Death of a Junker
A terrible roar rips through the air as Jamison's body hits the ground. One eye is missing, nothing more than a gory hole. The other still boggles madly, as if surprised that his end came from a bullet and not a bomb. His fingers are still wrapped around his detonator, unable to react.
The roar doesn't come from Jamison, or his explosives, but from his bodyguard, the beastly Roadhog. It's an awful howl, full of rage and and a lust for revenge. The rest of the team - Lena, McCree, Reinhardt, the cheery DJ Lucio - all stop in their tracks, boggling at Roadhog. He doesn't so much as pause to grieve, though. He simply slams a hunk of metal into his strange, angry gun and starts shooting. The warehouse they are in (apparently some sort of black market weapons storage) booms with the noise of the scrap cannon. The sound deafens the team even from just outside the building.
"Reinhardt," Tracer cries, "We have to get him!"
"Understood!" Reinhardt barrels forward without hesitation, shielding Jamison's body from further assault. Roadhog moves forward as well, ignoring the massive recoil on his cannon to tear up the Talon mercenaries that killed his charge. Lucio tries to block out their screams, leaping down from his vantage point to assess the damage. He hadn't seen the headshot and perhaps had hoped he could heal Jamison.
"Guys, I, uh, I can't-"
"What happened?" McCree demands over the radio. A round of shots, ringing out even over cannon, confirm a round of kills from somewhere behind them.
"It's J-Junkrat, he, uh, he got shot," Lucios tone tells the gunslinger all he needs to hear, "Maybe if we get him t-"
"Mercy can't do nothin', kid."
Lena appears out of a blue spot in the air, a resolute but pained look on her face. For a soldier, she didn't work well with death.
"Mission's not over yet, lads."
She gently takes Jamison's detonator from his hand, trying not to look at the hole in his head, and squeezes the trigger.
A terrific explosion that can't be described with just the word bang tore through the warehouse. The team felt the heat on their faces even through Reinhardt's legendary shield. Roadhog is tossed through the air like confetti, his two hundred plus pounds skidding along the ground ridiculously. The support struts for the building began to collapse - Junkrat's demolition skills went hand in hand with jobs like this. Carefully placed firebombs burst, destroying the loot inside even as the warehouse collapsed in on itself.
"Grab him and let's move!" Lena commands. Lucio goes to grab their dead comrade, but Reinhardt picks him up in one enormous hand and cradles Jamison like a child.
"McCree, come in," Lena shouts into the radio.
"I hear ya,"
"Mission's done, we're pulling out," She glances back at Lucio, struggling to lift Roadhog up himself, "We need a hand with the big man."
"Got it. I'll meet y'all at the extraction point."
The team sits in silence on the ride home. McCree and Lucio had half carried Roadhog back to the drop ship, where he had crashed straight into a seat and not moved since. Roadhogs laboured breathing was the only thing breaking the silence. Reinhardt had lain Jamison's body gently on the floor, covering it with a tarp. Lucio sat in a corner, looking shellshocked and pale. McCree, unable to smoke in the ship, cleaned his gun, one eye on Roadhog at all times. They were halfway home - nearly nine hours into the flight - when Lena finally spoke up.
"Roadhog…" she says. "I'm sorry."
All she gets back is a vague grunt.
"I know you were just his bodyguard, but… you seemed like good friends."
Roadhog doesn't look up, but his laboured breathing pauses long enough for one sentence.
"It was just a job."
At this, Lucio snaps. A champion of social justice and a career as a DJ didn't prepare him to look death in the eye, and for just a little while Lucio broke.
"Just a job? He was your friend!"
He leaps to his feet, squaring up to Roadhog, ignorant of the two foot height difference between them.
"Aren't you mad? Upset? Anything? He was one of us, and now he's d-" He's cut off by a fat hand around his neck, squeezing tightly. Roadhog stands, pulling Lucio closer, right up to his mask.
"Roadhog, put him down!" Lena desperately pushes at him, as if that could do anything. Reinhardt, asleep in his armor, doesn't notice. McCree levels his revolver, ready to fire - fully aware he'd probably be dead if he pulled the trigger.
Lucio turns purple as Roadhogs grip tightens, forcing him to look straight into the black eye of the mask. Underneath, Lucio can see the faint outline of an eye, just the slightest shape of it.
"It was just a job."
Roadhog's grip releases and Lucio crashes to the floor, coughing and rolling desperately. McCree's gun lowers, and Lena leaps to the DJ's aid. Roadhog crashes back into his seat, his breathing ever heavier.
Doctor Ziegler did not like the two Junkers who had appeared shortly after the recall - they were violent, dangerous and on occasion outright cruel - but she felt a terrible pain when she saw Jamison's body on a cold slab. They had, after all, answered the call for heroes. The world was now one short.
She hadn't bothered with any autopsy, cause of death was obvious enough. Angela had, however, scheduled a physical checkup with Mako Rutledge. Her initial examination of the two was concerning but not especially surprising. Junkrat (as Jamison greatly preferred to be called, even filling out his forms with first name "Junk," last name "Rat") was missing several teeth, had seriously concussed himself at least a dozen times, and had plenty of burns. Mako, better known as Roadhog, was deficient in vitamin K, had a worrying BMI and suffered from serious breathing problems that he apparently treated with whatever was in those canisters of his. Mako had, of course, refused to allow Angela to examine them, citing a distrust of people in white coats and refusing to elaborate.
What concerned Angela about Mako was not his ingestion of strange mixtures - it was the fact that he had stopped. So she had called for a checkup, officially to examine his physical health. Unofficially, of course, Angela hoped to examine the big mans mind a little.
"Mako, first, I would like to say I am deeply sorry about Jamison. He was very adamant that you were his closest friend and I imagine you miss him very much."
Mako said nothing. He sat in what was normally a reasonably sized seat that bent under his weight, distinctly dirty in the otherwise clean exam room. His breathing, as always, made Angela uncomfortable. As did his mask, and his general attitude. Mako managed to be intimidating even when Junkrat was hanging tinsel all over him.
"I called you here today because some of your teammates have noticed you have been neglecting your… 'Hogdrogen,' I believe you call it."
No response. Angela tries to remember a time where she has heard more than a half dozen words from him.
"As your doctor, Mako, as your friend" She puts all of her Mercy voice into this as she can, the voice that doesn't just think but knows everything will be okay, even if it's a lie. Repeats his name, to keep his attention focused on her and not the pain, "I would like you to continue living. For Jamison's sake."
"Junkrat. His name was Junkrat."
"Junkrat, then. I think he would be quite upset to see you like this." Angela stares at Mako, curious as to how this shameless murderer would be so devastated. She had almost instantly pinned Mako as a sociopath with anti-social tendencies, and Junkrat's explanation of their past had cemented that theory. But now Mako seemed like an strange but innocent man who had lost the only person who had ever understood or even liked him.
"I am not a psychologist, and I'm sure you dislike them for one reason or another, but please, Mako, do not sink any deeper into this pit. I'd like you to see me, once a week, for grief counselling, and I'd like you to continue taking your… Hogdrogen. Dying will not bring Junkrat back."
For a moment, Mako sits in silence. For such a big man, he speaks very little, and only when he's either one hundred percent correct or telling Junkrat to shut up.
"I told him to stay out of trouble," Mako's voice rumbles from under his mask, muffled but understood, "Damn kid never listened to me."
"He did, quite often. He spoke almost non-stop of you when I had him for his last visit."
Mako's head rises from his chest, interested.
"It seemed he was dangerously close to being set on fire by a rogue welding torch, until you turned it off."
"Idiot still burnt himself."
"Yes, well, that was why he was seeing me. He did not seem to understand that metal could be hot." Angela giggles apprehensively, hoping to bait Mako into copying. He doesn't, but just grunts softly. She hopes that under his mask he is smiling.
Gibraltar makes for a nice grave, but Roadhog still wishes his charge had been buried back home. The graves of all the fallen Overwatch agents overlook the sea, and in the cloudy twilight he imagines it stretches out to some other world. Some nicer place, with air that doesn't burn and none of those damn tin-can robots. A place with Junkrat in it. Wind whips at his white hair, and Mako mourns once again, despairing that he outlived not one adopted child but two. One fist is clenched shut, carrying a memento in it.
The pain becomes too much to bear and he scrambles for his canisters, slamming one into his gas mask and inhaling that sweet scent of life. It's been years since the problems began, but the panic still tore at him. He rarely slept more than a few hours at a time, before his chest gripped like a vice. Running was impossible, and even walking at a speed was difficult. That Ziegler, Zylger, Zelger, whatever her name was, she might be able to help, but at this point Roadhog didn't care. He's an old man by Junker standards, nearly forty nine now. Fought too many wars and lived through too many deaths to be that bothered by moving on.
Mako looks down at his friend's grave. It's disappointingly uniform, just another in a row of dozens, hundreds. It's an offence to Junkrat that he'd be buried like this, in something so boring. A grave, Junkrat once said, needed smiley faces and shrapnel all over it. That'd really lighten up a funeral, he'd said. Only a barely there sense of politeness, or respect for the surrounding dead, stops Mako from blowing the damn thing up.
"I always said I was tired of hearing your voice."
Mako doesn't like to talk. It puts him out of breath, and he didn't see the need to speak if he had nothing to say. But he had plenty to say now.
"I don't like this quiet."
Junkrat never shut up, of course. Even in his sleep. In Australia, before they'd had to leave and Junkrat had insisted on "going straight," Mako would often wake up from a fit to discover Junkrat curled up by the fire, mumbling about explosives or treasure in his sleep. It had been irritating at first, constantly having to tell him to shut up, but eventually it just became a habit. Roadhog stopped minding.
At some point, Mako Rutledge had sort of faded away. He wasn't gone, far from that, but after the explosion of the Outback omnium he had taken a backseat to Roadhog. It kept him alive, and so long as Roadhog was in charge Mako didn't have to think about what he'd done. Junkrat, endlessly talking about nothing and yet somehow still quite likeable, had quietly brought Mako back to the front. Not all the time, and not without some struggle, but Junkrat's incessant babbling had grown on Mako. He struggled to fall asleep again without it comforting him.
Mako knelt down at Junkrat's grave and opened one huge fist. Normal people would bring flowers, Overwatch agents might bring a valued possession, but Roadhog dropped a detonator on the grave. One of a thousand Junkrat had made over the years, built out of car parts and loose wires and a few prayers.
"I miss you, kid."
Lucio finds Roadhog in his and Jamison's room, nearly a month after his death. It's a very tense moment for the both of them when Lucio enters the room. For Lucio, it's because the last time they properly spoke resulted in a near beat-down. For Roadhog, it's because he doesn't like people prying into his affairs. He nearly throws the Brazilian out himself. The big man is sat on the bottom of two bunk beds. The top had obviously been Junkrat's - the bedsheets are singed and a smiley face has been carved into the roof above it with a knife.
"What do you want?" Roadhog's voice booms from the mask, uncharacteristically loud.
"I, uh, I wanted to…" Lucio taps out a nervous beat with his foot. Angela had suggested this, during their sessions together. PTSD, particularly among newcomers like Lucio, was something the good doctor kept a good eye out for. She had instantly singled him out and demanded twice-weekly therapy sessions, and as part of the therapy Lucio was forced to confront and… "apologise for what I-I said, after what happened to Junkrat." The nervous beat continues, joining the sound of Roadhog's breathing.
"It's alright."
"I- Really?"
"You're just a kid. Ain't seen anything like that before."
"No. I ain't." Lucio resists the urge to hang his head and instead retrieves a small, square package from his pocket.
"Listen, the others wanted me to give you this. They had it made for you." He holds it out gingerly as Roadhog takes the package. His hand nearly envelopes the smaller mans, but unwraps the gift delicately. Roadhog's breathing hitches again as the wrapping falls away.
It's a framed photo of Roadhog and Junkrat. Roadhog's enormous body takes up most of the photo, his head barely in frame. The younger Junker has his skinny arms wrapped around halfway around Roadhog's stomach, grinning stupidly. One colossal hand rests on Junkrat's head, not exactly patting it but sort of holding protectively, as if to protect Junkrat's head from any explosives.
"Hana took it just after you guys arrived. She dug it out last week and Lena had it framed."
Mako says nothing, as usual, lost in the photo. Lucio takes his chance to scoot away, slowly edging away from the terrifying enforcer.
"Hey."
Lucio freezes, one leg out the door.
"Thanks."
"No problem." He takes a second step out the door and then bolts for the hills.
Underneath his mask, Mako smiles, a little sadly. He sets the photograph on the bedside shelf, next to one of Junkrat's many smiley face badges.
"Guess I really am a one man apocalypse…"
His breathing hitches again. The canister dulls the pain.