Archive of Our Own ^beta

There’s no such thing as total silence on board the Carte Blanche. Even when the lights have dimmed to their nighttime setting and everyone is curled up in bed, there’s still the hum of the engines, the faint whoosh of the air filtration systems and the soft rumble that accompanies the ship whenever it’s in motion.

Juno doesn’t mind those noises, though—when you’ve spent thirty-nine years being lulled to sleep by police sirens and the buzz of neon signs, they’re almost comforting. After such a hectic day, he’s just relieved to finally have a moment of peace. A moment of even relative quiet. He can feel his consciousness slipping, the warm embrace of sleep beginning to overtake him as he settles into the mattress.

And then the sound of crying erupts from the next room.

Juno’s wide awake immediately, a groan leaving his lips. He’d been hopeful that he’d actually get an hour or two of rest before Bennie started up again, but apparently that was wishful thinking. The last thing he wants to do right now is brave the ship’s chilly air in his boxers. He’d gotten up the last two times, though, so surely it’s Nureyev’s turn by now. He rolls over to look at his boyfriend, only to find him huddled up with a pillow over his head. Nureyev clutches the pillow tighter against his ear as the crying continues, making no indication that he has any plans to move.

“Goddammit,” Juno grunts, throwing off his own covers.

There hasn’t been more than a single calm second in the last 24 hours. They’d parked on a small exoplanet early yesterday morning, where an old classmate of Vespa’s now works as a pediatrician. They’d been meaning to visit one for a while—Vespa may be a talented doctor, but babies aren’t her specialty, and he and Nureyev were both worried about Bennie.

Juno had described Bennie’s persistent cough to the pediatrician, answering her questions as best he could while she looked them over. His heart had plummeted the instant that she’d asked, “Is there any family history of asthma?”

It isn’t the worst diagnosis possible—he would know, having spent the entire two days leading up the appointment terrifying himself by researching all the horrible things that ‘persistent cough’ can be a symptom of—but it still feels like confirmation of one of his deepest fears.

See, Steel? You’ve already screwed them up. What next? Are they gonna end up with your shitty brain, too?

He knows those feelings are irrational, knows from experience that the condition is perfectly manageable with the help of modern medicine. It’s nothing that he and Nureyev hadn’t discussed before Bennie was born—and when they had, Nureyev had rightfully pointed out that the baby had just as much chance of inheriting any of his own chronic conditions as Juno’s. Juno would never blame him for that, so logically he shouldn’t blame himself, either. ‘Juno Steel’ and ‘not blaming himself’ are two phrases that seldom go together, though.

He drags himself out of bed, stumbling through the darkness towards the door. Halfway there he stubs his toe on something lying in the middle of the floor and only just manages to keep from falling on his face. “Fuck!”

He looks down to see the faint outline of a pair of tap shoes, and feels a tidal wave of irritation surge through him. Nureyev and Rita’s bedrooms are side-by-side in the back of the ship, and Rita had happily given hers up to serve as Bennie’s nursery. She’d taken over Juno’s room instead, and he’d moved in with Nureyev so they could both be close to Bennie. It had been a good idea, and one Juno wouldn’t mind at all… if only Nureyev would clean the damn place.

Juno had taken Bennie to the pediatrician alone in the hopes that Nureyev would take advantage of his time away from baby duty to finish clearing out his room. When Juno had returned home to Buddy informing him that Nureyev had spent the whole afternoon holed up inside it, he’d expected to finally find it spotless—but whatever the man was doing during his absence, it hasn’t rendered the place any less of a fire hazard. It’s just… frustrating. Juno wants to be able to bring Bennie in here without having to worry about them coming across something dangerous.

He’ll have to bother Nureyev about that tomorrow, though. Right now there are more pressing matters.

He shivers as he walks out into the hallway and slides open the door to the nursery. And there Bennie Aurinko is: lying in their crib and crying as loudly as their tiny lungs allow. Above them hangs the mobile that Jet made for them, the planets rotating gently in the nightlight’s glow. They’re still swaddled tightly in their purple blanket, an heirloom from Rita’s own childhood that she’d tearfully passed on. In fact, almost everything in the room is a gift from the rest of the family—the crib was bought and constructed by Vespa, and the ornate music box resting on the side table is one of Buddy’s oldest scores.

“Hey, angel,” Juno says tiredly. Nureyev’s nickname for Bennie has started to catch on. “What’s wrong?”

A quick check reveals that their diaper needs changing, so he takes them to the bathroom and cleans them up. He expects that to be the end of it, but even after being changed, fed, and wrapped back up in their blankets they still continue to wail.

“Come on, Bennie,” Juno says desperately. “Please be quiet. You’re gonna wake everybody up.”

Unsurprisingly, they ignore his pleas. If anything, they start to cry even louder. A painful pressure is beginning to build in Juno’s temples, and he’s not looking forward to spending what few hours he has left to sleep with a migraine.

“Shut up already, will you?!” he snaps. The words come out louder and harsher than he’d intended, bouncing around the metal walls.

Bennie is silent for a split second, and then they start to wail.

“Shit. Shit, I… I’m sorry,” Juno stammers, the heavy weight of guilt already pressing down on his shoulders. “I’m so sorry, angel. I didn’t mean to yell.”

He sets them down for a second to wind the music box, then lets it play as he rocks them gently in his arms, singing along to the tune. A couple of weeks ago he’d sung Bennie to sleep in what he’d thought was an empty room, only to nearly drop them in shock when the end of his song was met with a quiet round of applause. As it turned out, Nureyev had accidentally walked in while he was singing and then melted into the background to listen—rightfully guessing that Juno would fall silent the moment he made his presence known.

“That was beautiful, love,” Nureyev had said. “I think Bennie and I would both love to hear your voice more often.”

“Stop using your sneaky thief skills on me,” Juno had grumbled, embarrassed, but his protests were half-hearted in the face of his boyfriend’s enamored smile. 

He’s been a little frustrated with Nureyev lately, it’s true, but he still can’t imagine anyone else he’d rather raise a child with.

Juno is halfway through a second lori by the time Bennie’s little face finally relaxes and their tears come to a stop. Juno leans down and presses a light kiss to their forehead, tired and relieved. He tucks them back into the cradle and whispers goodbye before returning to bed.

Nureyev is sitting up when he re-enters the room, looking at him. “Is Bennie all right?”

“Yep,” Juno says, flopping down onto the mattress.

“Ah. Good.”

“I thought we were supposed to take turns,” he mutters into his pillow.

“What?”

Juno considers a scalding retort, but his exhaustion outweighs his bitterness. “Nothing. Goodnight.”

“…Goodnight, love,” Nureyev replies.

He falls asleep almost as soon as he closes his eye, and thankfully doesn’t wake again until morning.

Unlike his partner, Peter Nureyev isn’t afraid of heights.

He revels in them, really—in standing far up above the world, in looking down and seeing wispy clouds and buildings turned to mere pixels beneath him. Perhaps it’s a side effect of growing up in the shadow of a floating city, and so many years spent looking at the sky and wishing he could be there instead. So many years mistakenly thinking he was inferior to the ones who lived up above.

He never wants his child to feel that way.

That’s the only reason he’d managed to drag himself out of bed this morning when Rita had excitedly barged into the room to ask if they wanted to take Bennie for a stroll on the Skywalk with her. Juno hadn’t been able to go—he'd needed to finish preparing for a mission taking place later today—but Nureyev had reluctantly accepted. He’s not in the mood for it, but he hasn’t been in the mood for much of anything lately.

He can’t deny that the view from the Skywalk is beautiful, though. It extends for miles above the little planet they’re currently parked on, showing the sparkling capital city below in its full glory. The planet itself is completely covered in toxic green waters, so the only way to navigate it is by boat, flying car—or the Walk.

Since they first stepped onto it, Bennie hasn’t stopped staring down at the city through the glass floor. He doesn’t know how far they can even see it at their current age, but they seem enthralled nonetheless, taken in by the tall buildings raised on stilts above emerald waves.

Rita bumps up against him, watching Bennie with a smile. At her minimal height, she’s almost perfectly level with his arms. “I bet they’re gonna grow up to travel around to all sorts of different planets, just like you,” she says.

Nureyev chuckles lightly. “I wasn’t able to travel the stars until I was seventeen. They’ve had quite the head start.”

“Uh-huh, they got real lucky bein’ born into a family as great as ours!”

He knows that much is true. Regardless of whether Bennie is lucky to have Peter Nureyev as their father, they’re lucky to have the others. They won’t have to spend their childhood alone, unsure of where their next meal is coming from or if anyone would even notice if they died. It’s a low bar to clear, but… an important one.

They keep walking, Rita’s constant string of babble creating a pleasant white noise in the background. Nureyev keeps Bennie pressed firmly against his chest, feeling the reassuring warmth of their small form through his shirt.

“Oh, oh, did yah see the hat I made for Mistah Steel?” Rita asks when they pause at a bench, waving her hands up and down excitedly.

“I did, indeed,” Nureyev replies. It was a remarkable piece of work—a bright blue cap that she’d bedazzled with the phrase “#1 MAMA” herself, using an array of rainbow sequins.

“He even pinky swore that he’d wear it all today and tomorrow! On the mission, and everything!” Rita says proudly. “I’m gonna make one for me too, except it’ll say number one godmother, ‘cause that’s what I am.”

“How lovely.”

“Of course you’ll get one too, Mistah Ransom, assumin’ I don’t run out of sequins. ‘Cause you’re the number one dad in the whole wide universe, obviously.”

“Am I?” Nureyev murmurs.

“What was that, Mistah Ransom?”

“Nothing at all, dear. Thank you,” he says. They’re due for a change of subject, he decides. “Come to think of it, aren’t you going on today’s mission as well? Shouldn’t you be back on the ship getting ready?”

She waves a dismissive hand. “I finished all my prep stuff last night. We’ve got loads of time, Mistah Ransom. And fresh air is good for Bennie, right?”

“Mm. Yes. Assuming it doesn’t include any dust or airborne pathogens or—”

“Oh, you’re just as bad as Mistah Steel!”

“It’s a reasonable concern, especially given their newfound condition. And as for concerns, this walkway doesn’t seem particularly safe, does it?” He’s been eyeing the railing suspiciously for the past quarter hour. It’s a perfectly clear material, but strong enough that nothing short of a hover-hauler could break through it. Still…

Rita frowns. “How d’yah mean?”

“Well, the railing is rather short.” Especially for someone of his height. All it would take is for him or another person his size to lift Bennie up a little and they could easily hold them over the railing.

Hold them over, and then… let go.

“Mistah Ransom?” 

He finally tears his eyes away from the railing to look at Rita. “Hmm?”

“You’re shaking real bad all of a sudden,” she says cautiously. “Is it too cold up here? We can go back to the ship, if you wanna.”

He looks down at Bennie again—so tiny and fragile where they’re wrapped in their violet blanket. The only thing holding them up and keeping them safe right now is his own hands. Hands that were taught how to wield a knife, to pick a lock, to pocket a score… but never to do this.

Suddenly he thrusts Bennie away from himself, holding them out to Rita and bowing his head. “Take them,” he rasps. “Please. I don’t trust myself.”

Rita just stares bemusedly, her eyes moving from the baby to his face and then back again. “Trust yourself with… what?”

“Please, Rita.”

“O-okay, Mistah Ransom.”

To his relief, she carefully takes Bennie from his hands and holds them close. It looks so natural, so right when she does it. She’s always been such a kind woman; the sort who can distract a crying child in a supermarket until they feel better and who has a gallery full of pictures she took of her friend Frannie’s baby. The sort whose hands are unblemished and have never taken another’s life. The sort who is much more suited to hold a child than him.

“I’m going to return to the ship,” Nureyev says abruptly. “You can stay, if you like. Pass them off to Jet before you leave.”

He starts to walk away, but she calls out after him, visibly frazzled. “Mistah Ransom, are you okay?!”

“Fine. Fine, Rita,” he replies. “I… think I need a nap. That’s all.”

“Huh? Didn’t yah just wake up like an hour ago?” Rita says. He ignores her and keeps walking, hugging his still-shaking arms against his chest.

Bennie is playing on the mat in their nursery with Jet when Juno comes in to say goodbye. Today’s mission will be his first time away from them for more than a few hours since they were born, and he’s already nervous. His brain’s been inventing scenarios all morning, imagining that Bennie will fall or have an asthma attack or choke on something and he won’t be able to help. 

He knows he’s just being paranoid—even if something bad does happen, his family will be there to deal with it. That knowledge doesn’t make the feelings go away, though.

“You look worried,” Jet comments plainly as he holds out a toy for Bennie to grab. They make a valiant attempt, but the toy still tumbles onto the mat.

Juno stands in the doorway, looking down at the odd pair. No matter how many times he sees Bennie and Jet together, it never gets old. They’re so tiny and he’s so big, and yet he handles them even more gently than anyone else on the ship. He holds out the toy again, and this time Bennie manages to grab a hold, looking up at the big guy and smiling triumphantly.

“Maybe a bit,” Juno admits, then shakes his head. “But it’ll be okay. You remember how to give them their meds if they start coughing, right? If you forget, you can ask Ransom to—”

“I remember.”

“Right. Course you do. Thanks, Jet. I’m… just here to say goodbye.” Juno finally lets himself relax a little, a smile emerging on his own lips to mirror Bennie’s. “Come here, kid.” 

He walks over and kneels down to pick them up, but before he can, they start to sob uncontrollably. He freezes with his hands a foot away, watching tears and snot run down their face to stain their powder blue onesie.

“Ah. There is a problem,” Jet says.

Apparently so. “Shit—I mean, darn. Uh, have they been fed?” Juno asks. Jet nods, so he tries checking their diaper, but it’s freshly changed as well. “Hey, Bee. What’s wrong?”

“They were fine a moment ago,” Jet says, tilting his head. “I do not understand what has changed.”

Juno shifts Bennie into his arms, rocking them and humming the tune from last night, but that just seems to upset them even more. Their crying gets louder and louder until they’re all but screaming bloody murder in the middle of the nursery. “Bennie, please, I have to go and I don’t know what you want,” Juno pleads desperately. 

“Perhaps they are overstimulated,” Jet suggests. “I will dim the lights and pack up the toys.”

“I… yeah, I guess it’s worth a shot. I can help with that.”

“You are already late. You should finish getting ready and meet with the captain. I can calm Bennie down.”

“But—”

“Juno, you must trust me,” Jet says firmly. “I will not allow them to come to harm.”

Juno bites his lip, then nods slowly. He does trust Jet. He trusts everyone on this ship with his own life and with Bennie’s—he wouldn’t be here, otherwise. It still takes a considerable amount of willpower to let go of his child while they’re still crying, especially since he’s going to be away from them for the next day. He hasn’t even left yet and it already feels like too long.

He reluctantly relinquishes Bennie to the embrace of Jet’s sturdy arms—each of his biceps are about as wide as they are—and steps back.

Bennie stops crying almost the instant that he lets go.

“Oh. They’ve finished,” Jet observes. 

“Uh… I guess so,” Juno says, stunned.

Jet holds the baby closer and they reach out a hand, brushing their fingers against his gray stubble. Then, with their cheeks still wet from tears, they start to giggle.  

“Well, then,” Jet says. “You can rest easy now, Juno. I will make sure they remain in good spirits.”

Juno barely manages to choke out a thank you before bolting from the room. 

Bennie hadn’t been upset for no reason. They weren’t hungry or tired or overstimulated. They’d started wailing when he’d tried to hold them, not when Jet did.

It was him.

Why wouldn’t it be, after the way he’d snapped at them last night? They may be a newborn, but they’re still a human being, and it’s human nature to react badly to seeing someone you’re afraid of. How many times had he flinched and hidden and cried when Ma got home from work, terrified that she would go on another of her tirades? That she’d yell and scream at him for acting like the child he was?

How could he let this happen?

He heads to Nureyev’s room to grab his bag for the heist, his chest and his steps heavy. What if Bennie never sees him the same way again? What if they’re always afraid of him from now on? What if he’s already ruined things?

What if he does end up just like Sarah Steel, despite all his promises to himself that he’d be a better mother than she was?

He’s so distracted that he doesn’t even notice the knife until it’s already plummeted past his face and embedded itself in the carpet, only an inch away from his shoe. He stares at it in disbelief, then tracks its trajectory back up to the top of Nureyev’s door frame where a dozen others are placed precariously. Buddy had complained about them ages ago, he recalls. He hadn’t even realized they were still there.

To his surprise, the knife-loving culprit is currently curled up in their shared bed, facing away from him. Juno checks his comms—it’s half past one. Nureyev had only woken up a few hours ago, and he’s already napping? He’d gotten into the habit of sleeping later and taking naps a few months into the pregnancy, but this is a lot even for him. 

Juno can’t help feeling a bit annoyed. He’s the one who’d barely slept last night. He’s the one who has to tend to Bennie every time they cry, since Nureyev never does it. Maybe if Nureyev had actually gotten up last night, none of this would’ve happened and Bennie wouldn’t cry when—

No. It isn’t fair to blame Nureyev for his own mistake.

He walks over and shakes his boyfriend’s shoulder. “Hey, babe. I’ve gotta leave in a second. Jet is looking after Bennie right now, but you’ll need to take over eventually so he can fly the ship, okay? …Nureyev?”

After a few more shakes, Nureyev finally opens his eyes. “Mm, I’m getting up.”

“You’re not moving.”

“Point taken.” Nureyev lurches into a sitting position, pushing his hair out of his face. He’s been letting it grow out over the past few months, and now it almost brushes his shoulders. Juno can still see the sheen of rose-scented pomade in his locks, so he must not have showered last night. “What were you saying?”

Juno sighs. “Buddy, Rita and I are going out on a job today, remember?”

“Mm, yes.”

“So you’re gonna help the others look after Bennie, right?”

“Of course. Rita and I already had a lovely jaunt with them this morning, you'll recall.” Nureyev stands up and stretches, then grabs a pair of slacks off a heap of laundry that has completely engulfed one of his dressers and starts pulling them on.

Juno makes a face at the mess. He can’t even make out where the bag he’d packed is amongst all the bric-a-bac, unfolded clothes and dirty plates. “And could you finally clean this goddamn room?” he snaps. “This place is a death trap! If I brought Bennie in here they’d end up chewing on a goddamn plasma knife in two minutes flat.”

Nueryev just frowns at him. “Which is exactly why we don’t let them in here.”

“Buddy and Jet baby-proofed the entire ship for us. Can’t you at least tidy up a single room?!”

“I don’t ever see you make any effort to do so.”

“Well, it’s not my shit, is it?” Juno knows he’s being harsh, but he’s just so aggravated. They had agreed to do this together, but ever since Bennie’s birth it’s felt like he’s swimming upstream all alone. And if Bennie really is going to be scared of Juno from now on, then… Nureyev has to step up.

“What will you have me do while you’re gone, then?” Nureyev says. He’s scowling now, too. “Clean this godforsaken room, or take care of our child? Because I cannot do both at once, love.”

Juno rolls his eye. “I’m not asking you to! The room can wait, I just—”

“If it can wait, then I don’t see the point of this conversation.” Nureyev grabs Juno’s bag from off the floor behind the bed and shoves it towards him. “You’re already late. You ought to go meet Rita and Captain Aurinko, hmm?”

“Guess so.” Juno slings the bag over his shoulder and storms towards the door. He stops right before he exits it and glances back at Nureyev. “See you tomorrow.”

“Goodbye, Juno.”

Then he walks to the front of the ship, feeling even worse than he had before.

About an hour after Juno leaves, Nureyev receives a message on his comms from Jet asking him to take the baby off his hands while he moves the ship. Bennie is already half-asleep on their playmat when Nureyev enters the nursery, so he picks them up and takes them on a walk to the stream room to get them the rest of the way there. He knows they like the hum of the screen when it isn’t tuned to a particular channel.

He flips it on and then curls up on the couch, rocking Bennie in his arms. He knows he should feel guilty after the argument that he and Juno had, but he mostly just feels tired, and relieved that he’d gotten out of cleaning his room once again. He feels tired most of the time, lately. He’d assumed it was just a part of recovery, but it’s been weeks since Bennie was born and he can still barely drag himself out of bed. Maybe it’d be better if he could actually sleep, but he spends most nights just lying awake waiting for rest that doesn’t come.

He looks down at Bennie—at the thing he thought he’d never have but now can’t imagine life without. He takes in their almond-shaped eyes, their flat nose, and their dark curls. They’re sleeping peacefully now, their breathing even and gentle. He remembers how he’d felt when he’d first seen them, like the whole universe could collapse in on itself and it wouldn’t matter so long as this baby survived.  

“Uhh… Sorry, I just wanted to grab my mug. I can leave.”

Nureyev looks up to see Vespa standing awkwardly in the doorway. He quickly rubs the tears from his eyes with the heel of his hand and says, “Apologies, Vespa. Go right ahead.”

She walks over and leans down to grab her mug off the coffee table, then lingers there for a moment, eyeing him. “You okay, Ransom? I heard you and Steel arguing.”

He means to brush off her concerns, to reassure her that everything’s fine, but then his mouth opens and says, “I’m a terrible father.”

It’s the sentence that’s been playing over and over in his brain like a mantra for weeks. It slips out the moment it has the opportunity to, escaping through his clenched teeth to hover in the sterile ship air.

Vespa crosses her arms, apparently unimpressed. “What? Because you won’t clean your room? Not like it’s Bennie’s nursery. It’s no big deal as long as you don’t let them in there, like you said—”

“No,” he chokes out. "It’s not that. It’s… I'm meant to be so happy right now. I should be happy. I hardly even dared to imagine a future like this when I was younger, and now I have it. I know how it’s supposed to go. I know how much love I’m meant to feel for my child when I look at them, but I looked at Bennie just now and I felt... nothing."

Saying it out loud makes it feel even worse, and he half expects Vespa to shout at him, to scream, What’s wrong with you? What kind of parent feels nothing for their child? What kind of monster are you? You don’t deserve them or Steel.

She’d be right to. Instead, she just sighs and sits down beside him on the couch. “You’re not a bad father.”

“How can you say that after what I just told you!?"

“You’re just depressed,” she says matter-of-factly. “I had my suspicions, and honestly I should have said something sooner.”

Of all the explanations she might have given, that one has to be the most ridiculous. “What?” Nureyev spits. “No, I just—”

"Feel tired all the time, can't bring yourself to do basic tasks like shower or clean, struggle to feel positive emotions like you used to…?"

"Yes, but—"

"That's depression, Ransom."

"I have no reason to be depressed,” he insists, frustration building inside him. He’d expected her to condemn him, had almost wanted her to, but he hadn’t foreseen this. He doesn't particularly like it, either. “Right now is, quite literally, the best my life has ever been."

Vespa rolls her eyes. “You should know by now from dating Steel that depression has nothing to do with how good or bad your life is at any given moment. It's chemicals, dumbass. And you know what tends to really throw your hormones out of whack? Childbirth. It's totally normal."

“It’s normal to not feel anything for my newborn child,” Nureyev says, incredulous.

“It’s normal to not feel anything good at all right after you have a kid, because you’re depressed. It happens to like one in seven people.”

Nureyev doesn’t know what to say. It still feels too simple, too much of a cop out to be told that he’s done nothing wrong—that his ineptitude and apathy in the face of his current situation is perfectly common. At the same time, it’s scary to think that she might be right. At least if it’s his own fault that he’s a bad father then he can try to change, but if it’s all just the result of chemicals…

“What am I supposed to do?” he asks desperately.

“I can get you on meds,” Vespa says. “Hell, the ones Steel is on might end up working for you too. You’re gonna have a rough go of it for a few weeks before they really kick in, but at least now you know this doesn’t have to be forever. Even without medication, it might go away on its own once your body has had more time to recover. That’s good, right?”

“Yes. Yes, it’s… very good.” Nureyev admits. He feels a tiny portion of the helplessness he’s been consumed by since Bennie’s birth seep out of him, replaced by something almost hopeful. “Thank you, Vespa,” he says softly. “Quite frankly, I’ve been… terrified.”

She nudges him with her elbow. “You should’ve spoken up sooner, moron.”

“I know, I…” He’s interrupted by Bennie, who’s just awoken and starts to babble incoherently at him. “Ah. Hello again, little one. You’re hungry, aren’t you?”

“I should leave you to it,” Vespa says, a half-smile crossing her face. “Come by the infirmary later and I’ll sort out your prescription.”

Before she can leave the room, a question that Nureyev’s been wondering about for a while tumbles out of his mouth. “Have you ever considered having children, Vespa?”

She snorts. “Not everyone’s cut out for that sort of thing, thief.”

“I thought I wasn’t. I’m still not certain that I am even now, but… I intend to try my best.”

“Me and Buddy are just fine how we are. We already have enough dumbass kids as it is—and a grandkid now, too.”

Nureyev blinks at her, surprised. He knows Buddy considers them all to be a family, but it’s the first time he’s heard Vespa express a similar sentiment. “Vespa, you…”

“Shut up. Forget I said that,” she snaps, but then her expression softens a little. “Look, Ransom. I know what it looks like when a father doesn’t love their kid, and that’s not you. It’s obvious you care about Bennie. You’ll be fine, and they will be too.”

Her words are comforting, but even if all that is true, there’s still one other problem. “Juno hates me now,” Nureyev mumbles sheepishly. Only the painful apathy numbing his brain has prevented him from being completely devastated by that fact.

Vespa rolls her eyes. “Steel is madly in love with you, dumbass. You don’t have to hate someone to get annoyed with them. He’s just overwhelmed right now, and he doesn’t understand why you’re not helping more. Just talk to him.”

“Right. Yes, of course.” Nureyev has known that’s what he needs to do all along, but that doesn’t make it easier—the thought of admitting what he’s feeling to Juno is terrifying. He’s gotten better at being open about his struggles over their now almost two years together, but it’s different when Bennie is involved. It’s different when part of being truthful is admitting that he doesn’t feel the way he’s supposed to feel about their own child.

It’s better knowing he’s not alone, though. After Vespa leaves and he gets to fixing Bennie their bottle, he finds himself thinking of the thousands upon thousands of people who’ve experienced this before him—all the fear and doubt and uncertainty about whether they’re going about it the right way and whether they’re doing right by their children.

He doesn’t feel better, necessarily, but he does feel a little less alone.

Juno had thought the hardest part of the mission would be being away from Bennie, and it is difficult—he keeps texting Nureyev, Jet and Vespa every hour, asking for pictures and updates—but the worst part is actually hiding his current feelings. The last thing he needs is for Rita and Buddy to ask if he’s all right, because what is he supposed to tell them if they do? No, I’m not all right. I yelled at my own child and now they hate me.

Thankfully they’re just meeting with a couple fences to pass on their recent scores in exchange for creds, so the job itself isn’t particularly challenging. He doesn’t miss the glances that the other women keep shooting in his direction, though.

“If you’re not feeling well, you’re welcome to sit this one out, darling,” Buddy tells him right before they enter their final target building. Their first meeting had taken place yesterday evening, and the second and final meeting takes place now—in the dead hours of the morning—so they’d slept over at a nearby motel between the two.

“What? What makes you think I’m not feeling well?” he retorts crossly.

“Perhaps the near-visible storm cloud that’s currently hovering over your head,” she says, raising an eyebrow. “I thought you’d appreciate finally having a quiet night, but I saw you tossing and turning in your sheets."

He shakes himself and scrubs his eyes. Getting angry at Buddy for no reason definitely isn’t going to help things. “I… Sorry. I’m fine.”

“It’s ‘cause you’re missing Bennie, right, Mistah Steel?” Rita butts in.

If only that was all it was. “Probably,” he says. “I haven’t been this far away from them since… well, since they were born. It kinda feels like… I dunno. Like a part of me is missing.”

It’s only a lie by omission. He does feel strange without Bennie, a jigsaw that's lost several pieces to the vacuum. He’d spent forty years putting other people first because he didn’t value his own life, but his feelings for Bennie aren’t like that. They’re his child, his responsibility. He could be the greatest person in the galaxy and their life would still be more important than his. More important than any other member of the crew—even Nureyev or Rita. They rely on the crew for their survival, so of course they are. That’s why the “Getaway” rule was recently amended, too: “When the time comes for us to escape, you will abandon whoever it takes to ensure your own safety—except for Bennie, who must be protected at any cost.”

“They’re not missing, darling,” Buddy reminds him gently. “They’re only a few miles away, safe in the hands of my darling wife, Jet, and their father.”

“I know,” he grumbles.

Every hour that passes is just another in a long, painful countdown, though—Juno’s scared to be away from Bennie, but the thought of seeing them again is even more terrifying. He feels like a criminal approaching their day in court, and his own child is judge, jury and executioner.

The mission goes well, of course. He was only brought along as a glorified bodyguard, ordered to watch from above with his blaster trained in case the fences tried to pull anything. They didn’t, though, and Buddy and Rita were able to make the transaction smoothly. Even if they hadn’t, he’s certain that their captain’s own skill in combat would have been more than enough to mitigate a hostile situation.

“I didn’t have to come on this job at all, did I?” he complains as they walk back to the Ruby 7, their packs heavy with newly acquired creds.

“Call it a test run, darling,” Buddy says breezily. “A jaunt to prove to you that you can be both pirate and parent, and that you can survive more than a few hours away from your little darling without the world caving in.”

Little does she know, the world might just cave in anyway.

Even despite his fears and despite the looming ‘jury date’, the first thing Juno does upon reaching the Carte Blanche is look for Bennie. He drops his bag on the kitchen table and speed-walks through the halls of the ship, checking each room.

He finds them in the nursery with Jet, just like he had when he left yesterday, though this time they’re fast asleep in their crib. Jet is rocking it gently with his foot while he sits in the armchair beside it, focused on something in his hands. It takes a few seconds before Juno figures out what he’s doing—he’s whittling away at a block of wood with a plasma knife.

“...Hey, big guy,” Juno says, alerting him of his presence before stepping into the room.

“Ah. Welcome back,” Jet says. “Do not worry, I have not let Bennie anywhere near the knife. It deactivates as soon as I let go of it.” He demonstrates, holding up the knife and removing a finger from its hilt. The plasma blade vanishes instantly as though it was never there.

“It’s okay. I trust you. Uh, what are you making?” Juno asks. Anything to stall the inevitable, the looming moment when he has to wake Bennie up. The moment when he’ll discover whether or not they’re still scared of him.

Jet gestures at him to hold out his hand, then drops the palm-sized wood carving into it. “It is only my third try at carving, so you must forgive my mistakes. I thought Bennie might use it as a toy once it is completed. I imagine you cannot recognize it yet, but it is meant to be—”

“A rabbit,” Juno says. “Holy crap, Jet. It looks amazing.” Even in its unfinished state, he can clearly make out the floppy ears and big paws. It looks a little more like the bunnies that Nureyev had described than the sewer rabbits he grew up around, but it’s still instantly recognizable.

“I am glad you like it. I hope they will, as well.”

“They’d be happy with anything they can get their little hands on at this point, I bet.” 

“I will ensure that it is completely smooth before I give it to them, with no risk of splinters.”

“Great.” Juno hands it back to Jet just as the alarm on his comms goes off. He already knows what it means, but he pulls the comms out anyway, as though the screen is going to say anything other than that it’s time for Bennie’s medication. Predictably, it doesn’t.

The nebulizer is on a high shelf in the nursery. He picks it up and prepares it, inserting the medicine and adjusting the mask. He’d had to use one plenty of times as a child, but… never this young. He knows it’s a harmless preventative measure, just once a day every other day, but he still wishes they didn’t need it at all. He wishes he didn’t have to do this, to give Bennie another reason to dread his presence. He has half a mind to make Nureyev do it instead, but he has no idea where to even find the man. Speaking of which… 

“Do you know where Ransom is?” he asks. “I haven’t seen him since we got back.”

“I do not know,” Jet replies. “He put Bennie in their crib an hour ago, and informed me that he was going to speak with Vespa.”

“...Really? Vespa? ” Juno knows that Vespa and Nureyev trust each other more now—it’d be hard not to, when she’d seen him through something as important and vulnerable as Bennie’s birth—but that doesn’t mean they’re best friends now. “I wonder what that’s about.”

The nebulizer is ready. He can’t delay the inevitable anymore, so he shelves his curiosity about Nureyev, walks over to Bennie’s crib and takes a deep breath. This is it. One bad reaction could be passed off as a coincidence, but two in a row…

He reaches down and ever-so-gently nudges Bennie awake. “Hey there, angel. It’s time for your medicine. I need to sit you up, okay?”

They squirm and yawn, and then their eyes flutter open—those big dark eyes that are so like their father’s. Their irises wander for a moment before finding Juno’s face, and then they start to wail.

There it is: confirmation.

Juno drops the nebulizer into the crib and staggers backwards, his hands flying up to cover his mouth. He wants to sob, but it’s as though the emotion has gotten stuck in his throat—it’s too big, too dark, to even be expressed through tears. It can only sit inside him and rot, the final proof of his own cruelty and ineptitude.

“They’re scared of me,” he manages to gasp through the blockage.

Jet is sitting stock still, observing the scene with an unreadable expression. “You do not know this,” he says.

“I do.” Juno picks up the nebulizer and shoves it into Jet’s hands, then backs away again. As soon as he’s out of sight of the crib, Bennie quiets down. Of course they do. “You try it. Just watch; they won’t cry if you do it.”

He doesn’t need further proof to know what he’s done wrong, but he gets it anyway. When Jet leans over Bennie, sits them up, and puts the mask on their face, they don’t make a sound. They stay calm through the entire process, minus the usual shifting and fidgeting.

Juno stays back against the wall where they can't see him. He hardly feels human anymore, but instead like some kind of demon—one that emits a potent poison everywhere it goes, that bleeds out on every white surface and wilts every plant around it. Something dangerous. Monstrous.

Little monster.

“It’s my fault,” he says once he finds the words, because Jet has a right to know the truth. Everyone’s going to figure it out eventually anyway. “I yelled at them the other night, snapped at them when they were crying, just like—like her. I thought I was better. I tried so hard to be better than her, but she’s in my blood and I can’t get her out—”

“You are talking about your mother,” Jet says, his eyebrows scrunching together. He carefully removes the mask from Bennie’s face, sets the nebulizer back on the shelf and moves towards him, but Juno draws away.

“She would yell at us, at me, almost every day,” Juno says, his voice wavering. “And worse. There were times when I was—terrified. Just like Bennie is now. Of me.”

“Hmm.”

If there’s one thing that Juno knows he can trust Jet to be, it’s honest. Whatever he says next will be the truth, whether Juno likes what he has to say or not. He awaits the man’s condemnation with bated breath, knowing that nothing he can come up with could possibly be worse than the things Juno has thought about himself over the past 48 hours.

“I have a hypothesis,” is all Jet says. Then he reaches over and plucks the bedazzled cap that Rita made straight off of Juno's head, tossing it aside.

“H-hey,” Juno stammers. “What are you—What does this have to do with—”

“Try to pick Bennie up now.”

“But—”

“Please.”

Juno doesn’t want to do it, but he doesn’t want to argue, either. He drifts back over to the crib, bundles Bennie in their blankets, and gingerly hefts them upwards.

—And they don’t cry.

They do the opposite, in fact. They look up at him with wide, gleaming eyes, and let out a string of incoherent but discernibly happy babbles.

“I don’t… I don’t understand,” Juno whispers.

“It is a phenomenon I have witnessed before,” Jet says, moving next to his shoulder to look down at Bennie. “An old friend could not understand why her child was suddenly upset every time her brother—their uncle—came to visit, when they never were before. It turned out that the baby was frightened of his new mustache. Infants can be very sensitive to change. Perhaps Bennie did not even recognize you, with the hat in place.”

“They don’t hate me.” Juno lets out a cropped, strangled noise halfway between a sob and a laugh. “All of this was over a hat?”

“I’m sure Rita will be very disappointed. She worked hard to make that hat.”

Juno presses his forehead against Bennie’s, finally letting tears fall. Bennie blinks as they drop onto their face, looking as bemused as an infant can. “They don’t hate me,” he repeats. “I haven’t… failed as a parent..”

“No, you have not,” Jet says simply. “You were wrong to snap at them, but as long as you do not repeat that action, it should not have a lasting effect. It is not our mistakes that define us, but how we choose to move forward and grow from them. It is obvious to me how much you regret what you did.”

“Ma regretted it too. She… she would apologize,” Juno murmurs. He sets Bennie back down in the crib and wipes his nose, taking a deep, rattling breath in. “She’d cry and hug us and promise to never do it again.”

“And then she would do it again. Over and over. Correct?”

“...Yes.”

“Then that is the crucial difference between the two of you. You will not do it again.”

“No,” Juno says. “I won’t.”

He picks the cap back up off the floor and looks at it, running his fingers over the phrase pasted onto it in sequins. #1 Mama.  

He still can’t believe that it’s true and that there aren’t a million better mothers than him in the world, but he does know one thing: he’s not Sarah Steel, and he never will be. He’s not going to make Bennie feel the way she’d made him feel.

Never again.

Nureyev stands at the bathroom sink, staring at the pill bottle in his hands. As much as he knows he needs the medication, the thought of taking it is still daunting. He’d seen just how bad the side effects were for some of the pills that Juno had tried when he first got on antidepressants. Everyone’s body reacts differently, and what if his decides to react badly? He doesn’t know if he could take feeling physically unwell on top of everything else.

“There you are, babe. I’ve been looking all over for you. Jet’s still on Bennie duty for a sec, so—Hey, what’s so fascinating about my pills?”

Nureyev startles at Juno’s sudden appearance. How did he not hear the bathroom door open? He hastily puts the bottle down, as though he’s just been caught red-handed doing something he isn’t supposed to. “Ah. Welcome back, love.”

“Pretty sure I’ll need a refill soon. I should talk to Vespa about that.”

Juno reaches for the bottle, but before he can pick it up, Nureyev blurts out, “They’re not yours.”

Juno blinks. “Oh. Then… who…?”

“They’re, ah, mine. Sorry,” Nureyev says. He doesn’t know what he’s even apologizing for, but he felt like he needed to.

Juno stares at him quizzically, then back at the bottle, which is labeled with the name of the antidepressant in bold letters. “What?”

Nureyev wants to sink into the floor and disappear. He knows they need to have this conversation, but he’d been planning to have it tonight after dinner once he’d prepared and memorized a full script in his mind. Not right now.  

“I’m sure you’ve noticed that I’ve been… well, not myself,” he begins cautiously. “I know I haven’t been very helpful, or supportive, or… anything you’ve needed me to be recently, but I just… couldn’t. I spoke to Vespa about it, and she floated the idea that I may be, er, depressed. I don’t know whether or not she’s correct in that assumption, but apparently it’s actually quite common for those in my position, so perhaps…” He trails off, aware that his words are starting to stumble over each other.

Juno is looking at him like he’s seeing him for the first time, his mouth hanging slightly open and eyebrows drawn together. “Nureyev, that’s…”

“It’s just a theory,” Nureyev says quickly, suddenly embarrassed—as if it’s too brazen to claim that what he’s going through is anything like the beast that Juno has fought with his entire life.

“No, I—fuck, I’m such an idiot,” Juno says, smacking himself in the forehead. “The way you’ve been acting the past couple months, it’s… it’s goddamn textbook. You might as well have been me in my mid twenties.”

Nureyev blinks at him, slightly dumbfounded. He’s relieved, of course, to not have experienced his worst fear—to not have been snapped at and told there’s no way he could be depressed or that he’s just using it as an excuse—but Juno’s total acceptance still feels unearned. “Really?”

“At my worst, if anyone had tried to get me to clean my apartment or take a shower or even just… get out of bed when I didn’t want to, I probably would’ve bitten their head off. I don’t know how I didn’t see it.” Juno rubs his temples. “I guess I still have this image of you in my head as someone… I don’t know. Better than me? Like, whenever you do stuff, it’s gotta be on purpose, because you’re more… in control of your brain than I am? Or something. But that’s not fair to you. I can’t punish you for the pedestal I’ve put you on.”

“It’s my fault, too,” Nureyev insists. “I should have talked to you sooner, but… I was scared. It’s not only that I can’t do things, it’s… I keep having these thoughts. Juno, there’ve been times when…” He swallows. He hasn’t been able to say this part out loud to anyone, even Vespa—as though by voicing he’d be making it too real. “...When I feel like I want to hurt them.”

Juno frowns. “How… how do you mean?”

“I–I don’t know. It’s terrible, and I understand if you don’t want me anywhere near Bennie now that I’ve told you, but I’ve occasionally had these… thoughts. That I… wanted to crash the ship with both of us inside it, or drop them off the Skywalk, or… a thousand other things. I know it’s wrong, and I don’t know where it comes from, but—”

He feels Juno’s hand on his arm, steadying him. “Shh. Shh, babe,” he says, too gently. “You never did hurt them, though, did you? Regardless of those thoughts.”

“Of course not,” Nureyev says immediately. “I’d sooner cut off my own hands than lay a finger on on Bennie, I swear to you—”

“Then it doesn’t matter.”

Nureyev stares at him. “How can you say that?!”

“Intrusive thoughts are just that, Nureyev. Thoughts,” Juno says. “As long as you don’t act on them, they don’t mean anything. It’s not like I’ve never had thoughts like that before, when I was doing badly. They’re just a little easier to deal with when you aren’t a parent.”

“It feels so wrong, though. How can I think those things about my own child!?”

“Shit like this, like depression or whatever, it isn’t just… lying in bed feeling sad. At least, it hasn’t been for me.” Juno guides Nureyev to a seat on the side of the tub, still holding him steady. “Sometimes it makes you do or think stuff that’s… ugly, or fucked up, or really hard to admit. That’s how it traps you, right? If you can’t admit it, you can’t get help—but you did, and I’m so fucking proud of you for that.”

“It doesn’t feel like something to be proud of,” Nureyev murmurs.

“I know,” Juno says. “And I’m so sorry. If I’d only recognized what was going on, you could’ve gotten help sooner.” He laughs wryly. “I was just too distracted by my own shitty feelings.”

“...Your shitty feelings?” Nureyev repeats, instantly concerned. He knows that Juno has been irritated with him lately, but he hadn’t realized anything else was going on.

Juno averts his eye. “I think the asthma diagnosis got to me more than I realized. I really felt like it was my fault, and then I snapped at Bennie the other night and… God, I felt like a monster. I thought they were never gonna trust me again, that I was the same as my mom, that I…”

“Was a terrible parent?” Nureyev finishes for him.

“Yeah, pretty much.”

“...We are a well-matched pair of fools, it seems.”

They look at each other for a long moment, and then they both burst into tired, shaky laughter. Juno leans his head on Nureyev’s shoulder and says, “You know what it was, in the end?”

“What?”

“It was the hat that Rita made me. Bennie hates it. All that internal turmoil, and it was because of a stupid hat!”

Nureyev chuckles. “I wish my troubles could go away by simply taking off a hat.”

“I know.” Juno takes his hand, rubbing his thumb across it. “But talking about it is a start. Taking the meds is, too. Which, uh, I just remembered that I interrupted you in the middle of. You should probably go ahead and do that.”

Actually swallowing the pills is still daunting, regardless of side effects or lack thereof, because… What if they don’t work? What is Nureyev supposed to do then? Even just having Juno by his side as he takes them changes things, though. He hates that Juno knows about all the horrible things he’s been thinking and feeling now, but it’s reassuring too.

Juno knows, and he still loves him. He’s going to help him.

Maybe neither of them will be that terrible of parents, after all.

The months following Nureyev and Juno’s conversation in the bathroom aren’t easy, but Juno is determined to do his best to support both his child and his boyfriend—even if that often means passing off Bennie’s care to other members of the crew. He feels guilty about it every time, but it also means that he’s yet to get as frustrated as he had the night he’d snapped at Bennie.

I raised both of you all on my own, Sarah Steel’s voice scolds him. I didn’t have a single person there to help me.

“Yeah, that’s why you fucked it up so badly,” Juno says under his breath, pushing the memory aside.

It’s taken a while, but Nureyev’s meds finally seem to be kicking in too. Juno’s been coaxing him out of bed each day using methods he learned from Rita—who’s very knowledgeable in the subject after putting up with own depressed self for the past twenty years—and helping him clean his room bit by bit. The floor is almost entirely clear now, and Nureyev had even managed to get dressed and eat breakfast at a reasonable time this morning.

Now they’re sitting together in the stream room, watching Buddy play with Bennie on the carpet. Since Bennie's birth, Juno has learned something surprising: Buddy Aurinko, the matriarch of their crew and the one who’d decided to call them her family in the first place, is… not very good with children. 

She’s been trying her best to engage Bennie for the past fifteen minutes, but they’ve stayed entirely focused on the series of wooden animals that Jet has made for them. A bird and cat have now joined the rabbit, finished with smooth Kronosien beeswax so they can be safely gnawed on by a teething baby. Said baby's eyes occasionally wander in Buddy’s direction, but otherwise they seem dead set on ignoring her existence.

In a last ditch effort, Buddy covers her face with her hands, then moves them away with a big smile and says, “Peekaboo!”

Bennie stares blankly at her for a second, then sticks the bird back in their mouth. 

Juno snorts. “Sorry, Captain. Tough crowd.”

Buddy shakes her head. “I’ve charmed countless marks, broken into the highest of high security institutions, and stolen the greatest treasures of some of the richest men this side of the century, but I cannot for the life of me entertain this infant!” she laments. “I haven’t the faintest idea what I’m doing wrong.”

She throws up her hands in resignation and as she does, there’s a whirr like a camera lens and a bright flash goes off—from somewhere on her face. 

Nureyev blinks. “Captain?”

“Oh, dear. There must have been a minor malfunction.” She adjusts something beneath the mop of red curls that covers her left eye, looking more embarrassed than Juno has ever seen her look before. If there's one phrase that definitely doesn’t describe Buddy Aurinko, it’s ‘easily flustered.’ “Nothing to worry about. This old thing is always on the fritz—”

“Wah!” 

The exclamation comes from Bennie, who is now sitting up and staring at Buddy, their mouth hanging open. They crawl forward until they reach her knee, then knock their hand against it, staring up at her.

“Hello there, darling,” Buddy says, looking equal parts delighted and confused to finally receive the attention she’d been vying for.

“I believe they may be… interested in your eye, Captain,” Nureyev says cautiously.

“Ah. Of course. Would you like to see it, little one?” Buddy asks. Bennie waves their arms and gurgles in response, which she must take as an affirmative, because she pins her hair back from her face to reveal her mechanical eye. “There you go.”

Bennie gives her a big, two-toothed grin. It develops into a loud giggle when Buddy presses a button on the eye, making its lens whirl and click. “Wah!”

“Dunno what ‘wah’ means, but it seems like they’re having fun,” Juno says with a laugh. He’s unsure what’s more amusing about the sight: Bennie’s incoherent excitement or Buddy’s poorly hidden joy at receiving the validation of an eight-month-old.

Buddy hefts Bennie into her lap so they’re closer to the source of their amusement. “Goodness, they’re getting so big.”

“Yeah. It’s… surreal,” Juno agrees. He and Nureyev had done everything they could to ready themselves for parenthood, but nothing could have prepared them for the experience of watching Bennie grow into a person before their eyes—one with their own personality and preferences and heart. “They’ve been super talkative lately, too.”

“I had to listen to a very passionate lament from our dear Rita about how she missed hearing them say their first word,” Buddy says with a nod. Bennie’s hand is on her left eye now, patting the mechanism like one might pet a small cat.

Juno groans. “It might not have been anything, anyway. I’m pretty sure they were trying to say ‘shoe’, though.”

The next ten minutes pass peacefully, with Buddy showing off every feature on her mechanical eye to an ecstatic Bennie. Juno has only ever seen the scarred half of her face once or twice, in the heat of a heist when her hair had come unpinned or during an accidental hallway run-in at four in the morning that they’d both promised to forget. To see her bear it so freely is a bit of a shock—but it seems they’re all more willing to be vulnerable, when it’s for the benefit of Bennie Aurinko.

He can tell Bennie is starting to get tired, though. After Buddy’s third demonstration of the eye’s color-changing setting, they yawn and stretch their arms, wriggling in place.

Buddy must notice it too, because she pins her hair back into place and says, “What is it, darling? Do you want to take a nap?”

Bennie picks up two of their wooden animals, knocks them together, and then says, “Ma… ma.” 

The room falls silent. Juno, Buddy and Nureyev all gape at Bennie. They knock the animals together once more and look at Juno expectantly. 

“Ma ma,” they repeat, even more clearly this time.

Nureyev’s hand flies out to grip Juno’s forearm, almost painfully tight. “I believe they’re talking to you, love,” he whispers.

Out of the corner of his eye, Juno sees Buddy whip out her comms and start recording. He prys himself from Nureyev’s grasp and reaches for Bennie, pulling them up against his chest. “H-hey, angel. What… what was that you were saying?” 

“Mama!” they declare, reaching their chubby hands up towards him.

Mama.

Juno has been so haunted by his own mother through every part of this process. Even when he and Nureyev had stayed up late deciding what words they’d use for themselves as parents, she’d been at the front of his mind—“Mom” and “Ma” were both off limits, he’d decided. They were too close, too attached to someone better left forgotten. In the end he’d chosen Mama, but he’d been a little wary of even that one for its similarity to “Ma”.

But now as he looks into Bennie’s big, dark brown eyes and hears them say it out loud, he isn’t thinking of Sarah Steel at all.

He wipes his own eye and smiles. “Yeah, Bee. That’s me.”

Bennie bobs their head, as though satisfied with this response, then yawns again.

“I can take them to their crib, if you like,” Buddy says. Her face is aglow with a maternal pride of its own—for him, Juno realizes. “And I got the whole thing on video, so Rita won’t be able to complain, will she?”

Juno feels a little like the wind has just been knocked out of him, but in a good way. He nods and hands Bennie over. “Thanks, Buddy. Seems like you two really bonded today.”

“I hope so! Excuse me, Ransom, if I could sneak by you—”

“Wan… um,” Bennie says through yet another yawn, and Buddy pauses.

“Was that a word?” Nureyev muses. “I’ve read that some babies start talking all at once. Nothing at all, and then—”

“Wanum!” Bennie repeats, looking at Nureyev.

“Bennie, darling… are you trying to say Ransom?” Buddy says. They don’t reply, and seem perfectly content to stay in her arms, but their eyes are fixed on Nureyev. “Well. It was a very valiant effort, if so. I’m certain you’ll get there eventually. Tell your parents bye bye, now, will you?”

Bennie just sticks their thumb in their mouth, resting their head against her shoulder. Juno and Nureyev wave at them as they’re carried away. It’s a relief to get a moment alone again, and Juno still feels jittery with exhilaration after what they’d just experienced. Bennie had called him Mama. His child had called him Mama, and it had felt right. For the first time since choosing the name, he truly feels like it belongs to him. Like he deserves it.

Then he turns and discovers that there are tears streaming down his boyfriend’s face.

Nureyev hastily wipes them away as soon as he notices Juno looking. “Apologies. Here I thought I was finally getting a handle on my emotions…” 

Juno could have counted on one hand the times he’d seen Nureyev cry before he’d gotten pregnant, but now he’d need… well, at least four hands to count every time. He knows how unsettling it must be for someone usually so adept at repression to suddenly be forced to wear their heart on their sleeve, even if only as a result of hormonal and chemical imbalance. He puts a hand on Nureyev’s arm and says, “It’s okay. I mean, I was nearly crying a second ago. What’s up? Are they just… ‘this is a lot’ tears, or what?” Juno’s shed plenty of those lately, himself.

Nureyev shakes his head slightly. “They called you Mama.”

“Uh-huh.” Juno smiles. “Seems like they said both our names. Isn’t that fuck—freaking amazing?”

Nureyev meets his gaze, his glasses now spotted with teardrops. “They didn’t say both our names. My name is not Ransom, Juno.”

Oh. “Well, technically my name’s not Mama, either,” Juno points out.

“I know. And I know I’ll be Appa once they learn how to say it anyway, but… I don’t want them to think of me as that, Juno. I don’t…” Nureyev’s voice cracks. “I don’t want them to think of me as a name that man chose for me twenty years ago. I’ve hated it since the moment I started using it again.”

Juno can understand that. He puts his arms around Nureyev’s shoulder and pulls him closer, squeezing him lightly. “Right. Then… we can make a plan. Once they’re old enough to understand and keep a secret about your name, we’ll tell them—”

Nureyev just shakes his head. “No. I’m done with it, Juno. I’m just… done.”

He’s not crying anymore, and his expression is hard. Determined. “Okay,” Juno says after a pause. “Then what do you want to do?”

Nureyev closes his eyes, feeling warm, sudsy water wash over him. Calloused hands run through his hair, massaging his scalp. If such a thing as heaven exists, he imagines it must feel something like this: like lying in a bubble bath, having his hair washed by Juno Steel.

“You really didn’t have to do this, you know,” he says.

“Shh,” Juno scolds him. “You’ll get soap in your mouth. Besides, I kinda did. If you aren’t gonna do it yourself, someone has to.”

Nureyev grimaces. “Apologies, love.”

“Don’t worry about it. I can’t even count the amount of times that Rita had to lock me in the bathroom of my apartment until I took a shower. Sometimes you just… don’t have the energy.”

Nureyev knows that Juno of all people understands, but that doesn’t make him any less frustrated with himself. He’d thought he was finally feeling better, only for his mood to take a nosedive again out of nowhere. The complexity of his usual routines only serve as a shackle, on such occasions—Nureyev isn’t good at half measures. If he can’t do his ten-step skincare regime, why even bother washing his face? If he’s too tired to use shampoo, conditioner and several brands of body wash, why shower at all? What’s the point?

It had taken Juno all but wrestling him into the bath for him to manage it today, and… okay, yes, he already does feel considerably better than before.

Juno’s hands pause on his scalp. “Speaking of things that you actually don’t have to do, though…” he says. “I know part of the reason you were doing so badly this morning is because of… you know. But you don’t have to go through with it, Nureyev. Not today, or ever.”

Nureyev opens his eyes to glower at his lady love, ignoring the shampoo threatening to drip from his eyelashes. “I want to, Juno.”

“I know!” Juno says quickly. “I know. But I mean… you want to do it for Bennie, and they’re not even gonna remember anything from this age. You’ve got plenty of time.”

“I cannot fathom why you’re so against this.”

“I’m not! I just… want you to do it because you’re ready, not because you feel obligated, or whatever.” Juno chews on his lip, looking adorably conflicted. “And I don’t like seeing you so stressed out, okay? I want you to feel good.”

Nureyev lets out an affectionate sigh. He can never resist his detective’s heart-wrenchingly earnest charm. “I will, love. Once I pass this particular hurdle, I know I will. I need to get it over with, that’s all.”

Juno still looks unconvinced, but he doesn’t argue the point. “...Okay. It’s your decision.”

Nureyev dons his freshly washed hair and favorite outfit like armor, grateful for Juno’s assistance with both. He can’t even remember the last time he dressed up, he ponders as Juno does his zipper. It must have been months before Bennie was born. This particular shirt doesn’t fit quite right anymore, but it still looks good, and when he looks in the mirror he feels more human than he has in a while. Like an actual person, not just a whirlwind of parental stress, intrusive thoughts and exhaustion.

Then it’s time to face the music.

Sitting in front of the Aurinko Crime Family, all them looking at him and waiting to hear the news that he’d gathered them for, is strangely familiar. It’s so reminiscent of the family meeting when he’d told them he was pregnant. He can still remember exactly how he’d felt then—the sweat on his brow, the fidgety hands, the backbreaking vulnerability of the admission. It’s the exact same today. The six of them waiting in silence, though now with a seventh fast asleep in their crib down the hall.

“You got this, Mistah Ransom,” Rita says, breaking the tense silence at the dinner table. “What is it that yah wanna say?”

“Not Ransom,” he says roughly.

“Huh?”

“As you all well know, my name is not Peter Ransom.” 

Nureyev looks around at his family: at the mother and godmother of his child. At the doctor who’d helped him through everything before, during, and after Bennie’s birth. At the man who’d made toys for them with his bare hands, and the woman without whom he’d still be a homeless, heartbroken thief. He knows what he has to do—not just for Bennie, but for all of them. They need to know. They deserve to.

“The ‘Peter’ is correct, at least,” he continues. “But not the Ransom. My true name is Peter Nureyev.”

There’s silence around the table again. He feels his skin start to crawl with every second that passes, the urge to bolt out of the room and lock himself in his room for the rest of the day rising inside of him. They can’t kick him off the crew now, can they? Not while Bennie is here. They wouldn’t take him away from—

“Thank you for sharing this with us,” Jet says, interrupting his inner downward spiral. The big man’s hands are folded in front of him, his expression still perfectly passive.

Buddy nods. “Thank you, Pete. The amount of trust it must have taken you to do so is not lost on any of us.”

She elbows Vespa, who grunts, “Uh, yeah. Glad you finally got around to it, thief.”

Something isn’t right here. 

They’re being kind, but it’s almost… too kind. Do they really not care? Do they not recognize his name and the connection it holds to New Kinshasa? He’d foreseen Rita’s non-reaction, since she’d already found his name online, but the others? Nureyev’s eyes narrow, flicking between each of them cautiously. “Is that… all? Forgive me, but I expected a slightly… stronger response.”

Vespa tips her chair back on two legs, Buddy averts her eye, and Jet begins what can only be described as a purposefully casual whistle. Juno looks just as confused as he feels, like he’d been expecting something more, too. Yes, something is very wrong here.

He keeps staring them down until Rita finally speaks up. “Well,” she says slowly, twiddling her thumbs. “It’s, uh, just the teeniest bit possible that they’re acting like this ‘cause… ‘cause they kinda sorta already knew. Your name, I mean.”

“What?” Nureyev feels the blood drain from his face. He’d gone over the script for this meeting a million times in his head, but he’d never accounted for that possibility. “Rita, you didn’t—?”

“Of course not, Mistah Ransom! I never woulda done such a thing without your permission!” she exclaims, standing up on her chair and slamming her hands on the table for emphasis. Then she shrinks a little and says, “Please don’t be upset, but… you sorta, uh, told them yourself.”

Of all the preposterous explanations she could have conjured, that one takes the cake. “Rita, I think I would recall if I had revealed my deepest secret to the members of my own family.”

“I mean, probably most of the time you would, yeah, but you were under a whole lotta stress and it was when you were slippin’ in and out of consciousness before Vespa could stabilize things—”

“What in the galaxy are you talking about?!”

Rita pauses for a breath and then says, “When you were having Bennie!”

Ah.

“Miss Vespa, Mistah Jet and I were all in the room with you,” she continues. “And you were real scared and hurtin’ real bad and you said something… something super dramatic, like, ‘is this really where it ends for Peter Nureyev?’ And we all heard it! Miss Vespa told Captain A because, you know, they’re wives and all so you can’t really blame her, which means now we all know, and we wanted to tell you but you ain’t been feelin’ too well and honestly after a while I just forgot it even happened—”

“Thank you very much, Rita. I think he understands the gist now,” Buddy interrupts.

“Yes, Captain!”

Nureyev slumps back in his chair, all the adrenaline he’d built during the lead up to this meeting seeping out of him to be replaced by numb confusion. He feels as though he’s been pushed into an electric fence and he still can’t tell whether its online or not, whether he’s been shocked or spared—

“You’ve known all along,” he says meekly. “For months. Almost a year.”

Captain Aurinko reaches across the table to cover his hand with her own, meeting his eyes. When she speaks, her tone is as gentle as her touch. “I’m truly sorry that the opportunity to confess to us in your own time was stolen from you, darling. But I hope you take this as proof that us knowing your identity doesn't change a thing about how we see you.”

“Speak for yourself,” Vespa mutters. All eyes turn to her, Nureyev’s heart leaping into his throat. She crosses her arms and continues, “He’s a wanted fucking terrorist from the Outer Rim. I like the asshole way more now that I know that.”

“So… you do know,” Nureyev says. “What my name entails.”

“Yeah, no duh.”

“And you still want me here?”

“What was I meant to do?” Buddy says, leaning her chin on the hand that isn’t currently touching his. “Expel you from your crime family for being a criminal? Separate you from your own child?”

When she puts it like that, it does sound rather ridiculous. It still feels odd, though, for them to have known for so long… and for it to have changed next to nothing. That his true identity is apparently so inconsequential that they’d forgotten to mention it. He might have been offended, if he weren’t so busy being relieved. “I suppose not.”

“There is one thing I regret not asking you sooner, though, darling. Now that it’s all out in the open… what is it that you’d prefer to be called?”

He fidgets in his seat. “Well, my birth name is still a secret to the outside world, of course, so… I’d appreciate discretion in public. Don’t use any name for me at all, if possible.”

“Naturally.”

“But here… I’d like for you to call me Nureyev.” He swallows. “Especially around Bennie. I only want them to know me as Appa and as Nureyev. Not Ransom.”

“Consider it done,” Buddy says, and the others nod in agreement.

“Well,” Juno says. “That went more smoothly than I expected it to. Uh, I’m still proud of you for telling them, though, babe.”

Nureyev finally feels the tension he’s been carrying since he first decided to reveal his name to the others leave him completely. He lets his head fall back, laughing loudly. “Oh, dear. I still can’t believe you found it out in such an embarrassing way. Such is the cost of my own melodrama…”

“Look on the bright side, Nureyev,” Vespa says with a crooked smile. The name sounds strange from her lips, but… he much prefers it to Ransom or ‘thief’, he has to admit. “At least it wasn’t actually the end of you.”

“No. No, it wasn’t,” he says. “Thank goodness.”

The rest of the day passes like any other, with the exception that the confines of their little ship now feel even more like a home than before.

Bennie’s first birthday party is a quiet affair. They have a picnic on a terraformed Venusian satellite where the little one can crawl around in the grass, then return to the ship for streams and cupcakes. Icing somehow ends up all over Bennie’s face and newly purchased bunny pajamas, which is so adorable that Juno can almost forget how annoying it’s going to be to get the stains out.

After the last stream ends, the others take charge of cleaning up the kitchen, which currently looks like someone exploded a flour bomb in it—the result of Nureyev ‘assisting’ with the cupcakes.

“You two are as bad as each other,” Juno had grumbled at his boyfriend and child, who’d just smiled back at him with their flour and icing stained faces.

The final event of the day is a small but important one. He’d had Rita set up the video call before she left to clean up, and now his comms is sitting propped up on the coffee table in the stream room with a view of himself, Nureyev, and Bennie.

“Whoa. There they are! I can hardly believe it, Jay, ‘cept I totally can because they look just like you—oh, man. It’s like there’s a mini Jay!”

Mick Mercury beams through the pixelated screen, calling in from a thousand lightyears away. Juno had hoped to invite him to the party in person, but it hadn’t been feasible given their current location and timeframe. At least he can be here over comms.

Juno had texted him a few months ago to tell him about Bennie, only to then have to spend thirty minutes convincing him that it was not, in fact, a practical joke. He can’t really blame Mercury for not believing him at first, though. Mick knows full well how tense his relationship with the concept of parenthood is. Hell, if he could tell himself from two years ago where he is now, the lady wouldn’t believe it for a second.

“They are rather adorable, aren’t they?” Nureyev says. “I was hoping they’d look like him.”

Mick’s face lights up like he’s just had an idea, which—when it comes to Mick Mercury—always has the potential to be a very bad thing. “Oh, man, you know what this reminds me of? Those baby photos of Jay that I won on a dare when we were teenagers, that time I stole all the chili dogs from the local vender and ate them in one sitting. Have you seen them, Mister Juno’s boyfriend?”

To Juno’s dismay, Nureyev’s face lights up too. “I most certainly have not.”

“Well, you gotta! He looked even more like Bennie back then! I think I’ve still got the digital copies on my comms, actually. Here, I’ll pull them up and then present my screen—”

Juno moans, dropping his head into his hands. “I should’ve known that calling you was a bad idea, Mercury.” 

He doesn’t make any real attempt to stop Mick from showing the photos, though. It’s not worth the effort, and admittedly even he’s a little curious about their contents. He’s long since deleted or thrown out every photo from his childhood that he’d had on hand.

“There we go!” Mick announces.

Juno peeks at the screen through his fingers, and Nureyev immediately leans in to get a closer look. “My goodness,” he says. “You really did look exactly like them.”

The photos flick by one by one: Juno receiving a paper diploma at his elementary school graduation, him on the shoulders of one of Sasha’s dads from when they’d lived in the same apartment building, a candid shot of him trying to finish an ice cream cone before it melts all over his hands. Then—a picture of two brothers, identical in all but hairstyle and a few stray birthmarks, in the middle of Oldtown Park. One of them is sitting high up in a tree, while the other leans against its trunk with his arms crossed.

“Oh, sorry, Jay,” Mick says immediately. “I can change it.”

“No, no. It’s okay.” Juno looks closer, the corners of his mouth twitching upwards. “Fuck, I’d forgotten about that day. Sasha took this picture on her new comms, and then the second she left Ben started crying because he didn’t know how to get down from the tree. I made fun of him for ages, but I still helped him down in the end. I had to, right? He’s—he was my brother.”

The photo fades out and Mick’s face comes back into view, wearing as thoughtful and serious an expression as Juno knows him to be capable of. “Bennie,” he says slowly. “That name. When you first mentioned it, I wondered if…”

“Yeah,” Juno says before he can ask. “It’s short for Benzaiten.”

“...Really?”

He understands Mick’s surprise. Any mention of Benzaiten’s name around a younger Juno would have earned the offender a scowl at best and a shiner at worst, but… things are different now. “Yeah, really,” he says. “I was totally against the idea when it first came up, but I dunno. It just felt right, in the end. Besides, they’re Bennie. Not Benzaiten, not Benten, not Ben. Bennie. I don’t even really think of him when I say it. And when I do… it feels okay. Like I’m holding on to a piece of him.” He takes a deep breath in. “He was my best friend, the person I spent every day with growing up, and… I’m tired of pushing that memory aside just because it hurts.”

Mick’s expression has softened. “You sure have changed a lot, JJ,” he says. “You’re, like, an actual grown up now. It makes me feel like I’m behind! Should I be having babies too?!”

Juno stifles an incredulous laugh. “Mick, you’re not even dating anyone. I mean, that’s not necessarily a prerequisite, but still.”

“Hmm. Good point. It would be fun to have someone else around that I could teach to ride a hovercycle, though,” he says, then perks up. “Hey, Jay, can I—”

“No, you are not teaching my one year old child to ride a hovercycle, Mercury.”

“Awww.”

The conversation turns into a heated discussion about how old Bennie has to be before Mick can teach them, then a debate about the concept of skateboards for babies, and then a general update about everything that’s been going on in both of their lives. It feels good to talk about it with someone on the outside, who hasn’t witnessed the ups and downs of Bennie’s initial twelve months firsthand.

It’s Bennie who finally puts an end to the last event of the party, by beginning to cry loudly.

“Our angel’s had a big day,” Nureyev says. “Perhaps it’s best that we feed them and get them to bed, yes?”

Juno nods. “I think that’s a good idea. Sorry, Mick.”

“Don’t you worry about a thing, Jay!” Mick says happily. “Tell ‘em that I love ‘em and that Uncle Mick can’t wait to meet them in person!”

“Will do,” Juno assures him. “And… thanks. It was good talking to you again, Mercury.”

“Next time you go through a huge life change, you gotta tell me about it sooner, promise?”

“Yeah, yeah. I promise.”

“Bye, Jay! Bye, Jay’s boyfriend! Bye Bennie!”

They wave goodbye and end the call. The ship is quiet now, the last remnants of the party cleaned up or put away and the rest of the crew having returned to their respective rooms. All that remains on the dining room table are the assortment of toys and board books that Bennie had received as gifts and the present that Rita had made for Juno—a recreation of the bedazzled #1 Mama hat in shirt form, which seems to offend Bennie much less. Juno smiles as he passes it.

Bennie is already half asleep in his arms by the time they reach the nursery. He gently sets them down in their crib, giving them a kiss before straightening back up. 

“Happy birthday, Bennie,” he says.

One year down—and many, many more to go. There was a time not so long ago when he’d dreaded the future, occasionally even hoped he wouldn’t live to see it, but not anymore. He needs to live as long as possible now, so he can watch this tiny human grow up. So he can be there for them every step of the way.

He moves closer to Nureyev, interlocking their arms and leaning his head against his partner’s shoulder as they both look down at their child. The past year wasn’t easy—it was one of the hardest of Juno’s entire life, probably, and that’s saying something—but every second of it had been worth it. He wonders if Nureyev is thinking the same thing. He opens his mouth to ask, but before he can, Nureyev speaks up.

“I want another one.”

Juno stiffens, then slowly moves his head to stare at Nureyev, as if by studying his face he can make more sense of the sentence his boyfriend has just spoken. “...What was that?”

Nureyev looks back at him, his mouth set in a determined line. “I think I’d like another one.”

“Another… child?”

“Yes.”

“Really?” Juno stammers out. “I mean, I get it, Bennie’s amazing, but… do you really think you could go through the hell you went through with them a second time?”

“It wouldn’t have to be biologically ours,” Nureyev clarifies. “Not necessarily. There must be a billion parentless children in the Outer Rim in need of homes. A billion children like… me.”

He touches a hand to his chest, and for a moment Juno can see the ghost of a different person in his profile: a scared, starving little boy all alone on the streets of Brahma. The boy he’d seen in Nureyev’s mind years ago.

“If someone like us had adopted me back then, Juno, it… it would have changed everything,” Nureyev says. “It would have saved me from so much pain.”

“I understand.” How many times had Juno fantasized about being adopted too, about someone saving Benzaiten and him from Sarah and bringing them somewhere safe? “It’s not like that’s our responsibility, though. We can’t save every kid in the universe.”

“I know. It’s not only about that, though. Seeing that picture of you and Benzaiten… hearing you talk about him…” Nureyev shakes his head. “I never had a connection like that when I was young. And Bennie may have us, but they’ve never met anyone close to their own age, either. I want them to have everything that I didn’t, and that includes—”

“A sibling,” Juno finishes for him. He closes his eye and exhales. “Guess I didn’t get one of those, either. Not one that I was allowed to keep.”

“It was just a passing notion, that’s all. Nothing we need act on any time soon,” Nureyev says quickly. “I don’t mean to guilt you or imply that we’re hurting Bennie by keeping them an only child, I merely—”

“No. No, I get it. It’s just… Do you really think we’re good enough parents that we can take care of two kids?”

“Do you?”

There’s a tentative, searching look in Nureyev’s eyes as he asks it. It’s a genuine question, Juno realizes, and he’s looking for a genuine answer.

Juno looks back down at Bennie, wrapped in Rita’s blanket and sleeping peacefully without a care in the world. There had been plenty of bad moments during the past year, but he now feels certain of at least one thing: Bennie is happy here. Regardless of his own fears and feelings, they're happy to have Juno and Nureyev as their parents, and the rest of the crew as their family. They have a good life. The kind he and Nureyev could have only dreamed of when they were children.

“Yeah,” he says finally. “I think we are.”

The conversation ends there for the night, but they both go to bed buzzing with affection—for Bennie, for Mick, for the crew, and for a thousand possible futures that might come to pass. Whether they end up with another child or not, Juno has a strange feeling that things are going to turn out all right.