Gabriel Reyes is not a babysitter.

He is a fighter, a strategist, a leader, a fucking Commander, but he is not a watcher of babies.

Or stubborn-as-all-hell doctors.

"Why does she need to be watched?" he says again, trailing after Amélie as the elegant Frenchwoman strides ahead. "She's an adult, isn't she?"

"Angela is a doctor," Amélie replies smoothly, as if he didn't already fucking know that. As if being a doctor and an adult is a mutually exclusive sort of thing.

"And?" Reyes prompts, frowning as he stalks through Overwatch's base. He'd just gotten back from a mission—no seriously, Amélie had seized his arm and started pulling him through the halls while his guns were still hot—and the last thing he wants to do is watch the good doctor do whatever it is the good doctor does that requires a fucking babysitter.

For a woman who isn't even apart of Overwatch, Amélie Lacroix sure carries a helluva lot of authority on those slender shoulders.

But she's the wife of their most talented agent, best friend to their most talented doctor, and has a natural charm and charisma that makes her the closest thing they have to a PR rep.

So Reyes follows. Grudgingly.

"You know what they say," Amélie supplies vaguely, waving her hand in an asinine gesture as they walk on. "Doctors make terrible patients."

Reyes just grunts noncommittally. Amélie side-eyes him as they reach the doors to the infirmary.

"Just make sure she gets rest," she says, stepping aside. "She's been working even later nights. She has to be exhausted."

Reyes isn't exactly sure Angela knows how to be tired—if anyone could bully their body into submission in order to spend a few more hours tending to her patients, it would be Angela fucking Ziegler—but he nods all the same.

"Sure," he mutters, unconvinced.

Amélie arches an eyebrow. "You've never been around her when she's been ordered to rest, have you?" the woman asks.

He shrugs. "Guess not. Why?"

Amélie opens her mouth like she's going to speak before she seems to reconsider, and slowly closes it.

"Never mind," she murmurs, turning away. "Have a nice time, Commander."

Reyes frowns after her—he'll never fucking understand that woman, as long as he lives—before turning back. Might as well get this over with.

He slaps a palm against the door. "Doc, it's me," he calls gruffly. "I'm comin' in, so if you're doing anything weird, knock it off."

"Come in," she calls back, her voice faint, like she's across the room. Reyes frowns slightly. If memory serves (and you can bet your life it does) the bed of the infirmary is relatively close to the door. He pushes the door open, eyebrows pulled together.

"Doc, what—" he breaks off, taking in the scene before him with careful bewilderment.

She's wearing torn leggings and a sweatshirt that is clearly too big for her with a vaguely recognizable logo on the front and dammit, Angela, why are you wearing Jack's old college sweatshirt for fuck's sake this is how rumors start. She's rolled the sleeves up and is standing over the sink in the corner, cleaning supplies strewn around her.

"What the fuck are you doing?" he asks, voice a flat note of are you fucking kidding me?

"Cleaning," is her prim reply, and he watches—not with disbelief, he's not even surprised—as she scrubs out the sink with a sponge. She turns to glance over her shoulder, quirking an eyebrow. "Care to make yourself useful? Pass me the disinfect."

He stifles a groan, rolling his eyes up to the ceiling. This is the kinda fucking lunacy he knew he'd be getting dragged into. Damn Amélie for dumping this on him.

"Doc, just—" he breaks off with a sigh, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Just fucking get in the bed, okay?"

She rolls her eyes, turning back to the sink. "There is nothing wrong with me, Gabriel."

"Yeah?" he snaps back, reaching over to snatch her documents where they're resting on the edge of her pristinely made bed, eager to disprove her.

"Those are in German," she tells him, not even bothering to look as she works at a particularly stubborn stain. "And that assumes you can understand medical charts anyway."

Reyes scans the sheet, unable to decipher the swirling text. Fuck language barriers. She couldn't have been from Spain, could she?

"John speaks a bit of German," she offers, and his eyes snap up to see her fighting a small smirk as she moves on to wipe down the counter. She sends him an amused look over her shoulder. "Quite well, actually."

"Sorry we can't all be as fucking Star-Spangled awesome as Jack," he retorts, annoyed at her teasing. She bites down on her lower lip to hide a smirk. His frowns at the action. "What?"

"Nothing, nothing," she turns away. He scowls at her back.

"What the fuck are you even in here for?" he asks, glancing again at the medical chart, like he's miraculously learned the entire German language in the fifteen seconds it's been since he last looked.

She waves one hand carelessly. "I took a hit in the field. Genji overreacted and made a formal report. John ordered I get bed rest."

"Well, I don't have a PHD or an MD, but I'm pretty sure bed rest involves a fucking bed," he quips, lifting a judgmental brow.

He earns an annoyed huff for his comment, and she sets down the sponge to turn and reach for a bottle of disinfecting spray. Reyes takes the moment to move forward—people are always so stupidly surprised at his speed, like he can't be sturdy and quick—to grab the sponge off the counter and move back out of reach.

Angela whirls to face him, eyebrows knitting together in annoyance.

"What are you doing?" she asks sharply.

"Go to bed," he retorts, pointing at it like she needs help identifying the fucking thing. "This is stupid and pointless and a waste of my time."

"My thoughts exactly," she snips back at him, reaching for the sponge. He holds it high above his head, out of her reach.

"Go the fuck to sleep," he says again. "Seriously, Doc. You know you've got some pretty fucked up blind spots when it comes to your own health. Just take a breather, for Christ's sake."

"Gabriel," she huffs his name on the heels of an annoyed sigh, stretching up on tiptoe. "This is absolutely childish—"

"You know what else is childish? Cleaning the fucking infirmary when you're supposed to be resting." He sidesteps, lifting the sponge higher, and Mercy scowls up at him, feeling the acute loss of her heels as she does so.

"That is not childish, that is a responsible use of my time," she argues, one hand coming to rest on her hip, to other turned over before her in a very demanding gesture. "Give me the sponge."

"You're ignoring doctor's orders," he points out. "I could write you up for that."

She rolls her eyes, scoffing at his threat. "Oh, could you now? Please tell me how you plan to articulate the act of Dr. Ziegler ignoring Dr. Ziegler's orders without sounding like an absolute idiot."

He tosses the sponge between his hands, dully amused. "Easy—I'll tell Jack," he says. He points the sponge at her, accusatory. "Because Jack knows that this is exactly the kinda bullshit you like to pull."

"John adores me," she argues, making another grab for the sponge in an attempt to catch him off guard. He makes a show of stepping away casually, easily keeping the object of her desire out of reach. "We gossip about you all the time. In German."

"Liar."

"Give me the sponge, Gabriel."

"Tell me how to say fuck you in German."

"Absolutely not."

They stare at each other in silence for a brief moment before she surges forward, trying to swipe the sponge from him. He's expecting this, though—honestly playing keep away with her is as easy as it was when he played with the kids in his neighborhood when he was twelve—and he stretches out one hand to brace against her shoulder, locking his elbow to hold her at bay, smirking in anticipation for the scandalized look he knows she's going to throw him, when she suddenly sucks in a sharp gasp of pain.

He drops his arm, all teasing dead as he watches her pace away, one hand fluttering up to her shoulder. She hisses something under her breath, so harshly he knows it has to be a curse.

His eyes widen as crimson stains blossom across the gray fabric of Jack's sweatshirt.

Fuck.

"What happened?" His voice is low and dark as he steps forward, looming above her as he tries to analyze her wound. She waves him off with her free hand, still moving away.

"Pulled my stitches," she grumbles. "I knew this would happen."

"You have stitches?" he demands.

"I did," she retorts, tilting her head to get a look at the bloodstain that's steadily spreading across her appropriated sweatshirt before just yanking the thing off with a huff. Some part of his brain that hasn't gone into authority mode is distinctly impressed that she managed to disrobe so gracefully with only one hand.

"Pass me the medical thread," she tells him, biting her lip as she surveys the sluggishly bleeding wound. "And a needle. They should be over there," she gestures vaguely to the cabinets with her free hand.

Her intentions dawn on him then, and he balks.

"You are not gonna give yourself stitches." How much more of a goddamn mess could they make? Honestly.

"Are you volunteering?" she asks, twisting around to fix him with an imperiously arched brow.

He scowls at her arch tone. "I dropped out of school before we got to needlepoint," he bites back. "So no."

He doesn't even know why he's taking such a tone with her, but he's too annoyed to take it back. His temper doesn't seem to bother her—or even surprise her. She just offers a half-shrug with her good shoulder, turning back.

"Shame," she remarks. "Sewing is an incredibly useful skill."

He blows out a breath. He's completely over this entire fucking interaction.

"Isn't there someone to call?" he demands, looking around like there's a phone number scrawled somewhere.

"Yes, there is. Me." Angela elbows past him with her good arm to reach for the medical supplies, deftly pulling them off their shelves. "I'm perfectly capable of giving myself stitches, Gabriel, honestly."

He watches as she goes about it like this is business as fucking usual—literally sewing her skin back together—and he can't help but watch with some kind of unnerved interest.

"Thought you said Genji overacted," he remarks, frowning at the wound. "You're missing like, a chunk of your arm."

She rolls her eyes, and he grits his teeth as he watches her push the needle through her pale skin.

"You and Genji are both overacting, it seems," she tells him. "Jesse said I was fine."

"McCree's blind as a fucking bat."

"He's the best shot in Overwatch, Gabriel."

"He's lucky."

She just scoffs, rolling her eyes. But he can see the smirk playing at her lips as she continues.

His eyes skim over her as she finishes up her stitches—it hadn't exactly escaped his notice that she was sitting before him in nothing but a sports bra but he's a professional, thank you very much—and he blinks as his vision snags on something on her lower back.

"What's that?" he finally asks, with his typical club-like delicacy. He steps closer, fisting his hand so he won't be tempted to run his fingers across it.

She twists, trying to get a look at what he's talking about. Her expression clears and she turns back. "Oh. Bullet wound." Her answer is causal. Too causal. His eyes narrow.

"To the back?" he demands, looking down at the pale mark again.

She glances over her shoulder to give him a rueful look. "You didn't honestly think Overwatch was the first time I'd seen combat, did you?" she asks, lifting an eyebrow in disbelief. "I've been treating people in less than favorable locations for as long as you've been enlisted, Gabriel."

He meets her gaze with a look of flat annoyance. "Pardon my rudeness, GI fucking Jane."

She shrugs lightly, turning away and reaching for her sweatshirt when he stretches out to lay a hand on her good shoulder, stilling her movements. He pretends he doesn't notice the goose bumps that rise under his touch.

"What's that from?" he asks lowly, eyes tracing a thin, sharp scar that skirts her ribs.

She hums under her breath, brushing wayward locks out of her eyes as she peers at the mark in question. "A knife, I think?" she tilts her head, frowning at the pale, raised skin. "Regardless, I got it in Mexico."

He pulls a face at this. "What were you in Mexico for?" he demands.

She stares back at him. "I go where people need me," she explains quietly. "That's what I've always done. It's what I'll always do." She sighs then, looking away. Jack's sweatshirt lies on the counter—bloodstained and forgotten. "Sometimes they greet me with open arms and tears of joy. Sometimes they greet me with guns and knives." She rakes a pale hand through her messy hair. "Sometimes I'm too late, and there's nobody left to greet me at all."

Silences falls between them as she pulls on the sweatshirt. He can't help but stare at the spot where the scar had been.

It's far too easy for him to forget how much she's sacrificed to get where she is. How much of herself—her time and money and her own goddamn sanity—she's given to help others.

She will always prefer to lose than cause loss. It's inspiring and incredible and absolutely the worst survival plan he has ever heard, and yet here she sits before him—scraped and scarred but very much alive.

Doctors make terrible patients, Amélie had told him. It makes sense, in a way. She's been helping others for so long it's almost like she doesn't know how to accept it herself.

"So, you've been to Mexico…" he rolls the sponge between his fingers, just to give himself something to do, watching as she tidies up the counter. "Speak the language?"

She gives him a look of humored disbelief. "Obviamente. Mejor que tú," is her crisp, flawless reply.

"Great." He tosses the sponge back at her, and she catches it clumsily. "Write your medical notes up in that next time."

"Why?" she demands, frowning as he turns to stride from the room.

"So I can fuckin' read 'em."

He hears her scoff quietly behind him, and decides to make his point. He pauses, allowing himself a small smirk before turning to regard her over his shoulder.

"Y Angela," his native accent rolls off his tongue—dark and smooth—and she looks up in surprise.

"¿Sí?" she asks hesitantly, eyebrows slightly raised.

"No use esa maldita cosa nunca más, ¿lo captas?"

He could have been imagining her resulting blush. He kind of doubts it though.

Literally what the fuck even is this somebody help me

I don't know I've been in such an Overwatch slump because I was super Team Platonic and then I was like "oh fuck wait no I'm not Team Platonic shit" and now I just wanna sail this ship into oblivion but I'm still a fucking slave to staying as true to canon as possible and who the fuck even cares this is a thing and I wrote it.

I wrote this in like two hours which is why there's probably typos and it has zero context. I still can't write romance to save my fuckin life so I guess these two will just ambiguously flirt and send each other mixed signals for the rest of their fucking lives. A plus, Duchess. A fucking plus. I've never written anything like this okay please don't hate me I don't even know how it happened this is way more shippy than anything I've ever done so sorry if that's not your thing.

I have a bunch of stuff in the works, so if you didn't like this, just hang tight. I had to get it out of my system. I wanted to try my hand at a new voice, which is why this nonsense is absolutely littered in profanity.

Also, Reyes' last comment him telling her to "never wear that fucking thing ever again." Or at least that's what I told google translate to have him say.

My main/personal tumblr is midwestern-duchess and my writing dump is domindebt. Feel free to give me a shout if you want to chat.

This week is my birthday week, so make it an extra good one, team!