Work Text:
1. you cannot outswim a flood
The thing is, Vespa Ilkay knows everything there is to know about endings.
She knows how all these stories go, legends of crime who steal myths and fly across the galaxy laughing; they all crash and burn eventually. They’re fables of the Outer Rim, cautionary tales she was raised on, an old Rangian proverb: You cannot outswim a flood. You can’t outrun disaster. If it goes wrong, when it goes wrong; there’s no real difference. Vespa Ilkay is used to holding her breath, clutching tightly to what she has and waiting for the inevitable drop.
And she had almost thought, for a while, that she could escape it. She and Buddy, they could retire, she’d thought, cheat death and live the rest of their lives in quiet, if not peace. The thing is, Vespa had forgotten about the flood. She hadn’t realized she’d been daydreaming a little too long, thinking of a hundred different moonrises, imagining they’d even be allowed this.
The thing is, today was supposed to be a beginning.
2. death comes before drowning
There is always a moment, in every fight, when you know for sure whether you’ll win or lose.
You could pinpoint it, if you were watching carefully: the shift in the air, the minute you became outnumbered. Vespa’s used to that by now, the instinct of sizing up her enemies long before blades are drawn, listening for the split-second instant when the scales tipped.
She hears it too clearly when Dark Matters swarms the hall.
They’d almost made it. Buddy was on her way back from the office, and Vespa had everything she needed from the medbay, and then—
In hindsight, she could see the cleanliness of the strategy. Dark Matters waited for them to be split up from the others, then took two birds with one shot. Oldest trick in an assassin’s book.
It’s like a collar snapping around her neck, like the walls closing in; there is only the blood-slick knife in her hand and Buddy’s blaster running out of charge and suddenly Vespa knows. Buddy’s back presses tightly against hers and they’re surrounded on all sides and Vespa thinks god, god, it’s over.
“Bud—” slips unwilling from her throat, a strangled sound, a fear she can’t hold in, and she feels Buddy’s clammy hand curling into hers.
We’ve had a good run, haven’t we, is what Vespa should be thinking. I found you, and we’ve had one good long year. That should be enough, shouldn’t it?
But it isn’t. It just isn’t, and maybe after all these decades Vespa has finally learned to be greedy because now she’s hungry for more time right when she’s fucking run out, and she wants the future they’ve carved out together so badly it fills her with a rage that overbrims.
(There is always a moment, in any card game, when you know you will lose but you have the choice to play anyway.)
If I can’t have this, she thinks.
If we can’t have this—
I’ll take as many of you as I can down with me.
3. stars appear brighter in a void
They wouldn’t let them near each other.
It’s the only thing Vespa has been able to focus on since her hands and feet were lashed together, her mind losing grip on anything but the most useless, irrelevant information: She, Buddy, and Rita are all restrained, stripped clean of all weapons, and they won’t even let me near her.
She’s close enough to touch. Her wedding gown pools out onto the floor, blood-streaked and torn in three places, her hair unpinned. The worst part, Vespa thinks, is that she hasn’t spoken a word. Hasn’t even tried, not since they threatened to lay a finger on Rita for it.
Still, there’s a hard, calculating look in Buddy’s eye that the agents guarding her can’t shake. In her heels, she’s a good half foot taller than the agent closest to her, refusing to sit, or slouch, or give up a single inch more of herself. Even like this, here, in the darkest, most corrupt pit in the entire galaxy, Buddy Aurinko is the most beautiful vision Vespa Ilkay has ever seen. Vespa wants to tear this room apart and take her far, far away from here; she wants to pull her into a quiet room and nurse every bruise and burn; she wants to break the universe in half and offer her the pieces.
Vespa must have moved or made a sound, because Buddy’s gaze locks onto her. The performance of Buddy Aurinko pauses, and then there is only Bud, scared and tired and tired of being scared.
Her eyebrow ticks up, a question, and Vespa nods. I’m okay, and the tension in Buddy’s shoulders loosens just a fraction.
Without being conscious of it, something in Vespa eases too.
4. a lone wolf has less bark
If Vespa could just get past the five agents in the way. It would be worth it, she thinks, nonsensically, if I could talk to her for just a few seconds, I’d take it, whatever came next.
Which isn’t even true, of course. If she tried anything they wouldn’t hurt her, they’d take it out on Buddy or Rita, and Vespa won’t give them any more ammunition than what they’ve already mined out of the heart of her.
So she tries to refocus. Tries to find exit points and escape routes that she knows she won’t find, tries to catalog the facts: There’s only one door out, two agents at the door. Rita’s closest and the most underestimated of all of them, tearful with fury. Wire is sitting coolly at the head of the table, waiting for Steel and Sikuliaq’s next move. Vespa should’ve cut off her fingers when she’d had the chance, effective methods of escape be fucking damned.
Focus. Since Wire came back, there’s been a violence in the room that isn’t just aimed at them, like a school of sharks that have found something new to circle, searching for a hint of blood. It’s something Buddy could easily exploit, if they had more time. Each agent is heavily armed, but those blasters are set to stun; they won’t risk losing leverage over Steel and Sikuliaq, and Vespa can handle another laser blast, can keep moving as long as it doesn’t knock her out. But Buddy— she can’t risk it.
Something dark and cruel inside her says that this would be easier alone. Easier to risk yourself, when there was no one counting on you; easier to give up caution, when you had nothing and no one to count on.
But she shakes that thought away. Maybe it would’ve been true, in a lonelier life; maybe she might’ve even believed it, if she were younger.
As it is, Vespa has had a taste of both. As it is, Vespa would not trade this for a thousand safely lonely lifetimes.
5. there are no honest trades with a pirate
“Wire.” Vespa wakes up in time to hear Steel on the Dark Matters’ comms, clearly trying to be impersonal.
The stun blast had hit her in the chest. Her nerves are still stinging, raw, like there’s a tight band around her lungs. She doesn’t dare close her eyes again. She limits her movement and prays to the gods Sikuliaq is monitoring that call.
“Juno,” Wire replies smoothly. “Have you finally caught up?”
There’s a short, angry silence. Then Steel concedes.
“We’ll give you the Curemother Prime,” he says, voice low and beaten. “On three conditions.”
No.
You stupid fucking idiots, you need to get out of here.
“Certainly. Lay out your terms, then.” It’s patronizing; it’s amusement. Wire doesn’t have any intention of giving all three of them up, and all of them know it.
Steel lists his demands. They’ll be in control of the location and the time, and there’s an advantage there, at least. They can plan an escape if— when— things go south. It has to be enough.
“And your third condition?” Wire sounds almost bored, like this is all procedure. Vespa knows what she expects: Steel’s going to ask for Rita, Wire’s thinking, like a guy who’s seen the worst of the universe and wants nothing more than to go home and never see it again.
Vespa knows Steel, though, enough to know that giving up like that would be a greater hell for him than a Dark Matters containment facility, and enough to hear the careful, pained calculation in his tone.
“Buddy Aurinko,” he says. “For the Curemother Prime.”
“What,” Buddy says under her breath, genuine shock coloring her tone. But relief and terror flood Vespa in equal measure, so completely she sways on her feet.
This is good, she tells herself. This is good. Steel’s making the strategic choice. There’s no one in the galaxy more skilled in the art of jailbreaking than her wife. Juno Steel and Jet Sikuliaq and Bud— Vespa can only pray they’ll all make it through the inevitable shootout.
She and Rita can hold out for however long it takes.
“Wire? Do we have a deal?”
Even Wire seems caught off guard, startled into a pause. “Alright, then. I agree to your terms.”
“Good.”
“Interesting choice, Juno,” she says.
“You know what, Wire? I could say the same of every decision you’ve made since we last worked together.”
Wire doesn’t seem to have a reply to that, just lets the call click softly shut. “Move out.”
6. a satellite’s orbit is a promise
Buddy’s fighting before they even get their hands on her.
“Now, I hardly think that was a fair bargain, is it, Agent?” she starts, eyes flitting back and forth. “Dear Juno has never been good at math, and I rather think the cure for all disease should be worth two people at least, it’s frankly preposterous—”
“Fortunately our bargain is with Steel, not you,” Wire says. “Knock her out if you need to.”
Vespa lunges. Her nerves scream. “Don’t you fucking—”
Buddy knows when she’s lost a fight. It doesn’t stop her from straining against the agent’s grip for as long as she can, giving Vespa a look so full of panic she’s helpless to reach back.
“Vespa—”
The hushed gasp of her name is only for her. “It’ll be okay,” Vespa says, the words tugged out of her. She isn’t sure where her own conviction comes from. “You’ll come for me like you always do, Bud, you will—” Her hand catches Buddy’s wrist. “I’ll wait, I’ll—”
7. the groundwater well of hope does not run dry
They drag back Sikuliaq by the shoulders, and horror locks her in place.
It pulls a squeak out of Rita too; she looks ready to kick her guards in the shins and run over. Then Buddy comes in. Her face is clean of tears, and she shakes her head minutely— only stunned. Vespa forces herself to exhale. They’re alive. Both of them, alive.
Still, there’s a heavy pit of dread in her stomach now. Wherever Steel is, he’s alone, without an escape shuttle. The Carte Blanche is big, but… well. Without a transport out of this mess, it’s a matter of minutes.
She wishes she had Jet’s endless well of faith. She doesn’t know how Buddy is keeping her head up.
And then Vespa sees something that makes her hold her breath again.
There’s a flash of something darting past one of the monitors, a vivid green in the black of space, something solidly familiar. It’s so fast it could be liquid.
Vespa blinks, and it’s gone.
She darts a glance at the agents surrounding her, but no one else is looking. Buddy's eyes are on Jet, fingers light on his pulse point. Vespa's hallucinations are not usually the comforting sort. She doesn’t dare move.
Then Rita catches her gaze, wide-eyed and alert behind her heart-shaped glasses, her mouth set into a tense line—
And Vespa knows.