#pocketpluto

I’m less certain about Vespa or Jet (as of Tools of Rust pt 1, anyway). I don’t think Buddy would have told them Peter’s backstory, the same way she didn’t tell Juno Jet’s name or past-- especially after Peter made it clear that he wanted privacy and anonymity. 

However, Vespa was in the Outer Rim at the same time, so there’s no telling what she heard before she made her way to the Cerberus Province. It’s possible she knew Mag (and, by association, Peter) back when she and Buddy were having their heyday. 

With Jet-- I’m undecided. There are plenty of reasons for him not to like Peter, past and present, but we haven’t yet heard any direct thoughts about him, so it’s hard to say.

I do think that all of them are of the belief that Peter’s past is something for him to talk about if and when he feels like it. I think it can be summed up by that bit of therapy-talk that Vespa spits out in Tools of Rust:

VESPA: I don’t have to talk about the bathroom if I don’t want to!

In case it’s not clear, this is the stage direction preceding it:

(FLUSTERED; “I DON’T HAVE TO TALK ABOUT ________” IS LANGUAGE BUDDY GAVE HER TO HELP HER WHEN SHE’S GETTING OVERWHELMED)

(But if you’ve spoken to someone who’s done therapy for a while, every so often you’ll hear them say a phrase like that, and you kind of know where it came from.)

But I feel like it sums it up. They’re all dealing with their own past and trauma, and they all know what it feels like to not want to talk about it. 

But as somebody with mental health issues in a friend group full of mental health issues, I can see why that makes Peter’s secrecy so uniquely frustrating:

In my friend group, we very often mention the fact that we’re having a bad mental health day. Depending on how open we’re feeling, we can go into slightly more detail: we’re raw from therapy, we missed a dose of meds, we’re getting overwhelmed, we’re just having a bad chemical day. And that helps the rest of the group understand and account for that person being a little more on edge, or less engaged, or scatterbrained, or ducking out altogether. It makes the situation easier to navigate for everyone involved.

It’s a whole lot harder to do that when one person keeps pretending they’re totally fine when they’re very obviously not. 

He doesn’t have to tell them his backstory or even the nature of his issues, but just acknowledging that he’s got them or he’s dealing with something would be helpful for everyone involved. 

But also, I’m aware that every single part of Peter is honed against that kind of openness and vulnerability. 

When Peter comes to, it’s with the taste of ozone and iron sharp in his mouth, an unpleasant reminder of the stun laser that ended his escape. Bruises on his skin and scrapes on his glasses attest to his treatment on the way to this jail cell– a few broken bones short of what he might receive in Hyperion City, but still far more brutal than is warranted by a few stolen trinkets. 

And these Solar people have the gall to call the Outer Rim uncivilized. 

Footsteps come his way– heavy and booted, dragging their heels slightly, echoed by the soft flapping of a long coat. One of the cops come to gloat, no doubt. Peter quickly sifts through his personas, looking for one best suited to his escape, when the owner of those feet speaks.

“I guess it’s true what they say.” There’s a scoff in the voice, cold and derisive. He’s too far away, but Peter can almost smell the whiskey on his breath. “People who stand for nothing will fall for anything.”

Peter’s on his feet before he realizes he wants to be, his hands wrapped around the bars of the door as he tries to pull himself closer. “Juno?” 

And he’s there, all sloping shoulders and surly stare. The flourescents overhead have long since gone out, and so the only light comes from behind him. Most of his face is in shadow, but Peter would know him anywhere. 

“How many times are you gonna fall for it, Nureyev?” 

He almost says something unseemly, but catches himself quickly, regains his composure. “I was struck by a laser, Juno, not fooled.”

“And what about what happened thirty seconds before you got shot, Nureyev? You had a straight shot to freedom, and you threw it away– for what? A dame with bad posture and a good taste in outerwear?”

Peter almost shrinks back. “Ah. You saw that.”

“I saw you make a fool of yourself.”

“Yes. Well.” He clears his throat. “I thought he was you.”

Juno snorts. “Me? He didn’t look anything like me, except out of the corner of your eye. But that was enough to make you trip up and blow this whole heist, wasn’t it?” The snort becomes an angry, accusing laugh. “And it wasn’t even the first time, was it? The first time we met, you were so busy flirting that you didn’t notice I’d caught on to your act. Did anyone ever tell you that you’re under arrest?” 

Peter can feel himself deflate. “Perhaps I was a touch overconfident, but–”

“Oh, is that what went wrong? Is that why you spent months working for Miasma without picking up on the fact that she wasn’t even human anymore?”

“I–”

“Or how about that night in the hotel? God, how stupid can you be? After everything you put me through, how the hell did you think I’d go anywhere with you?”

Peter’s stomach drops into his knees. His mind is racing, but he can’t put his thoughts into words.

“I’m not even just talking about Miasma. You didn’t bother researching Cecil Kanagawa’s experiments, and I practically get a concussion distracting his cameraman so it doesn’t eat you alive. You go running after a mobster with a bionic arm and I get my arm ripped open to keep him from turning your face into hamburger. You can’t handle a goddamn card game with a senile has-been, and I’m the one who has to put my life on the table. You piss off your boss, and I have to put a laser to my head to keep her from dumping your body in the desert. You needed a distraction to get out of that tomb, so I was your fall guy.”

“Juno–”

“And after all of that– after fucking all of that– you ask me to walk away from everything and start the whole goddamn thing over again? How many of your messes did you want me to clean up for you, Nureyev?”

Peter’s knuckles tighten around the bars. “Juno, stop.” 

But Juno doesn’t let up. “Was this your big plan? Always running, never looking back? No friends, no rest, no safe place to hide? No thanks.” 

“I would have protected you.” Peter’s all too aware that he’s pleading.

“Like you protected me from Engstrom? His trigger-happy bodyguard gassed me, Nureyev. She almost killed me while you were having your pissing contest with an old man. Or how about like you protected me from Miasma?” He steps closer, and Peter can see it clearly: the ruined eye, still raw and bleeding, as fresh as the moment Peter first saw it all those months ago. Peter stumbles away from the door, bile rising in his throat. 

“No,” he whispers. “This isn’t real. It isn’t real.”

“Of course it isn’t real,” Juno says, his voice heavy as a neutron star. “So why do you keep acting like it is?” 

Peter looks up, and suddenly there’s no door between them. Juno’s eye is cast in shadow once more, and without its gore his face is soft. 

“Listen, Nureyev. What you did out there, getting yourself shot chasing some person who kind of looked like me? That was a dumb move. You can’t keep doing shit like that. Not when I’m not around to save you.” 

“But Juno, love, isn’t that what you do?” Peter leans in, his forehead pressing against Juno’s. It’s hard to look at him from this angle, but that’s probably for the best. He isn’t sure he can look Juno in the eye right now. “When someone needs you, you swing in on a beam of starlight to rescue them. What is it going to take for you to come back to save me?”

Juno’s hand is rough and callused against Peter’s cheek, but it feels so warm. “I can’t save you from being lonely.” 

“But you could,” Peter pleads. “I know you could. We could do anything together, Juno, if you just–”

His thoughts outrun his mouth, and he does the only thing he can think of: he closes those last painful inches between them with a desperate, frantic kiss. He’s begging, pleading, hoping that this kiss might be enough to convince Juno to stay. 

Peter makes sure to engage the biometric lock and security protocols on the car before he leaves it. Ordinarily he wouldn’t put much stake in the car– after all, he can always steal another– but he isn’t inclined to add to the price on his head over something as petty as grand theft auto. Besides, this isn’t the time to be making enemies.

He pulls a lead-lined cloak tight around him, the hood pulled low over his face. For a moment he considers donning a debtor’s mask– after all, their pleading eyes search every face, while all other eyes studiously avoid looking at them– but rejects the idea. It would obscure too much of his vision, and he needs to be able to see as much as possible. 

He keeps his eyes on the crowd, scanning for dragging feet and sloping shoulders and hands shoved too deep into pockets. Juno’s likely to hide his face, given how many enemies he’s accumulated, but there’s no hiding his slouch. 

Fear wells up within him, as quiet and insidious as the radiation leaking through his clothes. There’s no telling how long Juno spent out in the desert unprotected. There’s no telling what Peter will find. What if he’s wearing a debtor’s tag? What if his mind is gone?

Peter grits his teeth. It doesn’t matter. If Juno’s sold himself, then Peter will buy the debt. If his mind is broken, then Peter will just find a way to work with whatever he’s got left. He doesn’t care what condition Juno’s in. He isn’t leaving without him. 

He’s reluctant to visit the Cerberus Board of Fresh Starts– even if Juno was desperate enough to need their services upon arrival, they can’t possibly have processed him already. And so he starts with the bars, searching one after another, looking into the eyes of every lonely soul curling around the solace of a bottle.

Days later, there’s no sign of Juno. There’s only one spot of hope in all of this: one of his more reliable colleagues is in town for a lucrative deal. Unlike him, her name is part of her brand, and she makes herself known by knowing everybody. If anyone can help him track down Juno in this shantytown, it’s her.

Buddy Aurinko pours him a drink. “I’d tell you you should’ve come to me with this sooner, but I wouldn’t have had the time for you then. As always, you have excellent timing.” 

“I certainly hope so.” Peter raises his glass to her. “So do you think you can find him?” 

“Come now, Nemo, you know me better than that. Of course I can find this dame of yours. The question is how much trouble he’s gonna put me through.”

“Trouble is how you’ll find him,” Peter says. “He’s got a hero complex, a delicate stomach, and a mouth that’s more likely to start fights than end them.” At the tilt of her head, he dives into Juno’s description. “A hundred and sixty centimeters, stocky build, with a prominent scar over his nose and a missing right eye.”

“You don’t say.” Buddy’s smile remains bright as ever, but something flinty slides into place in her eyes. “He got a name?”

She knows him, and she doesn’t like him asking these questions, but Peter presses on regardless.

“Juno Steel.” 

That doesn’t surprise her in the slightest. “Exactly what do you have planned for the little lady?”

“Does it matter?” Peter asks. “I thought you didn’t get involved in other people’s affairs.”

“I thought you didn’t go around sniping talent out from under other people’s noses, but it looks like we’re both wrong.”

Peter frowns. “Did you say talent?”

The kitchen door swings open. “Hey Buddy, I thought you said the place didn’t open until–” The space his sentence would have occupied is filled with the flap of the door and the strains of a dented semi-autonomous music machine in the corner. It’s a stirring, sweet melody, all gentle strings. It should be far too soft a sound for the person who stands in that door, with the morning’s stubble heavy on his cheeks and the rough lines of an eye patch across his face, and yet it suits him perfectly.

Peter’s only faintly aware of Buddy glancing from him to Juno and back, but he can’t focus on her. If he looks away from Juno for half an instant– if he so much as blinks– he might disappear all over again, and Peter can’t take that chance.

Buddy clears her throat. “I take it this isn’t about a job.” 

Juno swallows. Peter might do the same, but his mouth is too dry.

Peter stares at the door long after it slams in his face, clutching the envelope like a lifeline.

This shouldn’t bother him. It might be slightly embarrassing, perhaps, but it shouldn’t bother him. It shouldn’t matter.

His chest shouldn’t splinter when he hears a broken sob through the thin walls. 

It’s jut a con, after all, if one that went sour a little too quickly. He got what he needed, and now he can move on. He doesn’t need to linger on Mars for long– a few quick heists, and then he can be on his way. The faster he gets to work the faster he can leave.

No matter how often he tells himself that, he can’t seem to make himself listen, even when he leaves the apartment building behind him.

Instead he wanders aimlessly through the streets of Hyperion City, lost in thoughts that keep drifting back to Juno Steel. It was wrong what he did to the lady, of course, but when has that ever stopped him before? When has he ever spared a second thought for such trite niceties? Why should Juno Steel be any different from anyone who’s come before?

Hours pass in contemplation, until he’s thoroughly walked off the breakfast Juno made him (did he already suspect, when he put that meal together? Or did he prepare a breakfast with the hope of sharing more in the near future? Peter isn’t sure which is worse). His stomach is starting to growl, and so he follows his feet down an out-of-the-way avenue. He doesn’t even know why he’s going there– this is a warehouse district, not any place that might serve food. And yet there it is, nestled between a truck rental and a storage facility: a Brahmese cafe. 

It’s an odd stroke of luck– perhaps he smelled it without noticing?– even moreso when he finds that they actually make quite excellent plumb rolls. It’s always a chore to find a place that can make them properly. 

It’s the taste of home that does it. He put Brahma behind him, and he can do the same for Juno Steel. And so, emboldened, he takes out the envelope and finally takes a look.

And then stops chewing.

That can’t be right. Because the date Juno wrote down is next week. Peter would assume that they’re merely coming up on the anniversary of the event, if Juno hadn’t included the year. This year.

Is this part of Juno’s fixation? Is he really so deranged that he got the year wrong? Though he isn’t– no matter how much Peter wants to believe that Juno’s some kind of stalker, he knows beter. Could it be some kind of code, then? A reference to something else? A warning? 

Peter glances at the calendar on his comms to see if it corresponds with something– but the year is off on his comms, too. 

He rises from his chair and grabs a neighborhood newspaper from the front of the store. It’s there, too: the wrong year. Perhaps Mars is off– some kind of overzealous tribute to Old American Daylight Savings Time? 

Or perhaps it’s more simple than that: he’s wrong. 

Yes. That must be it. He must just have the year wrong. Maybe he’s been travelling so long that his internal calendar is off. Yes. It’s just the travel getting to him. He’s probably been writing down the wrong date for ages. He does a quick internet search for his last heist, just to recalibrate his expectations– but it’s oddly difficult to find. He has to do some digging before he finds the headlines, buried under far too much old news. It was an excellent heist– it should have made headlines. It should have shocked the archeological community for weeks, at least. 

And then he finds the headlines, like a fossil under too much sand: ancient history.

The year on the article is precisely the year he thought it was: last year. It’s a year old. But that can’t be right. He pulled that heist days ago. 

But a second news feed corroborates the story, and then a third, and a fourth. And then, as all news streams will, they tire of the story and move on to something more interesting. And while that happened, he was counting his money from a newly-fenced golden record on his way to Mars. The journey should have taken a little more than twenty-six hours, perhaps another one or two if he accounted for security and delays.

Somewhere in the course of that flight, he lost a year.

Peter checks the date on his comms again, almost compulsively. It’s irrational, he knows– the only time he’s losing is the handful of hours he spends asleep, though the dreams are fitful and they don’t do anything to calm his fraying nerves. 

He’s searched for every database, every system, every social media stream, and all of them come up empty. Of course, if he was easy to find he would be long dead by now. And yet there has to be some trace, somewhere. But there’s nothing. No matter how he looks or where he turns, there’s nothing. He might as well not have existed at all, and that frightens him in an entirely new way.

Frantic and thorough, he checks every lead, cross-references every alias, until he’s exhausted every option.

All but one.

And so he pockets his comms and takes a deep breath, and he opens the door of the Juno Steel Detective Agency.

The secretary greets him with a throaty giggle. “Hello again, Agent Glaaaaaaass.”

He doesn’t recognize the name, and so he has no persona to attach it to, but he makes do with what he can. She is charmed, and so he is charming. 

He sweeps into a bow to hide his glance at her name plate. “My dear Rita, we meet again.”

It’s the right tactic, judging by the way she giggles. “Are ya here to see the boss?”

“As a matter of fact, I am. Is he available?”

“He says he ain’t, but you go ahead. He could use a good case to cheer him up.” 

Peter raises his eyebrows into a caricature of concern. “Is he alright?”

“Sometimes he just gets like this,” she says. “But it’s been pretty bad lately. I think maybe somethin’ happened, but don’t try and ask about it. That just makes him mad.” 

“I’ll be sure to keep that in mind.” 

She taps something into her keyboard and the door slides open to reveal a glowering Juno Steel. To be perfectly honest, Peter’s surprised to find the detective at his desk. Given how things ended last time they met, he half expected Juno to try climbing out of his window to avoid this conversation.

But Juno is past trying to run. His bionic eye flashes dangerously. “I told you to get the fuck away from me.”

Peter steps closer, and the door slides shut behind him. “Juno, I know you’re upset–”

“This conversation is over. You have ten seconds to turn around and walk back out that door, or I’m throwing you out the window.”

“Juno–”

“Five seconds.”

This isn’t working. So Peter tries something different. “Four years ago, I stole the collected notebooks of Jasmina Seth Hill from a museum on Perseii Four. The curator of the exhibit was Ruslan Clemens Lawerenz, and their assistant was Eiríkr Barker, who was smuggling weapons to the resistance. On the night I went to steal the notebooks, the head of security was Éimhín Lefèvre, and the other members of her shift were Fionnghuala Kozlowski, Bearach Langdon, Den Phoebe Vigo, and Antonina Chaves, and every sixteen minutes they went on their rounds in two pairs while one remained at the security terminal. The passcodes I used to get in were, in order, Alkatraz, 4869974351, and password1234. The floor plan–”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Juno demands– and probably for the best, because all of that was a mouthful. 

“If I’d forgotten the slightest detail, my life would have been over,” Peter says firmly. “My life and my livelihood depend on my memory.” 

“And you were so busy keeping track of the important stuff to bother remembering me.” He’s already reaching for the panel at the door, and a chill goes down Peter’s spine. For an irrational moment, he’s certain that if Juno shuts that door between them, he’ll never see the detective again.

“You’re not all I forgot, Juno,” he blurts out. “I’m missing time.”

“Try putting down the bottle. That’s what they tell me.” 

Juno isn’t even looking at him anymore, and it sends a flare of desperation through his blood. “Dammit, Juno, something happened to me, and you’re my only hope of finding out what it was. I need your help.”

For half an instant, that seems to get through to him– but only for that half an instant. Just as quickly, Juno’s resolve hardens. “Not my problem.” 

“I’ll pay you.” 

Juno’s eyes narrow. “I don’t want your money.” 

Of course not, not when Juno can afford a bionic eye. But Peter is desperate. If Juno walks away from him now, he might never get another chance to find out what happened. So he tries again: “It’ll make us even.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Juno says. The sudden stiffness in his spine says otherwise.

“For whatever it is you did to me. That thing you’ve been blaming yourself for all this time. Do this for me, and we’re even.”

It’s a gamble, and Peter knows it. The muscles tighten in Juno’s arms; his hands ball into fists. Push too hard, and Peter will be walking out of here with a concussion. “You said you forgave me for that.”

“But that isn’t enough for you, is it?” Peter presses. “Not when I don’t remember what I forgave you for.”

“Because you were just telling me what I wanted to hear.”

“You’ve already made your apologies, Juno. Perhaps this will give you closure.”

Juno grunts. “Who needs closure when you have scotch?” He pauses, waiting for a reply. 

Peter isn’t sure exactly what he’s expecting-- a laugh at his sad little joke? Further protests? Begging? A desperate confession of love that they both know is a lie? 

Peter stands his ground, utterly silent, as the seconds tick away between them. Whatever it is Juno’s after, he can’t give it to him.