Chapter Text
Steve didn’t hate society, and the forced roles that went with it. He didn’t hate himself, or his parents, or genetics, which would ensure that he was almost guaranteed to be submissive, weak, pathetic, and he didn’t hate the people who took it upon themselves to point this out to him at every turn in life—his alcoholic father, the kids on his street who would never let him play cricket with them, the people at school, minus Bucky of course—no, the only thing he really hated about all of this was that he couldn’t force himself to stand down to a stronger, more dominant Alpha-male when he had to, when he knew that if he didn’t, he’s have to walk home with a bloodied nose and a limp.
He didn’t choose the genetics that almost guaranteed him to be an Omega, not that that was confirmed yet anyway, he still had puberty to consider, until then, everyone was Omega, inferior, but it was usually easy to tell who would turn out on top.
The only person he knew that didn’t push him around for the hell of it was his child-hood friend, James Barnes. Well, everyone just called him Bucky.
Bucky hit an early puberty at thirteen, and for Steve, it was almost painful to watch his friend’s growth spurt, the change in his maturity, (the maturity bit was a little easier. Steve had always been rather sensible even as a child and early teen, so it was more of Bucky catching up to him in that manner), and the worst part, Bucky’s altered role in society.
No longer a child-Omega, Bucky stood in a position of power, at least until everyone else caught up with him. He was treated differently by, and acted differently around adults. They didn’t shelter him anymore; they didn’t really need to. Along with his growth spurt, his glands grew, or refined, giving him the hearing, smell, and taste of an adult, he could tell now, without having to overhear, or be told, who was Alpha, Beta, or Omega. He just knew.
Even as a Beta, Bucky got a little twitchy when an Omega in Senior Year was going into, or out of, a heat. Omegas were banned from school whilst on their heat. It was physically dangerous—Alphas became very aggressive when an Omega went on heat, and they didn’t make much distinction between Alpha and Beta.
However even after his change, Bucky didn’t treat him any differently. Bucky just stayed Bucky. That was an advantage of someone being a Beta. They weren’t as driven by hormones and pheromones and the need to mate, they remained more neutral, more open and less instinct driven.
Nevertheless, Bucky was always there to patch him up when he got his nose punched in.
Like right now.
“You know, you’ve been doing this for nearly eighteen years now Steve.” Bucky reached down, leaning on the bricks for balance, “I thought you’d have learnt by now.”
Steve frowned, and looked away, at the ground to check that he hadn’t dropped anything. “I can’t just back down to them though! It just doesn’t feel right.” Steve sighed, and carefully poked his nose. It wasn’t bleeding, that was a start. “I mean I’m the only Omega they’ve ever pushed around like this. Aren’t they supposed to be, y’know, nice?”
Bucky laughed, and wrapped his arm around Steve’s shoulder, patting firmly. “It’s just because you’re the only child-Omega left. Once you’re fertile, they’ll never look at you the same. And who knows? You might fill out a little whilst you’re at it!”
Steve poked Bucky in the ribs for that, and Bucky just laughed again.
Bucky steered him to the bathroom, where Steve could lean against the metal trough and clean himself up in the mirror before they went to class.
“You sure you’re going to be fine?” Bucky had to ask, he and Steve were in different years, Steve the year above, which made Bucky’s early puberty really unfair, y’know, because Steve was nearly two years older than him.
“Yeah, I think we’re watching a film.” Steve used the hem of his shirt to wipe the last drops of water from his face.
“Which one?” Bucky was lounging against the brickwork by the door, patiently waiting for his friend.
“Some of the Great War propaganda I think.” Steve shuddered. The war was past, so why show them any of the footage? It was pointless and quite disturbing, violent, but the others seemed to be perfectly fine with it. Perhaps it was the Omega in him talking, which was exactly why Omegas weren’t supposed to become soldiers. They were too soft, too emotional and susceptible to any Alpha who gave an order, turning them into potential hazards for their own team. Well, with use of suppressants, Omegas still managed to get into the military—they needed the numbers, not every Beta and Alpha was fit for, or wanted to go to battle, and Omegas lived to serve.
Betas made good soldiers, they were immune to pheromones, but had a part of the drive of an Omega—that they wanted to please their Alpha, their commanding officer, but they could keep their heads when they went into battle, they didn’t go into heat, they weren’t susceptible to any Alpha they weren’t familiar with.
Naturally, Alphas were the leaders; they were inherently built for it, all muscle with the want to be superior to everyone else, aggressive, possessive and strong.
No wonder Steve stood no chance when he attempted to resist the bullying.
“Sounds… fun.” Steve could hear the doubt in Bucky’s voice, and rolled his eyes. “We’ve got like five minutes, and I don’t want to get in trouble with the teacher. My ass is still sore from the last beating.” Bucky pushed himself off the wall when Steve walked past him, out towards the main building.
“You punched an Alpha in the face.”
“He was going to break your ribs!”
“Wasn’t worth it.” Steve jumped up on a bench as they walked past so he was taller than Bucky, and glared down at the Beta.
“Kept you safe.” Bucky grabbed Steve’s wrist and pulled, and Steve fell off the bench as they walked. “Well, you’re seventeen, nearly eighteen now. You’ll phase soon, there hasn’t been a person who hasn’t yet.”
“There’s always a first.” Steve pointed out. Steve ducked into the doorway of the nearest room—his classroom. “See you later.”
Class went down pretty normally; Steve sat three rows back, managed not to die via asthma when the teacher had him clean the duster for the blackboard, took notes when he had to, bit his cheek to avoid snapping back at the Alphas who kicked the back of his chair—he was too light for his weight to do anything, and was squashed painfully between his chair and the edge of his desk. They did watch the movie about the Great War, and Steve tried not to watch it too much, instead going for scribbling on the edge of his notebook.
And then it hit him.
His throat closed over, similar to one of his asthma attacks, and he slumped forwards a little, his fingers reaching out to grab something to pull him back to earth—the edge of his desk—and he forced himself to breath in. He was horribly aware that he probably looked ridiculous, gasping for air like a fish out of water, his body twitching like it was a highly-strung wire, and someone poked him in the shoulder.
He waved vaguely, I’m okay, and closed his eyes, counted to ten, breathed deep and calm, he could and had dealt with an asthma attack without his drugs.
When his breathing fit subsided, he was also hyper-aware of everything, the kid in the back row who was scrunching up a ball of paper, how bright and stark the film was against the projector screen, the roughness of the wooden desk, which had always felt so smooth before, under his fingers, and how heavy and restricting his clothing felt, the metallic tang of excitement on his tongue, and over all of that, the thick, heavy musky, slightly salty, overbearingly sweet smell that suddenly filled the room, clogging up his sinuses, probably what had bought his asthma on. His whole body reacted to the smell, and he felt that he couldn’t move, that he was crowded, boxed into his chair not just by the smell, but by pure carnal fear that something (bad) would happen to him if he moved and acted on the impulses sent by his body.
He clenched his hands into fists until his nails dug into his palms against the unbidden lust that swirled through him and tried to breathe through his mouth as best he could, blocked the scents out, locked his brain on something that had nothing to do with any of this at all. Like Bucky.
Oh God what he’d give for Bucky to be here to guide him through this. The first heat for an Omega was always rough, he should’ve been prepare—
He choked on his next inhale when he gasped. What if this was his first heat? Stuck in a stuffy classroom where he couldn’t do a thing, surrounded by Alphas and Betas and the rest of the Omegas stuffed down the back of the room—he could smell that they were Alphas, that was where the bulk of the musk smell was coming from, the salt and sickly sweet from somewhere else, probably him—any one of them could take advantage of him, control him, and he wouldn’t be able to do a thing, forced to follow his Omega instincts, they could do anything, and he would be compelled to submit, fall to his knees, spread his legs for whoever wanted him because an Omega couldn’t, wasn’t allowed to, say ‘no’ to an Alpha.
It could get them killed.
The smell was starting to get strong, way too strong for him, the musk and the sweet clouding into his brain, aided in there by his sudden panic, and it suddenly seemed very logical for him to bolt from the room, around the corner to wind up somewhere, shaking and panting and nearly crying, because the smell wasn’t going away so he had to be going into his first heat and now wasn’t the time! And his whole body ached with the unfamiliar desire to rut against something and when he looked up, he was standing outside a classroom, and he didn’t hesitate to knock on the door when the numbers on the plaque became coherent.
“Yes?” The teacher answered the door, Steve couldn’t help but blurt out ‘Bucky!’, before coming to his senses, taking in the strong, powerful smell of the teacher—he was only a Beta, his scent was more neutral and it temporarily overrode his heat and Steve could think clearly. Make up a lie.
“Sorry sir, Mr. Mayfield would like to speak to James Barnes please.”
The teacher took him in, took in his startled expression, the panic, the heaving chest and the sweat beading on the skin of his brow and neck, and probably Steve’s smell, and jerked a tiny nod, and opened the sliding door further, stepping aside to show the class, previously working on mathematical equations, but all of them were staring at the door, and the spectacle Steve was making, several of them fidgeted, probably as affected by Steve’s odour as he was, but only Bucky stood out to Steve, Bucky, who in a split second, went from calm to as nearly panicked as Steve was, but the only visible appearance was a slight pinch between his brows and eyes that darted around the room, almost as if daring an Alpha to step up and even try to claim Steve. Bucky could and would take them on for Steve, to preserve Steve’s honour and virtue. Steve didn’t feel like crying anymore, but felt like crying more at the same time.
“Thank you, sir.” Bucky said in passing to his teacher, ducking his head submissively to the elder Beta. The door almost slammed shut behind Bucky’s back, and Bucky grabbed Steve’s arm, dragging him away, out towards the oval at the back of the school. “What happened?”
Steve couldn’t find the energy or will to resist Bucky, either physically or mentally and let himself be hauled away, let his mouth run away from him, telling Bucky everything, from the asthma attack right up until Bucky started dragging him off, how he felt now, how he felt that he desperately needed something, what he didn’t know yet.
Bucky finally stopped at the back of the shed that housed the school’s meager supply of sports equipment, and put his hand on Steve’s shoulder, putting pressure down, trying to force him to kneel. Steve didn’t think about it, his knees just locked and he resisted bluntly, automatically, and his fingers clenched into fists again.
“No.” Steve was shocked with how his voice came out, harsh and demanding, since when had he spoken to Bucky like that?
“Steve, obey.” Bucky’s voice deepened a little, attained a little authority, authority that made something inside Steve rear up and fight back, and Steve unconsciously pushed Bucky’s hand off his shoulder. Bucky grabbed Steve’s upper arms instead, one bicep in each hand, and pulled him to the dusty concrete ground. “Just trying to help.” The brunette murmured, “I know it’s a little frightening.”
Steve huffed a laugh, forced his body to relax when Bucky guided them both to the earth, settled in Bucky’s lap when invited. “You’re telling me?”
Bucky grinned at him, and shifted so he was sitting with his back to the corrugated iron shed, so Steve was straddling his thighs. “This less intimidating?”
Steve only nodded, and didn’t think about much else, driven by a bone deep need to get as close to warm soft flesh as possible, that warm flesh being his best friend, he didn’t hesitate to think about consequences and what would happen between them after this? Bucky couldn’t bond with an Omega, not in the way an Alpha could, he just tugged at Bucky’s shirt, encouraging the Beta to strip it off before pulling his own off, letting Bucky’s hands smooth across his skin, his ribs, his narrow shoulders, just as his own hands greedily took in as much of Bucky as they could, scraping the backs of his nails across Bucky’s chest, the firm muscles, and the bones of his clavicles.
Bucky shivered under his touch, and Steve felt a little proud of himself, before letting Bucky press a kiss to his mouth, insistent and warm and Steve instantly craved more, even as his lungs screamed for oxygen against another impeding asthma attack.
Eventually survival won out and Steve pulled away, sucking air into his weak lungs and body, and he scraped his fingers through Bucky’s slightly coarse hair, scratching his scalp slightly around the edges of his ears, and Bucky leant into the caress, a slight noise on his lips.
The noise did something subtle to Steve, as did the slight, weak pheromones Bucky was giving off, and Steve rocked his hips forwards and down, rubbing their groins together insistently.
It didn’t take long to get them both off, not with hands pressing against sensitive spots and glands the incited the release of more pheromones, and Steve moaned Bucky’s name into the Beta’s shoulder when he came, and bit down none too gently to muffle the most of his cry.
That seemed to be enough to send Bucky over the edge too, and the brunette leant his head back against the shed, seemingly oblivious to the bruise Steve had produced on his shoulder.
“Is that better?” Bucky asked when his harsh breaths had subsided.
Steve was still shuddering a little, his skin crawling in unusual ways, but he nodded, trying to keep his lips against Bucky’s skin, breathing as deeply as he could past the ever-threatening asthma, breathing in Bucky’s faint but undeniably masculine scent. He felt a little lightheaded, but that could be because his heart was still going a mile-a-minute.
“You right there?” was Bucky’s next question. Steve just swept his tongue over the steadily blooming mark on Bucky’s skin, before leaning back a little to inspect it, feeling slightly smug (for unknown reasons) of his handiwork. He felt a smidgen uncomfortable, both he and Bucky had come in their pants, and it was a little sticky and warm and Steve almost wanted to do it again.
Almost.
“What are you doing?” Bucky glanced down, lifted his hands to drag them through Steve’s blonde locks, down his neck, to rest at the small of his back again.
“Not sure.” Steve hummed, slumping against Bucky. He felt stronger than he ever had before and he wasn’t quite sure why, but it was a nice feeling, and he felt that the feeling stemmed from Bucky, so he was just going to soak it all up whilst he could.
“Steve.” Bucky twisted his head as much as he could to see what Steve had been doing, licking his shoulder like that, not that it didn’t feel nice, the tip of Steve’s tongue dancing across his skin, it was just unusual.
“Mmm?” Steve snuggled closer, closed his eyes, but the rest of his senses were on full alert, or as full alert as one can be after orgasm, especially one of the most potent orgasms he had even had.
“Why is there… did you mark me? Why would you…” Bucky fell silent, and he hands tightened slightly on Steve’s waist. “Steve, you marked me.”
Steve glanced at the mark on Bucky’s skin again before resuming his comfortable and warm position. “I guess I did.”
“Why did you mark me?”
“I’m not sure.” And he wasn’t. He also wasn’t quite 100% sure why he wasn’t still a horny, sex craving mess right now. From what he had heard, the first heat turned every Omega into a jumble of chaos and pheromones and want. Maybe his weak body just didn’t allow it. That was possible. Malnutrition was one of the know reasons an Omega might skip a heat, or the heat might not run its full course. Something that produced so much stuff required a lot of energy. Much of which Steve didn’t have. “It felt right.”
“Steve, Omegas don’t mark.” Bucky drew his hand up and rubbed his shoulder, rubbed the mark thoughtfully, breathed deep through his nose, and then chuckled. “Oh my God I’m an idiot.” His chuckle degenerated into a laugh, and soon he was gasping for air, clutching uselessly at Steve for an anchor.
“Bucky.” Steve groaned a complaint. “This isn’t funny. I’m comfortable, I’m going through my first heat, just stop laughing!” Steve grabbed Bucky’s waist firmly, doing his best to hold his friend still.
Bucky calmed himself as best he could, tried to speak too. “Not…” Snigger. “Not heat.” Bucky broke down into a state of near tears of mirth, and leant his head back against the shed.
Steve only panicked more, and managed to complain in garbled whines.
Bucky closed his eyes, took a deep breath that nearly sent him into a fit of giggles again, and grabbed Steve’s shoulders. He cracked his muddy brown eyes open and looked Steve dead in the eye. “You’re not in heat.” He managed, as seriously as he could. “You’re not even an Omega.”
“What?”
“You’re not an Omega.” Bucky repeated. “They’re all going to have a field day.” He muttered that part. “Steve stop daydreaming, you amazing creature!” Bucky’s arms closed around him tightly, almost painfully, and Bucky rested his cheek against Steve’s shoulder. “You’re an Alpha! Oh this all makes sense now, why you let yourself get beat up instead of running, why Omegas stare at us, Steve you’re astounding!” Steve was puzzled, just a little. There was no chance that he was an Alpha… was there? Bucky was moving, and a growl was snatched from his throat before he could stop it. Why was Bucky moving? Was he trying to escape? Why would he want to escape? Bucky was Steve’s. Bucky froze, and Steve’s jaw dropped open in shock.
“I just… I’m so sorry, I don’t know why-”
Bucky clamped one hand over Steve’s mouth, and reached for his shirt with the other. “You’re running on instincts. Just try not to snap at anyone else. They’ll probably try to hurt you.”
Steve wanted to resist when Bucky put his shirt on, he wanted to stop Bucky putting his own shirt on, finding the skin-skin contact rather addicting and pleasant, but instead he leant down to press his lips to Bucky’s throat, took in the weak Beta scent, and that quelled what lust was still swirling around in him.
“I’m going to take you back to class, if you think you can handle it.”
“I can handle it.” Steve said trying to sound like he didn’t just come in his pants five minutes ago.
Bucky led him to class after tucking his shirt into his pants properly, and Steve started feeling a little apprehensive. What would his teacher do to him for just bolting like that? And the crap he’d get from the guys in his class. That would be just as bad, or worse than his punishment from the teacher. And would they smell the difference in Steve now? No, any scent he let off, even just after what he and Bucky had just done would be drowned out by the far stronger, and ingrained scent of students from years past.
“You think you’re going to be alright?” Bucky squeezed Steve’s shoulder, pulled him a little closer to the Beta’s body.
“Yeah, teacher will knock me around a little, but nothing I can’t take.” Steve leant against Bucky, having felt a little weak in the knees since getting up to go back to class.
“Need anything else?” Bucky asked, hand sliding away from Steve’s body. He shifted a little, following the touch, the warmth. Bucky took the hint and scraped both his hands through Steve’s hair, from hairline to the nape of Steve’s neck, pausing at Steve's ears, rubbing them between forefinger and thumb, Steve melted a little, and pulled the blonde close, into his arms and Steve pressed his face into the slight crevasse between Bucky’s chest and arm, where Bucky’s scent was the strongest, and pressed the palm of his hand against Bucky’s left shoulder, where the mark was. Mine.
“Go on, scamp. Get to class before someone sees us.” Bucky gave Steve a small push towards the door, and Steve opened it a crack.
“That’s not what you said before.” He commented with a smirk before slipping back into his classroom. He trailed his fingers along the wall on the way back to his seat, got tripped once, and received a stern glare from the teacher saying that ‘he was staying back after class’. He just nodded and shrank into his chair, trying not to think about the sickly sweet smell that was now associated with this room. The smell was just the same as before, muted a bit through Bucky’s neutral smell, but still enough to make his head swim, enough to make him feel short of breath.
The bell rang, loud and sharp about twenty minutes later, and Steve packed his things away, but waited for the teacher to approach him before leaving.
Sadly, the other Alphas in his class approached him before the teacher did.
“Aww, poor little Omega can’t handle the smell of another going into heat?” One of them jeered, leaning on his shoulders. So that’s what a heat smelt like, terribly sweet and a hint sweaty. He couldn’t fully understand what the others liked about it. Steve stiffened and shifted when weight bore down on top of him, feeling hedged in, unsafe, threatened. Bucky’s scent was fast fading from him, easily drowned by the thick, musky Alpha smell the others carried.
Steve jerked his head, no, once.
“‘S alright though, he probably wouldn’t handle his own first heat much better. Probably would hurl the moment he got the first cramp.” They all laughed, and Steve fisted his hands in the hem of his shirt. Bucky got beaten for attaching an Alpha, and everyone knew that he was a Beta. If Steve had a go at any of these Alphas, when his teacher thought he was an Omega, well, Steve didn’t know what would happen.
“Nah, wait a sec, he smells like Alpha.”
“So?”
“What if he’s had his heat and he’s mated?”
One of them laughed—the one leaning on his shoulders, and the guy pressed his nose into Steve’s hair to smell. Steve very nearly snarled, ears already flat against his skull. “Who would want to even try?”
Before any of them could say anything else, the teacher approached, and they all scattered, leaving Steve shivering in rage in his chair. The teacher squatted down in front of Steve’s desk, so he was eye-to-eye with the blonde.
“Is everything alright?” Mr. Mayfield, Steve’s teacher, was perhaps one of the scariest men in the school. He was also insanely strong—strong enough to knock around the misbehaving Alpha Seniors in Steve’s class, even though he was a Beta. Steve admired him for it, but didn’t want to be on the receiving end of his ruler.
“I just felt a little ill,” Steve lied, “and needed some fresh air.”
“First time’s always the worst.” Mayfield said suddenly, and Steve tensed a little more. Was he actually going to get ‘the talk’ when he didn’t need it anymore? “It wasn’t easy watching my sister go through her first heat.” Steve blushed at Mayfield’s forwardness, and Mayfield rocked back on his heels. “What I’m trying to say is if you need to take a few days off, just don’t come to school, alright? You’ve pretty much earnt it with your grades any way.” Mayfield stood. “Dismissed, Rogers.”
Steve bolted.
Bucky was waiting for him outside the room, and Steve nearly crashed into him.
“Well?”
“Mayfield tried giving me the talk.” Steve groaned. They both fell in step, heading away from the school, towards Steve’s place. “I think I’d have rather been hit over the knuckles.” Steve paused. “Maybe not, but he’s pretty much given me permission to take the next, oh, week off if I need it.”
“What, he can’t smell the Alpha on you?”
“Apparently not,” Steve suddenly remembered the guys from class, “the guys in class did though, and I nearly hit one of them when he smelt my hair.”
“Good thing you didn’t.” Bucky said. “You know we can have so much fun with this, right?”
“One of them thought I mated. Oh God Bucky really who would mate with me?”
Bucky shrugged. “I would, but we can’t.”
Steve snorted, and then coughed, “Right, yeah, well uhh… thanks?” Bucky would mate with him? Steve felt a sudden rush of everything, affection, joy, possessiveness. But… “Why can’t we?”
Bucky stopped dead and stared at Steve. “Pull your head out of the ground! Last male-Alpha-Beta pairing I heard about… well, it didn’t turn out pretty. It’s just not allowed.”
“Why?” Okay, so Steve didn’t get the chance to get out much.
Bucky leant close to Steve, and glanced around. They could, despite this apparent Alpha-Beta mating issue that really Steve thought was a load of bull, be seen this close because honestly, Steve passed for a really crappy Omega at the best of times. “There’s talk that the world’s headed for war again soon. The government wants a larger population, so if the pairing can’t produce superior offspring, it’s illegal.”
“That’s stupid!” Steve yelped. Bucky rolled his eyes. “I mean, if two people imprint, then why stop them?”
“It doesn’t matter.” Bucky shrugged, apparently totally unconcerned by it. “It’s not like we’re going to imprint or bond for that matter anyway. It would’ve happened already.”
“Bucky, I only just found out what I was today. Is that really enough time to-”
“You just found out that you’re an Alpha, and then kidnapped me to jerk off. I think you’d know.”
“But I marked you!”
“Instinct.” Bucky said quickly. “You’d’ve done it to anyone you care about.”
“Oh that list sums of you and you and oh, you. Because clearly mum doesn’t count.”
“Doesn’t mean that we’ve imprinted.” Bucky ruffled Steve’s hair, and Steve ducked away. “Well when the war comes I guess I’ll have to go.”
“Not without me you won’t.”
“Since when have you been interested in war?”
“I know I wouldn’t be able to force myself to sit by whilst every other guy I grew up with lays his life on the line for his country. I’d do anything to protect everyone here, because really, what do I have to offer to the gene pool?”
“Nerdy-ness.” Bucky deadpanned.
Steve sniggered. “Try dorky-ness.”
The both burst into laughter.
“Better than what a lot of others have to offer.” Bucky finally said when they stopped giggling. “We could use more people like you in this world.”
Originally, Steve thought Bucky was saying that to make him feel better.