Chapter Text
The match was Luka's third with the team, a small beta who had joined the squad recently at the coach's insistence. This was one of those tough matchups, the kind where he'd have to deal with a defense that played right at the edge of the rules. That rival defender —a huge guy well over 1.90 meters tall— had been marking him since the first minute with a persistence that had already made the whole bench frown by halftime.
The play came in the seventy-second minute. Luka received the ball with his back to goal near the box, turned to face forward, and the defender went in without playing the ball, straight for his standing leg. Luka fell in a way that made it obvious to anyone watching that it was a red card, or at least a yellow: his whole body seized up, and he lay on the grass without moving, his hands gripping his aching leg.
Sergio didn't think twice — now was the moment to do what an Alpha does when someone attacks one of his small teammates. He sprinted from midfield at full speed, and before anyone could get between them, he'd already shoved the defender to the ground, followed by a sharp blow that split his eyebrow open.
The referee gave both of them a straight red, but that didn't stop them from continuing to fight. "Bothered that I touched your little omega? You know they're useless for football." That enraged Sergio even more, and he started hitting him without mercy. When they finally managed to pull them apart, Sergio walked off to the locker room with his fists still clenched. Anyone would think he was defending Luka, but only he knew the real truth behind his reaction.
In the stands, the shouting was split between applause from those who saw the gesture as defending a teammate, and boos from those who were already tired of the defender's antics.
There was no defeat, thankfully. The team held on through the final minutes with a determination the coach would later describe in the press conference as "the character that defines us," and they won two to one. Luka, his leg bandaged but without serious injury, watched the final minutes from the bench, sitting next to the physio, jaw clenched, eyes fixed on the locker room where Sergio had disappeared more than twenty minutes earlier.
While the team was celebrating in the locker room, Luka walked over to Sergio, thinking — or so he believed — that he was going to thank him.
"What the hell was that?" he asked, the moment their eyes met.
Sergio looked at him as if the question made no sense.
"He was about to break your leg. Someone had to—"
"Nobody had to do anything," Luka cut him off, his voice deeper than expected coming from such a small frame. "I was on the ground. The ref was right there and was going to send him off anyway. You went running in like this was some bar fight, and now you're going to miss the next match too."
"I was protecting a teammate."
"You didn't protect anyone. You made things harder for me and for the guys who stayed on the field." Luka took a step closer, not breaking eye contact, without the slightest trace of the caution a Beta was supposed to show around an Alpha who had just knocked out an opponent in front of thousands of people. "I don't like your attitude."
The locker room, which until then had still been celebrating the result with shouting and music, went quiet around the two of them as no one said a word. Suddenly, at Luka's words, a loud "oooh" rang out.
Sergio didn't answer. Not because he had nothing to say — he always had something to say, it was part of the persona, the last word had belonged to him out of habit for so long — but because how was he supposed to explain that the rival thought he was an Omega? He'd probably get offended. Though, given his slight build, he'd probably already been told that before.
"You owe everyone an apology."
He stood there for a long moment without saying another word, then turned around without fully knowing why.
"Listen up, everyone." The locker room went completely silent. "I was wrong," Sergio said — something he'd said only a handful of times in ten years of his career. "I shouldn't have reacted like that. I put the result at risk and left the whole team to play a man down. I hope you all do just as well without me next match."
The coach looked at him for a second, surprised, and nodded.
"Let's hope it's true this time," was all he answered.
"I also owe you a personal apology," Sergio said finally. "I don't know how to control myself when they say those things..." He stopped mid-sentence, unable to decide which word to use.
Luka glanced at him sideways.
"Say what."
"That one of my teammates looks like an omega."
Luka started laughing, and Sergio didn't understand what was so funny.
"People talk without knowing anything, you're not going to get yourself sent off every time someone says something stupid — that's what I expect from a captain."
He laughed a bit more, shaking his head, as if the very idea still seemed absurd to him.
"An Omega, on top of it all," he continued, finishing putting his boots in his bag without looking at him. "What a thought — though it's not the first time I've heard it. They wouldn't even be able to keep up the pace we played today, at the level we have to play. Even I'm exhausted."
"Don't talk about what you don't know," he said, more affected than he wanted to show.
Luka looked up, surprised.
"Go rest that leg," Sergio answered, saying goodbye with a wave.
He headed for the exit without waiting for a response, pulling up the hood of his hoodie so no one could see his face.