Archive of Our Own ^beta

He pulls me up, turns to leave the room.
“Kill the lights,” he says over his shoulder. 
And I kill them.
I make it so dark we could be anything,
even more than what we were born into.

“Re-Imagining Masculinity” by Ocean Vuong

“I could be in bed right now,” Katsuki muttered as he dragged his feet in the wake of his classmates. 

This sucked ass. Who the fuck wanted to waste their Saturday night at some nasty ass back-alley house party? Katsuki woke up at four in the goddamn morning, every morning, but for Sunday. Tomorrow was their only day off school and Katsuki didn’t want to spend it hungover and hating his life.

And yet, here he was, already simmering with the sheer spite he felt at being dragged and cajoled into sneaking out for what would inevitably be a shitshow of Katsuki herding his shitty pack back to the dorms. 

“This is peer pressure,” Katsuki said from the back of the crowd, mostly because he knew no one was listening to him. 

“Afraid of having a little fun, cinderbrain?” Shinsou tossed back, because that fucker was always listening. The smirk he threw over his shoulder only rubbed salt in the wound. 

“Who’s afraid?” Katsuki snapped, shoving his hands deeper into the pockets of his jeans. He’d purposely dressed with the least care than everyone else had put in, choosing jeans with tears from thigh to knee, the wallet lines of his back pocket threadbare white, his belt with the silver skull buckle, and a plain black tanktop that had seen better days. When he’d seen the girls and guys putting effort into what would undoubtedly be a trash heap of a party, he decidedly had done the opposite. 

Everyone’s hormones stunk up the air with excitement and Katsuki’s eyes watered with the strength of them, a bad alcoholic mix designed to take out a man at the knees and leave him face-down unconscious if all inhaled at once. 

“This is your boyfriend’s party, right?” Jirou asked, her Beta scent so thankfully mild that Katsuki considered hanging out with her exclusively for the night. She was also the least likely to take mysterious pills or smoke up into oblivion. 

With a dispassionate stare at the backs of Sero, Kirishima, Mina, Denki, and Shinsou—well, Katsuki knew which friend to bet on for stability.

For the first time in Katsuki’s life—that he would admit—he wished Todoroki were here. But that dude was in a bad way with Shinsou and the two barely looked at each other on a good day. Fuckers. 

“He’s not my boyfriend,” Shinsou said, not defensively, just factually. “But he throws a good party. Just. . .hold back who we are. If we crash the party being Heroes, I’ll never get laid again.”

“Someone is bound to recognize us,” Jirou pointed out. “We don’t exactly blend in.”

“There’s people you might recognize too. The rule of thumb at these things is to suspend your knowledge. If you act like you don’t know them, they’ll react in turn. Got it? So, no heroics, my friends. Save it for Aizawa.”

“When’re you gonna stop sucking up to Aizawa and fuck him already,” Mina said, shocking Katsuki to the core because this was new information to him.  

How did he never notice these things? Was he so uninterested in mating and mounting that he was just an idiot? Katsuki hated the thought of being out of the loop for anything. Not because he wanted in on it, but because he loathed to look stupid. 

“It’s not Aizawa I’m looking to fuck. Or. Not realistically.”

“What the fuck is wrong with you people?” Katsuki grimaced and lengthened his stride to catch up, shouldering in between Jirou and Mina, safe. “That dude is like twenty years older than him.”

“Fifteen,” Shinsou said, like that made it any better. “And we can’t all be as repressed as you. I’ve never seen an Alpha so uninterested in sex, Kacchan —” Katsuki hissed at the nickname, but Shinsou barreled forward as always. “Is it a Hero thing? Because I promise you that Heroes fuck. If anything, they fuck more than most because half of them have god complexes and the others are so high on adrenaline that they need to hump it out of their system. Or are you a secret romantic, just waiting for the one —”

“I have standards!” Katsuki screeched, rushing up to stamp on the back of Shinsou’s sneakers, dislodging the Omega’s heel and sending him tripping forward. “Shithead! Standards, ever heard of them? For fuck’s sake, you’ll let any dog stick their dick in you—”

Shinsou rounded on him, feline pupils flickering orange light in the shadowed sidewalk dark, and Katsuki savored a brief moment of victory at pushing the right buttons before Shinsou was chasing him down the street at full speed. 

This abruptly ended the conversation Katsuki hated most, but unfortunately led to the pack of them racing down the empty street laughing like idiots until Shinsou kicked Katsuki square in the back and sent him reeling into a parked car. The security alarm blared and Katsuki hollered a laugh, grabbed Shinsou by the shirt collar, and dragged him hastily away to where the rest retreated. 

Eventually they got far enough away that the lot of them chilled out and dropped into a stroll, shoving jovially at each other and trading insults. Katsuki’s shoulders felt a little looser for the exertion, the edge of his anxiety smoothed out to lopsided smiles and someone’s hand on the back of his neck, casually trading pack scents. 

Everyone seemed content to let the topic drop, thank fuck. If he never had to talk about his preferences, it would be too soon. 

One, because Katsuki had no sexual attraction to speak of, and he already knew it wasn’t. . .normal. Average. Understood. Everyone around him, everyone , seemed to either have a crush, an instinctive attraction, or a significant desire which seemed easily accepted and acknowledged by their peers. Katsuki did not. 

Two, under the umbrella of that, the only exception to Katsuki’s experience, or lack thereof, with his sexuality and sex drive, was completely and utterly surrounded in Shinsou Hitoshi. 

Which was, frankly, hell on earth, because Katsuki just couldn’t get his fucking head around it. They were friends, yeah. Brothers in blood and arms. Poked and prodded and pissed each other off. Katsuki experienced the same with Todoroki, with Kirishima and Mina. 

But sometimes.

Sometimes, when Shinsou would go out with the mystery friends that Katsuki didn’t know anything about, he’d come back to the dorms smelling like something totally at odds with what Katsuki was comfortable. Shinsou was night flowers and sugar and sultry Omega scent. But on those nights, those specific, secret nights, he returned smelling like the sweet spot between spring and summer. Like soft fog mornings and dark, deep forest lakes and green.  

The fragrance triggered aching teeth in Katsuki’s mouth and an answering howl of heat bearing down between his legs like he’d never experienced before or since or ever again unless it was Shinsou. 

And that was fucking trouble. Katsuki didn’t understand what happened to the Omega on those nights, but he’d learned a long time ago to give him a wide berth lest those unwelcome feelings return. 

Katsuki wouldn’t touch Shinsou Hitoshi with a ten foot pole and that was the end of that.

Really.

“Everybody be cool,” Shinsou said as they arrived at the warehouse in the industrial district. Katsuki screwed up his face and kept close to Mina, comforted by his fellow Alpha as they filed into a building with a guard at the door that took one look at Shinsou and let them through. 

Upon entering, Katsuki instantly scowled and anticipated his face would be stuck like this for the rest of the damn night. 

The vast, cavernous warehouse was loud. Loud and fucking rank with the stink of several dozen bodies, mostly Beta with an acrid addition of sweaty, testosterone-bloated Alphas and some sickly sweet Omegas. Katsuki hated everything about this and, for once, allowed himself to be led toward the makeshift bar with the rest of the gawking crew. 

The bar consisted of a steel table that was screwed to the floor from whatever this place used to be, and several crates of alcohol behind two dudes—crates that looked obviously stolen since they were just pulling bottles out of the brand name delivery boxes. 

Katsuki would have said something about the entire mockery their presence made for Heroes as a whole, but some familiar looking sleazebag in a long, sweeping coat entirely inappropriate for summer approached Shinsou’s side and said something in Shinsou’s ear. The guy wore a black flu mask, but even in the poor lighting up the warehouse, his eyes were some unnervingly clear, piercing color that cut straight to Katsuki and narrowed. 

Katsuki flicked the guy off and accepted the drink Mina shoved into his free hand, accompanied with a smacking kiss to his cheek. 

“Don’t cause trouble,” she murmured in his ear. “It’s just one night. Be a little bad, blondie.”

“Whatever,” Katsuki muttered. Despite the knowledge that this drink would absolutely fuck him up more than it did most people, he slung it back and swallowed without taking a breath and hissed past the burn. “Gimme that,” he said to Jirou, stealing her drink and ignoring her colorful curse as he stalked away, looking for an empty swatch of wall to stand and sulk for the night. 

“Be a little bad,” he muttered as he shoved between some assholes dancing to the bass-heavy thunder of music coming from multiple directions. Someone had installed lights, rainbow ones, and Katsuki wanted to commit a murder. He downed the second drink even though it made him want to gag, and shoved the empty in the hands of a stranger as he marched his way across the warehouse. “I’ll be fuckin’ bad.”

He paused.

Katsuki didn’t know why he noticed. Maybe because he was conditioned to stake out a room, to categorize everyone in his vicinity into safe and suspicious, but a pair along the edge of the wall caught his eye. 

They were in each other’s faces, the taller, darker of the two grinning while the smaller, almost undoubtedly an Omega by his stature, jammed a finger in the guy’s chest and ran his mouth a mile a minute. 

When the guy in the trench coat didn’t seem to do anything other than smile in a way that had even Katsuki wanting to throw a punch, the Omega mouthed something that looked distinctly like FUCK YOU ASSHOLE and turned on his heel, storming away. 

Directly toward Katsuki. 

With a frown, Katsuki assessed the guy who’d just been abandoned, and as he turned to watch the Omega go, his face emerged from shadow and Katsuki’s entire stomach dropped. 

Dabi? Dabi. What the fuck. 

Katsuki started forward, teeth grinding back to his aching jaw. Murderer. Criminal. League of Villains. All of it hurled into sickening clarity as he shoved through the heaving crowd of ravers. 

“Oh no you don’t,” Shinsou yelled into his ear over the din of music, and when hand around Katsuki’s wrist wasn’t enough, Shinsou fumbled between the dancers to step in front of Katsuki’s warpath. His eyes held no customary humor, nor did he flinch when Katsuki snarled in his face, his scent flaring out like a smoke bomb, causing alarm from the nearest dancers. “Bakugou!”

“You knew he’d be here?” Katsuki sneered, bumping his chest against Shinsou’s knocking the taller of them back. Katsuki may still have been shorter than Shinsou, but he had muscle weight on him and didn’t hesitate to hurl it at him. “What the fuck is wrong with you? Dabi? Dabi? He’s right in front of us! We could take him in now!”

“And what?” Shinsou hissed, leaning in, fingers tight in the chest of Katsuki’s shirt. “What happens then? We take down the entire warehouse? This place is riddled with criminals, Bakugou. And as much as you’d like to think so, we can’t take them all down.”

“Let me go!” Katsuki roared, seething and seeping fury from every pore. “You think I care how many I gotta take on? I’ll take them all. Do you know who I am? I’m worth ten of you.”

“This isn’t a pissing contest, you self important piece of shit,” Shinsou fired back, going head to head with him in full, his Omega scent rearing up and going sour, bitter poison. “What would we tell everyone about getting here? How would it look if you were found here? How detrimental would it be for all of us to be found here?”

“So what are you doing here!” Katsuki screamed in his face, pushing off with both hands, sending Shinsou stumbling back into the crowd. 

“No one looks at me like I’m the fucking scourge of humanity!” Shinsou barreled toward him, shoving at him and snarling when Katsuki remained a brick wall, immobile and infuriated. “No one sneers at me or sniffs at me like I’m prey. No one acts like I’m a silly, stupid Omega playing pretend at Heroes. No one goes easy on me and no one bullies me, because no one cares who I am here.”

Katsuki gaped, totally unable to fathom the bullshit coming out of Shinsou’s mouth, but Shinsou kept going, his eyes gone so dark that his reflective feline pupils looked just shy of demon fire. 

“But you wouldn’t know a thing about that, would you, Ground Zero? The big bad hero of the future has no worries about being bullied or unloved or looked down on. The world is bright and you’re so blinded you can’t even begin to see what goes around beyond your little solar sphere.”

“Blind?” Katsuki scoffed, then couldn’t help but laugh in the face of Shinsou’s tantrum. He took a step back and rolled his eyes. “You’re so self-important that—”

The punch came from left field, literally, the entire side of Katsuki’s face bursting with a pain that soundly cracked and echoed in Katsuki’s skull before he whirled on the surprise assailant, his arm thrown back to return the attack.

Shinsou’s hand closed around Katsuki’s fist and—

The fragrance hit first. 

Wet.  

Katsuki’s arm dropped like a lead weight, his jaw slackening, lips parting to inhale the summer-damp scent. Dazed and unable to register the muffle of furious voices around him, Katsuki shoved Shinsou aside like a fly and started forward, drinking down the damp earth and deep forest scent standing right in front of him, calling him like a lithe, soft thing lurking in a lake, urging him to take a sip and sink in. 

“Who the fuck’re you?” The voice snapped Katsuki out of the swelling, luscious ache that flooded from his cock and through his thighs, warmed his belly, tingled along his fingers. 

Katsuki blinked, focused in on a livid face, and felt his entire world tilt with wild, drunken abandon.

A riot of dark hair, impossible to discern the color in the rave lights, curled into expressively angry eyes. Someone had drawn small stars in black pen across the bridge of his short nose and apple cheeks, and his shapely mouth was twisted up in a scowl that bared unusually long canines for the Omega scent spilling off his skin in sultry, night forest waves. 

The Omega’s black and red plaid pants clung to every curve of his stocky legs, down to a pair of busted black boots on high platforms that had to make this guy more than half a foot shorter than Katsuki. His black tee was ripped across the stomach and Katsuki couldn’t tell if this was on purpose or not, but the band printed across it made Katsuki realize the shirt was actually Shinsou’s, and it definitely hadn’t been ripped when he’d last worn it. 

All of this was soaked up in a dazed second or two, but it was all Katsuki needed for his knees to go weak and his blood to roar with a beast he’d only glimpsed in the dark recesses behind his ribs. 

Omega, it growled. My Omega. 

“Hi,” Katsuki breathed out.

“Hi?” snapped the Omega attached to the scent that was currently drowning Katsuki’s heart with no room to breathe but for that lush fragrance. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

“Me?” Katsuki shot back, his mouth firing off his hair trigger temper. “I didn’t—”

“Oh my god,” the guy said, those dark eyes widening and oh, he was pretty, but not pretty like a girl, not with that jawline and strong set of expressive eyebrows. But he wasn’t looking at Katsuki anymore, which, what the fuck —instead he locked huge eyes with Shinsou, who’d apparently been here the entire time. “Oh my god. That’s Bakugou Katsuki.”

That wide gaze set on Katsuki again and his blood immediately spiked with the eye contact. 

“You’re Bakugou Katsuki. You’re Ground Z—I mean, Shinsou, what the fuck are you doing bringing—” The guy lowered his voice, but Katsuki was watching that mouth enough to see his moniker whispered at Shinsou with a pleading expression. 

Shinsou frowned down at his—friend?—then the expression sharpened to something less friendly as he eyed Katsuki. 

“I have no idea,” Shinsou said flatly. 

“Don’t hold a fucking grudge now ,” Katsuki snapped. “I’ve said way worse to you.”

“This is a very abusive relationship, I hope you know that,” Shinsou said blandly, but the tightness in his features mellowed. “Anyway. Bakugou, this is my friend Izuku. Izuku, this is, yes, him. Don’t fanboy, okay? He doesn’t deserve it.”

“Why were you two fighting?” This was directed at Katsuki specifically, because Katsuki had yet to rip his eyes from the Omega standing before him with scarred hands still fisted like he was actually going to start shit with Ground Zero himself. 

“Your name is Izuku?” Katsuki said, his muscles straining not to shatter the meager distance between them so he could just—just—he didn’t even know what. He didn’t know what was happening. 

“Why were you fighting?” Izuku repeated, the jut of his stubborn chin tilting, as if that would make him more formidable.

There was something about the eyes, though. Something in the nice, square punch with which he’d caught Katsuki off guard. 

“We were fighting,” Katsuki began, slumping forward into Izuku’s space, nostrils flaring as he ducked his head and grazed the tip of his nose across Izuku’s cheek, inhaling a heady cloud of that maddening, mouthwatering scent. He breathed out against Izuku’s face and felt Izuku’s shaky exhale of reply. “We were fighting because I spotted that shit stain you were arguing with across the room. Who’s that trash t’you?”

“Bakugou,” Shinsou said, voice steely as a firm hand clamped down on his shoulder and yanked. “What do you think you’re do—”

“That trash—” Izuku said, voice remarkably steady as he pulled back enough for their eyes to lock. Katsuki would’ve sworn to the grave that the spark of recognition between them, the flint to stone scent of their proximity mingling into forest fire—all of it, Katsuki could swear he saw it all reciprocated in Izuku’s expression. The beast behind the cage of Katsuki’s ribs howled again. “—was my boyfriend.”

Katsuki’s heart lurched.

“What?” he ground out, his lips peeling back to bare his teeth, the back of his tongue salivating for a fight or, or what —a fuck? A new pulse had begun between his legs, lush and blooming through his blood, soaking into his skin, sudden and seductive and so entirely out of his depth. “Him?”

“As absolutely bizarre and unexpected as this is,” Shinsou said, his fingertips digging into Katsuki’s shoulder without mercy now. “I’m gonna have to break this up. I smell trouble and it’s both of you. I don’t know what I was thinking. Izuku, I’m sorry about him—”

“I said he was,” Izuku interrupted, stepping into Katsuki’s space because Shinsou had started to drag him back. But Izuku was pursuing now, and Katsuki felt like a dumb dog, mouth hanging open like in the cartoons, his mouth flooding with the fragrance of Izuku that was quickly growing hothouse green and tropical, dripping. Katsuki barely registered Shinsou sputtering beside them as Izuku reached up and gave Katsuki’s aching, just-punched cheek a light, chummy slap-slap. “He was my boyfriend. Just broke up with him now. But we break up all the time. I’ll probably get back with him next week. What d’you think about that, Mr Zero? You ever fuck a villain? It’s a lot more fun than you might think. They never hold back.”

Unbidden and unwelcome, a flash bomb image of Izuku face down, on his knees, offering himself up with fingers spreading that lush heat open for someone as revolting as Dabi had Katsuki baring his teeth in Izuku’s face and panting hard. Izuku didn’t even blink in the wake of it, just stood perfectly still, smiling as Shinsou made a surprising sound of genuine distress and placed a hand on Izuku’s shoulder. 

Katsuki didn’t realize Shinsou’s slim wrist was clamped in Katsuki’s fist until Shinsou’s cry of surprise snapped him out of it. He released Shinsou as if burnt, still breathing hard as he struggled to tear his gaze away from Izuku to check if Shinsou was alright. 

Shinsou was not alright. He looked just shy of murder.

“Idiots,” Shinsou hissed, leaning in, shoving his face in between the bizarre standoff. “Both of you. What the hell is going on here? Bakugou, you of all people—”

“He started it,” Izuku said, shrugging as he took a step back and folded his arms across his chest. His t-shirt rode up with the action, baring the soft, pale flat of his lower belly and some violent, carnal instinct ached in Katsuki’s teeth to rub his throat all over the exposed flesh.

MARK OMEGA MATE OMEGA MINE MINE MINE, howled the new creature unfurling behind Katsuki’s ribs. 

Confusion and lust barged through Katsuki’s blood and bones, entirely unfamiliar and unexpected, a siege of his senses, his sanity. He was rock hard in his pants and didn’t understand why. 

As if coming up from some dark, unclear depths, Katsuki inhaled deep of Izuku’s hothouse scent and realized that Izuku and Shinsou were trading blows with words, sharp and pointed. Under the boom and bass of dance music, Izuku’s murmurs sounded more sulky and sullen as he turned his back to Katsuki and let Shinsou lead him away with a hand at the small of his back. 

“Wait!” Katsuki ran after them, shoving through dancers, sending one toppling into another as he tripped up beside Izuku, keeping close on instinct, their shoulders and sides and arms rubbing up against each other as Katsuki kept in step. “You’re Shinsou’s friend? Seriously?”

“I do have other friends,” Shinsou shot back, aiming a pointed glare over Izuku’s curly head. The feline glaze to his eyes eerily flickered in the shadow and flare of the party lights. “Izuku is my best friend.”

“What?” Katsuki squawked, too shocked to rein in the surprise. “This guy?”

“This guy,” Izuku snapped, turning and then looking up to squarely meet Katsuki’s gaze without a sliver of fear, “will happily kick your ass for talking about me like I’m not here, big damn Hero or not. Just try me, Mr Zero.”

“I’ll try you, Omega,” Katsuki found himself saying, like his mouth and cock had made a deal without inviting his head to the meeting. “I don’t hold back either.”

Something flickered in Izuku’s expression, but Katsuki had never been in a situation like this and didn’t know how to read him. Izuku’s smell was overwhelming him, clogging his ability to think clearly, a dense, wet fog soaking into Katsuki’s skin, his lungs. He inhaled deep, trying to breathe, and instead found his mouth filling with spit, his teeth aching down to the gums. 

Then Izuku smiled, and it wasn’t kind, but it was still devastatingly pretty and pointed. A dimple in his right cheek just barely winked, then went out. 

“Call me Omega again and we’re going to have a problem, Mr Zero. I’ve got a name and my gender is not who I am, you outdated, self-inflated fuck.”

With that, Izuku turned his back to Katsuki again and swept past Shinsou too, disappearing into the crowd and through a back door that led to fuck-knew-where in this damn building. Katsuki’s entire body physically trembled at the separation, his feet pulsing with the pain of not following, but all Katsuki could do was gawk in the wake of Midoriya Izuku. 

“Wow,” Shinsou said, sidling up beside Katsuki and bumping his shoulder companionably. “I’ve never actually seen you fuck up a social interaction as badly as you did this. And that’s saying a lot.”

“Shut your smartass mouth,” Katsuki mumbled, his heart not in it for how it had already been carried away by the Omega he could no longer see  but could smell like a wet haven in the searing desert. His blood was churning with something new and hot and hungry and he didn’t know how to contain it or what to do with it. He was used to anger and rage, to determination and grit, even jealousy—none of these were this. 

“Bakugou,” Shinsou murmured, edging a step away as his shoulders slumped a little, his posture somehow off for the ever-confident asshole. His eyes briefly met Katsuki’s and dropped. “Can you do something about that stink of yours? It’s—” Shinsou looked away when Katsuki turned to try and meet his gaze again. “It’s a lot.”

Katsuki frowned and inhaled deep, his mind settling in to focus on his own scent. It was broad and powerful, exuding a radius of energy and emotion around him that he didn’t recognize from his personal fragrance. 

“A lot of what?” he asked.

“Horny?” Shinsou looked sour and pissed off as he took another step away. “Horny aggression? I don’t know, it’s very fucking Alpha, okay? It’s not—you’re never like this, so I don’t exactly know.”

Katsuki often forgot that Shinsou was an Omega. Not because he couldn’t smell the guy, all seductive night flowers and zingy lemongrass, but because Shinsou was pack to him and didn’t treat Katsuki like an Alpha to be feared—despite the fact that, in the beginning, Katsuki had put a hell of a lot of effort into convincing  Shinsou that he should be feared. 

But Shinsou was Omega now, and uncomfortable with the Alpha hormones sizzling from Katsuki’s skin. Hell, Katsuki was a little uncomfortable with it himself. 

With a grunt and short nod of understanding, Katsuki muttered an excuse and slipped off into the crowd. There were even more people than when they’d first entered and, as Katsuki unlatched interested arms from around his waist and neck, glaring at those who dared attempt to reel him in with interested Omega scents, Katsuki fumbled his way to the back door where Izuku had disappeared. 

Because there was only one scent that called to him, like a far away wolf in the distance, forest and fog scent that had Katsuki’s mouth flooding and thirsty. He felt pulled, as if by Quirk or leash, towing the line of that Omega’s scent. 

There was something familiar there, like a dream long-forgotten by the time of waking. 

Katsuki opened the door without a second thought and followed through. 

Izuku stood at the far end of a derelict, gutted little office room furnished with a bare mattress, leaning in an open doorway with the black of night framing his figure. He looked over sharply, dark eyes wide, twin streaks of smoke bursting from his nostrils, a cigarette held near his mouth in the vee of his fingers. 

“That shit’ll kill you,” Katsuki said, and closed the door behind him.

Izuku coughed a sudden, surprised laugh, a small puff of gray smoke from those soft lips. His shoulders moved with it, like he meant it and wasn’t laughing at Katsuki. 

“I wouldn’t worry about me,” was all Izuku said as he considered his cigarette for a moment, then flicked the flying spark into the back alley, swallowed by darkness. He didn’t move closer, though, just turned fully and folded his arms across his chest, one shoulder against the doorframe. “You lost, Zero?”

“It’s Bakugou,” Katsuki said, even though his mouth automatically wanted to give his first name instead. 

There was that smile; that cute, tempting little dimple again. 

“I prefer Zero,” Izuku replied, unmoving. 

When Izuku inhaled sharply and took a quick step in retreat, nearly stepping out the back door, Katsuki realized he’d begun to stalk forward with the intent to—

To what? 

Katsuki abruptly stopped and blinked at Izuku, trying to take stock of the riotous desire wracking through his system.

“Izuku,” Katsuki grit out, unsure of his voice or why it sounded so very low. “You feel it, right?”

The wariness in Izuku’s expression dropped as he cocked his head, his eyebrows knitting as he watched Katsuki stand there like a fool and struggle. 

“What?” he asked with an incredulous laugh. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Katsuki’s feet carried him quick and without permission, closing in on a wide-eyed Izuku. His fist punched against the wall beside Izuku’s head as he leaned in, teeth bared, nose burying in the crook of Izuku’s neck and ohfuckfuckfuck, came the flood—

Green, lush, mouthwatering. A flash of a small hand held in his, the vibrant flare of forest curls in the sun, a tent and a spray of gold stars. Comfort, warmth, a hothouse haven. A familiar laugh so far away, a friend, a banked fire roaring into a forest alight in flames. 

Izuku’s throaty moan brought Katsuki back like a lightning strike, but his hands were already on Izuku’s body, a palm at the small of his back, another riding up and under his shirt, fingertips bruising between the curves of delicate ribs. The sound of Izuku’s heartbeat was a thunder and his scent the sopping rain, breathless and desperate as Katsuki mouthed at his throat. 

“Sure about this?” Izuku gasped out as Katsuki thrust his entire body against the Omega’s, shoving him against the unforgiving ridge of the doorframe. Cool air swept in over their bodies but Katsuki was boiling over, caught in the fury of instinct and desire and—

This one is mine, roared the Alpha inside. 

“Yes,” Katsuki rasped into Izuku's ear and felt the entire length of that sweet, strong little body shudder against him in reply. 

“Stupid Alpha,” was all Izuku wheezed out as he turned his head, took Katsuki’s face in his hands, and kissed him hard. 

Izuku’s mouth was like a sauna and his body a furnace, but Katsuki had always been at home in the flames. All he wanted to do was bury inside like a welcome. 

They dragged each other toward the shoddy mattress, Katsuki’s disgust entirely to the wayside as he whipped off his shirt and tore at Izuku’s, the both of them working each other’s pants with fumbling fingers and dropping unceremoniously to the floor. 

The parts of Katsuki, so dormant and ignored, a hibernating beast with eyes crusted shut for a lifetime; all those dark, sharp, hungry parts of him began to unfold. Sinew cracked and lengthened as Katsuki loomed over Izuku’s body, a knee planting between his Omega’s welcoming thighs. Katsuki could swear his teeth lengthened and ached in his jaw, his nails extending as he dug them into the barren mattress, and yet as he swiped his tongue across his canines he found them the same, and his nails didn’t gouge holes in the barren mattress. 

But Izuku was below him, writhing his hips up against Katsuki’s in new, utterly enchanting ways, all the while smiling at Katsuki with succulent, pink lips and I Dare You eyes, and Katsuki felt more like a monster than he ever had. 

The ravenous urge to rip into Izuku’s throat, sink his teeth into that succulent fuck-me scent, and swallow down that which rushed through their connection was savage, consuming. Katsuki kissed Izuku instead and wondered just who the hell this guy was to dare drag him down into blood and base instincts. 

He wanted to hear Izuku call his name more than he wanted an explanation though. 

“First time,” Izuku murmured into Katsuki’s throat, his hands confident and controlling as they dragged down Katsuki’s sides, kneaded his hips, and slid up his chest to smooth his thumbs across Katsuki’s nipples. He’d never been touched there before and softly yelped at the touch, immediately followed by a snarl as his cheeks heated at both his reaction and Izuku’s inquiry. 

“So?” Katsuki snapped, meeting Izuku’s eyes as he shoved a leg between those powerful thighs and watched color bloom in Izuku’s freckled apple cheeks. “It ain’t that hard to figure out.”

“Well, something about it is hard anyway,” Izuku said, grinning up at him without a shred of self-consciousness. Without breaking eye contact, he wedged a hand between them and gripped the rock hard length of Katsuki’s cock through his boxers, squeezing and kneading with an uncaring kind of abandon that instantly burned through any trepidation Katsuki had been feeling. 

Thoughtlessly, Katsuki palmed up the back of one of Izuku’s thick, luscious, distracting thighs and hooked his hand behind the sweaty knee, using it to part Izuku’s legs and hold him in place as Katsuki mindlessly rut against Izuku’s hand and the bulge in Izuku’s own underwear. The succulent scent of slick spilled out between them, heady and heavy with musky sex and jungle heat. Katsuki groaned and dropped his damp brow to Izuku’s, grinding their skulls against each other as Izuku softly panted and rolled his hips in return. 

“This—ah—” Izuku gasped as Katsuki used his free hand to drag down Izuku’s boxers, but the head of his cock caught on the swollen crown of it, and both of their hands brushed as they struggled to rid him from the final scrap of clothing. “This isn’t, hmmmyeah, get your fingers in there, big boy—what was I, fuck—this isn’t an ideal f-first time, y’know,—ah!”

Katsuki felt like he’d been fingering the soft, wet clench of this person for a lifetime already, the way it felt so easy, two fingers sliding inside, coated in hot slick, easy, so easy as Katsuki surprised himself by huffing a breathless laugh into Izuku’s fragrant throat. 

“Never been interested,” Katsuki rasped, reveling in the way Izuku had his legs wrapped high up Katsuki’s back, trembling and sweating, glowing with that tsunami scent. “Never smelled anything like you. Anyone like you.”

“O-oh.” Izuku gasped, tilted his chin to further bare his throat as the sopping sound of Katsuki’s fingers increased, three of them stretching him beautifully, easily, open and waiting for Katsuki’s throbbing cock. “That’s—Zero’s got pretty words, huh, ahhh, move your fingers just like—yeah! Yeah, yes, yes, fuck yes.”

Katsuki snarled. Didn’t mean to, didn’t even realize he’d done it until Izuku shuddered beneath him, a high, appeasing Omega whine sounding in humid air, strong arms wrapping around Katsuki’s shoulders as Izuku clung to him and keened again, hips rolling up to meet the slippery slap of Katsuki’s fingers stuffing him full. 

Katsuki had never had an Omega on the other end of him, never wanted to, never even considered it, but now, as he pulled back and up, away from Izuku’s reaching arms and needy whines— now, as he panted harder than he did during a fight, each breath coating his tongue and lungs with hothouse scent—as he stroked his hands up the inside of Izuku’s thighs and noticed two curious red circular scars, still raw and healing, before he lined his cock up and eased the wide, leaking crown past that tight, twitching hole—

Katsuki had gone without an Omega for eighteen years and now he couldn’t imagine a moment of his life without one. 

Without this one. 

Izuku wailed, arms flung up to cling and dig into the bare, merciless mattress as Katsuki released a shaky groan and watched his cock feed in, sucked in by the hungry clench and quiver of that pink, swollen hole. As he seated himself deeper, a peace settled under his skin like he’d never known, a bone deep clarity as he took in the soft musculature of Izuku’s shivering stomach, the pale, freckled expanse of his heaving chest, the flex of his shoulders and arms, the cut of his handsome jaw and the bitten blush of his swollen lips, up to the hooded, dark gaze of those fearless eyes watching him the entire way through. 

“Pretty,” Katsuki murmured, overcome as he began to move, and whatever Izuku’s mouth had moved to say was swallowed and released in a low moan. 

And Izuku writhed for him. His stocky body moved to meet Katsuki’s languid thrusts, Katsuki’s hands clawed into the meat of Izuku’s thighs as he watched his petite Omega take his big Alpha cock so well, so hungry, their eyes locking, their breaths coming in time as Katsuki urged them to a faster pace, the beast in him howling and rattling at his ribs to tear into Izuku’s neck and ravage him, claim him, keep him. 

“Oh fuck,” Izuku breathed out, eyes widening, his pupils flared as he squirmed against the hands that held him viciously still and in place as Katsuki railed into him. “Oh fuck, fuck, I—holy—Zero, c’mere, c—come here, I gotta, I need you, I—hnnng—”

And, because Katsuki found he could do nothing but obey, Katsuki released his hold and dropped his weight atop Izuku’s body, allowing their bodies to meet from shoulder to stomach to tangled legs and the way Izuku dug his heel into Katsuki’s asscheek to urge him on at this new angle. The sloppy, obscene sound of their fucking, the bright red dig of each blunt fingernail cutting into Katsuki’s back, the hitch of Izuku’s breath and the filth he murmured to Katsuki as they fucked, all sent him over the edge before he could will himself to hold on for more. 

Katsuki came with his mouth latched onto Izuku’s throat, sucked a bruise into the raised, glistening gland that seeped a dizzying, drowning scent, his tongue lapping over it as his teeth bit down but not enough to break skin. Izuku froze, cried, and arched violently against him, the tremor of his orgasm echoing through Katsuki like a bomb, trembling waves of release from him as they clung to each other and shook through it as one. 

Nothing, nothing felt like this, was all Katsuki could think as he collapsed directly atop his Omega, his mouth and chin a mess with the slick of Izuku’s pulsing gland. Izuku was breathing hard beneath him, hands gone limp and outstretched on the bed, his legs much the same, splayed out. Katsuki inhaled deep of him, basking in that sunshine from the rain scent and shifted his hips, his half-hard cock still inside the dark, wet heat that continued to call to his senses like a siren. Izuku whimpered, his thighs twitching as he turned his head to mouth at Katsuki’s ear, his cheek, whatever he seemed able to reach. 

“Well,” Izuku murmured with a voice much lower than the melodic lilt Katsuki knew from their brief conversation, “this wasn’t how I planned the night to go, but beggars can’t be choosers.”

Katsuki grunted, but didn’t move, basking in this body, this fragrance, this new peace, and the strange shift in his brain which suddenly made room for the idea of an Omega in his narrow world. 

“You sayin’ I’m no better than a handout?” Katsuki muttered, his throat rough from whatever noises he hadn’t realized he’d been making earlier. 

The easy laugh returned and Katsuki found his lips curving in reply, despite himself. 

“Nah.” Izuku shifted and, to Katsuki’s dismay, shoved him off until Katsuki relinquished and rolled. Izuku sat up and sent him a sunny smile. “If anything, someone like you shouldn’t be seen with the likes of me.”

Katsuki sat up sharply, glaring as he watched Izuku turn his back and gather his clothes. While it was true that he was very important and it would be an honor for anyone to be seen with him, because it was him, after all, for Izuku to say it so easily was. . .it didn’t feel right. 

He also didn’t know how he could voice his disagreement without looking like a fucking idiot. They’d barely exchanged words, and none of them friendly. In fact—

“So then why did you go along with this?” Katsuki asked, turning away to put on his own clothes. 

Izuku’s little sound of amusement did not go unnoticed. 

“Dunno. Something about you, I guess. I certainly made it an easy decision, anyway. Didn’t think a big ol’ Hero like you would end up here—”

“Shinsou goes here,” Katsuki said, turning around as he pulled on his shirt to find Izuku already clothed and caught in the act of checking out Katsuki’s back with a blush on his cheeks. Izuku darted his gaze away, then back, then smiled again, like that was his default or something. 

“Shinsou gets it,” Izuku replied. “What it’s like to be us.”

“Us?” Katsuki looked around the dingy room, now unsure how to move forward from this. How to get Izuku’s number. How to get confirmation that Izuku had felt it too.  

“Losers,” Izuku said simply with a short shrug. He approached before Katsuki could even fathom a reply to something so untrue, and slung his arms loosely around Katsuki’s shoulders. He grinned, crooked and charming, the just-fucked scent of him watering Katsuki’s mouth as he leaned in and murmured, “This was fun. Unexpected, but fun. You’re kind of an asshole, but I like that in a man.”

Katsuki screwed up his face but didn’t have the strength to break their connection, this casual touch. 

“Right, whatever,” Katsuki bit off. His hands found Izuku’s hips, one traitorous thumb sneaking beneath his shirt to stroke Izuku’s soft skin. He watched Izuku’s pupils dilate, heard his breath hitch. Swallowing, Katsuki leaned in, dropped his voice because he couldn’t bear to say something so personal, so loudly. “But you smell it right? This—this thing. Between us. It’s fuckin’ weird, right? It’s definitely not—not normal.”

The friendly, flirty expression dropped from Izuku’s face like a stone as he took a step back, distrust writ across his tight, paling features. 

“I don’t know what you mean.” Izuku looked angry. “I don’t smell anything.”

Katsuki barked a harsh laugh, because that he could not believe. The chemistry of their scents was practically a goddamn forest fire. 

“Don’t be delusional,” Katsuki replied with a smirk. “You had to have smelled it from the second we met. You, me, we’re—”

“I don’t smell anything,” Izuku said flatly, “because I can’t smell anything. I can’t scent you.”

Katsuki stared. Snorted a laugh again and waved him off as he started forward, fully prepared to bully Izuku into scenting them properly, get it through his head the right way. 

“Right, okay. Can’t happen, but okay. You wanna play hard to get or something, because I don’t chase people. Never have, never—”

“Well, that’s good news,” Izuku snapped, shoving past him and toward the door. “Because I don’t want a dog like you on my heels. Ever.”

Izuku yanked open the door to the warehouse and a barrage of music and rainbow lighting flooded into the haven that still stank of their sex. Those big, expressive eyes turned on him, reproachful and, to Katsuki’s frozen horror, wet. 

“Find yourself some other loser Omega to fuck next time, Mr Zero. Because I’ll never be desperate or stupid enough to stoop down to your level again.”

The door slammed in the wake of Izuku’s fury and Katsuki was only left with the shock of rejection and the crushed realization that the one Omega who smelled like home might not smell a damn thing off him in return. 

“Shit,” Katsuki said to the bare mattress and the empty, crushed beer cans. He pressed his palms to his eyes as the room spun, his body in a riot. He dropped his hands with a roar and kicked at the door with the full heft of his fury. “Shit!”

The door shattered on its hinges and collapsed outward, into the warehouse, leaving a mass of partiers turning to gawk at him in the broken doorway. 

“FUCK OFF,” Katsuki snarled, storming forward and into the crowd. “I’m outta this here.”

Katsuki kept to the edges of the warehouse where people stood and drank and smoked, rather than the center where the dancing overflowed. He’d nearly reached the door when a hand caught him on the shoulder. Katsuki whirled, fist first, and nicked Shinsou across the jaw. 

“Bakugou!” Shinsou said instead of a swear, though they sounded just about the same in that tone. Working his jaw for a moment, Shinsou rubbed at his cheek with a reflective, feline flickering glare, edging into the Katsuki’s snarling space. “What the fuck is wrong with—” 

Shinsou’s gaze widened, and Katsuki couldn’t recall a time he’d ever caught Shinsou by genuine surprise. Lots of first times tonight. Fuck. 

“This place sucks as much as I thought it would is what’s wrong,” Katsuki snapped, ignoring the flare of Shinsou’s nostrils and the way he leaned in further, eyes getting bigger and rounder as the realization of Katsuki’s scent sunk in. “I’m leaving. Fuck all y’all.”

“You did not —” Shinsou caught up to him as Katsuki spun and speed-walked toward the entrance. Again, a hand on Katsuki’s shoulder, but this time Shinsou didn’t try to stop him, just held on and kept in step. “You did not fuck Midoriya Izuku did you, Bakugou? Bakugou, hey, Katsuki — fuck, tell me you did not—”

“I didn’t, then,” Katsuki cut in, the front door, still armed with a bouncer, set in his sights. “Tell yourself whatever, I don’t care.”

“Bakugou!” They both thrust into the soft summer night, dimly lit with a single lamp down the barren industrial street. “Stop!”

“No.” Katsuki kept walking, his blood burning with fury and shame and unprecedented desire. He wanted to burn a hole through the earth and fall into it. 

“Of all the people!” Shinsou yelled after him, tailing him still, unrepentant in being truly viciously obnoxious. “You don’t so much as look sideways at a single person in our school for three years and you meet Izuku for three minutes and fuck within thirty! Not exactly how I imagined the night would go!”

“That’s exactly what he said,” Katsuki muttered. He paused at a four-way stop and tried to remember from which way they’d come. He’d been too busy being chased by Shinsou. Goddamn ironies. 

“Are you going to keep ignoring me?” Shinsou hollered after him.

“Yes,” Katsuki answered, and immediately recognized his stupid fucking slip-up when he felt his entire body halt and still. 

Motherfucker, he tried to scream as Shinsou popped before him looking less than thrilled. 

“Yeah, yeah, I’m a traitorous piece of shit, I know,” Shinsou drawled, waving off the rage in Katsuki’s eyes. “But I need to understand what happened. Not just because I’m nosy, okay? Izuku is. . .important. To me. And to other people who are not as kind as me.”

Katsuki managed to roll his eyes through pure spite. Shinsou gave him a lopsided grin but did not release the control.

“There are people whose names are attached to his, and they would not be happy to hear about what happened tonight. Luckily, one is a Beta who won’t know what occurred unless Izuku right-out tells him and the other. . .is someone anyone should be careful of.”

Katsuki wanted to sigh. Wanted to sit down right here in the road and remember how to breathe without the scent of Midoriya Izuku steeped in his clothes, his flesh, his chest. The last hour had been a whirlwind, tsunami, and fire storm wrapped in one person and Katsuki had come out of it feeling like his entire life had changed despite having nothing to physically show for it. 

Shinsou seemed to sigh for him and reached out, a slim hand returned to Katsuki’s shoulder. 

“What happened,” he quietly asked, standing at a crossroads in the dead of night without another scent or heartbeat in radius. 

“I don’t know,” Katsuki whispered when he realized he could suddenly speak and move. He didn’t, though. Move. Just remained still as he chewed around the right words, the hard ones. “I don’t—I smelled him and then everything was different. Everything. How the fuck can I explain it when I don’t get it?”

Shinsou looked like he was at least trying to understand, his frown deepening. 

“It’s not. . .uncommon for people to find someone instantly compatible by scent alone. Everyone knows that. But Izuku, how did he—”

Katsuki growled and shrugged off his hand but didn’t leave. 

“He was as into it as I was,” he snapped, defensive hackles rising as he folded his arms across his chest and met Shinsou’s narrow, curious look. “I mean—he was! I’m not so fuckin’ sex-stupid that I don’t know when—well, whatever. I just thought, I thought he felt it too, that he smelled it like I did—”

“Errr, did he tell you—”

“Yeah, well he fuckin’ told me he couldn’t smell after the fact, didn’t he!” 

Infuriated anew, Katsuki whirled and began to walk back the way he came, his body demanding his Omega’s proximity. As soon as he realized he’d done it he whipped around and started back toward a faintly amused, smug Shinsou. 

“Shut up!” Katsuki pointed an accusatory finger at him. “Don’t say a goddamn thing. I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing!”

At that, Shinsou’s smirk fell in favor of something more genuine. Shinsou’s scent, somehow quiet and soothing and night-soft, swept around them, calming Katsuki’s ratcheting panic. 

“Hey,” Shinsou murmured, approaching slowly and looping his arm with Katsuki’s, ignoring the way Katsuki grunted and tried to pry himself free of the hold. “I’ll walk you to the station.”

“I’m not a fuckin’ damsel in distress,” Katsuki hissed, insulted by the hint of insinuation even as he let Shinsou lead him along. “I’m just pissed off.”

“Pissed off that you lost your virginity in a warehouse or that the guy you lost it to doesn’t reciprocate whatever it is you feel about him?”

“I don’t think I need to fucking clarify which,” Katsuki snapped, his face burning. “And you don’t have to worry about your precious Omega—”

“Precious is hardly a word to describe him.”

“Because I’m not puttin’ myself out there for him ever again. He can fuck right off back to—to Dabi ,” Katsuki lied. “They deserve each other. Contradictory lil’ fucker.”

“Mmhmm.” Shinsou easily kept up with Katsuki’s increasing strides. “Absolutely. I’m sure they’ll continue to be very miserable together.”

“Well why don’t they stay broken up!” Katsuki felt like a fucking crazy person right now. Was this some kind of manic come-down from meeting his mate or what? This was why he didn’t pursue relationships. This is why he looked on and watched other people make fools of each other over something as stupid as scent, as if that can actually tell anyone about anything important. 

And now here he was, a fucking fool. 

“Izuku doesn’t have good taste in men,” Shinsou muttered as he kept up with Katauki’s pace. He glanced at Katsuki, then away, his voice casual and airy. “He might be my best friend, but boy does that guy need a good man in his life to teach him he deserves to be treated right. Not that he hangs out with the right crowd to find one like that.”

“How the fuck did you meet him anyway?” Katsuki grumbled, shoving his hands deep in his pockets and slouching along the street. The fight felt like it was draining from him; the adrenaline from the fuck, the Alpha instinct to take his Omega by the scruff and keep him somewhere dark and selfish. 

“He was getting the shit beat out of him,” Shinsou replied with his usual nonchalance, only raising his brows when Katsuki made a choking noise. “He was putting up a good fight. Izuku is scrappier than most Heroes I know. He’d have been a good one.”

“So why isn’t he?” They slowed as they reached a main road that Katsuki recognized. It would be a long walk back to the dorms, alone, but neither of those things felt like a deterrent. He wanted the quiet.

“Wasn’t in the cards,” Shinsou replied simply and did not elaborate. With an obvious change in subject, Shinsou looked to Katsuki with a sly smile. “What did you even like about him? I couldn’t have seen that coming in a hundred years.”

Katsuki frowned and puzzled through their meeting. He’d smelled Izuku before he’d seen him, and had been on the receiving end of his solid punch even before that. The reaction had been instantaneous, desire flooding through him the same as oxygen from breathing. Intrinsic to survival. Familiar, home. 

“I thought I knew him,” Katsuki mumbled, barely realizing his words. “It was like I already knew him.”

Shinsou was silent for a moment. His voice was sober and still in the dead night. 

“You think he’s your mate.” Statement, not question. 

“I—” Katsuki kept his gaze to the ground, gritting his teeth against the bone deep instinct to say it aloud. He failed anyway. “I know it.”

***

“No,” Shinsou said as he slid into his seat in front of Katsuki in class. “He didn’t mention you.”

Monday mornings were the fucking worst. Katsuki kept his face buried in his arms and desperately tried not to inhale the devastating spring green scent that stuck to Shinsou’s skin despite the shower smell that overlaid it all. He tended to hang out with Izuku on Sundays and purposely snuck in late to avoid running to Katsuki. 

They’d both made the mistake of catching Shinsou just coming in on a Sunday evening, smelling of an Omega that Katsuki couldn’t hold. The first time, Katsuki had taken Shinsou by the collar of his shirt and buried his face in the cloth of his chest, just inhaling, exhaling, shuddering with need. 

The second time it happened, Katsuki had backed Shinsou against the wall with a possessive snarl and Shinsou had gone pale as a sheet before he’d stripped from the shirt entirely, shoving it into Katsuki’s clawed hands before making a quick escape. 

After that, Katsuki made a point of being in the gym on a Sunday night and Shinsou always employed his utmost stealth to disappear into his room upon arrival. 

And, every Monday morning, Shinsou assured him that Izuku had not mentioned what had occurred between them. 

“I didn’t ask,” Katsuki muttered into the safety of his arms. 

The shrug was in Shinsou’s smooth, relaxed voice. 

“Figured I’d put you out of your misery anyway.”

Was that what this was? Weeks had passed. Months. Fall was sweeping in, auburn and warm spice abound, but every time Shinsou returned to the dorms or sat in front of him on a Monday morning, all Katsuki could smell was summer wilds and sweet, soft grass. 

Katsuki had never been ignored in his entire damn life. 

“You’ve been different,” Todoroki said to him during one patrol, the fallen leaves sweeping around their feet as they passed a park wilting into sunset colors. 

Katsuki grunted, unsure what the hell that could mean coming from Todoroki. They walked on in silence for a long time, nodding to civilians and keeping a sharp eye out for trouble. They were passing through a university area, but that never negated the possibility of trouble. 

Eventually, Todoroki finished his thought. 

“More mature, I think.”

“You think?” Katsuki snarked back, making an ugly face. 

Todoroki shrugged. His refreshing wintergreen and kindled fire scent was mellow, at ease, a familiar pack scent that didn’t leave Katsuki feeling sad and empty like some others did. 

“Ever since your scent changed back in summer.”

Katsuki stuttered a step and caught himself from cracking his face on the pavement. He aimed an incredulous look at Todoroki’s calm, expectant one. 

“The fuck you mean since it changed?”

“Well, it’s back to normal now. But for a bit it was. . .different, for a while. Like when a pair mate each other and everything shifts. But now it’s gone. Did something happen?”

Todoroki was so vastly different from Shinsou in his unhurried deductions and gentle prodding questions that it was a wonder these two were some of his closest friends. Less of a wonder that the two of them barely interacted and seemed to actively avoid each other. 

“Something happened,” Katsuki finally confirmed, taking his own time too. “S’not happening anymore, though. It was a one-off.”

“What, like sex?” Todoroki asked, his expression wide open and almost innocent. He, like Katsuki, had never, to Katsuki’s knowledge, shown an interest in dating, mating, or the messy shit in between. 

Katsuki couldn’t help but scoff a laugh as he smacked Todoroki upside the head and increased his speed past the gated campus entrance. 

“Yeah,” he drawled, smiling crooked and free. “Like sex, halfie.”

A torrential fall of tropical storm wet soaked Katsuki so suddenly that it tore the breath from his lungs. Instantly still, instantly drowning, he found himself in the path of a wide-eyed Midoriya Izuku. 

His hair was a riot of forest curls, unkempt but shiny, healthy in the gold autumn sun. He wasn’t dressed in bold red and black out in daylight, but simply in jeans so washed out they were nearly white and a slump of a sweater in sunshine yellow. His shoes were still big and black and clunky, adding a few inches to his meager Omega height. 

Katsuki watched that expressive face go slack in shock, then tight, then bright red in the matter of seconds, finally resting in soft pink cheeks and hardened eyes, that stubborn mouth thinning before it opened, then closed, then—

“You know him?” Todoroki asked Katsuki. He waved at Izuku. “Hey. What’s up.”

“Stop that,” Katsuki hissed, frantically bringing Todoroki’s hand down. 

“Hi,” Izuku said, looking between Todoroki and Katsuki, both of them in full Hero uniform. He looked so small, standing there with both hands wringing the straps of his backpack.  He was still wearing the thick leather studded bracelet. 

Everything about him was at odds with each other. Soft hair, angry eyes. Relaxed, comfortable clothes, edgy shoes and silver studs. Even his soft, lilting voice was at odds with the way he stood, somehow seemingly ready for attack, his feet shoulder-width apart. 

“Hi,” Katsuki croaked, and oh god, oh fuck, he smelled so good. Milder now, muted, fucking suppressants of some kind that minimized the scent but couldn’t entirely wipe it out. “It’s good to see—I mean, you look g—er, what’re you doing here?”

Izuku cocked his head and that distinct dare in his eyes returned, same as the first night, just after he’d clocked Katsuki in the jaw. 

“Are you asking on a professional basis?”

“What?” Katsuki asked, sounding hollow and stupid even to his own ears. Every muscle in his body twitched and strained to bolt forward, loft his little Omega over his shoulder, and take him somewhere quiet and private where he could fill him and fuck him senseless. “I—no?”

“I go to school here,” Izuku replied, his entire expression willing Katsuki to argue this fact, as if he would. 

Katsuki frowned.

“You go to university already?”

“I graduated early.” Izuku looked ready to bolt, the way he shifted on the balls of his feet, glancing at Todoroki, then to the gate. “High school sucks.”

“What, so you’re a nerd?” Katsuki asked, unable to hold back his grin. Of course his Omega would be a brain. Even his instincts had good taste. 

Izuku narrowed those lake green eyes at him, his nostrils flaring despite Katsuki now knowing that he couldn’t scent worth a damn. 

“Yeah,” he said tightly. “I am. And you’re, what, all muscle for brains? Congratulations.”

“I’m top of my fuckin’ class!” Katsuki bristled.

“I’m top of the class,” Todoroki said with a small bland smile. “You’re second.”

Katsuki gritted his teeth.

“Shut up, you—”

The sound of Izuku’s short snort of laughter nearly had Katsuki dropping to his knees with relief from the sound. Every honed muscle in his body wanted to crawl toward his Omega so he could wrap arms around Izuku’s waist and smell his clothes, his skin, to relive that night but with less damage at the end. 

“Shinsou told me you had other friends but I didn’t imagine it was possible with the way you acted that night,” Izuku said, his lips faintly curved. “But it looks like you can actually act like more than a total brute.”

Katsuki’s top lip lifted in a snarl, fully prepared to yell just how much of a gentleman he damn well was when Todoroki nodded beside him. 

“Bakugou is a good friend. Even if he’s an asshole sometimes.”

“Wait,” Katsuki said, “you talked about me?”

When Izuku blushed and looked away, Katsuki’s heart soared.

Shinsou, you fucking liar.

“Freckles,” Katsuki said, striding toward him before it really hit him that he’d closed in. He saw Izuku’s eyes widen, his body stiffen, and Katsuki stopped dead, just an arm’s reach from his Omega and vibrating with rejection and need. “Izuku,” Katsuki tried again, quieter, intent. 

“What?” Izuku snapped, looking up at him, their eyes locked. This one was brave, and it made Katsuki’s chest ache. 

“I’m—” Katsuki nearly bit his tongue off in the attempt, then tried again. “Sorry. I’m sorry. For before. Not for what happened but how it was—er, after. I didn’t know you couldn’t—what I thought was obvious and—”

“What exactly is so obvious to you, Mr Zero?” Izuku asked quietly, his pretty, handsome features suddenly vulnerable, genuine. “Because I don’t understand at all.”

“That you’re mine,” Katsuki replied, the easiest thing he’d said out loud in weeks. “That you’re it and that’s it.”

They were close enough that Katsuki saw the way Izuku’s pupils slowly swelled, filling those green depths with emotion. The soft, plump parting of his pink lips as he sharply inhaled, the bloom that flushed across his freckled cheeks. 

“I—” Izuku wet his lips and Katsuki couldn’t look away, not for a bomb dropping beside his head. “I don’t feel that way about you. I don’t even know you.”

A bomb dropped regardless, and Ground Zero at the center of it, as always. 

Izuku leaned in and hooked his fingers in Katsuki’s utility belt. He smelled like the Garden of Eden and the first sin as he whispered, “But god do I want to fuck you again.”

“Dang,” Todoroki said in the background. 

Katsuki shivered at the simple press of Izuku’s knuckles to his belly and swallowed hard, nodding vehemently as he watched Izuku’s slow smile spread. 

“I’m good at guys like you,” Izuku said, and while Katsuki hadn’t a clue what something like that meant, he hoped it meant this was the beginning of something more than desolate desire in the tragic wake of their first encounter. “Gimme your number.”

They exchanged numbers, and it almost felt normal, except for none of this being at all normal or how Katsuki had expected his life to pan out. Katsuki fell silent, no words feeling like the right ones, and much too soon Izuku was biting down on his lip and sneaking glances toward the university gates. The crowds continued to mill around them like nothing life-changing was happening right in front of them, and Katsuki wanted to scream at every single one of them not step within fifty feet of his Omega. 

“Listen, I gotta go,” Izuku said quietly, the warm melody of his voice almost as soothing as his muted moss and rain scent, a roundness to his unique fragrance that smelled more relaxed, content. 

Katsuki was so invested in memorizing the flavor of him that he entirely missed Izuku coming to his toes and pressing a soft, quick kiss to Katsuki’s mouth. Gaping down at that pretty, flushed face, Katsuki could only grunt a sound of goodbye and watched Izuku’s lingering smile and amused, squinty eyes turn around as he filtered in with the rest of the students and disappeared past the gates. 

“So,” Todoroki said, suddenly beside him. He didn’t sound smug or amused like Shinsou would. “That was your one-off.”

“How’d you know?” Katsuki rasped out. He sounded like he’d run a marathon with no water. 

“He’s the missing piece,” Todoroki said simply. “From your scent. Before. I’d recognize it anywhere. It’s the same one on Shinsou.”

Katsuki slid a slow, considering look his way. They’d been standing here too long and people were starting to stop and stare and snap photos of the big, handsome Heroes. 

“What are you, a detective dog? Sniffing out clues.” Todoroki shrugged and began to continue on their patrol. Katsuki followed, grinning, on cloud nine. “And since when are you sniffing Shinsou fucking Hitoshi?”

Todoroki made a brief sound of choked angst and Katsuki caught the bright red blush of his ear. 

“Hold on!” Katsuki laughed and rushed to catch up with Todoroki’s even longer legs, jogging before finding his stride. “Hold on, you two never so much as look at each other.”

“Come on,” Todoroki said, face set back to stone as they trudged on. “We’re running late on the rounds.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Katsuki kicked a stone as they went, and he didn’t have the strength of will not to look over his shoulder, just once, and wonder. 

***

>>> Still on for Saturday night? 

<<< Yup. I’ll send you my address. 

Katsuki stared at the short exchange between himself and Izuku over the past week, then tucked away the phone in his sweatpants, willing himself not to dwell on what their first meeting would bring after what was between them. Izuku wasn’t giving away anything through text and Katsuki was shit with expressing himself on normal occasions, let alone through typing. 

“You’re an Omega,” Katsuki said, staring at the back of Kirishima’s head. His roots were growing in dark, more obvious in his hair part when he let it down long. They both sat in the empty living room, Katsuki taking up the couch and Kirishima on the floor, his homework spread out as he outright copied Mina’s work. Both of them were idiots, but it was fun to watch the disaster unfold. 

Kirishima made a noise between a cough and a laugh as he spun his pencil between his fingers and glanced adoringly over his shoulder. 

“You just noticed? Brutal, dude.”

“Shut up,” Katsuki replied with no heat. He continued to cuddle a discarded hoodie that smelled vaguely like Jirou’s mellow Beta scent, using it as a pillow as he pretended to be watching television. “I mean. You’re an Omega and a dude.”

Kirishima’s smile looked pained.

“Am I supposed to guess what you're trying to talk to me about because you know I’m no good at this.”

“I mean, I’m attractive to you, right? I’m hot.”

Kirishima went nearly as red as his hair before he abruptly turned back to his homework, his head hunched. The top of the line suppressants he and everyone at UA were afforded kept his warm bread and cheerful citrus scent mostly at bay, distant. 

“You’re a Prime Alpha, man. That’s just—it’s normal to, uh, to be into you. It’s not much of a choice when you’re built how we’re built. You, like, sweat manliness and testosterone. At least when you become pack it gets different. It smells closer to family or, um, protection? I guess. S’nice.”

Katsuki hummed and considered this, his eyes on the television without really seeing it. 

“But that’s only because you can smell me. It’s my scent or whatever that’s attractive.”

“Well, yeah.”

Kirishima turned in full, his muscular legs criss-crossed, his hands folded upon his lap, smiling. He was bulky as hell for a male Omega. His specific brand of Quirk worked in his favor, plus the legal steroids afforded only to Heroes or those in training, fed to the rare male Omega by higher government agencies. Shinsou refused them all as he was dependent on his mouth and brains for both offense and defense, but Kirishima was not alone in how he chose to stack up with other Heroes in the world. 

Izuku didn’t have any of that but his punch had been strong and his body, while petite, hadn’t been weak or even slim. He’d been sturdy, boxer-fit and powerful. Weird. 

“Why are you asking all of a sudden?” Kirishima’s voice interrupted Katsuki’s thoughts. “I’ve never heard you once talk about your, well, uh, appeal to anyone. Ever. Is this about that Omega smell on you? Do you have a girlfriend?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” Katsuki muttered, sitting up now, agitated at being called out even when he’d been the one to start the damn conversation. “Let’s be fuckin’ clear here, though. You wouldn’t be into me if you couldn’t smell me.”

“Well, I’m not into you now!” Kirishima said, eyes wide, almost pleading for Katsuki’s agreement. “I’m with—I’m with Mina! And I love her! She’s the love of my life, she’s—”

“Oh my god, I’m not asking for your life story.” Katsuki groaned and flopped back down to the couch. This was nagging at him, like a hangnail that threatened to bleed and sting down to the quick if he ripped it off. “I’m just asking if—if I didn’t smell like I do, if a person would like me for—for me, I guess.”

Kirishima made a very complicated face for someone so damn simple.

“I guess that would depend on the person,” he replied with extreme slowness, every word measured as he glanced away and huffed a laugh.

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean!” Katsuki screeched, bolting upright and chucking the sweat at Kirishima’s face. “I’m a goddamn delight!”

“You’re you alright,” Kirishima tossed back, laughing and unraveling the sweater from his head. “I think you’re amazing, but I’ve known you for a long time and I definitely had a crush on you before I learned to like your personality. . .and that probably smoothed the way for things.”

Before Katsuki could sputter a rebuttal, Kirishima offered him a kind smile, all sharp teeth and warm eyes. 

“I’m just one Omega out of a million, but if you’re seriously asking, then I’m seriously answering that it would probably take a very specific kind of person to be into you. Just you. You’re special.”

Katsuki bit back a wince and didn’t reply. That’s what he was afraid of.

***

“You don’t have to get to know me, y’know,” Izuku said after he’d let Katsuki into his narrow student housing flat. Katsuki could smell the two other occupants, a Beta and Omega, men, who were neither of them here. Izuku’s scent was stronger in this space, though; greenhouse lush despite the chilled air outside. No suppressants at work, and it didn’t smell like Izuku was wearing any now, fresh from a shower and his curls still dark and damp. 

He said it so casually that Katsuki nearly didn’t catch it. Izuku’s back was to him, a thin t-shirt that was either one size too tight for his finely muscled body by years of wear, or was worn to entice on purpose. He wore shorts this time, just plain old unimpressive workout shorts that showed off shapely calves and the frankly distracting curve of an ass that Izuku undoubtedly had to work hard on. 

Katsuki was so invested in the thick, sturdy lines of Izuku’s body that he almost missed the implication of those words. 

“I want to,” Katsuki said as Izuku turned and offered a beer from the tiny fridge. He accepted the bottle and decided not to mention that he didn’t often drink due to how easily it fucked with his system and, consequently, his decision making abilities. Maybe that explained a very small sliver of that one summer night. “Why wouldn’t I want to?”

“Most guys don’t,” Izuku replied with an easy shrug. He sat at the kotatsu with Katsuki, their knees overlapping beneath the blanketed table. He offered Katsuki a smile like one might a slow child and Katsuki glared before Izuku even opened his mouth. “You’re not what I expected, Zero—”

“Literally call me anything other than that.”

“—and I’m not sure what to do with you, to be honest.” Izuku clinked his glass to Katsuki’s, despite his own beer bottle still sitting and sweating on the table. He drank slowly, watchful eyes so clear and green tonight, swallowed, and said, “But I know it was fun to be with you before you opened your big, clumsy mouth afterward.”

Katsuki growled low, a warning. 

“I already told you that I—”

“Tell me this, Alpha,” Izuku murmured, and suddenly the hand that wasn’t holding a beer was under the table and sliding up Katsuki’s thigh. “Just how much do you want from me?”

A shock of lighting shined through him, his nerves instantly lit up, his breath shuddering softly forward as he kept his gaze firmly on Izuku’s face and not the way he licked a bead of moisture from his top lip. That hand, surprisingly big for someone his size, smoothed along Katsuki’s jeans and rested beside the crease of his thigh. Katsuki’s heart hammered, his cock filling like Izuku’s hand just near it was a call to stand at full attention.

“Everything,” Katsuki replied, honest, greedy, selfish. “Anything.”

 “That sounds dangerous,” Izuku said, smiling about it as he pillowed his cheek against his open palm so casually, his elbow on the table. His fingers beneath the table, however, tiptoed up to the fly of Katsuki’s jeans and began to work the zip down. 

“Fuck,” Katsuki breathed out, the blood rushing toward his cock with an alarmingly dizzy abruptness. “‘Zuku, what’re you—”

“You know,” Izuku said quietly, but to Katsuki the authority in his voice was like a sonic boom. That zipper slid down slowly, and Izuku hadn’t even really touched him, not yet, but Katsuki’s body was already straining to move, to tackle Izuku to the floor, to flip him over and find that slick, delicious hole to lick out and finger and fuck. Izuku cleared his throat, bringing Katsuki’s unraveling attention back with a meaningful look and hooded bedroom eyes. “It’s more dangerous to like me. To get to know me. I’m not made for you. Not made for anyone, past this here.”

Before Katsuki could retort, the air choked from his throat as Izuku dipped his hand into Katsuki’s boxers and squeezed. A low, throaty sound rose up from Katsuki’s chest as he gripped the edges of the table and bared his teeth to the Omega, preparing to pounce. 

But Izuku’s lips only curved, his mouth already darkened with desire, a little swollen from the blood pumping just below the skin, begging to be licked and bitten and worshiped. 

“But you seem. . .different,” Izuku murmured, and worked free Katsuki’s stiff erection from his pants, his wide palm and confident fingers taking him in a loose hold to pump him dry, slow and unhurried. “And smart. And stupid.”

“Fuck off,” Katsuki snapped, even as he groaned, his shoulders curling forward, his hands fisting on the tabletop to keep them to himself, to bear the brunt of this heavenly tease. “Mouthy lil’ shit.”

Izuku’s smile only lengthened, the interest in his eyes growing, entirely unaffected by a few barbs. He palmed the head of Katsuki’s cock, smearing the already copious pre-cum and working it down his length, the thick scent of Katsuki’s desire rising up to mingle with the sopping heat of Izuku’s secret, humid slick. 

“And you’re the first guy whose bark is actually worse than their bite,” Izuku continued, licking his lips, that green, lush rain drenching down on them now, wanting. Despite all that, Izuku’s hoarse voice carried something heavy as he said, “I’m tired of being bitten, Bakugou.”

Katsuki knew he didn’t mean that in the literal sense. 

Then Izuku did something with his hand, a twist and squeeze, the faint slick sound of his wet hold just barely reaching Katsuki’s sensitive ears from beneath the blanket. Katsuki’s brain shorted out and all that was left was the howling, the ache in his chest, the burn in his thighs to move, the twitch of his fist to touch. Katsuki grit his teeth, bared them to Izuku as they met eyes and Izuku continued the slow, sticky twist and tunnel around Katsuki’s leaking cock. 

“‘Zuku,” Katsuki breathed out, not sure if he was begging or threatening or just hoping for some relief. He’d never done this before either, and Izuku didn’t look in any rush to further the scene from the goddamn table, fully clothed, Katsuki utterly unable to touch. 

“Are you going to flip the table?” Izuku asked, his voice husky and betraying his hunger as much as the sopping scent of his slick sung of his gaping need. “Look at you, handsome. That’s some self-control you have. For a cocky Alpha, anyway.”

Katsuki didn’t realize he was growling until Izuku’s eyes fogged over, gone dark and dazed, those damp lips parting for shallow breaths, his gaze dropping down to where he couldn’t see himself fucking over Katsuki’s straining, painfully stiff dick. Izuku licked his lips, his shoulders going lax as Katsuki’s growl dropped a decibel, and it was then that Katsuki realized that though his scent could not touch this Omega, his voice could. 

“You just gonna jack me off under the table,” Katsuki intoned, deep and just skirting the use of his Alpha Voice, something rarely used outside of threatening a stranger or enticing a mate, “or you gonna let me lick out that pretty little ass of yours until you just flood around my cock? Choice is yours, freckles.”

Izuku’s exhale was loud in the relative silence of the room, a gunshot that signaled a start to the race. And then it was Izuku who scrambled from under the kotatsu, carelessly shoving the entire table aside in his haste to straddle Katsuki’s thighs, take Katsuki’s face between both hands like the first time, and kissed him soundly, a whine high and bright and beautiful in the air. 

Katsuki groaned, one hand sliding to the small of his back, dragging him in close, his bare cock so sensitive and singing with the pressure of Izuku’s own bulge straining against his own through the thin shorts. His free hand dove into Izuku’s hair, cupping the back of his head, nails biting into the scalp as he opened his mouth for Izuku and let that hungry tongue sweep inside and fill him with the familiar, maddening flavor of his Omega. 

“Fuck,” Izuku cursed against Katsuki’s lips, then went for another searching kiss, his fingers all but holding onto Katsuki’s ears to keep him in place, so demanding and so unlike any Omega behavior Katsuki had ever heard of. “You’re so—”

Another kiss, lapping at Katsuki’s tongue, sucking on it until Katsuki moaned. 

“So beautiful,” Izuku mumbled against the smear of their lips, another kiss, short and sharp and pointed, then, “Infuriating.” A wet kiss, a hefty sigh, a kiss. “Gorgeous.” Hips rocked against each other and those thick, hefty thighs spread to accommodate the long, heavy line of cock along the clothed crease of Izuku’s crotch. “Can’t stop thinking about you.”

The admission did more for Katsuki’s loss of control than those capable hands sliding down to knead at his chest, a thumbnail scraping over his nipple. A savage surge of primal, unthinkable want swept through him, left him devastated to aching bones and teeth as he snarled and ripped at Izuku’s shirt, flinging it into the nothing. All reason lost, he banded both arms tightly around Izuku’s compact body and bit down on the round of his shoulder. 

Izuku’s yelp melted into a high, sweet sound, dripping down into a low purr as he rubbed the side of his face in Katsuki’s hair, scenting him, coating him in the forest fire scent they created together. Katsuki didn’t break the skin but fuck, he wanted to. Wanted to claim him, drive him to crying, to writhing for him, to needing him and only him. 

“Bedroom,” Izuku sighed out, mouthing at Katsuki’s ear as he sucked a second bruise higher, closer to the seeping liquor of Izuku’s mating gland, more potent than any alcohol. “Door’s open for you, handsome.”

“Come here,” Katsuki growled out, his voice unrecognizable to him even as he took Izuku’s beautiful ass in both hands and stood. 

“Do I have a choice?” Izuku murmured into Katsuki’s hair, clinging to him with strong arms and legs, his small frame entirely aflame, hot to the touch wherever his flesh pressed to Katsuki’s. 

Izuku yelped and huffed a laugh when Katsuki abruptly turned them and shoved Izuku against the doorframe to his room. The scent here was overpowering, enough to weaken Katsuki’s knees where no villain could bring him down to them. Katsuki nuzzled at Izuku’s cheek, snuffled at his nose, brushed his lips over Izuku’s smiling ones and got mostly teeth.

“Always,” Katsuki whispered. 

Izuku paused, his smile dropping against Katsuki’s mouth. Then his face was disappearing into the curve of Katsuki’s throat, and those arms embraced him in a tight squeeze that was less about not falling and more about something else entirely. 

“Take me to bed, handsome,” Izuku whispered back, like this was some kind of secret. 

Katsuki took him. 

Laid him out on the skinny bed and stripped him bare, taking his time to admire and thirst in a way he hadn’t been allowed the first time around. Everything had been fresh cuts and blood welling to the surface, the new fire of instinct and toothy desire. 

This time Katsuki had his Omega exactly where he pleased, and while Katsuki understood he didn’t have a sliver of the experience that Izuku did, Katsuki was confident in one thing. This man wanted him. Bad enough to relent even after their first disaster. Bad enough to allow Katsuki’s roaming hands along the planes and contours of his body, to tilt his chin and hum as Katsuki lapped up the pulsing line of Izuku’s throat, to sigh and rise his hips to meet Katsuki’s in a slow, purposeful grind. 

Izuku’s hands shook by the time he sat up and helped Katsuki with his shirt. 

“Wow.” Izuku’s clouded gaze lingered on Katsuki’s exposed chest, his palms skimming up his shoulders to squeeze at his upper arms. “I really didn’t get to properly appreciate this before.”

“I’m here for your appreciation,” Katsuki said with a cocky grin. Izuku only blinked at him and sputtered a laugh, shaking his head and lowering it as he set to working Katsuki’s jeans off all the way. His deft hands once more sent a fray of chemistry through his ragged nerves, lighting up his skin and taking his breath away. 

“Hey,” Izuku murmured in Katsuki’s ear as the both rose to their knees on the creaking mattress, Katsuki gone dumb with the pleasure of kneading that ass as he urged their bodies together. “Has there been anyone else?”

Katsuki snarled aloud at the very thought. Izuku’s hair caught in his fist and he yanked it back to lock eyes. A great plume of deep, wet summer humidity washed over him as Izuku’s neck was bared, and while Katsuki didn’t answer, he saw by Izuku’s wide eyes that he understood. 

Swallowing, the line of his throat shifting, Izuku carefully nodded. His hand rose to cup Katsuki’s cheek and the intensity broke like coming up for air, a dark rumble rising from Katsuki’s throat as his eyes fell shut and he nuzzled into the fragrant wrist presented to him. 

“What a good boy you are,” Izuku crooned, his hand smoothing from Katsuki’s cheek to his jaw, his wrist passing over the gland at Katsuki’s throat, setting him gently on fire, still palming down and down between them until he had Katsuki’s reddened, angry-sensitive cock in hand again. 

Katsuki groaned and dropped his brow to Izuku’s shoulder, inhaling deep of their mingled arousal, the musk and clean sweat of Izuku’s smooth, freckled skin. 

“Let me show you how to handle this big guy, okay?” The question was almost soothing, almost doting, but the way his hand skimmed lower to cup and roll his balls, a light tug, a gentle brush of fingertips further back, left dark curls of sinful red coiling low in Katsuki’s belly.  

Exhaling sharply, Katsuki nodded, a little too enthusiastically if Izuku’s low chuckle was anything to go by. But Katsuki couldn’t grab a hold of his slippery self-control, not with all this humidity in the air, not when each lungful was saturated with greenhouse damp and wet, musky earth. Izuku was intoxicating, a dizzying poison that seeped into Katsuki’s veins and left him helpless, hot, and hungry. 

It was so easy to let Izuku lay him down, to straddle Katsuki’s stomach and put on a show of reaching behind to slip fingers inside himself. The arch of Izuku’s body was beautiful, was an art that Katsuki had never once appreciated, and the bloom of scent that followed as Katsuki felt warm slick spill out around those fingers to drip and pool on Katsuki’s skin—coherency sunk itself in the wet grass scent of his Omega and buried down deep. 

Izuku moaned above him, face tilted to the ceiling, the pale line of his throat begging for a bite, a mark, and a mate to complete him—and before Katsuki understood his body’s intention, he was rising up. His arms embraced Izuku’s body, one hand coming around to take the place of Izuku’s fingers, shoving past that first quivering ring of muscle to where everything was unholy hot and gripped around him like a vice. 

Katsuki’s mouth was on Izuku’s throat, lapping at his gland, encouraging more glistening scent to the surface, worrying with his teeth as Izuku eked out a series of high, bright noises of need, his hips rolling down onto three of Katsuki’s long fingers, his hands kneading Katsuki’s sweat-damp waist, his head angled to allow access. 

NOT ENOUGH, snarled the stalking Alpha inside. 

Katsuki snapped at Izuku’s neck, barely leashing himself from the bite, instead nipping at Izuku’s jaw, his chin, his bottom lip, licking in with the fury of holding back, of being unable to fully mark and claim. 

Not enough, he distantly thought as he shoved Izuku back to the bed and pounced, Quirk-quick, too fast for Izuku to stop him as he lifted Izuku’s legs right off the bed and further, folding him near in half as he brought that ass up to his mouth and shoved his tongue in the blessed, sopping heat of his Omega. 

Izuku may have screamed, but he was so far away and the adrenaline roar in Katsuki’s was too loud, too heavy with pumping blood to comprehend anything past curling his tongue in the wet of him, nose burying in the musky sex fragrance behind Izuku’s balls, inhaling deep. His mouth was sloppy with slick and it was heaven, a haven to bury himself inside, surround himself with his mate. It was almost enough, almost, and so he slipped his thumbs so easily into his Omega’s pretty pink hole and spread. 

Izuku howled then, broken off by a stuttered, gasping sob as Katsuki licked him out, lapping up that syrupy slick, his thumbs keeping Izuku open no matter how much he thrashed and kicked his legs. He was so folded that it was impossible for Izuku to move in any way that mattered. There was no escape and Katsuki wouldn’t give him the opportunity to do so. 

With a groan against Izuku’s ass, Katsuki eventually let his thumbs slip away. Heard Izuku panting, whimpering, but couldn’t see, not for all this ass and bright red blushing backs of thighs high in the air. Katsuki moaned as he fed three fingers into him, watched that hungry little body clamp down on the intrusion and try to hold him in, the hot, slippery walls of him trying to milk out his Alpha spend to no avail. 

“You want more,” Katsuki murmured, his voice devastated, destroyed. “My Omega.”

“‘M not your—” Izuku cried out when Katsuki licked at the tender skin surrounding his fingers, lightly pumping them, the tips of his fingers curling gently inside. The squelch of them was so visceral that just the sound of finger-fucking him had Katsuki’s ignored erection flooding with an endless stream of pre-cum, smearing against Izuku’s back. 

“You are,” Katsuki snarled as he pulled back, let Izuku’s body drop to the bed properly. Izuku’s breathing was ragged, his face cherry red, his stomach glistening with smears of spend. Izuku blinked rapidly as if trying to clear his vision, his arms flung out limp, his cock a hard, thickened curve against his heaving belly. Katsuki dove forward, fingers boring into the backs of Izuku’s thighs, his much bigger dick slotted beside Izuku’s as he bared his teeth in his Omega’s woozy face. “You are mine whether you know it or not.”

Something dark and sharp glinted in Izuku’s eyes, a knife edge, before his eyes closed, swollen lips parting in a long, throaty groan, his nails cutting into Katsuki’s shoulders, legs around his waist, heels digging into Katsuki’s ass—and suddenly this was their first time all over again. 

A spike of panic railed through the dead center of Katsuki’s chest as he pulled abruptly back. Izuku’s nails dug in and raked ridges into his skin before he got with the program and sat up too, eyes large and sightless and startled. 

“What,” he rasped, reaching out to palm Katsuki’s cheeks, to smooth his wrists along each side of Katsuki’s neck, scenting and soothing on Omega instinct. “What’s wrong, handsome, what—”

“Just fuck me like this,” Katsuki whispered frantically, voice hoarse as he sat back and lofted Izuku onto his lap, his cock bumping up between Izuku’s thighs. “Like this, like this—”

Izuku keened, high and thin as he steadied Katsuki’s erection at the base and eased himself around the hefty girth of it. His body trembled on the slow, slow drop, and Katsuki breathed out something helpless, something that had never been him until Izuku, his hands clenched around Izuku’s sturdy waist, the weight of him dropping down and taking his cock like a grounding force even when he was the lightning strike in equal turn. 

A low hum started in Izuku’s throat as he seated himself in full, taking every thick inch and rocking into it, arms embracing Katsuki’s shoulders, their faces pressed cheek to check as Izuku didn’t so much lift his hips but tilt them and sway, a rising, ramping tease and torture that stole Katsuki’s breath and gave over his heart.

“Like this?” Izuku whispered, gentle, coaxing a moan from Katsuki as he rose up a few inches and lowered back down, rocked him in deep, then lifted again. The suddenly slow pace was like pulling the ripcord on Katsuki’s violent, hunted desires, leaving him in a steep freefall with Izuku keeping him steady and safe. “Oh Alpha, you’re shaking.”

Katsuki didn’t care. Couldn’t process Izuku’s words past the coddling tone of his voice, couldn’t focus on anything but the wet, encompassing clench around his cock, unrelenting and gripping him tight as Izuku increased the pace on his terms, the hum in his throat rolling into a purr, one hand threading through Katsuki’s hair, cradling the back of his skull, the other slicking down the sweat along Katsuki’s back. 

Was this why people had sex, Katsuki dimly thought as Izuku rose up on his knees to properly begin to bounce on his cock, the solid slap of his ass clapping against Katsuki’s thighs sending his jaw locking tight, ravenous to rip and bite. Was this why people acted a fool on the daily—because anyone could feel like this if they found the right person in this big, shitty world? 

In the throes of Izuku using Katsuki’s hair as brutal, tugging handholds, a cry punched from his pretty mouth with each uneven rise and fall, Katsuki felt he might just be fine with being a fool if it meant this forever.

Him, forever.

Katsuki nipped at Izuku’s throat, tasted salt and sex and jungle green; dug his teeth into the tendon just below the ear and held on as he paused Izuku’s hips with merciless hands, holding his Omega still and fucking up into the welcome wet with a single minded purpose to come and mark and keep. 

Izuku’s release came with a sharp, shocked shout, his entire body going stiff and still as Katsuki used his strength to drop Izuku’s bodily down on his cock and hold him in place, the tremors of his tight, sweet ass milking Katsuki through an orgasm that hit not like the white cotton of his first time, but a volatile red tide, tearing through and taking everything from him. 

Blind and boneless, Katsuki dropped back, arms tight around Izuku, who yelped and whined as Katsuki’s cock slipped free and a hot spill of their mingled slick and spend smeared between their sweaty thighs. He shuddered once, then again, feeling stripped of skin right down to his nerves, raw and tender, split open and without the strength to sew himself back together. 

Izuku was a dead weight atop his chest, arms splayed out either side, his cheek resting between the deep valley of Katsuki’s pecs. On each gradually slowed exhale, he eked out a soft sound at the back of his throat, and his scent was high summer again, new grass and an incoming shower, fresh and bold. Katsuki didn’t think twice about painting a palm down the Omega’s shoulder, his side, his bruised hip; back up, down again, a self-soothe that was too greedy to be for Izuku himself. 

“I’m not, y’know,” Izuku murmured, hoarse, the edge of stubborn steel creeping back into his voice despite his lax frame. 

Katsuki didn’t ask for clarification. He wasn’t an idiot. The word echoed between them, unsaid. 

Yours. I’m not yours.  

“You can sleep here, though,” Izuku said, after a time. “And shower. You probably smell nasty.”

“I like how I smell,” Katsuki muttered darkly, both arms wrapping around Izuku and squeezing. 

Izuku muffled a laugh into Katsuki’s chest and looked up, all bright eyes again, no more fog of desire. 

“You would be a cuddler.”

“Haaah?” Katsuki sat up abruptly, sending Izuku rolling and stuck between Katsuki’s substantial frame and the wall because the bed was entirely too small for two. “Like hell I am. I will fuckin’ shower, thank you very much.”

“You’re welcome very much!” Izuku called out, laughing. “Don’t waste my shampoo, though! It’s scent dampener stuff—expensive, and I don’t want it wasted on your hairy Alpha ass!”

“My ass ain’t hairy!” Katsuki yelled from the tiny bathroom. He frowned and turned in the mirror, glancing down for a look, but the mirror was too small and he was too tall. He distantly heard Izuku laughing and shuffling around in his room. Katsuki dispassionately inspected the absolute coffin of a bathroom and was briefly thankful for the communal showers at the dorms. 

He showered, careful to snatch the cheap shampoo that smelled violently of mint and rinsed quickly. 

Katsuki gritted his teeth through the entire ordeal. Every bone in his bone ached to keep his Omega’s scent on him. He could have simply not showered and Izuku wouldn’t have been able to smell the difference, but Izuku had told him to fucking shower, so he showered. Because he was, apparently, a whole idiot around this guy. 

Katsuki wandered out with a too small towel wrapped around his waist, holding it together with one hand. 

“Hey, do you have—hi.” 

One of Izuku’s roommates had paused at the top of the thin stairway, staring with giant eyes. Katsuki recognized the Beta’s scent as the one lingering around the place. 

“Hi,” they said slowly, looking him up and down, seemingly in a state of frozen shock. “You’re Ground Zero.”

Katsuki gave a thin, mean smile. 

“Yes.”

“Uh.” The Beta looked around and called, “H-hey, uh, Midoriya? There’s—Ground Zero is in our house.”

“Don’t mind him!” Izuku hollered from his room. He popped his head out the door, smiling and bare chested but at least wearing shorts. “He’s with me.”

“I. . .assumed so?” The Beta said, slowly backing up toward their room, eyes locked on Katsuki’s sneer. “Well. It’s—it’s nice to meet you. You do, uh, great work. We can’t wait for you to graduate?”

“Is that a question?” Katsuki replied, taking care to show his teeth as his smile widened. 

“No!” They squawked, hands jumping up to defend themselves. “I—no, I’m—it’s really cool! You’re super cool! It’s very cool that you’re suddenly naked in my apartment and—”

“Oh, leave him alone, you big brute,” Izuku chided warmly as he dashed over and pulled on Katsuki’s hand, yanking him back to his own room. “Unbelievable. Where are your manners?”

“Must have left them with my clothes,” Katsuki said, casting a final warning glare over his shoulder, pleased when the Beta went bloodless in the face and disappeared in their room with a door slam. 

No one should be near his Omega right now, not while he scented of Katsuki so fully. So owned. 

“Why do I like men with no manners,” Izuku was muttering as he dug through a set of drawers. “I’m bad for me. Ah, here we go!”

Izuku turned and offered out a shirt and shorts. Katsuki wrinkled his nose and took them.

“I can wear my own clothes.”

“Yeah, but if you’re going to sleep over—”

“Nothing you wear could fit me,” Katsuki said, low and dark, inspecting the clothes. The shirt was for someone two times Izuku’s size, though the shorts could have been his. Both pieces did smell like him, summer and fresh laundry. 

“Well.” Izuku waved a hand in the general direction of the clothes. “The shirt is someone else’s. Don’t make that face, I don’t even remember who it was, and even if I did, it wouldn’t be your business. Now put on the clothes and lets maybe order food and watch a movie or something?”

It sounded so normal. Like the stuff Katsuki did with his friends back at the dorm. His first meeting with Izuku had been loud and volatile. Tonight had been emotional and raw. After all of that, Katsuki could barely imagine doing something so simple. 

But Izuku was nattering on like they’d known each other for ages and Katsuki was putting on the stupid clothes because stupid Midoriya Izuku told him to, so that was that. 

“You like books,” Katsuki said some time later. They sat on Izuku’s bed, both of them leaning against the wall it pressed against, their legs folded and knees overlapping each other. A horror movie played on Izuku’s laptop, sitting on a fold out table, and they both shared a bucket of fried chicken, crumbs all over the bedspread. 

Katsuki hadn’t noticed the bookshelf upon entering earlier—he’d been busy. But now it was obvious and large, stuffed with books and then more books stacked atop the neatly lined spines. 

“I like reading,” Izuku said, his smile impish with the dimple. “The books are incidental.”

“Smartass. What you like to read?”

“I like fiction that borders the edge of non-fiction. Real, but fantastical enough that I can get lost. I like science fiction and fantasy too, but the older I get, the less I read about magic and the more I want to read a book that feels real.”

Katsuki considered that a moment, chewing thoughtfully as a dumbshit ran through the halls of an empty hotel.

“Why don’t you just read non-fiction, then? I like war books and biographies. Don’t have much time to read, though. School and internships and all that. My dad always had biographies around though. You want fantastical, just read the real life of some asshole with more money than sense.”

Izuku laughed at that, tilting his head to rest his temple on Katsuki’s shoulder. A simple, easy gesture that left Katsuki’s heart ricocheting against his ribs. This was all a first—even this. Not that his pack didn’t pile with him, but he’d never had a partner or. . .whatever this was. No one had ever wanted to do this with him and there had been no one that Katsuki had desired to do so. 

“You’re not wrong,” Izuku said. “I like some war books. Or, I guess, one author in particular. But he was in a war. He lived and breathed it and then wrote books to kinda relive his trauma in a way that he could swallow, I guess? His books are sad, but there’s a light there. An humor, and life, between the lines. I can’t read his books often, though. I always cry.”

“Omega,” Katsuki said smugly. 

Izuku pinched Katsuki’s thigh and twisted, hard. At Katsuki’s curse, Izuku hummed happily and rubbed his cheek on the mountain of Katsuki’s shoulder, adoring and brutal in turn. 

“You go ahead and read All Quiet on the Western Front and don’t cry. Jerk.”

“Alright, nerd,” Katsuki said, grinning down at the top of Izuku’s curls. “You got it on you? I’ll take that bet.”

“It wasn’t a bet! Why are Alphas like this.”

But Izuku laughed anyway and shoved the bucket of fried chicken into Katsuki’s lap. He scooted off the bed and took the two steps to the shelf, hemming and hawing as he looked through the shelves. Finally, he nipped a slim book with a cheap cover, gray and white with a splash of a red poppy, and offered it with a smug look of his own. 

“I already know you’re a softy, so this’ll creep up and get you before you realize it.”

“Uh huh, sure,” Katsuki said, just to be annoying. And it worked, because Izuku looked cross as he snatched the book back and turned to leave it atop Katsuki’s neat stack of the clothes on the small desk. “I’ll read it, though.”

“Yeah, yeah, we’ll see,” Izuku said, his lips curved as he returned to his place, snug against Katsuki’s side. On the laptop, someone with a knife was trying to stab the same lady from earlier. 

They continued to watch the movie in cozy quiet when Izuku tentatively spoke up. 

“Sometimes I worry,” Izuku murmured, looking down at his scuffed knees. Katsuki wondered why they were bruised. “About Shinsou and—and being a Hero. It’s like being a soldier, you know? Like choosing to go to war before you’ve even graduated school.”

Katsuki frowned. 

“What brought this on?”

Despite the shadows of the darkened room, the light of the laptop the only thing to see by, Katsuki could see Izuku’s profile go dark, blushing. 

“I—just, that book. It makes me think sometimes. There’s—it’s stupid, but there’s this part in it. He says, we were eighteen and had begun to love life and the world. And we had to shoot it to pieces.”

Katsuki felt the words like buckshot to the gut. He got it. He did. More than any person his age should have to understand. But instead he said nothing and let Izuku continue, more hesitant than he’d ever sounded. 

“When I was younger, I wanted to be a Hero. Wanted to join UA. Was even going to try out if it hadn’t all blown up in my face first.”

“What happ—”

“And I held this hate in me for a long time. Still do, sometimes. This hate that the world isn’t fair, that I don’t get what I deserve, that I have to work harder than any Alpha or even Beta to get a half-step up in the world where everyone else gets one or two. And a lot of that is still true. But then I read that book and I thought—actually, I don’t want to be a soldier.”

Izuku worried his bottom lip with thumb and forefinger, staring out, sightless. His voice was even and soft. 

“I thought, maybe there’s something I can do with my life that won’t hurt me. I’m still looking for it.”

Katsuki didn’t know how to reply to that. He hurt himself every day in the pursuit of happiness.

“Alright,” Katsuki said, heaving a theatrical sigh as he got to his feet and snapped the laptop shut. 

“Hey!” Izuku whined and stretched his legs out, his toes flexing like he wanted to get up and move, making mischief. “What’s that for?”

“Time for bed,” Katsuki said, scooting aside the fold out table from the center of the room and leaving the room with the chicken to place it on the counter. He returned to find Izuku sitting on the bed, pouting up at him. 

“It’s not even that late,” he said, all big eyes and innocence that made Katsuki want to drop to his knees and serve. 

Was that a normal Alpha-Omega thing? Ugh. 

“It’s late enough for me,” Katsuki said. “I don’t attend warehouse parties and shit. Aren’t you a student too? Sleep schedules are good for you.”

Izuku honked a loud, stupid laugh but allowed Katsuki to maneuver him to his side, facing the wall so Katsuki could slide in behind him to spoon. 

“Sleep schedule? Gosh, you're boring.”

“I’m the fucking pinnacle of health,” Katsuki muttered, wiggling around to find a comfortable position on this godforsaken mattress from the depths of hell. He snuck his knee between Izuku’s thick thighs, found them warm and firm and pillow soft all in one. His arm slipped into the natural curve of Izuku’s waist, his chin slotting atop Izuku’s head, curls tickling his nose. 

Izuku smelled like Katsuki. He hadn’t showered. Was this a purposeful tease? Katsuki didn’t understand flirting if it was. 

“What do you study here anyway?” Katsuki asked as he waited for sleep. He needed to talk about boring things if he was going to distract himself from the opportunity to just part Izuku’s thighs from behind and slip inside him. He was probably still a little loose and slick and ready from the last time. 

“Double major,” Izuku murmured, his voice surprisingly slurred. Looked like someone was actually tired. “English language and English literature.”

“Massive nerd,” Katsuki said, his lips curving. His Omega was smarter than he’d even imagined. That tracked exactly as it should for an Alpha of his caliber. 

“Meathead,” Izuku shot back without any heat. He licked his lips, the sound agitating Katsuki’s blood, then snuggled back into Katsuki with butt wiggle and a sigh. “Top of your class, my ass.”

“Let’s not talk about your ass,” Katsuki managed, thin and pathetic. 

Izuku snorted and draped his arm over top of Katsuki’s, their fingers interlocking. The Omega’s hand was large—Katsuki had only noticed this time around. Big hands, bigger feet. Overgrown puppy. Surely he wouldn’t get any taller, though? Izuku wasn’t just unique in attitude for an Omega, he was built different. 

And regardless of what Izuku said, he belonged to Katsuki.

With that thought bolstering his heart, Katsuki fell into a hard, deep sleep.

***

They fucked like animals through winter, drawn to each other from across the city like an echoed mating call. 

Izuku was receptive and lively and clever and kind, his hands greedy, his mouth too smart for Katsuki’s own good, and his heart both free and furtive in turn. Katsuki was on his toes at all times with him, reeling at this Omega who would approach him with a beaming smile, only to take offense to the way someone looked at him, then would angrily yank Katsuki into a public toilet to bend over, offering himself up with hands shamelessly spreading his ass apart to show off the juicy center. 

Katsuki quickly learned how to handle his cock. Learned the right angle to shove in when Izuku was pressed to a wall. Mastered the shallow thrust that teased them for long, shuddering slow-fucks and a ruthless pound, pulling out until the wet, puffy ring of Izuku’s ass caught at the head of Katsuki’s cock, the syrupy slick rudely squelching when Katsuki stuffed him back up. 

He learned that when he touched Izuku too gently, too reverently, his instinctive Alpha adoration brightening open like a clear full moon, Izuku would shy away and grow aggressive, bearing those unusually sharp incisors, his strong arms and legs clinging and bringing Katsuki in close, quickly overwhelming the moment before Katsuki could find the words to encompass a sliver of what he felt. 

Katsuki had never been the best at words and Izuku was a fledgling master. He wielded them the same way Katsuki tossed bombs. Izuku’s armor was his books, his mind, his mouth, and he didn’t hesitate to turn them on Katsuki to keep him at distance—not physically, but in every other way that mattered. They exchanged shots like gunfire, but Izuku’s bullets were always faster and Katsuki’s temper was worse and so they often relinquished quickly to the language of body on body, the only place where they wholly agreed.

Sometimes even Izuku seemed tired of his attitude. Sometimes he called up Katsuki in he dead of night, voice slurred with drink or pitched high and wondrous as whatever pill or smoke he’d imbibed set in. Sometimes Katsuki fucking hated listening to Izuku half out of his mind, relinquishing all those beautiful brains and then maybe his body to whomever he was hanging out with that night.

Sometimes he was weak and let Izuku talk, because Izuku with his defenses down was the rarest version of himself Katsuki had yet met.

“Drink some water,” Katsuki said into his pillow, turning his head in the dark so he wouldn’t be so muffled. He glanced up at his alarm clock, the red numbers assaulting his eyes with the late hour. Izuku’s laugh over the line was goofy and light, and in the distance, Katsuki’s sensitive ears caught the jumble of bar sounds in the distance. Izuku may have stepped outside. 

“You’re sweet, Zero,” Izuku said. He inhaled long, the familiar sound of him sucking on a cigarette before he exhaled, languid and slow. “Too sweet for me. Why d’you even answer the phone? Go to sleep.”

“You call me and gimme shit for answering?” Katsuki let his eyes fall shut and put the phone on speaker, resting on the pillow beside his head. “Don’t scramble all them pretty brains with whatever shit you’re up to tonight.”

Another laugh, just as delighted. 

“My handsome, snarling straight-edge Hero. What did I do to deserve you?”

“Don’t even know what that means,” Katsuki grumbled. He yawned while Izuku chucked, groaning a little from the exhaustion in his limbs at a particularly rough patrol fight less than eight hours ago. “Go home. Sleep. Keep tellin’ you ‘s good for you.”

“I’d rather be sleeping with you.”

Katsuki hummed in agreement, his Alpha heart swelling, pressing against his chest as if trying to reach out and roam in search of his far away Omega. He drifted a little to the sound of Izuku smoking. 

“I miss you,” Izuku said quietly, earnestly. A secret. 

Katsuki opened his eyes in the dark, the sweet swell behind his ribs wrenching forward in a painful tug. He didn’t reply and Izuku swallowed loud enough to be heard over the line. 

“It bothers me,” Izuku said, equally hushed. “How it hurts. I don’t understand why it hurts with you. Not in the way it hurts with—with other people.”

“It’s natural, I think,” Katsuki replied softly, his hand a loose fist beside the phone. “When you’re supposed to be with someone.”

A rush of sound as someone opened the door of the establishment Izuku stood before. A person called his name, laughing and cajoling him back in. 

Without a hint of happiness in his own voice, Izuku said:

“That’s not how this works.”

Izuku hung up on him without a goodbye and Katsuki stayed awake for a very long time, thinking it might have said the wrong thing as always.

***

“I got a part time job at a bookshop,” Izuku said over the phone, a little breathless as he speed-walked to class. 

“Where?” Katsuki closed the fridge door with his hip, his phone jammed between ear and shoulder as he turned to the counter and began to dump ingredients into a blender for his morning protein shake. He could have put Izuku on speakerphone, but even this early in the morning, his asshole friends were beginning to mill around, and no one had yet caught the name of the person who stank up Katsuki’s clothes every couple of weeks. 

Shinsou had tried to give him a talk early on, something misguided about protecting his heart because Izuku couldn’t handle his own, let alone those of others, and Katsuki had laughed him out the door and slammed it in his face. 

“Not far, like three train stops,” Izuku said. “It’s right outside the other station, too, so it’s easy to come and go. S’called Parchment, the shop.”

Katsuki shoved a handful of spinach in with his protein powder and frozen fruit. Todoroki wandered in, eyes barely cracked open, and made a beeline for the enormous rice cooker. Popped the lid and headed for the pantry. 

“Didn’t know you were lookin’ for a job,” Katsuki said, not bothering to lower his voice. Todoroki could hear everything he said no matter what, and he already knew who Izuku was in a very distant capacity. 

“I wasn’t.” Izuku bumped into someone and apologized profusely and Katsuki wondered with some humor why he was never privy to the level of stumbling politeness Izuku afforded others. “But the other turns out to be this older guy I met some years back when I was a snotty, mean kid.”

“You’re still a snotty, mean kid,” Katsuki said, smiling to himself as he poured oat milk into the blender. “Sometimes.”

“Shut up,” Izuku said with a breezy laugh. His voice echoed now, he was inside a building. “Anyway, we recognized each other and he offered me a job when he found out what I’m studying these days. He’s willing to work around my schedule and it means I can save money for my own place once I graduate.”

“Congrats.” Katsuki watched Todoroki dump an unholy amount of rice in the cooker, pull out the container and begin to fill it with water, his finger dipping in the center for measure. Todoroki had his eyes closed, drifting through his morning. “When can I see you?”

“Dunno,” Izuku said. “Hi Jin! How’re y—yeah, yes, I’m good, I’m great. No, I’m not planning on going for drinks with everyone after—no, I—sorry, I need to take this call—Kacchan?”

“I told you not to call me that embarrassing name,” Katsuki muttered. “You don’t know when you’re free?”

“Not really,” Izuku said, sounding harried now, edging into stressed. “With the new job and everything. Look, I gotta go. We’ll talk later, okay?”

“Fine,” Katsuki bit off, his ire rising so abruptly that he had to gnash his teeth against it. “Bye.”

He hung up and pressed both hands to the cool marble counter. Which his shoulders bunched up around his ears, he hung his head, staring blankly into the blender.

This happened a lot. He shouldn’t be surprised or push it like this was new behavior. Izuku was like a fucking yo-yo. When he was with Katsuki he was warm and funny and sharp and sexy. When they were apart, he kept his cards close, often refusing to divulge what he got up to in the days that would drag between texting or speaking, and overall maintained a distance that Shinsou called ‘fuck buddies’. 

Katsuki loathed being fuck buddies with ever fiber of his being. And the fact that Izuku did it with such practice, and always smelled like a hard-scrubbed shower when they met, and sometimes sported mysterious bruises when their clothes were stripped—well, Katsuki knew he wasn’t the only person in Izuku’s life. 

“You smell like a tire fire,” Todoroki mumbled as he set the rice to cook with a merry little jingle. 

Katsuki capped the blender and sent it buzzing in a great, mechanical roar of reply. 

***

Parchment smelled like warm paper, old leather, and a blooming greenhouse.

It smelled like Izuku was here. 

Hands pocketed in his thick coat, Katsuki slouched through the door and let the bell ding behind him as it fell closed. The icy air that swept in with him quickly melted away in the warmth of the room. The place was cozy, not wide but long and thin, the three aisles of tall, varnished wood shelving lined far back. 

No one was at the small register counter, but a radio was on in the distance, something folksy and gentle. With a thoughtful frown, Katsuki meandered down the middle aisle, perusing the sections until he reached the back of the shop, where the children’s section seemed to take up the entire end wall, the floor littered with big, cushy beanbag seats and a rainbow rug. 

“Sorry about that!” chirped Izuku’s cheerful voice, a notch higher than his usual speaking tone as he rounded the corner with an armful of books. “I was lost under a pile of—shit.” Izuku’s smile went tight, his eyes large. “Kacchan. H-hi, hey, hello.”

Katsuki cocked his head and considered Izuku’s black ripped jeans, those big clunky boots, the red and black flannel and the same studded bracelet. He wanted to tear into his Omega like a starving man at a feast. 

Instead, he sneered. 

“Yes, hello Kacchan, how nice to fucking see you after I’ve ghosted you for over a month.”

Izuku at least had the presence of mind to look dejected, his expression crumpling into something soft and plaintive, his eyes instantly wet as he chewed on his bottom lip and glanced away. 

“Sorry,” he said, low, voice cracked. “Yeah, I—I’m sorry about that. This. About this. I’ve been—”

Katsuki lunged. Shoved the books from Izuku’s hold with a single reckless sweep of his arm and sent them scattering. Slammed his palm on the end cap of a shelf and looming in, over the Omega, teeth bared. 

“If you tell me one more time that you’ve been busy, I will bite your lying goddamn tongue clean off. If you’re done with me then damn well say it to my f—”

Izuku took Katsuki’s face in his hands and hauled him in, mouth already open on Katsuki’s shocked, parted lips as Izuku moaned into him, tongue thrusting against Katsuki’s, licking at his teeth like Izuku was trying to memorize the shape of his mouth. Sweet green grass and rain rose up with an odd, acrid undercurrent of scorched black asphalt, like summer burning up, too hot, suffering. 

Katsuki didn’t understand and Izuku wasn’t giving him the room to ask. One leg lifted and hooked around Katsuki’s thigh, and again Izuku whined, needy as he rolled his hips against Katsuki’s, pleading with every quivering line of his compact frame. 

“Zuku,” Katsuki managed on a gasp of air, a noise of distress of Izuku at their parted mouths, but he only moved onto Katsuki’s throat, going to a tip-toe so he could pepper kisses beneath Katsuki’s jaw, licking and nipping, rubbing his face into the hollow of Katsuki’s throat where his heart beat like a war drum. “What—”

“I missed you.” The admission sounded ripped right from Izuku’s ribs as he harshly whispered against Katsuki’s chest, his face buried there, inhaling deep despite being unable to smell. “I miss you all the time and I hate it. I hate that about you so, so much.”

With a shuddering breath, Katsuki pulled away, his hands on Izuku’s shoulders to keep him in place. How could any man hope to hold onto a person who could never be still, in both heart and body?

Izuku whined, his entire face twisted and red in some kind of bitter distress and shame as he both tried to wiggle free of Katsuki’s grip but also run to him. 

“I don’t understand you at all,” Katsuki whispered sharply, breathing hard, every inhale like swallowing the vicious cotton-wet press of a humid summer day, overwhelming and stuck in his throat. “Just when I think I have a hold, you say something so fuckin’ wild that I let go again and can’t keep up!”

“So leave,” Izuku snapped, baring his own teeth now, those unnaturally sharp incisors flashing, that scorched asphalt scent assaulting Katsuki’s senses. “Do us both a favor and finally leave! Because you’re way too much work and I sure as hell have enough problems.”

“You’re the reason for all of your problems, you stupid, stubborn shit!” Katsuki snarled, but Izuku’s words had already sunk in like a fanged bite, sharp teeth left in the bite mark as it wept blood and began to instantly fester. “Those assholes you give yourself to—”

“You don’t know shit about who I—”

“You think they are any good for you? I see the bruises.” Katsuki had Izuku backed up against the bookshelf again, but for the first time he couldn’t bear to touch him, not when Izuku’s words still smarted worse than any punch. “I’ve seen the burns and I ignore them because you make it damn well clear that your life isn’t my business—”

“And it still isn’t!”

“But just how stupid’s a smart guy like you to keep the ones who hurt you and ignore the one who really fuckin’ wants you?” Katsuki heard his voice crack, heard the desperation in his voice, the begging dog he’d never wanted to be for anyone or anything. Izuku’s furious gaze went lax, eyes wide as he pressed himself further back against the shelf in some vain attempt to escape. Katsuki exhaled, ragged, more exhausted than any physical battle. His hand clenched to a fist beside Izuku and still he did not touch. “Because I don’t just want you, Midoriya Izuku, and you know that. You’re—we’re more than fuck buddies. You’re meant for me.”

Izuku’s stiff shoulders sagged and the sorrow in his damp eyes called to Katsuki, screamed for Alpha comfort. He tightened his fist, nails digging into his palms, waiting. 

“Kacchan,” Izuku murmured. His palm smoothed up Katsuki’s neck, their scents only briefly, minutely mingling for the first time in a month and a half. Izuku swallowed hard, gaze dropping down, then up, squarely meeting Katsuki’s expectant look. “You’re not meant for me. No one is. You're just one out of a dozen Alphas who take my scent as an invitation when it never was.”

Oh. 

Oh.

This hurt so much more than anything Katsuki could have comprehended. 

In a flashbang of clarity, Katsuki understood what Izuku had meant in trying to pursue a life that did not hurt him. 

“Right,” Katsuki said, hollow and woozy as he took a broad step back. He looked around, at the books scattered across the floor, at the faded grooves of foot traffic in the carpet, at Izuku’s stupid black boots—anywhere but Izuku’s face. “Right,” he said again, nodding to himself. 

And, because his Alpha heart howled for it, he looked up and met Izuku’s eyes for the last time. The Omega was crying, but it felt like nothing in Katsuki’s heart at all. 

“Well,” Katsuki said, “I hope you find your happiness.”

With a body like lead and a charcoal heart already good and charred, Katsuki left Parchment behind and did not look back at the sound of the sob. 

***

“You’ve been making a lot of stupid decisions,” Aizawa said from beside Katsuki’s hospital bed.

Katsuki could still taste the ash in his mouth, feel the grit of crumbled concrete between his back teeth. He was still in full uniform, stripped down to the basics and wiped clean where the IV trailed into his arm. When Katsuki turned his head to look at his teacher, his hair made crunchy, dried blood and sweat sounds against the cheap, flat pillow. 

“I would call it ingenious, but agree to disagree or what-the-fuck-ever.”

“You hang out with Shinsou too much,” Aizawa said with a sigh. He’d slumped back in his chair, barely sitting, his arms folded across his stomach, chin resting on his chest. He looked more tired than Katsuki remembered three years ago. “What were you thinking, diving into a collapsing building?

“We do that shit all the time—”

“Not a high rise, Bakugou,” Aizawa snapped. His Alpha scent was warm leather and amber, the broad, soothing dark coffee scent of him gone bitter and acidic despite his apathetic pose. “You’ve been taught better than that. By me. This isn’t the first stupid stunt you’ve made these past months. What’s going on?”

“Nothing,” Katsuki replied, tired, closing his eyes. He didn’t even have the energy to rise into a snarkfest with this guy. 

“I know that brand of nothing like the back of my hand, kid.” Aizawa heaved a sigh and sat up, rolling his creaking, cracking shoulders as he grimaced and spoke. “Listen. Let’s pretend like we’re not playing a guessing game and I’m totally oblivious to the mundane heartbreak you’re going through, just like any other kid your age does at some point, and I’ll get right down to it.”

“Knock yourself out,” Katsuki muttered, one eye cracked to wearily watch his teacher. 

“No,” Aizawa said, careful execution in his voice, “you already did that well enough for both of us.”

Katsuki made a face and closed his eyes. Aizawa sighed again. 

“Whatever this is—whoever this is about, none of it is worth endangering yourself to the point where you won’t be able to be the person you’ve always worked to become.” When Katsuki didn’t answer, Aizawa continued, slow and low, like he was trying not to spook him. “Your entire life has centered around the singular goal of being a Hero. Don’t let one person, one incident, erase who you are, who you will be. You’re more than the sum of your mistakes, Bakugou.”

Katsuki exhaled, a subtle shudder rolling through him as the words settled into his aching bones like new armor.

“You’re going to be one of the best of us,” Aizawa murmured. “Why don’t you show that person just how well you can get on without them? Ignore what All Might says—sometimes a little personal revenge is enough fuel to get through the thick of it.”

Katsuki laughed in earnest for the first time in months, and while his ribs ached with it, he wasn’t sure which injury that particular pain was from.

***

Katsuki graduated UA in the number one spot. And while he had never cried reading and rereading that one specific book, the ceremony with his surviving friends and fellow Heroes brought him to tears. He thought he’d be ashamed, but instead he felt proud. The new bloom in his chest left no more room for the old, crippling ache that had taken root through winter and spring. 

Summer was on the horizon and it was bright. Ground Zero wasn’t walking into the sunset, he was marching out of the sunrise, and he fucking shone like the sun. From this day forward, no one would ever dare look away from him. 

All Might showed up, emaciated and smiling, and when he pulled Katsuki into a weepy embrace, Katsuki caught the brief undertone of familiar forest green beneath his hero’s zingy lemon and linen scent. A spike of panic railed through him one, just once, catching him off guard, and was quickly stamped down. 

Coincidence. Izuku’s scent was strong when unsuppressed and still potent when he wore dampeners. He could have brushed against All Might in a crowd anywhere. 

Regardless, the memory of him soured Katsuki for the remainder of the night and he drank himself into a stupor with his friends, mourning where the rest of them celebrated. 

You’re way too much work.

You’re not meant for me. 

So leave.

“Hey,” Shinsou said, draping an arm over Katsuki’s shoulder, his alcoholic breath hot against Katsuki’s ear. “We’re gonna see if we can convince Aizawa to take his leg off and slap Kirishima’s metal face with it. Wanna see?”

“Have some self-respect, for fuck’s sake,” Katsuki said, even though that did sound kind of fun. 

“Nah.” Shinsou smushed his cheek against Katsuki’s, too affectionate now that his blood was seventy-five percent liquor. “I prefer a life well-lived and without shame.”

“Suit yourself,” Katsuki mumbled, leaning drunkenly into Shinsou’s warm arm. He was pack, at least he was safe. “‘M gonna head back to the dorms soon. ‘S movin’ day tomorrow.”

“Oh no you’re not,” Shinsou said, sounding more sober than Katsuki had initially assumed. No one could ever trust this sneaky fuck.

Katsuki groaned as Shinsou grabbed his wrist and dragged him from his seat, yanking him toward the flashy neon bar where most of the crew had lined up, yelling and joking and out-drinking each other. Jirou and Denki turned and hollered a greeting, parting to reveal a stool they’d saved for him, and Katsuki decided to take the path of least resistance and sit the fuck down to ride this out. 

Midnight had long gone by the time Aizawa managed to coax and shove them out the door, citing hangovers for all. Katsuki groaned and slid from his seat, then wavered in place, vaguely shocked to realize just how drunk he was after sitting for hours, drinking without standing up. 

“If you all move your asses,” Aizawa said as they stepped into the cool spring air en-mass, a clumsy mess fumbling down the street, “we’ll make the very last train. I have no problem leaving people behind. You’re all adults now and none of my damn business anymore.”

Mina outright laughed and didn’t have to confirm out loud what everyone knew—that Aizawa would be making them his business for the rest of his natural life. 

“I’m sleepy,” Todoroki said, sidling up to Katsuki with a jaw-cracking yawn. 

“When are you not.” Katsuki elbowed Todoroki’s side and got an elbow in return. 

“Thanks!” Shinsou said from behind them, and Katsuki glanced over his shoulder to see who he was speaking to. Phone to his ear, head bent to seemingly keep track of his big drunken feet, Shinsou grinned and said, “Yup, it’s official. We’ve got to celebrate. Maybe I can even convince Todoroki to meet you. . .Yes, we’re friends now. No, we haven’t—Izuku!” 

Shinsou brayed a loud, obnoxious laugh and Katsuki’s entire heart collapsed in on itself. 

“You okay?” Todoroki mumbled, leaning into him, somehow in tune with Katsuki’s reaction despite him not making a sound. 

“Fine,” Katsuki bit off. “Come on, we’re lagging. Let’s walk faster or we’ll miss the goddamn train.”

Unfortunately, they didn’t have to increase the pace much and Katsuki’s sensitive ears could still make out Shinsou’s voice. 

“No, he’s fine,” Shinsou said, the warmth sapped from his voice in an instant. “Yup. Yes. . .Izuku, I said his fine. He’s been fine. He just graduated top of his class. He’s on top of the world. . .No—hey, I heard you, I—no, Izuku, I’m not going to pass on any messages.” Shinsou’s tone was tight and clipped, genuine annoyance shining through. “Just because he’s fine doesn’t mean you can just—Izuku, how drunk are you?”

Katsuki clenched his teeth and walked faster, nearly stepping on Kirishima’s heels. 

Shinsou was sticking up for him. He was protecting him. May have been protecting him all winter into spring, for months. 

One part of Katsuki bristled at the very implication that he would need someone to stick up for him. The other part preened that he had a Omega in his pack who would protect his pain, who would say Katsuki was fine, as if Shinsou hadn’t let Katsuki once more bury his face in a shirt that smelled of Izuku and shuddered through the effort not to cry. 

“Listen,” Shinsou said, sober and firm, the conversation muted by increasing distance. “Thank you for the well-wishes. I can’t wait to see you when you’re free. We’ll have a good time. But we can’t keep doing this. You can’t keep doing this. You’re both the best friends I’ve ever had and I don’t want to see either of you hurt. And right now, it’s you causing the hurting.”

A long pause. Shinsou sighed. 

“I’m sorry. I know. Just. . .let him live his life. We’re starting a new chapter. Maybe you need to start one too. You’re doing better for yourself these days. But it’s not my place to tell you what else you need to do moving forward.”

Todoroki bumped Katsuki with his shoulder. 

“Garbage fire,” he said simply. 

Katsuki scoffed and rolled his eyes, but concentrated on pulling in his rancid, angry scent, trying to find some place of calm, searching out that glowing sense of accomplishment from earlier today. 

“I made up with Shinsou,” Todoroki said, diverting Katsuki’s attention, probably on purpose.

“I thought, maybe. . .” Katsuki nodded when Todoroki hummed in confirmation. “That’s good. You two were obnoxious as hell all these years. What was even the problem? I never actually saw you two fight.”

“He’s in love with me,” Todoroki replied with any inflection, negative or positive. 

Katsuki choked on the spit from his gasp of shock and gripped Todoroki’s shoulder to hack up a lung. 

“The hell?” Katsuki wheezed, eyes watering. “No he isn’t!”

“I’m pretty sure that he is,” Todoroki replied, looking at Katsuki like he felt sorry for him. 

“He’s had, like,” Katsuki gestured emphatically with his hands, still too drunk for his liking, “so many boyfriends.”

Todoroki’s wintergreen and fireside scent roared, the arctic slap of a winter storm as his expression darkened.

“Yes,” he said, deep and dangerous.

“Ooo-kay.” Katsuki snorted a laugh and bumped hard against Todoroki. “I’m not gonna ask. Didn’t realize it was so fuckin’ messy between you two.”

“As if you have room to talk,” Todoroki replied evenly. But his lips were subtly curved and Katsuki laughed a little helpless, pocketing his hands so he wouldn’t reach out for his friend, and followed his pack to the train. 

The lot of them took up an entire empty train car, horsing around and goofing off in ways they never would if it were daylight or eyes were on the future Heroes of tomorrow. Maybe they were embracing their final official night of youth, or maybe they’d lost that a long time ago when they’d lost classmates and teachers and loved ones in the course of their training. 

So Katsuki let himself laugh. Let Kirishima sit on his lap while Mina rolled her eyes and Denki snapped a photo on his phone. Let their voices echo in the traincar where they wouldn’t normally dare stir up a fuss for being recognized. Let his classmates and friends and pack be stupid, silly graduates before they all moved their things from the dorms by the light of morning, leaving behind well-worn rooms that echoed with joy and failure, longing and hope and triumph. 

When they all stumbled through the doorway of their dorm and Kirishima began to get weepy, Todoroki patted his shoulder, his Alpha instincts clearly driving him to comfort as he rubbed small circles into the Omega’s muscled back. 

“It’s fine,” Todoroki said quietly as Mina stood to his side and cooed, rubbing her cheek against Kirishima’s. “We’re still going to see each other on patrol. You made it, Kirishima. Not a lot of other Omegas like you could have made it this far. You’re amazing.”

“That’s right,” Shinsou said, sliding in with a coaxing smile. “You and me, we’re the real stars of this group. Those Alphas barely even have to put in work and people fall all over themselves with praise.”

“I’m gonna knock you two knuckleheads together,” Katsuki muttered as he passed by and headed for the elevator. He wanted to lay in his bed one final time and sleep without dreams. He’d already achieved the ones that really mattered, anyway. He didn’t need for any delusional dreams to haunt his sleep. 

“Wait up!” Shinsou called, jogging up at the last minute and throwing himself into the elevator with a grin. “Thought you could escape me, eh?”

“I’m always trying to escape you,” Katsuki replied dully. At least he still had it in him for their usual back and forth. It felt familiar, consistent, right. 

“And yet here I am.” The elevator doors dinged and opened to Katsuki’s floor and he slumped into the hall. “Hey,” Shinsou called out, and when Katsuki turned, he saw that one hand was keeping the doors from closing and the good humor had sapped from Shinsou’s face. “You made it too.”

Katsuki looked at him, reeling in his reaction like he never could have done a year ago. 

“Yeah,” he said, nodding once before turning away. “I did.”

***

A brutal summer scorched the city when Dabi set it all on fire. 

Katsuki wasn’t even there. Didn’t hear about it until the damage was done. He was off in America for the season, training under one of All Might’s old students, gaining a quick fame to his name, burning bright like a star  not unlike the sun that beat down. 

Hundreds injured, dozens dead, and Dabi revealed as the lost Todoroki son that no one had ever heard of. Not even Katsuki. The devastation one man had wrought across town and through the hearts of the Todoroki family was incendiary, fourth degree burns, a scarring across the landscape of city and family alike.

Katsuki ditched America early and got on a plane. The entire flight, he waded through the horror of his first reaction upon hearing the news. The first damn thing he’d thought. 

Is my Omega safe?

He was so fucking fucked up. He hadn’t thought first about his best friend or those who had fought Dabi in a battle that had lasted more than an entire damn day. His stupid, ugly instinct had been concern for a man who didn’t even want him. 

The humid heat was an accusatory slap to the face as Katsuki exited the airport and straight into a company car. He gritted his teeth all the way back to Endeavor’s agency and dragged his suitcases into the office with his hackles raised, ready for a war that had already ended. He was a soldier without anything to shoot at and his hands felt so empty and useless for it. 

The office secretary gawked to see him bust through the door. 

“M-mister Bakugou! Where did you—when did you—”

“Where,” Katsuki heard the sound of his voice, the aggression, and failed to bank the ferocity, “is Todoroki Shouto?”

“I—” The woman’s face drained of color. “He’s—he’s home. He’s at home.”

Katsuki growled low and turned away, pacing one direction and the next, his muscles burning with the tension to move, to act. He scrubbed his hands over his face, smelled the recycled air of the plane he’d just got off of and the acidic, chemical scent of his fury. 

“Fine,” he bit off, dropping his hands. “Gimme his damn address already!”

“Y-yesir! Right away, sir!”

Katsuki placed both hands on the secretary’s desk, looming, watching and waiting and the Beta frantically pulled up Todoroki’s address and scribbled it on the back of a company card.

“Thanks,” he snapped, giving the address one glance before pocketing it and dragging his suitcases out of the damn building. 

Katsuki shouldn’t have been surprised that when he knocked on the apartment door, it was Shinsou who answered.

Those pale, damp eyes sparked with a quarter second of recognition before he’d launched forward, clutching Katsuki in a solid embrace, full-body leaning into him for support, a shuddering breath against Katsuki’s ear. Katsuki held on tight, shock and relief railing through him, the first hug he’d received since he’d left so many months ago. Shinsou inhaled deep of Katsuki’s throat and Katsuki replied in turn, a mutual pack scenting after being apart for longer than they ever had in three years. 

Briefly, he smelled a green undertone to Shinsou’s dark purple jasmine scent, then gone. 

“You didn’t have to come back,” Shinsou rasped into Katsuki’s shoulder. “But it’s good you did.”

“You guys can’t survive without me,” Katsuki replied, voice deep with restrained emotion. “Losers.”

Shinsou pulled back with a wet laugh and punched his arm. 

“Fuck off, Alpha,” he said, wiping his eyes with the back of one slim hand as he turned away. Katsuki fumbled his shoes off and left his bags abandoned in the entryway. He didn’t have time to take in the apartment, but it was classic Todoroki in clean lines and soothing winter colors. “Come on, he’s in the bedroom.”

The bed looked like a vast lake and cool waters, Todoroki a single dark island curled in the center, silent and stinking of devastation. 

Katsuki looked at Shinsou and received a nod of allowance. With a sigh, Katsuki got on the bed and curled up behind an unresponsive Todoroki, threw an arm around his waist, and passed out cold. He hoped that Todoroki would sleep too, for what good it would do. 

Everyone in this room understood that pain didn’t heal, it merely scarred over the most tender parts of them. 

***

“Is—” Katsuki cut himself off and drank his beer instead.

He had waited weeks before he’d even considered asking. Before that insidious, instinctive Alpha desire to know had powered past his heart and betrayed the tenuous control Katsuki had of his tongue. 

Shinsou frowned curiously at Katsuki, every bone in his body looking so languid and lax as he splayed out in his chair. The rooftop beer garden was midday busy, chatty and cheerful, greenery crawling the railings that boxed in the second story bar. Shinsou looked too pale in the sun, a comical ghostly white as he drummed long fingers upon the table. 

“Is. .  .?” he prompted, smirking. 

“Nothing.” Katsuki unhooked the sunglasses from his collar and put them on, gazing out over the street, distracting himself with people watching, waiting. 

Todoroki would be finishing his shift soon and they’d meet for a beer as they’d been doing a couple times a week since Katsuki’s return. Both he and Todoroki worked at Endeavor’s agency, but Shinsou was still with Mina over at Hawks’ fledgling agency and it wasn’t the worst thing in the world to meet up like this, especially when Todoroki was still walking on shaky ground. Sometimes Mina joined, dragging Kirishima along. It was nice, not that Katsuki would ever say it aloud. 

“You can ask,” Shinsou said, pitching his voice below the din of customers. “But you already know I won’t be a middle man.”

“I’m not asking,” Katsuki said between gritted teeth, still looking off and away, refusing to invest himself into the conversation he himself started. 

“Well, then I’m not saying anything,” Shinsou replied, mock-prim as he sat up a little straighter and made a show of delicately sipping from whatever potent shit he had in that glass. 

Katsuki’s jaw flexed, aching, chewing on a number of things he wanted to say.

“Fine,” he snapped, slamming a fist hard enough on the table that Shinsou’s drink sloshed. He ignored Shinsou’s theatrical sound of distress and quickly said, “Just tell me he’s okay. That he wasn’t still with that trash fire of a Todoroki—”

“I feel like you’ll have to specify just which trash fire of Todoroki, because there are, in fact, many—”

“Don’t fuck with me, Shinsou,” Katsuki hissed, bared his teeth. “Not about this.”

Shinsou slumped back into his seat with a sigh and flopped his hand around in a vague gesture, his tone blase. 

“He’s a survivor,” he replied, a total non-answer. “Stubborn, you know.”

“I know,” Katsuki said quietly to the mouth of his beer, bringing it to his lips.

“I think he knew a long time ago that Dabi wasn’t what he wanted or needed, but what he thought he deserved in a. . .well, not a boyfriend, exactly. But, you know.”

“I know,” Katsuki repeated, looking away again, flicking his gaze to the summer sun, letting it burn his eyes through the tint of his glasses. 

“He’s happy at Parchment, though. And excelling in school.”

Katsuki just nodded and let silence flood the topic. He inhaled deep, recognized and accepted the long-familiar ache behind his ribs, and exhaled slow. 

Maybe Izuku was finding his happiness, after all. At least one good thing came out of Dabi’s crash and burn. 

“His number is still the same,” Shinsou said quietly, an entire hour later as they left the bar with Todoroki at their side. “In case you’d wondered.”

“Mine’s not,” Katsuki answered and headed home.

***

Katsuki murdered his first civilian that same summer. At age nineteen, he found himself in mandated therapy with a misfiring Quirk that wouldn’t work when called upon and a hole in his chest that seemed to swallow the whole of him like some endless black void of take and take and take. 

It happens to everyone, the older Heroes tell him with heavy hands on his shoulder, words intended to comfort but that only hold him down, like force-feeding him placations will bring back the dead. Katsuki wasn’t fucking stupid. He knew accidents happened and he knew he’d never meant for—

The news didn’t even report it as Ground Zero’s fault. They placed the blame on the villain, a sad casualty; a small, trivial number on a television screen. 

Katsuki didn’t sleep for two weeks and was relegated to desk duty and paper pushing for even longer than that. 

When he crawled out of that particular circle of hell, the seasons had already begun to turn, gold and auburn curling at the leaves and a cool hiss to the wind. He took a deep breath every time he left for work and swore to be a better man. 

“Fuck off, shitbag!” A familiar voice cut through the muted morning bustle. 

Every blood cell all but switched direction in Katsuki veins, his entire body a marionette to instinct as he turned on his heel and ran.  

He squealed around the corner, nearly shoving an old lady into a building in haste. Panting harder than he would during any grueling training exercise, Katsuki stopped dead, hands on his knees as that sinful garden scent slammed into him, a veritable wall of it, like stepping from one climate into another. 

Izuku kneed some giant Alpha right between the legs and thrust his palm up, a palm heel strike to the nose that had the Alpha screaming and stumbling back.

“See how you like it,” Izuku spat out, his shoulder-width stance familiar and strong, his handsome, pretty face twisted with malice as the Alpha all but scampered away with a tail between his legs. “Asshole! I’ll report you to the authorities!”

“Consider it reported,” Katsuki said, approaching with his fisted hands hidden in the pockets of his coat. They were shaking, his hands, but he couldn’t be sure if it was from murder or abject relief. 

Izuku whipped around, his curls catching the dim autumn sun, so familiar, all of it so familiar, so right, so good, so—

“Kacchan,” Izuku whispered, eyes like saucers, a clear, true green as he gawked. 

“I told you not to call me that dumb name,” Katsuki said quietly. “You good?”

“Am I—” Izuku blinked, looked down at himself, then at Katsuki, as if he couldn’t quite believe they were both physically there, together. “I—yes? Good? I’m good. I’m great. I’m—you’re here.”

“Last time I checked.” Katsuki kept his voice even, which usually sounded self-assured, something that would work in his favor right now. He cocked his head and considered the creeping color riding pink up Izuku’s throat to flush his cheeks. He looked healthy; beefier, if the widened set of his shoulders beneath the sagging knit sweater were a hint of what was underneath. “You look good.”

“That’s—well, that’s because I’m good,” Izuku said, sounding still confused and oddly helpless for someone who’d just destroyed some Alpha’s manhood. “I’m fine.”

Katsuki’s nails cut into his palms, the driving, howling urge to embrace his Omega— his, no one else’s—like a visceral burn in his veins. 

“Good,” Katsuki repeated, inhaling slowly, his nostrils flaring and filling with the earthen sting of Izuku’s rising anxiety. “I—well, good job fending off that asshole. I gotta—I’m headed to work now.”

Izuku startled forward, a hand outstretched and quickly snapped back, an expression like a kicked puppy quickly masked as he bit down on his bottom lip, rocking back on the heels of those same black lace-up boots that boosted his meager height. 

“You—I thought you were in America.”

Katsuki’s eyebrows rose. 

“I’ve been back since—I’ve been back a while. Since summer.”

Izuku frowned.

“Shinsou never said.”

“For someone who talks so much, he rarely gives anything away that he doesn’t want to,” Katsuki said. He ran his hand through his hair and looked over Izuku’s head, realizing they were standing in the center of foot traffic just talking, catching up like they’d ever been anything normal. “Well, I gotta go.”

“Wait!”

Tight fingers around Katsuki’s wrist, the thrill of chemistry racing up his arm, igniting blood and bone and heart back to life. Katsuki turned immediately, but Izuku had already snatched his hand back as if burnt, his eyes plaintive. His lips parted with the sweetest, most quiet little whine at the back of his throat.

“Sorry,” Izuku whispered, breathless somehow, his hand clenching and unclenching at his side, eyes too large and genuine for his face. “Sorry, I’m—I don’t know why I—”

“It’s fine,” Katsuki said tightly, pocketing his hands once more, his back hunching against the bloom of pain in his gut. He’d been apart from his Omega so long; he didn’t know the draw between them could feel physically painful, not when they weren’t even imprinted upon each other. “It’s—it’s natural. Don’t worry about it.”

“What is?” Izuku asked, sounding small, which he never did. Izuku took up rooms, buildings, city blocks, the country. 

Katsuki smiled, but knew it was more a baring of teeth, mean. 

“The pull is natural. When you were supposed to be with someone.”

When the hell was Katsuki going to start pursuing that which did not hurt him?

“Well,” Katsuki said when Izuku only stared, a pretty picture of an Omega at a loss, “see ya around, freck—”

The wind knocked out of Katsuki with a thin wheeze as two strong arms wrapped around him from behind, vice tight, linking them together for the world to see.

“Take me to your place,” Izuku whispered against Katsuki’s back. His brow tucked between Katsuki’s shoulders, a grounding weight. “Please. Kacchan. I just need to feel how it felt with you again. Can’t we just—”

Katsuki was a strong man in every way but one. And in this one way, he was nineteen and stupid, a teenager in love—in first love and the last, and so he took Izuku by the hand without looking him in the face and walked him back to his apartment in silence.

They didn’t touch on the elevator ride up and up, and Katsuki took the time to shoot a text to Todoroki to pass on that he’d be late due to an emergency. It felt like a lie only because Todoroki would assume it to be an emergency that didn’t involve his pathetic heart and desperate dick. 

Katsuki barely had the door shut before Izuku was turning him with harsh, proprietary hands on his hips, Katsuki’s back up against the door and those wide, warm palms riding his up chest to cup his cheeks in a very familiar way. 

Izuku looked at him like Katsuki had something particularly painful when he hadn’t said a word at all.

“I missed you,” Izuku whispered, and Katsuki could barely breathe when the tender scar over his heart clenched and shot pain between his ribs. 

Katsuki had heard those words before and he knew what they meant. When Izuku said I missed you, it meant, I hate you for my wanting you. Right?

And Katsuki didn’t want to roll that specific hurt around in his mouth like a bullet he’d just pulled out of himself with bloody teeth alone. So he leaned into his silence, undemanding of any emotion from the Omega other than that which they could share between lips and tongue and entwined limbs. 

He kissed Izuku soundly, sunk into it, breathed in that luscious, summer storm green that filled him, grew vines between his bones, a voracious grip on Katsuki’s guts that he could never be rid of unless he cut it all away and tore himself to shreds in the process. Izuku keened against his mouth, opening for him, blooming, his thighs spreading so easily as Katsuki took him to bed and spread him out on sheets just slept in an hour ago. 

Black sheets pooled around that pale, welcoming body as Katsuki wordlessly stripped him down. He noted the newer scars between Izuku’s thighs, the numbed part of him screaming and slamming fists against that small wall of control he’d put up since the day Izuku had first told him to leave. 

He didn’t kiss the pink, fleshy burns but he skimmed his hands up Izuku’s legs, fingers and palms gracing along sturdy ankles and sculpted calves, scuffed knees and generous thighs, his thumbs sweeping briefly over the scars and higher. He cupped his hands around Izuku’s hips, fingertips glancing over the bony wings of his pelvis, then higher, a firm, brief squeeze around that neat waist. And higher, dipping between each curved rib that expanded and retracted with Izuku’s quickened breaths. 

Still, Katsuki didn’t speak, but followed the blush that climbed Izuku’s chest, kneading over his more prominent pecs, rounding out along the curves of his solid shoulders. 

“Kat—”

Katsuki kissed his mouth gently. No tongue, just a gift; just giving himself over because that was all he could do in the face of his Omega, laid out before him, not his, but his, always his. Kissed him again just as soft, Izuku’s lips faintly parted to eke out a curious noise. His lips were smooth and plush and damp, everything about him an invitation from head to toe. 

You're just one out of a dozen Alphas who take my scent as an invitation when it never was.

A harsh, pained noise ripped from Katsuki’s gut and he turned it into a growl, baring his teeth as he tucked his face against Izuku’s throat and waited out the wave of pain. Izuku hushed him, trying to soothe that which he caused, his clever hands stripping Katsuki of his sweatpants and boxers, palms diving beneath Katsuki’s shirt and up his back, rucking the cloth beneath his armpits until Katsuki abruptly pulled back and ripped off the remaining layer between them. 

For a brief moment, with Katsuki on his knees, straddling Izuku’s heaving stomach, their eyes met properly, Izuku’s blown black, hungry. 

“You’re different,” he said, still whispering. 

“You’re not,” Katsuki said, and draped his entire body over his Omega, flattening him into the mattress, barely keeping the heft his weight at bay with an elbow beside Izuku’s head. “Spread for me.”

A shudder wracked through Izuku’s sweat-damp body as he complied, his scent a sweet, foggy musk seeping into Katsuki’s open mouth, his lips smearing across Izuku’s bared throat. The urge to mark and mate rose up in a mighty roar, but Katsuki took his cock in hand and worked it into Izuku’s tight, leaking hole without prep instead. 

But oh, he slipped right in, the hot, soaking clench of that ass taking him so beautifully, better than he remembered, strong muscles throbbing around him, encouraging him balls-deep in one solid, unyielding thrust. Katsuki swallowed Izuku’s loud, startled cry and licked it into a moan, tasting morning coffee at the back of his mouth and the deep, rich earth that was inherently him. 

Stocky legs gripped around Katsuki’s waist and, like a slap, he realized they hadn’t fucked like this since the first time. Katsuki had always avoided it; the memory was so muddled in right and wrong and found and immediately lost. How damn fitting it was to find himself like this again, more than a year later. 

A lot had happened in a year. 

They moved together in a rocking, easy rhythm that grew reckless and wet, loud and desperate, sloppy exchanged kisses and Izuku’s hands everywhere, bitten nails scraping and failing to hold onto the rolling muscle of Katsuki’s shoulders, the mess of slick smearing between their rubbing thighs and the angry flex of Katsuki’s jaw as he fucked Izuku with the single-minded intention to claim and come and fill to bursting. 

The angle of Katsuki’s thrusts shifted to the spot that made Izuku’s entire body twitch and tense up like a bow string, right before Izuku snapped, crying out and clinging. A wave of rainforest scent washed over him, hot and thick and drenching the room.

And then a set of blunt teeth and two unnaturally sharp Omega incisors sunk into Katsuki’s shoulder, the pop of broken skin and scent of copper railing through his recognition before the blissful scream of pain, ripping straight to his cock. Katsuki came hard, his cry muffed by Izuku’s skin, face hidden in the curve of his fragrant neck as Katsuki continued shallow thrusts, stuffing his Omega through the release, filling him until no scrubbed shower could completely erase the memory of Katsuki from Izuku’s body. 

Izuku whined, lapping and licking frantically at Katsuki’s bleeding shoulder even as they both came down, quaking and quivering around each other, entwined, their scents a blazing forest fire together. Katsuki hadn’t smelled their coupled scent in so long that it felt almost new. Almost hopeful.

Breathing ragged and riding the blissful  burn of the bite at his shoulder, Katsuki collapsed, crushing Izuku beneath him, and floated. 

“Kacchan,” Izuku wheezed after some time, his warm hand flexing on Katsuki’s hip. “I’m dying under here.”

Katsuki grunted and rolled, eyes too heavy to open, basking in the haze of the first fuck he’d had since the last time they’d fucked. 

God, he was pathetic. He’d become everything he hated in other people, other couples. Not that he and Izuku amounted to anything even vaguely resembling a couple—and that was only increasingly pitiful. 

Izuku chose that moment to roll and follow, slinging a thick thigh across Katsuki’s belly and using Katsuki’s outstretched arm for a pillow. He sighed and nuzzled at the thin skin along the inside of Katsuki’s forearm. 

“Sorry I bit you,” Izuku murmured, sounding sheepish. Katsuki cracked an eye to confirm that yes, he was blushing about this, of all things. “Something about you has always made me want to. . .mark.”

Katsuki’s gut lurched, his heart threatening to drop into it. 

“S’fine,” he gritted out, his throat dry and voice cracked. “I heal fast.”

More silence followed, not uncomfortable, but not Izuku’s natural post-orgasm chattering either.

“We should probably. . .talk,” Izuku said quietly, his breath warm on Katsuki’s sensitized skin. “After all this time. I’m sorry I—how I just pulled you into bed like I was desperate or—”

“I brought you to my bed,” Katsuki said, abruptly sitting up and letting Izuku fall away from his body. He scooted to the end of the bed, his back to Izuku, his feet firmly on the cool floor, a reality that he focused on. Whatever he had with Izuku had never been as real as he’d allowed himself to imagine, and he wasn’t about to make a fool of himself a second time. “I’m a part of your choices too, y’know.”

He didn’t give Izuku time to formulate an answer. He’d always had a smartass mouth that was quicker than Katsuki’s by a mile. So he stood and headed for the bathroom. Over his shoulder, he called out as casually as his tight throat would allow. 

“I’m late for work. I’m gonna shower this stink off me and head out in ten minutes. Leave or don’t. Either way, Shinsou says your mobile number is the same, so I’ll be in touch.”

In five days or five weeks or five years. Whenever Katsuki felt like he could bear to live through another scene like this again.

“Kacchan,” Izuku said quietly, the hush of his voice not suited to the sun shining into the bedroom as Katsuki walked out. “I’m sor—”

Katsuki resolutely closed the door to his bathroom and did not wait to hear if his front door closed too. 

***

“You’ve been hard to get a hold of,” Mina said, passing the basketball to Katsuki with such a brutal force that Katsuki barely caught it from lodging in his gut. 

She smiled, dripping sweat, the autumn air doing nothing to cool her as they’d spent the last twenty minutes viciously chasing each other around the half-court at the park. 

“I’m a busy and adored man.” Katsuki smiled, all feral teeth, and passed it back, harder.

Mina neatly caught the ball and laughed, then bolted from the mid-court line, dribbling with the ease of years playing one-on-one with Katsuki when no one else had ever been interested enough in basketball to join. Katsuki had never intended for her to surpass him, though.

They ducked and weaved around each other, Mina so much shorter than him but quicker, and with a good eye for taking far shots when she was so used to slinging acid with critical specificity. 

“You’ve been avoiding me,” Mina said the next time it was Katsuki at the midline. She bounced lightly from one gaudy gold sneaker to the other, ready to dash in whichever direction Katsuki chose to escape. “At least I know why now.”

Katsuki dribbled between his legs, back and forth, rolling his eyes. 

“Save the gossip for someone who wants a part of it,” he said and faked her out, dashing off in the opposite direction she’d expected. The lay-up was too easy and he caught the ball before it hit the ground from the net, grinning as he made a silly show of rolling the ball along his arm and lobbing it into her hands. 

“I can smell it all over you, blondie!” She sing-songed in that know-it-all tone, turning and dribbling idly, the ball in her court as well as the conversation. “It’s the same Omega as back in school, isn’t it? It is. I’d never forget a scent like that.”

“Like what,” Katsuki snapped, suddenly uninterested in playing once the memory of Izuku bulldozed his enjoyment. Only two days had passed since the. . .incident. Izuku had, predictably, been gone when Katsuki had emerged from the shower, and that had been for the best. Katsuki was still considering calling him. Putting himself out there again. 

“Dunno,” Mina said, standing still and dribbling in place. Her nostrils flared, her piercing, alien eyes narrowing on Katsuki like she was piecing through whatever parts of Izuku were left on Katsuki’s skin. “But it’s not right. I mean, for an Omega. I noticed it back when you two were fucking in third year. They’re off, Bakugou. Careful with that one.”

Where was this over a year ago? Not that Katsuki would have listened to even a syllable of it. He’d been blind and deaf to everything in his world but for Midoriya Izuku. 

“He smiles fine,” Katsuki snapped, unsure why he was even running to Izuku’s rescue. He knew from their past spent together that Izuku devoted a lot of energy to masking his scent alongside suppressants which barely functioned for him at all. His unbelievably potent scent—a condition of which he’d never once explained the origins—attracted Alphas almost like an average Omega’s heat. 

Katsuki didn’t understand how Izuku’s body worked, but he knew that it made Izuku suffer. 

He’d attracted Katsuki, after all. 

“He?” Mina said with a knowing wink. “That answers one thing, anyway. I always wondered why you never took up any of the girls at school. A quick ride wouldn’t have hurt your uptight ass.”

“I’m not gay,” Katsuki shot back emphatically. At Mina’s slow, knowing smile, Katsuki sputtered and slapped the ball out of her dribble, sending it rocketing off the concrete court and toward the walking path. “I said I’m not ! It’s only—”

Him. Only ever been him.

“Alright, alright, buddy,” Mina said, holding up both hands even as she laughed, goading him with her attitude on purpose. She walked backwards off the court, grinning. “Don’t get your panties in a bunch. Fuck who you want, I always say—just know that I’m never wrong about a scent. My nose has always been better than yours.”

“Whatever,” Katsuki mumbled, wiping the sweat from his brow with the back of his arm. “We’re not that serious anyway.”

“Oh, honey.” Mina approached with the basketball beneath her arm, her face melted into pity. Katsuki grinded his back teeth at the expression and folded his arms tightly across his chest as she moved in with a soft, empathetic noise and gently touched his shoulder. “You’re one of the most serious people I’ve ever known. I’ve never met a person as all-or-nothing as you.”

“Oh, fuck the hell off,” Katsuki muttered, turning away. 

“It’s serious,” Mina said, her tone even and assured from behind. “It’s serious because it’s you. And what about him? You stopped smelling of him, like, way before we even graduated.”

Katsuki hummed a vague reply of nothing and picked up his water bottle from the concrete, guzzling as the sweat cooled and stuck his damp t-shirt to the small of his back. 

“I’m here for you, idiot,” Mina said some time later as they walked out of the park. “We’re pack.”

Katsuki felt his tight shoulders loosen and droop as he nodded, pointedly not looking at her because he simply couldn’t deal with the compassion he might see there. 

“Yeah,” he croaked. “We are.”

***

“I met your ex-boyfriend,” Todoroki said with the most casual air of discussing the weather as they strolled side by side on a late patrol. They were normally day patrollers, but were short-staffed due to a couple of battle-related hospitalizations and both offered to do a double shift today, sixteen hours each. 

Katsuki was brain-addled and dragging his feet, nearly tripping over a crack in the pavement as he turned his head to gawk. 

“Are you speaking a different language?” he asked, his voice notching into a higher decibel. “I never had a goddamn boyfriend in order to have an ex? And I’m not gay.”

Todoroki gave him one of the most withering, unimpressed stares Katsuki had ever seen. 

“I’m not an idiot,” he said. Someone called Todoroki’s name and he waved at a fan as he quietly spoke. “I recognized him from last year when we ran into him near the university. And his scent is very strange. Hard to forget.”

“Why does everyone keep saying that,” Katsuki muttered, not bothering to deny the rest. “Wait, you said you met him—when?”

“Last weekend,” Todoroki said, nodding soberly to himself as they walked on. “Shinsou’s been bugging me to meet him—best friend and all. They’re kind of, I don’t know, bonded in a way I don’t understand yet.”

Katsuki hummed but didn’t respond, didn’t know how to. He wanted to ask a dozen questions and didn’t want to know a thing. 

“I didn’t want to meet him,” Todoroki eventually said in that simple, straight way of his that is never intended to offend. “Not because he obviously broke your heart even if you never said it out loud—”

“Gee, thanks, asshole.”

“But because he—you know—” Todoroki snuck a glance aside and the realization clicked. 

“Your br—Dabi.”

Todoroki’s mouth twisted at the name but he nodded and looked away, his posture pristine, not a hint of distress in his step despite the bitter chill of his scent. 

“I thought anyone who was both with him and then you—”

“Simultaneously,” Katsuki muttered, exhaustion loosening his tongue.

“I thought he had to be dishonest,” Todoroki said, sneaking another look at Katsuki, who just shrugged. Izuku had never actually outright lied to him. He’d been cagey and snappy and full of omissions, but he’d rarely led Katsuki on. Katsuki had done that to himself; held his own leash and led himself by the nose. “I assumed there was no way this person could make two such different people love him without being a total fake. But he’s Shinsou’s friend too, which confused me more.”

When Todoroki didn’t continue past that and kept on strolling like he hadn’t just spoken more in one sitting than he often did in three days, Katsuki elbowed him sharply in the side.

“So what the fuck happened,” he badgered, unable to stick to his own self-imposed silence.

“Not much,” Todoroki said with a shrug. “We drank and danced—”

“You didn’t dance.”

“I didn’t dance. And he—he offered to tell me about my brother sometime. What he was like. . .all this time away.”

Katsuki refrained from mentioning that he’d seen Dabi that same fateful night he’d met Izuku. It wouldn’t do any good. He’d been hounding himself with the ‘what-if’ of not having addressed that asshole sooner, knowing who he hung out with and where. But he’d been stupid and struggling and blindsided by lust and Shinsou had so strictly forbid him from messing with whatever Chisaki Kai had been upto back then. 

“What, so you two are going to hang out now?” Katsuki asked, unwilling to hold back his sneer. This would be just fucking rich. Katsuki couldn’t avoid Izuku even when he wanted to. 

“I don’t know,” Todoroki replied, honest as ever. “Would that hurt you? I don’t want that.”

“Who cares?” Katsuki was tired in ways he didn’t know a human could be tired. He was fairly certain it was an exhaustion that preceded being a mere human, and into Hero territory. “You have even less friends than me. Knock yourself out.”

“Literally or figuratively,” Todoroki said, the even keel of his voice not betraying whether or not he was asking in earnest. A guy could never be sure with him. 

Katsuki didn’t answer and the conversation tapered as they filtered through alleys and passed karaoke bars spilling with laughter and late-night revelers. 

“He didn’t ask about you,” Todoroki said as they neared the agency high rise. 

“I didn’t ask,” Katsuki managed between his clenched teeth. 

“But he smelled like you.” 

The words were delivered quietly and without judgment. Katsuki’s jaw ached. 

“Weird,” Katsuki bit off. 

They’d only seen each other last Friday, literally four days ago. If Todoroki had hung out with him over the weekend, it made sense. Fuck. 

“Be careful,” Todoroki murmured, a gloved hand briefly brushing Katsuki’s elbow, a guiding gesture that led to nowhere. “Just because I like him doesn’t mean he’s good for you.”

“Shut up already,” Katsuki mumbled, face hot as he looked away and into the cool autumn night. “I know.”

***

>>> You still wanna talk?

<<< Yes! Any time! I think there was a misunderstanding the other day. My fault. 

>>> When? 

***

>>> Hello? 

>>> Well fuck you too. I’m not playing this game again. 

A handful of days had passed since their thoughtless, desperate fuck. Katsuki’s sheets still stank of faded slick and sodden earth, and already Izuku was trying to slip between his fingers like so much rain. 

Katsuki thumped his fist on the door to Izuku’s apartment with the assumption that the sneaky asshole hadn’t moved away from this location the past year and a half. 

He’d put himself out there. He really fucking had, and Izuku replied like he was up to it, then ghosted him. For a little shit who spent so much of his energy baring his teeth and threatening the world, he was just as good at running away from the shit that truly mattered. 

They had mattered. And Katsuki wasn’t ending this without making Izuku admit it before they dumped each other face to face. 

“Open this door before I break it off the fucking hinges,” Katsuki snarled, his brow pressed to the wood, his hand on the knob. Someone was gonna call the cops on him for all he looked like a rabid Alpha set on savaging some poor student locked away in their tower. 

He didn’t care. They’d finish this and Katsuki’s heart would break for the last time so he could finally fix the pieces together in a way that stayed firm and unforgiving, forever fortified from this day on. 

“Izuku!” Katsuki pounded at the door with his fist and then his hand fell through the open space where the entryway flung open wide. “Wh—”

A wash of sopping jungle scent cascaded over him, waves of sex and want pounding at Katsuki’s senses in a tsunami. His knees weakened with a shocked gasp of breath as he nearly fell at Izuku’s feet. The only thing that stopped him was Izuku himself toppling into his arms, a lengthy whine on plump, pink lips as Izuku clutched at the collar of his hoodie and buried his face beneath Katsuki’s chin. 

“Kacchan,” he whispered. “M’sorry, sorry I—I want— please.”

The fuckable fragrance of Izuku in heat was more powerful than anything Katsuki had ever had to defeat. 

And he couldn’t. He was so weak. 

Katsuki groaned and swept Izuku into his arms, his frame heavier with muscle than before, strange for an Omega, beautiful for Izuku. His Omega was also wearing nothing but an oversized t-shirt that barely skimmed his thighs as Katsuki scooped him up. He was all bare legs and smeared slick glimmering on his thighs and the scent of his spend soaked into his skin. 

Shuddering out a breath, Katsuki shut the door with his foot and made a beeline for Izuku’s familiar room. On the short trip, Izuku began to croon, some kind of soft, needy dove noises at the base of his throat, his face nuzzled to Katsuki’s ear and cheek, pressing kisses, then outright licking at his face, then rubbing their skin together and starting anew. 

Their mingled forest fire scent after so long was maddening. 

When Katsuki tried to drop Izuku on the bed, he only clung, whining with the attempted parting, no matter how brief. Katsuki sagged into the weight of him and dropped to the bed, Izuku humming beneath him with the mindless, base pleasure afforded only to those out of their mind. 

The entire room reeked of sex and sweat and slick, but it was only Izuku’s scent that heat up the room and dripped down the walls, not an extra Alpha stink to sniff out. Katsuki had never seen Izuku through a heat, had not only never been invited to, but had been actively pushed away on the one occasion Izuku had gone through it. 

He’d smelled his pack and passing classmates on the verge of heat but never this. Never this all encompassing clamp of hot, sweltering sex clenching around him like the pulse of Izuku’s tight, greedy hole. Never the experience of drowning in Izuku’s slick before he’d even dipped his tongue into him. 

“Let go,” Katsuki murmured, his voice dropped low, decibels too low in automatic reaction to the heady hormones drenching through his clothes and sticking to the back of his throat. “Izuku, let me go. ”

“No!” Izuku shot back, sharp and plaintive and cracked down the center as he shoved his face against Katsuki’s, his mouth at Katsuki’s ear, damp and tempting. His densely muscled legs were unflinchingly clamped around Katsuki’s waist, the thick long of Izuku’s cock frantically rutting in short, aborted thrusts. “N-no, no I—you’ll leave and I’ll—oh, Kacchan please. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, please can’t you just—”

Izuku moaned despite Katsuki remaining motionless, his elbows and knees sinking into the skinny bed with the combined weight of them. Another plume of dewy scent burst from between them, the earth and rain flavor of his slick soaking the air as Katsuki shuddered against the onslaught. 

“Don’t go,” Izuku mumbled, licking at Katsuki’s ear once before his arms loosened their grip, his shoulders dropping back against the bed, arms outstretched, hands carding through Katsuki’s hair, petting it down, playing with it, gripping at Katsuki’s ears in the same way he used to do before hauling him in for a kiss. But Izuku didn’t kiss him now, but kept touching Katsuki’s face like he hadn’t just seen it the other day. His hazy gaze was blown out, his clear skin all pale and glimmering with exertion, his curls stuck to the rounds of cheeks. “Don’t go,” he urged, doe eyes too big and honest. “You’re the only one I never wanted to go.”

“We’re talking after this,” Katsuki said between gritted teeth, his head spinning with the rush of blood straight to his cock, filling too quickly to keep up with. 

“Anything,” Izuku whispered, fingers fluttering from Katsuki’s face to his shoulders, gripping at his t-shirt and yanking on the material. “Anything. Just fuck me, fuck me, I need it, need you, it hurts—”

It bothers me. How it hurts. I don’t understand why it hurts with you.

Katsuki took Izuku’s mouth in a firm, no-nonsense kiss, more intended to calm than incense as he reached back himself to unlock Izuku’s ankles and knees from his waist. But as he untangled that half of them, Izuku’s arms banded around his shoulders and brought him in, moaning and murmuring his pleasure to kiss him deeper, lick into him and taste Katsuki’s teeth, suck on his tongue. 

With a hoarse answering growl, Katsuki sunk into it, unable to rest the unrelenting pull of Izuku’s body and scent. Those lush thighs were already parted for him, the line of Izuku’s bare cock a hot, raw burn against Katsuki’s belly. He reached between them as Izuku continued to ravage his mouth, and clumsily undid his own jeans, freeing his cock just enough—

Katsuki gripped himself at the base and pushed into the dripping clench of his Omega, a coarse, animal sound clawing up his throat as he fed the full, long length of him in one unyielding slide. Izuku’s cry was like a shot in the air, an abrupt punch of a sob as he shuddered and came around the thickness of his Alpha, pulsing between them and soaking both of their shirts, his back sharply arched, his hips grinding down onto Katsuki’s cock. 

“Holy shit,” Katsuki whispered, his voice scratchy without having done anything yet as he watched the rapture twist at Izuku’s soft, pretty features. He softly hummed with some basic, unintelligible instinct, a coddling sound even as he started the slow roll of his hips, the obscene squelch of Izuku’s ass flooding slick between each pull-out driving him quickly into a baser part of his brain. “How long you been waitin’ for that, beautiful?”

“Days,” Izuku mumbled, drunk on dick and cum-dumb, his arms going loose as they flopped back, hands above his head upon the mattress, fingers curling in his own dark halo of hair as he blinked slowly up at Katsuki and licked his plush, swollen lips. He looked like a goddamn sex diety. How was Katsuki ever meant to say no. “Been days like this—oh fuck, yes, right there, don’t stop, don’t stop—”

And Katsuki didn’t stop. He leaned back, though, dragging Izuku with him by the waist, hauling that ass closer at a better so he could keep up the pace, his own balls tight up between his legs, ready for a release that he wouldn’t allow himself until Izuku came at least another time. 

With one steadying hand on Izuku’s hip, he managed to discard his own shirt with his free hand. While Izuku was laying there and taking it in the growing daze of his heat, Katsuki at least shoved Izuku’s sodden shirt up his body, bunched beneath his armpits and chin, his pink, swollen nipples exposed and begging for Katsuki’s mouth. Groaning at his continued lack of control, Katsuki loomed over him, both hands gripping the sweaty backs of Izuku’s knees, holding his legs out wide, and took one nipple into his mouth, tongue swirling, tasting the salt and summer of him, grazing his bottom teeth over the puffy nub and biting gentle down. 

Izuku whimpered, uselessly writhing against the measured thrusts that filled him so completely, the obscenely wet glide that eased Katsuki’s way, but with each leg held so firmly, there was no escape, not pushing into it or away as Katsuki methodically pounded into him, jeans still on, ass hanging out, his mouth and tongue and teeth busy on rendering each nipple an angry, incensed red. And the sounds his Omega made, wrecked, his damp sobs ramping up and up until Katsuki cupped his palm around the bulging head of Izuku’s cock and massaged the drooling tip—

Katsuki thought it was Izuku making the broken, pleading noise as they came together. That as Izuku howled and shoved a foot to Katsuki’s chest in an attempt to push away from the expanding knot, the insatiable pressure, the ripple of Izuku’s body around Katsuki’s cock as it milked the flood of cum deep into his gut—that it was Izuku still begging, but this time it wasn’t at all. 

Barely audible were Katsuki’s imploring sounds as he split Izuku’s legs apart and dove between them, blanketing his Omega beneath the full weight of him, his mouth to the glistening gland at Izuku’s throat, pumping heady mating hormones. He wasn’t even sure what he said, could barely hear it over the roar of adrenaline and blood in his ears, but Izuku was quickly mumbling in reply, embracing Katsuki with arms and legs, tipping them to their sides so they could nuzzle into each other with a frantic level of neediness that didn’t match two who’d just come. 

“I won’t,” Izuku was whispering into Katsuki’s skin, into the frenetic pulse at his throat, “I won’t, handsome, I’m here, I’m not leaving, I won’t leave you, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry—”

Katsuki whined and ducked his head, searching for that mean, beautiful mouth of his Omega’s and finally caught it, breathing a harsh sigh of relief through his nose as Izuku angled his chin to kiss him squarely, slowly. A wide palm, sun hot and sweat damp, skimmed up Katsuki’s shoulder and cupped his jaw, held him in place as they searched each other’s mouths with renewed need, lips bruised and growing too sensitive as they licked and bit at each other in their haste to imprint marks upon each other’s bodies that wouldn't be so easily overlooked. 

“Get this off,” Katsuki managed to say as Izuku sucked a bruise to life beneath his jaw, and barely had any of his Omega’s help in rucking the nasty, oversized shirt up and over and away from the bed. 

Izuku made an unhappy noise but tucked his head beneath Katsuki’s chin and wiggled his hips as if settling in, then gasped, a delicate shudder wracking through him as the knot pulled at the sensitive skin of Izuku’s hole. They both released shaky breaths at the shift of Izuku’s hips and then Katsuki wasn’t thinking all over again, the arm that Izuku wasn’t laying on snaking around Izuku’s waist, searching fingers reaching back to where they’d join, brushing fingertips along the slippery, slick and cum skin stretched to capacity around his cock. 

Hot breaths huffed against Katsuki’s throat as Izuku clung to him and hiked his thigh higher up over Katsuki’s waist, making space for Katsuki’s hand as he teased Izuku’s ass. Katsuki could already feel Izuku growing hard between them and the hunger had him swallowing a moan, eyes squeezed shut as he changed his approach and reached between their bodies instead. Izuku’s dick already drooled with interest and Katsuki swiped his thumb through the mess, gliding it past the dip of the cockhead’s slit and under to smooth over and press at the stiff bundle of nerves just beneath, his free fingers loosely circling the length as he played. 

Izuku began to shake. Outright trembled, gulping for air as Katsuki teased that that taut bunch, errantly thumbing at the curved underside of the crown. Every time Izuku writhed to escape or get closer, Katsuki’s knot caught and his dick twitched inside the quivering muscle of his Omega, and every time it happened Izuku shook harder, falling apart beneath the simple, singular ministrations. 

The next orgasm was long; languid waves around Katsuki’s cock, clenching and milking his knot, only renewing it to full width as he came alongside, his thumb still on that delicate nub of nerves, wringing out Izuku’s release as he shuddered in the embrace of Katsuki’s body, tears wetting the hollow of Katsuki’s throat. Exhausted from the feedback of Izuku’s emotions and the confusion of his own, Katsuki let sleep take him for a time. 

When he next awoke, it was to Izuku climbing onto his belly where he’d splayed out on his back, one arm flung off the side of the small bed. The daylight had dimmed considerably and the room still stank of sex and heat and jungle humidity. 

Katsuki looked on in sleep-muted, muzzy awe as Izuku took his Alpha’s big cock in hand and mounted him in one slow, purposeful drop. Izuku’s parted lips looked painted, as dark as they were with blood, the flush riding down his neck to stain his chest, his nipples still perked and abused pink, his dick at a full stand, thick and faintly curved and leaking down toward his balls. The new muscle in his shoulders and arms flexed as he pressed hands back to Katsuki’s thighs for balance, the corner of his mouth quirking in a triumphant smirk as he seated himself and began to slowly ride. 

“What are you,” Katsuki whispered, unable to grasp this person who was bravely everything but no one consistent anything. 

Katsuki had always known who he was; had always known where he was going, what he was going to do with his life, and who he needed to be in order to achieve those goals. Izuku was so wholly unlike him that it should be completely unappealing and yet, the very opposite consistently became true. Katsuki had never been able to look away, not from day one. 

He was both hobbled and humbled by Midoriya Izuku and he still couldn’t tell if that was a blessing or a curse. 

“Look at you,” Katsuki murmured, a quick fire reigniting his blood as he palmed up Izuku’s solid thighs and gripped his sturdy waist, thumbs stroking the quivering skin of his stomach every time Izuku took Katsuki’s cock in full. Deliriously, Katsuki imagined he could detected the faint shift and bulge at the low flat of Izuku’s belly every time his Omega fucked down on it. “So needy for your Alpha, hah?”

Izuku’s expression pinched up, pretty teeth biting down on his bottom lip, those dark, serious brows knotting toward each other even as he continued to roll and dip his hips, taking Katsuki’s dick spectacularly. He seemed not to know how to reply. Even in the throes of passion, he’d always disagreed when Katsuki had used language like that, but now he was in heat. Now he’d promised not to leave, however desperate he’d been in the moment of saying it. 

And maybe Katsuki wanted to push. He damn well deserved it. 

“Aren’t you?” Katsuki said between gritted teeth, and when Izuku made an odd, plaintive noise, his eyes beginning to fall shut, the sloppy sound of his ass slapping to Katsuki’s thighs heightening, Katsuki’s grip on Izuku’s waist tightened to bruising and held him still. 

Izuku’s eyes flew open as he found himself speared on Katsuki’s throbbing cock, the power of Katsuki’s handle on his waist leaving him unable to move, unable to ride. A weak whine ramped up his throat, urgency growing as his slippery hands grappled with Katsuki’s hands, his wrists, arms to no avail. Katsuki only flexed his hips forward, getting deeper, keeping him full to where Izuku couldn’t chase the completion of his pleasure. 

“Kat—”

“Aren’t I your Alpha?” Katsuki asked, unable to keep a leash on the low, menacing rumble of his voice. He subtly surged his hips forward again, grinding in deep but never pulling out, holding Izuku’s petite little body flush with his own. “Aren’t I the one you think of when you let some loser, piece of shit side character fuck you from behind?”

Izuku panted, dark eyes glazed over, trembling, fingertips curling over Katsuki’s ribs, nails digging in, rapt on Katsuki’s mouth and the words which spilled. 

“Aren’t I the Alpha you wish you had once you no longer had me?”

“I—“ Izuku hiccuped a short sob, a few fat tears springing to life and soaking in the red head of his cheeks as he fidgeted his hips, searching for relief, for release. He licked his lips quickly, caught a few tears on his tongue and swallowed with an audible click. “I—yes. Y-yes, I dream—I dream about you. Did before—even before you left—AH!”

Katsuki bodily lifted Izuku with the ease of his enhanced strength and dropped him down on his cock once, thrusting up with a hard slap of skin to meet him. Izuku’s jaw dropped, another tear spilling over, a babble of non-words falling from his lips as his chin tipped, exposing swollen glands beating in hard time with his heart. 

And just as quickly, Katsuki held Izuku still once more, his hold bruising and merciless when realization dawned on Izuku’s face and he grappled weakly at Katsuki’s arms anew, leaving careless, desperate scratches. 

“No,” Izuku mumbled, panic and desire rising, “No no no, I need—I need you to—to—“

“Tell me I’m wrong,” Katsuki said, deep, authoritative. “Tell me you’re not mine like you’ve told me before.”

Izuku’s dazed, fucked-out expression crumbled. More tears, now not from holding back, but from the raw relief in his big, wet eyes as he leaned in as much as Katsuki’s hold would allow and cupped Katsuki’s face in both shaking hands. 

“Don’t wanna lie anymore,” Izuku said, slightly slurred from the heat, but his gaze was direct. “Kacchan. I’ve never been yours because you don’t deserve what I am. But if you’d still—“ Izuku sniffled, his lower lip trembling, new tears spilling. “If you think I’m worth keeping, you can keep me.”

Katsuki shot up from the bed on a weak, cracked cry and enveloped Izuku in his arms, face buried in Izuku’s shoulder. Izuku heaved a wet, shuddering exhale into the embrace and began to move, a dark, liquid desire dripping and pooling in Katsuki’s gut instantly, overwhelming him from the inside out. 

They moved in tandem now, their bodies slippery and hard to hold onto between the sweat and the tears, the slick and the spend, the drive to touch everywhere, claim everything. And when Izuku offered his tender throat and murmured, my Alpha, Katsuki could do nothing but sink his teeth in and surge over the edge with blood spilling in his mouth. 

The bond burst through him like a universe expanding, like he could suddenly taste Izuku’s emotions. As the orgasm spread it refracted from Izuku and back into Katsuki, jarring and expansive and deep. He didn’t even realize Izuku’s teeth were on his neck until the searing burn of his bite ravaged through him, eviscerating any remaining boundaries between them, cutting right through to bone marrow and heartstrings. 

Katsuki fell back and floated. 

He could barely feel his arms and legs as he panted and gaped at the ceiling. Vaguely, Katsuki recognized Izuku whimpering and angling his hips, clamped tightly around Katsuki’s knot and looking for a comfortable position to collapse, but Katsuki couldn’t help. Not when he didn’t feel like he had a body anymore, like he’d expanded out of his shell and couldn’t tether back to it. 

Izuku hummed, a shimmering gold and green warble of deep summer contentment rippling through the baby bond. Katsuki gasped softly at the notion of someone else’s happiness growing beneath his skin, then gasped a little louder when Izuku lapped the wide flat of his tongue over Katsuki’s bite. The sting and slow burn of it languidly drew Katsuki back to his body. 

“You feel so much,” Izuku whispered into Katsuki’s skin, champagne bubbles of wonder floating through the bond. The sticky scent of his heat had already begun to clear. 

“You bit me back,” Katsuki replied, dazed, still staring at the ceiling without seeing. 

A sharp needle popped one of the bubbles and Izuku’s body sagged a little further onto Katsuki’s, his Omega hiding his face between Katsuki’s pecs. 

“Sorry,” he murmured.

“No.” Katsuki generally  recalled how to use his hands. He lifted one and let it drop in Izuku’s curls, lighting massaging, scritching his blunt nails into the scalp until Izuku felt gold again. “S’good. Surprised me. Didn’t know Omegas did that.”

“I’m not very good at being an Omega,” Izuku muttered, their bond slightly clouded over, gray. 

“Hey.” Katsuki wrapped both arms around Izuku now, finding himself further grounding down. “I love this Omega. Shut up about him already.”

The bond did something very complicated and tangled that Katsuki couldn’t understand before Izuku sat up, the pressure of the knot easing as he straddled Katsuki’s lap to pout down at him. 

“You love me,” Izuku repeated softly. 

Katsuki raised his eyebrows. 

“I sure fuckin’ hope you’re good with that, considering we’ve just bonded for goddamn life, freckles.”

“I—” Izuku abruptly blinked, like clearing from a dream, shaking his head. “No. I mean, yeah. I’m—you just—I can feel it. You love me.”

Katsuki gently skimmed his hands up Izuku’s thighs, thumbs skimming up near his belly button where dark fuzz led downward. 

“For someone so smart,” Katsuki said, “you can be a real idiot.”

Izuku scoffed, the apples of his cheeks going pink as he smacked Katsuki’s chest. 

“Fuck you,” he said, laughing. “Remind me why I love you back.”

Katsuki’s entire heart could have crawled up his throat if he’d let it. 

“I don’t know,” Katsuki replied, suddenly sober. “Why don’t you tell me.”

Izuku made a face.

“While I’m still on your dick?”

“Is there a better time?”

“I can think of several off the top of my head.”

“Izuku,” Katsuki said, staring. Izuku sighed and looked down, sheepish as he played his fingers across Katsuki’s abs, nails gently scratching at the pale, sparse fuzz on his chest. 

“The. . .the last time we bumped into each other. I was—I’d made a poor decision and even when we were, you know. . .I could feel how disappointed you were the entire time. No bond needed.”

Katsuki pressed his lips tightly together and kept his eyes trained on Izuku’s face. Through their bond he could feel the cool, deep blue sea of him, deeper and full of things darker than he yet understood about his mate. 

Izuku’s head remained bowed, an unintentional difference to his Alpha. 

“I was. . .desperate is probably the most embarrassing and best word for it. Not desperate like I’d take anyone, but desperate for you. Missing you since that time in Parchment when I was scared shitless for what I felt and stupid enough to shove you out of life like it would somehow bring it back to normal.”

Izuku unceremoniously flopped beside Katsuki as the knot deflated, the smell of his pungent, earthy slick and Katsuki’s spend flooding between his thighs as Izuku curled against the side of Katsuki’s body, making himself small. Katsuki wrapped an arm around Izuku’s shoulder and tucked him in close. 

“The other day,” Izuku murmured, “I was already on the edge of my heat. Stupid. Should have noticed I was, with the way fuckers were hitting on me left and right. And then you were just standing there, so cool—”

“You finally realized I’m cool?”

“You’ve always been cool. I’m just worried your head will get so big you won’t be able to fit through the door if I tell you so.”

“Uh huh. Keeping going on about how cool I looked.”

Izuku twisted Katsuki’s nipple and Katsuki absolutely did not shriek like a girl or shove himself against the wall side of the bed. Laughing, Izuku followed, crowding against him, both of them on their sides facing each other, Izuku using Katsuki’s arm as a pillow. His smile faded quickly, though, and finally those earnest eyes met his, a clear and striking green. 

“You’ve always been too good for me,” Izuku said plainly. The belief with which he said it sent Katsuki’s stomach lurching, sick. “I told you the first night we met. You’re also exactly my type, for better or for worse—”

“Hey—”

“—and I made the same decision the first night that I made last time. Solving things with sex. . .it always worked before.”

At Katsuki’s withering look, Izuku made a sour, defiant expression of his own.

“I know. I know. And I know we probably should have talked more before what just. . .happened. Or, fuck, talked about it at all, when I wasn’t in a stupid state of heat. Because now you’re stuck with me unless you wanted to go through an absolutely excruciating bond break one day—”

“I don’t think you get it,” Katsuki said, his voice hard and stern despite the overflow of emotion that bunched and writhed in his chest. He’d just have to trust that Izuku could feel it as well. “I knew you were the one for me from the first night we met too. I’d told you that.”

Izuku blinked.

“I mean. I assumed that was a line.”

“Do I look like the kind of skeezy fucker who ever knew a single damn line in his entire life.”

Izuku smiled, a slow blooming thing that shined as he reached out and carded a hand through Katsuki’s sweaty, disgusting hair. 

“No. It’s one of the things I loved about your first. You’re the worst liar I’ve ever met and even worse with words.”

Katsuki glared and made a show of snapping and biting at Izuku’s hand, slightly lunging forward to nip at Izuku’s retreating wrist. Izuku giggled, made a show off how much the tiny bite hurt and tucked his arm back between them. 

“Izuku,” Katsuki murmured, leaning in to press his lips to Izuku’s. Behind his eyes he saw Izuku’s summer sun pleasure, felt the lazy heat of it beneath his skin, rising up in his chest. They parted in time, inexplicably breathless for the chastity of the kiss. They searched each other’s eyes and Katsuki uttered a short, displeased sound. “Everyone’s gonna be so pissed about this.”

Izuku winced. 

“I mean. We’ll be twenty. . .soonish?”

“Like fuck. I’ve also never talked about you.”

“Wait, seriously—”

“Aside from Shinsou and Todoroki, nope.”

Izuku scoffed and punched his arm none too gently, looking appropriately scandalized. 

“Did you even pine over me? I regularly got wasted and lamented my idiocy to Shinsou. It was a monthly pilgrimage.”

Katsuki grinned and snatched Izuku’s fist when he went in for a second punch, unfolding Izuku’s fingers to press a toothy kiss to Izuku’s palm, a scrape of teeth. Izuku shivered, his lips parting, pupils swelling as did the bond between them. 

“I,” Katsuki murmured against Izuku’s wrist, lips to heart vein, “have never wanted another person in my life. And I never will. Izuku.”

“Oh,” Izuku breathed out, licking his lips. “Well, if you say so.”

“I say so,” Katsuki said, smirking. 

“Um,” Izuku said, which was never a good sign. “Since you’re kind of stuck with me, there’s probably something else I should tell you. It has to do with. . .biology.”

Katsuki flopped back to the bed with a groan. 

“What now?”

Izuku’s smile was uneasy but a little hopeful. 

“Remember when I said I’m bad at being an Omega?”

***

“We could be in bed right now,” Katsuki muttered, trailing after Izuku and Shinsou, who were so merrily arm-in-fucking-arm as they strolled through the jam packed theme park. It was Hero night, the park lit up like a jumble of constellations, welcoming the family and friends of Heroes for a single early spring evening. 

It was also Katsuki’s only day off and he wanted to spend it doing absolutely nothing, not sardine-squished with the assholes he saw every damn day at work or in battle. 

“Is that the royal ‘we’,” Shinsou shot over his shoulder with a smarmy grin, “or a ‘we’ that includes the rest of the class, or the ‘we’ that excludes everyone but your pretty boyfriend?”

“He’s not my fuckin’ boyfriend!” Katsuki screeched, instantly incensed as damn Shinsou knew he would be every time anyone inferred that Izuku was anything less than wholly his, mated. Izuku said he had Alpha privileges to work on. Katsuki said he worked damn hard to mark his mate and people had better well recognize it. 

“Here,” Mina said, shoving a bright blue cloud of cotton candy in Katsuki’s hand. “Eat this and calm down.”

“I don’t want this nasty shit. I’ll have a heart attack at twenty-five.”

“If you don’t eat it, Eiji will keep eating it and I think he’s about to puke for all the crap he’s inhaled so far.”

Katsuki scowled but held onto the flimsy cardboard cone. Beside Mina, Kirishima looked sufficiently cowed and sick in turn.

“Learn some self control, for fuck’s sake,” Katsuki muttered, but dutifully started to eat the sugar cloud so Kirishima wouldn’t vomit on a roller coaster. 

“I’ll be taking that,” Izuku said, nimbly taking his place beside Katsuki and nipping the cotton candy from him. 

“You can’t even taste it,” Katsuki said irritably. 

“Sugar is sweet, but flavorless,” Izuku replied with a shrug. Sugar melted on his bottom lip, staining it softly blue, childish and disarming when he smiled up at Katsuki. “You have a blue mouth.”

“You have a blue mouth. Throw that shit away. No one even wants it.”

“I’m not wasting food,” Izuku said, genuinely put-off by the suggestion if his pinched expression said anything. Katsuki still had a shit time keeping up with poor kid mentality. He was trying to be sensitive or whatever. He just forgot. 

“Sorry,” Katsuki muttered under his breath, and Izuku must have felt the apology through their body because he amiably bumped their arms together. 

“S’fine. We can’t all be fancy rich boys.”

“Hey—”

“When’re you going to let me meet your parents?” Izuku asked, sneaking a smile his way, already knowing Katsuki’s opinion on that. Izuku had once answered Katsuki’s phone for him, only to end up speaking to his mother for the first time ever. They’d gotten along famously. It was awful. 

“Sometime never,” Katsuki said as they followed Shinsou and Todoroki into a line for a rollercoaster. Behind him, Kirishima groaned about his stomach.

“Where do they even live?” Izuku asked, and when Katsuki told him, he felt the surprise crackle and spark like pop rocks between their bond.  Katsuki frowned.

“What?”

“That’s where I used to live.”

“What,” Katsuki scowled. “No you didn’t. When? Where?”

“The block apartments way down the road, toward the park. You know the ones? For poor people, Zero.”

Katsuki gritted his teeth against the nickname purposely implemented for annoyance. 

“Yes,” he bit off. “You—that’s crazy. What the fuck.”

“What the fuck indeed,” Izuku murmured, glancing away, seemingly lost in thought but not upset. He perked up suddenly, all smiles once more, bottom blue lip and all. “Well, I guess we were meant to meet eventually, huh?”

“Maybe so,” Katsuki conceded, though he didn’t know how much he’d ever believed in fate. He believed in them, though. Always did, even now as they felt each other out and learned how to walk side by side. They were young and stupid but Katsuki wasn’t a man who took anything in his life lightly.

“Does this one go upside down,” Kirishima whined from behind them. “I don’t think I wanna go upside down, guys.”

“The upside down parts make you appreciate the right side up more,” Izuku said with a mischievous grin and a conciliatory pat to Kirishima’s shoulder. 

He looked to Katsuki, then, the jubilant park lights sparkling in Izuku’s dark eyes as he reached out and neatly linked his fingers with Katsuki’s. 

“I think you turned my upside down into right side up. What do you think, handsome?”

“I think that’s a lot of fancy words to say you love me.”

“My bad,” Izuku said, laughing as he leaned in for a kiss. “I love you.”