Breaking Points [Junkrat]

Useless. That's what they'd called them. Useless.

Those words had stung in his brain since getting back to the base, more than the burning in his gut where El Craneo stabbed him deep, because it was true, he was useless. He'd been useless since the moment he'd gotten here, since the first pseudo mission Hush had sent him on, he'd done nothing of any note except cause trouble. He was beginning to realize that he was turning into a bad omen, dooming his teammates to tragedy no matter what he did.

Being in bed unable to move much didn't help, but worst of all was the guilt that was gnawing at his gut every time he thought about Ansell, he'd been on that mission because of him, he couldn't walk now because of him. Lucio had lost his hearing because he'd gotten reckless and stupid, he couldn't even manage the mission in Ilios because his useless, scrapped together junk of a leg had handicapped him.

He was low, lower than he'd ever been, and it showed in the morose way he stared at the ceiling. He was on the razor's edge of a complete mental breakdown, and it was getting harder and harder to hide from everyone. He didn't belong here. He was never going to be anyone's hero.

He glanced up when Ana approached him, giving her a forced grin, "oi, hey there mum...Wot brings yew'ere?" She looked serious and he nodded to the chair beside his bed, "wot's up?"

She stood at the foot of his bed for a long moment, before she moved to take the indicated seat. She returned the forced grin with a slight, also forced smile of her own.

"I came to check up on you." She answered. "I wanted to see how you were doing." Not just with the injury but with everything. With all of this.

She felt badly, she hadn't been the one to bring him here, but she still felt a level of responsible for all of this. When she'd first met him he'd been so excited about the concept of Overwatch, and had been so excited to have been offered a piece of it, and now a few weeks later he'd been shot at, stabbed, nearly killed in a variety of terrible ways...she wondered if he regretted his choice to be here yet...and she couldn't have said she blamed him if he did.

That smile was fake.

He knew Ana's smile, he'd seen her smile before, that wasn't her smile, more of a ghost than anything. She was hurting, but trying to hold it together. It was jarring to realize how alike they were in that respect. He sighed when she asked him how he was doing. What should he say? The truth? He tried to give her a smile, "I'm fine...I'm..." He sighed softly and looked down, "I'm not fine...I 'aven't been fine since LA..." He looked to the side with a genuinely frightened expression, as if afraid of what saying this might bring.

"I've been...I've been barely holding meself t'gether since it happened." He reached a hand to rub the side of his head, "I've been afraid t'let anyone see just how badly I've been cracking...So I suppose I haven't been at top form on these missions." He looked down and felt tears welling up, "it's my fault Ansell got hurt...I asked him t'come...An' now he can't walk." He was trembling slightly, "I ain't no hero. I ain't never gonna be anyone's hero...I'm jus'...Fff-fuckin' trouble." He wrapped his arms around himself and sighed, "Jack never shoulda' brought me here...I'm jus' bad luck...Too fucked and insane t'ever function anywhere." His voice became progressively shakier, as did his body as he spoke, he'd been holding this in for a long time.

She didn't think any of them had been alright since Los Angeles. It had certainly done what Talon intended, it had sent a message, it had caused some intense knee-jerk reactions to the situation, it had led them into making choices they might not have otherwise made.

"This is not your fault." She was quick to tell him, not unkindly, but lacking the same warm and sympathetic quality she usually showed around him. "What happened on those missions is not on you. If anything...it's on us. We brought together a bunch of who are not soldiers, who are not trained agents, who had zero experience in these types of situations...and threw you headlong into a mess that would challenge even the veterans among us." And it had, she thought, trying not to think about Jack and his current condition.

"It was not right nor fair and you can't blame yourself for what happened in a situation we did not equip you to properly deal with." There was a bit of anger in her voice as well, but not at him, anger and guilt directed more inwardly for not having said or done things sooner, for not having insisted on different courses of action that could have prevented all of this. She had been second in command, the weight of much of this was firmly on her own shoulders.

He looked up at her with a lost expression, "yew don't understand...I haven't slept more'n an hour at a time since it happened...I close my eyes or I get in th'quiet an' all I can hear is sirens an' screaming an' gurglin'...That sound someone makes when their throat's cut so deep they're breathin' through th'hole in their neck." He put his hands over his ears and groaned miserably, "an' I wake up expecting everyone t'be fuckin' dead, or dying...An' then I wonder if maybe I'm dyin' and it's jus' takin' a really long time...I'm scared to be in me own head..."

He looked over at her when she spoke, going quiet now, he hated this hard tone she had, he understood why she felt she had to show it, but they'd gotten close, and he missed her warmth. It felt useless to voice these things to someone who spoke like that, he sighed, "Ana close th'door." He'd been thankful that he was given his own room, and he waited for her to do so before speaking again, "stop talkin' t'me like that. Like it's jus' duty...No one can here us now." He looked up into her eyes with a pleading expression, "please talk to me..." He needed to know his Ana was still in there, he needed to get her to talk to him.

She looked at him with concern and sympathy as he explained what was in his own head. She understood that, all too well. Even now, decades later, there were still nights she woke up in a cold sweat, adrenaline racing through her as she expected to come to amid the machine gun fire and screams of the dying and air that smelled acrid smoke and blood and burned flesh, the nights she was too shaken to go back to sleep and would pace with the lights on so nothing could surprise her out of the darkness and the TV on something mindless so she didn't have to listen to the sounds in her own head.

War was hell. It always had been, always would be. And just because it was finished and everyone went home...that didn't mean it really ended for many people.

She looked back to him as he spoke again, she got up and closed the door as requested and came back to stand at the foot of the bed, not sitting down again. She folded her arms over her chest and let out a long breath, looking away from him and up to the side.

"I...don't know what you want me to say, Jamison." She finally spoke, the hard edge wasn't gone but now there was a tiredness to it. She couldn't just let it all slip away, being Captain Amari was the only thing holding it all together for her right now.

He'd relaxed against the bed after a bit, just looking thoughtful for a moment, he knew he couldn't expect her to let go of the control she'd worked hard to get, but forcing her feelings away to be the hardened commander wasn't going to last long either, "I get it...More'n yew prob'ly think I do." He sighed and stared at the ceiling, "yew have t'hold it all t'gether...Pretend yew don't feel anythin'...So that everyone else can hold it t'gether." He was talking about Lucio, the amount of times he'd had to pull him from the pits of fear and panic, all while ignoring his own fear and panic, "I've gotten damn good at talkin' people down from their dark places..." He looked almost afraid, "but I can't seem to escape from my own dark place."

He glanced over at her and sighed, "I can't make yew do anythin'...But pretendin yew ain't breakin' ain't gonna do nothin' but hurt yew in the end." He glanced away after a minute, "I ain't never looked down on no one fer showin' a moment of weakness. Lord knows I'm th'most weak minded fool in this operation..." He gave a matter of fact shrug and sighed, "yew can't go forever like this, pretendin', better t'get rid of that shit now than to wait until it explodes and yew do somethin' stupid." Or that was how he looked at it.

"Don't do that." She looked at him sharply as he started talking about being weak minded. "Don't do that to yourself. You've held it together quite well for everything you've been through, whether you want to believe it or not."

"With Jack in his...current condition...I've stepped up and taken command of this operation for the time being. I've grounded everything for the time being until people have had the chance to recover, and we can better plan what it is we're actually doing here...I don't...I don't have time or the luxury of coming apart right now, Jamison. If I do..." She spread her hands, a gesture that all would be lost.

"This isn't the first time I've had to step up and do something like this. It might not be the last. I appreciate your concern but...I will be fine. I'm more concerned about everyone else right now, you've all been through much more than I have lately."

He couldn't help but give a bitter little laugh at that, shaking his head, "shows wot yew know...held t'gether with the shittiest glue the got on th'market." He looked to the side and chewed his lip, "I ain't holdin' it t'gether...It's jus' no one's seen me breaking." He looked to the side with a hard expression on his face, "because I'm good at hidin' it. Like a wounded animal. Because it feels like th'moment someone sees me break? I'll be gone, because I ain't cut out fer this."

"an' this," he gestured between them, indicating their conversation, "jus' solidifies that. So I'll jus' keep pretendin'...Like everyone else around here seems t'be doin'. Until it fuckin' kills me." He looked at her for a long while, considering her words before sighing, "yer right...Yer doin' wot yew gotta do...I jus'...I miss when yew spoke t'me like I was your friend..." He felt tears well up and bit his lip, trying to force them away, "Lucio's th'only one who ever speaks to me with any warmth or care anymore...That's why I'm fightin' so hard t'protect him, because he's all I got left." He looked down at his hands and sighed, "an' I can't let him lose his warmth. Because I need it as much as he needs it. As much as we all need it." He shook his head, "but he's hurtin' too, I can't even imagine how he's been since I got back..." He hadn't seen the man come visit him much, he was worried.

The comment how he missed her as a friend cut deep, deeper than she could have expected, her expression flickered and gave her away for a moment.

"We are still friends. This doesn't change any of that." She finally came and sat on the edge of the bed next to him. "And...I know this probably doesn't help...but we all feel that way sometimes. That we're breaking and just...no one sees it. No one *can* see it. Don't believe me if you don't want to...but you're doing as well as most of us right now." Her voice finally softened a little.

"You've been through a *lot* in a very short amount of time. If it wasn't wearing on you I'd be more worried." She frowned at him. "But if you really feel like...this isn't for you. That you're not sure this is where you want to be..." She didn't finish the thought, it was a fine line right there. She didn't want to push him over the edge into feeling like he wasn't wanted here and was expected to leave, but nor did she want him to feel trapped here, that some sense of obligation held him here if he'd really rather just wash his hands of the whole mess.

Junkrat gave a weak smile at that, relieved more than he could actually put into words just to hear her say that, he sighed softly and nodded, "it helps jus'...I've felt so detached lately...Like I ain't here...Like I'm stuck in the dark while th'rest of me is on autopilot..." He put a hand to the side of his head and looked down, "there's no feeling left in me.Feels numb. Th'only time I feel at all anymore is when I'm with...Well...Yew know..." He blushed at the thought, then looked down, "workin' an' buildin' an' talkin' t'people used t'help me get out of my head, but now I'm trapped even then, just flailing in th'dark wishing someone would pull me out." He wrapped his arms around himself, "but how could they if they don't know I'm drownin'..."

His eyes widened at her next words and he sat up suddenly, grabbing his side with a hiss, "Fffuck...N-no!" He looked at her with a serious expression, getting a fiery look in his eyes, "I'm broken but I'm here till th'end. Whether that's the end of me or the end of Talon, I don't care, I'm here." Or he hoped he was here, he was beginning to feel like maybe everyone else would be better off without him, but he wouldn't tell her that.