name: 2:54 AM
rating: T +
relationship: Genji/Mercy ( gency )
type: fluff, hurt/comfort
warnings: loss of limbs, body horror, medical procedures, not beta read, my first fanfiction in like, 10 years.
summary: They bring her Genji Shimada at 2:54 AM on a Wednesday.
Or, how one minute in the morning became significant to Angela Ziegler and Genji Shimada.
AO3 Link
He’s brought to her at 2:54 AM on a Wednesday.
She awoke from a light sleep in her quarters at a hurried knock on her door - a rapt pulsing of fist and a call of her name. Angela springs to full wakefulness on reflex, years of time spent in hospital on-call rooms keeping her trained to the art of ‘no sleep necessary.’ She answers with all the appearance of a woman having just rolled out of bed… but none of the grace. Baleful blues behold Captain Amari with no small hint of surprise. It’s not unusual for her to receive late night calls from her superiors - especially in the event of an emergency. But Ana Amari was, without a doubt, the firmest advocate for Angela Ziegler receiving a healthy amount of sleep. So for her to be here, disturbing the doctor from a much needed rest-
“We have an emergency.”
A nod is all Captain Amari receives, before she spins into action. She and the sniper rush towards the medbay - Angela half undressing/dressing on the walk there. It’s not an unfamiliar rhythm. Ana taking bits of her clothing while she shrugs on scrubs, a lab coat, even offers her a hair tie and speaks to her in rapid, hushed tones so as not to wake the quiet halls. She’s not sure why. Everybody in Overwatch is an insomniac anyway. Regardless it’s clear Ana had been braced for this… and that fills her with more dread than necessary.
“Agent McCree and Commander Reyes have just returned from Hanamura. They have brought an individual back with them. Genji Shimada-” A holopad is passed to her fingers, and Angela does not think to ask why Jesse and Gabriel were in Hanamura, Japan - or why there is already a file on ‘Genji Shimada.’ That part of her brain shuts off - the suspicious, distrusting part - and instead, the doctor takes over. “He sustained multiple traumatic injuries after an altercation with his elder brother. Angela, it’s-”
“Angie!”
Her gaze shoots up on reflex at the familiar nickname, the punctuation of a hurried drawl at the edge. Ana’s words die out as she catches sight of McCree - catches sight of the amount of blood saturating the black of his clothing, on his face, in his hair, his gloves… His spurs click as he covers the distance between them, not quite halting her but enough to slow her pace. She sees Reyes over his shoulder, bickering in front of a bed with Morrison. They’re like two snakes locked in a tangle, their gazes furious, McCree’s gaze filled with trepidation, and Ana is trying to say something but-
“Move.”
She speaks it to all of them, and surprisingly they obey - each conversation dying simultaneously, as if the music had been stopped. She moves through the medbay doors to the surrounded table, where a few of her specialists already fluttered about - speaking in even quieter tones, placing I.V.s, hooking up various beeping machines, and trying so damned hard to stop the continuous rain of blood that seemed to fall from the young man upon her operating table.
Angela Ziegler is not unused to carnage. She is the best of the best. She has seen what violence and war does to other living beings, human and omnic and animal alike. As the best of the best, the most brutal of cases find her, and yet this… what had happened to the man before her… There is a squeezing in her chest, and she steps in closer… personnel parting like waves in a deep blue sea.
“Talk.” She commands, and it’s Reyes that fills her in.
Hanzo Shimada, heir to the Shimada clan (a name she knew in passing, though she wished she did not) had cut down his younger brother at the behest of clan elders. Cut down was a bit of an understatement, in her opinion. Such brutality was not lost on her. This was not a systematic killing… It was violent and passionate. Blades and dragons, they’d told her - and while she had to question the last bit, the brutal cut to his chest, his legs, arms… everything was butchered in some way or another, and it’s only through years of schooling and training that she is able to shut off the bleeding heart part of her, and become the doctor.
Angela does not question, again, why the hell Blackwatch was hanging around at this precisely fortuitous moment. She does not question, again, why it seemed everyone had been prepared for this except for her (and obviously, her patient). He finishes his words in under thirty seconds, and it takes ten more for her to banish everyone short of her and the necessary personnel from her lab and begin doing what is necessary to save a life… no matter the reason, and no matter the cost.
She is in the process of setting up localized biotic fields while her assistants put a closer view of Genji’s injuries up upon the holo-vid. She is a professional, a woman of finesse. There are no moments of hesitation when she works - no pausing to make sure. This is her domain and there is a life to be saved, and so she would save it. By all conclusions, Genji Shimada should have long since been sedated - especially considering she was about to begin the most major surgeries of her life upon him.
A shaky hand (his left, not his right) finds her gloved wrist, and Angela jolts with surprise. It leaves a trail of blood upon her - but her gaze instantly meets his own and what she sees makes her heart break. Fear and sadness, so prevalent in eyes that were once as warm as tilled earth - a handsome face, beneath his oxygen mask, and bloodied lips narrowed in agony. His grip is light, so terribly weak, but that does not stop her from covering his hand with her own, letting her hues lock with his, and saying low enough that only he could hear her…
“I’ve got you.”
----------
It’s 8:32 PM when she thinks he’ll make it through the night.
Angela comes out of that operating room a different woman, and Genji will wake up a different man.
It’s McCree that’s waiting for her, a cup of coffee in hand and a hot towel in the other. She wants to question if he’s been here the whole damn time, but judging by the fact he’s no longer covered in Genji’s blood, she assumes it’s safe to say no, he has not. Now it’s her turn, of course… to be covered in his blood, even if she’d stripped out of those scrubs and coat and mask, she still feels it on here, the weight of it, the weight of his life and how despite saving him, despite giving him a chance to live-
Perhaps he didn’t want to live this way.
Jesse is smart enough to not say anything when she sits down on the sofa in her own office. He’s smart enough to not turn those amber eyes on her either, for fear of awakening the angry, questioning beast that roils beneath her skin. Instead, he lets her lean on him and rest her gaze. Her brief dreams are filled with visions of Genji - the horror in those darkened hues, and the sprays of blood from a blade as a faceless man cuts him down.
------
It’s 11:27 PM when she rips Morrison and Reyes both new assholes.
They’d been expecting it, of course - the way Angela (politely) demands to know what the fuck is going on, and then listening to them tell her - just exactly why - they had brought her Genji Shimada in the first place. An asset, they say, to Overwatch and Blackwatch - especially coming from a criminal family. They were lucky, in a way, that Angela had been so exhausted - otherwise, perhaps, she might have gone completely nuclear in Jack’s office, and subsequently destroyed two of S.E.Ps pride and joy. That does not stop her, however, from (again, politely) telling them how she felt about the situation, telling them both to seek her permission before seeing him (ranked be damned) and then to have a lovely evening, thank you very much.
She wished the doors weren’t sliding so she could slam them behind her.
--------
It’s 2:54 AM on Thursday when he wakes up for a short time.
Angela is there when he does - holopad in hand, documenting something. Genji sees her through a blurry lens… his gaze unfocused, not blind but just… lacking something. The dimmed lighting causes her hair to appear luminous around her pretty features, soft and serene and utterly angelic. Perhaps were he able to speak, and perhaps were he the Genji from not even a week ago… he would have made a comment on it, made a pass at her. Instead, he lets his fingers flex against the bed sheets… and she notices, because of course she does.
Her face splits in surprise… so open, so lovely, and he finds it curious almost. She smiles at him in a way that is painfully tender (why? Does he deserve that?) and leans down to adjust a bit of wiring near the half of his body that he struggles to find any sensation on. His mind is addled by drugs, by the dull throb of pain manipulated by said drugs… and when she speaks, it sounds like it’s through a tube but… he wants to hear her say more.
“Hello, Mr. Shimada.” Warm. She was so warm in a sea of cold numbness. “You’re safe now.”
He knows he’s not, but the last thing he sees before falling asleep is her… and he finds it difficult to argue with that.
--------
It’s 2:54 AM five months from the day he woke up that he’s able to stand on his own two feet again.
Five months, five long and grueling months that they had been through those surgeries. Amputations, synthetic manipulations, rerouting of organs, cybernetic enhancements… With each one that he would awaken from, Genji would thank her, but with each one - his gaze would grow more and more dull. Now, however, he looks brighter than she’s seen him in months… able to move, to take shaky, quiet steps about his room, Angela at his side but Genji still wholly... freely independent. It’s not lost on her that he refuses to demonstrate much of his progress in the presence of others, but that’d be their secret for awhile longer. This was his recovery, after all.
They’d worked on his legs last, having started from top down, essentially. Countless sleepless nights spent awake, either by his side or in her quarters, puzzling out ways to make him more comfortable, more happy. It was not about brutal efficiency for her, not about the weaponry. But Genji wanted to be fast - wanted to be as fearsome as he had been… and so she obliged, with the assistance of others, and limb by limb, bit by bit, he was rebuilt.
But she knew he hated it, when he thought she wasn’t looking. She knew it in the way he spoke as little as possible, how he refused to see himself in the mirror… She just knew.
-------
It’s 7:00 AM, a year, 3 months, and 2 days from the day he was brought to her that he goes on his first mission with Blackwatch.
Angela had never railed more loudly against something in her life. Was his body healed? Yes. Were his cybernetics perfect? Yes. But his mind? She saw the fracture of that psyche - saw the way it was still in pieces and breaking steadily. She had gone after both Morrison and Reyes like a woman possessed, quiet anger and determination that put the fear of god in most… but it was actually Genji that had told her to stand down.
The conversation is like a fresh wound on her heart.
“Leave it be, Dr. Ziegler. I will make myself useful.”
Humiliating and painful. Lovely.
-------
It’s 6:31 PM 18 days after the departure for their mission that they return.
Everything had gone smoothly. Genji had the highest kill count among them all, and had sustained only minor damage.
Angela fixes him up without saying a word.
-------
It’s 2:54 AM three months after that first mission that he shows up at her office with a cup of coffee.
She stares at him like he’s grown three heads (or she’s hallucinating, perhaps) but takes the beverage anyway. Genji is not much of a conversationalist by nature but he goads her into speaking anyway much to her surprise - asking about her current research, what she was continuing to develop… and they fall back into an easy rhythm and a familiar pattern. He does not laugh, and he does not smile - but she does not need him to. Angela can see everything in those crimson eyes, computerized or not, that she needs to know.
They flicker when she makes a particularly jovial comment about McCree. It’s his version of a laugh.
They fall into a pattern after that… 2:54 AM, Genji was always there - either with coffee or to drink hers. On nights he was away on missions, she woke up at that time anyway, wondering why.
------
It’s 1:17 AM in King’s Row, London a few years later that he catches her as she falls.
The swift response Valkyrie suit was not without its issues, but she was keen to assist in the field when necessary. Her own enhancements at her spine kept her maneuvering easily, light as a bird and quick in the air. It’s her own fault, really, sloppiness in her attempt to get to priority targets as quickly as possible. The pulse shot connects with her left wing and sends not only a lance of agony down her spine - but a burst of pressure and air as she begins plummeting towards earth.
All she can hear is the rush of the wind by her ears, vision filled with city lights and stars and a strange sense of peace fills her… deliberate and quiet…
Until crimson and black is in her gaze, and strong arms… one real, one cybernetic, embrace her frame. In her ear, a prayer:
“I’ve got you, Angela.”
Four hours later, back on the dropship, she’s staring at him with her mouth agape.
“You called me Angela.”
------
It’s 2:52 AM three weeks later that he tries to kiss her for the first time.
It comes as such a surprise that she nearly lets him - as she’s in the midst of adjusting his faceplate, bending out a bit of metal and reshaping to more snuggly fit. It would have happened - were she not quick on her feet. She’s leaned inwards, plating clutched in her hands and ready to click into place when he dips in - going for the plump swell of her peach tiers but…
Two fingers meet him instead, and he is scowling.
“Just what do you think you’re doing, Genji?”
“...”
She realizes her mistake the second silence befalls them. Realizes the amount of courage it must have taken for him to even try at all. Their chemistry was undeniable… everyone could see it, and their attachment ran deep. But here was a man discomforted by his own existence, his appearance, and Angela had just rejected some amount of physical affection and-- she finishes snapping the bolt into place, and he looks ready to run. Angela does not respond with trepidation, but instead offers him a sweet sweet smile as she leans inwards, breath ghosting over his scarred lips.
“It’s not 2:54 AM.”
The emotions that cycle through Genji’s hues at her statement are almost tangible to her: questioning, confusion, awareness, understanding, irritation, then mirth. She wants to laugh but she doesn’t… instead her gaze dances with her delight, at 2:53 AM, and he thinks she’s the most beautiful thing in the world. They use that minute… just that minute, to drink one another in…
