Chapter Text
He'd seen two different things.
He'd seen her hit by Talon's firebomb, unable to defend herself. It had come in through the window, giving him only time to deploy his own barrier. He'd seen, through the energy field, her body torn apart by the blast, vaporized, annihilated. He wished he hadn't been wearing his glasses- maybe then he wouldn't have seen it in such crystal clarity as to leave no shred of hope alive.
She'd been killed, and there wasn't enough left of her to bring back home.
He'd also seen Angela carrying a charred, unrecognizable, but intact corpse out of the wreckage of the building. He'd seen her lay it out on the shell-shattered street, lift Caduceus to the sky, and deliver the familiar line in triumph. Golden light had burst out in ribbons, nearly blinding him and forcing Shimada to step back. The corpse had risen to its feet, and the light had faded.
And there had stood Hana Song. Cracking wise. Alive.
He hadn't paid close attention to what had happened afterwards. Lúcio had gone in for the hug, crying, Hana had laughed and slipped out of his grip, made fun of him for being worried... something like that. It hadn't affected the rest much. It was a relief, but being relieved had become routine. No one had really been worried that she would die. People like her never did, as Angela was so fond of reminding them.
No, the details of the scene escaped him. His thoughts were too occupied by a hundred competing fears, each with implications graver than the last.
Countless close calls, just like this one, he realized. Bombs, for sure. Dozens of them. So lucky, that they'd all had just enough concussive force to knock him out without doing lasting structural damage. A vat of molten iron, once. Several face-to-barrel encounters with Reaper's shotguns. Why was Amel- Widowmaker so fond of mysteriously self-destructing tranquilizer rounds?
It struck him that he had to already have known. All those examples came too readily to mind. He'd thought about it, suspected it, laughed it off, made excuses, lied to himself. Dad would have scolded him for that kind of sloppy thinking. Science was about staring truth in the face.
The Caduceus didn't just stitch up flesh wounds. Her weapon built new heroes from scratch.
How many ape skeletons were scattered across the world?
Nobody thought he was being suspiciously quiet on the flight back to Gibraltar. Lena stopped by to check on him, saw he was lost in thought, and- this being perfectly normal for Winston- politely ran off without bothering him. Athena didn't seem to notice anything unusual either, and she was always the first to inquire about any descrepancies in his behavior. It almost suited him fine- but people weren't avoiding him because they knew he liked time to himself. They just avoided him because... well. Because of a lot of things. Some of them because they saw him as a stuffy old authority figure, certainly. Some of them because he was bad at carrying on a conversation. Some of them because they were afraid of the big huge ape. Some of them because he was a terrible scientist. Who wouldn't avoid him?
He could point these things out to Lena, probably. She'd say that he was a great scientist, and a great conversationalist, and that he was only 29, come on, that's not old! Hang out with me and Genji sometime! She'd take every one of his doubts and just flat-out deny everything, which wouldn't help at all.
Angela, he could talk to. She talked shop, which was always easy. He'd make mistakes, and she'd point them out, and point out why it was a perfectly reasonable mistake anyone could have made, and tell him how he could avoid those mistakes in the future. It would be very encouraging, if he ignored how she never made any of those mistakes, but ignoring that was easy enough. She wasn't any good at small talk either, which ironically made it very easy to small talk with her.
But he couldn't talk to Angela about this. His head was swimming with every memory of anything she'd ever said to him about her work. Answers to probing questions, full of jargon he hadn't understood- and now he realized he hadn't been meant to understand. He'd pretend to understand, and she'd smile (knowing he was lying to her face) and change the subject, much to his relief.
How had she said the Caduceus worked? It was time to take inventory of the facts.
Nanomachines, of course. Whenever Genji heard the word he'd say "Nanomachines, son!" and then chuckle to himself. Hana would high-five him if she was present. He didn't get the joke.
But nanomachines weren't complicated. They weren't large enough to store intelligent computer programs- not enough silicon surface area to house so much as a microchip. They carried out a single task. Larger nanofactories manufactured and coordinated small nanobot teams, and those factories were coordinated by meta-factories, and so on up the ladder until the control device was reached. Caduceus.
According to Mercy, Caduceus didn't do much in the way of medical treatment. Its sole job, she claimed, was to scan tissues, and then fabricate and deploy the appropriate nanofactories. It usually only needed to send in two general categories of nanobot team. The first category was made up of injectors with two chemical payloads. One simple retrovirus that transformed dead cells into living stem cells, and one concentrated ATP supply to allow the new cell to divide rapidly. The other category comprised stabilizers- simple field generators that divided affected areas into tissue regions for the stem cells to fill without interfering with the growth of other tissues.
On top of that basic design, she'd built a number of magnetic nanopositioning systems into Caduceus to do more fine-grained work on specific problem areas, and safeguard against common problems and edge cases. Fixing wardrobe malfunctions, repairing omnics, and so on.
And if he wasn't a scientist, he might believe that that was enough to bring someone back from the dead.
It usually was, of course. A heart is easy to rebuild, she said- it's just a pump, a machine. Vital organs have specific jobs to do, and one intestine is about as good as another. If you know how to fix one body, you know how to fix them all.
A good chunk of the brain, according to Angela, was the same way- parts responsible for moving muscles and regulating organs and so on. Although the brain might seat the soul, that seat comprised only a small fraction of its mass- the rest could be rebuilt like any other organ. It wasn't any surprise that seemingly fatal head wounds could frequently be repaired.
That was what she said. But...
Hana Song hadn't lost an arm, or been shot in the head. She had been blown away. He'd seen it happen with his own eyes. Hana's body was ash... so the corpse Mercy had dragged out of the rubble...
That corpse had become D.Va. And it was her, uniform and all. She'd spoken to him briefly after the mission, ribbing him for failing to shield her in time. She used a turn of phrase from a conversation they'd been in the middle of, making a joke about it. It had to be her, not a body double or a clone or some other trick.
But the corpse wasn't Hana's body. It was charred beyond recognition, but it should have been charred beyond retrieval. Mercy had taken a completely different corpse, and turned it into D.Va.
That should have been impossible for the Caduceus Angela had described to him. She couldn't rejuvenate a body's cells into a completely different person's cells, for one. But that wasn't even the half of it- Hana's brain had been annihilated. Secretly hiding Hana's DNA and using it to convert tissue from a donor was one thing- sort of a sketchy one thing, but not the end of the world. DNA was tiny- small enough for every cell in a person's body to carry around redundant copies of the stuff. Mercy could easily have DNA samples for the whole team on her person at all times.
But Hana's brain was back. Which meant...
Well, possibility number one was that everything he knew about naturalistic biology was a lie, and that rebuilding Hana's body from DNA somehow reclaimed her soul from the afterlife, or something. He filed that idea away somewhere in the back.
The more realistic possibility- which stretched the definition of the word "realistic", admittedly- was that Mercy had a complete brain state of every active Overwatch agent backed up. No, not only backed up- updated remotely in close to real time, judging by Hana's recollection of the instants prior to her death.
Which meant...
Well, the first thing it meant was that Angela had been lying to him for years. That stung. Just knowing that she could do that to him... it cast their whole friendship in a different light. Still, it was understandable.
After all, the second thing it meant was that she was experimenting with illegal invasive nanotechnology on her own teammates, which isn't the sort of thing you tell someone just because they're your trusted friend.
The third thing it meant was that Angela's research was years ahead of where she claimed it was, and decades ahead of anyone else's. She'd figured out how to scan brains in full resolution, transmit that data wirelessly, and use it to manually recreate a whole person from raw materials. That was beyond toying with stem cells and tissue differentiation- that required a kind of knowledge of the body that surpassed the whole of medical science. That required mastery.
It meant that Dr. Angela Ziegler was the most powerful person on the entire planet.
And it meant that he knew the most powerful person on the planet's deepest, darkest secret.
Mercy couldn't read his mind. He gave her a knowing look as they disembarked the dropship at Gibraltar, and she just looked confused and asked if he was feeling alright. Her nanobots either couldn't read his thoughts in enough detail to convey them to her, or... perhaps they could, and she refrained from using them that way? Either way, she didn't give any indication that she knew of his suspicions yet.
He didn't want to believe any of it.
That was a warning sign- Harold had said that not wanting to believe something, in spite of the evidence, was the worst thing a scientist could do. Wanting something to be true had nothing to do with searching for the truth- only with working to change it.
The only recourse was to design an experiment.
"Athena?" he asked, after reaching his private workshop.
"Welcome back, Winston. Should I pull up the after-action report?"
"Later," he said. "Right now... do you remember where I put the aluminum foil?"
"In the cabinet below the bananas." In the cabinet below...
"Uh."
"The bananas are on a countertop in the back of the parts bay. On the other end from where you keep-"
"The peanut butter. Right. I knew that," he said. She was definitely judging him. Did she even know how hard it was? Did she even have a New Year's resolution? Why did their computer need to be so nosy?
"What are you doing?" she asked, once Winston's head was wrapped in foil.
"Just testing a hypothesis, Athena."
The foil might not be enough. To pull off this experiment properly, he needed to completely insulate himself from all outgoing signals. That meant taking down the frog suit from the wall, and... squeezing... right... into... it, even though for some mysterious non-peanut-butter reason, it didn't fit as well as it used to.
Tinfoil hat, check. Frog suit, check. What else? He deployed his barrier generator- that would probably help. For good measure, he directed his Tesla cannon's output into the barrier's gaps, which would weaken the shield's integrity but improve its ability to scramble outgoing radiation.
"Winston? You should know- your vitals are failing to show up on my instruments. I am unable to monitor your safety during this experiment," Athena said.
That was a good sign- if Athena couldn't see inside, he was probably hidden from whatever instruments were recording the output of the brain nanobots. From Caduceus's perspective, it would look like he'd suddenly ceased brain activity- that he was dead. Mercy would notice immediately, and come running to resurrect him from whatever unfortunate lab accident he'd gotten himself into.
Three minutes passed before Athena piped up. "Winston, you haven't informed me of the parameters of your experiment. Is this expected behavior? Are you okay?"
An unwelcome side effect, he supposed, was that he might also fool other people into thinking he was dead.
"Please confirm. Winston! Please provide audio confirmation of your safety!"
He hesitated. Was that what he wanted to do? If Mercy was on her way, and Athena knew he was safe, would she inform her? Or- no, wait, Athena wasn't allowed to share-
"Please be aware that under Section 2 of the Overwatch Internal Emergency Response protocols, I am permitted to enable and share direct video recording of an agent's private quarters should I have reasonable cause to believe the agent's life is in danger. If I receive no response to the contrary-"
No, she couldn't tell anyone what was happening! The whole point of the experiment was to see if Mercy would notice something she shouldn't be able to know about!
"Athena! I'm fine! I'm just-"
There was a beeping at the door.
"Winston!" cried a familiar voice from outside, plunging his heart into his stomach. Hypothesis confirmed.
"...Let her in," he said, after a moment. He slumped over onto the floor, playing dead.
The door opened, and Angela Ziegler flew into the room, propelled by the Valkyrie suit she apparently hadn't yet removed.
"Winston! No!"
Athena's speakers chirped to life. "Don't worry, Dr. Ziegler. He's fine."
Angela stopped in her tracks, lowering Caduceus. She looked around hesitantly.
Winston immediately flicked off the barrier generator and Tesla cannon, then removed both his tinfoil and frogsuit helmets.
"Angela," he said, "what brings you here?"
"I- you," she sputtered, "I thought you were..."
"You thought I was in danger? I assure you, there's nothing wrong. I was just conducting an experiment with my barrier here, is all." He began casually shelving his equipment.
"Oh," she said, looking relieved. "That's nice. What kind of-"
"In fact," he interrupted, "there's no reason at all you should have worried about me."
Her relieved expression disappeared. She took a step back towards the door. "That- that's nice. Sorry to have bothered you- I'll just show myself out-"
"Athena, though, she had a reason to worry. Did you see what I was working on? I was inside a sort of makeshift Faraday cage, which meant she couldn't tell whether I was alive or dead, with her usual sensors. Sorry about that, Athena."
"It's no problem, Winston," she replied.
Angela kept backing towards the door. "Yes- I see. That's-"
"I'm just wondering, Angela. What made you think I might be in danger?"
She didn't have an answer. It looked like she was trying to think of something, but no excuse was reaching her tongue. Her eyes darted back and forth, refusing to make eye contact.
"I apologize, Winston," Athena said.
"What?" Angela and Winston asked in unison.
"I violated our privacy regulations, and notified Dr. Ziegler immediately, before asking for safety confirmation."
"You-"
"Ah, yes," Angela said, controlling her expression. "Athena informed me that you might be in danger, so I..."
"You came to check up on me," he finished.
"Indeed," she said, the look of relief returning.
So it would seem his test was inconclusive, then. It would seem he'd need to refine his experiment design in the future, to avoid false positives like this one.
Winston rubbed his head. "Athena, I expect you to follow our written regulations in the future. Dr. Ziegler has a lot of work to do, and a couple minutes of advance warning aren't worth distracting her with these sorts of false alarms."
"Understood," she replied.
"Well! I'll be off, then," Angela said. "Sorry about the disturbance!"
He didn't stop her from leaving.
"It would seem" being the key phrase. The test was not inconclusive. So many parts of that brief conversation didn't add up. Athena didn't break protocol- she was a computer. She wouldn't forget or ignore rules in the heat of the moment. And even if she could have... Angela was no actress. If Athena had warned her of the staged danger, she wouldn't have hesitated to answer. "Athena told me." That's all she needed to say. There would have been no reason for her to suspect her arrival was unusual, or that Athena's warning was violating protocol. She should have just assumed the standard protocol had already been carried out, and had a simple answer for his question.
And... she was his friend. If it had really been a mere misunderstanding, she would have taken the opportunity to sit and talk with him about their work. Unless she had pressing business to attend to... but no, if she did, she'd have told him what that pressing business was. She'd been in a hurry to leave, and sweep the whole incident under the rug.
He hadn't let her leave because he was convinced of her innocence- he'd let her leave because he had no idea what to do now that she'd given herself away.
What would he have said? "You know what, Angela, I don't believe you! In fact, I know exactly why you came here, and it's because of this extremely dangerous secret that I know! I'm going to demand that you... stop doing that thing!"
More importantly, it wouldn't be safe. Telling someone you know their dark secret, in a sealed room with no witnesses? Angela wouldn't hurt him- but she could hide her secret some other way. If she had a backup of his brain, she might be capable of knocking him out, rolling back his memories, and claiming that his suspicious lab accident left him with amnesia!
Wait, no, there was one witness-
-Athena, he realized, his heart dropping from his stomach to somewhere yet deeper. She was working with Mercy to hide her secret. She'd been the one to come up with the lie about violating protocol. It wasn't just his friend- he couldn't trust the omnipresent computer system that listened in on everything he ever said and coordinated Overwatch's operations.
"Houston, we have a problem," he said.
"I'm sorry?" Athena asked.
"Uh. Nothing."