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The last of Steve’s patience snapped along with the stick of charcoal. It was his own fault; he had been gripping too hard, pressing too hard, letting his frustration spill out through his hands and onto the page, as he tried to get the sketch to look something, anything like what he wanted it to. Not that he had been particularly invested in the sterile still life he had been working on, choosing to try and draw the first thing that caught his eye out of sheer desperation, but still. A bedside cabinet and lamp should have been within his capabilities. The snapped charcoal had left a large smudge, obscuring most of the paltry attempt. Of course.
Why had he thought this would be any different? That this one thing would be left to him? That this outlet from the old days, that had always soothed and relaxed him both before and after the serum, would have arrived in this century unscathed? He supposed he ought to be grateful it had lasted as long as it had, but just then all he could feel was the loss as he realised this last part of himself from before was as dead as the rest. There was no point trying to hold onto it. He was only hurting himself every time.
Frustrated, knowing that he was probably letting this art block get totally out of perspective but just wanting the voice saying so to shut up, Steve moved rapidly around the room, gathering up every art supply he could find and throwing them haphazardly into the drawer of the very bedside cabinet he had just utterly failed to represent. He slammed it shut. The whole unit shook in protest.
Someone’s overdue a heat. The words slipped into his head unwelcome and unbidden. Steve had heard and hated that jibe countless times, back in the days before the serum, back when he was home and understood the world around him even if he didn’t exactly fit in it, and the biggest problem was some swaggering Alpha who didn’t like some little Omega calling them on whatever bullshit Steve had been challenging that time. It hadn’t even been true, not exactly, not then. They just saw his stature and his frailty and his irritation and assumed. Except Steve wasn’t an Omega. Not really. He wasn’t anything.
His doctors had told him it wasn’t surprising. With his myriad of illnesses, his body was having a hard enough time just keeping him alive. It didn’t have enough power to spare to fully present a secondary gender. When he was seventeen and had made it through puberty with no obvious result, specialists had examined his half formed fangs, the slight, barely perceptible odour that constituted his scent, and recorded him as Omega on his paperwork. But Steve had never had a heat, never felt the urge to completely submit to some posturing Alpha, and definitely never had problems challenging them when necessary. Bucky had never believed a word of it, and every time the subject came up – usually when he was scraping Steve up from some fight in a back alley – shook his head and muttered darkly about Steve being about as Omega as he was. Bucky had, of course, presented as fully and obviously Alpha before he had even turned fifteen.
Dr Erskine had agreed with Bucky’s assessment. No true Omega, he reasoned, would be so keen to fight on the front lines that they would try to pass themselves off as Alpha on the enlistment form. They would be too scared, they wouldn’t be willing to fight. Steve had nodded along, pretending to everyone, including himself, that of course he wasn’t scared. Even if he was, it didn’t matter. This was the right thing to do. It needed to be done.
Then came the serum, and he finally had the Alpha body he belonged in, the body he needed to do what he needed to do. The perfect body, everything an Alpha ought to be.
But.
Not inside.
Inside, he felt the same.
No, not the same. Worse. Weaker.
Was it weaker, to just sometimes, when difficult decision piled on top of difficult decision, to have a tiny, guilty little part of him wish there was someone else to take charge?
Was it wrong, when he was feeling particularly tired or lonely, to almost miss being small?
And when he felt like this, caged and pent up by his own frustration, was it weird to wonder if a heat really would relieve it?
Yes, Steve reminded himself, throwing himself onto the bed. It screamed in protest, because Steve was an Alpha and big and strong and not built for curling into balls of self pity.
He stretched out instead, closing his eyes. It was hot, and he had a headache, and the two together were making him cranky. He would feel better if he slept.
He didn’t sleep. The clock on the wall kept ticking.
The problem was, there was nothing to do.
No, in fairness, that wasn’t true. When Toni had invited them all to come and live in the tower, she had made sure the place was essentially a playground. There was the gym, a rooftop pool with a hot tub, cinema rooms and game rooms, craft spaces and a library, not to mention what he was told was the best wifi in the world and a ton of gadgets. He was surrounded by every modern convenience and innovation. There was plenty to do. It was Steve himself that was the problem.
It had been days since the night stand incident, and he was still feeling restless and frustrated, unable to sit still or settle to anything for more than five minutes at a time. They hadn’t had a mission for weeks, and although it wasn’t like he wished for a super villain to attack, it was adding to his uneasiness.
‘Do you think we’re missing something?’ Steve asked Bruce one day, when they met in the kitchen. ‘Isn’t it too quiet?’
‘I like quiet,’ Bruce said. ‘Steve, you’ve been in and out of fights constantly since what, nineteen forty-two? Just relax and enjoy it while it lasts.’
‘I’m not sure I remember how,’ Steve admitted, cautiously.
‘It’s a skill like anything else,’ Bruce said, not unkindly, as he took out his phone. ‘There’s some great apps out there for meditation and stuff, I’ll show you.’
A few days later, out of sheer boredom, Steve was watching Clint and Thor play some video game. He felt twitchy, and although he just about managed to keep his seat, he couldn’t stop his fingers drumming on the arm of the couch. Clint lost the match, and turned to Steve accusingly.
‘You think you can stop with the drum solo, Cap? You’re putting me off.’
‘Then take your hearing aid out,’ Steve snapped. Clint laughed at the retort, but Steve sighed. There was no reason for him to take whatever this existential crisis was out on others, especially when he was the one intruding here. ‘Sorry, that was out of line. I haven’t been sleeping so great.’
‘Been there,’ Clint said, sympathetically. ‘Have you tried a white noise app? They always worked for me, back before…’ he trailed off, tapping his hearing aid.
‘I too have a marvellous app for the night time,’ Thor said. ‘It plays the sound of rain, or wind, leaves-’
‘So basically a white noise app?’ Clint asked, dryly.
‘Nay, much more!’ Thor protested.
Steve left them to it, walking out unnoticed.
Another day, he had been sparring in the gym with Natasha. It had helped, a bit, pushing his body, enjoying its strength, its speed, how he could move; but it was like the inactivity had turned his brain to mush. She beat him soundly in record time.
‘What’s it going to take to get you out of this funk?’ She asked, helping him up. ‘Do you need me to find you some aliens to punch?’
‘That or I need to eat a ton of pizza,’ Steve kept his tone light, not quite meeting her eye. She slapped his back in a companionable way, if a bit harder than necessary.
‘You need an outlet,’ she said. ‘Other than letting me kick your butt. You should ask out one of those Omegas from the admin staff that follow you around all moon eyed every time you visit Shield.’
Steve groaned.
‘What about Stacey? She seems nice.’
‘Everything she says is a euphemism. That whole group is like that, I don’t know what I’m supposed to say to them. You don’t need to keep reminding me about them, either.’ He fixed her with a steely look, which had absolutely no effect whatsoever.
‘But it’s hilarious. You’re so awkward. All they want is for you to do the a big, growly Alpha thing and give them a good-’
‘Yeah, maybe, but that’s not what I want!’ It was an overreaction and they both knew it, but all Natasha did was raise an eyebrow at him.
‘Okay, so what do you want?’
Steve shrugged. It was the most eloquent response he could muster.
Natasha rolled her eyes. ‘Seriously, you need to do something to let loose. I haven’t seen you drawing lately.’
Steve shrugged again, grabbing a towel to wipe down with. ‘I’m out of ideas.’
‘Ohhh,’ Natasha said, with an air of revelation. ‘Creative block. You’re doing the tortured artist thing. I bet you could get Stacey to pose for you.’
Steve folded the towel, shaking his head, and headed for the door.
‘At least get one of those colouring apps or something,’ Natasha called after him. ‘It might help. ’
Steve went upstairs and turned his phone off, throwing it into the drawer with his abandoned art supplies. Not everything could be solved with a damn app.
When Toni knocked on his door a few evenings later, Steve was napping.
Well, okay, not napping. He’d never been a good sleeper and even less so, these days. What he was actually doing was lying awake in bed, trying to sleep. Except no matter how much he tried to empty his mind, it insisted on filling back up again, so what he was actually actually doing was lying in bed and brooding.
It was loneliness, he realised, or something like it. Grief, maybe, or a melancholy nostalgia. He cared deeply for the friends that made up his team, and knew they cared for him in return. Otherwise they wouldn’t keep recommending apps for his bad mood. That was more of the problem, he supposed. Modern technology was wonderful; so helpful and convenient and generally speaking he’d embraced it whole heartedly, but sometimes, sometimes the disconnect startled him. No, it wasn’t fair to say it was the cause of his mood, but sometimes he just missed the simple and familiar things of his past. He’d been here long enough now that he was truly, honestly settled, comfortable, even happy but sometimes – sometimes –
Dammit. He was homesick, plain and simple. Homesick for a place and time that no longer existed, for people that were no longer around. Even now, when it had been literally more than a hundred years since she passed, he missed his mother. He could still picture her so clearly, and wondered how she would react to the modern marvels around him.
He wondered if she would even recognise him. She’d never known him in this body, as an Alpha. What would she have thought of him? If she came back tomorrow, would she still have insisted on greeting him with a hug and a kiss, now she wouldn’t be able to reach his cheek or get her arms all the way around him?
Steve rubbed his forehead in frustration. He was being as ridiculously sentimental as a self-published historical romance e-book bought for a dollar on Amazon. What the hell was wrong with him? And more importantly, how could he snap himself out of it?
Toni knocked on the door then, letting herself in just as he finished the thought, turning up like the answer to his question.
‘Oh,’ she said, frowning. ‘I didn’t think you were here.’
‘I am,’ Steve said, quickly sitting up. ‘Why did you come in if you didn’t think I was here?’
‘Just making sure,’ she said, examining him critically. ‘Were you asleep? Is that why you didn’t respond on the group chat?’
Why do we even have a group chat? Steve wanted to ask. We literally live in the same building. Instead, though, he just said ‘Sorry, my phone’s off,’ which wasn’t a lie, after all.
Toni was still giving him a weighing look, the sort that made him feel like she saw right through him. More commonly known to the world as Natasha Antonia Stark, she had been very chagrined when, despite there only being two women on the team, both of them happened to be called Natasha. After trying out various names and nicknames, she had finally settled on going by her middle name, shortening it to Toni.
‘We’re just starting a movie,’ she said. ‘Want to come?’
Getting out of his own head for two hours or so sounded like a lifeline. On the other hand, sitting still and trying to be normal for two hours sounded like hell. He hesitated.
‘One sec,’ Toni said, and left.
Wondering what the hell she was up to, Steve got up and went over to the mirror on his wall, hastily tidying up his hair. Not for Toni. Just she always looked so perfect it made him realise he needed to pull himself together.
‘Primping? For me?’ Her voice came from the doorway where she stood, a paper shopping bag in hand, and he whirled round, seeing her grin at him with the barest flash of fang that somehow raised goosebumps on his arms. “You shouldn’t have. I quite like you dishevelled.’
Was that a euphemism? Was she flirting? Steve had no idea where to look or what to say, and his stomach was full of twittering birds but – he forced himself to calm down. She was just teasing, fooling around. Anyway, Alphas did not get twittery bird feelings over other Alphas. And when Toni threw herself without ceremony onto his abandoned bed – his bed! – and beckoned him over, he went and sat beside her to be polite, not because of some primal instinct to obey, to be good for his Alpha, to submit to whatever she wanted, to make her pleased with him, to make his Alpha happy –
Oh, hell.
Oh no.
He was in real trouble.
This wasn’t possible.
‘Here,’ Toni said, dropping the bag into his lap. ‘Got you something.’
Mystified, Steve reached into the bag, gratefully accepting the distraction from his spiralling thoughts. His fingers brushed something soft, and he pulled out a small ball of yarn, in what Toni would call an aggressive fire engine red. He shot her a questioning look, but she merely tilted her head, indicating he should continue. Going back to the bag, he pulled out a zipped case (also aggressive red) and finally a glossy looking book. He turned it over so he could see the title, which was Learn to Knit in 24 squares. Beneath it was a picture of a cosy looking patchwork knitted blanket, each square a different colour and pattern.
‘Okay, there is a logic here,’ Toni said, before he had chance to speak. ‘I noticed, I mean, we all noticed, that you’ve been a bit glum lately. Bit frowny. Like the stick up your butt is wedged extra tight.’ Steve cocked an eyebrow at her and she hastily carried on. ‘Frustrated, basically. And I know you usually let off steam doing art. Sketching or doodling in a meeting or when we’re watching TV. And you haven’t been doing that lately, so I figured you needed an outlet. Creatively. A creative outlet. That’s engaging but doesn’t need that much imagination. Not that you aren’t imaginative, just I figured you were blocked right now. So I figured maybe something new…’
Her speech finally stuttered to a halt. Had she actually been nervous? Steve smiled at her, hoping his cheeks weren’t as red as the heat in them suggested.
‘Thank you,’ he said, as sincerely as he could. Honestly, he had no idea if he would even like knitting, but the kindness and thought that had gone into it was undeniable. He opened the book, skipping the introduction for now and moving to the first set of instructions, scanning them. It didn’t look too difficult. If nothing else it would be something to keep his hands and brains occupied. He reached for the case, opening it to reveal what he could only assume was a full set of metal knitting needles, each pair held in place by an elasticated band of material half way down their length. The width of them varied, each pair labelled with a number engraved into the stub at the end. Underneath them were some further accessories, including a measuring tape and a pair of scissors, as well as some shorter lengths of metal, some ending in a small hook and some pointed at both ends, the purposes of which Steve could only guess. He ran his hands reverently over the pristine set, feeling more or less the same way as he did when he got a new set of paints or box of charcoal, admiring the potential there, the strange, untouched beauty of it.
Toni plucked the scissors out. While he had been lost in admiration, she had been unravelling a small length of yarn from the ball, wrapping it around her fingers. Now she cut it free, and selected a set of needles from the middle of the set. Raising his eyebrows at her, Steve asked ‘What about your movie?’.
Shrugging, Toni set the book in his lap. ‘Didn’t seem like you were going to move anytime soon. Anyway, no harm in trying something new. Now, how do we do this?’
Trying to ignore the birds starting up in his stomach again, Steve examined the pictures, diagrams and instructions, reading them out to Toni. As she lent over to look, they couldn’t help moving closer and closer together. He could never put a name to the notes of her scent, but they always put him in mind of oil and coffee, and walking on a path laden with pine needles just when the sun was coming out after a shower of rain.
Yup, just totally normal thoughts for one Alpha to have about another Alpha.
Fortunately, the knitting was engaging enough to distract him. The first square was made up completely of knit stitches, the book explained, and was called a garter stitch, followed by the full instructions. By the time he got to his first proper row, Steve felt like he had almost mastered the knit stitch just from using it so many times to cast on.
Toni, however, had made more of a tangle than anything recognisable.
‘How are you meant to learn from static images?’ She grumbled. ‘This would be much easier from YouTube. But nooo, you have to be all old fashioned about it and prefer books.’
Steve had never told her that. The birds were back.
As it turned out, Steve did like knitting. He liked it a lot, actually. The repetitive movements were soothing, and although he didn’t lose himself in it the way he could with his art, it took just the right amount of concentration. Toni had been right, as always. It had been what he needed right now.
He was getting better at it, too; at least he thought he was. His latest square was at least coming out square-shaped, whereas the others had come out more sort of rectangular because he’d dropped or gained stitches or hadn’t done enough rows. His garter stitch square had some small holes, his seed stitch square had some sections that had somehow turned into a stocking stitch and his beautiful double rib square had a kink in it where he had somehow come out of line. The red yarn had run out half way through the second square, stocking stitch, and he hadn’t been able to get any more the same colour so he’d ended up switching to blue. The book didn’t include instructions for colour change so Steve had tried to follow YouTube and it had gone badly, the join an ugly, lumpy mess. No-one would really call any of his attempts beautiful, but Steve didn’t mind. He enjoyed the process of knitting in its own right; the rhythm of it, the swish and click of the needles, the soft yarn growing beneath his hands, the way each square could have a different pattern just from the direction you put the needle through each stitch. How the first knitters had figured it all out Steve couldn’t guess, but he was glad they had.
It was probably someone like Toni, he decided, a genius who just understood things without trying. But not of course Toni herself, because, as it turned out, she did not understand knitting at all. After her disastrous first attempt she had refused to pick up the needles again, but Steve had found her glaring at his squares (rectangles) more than once, trying to unravel their secrets.
Unravel. What a terrible pun. Steve was going to remember that and unleash it on the team when it would cause the most annoyance.
The thought made him smile, but also reminded Steve that they were supposed to be having a team dinner together tonight; Toni’s turn so some sort of take out. It would be informal enough that he could take his knitting with him, so he gathered up needles and yarn and headed for the largest of the Tower’s kitchens. He was reaching for the door handle when he heard Nat’s voice.
‘Think Steve will bring the knitting to dinner?’ She asked. Normally, Steve would have walked in at this point and taken the resultant ribbing, but something in her tone made him pause. To most of the world, the question would have sounded completely casual, but he thought there was something, some slight inflection, that indicated an undercurrent of seriousness. Or was he overthinking it? Clint would have been able to say for sure, but Steve still didn’t know Natasha quite as well as he did. All the same, he thought he heard something.
He’d hesitated long enough that Toni was now replying, and he was officially eavesdropping. Oops.
‘Probably,’ Toni laughed, sounding pleased. ‘I guess it’s replaced the pencils he always used to carry around. Hopefully a temporary thing, I always enjoy the cartoons he draws of Fury when he’s bored in a debrief and thinks it looks like he’s taking notes. I’m not sure he could render that in wool.’
‘Maybe not,’ Natasha replied, and Steve heard it again – the micro pause that anyone would miss if they didn’t know her so well and weren’t listening for it, the catch that suggested she wasn’t anywhere near as careless about this conversation as she appeared to be, before she carried on. ‘Knitting is kind of an unusual hobby, though, for an Alpha.’
Steve’s hands inadvertently tightened around the yarn in his hands, the half finished square. This one was some delicate ‘lace knitting’, it involved deliberately dropping and recreating stitches to make a fragile, intricate pattern of holes and stitches. At least it was supposed to be; Steve hadn’t quite got the hang of yarn overs yet and his holes seemed much bigger and less tidy than the ones on the picture in the book. The knitting looked absurdly tiny in his huge hands.
‘Yeah, well, we’re all unusual,’ Toni’s tone was guarded now. ‘And like I said, probably only temporary.’
‘Still,’ Natasha argued. ‘It’s soft, literally and metaphorically. Domestic, artistic, quiet… I’m not saying it wasn’t a good idea, but it’s an unusual gift for an Alpha. Especially from another Alpha.’
Silence fell. Steve’s heart was pounding, but his brain had stuttered to a halt. Oh no. The sense of challenge seemed to be pouring out around the door and he could imagine them, squaring up to each other, showing glints of fangs, warning the other to go no further. He could feel anger warring with embarrassment in the pit of his stomach. Part of him wanted to go in and pull the two of them apart, bark some orders at them and stop this escalating any further. Part of him wanted to run back to his room and pull the covers over his head. What the hell was wrong with him?
‘You’ve noticed it too,’ Toni muttered finally, and Steve heard her loudly clattering mugs and slamming cupboard doors, making coffee with unnecessary force. ‘Should’ve known.’
‘What I’ve noticed is that you’re interested in him,’ Natasha replied bluntly. ‘He’s not the kind you can just have a fling with, Toni.’
Another long pause. Now the atmosphere of challenge had dissipated somewhat, Steve’s urge to flee was getting stronger, but he couldn’t let himself. Toni was interested?
‘Who says I just want a fling?’ Toni asked. The birds in Steve’s stomach were so loud and active he was surprised he wasn’t spitting up feathers.
‘Relationships between Alphas usually end badly,’ Natasha said. ‘Especially when one of them tries to nudge the other into a more… submissive role.’
A slam as Toni forcefully put down her coffee. ‘I’m not forcing him into anything! It was just a gift to help him get over his art block, a gift he obviously likes!’
‘But not a gift for an Alpha.’
‘Then maybe he’s not that much of an Alpha!’
Another silence. Even the birds in Steve’s stomach had stopped. Even his breathing, even his heart. Everything was still.
‘He’s a good leader,’ Natasha said. ‘Stubborn as a mule with a smart mouth. Good at giving orders, brave, ready to fight for what he believes in, physically huge. All very Alpha traits.’
‘Agreed,’ Toni said, her voice clipped. ‘But that’s not all he is. And I think you’ve noticed it too, or we wouldn’t be having this conversation, would we?’
‘He definitely scents Alpha,’ Natasha said, which Steve couldn’t help noticing wasn’t really an answer.
Toni snorted. ‘Yeah, the most stereotypically Alpha scent I’ve ever seen. Smelt. Whatever, point is, he smells like the body spray newly-presented and horny teenage Omegas buy from the dollar store to try and convince their friends they have an Alpha. It’s what someone would produce in a lab if they were trying to replicate the scent of the perfect Alpha. It’s what my dad and Dr Erskine thought an Alpha should smell like when they gave Steve the serum. But underneath all that, there’s something… sweet. Apples, maybe. Cinnamon or vanilla or something. I don’t know. Something not completely Alpha.’
‘That doesn’t make him an Omega, Toni.’
‘I don’t give a crap what he is!’ Her flare of anger was so palpable that Steve took an inadvertent step back away from the door. ‘What does that matter? I just want to know who he is. And I want him to be comfortable expressing that, all of him, every part. Not to cut half of himself off and hold back from what he likes because Alphas don’t knit. Steve’s lived his whole life under the weight of other people’s expectations. I just want to see him start living for himself.’
‘Good,’ Natasha said. There was an expectant pause.
‘That’s it?’ Toni said. ‘That’s all you have to say?’
‘I just wanted to make sure you understood him,’ Natasha said. ‘And respected him for who he is, whoever that is. And it looks like you do, so I’m going to let you go ahead and try to court him.’
‘I’m pretty sure that’s not up to you,’ Toni said, still bristling although her anger seemed to have lessened. ‘What would you have done to stop me if I hadn’t passed your little test?’
‘Torn your face off,’ Natasha said, matter-of-factly, and before Toni could protest added ‘So where are we ordering from? Steve and the rest should be here soon.’
Crap. He could hear it in her voice, the way she said his name. Natasha somehow knew he was there, listening to every word.
Nope. Steve couldn’t help it. He bolted.
Once he got over the shock of it, Steve had a plan. Or rather, he’d had a plan. It had been two weeks since he had overheard the conversation in the kitchen and Toni still hadn’t asked him out; so either she was never going to ask him to begin with or the plan had not only failed but completely backfired.
The plan was elegant in its simplicity: Steve doubled down on the knitting. He took it with him everywhere he went, he made sure that every time she saw him his hands were busy with it, knitting square after square, getting closer and closer to the end of the book. He’d hoped that showing her how much he liked the gift, how well she knew him, would embolden her enough that she’d decide to ask him. She didn’t, and Steve couldn’t help but worry that Toni’s conversation with Nat had put her off, that the knitting was too Omega-y after all.
He thought about stopping, abandoning the attempt, but he really did like knitting. Even if it didn’t work as a signal, he still wanted to do it – especially as he was so close to finishing the book. The pile of finished squares that he didn’t know what to do with was piling up in the drawer of his bedside table, and he only had a couple of pages of the book left; the last square. It seemed symbolic. If Toni still hadn’t asked him out by the time he completed the last square, he would take the hint and give up. Or maybe he’d ask her out himself. It depended, he supposed, on whether he was feeling more Alpha or more Omega that day.
Except, honestly, the terms didn’t mean much to him. Steve’s lived his whole life under the weight of other people’s expectations, Toni had said, and as he had thought over those words Steve had realised she was right. Before the war, before the serum, he had chafed against the behaviour expected of Omegas, disliked the label put on him and everything it implied. Then, after the serum, it had been the pressure to be the perfect Alpha, the perfect soldier, the perfect leader, the perfect symbol; in short to be perfect. And it was only recently that he had realised how much trying to meet those expectations had coloured his mind set, bleeding into every part of his life like water colour paint let loose on a wet canvas. Back when his paperwork had said Omega, Steve had fought furiously against the limitations everyone tried to impose on him, but as soon as he’d been recognised as an Alpha, he’d set the limitations himself. He’d been too worried about the persona caving in around him, of people being disappointed, of not being good enough, perfect enough, Alpha enough. Back before his art block, when he used to sketch and doodle all the time, even then he had been fighting voices in the back of his mind telling him that he shouldn’t be doing it, that Alphas ought to be practical, not creative; that he shouldn’t be wasting time on frippery.
And then Toni had given him a book of knitting patterns and a set of needles.
I don’t give a crap what he is, Toni had said. I just want to know who he is.
Steve wanted to know that too, but he thought he was finally beginning to figure it out.
He was an Alpha who liked to knit, an Omega that wanted to take charge, an Alpha that saw the beauty and value of fripperies, an Omega that could bench press a truck. He was both Alpha and Omega, and neither of them. He was just himself, and that was enough.
A few days later, and Steve only had a few rows left on the final square. It was time to draw his line in the sand.
‘Jarvis, where’s Toni?’
‘Madam is in the lab, Captain. She apologises that she cannot leave her experiment at present, but says you may go down if you wish to speak to her.’
‘Alright,’ Steve said, getting up and gathering his knitting. ‘Did she actually say that?’
‘I believe the phrase Madam used was “tell him if he wants to speak to me he can either come down here or piss off”, sir.’
Steve laughed. ‘I guess I’d better go down, then.’
When he reached the lab, Toni was standing at the largest of her workstations, looking at a small laptop that she had cleared a space for amongst the scattered debris on the bench. She was typing with one hand and twirling a screwdriver in the other, with a second screwdriver tucked into her hair behind her ear. She was wearing work boots, heavy duty gloves and even, in a rare display of responsibility, protective goggles; but she was wearing them over leggings and a long grey vest that didn’t have any sleeves but for some reason had a hood at the back. The back of one of her bare arms was smeared with dust, oil and grime from where she had presumably rubbed up against something without noticing.
She was beautiful. As Steve entered, she held up a hand to stop him speaking.
‘Have a seat, Cap,’ she said, not lifting her eyes from the screen. ‘Don’t interrupt. I’m genius-ing. Five minutes, tops.’
Steve plopped into her abandoned swivel chair without a word and set to work. He was just about to start casting off when she finally turned to look at him.
‘Okay, sorry,’ she said. ‘What’s up?’
They were standing so close together. In this position, with him sat down, she was taller than him. Looming over him. His mouth went suddenly dry.
‘Um, I…’
I am not going to be able to ask you out, he finished in his head, miserably.
‘I finished the book,’ he said instead, waving the knitting at her like a flag. ‘See? This is the last one.’
‘Yeah?’ She smiled at him indulgently, her eyes twinkling. ‘Good work.’
Hell. Even that simple morsel of praise made his breath catch, a shudder pass through him like a reed in a breeze. He glanced up at her embarrassed, hoping she hadn’t noticed, but of course he wasn’t going to get away with it that easily. Her smile widened just a little, a tiny glint of fang showing. She bent down, meeting his eyes.
‘I’m glad you liked your gift,’ she murmured.
Steve couldn’t answer, his heart was in his throat. His brain seemed to be shorting out. He thought she was going to kiss him. He thought he might die if she did. He thought he might die if she didn’t.
His throat was making a strange, involuntary noise now, one that it had certainly never made before. A rumble? A purr? Hell, hell, hell.
‘You did so great,’ Toni was crooning at him, slowly leaning closer, flicking the loops of stitches on the needle that had gone limp in his hand. ‘I bet there’s no Alpha in the world that can knit as good as you.’
That brought his brain screeching back. Alphas definitely didn’t purr, turn to putty at the slightest compliment. They didn’t need to be crooned at, they didn’t – hell, when had he turned his head? – bare their necks to the first Alpha that smiled at them. An Alpha that hadn’t even asked them out.
What had he been thinking?
There were Alphas and Omegas. Nobody was both, no-one was in between. And he couldn’t be an Omega, he couldn’t, he couldn’t be so helpless and weak and small and powerless, sickly and fragile, good for nothing but to be fussed over. He couldn’t get back in that box. Not even for Toni.
He couldn’t play Omega for her. Not properly. He was just going to disappoint her, too.
‘Sorry,’ he blurted, nonsensically, pulling away. He wanted to run. He was a super soldier, the Alpha, he could out run her.
But he didn’t. He stayed. He forced his legs to stay rooted. Because he wanted this. Alphas didn’t back down from a challenge, didn’t get overwhelmed by their own spiralling insecurities. Alphas didn’t run. Neither did Steve.
‘Sorry,’ Toni hastily backed off, straightening up and stepping away, respecting the distance he was putting between them. ‘Sorry, Steve, I shouldn’t-’
‘I’m not an Omega,’ Steve said bluntly, though his heart was hammering. ‘Not really, not properly. I can’t be some perfect little Omega for you. I won’t.’
‘I-’
Steve mirrored her action from earlier, holding up a hand to stop her. ‘I’m not totally Alpha, either. I’m trying to accept that, but it’s going to take time. If another Alpha is what you want, I can’t do that, either. No matter how hard I try, I’m never going to be the perfect Alpha. I’m trying to be okay with that, and you would have to be okay with it too, Toni, if we’re going to do this.’ Her face softened and she was going to speak, but Steve carried on. He couldn’t stop now. ‘Because I like you. I really like you and I’d like to go out with you, but I can’t – I don’t – I can only ever be me, Toni.’
For a moment there was silence, probably as she waited to be sure he was really done. Then she smiled and said, ‘Sounds perfect.’
And, as it turned out, it was.
One morning a week before his birthday, Steve went into his room and found Toni sitting on his bed. Startled, she leapt to her feet, sending squares of knitting flurrying to the floor. Steve stared at her.
‘What are you doing here?!’ She demanded. She was still holding two of the knitted squares, and only noticed when she saw he was looking at them. She hastily hid them behind her back, pointlessly.
‘I came to get some new charcoal,’ Steve said, opening his hand to show her the stub he had brought up with him to dispose of. After he’d finished knitting the squares, he’d picked up his art again without thinking. Perhaps all he had needed was time. ‘Why are you here?’
Frantically, Toni scanned the room, obviously looking for some excuse. In the end, she sighed and stood aside. Behind her on the bed were the rest of the knitted squares, laid out in neat rows.
No, not laid out. Sewn together.
‘I thought I’d make them into a blanket for your birthday,’ Toni said. ‘But it turns out sewing is the worst.’ Mournfully, she picked up a corner of the mass of squares, lifting it from the bed, showing wobbly rows of large stitches making seams that were already unravelling.
‘Wow, you really are good at everything,’ Steve said, deadpan, as he threw the charcoal into the bin and wiped the dust off his hands. ‘Geniuses are amazing, huh?’
‘Um, rude,’ Toni complained, swinging the half-finished blanket up and around his shoulders. It didn’t even reach half way down his back, but Toni didn’t seem to care, taking a firmer grip on the ends and using it to pull him in for a kiss. ‘Fine, you can finish your birthday present yourself.’
‘No, I want you to do it,’ Steve said, taking the blanket off and thrusting it at her. ‘I want a blanket sewn terribly by you.’
‘Oh, you do, do you?’ Toni said, eyes dancing with amusement. ‘How very demanding. Are you a spoilt little Omega today or a big pushy Alpha?’ She teased.
Steve pretended to consider. ‘Both,’ he said, like he always did. ‘Neither.’
‘Both and neither?’ Toni echoed, fanning herself with a hand. ‘You know I never can resist a paradox. Fine, you’ll get your blanket.’ She reached up to pat his cheek before pulling him in for another kiss. When she spoke again, her tone was more serious.
‘Just be you,’ she said, like she always did. ‘Okay? Just you.’
This time, the noise in Steve’s throat that was neither rumble nor purr wasn’t totally involuntary.
And he kissed her again, just because he could.