"Hey, Angela! Guess who~o?" The only one who had the codes to her room and would make this sort of entrance, so an answer wasn't really necessary. Hana entered the room, finding the medic sitting at her desk covered in a slew of papers and sticky notes, and her computer running, the clearly audible fan indicating it was processing quite the workload.
"Wow, you're still working? You should take a break, I got this really cool movie that just came out we could watch."
Angela didn't answer, and in fact didn't acknowledge Hana's presence at all.
"Angela? Are you listening?"
"...I'm sorry, Hana. I still have a lot of work to do. I need to find a way to counteract the poison Talon used during our last mission, it's incredibly dangerous. We're honestly lucky they used a small amount, and in an area mostly populated by Omnics, which thankfully turned out to be immune to it. But if they set off a large amount in the middle of a crowded city, we're looking at tens of thousands dead within hours."
No kidding. This awfully dark and edgy 'Reaper' guy had cooked up some real nasty stuff there. Pharah had only breathed some of it for like a second and it had already been enough to send her into convulsions and breathlessness that would have killed her without Mercy right there to save her, and she was still in the infirmary 3 days later. And Zarya had somehow taken a splash of the liquid state against her arm, leading to extensive discoloration and burns that would most certainly leave a scar even after Mercy had treated it. And those had been trained soldiers and only brief exposure, three guesses what larger amounts of the stuff would do to the children and elderly in particular.
"And I can't let that happen." Mercy continued as if the task was hers alone; she'd probably been working on this ever since they got back from that mission and she'd finished treating everyone. "So I'm afraid I won't be very entertaining today, but feel free to keep me company anyways."
"Oh... All right." Angela did have a point there, and killing time here still beat killing time alone in her room. Hana dropped onto the couch and fired up her laptop to see if anyone interesting was streaming right now.
After a few more attempts at conversation that went about equally well, Hana ultimately gave up and they spent the rest of the evening in silence before she ended up falling asleep on the couch.
Hana woke up shivering, she'd totally forgotten to grab a blanket. But from the looks of it it already was morning, so there was no point trying to fall asleep again, may as well get a head start, early bird and all that.
Getting up with a yawn and stretching herself, she found Angela sitting at her desk again, just like the night before. ...Actually, almost exactly as the night before. As Hana approached her, Angela only briefly looked up before turning back to her work, but the quick look at her face pretty much confirmed Hana's suspicion.
"Angela, did you even sleep at all tonight?"
"There was no need. This research is more important."
"Come on, you even sound tired. A bit of rest would do you some good."
"Again. There is no need. I can keep going." Angela's voice took a slightly sharper tone Hana had only heard a few times before, and she backed off a little.
"Okay, okay. If you say so. Just wait here, I'll get some breakfast for us."
Once more Angela didn't reply, but Hana hurried off anyways, returning a little later and placing a small tray with some scrambled eggs, toast and a large mug of coffee on Angela's desk.
"There you go. Just the way you like it." Time permitting, the two would frequently eat together, so Hana had soon picked up on the doctor's preferences.
"...You better eat while it's still warm." She added a bit later when Angela made no move to even touch her food.
"That wasn't necessary, Hana. I have nutrient rations, those will suffice."
"Yeah, but you're not even eating those. Angela, please." Hana said in a pleading tone. "You honestly look awful. If you're not gonna sleep, at least make sure you're not starving. ...For me." She added after a short pause, and it finally seemed to have some effect.
"Alright, fine." With a long sigh Angela pushed two fingers against the bridge of her nose as if adjusting a pair of glasses; she would do that from time to time, even though Hana had never seen her wear glasses at all, and she didn't appear to need any either. "If that will get you off my back."
Hana pouted as Angela began hastily scarfing down her food. "I'm only looking out for you, you know."
"I can look out for myself just fine. And don't you have a mission to be on?"
Hana ignored the sting in Mercy's words. "Yeah, I need to get going. And I'll say it again, even if you're not gonna listen: You really should take a break." Angela briefly glared at her, even though the effect fell kinda flat thanks to her obviously tired expression. "Called it. Whatever, I'll be back in a few hours with some lunch. See you."
Once more Angela didn't answer.
"He~ey! Guess who's back? I brought some pi-" The pizza cartons hit the floor as Hana dropped them to rush to Angela's side, the medic's unconscious form slumped over her desk.
"Angela! Are you okay?" No answer, but the medic's breath was calm and regular, and it quickly got apparent she had fallen asleep from exhaustion literally in the middle of her work, her face smeared with bits of ink from the paper she'd been resting on and the note, a molecular structure of some sort, was mostly illegible – in a sharp contrast to Angela's normally very clean and neat handwriting.
"'Responsible grown-ups', my ass." With an exasperated sigh Hana considered her options. If she woke Angela now, the woman would most definitely insist on getting back to work immediately, but Hana couldn't really leave her like this either. But Angela was a fair bit taller and probably heavier than her, so Hana would have her dear trouble trying to move her to her bed on her own, especially without waking her.
After thinking back and forth a bit, Hana wound up having Athena call Winston, who didn't even need an explanation at the scene and effortlessly picked up Angela, gently carrying her into the bedroom. Hana quickly followed him, noting this was actually the first time she'd entered Angela's bedroom; but it was honestly pretty unremarkable, little more than some more bookshelves, a large wardrobe and a messy bed.
Hana quickly moved the blanket to the side for Winston to put Angela onto her bed, then pulled it back over her, her hand briefly lingering against the medic's cheek before she turned to leave the room, closing the door behind her.
"Don't worry, Doktor Ziegler is going to be fine." Winston greeted Hana, her concern apparently written on her face. "She does this from time to time, and when she gets like this there's no real stopping her. But she'll be alright."
Hana wanted to protest that that wasn't really much of a consolation, but there'd be little point in discussing this with Winston. "If you say so. I'm gonna stay here anyways." And she was gonna stop Angela if she had to, or at the very least make sure she got enough sleep.
"Very well." Winston just said with a doubtful expression, then headed towards the door. "See you later, DVa."
"Yeah. Later." Lazing on the couch Hana turned on her laptop and fired up a game, waiting what Angela was going to do when she woke up.
Angela got up barely 3 hours later, and Hana looked up as she entered the living room. Somehow the doctor looked even worse than she had before, almost as pale as death itself. Yet she was headed for her desk once more, not even acknowledging Hana until the girl planted herself right in her way.
"Stop it right there. Just where do you think you're going like this?"
"Hana, now is not the time. I need to get back to my research. It looks like Gabriel specifically designed the molecular structure so as to obfuscate its actual reaction mechanism, but I think I'm on to something."
"What you need is more rest."
"Don't be silly, Hana."
"I'm not being silly!" Hana frowned. "I'm seriously worried about you! You look horrible."
"There's no need to. I'm fine."
"You're clearly not. You can hardly stand!" Angela didn't answer and pushed past Hana with an annoyed tsk, stopping only when the teen grabbed her shoulder.
"Hana!" she snapped, spinning around "What are you doing?"
But Hana wasn't going to be intimidated this time. "You can't keep working like this, you need to take a break."
"I can and will keep working like this, and I don't need a break."
"You do! You're ruining yourself!"
"So what? I have to finish this research, for the sake of everyone!"
"No you don't!" Hana noticed both of them were steadily rising in volume, and tried to lower her voice "You gotta think of yourself too."
"I don't. This exact thing is what I joined Overwatch for. To dedicate my life to helping others."
"Well, yeah, so did I. So did everyone here. But if we destroy ourselves in the process, then what good are we?"
"You don't understand! I'm the only one who can do this!"
"No, you don't understand!" By now Angela was practically shouting, and Hana easily kept up with her. "If that Reaper guy walked in through this door right now, carrying a nice, large bucket with his whatever poison, what would you do?"
"I'd stop him!"
"You wouldn't!" Hana shoved Angela with both hands and the medic took a step backwards. "You can't even stop me!"
"Hana, quit it!"
"No!" She pushed Angela again "Aren't you seeing it? You can't go on like this, you have to rest! Please..." Hana forced herself to calm down, shouting wasn't gonna achieve anything. "If not for you, then- then for the people you care about."
"Why are we even arguing about this?!" Angela angrily brushed Hana's arms away. "I know I said you're always welcome here, but I will not have you interfere with my work. So if that's all you little child want to do right now, you may as well get out!"
Ouch. Hana flinched at Mercy's outburst, suddenly at the verge of tearing up, the words hitting her much deeper than she cared to admit. But the more conditioned, player, part of her kicked in and she kept her pokerface; if anything, this showed DVa she could not back down now.
"No, you're not getting it! What good are you if you overwork yourself until you collapse and end up in hospital yourself?"
"You're being silly, Hana." Angela protested "I can keep myself going, I know my limits."
"You clearly don't! What do you think is gonna happen if you continue like this? What are the rest of us gonna do without you there to patch us up next time we get shot at?!" Angela didn't answer, and it looked like Hana had hit a bit of a sore spot, but she mercilessly continued. "Imagine this, doc. Lena's cute cheery face. Except it's covered in blood and she's crying, because she has three bullets in her lungs, and there's no way she's gonna make it to the hospital in time!"
Angela recoiled as if she'd been struck and Hana regretted the words as soon as she said them. Shit. There Hana had gone again, speaking before she fully thought about the scope of her words.
And it wasn't like she didn't know Angela had lost people close to her before. Yet Hana had brought up the subject anyways, because she'd – rightfully – guessed it would lower her defenses. Because that's what you had to do to win. Except, this wasn't some stupid childish video game where she could trash-talk her opponent into tripping up, this was real life, and saying those sort of things to someone else's face lead to... this.
Angela was obviously struggling to keep her composure, looking as if she was about to start crying, and suddenly so was Hana, and just as Angela was about to say something she pre-empted her "Ohmygod, Imsorryangela, Ishouldnthavesaidthat, sosorry, please-" "Hana," The medic cut her off with a weary voice. "I-"
However her reply fell short as a sudden wave of exhaustion and dizziness hit her and Angela staggered before falling forward, right towards Hana. Of course the girl tried to catch her, but the difference in height and weight was too big, and she was forced to take a step back and still was about to fall over; all she could do was direct their fall to the side so they ended up landing on the couch instead, Hana somehow sitting more or less normally, but Angela half lying, her head resting in Hana's lap and her eyes closed.
"Angela, are you okay? I'm really sorry for what I just said and that was totally uncalled for and I'm sorry, Imsosorry, pleasedonthateme-" "Hana." Hana kept working herself up, talking faster and faster, and again it took but a single word from Angela to stop her.
By all rights Angela should have been angry at Hana for all of this, but she didn't find it in her; if anything, she was thankful. Hana had been pretty ruthless, but in fact she had had a valid point; and besides, right now Hana was actually quite comfortable, and she smelled kind of nice, like strawberries or something, and Angela was really tired, so "Hana... I think I'm... going to lay down for a bit."
"O-okay..." The relief was clearly audible in the girl's voice, as if she'd been expecting to be yelled at or worse, but she very quickly bounced back to normal again. "Let's get you to bed, then."
Right, Angela probably should get to bed, but she found she was quite content the way she was right now. "Come on. You can't sleep like this." She totally could. "Come on." Hana kept nudging her shoulder, so after a few more moments Angela mumbled something incoherent before sitting up with a groan.
Hana quickly helped Angela up and took her arm to guide her to her bedroom. While Hana straightened out the messy bed a little, Angela searched for her nightwear, then started taking off her trousers and Hana quickly turned away, waiting for her to finish changing. When Hana turned around after a good few seconds, Angela was wearing an oversized white t-shirt with a big red cross on it and – judging from the discarded clothes on the floor – underpants. Ooh, a black bra, Hana wondered if that also meant Angela also wore black panties- now was really not the time, perish the thought.
"G-good night, Angela." Hana quickly said, ushering Angela towards her bed – when all of a sudden the taller woman wrapped both arms around Hana, drawing her into a hug. "Good night, Hana. And thank you for setting my head straight."
Hana reflexively returned the hug, in the process distinctly noticing Angela wasn't wearing anything under that – rather flimsy – t-shirt, and even now she bore a slight smell of disinfectant, along with another diffuse, nonetheless almost enticing scent.
"Um..." Hana stumbled for words "You're... welcome? Thank you for listening to me."
Their embrace lingered for several seconds until Hana was afraid Angela might fall asleep like this, so she gently pulled back. "Come on, now go to bed." "Mh." Angela laid into the bed and Hana draped the blanket over her, brushing a hand through her hair. "Sleep well, Angela. Get some rest. Or a whole lot of rest, really."
Smiling at Angela Hana turned around to leave, but just as she turned off the light, the medic's bleary voice made her pause. "Hana?"
"Hm?"
"You know, you probably should be here when I wake up, becau-" Angela was interrupted by a yawn, then continued "because I can't give any guarantees what I might do without a voice of reason keeping me in check."
"Heh." Angela probably couldn't see Hana's smile, but it was practically audible in her voice. "You got it, doc."
AN: I'm not sure if there is an exact real life equivalent to the poison I'm describing here (and if/how you would counteract it), but given some of the nasty stuff I know exists, it doesn't seem to far-fetched.
A little more drama this time, as well as some call backs to stuff brought up before (and one subtle detail that most readers won't even notice because they already know, but to Hana would have been some huge foreshadowing had she caught it). As before, with thanks to /u/'s anons for both the ideas for this fic and collective proofreading.
Peace out
