Mark Me Yours [Omegaverse]

Courthouse Pt 1

((This is a reupload after technical difficulties since half my punctuation didn't show up in the last version. My sincerest apologies to those who commented on the first version of this chapter, since I had to unpublish it and reupload it as a new chapter. I will remove this comment after a week. Thank you for your patience!))

Mick and Eddie got seated just in time for things to get underway. The setting was almost intimidating, with the room being finished in a dark wood and dark carpet that made things more claustrophobic than warm. The judge's raised pulpit stood as the domineering focal point of the space, with the raised jury box sitting just to its left.

Michael and Ryan made brief eye contact before things got started. Ryan and Scott were seated at the desk reserved for the plaintiffs with their lawyer, while the person representing the defense was someone neither Ryan nor Michael had ever seen before. There wasn't much time to think about that though. The bailiff's voice echoed through the space, giving the command:

"All rise!"

All but Ryan stood as the judge was introduced and took his place at the main podium. He was an older man, with a domineering gaze that spoke volumes on his low tolerance of nonsense. Yellow-white hair, and pressed black robes over a husky build completed the picture of a man who had decided the fates of others for many years. Michael couldn't help but reflexively scoot closer to Edwardo when the judge surveyed the court room.

The case was introduced as "Ryan Neel vs. the Shipping Company" on the grounds of willful negligence, discrimination, and worker's compensation. The opening statement given by Ryan's lawyer cut straight to the point. She directly blamed the management at the shipping company for failing to heed the claims of harassment as the full cause of the incident. She even had proof of every complaint left by both Ryan and Michael, along with statistics of anonymous omegas leaving complaints against the company across the country, and copies of various accident reports filed by the company's other omega employees. By the time she was done, it was clear that Ryan's case was not unique.

Michael kept half an eye on the jury box to judge their reaction to what the lawyer was saying. Most of them looked bored. Michael tried not to blame them for that. He'd heard serving on a jury tended to be dull. Not that he'd ever served on a jury. An omega wasn't allowed to do that. He just wished a few of them looked like they were paying more attention. Maybe this didn't affect them or anyone they cared about, but this was a big deal for Ryan and him, and in a way for all omegas in the city.

The defense had the floor next for their opening statement. Their lawyer, the very picture of some skeevy guy you'd hire off a billboard ad, first made it a very obvious point that this case was a waste of everyone's time. He insinuated that the whole incident, while unfortunate, was being blown out of proportion so an omega could take advantage of worker's comp. He insisted several times that the one at fault in the case wasn't the company itself, but the individuals who perpetrated the attack in the first place.

The guy continued along the same vein for a while, noting the very small percentage of documented fraud committed by omegas to supposedly "milk the system" and making sure to mention the average retention rate for omega employees in general, suggesting that an omega individual was only interested in working until they found an alpha to take care of them, suggesting that omegas were inherently greedy just by being omegas, suggesting that in some cases they already received more support than the average citizen...

Luckily the judge cut him off, warning him to stay on topic. Michael and Scott were both sporting looks that could kill, and their respective partners were doing their best to offer some quiet comfort. From the jury box, while some of the jurors clearly didn't believe a word of the guy's tangent, there were a notable few who had been nodding in agreement.