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Sometimes, life gives you happy accidents. You trip over a loose floorboard in your office and find a pen you’d been missing for weeks. You’re cleaning out your cupboard and you find a photo album that you haven’t touched in years. And sometimes, just sometimes, you run into an old friend at the worst possible time. Needless to say, Juno Steel is having a… complicated day.
Juno idly takes another sip of his whiskey and sets the glass down not-so-gently on the grimy bar surface, not even bothering with a coaster. The neon lights flicker in and out of the edges of his vision, all far too bright for the seedy atmosphere that the place otherwise exudes. The worst part, though, is definitely the music, and Juno groans and covers his ears in vain as yet another mid-2100s song blares though the soundsystem.
For lack of anything more interesting, his mind turns to Nureyev. Nureyev , with whom Juno had been slowly repairing his fractured relationship. Nureyev, who Juno wasn’t afraid to admit he was more than a little in love with. Nureyev, who had completely ditched him at this awful fucking club.
Juno slams down the rest of his whiskey, trying to stifle the image of a smug, sharp smile.
There’s also the fact that he’s a bit too close to Mars for his liking. Since Juno had first left that dry, dusty planet, the Carte Blanche had stuck close to the edges of the Solar System, and they’d even gone as far as the Outer Rim a few times. So when Buddy gave the announcement that the crew’s next gig would take them to the familiar moon of Phobos, Juno had almost thrown up.
The job itself doesn’t sound that difficult, though, which is a relief. Juno can’t remember all the details (that’s what Nureyev was for) but they’re supposed to be infiltrating some corporate building to secure some data. Rita had already gone to the liberty of scoping out blueprints, milling through guard rotations, and even hooking them up with some fake IDs to slip past security. It’s become something of a routine at this point, and it might be unnerving how quickly Rita had adapted to her new position as a criminal, if it weren’t, well, Rita . Point being, it should’ve been an easy job. In and out.
Or. It would be, if their client hadn’t insisted on coming along to retrieve the data themselves.
A client who has still not shown up after an hour.
The song changes again, and it’s even worse than the track that was on before. Juno’s grip tightens, and he has to physically stop himself from shattering his glass. His nerves are on fire, the combined energy of alcohol, atmosphere and Mars sending electricity through him. His thoughts are hazy with waiting and neon lights, and Juno is so close to deciding, screw the job, I need to get out .
And then the door of the club opens, and Juno’s thoughts stop in their tracks.
A woman is standing in the doorway. A very, very, very familiar woman.
She begins walking towards him, and Juno breaks out of his shock to quickly turn his face out of view. He concentrates on hearing the footfalls of her stilettos above the vortex of noise, trying to pinpoint her location in the room. Suddenly, the seat immediately next to Juno is filled, and he barely manages not to flinch in surprise.
He chances a look, just a glimpse to confirm his suspicions. And hey, it’s no secret that Juno’s eyesight has gotten worse since he last saw her, but between the deep red suit, the black mop of hair swept deftly to the side and the golden highlights glittering over her dark skin, he’d recognise Valles Vicky anywhere.
And he’s… surprised to feel a pang of something in his chest. It might just be that he’s already so close to the planet he called home for most of his life, but seeing Vicky chatting casually with the bartender, an easy smile across her face fills Juno with some kind of emotion. He’s struck, suddenly, by how much he missed her.
But then she’s gesticulating wide and excited, and Juno buries his face in his glass, reminded with a bitter clarity that he’s on a job . Sure, seeing a long-lost friend again is real nice, but he’s supposed to be undercover. And he really doesn’t want to give Vespa any more of a reason to berate him in front of the crew.
Which might be the reason why, when the bartender turns to him in the middle of their conversation with Vicky, he completely misses whatever they just asked him.
“What,” says Juno, dumbly.
“I said,” repeats the bartender, “the proper way to make a Venusian martini. More vermouth or less?”
And yeah, Juno’s had a Venusian martini before and he absolutely has some opinions, but right now he just wants to be out of the spotlight before he gets recognised, so he stumbles out a “more” and begins surreptitiously shifting off his stool and towards the door.
Apparently that was the wrong answer, because Vicky chortles “ Bullshit, let’s get another tiebreaker,” and throws a strong arm across Juno. A strong, heavy arm which manages to land on Juno’s shoulder right as he’s halfway off his seat, and ends up pushing him off completely.
And because it’s Vicky , her first reaction is to jump down and offer a hand to the lady who just made a complete fool of himself, and Juno sees the second she recognises him, because her expression goes blank.
That’s where they end up for a long moment-- Juno sprawled clumsily on the floor, twisted halfway around the stool he toppled over, and Vicky kneeling above him, both staring at each other. Juno can’t see his own expression, but he’d put good money on it being similar to hers, because honestly, what the fuck.
“Eyepatch is new,” Vicky blurts, apparently for lack of anything else to say.
Juno can’t help but let out a startled laugh. “Yeah,” he says, “you know me, I was never a good gambler.”
Vicky laughs back, harsh and knowing, and oh it is good to see her again . Sure, it could’ve been under better circumstances, but between the hundred-something enemies he has, Juno finds himself genuinely grateful that, for once, he’s found a friendly face in a seedy underground club on a moon inhabited almost exclusively by bigwigs and mob bosses.
Then the other shoe drops, and Peter Nureyev bursts through the door, all charismatic smiles. Juno’s own smile promptly falls off his face and shatters on the ground.
“Oh, Thisbe darling,” Nureyev saunters up, emphasising Juno’s alias with a voice as smooth as honey. “Shouldn’t we be getting on by now? We have a friend to meet, after all.”
Under normal circumstances, Juno would be torn between decking him in the face for ditching him, or grabbing him and dragging him out of the bar and off the planet. These were, however, decidedly not normal circumstances, and it's kinda difficult for Juno to make a decision against his brain’s ongoing commentary of shit shit shit shit shit.
He’s halfway to a response when Vicky turns back to look at Nureyev, and Juno sees the man completely stiffen, smile fixing itself plastic on his face. Which, what.
There’s a tense moment where nobody speaks, before Vicky pipes up, “Carmen? What the fuck are you doing here?”
Which is when Juno’s brain finally decides to inform him of two important things. The first is how he got in contact with Nureyev after their first case, which, yeah, he probably should’ve remembered sooner that Nureyev and Vicky had history.
The second is that Vicky is wearing a golden tie. A golden tie that their mysterious, pushy client was said to be wearing. At this location.
“Well,” says Juno, “I can’t tell if this makes things easier or a hundred times more complicated.”
“So. How do a couple of punks like you manage to get mixed up with Buddy Aurinko ?”
“I’m afraid it’s quite a long story, Vicky dear, and personally I’m rather busy trying not to blow our cover .”
If there’s one thing Juno didn’t miss about being a PI, it was dealing with the customers. Vicky is an exception, of course (years of working for her does that to a lady) but even from where Nureyev is distantly working on a locked door he can feel frustration radiating off the man.
The scuffling sound of footsteps echoes down the hallway, and Juno instinctively flattens himself against the wall. In the corner of his eye, he can just see Nureyev urgently gesturing for Vicky to do the same just as a mob of security guards run past the doorway. They don’t seem to notice them, and Juno lets out a breath he didn’t realise he was holding.
Nureyev goes right back to the door, so Juno tries for diplomatic: “Vick, it’s great to see you and all, but can we save the catching up for later? I dunno about you, but I’m kinda eager not to end up with a bolt through my brain.”
“Yeah, yeah, I get the message, Steel,” Vicky hisses back, having the decency to look somewhat embarrassed.
The lock clicks, and the door swings open into a darkened corridor. Juno files in behind the others, leaning back against the door to close it as he surveys his surroundings. There’s a stairwell leading up, and Juno loosely remembers Rita’s map taking them in that direction as he begins to follow the others up.
“Really though, Steel,” Vicky says, “Can ya blame me for askin’? I ain’t heard anything about you since that whole Newtown thing, and the wife’s been worried, you know how she gets.”
At the name Newtown Juno’s heart skips a beat. He barely avoids tripping over the stairs, but manages to say “Right, well, uh. You can let her know I’m just fine.”
Vicky hums vaguely, but Juno can feel the weight of her attention on him (and Nureyev’s attention, which, shit, that’s gonna be a whole conversation. )
Mercifully, that line of discussion seems to stop there, and they all fall into a comfortable silence as they continue up the stairs. Or, as comfortable as you could be for a group of thieves.
It… kinda takes Juno back, if he’s being honest. After all, the last time he worked with Vicky, she had also ended up tagging along, much to the PI’s chagrin. This time around, though, Vicky seems to be a lot quieter-- the thought has Juno stifling a quiet chuckle. If someone had told him one year ago that Valles Vicky would stop talking for longer than ten seconds, he would’ve laughed them out of Hyperion City.
He stops laughing when he realises what might have changed for her. Distantly recalls a frantic phone call in his office. Hearing the monotone declaration of a disconnected number.
Wow, this staircase sure is long.
The silence suddenly seems less comfortable and more stifling. Juno feels like he has to say something, so he says “How is the wife, anyway?”
“She’s doin’ well,” Vicky replies. “We had another kid, y’know. Victoria. Little menace.” Despite her words, there’s an undeniable fondness in her tone.
“Getting soft, Vicky?” murmurs Nureyev, but there’s no bite behind it. It’s the first he’s spoken in a while, Juno realises, and the thief’s posture has almost imperceptibly relaxed now that they’re no longer in immediate danger.
Vicky laughs then, short and surprised. “Could ask you the same. Since when does Quenelle Carmen hang around with company?”
“Quenelle Carmen does a lot of things, now. For instance, oh…” he begins ticking things off on his fingers, the nerd . “Ballet. Woodworks. Veterinary acupuncture.”
“Oh, there’s gotta be some better stuff than that. Come on, what else you got?”
A grin. “Art critic. Water slide testing. Snake charming. A brief stint on Akna as a stand-up comedian.”
“You didn’t.”
“Oh, I very much did. The audience hated me, of course, but the heist went off without a hitch.”
Vicky actually cackles. “Goddamn it, Carmen, you weasel.”
They’re both smiling now, and Juno has the sudden realisation that he hasn’t seen Nureyev this open around… well, anyone other than him . He knows from hushed, too-sincere-for-daylight conversations that the thief’s relationship with the rest of the Carte Blanche has been strained by a habit of mistrust from working alone. So to see him this… vulnerable is the only word Juno can think of, parading around his history of masks and throwaway names-- well, it’s even more surprising that the person he’s talking to is Valles Vicky , a woman about as quick to trust anyone as a rabbit with one eye cut out.
Unable to help himself, Juno finally asks, “So how did you guys meet each other, anyway?”
The way Nureyev’s face drops from an easy smile to complete stone is almost comical. As if on cue, Vicky grins even wider.
“Well,” Vicky begins.
“Please don’t,” says Nureyev.
Vicky gleefully ignores him. “ Quenelle Carmen sure has done a lot, y’know. Including workin’ for me as a conversationalist at Valles Vicky’s Vixen Valley .”
And it’s a good thing that there aren’t any guards around, because the unholy cackle that Juno lets out at that mental image would be enough to set off alarms through all of Hyperion City.
They do eventually reach the top of the stairs, and Juno rests his hand against his blaster as Nureyev quietly pries the door open. The control room they’re about to enter shouldn’t have anyone inside, he made sure of that when he checked the guard shifts, but Juno can’t help but feel a familiar twinge of anticipation.
“All clear,” says Nureyev, and Juno forces himself to relax.
As the three of them step into the room, the first thing Juno notices is the labyrinthine army of boxes and flashing lights embedded into each wall. It’s a big room, all things considered, but it feels far smaller with the computers taking up literally every inch of open space. Juno inches closer to the only window in the room, takes one look out of it and down the 50-something storeys, and immediately regrets it.
He turns his attention back to Nureyev, who has stepped up to one of the monitors and is now typing away on a keyboard. Fishing around for something to do, Juno asks, “anything you want me to do? Don’t know if you noticed, but I’m not exactly good with technology.”
“No kidding,” snorts Vicky, watching from where she sits on a disused office chair. Juno glares at her.
“Yes, actually,” says Nureyev, not looking away from the screen. “In the cabinet to my left there should be a phosphate fiberglass cable. Connect it to both the SFP port on the main system and the external communications hub over there.”
Juno gestures unhelpfully.
A smirk. “Only teasing, detective. Just hand me the red striped cable, and I’ll take care of it.”
Prick, Juno thinks fondly. Navigating over to the cabinet in question takes him out of view from Nureyev and Vicky, and that resounding feeling of out of his depth almost swallows Juno up among the blinking dials and knobs in every inch of his periphery. The boxes are all thankfully labelled, but it still takes a stupidly long time to find the cable Nureyev described.
So long, in fact, that Juno is too distracted to notice the telltale creak of the door opening.
He definitely notices the sound of blaster fire that comes next, and instinctively wraps himself around the wall of computers for cover.
“Hands up,” yells a rough voice, “and weapons down, or this one gets it!”
Drawing his own blaster, Juno carefully edges around the corner of the wall to get a look at whatever’s happening. He sees Nureyev first, backing away from the computer, hands raised. His body is stiff with tension, and when Juno looks a little further he can see why.
Shit. Vicky.
The guard that just came in has their blaster pressed against Vicky’s temple, and an arm around her throat. There’s a look of uncharacteristic panic in her eyes, something Juno only recognises from the last time her life was threatened like this.
The memory fills Juno with anger, and he forces himself to calm down. Take a breath. The guard is holding Vicky, and they look like they’re making a move for the security alarm, but they haven’t noticed Juno . He can work with this. His hands tremble, though, as he raises his blaster, and he’s suddenly so aware of his eye , and his aim’s been getting worse, what if he hits her , and--
His train of thought cuts off abruptly when Vicky raises one stiletto heel and stomps down hard on her assailant’s foot. They yelp in alarm, relaxing their grip, and Vicky takes the opportunity to whip around and slam a right hook directly into their jaw. The guard crumples to the ground. Vicky straightens her spine with a huff, wiping flecks of blood off what Juno now recognises as brass knuckles.
“Woah,” says Juno.
“Don’t act surprised, Steel,” Vicky huffs. “I was a criminal once, too, y’know.”
A siren wails around them as the room is bathed in a harsh red light, and Juno clocks the (still crumpled) guard’s hand on the alarm. A quick stunning shot from his blaster is enough to take care of that problem, but from the looks of it, they’re about to have a lot more.
“Done,” says Nureyev, pulling out a flash drive from the computer and replacing it with a knife. “We’d best get out of here before anyone else comes knocking, hm?”
There’s a dangerous edge still in Vicky’s eye. “And how are we supposed to do that, Carmen?”
Nureyev grins, all teeth, and his gaze flits toward the window.
“Oh, no,” says Juno. “Oh, no no no no no .”
And that’s all the protesting he has time for before two pairs of arms manhandle him out the window into the open night sky and, eventually, the waiting doors of the Ruby Seven.
Jet’s driving is unmatched, as usual, and their escape mercifully goes off without a hitch. Juno has just about stopped hyperventilating, helped in part by Nureyev’s sheepish hand resting against the small of his back. Between the adrenaline still running through Juno’s nerves and Vicky’s animated conversation with Jet in the front seat, it's not long before the car pulls into the garage of the Carte Blanche.
Juno is the first to step out, relishing the feeling of solid ground against his feet. Taking in the familiar atmosphere of the ship ( his home , he thinks quietly), he spots Buddy leaning against the doors to the rest of the ship. She’s smiling slightly, which Juno takes as confirmation that they weren’t tailed.
Buddy’s smile twists into a smirk. “Valles Vicky.”
Vicky slams the passenger door and grins back. “Buddy Aurinko. I’d say it’s a pleasure to see you again, but I’m still waitin’ on that supposed delivery from the Saturn National Art Museum.”
“Must be a problem with the mail, darling,” Buddy quips, and Juno finally recognises that familiar cadence as banter . She and Vicky are bantering .
Nureyev must pick up on this too, because he flashes Juno a glance that seems to say how many people on this ship does Vicky know? Juno gives him a noncommittal shrug in response.
“Oh, by the way,” says Vicky, “Check your Words With Friends. Just played a new word.”
Buddy pulls out her comms and frowns down at it. “‘Yarborough’, Vicky? I thought we agreed that asking your wife to help you was cheating.”
“Sure, but we also agreed that hyphenated words didn’t count, didn’t we?”
“Touché. In any case, if your wife can help you, then I suppose mine is allowed to as well.”
“Wait, y’mean Vespa’s back? Shit, say hi to her from me, will you?”
Juno does his best to follow the conversation, but honestly, he’s still a bit dizzy from… well, everything . God, in the thrill of the heist he had completely forgotten about Mars, hadn’t he? It hits him with a startling certainty then, that they’re still on Phobos , and his home planet is only miles away, and with it a reminder of everything he’d tried so hard to escape that day he left Hyperion City behind.
Even with that knowledge, though, Juno feels… safe , somehow. Looking around the rest of the garage, he can see Jet lifting up the hood of the Ruby, starting on today’s round of routine maintenance. Can hear the distinct voices of Rita and Vespa in the distance, yelling about something-or-another with the same animated energy he had come to expect from them. Can feel Nureyev’s hand gentle against his back in a gesture of reassurance, can smell that familiar scent of his cologne.
And oh, familiar is the word for it. Because somewhere along the way, the Aurinko Crime Family had started to live up to its name, and suddenly the Carte Blanche is what comes to mind when Juno thinks home .
Fainty, he registers the conversation ending, and Buddy returning to the belly of the ship. Vicky waves a goodbye after her, and begins down the sloped garage entrance back to the moon’s surface. She gets a few feet away from the threshold and stops, turning back to Juno and Nureyev.
“Usually, I make it a point not to get involved in personal business,” Vicky says, “but you two’ve been joined at the hip this whole time, so I gotta ask. Are you two… like, an item?”
Oh.
Vaguely Juno registers that as a conversation he and Nureyev have not had .
Nureyev’s hand tenses where it is still resting against Juno’s back. And maybe it’s just because he’s still a bit giddy, but Juno feels a burst of courage in his chest.
Slowly but deliberately, he takes hold of the man’s hand and interlocks their fingers, so their palms are resting between them. Nureyev’s gaze flies to him briefly, surprised but not making any move to pull away, and his grip relaxes around Juno’s hand.
“Something like that,” Juno says, definitely not blushing .
(And in the corner of his eye, Nureyev isn’t blushing either.)
Vicky grins again, but this time it looks different, more sincere. “I’m happy for you kids,” she says, “you deserve it, both of you.” Then her smile widens with its usual fox-like undertone as she adds, “But in a way, since I’m the one who put you in contact, I’m the reason you got together, right?”
What.
“In other words,” she continues, “you kinda owe me for that, don’cha?”
She cackles the whole way as she leaves, and Juno can’t even bring himself to spite her for it. Not even the week later, when he gets a message on his comms with a date and location, somewhere on the sister moon of Deimos.
After all, if there’s anyone you can count on to know people in the right places, it’s Valles Vicky.