A/N: How Mercy "saves" Reaper from the door of death, an idea inspired by the in-game quotes. Of course I don't own Overwatch.
Her hands were shaking so much. It reminded her of her first surgery – she was holding the deciding factor between life and death in her hands once again. Only this time she couldn't find the calm, the serenity of mind, which she had been able to maintain during the actual operation. Her fingers fiddled the safety off as she aimed her gun. It wasn't her first time killing someone. After all, she had been a field medic during her time in Overwatch.
But now, it was her who was pointing a gun at someone out of her own volition. It was not self-defense. It was shooting someone in the back.
Could she do it? Her mind felt like crumbling when she saw the pair of men in front of her. Jack was soaking in his blood on the floor and Gabriel glowered above him, his gun pointed at his face. They were her friends, her safety against all the bad in the world, but now one of them had become the bad. Oh Gabriel, how could he do it? Didn't he know how much it hurt her?
Tears blurred her vision. She shut her eyes as her fingers pressed the trigger. There was hardly any recoil from her small pistol, but to her the usually undetectable vibration felt like a rough force ripping her hands apart. She wanted it to miss – that it was all just a dream.
She heard a thud. Opening her eyes slightly, she saw that her bullet was now engraved into the heart of her friend. For once her aim had been perfect. Her legs ran up to the two men lying on the ground and she knelt in front of them.
The red liquid dropping from Gabriel's wound had started conquering the once clean floor. It soaked her white robes in blood, along with her hands. "And you call yourself Mercy", he said, breathing out his last words at her, his voice raspy. Even in death, his eyes looked so intensively accusing.
"Gabriel!" she cried, sobbing into her bloodied hands. Beside her Jack groaned in pain. Her gaze flicking between the two wounded men, she felt helpless. She had to get her equipment. She could still make this right. Her legs stumbled as she tried to get up, too shocked to function properly.
"I will apply for the benefit of the sick, all measures which are required…"
There was an explosion somewhere above them – the shock wave knocked her back to the ground. She could only watch in horror as the buildings of the headquarters started collapsing on top of each other. Another explosion ripped through the air. The sound came from the direction of the medical wing. Her laboratory, the only thing that could save anyone in this situation, might have been destroyed.
She couldn't take it anymore. She ran inside the building, up the floors and dashed through the doors until she finally arrived at her lab. Everything was covered in soot and not much of it was usable under the rumble. Noticing her Valkyrie-suit, she ripped it from under the fallen rocks, detaching a sleeve in the process. By some miracle the wings were not as damaged as she would have thought. Most of her medical equipment was gone though. Her eyes searched the room frantically, trying to find anything that would help. There was the first aid kit in the locker, still undamaged. Her prototype, the one she had been working on for months, was also there. It hadn't been tested yet, but it was her only hope!
As the building shook once again, some grit fell from the opened up ceiling. The whole place was filled with dangerous materials ready to catch on to the fire spreading above her, and it wouldn't amaze her if there were more explosions. The quickest escape route she could think of was the window. And so she jumped through the broken glass, hoping not to splatter on the ground. One of her wings started malfunctioning and she couldn't help but glide through the air in erratic behavior, one hand operating the broken wing and the other holding on to the equipment.
She landed farther away from the men than she had hoped, rushing through the ruins to get to them. She looked at the prototype in her hand. She didn't know if it would work – but more importantly, should she even try to save the man that was the cause of this all?
"I will apply for the benefit of the sick, all measures which are required…"
The Hippocratic Oath. Her chest felt tight. She had sworn to remedy those in need. Afterwards she had told herself that she wouldn't stop until she could heal the whole world. Even he deserved it.
She started her work, fiddling with the prototype and placing it on his heart. She had been successful at recovering dead cells before. Regeneration – it had been the secret of her fame in the field of nanobiotechnology. She had been able to replace cells temporally, giving the body enough time to heal before they were automatically discarded by their programmed apoptosis. She had been trying to advance this to the next step – programming the actual cells of the body to regenerate themselves. It would greatly help curing patients and keep them alive when their bodies try to shut down.
But Gabriel was dead. It would be a miracle if by this point his brain wasn't suffering severe damage, even with the US's Soldier Enhancement Program's effects preventing some of it. The brain needed oxygen, but with the heart wounded, it would be difficult. Angela activated the prototype, her fingers now working with a rushed fever. She just wanted to save her friend.
She only had to hope that the heart started repairing when the needle pieced his skin. It inserted a large amount of microorganisms that would spread throughout his body. She then proceeded by ripping apart one of her wings – she knew the place where the highest voltage was located at, and started stimulating his heart beats until her hands fell on her sides, too tired to continue. She had done everything she could. She laid her head on Gabriel's chest, listening to his heart. Hope glimmered for a short while when it felt like she heard an echo, but was soon gone as nothing else could be heard.
She raised her eyes to the skies. In her working trance, she hadn't even noticed how more explosions had destroyed the headquarters completely. Gone were the towers reaching above the mountains, now only ruins surrounding them. She felt a hand on his shoulder.
She turned to see Jack. His handsome face was now marred by the ugly slice running across his forehead and extending below his eye. The eye itself was only slightly open. It was a miracle that he hadn't lost his sight. She extended her hand, reflectively inspecting the damage before her, but she was stopped by a firm grip on her hand.
Jack looked at her with sorrow. It felt like he had become older by years in just this one event. One betrayal was all it took. "How is he?" he quietly asked with his hoarse voice.
Angela shook her head, tears brimming in her eyes once again. To prevent the sobbing from starting again, she ripped her hand free and started treating his face with the equipment of the first aid kit. They sat there, contemplating the things that had happened in silence, a sob or two occasionally escaping their mouths.
"Listen", Jack started. He had to clear his throat to make any sound come out. "I won't stay anymore. My leadership has lead us here."
Angela's eyes snapped to his face. She didn't really have any more emotions left to offer. "And now you are going to run away?" she asked calmly. When she didn't receive any answer, she continued, "You're not going to take any responsibility?"
Jack looked her in the eye, his features still wrenched into a sorrowful expression. "I… I can't."
Her gaze fell back on the ground, looking at her failed attempt of healing. Already one of the people important to her had left and now the other one was planning on the same. But she wouldn't demand he stay – no, she caused havoc around her, as the body in front of her indicated. She didn't deserve someone like him supporting her.
"Fine", she whispered. She sat there, not raising her gaze, until Jack had disappeared from her side. She collapsed, crying until she had no more tears. Burying her head on Gabriel's chest, she cursed her own inability. Only then did she hear something which caused her to pause. A beat, a heartbeat that certainly wasn't hers. It was very rare, but it was there nonetheless. There were pauses, but it always came.
Eyes round in shock, Angela inspected the man in front of her. It seemed that he was getting better, and then worse. The cycle repeated infinitely, becoming faster and more intensive every time. One second a healthy man was on the ground, the next a dead body replaced him.
Then he started… vanishing. He became transparent, as If all his cells had simultaneously degenerated and died. The prototype she had built dropped right through his chest, detaching, before he appeared concrete again. Angela abandoned everything she had and started running through the rubble, searching frantically for any way to call for help. However, while doing so, helicopters neared the ruins from all directions, surrounding the former headquarters. It seemed that the UN had finally been informed.
The body was never recovered.
A/N: I found the struggle between saving your betrayer friend and obeying the Hippocratic Oath to be very interesting! In my version, all of the characters are slightly younger during the downfall since in my version Overwatch was only functional for 23 years. Mercy is also slightly older compared, as I wanted her to be part of the Overwatch for a major part of its existence. In the canon, considering she attracted the attention of Overwatch to her in her mid-20's, she would have only been part of it for 7 years, give or take. (Present day age: 37, Birth: -2 years before Overwatch if the organization was established 35 years ago, meaning when she was 25, the organization had already been running for 23 years out of it's life span of 30. I find this odd because Mercy seems to have been such a prominent character of Overwatch, or at least that's the image I had.)
