fareeha fought down the stirrings of a flush. She didn’t like being deceptive, but she was hardly about to tell anyone in their squad about just how far it had moved beyond friendship for some time now. She swallowed.
“Yes it...I’m glad that didn’t happen.” Which was not a lie.
For a moment, she was worried Zarya might tease, but no. Not after that incident those months ago. Her friend was far more sensitive than what many would think of the former powerlifter, and for that, Fareeha was more often than not grateful. She just hoped that Zarya hadn’t thought too much on just how well things did indeed seem to be going between Fareeha and Angela.
Fareeha shrugged on a new shirt over her sport bra and recovery pants, still chatting amicably with Zarya as they exited the locker rooms. They slowed as they reached where the hallways split, one way leading toward the cafeteria, and the other bending off toward the med bay.
“Lunch time, no? Or did you have plans, Amari?”
Fareeha shifted on the balls of her feet, pointing toward the hallway that led away.
“I was going to go see Angela…” she admitted. For lunch. So that they could have a private lunch picnic out on the green. Or that had been the idea...
“Lunch with just the good doctor again?” Zarya didn’t say anything else. It wasn’t teasing, but her raised eyebrow spoke volumes behind the clear curiosity there. Suddenly, Fareeha’s heart was pounding in her chest. Despite her shower, she felt sweat come to life on the back of her neck.
She forced each word to calm and collected enunciation, willing herself to show no reaction lest that give Zarya something more to mull over.
“Would you like to join?”
Dammit, but she was going to have to text Angela to let her know they were having company for lunch.
“Everything looks good so far, Genji,” confirmed Angela. “Shall we start with the actual testing then?
Genji sat up from the pallet he had been laying on in the bed, the electrodes still sticking firmly to where Angela had attached them across his cybernetic body. He nodded once, ever terse, and let Angela guide him into the imaging room.
She connected the electrodes to several different computers in the room, and once he was comfortably laying down on in the first instrument she’d be using for the test, she explained one last time.
“Just stay as still as you can. Obviously you can breathe, but try not to jerk or make any sudden movements as that will throw off the data. This first bit will take about twenty minutes. The screen will flash with countdown numbers to the start of measurements once I hit the go button, so you’ll know when it gets going. If you need anything, just yell. We’ll be watching and listening from the control room outside. Alright?”
Genji nodded once again. “Thank you, Angela.”
“No thanks, yet! These are only the first steps.”
The ones toward hopefully improving some of his cybernetic connections, ideally enhancing them, removing issues along where the synthetic portions attached to what little remained of Genji’s organic, natural body.
There was always room for improvement, and Angela was hopeful that some of the current, cutting edge research she was working on with collaborators might suit Genji well. But first...more data. Always more data.
Angela closed the door to the imaging room behind her, taking her place back by the main computer station where not one, but two individuals now awaited her. Zenyatta had been there for the whole of Genji’s visit for testing, but the other…
“Fareeha, kind of you drop by...and with coffee no less!” She didn’t bother fighting off the grin on her face, particularly when Fareeha was grinning right back.
The cup of coffee was handed over smoothly.
“I won’t keep you, Angela, since I know you are busy with work and a patient today, but I thought you’d miss having your afternoon fix.”
Angela took a first sip, sighing happily afterward.
“How well you know me,” she murmured. “Still available for dinner tonight?”
Fareeha’s white smile stretched broader. “I would never miss it. Let me know when you are finished with your work today.”
Then she inclined her head first to Angela, and then to Zenyatta.
“I’ll take my leave now. Good luck with your work.”
Angela watched her until she had left the medical bay, only then clicking the buttons on the computer to start the imaging program on Genji. Their last attempt at these measurements had proven inconclusive, but she had tuned the resonance frequencies and altered some of the parameters. Hopefully this time, answers might be more forthcoming.
“Ah...young love. It is indeed a beautiful thing to witness. Even an omnic can see that.”
“I’m thirty-seven, Zenyatta. While flattering, I’m hardly what most people would consider ‘young’ anymore.”
Wait.
Just what exactly Zenyatta had said—and what he hadn’t—crashed into Angela, and she jerked without thinking, choking on her coffee and sending papers flying everywhere. Coughs wracked her lungs as her bronchial tracts tried their best to expunge what caffeine she had inhaled instead of swallowing.
“Are you quite alright, Doctor Ziegler? You seem to have not swallowed your beverage properly.”
“Zenyatta!” She rounded on him, coffee slammed onto the table and any attention to the data acquisition now completely thrown aside. Her mind was already running in circles, jumping ahead to conclusions that she couldn’t stop from snowballing away in her imagination.
“I do not understand your current reaction, Doctor Ziegler. You and miss Fareeha Amari. You are romantically engaged with one another. Or am I incorrect?”
“How?” wheezed Angela, trying and failing to overcome the rising tide of panic. No...there was a more important question. “Who?! Who else knows?”
Her fingers twitched with the sudden and harsh urge to shake the answers from Zenyatta if needed, but no good would come of that. Angela forced herself to take a deep breath. Her panic was doubtlessly only confusing to Zenyatta. If she wanted answers, she needed to think. Calmly. Clearly.
“What do you mean, Doctor—”
“Zenyatta.” Another deep breath. “Has anyone else in Overwatch spoken about the—”
Her throat constricted on repeated the phrase, but she still managed.
“—’young love’ between Fareeha and I? Or have you spoken to anyone else about it? Anyone?”
Zenyatta remained hovering next to her, LED lights and metal alloy face betraying nothing of what his thoughts might be. After a moment his synthetic voice reactivated.
“I had spoken of it with no one except you just now, and I had not heard from anyone else, but I can inquire to Genji if—”
“No!” Angela had to slow down her racing pulse. “That is...no. Zenyatta, this is better if you do not speak of it to anyone. Not anyone at all.”
Zenyatta remained unmoving for a long moment. “I am afraid I do not understand. Your heart rate appears elevated and you are flushed as if anxious. Is this new relationship with Fareeha Amari unwanted?”
Herrgott, but what should she do here? Mind racing, Angela produced the words slowly, barely above a whisper, trying to formulate a plan. Any plan, really.
“Zenyatta, you are right...it is ‘new’. And that is precisely why both Fareeha and I would prefer if we were not spoken of in that manner, at all. It is like…” She searched for the right word, suddenly finding it. “Privacy. Sometimes, especially with new relationships, people prefer privacy. Time and space to have one another to themselves, to discover one another and find meaning without onlookers. Less complicated that way. Do you understand what I mean?”
She prayed to any power that might be.
Zenyatta brought one robotic hand to his ‘chin’, in the mimicry of pensive thought. “I believe I do, Doctor Ziegler. I would not wish to impart stress on you or Miss Amari at such a delicate stage.”
Angela’s breath whooshed out from her lips in immediate relief. “Thank you, Zenyatta.”
Per usual, he waved away the thanks. “I believe this is where I am supposed to wish you well? To ask if she brings you joy, or some similar variant thereof?”
Angela smiled despite herself, readjusting her glasses and forcefully turning her attention back to the computers as they spat out data from the scans that were being run on Genji.
“She does...very, very much.”
It wasn’t until early that evening that Angela had a chance to explain what happened to Fareeha.
“What?!” Fareeha yelped and shot to her feet, and Angela had to snatch her coffee (only her fourth cup of the day) out of the way lest it get knocked over.
She shot a reproving glance at Fareeha, which was completely ignored by her alarmed girlfriend.
“The—” Something came out of her mouth that was definitely Arabic, probably unsavory. “—omnic knows? How? Who else? Does Morrison—”
“No!” Angela had to remind even herself not to jump the proverbial gun. She set the coffee carefully back down onto her work desk in the center of the med bay, reaching gently to lay a hand on either of Fareeha’s broad and tensed shoulders. “No...Fareeha, only Zenyatta knows. Don’t you think I would have made certain from him?”
That seemed to at least put a stop to the pacing Fareeha had only just started. Her dark eyes darted downward, brow furrowed as she glanced at Angela and then down at the floor.
“I know you would, Angela, but if even Zenyatta has figured out, an omnic, then how many others have…”
A shiver ran through Angela. Fareeha was voicing the exact same worry that had lurked at the corners of her own thoughts. She’d had no doubt after questioning Zenyatta that the omnic had indeed spoken the truth to her—after all, what reason did he have to be anything less than honest? Yet it did not erase the murky bead of concern in her own mind.
When she spoke, Angela chose her words carefully, as much for her own benefit as for Fareeha’s; they couldn’t afford to let panic get the better of them.
“It’s something of thought of myself, Fareeha. ‘If a sentient robot can figure it out…’ We both know what line of thought that leads down, but we can’t live based on pure supposition. Zenyatta...Zenyatta is more perceptive than what I think many realize, myself included. He picked up on undercurrents that I think our other colleagues do not necessarily give credit to. Do we need take care if we wish to keep this low key? Yes. But what good does it do either of us if we lose our heads over this now?”
And even if others did know, even if they were revealed...Angela swallowed, trying not to think of all the horrid possibilities of Jack’s reaction to it. Not as though it would have been the first case of relationship between Overwatch agents, but the first since the recall, and considering how things had turned out from before…
No, there was no use going down that road. Even if they were found out…
“Does it really change what you want? Would it change us?”
Angela hadn’t meant to say the words out loud, but to her surprise, the tightness that was wound up in Fareeha seemed to finally relax. Her shoulders lowered visibly, and the wrinkles of worry on her forehead slowly began to smooth.
“Never,” she responded, and her voice as much conviction as Angela had ever heard from her. Her gaze was fierce and yet soft at the same time, and she raised her own hand toward Angela’s face. “I don’t care the consequences. Angela, you mean the world to—”
It was at that exact moment that the automatic doors to the medbay—which neither of them had been paying even the faintest attention to, nor to the security camera feed on Angela’s computers—opened, and Lena blinked in, all cheery-faced and utterly oblivious to the instantaneous panic that her entrance now heralded.
Fareeha and Angela both flailed this time, trying to revert to a completely normal, non-suspicious distance between the two of them.
This time, however, the coffee wasn’t so lucky.
Fareeha yelped in Arabic and jumped back, Angela already letting loose a string of curses in German at her own idiotic mistake that now left the front of Fareeha doused in steaming hot coffee.
She was already reaching for the hem of Fareeha’s shirt as Fareeha hissed in mild pain, even that indicative of just how hot the now wasted beverage had been.
“Oi! Shit! You okay?”
Neither of them even had the presence of mind to answer Lena, too busied with trying to fix the problem at hand. Coffee dripped onto the floor as they fumbled both with and against each other, jarringly at odds for once.
“I’ve got this, Angela,” insisted Fareeha more than a bit pointedly. Her voice emerged from between gritted teeth, and Angela abruptly remembered that they did indeed have an onlooker.
She dropped her hands immediately to her sides and took a sharp step backwards, allowing Fareeha to finish removing her own shirt and to then begin dabbing away what coffee still clung to her very, very toned abdomen.
Some of it had inevitably splashed onto Fareeha’s pants, but Angela was most certainly not going to start reaching for those. Instead she turned and occupied herself with trying to clean her desk, never mind that most of the coffee had ended up on, well, Fareeha.
“Uh...can I help?” offered Lena.
“It’s fine!”
Both Angela and Fareeha spoke at the same time, and then Fareeha tempered it first, her ruined shit now balled up into a fist.
“I just need to wash up. I’m fine. Honestly. Angela?”
Angela pinched her nose and pointed toward the sink and wash station in the far corner of the med bay, fighting off the instinct to go and help clean up Fareeha herself. Fighting off the instinct to stare at…
No. The most important thing giving Fareeha space. And acting normal.
“You okay there, doc?”
“Fine,” trying to curb in her own frustration, Angela tried not to be so curt to Lena. “More than a bit peeved with myself for just spilling coffee on Fareeha, you understand.”
Lena nodded. “Mistakes happen. Besides, Fareeha doesn’t seem like one to hold a grudge, least of all against you.”
Angela followed Lena’s gaze toward Fareeha, and immediately both did and did not regret it. Fareeha stood over the large, stainless steel sink, patting off her immaculately toned abdomen with wet towels. Wearing only her sports bra. Curtain of dark hair sliding down to half cover her face.
Did she even have the faintest clue how unfairly attractive she was?
“Not a bad sight, eh doc?”
If she hadn’t been blushing before, Angela was sure to be a furnace now. She mustered her best glare at Lena, which only seemed to slide harmlessly off of her.
“I’m just saying!” Lena put up her hands placatingly. “Can hardly fault you for looking! And she’s always so nice to you, too.”
Lena gave a suggestive wink.
“Can’t blame you at all!”
“Lena…” Angela hissed the name through her teeth.
“I know, I know. Propriety...official Overwatch policy...blah blah blah...but still. Am I right?”
Angela’s already threadbare patience for the day evaporated. “Lena. Five seconds to tell me what you originally came here for or out with you.”
Lena looked as sheepish as what she should have, considering the tone that Angela had now adopted.
“Oh. Right.”
Angela pressed a small kiss to the naked skin of Fareeha’s collarbone. Just there...the large bump in the bone that bore testament to when it was broken years and years earlier. Fareeha still breathed heavily, gasping in air as she floated back down from wherever Angela had sent her both falling and soaring.
God, but she had needed this after the week they’d had. The work, the stress...the nights she’d wanted more than anything to spend with Fareeha, but that they’d both reluctantly agreed up until now were better off spent alone to ward off any potential suspicion. Just in case. Which had done nothing for Angela’s mood over the course of the week, and apparently nothing for Fareeha’s either.
But for right now, in the nighttime privacy of Angela’s quarters, none of that mattered for the moment. There was a time for words, and a time for silence, and Angela knew when was the right time for each.
So rather than speak, she kissed her way up from the collarbone and along the curve of Fareeha’s neck, tongue darting out just enough to taste the salt of sweat that was still drying on her soft skin. Angela hummed, pleased when Fareeha made a small noise and arched her head back, giving Angela free reign to explore and test and taste.
But, god, she wanted to drink in every last bit of this woman before her, until she couldn’t tell where she ended and Fareeha began.
Her hand rested on Fareeha’s hip, thumb rubbing absent-minded circles, no longer with the intent to stir passions, but instead to draw a warm and intimate comfort.
Angela could feel the thudding pulse beneath her lips, heart rate still trying to slow and recover.
How easy it would be leave a mark behind there. Not that she would. Bruises were not exactly subtle.
Yet how strange that a part of her so dearly desired to do so. How a piece of her wanted to rake her nails down Fareeha’s muscular back, wanted to use her mouth and teeth indiscriminately to leave a carefully placed bruise that no high set military collar could hope to cover, and that no passerby could possibly misconstrue.
Easy, Angela.
Still.
A bit of a wicked grin pulled at the corners of her mouth, and she nibbled down, until...
“A-Angela…” Fareeha’s voice came out unsteady, a few notes higher than her usual self, and Angela buried her curling smile into Fareeha’s neck for a moment longer before taking pity.
Finally she pulled back, pausing just long enough to accept a soft kiss from Fareeha.
“...devil…”
There was no true admonition, though, and Fareeha’s own inability to suppress a grin betrayed her.
For a long moment, they both lay out on the sheets, content enough to just gaze at one another. The moon was waxing strongly, and the reflected light from the celestial body slipped through cracks in the blinds, illuminating how their hair tangled against the pillows. Light against dark, both gleaming.
It made Angela want to blink, be certain all of this was real. That Fareeha was real. Even if whatever it was they were was a secret, it was their secret. Longing, sharp and sudden, pulled within her chest.
Almost as if sensing it, Fareeha suddenly shifted, reaching out with one hand.
She whispered some unknown words in Arabic, brushing the knuckles of her fingers across Angela’s cheek. Angela let her eyes close and enjoyed the sensation, vaguely wondering what was being said, but not wanting to disturb the moment.
“Who made you so beautiful?” demanded Fareeha in a quiet whisper.
Much like how Angela had traced her lips across Fareeha but minutes earlier, now Fareeha trailed across Angela’s skin but with her fingertips. Cheeks, eyebrows, nose, lips, chin...as if seeking to learn and know some unspeakable secret that could never be uttered by the human tongue alone. And the entire time, even through the darkness of the room, Fareeha’s eyes were intent, open with some sort of sacred wonder that Angela knew all the same so, so well.
Who had ever seen this side of Fareeha Amari, kept hidden beneath so many different layers and armor, both of titantium and of something else?
Who else was ever granted privy to Fareeha when she was so bared like this?
A shiver danced across her skin, and then Fareeha’s fingertips stilled, now hovering over Angela’s sternum...over her heart.
Angela moved this time. She propped herself up on one elbow and then leaned down, hair now falling haphazardly around their faces as she pressed her lips to Fareeha’s and kissed the taste of moonlight from them.
No matter what stressors keeping up their current duplicity in front of their colleagues might cause, this—this—was worth it.
Torbjörn had been more than skeptical at first.
It was a rarity, true, for Angela to emerge from her own research labs and clean rooms and into the more gritty, mechanical engineering world that was Torbjörn’s hangar and shop. Still, she was mildly miffed by how much skepticism he showed. Torb of all people knew that she was more than capable whether it was a microfabricated sensor chip or a soldering iron in hand. But then, he always was leery of anyone entering his work space, and it had been many years since Angela had taken such a vested interest in his area of work.
For the current project she had in mind, however, it was worth the skepticism and the extra early morning alike.
Fareeha had hovered for the most part, practically playing the part of a nervous parent as Torbjörn and Angela had begun disassemble one of the ‘spare’ Raptora suits. Really, it was endearing to watch her silently fret. The modifications Angela had in mind were hardly massive, and in the capable hands of her and Torb...well, she doubted a soldier could ask for more able engineers. Then again, soldiers would be soldiers.
Angela stowed the thought away to tease Fareeha with later when they were in private.
They called the first round of work off when it was Torbjörn’s stomach of all of them that gave a loud and plaintive rumble for breakfast. By all means, not a bad start, and Angela was hopeful for where the modifications to some of the internal structure would get them...and especially Fareeha.
When they entered into the cafeteria, many of their colleagues were already there, waving them over to a large table.
“You three all look like you’ve been up for a while.”
Angela began explaining the gist of the work as she cracked a soft boiled egg open, smiling politely when Hana interjected.
“Why does Fareeha get all of the fun prototype technology? Why not me?”
Angela was about to give a response when Torbjörn interjected instead, chortling.
“Ha! Because you aren’t Amari is why. You should see these two around each other. Practically dating,” he guffawed. “Might as well make it official at this point.”
And then he continued unfazed, tossing back his glass of juice before digging into a strip of bacon.
Fareeha, who had just been setting down her tray at the table, went still as stone. Angela had only a moment to look up and meet her wide-eyed and panicked gaze before she, too, realized she’d practically frozen, and that literally everyone else at the table had gone quiet to stare at how the two of them had just stopped.
At how they had just wordlessly incriminated themselves.
Then...
“Oh my god!” yelled Hana, standing up. “You mean you two are both...actually…?!”
“I-I…” For once, coherent words escaped Angela, and her inability to speak (no doubt coupled with her instinctive and furtive glance back toward a very pleading Fareeha) put the nail on the coffin.
Chaos erupted around the table, drowning out Torbjörn’s bemused ‘but I was joking…’ response.
Angela had only a moment to see Zarya heartily slapping a still frozen Fareeha on the back, McCree laughing next to them, before there was a flash and Lena blinked into space next to Angela.
“I can’t believe this!” she wailed. “How long has this been and you kept it all a secret? Come on, doc...leavin’ us out in the cold like this!”
“I...Lena, my private affairs are hardly…”
A cautious hand on her shoulder diverted Angela’s attention to Mei.
“So it’s true then?” A tentative smile was already blooming on Mei’s face. “You two seem so wonderful for each other.”
“When? When did you two start dating—”
“So that’s what’s been going on this whole time—”
“—gotta admit, makes a few things add up better—”
“What’s this all about?”
Everyone immediately fell silent, and Angela felt all the blood drain from her face in space of a heartbeat. Jack had just walked in, looking still half asleep and with a mug of steaming coffee in one hand.
No one said anything.
“Well?”
“Jack, I...I can explain…” Angela fumbled, and her voice cracked with fear.
Jack starting walking forward, and Angela flinched and looked down to her feet, bracing herself for the reprimand. Only when he stopped next to her, resting his spare hand on her shoulder, did she look up.
His face was impassive, but behind the dark rings of exhaustion that circled his eyes, Jack’s eyes twinkled with something of old. He raised his hand off her shoulder just enough to give her a single pat.
“Good on you, Ang.”
Then he continued walking on toward the kitchen buffet, as utterly unaffected as any other morning in the cafeteria. The silence held until he was nearly out of sight, and then the table exploded into raucous noise twice as loud as before.
This time, however, when Angela looked across at Fareeha, she felt the same impulsive smile spread across her face. Relief bubbled through her, almost too good to be true. Mei engulfed her into a hug and Lena bemoaned something about losing a bet with Zarya, and Angela felt her smile stretch and grow. It was as though despite all the crowding in from their colleagues, for a moment it was still truly just the two of them.
Just her and Fareeha.
Oh. But Angela would have to make sure to tell Lena later on that Zenyatta had guessed well before her or Zarya.
The look on their faces was sure to be priceless.