Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Viktor has one hand braced on the workbench and the other tangled into Jayce’s hair, pulling him closer as the alpha fucks into him. The air is heavy with their scent- sweat, copper, the bitter tang of shimmer and ozone, blooming full beneath scent suppressant. Jayce is breathless, whispering sweet nothings against heated skin.

“You feel so good,” Jayce murmurs, nipping and mouthing at the soft skin of Viktor’s neck and shoulder. His breath catches at the scent of Viktor’s arousal. 

Viktor tips his head back, mouth parted, throat bare and wanting, the lines of his body taut with restraint and desire. One of his prosthetics clicks as Viktor shifts for balance, groaning at the sudden depth Jayce is reaching with the change. Jayce's hands squeeze tighter on his hips, bruising and reverent in their touch. Viktor digs in his fingernails on Jayce’s skin, feeling feral in his own body. 

“You can- please,” Viktor gasps, voice thick and hot with anticipation. Jayce groans low and deep within his chest. “I can take it.” 

Jayce nods, exhales hard, buries himself deeper into Viktor’s needy cunt, knot swelling and locking them together with a weight and warmth. He grinds them together slow and deep, and Viktor keens at the stretch. His spine arches into the curve of Jayce’s body. He whimpers at the sudden warmth that floods his insides. Jayce’s face presses close to Viktor’s shoulder and the omega finds himself running his human hand through the alpha’s disheveled hair. 

Their breathing steadies into something quiet and gentle, and Viktor is content to pretend a little longer. They stay like that, tied together, warm and wrecked, until the knot softens enough to pull free. Viktor winces at the loss and goes to instinctively close his legs, but Jayce catches one pale thigh- kissing a slow path downward, pressing kisses between the areas of soft skin and leather brace.

“Wait,” Jayce whispers and Viktor finds that he cannot deny him this. 

Viktor glances away, staring up at the ceiling as he tries not to think , moving his other leg to keep the light off from where flesh meets prosthetic. Jayce doesn’t comment on it. He never has. Instead, the alpha delves straight into Viktor’s cunt, hungry and desperate for a taste for his omegas cock. Viktor uses threads his hand to tug at Jayce's hair, directing him in where to go, smearing slick over the alpha’s lips and chin. The alpha groans like he’s starving for it. 

“Jayce,” Viktor lets out a breathy noise and muffles his cry with the back of his hand. 

The alpha pulls one last tired orgasm out of Viktor that way, pressing a soft kiss to the seam where metal meets skin. Viktor flinches. His eyes go wide, startled and unsure. Jayce levels Viktor’s gaze with adoration and contentment. Viktor feels himself grow crimson and turns away sharply, clearing his throat. He uses his bare foot to push on Jayce’s shoulder, gentle but firm, putting distance between alpha and omega. 

There is something reverent in the way Jayce kneels below Viktor, lips shiny with slick and eyes half lidded in devotion. Viktor wants to keep ruining him like this forever. 

“You have a meeting in an hour,” Viktor says, smoothing the fabric over his brace. “You need to impress them.”

Jayce frowns, pausing as he rebuttons his shirt, tie gone askew. There are deep red scratches that peek out from the collar of Jayce’s suit. “I’d rather stay here with you.”

Viktor huffs a bitter laugh . “Don’t say things you don’t mean, Talis.” He sees Jayce flinch and a toxic surge of satisfaction shoots through Viktor but is short-lived.

“You think I don’t mean it?” Jayce asks, leaning on the workbench like they hadn’t just fucked on it. 

“It doesn’t matter what I think,” Viktor feels himself retreating into that safe dark spot where he cannot be hurt. “You’re a public figure. You’ll want something more traditional. A bond. A mate that doesn’t come with a warning label.” 

“That’s not fair,” Jayce looks like he’s gearing up for an argument, but Viktor grabs a stack of notes from the workbench and shoves them into the alpha’s chest. 

“Zaun isn’t fair,” Viktor says dryly. He jerks his chin to the exit of the lab: “Go. I wouldn’t want to ruin your golden boy reputation.” 

Jayce opens his mouth, once, twice, his smoked leather and iron scent flaring in frustration. Viktor gives him a look and Jayce concedes, but not before ducking his head to press a kiss to Viktor’s temple. He’s gone before Viktor can react. 

The door hisses as it closes shut behind Jayce's departure. Viktor doesn’t trust himself to move, not until the echo of footsteps fades into uncomfortable silence. He lets out a breath. 

His hips hurt. His back aches. He’s still leaking from his tired cunt.  

Viktor moves to sit on the bench with practiced efficiency. His leg brace whirs faintly with fatigue, metal against metal. He unlatches the casing at his knee, exposing the nerve threaded core beneath. He was overdue for a system’s flush, but Viktor has been putting it off for more reasons than work. It requires stillness. Reliance. Vulnerability.   

He grabs his tools and does his best to work with shaking hands. His implant pings him with a warning of low blood sugar, but Viktor ignores it. He doesn’t have time for a meal, and instead reaches for a protein bar Jayce supplies him with. He never asks for them, but Jayce hasn’t mentioned it. Just shows up to the lab with a full case of them when they run low. 

He takes a bite, chewing without taste or thought, and swaps out the threaded socket with shaking fingers. He’s done this so many times it has become second nature to him. 

Silence cramps all around Viktor, suffocating despite the large space of the room; He’s trying to convince himself the tightness in his chest has nothing to do with the lingering scent of sex and Jayce. He unscrews the faulty connector and pain flares at the site. It doesn’t slow him down and he replaces the broken part and closes the panel with a click. 

Done. Fixed, calibrated, and functioning for now. Viktor tilts his head back, the metal of the chair cold against the base of his neck. Viktor is finding himself wanting. 

Not power. Not legacy. Not even survival, for all that he chases it.

He wants Jayce. And for a time, he let himself believe he could be wanted back. 

Viktor exhales, low and bitter. How could someone like him afford wants? Desire is a variable he cannot calculate, selfish and imprecise and woefully human. It’s not enough. Control is enough. With a body that is constantly failing him, a world balanced on the edge of political games and shimmer pipes, with Jayce chasing bright impossible dreams when Viktor sees the ugly machinery beneath it. 

His body aches and his thoughts scatter. Half machine and half human. 

Viktor opens a random schematic-not because it matters. It just hurts less than being with his own thoughts. 

—

The lab is too warm again- or maybe it’s just Viktor. He adjusts the heat valve down with only a little bit of a struggle, palm slick against brass. His fingers tremble and his vision swims but he blames the shimmer in the air, or the missed meals, or the lighting. His skin feels too tight and breath too shallow. 

He does not blame himself. 

Viktor does not have the time. Or patience. 

There’s just too much work still unfinished, too many systems just shy of collapse, and if he lets himself feel- really honestly feel - then the whole structure will buckle beneath him like it has before.

On his desk sits two notes in quiet accusation from Jayce. One from a runner delivered a week ago, the other tucked into a shipment of capacitor coils. Both unanswered. Both unread.

The wiring in his shoulder is loose and fraying. The pressure plate on his leg stutters with each step. His scent suppressant flashes an error at the corner of his vision that he keeps dismissing with every task completed. It’s easier to stack the symptoms like spare parts, catalog them like data points for later reference. Something to fix. Something to survive through. There is simply too much that Viktor needs to accomplish- a power reroute request, a chemical report for Silco, and at least three shimmer pipes that were dangerously close to collapse. Viktor is more than needed- he’s necessary.

The dizziness comes and goes in waves, not unlike the moments when his blood sugar dips low. It starts behind his eyes, pools at the base of his skull, and seeps into the joints of his prosthetics like rust.

The nausea feels personal though. Off rhythm, like something inside him is shifting. He rests his head on his palm and waits for the world to stop spinning. 

Viktor wipes his hands on a spare cloth and straightens, spine cracking into place with the stretch. He takes careful, measured breaths. In. Out. Inhale. Exhale. Repeat. 

He shakes the thought loose, forcing it down into the same mental drawer where he’s already keeps everything else: the dizziness, the nausea, the ache behind his knees, the tension in his lower belly, the missed meals, the knot in his throat, the twitching weight of memory and want and what if.

He’s been worse before and made it through with little to no issue. He’s fine. He shakes his head. It’s stress, or overwork. Viktor will survive. Instead of worrying, he grabs his diagrams, reports, and collects himself enough to move.

He shrugs on his coat, smooths it down over his frame like armor. Each movement is precise, methodical. Appearances matter, even as he feels himself slipping. 

The meeting is in twenty minutes. Viktor needs to leave now unless he wants to be late. And he does. A little bit. But it wouldn’t help his image, so it’s with spite that Viktor adjusts his collar, places a patch over his scent glands to cover his failing suppressant implant and goes to leave. It’s not enough, but for today it’ll have to be. One step at a time. One system at a time.

There’s something stupidly poetic about the meeting being held in an old power substation. It delivered light to half of Zaun. Now it holds those most likely to burn it down. The walls still hum faintly with exposed arc pipes running through the room like veins. The air smells like engine grease, shimmer, and smoke. 

The cracked marble slab in the center serves as their table. It’s scorched and stained. Each person sits according to their station, with Bug standing near the entrance with her clipboard in hand. She has no seat and no vote, but her voice carries more weight than any of the chembarons care to admit. They’ve never managed to keep her out of a meeting, and that’s not for lack of trying. 

Viktor nods to acknowledge her as he seats himself at the table, and she doesn't nod back, but her eyes flick to him, sharp and assessing. Her hair is coiled tight enough to anchor a ship and hangs down the length of her spine, and is held back with an embroidered scarf. A simple tilt of her head and Viktor suddenly feel naked beneath her gaze. 

Finn is tapping his fingers impatiently, shooting dirty looks to the entrance. Renni reclines back, an unlit shimmer stick pinched between two fingers. Smeech smells like burnt oil and speaks like he’s chewed on his own tongue for fun. Margot sits elegantly still, watching as a viper watches prey. 

The door opened again and entered Silco, Jinx following with braids bouncing and boots echoing. She carries a folder in one arm and a gun in the other. The omega teen girl is all limbs and chaos, hopping from foot to foot like she’s excited about some new development. 

“Good morning!” She sings, swinging her gun without safety or care. “Or, you’know, just morning.”

Jinx hands out the paper chaotically if not with some order. One is flipped onto Margot’s lap, the other scattered for Smeech to try and wrangle as they drift down. When she reaches Viktor she slows- just the percentage of a second, holding the paper just a moment too long. She set the paper upside down in front of him, whispering conspiratorially, “You’re just gonna love item seven.”  

She skips away, leaving Viktor behind in confusion and fear. He clears his throats and flips over his paper, ignoring the doodles and sketches that Jinx has helpful dotted the agenda with. One of them is him with an antenna and a syringe. There are fangs protruding from his mouth. 

“Shall we begin?” Silco asks, voice like dry smoke. He nods to Bug, the only one still standing and she rolls her eyes. She moves to stand behind Viktor’s chair but doesn’t take a seat. Silco huffs, but knows better than to argue with her.

Silco doesn’t mince words, launching straight into the agenda like carving rot from a wound- quick and efficient. Viktor listens like he isn’t swaying in his seat. When it comes his turn to speak, he manages to string together something coherent enough that Silco looks satisfied, all the while Bug stands behind him. 

And Viktor- tired, ill, bleeding edge between control and collapse- listens. Answers. Contributes when requested. 

He even thinks that he might be able to make it to the end of the meeting without fanfare when Renni lights her shimmer stick, the smoke sweet and oily to his senses. The scent hits him like acid. The nausea that Viktor has been able to hold back thus far crawls up his throat. He clamps a hand as discreetly as he can over his mouth and stands up. He doesn’t bother making an excuse, just blurts out, “I need air.” And leaves. No one questions him. They never do. 

Bug steps forward, but her eyes track Viktor’s unsteady gait as he leaves the room. 

“I’ll submit his reports,” Bug says to the group, glancing up at Silco with an almost bored look. The meeting continues without him, but Bug follows, like she always has. 

Viktor stumbles to the of the stairwell, using the wall to guide him outside where he leans over the railing to heave and retch. He uses his flesh hand to steady himself, the prosthetics lagging just a second behind with painful shocks that emanate from his spine. There’s nothing but acrid bile and Viktor cannot recall the last time he consumed something that wasn’t a protein bar or caffeinated. 

Footsteps approach behind him- soft and measured, but unmistakably feminine and deliberate. Before he can speak, something cool presses into his side and Viktor turns around to see Bug holding a metal canteen of water out to him. Her calm dark eyes look into him in a way that makes him feel both cornered and seen. 

He takes the bottle and washes out his mouth, spitting the excess to where he just threw up. He drinks. Not much, but enough. 

Bug waits until he’s wiped his mouth clean before slipping a few wax wrapped candies into his palm. Ginger chews. He doesn’t look at her. 

“Clinic,” she says simply. 

“I can’t,” Viktor tries to argue, voice hoarse, “I have-

“No, you don’t,” She cuts him off and narrows her eyes. “Tomorrow. Or I'll drag you there myself.”

There’s no bite or threat- just tired inevitability. Viktor tightens his jaw. He could argue. He wants to. But he still can’t stand up and the world is still spinning. 

Instead he pops one ginger chew into his mouth, letting the warmth of the sugar settle his stomach. It’s spiced and bitter. He presses a hand to his stomach, doesn’t let it linger. Bug turns to leave. He doesn’t say thank you.

He knows he doesn’t have to.

Chapter Text

Viktor’s body betrays him yet again when he wakes up before his alarm. His chest aches with every breath, his belly curls inward with nausea, and his head pounds with each tired blink. There’s a sour taste in his mouth. He closes his eyes. Lying still buys him a few more seconds of denial, long enough to pretend that it might all still pass.

A normal morning. Or at least what passes for one. 

Opening his eyes does not bring relief, but clarity; Viktor sits up slowly, prosthetics engaging with a hiss and a whine. He rotates his shoulder, arm, wrist, once and the gears and metal settles into neutral. Water. Painkillers. Tea if Jayce or bug have been shoving anything new and her in his cupboards. 

He dresses with care, wearing something far more plain than his typical chembaron gear. Linen pants, soft and worn. The shirt is oversized and smells faintly of old metal and smoke- Jayce’s. The sleeves have been clipped and the hem reaches just the top of his thighs, but Viktor doesn’t roll it up. Just tucks it into his waistband. It’s one of the items that makes him feel like he’s not wearing a mask. 

It’s supposed to be a busy day and Viktor supposes that it still will be, but instead of chembaron meetings and equations, it will be blood work and barely whispered threats of rest, Bug prying into his soul like she owns the blueprints to it. 

The practical, or perhaps wishful, thing would be to cancel. That he’s been pulled into some chembaron meeting, or that Silco had demanded his assistance in a very important way. 

Viktor scoffs. Like Bug could ever be scared of someone like Silco.

If anything, she’d show up with a crowbar and stethoscope that she’d used to strangle him- after giving him a full workup, fixing his brace, and shoving a protein bar into his mouth with loving vengeance.

Persistent. Caring, sometimes aggressively so. Full of medical grade blackmail and strange smelling flowers. It’s been a long time since Viktor’s stopped questioning her care. 

He shrugs on his coat and stands at the door longer than he means to. He’s ready and there’s nothing that needs to delay the omega. Bug will give him some grace before sending the cavalry. And yet. Stupidly. Shamefully. 

Viktor misses Jayce. The too tall, too handsome, golden alpha with gentle hands, a blinding smile, and a scent that hit Viktor’s nerves like static, sweet and warm and devastating , turning his insides to syrup and short-circuiting his brain. His hand drifts to his midriff and briefly the image of Jayce on his knees, nuzzling his belly with Viktor’s possessive hands running through that messy hair, breath warm against skin. 

His lips tighten. 

Sharply, like a decisive surgical cut, Viktor shuts down the image and shoves it far from his mind. It’s not the time for fantasy. He doesn’t get to miss someone who left. 

He can’t afford softness. He straightens his coat, forces his augmented spine upright, and opens the doors.

Viktor would curse himself for the relatively short walk to the clinic if he wasn’t also one of the reasons for the clinic’s existence- it was one of his first projects after all. Bug had the vision but Viktor had the resources and power to see it through. Back then it felt like a promise. Now it feels more like a leash. 

He enters the side entrance and sees the lobby in its usual state of controlled chaos and disarray. There’s a rhythm to the place, of the building being kept alive by its occupants.  The air smelt of antiseptic alcohol, metal, blood, and lavender oil. The last was subtle, but persistent. Bug liked the herb, saying that it helped with the scent of suffering.

Something small darts in front of Viktor in a vivid flash of mismatched colors. Isha. She stops in front of Viktor and looks up to the omega, curiosity flashing in those bright amber eyes of hers. VIktor blinks. No manic laughter. No messes of glitter. Odd. It wasn't uncommon for Jinx and Isha to come as a pair, a chaotic gravitational pairing, but he does not catch a glimpse of that familiar blue hair.

Viktor looks back down. Isha hasn’t moved. She stands still as a statue in the corridor, save for the faint twitch of her fingers. On top of her head she wears her dented miner's hat, wryly curls just tamed by two fraying ribbons. She wears an oversized lab coat cinched at the waist with a cable tie, sleeves rolled up so many times they look like accordion pleats. There’s a smear of grease on her cheeks like warpaint, as though she’s done battle within the clinic itself. She smells faintly of gunpowder and lavender. 

She’s staring. Not at him- not quite, but at his midsection. At his stomach. Tilts her head to the side like a curious pup. Something like recognition flashes in her eyes.

Viktor clears his throat, wrapping his coat around him tighter, as though he could hide the reality of his body. It doesn’t help. Isha doesn’t move.  

“Would you grab Bug?” Viktor asks, lifting his hands and signing the question for the girl. Isha nods sharply,  lips tugging into a tiny smirk. Then, with all the energy of a soldier receiving orders from a general, she lifts two fingers in a salute before scurrying away, navigating the clinic like a second body.

He watches her as she leaves, surprised at how something so small can take up so much space. Tiny, quick on her feet, too serious for her age. Like someone he knows.

He dawdles as he waits for Bug, eyes drawn upward at the hanging pots of flowers and plants that adorn the wall and ceiling. The air is hazy but fragrant with the scent of lavender, mint, and chamomile. The clinic itself carries a sort of stubborn and defiant beauty, much like the woman who built it. 

Graffiti crawls up the corners and edges like ivy, unfurling in a riot of color. Full murals have been painted by various Zaunite youth. While Bug has never held a brush herself, she’s made it clear- her walls are an open canvas. Bug never polices the styles, never covering anything up unless it was disruptive or hateful. She always said that there were enough walls in Zaun that often contained people. Here she wants to remember them.

The result is a living archive of the undercity, constantly being added onto almost every week with depth and variety. 

The sound of footsteps captures his attention. Bug emerges, looking like a woman who hasn’t slept in two days, which given her schedule, is probably true. She’s wiping her hands on a rag and Isha is tugging at her dress towards Viktor. She gives Viktor a look, sharp and assessing,  as though she could sense VIktor’s intent to cancel from across the city. 

“Gremlin,” Bug places her hand on Isha’s head and maneuvers her to the side like a wayward suitcase. She points down the hall and her bare hands glisten in the shimmerlight of the room. Ink curls in and around her palms in dizzying vine like lines. Her fingers move as she orders, “Inventory the items in room six. Now.”

Isha looks ready to argue, one hand flung out like a dying actress, nose scrunching up in distaste, but Bug gives her a playful shove with a foot to the side. “Go.” 

Isha huffs, turns on her heel and leaves with dramatic flair, stomping her feet like the ground has displeased her. Viktor watches her go, something soft blooming inside his chest

Bug turns to face him fully, her red braids rippling like flames around her shoulders. She scans Viktor as though she could see through skin and bone. But there’s gratitude in her eyes. 

“Vitya. You look like shit,” it’s said without inflection, dry as desert wind. Her expression doesn’t soften, but it quiets into something comfortable. “Come. Let’s see what organs are rebelling today.”

Bug leads Viktor down a narrow hallway, past the hum of generators and away from the chaos of the main area of the clinic. Soon, only the echo of their footsteps are heard. Viktor’s leg drags with his prosthetic, the joints just off by a fraction of a second. Bug raises an eyebrow, but says nothing. 

Her personal office-exam room is tucked away at the farthest corner of the building, a rare solitude in the lanes, where walls are thin and lives stack messily on top of one another. 

A hex light flickers to life as they enter the room. The room is compact but not claustrophobic. There’s a desk, a sink, and an exam chair/table. It's not unlike his own lab, except instead of spare metal bits and bobs scattered about, it's neater, and dotted with small pots of flowers and medical equipment. Bug moves with practiced efficiency, moving to the sink to wash her hands. The scent of her soap smells like citrus and antiseptic. 

Her back is to Viktor as she gestures to the padded exam table as she goes to wash her hands, “Shirt and brace off. Set them aside.” Her tone is clipped and efficient. When Viktor doesn’t move, Bug sighs -with judgment- and snaps her fingers like she’s ordering a haughty cat. “Sit. Now. I don’t have time for your stubbornness.” 

Viktor meets her eyes for a moment. There’s no pity. Just expectation. It makes it easier. 

He unbuttons his coat, the movement tugging at his shoulder and he tries not to flinch from pain. The fabric slips and pools at his elbows, ranking his full metal prosthetic arm as well the brace that holds his spine and back together. The metal creaks, tired, like the rest of him. 

He seats himself, staring up at the ceiling, trying to escape his own stuttering mind and body, focusing on a mural from some unknown artist, depicting the sun and moon with the stars in between. 

Touch like this has never been easy, not since the surgeries, the recovery, and the reminders left on his skin and in his spine. He can handle it in theory. But the body catches up before the mind, always expecting pain. It’s worse when doctors before have pretended not to notice. 

Bug doesn’t pretend. 

She rolls over on her rolly stool, pausing near the table as she dries her hands and puts on gloves. She doesn’t reach for him right away. 

“Thank you,” Bug says as she pulls over her tray of equipment. The scanner looks to be hextech, with a few modifications that the female omega must have added, scavenged from the oddest of places. Bug is resourceful when she needs to be. It’s the benefit of growing among scrappy engineers like Viktor, Ekko, and Jinx. There was always someone willing to tinker with your stuff. 

“For coming in?” Viktor asks, leaning back so Bug can access his side. He tries to relax his tense muscles. 

“Nope,” Bug says, flipping the scanner on. “You don’t get a choice in that.” She glances up briefly. “I mean thank you for not making a fuss. ” 

Viktor tries to match her smirk with one of her own, but it’s thin. “Yet. There’s still time.”

Bug finishes setting up her machine and looks to Viktor. She holds up the small wand and hovers above his torso. “May I?” 

He gives a small nod. Not because he’s ready, but because it’s Bug. She always asks. Always waits. And she has never once betrayed the fragile trust she’s pried from him over the years. 

There’s only ever been one other person he’s had such faith in trusting with his body. Naked, unarmored- just him, flawed and frayed and aching. Jayce. He touched Viktor not like a machine or a patient, but as though every part of him, flesh and metal, was deserving of tenderness and worship. 

Like nothing was too strange to kiss, too broken to hold. 

He allowed Jayce to trace the bolts in his spine, trace the seam of his shoulder where metal met skin with his lips, whispering sweet musings and devotion. 

It terrified Viktor how easy it felt to be that way with Jayce, for a time. How he craves it still. But the voice in his head reminds him not to mistake pleasure for safety. 

So he lies back, and lets Bug begin the exam on his body. It’s a touch that doesn’t feel like a threat. She warns him every time.

“You’ve been compensating with your brace again,” Bug notes as she inspects the sockets and gears of his prosthetic. “You’re grinding your hip into the misalignment.” She looks up at him. “Were you ever planning on coming in?”

“Perhaps after saving half the power grid,” Viktor bites out, and Bug rolls her eyes. “I had more immediate concerns.”

“Did any of those concerns include a certain mister Man of Progress?” Bug raises an eyebrow and Viktor flushes even deeper. “So that’s a yes. Any other partners?” She’s not asking to be invasive, but Viktor bristles anyway. He shakes his head. 

“What are your main concerns? Symptoms?” Now she’s all doctor, sitting with her spine straight and clipboard and pen in hand. “Talk to me.” Viktor hesitates, but Bug is goddamn patient. He starts. 

“Nausea. It’s worse when I first wake up," He says. “Dizziness. Fatigue. Increased sensitivity to smells.” Bug cocks her head. Looks at the readings. 

“Scent suppressant is stable,” Bug mutters to herself. “But when was the last time it was calibrated?” VIktor stares at her blankly. He cannot remember when. Bug turns her head very slowly. “So, I'll assume it’s been a minute?” 

Viktor nods, trying to tamper the flaming blush that threatens to overheat his joints. Shame feels like a fever crawling into his skin. 

“Protection?” Viktor presses his lips into a tight line. Bug waits. He says nothing. 

“Vitya.” 

He swallows, stubborn. “No.”

“No condoms.” She writes something down. Considers it. 

“I didn’t think-” Viktor tries to defend himself, but Bug beats him to it.

“You didn’t think?” But cuts in, voice sharp. “That’s wild, considering how much fucking brain power of yours is dedicated to arc reactors and municipal fail safes. And I thought you were the smart one.” 

“I have the implant. I take suppressants and inhibitors,” Viktor mutters. “I didn’t want to-”

“What? Didn’t want to ruin the mood?” She’s not being rude- just… clinical and as blunt as she can be.

“I thought I couldn’t-” Viktor cuts himself off. “It’s not possible.”

Bug’s gaze softens and she stands to grab something from one of the cabinets. She returns with a blood draw kit and a wrapped pastry and drink. 

“I’ll draw blood and run a full chem panel. Rule out anything nasty.” She has Viktor hold out his arm and she wraps the tourniquet with deft fingers. “In the meantime you’re overdue for a system flush. Don’t forget I can track your firmware.” 

She collects the vial, setting them aside for testing and taps Viktor’s brace. “This needs to be readjusted. I know it hurts even if you pretend it doesn’t.” Bug shrugs as she stands to leave but her gaze lingers longer than what she probably means to.   “It could be stress. Or maybe a malfunction. Or maybe your body is trying to tell you something you don’t want to hear.” He doesn’t speak, but takes a sip of his drink anyway. 

---

After a beat, Viktor pulls himself to the sink, fingers gripping the cool metal of the counter for balance. The mirror that hangs has a strange warp to the edges, the by-product of shimmer and glass reacting in strange ways. The reflection that greets him is fractured, the image only vaguely the shape of a man. 

His shirt and brace still lay discarded, forgotten, and Viktor stares. 

First his gaze drops to the prosthetic arm, still exposed at the shoulder port, skin red around the area where flesh meets metal. It twitches, overworked synapses firing off signals before it quiets. His leg too is unbraced, the metal cap where it connects to the prosthetic worn with wear, making his gait off. If he thinks too hard, he can almost remember the raw terror of rebuilding a new body after the factory collapse, of the smoke and flame. It had taken months to rewire his body. Longer still to trust it. 

If he were to twist around Viktor would see the metal bolts along his spine that were installed by Bug, after a Piltie doctor butchered his back leaving him half paralyzed and full of nerve damage. 

He tries to take himself as clinically as he can, like running codes on one of his machines. Notes the circles under his eyes. The asymmetry. The lean from where he’s been compensating for weeks.  And then-

Just below his ribcage. The faintest curve, not quite visible, of something more possibility than truth. He brushes his hand, human, over the area, trailing along until he reaches his clavicle. Higher up, just beneath his collarbone, lie faint marks. Pale. Old. Jayce’s teeth. His throat tightens but he doesn’t look away.

Sometimes he doesn’t recognize this body, but it’s still his. Still alive. And always being asked to hold more.

Low and dry and only to himself, Viktor presses his palms flat on the counter and says, “This is a terrible design.”  

—

The door clicks shut behind Bug and the room feels like it’s holding its breath. Viktor exhales shakily, the sound caught somewhere between his lungs and throat. Bug’s face is perfectly still as though carved from marble. He presses his arms down onto his knees, the metal creaking from his shoulders and leg. 

“Well, it’s confirmed,” Bug looks up from her clipboard. “You’re pregnant. I’d say eight to ten weeks, give or take a few days.” 

Pregnant. Viktor doesn’t react right away, going through the mental catalog of his mind to see where the word could possibly fit. Biological. Statistical. Emotional. 

Stupidly, the first coherent thought that surfaces is, “ I should have used a condom. ”

Of all the safeguards and precautions Viktor had taken, that was the one he hadn’t bothered with. Because it wasn’t supposed to be possible, hell, Viktor had been told that it hadn’t been possible. 

His hands still lay in his lap, clenched so tight that one of his prosthetic fingers locked up with the tension. He has to force the joint and it clicks and pops with a hiss. 

He gives a weak attempt at losing the truth, “Are you sure?”

Bug scoffs and hands him the clipboard. There are lines and numbers but where it says pregnancy, there’s a plus sign and gestational estimation. Confirmed at 8 weeks ± 3 days.

“I ran the numbers three times. The scan was clean and a blood test confirms it.” Bug perches herself at the edge of the seat, moving her stool closer to Viktor. “You have options.”

Viktor tilts his head, confused, “Options?”

“First,” Bug does something here. “Termination. Safe, fast, and private. We could even do it today if you wanted to. Discreet and judgment free.”  Bug watches the omega carefully and Viktor closes his eyes, letting his weight sag in his shoulders. “Or, you carry. We make some modifications, adapt your meds, and manage things as they progress.”

He doesn’t answer. Bug doesn’t push. She pushes her stool to her desk and returns with a chipped ceramic mug, steam curling with the scent of ginger and mint, and places it in his hands. It smells like grounding. The heat feels real. 

Viktor sips the tea. It’s too hot, but the slight sting gives him something to focus on. Bug still hasn’t said anything. She’s given him data and space to fill the silence. That’s all. 

His mind begins sorting different contingency plans, of chemical schedules, prosthetic calibrations, what Silco or the other chem barons might say or do. How it could be used as leverage. How it could be seen as weak. 

He pictures Jayce. His expression that he might wear when, if, the alpha finds out. Rejection. Disbelief. Guilt.  

The possibility of Jayce knowing and walking away still. 

But beneath the fears and doubts, quiet and cruel- a child. Brown eyes. Curly hair. Clever. Needy. With Jayce’s smile and Viktor’s scowl. 

Something like hope crawls at his throat and he chokes on it. It tastes like rust and sweetness and shimmer all at once. 

“You don’t have to decide today,” Bug tells him, voice level but not unkind. He doesn’t answer. He doesn’t even nod.

Bug watches him for a moment longer before she goes to one of the cabinets and pulls out a stitched canvas bag. It’s faded to an ugly green and there is a patch on one of the seams that’s been repaired several times over. She plops it down without ceremony. “It’s basic stuff. Anti nausea meds, heat packs, scent patches. The like.” Bug shrugs, wiping her hands clean with disinfectant and standing up to move near the door. “I’ve spared as much time as I can. Don’t read too much into it.”

Before she leaves, Bug pauses at the door, steadying herself on the frame. At this angle, he can’t see her face fully, especially with her braids and scarf obscuring most of it. “Vitya, I’m here no matter what you choose.” 

She doesn’t linger, already turning to leave. Viktor is grateful for the abrupt exit, unsure of what to say. He lets himself sit with the silence, just for a moment before it all becomes too real. 

Eventually he stands, movements slow and stiff, and sling the bag over his shoulder. It’s not as heavy as he expected and it strangely comforts him. He can carry the weight. 

He’s halfway out the door when a blur of movement catches the corner of his eyes. Isha. Waiting at the edge of the corridor, perched like a watchpup on duty. She perks up when she sees Viktor, running up to the omega and signing too quickly for Viktor to understand. He squints, staring at her. He signs, “Slow. Please.” 

Isha audibly sighs, and tries again, “I’ll walk you out.” It’s the same sort of ride or die energy Jinx has and Viktor doesn’t have the strength to deny any more small kindnesses today. 

“Alright,” he signs, resigned. “Lead the way.”

They walk side by side, her steps light, quick, and bouncy, but she matches Viktor’s pace without being asked. She doesn’t make conversation, just humming a broken little tune. At the threshold, just before the exit, Isha tugs on Viktor’s coat. She holds out a folded piece of paper and Viktor opens it with careful fingers. 

It’s a child drawing made with charcoal of a fox and wolf, sketched in messy but unmistakable lines. They’re sat together near what appears to be flower sapling, tiny in comparison to the two animals. He frowns. 

Isha taps the paper twice then pats her chest. She smiles in that strange way of hers, knowing and mischievous all at once. Then, solemnly, seriously, Isha squares her shoulder and lifts her hand, giving him a crooked and dramatic salute. It’s sweet. It’s sincere.

“Thank you,”Viktor signs to the girl. She beams. “Say hi to Jinx for me.”

She nods and quick as a rocket she shoots back into the chaos of the clinic, as though the universe is at rest with her work. Viktor can’t help but smile. He tucks away the paper into his coat as he steps into the Zaunite streets.

Chapter Text

The lab is in a curated chaos- there are various stacks and piles from where Viktor pulled things out from drawers and cleared from flat surfaces. The air smells heavily of shimmer and disinfectant, but Viktor’s own stressed scent lingers behind. It’s overheated and wrong, like oversteeped tea left out for too long. 

He holds a capacitor coil in his hands and considers it with an intensity that would make anyone weep. He shoves it into a random drawer without ceremony, slamming it shut. It rattles and Viktor ignores it.  

There’s something he needs to be doing, but for the life of him Viktor cannot figure out what. He turns to the drafting table, taking slow and deep breaths. He sits down and lays his head flat, nausea curling in his throat. He needs to reapply one of the patches Bug had sent with him, but the prospect of having to get up again and walk across the lab seems too daunting a trek. 

Pain flares in his lower back, radiating to his spine and to his hips, down the prosthetic joint in his thigh. The brace needs to be readjusted and calibrated but Viktor knows that he won’t be doing it anytime soon. He looks at one of the random blueprints scattered across the table and mutters something under his breath in Zaunite. A prayer, or perhaps a curse. 

Viktor sighs and sits straight again, reaching for his calibration tools. He opens a panel on his leg, the port sticking shut and Viktor has to pry it open with the edge of a flathead. His fingers ache. His implant informs him that his thigh mount is off by 1.4 degrees. An easy fix in theory.

He twists the stabilizer screw with effort and the screwdriver slips from shaky fingers and onto the floor with a loud clatter. He stares at it. The thought of bending over to try and retrieve it makes his bones hurt and Viktor hands tighten. He’s not going to cry– he’s not.

Instead he slams the panel shut and forces himself to stand, despite the protest from his aching body. He walks over to the sink and fills a chipped enamel kettle with measured precision, to the exact milliliter. It feels like it matters somehow. 

He sets it on a low burner and waits for the water to boil. As it does, Viktor selects a tea sachet– a fruity and fragrant blend he chooses without thinking. He’s already pouring the water over the leaves when he recognizes as one Jayce had gifted it to him, but adds honey and sips it regardless. 

It’s tolerable. The warmth and sweetness of the beverage settles his stomach. It’s the least reactions that he’s had since confirming the pregnancy and Viktor will count this as a blessing for now. He closes his eyes and lets his weight settle against the counter for this moment. 

He tries to imagine beyond the science of creating life, of the rapidly dividing cells forming into tissue, the reality that he is creating life. Something that began with failure but insists, against all logic, on becoming .

Viktor’s prosthetic hand finds its way over his abdomen and he lets it rest there. He can feel the cool metal through the fabric onto the skin of his belly.  He doesn’t want to think about it. 

The right thing would be to terminate it— Viktor’s body literally isn’t equipped for it. His body is already devouring itself just to function. He’s a prosthetic patchwork, stitched together with hextech and spite, reliant on shimmer, sleeplessness, and a crumbling body. There’s barely enough of him left to stand upright some days—how could there be enough to give to someone else?

Viktor is important to Zaun, to his community. People need him to be brilliant and ruthless—not soft and nauseous, his body growing something he didn’t ask for. 

He goes through the mental math of all the risks both from himself and others. There’s the high risk of miscarriage, of his heart giving out from the extra strain, running the numbers over and over like it might change something.

What would Silco, or even the other chembarons would say or do if they found out. He knows he can’t trust to be vulnerable around them— why would a viper not strike when shown a bared throat? Zaunite culture prizes life, survival, yes, but it is a reverence laced with calculation. Omegas are sacred and precarious to both, a symbol of continuity and a target painted across their back. 

And Jayce— Viktor tries to think about breaking the news to him, the thought making his stomach turn in a way even pregnancy can’t. 

Too many scenarios flash in his mind and none of them are good. 

Maybe Jayce would reach out for the omega, bundle him up in those broad, gentle arms and whisk him away to Piltover's version of safety as if he’s a damsel in need of saving, into a quiet townhouse with thick curtains and hot baths. He’d be cared for in soft sheets and even softer words, kindness smothering him until the air goes stale. 

He’d look at him with those polished amber eyes and see a fragile being, and not someone who rebuilt themselves with shimmer and spite, clawing their way with bloody hands to a seat of power in Zaun. 

Jayce would be attentive, overtly so, bringing him blankets and tea, making appointments with midwives that looked at him like he was made of glass. He’d be proud and then it would curdle into possessiveness. The fetus inside him would be a blueprint, a future promise Viktor didn’t want to share. 

Because that’s what they did to Piltover omegas. They dress them up in white and strip the fire from their bones. They call it honor, safety, but Viktor sees it for what it is– gilded captivity.

Kept barefoot and pregnant, like every horror story he’s heard from Zaunite courtesan circles. No lab. No science. Just silence and rest and the knowledge that Viktor would be nothing more than an incubator to a legacy he can’t control. 

Jayce is kind, yes, but kind men can do terrible things when they believe it’s for your own good. 

Maybe he’d try to take them— not out of cruelty but conviction and that would make it all that much worse. He’d argue that Viktor wasn’t in the condition to raise a child, not in Zaun or in his fragile state. He’d offer stability, a powerful name behind his house, a future that Viktor has never been permitted to imagine.  All wrapped in the conviction that it would be better that way. 

That an alpha like Jayce would be better than a broken omega chembaron. 

Or worst of all, Jayce could leave. He might not want Viktor after all of this. Just say nothing and disappear and leave Viktor’s heart empty with possibilities he was foolish enough to hope for. 

Viktor sighs and lets his hand drop. He’s too tired to deal with something as pesky as emotions and turns to return to some mind numbing work when—

The lab door opens with a hiss, loud as thunder in the stillness of the room, and then two figures burst through the lab door. 

“Hello!” Jinx announces with an announcer's voice, already halfway across the lab in a kit of blue and pink. “I’ve brought company and crime.” 

He flinches at the sound and drops his mug to the counter with a loud crash. Hot tea spills over his hands and he winces, turning around to see Isha slip inside without announcement, a quiet motion of wool sleeves and miners gear. She goes straight for one of the emptier tables and sets out the bundle of papers and charcoal nubs with small and careful hands. 

“This is a bad time,” Viktor says, voice rougher than he means to, steadying himself on his cane as he tries to usher the young omega girl and her feral gremlin child out . His hip twinges at the movement and he bites back a groan. Jinx brushes him off, weaving under his outstretched arm like an alley cat and goes straight for the cache of snacks that Bug and Jayce keep well stocked. 

“When isn’t it a bad time with you?” She says heading for the far end of the wall. Isha begins to sketch something as Jinx begins to raid his cabinets, tossing a foil wrapper to the pup and Isha catches it without looking up. She sets it on the corner to use it as a paperweight and continues with her sketch. 

“Ah ha!” Jinx lets out a triumphant laugh, half buried in the cabinet and voice muffled as she pulls out a sour dried fruit mix that Bug conveniently left behind from one of her visits to the lab. She brandishes like plundered treasure. “ Jackpot !”

“Those aren’t for you,” Viktor says, though they both know perfectly well that they are. It’s always been Bug’s habit to leave little treats and offerings throughout the lab, tucked into corners where the girl will find them before Viktor does. They’re practical things, remedies disguised as candy, just as much for him as it is for the girl who insists on raiding his lab like a magpie. She rips open the pack with her teeth, popping a candied ginger in her mouth and continues her search, and Viktor pretends not to notice. 

Jinx chews loudly, fingers already digging in the pouch for another piece of dried fruit. Her eyes scan the lab and brighten when they land on a broken emitter that Viktor has all but given up on trying to fix. Her gunpowder scent sharpens with interest and Jinx breaks into a smile.

“What’s this?” She says in a sing-song voice strutting over to the item and picking it up before Viktor can protest. She turns it over in her hands, inspecting and curious, holding it up and the half dead hex crystal light scatters across her face. 

“Put that down,” Viktor snaps, hand twitching as though he means to take it back, but his joints protest the movement. Instead he stands, spine stiff and shoulders squared in some semblance of authority, watching as Jinx looks over it like a new toy. “It’s broken.”

Jinx lets out a huff, half laughter and half sigh, and pulls out a misshapen tool, something hammered into existence with grit and determination and pries open a panel. He stares, remembering how much trouble that damn circuitry gave him. It can’t be fixed. Viktor knows that. His lips press into a thin line. 

Except Jinx’s hands fly quick and precise, with a sort of carelessness and sparks fly from the emitter. It's like she’s playing a game no one else can see. She grins even larger when she slam the item shut, the emitter returning to life with a faint, steady glow. 

“There,” She says, smug and triumphant, rolling it back onto the workbench like a winning hand in poker. “All better.” She returns the tool to her pocket with a flourish and sits herself next to isha, perched on the edge on the table, legs swinging. 

“Why did you come?” His tone is sharp and he does not bother to hide the tremor in his voice. Jinx perks up and retrieves a small wrapped package from the pouch on her hip. Instead of tossing it like she might normally do, she sets it carefully next to where she’s seated. 

“Special delivery— straight from Silco’s desk.” She smiles but makes no effort to move. Viktor eyes the bundle suspiciously.”

“Consider it delivered. Now leave.” He gestures towards the door again and Jinx ignores him. “Shoo.” Isha shifts beside Viktor and she leans forward and stretches out her hand. In her palm is a sugared rind. She stares up at him expectantly, in that strange quiet way of hers. Viktor swallows the lump in his throat.

“Aww,” Jinx croons. There’s something soft in her tone, the kind only Isha can pull out of her. “She likes you. Thinks you need it more than she does.” He doesn’t respond to either of them and gestures to the door again, hoping irritation will work where authority did not.

“What stick do you have up your ass?” The air feels charged and Jinx tilts her head and hops off the table. She circles around Viktor almost predatorily, a glint of mischief in those shimmer pink eyes of hers. “You’ve been acting really weird.” She leans forward and gives an exaggerated sniff of Viktor and wrinkles her nose. “You smell weird too. Not sick or shimmer but… sweeter.” 

She stops, statue still and stares at Viktor and he tries to deflect the attention away. He goes to the nearest stack of paper and shuffles them to avoid Jinx’s gaze.

“You’re imagining things,” He says and Jinx’s eyes narrow. Her scent goes sour, sharp and suspicious.

“I don’t imagine.” Jinx pulls out her gun and twirls it in her hands. He can’t tell if the chambers are loaded. He clenches his teeth. She prowls closer and her hand darts out to touch his wrist. Viktor flinches and pulls back. “I notice.” 

Isha moves without a word, standing in front of Viktor with her shoulders squared in an imitation of how he was earlier. His heart squeezes, and for a moment there’s affection tinged the way Jinx looks at Isha. 

But then, just as quickly, her gaze snaps back to Viktor and her scent curls thick and dangerous. Quick as a viper, she snatches a cycler and hurls it across the lab, ricocheting against the wall and falling to the ground in a crash. It reverberates, too loud in the silence that follows. 

Isha doesn’t react, holding her chin up in quiet defiance and she adjusts her miner's cap. The sugared rind is still gripped tightly in her hand. Still, she holds her ground. 

“What are you hiding?” Jinx asks with a manic glee in her eyes, like a match ready to strike. He can feel the weight of his secret pressed against his ribs. His mouth is dry and his heart pounds in his chest. His ocular implant warns him of his climbing heart rate but he ignores it. 

He stares at Isha, at her small form unyielding, and considers. The truth will come out eventually. 

“I’m—“ he licks his lips trying to delay the inevitable. “I’m pregnant.” 

The words drop heavily into the space between them and Viktor lets it sit for a moment. The confession feel like it’s been carved straight out of him. Jinx says nothing, and then—

“ Holy shit!” Jinx lunges for Isha as the girl leaps up without hesitation into her arms. They spin together in a wild dance. They’re laughing and giggling and something arcs up in the air and Viktor can’t tell what it is until a small dusting of glitter and powder fills the room in a sudden explosion of color.

It catches on their clothes and Viktor wonders for a moment if they’ve lost their minds. 

“Wait shit,” she sets Isha back down gently and turns to face Viktor, who is still open mouthed, gaping at the duo. She falters, just a hair. Pink glitter dots the air around them and Jinx clears her throat. “Um, how do you feel about it?”

He blinks, glitter dotting his lashes, still in shock and having trouble finding his voice. Jinx pauses and rocks back on her heels.  She thinks for a minute and then covers Isha's ears. 

“Like, what kind of doctor will Bug need to be?” It takes a minute but as soon as it registers Viktor lets out a laugh. It’s the most genuine happiness he’s felt in a long time. It’s strange to hear and he sits on his stool, still laughing with an unguarded joy.

It startles them both and Jinx grins wide, flopping onto a nearby stool and spinning in lazy circles until she bumps into the workbench next to Viktor. Isha pads back to her own little corner of the table, memorializing the moment into her sketches. 

“Sooo,” She says, smacking her gums and bubbling with satisfaction. “Pregnant.” Her scent goes curious and mischievous and Jinx leans closer to Viktor. “The council is gonna shit bricks you know. That baby is gonna be a double genius squared . ” She doesn’t mention the father, the sire, even though Jinx certainly knows who it is. Traces of him linger in the room, in the jacket draped over a chair, or notes scribbled onto Viktor’s schematics. Everyone will, as soon as the news escapes. Viktor doesn’t want to think about that ever. 

“It is not–” Viktor pinches the bridge of his nose and exhales sharply. His body aches too much for precision. “It is not certain yet.”

“Pfft,” Jinx scoffs, and looks longingly at one of the machines as a child eyes a sweet that Viktor has been working on all day uselessly. “You’re all glowy and shit.”

Isha hums in agreement and moves the pouch of dried fruit closer to Viktor’s elbow without looking up from her sketch. He sighs and relents, grabbing a sugared rind and working it between his teeth. The flavor makes his mouth tingle pleasantly.

“Fine,” Viktor waves his hand at the machine and Jinx lights skips over to it with excitement. “Go ahead. All I ask is that you do not make a mess.”  

She’s humming to herself as she twists wires and cables, as though trying to coax life out of the machine. 

And for a moment, the lab comes more alive than it has been in weeks. Jinx flits from table to cabinets, like a fairy dosed on shimmer, her circuitry sparking with delight. Isha remains where she is, nibbling on snacks and sketching on her papers with long and sure strokes. 

Jinx crouches at the machine, swinging one long braid over her shoulder, a candy between her teeth, prying another panel open and peering inside curiously. She reaches in and does something with her wrist , and the faint glow of hexlight fills the lab. 

“You rewired the emitter matrix?” Viktor questions. “How? It shouldn’t even function.”

“Shouldn’t but it does,” Jinx replies, tapping the machine with her improvised tool. “It’s like a game, you know? Just got to figure out their rules.”

“Enginering is not guesswork,” He says, only slightly irritated. Jinx laughs, the sound as bright as her eyes and sparks and she shrugs. 

“No, it’s a game and you just have to learn how to play it.” She slaps the panel as if to emphasize her point and it whirs louder in response. Viktor wants to open his mouth to retort, but finds that the words catch on his lips. 

Jinx is such a strange and fascinating girl, as though bending chaos to her whims and fancy. There’s glitter caught in her hair and it twinkles in the hexlight. 

Isha looks up from her sketches at the both of them, fingers smudged with charcoal and gives them a toothy grin as she presents one of her drawings. It’s an otter and a fox playing in a pond of some sort, splashing at each other with glee. She sets it down closer to Viktor, as though it’s an offering. His chest goes tight and his breath catches at the sight.

“It’s nice, right?” Jinx leans back on the stool until it rocks on two legs and looks over the lab. “It’s kinda like a family here.”

The words ignite something inside him, vulnerable and soft, and Viktor lets himself sit with it for that moment. Family. Briefly and unbidden, the image of Jinx and Isha carrying a swaddled bundle between them, showering it in glitter and gunpowder, laughter crackling in the air like fireworks and he finds that he doesn't hate the thought. It feels… possible. 

But then Viktor feels the ache in his bones, the turn of his stomach with sickly nausea and suddenly he has hit his limit. The fragile dream collapses under its own weight.

Viktor exhales slowly, the sound more tired than it is dismissal and he turns away. “You have done enough for the day.”

“Aw,” Jinx says, “but we were just getting started!”

“Please.” And maybe it’s his tone, or the gravity of the situation, but Jinx looks at him and nods once, decisive. She stands up and brushes off glitter and dust and reaches a hand out to Isha, who takes it. “C’mon pup. We gotta go.”

The girl glances up at him, wide eyed and confused, and gathers her papers and sketches. She pushes the otter and fox drawing closer to him before slipping off her stool. As they go to leave, Jinx pauses at Viktor’s side and lifts her wrist to his shoulder and rubs her wrist against his shirt in a brief scenting. His nose flares towards it, instinctively seeking comfort in her gunpowder scent. 

“You’d be a great mom,” Jinx whispers and Viktor doesn’t look up at them as they leave, glitter clinging to shadows that he can’t escape. 

—

The lab is still quiet with the loss of energy that Jinx and Isha had brought earlier. Viktor has again tried uselessly to work on something, anything, and all his efforts have failed. He swims through the dark sludge of his mind and crashes on his couch with a tired groan of defeat. He sleeps fitfully, half formed dreams curling at the edge of his consciousness like smoke. 

It’s later, or early, Viktor can no longer tell, when he wakes to the loud bang on his door. It’s less of a question and more of a warning as the door hisses open and Viktor is left scrambling to right himself as Silco steps in. Nausea rises in his throat and his body twinges with random pain as his joints warm to movement. The alpha man looks sleek and clean in contrast to Viktor’s sleep ruffled form. He gives Viktor an unimpressed lift of his eyebrow as Viktor grabs his cane.

“Silco,” Viktor greets warily, eying the alpha with suspicion. He almost never visits Viktor’s lab unless it's for good reason. Silco walks around the space, pausing at the sketch Isha left behind and studies it with unreadable intent. 

“I’m following through with Jinx’s… delivery.” His one good eye sweeps over to the workbench to where it remains unopened. His lips press into a frown. “And to see why my best chembaron has been failing to meet shipments quotas.”

“It’s not failure,” Viktor snaps sharply. “It’s simply a delay. I need more time.” 

“Time,” Silco muses, tasting the word on his tongue. He gives Viktor a look over, to where he’s hunched even while standing, white knuckling his cane for support. “Is that a luxury you can afford?”

“I’ve never failed you before.” Viktor tries to ignore the roiling of his stomach and reigns in his own annoyed scent, sharp and bitter. He feels on edge with an unexpected intruder in his space. “

“Which is why I’m giving you a chance to explain things before more drastic measures are taken.” Silco levels Viktor with a pointed look and the omega fights the urge to bare his throat and snarl. “What are you hiding?” 

The alpha’s voice is low in timber and the sound of it makes Viktor’s skin crawl. He will not submit– he will not, and Viktor flashes his teeth in warning. SIlco doesn’t pause, stepping closer to the omega and Viktor bites his lip to keep himself from cursing the alpha out. The air hums with unspoken threat.

But Viktor feels that is as good a time as any to tell Silco the truth. He forces himself to relax and looks square into Silco’s gaze and admits, “I’m pregnant."

Silco blinks and for just a moment surprise flashes in his scarred face, but then quickly morphs into his crafted blank expression. The air in the room feels suffocating and VIktor struggles to breathe.

“So that’s the delay,” Silco says. “One of my chembarons carrying. That is certainly an interesting… development. Makes you vulnerable, yes, but also valuable. Something like this hasn’t happened in the undercity in a generation or so.”

Viktor knits his brows in confusion and then remembers- Bug, or rather Briar Gentry, former Academy student and socialite. She still wears the title when bloodlines and biology matter the most. The thoughts curdled like sour milk inside him. 

“We’re not tools,” Viktor argues, curling a hand over his abdomen. “Don’t speak of us as though we are.” Silco hums, dismissive and not persuaded and heads towards the door.

“You should have told me sooner,” Silco says without looking back.

“This changes nothing,” Viktor calls out and Silco pauses by the door and tilts his head slightly. He considers Viktor’s words.  

“On the contrary. This changes everything.”

The door shuts behind him with a final, echoing click, leaving Viktor alone in the glitter-dusted lab, his hand still curled protectively over his stomach.