Office work developed a 'rhythm,' if it could be called that. Kotetsu spent most of the workday at his desk, struggling to make a dent in his paperwork as Banraby's Scent clouded his senses. After a period of time—sometimes an hour, usually less—Barnaby would stand up and leave, only articulating his excuse half the time. During that break, Kotetsu cleared his head and made the most of his spurt of clarity before Barnaby returned and slowed Kotetsu's head to a crawl again. With a few repetitions of this cycle, Kotetsu noticed Barnaby returned from these walks considerably calmer than when he left—maybe interviews or meetings or whatever were therapeutic for him—but once at his desk, his demeanor slowly frayed until he just got up and left again. And Kotetsu had no idea what was going on.

Their stop-go pattern of office work mirrored their teamwork in the field: abrasive, jerky, blending for a few seconds and then falling out of sync again. Kotetsu couldn't even blame Barnaby's scent for their poor TV performance. So long as he kept his visor closed, Barnaby might as well be a Beta. The rookie did continually insist on giving the orders in the field, and while more often than not they made sense, Kotetsu's resistance to being treated like the weak link of the partnership cost them precious time, opportunities, and points. Not even simulations designed to practice their teamwork helped. They stayed stubborn and unyielding as ever, unable to agree on something as simple as going left or right.

As a break from routine, one day, Agnes decided she wanted to create a documentary about a day in the life of Barnaby Brooks JR, the first hero she could really sink her teeth into and lay his life bare. As Barnaby just obeyed, letting the camera into every corner of his life, including his home, without complaint.

Just who is the Alpha here? Kotetsu wondered as Barnaby flashed another smile to the cameras. He sucks up to our bosses and sponsors, and then tries to treat me like the 'naturally submissive' one?

Kotetsu's role in Barnaby's life dragged on, the documentary delivered an unexpected perk: he got to visit the Mr. Legend statue in the Fortress Tower lobby, but only for a few seconds, because after a bump-in with a creepy elevator man, Agnes shoved Kotetsu and Barnaby down at a table for two and camped a few yards away with her camera to document their 'partner bonding time.'

He slumped in his chair and watched Barnaby put on his stupid pretty-boy show: cool pose after cool pose after handsome face after cool pose. He had the serving girls in a tizzy trying to approach him, and the cameras lapped it up.

"Don't you ever get tired of doing that?" Kotetsu asked.

"Doing what?"

Like you don't know!

The blonde waitress worked up the nerve to approach Barnaby and ask for a handshake. The lens trained on him the whole time, Barnaby smiled and shook, and she ran back to her friends squealing.

"That," Kotetsu said, jerking his head toward the waitress.

"Not really. It's part of my job." Barnaby answered, before he turned a decidedly less innocent smirk toward Kotetsu. "Similarly, don't you ever get tired of resisting?"

"No," Kotetsu snapped. He shoved his very annoying imagination—which unhelpfully visualized Kotetsu sitting on Barnaby's lap with his arms flung around his neck—even further into the back of his mind.

"You're repressing every fiber of your being. That's unhealthy."

"I never get tired," he vowed, clenching his hand to support his voice. "I see right through this. They put us on a date!"

"Ms. Agnes is filming a documentary about me. Your involvement is minimal."

"Shut up! I'm not stupid!" Kotetsu counted each point on his fingers. "You're an Alpha, I'm an Omega, and we're eating together, in a fancy restaurant, late at night! That's a date!"

"It's only a date if you want it to be."

"I don't want it to be a date!"

"Then it's not a date." Barnaby smirked again. "Do you honestly think I would go through the trouble of dating you just to claim you? That's rather conceited, old man."

"You basta—"

"Stop that right now!" Agnes interrupted, appearing almost out of nowhere and lording over their table. "I can't use footage of you bickering to promote this place! Behave yourselves!"

"Then tell Bunny to get his head out of his ass!" Kotetsu snarled.

"For the last time, his name is Barnaby!" Agnes corrected. "Restart the conversation, and act more friendly! If I have to interrupt you again, you both will be sorry!"

As she turned back to join the camera crew, Kotetsu heard Barnaby mutter, "This is your fault, old man."

"She just told us to act more friendly! So act!" Kotetsu hissed back.

Barnaby very subtly rolled his eyes (Kotetsu saw, and it did not endear the young hero to his elder) before he fixed his bright, handsome smile back on his face… and asked a stupid question about neighboring skyscrapers. A stupid question to which Kotetsu did not know the answer.

Something better happen soon, or I'm going to stab this kid!

Kotetsu definitely hadn't wished for a terrorist bombing when he asked for something to happen, but since no one got hurt, it still made for a welcome distraction.

A large utility fan whooshed above them like a steady heartbeat, punctuated by the much less regular sweep of floodlights sweeping through the enormous hole Kotetsu tore in the roof to make an opening for Barnaby's kick. The bomb exploded harmlessly above them with a huge, TV-worthy kaboom. Agnes would get her ratings, Kotetsu and Barnaby survived, (most of) the Fortress Tower was intact… All in all, a good day, for once.

Kotetsu glanced over at Barnaby, sitting on the floor a few yards to his left. "How did you know what I meant by 'top?'" he asked. Frankly, he had only worked out the plan a hair before he shouted those incredibly vague instructions at Barnaby. If the two had drawn different conclusions, they both would have died.

Sliding his glasses off his face and gently blowing to clear dust, Barnaby answered, "It was an instantaneous decision. There was nothing else I could do."

Kotetsu remembered the argument earlier that day, right or left, and a dozen similar fights before that, where Barnaby usually blamed Kotetsu for not thinking the situation through. "Isn't that instinct?" Kotetsu pointed out.

Barnaby slid his glasses back onto his face and glanced Kotetsu's way with an odd, pensive look in his eye. Content in the knowledge he had done something right for once, Kotetsu closed his eyes and leaned back, lying down on the concrete floor.

"Whatever the case, neither of us does well unless we're in a real situation," Kotetsu noted, the relief of being alive still washing through him. It wasn't every day he successfully stopped a C9 from destroying a major landmark. That sort achievement felt really good. With the fearful adrenaline fading, a much calmer sensation gradually filled Kotetsu's blood, warm and inviting and a little bit electric, absolutely and deliciously perfect…

Uh oh.

He opened his eyes a second too late. Barnaby had closed the distance between then, kneeling above Kotetsu and—oh no—straddling his hips. Nothing made contact, but being trapped between Barnaby and the floor didn't bode well for the old man at all. His first plan, push Barnaby off, was quickly thwarted when Barnaby grabbed hold of his forearms and pinned them beside his head. The pressure on his wrists against the hard concrete, rather than scare Kotetsu, strangely thrilled him. The idea of being helpless beneath Barnaby sent tingles through his entire body, like he couldn't wait for it to happen.

"Enough," Barnaby said, leaning a little closer. Kotetsu saw a split-second opening appear, so he slid his leg up, folding it at the knee and tucking it to his chest. The limb created a bumper and kept Barnaby from closing any more distance.

"Get off of me," Kotetsu's mouth said, even if his body did not agree at all.

"Why should I?" Barnaby asked.

"Because I told you to!"

"But aren't you being a hypocrite, old man?"

"H-Hypocrite?" Kotetsu stammered. What did he mean by that?

"You rely on your instincts more than any other hero, but deny them anywhere else," Barnaby said. He pulled Kotetsu's immobile arms further above his head and spread them wider. The sensation of being held open made his pulse jump and his head spin a little faster, but he heard Barnaby's words loud and clear. "No matter how overpowering, you resist your own instinct to pair and mate. Why would you draw a distinction between your heroic and Omega instincts?"

"They're different," Kotetsu protested. "They're totally different… And what about you?" The words didn't come easily, but he knew what he had to say. "You've got logic and theories pouring out your ears with the cameras on, but once they're off you throw it all away to chase someone who smells good? How is that not hypocritic—hypocrisy-ful?"

Oh, he didn't want to talk at all. He just wanted to lie there under Barnaby, stay pinned to the floor as long as the blonde held him there. He wished his leg wasn't in the way, so Barnaby could lie flush against his body. To feel Barnaby on him, around him, in him—that stops right now!

He floundered, reaching for his next points: "We've got instincts, but we're human because we can ignore them, right? And sometimes it's our instinct to do bad, so we can't… Uh…"

Barnaby's fingers just tightened around Kotetsu's wrists, and he fought down a gasp of pleasure. At this rate, he wouldn't last. He had to make Barnaby back off, or else he'd end up claimed at the top of the Fortress Tower!

With the last of his clean air, Kotetsu asked the man braced above him, "Don't you have any pride in yourself?"

Barnaby reacted, but Kotetsu couldn't tell how. The angle of his face cast shadows across it, and the low light made his face even darker and expression even more unreadable. But he became very, very still, holding Kotetsu down but making no other move, neither letting him up nor pushing further. Kotetsu realized he was out of options, too. He had no more will to speak, move, or fight. If Barnaby didn't let him go, he'd have no chance of fighting him off. His body felt totally prepared for such a fate, relaxed and loose but simultaneously electrified, and aching for this Alpha brat with his beautiful, addictive Scent to just touch Kotetsu already. No, that wasn't it—Kotetsu wanted Barnaby to keep his sparkling eyes and soft lips and long, elegant fingers far away from him!

Another minute passed in silence, and Barnaby still didn't move. Time dragged on in bliss-filled agony as Kotetsu waited for Barnaby to do something. Had Kotetsu said the right thing? Had he been misinterpreted? Did Barnaby even hear it? They just lay there, frozen, as floodlights flashed through the hole in the ceiling and the utility fan continued its rhythmic thoosh, thoosh, thoosh.

And then Barnaby stood. He dusted off the knees of his pants, and turned his back on Kotetsu. The veteran watched him walk away, equally relieved and distressed, but he could barely twitch his fingers, let alone stand up and attempt to follow him. Barnaby's Scent lingered heavily in the air and weighed Kotetsu down almost as much as his physical presence had.

When he found the physical strength to move, Kotetsu lifted his hands and pressed them first against his eyes. That was twice he had let Barnaby get close—too close. He couldn't afford to let his guard down again. He wasn't sure he could muster enough resistance to reject him a third time, even if he had said the right thing to make Barnaby leave him alone tonight.

His hands slid down his face, rubbing life back into his cheeks before resting on his neck, the center of Kotetsu's own pheromones, the Scent that signaled all gay Alphas, "Sure, I'm here. Play with me." Kotetsu was definitely not cool with all those men pawing at him, and keeping his wits about him proved harder than ever when Barnaby's Scent whispered to every inch of Kotetsu's body, "Want me." And Kotetsu did want him, on some level. How was he supposed to stand up to a Scent tailor-made to his own senses? If only someone with a less rotten personality possessed that heavenly Scent.

His hands traveled down further, over his collarbones, his chest, just at the top of his abs, down, past his navel, coming to a rest where his hips met the top of his thighs. The teasing touch felt nice, but nowhere near right. His whole body still felt charged with static, held in limbo, waiting for the one who brought the electricity to come and make him light up with sensations he'd only imagined.

Yes, Kotetsu had won the battle. But the long war was far from over, and Kotetsu had no strategy to prepare him for the battles to come.