Your Body Is a Weapon

by vargrimar

Junkrat joins the 'Overwatch: Recall' initiative. Symmetra is not pleased. Slow burn Junkrat/Symmetra with a struggle of chaos versus order. Alternatively, "In which Junkrat grows on Symmetra like an undesirable plant on the sidewalk and she copes with it in progressively worsening ways."

36. Chapter 36

"Don't you think something a little more lightweight would work better? A more compact earpiece would make sense."

Mei sits in Torbjörn's chair beside Satya, a large periwinkle sweater swathing her wrists. Her hair is knotted into a neat bun, set in place by a silver hairpin. She takes one of the white pencils on the workshop table between her fingers and sketches something small right beside Satya's drawing. The white markings overtop the blueprint sheet depict a small earbud-like device, approximately the size of Satya's thumbnail, with a curved piece to latch on to the shell of the user's ear.

"I think something more like this would most closely resemble what we used before," she says. "Well, that's before I left for the Antarctic. Everyone might have used another model afterward. Something like this would just be for those of us who don't have something like Reinhardt's armor we could use for integration. There was the issue of those falling off, though… I don't think they were manufactured very well. The few times I used them, they weren't that secure."

"It was simply poor design." Satya scratches a line through the crude sketch with a decisive stroke. "My design will aim for function and efficiency. Something so flimsy is neither functional nor efficient. That is why I chose this size. Hard-light as a building material is very lightweight, so there will not be any concern about its heaviness posing a hindrance."

Mei taps her pencil against her chin in thought, eyes squinted behind the frames of her glasses. "I guess so. But still, wouldn't something like that get in the way? I mean, it looks like it covers most of the ear and down a ways for support. Surely there is a way we could make it a little bit smaller. Oh, and what about size differences? Everyone has different sized ears, you know. Something that would fit on Roadhog would never fit on me."

"I will have to create different models for everyone," says Satya. She traces a series of lines across the blue printed paper and jots down a series of numbers in equal intervals to demonstrate. "They will be modified using a scale. I will have to take measurements, of course, but sizing should not be an issue."

"Well, that makes a bit more sense. At least there will be variations for everyone." Mei drags the ivory graphite along beside Satya's design in faint lines, indicating the lower piece of the communicator that would draw down toward the wearer's cheek. "This seems unnecessary, though."

"It helps serve as balance," says Satya. "I can thin the piece as a whole, but I don't know if that would produce any negative side effects in transmission. Implementing the appropriate technology inside will be a process. I created this only as a first draft, so there will no doubt be improvements that must be made. We will have to test and see, I suppose."

Mei nods in approval. "That sounds like a plan to me. It's a good start, at least. We have something to work off of. Do you mind if I take this to Torbjörn and Doctor Ziegler so they could give it a once over? I'm sure they could suggest some ideas, too."

"Not at all," she replies. "I welcome the critique."

The implication that her design might not meet their standards causes an uncomfortable twinge in her chest, but Satya reminds herself that this should be treated like any other structure for any other client. There must be an agreement on an appropriate model in order to continue with the project. Disagreements will happen, regardless of whether or not the design she developed fit all of the specifications; everyone will always envision something different.

With a cheery smile, Mei places her pencil upon the workshop table and rolls up the sketched blueprint between her hands into a thin tube. She makes a sideward glance toward Junkrat's portion of the room as she pushes the chair back and hops to her feet. The area is in disarray, as per usual; his piles of wires, casings, and various reagents litter the floor in haphazard volcanoes of spilling parts.

"So, is this how he always keeps it?" she asks.

"Unfortunately." Satya gathers the two pencils and deposits them in their proper receptacle tucked toward the back of her workspace. "I have given up on expecting him to organize it. It has been this way for weeks now. There was a time when it was worse, if you can believe that."

"Really? Hard to believe with a mess like that." Mei crinkles her nose. "Wouldn't this be considered dangerous? I mean, all of those chemicals just sitting there? What if someone steps on something?"

"I have no doubt it is dangerous. Winston forced him to store his finished pieces in specialized cases, but he said nothing about the components." Satya frowns at the scattered collection of vials and coils of wiring. "I have come to terms with it. On some level. Against my wishes. I would organize them myself, but I would rather not risk triggering a volatile compound. Something tells me half the building would be missing."

"I don't blame you. I wouldn't want to touch them, either." Mei offers a sympathetic look, the blueprint secured among her hands. "Well… good luck with that, I guess? I'll be back a little later after I've had the chance to talk to the others and get their input. Winston should probably see this, too. When do you think a good time to meet would be?"

"Three o'clock, I believe," says Satya. "Or sometime after three. I have some errands to run this morning, and I have a suspicion that they may run late. It's best to err on the side of caution."

"Fair enough. Three or later it is. That should be more than enough time to gather some data. I'll stop by around then and see if you're here." Mei gives a wave as she pads toward the workshop door. "See you later. Good luck with the errands!"

Satya sighs. She has a feeling she may need more than luck. It shouldn't, but a knotting feeling of anxiousness nests in down beneath the beds of her lungs. Ever since agreeing to Junkrat's proposition in the pale halogens of the kitchen, she has been dreading today's approach. While there was more than ample notice, it is still not something she is accustomed to. She was not prepared earlier on this morning, and she is certainly not prepared now. The thought of spending a morning with the junkers wrangles something odd and uncomfortable through her, and a part of her starts to wonder if she should call it off and let Junkrat know she is no longer interested in attending.

After wheeling Torbjörn's chair back over to his side of the room, Satya exits the workshop and makes her way back to her space in the barracks. It is far to the back of the enclosure, enmeshed between a number of empty areas that she deemed would serve her needs. She sidles between the walled mazes that serve as makeshift rooms for privacy's sake; she passes Mercy's and Tracer's bedrooms, neat and mussed respectively, until she reaches the familiar confines of her own.

Her bed's sheets are smooth, tucked, and pristine. The desk is spotless, its chair pushed in to its back. The nightstand is home to two smiling grenade shells and a small glass of water she had not quite finished from the previous night. There is a small mahogany wardrobe just beyond where she stores the remainder of her uniforms, clothes, and shoes, coupled with a chest at the end of her bed for… well, for whatever purpose she might see for it.

With Gibraltar's summer heat in mind, she decides to forgo her usual choice of a plain blouse and pressed slacks. Instead, she decides on a sleek and flowing dress from the wardrobe, one that an older colleague at Vishkar had bestowed to her during one of their off the books outings. It is knee length affair, short sleeved, simple in design, and soaked in rich golds and whites for a distinct Utopaean flair. While it is not the style of dress she would normally care to entertain, it is an apt choice for the current weather. She must remove her gauntlet and assemble it again overtop the sleeve, but she does so with practiced precision and haste. Her thick hair is taken care of by sculpting it into an immaculate bun in order to stave off the heat, and she settles for a set of white heeled sandals for breathing room.

Before she takes her leave, she makes a point to snatch her wallet with Vishkar's corporate card and slips it into the thin, powdered blue purse over her shoulder. The card's purpose is for miscellaneous expenses while deployed on errands or other important business, but since Chana's cloth will be to repair her combat attire that had been designed by Vishkar, she has no qualms in sending the transaction Vishkar's way. Besides, she reasons, she rarely fills out expense reports as it is. A few pounds spent here and there for her uniform's upkeep won't be snubbed.

The walk to the hangar is far more eventful than she would like. She spots Mercy and Genji a short way past the infirmary, who both offer brief salutations before immersing themselves in conversation that seems to concern the delicate nature of Genji's integrated cybernetics. McCree and Reinhardt give her hearty waves from one of the leather couches in the rec room, and Ana shouts an affectionate hello from beside them. Winston plods along in a grey bodysuit, exiting the mess hall with a hefty jar of peanut butter in tow. He mutters something that she swears sounds an awful lot like, "Please don't tell Lena," but she can't be certain.

The hangar is much quieter, to her relief. With the warm summer sun coasting at her back, she slinks in one of the side entrances with careful steps to the soft and comforting hum of churning machinery. Gigantic metal crates of questionable content—spare parts, she assumes—are situated throughout the building, stacked upon one another and tucked into far corners. Toward the very center, suspended above various workstations and supplies, is the impressive form of the ORCA. Despite the ample space within the hangar, the dropship seems to dwarf everything around it with its enormous size.

Satya takes the longer route around the sides of the towering crates in hopes that she will have time to talk some courage into herself. This will be nothing but another trip down to Gibraltar, she thinks. She will procure the fabric she needs, hang around Junkrat and Roadhog for an hour or two, and then finish everything up at the tea shop he had mentioned. After that, she will be back at the outpost, and she can then spend the rest of the afternoon working on other designs for the communicator. It will be short and sweet. Only a few hours' worth. Everything will be fine.

As she draws closer to the far corner of the hangar where Roadhog had established his workspace, she can discern the sound of a voice welling up over the machinery's constant thrum. It's an unintelligible garble at first, just the thin noise of strung and mashed phonemes, but as she threads beneath the ORCA and behind the body of a particularly large steel container, she realizes that the voice belongs to Junkrat. Straining to hear, she peers around the edge of the crate.

"Oh, come off it, mate. I don't wanna hear it."

Junkrat is sprawled and supine on the floor, a slew of what she suspects to be Roadhog's tools scattered around him in silver clusters. He seems to be toying with something shiny between his hands, twisting and twirling between orange metal fingers. The distance prevents her from seeing any signifying details, but she assumes it to be a wrench of some kind. Beside him sits the wiry body of a metal chair, and he appears to have draped a spare rag or two over its arms. It occurs to her that he must have taken her stern suggestion and 'borrowed' them from Torbjörn's space in the workshop, and she doesn't know whether to be anxious or relieved at the thought.

It's then that she realizes a red swatch of cloth covers his top half. Satya narrows her gaze and squints across from her vantage point. Is… is he wearing a shirt?

Slight movement catches her attention, and she glances over toward Roadhog. He sits a short way to the left, knelt down by the great girth of his yellow and black patterned motorcycle. His back is to her, the knot of his hair a soft and pleasant platinum under the cool fluorescents, his spike- and tire-wrought harness oddly absent. His position suggests that he is attending to something on the bike's sidecar, although the welding mask that rests a short distance away implies he had once been doing heavier work. With a massive hand, he reaches out behind himself and grabs a hold of a nearby wrench before continuing.

She can't hear anything over the underlying drone of the facility's machinery, but she assumes Roadhog must have said something because Junkrat heaves an exasperated sigh and stamps the heel of his boot on the floor.

"Look, I ain't cracking onto her or nothing, all right? S'not like that." He waves a metal hand at his bodyguard in a curt, dismissive manner. "I'm serious. It's not. So you can just shut your trap and mind your own bloody business. Ain't got nothing to talk about. And don't go telling me there is just 'cause you're worried 'bout your lovely little shiela there. She'll be fine. Not like a little extra kilo or two's gonna hurt anything."

Satya frowns as she listens. While her proficiency in multiple languages has provided her a great vocabulary in each, and while she knows a good deal of slang in the English language, never has she heard the word 'crack' used in such a context. An Australian colloquialism, she assumes, although coming into the conversation halfway through provides her little to work with. Tilting her head to the side for a better angle, she thinks she can hear some sort of low murmur from Roadhog in reply, but she can't discern any exact words.

"I said there's nothing to talk about. Pull your head in." Junkrat leans upward and seems to scowl at Roadhog. "Got enough on me mind already. Don't need none of your smartarse comments. And don't need none of 'em in town, neither, so you best keep your gob stuffed."

Roadhog rises to his feet and pockets the wrench. His shoulders shrug in what looks to be a heavy inhale. There is definitely a deep rumble that follows it; a response, she assumes.

"Hog, I swear, I ain't doing nothing like that. Swear it. Not like she'd be keen if I was." Junkrat drops whatever he had been holding and flops his arms across the floor, as if frustrated, and a shining sapphire gleam rolls onto his belly. His foot moves back and forth to an internal rhythm to continue where his hands had left off. "I mean… she's top sort, but you seen her, right? You been 'round her a few times. Seen how she is. That ain't her deal, and you know it. Too good for stuff like that. Too… I dunno. Too everything."

Scratching at his scalp, Roadhog leans down and scoops up some of the strewn tools. As he plucks them from the floor, he answers in a low thrum. If Satya really strains, she thinks she can hear small scraps of know, rat, and talk, but she is half convinced it might be the overwhelming grind of the machinery.

"I'm telling you, mate, she ain't like that," he says, swatting at him with his peg. "Hell, or maybe I'm not. I dunno. S'just… ridiculous. Not used to it, right. None of it. Both of us was out there for yonks and this place's nothing like it. I mean, not like it's Sydney or anything. But it's not like London or all the rest. People's nice and proper here. Well, most of 'em. All professionals, though. Junkers is just bloody roughies compared to all them. They ain't got lasers or healing sticks or glowy hand tricks or any of the like."

Junkrat picks up the item he'd dropped, and after a moment of squinting, Satya realizes it's the new blade she'd crafted for him. He holds it up between his fingers toward the ceiling, its sleek body glittering under the soft light, and he seems to stare at it with reverence. Something plucks at the strings by her heart in erratic melodies.

"S'just… different. It's weird. Reckon we'd stick out a bit, but rest of them's just as bad. Misfits, the whole lot of 'em. Got a cowboy, some giant from Germany, Snowball from the Arctic or wherever, got a medic in an angel suit, zippy girl with that little blue thingo, and two talking tin cans. Then we got Nan and Scarface and Miss Order and the short bloke with the claw hand and big beard. And then there's you and me."

He holds up the dagger with metal fingers and draws his good hand over across it with a gentle slowness. A lump has fixed itself in Satya's throat as she watches him admire it, and she finds that her palm has become inexplicably damp.

"I dunno, mate. Idea's just bad. Bad all around. And I got plenty of bad ideas. Never went about anything like it before, y'know. Never had to. And can't just up and start with nothing, right. Just… can't. Too weird. Like I'll muck it up and then something's gonna bite me in the arse for it. Don't like it. So I'm not. All right? So quit with the bloody asking. And I ain't got no plans for it, neither, so you can just shove that spanner right 'tween your teeth 'cause I know exactly what you're gonna say and the answer's still no."

With all of his tools collected, Roadhog plods back over to the motorcycle and begins placing them in their respective spaces within the toolbox. Satya can't tell with the mask over his face, but he seems to glance over his shoulder at Junkrat and mumble something through the black breathers.

"Right, look, I just said no. All right?" Junkrat leans up on his elbows and glares at him. "S'not like that. Didn't plan nothing. And I'm not gonna screw anything up, so don't give me that. You been telling me to be on me best behavior, and I have been, so maybe you best do the same, yeah?"

Roadhog grabs his toolbox between his hands and rises to his feet. He turns his back to her again and seems to mutter something to Junkrat.

"Just—put a bloody sock in it, will you? I don't wanna jeopardize the job. We got it good here, mate. Got our own spaces. I got a bed. A good, proper bed, and with pillows and all that. Not that it's used much, but still. Point stands. And we got food, right, and got a place for ol' shiela there. I mean, hell, can finally have a slash 'thout looking over your shoulder 'cause you been thinking one of them junker drongos's got something out for you and you don't want him dragging some knife down your neck. Look, the ape's paying us to be here and be all pampered with all this. I get to blow things up on our nice little outings, and you get to sit there and look pretty. I'd say that's a damn good setup."

Junkrat sighs and rolls over as Roadhog stands over him. He nudges Junkrat's leg with his shoe, and when that elicits no response, Roadhog gives the toolbox a hearty shake. The raucous clang of shifting tools does the trick.

"What? What d'you want?" Junkrat scowls up at him from the floor. "I said it's a good setup, and it is. What more you want from me? I told you, mate, I don't wanna jeopardize the job. And you know what doing something like that is? Jeopardizing. Plain and simple. S'just business smarts, right, and I'm not having no part of it. Dunno why you suddenly got so much interest in me or her or anything, but how's about you go rack off 'cause I'm really not in the mood."

Satya pushes herself out from behind the crate at last. She takes three steps forward, and when neither Junkrat nor Roadhog pause to acknowledge her presence, she knots her fingers together and says, "Interest in whom, exactly?"

Junkrat bolts upright in a violent arc at the sound of her voice, and promptly bashes his head against one of the chair's armrests. Sucking a harsh breath with some choice curses between his teeth, he groans and nurses the spot with his good hand. His entire body tenses with the task of wrangling back the pain, and he curls in on himself in attempt to shake it off.

As Satya steps closer, a number of things become apparent.

One: Junkrat is, in fact, wearing a shirt. A thin red tank top that ends just an inch or two shy of his waistband has been shimmied over top of him. While it seems to have seen far better days in its scraggly lifetime, it fits him quite well. To top things off, the width of the neckline teases not only healthy clusters of freckles, but also visible tan lines from the straps of where his harness once set.

Two: Junkrat has kept his word on the 'spotless' front. Try as she might, Satya cannot find a speck of ash or soot anywhere in sight. His hair is clean (albeit tousled and unbrushed), his face looks to have been thoroughly scrubbed, and the rest of him seems almost kempt. Perhaps it's the light, but even his prosthetic arm has a polished shine.

And three: Junkrat is quite pitiful when in pain.

"Are you all right?" Satya approaches his side and leans down, too hesitant to move his hand. It's almost jarring, she thinks; he shrugs off bullet grazes and abdominal wounds, and yet he crumples at a chair knocking him in the head. "That seemed… unpleasant."

"Unpleasant don't begin to cover it." He squeezes his eyes shut and musses his hair as he rubs at the sure to be forming bump. With his metal hand, he angrily shoves the chair aside. "Piece of junk."

Roadhog towers over her, and he sidles his toolbox into one arm before giving her a wave. Tentatively, she returns it, and a deep rumble comes from behind his mask as Junkrat squirms in pain on the floor.

"What are you laughing at?" he says, glowering up at his bodyguard. "Oi, I don't go laughing at you when you smack your knee or something."

Roadhog grunts and holds up one finger in reply.

"Ugh. Right, okay, fine, there was that one time you tripped over that gutted engine and fell flat on your face. But that was different." Junkrat sniffs. "Your gut got in the way."

Chuckling beneath his mask, Roadhog flits a dismissive gesture in Junkrat's direction before striding away. His heavy steps echo throughout the hangar and crawl up among the walls with the machinery's continual hum.

"Where is he going?" asks Satya, watching the massive form of him as he traverses beneath the shadow of the ORCA.

"Putting his stuff away, most like," says Junkrat. He brings his hand away from his head in a cautious manner, as if he expected blood to blot his palm. "And grabbing her keys."

"He wouldn't keep them here?" she asks. "Or on his person?"

"Dunno. Probably'd make sense to, but he don't. He's real protective of her. Got some little safe under his bed. Keeps 'em in there. Why, no idea." Junkrat shrugs, inspecting the flat of his hand for splotches of red. "Won't tell me nothing, so I stopped asking."

Satya peers down at where he'd struck his head. Thick blond hair covers most of where it met with the chair, and what isn't has what looks to be faint patches of new growth unfurling in. "You aren't bleeding, are you?"

"Nah." He curls his fingers and strokes the inside of his palm, testing for anything damp or sticky. "Don't look like it, at least. Should be fine. Not like I normally go bashing me own head in or anything. Just wasn't really expecting you to pop in out of nowhere is all."

"It was not my intent to startle you." She folds her arms and gazes down at him. "Might I ask who you were speaking of? You said Roadhog had established interest in you and someone else."

"What? No. It's fine—nothing. I meant nothing. It's nothing. Really, nothing to worry about." Junkrat reaches out and grabs a hold of the hard-light dagger that had skidded to his side in his injury's aftermath. With haste, he tucks it back in the sheath strapped to the back of his belt. "Just—he's been sticking his nose where it don't belong and he's being a real pain in the arse about it. Won't leave well enough alone. Starting to get on me nerves."

Gingerly, he presses his palms to the floor and hoists himself to his feet. His forehead is still rumpled with pain, she notes, and he kneads his good hand through his hair again to ward off the ache. The urge to tug him down by the shirt so she can look at the injury pulls in hot threads down beneath her skin; her fingers tremble and there is a latent want for contact tucked within her pores, but she digs her nails into her arm and shoves it aside.

"Shouldn't we have asked him to bring back ice?" She glances over her shoulder at the last glimpse of Roadhog's retreating frame, hoping it will banish the prickling feeling down her throat, but it doesn't. "A cold compress may help."

Junkrat wrinkles his nose. "Nah. I'm fine. Should be, anyway. No worries."

"If you're certain," she says. "You know, if you start to feel dizzy or nauseous, you must visit Mercy. Those are signs of a more serious injury."

"Eh, shouldn't need it. Just hurts, is all. Stings." He pulls his hand away once more and glances among his lifelines for blood. "Seems all right. I think. Maybe."

Biting at the inside of her mouth, Satya reaches up, frames his face with her hands, and tugs him downward in one fluid gesture. Junkrat yelps; he staggers forward to accommodate the posture and lets his fingers coil into fists. As she brings his scalp down to face level, the warmth of his cheek flush with her palm, she hears him curse under his breath in soft, threadbare whispers. With a mindful gentleness, she thumbs back thick locks of his hair on his left side, and parts them down to the roots to see where he had hit himself. There is a definite knot there, she notes, small and swelling, but there is no broken skin from what she can tell. A good sign.

"Perhaps you should avoid lying on the floor," she says, smoothing his hair back over. "It might prevent such things in the future."

"Or chairs. Y'know, seeing as that's what got me."

"Or chairs," she agrees.

Brushing her thumb across his temple, delicate heat soaking through the pad of her finger, she lowers her hands to her sides. Junkrat stays still, as if he is unsure if he is allowed to move; his shoulders are rigid, his head unmoving, his back set in a slight curve. After a moment or two, he finally lets himself straighten in a gradual arc. Soft pink tips at his ears beneath the overhead lights as he evens out his stature, and his adam's apple bobs in a thick swallow.

"Right," he says. His voice has taken on a tinge of hoarseness, and he clears his throat with a cough. "Right, well, should probably show you Roadie's pride and joy, yeah? He might be a tick or two knowing him, so it's probably best. Least you can get a good look at her before he gets back. Maybe pop in so we'll be ready to roll once he gets his arse back here."

Junkrat steps to the side and heads over toward the motorcycle, approaching its side in his uneven gait. Satya follows, watching the plane of his back shift beneath the red fabric with his movements. The glint of the blade at the back of his belt catches her eye, and the brief image of him cloaked in a blanket beneath the kitchen halogens surfaces in the back of her mind.

"First time you've seen her, right?" He leans up against the yellow sidecar, the telltale grin of his grenades plastered across its front. He pats the bike's black leather seats with his good hand and regards the vehicle with a degree of fondness. "Real firecracker. Got a powerhouse for an engine, too. Don't know all the specs meself, so you'll have to ask Hog if you wanna know 'cause he won't let me touch any of the good stuff. Real particular, right. Had me a look once or twice, and he weren't too happy 'bout it. Dodged a couple of loose spanners then. Still, she's right amazing and got us out of a tight spot or two. More than that, come to think of it. Beauty, ain't she?"

Satya glances over the body of the motorcycle. The extended front suspension up to the wide spread handlebars is particularly large, she notes, and the wireframe itself is quite immense. She assumes the bike was custom built to accommodate Roadhog's bulk, and from the careful attention he'd showed earlier, there is a possibility that he might have performed most of the work himself. Some of the frame appears rather worn, while other pieces hold a gleaming sheen that suggest newer parts. Below the yellow painted fuel tank is a tiny, pale pig figurine wedged between two pieces of metal—an odd choice of trinket, yet apt—and although she is not fond of the various spikes that jut out from the sidecar or beside the headlight, she supposes overall it is somehow less unsightly than she'd imagined, if not a touch primitive.

"It seems like it serves its purpose well enough," she says. Bending down, she peers at the twin pairs of spikes—tusks?—that frame the front headlight. "However, I do not see the aesthetic value of additions such as these. I find they detract from the vehicle's overall appearance. It is… unattractive."

"Shh shh shh!" Junkrat bolts forward and poises his hands before the bike, positioning himself between her and its frame as a makeshift barrier. "Oi, don't let her hear you say that. She's sensitive, y'know? Can't rightly go saying stuff like that 'bout her. She's gonna be giving you a ride, after all. Criticizing her looks? That's bloody rude, that is." He splays his fingers over the fuel tank and turns to the motorcycle, stroking over the metal as if it were some sort of cherished pet. "Aw, c'mon, don't listen to her, love. She don't know what she's talking about. I like all the spiky stuff. Looks nice. Fashionable, even. Makes a good point, if you ask me."

While Junkrat has very little room to decide what is rude and what isn't, his expression is exaggerated with comical smugness and Satya can't help but laugh behind her hand. She knows it's only going to encourage him, gods forbid, but she supposes a smug Junkrat is far better than a pitiful Junkrat. Although the former is almost enough to drive her mad, she would much rather see him with a self-satisfied smile than curled up on the floor and in pain.

The latter, she decides, does not suit him in the slightest.

Satya takes a few steps over toward the sidecar. She places her hands over its metal hull, the coolness of its smooth texture filling the valleys along her palm, and she gives it a once over. It is less impressive than the motorcycle itself, and it seems as though it had been hastily acquired at some point during Junkrat and Roadhog's various adventures. There are silver plates drilled over top of where holes might have been punched through, bullets or otherwise, and the vibrant yellow paint has chipped in certain places around its exterior. The metal encasing part of its wheel is adorned with even more spikes—such a tacky design choice, she broods, although these were most likely for other purposes—and it appears to have fallen victim to some of Junkrat's inane scribbling.

She rises on her tiptoes to catch a glance of the interior, and to her discomfort, it appears to be rather small. The seat is worn and sunbleached almost grey, and as she leans in a touch further, she can see discarded grenade shells and what looks to be an empty bag of crisps at the bottom. She hopes the grenade shells are empty. She can't imagine why they wouldn't be, but knowing Junkrat, he might have squirreled them away there with the excuse of 'safekeeping.'

Twisting around, Satya turns to Junkrat to question their seating arrangements, but his gaze causes her to close her mouth and take pause. He's staring at her, she realizes, and quite blatantly—his eyes dip from her blue crystal earrings down to the heeled pair of white sandals on her feet. A pointed canine sinks into his lip as he glances back up to the golden hem of her dress, and then as if the exact same realization had just bludgeoned him in the back of the skull to keep the other swelling welt company, Junkrat succumbs to a full body jolt and immediately whips in the opposite direction. The cargo cases across the room now hold far more interest than the fluttering folds of her dress, and his ears flush with a warm shade of pink.

Was… was he—?

"Junkrat," she says.

A heartbeat passes. Two. Three.

"Symmetra," he replies.

Junkrat offers no further words, and yet his body language shouts paragraphs upon paragraphs upon novels in his stead. His hands prop himself against the frame of the motorcycle in a nonchalant stature, but his shoulders are brought inward and his jaws have clenched. The hangar lights cast soft shadows by his neck and down his cheek, etching in by the line of his collarbone, and despite the faint natural sunlight pathing in from the hangar's varied entrances, the color in his cheeks cannot be masked.

Satya breathes in the smell of oiled machinery and the musty atmosphere of the hangar. Summer strings its fingers through each inhale, and so does Junkrat's lingering scent. Her nails press thin quarter moons among the valleys that trace her palm; she needs something, anything to ground her, and all that seems to do the job is physical pressure.

She should be annoyed. She should be upset, or angry, or… or something. Shouldn't she? After all, if this were anyone else, she would have admonished them in an open and public manner. She has done so in the past, flawlessly and effortlessly (much to Sanjay's amusement), and she holds no qualms on putting someone in their place. She is composed and well together and far beyond behavior like this.

But she's not. At all. In fact, she has been doing the very same to him—and perhaps he's noticed?

Tightness wrings around her throat at the thought, and it becomes difficult to swallow. Has she been staring at him so blatantly this entire time? Was he only staring because he'd noticed her gaze and had assumed it was all right? Gods, and he had to have noticed. He had to. She has no doubt. Junkrat is a madman with a penchant for explosives and volatile compounds, but he has proven himself to be surprisingly astute on certain occasions, and this would of course be one of them.

Satya begins to prompt him for some sort of response, but the heavy sounds of Roadhog's returning steps stop her short. She presses her lips together in suffering silence, and Junkrat shifts out of her peripheral to meet his colossal bodyguard.

"'Bout time you showed up," he calls, somehow far more boisterous than before. "The hell'd you do, mate, have a walk around the whole bloody base? How long you planning to keep us waiting? The missus is raring to go, and we got us some ground to cover!"

Satya has a false start at missus before she realizes that he's referring to the motorcycle instead, and then she has to scold herself for being so incredibly stupid. Damn him, she thinks; damn him and damn this arrangement and damn herself for ever considering it.

Roadhog approaches the motorcycle, a set of keys clutched in one gigantic hand. He thumbs through the array of metal slivers—five or six, she notes—until he finds the one he's looking for. Satya can't be sure what the others might belong to, but she assumes they must tend to personal treasures or hold some sort of sentimental value. Roadhog passes Junkrat with little reaction, and with the appropriate key brandished, he swings a leg over the bike's seat and eases down onto the vehicle. It sinks beneath him as it bears his weight, but its frame is strong and keeps him aloft. He switches the key into the ignition, and with his hands on the grips and a revving roar, the motorcycle rumbles to life.

"Now that's more like it!" says Junkrat. He hops past her to grab a hold of the pack that he'd stashed over by the worktable, hefting it over his shoulder by the strap. Tools acquired, he zips around past the metal chair, snatches the twin rags, and heads up to the side of the motorcycle before promptly launching himself into the sidecar by his palms.

Satya stands there, silent and awkward and out of her element and tensing at the engine's droning purr. Roadhog takes up the whole of the motorcycle's leather seat, not including the packed gear that had been strapped onto the final portion behind the seat's backing. Junkrat has taken residence in the sidecar's small, smile-etched shell. There is no room for her, she realizes with sinking clarity; there is no room for her at all, not unless she happens to—

Roadhog appraises her behind his mask for a moment. When she meets his gaze, he draws a thick breath and taps Junkrat on the shoulder with his knuckles.

Junkrat swats at him with his good hand as he pokes up from situating his gear on the floor. "What?"

He jerks a thumb toward Satya without a word.

"Oh." Junkrat slowly lifts himself to his feet, hands curled over the metal of the sidecar's exterior. "Right. Well, reckon you probably need someplace to sit. Not unless you're keen on hanging off the back or having yourself a good run." He beckons toward him with two fingers. "C'mere."

"You are certain there's room?" With tentative steps, Satya closes the gap between her and Junkrat. The engine is loud, almost too loud, and she finds it difficult to concentrate with it blaring in her right ear and with Junkrat standing right before her in patchwork shorts and a crimson tank and tan lines wrought down the broad expanse of his shoulders.

"Eh, certain might be a bit generous," he says, offering a shrug. "No worries, though. You'll fit. I don't take up the whole bloody seat like Hog here. Should be fine."

Junkrat extends his prosthetic to her as he leans down from the sidecar. The amber of his eyes is kindled and alight with something she can't pin, and when she presses the white metal of her hand in his, he cinches his fingers tight, exacting a familiar and deliberate pressure within her gauntlet, and he lifts with vigorous strength. His other arm snakes around her waist to help vault her over the side; his sheer closeness encroaches in when her sandals kiss the floor and she finds herself flush against the fabric of his shirt.

He's too warm, she thinks. This man is smoke and coals and fire, and she swears an inferno must steep somewhere behind his ribcage.

With a satisfied noise in his throat, Junkrat releases her hand. "See? S'fine. Bit snug, but don't matter none. You won't be going nowhere 'less I say so." He slumps to the seat below, knees bowed outward, and he glances up at her with a grin. "C'mon. Have a sit."

While there is ample legroom (and there must be, she supposes, to accommodate his lanky body), the amount of space on the seat itself is rather lacking. Despite his claim, he does take up the majority, and to her mounting discomfort, there is little else available to her other than his lap. His hands are suspended over himself expectantly, and although she suspects that he's been aware of the situation since propositioning the event, it occurs to her that whether this is clever improvisation or cunning design, she cannot prove it either way.

Satya gathers her dress in her fingers and tries to will her heart back down her throat. "I expect you to behave," she says.

"Behave?" Junkrat leans his arms against the back of the seat and sports an incredulous frown. "What d'you think I'm gonna do? Toss you out the side and wave hello?"

"You will do nothing because you will behave," she says.

Steeling herself, she turns about and lowers herself onto his right thigh. As soon as she leans back against his chest, he drags in a deep breath and tucks his metal arm around her waist to pin her in place. This is neither combat nor reconnaissance nor mission work, and such close proximity sends prickles of discomfort webbing through her skin. It would be one thing if this were in the ORCA en route to a drop zone, but this is somewhere safe, domestic, home, and yet he's close and pressed and holding her as intimately as he had in the freefall above the ocean. Soft trembles clench down her spine at the thought, and she swears his thumb eases a light stroke against her stomach in reply.

It's then that she realizes that there will be more of this particular arrangement. Not only is she going to be perched upon his lap and utterly flush with him until they reach Chana's shop, she will be this way for the duration of his scrap procurement as well as the entire way back to the outpost.

Gods. What has she got herself into?

"Ladies and gentlemen, be sure to keep all arms and legs and metal bits in the car at all times. This is a nonstop flight and we won't be stopping for no loose limbs." Junkrat's grip tightens by her belly. His boot shifts right by her sandals, the pack of tools shoved down below by the grenade shells and the discarded snack bag, and she can feel the rumble of the engine both through his body and through the soles of her feet. His chest presses against her, hard and warm and far too close, and his mouth lurks somewhere behind her left ear. "Good to go, mate. Let's roll!"

The motorcycle's engine revs beside her, and Satya squeezes her eyes shut. She doesn't know why she agreed to this and she doesn't know why she let him convince her. Regardless of whether or not she had any say, she could have simply refused to show, and then she could have proceeded to ignore him for the duration of… well, her sabbatical, really. And that's what, seven months before she would return to Vishkar? It wouldn't be impossible. Avoiding him for several months is in the cards, right?

The ride down into town causes her more inward discomfort than anything she could have possibly imagined. Although both of the junkers seem content to travel in silence and watch the passing scenery, which matches her preference just fine, she remains in a constant state of hyperawareness. Every tract of uneven terrain can be felt through the sidecar upon their descent from the Rock, and any particularly large pebbles or grooved paths of earth send her right into Junkrat's side. While she is grateful for his arm's support, as she is almost certain she would exit the car through unceremonious means without it, it keeps her in constant contact with the rest of his body. His tattooed shoulder rests beneath her shoulder blades, his bicep curving around her side and the orange metal of his prosthetic clasped snugly at her waist. Her legs are laced, folded between his, and with each jostle of the sidecar, she can feel the muscle of his calf as he bobs it to the cadence of some unheard rhythm.

The worst of it, she thinks, is neither the position of his arm nor the light touches of his leg, but the hard expanse of his chest and the utter closeness of his face. She has experienced this in several high adrenaline situations—the ruins, Ilios, the freefall, Gibraltar's sweltering streets—and so she tells herself that it should not come as something that should jolt her out of her comfort zone with such ease, but it does. It is as personal and intense as when he had hugged her in the workshop last week, but exponentially worse. The workshop had been brief, albeit jarring, and she'd had a way out; here, there is no such luck on either front. The contact is constant, prolonged, hot pressure down her back and soft freckles in her peripheral, and unless she wants to vault back over the edge of the sidecar and spin out onto the dirt roads, there is no plausible (or safe) method of escape.

Gods. She can even feel the faint pressure of the canteen hitched to his belt against her backside. The sheathed blade and other sure to be grenade stuffed pouches adorn his hips as well, and a part of her fears that his body shifting might aggravate any lurking explosives on his person and cause the motorcycle to burst into raining scraps. Then again, as far as she knows, he has never had any accidental detonations—and he very much knows his way around a bomb, she supposes—so perhaps her trepidation is unfounded.

Still, it does nothing to smother down her heart as it clambers its way up her throat and into the back of her mouth. It does nothing to ease her pulse back down to a normal rate, and it does nothing to stopper the well of delight that has sprung up among the spaces of her lungs. It's terrible, she knows, and it mystifies her more than anything she has ever encountered. Everything about being drawn into his lap is strange and unusual and terrifying and delightful and she has no way of parsing it.

Satya doesn't understand. This is not how things should be. It isn't. What is she supposed to do with something like this?

And so here she is, settled on his lap, the warmth of the rising sun coating her skin and Junkrat's body heat radiating through his clothes and somehow intent on soaking through every inch of her. His breaths are strong and even, ribs and muscle pressing flush with her back, and every now and then he will pause and lean behind her to catch the scenery. His movements are slight, and yet her own vigilance marks every adjustment of his shoulder, each tic of his leg, the moments where his grip tightens, the opportunities he takes to stretch out his back. There are patterns to the way he moves, she notes, patterns and rituals and designs, and she is startled to realize that she has become too focused on him to acknowledge the engine's once grinding roar.

Just as he was in Gibraltar's streets, Junkrat serves as an unwanted focal point that eschews everything around her but him, his presence, his skin, his heat. She has used others in similar fashions to ward off the asphyxiating pressure of crowds or other unfavorable situations, but the only other comparison she could possibly make would be to Sanjay when he'd brought her under his wing—and even that does not come close to what this has become. A fully fledged architech introducing her to Vishkar's corporate world with soft smiles and mutual aspirations cannot possibly compare to a fiery madman who has managed to fix himself into such an odd position in her life.

It takes Satya longer than she would care to admit to notice how far they have descended. They have traveled far enough down the Rock for trees to sprout and collect in quaint copses, and as the motorcycle curves down switchbacks and draws closer toward town, the vibrant green of summer leaves and crisp foliage flourish beside the road. Cirrus wisps have been strewn across the cool skies above, and although the sun shines down with a fierce strength, the whipping winds have managed to make it almost pleasant.

Roadhog eases their speed as they reach Gibraltar's outskirts. The engine dials back, and Satya shudders in a breath beneath the palm of Junkrat's metal hand. The taken path passes by some of the areas she and Junkrat had fled through with McCree under Talon's pursuit, and she snatches glimpses of broken buildings or splintered streets where grenades had been thrown. The bodies have long since been disposed of, or so she assumes, but the lingering structural damage of the town still remains. Satya knows she can't participate in whatever repair or redevelopment that might take place, but she wonders if she might be able to make an anonymous contribution to the city in hopes of assisting reparation efforts.

When they begin to approach the more heavily populated squares, Satya leans past Junkrat to tap Roadhog on the belly. He gives her a nod of acknowledgement, and then rolls his shoulder as if to let her know he's listening. She opens the fabric of her purse and withdraws a folded sheet of paper with the storefront's name written on its inner spaces, and she holds it out for him. Without removing his gaze from the road, he accepts it between giant fingers and thumbs it open.

"It should be three streets over, I think," she says.

Roadhog tucks the paper in his trouser pocket and makes the appropriate turn in reply.

There are no nearby lots in which to stow his motorcycle, so Roadhog opts to pause on the street right outside the shop. Satya disapproves of the choice, as a part of her raises its hackles at being seen in public with such a disparate pair of men. Onlookers perusing the nearby shops and cafés suspend their respective activities to get a proper look at the mechanical monstrosity and its colossal rider, and she notices passersby turning their heads to take stock of the sure to be odd image that her, Junkrat, and Roadhog create. The pressure of unwanted attention winds its fingers down her spine in a sawing, serrated grip, and so she directs her attention to the task at hand to stave off the world.

"I will return shortly," she says, and starts to lift herself from Junkrat's lap. It takes a moment or two for his arm to release her before she rises to her feet. "It should not take long."

Junkrat squints at the arced name over the storefront in the slanting sunlight. "This is what your little errand was?"

"Yes, it is. I have something I need to pick up for a personal project." She peers down at him, her hands clasped against the sidecar's edge. "Is that a problem?"

"No," he says. "No problem here. Just was wondering, is all."

Satya turns back to the side of the car, slings her leg over, and lowers herself to the ground. Careful to mind the folds of her dress, she bunches them close in one hand as she sidles the rest of the way out. After a brief dusting and ensuring that nothing from Junkrat managed to cling to her clothes, she takes a short inhale to steel herself and heads inside, leaving the two junkers to wait for her on the street.

Inside, Chana lingers at the shop's counter. Surrounded by bolts of various fabrics and a dated point of sale system, she tends to some sort of paperwork beneath thin, craggy hands. Her salt and pepper hair has been brought in a loose tail by her neck, and her kameez is wrought with brilliant aquamarine and swathing gold. She glances upward at Satya's footsteps, and a thin smile creases her mouth.

"Ah, I was wondering when you would arrive," she says. "Miss Vaswani, was it?"

"Yes, that is correct," says Satya. "Were you able to find a similar fabric?"

"I believe so, but that is for you to decide. Come, I have received something that may please you." Licking her lips, Chana pushes the papers aside and flits away from the front counter. "Keep in mind, it is not exact, but I believe it is close enough that the subtle differences might be overlooked. Of course, a discerning eye will know better, yes? But that is just between us."

Satya follows Chana as she makes her way past walls of fabric and miscellaneous odds and ends. The azure bottoms of her salwar kiss the floor with every step, and concerning the selections of silk, cotton, and other flavors of textiles, Satya wonders if she had put any work into her own garments. The attention to detail on trim that lines her hems is quite exquisite; the embroidered designs hold the intricate sort of complexity that she truly admires.

The back of the shop harbors bigger bolts of fabric. They are stacked upon one another, spooled on wooden shelving that allows each type to be pulled from its roll and cut for interested customers. Beyond bins of specialty designs and tubs of yarn, Chana brings her to a stop. She raises one finger in a silent request to wait, and she slips beside a heavy bolt of starry silk to disappear into the back room for a moment or two.

When Chana emerges, she clutches an oblong cardboard box between her arms. Its top has been opened already, most likely to inspect its contents upon arrival, and the opened flaps reveal a roll of matte graphite fabric. Chana pries up one end out of the box and gestures for Satya to have a closer look.

As Satya runs her fingers across its surface, the first thing that she notices is that the texture is not the same. The type that had created her legging was a stippled sort of mesh, and while this one carries similar features, the consistency is entirely different. A touch rougher, she thinks; perhaps a different thread count than what was used? The color itself seems quite close, although she suspects it may be a shade or two off. It is difficult to tell without the fabric present for comparison.

Regardless, it is apparent that Chana knows her work.

"There are differences, but I believe this is closer than what I had expected." Satya rubs the cloth between her thumb and forefinger. "Is this thicker?"

"It is, yes," she replies. "I'm sure it is of a different type than what you are accustomed to, but with what you showed me, it is as exact as I could manage. This may have a little… ah, reinforcement? I believe that is correct. Of course, because of its thinness, it is not impregnable, but from what the supplier told me, there is a little flexweave involved."

"I see." That sounds familiar, and she wonders if Vishkar had commissioned something like it. "Well, I think this is satisfactory. If there is enough, I may be able to make several. How many yards?"

"There are thirty in this roll. There were other options, of course, but I assumed it was best to start small. Better to lose a smaller amount of money if this had not been to your liking. You may either purchase by the yard or the entire bolt. I don't know how proficient you are at sewing, but you may want some to test with."

"The bolt will be fine," she says. Satya is about to dig into her purse for her Vishkar corporate card, but the distinct creak of the metallic hinge of the shop door draws her attention.

Chana cranes her neck with interest. "Here, let us move toward the front. I can take your payment there."

When they surface from the aisles of colored fabrics and assorted sewing materials, Satya halts mid-stride. Just ahead, positioned between a pair of old shelves, stands Junkrat. He has a hand scratching at his scalp as he peers down at rolls of yarn and clustered spools of pastel threads in the plastic bins, and by the mystification that melds his brow and pulls at his mouth, he seems rather out of his element.

A rat in a fabric shop, she thinks. There must be a joke in there somewhere.

"Buenos días," says Chana. She passes by him as she makes her way back to the counter with the box of cloth. "Is there something I can help you find?"

"Right, yeah, you seen a lady in here by chance? Came in a bit ago." Junkrat, now with greater purpose than staring at sewing supplies, follows after her and rests an elbow on the counter's surface. "Got black hair all worn up, and she's about, I dunno, maybe yay high?" He gestures close to the ends of his ribs, which is far lower than her true height. How short does he think she is?

"What are you doing here?" she asks, a hand hooking across her hip.

Junkrat looks over his shoulder and grins. "Oi, there you are. What's taking you so long?"

"I told you I would return shortly. It hasn't even been that long. You do not need to be here." She approaches the counter and shoos him away with a curt flick of her hand. "Go back outside. I will pay for this, and then I'll be out."

"Killing me here," he says, propping up his chin with his metal palm. "Clock's ticking, y'know, and I don't got my little book for keeping busy, so I'm just sitting out there with Roadie while he gets all braised up like some Chrissie ham."

"You must learn to exercise patience. Believe me, I have no intention on wasting time this morning. You are only making it worse for yourself by following me." Satya withdraws the card from her purse and hands it to Chana, flashing her what she hopes to be a smile of sympathy. "Place whatever cost of the bolt is on this. It should cover it."

Chana accepts it between the pads of her fingers and sidesteps toward the till, squinting behind thin framed spectacles at the screen of a monitor. "I greatly appreciate the business, Miss Vaswani. Perhaps keep me in mind should you require any further specialty items, yes? Or for our usual stock. Whichever strikes your fancy."

"Miss Vaswani?" Junkrat's eyebrows arch with piqued interest.

"Yes, Vaswani my last name," she says, and makes a point to keep her gaze fixed on the back wall. Small bins line the shelving, each filled with clustered fabrics of varying designs and color schemes. "I told you before that what you know me as is only a moniker. I prefer to use it in professional settings with others. It keeps work and personal life separate."

Satya supposes she shouldn't have to explain her reasoning to him of all people, especially considering his own preferred moniker of 'Junkrat.' But, if she has learned anything about him at all during his stay at the Gibraltar outpost, it's that he is a man of endless surprises.

Junkrat opens his mouth to say something in response, but he then seems to think better of it, and he promptly closes it again. Although nonplus is visible through his sharp features, he accepts her statement with a shrug and lifts his elbow from the countertop.

"Here you are," says Chana, offering both her card and a paper receipt between her thumb and forefinger.

"Thank you. It's appreciated." Satya takes both and deposits them into the primary pouch of her purse.

The clerk folds the flaps of the cardboard box over top of one another and fastens them down with a strip of tape from the dispenser by her monitor. "There, that should do it. Do keep in mind that I can help with finding a replacement for the gold trim when the time comes." Chana scoops it up and extends her arms toward Satya with a smirk that somehow seems far too astute. "I wish you a pleasant day, Miss Vaswani. Try to keep cool, yes? I heard it was supposed to be quite hot today."

Satya nods her gratitude and accepts the box. It is a bit heavier than she had expected, but she supposes the bolt itself coupled with the density of the fabric is the culprit. Sidling it in her arms, she turns for the shop door, Junkrat following her with uneven steps. She shifts the oblong box into a less awkward position so she can free one hand to open the door, but Junkrat reaches over her and tugs it open before she can manage it. Startled, she allows herself a hasty glance over her shoulder as she steps through the threshold: a faint smile frames his face as he bears the door against his shoulder, complementing his cheekbones and the paths of soft freckles that bridge his nose and smudge beneath his eyes.

She works down a swallow and wishes that he had stayed outside.

Roadhog waits on his motorcycle out by the curb. His thick arms are crossed over the girth of his chest, heaving with each heavy breath. Sweat has begun to coat his skin beneath the presence of the morning sun, but if brings him any sort of discomfort, he does not show any outward displays. Instead, he acknowledges Satya's return with a short nod, and then unfolds his arms and situates his palms back over the bike's handlebars.

Junkrat pulls ahead of her, anticipation guiding his gait, and he clambers into the sidecar with a light grunt. He reaches out to her with an open hand, flicking two fingers toward himself with the intent of stowing her purchase.

"So, what exactly is the plan here?" she asks, handing over the box. "I don't know what all of this entails short of you crawling under vehicles."

"Oi, it's more than that, y'know. I crawl over 'em, too." Junkrat grabs a hold and stashes it upright against the sidecar's seat, tucked against the far most corner. "As for a plan, well, reckon we got us a bit of scrounging to do. Might head back to where I left them parts, but I got a feeling nothing useful'll be left. Somebody always grabs the good stuff. Got a couple other places in mind that might have a clunker or two, but nothing's real concrete, right. More… metal."

Seeming satisfied with himself, he flashes a wide grin, twin glitters of gold winking at her from between his teeth. The morning sun drenches him in warm waterfalls as he stands over her from the sidecar, and his shock of hair stirs beneath the caresses of a warm sea breeze. He stretches out his arm for her, his open palm crissed with broken heartlines and healing calluses kissing the pads of his fingers. The bruise that had once soaked his knuckles has faded from their sharp crests and sunk into the paleness beneath where his glove had left its encompassing mark.

"C'mon," he says, amber eyes aflame with mischievous delight. "Let's have us a ride, yeah? We'll window shop 'til tea."

Settled back in Junkrat's lap, Satya sits with a rigid posture as Roadhog drives them through Gibraltar's sunbleached streets. The motorcycle's appearance continues to draw unnecessary attention from locals and tourists alike, but once he maneuvers away from bustling avenues and populated plazas, the presence of others poses less of an issue. She had assumed that Roadhog only knew of the primary points of interest throughout the town below the Rock, and yet his wordless navigation of the roads suggests otherwise. Then again, now that she thinks about it, Junkrat has managed to construct three separate RIP-tires, which must have taken at least three trips—one for each engine.

Honestly, it's a wonder they haven't been arrested. Have they always done this sort of thing in broad daylight? It's ridiculous, and not to mention all flavors of illegal. Who does things like this?

Apparently her, comes the afterthought, and she doesn't know if her silent acquiescence would count as sanction and mark her as an accomplice or not. She cradles her forehead in her hand at the thought of having to contact Winston from the local holding house and request bail not only for herself, but for Junkrat and Roadhog as well.

What on earth is she getting herself into?

When they approach the dilapidated street where Satya had found Junkrat sprawled beneath the jalopy, Roadhog slows the bike and peers ahead at the cracked brick that cobbles together the flanking housing units and the various vehicles that have been parked by the roadside. It takes a few moments until they come across the derelict and corroded automobile that had provided Junkrat's lost haul, but when it edges into sight, Junkrat knocks his fist on Roadhog's belly.

"Whoa, whoa, hang on, hold up, there she is, there she is!" He leans out from behind Satya, his chest pressing against the curve of her back. His prosthetic has tightened around her in what she assumes to be excitement, and she can feel the taut strain of his abdomen as he cranes forward to get a better look.

Heat flushes up her neck with Junkrat's trilling laughter by the shell of her ear. She should have known better than to allow herself to be in this situation, she thinks. Her body's reaction to the thought while beside him in the showers was more than enough reason to avoid this altogether, and yet here she is.

"Oi, love, pop up a tick, would you?" He gives her a series of quick, gentle pats on her stomach. "Gotta have me a proper look."

Satya, more than willing to oblige, grips onto the sidecar's front and rises to her feet. Junkrat slings up right behind her, body flush with hers, and then he steps onto the seat and launches himself out of the enclosure. She struggles with a particularly stubborn breath as she watches him clear the distance between the motorcycle and the jalopy, and when he reaches its rust ridden hull, he stoops down to his hands and knees and begins to crawl beneath.

Sinking back down to the greyed upholstery of the sidecar's seat, Satya averts her eyes to the extensive faces of brick. His shabby patchwork shorts are not the most flattering piece of clothing, but bent over and shuffling on his belly, they frame his backside rather well. She bites at the inside of her mouth with too much force; she has no idea why she's allowing herself to think this way, and it's absolutely maddening.

"Ace! We're in business!" Junkrat gives a thrilled whoop from the car as he shuffles himself out. Clambering to his feet, his mouth is wide with an incredibly pleased smile, and he makes his way back to the sidecar with a spring in his step. "Wouldn't you know it, still got some good bits left over. Looks like whatever dipstick came through here couldn't tell arse from elbow. 'Course, still missing some of the important stuff, but was counting on all this being nabbed anyway, so I'm not gonna whinge about it."

Junkrat plants his prosthetic on the edge of the car and leans in, his good hand reaching down by her legs. Satya shifts them aside so he can get to his stashed rucksack, entirely too focused on the thin material of his ruddy tank straining over the wrought muscle in his back. The light brush of his arm by her calf wrangles an electric jolt through her limbs, and she curls her fingers into fists to fend off the encompassing sensation of anxiety webbing in between her bones.

"There we go." He wrenches up the pack past her knees and hauls it over his shoulder before settling an elbow against the sidecar. "Gonna have a decent haul from this one by the look of it. Not as good as before, right, but better than nothing. Might try to find another just to round things off. Make it nice and even." Junkrat eyes her, mirth flaring through brilliant amber and curving at his lips. "Sit tight, yeah? Won't be too long. Did most of the work meself before we got run out, so not too much left to do."

"We have until noon," she reminds him, shaping her voice with punctuated words and rigid formality to quash back her vulnerabilities. "I do not want to spend an entire afternoon out here. I need to continue my work on our team's communicators back at the outpost."

"I know, I know. No worries, love. I got stamina, but I know when to be quick." He winks at her before loping back toward the gutted jalopy.

She sits there, speechless. That should not have stirred her heartrate, she thinks, pressing her nails into the flesh of her palm. That should not have caused warmth to rise through her cheeks and down her neck, and it most certainly should not have rocketed a twinge of heat in her lower belly. That should not have summoned the fractured image of him naked on the shower bench, peeling down the white swath of towel from his hips, and it should not have shown his hand sloping southward along a coarse trail of dark blond.

Satya bolts upright and out of her seat. A hot, extended breath is held within the spaces of her lungs, and she cannot bring herself to release it. Determined to shove anything and everything about him from every recess of her mind, she jerks her gaze away from Junkrat and she swings a leg over the edge of the sidecar. She drops to the street, sandals against cracked and baking stonework, and she starts walking.

There is no procedure for this, she thinks. There isn't. Her mental exercises are ineffectual, her coping mechanisms useless, and any attempt to scramble for new ones would be moot. She has no way to mitigate the coiling simmer down below; all she can think to do is extricate herself from the situation entirely so it no longer holds power over her and so she might have a chance to recover and clear her head.

She proceeds about fifteen steps from the motorcycle before she hears the plodding movement of Roadhog behind her. Releasing a captured breath, she chooses to ignore it and keeps her eyes to the buildings ahead. While interacting with Junkrat is perhaps her least desired thing at the current moment, interacting with Roadhog comes as a rather close second. As an exercise, she purges the unwanted intrusions from her mind and focuses on the schematic of the newest model teleporter, mentally tracing through each layered sheet and over every minute detail that she'd sketched over smooth blue pages. It does little to banish Junkrat from her mind's peripheral, but it helps ward away the noise.

Satya reaches the end of the block before taking pause. It's not far enough, she thinks, not by a long shot, but she can no longer see Junkrat without maneuvering herself around parked automobiles, so she supposes it will have to do. The echo of Roadhog's footsteps resounding off of baking brick and chiseled mortar has not ceased; it mirrors the hammering drum of her heart with stunning similarity. She glances over her shoulder to see the mountainous man trailing her with a ponderous gait, a hardcover book of some kind clutched in one of his great hands. Despite the concealing presence of his mask, she is certain his gaze is fixated on her, and the thought makes her wish she could meld down between the cracks among the stones beneath her feet.

"Is there something I can help you with?" An edge hones into her voice to weld the composure of her outer façade. She is not flustered, it says. She has not been thinking about his boss, it says. And she most certainly has not been enjoying any of the necessary physical contact she has shared with said boss.

Roadhog does not deign her with a reply. He continues his strides and draws up to her with little concern. When he reaches her side, he simply flattens his upturned palm to open his book, and thumbs to the appropriate page. The cover is worn, pressed, its materials eroding along the corners and down the length of its spine. It is shaded a deep, royal blue, and there are elegant intricacies across its surface wrought in faded gold. The title Master & Commander is etched into one of the blocks of designs—a nautical novel?—its text crisp, clean, and shaped in the capital letters of a smooth serif font. Its age is apparent by folded dog-ears and the saturnine tarnish of its pages, but he seems to have taken care of the book quite well.

"I'm sorry, did you not hear me?" Satya peers up at him under the glare of the morning sun. Drops of perspiration adorning the expanse of his impossibly broad shoulders, and she marvels at the sheer wonder of his towering height. "Is there a reason you are following me? I promise you, I am not going far, and I plan on returning. I have little desire to make the trek back to the outpost on foot."

Roadhog turns the page. His spiked tail of platinum hair glitters a molten silver under the warm shafts of the sun. His breaths hold a steady cadence, and his posture is curved and casual to accommodate his reading. Well, as casual as a seven-foot colossus could possibly seem, she supposes. With his face obscured and his stoic body language about as useful to her as a sieve would be for drawing water, she has no way to interpret his response (or lack thereof), and it grates at her nerves.

"I see." Satya smooths out her dress and pulls in a thin breath. "Well, I am going to continue walking. I feel restless. Are you going to follow me?"

There is a slight downward movement of his head, which she can only assume is a nod.

"Should you not be watching him instead?" she asks. "I was under the impression that it was your job to keep him out of trouble. What if someone spots him?"

With his free hand, Roadhog gestures in a glib dismissal. Whether that means he believes Junkrat fully capable of looking after himself or whether he simply has no preference on whether a bystander reports his friend's illegal activity, she can't be certain. Regardless, it seems Roadhog is intent on accompanying her, and it is a very sobering thought. Her discomfort curls down to her marrow and grips tight.

"I will not be going far," she insists, a last attempt to persuade him to leave her be. "Perhaps another block or two, and then I will turn back. You do not need to do this."

His solemn motionlessness and the full engrossment in his book suggest he does not care either way.

Exasperated, Satya turns on the ball of her foot and proceeds down the length of another block. Since it is clear that there is no stopping him, further attempts would be nothing but wasted breath on her part. Whatever motive he has for tailing her, it surely must take precedence over her own autonomy. The sound of his plodding footsteps starts again somewhere at her back, and she turns her focus inward back to the libraries of schematics she has stashed away among her mind's curving contours.

Unfortunately, the warmth that pools in her lower belly has not fully abated. Amid careful white pencil lines and crisp blue planes of schematic sheaves and the pleasing orderly gridwork that suffuses them both, the image of Junkrat climbs up and crests the waves of all of her other thoughts as they meet their sinking lulls. Her attempts to shove him out prove fruitless; if anything, they encourage him, however impossible that seems for an imaginative figment, and then she finds that the current occupant of her mind's eye is staring at her half clothed from a hill of crumpled schematics, his lengthy tongue pressed between his teeth and a scorching fire smoking in the amber of his eyes.

Satya forces a swallow. This is not what she had planned.

She somehow manages to keep her cool for three excruciating blocks before she decides that she should turn around before she wanders all the way to the other side of town. With the heat of the sun soaking down over her shoulders, she passes by Roadhog, who appears to be split between following and reading, and she begins to make her way back to the motorcycle. Sweat drips down her neck and curves between the valley of her breasts, and it occurs to her that she hasn't had anything to drink since earlier this morning when she had dropped into the kitchen to nab something small for breakfast. Dryness squeezes at her throat between the sunbaked bricks and the intensifying heat of the late morning, and she entertains the idea of stopping for tea a touch earlier than anticipated.

"Exactly how steadfast is Junkrat's decision to find another vehicle to… scrap?" she asks, taking a glance over her shoulder.

There is a partial expectancy for Roadhog to outright ignore the question, but he doesn't. Instead, he looks up from his book, shrugs his massive shoulders, and then peers back down again. At least he decided to use a gesture with a clear connotation this time around, she supposes, and if that's the best she's going to get, she might as well appreciate it.

Thankfully, Roadhog's overpowering presence manages to squelch Junkrat from her thoughts on the way back. While she finds it unusual that Roadhog would choose to take a bullet for her, she finds it especially unusual that he would decide to shadow her as if she were an overgrown child. The bullet would be easily explained through his purpose as a bodyguard, she thinks, but the latter? It makes little sense to her, and the only explanation she can cobble is the fact that Junkrat had said she was his friend—which, somehow, would make her Roadhog's friend (and charge) by proxy?

What an odd thought.

By the time she reaches the motorcycle again, Junkrat seems to have finished his scavenging and is now hauling whatever he can into the rucksack he'd brought. He sits down on his haunches, the silver handle of a wrench tucked between his teeth, gathering fistfuls of metal and interwoven ringlets and what looks to be a set of disassembled pistons.

Had he completely dismantled the car's engine before scooping it out piece by piece? she wonders, frowning at the filling pack. Is that even possible to do in twenty minutes? She hasn't the slightest idea, and she doesn't know whether she should be impressed or not.

Junkrat gathers his tools with surprising haste. He snatches them between metal fingers and greased knuckles, and he shoves them in one of the pouches by his waist before stuffing the rest in with the bits and bobs of the engine and whatever miscellaneous parts he had previously worked out of the vehicle. Satya waits for him by the sidecar, arms folded, and when he approaches with the rucksack slung over his shoulder, she realizes that despite his moderately clean self, his hands and trousers are a mess.

She eyes his shorts with distaste. "I am not sitting on that."

Junkrat lifts his haul into the sidecar's bottom. The scraps within clank together amidst his movement, and the bag drops a loud and shuddering thump upon landing. "Sitting on what?"

"You." She points to the dirt that has collected by his knees and the faint grease smudge on his right thigh. "I am not going to commandeer more of Mercy's stain remover."

He glances down at himself. "Oh. Well, that'll do it."

Biting at his lip, Junkrat leans back into the sidecar and digs around the bottom. She can hear the soft clinking noises of displaced grenade shells and the crinkle of the discarded crisps bag, and then the distinct sound of the rucksack being dragged aside. His back and shoulders coil taut under the movements, and she becomes painfully aware of how close he is.

"Ah, here we go." He pulls up one of the bundled cloths he had borrowed from Torbjörn's space in the workshop. Gingerly, he then starts to scrub at his hands in a meticulous sort of fashion she never would have expected from him. He scours the dips between his fingers, the waves of his knuckles, the carved lines along his palm, and then he wipes clean the machinery of his right hand.

After he's finished, the cloth has become a healthy shade of grey. He balls it up and tosses it back in the sidecar before reaching in and snatching the final cloth, now with significantly cleaner hands. Bearing a broad grin, he drapes it over his shorts as if it were some sort of apron.

"See?" he says. "I got you covered."

Satya fights a smile. "I think you have you covered."

"That, too." His laugh is contagious, and she swears it shouldn't be.

Once Roadhog stows his book and starts up the motorcycle again, Junkrat climbs into the sidecar and shoves all of their acquired items aside, attempting to make room for his lanky legs. A few muttered curses and some aggressive shifting later, he pops back up again, Torbjörn's cloth draped over his shoulder. Satya watches him with an amused smirk, and when he catches her gaze, he leans forward and props his elbows on the sidecar's edge.

"Need a lift?" he asks, waggling his fingers in cheeky salutation.

She snickers behind her hand. "Unfortunately, yes."

"Ah, now that ain't no way to go about it," he says. "Let's say it's teamwork, right? Always sounds better that way."

Satya isn't going to argue.

Junkrat reaches out to help her in. He curls an arm around her waist while his good hand laces through hers and lifts her with little effort. Her breath lodges down in a lump within her throat as she crests the sidecar's edge, and when her sandals touch the floor, she works down a swallow in hopes of prying it free. Beside her, Junkrat sinks to the seat and tugs the cloth from his shoulder, splaying it over his lap to cover the extent of his right thigh. He beckons her to sit with curled fingers.

"So, did you find what you needed?" Satya dusts the folds of her dress and gathers them together to prevent other potential smudges before lowering herself onto his lap.

"Eh, for the most part." As if purely habit, he snakes his prosthetic by her belly and tucks her close. "Missing a couple key pieces, though. Somebody made off with 'em. Knew I shoulda just grabbed 'em before we left the other day. Still, not a big problem or anything. Could just pop under any old clunker and do a bit of fixing, as it were. Reckon it wouldn't take too long."

"Then would you mind if we were to stop for tea a little early?" She tucks a stray lock of hair by her ear, attempting to keep her back straight and her shoulders even. The warmth of his body is welcoming, even under the glare of the late morning sun, and the last thing she needs is to feel his heartbeat.

"Sure. Don't see why not. Could use a cuppa myself." He glances over to Roadhog and nudges him in the side. "What d'you think, mate?"

Roadhog nods, a deep grunt serving as his only verbal reply.

"Oi, you remember that little hole in the wall we found a couple weeks back? Somewhere closer to the beach, I'd thought." Junkrat scratches at his chin, eyebrows drawn together in pensive reflection. "Or maybe that was something else. Coulda just been that tourist joint. You know what I'm talking 'bout, right?"

Without a word, Roadhog settles his hands on the grips and steers the motorcycle from the edge of the curb. As they pull away from the remnants of the car Junkrat had just gutted, Satya hears him laugh behind her, and its timbre drops a soft tremble down her backbone.

"Real chatty bloke, ain't he," he says. "Promise, he ain't always this talkative. Almost enough to make your ears fall off."

Satya turns her head and frowns at him through her peripheral. "But he hasn't said a word."

Junkrat chuckles in a swaying lilt. "That's the joke," he says. "Just missed it. Went right over your head. Looks like I'll have to aim a little lower next time."

"There is no need," she says. "I understand it now."

"What, sarcasm not your strongest language?"

"No, it is not," she replies, spoken entirely in fluid Telugu, "but I am going to assume it is yours." It is distinct and rustlike on her tongue—it has been too long, she thinks—but she remembers it rather well from her youth. Although English presides over most of her vocabulary, it is difficult to completely overhaul the linguistic coding of one's mother tongue.

Junkrat sits behind her in nonplussed silence. His grip at her waist slacks, and from the corner of her eye, she watches him as he opens his mouth to reply only to close it, open it, and then close again after a final thought. It provides her a brief twist of satisfaction behind her breastbone, and as she recalls the moment he had been staring at her in the hangar, she makes a point to bring one leg over the other and shift the pressure of her backside flush with him.

"The hell'd you say," he manages, sounding significantly less composed than five seconds ago. Perhaps it's the sun, but his freckles are backed beneath a faint smudge of pink, and his body seems to tense beneath her.

Satya purses her lips in a smirk. "I do not know what you mean. I didn't say anything at all."

The remainder of the drive is spent in pleasant quiet save for the motorcycle's constant purr and the wavering thrum of neighboring automobiles on the narrow roads. Junkrat seems to have been humbled by his own flavor of joke, and so he refrains from any further attempts at sarcasm for the duration of the ride. His presence at her back has retreated to a degree, she finds; he has himself situated against the seat's greyed backing, pressed quite close with its warm vinyl, and it feels as though his arm cups at her waist out of sheer necessity. A good thing, perhaps, if she had not admitted to herself that she had been enjoying the contact not half an hour ago.

Is this really frustration? she wonders, crunching her fingers into fists upon her lap. The concept is not at all foreign to her, but it has only arisen with projects, items, physical things, herself, her own performance; rarely has it been in the context of being frustrated with another person, and especially not in this manner. There have been too few scenarios in the last several years where she would consider entertaining such close contact with another person, and none of them would have come anywhere close to this.

It is absurd, she decides. All of it. Every single last bit. She should not have reacted in any of the ways she has, and the fact that actually she has infuriates her. The level on which she enjoys Junkrat's company (there it is, the truth, and it's terrible) is something well beyond her coping skills. She had never imagined her ways of stabilizing herself would be so primitive and ineffectual when faced with something of this caliber, and it grates at her in all of the wrong ways.

Satya Vaswani, stoic creator of order and Vishkar's prodigy child, has been rendered a flustered mess by a bomb loving lunatic.

Absolutely absurd.

As Roadhog hooks another turn, Satya is jarred from her predicament at the sight of a long strip of brilliant sprawling shops. Not only is the tea shop close to the beach, it also appears to be down one of the primary promenades just a short skip or two from the seaside. The rolling of the waves swells beneath the engine's steady grind, and the caws of seagulls soar overhead. While the crowds here seem to thicken considerably, the bike seems to have its own sort of repellant (or perhaps that is Roadhog himself), and when Roadhog draws up to the seafoam white curbside a slight hop away from the shop, locals and tourists alike disperse from the immediate area. An upside to having two seedy looking men as companions, she supposes. She isn't going to question it.

Roadhog switches off the motorcycle and pockets the keys. Before she can ask whether he is going to accompany them inside, he twists about and reaches for one of the bags strapped onto the back of the bike. He opens one's flap, he pulls out the thick novel he had been reading earlier, and settles it over top of the yellow fuel tank as he flips to find his lost page.

"You gonna get up anytime soon?" Junkrat asks.

"That was the plan," she replies, and gathers her dress before rising to her feet. After glancing behind her to make sure that his mess hadn't somehow transferred to her clothes, she nudges past him and lifts herself out of the sidecar with some effort.

The clustered shops have a quaint atmosphere with white stone sides and wooden doorways cresting their storefronts. Just ahead is a svelte little place, 'The Tea Leaf' painted across its windows in a thin, cursive font with delicate curls on the capitals. Dark metal chairs and tables flank either side of its entrance, and she draws close and peers inside with interest. From what she can see through the glare of the glass, it has a café like appearance within. Clusters of tables line the sides, and there is a long counter showcasing a number of pastries, biscuits, and crackers to accompany the boxed displays of various teas along the walls.

"Not bad, yeah?" Junkrat lopes up beside her, running his good hand through thick shocks of blond. "Roadie found it a while back. He's got a soft spot for stuff like this. Don't go telling him I said that, though. He won't like it much, and your little spot in the workshop might find itself all rearranged."

"There will not be a repeat of your first visit," she says, providing him with a cool gaze. "I have no desire to clean up more of your messes."

"Oi, not messes, right," he says. "There's a reason for it. I can find stuff better if it's all laid out. Can see everything that way. Just makes sense, y'know. It's got its own system."

"Disorganization is not a system." Satya steps toward the door and tugs it open by the handle. "Well, shall we?"

"That we shall," he says, doing his best to mimic what she assumes he believes to be both proper speech and a proper accent.

Unfortunately for him, it is neither, and she finds herself stifling a laugh behind her palm.

Inside, the air conditioning engulfs her with a chilly burst. Gooseflesh ripples down her arms as she holds the door for Junkrat. The air is laden with the saccharine scent of sweets and the strong aroma of something herbal, and it faintly plucks at the memories of the charming tea shop in Utopaea at the back of her mind, drawing down a warm drape of comfort about her shoulders. Junkrat's footsteps spur her toward the front counter, and as her sandals scuff across the dark wooden panels of the floors, her eyes wander among the numerous collections of teas showcased amongst small stretches of shelving and propped up on miniature displays that flank the pastry case.

"Hello, hello, buenos días, my friends." The clerk is a shorter man, graced with a stocky build, broad shoulders, and thick hair that has been sunsoaked from brunet to a tentative blond. He draws up from behind the counter, clad in a black button up and pressed slacks, and offers a pleasant smile. "Is there something I can help you with? Perhaps something in particular you had in mind?"

Satya can spot clusters of sprinkled biscuits, tiny iced cakes, and fruit-filled strudels among the assorted fare. It reminds her of her woefully light breakfast, and she is tempted to snag one of the cakes. "You sell teas by the box or tin, correct?"

"Yes, that is correct," he says, and gestures behind him to some of the shelved teas. "Of course, you can try them before you purchase. I have samples here and there. Or, if you are so inclined, you can always pay per cup. I'm sure you have noticed, but our pastries are an option as well." His voice is smooth, fluid, flawless; an immeasurable quality. While his accent is distinctly Spanish in structure, it has the melodic sort of lilt that reminds her of an erudite young Spaniard she had met among Vishkar's academy. José had not excelled at manipulating hard-light, but he was masterful at complex architecture; two of Utopaea's largest buildings were constructed by virtue of his elegant designs.

Lacing her hands, Satya peers up at the varying boxes. She knows she wants to bring something for Ana as thanks for keeping her company, but she doesn't know what kind she would enjoy. A printed menu hangs in the back spaces over the shelving, and she scans over the listed names in hopes of finding something for the retired sniper until something catches her eye—a series of iced teas toward its very end. If Junkrat would like anything here, she supposes, a cold tea would appeal to him more than Assam or Earl Grey or one of the varying hot herbal blends.

Suddenly reminded that she hasn't heard a peep out of him since they entered the shop, she glances over her shoulder in a half panicked state only to find him sniffing around the displays. He paws through the boxes until one hooks his attention, and then he lifts it between a thumb and forefinger as he squints down at the small texts along its back. He scans pieces of the room between boxes, seeming more interested in the tiny decorations and knickknacks than any of the other furniture.

Somewhat relieved that he hasn't managed to destroy anything, she turns back to the clerk. "I would like two glasses of the raspberry black to-go, if possible. A box of the Darjeeling there, and one of the spiced chai." And then, after eyeing the pastry case for the third time, "One of the chocolate cake pieces as well, please."

"Certainly," he says. "The iced may take a moment or two, though."

"That won't be a problem. We will wait."

"Would you like the cake first?"

Satya stares at it through the glass. The cake itself looks delectable, and the thin drizzles of icing over top cause her mouth to water. "I would appreciate it."

Her willpower is less than stellar today. She has to indulge herself somehow.

After the clerk collects a box of Darjeeling and a box of spiced chai into a bag, he returns to the front counter with a small plate topped with the chocolate cake and accepts her personal card for payment. If she had been under Vishkar's banner for the duration of her time in Gibraltar, she might be able to get away with landing corporate with charges for tea and cake, but that would not be the case here.

As the raspberry black is prepared, Satya slides off a small slice of the cake with the provided fork and pops it in her mouth. It is much richer than she'd imagined, and she decides it is enough to satisfy the craving. She manages to get two bites in before she feels Junkrat standing behind her shoulder.

"Can I help you?" she asks, preferring to keep her gaze on the smooth planes of icing. There is no reason to humor him with attention right now.

"Yeah. Yeah, actually, I think you can." She can feel the grin in his voice, all hubris and bluster and swagger, and without warning, he snakes his good arm beneath hers to nab a sizable crumb from the cake. "Oh, this'll help plenty."

"That isn't for you, Junkrat." She swats at him with the fork, but it does little to deter him from sneaking yet another piece under her arm. "Stop it."

"But we're mates now," he says, and licks down the pad of his thumb to attend to a stray smear of chocolate. "Sharing's caring, right? Or something like that. Don't really know the saying. All's I know is it means I get a piece."

"Except that makes three." She catches him by the wrist mid-swipe and cranes her neck to give him a heavy glare. "You do realize you are being incredibly irritating, do you not?"

"You ain't so blameless," he says. It's apparent from the lean muscle roping through his arm that he could easily overpower her grip and eat his stolen crumb, but he doesn't. Instead, he freezes in place, right where she holds him, and he stares down at her with a degree of satisfaction lacing the gold in his smile. "'Sides, some of the real good parts was missing from that engine. I think that earns me a bite or three. Drop of chocolate for me troubles."

Satya releases an exasperated sigh. "If I give you a decent slice, will you stop trying to steal more?"

"Maybe." He laughs, the wild mania she recognizes from the delight he takes in explosions pressed and prominent throughout his tone. "Won't know 'til you hand it over, will you? I'd say you got a good shot. Fifty-fifty. Eh, maybe sixty-forty, in your favor."

Keeping the metal joints of her gauntlet enclosed around his wrist, she cuts off a generous piece with the side of her fork and spears it between its prongs. Without another thought, she turns and holds it up for him to take. Of course, she had expected he would simply take a step back and accept it with his prosthetic like any other person would, but no—instead, he dips downward, his chest pressed against her shoulder blades, and he descends upon it with an open mouth. A hum of pleasure in his throat, he slowly draws off of the fork and licks at the corners of his lips to catch any lingering chocolate. He follows it up with his good hand dropping the crumb he'd held on the flat of his tongue (when on earth had she let him go?) and eyeing her with the single most conceited smirk she has ever seen throughout the duration of her professional career—and when one has to work with reticent mayors and stonewalling city councils, that is saying a lot.

"Cheers," he says, and draws his thumb at the corner of his mouth to clear away any extra. "I reckon you're safe from further snatching. For a while, anyway. No guarantees. Best not let that sit around, though. Might be back for more."

Before she can manage to structure a semi-coherent reply in her head amongst all of the suffocating thoughts of him in the showers or his tongue tracing his teeth or whatever he just did to that helpless piece of cake, the clerk returns to the counter with two plastic cups, each donned with a lid and dark pink liquid within. Eating the rest of the cake is short, hasty, and utterly mechanical; she scoops in two mighty bites and leaves the fork upon the little saucer before grabbing her cup and the bag of teas and ushering herself to a prompt exit.

"Oi, hey, wait, where you off to?" Tea in hand, she can hear him come after her, the scuff-thump of his foot and peg against the wooden floor. "Thought we was staying?"

"I need some air," she says, and pushes through the tea shop door.

The heat is thick and enveloping, but it is something else sensory she can focus on to herd her thoughts toward more constructive things. The swelling murmurs of the crowds strolling down the length of the promenade rolls in around her, and she cannot believe she is using one of the things she dislikes the most as a form of distraction and solace.

Bringing the cup to her lips, she sips through the punched slot in the lid and drains two quick gulps of crisp raspberry. It isn't quite as good as she had hoped, but she supposes it will suffice, and so she takes another long drink from the cup to slake the thirst lining her throat. It's comfort, fresh and cold on her tongue, and as she scans the strip soaked in sweltering sunshine, a distant part of her yearns for a day at the beach below the promenade. It would be something to get away from this insanity—from him, from Overwatch, from Vishkar, from everything, but him the most—and she knows she is in sore, sore need of it.

Junkrat steps up beside her. The warm sea breeze threads through his hair and the tangible sunheat coats his skin with smouldering bronze. After squinting at the tea inside his cup, he takes a tentative sip, and then tilts it back in a hearty swig.

"Not bad," he admits, adam's apple bobbing in a swallow. "Not bad at all. Might have to pay 'em another visit." His left foot taps against the stone sidewalk in a rhythmic tic, a cadence to bring beneath the late morning murmurs of the streets, and she pools all of her focus into the surrounding sounds to distance herself from him. "Wouldn't mind showing you my like, though. If we can find a place. Dunno if you like sweets at all, but bubble tea really hits the spot. Starting to miss it something chronic."

"You have a sweet tooth?" she asks, entirely out of reflex.

"Yeah. Big one. Real big one." He grins, flashing two specks of brilliant gold. "What, you couldn't tell?"

Satya pauses for a moment, prying apart the question, and then resists the urge to bury her palm against her forehead. She supposes the chocolate cake definitely should have tipped her off, and if not that, then the sweet teas and the cookies he'd snatch from the kitchen—but they didn't. She hadn't been thinking. It's as if the logical parts of her have buried themselves between her lungs in stunned silence, unable to parse him or her or words or… or anything.

Never has she felt such a number of vicious conflicting reactions within herself, and she hates it.

Junkrat beckons after him with two metal fingers as he makes his way back to Roadhog and the motorcycle. He sips at his tea, ruddy tank top stuck to hard muscle and freckled shoulders glistening with new beads of perspiration under the late morning sunlight. His gait is odd and his demeanor is insufferable and he's obsessed with explosives and he's an utter mess in all senses of the word, and yet there is no questioning the fact that he is, unfortunately, an attractive man.

When she gathers her composure at last and follows him to the sidecar, she decides that nothing like this can ever happen again. She cannot be in such close physical contact, she cannot spend more time with him than necessary, she cannot be friends, and she absolutely cannot be alone with him. Each is a ticking component that could forge something disastrous, and she has no desire to see any of it come to fruition.

In Junkrat's lap, she keeps herself rigid and still. She holds her tea with her left hand squarely in the safety of her lap, her other hand clasped on the sidecar's metal edge. The motorcycle's roar is an endless thrum in her ears, and although it is loud and uncomfortable and jarring, she lets it rumble through her bones and coil down to kiss her marrow.

Something must make this end, she thinks. Something must.

Junkrat's prosthetic sets at her waist, pressed into the fabric of her dress. It is anything but inappropriate, but it flourishes anxiety down the firm arc of her backbone. It is close, intimate, nothing she'd wanted, and yet it somehow constructs a bursting swell of this is safe and things will be fine back between the spindles of her ribs.

Gingerly, he shifts behind her. His arm rests at her side, and his metal hand is a pleasant pressure at her belly.

Satya clenches her fists, chagrined and afraid.

Her thoughts have drifted to sliding her hand over his own, and she doesn't know how she is supposed to cope.