Archive of Our Own

Izuku’s 20th birthday came like a long awaited nightmare he knew would never end.

He was almost 17 when he presented, a late bloomer by most standards, but very much an omega, which meant that he didn’t have as much time to prepare for it as everyone else did.

Truthfully, it never once occurred to him that being an omega was a possibility, considering how rate they were. Maybe only one in fifty people presented as omegas while one in ten were alphas. The rest of the world lived their lives comfortably as betas, and Izuku would have given anything to be one.

But there was an obvious omega shortage so there was no chance of him finding a way to undo it. Alphas and omegas needed to mate to survive, but that meant that most alphas died young while omegas were highly sought out. Prized even.

It was bittersweet in a way because it was a guarantee that one day Izuku would never be lonely again. He would have a mate, and he would be the key to another human being’s survival. And it meant that when Izuku was old enough, any alpha who wanted to mate with him would literally kill to get the chance. He was so rare that he was born to be wanted.

And that fantasy lasted for an entire week before someone in his class scoffed and said, “yeah, who would wanna fight for you?”

And they were right.

Izuku deep down knew that no one would have fought for him.

He had friends, sure, but since he presented, no one wanted anything more than friendship. No one had kissed him since or held his hand, and he had no choice but to remain a virgin because if there was an accident before he mated then he would lose his chance to. Maybe that would have been for the best.

But Izuku didn’t have to worry about an empty arena. No, as heartbreaking and mortifying as that would have been, what Izuku had to be concerned about was that only the bad alphas would come for him because there would be no real competition for a good omega.

He was plain looking and awkward, and he was about as seductive as a bumblebee. Sometimes prizes came with the word ‘consolation’ attached to them, and the very reminder of it all was so humiliating he wished he could have been anyone else in the world except for himself.

It wouldn’t matter if he didn’t like any of the alphas who came. They could have been ugly, and cruel, and openly disdainful of him, and Izuku would have been given to them regardless. It was the law. As long as an alpha and omega mated, what happened to them afterwards was no one’s concern.

What if he found someone who only cared about how many litters he could carry? What if they were jealous and never let him leave the house? What if he didn’t get to go back to school? What if they didn’t let him have friends?

Of course, Izuku knew that the perfect alpha in the world could win him and that wouldn’t mean he would ever love him. It wasn’t about love, it was about survival, and if an alpha could prove they were strong enough, they would get the privilege of a long life. Izuku supposed being able to help was privilege enough.

Izuku started his 20th birthday drinking juices that would sweeten his slick because after the ceremony, he would be forced into a short heat where he and his alpha would mate, and for longevity, his alpha would kneel between his legs and drink from him before Izuku took his knot.

It was poetic, Izuku thought, if you looked past the idea of a stranger shoving his fingers in his hole before bending him over and thrusting until they were satisfied. He did not give himself any delusions to hang onto to get himself through it though. Brutal acceptance was much better than hopeful denial.

He stood with his arms to his sides as a room full of betas and omegas wrapped him in ribbons made of colorful silk until he looked halfway between a present to unwrap and a tied-up hog.

His chest was covered over the nipples, but his stomach and back were completely exposed. They wrapped his genitals so that his heat was delicately covered while his dick was hidden away so no one but his mate would see him.

But his backside was left completely bare to the wind. He never realized how many freckles he had on his butt until it was apparent just how many people would see him.

He was then given a silky robe that barely covered even that before his legs and feet were wrapped with emerald ribbons that left scraps of skin, his toes, and his heels exposed. His alpha would remove them later.

He swallowed thickly, his eyes stinging with tears as his stomach twisted and knotted up. If he got sick, would they let him leave? Why wasn’t he allowed to go home? Why couldn’t he live with a nice beta and pretend his presentation never happened? Wouldn’t that be better for everybody?

Not for the winner, though.

He exhaled in defeat, which prompted a sympathetic look from the attendant trying to get his hair under control. Izuku tried to smile like it was just a trick of a light, but he didn’t buy it.

“Let’s give the Prime a moment,” he said, and Izuku winced at the title. It was just a fancy reminder of how high quality his slick was, that if the laws were different he could have probably bottled it, sold it, and lived a peaceful life alone, but who in their right mind wanted to be addressed as The Guy With The Good Slick?

He guessed it was better than The Guy With The Mediocre Slick, but it made him push his knees together instinctively like he was going to start leaking out over the carper and announce how nice and juicy he was.

Izuku shivered.

The sound of a door opening and shutting nearly had him jumping out of his skin. He sensed alpha pheromones before his mind could catch up to the idea of someone walking in on him, and he grabbed the nearest thing he could get his hands on as a weapon.

It was a hairbrush.

“Whoa,” Katsuki said, jerking back as Izuku swung, which made Izuku’s arm keep going through where he was standing until he accidentally whacked Eijirou.

“Ow! Bro, that was mean,” he said, pouting as he rubbed his arm.

“Oh my god,” Izuku said, horrified. “I’m so sorry!”

“We thought those losers were never gonna leave,” Katsuki grumbled.

“How are you? Are you okay?” Eijirou asked, suddenly inspecting him as if they had done more to Izuku than just ribbon him.

“I’m fine,” he said. “What are you guys doing here?!”

“We wanted to make sure you were okay,” he said. “You were acting weird for the last week or so, and Katsuki said it was your birthday, and it was like ohhhhh.”

Izuku turned to Katsuki, touched. “You knew it was my birthday?”

“The whole country knows it’s your birthday, dumbass,” Katsuki said.

Izuku sagged. “Oh right.”

“But we’re here for you, okay?” Eijirou said earnestly. “You’re not on your own, it’s gonna be totally okay.”

Izuku opened his mouth to protest, devastated, but instead, it struck him how dangerous their current situation was. “You both can’t be here. If anyone finds out we were alone like this–?”

“You’d be a ruined omega?” Katsuki challenged, one eyebrow raised. Izuku pressed his mouth into a line. “That’d be easier, wouldn’t it? This whole thing would go away, and we could all get on with our lives.”

“Kacchan, you don’t understand,” he said. “You get to choose your mate, and you will because you’re the strongest alpha ever. You and Eijirou both, I mean. But if I mess this up people will remember forever. No one will want me. I’ll be alone.”

“Anyone good enough for you wouldn’t give a shit,” he said. “Right?”

“Right,” Eijirou agreed with a nod.

Izuku looked at them both pitifully, which Katsuki returned with a full body scan of Izuku’s current attire. Which was a ribbon.

“I know I look stupid. You don’t have to say it.”

But all he said was: “you’re really going through with it.”

“You know I have to,” he said. “Can you please not make this any harder for me than it has to be? I can’t say no. No matter what I say, nothing is going to change. And I didn’t sign up for this, you know. When you presented it was the coolest thing in the world. I was so excited for you, and then I got stuck with this!” Izuku shouted as he flapped his robe for emphasis. “I look ridiculous!”

Panic came onto him like a flood, slowly building and then swallowing him at once. He heaved impotently to catch his breath, and Eijirou pulled him into his arms, not minding how the glitter transferred from Izuku’s skin to his clothes.

“Whoa, there, buddy, it’s okay,” he said soothingly. “We’re so chill right now, right Katsuki?”

“Everything’s going to be fine,” Katsuki said. “Just get through the weird creepy ceremony shit, and the hard part will be over.”

Izuku sniffled. “Easy for you to say. You two don’t even have to watch.”

“Listen to me,” he said. “Nothing bad is gonna happen to you, I swear.”

“I appreciate what you’re doing, but you can’t promise that,” Izuku said.

“The hell I can’t,” Katsuki said. “Eijirou?”

“He’s right,” he said. “Just trust us, alright?”

“But what if I get a bad alpha?”

“Then we’ll kill them and take their house,” Katsuki said.

“Yup,” Eijirou said. “One and done dead guy. No problem.”

And despite himself, Izuku smiled. He loved these two deeply, he really did. They weren’t the only friends he had, of course, but Katsuki had been his first in the world and then after Katsuki presented and was socialized with more alphas to control his aggression, Izuku got to meet Eijirou, who was the living embodiment of kindness.

If only he could mate with someone like either of them, he thought.

A sound of a door shutting in another room followed by voices had Izuku’s eyes widening with concern. They needed to go, and they needed to go now before anyone saw them, but both Katsuki and Eijirou knew that.

“Hey,” Eijirou said, making sure to look him straight in the eye. “You’re gonna do great, okay? Just keep smiling like you always do.”

“Everyone’s gonna see my butt,” Izuku said pathetically.

Eijirou laughed. “I’m sorry, dude. Maybe it’ll be quick.”

“Maybe,” Izuku agreed. “Or maybe no one will come and they’ll send me home.”

“Alright, we gotta get goin’,” Katsuki said anxiously.

“I’ll cover you,” Izuku said, and he did by creating the only good distraction he could think of.

He chunked the container of glitter.

“Oh no, I made a mess! Help!”

It worked well enough.

Four hundred and twenty six alphas came for Izuku.

He choked out a low wheeze from the base of his lungs as he nearly tipped forward to the ground when they told him the number as normally as if they’d told him it probably wouldn’t rain today.

But to his relief, he then learned that that questionnaire they gave him six weeks ago when he had to register himself narrowed it down to just 26. He was not going to have to watch 426 alphas fight for the right to mate with him, but he suddenly wished he could remember what criteria he wrote down.

This system was more unfair than he originally realized. Maybe he should have been grateful he wasn’t born an alpha instead.

Katsuki and Eijirou were.

Izuku swallowed. They were both old enough to start competing, but they never talked about it. At least not with Izuku. Maybe it was too awkward or maybe this was just a thing no one wanted to be reminded of.

Whenever they did decide to compete, however, Izuku was going to be glued to the screen. He hoped whatever alpha he ended up with today would be okay with it because he was never going to give them up.

Because otherwise someone was going to kill them and take their house, it seemed.

And this was the small flicker he needed to step forward.

“Omega, you may now view the alphas.”

There was a gilded balcony at the edge of this ridiculous palace he was prepared in. It overlooked a giant amphitheater with a complicated labyrinth in the center that was designed to test the alphas’ minds as well as their physical strength. Everyone in the audience who came to watch could see directly down into it, but the alphas would have to fight their way through the maze with only their instincts to guide them. It was fun to watch on TV, but the idea of it then made Izuku queasy. It felt… wrong to put human beings inside a rat maze for their own survival, but as long as there was a shortage of omegas, it was the only way anyone could survive.

At least that was how it was sold to them all 300 years ago when so many omegas suddenly died out.

Izuku gathered himself and stepped to the edge. He was supposed to stand there and look ethereal, whatever that meant, but all he could focus on was the way the wind flapped through his napkin of a silk robe and threatened to unwind all of his ribbons right then and there.

He made a mistake looking out into the audience. Thousands of people cheered to get a look at today’s omega, and Izuku saw that the organizers had helpfully broadcasted his horrified face on several Jumbotrons. He consciously reached up to push his hair down before he saw the way the movement made the ribbons slide off of his nipple. Nope.

He forced his eyes down to the line of alphas waiting for him to look at them, a part of the ceremony Izuku always found ridiculous because one: what did it did matter if the omega saw them first? They would have to mate regardless. And two: how was anyone supposed to see someone’s face from this distance.

Except in that moment, distance was meaningless. He would have recognized two of them anywhere.

Izuku’s legs buckled beneath him as he locked onto two very familiar people who should have been in the stands, not in the arena. He nearly shouted in surprise because why were Katsuki and Eijirou there? They were just in the room with him, and now they were both half naked and oiled up like two beautiful sardines.

In line with the other alphas who wanted to mate with him.

Why would they do that?

Didn’t they know if they won they would have to mate with him? That they would give up their chance to find someone they really wanted?

And even as Izuku thought that, even as his stomach knotted with worry, his heart picked up just a little.

Katsuki and Eijirou didn’t stand together like Izuku was used to seeing them. It seemed they had either been arranged in a specific order or they pointedly did not want anyone to know they were friends.

He supposed that was smart. After all, if anyone tried to gouge Katsuki’s eyes out, Eijirou would have bitten their fingers off, so pretending to be strangers was probably better for everyone involved.

But it didn’t explain why they were there or why Izuku was almost… happy to see them. Horrified knowing what they were about to undertake, but happy.

His hand twitched to wave at them, but he remembered that showing anyone else he knew them could have given them a disadvantage as well. If there were alphas down there desperate to mate at any cost, he could have made them targets.

Izuku turned to the nearest attendant, who was there to supervise him, he supposed. “Do I need to do anything?”

“You can say a few words to your potential mates as inspiration,” he said before absurdly handing Izuku a microphone.

Izuku brought it to his lips, unsure of what he was supposed to say.

“Umm,” he started before his own voice echoed from the arena’s sound system, startling him.

His eyes widened, his pulse racing as he imagined thousands of people laughing at him. He couldn’t hear them, but still, the prospect was terrifying. Everything about this was terrifying.

“Thank you for coming,” he said quickly, his words jumbling into one before he added, just as rushed, “and good luck!”

The group of alphas looked up at him. He wondered if they were starting to regret their decision and if there was a chance to back out without having to fight for someone who was as embarrassing as he was nervous, but then he locked onto the sight of Eijirou clapping and laughed despite himself.

He had friends here, at least. He wasn’t alone.

He stepped back, a flicker of giddiness building that manifested on his face as excitement. It was probably better that it seemed like he looked forward to this and didn’t consider it an emotional death sentence. After all, whoever he ended up mated to at the end of the day was going to see him and have to live with it.

Izuku thought of having to fight for someone just to realize they were disappointed and internally crumpled. Maybe he was the one who wasn’t being completely fair about this.

Izuku was taken to a viewing gallery so he wouldn’t have to stand the entire time. He watched as the remaining alphas stepped into small individual chambers around the outer edge of the maze that would all open up at one time like cow chutes at a rodeo.

They would have to weave their way through the maze, knocking out anyone who they came across until they reached the center which would turn into an all out brawl. This was the one occasion where murder was allowed because accidents happened, and no blamed lions for being lions.

Katsuki and Eijirou were placed on opposite sides and likely wouldn’t meet until they reached the middle. If they reached it.

Izuku gulped.

When the horn blew and the enclosures opened, several alphas ran out, prepared to bulldoze their way through to the end. Izuku supposed he should have been flattered, but it made him want to draw his knees to his chest.

Katsuki, he saw, didn’t rush. Instead he kept a sharp eye out for his surroundings, aware that he was always seconds away from being jumped. Izuku felt sorry for the first person to try.

Eijirou on the other hand looked like a lost mouse in a maze, his eyes wide and curious as he looked up at the walls on either side. He placed a hand on one of the walls and used it to guide himself as he focused on making it through without getting lost.

Izuku didn’t notice anyone else.

Until the first fight happened.

Izuku had watched these ceremonies for years on TV for most of his life, and the fights were always the most exciting part. The alphas weren’t allowed to carry weapons. They had to subdue their opponents with their bare hands, and no hits were considered illegal.

He knew that people died in the arena, but that didn’t feel real until Izuku was there just above them, watching with morbid fascination as arms were wrapped around necks and knees were buried into stomachs.

The first alpha went down in a heap.

It didn’t matter if he could get up, his chance this time was over. He had lost and no longer had the right to claim a victory.

Chaos unfolded the way storms did, first with a slow trickle and then an all out torrent as bodies crashed into bodies, as alphas were ambushed around corners, their heads bashed into the walls before they could flinch. The walls and floor were painted black to hide the blood.

It was primal violence, animalistic and unrestrained, and for some unfathomable reason it was happening for him.

Frantically he searched for his friends, the only alphas down there who he really cared about, but he couldn’t find them. It occurred to him then with a jolt that they could’ve been taken out while he was distracted by the carnage, but he immediately shook that thought away.

Katsuki and Eijirou wouldn’t lose. They couldn’t lose. They were the two strongest alphas Izuku knew, probably the strongest in the world, and Izuku couldn’t find them.

Without thinking he stood up and pressed his hands to the glass. He saw dark hair flitting in and out but no blond or red. Knowing they were on opposite sides only made it worse. His hands curled into fists.

“Come on,” he said beneath his breath, but he wasn’t sure what he was wishing for. For both of them to be okay? Or for both of them to make it to the center?

Ten alphas went down. Some who were removed limped on their way out, but the others Izuku hoped were only unconscious.

The first alphas made it to the center and charged for each other before more joined them, and then that’s when Izuku finally saw one of the people he was looking for.

Katsuki stalked out like a panther. Izuku couldn’t help the relieved smile that stretched across his lips. He wasn’t hurt. He had made it through the labyrinth and now all he had to do was–.

Survive.

But Izuku would never underestimate his Kacchan.

Someone charged for him, but Katsuki slammed his shoulder into his chest, taking the impact like he was fighting off a sandbag. He knocked the other alpha back and kicked him right in the center of his chest, knocking his wind out. Izuku watched as Katsuki swung his fist in a full bodied uppercut that took the other alpha’s momentum and knocked him on his back.

He threw his head back and let out a cry for battle no one could hear, and goosebumps prickled all over Izuku’s arms. Now that was an alpha.

Moments later Eijirou stumbled out from the maze with a look of pure exhilaration on his face that quickly turned into amazement at the scene before him. He looked up at the stands around them before he turned until he locked onto Izuku watching them from above. Eijirou gave him two thumbs up before he tackled the nearest alpha to the ground and choked him out like it was just another Tuesday, and Izuku found himself laughing despite the circumstance. He was so strong that all he had to was hug people to knock them out, but as someone who had been on the other side of those hugs, Izuku never once found them dangerous.

Izuku watched as the two of them picked off their own sides of the opening. Even when a few of the remaining alphas tried to gang up on them, it was like watching two professional gladiators at the peaks of their careers, even though one ran a catering company and the other worked in a surf shop.

A hysterical laugh almost escaped him before he slapped a hand over his mouth to stop it. That would not have been appropriate then, especially when he couldn’t explain exactly what made this feel like the fever dream it was.

Maybe everyone felt this way when their time came.

It came as pure relief when the last alpha fell. No one could be retrieved from the center until it was over, so Katsuki and Eijirou stood on opposite ends of a ring of unconscious bodies. It looked like part of an ancient ceremony, especially as they wiped the sweat from their faces and the blood from their hands.

They had somehow made it to the end, both of them with no injuries. Suddenly Izuku felt the overwhelming need to cry.

But then it seemed to occur to all three of them at once that it wasn’t over.

Izuku’s heart pounded as Katsuki and Eijirou looked at each other, both realizing that they were both very much still in the same game with the same goal in mind.

To win Izuku.

Izuku shook his head, even though neither of them could see him. This wasn’t right. Katsuki and Eijirou were best friends. They loved each other. Izuku was pretty sure if it was practical for alphas to mate with each other, they would have already gone through with it because what was the point of one living without the other?

But that’s what would happen.

They would have to make a choice. To fight and win or to lie down and let the other walk away.

And Izuku’s heart ached so much he couldn’t stand it because he knew that one of them would have knelt for the other if it meant he could live on instead. Even if another omega’s birthday came in a week, no one would want an alpha who would concede defeat. It was the end.

Unless they brutalized each other.

Eijirou looked up at Izuku and smiled so sadly that Izuku knew exactly what was about to happen.

“Stop!” Izuku heard himself shout.

He turned around with wild eyes, finally noticing the cameras pointed at him and the startled attendants who had not expected him to scream at them.

“Stop this!” Izuku shouted again.

“Omega, this is part of the ceremony,” an attendant said with the kind of cloying softness that made him grit his teeth. “You must wait until the final alpha emerges as your mate.”

“I want both,” he blurted out absurdly, and now those cameras were really on him, and he heard his own voice echoing out, unnaturally shrill. He turned around and saw both Katsuki and Eijirou looking up, their postures limp. So they had heard him. He looked back to his emotional executioners with a new kind of fevered resolve that made him feel like if anyone denied him this he would have eaten them alive. “I want both alphas. I’ll mate with them both. There’s no rule against it, right? If the alphas will agree to it, I mean. There’s more of them than there is of me, so I’ll take both. I want both.”

He cleared his throat, suddenly feeling like he had lost his mind.

“Please,” he added reasonably. Snarling.

There was a brief moment where a lot of people started discussing whether or not he had the right to declare a victor, but Izuku thought that even if he wanted to mate with the loser, that should have been allowed.

But he was not going to watch the two people dearest to him beat each other up over something as stupid as this. It was uncalled for.

“You will have to take the physical and emotional needs of two separate alphas,” someone said. “Their ruts and their litters.”

“That’s fine,” Izuku said immediately.

Was it?

“You may not favor one over the other,” someone else said.

“I won’t,” Izuku said. “I can do it. Just–. Tell them I want both, and I’ll be a really, really, really good mate if they say yes. The best mate in the whole world. A mega omega. I don’t even sleep!”

That last part was probably already heavily implied.

“Please, give me my mates,” he begged and then added a quick, “whoever those two strangers I don’t know are.”

An eyebrow twitched before a nod, and Izuku turned to see someone walk towards the labyrinth–.

And have to complete the entire maze, false corners included, before they finally reached them.

He could see the three of them talking, and he held his breath. If they agreed to it, it was over, and they could all go home.

And then both of their hands were grabbed and pulled into the air. Izuku’s legs buckled beneath him.

They were both crowned the winning alpha.

Distantly, Izuku was aware that there was probably a wave of disappointment in the crowd from those who came for the carnage, especially from anyone who had watched them fight and wanted to see them tear into each other, but he could not spare a single thought for their satisfaction.

Along with it was the general excitement that Izuku had done something no one would have ever seen coming in a million years. What kind of omega would want two alphas? They wouldn’t have a shortage if that was a thing that happened, but it had happened today, even as Izuku watched from above as if any second now it was all going to blow up in his face.

But nothing happened.

“Omega, if you’ll follow me to the mating chamber, your alphas will clean up and meet you there.”

Izuku’s blood ran cold.

The mating chamber.

What exactly had he done…?

The “mating chamber”, absurdly, was all gold and ivory. Whoever designed this palace hadn’t spared a single gaudy detail, and Izuku’s ribbons itched.

There was nowhere to sit except for the elaborately arranged pile of pillows and blankets meant to take the place of a nest. Izuku’s nest at home was more pilfered hoodies, memorial t-shirts of different points in his life, and blankets with funky patterns he liked to bury himself beneath after a particularly stressful day.

This one, however, was not meant for emotional support. This was where Izuku was expected to be pinned down and mated to where his knees wouldn’t bruise and he wouldn’t crack his head.

He hugged himself, feeling more than naked, and stepped away to wait for his friends to find him.

It might have been an hour before the door finally opened. To his relief, only two people stepped into the room, and he flung himself at them before he could think.

“I’m so sorry!” Izuku shouted as he threw his arms around both of their necks at once, bringing them into a double-armed embrace as he squeezed his eyes shut between their heads to hold back his tears. “Are you okay?!”

“We’re fine, nerd,” Katsuki said like Izuku was ridiculous for asking. Well, he was not ridiculous because they could have died. They could have had their teeth knocked out.

He stepped back and looked at both of them with bewildered disbelief. “Why would you do that? Why did you sign up? Why didn’t you tell me?!”

Eijirou scratched his cheek. “I mean, you were freaking out pretty bad. We didn’t wanna make it worse.”

“Of course I was freaking out!” Izuku shouted before he pulled himself back in, pinching the air as he took a deep breath so no one outside the room would hear him. “You can’t–. If anyone finds out you guys faked being alpha candidates so I wouldn’t have to mate anyone, you’re gonna be in so much trouble. What are you gonna say next time? That I didn’t do it? Then I’m gonna get in trouble, oh god, we are all so screwed, oh my god.”

Eijirou looked between them with a slightly stunned parted mouth, but it was Katsuki who finally said something.

“There’s not gonna be a next time,” he said.

“Huh?”

“If you win, you can’t go back in,” he said. “And we just won.”

“Yeah, it’d be, like, super not fair to the losers if the strong alphas kept taking all the good omegas all the time,” Eijirou said.

Izuku paled with devastation. “Then how are you guys gonna find mates now…?”

They were gonna die. Because Izuku couldn’t toughen up and take his mating day with a smile, his two favorite people in the world were going to die. He had damned both of them.

Katsuki’s face twisted. “Deku, did you sniff all that hairspray?!”

Izuku balked.

“You think I’m gonna let some other alpha get you? You’ve my nerd, idiot, what the fuck are you talking about?!”

“Well…,” Eijirou said.

“Not you,” he said. “I would’ve won though.”

“Nuh uh, bro, I was this close to beating you,” he said, pinching the air.

Katsuki stepped towards him, his chest puffed out, and Eijirou raised his chin to get a hair of height on him as the two of them started bickering about who was the strongest and who would have “gone home crying to their mama” when the other knocked him out.

Izuku could not believe them.

He stepped between them automatically before a little bit of friendly roughhousing ended in a smashed vase, but immediately he realized he had wedged himself between two alpha.

Two alphas who had beaten everyone else to get there.

To mate with him.

On those blankets.

Oh boy.

A strong scent like wild strawberries and fresh cut grass bloomed suddenly, seemingly from nowhere, and Izuku’s body prickled with sweat.

Oh boy.

Izuku laughed nervously and took a step to the side, but it was too late. They both caught his scent at the same time and stopped arguing.

“Deku,” Katsuki said with careful suspicion. “What was that?”

“What was what?” Izuku asked, taking another step away.

Eijirou sniffed the air. “That’s new, isn’t it?”

“Uh huh,” Katsuki said.

Oh boy.

Another step back.

Marble column.

Damn it.

Izuku smiled sheepishly. “Ehe.”

Katsuki stalked towards him with those same feline predatory movements that had Izuku fully gulping as he prepared himself for what was coming.

Relentless teasing.

“Can you guys pretend you didn’t smell that?” Izuku asked as a chance.

“Nope.”

“Oh man,” he whimpered. “Come on, it was an accident! It happens sometimes! You get wedged between a couple of… half naked alphas… all covered in sweat… I mean it was nothing, haha, ignore me! Please ignore me. I’m not here.”

“Sounds like he likes being in the middle,” Ejirou said. Not him too…

“Smells like it too.”

Izuku grimaced, his eyes squeezing shut. “Man…”

They were going to make fun of him for weeks. They were going to ask if he was hiding strawberries somewhere. Well, it was going to be worse than that, but Izuku wasn’t feeling very creative at the moment.

And to his surprise, instead of the relentless bullying he expected, he got a nose shoved into his scent gland so suddenly he could only snap his eyes open as he was pinned back so he couldn’t move.

He had never been scented before. It was too intimate, too real. He just wanted to be one of the guys, and truthfully dating after presenting was impossible anyway.

But blond spikes obscured his vision as his oldest friend dove into strawberry fields that suddenly became too strong to ignore.

Izuku didn’t know his arousal would be sweet. It wasn’t the same when he was alone and just needed to take the edge off, and it wasn’t anything like that familiar loneliness that accompanied his heats. This was how his body decided to respond to his alphas, and it had waited until they were in this room to do it.

A soft sound escaped his lips as Katsuki’s nose pressed into his scent, urging out the oils beneath his gland without the playful aggression Izuku had expected. Unconsciously he placed a hand on the back of his hair to keep them there as if it was something he needed.

“Kacchan,” he said in a daze, and that’s when Katsuki finally pulled away, his eyes blown and blurry. He sniffled once, his nose red, and stepped away until he was on the other side of the room, his back turned to them as he covered his nose with his arm.

Izuku looked at Eijirou concerned. “Is it that bad?”

“No,” he laughed. “You smell good, bro. Like, really good.”

Izuku flushed deep to the bone, his back still slumped to the stone behind him as a small laugh of disbelief escaped his lip. It felt oddly euphoric for what it was, the lingering feeling of being scented and enjoyed. “Do you…?”

“Is it okay?” Eijirou asked before he looked back at Katsuki like he wasn’t sure what would happen if he tried. Would Katsuki jump on his back and tear him off, or would he stay like he was, taking the distance to gather himself.

Izuku shyly tipped his head to the opposite side, revealing the gland beneath his other ear as an offering. He couldn’t make himself say the words, but because it was Eijirou, he didn’t have to.

He supposed he shouldn’t have been surprised that it felt like a hug. Eijirou’s arms went around him, pulling their bodies flush as he pressed his nose beneath Izuku’s ear, and where Katsuki’s felt like he had been seized and snatched away from everything bad that could ever happen to him, Eijirou’s felt like sinking beneath that familiar pile of hoodies where he could forget there was anything bad to begin with.

Both were perfect.

Both were everything he needed.

Soft lips worked their way up to his neck all the way to his ear where he was lovingly nuzzled.

“You don’t have to worry about us, we knew what we were signing up for, but if you maybe wanted to mate with us for real, that would be cool too.”

He asked.

In a world where alphas couldn’t ask omegas to mate with them, even if they wanted to—they were just given the ones they were strong enough for—Eijirou asked.

“Do you want to?” Izuku asked quietly because he wanted Eijirou to have that to, the feeling that an omega wanted to mate with him. Both of them. Not because he had to, but because they were both the right choice.

It had been so long since Izuku was last kissed that he almost forgot what to do. Eijirou’s mouth was warm and slack against his, scent-drunk from breathing too much of him in at once but so, so sweet.

Did Izuku really smell that good to them?

Was that even possible?

And still even with his doubts and disbeliefs, he took his reward for what it was. He hadn’t been kissed in ages, but of course the person to break it would have been one of them.

Eijirou made the most sense with his outwardly affectionate nature, his hugs, fist bumps, and high fives all precursors to this very moment. Izuku found himself smiling against his lips, enjoying Eijirou for who he exactly was.

A ray of sunshine, a friend, and a good alpha.

Eijirou pulled away, smiling and flushed, before he wiped his thumb over Izuku’s mouth to steal some of the shine. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Izuku said with shy fondness.

Eijirou looked back over his shoulder at Katsuki. “You good, bro?”

“Yeah, I’m good,” he said having taken a moment to collect himself. “So you’re doing this then?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Unless you’ve got a problem with it.”

Izuku tensed, but Katsuki shook his head.

“Nah, I don’t have a problem,” he said before looking at Izuku. “That’s good for two right?”

Izuku nodded, suppressing both a smile and a small twinge of embarrassment. They were never supposed to have this conversation, but now it seemed they were.

Although, he wouldn’t say that he didn’t dream about it once or twice.

Didn’t agonize over the idea of it never happening.

Because at what point was Kacchan ever going to fight to be his alpha?

The only point, it seemed.

“This side is yours,” he managed, pointing to the gland that Katsuki had scented. He already knew that territory had been divided. One half of him was Katsuki’s, one half was Eijirou’s, and he was wholly and completely fulfilled. “If you want it, I mean.”

Before they could engage in a battle of awkward politeness, Eijirou nudged Izuku towards him, answering all the questions they both had for each other.

It was about time, the movement said. Obviously they were going to mate, and it was going to happen before the sweat on their skin dried.

“So, uh, not to kill the party, but we’ve only got like an hour before someone comes and checks on him,” Eijirou said because someone was going to check. They were going to make sure Izuku mated to his alphas like Izuku said he would, even if they had offered him an out.

Still, it felt good knowing it was still his choice. Their choice, he should say.

So, so good.

“Kacchan?” Izuku asked.

Wordlessly, Katsuki knelt before him, his eyebrow quirking with a silent challenge. Izuku’s heart jumped in his chest because oh boy.

There were three things that needed to happen in a proper mating ceremony.

The most obvious was that Izuku needed to take his alpha’s knot to prove he could because if their bodies weren’t compatible then they would only end up hurting each other. That’s why they forced him into a heat in case he couldn’t get wet enough to sleep with a stranger.

Second to that was the bite that Izuku would wear on his throat for the rest of his life, something he would return because he was also claiming them for himself as their omega.

The third, the option that terrified him the most, was that his alpha would have to consume his slick for longevity. It was technically just symbolic, but Izuku had read before that omega slick was rich in protein, vitamin D, iron, and calcium, kind of like milk and–.

A surprised gasp tore from his lip as Katsuki’s head went between his legs.

Izuku’s cock had been tied away with his ridiculous outfit so he had a direct line to the hole waiting just where his balls would have been if he hadn’t presented. He dove in, lips and tongue, and Izuku’s eyes went as wide as saucers as his legs were knocked apart to make room.

“Oh my god,” he said and nearly fell over before Eijirou caught him from behind. He held Izuku up as Katsuki lapped at him, completely oblivious to Izuku’s lost balance.

“Whoa there,” Eijirou laughed. His hands spread to Izuku’s stomach as he kissed his throat on his designated side. Izuku’s eyes fell closed as his head tipped back on his shoulder, one knee raising as Eijirou took his weight.

One arm kept him steady while the other moved, touching him in all the right places as Katsuki’s tongue darted inside him.

Izuku was a virgin so he only knew the feeling of his own fingers and the few toys he had to help him manage his heats, but this was his first time learning of the wonderful wetness of a mouth and the scorching warmth of a body at his back.

Katsuki reached up and grabbed Eijirou’s hand and gave it a swift yank.

Eijirou laughed. “Alright, Alpha, I’m coming.”

It was just a joke, but the sound of one of Izuku’s alphas addressing the other in that way made his entire body shiver. He knew that they were deeply bonded, probably more than anyone would expect, but to hear it used for this…

Eijirou helped Izuku steady himself before he got on his knees behind him, holding his legs apart with his hands as he dove in.

Both of them were a full shock to his system. He could feel their tongues lapping against him, crossing and flicking together as they practically ate him alive. He was pretty sure this exceeded what they were actually supposed to do, but with heavy eyes and one hand on the head in front of him and the other on the head behind, he couldn’t bring himself to care.

His voice cracked on a sound caught between a sigh and a moan. It was as if thousands of mouths were on him at once, and he was sure that feeling this good at one time was going to be bad for his heart. It set his entire body alight, made every breath impossible.

Izuku wasn’t sure if he was even alive anymore.

His dick was still strapped away, pinned to his body with these stupid ribbons. It was painful how he strained against them as if he were being suffocated and stopped from giving in to how good they made him feel.

It was like they knew him so deeply they knew where he needed to be licked, where he wanted them to put their hands. These two people who were so dear to him, it should have been stiff at best and embarrassing at worst, but they were experts when it came to Izuku.

Katsuki, who had been his best friend for most of his life, a sort of family in the way the mates were, and Eijirou, who was so attuned to him, that one blink was all he would need to know if Izuku was happy or needed someone to help him escape.

When he woke up this morning, he expected to endure this ceremony with the shame and distance it required, but because they had fought for him, it was like he got to mate for love.

What a novel, impossible concept…

A giddy laugh escaped him.

Katsuki was the first to stop. He pulled back and looked up at Izuku with a wet mouth and pupils that had nearly swallowed his eyes. He was so beautiful like that that Izuku felt his heart quake in his chest.

Eijirou stole one more taste before they both stood up, and Izuku huffed out a breath as he came back to himself. It was a heady feeling he didn’t expect that was more like the rush from being scented than anything he could have done with his fingers.

It was primal in a way they all understood deep within their bones, pure instinct that couldn’t be explained by something as human as logic.

“Bro, we’re gonna live forever,” Eijirou said.

“Allegedly,” Katsuki said, and something about the exchange made Izuku release a nervous laugh, flushing from his chest all the way to the tops of his ears.

He hobbled away on tender legs until he reached the makeshift nest before he dropped down onto it, the ribbons cutting into his skin.

These wrappings were absurd. What was the point in being practically mummified for his alphas when lingerie would have been perfectly fine—and horny!

Instantly he got a flash of an alpha using them to bind their omega so they couldn’t escape and shook himself. That wasn’t going to happen to him because he got two good alphas, and they wouldn’t tie him up unless he asked for it.

But that was certainly an idea.

Next time.

No, not next time. Another time. In the future. Months away.

Years, even.

First comes love, then comes bondage, or something like that.

But then again, that probably wasn’t too far away. Now, however, wasn’t the time to think if he had already been there this entire time, though. Not with their pheromones running as wild as they were.

Izuku wasn’t the only one whose scent had changed. Katsuki’s signature sweetness was charged with a wild and rough musk that nearly made his eyes cross with how strongly it seemed to pierce through him, and Eijirou’s earthen balm was so much deeper and cooler like the stone beneath the earth, Izuku’s stalwart protector in the flesh.

And of course Izuku had to be the fruity one.

Unfair.

Eijirou and Katsuki joined him on the bedding, both of them showing quiet signs of exhaustion, but before Izuku could offer them a way out because they had fought too many people when they were used to fighting zero, Eijirou started to work at the wrappings around Izuku’s legs, untying them one by one like they were complicated knots on the back of an action figure. With a furrowed brow and a tongue caught between his teeth, he was fully submerged in concentration like there was nothing sexual going to come out of this. Just an annoying, tedious task he had to put all of his focus into.

“They really make you work for it huh,” he mumbled.

“I think the point is you’re supposed to rip it off,” Katsuki said.

“No way! That might hurt,” he said. “They could’ve at least given us some scissors though.”

“Just use your teeth.”

“Yeah, like I’ma try and break a tooth like this,” Eijirou said.

“You wouldn’t break it,” he said.

“You don’t know that.”

Izuku sat in disbelief as they discussed his wrappings as if he wasn’t there. He never really had a good idea of how his first time would go, but he did not have methodical ribbon peeling on the list. Not even in his weirdest dreams.

“I can do it,” Izuku offered.

“No,” they both said at the time. Izuku blinked, but he didn’t argue.

They freed him, leaving him naked and finally able to breathe. And it was strange, even as he propped himself back on his hands, his knees spread enough that they could see all of him, he didn’t feel even remotely exposed.

But it felt good that they could see him, that the first people to ever see his naked body after he presented (other than his doctor) would be the two people he was going to mate with.

Happily, he thought, and that silent buzz of anticipation grew in him so rapidly that he nearly couldn’t contain himself. His eyes might have teared up a little, but that was just the kind of person he was. Every emotion was always experienced at the fullest, and he knew he was with two people who understood him.

He stood up and walked from the pile of blankets the three of them were sitting on to a nearby table.

On it was a glass vial and a small crystal cup he thought was supposed to take away from the fact that he was about to gulp down a dose of medicine that would force him into a temporary heat.

Soon he would take both of their knots, and then after when his pheromones were back under control, he would have to go home with them and spend a night as their mate before they could all go back to their regular lives away from these cameras and rituals.

He poured himself his dose and looked back and saw them both watching them.

“Bottoms up, right?” Izuku asked with a shrug before he threw the drink back.

“Well, I guess you are standing,” Eijirou said, immediately making Izuku choke as Katsuki whacked him in the arm for it. “Sorry.”

Izuku coughed as he laughed, and it was suddenly such a normal thing to be there with them. They made it easy in a way no other alpha could because Izuku wasn’t just some omega they’d won as a prize.

He was their friend.

As soon as he collected himself again, he returned to those blankets, settling on his heels so he wasn’t so spread out.

“I don’t know how long it’ll be before it works,” Izuku said. “And I don’t really know how I’ll know if it’s kicked in or not…”

“What, you’ve got some creeper-heats or something?” Katsuki said.

“No, I mean–.”

He flushed. What did he mean? That he wasn’t sure if he would know the difference between true arousal and artificial?

“I don’t know how to start this,” he said instead. “Is it okay? I mean, I don’t wanna come on too strong–.”

“Too strong,” Katsuki said, raising an eyebrow. “You’re butt naked, and they’ve got us in alpha thongs.”

Izuku swatted at him. “You know what I mean! It’s embarrassing! Any minute now I’m gonna start humping your leg out of the blue, and what if we’re, like, talking about our favorite movies?”

“What, you turn into a little rabbit or something?” Katsuki said, his voice more of an intrigued challenge than genuinely curious. Izuku flushed, unwilling to answer that, which only seemed to make it worse. He moved towards him, sneering, and Izuku fully expected to be teased from then until next Thursday.

He didn’t expect to be kissed.

He didn’t expect to be kissed like that.

Izuku felt his entire body flash hot and cold at the same time like he was pushed through a waterfall into a hot spring, and without thinking, he dug his fingers into Katsuki’s arms like he was holding onto him for dear life.

It was so different that for a moment Izuku experienced a sense of whiplash. Eijirou was like sharing a private joke with someone, bubbly and exciting, but Katsuki was like clawing his way up to the surface because if he fell he would never get up again.

Both were perfect.

Both made him feel so much more alive than he could ever get used to.

“Come on, bunny boy, show us what a heat looks like,” he said against his lips, and Izuku made a noise of dissent in return.

“Be nice,” Eijirou said before Izuku felt a kiss pressed to his shoulder.

Pleased, he turned to capture his mouth, and could almost feel Katsuki’s natural need to yank him back and claim.

This was going to be awesome…

Eijirou pulled back, grinning, because he knew Katsuki just as well as Izuku did. He had taken a treat from him on purpose just to hear him growl.

“Welp, I’m gonna say you’ve got about two minutes left to figure out what you wanna do before you get stupid horny,” Katsuki said soberingly.

Izuku looked between the two of them, unsure. “What do you guys want?”

Katsuki and Eijirou looked at each other.

“You guys were always gonna mate, right?” Eijirou said.

“Eijirou,” Katsuki warned like this was an argument they’d had before and he wasn’t willing to have it again. Izuku flushed deeply. This was the first he’d ever heard of it. “If you were gonna leave yourself out, I should’ve kicked your ass out there the right way.”

Eijirou forced a smile, but it was more of an awkward grimace.

“Okay, then get out.”

“No!” Eijirou said, indignant, at the same time that Izuku said it like he had just told him to die.

Both of them looked at Izuku, making his growing blush worse.

“It has to be both of you,” he said. “I don’t care if it’s weird, I want to mate with both of you. I can take two alphas, I can do it. If you guys would be okay with me, I mean, if you would be happy. I don’t want either of you to leave, please. I don’t know what I’m doing, and any minute now I’m gonna turn into some kind of crazed sex demon, and I don’t know what to do.”

“Okay, well, Katsuki has to go first,” Eijirou said. Both Izuku and Katsuki looked at him like they wanted to argue with him, but he continued before either of them could say anything. “And as much as I wanna say it’s because I believe in first loves coming first—haha, get it, cumming—you cannot take me yet. I’m so serious.”

Izuku’s head jerked back like he’d been slapped just as Katsuki’s face screwed up.

“The fuck does that mean?” Katsuki said like he’d been personally insulted, and Izuku did suppose Eijirou could have implied that his dick was smaller.

But it turned out that that was not what he was saying at all.

“I have a double knot,” he said so matter of factly that Izuku almost couldn’t understand why the world seemed to spin around him.

“Holy shit,” Katsuki said.

“Yeah, so, I’m not going first until he knows what one feels like, sorry, and they didn’t give us any lube, so.”

Izuku covered his burning face. “Oh my god.”

It didn’t occur to him if he had two alphas he would have to learn to take both of them at once one day.

He could do it, though. If anyone could take three knots in two holes, it was Izuku. No one would be more determined.

“Okay, I’m going first then,” Katsuki said. “So you can follow up with Deku’s shiny new toy.”

“I mean it doesn’t have to be just for him,” Eijirou muttered.

“What was that?”

“I didn’t say anything.”

Izuku looked up at the ceiling, pretending he didn’t hear anything. Which was a mistake because there were fat baby angels staring down at him—why was this in the mating room—while he was thinking about Katsuki on his hands and knees, crosseyed, taking another alpha’s double knot.

Why hadn’t he thought of that before?

He’d been sleeping on so much good jerk off material…

And then his mind wandered from watching Katsuki get knotted to being on Katsuki’s knot while it happened, and he had never been so turned on in his life.

What if Eijirou popping a knot in Katsuki is what made Katsuki knot in Izuku? What if they both came on top of him like he wasn’t even there? What if he couldn’t move out from under them until both alphas were satisfied?

Man…

“Deku,” Katsuki said.

“Yep?” Izuku said, snapping back to attention. His eyes were heavier than they should have been, and suddenly it was easier to pretend to pay attention than it was to actually focus on anything.

“Ohhoho, oh no,” Eijirou laughed. “Already?”

“No,” Izuku said, indignant. “No, it’s not working yet. I’m fine. You guys keep going– I mean talking.”

Katsuki quirked an eyebrow, and Izuku bit his own lip, not even sorry.

Where had all his shame gone?

He was suddenly having a hard time remembering ever having any.

“Sorry,” he lied, albeit a little coquettishly for how he normally acted.

Izuku had never been in heat around another person before. Usually when it happened, he was terrified. It was an ominous thing to have your body suddenly decide it didn’t like being human and would prefer to take on more primal instincts, specifically the ones designed for breeding.

It was a cold and lonely thing to be left to his own devices as he cried out for an alpha that would never come, and the only arms that would hold him were always his own.

It was a miserable part of his life he had accepted because he didn’t have another choice, but in that moment he wasn’t afraid. Not even a little bit.

They had agreed that Katsuki would go first, and that little omega in Izuku’s brain decided that because it was Eijirou’s idea, that was what would make both alphas happy.

And so he moved to Katsuki, practically climbing into his lap as his desire to mate pushed back any normal apprehension he would usually have. The hands on him were comfortably warm before, but now they were scorching where they grabbed his waist.

“You’re not backing out, right, Kacchan?” Izuku asked.

“Fuck no,” he said before biting at his lips, a perfect reminder of what he would soon do to Izuku’s throat.

Izuku moved into a kiss, deep and wet as he reached behind himself for Eijirou to make sure he was there. And then there was a second pair of hands on him, rubbing his back before he mouthed his shoulder. Izuku sighed against Katsuki’s lips.

He had never felt this good before. Every touch was charged to the limit as his blood rushed to all the right places. He wanted to dive in and never see the surface again. He wanted to feel this until he couldn’t feel anything else.

Without thinking he pulled Katsuki’s hand between his legs, but there was no time to think anymore, was there? He was wet and aching, and he needed them inside him, even if it could only be one at a time.

He started with one, too careful in Izuku’s opinion, but Izuku still moaned in approval against him. He had been looking at those beautiful hands his entire life, and to have them touch him like this was so right.

It wasn’t long before he added another, thrusting them in at a slow enough pace that it made Izuku feel light all over.

“Right there,” he muttered as his fingers curled, Izuku’s cock rubbing against his forearm.

And because he was going to be spoiled out of his mind, another set of fingers joined them from behind until he was speared open on four.

He could feel the way his slick slipped between their fingers, making Katsuki’s and Eijirou’s knuckles slide together in their own separate rhythms.

Izuku dropped his head on Katsuki’s shoulder, pressing his open mouth against his skin as a broken cry escaped his lips.

He shifted his hips, chasing them both until he was practically fucking himself on them with Katsuki as an anchor to hold onto and Eijirou’s free hand encouragingly on his hip.

His pheromones hit the air like a bomb, and soon he was thrown down. No, twisted around and pushed into Eijirou’s arms, who took his weight completely as Katsuki pushed his legs apart. Eijirou mouthed at his temple, his hands working over his chest as Katsuki lined himself up.

Izuku supposed he should have been nervous, but all he could think was now. He pushed his own knees apart wider and raised his legs until his feet were off the ground.

Katsuki grabbed his thighs and rubbed them before he took one hand to push himself in. Izuku winced as he was stretched for the first time by another person and not as delicately as he would have done on his own. He bent forward and kissed Izuku as he pushed himself in the rest of the way, making Izuku keen.

“You got him?”

“Yeah, I got him,” Eijirou said, his voice wonderfully rough in Izuku’s ear. “How does he feel?”

“Tight,” Katsuki said against Izuku’s mouth like Izuku wasn’t there.

“Did we need to open him up a little more?”

“Nah, he’s clenching,” he said. “You don’t want me pulling out, do you.”

“No,” Izuku breathed, his head rolling back onto Eijirou’s shoulder. “Don’t…”

He was sucked into a whirlwind of hands and mouths all while he took thrust after thrust, some gentle and some anything but. Katsuki didn’t take a steady pace, seeming more interested in pulling as many reactions out of Izuku as he could without giving Izuku a chance to get used to what was happening.

But he didn’t think he could ever get used to it anyway.

He stretched one arm up behind himself to touch the back of Eijirou’s head as the other hand reached for Katsuki’s. He had them both right where he wanted them. He was stuffed full and caught between them, and because he was lost in his heat, he didn’t have to overthink what he did with his body.

He didn’t have to do anything but enjoy himself. He had been won, technically, but he didn’t feel at all like a glorified rutting mat. He was theirs, and there wasn’t anywhere else he would rather be.

“You okay?” Eijirou asked in his ear.

“I’m good,” he said, smiling and dazed. “So good.”

He heard a laugh, but he wasn’t sure who it came from. It didn’t matter, he supposed, because it meant they both were happy. His alphas were pleased with him, and through the fog a stronger, more real voice reminded him that they had sneaked in before the big show just to make sure he was okay.

He wasn’t okay, he was so scared, but now…

A broken moan escaped his lips, instantly caught in a kiss that was just as hungry as Izuku felt. He hoped he could kiss Katsuki again outside of the haze, when he was back in his own head with full control over his own body. He had wanted to for so many years and hoped deeply that this wasn’t just something they would all cycle into when their needs demanded it.

But Eijirou had kissed him like it was the best day of his life, and if they weren’t here for the same reason, Katsuki probably would have been weird about it.

He wouldn’t have just watched as if it was the most natural thing in the world. As if it wasn’t the first time.

It felt like he was fucking them both as Izuku was pushed against Eijirou’s chest, as all three of their breaths came out in heavy huffs. Izuku’s body began to tighten and coil, a spring being tested to its limit as he was filled over and over and over again.

“Knot me,” he breathed. “Knot me, Kacchan, please.”

Eijirou went from just touching him to fully jerking him off, his hand caught between Katsuki and Izuku’s stomachs but not trapped. Not constrained.

Izuku panted helplessly, barely able to catch his breath. He could feel Katsuki’s knot swelling at his entrance, catching as he pushed himself in and out. He didn’t want to come until he felt it, until he himself was filled to the brim and unable to leak out, but Eijirou was making it so hard.

Izuku clawed at Katsuki’s back, his heels pressing into him like he could force him deeper, like he could keep him there forever.

Katsuki moved to his mouth as his thrusts shortened until all he could manage was the feeling of rubbing himself against Izuku’s inner walls. It was intoxicating and more intense than anything he could manage by himself. He had never felt so full.

“Fuck, Izuku,” he groaned. “Holy shit.”

Eijirou’s fist worked frantically over him, and it was the moment that Izuku shot over Katsuki’s chest that Katsuki finally spilled inside him, both of them groaning against each other’s parted mouths. Out of breath, Izuku turned his head to catch Eijirou’s lips, and with his throat exposed, Katsuki sank his teeth into him.

He pressed his mark into Izuku’s gland where the skin would indent without breaking. He would wear Katsuki’s perfect smile for the rest of his life, and everyone who saw him would know who he belonged to. Eijirou grinned and pressed a quick kiss to Izuku’s lips before nudging him back because it wasn’t finished until Izuku returned his bite.

Katsuki offered his throat willingly, a sight Izuku could never have dreamed he would ever see.

He didn’t hesitate with his bite, afraid that the chance would never come again, and Katsuki was completely silent for that entire moment. No taunts, no gruff remarks, he just…

Presented himself.

Just like that, he was Izuku’s mate.

First he tasted salt and then the faintest reminder of some kind of cleaning agent like he had been scrubbed down with baby wipes before he and Izuku were brought to each other.

And then he was so very much like the Kacchan Izuku had known for his entire life that sinking his teeth into him was the most natural thing in the world.

When he pictured this moment in his head, it had been a violent thing, one he would have had to endure because he presented at all. But in that room it was an act of love, one he would have happily repeated every day for the rest of his life if necessary. He was looking forward to doing it one more time.

“Yay,” Eijirou cheered quietly as Izuku pulled away, his mark visible to both of them.

Katsuki rolled his eyes. “How’s your back?”

“It’s not great,” he said.

“Oof, sorry,” Izuku said, angling his head to look at him.

“Nah, I’m right where I wanna be,” he said, pleased. “But I do need to get you both down before that adrenaline wears off.”

“Oh,” Izuku said, mildly surprised.

Katsuki scowled, looking over Izuku’s shoulder. “How do you know about shit like that?”

“Don’t worry about it,” he mumbled before he started to wiggle out from beneath Izuku.

Izuku’s stomach dropped. “You’ve been with an omega before?”

“No! No way, dude, I wasn’t gonna blow it,” he said. “I googled it yesterday.”

“Oh,” he said, relaxing. Katsuki tutted.

“I didn’t wanna do it wrong,” he said sheepishly. “And you two are gonna crash, so, uppsy-daisy.”

This command was issued more to himself as he presumed his wiggling out. Katsuki’s knot tugged painfully as Izuku tipped backwards, but all Izuku did was grimace about it.

Eijirou dislodged himself and helped them get resettled onto the bedding as quickly as he could like he was scared that one wrong move would rip Izuku open.

But he had googled it, and everyone knew if you looked something up, it would tell you you were going to die.

Izuku was suddenly so fond of him he barely noticed the uncomfortable tug until it was gone and Katsuki was flat on top of him, his head resting easily on his shoulder.

Oh.

He blinked up at the fat angel babies, his body so, so warm that he felt like he himself had melted into another kind of of being, one that couldn’t be contained by flesh or glass. Yesterday he was trying to gag down a complimentary muffin while he listened to someone tell him how he would have to spend his birthday, but today he was mated to his best friend.

Once he was sure they were both comfortable, Eijirou gave Katsuki’s head a supportive stroke and got up to stumble towards the refreshments table.

Izuku couldn’t see what he was up to until he returned with a bottle of a fruity electrolyte drink. He dropped a straw into it and brought it to Izuku’s lips for him, who tried very hard not to laugh. And then he stuffed the straw in Katsuki’s mouth, who grunted irritably before he swallowed it down.

Izuku wondered if he had googled this too.

When he was satisfied that they were both adequately hydrated, Eijirou got back down on the bedding with them, close enough that Izuku could feel the extra cloud of warmth.

“It’s not going down,” Katsuki said with just a small hint of urgency that neither of them missed.

“I’m fine waiting,” Eijirou said, and Izuku knew how much he meant that. That if Izuku’s temporary heat had been satisfied by taking one knot, he would walk out of here without giving him his. It wasn’t fair. “Are you guys cold? You need a blanket?”

Izuku reached and took his hand, bringing it to his mouth to keep him there. The real struggle of the day was against the urge to fall asleep, but he could do this. If he was going to mate with two alphas, he wouldn’t have a spare alpha. Izuku refused to see them fight, but that didn’t mean he was willing to let either of them step back either.

“Where’s the second knot?” Izuku asked.

Eijirou swallowed. “Just under the head. It’s not as big as the other one, but I don’t know if it’ll hurt.”

“I can take it,” he promised him.

“Probably made like that to keep the cum in,” Katsuki grumbled. Izuku twisted his fingers in his hair affectionately.

“Doesn’t that mean he’ll be keeping yours in too,” Izuku said, which seemed to mollify any complex he might have had about it.

“Yeah?” Eijirou said, getting comfortable next to them. “I’ll make sure nothing slips out.”

Katsuki grumbled and tucked his nose in Izuku’s armpit to get away from them, which Izuku thought was a terrible idea considering all the sweating he had been doing all day, but Katsuki didn’t seem to mind it.

Izuku turned and looked at Eijirou, finding them almost nose to nose. He smiled automatically.

One day he was going to take both of them at the same time.

One day.

“You two look so hot right now,” Eijirou said, making Katsuki snort and Izuku laugh.

“Do we?” Katsuki asked, turning his head towards him, his hair tickling Izuku’s chin. “Is your boner out of control seeing me sea turtle on him?”

“Oh, it’s raging,” he joked before reaching down and giving Katsuki’s ass a good squeeze.

“Oi!” Katsuki said and gnashed his teeth like he was going to bite him, and he probably would have if Eijirou was just a little closer.

Izuku grinned, pleased and sated, and he used the only parts of him that were free to reach for them both.

“I’m so happy it’s you two,” he said.

“Sap,” Katsuki said, nudging his jaw with his nose. “What a loser.”

So much of a loser than Katsuki clawed himself through a maze of alphas to get to him. Okay.

He rolled his eyes, earning an amused chuckle from Eijirou, who was keeping a close eye on him. He wondered if this was what his heats would be like. If he would be constantly looked after and doted on as if he was something special.

He had to admit, he kind of liked the idea of it.

Maybe kind of a lot.

They talked for a while until Katsuki made a short noise in the back of his throat just at Izuku felt a small release in the tension between them. He supposed if this was a normal mating session, they would have stayed together even after the knot deflated, but they both knew they couldn’t.

Katsuki winced as he pulled out, his softened cock apparently sensitive, and Izuku felt the strangest sensation of having him drip out of him.

Izuku sat up as the world shifted around him. He was stiff and raw, but he wasn’t done. After stretching his arms and legs out, he moved towards Eijirou, not allowing himself a single moment of hesitation. The knot may have eliminated the heat haze, but he didn’t need his own body to trick him into mating with them.

And now he was good and wet and used to the feeling of being speared on a cock, so there was really no reason to hold back.

“Hello,” Eijirou said, smiling.

“Hi,” Izuku said back, almost shy, even as he climbed into his lap.

Eijirou’s hands went to his waist as he rubbed them over his body, never once taking his eyes off of him. “Are you sure?”

Izuku nodded. “You need a mate, and I don’t want you to have to wait. I can take it, even if the only knot I’ve ever had was Kacchan’s.”

“Hey,” Katsuki complained from off to the side where he was drinking water.

“I just mean I’m not good at it yet!”

“Looked pretty good to me,” Eijirou said, and when Izuku looked back at him, he was looking up at him like he was both ready to give him the world and to eat him. Izuku flushed. Deeply. “How did it feel?”

“Good,” he said quietly. It made him feel safe to be knotted by one of his alphas and guarded by the other. It made him feel wanted.

“You can go again?” He asked because he was a sweetheart who would always put everyone else before himself, and Izuku kissed him, tipping them both onto the bedding as he slid his leg over his waist.

Izuku curved his hips into him as his head rested comfortably on Eijirou’s bicep, urging him to take advantage of how wet he was and just slide in.

“Don’t think about it,” he said—pleaded—and Eijirou, bless him, didn’t.

He pressed in with a groan, his eyes both dark and heavy, and Izuku’s breath caught as he felt himself stretched open for the second time that day.

There was a numbness, he noticed, that came with being pushed into that made it hard to tell whose cock belonged to whom. The rest of it came from them, the way they tasted and the way they smelled. The sounds of their voices and where they chose to touch him.

Izuku reached back to the hand on his ass and gave it a squeeze.

“Good, huh,” Katsuki said.

“Uh huh,” Eijirou said before pushing himself the rest of the way, whimpering slightly as Izuku clamped down on him all the way to the base. It was the hottest sound Izuku had ever heard, next to Katsuki’s temperamental rasp, and it made him a little insane. “So fucking good, dude.”

Izuku rolled his hips, relishing in the way it made his brows knit. He was used to the feeling enough that it was easier to move, and while on his side, he didn’t have anything keeping him in place.

That wouldn’t last.

Eijirou started to thrust with short and easy movements like he was being careful with him, even though he didn’t need to be.

“Is this okay?”

“Yeah,” Izuku said.

“You gonna fuck him or not?” Katsuki said.

“Shut up, I don’t wanna blow yet,” he said over Izuku’s shoulder.

“You can,” Izuku said, grinning as he cupped his cheek, making sure the next roll of his hips took him from base to tip.

Eijirou’s eyes fell shut as his mouth parted, and Izuku did it again, willing to end this like this if it meant he could make him feel good.

“Fuck,” he groaned, his fingers digging into his waist, and Katsuki slotted himself in behind Izuku, wrapping a fist around Eijirou’s wrist.

“You wanted to be between us, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Izuku gasped.

Katsuki moved his hand up Eijirou’s arm, over his shoulder, and up his neck until he had his jaw in his hands. He slipped this thumb between his teeth, making Eijirou’s eyes snap open in mild surprise.

Eijirou without missing a beat began to suck on Katsuki’s finger, his cheeks hollowing as Katsuki’s cock hardened against Izuku’s ass. He dragged his thumb out, pushing down his lip and revealing his bottom teeth.

“His pussy’s good, isn’t it?”

“So good,” he said.

“You like fucking my cum back in him?”

A spike of pleasure shot through Izuku, and the confidence he had to tease disappeared as a new need to just be their hole took over.

Katsuki began to slide between his legs, fucking the gap at the same pace as Eijirou fucking into his heat, and it was all so much that Izuku was honestly scared to see what would happen if either of them touched his dick again. The idea of making Eijirou come in a few thrusts was amusing, but if he did it himself he would be mortified.

But they would love it.

It was only his first time with them like this, but he knew them so well, if Izuku came undone just by Katsuki goading Eijirou into fucking him, they would never let him live it down.

They would tease him relentlessly. Every time they had sex, they would remind him of the time he got so worked up.

It was a sobering reminder that they would be doing this again. Constantly.

For the rest of their lives, these were the last two—and the only—people he would ever sleep with.

How big of a bed were they going to need to invest in? He supposed he should have been relieved that Katsuki and Eijirou already lived together, that he wouldn’t be divided by more than a couple of bedroom doors.

But somehow that felt like even then it would be too much.

Katsuki nipped at his shoulder as Eijirou hammered into him, merciless and lost to the pull of pleasure. Izuku was louder this time, but only because he was over the nerves of his first. It must have been easier for all of them this way, he thought, because Katsuki wasn’t prickling behind him or vying for his attention. He was keeping Izuku in place, even as he rutted against his ass, like seeing Izuku fucked by someone he approved of got him off more than doing it himself.

And Eijirou was so sweet, muttering praises that only Izuku could hear, honest words that made Izuku feel like he could really be the center of someone’s universe.

They made him blush and squirm with nowhere to go because he was trapped between them, dripping and just sore enough that he couldn’t think of anything else.

It was then that he felt Katsuki reach around and touch him the way that Eijirou did.

But it wasn’t at all the same.

Eijirou stroked him with the intention of getting him off while Katsuki just held him and let his thumb roll over the base of his cock, teasing and constant. Izuku moaned, seeking the relief of Eijirou’s lips as he was simultaneously given too much and not enough.

Izuku swore against him, his voice cracking on a gasp, and it made Eijirou buck into him and Katsuki groan into his shoulder. He was in pure ecstatic heaven, on the edge of spilling for the second time in less than an hour, and yet he knew he could have stayed like this for days, letting them take turns with him over and over and over again.

“So good,” Izuku murmured, drawn in by both of them. Maybe there was something better he could say, but his mind had long turned into jelly and it was all he could do to make sure they knew just how well they took care of him.

He hummed out a needy noise, wishing Katsuki would just push in with Eijirou even though he knew his was body wasn’t able to take two.

Yet.

“Promise me,” he gasped out. “You’ll both–.”

The rest of his plea was immediately lost the moment Katsuki slipped his hand over his cock head, the friction stealing all of his attention.

“Yeah,” Eijirou said like he was saying yes to everything Izuku could possibly ask, and Izuku knew that because of who he was, he meant it. Anything Izuku wanted, they would give to him, and they had fought–. Fuck, they fought for him.

Izuku felt the familiar sting of tears and the way his face seemed to swell just behind his nose. That raw, punishing emotion that called itself joy tore through him so violently that all he could do was cry out, completely overwhelmed by the feeling of being loved. They could have lost and nothing would have been the same again, but they didn’t lose because Izuku was theirs.

The stretch of his second knot made Izuku’s eyes widen in shock. He felt it deep within himself, opening him more than should have been possible, and all he could do was shudder and take it. He could have said it was too much and Eijirou would have pulled out immediately, but Izuku didn’t want that. He wanted all of him, even this new terrifying part that made Izuku feel like someone had pushed a watermelon inside of him and told him to walk around with it.

It was just a knot.

No bigger than a fist.

Just because it was keeping all the cum they’d spilled inside him trapped against his cervix did not mean it was some impossible thing.

And then Katsuki was pressed against his back, his hand now rubbing over Izuku’s stomach like that would somehow make it easier. And like Eijirou could read his mind, he did pull away, but instead of finding it merciful, Izuku nearly panicked.

He followed him, dragging himself along so Eijirou couldn’t pull out, and once Eijirou’s back was against the floor, Izuku slammed himself down on him, pushing the second knot in even as his body screamed at him.

He sucked in a breath and raised himself before dropping again, and like that he began to ride him, his palms splayed over his chest to keep Eijirou down.

He rode him even as his legs started to tremble and sweat prickled over his body, but the moment he thought he couldn’t move anymore, Katsuki was there with his hands on his waist, keeping that rhythm and making him ride those impossible knots.

“You can take it,” he said in his ear. Izuku nodded deliriously as he looked down at Eijirou, whose entire being was already wrecked.

They knew this was Izuku’s first time, but it never occurred to ask them if it was theirs too.

Oh god, he was the first person in the world to ride Eijirou, and he didn’t know how to do that yet. And he was already out of steam!

Thank god for Kacchan, he thought as he was thoroughly pulled down until there was too much resistance for it.

But then, remembering how it felt to have Katsuki rubbing against his walls, he gave Eijirou a good roll of his hips, relishing in the way Eijirou’s head tilted back on the floor, his throat fully exposed.

“Good?” Katsuki asked for him.

“Uh huh,” he drawled, his hands rubbing indulgently over Izuku’s thighs. Izuku did it again, and soon he found a rhythm that gave them both a steady stream of friction, even with the knot.

“Big brained alpha over here,” Katsuki goaded easily, and Eijirou grinned to himself, just barely revealing the sharpest edges of his teeth.

They were so beautiful that Izuku never really let himself think about it, but they were. Both of them.

“Shut up,” he groaned, and Izuku, not wanting to give up the attention, gave his hips a swirl. “Oh fuck.”

“What was that?” Katsuki teased, prompting Izuku to do it again, and again, and again, and he watched with a heady rush as Eijirou’s breaths became too quick to hold onto, as his brows knitted and mouth fell apart. Izuku could easily imagine what he looked like when he was alone, touching himself to just his thoughts, and that was before Katsuki crawled down to him and wrapped a loose hand around his throat.

Eijirou opened his eyes and looked at Katsuki, his chest heaving, before he shifted his gaze to Izuku, and Izuku folded himself down to catch his lips before everything seemed to explode. There were so many hands on him he couldn’t believe there were only two other people in the room with him, and he was suddenly so full that he couldn’t see how his body could hold so much of them without physically bursting.

Eijirou keened against his mouth before he panted, hard and fast, and reached down for Izuku’s cock, making sure Izuku finished a second time before his own stopped pulsing.

Izuku was in the middle of a full cry when he felt his mouth against his throat as he was claimed for the second time in a day. Someone tugged at his hair, keeping his head back, and he nearly blacked out.

He sighed as all the strength was sapped from his body, but before he could fully collapse, he saw Eijirou gingerly turn his head to the side, looking more scared than Izuku felt when he first stepped into the building.

Izuku brushed a thumb along the side of his throat, making sure he found the gland before he reached down and pressed a kiss to it. And then he sank his teeth in, making sure the mark stuck, because he was not leaving either of them out.

This was a strange arrangement, yes, but it wasn’t impossible, and going all in made him happier than doing what was expected ever would.

He was pulled into his arms, and Katsuki got to work helping him position his legs so he wouldn’t feel it in his hips while he was stuck there. Eijirou nuzzled his head fondly.

“Sappy bastards,” Katsuki grumbled to himself as he worked around them as if he wasn’t just on top of Izuku for the exact same reason.

“Mind your own business,” Izuku said, his cheek pressed against Eijirou’s shoulder, and Katsuki tutted before he got up and walked over to a supply shelf stocked up for them.

He returned with Wet Wipes and towels and quickly got to work cleaning them up like he couldn’t stand to sit still and wait. Izuku closed his eyes, not paying him any attention until the feeling of something cold and wet slid right up his ass crack.

He yelped with a jerk, but with the knot, he was unable to go anywhere. “Kacchan!”

“What? Did you want it to dry?” Katsuki asked, and Izuku had no answer for that. “You’re gonna be all crusty and shit. Crunchin’ all over the place.”

He said it while scrubbing the cum and slick off of Izuku like he was wiping down a windshield. Izuku dropped his forehead on Eijirou’s shoulder with a groan.

“Will you just get over here,” Eijirou said, exasperated.

“No,” he said.

“Bruh.”

“Don’t bruh me, I’ll teabag you.”

“Do it,” Eijirou dared. “You won’t.”

“Guys, please!” Izuku said, laughing.

Katsuki ignored them both, too busy with cleaning them both up, and Izuku watched as he even went to check to make sure their clothes were where they were supposed to be before he finally came back and lay down with them.

Izuku reached for him the way he earlier reached for Eijirou and felt a small surge of something like relief when Katsuki locked their fingers as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

“You tired, nerd?”

“Yeah,” he admitted with a weary smile. Truthfully, he was worn out, and all he wanted to do was climb into a warm bed and sleep off the sensation of being knotted twice in an hour.

“Don’t look at me like that,” he said without any real bite.

“Can’t help it,” Izuku said quietly, and Eijirou moved the hand between his shoulder blades to the back of his head to play with his hair. Izuku hummed appreciatively. “You guys looked really cool out there. I didn’t know you could fight.”

Katsuki scoffed like he was insulted.

“I didn’t know we could either,” Eijirou said.

Izuku’s laughter bubbled out of him, and all he could do was tuck himself into Eijirou’s chest as his amusement and fondness rippled through him. It was so endearing that he could barely stand it, but there was no way to get away.

“Bet you got all turned on, huh,” Katsuki teased with a poke to Izuku’s shoulder.

“Kacchan, please, I was terrified,” he said. “And maybe a little turned on.”

Eijirou chuckled beneath him.

“I can’t believe they made you guys fight in a thong,” Izuku said.

“It was a loin cloth,” Katsuki said irritably. “They just cut the flaps short so we wouldn’t trip on it.”

Izuku snorted. “Okay.”

“Hey!”

Izuku laughed and turned like he could get away, and Eijirou covered his head, helping hide him. That did not save Izuku from getting a swift pop on the behind though. “Ow!”

“Damn, that jiggle,” Katsuki said, impressed, before he popped him again, slapping Izuku’s ass with the sole intention of making it shake.

“Hey,” Izuku complained.

“Didn’t know they were gonna give us a cake too,” he said, ignoring him.

Eijirou craned his neck to look before he gave him a pat on the other side.

“Not you too!”

“Sorry,” Eijirou said with a smile that said he wasn’t sorry at all before he patted Izuku’s ass three more times. Izuku looked at him is disbelief. “Okay, I’m done.”

“I’m not.”

Swat!

Izuku dropped his head down with a groan, unable to stop them and unwilling to try. He supposed he should have been relieved they hadn’t yet considered playing Connect the Dots with his butt freckles. He wasn’t sure he could survive that kind of humiliation.

But then eventually they lost interest, and Katsuki stretched out next to them, and Izuku listened with a content smile as the two of them compared notes on how their part of the ceremony went. Apparently getting to beat up a bunch of other alphas was more entertaining than they expected it to be, and Izuku wondered if this was going to lead to the two of them getting into boxing.

Who was he supposed to root for in that scenario?

That was future him’s problem, he supposed. Tonight all Izuku had to do was sit on this knot and let all of the omega brain chemicals do what they did best. Attach, depend, admire, defend. At least that was what the pamphlet said would happen.

Jokes on them, all Izuku needed was for everyone to mind their own business, and he could have easily taken care of his alphas without the government telling him to.

Now if only he could somehow get Shouto involved…

Would a beta want to join a relationship with two alphas and an omega, or would he prefer to be with someone who wouldn’t occasionally terrorize him with their beastly urges?

But that was a discussion for a different day.

Izuku felt a slight give between his legs, and sure enough, with a careful tug he was able to pull himself off, even as the deeper knot seemed to stretch him from the inside out as it slid through him.

He dumped himself onto the ground at Eijirou’s other side and groaned as he finally, finally got to stretch his legs. He was absolutely boneless, but a deep part of himself was sated for the first time, and he was happy, despite the desperate need for a bath.

Eijirou sat up and rolled his neck. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” Izuku said, smiling. “It was great. I told you I could do it.”

Of course, if the circumstances had been different, he might not have been able to, but as it stood, having his heat induced and taking a normal knot first prepared him enough, which meant that all three of them successfully mated. There were no gaps left to fill.

Izuku stretched out on the bedding, taking a moment to reacquaint himself with his limbs while Katsuki and Eijirou sat together and recalibrated in their own way. It was nice, he thought, to be mated to them and not a stranger or someone he knew but didn’t like. It was even better that they got along so well, and any tug-o-war that might have happened was only to rile Izuku up.

It was hard to miss that the only distress he had felt was at the initial shock of being opened up and not the usual symptoms he experienced when he was in heat alone. He could’ve gone unconscious and still would’ve known they would take care of him.

“I wish my real heats were this easy,” he mused. Katsuki leaned back to look at him around Eijirou with his brow furrowed like Izuku just said something stupid. “What?”

“They will be, idiot, that’s the point,” he said.

Izuku laughed. “Oh right. I forgot.”

“I think somebody’s knot-drunk,” Eijirou said before bending forward so he could bite the skin over Izuku’s hip.

Izuku squirmed. “That tickles.”

“Does it?” Eijirou asked before he opened his mouth wider, purposely scraping his teeth over his flesh. Izuku made a pleasant noise, his back arching as his eyes fell shut.

“We can’t stay here all night,” Katsuki reminded them.

“Oh shit,” Eijirou said as both of them sat up, sobered by the reminder that they could leave.

The clothes Izuku wore here were stuffed in a bag. He didn’t know what he was supposed to wear for this, but when he remembered how shit he was at tying a tie, he decided dressing up would have made him look like a clown. Now after being knotted twice, pulling on a t-shirt with the periodic table printed on the front and a pair of cargo shorts made him feel even more ridiculous.

But it’s not like ‘Fueled by Protein’ and the flaming skull of death could say anything about it.

He grinned to himself, very content with his new situation.

“Do you think our kids will have black or blond hair?” Izuku heard Eijirou ask.

“We didn’t get him pregnant that easily,” Katsuki said.

“Oh, so you think we’ll have to keep trying,” he said.

“Probably.”

Izuku blinked rapidly. “Why are you talking about that like I’m not here?!”

“Don’t worry about it,” Katsuki said mildly to Izuku before turning back to Eijirou. “And you can bet your ass they’re all gonna be fuckin’ green.”

Izuku looked up at the ceiling before shaking his head.

Once they were dressed and Izuku had successfully pushed the bedding back into a square to hide the evidence of what they had done on—like that would have worked—the three off made their way to the door with Katsuki taking the lead.

Which had no handle.

“What the fuck?” Katsuki said before giving it a shove, and when that didn’t work, he banged on it twice with his fist. “Hey, let us out!”

“What’s going on?” Eijirou asked, frowning, but all Izuku could do was stand there as his blood ran cold. This was a room an omega couldn’t leave without being mated first.

“Fuck this,” Katsuki muttered to himself, probably coming to the same conclusion. “Give me something, I’ma break this fuckin’ door down.”

That’s when Izuku saw the small button by the door. He jabbed it with his finger, and then there was a bing bong before a cheerful voice spoke through a speaker none of them could see.

“Hello! Congratulations on your new mate. Please proceed to the lobby, and an attendant will be with you shortly.”

Katsuki exhaled irritably as the door opened on its own, and Eijirou set down the chair he was about to use to break it open.

“I would like to go home now,” Izuku said quietly.

“Yeah, we’re getting out of here,” Katsuki said, putting a hand on Izuku’s shoulder to urge him forward.

“Why’d they lock us in like that?” Eijirou asked.

Katsuki looked at him wordlessly, his jaw set and eyes sharp, and Izuku flushed with a frown. At least it was better that Eijirou’s mind didn’t immediately go to the worst, but knowing that Katsuki knew what Izuku knew made it feel… shameful.

The lobby was easy enough to find. Izuku was relieved to see that there weren’t any cameras set up there to catch the afterglow or the way Izuku couldn’t quite push his legs together all the way.

He chose not to sit, so he stood between the other two as they waited for someone to tell them they could leave.

The attendant from before arrived with someone in medical scrubs and someone else who looked like a big hulked out club bouncer Izuku guessed was a security guard. Izuku made himself smile.

“All went well, we hope,” the attendant said with a painted on smile that Izuku had been too nervous earlier that day to notice. It must have been exhausting matching alphas and omegas all the time, since people were constantly having birthdays. “Were you able to mate with both alphas?”

“Yep,” Izuku said quickly, suddenly too aware that everyone was going to know he just had sex with them. Like, the whole world knew it. Because the first part of the ceremony had been broadcasted. God, he was gonna be a meme. “It’s all done. See?”

He pointed to the two bites on his neck, ready to get the hell out of there.

“Then if you don’t mind following me to the examination room–.”

Katsuki put a hand on Izuku’s shoulder to keep him from moving. “For what? The bites are right there.”

“We need to make sure that you were… properly mated,” the attendant said. “You understand, don’t you? This is for your own wellbeing. And Mr. Kirishima’s, of course.”

“Thanks for the concern, or whatever, but if you try to check him we’ll kill all of you and eat what’s left,” he said.

Eijrou gave them a quick, humorless smile as his agreement with something unnerving in his eyes that reminded Izuku of cold indifference.

That was not an empty threat, was it…

The security guard reached for a taser on his belt while the attendant flinched.

“It’s standard procedure.”

“Not for this one,” Katsuki said.

“Guys, it’s okay,” Izuku said automatically, not wanting to give someone a hard time for just doing this job, even if what that person wanted to do to him would have been painful and humiliating.

“No,” Eijirou said quietly, and Izuku was reminded of the way they sneaked in to check on him and saw firsthand how nervous he was. No, not nervous. He was scared, but there was nothing they or anyone else could do to stop it.

Then.

Izuku took his hand with a small, appreciative smile before he gathered his courage.

“It won’t be necessary,” Izuku said and immediately wondered how much the word of an omega would matter in this situation. Probably little at all, but that didn’t mean he was going to sit back and let whatever happened happen. “I took both of them. Ka– Bakugou went first and then Kirishima went after since his knots were harder to take. They took turns with me and made sure I was comfortable.”

More than comfortable. He was the center of their world for an hour. He was worshipped, and doted on, and kissed, and held, and it was like for all of these years, they had all held themselves back because they knew the inevitable was coming.

That one day it would all have to come to an end because Izuku would be brought to this place and given to someone else who didn’t love him.

“There’s enough proof left back there if anyone thinks it’s bullshit,” Katsuki said, making Izuku’s flush deepen.

So much evidence…

“We do need to be sure that both of you were– fully bonded since neither of you will be eligible to compete now that you’ve both been declared winners,” the attendant said carefully.

“Yep, we’re good,” Eijirou said. “We’re not coming back, don’t worry. But now we’re gonna take our omega home, so, uhhh thanks. Bye.”

He grabbed Izuku’s hand and pulled him along with him, very intent on getting them all the hell out of there. Katsuki followed closely behind as they left the attendant speechless. Izuku stifled a laugh.

The sun had set by the time they reached the parking lot, and the sight of the dark sky almost knocked the air out of his lungs. Had he already lost the entire day? How long did they spend just wrapping his body in ribbons? It was hard to believe he spent most of the day like that because it seemed like it happened in a completely different lifetime to someone else and not himself.

But it did happen to him, and it was all okay in the end.

“Give me your keys,” Katsuki said, jostling him out of his thoughts.

“What?” Izuku asked.

“You drove here, right? You can’t leave your car over night.”

“Oh, right, I forgot about that.”

“I’ll drive yours back. You can go back with Eijirou.”

Izuku frowned, not liking the idea of being separated. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah, you’re worn out and half in heat,” he said. “Go be a passenger princess.”

“No, I mean–.”

He didn’t want either of them to take themselves out of the equation. He especially didn’t want either of them to decide the other deserved to have the mate and could be the only one to live because that was not happening.

“You think I don’t know how to drive? You wanna go? I’ll take you down right here, let’s go.”

Izuku laughed and shook his head. Sure, they were gonna duke it out in the parking lot, that was definitely going to happen.

Katsuki flicked him between the eyes before he leaned in and pressed a kiss to his lips. “Don’t be a loser and get outta here. We’ve got shit to do at home.”

Izuku’s heart hammered in his chest from being kissed out in the open away from their government assigned mating room. Truthfully, a part of him wondered if they would only acknowledge this happened when someone was in a rut, but it seemed like he had underestimated the situation.

He gave him his keys before following Eijirou to the car he and Katsuki took together, keeping any questions about what they would have done if only one of them had won to himself.

Maybe they didn’t expect to do more than cheer him up.

The thought of it made him want to bury his face against Eijirou’s chest and cry, but he kept that to himself.

He and Katsuki had parked on a different side of the parking lot from where Izuku left his car, so he wasn’t able to give a last wave goodbye before getting in. He settled in easily, happy that he was getting in a car he had ridden in hundreds of times before and not something belonging to a stranger.

Every moment of this day had set him up for an easy life, one he was ready to live happily and comfortably.

“Sorry I don’t have a pillow for you or something,” Eijirou said.

“I’m okay,” Izuku said honestly. He didn’t even consider he might need a pillow, but suddenly he was almost disappointed that he didn’t have one.

“Does it hurt?”

Izuku hummed. “I’m a little sore, but it’s okay.”

It was hard to believe he had just had sex for the first time, let alone had technically taken three knots. Or he took two while his cervix got walled in by the third, which honestly should have probably hurt more than it did, but he didn’t really understand the specifics of that yet. He would need time to look into their bodies’ biology to really know what was going on, and even then, it would probably take more practice to fully understand how it felt beyond just that initial white hot sensation of being stretched.

If Katsuki knew he was considering how to best go about studying their knots in relation to his body shape, Izuku would never hear the end of it.

“Can I see it?” Eijirou asked suddenly, and Izuku’s head snapped towards him, looking at him as if he had lost his mind.

“Huh?”

“My, um,” he said sheepishly before he pointed at his own neck, mirroring the place where he had marked Izuku a few minutes ago.

“Oh,” he said, flushing. He totally thought he meant he wanted Izuku to show hole right there in the car like he had subscribed to Omega on Demand, but no, he just wanted to see his bite.

The reminder that he had a mate.

Izuku turned so he could get a good look, making sure to push his hair back so Eijirou could see, and then he turned to show off Katsuki’s because he knew without having to ask that Eijirou would like that.

Eijirou bit his lip in a smile and backed the car out, content with his quick peek. Izuku swallowed down a laugh.

The drive home felt like it took ages, but soon he was ushered inside even before Katsuki got there himself. Eijirou’s alpha instincts were in overdrive, and apparently they were very insistent that Izuku had to be safe inside before any other alphas could get a whiff of him. From what Izuku understood, that would fade within the next day or so when all three of them settled back down.

It was tradition for the omega to spend their mating night in their alpha’s home to get acclimated and also burn off any lingering heat urges. It was just particularly convenient for Izuku that this was an apartment he had already been inside dozens of times before.

“You can grab the first shower,” Eijirou said. “I’ll get you some clean clothes if you want.”

Izuku had his own, but the idea of putting on something of theirs seemed much more enticing. “Oh, thank you. That would be awesome.”

He gave him a pair of blue shark boxers and a comic book t-shirt Izuku recognized as one of Katsuki’s, an acknowledgment that Izuku would want something from each of them and not just one. Izuku smiled, pleased, and slipped off to a bathroom that he knew already had the exact soap and shampoo he preferred.

Maybe it should have been more obvious to him what kind of importance he had here that his own needs were already taken care of, passively and without any unnecessary fanfare.

But they were friends, and friends totally kept the deodorant you liked on the shelf next to theirs just in case you fell asleep on the couch for the millionth time. And your toothpaste, your preferred headache medicine, and the mouthwash you liked because the kind they got for themselves burned your mouth too much.

Izuku put a hand over his mouth as he nearly burst into tears over something as normal as toiletries.

Because it wasn’t normal. He was looked after and loved, and none of these things were ever asked for.

His whole purpose on paper was to be a sort of lifeline to whichever alpha was strong enough to claim him, but neither one of them had ever once changed how they treated him after he presented. In fact, it was like nothing changed at all except Izuku’s occasional confinement and the fact that relationships were pretty much out of the question.

Because nothing did change.

Except now he wore that belongingness on his neck and not just hidden away on a bathroom shelf where not even he would particularly notice it.

He got soap in his mouth from all the smiling.

After a thorough scrub down, Izuku wandered back into the apartment with damp hair and a nose that directed him straight towards the kitchen. Eijirou slipped past him on his way there, ready to take the second shift, and Izuku found Katsuki in the kitchen taking out what little aggression he had left on an innocent pork cutlet.

Izuku didn’t even have to ask what he was making.

“Is this for me?” Izuku asked, taking in all of the signs of his favorite dish, one of the first things Katsuki ever learned how to cook because he thought it was ‘stupid to pay some loser to make something I can do myself’, which was how he tackled most things.

“No, idiot, this is mine,” he said. “You can figure out your own food.”

Izuku stood back, smiling, but after a long moment of hesitation, he mentally threw out a quick fuck it and threw his arms around Katsuki’s waist.

Katsuki went stiff like he didn’t know what the hell Izuku was doing before he reluctantly returned the embrace. They wouldn’t change, Izuku knew. He didn’t want them to.

But still, he had to hug him.

“Thank you,” he said quietly, drowning in embarrassment, but he was so, so grateful. And he didn’t mean for the meal.

“I told you it was gonna be okay, didn’t I?” Katsuki said quietly. “You’re my nerd, dumbass. You’re supposed to know that.”

Izuku gave a displeased grunt against his chest.

“Okay, fine, ours, whatever,” he grumbled. “Always gotta get technical.”

Katsuki joked about it easily, but Izuku’s eyes burned because this had been so very real for him in a way they would never understand. Even if losing took something from them, they wouldn’t have been given away.

But Izuku was here with his friends where they knew what shampoo he liked, and made his favorite meal without having to ask, and loved him.

“I thought it was gonna be so bad,” he said, his voice breaking. “I thought–.”

“Don’t you start crying on me now, I’ll burn the food,” he said into his hair, not even remotely concerned that it was still wet.

Izuku laughed and pulled away, smiling as he wiped his eyes. “Sorry.”

Katsuki flicked his cheek, not hard enough to hurt. “Now get out of my kitchen. I’ve got shit to do.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Izuku said dismissively as he turned to leave, stopping long enough to grab a drink from the fridge on his way out.

He sprawled out on the sofa and put on a movie, picking something with aliens and pew pew blaster guns because that felt like the exact opposite of everything that was on his mind in the real world.

He was thoroughly focused on the movie, the plot locking its claws in him, when Eijirou finally emerged from the bathroom. Shirtless and in a pair of basketball shorts—Izuku was not given basketball shorts—he climbed onto the couch with him, burying his face in Izuku’s chest as his arm and leg hooked over him.

“What’re we watching?”

“Galactic Avengers Supernova,” he said.

Eijirou was silent for a long moment, and Izuku thought he had gone to sleep before he finally spoke again. “… you mean like ‘gas’?”

Izuku paused, blinking once, before he erupted in a fit of laughter, absolutely cracking up as Eijirou spurred him on with fingers in his ribs.

“Are they in a galaxy fart–,” he started, but Izuku shut him up with a kiss before he could get the rest of the joke out. It was childish, and stupid, but Izuku could not deny the absolute joy he felt indulging in it.

Eijirou grinned against his lips, pleased with his reaction, and decided immediately that kissing Izuku was much more fun than any more jokes would have been.

It was more playful than what had happened in that room before, and it made Izuku feel normal. Like he was just a normal guy with a couple of boyfriends, and there was never a government mandate to worry about.

“I’m about to put you two idiots to work,” Katsuki called out from the kitchen.

“Sorry!” Izuku called back before he was dragged back down, pulled back into a mate’s arms as if it was how he usually spent an evening.

It felt so good to be tangled up with someone while G.A.S. played in the background, he didn’t know why he’d never done it before.

Once dinner was ready, the three of them surrounded the table, and Izuku was relieved to find that his appetite had finally returned. He didn’t just eat, he chowed down, and he didn’t carry an ounce of shame with him.

“This is so good, Kacchan,” he said.

Katsuki gave a small flick of his eyebrows that both said obviously and that he was happy with the praise.

They talked about work stuff, and Izuku casually mentioned that he was wanting to focus on his education, testing the waters somewhat since that had been a pain in the ass to arrange before when so many university admins thought it would be better to wait in case he was matched with an alpha who “wouldn’t let him” (as if Izuku wasn’t prepared to smother someone in their sleep).

“Whatcha gonna do?” Eijirou asked after a sip of beer.

“I’m not sure yet,” he said. “I was just thinking about it.”

“Bullshit,” Katsuki said, making Izuku flush. “You’ve got it all planned out, don’t you?”

“Not all of it,” Izuku said.

“Uh huh…”

“Okay, fine, there’s a few options,” he said. “I like the idea of teaching, but research just tickles my brain so good, and, like, archiving seems like it would be really cool, and there’s just so many different ways I can go, but I don’t think I’ll know until I get my feet wet.”

Katsuki nodded in agreement, and Izuku felt the last string holding him back finally snap. Of course they were never going to slow him down.

“Are you gonna go to school here or somewhere else?”

Izuku paled. He hadn’t thought of that. “I– I don’t know. I guess it’ll depend on where I get into, but I don’t know–.”

He looked at them both, unsure of how he was supposed to manage two ruts if he didn’t live nearby. Katsuki gave his neck a good crack.

“Well, if we’ve gotta move, we’ve gotta move,” he said. “It’s not like this is the only apartment in the while fucking world.”

Eijirou nodded in agreement.

Izuku’s mouth fell open in shock. “You guys would move for me?”

Katsuki raised an eyebrow. “Are you gonna keep asking us shit like this forever?”

“No, but Kacchan, how was I supposed to know it was gonna turn out like this? I didn’t know you guys were gonna mate with me, I thought I was gonna get someone who thinks omegas should wear a bell around their neck!”

Katsuki huffed out like he was seconds from cussing him out, and his chair skidded across the floor as he backed it up from the table. Izuku watched as he stalked to the refrigerator and pulled out a white box, brought it back, and dropped it on the table in front of Izuku and slapped the lid back.

Izuku’s bottom lip quivered, his eyes welling up as he looked down at his irritably presented birthday cake they had to have gotten sometime before today.

The entire table was silent as he stared at it, every possible emotion surging through him, and he almost didn’t know what he could say.

But there was one thing.

“You guys knew you would win,” he said.

“Yeah, no shit we knew,” Katsuki said. “Pisses me off you think we wouldn’t have.”

“Well, one of us,” Eijirou said. “We didn’t know you were gonna override the rules like that. I was really surprised they’d let you.”

Izuku sniffled. “Probably made for good TV.”

“Eijirou was fine losing, don’t worry,” Katsuki said.

“Nuh uh, dude, I totally would’ve won,” he said.

“Oh, you’re full of shit, let’s go settle this right now,” he said.

“Yeah, you go ahead, I’ll meet you outside,” Eijirou said before leaning towards Izuku. “You wanna put on a movie?”

“Yeah,” Izuku said, his eyes crinkling with amusement.

“Hey!” Katsuki said.

“Sorry, dude, it’s my mate’s birthday, you can fight it out though.”

“Your mate?!”

“Uh huh, my mate,” he said.

“I oughta kick your fuckin’ ass,” he said, pushing himself up again, and it only took him a second to grab Eijirou by the neck. It happened so fast that Izuku’s spoon only had a chance to hit his plate the second Katsuki’s entire body swung down, and he drove himself between Eijirou’s jaw and his shoulder. He sunk his teeth into him with a snarl before he yanked his head back, leaving the skin flushed, raised, and imprinted. “Now who’s mated to who?!”

Eijirou turned to him, his eyes wide, and Katsuki paled, realizing what he just did. He took a step back and fell back into his chair.

“Oh fuck.”

“Bro,” Eijirou said.

“I–.”

“Kacchan?”

Katsuki covered his hand with his mouth, his elbow propped on the table and his eyes as wide as they could possibly be. He had bitten another alpha, his best friend, without permission in a world where alphas just did not bite other alphas. At least Izuku didn’t know any who did.

It probably happened, it was just rare. Because of the whole needing an omega to survive thing.

But it was kind of romantic, if he thought about it. The idea of mating with someone you love even though you’ll both probably die young for it.

Not them, though. Izuku was right there.

“How does it look?” Eijirou asked. Izuku held up an ok symbol with his fingers, signaling that his new mark looked good, and Eijirou nodded, content. “Sweet.”

The three of them sat awkwardly around the table, no one eating or drinking anything as they all waited for someone else to say something.

But what could they say?

“I need a knife,” Izuku muttered, and they both looked at him. “To cut the cake.”

“Ah, shit,” Katsuki said, having forgotten.

He got him a knife, and Izuku cut the cake into three pieces wordlessly, distributing them so that everyone got to have a nice dessert. He didn’t bring up the whole making a wish thing because it seemed like a bad time for it.

Izuku cleaned up after dinner to keep himself busy while Katsuki finally got his shower. Ejjirou busied himself in the other room, and Izuku figured he just needed some space after being marked until Izuku went in and discovered that the living room was almost completely covered in pillows and blankets.

“What are you doing?” Izuku asked.

“Katsuki and me sleep in different rooms, and, uh, I figured one of us would share with you now that we’re, uh, mated, and I didn’t think it would be cool if you had to choose, so I thought we’d do it middle school sleepover style.”

Izuku’s mouth widened in a smile. Truthfully he hadn’t thought that far ahead yet, but the sight of Eijirou stepping in and coming up with solutions that were just as adorable as they were sweet was…

Endearing.

Katsuki came out, scrubbing his head dry with a towel when he found them. “Is that my blanket?”

“Yeah, and all of your pillows,” Eijirou said. “And your All Might stuffy.”

“It’s not a stuffy,” he said, turning red enough to put the color back in his face.

Izuku stifled a laugh with his hand and folded himself up on the couch. “So, were we gonna watch that movie, or did you guys wanna finish your fight first?”

“Shut up,” Katsuki grumbled before Eijirou darted off out of the room.

“Presents!”

“Huh?” Izuku asked.

Katsuki blinked, having apparently forgotten all about them before Eijirou stumbled back over the blankets with two plastic bags in his hands. “Happy Birthday!”

“You didn’t wrap them?!”

Eijirou smiled sheepishly. “I forgot.”

Katsuki rolled his eyes. “For fuck’s sake.”

He ignored him and climbed onto the couch next to Izuku. “This one’s mine. This one is from Katsuki. But I picked them out.”

“I literally told you what to get,” he said, but Eijirou only waved him off, his eyes brightly focused on Izuku.

Izuku pushed the bags open to see a shoebox, that upon further inspection contained a new pair of red sneakers, a drinking thermos, the first three volumes of a manga he had wanted to start, and a pair of noise canceling headphones.

Did other omegas get cake and presents on their mating days? It was their birthdays too after all.

He must have been special because in what world were people ever taken care of as much as he was right in that moment…

Izuku started to cry.

He’d held it in all day, swearing to himself that he was going to be brave because even if what he thought was happening to him was awful and unfair, all the other omegas had to do it too and no one ever swept in to save them.

But dreams were never even this happy. Fairytales were lessons in staying home and avoiding the dark more than they were fantasies. Good things did not happen just because you closed your eyes and said please.

And yet Izuku was so, so happy. They were going to stick with him forever.

Eijirou’s face dropped. “Oh no.”

“No, no,” he said, smiling with a hiccup. “It’s just the best birthday I’ve ever had.”

He let himself be pulled into his arms, and not long after, he felt the cushion behind him dip as Katsuki sat down with him and leaned against his back. They were there with him, and they were never going away, and no matter what Izuku did, he couldn’t stop crying.

An hour must have passed before he finally settled down, although it could have been just a few minutes. But by then it was late, and all the energy had drained from Izuku’s body as he finally let go of that morning’s tension. The movie could wait until tomorrow.

The three of them climbed onto the bedding Eijirou had put out with Izuku wedged in the middle. He thought they might continue where they left off, but they had literally fought their way to him and even though there were no obvious injuries—because according to Katsuki, no one could do shit to them—every punch they threw had taken its toll.

They were going to be sore in the morning, he thought. Izuku mentally prepared to take care of breakfast for them before he headed home because he imagined getting up was going to be a chore for both of them.

And then he imagined smoke coming out of Katsuki’s nose when he realized someone was using his kitchen, and he nearly laughed out loud.

Fondness overtook him, and because of that he said something he would have never imagined saying in a million years.

“Um, you should probably bite Kacchan so he isn’t left out.”

“Oh right,” Eijirou said before he pushed himself up and began to climb over Izuku to get to him.

“What?” Katsuki asked just as Izuku let out an oof to the knee in his gut.

“Hold still,” Eijirou said, straddling him, before he slung himself down and sunk his teeth into Katsuki’s neck. Katsuki jerked beneath him with a grunt.

“Bastard,” he choked out, but he didn’t move to push him off. After all, Katsuki was the one who impulsively bit Eijirou after hearing that Izuku was Eijirou’s mate.

A normal person in their situation probably would have reacted to the implication that Izuku wasn’t theirs, but they weren’t normal people, were they?

Eijirou pulled off with a satisfied grin before he pressed an eager kiss to his lips, and although Katsuki’s expression soured, Izuku very much saw his mouth move along with his automatically. There would be no use in denying it later.

“Big fuckin’ puppy ass loser,” Katsuki grumbled as Eijirou climbed back to his original spot, but Izuku did not miss the telling flush to his ears or that he had drawn his limbs on himself as if he needed to be squeezed.

He liked it.

He liked that Eijirou marked him.

“Happy mating day, Kacchan,” Izuku teased because he couldn’t help himself.

“Yeah, yeah,” he grumbled and turned over to put his back to them. “Go to bed, losers, and leave me out of it. What the fuck.”

“You started it,” Izuku reminded him.

Katsuki looked over his shoulder and glared, and Izuku shot him a grin. He turned back to face away, and Izuku tugged on the back of his shirt to get him to come back.

He did with only a moment of reluctance, rolling over and making his way back to them.

Both of them.

He tucked his face into Izuku’s chest with a grumble, and Eijirou, pressed closely against Izuku’s back, rested a hand on his waist to complete the contact.

It could be three of them, Izuku thought. Not just an omega with two alphas, but something else that made his entire body feel warm.

And right.

Izuku was not prepared for how famous he would become after his mating ceremony. Sure, he knew he would be on TV, but so were dozens of other omegas a year and no one ever cared about what they did after.

But Izuku had chosen two winners, which apparently made him interesting, when really it was just a case of knowing the last two alphas beforehand and caring about both of them too much to watch them tear each other to shreds. If it had been Katsuki or Eijirou with a stranger, there would’ve been no way.

He made the mistake of accepting two interviews because he was never good at rejecting people, but it only took those two to realize he did not like having people ask about and publicize his sex life. Which is the only thing anyone actually cared about.

They wanted to know how Izuku managed to handle two different ruts while going to school full time, and they (humorously?) couldn’t believe two alphas would share an omega without killing each other.

The answer was obvious to Izuku, but when he tried to tell them, he realized it was so deeply personal that it was better to say something naive and endure the hosts openly laughing at him than tell the truth.

Because what he had at home was special and none of their business.

Izuku walked into the kitchen to get another coffee refill to find Katsuki at the stove working on dinner and Eijirou sitting close by, his chair turned backwards so he could prop his arms on the back. They were engrossed in a conversation and completely in their own little world, and that was exactly where Izuku wanted them.

They belonged to each other as much as they belonged to him. This wasn’t a solution that would work for just anyone, but what those interviewers did not understand was that this had very little to do with Izuku at all.

And the answer he couldn’t give was that it was a whole lot easier to handle two ruts when he wasn’t the only person the alphas in question wanted a piece of.

Neither of them were brave enough to take a knot yet, but they had discovered that the wrestling to frotting pipeline suited them both just fine. Izuku did enjoy watching that, he had to admit.

The relationship worked. The three of them were mated, and Izuku was able to live his life exactly how he was used to.

Well, almost exactly.

“I was thinking about going back to my place tonight,” he said casually.

“No,” they both said at the same time and went back to their conversation (—no, even if they were the same size, a spider couldn’t take down a tiger. Even when they’re tiny they’ve still got venom! Maybe tigers are immune to spider venom, you don’t know. Nothing is immune to spider venom, look it up. I’m immune to spider venom. You are not, shut up. Yeah huh, I got bit before and was totally fine after. Because it wasn’t poisonous! Plants are poisonous, spiders are venomous. I’m gonna bake you into a cake—).

Izuku sighed fondly and went to grab his phone to tell his mom he wasn’t coming home that night. Again.

He supposed there would eventually be a conversation about moving his things in here with them, but without the feeling of running out of time, no one yet had bothered to bring it up.

Izuku took a sip of coffee.

“A nonvenomous spider could kill a tiger that was shrunken down to the same size, so a big nonvenomous spider could probably take down a regular sized tiger too,” Izuku said before doing a spin on his sock back out of the room, leaving them to deal with the aftermath.

“Okay, so a tiger or a shark with legs?”

“The tiger could just bite the shark’s legs off.”

Izuku reached for his new headphones and got back to work.