Chapter Text
Robert has never had any issues with being an Omega before. He wasn’t some old fashioned freak. Anyone who thought otherwise had clearly never met him.
Even his dad was surprisingly calm when he’d first presented, cracking jokes about how he’d known his son was an Omega since the day he was sent to the principal’s office for punching four kids in the face at the same time.
“Most Alphas would’ve stopped to brag after the first hit,” Astral had laughed. “Not you though. You’re too scrappy for your own good.”
Robert had rolled his eyes then, but the memory felt heavy whenever he looked back at it now. A distant reminder of a time when his dad actually made an effort to connect with him.
He liked his life. Liked being the guy that nobody wanted to mess with, regardless of his designation. And sometimes, he wished his parents were still around to see that he was doing alright. That he made it despite all the bullshit that’d been thrown his way.
Even so, Robert’s instincts weren’t nearly as strong as the other Omegas in the office. He didn’t feel the urge to dote on anyone aside from his dog, Beef. He hadn’t gone into heat since he was fifteen, he had no desire to scent his friends the way Prism did, and he couldn’t even remember the last time he’d made a proper nest.
Lately, however, his lack of a nest was starting to feel more like a missing limb than a financial decision. It was becoming increasingly more difficult to fall asleep after work. So much so that he found himself abandoning his dinky little plastic chair in favor of tossing and turning beside his new collection of lamps every night.
Whenever he did manage to fall asleep, his dreams were plagued with visions of monsters so cruel they had to exist in the real world. People too evil and fucked up for his own mind to come up with. Turns out, his nightmares were a lot more vivid now that he wasn’t passing out from sheer exhaustion anymore (a true juxtaposition if he’d ever heard of one).
Robert tried his best to ignore his reawakened instincts at first. The way his nostrils flared whenever a member of the Z-team walked past his cubicle, or how some depraved, primitive part of his brain wanted to snatch all their discarded shirts and jackets from the locker rooms so he could finally curl up around something warmer than a sad pile of lightbulbs after work.
He hated how easy it would be to get away with it too. All he’d have to do was break into the locker room after everyone went home, hack into the cameras, and delete the footage of him stealing a bunch of gym wear, which was… a totally normal thing to think about. Yup. Not creepy at all.
Robert sighed, trying to shake the tight uneasiness lurking inside his chest. He kept tugging at his sleeves and shifting in his seat. Nothing he did seemed to get rid of that anxious itch under his skin. Every surface in his cubicle was too bare. Way too exposed for his liking. It made it impossible for him to sit still.
He groaned, scrubbing his face as he turned to Beef. “What is wrong with me?”
Chase snorted beside him. “You want the honest answer, or the corporate one?”
“Neither.”
Robert flinched when Chase yanked his chair back to make eye contact with him, the speedster’s black tea and lemon scent stronger now than it’d been all day.
“Well too fucking bad. You’re getting the honest one anyways,” the beta declared. “You’ve finally got some meat on your bones for once, but you still look exhausted as fuck, kid. You should check in with Blazer. Try to take the rest of the day off or some shit.”
He tried not to cringe at the way his own caramel latte scent soured into something akin to bitter coffee grounds, leaking out into the air despite the scent blockers he put on this morning.
“I’m fine,” Robert insisted. “Just had a rough night. I appreciate the concern, but I’ll be alright.”
Chase raised an eyebrow, but didn’t press any further. He knew how headstrong Robert could get by now, and if Icarus was going to aim for the sun anyways, then Chase wasn’t going to waste his time arguing with a man whose wings were already melting.
By the time lunch rolled around, Robert found himself eyeing a stray throw blanket through the gap in the conference room door. It was thrown haphazardly over the back of a chair, thinner than a worn-out t-shirt and fraying at the edges. The poor thing looked more like a sheet of dryer lint than a proper blanket, but something about it was just so… enticing.
Robert looked around to make sure no one was looking before darting through the narrow opening.
“I’m borrowing you,” he told the blanket quietly, folding it carefully and tucking it into his bag.
That should have been the end of it, but it wasn’t.
Robert started noticing everything the office had that his apartment didn’t: pillows, seat cushions, towels… Hell, even the stupid corkboard in the hallway triggered his stupid nesting instincts.
It only took a few more days until his lawn chair was layered with several stolen (borrowed) rags from the janitor’s closet, a glove he was pretty sure belonged to Visi, and a brown leather jacket that smelled suspiciously like firewood and spices. A small stack of Coupé’s books was growing by Beef’s bed. He’d even swiped Sonar’s stapler when the hybrid wasn’t looking, taking great care to tuck it safely into the corner of his new nest.
The real breaking point came when he took the chair.
The office had recently replaced a few of the old rolling chairs with newer ones, and the discarded originals had been shoved into a storage room “for later.”
Robert found himself standing in the doorway after everyone else had gone home, heart pounding against his ribs like a snare drum.
The chair was wide enough for him to sit with Beef cuddled up to his chest, both legs pulled up to his chest. It was cushioned too. Not to mention, safer than the one he had at home.
He swallowed hard.
“This is ridiculous,” Robert muttered, already dragging the nearest one out the storage room with him.
Getting it down the stairs and onto the bus was a nightmare. He hid his face in his arms during the entire commute, too embarrassed to face the quiet, judgemental stares from the other passengers.
It was all worth it once he got it inside. When that surge of wild, giddy energy buzzed beneath his skin as he wheeled the chair over to the corner with the rest of his stolen goodies.
A small part of himself argued that this was wrong. That stealing office furniture was, in fact, not acceptable behavior. But as Robert cuddled up to Beef on the floor, surrounded by old blue rags and other various knickknacks, he couldn’t deny that for the first time in fifteen years, he felt completely and utterly at peace.