Dear Heart

Stark Industries has long since set up its own marketing team. Photographers and studios they use for everything from new StarkPhones to marketing their line of electric vehicles to sewage infrastructure. Tony likes marketing, knows the game well, considers himself an engineer first, an ad man second, and a scientist third (all these things above alpha. Like he told Peter: make other identities a priority and the world will start to see you for who you want to be seen as.)

Tony told Peter to be at the minimalist, white-walled loft at eight in the morning, but Tony made sure to show up uncharacteristically early. "Early" meaning "at all" because even though some people in the advertising department were used to working with Tony Stark on a regular basis, photographers and their harried assistants almost never interacted with the man whose net worth was approaching the trillions.

The girl at the front desk, nursing a cup of coffee and looking distinctly rumpled in that night-out twenty-something way, literally spit out her drink at the sight of him. "Mr. Stark! Oh my god! Is - is Cole - I mean, is Mr. Langford - I mean, are you? Expected?" She looks around a wildly. "I don't know if Cole is even here yet - I mean, Mr. Langford!" The girl runs her fingers through her hair. She's an omega. She spills her coffee again, apparently having forgotten that she was holding it at all. "Damnit! I mean - Jesus, I'm sorry."

Tony is trying to suppress his laughter, not wanting the girl to think he's laughing at her, even though he kind of is. For the past thirty years he's been followed around by a gamut of press that amounted to professional stalkers, and he was fairly certain that none of them admired him anymore, just found him tyrannical, or narcissistic, or entitled. He'd resisted having an intern for so long that, until Peter, he'd completely disengaged from the younger generation entirely. That was obviously a mistake. They're so much fun, and look at him like he's already saved the world.

"Cole should know I'm here," Tony says, righting the girl's cup for her. He's very aware that they're the only two people in the lobby, and that this girl is perhaps twenty-three, and that she's giving off waves of embarrassed and excited omega hormones and he's a powerful alpha, and though there had been times in his life - times he's not proud of - when he would have taken advantage of those things, now he just backs up a few steps. "My friend Peter is coming in for the shoot in about ten minutes. Can you take care of him for me?"

"Yes!" The girl squeals, then coughs, obviously trying to keep her emotions under control. "I mean - yes sir. You can count on me. Becky. Is my name."

Tony resists the urge to pat the girl's head. He needs more young people in his life. It's like being around puppies. "Keep up the good work Becky."

She glows, calls up to the studio, leads him over to the elevator. "Can I just say? I'm really excited about these new suppressants. I can't believe that Stark Industries would put out something so awesome just for omegas."

She's not squealing anymore. She's whispering. People tend to whisper about heats and suppressants. "I hope the market agrees with you," Tony says, which is probably too honest.

He thinks about how there are kids toys made just for omegas, dolls and kitchen sets, beauty supplies, make up. How professions like hair dresser and interior designer and preschool teacher and prostitute are considered just for omegas. And how little space is made for omegas in the professional world. Professional sports claim that omegas would be a distraction in the locker room. Workplaces claim that omegas will just quit once they get pregnant. Entire buildings in New York won't allow omegas in the door unaccompanied because they're an unnecessary risk, as if the omegas themselves were attacking people, rather than being attacked.

He thinks about how he never thought of this before Peter, even while he promoted Pepper and did his best to hire qualified omegas, few though there were. What he was doing before was a show of equality, as much to spite his long-dead alpha-supremacist father as to help anyone.

He thinks about Peter, so young and already so scared, already preparing for a life where he has to accept less than his alpha and beta friends. He wonders if it's all too little, too late.

.

Cole Brady is a long-limbed black man with the same sense of style as every photographer Tony's ever worked with - that is, seemingly shapeless black and white clothes that make him look more like a cubist painting than a person. He's also a beta. While there are a handful of omega supermodels, there are no omega photographers, so Tony fell back on a friend.

"Look what the cat dragged in!" Cole yells from across the room. There's already so much going on, teams of people setting up several spaces on long pieces of single-colored paper, Michael Jackson blasting over loudspeakers, food set up on a long table and no one touching it, everyone young and tight-bellied and beautiful. "Tony, when are you going to let me take your picture again?"

Cole is about ten years older than Tony, making him, at sixty (looking forty) the grandfather of the fashion world. He was twenty-five when he first photographed Tony Stark, sixteen and angry and newly orphaned, overwhelmed in a world that expected so little of him. It was Cole who was the first person to portray him the way he would portray a CEO: powerful, young, charismatic, optimistic. He was on the cover of TIME magazine. He still has that cover. It was the first time Tony realized a photograph could show him exactly who he wanted to be.

Since then, he's made sure to keep an eye on Cole's career as well as his own. When the (black, beta) photographer accused a (white, alpha) director of attempted assault two years before, it was Tony who spoke up about his own experiences with assault, ranging from being touched inappropriately by female reporters when he was a teenager to being cornered in the men's room by very rich men. It can happen to alphas, Tony emphasized. It can happen to anyone.

A passing intern admired his suit, and Tony preened a little. No one ever told him they liked his clothes. Bruce didn't care and Pepper didn't want to feed his ego and even little Peter thought that everything Tony had was just the nicest, so why comment on any of it? But it was nice to be complimented in a way that wasn't asking for anything in return. Tony had so few people in his life that wanted absolutely nothing from him.

Cole sat backwards in a chair and they chatted as the sun glinted off the skyscrapers, as people came over with tea and coffee, as they waited for the show to begin. They talked about the suppressant campaign (Cole was a big fan, had been married to his omega boyfriend for the five years it's been legal and unofficially married for thirty years before that) and the two big photoshoots with Peter, the face of he young omega, and the several other omegas coming in today, and then next week with and Steve and Bucky, the pregnant couple. They talked about buying beach houses and where to get a decent cup of coffee. They talked about the young kids and how fucking smart they all were.

And then Peter walked in. And Tony tried not to stare too hard.

The thing is: he knows that the kid is a kid, knows that his infatuation, while legal, is morally reprehensible as long as Tony has direct control over Peter's position within SI. He understands that Peter is young and brilliant and scared and trying to do the right thing. He knows that he could be the kid's father. But despite all this knowing Peter looks amazing in the carefully rehearsed light of the studio, shrugging off the first intern who tries to pry him towards hair and makeup, craning his neck, looking for...

Peter smiles when he sees Tony seeing him.

"Mr. Stark!" Peter raises his arms, holding a cardboard coffee-pot-to-go, the kind that soccer moms bring to weekend games. "I brought coffee!"

Tony hovers, savoring the hot, rich coffee while all of Peter's best features are accented. Peter keeps demurring. The coffee was from Clint, the clothes, slightly nicer than his usual ensemble, courtesy of Michelle's older brother, and when one of the makeup artists compliments Peter's skin, the kid just blushes: "I think I have my mom's skin?"

"But you've taken care of it beautifully," the makeup artist says with such earnestness that Peter flushes and, eventually, nods.

There's a lull in the chaos as the other three models come in. All omegas, two professional models and one compact black girl who had become the face of the US Olympics for her fantastic gymnastic abilities. All three look far more comfortable in the room than Peter does, though they all seem a bit wary when the discussion of the shoot begins. Becoming the public faces of such a controversial product will not be an easy burden. Tony thinks the gymnast probably understands - she received hate online for being an unmated omega in an alpha-centered world - but he hopes that Peter can rise to the challenge.

It takes everything Tony has to go back over to Cole, to start up another conversation of their glory days and mutual friends. To let Peter swim on his own.

And swim he does. The same genetic affectations that make omegas vulnerable make them socially attractive - charisma, charm, an ability to diffuse awkward or escalating situations, a tendency to smooth over silences. To see the four omegas work the room of betas and alphas makes Tony wonder, not for the first time, how the hell omegas don't rule the world yet. There are places on earth, mostly those still rooted in tribal structures - Native cultures - that put omegas and women at the top of the hierarchy. And watching the omegas put everyone at ease, Tony completely understands.

With one ear he's listening to Cole set up his first shot. With the other, he's listening to the omegas swap stories. They all want to know why they were chosen.

The models, a stunning, dark-skinned Asian girl and a muscular, curly-haired boy who could be Spanish or Italian, have similar stories of pushy or handsy art directors, of sexual harassment and assault, of being barred from modeling in entire countries, entire continents, because of their secondary gender. The boy talks about moving from playing soccer to being picked up by an agent and basically bought from his family. The girl talks about the pressure to lose weight, to sleep with people, to find an alpha, to submit.

That's what all the stories boil down to. The Olympian warns the others about the online hate that has already started to boil up. Peter glosses over his assault in the coffee shop this summer in favor of talking robotics, engineering, physics, but all four of them have the same story. The world has told them to submit, or be punished for their insubordination.

"Have any of you tried the suppressant?" Peter asks, and the other three shake their heads. Until the FDA approval comes through - the sort of legal wrangling Tony leaves entirely up to his lawyers - the suppressant itself is in testing.

"It's wonderful," Peter assures them. "It could change everything."

"And Mr. Stark made it?" The Asian girl asks. She has a nearly-English accent. "For you?"

Peter's blush travels all up his arms and his eyes dart over to Tony, who's waiting for the glance. Winks.

All the omegas laugh, and every alpha in the room turns at the sound.

"All right!" Cole calls, clapping his hands together. "Places, darlings!"

.

The day is filled with music and food and clothes that don't zip up all the way. Cole keeps the mood light and playful. He's made a living out of working with young people, knows how to coax them to the best picture possible without moving too far outside their comfort zones. He is also a master of lighting different skin tones, seems to have fun placing pale Peter next to the dark-skinned Olympian. After this first cycle of the ad campaign, Cole and Tony are already talking about the range of diversity they want to photograph.

The girls are put in dresses, then in suits, then in every day high school chic. The boys are shuttled from suits to athletic ware to everything in between. Tony, in trying not to stare at Peter, stares at the soccer-playing omega, who's own wink is a little too practiced to be pure.

The day is well on its way to being a success. They break for lunch and Peter introduces the omegas to Tony, who eats with them and learns a little about what it's like to be a gold-medal winning gymnast, and a top-tier runaway model, and he tells his own stories of success and failure in the lab, and slings his arm over Peter's shoulder, and says, truthfully, that getting a PA was one of the best decisions he's ever made.

Cole lets his second-in-command take over the last shots of the day. Aging as he is, Cole's trying to train the next generation. This guy is a young alpha, black and from the same neighborhood as Cole, with constantly darting eyes. He has the talent but none of Cole's grace or graciousness.

Or at least that's what Tony hears from several sources who were in the room at the time. Tony had gone to find an unused room so he could finish a conversation with the marketing team about both the newest launch from Stark Med, and, as a sort of birthday-present, joke, gift to Peter, the very quiet launch of a new line of coffee makers from SI's new home-goods line.

He's gone for maybe an hour when he first feels it. The tug in his lower abdomen that tells him something is not right.

He'll piece together the full story later. How Jabard, Cole's second-in-command, had come on a little strong, ordering and occasionally manhandling the omegas in place. Nothing out of ordinary for their line of business. A hand to the elbow. An adjustment of the back. How Jabard had gotten frustrated with Peter's mumbling incomprehension of one of his orders and grabbed Peter's wrist and pulled.

It's a move people did every day. Parents to disobedient children. Boyfriends to girlfriends.

And it freaks Peter out.

The clench of Tony's gut leads him back to the studio. To Peter trying to smile, to be the kind of professional he never wanted to be, rubbing his wrist - unbruised, not even red - between every shot.

"Peter! Peter! Peter!" The photographer finally growls out an alpha command, and Peter's eyes snap up, his whole posture relaxing in direct response to the command. Submitting. Pliant.

Cole sees Tony in time to jump between the CEO and the photographer. "Jabard! Take a minute!"

Jabard and his clutch of assistants look up. "But this is the shot!"

"You're lucky you don't get shot!" Tony growls.

"Mr. Stark..." Peter begins. His eyes are wide, mouth soft and troubled. Still, he manages a smile. "I'm fine."

Tony turns to Cole. "Is this the kind of set you're running now?"

"Jabard," Cole says warningly. He holds up a hand to Tony. "You stand down, son. All alphas, out. Five minute breather. Omegas, to me."

Tony thinks about defying that order. It's been a good long while since anyone other than Bruce has presumed to order him around. But in the end, catching sight of the worried and shaken omegas, none of whom are quite meeting his eye, he turns on his heel and leaves. There's a small gathering of alphas out in the hallway. Jabard, the photographer, a scattering of female assistants. Most of those on set had been betas.

Jabard shifts uncomfortably. He opens his mouth.

"Don't apologize to me," Tony snaps. "Apologize to Peter."

"I wasn't going to apologize," Jabard mutters.

Tony snorts. Wishes he could see Peter. There's another tug in his gut, a pull in Peter's direction. He'd thought a phantom pain before, but this twist is insistent and instinctual, like a rut, like an alpha instinct. He'd never felt anything like it.

And, ten minutes later when the tensions have dissipated and they're all let back into the room - Tony staying this time, just watching, just in cast - that same twist relaxes at the sight of Peter, alive and whole. At the sight of his smile.

He doesn't analyze it while he's in the room, doesn't dare think about what this new twisting yearning could mean for the teenager in his life. He doesn't want to be another complication for Peter, another unwanted advance. He wants to make things easier for the boy, not more complicated.

And finding out your boss has somehow, inadvertently, bonded with you? Pretty much the definition of complicated.