Junkrat wanted to run in several directions at once, which ultimately resulted with him jittering on the spot while he desperately tried to order his plans into some kind of linear action.

Roadhog seemed pretty determined to march him off to the drop ship but he knew for a fact that wasn't happening. He needed to do something, to... mend things, somehow... damn it, he still had no clue what he was doing, everything got tangled these days. He tried to focus.

"Who allocates missions and whatnot?" Junkrat demanded, as much to himself as Roadhog. He wrung his hands together, tipping his head to stare back at the blank pig mask. "Who? The monkey?"

"Far as I know Winston writes the mission briefs but it's commander Morrison who allocates agents..." Roadhog took in his vacant expression, and after a brief hesitation decided to humor him. "Soldier Seventy-Six."

Junkrat grimaced. "That prick? Figures... better go pay him a visit I reckon."

"Rat," Roadhog growled out in warning, body shifting as if to block his path. Junkrat stared at him with wide, innocent eyes, grinning his most disarming grin, though the faint twitches that still plagued his fingers were enough to show he was a long way from calm. They kept dancing about like living creatures beyond his control. If he'd thought about it he might have jammed them into his pockets but he was distracted, still running through the possibilities in his head on a string of endless tangents.

"What? Just need a friendly chat is all, set a few things straight, no murder or nothin', I swear it," he said rapidly, drawing a neat little cross over where he figured his heart probably was.

Roadhog grumbled.

"Alright! No explosions neither, I'll behave... just... gonna use me natural charm I guess, heh, there's a reason I'm the negotiator... just plonk ya lard ass down an' wait a tick, I'll get this sorted... it'll be a fine... it'll be all good... you'll see, I'll be right back... an' everythin' will be like it should..."

"You're babbling."

"I fucking know I am mate!" he snapped before he could stop himself, biting down on his lip a moment later as if it wasn't too late. Junkrat drew a sharp breath between his teeth and attempted to compose himself. He pointed a finger at Roadhog. "Just... I'll be back, okay?"

"Junkrat-"

But he was already off, skittering down the hallways as fast as his pegleg would take him. It seemed perilously urgent that he settled this as soon as possible. The more he waited the more the situation dawned on him, the genuine prospect of walking headlong into danger without Roadhog at his back. He couldn't remember the last time he'd done that.

Earlier days... there were blanks here and there but he remembered enough. He'd survived years without the big bastard, but back then he'd been a nobody, a scrawny, one-legged nobody. Junkrat had been reckless enough with his explosives that folk didn't think him worth the risk of troubling most of the time, and that had kept him alive... after finding his treasure though things had changed.

He recalled, vaguely, the manic despair of realizing that his old tricks wouldn't work any longer. It didn't matter how many bombs or traps he built there would always be more people ready to take the place of those he dealt with. His supplies couldn't keep up, his hands wouldn't build fast enough, his legs weren't made to outrun every up-and-coming bounty hunter in the outback. He'd known he was fucked, but that frantically stubborn part of him refused to give up.

Then came Roadhog.

Junkrat had been fairly confident that the guy would kill him, but then again he was probably going to die anyways, so what did he have to lose? It was a risk, but Junkrat danced with danger on a regular basis. The secret was that it was the danger that kept you safe. It didn't matter how perilous your position was so long as everyone else's was just a little more perilous.

That was how he felt when he welcomed the ex-enforcer into his employment.

It had taken a certain level of desperation to share his time so close to a bloke he knew could snap his neck with a flick of his wrist, and he'd filled their initial few days with enough nervous chatter that his voice actually turned into a croak, but slowly he grew accustomed to the idea. The first time Roadhog had saved his life had helped. It still wasn't until a year later when his suspicions finally began to die.

Roadhog had had the chance to betray him.

Junkrat had been waiting for a moment like that, he'd known it would come sooner or later, that one day the money would be too good, that his constant talking would finally prove too much... he'd made a few contingency plans while he waited, plans he ran over every night so they wouldn't slip his mind. He never got to use them.

Roadhog... turned the offer down. Junkrat hadn't been able to wrap his head around it. He might have written it off – perhaps he'd read the situation wrong, maybe there were details he wasn't privy to, reasons it wasn't as good an opportunity as it seemed.

Yet there had been three more subsequent chances by Junkrat's count, three more occasions where Roadhog could have secured a sizable profit and unburden himself of his pest of an employer... and Junkrat weighed them up and he knew he would have taken them if their roles had been reversed, but Roadhog did not... and it baffled him. It went against everything a Junker stood for. He'd spent weeks trying to puzzle it out, searching for some trick, some hidden motive. In the end there was nothing to be found.

Tentatively... very tentatively, he had accepted the possibility that Roadhog genuinely wanted to keep him alive, and not because of any treasure.

Each and every time the man hauled him out from certain death it only encouraged the idea. The concept of trust had never really existed to Junkrat in any tangible form, but he'd trusted Roadhog. So long as the giant was within shouting distance things would be alright. It became the one thing he could rely on. No matter what, if shit went south then he wouldn't be alone, there would always be someone ready to drag him out of the fire...

And he liked Lucio. He liked Hana. Hell, he liked most of the other folk at Overwatch too, but they weren't Roadhog. They hadn't spent three years keeping him alive through thick and thin when he'd been sure he was on borrowed time. It wasn't the same. They couldn't fill that gap, couldn't switch places just because it was convenient, and he needed to remedy this now before people started thinking they could, started to think this was just another of his meaningless habits they could correct like training an animal...

When he found Soldier Seventy-Six the man was sitting at his desk and staring suspiciously at the mug of coffee in his hands.

The room wasn't really an office as such... it lacked the precision for something like that, too disjointed, filled with whatever the man happened to find practical, half of which appeared to be weapons. Since Overwatch's recall a lot of rooms had yet to be arranged properly. Many were still empty, or filled with old supplies no one had the time to dig through, and while Tracer and the monkey were working on what to do with all the space it was slow going. Whatever had been dragged in here was by the man's own design.

Soldier glanced up as Junkrat collided with the doorframe, grabbing hold of it as his easiest means of slowing his momentum. Junkrat stood there for a moment while he caught his breath, then straightened up to his true height, squaring his shoulders and stalking forward.

"Now listen here mate," he said, in what he considered to be his business tone, "seems to me like we've got a bit of a misunderstanding, right? Cos I was just talkin' to me old pal Hoggy, and he seems to think ya told him he ain't goin' on this mission..."

"He's not," Soldier said plainly, setting the coffee aside.

Junkrat narrowed his eyes. He leaned forward, placing his hands on the desk so he could loom to the best of his ability. As a rule he'd never cut much of a menacing figure, too scrawny for that, but being six and a half foot tall sometimes caught people off guard. Unfortunately Soldier did not seem the least bit intimidated. Junkrat's scowl deepened. "See, that's the thing... I know for a fact he was scheduled to be, an' I don't much like that changin'... me and Roadhog, we're kinda a package deal, a team, ya get me? If I go, he goes, that's just how it works."

"How it works," Soldier told him, "is that you're given an order and you follow it."

Junkrat bristled. That was precisely the problem with Soldier. He just expected everyone to fall in line, to nod and salute and cry 'yes sir' before hopping into action because that was how he thought it was meant to go… but Junkrat had never grasped any military chain of command. He got that you listened to the top dog unless you wanted to risk a world of pain, but the rules of the reformed Overwatch were somewhat fuzzy to him. It wasn't the lawless, bloody society he'd grown up in… but nor was it the smooth, well oiled machine that Soldier seemed to envision. Neither of them had worked out where that left them standing. It was a juggling act of miscalculations and poor attempts to correct their own hapless blunders, none of which smoothed things over. At times such as these, when Junkrat wanted nothing more than to put a stop to this stupid mess, it was infuriating. It felt like yelling at a wall.

"I bloody follow orders mate! Ya tell me to blow shit up an' I do it, ya tell me not to blow shit up an' I do that too! This ain't about orders it's about ya makin' no damn sense! Roadhog's meant to be on that mission an' ya go messin' with the way of it cos some Sheila bribed you or summit."

"I don't take bribes," Soldier growled out, voice dangerously low.

Junkrat snorted.

Soldier pushed his chair out and stood up, the sudden motion catching Junkrat by surprise so that he reeled back before righting his balance and folding his arms across his chest, feigning indifference. Soldier stabbed a warning finger in his direction. "Listen here Fawkes," he said, "it's very simple. We're not expecting a large show of force this time around, what matters is holding a defensive position... it may be that someone pointed out to me that there were others better suited to the job than agent Rutledge. I said before that I won't be allocating anyone based on who has a bone to pick with who, and so it's only fair the same applies here. This isn't some field trip for you and your friends to have fun on, this is a mission. I'll pick whoever I think will do the best job and that's final."

"Yeah but me an' Roadie are a team-"

"Overwatch is a team!" he snapped. Soldier sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. When he spoke again it sounded brisk, as if he were taking great pains to restrain himself. "You were hired because of your expertise and because Winston thought it was a better idea to have you here rather than running amok, or worse yet, grouping up with Talon... especially with your secrets. I happened to agree with him. You've been useful, I won't lie, but the fact is Winston is right, we can't afford disunity at a pivotal time like this when the world is relying on us. I need everyone here to trust each other. I need to know you'll do your job no matter what happens, no matter who's standing next to you."

The gears spun in Junkrat's head, piecing together the conversation. "So this is some test, huh? Ya think ya can just-"

"It's not a test. I'm simply making things clear. Overwatch needs to work together... if you can't do that, maybe we have a problem."

He stiffened. "Ya threatenin' me!"

"I'm not..." Soldier trailed off with a groan of frustration. "Just behave, okay? I'm not going to argue about this any more, the matter is closed. The drop ship leaves in fifteen minutes... you'd better hurry if you want to be on it."

Junkrat was still in the grips of disbelief. None of this morning was going like it should, and the more he tried to talk the less it felt like anyone was actually listening.

"Ya just don't get it, mate..." he all but pleaded, hands held out imploringly.

Soldier remained unfazed. "There's nothing to get. I told you the matter is closed. You seem friendly enough with Hana and Lucio, they'll keep an eye on you I'm sure, it's just for a couple of days."

Junkrat seriously considered refusing. He could plonk himself down on the floor and insist that he wasn't moving unless Roadhog was coming along too, he could sulk all week if he had to... or he could yell, shout every obscenity under the sun until he got it through Soldier's thick skull that this was wrong... or maybe rig up a few of the new bombs he'd been working on... or... or...

But the more he thought about it the more he felt backed into a corner.

He'd joined Overwatch for a reason... because he'd wanted to feel something, a connection he supposed, something they all seemed to share which the greedy part of him insisted that he needed, a thing he'd never quite understood but hungered for all the same. It wasn't something he could steal. Wasn't something he could force. It lingered on the edge of existence, insubstantial but taunting him nonetheless... and the longer he spent close to it, trying to figure out exactly what he was missing, the harder it was to pull away. He wanted... to belong.

And fuck, he felt stupid for it... it wasn't the sort of thing that he was supposed to want. He couldn't justify it in his head. But Junkrat guessed his brain had never adhered to logic...

What life had taught him was simple – if you wanted something, really wanted it, you had to decide if it was worth the risk, if you were starving enough to chance a bullet to the face or if it was better to wait another day.

Overwatch needs to work together... if you can't do that, maybe we have a problem...

God fucking damn it he wanted to punch a wall... or maybe just punch Soldier, but he was pretty sure that wasn't acceptable behavior right now and he'd dug himself enough of a hole.

He bared his teeth, wrestling with his own indecision.

Soldier just stood there. Bloody prick probably took satisfaction from this, Junkrat thought mutinously, probably got a kick out of watching others squirm. Well, if the bloke was expecting him to humbly bow his head and apologize he was going to be sorely disappointed.

With whatever dignity he had left Junkrat puffed himself up, forcing himself to stare the man dead in the eyes. "Ya makin' a mistake mate, an' I'm tellin' ya that now so I can say 'I told ya so' later... I'll do me job, always hold up my end of a deal, but don't think for one second I'm happy about it, okay?"

"Never asked you to be," Soldier said, sitting back down at his desk. He picked up his coffee again, giving it a doubtful sniff.

Junkrat fumed on the spot. He did not appreciate being ignored, particularly when he had a point he wanted to make, and Soldier's dismissive nature prickled at his skin in the worst sort of way. He stepped forward, rapping the knuckles of his prosthetic hand on the desk to catch his attention.

"Oi, I ain't forgettin' this," he warned, "just in case ya thought otherwise."

"Fawkes, the drop ship is waiting."

"I'll write it down an' everythin'! You'll be hearing from me once I'm back."

"Junkrat," Soldier cautioned, and the use of his callsign snapped him back into place.

The pointlessness of the situation began to sink in. There was nothing more to gain here. With a final bitter snarl he flung the rudest gesture he could think of in Soldier's direction and stormed out.

He nearly bumped into Roadhog. The mountain of a man rested just outside, calmly holding the blanket and set of traps he had abandoned in his panicked rush to go and fix things.

How long he had been loitering Junkrat had no clue, nor if he had managed to eavesdrop on any of the conversation. Junkrat was aware that he often talked far louder than he probably should so it wasn't as if he was difficult to overhear even by accident, in fact people often overheard him despite their very best efforts not to.

Junkrat checked over his shoulder, making sure he had slammed the door with a satisfying bang before turning back to his bodyguard. His posture slumped. "Thought I told ya to wait."

Roadhog grunted.

"Yeah? Well maybe ya should listen..."

Roadhog inclined his head slightly – an inquiry by Junkrat's estimation.

His expression soured and he hunched further forward. He didn't want to admit it but lying was hardly an option either, he'd never been much good at hiding things, especially when distressed. "How'd ya think it went mate?" he demanded, jerking his chin back in the direction of the door he'd just slammed. "Think it's pretty damn obvious."

"So you're going?"

The question hung in the air, too heavy for Junkrat's liking. His pegleg bounced on the ground, the faint creak of the shock absorbers the only noise save for the wheeze of Roadhog's breathing, not enough to distract him and certainly not enough to ease the tension in his chest. He took an awkward half-step, then doubled back, then spun to face him once more. He threw his arms up in defeat. "I guess?"

He didn't know what else to say, how to wrap it all up, all of the frustration, the fear, the stubborn determination... he could have said a million things, would have started off on the biggest tangent of his life and talked until his voice was raw, but none of it would have helped.

Roadhog studied him with those soulless dark lenses. Then slowly he reached forward and dropped a hand onto his shoulder.

Junkrat regarded it with suspicion, but after a second's fidgeting he decided that it was probably meant as an act of comfort. This was just one of those times when Roadhog remembered Mako, tried to recall gestures from an age long gone and a life he'd striven to bury...

"Come on then," he rumbled, "need to grab your things."

He let go, ambling a few feet down the corridor before pausing to look back.

Junkrat groaned. "Fine, yeah, I got it," he said, forcing his legs into action as he traipsed after him.

When he finally arrived at the loading bay he was weighed down by twice his usual supplies. Along with his RIP-tyre and general assortment of frags, mines and grenades he'd dug through his stash for anything else he could fit, be it complex bombs or molotov cocktails, even bits of wire that looked particularly useful, and a few things Roadhog threw in as well. He intended to be prepared.

Their footsteps echoed off the walls of the vast space, mingling with the faint hum of the ship's engines. Sounded like it was just warming up to Junkrat's ear, not the fiery roar that normally preceded take off.

Mercy was busy by one of the diagnostic screens at the edge of the room. She was obviously talking, though he couldn't make out the words. There was no one beside her so he presumed she was consulting the base's AI, treating it like an actual human as if it wasn't just bits of fancy coding that could turn on you at any second… She paused as they approached.

"Ah, Jamison, it's good to see you at last," Mercy declared, clasping her hands together, "there was some discussion as to whether you'd be making an appearance."

"Ya know me doc, ain't stylish to be on time," he muttered, glancing at his bodyguard. Roadhog gave an encouraging nod. You'll be fine, it seemed to say, just stay out of trouble.

Junkrat attempted a grin. It didn't feel particular convincing to him, but it must have been enough because Roadhog raised a hand in farewell. Junkrat mirrored the wave, watching reluctantly as he departed.

"Everyone else is already here," Mercy continued brightly, "I'm just waiting on a few final checks from Athena then we should be good to go. Why don't you get settled and I'll be on board shortly to head us out?"

Junkrat liked the doc, but he was never quite sure if she acted chipper because she felt that way or because she wanted everyone else to think she did... Roadhog had called it a 'bedside manner' but Junkrat didn't see any beds around, so he suspected the pig was having a lark. Way he saw it Mercy was a good enough sort. When she smiled though there was an almost mechanical air to it... a smile that had been practiced a million times, for a million people, and as honestly as she meant it it always sat too perfectly on her face to feel real.

"Sure," he said, and she beamed at him before returning to the screen.

He hefted his duffel bag, taking a final look around the cavernous expanse of the loading bay. Junkrat wasn't sure what he was searching for. He ran his thumb over the rough strap of the bag, setting his mind to the present and trying to focus on the feel of the fabric beneath his calluses rather than whatever else haunted him.

He'd barely managed two limping steps up the ramp before Lucio appeared. The DJ's smile was in place but it looked wrong.

"Hey man, took your time. Do you mind if I, eh, ask you something? Real quick?"

There was a tension in his voice, a strain that completely opposed his usual light and casual nature.

Junkrat set his gaze firmly ahead. "Not really in the mood for it, mate," he said, attempting to step past him.

"Hold up!"

Lucio reached out to grab his arm and Junkrat flinched away, whirling to face him in an instant. The DJ froze. Very carefully he pulled his hand back, expression apologetic. "Sorry, sorry, I didn't mean..."

He grew quiet for a moment, staring up at Junkrat. Whatever he decided, when he spoke again it was hushed, words quick. "Look dude, it's just... you know how I feel about Symmetra, yeah? I mean, maybe you forgot or... or something, but like I thought we had an understanding... and now... I guess I just gotta know what you're thinking, man, cos this? Well, I don't know what I'm supposed to think-"

Junkrat cut him off with a laugh, a hollow imitation of what it should be. "Ya think this is my plan?"

Lucio looked suddenly uncertain. "Well, I figured-"

"Ya figured wrong." Maybe he should have said more. Maybe he should have taken the time to explain, to set the record straight while the opportunity was right there... but for once in his life Junkrat didn't feel like talking at all. Instead he pushed past Lucio and onto the drop ship, simmering with silent discontent and an anxiety that would not be still.


((Soldier's coffee is wrong and he is grumpy... Guy probably believes in tough love too. He'd fight tooth and nail to protect his agents, but he doesn't go soft on them... not that I think he grasps the importance of the situation to Junkrat.

Anyways, sorry if things seem a bit grim at the moment, but I swear, it won't be forever... just bare with me here...

Also just want to give a big thanks to everyone who's commented so far, it always makes me super happy to hear what you guys think and I want you to know that!))