He couldn't breathe. Like a cold vise around his chest. The door would not open, and he was trapped. But he couldn't be trapped, couldn't allow himself to be cornered like this. He needed to get out, needed to, needed to, but the door was locked and refused to answer his scrambling fingers or the beat of his fists.
And the omnic was here.
Junkrat's eyes darted frantically to the thing, staring it down as his hands opened and closed in an erratic dance of their own accord.
It had floated itself right up into the far corner, and lowered from its normal hover to only a few centimeters off the ground, hands folded in its lap and perfectly unthreatening. Still, Junkrat could not stop staring, could not stop the frenzied pace of his thoughts.
"You appear to be in some kind of panic," the bot said softly. "It would be best if you focus on your breathing, otherwise you're likely to hyperventilate."
Junkrat did not want to do anything the omnic said... but he was dizzy and shaking, and fuck it, the doc always told him to count his breaths when he got like this cos otherwise the world got fuzzy at the edges and his own fear became louder and louder until it drowned everything else out. And he couldn't let that happen, he needed to stay sharp right now.
So he counted. He counted even as he hated every second of it, back pressed against the door and gaze flickering around the small room but always snapping back to the omnic. It didn't move.
As his breaths began to form some steady pattern, he found himself sizing it up once more, looking for weak points or openings to exploit in any way he could.
They'd left him weaponless in here. He had nothing but his own two hands.
If there was one rule Junkrat was familiar with though it was that you didn't show weakness, not if you could help it. Teeth bared in his most threatening snarl he stood tall, attempting to regain some control over the situation.
"I could kill ya, could tear ya to pieces," Junkrat warned it.
"Of course," the omnic said assuringly.
Still, Junkrat remained frozen. He swallowed. "Used to take scrap metal to pieces for a living, ya know, would be easy."
"Most certainly."
He eyed the bot, its perfectly placid aura a jarring comparison to his own twitchy motions.
The door was still locked. The omnic was still there.
He took another shaky breath. "I could," he said quietly, uncertain if he was speaking to himself or the bot. It nodded agreeably.
Junkrat made no move toward it. He remained fixed to the door, and it remained in its corner, and Junkrat didn't know if they were in a staring contest because the thing didn't have eyes...
He gnawed at his lip. "Tell ya what..." he reasoned, "tell ya what, you make 'em let me out o' here and maybe I'll let ya off this once..."
It shook its head solemnly. "I must apologize, I do not think that will be possible. Athena has initiated a lockdown protocol."
"A what now?" He started, but cut himself off with a frustrated whine. "Shit, it doesn't matter, I don't care alright? I don't care if it was Soldier, or the monkey, or the doc, or the bloody king himself, whatever tosser locked it ya tell 'em they better open it right now or I'll take the whole bloody building down!"
With what? it could have asked. He had nothing. Nothing but threats, and teeth, and the desperate burning need not to be trapped in this room a moment longer.
But the omnic didn't questioned him, just tipped its head to the side as if listening to something. When it spoke again, it sounded distracted. "I wish that I could help, but the lockdown is in place for a reason, Athena tells me there is an intruder who's managed to slip past her surveillance. Their location is currently unknown but the lockdown should hold them, or force them to reveal themselves if they try to bypass any defenses... she only requires enough time to run thermal scans of the complex." It paused. "She also says she is sorry if she upset you, and she did not broadcast any message to this location as she knows you dislike it when she speaks to you. She thought it might... aggravate the situation."
"If there's an intruder all the more reason I should be out there! I'll send 'em packin', ya just gotta get me outta here, right? Even you gotta see the sense in that. I just need too... I can't-"
Can't stand to be cornered, penned in, exits cut off, a rat in a trap waiting for the killing blow. There was nowhere for him to run. He need there to be.
His pulse was picking up again, his prosthetic hand reaching back to pry at the door as if he had the strength to do anything more than scratch the surface with the squeal of metal against metal. He wanted to scream. He wanted to burn things to the ground and revel in the destruction rather than stand here and let the world do what it liked to him.
He had to... he had to kill the bot. It was too close in the confines of the room, despite the distance it left between them, it was a threat and he needed to remove it before it decided to strike. There had to be a way. He needed to throw himself at it with all he had and do as much damage as possible. If he was quick, maybe he could take it by surprise. It was tactical. It was desperate. It was exactly what a Junker would do.
But for some reason Junkrat could not tear himself from the door, as if he feared it might disappear the instant he moved. As irrational as the idea was he couldn't shake it.
He drew sharp breaths through gritted teeth, amber eyes narrowed to vicious slits.
"I could kill ya," he reminded the bot, in case it had forgotten.
Again, it only nodded in agreement. "I understand."
What was wrong with him? What the fuck was wrong with him? Why couldn't he move?
Another whine built in his throat but he choked it down.
He needed... he needed...
Roadhog, that was right... the big lug would get him out of here, he'd never leave Junkrat trapped, had proven that before. Hog would break him out. All he had to do... all he had to do was wait... to count, focusing on each number after the other and sucking in air, in and out, over and over while his eyes remained fixed on his opponent.
Even the numbers got jumbled though.
He almost wanted the omnic to make a move. Maybe then something would snap and he'd find the strength to do what he should have done the second the door closed and end its miserable existence.
But the bot just sat there. Junkrat didn't know what to do.
Time lost its meaning. Time was numbers, and numbers were blurred, all that mattered was the present and the way he was pulled taunt until it felt he would break but frozen to the spot in rigid horror.
He needed to get out. He needed to escape. Space, options, fire power...
He needed... he needed...
Then suddenly the door slid open and Junkrat all but tumbled out the room. He threw his arms out and managed to catch himself at the last second, jarring his knee but immediately scrabbling up. His eyes were wide, head jerking left and right assessed his new surroundings.
Corridor, people... Hog.
He threw himself forward and his partner let him take shelter, standing between him and everyone else, an immovable barrier. Shielded from any immediate threat he allowed himself to take stock of the situation.
He was free. He was quivering, and his hands still itched desperately for the comfort of a trigger or a detonator, but most importantly he was out and the corridor was long and nothing blocked his path.
And Roadhog still had his weapons. Bloke could pull the weight for both of them if he had to until Junkrat figured out a plan.
Yeah, things were... things were okay. He found he could think beyond one breath after another, wrestle some kind of composure from the situation.
This was still Overwatch, wasn't it? Overwatch wasn't the outback. They had different rules, funny ideas about morals... they probably didn't mean any harm. Probably not.
"Zenyatta?" Mercy's voice called, concern ladened upon every syllable. "Are you alright?"
Junkrat risked peeking out from behind Roadhog's bulk, watching as the omnic floated serenely out of the room.
"I'm quite well, Angela, thank you for asking," it told her, spreading its arms as if to prove its claim.
She let out a sigh of relief. "Thank god, we thought-"
She cut herself off at the last second, seeming almost embarrassed.
Oh, he knew what she'd thought. He knew.
Junkrat found he had settled on a new emotion. Adrenaline still coursed through his system, but now it fueled a new fire because without the walls closing in around him he found that above everything else he was pissed. He was really fucking pissed.
"Ya thought what?" he spat, all eyes suddenly snapping to him. He glowered back at them, daring them to say it, but they were all looking at him with a cautiousness he loathed.
"Jamison," Mercy began gently, lifting her hands in an attempt to placate him as she took a step forward, but Roadhog let out a growl of warning and she froze where she was.
"Ya shut me in there an' you were fuckin' worried about the bot?" he laughed, hysterical and tinged with an emotion he could not quantify. "Of course ya were. Should have guessed it. Well, ya needn't fret, it's all in one piece, ain't like there's anythin' else ya shoulda cared about."
She looked almost hurt. Maybe that's what he wanted.
"Fawkes," Soldier said, "now is not the time-"
"No! It's never the bloody time, is it? It's always just whatever you want, whatever you think is best, ya never listen to me! Ya send me off on a mission without me mate when I tell ya it's a bad idea, ya let an omnic in here without sayin' a word to me, ya won't let me on operations no more, ya lock me in a room with the fuckin' bot and act like I'm the one who fucked up, and I'm sick to fuckin' hell with it! Ya never listen to what I say!"
Roadhog had a hand in front of him in case he had any intention of advancing, but Junkrat stood his ground, venomous and seething and fighting down the urge to shriek. He hated locked doors. They knew he hated them, but it was the bot they cared about. An omnic. A bloody omnic. And that was why they were mad at him, what would cost him everything - it had already wormed its way into their hearts in a way he never would.
If he'd only had his goddamn frag launcher...
"The chain of command-"
"Fuck the chain of command!" he yelled, delighted with how freeing it finally felt to say. "I shoulda bailed on this place months ago! Everythin' I do is always wrong an' ya never make any sense!"
He was breathing hard, a shaky finger pointed in Soldier's direction as if to direct his fury. Ana's fingers were creeping toward her sleepdart. The lot of them were regarding him with a look he recognised from old standoffs, the one that meant they weren't backing down but were readying themselves for the worst, and maybe if he'd had anything to throw but accusations he'd give them exactly that.
He wanted some carnage right now. He needed somewhere to pour the unbearable energy that left him feeling like he was coming apart at the seams.
Soldier, for once, did not snap back. Instead he folded his arms and studied Junkrat with grave intensity.
"Alright then," he said, "what do you want to say?"
Junkrat blinked back in confusion. But, Soldier stood patiently, and no one else spoke, and abruptly Junkrat was too tired for all of this. He felt as if he wanted to collapse. To sink to the ground and bury his head between his knees.
"I don't know," he said wretchedly, "don't know... can't bloody think right now..."
He wanted simple things with simple answers, things that made sense in a way he'd been taught to understand. Things that could be solved the Junker way, not with thoughts and feelings and words and rules... He didn't even understand himself half the time, how could he be expected to explain it all proper, to reason with them in a way they both could follow?
He'd fucked up. They'd fucked up. If only that put things back to square one...
Junkrat settled on something he could grasp the need for. "Ya catch whatever dipstick broke in?"
Soldier shook his head, the scars on his face puckering as his expression turned to displeasure. "They disappeared after Athena completed her scan, some sort of teleportation device. We got an image of them before they got out. Thought-"
"Good," Junkrat said, "good. Then it ain't my problem. Come on, Hog, got places to be."
He needed to clear his head. Needed to be away from them, from the bot, from the whole situation, because he could not slow his racing heart nor clear the fog in his brain and it was too much.
"Hold it, Fawkes, that's an order! We still need to talk."
He bit back a snarl, turning around with every intention of swinging a punch if the bloke was close enough. "I told ya I can't! I can't think right now! Hooley dooley, do ya ever fuckin' listen?"
"That doesn't change-"
"Perhaps," the omnic broke in, "it might be wise for us to take a chance to focus, to find some clarity before we take this further."
For a moment their attention switched to the bot. They listened to it. Of course they would bloody well listen to a bucket of bolts over anything Junkrat had to say, he thought with a sneer.
"He has a point, Jack," Ana said, setting a hand on the commander's shoulder. "You're pretty tense yourself."
"I'm not- we can't just ignore-"
"We'll all have a nice talk later," Ana assured him in her motherly tone, and Mercy nodded.
Soldier looked as if he still wanted to protest. Pharah stood pointedly with the other two though, and he quickly found himself outnumbered.
"Alright, fine. But soon, this isn't going to be swept under the rug."
"Of course not. You'll be staying in headquarters, won't you Jamison?" the old lady asked.
Junkrat chewed over the question, and in the end he shrugged. "Probably."
Maybe it was the truth. Maybe it was a lie. He didn't know right now, he just needed to say whatever it took so that he could ditch this confrontation. He'd said far more than he should have already, and the longer it went on the worse it would get.
His vague agreement was apparently enough, because Ana gave him a nod, and a smile settled upon her weathered features. "Alright, we'll give you some time to get back to your usual self, you be good now. I don't want to hear you've been getting up to trouble in the meantime."
"Yeah yeah," Junkrat muttered, tugging on Hog's arm. "Come on, mate, we're outta here."
His pace was fast, lurching, increasing the distance between them with no thought to dignity. Roadhog kept stride. He said nothing as they rounded the corner and wound their way through the base, and perhaps that was for the best because Junkrat felt like he was a hair's breadth from an eruption of accusations, hungry for anyone to pin this on anyone but himself. Why didn't Hog break him out of the room? Why didn't he do something about the cowboy? Why why why...
But it wasn't Hog's fault. This had been Junkrat's plan. Course it didn't work out, things never did… he was just… just pissed, and looking for a target.
He dropped by the workshop to load up on supplies, hanging his spare frag launcher over his shoulder and filling his pockets with explosives, but he didn't linger.
He wasn't even sure where he was walking. Couldn't go to his room, or the rooftop, or the training range, couldn't be anywhere people would know where to find him... Maybe he just wanted to keep moving, every step putting him further and further from the shiny silver bot.
Maybe this was really the point they should cut and run. Overwatch probably hated him now. They were just waiting for the opportunity to yell at him, tell him how omnics were special and Junkrat wasn't good enough, how he needed to leave...
If he walked away first it would be his own decision. He wouldn't give them the chance to cast him aside. He would be having fun robbing banks and running from the cops with Roadhog by his side, he whole world at his fingertips. Yet it still hurt. Things weren't supposed to hurt like this.
Finally, in a room recently converted to a home theater, Junkrat's energy began to wain. He drew to a stop.
It was dark, and warm, and the background chatter of the movie playing across the giant screen was a pleasant distraction. He slumped into one of the chairs, watching the flickering images of laughing celebrities in their fancy clothes and make up, acting out a story he couldn't follow.
Roadhog sat on the ground, evidently not wanting to crush the furniture.
"Was a perfect plan," he murmured, attention still on the screen. "Would'a been perfect..."
Roadhog grunted. Junkrat couldn't tell if he was watching the film or not.
"They're done with us for sure now... ya saw Soldier, prick wanted this to happen, now he's got an excuse to be rid of us... they ain't gonna understand. Ya can't go lettin' bots in! Every bastard in Oz knows that, rest of the world just forgot what they're like... shoulda killed it when they shut the door. I-I coulda. Not a thing they could do about it, I coulda ripped its head clean off! Had it under my heel, mate, an' it wouldn't have mattered cos Overwatch already hates me guts. There's not a thing it could've done."
He turned to Roadhog then, eyes searching him desperately for some kind of agreement, but Roadhog gave nothing away. He was waiting for Junkrat to come to his own conclusion.
Why? There was nothing to divine, he'd had the thing right where he wanted it and he should have killed it when he had the chance, should have torn it to pieces and left it strewn across the floor.
But no, that wasn't the truth. That wasn't the truth and he knew it.
The bot had had him cornered and it had been in complete control, could have done whatever it liked to him cos his brain was messed up to hell and he'd been falling to pieces because of one fucking locked door. And he'd have fought with a frenzy, but Junkrat knew there would have been no sense to his movements, only desperate fear. He couldn't think. He couldn't plan. He'd had no weapon, and his flesh was weak and soft compared to the hard steel of an omnic. It had had him at its mercy.
Accepting that fact left him feeling sick, an uncontrollable tremble overtaking his body.
He should have killed it, he should have killed it, the thing could have done anything to him cos he'd failed to kill it...
Junkrat sucked in a deep breath. He forced his hands to lower, to stop tugging at his hair.
But it hadn't.
Instead, it had spent the entire time they were stuck in there talking calmly to him, attempting to ease his panic, distract him from the warnings shrieking in his head.
Why? Why the bloody hell did it care?
He'd tried to kill the thing twice already, and he knew it was aware of at least one of those times, yet when it had the perfect opportunity to retaliate it left him without so much as a scratch.
It was wrong. It made no sense. He didn't like it.
"Don't understand it, mate," he muttered to Roadhog, "am I losin' the plot? Ya can tell me if I am, not like it's gonna surprise anyone."
"You're fine," Roadhog said, and Junkrat laughed weakly.
He picked up his flask, fiddling with the cap to give himself something to do. His metal fingers tapped against its side with a dull thunk. "So...," Junkrat said, keeping his gaze on his task, "guess we gotta decide what we're doin' next. We bailin', or we waitin' for this talk?"
Roadhog turned, and he certainly wasn't watching the film now. "You scared of a talk?"
"I ain't fuckin scared! I ain't!" He shot Roadhog a glare, and the big man just wheezed, and folded his arms.
"If you're not scared what's the problem?"
Junkrat fumed, hunching down in his chair. He pursed his lips.
The problem was... the problem was...
That he didn't want to hear what they had to say. That he didn't want to stand there and let them chew him out, or end up in a screaming match cos he couldn't keep his cool. That more than anything he didn't want to know how disappointed in him they were...
Stupid. Junkrat knew he shouldn't care what people thought, that was madness to a Junker, all that mattered was your reputation as someone not to fuck with...
"I ain't scared," he muttered again, finally pulling the cap off his flask and taking a swig. "I killed blokes twice me size, I've toppled buildin's that touch the sky, had both me limbs blow off and what I am is pissed! All of that shit don't mean a thing here, and it's all I got."
"Liar."
"I ain't a liar!"
Roadhog sighed, but his posture was relaxed, designed to be soothing, as if some of his calm might rub off. Junkrat hated how it worked.
"If that's all you've got, how come them other kids like you?"
Junkrat was silent. His eyebrows knit together in a scowl. "Maybe they just saw somethin' that ain't there."
"Fat chance. You're not subtle."
His hands tightened on his flask. "So what do I do then, huh? Ya want me to stay? Wait around to be told bots are more important, that I ain't what they want me to be? That I can't be what they want me to be?"
Roadhog shook his head. "Want you to make your mind up."
Junkrat grumbled, setting his flask down and switching to jiggling his knee, chewing at his lip as he tried to find a proper response. Couldn't Hog just give him the answer? Tell him what he was supposed to do so he could get it right for once?
Couldn't the bot just act like the monster it was meant to be so that everyone else would see he'd only been trying to do what had to be done?
Couldn't things be easy?
But life was never easy. Before it had been all about staying upright, fighting for his life when everyone wanted to trample him down. Now it was about making sense of things he'd never been equipped to deal with. Just another kind of challenge, right?
And if he fucked this one up, at least he wouldn't end up a carcass rotting under the blazing outback sun…
Yet it felt like everything was at stake even when he knew at worst he'd just be back on the road. What was wrong with that? He'd had a blast, him and Hog, why would that be a bad thing?
But he was a sentimental fuckin' idiot and it was too late to change course.
He stared at the film but there were no answers to be found there either.
"Been yelled at before," Junkrat decided after a long minute, "I can take it. And I still ain't leavin' before the bot if I have any say in it. Who knows... maybe... they said they had an intruder, right? I could fix that for 'em. Set up some traps, proper good ones, make sure it ain't gonna happen again... maybe they still need us. What'd'ya think, Roadie?"
Roadhog gave a sound that Junkrat took to be approval. That was good…
If he had direction, a plan, then he could get things in order. It was worth a shot. He just had to be someone who was worth keeping around, and he could be that, he was a genius, really, and he'd destroy anything they wanted him to.
"The fireworks were good though, weren't they?" he asked suddenly, managing to grin.
Roadhog's shoulder's shook, not quite a laugh but enough to tell Junkrat he was amused. "Pretty," he said.
"Never made pretty things before, mate..."
"Could do it again."
"Yeah... yeah, maybe some other time, once this whole mess is taken care of. I'll make some fireworks, an' you can do one of them barbecues, an' we'll have it at a beach cos ya said somethin' about beaches once but I can't remember what..." he trailed off, expression distant. "I want that to happen, mate. Don't let me forget I said that."
"Won't," Roadhog promised, and Junkrat liked the conviction in the way he said it, like this wasn't just his useless rambling but something worth holding onto.
He smiled, tittering faintly as he sunk lower in his seat, eyes drawn to the movie screen once more.
((Athena was a little optimistic about how Junkrat would handle the situation tbh. Thankfully Zen is smart enough to know that telling Junkrat he could absolutely kick his ass if he had to is not the wisest course of action.
Also, to 'that guy' (cos I can't respond to anon reviews), that's exactly the same story my grandparents had! Pity it doesn't work with omnics and Rats. Thanks for taking the time to review btw, it always brings a smile to my face to hear what people think and you go above and beyond!))
