Chapter Text
Natasha
“I can guarantee you, putting an Alpha in there with him is only going to serve to make things worse,” Natasha says, fixing Fury with a stare and crossing her arms over her chest as they stand outside of the bedroom that currently held The Winter Soldier.
“Natasha, you know that you’re a highly regarded agent here and that I value your opinion. That being said, we simply cannot let him go on like this. The Heats are getting worse and more frequent, and nothing we’ve tried has helped with it. He doesn’t even seem to know how to handle them, so the next stage of protocol is to try and find a support partner for them. It’s the only humane thing to do,” Fury says, his voice frustratingly calm.
Natasha knows he’s right. Of course she does, but she remembers that feeling of being terrified by Alphas, and with good reason. Most of the higher-ups in Hydra were Alphas and they weren’t fussy with how they treated their Assets, and given that they called Barnes The Asset, Natasha was willing to bet that applied to him, too. She still bore the scars, and Barnes had lasted in their ‘care’ for a whole lot longer than she had. It was unsurprising that he wasn’t willing to have an Alpha anywhere near him and got violent at the very prospect of it. It's what she was trying to get through to Fury, but he was having none of it.
“Right, but if you put someone in there with him, he’s going to hurt them. He’s enhanced, Fury, just picking a big muscled Alpha isn’t going to cut it on this one. Besides, hasn’t he rejected every possible candidate from the scent book?” She asks, knowing that she’s right. She might have gone snooping in the file, but in her defense her actions were only meant to help. Beyond that, it was her nature. And actually, her thought was that she could help, if only she could convince Fury.
“We could still look for other candidates. We’ve only just gone through the trained support Alphas on staff, and The Avengers Initiative, all fully vetted and trained by SHIELD but just because that saves on paperwork doesn't mean they are the only options. Do you think that will help?” He asks her and Natasha raises one eyebrow, not changing her stance at all.
“Do you?” She challenges him and Fury sighs out, frustration clear both in his face and in his body language.
“So what do you suggest instead? Because we can’t leave that man like he is - that makes us no better than Hydra. If we’re abandoning this plan, there has to be another one,” he insists, and Natasha nods.
“I have one idea. What about an Omega instead? It’s not the same as an Alpha, I get that - but Omega scents can be a comfort to other Omegas,” she suggests and Fury looks at her sharply. “It’s how we got through. In the Red Room. Before they changed us, I mean.”
He looks at her again, assessing what she’s saying.
“I hear you, and I know it’s unusual for you to open up to anybody about what happened to you back then. I appreciate that you chose me. But that being said, where the hell are we going to find a support Omega who is SHIELD approved and is going to be willing to take this sort of risk? Because we can put in as many fail-safes and panic buttons and whatever else that we want, but he moves fast. He’s strong. And how do we even know that an Omega is going to help at all?” He asks, but really, Natasha had thought of all of those contingencies. Did he think she was a rookie? Of course she'd already thought the plan through fully before suggesting it to him.
“It takes one, Nick. One. Omega scents are going to be way more interchangeable than an Alpha - it doesn’t need to be an exact match. And it doesn’t even have to be sexual per say - just cohabiting would create the nest-like home smell that would help,” she argues back. “And just look at how he is. He’s comfortable with me. He’s comfortable with Bruce who is a Beta and Cho who is another Omega. That suggests that Alphas really are the issue here. Trust me, I know the sort of thing that Hydra got up to. We had the diluted version in The Red Room because there were more of us. Whatever happened to him, it’s going to have been concentrated and… awful. And all from an Alpha's hands.”
Her voice betrays her at the end, showing some actual emotion which is everything that she’s been trained to avoid doing. Thank god that Fury is safe.
“Right, I’ll humor you. Where do you suggest that we find that one Omega we need? And might I remind you, they have to be brave to the point of stupid, a registered and trained Support Omega without current placement, and they have to be willing to be in a platonic-or-otherwise Omega-Omega partnership for however long it takes for him to become stable,” he says, and Natasha smiles, a little cat-like, she knows.
“I have just the guy in mind. We can afford to lose one from intel, right?” She asks, and Fury gives her a look.
“You know what, Natasha, if you can stop my monthly nightmare of dealing with an overly hormonal Omega with violent tendencies, you can have one of them. Provided that they come back alive at the end of this,” he says and Natasha nods.
She has just the guy in mind, indeed.
*****
“Rogers, how’s it going? Did they fix the tea option in the coffee machine yet?” Natasha asks as she wanders into the intel department and makes her way to the corner that Steve Rogers had always preferred to work in.
Steve looks up, tearing his eyes away from the screen that he’s been intently staring at and has been for some time, if the slight reddening around the edges of them and the way he sits back and shoves one of his long, thin hands below the thick frame of his glasses to rub at his eye is anything to go by.
“No, apparently nobody else here drinks tea. Philistines,” he complains, shaking his head.
Of course, Natasha had already known that, so instead of looking surprised she simply hands over a coffee cup from the place over a block over which makes Steve look at her suspiciously once again.
“Tea from Here’s the Tea? And in a reusable cup? Alright, now I know you’re down here because you’re after something. What will be causing me to pull an all-nighter this time?” He asks, and Natasha watches as he goes to put it down on his desk in protest, but can’t resist taking a sip when the smell of it reaches his nose.
She smirks at him. “Oh, come on Steve - I might not be asking for another huge and complicated favour. Maybe I just know for sure that you’ll want your tea hotter than the fires of hell.”
Really, the reason why Natasha knows who Steve is at all is because he is good at what he does. Sure, he’s probably the smallest and skinniest employee that The Avengers Initiative has ever seen, but he’s sharp, he’s detail oriented and he’s fiercely loyal and dependable. He’s good at his job, and unlike some others who shall remain nameless, his intel is generally on the money and when he has a hunch that it isn’t and they’re being fed false information, he’s right about that, too.
It just helps that Natasha appreciates his sense of humor and that they genuinely get along well as a result.
“Right, so what sort of favor are you down here to ask? I know I’m your favorite, but come on. Even I know that if it’s not Sushi Wednesday then you’re not coming down here without a good reason,” he says, crossing his skinny arms over his narrow chest. “So out with it - I have a whole package of probably useless data to go through that’s still going to take me all day regardless. I should probably get into it.”
“You once did Support Omega work, right?” Natasha asks, and Steve’s bright blue eyes narrow behind the lenses of his glasses.
“I did. I don’t anymore. It’s been five years since my last one, you know that,” he says, looking decidedly suspicious.
“Yes, because you ended up in a relationship with a douchebag that has subsequently ended. And Rogers, don’t think I don’t know that your finances are stretched since he left,” she adds and Steve rolls his eyes. They both know that Nat’s been digging to get something she needs, and Steve knows her well enough not to question it or even to be annoyed with her meddling. Nat figures she should be more worried about that, but Steve is trustworthy.
“I did, and they are,” he confirms. “But why do you want me back in that game? I’m sort of done, Nat.”
Nat shrugs. “I’ve come across a difficult placement. It’s going to be one hell of a challenge and it would suit someone with your sexual preferences.”
Steve snorts. “Natasha. I’m pansexual. I don’t exactly have preferences.”
“Right. But you know, if you don’t want to hear about it…”
And really, Natasha knows she’s dangling a carrot here and that’s not fair, but they need Steve to do this. Fury is right, getting Barnes some help and support that he might be able to accept is the only humane way to go with this, and who could possibly be less threatening and scary than Steven Grant Rogers? Besides, in all the time that Natasha has known him, Steve has never backed down from a fight - and dealing with Barnes and whatever the hell is going on there is going to be one hell of a fight.
Steve uses a finger to poke at the bridge of his glasses, shoving them up his nose and back into position, looking at Natasha over the rims of them. “What’s that in your hand?” He asks, and Nat grins, handing it over.
“It’s the file for the guy. All personal and identifying information has been redacted, as well as anything that’s considered a state secret of any kind. As I said, it’s a difficult placement, and that’s for more than one reason. You’ve been cleared to read this and make an assessment from there, or I can take it away,” she says, and she can see from the intent look on Rogers’ face and the way that his lips purse as he looks back at her that he has read the challenge in her words.
“I said no, Nat. I meant no,” he says evenly, his too-deep-for-his-tiny-form voice still even and calm.
“And I said this is a complicated case,” she says with a shrug, putting the thick manilla file on the side of his desk. “Just think it over. I’ll see you tomorrow, 1PM sharp for sushi. I’ve booked a table.”
Steve sighs, giving her a wry grin. “Alright, just so long as the fact I’ll probably give you that file back untouched doesn’t jeopardize the fact that this week is definitely your treat.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” she says, standing up and giving him a small grin as she turns to leave, not looking back.
She knows Steve Rogers. She knows he won’t be able to resist a challenge. And she also knows that fundamentally underneath everything else that he is, Steve is a good man.
And a good man like Steve Rogers won’t be able to resist the chance to help.
*****
“What,” Steve says as soon as they are alone in the booth of their favorite sushi place, “the hell? Are you serious right now?”
“I’m guessing you read the file,” Natasha says evenly, pausing as their waiter comes back with two cups of green tea as well as two pint glasses of water. “So, does that change your answer?”
“Nat,” he says emphatically, shaking his head and giving her a small disbelieving smile. “This is… this is a huge undertaking. The guy hasn’t been allowed to be an Omega for seventy years. Sure, the work the Wakandans have done is amazing, getting rid of the brainwashing HYDRA did and all, but holy shit. That’s still a lot.”
Natasha nods, because he isn’t wrong. He isn’t wrong at all, and actually, Steve’s one of the few people that Natasha actually cares about enough to feel a little guilty for even asking.
“Now you understand why it has to be someone with the right clearance… and why it has to be another Omega,” she says quietly, before confidently relaying an order she knows will please the both of them to the waiter.
“I do,” Steve says with a sigh, running a hand through his blond hair and shaking his head again. “But like… how will this even work? I’m not even sure my Support Omega training is valid anymore - and you say you have him in a reinforced room right now? How is that any sort of an environment for this? Especially if you’re trying to make him comfortable.”
“There are training courses for top ups. And the location can be changed. He’s mainly there because he gets violent on approach of a Heat, presumably because he thinks an Alpha is going to go in there and… well. You get the picture,” she says and Steve swallows hard, Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat, and nods.
“So where is this location supposed to be? And what are my terms?” He asks and Natasha nods. She’d expected this question, had prepared for it - though she’d still carefully refrained from telling Fury exactly which intel assistant she had in mind.
“There are two options - we can make an apartment available in the facility which would be safer, or we could make your apartment work. All of your expenses in the duration of your contract would be covered - that’s living costs, anything extra you need. It’s done. You’ll have security available should it be necessary, and we can discuss exactly what that means if you want to go ahead. You’d also be paid on the enhanced SHIELD Support Omega rate in addition to the salary you earn doing intel. You’d also be given the option to work from home throughout the duration,” she recites simply, giving him the facts in their most basic form to work with. “Though of course, if both of you are comfortable, you’d be more than welcome to work normally. In the meantime, he’ll be attending therapy, both physical and psychological and trying to readjust.”
Steve nods slowly, sipping at his glass of water. Natasha finds herself wondering if he’s actually thirsty or if he’s buying himself some thinking time.
“But all this depends on us meeting first, right? And him not being completely disgusted with my scent or something?” He asks, and Natasha finds that she really has to fight to keep her expression neutral because these sorts of questions tell her that Rogers might actually go for this.
She’d known he would.
Or rather, she’d hoped he would.
“It does. Is that something you’d like to proceed with?” She asks coolly, thanking their waiter as the first of their sushi rolls arrives.
“I… there’s no commitment, right? Not until that meeting has happened?” He asks, and Natasha can tell he’s nervous. But then again, anybody would be in the same position. It is a huge undertaking; it’s life changing. But done right it’ll be life changing for two people, not just one.
“No. Not for either of you,” she replies and he nods again, calculating.
“You know I wouldn’t be able to leave this, right? Not if I can… I mean, I’m not sure that I can, I’m not making any promises…” he says, scratching at the back of his head. The fact that he hasn’t torn into the food immediately shows how nervous and displaced he actually is - for a skinny little runt Rogers usually has the most ridiculous appetite that Natasha has ever seen. “Have you even asked him if he’d consider an Omega?”
“Yes. He’s willing to consider, assuming that your scent doesn’t make him dissociate in the way that an Alpha scent does. The hope is that an Omega scent will be comforting, something like a nest. It’s… going to be about creating something akin to the home he hasn’t had, at least that's how it would feel for him,” she admits quietly and Steve nods again, those bright blue eyes pensive as he thinks it over.
“I… yeah,” he says, before fixing his gaze on her. “So this isn’t sexual?”
“Probably not. Not unless something changes,” she says with a shrug and Steve nods.
“I think I should meet him,” he says finally, after a good few beats of silence. “I… think I owe it to myself. And to him.”
Natasha nods, fixing him with a serious look. “That’s fair. More than fair, actually. You’re a good man, Steve.”
He nods, not looking too certain that he agrees. “I just hope I’m not biting off more than I can chew.”
The fact that he’s so worried about that, so worried about a man he hasn’t met, who most people would consider terrifying given his past, tells Natasha that in asking Steve to take this on, she’s picked the right man.
Now they have to hope that Barnes accepts him, and that this does actually help.
******
“Rogers? As in Steve Rogers?” Fury asks her, looking at her like she might have finally lost her mind.
Natasha nods. “Yes. He’s an accredited Support Omega and has worked on Omega-Omega cases before. Sure, he’s been out of the game for a few years but it’s nothing a refresher training course shouldn’t fix. He’s pansexual, so Barnes’ genders won’t be an issue so long as there’s no scent-clash and he’s trustworthy and fully vetted our end.”
Fury eyes her with his one working eye again. “But Rogers is…”
“Yes, he’s small. But we can put every security protocol we have in place until such a time that we no longer deem Barnes to be a significant risk. But by the very fact that he is small it’s even less likely that Barnes will view him as a threat. Regardless of size Steve is smart and he’s a good man. This might be just what we need,” she reasons, having thought this part through completely before so much as approaching Steve. She pauses then, but decides to add her final thought on the matter. “Rogers and I have something of a friendship outside of our own working relationship. He’s someone that I wouldn’t want to lose - I wouldn’t be suggesting this if I didn’t think there was a good chance that it would be completely safe for everything involved.”
Fury doesn’t move for a beat, but then he nods slowly. It’s clear he’s weighing everything up, and whilst Natasha won’t put all of her cards on the table, she’s sure that he already knows that actually, on some level she cares for the both of them deeply.
“Look, I’ll level with you. I’m not comfortable with this. Not at all. There are so many risk factors here, but I think you might be right and I think that if we don’t give this due consideration we might be running out of options,” he admits with a sigh. “I can tell that you’ve already considered the logistics of this and how it needs to work. How about you run me through it all and I’ll decide whether any of it is feasible.”
Natasha nods, lacing her fingers where they rest on the table in front of them. She already has, in her mind, everything under control.
*****
Steve
Since he’d agreed to consider the posting Natasha had suggested, as a Support Omega, Steve had been like a cat on a hot tin roof. He felt fidgety and prickly all over, and there were plenty of reason for it.
For one thing, he’d never thought to be a Support Omega again. It was something he’d done for years, using his own sexual fluidity and comfortableness with intimate situations to his advantage. His mother had always taught that love was love and he’d grown up in a liberal neighborhood and he couldn’t see any issue with anything as long as both - or all - parties were comfortable with the proceedings. Besides, when he had as many health issues as he did, Steve couldn’t see any sense in holding back - tomorrow was, as his mother’s death a couple of years earlier had shown him, never promised.
Still, he’d stopped when he’d been dating Jonathan, firstly because it wasn’t fair on any Support client if he had a committed relationship outside of that, and secondly because although he was a Beta, Jonathan had the possessiveness and the temper to match any Alpha.
But… well… that was over now.
And sure, Steve wasn’t ready to date or to even consider doing anything like that - especially not after how it had ended - but being a Support was different.
And really, he’d worked some cases in his time - hell, he was still in contact as a friend for some of his ex clients - but this was something else.
The contents of the file that Natasha had left with him was heavily redacted throughout, but what there had been was brutal. Steve couldn’t even imagine seventy years of torture, abuse, brainwashing and forced murdering, let alone adding in the cryo and additional mind wipes whenever Barnes started acting out. And it hadn’t even been acting out, not really, it had just been Barnes coming back to himself, fighting to be the man he once was before all of this.
It had made Steve feel sick, and then cold and he was glad he’d waited until he was back home in the comfort of his own apartment where he could wrap himself up in a couple of the big, chunky blankets he kept on his couch at all times for comfort.
Of course the guy freaked out with Alphas - he didn’t know much of Nat’s past, but he knew enough to be aware that both she and her sister Yelena had been wary of them for years, and that Yelena still was. He didn’t want to truly think about why exactly that would be, that would only turn his stomach more or give him an ulcer from the stress or something equally painful and unnecessary. But still.
He could also appreciate why there weren’t many Omegas who’d be willing to do this. A lot still saw an Omega-Omega pairing as unusual, though it was getting less so in the modern day, and there would be hardly any willing to take on a potentially violent partner with a past like that in the file. Omegas gravitated naturally towards comfort, to nurturing… and this would be a lot of giving without receiving for a very long time.
Perhaps Steve was only considering it because working at SHIELD and then The Avengers Initiative he’d become desensitized to this kind of thing to some degree, at least.
No, he knew it wasn’t.
Steve wanted to help because everyone deserves a second chance. And this Omega - James Buchanan ‘Bucky’ Barnes - deserved one more than most because when he pushed past that surface veneer of information which made Barnes out to be nothing more than a ruthless murderer and a tool of HYDRA, there was a man.
And Steve… well. Steve was no psychologist. He was no therapist, and he was no miracle worker. He knew they’d be needing a lot of outside help for all of this if it was ever going to work - but at the end of it he also knew that Natasha was right.
This guy deserved a chance, and if this was the one shot in the dark that might work, he deserved to be given it.
Steve found that the more he thought about it, he wanted to be able to offer it; hoped he’d be offered the chance despite his initial snap decision to say no to the whole thing.
When the email he’d been waiting for finally came, saying he’d been invited to a weekend-long residential intensive Support Omega refresher course, he couldn’t help but smile a little, even as the nerves in his tummy started up again.
The presence of that email meant that Fury had agreed to consider this - that SHIELD was going to allow it. That was the first hurdle passed, then.
As he wiped a hand over his face, a small smile starting to spread on his lips, a second email arrived, asking him to confirm whether a suggested time was good for him and Barnes to meet.
He sent back an affirmative immediately.
This was happening.
*****