Author's Note 6/14/16: The final Chapter 5 is up! Thank you for everyone for your support. Stay tuned for a new "in-world" series and more Genji/Mercy accompaniment.
She remembered when they brought her his body. Or what was left of it.
Overwatch recon had found him in a Hanamura alleyway, outside the Rikimaru Ramen shop. They estimated he had three hours left on local hospital life support. The Valkyrie suit could get her there in under an hour.
What had happened to him—she wasn't told at the time. But she could tell from the deep lacerations, all across his body and neck. Broad slashes from folded steel. Samurai swords. His face was mangled beyond recognition, but the perforated skin on his arms showed the watercolor inky tattoos of a crime gang. The Shimada Clan.
She was the one who saved him.
She rebuilt him.
–
2am. Doctor Angela Ziegler woke up as a cool touch brushed her cheek. At first, it felt like the wind, slipping through her window. Her eyes fluttered ajar to see a shadowy figure looming at the foot of her bed.
She screamed, instinctively reaching for her Caduceus blaster on her nightstand and fired it at her intruder.
He deflected the bullets into her bedside table with a lightning swift clatter of metal on metal.
"Careful where you point that pea shooter, Doctor Ziegler."
"Genji? Genji Shimada, is that—Oh goodness, what were you thinking?! Here, in the middle of the night?"
He sheathed his green blade, the moonlight shimmering across his silvery armor. "Perhaps I should have thought this through more carefully." A hint of embarrassment in his voice.
"How did you even know where to find—never mind." She turned on a light to better see him. His metal head pivoted pensively around the bedroom. "For the record, NO women actually appreciate when you break in their home and sneak up on them at night as a surprise. Only in bad movies."
"Noted."
She adjusted her nightshirt and beckoned him closer. It was still a bit uncanny to see him move, part-man, part-machine. He sat on the edge of the bed, his chrome armor sinking in her soft sheets.
"How—how have you been?" Her voice softened. "I… I thought we would never see each other again. After you… left."
"I received a message. From Winston."
"As did I."
"Do you believe him? About the Omnics?" he asked. "About Talon?"
"I don't know," she admitted. "To be honest, I've always had my misgivings about Overwatch and its relationship to the military industrial complex. Turns outs my doubts weren't unfounded. Like with you… they never told me the full extent of your mission, when they asked me to install cybernetic enhancements on you."
"Maybe they thought you would disapprove of me revenge killing my family."
"I most certainly would have. What good does that sort of violence do systemically?"
"It helped make Hanamura safer. Certainly made me feel better."
"Did it, really?"
Genji didn't respond.
"Look, I don't care much for the politics of it," he said. "I just wanted to find you before it happened. To see you. It seems you're doing well for yourself." He gestured at the apartment, with large bay windows that overlooked Lake Zurich, before turning back to her. "Your hair. It's different."
"People get older," she said. Her blonde locks had achieved a rather icy white tone as of late.
"I won't." He said resolutely. "Do you remember that day? The day you saved my life?"
"Of course."
"The second time?"
She remembered everything.
–
Early in one of his clandestine missions, Genji had suffered a bit of a mishap while breaking up the Shimada clan's trafficking cartels. Angela had been in Tokyo at the time giving a conference on the innovations of cybernetics and applied nanobiology when Overwatch alerted her to the emergency.
Her locator sent her to a love motel on the outskirts of Hanamura. His room was at the top, and Genji lay on the floor, blood trickling through the metal plates in his body.
"Someone call a doctor?" she said, descending down onto the balcony. "What sort of mission takes you here?"
"Confidential, Miss Ziegler," Genji grunted. "Although I can assure you it's business first, pleasure second." He coughed and a few specks of blood spattered onto the ground.
"I see that smirk under your mask, you're not fooling me. Let's get you patched up." She drew her Caduceus staff and slowly applied the nanotechnology particle beam to him, monitoring his vitals. His heart rate stabilized.
"You would think with the budgets this organization has they'd put me up in better accommodations," Genji said. The room was adorned with gaudy plush and smelled of cigar smoke.
"Not everyone grew up accustomed to a lifestyle of mob money. At least be glad you have access to the top medical technology in the world. You wouldn't be here without it."
"Thank you for the reminder, Miss Ziegler. How could I possibly forget?" he spat. She felt his heart-rate tick.
"That's Doctor Ziegler to you."
"You know, Doctor," he grabbed her arm, "It's easy for you to say. You can take off that guardian angel suit anytime. I bet you could even do it right now."
"Simmer down, playboy," she said, gently but firmly prying his titanium digits off her forearm and placing them by his side.
"But I can never take this off." He rattled his metallic limbs and appraised her. "You know, back in my youth, I'd have a hundred women like you at my feet. Pretty, blond."
"There are no other women like me."
–
"That was... ballsier that usual for me," Angela admitted, thinking back about what she said to him.
"But it is true," Genji said. "I was too young to appreciate it at the time. There is no one quite like you, Doctor Ziegler." He reached out to touch her hand. His limbs were always cold and made her shiver.
"Where did you go?" she whispered. "All these years..."
"You have to understand," he said, "after I sought my revenge on my family, after all the bloodshed... I thought all that hatred would have burned itself out. Instead, it all turned inward. I was disgusted at what I had become—these cold, mechanical parts of me. I lost everything that made me a man—my honor, my brother, my body—so I ran away as far as I could. I found myself in Nepal, where I met Tekhartha Zenyatta."
"Tekhartha... sounds familiar. Like Mondatta? The omnic monk who was just assassinated in London?"
"From the Shambali, yes. But Zenyatta disagreed with Mondatta's methods. Zen felt that true harmony between humans and omnics would come from empathy and interpersonal interaction, not dogmatic teaching. He showed me how to reconcile the parts of me that were man and machine."
"I'm glad to hear it," she said, squeezing his hand.
"Sometimes, late at night, I have moments where I still feel a pang of repulsion for what I've become. But Zen always reminded me that I am here because of you. You saved me. And if I feel what I do for you, I cannot hate this part of myself."
"Genji..." She touched his cheek.
"Mercy."
"No one's called me that in years."
She fell into his embrace. Her warmth spread across the cool plates of his chest, and she could hear the low whirring purr of the machinery that kept his body alive. For a moment they stayed there, breathing syncing up, his helmet resting on her unkempt hair.
"You know..." she whispered, pulling back a little, "You are... still one of the most impressive patients and success stories I've had in my career."
"Is that all I am to you?" He retreated, slightly hurt.
"I don't know if we could be anything else."
"You saved my life."
"Savior adoration is a common symptom among those in the battlefield. It's not unusual to fall in love with your nurse."
"Who said I was in love?" he muttered. His armor seemed to harden.
"I'm sorry, Genji, I didn't mean—"
"I understand."
"Look, I haven't seen you or anyone from those days in ages. It's not like I haven't been busy, but... it's been tough. I almost closed myself off to everyone after what happened at headquarters. Morrison's gone. Reyes is gone. I thought I had put that part of me behind me. I need some time to sort out how I even feel, now that we're being called back." She stood up. Genji sensed it and moves toward the balcony.
"Well, if what the ape says is true, then we will see more of each other soon."
"Promise not to sneak up on me." She opened the sliding door for him.
"I'll try not to. But if we face Talon and they are as bad as they sound, it may be that we shall see each other again in death."
"I hope not."
"What was that thing you always said?" He said, turning back to her as he perched on the edge of the balcony railing with the grace of a cat.
"Heroes never die." She kissed him on the cheek.
"Right."
He slipped away into the night.
To be continued