Aleph

When a smart, sassy, sexy lady like the Black friggin’ Widow (who was blindingly, blindingly white, for all her namesake) invited you out to dinner, you went. One, because Natalia Romanova/Natasha Romanoff/Natalie Rushman/THE BLACK FRIGGIN’ WIDOW invited you to dinner and the lady was a fine slice of vanilla cake on two especiallyfine vanilla cakepops and your mama didn’t raise no fool. And two, if you didn’t accept what was an obvious declaration of "we need to talk about Steve Rogers", then you were a) no friend of said Steve Rogers and b) going to have said talk anyways under much less comfortable circumstances at her (in)discretion. So Samuel Thomas “Might Be A Bird But Nobody’s Wingman” Wilson, Beta or not, did what any man with brains would when a fine, fine female Omega assassin with vice-like thighs that could crush a man's skull between them invited a man to dinner.

…He called up his mama and told her he loved her.

Also texted a picture of himself in his last known outfit at his last known location to Sarah because a) Darlene “Too Old For This Shit” Wilson didn’t need to worry about her middle, perpetually-single son anymore than she already did and b) Gideon “Who Gives A Shit” Wilson wouldn’t couldn’t care less if he ended up cold and naked without his face or teeth or fingerprints at the bottom of the Potomac. No. She might be a thirty-seven year-old alpha with kids of her own now, but Sarah “Still A Wilson Don’t Think You Can Get Rid Of Me That Easy You Little Shit” Carson was still his Big Sis and if anyone could track the Widow down and give her hell to pay, it’d be the once sixteen year-old girl with box braids on fleek, a pedicure to die for, cute summer dress and white wedge flip flops with a right hook that could fell an ox at fifty feet, let alone any honky (yeah, sorry, pops) dumb or just plain damn drunk enough to catcall her.

Sarah “Big Sis” Wilson did NOT fuck around.

But if The Black Widow was intent on living up to her name and murdering him, she sure did a good job hiding it. Yeah, Sam, she's a professional spy, Sam reminded himself, none of this is for you. But hot damn, did homegirl look good. Certainly went all out for it. Sexy little black number, sultry smile and a kiss on the cheek. Let him order her wine and entree with demure deference of her exposed neck that sent every Alpha in the room(and his)'s heart racing.

“So,” Sam finally said after the somelier had left. “Why here?”

She took a bite of baguette slyly, practically eye-fucking him over her fingers. Then, “Why do you think?”

Damn, Sam thought. How very maiuetic. Girl was good.

“Well, I’d say it’s ‘cause you like me, but we both know that’s not it, however wounded my pride may be,” Sam laughed nervously. “You, uh, you like the food?”

“It’s a public venue,” she smiled “In a well-lit, affluent, urban area. Plenty of by-standers. Security cameras.”

“What, you wanted that I feel safe—?” Sam asked incredulously.

“No,” the Widow said with a predatory smile that did not match her flirtatious omega posturing. “I wanted you to know that despite all appearances and assurances of safety if I thought even for a moment your intentions towards Steve were in any ways meant to harm him—“ here she paused to take a very delicate, very calculated sip of wine that holy hell looked a lot like blood that Sam could NOT unsee, thank you very much, “ I’d kill you anyways.”

Uhh… Sam’s brain supplied.

She took another sip of wine. Stared at him like a cat closing in for the kill.

“…Uh…” Sam's mouth said.

The waiter appeared, summoned by her sheer force of will. “More wine?”

And Natalie “Whoever The Hell She Was Pretending To Be Right Now” Rushman gave him her girliest grin and most sugary “Yes, please. But only if that’s okay, honey.”

Oh. Sure. Suuure, sugartits. Whatever you want, Sam most certainly did NOT say very sarcastically out loud because his mama hadn’t raised no fool and would surely raise him from his early grave just to lecture him if she’d told him once told him a thousand times to remember Emmett Till and his big fat black mouth was bound to get him in trouble someday…and Sam Wilson (thanks to several prescriptions, good social support and considerable therapy) might be an ex-Air Force Pararescueman and The Motherfucking Falcon but he wasn’t suicidal.

She'd brought him here to make him feel safe then take it all away from him as easy as ordering a glass of wine. No, make that a refill of a glass of wine. No, no make that deferring the choice of a refill of his choice of wine to him while simultaneously threatening his life. “So,” Sam said, voice and hands shaking so bad he couldn’t cut let alone chew his own steak. “So, um, is this like, my last meal or something?”

That grin turned bemused, crooked, almost endearing. “You’re a Beta, aren’t you?”

Uh…Sam’s brain supplied, again unhelpfully. Was this, had she, did that—had she actually been hitting on him, then—? And Sam’s brain, unhelpfully as ever, just gave up and resigned. Packed a bag and moved to San Juan or something.

She took pity and reiterated. “You're not an Omega.”

“Huh? Oh, oh yeah! I’m a, I’m not like you. You know. You do know, right? I’m uh, I’m not after your mam or your alpha or anything just a little uh, companionship? I mean, Steve’s like Captain America and all and sure I’d kill for an autograph and dude is aesthetically fine as hell but like, it’s all cuddles and queerplatonic and betaromantic and it's not like that so you don’t have to worry and oh God please don’t kill me,” Sam rushed a) in relief, b) reassurance and c) just to reiterate once again and save his dumb black ass.

But the Black Widow, if anything, seemed saddened. “He’s not, you know.”

Sam was now incredibly frightened and incredibly terrified and incredibly fucked and incredibly fucking confused because what—?

“Not mine,” she said again. And it wasn’t wistful, wasn’t regretful, not hopeful, not like, not like she—

“Really?” Sam blurted before he could stop himself. “Dude is stacked as hell. You’re an omega. You can’t tell me you don’t want a piece of that!”

“Steve’s my friend,” she said, not meeting Sam’s eyes for the first time tonight.

“Okay, then,” Sam said, uncertain. “If you’re not planning on killing me ‘cause you don’t think I’m gonna steal your man or rat Steve out to the paparazzi…why are we here again?”

“You’re Steve’s friend.”

Sam thought long and hard about how this could possibly not be and/or be a trick question before giving up and realizing this was the Black Friggin’ Widow and the answer to both her question and his was always: “Yes?”

But she didn’t relax. Her shoulders went, if anything, stiffer. And Sam was struck with the sudden thought that this was her—really, actually Her—whoever she really was. That she’d asked him to dinner and dropped all pretense and barred herself to someone free of legends and cover for the first time in…in possibly ever. And it was a little unnerving, to say the least. And oooh, boy. Samuel Thomas Wilson was an LCSW and definitely not qualified for this shit.

“So I’m here because I’m Steve’s friend,” he began slowly. “And you’re wondering…” if I could be yours, too? If I’ll help you keep an eye on him? That he’s maybe suicidal and you need an extra eye on things—? But the Woman Behind The Black Widow looked as nervous as a newborn gazelle in a pit of lions and Sam sure as hell wasn’t going to anything to fuck this up or scare her away.

“Steve,” she finally said, “Steve said. You compared him. Once. To a Somali war orphan.”

“Yeah,” Sam said. “Yeah, I did.” Dude had been offended, if you can believe it. Said “there’s a lot of people out there who have it worse than I do” and “It’s still my country even if it’s the future” and “I’ve got Peggy, Sam” with his All-American Dad-face of Disapproval that had Sam wanting to sing the national anthem while saluting from a Ford on the summit of Mount Rushmore while simultaneously stuffing his face with apple pie.

“And I wondered. I thought. I figured,” she struggled. Left it. “That world. You know it.”

“Yeah,” Sam answered kindly. He’d done refugee work. An Internship in Lewiston, Maine. Worked with Somali, Syrian, every sort of refugees he could. Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses longing to breathe free. King'd had it right, violence and hate only created more violence and hate. You wanted world peace, you wanted soldiers home from Iraq, Afghanistan, a world where Muslims and Christians and Hindus and who-knows-what-else could co-exist? You leaned the fuck in, that's what you did. “Yeah, I do.”

“You would know. People.”

And suddenly Sam had a really, really bad idea about where this was going. And he wanted to be sick. “You’re not, are you?” he asked. And gender stereotypes and gender trinaries be damned, it should have been obvious. Obvious to anyone with half a brain. What’s the first thing you do to a dog who won’t behave? You neuter it. Take away its will. And the Black Widow had been less a Soviet Asset than a Soviet Slave, whatever her intelligence or abilities. Sam knew about military sexual assault and pleasure-girls and honey-traps and Sparrow School and forced prostitution and sex slaves. A female operative was useful in more ways than a male, and an attractive omega even more so.

…But she wasn’t. Hadn't been. An omega. Not really. Not by birth. Not by—

Not by choice.

Somali War Orphan. Of all the dumb things Sam WIlson had ever said, that’s the phrase she’d picked up on. And yeah, yeah Sam knew an unfortunate lot about female circumcision. Omegas robbed of their labia, clitoris, left with painful, scarred up vaginas. Alphas either killed or forcibly castrated, their bodies reshaped to society’s expectations of the female form and ideal. They’d still have scent receptors, yes, but without hormonal stimulation at puberty they’d regress. And their ovipositors, their ovaries, their ability and most importantly their desire to ever impregnate an omega would be gone.

Fuckers, Sam thought, enraged. Those absolute sadistic fuckers. Of course an alpha child would have a higher chance of surviving their training. Of course a submissive, seemingly-omega woman would be more useful. So they made her one. Of course they fucking did. Of fucking course.

“Yeah,” Sam continued gently, despite the pounding in his ears and tightness of his knuckles. Did his absolute best not to scare her, startle her. Humbled, honored, horrified, really, that she’d chosen him to confide in. “I know people. I could, um, I could make a few calls. If you want.”

“Steve,” she choked, instead of an answer. “He’s, he’s an alpha.”

…and Sam was a Beta. Scentless. Seemingly sexless. He had a bad feeling about this one, too. “And he reminds you,” Sam began. “His scent reminds you of them. What happened to you.”

“No,” she finally sighed, a wet, weepy smile on her face. “He reminds me of what I could have been. Can still be. All my life I’ve been ashamed of being an alpha. Afraid, even. I was glad they took it away from me. But Steve—“ and here she choked out a sob, and Sam, good bro, confirmed bachelor, Beta, and perpetual shoulder to cry on tentatively reached out his hand to touch hers while telegraphing his every move.

“Yeah,” Sam said, giving that hand a gentle squeeze before retreating and getting the hell out of Dodge because he didn’t want to spook her but also was a sentimental pile of emotions and empathy and was all around in general waaay too caring for his own immediate physical good. “Yeah. Steve,” he agreed with a hoarse grunt. “I know.”

Because Steven Grant Rogers was the walking embodiment of everything that was kind and caring, both Protector and Nurturer, absolutely everything that contradicted what society said about alphas and their nature. A constant reminder that anyone and everyone could make that choice, lame-ass excuses about heats and hormones and ruts be damned. That being sexual didn’t make you a sexual predator. That rape was always and would always be a choice.

“You know him. You trust him. Dude has nothing but respect for you,” Sam wondered. “Why didn’t you talk to him?”

She shook her head pityingly. “You’re the social worker,” she drawled, that mask back on, those walls back up, but oh, honey, you don’t have to hide. Not anymore. Not from me. “You of all people know better than to shit where you eat.”

…and okay. Okay. Sam Wilson could respect a woman who knew about mental health and social support and friendships but still respected the importance of boundaries. And so Sam Wilson, concerned social worker and all around good guy, went out of his way not to pressure the lady about her issues because it was none of his damned business and he was just one link in a long, long chain of healing and recovery but still, he had to admit he was more than a little curious and concerned for her. But Sam Wilson was a professional, with a degree and a license and a job at the VA with combat vets and a best friend who was a literal legitimate War Hero and American Icon to prove it and this not-his-patient was both a frightened baby gazelle and a vicious, eviscerating predator so Sam Wilson knew better than to ask.

And besides, Sam reasoned, with a friend like Steve Rogers, how alone could homegirl ever actually be?

And yeah. So no one ever in the history of ever—especially a Beta—had appreciated an unsolicited dick pic, but when a snap of the completed reconstruction came through from an anonymous account and disappeared a few seconds later, even Sam couldn’t help but grin.