Chapter 11
Tony hustles Peter into a car that can technically go three hundred miles an hour but, in New York traffic, even with JARVIS plotting the route to include not-exactly-legal sidestreets, they still seem to crawl across town.
Peter has his phone pressed to his ear. "Are you with him now? Where's Clint? What?!"
Tony had been arguing with JARVIS about bridges versus tunnels but he looks up at Peter's yelp. That bond thing? Yeah, it's definitely still there, a roiling feeling in his belly that mirrors Peter's distress. "What's happening?"
Peter scrambles with the phone - Stark prototype, hasn't hit the market yet, Tony had argued with him for weeks before he'd actually accept it - and punches both speaker phone and the video chat feature. "Alright, MJ, Mr. Stark is here, too, so you need to slow down."
"Clint went with Sergeant Barnes down to the police station," MJ sounds out of breath. "He was - I've never seen an alpha fight like that, Peter. I never thought I'd see Sergeant Barnes - "
"What about Steve?" Peter interjects.
MJ's face takes up the screen. She's juggling her phone under her ear, laptop in front of her, typing something. Tony vaguely remembers Peter saying that she was a blogger. Vlogger. Something. "He's at the VA. It was the closest medical facility. Natasha's there, but they kicked me out. Even though I was the one who saw - who found - "
She breaks off in a distressed whimper and Peter clucks automatically, the omega instinct to soothe even as Tony's gut clenches - the alpha instinct to fight something, anything, the world. "What happened?" Tony asks again.
The image on the phone jumps and Tony realizes that MJ is sitting down, setting her laptop on the sidewalk, back against a brick building. Cool Beans, the coffee shop Peter still works at a couple hours a week. The place they'd first met. It seems to be a locus for trouble.
"I thought you were working here after school, Pete. So I thought I'd do my homework and make you feed me free coffee."
"It's not supposed to be free," Peter says, his tone still gentle.
"But before I could get there I heard this fight, and I could sense that it was alphas, a whole, like, gang of alphas, and one omega in distress." MJ swipes a hand over her face, taking a deep, shuddering breath.
Tony knows how she feels. Betas don't have the extreme instincts of either alphas or omegas, but they had a muted version of both. They were the world's moderators, and if there was an out of control alpha, they could help to soothe. If there was an omega in deep distress - well, a beta would want to save them.
"I should have tried to help, but there were so many alphas and I -"
"You did the right thing," Tony says, firmly, "you could have easily become a victim, too."
"Well," MJ says in a tone that means she doesn't believe him, not a word, "I thought I'd go to the VA, see if Natasha or Steve were there, but before I could go even a block I saw this squad car just blasting down the street, just - so fast. And I didn't even think. I jumped in front of it."
"MJ!"
"I needed to get their attention! And it slows down, but before I can say anything Sergeant Barnes and his partner, the beta -"
"Sam."
"Maybe Steve called them, or they were nearby, but they must have known what was happening because Bucky ran over to the alley and just - and Sam, he took like three seconds to make sure I was okay and he told me to sit in the squad car and lock the doors but I wasn't just going to wait and watch. So I ran down to Cool Beans and - "
"MJ," Peter asks, his tone forced calm. They were getting close to Queens. They'd be there in minutes. "How's Steve?"
MJ bangs her head against the brick wall behind her, tears dripping down her cheeks. The only thing keeping Peter from freaking out is the display Tony taps on the car windshield, the one that shows Bucky's vital signs, Steve's vital signs, the baby's -
"He lost the baby," MJ whispers. Peter can only stare at the display, the place where the quickening heartbeat used to be. "We're pretty sure that's why he was attacked. He lost the baby."
.
This is what happened:
Bucky's in the squad car with Sam and they're talking about strollers because Bucky can't seem to stop shopping for this little monster that's going to invade his life and he can't even act upset and macho about it because Steve glows, he fucking glows. They went to that photoshoot to be the new faces of Stark Suppressants or whatever the egomaniac is calling them and Bucky was on edge the whole time, the room full of alphas, all of them complimenting Bucky on how beautiful his omega looks while pregnant.
Bucky had to count to ten, actually count to ten, to stop himself from tearing the alpha's throat out. They were working on a campaign to get equal healthcare access to omegas and the douche is going around calling Steve - brilliant, war hero, actual saint Steve - "Bucky's omega."
Steve had laughed it off, of course, his cheeks rouged, his eyes too-blue, and Bucky had asked the photographer if he could get a copy of those pictures because Steve had every eye in the room on him, beautiful all the way through.
So anyway, Bucky's in the squad car and Sam's throwing out dumbass names to call the kid. Rhubarb. Agamemnon. Bucky keeps shooting them down when his hand suddenly goes hot, so hot he lets go of the steering wheel and stares at it.
His hand going hot? Not a big deal, he has a cybernetic arm after all. But this was his other hand. The flesh-and-bone one, the one with the ring...
He taps the ring in a way he hadn't done since Stark's lab when the man bequeathed them this technology. And then he turns the car around.
.
This is what happened:
Steve's walking one of the vets to the subway, because they just had a rough session and sometimes being out in the fresh air not talking about wars makes people feel a bit more human. He leaves the guy at the steps of the station and watches him descend down to the platform, thinking again about how, without Bucky's steady, focused rage and determination, he'd probably be as lost as most of the ex-soldiers he sees.
He puts a hand, mindlessly, to his belly. An unconscious gesture of protection. He is proud of his service. He does not want this life for his child. He thinks: I'll talk to Bucky about it, about guiding our kid so it grows up to be a rock star or biologist or dog trainer as long as it doesn't grow up expecting to shoot a weapon at another human being.
He turns into an alpha. "Sorry," he says to the other man, smiling and trying to slip to the side.
The alpha moves, too, blocking his path. "Omegas should watch where they're going."
Steve keeps his head down. He's dealt with this his whole life. In the military. Med school. Sometimes the confrontation is worth it - Bucky would say the confrontation is always worth it - and sometimes it's best to scoot on by. "You're right. Sorry."
He feels another alpha come up behind him. Boxing him in. "Sorry what?" the new man demands.
Steve would have kept his head down except for that, the follow up that alphas always seem to tack on, expecting every omega and even betas to address them as Alpha. But Steve already has an Alpha, and it's sure not these assholes.
He side-steps again, nimble. And then a third alpha steps up.
"Hey, ain't you that pretty boy I been seeing on all the busses?"
He turns, realizing, quickly, that he's surrounded. That the group of alphas is moving, and he's moving with them, off the sunny street and into - how cliche - a dingy alley.
The voices are all male, all alpha, Steve tries to size them up. He could fight, he knows how to fight, can more than hold his own, but antagonizing them doesn't seem like a safe move. Not for him. Not for the baby.
"The one on the busses?" Another voice pipes up, low and angry. "You mean the pregnant bitch?"
A hand on his shirt. Steve smacks it away. A hand reaches for his shirt and he dodges. And then it's too many hands, from too many directions. He throws a punch. He screams, and a hand is slapped over his mouth. He bites down. Screams again. A hand over his throat. He's wrestled onto the concrete, loses his footing. His shirt rips. His arms go only to his stomach, he's not even showing, the smallest of bumps that Steve swears wasn't there before. He closes his arms over himself.
They kick his face. His hands. His stomach. They hate that he's pregnant. Hate that he's someone else's. Hate that he's on billboards, a lowly omega, one who obviously doesn't know his place.
.
This is what happened:
Bucky runs into the alley. There's six men, all alphas. One is holding the tattered remains of Steve's shirt. Another is pulling Steve's jeans down to his knees. One has an arm around Steve's throat. The love of his life, the strongest man he knows, is twitching, scrabbling, face turning red with the effort.
Bucky forgets that he has a gun, forgets that he's the rule of law, that Sam's here as backup, that it's a crowded New York City street. He roars, and it's an ancient sound, a fog horn from the deep. It's a sound that means 'take your fucking hands off my omega.'
The men don't react quickly enough.
Sam is ten steps behind him. By the time he catches up, most of the attacking alphas are fleeing. One is locked in a fight with Bucky.
And one is lying in the alley next to a mostly-naked Steve. Dead.
.
Peter's out of the car before it rolls o a stop. He pulls MJ into his arms and rocks the girl as she clutches him. She's not crying anymore. Her eyes are shiny, angry, dry.
"Pete?" Mr. Stark - Tony - Peter's going to have to start calling him Tony or this could get real awkward, real fast - "I'm going down to the station. See what a little Stark Influence can tell me."
"They were attacking Steve - Sergeant Barnes shouldn't -" MJ begins.
"The law is on the side of an alpha defending his omega. And Barnes is a cop, I'm sure they're not going to throw the book at him." Tony keeps looking at the entrance to the VA, as if he can tell what's going on inside by looking hard enough. "How's Steve?"
MJ shrugs, her grip loosening on Peter's shirt. "I don't know. They're only letting omegas see him."
Peter stands up.
"Be careful," Tony warns.
"Just get Bucky out of jail." Peter says. "He's probably tearing the walls down trying to get to Steve."
Tony catches Peter's gaze. "We're going to continue our conversation later, okay? After this is all sorted."
Peter has so much to say to that, but MJ is typing furiously, swiping at her face, and the car window is rolling itself up, and they all have jobs to do.
Peter has a job to do.