Chapter Text
John remembered when he’d first realized what it meant to be an omega. He’d heard the word tossed around, sure, but it was mentioned with the same frequency by his handlers as the words “vulnerable to conjunctival injection” or “nuclear semi-resistance". At first, he’d figured that it was just another factor of his supe biology. Just another thing for them to study and poke and prod at until they’d sculpted him into their image of perfection. It wasn’t until he was fifteen years old that he finally understood.
Being an omega meant pain, pure pain. But it wasn’t like he was a stranger to pain. No, it had actually been the most constant, reliable presence in his life. Whenever he sat in his room (for he refused to call it a cell until he was much, much older and he could no longer deny the obvious fact) and wondered what his handlers were planning on doing to him next, there was always the comforting notion that the worst thing that could happen to him is that he would hurt. Hurt was fine. He was used to it. He had survived it, time and time again. Hurt was fine, it was proof that he was unkillable and strong and special.
But being an omega was nothing like the other experiments. The pain of his first heat was its own entirely. The deep, clawing ache in his chest and between his legs and thrumming underneath the swollen scent glands at his neck and inner thighs and wrists was foreign to him. No acid or bacteria had ever felt like this, ever felt so all-encompassing. And what was worse was that the pain didn’t stop at the physicality of it all-- no, that would be far too easy. John could almost feel a hollow in his chest when he breathed, could feel tears pushing at the backs of his eyes, felt every breath leave him and mourned its departure.
John had grown used to being alone in his little room. He was well-accustomed to his handlers watching him with keen eyes from the outside, and in the rare instances that they were not milling around his enclosure, the cameras on the ceiling were constant watchers, their red LED eyes not leaving him for a moment. But during his first heat, he felt shame for the first time since he was a young child, under those blinding lights, body running too hot with its first fever to keep a lick of fabric on him, his grief leaking from his eyes as he mourned the loss of something he had never known. He was incredibly, horribly, shamefully lonely.
Whenever John closed his eyes, he imagined someone on top of him, a warm touch poorly extrapolated from the handlers holding him down as they forced something or another into his mouth or restraints onto his flailing limbs. He blinked away unpleasant memories, letting this shadow figure embrace him as he spent long, frustrating days under fluorescent lights with the constant brimming need in his gut that found no release.
For the first time, John realized what it meant to be an omega. It meant being weak. Vulnerable. Lesser. It meant being acutely aware of how unloved you were, and your body reacting to it and showing the evidence of it as it cried out for companionship that would never come.
And somehow, realizing that was worse than anything his handlers had ever done to him.
His first few heats were allowed to play out, observed by his handlers with great interest. John could tell when they were coming from the ways his body gave itself reason to ache. He dreaded them more than anything in the world. Every time, he oh-so-valiantly fought against the urges, sitting on his hands and refusing to take off his clothes, no matter how high his fevers soared or his stomach cramped or his sheets stuck to his skin with slick.
Nobody applauded his efforts. They didn’t say anything when John’s strength seemed to be less than usual (and John knew they must have noticed; it was their job to notice). They didn’t even say a single word when John pulled his blankets off his cot and crawled underneath it again like he used to when he was a child, curled around one of the bolted legs.
Down there, it was quieter. Darker. John could pretend like he wasn’t being watched. And then, he could pretend that nobody would see the tears beading in his eyes and taking notes to present later. It was as paltry a nest as one could have, but it was all John had. It would have to do.
The head scientist at the lab, Martin, was a wide-eyed alpha who was always smiling and humming to himself as he worked, no matter what new torture device he was whipping up for John to face next. He was the one who finally sat down a few hours after John’s third heat had broken, unsmiling for once, and asked his colleagues what should be done about the “omega state” of their test subject. Of course, John was a spectator to this from his room, leaning up against the wall and still working through the aftershocks. He wanted to wash off the sweat of the days past, but more than that, he wanted to listen to this discussion. He wanted to at least pretend like he was a part of it.
The handlers debated John’s condition for hours— some considered shooting him up with enough radiation that they could remove his uterus, cut his glands out of his neck and wrists and thighs and surgically alter his genitals to reflect those of a proper alpha. Others suggested various forms of heat suppressants pills and implants and measures that would do nothing to him in the slightest, not if past experiments with regular supe drugs were any indication. One even suggested a CRISPR gene editing solution, but even John, with his limited scientific knowledge, knew that would be a risky bet with all the V running through his veins.
It was all discussions and experiments that John was used to, almost comforting in their methodical “problem, answer”, “experimentation, control”, format, until someone proposed something else entirely-- “What if we mated him to someone?” The question was posed like an innocent epiphany, but framed with the haughty tone that the handlers took on when they said something they believed would go down in history books.
The question was passed around from mouth to mouth, repeated and twisted and poked. John felt something curdling in his gut at the thought. He had very little concept of what it was to be “mated”, but if the handlers were considering it at such a length with those sorts of expressions on their faces, it surely couldn’t be good.
He had gathered it had something to do with stopping his heats, and something involving an alpha. And, mated pairs typically had children.
John wondered for a moment what it would be like-- having a home. A family. Children. It seemed nice. The kind of thing that he used to draw pictures of as a kid when they were testing his dexterity and fine motor skills. Once, they asked him to copy a picture of a house and a family on the front lawn. They had stopped giving him pencils long ago, when they realized he didn’t know his strength enough to keep it from splintering and sending it all over the room. They gave him crayons instead. John hated the texture of them, but he had persisted, hands shaking with the effort of not crushing it to pulp in his little hand. But he did it, as if successfully drawing a house with a dog and a mom and dad would somehow give him one.
They took the drawing away afterwards. Years later, when John became Homelander, he would try to track it down, only to find out that it had been sent to forensic crime analytics of all places. They had saved it, actually, but not in any condition that John wanted to see it in. It was scanned, mapped, cut up into a dozen pieces. They analyzed every scratch and line and crinkle of the paper to estimate the dexterity and strength of individual muscles in his four-year-old hand and the constitution of his bones. He had torched the drawing the moment he found what was left of it.
But in his long, difficult years in that room, the memory of that drawing was sometimes all he had. When he needed to fall asleep, or grit his teeth through yet another experiment, it was easy to close his eyes and imagine a strong pat on the back from a mustached, heavy-browed father, or the comforting hand of a pretty mother on his wearied head.
As his handlers discussed the concept of mating him to someone in earnest, uncaring that he could hear, John laid in his cot, curled up on his side, hand over his stomach. The little house in his mind beckoned to him, alluring him with its bright blue door and tulips on the front lawn that the dad was watering. His golden retriever was playing on the sprinklers on the lawn as always, bounding and smiling and panting. But instead of the smiling blonde woman that always played his mother in these fantasies, he saw himself.
The alpha they chose was strong. Or at least, he seemed to think so. He walked into the room, wearing a stupid cocky smile that didn’t reach his eyes and introduced himself as Surge. “But you can call me Damien, sweetheart.” He winked saying that.
John fought the grimace that took ahold of him and instead gave the man no expression at all. Strangely, that just made Damien’s smile even toothier. John decided that he hated Damien.
Deepa, the immunological researcher that usually ended up being the only one to tell John anything, had vaguely explained what he should expect. The alpha wouldn’t wear any blockers, so John would smell pheromones off a real person for the first time (the many canned scents he had been subjected to apparently didn’t count at all). The alpha would bite his neck. Nothing but his own lasers and radiation could pierce John’s skin, but the theory was that the pheromones would change something. Maybe his body was more omega than anyone had given it credit for.
Deepa didn’t tell him what they would do if the bite took. John had thought about it every night for the past ten days, wondering what it meant to be a “mate”. There was a couple in the lab that was mated to each other— a young alpha woman and an omega man that never quite looked John in the eye. They seemed happier around each other. In sync. Almost like continuations of each other’s bodies.
John watched them sometimes, especially whenever they had him locked in the radiation chamber. The two of them sat at a long lab table just outside the vault door meant to keep John from breaking out. But there was a tiny window, just big enough for the handlers to peer in and keep watch on whatever horrible position John had curled into to breathe through the heat and pain that simmered in his lungs and under the surface of his skin. When he found the energy to look up, he’d sometimes see the mated couple through the window— talking, sharing parts of their food, brushing a lock of hair behind an ear.
It was disgusting, how sweet they were to each other, like the entire world didn’t exist. In some ways, it was horrifying how the two of them could stand to smile at each other and run a soft hand down a shoulder when John was heaving up blood just a few feet away. Seeing them made John’s stomach turn, made him want to bust down that door and scream in their faces.
Because John wanted it.
Maybe this was his chance. Damien seemed to be a decent enough alpha if the handlers had deemed him acceptable. He was taller than John, though only by a few inches, and had bright eyes and blindingly white teeth. He was probably a strong supe, too. His arms were corded with thick muscle, and he carried himself like he thought the walls couldn’t keep him in. From the looks of it, he seemed to be at least twice John’s age, if not more. He gray hairs on his beard and temples, but John didn’t really know what a thirty year old or a forty year old really looked like. None of his handlers had disclosed their ages to him. But that didn’t matter to John, not in any real way. He knew that other children existed, but it wasn’t like he’d ever met one before.
This was going to be it. The mating would go well. It would work. It had to.
With that mantra repeating in his mind, John steeled himself and let his handlers position him on his cot. They moved his limbs this way and that and pulled down his shirt collar to expose the gland on his neck. They left after spraying the room down of any errant pheromones before retreating to their safe cubicles to watch the spectacle unfold.
John laid very still. The golden retriever and the little kid playing on the front lawn could be his. Damien seemed to be yammering on about something or the other, but it all went over John’s head. It felt like his brain was being held under a stream of rushing water. He couldn’t much feel or think anything other than be good stay still grit your teeth and bear it and then his mind would start wheeling through his mental book of fantasies, and well, then he was lost in his head, staring up at the stark white ceiling until Damien appeared above him in his peripheral vision.
“They want me to just bite you,” said the alpha, leaning over John.
He smelled fine. John had never smelled anything like it, so the novelty of the scent kept him from considering anything else about it. He would think about the incident years down the line when he landed in the Appalachians for the first time as Homelander and realize that Damien had smelt like the trees in the mountains there.
“I would rather take my time with these things. This usually isn’t how I operate.” Damien gave a cursory look over his shoulder, fixing the unbothered and unashamed gaggle of John’s handlers a cheeky look. “But y’know. What can you do when your bosses practically beg you to get a handle on their little golden goose for them?”
“Their what?” It was the first thing John said in Damien’s presence, and he regretted it immediately. He tried to sit up for a moment.
Damien just smiled patronizingly in response, pushing John back down with a hand on his chest. “Take it easy, sweetheart. This’ll be quick, don’t worry.” He paused for a second, watching to see if John would retaliate.
For his part, it wasn’t like John was happy with what Damien said. But maybe it didn’t matter. He swallowed down his anger and his shame. He had to endure. John was quite good at enduring.
“That’s it,” Damien said, and leant over John’s neck, his breath ghosting over John’s skin. A large hand came down to hold John’s cheek. He flinched against the sudden contact for a moment, but then relaxed into it. It’s going to be fine.
Damien’s hair was in John’s face, tickling his chin. It seemed like the lights were dimmer than what he remembered them being. The alpha pheromones were much more potent now. It felt like inhaling a fog. John couldn’t think straight for a moment, but then his brain felt strangely clear. He was acutely aware of all of his body, his breath, the flickering of his eyes. It was utterly overwhelming, how he felt the room’s air moving across his skin, and how the blanket suddenly felt like it was covered in nettles.
Damien dipped down with little preamble and affixed his mouth to the junction of John’s neck. John locked up instantly, as if he’d been touched by live electricity. Damien’s mouth was hot, searing across his skin as his lips locked over the sensitive scent gland. His eyes, which at some unknown point had closed to block out the lights, snapped open as he went rigid. Teeth scraped across John’s gland, sharp and intent on making him bleed. Endure it, John. Endure it. You are strong. The words did little to assuage his galloping heart.
He turned his head away from Damien just enough to catch a breath of fresher air, trying to avoid the pheromones exuded straight from the source. The teeth on his neck pressed in. Lightly at first, then Damien’s lips changed positions, trying to gain more traction. It was a sharp pressure. Anywhere else on John’s body, he was sure that teeth like that would barely come across as sensation at all, let alone discomfort, but his glands were soft. Weak. Just like all the other omega parts of him. Shame roiled up in his stomach.
Damien shifted, planting his legs onto the cot better, dropping down closer to John until they were chest to chest. John had never been that close to anyone. It was strange, being able to feel someone else’s heart beating, instead of just seeing it in their chest or hearing it. Everything was far too warm, and the smell of Damien’s sweat was overpowering.
The other supe pulled back for a second. “They weren’t lying when they said you had skin of steel,” he mumbled, eyes flickering up to John’s for a moment. There was something uncertain in them. It was the kind of look that the criminals pumped up with temp V to fight John gave him when he turned out to be much stronger than his gangly frame and neatly cropped blond hair sold him as.
When John said nothing, Damien huffed and leaned back down, this time approaching teeth-first. John could feel the older man’s jaw straining, closing with all its might, trying to break through his skin. His pheromones were raging now, covering the two of them like a blanket and suffocating John with their potency, forcing him to breathe out of his mouth. The frustration rolled off of Damien in waves, manifesting in little jolts of electricity that sparked off the tip of his fingers and ran over the tensed muscles in his arms. John flinched. While not enough to do more than annoy him and make him twitchy at worst, he’d been through enough tests to know that he hated electricity. His shoulder spasmed under the voltage where Damien had gotten a good grip on it for leverage.
“Let go,” John hissed. The pain wasn’t bad enough to bother him, but something about the way Damien was pressing him down into the cot made him feel like he was back in the radiation chamber.
“Just hold still for a second, kid,” Damien said, obvious annoyance dripping from his tone as he pulled back from John’s skin. The man’s mouth was swollen with the force he had been using to bite down on the gland, and the obvious frustration was written all over his face. Without waiting for John to respond, he dove back down, his hand moving from John’s shoulder to his neck.
“Let go,” John repeated, voice hoarse under the pressure. Damien didn’t seem to care. The teeth came back, now even more desperate as they tried and failed to punch holes through his skin. John was rigid against the cot, trying to hold back, trying to take a deep breath and be calm be a good omega this is going to be worth it you have dealt with worse before just be still be still be still--
Damien’s fingers pressed harder, stealing John’s breath. John heard a low cracking noise, and looking over with his x-ray vision revealed that one of Damien’s incisors had fractured across the middle, the fault line quickly spreading. The alpha let out a noise of pain and leaned in further, maw clamping down and jaw crackling under the pressure. More jolts of electricity danced up and down his body, and onto John, making it harder to breathe as his neck and chest muscles spasmed up against the older man.
John tried to swallow down his fear and disgust, tried to relax, tried to pretend that nothing was happening and like he couldn’t hear the panting in his ear and the smelling of singed hair and flesh but the pheromones in the air were heavy and thick and wrong and John just couldn’t get in a full gulp of air and--
He wasn’t sure what had happened, really. One moment he felt like he was being crushed, and then next, he was sitting up in his cot, looking down at this bloody fist.
Damien had fallen back towards the end of the cot, mouth open. His hand was hovering over his stomach-- or, well, what was left of it. There was a hole straight through him, and John could see the door to his room through the alpha’s abdomen. Damien gurgled out something; John didn’t quite hear or understand, but he felt the blood hit his cheek as Damien spit it up, groping for his eviscerated intestines as they spilled out of his open stomach and onto the bed with heavy, wet plops. Damien looked down at himself in horror, then back up at John with his bloodshot eyes. John’s handlers didn’t move an inch as Damien slumped forward at the foot of the bed, the broken piece of the incisor rolling out of his mouth.
John took his first deep breath in half an hour. The scent of iron was so palpable in the air that he could practically taste it. Thankfully, there was not a single trace of the scent of the alpha anywhere.
And now, John didn’t feel weak at all.