Chapter Text
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The winding halls of United Nations' Swiss HQ would be confusing to anyone on their first day.
On this very day, Dr. Angela Ziegler passes exactly five people standing underneath wayfinding signage looking hopeless, and two more standing in front of a touchscreen interface meant to map out exact paths to visitor's destinations. Another stands by the elevators, toes turned in as she tries to puzzle out why she must get on an elevator on another floor in order to reach her destination when there are elevators right here.
In her many years stationed here, even before it was repurposed for the Overwatch Initiative, Angela has seen hundreds of people like this, reduced to lost children. People with accolades from renowned institutions, academics with international acclaim in the fields of science, medicine, engineering, intellectuals used to solving world crises in an afternoon –– all of them rendered equal by the HQ's labyrinthine paths. She used to stop and help lost souls when she was an intern at the Klinik Hirslanden, or when her pity outweighed the pressing call of work in her first few years, but today Angela breezes by them all, the heels of her pumps clack-clacking differently over glass walkways, marble tile and concrete steps.
She often misses the days where she could stop, or where her list of responsibilities was merely a list of patients, but as the head of medical research for the UN's Overwatch Initiative, all she can do is smile sympathetically and hope they find their way. If she stops for even a moment, she will be behind, and applied nanobiology is not a subject that will wait.
Angela swipes herself through security check and makes brief eye-contact with the security guard, who tips his head at her. She breezes through the arch of a metal detector –– a funny name, outdated like telephone or world wide web but still in common parlance –– and she feels the little buzz of the pulse induction beams scanning her for abiotic parts. Hers are cleared by the system, and so she passes the guard with a mere hello.
"Dr. Ziegler?" a voice chimes in over her communicator. It's her head surgical liasion; immaculate timing, as always.
Angela touches a finger to the black stud in her jaw.
"Go ahead, Anaïs," she replies, in Swiss German.
"Five-oh-six-oh-seven is ready for you," her liaison replies. "And the Commander is in the building. You're wanted in a meeting with him; I told him that you're busy, but––"
"I'll handle him when I see him," Angela says. "I'll see you in a moment."
The Commander being here throws a wrench into her day already, but she's not concerned. If the Commander has to wait, then he has to wait. She was hired as head of medical research, not to attend meetings, and sometimes that's the price they have to pay. If he wants to see what she's working on, get another status update, he was welcome to do it last week, when he had initially mentioned it to her. Something important, he'd said.
(Sometimes she misses the simplicity of being head of surgery, the type of job where she can work eighteen hour days, five days a week, always holding either a tablet pen or a laser scalpel. There had been less responsibility, even if she had still held lives in her hands.
Today, however, is the wrong day to crave simplicity.)
Angela doesn't need to press the button for an elevator; an attendant already has. She watches the numbers tick down on the screen and decides she has enough time to check her messages, so she does. There's a message from a girlfriend about drinks tomorrow that she will inevitably have to decline, and a message in a group chat with her colleagues; someone's posted a cat picture. Angela switches to her email just as the elevator dings.
"Angela," someone else familiar calls, loudly down the hall. She hears boots on the tile, running, and the jostle of people getting out of the caller's way. "Angela!"
Angela pauses, but only long enough to hold the elevator door for the caller. With her other hand, she is already swiping in for priority access to the lab floor. Her caller gets into the elevator by slamming his hand on the closing door and shouldering his way in. He shuffles in next to her when it opens again, and he stands a good six inches taller than her, even when she's in heels.
"Jesus," he says, exasperated, but he's pleased to see her nonetheless. He folds his arms across his chest. "Couldn't wait?"
She smiles.
"I have a patient waiting for me, Commander Reyes," she says. "I suspect they'd have a harder time understanding the wait than you would."
After all, this patient is currently laid open on an operating table, as they have been for the past sixteen hours, under the hands of her surgeons. It's a new procedure wherein the very cells of the heart are paired with nanites, microscopic machines that pair with the myocardiocytes, lacing with the long chains of sarcomeres in permanent bond. Ten years from now, Angela would like this to be standard procedure, but until those developments have been made, it's hard work today. Each nanite cluster needs to be calibrated, fine-tuned, and so the patient cannot leave the table until that is accomplished. A thousand tiny pacemaker cells.
It is the first of perhaps a hundred more operations. The patient won't be awakened from his coma until all of his procedures are completed –– an estimated three months away from now –– but for now, waiting is waiting.
"You know I flew here from London just to talk to you?" he says. It's almost scorned –– cute. He's very American about it, too; she can't think of a single regular colleague of hers who would greet her by barging into an elevator shouting her name, but there's something charming about that, too. Gabriel Reyes carries himself with so much confidence that it's difficult to brush him off as rude.
Angela puts away her phone to look at him properly.
"Last I heard you were supposed to be based here," she says. "Didn't you and Jack make a big deal about being here to entertain me while I work?"
His smile grows wider and wolfish.
"I'm not here entertaining you because I'm too busy flying around the world mopping up after its problems, Dr. Ziegler," he says. He breathes a hard, amused little noise out of his nose. "But you're going to be seeing a lot more of me soon."
"Is that so?" Angela says. She thinks she wouldn't mind that at all; finally get an excuse to pry, see what American enhancement work looks like up close, like they've been teasing her with for years.
She glances up at the floor indicator –– the little elevator service voice reads off the number, reminds her that she'll need her ID and card key ready. She hears that voice a dozen times a day, five days a week, at very least, and already has her card in hand.
"Yeah," Reyes says. "So you're meeting with me for lunch. Now."
"It's already three, Gabriel," she says. Americans.
She crinkles her nose at him, and she breezes out of the elevator, swiping her card as she goes. He tries to follow, but he doesn't have the requisite ID for the medical research labs, so he ends up getting caught behind the turnstiles. The acrylic shield is comically narrow against his broad chest; he could muscle in if he chose to, but instead he just wraps a hand over the top edge and leans
"Lunch," he repeats, seriously. "Finish up what you're doing and meet me downstairs. You want to take this meeting."
She pauses on her side of the turnstile, pocketing her card. One of her resident surgeons opens his mouth to say something, to start bombarding her with status updates, but Angela raises a hand for silence. Her eyes turn back to Reyes, who watches her with dark, serious eyes.
"What is this about?" she asks, finally, more soberly.
"I want you in Overwatch," he says. "In the field."
Angela purses her lips.
"We'll talk later," she says.
For now, she has a surgery to attend to.
The sun has long set when Angela finally gets out of her lab, and the whole HQ seems hushed and quiet in response. The glass exterior walls of the building reflect the warm lighting lining the halls in a fruitless attempt to beat back the darkness outside. She walks briskly; her adrenaline is still running strong from microscopic surgery that could have put tears in her patient's heart had her technique not been so precise.
It was a success. A few more pages in her reports, another piece of ammo in her push to have the technology approved for broader use. Someday, this will all pay off.
She wonders, idly, how long this meeting will run. Knowing Gabriel, he'll want to go out for drinks after, and he won't want to do it at the in-house pub. He'll want to drive them into Zurich, and that will take an hour. She'd planned to sleep in her office tonight in case she's needed –– she's always needed –– but if she goes into the city, she'll be close to her apartment anyway. Perhaps Gabriel could drive her back again.
When she walks into the meeting room, the lights are dimmed. Commander Reyes sits at the other end of the room, hunched over with his elbows on his knees, the glow of his in-hand communciator spilling over his face.
He looks up at her when she walks in, and he scowls.
"They didn't tell me you'd take five hours in there," he says.
"Surgeons don't do short notice unless you're bleeding profusely, or on the cusp of organ failure," Angela tells him.
"I'll remember that," he says. He laughs, low and disbelieving: "Shoot myself in the goddamn leg just to get your attention!"
"That might get you the attention of one of my residents; my attention requires something more drastic."
"Fine," he grouses. "I'll shoot myself in the face. Happy now? Sit down, Doc."
She isn't one of his agents –– that's why she can get away with so much –– but she sits with an obedient smile nonetheless, smoothing her lab coat out under her as she does. He shoves his communicator deep into the pocket of his grey sweatshirt; he is the only military personnel she knows that doesn't wear a suit jacket and pressed trousers outside of the field. Reyes is always ready for a fight, and she suspects he knows this will be one.
"You want me in the field?" she repeats, from earlier. She loves getting down to business just as much as he does.
"I do," he says. "I've already gotten permission from the executive branch, and the paperwork is all prepared and done –– that's how you know I'm serious. All I need is for you to agree, and then you're a member of Overwatch. The real Overwatch, not all this––" he waves a hand around them. "––B-team nonsense."
Angela raises an eyebrow at him.
"Nonsense?" she repeats.
"Angela," he says. "You're brilliant. You deserve to be in the A-league. Leave this to less remarkable people."
"Not a very compelling argument," she tells him. "Anyone can apply my research in the field. No one can replace me here in the lab, and I certainly wouldn't be any use to anyone with a bullet in my head."
His expression darkens. She likes watching him work through how to convince her; she's not easy, but men like Gabriel Reyes act as though they're put-upon by it, scorned by a world that has fallen out of step with their personal march. He is perpetually sour, almost always serious, and yet he has this wonderful tolerance for people who will stand up to him. He's not young and fresh-faced like some other members of his elite team, but Angela gets the impression he will never ever be some grouchy old man with heavily grooved skin, harping on about back in his day. There's something perpetual about Reyes, even if she's only known him for a few years. He's as unique as his soldiers, in some sense.
She gathers that leading Overwatch is difficult for him.
"It's not like that anymore," he says, finally. "Overwatch isn't fighting legions of Omnics, or god programs. We're trying to turn this thing into a legitimate peacekeeping mission, a global authority for good. It's still dangerous, but we have plenty of people on the team who can aim a gun. Now we need people who can do other things. We need medics on our level, who can stand beside us rather than behind us."
"I'm perfectly happy where I am," she says.
Who can argue with happy?
Reyes scowls, and he heaves this sigh that seems to collapse him from the shoulders down. He leans against the table, an arm reached towards her, palm open.
"Angela," he says.
"Gabriel," she replies, matching his tone.
"Think of what it could do for your research," he says. "You could be right there, in the thick of things. What better observations for your work than having it right there? You could pilot that first response system yourself."
She frowns. She supposes it's natural for him to know about Project Valkyrie, given his rank, but she wasn't prepared for it to be used against her, as incentive to go.
"It's completely untested in field applications," Angela replies.
"So test it now," he says.
"Its mobility functions are extremely limited."
"So what?"
"Overall, it would be irresponsible to put your lives in the hands of an untested advancement."
"Everything we do is irresponsible from a medical standpoint," he argues. "But it'll save lives. You'll save my life and the lives of my people ten times over."
"My research here could save hundreds of thousands of lives," she says. "Millions."
"Out of a lab? Locked away behind key cards and concrete and marble?"
"My work here will change history."
"God, you're arrogant," he shoots back, hot, impulsive. It's an old joke between them, but it has a little bite this time.
Angela just smiles, pleasantly as ever. She's never thought of herself as arrogant, but to have one of the world's most decorated soldiers, one who has never seen a mission end as it was supposed to, telling her she's arrogant –– well. It's not without its ironies.
"Gabriel," she says, low and pleasant. "You're not convincing me of anything. I get job offers every day. The rest of them don't ask me to put the rest of my work on the side to play field medic."
Reyes sits back in his seat, slouched low and powerful. For a moment he just stares her down, unblinking, his mouth in a hard line. He can't shout at her or bark orders like he could with his people, nor is there any sort of military imperative for her to agree. For the moment they're at an impasse, two people in a dimmed room in a mostly-empty building.
She reaches out across the table to lay a hand on his.
"Gabriel," she repeats. "I'm not interested in being in any military."
He rolls something about in his mouth but doesn't say it.
"But don't think I'm belitting what you do, either," she says. "You are a wonderful Commander and it would be a privilege to support you. I enjoy your company very much! But when it comes to Overwatch, I think I belong with the Bs."
She smiles.
"I have no reason to personally be on the front lines."
"How about because you know you could make a bigger difference?"
That's not Reyes. That's Jack Morrison, from the doorway. He's evidently been listening in for a beat, leaning against the door frame a little bit like a movie star. Angela feels her smile broaden just a touch, and she sits back in her seat to watch him walk across the room to join them.
"Jack," Reyes warns. "You were supposed to wait downstairs."
"You were taking a while," Jack says. "I figured you could use the support."
Angela watches Reyes' posture shift, his teeth press together. Jack is technically his subordinate, but they have an odd relationship of push-and-pull. Neither care when they step on toes, even on each others'.
Reyes says nothing. Jack says: "Hear us out, Angela."
"I'm listening," she says. She pushes out the chair between her and Reyes, so that they can be a triangle instead of two-on-one. She's sure this does not go unnoticed by Reyes, whose eyes follow her every movement.
"Of course," Jack says, taking his seat. He sits with his knees wide, relaxed as if they were at the bar already. And then, casually: "How was surgery? What was it this time?"
"I was finishing repairs on a man's heart –– a heart that would be considered incompatible with life by all of human history's standards. He will live, and live very well," she says.
"Incredible," Jack says. "Dr. Ziegler, you do incredible things every day."
She knows what he's doing, but he's so genuine about it; it's why they call him golden, why he tempers Reyes so well. Reyes knows what this is, too, and he looks a little pleased about it already.
"I do," she agrees.
"See?" Reyes says. "Arrogant."
Jack ignores him. His attention is entirely on her, leaning forward in his seat.
"How long until the average person can get that kind of treatment?" he asks. "My dad, he died of heart failure a few years ago, before you were pioneering these things. It runs in the family. Could I get that surgery ten years from now, if my heart gives out?"
"Perhaps you could, if trials are complete, which could go either way." She pauses. "I'm sorry about your father, Jack."
Jack's smile is genial, understanding. He shifts a little more in his seat, slinging an arm around the back to better turn his body to her.
"A lot of people could die in ten years," he says.
"Heart conditions are as old as humanity, Jack," she says, smoothly. "They do not demand our attention as outbreaks like polio do. Even if we miss our mark, in the next ten years, we will have made more progress on cardiac medicine than we have in the past thousand."
"What if it could be five?"
"It would be wonderful," she says.
"Two?"
"Unheard of."
"Tomorrow?" he says.
"A miracle," she says. "But not one that will ever happen, Jack. You're not going to change international law or medical study standards by convincing me to join your team. You aren't going to revolutionize the health care system by running secret operatives in all corners of the world."
"Maybe not immediately," Jack agrees. "But don't you think it's a shame that you toil here every week for what, sixty hours? Seventy? And what happens? Who benefits?"
"Right now?" Angela replies. "Whoever they send me. My access beyond that is limited."
"Isn't that infuriating?"
She's sure it's meant to get a rise out of her, but she's never known Jack to be malicious. The look on his face, the baby blues of his eyes –– he oozes sincerity, particularly when he looks upset for her. Jack Morrison hates injustice more than anything in the world, and in this moment, it's for her.
"Of course," she says.
"Overwatch could be your ticket to getting your work out of here, to where it could be useful. You could test anything and everything. No more six month waits for board approval on things you know will work, no more waiting decades for procedures to be used practically. You'll have in-field proof."
Angela lifts her chin a touch. It's tempting; she could never deny that.
"You know what you do works. You know it," Jack says.
"I do," she says.
"So why not prove it? Put it into practice? Start?"
Angela pauses.
Why not prove it?
"Like I said," Reyes adds when she pauses, his voice a low rumble. "The paperwork's all done, and everyone on the team wants you. It's all been red-stamp approved –– we're all your guinea pigs."
There's a long pause. Angela rests back in her seat, lets the idea wash over her, wear away at her reasons not to. It's true, after all; how many times has her nanotechnology saved lives — classified lives — within this very building? How many times will they prove themselves, tiny little micro-saviors that they are, before they are allowed to exist beyond the walls of the headquarters?
There's a low temptation there, even as she watches Jack shoot Reyes a look, a sure look, but she cannot succumb to it yet.
"You'll want to weaponize it eventually," she says.
Both Reyes and Jack are silent for a moment, savouring this question: will their militaristic ventures violate her principles, as they have currently violate peace? This is her greatest fear, even as she creates nanites that permit people to defy cellular mortality, even as she operates under the assumption that for much of history, war has been the single driving force behind medical, technical and scientific discovery.
Angela won't be a twenty-first century Joseph-Ignace Guillotin –– of that she is sure, beyond all temptation.
"Overwatch acts outside traditional government bodies," Reyes says. "We're impartial. Its our job to remain that way. No one gets to weaponize it and turn it against another nation, or employ it in wide-scale warfare. It's just us, Angela. We get your work into the open, but it doesn't go anywhere that you don't approve of."
The idea takes a firm hold in her right then, enmeshed in her very being. She looks between the two of them –– Reyes is sitting a little taller, a little prouder. Jack is relaxed but sure.
Angela feels an odd rush of adrenaline unlike surgery. She thinks of herself traveling the world with her work, high on the wings of Overwatch, far beyond these walls. No ID cards. No elevators. No walls, or walkways, or labyrinthine protocols.
Nothing to hamper her.
"Very well," she says. Both of them seem to inhale sharply, reveal a prelimary joy, but she raises a finger and elaborates: "I will do three months with you on trial, beginning after Christmas –– after thorough discussion of what this entails. If what you're proposing holds true, we'll discuss further involvement after that."
"I'll take it," Reyes declares. "I accept."
Reyes smiles, as does Jack, and each of them stick their hands out in turn. Angela shakes, their broad hands enveloping her surgeon's fingers so entirely that they disappear completely. She feels fortified for it.
"Drinks to celebrate?" Jack suggests.
"Drinks," Angela agrees.
They stand to leave.
Exactly thirteen years, six months, eleven days and twenty-seven minutes to this very moment, this room will fly apart. Glass will fall and the concrete will tumble and the great marble tiles will crack and crumble. People will die. In the heat of that moment, Angela will decide that she will never step foot in this building –– or Overwatch –– ever again.
She will be wrong.