Angela sat at her table with her laptop, foot tapping impatiently. The sun was going down and Jack had left. He needed to finish what he came here to do. She'd desperately wanted to go with him, to be the healer at his back but her Valkyrie suit was far to recognizable for sneaking around back alleys at night. So here she was, anxiety getting the better of her, staring at her laptop, waiting for an email from Winston.
He'd messaged her earlier that he'd started Athena working on the analysis of Bren's blood and would email her the results in a few hours.
Bren came walking up to her, placing his tiny hand on her leg, "Momma?"j
Angela looked down at her son, seeing the worry on his face, "Oh, momma's ok baby. I'm just waiting for daddy to come home darling." She told him, pulling him up into her lap.
He laid his head on her breast. He always felt better when he was close to his mother.
She pressed a kiss to his head and started singing to him in german to sooth him.
"Weißt du, wieviel Sternlein stehen
an dem blauen Himmelszelt?
Weißt du, wieviel Wolken ziehen
weithin über alle Welt?
Gott der Herr hat sie gezählet,
daß ihm auch nicht eines fehlet
an der ganzen großen Zahl,
an der ganzen großen Zahl.
Weißt du, wieviel Mücklein spielen
in der heißen Sonnenglut,
wieviel Fischlein auch sich kühlen
in der hellen Wasserflut?
Gott der Herr rief sie mit Namen,
daß sie all ins Leben kamen,
daß sie nun so fröhlich sind,
daß sie nun so fröhlich sind."
She kissed the boy again as she finished. Feeling better, he hopped down, going back to his toys. Angela smiled. She loved it when he just wanted to snuggle with her for a bit. He was such a busy body she enjoyed every quiet moment the two of them had together.
She turned back to her laptop. Still no email. Angela decided she couldn't just sit there and wait so she pulled up the journal she'd been keeping on Bren's development, typing up medical notes about his fall and ability to heal broken bones with ease and about the testing that Athena was working on at the moment.
She tried to keep the most detailed notes possible so that when she had access to a full lab again, she could look back and know everything that had happened in great detail. The journal was over 200 pages at this point and would only grow exponentially larger as he grew.
It felt good to slide into her role as a doctor when she was stressed. Being collected and professional was part of being a doctor who worked on the front lines of trauma. It made things easier to handle.
Angela finished typing and sat back, watching the medical mystery that was her son. He was only 10 months old but there he was pulling the cushions off the couch so he could jump off chair into them. These were more complex reasoning skills that children didn't usually gain until they were a year and a half old.
Angela sighed, once again wishing she could get her hands on the American's documentation of the Super Soldier project.
The laptop dinged, letting her know that she had a message.
She opened it up, reading the report from Athena.
He had a high red blood cell count, equivalent to someone who was blood doping in sports. He also had higher than normal growth hormone and testosterone in his system, causing his unusual grown rate and larger than average muscle mass. High levels of C and T lymphocytes explained why he'd never been sick in his life. His immune system was ridiculously powerful, destroying invaders before they had a chance to take hold. There were high amounts of clotting proteins to deal with cuts and injuries. High levels of Vitamin C leading to strong collagen production as well as a huge amount of Fibroblasts all kicked into overdrive by the Nanites.
It was truly amazing. Angela copied the report, pasting it into her medical journal. This was the first time she'd been able to actually see why Bren was the way that he was.
She quickly typed up a thank you to Winston and sent it before looking at the clock. It was almost 8.
"Time for bed, meine leibe." She said.
"No!" He said, giggling and sprinting to hide behind the arm chair.
"Oh no. Where could my Bren possibly be?" Angela said, fake worry in her voice.
"I here!" He squealed, jumping out and running at his mother.
Angela scooped him up, "Oh I'm so glad I didn't loose meine Bren!"
Angela carried him to his room, sitting in the rocking chair to sing to him again, watching as his eyes slid closed, snuggled close to her. He really was perfect.
She wished she could test the most pressing of her theories, how Bren had almost two thirds of Jack's DNA. It should be impossible. Her theory was that once fertilized, some process in Jack's DNA had resequenced other parts into the changes that Jack had from the Super Soldier process.
But in order to test that theory she's not only have to harvest several of her eggs, she'd have to fertilize them under lab conditions, sampling for changes in the DNA as the cell divided.
But that was a pipe dream, she thought as she placed her son in his bed and went back to the living room to wait for Jack to come back.
Angela decided to curl up in her throw and watch some old movies. Browsing through the lists she came across Breakfast at Tiffany's. It had been ages since she'd seen it so she turned it on to while away time. She curled up on the couch and tried to stay awake for Jack, but she eventually succumbed and drifted off into oblivion.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Jack came through the door, practically dragging his rifle, so tired he just wanted to fall into bed. He'd tracked down the abandoned warehouse Xhuuya was using as a base. They had put up quite the fight, pulling their own guns on him. There had been over 20 of them inside and Jack was glad he'd only had to kill a couple of them, able to beat down the rest, restraining them, but not before catching a couple bullets himself. He'd put in a call to the police to come and clean up the mess, and hobbled his way home, a bullet still lodged in his shoulder blade and another in his hip.
He saw Angela, asleep on the couch and decided not to bother her yet, opting instead for a shower to clean away all the blood. Then he'd wake her to take a look at him.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Angela awoke to the sound of the bathroom door closing and the shower turning on. Knowing Jack must be home she got up and padded to the bedroom.
She spotted his jacket laying next to the bathroom door looking a little worse for wear. She picked it up to see the extent of the damage and gasped. There was a bullet hole in the left shoulder.
Angela dropped the jacket and ran over to the closet, grabbing her Caduceus and running into the bathroom. His clothes were in the laundry bin, covered in blood.
"Jack Morrison, how dare you not wake me up to look at your wounds! You got shot du dummer bastard!" She said.
He opened the shower curtain, "I didn't want to wake you, I figured I'd wash up then have you look at it babe." He said tiredly.
Her anger ebbed, walking up to the shower to inspect his shoulder, "You should know by now that if there's no exit wound it can't wait, mein schatz. I need to get the bullet out." She chastised.
"There's another in my hip." He said, turning to show her.
"Schmerzen in meinem arsch!" She muttered, crouching down to inspect that wound, "What happened?"
Jack turned off the water, stepping out gingerly, "I found Xhuuya's hide out. They're not a threat anymore."
"And that required you to take 2 bullets?" Angela asked with a glare, motioning him to the bed.
"There were a few more of them than I expected." Jack grumbled, laying down.
Angela retrieved her medical kit from the closet, pulling on her gloves and opening up a sterile mat and laying it on her nightstand to place her tools on. She pulled out sealed tools, laying them out on the paper.
"Alright, I'm sure you remember the drill. This is going to hurt." She told him, rubbing his hip with sterilization liquid.
Angela grabbed her tweezers with one hand and pressing the area with the other.
"I'm going to have to feel for the bullet. I can't feel it from the surface. It's too deep." She scowled.
Angela slowly pressed her finger into the hole, feeling around his flesh, finding a piece of metal.
"I've found a piece, but the bullet is in several pieces." She said, eyes zoned out as she ran purely on touch.
She used the tweezers, grasping the shard and pulling it out, Jack's entire body tensed through the pain.
"Alright, I've got the first piece." She said, trying to talk him through the procedure.
She pushed her finger back in, deeper this time, "I feel two more pieces. I think it's most of the bullet."
Jack bit down on his knuckles as the tweezers fished out the rest of the bullet, teeth cutting into his hand.
"Alright, I'm done with that one, meine geliebte." She soothed, wishing she had some sort of anesthetic on hand.
Angela climbed onto the bed to his shoulder, pressing on the area after sterilizing it, feeling for the bullet. This one she could feel, smaller caliber, sitting between his collar bone and shoulder blade.
"This one should be easier. It's in one piece." She told him, gently inserting the tweezers and quickly removing the bullet, "All done. Let me grab my staff."
She climbed off of him, grabbing her Caduceus that was laying on the floor next to the bed, training the healing beam on him and watching the flesh knit itself together.
"Thank you." He said, visibly relaxing as the pain eased and vanished.
Angela nodded, moving to clean up her tools and put everything away.
Jack stood, grabbing boxers and pajama pants from the drawers she'd given him for his things, climbing back into bed as Angela finished up, climbing into bed next to him.
"Next time tell me immediately, love." She said through a yawn.
"I'll be sure to do that, doctor." He joked.
Angela slapped his arm before cuddling into him and falling asleep, safe and warm.