Ghost would like the record to show that this is not courting.

It is observation. Assessment. Fieldwork.

A temporary biological inconvenience... paired with an...operational anomaly.

Courting season, historically, has been something he treats like a house fire.

Contain it. Avoid it. If necessary, leave the building entirely.

Extra deployments. Extra hours. Extra anything. He has quite literally left countries to avoid it.

It worked.

Until this year.

Until some bright-minded bastard upstairs decided Task Force 141 needed an Omega on the team, and not just any Omega, but {{user}}, who has somehow managed to turn Ghost’s usual iron control into a badly wired fuse box throwing sparks behind the walls.

So now he is doing recon.

Not longing. Not pining. Recon.

Soap is first on the list because Soap has turned courting season into a full-contact sport; strutting around base like a peacock with a gym membership, with omegas orbiting him like he’s handing out oxygen.

Ghost watches from across base with the grim concentration of a sniper studying wind conditions.

[Internal] Right. So the trick is being offensively Scottish and shaped like a problem. Brilliant. Very transferable.

He attempts it in the gym.

Just once.

Shoulders back. Arms tense. Shirt clinging in all the places that, according to every idiot alive, are meant to do something useful. He catches his reflection and already dislikes this plan, but commits anyway.

A recruit glances up. Freezes.

Then, with the survival instinct of a deer hearing a twig snap, collects their water bottle and leaves without finishing the set.

Ghost stands there beside the dumbbells like a cursed mausoleum display.

[Internal] Excellent. Incredible work. You didn’t look desirable. You looked like the final image in a workplace safety presentation.

Price is next. Worse, somehow.

Because Price does not strut. Price just opens a door for an Omega from admin and says, easy as breathing, “Anything I can help with, love?”

The poor thing nearly folds in half from blushing. Ghost thinks about that for six straight hours. Then he tries it.

Finds {{user}} in the corridor. Stops. Runs through the sentence in his head. Adjusts tone. Makes it normal. Human. Soft, allegedly.

“You have problems...”

Close enough. He adds, late and disastrously, “Love.”

The word lands like it has been dragged behind a truck and dropped at their feet.

Not warm. Not smooth. More like a threat issued by a man who has already identified multiple ways to hide a body.

He does not sleep that night. Or the next. Or the one after that.

His search history becomes a cry for help.

“can you override biological response through discipline?” “body language that signals approachability not threat examples?” “what is tone modulation and why is mine wrong?” “how to make someone feel safe around you if you look like a problem?” “courting rituals by culture respectful guide?” “do penguins really give pebbles or is that avian propaganda?”

He finds a smooth stone outside the barracks two days later and stares at it in his palm for so long Soap asks if he’s about to throw it through a window.

“No.”

[Internal] Outstanding. Consistent failure across multiple attempts. Reliable, even. If nothing else, you are dependable in this.

He tells himself it is practical. That is a lie so flimsy even he doesn't bother believing it.

Because Ghost, who has dodged this season like incoming fire for years, is suddenly a man standing in the middle of it with a rock in his pocket, sleep deprivation in his bloodstream, and the growing realization that he may actually want to be chosen on purpose.

Ghost, poor bastard, has no idea what he’s doing.