Chapter Text
Being in Junkrat’s body meant a certain amount of baseline nausea, he was coming to find. An uneasy, unsettled feeling in his stomach- Rat’s stomach- had been bothering him since he opened his eyes and found the ground much closer than he’d been expecting it. Then, he’d been a little more than preoccupied trying to figure out why he couldn’t exactly feel his right hand, or why he seemed to weigh much less than he usually did. Or why he was staring at himself, watching a body he very much knew was his own stumble around, swinging huge arms as though he’d never used them before in his life.
Once he’d gotten Junkrat to stop flailing around like a toddler throwing a tantrum, he’d had time to stop and take stock of the situation. Hearing his own voice through different ears had been an experience- Rat chattering away in a low growl was one of the weirdest things he’d ever heard. There was the blue glow of one of Symmetra’s teleportation portals in the corner of his eye and he turned his head towards it, ignoring the way Jamie’s neck popped and snapped with the movement. The last thing he remembered before waking up as his partner was passing through it, on his way back to the battlefield after a pitstop at the aircraft carrier to grab a few more of Rat’s bombs and some extra canisters of hogdrogen.
Somehow, he’d seen Rat coming through the other side as he was travelling, passing through the portal in the other direction.
Then, there’d been nothing but a high-pitched, annoying tinny whine in his ears.
Luckily for them, the mission had been almost over. The moment they returned to the airship, their teammates had realized something was wrong. Roadhog hadn’t gotten used to the weird, hobbling gait that Junkrat’s peg leg demanded, and so he could only stumble and curse his way up the ramp. Panicked breathing filtered through the lenses on his gas mask, and he could only guess that the adrenaline and fear his Junkrat was currently experiencing- while in Roadhog’s body- was starting up an asthma episode.
A panic attack wouldn’t go well. They had to move and get back to base. Figure out what was going on in the relative safety of Gibraltar’s defended walls and not the open field of battle or the inside of an airplane. He couldn’t very well just pick his boss up and toss him over his shoulder to keep him moving, not in this skinny, lanky body.
Symmetra looked up from her magazine as Mako fumbled his way towards her, holding Junkrat’s back straighter than she’d ever seen it. The junker could see a small sneer cross her face before she smoothed it into the calm mask she always wore. She didn’t like them, which was fine. She didn’t need to like them to fix the problem she’d made.
“Your teleporter fucked up.” He told her, and the words came out in Rat’s annoying drawl. The woman looked offended at the very suggestion, but before she could open her mouth to question it, a huge thud sounded from behind him.
Roadhog turned to see his body thrown haphazardly on the floor, chest heaving as Rat fought for breath.
“Hoggie, how do ya…” The words were cut off by a chest-rattling cough and Jamie hacked and wheezed, panting hard behind the mask’s filters. The rest of their team drew closer in concern and the little medic, who skated around the battlefield like it was a roller rink, hopped forward with his sound gun. He’d been keeping a wide berth from Symmetra for the whole mission, but it appeared that he was willing to be near her if someone was in trouble.
“Canister.” Roadhog barked, and though it wasn’t as commanding coming from his current body, his boss scurried to obey. Huge hands patted down his belt and Rat came up with one of the brilliantly yellow containers that the bodyguard kept on him at all times. He’d found they worked better than an inhaler at times like this.
After a few puffs on it, Junkrat came away sputtering but breathing. Lucio skated forward and he caught the low beats of the medic’s healing music through the tinny roar in his ears.
“Hooley dooley, how do ya do this Roadie? Felt like there was an elephant on me chest!”
Eyes blinked between the pair and Hog watched as Symmetra’s expression changed to confusion. He growled low in his throat and was gratified to see her stand up from her chair, perhaps finally now realizing that something had gone wrong.
“Junkrat…?” A voice to their left asked tentatively, and he turned his new yellow eyes on Tracer. Mako shook the crispy blonde hair on his head and jammed his thumb over his shoulder to point at his real body, sprawled on the floor of the air carrier in a heap.
“Junkrat.”
He turned to indicate himself.
“Roadhog.”
A beat of dead silence. Satisfied that they understood the problem at hand, he turned to limp back to his body and dropped down on the ground beside it. The nausea in his stomach, coupled with the roaring in his ears and a dull ache coming from his right arm and leg, were adding up to be more than he wanted to deal with right now. A tentative hand found it’s way to his head, and Jamie carded thick fingers through the patchy hair currently on Hog’s head, fascinated. Letting him continue exploring, Mako leaned against his side and watched the assembled members of Overwatch, picking up the faces of absolute shock. To their credit, no one had laughed yet.
The ride back to base had been one of the most quiet he’d ever experienced, barring the frantic calls Lucio was making. From what he could hear of the conversation, Mercy would be waiting for them in the hanger with her full array of equipment. Like they were going to drop dead on the spot once they got off the airplane. Lucio was constantly hovering, his healing music turned on to full blast as though the sound waves alone could help them switch back to their usual bodies.
But now there they were, seated in the infirmary with Symmetra, Mercy, Lucio, and Winston staring at them. Junkrat twitched and squirmed underneath the multiple gazes, moving his huge body around in the space without regard for the fact he kept elbowing Hog in the back. There wasn’t enough room on the exam table for both of them, so he was leaning against its edge, arms folded as he waited for someone to say something. When they’d landed, the blonde doctor had hustled them into her medbay, stethoscope swinging from her neck as she moved around. They’d wanted blood samples and breathing tests, but Rat had refused all their attempts to monitor him on principle. Hog had followed suit, after a moment. It was Junkrat’s body, after all, and he knew how much his partner hated being poked and prodded by strangers.
The skinny junker had always had problems with doctors, slow to trust strangers and wary of people getting too close to him. Roadhog had only seen him brave a doctor’s office for his top surgery, and that had happened after he had a large bodyguard with a meat hook to back him up. He avoided Mercy as best he could, coming up with any excuse he could think of to get out of mandatory checkups and prosthetic tune-ups. They’d tried appealing to Roadhog to get him there, but the older junker wasn’t going to override what Rat wanted without damn good reason. He shoved some vitamins in the food they ate and made sure he bathed regularly enough, and that was all he’d do.
Now, though, Junkrat was trapped in the infirmary and he knew it. After a series of hushed conversations with Winston and Symmetra, Mercy approached the pair with her best calming smile. The group of scientists and doctors had withdrawn to themselves after they’d realized neither of the Junkers was going to allow many tests, probably trying to discuss the best way to handle the situation.
“Well, as we cannot get accurate measurements on your physical states, we have to go purely by what you tell us about how you feel.”
To the woman’s credit, there was only the slightest trace of annoyance in her voice.
“Roadhog, the symptoms you have described are all symptoms that Mr. Fawkes has confirmed to be normal for his body. Mr. Fawkes’ descriptions are normal according to the records I have for Roadhog. So, we don’t really have any choice but to conclude that the both of you, physically, are not experiencing any adverse side effects from this.”
Jamie giggled nervously behind him and a huge hand landed on his shoulder, subtly pulling the bodyguard closer to the table like a shield. It was a little ridiculous that Rat expected Hog’s body to be able to hide effectively behind the small, lanky form, and he had to fight the urge to chuckle at the image.
“Going forward, Ms. Vaswani will be working with Winston to try and understand what went wrong with the teleportation technology, and how to reverse it. We’d like both of you to remain on base until the problem is resolved, in case something else has been altered within your bodies and has not made itself known yet.”
Immediately a low groan came from behind him, Rat’s usual breathy giggling turning into a deep rumbling laugh. If there’d been any doubt about their story, he knew all one had to do was look at their body language to tell they were wholly different people. Being stuck on base definitely was going to make Jamie more stir crazy than usual, but it couldn’t be helped. Hog only hoped he could handle the nervous ball of energy his partner would become. It wasn’t like he could physically block the exit to their room anymore.
“Got it.” He answered for the both of them, and pushed off the exam table so that Junkrat could climb down. Their bed was calling his name, and he honestly couldn’t wait to sink into the covers and sleep for as long as he could. Maybe when he woke up, he’d find that this was all just a nightmare.
Jamie jumped down from the table behind him, and everyone in the room winced at the ground-shaking thud of his boots hitting the floor. The mask blocked whatever expression the kid might have made, but he could just imagine the sheepish, shit-eating grin that surely lay below the rubber. If Hog wasn’t careful, Rat was going to ruin his body just because he liked the sensation of being bigger than everything around him. Being taller wasn’t new, but having the width to match would definitely go to his head.
“Roadhog, could you wait a moment? I’d like to talk with you.” Mercy’s voice surprised them both and they stopped on their way out the door to look back at the doctor, movement eerily in sync. Her face betrayed nothing of her motives and Hog studied her for a moment before shrugging his shoulders, turning to nod at Junkrat.
“Be right outside, mate,” Rat stated with suspicion, less as a reassurance to Roadhog and more as a warning to Mercy. If the door had not been an automatic sliding door, Jamie would have almost definitely slammed it behind him as he left.
Once the other three people had cleared the room, Symmetra and Winston off to the laboratory and Lucio probably running to tell everyone what was going on, they were left alone. The infirmary’s patient in-take room seemed a lot bigger than it usually did to Hog as he waited for the doctor to speak.
“To put it bluntly, I am worried about Jamison’s health.”
Hog snorted.
“The symptoms you described are characteristic of radiation poisoning, and he’s been refusing treatment for it. His organs could be failing, or malfunctioning, and I would never know because he does not allow me to examine him.” Her accent got heavier as she spoke, and he could hear genuine concern for his partner in her voice. “His limbs are remarkably built for the materials that he had, but he doesn’t take proper care of the connection points and there’s a high probability they’ll get infected. And I can only imagine the damage his lungs have been through, inhaling smoke and fumes for so long. He's far too skinny for someone of his height and age, despite the fact he's been eating regular meals since he joined us.”
“Point.” He growled, when it seemed like she might go on forever listing all the things wrong with Junkrat. He knew all of this- had watched the shades of red Rat’s limbs would go after his sixth straight day of wearing the prosthetics, seen his partner vomit all his food and water up when his stomach decided it couldn’t take food that day. Had pulled him out of enough explosions to know that for every time he’d shielded the other from a blast, there’d been at least two more he’d been happily caught up in.
She sighed and stepped closer to him.
“I cannot help him because of his distrust of the medical profession. While I understand where it’s coming from, it’s getting in the way of his health and ability to live a long and happy life. I realize that it’s…. unethical, but I would like to ask your permission to take some blood samples and run some tests while you reside in Mr. Fawkes’ body. I promise, I only have the best intentions of helping him.”
Without the mask hiding his face, Roadhog had no way of hiding his reactions. A huge, bushy eyebrow shot up into his hairline, surprise flitting across his face before giving away to anger. He didn’t have the same aversion to doctors that Junkrat did, true, but it didn’t mean he trusted her farther than he could throw her.
Well, actually, farther than Junkrat could throw her.
“No.”
Mercy pressed her lips into a thin line, seemingly expecting the answer but upset with it anyway. Roadhog turned to go, uninterested in whatever she would say to try and change his mind. Rat was waiting outside and he wanted to be in bed as soon as humanely possible. The stump of his right leg was aching badly.
“Mr. Rutledge, he’ll die at 30 if he keeps this up.”
“It’s Roadhog.”
“Be serious, please.”
There was disapproval, sure, but underneath it he thought he could hear a true tone of pleading. It puzzled him- why the fuck should she care if Junkrat keeled over early? Sure, she was a doctor, but it wasn’t like she hadn’t tried to help him. It wasn’t her fault that Jamie had a built in distrust of strangers and an even greater disliking of doctors.
They were only criminals who’d joined up with Overwatch by happenstance and bad luck- not true members of the team. Neither of them wanted to be there, and he was pretty sure that very few people on the base were happy about their presence. At the first opportunity, they were going to cut and run. The Vaswani woman would probably build them another goddamn teleporter to anywhere in the world if they told her they were leaving for good. If he hadn’t been so fucking angry about the mistake, he might have found it funny that she had to dedicate her time to helping them now.
“Roadhog, can you really sit by and watch his body fall apart?”
‘Don’t you care?’ Echoed beneath the words.
“Rat can do what he wants, I’m just paid to keep shit from the outside from taking him down.”
‘No,’ he answered her unspoken question.
He didn’t feel like explaining the intricacies of their relationship to an outsider, someone who didn’t know shit about the place they came from. Junkrat had the freedom to destroy himself if he really wanted to. Hog wouldn’t stop him. If Hog really wanted to leave, he knew Rat wouldn’t come looking for him. What had the bomb been detonated for, if not for the freedom to live how you wanted? What had started the whole thing, except anguish at having that decision ripped from your hands?
Mako would stay with Jamie until the radiation ate him up. Hadn’t figured out what to do after that, if he was still alive when Rat finally wasted away. There didn’t seem much of a point to going back to robbing and pillaging his way across the world. Nor did he want to go back to the Outback and take up his old life, before he’d agreed to be a bodyguard. But he sure as hell wasn’t going to let Mercy in on any of that. Her desire to save everyone who walked through her doors whether they wanted it or not was her own problem. If she tried to force anything, Roadhog and Junkrat would be gone in a heartbeat.
The doctor looked disapprovingly at him, standing much closer than she had been a few seconds before. Hog didn’t move back, just let her march straight up to him with her bottom lip worried between two teeth and big blue eyes brimming with sadness.
Roadhog cut her off before she could speak.
“Convince him. Not me.”
Reaching out, he pressed the button for the door before she could retaliate. Junkrat sprang back from the metal, nervous tittering and the position of his hands indicating that he’d been trying to hear their conversation. Hog wasn’t too worried about that- the doors of the base were pretty soundproof. Blastproof too, which was nice.
He marched down the hallway, determined to get to their bedroom with no interruptions. Originally they’d slept in the prisoner’s cells in the basement, before Overwatch had decided what to do with them. It had been at least a week before the higher ups gave them the choice between working for the organization or being turned over to the police. Hog hadn’t had much of an opinion either way; the police were easy to escape from, and the idea that they couldn’t get away from the group while on missions was laughable. Junkrat had liked the idea of working for Overwatch though, at least for a little while. It was new and exciting, and it’d drawn him in like a moth to a flame.
As members, they’d been given their own rooms and bathrooms, though they’d specifically requested that they be next to each other. That was a caveat Rat had added in before they accepted the deal; either they were sent out on missions together, or they simply wouldn’t go.
Junkrat had wasted no time in making the rooms into one, rigging a few of his packs up on the wall between their spaces. The monkey who’d shown them their rooms sputtered in shock, mouth agape as Junkrat, coated in plaster, rooted around in the wreckage for a painting he’d forgotten to remove from the wall beforehand. Winston couldn’t decide whether to punish them for the destruction, or simply to let it go.
He’d made the right decision, in the end- even if it had been fixed, Rat would just blow it down again.
Secretly, Mako was glad. They’d spent so many nights holed up together, either crouching behind the only cover for miles around or squished on a motel bed while sirens rang outside, that he wasn’t so sure he could sleep without the jittery presence beside him anymore. Rat seemed to run a few degrees hotter than a normal person and he thrashed in his sleep, sending boney elbows and knees everywhere in an attempt to fight off whatever monster was attacking him in his dreams. But now it felt natural to have the Rat pinned to his side with a huge arm while they slept. He’d all but stopped waking up when a stray limb caught him in the mask.
It was strange- for a stranger’s footsteps, or a crack of a branch, he’d wake up in a heartbeat. Not for Junkrat’s flailing though.
“What’d the angel want?” Rat asked and Roadhog shrugged as they rounded a corner, entering the part of the base reserved for crew quarters.
“To know if you needed an inhaler while you were in my body.” No need to feed the kid’s fear of doctors even more. If he knew that Mercy had been trying to go behind his back, Mako would never get him to let her bandage him up again. Medical professionals did have their uses, after all.
A peal of laughter, several times higher than Hog’s normal voice, filled the air at the notion.
“Why tha’ fuck would she think I’d need one? Watched ya puff on yer canisters plenty of times ta know what ta do.”
Roadhog refrained from pointing out his panic attack in the air carrier, settling instead for stopping in front of the door to their bedroom. The reason he knew the doors in the base were blast proof showed around the edges, where the metal was the tiniest bit soot-stained and warped. Explosions were forbidden in the room, for fear of fucking up their weapons and equipment, but sometimes Rat just couldn’t help it.
Despite the smell of soot and ash in the air though, once inside it was easy to finally relax.
Mako threw himself onto the bed, enjoying the way it didn’t creak and shift underneath him like it usually would have. They’d shoved their individual beds together, to make one huge monstrosity that could hold both of them and all of the pillows and blankets they could want. In the space that had formerly been Rat’s room, they stored their weapons and belongings. The bathroom for that room had been turned into a miniature chemical lab, with containers of various liquids and powders stored in the bathtub and kept ready whenever Jamie wanted to work on his bombs. He’d been invited to use the communal lab space when they first got there, but the skinny junker was far too paranoid for that and Hog hadn’t been enthusiastic about having to tag along and watch in silence every time his partner wanted to tinker. It was easier to just have their own.
Junkrat moved into the bathroom that was free of chemicals, cursing loudly when he realized he couldn’t walk through the doorway normally anymore. It took him a few tries to find the angle that Hog had to turn to get through, and Mako laughed watching him. The situation sucked, but there were a few things he didn’t mind about it.
Things went quiet in the bathroom and then he heard a long, low whistle. Rat poked his head out of the room, suspiciously eyeing his partner lounging on the bed, and then disappeared again. After another moment of silence, he maneuvered his way out of the bathroom again and walked over to the bed. Mako couldn’t quite get used to the feeling of having someone tower over him- he’d never met a man taller or bigger than he was. He was used to doing the looming.
“You weren’t kidding when ya said we switched bodies, mate.”
Hog gave a short bark of laughter and felt his voice crack in Junkrat’s throat.
“Thought we were all joking?”
“I mean, yeah, kinda…”
Rat slumped onto the edge of the bed and Hog felt himself slide a few inches into the newly made indent. He hadn’t gotten used to staring at himself yet- to seeing features he knew to be uniquely his on a body separate from himself. Watching his hands twitch and squirm, the way he was used to seeing Rat’s move, was jarring.
And his stomach still fucking hurt.
“Take off the bomb vest.” Mako eventually said, after he couldn’t stand to watch his own body any longer. Junkrat jumped like he’d been hit and the mask swung to face him. He couldn’t see any of his partner’s expression behind the glass lenses but eventually the other reached out to tap on the small, hidden button sewn into the thick straps of the harness. Had to make sure it wouldn’t explode the second it no longer detected a heartbeat, after all. He’d seen Rat do it before, but it was hard to see the switch if you didn’t know where it was already. Somehow, his partner had figured he needed an extra layer of security for his bomb vest.
When a little beep sounded and Rat nodded at him, he shimmied out of the harness with slight difficulty, the canisters bumping against themselves as he lifted it over his head. There were huge white lines on freckled shoulders from where the straps had prevented soot and ash from settling. Hog realized that he was absolutely covered in dust and bomb residue, head-to-toe coated in bits of scrap and concrete. Seeing as he definitely didn’t have the energy to wrestle himself into the shower, he’d have to sleep like that. The sheets would be a lost cause.
“Can I take th’ limbs off?” The older junker asked quietly and Rat’s gaze went from studying the errant dusting of spots on his shoulders to the mechanical limbs resting on the blankets. Hog desperately wanted to remove them and get some relief for the aching stumps on his right side. The little skin he could see there was red and angry- who knew how long it had been since Junkrat had taken off his limbs? Often he slept with them on, too uncomfortable with the notion of being defenseless even when Roadhog was there to protect him.
It was still Rat’s body- he’d put up with the pain if his partner didn’t want the limbs gone.
After a minute, Jamie shifted his huge body more fully onto the bed and turned towards Mako. Large fingers reached out to begin the process of removing the peg leg, unbuckling the straps that held the limb tightly in place before moving to disconnect the neural connections. They were rudimentary in the leg, since all Rat really needed it to do was move in the correct direction when he wanted it to and bear his weight. Soon it slipped off and he sighed in relief as the stump of his right leg was bared to the open air. The hands didn’t move away once the task was done, experimentally ghosting fingers over the knotted mass of scar tissue that ended the limb, poking and prodding gently. It sent an ache throughout his whole body, but Junkrat was careful to avoid the patches of skin that had been rubbed raw by the prosthetic, massaging out the muscles of the thigh for Hog.
Mako had done it for the other before, at the end of a long day. He remembered the feel of the tissue as he kneaded and pulled, letting the knots work out and the nerves relearn how to function without the connection to the peg leg. Jamie had always groaned and sighed at the feeling, watching as he worked with a sleepy, contented expression. As far as Roadhog knew, he was the only person other than Rat who’d ever touched the stumps of his limbs.
Eventually, the stretching stopped and Junkrat reached out to begin the process of disconnecting his right arm. Infinitely more complicated, it had several sensors built into a port that lay right underneath the skin, meant to plug in and communicate Rat’s brainwaves to the mechanical fingers. There was a ring of scar tissue around the place the port rested, lumpy and uneven, signifying that the blonde had installed it there himself. It took a few seconds before Hog felt the loss of his right arm, sensation that he hadn’t even known was there going silent. Buckles and straps clanked as they slid off the limb and then Rat began to rub again, expertly working out the aching pain.
They sat in silence until he deemed the arm ‘good enough’ and let the limb fall back to the sheets. The prosthetics were placed on a table next to the bed, one that they’d dragged in just for that purpose. Didn’t want Jamie to have to stumble through the apartment looking for them in the morning.
“Yer quiet,” Mako stated as his partner began to fumble with weapons and armor pieces, watching Rat try and wiggle out of his bigger partner’s regular outfit. It was funny to see him struggle with the spikes and bits of rubber that Hog used for armor, but he didn’t move to try and help him. It was easier to lie on the sheets and watch as Junkrat all but bit his shoulder piece, trying frantically to tug it off.
Eventually his partner found the little latch and tore it off with a triumphant noise, finally collapsing back on the blankets in only a pair of overalls. They lay there in further silence for a few moments and Hog listened to the ringing in his ears once again, letting the tinnitus fill the void of conversation. Junkrat’s silence was worrying him, but the younger would speak when he was ready to. Probably.
“S’weird ta hear yer voice talking like I do.”
No arguing about that. He’d always been a man of few words, even before the Omnium blew. It was just easier to listen and learn, and choose to speak if he thought it necessary. If anything, the habit had only become more pronounced after his home turned into a radioactive wasteland. Often he’d go for weeks without seeing another person as he travelled, and that kind of silence took its toll on you. If he hadn’t met Rat, his vocal chords might have withered away into nothing.
He chuckled and turned to worm his way underneath the covers, stealing a pillow and a blanket before Jamie could use all of them to build his little blanket nest. The Rat liked to bundle himself in everything soft he could get his hands on and disappear into the folds of fabric, not even a tuft of blonde hair sticking out to indicate where he was. In his current body, Hog wouldn’t be surprised if he ended up completely wrapped in their entire fucking mattress, on the floor and snoring.
The lights already out, they lay on the bed in silence for a few moments. Tension flooded his partner’s body, Junkrat afraid to move in case he knocked Roadhog off or somehow upset the delicate balance of the bed. The thing creaked and groaned every time he moved, and while it had always done that, he wasn’t used to being to one who had to watch how fast he moved.
Rolling his eyes in the dark, he reached out to touch Jamie’s shoulder and felt him twitch underneath his hand. There was a brief moment of hesitation before Rat responded, twisting carefully onto his side so that he could reach out and draw Hog’s slight body against him. It was a position they’d slept in hundreds of times before, a way to ensure that they were both safe and present. Usually he’d end up wrapped around the other’s blanket nest, huge body serving as yet another layer. To be on the other end of that felt different and strange. Hog had long since stopped questioning the relationship between him and Rat, preferring to just let their lives play out how they would, but this brought the questions rushing back.
Beneath the ringing in his ears and the sound of wheezy, slow breathing, he let himself think of the place they’d found themselves in and the people who surrounded them. Overwatch was an anomaly, in his mind. Coming from a place where it was kill or be killed, it was hard to parse a group of people joining together for a reason other than survival. Even though he’d grown up in the world before the blast, it had totally transformed him. Mako had been a young man then, a man who believed in his freedom and wanted to fight for his home. Those years were a blur of bright color now- the brilliant green of grass and a garden, the endless blue of the sky, the stark white of fresh laundry. It was hard to remember how everything had been before it went dusty and drab and deadly.
As far as he knew, no one in the original Overwatch team had ever tried to help in Australia. That was the part that made the least sense to him. There’d been aid organizations over the years, which brought tents and supply drops, and promises of a cleaner, safer outback. Once a politician had decided to prove his mettle by taking a tour through Junkertown, accompanied by a brigade of armed soldiers and bottles of clean water to hand out to the residents. He’d had the good sense to avoid bringing any omnics along in his entourage, a decision which probably saved his life, but the newspapers had been covered with images of the black eye and broken arm he’d somehow received even with his guards.
But not Overwatch, the organization that might have actually made a difference in the fight; The ones who might have actually been able to help the residents before they descended into scrapping and fighting each other to survive. He knew that the original team had disbanded, and only a few of the people they were working with now had been on it, but they still had the gall to look at the Junkers and shake their heads. Call them violent and out of control. Whisper behind their hands when Junkrat ate like they’d snatch the food away from him at any moment, make faces and snicker when he shied away from anything vaguely to do with water.
It was difficult for Hog to parse Mercy’s worry over Jamie health with the rest of the bunch’s obvious disdain for their two pet criminals. He was used to the indifference towards their situation, the obvious superiority the rest of Australia felt in comparison to the residents of Junkertown. It was almost insulting that the blonde doctor was worried only now, when she had to face the results of Overwatch’s negligence face to face. Even if Jamie agreed to her treatments, it still wouldn’t fix anything.
No one ever stayed focused on the Outback for long. Too hard to look at their mistakes and accept that real, living people had been destroyed. That people like Rat had to grow up drinking poisonous water instead of soda, eating lizards and bugs instead of mac and cheese.
As he thought, even the bed beneath him began to feel out of place. Mako sighed to himself and opened his eyes to stare at the ceiling, realizing he’d worked himself up enough that sleep would be impossible. Even though his eyes stung and burned at being open, inside his mind was filling with hate. When he had quiet moments like this, his spite and hate rose to the surface, filling him with the need to rip and tear. Mercy’s face, pleading and safe in his mind’s eye, warped into something mocking and full of pity. He felt satisfaction knowing that Jamie would never let her touch him, since she would have to live with the fact that she’d failed for the rest of her life.
Next to him, Rat shifted a little and the huge arm lying across Hog’s shoulders tightened, drawing him even closer to his chest. He felt like a stuffed animal, but there was little he could do about the situation. If this was how Jamie felt when Mako threw him over his shoulder to get him out of harm’s way, he might start doing it a little less. The sensation of being helpless was not one he could say he enjoyed.
It had to be going on 3 am, at this point. It’d been quite late when the mission had ended, and they’d probably in the infirmary for at least an hour while the scientists and medics debated what to do about the problem. Junkrat had asked if they could just send them through the teleporter again and see if they’d switch back on their own, but his suggestion was immediately shot down for being too risky. Since they didn’t know exactly what had caused the glitch, there was no way to know if it would happen again or not. If it did happen again, it could be even worse than simply switching their consciousness.
A risk that Rat was willing to take, but one that Mako wasn’t quite sure would work. Better to let them sort it all out, than risk another accident.
“Hoggy, you awake?”
Roadhog turned his head to face the other and grunted in response, staring into the lenses on the gas mask. It was too dark to see any of what was behind them- you had to be in a very specific kind of light to make out his eyes behind the glass, let alone any of his scars or other facial features. Sometimes even he forgot what was behind the mask, after a week straight of wearing it. His gas mask felt more natural to see in the mirror than anything else. Now though, looking into it from the other side gave him a vaguely creepy feeling.
“Do ya think they’d let me look at the teleporter too? Reckon I can figure out what’s wrong faster than any of ‘em.”
He snorted and shrugged, inwardly thinking that the probability of Symmetra letting Jamie around her technology was exactly zero. She barely agreed to go on missions with them.
“’Course, I really just think that another go-through would do the trick. Opposite directions, same like last time, and we’d be back in our own bodies in fuckin’ no time.”
“Or it could kill us.”
“Yeah, sure, but what’s life without a little danger?”
Neither of them could say that they knew.
Before he could really talk his partner out of the crazy idea, Jamie shot up in bed and looked around the room wildly, most likely squinting behind the mask to see what he could find. Hog grumbled to himself and rubbed his hand over his face- gone was the tension that had radiated off Rat in waves. Now he was focused and excited, scrambling off the creaking bed as fast as he could in Hog’s body.
“They’ll be in the lab all night, roight? Tryin’ ta figure it out? Why don’t we go nick some of the tech from Symmetra’s room, and bring it back here? We’ll be in and out afore anyone even notices we left our room and I can work on it and figure out the problem.”
All of Mako’s instincts screamed the words ‘bad idea’ and he forced himself up into a sitting position to watch Junkrat move around the room, picking up random objects and inspecting them closely before setting them down in annoyance and moving on.
“Get back to bed.” He growled, the words not as threatening as he would have liked them to be in Rat’s voice. The command was ignored and Jamie eventually came up with a small toolkit, the case comically small in his hands. It was what he used for repairs on the inner workings of his arm and was full of screwdrivers, pliers, and wrenches.
“I’ll be back in a tick, scout’s honor. Just gonna pop down the hall.”
Vibrating with excitement, he was out the door in a second and all Hog could do was sigh and roll out of bed. He couldn’t go far without the prosthetics on, since he didn’t have Jamie’s years of practice at maneuvering on one leg, but he also didn’t know the trick to getting the prosthetic arm on one handed. Whenever he was around, Rat asked him for help with it, and it was a little hard to know what happened when he wasn’t there to offer assistance. Mako could hear footsteps getting further away down the hall, towards what he assumed to be Symmetra’s room. Rat was the one who knew where everyone in this damn place slept- Roadhog had never cared enough to know.
Groaning, he fell back against the covers and sighed. If he’d been in his regular body, it would have been no trouble to just trap Rat in bed until he got the message and gave up on his plan. But there was no way he was strong enough to stop a man with the size of a mountain and the energy of a firecracker.
Instead of the alarms he expected though, the footsteps soon returned down the hall, significantly slower and quieter this time. The door to their room opened with a soft whoosh and Junkrat crept inside, stepping over to the edge of the bed. Before Hog could ask him what had happened, he was scooped up into Jamie’s arms and tossed over his shoulder, held in place by a huge hand that kept him from wiggling off.
He kicked in surprise, lashing out with his fist to try and catch Rat off-guard, but his efforts were only met with a stifled giggle, the rumble of it vibrating through both of their bodies.
“I see why ya do this so often now, Roadie! It’s so fun!”
“Jamison. Put me down.”
Rat obliged after another few seconds of walking, unceremoniously dumping him on the ground in front of a door. The small toolkit he’d been carrying early was on the floor and open, a screwdriver and set of pliers waiting to be used.
“Yer hands are too big for me tools. Can’t get a good grip. I’ll tell you what to do and you move them, got it?”
“Not helping.”
“Oh, come on!” He whined, and shoved the gas mask up on his face with one hand. Mako was treated to the sight of his face pouting, lower lip pushed out and eyes big. As if the puppy dog eyes had ever worked on Roadhog when it was coming from Jamie’s face, let alone Hog’s.
“Put it back on.” Mako hissed, quickly looking around the hall to make sure they were truly alone. Cameras were kept out of the crew’s hallways and rooms as a courtesy, but there was no telling when someone would come around the corner and see them. Even at 3am, the base never fully went to bed.
Jamie had the grace to look suitably ashamed of himself and quickly tugged the mask back over his features, once again fully concealing Hog’s face. The older junker glowered at him from his position on the floor for a minute longer, before he sighed and turned to the toolkit to pick up a screwdriver. He’d get no peace tonight if he didn’t at least put on a show of helping Rat steal the teleporter technology. Sleep might have been impossible at this point, but he could still lie in bed and finish his book while Jamie fucked around and tried to understand exactly what had happened.
A muffled, quiet cheer went up behind him and he felt his partner kneel behind him, head coming to rest on his shoulder so that he could study the keypad as Roadhog began to unscrew the small bolts that held it to the wall. Athena controlled most of the operations of the base, but they’d left a few things offline. Member’s personal rooms were out of her control, accessed by a handprint scanner and accompanying place to type in a password. The Junkers did appreciate the extra level of security- having a glorified bot in charge of their sleeping quarters would have ensured they wouldn’t be sleeping a night while they were part of Overwatch.
When there were wires popping out, he moved aside so Rat could stare at them intently for a moment, trying to figure out which ones needed to be cut in order to open the door. Eventually he directed Hog to cut the yellow wire, and then the blue one, and the door slid open as if by magic.
Looking incredibly proud of himself, Jamie marched into Symmetra’s room and Roadhog stared after him before casting a doubtful glance at the control panel left broken and undone.
“Will that door still close?”
“Nah.” The younger junker said cheerily, standing in the center of the room to look around. The Indian woman’s room was the exact opposite of the Junker’s in every way. Where they had piles of gear lying around, hers way piled neatly on it’s own shelf, easy to see and ready for use. There was a desk with a few notebooks and pens. Instead of the usual overhead lights that flicked on whenever someone entered a room on the base, soft blue light began to flood the bedroom. On the walls, seemingly drawn out of the light she used to make her weapons and creations, spiraling, symmetrical patterns had been traced out. They covered the entirety of the walls, providing soft, gentle light instead of the harshness of fluorescents. From his place on the floor, Mako was able to inspect the rub that covered the entirety of the floor, woven in a pattern of silver and blue that reflected the light from the designs on the walls. It was hard to track where each line went, as they all curled and doubled back on themselves in an intricate, knot. He almost felt bad watching Rat step on it, before his mind kicked him back into reality. Roadhog began to mentally calculate how much the objects in the room might be worth.
Of course they’d probably never get a chance to sell a full area rug, especially one that lived in the crew quarters of Overwatch’s headquarters, but you never knew.
Junkrat knelt next to the shelf of equipment after a minute, scanning the row of devices for something that looked similar to Symmetra’s teleporters. He’d never gotten the chance to study them all that closely, given how guarded she was around the Junkers, but he thought he had a pretty good idea. They unfolded like flowers, so he was just looking for something with petals and leaves.
Letting Jamie snoop around for the moment, Hog squinted over at the desk, trying to read the little labels along the sides of the notebooks. Rat’s sight was better than his, but they were too far away for him to be able to tell much about what they might say. All he could see was that the handwriting was neat and orderly.
He actually admired how organized all of the woman’s things were. He’d valued order in his home before the blast, and he still enforced a few rules about their gear and food to ensure they didn’t leave anything behind. Mostly though, Roadhog had given up on any semblance of organization , and any lingering traces of it had vanished after living with Rat for a month. As long as the gasoline was stored away from where he was working on his bombs and they weren’t leaving their weapons and gear everywhere, he really couldn’t find it in him to complain too much.
“Aha!” Jamie exclaimed and spun away from the shelves, holding onto two identical devices in a hand. He looked closer and noted the small parts that looked like they moved, forming the base upon which the teleporter rested. Nodding, the older junker moved towards the door now that their job was done, eager to be back in the safety of their room. They’d be leaving behind a broken door, and anyone would easily be able to put two and two together to figure out who’d committed the break-in when it was discovered what had been taken. But if his partner could figure out what had gone wrong and fix it before they were discovered, than no one could be too angry with them.
Hell, the most they’d do anyway was take them off missions for a few days as punishment. As if they actually wanted to be going on Overwatch’s errands like trained dogs.
Nevertheless, as Rat scurried past him, he cleared his throat and gestured to the door. At first, all he was given was a cock of the head and a blank stare that he could see even with the mask in the way. Hog mimed a pulling motion and gestured at the door a few times, watching as the gears worked in Jamie’s head until he realized what his partner wanted.
Gingerly, he laid the teleporters on the ground and went back to the room door, working his fingers around the edge of the hidden edge. Muscles strained as Junkrat pulled on the broken door, attempting to slide it back into place and hopefully delay the discovery of their crime. Hog left him to it and picked up the screwdriver once again, screwing the panel back into the wall. Nothing could reconnect the wires they’d snipped, but until someone tried to enter Symmetra’s room, you couldn’t even tell something was wrong.
With a grunt, Rat pulled the door into it’s usual place and stepped back to admire his handiwork, huffing slightly.
“Hooley dooley mate, yer fuckin’ strong.” Huge hands wandered over their arms, as if feeling the knotted muscle beneath the skin for the first time. Somehow, Hog felt a little self-conscious watching Rat feel the strength in his borrowed limbs.
“Y’knew that.” He grunted, mildly embarrassed as Jamie leaned down to heave him up in his arms again. Unfortunately for him, the day Jamie ran out of things to say would be the day the sun swallowed the planet.
“Yeah, sure, but watchin’ ya rip someone’s head off ain’t the same thing as doin’ it yerself, yaknow?”
“Don’t kill anyone.”
That was the last thing he needed to deal with right now- Junkrat accidentally killing one of the members of Overwatch while in Hog’s body. He was sure they could kiss their chances of escape goodbye if that happened. They’d be tossed into detention cells, separated and alone for the rest of their lives. While they could do it if they were together, the agents of Overwatch were a hell of a lot harder to escape from than your average, everyday, run-of-the-mill cop.
“I would never!” Rat gasped, as if the very suggestion offended him.
“You would.”
A beat of silence while they stopped in front of their room door. Roadhog keyed in their password and laid his palm flat against the sensor, fighting the urge to roll his eyes as he watched Jamie struggle to answer for a moment before finally giving up.
“Yeah, alright. I would.”
After dumping Mako on the bed, Junkrat set the teleporters on his workbench and dropped the toolkit next to them, looking around the room for anything else that might be useful in figuring out what made these things tick. Hog’s eyes stung every time he blinked them, but he ignored the feeling in favor of rolling over and snagging his book from the bedside table. He was plenty used to sleeping while Jamie worked on his bombs or his tire, but trying to go back to sleep would just result in more unnecessary thinking. He hadn’t gotten this far in his life by overthinking every situation he found himself in.
Plus, his stomach was really beginning to bother him. Now that he didn’t have something completely urgent to focus on, the nausea was making itself known once again. As Junkrat began to take apart the metal casing of the teleporter’s, Hog curled in on himself, hand pressed to his belly. He’d taken inventory of all the different sensations he was feeling, back in the infirmary when Mercy had seemed certain they’d both drop dead at any moment. That had been clinical and precise.
Here, in the dark, it was almost overwhelming.
Aside from the cramping in his stomach, his limbs throbbed and ache, the raw skin at the end of the stumps unhappy at being exposed to the open air. Hog supposed he should be grateful they weren’t phantom limb pains, things he knew Rat got on occasion, but it was hard to tell and harder to tell himself he was lucky with the ringing in his head. Sometimes Jamie was up all night with the pain, trying and failing to stifle his sobs so he wouldn’t wake Hog up. It was a miracle his partner wasn’t deaf from all the times he’d stood at the epicenter of a bomb blast, but the years of doing so had definitely taken their toll.
Heart thudding in his chest, Mako managed to make himself uncurl, focusing on Jamie across the room.
A worklight had been turned on over the desk and he could see the occasional glint of a screwdriver or a wrench. It had only been a few short minutes, but the teleporter was already in pieces, parts scattered over the surface of the workspace. He hoped Rat could remember how to put it back together again- they needed two of the devices to have any chance of this succeeding, and he didn’t think Symmetra would be amenable to lending them another one. There didn’t seem to be any problem using the tools this time, despite Jamie’s newly large hands, and it made Roadhog wonder why the hell he’d been co-opted to assist with opening Symmetra’s door.
The mask had been removed so that the other could see what he was doing without the impediment of glass, and Mako studied his face for a moment. It was different, seeing it without looking in a mirror. There it only made the faces he told it to, only did what he wanted it to. Jamie’s eyes were screwed up in concentration, head bowed low over his workspace. Hog could see the silver of stubble dusting his cheeks, and beneath them the intricate lines of his Tā Moko. They were grooves worn into his face, made by chisel and then filled in with ink to tell the story of his family. There were a few scars that slashed through the lines, disrupting the pattern, but they’d never bothered him- they were a different way of telling stories.
Now he watched his teeth biting the inside of his lip, as Jamie tilted his head to the side and set about rewiring a particular portion of the device in front of him. It was a habit so thoroughly unlike him that Hog felt uncomfortable, focused on the yellow teeth and the bite marks they left behind. To watch his own face- a sight that he saw rarely anyway, since he considered the mask to be a second skin- making expressions that he had not told it to make left a sour taste in his mouth. The older junker felt very out of place lying on the bed with someone else’s nausea and tinnitus, someone else’s aches and pains. Seeing his face make someone else’s expressions.
If this was what an out-of-body experience was like, he wanted absolutely no part in it.
Yet he could not help but lie in limbo, wishing they’d never gone on that idiotic mission, never fallen into Overwatch’s hands, never decided to leave the Outback and travel the world. Occasionally his partner would glance over at the bed and their eyes would meet for a quick second. It never lasted long- always Rat looked away after a moment, a frown crossing his features.
Jamie kept muttering under his breath, and while normally he could pick the individual words, the pitch of his voice was so low that all Mako could hear was a low rumble. The smaller-turned-bigger junker ducked under the table, connecting something to the power outlet underneath, before he resurfaced with a wicked grin. This time when he turned to Hog, his eyes were glazed over with excitement.
“Ya ready, Roadie? Gonna turn this thing back on, get it working, and boom, bang, we’re back where we belong in no time!”
Mako shrugged, sitting up on the bed and scooting back against the headboard to watch what happened. He trusted it not to explode, since he’d been watching Rat the entire time and there hadn’t been any visits to the chemical lab in their bathroom. Other than that, though, he had his doubts about how effective Rat’s tinkering would be. The teleporters seemed intimately connected to the gear that Symmetra wore and her ability to manipulate forms of light. The only kind of light Jamie had ever worked with was the kind that came from a flash grenade, and while he had no doubt his partner could figure it out given enough time, it had only been about an hour.
At the very least, he hoped it wouldn’t break from whatever Rat had done to it.
Junkrat flipped a switch on the side of the device and dropped it on the ground, standing back from it with a proud grin. The little stand whirred and shimmied from side to side in a way that he’d never seen before, seemingly almost dancing as it tried to figure out what it wanted to do. While Mako never watched the set-up of the damn things, always a little preoccupied making sure Rat wasn’t standing in the direct line of fire, he was sure he’d never seen it do that.
As the seconds dragged on, he was about to remark as such to his partner when the teleporter made an awful grinding sound, and stopped moving entirely. From within its belly, smoke began to rise, filling the air with a grey haze that smelled like charred metal.
Jamie made a noise of frustration, stomping his foot as he watched it fall on it’s side, more of the smoke pouring out from a hole in the bottom. Hog cast his eyes up to the smoke detector on the ceiling, waiting- they disabled it when they got the chance, but somehow the monkey always got a repairman in to fix it whenever they weren’t looking. Rat had started talking about leaving traps for him at the door, but since there hadn’t yet been a bear trap set out for while they were gone, there was no way to know if it had been fixed yet. He held his breath in anticipation of the sprinklers snapping on and showering everything they owned.
But all that changed was Junkrat, who stomped over to the fire extinguisher Hog kept in their room and snatched it up. Instead of using it, he shook it like he blamed it for the failure of his attempt, sneering down at the bright, red canister.
Normally, Roadhog would have been happy to let him work out his aggression wherever he wanted, but if the thing didn’t stop smoking soon, their room would be filled. His asthma wouldn’t take kindly to that, even with the hogdrogen.
“Jamison.” He said, before his partner could crush the canister in his hands. A huge head turned to him, and Hog gestured at the teleporter on the ground, giving the other a pointed look. Eventually the younger junker sighed and aimed the nozzle of the extinguisher at the smoking pile of metal, coating it in the flame-smothering substance. They’d never bothered to learn what it was.
After there was a small mountain of white foam quivering on the carpet, Rat was giggling once again. He turned to aim the nozzle and the bed but the older junker snarled at him, fixing him with his best glare. While it couldn’t have been as good as his usual ones, given the fact that he was missing his mask, Junkrat turned back to the desk after a second. He’d tried to stick his tongue out that the man lying on the bed, but had only succeeded in licking the inside of the mask, running his tongue over stitches and leather. To hide his embarrassment, he turned the fire extinguisher back on the desk and gave the other teleporter a healthy coating in the white foam too. Since one of them was already broken, there was no point in keeping the other around. Behind him, Hog sighed and rubbed a hand over his face, imagining the cleanup they’d have to do tomorrow.
With his eyes shut, the only warning he got of the brat’s plan was the clink of the fire extinguisher as it was tossed into a far corner, away from the bed, and the soft, stifled laugh he used when doing something wrong.
Mako’s eyes flew open in time to see his partner charge for the bed, all 550 lbs of him running as fast as he could in the tiny space. All he could do was try and roll out of the way to avoid being crushed as the impact sent pillows and blankets flying through the air. Hog himself joined them, his skinny body launched from the mattresses by the sheer force of Rat’s jump. There wasn’t enough time to brace for the impact of the floor- the best he could hope for was a bruise and not something that would require another trip to Mercy that night.
Rat’s huge hand swooped out of thin air and grabbed onto his ankle before he could get far. The low, rumbling laugh rang through the room again as Mako rapidly changed directions, head snapping back as he was tugged out of his flight path and against a huge, soft stomach. His entire body vibrated from being directly on Junkrat’s body, as he giggled and laughed at the sight of his bodyguard rocketing through the air.
“Mate, ya think you could step on one of me mines? Might have to be two, actually. Then pigs could fly!”
As he talked, the hand he’d used to snatch him out of air pressed against his back, forcing Hog down against his chest to ensure that the other wasn’t going anywhere. Roadhog bared his teeth at his partner, furious, and tried to wiggle out of the grip, but Junkrat was too strong and he didn’t have all of his limbs on at the moment.
“Fucking cunt,” The older junker seethed, and was treated to the sight of a mischievous smile as Rat grinned down at him, seemingly pleased with himself. Without showing any intention of releasing Roadhog, he settled back against the pillows and covers, shoving them back into place with his free hand.
“Let go.”
Nah. I like holdin’ ya.”
Mako thumped a fist against his chest, but Jamie only held him tighter, the dim light of the room casting shadows over stubble-covered cheeks.
Eventually all he could do was grumble and relax against the tattooed belly underneath him. Rat was too strong, and he was a little too tired to keep struggling.
“…Do ya feel okay?”
The question was unexpected and Roadhog blinked in surprise.
“Eh. Stomach’s shit.”
Nervous laughter. “Yeah. Always is. Sorry.”
“S’fine. Been worse.”
Absently, he wondered if Jamie was planning to clutch onto him like this all night. His moods changed so fast- one moment confident in his abilities, the next frustrated when things didn’t go his way, the next playful enough to jump onto the bed and send his bodyguard flying. It was hard to tell what mood he was in now, with the light dim and Hog’s eyes still burning from lack of sleep. It was too late for him to try and make guesses about what his partner was feeling.
“You think I should, uh-“
“Go to sleep, Jamie.”
He felt Rat huff, the exhalation of air jostling him for a moment. The hand on Hog’s back drifted up to rub at the strands of blonde hair on his head, stopping to feel the crisped strands and toasted ends as if they were completely new. Mako himself preferred to touch as little of his own face as possible- he knew exactly where the scars were, where the lines for his Tā Moko had been cut. Didn’t need a reminder.
“They’ll figure this out right?”
The whisper was barely heard over the roaring in his ears but Hog turned his head up to watch Rat. The mood had changed again, dipping into fear.
“Sure.” At a loss as to what Jamie wanted from him, he grunted out the one word answer and then waited. Comforting words weren’t his strong suit and Rat knew that.
“Good. Don’t want you to… I mean, uh. Don’t want ya to have ta be stuck with me aches and pains for too long. Got enough of yer own.”
“M’fine.”
“Sure, I know.”
It didn’t sound like he did. Heaving a sigh, Hog shoved himself up onto one elbow, letting the bony point dig into the other’s side just a little. Revenge for all the times he’d received a blow to the gut from the blonde’s sharp elbows.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothin’, nothin’, just feelin’ bad about it, yaknow? Just cause I’m irradiated to hell, ya gotta deal with it. The damn doc thinks I’m gonna drop any day now, and yer stuck in my body, so…”
He snorted and let his body flop back against the other’s stomach, realizing what had him so worried. Honestly, Hog should have known he’d been eavesdropping on the conversation with Mercy. Instantly the hand returned, petting through his hair, and Hog had to admit that it felt nice.
“Not gonna drop dead tomorrow, Rat. Not gonna die your death for you.”
“Course! ‘Course, yeah, I know that!”
Junkrat lapsed into silence once again and Roadhog had to roll his eyes, face hidden from the other’s view. After a minute, he heard a sharp intake of breath before another pause-
“Don’t pay ya enough for that, right?”
“Go to sleep.” Mako repeated. At least one of them should get some rest that night.