TW: Vomiting
CW: Brief discussion of sex toys
Natasha doesn't hold back, ordering everything she could possibly need from JARVIS. Pillows and blankets and the softest towels imaginable since she guesses Steve's won't be adequate. She orders heat toys, slick pads, and specially designed heat clothing—meant to be as light and seamless as possible for omegas not comfortable being naked.
Just from Steve's reactions earlier she imagines he will be in that camp.
She puts in an order for hundreds of dollars worth of food. Things that will be easy to eat but calorie dense. Omegas burn through calories like there's no tomorrow during heat, and Steve has the serum. It will be a miracle if he doesn't lose weight.
And then she orders heat pads and weighted blankets and cooling patches. Anything she can think of to make Steve comfortable if he doesn't want to use the toys. She isn't sure how he'll react to them, considering his obvious trauma and 1940s background.
It's just under an hour for the deliveries to arrive. She hates leaving Steve in discomfort for that long, but she's impressed by JARVIS' ability to organise it as quickly as he does. New York is picking itself up after the recent attack, but she's certain her order took some doing.
Steve whimpers from the living room when Natasha opens the apartment door to stacks of boxes and bags of groceries. She can tell immediately that everything had been sprayed down with a scent neutraliser and she lets out a breath of relief. She drags everything in as quickly as she can, aware of the fearful scent from the living room growing stronger the longer the door is open.
Natasha shuts the door and locks it, hoping that will reassure Steve. She puts away the groceries that need to be kept cold, the empty fridge and freezer making that easy.
She unpacks a selection of emergency items but leaves the rest. She's worried about how long Steve has been stressed and feral. She needs to try to get him calmer as soon as possible.
The light in the living room is dim when she steps in. The windows are tinted black and the lights turned down low. She wonders if she has JARVIS to thank for that. The corner of the living room is taken up by a barricade of couches and she has to swallow hard to keep from gagging at the tacky, rotting smell of fear and heat clouding the room.
It smells like apples left to rot on the ground all fall. The sweetened honey of his heat only makes it worse.
"Hey, Steve," Natasha calls softly, her heart twisting at the frightened whimper that answers her. She hears shuffling behind the couches and she carefully sets her armload of supplies down. She remains crouched, not coming closer to the nest just yet.
"I brought nesting material," she tells him in the same gentle, even tone. "I brought things for nesting and food. Are you hungry?"
She can hear Steve panting, but he doesn't respond. Natasha bites her lip and edges a little closer, pulling a bundle of blankets and slick pads with her. Calming Steve down might be a bit like lancing a wound. Things could get worse before they get better.
Natasha keeps her head low, eyeing a gap between the couches and wishing she could see Steve. If she could look at him she might be able to convince him easier. She tries using his instincts to help her.
"Do you want some blankets, omega?"
Steve snarls at the name and his scent spikes with fear. Natasha bites her tongue, wincing. Often omegas find comfort in using traditional titles in the midst of heat, but clearly not Steve.
"Okay," she says quietly, filing that piece of information away. "I'm sorry, I won't call you that."
The smell of Steve's fear is too strong to let her know if her apology did anything, but at least she knows Steve can hear and understand her to some extent.
Natasha creeps a little closer. "You're safe," she promises. "There's no one here but me and you. I won't let anyone in. No one's getting in."
She pushes every ounce of conviction she has into her scent, hoping it will reach Steve. As overwhelmed as she feels, there is a glowing ember of anger at her core. No omega should be this afraid in heat. She's determined to help Steve, no matter how long it takes.
She doesn't keep track of the minutes as she slowly draws herself closer to the nest, bringing the nesting material with her. At last she sits by the arm of the loveseat, leaning against the wall and looking in.
Steve had made himself a space between the couches and the wall. The couch cushions and throw blanket make a pitiful nest and Steve is anything but restful. He remains hunched on the other side, his eyes wide and sharp as he eyes her. He isn't growling but he breathes through his mouth, looking ready to bare his teeth at any moment.
His clothes stick to him and his hair is plastered to his forehead with sweat. He looks uncomfortable and hunted. Bags sit under his eyes and his skin looks feverish. He darts his gaze between her and the perimeter of the nest compulsively.
"Oh, Steve," Natasha says sadly. Steve's eyes jump to her and he rocks forward on his toes before falling back again, his chest heaving.
"It's okay," Natasha reassures as gently as she can. "I'm going to help you. It'll be okay."
Steve doesn't move and Natasha telegraphs her movements as she reaches for her bundle.
"I brought some nesting material," she says, laying out the loosely folded blankets on the edge of the nest. She has a wide selection of textures, weights, and materials. There are more in the pile of boxes in the kitchen but these will do for now.
Natasha gently sets down a stack of absorbent pads by the blankets, aware of Steve following her every move.
"This is to absorb slick," she says mildly. A faint shudder runs through Steve and Natasha fights to keep her face neutral. Omegas shouldn't be embarrassed or disgusted by slick, but she's aware that is a more modern mindset.
"You don't have to use them," she continues. "But they might make you more comfortable."
She can see the way Steve remains hunched as though he doesn't want to touch himself. She has no doubt that his jeans are damp and irritating, adding another stressor into an already tense fact that he hasn't gotten out of his clothes is telling though.
"I'll let you nest. I'm going to grab you some clothes and food."
Natasha eases back, leaving Steve's space and hoping he will take the nesting material. She can't force him to nest, but it will help him immensely. Thankfully, as she makes her way back to the kitchen she can hear Steve move tentatively towards the supplies she had brought.
Natasha breathes out a sigh of relief and reaches for a box labelled with a prominent heat-wear company. She winces as she pulls it open, every sound seemingly amplified by the fact that she knows Steve is over-sensitive and on edge.
Inside she finds stacks of slick-absorbent underwear on top. Some omegas can't stand wearing anything constricting during heat and these are generally for the pre-heat phase. Which is why underneath is a selection of heat gowns.
The design is simple and made from the lightest material possible. There is a band of fabric at the waist, but the sides are slit open to help keep omegas from overheating. The whole gown is made from one piece of fabric and has no shaping or sleeves to avoid seams. It's like someone had cut holes in a sheet and declared it clothing.
The fabric is cool and smooth under her fingers as she grabs a few and some of the underwear before turning to the grocery bags. She grabs a cloth bag and fills it with bottles of gatorade, water, energy bars and squeezable meal pouches.
Her instincts sit prominently in the back of her head. She can feel the need to protect and settle Steve weighing heavily on her. Steve is so terrified and it reminds her too much of waking up in the dark dorms of the Red Room, some girl presenting with her first heat while knowing the orderlies will come—
Natasha shakes her head sharply. She needs to focus. Steve needs her to focus. She has to be present. New supplies in hand, Natasha swallows once and turns on her heel, heading back out to the nest.
She repeats the process of slowly approaching the nest, glad to see that Steve had taken the materials from where she had left them. She stops just outside the nest as before. The inside is improving, although she'll need to see what pillows JARVIS had gotten her.
For now her main priority is getting Steve fed. He's likely dehydrated with his heat and how stressed he's been. If she doesn't get that under control then they won't be able to avoid the hospital.
"Here's some food, Steve," she says, laying out her offerings. She takes the initiative and taste-tests several of them while Steve watches her, wanting to head off the idea of poison or drugs before that becomes a problem.
Steve's eyes glitter in suspicion but she sees him lick his lips as she sets down the bottle of blue gatorade she'd sipped from.
"It's safe," she promises, edging back from the nest. "Please eat."
Please eat, she repeats inside her mind, gripping her knees to keep herself calm. Please, please eat.
Fortunately, after several agonising minutes, Steve moves for the food. Natasha is pretty sure her relief is evident in her scent, and she leaves it there. Maybe it will make Steve trust her more.
She waits until Steve has plowed his way through the food she brought before introducing the clothes. When she approaches the nest she sees several of the snack bars and a few of the bottles squirrelled away in the corner and she makes a note to bring even more food. She doesn't want Steve eating less than he needs because he's worried about running out.
Steve looks a little less on edge this time, but she thinks part of that is because he's clearly exhausted. His face is drawn and blotchy, a faint tremble in his hands as he watches her. His fear scent is less pungent, but a certain wariness remains ever-present.
Natasha explains the clothing selection before backing out again to give Steve his privacy. She'd told him he didn't need to wear anything if he didn't want to, but she has a feeling he will. She's proven right as she hears him crawl towards the gowns.
Thankfully heat clothes are considered gender neutral. Steve doesn't seem bothered by the gowns.
Natasha heads for the kitchen, ignoring when she hears wordless grumbling and something tearing while Steve struggles to get changed. His coordination will be less and his jeans are likely hard to remove wet, but she doesn't dare offer to help. She has a feeling that will undo all her progress up till now.
Instead she begins sorting out more of the nesting material and snack foods for Steve to have. By the time she brings her new bundle over, the sounds from the nest have died down. Steve's old clothes have been tossed out unceremoniously and when she reaches the entrance she can see that the underwear had been similarly rejected.
Steve is in the back of the nest, laying down for the first time. He'd padded the floor with couch cushions, draping some of his blankets and the slick pads over them like sheets. He lays curled up with his back pressed to the wall, his eyes thin exhausted slits as he watches her at the other end of his nest.
His hair is sticking up with sweat, his chest still moving visibly as he breathes. But tiredness is beginning to take over the fear in his scent, his body physically unable to keep up now that it is somewhat comfortable and safe.
He has his arm wrapped around his stomach, which means he's probably still dealing with pain from cramping. Natasha would give him heat medication for the pain but the serum means any dosage will be all but useless.
Steve lets out a rumble, rubbing his face irritably against the blanket under him before yanking another blanket closer to him. He balls it up and holds it to his chest, burying his face into the fabric and letting out a wordless noise.
Natasha breathes out, her instincts far more relieved at seeing typical nesting behaviour from Steve than she was expecting. She sets her additional nesting material at the edge of the nest, leaving it there for when he's ready for it.
For now he needs to rest.
"You can sleep, Steve," she says gently. "I'll keep guard. You just rest."
It plays directly into her role as a beta and she sees more tension leech out of Steve. His body succumbs to an uneasy sleep and Natasha slumps tiredly against the wall of the nest.
She did it. She'd calmed him enough to get him settled. She drops her face into her hands and breathes in the lingering bittersweet heat scent.
She can do this. It's possible.
oOo
Steve wakes up choking on a sob.
Natasha startles in the kitchen where she's heating up a pot of soup and she looks out into the living room in time to see him struggling furiously with his blankets. He sits bolt upright in the nest, his hair wild and his eyes panicked and round. A high keening growl comes from his throat as he rips himself out of his covers.
His shoulders heave and he gives a full-body shudder before he shakily pushes himself to his feet and dashes for the edge of his nest. Before Natasha can say anything he's on his way to the bathroom. His scent trails behind, sharp and spoiled.
Steve enters the bathroom with an uncontrolled clatter and a second later she can hear him vomiting into the toilet. Natasha lets off a few mental swears, turning off the stove. After all the work it had taken to get Steve fed, he'd just thrown up what little he'd eaten.
She can hear Steve gasping and whining from the bathroom and her stomach twists in sympathy. She moves slowly towards the bathroom, being sure to step loudly enough that Steve can hear her coming.
She stops just at the door. It hangs half open and she can see Steve curled up in a miserable ball by the toilet. The light is off but the ambient light from the living room is enough to see that he's shaking.
"Hey, Steve," she starts softly and Steve's arms clench around his knees, his head ducked down low. The white fabric of his simple gown wrinkles under his grip. Natasha licks her lips uncertainly and she sees Steve's head come up a little. His cheeks are damp with tears and his eyes look confused and panicked as they dart around.
Right. This is still a foreign place to him. It's not really his room and he doesn't know her because he's having an unplanned heat after waking up in the future only weeks ago.
"It's okay," Natasha tries to reassure. "Do you remember what happened?"
Steve's eyes meet hers, wide and uncertain, his fear-heat scent filling the bathroom. The acidic note of vomit has Natasha swallowing compulsively so she doesn't follow suit. She breathes out and kneels down by the doorway, trying to calm both herself and Steve.
"My name's Natasha," she says, just in case he doesn't remember her in his state, although he looks a little less feral than before. "We're in Stark Tower, you went into heat—"
Steve flinches back into the wall, a new wave of putrid panic entering his scent.
"No!" he barks, one hand coming up to tug at his hair. He breathes in uncontrolled gasps, his eyes glazing over. "No! No! I can't—" He rocks back and forth, his shaking growing stronger. "I can't go into— I don't wanna go into heat!"
For half a second Natasha is twelve years old, a bruise on her wrist from where she'd shimmied out of the cuff on her headboard so she could sneak over to Emma, two beds down. She's shaking and biting her pillow, trying to stay quiet, even though her scent is so strong it's choking.
I don't wanna go into heat, Nat. Please, I can't—
Natasha's nails dig into her thighs and she blinks forcefully, focusing on the omega in front of her. The one panicking because he's from a time where going into unexpected heat would only mean one thing.
Natasha focuses on her scent, which had slipped into something darker in her distraction. She pushes as much calm and reassurance as she can into it, hoping it can reach Steve through his cloud of fear.
"It's okay, Steve," she says, surprised when she has to keep a pleading tone out of her voice. "It's okay, I promise. It's just you and me, I won't let anyone in."
Steve shakes his head frantically, his hands moving to his neck to clasp protectively at his bonding glands.
"He wants me in heat," he pants, staring blankly at his trembling knees. "He said— he wants me—"
Natasha's eyes widen, a bolt of anger striking through her that she has to fight to keep out of her scent. This is clearly more personal than just general fear. Someone specific had hurt Steve and he's terrified of him.
Natasha's mouth is dry when she swallows. "He'll have to get through me first." The growl in her throat is unexpected, but it makes Steve look up. Natasha meets his eye with determination, her jaw set.
"No one will touch you," she declares, her scent projecting the steadiness of an oak tree. "No alphas, remember?" Steve twitches at the designation, but his eyes stay on her, as if he's clinging to her every word.
"No… no alphas," he repeats, his words slightly slurred.
Natasha nods emphatically, sweeping a worried eye over him. Now that Steve isn't rocking back and forth in fear, he's slumped against the wall, his hands loose around his throat. The burst of panic that he'd woken up with has drained out of him and it's clear he's exhausted and still more or less out of it.
Back into recovery mode, she thinks.
"Do you want to go back to the nest, Steve?" she asks gently. Steve blinks slowly at her, his heat scent coming through stronger, although there's still a frightened undertone.
"Why don't you come out here?" Natasha continues, edging away from the door a little. "We can work on your nest some more."
And eat again, she adds mentally.
It takes a few minutes for Steve to shakily push himself to his feet. His heat gown clings to the back of his legs and Natasha makes a mental note to get him another one. She quietly suggests he brush his teeth once he gets close to the sink, but Steve wrinkles his nose at the smell of the toothpaste, so he ends up just washing his mouth out.
Natasha figures that all his senses are heightened right now, so it doesn't surprise her that he rejects the sharp toothpaste. She wonders if she can find a flavourless one. She's certain the acidic aftertaste of vomit is also unpleasant.
Steve hadn't flushed the toilet and when Natasha slips into the bathroom after he leaves she sees him flinch and cover his ears at the rushing water. She frowns at further evidence of his hypersensitivity. She's going to have to keep an eye on that. Omegas during heat are always sensitive, and Steve's serum only amplifies that.
She can see it as he plucks irritably at the collar of his gown on his way back to his nest, his mouth pulled down and his eyebrows knit together in a scowl.
Natasha makes her way back to the kitchen, pouring the soup into a thermos and grabbing another bag full of gatorade and snacks for Steve. She treks that out to the nest before going back and grabbing another heaping armful of pillows and blankets.
She lets Steve eat and rearrange his nest to his liking. He doesn't talk much and she thinks he's still mostly working off instinct but it's a good sign that he's behaving more like a nesting omega in heat rather than a cornered animal.
She can tell his heat is affecting him. Once his nest is in proper order and his basic needs are taken care of, his body focuses back on the task at hand. His face is flushed red, his knees pressed together or his lap mostly concealed as he organises his nest.
Without an immediate alpha around his primal urges will focus more on staying safe and fed, but that doesn't change the biological purpose of his heat.
Natasha grabs more heat gowns for Steve to change into and only hesitates for a moment before she grabs the smaller box of heat toys she'd ordered. Her job is to make Steve's heat as easy as possible and she imagines there's more options now than he's used to.
Steve accepts the gowns easily, but he tenses up when Natasha presents the box.
"There's a lot of heat aids for omega's spending heats alone now," she explains, keeping her stance and scent neutral even though she can sense the embarrassment coming off Steve. "You can use these, if you want, to make yourself more comfortable."
Steve is shaking his head before she even finishes her sentence. "No," he rasps, curling in on himself. He grabs a pillow, his knuckles turning white as he grips it. "No, no, I don't want anything— nothing in me. I don't want— Don't touch me."
He's panting by the end of his spiel, his teeth half-bared and his shoulders all the way up to his ears. Natasha swallows against a flash of nausea at whoever had done this to Steve. He doesn't have anything to be embarrassed about if he wanted to use the heat aids, but she doesn't think embarrassment is the problem.
It looks more like he wants to crawl out of his skin. Like the thought of anything sexual, even with no one else involved makes him sick. She isn't sure if this is 1940s culture speaking, or trauma from whatever had happened to him.
Probably both.
"Okay," she says softly, putting the box behind a pillow near the entrance of the nest. "I just wanted you to know they're here if you want them."
Steve shudders and shakes his head, not looking at her.
oOo
Usually omega heats only last three to five days, but Steve is still in the throes of it on day four. Waves of need and discomfort come every few hours, making it hard for Steve to sleep and leaving Natasha less than hopeful that they're through the thick of it.
Once she gets the basics down it just becomes a matter of maintaining everything. She feeds Steve every hour, monitoring his liquid intake and his temperature so he won't get sick. She convinces him to switch out his soiled gowns when they get too uncomfortable with slick and sweat. She calms him down when his heat waves come or his fear instincts get the better of him and she makes sure he doesn't hurt himself.
Once, she manages to give him a sponge bath in the bathroom, but only with the gown on. It's the closest Steve ever lets her get to him and she remains uninvited into the nest.
Steve remains somewhat coherent, but still clearly feral. He barely says three words together, some part of him always on edge. He sleeps fitfully, plagued by his body's urges and nightmares.
Natasha's concerned about how much stress that puts on his system, but there isn't much she can do besides try to keep him feeling relatively safe and clean.
It's exhausting. She sleeps in Steve's room because it keeps her close and she doesn't think Steve had been sleeping in there anyways, so he probably won't mind her being in his space. She keeps herself fed and she texts Clint when she can, but she can feel herself becoming emotionally drained.
She decides on the fourth day to emerge into civilization and take a breather. A bit of alone time might help Steve if there's anything he's more comfortable doing without her in the apartment. And she needs a break from the constant cloud of on-edge omega pheromones.
She stops at her room first, washing herself down with scent neutraliser before making her way up to the common room floor. Clint greets her with a smile and a hug, although she can easily read the concern in his eyes.
Tony is also in the common room, standing at the coffee machine with a tablet in his hand. He takes one look at her face before passing over the mug he'd just made.
He has a jittery nervous scent about him, smelling of new leather and broken lavender stems. He taps his fingers restlessly on the counter, waiting for his new cup of coffee.
Clint has similar nerves present in his scent. Natasha imagines it had taken some adjustment for the group of alphas once they realised they had a frightened omega in their tower.
She accepts the coffee gratefully, closing her eyes as she takes a sip. She feels her shoulders relax, a faint headache she'd been ignoring easing up as she drinks.
"How is he?" Clint asks quietly.
Across from them, Tony keeps his eyes on his tablet, but she can tell from the tension in his body that he's just as worried.
Natasha's mind flashes to the image of Steve vomiting in the bathroom and she clenches her jaw. She can't tell them anything. She would never do that to Steve, but it's undeniably hard seeing him like that and being his primary care provider.
"It's his first heat in a while," she says finally, keeping her cold fingers wrapped around the coffee mug. "It's hitting a bit hard."
The thought stays on her mind as she makes her way back to Steve's room. She's pretty sure Steve hadn't had any heats during the war. Whatever suppressants he'd been on had been strong enough to hide his scent entirely, so she imagines his heats had been completely repressed. Which is why this one had come on so strongly.
But she can't stop thinking about what Steve had said. He wants me in heat.
Could his abuser have been from his military career? Someone who harassed Steve while his heats were suppressed? She knows his trauma could have happened at any time, but with Steve's acute fear and what little he'd said, she wonders if it happened recently for him.
Some people must have known he was an omega, she thinks as she opens the door to the apartment. If someone knew and decided to take advantage of that—
Her train of thought cuts off as she steps into the living room and is met with deep, vicious growling. Her eyes snap up to look over the back of the couch into Steve's nest and she's shocked to see him crouched back by the wall, his eyes glinting as he snarls at her.
The hair on the back of her neck stands on end and Natasha freezes. Steve's scent is a swirling mix of decaying fear and burning anger, the muscles in his shoulders flexing as he bristles.
"Steve," Natasha says faintly, her mouth dry as dirt. "What's wrong?"
Another growl tears out of Steve's throat and he rocks forward on his toes as if wanting to lunge at her. He doesn't, but that doesn't stop Natasha's heart from pounding into overdrive. She could take him down, she thinks, but fighting a feral, terrified omega in heat will only go badly.
"What's wrong?" she says again, forcing her voice to stay steady.
Steve's lips peel back to show his teeth and he glares at her. "Alpha," he snaps, his fingers curling into claws. "You smell like—"
He cuts himself off with a snarl and Natasha's stomach plummets. Can Steve really pick up the fact that she had been around alphas? She can't smell anything on herself and she'd barely spent more than half-an-hour with them, but with a heat-sensitive nose and the serum—
Natasha mutters a curse under her breath. She should've been more careful.
"I'm sorry," she says, backing away quickly, trying to fix this. "I'm going to leave. And JARVIS is going to lock the door. No one will come in, Steve. No alphas."
Steve only growls again and Natasha all but flees the apartment, her mind in an uproar. She heads to her apartment to take another shower and switch out her clothes. Her hands shake slightly as she pulls on her shirt and she forces herself to pause and take several breaths.
That was a mistake, she acknowledges, trying to settle her guilt-ridden thoughts. She should have thought of how sensitive Steve would be to alphas right now. Now he's worked up again and stressed.
It was a mistake, but she won't do it again. Head in the game, she thinks as she runs her hands down her shirt and prepares to go back to Steve's room. Already she knows it's going to take hours to calm him down.
She's right. Steve is a mess of fractured nerves and shaken trust.
"You said no one," he repeats on the far edge of his nest, glaring glassy-eyed at Natasha across from him. "No alphas."
Natasha swallows hard. "That's right," she whispers, being careful to stay out of Steve's nest. "I'm sorry I scared you. But I won't bring anyone here. I promise."
Steve whines and grabs his hair with both hands, pulling hard. Natasha wants to tell him to stop but she doesn't think it will help.
Steve rocks back and forth, his breaths short and choppy. He scents of mildewy apples, the sickly-sweet honey amplifying the rotting fruit. Steve squeezes his eyes shut and rubs his cheek against his knees, wiping away a few tears.
"I want to go home," he rasps, heartbroken and tearful. "I don't want— I can't do this. I wanna go home."
A lump rises in Natasha's throat and she blinks away the tears that prick at her eyes. This whole heat is the worst possible thing that could have happened to Steve. He isn't home. He's all but alone, terrified and lost in a brand new world and haunted by his past.
"I'm sorry," she says uselessly, wondering how Steve had hidden all this hurt from sight during his first few weeks in this century. It's written so clearly over every inch of his body now.
When this heat is over it will still be there.
oOo
The serum just makes everything about the heat harder. It boosts Steve's metabolism, it makes him hypersensitive and immune to medication, and she's pretty sure it makes his heat symptoms more intense.
It also means that some things she tries to help abjectly fail.
"Smells fake," Steve says when she presents him with a bottle of synthetic neonatal-pheromones. The man-made chemical is often used in hospitals to help calm heat-sick omegas. It actually works really well to mellow out a heat but Steve's serum enhanced nose wrinkles instantly.
So Natasha doesn't try to introduce other manufactured scents. If he had a calming scent profile in mind, like that of his mother's, she could try to recreate something similar to make his nest seem safer and more familiar. But the scents wouldn't be right to Steve's nose, and she doubts it would do much.
Instead she keeps Steve stocked with ultra-soft and smooth blankets and heat gowns. The cooling patches help too, but only when they outweigh the cost of sticking them on. Steve remains irritable and dissatisfied with most of what touches his skin, but it's enough that he can sleep and rest most of the day.
She can tell he's restless though. By day five he's more coherent, but that only means he's bored and uncomfortable. He has nothing to distract himself from what's happening to his body, and the hours drag on in bursts and fits of frustrated nest re-construction.
Natasha tries audiobooks out of desperation.
She'd read about it online in a tips forum for parents dealing with their children's first few mild heats and goes for it. JARVIS is flexible enough to read out books on his own if the text is online, and she sets him to narrating various classics (which seem like a safe bet) for Steve to listen to.
The first hour of Steve listening to JARVIS read Oliver Twist is the calmest he's ever been. He moves slower in the nest, his motions more controlled and certain as he makes himself comfortable.
On day six his heat finally starts to wane. Natasha thinks they still have about a day to go before he's back to himself, but the waves of need and discomfort are less intense and more spaced out. He mostly remains curled up in his nest, wrapped up in blankets now that he isn't so hot and sweaty.
Natasha has lost track of how many books JARVIS has read. He continues at all hours since Steve's restless sleep schedule often means he's up at night. JARVIS keeps his voice out of Steve's bedroom and Natasha retreats there if she needs some quiet, but she mostly tunes out his low, steady recitation.
She comes out of the room to prepare something for Steve to eat and finds him curled up on his side, listening to a book about a time traveller stuck somewhere in the far distant future.
He's as still as she's ever seen him. As much as she'd tried to keep Steve comfortable so he could rest, his heat and serum had combined to make that a struggle. If he wasn't tossing and turning in his nest, he was plucking at his clothes or waking up from a nightmare.
Now, his eyes are distant, his entire body boneless as he listens. She might think he's zoned out or not paying attention, but there's a shine of tears in his eyes and a faint whiff of melancholy rain in his scent.
It's so different from the rancid fear he'd been projecting on some level for the last week that she looks him over in concern.
"Steve?" she asks quietly as she sets his new thermos of soup down along with several meal pouches and gatorade bottles. "What's wrong?"
Steve's eyes flick to her and he pulls in a shaky breath. He wipes his forearm across his eyes and sits up. He tugs the blanket around his shoulders and keeps himself wrapped up as he comes over for the food.
He doesn't answer her question.
AN: So what was you favourite part of Steve's heat?
I really wanted to show how traumatic this would be for Steve. It's his worst possible nightmare and the serum makes everything even more difficult. Also for this fic and series, I didn't want anyone to sexually 'help' Steve through his heat. Not only would he simply not be ready for that, but this fic is squarely about his trauma and other people finding out about it.
Also the book at the end is a reference to a book Steve and Bucky read during the war.