Archive of Our Own

By the time Tyler finished his third set he'd settled into that comfortable, slightly stupid place lifting always put him in, where the rhythm of the workout and the rhythm of his thoughts blurred together until he wasn't really counting anymore, just moving and cataloguing the small concerns that accumulated over a season.

They'd won six straight, which should have made the room lighter, but Mack had looked pale all week and somehow even cagier than usual, and if Tyler had learned anything over the last two years it was that the kid's first instinct whenever something was wrong was to smile and insist nothing was wrong right up until he practically collapsed.

He'd looked washed out at breakfast, smelled sweeter under his suppressants than normal, and Will had looked tired too, though that wasn't exactly unusual. The two of them had been doing whatever strange dance they'd been doing for the better part of two years now, always orbiting each other and never quite landing, and Will in particular had looked distracted all morning, dark circles under his eyes, a little quieter than usual. Probably Mack was sick and trying to hide it again, the kid would skate on one leg if you let him.

He was reaching for his water bottle when Reaves appeared in the doorway, and something about the look on his face made Tyler stop before he'd even fully registered him. Reavo wasn't upset exactly. Just grim in that strange, unreadable way he got when something genuinely weird happened.

"Ty," Reavo said, and even his voice sounded odd. "We need you in the locker room."

Tyler frowned. "Why?"

Reavo rubbed the back of his neck. "Kibble punched Coach Mercer."

Tyler barked out a laugh before he could stop himself. "What?"

"Smitty punched Dean."

"No, I heard you," Tyler snorted. "I'm asking what you actually meant."

Reavo just looked at him, eyes hard and squinted. "What I actually meant is Will broke Mercer’s nose."

Tyler stared. "Smitty?"

“I’m not fucking around, Toff.”

Tyler stared another second before grabbing his bottle and following, still trying to fit the words together into something sensible and failing. Will Smith, who Warso had spent half of last season trying to teach to get angry. Will, who grinned through losses and shrugged when he got high-sticked and somehow found a way to make even bad press roll off him.

There'd been whole segments last season questioning whether he even had enough alpha instinct to be an elite player, and Will had laughed through every one of them with that raised eyebrow and dry little smile of his, joking that maybe he'd start biting people if everybody was so worried. Tyler had seen him take cheap shots without retaliating. Seen him sit quietly beside Mack after ugly games and talk him down from frustration. Seen him watch Mack take an elbow to the face and somehow stay terrifyingly calm while everybody else lost their minds.

Will didn't get angry. Which meant this wasn't Will. Which meant, with the inevitability of a headache beginning somewhere behind his eyes, that somehow this was about Mack.

They nearly collided with Barclay Goodrow and Dean Mercer outside medical, and Tyler's irritation gave way immediately to concern because Dean looked rough. Blood had soaked through the towel pressed against his nose and the trainer hovering beside him looked like she'd already lost the argument about making him sit down.

"Jesus, Dean." Tyler moved toward him automatically. "You alright?"

Dean laughed, which sounded unpleasant and thick with the blood. "I'm fine."

"Like hell."

But Dean waved him away. "Don't kill the kid over it." His eyes crinkled. "Macky's coming into preheat. You know what young alphas are like when their omega gets all sweet on them."

He shifted the towel, exposing his now slightly more crooked nose, and wincing. "He was covered in Mack’s scent. Probably spent all night helping out our pretty little captain. Somebody oughta check they didn't accidentally trigger Smitty’s rut."

Tyler rolled his eyes despite himself, because Dean had always had that old-school sense of humor that danced right on the edge of obnoxious without quite crossing it, and besides, he knew enough to know Dean was wrong.

Whatever strange little orbit Will and Mack had been trapped in for the last year and a half, whatever soft, obvious thing everybody in the room pretended not to notice because neither of them seemed interested in acknowledging it out loud, it hadn't gone there.

Tyler didn't know details and frankly didn't want them, but he knew Mack. Knew enough, anyway. Knew about Rick Celebrini and the way the man had treated his son's designation like something to be managed and controlled and hidden. Knew about the military-grade suppressants and the color-coded calendars and the way Mack scheduled his life around avoiding the inconvenience of his sub-gender, his heats as infrequent and brief as medicine safely allowed. Through all the synthetic hormones, Mack’s heats were more likely to leave him exhausted, in pain and irritable than anything else.

Mack, for all that he smiled through jokes and rolled his eyes when the older guys teased him, had never seemed comfortable with the whole thing. He approached it like another injury to rehab, another unpleasant obligation to survive, and Tyler had seen him snap at alphas who got too close often enough to know that "sweet" wasn't exactly the word he'd use when Mack was nearing his heat.

They were coming up on one though, that was true. Three times a season, Mack would withdraw, get a little pale, move a little slower, and miss an optional skate. Will would show up at Tyler’s place, pretending he wasn’t worried, and distract himself by baking with Cat, ending the day with a nice little basket of treats Tyler never got to sample before they disappeared, but Tyler thinks he knows who they end up with.

All of Mack’s heat happened the same way, except the breakthrough one the kid had last season.

Some asshole on Winnipeg had scruffed him in a scrum and kept pinned him to the ice while linesmen sorted out sticks and tempers. Mack, stubborn little shit that he was, had laughed it off afterward, even though the grip had him frozen and still on the ice.

Tyler remembered thinking the kid looked strange between periods, a little unfocused, pupils blown, but they'd won and Mack had insisted he was fine and nobody really worried until after the game when he'd walked into the locker room and the smell hit all of them at once. Mack’s normal scent, green pear and spearmint and fir needles, was almost never enough to cut through the suppressants and whatever patches he wore over his glands. Sometimes, after bad games, you could catch how it would turn a little bitter, tinged with ozone and something faintly metallic, but the smell that filled the locker room that day was something completely different, a warm, sweet vanilla, sweet enough Tyler could almost taste it in the air. The trainers had moved immediately. Will's fangs had dropped so fast it had scared Tyler, and he'd never forget the look on the kid's face, young and horrified and trying so hard not to let anybody see it.

Medical had diagnosed it as a breakthrough stress heat and offered to call a local service to send an alpha to get Mack through it, but Mack had blanched, refused, and resolved to ride it out alone, against medical advice.

And Tyler, whose room had connected to Will and Mack’s, had simply handed over his key to Will because there was nothing else to do.

No one slept that night.

Mack had shut himself in the next room and suffered through it because that's what Mack did. Suffered quietly and apologized for inconveniencing people afterward. Tyler remembered lying awake staring at the ceiling and hearing him cry through the walls, soft sounds that somehow felt worse for how hard he tried to suppress them. Remembered Smith sitting on the edge of his own bed in the dark, jaw tight, fists knotted in the bedsheets, eyes fixed on the connecting door like he could somehow stare through it. Tyler had a good nose for a beta, but Will was an alpha, so his was even better, and if Tyler could smell the changes to Mack’s scent through the door, the way that the heady vanilla turned into something sticky and rotten, tinged with pain, Will definitely must have. The kid had looked miserable, and smelled worse, his usual warm spice scent turning into something acrid and peppery enough Tyler had to suppress a sneeze.

The next morning Will had looked dead on his feet, and Mack had looked embarrassed, and they'd both smiled, slapped on scent patches and insisted they were fine and everybody had pretended to believe them because sometimes that's what you did for kids you loved.

Whatever weird little dance they were doing, whatever everybody else could see but neither of them seemed ready to name, they weren't spending nights together. They weren't sharing heats. If that had changed, Tyler would've known. Wouldn't he?

"I don’t think that’s it." Tyler said, frowning.

Dean grinned around the towel. "Well, whatever it is, kid's got a hell of a right hook. Shame we don't see it on the ice."

The trainer finally lost patience and started shepherding him toward medical, Dean still chuckling and waving them off.

"Don't come down too hard on him, Toff, really" he called back thickly through the blood. "Whatever got into Smitty, he's taking it hard. Boy looked damn near sick."

And then, with a grin that made him look ridiculous, "If that's what finally gets some nasty into his game, hell, he can punch me every season."

Tyler snorted and shook his head, the same fond exasperation he'd felt about Dean since camp settling over him again as the doors swung shut behind the trainer and the coach. It wasn't until they were moving again that he really noticed Barclay, who wasn't smiling, hadn't smiled once, and whose expression carried none of the annoyance Tyler expected.

"What the hell happened?" Tyler asked, expecting some variation of Will lost his mind or kid snapped, but Barclay only frowned down at the floor, rubbing at his mouth with the heel of his hand in a way that made Tyler slow unconsciously.

"I don't know. We were just standing there," Goodrow continued after a second, glancing toward the medical room almost apologetically, as though Tyler might think he was missing something obvious. "Bullshitting. Dean was giving me shit about something. Smitty walked over."

The corner of Barclay's mouth twitched briefly. "I figured he was coming to steal the old man for video or something."

Tyler found himself nodding because of course. Dean and Will got along fine. Will hadn't been the one with the problem all year.

"And then?" Tyler prompted when Barclay stopped again.

Barclay looked genuinely disturbed by his own memory. "And then Dean was on the floor."

Tyler blinked. "He didn’t say anything?"

Goody shook his head immediately, and the speed of it caught Tyler's attention. "Nothing."

He shrugged helplessly. "Kid just walked over and hit him."

Ty;er barked a short laugh, because hearing it out loud still sounded insane, but Goody didn't laugh with him.

"And then?" Tyler asked.

Goody swallowed. "And then he went after him again."

That made Tyler stop walking. "Again?"

And Goodrow nodded immediately, his expression tightening at the memory. "Dean hit the ground and Smitty went right back in."

His brow furrowed, like he still couldn't make the pieces fit together. "Vinny and I had to drag him off of him."

The image should have been funny. Vinny Desharnais peeling Will Smith off an assistant coach. It should have been absurd enough to laugh at. Instead Tyler found himself watching Barclay's face, because Goodrow looked shaken in a way Tyler had seen after injuries, after ugly losses, after things that weren't supposed to happen.

“Did he say anything?" Tyler asked quietly, because surely there had been something. A scream. A curse. Some kind of explanation. “After?”

And that question seemed to bother Barclay most of all. He frowned harder. “No."

Tyler waited. "No?"

Goodrow shook his head again. "Nothing before. Nothing after."

He exhaled. "Ty, I swear to God–” He stopped himself, looking frustrated. "I've never seen him look like that."

Tyler raised an eyebrow. "Mad?"

And Barclay actually grimaced. He searched for the word, and Tyler found himself strangely anxious for the answer. "Hateful.”

The word sat wrong immediately because Will Smith didn't hate people. Warso had spent half of last year trying to teach the kid how to get angry. Will Smith didn't hate people. Which meant this wasn't Will.

And that thought sat in Tyler's stomach as they rounded the corner toward the locker room, irritation slowly replacing concern again, because there was only one explanation that made sense. Mack. It was always Mack lately. Mack and his weird feud with Dean and the way he'd freeze whenever the man walked up and the way he'd answer every attempt at conversation with polite little one-word answers and excuses and thin smiles that made Tyler want to shake him because Christ, kid, you're captain now. People are watching you. You set the tone. And if he'd somehow gotten Smitty tangled up in this too–

Tyler felt himself getting angry on Will's behalf before they even reached the door.

Whatever was waiting for him in that room, he'd already decided, enough was enough.

7 Months Prior

Training camp always felt vaguely ridiculous to Tyler, a room full of grown men pretending they hadn't all spent the last month stalking each other's Instagram stories and texting in group chats, walking around with fresh haircuts and sunburns and stories about cottages and weddings and babies and golf scores while everyone collectively acted like seeing each other again wasn't half the fun. The first team meeting of the year always had the same nervous energy too, everybody pretending not to be curious about the new faces while stealing glances anyway, and Tyler found himself only half listening to Warso run through schedules and expectations because he'd already recognized one of the assistants before the introduction even happened.

Dean Mercer.

Jesus.

He hadn't seen the guy in years.

They weren’t close, not by any means. Mercer had been a veteran when Tyler was breaking into the league, one of those names everybody knew and everybody seemed to like. Good room guy. Funny. Old school alpha. Tyler remembered him buying rookie dinners and tormenting young defensemen and somehow talking his way out of fines he absolutely deserved. Reavo had played with him in St. Louis. Vinny had crossed paths with him in Laval. The kind of guy who seemed to know everybody, who fit into a room immediately. Tyler vaguely remembered hearing after retirement that he'd gone into coaching somewhere in the USHL, but after that? Trades. Life. The league moved on.

Dean Mercer looked almost exactly the same. More gray. Less hair. Same smile.

Warso introduced him and Mercer immediately waved him off with a grin. "No, no, don't make this weird. Half of these guys know me already."

Laughter rolled through the room immediately.

"I played fourteen years, most of 'em badly," Mercer said cheerfully. "Retired before anybody had to drag me off the ice. Spent the last few years coaching the Chicago Steel, and apparently Mike Grier hit his head and decided I should run your power play."

Laughter rippled around the room.

"Which means I get to spend a lot of quality time with all your talented little forwards, so congratulations in advance."

Tyler snorted.

"Already know some of the old guys. Reavo. Vinny. Toff. Couple others. Doesn’t buy anybody extra ice time," Mercer grinned. “And if anybody needs to know what kind of coach I am, don’t worry. You can ask Mackie.”

Everybody's heads turned automatically, and Tyler looked too, expecting the kid to grin or roll his eyes or blush because if there was one thing Mack hated, it was attention.

Instead, the kid had gone strangely still. His shoulders had tightened, smile gone oddly blank, and for a second Tyler thought maybe he'd been caught zoning out.

Mercer just laughed. “Though, I’m hoping NHL players are a little different than fifteen-year-olds. Even and especially the ones I knew when they were fifteen. No offense, kid.”

That got another laugh, and something like a smile, small and tight, crossed Mack’s face, and the flush climbing up Mack’s neck made Tyler smile despite himself.

“Seriously though,” Mercer continued. “Whether I know you or not, everyone starts clean. I’m looking forward to getting to know all of you.

Tyler liked him immediately. Everybody did. Guys like Dean Mercer always fit. He had that easy old-player confidence that made rooms relax around him, and when Warso dismissed them and everybody scattered toward coffee and pastries and summer stories, Mercer had folded himself in just fine. Reavo was holding court about something ridiculous, Vinny was complaining about traffic in Montreal like he'd spent the entire summer personally offended by Quebec infrastructure, and Goodrow was nodding with the long-suffering expression of a man who'd heard all this before.

It wasn't until Tyler happened to glance toward the door that he spotted Mack, already leaving. He nearly laughed. Forty-five minutes had to be a new record, even for Mack. The kid had the social battery of an exhausted cat, especially on his bad days. Tyler would have to talk to him about how to manage that, now that he was captain. He couldn’t be sneaking out of meetings like this regularly, but Tyler would let him get away with it this time.

He was already halfway through the door when Mercer turned and spotted him.

“Mackie!”

The effect was immediate, and Tyler watched Mack stop in the doorway. The kid had gone completely still, shoulder locked, and for one strange second, he thought Mack hadn’t heard him. Then he turned around, slowly, face blank.

“Mackie, you’re not gonna say hi to your old coach?”

People nearby glanced over and Tyler actually felt secondhand embarrassment on Mack’s behalf.

“Hey, Coach.” Mack said, quiet and flat, stepping back from the doorway, but remaining in the threshold, not inching any further into the room. Then, nothing. No grin, no ‘good to see you’, no movement. Tyler winced. Jesus.

Mercer, thankfully, didn’t seem offended. “What’s that’s all I get?” He laughed and started towards Mack, passing through the room with a grin. “No hug for your old coach? I guess fame really does change people.”

Reavo barked out a laugh, Vinny snorted into his coffee, and Mack just stood there.

Mercer reached him first, laughing softly as his hand disappeared into Mack’s hair, giving him a rough and affectionate shake. “Look at you! First overall. One hundred and fifteen points last season. Captain.”

Tyler could practically feel the pride radiating off this guy. Mack just inspired something in coaches, something Tyler hadn’t seen a lot of in his career. Tyler got it. The kid was a joy to watch work, to watch grow. It must be a heady feeling to have known him when he was still fifteen and developing and watch him become all of this.

“Everyone in Chicago knew you’d make it Mackie, even when you were a fifteen-year-old newly presented omega glaring daggers at everyone in the locker room,” Mercer continued, “But I don’t think anyone knew it’d be like this. Proud of you, kid.”

Mack just stood there, no laugh, no hug, nothing, a deep flush working its way up from his neck, and Tyler, feeling vaguely embarrassed for Mercer now, stepped in and nudged Mack hard enough to make him sway.”

“Jesus, kid.” Tyler said quietly. “Hug the man. Don’t be rude.”

Mack turned his head to look at Tyler, and something in the look gave him pause. Mack’s face was just blank, like his brain had wandered off. Then he blinked, hard.

“Sorry.” Mack said, quiet, automatic, before stepping forward and letting Mercer wrap him into a hug.

“There he is!” Mercer's hands were broad, thumping against Mack’s back. “Missed you, bud.”

Then he held him out at arm’s length and looked over him with obvious delight.

“Well, shit.” His hand closed around Mack’s upper arm with a big grin. “Damn, Mackie, you really put on some muscle, huh?”

Mack shrugged, “A little bit.”

“Little my ass.” Mercer squeezed Mack’s bicep and laughed, “Rick finally found a way to beat biology, huh?”

Mercer turned to the room, looking for an audience. “This kid showed up to Chicago looking like a strong breeze would’ve snapped him in half. Everyone talks about how omegas have a harder time putting on muscle, but Rick had him eating six times a day and lifting like a psychopath.”

Reavo laughed, and Vinny whistled, and the rest of the Sharks smiled indulgently as Mack’s flush deepened. The kid hated compliments like this.

Dean squeezed at Mack’s shoulder again. “Look at him now!” His hand slid up and down Mack’s arm, “Kid looks like a hockey player.”

Poor Mack looked miserable, red around the ears, mouth tight and pinched. And Tyler knew that look. The kid wanted so desperately to be Captain Macklin Celebrini now, serious and composed and grown-up, and here was someone who remembered fifteen-year-old Mackie, and seemed to delight in stories about him.

No wonder he looked embarrassed.

Mercer laughed softly and squeezed the back of Mack’s neck. “Still blushes, too.”

Mack actually jerked away at that, pulling away and shaking off Mercer’s arm, but the coach only laughed, the room laughing with him. Mack didn’t. He just nodded once, and quietly excused himself, retreating back through the door with all of the speed of a man fleeing a spotlight. Tyler watched him go, shaking his head fondly.

Twenty years old, captain of the San Jose Sharks, face of the franchise, and still somehow incapable of taking a compliment.

Maybe, Tyler had thought at the time as Mercer launched into stories with Reavo and Vinny and everyone around him relaxed, having someone around who remembered who Mack used to be would be good for him. Keep him grounded, keep him humble, keep him from disappearing too far into Captain Celebrini.

By Halloween, Dean Mercer had somehow managed to become one of those people Tyler struggled to remember hadn't always been there. He ate breakfast with Barclay twice a week, golfed with Reavo on off days, spent enough time with Vinny that Tyler suspected they'd known each other in a previous life, and somehow managed to make himself useful without ever seeming to insert himself. Guys liked him. Hell, Warso liked him, which was practically sainthood. The power play looked great, the room was winning, and Mercer had the easy confidence of somebody who'd spent two decades in hockey and understood instinctively when to joke and when to shut up.

Everybody loved him. Everybody except Mack.

Mack tried not to be obvious about it, the kid was too polite for that, but Tyler noticed. Everybody noticed.

It was never dramatic, never a fight. Just little avoidances that added up over the course of a season.

And Tyler understood it, he really did. Mercer remembered braces and acne and teenage hormones and fifteen-year-old Mackie, and twenty-year-old Captain Celebrini was trying so desperately to prove he belonged that Tyler could sympathize with how irritating that had to be. Nobody wanted to spend every day with somebody who remembered them before they were grown.

But Christ, the kid wasn't helping himself.

And Mercer, if anything, seemed hurt by it. Tyler found him one morning staring into a cup of coffee with the expression of a man trying very hard not to be offended.

"Everything okay?" Tyler had asked.

Mercer smiled immediately. "Yeah."

Then laughed. "Actually, can I ask you something?"

Tyler shrugged. "Shoot."

Mercer hesitated. Which, in retrospect, Tyler would remember as one of the things that convinced him. Mercer had always hesitated, always acted like he didn't want to say anything.

"Mack's okay, right?"

Tyler frowned. "Yeah. Captaincy is a lot, but he’s good. I think he’s adjusting well."

Merver nodded quickly. "Right. Good. It’s just–” he paused again, like he was debating on whether or not to tell Tyler. "He's skipped video three times this month."

Tyler blinked. "What?" That didn’t sound like Mack. Mack treated video review like it was sacred, Tyler had seen the compilations online of Mack’s in-game I-pad time. No one took review as seriously as Mack did, diligent and attentive, obsessive even.

Merver waved his hand immediately. "No, no, don't say anything,” like the thought of mentioning it all embarrassed him. "He's busy. He's captain."

Then, quieter: "But I had Misa and Stenny in there yesterday and I asked him if he wanted to go over entries and he just…"

Dean smiled helplessly. "'No thanks, Coach.'"

Tyler frowned and felt something uncomfortable twist in his stomach because he knew how much Misa idolized Mack and how much Stenberg watched him, and if your captain blew off video–

Well. Kids noticed.

“That’s strange,” Tyler offered. “It really doesn’t sound like him. He can’t be doing that though, he’s young too, but all the kids look up to him, he knows better than to set an example like that. I can talk to him if–”

“No, no!” Mercer cut him off, “Let me handle it. He’s Captain, and I don’t want him to think I’m going to you to get around his authority. If it stays an issue, I’ll go to Warso. I just wanted to make sure everything was okay.”

Tyler tried to keep probing, but Mercer changed the subject immediately. He never pushed about Mack, never had a bad word to say about the kid.

By Christmas, the weirdness had stopped being between Mack and Coach Mercer and started becoming something everybody was aware of, which somehow made it worse because nobody could quite articulate what was wrong except that things got awkward whenever they occupied the same space.

Mercer would walk into breakfast and Mack would suddenly remember he'd left something upstairs. Mercer would organize team dinners and Mack would vanish after appetizers. Mercer would call for video and Mack would send Will in his place with some excuse about needing PT or talking to media, and after a while even the younger guys had started exchanging those little glances people exchanged when they knew there was a story but didn't know what it was.

Nobody blamed Mercer. How could they?

He was everywhere. Helping Stenny with faceoffs. Taking Dickie and Misa out for coffee. Playing golf with Reavo. Sitting beside Barclay on flights. Remembering birthdays. Asking after wives and kids. Somehow, in three months, he'd made himself feel like he'd been with the organization for years. Coach Mercer just became Dean, another old head the vets could shoot shit with and the kids could look up to, always around, always helping, as integral to the fabric of the team as anyone else.

And Mack– look, Tyler loved him, but the kid wasn't helping himself. Because the thing about Mack was that if he was unhappy, he didn't yell. He disappeared, he got quiet, and people always mistook his quiet for judgment.

Will didn't. At least not at first.

Will loved Dean. Everybody loved Dean. Dean had a joke for everybody, and poor Will had spent most of his life collecting fathers and older brothers whether he meant to or not. He'd stay after practice and bullshit hockey with Dean and come away smiling, and every time Tyler would think, see? It's fine.

It's just Mack.

And eventually, even Will started to sigh sometimes when Mack made excuses to avoid things.
"He's just weird with Coach." Will would say, offering a tight smile when he was asked why, yet again, their captain was blowing off another team bonding session. "He'll come around."

It was said with exasperation the team was sympathetic too, because nobody thought there was anything to come around from, just the awkwardness of a kid growing into a role he didn’t quite fit yet, and the room adapted around that assumption, that Mack was just being stubborn and young.

This was helped along by Dean’s seemingly never-ending stories about Mack at sixteen, the constant reminder of how little their stubborn, talented superstar had really changed. The team loved Mack. Loved his compete, loved his passion, loved how hard he worked and how much he cared, but it’s hard not to like stories about the kid skating circles around all of them that served to humble him a bit, make him a bit more human.

So they all listened to Dean recount semi-embarassing stories about Mack in Chicago. How he would hide in equipment closets after bad losses, or how he would snap and growl at the alphas on his team, full over-compensating omega posturing. How after Mack presented, Rick trialed him on seven different suppressants, getting staff to help him track his performance all the way through, how the hormone changes had Mack bitchy and overstimulated for months.
The last one should’ve felt like too much, not something to be shared to the captive audience that was the team, but Dean was old school and had a way of talking about dynamics and hormones that would’ve felt backwards coming out of the mouth of anyone else, but he talked about Mack with such easy affection and unmasked pride, it was hard to hold it against him and it eventually became a part of the fabric of how the team talked about Mack.

It was enough that one day after practice, when Mack had disappeared again and Dean had shrugged and smiled and said, "Checked the schedule and Mack’s heat's coming. Always made the kid get in his own head," nobody had challenged him.

It’s not because they believed hormones made people irrational, this was San Jose, they knew better.

But because it was Mack, because Dean knew him, and because the captain had spent three months acting like a kid with a weird grudge.

So when Mario joked absentmindedly that maybe the captain was "getting bitchy because somebody needs his nest and a heating pad," the laughter came too easily.

And then there was that horrible second where nobody said anything.

Nobody. Not Vinny. Not Reavo. Not him.

The room just laughed, and then Will looked up from his tape.

"What the fuck?" He didn’t sound angry, he sounded confused.

And Mario blinked. "What?"

“No,” Will frowned. "That's fucked up. We don’t talk about Mack like that. We don’t talk about any omega in this locker room like that."

Silence fell in the room for a second, and Tyler was suddenly painfully aware of how carefully still Wenny, Misa, and Stenberg were sitting in their stalls. Every locker room in the NHL had a different way of dealing with secondary genders, hell, some teams still wouldn’t draft or trade for omegas at all. San Jose, at least for the time he has been there, has been one of the most equitable locker rooms Tyler has experienced, and he knows Reavo has expressed the same sentiment. Vegas and Montreal had been… not great when it came to supporting the omegas on their team.

But Will was right, the Sharks had an omega Captain, and it wasn’t a good precedent to start making shitty jokes at his expense. But Smitty hadn’t been given the A this season, and Mack wasn’t in the room, and Tyler was suddenly painfully aware of the letter on his own jersey.

“Will’s right,” Tyler said, staying calm. No need to overdo it, or white knight for the omegas in the room, that could be just as bad for locker room dynamics. “We shouldn’t be making jokes like that. That’s never been this room. I don’t know where that’s coming from, but knock it off.”

“Besides,” Delly cut in, “It’s not like any of you would even know Mack’s heat was coming up if Mercer didn’t say anything. You know it’s never been an issue before.”

“Yeah, I don’t think Mack’s ‘hormonal’” Graf said, "He just hates Coach."

Everybody laughed. Even Will.

And Tyler laughed too, because yeah, wasn't that the problem?

Nobody thought Mack was weak. Nobody thought he was hormonal. Nobody thought omegas couldn't lead. They just thought Mack was making everybody uncomfortable with his obvious dislike for their coach.

And every time Mack sat further away from everybody and smiled less and stopped volunteering for dinners and spent more nights at home instead of hanging around after games, Tyler would feel the same mixture of affection and frustration and concern.
Because the room was starting to feel weird, the tension thick, and everybody knew why.

Which, Tyler thought one night after another awkward dinner where the kid had disappeared before dessert and Dean had just smiled and said, "He's still learning how to be twenty," was deeply, deeply frustrating.

Everybody else was trying. Their captain was making it hard.

By February, Tyler had stopped telling himself that nothing was wrong, and was half-way to doing something about it, frequently daydreaming about dragging the kid into Grier’s office and sitting on him until he talked or calling Rick or at the very least threatening to duct tape him to a chair until he agreed to start acting like himself again.

But there were degrees to concern, and Tyler had been around long enough to know that twenty wasn't supposed to look easy, especially not twenty with a C stitched on your chest and half a rebuilding franchise hanging their hopes on you.

He remembered Landeskog talking about it once, years ago, laughing in that way veterans did when they admitted things that had nearly broken them, talking about feeling too young and too visible all at once, about every loss feeling personal because if you were captain and your team lost, wasn't that your fault? Didn't it have to be? Tkachuk had said something similar too, joking in public and then, much later, admitting how lonely it had felt, how he'd spent months waiting for somebody to realize they'd made a mistake.

And if those guys had struggled, Mack was twenty with more eyes on him than they’d ever had. First overall, franchise center, olympic darling, future Captain Canada, Crosby reborn, face on the billboards, captain before he could legally rent a car, and maybe it wasn't strange that he'd become quieter, shorter, more brittle around the edges.

Not mean because God, the kid didn't know how to be mean, but tired in a way that made Tyler uneasy, snapping at reporters and then apologizing, staring into space between periods, spending more time with his head down and less time wandering through the room pestering everybody for fantasy football updates or bothering Goodrow with questions or climbing onto Will's lap like some oversized cat when they won.

The game in Calgary stayed with him because it had been ugly in the particular way only bad nights for stars could be ugly, not because Mack had played disastrously but because every mistake seemed to wound him more than the one before, each turnover settling somewhere deep and festering. Tyler remembered looking down the bench during the television timeout and seeing him hunched over with his elbows on his knees, fingers picking at the tape around his gloves, shoulders curved inward as though he could somehow disappear into himself, and feeling that familiar ache because Jesus, kid, nobody's perfect.

Will sat beside him saying something Tyler couldn't hear, low and easy the way he always did, and Mack barely reacted, just nodded once without looking up, which worried Tyler all by itself because usually Will could get him to smile through anything.

Warso was occupied with the defensemen, half the bench scattered, and Dean, who had spent six months somehow refusing to take any of Mack's moods personally, leaned over from behind with that same patient smile he always wore.

"It's okay, Mackie."

And because Dean had known him forever and because he'd always been affectionate and because hockey people touched each other without thinking, Tyler barely noticed the hand that settled on the back of Mack's neck.

He noticed Mack.

Not because he'd ever seen the kid angry before, not really, but because he moved so violently that Tyler actually flinched, watched him practically launch out of his seat and whirl around with something sharp and wild in his eyes that didn't even look like anger at first, just pure reflex.

"Don't fucking call me that!" The words cracked through the bench hard enough that even Warso stopped. And then, louder– "And stop touching me! Why are you always–"

Mack stopped.

And Tyler would remember that look afterward, replay it in his head over and over until it made him sick because the anger vanished so fast it was almost frightening, draining out of him all at once and leaving behind something Tyler couldn't name, some terrible naked expression that looked too much like panic and shame and realization all tangled together.
Mack swallowed, his shoulders folded inward, and then, in a voice so quiet Tyler almost missed it, "Sorry."

Nobody moved. Nobody said anything.

Mack cleared his throat. "I…" Another swallow. "Sorry."

Dean looked startled, genuinely startled, and then immediately softened in that way he always did. "No, no, bud." Gentle. "You're okay."

And somehow that made Tyler feel worse because poor Dean, poor stupid Dean who'd spent six months trying and trying and trying while Mack pushed him away, and poor Mack who was obviously hanging on by his fingernails and lashing out at the people trying to help him.
The bench shifted awkwardly, Warsofsky clearing his throat to pull the attention of the defensemen back onto him.

Tyler put a hand on Mack's shoulder and felt him jump, just barely, before going still. "You're alright."

But Mack didn't look at him, didn't look at anybody. He just nodded once and sat there, and Tyler realized halfway through the third period that the kid hadn't said another word since.
Will practically attached himself to his side and they disappeared the second media was done, and later, sitting in front of his stall while Mario muttered something about the captain losing his mind and Goodrow told him to shut the fuck up, Tyler found himself staring at the empty space where Mack should've been and thinking about Landeskog and Tkachuk and every too-young captain who'd tried to carry the whole world on his back.

Tyler slept badly after Calgary, which irritated him almost as much as the game itself because he was thirty-four years old and had a cup and a mortgage and enough mileage on his body that no twenty-year-old should've been able to ruin his sleep, and yet sometime around three in the morning he found himself awake and staring at the ceiling with Mack's face burned into the backs of his eyes, not the yelling, everybody yelled, and not even the apology because that was practically muscle memory with the kid, but that look afterward, that awful hollowed-out silence that had descended over him like a curtain had been dropped, because once Mack got quiet like that there wasn't a crowbar in the world that could pry him open again.

And the more Tyler lay there, the angrier he got.

Because concern had become excuses and excuses had become six months of everybody adapting around their captain who seemed determined to make himself miserable, and Tyler loved him, loved him like a little brother and sometimes like a son and occasionally like something in between, but love didn't mean pretending he wasn't making things harder than they had to be.

Dean had spent the whole season trying. Everybody had.

Misa and Stenny looked at him like he hung the moon and even Dickie, who worshipped no one except apparently terrible music and his dog, watched him constantly. The room watched him. That was what the C meant. It meant people watched. It meant they copied you. It meant that when you rolled your eyes at a coach, kids remembered. It meant that when you made things weird, the room got weird.

Mack had spent the whole season making things weird, culminating in his display at the bench in Calgary.

Dean had looked embarrassed afterward, and somehow he'd been the one apologizing. That more than anything else stuck under Tyler's skin.

By the time he got to the rink the next morning he'd talked himself into certainty, and certainty, he'd learned, was a dangerous thing because it always felt so much like righteousness.

Dean looked tired over coffee.

Tyler almost started with him, but Dean smiled and shook his head before Tyler could say anything.

By the time he found Mack in the gym an hour later, Will was with him, spotting him through squats while Mack stared at nothing in particular between sets with that same exhausted expression he'd worn for weeks now. Will brightened automatically when he saw Tyler, all easy smiles and raised eyebrows, but something in Tyler's face must've given him away because the smile disappeared immediately.

"You okay?"

Tyler nodded. "Need Mack for a minute."

Will hesitated, and Tyler nearly laughed because damn, Smitty had become protective.

Mack looked up. "It's okay."

Will still looked unconvinced. "Mack–"

"It's okay." And that bothered Tyler too, irrationally, because he was tired and angry and worried and didn't understand why everything felt so damn fragile all of a sudden.
Will left reluctantly.

Mack sat on the bench and rubbed at his wrists. Tyler sat down beside him and for a second neither of them spoke, the sounds of plates clinking in the weight room and somebody laughing down the hall filtering in around them while Mack sat with his forearms braced on his knees, staring at the floor with that same exhausted look he'd worn for weeks now, and Tyler loved this kid so much it hurt, which was maybe why anger and affection had become so tangled up in his chest that he couldn't tell where one ended and the other began.

"What the fuck are you doing, kid?" he asked finally, and he meant it honestly, because somewhere along the line concern had become frustration and frustration had become watching his captain make himself and everybody around him miserable. "Because I don't get it anymore. I don't. Everybody loves you, Mack. Everybody. Misa worships you, Stenny worships you, Will worships you, half the city worships you, and Dean– Jesus Christ, Dean adores you. And you stood there yesterday and acted like he was trying to hurt you."

Mack flinched. Actually flinched.

Tyler saw it and mistook it for shame.

"Ty–"

"You don't have to like him. I don't like everybody either. You don't have to have dinner with him, you don't have to love that he calls you Mackie, and I know, buddy, I know it probably drives you crazy having somebody around who remembers you when you were fifteen and awkward and trying to figure out how to survive in this league before you'd even gotten here, and maybe it makes you feel like a kid again, maybe it makes you feel like everybody still sees some little omega trying to earn his spot instead of the captain of an NHL team, but that's not reality anymore."

Mack swallowed. "I–"

"Because you've made it." Tyler leaned forward. "Kid, you've made it. You're not fifteen. You're not fighting for your place. You don't have to prove you're tough enough or mature enough or anything enough. You've already done it. You've got the C on your chest and a hundred and fifteen points and a room full of people who'd walk through fire for you."

Mack nodded once, not looking at him. "Toff, he—"

"And because you've got that C, this room belongs to you." Tyler barely noticed he'd cut him off. Because now that he'd started talking it all came pouring out, months of irritation and worry and helplessness.

"This room is yours, which means your moods matter. They matter. If you're happy, everybody's happy. If you're quiet, everybody wonders what's wrong. If you're stressed, the whole room feels stressed. You don't get to sulk around and shut down and disappear every time something makes you uncomfortable because you're not just another twenty-year-old anymore. You're captain. The room follows you."

Mack was shrinking right in front of him. "Toff, I know, but he—"

"No." Tyler sighed. "No, because I know."

He let his voice get softer, gentler. "I know exactly what this is."

Mack blinked, and for one second, hope crossed his face. Tyler would remember that forever, because he smiled, thought he'd finally gotten through.

"I know he reminds you of being fifteen. I know he still sees you as this little kid and I know you're trying so hard to prove that you're not, and I know that's frustrating, buddy, I do, but the harder you fight him, the worse it looks. The more you shut down and roll your eyes and avoid him, the younger you seem. Christ, kid, yesterday–" Tyler laughed softly, trying to make it gentle.

Mack looked sick. "He–"

"And I know." Tyler smiled sadly. "I know you're not really mad at Dean." He squeezed his shoulder. "You're not fifteen anymore. You're not some scared little omega trying to convince everybody you belong. You're not a child."

Mack flinched.

Tyler saw it immediately, and he felt for Mack, he did. He remembers being twenty and nervous, feeling so young and so old at the same time. It was hard enough without the eyes on him, and without the added pressure of a coach who made him feel like a kid. But enough was enough.

"You don't get to act like a brat." Tyler knew this would be hard to hear, but he tried to stay as firm as he was gentle. Mack needed to hear this. It would be good for him. "You don't get to shut down and pout and make everybody walk on eggshells. You don't get to ruin your own room because somebody remembers your braces and your acne and all the dumb shit from juniors."

Mack's mouth opened. Closed. Then quietly– "I… Tyler… he…"

“No,” Tyler, thinking the poor kid was about to cry, cut him off one last time. "Mack, stop."

He rubbed the back of Mack's neck affectionately. "You're captain. Act like it."

There was a long silence after that, and Mack sat very still, before letting out a breath and nodding. “Okay.”

There was no argument, no anger, no tears, and Tyler, exhausted and relieved and still so goddamn proud of him, smiled and clapped his shoulder. "There he is."

He thought he'd gotten through. He thought he'd finally explained what everybody had been trying to tell him.

And because he already believed he understood, because he'd spent six months listening to Dean explain Mack to him, he never noticed that three separate times, Mack had tried to say something.

Or that the first time he'd said "Ty, he–” he hadn't sounded angry. He'd sounded afraid.

For the first week afterward, Tyler kept waiting for the next explosion, and maybe that was unfair, maybe he'd spent so much time worried and irritated and exhausted by the strange tension that had settled over the room all season that he'd forgotten what normal felt like, but every time Dean called after Mack at the end of practice his shoulders would tighten instinctively, bracing for the eye roll or the quiet little no that somehow always sounded more dismissive than the kid probably intended, and every time he found himself preparing a lecture in his head before one afternoon, halfway out of the locker room, he heard Dean's voice drift through the noise.

"Mackie, stretching."

Ty actually stopped, wincing, because Misa and Dickie were right there, Stenny halfway through untying his skates, and he'd seen this movie before.

Mack paused, turning towards Dean, and for one strange second Tyler thought he looked tired.

Then, quietly– "Okay."

And that was it. There was no sigh, or argument, or eye roll, just a simple okay before dropping his bag and heading back toward the training room, and Tyler had to stop himself from smiling because, there he was. There was his captain. Maybe they'd finally gotten through to him. Maybe he really had just needed somebody to tell him hard things.

And after that, the little moments started piling up until they became a story Tyler told himself every day.

Team dinners stopped ending with an empty chair. Mack stayed. Not forever. His social battery still ran out before everyone else's because that wasn't changing, but he stayed long enough, smiled enough, laughed enough that Tyler stopped spending entire meals waiting for him to disappear. The room relaxed. Misa relaxed. Stenny relaxed. Even Dickie stopped glancing toward the door every time Dean showed up.

One night after a win, Misa looked over while they waited for dessert and smiled around a mouthful of cheesecake. "Cap seems happier lately."

Ty nearly laughed. Happier wasn't the word he'd use. The kid still looked exhausted half the time, dark circles under his eyes and that permanently stressed expression he wore whenever he thought nobody was looking, but he was trying, and maybe that was enough.

Maybe trying was the whole thing.

Because captaincy was hard. Tyler knew that. He thought about Landeskog and Tkachuk and all those conversations over the years, the stories veterans only told when they got old enough that nobody expected them to have all the answers anymore, and maybe twenty had always been too young for this and maybe that was okay. Maybe nobody expected perfect.

Maybe they just needed effort, and Mack was finally trying.

Ty caught them one afternoon in the hallway after video, Dean talking quietly while Mack listened, and the sight warmed him in a way that almost embarrassed him because six weeks earlier he'd have expected another awkward silence, another forced smile, but instead the kid stood there nodding while Dean rested a hand comfortably on his shoulder and pointed something out on a tablet, and Mack smiled, not a huge grin, not the laugh-until-he-couldn't-breathe smile he reserved for Will and Mario and stupid jokes, but something easier, something polite and peaceful enough that Tyler felt something unclench in his chest.

Good.

Even Will seemed quieter about it all, which Tyler took as relief because poor Smitty had spent most of the winter with his hackles raised and his whole life written across his face the way young alphas always did when their omega was distressed, and maybe some of that tension had finally started to ease because the room had eased.

Misa wasn't looking worried all the time. Stenny wasn't watching every interaction like he expected something to explode. Dean had stopped giving Tyler those sad little smiles over coffee and started talking about power play entries again instead of worrying.

Everything felt lighter.

And maybe Tyler was looking for proof because God knew he'd spent enough nights wondering whether he'd screwed up by coming down too hard on the kid, but one afternoon after practice he found Will sitting beside Mack in the locker room, the two of them sharing a bag of trail mix while Mack absentmindedly stared into space and let Will talk enough for both of them, and Tyler smiled because damn were they ridiculous.

He waited for Mack to stand up, stretch, and head for the bathroom before he approached Will, still sprawled lazily across the bench.

"He's doing better." Will looked up immediately, and something strange flickered across his face

Then the smile came, quick and small, the sort of smile people wore when they wanted somebody else to feel good. "Yeah."

Ty grinned. "Told you he'd figure it out."

“Yeah,” Will sighed softly, “Something like that.”

"He still goes home and crashes?" Tyler asked, smiling.

Will's expression changed again, that strange little hesitation. Then another smile. "Yeah." he said, softly. "He sleeps a lot."

"Good." Tyler laughed. “He needs it. Playoff pushes are hard on all of us.”

They both glanced sideways as Mack re-entered the locker room and threw himself into Will’s side.

The kid smiled automatically and nudged Will's knee with his own, and Will immediately wrapped an arm around his shoulders and pulled him closer with unconscious ease, pressing a kiss to his hair before returning to whatever story he'd been telling.

Ty felt his chest warm.

Will smiled at something Mack murmured, but there was something tight around his eyes that Tyler noticed and dismissed because God, they were both exhausted. Everybody was exhausted. The season had been long.

Tyler walked away feeling lighter than he had in months because there it was. There was proof. Will wasn't worried anymore. Mack was trying. The room was healing. The hard conversation had worked.

And later that night, after a win, Tyler watched his captain move around the room with that same tired smile, hyping up Misa and chirping Stenny and sitting beside Goodrow while Will hovered close enough to touch, and Tyler wrapped an arm around his shoulders and squeezed. "Proud of you, kid."

Mack looked up, and for one terrible second something flickered across his face, gone so fast Tyler couldn't catch it. Then he smiled. "Thanks, Toff."

And Tyler smiled back and walked away feeling proud of himself too. He’d been worried, but here Mack was, growing, doing better, and Tyler was glad he got the opportunity to be a part of that.

And when he caught Will watching Mack afterward with that same strange expression, arm still around his waist and eyes lingering on him just a little too long, Tyler only smiled to himself.

Young alphas. Always worried.

When Tyler stepped into the locker room he expected silence. What he walked into instead was motion.

Vinny wasn't holding Will so much as occupying space in front of him, broad shoulders squared and hands up, trying to crowd him backward with the stubborn patience of an older defenseman who'd spent half his career separating idiots from bad decisions. His voice carried over the room, low and irritated and trying very hard to stay calm.

"Smitty, you need to calm the fuck down."

Will didn't even look at him. He kept trying to angle around him, eyes fixed on the door to the hallway with a concentration Tyler found unsettling, because Will wasn't yelling wildly or swinging anymore. He looked focused. Deliberate. Like he had somewhere to be and Vinny was an inconvenience.

Warso was there too, standing off to one side with one hand half-raised as though he'd been trying to interrupt whatever this was and lost the opportunity somewhere along the way. One of the assistant coaches lingered beside him, looking equally helpless, while a pair of trainers hovered uncertainly near the tape table without ever getting close enough to intervene.

"Get out of my fucking way, Vinny," Will said through his teeth, and the scent coming off him hit Tyler a second later, sharp enough to sting the back of his nose. Will always smelled warm, spice and cinnamon and baked things and unexpected sweetness under the alpha musk, but whatever was pouring off him now was harsh and overwhelming, black pepper and burnt cloves and something acrid enough to sting the back of Tyler’s throat. It flooded the room, thick with anger and distress, and Tyler noticed Graf pressed against the opposite wall looking genuinely frightened.

And behind all of it, one hand wrapped around Will's wrist and the other braced lightly against his chest, stood Mack, speaking softly enough Tyler almost couldn't hear him, looking tired and embarrassed and somehow patient in a way that reignited every frustration Tyler had spent seven months carrying around. They'd talked about this. They'd fixed this. He'd watched the kid try. Watched him grow.

And Tyler, who had spent the entire walk here angry on Will's behalf, saw Mack with his hand on the kid's wrist and snapped before he thought. "We fucking talked about this, Mack," he heard himself say, irritation spilling out before he could stop it. "You can't pull Smitty into your bullshit."

Everything stopped. Or rather, Will stopped, and Tyler watched his head turn, watched those blue eyes land on him and for one strange second, Tyler forgot whatever he'd been about to say, because he'd never seen Will look at him like that.

Tyler would spend years trying to remember if he'd ever seen that look before and never find it. He'd seen Will angry. Seen him competitive. Seen him devastated after losses and annoyed with refs and quietly hurt by bad press, but he'd never seen this. The fangs dropping should've been what froze him, should've been the low sound that vibrated somewhere deep in the kid's chest, but it was the eyes that stopped him. Not wild. Not out of control. Cold. Cold enough that Tyler actually felt himself hesitate.

And then Will moved.

Vinny swore immediately, stepping sideways to block him, while Mack tightened both hands around his arm and barked, "Will, stop!"

"Jesus fucking Christ, kid," Vinny snapped, genuinely startled now.

But it was Mack's voice that finally arrested him. "Will, please."

And the kid stopped straining immediately, chest heaving, though he never took his eyes off Tyler. "No," he said.

Mack sighed, embarrassment coloring his scent beneath his scent patch, bruised pear and mint surfacing under the stress. "Ty’s right, you shouldn’t have hit him. I- I was going to handle it. You need to calm down."

Will laughed. It wasn’t loud, or hysteric, just one awful little sound. "Tell them what he did."

Mack froze. "Will."

"No." Will’s voice had gone terrifyingly flat. "Tell them."

Tyler frowned. "Tell us what?"

Mack flushed immediately. "Will, stop."

"Tell them and see how calm they are."

And Tyler watched something he'd spent months praising unfold right in front of him. Mack took a breath, straightened, and looked around the room with the weary composure of a captain trying to settle a bad game.

"It's okay," he said quietly. "I was going to handle it."

Will just stared.

Mack sighed. "I was going to report it today."

Another one of those terrible little laughs.

"I was," Mack insisted, glancing briefly toward Tyler. "I was- I was going to step up, be a captain. I was trying to handle it."

And Tyler felt something warm and relieved bloom in his chest despite everything, because there it was again. Mack listening. Mack growing.

"But it’s not a big deal," Mack repeated. “They don’t– I can talk about it with Warso and the staff, we don’t have to– It’s not a big deal.”

And Will exploded. "It is a big fucking deal, Mack!" The entire room jumped. Will’s fangs were still down, chest rising hard enough that Tyler could see the fabric of his undershirt pull against his ribs. "It is a big fucking deal when your coach threatens to rape you during your heat and film it so he can blackmail you into keeping your mouth shut!"

Will's voice cracked across the room hard enough that everybody jumped, and then the world seemed to stop around Tyler in a way that felt almost unreal, the words hanging there in the stale air of the locker room while nobody moved and nobody spoke, the only sound the soft clatter of a roll of hockey tape slipping from somebody's hand and bouncing forgotten across the floor. Tyler couldn't even tell who'd dropped it. Barclay had gone completely still beside him. Reavo muttered something under his breath that might've been a prayer or a curse. Somewhere behind Vinny, Graf looked pale enough to be sick.

And all Tyler could think, stupidly and incomprehensibly and with the growing certainty that he'd somehow missed something enormous, was that Mack looked embarrassed.

His cheeks had gone red beneath the flush of distress, his eyes fixed somewhere over Will's shoulder instead of meeting anybody's gaze, one hand still wrapped around Will's wrist in that absent, soothing way he'd used all season whenever his alpha worked himself up, and there was something almost apologetic about the set of his shoulders, something that reminded Tyler horribly of a captain explaining a stupid penalty to the refs after everybody else had already lost their tempers.

And Will– Will looked heartbroken.

Ty watched Mack sigh softly and let go of Will's wrist, and something in his chest twisted because he knew that look. The kid looked exhausted, but there was something familiar in the way he straightened his shoulders and rubbed at his face, like he was physically putting himself back together before he spoke.

"Look," Mack said quietly, and even now he sounded apologetic. "I was gonna take it to staff today."

Will made a small sound beside him, and Tyler glanced over automatically. The kid had gone eerily still, all that terrible fury settling into something quieter and somehow worse, his eyes fixed stubbornly on Mack's face. His scent still stung the back of Tyler's throat, bitter and peppery and overwhelming, but the rage underneath it had curdled into something Tyler couldn't name, something that made that little huff of laughter sound less angry than devastated.

"I was," Mack insisted softly, and Tyler watched him avoid looking at the alpha altogether, the same way he'd ignored Delly bitching after bad games or Tyler himself when he was annoyed. "I've been trying to handle it."

Another one of those awful little laughs escaped Will.

"I've been trying to do what Toff said. Take responsibility and not let my issues make things weird in the locker room."

And the worst part, Tyler would think later, was that Mack didn't even glance at him when he said it. There was no accusation in his voice, no resentment, no attempt to throw Tyler's words back in his face. The kid just kept talking softly into the awful silence of the room, eyes fixed somewhere over Will's shoulder as though he was still trying to calm everybody down, and suddenly Tyler was back in the gym with Mack, irritated and exhausted and so sure he was right, watching Mack stand there with that same miserable expression while Tyler told him to grow up. Act like a captain. Everybody loves you. Enough was enough.

Hadn't he walked away feeling proud of himself? Hadn't he thought he'd finally gotten through to him?

"I know I'm captain and I know that means I have to deal with stuff and not…" Mack huffed out an embarrassed little laugh and rubbed at his face. "I don't know. Make everybody uncomfortable and…"

He laughed softly, embarrassed. "And I know I've done a shitty job of that this year."

With every quiet word out of Mack's mouth Tyler felt another memory turn over in his head and reveal something ugly underneath, because it wasn't even that he'd missed it. He hadn't missed anything. He remembered training camp, remembered the way Mack had frozen when Dean had called his name, remembered elbowing him in the ribs and hissing, "Go hug your coach, kid," while Dean laughed about fame changing people, remembered the way Mack had gone stiff in the man's arms and told himself it was embarrassment, because Mack always got weird when people praised him, because he was twenty and awkward and didn't know what to do with attention.

"Mack." Will's voice cracked around the name, something almost pleading in it.

But Mack only shook his head gently, "No, let me finish."

Tyler knew that voice.

He'd heard it after ugly losses and bad road trips and those miserable little stretches as they edged closer to playoffs when everything seemed to go wrong at once. It was the voice Mack used when Mario was frustrated and when the rookies got too hard on themselves and when Warso himself spent twenty minutes bitching about power plays and bad bounces. Tired. Embarrassed. Determined to settle everybody down before they hurt each other.

The same voice Tyler had spent all year praising.

The same one he'd smiled at after wins and squeezed his shoulders over and told himself meant the kid was growing into the captaincy.

And then, horribly, he remembered the bench in Calgary, remembered Dean's hand coming down on the back of Mack's neck and the kid spinning around with genuine panic in his eyes and snapping, "Don't fucking touch me!" loudly enough that half the bench had gone silent before Mack caught himself and shrank immediately, apologizing, shutting down, disappearing into himself so completely Tyler had cornered him after the game and called him a brat and told him captains didn't get to sulk and ruin the room, and God, God, the kid had tried to tell him. Tyler could see it now, with nauseating clarity, the way Mack had stood there in the equipment room with his mouth opening and closing and said, "Ty, I– he–" and Tyler had cut him off because he'd thought he understood. He'd thought this was about pride. About being twenty and trying to prove he wasn't fifteen anymore. And Mack had listened. Christ, he'd listened.

"I thought if I could just avoid him, I wouldn’t have to bring it up and make things weird in the room. I know a lot of you guys are friendly with him, and I know it’s just how some of the older guys are, and he probably didn’t mean anything by it, so I just tried to– I don’t know, limit the opportunities for him to say or do weird shit. But– um. I think that just made it worse for the room, so I tried to- I don’t know. Grow up and handle it and stop letting my issues affect the team, stop letting it get to me so much.”

And he had. Tyler had thought things had gotten better after that. Tyler had been so proud. Mack stopped skipping video sessions. Stopped disappearing after practice. Stopped making excuses when Dean told him to stay late to stretch. Tyler had walked past them in the hallway one day, Dean's hand sitting comfortably on his shoulder while Mack stood there with that tired little expression he'd mistaken for maturity, and Tyler had actually felt relief, had thought there he is, kid's growing up, kid's finally figuring it out, and now, standing in the room with Will crying and Mack apologizing, Tyler realized with sickening certainty that nothing had gotten better. Mack had simply stopped fighting. Tyler had looked at surrender and called it leadership.

"But he crossed a line this time–"

"This time?" Will's head snapped around so fast Tyler almost missed it, and there was something so exhausted and disbelieving in the words that Tyler actually felt himself recoil.

Mack sighed softly and rubbed at his face, looking vaguely embarrassed, ignoring Will’s outburst magnanimously as he continued. "And being captain also means I decide what's okay in the room," he said quietly. "And I'm not okay with any omega on this team getting treated like that."

Beside him, Will went very still.

His hands had curled into fists at some point, knuckles pale against his palms, and Tyler could see the muscle jumping in his jaw every time Mack opened his mouth. The kid's eyes never left him.

"I know everybody likes Coach Mercer and nobody wants to make things weird, and I know it's uncomfortable and nobody likes causing problems but…" He shrugged awkwardly, rubbed at his eyes, turned toward Misa, Stenny, and Wennberg then, and Tyler felt something twist painfully in his chest because the kid looked genuinely ashamed.

"You shouldn't have to put up with it just to keep the peace." The room had gone completely silent. "It wasn't okay. The scenting, and the touching, and the extra video and private stretching sessions. The comments about heats."

Mack shrugged awkwardly, eyes dropping to the floor for a second. "I know everybody handles stuff differently, and maybe it didn't bother you guys as much as it bothered me, but–"

Will made a strangled sound somewhere beside him. Mack either didn't hear it or pretended not to.

"I should've said something sooner." He rubbed at the back of his neck. "I just kept thinking if I stayed out of his way it'd stop being a thing, and then I kept thinking if I acted normal about it maybe it'd stop bothering me, and–" A small, embarrassed laugh escaped him. "Obviously that didn't work."

Mack swallowed.

"I don't know. I just don't want you guys thinking you have to put up with stuff like that because he's a coach." His eyes flicked briefly between them. "And if any of you were uncomfortable and didn't say anything because I wasn't saying anything..."

He trailed off. The flush on his cheeks deepened.

"I'm sorry."

Misa sat up so abruptly his chair scraped backwards. "Mack." Misa was pale, hands shaking a little bit, but he kept his voice even, careful. "Mack, what are you talking about?"

Beside him, Stenberg frowned, confused, tugging on Wennberg’s sleeve and whispering something to the older forward in swedish. Tyler couldn’t catch more than the cadence of it, and Wennberg turned immediately with a matching frown, whispering something back, clipped and hard, that had Stenberg’s eyebrows raising, and triggered another rapid flow of swedish from the young winger.

Wenny frowned, and asked Stenberg something sharply enough the younger winger sat up straighter, confusion vanishing from his place replaced with something more akin to horror, as he began emphatically shaking his head. Tyler watched as both of their gazes flicked towards Mack, arms folded tightly across his chest.

It’s Stenberg that breaks the silence. “Mack–” his accent always thickened when he was upset, the careful English he’d spent all season polishing suddenly abandoned, “Mack, he did not to me. I swear.”

“Me either,” Misa said immediately, words coming out too fast, almost tripping over each other. “He hasn’t– We didn’t know Mack.”

“Oh,” Mack let out carefully, shoulders dropping with something too close to relief to fit into this conversation, into the room right now. “Okay. Okay, good, then I’m sorry, I didn’t–”

“Stop–” Stenberg cut him off, eyes wide and confused. The younger winger shook his head. “Why… Why you sorry Mack? Coach hurt you.”

“He didn’t hurt me,” Mack said immediately, and Will choked next to him, mouth curling into a snarl, but Mack didn’t look at him. “Not. Not really. It isn’t like–”

“Why didn’t you say anything?” Wennberg cut in. “How long? You started avoiding him in training camp, why didn’t you–”

“I-” and Mack’s eyes drop to the floor, voice hesitant, “It’s not like– He said things in front of everyone, it’s not like… like it was a secret. The little comments. The omega stuff. The jokes. He was always grabbing at me, even on the bench. It’s just how he is.”

It was worse, somehow, than almost anything he had said before. Because Tyler could remember laughing. Could remember Dean making stupid comments and the room moving on because it was Dean. Dean was an older guy, and he made bad jokes, but he meant well, and Dean loved Mack, knew him from Juniors, had a relationship with the kid that went back longer than anyone else in the building, so nobody thought twice about it.

“We didn’t–” and that was Mario, voice weak and shaky, “We thought you– You knew him. You knew him from juniors, if something was wrong, if he was different here, why wouldn’t you–”

“He was always like that,” Mack said with a shrug, “Even on the Steel he–”

“He was touching you on the Steel?” Reavo this time, “He was– he was making comments about your heats and scenting you when you were sixteen?”

“Yeah, sometimes. But it’s just how he is.” The kid stood there with his arms folded tightly across his chest, shifting his weight from one foot to the other beneath the weight of their attention, looking increasingly uncomfortable with being the center of the conversation he’s lost control of.

“I don’t know if he knows he’s doing it,” Mack said finally, the words sounding almost apologetic, “Or– or how it comes off.”

A low, disbelieving sound escaped somebody on the far side of the room, and Barclay swore under his breath.

“Oh, he knows Mack.” Will said, words curing cleanly through the room, a terrifying certainty in his voice. “He knows, because every alpha with a pulse knows better, and he isn’t doing it to Misa or Stenny.”

The silence that followed felt fragile, stretched tight enough that Tyler found himself bracing for something without knowing what.

Reavo was the one that broke it, the big winger pushing himself out of his chair and starting towards the door with the slow, deliberate purpose of someone who had already made a decision.

“Reavo?” Mack called after him, immediately, but Reaves didn’t stop. “Where are you going?”

“Medical.”

The room seemed to collectively inhale, and Mack looked alarmed.

“Reavo, no.”

“I just want to talk to him.” Reaves' voice was steely, and his scent bloomed in the room, sharp and angry, like it turned on the ice when one of the kids took a bad hit and Reaves was sent out to handle it. He wasn't the only one losing control of his scent. The locker room had become thick with it, layers of angry alpha stacking on top of each other until Tyler could practically taste it. Reavo's sharp aggression mingled with Will's bitter, peppery distress and something darker coming off Vinny, and across the room Graf had his practice jersey pulled up over his nose while Misa seemed to be folding in on himself by degrees, shoulders drawing tighter and tighter as the air grew heavier.

“Will already hit him–” Mack said, exasperated, “It’s not going to–”

“No offense to Kibble,” Reaves said, not even looking back, expression unchanged. “But I saw the fucker ten minutes ago, and he was still walking, which tells me he didn’t hit him hard enough.”

“Believe me,” Vinny stretched, pushing himself upright, “That wasn’t for lack of trying. You coming, Smitty?”

And then, to Tyler’s horror, Vinny started after Reaves, and Will, with one last squeeze of Mack’s wrist, followed.

Tyler watched Reavo reach for the handle, watched Vinny fall into step beside him, watched Will peel himself reluctantly away from Mack like every instinct he had was screaming to follow them, and for one terrible second he thought nobody was going to stop it.

His eyes found Mack first.

The kid had gone white beneath the flush in his cheeks, panic replacing the careful composure he'd been clinging to all afternoon as he looked from Reavo to Will to Vinny with the desperate expression of somebody trying to hold together something already coming apart in his hands.

Then Tyler looked at Warso.

The coach hadn't moved.

He was still staring at Mack with the hollow, stricken expression of a man watching the last year of his life rearrange itself in real time, every conversation and every extra skating session and every Dean's got him suddenly meaning something else entirely.

Tyler waited.

Warso said nothing.

And somewhere between Reavo's hand closing around the door handle and Mack opening his mouth to plead with them again, Tyler understood with sudden, nauseating clarity that nobody else was going to take control of this room.

“Sit the fuck down and shut up.” The words cracked through the room with enough force that Reavo stopped with his hand on the door.

Vinny turned first.

Will a heartbeat later.

Three angry alphas, all halfway out of the room, all looking back at Tyler with varying shades of fury, and for the first time since he'd walked into the locker room, Tyler felt the room hesitate.

"If beating the shit out of Mercer fixed this," he said quietly, the words sounding steadier than he felt, "I'd walk down there with you."

Nobody interrupted him. Reavo's hand stayed on the handle. Vinny's eyes flickered toward the floor. Will didn't look away from Tyler at all, his expression still carved from that terrible, exhausted certainty he'd been carrying since Tyler walked into the room.

"But it doesn't." Tyler swallowed, the words catching briefly in his throat as he looked past them towards Mack, still standing in the middle of the room, pale and overwhelmed and somehow looking guilty for all of this. "It doesn't help him."

The room settled into another heavy silence, and Tyler watched the truth of it work its way across the veterans' faces. Not agreement, he didn't think any of them had stopped wanting to put Mercer through the nearest wall, but recognition. They all wanted the same thing. They'd just forgotten, for one furious, helpless moment, who this was supposed to be about.
Tyler turned away from the players and found Warso exactly where he'd left him, still standing near the whiteboard with the same stricken look on his face, his gaze fixed somewhere just over Mack's shoulder.

"Warso."

The coach didn't answer immediately. He blinked once, hard enough that it looked almost painful, then dragged his eyes toward Tyler.

"Grier upstairs today?"

Warso stared at him for half a second before giving a distracted nod, like the question had taken longer than it should have to make sense. "Yeah."

"Great." Tyler pointed toward Nabokov before looking back at Warso. "Send Nabby up. Have him tell Grier what happened and that we need him, HR, and legal in a meeting room upstairs as soon as possible."

Warso just looked at him.

"As soon as possible," Tyler repeated, firmer this time. "Go."

Something finally seemed to click into place. Warso nodded sharply, turned to Nabokov, and started issuing instructions of his own, his voice unsteady at first before settling into something more recognizable, while Nabby was already reaching for the door. “And Nabby? Make sure Grier knows Mercer’s not allowed in the same room as Mack. Ever.”

Only then did Tyler turn back toward Mack.

The kid hadn't moved. He was still standing where the room had left him, shoulders rounded slightly inward, one hand still gripping the opposite forearm hard enough that his knuckles had gone pale beneath the tape around his wrists.

"C'mere, kid."

Mack followed without question when Tyler tipped his head toward the row of empty stalls at the far end of the room. It wasn't private, nothing in a locker room ever was, but it put a little distance between them and the knot of coaches still gathered near the doorway.

Tyler glanced back over his shoulder.

The room was still watching.

Every single one of them.

He didn't say anything. He just let his eyes travel across the room, meeting Reavo's gaze first, then Vinny's, then Barclay's, then Mario's, giving each of them the same pointed look before flicking his eyes toward the gear still scattered around their stalls.

It was enough.

One by one heads dipped. Somebody reached for a skate. Gloves hit the concrete. Shoulder pads landed with dull, familiar thuds against wooden benches, and the room slowly remembered how to move again, though nobody spoke and the silence that settled over them felt stranger than the shouting had.

Only one person didn't look away.

Will stood at the edge of the empty row of stalls, arms folded tightly across his chest, jaw set so hard Tyler could see the muscle working beneath his cheek. He didn't so much as glance toward his own stall, his eyes never leaving Mack for more than a heartbeat, and when Tyler met them across the room there was nothing in them that even remotely resembled trust.

Tyler couldn't blame him.

"Sit down, Mack."

Mack did without argument, dropping onto the edge of the wooden bench with the same quiet obedience he'd shown all afternoon, hands coming together loosely between his knees.
Tyler remained standing for a moment, and for the first time since he'd barked at Reavo to sit down, since he'd started issuing orders and sending coaches in every direction, he found himself at a loss.

He knew exactly what he wanted to say.

I'm sorry. I should've listened. You tried to tell me.

The words crowded against the back of his teeth, each one heavier than the last, and every instinct he had told him to say them.

Every other instinct told him that if he did, Mack would spend the next five minutes reassuring him.

So instead Tyler looked. Really looked.

The kid wasn't shaking. He wasn't crying. His breathing had settled back into something almost even, and Tyler found himself instinctively reaching for his scent, searching for bruised pear or cool mint or anything at all that might tell him what Mack was actually feeling beneath his tight control.

There was nothing.

Tyler frowned before his eyes caught on the side of Mack's neck. Four scent patches. The edges overlapped each other in uneven layers over the gland, enough suppressant and blocker to flatten even a panicked omega into blank, sterile nothing. Part of him wanted to tell him he couldn't wear them like that, the gland underneath was going to be raw and swollen and painful by the time he peeled them off, but he swallowed the thought almost as quickly as it came. There would be time for that later.

Mack had his shoulders squared again, his expression composed into that familiar, thoughtful neutrality Tyler had watched him wear through bad losses and ugly interviews and every other miserable part of being the youngest captain in the league.

This wasn't resilience, or maturity, or growth. This was a twenty-year-old trying with everything he had to look like the kind of captain he thought everyone needed, while quietly assuming it was his job to manage not only what Dean had been doing to him, but everyone else's reaction to it.

Something in Tyler's chest gave way.

"You don't have to fix it anymore, kid."

Something in Mack's expression tightened, his brow knitting together as though Tyler had said something that simply didn't make sense. Mack looked at him for another moment before shaking his head, already looking past Tyler toward the hallway, his mind racing ahead to the next problem before this one had even settled.

"I do, though." He scrubbed a tired hand over his face. "I have to go upstairs. I have to call Pat. I need to–" His voice caught on the words, not with emotion so much as exhaustion. "I need to meet with Grier and write statements and–"

He let out a long breath, rubbing at his forehead before dropping his hand back into his lap.
"Fuck." The word came quietly. "I really didn't want it to turn into... this."

That was where Mack's mind had gone. Not to Mercer. Not to the threat. Not even to the realization that the entire room had just learned what had been happening to him for months. The thing weighing on him, the thing he sounded almost guilty about, was the meeting upstairs, the paperwork, the disruption he'd caused, as though the real tragedy of the afternoon was that he'd made everyone else's day more complicated.

Tyler held his gaze for a long moment, feeling the weight of those words settle somewhere low in his chest.

"You listen to me." Mack looked up. "You don't have to do a damn thing you don't want to do. Not anymore."

The words earned him the same bewildered look as before. "I do Ty– I can’t just ignore it anymore, I have to–"

"No." Tyler's voice stayed quiet, but there was no room in it for argument. "You don't."

He glanced over his shoulder toward the rest of the room. Pads lay half-packed on benches, sticks leaned forgotten against lockers, and every man within earshot was pretending very badly not to listen.

"You're right. He wasn't exactly hiding it." His eyes returned to Mack. "We've all seen him keeping you late. We've all heard the comments. We've all watched him put his hands on you. We just didn't understand what we were looking at."

For the first time since they'd sat down, Mack looked genuinely uncertain.

"So if you don't want to write a statement today, don't." Tyler tipped his head toward the room behind them. "Every guy in here can tell Grier what we've seen. Every one of us can write a statement. You don't owe anybody proof anymore."

He let that settle before continuing, his voice softening almost despite himself.

"You've been trying to carry this whole thing on your own because you thought that was your job." Tyler shook his head. “Because I made you think it was your job.”

"I kept telling you to handle it. To stop making things weird. To be a captain." Tyler let out a slow breath. "And somewhere along the way I taught you that being captain meant swallowing shit that never should've been yours to swallow."

He shook his head.

"I was wrong."

The words landed between them with surprising weight.

"I thought I was teaching you leadership." Tyler's eyes dropped briefly to the floor before finding Mack's again. "All I really taught you was that protecting the room mattered more than protecting yourself."

The words settled between them, and for the first time all afternoon Tyler let himself say the thing he'd been swallowing since Will had opened his mouth.

"I'm sorry, kid." His voice was rough now. "I'm so fucking sorry."

He held Mack's gaze, refusing to look away from what he'd done.

"I should've listened. I should've asked why. I should've protected you instead of asking you to protect everybody else."

Mack didn't answer immediately.

His eyes had dropped somewhere to the space between Tyler's skates, his fingers worrying absently at the edge of the tape wrapped around one thumb, and for a long moment the only sound between them was the quiet clatter of equipment behind them as the room continued its careful pretense of looking anywhere else.

When he finally spoke, his voice was almost apologetic. "You don't have anything to be sorry for, Ty."

Even now, with the whole world he'd built for himself collapsing around his ears, the kid's first instinct was to make sure somebody else didn't feel too guilty.

Tyler opened his mouth, but Mack was already shaking his head. "You didn't know," he said quietly. "I didn't... I wasn't exactly telling anybody."

"You tried."

Mack looked away. "I wasn't very good at it."

"No," Tyler said, the word firmer than he'd intended. "You were. I just didn't listen."

That finally seemed to reach him. Mack's shoulders dipped almost imperceptibly beneath the weight of it, and he sat with the silence for a long moment before drawing a slow breath.

"I still want to go upstairs."

Tyler didn't interrupt this time. He simply waited.

"I know you guys can tell them what you saw." Mack rubbed a tired hand across his forehead, searching for words that seemed heavier now that he actually had to say them aloud. "And... I think that'll help. I really do."

His gaze drifted toward the hallway again.

"But there are…” Mack hesitated, searching for words that didn’t seem to want to come. “There are things you guys didn't see."

The sentence was so quiet Tyler almost missed it.

"He wasn't..." Mack stopped, jaw tightening as he searched for language that didn't seem to exist. "He was careful, with some of it."

Tyler felt something cold settle in the pit of his stomach.

"I don't want somebody else trying to explain that for me," Mack continued, almost to himself now, but his eyes flickered to Will, still hovering at the edge of the empty stalls, pretending to not be listening to every word of the conversation. "I can do it.”

Tyler studied him for a long time.

Six hours ago he would've argued. He would've called it stubbornness, told the kid he'd done enough, insisted on making the decision for him because he thought that was what looking after him meant.

Now he recognized something different. This wasn't Mack trying to carry everyone else. This was Mack refusing to let someone else carry his own story.

Finally, Tyler nodded. "Okay." It was a simple word, but Mack's shoulders loosened by a fraction anyway. "You go tell them what happened."

Tyler reached out on instinct, stopping himself before his hand reached the back of Mack's neck. For one brief second he saw Dean's hand there instead, casual and familiar and unwanted, and the memory was enough to make him change course, settling the gesture carefully against Mack's shoulder instead.

"But then you are done, okay? The rest of it ?" He glanced back toward the room, toward twenty-three players who were all waiting for somebody to tell them what came next. "You leave that to us."

His hand squeezed once on Mack’s shoulder, gentle and certain.

"We've got you, kid."

He held Mack's eyes until the kid finally looked back at him.

"I've got you."