Chapter Text
Bucky
The car pulled up after driving for what felt like hours. Maybe it was hours – all Bucky knew was that they definitely weren’t in the city anymore. For the past ten or so songs on the radio, only trees and fields had passed outside the car window, and the young omega had curled up under his coat and watched with big eyes. Maybe he could’ve asked Miss Potts where they were going, but she rarely answered what she called ‘stupid questions’. Instead Bucky sat sullen and silent, watching as they left New York and kept going. The driver only ever exchanged quiet words with Miss Potts – ignoring the omega completely, like they all did.
And by the time they finally stopped, they were in the middle of a forest turning bright orange, yellow and red with autumn. The house wasn’t really a house at all – it was more of a castle. A long, tall building in dark brick with pointy towers and green ivy climbing the walls. Bucky frowned. Was this another school? Was he going to be raised here now? The omega squirmed uncomfortably in the car seat. Before they left, he’d been given a discreet slick pad like always, but it had been a much too long drive and he could feel it at overflowed onto his underwear. That made him uneasy. He was still in his school uniform and the teachers always got angry with him when he soiled his pants. Sometimes they even punished him, which didn’t seem fair. Bucky couldn’t help it.
“James, come on now” Miss Potts, his principal, said in her sharp tone and snapped her fingers. Muttering to himself, the omega dragged himself out of the back seat. He threw one last look at the driver, but the beta in the front seat just stared ahead at some sort of statue of a naked omega in the middle of a pond.
Getting out, he narrowed his eyes at the ominous building. It didn’t have any sign on it like his school had, or a bell by the door to get everyone inside from recess. No, wait – it did have a sign. Or rather it had big metal letters curving above the grand entrance.
They said; THE SARAH ROGERS ASYLUM.
Bucky halted. His boots made a mark in the gravel, and Miss Potts turned, annoyed at him.
“What is this? I don’t want to go in there” the omega said, alarmed. All they had told him back at the school was that they were taking him to see a councillor. Someone that could help with his problems. They didn’t…they never said anything about an asylum.
“This is a hospital. And you’re going in there because I said so” Miss Potts said firmly and reached to grab his arm. The alpha was much stronger than the seventeen-year-old omega, and even thought Bucky tried to resist he found himself being dragged towards the entrance anyway.
“Wait..! I don’t need a hospital, I don’t want to” Bucky begged to deaf ears, and when he was ignored he got angry.
That was his problem. Omegas weren’t supposed to get these flashes of rage, but he did.
“I said stop!” Bucky more or less shouted and wrung his arm so that Miss Potts lost her grip. With an accusing look, he glared at the tall alpha who looked like she’d swallowed a bag of lemons. “You said councillor” he huffed with crossed arms over his skinny chest, as if it mattered. As if he couldn’t be put wherever the principal wanted.
She took a deep breath and smoothed out her grey pencil skirt, giving him the kind of look all omegas at the school had learned meant that they were on very thin ice with her patience.
“I know what I said. And you will be taken in for counselling, with one of the finest doctors New York has to offer. So right now you are not only wasting my time, but his time as well” Miss Potts told him with a very sharp stare.
For a second, Bucky felt panic rise. He glanced to his side, at the woods and the leaves slowly falling to make a rug of the ground, and he wonder briefly how far he would make it if he ran. And if he made it from this, how much worse would the people be who caught him. Bucky might be young, but he was under no illusions – no one helped runaway omegas out of the goodness in their hearts. The only people worse than the ones who would immediately give him up to the police where the ones that would actually keep him.
So Bucky choose to believe that this was nothing but a counselling meeting, simply because he didn’t have much choice. Swallowing hard, he steeled himself and then nodded meekly. The alpha seemed pleased that he’d given in, and now led him with more success into the brick building.
It wasn’t until he got into the grand hallway that the omega suddenly felt the stab to his gut and whimpered. Doubling over, Bucky clutched his belly and felt the heat blossom over his cheeks and quickly travel over his body until he felt overheated. Pain mixed with almost dizzying arousal made his vision narrow to a tunnel and Bucky let out a choked sound as he felt another gush of slick soak his pants, all the while he started to topple over.
“…it’s alright, I got him”. The voice seemed to come from under water. It was unfamiliar. Bucky gasped for air, realizing he must’ve passed out for a hot second, and then panicked when he noticed someone was holding onto him. His body was still so warm it burned and the strong arms around his waist and shoulders wasn’t helping.
Neither was the strong scent of alpha that surrounded him like a blanket of pheromones. Bucky found himself desperately inhaling the enticing scent and then immediately wanting to die from embarrassment – it only made the situation in his pants that much worse.
“…he does this, you see why we can’t keep him? It’s not…”. The shrill voice of Miss Potts drifted in and out of Bucky’s ears as he slowly regained consciousness. Once he did, the omega blinked stupidly up at the strange alpha who’d caught him before he hit the floor.
He was unusually large, with blond hair neatly trimmed and a darker beard to match. Underneath a white lab coat he wore a soft, moss green shirt out of some knitted material that Bucky wanted to bury his face in. But he also realized that a strange alpha was holding onto him and he jerkily moved, surprising the alpha talking to Miss Potts. Defensively, Bucky pushed away and landed on his butt – his wet butt – on the floor and glared at the man.
“Let go” he muttered, even though he was now sitting on the cold stone rubbing at his hip.
“James Barnes! You were raised better than that” Miss Potts immediately scolded, looking red to the face. Apparently he wasn’t making a good impression.
But the blond alpha just smiled in a placating way at Miss Potts and instead reached out to gently haul Bucky to his feet, even though he did not ask about that.
“Don’t worry, we get all kinds here. I scared him, is all” he explained. Then he turned to Bucky and politely reached out his hand, palm turned upwards and wrist exposed. “I’m Dr Rogers, and I’m in charge of this place. Well, the patients at least. I hear you need to have a talk with me?” the alpha said with an interested smile. It was weird. Bucky frowned at him, wondering why he was talking to him and not Miss Potts.
But Bucky couldn’t deny he was drawn to the alpha. Dr Rogers smelled strongly, the way none of the alphas at his school did, but it was a very nice smell. And now he was offering his wrist, the way alphas usually did with grown omegas. Bucky was considered matured, but he wasn’t an adult. As long as he was still living at the boarding school, he wouldn’t be. So the omega hesitantly glanced at Miss Potts, but the principal couldn’t do much about it. Dr Rogers had offered his hand and wrist, so Bucky was allowed to greet him properly.
Like he sensed Bucky’s uncertainty, Dr Rogers smiled broader and reached out the arm further.
“It’s okay. You can say hi” he prompted with a gentleness to his deep, steady voice that Bucky quite liked. He decided to go for it and took a step forward so he could bend down and scent the alpha. Very carefully, Bucky ghosted the tip of his nose over Dr Rogers’ palm, shy about going further. But when the alpha didn’t pull his hand away, Bucky dared to venture up and smell his exposed wrist. The glands there emitted pheromones so strong the omega involuntarily let out a needy whimper, which made him pull back so quickly he almost fell over again.
“Do you not think it’s more wise to wear blockers around omegas?” Miss Potts asked in a sour tone, having crossed her skinny arms over her stiff blouse. She wore them – all the alphas at school did. Bucky’s nose was so sensitive though he could smell through it. One time he’d nicked one of the teacher’s cardigans and they found him in a closet pressing it to his face and doing…bad things. Bucky blushed; even he could smell the reaction he was having to Dr Rogers being without scent blockers. But he couldn’t help it.
Dr Rogers gave her a calm smile and hid his wrist behind the sleeve of the white coat.
“Here at the asylum, we believe in exposure therapy. He will never learn to control his urges if he’s never exposed to temptation, so to speak. In time, he’ll get used to it” the alpha explained. Then he made a gesture with his hand, showing them towards a staircase to the left before Bucky had any time to think about the words in time. “Shall we?”
Steve
In a sense, the kid was much like the other omega patients that came through here. Steve was the head of the medical team here so he dealt with patients of all three designations, but he specialized in omegas and devoted them the most time. They also made up the bulk of the people treated here.
So Steve had seen a lot of the same behaviour before. When James asked to be excused to the bathroom to get his pad changed – which would have to be a topic of discussion sooner rather than later – it came to no surprise that the principal of the omega’s school had to barge in after some time to drag him out. He had most definitely been engaging in some…inappropriate behaviour in there. It was all over him – the scent, the faint sound of his heart racing, the colour on his cheeks. All of it checked out. This was an omega with intense hormonal issues, and quite possibly psychological troubles too, but it was nothing more than Steve had seen before.
Or so he thought.
But what he already now could tell was different was how sweet James was. Perhaps not in his way of acting or his words, but his looks, and most importantly his scent. Steve had trained for years to control himself around omega patients, but he wasn’t going to lie. This omega was hard. Usually, Steve got older patients. They were brought by their alphas after making mated life difficult for years, and they had lots of experience with heats. Steve assumed, and probably rightly so, that James hadn’t shared a heat with anyone – which was uncommon, because it was usually when omegas got in contact with alphas and started getting a sudden access to their protein that their hormones got thrown out of balance.
For a teenager to develop these problems, it took something different. Something not as documented, without a clear treatment. The alpha in Steve wanted to take James in and help him feel better; but the doctor in him couldn’t help but feel excited over the possibility to learn something new. Perhaps even try some of the new experimental treatments he’d been looking forward seeing the result of.
“Here we are” Steve said as he entered his office. He motioned towards the two armchairs he used for visitors. “The green one has a protective coverage, for your comfort James” he explained gently, and the omega glared up at him. But he still sat down in it – it wasn’t like he could hide the fact that his pants were soaked. Steve would page his nurse about getting him some new nice sweatpants, but he would need to disrobe for the physical later anyway. Hoping that the omega wasn’t too uncomfortable for now, he sat down behind his desk and politely nodded at Miss Potts who stiffly sat down in the other chair, this one not covered by a plastic sheet.
“So, on the phone you told me James here has had issues for a while now. Could you elaborate on that?” Steve asked the other alpha with a professional crease in his brow as he picked up a pen and clicked it, preparing to write down the notes. Their phone call two weeks ago had been a pretty standard one – not saying much more than that the school had an omega who disrupted the others and had big problems concentrating due to his hormonal turmoil.
Miss Potts glanced at her pupil, with a certain level of distaste. James’ scent soured furthered and he crossed his arms.
“His nest-mates tell us he barely sleeps – and he keeps them from sleeping in turn. They say he’s been staying up all night doing things we don’t condone at all on our school, and during the days he can hardly focus. You can smell him yourself doctor. It’s like he’s in a constant state of sub-heat, but no one can figure out why” she complained.
“Do you have a lot of alphas on the school grounds?” Steve asked as he took notes.
“No, it’s only me, a few teachers and the board members, and they hardly visit. We keep them as far as we can in a company of their own kind, and most of our teaching staff are betas. But James can hardly make it through the domestic lessons. The alpha who teaches that course says James can’t even present without soiling himself. We’ll never get him mated – we just can’t handle him” Miss Potts sighed exasperated.
James, who had been squirming uncomfortably the whole time on the chair, undoubtedly rubbing himself as best as he could on the chair, let out a frustrated sound.
“You don’t get it. None of you get it! It hurts, all the time! How am I supposed to focus?” the omega let out, sounding both annoyed and exhausted. Steve looked at him curiously, wondering what led to this particular disorder. But when the principal got ready to chastise him, Steve raised a hand.
“No, it’s alright. James, sit still. Can you do that?” he ordered, to test the omega. James either ignored him or simply couldn’t stop – he just glared at the doctor and kept rubbing his bottom down on the padding. “Alright then, so that’s a no” Steve noted and wrote it down. “Can you tell me then if you’d had a heat yet?” he asked instead, keeping his eyes fixed on the omega.
“I don’t know” James said annoyedly.
“What do you mean you don’t know? They’re usually pretty straight forward” Steve pressed.
“I said I don’t know! I have a fever half the time, I always feel like shit because they won’t let me put anything inside, and last week the gym teacher literally had to bend me over and sniff my ass like a dog to see if he could allow me to participate. I don’t know, the teachers don’t know, and I bet you won’t know either” James grunted and put his arms firmly over his chest.
Miss Potts looked red like a beet.
“Now you listen here young man, I won’t tolerate –“ she started with badly contained rage and the doctor had to stop her again.
“Miss Potts, it’s fine” he assured her.
“We do not raise our omegas to use language like that, I assure you” she huffed, manicured nails tugging at the sleeve of her fancy blouse.
“I’m sure you don’t. And I’m more than convinced we here at the asylum can train it out of him given time. But for now, I need to hear him express himself so I know what I have to work with. It’s like a faucet, yes? You need to turn the water on to see where it leaks” Steve explained, which seemed to settle the upset blond alpha a little. She leaned back with a huff.
James huffed as well, but Steve turned back to him anyway.
“So what you’re saying is that you can’t tell if you’re in heat or just feeling…”
“Like shit” James filled in for him.
“Like shit” Steve agreed, noting the wording down. In time, he’d have James back into a sweet, obedient omega, but it would serve Steve better if he allowed him now to have some wriggle room. “Alright, it sounds like it could be Wennströms syndrome, which usually doesn’t present itself until after the loss of virginity. Actually, there is no recorded case of Wennströms syndrome in a virgin omega. So this is why I have to ask you – have you had intercourse?”
While Miss Potts looked like she’d swallowed a grapefruit, James met his stare head on. Sourly, he crossed his arms tighter and said through gritted teeth; “Define intercourse”.
Steve, knowing it was a valid question, allowed a head bow.
“With intercourse I mean sex with an alpha, particularly penetrative sex. Have you been knotted before?” he clarified.
“No, they won’t let me” James complained bitterly (and embarrassedly).
“Right” Steve said and noted it down. “So you would say you want to be knotted? Or is it just a need for anything to penetrate you?” he asked, ignoring he weird tension this brought in the room. This was his job.
“What does it matter?” James sighed and threw out his hands, annoyed.
“It matters, because I’m trying to figure out if you have a disordered need for an alpha, or if you might simply have chronically inflamed slick glands or likewise. It would affect the treatment” he said matter-of-factly. Steve would need to test out different treatments anyway, because this case was very special, but it helped to have an indication of where to started. Some omegas came in thinking they were hopelessly dependant on their alphas, only to find out they had gotten complications after child birth and needed medication to treat their inflamed glands, which quickly got them down to a healthy level of sexual need.
Others had disorders like Wennströms syndrome for example where they had a chronic deficiency of myoreguline – more commonly known as “alpha protein” because it’s mostly found in alpha semen – and needed an extreme amount to be able to focus and live without pain. Usually, these omegas were treated with synthetic protein to help balance their needs, and some needed extra therapy to deal with this. But these disorders only revealed themselves after omegas had been introduced to semen and their bodies changed biologically to start crave the protein. Then, the omegas with Wennströms ran into problems because their bodies can’t produce their own myoreguline and have difficulties properly absorbing the added protein in semen.
Safe to say, James was an anomaly. And Steve was curious to see if an alpha would be exactly what he needed – and what that might mean. On a scientific level, of course.
“And what treatment is that?” the omega asked instead of answering. His tone was suspicious, and he glanced at his principal. “You said I was going to talk to someone. Just talk. Can’t you just give me a pill and let me go home?” James wondered. Sighing, Steve pushed his computer aside and leaned on his forearms on the desk. Miss Potts looked like she didn’t know what to answer.
“A pill is probably not going to be enough, I’m afraid. But don’t you worry. We have the very best technology here and new methods constantly in development. You’ll be healthy again as soon as we can manage, I promise” the alpha smiled comfortingly at James.
It didn’t seem to comfort him.
“Wait, you’re not leaving me here are you? Miss Potts, you’re not leaving me?” the omega asked in utter disbelief.
“We can’t take care of you” the female alpha said through pursed lips. She looked like she should be running a company, not a school.
“Well I’m not staying here!” James exclaimed heftily and stood up. The seat below him was drenched. But before he could make a run for the door, a cramp went through him and he sank whimpering to the floor.
Instantly, the doctor stood up to go see if he was alright. Very gently he gathered the whimpering omega in his arms and vibrated low to comfort him, and then lifted the little thing like he weighed nothing. James couldn’t speak.
“Don’t worry Miss Potts, you can leave. I will calm him down and then take him for his physical. I’ll call you with the details” Steve promised.
He would care for this omega now. He already felt responsible for him.