"He~ey, doc! DVa's here!" DVa loudly announced her presence stepping into the doctor's office, and while Angela didn't even look up at the girl's entrance a brief smile flickered around her lips as she finished the report before turning to her patient.
"There you are, Hana. You took your time, the squad returned over an hour ago."
"Well, yeah." Hana shrugged "But I didn't have anything serious, so I thought I'd let everyone else get checked up first and clean MEKA a bit. But then a joint had locked up and that took a while longer to fix, and, yeah..."
"I see." Out of habit Angela pushed two fingers against the bridge of her nose, even though she'd corrected – and optimized – her eyesight and gotten rid of her glasses years ago. "But you should be putting your health first, not your mech's. Replacing nuts and bolts is easy, human beings are significantly harder."
"Oh, I'll be fine. It's just some scratches. And besides, I know I can always count on you to be there and patch me up, right?" Hana grinned and Angela just sighed.
"Of course. But I'd prefer you not getting hurt in the first place." Because even I am not always enough to save everyone.
Angela's face darkened for a moment, but DVa missed it and continued. "You should have seen me out there, I was kicking all kinds of ass. Did you watch my stream?" Angela shook her head and Hana frowned. "What? Why not?"
Because watching Hana and the others out there fighting on TV but unable to do anything would just have made Angela needlessly antsy. "Sorry, Liebes, I was just completely swamped with work. But how about we watch the recording some time later this evening when I'm done with all the paperwork? You could give exclusive live commentary."
Hana broke into a wide smile. "That sounds like a plan. Then-" "But first we're gonna give you a full checkup." Angela interjected "Sit onto the exam table, please."
Hana complied and Angela noticed the pilot had a slight limp on her left side, a visible blood stain on her right arm, a thin cut on her chin, and small specks of dirt all over her suit. "Now, where does it hurt?"
"Well, I got this one on my-" "Don't touch it, you'll get it dirty." Hana's finger paused just short of the cut on her chin. "Right. Then there's this scrape or whatever," She raised her right arm, displaying the bloodied and torn suit over the outside of her forearm "and I think I twisted my ankle or something." Hana gingerly moved around her left foot and winced.
"Don't do that." Angela admonished her "On a scale of 1 to 10, how much do all of these hurt?"
"I dunno... The chin is like a 2 at most, the arm a 3 maybe, and my foot a 4... 5... let's say 4. And together that adds up to a 9, so clearly I'm in massive pain, doctor." Hana laughed and Angela found herself smiling too.
"Clearly. I'll need you to take off your suit so I can properly examine your injuries."
"'Kay." Hana opened the zipper at the back of her suit, pulling it over her shoulders before loosening the cuffs on around her wrists and extricating her arms from the sleeves, then freeing her upper body – and making it apparent she wasn't wearing a bra of any sort, revealing firm, youthful breasts with small pink- Angela felt her cheeks flush a little and quickly looked away. "A-aren't you wearing anything underneath that suit?"
"Of course not." From the corner of her eye Angela saw Hana pause undressing and cover her chest with her arms, but she still kept her gaze trained on the wall right next to her. "That suit is really tight, you know." Yeah, Angela hadn't been able to help but notice that before. "Any kind of bra I tried was just too uncomfortable. And besides, it helps get cleaner biometry readings, so MEKA pilots were actually encouraged to go without underwear." "Right." That was the reason for sure. And not at all how very attractive-
Angela interrupted that train of thought and looked through the room, searching and finding a hospital gown designed to preserve the patient's – and doctor's – modesty, and pushing it towards Hana while still pointedly looking to the side. "Put this on, then."
Hana took the gown with a smirk "Come on, doc. I'm sure you've seen plenty of patients naked before."
"Y-yes, but..." Komm schon, Ziegler, don't get so flustered over this. "It's not really necessary for a check-up, especially since your injuries are limited to the head and extremities."
"I might have hurt my chest or something too." Hana said with a grin, then put the gown next to her and stood up to continue undressing, and Angela quickly turned away, picking up the last injury report on her clipboard to... double-check, right, that was it, make sure everything was in order.
Apparently Hana wasn't completely going commando, as she was wearing pink panties that- don't look there. ...Okay, date and time... Patient... Symptoms... It looked like Hana was having a little difficulty getting the suit off her left foot, so the ankle probably was indeed sprained, but now she did it and was practically nude safe for- ...Diagnosis... Treatment... Hang on, had she actually prescribed that dosage? Angela could have sworn she'd given Zarya the 500mg in light of her body mass. ...She'd just have to call her later and check.
"Alright, I'm done." Angela turned around to see Hana sitting on the exam table, the baggy, oversized gown pretty much completely hiding her – admittedly nice – figure, and she was still smirking.
"What's so funny?"
"Oh, nothing."
With a small sigh Angela adjusted her imaginary glasses, then knelt down to examine what was probably Hana's worst injury.
"Does that hurt?"
"No... No... Yes, ow."
"Sorry."
That, combined with the bruising on the outside of her foot was painting a pretty clear picture, but Angela started palpating the ankle anyways, just to be thorough. Obviously it was a little swollen and slightly warm, but she didn't find any symptoms of a fracture, and also couldn't help but notice how Hana's pale skin was perfectly smooth under her fingers-
Angela quickly stood up and turned around to start rummaging through a cupboard, producing a neatly labeled jar. "You have a grade 1 inversion sprain of your ankle." She explained as she opened the jar, letting out the familiar smell of ointment. "It's nothing major, but I'll put something on it to help with the healing, to get you back in perfect shape quicker."
"'Kay, thanks."
As Angela applied a bit of the ointment and spread it over Hana's ankle, the girl twitched, almost bringing Angela off balance. "Hold still."
"It's cold."
"I'll give you a lollipop when we're done, okay?" Hana pouted a little, but she tried her best to keep still, and when Angela took more of the ointment, she spread it between her fingers first to warm it up a bit.
"There you go." Angela got up, wiping her hands on a towel and putting the jar back. "Like I said, it's nothing serious, you should be fine within a day or two. You can cool the ankle to reduce the swelling, but no more than 20 minutes every hour. And you should keep moving it at least a little, but do try to avoid putting any major strain on it for a bit, especially no running, jumping and so on."
"Got it." Hana nodded and Angela put on sterile gloves before moving on to the wound on the pilot's arm.
"That's from a fall, right?"
"Yeah, same one I twisted my ankle too."
Angela nodded. "I'll have to clean and disinfect the wound, then bandage it."
"Sounds about right. But can't you just use your magical healing beam to fix me in like 2 seconds?"
"It's not magic." Angela said as she prepared a bowl and a wet cloth. "The Caduceus staff is a highly sophisticated emergency healing device utilizing state-of-the-art nanobiology to-" "Like I said, magic."
Angela let out a sigh and lightly shook her head. "It requires a great deal of maintenance and needs a lot of energy and resources, and I also believe in the long run it's still better to leave as much as possible to the body's natural healing, so the Caduceus is not to be wasted on minor injuries."
"You just could've said 'it's too expensive', you know."
"...Hold still." Angela carefully dabbed Hana's injury and then dried it off, taking a closer look at the abrasion. It was about 5 centimeters long and 2 at its widest, but not particularly deep, and otherwise very clean.
"Looking good. ...Well as good as an abrasion can look anyways." Angela soaked a cotton swab with disinfectant, releasing the familiar sharp smell. It was funny, she mused, how even after some two centuries of medical advances, if you wanted a bunch of bacteria dead, plain old alcohol was still one of the easiest yet most effective ways to go.
"This may sting a little." It was almost cute how Hana noticeably tensed as she braced herself. Yet just a short moment after the swab touched her arm, she pulled back with a yelp. "Ow!"
"Hang in there." Angela said in a soothing tone "It's going to be over soon." After a second's deliberation she placed her left hand on top of Hana's, and when she continued, even though Hana winced and drew in a sharp breath, she managed to hold still.
"Aaand done." Angela withdrew the swab, dabbing off any residue with a cloth, and Hana visibly relaxed. "Thank you." The girl sounded almost vulnerable just now, like that one night Angela had met her wandering the science tract after a bad dream.
Then again, a lot of people were unusually sensitive in the doctor's office. As far as Angela could tell it was mostly the adrenaline of whatever injury they'd suffered wearing off, but there also seemed to be a mental aspect, something about actually feeling more helpless in the hands of a doctor and-
"Um, doc? Bandage?" Angela suddenly realized she had been distracted for several seconds – her hand resting on Hana's all the while. She hastily pulled away and turned around to get a bandage, dressing and another antiseptic, then routinely and swiftly covered the wound with a generous amount of the brown iodine ointment, adjusted the dressing and fastened the bandage over it.
"How is it?" Angela asked after she'd finished and Hana experimentally flexed and twisted her arm before nodding. "Everything's fine."
"That's good. You can change the dressing once a day, and at the latest once a complete scab has formed just leave the wound open. And if the pain gets worse or the wound turns yellow or red around the edges, come to me ASAP."
"Can I just come to you anyways to get the dressing changed? I'm right-handed, so it's gonna be a real pain to do on my own."
A valid point. And it wasn't like she'd mind seeing Hana some more at all. "Of course."
"Now, lastly..." Angela replaced her gloves with a fresh pair. "Can you turn your head that way a little? ...Perfect" She examined Hana's chin, finding that the injury was rather small and not very deep, barely worth being called a cut. "I'll just put a band-aid on this one for a day or two to keep it clean, after that it's going to be fine."
"Mh." Hana nodded as Angela cut off a strip of the right size and leaned forward to put it on, and suddenly her face was rather close to Hana's To properly put on the band-aid, but her gaze strayed from the girl's chin up her well-formed cheeks, across the whisker-shaped war paint, before gravitating further up and Angela was looking right into Hana's large, beautiful, brown eyes, almost losing herself in the-
"Doc? Are you okay? You're spacing out again." Hana's voice snapped Angela out of her reverie and she realized she must have been staring at Hana for way too long, and immediately pulled back, blinking and shaking her head. "Did you not get enough sleep again?"
"Um, yeah. That's probably it. Sorry." Angela's mind raced for something to say to avoid the awkward silence that threatened to build, before landing on the next best thing. "You'll probably keep a small scar on your chin from this. Unless you want me to use the dermal regenerator to-"
"It's gonna be fine." DVa shrugged "A small scar like that doesn't matter, it's not like it'd detract from my beautiful face in the slightest, right?"
"Um, right." Almost more like the opposite, probably. It would be little more than a thin white line, hardly even noticeable on Hana's pale skin, and do little more than create a rather appealing highlight... Stay on topic, Ziegler. "Do you have any other complaints?"
"Nope, all fine."
"Good, you're free to go, then." Angela allowed herself to shift out of doctor mode again. "I'm just gonna finish off this batch of reports and call it a day. Then I'll catch up with you and we can watch the recording of your stream."
"Looking forward to it." Hana just kept the gown on, folding her damaged suit under her arm and turned to leave. "Oh right, one more thing." She paused just inside the door. "You know, Angela, you shouldn't overwork yourself too much. It's not healthy."
Where did that come come from all of a sudden? Hana sounded genuinely concerned. "Don't worry, it's just a few more sheets and I'm done for today."
"Alright." Hana turned around once more, waving over her shoulder. "Be sure to take some breaks every now and then! See you!"
Hana left the room and Angela stood up to close the door behind her, then dropped against it with a long sigh. Gott, she had been so unprofessional just now.
Not only were feelings- no, just attraction, towards patients – she'd easily come to terms with the realization this included only females years ago – never a good thing, but then for it to be someone as young as Hana. This was probably illegal. ...Actually, the rational part of her mind noticed, Hana was 19, so all in her own country, Angela's country and the country they were in right now, she was well over the age of consent and why did she even know that?
Lena would probably tell her she just 'needed to get laid', but Angela had been fine without for years, she just didn't have the time for this, nor the need. This just now had only been the result of too much work and too little sleep.
Although 'too much work and too little sleep' had been more or less her default state in the last few weeks, ever since Winston had initiated the Recall. But there were still people out there that needed help, she could rest when her work was done. But knowing human nature, there probably would always be those in need, the lost and broken, so if her work would never be done, so be it.
Hana had been far from the first person to tell Angela she should slow down and rest some time, but for some reason part of her was inclined to listen to the girl more than anyone else. Well, she already was going to spend the evening watching footage of her mission together with Hana, so that counted, right?
Also los. Get these reports done. Angela picked up her clipboard and sat down at the desk to review the injuries the squad had sustained during today's mission. Thankfully there hadn't been anything major, just the usual small fare, with the biggest injury going to Zarya, who seemed to take her damaged patella much less hard than the fact she wasn't to do any weightlifting for a week. Speaking of which... Angela got out her cellphone and dialed the woman's number.
"Privjet, Aleksandra, it's Doktor Ziegler. ...Njet. You cannot start lifting again. ...Technically bench pressing is allowed. ...That's not why I called you. It's about those painkillers I prescribed you..."
So, at 100 μg/ml the activity was... Verdammt. Angela rested her head in her hands with a frustrated sigh. It was pointless. She had finished and filed the injury reports very quickly, so she'd decided to go through a batch of data from her last experiment before looking for Hana, but she just couldn't focus, all the readings seemingly dissolving into meaninglessness.
Her thoughts kept wandering all over the place, but more often than not back to Hana, and so after a few more minutes of blankly staring at the wall of numbers in front of her, Angela gave up, putting the sheets into her clipboard for later review, taking off her coat and leaving the office.
Seeing as work was out of the question for now, Angela could have returned to her room and maybe rest a little before meeting up with Hana, but instead she started wandering the corridors, every few moments looking at her clipboard but not seeing it.
The base felt almost deserted, its expansive rooms only harboring a scant few people. ...There were still so few of them. Back then, Overwatch had comprised hundreds of fighters, now they were reduced to a mere handful of valiants, standing against a situation worse than ever before. So many hadn't answered the call a second time, so many lost to time. Dead, given up, retired, disappeared, fallen from grace...
Lost in thought, Angela didn't particularly pay attention to where her feet were carrying her, only pausing as she noticed the tasty smell and the low sizzling sound telling her she'd wound up in front of the base's communal kitchen and someone was making dinner right now. She'd most likely be able get them to share if she joined in to help a bit or promised to do the dishes, but there really was no need, and she wasn't that hungry either.
Angela was about to leave when she heard a familiar voice over the noise, singing. "Fill my heart with song, and let me sing forever more. You are all I long for all I worship and adore."
After a hesitating for just a split second, Angela entered the kitchen. "Hana, are you there?"
"...In other words, I love you. Hey, Angela." Hana was standing in front of the stove, now wearing a loose white and pink t-shirt and pink shorts, and working on a large frying pan, just now she poured a small pile of chopped vegetables off a cutting board into it.
"I didn't knew you could cook." Angela had not pegged Hana as the type of person to bother with cooking at all – which she had to admit might have been stereotyping based on her rather spotty conception of 'gamers'.
"Well, I'll have you know I'm more than just a pretty face, gaming queen and actress." Hana's half-ironic half-legitimately smug expression was almost audible.
Angela let out a brief chuckle. "Of course." As Hana continued, adding small pieces of meat, then thoroughly mixing everything, Angela's gaze started to wander, lingering on Hana's pale, well-shaped thighs, her short shorts leaving little to the imagination, while also being just tight enough to nicely show off the girl's firm behind.
Nicht schon wieder. Angela looked away, trying to distract herself by saying pretty much the first thing that came to mind. "I wish I knew how to cook, I actually never learned." Well, she was able to pull of noodles, frying meat, scrambled eggs and microwaving things, and during her student years, that had sufficed. "If anyone, it's usually Fareeha who does the cooking here."
Hana shrugged. "It's really not that hard, think of it as a video game." This was exactly the kind of thing she'd say. "It's all about the timing."
"I'm not really good at video games either." As a child she just had never been interested, and later on there simply wasn't the time.
"Well, then I can teach you. We'd start with something simple." It was ambiguous, perhaps intentionally so, if Hana was talking about cooking or video games now, however the answer had to be the same either way.
"I'm sorry, I don't think I'm going to have that sort of free time any time soon. But thanks for the offer."
For a brief moment Hana's face fell into a frown as she turned around, brandishing two steaming plates, but she quickly bounced back. "Ah, that's alright, then. But surely you got time for dinner at least?"
Both plates were generously filled and there was still some left in the pan, so it was clear Hana hadn't just cooked for herself. But Angela got by just fine with her nutrient packs, the compact rations containing everything she needed to live, at a tenth of the work; Hana really shouldn't have gone through the trouble. However just as she was about to open her mouth, Angela's stomach audibly growled, reminding her that, yes, she should eat something.
Angela let out a small sigh. "I suppose now that I'm here, might as well."
"Great." Hana beamed at her, then almost shoved Angela into the closest chair. "Sit down, I'll grab something to drink."
Hana returned with two glasses and some juice – Angela had half been expecting Mountain Dew or some other of these awfully sweet, artificial energy drinks – and they began eating. The food was simple enough in principle, fried rice with a bunch of vegetables, egg and meat in it, but the end result was quite tasty, and Angela was in fact pretty hungry, so she ended up completely cleaning her plate rather quickly and getting seconds not only once, but twice, while Hana leisurely finished her one helping, then just waited for Angela, all the while wearing a content smile.
After Angela finally finished, she helped Hana clean up the kitchen a bit, before they returned to her room to watch the replay of Hana's stream. And as the MEKA pilot almost dragged her along, eager to show off her battle skills on tv, Angela had to admit to herself that Hana's cooking had been significantly better than her nutrient packs.
AN: I apologize if parts of Angela's treatment are incorrect or not following proper procedure, but I don't work in an ER, and have never even been to one (which is funny considering the amount of injuries I would amass when I was younger), any actual EMTs or physicians feel free to correct any mistakes I may have made. Originally I had Hana singing 'Cruel Angel's Thesis', but this song turned out to fit the atmosphere of the scene a lot better. With thanks to the anons that beta'd this to catch a few more mistakes and suggested changing the song.
