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Jeff didn’t often feel like he was in serious danger anymore.
When he was living in the mansion, he had felt that way every time Tony had entered the room. He couldn’t explain why, but it was enough to make him try to run on several occasions before realising it was futile. He had found a lot of comfort in Charlie and his gentle nature, and it was why he had immediately agreed to escape when he found out that Tony was kicking Charlie out for being useless, before he even knew about Tony’s true intentions with him. Jeff still found humour in Tony thinking Charlie had no power when he was most likely one of the most powerful Alpha’s in the world, but that was neither here nor there.
Standing in the garage on the random Wednesday that it was, Jeff had no reason to feel that panicked fear creeping up his spine, but it was all he could think about as he watched the others from where he was stood by a car with his laptop.
He tried hard for a while to make himself believe that it was because he knew someone was possibly going to die soon in one of Babe’s cars, but it was getting harder to pretend the longer the day went on. Trying to focus on his work was becoming a useless effort and when he typed in the wrong thing for the fifth time in a row, he knew he needed to take a minute and get some fresh air.
Jeff closed his laptop and then, making sure no one noticed him leaving, headed out of the garage. Reaching the stone tables, Jeff placed his laptop down before shaking his hands out and jumping up and down a couple times. It shook off enough of the feeling that he was able to think more clearly, and he let out a breath of relief before beginning to pace.
As he thought over the events of the day in hopes to find when the feeling had risen, he thought about all of the people he had spoken to as well and quicker than finding who had set off the feeling, he found the list of those that hadn’t.
Alan was the first on the list of those that he was absolutely sure couldn’t have caused the alarms in his head to be set off. While he was still somewhat wary of the older Alpha, he knew that he could be trusted. Not only had he been kind and welcoming despite Jeff’s prickliness, but he had gone out of his way to apologise to him convince him to return to the garage. The vision he had had of the elder when he had been kissed on the head also made it very clear to Jeff that one day he would be one of, if not the most, important person in his life.
The next to quickly be checked off were North and Sonic. They had come in that day with their usual humour and antics and nothing about them had given Jeff any indication that they would do anything. The same feeling applied to the rest of the pit crew, they having simply greeted him before going onto their usual tasks. He also knew it wasn’t Dean as the young Alpha still had yet to come back after being kicked out by Alan that day, something Jeff knew was bothering Alan.
This left Charlie, Babe and Way as the ones that could have triggered the feeling and Jeff thought hard about it. He knew Charlie couldn’t possibly have set that feeling in him off, knowing and trusting his brother to do everything to keep him safe as he had always done instead of making him feel unsafe. By extension, it made Jeff cross Babe off. The two had come in together and the more Jeff thought on it, the more he could accurately see that Babe was there at the garage for some time before Jeff began to feel so terrified. Charlie being so sure of Babe was also a confirming factor for Jeff as he knew Charlie would have felt something off about him before Jeff ever did.
Which only left Way.
Jeff had no idea what was different today about Way than any other day. He had been around Way many times since starting at the garage and even on the day Way accused him of tampering with Babe’s car, Jeff didn’t feel this horrible fear. He had felt panicked and tense as he always did when an Alpha was in his face like that, especially with such a tone like Way had, but it was nothing like this. Jeff had been in the garage with Way many times since that day and still, he couldn’t think of a single other time that he felt anything other than annoyance at Way’s obvious feelings towards Babe and weariness of him when he seemed to get snarkier with Charlie and more obsessed with trying to make Babe not trust Charlie.
Something about how intense the danger alarms were blaring made Jeff begin to really worry about what Way was planning and he debated whether he should mention this to Charlie. While the Alpha did have a lot on his plate, he couldn’t imagine Charlie ignoring or not listening to his concerns. Jeff had never been wrong about his visions and he was almost as confident that he had never been wrong about his feelings before, as he had really only ever felt this strong of an alarm around his adoptive father.
As he made up his mind, Jeff pulled out his phone to text Charlie to come outside to meet him when someone grabbed his shoulder and jumping slightly, Jeff turned to see a man fully dressed in black with a black mask and a black cap, their pheromones so disgustingly strong he couldn’t be anything other than an Alpha, and a nasty one at that.
The danger alarm in his mind rang so loud that Jeff stopped breathing.
As soon as Jeff registered that something was wrong, a second man fully in black ran up and grabbed Jeff’s other arm in an incredibly painful grip and Jeff acted right on instinct.
As his left arm was still free, Jeff swung it hard at the second man and it gave him just enough leverage to rip his arm out. The first man was quick to grab him around the waist though and Jeff began kicking wildly, hardly noticing that his foot slammed into the second mans face so hard he could hear a crunch.
“Get off!” Jeff growled out as he squirmed, but it made the first guy hold on tighter. As Jeff’s feet hit the ground though, it gave him enough power to slam his head up and get him in the nose and getting released, he dove for his laptop, the only weapon he saw in that moment, and then swung it right as a third man appeared out of nowhere. He got two whacks in before the second, his nose bleeding badly, grabbed him from behind, one arm around his waist and the other around his throat, so Jeff stomped his foot hard on the other and, hearing him yelp in pain, moved his head enough to bite the arm as hard as he could.
“Argh! You fucking bitch!” The man yelled, shoving Jeff away, and Jeff didn’t waste a second more before running right for the garage.
“P’Charlie!” Jeff yelled as he reached the entrance and everyone turned as the first guy raced after Jeff.
“Jeff!” Charlie and Alan yelled at the same time, but even as they, Babe and North ran over, they couldn’t stop the man grabbing Jeff from behind and beginning to drag him back.
“Let me go!” Jeff knew the words had come out of his mouth, but as they came out, his mind got taken over with a vision of the man behind him getting drowned in a pool by Tony. As the images played out, a loud voice in his head told him to grab his attackers arm and running on pure fear and adrenaline, Jeff didn’t question it, grabbing the arm around him so hard his nails broke skin.
He felt weird as the man let go of him and began screaming while trying to rip his arm free, but Jeff only dug in harder, still seeing the vision and the voice still screaming to hold on.
It wasn’t until the man in the vision stopped struggling against the hold vision Tony had on his head that Jeff realised he had seen how this man was going to die. As his eyes came back to seeing the current time, he saw the man, now on his knees in front of him, his back to the others, begging for mercy.
He let go of the man’s arm like it burnt him and fell to the ground, panic completely seeping into his mind at what he had just done.
He couldn’t even dispute it. There was no way to think anything other than what just happened had happened, but how? Jeff had never done it before, had never known he could transfer a vision to someone else, and now he had done it to someone to the point of them begging for mercy.
His mind only panicked more at this in the seconds between letting the man go and crawling back and his ears began ringing as his vision narrowed and black spots appeared. In that short time, both Alan and Charlie came right to his sides and dropped down.
“Jeff, look at me. It’s Charlie.” Jeff could hear Charlie’s voice swim through the panic and looking up to his brother, Jeff tried to speak only for him to choke, unable to get his breathing under control.
“Hey, hey. Jeff, look at me.” Alan’s voice then came and turning his head, Jeff looked right into the Alpha’s eyes.
“That’s good. Now, you need to breathe. Okay, breathe in… and then out. In… and out. And again.” Alan instructed and Jeff tried hard to listen, trying hard to get his breathing under control. It quickly became obvious it wasn’t working though and Alan shuffled on the ground just enough to pull Jeff’s head to his chest, his ear sitting over his head.
Jeff honestly had no clue what words were being said for some time after, but what he did know was that feeling Alan breathe slowly, hearing his heart and the pheromones he gave off made Jeff feel safer than he had felt ever and he let it lull him into a calmer state.
“You back with us?” Alan asked after what felt like an hour, but was likely only a few minutes and when Jeff nodded, the older slowly and gently pulled him back, allowing Jeff time to register the room around him again.
Alan sat on his right with Jeff practically in his lap and Charlie was gripping his left hand and arm tightly, his knees pushing into Jeff’s thigh. Past them, two men in the pit crew had a hold on the first attacker and Babe and North, who was holding Jeff’s laptop, were heading back inside looking stormy. Jeff then saw Way and Sonic standing behind Alan and through the receding panic and exhaustion he felt, the danger alarms began again.
Looking to Charlie and seeing the concern and fear in his eyes, Jeff squeezed their linked hands hard and, even though he should have been too exhausted to use his power, he was met with a vision of Charlie smiling at him despite looking battered and bruised and with a cast on his left arm. It lasted only a second, but it sent an odd wave of calmness through Jeff and his body began to droop.
“Okay. Let’s get him up.” Alan said to Charlie and together, they helped Jeff to stand. As they let him go slowly, Jeff felt himself begin to sway and he didn’t even feel embarrassment when Alan’s arms went around him to hold him up and his head dropped onto his shoulder and neck.
“There were two other guys at least and they ran into a van right as it was taking off.” Babe explained as they reached them and Charlie reached out his free hand, Babe knowing what he wanted and coming over so that Charlie could hold his arm.
“What do we do with him?” Sonic pointed at the alpha in black and the man let out a pathetic cry, looking to Jeff and struggling against the men holding him.
“Please. I-I’ll tell you everything! Let me go a-a-and I’ll te-tell you! But please! Please don’t l-let that happen to me. I beg you! I don’t want Tony to drown me. Please. Please!” The man begged Jeff and Babe sneered at him before stepping in and punching him so hard in the face it knocked him out.
“That shut him up.” North commented and Sonic went to him and smacked his arm once before grabbing it.
“Jeff, what happened there? What did you see?” Charlie asked quietly and Alan frowned, looking at the brothers before looking to Babe who shrugged and back to Charlie’s side.
“Let’s take him to the couch.” Babe suggested, but Jeff shook his head and pulled away from Alan to lean closer to Charlie, keeping his hand gripped over Alan’s forearm.
“P’Charlie, I saw a vision of him dying.” He began to explain and Charlie swallowed, his concern getting stronger as Jeff’s eyes began to look panicked again. “Phi, the vision started and I panicked and then I was in his mind playing it to him. I showed him the vision, P’Charlie.”
The young Omega began to cry at how exhausted, confused and scared he felt and Charlie placed his left hand on his cheek before releasing his pheromones in a direct line to Jeff in hopes to both comfort him and to also mask Jeff’s pheromones, they starting to come out strong, but wrong, his emotions lacing through them.
“Okay. It’s okay, Jeff. We can figure this out later, okay? For now, why don’t we go sit down?” Charlie asked, keeping his voice as level as possible, and Jeff sniffled before slowly turning towards the couch.
As Alan and Charlie led him to the couch, Jeff thought about what he should say to everyone. While they knew he was one of Tony’s adopted kids, he was sure they didn’t know he was an Omega and what his powers were and even though all he wanted right then was to sleep for a year, he knew there would be an issue if he didn't explain what had really happened.
As he had gotten older, he had stopped wanting Charlie to speak for him, but as he settled onto the couch and Alan and Charlie sat either side of him, he felt so much gratitude and relief as Charlie began explaining his ability to see the future and now apparent ability to force people to see how they would meet their end.
He completely tuned out when Charlie began telling the group he was truly an Omega and instead leant more into Alan. The older Alpha still annoyed him, but the safety he had felt while in his arms was something Jeff wanted to keep. Resting his head on Alan’s shoulder and letting him wrap his arm around his back, Jeff felt the exhaustion take hold. He would be embarrassed about this later, there was no doubt about that, but that was for later him to worry about. Right now, soaking in Charlie and Alan’s comfort, he did something he never would do otherwise and let his mind turn off.
Charlie confessing that Jeff was an Omega was the last thing Jeff heard before he was lulled into sleep.