Dear Heart

It's the sticky middle of summer when a stupor descends over the city, the wealthy fleeing to places with beaches, the less wealthy getting by with barely working AC, used fans, or, in Peter's case, the sterile but arctic blasts of the downtown skyscrapers, which he ducked into on his thrice-weekly walk to Stark Tower.

"You can't stay here," a bored female voice rings out.

Peter jumps back to his feet. He'd only just sat down. "Sorry. Sorry!"

"Whatever." The voice belongs to a young beta janitor, dressed in inconspicuous black in the middle of a shiny, polished lobby. "I know it's hot, man, but you gotta keep moving."

Peter flushes. He'd just wanted to check his messages, because sometimes Mr. Stark asks him to grab duct tape, or donuts, and he doesn't want to get up to the blissful cool of the workshop only to be sent back down into the fires of hell. "Really sorry, I'll just -"

"Follow me," the janitor girl says, pushing the trash can in front of her.

Peter was tossing his backpack over his shoulder, but at the girl's order he stops. He doesn't have to obey betas, doesn't even really have to obey alphas. He wants to go out the way he came, slip back into the hot smack of the July sidewalk. The grip on his backpack becomes sweaty. He looks around, hoping to catch the eye of an omega before he's led off wherever this beta wants him to go. He feels suddenly sick, and hates that he knows he feels this way because of that alpha, that awful alpha two months ago. "I - I can just leave. I'm going, okay?"

The beta girl touches his arm, and when Peter looks at her he sees that her expression wasn't hard an fierce at all. "There's a door in the back. I can't believe an unmated omega got past the doorman, but it's not going to happen a second time. Just go out back, okay? And try to stay away from alpha-only buildings."

There's so much Peter wants to say to that, but he swallows it all down. "Yeah," he says. "Yeah, okay."

He hurries down the street to the looming glass of Stark Tower, rising from the pavement like an exclamation point to dwarf the skyline. By the time he steps into the precisely cooled elevator, he's dripping with sweat again and nearly drops his phone through his slick fingers.

"Are you quite alright?" JARVIS asks. They're rising quickly.

"Fine! I'm fine. Damnit! I forgot coffee." For Mr. Stark and for himself. The day's already off to an amazing start. Peter finally gets his phone unlocked and drops a pin on his map app, labeling the building that kicked him out a no-go zone. He already has clusters of similar red pins across Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens. Soon, there's going to be no where to go.

He stuffs his phone back in his pockets, runs a hand through his hair, and tries to look indispensable and breezy - whatever that expression is - when JARVIS spits him out into Mr. Stark's workshop. But when the doors part it's not Mr. Stark who's standing in the middle of the workshop. "Dr. Banner!" Peter nearly yells.

The doctor gives him a little half-wave.

"What am I, chopped liver?" Bucky Barnes grumbles. He's sitting, bored, on a stool, his metal arm missing. Steve is there, too, wandering around the room. Peter can tell, from the expression on his face that he's barely restraining himself from picking up the various contraptions, toys, and tools.

"Hi Buck. 'Lo, Steve." Steve barely nods, eyes wide and staring at a 3D holographic model of a human eye. Mr. Stark's been trying to fix blindness.

It's a little like working with a mischievous, benevolent god. Fix blindness. Just another Tuesday. In fact, Peter's starting to think, since working for SI, that anything was possible with enough money, time, and coffee. It also helped if you were an alpha, but Mr. Stark's been pretty adamant that even deep-seated prejudice could be overcome if you were just smart enough.

Dr. Banner beckons and Peter nearly trips over his own feet in his eagerness to be near the older man. Mr. Stark is great and all, but he mostly mentors Peter by, well, letting him hang around, giving orders. Dr. Banner talks Peter through things, asks him questions, listens when he answers. Half the time Peter is still not quite sure what he's doing in Stark Tower, but whenever Dr. Banner around he always knows exactly where he's supposed to be. "Do you see what I'm doing here?"

"You took out the pneumatic hinges? What's moving the - magnets? Woah! Seriously? Wouldn't it create a magnetic field? Wait, no, it's polarized. And so light!"

"I feel like a guinea pig," Bucky says to no one. "Even guinea pigs have ears, you know."

Peter's too busy looking over the place where the arm attaches to Bucky's body. "Why make it so easy to remove?"

"Cleaning. Maintenance." But Dr. Banner is smiling too much for it to just be that. "Also, Tony and I were talking, and we thought that with a new baby in the house Bucky might want to feel with two hands."

There's another arm on the table. How had Peter not noticed it before? Like someone had unscrewed their arm and forgotten to put it back on, the new prosthetic looks so flesh and blood that Peter has to bend down and look at the couplings to make sure it's not filled with actual arteries. "Nerve simulators? Wouldn't that hurt?"

"That's what we're working on today."

"I've had worse," Bucky says, mostly to himself.

Then Peter straightens up. "A new baby in the house?" He repeats. He looks at Steve, who has one hand self-consciously cupping his still completely flat stomach. "Oh my god! You guys! It's going to be, like, the prettiest baby in the world!"

Steve laughs, and when Peter runs over to give him a hug he hugs back, hard. "I'll be happy with ten fingers and toes, but pretty is good, too."

Peter looks down at Steve's stomach as if he could see inside. "How far along...?"

"Ten weeks or so. I thought I had the flu, and then I skipped a heat. Oh, Peter, don't blush, it's only natural. Bucky dragged me down here as soon as I told him."

"I am not a medical doctor," Dr. Banner reminds the room.

Bucky is looking at Steve with an expression of such fierce fondness that Peter feels like he's back in their apartment again, looking at the space they created just for the two of them. It's Steve who tells Bruce, lightly, "but you have all the best toys. Look at this!"

Steve goes over to one of the holographic displays and presses a couple of buttons, and a picture comes up, a 3D rendering of an ultrasound. "Bruce says it's still too early to tell if it's a boy or a girl, but I'm just happy there's only one in there. Twins run in Bucky's family."

"Next time," Bucky promises.

"I don't think that's how twins work," Peter says. He's only half listening. He taps the hologram to enlarge it. There's the steady pulse of a beating heart and, below it, the fainter, faster thrum of a baby's. "This is - it's incredible. Congratulations, Steve. Bucky. Really, I'm." He blinks. He didn't know he would feel like this. "I'm so happy for you."

And he is happy. He knows he has to text MJ, who has been betting on a Barnes-Rogers baby for months, and who will immediately start a betting pool, taking in wagers for everything from sex (different than gender! she would point out, before launching into a lecture with the bewildered dads about letting a baby grow up without gender conformity) to birth date to hair color to secondary gender. Peter's happy, but he also feels a completely unexpected pang. He's fifteen. He should not be this jealous over someone else's baby.

Bucky winces only a little when the nerve endings of the new arms attach, and as Dr. Banner takes notes and adjusts settings Peter asks Steve all kinds of questions. Will he have to leave the force? Does he need help painting the nursery? Will he have a baby shower? Is he thinking of names yet? Peter suggests, shyly, Benjamin, and Steve says that he's trying not to get ahead of himself, that there's still a lot that could go wrong but Steve is so healthy and young and strong and - yes - glowing that Peter waves this fear aside. He knows that male omegas, especially, had trouble carrying to term, but Steve would do everything right, eat all his greens, sleep eight hours. Bucky would make sure of it.

"I feel like the next six months are just going to be this same conversation over and over again," Steve sighs, but he's smiling, of course. He keeps one hand, protectively, over his stomach. "Bucky's already trying to force me into a convent."

"Am not. Jesus! Bruce, fuck that hurts." Bucky's shaking out the prosthetic which doesn't look like a prosthetic at all, just another limb. "Cool. Can you give me a few tattoos?"

"I heart Steve," Peter teases.

"I hate Steve, more like," Bucky grumbles. But he catches Peter's eye. "I don't need to tell you not to go spreading the news around, right? I mean, those little friends of yours are okay..."

"You know their names are MJ and Ned, you just -"

"And Clint already knows," Bucky barrels over him. "But...you know...people get jealous."

Jealous isn't the right word. Pregnant male omegas had a habit of disappearing, or winding up in a ditch, targets of violence and lust. But Steve is strong and fast and dangerous in his own right, a soldier. Peter shrugs, to appease the older man. "Yeah, of course."

"Don't worry about it," Steve mutters. "About forty people know already."

"Forty-one," a different voice says. Peter tries not to jump as Mr. Stark steps out of the elevator, shedding his suit and tie and handing them over to the various robots that cluster around him like needy children. He always undergoes a transformation in the workshop, becoming less the CEO on tv and more the inventor fiddling around in their parent's basement. Or penthouse.

Bucky tenses and Steve shifts to place his body between Peter and Mr. Stark, which is a little ridiculous. Peter forgave Mr. Stark for their...miscommunication...weeks ago, but the Bucky and Steve are more wary, less apt to forgive. When Peter called them out on this Steve just sighed and said that Peter would understand when eh was older, which was a bullshit cop out and also infuriating. Sometimes, though, Peter wonders if Steve and Bucky hadn't managed to somehow figure out the full story, even though there was no way in hell that Peter was the one to tell them.

"Oh, stand down, soldiers, I'm on your side. Congratulations on your new spawn, and all that." Stark stares up at the 3D ultrasound and snorts. "Here, I even got you presents."

Peter jumps forward a little at the idea of presents. Even after only two months with Mr. Stark, he knows the older man has a tendency to tinker with one-of-a-kind things that were often the absolute coolest. He also likes to give stuff away, either because he doesn't need the prototype after coming up with something better or out off some other need to impress people, as if the only thing he had to give the world were his inventions, not himself.

"Bruce has been trying to get me to take more of an interest in Stark Medical for years, so you two get to be my guinea pigs." Mr. Stark holds up a syringe. "Nano-tech. A little old-fashioned, I know, but you two are seriously the most codependent couple I've ever seen."

"What's it do?" Bucky asks.

"Keeps an eye on his vitals, his location, the state of the fetus - sorry, baby - which can be accessed either by you -" Mr. Stark lobs a beeper-sized device at Bucky, who catches it deftly, "or by Bruce, who is apparently your primary physician."

"I honestly don't know what I did to deserve this," Bruce grouses.

Peter's peering over Bucky's shoulder at the beeper. It has a smooth, blank screen. "No read-outs," Peter says.

"Well, duh, I haven't injected him yet." Mr. Stark holds up the syringe. "I promise this hurts me more than it does you."

Bucky suddenly growls, on his feet and in front of his omega. Stark's unsurprised, standing there with injection in hand. "This is only part one of two, so if you want to go all alpha, do it now."

Bruce looks like he's trying desperately to not fade into the background, but it's hard for non-alphas when there's a showdown like this, or even the possibility of a showdown. Peter is used to it, goes to school with almost all alphas and no one butts heads more than hormonal teenagers who feel like they have something to prove. He knows that Bruce could probably hold his own if push came to shove - the doctor was battle-tested, and there was no more alpha-centric world than the military - but he was out of practice. Peter isn't. He clears his throat. "Part one of two?"

"You're up next, Underoos. Come on, Captain, mothers first."

Steve looks unamused, but tells Bucky to stand down. "You know you've been thinking about putting a tracker in me, anyway. You've been threatening since Kosovo."

"What about Peter?" Bucky asks, folding his arms over his chest. He's shifted so he's standing in front of Peter, too. He really needs to find himself an alpha, if only to make the alphas in his life feel less of a need to protect him. "You putting a tracker in him, too?"

"I wish," Stark mutters. "A pinch, Captain Rogers. There. No, there's probably something in the books about stalking a minor. This little beaut was my idea, Stark Medical's first real new innovation in, oh, five years? But don't worry, I'm a lousy chemist, I've had it all checked out. I just need a little guinea pig."

"This is the strangest internship," Peter says, to no one.

"I thought we agreed that actual guinea pigs would be the guinea pigs?" Bruce says at the same time.

"Turns out, you can't actual figure out which guinea pigs are omegas. Or if there even are omega guinea pigs." Stark raises his hands in surrender as Bruce, Steve, and Bucky all begin speaking at once. "It's safe! I promise it's safe. Though for completely unrelated reasons, you should probably stay in the tower for at least twenty-four hours of observation. Don't worry I already squared it with your aunt. I think I'm starting to grow on her."

Peter blinks. Glances at the 3D ultrasound, then at the shot in Stark's hand. He can think only about babies, and though he's pretty sure - almost entirely sure - he's not pregnant, he does have a flash of the alpha at the beginning of summer, and what almost happened, and he feels a wave of dread, like the bottom has dropped out of his world.

Before he can get more worked up, Stark says, blithely, "Suppressant." He's holding something small and plastic, the size of a match. "First implant on the market. FDA's still stalled on approval, but I've got some free samples. Totally safe, Bruce can vouch for me. One implant lasts five years." His gaze is steady on Peter. "I'm working on reopening the omega clinic in Brooklyn, kid, I really, am, but this is our stop-gap method, okay?"

Peter is sure that his mouth is literally hanging open. He's made the trek to Jersey twice already for his monthly supply of suppressants that work both to prevent pregnancy and stifle the supposedly dangerous omega pheromones he produces automatically, but it's a long commute, and a long line at the clinic, and it's a target, too, for political protests, for attempted attacks. A couple of omegas had already been beaten up just for, you know, being omegas and waiting in line. MJ had gone with him the first time, and Aunt May the second, making a trip out of it, she said, spending the evening afterwards at the Paramus Mall pretending they had the ability to afford anything in the storefronts. But he'd felt like a burden both times, and resolved, this month, to go alone.

Everyone is looking at Peter, who's looking at the matchstick like it might just be his salvation. And why not? Just because he doesn't have an alpha now doesn't mean he won't have one when he's sixteen, or eighteen, and he won't have to worry about being another omega dropout stereotype, and should the worst happen, should he be attacked...

He swallows. "It's safe?"

"I promise," Mr. Stark says. "I'll even let the doc with the good hands to it. A little shot to numb the area, and then it's implanted in your upper arm. You'll be able to feel it, but it's completely safe. We haven't done a lot of trials on male omegas, but female betas and omegas with a similar device even stop experiencing heats."

Hope flares hot and fast at the sound of that. No more heats means he won't have to miss school two or three days a month. Means he won't have to worry about an alpha bursting through his door, mad with lust. Means he can walk around, a little less afraid.

"Okay," he says, and then clears his throat because it came out like a squeak. "Okay. Yes. Please."

Mr. Stark hands the implants to Bruce, grinning. "I love a good sleepover."