Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

The snow was finally starting to fucking melt. Summer was creeping in, or at least that's what the adults kept yapping about, and the weather was shifting just enough to make a difference.

Katsuki lived way up north (at least that's what the grown-ups kept yapping about) and even in what passed for summer, the snow never fully vanished.

The air stayed biting, the ground crunchy underfoot, but it wasn't the bone-deep freeze of winter anymore. No more bullshit layers of hides and thick blankets wrapped around him like a damn burrito by his ma. Now he could bolt out the door, arms pumping, legs moving smooth and free without all that crap weighing him down!

Katsuki grinned sharp as he slammed the wooden door of their sturdy log cabin shut behind him, the rough-hewn planks still dusted with a thin crust of ice that sparkled in the pale morning light.

The air smelled sharp and clean, like wet earth and pine sap waking up after months of being smothered. Towering evergreens loomed around the cluster of pack homes, their needles heavy with half-melted snow that dripped in lazy plops onto the forest floor. Muddy patches poked through the thinning white blanket, squelching under his bare feet—none of that weak-ass shoe nonsense for him.

He was four, tough as nails, and the cold didn't faze him one bit. His small chest puffed out, all compact muscle from wrestling with his ma in wolf form and scrambling over rocks. He reeked of warm milk and that soft, sweet pheromone haze from his ma omega's scent clinging to his skin, but fuck that.

He felt big. Strong. Alpha-strong.

"Deku! Hurry your slow ass up!" Katsuki bellowed over his shoulder, already bouncing on his toes near the edge of the clearing.

The pack's territory stretched out here, a rugged sprawl of cabins patched with moss and hides, smoke curling lazy from stone chimneys. 

Wolves padded by in the distance: big, shaggy alphas in lupine form hauling logs on their broad backs, their breaths puffing white clouds; a couple omegas in human shape, arms loaded with woven baskets of early roots and dried meat strips, nodding quick greetings without breaking stride. One massive blond wolf, scars rippling across its flank, paused to sniff the air toward the kids, piercing blue eyes flicking over them protective-like before trotting off to reinforce a sagging fence line near the river path.

Izuku stumbled out a heartbeat later from the neighboring cabin, his messy green hair flopping over freckled cheeks flushed pink from the chill.

He was a tiny thing, all soft curves and wide eyes, still in his human form because he couldn't shift to wolf yet, no matter that most pups nailed it by one year.

Deku was late on everything, Katsuki figured. The kid's clothes hung loose, a cotton tunic and pants. He smelled just like Katsuki did: sweet milk and lingering omega warmth from his own ma. Izuku's face lit up when he spotted Katsuki, a big, goofy grin splitting his face as he toddled over, pudgy hands waving.

"Kacchan! Wait for me!" Izuku's voice was high and earnest, breath hitching as he caught up, grabbing at Katsuki's sleeve with sticky fingers.

He was adorable in that helpless puppy way, stumbling a little on the uneven ground but beaming like the sun had just cracked through the clouds.

Katsuki snorted, but he didn't shake him off. Instead, he grabbed Deku's hand tight, yanking him forward into a run. 

"C'mon, idiot! Bet the river's thawed by now. Gonna race there and back. Loser licks mud!" His voice cracked with excitement, short and explosive, every word a spark.

They bolted together, tiny legs churning through the slushy snow-mud mix, laughter bubbling out sharp and wild. The forest swallowed them quick, ancient pines crowding close with bark rough as wolf hide, roots twisting like veins underfoot. Sunlight filtered weak through the canopy, dappling their path in gold flecks, while distant wolf howls echoed, pack calls, work songs, nothing to worry about here in their safe stretch of territory.

Izuku's hand was warm in his, soft and trusting, and Katsuki ran faster just to hear the kid's delighted squeals as they splashed through a shallow puddle. "Kacchan's the fastest! But I can keep up!" Izuku panted, freckles dancing as he grinned up at him, curls bouncing wild.

"Fuck yeah, I am!" Katsuki crowed, skidding to a halt at the riverbank first.

The water rushed fast now, no longer a solid sheet of ice but a churning gray ribbon edged with jagged chunks melting into foam. Steam rose faint from the dark surface, carrying that mineral tang of thawed stone. He planted his feet wide, hands on hips, chest heaving with triumph.

"See? Told ya it'd be open. Now jump the biggest rock!"

Izuku puffed up beside him, mimicking the stance but wobbling a bit on the slick bank.

"I wanna jump too! But... Kacchan, when I shift, I'll be huge! Bigger than you!" His eyes sparkled with that dreamy hope, fists clenched like he could will it into being.

Katsuki barked a laugh, shoving Deku's shoulder lightly, playful, but with that edge he always had. "Bullshit. You're gonna be a scrawny omega, just like the late bloomers. Can't even shift yet, Deku. Weak."

Izuku's face scrunched up red, bottom lip jutting out in a pout that made him look even tinier. He stomped a foot, splashing mud up his legs, voice pitching higher with fury.

“Nuh-uh! I'm gonna be an alpha! Like my pa! He's the pack leader, Kacchan! Biggest wolf ever! He says so!" Tears welled up in those big green eyes, but he swiped them away fierce, puffing his chest out to match Katsuki's, all adorable outrage and zero intimidation.

Katsuki just grinned wider, ruffling Deku's hair rough till it stuck up worse.

"Prove it, then. Race ya across the stepping stones, omega!"

Katsuki leaped onto the first flat river stone, boots splashing shallow waves that barely reached his knees in the thawed shallows. The water gurgled cold and quick around the rocks, foam bubbling white where ice chunks bobbed lazy downstream.

"Bet you can't make it to the big one without falling, Deku!" he taunted, arms out for balance, his small frame steady as a rock despite the slick moss.

He was built for this! Compact, quick, feet sure on the uneven path. The sun peeked stronger now, warming his skin under the milk-sweet scent clinging to them both, mixing with the river's sharp, wet bite.

Izuku scrambled after him, shorter legs pumping hard, but he was a half-step behind every jump. His tiny sneakers, hand-stitched from softened hides, slipped on the wet stone, arms windmilling wild as he caught his balance with a squeak.

"I can too, Kacchan! Watch!" The kid's voice was stubborn fire, cheeks puffed out red from effort and that lingering mad, green eyes narrowed in determination.

He was smaller, softer around the edges, but fuck if he didn't try, landing wobbly on the next rock with a triumphant huff.

Katsuki cackled, hopping to the next one smooth, water spraying up like tiny explosions. "Liar! Omega feet too tiny. Gonna splash like a pup!" He glanced back, grinning sharp, loving how Deku's face scrunched up fiercer each time.

"Stop calling me that!" Izuku yelled, teary-eyed but leaping anyway, fingers grabbing at Katsuki's tunic for a split second to steady himself. "I'm alpha material! Pa says alphas protect packs, and I'll protect you!" His voice cracked high with earnest fury as he teetered, nearly toppling into the frothy edge before righting himself with a growl that sounded more like a kitten.

"Protect me? Ha! You'd trip over your own tail." Katsuki shot back, but he slowed his jumps just a hair, making the next stone easier to reach without Deku noticing.

They bounded across like that, stone to stone, the river's roar drowning their shouts, mud caking their legs up to the thighs. A couple pack wolves loped by on the far bank, human forms now, hauling nets for fish, their shadows long in the slanting light, but they just yipped encouraging barks before vanishing into the trees.

Mid-jump, Katsuki spotted it: a fat, flat rock half-submerged near the bank, wedged between two boulders, its underside probably crawling with bugs now that the thaw had hit.

"Hold up, Deku! Gonna check for grubs!" He splashed over, kneeling in the shallows, fingers digging into the cold mud to pry it free. The stone lifted heavy, revealing a wriggle of dark earth and shiny black beetles scuttling frantic, plus a few fat larvae pulsing pale. "Score! Bet these taste like shit, but watch 'em run!"

Izuku crowded in close (too fucking close) his soft breath huffing right on Katsuki's neck, curls brushing his shoulder as he leaned over, eyes huge with wonder.

"Whoa, Kacchan! Lemme see!" The kid's warmth pressed near, that milky scent flooding Katsuki's nose stronger, mixing with the river damp.

Katsuki's face heated up fast, cheeks burning like he'd stuck his head in a fire.

What the fuck?

His heart thumped weird, stomach twisting tight, not bad tight, but annoying, like he wanted to shove it away. Deku was right there, staring all wide-eyed and close, and it made everything feel... off.

Too much.

He didn't get it, didn't wanna get it.

"Back off, idiot!" Katsuki snarled, shoving Izuku's shoulder hard enough to send him splashing back a step into shallower water, ass hitting a rock with a yelp. The shove was sharper than he meant, face still scorching as he slammed the stone back down, beetles forgotten. "Don't crowd me! Stay over there, omega!"

Izuku landed on his butt, soaked tunic clinging, blinking up with those damn hurt eyes, lip wobbling before he scowled. 

"Meanie! I just wanted to see!" But he scrambled up stubborn as ever, shaking off water like a wet pup, refusing to cry even as he rubbed his shoulder. "You're gonna regret that when I'm alpha and bigger!"

Katsuki turned away quick, heart still racing stupid, splashing further downriver to hide the flush.

"Whatever. Keep up or go home." He stayed human, always did when they played like this.

No wolf form for him today; Deku couldn't shift, couldn't keep pace with paws and fangs, and Katsuki wasn't about to leave the idiot behind huffing in dust. They jumped more stones in prickly silence after that, but Izuku stuck close anyway, teary glares turning back to giggles by the third rock, the river carrying their chaos onward.

They kept at it till the sky bled orange, jumping rocks till their legs burned and the river's rush turned to a deeper evening hum.

Katsuki's muscles ached good—tired in that satisfying way, like after a scrap—but he wasn't done. Mud crusted his skin thick, tunic plastered cold to his chest, hair matted with river grit and pine needles. Deku looked worse: freckles smudged under dirt streaks, curls a tangled mess, pants ripped at one knee from a slip. Both stank of mud and milk, the omega-sweet pheromones faded under the day's grime.

Izuku flopped onto a dry boulder, chest heaving, tiny hands rubbing watery eyes. "Kacchan... s'getting dark. We should go back. Moms'll worry."

His voice was whiny-soft, all tuckered out, but those green eyes pleaded stubborn, like he half-hoped Katsuki'd fight it.

"Fuck that," Katsuki snapped, kicking a pebble into the water with a plink. "One more jump. I'm not some small pup."

Except he was. 

Four years old. Short legs. Mud on his knees. Hair sticking up in wild spikes, but Katsuki would rather chew bark than admit that.

He spun on his heel, eyes flashing, and jabbed a finger at Izuku. “You’re just slow. That’s why you’re tired.”

Izuku blinked at him from where he sat on the boulder, curls damp with sweat, cheeks pink from running. His lower lip jutted out just slightly.

“I’m not slow,” he protested, voice small but determined. “You cheat.”

Katsuki gasped dramatically. “Cheat? How do you cheat at running, idiot?”

Izuku opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it again.

“You… you zig-zag!”

Katsuki burst out laughing—high and sharp and unfiltered. “That’s called being smart!”

The stream beside them burbled over smooth stones, the shallow edges glinting in the last golden streaks of daylight. The air smelled like wet earth and pine sap. Fireflies were beginning to blink lazily between the trees.

It was getting darker.

Katsuki ignored that.

He stepped into the shallow water with a splash, cold soaking instantly through the thin fabric around his ankles. He hissed at the chill but refused to show weakness.

Izuku slid off the boulder with a grunt and followed, smaller hands pushing through the current for balance.

“Kacchan, we really should—”

“Catch me first.”

The words dropped like a challenge.

Izuku’s eyes widened.

Katsuki grinned, feral and triumphant.

Then he ran.

Water splashed in chaotic arcs as his little legs churned through the stream. He laughed when Izuku immediately stumbled after him.

“Kacchaaaan!” Izuku squealed, half annoyed, half delighted.

“Too slow!”

Izuku lunged, but missed, face-first into a spray of water.

Katsuki howled with laughter, nearly tripping over his own feet. “You’re terrible!”

Izuku sputtered, wiping water from his eyes with both hands. His hair clung to his forehead in messy curls. “I almost had you!”

“You almost have me every time,” Katsuki shot back, already backing away again.

Izuku straightened, small chest puffing out. His expression shifted—serious now.

“Oh yeah?” he muttered.

Katsuki saw it too late.

Izuku didn’t run straight this time.

He cut sideways—copying Katsuki’s zig-zag.

Katsuki shrieked in mock outrage and darted toward the shallower bank, tiny feet slapping against wet stone. The stream curved there, water barely covering their toes.

Izuku gained for half a second, then lost it when he slipped again. Katsuki twisted around, running backward just to taunt him.

“You’re never gonna catch me! Never!”

Izuku puffed, cheeks red, but he was smiling now—wide and stubborn and glowing.

“I will! I’m gonna be faster when I grow up!”

“Grow up faster then!”

They were both breathless now, splashing and slipping and laughing so hard it hurt.

Izuku lunged again—arms wide. Katsuki shrieked and darted past him at the last second, Izuku spun too sharply and plopped straight down into the water with a dramatic splash.

Silence.

Then a sniffle. Katsuki froze.

Izuku sat there in the stream, soaked, stunned. Water dripped off his nose.

His eyes shimmered.

“Oh no,” Katsuki muttered.

Izuku’s lip wobbled.

Katsuki stomped back through the water immediately, panic replacing teasing in an instant. “Don’t cry! It’s just water!”

“I’m not crying,” Izuku insisted, voice very obviously on the verge of crying.

Katsuki grabbed his hand and hauled him up with surprising strength for someone so small. Izuku wobbled but didn’t fall again.

“You’re such a baby,” Katsuki grumbled, brushing at Izuku’s sleeve like that would somehow fix everything.

Izuku sniffed. “You said one more jump.”

Katsuki blinked.

“…Yeah?”

“We didn’t do it.”

Katsuki stared at him and burst into another laugh.

“You’re serious?”

Izuku nodded solemnly.

Katsuki looked toward the flat stone that stuck out over the stream. The one they’d been daring each other to leap from all afternoon.

The light was fading fast now. The forest had gone dusky and cool.

They were absolutely going to get yelled at.

Katsuki squeezed Izuku’s hand tighter.

“Fine,” he said, trying to sound bored. “One jump.”

Izuku beamed like the sun had personally risen again. They scrambled onto the rock together, dripping and muddy and small.

Katsuki counted down loudly. “Three! Two! One!”

They jumped at the same time.

For a second they were weightless—hands still clasped, hair flying, laughter tearing out of them in bright, fearless bursts.

They hit the shallow water together with a splash.

And this time, when Izuku stumbled Katsuki held on. Neither of them fell.

They stood there, soaked and breathless, hands locked.

Izuku grinned at him.

“I almost caught you,” he said again.

Katsuki rolled his eyes—but didn’t let go.

“Yeah,” he replied. “Almost.”

Katsuki bounced on his toes, ignoring the drag in his thighs, the way the chill was creeping back now that the sun dipped low behind the pines. Shadows stretched long across the bank, evergreens turning black silhouettes, distant pack fires flickering like stars through the trees.

But then voices cut sharp through the dusk—familiar ones, pissed and worried.

"Katsuki! Where the hell are you, brat?" Mitsuki's bellow echoed first, boots crunching heavy on the path.

Inko's softer call followed, laced with that anxious trill: "Izuku, sweetheart? Time to come home!"

Katsuki's gut twisted.

Shit.

The moms burst from the treeline, silhouettes sharpening into view: Mitsuki tall and fierce in human form, blonde hair wild, arms crossed over her work apron smeared with soot from the evening stew. Inko beside her, softer curves, green hair pinned back, face pale with fret, clutching a lantern that swung golden light over the mud.

Izuku perked up, waving tired. "Momma!" He slid off the rock, splashing toward her.

Katsuki planted his feet, scowling. "We're fine! Go away, old hag! Not leavin' yet!"

Mitsuki didn't even blink.

"Like hell you're not." She marched straight into the shallows, water sloshing her calves, and scooped Katsuki up effortless—like he weighed nothing, even with his squirming and kicking. "You little shit, covered in filth and out past dark. What'd I say about the river?" Her voice was gruff bark, but her grip was warm, solid, omega strength belying the fire as she slung him over her shoulder, one hand clamping his thrashing legs.

"Put me down—!" Katsuki howled, fists pounding her back, face burning hotter than before. Deku giggled from Inko's arms, where she hugged him close, kissing his muddy forehead.

The moms turned back toward the path, Mitsuki jostling Katsuki firm but gentle. "So, how was the day, boys? Catch any fish or just roll in shit?" Her tone shifted teasing, ignoring his curses.

Izuku nestled into Inko's neck, mumbling happy through yawns. "We jumped rocks! Kacchan was fastest, but I kept up! Saw bugs too!"

Inko cooed soft, wiping mud from his cheek with her thumb. "My brave explorers. Did you stay safe?"

Katsuki twisted to glare, still dangling.

"Deku fell a million times. Called him omega the whole time." But his protests weakened, body going heavy against her as the walk lulled him, the pack cabins' warm glow pulling them home through the rustling dusk.

Mitsuki just snorted, ruffling his filthy hair. "Sounds about right for you two.”

The path back wound easy through the dimming forest, lantern light bobbing soft on twisted roots and fading snow patches. Mitsuki's stride ate ground steady, Katsuki still slung over her shoulder like a sack of squirming potatoes, his protests turning to half-hearted grumbles as exhaustion tugged his eyelids heavy. Izuku walked beside Inko now, one small hand in hers, the other rubbing at gritty eyes, but his feet dragged stubborn, matching the moms' pace.

"I'm gonna be alpha," Katsuki declared loud from his perch, voice thick with yawns he tried to swallow. "Biggest one. Stronger than Dad even. Not like you, Deku."

Izuku's head snapped up, scowling through sleepy blinks, freckles dark smudges in the lantern glow.

"Nuh-uh! I'll be the alpha! Pack leader like my dad! You can't even... even..." He trailed off, yawning wide, but puffed his chest anyway. "You're gonna be omega!"

"Fuck off! Alphas rule!" Katsuki twisted, nearly toppling, eyes drooping but fire still sparking.

The moms' laughter rolled low and warm, cutting through the kids' bickering like pine smoke.

Mitsuki reached back playful, pinching Katsuki's ear between thumb and finger—not hard, just enough to tug a yelp from him. "Oi, brat. What's wrong with omega, huh? Strongest damn fighters in the pack. Bears pups, keeps everyone alive through winters like this. No shame in it."

Inko nodded quick, smiling soft as she squeezed Izuku's hand, her voice gentle hum.

“She's right. Omegas are tougher than those big growly alphas half the time. Alphas just strut and rut around, turning into whimpering messes when their heats ruts hit. Remember last spring, Mitsuki? Half the pack males hiding in dens, useless as wet fur."

Mitsuki barked a laugh, loud and knowing, eyes twinkling wicked over her shoulder. "Hell yeah. Purring for belly rubs while we handle the real work. Bet your boy's dad was the worst, Inko."

Izuku tilted his head, brows furrowing confused, too tired to puzzle it. "What's... rut?" He mumbled, leaning heavier into Inko's leg.

Katsuki just huffed from Mitsuki's shoulder, ear stinging light but argument fizzling as sleep clawed deeper, the cabin lights winking brighter ahead. The moms chuckled on, their easy rhythm lulling the boys quiet at last, the forest whispering secrets only adults got.

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Mitsuki shouldered open the heavy cabin door with a creak of well-oiled hinges, the warmth inside hitting like a wall—smoky and rich with the scent of simmering venison stew, fresh-baked flatbreads, and herbs Mitsuki must've foraged earlier.

The place was spacious for a pack home, built sturdy from thick pine logs chinked with clay and moss, the main room stretching wide under a high-beamed ceiling that trapped heat from the crackling stone hearth. Furs draped every surface: soft rabbit pelts over the wide sleeping platform in the corner alcove, bear hides curing on racks by the fire, their earthy musk blending with the food smells.

Rough-hewn shelves lined the walls, crammed with the pack's pride—Mitsuki and Masaru's handiwork. Bolts of dyed wool and tanned hides waited in neat stacks, half-stitched tunics and pants pinned to drying lines strung across the rafters, bone needles and sinew thread glinting in lantern light.

Leather scraps littered the worktable near the window, tools scattered: awls, shears, wooden looms humming with half-woven blankets. As the pack's chief artisans, they clothed everyone—alphas' heavy cloaks for hunts, omega wraps for pups, even intricate beaded belts for ceremonies—all born from this beating heart of a home.

Masaru glanced up from the sturdy oak table he was setting, callused hands pausing mid-place of wooden bowls and carved spoons. His broad alfa frame filled the space easy, apron dusted with flour, a soft laugh rumbling out as lantern light caught the mud-caked whirlwind over Mitsuki's shoulder.

"Looks like the river won that battle. Evening, troublemaker." His eyes crinkled warm, taking in Katsuki's filthy state—hair caked, tunic shredded, skin streaked like war paint.

Katsuki barely stirred, head lolling heavy against Mitsuki's back, eyelids fluttered shut with bone-deep exhaustion. The argument with Deku had drained the last of his fire; now he just mumbled incoherent, body limp as a pelt.

Masaru stepped close, arms out to take him. "Here, let me—"

"Nope," Mitsuki cut in firm, twisting away playful but possessive, her omega grip unyielding. "This gremlin's mine for cleanup. Bath time, brat." She hefted him higher, marching toward the back alcove where a deep copper tub waited by the secondary hearth, already steaming from heated stones Masaru must've prepped.

Katsuki's eyes cracked open sluggish, a weak snarl bubbling up as reality sank in. "No... fuck bath. Dirty's fine..." His voice slurred thick, limbs flopping half-hearted in protest, but sleep weighed him down too hard to fight proper.

He rubbed a muddy fist over his face, smearing more grime, as Mitsuki plunked him unceremonious on the fur rug by the tub, steam curling inviting around them. The cabin's coziness wrapped tight, hearth fire popping soft, chasing the river chill from his bones whether he liked it or not.

Mitsuki knelt by the steaming copper tub, ignoring Katsuki's limp protests as she stripped off his ruined tunic with efficient tugs, revealing a small body smeared head-to-toe in river mud, scratches from rock scrambles, and a few fresh bruises blooming purple on his shins. 

"Quit your bitching, you little mud monster," she murmured, voice gruff affection, but her hands were gentle—callused fingers from years of leatherwork tracing careful over his skin, checking for real hurt beneath the grime.

The water sloshed warm when she lowered him in, enveloping his compact frame up to his chin, steam rising in fragrant curls from the bundle of dried pine needles and wild mint she'd tossed in earlier. Katsuki sighed involuntary, tension melting from his shoulders despite the pout, eyes drooping heavier as the heat soaked into chilled muscles.

"There we go," Mitsuki cooed low, omega pheromones blooming soft and nurturing in the alcove air, wrapping around him like the furs on their sleeping platform.

She cupped water in scarred palms, pouring it slow over his matted blonde spikes, working suds from a lump of lye soap—her own make, scented with pack-grown lavender—through the tangles.

Her touch was thorough, massaging his scalp firm but tender, nails scraping just right to loosen every speck of dirt. 

"Look at you, terrorizing the river all day. Masaru said you bolted out like a shot this morning. Proud of that fire, kid, but next time, you tell me before you drag Izuku into your chaos."

Katsuki mumbled something garbled—half "wasn't chaos" and half yawn—leaning into her hand instinctive, small fists clutching the tub's rolled edge. The alcove glowed intimate from the secondary hearth's low flames, shadows dancing over shelves of half-finished garments: tiny pup vests stitched with reinforced seams for crawling, a miniature cloak edged in rabbit fur waiting for its owner.

Mitsuki's love showed in the details—the way she hummed an old pack lullaby under her breath, rough voice smoothing to melody; how she rinsed his hair endless times till the water ran clear, then moved to his back, scrubbing with a soft-bristle brush made from boar quills, tracing old scars from his first clumsy shifts with feather-light care.

Across the open main room, Masaru worked steady at the table, his alpha presence a grounding rumble—broad shoulders flexing under a worn shirt as he ladled thick venison stew into bowls, chunks of meat and root vegetables swimming in savory broth thickened with bone stock.

The scent wafted rich, mingling with baking bread cooling on a rack, golden loaves he'd kneaded that afternoon. He glanced over frequent, dark eyes soft with that quiet devotion, chuckling low when Katsuki splashed weak protest. 

"Smells like victory tonight," Masaru called, voice warm baritone, plating flatbreads slathered in wild berry jam. His hands—large, steady from hammer-forging belt buckles and boot soles—arranged everything precise: spoons polished smooth, a small wooden cup of warmed milk spiked with honey for Katsuki's post-bath wind-down.

"Damn right," Mitsuki shot back, grinning as she lifted Katsuki's arm to scrub underneath, bubbles popping merry. "Earned it wrestling rocks. This one's tougher than half the other pups already."

She pressed a kiss quick to his wet temple, lingering a beat, her fierce protectiveness shining through the tease. Katsuki squirmed half-hearted, cheeks flushing faint—not from embarrassment like with Deku earlier, but the bone-deep comfort of it all, eyelids finally surrendering to sleep's pull.

Masaru crossed the room once the table was set flawless, crouching by the tub with a fresh towel—thick, woven from their own loom, edges embroidered with protective pack runes.

"Up you go, champ," he rumbled gentle, scooping Katsuki dripping from the water when Mitsuki nodded, wrapping him snug and rubbing brisk to chase the damp.

The alpha's touch was all security: big hands cradling without squeeze, pheromones steady and warm like sun-baked stone, carrying him effortless to the sleeping platform piled high with furs. Mitsuki followed, drying his legs while Masaru fetched clean clothes—a soft sleep tunic and pants, tailored small from the alcove's bounty.

They tucked him in together, Mitsuki combing his damp hair smooth with bone teeth, Masaru pulling a lightweight hide blanket up to his chin.

"Sleep solid, brat," Mitsuki whispered, forehead bump to his. "Tomorrow, you help stitch those pup mittens. Earn your keep."

Masaru's hand rested broad on Katsuki's chest a moment, feeling the even breaths settle. "Our fierce one," he added soft, pride raw in his eyes.

Katsuki was out before they straightened, cocooned in their care, the cabin's hearth fires crackling lullaby as the night deepened outside.

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Years blurred by in a rush of seasons, the endless northern cycle grinding on—winters clawing fierce, summers teasing brief warmth that never quite thawed the bite from the air. 

Now fourteen, Katsuki prowled the forest edge in his wolf form, a sleek beast with ash-blonde fur rippling thick over compact, scarred muscle, ears pricked sharp against the humid haze.

Summer clung heavy this year, air thick and sticky even up north, what passed for "hot" in their rugged world: sweat beading on pelts, distant snowcaps glistening under a relentless pale sun filtering through the canopy. Pines loomed eternal, needles whispering lazy in a rare breeze, undergrowth bursting wild with ferns and berry bushes heavy with unripe fruit. The ground squelched soft under paw, thawed fully now, roots twisting like veins through loamy earth scented sharp with sap and sun-warmed moss.

Strapped across his broad back via leather harness—Masaru's expert craft, buckles gleaming oiled—a pair of woven reed baskets swung heavy with potatoes, knobby roots tumbling faint against carrots and wild onions scavenged from pack plots. 

Katsuki carried two loads easy, shoulders rolling fluid with each lope, the weight nothing to his endurance-built frame. But fuck if it didn't grate, seeing Deku loping alongside—human still, the idiot, hauling twice the load in bulky crates balanced on his broadening shoulders. 

Fucker. 

Izuku had shot up massive these past years, all natural bulk stacking on: tall frame corded with muscle that swelled effortless under sun-kissed skin, freckles scattered like stars over sweat-sheened arms, green curls matted damp at his temples.

He huffed steady, crates creaking but steady, shirt clinging transparent to his chest. Their scents hung mingled in the heat—still that sweet, milky pup undercurrent clinging stubborn, but threaded now with something sharper, electric, like storm clouds gathering on the wind. Presentation loomed close, the air practically humming with it.

Freckles dotted sun-warmed skin. His forearms flexed easily when he adjusted his grip. His neck—longer now, thicker—glistened where curls stuck damp against it.

It was unfair! And disgusting! 

It was… 

Annoyingly beautiful.

Katsuki bared his teeth in a silent snarl and deliberately brushed shoulder-first into Izuku’s thigh as he loped past.

“You're a damn show-off, Deku,” Katsuki snarled direct into Izuku's mind, pack-link buzzing hot with irritation. “Planning to flex at presentation like some peacock?”

Their bond thrummed instinctive since puphood, words flashing thought-to-thought no matter the forms. “Grabbin' the heavy ones to rub it in? Bet you're prayin' for beta at this rate. Still can't even shift, you late-bloomer fuck.”

Izuku stumbled a step on a root but caught himself, grinning lopsided through the sweat dripping into his eyes. He wiped his brow on a bulging bicep—too casual, too fucking built—and shot back aloud, voice deeper now but still that earnest whine.

"Not rubbing anything, Kacchan! Dad only shifted when he presented—said it's normal for strong alphas. Builds the power slow." His eyes sparkled defiant, crates shifting as he adjusted grip, muscles flexing obscene under the strain. 

Birds scattered overhead, wings flashing against the dappled sky, while a distant pack wolf howled work-call from the east fields.

Katsuki barked a laugh, harsh and lupine, weaving deliberate close to shoulder Izuku playful-aggressive, baskets jostling. 

“Normal? That's beta talk. Alphas shift early, dominate. I'm gonna present any day—alpha through and through. Big, mean, leading hunts.”

His tail lashed sharp, blonde fur catching sunlight like fire, but irritation coiled tighter in his gut. Deku's size pissed him off—unnatural how it came easy, no grind like Katsuki's endless training. And that scent shift... it pulled at him weird, made his hackles prickle possessive.

Izuku rolled his eyes but didn’t take the bait immediately. He shifted the crates higher on his back. The movement pulled his shirt tighter across his chest.

Katsuki hated how easily he noticed that.

"Wrong! I'll be the dominant alpha, like Dad—pack leader, biggest wolf! Watch me shift massive and pin you in sparring!" His pheromones spiked faint, that milky base twisting toward something grounding, warm, overwhelming even in human form.

Sweat trickled down his neck, soaking his collar, and he laughed breathy, teetering the crates higher like it was nothing.

“Pin me? Dream on, you human lug. That fucking late presentation shut sounds like something you’d tell yourself so you don’t cry about it.” Katsuki shot back mental, snapping teeth inches from Izuku's swinging arm—no bite, just tease—but he veered sharp, heart thumping faster than the load warranted.

Izuku’s jaw tightened slightly.

Good.

Katsuki circled ahead of him, paws light despite the weight on his back. Sunlight caught in his fur, turning the ash-blonde almost white along the spine.

“I’m presenting soon,” Katsuki went on, voice cutting through the bond. “Alpha. No question. I’ll lead hunts before you even figure out how to grow fangs.”

He meant it.

He had trained for it.

He had bled for it.

But the scent hanging in the thick summer air didn’t support his confidence.

Izuku smelled different lately.

Not pup-soft anymore.

There was something stormy beneath it—metallic and electric. Something that made Katsuki’s hackles prickle for reasons he refused to examine too closely.

Izuku inhaled slowly, eyes narrowing just a fraction.

“And if I present alpha?” he asked quietly.

Katsuki’s paws faltered half a step but he recovered immediately.

“You won’t.”

It came out too fast.

Izuku’s gaze lingered on him—too perceptive.

“Why are you so sure?” he pressed, adjusting the crates again. Muscles flexed. Sweat traced down the side of his neck.

Katsuki’s stomach flipped unpleasantly.

“Because,” he growled, stepping in, “You don’t act like one.”

Izuku’s eyebrow twitched.

“Oh?”

“Alphas don’t apologize every five minutes,” Katsuki continued ruthlessly. “They don’t trip over roots. They don’t smile like idiots when someone insults them.”

Izuku huffed a laugh. “You insult me constantly.”

“Yeah. And you still look at me like I hung the sun.”

The words slipped out before Katsuki could stop them.

Fuck. 

Silence stretched.

Stupid heat climbed up Katsuki’s neck beneath his fur.

Izuku’s smile softened—not teasing now. Something warmer. Dangerous.

“I do not,” he muttered.

“You do.”

“I don’t.”

“You’re doing it right now.”

Izuku looked away first.

Victory flared bright and vicious in Katsuki’s chest, but it wasn’t clean. When Izuku glanced back—just for a second—there was something in his eyes that made Katsuki’s pulse spike in his ears.

Something that coiled low in Katsuki’s gut and made him irrationally furious. He shoved Izuku hard with his shoulder again, more force than necessary. The crates swayed.

“Quit staring and keep up,” Katsuki snapped. “Or I’ll leave you behind.”

Izuku adjusted the weight easily, regaining balance without complaint.

He was getting too big.

Too steady.

Attractive.

Katsuki wanted to claw his own brain out.

He surged ahead into a sprint, baskets swinging but controlled, dirt kicking up under his paws. Behind him, Izuku’s footsteps quickened to match.

The bond between them thrummed tight and electric.

The forest thickened here, brambles snagging at Izuku's pants, wildflowers nodding heavy-scented along the trail. A squirrel chittered alarm from a branch, bolting as they passed; dragonflies hummed iridescent over a puddle. 

The west storehouse loomed ahead finally—squat log building half-buried in hillside, door yawning open, pack scents wafting cool from the root cellar depths. But they slowed instinctive, banter hanging thick as the heat, presentation's shadow looming larger than the baskets on their backs.

Katsuki's fur bristled, a low growl rumbling unbidden—irritated, yeah, but laced with something fiercer, unnamed, as Deku's sweat-musk invaded his nose.

Katsuki shouldered through the west storehouse doors last, paws scraping packed dirt floor as he shrugged off the harness with a snap of teeth on buckles.

The baskets thudded heavy onto a sorting table amid the bustle—first summer harvest chaos in full swing. Pack wolves swarmed the dim cavern: muscular alphas in human form stacking crates of potatoes high against cool earthen walls, others lumbering lupine hauling sacks of grain on broad backs, their scents a thick tapestry of sweat, earth, and fresh yield.

Lanterns swung smoky from beams, casting flickering gold over root piles and woven hampers overflowing with carrots, onions, early greens. Grunts and yips echoed, paws and hands sorting frantic before spoilage hit in the heat.

“Done. Light work,” Katsuki projected smug to Izuku, shaking out his blonde pelt as the other boy eased his crates down nearby, muscles bunching impressive under the strain. Izuku flashed a tired thumbs-up, wiping sweat, but Katsuki was already turning for the exit, tail high—until voices pinged familiar from the sorting line.

"Bakugou! Midoriya! You guys hauled ass—look at those loads!" Uraraka's bright call cut through, the only one of their crew still human, bouncing on her toes amid a pile of tubers.

She'd presented omega scarce weeks back, and fuck if it didn't show: her round cheeks flushed softer, frame curvier subtle under her patched tunic, pheromones wafting now like warm honeyed bread—comforting, nestling easy into the nose, pulling a reluctant calm from Katsuki's hackles. Physically, her hips swayed natural fuller, hair fluffier somehow, but her grin was pure Ochaco, eyes sparkling mischief as she hefted a sack easy.

Beside her loomed Kirishima, wolf form solid red-furred tank, scars already etching his muzzle from spars, and Todoroki—tallest by head, first of their pack to present alpha at twelve.

His dual-toned mixed pelt gleamed white and red in a chaos under the lanterns, body stretching long and lean toward dominance: shoulders broadening promise of future bulk, stance radiating that quiet command.

His pheromones hit Katsuki wrong—sharp ozone and smoke, stirring his blood agitated, a weird pull low in the gut like challenge mixed with pull. Uncomfortable as fuck, made him want to snap or... something else he shoved down quick. Omegas like Uraraka? Fine, their scents soothed like pack warmth. But alphas-in-making like Todoroki? Agitating, threatening his spot.

Uraraka waved dirt-smeared hands.

"Bet you raced the whole way! I presented and still out-carried Kiri yesterday." She laughed bubbly, unchanged fire in her eyes, but Katsuki's mind twisted skeptical.

Omega now means soft. Can't roughhouse like before. Weak, he thought, prejudice coiling unvoiced—omegas nested, not scrapped. She'd change, fade from their wild games. He snorted dismissive.

Kirishima shattered the thought-bubble, barreling lupine straight at Katsuki with a playful yip.

“Oi, explosion pup! Missed ya—spar time!” Red fur hit him like a damn avalanche.

Katsuki barely had time to brace before Kirishima slammed into his shoulder, massive paws batting at him with zero restraint. The impact sent them both skidding across the packed dirt just outside the storage house, baskets of roots abandoned by the doorway.

Katsuki snarled in pure delight.

“Bring it, shitty hair!”

They collided again immediately.

It was instinct. Muscle memory. Years of roughhousing and testing each other’s strength. Kirishima was bigger—always had been—but Katsuki was faster, sharper. They rolled in a flurry of snapping jaws and harmless fang flashes, paws thudding into ribs and shoulders. Dirt kicked up in thick clouds, clinging to fur.

Kirishima hooked a foreleg around Katsuki’s neck in a loose grapple, pushing him sideways. Katsuki twisted, bit lightly at his scruff, kicked off hard and sent them both tumbling down the slight slope outside the threshold.

Growls rumbled between them, playful, competitive. 

Kirishima’s weight came down heavy for a second, pinning Katsuki’s shoulder. Not enough to hurt—just enough to prove a point.

“Ha! Gotcha—”

Katsuki bucked violently, nearly unseating him—

And that was when it shifted.

A sound tore through the air. A low, guttural sound. It was not playful. 

An alpha’s snarl.

Katsuki froze instinctively.

Before he could even process it, Kirishima’s weight vanished. A massive human hand had clamped into the thick fur at the back of Kirishima’s neck.

Izuku hauled Kirishima backward with a force that wasn’t measured.

Kirishima yelped—genuine surprise breaking through his rumble as he was yanked off balance. His paws scrabbled uselessly against the dirt before he was thrown back hard enough to crash into a stack of empty wooden crates.

They shattered under the impact and splinters exploded outward. Dust and wood chips filled the air.

Katsuki scrambled up snarling, blonde fur bristling as he rounded on Izuku.

"What the fuck, Deku?! I had him, you nosy shit—don't interfere in my scraps!" His mental bark lashed hot through the link, paws digging divots in the dirt outside the storehouse. 

But then it hit—a wall of pheromones, thick alpha dominance crashing over him like thunder, raw heat and unyielding command flooding the air. Katsuki froze mid-snarl, nostrils flaring wide. 

“Where the hell...?” Strong, overwhelming, it yanked at something deep in his core, calling insistent, magnetic pull that made his hackles quiver not in rage but... want? 

He shook his head sharp, confused, crimson eyes darting wild—but the source throbbed closer, Izuku's human frame radiating it, sweat-slick skin pulsing the storm.

Izuku's eyes glazed feral green, a guttural snarl ripping from his throat.

Before Katsuki could bolt, massive hands slammed him down, Izuku's bulk pinning him chest-to-dirt, knees bracketing his wolf hips.

The weight crushed breath from lungs, alpha pheromones surging denser, flooding Katsuki's senses like molten iron—dominance wrapping possessive, demanding submission. 

Fight, dammit! Katsuki thrashed instinctive, jaws snapping air, claws raking harmless at Izuku's arms, but his body betrayed, muscles going liquid hot, traitorously pliant under the onslaught. Heat bloomed low in his belly, strange and scorching, limbs heavy as if scented command shorted his will.

Without warning, his form shimmered unwilling—fur receding in a ripple of unwilling shift, bones cracking soft to human. Naked now, compact and scarred fourteen-year-old  body exposed to the humid air, Katsuki gasped, blonde hair falling damp into crimson eyes.

Izuku loomed feral above, shirt torn half-off from the shove, muscles corded steel as he ducked low, nose burying insistent at Katsuki's neck. Glands throbbed, pheromones marking aggressive—rubbing hot, claiming scent glands with alpha essence, the milky pup base twisting fully to that grounding storm.

Katsuki's skin burned where they touched, body arching involuntary, a whine bubbling traitor from his throat—soft, needy, hating it.

“Fuck... off…” But his hands clutched Izuku's shoulders not pushing, heat pooling dizzy, mind fogging under the feral onslaught.

Todoroki moved first—dual-pelt flashing as he lunged lupine, jaws clamping Izuku's shirt collar, yanking hard with alpha authority. "Enough!" The taller boy growled, hauling the feral human back bodily, muscles straining against Izuku's wild thrash.

Uraraka was there instant whipping off her woven shawl, draping it quick over Katsuki's trembling nude form, honey pheromones soothing tentative as she tugged him up. 

"Bakugou! C'mon, let's—" Her hands gentle on his arms, but Katsuki's whine escaped low, pitiful against his will when Izuku tore free from Todoroki, lips bitten bloody to stifle more. Heat lingered phantom on his skin, that pull aching loss.

Izuku whirled feral on the wolves now, snarling challenge—no regard for human frailty as he barreled into Kirishima first, fists slamming the red wolf's flank hard enough to skid him yelping into bushes. 

Todoroki leaped to intercept, but Izuku was beast—grabbing the dual-toned scruff, slamming him down with unnatural strength, human hands pinning lupine bulk. Katsuki watched frozen from Uraraka's hold, heart hammering terror—not for Deku, but the raw power, winning two-on-one without paws or fangs. Fear spiked cold through the haze, eyes wide as Izuku reared back, fist cocked toward Todoroki's exposed throat.

The chaos erupted into a blur of motion and scent, the forest clearing suddenly swarming with pack members drawn by the feral pheromones and the crash of violence. 

Wolves poured from the storehouse, their eyes wide with alarm as they took in the scene: Todoroki pinned under Izuku's human strength, Kirishima scrambling up from the bushes with a pained whine, and Katsuki half-naked and trembling under Uraraka's shawl, his skin still flushed with the phantom burn of alpha claim.

Then Toshinori exploded from the treeline like a force of nature.

He moved not with speed, but with absolute authority—massive alpha frame carved from years of leadership, scars mapping old battles across sun-bronzed shoulders and corded arms. His blue eyes blazed command, cutting through the haze of feral energy like a blade. 

He didn't run; he strode, each footfall thudding deep into the earth, his presence expanding to fill the clearing, overwhelming even Izuku's storm.

"IZUKU!" The name wasn't a shout—it was an Alpha Order, voice booming with such resonant dominance that the very air seemed to vibrate. 

It hit Katsuki like a physical blow, making his knees buckle further against Uraraka's hold. Every wolf in the vicinity flinched, ears flattening instinctive. 

Toshinori didn't hesitate. He lunged, not to strike, but to envelop. His arms—thick as tree trunks, scarred knuckles white—wrapped around his son in an unbreakable bear hug from behind, pinning Izuku's thrashing limbs against his own chest.

Izuku snarled, a raw, tearing sound that held no recognition, back arching as he fought the restraint. 

Claws that hadn't been there moments before scraped bloody lines down Toshinori's forearms, but the pack leader didn't so much as grunt. He simply tightened his grip, his own pheromones flooding out—not the wild, untamed storm of Izuku's presentation, but the deep, weathered bedrock of a mountain. It was the scent of pack law, of boundaries, of safe, unyielding strength. 

"Enough," Toshinori rumbled, the word layered with compulsion. "Submission. Now."

It was an Alpha Command, pure and simple, woven with decades of dominance. 

Izuku's body seized, a full-body shudder wracking him as the order clashed with his erupting instincts. A guttural whine ripped from his throat—pain, confusion, the feral fire banked under paternal authority. His struggles weakened, muscles going slack against his father's immovable hold.

Around them, the gathered pack surged into action. Two burly omegas wolves in human form rushed to help Kirishima to his feet, checking the red wolf for injuries with quick, practiced hands. 

Another, an older alpha with a graying muzzle, nudged Todoroki gently, the dual-toned wolf shaking his head dazedly as he rose, a low growl of discomfort in his throat. Whispers rippled through the crowd—"Presentation...", "Alpha fire, so young...", "Look at the strength—"

Toshinori's gaze swept over them, sharp and assessing even as he maintained his iron grip on Izuku, who now trembled violently, sweat-drenched hair sticking to his forehead, eyes glazed but slowly clearing from the feral red haze. 

"Disperse," Toshinori ordered, his voice lower now but no less absolute. "Back to your tasks. The excitement is over. See to the harvest." 

It wasn't a suggestion. The crowd began to melt away, though curious glances were thrown over shoulders, especially toward Katsuki, who stood frozen in his humiliating vulnerability.

For a moment, Toshinori's worried blue eyes locked onto Katsuki. They flickered over the boy's pale face, the shawl clutched desperately to his chest, the unmistakable tremor in his limbs. 

A deep frown etched itself into the pack leader's scarred face. He opened his mouth, perhaps to say something, to offer some assurance, but Izuku gave another weak, convulsive jerk in his arms, a fresh wave of disoriented presentation pheromones spiking the air. Toshinori's priority snapped back, his hold firming.

Before he could attempt anything else—a gesture, a command to someone to see to Katsuki—another presence barreled into the clearing.

Mitsuki arrived not with Toshinori's controlled power, but with a mother's furious tempest. 

Her blonde hair was a wild mane, her work apron stained, eyes blazing as she took in the scene: her son near-naked and shaking, the lingering scent of alpha claim thick on him, and Izuku restrained in his father's arms. A snarl, pure omega protectiveness edged with rage, tore from her throat.

"Katsuki!" She was at his side in three strides, shouldering past a gaping Uraraka with a terse nod of thanks. 

Her hands, callused and strong, framed his face, forcing his glazed eyes to focus on her. 

"Look at me. Breathe." Her own pheromones washed over him—fierce, familiar, a shelter in the storm of foreign alpha scent. 

She didn't ask what happened; her nose told her enough. Her gaze then sliced toward Toshinori and the subdued, trembling Izuku, her expression a complex mix of understanding and simmering anger. 

The clearing was emptying, the crisis contained, but the aftermath hung heavy and electric in the summer air.

Mitsuki’s hands didn’t just frame his face—they cradled it, her thumbs sweeping rough but tender over the high heat of his cheeks. 

“Look at me, brat,” she murmured, voice dropping to a low, omega-croon meant only for him, a sound that bypassed thought and went straight to the instinctual core. 

Her scent enveloped him—not the sweet honey of Uraraka’s new presentation, but something deeper: leather, woodsmoke, and the fierce, unwavering warmth of a den-mother. It cut through the lingering fog of Izuku’s alpha storm like a knife through mist. 

“You’re okay. You’re safe. I’ve got you.”

Then, without another word, she bent and scooped him up—not the playful haul from childhood, but a firm, protective lift, one arm under his knees, the other supporting his back, the borrowed shawl tucked securely around his trembling form. 

Katsuki was no small pup anymore, compact but dense with muscle, yet Mitsuki lifted him as if he weighed nothing. He didn’t fight it. His body melted into the hold, a weak, shuddering sigh escaping him as he buried his face against the familiar smell of her apron, dried herbs, stew, home.

“My fierce boy,” she whispered into his hair, her lips brushing his temple. Her pride was a tangible thing, vibrating in her chest where his ear pressed. “Presented just like me. An omega. Strong. Resilient.”  She said it like a victory, like a truth he should wear as armor, even as his own reality curdled inside him—omega, weak, claimed, vulnerable.

The air around them still hummed. Katsuki’s own scent had shifted irrevocably, the last vestiges of milky pup sweetness burning away into something richer, warmer—like spiced honey and sun-warmed skin, threaded through with the sharp, unmistakable tang of impending first heat. 

His body trembled not just from shock, but from the internal furnace stoking itself, muscles going pliant and hot, a deep, unfamiliar ache beginning to pool low in his belly.

Across the clearing, Toshinori still held Izuku, though the boy’s struggles had subsided into full-body tremors, his head lolling against his father’s chest. 

Izuku’s eyes were half-lidded, glazed, but they were fixed unerringly on the bundle in Mitsuki’s arms. A continuous, possessive growl rumbled in his chest, low and feral. Toshinori met Mitsuki’s gaze over the heads of their children, his expression grave, etched with apology and shared burden.

“Mitsuki,” he said, his Alpha voice softened but still carrying weight. “I am… deeply sorry. This should not have happened in such a public way. The presentation fire took him completely. He didn’t know what he was doing.”

Mitsuki’s jaw tightened, but she gave a short, sharp nod. 

“He wasn’t in control. I know.” Her eyes flicked to Izuku, then back to Toshinori, a silent conversation passing between them in the space of a breath. “But it happened. And now we have this.”

She didn’t need to elaborate. 

The pull in the air was a live wire—Katsuki’s fresh, receptive omega heat-scent calling out, and Izuku’s raw, answering alpha dominance crashing against it. It wasn’t just attraction; it was a biological imperative, a gravitational pull suggesting a bond so potent it had ignited upon first presentation.

“We’ll speak after,” Toshinori said quietly, his arms tightening minutely around Izuku as the boy gave another weak snarl, trying to lean toward Katsuki. “When they’re settled. We must decide… how to proceed.”

It was then that the dam in Katsuki broke. 

A high, thin whimper tore from his throat, utterly involuntary. He squirmed in Mitsuki’s arms, not to escape, but to press closer, his head turning blindly toward the source of the alpha scent that was setting every nerve alight. 

“D… Deku…” he slurred, the name a plea, his mind dissolving into a haze of need. 

He wanted the weight, the heat, the crushing safety of those arms, the scent-mark that already felt branded into his skin. He was losing himself, the onset of his heat accelerating under the direct stimulus of his alpha being forcibly removed.

Mitsuki hissed, shifting her grip, her own pheromones spiking in a defensive shield around him. 

“Hush, pup. Not now. I know, I know it hurts.” She began to turn, to carry him away from the clearing, from the agonizing source of his sudden, all-consuming want.

Behind them, Izuku reacted violently to the sound of Katsuki’s whimper. He jerked in Toshinori’s hold, a raw, wounded howl ripping from his human throat, his eyes flashing fully feral again. “KACCHAN!” It was a roar of pure, possessive anguish.

“Enough!” Toshinori commanded again, the Alpha Order layering with a father’s desperate firmness. 

He began backing toward the forest path, physically dragging his son away. 

The last thing Katsuki saw from over Mitsuki’s shoulder was Izuku’s wild, heartbroken stare locked on him, and the formidable figure of Toshinori steering the storm of new alphahood back toward the heart of the pack, leaving Katsuki to shatter apart in the wake of his own awakening.

❆❅❆❅❆❅❆❅❆❅❆❅

The world had shrunk to four walls, fever-sweat, and a deep, hollow ache that felt like it was scraping his bones clean from the inside.

Katsuki’s first heat was a brutal, unforgiving education.

The provisional nest Mitsuki had built for him in the corner of Katsuki's room was a fortress of softness he hated—a sunken pit lined with thick furs, piled high with every spare pillow and blanket in the cabin, all smelling overwhelmingly of pack and den.

She’d even woven in a few of her own tunics and one of Masaru’s heavy work shirts, the alpha scent on them a faint, stale comfort. It did nothing to soothe the riot in his blood.

For three days, reality frayed at the edges. His body was a traitorous furnace, cycling between scorching flushes that soaked the furs beneath him and chills that left his teeth chattering. The emptiness was the worst part.

A physical craving so profound it felt like a missing limb, a yawning void in his core that pulsed with a relentless, needy throb. He twisted in the nest, skin oversensitive, every brush of fabric both agony and a pathetic relief. Uncontrollable, humiliating sounds leaked from him: thin whimpers, broken moans, choked sobs that he refused to acknowledge as his own. In the deepest trough of the first night, when the fever-peak had stolen his last shred of defiance, a name had clawed its way out of his raw throat, desperate and cracked: “Deku…!”

The memory burned hotter than the fever. Shame curdled with the physical misery.

Now, on the fourth morning, the first vicious wave had finally crested and begun to recede, leaving him wrung-out, trembling, and painfully lucid.

Weak dawn light filtered through the oiled parchment window, painting the cabin in shades of gray and gold. Katsuki lay on his side, curled in a tight ball, one hand fisted in one of his covers, his face buried in it.

He was slick with sweat, blonde hair plastered to his forehead, every muscle feeling like chewed sinew. The hollow ache was still there, a dull, persistent thrum, but the frantic, mindless need had muted to a terrible, clear-headed wanting.

The door to the sleeping alcove opened, and Mitsuki stepped in, a silhouette against the brighter main room. She carried a wooden bowl of broth in one hand, and in the other, something that made Katsuki’s entire body jolt before his mind even processed it.

A shirt. Dark green, well-worn, slightly too large. It wasn’t Masaru’s.

The scent hit him like a physical blow—dominant, clean, a storm of wild mint and deep, warm musk, underpinned by that unmistakable, grounding alpha strength that was uniquely, infuriatingly Izuku’s.

It was fresh and potent. 

Toshinori must have brought it straight from his son. A low, involuntary tremor wracked Katsuki from head to toe, a needy shudder he couldn’t suppress. His omega instincts, that part of him he was warring against, sang in recognition and acute, painful longing.

“Brought you something,” Mitsuki said, her voice deliberately calm. She set the broth on a low stool and knelt at the edge of the nest, holding out the shirt. Her eyes were tired but sharp, missing nothing—the tremor, the way his nostrils flared, the conflicted agony on his face. “Toshinori said the kid’s been… unsettled. Pacing. This might help. For the nest.”

Katsuki snarled, the sound weak and ragged. 

“I don’t want his damn rags.” But his eyes were locked on the fabric, his fingers itching to grab it. The hollow ache pulsed fiercely.

“Could’ve fooled me,” Mitsuki said bluntly, but not unkindly. She didn’t force it on him.

Instead, she placed the shirt carefully within his reach, on top of the other nest materials. The scent bloomed stronger, saturating the air around him. Katsuki squeezed his eyes shut, trying to block it out, but it was everywhere, seeping into his pores.

“It’s not fair,” he gritted out, voice hoarse from disuse and crying. “I’m not… this. I’m not some weak, nest-bound omega.” He said the word like a curse.

Mitsuki reached out, not for the shirt, but to push sweat-damp hair from his forehead. Her touch was callused and sure. 

“Who said omegas are weak? You think building this,” she gestured at the sturdy, warm cabin around them, “keeping a pack alive through blizzards, bearing and raising pups who can survive this world is weak? Your father’s an alpha, strong as an ox. You think he could do what I did, bringing you into the world during the Long Freeze?” Her voice softened, but the steel remained. “You’re my pup. You’re strong. This,” she pointed at his trembling form, at the nest, “is just another kind of strength. A demanding one. A painful one. But it’s yours. And denying it is just wasting energy you don’t have.”

Katsuki turned his face away, a fresh, hot tear tracking through the grime on his cheek.

He hated her logic.

“I called for him,” he admitted in a shattered whisper, the confession torn from him. “Like some… needy pup.”

“Of course you did,” Mitsuki said, matter-of-fact. “Your body knows what it wants. What it might need. That doesn’t make you less. It makes you alive.” She paused, watching him. “The bond pull is strong. Toshinori and I feel it. We’ll figure it out. But for now, you survive this. You let your body do what it needs to. And if that green-haired brat’s stink helps,” she nudged the shirt closer with her foot, “then use it. There’s no trophy for suffering more than you have to, you stubborn little shit.”

With that, she rose, leaving the broth and the scent-soaked shirt beside him. At the door, she looked back, her expression fierce with love. 

“Drink the broth. And for fuck’s sake, put the shirt in the nest if you want it. No one’s watching but me, and I’ve seen you covered in worse than your own pride.”

The door clicked shut. 

Katsuki was alone again with the throbbing emptiness and the tantalizing, hated, perfect scent. He lay there for a long time, fighting himself. 

Then, with a sound that was half-groan, half-sob, his hand shot out, snatched the green shirt, and dragged it violently into the nest. He buried his face in it, the mint-and-musk flooding his senses, and for the first time in days, the terrible, hollow ache eased, just a fraction. 

A broken, relieved sigh escaped him, followed immediately by a fresh wave of furious, helpless tears. He was losing. And a part of him, the omega part he was screaming at, was desperately, terribly glad.

The heat broke like a fever, leaving behind not relief, but a hollowed-out shell of exhaustion and simmering shame. Katsuki felt scraped raw, every nerve ending exposed and tender. The world outside his nest seemed too bright, too sharp, the familiar scents of pine and earth carrying a new, unwelcome clarity.

He’d bathed in tepid water, scrubbing his skin until it was pink, trying to erase the memory of his own scent—that spiced honey warmth that now clung to him, an undeniable brand. He dressed mechanically in clean clothes from the pile Mitsuki had left, his own clothes, simple pants and a tunic, but they felt different on him now, like a costume that no longer fit.

He needed air. He needed to move. To prove he could.

Stepping out of the cabin door was an act of sheer will. The late summer sun was weak but glaring, and he squinted against it, taking a deep breath that did nothing to settle the rebellious turmoil in his gut. Defeat and humiliation warred with a residual, physical soreness and a confusing undercurrent of something else, a lingering, phantom sense of want that made him want to punch a tree. He turned toward his parents' workshop, the attached log building where the scents of tanning hides and dye vats usually grounded him.

He’d taken three steps. Three.

Then the wind shifted, sweeping down from the path that led deeper into pack territory.

It hit him first—a wave of mint and cedar, so potent, so alpha, it was less a scent and more a physical presence. It was clean, dominant, and threaded through with a desperate, aching worry. Katsuki froze mid-stride, his heart giving a single, hard lurch against his ribs.

“KACCHAN!”

The voice was raw, cracked from overuse.

Izuku came barreling around the corner of the workshop, not in a controlled run but a frantic, stumbling sprint. His eyes were red-rimmed and puffy, dark circles bruising the skin beneath them, evidence of tears shed for what looked like a solid day. His green hair was a wild mess, his clothes rumpled, and his face was a map of pure, unadulterated anguish. He wasn't looking at his feet; he was looking only at Katsuki, and in his desperation, his boot caught on an exposed root.

He went down hard, skidding in the dirt with a grunt of pain, but he was scrambling up almost before he’d stopped moving, ignoring the fresh scrapes on his palms. “Kacchan, wait, please—”

He stopped a few feet away, close enough for his overwhelming scent to wrap around Katsuki like a blanket, but he didn’t reach out. His hands hovered awkwardly at his sides, fingers twitching. This was a new Izuku—taller, broader, his alpha presence a tangible pressure in the air, but his demeanor was painfully, excruciatingly careful. He looked at Katsuki not with the feral possession of days before, but with a heartbreaking mix of reverence, guilt, and fear.

“I’m… I’m so sorry,” Izuku choked out, his voice trembling. “For attacking you. For… for what I did. I didn’t—I couldn’t control it. It was like a fire in my head.” A fresh tear tracked through the dirt on his cheek. He took a half-step closer, then stopped himself, as if remembering he might be a threat. “Are you… are you okay? Did I hurt you? Please, tell me you’re okay.”

The care in his voice was worse than the attack. The cautious distance, the way his eyes scanned Katsuki for any sign of injury or distress—it was overwhelming. It made Katsuki feel fragile. Seen. It forced him to confront the vulnerability the heat had carved into him. This wasn't the Deku he could shove and curse at with impunity. This was an alpha, radiating power and concern directly at him, an omega, and the dynamic screamed between them, loud and humiliating.

The turbulent storm inside Katsuki coalesced into a white-hot point of rage. This was all Deku’s fault. His stupid presentation, his feral instincts, his fucking scent that was now making Katsuki’s skin prickle with a traitorous sense of… safety.

“Shut up,” Katsuki snarled, the words venomous. He took a step back, putting more space between them, his own posture rigid with defiance. “What the hell do you care? You got your big, bad alpha moment, didn’t you? Pinned me like some weakling. Marked me up in front of everyone.” His voice cracked on the last word. “Just fuck off, Deku. I don’t need your goddamn apologies or your… your careful bullshit!”

He shoved past him, shoulder deliberately knocking into Izuku’s arm—a weak, pathetic gesture, but it was all he had. The contact sent a jolt through him, a flash of that mint-cedar heat that made his knees threaten to buckle.

The effect on Izuku was immediate and devastating.

The careful concern shattered. His face crumpled, the raw hurt in his eyes so profound it was like a physical blow. He flinched back as if burned, the alpha aura around him dimming, flickering with confusion and pain. He looked like a pup who’d been kicked.

“Kacchan, I…” he whispered, the word dying in his throat. He didn’t follow. He just stood there in the middle of the path, watching Katsuki stalk away toward the workshop, his broad shoulders slumping in defeat, the scent of mint and cedar now tinged with the sharp, sour tang of rejection.

Katsuki slammed the workshop door behind him, leaning against the rough wood, his chest heaving.

The workshop was a sanctuary of familiar, demanding labor. The air hung thick with the earthy tang of curing hides, the sharp bite of dye plants steeping in iron pots, and the comforting, ever-present scent of his parents. Katsuki threw himself into the work with a grim, silent fury, trying to bury the echo of Izuku’s shattered expression in the rhythm of stitching.

He was at the heavy loom, fingers mechanically guiding the shuttle through warp threads for a new winter cloak, his movements stiff with residual fatigue and a deep-seated anger that had no clear target. Every muscle ached with a post-heat tenderness that felt like a personal insult. 

Masaru worked quietly beside him at the tanning rack, scraping a large wolf hide with long, even strokes. He didn’t offer platitudes, just occasional, grounding touches, a brief hand on Katsuki’s shoulder when he fumbled a thread, the silent press of a cup of water into his space. 

It was support without suffocation, an alpha’s quiet way of saying I’m here, you’re standing.

Mitsuki, across the room at her sewing bench, was a different story. Her support was a battering ram of truth. She watched him for a while, her keen eyes missing nothing, the tension in his jaw, the slight tremor in his hands, the way he winced when he stretched too far.

“You’re moving like you’ve got a stick up your ass,” she stated, not looking up from the intricate beadwork she was applying to a ceremonial vest. “And it’s not just the heat aches. It’s that piss-poor attitude festering.”

Katsuki’s shuttle slammed against the loom’s frame. “I don’t have an attitude. I’m working.”

“You’re sulking,” she corrected, her needle flashing. “Because you’re still stuck on that ‘omegas are weak’ horseshit. Let me tell you something, pup. I bore you during the worst blizzard in twenty years. Labored for eighteen hours while the wind tried to peel the roof off. Your father, big strong alpha,” she jerked her chin toward Masaru, who gave a small, acknowledging grunt, “could do nothing but keep the fire burning and pray. I did the work. I brought life into this frozen world. Weak?” She finally looked up, gold eyes blazing. “You think the pack survives on alpha growls alone? It survives because omegas build the dens, preserve the food, heal the sick, and bear the next generation. It’s hard, brutal, beautiful work. And it’s yours now. So wipe that damn scowl off and wear it, or you’ll spend your life fighting a ghost.”

Her words hit like physical blows, each one chipping away at the brittle wall of his denial. He glared at the half-woven cloak, his throat tight. Before he could muster a retort, the workshop door opened, letting in a shaft of sunlight and Inko Midoriya.

She looked weary but kind, a basket over her arm. 

“Oh, Mitsuki, Masaru… and Katsuki.” Her gentle omega scent, like fresh linen and chamomile, filled the space, a soft counterpoint to the workshop’s sharper smells. Her eyes landed on Katsuki, and they immediately grew shiny with emotion. 

“Katsuki, sweetheart. I heard… I wanted to say congratulations on your presentation.” She smiled, though it trembled at the edges. “You’ll be a strong omega, just like your mother. I know it’s… a lot right now.” Then her expression crumpled slightly with guilt. “And I am so, so sorry for what Izuku did. He’s devastated. He hasn’t slept. Toshinori has him under watch. It was the presentation fever, he would never—”

“It’s fine,” Katsuki interrupted, voice gruff, looking away. He didn’t want her apologies. They just made the knot in his stomach tighter.

Inko nodded, swallowing her emotion, and turned to Mitsuki to collect the repaired winter tunics she’d commissioned. The morning settled back into a tense but productive quiet, punctuated by the scrape of Masaru’s tool and the clack of the loom.

Then, the world outside changed.

It started as a distant rustle, a shift in the pattern of forest sounds—birds falling silent, the usual chatter of working pack members cutting off. Then, a single, sharp howl pierced the air. Not a greeting or a work-call. An alert. High, urgent, slicing through the calm morning.

Everyone in the workshop froze.

Another howl answered, closer this time, from the western guard post. Then another, a chorus of alarm spreading through the territory like wildfire.

Inko dropped the tunic she was folding, her face going pale. “Oh, no…”

“What is it?” Mitsuki was on her feet instantly, moving to the window, peering out with a hunter’s focus.

“Toshinori…” Inko whispered, wringing her hands. “He’s been at the council ledge since dawn. Trying to negotiate with the Grey Frost and Stone River packs. The talks were already strained… but there’s a third group involved. Nomads. From the Shattered Teeth ranges. Toshinori said they weren’t… they aren’t friendly. They don’t respect territory lines.” Her voice shook. “He told me if the alert sounded, to go straight to the council hall.”

As she spoke, the commotion outside grew. They could hear raised voices now, the rapid thud of paws and boots converging toward the heart of the pack, the metallic scent of sudden, collective anxiety bleeding into the air.

Without another word, Inko grabbed her basket, gave Katsuki one last worried glance, and hurried out the door, breaking into a run toward the elevated log structure that served as the pack’s council hall, its peaked roof visible above the trees.

Masaru set down his scraping tool, his calm demeanor hardening into readiness. Mitsuki turned from the window, her face grim. 

The cozy world of the workshop had vanished, replaced by the cold, sharp reality of pack survival. Katsuki stood by the loom, his post-heat weakness suddenly feeling like a profound liability. The alert howls echoed, and for the first time, his new omega instincts didn’t scream for a nest or an alpha. They screamed, clear and cold, for danger.

The distant alarm howls were suddenly drowned out by closer, sharper sounds—shouts of anger and panic, the unmistakable crackle of hungry fire, and a rising chorus of snarls that spoke of violence, not warning. A thick, greasy column of black smoke began to stain the sky above the treetops to the east, carrying the acrid stench of burning pitch and wood.

“The storage sheds,” Masaru growled, already moving toward the workshop door, his alpha scent spiking with protective alarm.

“Stay behind us, Katsuki,” Mitsuki ordered, her voice stripped of all teasing, leaving only command. She snatched a heavy awl from her workbench, holding it like a dagger. But before they could even reach the door, the world outside exploded into chaos right on their doorstep.

A thunderous CRASH shook the log wall of the workshop, followed by the sound of splintering wood and a pained yelp that was cut short. Shadows flashed past the parchment windows—wolves, moving fast, locked in combat. Then came the smell: not just smoke, but the aggressive, foreign musk of unfamiliar alphas, laced with blood and malice.

“Nomads,” Mitsuki spat, her eyes wide with realization.

Another crash, this time against the workshop’s outer wall, and a shower of sparks flew past the window. Heat, sudden and intense, bloomed against the side of the building. The dry, resinous logs of the workshop, seasoned by years of sun and wind, caught with a terrifying whoosh. Orange light flickered demonically through the gaps in the chinking.

“Fire! The wall’s lit!” Masaru roared, lunging for the main door. He grabbed the iron handle and pulled. It didn’t budge. He threw his shoulder against it—once, twice—with solid, jarring thuds. “Blocked! Something’s wedged against it!”

Mitsuki rushed to the lone window, shoving aside drying herbs. She tried to push the shutters open, but they held firm, groaning under pressure. “Branches! Thick ones—they’ve barricaded us in!”

Trapped.

The word hung in the rapidly heating air, more suffocating than the smoke beginning to curl under the door. The crackle of flames grew to a roar, consuming the far wall. Heat washed over them in blistering waves. Katsuki coughed, his eyes stinging, the post-heat sensitivity making the assault on his senses agony. Outside was a nightmare symphony: the clash of fangs, enraged howls, the screams of the wounded, and the relentless, spreading crackle of the fire.

“The back! The supply hatch!” Masaru yelled over the din, turning toward a smaller, low door used for hauling in raw hides. It was tucked behind racks of finished goods. They stumbled through the thickening smoke, Katsuki’s lungs burning. Masaru reached the hatch first, fingers scrabbling at the simple wooden latch. It lifted, but when he pushed, the door only gave an inch before meeting solid resistance.

Panic, cold and sharp, clawed up Katsuki’s throat. 

This wasn’t a fair fight; it was a slaughterhouse ambush. His parents moved with frantic purpose, searching for any weakness, any tool to break through. Mitsuki swung a heavy mallet at the wall near the hatch, but the logs were stout, built to last generations.

The smoke became a thick, black fog. Katsuki dropped to his knees, coughing violently, spots dancing before his eyes. The heat was unbearable, searing his skin. Through watering eyes, he saw Masaru, face grim with soot and fury, rear back and slam his entire weight against the junction where two logs met near the hatch—the weakest point.

With a sickening groan of stressed wood and nails, a small section splintered inward, creating a jagged hole no bigger than a wolf’s head. Fresh, smoky air rushed in. “Here! Now!” Masaru bellowed, already tearing at the splinters with his bare hands, ignoring the blood welling from his palms.

“Katsuki, go!” Mitsuki screamed, grabbing him under the arms and hauling him toward the opening. It was too small, a death trap.

“No! You first—” he choked out, trying to twist away. His instincts, both new and old, rebelled. He couldn’t leave them.

“DON’T ARGUE!” Masaru’s voice was an Alpha Command, layered with a father’s sheer terror. He turned from the hole, his eyes wild in the firelight, and physically shoved Katsuki toward the gap. “GO! NOW!”

Mitsuki didn’t give him a choice. She pushed his head and shoulders through the jagged opening. Splinters tore at his tunic and skin. For a horrifying second, he was stuck, the world outside a blur of smoke, running figures, and leaping flames. Then a final, combined shove from both his parents from behind propelled him through. He tumbled out onto the hard-packed dirt, rolling, gasping for air that was only marginally cleaner.

He scrambled to his knees, turning back immediately, reaching for the hole. “Mom! Dad! Come on!”

Through the hellish glow inside, he saw them. 

Masaru was forcing Mitsuki toward the opening, her smaller frame an easier fit. But as she bent to crawl through, a support beam above, charred and cracking, gave way with a deafening snap. Burning timber and a cascade of fiery debris crashed down between them and the escape route, cutting off the hole with a wall of flame.

The last thing Katsuki saw was Masaru pulling Mitsuki back into a protective embrace, shielding her with his own body as the roof of the workshop, the work of their lives, their sanctuary, collapsed inward with a final, roaring implosion.

Time fractured. 

The roar of the collapsing workshop was a physical blow that stole the air from Katsuki’s lungs, leaving only a silent, screaming vacuum in his head. He scrambled forward on hands and knees, heat blasting his face, embers stinging his skin. 

“MOM! DAD!” The words ripped from his throat raw and ragged, lost in the cacophony of battle. Flames towered where the log building had stood, a pyre consuming everything he’d ever known as safe.

All around him was chaos given form. 

Pack wolves—some in fur, some on two legs—clashed with snarling invaders in a brutal, swirling melee. He saw Kirishima, a red-furred blur, locked jaw-to-jaw with a hulking, slate-gray wolf whose eyes gleamed cruel yellow.. The air was thick with the coppery reek of blood, the stink of fear-pheromones, and the choking, omnipresent smoke.

Katsuki was a ghost in the storm, untouched yet shattered, his body trembling violently. 

He had to get to them. 

He had to dig through the fire. 

He lunged toward the inferno again, but a fleeing beta crashed into him, sending him sprawling. He pushed up, vision blurred by tears and soot, screaming their names until his voice broke.

That’s when he saw it. A figure standing unnervingly still amidst the pandemonium, like the calm, dead eye of a hurricane.

A wolf. 

Massive, even for an alpha. His fur was a stark, unnatural white, so pure it seemed to repel the grime of battle, except where it was streaked and spattered with vivid, fresh blood that was clearly not his own. He stood on a slight rise near the burning council hall, his posture one of detached observation rather than frenzied combat. His eyes—a piercing, cold blue that held no warmth, only a calculating intelligence—were fixed directly on Katsuki.

Paralysis, colder than any northern winter, locked Katsuki’s limbs. It wasn’t just the alpha dominance rolling off the white wolf in controlled, oppressive waves—it was the absolute wrongness of him. His scent was a void, a deliberate suppression of natural musk, leaving only the sterile, metallic hint of frost and something beneath it… something old and rotten.

The white wolf tilted his head, a slow, predatory gesture. He didn’t snarl. He didn’t need to. He let out a short, sharp bark, a command that cut through the noise.

From the chaos, another wolf peeled away to flank him instantly, smaller but an alpha, responding to his call with the ease of long practice.

He was lanky and draped in shadows despite the firelight, patchy, with rust-red fur and a muzzle permanently twisted into a savage grin. He practically vibrated with violent energy, his pheromones smelling of hot iron and spilled viscera.

The white wolf flicked his gaze from Katsuki to his lieutenants. His voice, when it came, was a smooth, psychic projection that slithered directly into Katsuki’s mind, bypassing his ears. It was polite, almost conversational, and utterly terrifying.

“Ah. An omega. Freshly presented, by the scent. How… fortunate.” The mental voice was a caress of frost. He glanced at the other nomads that were around him. “Secure him. He’s coming with us. A prize, and perhaps… useful leverage. These rustic packs are so sentimentally attached to their nest-keepers.”

The smaller wolf let out a low, crackling chuff that might have been a laugh, its grin widened, saliva dripping from his fangs as he took a eager step forward.

“You two, with me,” the actual growl was rough, directed at a pair of other nomad wolves lurking nearby—a hulking, silent brute with rock-like fur, and a sleek, fast-looking female with keen eyes. “The boss wants the blonde omega. Alive. Mostly.”

The command was all it took. 

The focused attention of the villainous pack snapped onto Katsuki, a target isolated and reeling. The paralysis broke, replaced by a surge of pure, survivalist adrenaline. He was an omega, yes. He was grieving, yes. But he was Bakugou Katsuki, and he would not be taken as a prize.

He bared his teeth, a weak, human echo of a snarl, and scrambled backward, his eyes darting for an escape route even as the circle of white fur, shadow, and grinning malice began to close in.

The world narrowed to the cold eyes of the white wolf. Its psychic presence was a cage tightening around Katsuki’s mind, smothering his panic under a layer of glacial control.

“Enough of this undignified scrambling,” the alpha’s voice slithered through his thoughts, devoid of anger, brimming with absolute authority. “You are a wolf. Act like one. Shift.”

It wasn’t a request. 

It was an Alpha Command, woven with centuries of practiced dominance. It hit Katsuki’s newly-presented omega instincts like a tidal wave, bypassing his furious resistance. His body convulsed. Bones popped and realigned against his will, muscles tearing and reforming in a brutal, accelerated transformation. A scream died in his throat, emerging as a pained, choked yelp as he crashed onto all fours, his ash-blonde fur matted with soot and sweat. The shift left him disoriented, vulnerable, the world suddenly sharper in scent and sound but horribly out of his control.

Before Katsuki could even gather his lupine legs under him, the smaller alpha was on him, his jaw didn’t break skin, but clamped with crushing force on the scruff of his neck—a dominant, paralyzing grip used on unruly pups. The female wolf darted in, her slender form quick as a snake, looping a rough cord of braided leather around his muzzle, tying it tight. Katsuki thrashed, a storm of muffled snarls and desperate kicks, but the other alpha, the muscular one, simply leaned his massive bulk against Katsuki’s side, pinning him with effortless strength.

“Feisty little thing,” the female giggled, her scent sweetly metallic like blood oranges.

The white alpha watched, satisfied. He gave a slight nod, and the group began moving, dragging Katsuki away from the heart of the burning territory, toward the darker tree line. He caught glimpses of the ongoing battle.

His pack was losing.

Then, cutting through the din like a physical blade, a voice he knew better than his own heartbeat.

“KACCHAN!”

Izuku.

He stood at the edge of the clearing they’d just left, human, his clothes torn, face smeared with ash and fury. His green eyes found Katsuki’s instantly, wide with horror and a rage so profound it seemed to warp the air around him. The mint-cedar scent of him, usually so grounding, exploded into a wildfire of protective alpha fury.

“LET HIM GO!” Izuku screamed, and he didn’t hesitate. He took a running start toward them, pure, reckless determination in every line of his body.

And then it happened.

Mid-stride, Izuku’s form blurred. It wasn’t the controlled, practiced shift of an experienced wolf. It was a violent, explosive eruption of power, as if his alpha presentation, held in check by shock and concern, finally detonated under the catalyst of seeing Katsuki taken. There was a sound like tearing canvas and snapping branches. Where a boy had been, now stood a wolf.

But not just any wolf.

Izuku’s lupine form was breathtaking. 

He was already large for his age, sleek and powerfully built, with long, agile limbs that promised both speed and crushing power. His fur was a deep, forest green, so dark it was almost black in the shadows, rippling over dense muscle. His paws were huge, promising the stature of a true pack leader one day. But now, he was a teenager’s fury given fang and claw, his green eyes blazing with a feral light as he charged, a deep, earth-shaking growl tearing from his chest.

For a split second, hope, wild and desperate, flared in Katsuki’s heart. Deku.

The white alpha didn’t even turn. He flicked an ear, a bored gesture. “Tomura.”

The smaller alpha  released Katsuki’s scruff with a snort of excitement. “My pleasure!”

As Izuku closed the distance, a dark shape intercepted him. It was the muscular alpha, moving with shocking speed for his size. He didn’t aim for the body. He calculated the charge, twisted his own massive shoulder, and swung his head like a battering ram.

The impact was sickeningly solid. A thick, dull CRUNCH of skull meeting skull echoed over the battlefield sounds. Muscular’s reinforced brow connected perfectly with the right side of Izuku’s head, just above his eye.

Izuku’s fierce charge dissolved instantly. His powerful legs buckled beneath him. His snarl cut off into a strangled whine. He crumpled mid-leap, hitting the ground in a limp, sprawling heap of green fur, skidding through the dirt before lying terrifyingly still. One of his large paws twitched once, then went motionless.

A sound tore from Katsuki then—not a wolf’s howl, but a raw, human-scream of anguish forced through his bound muzzle, a distorted, muffled shriek of “DEKU!”

He threw his entire being into one last, frantic thrash against his captors, eyes locked on the motionless green form growing smaller as they dragged him away.

He didn’t see anything else. 

A heavy, shadow-cloaked paw swiped at his own head, not to kill, but to silence. The world didn’t fade gently. It shattered into a million bright, painful fragments of sound—Izuku’s name on his own lips, the crack of the impact, the female’s giggle—before collapsing inward into a silent, absolute, and suffocating darkness.

❆❅❆❅❆❅❆❅❆❅❆❅

Consciousness returned not as a light, but as a slow, sickening tilt. The world spun on a nauseating axis behind his eyelids, a dull, throbbing ache anchored deep in his skull. His stomach churned, empty and sour. He tried to swallow, and his throat felt raw, scraped clean.

He didn't open his eyes, he just breathed, forcing air into lungs that felt too tight. The smell hit him first—not the sterile frost and blood of memory, but home. The deep, grounding scent of cedar and mint, woven through with the familiar, softer notes of dried herbs, cured woodsmoke from the hearth, and the unmistakable, milky-sweet smell of a pup.

His pup.

The spinning began to slow, anchoring itself to that scent. The pounding in his head receded from a roar to a manageable thrum. He was lying on something impossibly soft. Furs. Lots of them. His nest.

His nest.

His eyes flew open.

The world resolved into the familiar, shadowy interior of the cabin he’d built with his own two hands. Rough-hewn log walls, the dying embers of a fire in the stone hearth casting a pulsing orange glow over the room. Shelves of supplies, weapons, drying herbs. And directly beside the large, sunken nest he was lying in, a smaller, carefully constructed pup-nest, where a tiny bundle of dark fur rose and fell with even breaths. Kazuki.

Memory didn't flood back—it detonated.

A cascade of images, scents, sounds, slamming into him with the force of a physical blow:

Mitsuki’s laugh, rough and warm, ruffling his hair.
Masaru’s steady hands guiding his on the loom.
The smell of the workshop—leather, dye, safety.
Deku’s freckled face, grinning, then tear-streaked, then shattered.
The first hollow ache of heat, the shame, the green shirt smelling of mint and desperation.
Alert howls. Smoke. The crash against the workshop wall.
Heat. So much heat.
His father’s Alpha Command, wild with fear: “GO! NOW!”
The roar of collapsing timber. The wall of flame.
Cold eyes in a white-furred face.
“Secure him.”
The forced shift. The bite on his scruff. The cord on his muzzle.
“KACCHAN!”
Izuku’s human scream. The explosive, beautiful violence of his first shift—green fur, powerful limbs, promise incarnate.
The sickening, perfect CRUNCH.
Izuku falling. Limp. Still.
His own muffled scream.

Darkness.

It was all there. Not fragments, not echoes. The whole, terrible, vivid truth. The before. The during. The reason for the long, cold years of silence in his own mind.

A choked sound escaped him, a wet, ragged gasp that tore at his raw throat. He was trembling, a full-body shudder that started deep in his bones. He brought a hand—his actual hand, human, scarred—up to his face, and it came away wet.

He was crying.

Silent, hot tears streamed down his temples, soaking into the furs beneath his head. He didn't sob. He just… leaked. A pressure valve blowing open after being welded shut for years. He cried for the parents he’d watched vanish into a firestorm. He cried for the proud, furious pup he’d been, who believed he was an alpha right up until his body betrayed him. He cried for the terror of the attack, the helplessness of being leashed and dragged like game.

He cried for Izuku, for the stupid, crying kid who couldn't shift, for the brave, reckless idiot who shifted for the first time to save him, for the broken green wolf left motionless in the dirt.

And he cried for himself.

For the years of hollow survival, of building walls instead of a life, of pushing away the one person whose scent now saturated this very cabin, who slept curled around their pup just beyond the partition.

It was too much. It was all too fucking much. The grief was a physical weight on his chest, crushing the air from his lungs. He curled in on himself in the nest, face pressing into a fur that smelled like Izuku, his shoulders shaking silently. The tough, abrasive, survivor’s shell he’d worn for so long was gone, incinerated in the flashback, leaving only the raw, grieving omega underneath—the one who remembered love, and loss, and a name called in the dark.

He didn't hear the soft pad of steps on hardpack earth. He didn't sense the shift in the air. He was lost in the tidal wave of a past that was no longer silent.

The grief was a black hole, sucking everything into its vortex—the heat of the lost workshop, the chill of the white wolf’s gaze, the crushing finality of that crunch. Katsuki was drowning in it, face buried in fur that smelled like safety and guilt all at once, his body wracked with silent tremors he couldn't control. He didn't hear the soft creak of the door's leather hinges. He didn't register the shift in the air, the influx of cold night breeze carrying the scent of pine and snow.

He only snapped back to the present when a sound pierced through the static in his head, a thin, distressed, utterly familiar wail.

A pup crying. His pup.

Instinct overrode the tidal wave of memory. His head jerked up, eyes flying open, blurry with unshed tears. He blinked, clearing his vision just as the tall figure in the doorway stepped fully into the firelight’s glow.

Izuku.

He filled the space, a mountain of quiet strength even in the simple act of holding a squirming bundle. He was in human form, dressed in soft sleep pants and an unlaced tunic that hung loose over his broadening chest. His green hair was a wild, sleep-tousled mess, curls falling into his eyes and brushing the edge of the long, jagged scar that split across the right side of his face.

The scar started just beneath his eye—cutting through freckled skin in a pale, uneven line—and climbed upward, carving across his brow before disappearing into his hairline, where it vanished beneath thick curls and continued into his scalp. The skin there pulled faintly when he frowned, a permanent reminder of teeth and blood of that day.

Shadows deepened the new lines of maturity on his face—the stronger jaw, the harder set of his mouth, the breadth of his shoulders stretching the thin fabric of his tunic. He looked older than he had any right to.

But his eyes were still wide, still green and painfully vulnerable.

They were fixed on Katsuki with an expression so raw, so open, so tentative with hope and fear tangled together, that it felt like a physical blow to the chest.

In his arms, swaddled in rabbit fur, Kazuki fussed, tiny face scrunched, letting out those hungry, indignant cries.

For a heartbeat, they just stared at each other across the cabin. The past and the present colliding in the space between them.

Then Izuku moved.

He didn't walk; he was just suddenly there, kneeling at the edge of the nest, his presence overwhelming not with alpha dominance, but with sheer, palpable concern. He shifted Kazuki to one arm, his free hand hovering near Katsuki’s face, not touching, trembling slightly. His scent—mint, cedar and deep fear—flooded Katsuki’s senses, so much stronger and more complex than the ghost from his memories.

“K-Kacchan?” Izuku’s voice was a hoarse whisper, cracked with a sleepless night and a fear he’d carried for years. “Are you… do you…?” He couldn’t finish the question. Do you know me? Do you remember?

The vulnerability in his voice, the careful distance, the way he held their crying pup like a shield and an offering all at once it shattered the last of Katsuki’s disorientation.

This was Deku. His Deku. The crybaby who followed him everywhere, who believed in stupid dreams, who got bigger than him and still looked at him like he hung the fucking moon.

The storm inside Katsuki didn't calm; it changed direction. Grief and confusion curdled into something sharper, more familiar: a defensive, abrasive rage.

“Of course I fuckin’ remember, you idiot,” Katsuki snarled, his voice thick from crying but no less biting. He swatted Izuku’s hovering hand away, but the gesture lacked its usual venom. “I remember a blubbering shit-stain who couldn’t shift to save his life and cried when I called him omega.” He glared, tears still streaking his own face, a contradiction of fury and devastation. “Some things never change, huh? Present as a big, bad alpha, still a goddamn crybaby.”

The words hung in the air. They weren't about the present. They were a key, turning in a lock buried deep.

Izuku’s breath hitched. His eyes, already wide, went impossibly round, the fear in them didn't vanish—it transformed. It wasn't the fear of a stranger looking back at him anymore. It was the dawning, staggering realization that Katsuki wasn't just remembering an alpha. He was remembering him. The kid. The friend. The history.

“You… you remember me,” Izuku breathed, the statement barely audible over Kazuki’s escalating whimpers. It wasn't a question. It was a revelation so profound it seemed to physically unmake him. The careful strength in his posture dissolved. The alpha steadiness crumbled.

His face contorted and sob, harsh and ragged, tore from his chest. He didn't just cry; he broke. He slumped forward, his forehead coming to rest gently against Katsuki’s shoulder, his broad body shaking. He cried like he’d been holding it in for a decade—which he fucking had. Cried for the boy he’d lost in the fire and smoke, for the feral, terrified omega he’d found years later who looked right through him, for the painful, beautiful miracle of their pup, for the exhausting, desperate hope of building a life with a ghost who didn't know his own name.

“Kacchan,” he wept into Katsuki’s shirt, the name a prayer and a wound. “You remember. You really… you know it’s me.”

Katsuki sat frozen, Izuku’s weight warm and heavy against him, the scent of his tears mixing with his own. The pup in Izuku’s arm, sensing the shift, let out a particularly loud wail of protest. The sound acted like a tether, yanking Katsuki from the precipice of his own emotional chaos into a simpler, more immediate need.

“Shut up, both of you,” he grumbled, his voice rough but lacking its earlier edge. With a movement that was more instinct than thought, he reached out.

He didn't push Izuku away. Instead, his hands went to the squirming bundle of fur. He took Kazuki from Izuku’s slackened grip, his movements surprisingly deft despite the tremor in his fingers. He cradled his pup close, tucking him into the crook of his arm, a low, unconscious rumble starting in his own chest, an omega's soothing purr.

Kazuki’s cries hiccupped, then quieted to sniffles, nuzzling into the familiar scent and vibration.

In the sudden comparative quiet, with the weight of his alpha weeping against him and the warmth of his pup in his arms, Katsuki stared into the dying fire. 

The memories were no longer a crashing wave; they were a settled, grim landscape inside him. He remembered it all. The before. The during. And now, finally, he was beginning to understand the painful, fractured after. He remembered the hollow-eyed survival, the heat in a lonely cave, the overwhelming alpha presence that had both terrified and called to him, the subsequent flight. He remembered the mind-splitting pain of giving birth alone in the snow, and the shadow that had fallen over him then—not a threat, but this same man, this crying alpha, finding him again, saving him, bringing him home to a place he didn't recognize to care for a pup he didn't remember making.

“Yeah,” Katsuki said finally, the word exhaled into the dark cabin air, heavy with the weight of a thousand lost days. “I remember, Deku. Now stop your damn bawling. You’re scaring the pup.”

And talking about the gremlin, Kazuki, momentarily soothed by the transfer and the low rumble in Katsuki's chest, quickly remembered his primary grievance: he was fucking hungry. 

The sniffles turned back into a demanding, hiccuping cry, and the tiny wolf-pup began to root insistently against Katsuki's bare chest where his sleep tunic had fallen open during his restless night. Little nose twitching, eyes screwed shut in concentration, Kazuki made wet, snuffling sounds of frustration.

"Ugh, greedy little bastard," Katsuki muttered, but there was no heat in it. Just a weary, resigned fondness that felt both alien and deeply right. He shifted his hold, supporting Kazuki's head with one hand while using the other to awkwardly tug his tunic further aside. He was still getting used to this—the mechanics of it, the vulnerability, the sheer weirdness.

Kazuki, once latched on, went silent instantly. His whole tiny body relaxed, a soft, contented sigh escaping him as he began to nurse with single-minded focus. In the firelight, Katsuki could see every detail of him, and it was like a punch to the gut every time.

Two months old. A living, breathing, needy monument to a past he'd forgotten. The pup’s skin was pale and dusted with the faintest sprinkle of freckles across his button nose—fucking freckles, of course. His hair, what little there was of it, was a wispy, pale blonde fuzz that stuck up in adorable tufts. His cheeks were obscenely round and flushed a healthy pink from crying, and his scent was that pure, milky sweetness unique to pups, layered over something that was distinctly them—a hint of spiced honey from Katsuki, and that underlying, grounding note of mint from Izuku.

But it was the eyes that got him. They were open now, staring unfocused up at Katsuki as he fed, and they were a startling, vibrant green. Not just green. Deku-green. They seemed to get brighter every damn day, as if slowly absorbing the color from the alpha still weeping softly against Katsuki's shoulder.

Katsuki watched him, this tiny creature he’d carried, birthed, and was now sustaining with his own body—a fact that would have pissed him off. He reached up with his free hand, swiping roughly at the lingering tear tracks on his own face with the back of his wrist.

He glanced down at the top of Izuku’s bowed head, the green curls shaking with quiet sobs. Then back to the pup—to the freckles, the green eyes, the whole undeniable package.

A snort escaped him, half-incredulous, half-exasperated.

"Un-fucking-believable," he said aloud, his voice a low rasp in the quiet cabin.

Izuku flinched slightly at the sound, his crying hitching. He didn't pull away, but his grip on Katsuki's shirt tightened minutely, as if afraid he'd vanish.

Katsuki kept talking, more to himself than to the blubbering alpha attached to him.

"Spend years thinking I'm some lone wolf badass. Survive fuckin'... everything. Get my memories back and what do I find?" He gestured vaguely with his chin toward Kazuki. "I'm not only shackled to the biggest crybaby in the northern territories, I went and married the idiot. And our kid?" He stared pointedly at the nursing pup. "Looks exactly like him. Freckles. Green eyes. Probably gonna be a clingy, emotional wreck too. The universe has a shitty sense of humor."

Kazuki, oblivious to the critique of his genetic inheritance, chose that moment to unlatch with a soft pop. A trickle of milk escaped the corner of his mouth. His big, Deku-green eyes blinked slowly, heavy with post-meal drowsiness. Then, with a tiny, shuddering sigh of utter satiation, his eyes rolled back and he fell instantly, deeply asleep, a picture of perfect, milk-drunk contentment.

Katsuki stared. The little chest rose and fell. The freckles stood out against the flushed skin. One tiny fist was curled near his cheek.

"...Little traitor," Katsuki murmured, but his thumb was already moving, stroking with impossible gentleness over the downy soft hair on Kazuki's head. The purr in his chest deepened, an automatic, nurturing rhythm he couldn't stop if he tried.

Izuku finally lifted his head, his face a mess of tears and snot, his eyes red-rimmed but clearer now. He looked from Katsuki's face, set in its usual scowl but softer at the edges, to their utterly peaceful, sleeping son. A watery, wobbly smile broke through on his lips.

"He has your scowl when he's concentrating," Izuku whispered, his voice wrecked but warm.

"Bullshit," Katsuki retorted automatically, but he didn't look away from Kazuki. "He looks like a squished berry. Your squished berry."

Izuku's smile grew, and he leaned his head back against Katsuki's shoulder, his tears finally slowing. He watched them both, his alpha presence in the room not dominating, but enveloping—a quiet, steady warmth around the nest, around their little, improbable family. The past was a wound, raw and open. The future was a terrifying question mark. But here, in this moment, with a pup asleep in his arms and a crybaby alpha leaning on him, Katsuki was, against all odds and his own furious expectations, home.

He could feel Izuku’s understanding through the bond—not a psychic intrusion, just a steady, empathetic pressure against his own emotional chaos. 

The alpha didn't push. Didn't ask for explanations. He just stayed there, a solid, warm weight against Katsuki’s side, his breathing slowly evening out, his tears drying on Katsuki’s shirt. His respect for the silence was its own kind of support.

Katsuki’s eyes stayed on Kazuki. The pup was his anchor, a tiny, warm reality in the sea of past horrors. He’d finished nursing and was now in that deep, boneless sleep only infants achieve. His little mouth was slightly open, puffing soft, milky breaths. One minute fist was curled near his ear, the other splayed open on Katsuki’s chest. Every few seconds, a tiny, full-body shudder of contentment would pass through him, and he’d let out a sigh so profound it seemed impossible from something so small.

Looking at him, feeling the absolute trust in that sleeping weight, some of the tension bled from Katsuki’s shoulders. The absurdity of it all, now that the initial shock was wearing off, started to creep in.

“Still can’t fucking believe it,” he muttered, breaking the silence. His voice was rough but quiet, not wanting to disturb the pup.

Izuku lifted his head slightly. “Believe what?”

“This.” Katsuki gestured vaguely with his free hand, encompassing Izuku, himself, the pup. “You. An alpha. Me. An omega. It’s backwards.”

A small, wet chuckle escaped Izuku. “It’s not backwards, Kacchan. It just… is. You’ve always been strong. The strongest person I know.”

“Damn right I am,” Katsuki grumbled instantly, the agreement automatic. 

But the old, ingrained prejudice—omegas are weak, omegas are nest-bound, omegas are less than—rose like bile in his throat. He had to physically bite his tongue to keep from voicing the contradiction. Because look at him. Look at what he’d survived. Look at what his body had done—endured capture, survived alone, carried and birthed a healthy pup in the wilderness. Look at his mother, who’d faced down blizzards and built a pack’s worth of clothing with her own hands.

Strong, his mind supplied, stubbornly applying the word to the image of Mitsuki laughing over a loom. Fucking resilient.

The cognitive dissonance made his head hurt. He’d built his entire post-capture identity on being the exception to the omega rule. Now he was realizing maybe the rule itself was a pile of shit. It was an irritating, humbling thought.

As if sensing his internal struggle, Kazuki stirred. Not waking, just shifting in his sleep, nuzzling deeper into the warmth of Katsuki’s chest. A soft, cooing sound escaped him. Without thinking, Katsuki bent his head and pressed a kiss to the downy crown of the pup’s head. His lips lingered for a second, breathing in that pure, sweet scent. Kazuki responded with another little sigh, his tiny fingers flexing against Katsuki’s skin.

Izuku watched the interaction, his expression so soft it was almost painful. “He missed you,” he whispered. “The last two days… I had to feed him goat’s milk. He took it, but he wasn’t happy about it. Fussed the whole time.”

Katsuki’s head snapped up. “Two days?” The memories of the flashback were sharp, but his sense of time since collapsing was a blur.

Izuku nodded. “You were out cold. Burning up with fever one minute, ice-cold the next. Chyio said it was your mind… processing. Breaking through whatever block those nomads put on you.” His voice tightened with old anger at the mention of them. “Kazuki knew something was wrong. He’d cry until he was placed next to you, then he’d just… watch you. Like he was keeping guard.”

A strange lump formed in Katsuki’s throat.

 He looked back down at the sleeping pup. Two days. No wonder the little glutton had been starving. He’d been surviving on substitute milk while his dam was lost in a prison of his own past.

“Hn,” was all Katsuki managed, but his arms tightened around Kazuki almost imperceptibly. His thumb resumed its slow stroking on the pup’s back. “Goat’s milk is shit. Explains why he was trying to suck the pattern off my shirt.”

Izuku smiled, a real one this time, though his eyes were still shiny. “He’s stubborn. Like someone else I know.”

“Tch. He’s perfect,” Katsuki stated, as if it were an undeniable fact.

Izuku didn't move for a second, as if afraid he’d imagined it. Then, the dam broke.

A fresh wave of tears—happy, overwhelmed ones—welled in Izuku’s eyes, but he was smiling, a brilliant, sun-through-clouds smile that lit up his whole face. He didn't say anything. Words seemed inadequate. Instead, he leaned in, his movements reverent but insistent. He nuzzled into the crook of Katsuki’s neck, right over his scent gland, his breath warm and shaky. Then he pressed his lips there—not a claiming bite, but a soft, lingering kiss. A reaffirmation. A silent mine, you’re mine, I’m yours.

A shiver ran through Katsuki, but it wasn't from cold or fear. It was a deep, bone-level unlocking. The touch, the scent-marking, the sheer closeness of it… it didn't feel possessive in a bad way. It felt like being anchored. Like the chaotic storm inside him finally had a fixed point to revolve around. A low, rumbling purr started in his chest without his conscious permission, vibrating through both of them where they touched. It was an omega’s sound of contentment, of safety, and for once, he didn't fight it. He just let it hum.

Izuku felt it, and a matching, deeper rumble answered from his own chest—an alpha’s purr of satisfaction and protection. He kissed Katsuki’s neck again, then his jaw, his cheek, each press of his lips a gentle brand.

“I love you,” he whispered between kisses, the words muffled against skin. “I never stopped. Not when you were gone, not when you didn't know me. I love you so much, Kacchan.”

Katsuki grunted, turning his face slightly into the onslaught of affection, his cheeks heating. “Yeah, yeah. Shut up, you’re gonna wake the gremlin.”

As if on cue, Kazuki decided to participate. Stirring from his milk-drunk slumber, he let out a tiny, disgruntled squeak at the movement and the dual vibrations rumbling through his cozy world. He blinked open those big, green eyes, looking blearily up at the two faces above him. He didn't cry. He just yawned, a ridiculously wide gape for such a small creature, showing a pink, toothless gums. Then he smacked his lips a few times, made a soft ‘ah-goo’ sound, and promptly shoved his own fist into his mouth, sucking on it with serious concentration.

Izuku laughed, a wet, joyful sound, and leaned over to press a kiss to Kazuki’s fuzzy head as well. He settled back against Katsuki’s side, one arm wrapping around his waist, his other hand coming to rest gently over Katsuki’s where it cradled their son. He was clingy, sure, plastered to Katsuki’s side like a second skin, but it wasn't smothering. 

It was… solid. Real.

They sat like that for a while, the fire crackling lower, the purrs syncing into a quiet, domestic harmony. Katsuki watched Kazuki explore his fist with intense, cross-eyed focus, tiny eyebrows furrowed. The pup eventually tired of his own fingers, spat them out with a wet pop, and then just gazed up at Katsuki, his eyes slowly drifting shut again, long dark lashes fanning over his freckled cheeks.

The peace, the sheer normalcy of it, was its own kind of miracle. Katsuki’s mind, always racing, quieted to a murmur.

“Twice, you know,” he said suddenly, his voice low.

Izuku hummed questioningly, nuzzling his hair.

“You managed to make me fall for your sorry ass. Twice.” Katsuki kept his eyes on Kazuki, as if talking to the sleeping pup. “Once when we were dumb kids and I didn't know what it meant. And again when I was a feral, amnesiac mess in the woods who should’ve bitten your hand off. That’s… annoyingly impressive.”

The arm around his waist tightened. Izuku was silent for a long moment, and when Katsuki risked a glance, he saw the alpha’s face was flushed a deep, flustered red, his freckles standing out starkly. His green eyes were shimmering with a new sheen of tears, but they were happy ones. Overwhelmed.

“Kacchan…” he breathed, the name full of wonder.

Then he was moving again, surging up to capture Katsuki’s lips in a proper, if clumsy, kiss. It was salty from their earlier tears, sweet from the underlying bond, and fiercely tender. When he pulled back, he didn't go far, resting his forehead against Katsuki’s, their breaths mingling.

“I’ll make you fall for me every day,” Izuku promised, his voice fervent. “For the rest of our lives. However many times it takes.”

“Don’t get sappy,” Katsuki warned, but he was still purring, and he made no move to push him away. He even tilted his head just enough to brush his lips against Izuku’s again, a brief, grudging reciprocation.

Izuku’s affection was a slow, steady tide, and Katsuki found himself with no will to build a dam against it. 

The alpha’s hands, large and calloused from work but infinitely gentle, traced idle patterns on Katsuki’s side where his tunic had ridden up. His lips kept finding new places to press soft, worshipping kisses: the shell of Katsuki’s ear, the hinge of his jaw, the tense line of his shoulder. Each touch was a quiet promise, a reaffirmation of here and mine and safe. The low, dual purrs vibrating through them created a cocoon of sound, muffling the outside world and the lingering echoes of the past.

The atmosphere in the nest shifted gradually, the warmth of comfort deepening into something warmer, more focused. A familiar heat began to coil low in Katsuki’s belly, not the frantic, overwhelming need of his heats, but a slow, sweet kindling. It was desire, plain and simple, tangled up with love and this staggering new sense of homecoming. Izuku’s scent—that mint-cedar storm—deepened, growing richer, more intoxicating, wrapping around Katsuki’s own spiced honey warmth until the air in their little corner of the cabin was thick with it.

Katsuki’s fingers, which had been stroking Kazuki’s back, stilled. The pup was out cold, a boneless, warm weight against his chest, utterly dead to the world. His tiny human form was even more ridiculous in sleep—plump cheeks smooshed, rosebud mouth slightly open, a thin strand of drool connecting him to Katsuki’s shirt. One chubby fist was tangled in the fabric, a claim of his own.

As much as Katsuki wanted to lose himself in the haze Izuku was creating, the practical part of his brain and the fiercely protective omega part kicked in. He wasn't about to get frisky with a two-month-old milk-drunk gremlin plastered to his chest.

With a grunt that was half-reluctance, half-resolution, he carefully shifted. “Alright, you little leech. Time to vacate the premises.”

Izuku made a soft, questioning noise against his neck but didn't stop his ministrations, his lips now tracing the line of Katsuki’s collarbone.

“The kid,” Katsuki clarified, voice husky. He carefully pried Kazuki’s sticky fingers from his shirt, earning a sleepy, disgruntled whimper. “He’s gonna be pissed if we squish him.”

That got Izuku’s attention. He pulled back, eyes dazed with affection and growing heat, and looked down at their son. A fond, goofy smile spread across his face. “He does look pretty comfortable.”

“He’s going in the crib,” Katsuki stated, already maneuvering to sit up fully, cradling Kazuki with practiced care despite his gruff tone. “The one you slapped together so fast I’m surprised it doesn't collapse.”

Izuku pouted, but it was playful. He helped steady Katsuki as he stood, his hands lingering on his hips. “It’s sturdy! I reinforced the joints twice!”

“Hn.” Katsuki padded the few steps over to the small, rustic crib tucked securely against the side of their large futon. Izuku had built it in a frantic, loving rush two months ago when he’d brought a confused Katsuki and a newborn back to the pack. It was made of smooth-sanded pine, lashed together with strong sinew, its sides high enough to be safe but low enough for easy reach. A nest of the softest rabbit pelts lined the bottom.

Kazuki, sensing the transfer from the perfect warmth of his dam’s chest to the open air, began to fuss. His face scrunched, his little legs kicked in protest, and a warning cry bubbled in his throat.

“None of that,” Katsuki murmured, lowering him gently into the pelts. He leaned over the crib, not putting him down just yet, but letting him settle against the softness. He started that low, omega purr again, directly aimed at the pup. He used one finger to stroke the incredibly soft skin of Kazuki’s cheek. “Go back to sleep, you menace. Your mama needs some… adult time.”

Whether it was the vibration, the familiar scent, or the sheer exhaustion of being two months old, Kazuki’s protests died. His eyes fluttered shut again. He let out one last, dramatic sigh, turned his head towards Katsuki’s purring hand, and was gone, sinking back into deep sleep. His little chest rose and fell evenly, a picture of peaceful, oblivious babyhood.

Katsuki stared at him for another moment, a strange, fierce tenderness squeezing his heart. Then he straightened, turning back to the futon.

Izuku was waiting. He’d shifted to make space, propped up on one elbow, his green eyes dark with warmth and anticipation. The firelight played over the muscles of his arms and chest, and his smile was soft, knowing, and unbearably fond.

“Adult time, huh?” Izuku asked, his voice a low, inviting rumble.

Katsuki rolled his eyes, but he was already moving back into the nest, crawling over to him. 

“Don’t get a big head about it, Alpha.” He said the title not as a challenge, but with a new, teasing weight that made Izuku’s breath catch. “Just figured since you went through all the trouble of making me fall for you twice, the least I could do is…”

He didn't finish the sentence. He didn't need to. He lowered himself, covering Izuku’s body with his own, and captured his mouth in a kiss that was far less gentle than the ones before. It was all the words he couldn't say—the gratitude, the grief, the love, the sheer, overwhelming want. It was a claiming of his own.

Izuku melted into it with a happy groan, his arms coming up to wrap around Katsuki, pulling him close until not a sliver of light could pass between them. The crib, with its tiny, snoring occupant, sat safely beside them, a silent witness to the quiet, joyful reunion unfolding in the warm, scented dark.

The kiss was a spark in dry tinder, igniting a slow, deliberate burn that spread through Katsuki’s veins like warmed honey. 

Izuku didn't rush. 

He took his time exploring Katsuki’s mouth, his tongue tracing the familiar yet newly-rediscovered contours with a reverence that made Katsuki’s toes curl. When he finally broke for air, it was only to trail a line of soft, open-mouthed kisses along Katsuki’s jaw, down the column of his throat, pausing to nuzzle at the Bond Mark.

The mark—a slightly raised, intricate pattern of scar tissue on the left side of Katsuki’s neck—thrummed under the attention. It wasn't just a scar; it was a living connection, a physical echo of the tether between their souls. When Izuku’s lips brushed it, a jolt of pure, electric pleasure shot straight down Katsuki’s spine, making him arch off the furs with a sharp gasp. It was more intense than he remembered, the bond now fully recognized and embraced by his conscious mind.

“Fuck… Deku,” he breathed, fingers tangling in the wild green curls.

Izuku hummed against his skin, the vibration traveling through the mark. 

“I love this,” he murmured, his voice thick with emotion and desire. “I love feeling you feel it.” His scent, that intoxicating storm of mint and cedar, deepened, saturating the air around them, wrapping Katsuki in a blanket of alpha possessiveness that felt less like a cage and more like the safest place in the world.

Katsuki’s own scent answered in kind, the spiced honey and creamy vanilla warmth blooming, growing sweeter, more inviting. It was a scent that spoke of home and hearth, but with the underlying, spicy kick that was purely Katsuki—a promise of fire beneath the sweetness.

Izuku’s large, warm hands began to move, mapping Katsuki’s body with a tactile hunger. 

They slid under his loose sleep tunic, pushing the fabric up slowly. He paused when his palms smoothed over the soft swell of Katsuki’s stomach. The skin there was still slightly loose, marked with faint, silvery lines—the roadmap of Kazuki’s creation. Izuku didn't hesitate or treat them as flaws. He bent his head and pressed a kiss to each one, his touch so tender it made Katsuki’s chest ache.

“Beautiful,” Izuku whispered, his breath hot against Katsuki’s skin. “Every part of you is so fucking beautiful, Kacchan.”

“Shut up,” Katsuki grumbled, but he was pushing his hips up into the touch, his body craving more. The emptiness from his heat was a distant memory, replaced by a different, more specific ache.

Izuku chuckled, a low, warm sound. He helped Katsuki out of the tunic entirely, tossing it aside. The cooler air of the cabin hit Katsuki’s skin, raising goosebumps, but it was chased away instantly by the heat of Izuku’s gaze and hands. His thumbs brushed over Katsuki’s ribs, then higher, skimming the sides of his chest.

Here, too, his body bore the signs of recent motherhood. His tits were fuller, sensitive, the nipples peaked and dark. A faint, sweet scent of milk lingered—Kazuki had drained him earlier, but his body was already preparing for the next feed. Izuku’s eyes darkened further, a possessive gleam in them that was entirely new. He cupped the weight gently, his touch exploratory but not demanding.

“They’re amazing,” he said, awestruck, leaning down to nuzzle the curve.

Katsuki flushed, a mix of embarrassment and fierce pride. “They’re functional. For the gremlin. Don’t get any weird ideas.”

“Too late,” Izuku grinned against his skin before capturing a nipple in his mouth, not to suckle, but to tease with his tongue and the gentle scrape of teeth.

A bolt of sensation, utterly different from anything sexual Katsuki had known before, lanced through him. It was sharp, deep, and connected to that empty ache between his legs in a way that made him cry out, his back bowing. “D-Deku—!”

Izuku soothed the spot with a soft kiss, then moved to its twin, giving it the same devastating attention. 

“Just… appreciating,” he mumbled, his words slurred with want. His hands were moving again, sliding down Katsuki’s sides, over the generous curve of his hips—hips that had widened to carry their pup—and down to the waistband of his soft pants.

He hooked his fingers in the fabric and looked up, meeting Katsuki’s hazy crimson eyes. It was a question. A request for permission, even now, even after everything.

Katsuki, breathless, beyond words, just gave a sharp, jerky nod. He lifted his hips, helping as Izuku peeled the pants and underwear down his legs in one slow, torturous motion.

Then he was bare, completely exposed in the firelight. Not just physically, but emotionally. Every scar from his lone years, every new curve from his pregnancy, every vulnerable, wanting part of him was laid open for Izuku to see. And Izuku just… looked. His gaze was a physical caress, worshipful and hungry all at once.

“My Omega,” he breathed, the words an Alpha’s claim that settled deep in Katsuki’s bones, welcomed and true.

He settled between Katsuki’s thighs, his own arousal evident, pressing hard against the confines of his sleep pants. But he ignored it for now, his focus entirely on Katsuki. He leaned down, nuzzling the soft thatch of blonde hair, breathing in the concentrated, heady mix of their combined scents. Katsuki shuddered, his legs falling open wider in silent invitation.

Izuku didn't need more. He kissed the inside of one thigh, then the other, his stubble a delicious scratch against sensitive skin. Then, finally, he pressed a soft, open-mouthed kiss right over Katsuki’s clit.

Katsuki jolted, a ragged moan tearing from his throat. “Shit—!”

Izuku hummed, the vibration making Katsuki see stars. He began to explore with a leisurely, devoted curiosity, using his tongue to trace every fold, to learn the taste and texture of him. He was thorough, achingly slow, building the pleasure in gradual, relentless waves. His mint-cedar scent was everywhere, mixing with Katsuki’s sweet cream and spice until the air was practically drunk with it.

Katsuki’s hands fisted in the furs, his hips rocking up helplessly into the exquisite torture. The Bond Mark on his neck pulsed in time with his racing heart, a constant, pleasurable feedback loop connecting him to the alpha between his legs. He was already slick, wetness gathering and dripping, his body remembering this alpha, this bond, on a cellular level even when his mind had forgotten.

“Deku… fuck, enough,” he finally gasped, his voice wrecked. “Need you. Now.”

Izuku lifted his head, his chin glistening. His eyes were blown black with desire, his own control visibly fraying. “You’re sure?” he asked, even as he was shucking his own pants with frantic haste.

“If you ask me one more stupid question, I’m kicking you out of this nest,” Katsuki snarled, but he was reaching for him, pulling him up and into a desperate, messy kiss, tasting himself on Izuku’s lips.

Izuku groaned into his mouth, aligning their bodies. He was big, thick, and already leaking at the tip, the base of his cock already beginning to swell slightly with the promise of his knot. The first press of him against Katsuki’s entrance made them both shudder.

“Slow,” Izuku panted against his lips, though it sounded like he was reminding himself. “Gotta go slow.”

“Just move, Alpha,” Katsuki commanded, digging his heels into Izuku’s back.

With a choked-off sound, Izuku obeyed. He pushed in, not in one thrust, but in a slow, inexorable slide that stretched Katsuki perfectly, filling that hollow ache until it sang with pleasure. Katsuki threw his head back, a long, low moan escaping him as he was sheathed completely. They fit together like they were made for it—because they were.

For a moment, Izuku just stayed there, buried to the hilt, forehead resting against Katsuki’s, their breaths mingling. 

“Kacchan,” he whispered, the name a prayer.

Then he began to move.

The first drag out was pure torture. The slide back in was a revelation. Izuku set a pace that was deep, measured, and devastatingly thorough. Each thrust was a deliberate claiming, a physical echo of the words he kept murmuring against Katsuki’s skin.

“I love you,” he breathed into the sweat-damp hollow of Katsuki’s throat, his hips rolling forward with a powerful surge that punched the air from Katsuki’s lungs. “Gods, Kacchan, I love you so much.” His voice was a ragged, reverent thing, each syllable punctuated by the slick, wet sound of their joining.

Katsuki could only cling to him, nails digging into the dense muscle of Izuku’s shoulders and back, his own litany reduced to broken gasps and choked-off curses. Every nerve ending was alight. The stretch and burn of Izuku inside him was perfect, the fullness chasing away any last ghost of emptiness. The Bond Mark on his neck throbbed in time with their rhythm, a live wire of shared sensation.

Izuku wasn't just fucking him, he was worshipping him.

Between deep, rolling thrusts, he’d duck his head to capture Katsuki’s lips in a searing kiss, all tongue and desperate heat. Or he’d trail his mouth down Katsuki’s chest, paying homage again to the soft swell, laving a nipple until Katsuki cried out, the dual sensations—the tug on his tits and the deep penetration—threatening to short-circuit his brain.

His hands were everywhere. One large palm splayed possessively over Katsuki’s hip, fingers digging in to guide the angle, finding the spot that made Katsuki see white. The other hand slid under the small of Katsuki’s back, lifting him, holding him close as Izuku drove into him with increasing intensity. He explored the new, softer curve of Katsuki’s belly, traced the silver lines with a touch so gentle it brought a different kind of sting to Katsuki’s eyes.

“So strong,” Izuku moaned, his forehead pressed to Katsuki’s, green eyes blazing with adoration and lust. “My strong, beautiful omega. Carried our pup. Survived everything. Came back to me.” He punctuated each phrase with a thrust that went deeper, hitting a place that made Katsuki’s vision blur.

“Shut up—ah!—just fuck me, you damn nerd,” Katsuki managed to snarl, but it was ruined by the way his body arched, begging for more, his own cock leaking desperately between them, neglected but throbbing with every movement.

Izuku grinned, a wild, affectionate thing. 

“Making love to you,” he corrected, his voice guttural. He shifted, hooking Katsuki’s legs over his elbows, spreading him wider, sinking even deeper. The new angle was obscene, perfect. Katsuki screamed, a raw, unfiltered sound of pleasure, his back bowing off the furs.

“That’s it,” Izuku encouraged, his own control visibly slipping.

His thrusts became less measured, more frantic, driven by a need that mirrored Katsuki’s own. The nest of furs beneath them was a wreck, their scents so intertwined they were one entity—cedar, honey and sex. The firelight danced over Izuku’s straining muscles, over the sweat-slick planes of his back, over the fierce, loving concentration on his face.

Katsuki could feel the change coming. The base of Izuku’s cock, already impressively thick, began to swell further, the telltale sign of his knot forming. The pressure was incredible, stretching Katsuki to a breathtaking new extreme with every inward stroke.

“Deku… knot,” Katsuki gasped, his own orgasm coiling tight and desperate in his gut. “Gonna—!”

“Look at me,” Izuku commanded, his Alpha voice rough with passion. Katsuki’s eyes, hazy and unfocused, snapped to his. Izuku’s gaze held him, green and endless and full of a love so vast it was terrifying. “I love you. Always. Mine.”

With three final, deep, grinding thrusts, Izuku seated himself fully, his knot swelling to its full, impressive size and locking them together irrevocably. The sensation of being stretched, filled, claimed so completely tipped Katsuki over the edge. His climax ripped through him with the force of a winter gale, blinding and total. He came with a silent scream, his body convulsing around Izuku’s, milking the knot as hot pulses of release painted his stomach.

Izuku followed instantly, spurred by the intense, rhythmic clenching around him. He threw his head back with a guttural roar, his hips stuttering as he emptied himself deep inside Katsuki, each pulse of his release a scalding brand of possession. He collapsed forward, careful not to crush Katsuki, catching his weight on his forearms. He buried his face in Katsuki’s neck, right over the Bond Mark, his entire body trembling with the force of his orgasm.

They stayed locked together, panting, sweating, utterly spent. The knot held them fast, a physical tether as undeniable as the one on Katsuki’s neck. Izuku’s release continued to fill him in slow, warm pulses, a sensation that was profoundly intimate and deeply satisfying.

In the heavy, scent-saturated quiet, broken only by their ragged breathing and the pop of the fire, Izuku lifted his head. He was still crying, Katsuki realized—quiet, happy tears tracking through the sweat on his temples. He leaned down and kissed Katsuki, soft and lingering.

“I love you,” he whispered again, as if he couldn't say it enough times to encompass the feeling.

Katsuki, boneless and sated, his mind blissfully quiet for the first time in what felt like forever, managed to lift a heavy hand and swat weakly at Izuku’s shoulder.

“I know, idiot. Now stop dripping on me.”

But he was purring again, a deep, contented rumble that vibrated through both of them where they were joined. He tilted his head, offering his neck, and Izuku didn't hesitate, nuzzling into the mark, scenting him gently, his own purr answering in a harmonious duet. In the crib beside them, Kazuki slept on, undisturbed.

The world slowly seeped back in, sense by sense. The heavy, pleasant weight of Izuku on top of him. The delicious, full ache where they were still intimately joined, Izuku’s knot a firm, grounding presence inside him. The cooling sweat on their skin, the mingled scents of sex and satisfaction hanging thick in the air. The deep, resonant purr vibrating through both their chests, a sound of pure, uncomplicated contentment.

Katsuki felt boneless, wrung-out in the best possible way. His mind, usually a battlefield of sharp thoughts and sharper anxieties, was a quiet, hazy meadow. He traced idle patterns on the sweat-damp skin of Izuku’s back with his fingertips.

“Hn. Lucky,” he mumbled after a long while, his voice hoarse from use.

Izuku stirred slightly, still nuzzling his neck. 

“Lucky?” he murmured, his own voice sleep-thick and satisfied.

“That I’m not in heat,” Katsuki clarified, a lazy smirk tugging at his lips even though Izuku couldn't see it. “Otherwise you’d have just knocked me up again, you over-eager brute. One gremlin is enough to handle for now.”

He expected a chuckle, maybe another sappy declaration of love. What he got was Izuku going very still against him. Then the alpha lifted his head, his green eyes blinking with a sudden, earnest focus that was utterly out of place in their post-coital haze.

“Oh! Actually, Kacchan, that’s a common misconception!” Izuku began, his voice shifting into that shitty familiar, rapid-fire informational tone he used when he got excited about a topic. “While fertility is highest during an omega’s heat cycle, it’s not exclusive to it. Studies of northern packs show a conception rate of approximately 12-18% outside of designated heat periods, depending on lunar cycles and the strength of the alpha-omega bond! The body’s readiness can be influenced by a number of factors, including—”

Katsuki stared up at him. In any other circumstance, the fact that Deku had apparently been reading studies and memorizing statistics about omega fertility would have been hilarious, or infuriating, or both. But right now, with the man’s softening-but-still-present knot lodged firmly inside him, it was just… profoundly, cosmically ridiculous.

He reached up, not with his hand, but with his mind, through the bond that still hummed between them. He didn't send words, just a single, concentrated pulse of sheer, exasperated SHUT THE FUCK UP.

Izuku physically flinched, his lecture cutting off mid-sentence. He blinked, looking adorably confused for a second, as if wondering where the mental shout had come from. Then his eyes cleared, and a faint blush crept up his neck. “Oh. Right. Sorry. I just… read a lot. While you were… gone. And after. To understand…”

Katsuki rolled his eyes heavenward, though a reluctant fondness was warming his chest. Of course the nerd had turned his anxiety into research. 

“For your information, Doctor Dipshit,” he said aloud, his tone dripping with sarcasm. “Omegas who just pushed a whole-ass pup out of their bodies? Their systems are kinda busy. It’s almost impossible to get pregnant again until the first pup is at least six months old. Body’s got priorities. Like keeping the existing gremlin alive and not dying from exhaustion.”

He delivered this with the absolute confidence of someone stating an immutable law of physics. He had no idea if it was true. He was operating purely on gut instinct and a desperate hope.

This time, Izuku didn't correct him. He didn't cite a single study or percentage. He just looked down at Katsuki, his expression softening into something unbearably tender. He understood. This wasn't about biology. This was about Katsuki, still reeling from the tsunami of his returned memories, trying to carve out a little mental space, a little control, in the overwhelming reality of his new life.

“Okay,” Izuku said simply, his voice gentle. He leaned down and pressed a soft kiss to Katsuki’s forehead. “Six months. Got it.”

He settled back against him, his knot finally beginning to subside enough for them to separate. He didn't say another word, just held Katsuki close, his purr restarting, a steady, comforting rhythm. His silence was more eloquent than any statistic.

Katsuki let out a long, slow breath, the tension he hadn't even realized he was holding seeping away. He wrapped his arms around Izuku, tucking his face against his alpha’s strong shoulder. In the crib, Kazuki made a soft, snuffling sound in his sleep.

Maybe the idiot alpha was right about the percentages. Maybe he wasn't. At this moment, Katsuki didn't give a single damn. He had his crybaby, his gremlin, and a quiet that felt like peace. For now, that was the only statistic that mattered.

❆❅❆❅❆❅❆❅❆❅❆❅

The morning light filtering through the oiled parchment window was softer, kinder than the day before. It didn't feel like an interrogation lamp exposing his raw nerves. Katsuki lay on his side in the nest, propped up on one elbow, watching Kazuki with a focus so intense it bordered on obsessive.

The pup was having his own little adventure on a thick, wolf-pelt blanket spread out beside the nest. Two months old in human form meant he was discovering the universe, one clumsy limb at a time. Currently, the universe was his own feet.

Kazuki lay on his back, wearing a tiny, soft tunic that smelled like Izuku. His round face was a portrait of fierce concentration. He’d managed to grab one of his own chubby feet with both hands and had succeeded in pulling it towards his face. Now, he was trying valiantly to stuff his toes into his mouth. He made wet, grunting sounds of effort, his little brow furrowed, his bright green eyes crossed as he stared at the offending foot as if it were a puzzle sent by the gods to test him.

A low chuckle rumbled in Katsuki’s chest. 

“Stupid,” he murmured, but he reached out and gently untangled the tiny fist from the foot, bringing the captured toes down. Kazuki let out an indignant squeak, his face scrunching up for a cry, but Katsuki was already offering him a clean, knotted piece of soft leather to gnaw on instead. The pup immediately forgot his grievance, accepting the substitute and gumming it with serious dedication, drool soaking the material in seconds.

This. 

This was what he needed. 

Not talk. Not pitying looks or whispered questions. Just this simple, mammalian reality: a warm cabin, a full belly (both his and the pup’s), and the absorbing, meaningless task of keeping a tiny human alive and moderately content.

His peace was guarded. He could hear the low murmur of voices outside the cabin door, a respectful distance away. Izuku’s voice, steady and firm, was a constant bass note undercutting the higher, more eager tones of others.

“…just want to see if he’s okay, man!” That was Kirishima’s voice, a familiar red-haired blur of concern in Katsuki’s mind’s eye.
“He needs space, Eijirou.” Izuku’s reply was gentle but unyielding. “He remembers. It’s… a lot. He’ll come out when he’s ready.”
“But the pup! And food! We brought stew!” That was Uraraka, her omega warmth practically radiating through the wood.
“I appreciate it. Really. I’ll bring it in later. He’s… he’s just with Kazuki right now. That’s what he needs.”

There was a disappointed but understanding murmur. 

Katsuki could picture them—Kirishima scratching his head, Uraraka wringing her hands, Todoroki standing silently nearby with a pot of something edible. A part of him, a very small, buried part, felt a flicker of something that wasn't annoyance. It was… gratitude. They cared. His pack—his pack, the one he’d been born into and had forgotten—was still there, waiting.

But the larger, more immediate part of him was profoundly thankful for the massive, green-haired wall of an alpha currently playing bouncer at his door. Izuku wasn't just keeping them out; he was holding the entire world at bay, giving Katsuki the one thing he couldn't fight for himself right now: quiet.

The door had only opened once that morning. Inko had come, her scent of chamomile and anxiety preceding her. Katsuki had heard her pleading, tearful whisper to Izuku just outside. “Just for a moment, Izuku. Please. I just want to see his face. To know he’s really back.” Izuku’s voice had been pained but resolute. “Mom… not yet. He’s… fragile. In a way he’d never admit. Seeing you… it might be too much. The memories of before, they’re all tied together. Give him today. Please.”

There had been a soft sob, then retreating footsteps. Katsuki had held Kazuki a little tighter, his own eyes burning. He did want to see Auntie Inko. But the thought of facing her kindness, her tears, her own memories of the boy he used to be… it felt like trying to stand in a hurricane. He wasn't ready. Izuku knew it, even when Katsuki himself couldn't articulate it.

Now, Kazuki, bored with the leather knot, spat it out and began to wave his arms in the air, making soft, conversational “ah-goo” sounds at the dancing dust motes in the sunbeam. A tiny, perfect bubble of saliva formed on his lips and popped. He looked surprised, then delighted, and did it again.

Katsuki found himself smiling, a real, unguarded smile that felt strange on his face. He reached out and booped the pup’s nose with his finger. Kazuki’s eyes went wide, then crinkled with a gummy, open-mouthed smile in return, a happy coo bubbling out of him.

Outside, the voices faded as Izuku presumably walked their friends back toward the main clearing. The cabin was silent again, save for Kazuki’s baby noises and the crackle of the fire Izuku had stoked before becoming Gatekeeper.

Katsuki laid his head back on the furs, closing his eyes. 

The grief was still there, a cold stone in his gut. The confusion was a tangled knot in his mind. But right now, in this guarded, quiet space his alpha had carved out for him, with the scent of his pup and his mate saturating the air, he could breathe. He could just be. And for a former lone wolf who’d just rediscovered the crushing weight of a pack’s love, that was everything.

The heavy wooden door opened with a soft creak, letting in a brief slice of cooler air and the scent of pine before it shut again.

Izuku stood there for a moment, his silhouette framed against the light, his arms laden with offerings from the outside world. A woven basket hung from one elbow, smelling of rich venison stew and fresh bread. In his other hand, he clutched a small, clumsily-stitched woolen toy that looked like a fat rabbit—Uraraka’s handiwork, no doubt.

Katsuki watched him from the nest, not moving. 

“They give you a hard time?” he asked, his voice neutral.

Izuku shook his head, setting the basket down by the hearth and placing the toy on a shelf. He turned, and his expression was one of gentle understanding, not burden. 

“No. They’re just worried. And happy. It’s… a lot for them too, Kacchan. They lost you twice.” He walked over, his movements easy as he sank to his knees at the edge of the nest. “But they get it. Or they’re trying to. They’ll wait.”

His gaze fell on Kazuki, who had rolled onto his stomach and was now attempting a heroic, wobbly push-up, his little arms trembling with the effort to lift his head and chest off the pelt. He was making determined, grunting noises.

A soft smile touched Izuku’s lips. Without a word, he reached out and scooped the pup up, cradling him against his broad chest. Kazuki, startled out of his athletic endeavors, blinked up at his sire. Then, recognizing the familiar scent and warmth, he let out a happy squeal, grabbing a fistful of Izuku’s green tunic and shoving it towards his mouth.

“Hey, none of that,” Izuku chuckled, gently prying the fabric loose and offering his finger instead. Kazuki accepted it, gnawing contentedly. Izuku began to sway slightly, a natural, rocking motion that had the pup’s eyes drooping almost instantly. He looked so natural like this, a massive alpha made soft and safe by the tiny life in his arms.

Katsuki observed them, the domestic scene doing funny things to his insides. His mind, however, was drifting back, pulled by the undercurrent of all the returned memories. These friends… Kirishima with his unshakable loyalty, Uraraka with her fierce kindness, Todoroki with his quiet intensity… they were ghosts with faces now. Kids he’d scrapped with, laughed with, before everything burned. The thought of facing them, of seeing the men and women they’d become reflected in their eyes, was daunting. They knew a version of him that felt like a stranger.

Distracted, watching Izuku’s large hand splay protectively over Kazuki’s back, the question slipped out, idle and weighted.

“What was it like?” Katsuki asked, his eyes fixed on the fire. “After you presented. After… after I was gone.”

The gentle rocking stopped for a second. Izuku’s breath hitched, a tiny, almost imperceptible sound. He looked down at Kazuki, as if gathering strength from the sleeping weight in his arms.

“It was…” he began, his voice low. “It was like being split in two.” He shifted, settling more comfortably against the side of the nest, still holding Kazuki close. “One half was all alpha. Raw. Angry. Guilty. It wanted to tear the world apart to find you. I trained until I collapsed. Fought anyone who looked at me wrong. The pack… they gave me space. A wide berth.” A faint, humorless smile. “I wasn't the crybaby Deku anymore. I was a problem.”

Katsuki could imagine it. The explosive presentation, the feral strength he’d witnessed firsthand, followed by the crash. A kid drowning in new power and old grief.

“The other half,” Izuku continued, his voice softening, “was just… broken. That part remembered the kid who couldn't shift. Who followed you everywhere. Who loved you. And it just… hurt. All the time.” He looked up, meeting Katsuki’s gaze. His green eyes were deep with remembered pain. “Dad helped. A lot. Forced me to channel the alpha into protecting what was left, into rebuilding. The pack needed strength after the attack. So I gave it. But the other part… it just went quiet. Waited. For years.”

He said it so simply. Waited. For years. The magnitude of that quiet, steadfast hope settled over Katsuki, heavier than any fur. Izuku had lived with a hole shaped like him, every single day, while Katsuki had been running, empty and unaware.

Katsuki looked away, back to the fire, his throat tight. He had no words for that. No sarcastic quip, no gruff deflection that could possibly fit. So he just nodded once, a sharp, acknowledging jerk of his chin.

In the silence, Kazuki, in his sire’s secure hold, let out a tiny, milky sigh in his sleep, his little fingers relaxing their grip on Izuku’s tunic. The present, with all its complicated tenderness, rushed back in to fill the space left by the painful past.

Izuku’s confession hung in the warm air, stark and simple. I never stopped looking. I knew you were alive. It wasn't a boast. It was just a fact, as solid and unshakable as the man himself. He continued to rock Kazuki gently, his gaze distant, lost in the memory.

“I led hunts further and further out,” he murmured, his voice a low rumble that vibrated through the pup and into the quiet cabin. “Past our old borders, into territories the pack hadn’t touched in generations. I told them it was for game, for scouting. And it was, partly. But I was always… listening. Sniffing the wind.” He looked down at Kazuki’s sleeping face, his expression softening. “And then, one autumn, deep in the Whispering Woods… I caught it. Just a thread. Spiced honey. And underneath it… fear. Heat. It was so faint, like a ghost, but it was you.”

Katsuki listened, his own heart doing a slow, heavy thump against his ribs. He remembered that time only in flashes—a blur of feverish need, the paralyzing terror of being vulnerable and alone, the desperate search for a den that smelled safe. He’d been a feral thing, all instinct and fractured memory.

“I followed it for two days,” Izuku said, a faint, wondering smile touching his lips. “It led me to a cave system, hidden behind a waterfall. The scent was everywhere, overwhelming. And there you were.” His eyes found Katsuki’s, glowing with a mix of awe and remembered pain. “Curled up in the darkest corner, shivering, covered in mud and leaves. You looked at me, and your eyes… there was no recognition. Just animal panic. And this deep, deep heat.”

A hot flush crawled up Katsuki’s neck and spread across his cheeks. He remembered the alpha shadow filling the cave entrance, the overwhelming wave of mint and cedar that had somehow cut through his heat-haze not as a threat, but as a lifeline. He remembered the confusing mix of terror and an irresistible, biological pull. He’d fought, of course. Snarled, scratched. But his omega body, starved for safety and connection after years of solitude, had betrayed him utterly.

“You tried to bite my nose off,” Izuku recalled, the smile turning into a proper grin. “But you were weak from the heat, from living rough. I just… wrapped you up. Held you. Let my scent calm you. And then…” He trailed off, the implication clear. The heat had done the rest. It had been brutal, primal, and profoundly connecting, even with Katsuki’s mind a blank slate.

“Shut up,” Katsuki growled, the blush now burning his ears. He glared at the far wall. “You don’t have to give a fucking play-by-play.”

“I’m just saying,” Izuku continued, undeterred, his tone shifting to something unbearably tender, “that’s how we made this little guy.” He lifted Kazuki slightly, as if presenting him as Exhibit A. 

The pup, disturbed by the movement, smacked his lips in his sleep and let out a tiny, disgruntled squeak before settling again, his head lolling trustingly against Izuku’s chest.

The sight of their son, the living, breathing proof of that desperate, forgotten union, made Katsuki’s embarrassment curdle into something sharper. He crossed his arms, scowling.

“Yeah, well,” he muttered, his voice tight. “Your brilliant rescue mission resulted in a pretty shitty sequel, Alpha. Or did you forget the part where I woke up after that heat, remembered exactly nothing, and took off running again? While growing your damn pup inside me?” The words were harsh, but they were edged with a vulnerability he couldn't hide. “Had a real scenic pregnancy, let me tell you. All by myself. Eating whatever I could catch. Trying not to freeze. Real fucking romantic.”

He threw Izuku a look that was meant to be scathing, but it probably just looked pained. The memory of those lonely, terrifying months—the nausea, the fatigue, the slow, bewildering changes to his body, the sheer isolation—was still fresh, a cold counterpoint to the warm cabin and the alpha’s loving gaze.

Izuku’s smile vanished. The playful light in his eyes dimmed, replaced by a profound, aching regret. He looked from Katsuki’s defiant, flushed face down to the peaceful pup in his arms, then back again.

“I know,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper. “I’ll never stop being sorry for that, Kacchan. For not being able to make you stay. For not being there.” He leaned forward, pressing a fervent kiss to Kazuki’s fuzzy head, as if apologizing to him too. “When I found you again, months later… when I saw you and our pup, trying to build a shelter in that snowdrift…” His voice broke. “I thought my heart would stop.”

The raw emotion in his voice took the wind out of Katsuki’s defensive sails. He uncrossed his arms, his scowl fading into a weary, complicated expression. 

It wasn't Izuku’s fault. Not really. The alpha had found him, cared for him during the heat, and Katsuki—the feral, amnesiac creature he’d been—had fled the moment his instincts deemed it safe. It was a tragedy of circumstance, not malice.

“Tch,” Katsuki finally grunted, looking away. “Just… don’t get all weepy about it. We’re here now. The gremlin’s here. Doesn’t change the fact that it sucked.” He reached out, not towards Izuku, but towards Kazuki. His fingers brushed the impossibly soft hair on the pup’s head. “But he’s tough. Must’ve gotten it from me, since you’re clearly a mess.”

Izuku let out a wet, shaky laugh, the tension breaking. He carefully transferred the still-sleeping Kazuki into Katsuki’s waiting arms. 

“He got the best of both of us,” he corrected softly, watching as Katsuki instinctively cuddled the pup close, his purr restarting automatically. “My stubborn hope. Your incredible strength.”

Katsuki didn't argue. He just held his son, the living link between their painful past and this fragile, hopeful present, and let the warmth of the tiny body seep into his bones, slowly melting the last edges of his defensive frost.

With the immediate storm of memory and emotion receding, Katsuki’s focus shifted from the internal chaos to the external world—specifically, to the alpha sitting vigil beside him. Now that he wasn't just seeing Deku or the Alpha who rescued him, but Izuku, the man he’d somehow built a life with, the details came into sharp, poignant relief.

The firelight was kinder than the harsh sun, softening edges and warming skin, but it couldn’t hide the weariness etched deep into Izuku’s face. Dark, bruise-like shadows smudged the skin beneath his eyes, speaking of too many sleepless nights—nights spent guarding a traumatized omega, tending to a newborn pup, and carrying the weight of an entire pack across shoulders already burdened too young.

The long scar on the right side of his face caught the glow of the flames differently than the rest of his skin. Pale and uneven, it began just beneath his eye, dragged brutally upward through his brow, and disappeared into his hairline, where the wound had once split his scalp. The tissue there pulled faintly when his expression tightened, the mark a permanent souvenir from the night he had been taken, when a nomad alpha’s claws had caught him across the face before dragging him into the dark.

It had healed but it had never faded.

His usual vibrant energy—the restless brightness that once defined him—was banked now, reduced to a low ember rather than a blaze. Strength remained, unmistakable in the breadth of his shoulders and the steadiness of his stance, but it was quieter. Hardened. Tempered by survival.

And yet, even marked and worn, even carrying scars carved by enemies and responsibility alike, there was still something painfully soft in him when he looked at those he loved.

And then there was the scruff. 

Katsuki’s gaze traced the rough shadow along Izuku’s jawline and upper lip. It wasn't a full beard, not by a long shot. More like a few days' worth of neglect. It grew in thicker along his strong jaw and in a patchy, soft-looking mustache above his lip, while his cheeks were smoother. It made him look older. Rougher. Less like the smooth-faced crybaby of their childhood and more like the battle-worn pack protector he’d become. There was something… stupidly attractive about it. A visual testament to the fact that this man had been too busy caring for him and their son to bother with a razor.

A soft, squeaky yawn drew his attention downward. Kazuki was stirring in his arms, waking from his nap with the leisurely grace of a tiny monarch. His little mouth stretched open in a wide, jaw-cracking yawn that showed off his pink, utterly toothless gums and a perfect, tiny tongue that poked out with the motion. He blinked his big, green eyes slowly, heavy with sleep, looking up at Katsuki with a gaze of pure, unfiltered adoration.

He was awake, but only just. In that drowsy, post-nap haze, he simply lay there, content to be held, his chubby fingers absently kneading the fabric of Katsuki’s tunic. Every so often, he’d let out a soft, conversational coo or a sigh, his eyes half-lidded.

Katsuki found himself talking without thinking, his voice a low, rumbling murmur directed at the pup. “Look at you. Lazy little lump. Sleeping the day away while the rest of us deal with the world.”

The moment the words left his lips, Kazuki’s sleepy face transformed. His eyes crinkled, his cheeks plumped, and a slow, gummy, utterly blissful smile spread across his features. It was a smile of pure, uncomplicated joy at the sound of his dam’s voice.

Katsuki stared, momentarily stunned. He tried again. “What are you grinning at, huh? You think this is funny?”

Another coo, another radiant, toothless smile. Kazuki’s little legs kicked happily.

A strange, warm feeling blossomed in Katsuki’s chest, squeezing tight around his heart. He glanced up at Izuku, who was watching the interaction with a look of such profound happiness it was almost painful to see.

The tiny creature was gazing up at him as if he’d hung the moon, smiling simply because he existed and was making noise. The weight of the past few days—the grief, the fear, the confusion—didn't vanish. But in the face of this small, perfect miracle, it all seemed to shrink, becoming manageable. Here was something pure that had come from all that pain. Something that needed him, recognized him, loved him without condition or memory.

He bent his head, pressing a soft kiss to Kazuki’s forehead, inhaling his sweet, milky scent.

From his periphery, he saw Izuku’s hand come up to rub at his own eyes, a silent, emotional gesture. But when Katsuki looked up, the alpha was just smiling, his tired eyes shining with love, the scruff on his jaw making him look rugged and devoted all at once. In the crib of his arms, Kazuki continued to smile his sleepy, sunbeam smile, perfectly content in the circle of their quiet, rediscovered love.

The cozy lethargy was a tangible thing, wrapping around Katsuki like the finest fur. The emotional purge, the intense reunion with Izuku, the sheer weight of returned memories—it had all left him feeling hollowed out and strangely light at the same time. The nest was a sanctuary, Kazuki was a warm, breathing teddy bear in his arms, and Izuku was a solid, reassuring presence at his side. Moving felt like a monumental, stupid idea.

He shifted slightly, wincing as the movement pulled at stiff muscles and reminded him of other, more pleasant aches. He caught a whiff of himself—a complex bouquet of sweat, sex, dried milk, and the lingering scent of smoke from the hearth. It wasn't terrible, but it was… lived-in. 

Very lived-in.

“Ugh,” he grunted, letting his head fall back against the piled furs. “I smell like a den after a pack brawl. And I’m sticky.”

Izuku, who had been contentedly watching Kazuki try to fit his entire fist in his mouth, glanced over. A small, understanding smile touched his lips. “There’s hot water by the fire. I can bring the tub over here. You don’t have to get up.”

The offer was tempting. A hot bath without having to leave the nest’s warm embrace? It sounded almost too good. But the logistics seemed exhausting. Dragging the copper tub, hauling the water, the whole production…

“Too much work,” Katsuki muttered, closing his eyes. “Later. Maybe tomorrow. Or next week.”

He heard the soft rustle of Izuku moving. Not getting up, just shifting closer. A large, warm hand settled on his bare ankle where it peeked out from the furs, thumb rubbing a soothing circle over the bone.

“We could do a sponge bath,” Izuku suggested, his voice playful. “Like we do for Kazuki when he’s extra messy.”

Katsuki cracked one eye open to glare at him. “I am not a pup covered in spit-up, you asshole.”

“No,” Izuku agreed, his smile widening. “You’re my mate, covered in… well, me. Mostly.” He had the decency to look a little sheepish, but the glint in his eye was pure affection.

A flush crept up Katsuki’s neck. “Shut your damn mouth.”

Kazuki, sensing the shift in tone even if he didn't understand the words, chose that moment to contribute. He’d abandoned his fist and was now staring intently at a dancing shadow on the ceiling. He let out a loud, delighted squeal and kicked his legs, as if trying to chase it.

Distracted, Katsuki looked down at him. “What’s so funny, gremlin? You think this is a joke?”

As always, the sound of his voice made Kazuki’s attention snap back to him. The pup’s green eyes lit up, and another gummy, heart-melting smile spread across his face. He cooed, a long, drawn-out sound that ended in a happy sigh.

Izuku chuckled. 

“See? He agrees with me. You’re being dramatic. A little water won’t kill you.” He leaned over, his scruffy jaw brushing Katsuki’s shoulder as he peered down at their son. “Isn’t that right, Kazu? Should we give your mama a bath?”

Kazuki, thoroughly enchanted by the proximity of both parents, let out a series of rapid-fire “ah-goo-ga” sounds, blowing a tiny spit bubble for emphasis.

“Traitor,” Katsuki accused the baby, but he was fighting a smile. He looked from his son’s cheerful face to Izuku’s tender, amused one. 

The alpha’s tired eyes were crinkled at the corners, the new scruff making him look endearingly rumpled.

“Fine,” he grumbled, giving in with a theatrical sigh. “But you’re doing all the work. And the water better be hot. And if you call it a ‘sponge bath’ again, I’m using the sponge to suffocate you.”

Izuku’s face lit up with a victory so pure it was ridiculous. He pressed a quick, smacking kiss to Katsuki’s temple. 

“Yes, Alpha,” he teased, using the title in a way that made Katsuki’s stomach flip.

He untangled himself and moved with a quiet efficiency, fetching the large, shallow basin they used for washing, filling it with steaming water from the pot always kept warm at the hearth’s edge, and gathering soft cloths and the cake of mild, herb-scented soap. He brought everything to the edge of the nest, creating a little bathing station without requiring Katsuki to move an inch.

Kazuki, now fully awake and fascinated by the new activity, watched with wide eyes as Izuku dipped a cloth in the water, wrung it out, and brought it to Katsuki’s arm. The first touch of the warm, damp fabric was heaven on Katsuki’s skin. He let out an involuntary, pleased hum, his body going boneless.

Izuku worked with the same focused tenderness he used on their pup, washing Katsuki’s arms, his chest, his neck, careful around the Bond Mark. He was thorough but gentle, his touches speaking of care rather than clinical cleaning. The mint-cedar scent of him mixed with the steam and the clean herbal smell of the soap.

Katsuki lay there, letting himself be pampered, Kazuki still cradled in the crook of his other arm. The pup had found his fingers again and was gumming them contentedly, his eyes drifting between his sire’s ministrations and his dam’s relaxed face.

“Told you it was a good idea,” Izuku murmured, rinsing the cloth and moving to Katsuki’s other side.

“Don’t get cocky,” Katsuki retorted, but his voice was a sleepy mumble. He was clean, warm, and surrounded by his family. 

The grief and the memories were still there, waiting in the wings. But for this moment, in this nest, with a damp cloth and a smiling alpha and a drooling pup, everything was simple. 

It was enough.

Clean, warm, and absurdly pampered, Katsuki’s mind drifted lazily as Izuku finished drying him off with a soft towel. His eyes traced the lines of the alpha kneeling beside the nest, comparing them to the ghost from his memories.

The Izuku he’d left behind at fourteen was all potential—lanky limbs promising future strength, a face still soft with youth, eyes wide with a hope that hadn't yet been tempered by loss. The man before him was that promise fulfilled, and then some. His shoulders had broadened into a true alpha’s breadth, capable of carrying immense weight. The muscles in his arms and back weren't just for show; they were functional, carved from years of leadership, hunting, rebuilding, and the sheer physical labor of survival. The scruff on his jaw added a layer of rugged maturity the boy could never have managed. Even the scars—a thin white line across his knuckles, another near his temple—spoke of a life lived actively, protectively. He’d hardened, like granite shaped by a relentless river.

Katsuki’s own changes felt different. Softer. His body had widened at the hips, curved at the stomach and chest, all adaptations for the pup now dozing again in his arms. He was strong, yes, but it was an omega’s strength—endurance, resilience, the power to create and sustain life. It was a far cry from the compact, aggressive alpha-in-waiting he’d imagined himself to be.

Izuku, putting away the bathing supplies, caught him staring. A slow, knowing smile spread across his face. He crawled back into the nest, settling close, his mint-cedar scent enveloping Katsuki once more.

“See something you like, Alpha?” Izuku asked, his voice a low, teasing purr.

The word, used in that context, with that tone, sent a jolt straight through Katsuki. Heat exploded across his cheeks and down his neck. 

“Don’t fucking call me that!” He snapped, turning his head away, but the damage was done. His heart was doing a stupid, frantic tap-dance against his ribs.

From his arms, Kazuki, disturbed by the sudden movement and the spike in his dam’s pheromones, blinked awake. He didn't cry. He just looked up, saw Katsuki’s flushed face, and let out a soft, curious coo. Then, as Katsuki began to grumble, “I swear to the gods, Deku, I will shove that washcloth down your throat—” the pup’s face broke into one of those tiny, gummy smiles, enchanted by the familiar, animated sound of his mother’s voice, even if it was angry.

Izuku’s grin turned wicked. He leaned in closer, his breath tickling Katsuki’s ear. 

“Why are you so nervous, huh? I’m just calling you what you always wanted to be. Alpha.” He drew the word out, making it sound like a caress and a challenge all at once.

Katsuki’s whole body went rigid, then flushed hotter. He could feel the Bond Mark on his neck throbbing in time with his pulse. 

“I didn't want—! That’s not—! Shut up, you bastard!” He was sputtering, completely flustered, which only made it worse. He was Bakugou Katsuki. He didn't sputter.

Izuku was clearly enjoying himself immensely. He propped his head on his hand, looking down at Katsuki with sparkling eyes. 

“Come on, Kacchan. You spent our entire childhood declaring you’d be the biggest, baddest alpha in the territory. Leader of the pack. Now here I am, acknowledging your supreme alpha-ness.” He reached out and poked Katsuki’s very red cheek. “You should be preening.”

“I’LL PREEN YOUR FACE INTO THE DIRT!” Katsuki roared, but it was undercut by the way he was cradling Kazuki protectively against his chest, and the fact that he made no move to actually shove Izuku away. The pup, hearing the raised voice, just smiled wider and kicked his legs happily, as if this was the best entertainment he’d ever witnessed.

Izuku threw his head back and laughed, a rich, full-bodied sound that filled the cabin. “There he is! That’s the ferocious alpha spirit!” He swooped down and planted a loud, smacking kiss on Katsuki’s forehead, then quickly dodged the half-hearted swipe Katsuki aimed at him. “My fierce, blushing alpha.”

“I’M NOT BLUSHING!” Katsuki yelled, which was a blatant lie.

He was probably the color of a ripe summer berry. He glared at Izuku, who was beaming at him with so much open affection it was disarming. The contrast between the playful, needling alpha and the exhausted, devoted protector from earlier was startling, but both were undeniably Izuku. This was the man who had wept over him, fought for him, built a home for him, and now teased him mercilessly—all with the same unwavering love.

Katsuki’s glare slowly lost its heat, dissolving into a begrudging, exasperated shake of his head. He looked down at Kazuki, who was now trying to suck on his own lower lip with intense concentration. 

“Your sire is an idiot,” he informed the baby, his voice dropping to a grumble. “A giant, muscle-bound, emotionally manipulative idiot.”

Kazuki, blissfully unaware of the definition of the words, heard the cadence of his dam’s voice and rewarded him with another drooly, toothless grin.

Izuku just chuckled, settling back down beside them, his laughter softening into a contented sigh. He draped an arm over Katsuki’s waist, his large hand coming to rest over Katsuki’s where it held their son. 

“My idiots,” he corrected softly, nuzzling into Katsuki’s hair. “My perfect, ridiculous, wonderful idiots.”

And despite himself, surrounded by the evidence of how much they’d all changed and the love that had stubbornly remained, Katsuki couldn't find a single argument.