"I leave you alone for six hours. Six hours! I wake up, the alarms are going off, red alert is blaring across the facility and the next thing I know, you're all off on a plane adventure. Then Talon attacks and steals the most powerful weapon on earth, Isabell almost dies or gets mind-controlled getting an address for you and you get back here and tell me "It'll be okay?!"
Isabell had never seen Mercy like this. An ordinary Angela was nice and gentle, soft and happy. But this Angela scared her more than almost anything else. She was breathing heavily, her Valkyrie suit on and her Caduceus Blaster in hand, glaring at Winston, Tobjorn, Lucio and Tracer while Isabell stood awkwardly next to her, using her staff to seal up some of the bullet wounds she'd refused to let Lucio heal until he got some sleep while eating grapes. Jamie was pretending to clean his nails with a knife, doing his best not to look like he was eavesdropping.
"I can't believe you would do that! You lost Tayanna, you nearly got our newest recruit killed, you invaded a town and stole the property of an immensely powerful monarch and you put our entire operation in danger!"
"We had to take the address, Ang--" Tracer tried.
Angela cut her off. "You didn't even replace it with a fake! Don't you know what this might mean for Isabell if the Queen of Junkertown thinks that she stole something of hers?"
"No," Tobjorn muttered, and Isabell resisted the urge to laugh when Angela looked like she would shoot him and he flinched.
She threw her arms in the air exasperatedly. "I don't know what to do with you, honestly! And now you expect Isabell to go out and infiltrate a Talon base to use her as a Tayanna-detector!"
"I--" Winston protested.
"Don't give me that schiesse," Angela demanded and Isabell choked on her grape at the German profanity. She knew that when Angela swore she tended to do it in other languages because it made it feel like less of an infraction, but this was way more awesome than she'd realized. "She is an incredibly valuable member of the team but do not treat me like a fool. She is your personal Tayanna-detector when you go in there and do not pretend otherwise."
There was a mumbled apology from all four of them and Isabell tried not to laugh. It didn't help that Jamie saw and was wiggling his eyebrows crazily.
"I need the bathroom," she gasped out desperately and fled the room, holding her breath. She was purple-faced by the time she reached her room but didn't trust herself to breathe until she closed the door and lost it completely.
After a few minutes, Isabell, still grinning, got up and pulled a can of soda from her bar fridge and sat down on the edge of her bed. The sun was just heading towards midday, and she leaned back, just wanting to soak it all up while everyone else sorted everything out without her.
Finally, a day to herself.
Jamison was generally just accepted now - he roamed the halls like anyone else. It wasn't like they had time to drop him off anywhere with all the shit that was going down, so he kind of... just existed.
Isabell slept for most of the day. The bed was incredibly soft and the gentle pulsing of the blue circlets on her bed kept her snoozing. She woke up at about three in the afternoon and, after groaning and moaning for a solid twenty minutes, forced herself to get up and start fixing her costume. It was pretty easy - just a few rips and tears that were sewn up with fat black stitches that fit perfectly into her suit's aesthetic. If you chose to wear something that looked broken, then when you broke it, it didn't look any different.
Once she was done, the sun was well and truly setting, and a knock came at the door.
"Bell? You in there?"
McCree. "Yep!" Isabell called, sitting up on the end of the bed. He poked his head into her room.
"I know you're a little young an' all that, but everyone's comin' down to the bar for some shots to cool off. The plane and stuff won't be ready till the day after tomorrow, so the old monkey said we should have a little fun before we leave, yeah? Since you're a Junker, we figured you'd have as much fun as we did."
"I didn't see a bar when Mei took me for a tour," Isabell tilted her head. McCree grinned.
"Damn right you didn't - it's right on the other side of the compound, near the boat house. Come on. Jamie's comin. Couldn't leave the Australian out of a drinking party, now, could we?"
Isabell grinned. "Give me five minutes. I'll be there."
McCree grinned back and jogged away, whistling and twirling his guns.
Isabell couldn't stop smiling. She yanked on a tank top and shorts, foregoing shoes altogether, and half an hour later she was jogging out of the facility and heading out into the cool night air.
It didn't take much to spot the bar - it wasn't as well-built as the rest of the place. One might even call it junky. But it was big, it was awesome and there was music blaring from inside, so Isabell couldn't exactly miss it. As she got closer, she could hear chanting from inside and she checked her watch - six o'clock and they were already drunk?
She swung open the door and almost started laughing right there.
McCree and Jamison were standing opposite each other, a massive jug of beer in their hands, chugging as fast as they could. Lucio, Reinhardt, Tobjorn, Winston and Tracer were yelling "Drink drink drink drink" at the top of their lungs before Jamie slammed down his jug, wiped his mouth, and roared, "Burrrrrn!"
McCree, a second later, threw his jug at Jamie's head while laughing, until he saw Isabell. Everyone turned, going quiet, at her figure in the doorway.
It was silent for a moment before she grinned. "Amateurs."
Jamie roared with laughter and came over, ruffling her hair, as everyone went back to their places. Mei was sitting modestly on a bar stool while Tracer Blinked over, chatting. Reinhardt roared a friendly insult and Jamie and he ran over to win back his own while Mercy sat in the corner. Isabell had a flash of her being that one friend who stayed sober the entire night to drive her friends home, and shook her head, smiling. Even Genji was at it - he had a glass of champagne in his hand.
Or at least it was a champagne glass, what with the bottle of beer he was hiding behind his back. Isabell pulled a face at him and he gave her the finger. Not-so-Mr-Harmonious. Isabell laughed.
It was the best night of her life.
"So the little lady thinks she can drink!" McCree crowed, slamming his fist down on the table. Isabell raised an eyebrow from across the room, talking to Mercy, and Angela whispered in her ear. Isabell grinned and bounded over.
"I'll take you any day, old man."
McCree grinned and Tracer instantly Blinked over with a massive tray of shots.
"Let's see how graceful you are when you're puking your guts up," McCree grinned as everyone gathered around.
"Fifty bucks on Isabell!" Jamie hollered to anyone who would listen. Isabell winked at Mercy and then grabbed her first shot.
"You insult me. I've been poisoned with radiation, infected with diseases that don't even have names and had my perspectives turned inside out by an energy-leaking time-bomb. If you think a couple of shots will make me sick, you're drunker than I thought, McClean-sweep."
He grinned. "Go."
Mercy was right behind her as Isabell downed her first shot. It was bitter and had to be at least 50% alcohol, but for someone like Isabell, drinking was how you earned your place in society. She slammed the glass down in exact tandem with McCree as Reinhardt started hollering at Jamison as their bets skyrocketed.
At around twelve, Isabell started feeling dizzy. She clicked her fingers twice, an unnoticeable gesture to anyone else, but a signal to Mercy, who inconspicuously pressed her Caduceus staff into Isabell's back and fired. Instantly, the alcohol poisoning faded and Isabell started downing the rest with renewed vigor. McCree stared as she slammed down her last shotglass, him still with three to go.
"You cheated!" he shouted, pointing to Mercy. She winked at him and he fell back, unable to stand up. "This is bullshit," he slurred, and Isabell just laughed, completely sober.
"Why don't you just heal them after they drink so that they don't have hangovers?" she'd asked her. Mercy had smiled.
"So that one day they might learn their lesson. They never do."
All night, Lucio played tunes until Tracer had persuaded him to have a couple more martinis. By 3am, Mei was sobbing with her head buried in her arms at the bar, and McCree was passed out in a chair in a corner of the room while Genji drew on his face in permanent marker. Mercy was still sitting sleepy and sober in one corner, waiting for everyone to pass out, while Tracer was braiding Lucio's hair while he fought to stay awake. Reinhardt, defeat after defeat of arm wrestling against Jamie having him worn down, was exhausted and snoring loud enough to wake the dead, sprawled on the carpet. Winston was explaining hydrophysics in a slurred voice to Tobjorn, who was currently belly dancing on the table with nobody watching.
Isabell had had a few shots, but nothing too major. She might have a headache tomorrow, but it would be better than what her friends had. She sat on her bar stool, sipping a sickly-sweet club soda while Jamie detailed one of his many robberies in a voice so incomprehensible Isabell wasn't even sure if he was speaking English.
A few minutes later, Mercy yawned sleepily. "Alright. Time to go home, drunkards."
"I am not!" Tobjorn protested before passing out and landing on Winston. He was too buried in writing notes to care, and just shoved him off.
Mercy sighed and raised an eyebrow at Isabell, getting up and walking towards Lucio, swinging his arm over her shoulder. "I'll get them. Could you take the explosive one though? I'd prefer to stay in one piece - at least until tomorrow."
Isabell nodded wryly and slipped off her bar stool. "Come on, idiot. Before you pass out like the rest of them and I have to drag you home by your peg leg."
Jamie blinked as if waking from a trance and nodded, swinging off his stool and tottering, nearly falling flat on his face. Isabell caught him before he fell and allowed him to lean on her as she guided him towards the exit.
"You know," Jamie said loudly, "I think maybe I'm a firework."
Isabell sighed and carted him out of the bar towards the main facility across the cool, dewy grass. He leaned on her head, which was probably not good for her spine, but she let him. She'd lasted this long.
"Now, I'm wondering," Jamie slurred, teetering from foot to foot, "you seem to know me pretty well." He leaned down and whispered in her ear. "How'd'you know me, Isabell?"
She shook her head and bit her lip. But hey, he wouldn't remember this in the morning. So telling him wouldn't do her any harm.
"You've met me before. You wouldn't recognize me. I was four, going on five, and you were ten. Your parents were meeting up with mine for a business deal and we played hide-and-seek for hours. I always won because I was small enough to hide and you were too tall, but you kept laughing and you kept playing because you didn't care if you won - you just cared that you were with me and that you weren't alone anymore." She paused, but there was no sound as they entered the facility except for Jamie's breathing and his loud peg leg against the floor. "How did it feel, growing up without siblings? You know, before the explosion."
"I didn't," he said softly, his words blurring together. "I had you. That wasn't the only time we met. You know we were family-friends? All the time, you and me. We pissed our parents off bad. I don't remember much from before that big 'splosion, but I remember you. I just didn't realize, I guess, who you were."
"We're all different," Isabell said quietly, before pausing as Jamie staggered sideways and retched into a plant pot. She patted him on the back. There was no way he was making it to his allocated room on the other side of the facility - he was too heavy for her to drag while he was passed out. "We're all different after that."
Once he was done, his arm took up residence leaning on her head again and they headed for her room. Isabell wrapped an arm around his waist to support him, and the hand that was resting on her head ventured down and started playing with one of the electric-blue locks on the front of her hairline, which she'd taken out of the plaits. She'd expected him to be rough and yank at them with his state, but he was surprisingly gentle, combing through them with his fingers gently and twirling them like a curler.
As they reached her bedroom, and Isabell opened the door, he leaned his head down to her ear again. "You're my favorite kind of explosion, Isabell," he murmured as she carted him over towards the couch. "I don't want you to go."
"I'm not going anywhere," Isabell smiled softly. "Come on. Lie down."
He kind of stood for a moment, struggling to keep his balance, before Isabell shoved him and he collapsed on the couch. He covered his face with his arms like a kid and his big eyes peeked out at her from underneath. "You promise? You won't go?"
"I'll be right here," Isabell told him, and sat down in the armchair beside the couch. "I promise I won't go away."
"My favorite," he murmured as he dozed off to sleep. "My favorite."
Isabell couldn't help the warm glow inside her as she watched him go to sleep. It was almost ethereal how peaceful he looked - none of the insanity, none of the intensity of his waking form was there. Just an adult who'd never grown out of being a teenager. Just... ordinary. Like nothing had ever happened, like he'd never had any scars.
Isabell wondered if she looked like that when she slept, or if her scars still showed.
And she waited, sitting in the armchair, until the sun rose the next morning.
She never went away.