On the plane ride over, the young omnic's head had swiveled excitedly at the wide, seemingly endless expanse of sea below them, and now, on land, he could scarcely speak from the awe welling within him at the healthy green grass below his feet, the mottled grey and brown boughs above him, the sturdy rows of houses that each held healthy humans with clean, full faces devoid of hunger, madness, rage, or fear.
For the first time, the young omnic saw humans who didn't hate him the instant they laid eyes on him. It was a strange feeling. In fact, he realized that he wasn't quite sure what to make of it. Did it have a name? The monk seemed nice enough, and would answer his questions if he asked, but he doubted that someone so wise would want to trouble himself with his concerns.
Curiosity burning through his circuits, he faced forward once more to chance approaching the monk's student, who had walked several feet ahead of them since their landing and ignored him for the entirety of the trip, only to see that he had mysteriously vanished, leaving the monk to lead him into the large base, where there were no char marks in the dirt, no burns or scratches or spiked tires of death rolling around. The young omnic thought that the monk seemed troubled for some reason, though he tried to hide his worry beneath gentle gestures and a kindly tone. And the bot wanted to ask, but found it hard to concentrate when there were so many new sights and sounds and textures, a spotless tile floor beneath his feet and long stretches of quiet hallway that glowed at the end with a warm light, where laughter, amused without teetering towards hysteric or cruel, and the clatter of pans could be heard. His servos whirred furiously as he struggled to process it all.
It wasn't quite a fortress, not guarded with spikes and traps the way the Junker Queen was, though he had never actually been close enough to see her, but there were small moving machines shooting beams of white and blue light. He stopped following the hovering monk for a moment, fascinated by their repetitive motion. After a brief search through his meager database, he came up with the words turret, hard light construct, and Vishkar. They seemed familiar, like words he should know or had known, but even so, they held little meaning to him now. A frustrated burst of static crackled from his vocalizer as he pondered what to do with these sentries.
Should he wave? The search hadn't had much to offer on the question of sentience, and Junkers had robots that could function without direction or thought, but was ignoring them really worth the risk of a bad first impression? He didn't want to seem rude. And he really didn't want to be sent back to Junktown.
To his own surprise and confusion, he found himself wishing that the cyborg was still around to explain these things.
He raised his armored limb in a half-wave, and turret fixated on him, its beam extending outwards before a firm grip on his wrist tugged him away. He glanced down at the slender brass digits standing out against his silver plating, before looking up to the see the monk – Zenyatta – who appeared somewhat anxious despite the lack of motion his own facial plating provided. "Careful now," the monk calmly intoned as he guided them patiently towards what appeared to be the entrance to an aircraft hanger. "Not all machines think as we do, and those lights, though beautiful, will harm you if you touch them."
Though chagrined at having apparently warranted the need for supervision, the omnic wordlessly offered a nod to confirm his understanding, and the monk's touch promptly drifted, allowing him to walk once more as he pleased. At their approach, the reinforced shutters began to rise, folding into themselves so that they fit neatly against the ceiling, and waiting inside, the young omnic could see more humans, including one in particular that was larger than any he'd ever seen. The man wore his steel gray hair long enough that its tips brushed against his broad shoulders, and a pale, jagged scar running over a milky pupil spoke of battle. Junkers had borne similar disfigurements, though theirs weren't usually so neat. Putting his guard up, the omnic edged forward to place himself in front of the monk, since the cyborg wasn't around to protect him.
A man in a blue leather vest and a scarlet visor stepped forward with a pulse rifle held loosely against his chest, and the omnic stiffened, his own visor flaring in warning. Ignoring his discomfort, the scarred giant boomed, "Why, hello there!" Surprised, the automaton reflexively stepped back, nearly bumping into the monk as he did so. The giant chuckled, his sole functioning eye sparkling with good humor. "Genji informed us of your fortuitous arrival. Tell me, my friend, what is your name?"
Suppressing an urge to tell the burly man that he'd mixed up the natural progression of an introduction, the omnic instead replied, "Han-" An image of the cyborg's stiff and withdrawn demeanor asserted itself behind his retinal sensors like an afterimage. Disheartened, he muttered to the side, "I mean… I don't have one."
He wasn't here to start a fight or upset anyone. Actually, he wasn't here for any real reason, at all. They could send him back whenever they chose, whenever he was deemed more trouble than he was worth.
"Don't have one, you say?" A thunderous chuckle burst from the giant's diaphragm, causing the soldier in the vest to lean subtly away from him, as though tempted to cover his ears. "Well, we'll just have to fix that, won't we?"
Thinking wistfully of the title held beyond his reach for reasons he didn't know and hesitated to ask for, the young omnic hedged, "Well… I guess Rusty is okay." It wasn't ideal, but it was better than being named by another again. Perhaps choosing to appropriate the slur would lessen its bite a bit. At least until he thought of something better.
"Rusty, is it? A good name." The German crusader looked as though he were searching for nice things to say. "Certainly unique." Rusty sighed with a sound like crumpled paper, and the giant narrowed his iron eyes, his single-point gaze becoming piercing. "You, however, do not seem so enthused."
The young omnic shifted away, uncomfortable with the attention, then in a slightly lower register, murmured, "It will suffice."
Though the German man appeared dissatisfied with the response, any reply on his part was halted when the soldier at his side rested a gloved hand on his forearm. A silent conversation passed between them, something that clearly appeared to upset the towering crusader, but in the end, the larger man stood down, and the soldier with the 76 on his vest gestured for them to approach. "I'm trusting your judgment on this, Zenyatta. Knowing you, you wouldn't have brought another omnic here on a whim." His visor seemed to graze the flaking paint of Rusty's home-made dragon design. Lowering his rifle, the soldier turned to the side, allowing them to see the true entrance to Watchpoint behind him, a simple door which would lead them towards the inner building. As they passed, he added with a voice like gravel and glass, "That doesn't mean I'm about to let my guard down."
But as much as the words stung, Rusty wasn't looking at him when they exited the hanger. Instead, his retinal sensors were processing the slight downturn of the silvery-haired giant's mouth, the indescribable something in his eyes that looked like pain even though the omnic was certain he had not been injured.
Filing the thought away for later, he allowed himself to be guided once again by the monk, who adjusted his pace so that he always hovered slightly ahead, though he did tend to float in place for a time whenever the young omnic's curiosity was peaked by the sound of techno music eeking out from beneath a doorway or the plaster revealed by a mysterious gouge in the wall.
Up ahead, a glow emanated from the room at the end of the hall, and with it came laughter, amused without crossing into madness or cruelty, the sizzle of bacon and eggs cooking on a pan, the pop of grease and fat, and the occasional shriek of a blender grinding down oranges into juice.
After gesturing for him to remain outside, Zenyatta went into the kitchen to announce his presence, though Rusty groaned internally when the older omnic went out of his way to stress his relative youth to the unseen audience. "Our kind," he intoned solemnly, as Rusty listened with his audio receptors pressed flat against the door, "are born with our minds and bodies at their full potential, yet he is still little older than a child by our standards, and there is much for him to learn. Please do your best to be gentle with him, as these developing months can be extremely trying for young omnics."
A high-pitched cackle, hyena-like, doused the spark of his mild frustration with gasoline, shattering his calm into scattered geometric shapes, and he burst into the kitchen, betrayal and hurt masked by a fury that caused the thin strip of his visor to blaze.
"What is a Junker doing here?" He hissed through a burst of feedback, placing himself directly in front of the monk. For once, his vocalizers did a more than adequate job of conveying his feelings, because the voice that ripped out of him when he pointed an accusing finger at the grinning spiky-haired maniac sitting in the company of a Korean teen and a stern-faced Russian woman was unmistakably a snarl, "I thought I came here to escape men like you."
"So yer the bot they found runnin' with our old crew." The Junker, skinny, dirty, and burned, plopped his elbows up on the table, looking relieved to have the monotony of the day broken with the promise of a conflict. "Just what we need 'round here-" he drawled lazily to the large man in the pig's mask leaning against the wall behind him, "Another omnic. It's like this place is becomin' some kind of robot sanctuary or something."
The teenaged girl sitting beside him with the cartoon rabbit on her pajama top gave him a sour look. "Most of those robots were here before you, you know."
While the Australian scoffed, Rusty glanced to the side, his fists clenched as sparks breathed life into the paint on his armored exoskeleton. He wasn't going to attack, not indoors where innocent people could get hurt, and certainly not after he'd been invited, but the dragons didn't understand the situation, only that something had upset him. He didn't miss the way the Russian woman's hand inched down to the blaster at her side.
"I didn't run with your crew," he muttered, hating how little of a difference it made when his gears grated and servos whirred from discomfort, when the starving madman in front of him represented how futile his attempts to leave the wastelands had been when bias and mockery had only followed him.
He forced himself to stare at the pink-haired scarred and muscular Russian woman instead. She dipped her head in acknowledgement, tapped her nails against the table, then bluntly stated, her voice husky and thick with accent, "I don't trust you."
He tilted his head, anger and disappointment making him stiff despite the gentle touch of the monk urging for calm. " I do not care. I survived for a month on my own with no allies to speak of. I am sure I can do the same with bad ones."
Her nostrils flared as she stood at her fullest height, allowing her to tower about two heads above him. "You think you're alive?" A cruel smile curled her lips. "How pitiful."
It was at that moment that a young man with his dreadlocks tied back in a wrap strode into the kitchen with a loud yawn. Fuzzy slippers adorned his feet, each of them decorated with overstuffed frog heads that bobbed merrily over his toes, and as for his sleepwear, he was still wearing green shorts and a loose white t-shirt. He didn't seem to notice the newcomer as he groggily drifted towards the orange juice, unwittingly stepping between the omnic and the Russian woman. "Yo, Zenyatta," he yawned again, though his smile was bright, "welcome back. Where's the G-man?" And just like that, the tension was diffused. The Junker eased back into a slouch while the Russian woman returned to her seat, and the teenaged girl, looking relieved, passed the tired human a plate of toast. It took a minute before the young man gasped, realizing Rusty's presence at last, and he hurriedly introduced himself as Lucio, a musician from Brazil. eagerly introduced herself next, though she took it upon herself to do so for the other less welcoming members, as well, and even gave him a brief overview of the rest of their team. Rusty was relieved, if bemused, to learn that there was an advanced AI in their midst called Athena, and that a Bastion unit had somehow survived the Crisis.
He sat with them until they finished their breakfast, after which he was allowed to wander the premises, since though he hadn't signed any documents to officially register himself as a member of the illegal organization, he wasn't exactly a prisoner, either. They could give him supervision, but not confine him to any room or section without his consent. And so he drifted, from watching while she streamed until she roped him into making a guest appearance, to observing silently while Zarya worked out in the gym. He even tried to mimic her a few times when he thought she wasn't looking, though it proved to be a learning experience when even his synthetic muscles and tendons groaned underneath the burden of the weights he'd attempted to lift.
He liked to watch Reinhardt, too, except the aging German was always trying to involve him, which would have been fine if Rusty weren't certain that his knee would disconnect at the joint if he had to do one more squat set. No, he was content with simply watching as Orisa, with her centaur-like body, attempted to imitate the crusader's daunting workout routine.
The first time they'd encountered each other, Rusty had enthusiastically accosted her in the hallway with, "Why do you have four legs?" before recalling that it was polite to introduce oneself before asking for personal information.
She hadn't seemed bothered in the slightest, though, because she'd immediately replied, "It is the way that I was made."
And he'd paused to ponder that for about a New York minute before looking up at her horned head with an awed, "Can I have four legs?"
Though he'd tried making to case for it to Dr. Ziegler in her clinic shortly after, she'd merely stared at him from her desk for a long moment, her delicate brow furrowed in confusion, before wondering aloud, "But why on earth would you want to have four legs?"
"Because then I can run twice as fast," Rusty reasoned with absolutely zero research to back up his claim.
An odd battle occurred at the corners of her mouth before she raised a palm to hide it, but when she finally spoke again, there was an unmistakable merriment in her words, "That is not precisely how it works, dear."
There were times, such as then, when he made them laugh, and other times still, when an innocent comment on his part would make them sad, such as when he pointed out that one of the top scoring usernames on Hana's game board did not belong to her, and she told him about a friend they'd lost, with that same not-hurt expression that spoke of a sadness he couldn't grasp. It wasn't the same as Reinhardt's, yet Rusty felt within him that same desire to banish it, to keep the faces of those close to him free of its taint.
He didn't mention the name again.
While the decommissioned Bastion unit (aptly called Bastion) and the little yellow bird that liked to perch on their shoulder were nice enough, Rusty soon realized that he did not share the former combat unit's enthusiasm for birds. It really was wonderful to have a passion, as most of the Overwatch members seemed to have, but the young omnic began to detect a discomfiting stirring in his chest whenever the subject remained on the winged creatures for too long, as his thoughts would often inexplicably turn to the absent cyborg. He wanted to know more about him, yet Zenyatta encouraged him to be patient, as his student was as lost and confused as he was.
His exasperation mounted, however, as questions continued to pile up while their answers deftly evaded him, and Rusty found himself doubting the assertion more and more with each passing day, especially once it became clear that the monk's pupil was actively avoiding him. There was an instance where Rusty had heard the soft hum of his systems working from beyond a corner, seen the cast of light thrown off by his illuminated armor. He'd slowed, reluctant to give away his presence, as there was one shadow too many stretching across the floor. "You can't be dodgin' the little guy forever, luv," a feminine voice pressed, though there was kindness in it. "Not without givin' him a reason." Though he strained to pick up on the cyborg's response, none seemed forthcoming, and eventually, the pilot known as Lena came trudging around the corner with her shoulders hunched and expression saddened. And though she tried to plaster on a smile after being made aware of his presence with a start, he'd made certain to leave her company with haste, for her sake as well as his own.
It was with these thoughts occupying him that Rusty first noticed that speakers intermingled with the ends of Lucio's dreadlocks. As unsettled and restless as he was at being kept in the dark, he leapt at the chance to distract himself with the Brazilian DJ's mysterious hairstyle. And so, as he watched Lucio tie and fasten his skates on a stoop by the Watchpoint entrance, he ventured to ask about them, as their function, beyond simple amusement, eluded him. When Lucio paused to look up at him, however, his eyebrows raising slightly, Rusty wondered if he'd misstepped. There used to be a sort of dichotomy when it came to humans, where they were the enemy and it was him and his spirit dragons against the rest of the world. Without it, he found himself struggling to adapt and floundering.
Instead of ignoring him or getting defensive, however, Lucio merely rolled his shoulders with a chuckle, "You would think that, little man, but with regular speakers, you got to always keep an eye on them or else someone's going to take them out." What an odd thing to think about. More interested than he'd like to admit, Rusty quietly sat down beside him, in an unspoken invitation for him to continue, and Lucio obliged by telling him about Vishkar, about how they censored the media and forced local businesses to shut down, and all in the name of keeping order. In his head, Rusty nicknamed the Vishkar the anti-Junkers, as each group seemed to represent an extreme on opposite ends of the spectrum. Order and chaos - naturally at odds yet unable to exist without their counterbalance.
Lucio's good humor fell to shambles when the beautiful young Indian woman and former Vishkar agent known as Symmetra strode past without slowing. "Like this," his voice hard, Lucio tracked her retreating back with a narrowed gaze, "the only way they can stop the music is if they stop me first. And that ain't gonna happen." If the hard light manipulator heard him, however, she showed no visible signs of it. None that a human's eyes could catch, at least.
Once she was out of sight, having rounded a corner on her way to the training grounds, Lucio visibly relaxed, the tension seeping out of his taut muscles. "So," he started in a tone that was almost apologetic, "you like dragons?"
Rusty pulled a mental frown at the change. They were all so gentle with him, as though he were made of cracked glass or truly as innocent and naïve as the monk seemed to think. A part of him wondered what he had to do to prove himself, to show once and for all that he didn't need to be coddled. Warmth, gentle and comforting, pulsed from the flaking gold pattern of a roaring dragon twined around his arm.
Soon, he would have to find the supplies needed to touch up the design, but it was not quite so faded that the omnic was concerned. "I saw this image in my head when I woke up. It felt weird not to have it, so I painted it on, and then I could talk to these guys." As though called, the tattoo became iridescent with an ethereal light, and a single scaly head crested above the surface of his plating, only to sink back down when Lucio fell over backwards with a squawk of surprise.
After that, though Rusty could count his friends with one hand, more than zero was more than he'd ever had, and he was happy to play the video games he was oddly skilled at, despite his lack of experience, or listen to the music that sometimes struck a cord of déjà vu within him, but heedless of his efforts to banish the cyborg from his thoughts, his sustained absence continued to baffle him.
He asked after the enigmatic hybrid once it became clear that he was skipping dinner once again. Even if the meal may have actually been a formality more than anything, the company was certainly not, and Rusty had a feeling that if he weren't present, the cyborg's seat would be filled. "Where is he?" He gestured towards the empty space with a soft crackle of static.
Surprisingly, it was Torbjorn who snorted, "Well, he be training, most likely. Not that the lad needs it. That boy's clocked more hours these past few months than the rest of us combined." A hush fell over the conversation. Quietly, Rusty excused himself to slip away to the training grounds.
They were located outdoors, at the section of Watchpoint where the boxy target bots hovered in predictable patterns over the concrete while the cyborg rushed forward in a streak of neon to slice them into ribbons. After every attack, however, the robots would merely pull themselves back together, only to fall prey once more to the endless assault. Rusty watched, equal parts fascinated and horrified, as Genji repeatedly deconstructed them, the harshness of his breathing and the steam issuing from his vents suggesting that the exertion was taking a toll on him, until eventually he rose out of his crouch with several steady inhales.
It was impossible to tell if his eyes were closed or open, and the young omnic did not wish to startle him, so he remained silent, and thus witnessed when the cyborg's calm evaporated with a mechanical snarl as he reared back to launch his blade at the wall beyond the floating targets. It's point didn't catch, however, and it fell with a jarring clatter that carried on the frigid wind. When he turned as though he were simply going to leave it there, a victim to the elements, Rusty darted forward, more aware than he'd like to be of the way the cyborg tensed at his arrival.
He bent to pick up the katana, intending to hand it back to him, since he was sure that it was important somehow, but a sudden paralysis arrested him the instant his fingers curled around its hilt, accompanied by a revulsion so powerful it was all he could do not to hurl the offending object as far from himself as possible. The katana fell from his loosened grip, eliciting a surprised yelp and shocking the omnic into motion. At the cyborg's silent approach, Rusty bent once more to gather up the blade, "Gomen! I don't know what happened. I just-"
"It is fine." The green-edged katana was deftly snatched away from him. With the blade now back in his possession, Genji again turned to walk back inside, "Don't worry about it," leaving Rusty to remain, even more confused and distressed than before.
It was a cool winter night when Jesse poked his head out of his bedroom window to see a slight omnic with a pulsing blue visor crouched on a ledge several sills away, staring up at the constellations in stillness and silence. Grabbing a cigarillo to help chase off the chill, McCree leaned out over the threshold, drawing the omnic's attention with a wave. "Howdy."
Though there was something inhuman about the fluidity of the automaton's movements, a smoothness that veered on unsettling. The cowboy tried to imagine a scowl on his faceplate when he demanded, "How did you know I would be here?"
It didn't take Winston to figure out that Genji's mood had nosedived after his training session, and when Rusty didn't reappear that night, it'd pretty much confirmed the cowboy's suspicions. Dangling his boots over the sill while the end of his lit cigarillo glowed pleasantly, McCree uttered through a mouthful of smoke, "Because you sittin' there on that ledge is the only reason my good friend, Genji, wouldn't be here doin' the same. 'stead, he had to find himself a different rock to brood on." He exhaled, sending a cloud of swirling gray to the stars as he noted with a smirk, "Terrible inconvenience, that."
A garbled burst of white noise startled him, and he turned sharply to see that the little guy had buried his head in his arms. "I don't get what I did wrong," came the muffled response. "We've barely spoken to each other, yet he obviously hates me."
"If that were the case, this whole mess'd be a lot simpler than it is." Something about this conversation was starting to unearth old memories from his Blackwatch days, the kind better left in the dirt.
The young omnic groaned into his hands, "I do not know what that means."
Thinking back on it, Jesse would have much preferred to talk about this inside, not while the pair of them were positioned precariously over a high drop and he had a ledge pressed against his jeans that was freezing him from the bottom up, but Shimadas always had a thing about opening up in high places, so instead of belly-aching, he drew another long drag and tried to count the stars, all the while keeping an eye out for any streaks of light he could make a wish on. After the third time he'd lost count, he decided he'd been silent long enough. It was time to go in for the kill. "If you don't mind my askin', why do ya care so much what he thinks?"
With his unwavering, unblinking gaze trained solely on him, Rusty tilted his head to the side, the azure brilliance of his visor flaring for an instant. "It's not... I don't… There's not any particular reason behind it. It'sss…" As he wrestled with whatever it was he wanted to express, a sibilant hissing emitted from his vocalizer. McCree waited him out. "I just feel like…" Stiff limbs jerked in a helpless, hopeless shrug. "I can't leave him alone."
And maybe McCree knew what that was like a little more intimately than most, so he let it lie, and they sat in a silence filled with unsolved mysteries until the sky began to lighten with the threat of the rising sun, because in the split second of distraction that a blink cost him, the omnic vanished from his spot, leaving McCree to retreat indoors, grumpy, groggy, and chilled down to his skivvies.