John layed down in Angela's office at Gibraltar. He wasn't happy that he had to bum a ride from here back to his base, but it was an opportunity to obtain or build a new transport. Thankfully the remainder of his old transport was to be sent back to his base to be salvaged by him. He wanted to be damn sure anything he could still use got pulled out before it got scrapped for good.
He looked at the clock on her wall. It had been an hour since she left in the middle of her tests to deal with a certain crusader straining his back. He hated the thought of the old man getting hurt from something so minor, but he knew Reinhardt was just plain old. His ego was the only thing truly keeping him in his armor and on his feet.
"How is he?" John asked his lover when she finally returned.
"He'll be fine." she reassured him as she sat down at her desk. "I gave him some biotic infused patches to put on his back to help keep him from straining it again."
"That's good." he replied as he returned to looking at the ceiling.
Angela went over the data from her latest scans on the sniper and grumbled in annoyance.
"What?" John asked, not looking away from the ceiling.
"The tests don't show a change at all!" she exclaimed. "It's almost as if..." she began to explain before she cut herself off as an idea popped into her head. "Sweetheart, how do you end up in that state?"
"I dunno. Stressful sit.. are you serious?" he asked, as he finally looked away from the ceiling and to his love.
"I think we know how to get a test that will show something..."
...
John stood in the training room completely annoyed as training bots swarmed him and he fan fired his revolver to buy himself some room. He felt the stress building up, but Angela hadn't told him to stop yet so he was stuck dealing with this for a while longer.
A tank bot pushed its way past the others and opened fire on his position, forcing him to duck behind cover before he got taken out by a lowly training bot. He quickly reloaded his pistol before he lept up and fired all six rounds at the massive group of bots that were closing in. He ducked back down behind cover, reloaded again, and concentrated on a spell to use against them before leaping out again and launching a ball of fire at the mass of metal. He could feel his rage and stress building as he launched fireball after fireball at the horde until he felt himself fade into the background of his mind as a wide grin spread over his face.
In a heartbeat he began using more and more powerful spells, creating a river of fire the bots had to wade through just to reach him as he started laughing menacingly. All of a sudden the bots quit coming and he growled in annoyance before he felt a hand on his shoulder. He turned quickly, expecting a surprise attack from the bots, but only saw Angela, who looked both frightened and concerned at him. He couldn't hear her over the pounding of his heart in his ears but she grabbed him by the hand and lead him away.
As she pulled him back to her office they passed by Amélie and Brigitte who looked like they were in the middle of a conversation before they looked at him in shock. The couple quickly made it back to Angela's office and she layed him back down on her examination table as she quickly activated the scanner. The process only took a couple minutes and then she was at her computer again.
After a while, John had calmed back down and he felt like himself again. He rubbed his face with his hands, exhausted from how busy he had been today.
"I think I figured out what happened to you." Angela said as she looked up at her now calmed lover. "You undergo a minor metamorphosis while under heavy stress, causing your eyes to adapt to a wider visible spectrum, your lungs expand, your capillaries dilate, you are quite literally readying yourself for high stress environments." she explained.
"Great." he groaned. "Still feels like I take a backseat in my own body thougn..."
"There appears to be a minor change in the chemical makeup of your brain, allowing for faster reaction time." she continued. "The fading into the background could be an adaption to the stress to help protect your psyche... but I'm not specialized in psychology so I can only guess..."
"So basically keep away from highly stressful situations if I don't want my mind to snap..." he grumbled. "That kinda interferes with my line of work..." he complained as he rubbed the bridge of his nose and his brow in an attempt to prevent a migrane.
Angela got up from her desk, walked over to her love, and placed a hand on his cheek as she sat on the edge of the examination table. "You listen to me. I love you, I don't want to see or hear about you dying again. So if this means you can't go and get yourself killed again than I will take it." she said sternly before pulling him into a hug. "I already lost you once. I don't want to lose you again."
"I don't wanna end up useless." he whispered into her shoulder.
"You are a brilliant engineer, a world renowned sniper, the organizer of a spy network, and the love of my life. In no way would you end up useless." she said, comforting him and causing him to sigh deeply.
"Thank you, Angel..." he whispered to her as they held each other in their arms.
"You're welcome. And besides, you should be here with me more than out in the field anyway." she said, causing him to chuckle.
"True. Gonna have to grab what little stuff I have if im gonna move in witth you, though."