"Winston!"

The gorilla slumped his shoulders, turning his head upwards, silently mouthing why. He put the half-eaten jar of peanut butter aside and turned around on his chair. A woman clad in blue marched towards him, her clenched fists indicating this was not a visit of a friendly nature.

"He is incorrigible! Filthy! Foul! There is a disgusting lack of order in every fiber of his being!"

Winston sighed, pinching his forehead. "What did Junkrat do this time?"

"Oh, where to start?! How about the mess he made in my work room?! It is in a disgusting state, Winston! I refuse to enter that room until it is thoroughly cleaned!"

"Yes, yes, I'll go in and straighten the furniture out." Winston hopped off his seat.

"You do not understand me, Winston! There is spaghetti all over my work room!"

Winston froze in his steps. He turned to Symmetra with a raise of his brow.

"I'm sorry. Spaghetti?"

"Yes! I demand my work room be scrubbed thoroughly! Perhaps burn the whole damn room! I don't care! It is filth just like him!"

"Whoa, okay, nobody's going to burn anything," Winston put up his hands. "I'll handle it. Maybe you could work in my lab meanwhile?"

Symmetra turned up her nose at the pile of empty peanut butter jars on a table. "I'll... pass. I will continue working in Mei's laboratory."

The woman turned with a click of her heel and left as quickly as she'd arrived. Winston grumbled to himself as he too left his lab, but not in search of Junkrat. No, he wasn't going to talk to Junkrat.

He found the base's recreation room, and, sure enough, there was McCree lounging by the window, puffing a cigarette. The cowboy noticed him and waved his hand lazily.

"Good morning, my gorilla friend."

"McCree, I need you to talk to Junkrat about staying out of people's spaces. Especially Symmetra's."

"Aw, what'd he do this time?"

"I don't know, but it involves spaghetti."

"Spaghetti?"

"Symmetra found her lab in a mess, apparently covered in spaghetti."

"But why spaghetti...? ... Oh!"

"What?"

"Nothing," McCree leapt from his porch by the window. He put a hand on the gorilla's shoulder. "I'll go give the boy a talkin' to."

Winston opened his mouth to question the man further, but the cowboy skipped out before he could. Winston sighed. Something was up... but he had enough on his plate to worry about that. He still needed to make sure Symmetra wasn't going to set her lab on fire.

McCree thought of looking for Junkrat at the balcony, where Roadhog often was, but he had a hunch he might find better luck elsewhere.

As he turned the corner and approached a wide, opened doorway, he heard yelling coming from the cafeteria.

"You're a bully! That's all that you are!"

Uh oh. He quickened his steps and entered the cafeteria.

"Ay?" Junkrat cocked his head to the side. "You call that bullyin', mate?!"

"Wh—Yes it's bullying!" Mei looked at him with disbelief. "And don't call me 'mate'!"

"I dunno, you're like half a syllable away from it. Meeeei. Meeeeeei...ate. Mate."

Mei groaned with frustration. She pointed at the floating omnic behind her.

"Apologize to him!"

"I think you mean 'it'. Also, no."

Mei was about to shout again when a cold, metallic hand placed itself on her shoulder, gently pulling her back. Mei looked over her shoulder at Zenyatta.

"This is not necessary, Mei. Anger solves nothing."

Mei frowned. Her cheeks puffed, withholding her words. She shot Junkrat an icy glare before stomping out of the cafeteria, giving McCree no notice on her way out.

Junkrat narrowed his eyes at the omnic.

"You wanna go, you scrap heap?"

McCree quickly stepped between them. "All right, partner, that's enough. C'mon, we gotta' have a lil' chat."

McCree tipped his hat to the omnic. Zenyatta calmly nodded and gently floated his way out of the cafeteria. Junkrat crossed his arms and looked away, pouting childlishly.

"Now you wouldn't be lookin' like that if you didn't think you did nothing wrong, now would you?" McCree asked with a scolding gaze.

"Seems like I did plenty wrong this week," Junkrat dropped himself onto a chair. "Bound to have made another one."

"Well..." McCree glanced at the doorway. "What happened just now?"

Junkrat remained quiet. McCree stood in front of him, patient but just as stubborn. Junkrat looked at him. McCree responded with a questioning look.

After what surely was the longest period of time Junkrat had ever been silent, he slammed his hands on the table.

"You've got a bloody omnic floatin' about like it owns the place! What was I supposed to do, let it?!"

"Well, yes."

"No! Fuckin' hell, no! So I beat the shit out of it! Or at least I was gonna, until Miss Freezey Pants froze me fun leg!"

"Junkrat, you can't—... Your 'fun' leg?"

"Oh, yeah, look. Decorate whatever I want with it. Fun, right?" Junkrat's voice was suddenly much calmer, sticking out his peg leg covered in ice. Underneath the block of frozen water, McCree could make out the outlines of stickers and doodles in black marker. Junkrat slammed his fist on the table again, his voice returning to its high-pitched loudness. "So I called her Miss Freezey Pants! She didn't like it, so I called her Yeti Face! I ain't never seen snow, I don't know how snow people talk!"

"... Snow people?"

"Well she's always wearin' that coat, right? Snow people. Cause it's always snowin' and cold for her."

"What in blazes are you talkin' about, boy? Mei doesn't wear a coat all the time."

"Yeah she does! ... Does she?"

McCree exhaled tiredly. "All right, forget it. That's not what I need to talk to you about. I need to talk to you about boundaries."

"Boundaries? Oh, you mean like the thing Roadhog used to talk about."

"Uh... Maybe. What did he say about it?"

"Dunno. Wasn't really listening."

McCree noted that Junkrat said Roadhog used to talk about it. Which meant whatever lesson the big man tried to instill into him, it resulted in failure. Not reassuring in the least.

"All righty then," McCree took a deep breath before making an attempt of his own. "Okay, Jamie, see, everyone needs their own little space to call their own, right? A little space that's theirs and it's their place, their rules."

"Yeah."

"When that space is invaded by something or someone they didn't invite, it's mighty rude. You gotta' respect the person's place of livin', and they'll respect yours."

"But if they don't take care of their stuff, someone's gonna take 'em."

Something clicked in McCree's mind.

"This isn't Australia."

"Doesn't change the fact though. Me and Roadie turned our backs for a sec back in Dorado and bam! Lost me favourite bag. The other guy lost his head, so it's even I guess."

"Uh... Okay, I'll give you that, but you're not livin' with strangers. You're with friends."

"Roadie's me only friend."

"Teammates. Comrades. Whichever works for you. Point is we're not going to turn on you at any time, see?"

"Listen, McCree, I like you an' all, but you're startin' to sound miiiighty worthy of suspect right now."

McCree figured that if Roadhog couldn't get respecting boundaries into Junkrat's head, he probably had zero chance to succeed. Still, perhaps it would be better to get the big man's advice on how to get through to the bomber.

"We'll continue this later," McCree quickly backed out of the conversation. "Stay put in your room. Don't go anywhere."

"You're not Roadie. I don't have to listen to you."

"Fine, just don't get into any more trouble."

"No promises, cobber."

McCree shot him a warning look, for which he received a look of feigned innocence. The cowboy left the cafeteria, and chanced one last glance. Junkrat waved at him cheerfully. McCree pointed at him and narrowed his eyes, as if a warning to not do anything stupid, and left.

He found his way to the higher floor of the base, and here was a wide, open balcony that faced the beach. A large figure sat crossed legged on the floor, facing the beautiful, sparkling beach. A dirty cloth, cans of compressed air and a box of tools laid by his side, and before him were the disassembled parts of his scrap gun. On his other side, waiting close-by, was the large, sharp, horrifying hook.

Roadhog turned his head around to him.

"Howdy," McCree greeted.

Roadhog grunted and returned to his work without a word. McCree joined him on the balcony. The cool air gently brushed past his cheeks. The deep blue waters in the distance glimmered under the midday sun as it lapped over the white sandy shore. Caws of seagulls could be heard faintly in the distance.

McCree turned his attention to Roadhog. Large fingers dextrously worked and cleaned the delicate machinations of his unusual weapon. Perhaps it made sense for Roadhog to have such amazing finger dexterity—McCree found it difficult to imagine Junkrat working delicately on anything.

"What?" Roadhog finally asked.

"I wanted to talk to you about Junkrat."

Roadhog let out a long, weary sigh. He finally turned his masked face up at the cowboy.

McCree continued. "He's... Well, he's not acclimatizing very smoothly."

Roadhog snorted. "Not at all."

"Right. I figure you could help me with that."

"What'd he do this time?"

"Well, among other things, he's taken his new obsession with spaghetti a little too far. Now I don't regret one bit introducing the boy to good ol' spaghetti and meatballs, but it becomes a problem when he thrashes someone else's place with it without their permission. Not to say he'd get the permission, but that's the point I'm tryin' to drive home into the boy. Boundaries. Boy's gotta learn to respect boundaries."

"Give up."

"So I thought you—What?"

"He'll never get it. I've tried."

"Yeah, he mentioned it. He trashed your things too, huh?"

"I don't like people touching my things. He never learned. I gave up."

"So that's it? You didn't do anything about it anymore?"

"No. I gave up trying to teach him about boundaries. I learned to keep him occupied with his bombs so he'll bother me less. Whatever stupid thing he does, it's 50% because he's not working on bombs. Give the kid his own space to make bombs. 'Least he'll keep the spaghetti in one room."

"Ooh, I see now. He needs something to distract himself with. His own work room, huh? I'm sure Winston will be more than happy to oblige—"

"No. Make him work for it." Roadhog quickly added.

McCree put a hand around his chin. "Not a bad idea. Thanks, partner!"

"No problem."

Roadhog clicked the final part of his scrap gun together. He held the gun in his hands and pointed it at an angle towards the sky. He fired a shot, and it flew directly towards the white sandy beach—and promptly dropped at an arc. McCree heard a dull thud, likely that it fell within Overwatch grounds. At least it didn't hit anyone.

"MY ROSES!"

Oh mercy.

McCree leaned against the doorframe, casually smoking a cigarette as he kept a close eye on his charge. Junkrat grumbled to himself—He's on a streak of curses for an hour now—while he scrubbed at a tomato-covered spot on the floor.

"Heya McCree!" McCree heard the cheerful voice of Tracer behind him. "Oh! Punishment, huh?"

McCree nodded. "Of course."

"Can he clean my room next? He threw a spaghetti bomb in my room too."

"Seriously?" McCree turned to Junkrat, whose attention was caught at the mention of the word 'bomb'. "I thought you two were getting along."

"Oooh..." Junkrat looked away, embarrassed. "I thought it was the grumpy gramp's room. Sorry, mate."

"Grumpy gramps?"

"Oh, it was delicious spaghetti, love," Tracer said with a wave of her hand. "Bit of warning next time maybe? We'll take it outside, blast the spaghetti in our faces and everything, yeah?"

"Yeah!" Junkrat cheered at the idea. "Spaghetti launchers!"

"No!" McCree quickly stopped them. "No more spaghetti for you! Get back to cleaning!"

Tracer winked at Junkrat, promising to join him on his next spaghetti-based escapade. She beamed an innocent smile at the cowboy and promptly left. Junkrat giddily hopped on the balls of his feet. With a single look from the cowboy, though, he quickly returned to work.

While the bomber continued to scrub away at the lab, McCree wondered if they should invest in a heavy-duty lock and a blast door for the kitchen.

Hey everyone! Malaysia's ban on this site has finally affected me. I'm trying other methods to keep connected. Fingers crossed. Please see my profile for more info.