#cyborg rat

Junkertown is already a barely habitable wasteland as in, but in this AU its even worse. I added a new hostile to the environment, a creature that Junkers fearfully call “spiders”. These “spiders” are actually deformed omnics that have gone mad from the radioactive blast and the omnic crisis. They’re called spiders because of their many limbs, and they spend most of their time crawling across the desert floor searching for other omnics. When they find said omnic, the spider proceeds to remove the omnics limbs and attach them to themselves, leaving these spiders as terrifying metal creatures with far too many appendages. Who knows why they do this. Maybe in an attempt to feel “fixed” or “whole”. (NOTE: “Spiders” aren’t my idea. It was a concept I came across in an old overwatch fanfiction I must have read like 4 years. I tried to look for it but I haven’t had any luck yet) Well, Junkrat and Roadhog had already met and been partners/friends for years at this point, living pretty much their regular canon Junker life when Jamison made the mistake of coming across a “spider” and he did NOT make it out unscathed. Safe to say, the encounter nearly killed him!

The only reason Junkrat is still alive today is because Roadhog had managed to find him in the nick of time. Jamison survived through a mix of Roadhog’s healing gas, Roadhog’s basic first aid training, and some Junkertown doctors that needed a little persuading.  Now Junkrat wasn’t exactly grateful for this. He was incredibly wounded, physically and mentally, and being left a quadruple amputee put him in a very dark place. He wasn’t exactly pleasant and yelled at Roadhog a lot, told him he should have saved him sooner, that he was a shitty bodyguard, that it should have been him, that Roadhog should have left him to die... Time passed, and Jamison heals up quickly because healing is super advanced even in Junkertown if you know the right people. But Junkrat can’t live his life bedridden, so similarly to Genji, they build Junkrat a new body, just the Junker way. His new limbs are heavy and bulky and more weapons than limbs, because of course Junkrat demanded a rocket launcher be built in. It hurts really, but Jamison doesn’t care as long as he doesn’t need to be taken care of anymore. 

This is where the story gets a little fuzzy? I haven’t ironed out all the details tbh, I’ve been having fun with this.

Somehow the Junkers get recruited by Overwatch. Maybe they were scouted out early on because these two can kick ass or something, and they agree to their invitation after being told that they could help with Junkrats constant pain by fitting him with more advanced limbs. That’s where he meets Genji, who is just as prickly as normal at first, but it only takes a bit of prodding from Junkrat to get Genji to let his guard down. Genji sorta marvels at the fact that Junkrat is in a pretty similar boat as him but somehow Junkrat is so upbeat and excited to be alive. They bond over it. Still fuzzy on the details, but I liked the idea of Symmetra helping with creating Jamisons new body which is why the metal limbs are all pretty crisp and white. 

Also I have some fanart here with Concept Lucio so do with that what you will. From there, Junkrat gets some swanky new limbs and takes on the job as Overwatch’s weapons engineer and he’s pretty damn good at it, if a bit eccentric. 

I had a lot of cute comic ideas for the cyborg buddies, like Junkrat being between surgeries, laying in bed without any of his limbs, looking pretty miserable, and Genji decided to keep him company by having him lean back on his chest and playing some video games like animal crossing or something. It distracts him right up and Junkrat starts swearing off tom nook like god damn bitch taking all his damn bells. Or they sort of just talk about what happened with them, how they got here, the growth they had, comparing each others injuries and probably hugging and crying who knows.