Chapter Text
Tony Stark was nineteen, his parents were dead and he didn’t get to have control of the family business yet. So he had time to play, time to create as he wanted before the real world set in. Obadiah would come visit him in the apartment he’d held himself up in, wanting enough space to just be himself, even if it was in Brooklyn. Obadiah did not understand and even Tony could see the slow build of annoyance on his face.
But then the man always viewed Tony as less strong than what he was, always arguing that an omega was useless.
Howard Stark had been a traditionalist up to a certain point. When his son presented himself as omega, the man raged. Of course he would, no one would take his heir seriously. So, as a countermeasure, Howard had demanded harsh, character building treatment of Tony. He’d show affection, allow his wife and the servants to show affection. But Tony was to be cold, hard steel in public.
Was there abuse there? Tony was never sure, because he got advantages that no omega had. He couldn’t really fault Howard since his lessons ensured he now stood strong and proud in front of any news reporter, the perfect Stark.
But the moment he was inside his own home, Tony’s shoulders immediately drooped a little and his scent of desperate need for touch got stronger. Because he wasn’t allowed that. He wasn’t allowed to be touched and held, not when it could risk the Stark name. Only Rhodey had given him that and he was now off in training for the military.
After the latest string of too many galas, Tony came home and curled up on his couch - threadbare from the local Goodwill, because there was just something desperately wonderful about a couch that had scents there. Like he would be able to feel like he was part of whatever the couch experience. Tony was, if anything, a combination of a hedonist and homebody. He loved being on his own to just do things as he saw fit, even if so much of his omega nature demanded he submerge himself in other people.
‘Not yet,’ Tony thought to himself. Tabloids can say what they want, but no one yet has proved themselves to get him as an object.
He turned from where he was laying and reached for his latest little enjoyment. He’d found that the ‘garage sales’ here in Brooklyn were phenomenal at finding little electronics to take a part. Honestly, it was teaching him more and more, something he hoped to introduce to the R&D division of the company as soon as he had a chance to actually work. Instead of just hanging back like an icon instead of a person.
Eventually, Tony made himself some food and, after eating and playing around with the parts on his coffee table, he went to bed.
He woke up in a beat up room, the mattress underneath himself filled with spring and lumps. The room smelled of so many scents that Tony actually had difficulty figuring out where he was. Tony stood and looked around, feeling actual stressful smells peak up when he couldn’t identify anything, not even the color of the bedroom’s door. He stared down at a bundle of clothes near the bed and looked. They were what he remembered as the photos of his father as a young man.
Tony dropped them and backed away to the wall next to the door.
This was insane. He needed to find out what happened. On the verge of panicking, he opened the door to enter another space just as beat up as the last. And, no, his phone was not where he hoped it to be, nothing was as he left it the night before. There wasn’t even a television anymore.
There was a good chance he had been kidnapped. It would be the thirteenth time, but even that would be better than if this reality was, well, real. Obadiah would save him, if only because Tony was needed for a transfer of company property along with his own funds and his current will left everything to various charities, drawn on random. He knew that was a pretty sad way of thinking of things, but it was the way of Tony’s life. Howard had taught him greediness was the only way to survive.
His only choice was to head for the door. He had glanced around and there were no weapons. Not even a steak knife. Tony was pretty sure he was heading to his death, as dramatic as that seemed, but it was better than waiting for his captors. It didn’t stop him from, while in his pajamas of all things, creaking open the front door of the apartment. He was greeted with a dirty hallway and set of stairs that looked half rotted heading below. Tony stepped onto the hall, listening for anything around him.
There was the random gust of air below, possibly from an open window or door. The wood beneath him creaked like it could break at any second. The rest was the muffled sound of cars and people talking. Like a normal street corner. There was no indication of anyone else in the building, which Tony wasn’t sure if that was more worrisome or not.
Thankfully, his slight build aided in Tony’s ability to carefully bounce from good step to good step without falling fully to the basement. Screw you Howard, short guys hit the goal. Even with Tony being an omega, Howard was most annoyed by his smaller stature. Stark men were made of iron, but it had to be iron that could impress.
Tony strode to the broken front door and peaked out of one the slots onto the street before him. What he saw sent his brain into a whirlwind, letting him know he probably smelled like an omega in distress at this point. What he could see of the street was like watching a black and white movie from the war that Howard was so proud to contribute to. Even the cars were barely models from 1940.
Panting from panic, Tony stumbled back, nearly stepping into a hole in the floor.
“No way, no way,” Tony muttered, swallowing, not willing to believe he had actually travelled to the past. No, there was nothing to convince him of the fact.
Carefully stepping up to the door again, he peered out with a more careful gaze. No one had a phone. The air itself smelled more thick than he was used to, like the industry around him was made by...coal. Shit. This was too elaborate for any prank or mind trick to mess with him.
This was real.
And he was standing in a building that was probably about to be demolished in his modern day pajamas. He was an omega who didn’t get the chance to take his morning suppressants standing there in his pajamas.
He’d read about the horror omegas went through back in Captain America’s time - even the female alphas were treated like mental health patients. He knew if he stepped out there he could easily be overtaken against his will and no one would even blink an eye. Or so the history books said.
Tony refused to think everyone acted that way throughout any history. There had to be decent people. So, taking in a nervous breath, Tony started prying the decaying door open. He got it about four inches open before someone noticed.
“Ma, someone’s in there!” a small voice said excitedly.
“No, sweetie, there isn’t anyone in there,” a tired mother’s voice replied.
Realizing this could be his only chance of a safe exit, Tony tugged at the door again, yanking it open another six inches.
“Are you stuck?” the girl’s voice asked, finally in view, her blonde curls bouncing around her face. “Do you need help?”
Behind her the girl’s mother looked a little horrified, but Tony ignored that and gave a small chuckle. “Yes ma’am, I am a bit stuck. Let this be a lesson to not join boys you don’t know in a game of hide and seek.”
At those words, the mother’s face suddenly softened. “Let us help you.”
They got the door open enough for Tony to squeeze through, though it ripped a part of his pants at the thigh in the process. He stood there, probably looking utterly pathetic in the process. The mother gave him a look, clucking her tongue. “Well then, come with us. My boy is about your size and off in the military. You can’t stay, but we need to get you dressed at least.”
“Why can’t he stay?” the little girl demanded, reaching out to grasp Tony’s hand. Tony felt the low hint of alpha from her, she was going to present early.
“It’s fine,” he told her, trying to keep his tone pleasant instead of screaming at the situation he was in. “Clothes would be wonderful, ma’am. I wouldn’t like to walk home in this outfit.”
“No, dear, best you don’t,” she replied with a sigh. She looked worried, but Tony understood the urge to keep strangers at bay. If anything, she was his guardian angel right then.
They led him to a small apartment, signs of the Great Depression everywhere. From the streets outside to the lack of just simple human enjoyment inside the apartment. He wanted to hand over money when she put him in the slacks and button-down of the day. But he had no money on him and realized that even if he did the currency wouldn’t pass for them anyway. He stared into the mirror at his youthful face, noticing the stress and worry on it.
This hallucination needed to end, he didn’t belong there.
He thanked the girl and her mother and knew better than to ask where her husband was. He knew from the stories Howard told him that single mothers and omegas in general were more common than not. One thing he didn’t hate his father for was the respect the man gave to the people of that time. And now, standing out on the street and watching people pass by, like they were strong even though they were starving, Tony felt a hint of guilt in his stomach.
He hadn’t eaten since the night before, but even he seemed to have a fuller stomach than some of the people around him.
Feeling unease, he tried to figure out what he could do now. SI had yet to fully develop and were just a behind the scenes weapon manufacturer. If Tony’s idea of the time was true, Howard had yet to broadcast his brilliance. Captain America had yet to be thought of. Tony honestly had nowhere to go and no money to get him there anyway.
So he walked.
Eventually he found himself in a more entertainment level district of Brooklyn. He had no money for movies or food, but he found a bench to sit on. He leaned down, resting his elbows on his knees. Wonderful, he barely even had a chance to enjoy his life and here he was, stuck in the past with no direction to go on. He was only thankful that his lack of suppressants hadn’t sent him straight into a heat, something he’d been avoiding since he was fourteen. He was perfectly happy with only having the three heats back then. But he knew one could come soon.
Tony always had the belief that like attracts like. Even a thought could shift energy enough to trigger events.
So, he wasn’t surprised when he heard a sly voice speak up behind him. “Well, well. Hello, lovely.”
Tony had the sudden sensation of thick ink running along his body, a sign as any that he didn’t want the alpha leaning over his shoulder to touch him. “I ask that you don’t call me that, because I’m not interested.”
The other two alphas behind the man smelling his hair laughed. The alpha pressed in closer, his cheek brushing Tony’s ear. “Now, that’s just rude. A soft little omega like you, sitting out here alone, both you and I know you were just hoping for an alpha to take notice.”
Tony’s brain raced, trying to ignore the way the man’s breath on his cheek made his fingers tingle. He cleared his throat. “I’m waiting for someone.”
“Oh, baby boy, he doesn’t seem to be here,” the man drawaled, his accent different from the mother and her kid. Not a local, then.
Tony felt fingers at the back of his neck, nails scraping across skin. He stood up, turning to face them, not even caring that his eyes might look a little wild. “No. You have no right to touch me.”
All three of them started laughing, like his statement was worthless. Pointless. Tony had never had his words be ignored like that before. He was a Stark, even as an omega people viewed him as something of worth. They would never dare to touch without permission.
“Okay, as hilarious as that was, come on little omega,” the leader of the group, the one to touch him, said. “Do you really think anyone here is going to argue if we strip you down and take you. Or even force you into heat? Huh? No one cares.”
“I care.” The voice was followed by a small body actually tackling the man down, punching and kicking like he was used to fighting those bigger than him and honestly didn’t give a shit that he was a seriously small kind of guy.
One of the others was punched by a tall man. “Sorry boys, he gets a little excited but I’m fully willing to finish this fight for him. Unless you want some fun?”
Tony stared, feeling completely overwhelmed as he gazed at what just happened in front of him. His thought of there being good guys when it came to omegas flared up in his head as he turned to the two men that saved him. Men, yes, but around his age all the same. The smaller one yelled off some, well, pretty offensive material for the time while the other just looked fully amused. And they looked extremely familiar, their faces floating up in his head, though older than they appeared then.
“Hey, you okay?” a soft Brooklyn style tone asked, the taller of the two walking around the bench to get a little closer. He still maintained his distance, giving Tony space to breathe.
“No! Yes!” Tony heard himself and winced, finally looking at the man’s face. He definitely looked familiar, the images on his father’s wall, filled with black and white photos, almost making him remember names. “I wasn’t expecting...I was just sitting.”
“Yeah, you gotta love the idiots who think their knot is bigger than their brains,” he replied with a lopsided smile. And, damn, Tony wanted to swoon as a result.
“He okay?” the smaller one asked, finally backing away from growling at the alphas who had run off.
“I’m fine, soldier, calm down,” Tony replied with a smirk, one that froze when the guy responded with a bright grin. The tiny idiot was just adorable.
“Would you like an escort home?” the other replied.
“I…” and shit, Tony didn’t have anywhere to go.
“I’m Steve Rogers,” the small one said, glaring at the other. “Really, you offer that before introducing yourself?”
“My better half is a bit right,” the other said, actually rolling his eyes. “I’m Bucky Barnes. And now that’s in the air, the offer stands, doll. We’ll happily walk you home.”
“Tony,” he replied, feeling a full blush as they both looked at him with smiling faces. And, dear God, he had just been saved by Steve and Bucky, the men his father babbled on about any chance he had. Their faces had been all over Howard’s study, he had to face the facts. But they weren’t that yet, Bucky not in uniform and Steve smaller than even Tony was. He felt, though, he could admit, “I don’t...actually have a home.”
Steve’s eyes went wide, the tears practically manifesting just for the emotion he was feeling. He glanced at Bucky, who was suddenly rigid like he was a second away from beating someone senseless. Steve looked back over to him and, after taking a deep and controlling breath, said, “You can come to our place.”
“Stevie,” Bucky said, tone stiff as he stared at Tony with his nostril flaring.
“He has nowhere to go,” Steve snapped.
“I know that, but what if his scent changes,” Bucky growled. “We might not be able to control ourselves and it will be like he’s on the streets.”
“At least he’d know who he’s with,” Steve argued. “If he goes into heat we can let him lock himself in my room. Shit, you know we can fight that instinct better than most. Out here?”
Bucky closed his eyes and nodded. “Tony, if you’d like, you can stay the night at our place.”
Tony looked between them and realized he’d never had two alphas actually worry about his consent before. Like they didn’t care who he was and who he was made the only reason they were forced to care. Swallowing, Tony nodded. “I, uh, would like to go with you. Honestly the fact you were arguing about my virtue was...not what I’m used to.”
Bucky’s eyes turned gentle. “Hey, your, well, virtue is yours.”
“Alphas who abuse that are shit,” Steve added. Tony had to stop himself from laughing at Steve’s easy use of profane language. That wasn’t something the history books told him.
“Okay, well, let’s go,” Tony said, dramatically waving a hand out. He ignored the amused responses he got and followed them down the sidewalk.
They ended up in an apartment a block from the woman who helped him. Steve opened the door and stepped back to let him enter first like he was some kind of dame. Which the time they were in was pretty much on point. Tony felt another blush hit his face and reminded himself to hide it like Howard had taught him. He found himself sitting on their couch as the two went and got him blankets and pillows, which ended up twice as many as he needed.
“Guys, I'm okay,” he eventually said, despite it being all very adorable.
Steve rolled his eyes. “We were doing the weird alpha thing. I’m sorry.”
“Weird alpha thing?” Tony asked in amusement while inspecting one of the pillows.
“We were,” Bucky suddenly agreed with wide eyes, arms holding another pillow.
“Explanation, please?” Tony demanded, not knowing what they were talking about.
The two of them shared a look, before Bucky sighed and said, “It’s when an alpha is interested but waits for the omega to decide. The alphas often bring things for the omega to build their nests, it’s really just an instinctive urge. And, well, you should know from there.”
And Tony did from an extremely abstract way. He remembered getting, when he was young, gifts in the mail...maybe. His father was angry over them, because it meant people knew what he was. They were usually destroyed before Tony even got to look at them. He ground his teeth a bit in frustration, before giving a hesitant grin. “Not Really.”
“Okay,” Bucky replied, a little louder at the end when he turned his head toward Steve, who actually looked like he was about to yell about social injustice. “Steve, let's go to bed.”
Steve’s jaw clenched before opened his mouth. Tony was actually curious what the future Captain America had to say but Bucky cut the man off.
“Yeah, come sleep in my room. Like you had that many blankets to even spare, you’re going to freeze. You sleep in there most of the time, anyway,” Bucky announced, grabbing Steve’s sleeve before handing him the pillow he had been holding.
Tony watched them leave and let out a long rush of air. He wanted to freak out. He wanted to get paranoid. Then he felt like an idiot because he also wanted to break apart their radio and improve it.
He curled up on the couch, dragging blankets and pillows around him as comfort. He couldn’t sleep, though. He heard noises from the bedroom, through the thin walls. They were talking. Tony clenched his eyes closed, dragging a pillow over to cover his ears. He eventually fell into a mild sleep, his ears and nose aware too much for him to fully fall asleep.
Eventually, Tony heard the bedroom door open and then close. Tony pulled the blanket down, peeking over it to see Bucky pulling open the small and ancient fridge, possibly just a mechanical icebox. Tony looked at him, suddenly realizing the full difference between the two. Bucky straightened up and drank from a bottle of milk, before setting it back in the fridge. Watching Bucky shift and bend made him realize how much a unit him and Steve actually were.
Bucky’s body, standing there in sleep pants and a tank top, was the ultimate alpha. Everything Tony would want from the muscled thighs to the strength in his arms. Tony closed his eyes. Steve, on the other hand, was everything an omega would want from speaking alone. Someone that didn’t care about how he’d look, he’d defend his omega’s rights purely. The concept, the very confusion made Tony roll over, trying to even his breathing.
He felt hands tugging the blanket up and tucking him in. A hand pet his hair, fingers dragging through the strands. And then he was alone again.
Tony wanted to cry, because he’d never been touched that way before. Like he was worth something beyond money.
Eventually, he was able to fall asleep. A few hours later, he woke up in his own apartment like it was merely a wonderful dream.