Chapter 1
Chapter 1: Why We Left
The Omega was on his knees before Daryl even understood what he was seeing.
It happened fast—the way these things always did. One moment the man was crossing the street with a paper bag of groceries, shoulders hunched against the cold. The next, an Alpha in a leather jacket had him by the back of the neck, forcing him down onto the wet sidewalk like it was nothing. Like he weighed nothing.
“Check yourself,” the Alpha said, loud enough for the whole block to hear. His friends stood behind him, arms crossed, watching with the lazy satisfaction of men who’d never once in their lives been afraid. “You don’t walk in front of me, Omega. You wait. You yield. You know the rules.”
The Omega’s face was hidden. His scent was not. It flooded the street—sharp, terrified, the pheromone spike of a prey animal that knew it was already caught. A few passersby glanced over. No one stopped. No one even slowed.
Daryl stood frozen at the mouth of an alley, his crossbow a dead weight against his thigh. He could feel his own pulse hammering behind his ribs, could feel something hot and ugly building in his chest. Walk away, he told himself. Keep walking. You’re not—
The Alpha yanked the Omega’s head back by the hair. The grocery bag hit the ground. Apples rolled into the gutter.
“Say it,” the Alpha growled. “Say ‘I yield.’”
The Omega’s lips moved. The sound that came out was barely a whisper, broken in the middle.
Daryl’s hands were shaking. He shoved them into his pockets before anyone could see.
---
Rick found him three blocks away, sitting on the tailgate of the truck with his crossbow across his lap and his eyes fixed on nothing.
He didn’t say anything at first. Just leaned against the tailgate beside Daryl, close enough that their shoulders almost touched, and let the silence sit. That was one of the things Daryl had learned about Rick Grimes—the man knew when to push and when to just be there. It was a skill most Alphas never bothered to learn.
“I saw,” Rick finally said. Quiet. Not gentle—Daryl would’ve hated gentle—but careful. Like he was handling something that might shatter.
“Didn’t do nothin’,” Daryl said. His voice came out rougher than he meant it to. “Just stood there like a—”
“You did what any of us would’ve done.” Rick’s jaw tightened. “What any of us have done. You survived.”
Daryl made a sound low in his throat, not quite agreement, not quite argument. He could still see the apples rolling. The way the Omega’s hands had splayed on the wet concrete, trying to catch himself.
“It’s gettin’ worse,” Rick said. “Every week, something else. Every day, somewhere new. They passed that law in Ohio last month—Omegas can’t eat in restaurants without Alpha accompaniment. And nobody voted against it. Nobody even cared.”
Daryl knew. He knew because he’d been following the news with the same sick fascination as watching a wound fester. The protections peeling away, one by one. The old tolerance giving way to something meaner, something that looked at Omegas and saw only prey.
And underneath it all, the fear that someone would look at him and see the same thing.
“Tony called this morning,” Rick said. “His place up north. He says it’s ready. Solar, stocked, fenced. Off the grid enough that the government forgets it exists.” He paused. “He says we’re all welcome.”
Daryl finally looked at him. “All?”
“Everyone who wants to come. That’s what he said.” Rick’s gaze was steady. “I think he knows it’s time.”
Time. Such a simple word for what it meant. Time to leave the life they’d built, the city Daryl had bled for, the fragile safety of being just another face in the crowd. Time to run.
Daryl’s throat tightened. “You really think there’s a place out there that’s any different?”
Rick was quiet for a long moment. Then he reached out, slow, and let his hand rest on Daryl’s wrist. Not grabbing. Not claiming. Just there. Warm. Solid.
“I think,” Rick said, “that staying here is gonna kill us. Maybe not today. But someday soon.” His thumb brushed over Daryl’s pulse point, where his scent was strongest, where any Alpha paying attention would already know what he was. “And I’m not losing you. Not to them.”
Daryl’s breath caught. He wanted to pull away, to put the walls back up, to remind Rick that he didn’t need protecting. But Rick’s hand was warm, and the night was cold, and somewhere behind them an Omega was probably still kneeling on the sidewalk with apples rolling in the gutter.
“Alright,” he said. His voice cracked on the word, just a little. “Alright.”
---
The meeting was in Tony’s garage, because Tony’s garage was the only place big enough to hold them all.
Daryl stood in the corner, crossbow slung over his shoulder, watching the pack filter in. Sam and Gabriel came together, Sam’s hand resting on the small of Gabriel’s back—a gesture so automatic it looked like breathing. Castiel followed a step behind Dean, who was still trying to hide a limp from a run-in with some Alphas at a gas station three days ago. Cas wasn’t letting it slide; Daryl could see the way his eyes tracked Dean’s every movement.
The Marvel contingent arrived last. Tony swept in with Loki and Strange flanking him like mismatched bodyguards, the tension between the two Alphas crackling like a live wire. Bruce came in behind Thor, quiet, his scent carefully neutral. Steve and Bucky followed, close enough that their shoulders brushed.
Shane was already there, leaning against the workbench with his arms crossed. His eyes found Daryl immediately. Held.
Daryl looked away.
“We all know why we’re here,” Rick said, stepping into the center of the room. His voice was calm, steady—the voice of a man used to being listened to. “We can’t stay in the city. Not anymore.”
“Took you long enough to say it,” Tony muttered, but there was no heat in it. He was fiddling with something in his hands—a piece of tech, maybe, or just something to keep his fingers busy. “The place is ready. I’ve been getting it prepped for months.”
“Months?” Dean’s eyebrows went up. “You knew this was coming?”
Tony’s smile was thin. “I read the news. And I’m not an idiot.” He glanced at Loki, then Strange. “Well. Not a complete idiot.”
“The estate is secure,” Loki said, ignoring the jab with practiced ease. “Remote. Defensible. Howard chose it specifically for its isolation.”
“Howard also thought asbestos was a building material,” Strange muttered.
“The point,” Rick cut in, “is that we have somewhere to go. Somewhere safe. But we need to decide tonight. If we’re doing this, we do it fast. Before anyone starts asking questions we can’t answer.”
The room went quiet. Daryl watched them, cataloging the micro-expressions, the tiny shifts in posture that told him what words wouldn’t. Steve and Bucky exchanged a look—we go where you go. Sam’s hand tightened on Gabriel’s back. Dean’s jaw was set, his chin lifted, the same stubborn defiance he wore like armor.
And Shane. Shane was looking at Rick with something that might have been respect or might have been resentment, the line between them thin as a razor’s edge.
“I’m in,” Dean said. “Whatever this is, I’m in.”
“Same,” Steve said.
One by one, they echoed it. In. In. In. Daryl kept his mouth shut, his arms crossed tight over his chest, because if he opened his mouth he wasn’t sure what would come out. Relief, maybe. Or terror. Or something that sounded too much like hope.
Rick’s gaze found him across the room. Held. Asked.
Daryl nodded once, sharp.
Rick’s shoulders dropped, just a fraction.
---
The convoy pulled out at 2:47 in the morning.
The city was quiet—that strange, hollow quiet that came in the small hours, when even the worst of it seemed to sleep. Daryl sat in the passenger seat of Rick’s truck, his crossbow across his knees, watching the familiar streets slide past the window. The diner where he’d watched the Omega fall. The corner where he’d learned to keep his scent suppressed. The apartment building where he’d spent four years pretending to be something he wasn’t.
Shane was in the backseat. Daryl could feel him there like a pressure at the base of his skull, his presence too large for the space, his eyes too often on the back of Daryl’s neck.
Rick drove with both hands on the wheel, his knuckles white, his gaze fixed on the road ahead.
“You okay?” Rick asked, low enough that Shane might not have heard.
Daryl didn’t answer. He watched the city fall away behind them—the streetlights, the billboards, the familiar shadows—and tried to feel something other than the weight of everything he was leaving behind.
You don’t walk in front of me, Omega. You know the rules.
He thought about the man on his knees. The apples in the gutter. The way no one had stopped.
Rick’s hand found his knee. Brief. Squeezed once. Then back to the wheel.
Daryl let out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding.
Behind them, the convoy stretched out like a spine—Tony’s SUV, Thor’s truck, Steve’s bike, the others scattered between them. Headlights cutting through the dark. Engines rumbling low.
The city shrank to a smear of light in the rearview mirror.
Then the highway swallowed them, and there was nothing ahead but trees and dark and the long road north.
Daryl closed his eyes.
When he opened them again, the city was gone.
---
