Archive of Our Own

Juno’s earliest memories came in flashes of starry skies and fluffy cloaks. Cold nights in the tall, unkempt grass of Oldtown, one hand gripping his cloak around himself and his other grasping his Ma’s feathers. He on one side, his twin on her other, all three of them with heads tilted back, looking through the dome with night-black eyes. Eyes tuned to the light of the faraway stars. His Ma’s voice, soft and smooth as the breeze, slipping easily between Song and story as it filled their ears with the tales of their people, their heritage.

As he and Ben grew older and their Voices developed, they began to Sing along with her, harmonizing the parts they knew until they could Sing all her Songs in their entirety. They didn’t realize they could, of course, until she stopped Singing. 

If it weren’t for Benten, Juno would’ve stopped, too. Or at least tried.

“You’re gonna be a Siren, aren’t you?” Benten had laughed, “Don’t look at me like that. I see how you love your Songs, Super Steel!”

“They’re not mine,” he had argued, but hadn’t let go of Benten’s hand when he pulled him into a dance, coaxing a Song from Juno easily.

Because no matter how hard Juno wanted to believe that those Songs were his mother’s, that he was nothing like the Siren she was, he knew their melodies had already carved themselves into his bones the same way they had Benzaiten’s. But Benten didn’t feel the urge to Sing like he did, didn’t need to create the music with his veins and lungs, he danced instead. Maybe it was a mark against Juno’s character, how he couldn’t rip himself from the Song in his blood like Benten could. Maybe it was just how Benten was, how he found freedom in dancing with his human body just as much as flying in his avian form. 

Not that any of them could fly very high, or very far, without fear of someone seeing them. Swans shouldn’t exist on Mars, after all. 

That was the whole point of being here, on this planet devoid of unpolluted, unrecycled water. Nobody would think to look for waterfolk here. Nobody would expect them to survive. Humans had a tendency to believe their own theories wholeheartedly, especially when they aren’t disproven for hundreds of years. And no waterfolk was eager to correct any of them when it was the humans’ own stupidity keeping them from being able to accurately hunt down waterfolk once and for all. 

One of Benten’s favorite Songs told the story of their foremothers’ escape to Mars. Juno couldn’t go a week without Singing it for him. He grumbled every time, of course, that Benten should be able to Sing it himself. But Ben would just laugh, prance off into the patch of clear field surrounded by old arbor and towers of scrap, and step into another dance. Juno’s Voice would mix into the night air without further argument. 

A step, a leap, an introduction to a family of swans. Those who lived in the ponds and lakes and oceans of Old Earth, swimming with the merfolk and nereids, strolling onto shore with the selkies and nymphs, frolicking with kappa and kelpies. A spin, a discovery of humans who ventured out on boats of fallen wood, pulling life out of the oceans with ropes and metal claws. A flash of swan feathers and a kick of human feet, and those who could escaped as far as they could into the depths of the ocean, where the humans of even today couldn’t follow. 

Because, a leap aided by a flap of white wings, humans were never satisfied with what they were given. They took everything the land, the air, the water could not afford to give. A crescendo of taps, and the existence of waterfolk slowly became a rarity. Mers were hunted for their scales and their entertainment value. Selkie pelts and swan maiden cloaks became luxury goods alongside silk gowns and diamond jewelry. But humans were never unsatisfied with the tales the waterfolk weaved. A tale of innocence and dependence and extinction, so when they eventually disappeared, the humans knew nothing to blame but themselves. By the time they had the tools to realize that none of the songs the Sirens sang were Songs , all the Mers had long retreated into the myths they had made for themselves. 

And then came the legislation, decrescendo, where the waterfolk were given human rights and the procuration of scales and pelts and cloaks were met with felony charges. The seeds planted by those false songs had finally come to bloom. The stories of men who were able to enslave selkies by stealing their pelts had led to hundreds of stolen pelts being returned to the sea. The notion that all one must do to escape a kappa’s grasp is to bow rid humans of the fear and need to kill them. And the unrefuted belief that Sirens are nothing more than a singing subsect of merfolk meant their culture, their Voices, could go unchecked by those who do not know the water. 

But this family of swans could not live like they used to. Benzaiten twirled through the air, wings snapping out to the steadily rising tenor of Juno’s Voice.

The laws against the human ownership of mythical items only made them more coveted. It only drove their dealings to the black market. And though they refused to allow the humans to dirty their cloaks, their beings, their connection to the water made physical, they knew their time was running out. And so they Sang, and Juno Sang the Song of the stars, and they took flight, and Benzaiten wrapped his cloak fully around him, and they spread their wings and flew to where they could not be found, and Benten spread his wings and flew down to Juno, singing the last verse of his favorite Song.

And so had the Swan Maidens, the Steels, fallen into the desert planet called Mars, and so had Sarah been their last descendant, and so had that title fallen to the twins. 

And so had the stars continued to beckon, as they always have and always do and always will, reminding the twins that the swan maidens had originally hailed from the Celestial Realm, and will always welcome them back.

And Juno had fallen silent, as he always does, after the last note rang into the night. As his Voice shifted back to his voice, where he could find the words to tell Benten to go to sleep already. And Benzaiten would smile, shrugging his cloak down from wings into shoulders, and take his hand to lead him home. 

This song and dance would go on for years, escaping the notice of Sasha and Mick and the rest of Oldtown, a pair of swans with their feathers folded away securely under their ragged clothes. 

But no matter how beautiful it was, every melody ends eventually.

“I could’ve found her,” was the first thing Juno said after Annie Wire was declared dead. 

“ We could’ve found her,” Benten said, because Sasha and Mick are not there to hear. He’s barely audible over the rush of sewer water. Juno wished he weren’t audible at all. Ben stepped around the rabbits piled around his twin, roosting at his side, “But we didn’t. You know what would’ve happened if they heard us Sing—”

“They’re kids! Human kids!” the bunny in Juno’s arms chittered in discontent at the screaming, “They don’t know the first thing about Sirens! They think the only thing Songs can do is seduce pirates, Ben. We could just splash water on ourselves, and when we don’t immediately turn half-fish, they’ll assume we can’t be waterfolk because that's how humans think it works.”

“That’s how humans need to think it works, Super Steel,” Ben’s voice was set into a grim monotone Juno fiercely hated, “You and I both know that. That’s why we can’t Sing or shift or anything around them. Because when they figure out we aren’t human—“

“I know,” Juno buried his face in the bunny’s fur, “I know, Benten.”

The large rabbit Juno was leaning against huffed as Benten joined his twin. It was warm underneath the coarse, dirty fur. More baby bunnies were curled around it, sniffing Juno and Ben curiously. Sometimes Juno wondered what would happen if he just stayed there, a swan amongst rabbits, taming them with his Songs and never needing to surface. But the stars called to him just as clearly as he knew they did to Benten, and he couldn’t stay underground for long. 

“One day, when our flight feathers grow in,” Benzaiten said for what seemed like the millionth time, “we can fly far, far away from Oldtown. We can tell Mick and Sasha and An- …Mick and Sasha what we are, and then shift into our cloaks before anyone can snatch them away. We can go back to Earth, ride on some kelpies or play with nymphs or find you some more Sirens to Sing with. We can fly all around the Solar System, to the Outer Rim and visit all the different moons and eat a little of everything from everywhere, together. You can Sing as loud as you want and nobody will hear but me, and I’ll dance along, wherever I am. Just the two of us.”

Juno feels Benten shifting closer before wrapping Juno up in Ben’s own cloak. Juno clutches it like a lifeline and chokes out, “Just the two of us.”

Sarah Steel was an artist. Her stories were told in writing and characters that drew humans in just as a Siren’s Song was fabled to. When she was fired for stealing, something that neither twin could truly believe, her Voice died with her will. 

Benzaiten’s art was dance. He developed such a fine grip over his human form that nobody would ever fathom it was only one half of his existence. He flew without wings, made lights dance around his form, drew every eye to him with all his performances. He taught the younger kids of Oldtown, too, clumsy feet forgetting their sores for a few precious moments of laughter and movement. He spun joy and cut through the dull monotony of the town. 

Juno sung and Sung. He learned how to temper down his Voice, to limit himself to his lungs and vocal cords. He was able to sing comfortably for Sasha, for Mick, and for Benten’s dance performances. And that was his art, his role as a swan maiden, a celestial descendant, a Siren. Even without his Voice , without his ability to Sing the notes of instruments, layered voices of his ancestors, echoes and crystalline twinkles and deep growls, he was able to produce melodies wonderful enough to get himself a few creds, be it in street tips or local competition prize money.

Juno found that languages came easily to him, when he and Ben were working on a competition for the Hyperion Earthen museum. Some collaboration with their run-down school, a half-assed attempt to get students invested in the culture of their ancestors’ home planet. Perform something with Earthen origin, impress a panel of three underpaid museum curators, and get a sweet hundred creds.

Digging up some old sheet music written in unfamiliar characters, then handed a battered dictionary to go along with it, Juno found himself fluent by the time he had sung out a foreign song for Benzaiten to dance to for those hundred creds. 

In his boredom, he found a written version of a Song in that language.

For a while, he consistently found himself in the archives of the museum, consuming as many languages, as many songs as he could, trying to find anything that might be connected to waterfolk and obscuring it just enough that humans wouldn’t be able to distinguish it from the rest.

He Sang for Benten more often those days. 

Then they began to grow into adults, and Sasha left, and Benzaiten opened his Oldtown dance studio, and Juno figured he might as well try to make Hyperion City a little better before he flies off for good with Ben. Then he met Diamond and figured he might stay around a little longer.

He never told Diamond about his cloak. He kept it tucked safely away in corners she never looked in, carefully hidden in pockets and in seams of altered jackets. 

Juno swore to himself that he’d tell her when the time was right, because he loved her and she loved him, he knew this. One day he’d Sing for her, and then everything would be alright. Maybe he’d come back to visit her when he flies off, because he trusts she won’t steal his cloak away.

He just needed to wait for the right time. Just a little longer.

Benzaiten was bleeding. His blood was splashed across the floor and walls and he was not moving. Ma was silent in the next room with a still-warm blaster in her lap and Ben was not moving. Juno heard begging tumble out of his mouth, his lungs, and his hand desperately pressed over the spot in his twin’s ribs where he was bleeding everywhere .

But his lungs failed, and his voice failed, and Ben’s eyes started to lose the starlight in them so Juno let out one last sob and began to Sing.

The Song of Healing was a short one, without much pretense or complexity. That only made it more powerful, easier for humans to understand. It was not one Sung lightly. And with how Juno could not keep his Voice steady , it was imperfect.

By the time he half-ran, half-flew, his brother to the nearest hospital and demanded treatment on threat of the death of everyone in the building including himself, Ben’s wound had clotted over and was beginning to stitch itself together.

It would’ve been a medical miracle if anyone actually cared.

Mick had cried at Benten’s bedside. Juno felt all wrung out of tears, like he had no more to give, but the sight had made him want to sob all over again. Benzaiten had been dressed in a hospital gown and was covered with nothing but a thin, powder blue blanket that Mick’s tears were already soaking through. Ben’s cloak was tucked into his bag, carefully folded right next to Juno’s own. Next to Sarah’s.

Sarah Steel had been taken away without a customary fight. 

Juno had stumbled inside the apartment, gazing at the dried-up blood soaking his childhood home. Not far from it, under the floorboard three feet away from the rightmost corner, was a small gap where she told them to hide their cloaks if they ever needed to, once upon a time. In case her little monsters ever needed to go somewhere with only half of their own selves. Her cloak was neatly tucked inside, her feathers smoothed down and preened one last time.

Juno took it out with trembling hands, his head screaming to burn it, to rip it to shreds, to say fuck it and give it to the authorities so everything Sarah warned them about could come to life, have every waterfolk’s worst nightmare come true just to get back to her. 

He held it to his chest and began to cry.

Benzaiten was stable.

He wasn’t getting worse, but none of the supposed medical professionals knew when he was going to wake up. If he was going to wake up.

Juno kept paying to give Benten a good room, though, with maintained life support and nurses who would keep his muscles from decaying.

He would just have to work overtime a little more. He would just have to stay on Mars a little longer.

His Ma was dead. Benten wasn’t. Juno would keep it that way.

He kept Benten’s cloak in the same hidden box as his dance shoes.

Juno never really understood how computers worked. They operated on absolutes and absolutely nothing, a million flashing pixels speaking shorthand for a language he couldn’t grasp.

Rita was useful, in that way. She was loud and fast and annoying and too much, but she could operate the computer side of things. She could give him contact information and coordinates and passcodes he needed for cases. All he really needed to do in return was give her some snacks to keep her happy and hand wipes to keep her clean every now and then.

And even when he fired her, neither of them could really abandon each other.

At first, he thought he was somehow compelling her back, his lonely Voice somehow bringing her in like a fictional sailor to rocky shores, but a few stream nights in and he realized that was just how Rita was.

He caught himself nearly Singing in her presence, when he failed to talk to Diamond without screaming some nights, and snapped at her like it would make up for his own inability to trust the person he was supposed to be marrying more than his secretary of all people.

Rita never left, though. And neither did his growing urge to Sing for her.

He told himself that he would tell Diamond about his cloak when he got married to her. Once he knew for sure she wanted to be with him for himself, not for what he was.

He would later fold away the wedding dress, placing it under his mother’s cloak, besides Benzaiten’s dancing shoes, in the box hidden in the walls of his apartment.

The first time Juno sang for Rita, it was a human song. 

It was a few weeks into his new career as a private investigator, after his leave from the HCPD. They were making enough money to support Benten, at least. He didn’t know why Rita hadn't left him already. 

She was painting her nails a deep purple, the scent of the fumes filling the whole office. It was already evening, and Juno couldn’t find the energy to snap at her for it. Not when his own nails were done in a light blue, beginning to chip at the edges but still nice, thanks to her.

Instead, he let himself hum a tune he knew was familiar to her. One from her streams, one he associated with her, just lightly enough he didn’t infuse any of his Voice into the music. He didn’t have to open his eyes to know Rita had stopped to listen. It was barely a song, even by human standards, just a hummed tune vibrating deep in his lungs.

“That was beautiful, boss,” she had said before she left that day, long after Juno had gone back to his regular work. Juno could hear in her voice that she meant it. 

Juno had never missed Benzaiten’s birthday. Rita had never forgotten Juno’s birthday. This culminated in an annual dragging of a grouchy lady into a pile of stuffed animals and faux-down comforters, where Rita could ramble on about whatever stream she thought Juno might enjoy and where Juno paid more attention to her than to anything on the monitor. And before the evening rush hour started, Juno would pull himself right back out into the cold streets with his coat inlaid with his and Ben’s cloaks in its false hemming.

“Mistah Steel,” Rita would protest, “Ya always miss out on the best part! Stick around a few more minutes, will ya?”

Sometimes Juno did. Oftentimes he didn’t. But this stream was a musical, one he had hummed a few nights before as Rita sang along. 

This time, he pulled Rita out of the pile with him. 

“Happy birthday, Benten,” he said softly as he sat at his bedside, “There’s someone I want you to meet.”

Rita’s hand poked out of the jacket in a small wave. Juno had only hesitated for a moment before wrapping it around her shoulders on the way there, noticing her shivering in the night air. 

She made her way into the chair next to Juno, and he realized that he didn’t mind her holding the cloaks. It didn’t feel uncomfortable. 

“This is Rita, she’s…” his shaking hand wrapped around his brother’s limp one, “a friend. Rita, this is Benzaiten. My twin brother.”

“Happy birthday, Mistah Steel’s brother,” she smiled, “It’s nice to finally meet ya.”

Juno never Sang for Benten in the hospital. That never stopped him from singing.

That year, Rita sang with him. And every year after that.

Juno never stopped snapping at Rita, not really.

He could feel Sarah’s rage crawling around in his monster veins. It mixed with the drugs and alcohol that characterized him in his twenties, digging its claws into him and refusing to leave.

He left his cloak where it was barely hidden and yelled at her when she happened to draw near it. He found himself cutting off his own songs and replacing them with barbed words. And Rita, still, never left him.

Benten had always said he should make more friends. Some days Juno couldn’t tell if Rita was a friend or a victim of his Voice. He hoped it was the latter, at least that way she could snap out of it, wake up, and find someone new. Someone better.

Benten would be so disappointed with him.

He destroyed her monitor. That should’ve been the last straw, should’ve been when she realized he wasn’t worth it and left him alone to rot. He could find some other way to get money for Ben’s hospital room.

But she didn’t.

Juno wanted to apologize. He knew it would make him no better than Sarah if he did. Empty promises to be better.

He was so, so tired of being like Sarah.

He gathered the pieces of the monitor on the floor. Rita watched quietly from the door, a trash bag in hand, ready to clean up the mess Juno made.

Juno felt his cloak underneath his beaten jacket, and he Sang.

Juno pulled out his seam ripper for the first time in years, taking apart the jacket he had lent Rita all those months ago.

She gasped when he pulled out the twin cloaks, brilliant white and carefully maintained. 

“I’m a swan maiden,” he confessed, for the first time in his life, “so is Benten. So was mom. I’m a Siren, too.”

A million questions tumbled out, of how was that possible, how was he here, how could he survive on Mars, and, “Can I touch it?”

Juno held his cloak, his feathers, his self in his hands. He held it to her, and nodded.

Her small hands were careful with his cloak. She didn’t take it from him, just shifted closer to run light fingers over his wing. The sensation echoed over his left arm, tender and warm. He resisted the urge to lean into it.

“Careful,” he chucked when her hand met the soft down of his belly, “I’m kinda ticklish there.”

“Ya can feel it?!” her eyes widened comically.

“Um, yeah? It’s my body, Rita.”

“Well, yeah, but!” she flailed for words, “Aren’t cloaks supposed to just be used for transforming into animals? Like selkies! Not— not like your body part or something!”

He laughed out loud, “Like selkies, sure. But selkie pelts are body parts, too. Just because they aren’t always fully attached doesn’t mean they stop being us. A lot of the waterfolk tales humans know are just there to throw you guys off our trails.”

She gaped at him, jaw on the floor, before she blinked in a sudden realization.

“Mistah Steel,” Rita laid a hand on his feathers, “Isn’t that the jacket you let me wear?”

“Yeah.”

“Mistah Steel! I coulda— I coulda just run off with it, or somethin’! Ya can’t just—”

“I trust you, Rita. With mine and Benten’s.”

“O-Oh,” she relaxed her shoulders, “Is there anyone else, or…?”

“Nope. Congrats, you’re the only human on Mars who knows waterfolk can live here. And the only one awake and alive enough to know I’m one of them.”

Rita was uncharacteristically silent for a long, long time. 

“Can I hold your cloak for a sec, boss?”

“H-Huh? Yeah, I guess.”

She gently plucked it from his arms, turning it around so it was upright. Then she draped the hood over her shoulder and wrapped her arms around the rest of it. 

Warmth enveloped Juno’s senses, his breath catching in his throat. Rita’s hug was warm, they always were, but her small arms were never quite able to wrap around his torso, and he rarely let her touch him long enough to embrace him fully. Here, though, he could feel her body heat across his chest, around his arms and back, like he’d been dipped in sunlight.

It couldn’t have lasted longer than a few seconds. Rita returned his cloak with tender care and sincere promises to never tell a soul. But Juno would feel that warmth under his skin for weeks to come.

Another year, another December, another birthday. Rita continued to join him on his trips to Benten, even outside the annual ones. Judging from the ever-shifting decorations in the room— paper spaceships hanging from strings, wreaths of polished scrap metal, a tiny figurine of an angel— Rita came by herself, too. 

It would be January soon, Juno knew. A new day marking a new year. He still didn’t really like the use of the Earth calendar on Mars, where the days and seasons don’t match, and where he could imagine the pleasant, icy chill that must be frosting the lakes of Earth at that moment. 

The night there was warm from the thrum of the city. He told Rita to come to the edge of Oldtown, and that she’d know where to find him once she was there.

The woods on Oldtown’s outskirts never changed. Well, ‘woods.’ The same dead trees planted a millennium ago in an underfunded public works project. Heaps of metal waste people couldn’t bother to bring to a proper junkyard. Tall, tangled grass feeding off the nutrients of whatever trees finally fell and rotted to dirt. It felt a little like what Juno imagined home to be.

He Sang softly, a thrum more in his feet than his lungs, a steady beat to help Rita find her way. The rustle of grass heralded the woman’s approach. 

“Mistah Steel,” she breathed, “what was that? Wh- can ya do telepathy, too?! That’s insane! Even on the train I could hear ya, and nobody else was reactin’ so were ya just speakin’ directly to my head?”

“Just another Song, Rita,” he laughed, and crossed the clearing to her. 

She held still as he shrugged his cloak off his shoulders, held her breath when he gently wrapped it around hers. 

“I’m a swan maiden. My people came here from Earth, and they came there from the stars,” he told her, “I’m a Siren. A waterfolk who Sings with a Voice devoid of vocal cords. My Ma was a Siren, my brother wasn’t. Here is her cloak, here is his.”

Feathers of starlight shone between them.

“If I Sing for you, like this, you could develop a Voice, too. You’ve heard the Song of Healing already, you’d be able to fix anything if I go… bad. You’d be safe.”

“Boss…”

“But you’d be halfway between waterfolk and human, if I gave you my blessing. You don’t need to. You can— you can leave and I promise I won’t be mad or force you to stay. I just. I want you to know , even if you’re human.”

“Go ahead.”

“I don’t know if anything would really change, though, you— what?”

“Go ahead,” she repeated, “Sing yer Song, Mistah Steel.”

“Oh,” he cleared his throat, “Th— This one was— is Benten’s favorite.”

He felt her hands pull his cloak further around her shoulders. He tightened his own grip on Ma’s, Ben’s feathers, and he Sang.

Juno hated the Kanegawas.

Too many cameras, too many viewers. He was always double and triple-checking the seams of his jacket. A single flash of feathers there could tear his life apart. Benten’s life apart.

It’s a little easier, now that he feels safe leaving the cloaks with Rita, out of sight and out of danger.

It doesn’t make him hate them any less.

Juno hears Sasha’s voice for the first time in years to tell him she’s hooked him up with a personal Dark Matters babysitter.

If Juno didn’t care so much about keeping the waterfolks’ secret, for Ben’s sake at least, he would’ve just shifted and flown out the window. 

As it was, Agent Rex Glass caught him awkwardly shuffling his human form over the third-story windowsill. He looked more concerned than he really ought to, but then he didn’t know that Juno didn’t fall as fast or hard as humans, even without his feathered form. Juno let himself be pulled back into the room, now beginning to fill with a strangely pleasant scent.

The man had a silk-smooth cadence and a knife-sharp grin. Juno took the jacket that hadn’t had its seams ripped out and resewn again and again, leaving that one in the closet on the far end of the office. Rita gave no indication that she noticed beyond a concerned twitch of her eyebrows.

Swans knew better than to trust foxes, after all.

“Juno Steel!” Cecil’s voice rang out over the speakers, “What a terrible weight this lady carries on his shoulders. Nothing but himself standing between his brother and a slow, quiet death. Will he escape intact enough to keep his only remaining family alive another day? Stay tuned to find out, folks!”

“What?” Glass faltered behind him, “Juno, is that—”

“It’s none of your damn business is what it is, Glass,” he growled, “Keep moving. The sooner we get out of here the better.”

Glass let the conversation drop. Juno gritted his teeth so he couldn’t bring it back up, couldn’t reveal something he’d regret about Benten in front of all these cameras.

Juno would take great pleasure in crushing Cecil’s arm.

Swans have their eyes on the sides of their heads, giving them a wide range of sight to best identify any lurking threats or subtle movements. Humans have theirs in the front, allowing them to focus on a single point with a sniper’s discretion. 

Juno abused these facts every time he took up his blaster, tearing through Cecil’s set with merciless grace.

He noticed Rex Glass’ pretty face struck in momentary shock, smirked, and took his next few shots with a nice dash of flair.

He would never be the first to call himself dramatic or showy (that honor went to Benten, or Rita these days), but he wouldn’t be the last, either.

He’s left alone with the scent of cologne and warmth of a kiss lingering in his senses. He’s also left with a frustrating lack of a mask or thief, and a note.

It’s signed by Peter Nureyev.

The note is left folded on top of his dusty wedding dress.

Some stream nights, Juno shifted. It was warmer under a few layers of down, anyway, and he took up less room on their beaten-up couch that way. 

(He wasn’t smaller, technically, all his mass just shifted around, became more compact. According to Rita, regular old Earth swans were about two-thirds his size in comparison. Still, his human form wasn’t a whole lot taller. He was still shorter and stockier than a large majority of people. He didn’t mind all that much when people underestimated him because of that. It only made revenge taste sweeter when they lay bloodied at his hands.

He had laughed when Rita exclaimed, shocked, that she’d learned the supposedly graceful swans of Earth were notorious for being terrorizing assholes.)

Rita never seemed to mind when he was in his swan form, at least. She joked that he couldn’t talk over her favorite parts when he didn’t have human vocal cords. She only giggled harder when he honked in protest. It was nice to be able to let go of his human form every now and then, like sitting down for the first time after hours of walking. Sometimes he would tuck himself on the far end of the couch (in what Rita annoyingly called a loaf ) and sometimes he would let himself be pulled into her lap, where she’d run her fingers through his down, brushing stray feathers into place and working the tension from his body. He’d drape his long neck over the armrest, much to Rita’s grumbling, tilting his head to watch Rita with one eye and the monitor with another. 

The monitor was still whole and operational— it worked better now than it did when Rita first got it, secondhand and beaten. Juno still hadn’t touched it since it was shattered and unshattered at his hand and Voice. He had no such reservations about stealing the remote, though.

There was a voicemail on Rita’s comms. She wouldn’t wake for a few hours until after Juno had left it, and would listen and relisten to it for days after that. Juno had told her to take time off, a lot of time off, and she spent a good majority of that time failing to distract herself with streams and carefully watching over the contents of the safe under Juno’s desk.

There was another voicemail Juno had left, just a few minutes after the first. Rita listened to it once and immediately deleted it. Then she hooked her comms up to her computer and wiped any and all trace of it from existence.

“Sorry the last one cut off,” Juno had said, “but there’s something else I need to say. I’ll try to do it quickly.”

His voice lowered, “I told you that you have my blessing now, but I didn’t tell you what that means, besides the Voice thing. It’s really complicated, but if I come back I promise I’ll tell you everything. But technically, you’re family now. You can inherit a Steel cloak.”

A short pause, Juno’s voice went soft, “If I— If I die, you’ll be able to shift with my cloak. It will be yours. Take care of Ben for me if that happens, Rita. Thanks, and… I’m sorry.”

Beep . END OF MESSAGE.

With Miasma, everything hurt. Everything scared him. He wanted to fly into the stars, wanted to at least see the stars one last time, didn’t want to die in this dry underground, breathing machine-recycled air.

Miasma was an expert in Ancient Martian xenology and nothing else. Juno counted his blessings when she attributed anything atypical for human anatomy to a side effect of the pill.

Every now and then, he felt the tug of someone pulling on his cloak and failing to shift, and the shaking sobs that accompanied it. A small, tender hand would stroke his back, bringing him comfort between gasps of pain. Often when he went to sleep at night, besides Nureyev, he’d feel a second, disembodied embrace wrapped around his body— Rita holding onto his cloak through the night, the same way he used to do with Ben’s cloak those first few lonely years after Benten lost his reason to have his feathers on him. 

Then Nureyev was gone and all he has is Rita’s touch and Miasma’s torture.

Miasma held a blaster to his head and Juno’s last thought would’ve been jokes on you, you’re only getting half my body .

Then Nureyev was back, bringing a flicker of hope with him. Then Miasma was back, and Juno lost it all over again. Juno lost half his vision, his aim, and refused to lose Nureyev, too. 

“I wish I could’ve traveled the stars with you,” Juno said to Nureyev, said to Rita, said to Ben, “I would’ve liked to fly away off this dusty old planet with you. I’m so sorry I can’t. Thank you so much, for everything.”

He heard Nureyev’s scream before he and Miasma drowned the noise out with their own.

Miasma was gone, and Juno wasn’t. He was whole enough for Nureyev to hold and to hold Nureyev back. Hand in hand, they stepped onto the surface. Juno tilted his head back and drank in the sight of the stars with his one remaining eye. He allowed himself to be led into a hotel room, where the stars peeked through the flimsy curtains.

Strong arms held him down, and Juno never felt more like he was flying.

Juno woke up to the sight of Nureyev’s sleeping face and the sensation of his feathers being pulled around a pair of tiny shoulders.

He had to go back to her, he knew that. Couldn’t let her foot Benten’s hospital bills on her own. 

He couldn’t run off to the stars and leave his cloak on this sand planet. He had to at least give her a proper goodbye if he did.

He told himself that he’d just be gone for a moment, would just settle his business on Mars before returning and telling Nureyev to his face that he’s bound to Hyperion City for as long as Benzaiten is bound to a hospital bed. He’d ask him if he could still love Juno like that, without being able to whisk him into the stars where he belonged. He’d be able to handle it if Nureyev said no, would go back to how things always were before.

He pulled on his empty, bloodstained jacket and knew he wouldn't be back.

He sat on the bed one last time, eye locking onto the steady rise and fall of Nureyev’s chest. It flickered to where his lips parted and fox’s teeth flashed, and he began to hum.

He felt his Voice pump through his overworked heart and into his veins, murmuring his soft Song into the slumbering room. It was the most sincere farewell he knew how to give.

Rita cried when he walked into the office. He didn’t expect any less, but he still felt like crying himself.

“Next time,” Rita sobbed into his chest, “Say ‘tomorrow morning,’ got it?”

“What?”

“Ya said, ‘see you in the morning’ before ya left, an’— an’ here you are! In the morning! Seein’ me!,” she sniffed, “If yer gonna do that again’, boss, say ‘tomorrow morning.’ An’ keep yer promise if ya do.”

He huffed with a small smile, “Yeah, okay. I’ll see you tomorrow morning.”

“An’ the one after that?”

“Yeah. I promise.”

It’s the only promise in the past twenty-four hours he ended up keeping.

Juno held a cat in his hands, running down an abandoned alley. And that cat held a bomb in its organs, ticking away to a painful, undeserved death.

Juno was getting really tired of bombs.

He whispered a Song into the cat’s ears as he ran, feeling it go limp as it drifted into a dreamless sleep.

It was the least Juno could do before he threw the cat as hard as he could and watched it blow into pieces.

Juno Steel shook hands with Ramses O’Flaherty and regained an eye. 

He made the decision to leave his cloak inside his jacket during that time period. Decided to leave it in the office next to one of Rita’s fluffy sweaters. Just in case. He wanted to trust Ramses, of course he did. But something in him stopped him from trying to lay eyes upon his feathers with the Spectrum.

Then he staggered off into the desert, sand already beginning to cover the Piranha’s body and comms. He was glad his cloak was still with Rita. He wondered if she would ever get the chance to fly with it. He imagined she’d like it.

The man in the brown jacket plucked him out of the desert and into the Cerberus Province. He gave him the promise to rid himself of his false eye in exchange for his help. Juno didn’t have much to lose by accepting, so he did.

He met Buddy Aurinko, then Vespa Ilkay, then Buddy and Vespa, Vespa and Buddy.

Juno had mixed feelings about the automatic music machines. They were a pale echo of what he had always heard, music asking to be Sung along to. But, in moments like those, it was nice to know that others could hear it, too.

He nodded to the Big Guy, and let himself be taken to Hanataba.

He had thought it was a coincidence at first— Hanataba, bouquet , from the first language he had learned from the museum archives all those years ago. But there is no Doctor Hanataba, just a cup of tea and a few sets of instructions.

The man in the brown jacket asked Juno to trust him with his life without trusting Juno with his name. Juno agreed. He had been trusted with enough names already.

He fell unconscious. He met Benzaiten Steel, then Sarah Steel, then Jack Takano, and he finally, finally knew who stole his Ma’s Song.

He woke up and found that that same person had stolen his home.

The sewers were all but devoid of rabbits. A single bunny and rabbit were all Juno could find. He supposed animals weren’t necessary for Takano-O’Flaherty’s vision of a perfect city. Just humans. Always, just humans.

He found Rita— or more accurately, Rita found him. She had three cloaks held tightly in her arms and bags under her eyes big enough to carry them. Juno could feel her arms around his feathers the same way he always could. This time, Juno stepped forward and embraced her in return.

The first place he visited in Newtown is the hospital Benten was relocated to. His room was bigger now, large windows letting sunlight stream across his sleeping face. The budget was higher now, so nurses came around more often to clean his comatose body, move it so the muscle decay didn’t set in quite as badly. There was a vase of pristine white lilies on the windowsill.

All of Rita’s decorations were long gone.

He met with Mick next, and that’s where it all went downhill. 

Then he met with Ramses, and he was dead.

And Juno, filled with rage at the man who would die just to leave all his problems behind, Sang .

Ramses O’Flaherty, Jack Takano, was alive and gasping on his desk, and Juno Steel was standing over him with tears in his eye and Takano’s scribbled papers in his fists.

The mayor lived the first few moments of the new life he didn’t know he was given the same way he died— panicked and guilty with nobody to help him.

Juno took all the words he had built up since he’d seen the Soul, since he’d had the Spectrum take his body, since his Ma stopped Singing, and he didn’t need his Voice to rip Takano to shreds.

“You deserve to have that guilt feed on you,” Juno said, because he knew firsthand what thoughts made those feelings sting the worst, “My Ma is dead and my twin has lost decades of his life and I haven’t felt safe since I was a child because you decided you wanted my Ma’s story. You trampled all over my home and got angry when throwing money and pretty flowers all over it didn’t fix it. I will never forgive you, you don’t deserve forgiveness, and you never will.”

Juno almost didn’t notice and definitely didn’t care when the man started crying, beyond raising his voice so he could be sure Takano could hear it over the sound of his own sobbing.

Swans were notorious for being ruthless, after all. 

He had left the office with a simple, “sit here, shut up, and wait for me to fix your goddamn mess.”

Rita was there to help him lock down the doors in case Takano failed to listen.

Rita was there, too, to help him give up his control just one last time.

Benzaiten’s favorite Song was one of their foremothers, of their origins, of the stars from which they hailed.

Juno’s favorite was about the water and those on the shore. Benten had always teased him about it, about how he was a hopeless romantic even when he acted like such a grouch all the time.

Juno rolled his eyes but never stopped Singing it. Soft, beautiful words in an old language treasured by selkies as much as swan maidens. Love for his past and hope for the future weaving themselves together, knowing for certain that one day he’d vanish into the stars with his twin, wishing at the same time he’d have someone to stay there and welcome him back to Mars to rest his weary wings. For a time, he was sure those people would be Sasha and Mick, maybe even Diamond.

Then Rita pulled him from the dark undersea of the Soul’s control, and Juno knew he’d always be able to return to her shore, no matter how deep he falls or how far he flies.

He felt safe.

Juno could not stay in Newtown. Ramses O’Flaherty was mayor and would be for as long as he lived— an expectancy that had been miraculously extended and which Juno would never take credit for. If asked, Juno would scoff and say it was all the better for him to have to live with the guilt for decades to come.

Benzaiten would be safe in Newtown. O’Flaherty had paid for his stay in Hyperion’s greatest care, enough for three lifetimes. Juno had not thanked him, but had not stopped him either. Rita had a comm line or three hooked up to the whole hospital, she could check in on Benten and Benten’s doctors and Benten’s doctors’ doctors any time she pleased.

Juno crossed the Andromeda statue where his childhood apartment used to lay. Looked over to where the woods he once Sang in had been replaced by more homes for more people. Soulless people, now, but still happier people.

Juno could not stay in Newtown.

Juno could not leave it without Rita.

She agreed easily, to his monumental relief. He shrugged on a jacket with three cloaks in the seams and a Soul in a hidden inner pocket. Rita hauled out a bag with millions of recorded streams practically spilling out of it.

The Big Guy agreed easily enough— too easily— to Rita’s involvement. And gave her his name, right off the bat. Juno couldn’t blame Jet Siquliak, really, when he knew himself just how easy it was to trust her with those kinds of secrets.

She knew exactly how to keep them, too, wiping anything she could get away with off their records. It wasn’t a perfect solution, of course, there would still be people who remembered them and records kept off the internet. But it would be a hell of a lot more of a headache to get a read on them should somebody try. And if Juno and Rita had one thing in common, it was a tendency to enjoy providing as many assholes as they could with headaches.

Juno spent the next few hours on a hoverbike with Rita chattering excitedly and Jet grunting back at appropriate intervals. The wings of his family at his back and the people who’d saved him and his autonomy at his front. The night swallowed the sky, and when the sand cleared, he saw the ship that descended from it.

Fire red and swamp green and fox teeth seared into his retina. 

“Hello Juno,” spoke a man of the past, of a promised future, “It’s been a while.”

Rita tightened a hand around his jacket imperceptibly, where she knew his cloak was. He felt the grip over his shoulder, questioning and reassuring. 

“Yeah,” Juno smiled softly, “It sure has.”