Work Text:
Buddy Aurinko is many things- intelligent, cunning, strikingly beautiful, and funny to boot. And while she prides herself on being a very maternal figure, she is aware of her limitations as a leader.
That is to say, she’s not very good at comfort.
Not in the traditional sense, anyway. She was never coddled or given a gentle hand as a child— she’s always too abrasively perfectionist with her words. Too practiced, too perfectly tailored to fit any situation she finds herself facing.
Disingenuous, if she had to label it. And she detests being labeled.
She’ll admit to no one but the metal panels in her room that she has been lacking in her matriarchal role. She should have seen this coming a mile away— it’s not like he’s subtle with his moods when she actually pays attention.
Juno and Vespa have been gone for three days now on a solo mission planetside; no contact with the crew means even their romantic saps of lovers are unable to reach them. It’s for safety, of course, but that does not make it easier for either of them to bear- especially Ransom, who seems particularly put off by the distance.
She really should have seen this coming. His hands had shaken when he’d drunk his nutrient paste and coffee mix this morning, dropping Juno’s mug nearly three different times from where he stood unmoving by the pot.
Away from the family as they sat at the kitchen table for breakfast.
Always so far away, that boy.
He’s never snubbed his nose at her; he’s always been rather respectful, but he certainly gets more irritable when Juno goes away for long periods of time. Hostile, like a cornered animal; as if one of them will attack him now that his protection is gone.
Buddy keeps her hands visible at all times when he’s like this. She doesn’t know if it helps, but he at least will meet her eye.
About the midday point is when he gives up on pretenses entirely and locks himself in his room. Buddy walks by his room on three separate occasions; she hears nothing as she passes and she swallows the worry that gives her.
After dinner, she finally grows tired of it. Rita had brought him a plate and he had turned her away. “Mistah Ransom said he was gonna be working all night and that if he eats a big meal it’ll make him sleepy,” she reports as she wraps the dish up to set it in the fridge for leftovers.
“Did you happen to see him when he turned down the offer, darling?” Buddy can’t help from asking— she tries not to let her voice waver. Rita shakes her head as she washes her hands, wobbling the stool slightly as she moves her hips to a beat Buddy can’t hear.
“Nuh-uh. I thought about tryin’ the number code Mistah Steel gave me for emergencies but I didn’t wanna invade on Mistah Ransom’s privacy and he already doesn’t seem to be feelin’ that good, honestly Captain A, I’m real worried about him, do you think he’s-“
“Yes, thank you, Rita,” Buddy cuts her off gently, placing her hand gently on the woman’s shoulder before she throws a look back down the hallway. She can taste the lie from here and she’s not even the one who received it.
Buddy’s always been too nosy for her own good.
It’s not too much longer before everyone’s off in their own rooms as simNight falls over the peacefully drifting ship. Larissa stands not too far away, the moon currently holding two of her crew members. It’s not a very big moon, but it does hold something far too important to The Board of Fresh Starts to ignore. They’re keeping their distance so the radios don’t pick them up and that relatively small distance feels like light years away.
Buddy could pretend that she had tried to sleep on her own, but still wearing her makeup and clothes from the earlier day, she knows that’s a lie. It’s too cold without Vespa to lay on top of her, and she can’t sleep when it’s too cold.
Her office, bathed in an appropriately melancholic blue hue, is still a wreck from the preplanning stages of the current heist. Really she could probably stamp out her worry if she busied herself with cleaning up the place, but there’s something else that’s been niggling at her mind all day.
She leans back in her chair, tapping her nails on the hardwood, and asks the papers on the floor if she’d done enough for her crew members. Especially the one who is currently hiding himself away like a scared child. If she’s honest with herself, which she’s been trying to be much more recently, she hasn’t done much for Ransom at all.
And she won’t stand for that, not as a leader nor as a friend.
Buddy sighs and pushes herself away from the desk, wincing slightly as it scrapes across the floor. As she leaves her desk, she steps off the carpet and immediately hisses at the cold metal floor. The heels she had originally worn into the room lay by her desk, but in an effort to not wake anyone else, she opts for the slippers Vespa left by the door for her many months ago.
She decides now would be a good time for a drink to ease her frayed nerves. She shuts off the light as she exits the room, the darkness flooding inside the room and leading her out to the hallway.
The white light that comes on at night, lighting the path of the hallways to keep everyone from running into the walls or tripping, reflects the shiny cold of her dress. She focuses on the reflection, rather than where her wayward mind is wont to run off to.
She passes Juno’s room on the way. She slows down as she does, quieting her footsteps and listening for any signs of life inside. She hears nothing, despite knowing for a fact that Ransom has stashed himself inside. If he were asleep, she’d at least hear snoring… but she doesn’t even hear that.
She keeps on walking, picking up her footsteps again when she makes it past the door; only slowing when she finally reaches the kitchen. The glass she pours herself is almost too full, spilling over onto the counter in her hurry. She drinks it there, letting the floral taste of it fill her mouth and throat as it goes down. She closes her eyes, leaning against the counter as she quietly taps the glass against the tabletop.
Three taps before she places it down, then rests her hands on either side of it, putting her weight on them. She knows what she has to do- she has to see Ransom face to face to know he hasn’t done something foolish. But that would mean barging into a space she’s clearly not welcome.
Granted, that’s usually not a problem for her- she’s known to shove her presence in places she perhaps doesn’t need to be, and most of the time it works out for her. But this matter is clearly delicate. Something is wrong with Ransom and Buddy won’t be able to sleep or rest until she knows what it is.
She has to try, even if that means making an ass of herself to do so.
She grabs another glass, just to settle her nerves, and downs it too. It does little to settle the fire in her mechanical stomach, but at the very least she won’t be as cotton-mouthed for their talk.
She dallies a little more, cleaning up the small mess she’s made to make it easier for whoever’s on cleaning duty next. When she can no longer realistically delay without it being obvious to the empty room that she’s hiding something, she takes a deep breath and marches herself towards Juno’s room.
The hallway is as deathly quiet as it was on her first time through, the only sound being the soft creaking as the shift drifts and settles. She’s keeping her footsteps light, so as to not alert Ransom of her presence just yet, and she pauses to lean by the door she finally hears a sign of life.
A sharp inhale of breath, followed by a hiccup.
That’s not a sound she’s used to hearing in Ransom’s vicinity, but she knows it all too well. Before she can think better of it, she knocks, twice with her middle knuckle. Soft enough to keep from echoing through the hall and alert the others, but loud enough that the noise stops immediately.
Neither of them breaks that silence for a long moment until Buddy finally has the wherewithal to ask a question with confidence she does not feel, “Darling, may I speak with you for a moment?”
She listens intently as Ransom shuffles around inside, most likely making himself look somewhat presentable until, after so long Buddy assumes she’s going to be turned away, he answers with a “Come in, Captain.”
Buddy enters Juno’s code into his door, stepping into the room as the door slides open for her, just barely avoiding stumbling on a pair of boots as she does. It’s dark in Juno’s room, even darker when the door slides back shut, and Ransom is only visible by a small lamp on the bedside table.
Even from here, barely silhouetted by the light, she can see he looks… not like his usual self. His clothes look more rumpled than she’s ever seen them and his hair is sticking up in places in a way that tells her he’s been tugging on it but hastily pushed it back to make it look somewhat normal.
The camera of her eye focuses and she can see the redness of his nose, the shininess of his cheeks, and his bleeding lip. It doesn’t take a genius to tell her that he’s been crying, though his appearance does confirm her suspicions.
The way he’s sitting now, lounged out on the bed in a carefully practiced way to make him appear relaxed, is an immediate giveaway of how tense he is. His hands are clasped too tightly in his lap with his chewed nails dug into the skin between his knuckles, his glasses are just slightly off-centered and foggy, and he’s holding his breath. He’s all but baring his teeth at her.
And suddenly Buddy finds herself in a very odd situation. Ransom clearly does not want her here, or at the very least is not in any condition to ask for help if he so needs it. And all of her words have died on her tongue. To be fair to herself, it’s not like she had a speech prepared or anything, this was a very impulsive decision, but at the very least she should have had… something to say.
Here she stands now, feet away from someone who not only looks up to her but respects her judgment and opinions on most things. And she’s not sure what to say to him in his time of need. So she just opens her mouth and lets the first words she can think of spill out.
“Pete, darling, did you know that my dear Vespa actually asked me out by putting a knife to my throat?”
Well, that’s certainly a strong start.
Not one she meant to lead with, but it gets a rise out of the man. He pauses, visibly freezing for a moment as if he’s unsure of what to do next. He finally breathes, the sound whistling through his nose, before he says with a slightly hoarse voice, “Pardon?”
“And you know the funny thing?” She continues on, just barely stopping herself from interrupting Ransom’s question, “She hadn’t even realized she had asked me to be her partner at the time. It took her a few months and a kiss to even confess her attraction to me and- well, honestly, I had just figured she liked to take things slow.”
During her speech, Ransom has lost some of the tension in his shoulders and shifting to where he’s sitting a lot more comfortably. Whether this is another ruse or not, Buddy isn’t entirely sure, but she at least feels herself settling in his presence.
One of his legs now hangs off the bed and he’s shifted to sit on the other foot, hands clasped around his ankle to keep himself upright. Buddy stays where she is, keeping her hands visible, and makes no move to come closer. The little bit of vulnerability each of them has shown is enough for now.
“How… did you assume you were already dating if she had no idea?” Ransom asks another question, his voice still stretched with anxiety, but a little louder. Buddy lets herself laugh, a timid little thing- she remembered how embarrassed she had been confessing this so long ago. Now, it’s just funny.
“Well, she had said to me, and I quote, ‘We work better as a pair.’ If that isn’t a proposal of some kind I’m not really sure what is, to be honest,” Buddy answers, bringing her hands up to do the air quotes around her words before tossing her hair back behind her shoulder.
She’s not sure what she was looking for with telling this story, to be clear, but she does feel a whole lot better in the next few seconds.
Because Ransom laughs. He laughs at her words, snorting slightly in a way she has not been able to hear before. It sounds real and genuine, and he clears his throat when he realizes what he’s done but neither of them says a thing about it.
Calling him Ransom wouldn’t be entirely correct, either. The man before her now, soft and somewhat open, is not the same Peter Ransom she met at a tiny cafe with nothing but a reference and the galaxy’s best get-away car to his fake name.
She doesn’t know, exactly, who this person is… but she knows that she likes him better than whoever he’s trying so hard to be.
“Well, yes, that does sound like a proposal to me… I’m quite surprised the good doctor did not see that as her own intent,” Pete says sounding amused, before he grows quiet again. He’s thinking, doing calculations in his head as he figures out his next best course of action.
And yet she’s still surprised when he speaks again and asks warily, “Would you like to sit down, Captain?”
It is the most obvious olive branch she has been given, almost as if it was carried in by a white dove itself. Buddy does her best not to seem as outwardly pleased and warm as she feels and makes her over now that Ransom has given her permission.
“Thank you, darling, how very kind of you,” She says as she smoothes out the back of her pants before she sits down with a sigh, crossing her ankles automatically. She notices a bit too late that her words could be seen as condescending and she grimaces slightly at the remark. “I meant that, by the way, just in case you thought I was being smart with you…”
And then they fall into silence once again, both of them unsure of where to go from there. Pete is still emotionally volatile and Buddy isn’t one for kind words of comfort. Even with her Vespa, it’s hard to know what to say and the right way to say it… Vespa would know, she’d know how to comfort people- perhaps in a much more blunt way, but she’s always been the more sincere one of the two.
She’s Buddy’s personal bleeding heart and Buddy misses her terribly.
“To tell you the truth, Pete, I…” She starts suddenly, then stops just as abruptly, letting out a long sigh, her posture sagging slightly. She laughs a little, feeling a little like she’s drifting with no gravity, and turns towards him with what she hopes is a somewhat comforting smile.
It feels more like a frown despite her best efforts, but she’s not trying to be practiced and perfect right now. She’s trying to be… real.
Before she can talk herself out of it, she brings her hand up and tucks her hair behind her ear, exposing the blue light of her camera as it focuses on Pete’s face.
Pete makes a small noise that he quickly swallows back, but otherwise stays quiet as he waits for Buddy to continue with what she was going to say. He’s picking at the hem of his pants, pulling at a thread that’s halfway unraveled already. She makes a note to fix that for him later, before continuing on,
“To tell you the truth I came here because I was feeling exceptionally worried about my Vespa. I know she has no problem handling herself or others, she’s a strong, capable, beautiful woman but- …Well, that doesn’t do anything to absolve me of worry. I assume you understand the feeling yourself.”
It’s not a question, Buddy knows Pete is worried about his lady love, no matter how much he tries to pretend he isn’t. The mission is dangerous, every crew member was made well aware of it from the get-go. Buddy had noticed Pete hanging on just a little longer to Juno before their send-off because Buddy had done the same.
Exceptionally skilled or not, one wrong move was all it will take. And no contact meant that they wouldn’t know until it was already probably too late. It’s weighing very heavy on Buddy’s mind, no matter how hard she tries to project a calm demeanor.
Pete hesitates briefly before he nods, finally lifting his hand and taking off his glasses; he cleans them with the edge of his wrinkled robe before he places them back on the tip of his nose. “I… yes, I do understand how you’re feeling very well, Captain. Juno can handle himself perfectly fine on missions, I’ve seen it many times before.”
And now that he’s started, he can’t seem to stop, because he fidgets with the cuff of his sleeve as he continues, “Juno doesn’t need me to save him, I know this- but I- I’ve almost lost him once before I don’t think my heart could take it if-”
And then he freezes and realizes what he’s said. Buddy makes no move to comment on his words.
She was well aware by the time of Juno and Rita’s arrival that something unfortunate had gone down between the two. The tense atmosphere had only proven her point and she is very grateful to her past self that she has forced them to work together to sew the seeds of a new future- no matter how disgustingly annoying they sometimes may be.
Buddy can’t complain, not when she had been enthralled in her own honeymoon phase when she and Vespa were young lovers. Not to mention their reunion, they could barely keep their hands off one another once the reality had set in. Young love is a beautiful, if noisy, thing.
There is a lot about the relationship between Juno and Peter that she does not know. There is stuff that she’s overheard, stuff she has gathered from context clues, and stuff Juno has told her in confidence. And now, Pete is giving up his own secret too, if a bit unwillingly.
“It is… just difficult, not knowing if he’s safe or not…” Pete finally finishes his speech lamely, curling in slightly on himself as he tries to make himself as small as possible. What for, she doesn’t know, but she’s not going to let him close himself off just yet.
She takes her hand and places it on his knee, making him freeze in place. She rubs the fabric with her thumb, gently, and speaks as quietly as she can manage over the rumble of the ship, “You and I have a lot more in common than I first believed, Pete darling.”
Pete inhales sharply and for a moment Buddy worries she’s made the wrong move, but then his hand falls on top of hers, squeezing lightly. His hand is cold and slightly clammy, but it’s a nice weight and she feels more grounded at this moment than she has all day.
“I… Thank you, Captain,” He says softly, squeezing her hand once more before he looks towards her face, meeting her eyes, “I know I can be rather difficult to deal with, but thank you for allowing me a glimpse into your feelings. It… has helped more than you know.”
Buddy wouldn’t consider herself an emotional person, but in that moment she can feel a stinging in her good eye that she does her best to blink away. “Of course, Darling, I’m your captain after all. You should feel comfortable being able to talk to me about these kinds of things. Worrying over your fellow crewmate is only natural. We are a family after all.”
And then she stands, smoothing out the front of her dress despite the fact that there’s nothing on it. She just needs something to do with her hands. She keeps them visible still, just in case.
“I believe now would be a good time to try and rest, darling. Tomorrow is another day closer to their return and we must be in tip-top shape when they do,” She fumbles a little, fussing over nothing as Pete stands up beside her, just a few inches shorter than her now that neither of them is wearing heels.
“Of course, Captain, let me walk you out,” He responds, seemingly flustered, and Buddy hesitates again. She’s not sure why, but she gets the oddest sensation to just…
She turns to face him properly and before he can ask what she’s doing, and really before she can even ask herself, she brings her arms up around his neck and pulls him into a hug.
He’s very tense in her arms, and to be quite honest she doesn’t know if how she’s holding him is entirely comfortable, but she’s done it and now she can’t say she regrets it. Pete stays still for only a moment longer before he unceremoniously slumps into her grip, hooking his arms around her shoulders and just burying his head into her neck.
“It will be… alright, Pete. Our loves will return to us unharmed and safe,” Buddy whispers to the wall behind him, letting one of her hands rest on the back of his head, holding him as comfortingly as she can. It seems to do the trick, because he shudders all the way down and, somehow, sags even more.
She hopes that this hug has done at least some good.
Buddy doesn’t keep track of time as she holds him- they could be there for seconds or minutes or even hours as she supports his weight in her arms. She can feel his hands tightening ever so slightly on the back of her shirt, keeping her rooted in place- she can’t find it in herself to mind.
Eventually, Pete deems it time to pull away, relief seeping down into his weary bones and his cheeks shiny once more.
She doesn’t call him out on his crying, there’s no need to. She simply gives him a smile, taking his hands and squeezing them reassuringly before saying, “Get some rest, darling. I’ll see you bright and early at the Family Meeting tomorrow.”
Pete nods, a little dazed and most definitely embarrassed, but he sits back down as Buddy turns to leave the room. Before she exits the room, she hears him whisper “ Thank you ” once more before the door slides closed. Only then does she fix her hair and hides her eye from view again.
With nothing else to do, she finally heads towards her room and decides to take her own advice- some sleep would do them both some good.
In their shared bedroom, Buddy disrobes, undoes her face, and removes her wig. She sits in the vanity and does her nightly routine, reminiscing on images of Vespa coming up behind her to wrap her arms around her neck and make it difficult to ignore her.
She is still warm from her conversation with Pete and as she lays herself down in bed, she feels almost calm. Her Vespa is in good hands and Buddy has a companion in her worry. She rests easy for the first time since Vespa has been gone.
When morning comes, she is surprised to find that she is the last person awake.
The kitchen is bustling this morning, with Jet making his famous pancakes- Buddy has gotten used to the fact that she is unable to eat regular food now, but she can admit that she is quite jealous of her other members who get to enjoy this flavorful meal. At least it smells delicious, which is good enough for her.
Rita is as bustling as ever, moving from counter and counter to help Jet grab ingredients and fix-ins to every member's liking, excitedly regaling him with a rundown of a game she had spent all evening playing.
“-and see, you play this cat right? You’ve got these huge, huge guns strapped to your backpack, like twice the size of the kitty itself and sometimes I think the poor thing’s gonna topple over but not to worry because the cat is super strong and can also fly! And that’s really useful because you’ve gotta stop this alien invasion from happening so you gotta blast the alien scum outta the sky!”
Jet makes a noise to signal for Rita to go on, though he interrupts for a moment by saying, “Rita, will you pass me the chocolate chips? They should be behind you, by Ransom.”
“Oh yeah, here ya go, Mistah Jet!” Rita pauses long enough to turn around and snatch the bag from the counter as instructed, catching sight of Buddy as she goes. “Mornin’ Captain A! Did ya sleep well?”
Buddy nods in response, still a little too tired to begin talking. Though as she turns back, she sees Ransom as Jet has said, sitting at the kitchen awning and nursing a cup of coffee in the same mug he always does. While he hasn’t said anything just yet, Buddy is pleasantly surprised to find he doesn’t look as claustrophobic as he usually does.
“Miss Rita, is the game just a, uh… a shoot-em-up, or is there lore involved? I’ve heard that the most simple of games usually have some of the best-kept secrets,” He suddenly asks, a little stilted and certainly hesitant, but he glances at Buddy over his mug before muffling himself by taking a drink.
Rita beams and turns back around as Jet continues his cooking, flipping the pancake he’d been working on. “Oh, Mistah Ransom, I’m so glad you asked! It has a ton of lore, and at one point it also had an ARG going- ARG stands for Alternate Reality Game, and it’s kinda like puzzles based on the game that you can solve in the real world- which was super cool and real sad that I never got to participate because you had to go to different planets to solve a bunch of it but at the end, you found this really cool statue of the main character-”
She keeps going as Buddy slips through and makes her way to her special cabinet, grabbing the gin she’d begun drinking last night. She pours herself a glass and turns to lean against the counter as she surveys her crew.
Rita, now sitting on the counter opposite to Ransom, continues talking about her game in her usual boisterous manner. Ransom, who is actively engaging in her conversation, asking questions and seeming to genuinely be interested in her words. Whether he truly is, Buddy couldn’t say, but she is happy to see him interacting with everyone.
She sips her gin, letting her eye slip closed as she basks in the family she has built. She really is a damn fine leader.