Chapter Text
Pat, his agent, is taking him to what is most definitely the most important meeting of his life. They are on their way to the commissioners office because at the end of the day, no matter how hard he’s tried and begged and pleaded with the universe, Sidney Crosby is undoubtedly an omega. He’s spent years being bullied and chirped for this basic fact, both on and off the ice. He’s the first omega to be drafted to the NHL, let alone first overall. And, as soon as he was, Pat had received a call from one of the commissioners' staff asking for a meeting.
They make it to the office building in Manhattan where the meeting is to be held and before they go to enter Pat stops him by grabbing his arm. He looks up and his agent has a serious, stern look on his face. The older man takes a deep breath before speaking in a tone that matches his face, “Sid, I have a feeling that this meeting is not going to go in a way we want it to. Ok?” He nods in response. “He is probably going to say something about you being an omega, but I need you to remember that you earned this. Alright?” Pat puts his hand on Sid’s shoulder. “Now when we go in there, I’m going to speak for you unless it’s absolutely necessary for you to reply. Got it?”
“Yeah, I got it.” His whole body feels alight with nerves, he hopes he’s not visibly shaking as much as he feels like he is.
Gary Bettman’s office reminds him of the office from American Psycho. It’s a bit bland and scary if he starts thinking about it too hard. He hasn’t honestly really been paying attention to what the man’s been saying, too busy trying to focus on not doing anything that could fuck up the start of his career in the NHL. “...which is why we want him to produce offspring now before he potentially makes it harder or even impossible for himself to give the league a future generational talent.” Wait, what? “I mean it would be a shame if we let him play and he got injured before he could give the league what he owns. Am I right?”
Pat puts his hand on Sidney’s leg, a sign to him to keep quiet and let his agent speak for him. “What if Sidney doesn’t want to provide the league and offspring?” Yeah Pat, good question, he thinks to himself.
“Well then, Sid doesn’t have to play in the NHL.” He puts an emphasis on the word ‘have’.
And that’s how Sidney at age seventeen ends up being forced to either give up hockey or have a child with a boy from Russia he’s only ever met on the ice. The commissioner told them they had half an hour to decide, and his mom cried the whole time he had called.
_/ \_
The first time he actually meets Zhenya is at Mario’s house. Gonch brings him over and plays translator for the two of them, it’s a good dinner. It’s strange for him how cheering everyone is acting, but yet he can still feel the dread in the air for what everyone knows will be shortly coming. He shows Zhenya his room, lets the other boy see the area they are going to be spending a week holed up in together.
The NHL have forced him off of his suppressants, and in only two weeks from now he’s expected to go into heat. When he feels his pre-heat starting Zhenya is supposed to get a shot given to him by the med team to induce his rut and immediately get to Sid’s side to help sync up their cycles. After that, then Sid just has to pretend that he’s not waiting for a positive pregnancy test. He’s allowed to go to practice and train with the team, except he’s not allowed to go as hard as he wants to. He’ll have to wear a no contact jersey, and he’s only being allowed one shift in one pre-season game. That’s all he gets. Thirty to ninety seconds on the ice. The minute he starts showing, starts even getting a little bit of that “pregnant omega glow”, he’s done. It’ll be a wrap on his season and he has six weeks before he’s expected to start training again.
He’s lucky enough to be lucid for most of his heat, Geno—as he’s been nicknamed by Sid—is wonderful and caring and so soft through it all. Leading up to his heat the alpha had been stopping by everyday and trying to spend as much time with the omega as he could, he’d even been staying the night in Sid’s bed. He spent so much time with Sid that Gonch had started calling Mario to ask if he thought that the older Russian would see the younger Russian at home that night, the answer was never yes. It only got worse after their shared heat and rut.
It was a bit of an open secret with the Pens that the two of them had shared a cycle together, but everyone was kind enough not to say anything. Three weeks after Sid’s heat the two of them were called down to the medical offices. Well, Sid was called, but where Sid went Geno went too. They were forced, like everything else about their situation, to get the news that it had worked. He’s pregnant. He’s eighteen years old and pregnant, and he might only get to ever play in one NHL game. And it's a damn preseason game at that.