Aleph

So it was like this. When Cap lets on his “best guy’s not doin’ so well, would you mind checkin’ up on him, Sam” and lapses into this hilarious New Yawk/Irishman dialect on accident, you know shit’s serious. So yeah. Yeah Samuel Thomas “Cap’s Best Friend” Wilson wouldn’t mind at all, not even if it was real inconvenient and everything or if said best guy hadn’t really ever apologized for throwing him out of the goddamned sky then dropping a helicarrier on his black ass. No sir, Mr. Captain America, sir.

“Sure, Steve,” Sam had shrugged.

…in retrospect, Sam should’ve seen it coming. “Sure, Steve” turned into “I’ve had enough of your Alpha/Omega bullshit, Rogers! You could’ve asked Nat, you know!” preeetty damn quick.

But Steven Grant Rogers, Captain America, the infamous Star Spangled Man With a Plan just blushed a furious shade of pink and went honest-to-God green with jealousy. “She’s an alpha,” he’d blurted, whingeing with mortification. “And they have history—!”

…Well. Sam'd be damned.

So anyways. Samuel Thomas “Good Friend” Wilson went by their cozy little D.C. home to check up on Bucky “recently-sentenced-to-time-served” Barnes because the guy’d been around Steve Rogers for far too long and accepted responsibility for his brainwashed actions and outright refused a not-guilty plea and damn, the Notorious RBG had come down swift and just and just plain damn awesome in her ruling about enhanced individuals and civil responsibilities. So now the U.S. government and Sam’s tax dollars were fighting extradition orders from at least five former Soviet Bloc countries not to mention the Middle East and Russia herself and Republican Right Wingers demanding a retrial and Cap had just smiled for the CNN cameras and went all Arwen on their ass with a calm, collected “do you really think you could take him from me?” and that was that. When you accidentally created the world’s original and only “All-American, All Alpha” superhero, you’d damn well best listen to what the man had to say.

…and the collective governments of the world couldn’t just shit their damn pants and turn tail and run, no. They had to save some face. So they shit their pants, turned tail and ran and cried whee, whee, whee all the way home then started “dialogue” about “sanctions” and “UN involvement” and “extradition” and shit, while Larry Williams, Trevor Noah, John Oliver, Samantha Bee and even Colbert made fun of them on a daily, nightly, or last weekly basis. And as much as Sam loved him some Larry or Trevor and Chesca Ramsey and Jessica Williams, he had to admit Colbert’s “Winter Smolder” act was by far his all-time favorite.

So Sam knocked gingerly on the front door, rang the doorbell once or twice or five hundred times, before sighing and taking the spare key from under the goddamn mat really, Rogers? and letting himself in. His ears, it needed to be said, were immediately assaulted with what he could only guess was possibly Russian or Sokovian death metal and/or Yiddish rap, and/or an ungodly combination thereof. Living for nearly a century as a Jewish-Irish American-Russian sniper turned hitman turned house-husband did weird things to a guy’s taste in music.

“Uh, Barnes—?” Sam called. Like he had any chance of being heard over Vershtickt and the Vohlk or whoever the hell they were. Seriously. This was worse than Sokovia’s несрећom невеста entry at last year’s Eurovision, which was saying something, and to which Sam fated himself to repeating every May ad infinitum so long as Wanda Mutant-Jew-Romani-Maximoff had anything to say about it. Sam was all for diversity, dude. But seriously—? These two.

“Barnes—?” Sam called again. Damn, this was exactly the sort of teenage bullshit he’d pulled when he’d been a teenager, too. Cryogenically frozen and/or tortured, Barnes did NOT have that excuse.

“Living room,” he made out Barnes’ unenthusiastic grunt over the din.

“Hey, man. Steve wanted…” and Sam’s brain just stopped, and his mouth continued flapping, uselessly.

Barnes, in all his shirtless, scarified glory, was nestled atop the largest heap of mess Sam had ever witnessed outside of Hoarders. Which he watched with his mama. And Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. And he did NOT get tears in his eyes, not matter what his big sis said. (Okay. Maybe a little. Or a lot. Sam’d been in refugee camps and done resettlement work, for crying out loud. Give the man a break.)

“What. The Shit.” Sam addressed the literal elephant-sized crap-heap in the room.

Barnes scowled. “Don’t like, don’t stay. I ain’t botherin’ anyone.”

“Wait,” Sam gaped, that embarrassing seventh grade health class catching up with him. “Are you…nesting—?”

“Don’t be an idiot,” Barnes snapped from atop his mountain of cozy sweaters and Steve’s laundry and what looked like every couch cushion and the mattress and pillows and comforter from their bed all piled unceremoniously onto the living room floor in front of the tv. Dude was playing Call of Duty from his cuddly blanket fort, and rather viciously.  “I’d have to be pregnant, wouldn’t I?”

Uh, Sam’s brain said unhelpfully. It wasn’t like Omega males couldn’t get pregnant, just that it was highly fucking dangerous as they didn’t have the wombs to support a fetus, let alone expel during the birth. Think ectopic pregnancy. Bleeding. Death. Usually in the first or second trimester. It still happened, sure. You’d read about it, some fluke “I didn’t know I was pregnant” or “I had a c-section at 28 weeks” sort of shit, but mostly it was a thing of the past…or soap-operas, the kind of really cheese-y daytime television his dear old mama would denounce to the grave but secretly loved and thought Sam didn’t know about it and because he was a good son he’d let her keep thinking it. Truth was, most male Omegas would simply pass a pregnancy before it even had the chance to implant, but then again these days most male Omegas would be on suppressants, even take supplements to get that Alpha physique and scent. In today’s world of hormones, anyone could be anything they wanted…and who would want to be a male Omega—?

“Well?”

“Guh…” Sam’s mouth said, also unhelpfully.

Barnes paused the game in the middle of his kill-streak, the disemboweled guts of his enemies spread across the screen. Gave him the patented Winter Smolder Look™, you know, that one that launched a thousand ships…er, internent campaigns and a shit-ton of legislation and PR nightmares and letters to the editor and possibly even the return of the Cold War and their impending, inevitable mutually assured destruction at the hands of democratically-elected his ass Russian dictator Vladmir Putin. “What? You got somethin’ to say there, sport?”

“Uh…I uh…what I meant—mean to—and that’s not…possible?” Sam grimaced. He was an articulate, intelligent man, damnit! With a degree and everything! How did only measly, pant-shittingly terrifying Omega assassin turn him into a bundle of nerves and sweat and mouth-brain disconnect every. Single. Goddamned. Time.

Barnes only glared up from what Sam didn’t want to guess and/or think about was smelling the armpits of Steve’s t-shirt and/or crotch of Steve’s whitey-tighties. “I’m denning.”

“Denning?” Sam asked, and his voice didn’t squeak. Not even a little bit.

Barnes rolled his eyes. Restarted his game. And music. That godawful music. “I’m in heat, you mook, not pregnant.”

“Well, that’s a reli—wait? You’re in heat? Right now? What do I—how do I—I can call Steve—do I need to call Steve? Oh shit do I need to leave?” Sam yelped. “Is he gonna accidentally kill me if he smells me here—you’d better not be jerking off under there!”

Barnes paused his game again. Again inopportune. This time it was mid-decapitation. At least there was peace and quiet? Sam’d go for quiet. “Ain’t like that. Fuck, did you really not know?”

“I’m a Beta,” Sam sniffed, offended. Also to make his point.

But Barnes just grinned, that son of a bitch. “What, and you ain’t got a nose—?”

“We’ve got less scent receptor density and you—“ don’t know it, Sam’s brain finished for him, because he was frozen in cryo and HYDRA’s asset for the past seventy years or so. “…’re the first heat that’s been strong enough I can actually smell,” he lied instead.

Barnes snorted his semi-approval. “That’s probably ‘cause I’m not some idiot who injects with shit.”

“Lots of people use suppressants,” Sam frowned. He might be a Baptist, but he was pro-autonomy, that's for sure. And if that made him pro-choice, then his poor fundamentalist mama would just have to pray for him, that’s all. Samuel Thomas “Good Ally” Wilson wasn’t changing his mind. Not even for his mama.

Barnes snorted again. This time decidedly more derogatory. Went back to mashing buttons and shooting bad guys. “Yeah, well, lots of people are idiots.”

“So, what, you gonna stay cocooned in there for like, a week?” Sam pressed. “How does this work, man? Does Steve even know—?”

Barnes scowled. Shot a man through the genitals and oookay, Sam felt his balls shrivel. “Oh, he knows alright,” another dick bit the dust. And another. And another. “Went to the store and everything, got myself what I needed, tampons and rubbing alcohol and vinegar and vaseline and shit and that absolute aleph asshole goes and steals all my heat supplies. He had to’ve smelt it coming. For a week at least. He shows himself in here I’m gonna bite his fuckin’ face off then fuck him through the floor.”

One? Heat sounded horrible and disgusting. Two? Two Sam really, really didn’t want to be here when Steve got home.

“He’s close,” Barnes grunted, shooting another enemy soldier’s junk off.

Sam couldn’t even hear the sound of Steve’s hog. Not at this distance. Not with the uh, lovely current ethnic background acoustics. You could take the whiteboy out of the 1940’s, but you couldn’t take the 1940’s out of the whiteboy, that’s for sure. But like everything with these two, the answer was always super-soldier serum or “and that’s why bananas taste so fuckin’ weird”, Sam supposed.

“Yeah? And how could you know? You got security cameras up around all of DC?”

“First, duh,” Barnes said scathingly, the Look™ obviously now implying what sort of super-serum soldier assassin do you take me for—? “Two, I can smell him, you putz,” well, that just seemed like a gross violation of civil liberties, not to mention abuse of the Yiddish language. But Sam supposed after SHIELD’s whole helicarriers of Big Brother and Death and having HYDRA’s same agenda of mass destruction fiasco, really, the world was probably still in better hands. “That and my dick’s so hard it hurts and I’m so wet I may as well’ve pissed my pants.”

Oh. And, yeah. Wow. Okay, then. Definitely a heat, then. It was sickly and sweet and so, so much sex and so strong it was nauseating and Sam might just have to hurl.  At least Barnes had paused the game. And Sam could dimly make out the sound of Steve killing the Harley’s engine over the caucaphony of Russian/Sokovian/Yiddish rap death metal hybrid and distant, probably now-permanent tinnitus. Thanks, Barnes.

“Buck—?” Steve called from the garage. “Hey, Buck?”

And Bucky Barnres, super-soldier assassin and general pain in Sam’s ass made a whimpering, pleading little sound like a kitten or a baby goat or something and Steve swept into the room all Alpha and Imposing and flashed Sam a look that promised DEATHPAINMURDER—

“Oh,” Steve said, and that terrible scent of alpha angerragejealousyprotection wafted away. “Hey, Sam.” Dude even did a cute little embarrassed wave and everything.

Sam had, well. Sam was suddenly grateful for all the Alpha and Omega smells. Given he had maybe pissed his pants. Or shat himself. Just a little.

“Uh, hi, Steve,” Sam said. And maybe squeaked. Just a little. Barnes made that mewing sound again, and oooh, shit, Sam did NOT want to be present for what happened next—

But what happened next was surprisingly not the Alpha/Omega internet porn he’d expected. Steve swooped over, scooped his mate up bridal-style, brought Barnes’ tearing face to his neck to Scent, squeezed the glands dripping down the back of both their necks, and Barnes went from anxious, helpless squirming and mewling to spastic with bliss, then relaxed boneless in Steve’s arms.

“Hey, Buck,” Steve said. Put his mate down on the erstwhile blanketfort/den/thing. Stripped his own scent-stained shirt over his head and tented it gently over his mate’s sleeping face.

“Sorry,” Steve said, abashed. “Wish you didn’t have to see that. I, uh—“

“Wait—“ Sam said. “That’s…it—?!”

Steve stared at the floor. “It’s uh, I um, yeah—?“

“No, I mean, dude is in full-blown, serious heat and you just, what—?” Sam gaped.

“It’s the smell,” Steve tried to explain, flushing furiously. “The um, hormones? Obviously. I mean, uh, that’s why we Scent? I guess sex would work, too. If—if you wanted.”

“So what, that’s like, a mated-pair thing?” Sam asked, grossed out but also legit curious. Just how much of his state mandated sex ed was a complete and utter fucking lie—?

“No—?” Steve asked/said. Sam wasn’t really sure.

“But—“ Sam protested. But, Sam’s brain protested. “But—“ Sam’s brain and mouth were stuck on a permanent loop of does not fucking compute, apparently. “But—“

“No, that’s just a bunch of Alpha-centric sexist nonsense, isn’t it?” Steve said, leaning forward to caress his mate’s hair fondly. “When the laws are written and enforced by alphas, when science is discovered by alphas, reported by alphas…well, it just benefits…alphas. It’s not that heats and ruts and hormones aren’t a thing, Sam. It’s just…it’s just never as out of control as people like to claim it to be, is all.”

“No, no wait. Back up a second. Are you telling me, Captain America, Mr. I got frozen in the mid-forties before the invention of hormonal heat suppressants that my enlightened,  scientific, civil rights-era earned public school sexual education is still all a lie—?”

Steve blushed. “Uh…not all of it? I mean, oxytocin had been discovered and stuff when I was a kid but no one had ever, um, tied it to um, scent-receptors and touching and orgasm and stuff before. It was just…babies.”

Sam was talking Rape Culture. Steve Rogers was talking fucking biochemistry.
…literally.

Sam sat down on the blanket fort next to a peacefully slumbering Barnes and laughed his damn black ass off.

“Uh, I guess people still aren’t used to Captain America talking so candidly about sex—?” Steve wondered, pulling on a clean shirt, folding hims arms around himself and flopping into the leather lazy boy across from the them. Dude was jacked as hell, dripping in scent and sweat, and what,  embarrassed about it?  Sam was no small specimen himself, but damn, did Steve Rogers bring a whole new meaning to the term body-shaming. Not to mention self-doubt.

“I mean, it’s one of the first questions I had. As a kid, When I first presented,” Steve shrugged. “Why is it that forcible knotting and unwanted pregnancies can occur, but a bonding bite can’t be forced? That you can rape someone—forcibly have sex with them—but never actually Mate?”

And that shut Sam right the hell up. “I, um. I guess I’d never really thought about it like that before. It’s more, just…we’ll it’s always blame the Omega, isn’t it? They were asking for it, they must’ve wanted the pregnancy, they should’ve known better to go off suppressants or come out in heat—“

“People’ll known that for centuries. Millenia, really. I just wanted to know if people actually, well. If they’d thought about it.”

“So wait,” Sam said. “So you’re telling me—Mr. My Ma Fought for Omega RIghts and Equality—you’re telling me all our attitudes about sex are wrong—?”

“Well, yeah. I mean, that’s the real shame about hormonal heat supplies and suppressants, isn’t it?” Steve sighed. “The science was discovered and advanced before heats and ruts were ever really understood. Kinsey didn’t begin to publish until the late 1940’s, and society really didn’t accept that science until the 1960’s—“

“Did…did you just quote the fucking Kinsey Report at me?” Sam asked, in a bit of a daze. Sexual Behavior in the Human Alpha. Followed up five years later with Sexual Behavior of the Human Omega. And, like usual, your standard Beta-erasure. Kinsey scale 3, Sam’s fine black ass.

Steve shrugged. “It is one of the defining works of the twentieth century. One of the first things I read out of the ice. Ma would’ve loved it.”

“Wait wait wait. Slow down a second. SHIELD gave you the fucking Kinsey Reports in their little ‘Welcome to the Twenty-first Century Sorry You Froze Everyone and Everything You Know is Dead” Packet—?” Sam was as liberal as it got without the societal norms of living in, say, Finland for example, but what the actual hell—?

Steve sunk deeper into the Lazy Boy, maybe hoping the upholstery would take mercy and swallow him whole. “Uh, no. I um, I actually googled that.”

Sam was pretty sure he’d have to call a winch to get his jaw up off the floor ever again. “Wha—ah-wha—?” He managed to garble.

“Well, for one, my mate was dead, and Peggy was old—“ Steve flushed. “I didn’t know if I was ever going to be able to bond again—“

“You read the Kinsey Reports because you wanted to bond again—?” Sam sniggered. “That’s not exactly why they were written.”

Steve frowned. “I just—needed to know.”

And that thought sobered him. “Oh, Steve, you’re not still—Catholic—are you?”

“Of course I’m Catholic!”

“No, I mean, like, you do know casual sex—just sex, you know, not Mating, not Bonding—you know that’s a thing, right?”

All that righteous anger drained and Steve looked just so. Damn. Tired. “Sam…ever since I got this body I’ve known that was a thing,” Steve sighed. “When I was just me, no Omega ever had the time for me. Wouldn’t even Scent in my direction. After Erskine, and the serum? All they smelt were chemicals. It wasn’t me.”

“So that really was your first kiss, huh?” Sam tried to inject in some much-needed humor from what Romanov had told him. “Since 1945, I mean.”

Steve rolled his eyes. “I was ninety-five, and my mate was dead, and the only other person I’d ever wanted to bond with was in a geriatric nursing facility, so—“

“Ha!” Sam said. “Peggy fuckin’ Carter—no offense, Steve. It’s just…man. Growing up. You were such an icon. I knew you were bisexual. I just KNEW it.”

“Oh, please, Sam,” Steve rolled those baby blues, more comfortable in this skin, this century, even, than Sam had ever seen him. “I’m tri-sexual.”

“Uh, tri—?” Sam asked. Because Barnes was Omega as hell, and Peggy Can’t Touch This Carter was (still!) the living definition of an Alpha Female.

…Steve sunk even lower into his chair in an act of defiance against the laws of physics and gravity. “On your left?” he asked sheepishly.

“Oh. My. GOD CAP!” Sam guffawed, slapping his knee. “I KNEW you were hitting on me! Everyone I talked to said I was crazy—!”

Steve went Red, White, and Blue like Old Glory. “Like I said, my mate was dead, well, I thought so at least—and Peggy—“

But all their noise had disturbed Barnes’ post—er, not coital but Scenting?—bliss and began to stir. He flexed his fingers, fisted bare toes, made that pathetic mewing sound again, crying for his Alpha. Steve crouched over, tucked the Scent-stained shirt behind his mate’s head gently like a pillow. Not that the dude needed it, or anything, what with the massive fucking blanket fort. Kissed his sweaty forehead. “Hey, Buck.”

“I’m fuckin’ furious with you, sweetheart,” Barnes slurred, blinking into awareness. “Where the hell are my goddamned heat supplies, huh?”

America’s All-Alpha superhero let out a little laugh. “I, uh, I got you some new ones, Buck.”

“What, tampons an’ shit changed since back in our day or somethin’? Barnes growled.

“Just—“ Steve pulled out a suspiciously inconspicuous small black shopping bag. The kind of discrete, anonymous packaging with matching, patterned tissue paper that just screamed “SEX SHOP” from a mile away. Real subtle there, Rogers. Sam’d be willing to bet there were already pap pics up on TMZ.

Aaand speaking of sex toys, cue Sam’s awkward exit out of here.

“What’ssin the bag?” Barnes slurred, rolling to his stomach to inspect.

“It’s for you,” Steve flushed, blue eyes adoring.

…aw, shit. Exeunt: blocked by a blanket-fort. Thanks, Shakespeare. So it wasn’t going to be your run of the mill Alpha/Omega porno, but still. Private moment. First heat. Long-dead, long-lost-recently-reunited Mates and all that. It’s not that Sam Wilson wasn’t happy for them, it’s just he really, really didn’t need to be here.

Barnes rolled his eyes. Stuck a hand in and—“Jesus H. Christ, Rogers!”

“You don’t like it,” Steve sat back on his heels, crestfallen.

“If I wanted heat toys I’da gone to a blue shop,” Barnes sat and frowned at the enormous dildo.

“They have this thing called internet, now,” Sam offered. Loudly. Just to remind everyone he was still here. Besides, if Steven Grant Actual Catholic Saint Rogers could google the Kinsey Report, surely, surely Barnes had discovered internet porn by now.

…yeah, Sam. And with a Mate like that, who needs it?

“You kids and your new-fangled gadgets take the fun outta everything,” Barnes sighed, flailing the head of that silicone cock in Sam’s general direction. “Sure I could look at dirty pictures here but seein’ it in person is just so much more exciting. An’ you know me, Stevie. I ever used toys before? Why’d I want some shit like this when I could just be with you?”

“I dunno, Buck,” Steve flushed and oookay Sam really, really did not need to be here for this. “You’ve been pretty fond of ‘em before.” He’d learned military signals in the Army, was even getting some basic lessons from Barton “are you deaf, I am hearing, I speak sign language, please, thank you, fingerspell his own name, etc.” but Clint had said he was an adult learner so those simple phrases and stuff would do unless he really wanted to get more serious and goddamnit, Sam. You had to be lazy and go with your first name only, didn’t you? ‘Cause TMI would’ve come in pretty damn handy (ha. Um, ASL joke. Ableist. Not cool, man.) right now.

Barnes rolled his eyes. “I was pretty fond of that dumb guy stickin’ ‘em in me, you mean.”

Alright, new plan then: osmosis into the carpet. Or wall. Or ceiling. Samuel Thomas Wilson wasn’t picky.

Steve sighed. Cupped a hand under his mate’s cleft chin. “I ain’t gonna be here all the time, Buck.”

“Yeah, yeah. I know,” Barnes sighed. “Aliens and shit. Ain’t the future just swell?”

Steve frowned, rubbed his thumb into Barnes’ stubble. “Do I work too much?”

“I’m sayin’ I’da read more Asimov if I’d known this was gonna happen,” Barnes shrugged, tucking that toy back into its bag. Thrust it back at Steve. “No, an’ that’s final. Never did use one without you, sweetheart. Just wouldn’t be right, sticking something in me that wasn’t you. Thinkin’ about anything or anyone that wasn’t you.”

“Buck, it…” Steve broke off. “it ain’t exactly a heat toy.”

“Oh, really? This big rubber knot?” Barnes reached a hand in that bag, snatched it again for emphasis. Thing was so thick it hardly bent, silicone or no. And the sight of Captain America looking completely downtrodden at the sight of a brandished dildo destroyed the man’s street cred. “Cause it sure as hell looks like a heat toy to me, Stevie. Big an’ veined and thick an’ look at the size of that knot,” Barnes whistled. “Now that’s a hole-killer for sure. Say, you sure that serum worked on your eye sight?” Then he licked it suggestively, gave a wink, the little shit.

“It’s mine,” Steve flushed.

Barnes rolled his eyes. Bopped his mate over the head with it. “Oh, so just ‘cause you bought the dick it’s okay.”

“No, I mean, it’s mine,” Steve caught his wrist, stopped the assault but couldn’t quite bring himself to look at him “I made it—I uh, I had it made—I, um, if you don’t like we, uh, you don’t have to—“

Wait. No. Wait.

…seriously? And Sam’s brain went and sent him a post card from Tazmania, that’s how oh-hell-no far out of here it was.

“You did what—?” Barnes gasped.

“It’s mine. I had it cast,” Steve flushed, chin tucked and throat covered in anxiety. “It’s—it’s my knot.”

“Oh, baby-boy, aleph, my gorgeous guy, c’mere. c’mon. It’s okay. Steve? Stevie? C’mon, doll face, look at me.”

“I just, I thought, it’d be…it’d be nice for you,” Steve muttered to the floor. “You know, to, to actually have a real heat, to know what it felt like.”

“Wait, what?” Sam threw caution and TMI and totally not here right now out the window with the baby. And the bathwater. And at this point probably the kitchen sink, who was honestly just feeling left out, okay?  “I mean, it’s not like he hasn’t felt it, I mean, he has felt it, right? Right? Guys?”

Barnes gave him The Look™ again. The shut up you schmuck or I will shut you permanently up one.

Sam should really just shut the hell up. But brain/mouth filter disconnect was at an all time high. “Really? Never? What? Why?” Then— “Oh, Steve…this isn’t…it isn’t one of your weird Catholic things, is it?” Sam wondered sadly. The whole “Tolerance” culture, that pernicious and still oh-so-harmful “my Sexual Identity and Orientation are how God made me but acting on those impulses is a Sin” thing going around the religious right.

“Says the Beta Baptist,” Barnes shot back.

“I’m fine being a Beta,” Sam defended. “Doesn’t mean I don’t have or can’t enjoy sex. It’s just, not, like, my biological imperative.”

“Yeah, an’ how’d you know it ain’t a weird Jewish thing?” Barnes snapped, gathering Steve up onto that haphazard pile. “Could be me an’ my religious principles.”

Steve snorted. “Buck, he’s known you long enough to know you ain’t got any.”

“Shut your mouth, sweetheart, and give us a smile,” Barnes slapped him lightly, just the very pads of his finger tips, put a hand under his jaw, thumb in Steve’s lips. “Seen and not heard, remember? There you are. Look at you, my gorgeous guy,” he crooned as Steve sucked his fingers. “So damn pretty.”

Sam opened his mouth to voice his objections.

…his brain was still on vacation.

“You got somethin’ you wanna say, slugger?” Barnes challenged.

“Not particularly.” And Sam slammed his mouth shut.

“Good. ‘Cause for a moment there it looked like you were gonna say somethin’ real dumb about gender roles and shit like that, and my baby don’t need that,” Barnes snarled. “Not in my house.”

Apparently self-preservation instincts were feeling felt out, too. “You’ve…really…never? Not once? Really? Why—?” Sam sputtered.

Barnes sighed. “You’ve seen him, scrawny an’ sick, everyone convinced he’s an omega, me an alpha, hell my first heat scared the shit outta me, didn’t know what was happening ’til this dumb fucker came chargin’ in to get me, took down a pack of the meanest, leanest dock workers in Red Hook, had himself his first rut and nearly died of an asthma attack on the spot—or was that your arrhythmia? or anemia? Point bein’, couldn’t really sustain a knot, let alone an erection back in those days, and hell, just gettin’ a blow job damn near killed him. So we made do with fingers an’ hands and heat suppressants, such as they were. Then the war, and the serum.”

“And what? You didn’t get the chance to ride that dick off into the sunset?”

“I fell from a train, fuckwit.”

“Yeah, but, but before…” Sam pressed.

Barnes rolled his eyes in turn. “We messed around some, sure. But his ma was a nurse. We ain’t stupid. Ain’t takin’ any chances.   Super-soldier serum, remember? There was a war on. You really think we were gonna trust somethin’ like fuckin’ condoms? Yeah. Not a chance.”

“But, but—“ Sam objected. “But they’ve got hormonal suppressants, and, and—“

“Yeah, and I happen to like us both just how God—and Erskine—made us, thanks. Don’t see how it’s any of your business how we fuck no how, Wilson,” Barnes sniffed. Make that Scented. “Now get out unless you wanna see and smell a helluva lot of hot, dirty, sweaty sex.”

And Samuel Thomas “Oh Hell No” Wilson did NOT need to be told twice.