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Instinct

Summary:

Two weeks after the Sludge Villain incident, just as media coverage of the event was winding down, Kacchan disappeared.

Izuku, of course, panicked.

Notes:

*cautiously slides this onto the A/B/O altar* Ahem. Hi there.

Honestly, folks, I wanted to try writing something dark and emotionally angsty with a side of dubious consent, but this turned out so soft instead and I'm still not entirely sure how. Rating is for our dear Kacchan's swearing, of course, and the three whole moments of physical intimacy, but aside from those this is a ridiculously fluffy kidnapping story. If I were a more daring person this could've gotten very creepy very fast, but apparently I'm a coward who can read but not write such things.

Uraraka doesn't come in until the next chapter, so if the poly pairing isn't your thing I hope you'll at least enjoy the opening Bakudeku softness. And please, whatever confusion/questions you have concerning my particular take on A/B/O dynamics, mention them in a comment and I'll try to put together a succinct explanation to include with Ch 2.

As always, thanks for reading!
-Tri

Chapter 1: Alpha and Omega

Chapter Text

Two weeks after the Sludge Villain incident, just as media coverage of the event was winding down, Kacchan disappeared.

Considering how he and the blonde seemed to have entered a state of mutual avoidance, it took Izuku longer than he cared to admit to realize the young alpha wasn’t simply home, brought down by a cold or something equally mundane. He didn’t know, until a couple of police officers came to their school, inquiring when anyone had last seen Kacchan.

Izuku, of course, panicked.

“This isn’t a runaway scenario,” he insisted that afternoon, even while lugging a burnt-out microwave across the beach. “Kacchan wouldn’t go anywhere on his own! Someone’s taken him!”

All Might, at least, seemed to listen, even when the police had not. “I have a friend who might be able to look in on the investigation, my boy - I’m sure they’ll find young Bakugou in no time.”

Izuku nodded. And still made his own plans to investigate.

For the following three days, his early morning jogs went along various routes, through different neighborhoods, exploring places Kacchan might have disappeared from. The police had mentioned he’d gone missing on the walk to school, giving the perpetrators nearly a whole day’s lead, as the teachers assumed he’d stayed home while his parents didn’t expect to see him again until dinner. In the week since, there was no telling how far Kacchan had been taken.

There was no telling if he was even still alive.

Despite the years of distance and rough interactions, Izuku’s heart still clenched painfully at the thought of Kacchan being, just, gone. The first time it had occurred to him the alpha boy might be dead, Izuku needed to sit down for a good five minutes just to focus on getting his breathing under control.

Kacchan needed to be found. He had to be alright, he was going to come home.

These were the thoughts Izuku repeated on loop as he poked through the alley behind a bunch of closed shops in the pre-dawn hours one morning, a bit removed from Kacchan’s usual route to school but close enough to warrant checking. He’ll be alright, I’m going to find him, he’ll be alright, I’m going to find him-

“Find who, kid?”

Broken out of his fervor, and wincing at the realization he’d been mumbling out loud again, Izuku turned to explain. And stalled out when he realized four large men had surrounded him.

-A/B/O-

Gado glanced up from his newspaper when the men assigned to the morning shift came down through the upstairs entrance, and did a double take when he realized they were dragging a scrawny teenager in their midst.

“The fuck is this?” He pointedly asked.

“Little punk was poking around where he shouldn’t have been,” one of the men sneered, grabbing a fistful of green hair and twisting the kid’s head back, making him cry out. “Suisoku said he’s looking for that alpha brat.”

After a glance at another of the shift members, whose Quirk meant he never guessed wrong, Gado stood up to approach them. The boy met his gaze as he came - scared, bewildered, pleading. Gado felt for him, he did, but fear of his boss’s reaction out-weighed any inclination to turn the kid loose. Besides, there was a whiff of something in the boy’s scent that stood out even to his under-developed nose.

“Omega?” He asked, looking to Suisoku.

The other man nodded. “Only reason we brought him down. Would’ve been simpler to kill him - but the boss did say it was about time to introduce an omega to the experiment, right?”

Nodding, Gado looked the kid up and down once more. “That she did... well, let’s see what we’ve got here, then.” And with that, he touched a fingertip to the kid’s forehead. Age, name, genders primary and secondary, height, weight, and a few other details flashed into Gado’s mind. What stood out to him, though, was the note of No Quirk.

“Hm. That’ll make things interesting.”

“What will?”

He waved off the inquiry, before turning to head deeper into the underground facility. “I’ll ask the boss for her approval, but - go ahead and get him stripped down, regardless.” As he walked off, Gado heard a yelp and the sounds of a brief struggle as the men began their task, the boy clearly unhappy with such a turn of events. He shook his head. Kid would be in for much worse than that, soon enough.

-A/B/O-

Izuku shivered, arms tucked as tightly to his thin chest as he could manage. His captors, thankfully, hadn’t gone so far as to take off his underwear, but the lack of any other article of clothing left him unfairly cold in the underground tunnels.

The guard holding his shoulder in a bruising grip suddenly stopped, the abrupt halt nearly tripping Izuku up. He managed to bite back his instinctive yelp, at least. Warily, he watched the man punch a code into a little screen set in the wall of the hallway, triggering a door to slide open in front of them.

“In you get,” another guard said, shoving him. Izuku did yelp when he fell through, tumbling down the couple of steps to a cold metal floor. The door slid shut again before he even had time to sit up and groan.

Shivering again, the boy stood to look around his new surroundings.

At his back was the wall he’d come through, made of the same dull grey plating as the floor and ceiling. In the center of the room was a rectangular indentation in the floor, covered with padding at the bottom and big enough to lay down in. Across from him, a single pane of glass made up the far wall, looking out onto a walkway that made Izuku think of zoo exhibits. To either side were cells identical to his, visible through clear partitions in the center of the walls. The one to Izuku’s left was empty; the one to his right...

“Kacchan,” he whispered, stumbling closer. “Kacchan!”

Evidently, the materials separating them were soundproof, as the other boy didn’t so much as stir where he was curled up on his cell’s bedding. Kacchan too had been stripped down to just his boxer briefs, but he didn’t seem hurt, which eased something inside of Izuku’s chest. Tears welled up in his eyes, but Izuku hastily scrubbed them away, and tried banging his fist against the partition. It made a solid-sounding thud, and that was enough to make Kacchan’s eyes snap open.

Furious eyes which locked onto Izuku’s horrified gaze in an instant.

Kacchan snarled, baring his teeth, and then he was up and attacking the partition. Izuku fell back with a startled cry. Even as he recoiled, though, his mind was cataloging everything wrong with the alpha.

The most obvious, first and foremost, was a lack of explosions, not even a hint of a spark launching from the boy’s palms. Beyond that, though, was the way Kacchan moved - attacking instinctively, the movements fast but unplanned, unrelated to one another. His hands were held as if he wielded claws instead of fingernails, his shoulders raised in such a way to make himself seem bigger.

Kacchan was- he seemed almost animalistic. Feral, even. It scared Izuku more than anything else the alpha had ever done to intimidate him.

“Ah, good, both Subjects are already awake.”

The voice made Izuku jump, and he looked to the glass wall. A group of people stood on the other side: two of the guards from before, plus the one who’d touched his forehead, along with a few people in long white lab coats with clipboards in their hands. At the front stood woman with burnt orange hair and glasses who seemed to be in charge.

As soon as Kacchan spotted them, his snarl grew wider, and he changed targets to the front of his own cell, ferociously clawing to try and get at the woman.

“Note that Subject A-4’s aggression levels remain unchanged,” she said. Izuku couldn’t actually hear the words as she spoke them; rather, they came through a speaker in the ceiling after a few seconds of delay.

Even so, he faced and addressed her through the glass. “Who are you? What did you do to Kacchan? What is this place?” All of Izuku’s questions were ignored, unfortunately. He tried to put on a brave face, but didn’t feel like it was very successful.

“Hypothesis for today’s test states that Subject A-4’s hostility will be curbed by the introduction of Subject O-4. Note that the introduction of an Omega element is two days ahead of schedule, but an allowance has been made based on how rapidly Subject A-4 reverted to purely Alpha behaviors, far exceeding expectations.”

Izuku felt something cold take hold of his insides and squeeze.

He tried to protest - tried to tell them how much Kacchan hated him, how reducing the alpha to primal instinct alone would not make him more inclined to tolerate Izuku’s presence. He approached the glass, trying to make eye contact with any of the adults on the other side, begging for them to just listen, please! But none met his tearful gaze for long, and after a while Izuku realized they probably couldn’t hear him, either.

“Additionally, to avoid complications due to his Quirkless nature, Subject O-4 will remain uninfluenced from Chemical O during the course of the tests - a control, to see if the regression process can in fact occur unaided.” As soon as she was finished speaking, the woman with glasses pulled a remote control out of her pocket, and pressed two buttons. “Begin introductory test.”

Behind Izuku, the partition separating him and Kacchan slid aside.

-A/B/O-

Katsuki had been in a foul mood ever since getting his ass dumped into a shitty cell.

He wasn’t even sure how long it had been; time got kinda foggy when one couldn’t see the sky, or a clock, or anything else that might be used to mark the passage of time. Meals showed up when he slept, and Kastuki couldn’t say if they arrived on a regular timetable or not.

Granted, he couldn’t say a lot, period.

There was something the assholes who’d imprisoned him kept pumping into the cell on and off, something that smelled worse and worse every time he had to breathe it in. A little voice in the back of his head said it was because his sense of smell was getting stronger with each dose, but Katsuki had a hard time listening. Words didn’t seem to matter quite so much anymore, whether they were coming from his own head or the assholes who kept watching him. As far as he was concerned, the world had gotten a lot simpler since he’d been brought here:

Weird scents, bad. People on the other side of the invisible barrier, bad. Lack of pack, very bad.

In short, it was a shitty situation all the way around.

And then something changed.

He was woken up by a thud, something new, something annoying. A face on the other side of the barrier - he reacted as he always did, snarling, growling, warning. It didn’t occur to him at first that this was different from the usual, that the person on the other side was reacting to him, unlike the other assholes.

When said assholes actually showed up, Katsuki immediately had to go scream at them instead, seeking to chase them off, to get through the invisible barrier and show them just how bad an idea it was to lock up a badass alpha like him-

A new sound reached his ears. A new scent tickled into his nose.

Pausing, Katsuki looked over his shoulder, and saw that the other barrier was gone. Baring his teeth in a fierce grin, he stalked over to the empty opening, peered through it - and was hit by a wave of intense fear-panic-terror.

Part of him wanted to preen in the face of, finally, an appropriate reaction to his presence. Another part overshadowed it, though, caught up in the knowledge of just what, who, that emotion-heavy scent was coming from.

Omega.

His omega.

Deku, the voice at the back of his head whispered. Growling, Katsuki glared as the omega stopped his yelling and whirled around to face him.

“K-kacchan,” Deku stammered. Katsuki darted towards him, causing the other boy to flinch. Bony arms were thrown up to shield his face, green eyes squeezed shut. “Wait, Kacchan, please don’t-!”

Katsuki wrapped his arms around the omega, buried his nose in fluffy green hair, and simply breathed.

Disconnected thoughts swirled around his head, accompanied by a contentedness he wasn’t used to feeling. His omega, his packmate, here, keep him close, keep him safe, must keep the omega safe.

There was a noise of surprise below him. “Um. W-what...?” Deku started to squirm, and Katsuki growled lightly, a warning to hold still. The omega immediately froze, but his scent erupted into a new burst of uneasy fear. Huffing, because the idiot didn’t need to be scared of him, Katsuki pulled the both of them back through the opening to the farthest corner of his cell. He sat and yanked Deku down into his lap, curled up around him as much as possible, and tried to rumble in a soothing way.

Apparently it worked, because the omega stopped trembling and gradually relaxed. He even squeaked when Katsuki nosed at his neck, where he could smell the scent glands lying dormant under Deku’s freckled skin.

“Kacchan, that t-tickles.” A hand pushed at his face, and Katsuki reluctantly left off his search in order to nuzzle into the touch. “O-oh. Um. K-kacchan?” Opening his eyes again, he met Deku’s worried gaze. “Are you still- you, in there? Do- do you know that, it’s me? I just, they said you’re, you’re running on instinct now, but I don’t- is that, why-?”

Growling slightly, Katsuki brought up a hand to shove at the back of the omega’s head. Stupid nerd. He opened his mouth, coughed, and through the haze filling most of his head forced out a single word: “De-ku.”

And just like that, the omega’s face lit up. His green eyes got impossibly wide, and Katsuki felt something warm settle inside, like a missing puzzle piece clicked back into place.

He knew this wasn’t normal for them, not anymore. But the complicated mix of emotion and memory and status quo weren’t important when Katsuki couldn’t even think in complete sentences - all that mattered was that his oldest packmate, his omega, was next to him again.

Katsuki’s inner alpha purred at finally being able to breathe in the other’s scent without anything getting in the way, at being able to wrap Deku in his arms without worry. Too long he’d spent pushing the other boy away, pushing him down, but that was the past. This was the present.

Deku was his and his only.

-A/B/O-

So. Awful circumstances aside, Izuku couldn’t help but be enamored with the new version of Kacchan.

Not only did the alpha try to avoid hurting or scaring him, he was actually gentle, tugging Izuku into corners or down onto his bedding in order to cuddle. And oh, the smaller boy might have been startled out of his wits by that first unexpected hug, but he wouldn’t struggle against the continued affection for anything: Kacchan was warm.

“I wonder if they know how unfair this is,” Izuku mumbled at one point. “Clearly, taking away your clothes didn’t have much of an effect, considering your higher body temperature even when your Quirk isn’t working, but I don’t have that advantage and so removing my clothes is practically guaranteeing I’ll want to be close to you-” Kacchan pinched his arm, and Izuku’s rant was cut off with a yelp.

Odd lack of speech aside, the alpha clearly still didn’t appreciate the mumbling. Izuku found that reassuring, in a way, that some part of the other boy remained unchanged.

What wasn’t reassuring was how Kacchan always, always snarled at anyone who observed them through the glass wall, turning to keep himself in between their eyes and Izuku. Endearing, perhaps, but not reassuring, not with how Izuku’s heart always pounded in those moments, and his breath came out in scared, shallow gasps until Kacchan noticed, and focused solely on nuzzling their faces together until the panic passed.

The worst, though, were the times that Kacchan had to be re-dosed with something called Chemical A, and Izuku was yanked away from him by the guards, shoved back into his original cell with the partition sealed shut. It broke his heart to see the alpha throwing himself at the barrier between them, expression torn between desperation and fury as he tried to get through. Izuku couldn’t understand what seemed to scare Kacchan so badly when they were separated, but even he felt bone-deep relief when the gas pumped into the other boy’s cell finally dispersed, and the partition slid aside again, allowing Kacchan to charge past and grab him in a fierce embrace.

“I don’t get you,” Izuku whispered when they were cuddling again, left alone after the third such re-dosing. “All these years you’ve spent pushing me away, like I was nothing, but now you’re hurting yourself to try and get me back when they pull me away...” He gently rubbed at Kacchan’s hands, red and bruised from where he’d clawed at the partition earlier.

The blonde rumbled, a sound that managed to put Izuku at ease, like it was one of the lullabies his mother used to hum when he was younger. He closed his eyes with a sigh, letting Kacchan nose through his hair again. Whatever the alpha was able to smell seemed to calm him as much as the rumbling did for Izuku - and whatever comfort he could offer Kacchan in this nightmarish setting, he would.

-A/B/O-

Doctor Zankoku frowned as she peered through the observation window. Three days along with the new experiment, and the current alpha and omega subjects had yet to have done anything together besides cuddle.

“They are the youngest we’ve ever attempted to perform the tests with,” one of her colleagues pointed out. “I doubt either one’s had any sort of encounter more intimate than a brief kiss before - plus, we’re abstaining from adding Chemical O to the equation...”

“Even so,” Zankoku said. “Subject A-4 is to date the most aggressive alpha we’ve taken readings from. With how quickly the omega took to being sheltered by him, something should have happened by now.” Inside the cell, both her subjects were asleep, curled up with one another as per usual. Monitors around the perimeter of the window displayed footage from the cell’s security cameras, along with data such as remotely scanned vitals, allowing her to fully study every aspect of the pair. One hostile, aggressive alpha with no proper outlet for his emotions, and one meek, subservient omega completely obedient to his unspoken orders... it should have been a perfect equation, following the same pattern as the rest of her previous experiments.

Instead, they’d practically dived headlong into the emotional intimacy stage, far faster than any adult subjects, and refused to advance any further. If Zankoku were any less of a scientist, she’d call it infuriating.

“Are you going to put in an order for the aphrodisiac agent to be introduced?” Her colleague asked hesitantly.

“Mm... Yes. A small dose, I think, to see what happens. Perhaps later we’ll take more drastic measures, to make sure they’re far enough along for when we introduce a Beta to the dynamic.”

“Of course. When shall I give the order?”

Zankoku allowed herself a slight smirk, still watching the sleeping subjects. “No time like the present. Let them wake up feeling the effects; perhaps they’ll assume what happens afterward was of their own inclination, and their inhibitions will be lower in the future.”

-A/B/O-

Katsuki drifted into awareness, feeling warmer than usual, the scent of something sweet filling his nose. He automatically twitched his arms, checking to make sure Deku was still held comfortably within them, his mess of green curls tucked under Katsuki’s chin. Omega suitably situated, he started to run his fingers through said curls, and then down Deku’s neck to his shoulders. From there it seemed natural to stroke his hand down the other’s back, something heated beginning to simmer in Katsuki’s gut.

Deku started to stir about the time he was running a thumb across the dip of the omega’s spine, and he let out a happy little mumble. Katsuki let his hand drift lower, over the cloth covering Deku’s butt, and gave a curious squeeze. Frowning, because the freckled skin was much nicer to touch, he slipped his fingers underneath instead. There was no particular motivation to do so, beyond the simple fact that it felt good.

But apparently Deku didn’t agree.

The omega sat bolt upright, snapping awake in an instant to stare at Katsuki, with the unfortunate consequence of knocking the alpha’s hand away. Huffing, he changed targets to rub his palm up the inside of Deku’s thigh - and regretted it an instant later, when the omega squeaked and scrambled away from him.

“W-what are you d-d-doing, Kacchan?” Making a discontent noise in the back of his throat, Katsuki rolled onto his feet to step after Deku, who continued to back up until he was wedged into a corner. Intent on touching his red-faced omega again, Katsuki kept following. The heat in his gut was doing things to him. The clothing around his own groin was starting to feel uncomfortably tight. Touching Deku seemed the obvious answer, especially since he could smell a similar something in the other's scent, too.

But when he tried to reach forward, to hold his omega close and explore his skin further, Deku flinched. His scent took an abrupt nosedive into fear, and he started to cry.

Katsuki froze.

As focused as he was on the here and now, part of him could still recall from Before, when other things had been important, when making Deku cry was something to be ignored, and the guilt of doing so went unrecognized, unacknowledged. But with the way his mind worked at the moment, such a thing couldn’t be allowed to stand.

Crooning, Katsuki dropped to his knees, hovering but not looming over his omega. His hands he kept on the floor, in plain sight, and the urges to touch that had pushed him to this point were firmly ignored. It took time, long minutes filled with Deku’s unhappy tears that Katsuki longed to wipe away, but eventually, the omega shuddered and reached for him. In an instant, Katsuki scooped him up, holding the other close and continuing to croon. He rubbed his chin and the scent marker underneath it over Deku’s head and up and down his neck, but kept his hands firmly in place where they looped around the omega’s back.

My omega, my packmate, mine mine mine.

Deku, for his part, kept sniffling for a while, his body tense and a sour undertone of apprehension permeating his scent. Eventually he eased up a bit, even nosed at Katsuki’s own neck, but still the fear remained.

“Please don’t do that again, Kacchan,” he mumbled at one point, green eyes meeting red. “I don’t know what happened, but- but we can’t, do that, okay? I don’t care how, how instinctive you get, just, don’t. Okay?”

Katsuki rumbled, and Deku slumped against him, practically boneless with relief.

He wasn’t sure what had happened either, though the little voice at the back of his head was yelling about the asshole bastards and their stupid weird scents again. Picking his head up, Katsuki took in a big sniff. Something lingered in the air, too weak for him to identify, but clearly out of the ordinary. He scowled, ticked off that a scent had caused- whatever it was that had just taken place.

Unfortunately, they didn’t have long to recover before the door in the back wall opened, and three of the assholes in grey and blue stepped through.

Snarling, Katsuki shoved Deku back into the corner, and crouched in front of him even as gloved hands started to reach for them both. These fuckers thought they could take away his omega, and every fiber of his being screamed at Katsuki to fight them the fuck off. Clawing, kicking, biting, he did everything he could - but in the end, they still managed to get him on the floor in a headlock, arms pinned behind his back. Deku was yelling at them, crying out for Katsuki as the third guard hauled him off to the other room-

-except they weren’t headed for the other room, they were taking Deku out the back door, away from Katsuki entirely. He shrieked in rage, re-doubling his efforts to get loose, to chase the third bastard down and bring Deku back-!

He could still hear the omega crying for him from beyond the door, and when the assholes holding him down let go to hurry out, Katsuki leaped around them, desperate to get there first-

Something crackled as it hit him in the chest, and pain erupted throughout his body.

Katsuki blacked out before he’d even hit the floor.

-A/B/O-

“The problem,” said the man injecting a vial into Izuku’s arm, “Is that you’re Quirkless.”

Story of my life, the boy thought to himself. Even if he’d wanted to say so out loud, though, it wasn’t exactly an option, considering the heavy metal gag clamped around the bottom half of his head.

“Which is to say, the good Doctor’s compounds were designed to have a two-fold effect: negating the Quirks of those who breathe them, as well as limiting cognitive function to allow one’s hindbrain, their animal instinct, to take charge again. De-evolution, if you will; a perfect way to make dangerous minds harmless, as well as provide scientists a way to study what humanity must have been like in ancient times.” There was a stinging sensation as the blue fluid disappeared into Izuku’s arm, and he flinched. The man just grinned, reaching up a hand to pat him on the head. “You already being a throwback without a Quirk, well, there’s no telling what side effects Chemical O would cause... which might be interesting to observe later, but for now you’ve been designated an unaltered control subject. So, you get to enjoy this stuff instead, which will hopefully get you to stop being such a prude.”

Izuku stared at him, eyes wide.

“Oh don’t look at me like that - part of the testing is to monitor what happens when subjects go into heats and ruts, but in order to get the hormones pumping for that to occur, you need to actually be getting frisky in the first place.”

At that, Izuku shuddered. Glad as he’d been earlier that Kacchan had gotten the hint and stopped his, er, advances... their captors clearly intended to intervene, and force the two of them into being intimate.

Part of Izuku couldn’t help but tingle at the thought of being that way with Kacchan, arguably even closer than when they cuddled. But overall, he felt horrified, disgusted that it wouldn’t be solely their choice, that others were meddling with their bodies and would be treating the whole thing as a science experiment.

The stinging in his arm gradually faded, replaced by an overwhelming warmth that spread through Izuku’s entire body. He felt his limbs grow weak, and try as he might the boy couldn’t keep his head from tipping over.

“There we go! Hopefully your boyfriend won’t be so hesitant this time; he’s getting a special dosing of his own, you know! Should keep those pesky higher brain functions firmly locked down so he doesn’t second-guess himself.”

I don’t think that’s it, Izuku thought vaguely, as the guards unbound him from the chair and dragged him out of the lab. He stopped because of me. But if I don’t ask him to stop, if I CAN’T ask him to stop...

He barely noticed when they came to a halt, or when the guards unlocked the gag from his head. What he did notice was being thrown through a doorway, to land in an uncomfortable sprawl on the floor. Izuku whimpered as the door slid shut, and tried without success to push himself upright.

Distantly, he heard an answering keen. When the boy managed to roll his head enough to at least see the opening between cells, it was just in time to witness Kacchan dragging himself through. The alpha had one hand pressed against an angry red spot on his chest, the other holding him up against the wall as he staggered along.

“K-” Izuku coughed. “K-kah...” He couldn’t manage to get a second syllable out, resorting instead to a pathetic whine.

Kacchan rumbled, moving a bit faster. The alpha collapsed to his knees as soon as he took a step away from the wall, but then he crawled the rest of the way to Izuku’s side. Neither of them had the energy or ability to move from that spot, so there they stayed, curled into one another, taking what comfort they could from the other’s presence.

At one point, Kacchan pressed his nose to Izuku’s neck... and then followed up by pressing his lips to the same spot. Unable to do much else, Izuku whined again. Kacchan either didn’t notice, or didn’t care, because he did it again, and then he kissed Izuku’s jaw, and then his cheek, and then his lips.

It- it felt nice, admittedly. Izuku didn’t think he could be faulted for tilting his head, just a tad, to meet Kacchan’s lips a little more evenly. The alpha even rumbled, and rubbed their noses together before kissing him again. They did it a few more times, opening their mouths after a while, Kacchan getting bolder the further they went. He brought a hand up to wind into Izuku’s hair, grabbing and tugging to better adjust the angle of the other’s head. Too lethargic to resist, Izuku went along with it.

But then Kacchan smoothed his other hand across Izuku’s chest, and- and nothing. Izuku didn’t tremble, didn’t flinch away. He wanted to, he knew he should, in order to stop the alpha from going any further. But no matter what commands his mind tried to give, his body didn’t obey.

Kacchan’s fingers traced across his chest, down his side, thumbed at the smooth skin of his belly. They stopped, however, just above the band of Izuku’s underwear. The alpha pulled back from their kiss at the same time, and Izuku saw his nostrils flare.

Please, he thought, unable to say the words aloud. Please, Kacchan. Stop. Nice as the kissing was, he didn’t want to go any further, not at the whims of scientists who were trying to play god.

Above him, Kacchan shuddered.

Then, slowly, the alpha uncurled, and stood. He wobbled for a moment, but the time spent resting seemed to have restored a measure of his usual strength. Planting his feet, Kacchan bent down to grab Izuku, and carefully pulled the smaller boy up and over his shoulder. Gasping, he blinked rapidly, watching his limp arms dangle as Kacchan walked them, step by cautious step, to the bedding inset in the floor.

Once there, the alpha sank down with a groan, and dropped his passenger onto the padded material before flopping on top of him. Izuku would’ve sputtered if he could.

Clearly exhausted, Kacchan just closed his eyes with a muted rumble. At that point, there wasn’t anything Izuku could do but smile and follow suit.

-A/B/O-

Gado glanced at Doctor Zankoku, who had her lips pursed. “Well? They didn’t get very far, but that is more than what they had been doing.”

“We’ll see if there’s more activity when they wake up again,” she answered, before turning slightly to meet his gaze. “Now then - you said your men have located a suitable beta?”

“Yes ma’am - quiet little thing, but with a spine of steel when you get her ire up. Should balance between those two just fine.”

“And she’s not from the same school district as them, correct?”

Gado felt hard pressed not to smirk at that - convenient as it had been for the omega boy to practically fall into their laps, he knew the doctor was feeling more and more put out by how unconventional he and the alpha brat were being. “Of course, ma’am. I promise you, neither of these boys have ever even heard of Uraraka Ochako.”

Chapter 2: Beta

Chapter Text

Ochako woke up with a groan. It took a few moments of blinking blearily at the grey ceiling before the girl realized, this wasn’t her bedroom.

Her eyes widened, and she snapped upright.

Plain, steel walls surrounded her in a cell barely the size of her room at home. The pallet she sat on was set in a depressed rectangle in the middle of the floor, alone as far as furniture went. Scrambling to her feet and looking around wildly, Ochako’s breath caught in her throat when she saw the glass wall, and the people watching her through it.

“H-hey!” The girl called, blushing horribly upon noticing she was wearing her plain sports bra and briefs but nothing else. “Who are you? Where am I?!”

“Note that Subject B-4 has awakened, with no noticeable side effects to the sedative,” a woman at the front of the group of people said, her voice coming through a speaker in the ceiling. “Once separation of Subjects A-4 and O-4 has concluded, the administering of Chemicals A and B will commence.”

Her eyebrows furrowed as Ochako glanced to her right, and spotted a door made out of some kind of thick plastic leading to another room. Curious, despite still trembling from fear, she inched closer to peer through. And gasped.

Three large men in blue and grey jumpsuits were dragging a pair of boys her age away from one another, also clad in just their underwear, and desperately fighting back. One of them, a spiky-haired blonde, snarled and spat as he tried to twist out of the arms restraining him, dragging him off towards another door in the opposite wall. The other, green-haired and freckled, was kicking ineffectually at the man pinning him to the floor, one hand flung out, reaching for the blonde boy. Once the guards had gotten him through the other door, it slid shut, and the one pinning down the freckled boy gave him a final shove before letting go and standing.

As soon as he was free, the boy jumped to his feet and stumbled to the sealed door, leaning both hands on it just as the blonde slammed up against the other side. Ochako couldn’t hear a thing, but she thought the freckled boy was trying to calm the other down, talking through the tears that started to pour down his face. The blonde didn’t seem to be able to hear him either, because he kept throwing himself at the door, clearly trying to get back through.

“Chemical treatment commencing.”

Ochako flinched at the sudden announcement, then wrinkled her nose as the scent of something bitter began to seep into the room.

“Note that this is the fourteenth treatment of Chemical A for Subject A-4, and the first of Chemical B for Subject B-4,” the woman on the other side of the glass wall said, not even looking at Ochako as she scribbled on a clipboard. “Once the treatment has concluded, B-4 will be introduced to Subject O-4, while A-4 remains in isolation.”

Frowning, Ochako turned back to the door - and jumped when she realized the freckled boy had glanced over and spotted her. He was staring with a stunned expression, which made Ochako shift uneasily, crossing her arms to try and shield a little more of herself. The movement seemed to make the freckled boy realize just how little she was wearing, as his face went bright red in a split second. He clapped a hand over his eyes, mouthing an exaggerated sorry!

Ochako couldn’t help but think it was cute.

Honestly, he was cute, but at the moment there were more important things to be thinking about. Such as what in the world was going on.

It took what was surely close to half an hour for the bitter smell to fade away, by which point Ochako had settled herself on the floor where she could still peer through the door. In the next room, the freckled boy had done the same, watching with a pained expression as his blonde friend paced back and forth in the farthest cell.

“Commence second introductory test.”

The unexpected voice made Ochako flinch, and then she squeaked when the door in front of her slid open. Across the room, the freckled boy picked his head up, blinking in surprise. He glanced back and forth between the two doors, clearly confused. “What-”

Apparently, the blonde noticed this new development as well, because he flung himself against the still-sealed door once more. The freckled boy hurried to stand up, pressing both palms to the barrier. “No, Kacchan, stop it! Don’t hurt yourself! I’m sure they’ll open it soon, just, just calm down, please!”

His frantic words and pleading expression seemed to do the trick, because the other boy reluctantly subsided, teeth bared in a snarl as he glared through the closed door, straight at Ochako.

She gulped, but didn’t look away from his red eyes.

“Oh!”

At least not until the freckled boy yelped. That made Ochako blink and shift her gaze, blushing again as she cautiously stood. He too had turned red once more, and was keeping his own eyes directed up at a point somewhere above her head. “Um, h-hi?”

“Hello,” Ochako replied. An awkward silence commenced, the most embarrassing she’d ever encountered in her life, before she worked up the nerve to speak again. “I’m, um, I’m Uraraka Ochako - nice to, ah, meet you?”

She got a wobbly smile in return. “Ahh, thank you - I’m Midoriya Izuku, and this is Bakugou Katsuki. I guess, uh, you’re part of the experiment too, now?”

“What experiment?”

“...honestly, I really don’t know for certain,” Midoriya said, still keeping his eyes averted. “It’s, something to do with repressing Quirks, and, um, de-evolving someone’s mind? So that they act more, erm, primal, I guess is the best word for it, letting their inner alpha or omega, or beta, I suppose, take control instead of their rational mind...” He trailed off into muttering that Ochako could barely hear. Baffled, and more than a little concerned, she carefully stepped through the doorway.

That managed to catch Midoriya’s attention, and he cut himself off with another yelp. “S-sorry! I uh, I do that a lot, mumble I mean, unless something snaps me out of it - I-I’m sorry if it’s annoying, you’re very much allowed to interrupt me, that’s what Kacchan usually does but he’s-” The words cut off more abruptly the second time, as Midoriya glanced helplessly at the still-sealed door, beyond which his blonde friend was still glaring at Ochako.

“It’s okay, I don’t mind,” she quickly said. “But, can you go back to what you were saying before? About the primal mindset stuff?”

“Oh, s-sure! I don’t really know a lot, it’s just the few things I’ve picked up from what that doctor woman says when she’s making notes, and uh- a l-little bit else...” Midoriya blushed again, glancing at the rear wall of the cell, before looking back and accidentally meeting Ochako’s gaze. He froze, shoulders tense, as she stepped a bit closer.

...his eyes were so green, a part of Ochako’s mind thought. And as she moved closer still, there seemed to be something sweet in the air around him, too.

“It’s- you don’t have to keep looking away from me,” she said with her own blush. “I mean, not that I don’t appreciate the thought! But it, it seems kind of silly, especially since you’re both just as, um, bad off.”

Midoriya winced at that. “Yeah... I’m still not happy about that. They took my favorite shoes! But,” he glanced through the closed door again. “Kacchan is pretty warm, at least, whenever they let him through again.”

The mention of warmth made Ochako abruptly realize how chilled she was, an involuntary shiver immediately following. Midoriya apparently noticed, because he grew even redder. “You can, uh, come s-sit over here, if you want.”

Ochako didn’t have to hear the offer twice. She scurried across the final distance, and joined Midoriya in a huddle at the base of the door.

The blonde, Bakugou - or Kacchan? - apparently did not like that at all, because he slammed against the barrier again with another snarl.

Midoriya sighed. “He, um, he’s been really protective of me, since I got here.” Ochako nodded, drawing in a deep breath through her nose, picking up both his sweet scent and the markers of a deeper, muskier one as well. Normally, personal smells weren’t something she, or anybody, really, paid much attention to - an evolutionary feature left outdated by civilization. But for some reason, Ochako found herself instinctively checking out Midoriya’s scent, as well as the one overlaying it which practically screamed MINE.

“So, are you two together...?”

It took a moment for her implied question to sink in, and then Midoriya once again went into a wide-eyed, red-faced fit of stammering. “Ah, n-no! We’re friends! Just, just old friends, uh, emphasis on old, b-because Kacchan hasn’t really, um, wanted to be around me much, in r-recent years...”

“But not in recent days,” Ochako said.

This time, Midoriya’s blush extended across his entire face, down his neck and clear to his collarbone. “Um. That- he- h-he’s warm?”

“...uh-huh.” Inhaling deeply again, Ochako tilted her head consideringly. “...That woman said they were using Chemicals A and B - for Alpha and Beta?”

“Uh, y-yeah, I’m pretty sure that’s right. Well, K-Kacchan’s an alpha, anyway, so I assume you’re beta?”

“Mm-hm. Why didn’t they give you anything? You’re, um, omega, right?”

“Yeah,” Midoriya sighed, hunching his shoulders with an awkward smile. “Omega, and Quirkless, which is why they aren’t giving me any ‘treatments’ - they don’t want to have to deal with any side effects from the Quirk suppressant part of the formula.”

Oh. Ochako’s hand hesitantly came up, hovered, and then gently landed on Midoriya’s shoulder to deliver a soft squeeze. “W-well, it’s good that you’re still in your right mind, yeah? Especially since your friend, um...” She trailed off as they both looked through the door, to see Bakugou downright howling at the two of them. Ochako reluctantly pulled her hand away from Midoriya (his skin was so soft), and he immediately calmed down a tad. “...how did you both wind up here, anyway?”

Clearly grateful for the change in subject, Midoriya told her about Bakugou disappearing, and how he’d taken it upon himself to look for the other boy, only to wind up walking right into the clutches of the same group of villains. It was quite touching, actually, even if the result wound up being the two of them trapped together in the same nightmarish setting.

Ochako didn’t have nearly such an interesting story to tell. “I was coming in on the train, to look at apartments, when someone put their hand on my arm and, well, I guess they must have had a Quirk that put me to sleep.”

Midoriya nodded thoughtfully. “There’s plenty of sleeping type Quirks out there, from Midnight’s gas emission to Sandyman’s sleep dust... wait- why were you looking at apartments by yourself? I thought- aren’t you fourteen?”

“I am, but my parents couldn’t take the time away from their business, and since I’d be living by myself anyway, I figured I could at least look at potential places alone too,” she explained.

“But why?”

“Well, I want to apply to the Heroics Course at UA High School - but since I’m from another city, I have to live in Musutafu for at least one semester in order to qualify. And if I get in, I’ll need a place to stay, anyway.”

“That’s amazing!” Midoriya beamed. The sheer brightness of it took Ochako’s breath away. “What kind of Hero do you want to be? What’s your Quirk? Kacchan’s going to apply to UA, and I am too - I’ve been training with a, um, a retired Pro who thinks I have a shot - but even if I don’t make it in, I know Kacchan will! He’s amazing!” Pausing in his ramble, Midoriya tilted his head back to gaze adoringly through the door. Bakugou, who’d been standing with his arms crossed and glowering on the other side, visibly softened at the sight.

Ochako nearly melted as well - there was just something so earnest, so endearing about Midoriya Izuku, she couldn’t help but feel drawn to him.

-A/B/O-

“Has there been anything? Anything at all?”

Sighing, Naomasa set down the papers he was pouring over in order to give his old friend a sympathetic look. “No leads yet, I’m afraid. I’ve told you I’ll call as soon as we find something, Yagi, you don’t have to keep coming to the station to check in person.”

The tall, nearly skeletal man just shrugged as he shut the door and moved to sit on the office’s small couch. “I know, Tsukauchi. And I know you will, it’s just- it’s been nearly a week since young Midoriya vanished, and even longer since young Bakugou - I saved those boys not even a month ago, I feel I should be able to do something to help find them now.”

“The best thing you can do is to take it easy, make sure you’ll be able to join in on the rescue effort when we do find them,” Naomasa said.

“I know, I know...” Coughing, Yagi brought up a hand to catch the blood that spilled from his mouth. Naomasa sighed and tossed him a packet of tissues. “Thank you, my friend.”

“Of course.”

They remained in companionable silence for a while, as Yagi cleaned himself up and Naomasa returned to sorting through paperwork. Right as the latter was checking his watch to see how long until his lunch break, though, his office door suddenly burst open. Yagi jumped at the intrusion, whereas Naomasa simply raised an eyebrow.

“Detective,” one of his junior officers panted, clearly having just run from elsewhere in the building. “There’s been another abduction.”

-A/B/O-

Katsuki was beyond mad.

He felt fucking pissed off.

The newcomer, the round-faced girl, kept getting way too fucking close to Deku. And the idiot didn’t even realize he was being moved in on, he just kept smiling and blushing and talking to her.

It was disgusting to watch.

But there wasn’t a damn thing Katsuki could do about it.

Trapped on his side of the see-through barrier, the boy alternated between pacing, standing vigil, and pounding against the damn fucking door, depending on how close Round Face got to Deku. Sometimes she eyed him warily and backed off - other times, she and Deku got lost in each other’s gazes, and no amount of noise or violence on Katsuki’s part seemed able to snap them back to their senses.

He did not fucking like this.

But, again, not a damn thing he could do.

Food was delivered at one point; shortly after, the usual hole opened up in a corner of the cell for him to do his business. Katsuki finished as quickly as he could to return to his post at the sealed barrier, glaring at his Deku and the interloper.

The only, only good thing was that the pair didn’t want to go far from their side of the door either; they separated to relieve themselves and then came right back to sit at the base of it. Even so, Katsuki didn’t like how Round Face squeezed herself in a little closer to Deku, blatantly sniffing at the air around him. Eventually, they even dozed off together, pressed skin-to-skin at the shoulder as they leaned back against the door.

Very disgruntled, and more than ready for the damn thing to open just so the pair would be dumped over backwards, Katsuki settled on the floor himself. Just to be better able to keep an eye on them.

Right, the voice in the back of his head sneered. Jealous loser.

Hmph.

Next that Katsuki knew, he was woken by a thud, eerily similar to when Deku had first arrived. On the other side of the door, the assholes were back, pulling his omega and the interloper away from one another. The girl struggled a little against the grip on her arms, but Deku called something which got her to slump and go along with them. Katsuki snarled. He didn’t care what the idiot said, there was no good reason not to fight back against the bastards.

Annoyingly, however, once he’d been turned loose, Deku actually moved to the middle of his cell, and hesitated over continuing on to Round Face’s door or return to the one separating him from Katsuki. Growling, the alpha thumped a hand against the barrier before him, regaining Deku’s attention. The omega shot a brief glance at Round Face, who appeared to wave him off, prompting him to hurry back to Katsuki’s side.

Fuck that.

The alpha very deliberately turned his back on the door, crossing his arms with a huff and sitting down cross-legged. He could hear faint tapping at the barrier, probably Deku hitting it with his full weight, but refused to turn around.

...at least until the weird fucking smell started up again, which had gotten to the point of burning his nose with every breath. Grumbling, because alpha did not fucking whine, Katsuki turned himself enough to be able to glance at the see-through barrier out of the corner of his eye.

On the other side, Deku was crying.

Just like that, Katsuki went right back to pressing himself against the door, a rumble building in his chest as he tried to comfort his omega. He wasn’t the sort to fucking apologize, but at the very least he could pay attention to the idiot again.

Deku’s mouth briefly opened in what might have been a short laugh, or a sob, and he started to wipe at his eyes, rubbing the tears away. Katsuki crooned, flattening a hand on the barrier. Deku seemed to calm down at the sight of it, and he leaned his head against the same spot with a small smile.

Satisfied for the moment, Katsuki glanced over at the opposite door, prepared to smirk at his new opponent over this victory. Round Face, though, didn’t look the least put out. She was smiling too, watching both of them. When her gaze met Katsuki’s, she tilted her head back and to one side, barring her neck.

An act of submission, one he automatically recognized.

...huh.

It didn’t take long for the air to start to clear, and Katsuki tensed where he sat. Sure enough, a little while later, the door slid aside. Deku, unprepared, let out a high-pitched yelp, limbs flailing as he toppled over.

Katsuki caught him before he could hit the floor, instantly pulling the omega into his arms. “Kacchan,” the other warbled. “I’m sorry, I don’t know what I did wrong-”

Shushing him with a rumble, Katsuki stood with Deku still held firmly against him, and marched towards the far corner of the cell. He had his omega back, and was not going to give him up again any time soon. Unfortunately, he’d only just gotten the both of them settled when a new scent drifted over.

Round Face stood in the open doorway.

Beta, her scent read. Not as threatening as another alpha, but still problematic to Katsuki’s possessive self. He growled.

“Kacchan,” Deku admonished, pushing himself up enough to block the alpha’s view of the interloper. “That’s Uraraka-kun, she’s not a danger to us, okay?”

Katsuki kept growling.

“I mean it, Kacchan, stop that - what’s the matter with you, anyway?”

“I think he’s jealous, Midoriya-kun.” The fact that Round Face had managed to step closer while he was distracted by Deku did not sit well with Katsuki in the slightest. He pushed the omega off his lap in order to crouch, muscles coiled and ready to launch forward at the slightest provocation.

Round Face didn’t give him one.

She sank down onto the floor, keeping her hands in plain sight and her chin tilted back again, eyes meeting his with a defiant but not challenging glint. Oh so reluctant, Katsuki let himself sit back with a snort.

Deku glanced between the two of them, clearly baffled. “Uh... what just happened?”

“Alpha,” Round Face said simply, her eyes never leaving Katsuki’s.

He grinned fiercely in response. “Be-ta.” The syllables came unbidden from his mouth, but Katsuki seized his strangely clear-headed moment to spit out a couple more words: “De-ku. Mine.”

Deku spluttered behind him, whereas Round Face tipped her head further in acknowledgement. Satisfied with her unspoken acceptance, Katsuki finally relaxed.

Only to shoot right back up again when the chief asshole’s voice started coming from the fucking ceiling. “Note that Subject 4-B’s instincts have already begun influencing behavior after a mere two doses of Chemical B, allowing a safer approach to Subject 4-A even under the threat of attack...”

Snarling, Katsuki spread himself into a fighting stance, center of gravity kept low to the ground, his fury locked onto the woman on the other side of the barrier wall. That bitch was the one in charge, the one responsible for everything that had happened to him and Deku, and sooner or later he would give her hell for it all-

Something collided fast and hard with his cheek. Taken by surprise, Katsuki needed to shake his head to clear it before he could turn to see what had hit him.

Round Face scowled back, fists on her hips. “Stop that. You’re scaring Midoriya!”

Blinking, it took him a second to register the stuttered breathing, the familiar hand grasping weakly at his leg. Katsuki turned and knelt in the same movement, carefully curling his rough palms around Deku’s tear-stained cheeks, crooning as he brought their foreheads together. The omega hiccuped, before diving forward to bury his face against Katsuki’s chest. Changing his tone to a rumble, the alpha wrapped himself around the other, and shot one last glance over his shoulder, intending to glare at the chief bastard - only to realize Round Face had planted herself in between them and the barrier, her small body doing what it could to block the pair from view.

...maybe the interloper wasn’t all bad.

-A/B/O-

Izuku had to admit, having someone around to talk to, who could also talk back, was nice. Really nice. Made even nicer by the fact that Uraraka, too, was, well, nice! If only Kacchan would stop being stand-offish, then he could call her arrival a total improvement over their dire situation.

At least the growling had stopped.

They’d gotten to the point where Kacchan reluctantly allowed both the others to curl up close to him for warmth, though he very much insisted on Izuku and Uraraka remaining on opposite sides of himself. He kept silent as the two chatted quietly, one arm in his lap, the other curled around Izuku’s shoulders.

“It’s- it’s awful of me to think this way,” Izuku said at one point, “But, part of me really likes how close he’s being - reminds me of when we used to have sleepovers, when we were little.”

Uraraka tilted her head thoughtfully. “I don’t think that’s so awful.”

“Well, thanks. I keep trying to hope, when he goes back to normal, that we could stay like this. But, but then that same part, it doesn’t want him to go back to normal.” His breath hitched as the boy tried to force out a laugh. “Because, it’s that part that knows, Kacchan is Kacchan, and when he’s thinking clearly again he won’t have time for a Quirkless loser like me...”

Even as he said it, Kacchan clearly picked up on his distress, because he rumbled and shifted to pull Izuku closer against his side, which just made the smaller teen sniffle harder. Uraraka watched them with a torn expression.

“Midoriya... Bakugou’s mind is operating on instinct right now, yeah? And if he really didn’t care about you on some level, wouldn’t he avoid you rather than doing, well, this?”

Izuku’s breath hitched again.

“I don’t know everything about the situation,” the girl went on, “But I bet, whatever he did before to push you away, it was because he didn’t want to admit what he really felt.”

Practically trembling with sudden hope, Izuku smiled as widely as he could. “Thank you, Uraraka.”

“You’re welcome,” she chirped. And then added, “Besides, I don’t know that we’ll actually get out of here and be able to go back to normal-”

“Yes we will!” Izuku leaned across Kacchan to seize Uraraka’s hand, surprising her and eliciting a scowl from the alpha. “I told you I’m being mentored by a retired Pro, right? Well, he knows All Might! And I know he and the police will do whatever it takes to find us!”

The girl stared at him for a long moment, before her eyes started to fill with tears. “I- I wish I could be that confident,” she said in a shaky voice. Izuku tightened his grip reassuringly.

Then Kacchan startled them both by grumbling, and moving his left arm to slip around Uraraka’s shoulders. He pulled at the girl until she and Izuku were each half sitting on his lap, and held them there. The two shared a baffled look, which morphed into matching grins.

“Thank you, Kacchan,” Izuku said, leaning up give the other boy a quick peck on the cheek.

“Yes, thank you, Kacchan.” Uraraka copied both his words and the brief kiss, blushing as she did so. The alpha grumbled again, his own face slowly turning red. Izuku and Uraraka shared a giggle, before they settled against him a little more comfortably.

Of course, they only got a few minutes of that, before the back door opened and five guards entered the cell.

Kacchan immediately growled, pushing the others off of himself as he stood to face the threat. Izuku scrambled to his feet, one hand automatically reaching for Uraraka - but freezing when he realized she was growling too. When Kacchan launched himself at the nearest guard, Uraraka was only a step behind him.

So stunned, Izuku didn’t move until another of men slipped around the scuffle to seize him by the hair. Yelping as he was dragged off his feet, the boy twisted, trying to break out of the guard’s grip without success.

A furious snarl rang out, followed by Uraraka’s shout: “Midoriya!” Both alpha and beta tried to come to his rescue, only for the other guards to use their distraction against them. Three of the men pinned Kacchan to the floor and held him there, while another caught Uraraka in a headlock and proceeded to pull her along after the one who held Izuku.

When they passed through the door between cells, the barrier slid shut, cutting off Kacchan’s continued howls. Izuku’s legs were kicked out from under him, sending the boy crashing to the floor, where he could only watch as Uraraka was shoved through the far door into her own cell. That barrier closed as well, and in the following silence, Izuku could only hear his own heartbeat pounding. He started to stand up again, head swiveling as he tried to figure out which door to go to.

That decision became moot when a boot caught him in the ribs.

“Oof!” Stunned, Izuku fell back down. He looked up at the pair of guards who’d remained in his cell. “What-?”

A fist snapped down, striking him in the jaw, and bouncing Izuku’s head off of the metal floor. Things got, a little fuzzy after that.

-A/B/O-

Ochako shook with more rage than she’d ever felt in her entire life.

For no reason, for no good reason at all, two of the men in blue and grey jumpsuits were hurting Midoriya. They kicked and punched him, knocked the dazed boy around his cell, caught his arms in bruising grips and tossed him almost casually into the walls. It didn’t matter that they weren’t seriously injuring him, weren’t drawing blood or breaking bones - Midoriya was in pain, he couldn’t fight back, he needed help-

The bitter smell filling her own room didn’t even register with Ochako. All she could focus on was the freckled boy who’d been so kind to her, who did not in any way deserve the beating he was getting.

Eventually, the guards stopped and left, leaving Midoriya curled up on the floor. Ochako fidgeted in place, more than ready for the partition to move so she could go to him. Judging by how Bakugou stood stock still at the other door, face twisted up and his furious gaze locked on Midoriya, he felt just the same.

In the whole time they waited, the freckled boy never moved from where he’d last fallen.

When the doors finally slid aside, both Ochako and Bakugou bolted through them, crashing to their knees on either side of Midoriya at the same time. The latter carefully scooped him up into a gentle hold, while Ochako smoothed her hands over the omega’s battered face, whispering his name frantically in an effort to wake him up. “Midoriya, Midoriya-kun please, Izuku, open your eyes, come on Izuku-”

“De-ku,” Bakugou grated out, his voice rasping with more than anger. The nickname got a twitch out of the smaller boy, and Ochako immediately used it as well.

“Deku,” she repeated, “Deku-kun, wake up, please wake up Deku, please!”

With a groan, Midoriya’s eyelids fluttered, and then glazed-over green became just barely visible. “...ow.”

Ochako let out a shuddering breath, and Bakugou seemed to sag in relief as well. He stood, lifting the omega with him, and moved to the bed in the center of the cell. Ochako followed, and when Bakugou gently set Midoriya down, she settled beside them, fingers gently running through tangled green hair. She could feel Bakugou watching her for a long moment, before he huffed, and laid down to pull Midoriya snugly against his chest.

Her spirits fell at the blatant display. Evidently the alpha hadn’t gotten over his possessive jealousy after all... But then a hand caught wrist, and tugged Ochako down as well. Surprised, she let it. Once lying flat, the girl scooted in so her front was pressed to Midoriya’s back, with Bakugou’s arm thrown over them both.

It was... nice.

The freckled boy made a pained noise, and Ochako slipped a hand over to grasp one of his own. “Rest, Deku-kun. Kacchan and I are here. We’ll take care of you.”

That apparently satisfied him, because Midoriya only trembled once more before settling. Ochako kept hold of his hand, ironically glad she didn’t have to worry about her Quirk sending him to the ceiling.

After a few minutes, she felt Bakugou’s arm move, and his fingers brushed curiously against her cheek. She lifted her head just enough to meet his intent gaze. “Alpha?”

“Be-ta,” he replied. “Pack.”

And oh, something inside her practically sang at that word. Pack, it crooned. Alpha, beta, omega, new pack. She nodded, and Bakugou relaxed, his arm returning to its spot draped over her bare waist. Somewhere in the time since she’d first arrived, Ochako had stopped worrying about wearing so little, but she definitely appreciated the heat coming from his skin.

The two of them curled a little closer around Midoriya, and as the last of the adrenaline from their horrible “show” faded, they drifted off to sleep.

-A/B/O-

“We’re certain it’s the correct location?”

“As certain as we can be, sir,” one of the officers answered. “The plates of the vehicle spotted outside match those of one seen at the train station Uraraka Ochako disappeared from, and it’s close enough to the school Midoriya and Bakugou attend that they could’ve walked past it.”

A stretch in each case, but enough coincidences could line up to finally solve the mystery Naomasa and his people had been working on for nearly three weeks. “All right then, get the squad ready for a raid - I have a call to make...”

-A/B/O-

Izuku woke up to the sound of gunfire.

He jumped, and immediately hissed as numerous parts of his body screamed at him for the sudden movement. Arms tightened around him, too, which was nice for reassurance but didn’t really help his bruised ribs.

“Deku?” Warm brown eyes peered down into his own, and beyond them, Kacchan loomed, his own gaze sweeping around the room. “How do you feel?”

“Hurts,” Izuku replied honestly, wincing when he gingerly pressed a hand to his side. “But I’ll be okay, I think.” He slowly pushed himself upright, Uraraka slipping an arm behind his shoulder blades, Kacchan placing one hand against the side of his face. Izuku smiled at the both of them, before a distant boom rattled the room.

He flinched, the others scooting a bit closer as they all looked around in alarm. Two guards ran down the walkway on the other side of the wall of glass, causing Kacchan to growl.

“What’s happening?” Uraraka asked.

“I think-” Another round of gunfire, accompanied with shouting, sounded like it came from just beyond the cell’s back door. “I think we’ve been found.”

Just as Izuku said it, though, a loud series of clunking noises came from the ceiling directly overhead, followed by an ominous hissing. An acrid scent assaulted Izuku’s nose, and he coughed, bringing up a hand to try and block it out. Uraraka whined, doing the same, whereas Kacchan let out a pained keen as he clapped both hands over his nose and mouth.

Eyes stinging, Izuku pushed himself over to lean against the other boy. Both Kacchan and Uraraka wound up doubling over as the smell intensified, and Izuku didn’t feel far behind them. His head started to pound, worse than before. His arms quivered, painful spasms racing through his nerves.

Suddenly, the door in the back wall was ripped clear away, and a man larger than life rushed through.

“All- *cough* All M-m-”

“Easy, young Midoriya, I am here!” Massive arms scooped up all three teenagers in one go, and then they were bounding out into the hall, past smoke-filled rooms and up a set of stairs, until finally bursting into fresh air.

Izuku sucked in great gulping breaths, shaking as his head cleared.

They were out.

They were out.

A hysterical laugh bubbled through him, which turned into heaving sobs by the time All Might gently deposited him and the others onto a blanket laid across the ground. Kacchan was still wheezing, one hand clutching Izuku’s wrist, while Uraraka had started to quietly cry too.

“Rest now, my boy,” All Might said, carefully patting him on the head. “You’re safe.”

“I knew- knew you’d come,” Izuku struggled to get out.

“Of course I did,” came the soft reply. “And I’ll see you again at the hospital, my boy, after the doctors have had a look at you.”

Izuku nodded, and finally let himself pass out.

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