Chapter Text
“And your job is to?” Juno prompted.
Nureyev rolled his eyes.
“Hang onto your arm and look pretty,” he huffed, though Juno could plainly see the smile playing on the edge of his mouth. “How terribly difficult.”
“You’ll be fine,” Juno snorted and tugged Nureyev a little closer by the elbow when his gaze began to tarry towards the intricate system of electric lights and chandeliers stretching across the domed ceiling of the ballroom. “You’re already doing both.”
“Why, detective,” Nureyev beamed.
“Hit on me after the heist,” Juno teased.
Nureyev chuckled, giving Juno’s hand a little squeeze from behind his thin white gloves, a staple of the elaborate suit and waistcoat he donned for the kind of event he had only read about in books. He hadn’t imagined he would ever attend a ball, especially as an individual who would rather rob a carriage than ever set foot in one. However, he certainly couldn’t argue against attending an event of such opulence for the sole purpose of stealing from it.
He seldom imagined he would attend such an event in the finest suit he had ever seen, let alone with a lady posing as his wife on his arm. Nureyev quickly learned that the entire evening seemed to be blooming into some sort of surprise or another.
Juno, who had presented himself as a hardened professional, certainly had a knack for letting his eye wander away from their mark and get lost along the seams of Nureyev’s suit. From the rose-tinged glass of the mirrors lining every wall, he couldn’t exactly blame Juno, nor could he feel guilt for pausing a moment to appreciate his own reflection. He supposed a little hedonism wouldn’t be entirely out of sorts at such a gem-encrusted gala.
If he were Juno, however, he doubted he would be able to pull himself from a mirror at all. Juno had dressed to fit in, though Peter had a sneaking suspicion that if all went wrong with the plan, the vision of the lady himself would be enough to serve as a distraction.
He wore blue the way the sky had worn it when stretching for miles above the home Nureyev had hardly had time to miss. At first, Peter had suspected the familiar shade was what made something in his chest ache and burn, but after their first dance, swirling around the room and pretending to pay attention to their mark, rather than how the soft, golden glow of the chandeliers looked reflected in one another’s eyes, he began to realize that the skies of home had nothing on Juno Steel.
Perhaps it was some form of blasphemy to think it, though Nureyev felt it would be a greater sin not to properly worship his goddess. Nureyev wouldn’t have thought it possible, but Juno seemed to float when all other guests at the party walked, as if the slow, gentle turn of the planet beneath his feet were merely the spinning of a spring below a dancer in a music box. The sun shone just to bless light upon the face of Juno Steel.
At some point, Nureyev had to tear his gaze away from Juno to focus on stealing the gemstone displayed upon a pedestal at the back of the room. However, the clenching of Juno’s jaw seemed hellbent on making the object of their heist even more difficult than before.
“So those video cameras,” Nureyev began in a furtive whisper disguised by a sweet tone and chuckle, as if he had been making some rather private comment into the ear of his wife. “Am I correct in saying Rita has shut them off entirely?”
“Yeah, for now. That means our only problem’s with the security guards,” Juno returned. “And I don’t think all of them were in uniform. I caught the eye of a few couples who were trying a little too hard to look like they were having fun out there, and I’ve hidden enough blasters under my skirts to know they were armed.”
“Undercover security,” Nureyev thought aloud. “I suppose there are only two ways to deal with this then.”
“What?”
“Either make as little noise as possible and leave quietly,” Nureyev began, though Juno shook his head.
“With this many eyes in the room? No way.”
“Or make as much noise as possible to make sure nobody is looking at us when we do take the gemstone,” Nureyev finished, a smile beginning to broaden on his face. “Dear, from what you’ve seen of my shooting, how well do you think I would be able to shoot a target on the ceiling about the size of my hand?”
“What?”
Nureyev reached for the blaster from the breast pocket of his jacket and squinted up towards the ceiling, trying to remember which patches of the dance floor had made those lights twinkle the brightest in Juno’s eye. He paused for a moment, counting to ten to ensure nobody was within reach of the floor, then took a deep breath.
“Juno, love,” he began, a coyote’s smile baring across his face. “Mind the chandelier.”
Nureyev fired, barely having time to look over his shoulder and check to see that the shot had flown true before Juno grabbed him by the hand and took off at a sprint away from the crashing heap of glass and gold and diamond crumpling where the dancers had stood mere moments before. From the sound of it, nobody was injured, though enough were terrified to cover the speed of their escape. Peter knew he should have been keeping his eye on the gemstone, but all he could think to do was share a beam with Juno, who shot a victorious grin right back.
Peter managed to tear his eyes away long enough to stuff the gem into his coat without further thought, then returned his hand to Juno’s and took off down the marble terrace into the mansion’s back gardens.
“There! He’s the one with the blaster!” Someone cried from the ballroom behind.
“Shit,” Juno breathed. “The car’s on the other side of the house. You got a faster way out of here?”
All Nureyev had to do was spare a glance at the stables for Juno to break into a glare.
“If you’re thinking what I think you’re thinking,” Juno began slowly.
“You are,” Nureyev confirmed, then dragged him off by the hand.
“How the hell did I ever agree to this!” Juno cried over the sound of blaster fire and the twelve galloping legs between their two ‘borrowed’ steeds, his voice an octave higher than usual as he hung on for dear life.
Nureyev, on the other hand, merely crowed out a laugh, one hand tight on the gigahorse’s bridle and the other making clever work of his blaster. The two security guards they hadn’t managed to outrun barely stood a chance against clever shots and tricks of maneuvering, even though Juno still clung so tight to his steed that he had almost gone completely flat against it.
“You didn’t!” Nureyev returned simply, punctuating himself with another shot over his shoulder that missed in the dark. Thankfully, the bolt of blue was enough to illuminate his true target, so after a few more bolts for good measure, the security guard tumbled off and his own steed came to a stop.
Nureyev slowed his gigahorse and nodded for Juno to do the same, even with the sound of the security guards on foot still crashing far behind. He didn’t doubt they could spare a minute to allow Juno to regain his breath and dignity in equal measure.
Peter let out a victorious noise when Juno slowed to his side. Juno, on the other hand, let out a nauseated one.
“Nureyev,” he groaned.
“What, you’re telling me the man who spent his entire life in outer space can stand to live in a spaceship, but not ride a horse-insect?” Nureyev teased.
“First off, I didn’t fly everywhere. Second, it’s called a gigahorse. Third,” Juno paused to swallow. “You’re such a jerk.”
“Love you too, dear,” Nureyev chuckled, not for the first time, and certainly not for the last.
When the lights of the escape car came into view, Nureyev brought his steed to a stop and slid off the back, hoping to make it to the ground in time to help Juno step down.
However, it seemed whichever goddess’s spirit had possessed Juno earlier in the night had left, or, more realistically, he was out of the public eye and far more comfortable with being fully himself once more. He attempted to slip off the horse in the same way Nureyev had, but, upon getting caught in its many legs, nearly fell off entirely. Peter managed to catch him before he could hit the ground, meeting his glare with an adoring smile.
“Not to spend too long praising myself, but,” Nureyev broke off to chuckle. “I’ll admit, that was cool.”
“You’re such an idiot,” Juno snorted. “Keep holding me. I’ll act injured or something in case anybody stops us.”
“No other reason you wish to be held, of course,” Peter teased as he began to walk towards the car.
“Nope,” Juno shrugged. “Nah. No reason at all. I actually hate you.”
“Goodness, you think I would have figured that out after all this time,” Nureyev smiled, only setting Juno down when he had taken his seat in the back of the car and received an eye roll from the ship’s doctor for good measure.
“Oh, barf,” Vespa groaned.
“Hey, I don’t—”
Juno’s retort broke away when Buddy’s voice rang out through the speakers. Nureyev blinked for a moment, mind racing to find an excuse for the captain to call with such little warning or with such a terse tone.
“Vespa, I assume Juno and Pete are with you,” she began, sounding nearly cold.
“All here, Captain,” Juno affirmed.
“I’m calling a family meeting as soon as you return to the ship. We’ll debrief on the heist at another time. For now, there is a rather pressing and time-sensitive matter at hand,” Buddy finished. “Buddy out.”
Nureyev had already opened his mouth to ask something, but it seemed the captain had purposefully kept her message short. The meaning was clear. The entire crew needed to return to the ship as soon as possible, and she only wanted to discuss the matter in person.
Any sort of question he could have loosed into the air was condensed into a single glance he shared with Juno, who merely squeezed his hand across the seat. If Vespa had a problem with their public display of affection, she didn’t mention it, merely swallowing and keeping her hands tight around the steering wheel.
“So,” she cleared her throat after the resounding silence trended towards agonizing. “Why the hell were all those people running?”
“Ransom shot a chandelier,” Juno snorted.
“For what, fun?”
“To clear the room,” Nureyev clarified.
“Shit,” Vespa breathed. “Hell of an audition.”
“Thank you,” Peter almost smiled in return. “It means the world coming from you.”
“Now what the hell is that supposed to mean?” Vespa started as the car pulled into the ship’s airlock, though any elaboration trailed away when she noticed the remainder of the crew gathered on the other side of the door.
Had Nureyev felt anything other than the buzzing of nerves in his chest, he might have rushed to the other side of the car and opened Juno’s door for him. However, Buddy’s words, as they so often did, had managed to wedge themselves into a gap of his armor of poise, for he found himself grounded only by the feeling of Juno’s hand, tight around his.
Peter knew what was coming before Buddy even opened her mouth.
He had caught his fair share of snippets of conversation when others on the crew thought he couldn’t hear. He had heard the underlying twinge in Rita’s voice when she asked how things were going with Mistah Steel and caught the flash of sympathy in Buddy’s eye when he mentioned something specific to home as he knew it, a far away place from thousands of years in the past.
Nureyev had long since come to terms with the fact that his home was a dead thing, where he could partake in the lonely kind of success the balladeers sang about and blaze through the young and glorious downfall he had always wanted as a young man with his mentor’s blood fresh on his hands and the roaring of life in his ears.
Buddy explained that Rita had managed to reopen a portal, leading the crew down the halls until his eyes caught a flash of swirling light sitting amidst the great, curved glass window that bore the inky void of space before the crew. Nureyev couldn’t manage to hear a word of it, for his eyes locked on that deep blue sky that sounded like a troubadour’s guitar and smelled like the desert opening its arms to receive its first proper rain in months.
“I don’t think I can keep it open for very long, Mistah Ransom, so I’m super sorry, but I think you’ve gotta make your choice fast,” Rita said, somewhere far away.
Nureyev squeezed Juno’s hand.
“If you want to go back,” Juno began, voice sounding dryer than any desert Nureyev could possibly return to. “I don’t want to be what stops you.”
Nureyev glanced between the blue of the portal and the blue of Juno’s gown. He had thought the two to be sisters in shades, though upon comparing them side by side, the desert blue of home seemed thinner somehow, more flecked with wheezy strands of white, while Juno’s gown reminded him all too well of the pedestal that had held up the priceless gem at the night’s gala.
Peter swallowed. He opened his mouth to speak. He found no words to say.
“Pete,” Buddy began again. “I know this is difficult, but—”
“Oh, shoot!” Rita started, fingers flying at her portable keyboard and brow knitting so tight her face darkened by a shade. “Mistah Ransom, I think we’ve got like thirty seconds tops, unless I can try to find some other way to mess with the code of that Dark Matters bot, but I dunno how much I can do now.”
“Juno, I—” Nureyev began, shooting a glance away from him and back towards the portal.
He found, for some odd reason, his gaze could not fall upon the portal at all. Rather, all that filled his eyes was the great, dark void of space, dotted with the millions of stars and planets and asteroids he had once stared at from afar. The darkness was comforting in a way, and for the first time in his life, he could almost see why the soft, velvety embrace of night was so often referred to as a blanket.
Nureyev didn’t realize the portal had disappeared entirely until he heard Rita gasp. His eyes had yet to trail from a distant patch of the heavens that might have been Mars.
“Mistah Ransom,” Rita began through the hand over her mouth, sounding mere inches from tears. “I’m so sorry.”
Peter let out a breath, shaking his head. After a long enough moment rendered frozen, it seemed the rest of the crew did as well. Nureyev was fairly sure he surprised them upon smiling.
“There’s nothing to worry about, Miss Rita,” he assured her with a nod, then, turning to Juno and squeezing his hand like a lifeline, met his eye. “All I want to do is stay.”
“Well, darling,” he heard Buddy beam before he could turn to see it. “I suppose I should officially welcome you to the crew of the Carte Blanche.”
Nureyev hadn’t expected to leave the room celebrating. However, with Juno’s embrace making it difficult to walk and Vespa’s jabs back and forth with Juno making it difficult to embrace, Peter couldn’t help the incurable smile that had made its way onto his face. Perhaps, it was not the usual grin he had spent so long perfecting in front of a mirror. In a way, he couldn’t find it within himself to care.
Here was Peter Nureyev, a gentleman thief, rather than a gentleman bandit, and one among a family at that. He was wanted, of course, but the feeling was a fairly usual one, and the law enforcement knew not that they searched for a man who had gone missing thousands of years ago.
The Peter Nureyev who had terrorized the coaches and train cars and banks of the west had been the kind of man inseparable from his past, as much as he tried to sink his blade into his name and rend it away from himself. The Peter Nureyev of the present had shared his name willingly, knowing it to be a tender thing best cherished when there was someone who didn’t see it as a weakness. He no longer worked alone, and he no longer needed to. He had more help than he could gain from a shoddy first aid kit in a mine shaft and more company than he could gain from the rattlesnakes who made their homes in his hideaways.
He hadn’t met the Peter Nureyev of the future yet, but with Juno hanging onto him and Rita wiping gleeful tears from her eyes and Buddy and Vespa and Jet all trying, in their own ways, not to look too excited, he had a feeling he was going to look forward to what the galaxy had in store for Peter Nureyev next.