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Jet’s no genius but he knows machines. He hears the noise of pressure building, something close to combustion. “Get down!” he shouts into his comms, but he’s interrupted by a cacophony of sights and sounds.
There’s a spark of light, a burst of flame, and the metal column in the middle of the room explodes. The static of his comms malfunctioning in his ear is jarring but another sound makes his heart stop. Juno lets out a sharp noise of pain and out of the corner of his eye Jet can see the lady hit the ground hard.
“What the hell was that?” Vespa’s green hair is visible through the sputtering flames as she sprints through the door.
Normally, Jet would answer her concisely and with as many deductions as he could give her. But he shares only the most pertinent information. “Juno is injured.” His knees skid slightly on the smooth floor as he reaches Juno’s side. There’s blood on his cheek and in his curly hair. He’s clutching his face with his hands. Jet reaches for him.
But Juno isn’t down for long.
Jet’s proximity seems to trigger a sharp, instinctual response. Juno moves to his knees and almost to his feet, but slips and falls. Jet catches him just in time to prevent his head from hitting the floor. Juno begins to push and punch at him, his breath escaping in ragged gasps. Jet releases his hold just as Vespa approaches.
“Hold onto him!”
Jet looks at Juno, bleeding from the face, muscles taught with panic, attempting to scramble away. His heart breaks.
“Hold him, Jet, or he’s gonna blind himself.”
The horror of it settles like stone in Jet’s stomach. Juno is clutching at his functional eye. It’s hard to tell the damage through all the blood, with all the movement, but it’s clear that Juno can’t see. And he’s terrified.
Jet knows what Vespa needs him to do. He reaches out and grasps Juno’s wrist as gently as he can, attempting to move his hand from where it’s pressing against his eye and likely aggravating the injury. He speaks calmly, telling Juno he’s safe, but Juno doesn’t listen. He wrenches himself away and his arm is pulled out of Jet’s grasp.
“For fuck’s sake,” Vespa growls. She shoves her backpack away and approaches Juno like a wild dog stalking prey. She grabs Juno’s arm and pulls it off of his face. He kicks at her, but she dodges the blow. “Stop touching your eye, Steel,” she shouts.
Juno flinches. For a second, he’s frozen in place. For a second, Jet thinks they’ll be alright. And then Juno moves suddenly and with incredible force. There’s a horrible sound, a crunching pop followed by a sharp shout. Vespa lets go of Juno, but too late. His arm hangs loosely. “Jesus,” Vespa hisses. Jet can see the guilt building in her expression, quickly smothered by stern composure.
Jet moves before she orders him again. Juno needs them to take care of him. He would thank them later. Jet darts quickly around Juno and kneels behind him. He’s struck by their distinct height difference as he wraps his arms around Juno from behind, over his left arm and under his dislocated right. Juno struggles. He hasn’t spoken since he sustained the injury, and Jet wishes for nothing more than to hear a litany of swears and colourful names. Instead, they attempt to console the injured sharpshooter as he breathes in panicked sobs.
Vespa smacks her broken comms. Buddy would know what to do. Rita would know how to take care of Juno. Jet wishes for nothing more than the little lady’s endless energy and her impossible ability to connect with her stubborn former boss.
Juno moves his head forward and viciously sinks his teeth into Jet’s forearm. He grunts but doesn’t release his hold. “Vespa, we should deliver a sedative.”
She shakes her head, green bangs falling into her face. Her lips are pale, pressed together. “Nope.”
“I saw you put some doses in your bag before we left.”
“Not for him.”
Jet squeezes his eyes shut as Juno kicks his legs, his boots squealing against the floor. He feels tears gathering in the corners of his eyes. “Vespa,” he begs.
“Jet.” Her scarred hands stop unravelling gauze and she gives him an empathetic but stern look. “I can’t give him a sedative for the same reason I never give you one.”
Jet remembers the consultation with Vespa during his first week about the Carte Blanche. The checklist glaring at him from the tablet: Opiate Use Disorder. The respect and care she treated him with when he had broken his arm.
“Now, are you done making me break doctor-patient confidentiality?” Vespa’s face is carefully blank, but her voice cracks under the weight of her worry. “Dammit, where’s Ransom?” He had been stationed nearly halfway across the factory, but he would have heard the explosion.
As if summoned, Ransom careens around the corner, his heeled boots sliding on the floor. He’s rumpled and frantic. His normally perfectly styled hair falls into his eyes and his glasses slip down his nose. The thief takes in the room in an instant, gaze landing briefly on the small fires and the crumbled mess of the centre pillar. When he sees them, every part of him stops except for his heaving, narrow chest.
Jet thinks about how this must look. Juno, panicked and bleeding, struggling in Jet’s arms. Jet prepares for Ransom to punch him. The thief sets his jaw and moves forward…then kneels carefully in front of them. Jet considers the Peter Ransom who first joined the Carte Blanche, remembers how carefully poised he was, how cautious he was to trust anyone, how sharply defensive he was. This is someone new.
“We are not sure of the damage, yet. Vespa has been unable to examine him.”
Ransom nods. He takes a breath, blinking hard, then reaches out to Juno.
The detective flinches when his partner’s hand gently touches the back of his neck, squinting his injured eye shut and curling in on himself as much as he can in Jet’s restraining grasp. But everyone is stunned into silence when Ransom begins to sing. His voice, a smooth baritone, rises and falls in a simple, chromatic melody. Jet doesn’t understand the words but he recognizes some distinct consonant productions - Brahman. Vespa makes eye contact and raises her eyebrows. Not only was Ransom trusting them with Juno, but also a part of his past - something he regularly defends with his life.
Juno begins to unravel in Jet’s arms, tense but still. He leans into Ransom’s touch as the thief gently strokes the damp curls at the base of his neck. The melody comes to an end and the only sound in the room is the crackling fires and Juno’s laboured breathing. “Juno, my darling.” Juno shakes with the exertion of his panic attack and probable flashback. “My dear, beautiful detective. My love.” Ransom is speaking in a tone Jet sometimes hears through the bedroom wall after Juno wakes from a nightmare. It’s a softness that Vespa has likely never heard from him.
Juno releases an unsteady breath. “Nur-” he cuts himself off, biting his lip hard.
“It’s alright, Juno. I’m here.”
Ransom is soft and open, dangerously baring the deep, secret parts of himself in order to make his partner feel safe. Jet has always known that Peter Ransom was an alias, but he hadn’t known just how much the thief transforms himself - his voice, his posture, his mannerisms. Jet and Vespa are meeting Peter Ransom (whoever he really is) for the first time.
“My dear detective. Can I look at your eye?” Ransom glances over to Vespa, who nods and moves silently to his side with her medical bag.
“I can’t -“ Juno chokes. He falls silent, breathing through his nose.
“You can’t see?” Ransom doesn’t stop stroking the back of Juno’s hair. The detective nods. “Let us take a look, sweetheart, we don’t know the extent of the injury.”
The more Juno relaxes, the less Jet holds onto him. By this time, Juno is leaning against him rather than fighting him. Jet rubs gentle, small circles into Juno’s back. “Big guy?” Juno asks.
“Yes, it is me.”
“...and Vespa?”
“I’m here, Steel. Let us take a look, okay?”
Jet can’t see the injury from his position behind Juno, but he watches his companions closely. Vespa’s expression is made of stone, but this peeled back version of Ransom doesn’t hide. Jet watches him wince, then sag in relief.
“You’re a lucky lady,” Vespa says as she begins to wrap gauze around Juno’s head. “It’s a nasty thing but got you above the socket. Nothing I can’t fix back on the ship.”
“Really?” Jet can feel Juno’s relief through their points of contact.
“I wouldn’t lie to you.” A grimace breaks her composure slightly. “Let me wrap that shoulder of yours, too.”
Juno leans forward and hisses in pain. “What happened to my arm?”
Vespa glances at Ransom, then at Jet. She could lie. She doesn’t. “I held onto you too tightly and you moved so quick. I’m sorry, Steel, I should have been more careful.”
Ransom’s eyes flash dangerously, but Juno unknowingly interrupts. “Oh, yeah, okay. I can get kinda…you know. It’s hard to -” He shrugs. “You owe me one, okay?”
“Yeah, I do.”
Vespa wraps his arm to his body in order to immobilise his shoulder. Ransom holds Juno close and they carefully make their way out of the factory and to the Ruby 7. Ruby whistles in concern and Jet pats her on the hood.
Ransom catches his eye in the rearview mirror as they approach the Carte Blanche. Jet recognizes the sharp, aggressive fear that comes with unplanned vulnerability. Jet looks at Juno who has his nose pressed into the side of Ransom’s neck, and then back at the thief. Jet gives him a soft smile.
It takes Juno a few weeks before he’s able to see again. It takes Ransom way longer to trust that Jet and Vespa aren’t going to spill his secrets. But they never bring it up. In fact, Vespa treats him with considerably more respect.
After a while, some of his softness begins to show. He’ll hum while making breakfast, or laugh uncontrollably at one of Rita’s jokes. But Jet sees the real Ransom quite often, because now he recognizes him in the way he looks at Juno Steel.
Jet wonders if, like him, Ransom is learning how to be part of a family for the first time.