A young girl, Jack thought she couldn’t be younger than twenty years old as she hugged herself close for warmth in the pre-winter rain. She had no jacket, only a thin t-shirt that looked older than she was, her hair was long, auburn and tangled from the wind and Jack could see tears pushing at her golden eyes, he couldn’t decide if they were from the cold air or something else. When he approached the girl looked at him with a sour expression, and Jack thought that maybe at some other time he would have found the look intimidating, but the red spreading across her cheeks and the light purple color of her lips showed him that she was anything but daunting at that moment.
New feelsy fic I’m working on, I’m biting off more than I can chew with the amount of ongoing fics I have this month, but it’s a nice distraction from real life
Dude, I love the way you portray mercy in all of ur meta posts. I just finished ur latest one w/reaper and 76 as her dads and it got me wondering how you think they'd treat her relationships outside of their lil family...?
first off, i’m so glad you like my mercy interpretation that makes me so happy thank you <3 second, YES someone read that post w/the dads and liked it!!! that makes me even happier b/c i spent like 4 hours straight on it and was kinda bummed b/c i haven’t seen many likes or reblogs for it so thank you for that too!
i have SO MANY opinions about mercy and her dads so i’m warning you now i’m just gonna start typing and go w/this until i run out b/c i love their lil family so much <3 <3 <3
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okay so kinda like i hinted at, mercy has never had a whole lot of friends or family. after her parents died she sorta closed up, and even before that she was one of the “i’m smart and i know it” kids so she didn’t have any childhood BFFs or anything. she leaves whatever relative or foster home or orphanage she ended up in fairly young to go to college, and she’s too focused and too sure of herself (arrogant, really, she’s young and arrogant and thinks she can change the world, which is honestly the best combo for a doctor imho because it means they’re smart and confident enough to be good at what they do and they care enough to ALWAYS do their best) to really connect with anyone
she very much has that “why should I bother, no one’s on my level anyway” attitude which is really half-cockiness half-not wanting to get hurt again. i imagine she opens up to someone once she gets settled in at the Swiss hospital she became the head of and is highkey-but-hiding-it-really-well devastated when they were basically just using her to ride on her coattails
so by the time angela meets jack and gabe, she hasn’t had much experience with people outside of the obligatory sensitivity training she had to attend in medical school when her instructors called her out on her absolutely wretched bedside manner
jack and gabe are really good influences on her, though. she starts to distrust people as a whole less and less, because if jack and gabe are so sweet and caring, there has to be others out there. and at first they’re proud of her for stepping out of her comfort zone and starting conversations with the other agents they regularly go on missions with
the first one she approaches with the intent of “bettering her personal relationships with her team” is reinhardt, who gabe pushes her towards. they both know wilhelm and he’s Good People, in that even if angela fucks up and says something inexcusably rude he’ll laugh it off and chuck her on the chin indulgently. he’s a good “test run” kinda fella, and jack pretends not to be hovering the first time their angie makes a dry comment about him rushing into fights and giving himself a concussion even with a hard head like that
reinhardt cocks his head, as if trying to place whether he knows her or not, before bursting into hearty laughter even though what she said wasn’t really funny. he has a trickle of blood flowing down his temple and a black eye that mercy shoves an ice pack on while he’s distracted. she works a little slower than she normally does, bantering with him, and jack relaxes his hands from their fists and leaves her to it. reinhardt plops down next to her at lunch in the mess hall one day and she beams at him and starts babbling about her latest improvement to her suit and he talks about upgrading his armor and what torbjorn did to help his hammer have better balance, and gabe watches from afar with a small, pleased smile
mei’s the second one she tries to befriend, and it’s a little easier because they’re both women in science and angela can turn to mei during the science department-wide meetings and make a face when that douchenozzle from engineering complains about the medical or field budget being increased while his stays the same. they have the most successful and productive divisions and are rewarded for their work and complain about his entitlement afterwards as they walk out of the conference room and to one of the secluded living-areas. it becomes “their thing”, where they find an empty area after these meetings and rant and rave about the difficulties of both leading a division and being a woman leading a division and angela actually learns how to make sangria (after begging gabe to sneak out and buy a case of wine b/c it’ll be a cold day in hell when overwatch gets them anything for recreation or lets her out of her lab for a day off) for these meetings
they’re both good friends for her, and neither jack nor gabe will admit that they’re a little jealous that their girl doesn’t eat every meal with them anymore because they want to be happy for her
here’s the problem though: angela gets crushes very, very easily, thanks to never really having the chance to feel the difference between “this is my best friend and i love them and they’re funny and i want to eat pizza with them” and “this is the love of my life they make me laugh and i want to eat pizza off of them”
and at first she’s just a little friendlier to reinhardt and gives an extra luxury ration to mei here and there, but gabe catches her blushing when reinhardt keeps her from tripping and that /might/ have been an exhausted sigh or it might’ve been a wistful sigh when she watched mei wave goodbye but gabe knows what he’d put money on
“it’s not that i don’t think she can make these decisions, but jack. Jack. they’re so much older than her,” gabe gripes. “and we all know reinhardt’s reputation for slutting it up–”
“Gabe!” jack snaps
“you know it’s true!” he argues. “whatever, we know he’s /promiscuous/ and i’m not–i don’t care about that, you know that,” he says defensively at jack’s irritated glower. “wilhelm’s a good man, but if he finds out angie’s attracted to him he’ll sleep with her despite being old enough to be her father! and then go back to acting like their friends and she’ll get hurt!”
“reinhardt wouldn’t make a move,” jack says. gabe startles at how cold he sounds, before he realizes it’s not directed towards him. “i assure you, he knows better.”
it takes gabe a moment to get it. “you already–”
“shut up–”
“oh, she’ll /murder/ you–”
“I said, shut up–”
“if she finds out you cockblocked her–”
“I talked to him about it before she even had a crush on him, it wasn’t cockblocking!” he’s flushing red though and averting his eyes, aware that he way, way overstepped his boundaries. gabe’s almost proud.
“does that mean you spoke to mei too?”
“no, i didn’t.”
“Kinda sexist to go after reinhardt, our friend, and not the strange woman hanging around angie.”
“mei’s married and she doesn’t seem the type to cheat on her spouses. rest assured, if she appears to be interested–Well, Mr. and Mr. Mei will hear about it.”
gabe is definitely proud and a little disappointed he wasn’t involved.
angela is a little down when she hears about wilhelm and ana’s On-Again-Off-Again relationship. she’s REALLY down when she Mr. and Mr. Zhou visit mei and she leaves their normal get-together two hours early to jump into their arms with an excited squeal
gabe cooks warm comfort food (tones down the spice for the two wimps because angela’s so upset. just this once, he internally vows) while jack lets her put her head in his lap and brushes her hair.
she says, three bites into dinner, “it was kind of stupid of me, wasn’t it? it wouldn’t have worked out anyway.”
“nope,” jack agrees. “but that doesn’t make it stupid. ill-advised, maybe, but feelings in general are ill-advised. still have them anyway, though.”
she accepts their comfort gracefully and doesn’t even cry when they take up their normal cuddle puddle on the couch and pet her hair and tell her how lucky anyone would be to be with her but maybe she could look for someone closer to her age…?
in the end, they monitor her friendships and crushes a little more than they should, but do their best to keep it lowkey. they can read her very well and can tell when someone’s good or not for her and try to only get involved if they think it’s someone who’ll be Really Bad for her. they carefully maneuver her away from ana, for example, because while ana is a Fantastic agent/leader, she’s cold and unfeeling and while it comes off as aloofness, it’s really just cold disregard and if ana can’t even give a shit about her own daughter— well, jack coldly, subtly threatens ana to be on her best behavior if she ends up in the infirmary to be treated by angela and threatens her further if she’s /too/ friendly, and gabe blatantly tells her to back the fuck off and deal with her issues with her daughter instead of chasing other young girls
they get disgustingly jealous though, if they think she’s spending more time with anyone than them. jack at least tries not to be, but gabe will snipe and bitch and make blatant, pointed comments at her (”You’re neglecting your own fathers for a brat who dresses like a moron–I thought you were smart, angie, what the fuck, we’re clearly better company”) and tries to guilt trip her and generally just pisses her off and causes her to rant about him being a manipulative jackass and to stop using his interrogation-borderline gaslighting-shit on her and she’s a grown woman and they aren’t her husbands so back the fuck off, gabriel–
and jack normally would step in and try to de-escalate the situation but he’s jealous too and is petty enough to want her to know they’re upset and miss her (completely ignoring the fact that even with her new friends she’s with at least one of them more often than not and always spends like, three hours with them before going to bed–and sometimes she even sleeps in their room so it’s not like she’s ignoring them or hanging them out to dry. they just like having their girl all to themselves)
they always get over it though, generally with gabe grumbling an apology and hugging her until she melts against him. and then jack hugs her from the other side and squishes them both and they all laugh and burrow into the warmth they make together
(the roughest time was when she briefly had a thing with gerard and amelie. it was one of the only relationships she had during that pre-overwatch-destruction era, and she very much got into the “lovey-dovey I must spend EVERY waking minute with my new loves and talk about them when i’m not around them and aren’t they jsut so pretty and i’m so lucky” and jack and gabe dealt with it as gracefully as their jealous bodies could, which wasn’t very graceful, and angela got mad and asked, “aren’t you happy for me?” and for once it was jack who snarled, “no, because you deserve better and they don’t love you–” and made her cry and didn’t speak to them for weeks, no matter how much they begged for her forgiveness
the relationship ended quietly once she realized she was way, way more invested than gerard or amelie were. she finally broke it off due to them hurting her and treating her like an ‘extra’ instead of an equal in the relationship and her finally seeing that (though not thanks to jack’s nasty words. it was more because they were planning their wedding to each other and didn’t even ask her to be in the bridal party despite ‘dating’ them for a year). it sent jack and gabe on the warpath and NO ONE wanted to be around those two for weeks after the break up until angela and them made up.
(their making up involved a long discussion of boundaries and “you guys need to relax. i love you both very much but i need to meet and be with other people. you both are the ones who told me that in the first place, so please. please. back the fuck off or i will have to stop speaking to both of you long term.”)
angela tried to warn tracer away from getting involved with them and shared her own experience when she started flirting with the Lacroix couple, gabe and jake backing her up, but lena was convinced she was Different and Special and angela shrugged. jack grumbled over the fact that they hadn’t scared the couple off of taking advantage of young bi/pansexual women for their fantasies and ‘spicing up their sex lives’ and gabe went back to yelling, “hey Mr. and Mrs. Asshole–” when he needed their attention)
let’s also note though, that like. for every good friendship angela makes, she makes like twelve more enemies because almost no one can stand how much of an ass she can be. like she’s absolutely that person who always goes, “well actually–” and proceeds to rip apart your innocuous statement about white bread and it just pisses most people off so much
and she sorta cringes and realizes she’s doing it but also thinks “well i’m great so it’s not my fault they don’t like me” and jack and gabe have stopped like five people from stabbing her with forks at meals and it becomes common knowledge that if you don’t like angela ziegler you at least have to respect her and be polite, though you don’t have to take her shit. jack wants to beat people up who don’t take her shit but gabe thinks it’s important for angela to get her ego taken down a few notches at least twice a week
SO tl;dr, jack tries to manipulate her relationships behind the scenes so she doesn’t get hurt and never loves anyone more than them, gabe tries to manipulate her relationships blatantly and gets pissed when she likes anyone in any way that could threaten her place in their lives, and angela is an unfortunate Train Wreck, capital letters needed, with relationships, and she hates that they get so involved and nasty but she deals with their stupid jealousy and all b/c their hugs are To Die For and she loves her dads, even though they’re stupid, and they love her, even though she’s an asshole
