House Guests
It turned out Coulson’s team was pretty awesome, and everyone seemed to know one Sam Wilson in same rather intimate ways. Natasha, it turned out, had run a mission with him once and trusted him implicitly and Tony had made Sam the wings he was so famous for and that had required working closely with him so Tony trusted him too. Everyone else, well, Tony was still trying to figure out whom, exactly, Sam had slept with because seriously, he got around more than Tony and he had thought that impossible two days before. He finds Lance, though everyone else seemed to prefer referring to him by his last name, “you, yes, you. Have you slept with Sam too, I’m asking for science,” he says, poised with a notebook at the ready.
Lance turns around, “huh? Oh, you’re trying to figure out who he’s slept with too?” he asks excitedly, “finally, someone where who doesn’t look like they want to murder us all. Right, okay, so from what I’ve gather Sam appears to have fucked his way through most of my group but a few haven’t been all that forthcoming, I haven’t been able to crack May, you?” he asks, apparently trying to avoid the question or forgetting Tony asked.
“Oh he’s been through most of mine too, including Nat and I always thought she was ace,” he says. Natasha, and Bruce for that matter, never seemed to indicate feeling any sort of sexual attraction and made faces when everyone else mentioned their sexual experiences so he’d made the logical leap.
Lance raises an eyebrow, “the red head that looks like she could kill you with her eyes? Brave man,” he says, “but then if anyone could manage being with a girl like that and get out the other side unscathed its Sam. The guy is like… freakishly likable, and freakishly trustable, even Bobbi trusts him and Bobbi doesn’t trust anyone. But yeah, back on track, watch out for Sam, you think you aren’t even interested in guys and bam, it’s the next day and all you know is that Sam Wilson is the best lay you’ve had in years and you are very, very confused about your sexuality,” he tells Tony and gives Sam looks across the room. Right now he was charming Fitzsimmons, who both looked enthralled with Sam’s words, whatever they were, and Tony couldn’t blame them really. Sam had a nice voice; also Sam had a really nice personality.
“Lucky for me I had the sexuality thing figured out already, it was the alpha thing that threw me off, I’ve never been fond,” he says, wrinkling his nose. He hadn’t been surprised that Coulson’s team was comprised mostly of alphas, aside from Lance, who was an omega but he hadn’t been a S.H.I.E.L.D agent, from what he understood Lance was more assassin for hire. He had been brought in because Coulson had thought maybe Lance knew something about Clint, which he hadn’t, but the two got along quite well.
Lance wrinkles his nose too, “right? They’re always so bossy, throwing their Commands around and expecting us all to follow mindlessly. But they’re also hot and really, you can’t pass that up,” he says and looks at Bobbi. Tony got the distinct impression that Bobbi meant way more than looks to Lance but what the hell did he know, he didn’t do well with the people thing.
“Hmm, I’ve always preferred betas, all the hotness, none of the Commands, and you don’t have to worry about two heats. God, sweating your ass off for at least three days while hoping to die of dehydration sucks,” he says.
“True,” Lance says, “and I don’t get that ‘alphas help’ thing with heats, all Bobbi did to help was make me feel less like tossing myself out the nearest window. The cuddles were nice though.”
“That’s actually something of a myth, the sex thing attached to heats actually comes from a time when literally everyone who wasn’t an alpha used omegas as, well, to be blunt, sex slaves during heats to reproduce. Heats, biologically and evolutionarily speaking, are actually designed to release hormones in the brain that promote bonding, which is designed to create healthy relationships, which then, in theory, leads to procreation. Heats equal sex equal procreation is actually based in cultural construction, not scientific fact,” he says. And he’s done his research, someone had to set all the irritating alphas blabbing around the office right and what the hell were they going to do to him? He was far more powerful than any of them in every way and so he figured he was in a good position to tell them to fuck off with little risk to himself.
“Well you learn something new every day. Do you think Sam has a secret super power that makes people bond to him and that’s how he manages to sleep with literally everyone?” Lance asks.
“I’ll put that into the list of questions we have because seriously, Nat.”
*
They had a bunch of access to S.H.I.E.L.D’s files and Tony figured he’d take advantage of that and get the scoop on their new house guests, which, in hind sight he probably should have already done. Actually he was pretty sure he told Nat that everything checked out so if he was wrong he was probably going to have to get in the suit and go hide in Rhodey’s basement or under Pepper’s desk lest Natasha eat him for lying. He figured he’d start with Steve, mostly because he was curious if Steve’s claims that he couldn’t control his Commands was actually real, and he was certain S.H.I.E.L.D would have files on that. He didn’t expect to find that Steve was a government experiment, a HYDRA experiment technically, supposedly designed to create the perfect soldier. That explained his too-good-too-be-true track record, excellent physic considering his eating habits left much to be desired, the distinct lack of sleep JARVIS reported, and the Commands.
The serum Steve had been injected with was designed to take everything about him and multiply it times ten, to make him perfect, eliminate the problems with the species he was a member of. The problem with that though was that Steve now couldn’t seem to turn off his ability to use Commands. The notes some Erskine made theorized that should the serum be used on an omega one of two things would happen, one, they would be in a constant state of heat, or they would be hyper fertile considering their evolutionary function was to bridge the fertility gap between alphas and betas, who were infertile at much higher rates than omegas. Tony, and this was probably because he was an omega, theorized that heats would be eliminated all together, they were technically a design flaw, but they hyper fertility was definitely a thing.
When he finds a video of Steve pre-serum he decides its popcorn time because this was bound to be good. Skye seems to have the same idea about the popcorn though and they end up squabbling over the last bag, “first off I paid for it, so technically I own it,” he says.
Skye snatches the bad out of his hand, “well I’m the one who went out and bought it so you can consider it payment for my labor,” she counters.
He takes the bag back and licks it, “it has my DNA on it it’s mine,” he says.
She wrinkled her nose and grabs the bag out of his hands, “I’m sure your long string of one night stands will be happy to hear your system of ownership,” she says and he snatches the bag before she runs off with it. He decides it’s now or never and he goes to run off with it only so have Skye jump on his back, “give me the damn popcorn Stark, I walked all the way across the house for it, it’s mine!”
“I left my lab! That’s more important!” he insists, holding the bag as far away from Skye as he could get it.
“No it’s not!” she yells, trying unsuccessfully to reach the bag.
“Has it occurred to either one of you to share?” someone asks from the kitchen door way.
They both look over to find Coulson there giving them judgmental looks, obviously unimpressed with their lack of thinking. “I don’t share,” they say in sync as Clint rounds the corner.
“Oh, popcorn!” he says and snatches the bag, running off before either one of them could do anything about it. Coulson lets out a long, drawn out sigh and walks off in the same general direction Clint ran off in.
“Now look what you’ve done,” Skye says, hopping off his back and smacking his arm, “now neither of us has popcorn.”
Tony sighs, “fine then, now that Clint has successfully ruined my life I’m going to back to my lab to laugh at whatever stupid things Steve did on camera,” he says, “care to join?” he asks.
Skye shrugs, “I’ve got nothing better to do, I was planning on eating that popcorn on my bed and passing out for the next seven hours but I guess watching random videos of Steve isn’t a worse prospect,” she says. They retreat to his lab popcorn-less and planning revenge on Clint, most of it centering around sticking laxatives in his Taco Bell but they both decide that’s redundant considering Taco Bell is a laxative.
“So what are we looking at?” Skye asks and drops into his chair, which, not happening.
“First of all you get out of that chair immediately, it’s mine. And I was doing some checking up on our guests and figured I’d start with Steve considering he’s the most immediate danger, with his inability to talk like a normal person and all. I found some interesting stuff,” he says and points to the screen, which Skye leans closer to so she could read what was up on the screen but she doesn’t move from his chair. He contemplates for a few minutes and figures fuck it, he might as well, so he pulls his chair back, Skye protesting as it goes, and plops himself in her lap.
“The fuck Stark?” she asks, looking annoyed, “you could have at least waited until I was done reading, now wheel us closer before you crush me with your giant ego,” she tells him and, rude. He complies though and he scans over the information, making mental notes and thinking of questions to ask, and he had about a million, while Skye reads through the notes. “Weren’t you supposed to do this before they got here?” she asks.
“Yeah, but we both know Nat asked you too and you actually follow the rules so whatever you found checked out too,” he says. Plus he’s seen no evidence of their lovely alphas having any plans to hurt them, he didn’t need to be a spy to see ulterior motives, he dealt with enough of that in business to see plans in action.
“Okay but I didn’t find any of this, what if we find something that’s actually dangerous?” Skye asks, sounding concerned.
“I told JARVIS to ping anything dangerous, he came back with nothing, so I figure we’re fine. We have some interesting stuff here though, including some stuff on Coulson, which Clint will want to know I’m sure,” he says. He wasn’t that irresponsible as to avoid his responsibilities completely. Okay, well, he was, but his life wasn’t the only one on the line so he only mostly wiggled out of it.
Skye makes a noise and pokes him in the side, “turn on the video, I want some entertainment and sorry Tony, but watching you make faces is not entertaining,” he says.
Tony snorts, “to you,” he says but complies, turning on the video and sitting back to watch, ignoring Skye’s token complaints when he does so. She retaliates by jabbing him in the side with a bony finger so he figures they’re even after that.
The video was mostly useless, just before and after performance tests showing some crazy impressive improvement and video evidence to back up Steve’s inability to control his Commands, and the video showed him trying considerably hard. Skye informs him he is boring and demands to be released and he lets her go, she may have found the video boring but Tony had questions and this video held some answers. He goes through it again, and once more for good measure before he finally finds what he was looking for, which happened to be a question and not an answer.
*
“What makes a Command a Command?” he asks, entering the common space where Natasha was trying to sort out rooms, no doubt trying to keep everyone the hell away from her. It wouldn’t surprise him much if they all ended up near him just because she wasn’t overly fond of him. She did feel responsible for him, for some reason though, and he was curious about that but he also knew he was never going to get an answer. Everyone turns to face him but no one offers him an answer.
He sighs, “okay guys, no need to be completely useless here. What makes a Command a Command? Certain tone of voice, a desired goal, something else?” he asks, figuring maybe someone will have an answer is they had some examples.
“I think the question you’re looking for isn’t what makes a Command, I’ve asked only to get dozens of responses, the question is what makes and omega compelled to follow? Why do you feel it?” Steve asks, frowning.
“I don’t like you but I like where you’re going” Tony says, “the answer varies but generally the pressure people feel should they fight it, if they want to, isn’t pleasant. Also Commands are designed to bring comfort, to help with bonding, for pleasure, a few other miscellaneous reasons. So what triggers that feeling of compulsion, regardless of whether or not the person follows the order? And how does the order itself work? Is it enough to follow it to the letter or does it go beyond that?” He could have continued but he figured he’d spare the room listening to his thought process.
Fitzsimmons looked like the Holy Grail was just presented to them on a silver platter; the two of them always enjoyed good questions almost more than they enjoyed good answers. “Excellent questions Tony, anyone willing to offer up their brains for some answers?” they ask in sync.
“First of all guys, creepy, the wonder twin thing is way weird when you aren’t used to it, I’d know. Also it’s fairly obvious that Steve is a great candidate for the one giving Commands, we can analyze others in comparison,” he says, “assuming you’re willing, obviously.” Fitzsimmons takes over, happily babbling away; content enough that they were listening to each other that they didn’t need other’s validation.
He figures he’d wander off, go do some stuff in the lab and whatever, when Bucky intercepts him. Natasha probably noticed he was missing from the room but he hadn’t, hadn’t really bothered to look beyond Steve because that had been his goal. “Hey,” he says, visibly trying to stay calmer than he obviously wasn’t.
“Hey,” Tony says back, “something’s obviously bothering you so what’s up?” he asks.
“Ugh, experiments? You framed it as a choice, but we both know that wasn’t really the case,” Bucky says, remaining calm but barely. Tony had given the other agent’s files a cursory glance when he had fixated on Steve’s, he was aware of Bucky HYDRA past.
“If you’re worried about being experimented on against your will it’s not happening, almost every single one of us knows what that’s like, we aren’t about to subject other people to that just because we want answers. Besides, if you have any doubt almost all of our questions centre around omega-alpha bonds, we won’t just be involved in the organization process of the experiments, we’ll be the test subjects too. And you’ll know full disclosure exactly what you’re walking into before you do, in the name of ethics and all that,” Tony tells him. Bucky visibly relaxes at Tony’s words and Tony suspects that his relief was, in part, because of the knowledge that they would also be involved in whatever experiments Fitzsimmons chooses to run.
“Well, that’s… relieving,” Bucky says quietly.
“Yeah, whatever, I don’t care about your personal issues. How many people has Sam Wilson slept with?” he asks.
Bucky perks up, “he got to you too? We haven’t even been here for a day, how is that possible?” he asks, looking very much like he was trying to figure out logistics in his head.
“Not today, obviously, he hasn’t had time. Duh. We’ve worked together before, we were fairly close in more ways than one, but seriously, the guy can get anyone to trust him in like four seconds flat. Does he have a super power? Lance and I think he has a super power,” he says, babbles really, because now he’s drifting off into his own thoughts again.
“You do that often, get lost in your own head?” Bucky asks.
“Sometimes. Doesn’t really matter to you either way, now does it?” Tony points out. They didn’t need to deal with each other in a way that would make that relevant.
“If I have to deal with you in the field, and Natasha implied that I would, then it’s relevant to me,” he says.
Tony snorts, “only time I’m in the field is in a metal suit, disastrous mission you halfassed saved me from notwithstanding. Natasha seems to have learned her lesson from that,” he says.
Bucky tilts his head to the side, “I got the impression that you were the leader?”
Tony isn’t a total moron, he knows Bucky is looking for information, but it isn’t something he couldn’t learn from observation anyways, “I think you’ve mistaken ‘leadership’ for ‘dictatorship’, when I don’t have the authority on something someone who does takes over, that’s what makes sense.”
Bucky nods, “yeah. Alright then. I suggest you hide everyone from Sam, I think he takes sex as a personal challenge or something because he always manages to find a way and the fact that everyone loves him kind of helps.” Yeah, didn’t Tony know it.