Mixed Histories
With no hesitation, Steve got up and squared his feet, taking a full parade rest. “I’m Stephen Rogers,” he said, looking Thor in the eyes with an unspoken challenge. “I was born a Submissive, back when the military didn’t think we had any business being in combat. There were countless men and women out there on the field, dying for our country, and I knew in my heart that I belonged right there with them, giving everything I had to give.
“Everyone—the soldiers, the ad campaigns, the recruiters, even my best friend—told me to go home, stay home, to accept the role of my birth. They told me it was foolish to think I could do any good by stepping outside the normal roles; that I’d be a danger to my fellow soldiers if I dared to join them on the battlefield.
“But when I wouldn’t take no for an answer, they finally admitted me to an experimental program designed to give Submissives the ability to fight off the domforce. The super serum gave me most of the nature of an extreme Dominant; I’ve yet to find a Dom capable of forcing me to heel, and I’m capable of using domforce myself, when necessary.
“On the inside, though? I’m still a Submissive, and I’m not the least ashamed of that.”
He sat back down, his posture daring Thor to make a complaint.
Thor looked briefly confused, then his trademark grin returned. “Why then, they have created an admirable warrior! To have overcome the defects of your birth, and equipped a, a hearthman for battle—”
“Defects?” Steve’s eyes narrowed. “You know, I was born with a lot of defects. Weak eyes, crooked back, flat feet. Heart problems that only got worse after the fever. I was sickly—caught everything short of TB, and it’s nothing short of a miracle that I avoided that. Easily fatigued, fainted a lot, couldn’t catch my breath… my first year of school I spent more days home in bed than actually in a classroom. My mom tried to hide her fears, but when I started getting into fights, I know she thought I was a dead boy walking.
“The serum solved all that. Fine-tuned my body, gave me all the strength I never had, got rid of the problems. I haven’t so much as caught a cold.
“But when you talk about defects… being a Submissive isn’t one of them. Sure, it’s made things harder. A lot of skills that come naturally to a Dominant weren’t so natural for me. But I’ve never been the type to take the easy way out, and with enough effort, there’s very little a Submissive can’t do. It just took the world a long time to accept that.”
The apparent horror in Thor’s eyes gave way to shock, then shame—and he bowed his head, eyebrows drawn. “I do not mean to insult you, Stephen Rogers. Clearly there are… ways in which mortals differ from the Aesir, and I have been unfairly judging you by an unsuitable mold.”
“Well. Like Coulson said, when you’ve grown up in one culture and find yourself faced with another one, it can be a bit of an adjustment. But you’re willing to learn, and that’s the important part.”
Thor nodded, his expression still troubled as he surveyed the rest of his teammates. “So… two more of you are subs, then?” His eyes settled on Natasha. “I fear I have been unkind to the women of this Realm.”
“You have been,” Natasha agreed, her lips quirking up to one side and her eyes sparkling with a hint of danger. “Doms and subs are different by nature, but that doesn’t make one better than the other. Both have their strengths and weaknesses, but being a sub is no defect, no insult.
“Still, you were right earlier,” she added, “just for the wrong reasons.” Shifting in her seat, she sat up straighter, pushing her shoulders back, raising her chin, meeting his gaze more directly—her entire demeanor switching as her posture opened up, no longer trying to appear small and deferential and unthreatening. “I’m not a sub. But that has nothing to do with my combat prowess. And it’s easy to convince people to discount me; I’ve been trained to mimic sub behavior.”
Thor shook his head. “’Tis passing strange, to think that you are Dom while two of the men in this room are not. But Midgard is no Asgard, and ’twould be even stranger were all Realms to be the same.”
Glancing over at the others, he frowned, examining each one in turn: Tony leaning back casually with one ankle on the other knee, Clint fidgeting impatiently, Bruce studying the table. “Then—”
“I’m a sub,” Bruce admitted, and hunched over with a sigh. “I really don’t want to be out there on the battlefield. I’m a scientist, not a warrior; I do my best work in the lab. But, well, the army put me to work trying to replicate the super serum. One lab accident later… well, the, uh, the other guy, he’s pure unbridled Dom. Comes out any time someone tries to push their domforce against me. I literally can’t be controlled that way.
“And I… I hate being Dom. Everything about it feels wrong. I don’t want to hurt people, or control them, I don’t want to force anyone to do things… but I don’t have a choice anymore.”
“Being Dom isn’t about hurting anyone,” Coulson corrected gently. “And control can be used in positive ways.”
“Yeah, you’ve got a handle on that one, haven’t you?” Bruce spat out, bitterly. “Trying to protect the world by forcing your will on others.”
“There are always people who refuse to play nice with the world around them. It’s unfortunate, but if they won’t control their own actions, at some point there needs to be an intervention. SHIELD exists to handle the cases that are beyond the regular law enforcement. And yes, that can mean dominating an unwilling person, as a last resort. The lesser of two evils.”
“Is that the same rationale that made you hunt me down in Calcutta? Was that the lesser of two evils?” Bruce’s shoulders went up, his gaze finding some corner of the floor. “I was living my life in peace. Actually helping people. Hadn’t had an incident in… fourteen months. You bring me back, and it’s not even three days before I’m rampaging through a helicarrier because someone shouted an order at me.”
Given Coulson’s typical low affect, the furrow of his brow spoke volumes. “That wasn’t meant to punish you. We needed your expertise, and there wasn’t a lot of time to spare. And… you had the right to say no.”
“Did I really?” Bruce wondered aloud, still staring off into the corner. “You wouldn’t have tried to force the issue? What exactly were your orders, Natasha?” he added, glancing back from the corner of his eye. “If I didn’t come quietly?”
“Try to persuade you that it was for the greater good,” Natasha replied, impassively. “Persuasion’s one of my specialties. I knew well enough not to try the domforce.”
Bruce shook his head. “See, even if you’re telling the truth… I had no reason to believe that. Even before the accident… people just don’t let me make my own choices. And I’m weak enough—was weak enough—that I’ve never felt right trying to push back against orders. When you showed up, it was… it was either accept your offer, and come here, where I was likely to end up in combat, or… have someone try to force me, and, well. That wouldn’t end well.”
There were lines of disgust in Thor’s expression, though he was doing a masterful job of trying to mask them. “So… others have tried to control you, but the Hulk protects you from that control?”
“By becoming everything I hate,” Bruce said darkly. “That’s not the kind of protection I want. But I’ve had to learn to live with it.”
“You’re not the only one who wasn’t given a choice,” Natasha said, a little softer. “Back in Russia, they rounded up all the little girls who showed any signs of being a powerful Dominant, and put them through training. Compulsory. Made us agents of the State. Showed us how to mask our nature, how to blend in, pretend to be weak… just another background submissive. So we can sneak in anywhere.”
“That’s why it’s hard to get a bead on you!” Tony blurted. “The way you slip into different roles so easily… you’re deliberately playing off expectations.”
She shrugged. “It’s why I’m good at putting other Doms off their guard. They don’t expect me to be just like them, let alone to be stronger.”
“I’ll say they don’t,” Tony griped, leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms. “I’ve had to uphold the Dom image my whole life just to keep control of the family business. The way business moguls look down on subs…”
“That’s probably why you picked up on my performance when we met,” she said. “You’re used to playing your own.”
Disgust flickered across his face. “I’ve had to. If I’d been allowed to act like a sub, I’d have lost the whole empire as soon as my parents died. It might not have been strictly legal to force me out, but they’d have convinced the shareholders that I wasn’t suitable to run a company that influential. As if a sub couldn’t cut it when the stakes were high.”
“Then you’re a sub?” Thor asked, the shock writ large across his face.
Tony grinned, darkly. “Damn straight.”
“But… you’re…”
“Domineering?” Tony finished, after letting Thor flounder for a moment. “I walk into a room like I own it. I don’t let anyone push me around, and I find ways to get others to do exactly what I want. The world knows me as the Top Dom, and I’ve worked hard all my life to make sure no one questions it.” He shrugged. “It’s all part of the illusion.”
“But then… if it’s normal down here, and nothing to be ashamed of… why hide it?”
Tony huffed. “Because nobody expects a sub to be able to make the hard decisions to hold down a company. Hell, I was drinking age before the Supreme Court made it illegal to discriminate over working conditions; before that point, subs weren’t allowed into the more dangerous jobs. Back when my parents got married? A sub could get fired for acting too aggressive and not being ‘charming’ enough.”
“When I was a kid,” Steve added, “wages got skewed under the assumption that a Submissive was working as a hobby, while a Dominant needed enough to support a family. A lot of places wouldn’t hire a Submissive; it felt like they were stealing jobs from the Dominants who needed them. And a Dominant got legal control over their Submissive’s wages.”
“You slept through seventy years of the fight for equal rights, and it’s still not over,” Tony said. “Like Coulson said, the laws are one thing, but social expectations…” He shook his head. “If word got out that I was a sub? That’s the kind of news that’ll tank a company’s stock overnight. In my parents’ era, it was unthinkable. Dad always was a groundbreaker, and he wanted to keep the family business in the family, but if they’d been honest about my nature, that would’ve been impossible. They’d’ve had to hand it over to… Obie, I guess.” His hand clutched convulsively, like he wanted to pick up a drink. “You know, if he’d ever guessed that I was a sub, he wouldn’t have had to kill me. Could’ve brought the whole thing down around my ears with just enough of a hint to prompt an investigation.”
Steve had dropped his gaze. “All this time thinking you were just an egotistical Dom… using Howard’s legacy for your own aggrandizement. But you’ve been preserving his legacy, even if it meant having to live a life in conflict with your own nature.”
“We’re more alike than you expected, huh, Rogers?” Tony’s grin returned. “Guess the illusion’s working, if even one of Dad’s best friends couldn’t see through the disguise.” He sighed. “When I was little, he explained the whole thing… the laws, the stakes, the shareholders. Told me there was only one way I could follow in his footsteps, and it wasn’t going to be easy. They homeschooled me until I was old enough to reliably hide my nature. The training forced me to stop showing submissive behavior; they had me practice being domineering until that was pretty much my norm.”
“And you learned how to resist the domforce?”
Tony’s face soured again. “I wish. No, I’ve got a pretty average resistance, and I haven’t really had the chance to improve it much. When I was little, my parents were careful to avoid any circumstances where a Dom might try to overpower me. Nowadays, the biggest thing going for me is that it’s rude to Dom someone in public, at least in the civilized world. Not that people haven’t tried, but I never let anyone finish a sentence that might be a command, and I’ve got backup when I need it. Most of the time, I can control the circumstances by controlling the crowd. I never meet with anyone in private, not in person; video chat ensures that the domforce isn’t an issue.
“In the senate meeting, I used custom earplugs that dampen the effect, because I knew they’d try to pull that crap, even though they’re legally not supposed to use domforce while they’re in session. I’ve been working on little shocker bracelets to snap me out of it, but they’re… nowhere near what they need to be. At least I’ve got someone I can trust to help me test them,” he added with a flash of an impish grin.
Natasha raised her eyebrows at him. “Pepper.”
“Yup,” Tony said, popping the P. “When I brought her on board, we had to figure out ways to sell the illusion. She had to train herself to avoid giving me orders, and to choose to obey the ones I gave her in public, because she is the quintessential Dom and there’s no way in hell I could force her to do anything. Through her, I command a hierarchy of thousands of Doms, but I rarely command anyone directly—I just shoot an order at Pepper, she relays it to the right people, and it seems like it’s not worth my time to bother figuring out the details or talking to the peons. Which increases the impression that I’m the Top Dom.”
He leaned back in his chair, folding his hands behind his head. “And having an obviously high-level Dom under my control… well, even the gossip rags aren’t ready to consider the possibility of a Dom that competent choosing to follow a sub’s demands.”
Thor was frowning, deeply. “It is passing strange, for a sub to bow to a Dom. Doms command and subs obey; this is the way of things, at least in Asgard. A stronger Dom can command a weaker Dom, but for a Dom to willingly bow to a sub’s demands…” He shook his head. “On Asgard, it would be shameful… unnatural.”
“That’s not the case down here,” Natasha said firmly. “A Dom can willingly defer to a sub’s wishes, whether that’s in friendship, in romance, in the bedroom, or in the boardroom. It’s just that a lot of people choose not to do that. There’s nothing wrong with a sub taking command of a Dom—”
“If it’s by choice! ” Clint roared, pushing himself to his feet in one quick movement and leaning both hands on the table, glaring daggers at Thor.
Coulson laid a gentle hand on Clint’s shoulder. “It’s one thing to accept such a role of your own volition, and quite another to get forced into it,” he said, holding Thor’s gaze. “Agent Barton is one of our highest-rated Doms, and yet he chooses to work for me, a flatliner. On missions, he defers to my commands, and accepts my wisdom and experience in preference to his own, even when he disagrees with my assessment. For powerful Doms, that’s quite difficult, yet he has managed it, and there are few I trust as deeply as I trust him.”
“Until your fucking brother showed up,” Clint growled, “and turned me into a sub with his bitch stick. That thing gets in my head and suddenly I’m paving the way for him to conquer the planet because his wishes feel like the voice of God. I killed for him. People I knew, people I shared lunch with. If Tasha hadn’t stopped me, I would’ve…” He sucked in a breath. “I’d’ve killed her, too, and it would’ve felt like the right thing to do, like resistance wasn’t even an option.
“So pardon me if I’d like to see him locked up sooner rather than later. And you might not like to think of him as anything less than a Dom, but I spent the past three days with him, and I would not like his chances if he got dumped in with the Doms.” His glare turned into a dark grin. “On second chance, go for it; maybe it’d be poetic.”
Static crackled along the skin of everyone in the room, raising their hair, and Natasha palmed a taser disc, ready just in case—but before Thor could give voice to his response, Phil touched him on the forearm, wincing at the shock. “You see? Down here on, on Midgard, it’s not as black and white as it is on Asgard. But we do respect the rights of everyone, both subs and Doms, to make decisions about their own lives—at least until they start harming others. And since your brother has done that, we’re trying to figure out the best place for him to stay, just until you can both return home. Okay?”
Thor crossed his arms uncomfortably, his expression shifting but decidedly unhappy. “Say on,” he said, finally. “I will hear you.”
As the static died away, the room released a collective breath.