Chapter Text
When Nora was pregnant with Shaun, Nate was overjoyed.
She was not.
Sure, they were finally starting a family. Yes, Nora was in love with Nate. Yes, she did want to have a child. She didn’t just want to have one at that moment.
Being a woman? Made it hard to do anything. She had to fight tooth and nail to get a law degree. But being an omega? Way worse. As if being female wasn’t enough, she had to be the ‘weakest’ secondary gender. Every omega, even male omegas, were expected to get married and have pups. Not have jobs. So having a pup meant it was the end of her having free expression of who she was, really. Now she had to become a pretty home omega. Still, she loved Nate, and she loved her unborn pup. She would just have to have some time to adjust. And she did. She had Shaun, and everything was fine.
And then the bombs came.
When Nora emerged into the new world, the first thing that surprised her was when she started getting shot at. By an omega. And then she meant Preston Garvey, the last remaining Minutemen, and the leader of a small group of people. But he was a beta, and was the leader even though there was an alpha named Sturges in the group.
And then Nora realized it.
In the future, your second gender could be whatever the fuck it was, and you could still be strong. You could be brave. Nobody cared.
Of course, omegas will still almost always physically weaker. People still felt protective of omegas, naturally. But in terms of a job? Didn’t matter. You could be an alpha and farm. You could be an omega and guard a town. betas were no longer just workers, they could do anything. Anyone could.
It was great, and Nora felt guilty.
She enjoyed the post-apocalyptic world better than she had enjoyed the previous one. She felt terrible. After all, shouldn’t she miss Nate? And Shaun, her missing son? She did. But not as much as she felt she should have.
When she became General of the Minutemen, she was bursting with pride. She had done it her own way, what people from her time would’ve called the ‘omega’ way, and it worked fine. No one called her weak, or stupid, or said she was trying to be an alpha. No one cared she was an omega.
So it was a bit of a disappointment when she went to Diamond City and meant the proud alpha that Mayor McDonough was and found out there was still some arse alphas around. She hadn’t expected the whole world to be perfect and rosy, of course, since there was people shooting each other all the time, but still. Turned out the apocalypse hadn’t made everyone appreciate all genders after all. Oh well.
When Nora stormed Skinny Malone’s place and fought a bunch of Triggermen, she felt alive. More alive than usual. She was pumping with adrenaline. Sure, she had fought some raiders, and some feral ghouls, but never anyone this close. So it wasn’t too surprising that after meeting Nick, finding out was a synth was and that he was one, and that he claimed to be an alpha but she could only smell metal and motor oil from him, she went into heat.
She had totally forgotten about her damned heat. She had been so used to not having one, after her being pregnant, but she supposed being trapped in ice for 200 years was more than enough time to bring her heats back. And her bond bite seemed to have faded, too. She probably could get a new mate if she wanted, but she wasn’t interested in that and probably wouldn’t be for a long time. Now her only remaining connection to Nate was her wedding ring. And she had left that back in Sanctuary.
If she had been with anyone, anyone, besides Nick, she probably would have been mated and impregnated.
But, luckily, luckily, he was able to sit calmly and explain while she was begging for a knot that he could, infact, turn off his desire to mate at anytime. “One of the benefits of being an early prototype.” he had called it. “Infact, I don’t even have a real knot.” He said gently as he forced her into a room with a bed and a couple of dildos he had managed to scrape together. “In Diamond City, people usually trust me with their heats, since I’m one of the few alphas that doesn’t want to knot every omega they see. I’ve already done stuff like this many times. And I’m sorry, kid.” he said as he locked the door. “I would give you suppressants, but from what you’ve told me, your body hasn’t done this in a long time, and it’s going to be a doozy.”
Later, after Nora was no longer begging for Nick to find anyone, any alpha to give her their knot, with a red face she asked how long it had been.
“Almost two weeks. To be honest, I’m surprised you can still walk upright.” She saw a rare smirk as he puffed a cigarette.
“Shut it,” she said, punching him playfully in his metal arm, which luckily wasn’t that hard. “Now let’s get out of this damned vault. Why did we have to set up shop here?”
He looked at her. “Nora, I have a synthetic nose. I cannot smell anything. And yet, I swear, the scent of your heat reached even my nostrils.” He puffed out some smoke again. “If we had left this vault, alphas, betas, hell even some extra feisty omegas would’ve been begging for a chance to mate you.” He shook his head. “You're damn lucky it happened here, and with me.”
Nora hummed thoughtfully. “What about the Triggermen and Skinny Malone? What happened to them?” She had convinced the girl to leave, not wanting to cause any unnecessary bloodshed.
Nick shrugged, and they continued on their way.
When Nora fought Kellogg, the biggest asshole she had ever seen, it took her a while to get him down. Luckily, Nick had come along for the ride, or she might not have made it. The synths all went for him, probably feeling a sense of betrayal that he was fighting for the opposite side or something. And that left Nora to defend herself against Kellogg.
And while she did, he did get a few good shots on her. Enough that Nick almost wanted to carry her back Diamond City, but she refused. When they finally got to Nick’s office, all she wanted to do was see if she could collapse on his couch, but then of course the beta named Piper Nora had ran into when she was entering Diamond City and showed up. She told Piper what had happened, and they discussed what to do next. When they finally decided to go to the Memory Den, Nora sighed in relief and black out on Nick’s couch. They could head there tomorrow. Or maybe a few days after that.
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Some of the time Hancock wished he wasn’t an alpha.
Sure, it made running Goodneighbor a hell of alot easier, since any knot-head alpha wouldn’t have a problem dealing with him. But it made omegas so distrustful of him. And he got that, he really did. They had to be wary around any unfamiliar alphas, since it was way too easy to bond with an alpha if they just decided to jump you. Poor omegas.
So, all in all, Hancock was glad he was an alpha. Made sex very fun, although he was sure he would have fun if he was an omega, too. Oh well.
The first time an omega tried to throw themselves at him, Hancock hadn’t been able to resist himself. Fahrenheit had to hold him back, and that was exactly why he had gotten a female beta as a bodyguard. KL-E-0 had taken the omega away into a shack for omegas to have their heats in, unless there was suppressants on hand. Hancock felt terrible. He found that being a ghoul seemed to help, as previously in Diamond City he’d be locked in his room whenever an omega had their heat. For a time while, he took chems whenever an omega went into heat, not even risking it. But then, slowly, he got better at being more cautious around omegas, til the point where he was able to help omegas into the heat shack.
Hancock’s nostrils were flooded with the scent of an omega, and he had to pause as his thoughts were momentarily taken over by mate, breed, mine, breed, mate, omega, mate.
After glancing at Fahrenheit and motioning for her to stay where she was, he walked as slowly as his body allowed down the stairs and outside the old state building. He was paused for a moment by a drifter to ask if he could spare some chems, but after turning them away his eyes followed that spectacular scent.
Sure, Hancock had smelled plenty of pleasing scents. omegas, betas, even alphas while he was one himself.
But when she walked into town, he did a double take.
Holy fuck.
He saw her warily enter through the gates, nostrils flaring as the scents of new alphas, omegas and betas flooded her nose.
And if it wasn’t just her fantastic scent, she was beautiful. His eyes and nose took her in, and he sighed in relief as he watched Nick follow her.
She’s in good company.
And then fucking Finn walked up.
Hancock could see the way he eyed her, and Hancock wanted nothing more than to rip Finn’s throat out.
No one eyes my omega like that.
It took Hancock a second to realize what he had called her.
He stood back, going over how he was not to badger this omega in his head, and he had to make them feel welcome, but his thought process stopped as he heard Finn say “Come on, don’t be like that.” Anything else Finn said was blocked out by the blood pounding in his ears.
“Woah, woah, time out.” Hancock tried not to look at the beautiful omega that had entered his town, but he did anyways, and he saw her intake sharply and her eyes widen as she looked at him.“Someone steps through the gate the first time, they’re a guest. You lay off the extortion crap.”
“What’d you care? She ain’t one of us.”
It took all of Hancock’s will to not say ‘That’s my fucking omega, and if you don’t step down right now I will tear your fucking throat out with my bare teeth like a feral.’ Instead, he responded as calmly as he could with “No love for you mayor, Finn? I said let her go.”
“You’re soft, Hancock. You keep letting outsiders walk all over us, one day there’ll be a new mayor.” Finn rasped.
You come into my town, you badger my omega, and now you insult me? Not a smart move, Finn. “Come on, man. This is me we’re talking about. Let me tell you something.” Hancock sauntered towards the alpha, and put his arm around around his shoulder and leaned in. “You bothered my omega. You’re fucking dead.” he whispered in Finn’s ear, but didn’t even give him enough time to show fear on his face before he stabbed him. “Now why’d you have to go and say that, huh? Breaking my heart over here.”
He let Finn’s body drop where it lay, and turned instead to face his- the omega. “You alright, sister?”
Her eyes widened, startled. “Fine, alph- sir.” She stuttered out, and Hancock saw her blush. He decided to ignore it for now, though. omegas could be like that if they meant a new alpha.
He saw Nick’s eyes narrow, and he turned his attention back to the omega. “Goodneighbor’s of the people, for the people, you feel me? Everyone’s welcome.”
She nodded, and Hancock grinned. He saw Nick’s eyes narrow even further, and he quickly turned away to go back inside his building and make a speech to distract himself.
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Nick raised a painted on eyebrow at her, and she shuffled her feet as Hancock stepped out onto the balcony. “People of Goodneighbor! We freaks gotta stick together…”
“Seems like someone has a little crush.” he whispered to her as Hancock continued his speech.
“It’s not my fault!” She hissed back at him. “It was my body responding, not-” their side conversation ended when KL-E-0 shushed them both threateningly.
“Wasn’t my fault.” She grumbled to herself quietly, staring up at Hancock. She felt her pulse quicken, and she opened her mouth to draw in more of that delicious scent he was producing, before quickly shutting it and glaring at her boots. “Just my body.”
“And who’s in charge of Goodneighbor?!”
“Hancock! Of the people, for the people!” The audience cried out, and the crowd soon started to disperse. She looked back up when Nick touched her shoulder, and as she followed him to the Memory Den, she whispered again,
“It’s just my body.” And it was, of course. She just hoped it stayed that way.