#only junkrat would brag about being/having been a wanted criminal

[lesbrarians]

Junkrat/Roadhog: Voyages Ch 4

I v much doubt anyone was holding their breath for a chapter on Friday, but if you were, I’m sorry it took so long to get it up! This cold is kicking my ass. Also hi we’re about to enter a new arc.

Title: Voyages

Characters: Junkrat, Roadhog

Rating: R

Summary:  After a rocky start and some ups and downs, Junkrat and Roadhog are officially partners, even if things haven’t progressed quite as far as Junkrat would like. With his treasure at the heart of their grandiose plans, they take their adventures overseas and leave their mark on the world, for better or worse. (Mostly for worse. They’re criminals.) Sequel to “Origins.”

---

Junkrat was able to shelve his emotions for the time being. He was still shaken up about Roadhog’s rejection, but as long as he didn't think about it for too long, he managed.

A good old-fashioned stick-up always helped take his mind off things too. All it took was a grenade launcher in his hand, aimed at a cowering omnic shopkeeper, to feel like his old self again.

"C’mon, c’mon, c’mon, money in the bag!" he said, jerking his head at the wide-open duffel bag that Roadhog was holding. "Just empty the till, and I won't blow you and yer worthless shop to smithereens. Cross me heart." He drew a sardonic X over the right side of his chest, then crossed his fingers behind his back. "Now hurry it up before I get angry. And trust me, ya don't want to see me angry. Roight, Roadhog?"

Roadhog grunted.

"See? Me mate here knows what I'm talkin' about. Now just do it already, ya tin cunt, we don't got all day!"

The shopkeeper positively whimpered -- Junkrat didn't even know omnics could whimper, but he hated them for it. It made them sound more human, which was the furthest thing from the truth. The omnic acquiesced, Junkrat watching with beady eyes to make sure that every last yen was transferred from the cash register to their bag. "Excellent!" he said brightly, grin stretching from ear to ear. "See, that wasn't so hard, now was it? Oh, and give some of them jewels to my associate here." The omnic hastily gathered up several ruby-laden necklaces and pushed them towards Kiki, who was balanced on the counter. She scooped up the jewelry and funneled it into the panel in her stomach for safekeeping. "That's more like it. I think we're done here then, dontcha? Roadhog?" He looked at his partner in crime for confirmation.

Roadhog zipped the bag up and slung it over his shoulder. He nodded at Junkrat, who pulled out his detonator, and headed for the door. Junkrat lingered by the counter long enough to drop some parting words. "I'd like to say I'd be seein' ya later, but we both know that's not gonna happen."

The omnic's head jerked up to look at the detonator. Junkrat waggled it at him, just to make sure he got the full gist of the situation. "What--" the omnic said, voice clouded with panic. "You said you wouldn't hurt me, as long as I gave the money to you!"

There was one good thing about omnics, Junkrat thought, as much as he hated to admit it, and that was their ability to process and speak in any given language. It was tiring, trying to rob Japanese shops with owners who knew very little English.

Junkrat held up his crossed fingers. “Crossies don’t count!” He laughed maniacally. “And really, hate to break it to ya, mate, but if yer trustin' anything I say, then y'deserve to get blown up. Never trust a Junker!" Junkrat picked Kiki up under one arm and fled the scene of the crime with a screech of laughter. The minute he was out of harm’s way, he pressed the button of his detonator. The shop exploded with a loud kaboom. He gave a sweeping bow in the general direction of the ensuing plume of smoke. “Rest in pieces!”

Junkrat was panting by the time they safely made it back to their hideout, winded from the running. He wasn’t lacking when it came to stamina, but running through half of Tokyo would exhaust even the toughest of athletes. He could only hobble so far before the exertion caught up to him. He collapsed with a breathless little giggle, dumping Kiki on the ground beside him.

“Oh, that was good,” he said after he sucked down a few lungfuls of precious air. “That was real good. Whatcha got in the way of spoils, Kiki?”

The robot extended her thin metal arms and opened the panel in the front of her stomach. She withdrew several necklaces from her electronic innards and deposited them on the ground before him.

“Not bad,” Junkrat said, inspecting one of the items, a swanky little akoya pearl necklace. “All and all, I’d call that a success, eh, Roadhog?”

Roadhog grunted in the affirmative. He was too busy counting bills to waste his breath on giving a verbal response.

Junkrat smacked his lips. He was parched from all that running. “Get me one o’ those soft drinks over there, Kiki,” he said, glancing over at the pile of untouched cans.

Kiki did not respond. Junkrat frowned. Maybe she didn’t hear the directive. “I said, go get me a drink, bot,” he repeated. Roadhog looked up from his counting.

The screen on Kiki’s face flashed blank for a split second before the usual, stylised kitty face was replaced by the letters N-O.

Junkrat’s scowl deepened. “Whaddya mean, no?” A bad feeling stirred somewhere deep in his gut. Kiki had never disobeyed an order before -- she couldn’t, right? She was just a standard helper robot. Wasn’t she?

He reached for his grenade launcher. "You can't tell me 'no.' What, ya suddenly defective?"

"Junkrat," Roadhog began. Junkrat's eyes darted over to his partner. His gun was already drawn.

Kiki's screen flashed again, the same two letters blinking defiantly at him: N-O.

"Yer not defective," Junkrat said, trying to process this new piece of information by voicing it aloud. She was a device. All devices had a purpose; they were tools built to carry out a job. A mechanical robot was no different -- unless it had artificial intelligence. Free will. A “soul.” "So what, yer a fuckin' omnic?"

There was a long silence. Both Junkrat and Roadhog stared at the robot. They both knew the answer, but a sick sense of curiosity motivated them to hear her response. Finally, the screen changed: Y-E-S.

Junkrat made a noise of revulsion and lunged at Kiki, gun forgotten. He pinned the tiny robot to the ground, his boot covering the fading sticker he had stuck to her belly. "You lied to me. Ya piece of junk-- Roadhog, it lied to us!" The switch in pronouns, from 'she' to 'it', was entirely unconscious.

"You can't trust an omnic," Roadhog said, the disgust evident in his voice. Neither one of them recognised the hypocrisy of decrying omnics as untrustworthy after Junkrat had just bragged about how Junkers weren't to be trusted. "What now?" Roadhog’s fingers flexed, and Junkrat had the distinct impression that he wanted nothing more than to crush the robot between his massive hands.

But Junkrat was selfish. He was horribly selfish, and even though there was a part of him that would have gotten off by watching Roadhog crumple metal as easily as a tissue, a much larger part of him wanted things done his way. "Whaddya think?" he said. He held out his hand. "We blow it up, of course. Shoulda done that in the first place. Get me one of them mines and some tape." Roadhog obeyed, fetching the supplies for him. If Junkrat hadn't been so caught up in his loathing of Kiki at the moment, his ego would have inflated tremendously. He always did love it when Roadhog treated him like the boss -- which, of course, he was.

Junkrat used half the roll of adhesive to secure Kiki to his live concussion mine, the omnic beeping frantically the entire time. He stepped away from the excessively taped bundle and surveyed his handiwork. The only thing visible was the tips of Kiki's cat ears and the lights of her virtual eyes. "It's cute," he said, disdain dripping from the word. "Omnics ain't supposed to be cute! Who the hell designed this thing, anyway?"

"Some Kiki Cola businessperson," Roadhog answered.

"Well, yeah, but-- grrgh!" Junkrat growled in frustration. "Damn this country!" He kicked the mine, sending it skidding across the floor of the half-finished building. "I think it's time we move on, dontcha? Find somewhere else, this place ain't gonna work."

Roadhog grunted in agreement. "I'll get the stuff." Junkrat sat down, arms folded across his concave chest, and glared at Kiki. He had never felt so betrayed in his life. He had trusted the robot, he'd thought it was a handy, fun little servant. That's what he got for thinking that he could believe anything a robot said. Omnics were deceptive, sneaky little bastards, and he hated that he had allowed himself to be tricked.

"What a fool," he muttered out loud.

"Did you say something?" Roadhog said, looking up. He was packing their belongings, filling the duffel bag and the sidecar of the motorcycle. There was no way they could tote along all the pachimari they'd acquired, but he did add a second one to the back of their chopper.

"Nah, it's nothin'," Junkrat said. He stood up and strapped his RIP-tire to his back before climbing into the sidecar, perched on the mountain of their loot like a dragon laying claim to its hoard. Roadhog revved up the engine of the motorcycle, and they set off. As they exited the construction site by ramming through the chain link fence, Junkrat pressed the button of his detonator. He glanced over his shoulder just in time to see it explode. One of the structural supports of the place they'd called home gave way. It was like he was watching it in slow mo: the building caving in with a deafening rumble, clouds of dust billowing in the wake of the detonation.

"Good riddance!" he said, shouting to be heard over the roar of the motorcycle's engines and the thunder of the building collapsing. With Roadhog at the helm, they careened down the streets of Tokyo.

---

Junkrat insisted on stealing a boat. He was done stowing away and trying to keep quiet, which was hard enough for him without the added pressure of attempting not to get caught. After spending a day driving across Japan, they staked out the Shimonoseki ports in the hopes of picking out the best vessel for their purposes. Roadhog lobbied for a relatively unassuming fisherman's boat, but after staring at the signs advertising the high speed beetle ships that ferried cargo between Shimonoseki and Busan, South Korea, Junkrat was hellbent on hijacking one of the cargo ships ("It's only four hours!" he bargained. "That's no time, who knows how long that fish boat's gonna take? Besides, I wanna see what it’s like above deck on one of those ships after all that cargo hold mess.")

Like always, Roadhog ended up caving to Junkrat's whims. He did have a small victory, though: while Junkrat wanted to board the ship with all their usual grace and tact, plowing past security while yelling obscenities, Roadhog was able to convince him to dial it back. They stole a small fishing boat from a private dock, where they didn’t have to worry about radar tracking, security, or the Coast Guard immediately descending upon them.

Lurking under the cover of darkness, they waited until the ship loaded up its cargo and set sail before chasing after it. They both knew that their fishing boat was no match for the speed of a beetle-style cargo ship, so they had staked out a spot a good long distance away from shore, so they could intercept it in its path. Roadhog readied his hook and, in the split second that the ship passed them, fired it at the railing. It anchored the two boats together, and Junkrat couldn't stop himself from screaming as they were dragged along behind the cargo ship, their speed multiplied tenfold.

Roadhog shoved him violently, bringing him back to his senses, and he collected himself. "Okay, no, I'm fine, this is fine, we got this!" He shimmied up the taut length of chain that connected the two ships and scrambled on board. He hit the deck with a thud and, armed to the teeth, he set off to neutralise any officers he found.

He hadn't expected there to be many people on board, given that it was a simple, low volume cargo boat with no passengers to corral, but he hadn't expected it to be quite as deserted as he found the ship. "Where the heck is everybody?" he wondered aloud. He finally found the hub of the ship with the controls to steer it, as well as his answer: the ship was manned by two omnics, no doubt built for the express purpose of maritime navigation. He had to begrudgingly admit that it made sense for omnics to be ship captains and officers -- food was hard to manage when you were at sea, and the fewer mouths to feed, the better. Besides, it was a simple, direct shot from Japan to Busan: pick up the cargo, drop it off, no stops needed. Automating the process and putting it in the hands of robots was the way to go.

It didn't mean that Junkrat had to agree with it, though.

His instinct was to fire several grenades into the pilothouse, but Roadhog had given him strict orders to not do this, and he had repeated the instructions to himself several times in a row to cement them in his brain. If he destroyed the ship's controls when attempting to take out the omnic behind the wheel, they would be up shit creek without a paddle, so to speak.

No matter, he thought to himself and deployed a steel trap at the entrance to the navigation cabin. He set a mine down on the ground and counted down in his head with a mental "five... four... three... two...." At the count of one, he leapt on top of it and detonated it mid-air, sending himself flying onto the roof of the cabin. There was a commotion beneath him, and one of the omnics ran out the door. The jaws of his steel trap snapped around his foot, and Junkrat had to bite his hand to keep from giving a crow of victory: Gotcha!

The omnic screamed, and his mate was quick to follow, abandoning the helm of the ship long enough to try and prise him out of the jaws of the bear trap. "Come on... come on...." Junkrat mouthed. The omnic wasn't far enough out the door; letting loose a grenade would be both ineffective and unwise, as it would give away his position without causing any real damage. With a grunt, the head omnic dragged his comrade free of the jaws of death, shattering Junkrat’s hard work. He didn’t have long to be outraged, however, as his prey exited the cabin to pursue the enemy who had laid the trap. Junkrat took the opportunity to pounce, lobbing a well-aimed grenade at the captain (unusual for him; he normally took a more chaotic, spread out approach to shooting, but accuracy was of the essence here) and leaping on top of the injured omnic.

He didn't need to look to know that the captain’s head had been blown clean off his shoulders. Which was fortunate for him, as he needed to concentrate all his efforts on wrestling the other omnic into submission. Even with a busted foot, he was surprisingly strong for a bucket of tin.

Junkrat used all of his weight (not that he had much of it) to pin the omnic to the ship’s deck and fumbled to unscrew one his mechanical arm’s fingers. He snapped, the flint embedded in his thumb striking against the ridged steel of his middle finger, and glowing hot sparks shot out.  “Get scrapped,” he grunted. The hot screwdriver stabbed the omnic’s chest with enough force to eventually puncture it. Blue tendrils of electricity crackled.

With another vicious stab, he speared the omnic’s power core and watched the dying lights in the omnic’s eyes (in his mind’s eye, a question mark floated over his head; he’d never thought to think about how omnics saw the world around them, but given the eyelashes he’d seen on the feminine-presenting omnics in advertisements, it seemed like as good a theory as any).

Something stirred in his chest when the lights went dark entirely. He shivered. He never felt as energised as he did when he was snuffing out an omnic’s life -- if you could even call it that. The realization of how alive he felt at this moment, adrenaline pumping through his veins, was particularly hilarious given the dead omnic beneath him. He laughed and bounced to his feet, a spring in his step.

Junkrat laced his fingers together and stretched his arms out to crack his knuckles. He examined the controls inside the navigation cabin. They were still hurtling through the water at breakneck speed, and his first order of business was stopping the ship and letting Roadhog and their belongings on board. Then they could figure out how the hell they were going to get to South Korea from here.

He stopped the ship far too abruptly, causing him to lurch forward and bang his head. “That’s gonna leave a lump,” he said ruefully, rubbing the sore spot. The damage was only cosmetic; he was reasonably sure his brain had become impervious to assault over the years.

With enough trial and error -- and oh, wasn’t that the story of his life, constant trial and error? -- he figured out how to lower the cargo ship’s gangway. As with most modern beetle ferries, it was built into the ship itself so that there was no need for dock workers to bring out a foldable gangway every time the swift-sailing ship docked. After peeking over the railing and spotting Roadhog’s thumbs up that confirmed that he was in position, Junkrat lowered the gangway onto the deck of their stolen ship.

He abandoned the controls and scampered down the deck to meet Roadhog, who was loading their motorcycle (somewhere along the way, it had become theirs and not his) on board. They engaged in a spirited debate about what to do with the fishing boat. Or rather, Junkrat argued passionately that they should sink it, while Roadhog continued to calmly repeat that an explosion of that magnitude could draw unwanted attention, whether or not they were in the middle of an ocean. Junkrat finally gave up, with the caveat that he be allowed to conduct a grand and entirely unnecessary explosion once they were in South Korea.

They abandoned the fishing boat, leaving it stranded in the middle of the sea. They were on their way back to the pilothouse when a thought occurred to Junkrat, and he visibly perked up.

“Wait, hold on just a tick,” he said, stopping in his tracks and flinging his arm out to halt Roadhog. “This is a cargo ship, ain't it? What say we see if there are any treasures to be found?”

Roadhog grunted in agreement, and Junkrat prowled around until he found a large, two panelled hatch cover embedded in the floor of the ship. “Now that looks mighty suspicious, don’t it?” He rubbed his hands together.

Junkrat used the nearby lever to winch open the hatch to the cargo hold. He craned his neck as the panels folded open, curious to see what lay beneath. Several heads swiveled in his direction.

He slammed the door shut.

“Roadhog,” he said, hysteria cutting through his attempt to regulate his voice and speak calmly. “We gotta bunch chrome domes here.” He thought about the rows upon rows of omnics sitting calmly in the dark of the cargo hold and shivered, goosebumps crawling up the flesh of his arms. “Creepy,” he said under his breath.

“Omnics?” Roadhog asked.

“I think so.” He hadn’t gotten a good enough look at them; for all he knew, they were standard, run-of-the-mill robots. Still, what was the difference? They were all cargo -- at least, he personally thought so, and whoever was sending omnics overseas appeared to agree. Or perhaps it was voluntary -- omnics weren’t human enough to get claustrophobic, and traveling as cargo had to be loads cheaper than being passengers on a conventional ferry.

Either way, Junkrat didn’t care. He just cared about making sure that the omnics didn’t get out of the cargo hold. He didn’t need a bunch of robots investigating why a dirt-smeared Junker, who was very obviously not a crew member, was on board their ship.

“Get that bike over here, ‘Hog,” he said. They parked the chopper on the hatch, effectively sealing the omnics in.

He should have felt better knowing that they were safe, but the knowledge that there were still bots beneath his feet made his skin crawl. He squirmed, trying to shake off the willies. “Wish we coulda just blown ‘em up.” He knew that this was wishful thinking -- sinking the ship while on board was probably not the wisest decision -- but still. A man could dream.

“I’m uncomfortable too,” Roadhog responded, addressing the crux of his statement.

“Really?” Junkrat said, tilting his head in curiosity. “Ya don't look like it.”

Roadhog simply looked at Junkrat. His mask was as expressionless as ever. Junkrat was, once again, struck by how challenging it was to read someone who never showed his face. Coupled with a reticent nature, Roadhog's lack of visible facial expressions made it difficult for Junkrat to pick up on the subtleties of his emotions. It didn't help that Junkrat was oblivious to begin with and lacked a great deal of social intelligence.

“I don't like them any more than you do,” Roadhog pointed out. He sat down on the ground, and Junkrat followed suit, any thoughts of getting the ship moving again vanishing. “I'm the one who blew up the omnium, remember?”

Junkrat remembered. He got so caught up in his own prejudices that he never even considered how Roadhog felt. If anything, he had even more reason than Junkrat had to hate omnics -- they were the ones who had displaced him and started the whole chain of events that led to the formation of the Australian Liberation Front.

“Nah, yeah, of course ya do! You got robbed, lost yer pigs and all that. They fucked up both our lives, but I reckon you got more to be pissed about than I do.”

Roadhog looked at him for a long moment, and when he spoke, his voice sounded odd. “They didn’t fuck up your life. I did.”

Junkrat startled. “Wait, what? The heck are ya talkin’ about? You didn’t fuck nothin’ up -- you make my life better!” he said earnestly, desperate to impress this upon Roadhog. “Seriously, I ain’t pullin’ yer leg. I wouldn’t even be here roight now if it weren’t for ya!”

A huff of air escaped the vents of Roadhog’s mask. “Yeah, I’m always saving your skin.”

Junkrat swatted at him. “I meant that I wouldn’t be sittin’ on a ship on me way to Korea, havin’ the time of me life. But yeah, pretty sure I wouldn’t be alive either.” Scratch that, he definitely wouldn’t be alive right now. He could think of half a dozen times where he would’ve died had Roadhog not been around. The time when his hand had been cut off was particularly vivid. “So really, haven’t got the faintest idea what yer talkin’ about.”

Roadhog went quiet again. "The omnium," he finally said. "You wouldn't be a Junker if I hadn't blown it up. None of us expected it to reach as far as it did. We created the apocalypse. I am the apocalypse." Roadhog looked down at his hands, as if he could see the blood on them. It wasn't like Roadhog to feel remorse, and Junkrat suspected that his regret wasn't due to the deaths he caused ("Life is pain, so is death," as he had once told Junkrat) but more to the fact that the environment of his homeland had become so uninhabitable. Any chance of taking back his land and rearing pigs once more vanished the second the A.L.F. wiped the omnium off the map. And the lingering radiation affected them all -- it got into Roadhog’s lungs, and Junkrat had been told that it was the reason for his madness, which he preferred to call "genius."

But Junkrat had more important things to address than Roadhog's regret.

"Hold on, ya think my life is fucked up 'cause I'm a Junker?" He couldn't help but feel offended. Growing up in Junkertown and being a Junker was such an integral part of who he was, and it felt like a personal slight. "No, no, no, mate, it's not any of that! Omnics are how I lost the oldies, that's what I was talkin' about.” He paused, just for a split second. That was not something he liked to think about. He didn't remember much about his parents, but he did remember what it felt like when they didn't come home one day. Not a pleasant memory.

He plowed on. “Not the whole bit about bein’ a Junker. What's so bad about that? Yer one too, ya big hypocrite!”

“Nothing's bad about it. But we wouldn't have needed to be Junkers if it weren't for the damage that I did.”

Junkrat didn’t understand why Roadhog had any regrets. Of course he didn’t regret any of the deaths, that made sense, but why feel bad about making the centre of Australia more inhospitable than it already was? They were survivors, they’d pulled through it just fine and had practically thrived in the nuclear wasteland. A little bit of radiation was nothing. They had their own community, and none of them cared if they lost some humanity on the way. They were human enough to each other.

Maybe it was that he didn’t remember anything about what it was like beforehand, so he couldn’t grasp missing that way of life. Maybe it was that he didn’t get just how bad the negative effects were. Either way, he had a hard time seeing what Roadhog’s point was.

“And what, y'think I wouldn'ta done the same thing? Blown up an omnium and turned the Outback into a wasteland? It was worth it! 'Sides, not like I had a bad time of it, growin' up in that kinda environment," he reasoned. "No different than if you hadn't done it.” He tilted his head as he reconsidered.”Well, maybe less scavengin', and no Junkertown to live in, but… y’know," he trailed off with a shrug.

Sure, he'd seen some fucked up shit in his life, but hadn't everyone? He didn't know that much about conventional society, besides the fact that it had a lot of stupid rules and "laws" that made him roll his eyes (he was still convinced that he shouldn't have been imprisoned for killing those cops -- it was a survivalistic defence!), but he didn't think it could be all that different from Junkertown: No one could possibly know with complete certainty what their next meal would be, and people died every day no matter where you lived. It was possible that his perception of life was dangerously skewed, but as far he was concerned, all of that was perfectly normal. He didn't let the negative things get to him, asides from the occasional recollection of the night he'd realised that he was alone and his parents weren't coming home. But that wasn't a common thought, and besides, he was happy. He was living the dream, traveling abroad without a care in the world, blowing things up and taking whatever his heart desired, all with a true blue, loyal partner at his side. What more could he ask for?

"The point is," Junkrat continued, "you didn't fuck anythin' up, least of all me. As a matter of fact, I'd say ya made the world a better place, takin' out all those bots in the process! They're the ones to blame here. All that wouldn't've happened if they hadn't tried to nick our land in the first place." This was what it all came down to in the end: the omnics and the need to eradicate them.

Roadhog hummed, which Junkrat took as tacit agreement. He patted Roadhog's stomach affectionately, as if to say don't even worry about it. His mind began to wander, and he envisioned the omnium explosion as he leaned against Roadhog's side. He'd tried to ask Roadhog for details about how it had gone down, but he'd never gotten a full answer. Roadhog clearly preferred to keep those details private, at least for now, so he stopped pressing the matter. He wondered how they had destroyed the core itself. He imagined cannons would have done the trick.

“Are there cannons on this thing?” Junkrat asked.

Roadhog looked down at him. “It’s a cargo boat, not a pirate ship.”

“Shame,” Junkrat mused, rubbing his chin. “I feel like we’re pirates.”

Roadhog laughed, which was music to Junkrat’s ears after the heaviness of their conversation. “Arrghhh, matey,” he said.

Junkrat was completely and utterly tickled pink. He burst into delighted peals of laughter, and Roadhog joined in. The deep rumble of his laugh contrasted so sharply with Junkrat’s own high-pitched giggles, and the juxtaposition just made him lose it even more.

It took a good long while until they settled down. Junkrat’s stomach ached from laughter and his face hurt from being stretched so wide for so long, but he was content. He rested his head on Roadhog’s stomach, his grin relaxing into a lazy smile.

“We should get moving,” Roadhog finally said. “We’re sitting ducks out here.”

Junkrat stuck his tongue out, annoyed by the very suggestion, but he had to admit the truth in it. The longer they remained idle, the greater the chances of someone finding them. It wouldn’t look good if they were dallying alongside the stolen boat they were abandoning, especially when they were supposed to be two omnics on a mission to deliver a boatful of fellow robots to South Korea.

As they entered the pilothouse, Junkrat pointed out all of his hard work to Roadhog -- the splintered steel trap, one omnic with a mangled foot and a punctured chest, the other headless -- who nodded approvingly. With the two of their heads put together, they figured out how to read the holographic navigation map and got the ship moving.

Junkrat kicked back in the captain’s chair, propped his feet on the dash, and let autopilot take over. “Piece of cake!” he said.

He was overconfident. The weather grew hostile and they sailed straight into a storm, which interfered greatly with the autopilot system, and they quickly learned why the omnic captain and his first mate were necessary to steer the ship. The trip to South Korea took longer than it would have had the omnics been around to pilot, as neither Junkrat nor Roadhog knew anything about navigating a ship through rocky waters. After the squall died down and they spent a number of hours trying to correct their course and speed through the several hundred miles to their destination, they pulled into view of Busan.

Even in the distance, the port of Busan was beautiful, lush with greenery, spires towering behind scores of shipping vessels and wooden jetties. The salty scent of seawater and fish filled the air.

With a mechanical ka-chunk, their dashboard locked up and the ship began guiding itself to the dock. Port pilots, who sailed out to meet the incoming ship, board it, and bring it into the harbour, had been replaced by automatic systems. The ship confirmed the number of passengers aboard it: a given number of omnics in the cargo hold and two crew members, the same amount that had left Shimonoseki. The heat source the captain and his first mate had emitted was replaced by that of Junkrat and Roadhog, the omnics’ mechanical bodies gone cold in death. With no additional passengers detected, the cargo ship began guiding itself to its assigned docking point.

It eased up alongside the pier, where several dock workers -- humans and omnics alike -- began the process of mooring it. Junkrat and Roadhog whispered furiously to each other, trying to figure out how they were getting off the ship.

They decided to just go for it. They ducked out of view as they lowered the gangway, the dead omnic propped awkwardly in the captain’s chair, and ran to the motorcycle as the ramp lowered onto the pier with a groan. A handful of dock workers were in the process of climbing on board, presumably to assist in unloading the omnics and whatever other cargo was in the hold, when the chopper came thundering down the ramp.

“Get outta our way, ya drongos!” Junkrat hollered. The workers dove aside, one or two of them leaping straight into the water, and they tore off, leaving nothing behind but a cloud of exhaust and the sound of tires squealing.

#roadrat #junkrat #roadhog #overwatch #origins #voyages #my fanfiction