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There are a million and one tests you can run on your kids to try to figure out early on if they're going to present alpha or omega, everything from spit tests tentatively approved by science to fortune tellers at the county fair. You can usually tell, people confidently assert even as they make television drama after television drama about "surprise" presentations, and indeed the statistics do seem to bear out that very few people are surprised by their secondary orientation, even if sometimes their parents are.
Nobody, and that means nobody, ever thought Mick would present omega, not even Mick.
He's big and broad and muscular, he likes to hit things and get drunk, and children of all ages just confuse the crap out of him, and vice versa. Despite being nearly the same height, he manages to make his alpha look small - and doesn't that just stick in their craw, all those gender essentialists and beauty magazine fanatics, to know that Mick had snagged himself an alpha without doing a single damn thing that omegas on the hunt for a mate were "supposed" to do.
That being said, just because he's secretly grateful that Len has lost his mind sufficiently to fall in love with him doesn't mean he lets Len have a free pass at every turn. After splitting up with him for nearly two years - and Mick knows it was because Len was running scared, not because he loved Mick any less - it's going to take more than a shiny trinket to get back in Mick's bed.
Though it is a very shiny trinket - Mick's been practicing using it, and he hasn't yet found anything it wouldn't eventually burn, especially once he figures out how to narrow the flame to a tight beam. Len had been whining about Mick learning how to fix the gun and Mick had been annoyed right up until he figured that trick out. He still prefers the original flamethrower setting - no one had ever let him near a flamethrower before - but still, it is awesome and Mick loves his new gun so much he’s thinking of naming her.
...Okay, so it was a really good gift. Len's really outdone himself on that front. Mick would be inclined to forgive Len just for the sake of the heat gun, but there's a principle at stake here, and that principle is petty bitchiness that is keeping both of them from getting laid, but goddamnit Mick doesn't have many principles in his life so he's standing behind this one.
At least until Len sufficiently grovels at his feet, anyway. Is that so much to ask?
Len’s been quite good at having the right mix of not asking for anything and being suitably cautious; he makes sure to ask Mick’s opinion on various plans in advance – at least where the Flash isn’t involved, because that’s a giant blind spot if Len’s ever had one – and Mick’s favorite type of beer mysteriously appears in the fridge of their safehouse even though he knows Len doesn’t drink it.
When Mick first finds that, he can’t help but hide a smile. Len’s always been terrible at apologies – he’s terrified of showing emotion directly – but he’ll sometimes try to slide around the issue. Mick has no intention of letting him get away without at least an “I missed you and shouldn’t have left”, but he’s sure as hell going to enjoy every last bit of Len trying to say it without actually saying it.
Mick’s gonna get courted.
The thing you need to know to understand Len is that in his heart of hearts, he’s a drama queen. He thinks of himself as a subtle and understated kind of guy, but he’s not even a little bit subtle to anyone who knows him. So where most omegas would expect a handful of flowers and a shitty apology to start off with, Mick knows Len’s going to do something crazy first, then maybe scale back down to the little stuff. It’s his way, even if he himself doesn’t realize it.
Most people, when they’ve really fucked something up and have the disposable cash to do it, will try to take their loved one out on some sort of vacation. You know, travel somewhere.
Len gets them kidnapped.
To Mexico.
They even get flown in a plane. Sure, they’re handcuffed and there are stone-faced guys with guns around them, but that’s pretty typical for Len’s travel plans. It takes Lenny exactly ten minutes after they arrive to talk out the little “misunderstanding” he had with the head of the cartels, and suddenly they’re living on the cartel’s dime for a weekend before their first class flight back to Central, just to make sure they don’t have any hard feelings about the whole kidnapping thing and also in exchange for Len’s agreement not to screw up their business in Hub City, where Len has somehow convinced them that they live.
Mick is maybe a little impressed. Len’s upped his game these last two years.
They get the honeymoon suite and everything. Two hookers, too, an alpha and an omega, but Len politely invites them to play poker for an hour or so then sends them home with their winnings. Though now that Mick thinks about it, maybe they come as part of the suite?
(The omega one gives him a thumbs up and a wink while Len isn’t looking.)
Mick doesn’t so much as give an inch, not even when it turns out they’ve “coincidentally” arrived on the eve of some festival or another and there are fireworks.
They go back to Central City and Len steps ups his “please don’t me apologize out loud” campaign. Since Mick isn’t a typical omega, he can’t just grab some flowers and a nice card or some shit like that; but Len’s learned some of the things that work.
The fridge is full of big, thick meaty steaks, Mick’s favorite, and there’s nothing for it – they have to eat them before they go bad, after all. It goes well with Mick’s favorite beer, somehow still fully stocked despite Mick having made a serious dent in it before they left.
One of the local buildings down the street from them that’s been a danger for years finally gets its demolition date approved, and they have a fantastic view of them bringing it down – BOOM – in one fell swoop.
Saints gets some money somehow and shuts down for renovations; informal black market meetings are now being held until further notice at Mick’s favorite restaurant.
Len even picks up some double chocolate caramel tart from their favorite bakery, shrugging it off like they “had extra.” Given that they usually run out an hour after opening and have lines that span a city block, this seems unlikely. And hey – just because it’s a classic omega appeasement technique, buying chocolate, doesn’t mean it doesn’t work. Personally, Mick’s always thought that making demanding tribute in the form of chocolate a female or omega characteristic was the omega female’s joke on the world, since they get double helpings. Fuck masculinity, he’s got chocolate, and if anyone’s got a problem with stereotypes they want to talk to him about, he’ll be happy to take them out back and teach them a lesson with his fists.
Then Len lays out his plan to get their guns back, and they do, and Len makes a deal with the Flash on top of it. They may or may not start a fight with the local Family in the process and Len may or may not declare them the new godfathers of a particular part of Central City.
Then they go home and watch the Godfather, because Mick likes that movie and they can.
Mick’s going around with a grin on his face like the Cheshire Cat, he can’t help it, so maybe Len’s got some reason to hope that his utterly blatant campaign to regain Mick’s favor is going well.
Hartley Rathaway shows up somewhere in the second or third week of this, hiding out from his former boss and coworkers and also the Flash but trucking around some pretty cool sound tech so they let him hang around.
His obvious thing for Len was amusing for maybe the first five minutes, then it rapidly became annoying. He’s an omega, too, and presents fairly traditionally: tilting his head to the side a lot to indicate agreement, leaning into people’s personal space, wearing scent to enhance his natural pheromones, his pale face slightly flushed with exertion in an attractive manner that suggests pre-heat, the sort of nonsense that Mick has long ignored. An omega’s mating plumage, he liked to scoff, and Len would laugh.
They’ve never had to live with someone who used that plumage on Len on a regular basis. Oh, Len was popular enough with just about everyone, female, male, alpha, omega, but outside of the house he saw flirting as just another con. Inside the safehouse, though, he’s relaxed, open, his guard down; usually only Mick sees him like that. Now he has to share that with people like fucking Hartley.
None of the other Rogues have noticed what Hartley’s up to, or at least Mick doesn’t think they have, and even if they did they’d probably think it was a good thing, since Hartley’s pretty hot – even Mick has to agree, assuming you were into that omega twink thing. Which most of society is.
The only reason Mick hasn’t beaten the punk’s face in about it is because watching him chase after Len while Len, oblivious, is chasing after Mick is a hell of an ego boost.
One day Hartley comes straight to Mick, who he usually avoids, and plops himself right down in the couch across from where Mick is tinkering with the engine for one of their cycles that’s been acting up a bit. Not his gun, luckily enough for Hartley.
“Okay,” Hartley says without preamble. “How do you do it?”
Mick slowly arches his eyebrows. He’s never been able to do the supercilious one-eyebrow arch thing that Len can manage, but he can put on a pretty decent ‘what the fuck are you on about’ expression. “Do what?”
“Get Cold on the hook like that! I skipped my pills for a handful of days so I was just on the cusp of pre-heat, and you know how that skips even the most stubborn alpha’s conscious brain and goes straight to their subconscious – ”
Mick hadn’t known that, actually.
“– and I even got him alone, close quarters, just him and me, and do you know what he did?!”
If this little shit is going to say that he made a move on Len and Len responded…
“He asked me if I thought you’d like a new motorcycle or if I thought you’d be too attached to the old one to appreciate it!”
Awww, Lenny.
“What’d you say?” Mick asks, wondering if he should put the urgency of his current project down a notch. If Len’s getting him a new one, he can turn to trying out experiments with this one instead of just fixing it.
Oh, Hartley's glaring at him now. “What?”
“That isn’t the point,” Hartley hisses. “How the hell did you do it? You’re so – and no offense meant –” Oh, Mick’s going to be offended, he just knows it. “– well, you. I’d say he’s into big guys, but he thinks that Loki from that movie is hot.”
Well, yeah. Loki from the Avengers is pretty hot. It’s undeniable.
“So what did you do? What tricks do you use?”
“Are you actually asking me for advice on how to seduce my alpha?” Mick says, somewhat bemused. He’d be angry, but this is too bizarre for him to even contemplate.
“Well, it’s not like you’re getting any use out of him,” Hartley sniffs. “He’s been panting after you like a dog and you haven’t given him so much as an inch; I figure he’s got to be desperate to get some soon.”
Mick wonders in amazement that anyone who’s known Len for more than five minutes, much less lived with him for nearly a month or so, could so deeply and fundamentally misunderstand Len’s character. Len may present any number of typical alpha traits – arrogant, manipulative, egotistical, adrenaline junkies – but he grew up with the sort of alpha that chased a new omega, the sort of man who chased a new woman, the second the old one wasn’t putting out according to his schedule, and Len rejects every lesson his dad ever taught him about anything with a vengeance.
“So what is it that he likes?” Hartley asks. “Give me a hint or something. I’m not planning on keeping him, so you don’t need to worry about that, but he looks like he’d be good in bed.”
“He is,” Mick says, barely resisting rolling his eyes. “Now buzz off.”
“But – ”
“Go away or I’ll light you on fire.”
Hartley goes off in an angry huff. Mick scowls after him. He’d be terrible for Len, even as a temporary partner; where the hell he got the idea that Mick would give him advice on…
Hmmm.
Mick puts down the tools he was using to examine the engine and wanders purposefully down the garage.
Len’s crouching next to a brand new Ducati Multistrata, scowling at some part of it. The bike itself is a beast, colored black and red and somehow Len’s convinced someone to paint actual flames on the side of it, which is gaudy and horrific and Mick loves it already.
Len’s head rises up and turns towards Mick, eyes flickering back and forth between them like he’s wondering if he can reasonably pretend that a bike designed especially for Mick and worth 20k at standard model just magically appeared in their garage, which, no, Len, you really can’t.
“You know, you’re usually real good at picking up on social cues,” Mick says, sticking his thumbs in his suspenders and sauntering closer. He’s watching Len, so he can see when the man swallows, staying crouched down and looking up at Mick. “Not like you to be oblivious.”
“Oblivious?” Len echoes. He’s still pretending he doesn’t know what Mick’s talking about.
“Hartley,” Mick says pointedly, “somehow got the idea that you and I weren’t too attached and he might get some pointers on how to get your attention. Pointers from me.”
Len’s lips curve up involuntarily. “Well,” he drawls, “you have always been able to get my attention, Mick.”
“Uh huh,” Mick says, grinning back. “And sending me a romantic rival to crush underfoot all but wrapped in a bow – Lenny, is all this really easier than just saying you’re sorry for leaving?”
Len looks honestly surprised, because he’s an emotionally dense idiot.
“Was that all you wanted?” he asks, blinking. “Well, in that case…”
Mick has no idea how Len does it, but he manages to eel around from his crouch by the bike until he’s kneeling right in front of Mick, looking up at him with those big blue-hazel eyes and a few smudges of soot on his face, and suddenly Mick’s skin is tingling and something’s gone wrong with his throat.
Len reaches up and grabs Mick’s hands, which have dropped limp by his sides. “Mick,” he says, then pauses. It’s not like Len to not be able to come up with some suave speech on the turn of a dime, but he seems to be at a loss for words – oh, god, he’s trying to be sincere.
He must have really missed Mick.
“Fuck it,” Mick says, and hauls Len up, bends him back over the brand new bike, and kisses the living daylights out of him. Len gives as good as he’s getting, one hand sliding down to grab Mick’s ass, a leg slipping between Mick’s, the other hand pulling Mick down by his suspenders and trying to push them off at the same time.
They break away for a minute, panting, and Len smirks. “So, I’m forgiven?”
“I’m keeping the bike,” Mick says, and drags him upstairs to their room.