An extra layer of Polish
There are a few sensations that humans are not meant to experience. One of which is the strange antagonistic mixture of strong evergreen peppermint- or rather, what the toothpaste company had determined evergreen peppermint to taste like- mixing with the bitter and tart texture of preserved strawberry filling.
On one hand, there was the evergreen toothpaste, its job was to clean and sterilize what can only be described as a breeding ground for bacteria. The use of the mint may not have directly aided in cleaning and polishing teeth, but instead was used as a means to mask the gagging texture of the paste's bite. Like wiping bleach on a countertop and the rancid odor it left behind, the mint was chosen for this job specifically to remind the user that the deed was done, and for however long it lasted acted like a guarantee that your palette was freshly cleansed to experience a new day's offerings.
The strawberry on the other hand was a muted flavor. It wasn't meant to be something that was your meal, but instead be used as an accent for it. It in itself isn't intended to allow its consumer to taste the full overbearing spectrum of its flavor, but instead to help ease something equally as bland down. Its purpose comes with an understanding that the main course of what to come is necessary but not enjoyable, so to make the experience tolerable, a subdued flavor is added in to simultaneously not be overbearing, but at the same time be sharp enough to give the eater a way to ease into what they want; like slapping an area of flesh to numb it in preparation for a hypodermic injection.
So now combine the two. One a cleaning agent to refresh and rejuvenate the teeth and taste buds and the other something that is supposed to ride off of the grime of the day. A sensation only meant to penetrate deep enough to create just a touch of taste combining with the soap that cuts away all the barriers right down to the precipice of the tongue.
That sensation is the reason why gag reflexes exist.
But, Brigitte wasn't feeling any of it at the moment. It didn't matter that she still has leftover residue of brushing her teeth staining the corner of her lips, or the pulverized pulpy dough of a strawberry pastry gumming up her teeth. Today was the day that she had been waiting for.
An Overwatch watchpoint, abandoned since the Petras Act had ceased all of the organization's activities, was serving its function once more. Today was the first day that they were going to make a difference. Today, Overwatch alums and new heroes alike were going to train and prepare to protect the world once more. Today, Brigitte Lindholm wasn't going to listen to the stories of her Papa and his friends. Now, Brigitte was going to be a part of those stories.
Morning routine cut to the bare minimum and running with a second strawberry morning pastry in her mouth while its predecessor almost choked her on its remains, Brigitte made her way from the reclaimed barracks of the watchpoint. The young Swede ran from the apartment building towards the live combat range with the guards, bracers, and flail secured in a duffle bag hanging off her shoulder while the main breastplate and overlapping armored plate layers were on her back, being held by her hand and leveraging the weight across her core. An old, worn tanktop and cargo pants, -both from yesterday – and a pair of flame seared steel toed work boots with laces untied adorned her frame as she approached the main doors to the range.
She learned the folly of her ways of thinking that she could bring all of her equipment in one trip when she reached the front door and saw the sign in the glass.
"Pull."
She stood there, running in place to try to preserve her momentum as she contemplated what to do. Her hands were full and all of her possessions were evenly distributed across her body. If she tried to set one down she'd have to completely unload or risk falling over like a lopsided tree. Her mouth was full, so she couldn't call for help. She was completely at a loss.
But, before she decided to get desperate or try something too dangerous, she saw a person approaching the window.
To her, she looked like an angel, and in reality… she really did look like an angel. Doctor Angela Ziegler, PHD MD, doctor extraordinaire, medical prodigy, former Chief Medical Officer of Overwatch and one of Papa's old friends opened the door. The doctor was wearing a mostly white uniform, layers of easy-flex armor over trauma plates and gel layers bent the protective measures to the slim curves of her shape. Metallic wings protruded from her back and rested at her sides, the feathers of which were glowing yellow hardlight panes that created a glow behind her and, at a moment's notice, could extend to slow a freefall to a gentle descent in seconds. She wore orange quadweave carbon nanofiber tights that lead down to knee high metallic boots with a raised heel. To finish the ensemble, an orange loincloth covered the front and back on her legs, and a bright golden halo toped the outfit off. Slung off her shoulder was a long automated healing staff that shared the style of her armor as well as a medical satchel.
Brigitte entered the facility and said, "Thanks Dr. Ziegler." But came out as something along the lines of, "humfrommmnunmnhluzemmmur."
"Pardon?" she asked.
Brigitte took the failure to communicate with the Swiss woman as an excuse to slow down. Without using her hand, she swallowed the remaining residue of her first morning pastry and, with the snapping ferocity of a voracious animal, forced the one she was carrying in her teeth deeper into her mouth where she pounded it to paste and swallowed it whole before repeating her message.
"You're welcome, dear." She said. But studied her with a quizzical eye until she asked "Brigitte, is that… toothpaste in your mouth?"
"Yes!" she answered enthusiastically. "I was so excited that I couldn't sleep last night, so instead I was up inspecting my equipment, and you wouldn't believe what I found. I managed to iron out some redundancies in my ion barrier and found a way to increase the recharge and deployment rate by 6 percent without sacrificing integrity! I guess I lost track of time, but can you believe that!" Brigitte was so proud of herself that she couldn't help but beam with pride. She remembered being teased as a girl for wanting to be like her papa, and at that age she was confused with what she was supposed to do with her life, but then she met Angela. It wasn't just that Angela was a doctor and achieved the highest medical position in the organization at Brigitte's current age, but that she did it her way.
She was a brilliant, kind, and pretty woman with striking blonde hair who not only followed troops into battle, but did so with gusto. She strapped the wings on, made her own ornate battle armor, tied up her hair, and chased right behind the men into warzones and graced those who came to her in need of care. To a pudgy, short, freckled girl with mud colored hair; that meant everything.
"I see…" she said, "Hold still for a moment." The doctor reached into her satchel and pulled out a cloth. Bridgette did as instructed, and complied as Angela brought it to her lips and dapped the foamy suds of mouth residue out of the corner of her lips. Done, she continued to dab and cleaned the leftover crumbs from her impromptu breakfast. When complete, the doctor folded up the napkin and set it back in her bag to be disposed of later.
Brigitte stood for a moment after she was done before saying, "uh… thank you?" She was... somewhat irked. Sure cleaning up crumbs and sorting away spit was nice and all, but did Dr. Ziegler not hear her say that she found a way to improve her barrier without sacrificing any of its protection? Brigitte's healing unit was even based off of preliminary variants of Angela's Valkyrie suit's Operator Wellness Function. Surely she had to be impressed, right?
"Wait… did you say that you were up all night?" the doctor asked once more.
"uh… yeah?" she answered. "I fell asleep in the middle of work and when I woke up I had to scramble to put it all back together and perform a function check. I was kind of in a hurry because I didn't want to be the last one to show up."
Angela stared for a moment, inspecting her from head to toe before she slowly began to shake her head and click her tongue. "tsk tsk tsk, Mademoiselle Bonnet would be having a fit right now." She said. "Come with me, please."
Although she knew that the time was getting short, Brigitte looked at the doctor with confusion until finally follow her commands to a small chair at the side of the hall.
"Bonne- eh?" she asked, "Who was that?" Angela commanded her to take a seat, and the girl did as instructed, setting all of her heavy armor and equipment down and sitting in the chair.
"That was the name the girls at the boarding school I attended gave to our Home Skills instructor."
"Home Skills?" Brigitte asked, turning to try to find Angela as she walked around her and surveyed the younger woman. "What's that?"
"Oh, you know," she stopped directly behind her, setting her hands on her shoulders. "Cooking, cleaning, presentation, life skills, etcetera." She finished it off by adding, "He was a gay Frenchman."
"What!?"
Doctor Ziegler changed the subject, inquiring about Brigitte's hair as she traced her hands from her scalp to the back of her head, following the flow of brown hair as it condensed within the confines of a hair tie and then made a loose loop back up towards the hair tie once again, following the pattern once more until it ended frayed just past the confines of the elastic band. Brigitte explained that she enjoyed having long hair, but it couldn't obstruct her work. So as she decided to burn the midnight oil and inspect her gear, she did what she had done many times before and relooped her ponytail to ensure that it would stay out of the way. Sure, stray strands were free, but this was a matter of function.
Although she couldn't see her, Brigitte could tell that Angela was shaking her head once more. She felt her take her gloved hands and one by one pull lengths of her hair free, elongating her mane until it was released. Then, she bunched it all up once more in her hands and captured it in a bundle with the hair tie. She brought the bind up until it was high on her head and all of her hair was behind her.
Brigitte heard the clicking of her heels once more as the doctor walk in front of her again and crouched down with a finger up to her mouth, deep in thought. The younger woman glanced around nervously, each second ticking away causing her anxiety to increase exponentially. Finally, Angela reached up into Brigitte's hair again and used her thumbs to pull the bangs out from each side of her head. She summoned them from the group lassoed behind her head and traced the straight hair down until it was hanging freely at her side.
"There, much better. Now, promise me no more all-nighters, okay? Otherwise being late will be the least of your worries." That was rich, from her perspective looking straight at the more experienced woman, Brigitte could guess that she wasn't the only one who had been up all night. Whereas Brigitte was working on weapons and armor, Dr. Ziegler must have been working on herself. Her hair, skin, makeup, form, it was all perfect. When she was a girl she thought it was all natural, but now as a more skeptical adult, she knew that there was no way it could be… right?
Angela continued to study the girl until she had an epiphany. Quickly, she rummaged through her bag until she got a white container with a squirt lid. With one hand, she compressed the top and collect white contents in the other gloved hand of her suit. She lathered up both hands with the contents and then brought both up and rubbed it into Brigitte's face.
Her subject closed her eyes as the doctor rubbed it into her pores. "What's this?" she asked, feeling as the cool substance was wiped across her forehead , across her cheeks, down her chin and even on her neck.
"Oh, this? It's a secret recipe of mine. "
"What does it do? Increase the healing potency of your staff?"
"No. It's a very precise mixture of moisturizer and SPF 50. I know firsthand how the sun doesn't necessarily agree with our pale Northern European skin. It will make your skin feel nice and soft, and the last thing you want to get out in the field is a sunburn."
Brigitte's patience had run out. She felt like she was in some sort of backwards crazy dream. She didn't want to be mean, but it had to be said. "Thank you, Doctor. But is this all really necessary?"
"Yes." She answered, absolutely no hesitation beforehand as she finished with the sunscreen.
Brigitte took a breath, calming down and thinking about what she was going to say next. "Okay… But you have to admit this is a waste of time, right?"
"I don't think so." Angela said, standing up and turning around, hands behind her back as she walked, wings spreading up behind her as she marched away and said, "Your mother made me promise to take care of you, Brigitte."
"I think we both know she meant something else by that. Right?"
"I wouldn't say so." Angela said, stopping and looking back over her shoulder at her patient with a sly grin poking at the corner of her lips. "How can I promise to protect you from danger if I can't even make sure you don't look like an unmade bed, Hmm?"
The Swede slouched in her chair, hands holding up her head as her elbows met her knees. With a heavy sigh she groaned, "Point taken."
"Good." She said. "Now sit up straight. I have work to do."
Dr. Ziegler continued to spruce up Brigitte, inspecting any minor thing that she saw on her young charge and finished by applying some lip balm to her lips, commenting that her first experience with chapped lips in combat was all it took to keep a tube on hand at all times. Satisfied with her work, Angela allowed Brigitte to stand up. Angela commented on how thin Brigitte was and -upon learning that she had no lunch- slipped an extra sandwich that cut in the shape of sailboats into her duffel bag along with a small bottled water.
Now with the doctor's seal of approval, Brigitte looked at her watch and almost jumped at the time. "oh great, now I'm definitely going to be the last one to show up!" She began to furiously gather her equipment from where she had set it and tried to re-equip it in a similar fashion to how she had before, but once again, Angela calmed her down and stopped her.
The Doctor had Brigitte extend her arms and, one by one, began to hand her all of her possessions. This time, the way she carried them was smarter and better supported rather than all over her persons. As she stacked the equipment together, Angela commented, "Your father may have thought you to be strong, brave, and crafty, but there is much you need to learn, Brigitte."
"Well Dr. Ziegler, I'd love to learn them, but its hard to do so when you're the last person there!"
Angela chuckled, holding the last of Brigitte's possessions. "If nothing else, the thing I think you need to understand is that function isn't everything. Men aren't invincible…" She leaned in, packing the final piece of gear into the bundle but whispering into her charge's ear, "…but its our job to make them feel that way."
Angela quickly pulled back and said, "Go along, I'll be sure to come in right behind you, and they know not to start without me."
The younger woman thought on the advice, but decided to set it aside for now and follow the Doctor's instructions. Remembering her manners, Brigitte thanked Dr. Ziegler and resumed her track down the hall towards the assembly area, disappearing around the corner. Angela watched with a smile on her face. The door from the outside opened once more, and in came Chief Engineer Torbjorn Lindholm.
The man was a dwarf, he had long and thick blonde hair that made a big bushy beard. His left arm was mechanical and instead of being a normal prosthetic, was augmented to assist in engineering and fabrication. Normally a downright grumpy bastard on any day that wasn't on or around the Christmas holiday, now the man seemed to be a complete wreck. He was nibbling the fingers of the glove on his remaining hand and was sweating profusely as he approached the doctor.
"My little girl's all grown up… oh no no no no no N.O. no!" he stopped at the doctor's side as he stared the spot the two women had been as he spiedon them from outside the door. "Oh no. I'm so worried doc. I'm afraid this was a big mistake."
The man continued to nervously mutter to himself, so Angela extended her hand out her old comrade's side. She tried to reach for his far shoulder, but their height differences were so extreme that the furthest she could feel was the nape of his neck.
"Don't worry, Torbjorn," she said, cutting through his hair so that she could feel the nervous sweat rolling off his back. "I think your little girl is more than ready."
He looked up at her, having to tilt his head and force his welding mask even further away to look her in the eye. "Are you sure?"
Angela had seen that look in Torbjorn's eyes before, the love of his family overpowering his normally sour and cranky demeanor. She remembered the time the engineer came into her office, covered head to toe in ash and soot from his work in the foundry and began to tell her the trouble he was having with his daughter and the bullies at school. She recalled the Christmas Eve of that year, being invited over to the Lindholm residence and sitting next to a very excited Brigitte and being interrogated about her role on the battlefield while trying to enjoy her mother's roasted ham.
"Yes," she said as she looked down at the little man. "and if it makes you feel better, there is nothing to worry about. I'll be watching over her."