Chapter Text
Image: Chapter One - Poppy Seed || Art by: Britbrit99
Bucky
Bucky wakes up on a Monday morning feeling a little off.
He sits up in bed, rubbing at his bleary eyes. He tries to drag his brain slowly through the molasses of his thoughts, but they’re tacky and sticking up the cogs of his mind. He can never think very well first thing in the morning, but adding the factor of not feeling well to his usual morning regime weighs him down even further.
It’s not like he was up late last night partying; he had a relatively nice weekend in, having dinner with Nat and Clint on Saturday and then a perfectly quiet evening to himself Sunday. He may have stayed up past his usual bedtime of 10 PM on a work night finishing a 2,000-piece cat puzzle he’d gotten from work, but that is still no reason to be feeling this under the weather.
Like clockwork, Alpine jumps up onto the bed and starts butting her little white head against his arms, grumbling out little frustrated mewls at him because he has yet to jump out of bed and feed her highness. He chuckles and pets her for as long as she tolerates it, smoothing his fingers through her long white fur, before she gets impatient and jumps off of the bed and away from him.
“Alright, alright,” he mumbles tiredly, and throws the blanket off of himself. “I’m coming, your majesty,” he teases. Alpine just meows loudly at him from the doorway and then prances out of the bedroom, flicking her tail impatiently behind her as she bounds down the hallway as if to direct him where she wants him to go.
He groans during a stretch, and finally climbs out of bed. His body feels heavy, and his stomach turns unpleasantly in his gut. Perhaps his dinner from the night before didn’t agree with him. He’s sure he’ll feel better after his morning cup of coffee and some breakfast.
An hour and a half later—after a shower, two cups of coffee, a bowl of oatmeal, and some nice cuddles from Alpine where she kneaded little biscuits on his stomach and purred rather loudly—he's still feeling groggy and nauseated during his trek to the office. The thick summer air of New York does nothing to help, and he has to hold his breath when passing the sewer grates to avoid breathing in the ripe smell that usually only makes him wince. It seems like every odd smell is affecting him today, but he pushes through and somehow makes it to the New York Humane Society in one piece.
His work is located in a 40-floor skyscraper in downtown Manhattan, making his subway ride a little over a half hour from his apartment in Brooklyn. The journey has made him even more weary, but he trudges on and makes his way up to the 21st floor where the communication department is for the New York Humane Society.
When the elevator dings and the doors slide open, he steps out into the wide lobby where Darcy greets him from her desk. She’s on a call, pointing to her headset and rolling her eyes before waving him off and typing on her computer. He snickers at her and nods as he walks past the lobby and through the double doors that lead into the wide, open work space of the comms department.
There is a flurry of movement across the floor; several people walking with purpose from one place to another, documents exchanging hands, chatter about the day or the week or the month. Everyone is buzzing around with something to do; a news story to write, a press release to send out, or an event to announce.
To the right is a cluster of desks, cubicles, and offices that make up marketing. He waves at Clint through the glass wall of the conference room where he looks to be in a marketing pitch meeting. Clint discreetly makes a gun gesture with his hand and cocks it at his head while rolling his eyes back, which makes Bucky laugh and move on.
Further into the floor is the advertising department in a similar setup to marketing, then another place for public relations, and finally his little area for content development. Their area is made up of four large walnut corner-desks that are placed together to mimic a spiral. He slides the strap of his messenger bag off of his shoulder and walks around to his own desk, one where he thankfully has his back to the window so he doesn’t have to squint in the morning light.
Wanda, a Beta with a muted floral scent, has the desk next to his, and she peers around the divider that gives them a false sense of privacy to greet him good morning.
“I watered Robert already,” she says, with her green eyes bright and awake. Bucky sinks down into his desk chair and groans out a thank you.
He leans forward and touches his fingers to the leaves of his lemon balm, affectionately named Robert Plant. It gives off a subtle citrus scent as soon as he touches it, which makes him smile. He’s been told he has a citrusy scent himself, so he feels the lemon balm suits his work space perfectly.
His desk also has a succulent named Jimmy Page and several photos of his friends, family, and Alpine pinned to the fabric panel of the divider around his desk. He tries to keep the area as bright and happy as possible, especially for when he has to write about the more depressing and heart wrenching aspects of animal advocacy. He believes in his work, and the work of the organization—it’s how he got Alpine, after all, when he had written a piece on no-kill shelters in the city four years ago when he first started at NYHS—but sometimes the heavy stories take their toll on him.
“I feel like a flaming pile of garbage today. But it’s Monday, so wanna get the special from Joe’s for lunch?” he asks hopefully after powering up his desktop. There thankfully isn't a long list of things on his itinerary for a Monday, mostly meetings sprinkled throughout the day for what is to come this work week. Wanda laughs beside him.
“You sure pizza is a good idea? Why are you feeling unwell?” Wanda questions him, leaning back in her desk to look around the divider at Bucky again.
Bucky just grumbles. “Who knows, my body is revolting against me.” Wanda makes a sympathetic noise and disappears into her cubicle.
“You should have called in, then. Today’s the day to do it; four meetings and an outline for the piece due on Friday,” she says from her place. Bucky slumps forward onto his desk, mindful of his keyboard, and starts clicking through the calendar on his desktop.
“Yeah, but I don’t want to use any sick days after my vacation last month. Gotta start racking my PTO back up,” he complains. Suddenly, a wild Darcy appears and leans over the divider on the other side of him. Her barely-tamed brown curls are twisted up into a bun on top of her head, and a few stray strands curl around her face.
“You mean the sexy vacation with your hot friend that you still won’t tell me about? All I know is that you were half naked most of the time and you had a kinky one-night stand with a stranger on a boat,” Darcy says, rattling off each word in quick succession. Wanda peeks her head over again, wide green eyes curious.
“Sexy vacation? You didn’t tell me you had a hot hook-up,” she says accusatively, or as accusatively as someone as nice as Wanda could sound. Bucky just groans and bangs his head on his desk, though the movement doesn’t help with his sour stomach.
“It wasn’t a sexy vacation, we went to Cancún so of course we were half-naked the entire time—we were in our swimsuits!” he whines. Darcy quirks a brow at him and crosses her arms against her chest.
“And?” she prompts. “You had a hot one-night stand?”
Bucky groans again, but resolves himself to his friends’ pestering. “Yeah but like, we were both kind of drunk so I don’t remember it all. It was just normal sex. He was a nice Beta that was very hot but it’s not like it was really crazy sex or anything,” he grumbles. Wanda gasps in dramatic exaggeration and Darcy snickers.
“Yeah but, for you it’s wild and sexy considering you’ve had all of two boyfriends in the last six years and we rarely ever hear of any of your sexcapades,” the brunette teases.
“That’s because I don’t have any sexcapades!” Bucky protests, then looks up to see the last person he wants to hear about his non-exsistent sex life—Brock Rumlow.
Rumlow smirks at him, eyebrow raised as he hands Darcy a stack of papers. He is certainly the definition of tall, dark, and handsome, but his snotty personality and inability to take no for an answer definitely poisons any of his positive qualities. Bucky’s disliked Brock almost since the moment they met, when upon meeting, Brock very obviously looked him up and down and asked him if he ever had a real Alpha to show him what an Omega really needs.
“Aww, little Barnes can’t get any? Maybe if you weren’t such a traditional little Omega you’d attract more Alphas. Contrary to popular belief, we don’t like stuck-up little prissy Omegas that play hard to get,” he snears. Darcy rolls her eyes and snatches the papers from him.
“Watch it, knothead, or I’m reporting you to HR. Again,” Darcy bites.
Bucky just waves him away. “Brock, stop being salty that I don’t want to sleep with you.”
Rumlow makes a face at them and then turns and makes his way back to the advertising cluster where his kind—the soulless and capitalist-driven—belong. Darcy scoffs and starts thumbing through the papers he handed her.
“Okay well, I guess I have to go do my job,” she sighs, then waves before walking away. Bucky settles back in his chair, feeling even more deflated than before.
“Maybe Joe’s is a good idea after all,” Wanda comments before getting back to work.
Joe’s Pizza, as it turns out, is not a good idea. An hour after lunch and halfway through a developer meeting with Director Fury, Bucky has to scramble out of the conference room and rush to the bathroom to retch everything up from his stomach. When he’s finally emptied after dry heaving for a good ten minutes, he weakly flushes the toilet and settles against the cubicle wall, trying to catch his breath.
Five minutes later, Wanda is knocking on the bathroom door and stepping in.
“Bucky, are you alright?” she asks, concerned. Bucky groans and opens the stall door to let her in.
“Maybe I should have stayed home after all,” he murmurs, voice rough from all of the puking.
Wanda ends up getting him a water bottle and insists on sending him home early. Darcy demands that they split an Uber ride so he doesn’t have to take the subway home in his condition, and he’s so tired and nauseated that he relents and lets his friends take care of him.
He doesn’t even look at the cost of the ride home and charges it to his credit card so that he can worry about it another day. Alpine greets him at the door, a sweet trill as she prances quickly to the door with her tail raised, though she’s probably confused as to why he’s home so early. He strips on his way to the bedroom and falls face-first into his unmade bed, and slowly manages to crawl under the covers.
He wakes up some hours later to Alpine’s yowling on his stomach. He’s slept past their usual dinner time, and he feels hot and sticky from sweating while he was asleep. He groans as he gets up and trudges to the kitchen to feed her highness dinner, and decides on a fruit smoothie to see how his stomach adjusts.
The answer is: not well.
He throws up his strawberry-banana smoothie a half hour after drinking it, though thankfully it’s not as long of a retching as he had with his lunch. He somehow manages to climb into his shower and sits under lukewarm spray for a little while to wash away the sweat and grime from the day. He’s definitely going to have to call in tomorrow if the stomach bug he has doesn’t go away after a night of rest.
In the morning, he wakes up to the sudden need to throw up all of the stomach bile in his gut. The scents of his soaps and shampoos in the bathtub makes his head swim and stomach roll, and when he limps out of the bathroom he has to close the door so that scent of his fruity soap doesn’t follow him.
He crawls back into bed after feeding Alpine and gives his work a call. He tells them he thinks he has a stomach bug, and after his little detour in the bathroom yesterday, Fury is quick to wish him well and not to come back to work until he feels better. He quickly falls back asleep.
The next two days follow in much the same pattern. He spends them miserable, falling in and out of sleep, wincing and gagging at every smell, and barely being able to keep down crackers and ginger ale. Alpine is sure to stay by his side, which is his one comfort; she is sweeter than normal, curling up on his stomach, kneading at him like bread, and following him wherever he goes.
By Thursday he is still nauseated but he can’t afford to miss any more work. He goes in despite feeling like a spool of thread about to unravel at the slightest tug. Wanda looks disapprovingly on at him for coming in while still sick, but he manages to get through the day and catch up on some work that was not picked up by his team.
Friday he works from home, and in the morning he goes to the corner store to pick up more over-the-counter medicine to help with his upset stomach. While he walks down the aisle, eyes surveying the several brands and types, his feet stop in front of the end-cap. He’s somehow wandered into the Omega section, and in between the faux-slick and the heavy-duty heat scent blockers, there is a neat row of pregnancy tests.
He stares at them for longer than he’d like, feeling as if everyone in the little corner store is watching him, judging him. Here he is, unmated, single, and sick. He used protection during his vacation hookup, he knows they did. And the guy was a Beta; Beta’s have a reduced chance of impregnating. It’s so unlikely, but the anxiety of the possibility is what drives him to pick up a two-pack that says ’early detection.’
He blushes furiously and doesn’t make eye contact with the cashier when he checks out. He rushes home and locks himself in the bathroom, staring at the little box. He reads over the directions twice. Easy enough; pee on the stick, wait ten minutes. He’s so nervous he almost can’t pee, but he finally manages to get both of the sticks. He sets some toilet paper down on the counter and places the sticks on top of them and washes his hands.
He has to leave the bathroom in fear that he will go crazy from nerves. He distracts himself by putting the dishes away from the dishwasher, then goes and pets Alpine who blinks sleepily at him from her cat tree by the living room window. Still, it’s only been eight minutes, and he goes into his bedroom to do something—anything—to distract himself.
He ends up making his bed halfway, and then practically throws the pillow in his hands when he hears his phone alarm beep from the bathroom. He scrambles back, heart in this throat, and almost trips as he rushes in.
With his heart beating wildly in his chest, he looks down to see two positive lines on both of the sticks.
Oh no.
His stomach drops to his feet.
He can’t be pregnant. This is—this is terrible! He sits down heavily on the closed toilet, holding one of the positive pregnancy sticks in his trembling hands. He swallows thickly, breath coming out in shaky huffs. He doesn’t even really remember the father—Darren, or Devon, or something. Gods, it didn’t really matter what his name was because it was just a simple vacation hook-up. Now, it’s a complicated mess.
He closes his eyes, trying to steady his breathing. Okay so, he’s pregnant, and unmated, and he has to do this by himself. But—he glances down at the pregnancy stick, suddenly hopeful. There are false positives all of the time. Perhaps the at-home test is wrong?
He hasn’t been on suppressants for a few years, after he had started to have trouble for being on them since he was a teenager. But he had been at his university’s health clinic when that doctor recommended he go off of them, and he just—hadn’t thought about it since. He hasn’t had a long relationship in a while, and even when he was dating, he just used condoms with his boyfriends, and neither of them had been Alphas.
His heats were a pain in the ass but—oh, he realizes. It has been a while since he’s had a heat, hasn’t it? He sets the pregnancy test back down on the counter, washes his hands, and then pulls out the calendar app on his phone. He frowns down at it, seeing he had his last heat back at the end of May, then went on vacation in early June, and now, at the tail-end of July, he should be having a heat, but none of the usual symptoms are showing themselves.
He swallows down a need to cry, and exits out of his calendar app and pulls up his contacts instead. Wanda will know what to do.
She picks up on the second ring.
“Hey Bucky, is everything okay?” the Beta asks, clearly figuring out something is wrong if Bucky is calling. She could very well think he’s run into a problem with work, being that it’s still early on in the work day.
“Wanda,” Bucky says, voice strangled as he forces himself to speak despite the shame of his impending confession twisting his stomach into knots. “Wanda, I’m pregnant.”
There is a beat of silence, and then, level-headed as always, she asks, “Okay, have you confirmed it with a doctor?”
He expected an outburst, dramatic like Darcy, or horrified like his mother would be—will be, his treacherous mind supplies. But Wanda is calm, calculated.
“No,” he admits, feeling a little silly. “No, I just took two at-home pregnancy tests. The early detection ones. Both are positive.”
“I don’t want to get your hopes up, but sometimes they are wrong. You’ll need to see someone anyway, whether you are or aren’t. Do you have a usual doctor?”
Bucky glances back down at the positive sticks on the counter, and wills his hand to stop shaking.
“No, not really. What do I do?”
While she’s not actually in front of him, he can imagine her kind smile. “Bucky, it’s okay, we’ll get it sorted out. Pietro works at a good omega specialist clinic in Park Slope, how about I relay your information to him and see if he can get you an appointment? Then you can confirm whether you are pregnant or not and you can ask the specialist on what your options are.”
Options—oh, he has options. He didn’t even think about them; his mind stuck in the panic mode rather than logically thinking through what he should be doing, figuring out his next steps.
“Okay,” he agrees, letting out a long breath, and he feels something akin to relief, though he’s still much too nervous to feel normal. “Okay, let’s call Pietro.”
🍼✨🍼✨🍼
Steve
Steve’s day had started as it always did. He woke slightly before 6 AM and got himself dressed, all the while trying not to disturb Lorraine as he goes for a run, working up a decent sweat and some decent mileage before getting back and getting straight into the shower. After the shower he’d eaten breakfast, grabbed his lunch and kissed her on the cheek before heading out of the door to work.
It was a well practiced routine and it should be, they’ve been doing it for years—it’s comfortable and it works. It’s everything that a relationship should be—they have a stable home, they both have jobs they love, and they have each other. It’s not always perfect all of the time, Steve has to admit that, but whose relationship is? It’s normal and they’re doing fine.
Getting into his car and putting up the AC to an acceptable level, he pulls out of his spot and turns left, right and right again, pulling up in front of his best friend and coworker’s house, finding Sam already standing outside, coffee for the both of them in hand.
“Oh thank god, you’re a lifesaver,” he says, taking one travel mug from him and sipping at the contents.
“And I see Lorraine’s caffeine-free kick is still ongoing,” Sam replies, rolling his eyes. “Honestly man, why won’t you just tell her you’re not doing it?”
Looking over at him, Steve sighs. “Because some things just aren’t worth the argument. You know how she gets. Besides, it’s a white lie—it’s not something she’s ever going to find out about given I keep all my coffee consumption to work hours.”
“Man, you have the patience of a saint,” Sam grumbles, shaking his head. “I still think you’re insane putting up with that, but whatever—not my place to judge. And talking of that whole work thing, I’m pretty sure Pietro’s booked me in another goddamn 9 AM appointment, so thank you as always for the lift, but can we please get going?”
“Yes sir,” Steve replies, glad that Sam isn’t poking that hornet’s nest too much—explaining why some things between him and Lorraine are how they are is a headache-inducing at best. Steve has long since learned that in some cases it’s easier to just go with the flow.
With that being said, he continues their short commute to their practice.
When they arrive, Pietro is just putting the chain on his bike, looking as bleary-eyed as he ever does first thing.
“Good morning Pietro,” Steve greets him, getting a sort of blank-stare right back. He’d often wondered why Pietro didn’t just find something working nights somewhere as it’d likely suit his night-owl tendencies better, but at the same time he was hardly about to suggest the idea because despite everything, he was probably the best receptionist that Steve had ever worked with. He was good at identifying when an appointment was actually urgent and booking accordingly, his filing was impeccable and it seemed that a lot of the Omegas attending the clinic were put at ease by his Beta nature.
“Morning,” he grunts back and Steve can’t help but grin. The fact that the word ‘good’ is missing from his response says everything really.
“Yeah, okay,” he chuckles, moving to the front doors and unlocking them, letting everyone inside. Flicking on the lights as he moves through, Steve first deposits his lunch in the small break room fridge, and then turns the office coffee machine on, listening to it start to hiss and bubble. He would say that he’s done it all for Pietro’s benefit, but that would be a lie.
Then he moves through to his own office. Of course, the room has the usual clinical apparatus available and alright, it doesn’t have much in the way of a view—but Steve has tried to make the place as homely and comforting as possible. Instead of white or magnolia, the walls are painted a soft lemon yellow—not bright enough to be offensive, but something a little warmer, and he has children’s toys in one corner for any visiting pups and another taken up by a large monstera in a terracotta pot. The walls also have a couple of pictures—one black and white photo of the Brooklyn Bridge and one large painting that Steve had done himself of the Prospect Park Carousel, both sitting between the infographic posters that he is legally required to display.
He places his still half-full coffee down on the desk and pushes the power button on his computer, waiting for it to boot up so he can find out what the day has in store and sliding his white lab coat over his usual shirt and tie as he did. He is ready.
Before lunch he sees three clients. The first is a female Omega, heavily pregnant with her second pup. It’s an easy appointment as far as Steve is concerned—the scan that he does looks normal, all of her symptoms are consistent with what they should be and her blood pressure and weight gain are exactly where they should be. He can tell from her scent that she’s happy and content and there is nothing that should be ringing any alarm bells for him. If all of his appointments went this way, then his job would be easy.
The second is a Beta and Omega couple looking for advice on exactly how to get pregnant and anything they should be doing beforehand. Steve does a general health check-up, he gives them a decent selection of leaflets and reaffirms the advice verbally and they’re on their way, promising to come back to him when they hopefully need to.
Steve can’t help but smile as they leave—a couple forward planning in that way is something he loves to see. The small, nervous smiles on their faces and little hopeful looks that they shared throughout the consultation had been endearing. Couples like that are one of the reasons that Steve truly loves his job—that, and the fact that he loves pups in general. In his mind’s eye, he pictures a scene with himself and Lorraine in that position but… that won’t be happening for a while. His smile falters a little at that thought, but he pushes it away.
He stands and heads back to the waiting room, pausing at the desk whilst Pietro finishes up a phone call. “What’s next?” he asks.
“Well, that was your other half actually—she wants me to tell you that she’s going to be working late tonight and not to bother waiting around for her for dinner,” he informs him and Steve sighs. This isn’t exactly unusual either, and why Lorraine couldn’t tell him this morning before he left for work rather than phoning the clinic he has no idea—then again, at least he knows, he supposes.
“Take out for one, then,” Steve jokes though even to his own ears it sounds flat and humourless. Pietro glances at him before looking away, almost like he’s giving Steve a little privacy with the moment. Part of Steve hates that he’s been put in a position where he has to do that.
“To answer your original question, you’ve got one more—Mrs. James is bringing in her son for contraceptives. And possibly blockers. Pretty standard stuff… once you get past Mrs. James being Mrs. James,” Pietro says, changing the subject—a small mercy for which Steve is pleased. “Then you’re free to go and eat whatever healthy thing you’ve brought for lunch.”
“Don’t tell me, it’s Friday, that means you’re ordering Joe’s?” Steve asks, knowing that the break room is going to smell of pizza when he gets there. It’s not that he minds eating healthy per say, and he knows that it’s important (of course he does; he’s a damn doctor) but pizza is definitely one of his weaknesses and Joe’s is good.
“Of course. Seeing as you’ve been considerably lower maintenance than Sam this morning, I’ll even leave you a slice in the microwave,” Pietro replies and Steve barks out a laugh.
“It’s our secret. And I won’t tell him you called him high maintenance, either,” he promises, going back through to his office to try and read young Mr. James’ notes before his impending arrival. Unfortunately he very much remembers Mrs. James—she’s infamous for her own never-ending stream of questions about her own reproductive health and that of her four Omega children and for having researched everything on the internet beforehand and essentially decided what’s happening before consulting an actual professional. Still, all he has to remember is that he has lunch after this, and apparently also a slice of Joe’s pizza to look forward to.
The appointment isn’t as insufferable as he thinks—she has done her research, of course—and she has drawn some conclusions which are generally correct, but might not actually be the best options for her son. Steve talks them both through several different alternatives before circling back to his own preferred option for the situation; a contraceptive shot and then topical blockers. The thing is, Steve knows there is the so-called nuclear option of pharmaceutical blockers but there are proven benefits of scent awareness, especially in adolescents. Mrs. James put up a bit of a fight, arguing that in some situations it’s not enough and that the store-bought over the counter options don’t always offer a complete covering, especially with the hormone spikes that teenagers are so prone to.
Eventually, he offers prescription strength topical blockers, the boy looks relieved not to have been completely steamrollered by his Alpha mother and they take their prescription and head out.
Relieved that it’s over himself, Steve locks his computer and heads for the break room.
Pietro’s in there already, and as Steve had predicted, the smell of fresh pizza with Joe’s special sauce is in the air. When he offers the box across, Steve takes a piece and thanks him before sitting down on the couch opposite.
“So, Mrs. James out within thirty—it’s almost like you’re getting good at handling her and her thousand questions,” Pietro teases, and Steve knows that he’s had it too, over the phone when she’s called in—apparently no amount of him explaining that he’s not actually a medical professional and is therefore unable to offer any advice deters her.
“I know, but really, that’s her last kid sorted now,” Steve replies, feeling a certain amount of satisfaction as he raises the pizza to his lips and takes a bite from the end of it. It’s everything that pizza should be, hot, gooey with cheese and plenty of toppings. He makes an appreciative noise as he chews and Pietro laughs.
“You hope. Just wait until they start having pups of their own,” he teases and Steve shakes his head.
“Hopefully by then they’ll have their own partners and she won’t be involved. I said hope—don’t crush my dreams already,” Steve replies and Pietro laughs again at it.
“I won’t, I won’t. Listen, I was sort of hoping to catch you, actually. I’ve got a bit of a favour to ask,” he says and pauses, clearly trying to gauge Steve’s reaction.
“What sort of favour?” Steve asks, genuinely thinking that this is just going to result in a request for an early finish given it was Friday or something.
“Well, you know how it’s your Saturday on call? Well… I was wondering, because I can see you have some appointments here already, if you’d see one more. Um, to make it fit it’ll have to be first thing,” he explains and Steve nods, wondering what this actually is. Usually Pietro just books things in.
“I mean, I’m happy to do an early doors appointment, even on a Saturday—you know that,” he says before pausing, waiting for Pietro to hopefully offer whatever additional information he needs.
“Um, that’s great,” he pauses. “Uh, it’s kind of a favour actually. It’s one of my sister’s colleagues… and he’s kind of also her best friend.”
“And he needs…?” Steve prompted, wondering what this was going to be.
“So he’s taken a couple pregnancy tests and they’re positive and he’s not Mated,” Pietro explains, wincing a little and Steve knew why - there was a stigma around unmated pregnant Omegas, that was for sure. “I guess he needs it confirmed and… he might need to know his options.”
Ah.
There it was.
“Well, you know I don’t have an issue with taking unmated patients,” he says, and Pietro nods in agreement.
“I know that, and that’s sort of why I asked, but he’s not been to see a specialist in a while and… yeah. Besides, this might need to be discreet,” Pietro explains and Steve knows what he means. If whoever this guy is decides that termination is an option, he isn’t going to want the judgment that will come with having been in the position to need that in the first place.
“I got it. Just book it in. I’ll make sure I’m in early and prepared,” Steve said, and Pietro gives him a grin, looking relieved and shoves the rest of the pizza box across the table to him.
“Thanks boss, and… this pizza is yours now. I saw that salad thing, and I saw your face earlier. Today is not a day for salad,” he says.
Steve has to admit, the pizza sounds far more appealing and he knows that Lorraine would hate it. It’s enough, in the mood he’s in with his partner, for him to savagely eat the other half of Pietro’s pizza and drink a coffee before going back to his office.