Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Monday

"Hey, Tony, can I talk to you for a WHOA!"

"Not a good time, Cap! Catch it! No, don't let it get to the- NO DON'T CRUSH… dammit."

"Tony, what the heck is going-"

"NOT a good time! Toss that over here and get- DUMMY! Damn it where did you put that fire extinguisher this time?! You! Spangles! You're in the way. Hoof it, now!"

"Sure…"

~*~

He's got time. He's sure of it. He can remember being a lot worse off than this. Before, back when he was too weak and sickly and small to make anything at all of it.

It's just a precaution he's thinking of, is all, because Tony's an Ought – omega, they call them now. Steve needs to get used to the word, however harsh and clinical it sounds to him. Anyway, Tony's got to know something about how it's handled nowadays. Because the serum changed everything for him, and now Steve just doesn't know what will... no, nothing will come of it. He'll probably have a weak little flash fever like he always used to when he was too sick and tiny to have a real heat, and then when the serum kicks back in and gives him back his self-control, he'll be able to shut the cycle down before anybody really notices.

He's not broken. A week in the wild alone is all it was. A week without food or shelter, cold, injured, lost -- it was a shock to his system that upset the rhythms he'd maintained since coming out of the ice. The serum had its hands full keeping him going, healing the injuries from the Quinjet crash, and getting him to the tiny Appalachian town in one piece. Keeping his sex under control like he usually did hadn't exactly ranked high on the triage list while Steve had been out there.

But Steve's been home for two weeks, and he's fine now. Cleared for full duty, back to normal, whole and sound and not even thirsty, just… heating up a little, is all. Just having those low, throbbing aches in his back, that make him wake up half hard and panting, sheets soaked, but not with sweat. Just smelling sex on everyone, and squirming inside; half ready to roll his eyes closed, lean in close and scent-taste any or all of them, half ready to bolt for the nearest sink and throw his guts up instead. Just his stomach in perpetual knots, appetite checked out for good, head swimming, brain scattering, his attention shot to hell and back, and his dick in some state of hardness that his clothes can barely conceal for days on end.

He's just heating up, is all -- for the first time since he turned twenty. His first heat in seventy five years. It's nothing he needs to panic anyone about. He'll be fine. It'll all be fine.

~*~

Tuesday

"Jarvis?"

"Yes, Captain?"

"Could you tell me… that panic room in Bruce's lab, has he needed to use it yet?"

"I presume you mean for containment of an involuntary transition?"

"Sure, I guess. But I really meant was, has the Hulk ever tried really hard to get out of there?"

"I suspect not. Dr. Banner has transitioned for the purposes of stress testing the containment unit, but Sir has always been present to release him when the test was complete. There has thusfar been no involuntary incident at Stark Tower."

"Right. And is Dr. Banner working on something… um… interruptible right now?"

"While the compounds currently exposed upon his workstation are volatile, Captain, the situation does not seem particularly… oh. Oh dear. Perhaps now might be a bad time, as I must ask you to exit the building at once, by the nearest available means."

"Those are the fire alarms, aren't they?"

"Well spotted, Captain. Please follow the lights to the stairwell, and-"

"Is that the Hulk? Where is everyone-"

"No one is injured or trapped at present. There is no need for rescue, merely evacuation. Captain, I really must insist that you-"

"All right, I'm going."

~*~

That was a stupid idea.

Once he gets a good look at the panic room during the cleanup, Steve realizes that. There are observation windows, monitors, cameras, cold white light letting not a single shadow bide, and he just… couldn't like that. Like an animal. A lion in a zoo. A lab rat.

Alone in his icy shower, Steve shivers at the idea. He can't even imagine it, being watched while the heat he can feel coiling in his bones takes him apart, breaks him down, destroys what he's given up so much to become. It's bad enough now, deadpanning his way through briefings while trying not to show how every whiff of ranking on every living agent makes him think of how their teeth would feel in his shoulder, how their hands could mark his skin, how their flesh would feel inside him, even if they hadn't a knot to offer. He's seen other Oughts fall into breeding heats in unsecure places. The USO girls sometimes got triggered on the road, and so he's seen how the heat turned them helpless, shameless, stripped of anything that seemed like human dignity, just wanting, begging, for whatever touch they could get, from whomever was close enough to take them.

Steve never did. The serum gave him enough control as an Ace that he didn't have to fall to rut when an omega went off on him, but he couldn't exactly stop anybody else from taking what was offered either, not with the poor Ought right there, naked, flushed, slick to the knees and pleading for relief. Not with a willing Deuce good and ready to help out, or a randy Ace het up and all set to fight Steve for her. He never stayed to watch like some others would, but with what the serum did to his ears, Steve couldn't exactly help hearing it sometimes.

So now he can imagine it, going through that gross animal rut well lit and surrounded by glass. It makes his stomach turn to think of metal gurneys and leather straps and drains in a cold tile floor, and a broken voice repeating nine numbers into an empty room again and again and again, and good Lord, he just can't do it in a place like that. Just can't, not even if this heat really is worse than any he's ever lived through.

There's got to be a better way. He'll find a better way, a better place to wait it out until he gets himself back under control. Not a hotel, where they'd recognize his face and the name on his credit card. Not an enclave, where he wouldn't even be admitted no matter what signs he showed, because everyone knew Captain America's status, and it was definitely not omega. Not a clinic with one of those damned filthy knotting machines they hinted at on TV late at night, but something. Something.

He's always been resourceful. He can figure this out. He's got time. At least a little time.

~*~

Thursday

"Captain Rogers, I am sorry to wake you, but there is a shipment for you at the delivery dock. The porters are adamant that you must sign for it personally."

"Oh. Yes, please tell them I'm on my way down right now."

"Of course, Captain Rogers. Will you require the use of loading equipment to bring the… delivery to your rooms?"

"Um… Yes on the loader please, Jarvis, but no. It's going somewhere else. Will it disturb anyone if I just put this downstairs for awhile? I mean, is there somewhere out of the way, maybe? Where it won't be bothered?"

"While finding an unobtrusive storage place for a shipping container is a challenge, I do believe I can provide one or two options, Captain. Might I ask if I am correctly intuiting a desire for secrecy on your part?"

"That's right, Jarvis. I'd rather not… discuss this with the team. If it won't go against your protocols to keep it to yourself, I'd consider it a great favor."

"I understand, Captain. However, if you require assistance with your pr-"

"I'll be fine, Jarvis. I mean, it'll be fine. I've got this."

"Of course, Captain."

~*~

Steve tells himself it's not paranoia, and is immediately amused -- because paranoia is exactly what's been his biggest clue that this will be a very bad heat. That this will be the worst one he's ever had. Steve knows that now, there's no denying it. Letting his control down for a week while he was lost, using his natural omega status to find his way back to civilization after the crash might have been necessary, but… but it's going to cost him dearly now.

A whole week. From the vantage of hindsight, it makes Steve grind his teeth in rage. A whole week with the omega in him off the leash, his borrowed alpha nature pushed down into silence, and what the hell did he expect, that the Ought would just go under again when he didn't need the nose, the instincts, the pack-sense to point him back to where he belonged? If that's what you can call it, belonging. His place on the team is established, but outside of combat, Steve's still just... outside, like he's been all his life. He's actually surprised, in his darker moments, that his omega nature oriented on the team at all while he was lost, and not on a long-closed SSR base in London, or a railroad bridge in Switzerland.

Since Steve's return to the City and to Stark Tower though, it hasn’t gone under for him once. Not once, even with the scent neutralizers in his soap and cologne, not with every icy shower he's put himself through, not with every attempt to channel the growing agitation into punching bags or imaginary Doombots or miles on the treadmill. It's going to happen, and the longer Steve waits, the longer he pretends it's all business as usual, the harder it is to be around his team.

Because he knows objectively, they're his -- his team, his squad, his unit -- the only 'pack' he's got now. But there is this thing inside him that can only see that he is not theirs, that his pack, his own is not here to help him, and he just might claw his way out of his skin if he has to smell the others, to see them, to stand up and be looked at by them any longer.

And in the night, when he wakes to find his clothes stripped off and the blankets flung away, his rear hiked obscenely into the air with slick drooling, as hot as blood down his aching prick and onto the bed between his knees... When he wakes with his face pressed into the pillows because even in his sleep he doesn't want to hear himself beg or scream or breathe... When the slightest hint of footsteps in the hallway outside his apartments brings him, panting, anxious and shamefaced out of those dreams, he bares his teeth to the darkness and shakes at the thought of what might happen once he can't hide it any longer.

They have defeated armies, the Avengers together. They have fought Gods to the ground. What would the reluctance of one omega clearly in his season measure against an alpha as strong as the Hulk, or even Thor, who doesn't smell quite like a human alpha, but certainly acts like one. They'd only mean him well, he knows, and he might even say he wanted it, might even beg them for it if Clint, who smells like toast and comfort and gun oil, or Natasha, scentless as a child beneath her perfume, were the ones to find him first. Hell, he'd probably even beg Tony for it, knowing damned well how little another omega could do for him. But he won't want it. Not really. He's never wanted it, not even when there was an alpha on his back with a mouthful of his skinny neck, and he didn't stand a chance of fighting the dumb bastard off.

And that's what really makes his belly clench in those moments – not knowing. He can't know what he'll do, not for sure. Steve's not the skinny Ought he was born any more, and the meta-alpha super soldier will still be there inside him, quick and agile and too powerful by half even when omega Steve is falling headlong into the first real heat he's had in his life. He doesn't know what will happen, but his dreams, the ones that haven't been full of rutting, have been full of running, hiding, and alternately biting, clawing, fighting for his life against… everyone. He's woken up on his feet and bolting for the door twice this week, and once he had a chair in his hands, already swinging at where his dream told him Natasha was hiding.

Strength like his is a responsibility Steve has always taken seriously.

He trusts the serum. He trusts Erskine's genius. He just can't quite trust himself, that's all.

~*~

Friday

*Beep.*

"Hi, Thor, it's Steve Rogers. I know you're going to be in New Mexico until tonight, but I wonder if you'd do a favor for me when you get back to the Tower? I've ordered some things -- um. Things I'd like to keep as a surprise from the rest of the team. They're in a large metal box down in the basement -- I drew a little map and put it under your door. I'm sure you'll see it right away. It's just... it's a big box, and you know how Tony gets when things are in his way, but I couldn't push it all the way against the wall before I needed to leave and take care of, um, some things. Could you possibly go down there when you get home, and just give it a shove into the corner so nobody will bother it? No need to mention it to anybody else -- it'll ruin the surprise if any of the team gets curious and goes snooping, you know? So. Um, thanks. I'll probably see you next week, when I get back. Thanks."

~*~

He smells Thor coming long before he hears him -- smells him butter and ozone and salt and tiny blue flowers in grass and wrong, wrong, not right at all. That's despite towels stuffed into every chink he could find; that's despite the camphor ice rubbed over his own skin so that his eyes water and he has to swallow each breath hard; that's despite everything he could think of to make it easier to sit still and not make a noise as the Other comes sniffing around his den.

His heart begins to race, and Steve turns his face into the pillow, reciting the Declaration of Independence under his breath so he won't give in to the urge to growl. Or whine.

Footsteps circle the container's two exposed sides, and Steve can hear Thor's voice in query, Jarvis' voice in answer. A part of him cringes, ready now to be discovered, to be dragged out of his den and forced to-

No. That won't happen. He tells himself that firmly, silently, and then tells himself to believe it, and to stop shaking.

There are two echoing taps on the steel wall above Steve's head. He holds his breath, thinks of being invisible, silent, scentless as a newborn until he hears Thor groan, then the creaking of steel and a grinding shriek as the whole container jolts three feet along the concrete and clangs to a stop against the basement wall.

There. The door to his den is blocked now. Steve won't have the traction to open it, even if he should flip into a panic, or drop into rut-frenzy. And Jarvis… well, Jarvis is smart. He's figured it out by now, Steve's sure, and he's also got the ability to send robots with cutting torches and pry-clamp arms down here if he thinks it's necessary. But Steve trusts the AI not to do anything that would put Tony or the others at risk. Jarvis would never let Tony get hurt. Never. Jarvis is safe.

Steve listens to the footsteps leaving, waits for the Thorscent to clear from his tongue before he slips out of the nest to prowl his den one more time, checking. Water. Rations. Enough of both for twice as long as Steve thinks he'll need to stay hidden, though he can't imagine wanting food right now. Chemical toilet. Paper and pencil just in case he's lucky enough to be bored instead of sick with heat the whole time. Lights for when he can stand it. Pillows and thin, rough moving blankets on an old, second hand mattress nobody will miss when he has to throw it out later. Towels, clean and soft and as many as he could get in one go, because one thing he has to allow here is to remind himself that he's not an animal, no matter what his confused throwback biology seems to think. Last is the incinerator unit; wildly expensive because it was small, clean burning and smokeless, and could handle anything but certain metals.

He can do this. He's lived through worse. He's lived through the Ice -- a little heat will be nothing. He'll be fine.

Then he turns out the light and crawls back into his nest of cheap blankets and towels to shiver and sweat and wait.