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It’s a little embarrassing how Bob doesn’t understand the practice of bijouterie until he’s thirteen.
He notices it before that, of course. It’s hard to miss how Miss Alina shows up to teach his third grade class beaming after her heat leave, arms laden with seven different gold bangles. The movies always show beautiful men and women decked out in pearls and fashionable chains, glittering brightly in the studio lights. Theoretically, he understands that it’s an old courting custom.
In reality, though, Bob doesn’t completely get it, at least while growing up. All the books he reads in school explain how parents gift the first pieces of jewelry to their children, and how lovers add to this collection once they’re old enough. He sees that all his classmates have beautiful little pieces, usually rings or earrings. His sex ed class warns them against accepting gifts of jewelry from strangers or adults you don’t know, because that’s completely inappropriate.
But Bob doesn’t have anything.
His seatmate in fifth grade asks him about it first. Her name is Layla, he still remembers, a pretty omega girl with dark hair and dark eyes, freshly immigrated from somewhere in East Asia. She’s playing with one of her ten gold rings when she looks over at Bob with a frown.
“Where’s yours?” she asks. Gestures at Bob’s empty hands and arms and neck.
“Where’s what?”
“Your bijouterie ,” she clarifies. “Does your family do waist chains or something? My mom says she got me rings because that’s what they do back home, but I think they’re too flashy.”
His bijouterie is not hidden, because he doesn’t have any. But Bob doesn’t want to say that, can already feel the shame coloring his face pink.
“Um, no,” he stutters. “It’s just on my ankle.”
His ankle, of course, is empty.
Bob goes home that day and rummages through his mom’s things. She would blow a gasket if she finds out that Bob’s stealing from her, that he’s taking something she’s hidden in a mother-of-pearl box buried under her old shoes. Bob would probably have to spend the night in the closet again, until she cools down and lets him out with a fragile apology.
He finds only three pieces. An old string of pearls, the knotted silk cord snapped, a silver chain that must’ve held a pendant at some point, and one half of a pair of earrings. He takes the silver chain.
Every morning before he goes to school, Bob stuffs the looped chain into his sock. At school he takes it out, lets it peek out from under his jeans. People still judge him, but he feels a little less pathetic when his classmates start gossiping about each others’ bijouterie.
(But Bob is a fraud. Nobody gave him anything, he stole it. Rinse and repeat.)
And when his first heat wrecks his body and leaves him a sobbing, drooling mess on his bathroom floor, where his dad had locked him in for three days because “why do I have to deal with this shit, huh, Robert?”, he clutches weakly at his ankle. The knotted silver chain has started to turn green, since Bob has no idea how to clean it. He threads the piece around his knuckles like prayer beads and shivers. If there really is a god, like his mom believes, he wouldn’t have made Bob an omega. Wouldn’t have given him to his parents, made his mom’s mouth press into firm, disapproving lines whenever Bob does something wrong (which is always). Wouldn’t have made his dad smack Bob over the head when he’s not listening properly, or punch him where people can’t see.
The moment Bob stops crying, he’s sent back to school. His heat-scent hasn’t faded yet, and everybody won’t stop fucking staring. Bob tries to keep to himself, he really does. So it’s not his fault when Gary Thomas pushes him into an empty classroom.
Bob’s hands are still trembling from the past few days. He steels himself and pushes Gary’s hand off.
“Wh, what is it, Gary?” he asks. He hates how disoriented he feels. Something weighs down on his eyelids, and it’s a struggle to keep himself upright.
“You didn’t get a first heat present?” Gary sneers. He’s always been antagonistic towards Bob, but it’s bad form for an alpha to be bullying an omega. Bob wipes at the sweat running down his neck.
“It’s none of your business.”
Bob keeps his voice as curt as possible.
Gary Thomas towers over him, even though Bob is tall for an omega his age. He used to be a grade above him, fourteen, held back because of a sports injury. Bob remembers him from classes.
He doesn’t let up. Instead, Gary grabs Bob’s shoulder and Bob panics. He fights against the older boy uselessly, making Gary's grip tighten instead- right over the spot where Bob’s dad had thrown a glass at Bob a week ago. Bob winces in pain.
“Aw, looks like your daddy thinks you’re useless too, Bobby,” Gary says. He’s so close that Bob can smell his rotting breath, making Bob gag. Gary’s scent isn’t helping either.
“Hey look, wanna make a deal? If you suck me off I can give you something. Maybe a nice necklace, huh? I thought you bitches were horny during your heats anyways.”
Bob shoves his entire weight against Gary, which throws him off enough for Bob to wiggle out of his grasp and make a mad dash for the door. He feels lightheaded, nauseous.
“Go fuck yourself, Gary,” Bob says venomously. His legs shake. He nearly tumbles through the door in his hurry to escape.
Later, Bob excuses himself from class to throw up in the boys’ bathroom. Gary’s eyes follow him. Bob wonders what would’ve happened there if he didn’t make it out.
(The even more fucked up thing? Gary had been wearing a stack of leather cords on his neck.)
The thing about bijouterie is that it’s an almost universal practice. Different cultures have different approaches and customs, obviously, but it satiates a primal instinct of humans to provide for their families and mates. It’s what sociologists call convergent cultural evolution. Alphas and betas usually get gifted things for daily wear from their parents and siblings when they are young, like leather necklaces or beaded bracelets. Omegas also get the same gifts, but because they’re usually the ones getting courted, they tend to sport a glimmering assortment of jewels, metals, and whatnot on top of their childhood accessories. Bob, therefore, is an anomaly. And it only gets more and more apparent the older he gets.
When he drops out of highschool because of his addiction, it’s almost a relief. He no longer has to deal with the sympathetic chatter of other omegas, who keep on growing their sparkly little collections, and the jeering alphas who think he’s a joke. He runs away instead of facing them.
And what does a homeless, connectionless omega have to do to survive?
Sometimes Bob does hold an actual job. On his good days, Bob manages to function like a normal person. Then something happens, a customer yells, or someone from his past catches up to him, and then everything comes crashing down.
He lets a guy he sleeps with pierce his ears. It’s the closest thing to mating jewelry he’ll ever get. Bob is fine with that.
It does fuck him up a little when one of his heat buddies presses a cheap plastic bracelet into his hand, after. He’s strung out on whatever drug the guy had passed him right before, but the look in the man’s eyes sear into Bob’s memories. “For the heat,” the man says jokingly.
The bracelet is one of those rubbery plastic ones you get as a consolation prize from a back alley arcade game. It’s blue polyester mixed with neon green, twisted into the shape of a fake braid. It’s the ugliest thing Bob has ever seen.
He wears it until one of the alphas he sleeps with snaps it during a particularly violent night together. If Bob cries about it, that’s nobody’s business.
By the time Bob finds himself in Malaysia, there is only about an inch left of the silver chain he stole from his mom’s jewelry box. The original piercings in his ears have long been replaced by surgical steel loops, handed to him with a fifty dollar bill by a guy Bob doesn’t even remember the face of.
The one upside Bob’s found to being a pitiful human being, is that all that stress and lack of food has pretty much stopped his heat cycles. He counts seven months since his last one before he stops keeping track.
Then the medical trial happens- and Yelena, and John and Ava and everything else. One moment Bob is certain he’s about to die, does die, and the other, he’s lying amidst rubble in New York City.
To call it an adjustment is the understatement of a century.
The New Avengers are strange. They bicker and jibe at each other, but something about them makes Bob feel impossibly soft. On his good days, he feels the otherworldly power in him fighting to break out. On his bad days it does break out, and Yelena or someone else is always there, somehow, to help him through it.
Another surprise: his heat comes back.
Honestly, Bob doesn’t even notice he’s in preheat until Yelena walks into their living room and stops dead in her tracks. She sniffs the air.
“You okay?” Bob asks confusedly.
Yelena’s eyebrows furrow into a deep crease, and she walks closer to him. Sniffs again. She peers up at him with a strange look. Bob puts down the tea he’s drinking, suddenly nervous.
“When was your last heat, Bob?” she asks.
“I, uh, I’m not sure. Maybe a year? Why?”
“I think your next one’s coming up.”
Yelena slides into the seat next to him, watching him as if he’s a deer about to jolt off. She places a warm hand against Bob’s elbow, and that’s when he realizes he’s shaking.
She guides him back to his room after that. Pries the mug of tea from his hands, arm around his shoulders. His new room at the Watchtower, sparsely furnished with Herman Miller and Tomlinson pieces, reeks of wealth but nothing of personality. Val had ordered her teams to design each New Avengers’ suite to her taste, and Bob doesn’t feel completely at home with the sleek pale furniture and over-soft upholstery. Yelena’s presence grounds him as she sits next to him on the unkempt bed covers.
Since Bob had not been thinking to prepare for a heat (or any heat, for that matter), he pads around his fancy new wardrobe, trying to find things that he’s worn enough to actually smell like him. He doesn’t have any kind of nest prepared, and the thought of having to go through another heat without one makes his heart thud in anxiety.
He doesn’t even notice Yelena disappear and return, silent-footed. She taps his shoulder.
“Here, Bob,” she says gently.
She holds out an armful of her clothing. Freshly washed, with the detergent they all share lingering on the scarf on top. Bob stares at her, feeling something creak in his chest.
“Take it.”
“You sure?”
Yelena tosses the bundle at him, which Bob jumps to catch before it hits the ground. He holds the soft clothing close, Yelena’s oak and earl grey scent hitting his nostrils. The tension bleeds out of him.
As he shuffles towards the bed, Yelena takes a look around his room. She crunches her nose in distaste, and taps something out on her phone.
“Right,” she says determinedly. “I shouldn’t have expected better from Valentina. Bob, stay put while I go get some things, okay?”
“But-” Bob tries to say. He doesn’t need Yelena to be babying him. He can go get the supplies he needs for a heat, he’s done this before.
Yelena holds up a finger. “Nope,” she says, popping the p. “Just get comfortable. Do you like dinosaurs?”
Bob nods, a little awed into silence.
Then she’s gone, and Bob begins to build his nest, awkwardly pushing around a couple of his sweaters mixed with Yelena’s stuff. He builds it in a corner, between his wardrobe and his reading chair. It’s clean and snug enough to fit one, maybe two people, and he brings down the pillows from the bed to create some padding.
Over the next few hours, he has visitors. Ava, dropping by with some of her couch cushions that smell like a crackle of fire. Alexei, loudly congratulating him on his nest and throwing him a basket of cereal boxes, all New Avengers branded. Even Bucky stops by with a giant duvet.
“Should use that as padding,” he tells Bob sternly. “You’re gonna bruise something with just those pillows.”
Bob takes their gifts, throat feeling tight. This is the first time in his life people have offered him help through a heat. His casual heat partners hadn’t cared much about a nest, either high off their asses or callous enough to disregard a shitty one. And his parents had never liked that he was an omega. Bob had been lucky to be allowed a blanket for the cold bathroom floor, much less any kind of comfort or scented items.
Yelena reappears with a giant dinosaur plushie in her arms, and her hands full of shopping bags. She dumps the plushie on Bob, and then starts taking out an assortment of foods and supplies.
“The minifridge should hold enough, right?” she asks him. “How long do they usually last?”
“Two or three days,” Bob answers. The last couple had been even shorter, though, so Bob really has no idea what to expect.,
Yelena hesitates. “Did you have anybody in mind for a… partner?”
Bob shakes his head quickly. He doesn’t want to subject anybody to the mess he becomes during his heats, and besides, there aren’t many unmated alphas in his vicinity. John is pretty much the only one.
Speaking of John- Bob tries not to wonder why he’s the only one who hasn’t showed up.
Yelena gives him a hug. Bob rests his forehead on her shoulder, already feeling exhausted.
“Finally,” she adds, “something I should’ve given you earlier.”
She hands him a small box. White, nondescript, with a little faux ribbon on top. Bob blinks at it, confused.
“Earrings,” she clarifies. “You mentioned the other day that you want to… well, these are clip-ons, until we figure out how to pierce your ears.”
Oh. Bob had asked Yelena about her piercings yesterday. His own earring holes had disappeared after the Sentry serum, and he had been missing the feeling of earrings.
“Yelena, I… thank you.”
Yelena shrugs, smiling. “Of course, Bob. We stick together now, remember?”
Bob opens the box to stare at them. They match her own earrings, a pair of dangling, small spikes. He thinks if he tries to say anything else, he’ll cry.
Once Yelena’s gone, Bob tries to lie in his bed. It doesn’t feel right, so he migrates to the nest he’s built, sinking into the giant dinosaur plushie. He can feel the warmth building up in the pit of his stomach now, not obvious enough to send him into a fit, but unmistakable. He closes his eyes.
Sleep doesn’t come easily. The heat is setting in fast, and Bob slips in and out of consciousness for a few hours. He’s jostled from the uneasy state when someone knocks on his door, and without waiting for an answer, jerks it open.
Bob almost snarls in response without thinking. He sits up, a prickling sensation creeping down his spine.
“Bobby?”
It’s John. Bob can make out his silhouette through the darkness of the room, standing in his doorway. Tall. Smelling distinctly of alpha and the tangy bittersweetness of rhubarb and lemongrass. Bob inhales sharply.
“You shouldn’t be here,” he says before he can stop himself. John recoils, as if he’s been poked at with a sharp stick. “Just- it’s dangerous for you.”
Bob doesn’t think he’ll be able to stop himself from dragging John to bed, if he doesn’t leave soon. The blurriness of his vision isn’t a great indicator. And he doesn’t know what will happen if he loses control, especially not with the serum.
John, the fool he is, steps inside the room. Closes the door behind him.
Bob swears. John holds his hands up placatingly, but doesn’t try to leave.
“If you really don’t want me here, Bob, I’ll go. But I thought I’d offer to help, at least.”
This gives Bob pause. He tilts his head in thought.
It’s what you used to do, something in him whispers. Take the offer. It’ll make everything easier.
But what about after? Bob knows himself. Knows he won’t be able to stop wanting more.
It will hurt so much, he thinks , and he’s not sure if it’s about going through a heat alone or about the aftermath if he asks John for help.
He gives in.
“Only if you’re sure,” he rasps.
John immediately stalks over to him. Bob shrinks a little when John makes to touch him, standing up hurriedly. “Bed,” he says. John just nods and helps him up.
It’s an onslaught on Bob’s senses. John’s scent glands, so close to his nose that it makes Bob’s mouth water. His hands running up Bob’s sides as he pulls down the annoying sweatpants. Bob only stops him when John tries to take off his shirt.
“Just,” he says. His voice sounds alien in his own ears. “I just need…”
“Whatever you need, sweetheart,” John mutters. He is surprisingly gentle when he mouths at Bob’s wrist, licking the glands there but not biting. The skin there is flawless now, unlike a couple months ago (or has it been longer?).
“Do you have anything to take off?” John asks, and it takes Bob a minute to realize he’s asking about Bob’s bijouterie. Bob shakes his head.
“Um, lost them before the vault,” he says vaguely. It’s not a complete lie. Bob had lost the silver chain, and all the piercings he had from before.
John frowns. “Fucking Val,” he swears.
He pulls off his own clothing quickly, almost as if he’s doing a job. Kicks off his trousers. The only thing John keeps on is the steel cord around his neck, with his dog tags and silver pendants swinging from them.
Bob’s mouth feels dry. He wets his lips and reaches out, tugging John down onto the bed. He’s already leaking like crazy, lubrication dripping down his thighs.
John goes slow, murmuring encouragement in Bob’s ear. He’s big, as expected, expertly guiding Bob’s body into a position that has him desperate for more. Bob is used to alphas taking what they need, either during their ruts or Bob’s heats, fucking for the sake of it. He’s not used to the kiss on his nose as John knots him the first time, quick and without fanfare. It makes him tremble and flush in ways he wants to attribute to the heat, but he knows in his heart that it’s because Bob is pathetic.
At some point, Bob rolls them over so that he can sink down fully on John’s cock, sighing in relief.
“Bobby, shit,” John says, groaning. “Gotta give a man some warning, okay?”
It feels divine. His heats usually hit him hard and leave him aching, wanting more and less at the same time. John’s somehow good enough that Bob, even with his nigh-infinite stamina now, feels like a cat with a belly full of milk through the entire four days that it takes for the heat to calm down.
In between each round, John also makes sure to feed Bob. Forces Bob to drink water, though Bob wants to just lie down in his nest and pass out.
“I’m basically a god, I’ll be fine without some water,” Bob tries to protest. John just smacks his backside good naturedly and presses another water bottle into Bob’s hand.
When Bob starts to get feverish again, John pins him down to the edge of the bed. He works his fingers into Bob’s hole, even though he definitely doesn’t need it. He’s been fucked loose enough that John could probably slide in a finger next to his cock, but that’s not what John does. He fingers Bob until he comes, again, sobbing out John’s name.
On the fifth day, Bob finally opens his eyes and doesn’t feel as heatsick. The omega instinct in him is quiet. Bob stretches in his bed.
John grunts when Bob’s hand hits him in the jaw.
“S-sorry,” Bob says, surprised John is still there. The alpha must have smelled the heat leaving. He tries to turn, only to realize John’s cock is still in him.
“John,” he says. “John, my heat’s over.”
John opens an eye to look down at him. He bucks his hips up, and oh- Bob lets out an embarrassing moan.
“One last round, Bobby, or are you tapping out?” John challenges.
His eyes are impossibly blue. Bob groans, but doesn’t try to wiggle away as John rolls them over and fucks down into him one last time.
There’s no knot (thanks to the heat pheromones dissipating), and Bob yawns as John cleans them up after.
His mouth is fucking parched. Bob’s limbs feel like jelly, and it’s a superhuman feat for him to haul himself out of bed to take the bowl of oatmeal from John’s hands.
John watches him the whole time. Bob clears his throat, acutely aware of how much of a mess he probably looks like.
“Thanks, Walker,” Bob says. He had slipped into calling John by his first name during his heat. John shakes his head.
“John is fine, Bob,” he says, amused.
Bob tries to stand up, and flushes a bright red when he realizes he’s still leaking cum down his legs. “I’m… I’m going to go wash up,” he says quickly. He dashes into the bathroom, ignoring the screams of protest his bones give.
It feels surreal, that his heat partner was John fucking Walker. If you told Bob a year ago that he’d be sleeping with a supersoldier in the old Avengers Tower one day, he would’ve laughed you out of the room. But here he is.
John is still in his room when Bob leaves the bath. He looks like he’s showered as well, hair wet and in a fresh change of clothes. Bob notices that his old shirt and pants are tossed near Bob’s nest, as if it’s an offering.
“Hey,” Bob says awkwardly. He hasn’t really had to deal with heat partners staying over, before.
John grins. “Feeling better?”
“Yeah. Yeah, again, thanks. I don’t know what I would’ve done.”
John shrugs nonchalantly. “Anytime, Bobby.”
He pulls something from his pocket. It’s a cloth bag, and when Bob takes it, something inside clinks.
“For your collection,” John says with a smirk. “C’mon, try it on.”
Bob’s heart jumps to his throat. He swallows. Of course John would be the type to gift his fuckbuddies courting jewelry.
The cloth bag is housing a gorgeous chain. Gold, with tiny, delicate links. There are miniscule, vibrant blue gems scattered across it like water drops. Bob presses his lips together. It’s the prettiest thing he’s ever gotten.
“You didn’t need to get this,” Bob starts.
“I’m not a caveman,” John says, feigning offense. “It really isn’t that nice, sorry, I didn’t have enough time to prepare. Thought it would look good on you, though.”
Bob smiles weakly. Costume jewelry or not, the chain is a hundred times nicer than what he used to get. A part of his heart aches. He knows he will never be properly courted- Bob could die happy with this.
He coughs. “Thanks.”
“You don’t have to keep saying that. Here, let me put it on for you.”
John reaches over to grab the chain, unclasping the ends. His hands brush against Bob’s naked sternum as he winds it around Bob’s torso. The chain falls snugly around his waist, the gems cool on his heated skin.
“See?” John says after, admiring his handiwork. “All pretty for me.”
Bob can’t help but chuckle in response.
He expects things to go back to normal after that. Well. The new normal, where the New Avengers go on their missions and their PR circuits, and Bob tries to work on things at home. He hates feeling useless, so he putters around the Tower a lot, trying to see what sticks. On his bad days he ends up curled up in his room, sometimes his ever growing nest.
Valentina picks up on the fact that he is trying to nest a week or so after his heat. There is a giant corporate nest-basket waiting for him when he gets back, one of those awful beige wicker beds with a shallow circular mattress. John laughs at the sight of it, until Bob challenges him into taking it apart with Bob.
Bob has never felt so safe.
What perplexes him, though, is how John keeps on buying him things.
The body chain is one thing. Bob knows enough about bijouterie custom to know that some alphas do give their casual partners stuff like that. Nothing too precious, of course, but surgical steel studs are a popular thanks-for-helping-me-through-rut gifts. They’re meant to be occasional pieces the omegas wear, unlike proper courting jewelry that they’re expected to keep on most of the time. Those gifts don’t need to be as durable, or as timelessly valuable.
But John comes home one day from a mission, blood on his split lip, carrying a long velvet box in triumph. He hands it to Bob with a wide grin.
“A little souvenir,” he says, and saunters over to let medical take care of his cracked ribs. Bob opens the box on his own. It’s a gorgeous bangle, in a shade of almost translucent green. He puts it on immediately.
John gets him a second bangle to match the first, after they end up fucking on the training room’s weight rack, distracted from their sparring session. And then a small pinky ring when Bob sucks his dick behind the kitchen counter.
It keeps building up. Yelena notices his growing collection first. She voices her approval when Bob shows up to movie night sporting a brand new necklace (coincidentally lying right on top of where the bruises John left that morning have faded).
“Gold,” she remarks. “Walker has good taste, at least.”
Ava looks up from her phone, squinting at Bob’s neck. “Could’ve gone with a thicker chain.”
“Nah, thicker chains get annoying,” Bucky argues. “At least that’s what Stevie says.”
“But thicker chains break less?”
Alexei claps his hands together in delight. “I remember when I gave my first bijouterie gift! I had no idea women had preferences between gold and silver… the lady almost had me strung up for giving her a ruby set in silver instead of gold, hah!”
John, who is late because he had to wash out the orange juice Bob had spilled down his shirt, sighs. “Can we not criticize my taste in jewelry again? The girl at the shop already gave me an earful.”
He sits so casually next to Bob, throwing an arm around the omega’s shoulders. Bob reaches up to touch the necklace carefully. It’s a simple thing, a nice chain and a lotus pendant at the bottom. Bob hasn’t ever considered wearing pendants, but he finds he likes this one. It’s small enough not to be too flashy.
John doesn’t get him something every time they fuck, obviously. Even with costume jewelry, Bob thinks that would be too much. Every now and then John gets this gleam in his eye, though, and Bob ends up with something new.
By the time John asks Bob for help with his rut, Bob has three bracelets, two rings, a necklace, and the first body chain. Honestly, he’s never worn this much jewelry at any point in his life.
John shows up to Bob’s room stinking of pre-rut while Bob is deeply engrossed in a novel, and presents him with a pair of black studs.
“My rut is coming up,” John says without much preamble. If they haven’t been regularly fucking for like three months now, Bob might’ve even considered it rude. “I… if you’re not busy?”
Bob laughs. “Of course,” he says easily. He’s feeling good today, like he could do anything. He smiles widely and takes the earrings.
“Although, you’ll have to help me get the piercings in.”
John’s shoulders slump in something akin to relief. Bob grins back at the little smirk John’s wearing.
“Anything you want, Bobby.”
It’s a good day. It’s a great day, even.
Bob can even pretend like he’s actually being courted.
John is terrible at the whole courting business.
In highschool with Olivia, it hadn’t been that hard. John was the star of the football team, strong and tall and the ideal alpha for half of his highschool peers. Because they were teenagers it didn’t matter that he was a little bit mean, or that he was rough around the edges. People grow, and those edges soften out over time. Olivia had been his rock, along with Lemar, and even through all the violence on field, they had grounded him.
And then it was gone. Lemar, dead. Olivia, hurt and leaving him behind, and for good reason. He doesn’t blame her.
Point is, he had only given one person in his entire life mating jewelry, and it had started when he was a teenager. A gold ring his mom let him take, a nice pair of earrings for their first anniversary. A whole set when he proposed. Because female omegas and betas are more commonly courted, it was a lot easier than figuring out what to get for Bob. He could just show up to a store, ask a nice store clerk, and they would point him to a classy collection of bejeweled brooches and chains.
Bob is different though. In all honesty, John hadn’t really thought about Bob’s secondary gender until Yelena had texted the New Avengers groupchat with a panicked, “Bob is going into heat! SOS need nest materials ASAP!”
His mind had jumped, unbidden, to the mental image of Bob buried in his nest. Begging for help with his heat. The thought makes his mouth water. That’s how John realizes he’s attracted to the other man.
Which, by all measures, is a shitty way to realize you have a crush.
Bob isn’t fragile but he is delicate. He doesn’t break to pressure the way his first impression might make one think. He hurts easily, though, despite his diamond skin. John cannot be going around fucking up more things. Even if sometimes he feels like the anti-Midas.
He fucks up a little bit, when he kisses Bob’s mouth and presses into him with his fingers before giving him bijouterie. Bob is the type to be needy as hell during his heats, and John indulges him without thinking. A proper gentleman would’ve presented Bob with a nice ring or two before knotting him, but John’s not a proper southern gentleman, not anymore.
It’s not his fault. How’s he supposed to stop and back away when Bob pulls him into bed, tumbling them down and down and down. He smells like sweet, burnt sugar and mint, scent weighed down by the heat pheromones. John laps it up like a dog.
The shame comes to him after, when Bob’s heat starts to clear up and John lies there in bed with him, blinking up at the ceiling. Bob snores lightly where he’s snuggled up to John’s bare chest. His curls tangle with John’s dog tags, and he pulls them away gently so that Bob won’t wake up to his hair in awful knots.
He just slept with a guy without even asking before the preheat, or even offering a piece of gold. John’s grandpa would have his head for such a misstep, and that’s not even counting how he couldn’t stop himself from coming and knotting Bob without protection. With the hand that’s not tucked underneath the omega, John frantically types out a text to his groupchat with Ava and Yelena.
me 4:06 AM
Emergency. Need post heat contraceptives, strong enough for Bob. Valentina?
It takes them around half an hour, but Ava tends to wake up a lot at night, and she’s texting him back soon enough.
starrrr 4:51 AM
walker
wtf
let me talk to mel
Yelena 5:17 AM
i talked to bucky yesterday. he still has some of the old meds for the avengers
me 5:19 AM
Are those still good???
Yelena 5:20 AM
you better pray they are
Once that’s taken care of, John immediately fires up google. The earliest opening jewelry store in his vicinity opens at nine, and John nervously eyes the clock. Hopefully the heat took enough out of Bob that he’ll sleep in a bit.
Bob blinks awake at half past eight. John, hoping Bob won’t notice John’s bloodshot eyes, cajoles the other man into a quick roll in the hay before sneaking off to Weizman’s Gold and Silver down the street. He barely has the presence of mind to jump in the shower on the way.
The store clerk setting up shop eyes him with the bland attitude of someone who sees men like him everyday. John supposes she does. Wild eyed, panting from running, sweating (except John doesn’t sweat, not anymore), and smelling faintly of someone else’s heat. She points him to the rack of ready-to-wear chains with their adjustable clasps, sterling silver and gold-plated.
John shakes his head. “Do you have, um, anything 18k? Or solid? For a 30 inch waist.”
And okay- maybe it’s creepy that John measured Bob’s waist while he was passed out between rounds. The clerk quirks an eyebrow and tugs open a drawer.
“What’s their eye color?” she asks.
“Huh?”
“Their eye color?”
“Oh, yeah. Blue. Dark blue.”
She places three chains in front of John for him to inspect. One has thicker links, a cuban chain in yellow gold with a singular sun-shaped pendant. John imagines the pendant resting right below Bob’s belly button, for a moment, but shakes himself out of it. The second is a paperclip chain, rose gold, with two bright blue beads trisecting it. It looks a little flimsy, which has John turn to the third option. Champagne gold, wheat chain, with little dangling sapphire stones along its length.
“This one’s perfect,” John says. He checks the time- knowing Bob, he has ten minutes to make it back. “How long does it take to get sized?”
To her credit, the clerk is incredibly fast. She clips the clasp perfectly within five minutes, and John pays without even checking the price. He runs at full supersoldier speed on the way back. Thank god for New Yorkers, he thinks as he dodges a bus and barrels through the Tower’s sliding doors. They don’t even bat an eyelash at supersoldiers running through their streets anymore.
He makes it back to Bob’s bed in record time. Not that he’s been in Bob’s bed before this incident, but it’s the spirit of the game.
When Bob reemerges from his bathroom, all wet curls and doe eyes, John hands him the chain nervously. Watches with bated breath as Bob accepts it.
And Bob does. Which leaves John feeling all sorts of things, weird gushy thoughts that John attributes to still being slightly drunk on Bob’s heat scent.
But then they’re on a mission in bumfuck nowhere, Thailand, in the middle of shrubbery that John is tempted to just bulldoze through, undercover ops be damned. The team is taking a break when John sees the small store: a local selling jade. Out of pure curiosity, John very confidently asks Yelena to drop by the storefront. She gives him a suspicious look but acquiesces, muttering something about getting herself earrings.
The store is small, cramped, nothing like the fancy jewelry stores John spent months in to put together a wedding set for Olivia. The owner is a wizened old woman who doesn’t speak a lick of English, and Bucky ends up translating for him with a hint of exasperation.
“She’s asking if you’re looking for a gift for an omega,” Bucky says. “Also insulted your beard, says it looks like a rabbit nest.”
John scowls. “She did not say that,” he protests. He looks carefully at the shelves, which are half filled with jade statues in varying shades of green and blue.
The shop owner shakes her head, maybe in disapproval, before John finds himself getting dragged over to a glass stand at the back. In it lies a scant handful of delicate jade accessories. Carved hair pins, pendants, rings. They are all beautiful.
John points to a bracelet buried under a polishing cloth. It’s pale, almost translucent, and big enough to fit a male omega’s wrist. A lot plainer than anything else she has in the case. John thinks of Bob’s messy hair, and his soft shirts with the tags cut off. He probably would prefer simpler jewelry.
He loses the nice case it comes in during the mission- a bullet grazes his pocket and he hears a loud crack. When he checks, after, he’s relieved to see that it’s only the wooden case that’s fractured, and not the bracelet. It’s bad luck to have a bijou damaged like that.
Once was to be polite. Twice was weird, but not unheard of. By the third time John’s offering Bob a bijou as if he’s a cat showing off her catch of the day, he admits to himself that he’s actually courting Bob. The superhuman who could blow off all the New Avengers’ heads in one swipe if he wanted to.
And Bob takes them! He takes John’s probably godawful picks of jewelry and wears them around the tower. John can’t help himself when he sees Bob pad out to their shared kitchen, pants low on his hips and the glint of gold peaking out from under his shirt. Or when Bob tries to reach for the half-eaten bag of crisps on the top shelf and the jade bracelets on his left wrist clink together brightly.
No alpha would blame John for the way he reacts, really.
His grandmama would pinch off his ear for it. Scold him for having “those carnal relations” outside of heats or ruts before they’re even engaged. To be fair to John, he would argue that it’s not like he isn’t properly courting the other man. He is, he’s also just speeding up some aspects of their relationship.
John is also so fucking glad that being a public superhero pays decently well.
He almost walks straight by the shop when he notices it. A pair of studs, pitch black, with a bright fiery glint in the center. Despite the simplicity of the piece, the price tag underneath it makes John almost gag. And John’s already spent a good amount on the pieces he’s collected so far.
“You have a good eye,” the salesman praises, laying it on thick. “Natural black opal, 2 carats each, set in 18K gold. The stones are one of a kind, the best in our collection.”
Even with his hefty paycheck, it’s an exorbitant amount for just earrings. “Eight thousand, though?”
The salesman shrugs. “It’s got an excellent play of color, blue and gold with a flash of red. You won’t find this quality for cheaper anywhere, not even at the mines. We’ve had requests to reset the stones in more feminine styles, but our house jeweler is very proud of the current way it’s set.”
John can see why- the stones are indeed beautiful. But opal has never been his stone of choice when buying jewelry, mostly because they’re fairly soft stones. He thinks of Bob, and the way he’s been trying to get his invulnerable skin give way to piercings. He has almost succeeded a couple times; it’s mostly up to Bob and how strong his wishing is. John wonders if he can get Bob to try with the bijou that John gifts him. The thought of Bob’s first piercings (post serum, of course) being John’s makes something warm rumble in his stomach. Even Yelena cannot claim that, as much as Bob likes to wear the clip ons she got him.
Being who he is, the salesman expertly catches the greedy gleam in John’s eyes. He sidles up to the supersoldier, lacing his fingers together as if he’s a cat with an especially juicy piece of salmon.
“It’s fashioned in a very popular courting gift style,” he says. “Studs like these are most commonly used to ask a potential spouse to be a rut partner, or even as part of an engagement gift, sir. May I ask what kind of taste your partner has? Any old bijouterie, perhaps?”
John taps his fingers against the case. The salesman briefly looks murderous, but quickly masks it under a smile. John smirks.
When he had first met Bob, he had been dressed in nothing but hospital scrubs. John had seen no bijouterie on him until that night where Bob’s heat had hit, and even then it had been something Yelena picked out for him. Maybe he should’ve asked about what Bob likes.
“Gold,” he says, distracted by that thought. Truth be told he doesn’t even know if Bob really likes gold, or if he’s wearing it because that’s what John keeps buying. But gold on him reminds John of those brief glimpses of the Sentry he’s seen so far. The way Bob’s hair glints blond when he’s having an episode.
He gets the earrings. If it divests him of a good lump sum of cash- well, what else is John going to spend his pay on?
The earrings stay in their little velvet box under John’s bed for the next couple of weeks. John keeps a very accurate track of his ruts, which used to be like clockwork every six months before the serum. Now, it’s recalibrated to a four month cycle, and John is actually pretty grateful it didn’t shrink to a two month cycle or something of the sort. Valentina’s team is still trying to develop some kind of suppressants for the New Avengers, with varying degrees of success. The serum Bucky, John, Alexei, and Bob got are all significantly different.
One day before his rut is supposed to hit, John feels the familiar itch underneath his skin. In the military, when his suppressants worked, he used to burn it off by sparring with his team. Now he has the giant training room, and several other supersoldiers to help take the edge off. And of course he has Bob.
He knocks on Bob’s door that night, the jewelry box in one hand and Yelena’s piercing kit in the other. Logically he shouldn’t be nervous. Bob already accepted several other pieces, and by all means the two of them are pretty much more than halfway through the traditional courting process. John may have skipped a couple of steps when he showed up with his first gift after Bob’s heat and not before, and they’re technically not supposed to be having sex regularly outside of their cycles, but they’re both modern men, right? Not everything has to be in linear order (or follow tradition).
“Come in,” Bob answers from inside.
John pushes his way in, pausing briefly to surreptitiously sniff the air. He still can’t get over how Bob’s scent is goddamn caramel brûlée. The man in question blinks slowly up at John, a paperback held open on his lap.
“My rut is coming up,” John says quickly. “I… if you’re not busy?”
He offers the box to Bob, who pops it open.
Bob laughs when he sees the earrings. “Of course,” he says. “Although, you’ll have to help me get the piercings in.”
John feels the anxiety bleed away at that. He smirks, leaning over to press a kiss to Bob’s forehead.
“Anything you want, Bobby.”
Bob grins back at him. He tugs John down onto his bed, pushing away his book.
“Don’t you need to bookmark that?” John asks idly.
Bob shakes his head and taps his temple. “Serum, remember? Helps that I was always halfway decent with numbers.”
John snorts. He knows that all supersoldier serums help with that in some capacity, though it differs between version to version. He tucks a strand of hair away from Bob’s forehead.
They don’t often sleep in the same bed. Pre rut, though, alphas tend to gravitate towards their partners’ nests. Alphas who don’t have a partner (or alphas who mate with alphas) end up building sloppy, temporary dens, but John is glad he doesn’t have to do that anymore. Between Olivia and becoming a New Avenger, John had gone through that mess a few times and it had sucked. It’s cold and lonely in a way he can’t put into words. Like someone ripped out your ribcage and replaced it with ice shards.
Bob’s nest is cozy. It’s all well-worn sweaters and scarves and brand new stuffed animals, and pieces of glinting metal hidden under a duvet John’s pretty sure used to be in Bucky’s room. Many omegas use their nests as hiding places for their bijouterie, and Bob is no exception. John remembers the first time Bob let him sleep in it. Omegas don’t ever fuck inside their nests, because a nest is sacred. The very fact that Bob let John inside his- John never expected to be worthy of trust like that again.
In the morning, John wakes up before Bob. His mind is hazy, and he barely remembers to lock the door before he’s on top of his rut partner, pressing Bob into the sheets.
He’s fucking gorgeous.
John suppresses the urge to roll Bob over and just start grinding against him. He needs to put the earrings on Bob before that. He just needs to.
“Bobby,” he mutters, nipping Bob’s nape with his teeth. “Rise and shine, sleepyhead.”
Bob groans. “Too early,” he protests. He reluctantly opens his eyes, mostly to glare at John.
John smirks back.
“You are a menace,” Bob grumbles. His hands are up John’s shirt, though, roaming lazily.
John whines through his teeth when Bob teasingly scratches below his shoulder bone. He reaches out, fumbling blindly for the velvet box Bob had tossed on the nightstand.
“This first,” he manages. Bob makes a dismissive noise and bucks his hips upwards.
“Bobby!” John almost shouts. His hand shakes around the box, but he does manage to stop himself from dropping it to fuck Bob stupid. His voice absolutely does not tremble when he says, “please? Put it on for me, sweetheart.”
A sigh, and then Bob is sitting up. John helps him prop himself against the headboard, hurriedly opening the box in his lap.
Bob takes one of the opal studs out of it.
“Remember how you let me leave that bite mark?” John asks.
Bob nods. “Kinda. Distract me while I do it?”
John laughs, despite his nerves. “Don’t want you to actually hurt yourself,” he answers instead. He opens up his phone to selfie mode so Bob can see his earlobe better. Bob grabs the piercing set from the nightstand, almost dropping the container.
The stud hovers dangerously close to Bob’s face as he shifts to look into the screen. John watches in captivation as Bob squints, balances the tip of the piercing needle on his earlobe. They are both fully aware this is probably not safe at all, normally. Thankfully both individuals practicing this unsanitary piercing process are superhuman, and Bob probably doesn’t even really need a needle to do this. John remembers how Bob had reversed that god awful dye job Val had wreaked on Bob’s hair.
What is important is how strongly Bob believes he can do it. How strongly Bob wants it.
Bob hesitates. His eyes flicker up to meet John’s gaze, before he steels himself and squeezes the forceps shut. The needle presses against his impenetrable skin, held there for a taut second, and then it’s pushing straight through.
“It worked,” Bob says in surprise. He pauses, doubt clouding his face. “Right?”
John stares at his ear. There’s no blood. “Let’s get the stud in,” he says slowly.
That’s easier than John expects. Once Bob believes he’s succeeded, the stud slides in smoothly. The other ear goes quicker, and John’s heart skips a beat when Bob beams up at him with a smug grin.
This man will be the death of him, John swears.
Bob surprises himself when the piercing succeeds.
Sure, he used to watch his ex (?) do it pretty often, but none of his clients had superpowers. Ever since the serum, Bob hasn’t been hurt unless he wanted the pain badly. Pain is already so foreign now that any facsimile of it grounds him, reminds him he is still human, and not yet a god.
When Bob looks back at John, after making sure the earrings are placed correctly, John’s pupils are blown wide. The black eats up most of those familiar blue irises, and John is more than eager to start with the actual rut activities.
Bob isn’t sure why John had been so insistent on him wearing the earrings before they start fucking, but the earrings are pretty and he won’t complain about that. It makes him feel all fuzzy and domestic, as if he would ever be one of those omegas to pad barefoot in the kitchen with a baby on his hip. Bob knows he’s not like that. He’s not an omega you woo, or kiss softly under sunlight. He’s made peace with it long ago, and besides, it’s not like he really wants that kind of life either.
Bob is happy, when John mouths over his throat, licks the scent gland there without trying to bite down. Mating bites would be much too intimate for them. He likes his dynamic with John, is perfectly comfortable when John noses his hair and they doze off between bouts of rough sex. His friend is in rut, and Bob knows how painful it is to go through something like that on your own.
And Bob is lying to himself. He only recognizes that fact much later, three days into John’s rut, when both of them lie near motionlessly in bed, tangled together in an awkward knot of limbs and blankets.
John- dead asleep to the world, so it’s not his fault- rolls over to tuck Bob’s head under his chin. This part is fine. Familiar, almost.
Then John ruins it by muttering, “Go back to sleep, Liv.”
The bed suddenly feels cold. It’s all in Bob’s head, even as he carefully pulls himself out of John’s arms. Rationally, he knows John didn’t mean to say that. Knows it’s probably just out of habit.
He thinks about it. It distracts him from enjoying this properly, from kissing back when John stirs awake a couple hours later. They’re still on the tail end of John’s rut, his fever cooling down. Bob wraps his arms around John’s neck. The realization that he needs to end this sickens him to the core.
John kisses him softly, and that makes it so much harder. But Bob can’t do it. Can’t be a backup, a second choice for someone who would never see him as anything more than a friend. He thought he could, before.
He steels himself and pulls away. Checks John one last time to make sure he’s out of the danger zone.
“John,” Bob starts. John hums, presses his lips to Bob’s wrist in that endearingly sleepy way of his. Bob watches for a moment.
“I think we need to stop.”
John stills. His eyes, still wide with leftover rut-fever, flicker up to meet Bob’s gaze. “What?” he asks hoarsely.
“Sleeping together,” Bob clarifies. “I think… I can’t do it anymore.”
Some small part of him hopes that John will fight it, will demand answers and quiet Bob’s dizzy thoughts with a kiss or bite. John doesn’t do any of that. He drops Bob’s arm and pulls back, uncaring of how naked or vulnerable he looks at that moment.
Silence stretches awkwardly across the two of them. Bob fidgets with one of his bracelets, and can’t help but break their staring contest first.
“Alright,” John says slowly, as if he’s still in a trance. “Whatever you want, Bobby.”
And that should be the end of it.
Bob won’t take off John's courting gifts, and it’s driving John crazy.
He watches Bob laugh with Yelena, his head in her lap, as Yelena cards her fingers through his hair. Watches her damn hand brush against John’s necklace around Bob’s neck. One day it’s Bucky, clapping his hand on Bob’s back, just over where John knows the body chain’s hidden under his clothes. The other day it’s a random waiter, when they’re all out for team dinner, smiling all coy and obviously flirting with Bob, letting his fingers trail dangerously close to the jade bracelets on Bob’s wrist. Bob doesn’t even notice.
And there’s only so much a jilted alpha can take.
All things considered, John thinks he does a good job of being patient. It only comes to a head when they meet Joaquin fucking Torres.
It’s supposed to be a diplomatic meeting. A nice meet and greet between Sam Wilson’s flock and Bucky’s new team. There aren’t any reporters, but Val makes sure it happens on their home turf.
John is already on edge at the thought of Wilson and a bunch of unknowns being in the Tower. As much as the territorial part of alpha instincts are diminished in modern humans, John has always been a little bit more easily irritated with a bunch of strange alphas. It used to help in highschool football, where that protective instinct honed his senses, but now, here, in a sterile meeting room, it just makes him angry.
Then Val seats Torres next to Bob. John can’t even speak up for himself when he’s seated three seats away.
Torres, being who he is, immediately starts talking to everybody. Including Bob.
“I like your earrings,” the new Falcon says with a stupid fucking grin. John wants to punch it off.
“Th-thanks,” Bob answers in surprise. He blushes.
(He blushes?)
John faintly realizes that he’s gripping his silverware too tight. Ava eyes his rapidly bending steak knife with interest. Next to him, Yelena kicks his ankle.
If it stopped at that, John could’ve ignored it. But then Torres reaches out, hand hovering close to Bob’s face.
“Can I touch them?” Torres asks, casually.
Bob nods.
The following discussion fades out over the roar in John’s ears. He can feel the elbow in his side, as Yelena tries to shake him out of whatever statue-still state he’s in. It takes all of his willpower to not slam his clenched fists into the table. As it is, he snaps the fork in half and Valentina hisses a warning at him.
By the time his vision clears, half the table is eyeing him as if he’s a fuse about to blow. Good, John thinks viciously. They aren’t wrong.
He can tear Torres’ throat out right now. If John was a lesser man, he would. Sure, Wilson and Bucky would probably decapitate him seconds after, but he could do it.
Eventually, Val dismisses the meeting. She clearly notices something is wrong. Nobody says anything, though, and John makes it to their residential floor before anybody else. He walks to the kitchen automatically, trying to funnel the heat in his blood into something more productive.
He blindly rummages the cabinets, looking for- a baking pan or something. Maybe beating together eggs and cocoa powder into disgustingly sugary brownies will calm him down. Or he could try getting drunk, ignoring the very real danger that he might go hunt someone down if he did that.
“Hey,” someone awkwardly coughs behind him.
John whirls around, only to come face to face with Bob. He drops the bag of chocolate chips he had been holding. It falls and splits on the floor, spilling chocolate everywhere as if it’s a messy candy man with his guts pouring out at a crime scene.
“What, Bobby?” John grinds out.
Bob gives him a concerned look. “I… you looked stressed earlier. I just wanted to check if you’re okay.”
John gnaws on the inside of his cheek. He crosses his arms, leans back against the counter as if he hadn’t been obsessively trying to keep himself from breaking something.
“I’m fine, thanks for asking,” he says, unable to keep the sarcastic bite from his tone.
Bob gives him that expression he’s way too familiar with. Somewhere between guilt tripping and skepticism.
And John shouldn’t say it. It’s bad form to even ask, but then again what Bob’s doing to him isn’t right either.
“Actually,” he says. “Can you stop wearing those?”
Bob stills. “What?”
“Can you stop wearing the bijouterie I gave you.”
Bob works his jaw, the muscles flexing. John waits patiently for the ‘ sure, John, old pal, I just forgot. ’ Or maybe an offended, ' I was going to anyways. ’
“No.”
That isn’t one of the options. John scowls. Bob speaks up before he can add anything else.
“I don’t want to, and besides, it’s not up to you.”
The words are sharp. Jagged. They dig under John’s skin, reminding him of how coldly Bob had told him off for trying to propose.
John’s hands are shaking. The urge to punch something rises to the surface, to beat someone that’s not himself into a bloody, raw pulp like his heart. To rip apart sinew and bone and watch something sputter out in his grip. He grits his teeth around it and forces it back down.
“You don’t have the right,” he begins, which sounds wrong, is wrong, Bob will always have the right. “Throw it away, sell it, I don’t care! You’re giving me the wrong signs, okay? Walking around in my goddamn marks, throwing it back in my face like that.”
Bob looks murderous. His shoulders are hitched up, the line of his spine visibly tense and rigid even through his thick sweater.
“You were the one who gifted them! I’m not- I’m not yours to order around. Why do you even care?”
“I don’t .”
“You obviously do, if you, if you’re shouting at me over it!”
Bob’s voice rises with every word. John glares, watching the opal studs in his- in Bob’s ears glint under the dim kitchen light. He wants to rip them out. (That’s not true.)
John takes a step closer. “Take. Them. Out.”
“I’m not going to,” Bob hisses back. “Fuck. Off.”
Before he can think better of it, John’s body is lunging at the omega. Bob, who seems to have been expecting it, catches John’s hands with his own.
The momentum crashes them over the kitchen island, Bob’s shoulder chipping the marble. John sees red. He twists his hand free from Bob’s grip. Tries to grasp the bracelet on Bob’s wrist. Bob grunts and pulls his arm out of John’s reach.
John shifts his weight so he’s pinning Bob down with his knee, and yanks at Bob’s shoulder, stretching to reach the bangle. Bob instinctively blocks off John’s access to his neck, where the gold lotus lies nestled at the hollow of his throat.
“Stop,” Bob snarls. “Let me- get off of me!”
The room spins, for a moment, as Bob’s eyes flash gold and John finds himself unceremoniously shoved across the room. Bob quickly rolls behind the kitchen island. They stare at each other across the cracked countertop.
John squares his jaw.
“Sell them and buy yourself different pieces,” John says as steadily as he can. “I’m not going to let… watch some random alpha fawn over you, when you’re wearing the bijouterie I put on you.”
Realization dawns in Bob’s eyes. “Is this about Joaquin? John-”
“Oh, so you’re on a first name basis with him now, huh?”
“John!” Bob says loudly. “What the fuck is wrong with you? He’s not… we were just talking.”
He takes a deep breath. Then, as if something just occurred to him, Bob narrows his eyes at John. “What do you mean sell them?”
John sneers. “Didn’t your daddy teach you how it’s bad form to keep an alpha’s courting gifts after you dump them?” He knows it will hurt Bob. Means for it to hit his weak side. The sadistic bastard inside of him wants to see Bob cry, get angry, show some kind of emotion like John’s feeling.
Instead, Bob straightens, brow furrowing further.
“Courting gifts?”
Why does Bob sound so confused? John cocks his head to the side. “Are you deaf or something?” John taunts, even though he really shouldn’t.
“These aren’t courting gifts.”
“What,” and now it’s John’s turn to be bewildered. “What are you talking about? Why else would I buy them?”
Bob throws his hands up in the air. “I don’t know, because you’re from the South? I thought you were just being polite to- I don’t know. Because we were sleeping together. It’s costume jewelry.”
“Bob,” John says, the anger bleeding out of him and replaced with a vague sense of nausea. “Bob, nothing I’ve given you was meant to be costume jewelry.”
Bob blinks slowly. He opens his mouth, hesitates, closes it.
The lights feel almost too bright, despite half of them being off. Or maybe that’s just John feeling off kilter on his own.
“How did- Bobby, I pretty much proposed to you.”
“No you didn’t,” Bob retorts immediately. He looks close to breaking down, so John cautiously makes his way around the kitchen island. He isn’t sure if he can touch Bob.
Bob continues. “You- you’re still in love with Olivia. You gave me these pieces because you felt sorry for me, or something. Or you just didn’t want to be rude. That’s the only thing that makes sense.”
He sounds like he’s trying to convince someone, but it’s damn well not working for John. John tries to fight the scowl threatening to overtake his face.
“Bob,” John tries. “I have no fucking idea why you think that. I don’t want to get back together with my ex, okay? I was courting you. Still would be, if you didn’t say no.”
“But-”
“I’m in fucking love with you, asshole,” John says incredulously.
What he doesn’t say is, who hurt you this bad? Doesn’t ask what poor excuse of an alpha broke Bob’s brain so badly that he would think all his bijouterie is fake . It’s probably at least partially Bob’s dad (who John would very much enjoy throttling if he ever got access to a time machine).
Bob makes a noise, halfway between ‘wounded dying animal’ and ‘child just told they’re going to Disney world’. He yanks John close, sudden, and John has no time to react before Bob is kissing him.
It’s almost gentle. John tastes blood in Bob’s mouth and he isn’t sure if it’s John’s own or Bob’s. They are both severely dehydrated, and a little desperate. John only pulls away to grab Bob’s wrist, the one that’s still unadorned. He noses at the scent gland there and lets his teeth scrape across it.
Bob shudders against him. They kiss again, briefly.
“I’m an idiot,” Bob says with a grimace. “I.. I’m sorry.”
John doesn’t know how Bob ever thought John would give him something that would stain his fingers green and blue all over. He is a fool to have thought everything was going smoothly. It never does, not anymore, not for him.
Curls brush against his cheekbone as John tilts his head forward, bumping Bob’s forehead with his.
“Nah,” he mutters. “Not entirely your fault.”
Bob snorts
“Thanks, that really makes me feel better. I… I love you too, or something, if that’s okay.”
“Or something? Jesus, Bobby, feeling real confident today, huh.” John pauses, rethinks what he’s about to say. He doesn’t do that as often as he should.
He cannot mess this up.
“Let’s do this again,” he says. “Do you want to be partners? Serious partners, I mean. In case your pretty little head starts spiraling again.”
Bob rolls his eyes, but a smile betrays him.
“Partners,” Bob repeats. “I can live with that.”