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It always started as an itch, a tickle along my spine. Well, the physical part of it anyway. I also tended to get what my mother liked to refer to as “feisty,” despite the best efforts of my suppressants. To be fair, they were black market; I couldn't afford to put them on my insurance. I shifted in my seat for what had to be the millionth time. “Enough.” My partner, Yumi, didn't even look up from her paperwork, adding in details so that the SHIELD analysts could work with the alien tech we'd bagged on our last mission. “Either you go take a sick day, or I'm going to send you home in a body bag... and I say that with all the love in my heart.” She spared a glance in my direction and a quick grin, then went back to her paperwork. I grumbled at her halfheartedly; after all, I was driving myself up the wall, too. I grabbed my duffel and headed out. Fortunately Yumi and I had never synced up, so that she could cover my paperwork on my mini-heats, and I could cover hers on her ruts."Bitch, just go get laid already... or get a better vibe. But you'd better do something before you drive me to commit homicide!" Yumi called after me, causing several heads to turn my way. Fortunately my scent-blocker was the patented SHIELD formula; no one would smell my heat pheromones even if I was in a full heat sans blockers. I, being the mature one of the pair, answered her with a concise flipping of the bird; always a classy option.I headed to the elevator. The doors opened with a whoosh, pouring scented air into the hallway, and sending my minor itch into a full-blown desire to crawl out of my skin. I'd never had this reaction to the elevators before... whoever I was smelling must have just used the elevator, or else the scent would have been muddled. I couldn't help but to heave more of it into my lungs, my body – right down to the cellular level – craving more of it.Well, shit. I had two options; Plan A) find the owner of the scent, or.... I opted for Plan B. Instead of hitting the "L" to head to the lobby, I chose to detour down to sub-level two, where laundry was done in-house. Anyone who worked at Avenger Tower got at least some of their clothes cleaned here; uniforms, workout clothes, sparring clothes... It was too dangerous to send our laundry out, what with spies literally dying to get SHIELD secrets. Which meant that whoever's scent I was smelling had some laundry down in the laundry bins... hopefully. To be honest, I didn't have the laundry schedule memorized; low-priority, all things considered, so I tended to just drop off my clothing whenever I had a spare moment, and be thankful when it was returned to my desk. I quickly hacked the video feed – what I was about to do wasn't “legal” in the strictest definition of the term - and pulled together footage, looping some in the laundry room, and using a patch from a previous day to show myself walking out the front doors when I should have, rather than later, freeing myself up for my mission. That way, no one could say I hadn't gotten off the elevator at the lobby, and no one would notice the clothes were missing for days to come.There were several bins of dirty laundry sitting in wait, and I elegantly flopped into the nearest one, carefully sifting through piece after piece. I realized rather quickly that the scent I'd smelled in the elevator was actually a combination of a couple of scents, and other scents grabbed my attention. Due to a lack of patience and time, I grabbed anything that pleased my hormonal ass and got out of there as quickly as possible, stuffing them into my duffel as I marched back to the elevator. I stepped out of the elevator, nodded to Hank, my favorite security guard, and made it out the door before I dared to breathe again. Keeping a steady pace was nigh-on impossible, but somehow I made it to my car with my loot, and off I went.
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Several months had passed, and no one seemed to have noticed the clothes going missing, which was fine by me! I'd added to my collection each month, the same scents building up in my nest-room. As I was hiding my Omega status from SHIELD (all except my partner, Yumi), I'd had to hide it in my home life, as well. When coworkers stopped by, my house smelled like it was occupied by the Beta my paperwork stated I was, and didn't have any nesting place. Not until you swung aside the bookcase to my secret passageway. Behind my house, and below ground-level, I had my nest-room. Built for comfort and cooling, with all the necessities for a full-blown heat; one wall was a massive monitor display I used both for safety assurances and for personal entertainment (show me an Omega in heat who doesn't love wall-sized porn, and I'll give you my life's savings). My air was scrubbed and vented away from my home, and I had enough food to survive a nuclear holocaust. The joy of my life was the bed: it was cooling memory foam, made to-order, large, with a roughly bowl-like shape. I'd filled in the excess space with as many pillows and blankets as I could lay my hands on, and more recently I'd “feathered” my nest with various shirts and gym-shorts from the laundry basket – I'd drawn a line in the sand over stealing undergarments, much to my inner Omega's dismay.As I emerged from my den, sealing it up until next month, I sighed. Why couldn't I have been born a Beta? I didn't want to be an Alpha or anything, but the heats were a pain in the ass. Not that I was facing the full weight of a heat... if I'd been one of those who weren't able to take suppressants, I probably would've been forced to take Yumi's advice. The thought sent a shudder through me; I'd been raised in an old-fashioned household, where the Omega was forced to stay at home, stay pregnant, and bow to the Alpha's will. Mom had been forced into that match by my father, and I was terrified the same would happen to me. It was one of the reasons I kept my status a secret. SHIELD was progressive-minded, but who knew when a shift might come, putting my whole life on the line. No, it was better to play the Beta, play it close-to-the-vest. Yumi had only figured it out when she caught me sniffing the air as she was heading into rut, and even then it took her a couple of months to put two and two together.I tumbled into the shower, letting my first wash take away my scent, making me sexless to anyone with a nose. The second wash put a subtle layer of Beta scent on me, which grew stronger over the course of the day. They told me it worked via heat-activation. I told them I didn't care how it worked, as long as it did work.A pair of black, combat-ready slacks, matching traction-enhanced shoes, a bullet-proof button-down, and a hair tie later, and I was ready to go. Gotta love a good uniform.Flipping the lock as I stepped out the door, I pulled it shut behind me, only to find my nose level with a familiar-smelling chest. A very familiar-smelling chest. I swallowed, pulling my eyes upwards to find a pair of blue eyes looking quizzically down at me.“Can I- Can I help you?” I asked, resisting the urge to step backward. He didn't smell angry, just... confused.“Well, that depends. Do you happen to know where my clothes have been disappearing to? I'm running out of gym-shorts.” He cocked his head to one side, playing up his pretty-boy innocent look. I'd seen what Cap could do in the field, though, so it didn't fool me.I looked down at the shorts he was wearing. “Looks like you've found some. If you don't mind? You're going to make me late for work.”He sidestepped with me, not letting me past him. “I'm on my last pair.”“Sorry to hear that? Maybe you should get iron-ons of your name, stick them on the tags? Worked for me in kindergarten.” I tried to shove him sideways, which did more to put me off-balance than him, in more ways than one.“Why are you taking them? I know you're not selling them.”“I'm not taking them.” A tablet appeared in front of my face, with clear footage from the laundry room, where I could be seen sorting through the laundry.“It... must have been a mistake.”“In that much laundry? You managed to find pieces owned by different Avengers every time. How is that possible?”I sent a quick prayer to whatever gods may be that my makeup would hide the fact that all the blood had left my face. “Different... different Avengers?” I cleared my throat. “I guess we wear the same exercise clothes?” I stared him down. Or tried to, anyway. He held my gaze, dropping it only to look from himself to me.“I don't think you're my size, Doll.”I looked up into his baby-blue eyes, sighed, and stomped on his instep.As he staggered, I took off. “Seeya, Doll-face!” I whooped over my shoulder, only to find myself surrounded by more Avengers. “Well, shit.”
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I looked between the other Avengers; Stark was in a suit, and not the iron kind... Which made me wonder if this was intended as a friendly visit. But they were all spread out in a semi-circle surrounding me, which didn't do much to back that theory. Come to think of it, they were all in civvies; Barnes, Romanov, Banner, and Barton... who seemed to have brought popcorn, and was surreptitiously pulling it piece-by-piece out of his backpack.They all seemed both amused and bemused, with the exception of Barnes, who was scowling back and forth from Rogers to me... Which made sense considering that they'd bonded as an Alpha pairing; rare, but it does happen. It seemed best to focus on the one alpha I hadn't managed to piss off... yet. I turned to Natasha. “I'm sorry for any misunderstanding... I'll, um... I'll have the clothes laundered and returned to you.” Something deep down wrenched as I offered to give up a crucial piece of my nest. It was just lucky they were catching me after a heat, rather than before. Had they caught me when I was heading home earlier that week, I would have battled to the death to keep my nest intact. Or dragged them in there with me... I shook away the thought, focusing on the here and now.“It's not about the clothes.” Barnes growled. “It's about you taking from our pack, specifically our pack.” His Alpha pheromones hit me in a wave.Great. Nothing I like better than pissing off Alphas... “Look... I didn't mean to...” I started plotting exits; there was no way I was going to take on six of the Avengers, especially when one of them was a particularly pissed Alpha. “I'm sorry. Like I said, this was all a misunderstanding.” I turned back toward my house, where Rogers had finished the circle around me.“I'll clean the laundry myself, then return it to you, alright?” I offered him my hand. “Truce?”There's something about a repentant Beta that always seems to get Alphas into a good head-space. Better than even Omegas, since the Alphas don't get over-worried or attentive, they simply trust. Rogers put his hand in mind, and I smiled, shook it, and pulled him into a martial throw directly into his Alpha pair, before taking off for my door. I had the key turning in the lock when Barnes caught up with me. He grabbed me and tossed me a good twenty feet. Ouch.... So much ouch.... I spared a glance at the other Avengers; Rogers was heading my way, but the other Avengers... I spotted them under my favorite oak tree in the park across the way, where they seemed to be sharing Barton's popcorn. Barton himself was nowhere to be seen, so I'd have to keep an eye out for him. I slid under the metal hand meant to grab me – it seemed they were trying to get a hold of me rather than to actually hurt me, likely for some form of interrogation. The next hand that came at me belonged to Rogers. Poor, poor Rogers. I tackled him, sending him reeling on top of Barnes, and made another break for the open door. I made it inside, the door closing a fraction of a second before one of the Alphas hit the other side. I engaged the lock, which triggered the house-wide security system. “Fair warning; you come in now, you're gonna get fried, which... I don't know how that nice, shiny arm is going to react to that.”The pounding on the door stopped, and two heads popped up in the window. Barnes was fuming, but Rogers seemed to be taking the multiple attacks remarkably well. A glance confirmed the others were, in fact, still camped out under my tree, eating Barton's popcorn. I dropped the window shades, and slumped on the couch. “Guess I'll have to call in sick again today. Fury's going to love that.”“He's a softy,” came from directly over my head. And I'll admit... I screamed like a little girl.
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“HOLY MOTHERFUCKING SHIT!” Okay... maybe the little part of screaming like a little girl went away when words returned to me, even if my natural pitch did not.“Language?” I finally figured out that the voice was coming from my air vent. “How in the love of fuck did you get in there? I'm going to have to rework my security system-”“Nah, your system's fine. You unlocked the door as the fight started, I saw where you were headed, and figured I'd pop in here in case you managed to shake off the boys long enough to make it inside.” Barton's head tilted to one side, making him look for all the world like a puppy. An upside-down puppy. “Mind if I come down?”“Depends. If you come down, are you going to make me go back out there?”“Wasn't planning on it?”I nodded my assent, he popped out of my air duct, and started poking around. “You got anything good to eat around here?”“I made fajitas last night?”“That'll work.” He helped himself to the ingredients in my fridge.“So... why aren't you helping them?”“You didn't steal my clothes. I only came along because I figured it'd be entertaining. And I was right.” He popped his fajita into the microwave.“So... how did they get that footage? I looped the cameras every time I did that.”“Well, they noticed their clothes going missing pretty quickly; you happened to grab one of Steve's favorite shirts the first time you took some of the clothes... At least, we think that was the first time you took some... Anyways.” He took a bite of the fajita, and I took the opportunity to interject.“He has favorite shirts? Who has favorite exercise clothes?”“They were a gift from his Alpha pair, for their sparring practices.” “Oh, shit.”“You said it. Anyways, they went to Fury. It took a couple of months to convince him, but finally he set up a closed-system camera, and there you were!” “Fury knows about this?”“Yeah,” he managed between bites.“I am so fired.... Where is he?”Barton shrugged. “He figured that whatever was going on was specific to them, so they could handle it. The rest of us came for moral support. And to watch the fireworks.” He winked at me, then rinsed his plate and placed it in my dishwasher, which I appreciated to no end. Although, it might have to do with the fact that we were both Betas, at least as far as he knew. We were “equals,” so he was showing me the respect due. There was a twinge as I realized that if he knew I was an Omega, he might have left it out for me to clean up.“So? What's your plan?”“I- I guess I'm going to wait them out?” I caught the odd look he gave me. “What?”“You're going to wait out... the 90-something-year-olds? Do you have any idea how much patience they have?”“Well, what do you recommend, O All-Knowing One?”“Personally? I'm a fan of a good, old-fashioned flashbang-and-run.”“... You're not serious.”“What?”“One does not simply flashbang-and-run into Mordo- I mean, Avengers Tower.”We stared at each other in silence for a moment.And then Barton shattered it. “You're a NERD! OH, HELL, YES!”“What?”“Bruce and Tony are both nerds, but won't admit it, and that means we haven't managed to take over movie night-”“And? What does that have to do with me?”“You- You know what? Never mind.”“But-”“If I go out there, I can tell them you left. Underground tunnel or something. They leave, and you're free.” “Or I could just pop out, you tell them I'm still here.”“Pop?”We stared at each other another moment. “What's your clearance level, again?”Barton blinked. “My... SHIELD clearance? I'm a Seven. Why?”I patted him on the head. “Sorry, luv. You don't have clearance to know about me. Now get out there, Mister Flash-bang.”He looked at me oddly, but slowly nodded. “Alright, I'm going to trust you on that...” He flipped the lock, tossed me one more look, then stepped out the door, locking it behind him. I breathed in deeply through my nose, noting for the first time that Barton had no noticeable scent... probably choosing to use scent-blockers was second-nature from his missions. I held the breath, focused, exhaled, and wove space together.
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Popping farther than 15 miles sucked dick. And not in the fun way. My lungs were screaming that air was, in fact, not something you should breathe, and the irrational part of my brain was ready to believe them. There was a reason I didn't pop often. I hope everyone saw that, because I will not be doing it again. After a couple moments that felt like an eternity, air stopped being a solid mass that refused to enter my body, and life returned to normal. I'd heard rumors there was a better traveling spell, which would work for larger distances and hurt less, but I'm rather sensitive about the idea of my atoms being scattered between where I started and where I was supposed to end up, and deciding not to get back together again. And if it sounds too good to be true, it usually is. But if I started popping more frequently – say, if I'd pissed off some Avengers or something – I'd have to look into it as a matter of self-preservation.I wiped the sweat off my forehead, tucked the stray hairs away from my face, straightened my clothes, and headed back toward my desk. Yumi met my eye... and gave me the “you're in trouble” face. And not the good one, the “bitch, RUN” one.Mid-step I made the executive decision that Yumi had a handle on things at the office, and I should take a rest day, just to be safe.I swung around to find myself back to being nose-to-chest with a broad, blue, expanse. “We've got to stop meeting like this.”Rogers didn't even crack a smile. His loss; I was funny.I backed up, only stopping when I bumped into my desk. Comforting to know that just four feet behind me was Yumi, who'd had my back on countless missions. “How did you get here so fast?” Popping from one place to another took no time, so unless they'd asked for a lift from Heimdallr, I couldn't see them beating me here. And yet....“We didn't.” Rogers crossed his arms across his chest. “We drove.”Despite myself, I did my best impression of a goldfish for a moment. “What do you- how did you beat me here?”“We know you're a SHIELD agent, which means you could stay in your house for who knows how long – probably even have a tunnel out -” (I didn't, but I was starting to think I should invest in one) “and we knew that you worked here. Why wait you out there, when eventually you'd show up here?”“Aha.” I was really starting to wish I'd checked outside before popping over. If I popped back to my house, it might knock me out, and even if it didn't, a second pop that size that quickly would hurt like hell. I needed at least 15 minutes and a protein bar before I'd be up for it. Which meant I needed another way out... and fast.“Agent Azarola, Agent Kearney.” I could've kissed Fury. Probably would have died for it, but even that would be preferable to facing down Team Kick-Artemis'-Ass. Although... How did one go about kissing a hologram, anyways?Stark interrupted. “Wait, agents agents? What are agents doing in my tower?”“Seducing Pepper.” I answered.“Only on Thursdays, otherwise you get too distracted.” There was a reason I only worked with Yumi; she had my back in every situation.Holo-Fury cleared his throat. “That's above your clearance, Stark.”Nat stepped forward from the shadows. “So why are there agents here?”“That's... above your clearance, too.”I could see Rogers start to open his mouth, so I slapped my hand over it. I didn't know if his clearance would let him know about us, but I wasn't keen to find out. “There's a mission, Sir?” I asked, hand still over Rogers' mouth, ignoring his Eyebrows of Disappointment (trademark pending).“Head to the flight bay, your Quinjet is waiting. You'll be briefed on-board.” And with that, my favorite Man of Mystery was gone, leaving no trace – not even a scrap of holographic eye-patch – behind.“Well, you heard the man. Light-show. Thing. That's my cue!” I removed my (reluctant) hand from Rogers' mouth, winked, and grabbed my bug-out bag. I stared down the Avengers, waiting for them to step out of my way. I liked to think it was my intimidating glare, but if I had to guess, I'd say they decided to move because Fury was expecting us. From the other side of the room I could hear Tony whispering into his cellphone questions about where someone had been going each Thursday.