Chapter Text
You arrive at the training grounds with scant minutes to spare, proof your concerns had been valid. It’s just enough time to swap your flats for boots before Jack Morrison arrives. Your training group isn’t particularly large, 8 in total due to the focus at Overwatch on smaller groups with more frequent training. A few of your other group-mates give brief gestures of greeting from where they're warming up, and you nod in reply. Moments later, you all stand at attention as Morrison walks in.
“Alright everyone, line up.” He orders, and you obey, falling into line next to Junkrat. Without any preamble Jack begins to explain what you’d be doing that evening, and out of the corner of your eye you begin to notice that Junkrat is acting more fidgety than normal. The man isn’t known for having a wealth of patience, but shifting his weight and fiddling with the moving parts on his frag launcher this soon is out of character.
You decide to keep an eye on him while listening to the brief, and your caution is soon justified, because you notice when Junkrat’s fingers slip to the trigger and pull a touch harder than intended. The launcher fires almost directly upwards with its signature thunk, and as all eyes turn towards the noise, you’re ready and reach out without thinking.
You’d been practicing a similar maneuver in your free time for a while, so it’s with deft fingers that you gently snag the grenade out of the air after its first bounce. With a twist the two halves separate, and without missing a beat, you disarm the mechanism inside with your pinky. You only look up once you’ve snapped the halves back together, and find the entire group staring at you with a mixed bag of emotions. Junkrat, never one to be subtle, has his jaw hanging open, which he closes with a snap. You start to smile at him sheepishly, only to find a heat in his eyes that certainly isn’t mirrored by any of your teammates. Your face begins to heat from both the look and the attention from everyone else, so you’re a little relieved when Jack barks your name, pulling your attention to him.
“Excellent display of thinking on your feet.” He says in a tone of voice that implies he’s mostly grateful he didn’t have to deal with Junkrat himself.
“Thank you, sir.” You reply. He claps a hand on your shoulder and you suddenly feel kind of like you just made your dad proud. The rollercoaster of emotions is a little dizzying. He squeezes once before letting his hand drop as he turns his attention to Junkrat.
“She just saved your ass from having your weapon privileges revoked for 48 hours, so keep that in mind the next time you decide to completely disregard proper gun safety and trigger discipline.”
The threat seems effective, Junkrat looking like he’d had the fear of God (or at least the wrath of Jack Morrison) scared into him. You take the opportunity while Jack turns away to shove the disarmed grenade back into Junkrat’s hands. He takes it automatically and stares at it like you’d handed him a live gerbil, before stuffing it into one of the pockets of his shorts.
Unfortunately, as much as Jack is pleased with you, he’s equally displeased with Junkrat, and he knows full well just how much the two of you enjoy working together as a duo. You aren’t surprised then, when he subsequently pairs both of you off onto separate sides. Instead, you let out a resigned sigh and begin to load your bow. It was looking like you weren’t going to have an opportunity to show off the tactic your grenade catching stunt had hinted at after all. It isn’t the biggest deal, but you’ve been looking forward to showing it to Junkrat for weeks now, and while a few more days won’t kill you, it’s hard to be patient.
Filling your ammo holster with extra clips of training ammo, you make sure your arm quiver is stocked with arrow shafts. Your abilities had been difficult to translate into a training friendly version, but you’d eventually settled for paint bombs, similar to the ones Junkrat grudgingly uses, to replace your standard sticky ones. Participants wore transmitters that tracked the hits and healing they received, and ammunition was replaced with rubber versions that stung enough to keep you on your toes without causing true harm. Explosives were replaced with paint bombs filled with conductive paint that allowed splash damage to register on others nearby.
Jack begins the countdown, and you engage your wrist quiver. With a finger, you dispense an arrow shaft into your waiting palm with a faint mechanical noise, and nock it to your bow. Upon contact, the shaft fuses with the bomb waiting on the far side of the grip, creating a full arrow ready to be fired. The entire process takes no more than a second, so you’re more than ready by the time the signal goes off to begin the match.
The first match is a warm-up, a scrimmage with the only goal to be the last team standing, and with that in mind, you quickly take off from your team's starting area with higher ground in mind. You reach a wall and without stopping, transition from running to scaling the vertical surface. Your boots had been necessary for a reason, the soles were coated with high-friction material to allow for a foothold on nearly any surface.
Grabbing the edge, you vault yourself up and begin to look for a target, keeping low to go unnoticed for as long as possible. Already, you can hear the sounds of explosions and gunfire going off on the far side of the arena, and know you need to get in position to support your team. Normally, there’s a vantage point you favour for its ideal positioning, but you know Junkrat would almost certainly be keeping an eye on it. Sure enough, as you get close, you hear the thunk thunk thunk of his frag launcher, and come to a halt just in time for his grenades to bounce harmlessly through the space your trajectory would have put you in.
Turning, you lob a few arrows in the direction the grenades had come from, and a couple more at your teammates who might be in need of some healing, before booking it around the corner and into one of the covered areas. You plan to double back around and come at the fray from a different angle, but while you're watching the doorway you’d come in from, you don’t notice someone stepping through the opposite doorway until you back up directly into them. You startle and whip around, and an arm steadies you before you can unbalance yourself.
“It’s a good thing I don’t have the heart to shoot ya there, doll, cause you woulda been a sitting duck if I did.” Junkrat giggles as he lets you go, his cocky grin dashed by a look of betrayal as you shoot him square in the middle of the chest point blank with two arrows, back to back, a wicked grin on your face.
“Well it’s too bad I do have the heart.” You gloat, and sprint past him as his transmitter flashes and vibrates to tell him he’s ‘died’.
~~
By the time Morrison gives the command to start wrapping things up, your team has won the scrimmage, 2 of the 3 exercises, and your arms have given up the ghost. Training required an extended period of consistent firing that even real world scenarios didn't call for often, and you’d definitely overdone it. That, paired with your lack of sleep the night before had you feeling ready to drop. You line up with your teammates one last time so Jack can dismiss you, and once he gives the all clear, you begin to shuffle pitifully back to your things.
A sweaty, paint splattered arm wraps itself around your shoulder as Junkrat leans some of his weight on you, looking more tired than you feel.
“Late dinner sound as good to you as it does to me?” You ask, and he groans in response. You assume it’s an affirmative groan, and fold up your bow so you can shove it into your bag.
“I’m pretty sure my arms will snap off if I have to raise them above shoulder height. I’ll have to shower when I get home so I can curl up on the floor of the shower.” You grumble, and Junkrat replies with a whine and leaning even more of his weight on you. Your overtaxed muscles can’t take it, and you collapse to the ground with an indignant grunt, Junkrat sprawled atop you.
Distantly, you know you should be embarrassed at the sudden close contact, but you’re too exhausted to muster anything more than mild annoyance.
“Get off, you’re heavy.” You moan, shoving at his shoulder but he's unresponsive beyond a low pained noise. Shifting, you move to jostle his head instead, aiming to annoy him into getting up. Your hand drops onto a patch of hair that's begun to grow back after being burned off weeks earlier, and it prickles against your palm as you push half-heartedly. You expect more complaints, but your chest warms when Junkrat only sighs and leans into your hand like a cat. You can't help but smile with the surge of affection you get from the action.
Maybe dinner can wait a little longer, you decide. Tilting your head to look out the windows, you watch the last dim lights of sunset fade as you comb your fingers through his hair. A pang of melancholy surfaces unbidden at how much you wish you could just have this without needing an excuse. The emotion lingers a moment before you shove it away, refusing to let your want for more ruin what you currently had.
You knew the moment would end eventually, but until then you were determined to appreciate it as long as you could. The rest of the world could be dealt with later, for now you had the quiet to enjoy.