Overwatch hadn't been back together long when duty called for the first time in a long time.
Angela had been spending her day in the old medbay, filing her research papers and setting up her own technology when Athena had summoned everyone to the conference room for an emergency team meeting. She had considered carrying on with her own work, as the one condition she had for re-joining was that she wasn't summoned for as many missions, but she knew she should show commitment, so stopped what she was doing and made her way to the place of her summons.
Everyone was in the room by the time she got there, Winston not even waiting for her to sit down before he began filling everyone in on the situation. "As you all know, I initiated the recall when a mercenary known as Reaper attacked this base and tried to steal information regarding the whereabouts of Overwatch agents such as yourselves." The scientist gestured towards the projection on the screen, which currently showed the masked man before pressing a button on the remote on the table, causing the image to switch to surveillance images from a few days ago in the reclamation area, a cloaked, black figure and curious purple one visible on them. "It appears he has not left Gibraltar, and that Widowmaker is with him. I believe an attack is imminent and that we should prepare.".
Angela semi-listened to the gorilla's proposed plan of attack while the rest of her mind focused on the images. She was certain she had seen Reaper before- while she was providing medical aid in the Middle East, but he had left before she had managed to get a good look at him. As for his companion…she still felt more than a little guilty for what happened to Amélie and Gérard. She didn't believe the whole tripe that she was always a double agent for Talon, even if everyone else seemed to.
She didn't have the chance to ponder the images for much longer, though, as Winston changed them to show records of aircrafts flying in and out of the country, with two dropships that didn't belong to any known benevolent forces entering and exiting Gibraltar airspace. The identified jets having dropped off the radar for a brief period whilst they were somewhere over the Nature Reserve.
"Now I don't believe Talon would fly Reaper and Widowmaker on different jets, so if they are to attack the base, there will be reinforcements on their side. As long as we stick to the plan, we should be able to repel any attacks. Any questions?" Everyone looked at everyone else, shaking their heads as they wracked their brains. "Understood, dismissed.".
Angela was making her way out of the room when she felt someone's hand on her shoulder. She jolted at the sudden contact and spun around, her blue eyes immediately glancing up and meeting brown ones. "Fareeha! You startled me!"
Fareeha's eyes widened as she took a step back, Angela feeling her face flushing from how close they were. "I'm sorry, Angela. I didn't mean to. I was just going to ask if you were okay. You seemed a little spaced out.".
Angela regarded Fareeha for a moment, taking in her features. The colour of her skin, her eyes, the tattoo just below the right one, her plump lips. She truly was gorgeous.
"Angela?"
The doctor felt her face grow infinitely hotter when she realised she'd left it too long before she responded to Fareeha, quickly stumbling over her own words to try and make the situation slightly less awkward. "O-Oh no, I'm fine. Just thinking about the mission. We're guarding the disused area of the base, yes? I should go and get ready.". In her haste to try and move away from Fareeha, she managed to trip over her own feet and only just steadied herself before she ended up face-first on the floor.
She rushed back to her quarters following the awkward encounter and began to put on her Valkyrie suit, focusing on fastening the clasps of the armour so that her mind didn't dwell on the effect her former Captain's daughter had on her.
Angela had always been certain in her sexuality. She liked men and women, and had dated her fair share of both genders, but there was not a single person who made her feel quite as hopeless as Fareeha did. Still, she knew dwelling on those types of thoughts were a waste of time. The woman probably didn't share the same preferences, and even if she did, there was no guarantee that she requited the feelings. She had planned on subtly hinting at her attraction, but given her recent display, she would have been just as well to buy a 50 foot billboard and plaster a poster declaring her feelings for the Egyptian on it.
"Gottverdammt, Angela. You useless, gay idiot." She berated herself as she removed her wings from the protective case and attempted to place them on ports on her back, failing a few times before the right one clicked in to place, the left one following soon after. She flexed them to ease some of the stiffness away before she grabbed her staff and made her way to Operations.
When she arrived, the only other people present were Fareeha and Winston.
The Egyptian was the first person to see her walk into the room; Winston busy preparing his Tesla cannon on the other side of the room. "Mercy." She nodded at her to acknowledge her.
She immediately picked up on the use of her callsign, rather than her name. She'd been on more than enough missions to know that for the duration, she was no longer Angela Ziegler, but Mercy- The Valkyrie suit wearing field medic who worked hard to protect and save lives. She knew the same would be true for everyone on the defence; Their real names no longer meant anything. They were now their callsigns, each with their own duties to fulfil.
With that in mind, Mercy greeted her teammate. "Hello, Pharah.".
Winston finally looked up from his weapon to greet her as well, picking up barrier generators and placing them in the hidden compartments within his armour. Mercy watched as he moved up to the upper floor in his quarters, watching out for any indication of movement outside. He came down after a few moments, just in time for Tracer, Reinhardt and Torbjörn to come walking into the room, all ready with their own weapons.
They ran through the plan one last time. Torbjörn was to set up his turret in the alcove in the underpass between the server room and Operations while Reinhardt guarded it and provided a safe refuge for Mercy when she wasn't running around healing the others. Tracer and Winston were to try to funnel the Talon troops towards the turret, while Pharah was to take out anyone who thought they could take an alternate path.
They knew it was risky letting Talon have a free walk this far into the base, but with only six of them, this was the best tactic the could come up with, especially with Reaper and Widowmaker bound to turn up. Besides, it still kept the part of the base embedded into the cliffside safe.
Once everything felt settled, they went and set up their defences and waited for the inevitable attack.
They didn't have to wait for long.
Tens of Talon foot soldiers stormed the base at once, and they hadn't even managed to take out a fifth of them when another wave arrived, battering the defences that they had set up. It was astounding just how many there were.
The turret was doing its job and the bodies piled up as Talon fed themselves to it, but as their numbers built, the turret was becoming significantly less efficient. Mercy saw Winston move towards the clearing by Operations, trying to hold off the Talon forces that used their fallen comrades as a way to block the fire from the turret and the occasional hammer swing from Reinhardt so that they could get by.
"Mercy, I need your help! I'm near the barracks!" Tracer's voice came through the earpiece. She sounded breathless and as though she was in pain. Reinhardt moved out to provide Mercy with cover so that she could run across to the stairwell and get to the upper level. Tracer couldn't have needed help at a better moment, as Talon seemed to be running out of agents as no more could be seen behind the group already headed down the ramp.
She was just about to make her way through the doorway to the barracks when a reddish-purple smoke built up in front of her, Reaper's form emerging as the haze cleared. He aimed his hellfire shotguns straight for Mercy's head. She barely had time to duck under his arm and run through the doorway before he fired them.
She glanced down towards the barracks, and assumed that Tracer must've been inside. She had to get there to help her, but when she heard Reaper's heavy footsteps behind her she knew she couldn't make a straight run for it. Instead, she made to sprint to the entrance, then quickly turned back on herself and threw herself into Reaper's midriff, causing him to fall backwards.
She used the opening to dash towards the other entrance to the barracks, but was stopped in her tracks when a loud gunshot pierced the air, the concrete chipping at her feet where the bullet impacted the ground. Mercy glanced up and saw Widowmaker lining her up in her scope, ready to fire if she tried to move forward.
As if to make the situation infinitely worse than it already was, another wave of Talon members forced their way through the doorway that led to the satellite array.
Between them, Reaper and Widowmaker, there was nowhere she could run, and without any friendly's in her line of sight, there was nowhere she could fly to either.
"Mercy!" The swiss woman looked up and caught a glimpse of blue armour in the air. Pharah.
She didn't waste a second in tethering her staff to the woman, allowing her to fly up into the air next to her, her heart pounding in her chest when a barrage of gunfire from the numerous Talon forces filled the air, narrowly missing her.
Pharah began to fire at the foot soldiers, attempting to reduce the flow heading towards the choke point. Mercy tried her best to stay behind Pharah, pressing a switch on the Caduceus Staff so that instead of a yellow beam flowing into Pharah, a blue beam flowed towards her instead.
"What did you do? I feel amazing!" Pharah shouted over the sound of her rockets colliding with the talon soldiers.
"The nanotechnology in the staff can provide a temporary boost to people and technology." Mercy explained, gliding gracefully in the air to avoid the gunfire while still staying close to her saviour. She kept an eye on the two higher up Talon members and pointed them out to Pharah, who used a concussive blast to send Widowmaker falling to the ground, in turn causing several foot soldiers to drop as the French woman fell on top of them.
Reaper moved towards the fallen sniper, but Mercy stopped Pharah before she had the chance to pick them both off. "Tracer's in the barracks. I think she's hurt. Can you cover me while I run in there?"
Pharah turned to look at her and nodded, moving herself closer to the ground so that Mercy could make a run for it. To her surprise, Pharah followed close behind her, having one hand poised to grab her arm and pull her into the air again if she had to. The younger woman had said something as they ran through the doorway, but Mercy couldn't hear her properly over the sound of her own pulse in her ears.
When they reached the bottom of the stairs, they saw the brit slumped over in the corner, the chronal accelerator's light non-existent. There was a trail of blood from the entrance on the other side to the puddle that Tracer was currently in.
Mercy felt her heart drop through the floor as she ran over, calling out Tracer's name. Oh god I was too late and she's dead and I can't save her. Her mind began to spin out in panic before it completely stopped functioning for a second when the injured woman looked up.
"Doc? Oh, thank god. I thought you Talon." Her features were twisted with pain, and she moved her hands to push down over her left leg.
Mercy let out a sigh of relief as she ran over and knelt beside her; Pharah joined her a second later, clearly having faith that no one was going to follow them. Mercy applied pressure to the gunshot wound on Tracer's leg with one hand, while trying to ready her staff with the other.
An armoured, blue hand gently pushed her hand off the injury before applying pressure to the wound, Pharah's other hand pressing atop the first one to increase the pressure on the injury. "I've got it." She said, keeping her eyes on her hands. "You focus on healing it.".
Mercy looked at Pharah and nodded, before grabbing her staff with both hands and readying it for healing the injury. With the press of a button, the blood flow stopped and the wound closed, Tracer letting out a sigh of relief. "Can't believe playing dead worked. Idiots didn't even check.".
Mercy smiled at her, knowing that it did nothing to hide the concern in her eyes. Tracer was still sat in a sizable puddle of blood, and while her technology could heal wounds, it couldn't spontaneously create more of the vital fluid. "Stay here until it's safe. Hide under a bunk if you have to."
Tracer did her signature salute before she crawled off to the side, doing as Mercy had suggested and sliding under one of the beds. Once she was satisfied with how Tracer had hidden herself, Mercy gestured for Pharah to follow her back to the main area.
The first thing they noticed upon exiting the barracks was that the troops had left, including Reaper and Widowmaker, but gunfire could still be heard towards Operations. They wasted no time in heading there, Mercy damage boosting Pharah so that when they arrived, they could wreak havoc on the remaining Talon forces.
There were at least 30 members in the area near Operations, with an additional five having Reinhardt, Torbjorn and Winston pinned down against a rugged piece of rock beside the entrance, leaving a grand total of 35 members.
They didn't last long after Mercy and Pharah got there. Most of them bugged out the moment they heard a rocket collide with a comrade; the rest weren't so lucky, as they became little more than a corpse and/or scorch mark on the ground.
Once the area was clear, both women made their way towards the ground, panting and covered in sweat, taking a second to catch their breath before going over to the three men who all looked equal parts horrified and impressed by what they had just witnessed.
"Lena, are you okay?" Winston spoke into his communicator, switching his eye contact between Pharah and Mercy.
"I'm okay. Amél- Widowmaker got a lucky hit in. Good thing we have the doc and Pharah on our side!" Lena's voice came over the channel, sounding a little tired but bubbly all the same.
"I agree with you there, rookie." Torbjörn added, currently having issues deciding who he was more surprised by.
Suddenly, Pharah broke out laughing, causing all eyes, including Mercy's, to end up on her. "That was awesome!" She exclaimed, before dropping her launcher and pulling the older woman into a tight hug. "Angela, we're unstoppable together!"
Angela froze for a second and felt her face begin to heat up, but she quickly snapped out of her building embarrassment and returned the hug, feeling the tension begin to melt away from her body as she held the younger woman close. She was about to say something when Reinhardt cleared his throat, grabbing the attention of both women and causing them to drop the embrace that Angela had so wished was something more than a spur-of-the-moment 'we're an awesome team' hug.
Winston stretched and began to move in the direction of the barracks. "I'm going to fetch Lena. Angela, can you come with me and can the rest of you start the clean up? I'll join you once Lena's in the medbay."
Angela nodded and followed him, trying not to overthink the hug she and Fareeha had just shared.
Today was a successful mission, and she hoped that for every future mission she partook in, she and Fareeha would team up again and become the unstoppable force they were.
A/N: for the record, in this universe Mercy can't rez. Also Tracer got too blink happy prior to being shot, so she couldn't recall. Convenient plot points~~~