AN: Welp here's part two folks. Hope ya like it, lemme know what ya think, I love talking to yall. Peace.
Serpents and Secrets, pt2
...Angela's fingers activated the release mechanisms on either side of the visor and slowly slid it up off the sleeping vigilante's face, revealing first a stubble lined jaw, then the beginnings of a long scar that seemed to have been cut there by some jagged shard of glass or metal, and finally a heart-shattering crooked nose and stubborn brow she knew all too well. She stared at him, his face was scarred and his nose was more crooked than she remembered, but she would know that look of absolute serenity on his sleeping face anywhere.
"Jack…" She whispered, her eyes glued to his face like a drowning woman to driftwood. Angela stayed there, muttering his name as she stared at his sleeping face, for what felt like an eternity. But for all her shock, she couldn't help but feel something was wrong.
She knew she should feel an overwhelming sense of relief, joy, something. Commander Morrison, her Jack, was alive. Instead, all she felt was a dark pang of something she didn't want to identify twisting around in her gut. Looking blankly at the visor clutched in her white knuckled hands, she turned and walked away. She needed to sleep, and she knew she wouldn't be able to in this room.
Several silent hours of laying wide awake in the dilapidated bed passed before Angela heard the vigilante stir. She wasn't surprised, Accelerated Mitochondria Induced Regeneration(AMR) was taxing under normal circumstances, much more so without regular doses of the controlling agent released by that biotic device he carried. She was honestly impressed 76 had survived the ordeal. Speaking of which, she supposed it was necessary to check up on her patient. She got up off the bed and grabbed the visor and her first aid kit before making her way back into the dusty living room.
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The first thing Jack noticed when he woke up was exhaustion. He'd been tired before, he'd been through missions most people would have thought impossible, gone days without sleep, but this was different. He physically couldn't find the strength to do much more than shuffle on the couch he assumed Angela had somehow dragged him to after last night's ordeal. What the hell had he signed himself up for with these new abilities? The second was that he was hungry enough to eat a horse, raw if need be. He kept some food in the refrigerator that miraculously still worked. Across the room… his stomach growled painfully, and Jack realized his accelerated metabolism was probably at its very limit.
Groaning with herculean effort, he forced himself into a sitting position and rested his head in his hands as he caught his breath, wiping sweat off his face... his face. His Visor was gone. He didn't bother asking who had taken it, the answer was obvious. And yet when he heard her voice coming from the entryway to the bedroom, Jack couldn't keep from turning towards it with all the speed his exhausted body could muster.
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Angela couldn't help but raise her brow when she saw him already stumbling towards the fridge(which somehow was still functioning, strangely enough).
"You really should not be walking yet, 76." she muttered, sliding her arm under his shoulders and walking him over to the one semi stable looking chair at the ancient table in the kitchenette. Sitting him down, she rummaged through the fridge until she found 3 apples that seemed only slightly bruised and a pack of beef jerky(of course he would think Jerky was an acceptable meal). She set them down on the table and sat opposite him, digging through her first aid kit to see what she needed to restock.
"Eat," She muttered without looking up. "Your body is at its limit, you need calories now or you'll be unconscious on the couch again in minutes at best, and I do not look forward to dragging you all the way there a second time."
When he continued to not eat, she sighed and looked up at her to see him staring at her, his blue eyes unwavering and bright as ever.
"What are you doing Angela?" he asked her, his eyes never shifting from her face.
"Im treating my patient, 76." She said, forcing herself to meet his eyes. They were still bright, but there was something new behind them. Something that didn't belong.
He relented and bit into an apple, finishing the whole thing in three enormous bites before moving onto the next. He went on eating for a bit, finishing all the apples and half the beef before he spoke again. When he did, there was more color in his face, and a considerable amount of heat in his voice.
"So what, you have nothing to say to me?" He asked, his eyes narrowing. "I don't expect you to understand, but-"
Angela wasn't going to let him finish.
"Oh I have many things to say to you 76," She hoped she made the alias sound as venomous as it tasted in her mouth, "But I doubt there'd be a point. Thugs and murderers don't listen to reason."
Angela held herself still as the supersoldier slammed his fist down on the table, His eyes full of ice and thunder.
"I'm doing what needs to be done Angela!," every line in his face screamed pain, and Angela couldn't help but note how old it made him look, " Someone set us up. Burned overwatch to the ground, killed our friends."
Angela fought to keep her calm.
"Not all your friends died in that fight Jack. Reinhardt was still there, Winston, Lena." She blinked furiously as something stung at her eyes, "Do you have any idea what it was like visiting your grave? I would sit there for hours, talking to the ghost of the man I loved, knowing that you couldn't hear me, and realizing deep down that no matter how many people I saved, from then on, it wouldn't matter. Not really. Because you were gone, and in the darkest parts of my mind I knew that if I was given the choice of undoing every person I've brought back from the brink in exchange for you, just you, I'd do it. The day you died is the day the hero in me went in the ground with you."
Angela continued to glare at him through the silence that followed, keeping her hands flat on the table by sheer force of will as he gave her an unreadable look. Something else changed. Jack had been an open book, this man was pure hunter. unreachable and dangerous. When he finally spoke, his eyes darkened like stormclouds.
"I'm sorry for any pain that my near death may have caused you Angela. It wasn't my intention. Now, I'll be needing my visor back and your word that you'll keep my identity hidden, then you're free to go. I'm sure your friends are worried about you."
Angela blinked in surprise. Had the man just dismissed her? Slowly, she leaned forward until their noses nearly brushed, the fury rattling around in her brain making her bold.
"No. I'm not going anywhere Jack." He opened his mouth to talk, but she got there first, "I lost you once, I will not lose you again. You are a hero Jack, and heroes are never alone."
He laughed then, and Angela startled back as she fought to hold her anger. It was a broken, empty laugh. The laugh of a dead man.
"I'm not a hero Angela. I'm selfish, destructive. I'm out for myself."
Angela opened her mouth to respond, to tell him to stop talking nonsense and listen to her, but he moved faster. One second, he was sitting there looking at her through those half lidded, unreachable eyes, and the next he had pulled her into his lap and pressed his lips against hers. On instinct her eyes closed and her hands twisted in his hair as he pulled her closer, arms snaking around her waist and sliding over her back. It was different from the old Jack. He had always held her like a china doll, afraid he might hurt her. It had been her only gripe about their relationship. Now though, he held her like a woman, rough but still careful, his hands never moving too fast but still setting the pace. And yet something was wrong. "Im destructive," he'd said, "out for myself." She had heard the self loathing in those words, but right now she couldn't focus. Jack, her Jack, was still alive. He was holding her, and she needed him just as much as he needed her right then. She could play psychiatrist in the morning.
AN: did mercy make a mistake? Can you blame her? If my girlfriend disapeared for 4 years and suddenly came back as a brooding anti hero, I don't know if I'd have the fortitude to be selfless. Lemme know yall! Adios for now.
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