Dealing with Symmetra in the days that followed turned out to be exactly as difficult as he had imagined. Just how were you supposed to politely chat with someone while remembering how vividly you'd fantasized about fucking them? It wasn't even that he felt particularly guilty about it. Heck, he'd probably do it again, cos it was the best damn wank he'd had in a while. No, the problem was that his mind kept wanting to stray in that direction, and that just wasn't convenient.

Adjusting to the change of pace that Overwatch brought was hard enough without further complications. None of this was something he'd really had to cope with before...

People weren't supposed to get stuck in your head. People weren't supposed to make you feel like that just by smiling at you. As Junkrat scrabbled for some kind of solution, the only thing he could think to do was avoid her.

That, at least, wasn't so challenging if you kept track of her schedule. Symmetra liked to keep her life orderly. All he needed to do was keep it in his memory...

And he tried. He tried his fucking hardest, but Junkrat was... distractible. It was all too easy for something to snag his attention, and time and time again he found himself making a narrow escape.

This day was just another of those instances.

He'd let the cowboy try and teach him some card game. They were sitting in the kitchen, Junkrat chewing on his nails as he tried to remember which cards were good. You had to make little collections with them, and some were better than others, but it seemed like there was an endless number of possibilities and he couldn't get them to stick.

At least the man seemed more amused by his confusion than impatient. "Maybe should've started ya off with snap. Seem to be struggling a bit there, partner."

"Oh fuck off mate, I got it... just bein' tactical is all. Genius needs his time."

"Uh-huh," he said, clearly unconvinced. "An' how much more time ya reckon you need? I've only got so much whiskey here."

"Think that big shield guy's got some more if ya need, could nick ya a bottle."

The cowboy chuckled. "Think you can win just by drinking me stupid? Naw, I ain't fallin' for that... besides, reckon I got more of a head for the stuff than you."

Junkrat grinned. "Ya wanna find out?"

He gave a proper laugh then, leaning back on his chair. "Day drinkin', huh?" He shook his head, still clearly amused. "Angela wouldn't be pleased. Leadin' you astray, she'd call it. Enough trouble as it is without teachin' ya that habit."

"Mate, I'm a bloody wanted criminal. Don't think a little booze is gonna be the worst I could get up to, trust me."

"Still... ain't too keen on seein' what she has to say. Ya ever seen her when she's mad? Puts a proper fear of god in a man that does... don't let her angel get-up trick ya, she don't take kindly to fools."

"Guess you'd know." He snickered.

The cowboy opened his mouth to retort, but at that moment Junkrat caught the distinctive clack of heels coming down the hallway and he shot up straight, eyes going wide.

Shit, it was noon, wasn't it? That meant Symmetra would be arriving to make herself tea and some sort of lunch... he wasn't supposed to be here, not right now. He'd meant to just stop in earlier to refill his flask and snag something from the cupboards but the cowboy had been playing some kind of card game on the counter and it had intrigued him, and then he'd offered to teach Junkrat a game, and he'd been curious enough that he'd agreed and... and now... and now he'd wasted too much time, and Symmetra was stalking down the corridor towards them and his plan to avoid her wasn't working quite as well as he'd imagined.

"G-gotta go mate," he said hurriedly, scrambling to his feet and dropping his cards. "Catch ya round."

The cowboy watched him suspiciously, eyes glancing off at Symmetra's approaching figure. "Ya scared of her?" he asked quietly, raising one incredulous eyebrow.

"Wot? Nah, don't be daft, just... just remembered a thing is all... a timer, yeah, left a timer on one of me bombs... don't want the whole place blowin' up, right? Monkey'd have my head."

The man smirked. There was something a little too knowing in that look. "You best work on ya pokerface, kid."

"Fuck off," Junkrat growled, but he didn't have time to berate the cowboy properly. He needed to be gone, and if his crime spree had taught him one thing, it was how to make a hasty exit.

He found his way to the training range because that seemed to be where his hobbling footsteps wanted to lead him. Wasn't a bad idea. Destruction was the best kind of distraction, and he had a few things he'd been meaning to test out anyways.

Explosives were always loud. Explosives were always beautiful. They drew him in like a moth to a flame, and while he juggled that kind of raw chaos there wasn't a lot else that could bother him. Certainly not Symmetra and her long, taunting legs. This, at least, was a way to burn that particular image from his mind, however temporary the respite.

He was laughing and cackling quite gleefully as training bots were torn into smoldering wreckage, at ease as much as he ever could be, and that was all fine and well. Until a concussion mine hit him with a bit more force than he'd been expecting and sent him crashing into a wall.

It injured his pride more than anything. He was cursing and grumbling and secretly relieved that no one had been there to see, but when he went to pick up his launcher he realized he had more than a few bruises to contend with. The fingers of his mechanical arm would not budge.

He gave it a hopeful whack against the ground, but the mechanism was well and truly locked. Crap. Wasn't the first time it'd happened, but that didn't make it any less frustrating. Probably one of the issues with having an arm built out of scavenged parts and not one of those fancy thingos some of the other people had, the 'proper' stuff that suits charged a fortune for.

Mercy had offered to find him a replacement like that, but Junkrat was having none of it. He'd built that arm, and it'd served him well, he wasn't going to trade it in for a shinier model. His arm belonged to him, it was a part of him, he knew how it worked, had crafted the damn thing from scrap he'd collected himself and had painted it lovingly...

Maybe it was a little busted up and it fucked up on occasion, but that just meant it suited him, right?

At the very least his own familiarity with it would make it easy to fix. Just had to find the right tools to pry it apart with.

Cradling his arm to his chest protectively he left the destruction of the training range behind and went directly for the workshop. In his mind he was already running over the likely problems, trying to figure out if he'd need to replace anything or if it'd just be a case of setting the pieces back where they belonged. He was so caught up in the task that when he stepped through doors he almost didn't notice Symmetra sitting at her workbench.

Then it hit him, and he stumbled to a halt. Bloody hell... it would be about the right time for her to be here, wouldn't it? Just his luck. He considered, momentarily, backing away and leaving the place until later when it would be empty... but his arm needed fixing, and he didn't want to wait.

Junkrat hated waiting. When it came to his arm the matter was all the more unbearable. Having a piece of him reduced to an inanimate lump of functionless metal was unnerving, it felt wrong, left him vulnerable and prickled warnings in the back of his head he couldn't silence. Overwatch had never made a move to harm him but he knew instinctively that weaknesses had to be addressed. That meant he needed to fix it now... and his plan to avoid the architect was well and truly ruined.

She was already looking up from her work, glancing over him as if studying something of only minor interest. "Good evening, mister Fawkes," she offered in way of greeting. "It has been a while since I have seen you here."

"Yeah... been, uh, busy," he said lamely, scratching at the back of his neck. "Ya know how it is..."

Her expression suggested that she didn't, but that she was unconcerned. That stung a tad. She returned to her carefully drawn blueprints and Junkrat found the willpower to finally step away from the doorway and into the workshop.

This was stupid, he just needed to sort his arm and get out, no need to make this more trouble than it needed to be. Wasn't like he hadn't been in here with her before, wasn't like anything had really changed. He could keep his thoughts sensible for a few minutes, right? Wouldn't get distracted. Wouldn't let his mind run back to his sordid little fantasy, or think about the elegant curve of her spine, or the delicate purse of her lips as she concentrated on her work right in front of him, oblivious to his lingering gaze.

Crikey she looked so perfectly in control all the time, didn't she? Even now, when it came to something so small, there was nothing careless about her movements, every line of her pen was precise, exactly where she wanted it, and she seemed content to know it...

Arm, Junkrat reminded himself sternly. Fix the arm, and get out, and stop... thinking about her. It was bloody ridiculous.