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Steve winces at the smell of burnt Billy Hargrove.
“You really fucked me.” Billy lets Steve know, slumped down in one the chairs in the bridge, knees spread wide, pants cooked crispy, cigarette dangling annoyed on his bottom lip. His cool leather jacket Steve’s admired since the guy had run into him toasted. Charred head to toe. His blue eyes stand out more. His metal arm does too.
At least his curls have stopped smoking.
Steve pours Billy a drink. A nice one, even. A bottle of scotch from his dad’s collection—now his, Steve supposes, with only a mild amount of embarrassment.
Billy throws it back without savoring it, flicks his glass down the tabletop computer to commandeer the bottle, takes a drag of his smoke between chugs.
Steve sips at his and hates the taste.
Maybe he went a little too far.
Maybe Billy had it coming for stealing his bounty the last two go-arounds.
The soreness in Steve’s shoulder from the kickback of his jacked-blaster seems like a fair trade off for the half million sitting in the sauna-turned-brig.
“It’s a dent.” Steve tries, his shoulders hitching up to hug at his ears as Billy’s lips pop off the scotch to aim his look he gives to runners with a cool couple hundred grand riding on their heads who have the gall to try.
It’s not the type of glare Steve appreciates.
It’s not like Steve left Billy on Tijuana.
It’s not like Billy ever said sorry for ramming his camaro into the beemer while they were in Mercury’s fucking orbit
The bottle hits the screen hard, causing pixels to flare and a concerning creek coming from the glass.
Billy puts out his cigarette on the palm of his steel hand.
“I can see through her.” He says.
“Okay. Slightly more than a dent.”
Billy points a metal finger at him, the soft whirring of his prosthetic tendons tickles under Steve’s ears.
“Call it a dent one more time.”
“I didn’t, I said slightly more than a dent and none of this would be happening if you weren’t so full of yourself and greedy and pretty much, like, an overall shit guy.” Steve makes his own face, special for Billy being an outright dick. “So. Fine. Not a dent.”
Billy’s finely plucked eyebrow hitches a ride to his hairline.
“Greedy? The fuck do you think a bounty hunter is, Princess? ‘Cause nice ain’t it.”
“I guess not. You take my guy, I take your ship. Who gives a shit, we’re all assholes, right?”
The popped clip of Billy’s holster is distinct in the Loch Nora’s white noise hum and only slightly less than surprising.
Through the bridge’s windows, asteroids float peacefully by and in the distance is TJ, a glimmering light among the rocks.
Billy’s aimed his glock at Steve before. Between his eyes to get his point across. At his knees to startle Steve and gain a headstart. It’s how they met and how they keep meeting. Bumping heads and cutting each other off on the tail to snag the Inter-Solar System Police’s reward.
There’s a game to it. A score to keep track of—Steve is two down, but Carol has the next three runners coordinated.
Down the barrel of Billy’s glock, Steve thinks Billy could mean it this time.
And from anyone else, maybe Steve would try to be nice about it.
With the back of his hand, he slaps the pistol away.
“Are you actually going to shoot me in my own ship?”
“I’d do it on mine but you blew it up, genius.” Billy corrects his aim, even closes an eye like he’ll have trouble making a headshot from three feet away. “You had the balls to use the fucking gun I made you.”
“Please, you modded a gun. You weren’t molding steel.”
“I remade that shit into art and you used it against me.”
“The way guns are meant to be used? To stop douchebags from being bigger douchebags?”
Billy shifts, leans on the burnt toes of his boots, on the edge of his seat, the blue glow of the navigation screen making his eyes shine and glint sharply on the cool metal of his arm.
They say what’s left of Earth are feral clans and a raging ocean sweeping all that’s left underwater. Steve was born and raised on Mars, has only seen Earth passing by on his maps. Looking into Billy’s eyes, though, in the cutting hitch of his grin, he knows exactly the kind of wildness he’d find on that broken planet.
Billy stands up. Kicks his boot up. Lands that cooked heel on the triangle of space between Steve’s thighs and tilts the chair forward. A threat hanging in the narrow inches where he could dig his steel toe into Steve’s polyester covered crotch.
Steve grips at his chair’s arms. Imported leather. A century old, at least. Soft and supple and expensive and Steve digs his nails through it.
“You’re paying for my camaro.” Billy says, gesturing with his gun.
“I’ll pay for shit when I actually did anything wrong.”
“That blaster couldn’t shoot through one of your doilies before I got to it.”
“I’ve never asked you to do anything for me.”
Billy scoffs, his forehead starts to twitch. “I’m not about to leave some green cowboy defenseless.”
“Green, huh?”
“As a sad sack’s shit.”
“Fuck you. And—and, you know what? Show me one doily around here.”
“Any, uh, anything to be worried about in here? Guys?” Tommy pokes his head through the bridge’s doorway, knocking on the wall followed by Carol.
He nods at Billy, stroking the doorjamb, cheeks darkening. “Hey, Hargrove. I dig the hair.”
Carol rolls up her magazine and pinches it under her arm. She glances between them, smiling, enjoying the drama in Billy’s looming over Steve.
“This about the camaro?”
“Carol? Not now?” Steve says and jumps when Billy follows through on his threat and presses his boot firm on Steve’s crotch to give him complicated feelings. He grunts out, “In the middle of something? Hello?”
“But your dad called.”
The worst. She’s the worst. Has the worst timing. Despite Steve hissing shut up, oh my god, Carol pulls out a folded piece of yellow lined paper from her bra.
“He said, Bring back my ship, your mother is sick with worry, blah, blah, blah, you’re old enough to know better—the usual, you know—oh! This is a new one. Then he said, you have until the end of the month to return home and apologize. I think the or else was, like, implied? The overall tone was very aggressive.”
Pressing down harder on Steve’s emotionally distraught dick and without breaking the chokehold glare he has on Steve, Billy growls out, “Tell your morons I’m commandeering this cruise ship and to shut the hell up.”
Steve balks at cruise ship—the Loch Nora may be a luxury vessel, but it was the smallest and fastest in his dad’s hangar. The kind of ship you can’t buy off the line.
Shoving Billy’s foot off of him and off his chair, Steve leans back to smile at Carol.
“His finger isn’t even on the trigger. Ignore him. He’s trying to be funny.”
Billy grabs Steve by his sore shoulder and with his metal arm hauls him up and swings him, tosses him out of the bridge into Tommy and Carol, pulls the lever to shut the door and locks it.
Steve scrambles onto his feet.
He knows the sound of the pressure lock initiating. He knows Billy’s just fucked him over. He knows it was stupid to bring him onboard and tow that goddamn camaro.
Still.
He bangs his fist against the metal door.
“Did you really just lock me out?” Steve asks Tommy and Carol and the Loch Nora herself. “Hargrove?” Steve tries to yank it open. Pops his shoulder when he does.
It doesn’t budge.
He tries again.
He knocks.
He kicks and pain shoots up his shin.
Overhead, the intercom crackles as Billy says Get me some beer, Hagan.
Carol fans herself with her magazine and Tommy’s already wandered off to the galley.
Steve slams his very-sore fist on the door and yells, “Your crap-heap sucked!”
—
Billy holes himself up in the bridge for two days and by the third Steve’s locked himself in his own quarters.
The Loch Nora’s been rerouted to Io instead of Venus where the trade’s supposed to happen.
Back on TJ, they’d been two drinks in at Denis Bar when Billy had told him about his place on one of Jupiter’s moons.
A garage in a bone-dry desert bought for cheap since Billy knew a guy. A place to lay low and keep his girl pretty. Hot as sin. Sunny ten days out of the week. Said, smiling-fake, something close enough to a home.
In his heart, Steve had known what Billy meant. Nothing ever felt quite like a home, not Hawkins on Mars and not Loch Nora, but it doesn’t mean he’ll stop looking for one.
A quiet moment where Steve had some thoughts and some wants and circled around maybe Billy thinks and wants like me too.
He’d pressed his hand to Billy’s metal one and knocked their knuckles together.
Then Billy had pulled his shit and Steve did the only thing he’d thought to do in their game.
Shoot for the win.
The camaro’s in the hangar next to the beemer where Carol and Tommy had hauled it in and anchored it. A bulky fighter made to keep its footing against even the toughest ISSP battleship. Precision and muscle—takes a stubborn kind of meathead with a death wish to pilot.
Makes Steve’s racer look dainty.
Makes the blaster Billy modded that much more insane.
Makes it a miracle Steve still has his own arm and makes him wonder how exactly Billy lost his.
Steve finds Billy waist deep in the camaro’s shredded guts, small red radio playing Jupiter hits next to him. Wiped clean and half-wearing a pair of borrowed blue coveralls and Steve guesses, with sweat percolating on the backs of his knees, not much else.
Billy lies on the creeper with the perpetually squeaking wheel and Steve stands there, struck stupid and weighing the options of giving in now or waiting another week for when they reach Io to break the tension.
Either way, Steve’s the one who’s gonna break first. It’s just in his nature.
Being amiable.
The sociable kid who couldn’t keep his mouth closed when he should’ve.
The needy boyfriend with a girl who runs off-planet to dump him.
The rich asshole who’d rather be a dirt-poor bounty hunter.
Up close and without the chemical flames to distract him, the damage is a lot to take in and maybe Steve’s starting to feel that slight bit sorry that makes him want to say it too.
He knocks on a solid enough piece.
“Hey.” He says.
From somewhere under the metal wreck, Billy grunts at him.
Steve had been pissed and running off adrenaline, grabbed the biggest gun in range to keep Billy from flying off with another one of his marks Steve had staked his claim on with a pair of fuzzy handcuffs he’d snagged from Crystal—she’d been nice enough to let him have the pair for free.
That particular bubbling urge to apologize pops.
Steve taps at another chunk of camaro.
“I didn’t think your ship was so thin-skinned. I thought this was supposed to be a fighter?”
“Oh. Oh, baby, no.” Billy clangs what sounds like a steel middle finger on something metal. “If that’s your apology, you better be an A-Class cocksucker, ‘cause you can shove that one back up your can.”
Billy’s scuffed-clean boots and v of his crotch aren’t the view Steve’s interested in.
He hooks his foot behind that squeaking wheel and pulls Billy out from the camaro’s shredded undersides.
Billy’s showered and it looks like he’s cut some of his curls short, trimming the damaged locks. His ears are bigger without all the fluff and his cheeks fuller. He’s got a nice face. Freckles under smeared oil turning him younger. His pistol tucked into the tied-low waist of his coveralls.
Steve thinks cute and wishes some shrapnel had gotten him between the eyes. He always makes things difficult for himself.
“So I can explode the camaro, but not talk about it?”
“If you weren’t full-priced eye candy, you’d be banned from even looking at her.”
“Right.”
“Damn right, pretty boy.”
“So what’s the plan? Fly to Io, drop you off? I would’ve done that without the whole—“ Steve sweeps his hand down at Billy, “—Dramatic hostile takeover.”
Billy grins, bites at the wrench in his hand Steve knows Tommy has never once cleaned. Ever.
“It’s cute you think I’m that easy.”
“Again, didn’t say that, just pointing out the holes in your plan.”
Billy shrugs and tosses his hands up and above his head, his arms going lax, wrench gripped in both his hands.
“Maybe I’ll scrap the beemer for parts. Give your daddy a call and name a price for your safe homecoming.”
“Taking this kidnapper and hostage thing kind of seriously.” Steve mutters. “What about our paycheck? We can still hit Venus first.”
“Why the hell do I care? You’re worth more than that lame fuck. Let him go or throw him out the airlock. We ain’t making any pitstops.” Billy stretches, his back arches and his chest pushes out, arms flexing metal and muscle and Steve gets that view he definitely doesn’t mind of Billy going taut before softening and glaring up at Steve with heavy, half-lidded eyes. “You blew up my ship and you blew me up.”
“Yeah.”
“That’s real fucked up of you.”
“Not arguing with that.”
“Yeah, you are.”
Steve steps over Billy to stand over him and sits. Straddles Billy’s middle, his face heating to the backs of his ears, blood thrumming in a quiet sort of rush that leaves him heady at the feeling of Billy’s hard pistol pressing up against him.
An ACP Glock 30. Tiny in Billy’s brunt hands. Delicate too.
Billy keeps his arms over his head, though his metal hand twitches, he stays still. Watching Steve closely and Steve watches him back, noticing it takes Billy a few seconds to breathe again.
They met chasing the same guy who’d thought robbing a string of casino’s his ex owned would be a good idea.
Luck runs out for everyone and getting dumped will push any poor schmuck across the line.
Steve had to figure that out the hard way too.
Steve tugs down his sleeve and uses it to wipe at the oil smeared across Billy’s cheeks..
Billy gives him a face, like Steve’s being weird.
“What’s wrong with you?” Billy asks him.
“I can’t talk to you when you have junk on your mustache.”
The scowl Steve gets makes him laugh and he cleans Billy up the best he can with a bit of spit and cotton.
It’s easier to touch Billy than it is to talk to him. Steve takes his time.
“Were you trying to kill me?” Billy says.
Steve always thought if he pulled ahead far enough, caught enough bounties, kept his finger on the trigger and only pulled when he had to, maybe Harrington wouldn’t be just the name his dad incorporated across the solar system.
He could be Steve Harrington on his on two feet.
Billy would look at him and see him.
“I just wanted you to take me seriously.” Steve admits, hands falling limp onto his lap, feeling different shades of stupid about himself.
Steve isn’t a fan of this kind of stare either and shies away from it.
Billy pushes up in a quick, jerking motion and knocks noses with Steve, has Steve nearly reeling backwards to land awkward on his ass before Billy catches him, hooks his metal arm around the back of Steve’s neck. Holds him there. Close.
There are the greens in Billy’s eyes swimming in blues. The Earth’s raging, unrelenting waves crashing down and into Steve, a storm filling him up.
“I don’t bother with people I’m not serious about.” Billy tells him, the gears of his arm shifting and whirring in Steve’s ears.