Chapter Text
Another day, another fight. That’s what Ana kept on thinking every time the Strike Team got deployed, day or night. Just, this mission had started with the wrong foot after Gabriel threatened to throw Reinhardt off the plane if he did not shut the fuck up straight away.
The threat itself was nothing new but, the way he had said it today left no doubt; he was not joking this time. Which was odd.
Ana fixed a lock of hair behind her ear and nudged the blond Captain. He had been making plans with her about the mission for the past half an hour, reviewing strategies and possible places to perch where she could take the advantage. Again .
“Jack.”
He looked up from the datapad, blue eyes searching her face for clues about what was more important than the mission just then. When he seemed about to ask her, she leaned closer to him to whisper if there was something the matter with Gabriel.
Jack tapped the datapad screen to reveal a blank note. The fact that he would rather write than speak meant there was something going on.
“Nothing that I know of,” he wrote, “Officially, at least. Gabe’s not feeling well lately.”
Ana felt a frown drawing on her face. Granted, if Overwatch had to wait for all of them to feel fine to be deployed, they would never leave the base, but it worried her that their Commander may be going down with something bad. She still remembered when Jack got sick last time and it took him a month to recover. Super-soldier ailments were the worst, apparently.
“Don’t worry. Been keeping an eye on him,” Jack typed and then nodded. “He’s been working too hard.”
Ah, yes, of course. The UN Council was being pushy about the omniums, as if destroying them was piece of cake and they did not have to plan their strategy for months. It was actually amazing how Gabriel could pull off so many ideas to ambush the Omnics and make their team run like clockwork. Ana considered herself not bad at the job, but their Commander had a sixth sense when it came to planning.
She looked at his frowny face, even if she could only see an ear and a bunch of short curls from where she was, and felt a surge of pride and unconditional affection she would never, ever, tell anyone about. When they were back to the base, she would call one of their movie nights. It felt like it had been too long since the last time they chilled doing nothing.
“We’ll be there in five, stop gossiping already,” Gabriel grumped, and Ana and Jack exchanged looks. The mission was going to be interesting.
----
The city of Carcassonne had seen better days. All of France, actually, had seen better days. After Overwatch destroyed the omnium at the centre of the country, it seemed like things could only get better, but the French army was understaffed and undergeared, and they could only cope with so many fronts at the same time.
The French army said they would come to reinforce Overwatch’s position in five hours, but it had been seven already and they had not even called, yet. The only good thing was that their position, the place civilians had retreated to, was the city’s castle.
The battlements were still standing after so many years, made of solid stone and circled a large enclave of houses. There was a moat full of water around the castle just like in the old stories and perimeter alerts every other tower, so the team only had to focus on the main entrance while keeping an eye on the rest. The battlements doorway was no more, though, and the main entrance was now a stone bridge large enough to fit two lorries side by side. Could be better, but it was not horrible to defend, all things considered.
Besides, the Omnics had been coming in small waves from the destroyed outskirts, giving them plenty of time to regroup and even refresh themselves between skirmishes. Anything their front-line did not destroy straight away was efficiently taken care of by Ana and Jack. They were positioned in a balcony in front of the bridge, from where they could practically see everything that came their way.
“Twenty-two, here. And counting,” Jack rested his rifle on his shoulder, and Ana snorted.
“Keep dreaming,” she shook her head, giving him a side smile. “You’ll never beat me.”
“Cut the chit-chat,” their Commander snapped on the comms, and they looked at each other. Then, he continued a moment later. “No bets among the team unless I start them.”
Gabriel was joking. Sort of. But whatever was going on with him, it was bad. He had been pacing here and there, barely taking any shots, and letting the team to deal with the attacks while he looked at the distance from the battlements. He had also been silent most of the time, grunting a few orders here and there and relying on Jack and Ana mostly to group their soldiers.
It worried Ana that he was not fit for duty somewhat, but sure he would have stayed behind if that if he was that bad. Maybe he was just saving his energies for a bigger Omnic incursion. Maybe he was just worried or busy planning ahead, as he usually did. The UN council had been giving him a hard time lately, praising his accomplishments but not his methods.
To be fair, every time they had destroyed an omnium they had blown a big hole in the country—Unfortunately, blowing up nuclear reactors and Omnic plants always caused collateral damage, as much as they tried to contain the devastation. But, most of the time Gabriel only had to choose between saving his team or the adjacent buildings… and screw the buildings, really.
Ana took a shot far in the distance, then focused her efforts closer to their team. Reinhardt was at their front-line, as usual, but the comms were devoid of his natural liveliness. Any other time he would have pitched in with his own kill count, but the Crusader had frozen in place the moment they landed inside the castle walls. His cheerfulness gone in one fell swoop, she had not been able to get from him what was going on, no matter how much she had nudged him.
However, she stopped worrying much when he stood his ground at the battlement’s main entrance while several soldiers used his barrier to destroy as many Omnics as possible on any wave. He prioritised the targets, kept an eye of any that could flank their barricade and informed the rest of the team of it so they could get dealt with—but he was merely standing and defending, barely engaging the Omnics even if, in Ana’s opinion, they did not need his shield most of the time.
“Four Bastions coming our way. Five,” he counted in a grave voice. “Damn. Make them around twenty. Two coming on the right, behind that pile of red bricks. Most of them coming straight to us. Get somewhere safe, the barrier would drop in seconds if they use heavy rounds. Flank them instead.”
Ana laid on the ground to make the smallest target possible, and looked over the Crusader’s shoulder, waiting for any Bastion to pop by.
A tank shell dropped behind their front-line, raining dust and fire in the courtyard, and Reinhardt retreated from his position at the bridge.
“Where is the tank? Anyone? I can’t spot it,” he said, looking around while keeping his shield in place. Apparently, there was another way that they had not discovered yet. Were the Omnics, maybe, planning to ambush them?
“I have visual, I’ll take care of it,” Gabriel said, jumping from the battlements to the roof of a house as if it was nothing.
The mostly-silent ruins exploded with machine-gun sounds. Fortunately, the Bastions were firing light shells, but Reinhardt’s barrier would not keep them safe for much longer.
“Rocketeers!”
Their soldiers fired through the barrier, adding echoing explosions to the cacophony of nightmarish sounds, and Ana put on some music on her comms; instrumental music from films she had never seen. It was relaxing and packed with feelings—feelings of what, she was not sure. But keeping her brain engaged in something that was not shots and explosions helped her focus on her targets since Gibraltar.
The Crusader’s barrier was already cracking when a tank shell exploded on it, making him take a couple of steps back.
“Tanks in priority, come on, people!” Ana said, adjusting the scope of her rifle. She could not blow a tank to pieces with a couple of shots, unfortunately, but spotting it would be a first step in the right direction.
Reinhardt’s pained grunt made her reevaluate her priorities, though; a Bastion was shooting at their infantry from behind — where was Gabriel?? — and the Crusader was trying to protect the soldiers keeping them between his barrier and himself. Not that the barrier was going to last much more, anyway.
While a particularly loud orchestrated song played on her earphones, Ana took a shot. Two. Three. The Bastion twitched, sparking, and did not move any longer.
“Thank you, Captain!” He said, and Ana smiled a bit. It was the first time he sounded genuinely happy in hours. Unfortunately, his happiness was short-lived. “Three tanks! Hide, now!”
The second he said was the second his barrier was absolutely annihilated. The impact made him skid backward and almost lose his footing. He retreated to get under cover, protecting his head from the bullets with an arm and yet trying to be as big as a target as he could while their soldiers scattered to a better position.
“I’ll try to flank the tanks,” Jack said, dropping from the balcony he shared with Ana to the street. “Reinhardt, keep them busy, all right?”
“Busy!” The German groaned, jumping behind the ruins of a house that was being destroyed as they spoke. “What have I been doing all day?”
“Keep them busier , then! Smack-them-down kind of busy!”
Reinhardt grumbled something in the comms that sounded a lot like he was eating gravel, and then let out a long breath.
“You’ll have a very short window. Tell me when you’re ready!”
That sounded like he had in mind something crazy, but Ana would worry about it when it happened. She had her hands full at the moment, taking shots whenever any Omnic tried to flank them and keeping tabs on everyone’s location. Or almost everyone’s.
“Gabriel, where are you?”
“Gone fishing,” he replied with a snort, but his mic captured the sound of his shotguns. “Ambushing them from the side.”
“Be careful. You’re out of everyone’s sight.”
Ana could have ordered him to retreat but, at least, he was doing his part. She hated watching him pace like a caged animal as much as she hated the German’s silent moods.
What was clear was that she could not leave them alone even for a week without shit hitting the fan. At least, this time she did not came back to find a whole wing of the HQ missing due to an experiment gone wrong, apparently, that caught both super soldiers on it.
Really.
She snorted, reloading her rifle again. With Jack gone, she alone had to ensure nobody flanked their front line. They were busy enough trying to take down the sentry-mode Bastions covering the tanks as to worry about anyone else.
“Reinhardt, I’m ready!” Jack said in the comms. “Give me the signal.”
“Roger!”
The Crusader jumped out of his hiding spot and deployed his barrier, which was instantly shattered to pieces by the next two tank shells. He did not seem to care, though. He took his hammer on both hands, raised it over his head, and smashed the ground with such strength Ana could hear it despite her music.
The road cracked several feet in front of him and then collapsed inwardly, pulling two of the Bastion tanks off their tracks.
Jack’s rifle fired a rapid pulse of shots that destroyed one of them in no time. Hoping he would take care of the other, Ana was taking shots at the one that had escaped unscratched to disable it before it could shoot again—but Reinhardt charged it. Just, his positioning was off and he missed the wall for a couple of feet, crashing deep into the enemy lines.
Quickly, Ana put her rifle on her back and started climbing to the next balcony, where she would have a better view of the battleground ahead. It would have been easy had she been a super-soldier, but everything was always hard-mode for her. She gritted her teeth and pushed herself up with her arms only, using the filigrees in the balcony to get a better grip and climb until she could find her footing.
“ Lots incoming, take cover!” Ana heard Reinhardt on the general comms, and she pushed herself up the final stretch. There was no joy in his voice, no thrill for battle. If she did not know him better, she would think he was absolutely terrified.
But that was absurd .
When she managed to get into position again, she saw the Crusader retreating under heavy Bastion fire, using everything he possibly could to hide and recharge his barrier. Two dozens of Bastions had just advanced, protected by their numbers, and had deployed themselves in sentry mode, raining bullets towards the Crusader and in their soldiers’ general direction. Damn it, so the Omnics were really planning a big attack, and they had just been countering the scouts. Shit.
Shells started raining in the courtyard; mortar shells. They had brought heavy artillery, apparently.
“Guys, this doesn’t look well. What about we retreat a bit and fortify ourselves while we plan an attack on those mortars?” She asked, but the comms stayed silent. Jack was shooting from a corner, ahead to their soldiers, and Gabriel—where in the world was he, now?
She was taking her shots as fast as she could, now, trying to disable as many Bastions as possible, when she saw their Commander. He dropped from a partially destroyed rooftop in front of Reinhardt and started shooting like she had never seen him shoot before. He was so fast his weapons barely kept up with him, the Bastions around him falling in pieces as if they were made of paper.
It was both scary and amazing to watch.
And when he ran out of bullets, he was just in the middle of the enemy lines, with no protection.
Fuck’s sake, Gabriel.
Reinhard ran towards him and used his armour to shield him while they retreated to a half-destroyed building. Their soldiers launched another barrage of rockets that quieted the Omnics for a while, and the Crusader broke into a run again, this time towards their soldiers. Gabriel was nowhere in sight.
“I’m hit!” Jack groaned on the comms, and Ana looked at his last known location to see him scurrying on the ground to get under cover. Shells kept on raining on them, and they were getting dangerously close to her, too.
“How bad?” She asked. “Not in a good position for a medic.”
“Will get to you, Jack, stay hidden,” Reinhardt panted, almost at their soldiers already.
“Overwatch team, Commander Lacroix here,” she heard out of the blue in a lovely French accent. “Our warplanes will be at your position in 2 mins. Get to the City Hall, we’ll bomb the hell out of those bastards.”
“About time, Commander,” Gabriel grunted, then switched to the general channel. “Everyone, fall back to the City Hall, now. Bombing incoming in 2. Go, go, go!”
“Reinhardt, the infantry needs you to retreat,” Ana said between taking shots. “The Bastions would shred them to pieces.”
“But, Jack?”
“I’ll get him,” Gabriel said, wherever he was, and the Crusader deployed his barrier in front of their team again so they could all retreat down the half-ruined street as safely as possible.
The incoming planes' engines hissed loudly in the air, almost blocking Ana’s music completely.
“Guys, I still cannot see you. Need to move faster!”
The planes sounded closer and closer, and Ana stopped using her rifle to have a better idea of the battleground. Their troops were safely back, Reinhardt was still down there but far enough from the ruins, and their super-soldiers…
She was about to tell them in the comms to hide as much as they could when the squad of warplanes flew past them in perfect formation. In a moment, they were bombarding the hell out of the destroyed buildings around the City Hall, and Ana crouched, covering her face with an arm.
Shit.
She looked around the moment the planes drifted in the distance, trying to spot anyone among the smoke. Some small fires had started through the rubble, adding to the smoke and dust, but nothing moved. Nothing shot at them.
“Guys?” She called in the comms, then nibbled at her lower lip. “Position?”
Silence. Silence that made her swallow and shook her head. No. She refused to accept they could fall like this, under friendly fire. Her hands squeezed the balcony. They probably needed a moment; the explosions would stun anyone, not to say deafen them.
“Gabriel, Jack, do you copy?”
There was a burst of static on the comms, and she took a deep breath.
“To the right of the City Hall,” Jack’s voice came by among coughs. “Could use some cover.”
Reinhardt was there in a moment, his bulky figure a shadow among the dust and smoke. Ana could only sigh when two more shadows joined them and walked back to the building. One day they would be the end of her. Or, at least, the cause of her grey hairs.
Despite the apparent tranquillity of the battleground, Ana remained at her position, rifle ready to shoot and music on—a soft melody this time that reminded her of the blanket of snow that usually covered their Swiss headquarters. Gabriel gave instructions to their soldiers to perch on the City Hall’s balconies or around them to guard the perimeter. It was a good precaution, because some Omnics always survived this kind of attacks and they would not retreat even if they had lost the battle.
There was a moment of silence in the general comms and, then, a fucking storm started in the officers’ one.
“What the hell were you thinking?” Gabriel yelled. “You almost got Jack killed!”
“Me?” Reinhardt’s voice sounded half surprised and half angry .“You’re the one that should have been covering his back.”
“Which I was doing, until you charged into the fucking enemy lines!”
“Don’t make me laugh! You’ve been out of position the whole mission!”
“That’s enough, you two,” Ana set the safety catch on her rifle and rushed downstairs before her bunch of idiots killed each other.
“I was scouting and flanking them because all you did was stand there with your shield doing nothing!”
“Gabe, that’s enough,” Jack intervened, and Ana hurried up, jumping down several steps in one go to get to the ground floor faster.
“I was protecting our soldiers!”
“Keep telling yourself that,” Gabriel snorted. “I don’t know why I bothered taking you here today.”
Ana opened the door to see Reinhardt standing up in front of their Commander, still in his full armour, hands made fists, and Gabriel…
“Gabriel, hey…” she called, her eyes glued to his dark, smoking arms. He was not on fire and it was not that sort of smoke either. It—it was absurd, but it seemed as if it was part of him, pulsing as a manifestation of his anger. Even his curls seemed to dissolve somewhat.
Jack gasped audibly when he noticed it and got up, a hand holding his still bleeding side, and walked towards them.
“Gabe, man, are you—shit,” he put a hand on his shoulder. “Your arms, Gabe. You…”
“I’m fine!” He roared. The smoke seemed to swirl around him for an instant and then it disappeared. “I have it under control.”
“Under control? No, that’s—we need to talk to the SEP program asap.”
“ We need to do nothing,” Gabriel pushed Jack away and walked towards the door. Her dark eyes dared Ana to say anything, but she just made a thin line with her lips.
So, Gabriel was just tired, and Jack did not know what was up. Bullshit.
--------
Their return trip was even more fun than the outbound one. Gabriel was sitting with the pilot, arms crossed, looking at the dawning sky. Reinhardt was strapped to his seat so stone-faced it felt as if he was still wearing his helmet. So it was just Ana and Jack sitting together, sighing side by side again.
Fortunately, Jack’s injury was not terrible, and his enhanced body was already healing up. Which did not mean he could be running errands, but they had to find positives somewhere.
He was also a bit ashamed of having blatantly lied to her, but she understood it was not his secret to share. At least, now they could worry together.
“We think it’s something to do with his SEP enhancement,” Jack typed on the datapad once again. “Something seems to be going awry, but we don’t know what, or why after so many years.”
“Does it hurt?”
“He says it feels weird, as if suddenly he had more limbs, or something. Sometimes it makes him sick.”
“He shouldn’t be on duty,” Ana typed furiously on the screen. “It’s not safe.”
“He—” Jack rubbed his stubbled cheek. “Let’s contact the SEP doctors, first, OK?”
“Jack…”
“I promise I’ll keep you posted about everything that happens,” he typed. “Ana, we cannot—the war. We cannot do this without him, you know it.”
She knew it, of course she did. But what happened today? It had frankly shaken her. But she was not talking about the smoke, his blatantly disregard for the mission, or being constantly out of position as Reinhardt called out, but his anger. The bitterness in his voice.
Granted, Gabriel was not as caring as Jack, but he would never attack any of them like that. Damn, she even feared for a moment he would engage in a fist-fight with Reinhardt there and then.
“I know, but—”
The aircraft hit a turbulence patch and Reinhardt woke up with a startle, almost head-butting the seat in front of him and scaring the hell out of Jack and Ana. He held his face for a moment before grumbling under his breath and leaning back on his seat.
“Now, he also worries me,” Jack wrote in the datapad. “He’s been acting weird today. Do you know what’s wrong?”
“I arrived hours ago and haven’t spoken with him more than you have today,” she tapped in the screen passive-aggressively. “He’s part of your team, too, you know. You can ask him yourself.”
Jack swallowed and looked to the side for a moment. She knew Reinhardt was not exactly the kind of guy they liked having around—too big, too strong, too handsome, and not a bit ashamed to brag about any of his qualities. He was a thought competitor and loved winning, just like them. Too many big egos in one place, she understood that pretty well. Yet, Reinhardt would lay down his life for any of them without thinking, and she would kick the super-soldiers in the butt if their petty egos prevented them from taking care of their team.
“Sorry,” he whispered, rubbing his frown with a thumb. “You’re right.”
Ana snorted, but kept on typing.
“He was fine until we landed in France. That’s all I can tell.”
Even though the German rarely shared what made him unhappy unless it was work-related, she could always try asking him; he would not be more difficult to deal with than Gabriel, that was for sure. Their bloody Commander and his bloody secrets—
Then, it hit her. What if Jack was next? What if the SEP enhancements had an expiry date? She turned to look at the blond man, frowning in worry.
“Jack, if you start feeling—”
He snatched the datapad from her hands and winced at the sudden movement.
“The SEP never experimented with two soldiers in the same way. The doctors—they seemed to change things depending on our DNA,” he winced again, but this time Ana could read it was not due to his injury. She could bet their time at the SEP was anything but pleasant. “I’m fine. So far, at least.”
Ana grabbed Jack’s hand and squeezed it. Screw the datapad, she did not care if Gabriel could hear her. Actually, she kind of wished he did.
“You are not alone in this. Neither of you are.”
He squeezed her hand back.
“Thanks, really appreciate it,” he gave her that smile that melted glaciers, and she could not help but smile back. “Ah, but, if there is an urgent call—”
“I’ll go,” she nodded. “But I really hope there’s not. I’d like to see my daughter before she forgets she has a mother, you know.”
“She’d never forget,” Jack snorted softly. “We won’t let her, anyway. She looks more and more like you every day. I crack up every time Reinhardt calls her ‘Little Captain’.”
It made her laugh too, she had to admit it, but now she could only muster half a smile. Her eyes looked for the Crusader; his head was tilted towards the window, he had his earbuds on and his arms crossed over his chest. The very air around him was upset, and Ana started to think that her idea of asking him may not go as well as she hoped for.
It was easy to be direct with Jack and Gabriel, that was the language they understood and appreciated. It was easy to throw insults at them when they were being especially stubborn or dickheads, but Reinhardt would only take that personally—and she was shit at dealing with emotions.
Jack threw the datapad to her lap to get her attention, and she could not help but raise her eyebrows first and then frown at the question written on it.
“How are things with him?”
“Why are we discussing this again?” She typed back.
“You don’t look at any of us the way you look at him,” Ana watched him write in the datapad with a shit-eating grin, and she glared at him from his shoulder.
“What the hell, Jack,” she growled. “Really. That’s not true, at all .”
“I’m sorry, but it is,” he shrugged softly, holding his ribs. “It’s—It’s not a bad thing, you know. The world is a pile of shit right now, and—”
“Shut up, John Francis Morrison, before I punch you in the face.”
He chuckled softly, a fond look on his face, and grabbed the datapad again.
“He’s a good guy,” he typed at the screen, making her roll her eyes.
“It’s not a matter of being a good guy or not. I don’t look at him in any special way. I don’t—I just don’t.”
Her team tried so hard to hook them up that she had given it serious thought, but the exercise only reassured herself in her position. First of all, they were at war, and mixing love and war was a recipe for disaster, as she was well aware. So, at least , they had to win the war first for her to ever consider any sort of relationship again.
Second, she did not look at Reinhardt in any special way, at all. Sure, they were on friendly terms. She had fun when he was around and considered the big idiot a member of her strange family, but there was no way she would purposely look at him in a way that would encourage his feelings.
And third, Ana was quite sure she could never love anyone enough to even consider it. Her numb heart beat only for Fareeha and, oftentimes, Ana found herself thinking she did not love her daughter as much as she should. And, if that happened with the person Ana loved the most in the world, how could she even think she could share her life with someone else? How could she be that selfish?
“You know you can tell me anything… even if I may feel a bit jealous you won’t choose me :(”
“Jack!” She hissed, slapping him in the leg. “Stop being a dumbarse already!”
He chuckled softly, merry, and leaned his head on hers. Ana let go of a long breath. The only positive thing about all this was that he was having a good time after a shitty day, and that he was relaxed for a while. He worked too much despite the hours Ana put in every day to take some of the paperwork from him and Gabriel. Ah, damn Gabriel for not telling her he was in such a mess. She would have bought him dark chocolate, at least.
“Ready to land in ten, strap your belts, please,” the pilot chimed in, and Ana started making plans to deal with her friends. Talking to Reinhardt first would probably be the easiest, because he would likely head to the gym first and then to the canteen, and she could catch up with him there.
Gabriel would be a bit more difficult because the man could hide like a ghost when he wanted to. Yet, he would have to come back to his quarters at some point; worst-case scenario, she would make camp there and just wait for him.
----------
Ana had just kissed Fareeha goodnight and put her to sleep on her room even though she was old enough already to roll her eyes at her every time. It was convenient to share rooms with her. Messier, but convenient. Also, it gave Ana an incentive to come back to sleep instead of just crashing on any sofa.
She stretched out and stifled a yawn. It was only 8 PM and she was knackered already, but she wanted to have that chat with Reinhardt before going to sleep. She knew herself and, if she did not ease her mind, she would roll in bed for hours—and, she needed to be rested to deal with Gabriel the next day.
“Computer, where’s Lieutenant Wilhelm?”
“At the gym, sir,” the woman-like voice replied, and Ana raised her eyebrows. She could not believe he had been working out for the whole afternoon after being eight hours straight in his armour, and yet, she could indeed believe it. It was time she bribed him out with food.
Ana opened the door to the gym and stopped in her tracks before colliding with a wall of muscle—just the one she was looking for. Reinhardt had just stopped doing whatever he had been doing; his breathing was still laboured and his tank top was drenched with sweat. His face was an open book to her; he was still angry and upset. And hurt. Also, a bit surprised to see her there.
He took a couple of steps back to grant her access to the gym, but Ana stood where she was, settling a rebel lock of hair behind her ear.
“Hey. I was, mmm, planning to get dinner at the canteen before it closes,” she said, casually. “You going that way?”
“No,” he said curtly, the hand holding the door tightening. It was clear he wanted to bolt forward and run, but Ana was in his way and he would not make it without bumping into her. “Not hungry. Going to my room, now.”
Not hungry after killing himself at the gym? Bullshit. He wanted to get rid of her. The idea made Ana frown inwardly.
“I don’t need a pep talk,” Reinhardt continued when she remained silent. “I don’t need company. And I know where to find food when I get hungry. Now, if you don’t mind—”
Ana crossed her arms and, if anything, stood in his way even more.
“Stop being an idiot for a second,” she snorted. “I’m worried about you.”
“Don’t be, then. I’m fine, see?” He made a gesture with his hands before putting them on his hips. And he was right, he was unharmed for his standards; just a couple of bruises where bullets had impacted his armour repeatedly. “Get back to Jack. He’s the one that got hurt, remember?”
“That was not even a second. Reinhardt, I’m—”
His eyebrows twitched, and she saw the hurt in his gaze deepen and then melt into anger. Had she had not known him any better, she would have stepped aside straight away; despite his usual goofiness, he could be a downright terrifying mountain of muscles if he wanted to—and she had never seen him wanting to be scary more than at that very moment.
“I’m not your pity project, Ana,” he snapped, pushing her away, and walking down the corridor without looking back.
Wow.
Ana stared at his back as he left. She was not angry at him; she was worried. It was likely that she had just been in the wrong place at the wrong time... but he had never lost his temper with her. Never.
Had she been such a bad friend to him that he would not consider she genuinely wanted to help?
The beginnings of their new relationship had been plagued with uncomfortable moments, but it had not taken them long to fall in a sort of routine. Nowadays, Reinhardt upheld his friendship promise flawlessly, respecting her space—even if sometimes he did it in an awkward way.
Ana tried to be as friendly as possible while keeping in mind the elephant in the room . Not because it made her uncomfortable, but because she did not want him to get hurt. Well, more hurt. She had pushed him away a couple of times, disengaging when things seemed too personal, but the way his shoulders had slumped in dejection every time made her reconsider. Soon, she learned that entrusting him the decision of backing off was for the best.
But truth is, after that, Reinhardt kept his distances even more. Sometimes she would catch him staring at her longingly instead of engaging in a conversation. Other times he would be about to say what was on his mind or ask her a question only to back off at the last moment, turning away—oh. Actually, he usually turned away just like he had done today, but with manners .
Ana had always thought it was his way of keeping himself from harm. His choice. But she was not so sure anymore. What if he thought he could not tell her what was on his mind without her pushing him away? That would explain a lot of his silences and glances.
She had never given it much thought because there was always something more pressing to worry about—not to say he was usually joking around and laughing with her. He had never complained, so maybe she was just overreacting… or maybe, he had never complained so she would not push him away.
Oh, fudge.
Ana huffed and leaned her back on the doorway. She hated the idiots of the Strike Team. They did not give her more than headaches and worries, each one in a different way. She was not an emotional person; she did not know how to deal with her own shit, let alone with that of others—yet some sort of instinct kicked in every time they were in trouble and made her want to help, even if it was by just sitting by them and insulting them to laughter.
Maybe Fareeha was to blame.
Ah, damn. She stretched and let go of a long breath. As if they did not have enough problems with the Omnics. She better go back to her room, then, try to get some sleep—and give all this more thought in the morning.
----
But, of course, Ana could not sleep.
To be fair, she had snoozed for about a couple of hours, but it was 2:05 AM now and her mind was going on and about her team of idiots and how screwed up they all were.
She stretched up lazily and got up. On any day, she would wake up at 6 o’clock sharp to get on with training, debriefing, and paperwork before the unexpected hit them; her only chance to sleep a couple of hours more was a mug of hot milk.
Since Gabriel have had a small kitchen built on the same wing where the Strike Team’s rooms were, it had seen high demand for coffee, tea, and food at unearthly hours—and Ana herself appreciated it greatly. Interestingly enough, the lights were on, and she could smell coffee.
Coffee .
Jack or Gabriel jumped to mind straight away, but it was already too late to turn around when the sound of heavy steps betrayed the Crusader.
“Reinhardt, it’s two in the—” She stopped talking when the German jumped out of his skin and collided against the counter as he turned around ready to fight. Ana raised her hands and took a step backward. “It’s all right. Sorry to startle you.”
He ran a hand over his face and leaned on the counter. His anger seemed spent at last, but he was every bit as upset as he had been before. Just, his movements were slower, tired, and his right hand was bleeding, slowly dripping over his cotton pyjamas and the floor.
“Wow. Who was the unlucky loser?” She asked, not sure how to start a conversation—or even if he was in the mood for it.
When he stared at her in silence, visibly confused and most likely still half-asleep, Ana made a gesture towards his hand.
He had the decency to look surprised, at least.
“Aw, shit, it’s not—” He sighed, inspecting the damage, his pyjamas, and the floor somewhat embarrassed. Then, he grabbed a napkin from the counter and pressed it against his hand. “I got up too quickly, ran into my wardrobe.”
The coffee machine gurgled and hissed as it filled quite a large mug, and the smell got stronger. Richer. It was Gabriel’s favourite coffee brand.
“And so you beat it to a pulp?” Ana asked, walking in and going straight to the fridge.
“Something like that…” He drawled. “Anyway, let me get the coffee and me and my mess will be gone.”
“I’d like you to stay,” she said, taking a deep breath. Since the wardrobe had been the last casualty and punching solid objects was a terrible idea, she rather try to keep him contained if possible. “But I won’t push it if you don’t want to.”
Reinhardt leaned on the largest chair in the kitchen, giving her the back, and stood in silence for a moment.
“You want me to stay after I was a jerk to you?”
There was a touch of irony to his voice, a hint of resignation, and maybe even a challenge, and Ana poured a mug full of milk and put it in the microwave.
“Reinhardt, you don’t know how to be a jerk,” she snorted softly. “I’m not angry with you, I know you’re having a bad day.”
He snorted, his strong back bent over the chair as if it carried the weight of the world.
“That’s no excuse for the way I talked to you. I was such an idiot, it’s unacceptable.”
“An idiot indeed,” she imitated his tone. “But I’ll forgive you if you sit down and stay.”
“I don’t deserve your kindness,” he flopped down at the table after a moment of silence. Good. That was better than him fuming away down the corridor and breaking stuff.
Ana walked towards the computer panel on the wall and requested a first-aid kit, then took another mug, filled it with milk, and put it in the microwave as well. Now it was her chance to speak with him—even if he was likely not going to be very talkative.
“Gabriel was obviously not himself today,” she said casually, laying a hand on his shoulder; he was so tense he could have been sculpted in rock. “But, while that doesn’t excuse him, either, I have to admit you rarely get this upset about anything. Was it—?”
“I rarely get the chance to screw up as much as I did today,” he grumbled, rubbing his scarred eyebrow absentmindedly.
“You are being too hard on yourself,” Ana took him by the jaw to turn his head a little and noticed a red mark almost hidden by the scar. He had likely run into the wardrobe head-first. “It was not—”
“I ran into the enemy lines. Missed a tank. Did absolutely nothing other than—” He stopped talking abruptly, his face scrunching as if he had just eaten a green lemon. “Gabriel was right. I could have got many of us killed.”
“That’s not true. And, in any case, we all came back alive. Now,” Ana continued, because he had opened his mouth already and he sure was going to say something stupid, “don’t say it wasn’t thanks to you, because we would have been destroyed without your help.”
Reinhardt grumbled something under his breath, and thankfully, the microwave beeping came to Ana’s rescue. She picked up the jar of cocoa powder Jack fancied over everything for breakfast and put a couple of spoonfuls on each mug. Then, she carried both mugs to the table and left one in front of Reinhardt, who was probing his fingers gingerly.
“Ah...” He could not hide his disappointment when he noticed it was not his mug. “It’s not like I don’t appreciate it, but—”
“It’s two in the morning,” Ana raised an eyebrow. “Hardly time for a coffee.”
“Don’t want to go back to sleep,” he slouched in the chair, looking more grumpy than before.
“Why?”
That, actually, was a silly question, but it was out before she could stop it. Reinhardt let go a sigh that could pass for a snort and raised his bloodied hand slightly.
“Nightmare.”
It took Ana a moment to join the dots. It was likely he had bolted from bed and slammed his head on the wardrobe. Half-asleep, he probably thought he was under attack and defended himself, smashing the poor thing to smithereens.
Ow, wait. If his wardrobe was like hers, it would have had a mirror panel over the door. Ana looked at the floor straight away to see if he had cut his feet, too, but there were just blood droplets on the tiles. Good.
“It’s fine, just need a couple of days,” he said, taking a bloodied splinter out his hand and leaving it on the napkin.
“A couple of days for a nightmare seems a bit overkill…” She cocked her head, then immediately knew that had not been the most clever thing she could have said; Reinhardt was glaring at his chocolate mug as if he wanted to disintegrate it. “What I meant is, there’s a lot more on your mind than a nightmare. You froze up when we landed, and everything went downhill from there.”
His eyebrows twitched, and he made a thin line with his mouth. There were a million emotions running through his head, being anger and embarrassment the most prominent ones. Anger and embarrassment . They did not fit the Crusader at all.
Several minutes passed in silence, and Ana bit inside her mouth when it became clear that he would rather pluck his eyes out than spill the beans. As she suspected, by trying to keep things easy between them, she had crippled their friendship. Just—this was not supposed to happen. He was supposed to know it was all right to tell her when he was upset, when he needed a friend.
She realised just now how foolish and unrealistic that sounded, and how much of an idiot she had been. An idiot for not seeing this would happen, for allowing it, for encouraging it.
But there would be time to wallow in her incompetence later.
“Won’t you tell me what’s wrong?” She asked, hoping that being straight was the right way to approach him. “Maybe I can help.”
“There’s nothing to help,” he took a deep breath, then glanced in her direction. It was a quick look, tentative, as if he was testing the waters. Ana tried to put her best friendly face not to scare him away, and it seemed to work because he continued. “The place,” he said in a quiet voice, “reminded me of home.”
Ana stirred her chocolate. It was not a lot of information but, at least, it was better than nothing. He had said ‘home’, so presumably he meant a city with a castle in Germany. She was not exactly familiar with Europe, so it could—Ah, wait. The Crusaders’ headquarters were in a castle, if she remembered his stories properly. Ei-something-horrible-to-pronounce , was it? The… Oh, of course. The headquarters they lost, along with their whole unit.
But memories of his lost home should cause sadness and grief, not embarrassment or anger—unless she was missing a crucial point. When she read Reinhardt’s files the day he arrived at their doorstep, she only found out that whole Crusader unit and many soldiers perished while successfully deterring the Omnic advance over Stuttgart. Whatever else happened seemed to be lost to the world, but for him.
“My last battle there ended badly,” he continued, surprising her. “I was scared of repeating my mistakes, so today I was trying to play it safe. Yet—” He stopped talking and let go a long, angry breath. “I don’t seem to learn, and it frustrates me to no end.”
Ana understood him well. So well, that she could not help but feel a surge of sympathy for him, and then guilt at her own mistakes, anger. But years of therapy had taught her she should be kind to herself when she meant well and things went awry all the same.
It was not an easy thing to do, though.
“You tried your best, even if things didn’t go as you expected. You tried to keep us safe, to destroy the robots, to give Jack the opening he asked for, to do your job the best you could. You are your worst critic, too hard on yourself.”
“You sound just like a counsellor.”
“Because they are right,” she sighed. “We all make mistakes, even when we mean well.”
“There are mistakes we should never repeat,” he mumbled, looking away, and his words made her chest ache.
“I know. But, sometimes, when we try too hard to amend for those mistakes, we make others unwillingly. People get hurt. We get hurt.”
That made him look up, a silent question in his eyes.
A small robot wheeled into the kitchen carrying a tray with the supplies Ana had requested, distracting her. Only when it beeped softly Reinhardt spotted it, and he looked mildly surprised when she picked up the supplies and shooed the robot away.
“Don’t look at me like that. I know you are fine. Probably,” she raised an eyebrow. “But bleeding all over the kitchen is gross. Here, give it to me,” she extended a hand towards him, and the German hesitated for a moment before complying.
She took his large hand on hers and inspected the cuts. Most of them were shallow and straight clean, probably made by mirror shards when his fist punched through the door. His knuckles had come off worst, bruised and raw, and she had to use the tweezers to remove several splinters from the broken skin. Nothing spectacular all in all, but it had to be done.
Reinhardt looked intently at their hands, his upset softening into something more akin to sadness, and Ana just remembered his unasked question. Damn it, she was sleepy indeed.
But it was not the time to speak about their relationship and how much she had just screwed up. It was the time to help him deal with his problems, and she had just the right story to tell, too.
“I talk to my counsellor about Sam, sometimes. And about my old team. My father. It makes it easier, somewhat,” she offered, and the look of genuine surprise on his face both warmed her up and made her feel terribly guilty.
When was the last time they have had a meaningful conversation like this? When was the last time she had allowed them to actually be friends?
“Your old team? I’ve never heard you talk about them…”
“That’s because I suck at storytelling,” she snorted, swallowing her feelings and taking another splinter off. “But it’s not as if you talked much about yours, either.”
He lowered his gaze to the table, and she knew she had just hit the nail in the head.
Reinhardt could talk a lot. He could discuss the most absurd things in detail and use himself as an example of most, unsurprisingly. Ana had heard millions of times how bad his first armour was, how he almost got himself killed trying it on, how he won every wrestling award while at the Army, and, at least, five ways he had lost his eye, each more ridiculous than the previous —but all of his grandiloquent storytelling just fell apart when he barely glided over the other characters in the story, if he included them at all.
“Talking about my team used to hurt,” she continued. “I hated remembering them, and I hated myself for what happened to them. But the counsellor—”
“What happened to your team?”
His quiet question made her look up again from what she was doing. For a moment, she thought he wanted to see if she was bluffing, but he was looking at her with his heart in his hand.
She could not say she was not expecting the question, since she had practically lured him into asking it. He was the only member of the Strike Team that did not know—and most likely, the only one that may benefit from hearing it, as strange as it was.
Ana remembered when she told Gabriel, one night years and years ago when they were both quite drunk. Jack learned about it later that same year when he found her crying over spilled tea. Torbjörn just put two and two together reading profiles she did not even know existed, then he let her know by dropping in her email all the pictures he could find from that time. That had not been that long ago, a couple of years, tops.
“Sorry,” he lowered his gaze again when she did not answer straight away. “It’s obviously not—I cannot do anything right today, it seems.”
“No, it’s not that,” she rushed to say. “I was just thinking I have never told you about this before. But, believe me, it’s not because it’s a secret, but because it makes for a pretty terrible conversation opener…”
Her joke made him relax his shoulders a bit, and he stirred his chocolate mug with his free hand, silent, thoughtful. It was rare to see him lose his cheerful nature, but boy, when he did, he really turned into someone else. And Ana hated, really hated seeing him like this.
If listening to her story helped him realise he was not alone in the screwing department, then she would gladly tell it as many times as required.
“We were at Samalut, a city at the bank of the Nile. Well, it had been a city at some point. It had been mostly destroyed already, but we were using the ruins of the buildings to fence an Omnic attack,” she said, picking up a small flask with iodine and daubing a gauze with it. “They had just razed one of the biggest Army compounds we had back then, basically hacking their way into our defences and our equipment.”
She could still feel the heat of the desert, the dryness of the sand in her covered face, the struggle to find any source of water they could drink from. Their despair.
It sucked.
“Sam and his platoon were our best chance of survival; they had the firepower and the mobility, and the Omnics knew it. So when they came for us, they brought our own anti-tank batteries, our own missiles. Our own chemical weapons.”
A couple of cuts were deeper and were still bleeding, so she used sticky strips to keep the edges close together and help them heal properly.
The blood was already drying, its smell mixing with that of the iodine. She snorted. This was nothing. This was nothing compared with what she lived back then. Nothing really could ever compare to the horror, the dread, the smell of death, faeces, blood, and gunpowder in the desert’s heat.
“At one point,” she continued at last, because it was now or never, “I had to choose between disabling the anti-tank battery before it destroyed Sam’s robotank, or snipe down the drone carrying a biochemical agent that was flying over our soldiers.”
Reinhardt took a sharp intake of breath and grabbed her hands on his. She almost smiled, unsure if he was trying to comfort her or himself.
“I saved Sam. Fareeha had just been born, and I couldn’t fathom losing him. It was wrong,” she snorted, her throat dry. “I was wrong. I knew it. I did it anyway, and I got everyone else killed. My friends, my father—”
The sound of his chair scratching the floor almost ended the sentence for her. The German knelt on the floor by her side and threw his huge arms around her and her chair almost in one motion.
His warmth engulfed her, and she felt the smouldering ache in her chest receding. His head leaned on hers, his beard tickling the side of her neck, and Ana closed her eyes. War disappeared from her mind as he squeezed her against his chest, washed away by the smell of sweat, faux leather of the gym, and the plain soap facilities used to wash all their clothes.
“You’re the strongest person I know,” Reinhardt said after taking a long breath. Then, he pulled back a bit to look at her. He was so close she could feel his breath on her cheek, but could not find it in herself to pull him away. His blue eye was full of pride and love, and a myriad of other emotions—and then he gasped, absolute outrage painted in his face.
“Wait, he left you after you did this for him??!!”
The Crusader let her go and got up almost in one motion, making fists with his hands and raging in German to the heavens.
“It’s not as easy as that…” Ana could have added more, but she refrained herself. One thing was telling him about her military career, and another very different was digging up dirt on her private life. Besides, she did not want him to go in a rampage punching the hell out of the kitchen cabinets that mysteriously happened to look like Sam. “Believe me, it’s not worth the effort.”
“Next time I see his ugly mug I will kill him,” he said, slamming his right fist in his left open hand. Immediately after, he winced and shook his injured hand. “Ow, ow, shit...”
“Ah, settle down before you break something for good...” Ana hid her face on a hand for a moment, almost chuckling.
Reinhardt snorted softly but obliged, sitting down again in the chair in front of hers. He was still ruminating about Sam, she could see it in his face. It was strange, she thought, how he was the only one that had ever reacted like this to her story. It was flattering, somehow, that he tried to comfort her, protect her. Avenge her. He must really share her pain in some way or form, but she knew better than to ask.
“Hand?” She wiggled her fingers, and he obliged. Then, he shifted on his seat and leaned his head on his free hand. She could feel his eye on her, and risked a little glance to read the open book he was; there was pride on his look, and respect, fondness, longing—and all that was outshining the hurt and anger for now. It was ridiculous. He was ridiculous. She had just told him how stupid she was, how many people she had got killed, she had been the worst possible kind of friend to him, and he still looked at her as if she was the only thing that mattered in the world.
The idiot .
Ana put plasters on some of his fingers, trying not to mind him or her flushing cheeks too much.
“Will I live?” He asked after a moment, a lackluster, little smile on his lips.
“Doubt it,” Ana made a face while covering his knuckles with soft gauze. “You haven’t touched your chocolate, yet.”
“Pah. This American concoction hardly qualifies. One day I’ll show you what a Heiße Schokolade is and you’ll never look back.”
The silly German flexed his arm to give his words more emphasis, of course he did, and Ana would have laughed out loud if she had not been so tired. Instead, she chuckled while she tried to stifle a yawn.
“Ah, but I’m keeping you up—” He said, his expression turning sad and guilty. Damn, it had been a short-lived victory, she thought, finishing bandaging his hand to keep the gauze in place, at least, for the night. “I’ll go watch some telly—somewhere far from walls and wardrobes, I promise.”
“Want some more company?” Ana asked, watching him clean of dried blood the tiled floor, the counter, and even the table. Her hands were smeared, too, as were her clothes where he had touched her, but she would clean up later.
“You’ve done more than enough,” he took a deep breath, then smiled. It was not one of those smiles of his that competed with the sun, but it felt like a treasure all the same. “Thank you, Ana. You may think I’m crazy but, it—listening to you helped. And I’m sorry, again. I was such an arsehole, I don’t deserve you.”
Actually, she was the one that did not deserve him, but she took good care of not saying it out loud.
“Silly,” she snorted softly, instead. “Glad I could help. But, what you said at the gym, the ‘pity—’”
He went strawberry red in the space of a heartbeat and rushed out of the kitchen, ducking the door frame in the last second.
“Go-good night, Ana!”
Ana watched in disbelief as he disappeared without even let her finish her question. Really . They had just been talking about truly horrific situations, real problems. He had managed to talk to her about what was eating it up, and yet—yet somehow this was a whole new level of embarrassment. At least, this kind had nothing of self-loathing on it. It was just the classic “I’ll die before admitting to anything” sort of situation.
In any case, her screwing up their friendship was something she had to find a way to deal with. Being the dear he was, he would probably forgive her, but she should really step up her game before she broke it completely. And she should make it up for him, somehow.
She leaned her head on her hands and sighed, but the sigh became a yawn. Better go back to sleep, now. She still had a lot of thinking and catching up to do in the morning.