Chapter Text
When Tony Stark meets Captain America in person for the very first time, he genuinely can't believe what an asshole the man turns out to be.
As a kid, Tony had absolutely adored Captain America. He owned every comic, every piece of merchandise, every toy, every pillow, Captain America bedsheets, and pretty much anything else he managed to convince his perpetually busy parents to buy him.
He'd imagined meeting his hero countless times if the man had somehow still been alive. After all, Captain America had worked with his father. There were even photographs of the two of them standing side by side. (It completely blew little Tony's mind.) So sooner or later, he would've had the chance to talk to him.
While he was alive, Howard Stark only encouraged those impossible childhood dreams, talking about Steve Rogers as though he were the eighth wonder of the world, an extraordinary beta transformed into the greatest alpha, the perfect man, the embodiment of everything good and noble.
Which is why Tony experiences an enormous sense of whiplash when he finally finds himself standing in front of that very embodiment, and the man doesn't even bother to shake his hand.
Instead, Steve Rogers fixes him with eyes bluer than the sky itself and says,
"I've heard about you."
For some strange reason, it doesn't sound like a good thing.
Combined with the Captain's cold expression, it makes for a thoroughly unpleasant first impression.
And in a single moment, Tony feels every one of his childhood dreams crack apart and shatter with a deafening crash.
It's not the biggest disappointment of his life, or even the worst one, but it still hurts far more than it should.
He can't quite remember what he says in response. Probably something about expired frozen produce.
All in all, things between him and Rogers get off to a terrible start.
So later, when they're expected to work together, Tony does everything in his power to avoid actually doing that. He argues, gets stubborn, vetoes plans whenever he can, and generally becomes exceptionally skilled at getting on everyone's nerves. He's also incredibly persistent about it.
The Avengers are simply too incredible a project to actively sabotage forever, though, and while Tony genuinely can't stand Rogers, he's hardly an idiot. He doesn't want to make an enemy of the people around him, so eventually he grits his teeth and starts doing his job.
To his surprise, it turns out they don't actually have to like each other to work well together.
They're even surprisingly compatible.
A textbook alpha and omega dynamic, someone would probably call it.
Tony scoffs at the thought, because the last thing he believes in is gender stereotypes. He's living proof that stereotypes don't hold up, especially not when it comes to exceptional people.
And even if he occasionally catches himself discreetly breathing a little deeper whenever Steve walks into a pre-mission briefing smelling like he'd just come straight from the gym, he certainly isn't going to admit it.
Not even to himself.
And he definitely isn't going to admit that the scent, even if it's technically produced by the Serum rather than because Rogers is a real alpha, sometimes gets under his skin so badly that he catches himself imagining licking it from behind Steve's ears before biting them as punishment.
Those thoughts always leave him feeling deeply irritated afterward.
Every now and then, after moments like that, Natasha gives him a look that tells him she finds him utterly deplorable.
Tony remains firmly convinced, however, that she's the only one on the team who's noticed.
And only because it takes one omega to know another.
After all, she's an omega too, even if, unlike him, pheromones have absolutely no effect on her.
When he was younger, Tony never regretted being born an omega, even if, technically speaking, it put him in a difficult social position.
Most people, despite it already being the twenty-first century, still expected complete obedience from omegas. Whether in family matters, professional matters, or life in general. It was expected that once they finished their education, they would pair up, start families, have children, and then devote themselves entirely to arranging the everyday lives of their partners and offspring.
And most omegas really did follow that path.
That didn't mean every omega intended to do so though.
From an early age, Tony had pushed back against that kind of expectation, unable to imagine such a future even in his worst nightmares.
And he succeeded.
He proved to everyone that he was different, that his success came from his professional, political, and scientific achievements, and later even from becoming a superhero, not from diapers and family calendars.
He liked bringing it up. He liked when people saw him as proof that stereotypes could go fuck themselves.
Of course, he still occasionally encountered brainless, arrogant alphas at social events who thought that releasing a little pheromone would be enough to convince him to have sex with them and maybe even something more.
He always dismissed them with pitying smiles, scoffs, and unpleasant comments about their appearance.
He had no intention of going to bed with them, even if they begged him on their knees.
Of course, he had never avoided sex in general. His entire life, however, he had only slept with betas, and it was a rule he followed very strictly.
In his mind, it gave him an advantage over everyone else.
Like he was cheating the system.
And he was perfectly happy with that, even if he knew that in a situation like this he would never be fully understood by the other person.
He didn't need that.
He had always managed to suppress his heats with mountains of medication, after which he usually slept for several days and nights straight.
Even after he got together with Pepper, he didn't change that habit, though he knew she hated it.
It was possible that it brought back flashbacks of every time he had lost consciousness because of blood loss, exhaustion, or problems with shrapnel.
He always told her that the alternatives were either that or going to the hospital. There, they would give him an injection that had exactly the same effect as the pills.
In both scenarios, he would end up drugged and unconscious, so technically nobody won.
The only difference was that one option meant a burning, painful injection, an uncomfortable hospital bed, and a room that smelled of medicine and cleaning products, while the other meant locking himself in his own bedroom and burying himself in the comfort of a nest made from pillows and blankets.
During that time, the nest was obviously the only correct choice.
Sometimes he even invited Pepper into it.
She was the first person he had ever done that with.
And did he feel a little exposed and stripped of his privacy because of it?
Maybe.
Or maybe not.
But he did it anyway, because he genuinely believed it helped him feel at least a little better.
He loved Pepper and tried to show it however he could, even while being in such a vulnerable state.
Perhaps that was exactly why he felt so horribly deceived, hurt, and betrayed when one day Potts came home and informed him that she thought she had met her soulmate.
Even though Tony had always known there was a chance something like that could happen, it cut him down to the bone. Because how could she do this to him? And why did it even have to happen to him?
So few people had destined partners. Did the only woman he had ever loved really have to be one of them?
They didn't break up immediately, but after two weeks Tony couldn't stand sitting in the silence of their California home anymore.
Pepper tried to talk to him, but honestly, he wasn't interested in anything she had to say.
Because he knew how it would end.
She had met someone who was somehow, some fucking miracle, better for her than he was, and she probably wanted to leave him for that guy. And Tony knew he wouldn't be able to stand being rejected so directly to his face.
Eventually, without actually resolving the situation in any meaningful way, he moved into one of the rooms in the Stark Tower apartment.
Pepper texted him, asking him to reach out whenever he was ready.
He wasn't ready. And he didn't reply.
After that, he sank completely into misery and didn't get sober unless he had to go on a mission.
The other Avengers noticed that something was very wrong.
They also noticed that, for their own safety, it was probably better not to approach Tony without necessary safety measures.
After a while, they mostly gave him space, and Tony figured they leared what was going on.
Rhodey, who Tony complained to about once every two days, had probably eventually informed S.H.I.E.L.D. about what exactly was wrong with Iron Man (traitor), and S.H.I.E.L.D. had most likely very helpfully passed that information on to his teammates.
So everyone knew he had been dumped.
Thor tried several times to start conversations about it in his own very strange way, but eventually gave up after Tony sent him some very clear and extremely unpleasant looks after missions and slammed doors loudly enough to make the point.
The god might have been stupid, but he wasn't completely oblivious.
It continued like that for a month.
Then two.
Then three.
Things were bad. Tony stopped talking to anyone, and even Fury eventually started throwing his hands up in defeat.
He spent his days switching between the workshop and his bedroom. He drank anything that happened to end up within reach and only talked to JARVIS, and sometimes Happy when he needed him to bring him something. He didn't leave the house unless he absolutely had to.
His hormones and emotions were such a complete mess that he didn't go through a single heat.
At least, as he noted with a grim sense of humor, he didn't have to worry about mixing medication with alcohol.
What a wonderful coincidence.
The first person who somehow managed to pull him out of that pit was, surprisingly enough, Natasha.
One day, Black Widow came to him and asked if he could let Banner stay under his roof in the Tower.
Tony had absolutely no idea what she was talking about.
And then he found out that his scientist friend had been moving between cheap, disgusting motels for months and refusing every offer from S.H.I.E.L.D. to put him somewhere even remotely suitable to live.
So Tony pulled himself together.
He showered, shaved, and put on something that wasn't a hole-ridden AC/DC shirt and sweatpants covered in grease. Then he went with Natasha to pick up Banner.
Because even if he wasn't exactly thrilled by the idea of having someone living next to him while he was in that state, his deeply ingrained need to fix everything around him wouldn't allow him to leave a friend in a situation like that.
Bruce wasn't easy to convince. He frowned, made excuses, and tried to refuse.
But Tony eventually managed to persuade him with the promise of building him a fully equipped laboratory in the Tower and the assurance that JARVIS' security system would sooner cause the entirety of North Korea to explode than allow some S.H.I.E.L.D. agent trying to gather information on him to break through Towers defenses. And so Banner moved in.
Tony had to make sure his bedroom and laboratory were stocked with everything he needed.
It occupied him enough that, for a short, very short moment, he forgot about his overwhelming pain and his broken heart.
After that, things became easier.
Because it turned out that living with someone, even someone as calm and private as Bruce, made it impossible for Tony to drown himself in misery at every single moment of the day.
Banner didn't intrude, not in any sense of the word, but he also didn't avoid Tony. Sometimes he came to the workshop just to talk, or to see what Tony was working on, and Tony discovered that he surprisingly appreciated those moments. He started going to Bruce's laboratory as well, doing the same thing.
Although he was much more invasive and much louder about it, because he was far too much himself for it to be any other way.
Tony wasn't entirely sure when Natasha and Clint moved into the Tower as well, but it must have happened somewhere along the way, because he saw them more often than he didn't.
Clint claimed one of the many empty guest bedrooms for himself and filled it with bows, arrows, quivers, and posters of half-naked women.
Tony had no idea where Natasha slept, but he had his suspicions that she had made herself comfortable somewhere inside the ventilation shafts, because sometimes even JARVIS had trouble locating her.
With them by his side, his life slowly became just a little easier and slightly more bearable.
Tony genuinely liked keeping an eye on everything and everyone, and the fact that he had people to take care of, even if taking care of them meant repairing a broken bow, ordering a new drive for a burned-out computer, or getting special chocolates produced only in Moscow (which, naturally, nobody would ever admit to eating), helped him more than he wanted to admit.
Tony was painfully aware that the only person excluded from their little Avengers circle of mutual appreciation was Steve.
But he couldn't bring himself to invite him to live with all of them in the Tower.
Their relationship was no longer as disastrously bad as it had been at the beginning, but it still wasn't neutral enough for Tony to want to share a home with him.
He felt some strange, inexplicable form of relief when one day Widow lifted that particular weight from his shoulders and suggested in front of everyone that their mission briefings should start taking place in the Tower.
Then, like the perfect hostess she absolutely was, she pointed Steve toward a room he could use if he ever needed to bring something with him, rest, or simply wanted to spend time with them.
Steve still spent most of his time living in his tiny Brooklyn apartment, but over time he started spending more and more time in the Tower as well.
At first, it annoyed Tony a little.
He still held onto some resentment from their first meeting.
With time, however, he had to admit that Rogers was actually rather tolerable company.
He didn't make messes, he didn't wander around where he wasn't needed, and talking to him, as long as the conversation stayed neutral and concerned missions or everyday trivialities, could actually be quite pleasant.
If only he could stop smelling so aggressively alpha all the time, Tony might even be able to say that he was starting to like him.
Just a little.
Unfortunately, you cannot have everything.
Not even when you were a billionaire.
Which is honestly ridiculous, because money can buy practically anything.
And yet, somehow, it can’t.
Tony accepted this with a profound sense of injustice and a bitter taste in his mouth, because right now he couldn't even remember what his last conversation with Pepper had looked like.
Missing her still twisted him with pain, and the spiteful scent of Captain America's presence, affecting his already unstable hormones, often only made those symptoms worse.
That day, nothing suggests that New York is about to face destruction.
And yet it does.
Tony is sitting on the couch with Clint, playing cards, when suddenly an enormous boom echoes through the building and everything around them shakes violently.
They stop and stare at each other in shock.
Bruce and Natasha rush into the living room moments later, both looking equally surprised, but also prepared.
Everyone exchanges meaningful glances.
"Conference room in five minutes," Widow orders, then disappears around the corner.
Tony and Clint immediately get up.
Clint heads toward his room, while Tony makes his way to the workshop.
It takes him a little longer than five minutes, but he arrives at the conference room already wearing his armor.
Inside, Clint, Natasha, and Bruce are already waiting.
The only person missing, Tony notices, is Steve.
And of course Thor, but Thor had something to handle in Asgard and has already been gone for weeks, so Tony doesn't really count him.
On the massive screen hanging on one of the walls, Nick Fury's magnificent face stares back at them.
"You're late, Iron Man," the man says accusingly.
"Wonderful to see you too," Tony replies with a teasing smile. "So, what is dropping on our heads today?"
"Graviton. The idiot escaped from custody and has gone on a rampage in Lower Manhattan. He's blown up several residential buildings and came up with the brilliant idea of ripping the New York State Supreme Court out of the ground and sending it to the moon. Apparently, he didn't like the outcome of his last trial. Code red. Lots of civilians. Lots of chunks of concrete flying around without gravity. High threat level. You are to be careful and not cause more damage than necessary. Is everything clear?"
Clint raises a hand.
"Why are you only telling us this?" he questions, one eyebrow rising. "Maybe it's just me, but it seems like someone is missing here. Aren't we waiting for Captain?"
Fury's expression twists.
"The Captain is indisposed today. You will proceed with the mission without him," Fury tries to shut the conversation down.
"The great Captain has his period?" Tony throws out, but apparently the comment is far too low even for them, because nobody pays attention.
"What does indisposed mean?" Natasha asks, crossing her arms over her chest and fixing Fury with a freezing stare.
Fury holds it and, with military precision, refuses to break. Bastard doesn't even blink.
"Personal matters. I'm sure he'll explain himself to you soon enough if he feels the need to do so. Now move before every judge in this city gets sent into fucking space."
The screen goes dark.
There is nothing more to say, so they gather their things and leave.
When they arrive at the scene, it turns out the situation is worse than they imagined.
The section of Centre Street near the courthouse practically doesn't exist anymore. All that's left is shattered asphalt, with cars buried underneath in places, and people trapped inside those cars.
The famous stairs leading to the courthouse are broken in half, and the entire building is sitting about sixty feet higher than it should be.
The police are already there, evacuating whoever they can and creating an escape route through Foley Square and Thomas Paine Park.
There really is concrete flying everywhere.
Tony notices that some of the pieces are larger than he is.
Graviton is hovering above the courthouse roof, and according to Tony, he looks like a man desperately trying not to give himself a hernia.
It's obvious he's putting enormous effort into ripping the building out of the ground.
Apparently, he's also capable of multitasking, because the moment he notices them approaching, he immediately creates a small shockwave that causes all the windows in the surrounding buildings to shatter into tiny pieces.
So much for minimizing damage.
This is one powerful opponent, which means the fight doesn't go nearly as easily as it would if there were several weaker enemies instead.
Splitting their strength here makes absolutely no sense. They have no choice but to divide the tasks.
Tony is the only one who can even attempt to chase him through the air, and that's exactly what he does.
The rest focus on the more grounded problems and take on civilian rescue.
Hulked Bruce goes from car to car, picking up vehicles crushed beneath the asphalt and tearing them apart with his enormous hands, freeing the people trapped inside.
Everyone looks equally terrified by this solution. Thankfully, Clint is nearby and helps guide them toward the correct escape route.
Natasha, meanwhile, climbs up the broken stairs and disappears into the courthouse, apparently looking for a way to get everyone trapped inside out without major injuries.
"Don't let this whole thing collapse on my head before I manage to get out, tovarishch," she tells Tony through the comms, not even sounding out of breath. In the background, panicked screams and crying can be heard.
"Yes, ma'am," Tony replies with grace, and then immediately curses loudly because he only barely avoids a brick flying directly toward his head.
Graviton isn't running away.
Instead, he forms a spinning wall of debris around himself that effortlessly deflects every repulsor blast, small missile, bomb, and basically everything else Tony tries to throw at him.
Overall, things are not looking good.
The courthouse is already about hundred feet above the ground, and with every passing moment, it rises higher.
They could really use Captain right now. Or at least his shield.
And Tony is angry that he isn't there. How important could his personal matters possibly be? Besides, what does indisposed even mean? The man couldn't even get sick!
Eventually, Tony comes up with a brilliant idea.
He informs Natasha to hurry up, then fires a cable toward one of the largest chunks of flying concrete, something about the size of an average passenger car, and starts swinging it around like a pendulum.
Then, once it's moving fast enough, he sends it flying toward Graviton.
Because of his debris shield, Graviton has too limited a field of vision to notice what is happening in time.
The piece of concrete hits him like a fly swatter and smashes him into the wall of the nearest skyscraper.
Unfortunately, his shield explodes spectacularly from the impact.
And even though Tony flies away as far as he possibly can, he can't avoid the rain of smaller and larger fragments flying toward him.
They hit him.
Hard.
He hears JARVIS activate the autopilot and realizes that he might be losing consciousness. He's not entirely sure. His head hurts so horribly that he's incapable of thinking about anything else.
When he wakes up, he is lying on the back seat of a limousine, with Natasha holding his head in her lap and pressing something cold and stinging against his temple.
"Did I miss much?" he asks her once he is able to properly feel his tongue again.
Instead, Clint answers.
He is sitting across from them and looks as exhausted as a person possibly can.
Next to him, Bruce is half lying down, asleep or rather unconscious, wrapped up like a cocoon in a blanket covered in Peppa Pig patterns.
Clint must have taken it from one of the cars.
"Only a little. JARVIS brought you down and called an ambulance."
"You have a mild concussion, a fractured collarbone, a lot of bruises and contusions, and somehow that's all. They treated you on site, but you'll still have to go to the hospital." Natasha continues.
Tony squints, his eyes refusing to cooperate properly, and tries to focus on her face. He notices that she has a nasty bruise on her cheek.
A concussion. Yeah. That would explain a few things.
"Graviton?" he asks.
"Flattened against a wall," Clint informs him shortly.
So dead.
Fury is not going to be happy about that. Even though Avengers protocol required them to fight any and all villains, killing them was supposed to be an absolute last resort, something avoided until it was completely and undeniably necessary.
S.H.I.E.L.D. preferred having them alive if possible. After all, they could always still be useful for something.
Tony sighs. He already knows that when he gets home, he will be facing mountains of paperwork related to this whole situation, and the old pirate will definitely call him and make his opinion on such tactics very clear.
"Great," he says, and Natasha empathetically runs her fingers through his hair. Sometimes Tony is genuinely surprised by how caring she can be when she wants to.
On the way back to the Tower, Clint manages to convince Happy to stop at McDonald's, so they get a ridiculous amount of fast food to take away.
By the time they spread everything out in the living room, all the fries are already cold and disgusting, but thankfully the burgers are still as greasy and filling as usual.
Bruce finally wakes up, and although he is still shaking slightly and some of the veins on his face are a little green, he sits down and joins them.
Natasha refuses to touch anything that was made in a fryer, but instead gets herself a caramel sundae and seems perfectly content with it.
Tony genuinely cannot understand how she isn't more hungry after everything that happened. He himself eats five burgers and considers going for a sixth.
While eating, he obsessively checks his work phone every few minutes. He even asks JARVIS whether Captain America left any message for them.
But no.
Rogers is still silent, and nobody knows what is happening with him.
He didn't join them when they went to fight, and even after the battle they still have no contact with him.
Tony might not particularly like him, but this is such strange and unusual behavior that he actually starts worrying about the well-being of their own Great Holy Protector of America.
When there is still no contact with the Captain the next day, Tony becomes genuinely concerned.
He bothers JARVIS until the AI agrees to check where Rogers is.
Using access to city cameras, JARVIS determines that Steve wasn't dragged away or imprisoned anywhere. He is simply in his apartment in Brooklyn. There is no information or footage from inside the apartment itself, because Rogers categorically dismantled every device S.H.I.E.L.D. ever installed there. Which means Tony has no way of ordering JARVIS to break into them. Steve's phone is also turned off, and inaccessible.
Tony therefore makes the only logical decision.
He decides to go there himself and demand answers.
Rogers' apartment is located in an old, typically New York building, and when Tony realizes after entering that he will have to climb to the tenth floor without an elevator, his enthusiasm immediately dies.
By the time he finally reaches the top, he is sweaty, red in the face, his knees are giving out, and he can feel every single bruise on his body individually.
No. Absolutely not. He leans against the hallway wall, bent in half and trying to catch his breath, and that is exactly when the smartphone in his pocket starts ringing.
He pulls it out and raises his eyebrows when he sees Fury's name on the screen.
What the hell?
He answers purely out of curiosity. How does Fury even know where Tony is?
"Iron Man, pull back immediately." Fury's voice is raised and sounds surprisingly nervous. "You do not have permission to approach that apartment."
Tony actually looks around.
He's curious whether there is some camera in the hallway that the colonel is using to watch him right now, or whether they had been monitoring him even earlier.
"For your information, I'm not currently on duty, and you can't order me around," he says into the phone, deliberately provoking.
"Stark, turn around, damn it. This is for your own safety. You cannot go in there. That is an order, do you understand me?!"
For his own safety? What does that even mean? Now he is even more curious. He pushes himself away from the wall and walks toward the Captain's apartment door.
"Sorry, bad reception. Can't hear you. Old building, you know how it is," he mutters into the phone.
"Stark! Damn it!"
Fury shouts, and Tony hears someone in the background say something about agents already being on their way.
He hangs up.
He has no idea what all this fuss is about, but he has no intention of listening to anyone's orders.
Now he simply needs to find out what the hell is going on. What is happening to Captain America? He grabs the doorknob, but naturally, the door is locked. So he knocks a few times and patiently waits to see what happens.
He hears some noises from inside and then silence. He thinks he will have to knock again, but after a moment the lock clicks and the door opens slightly.
"I told you guys not to come here! I'll call when I..."
The Captain appears from behind the door only slightly, but when he sees Tony, he freezes.
His eyes widen as if he has seen a ghost.
"Hey, maybe you could explain what these sudden vacation days are about? I know being a superhero is hard work and all, but you could have had enough decency to at least send a text and let us know you weren't kidnapped by some thawed Nazis or something."
Tony rests a hand against the door and leans forward, looking at the Captain casually.
If he weren't holding it there, the wood would probably slam shut in his face immediately, because he can feel Rogers pushing against it from the other side.
Somewhere in the back of his mind, Tony notices that Steve really does not look well.
There are no lights on inside the apartment behind him, so he cannot see much.
But he can tell that Steve is drenched in sweat, his eyes are glassy, and his cheeks and neck are covered in a deep pink flush.
He looks sick.
Tony frowns, because he had no idea that after taking the Serum, Captain America could still get sick like an ordinary person.
"Tony, you can't be here."
Steve, looking genuinely terrified, pushes against the door again, trying to close it.
Tony quickly slides the tip of his boot between the door and the frame to stop him.
"Hey, what's going on? Why didn't you come yesterday? Fury wouldn't tell what was happening, and me and the rest..."
"Leave! You need to get out of here!"
Steve doesn't even try to listen to him.
He just shouts and does everything he can to close the door. He clearly doesn't want to step out of the apartment, but thankfully he also doesn't crush Tony's fingers in the process.
He doesn't look like he is fully capable of using his enhanced strength either.
Taking advantage of that, Tony presses his entire body weight against the door and, almost by sheer luck, manages to force it open wide enough to slip underneath Steve's arm and get inside.
All the lights are off. The blinds covering the windows are drawn. Tony can only hear the ticking of a clock.
And he has to admit, it is pretty damn creepy.
He tries not to pay attention to it and turns toward the Captain.
"Okay, now talk. Because I'm not leaving until I hear the whole truth. What is this whole damn circus? Are you dying from some mysterious illness or something..."
In a moment, his tongue stops working properly.
The rest of the words get stuck somewhere between his throat and his mouth. Because finally, he notices it.
The heavy, almost tangible scent of pheromones filling the air. They are so concentrated that he almost chokes on them. His knees nearly buckle.
He doesn't think he has ever experienced anything like this before.
Captain is still standing by the door. Now he covers the lower half of his face with one hand, breathing heavily and staring at Tony so intensely that Tony almost feels the weight of it.
The blue of his eyes practically glows in the darkness.
And with every passing second, Tony understands more and more clearly exactly what kind of mess he has unknowingly walked into.
If he had known this was even possible, he would have figured it out much sooner.
Now that he thinks about it, it was actually pretty obvious.
That was why Fury had categorically forbidden him from getting close… But how was Tony supposed to know? Nothing like this had ever happened before. At least not as far as he knew.
Only now does it occur to him that S.H.I.E.L.D. might not have been entirely honest about what information regarding Captain America's biology they had shared with the public.
Or even with the other Avengers.
But none of that matters anymore.
It is far too late for complaints or accusations.
Tony has to decide what to do, because with every passing second, he is losing more and more of his ability to think logically.
Locking himself inside the apartment of a superpowered alpha in the middle of a rut, completely by his own choice, is without a doubt one of the stupidest things he has ever done in his life.