Work Text:
Junkrat watched Satya as she bustled away from him. The look she cast him over her shoulder was tense, almost scared. Jamison. He had kept a remote air by using Symmetra, but she had called him Jamison. By her own rules, this was a sign of intimacy. Well, no, she said personal, not intimate. But it sure felt like intimacy when she spoke it. Every time the name rolled out of her perfect mouth in her elegant accent, it felt as if she was opening the door to the barrier around herself and letting him in. Emotionally, Satya kept herself sheathed within a crystal dome, and he was constantly struggling to find a way to get closer to her without cracking the crystal. Because Junkrat didn’t want to break anything about Satya.
Jamison. But she had said it with such harshness. Maybe this was a good sign. She felt comfortable enough with him to choose this intimacy (he was keeping the word) even when she was feeling uneased about something. That was sure a hell of a lot better than the lance that had clipped his heart when she called him Junkrat in his bunk. Even surrounded by his traps, he had still been vulnerable.
He had preferred Junkrat over the pretentious sounding Jamison since he had started taking care of himself and carving his own place in the world. He was Junkrat. But Satya had managed to take that name and transform it into a weapon.
Damn that woman! Everything had to be done her way, by her rules. But those rules were always fucking changing! She was stubborn and self important and stuck up and creative and intelligent and funny and the most beautiful creature he’d ever laid eyes on. “Aaaargh!” Junkrat slammed his face into both hands and vigorously rubbed it with frustration. His hands slid up to his scalp and he pulled at his hair, the slight physical pain providing an escape for the torment brimming inside his mind.
Junkrat remembered as a tot, he’d been playing outside his house trying to catch a butterfly. Enchanted by the shimmering wings, he was running full force, jumping through the air and whooping with determination. But no matter how fast he went, the bejeweled insect continued to evade him. His mother had explained that a creature so delicate and wonderful would always run away if you were too loud or pushed too hard. She anchored him in place with a steady hand on each shoulder and had him slowly reach out his palm. After a brief pause, which seemed like an eternity to the rambunctious young Jamison, the butterfly had landed on his hand. The scales of the creature’s wings shined like iridescent jewels. Its feet danced up and down upon his palm while it ticked his skin with its proboscis. It was pure magic.
His mother’s lesson in patience hadn’t made much of an impact on Junkrat. As soon as a thought crossed his mind, he blurted it out, often resulting in… less than favorable repercussions. When he got it in his head to do something, he got right to work at figuring out how to get it done. Tick, tock, tick, tock, jump right in! But the moment Junkrat laid eyes on Satya, he was reminded of that butterfly.
Satya was like no one he had ever seen. Sure, he’d seen fancy ladies before, but Satya’s ambition for perfection emanated from her physical being: the way she moved with perfect poise and posture, the diligently manicured nails tipping her lithe fingers, every hair in exact place. These traits made it all the more endearing when she allowed herself to become disheveled in even the slightest, loosening her grip on the strictness of order and dipping her toes into the possibilities of chaos.
A half smile crept across Junkrat’s face as his mind replayed the image of Satya’s face the first time she had seen him ride a concussion mine to a rooftop. The shock had made her momentarily lose her composure. Her eyes were wide and glistening, and her mouth was slightly ajar with surprise. Smoke and dust billowed around her head, dancing with locks of stray hair. A smudge of soot streaked along the bottom of her jaw, which he knew he would be chastised for later, but even at the time, it put a strangely pleasant knot in his stomach to see his own mark upon the butterfly.
As he got to know Satya better, Junkrat knew he was right: the way her laugh made him float, the cool touch of her fingertip when she playfully tapped the tip of his nose, her amazing abilities and the dedication she showed to her craft, and the innocent way she blushed whenever he caught her eyes on him. Yeah, he was right. She was pure magic.
That’s why Junkrat had frozen the night Satya has kissed him on the outcrop. He was afraid that if he moved, he’d scare her away. His knuckles went to his cheek again, replaying the cool, soft touch of Satya’s lips on his cheek and the breathy whisper that permeated through his body. The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end again.
Junkrat sighed deeply and turned to his workbench. Picking up a pair of wire clippers, he decided to prep his stockpile for the Germany trip. He really had to… blow something up! Junkrat threw down the wire clippers, grabbed his rucksack, and loped over to his blast boxes. He threw open a lid and started to toss in a few lovelies that would make a big bang. Then he paused. If Roadie heard a blast, he’d be able to read into it. That bloke was way more perceptive than he had any right to be, and Junkrat certainly didn’t want to bare any details right now. Junkrat bit his lip for a moment, eyes darting, while his mind raced for a solution. Obviously! After the mess in Lijiang, he’d been working on a quieter model for more discrete missions. He wasn’t particularly happy with the design yet, but what the hell; it seemed like a good time to blast them.
Carelessly dumping the contents on his sack back into the box (his creations didn’t blast until HE told them to), Junkrat loped over to the bench where he’d been working on the new models. He grabbed the charges, primers, some wire, and a detonator, and tossed them into the sack. Junkrat started toward the door, then paused and, as an afterthought, grabbed a can of spray paint off of a metal shelf. He gave it a few shakes and added it to the contents of the sack.
Exiting the workshop, Junkrat headed toward a little area he’d set aside on the outskirts of the base for just such a necessity. Bloody hell, that woman could drive him crazy. One minute she was casting him sly smiles, and the next it was disapproving glares. First she’d pressing against him, then run away from him. Was it his fault? He sure as hell wasn’t proper like her; maybe he was doing something to offend her. Or maybe it was his fault for even hoping a woman like that could give a second thought about a lout like himself. Junkrat turned his gaze downward and watched his peg leg plod down the hallway. His face contorted into a scowl. He wasn’t good enough to even speak to a lady like Satya. And yet, she kept giving him so much more.
Again, his mind went to the cool kiss Satya had decided to avoid. He needed to know what she meant by it. Should he brace himself for a purely platonic relationship, or was he allowed to hold onto hope for more. It was entirely against Junkrat’s every impulse to avoid tackling the issue head on, but he held restraint for Satya. The butterfly. She was worth it. But if she was set on rejecting him, then was the fuck was all of this torture for?
Junkrat pushed open the door to the compound and stepped into the afternoon sun. As he continued toward his destination with the sack over his shoulder, he shook his head at himself. “Who’d thought I’d ever get in such a tizz over some skirt.” Skirt. Without warning, his mind was flooded with the image of Satya leaning over the edge of the sidecar, her hem rising to bare the smooth secrets of her thighs. He could once again feel the pressure of her buttocks grinding against his groin in the sidecar. Junkrat began to breath deeper and heat spread across his core. He thought of the weight of Satya’s body pressing down on him on the rooftop in Lijiang and the chill her cool skin had sent though his body. Next came the memory of the shower they had shared in adjacent stalls. Beneath the divider, he had seen Satya’s blue tipped toes curl under her feet in response to her unintentional innuendo. Droplet of water had slid down her ankles, and his mind couldn’t help but imagine the higher parts of her body they had fallen from. Junkrat realized he had stop walking and was staring blankly into the horizon. He restarted his journey at a much faster pace. “I really have to blow something up.”
Concentrating on nothing but the pace at which he was moving, Junkrat quickly reached his destination: an unused storage shed near the base’s perimeter. Sensing his movement, a sentry torrent turned to him and lit up a pale blue. After scanning his biosignature, the glow dimmed and it returned to a neutral position. “You too, eh?” he chuckled to himself.
Within the shed, Junkrat found a large, empty crate. He dragged it out into the grass, pulling it far enough away to avoid damaging the structure. Reaching into the sack, he pulled out his gear and got to work setting the explosives. Junkrat didn’t need any fancy calculation to know the ideal placement of the charges. Experience, or maybe it was intuition, let him know exactly where to place each charge to result in an utter annihilation of the crate.
Once the charges were set, Junkrat snatched up the spray paint in his right hand. After vigorously shaking the can, he tagged a goofy caricature of himself on the crate. Stepping back to admire his work, he cackled, amused by his own antics. Then, the smile melted away from his face. Switching the paint can to his good hand, Junkrat painted a prominent heart over the chest of his image. His hands fell limply to his sides. Eyes fixated on the heart, he took a few slow steps backward. Without lifting his hand, Junkrat pressed the detonator.