Angela is twenty two when she is handed her Human Medicine Masters degree, and is somewhat less in need of craning her neck up than two years prior when she received her robotics diploma. She is also in the notably unique position of having a number of representatives for research and development companies waiting at the entrance to make a good first impression and poach her for apprenticeship, rather than the other way around. The two years she's spent on refining her technology have not gone unnoticed, nor could they have. Not with all the strings her parents pulled.

The corporations must think themselves generous for offering her enough money that she could retire as soon as the contract runs out and still live in comfort for the next hundred years or so. All they want in return are the rights to her nanotechnology. They'll have to do better than that.

There, also, awaits her mother with Brigitte in tow, and Mr Reinhardt towering over the both. First she is tackled by her sister - eight now, and much to Angela's chagrin, set to outgrow her in a not-too-distant future - then by a single arm of likely as much weight as both she and her sister combined in a display of exuberance she's come to associate with the bear of a man.

"Look at you! Still biting my ankles and ready to take the world!" Angela takes exception to the statement, she's never been anything but polite to the man. Still, there's no need to fake her smile.

"I'm surprised you came."

"Of course I came! Your parents would have my hide if I was on the continent and failed to show up."

Mother rolls her eyes at the display, stepping in for a hug as soon as the giant steps away.

"I'm proud of you, Angela."

All told, it's probably the best day of her life.

They stay a little while before moving on with the festivities, mostly out of politeness to listen to all the misguided salesmen, each trying to convince Angela they're her best opportunity. It would be rude to leave them all hanging without at least a word. That, and she makes sure to give a farewell to her classmates. They may not be friends, not anything close, but it costs her nothing to wish them good luck in their future endeavours.

Angela lets her sister choose where to go for food. A pizzeria is an entirely unsurprising choice, but one the freshly-baked university graduate has nothing against.

"So," Mr Reinhardt speaks up over his pizza. They've gotten two, one for him, one for the rest of them. "Do you still want to join Overwatch, or have things changed since we last spoke? I hear you were doing pretty well for a student."

"That's on Mom and Dad." She picks the discarded pineapple pieces from Brigitte's slice and puts it on her own. Her sister is such a fussy child. "National Geographic wouldn't look twice at me without their name behind me."

"Don't sell yourself short Angela, your work is amazing," her mother interjects.

"I know." She may not churn out a new impossible invention every other week like Uncle does, but ultimately, it will be her work, not his, that will change the world forever. "That's not the point. I'm- I was just a student. How many people would've taken me seriously without you? That's all I mean."

"Ah. I understand. So much talent wastes away just because it's never given a chance to flourish." Mr Reinhard nods sagely. "But we're getting side-tracked. What are you planning?"

"No changes there. I'll apply and see if it goes through."

"Bah. Of course it'll go through! And if by Devil's own intervention it doesn't, I'll make sure to investigate personally. You're exactly the sort of person we're always on the lookout for."

It's an effort, but Angela manages to not preen. Mostly. Her mother's knowing smile notwithstanding.

In the end, Angela doesn't apply per se. When she checks her mail in the evening that same day, she finds an offer already extended to her, buried among dozens of others. It stands out from the crop by the virtue of its honest brevity. The corporate mail wax poetic (or what their HR must assume to be poetic) about her ability and how they're looking forward to providing her with opportunities to grow, and so on and forth. They all read exactly the same, and all contain the same bottom line once she cuts through all the newspeak.

They want to buy the rights to her technology.

Not even were Angela a materialistic person would she consider the options laid out before her. Her tech, she knows with all certainty, is worth billions as an intellectual property alone, and yet more as an industry once it develops into one - at which point her mind fails to quite comprehend the amount of money involved. The millions on offer might sound enticing to a graduate without a support base, but Angela is most certainly not that.

In stark contrast, Overwatch instead offers her a somewhat above-average surgeon assistant salary for the duration of her apprenticeship. While not at all a factor in her decision, Angela wryly wonders whether the offer would be higher had the whole of Overwatch not been made aware of her desire to join long in advance. No matter. It's the second part of the deal, where she's offered a lead research position (salary up for negotiation) separate from her apprenticeship that really captures her attention. Specifically - the retention of her rights to her technology as an intellectual property. That and the signature of one John Francis Morrison.

She deletes all the remaining messages without reading them.

(-)

It's a strange feeling to enter the Zurich headquarters as a member of Overwatch rather than a guest. To sit behind her very own desk, in her very own office, and then meet her very own research team - some of them she even knows from her visits to the HQ! Theirs is a strange arrangement. In the labs she may be their superior, yet in the operating theatre they are the ones with seniority over her. It's obvious to tell the reversal of roles in the laboratories chafes at their pride. At least in the beginning. Angela makes a concentrated effort to keep to their boundaries and act every part the junior during the surgeries, even when she could plainly do a better job than her supposed betters.

As for her research project… well.

"We want you to go biological." Morrison tells her a week into her tenure, once she finishes settling in.

"What? Why? That's not how my tech works."

"I recall Torbjorn saying otherwise. Didn't you have an organic version of your nanites in the works not so long ago?"

"Years ago." She corrects the man. "And I dropped it because it wasn't working properly. Commander, everything it was meant to do, and never did, the current iteration already does. Where is this coming from?"

The man sighs, visibly sagging in his seat.

"There were… concerns raised about how developing your technology could - would, really, upset certain parts of the populace."

Certain par-

"You're telling me you want me to stunt my technology because of some purist halfwits unable to discern man from machine?" For the first time in a very long time, Angela feels a genuine anger start to pool in her stomach.

"No, I'm not saying I want you to." Commander grimaces. "In fact, it's the farthest thing from what I want. What I want is your work out in the world saving lives. If getting it faster means adding some plastic into a person, that's fine with me."

"Then why-"

"Because there will be backlash. The Omnic Crisis is still too fresh in the world's mind, and a technology that turns people into cyborgs like that-"

"Cyborgs aren't-"

"Irrelevant. That's what their line will be. Can you do it or not?"

The words are only superficially a question. Angela knows an order when she hears one. She nods, not trusting her mouth not to blurt something out that she'll regret, and leaves the office before it happens anyway.

Weeks pass before the white hot rage bubbling in her stomach whenever she thinks of her work (that being most of the time she's awake, and much of that spent dreaming) settles into a deep seated resentment. She'd thought Commander a greater person than to give into the demands of cavemen demanding the only fire in their dugout be extinguished for fear of it. Weeks during which she and her team must focus on redesigning her existing technology, again, to fit the needs of the project just to produce an inferior version of something they'd already had.

Her team doesn't quite see it that way at first. It's not until they see the sickly, misshapen form of their lab rat after the first injection that Angela stops catching the derisive glint in their eyes whenever she voices a complaint about the whole situation. They must've thought themselves her betters beforehand, certain in their ability to easily succeed where the upstart half their size and age had failed.

Angela quickly disabuses them of the notion. Perhaps she's just not a very good teacher, but the concepts she grasps on the fly without any explanation available sometimes take hours for the others to hammer out into something approaching understanding. She can't deny it's gratifying to have the people doubting her capability so clearly struggle with her work. It's also disappointing. She'd always assumed this would no longer be the case once she graduated to join a body of like-minded colleagues. Well, not to this extent - not everyone is destined for greatness.

That is not to say there aren't any impressive people she gets to work with. Angela meets Dr O'Deorian a few months into her tenure, when the woman flies down from the British Isles at her request for a geneticist to help her team refine the work of her nanites on amino-acidic level. She's heard of the woman before, read some of her papers even, but none of that translates into seeing her in person. Her work ethic is immaculate. Her theses brilliant. She takes seconds at most to grasp the ideas Angela usually needs minutes to explain. Her honest enthusiasm for working on groundbreaking technology is a joy to witness, as is discussing the ins-and-outs of their respective fields.

For all these impressive qualities, it doesn't take long for Angela to realise the woman is a lost cause. A genius, yes, but also an unabashedly conscienceless person. For every bridge Angela builds for possible future use, Moira tears another down.

"Wouldn't it be easier for you-" she wonders aloud one day after weathering yet another scathing commentary from the Irishwoman on the competence of her underlings over lunch. "-to keep such thoughts to yourself?"

Moira's features take on a distinctly contrite edge, as if the thought alone upset her sensibilities.

"Facts should be shared as they are. If someone feels hurt by hearing the truth, it's in their own best interest to rectify the cause, not react to the symptom."

Angela tactfully doesn't mention how plainly pointing out someone's deficiencies is assured to only set them further in stone.

The woman reminds her of her uncle in a way. Too focused on her research to have a care in the world for the consequences of people seeing it in a wrong light. Angela's team doesn't like working with her. Doesn't like how plainly she considers herself their better. It doesn't matter that Moira is completely right in this assessment - they won't ever reach out to her on their own accord. Although groundbreaking, Moira's research isn't taught across the globe. Although brilliant, the woman isn't invited to lecture at any university. Although her work saves thousands, she's yet to see a grateful patient turn up to thank her, or even just send a box of chocolates. She doesn't seem interested in any of it, either. She and Uncle would get along splendidly.

The thing is, it doesn't matter how Uncle's genius eclipses anyone Angela's ever met - he's still a wanted criminal with barely any prospects in his life. It's not too difficult to see where Moira's path may well end; alone and without resources.

It's a terrible shame, really, she would love to work more closely with the woman. Unfortunately, fond as Angela is of her, Dr O'Deorian can't replace the rest of her team, their connections, or their good word with Commander Morrison. So, she patiently listens to both Moira's and her team's complaints about each other, nodding, smiling, and reassuring whenever appropriate. The problem, after all, will resolve itself as soon as their collaboration is over, and she needn't sour her relations with either side by taking another's.

Not while one part of the equation she simply has to work with. Not while she some day hopes to work with the other.