Archive of Our Own

“Midoriya, hi!”

“Yoshida!” Izuku didn’t have a great view of the figure following behind Yoshida, but as he stepped back to let her into the apartment, he could already smell the whiff of alpha overpowering his landlord’s mild beta scent. He felt a spike of anxiety. Was it a repairman? There was nothing wrong with the apartment. “What’s up?”

“Meet your new roommate!” Yoshida said excitedly. Izuku froze. Yoshida ushered in a tall guy with a flat expression and purple hair even more wild than Izuku’s. “Midoriya, this is Shinsou Hitoshi. Shinsou, this is Midoriya Izuku. Although, you guys might know of each other already. Oh man, I can’t believe you’re both pro heroes! This just worked out so perfectly,” she gushed.

Izuku took a shallow breath, letting the alpha’s scent wash over him. New roommate. Fuck, okay. He’d prepared himself for this possibility. The sooner he could get used to the idea the better. This is not your home, he told himself, glancing around his living room. This is a public space. Like a coffee shop. Anyone can come and go.

Shinsou was staring at him. Was he acting weird? He was probably acting weird. What had Yoshida—oh, pro hero, right. Wait, Shinsou Hitoshi. Pro hero. “You were part of Class A!” Izuku exclaimed suddenly, grateful for the distraction. “You’re underground now, right? Siren.”

“Yeah, I am,” Shinsou said. He looked like he needed a week of uninterrupted sleep, and his voice was low and soft, but his speech was still clearly articulated. Izuku wondered if it was related to his quirk, either naturally or through practice. “You’re Deku. I’ve heard about you, but most people don’t know underground heroes.”

Izuku laughed and rubbed the back of his neck. Even after a year as a nationally famous hero, he still wasn’t used to getting recognized by pro heroes—by his fellow pro heroes. “Well, I try to learn as much as I can about quirks, technology, and fighting styles. Preparation and training count for double as a quirkless hero.” Also, he was a nerd. Sue him.

“Hm, that makes sense.”

There was a lull. Izuku’s brain got past his excitement and circled back around to the fact that there was a strange alpha standing in his living room. The living room, he reminded himself.

“So, when are you moving in?”

“Saturday,” Shinsou said. 

Three days.

“Anyway,” Yoshida broke in, “Shinsou, I know you’re on a tight schedule, but I just wanted to give you two a chance to get introduced! Let me show you the room, and then you can head out.”

When they left, Izuku went to open a window, then stopped himself. He needed to get used to it. This is a public space. A library, maybe. Or a lobby. It’s none of your business who comes here. He breathed the scent in deep and forced himself to relax.

His phone pinged with a text from Yoshida.

Sorry to drop by unannounced! I know you wanted to meet the new roommate in
advance, and with his move-in date  so soon, I figured it was best if we popped by
on our way from the office.

Okay.

Also, I know you said you’d prefer not to have an alpha roommate, but the timing
just worked out best with this place, and with you both being heroes I’m sure you’ll
be a great fit!

Izuku sighed. Landlords. It wasn’t like he could explain his preference. The same day he’d moved in, he’d asked about the empty room and the first thing out of Yoshida’s mouth had been, “It’s a good thing you’re a beta; you’ll be so much easier to match with someone.” Izuku’s preferences always seemed to come second to people’s assumptions.

The first week went by smoothly. Izuku made a conscious decision to do the same things he always did: He cooked in the kitchen and ate at the table; he sat on the couch to watch videos and play games and fill out paperwork; he did his part to clean the common areas. Sometimes Izuku gave in and opened the windows to let in some fresh air, but Shinsou didn’t comment on it. He might feel differently come winter, but now it was early spring, and Izuku had hope that he’d be used to Shinsou’s smell by then.

And then one day Izuku came out of his room to see Shinsou passing his wrist along the door frame, marking it with his scent.

“Morning,” Shinsou said.

“Morning,” Izuku said tightly, and was proud of himself when it didn’t come out as a growl.

He snatched a container of leftovers out of the fridge, went back to his room, and quietly closed the door behind him. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Stop freaking out. You knew this would happen. He looked down at the box in his hand. Leftover shogayaki. Not what he’d planned to have for breakfast today, but whatever. He set it down on his desk for the moment.

Izuku went over to his bed, buried his nose in his pillow, and breathed in deep. By now, even the air in his room was saturated by Shinsou’s scent. When he put his nose to his pillow, it was the only place in the apartment where he could still smell a trace of his own faint scent. He didn’t even really like his own scent, but there was something steadying about it nevertheless. About feeling that something was his.

It’s not your living room. It’s just a neutral space.

Except it was harder to imagine the living room as a public space when Shinsou was scent-marking it like it belonged to him.

But it did, didn’t it? It was normal for an alpha to mark his home as his territory. Betas didn’t have territories. The apartment was not Izuku’s territory. Even his room, he reminded himself harshly. Sure it was his, but it wasn’t his territory, and if he had any sense he’d get used to that. But for the moment the closed door and the smell of his pillow felt like the last anchors holding down his sanity, so he let himself have them.

—

Midoriya was a little bit odd, Hitoshi thought, watching him wash out a plastic container that Hitoshi was pretty sure had held shogayaki. Just shogayaki. Without rice. Whatever, maybe the guy was on some kind of protein diet. Or maybe he’d fed it to his illegal pet tiger, Hitoshi thought, smirking to himself. It was a private joke he’d had running through his head the past couple days. Midoriya always kept his bedroom door shut, and the way he slipped in and out, opening the door as little as possible, Hitoshi had figured Midoriya was hiding something. He’d eventually decided—just for the hell of it—that it was a very well trained illegal pet tiger, and he was waiting to see how long he could hold onto that theory before Midoriya did something to disprove it. It might be a while, because for someone who came off as really open, the beta really liked his privacy. Hitoshi had a damn good guess as to why that might be. Midoriya knew a surprising amount about Hitoshi, and Hitoshi knew a surprising amount about him right back.

When he’d asked Yoshida about the current tenant and she’d said Midoriya Izuku of all people, his thoughts had gone straight back to the disaster after Gigantomachia’s rampage. While Hitoshi sheltered at UA, still a Gen Ed student at the time, he spent his time following news and gossip about the outside world, including reports of a nameless vigilante who used swarms of black energy, bursts of air, and augmented strength to defend those with mutant and villainous quirks from the mobs. People accused Nameless of being a villain for that, especially with All for One and his multiple quirks on everyone’s minds. As for Hitoshi, every time he saw another tweet about Nameless, he silently wished him luck.

Two years later, when number five hero Miruko took on a quirkless kid from some bottom-of-the-barrel school as her first ever sidekick, Hitoshi read the news along with everyone else. But where most people either laughed Deku off or wished him well in passing, Hitoshi followed the story a little longer. Deku had failed the UA entrance exam, claimed a snide opinion piece, and that was because fair or not, having the right quirk was a necessary part of being a hero. Miruko was wasting her time mentoring a kid who UA had already determined held no potential. Yeah, well. Hitoshi remembered when UA’s entrance exam determined he had no potential, and he remembered when Aizawa said he did. He hoped Miruko was as good a mentor as Aizawa was.

Deku blew up in the news again four years later when he flew the nest and joined the tiny, unknown agency of Tech Hero Circuitrix as a full-fledged hero. There was lots of posturing about hero society and what it was coming to, but a few prominent voices pointed out that Deku had done solid work, even if he’d been eclipsed as the sidekick of the number five hero, and Circuitrix’s agency was a good fit for a hero who relied on technological support items. Hitoshi’s attention was caught by something else. As part of Deku’s hero debut, he’d also debuted new support items: gauntlets that shot ropes of crackling black energy.  There'd been some tweaks—the bands of energy were cleaner, more cohesive; the edges flickered green instead of silver—but Hitoshi knew what he was looking at. Multiple quirks, my ass, he thought with a dawning smile.

So yeah, Midoriya Izuku, former teenage vigilante, was kinda secretive. Big shock. What surprised Hitoshi more was how quiet and jumpy he seemed. For instance: Hitoshi headed to the fridge to grab his lunch, and as he passed behind Midoriya, the beta tensed ever so slightly. Hitoshi wondered whether Midoriya had had a bad experience with an alpha before, in any of his many lives. Whatever, Hitoshi told himself, sticking his lunch in his bag. The guy liked his personal space. That was all Hitoshi needed to know. 

Still, as he put on his shoes, he found himself glancing over to curly green mop of hair bent over the tea kettle and wondering where Midoriya’d gotten those rough, ropy scars on his hands. Fuck it, if he and Midoriya were going to be roommates, he was kinda hoping that they could be friends, too. Even if it took time to earn the beta’s trust.

Three weeks into living with an alpha, and Izuku was doing great. He hadn’t flipped out once the whole time. Even when Shinsou let his scent sprawl across the whole damn apartment. Even when Shinsou marked up the living room and kitchen until every object Izuku touched left traces of the alpha’s pheromones on his hands that soap and water couldn’t totally wash off. Sure, Izuku was on edge all the time, but he hadn’t gotten evicted from the apartment or hit with criminal charges for attacking his roommate, which was the important thing.

And if it really got to be too much to handle, well, he was a ranked hero this year, not a rookie, and he could afford a single bedroom apartment. It was just that he had a one-year lease on this place, and finding a subletter right now would be a nightmare and, well, it’d all be a lot easier if he could just make it to August. Just five more months. Four, basically, since March was almost over.

Or maybe by then he’d have gotten over it. This alpha problem had been plaguing him since he was twelve, and he’d lost count of how many times he’d told himself that it was time he learned to deal with it. It had never worked before, and it wasn’t looking good this time either, but maybe with enough willpower and practice and the right perspective, maybe he could learn to ignore the tight feeling in his gut.

He watched Shinsou idly pass his wrist across the back of a chair and bit the inside of his cheek, hoping it’d stop him from clenching his teeth. He tasted blood.

Maybe Hitoshi should’ve been more careful what he wished for. He and Midoriya did end up spending more time together. Mostly they just existed in the same space, but watching the evening news together had become something of a ritual on the nights they were both off. Midoriya always had sharp commentary about whatever hero news came up, and while Hitoshi couldn’t exactly match his energy levels, he enjoyed sitting back, absorbing the information, and injecting comments of his own now and again.

One night, Midoriya was sitting on the far end of the couch, as he always did, green eyes alight with interest, chattering away about how the hero Highjack’s technique was reflective of some technological shake-up a decade ago. Hitoshi got up to get some more tea from the kitchen, and as he got close to Midoriya the beta instantly went stiff, his river of speech drying up. Dammit, Midoriya had actually seemed relaxed for once and then Hitoshi had gone and made him uncomfortable. Except… Midoriya wasn’t leaning away. He was braced, but his weight was forward, gaze fixed on Hitoshi. Between fight or flight, Midoriya didn’t look like he was about to flee. 

It abruptly occurred to Hitoshi that if Midoriya were an alpha, Hitoshi would be seconds away from getting bitten right now. His instinctive reaction was to stand his ground, look Midoriya in the eye, snarl in his face. He felt his fangs slide down behind his lips. No. Nope, nope, nope, no. He was a grown-ass adult with solid self-control—and since when had he reacted that way to a beta, anyway? What the fuck was with him right now? He got his tea and sat back on his side of the couch to sip it, deliberately not looking at his roommate.

Midoriya cleared his throat. “Um… So, yeah, basically Highjack’s support items are really out of date. I’m gonna… um, bathroom.” Hitoshi glanced up just in time to see him retreat, shoulders hunched and eyes toward the floor.

He stayed in there a while, which was fine by Hitoshi, because it gave him some time to get his head on straight. He had come very close there to growling at Midoriya, which would have been wildly inappropriate. Alphas growled at each other to tease, or warn, or protect, but between other alignments a growl was a threat. And it was obvious that Midoriya already felt threatened by Hitoshi’s presence. Except, not in a way that screamed “cornered and desperate.” No, Midoriya had seemed almost… eager.

Weird.

Hitoshi was moving more slowly than he usually did, mapping out pathways in the dark through decaying apartment buildings, between tangles of laundry lines and power lines, over uneven sidewalks and slippery roofs. It was his first time patrolling this neighborhood, and tonight was just exploratory, getting a feel for the area and drafting a few possible routes. And keeping an eye out for trouble. Crime reports from the area didn’t look too bad, but if it wasn’t being regularly patrolled by anyone, who knew what kind of stuff was flying under the ra— His thoughts were interrupted by a flicker of movement. He drew back from the edge of the roof he was on, out of sight of the street, but apparently not in time to escape detection. Luckily it was Midoriya—Deku—who swung up off a street lamp and landed right in front of him, his tell-tale teal jumpsuit muted in the darkness.

“Hey Siren!” The beta gave a friendly wave that seemed at odds with his grinning metal mouthguard and blacked-out eyes.

“Deku?” He wanted to ask if his roommate was following him, but that sounded too accusatory. He risked a direct question. “What are you doing here?”

“Patrol,” Deku said simply. “Hey, race you to that tall building over there?”

Hitoshi sketched out a route with his eyes. He grinned. “You’re on.”

“Okay, but just so you know, I’m gonna cheat!” Deku said.

“What?”

“Ready? Go!”

Hitoshi instantly had his capture scarf wound between his fingers, shooting a strand out at the railing of a balcony. Deku made some gesture with his gauntlet and sent a rope of crackling black energy flying towards a telephone pole. They raced forward, swerving between the taller buildings and flying over the smaller ones, constantly trading first place like two pendulums just out of sync: first one surging ahead, then the other, as their momentum dictated.

They were getting close to the target, a newer office building with sheer walls, and holds were becoming sparse. Hitoshi anchored to a lamp post near the target and spooled the capture scarf out as far as he could, swinging himself as far back as he could go to build momentum.

But Izuku didn’t stop. He launched his energy strands directly at the lip of the roof they were aiming for. He was too low, he didn’t have enough upward momentum, he was going to splat on the side of the building—and then, as he flew forward, Hitoshi saw him step on empty air as though sprinting up an invisible set of stairs, using his energy strands to pull himself forward.

Hitoshi cleared the roof a few seconds behind him and stared him down while they both caught their breath. “What the hell was that?”

Deku pulled his cowl back and let his mouthguard drop. It was dark up here above the streetlights, but Hitoshi could make out Midoriya's bright and wicked smile. “Float. My newest support item. Today’s my first time taking it out in the field, so thanks for giving me a chance to test it.”

“Yeah, you’re welcome,” Hitoshi deadpanned. He unlatched his AVC, letting it hang loosely around his neck like Midoriya’s mouthguard. He took a seat on the ledge, and Midoriya sat down a meter away. “You’re still inventing shit? How many support items do you even have?”

“Five at the moment! Blackwhip, the gauntlets that emit energy beams, is the one I use the most. Then there’s DangerSense, a motion detection system that warns me of projectiles or people behind me. I’ve got the Smokescreen pellets in my belt. Let’s see, the utility belt holds some first aid supplies and other stuff, but Smokescreen is the only thing there that I invented. Fa Jin is this exoskeleton here on my arm and leg guards; it stores energy from my movement and when I activate it, it amplifies my strength. That one’s super useful.” His voice was rapidly deteriorating into enthusiastic, barely-coherent rambling, but Hitoshi’s eyes found each item, filing away the information. 

“My boots used to have a device called Shoot Style which created this repulsive force if my foot hit a surface hard enough—I developed those while I was working with Miruko and studying her kicks, but I shelved it for today while I’m trying out Float since they’re both embedded in my shoes, and I’m not sure long term if I can combine the two or if I’ll switch between them, or what.” He paused to suck in a breath. “Oh! And I’m working on another project called Gearshift which would launch projectiles. It’d be really nice to have a ranged attack, but I need to find a way to modulate it better before I bring it to the field. And then, well, there are some other projects in early phases, but I’m not sure what I’ll end up... Sorry, you didn’t ask for all the details. Um, so yeah, I have five,” he ended with a mumble.

“They’re cool,” Hitoshi said. “I’m surprised you’re still developing new items. I mean, I depend on my support items a lot. It seems like it’d be hard to change them. You’d have to rewrite your whole technique, retrain all your habits...”

“Yeah, it’s a lot of work, but I’ve always really loved thinking about the applications of different quirks and support items and what sort of fighting style works well with them, so having new stuff to experiment with motivates me to keep up my training regimen! It’s a lot of fun. And changing up my support gear makes me less predictable for my opponents, which is why I mostly don’t talk about it publicly.”

“Huh.” Hitoshi tilted his head. “I guess that’s an advantage to fighting with support items instead of a quirk. I never thought of it that way.” Midoriya flashed a surprised smile. “Is that why you stopped using those gauntlets that shoot air bursts?” Hitoshi asked in a low voice. “They were pretty powerful, and like you said, it’s good to have a ranged attack, but I guess they were too recognizable.” 

Double take.

“I— wh— I don’t know which gauntlets you mean. I’ve never used air bursts.”

“Don’t worry. I’m not going to tell anyone what you got up to in high school,” Hitoshi said casually, leaning back on his palms.

Midoriya stared at him for a moment.

“Okay. So. Moving on.” Midoriya broke his gaze to fish around in his belt pouch and pulled out a packet of caramel corn chips. He offered some to Hitoshi. Hitoshi took a handful.

“I hope I’m not disrupting your patrol too much. You don’t have to stay if you’re busy,” Midoriya said.

“Nah, I was about done anyway. It’s my first time patrolling here; I was just getting the lay of the land. You said you were on patrol?”

“Oh yeah, I patrol here a few times a week.” Midoriya threw back a handful of caramel corn and looked out across the city. The lights of downtown glittered in his eyes. 

Hitoshi frowned at him. “How’d that happen?”

Midoriya just shrugged. “Well, I used to patrol just north of here, and I was friendly with Dustup before she retired. And then after, the other undergrounders took over most of her patrols, but they were spread kinda thin. So I just extended my route south a bit to cover the gap.”

“I noticed none of the undergrounders were covering here. Didn’t think any public heroes were.”

Izuku looked down at his chips. “We’re not all in it for fame and money.”

“I didn’t mean that. Just thought I would have heard about it,” Hitoshi said.

“Oh yeah. The news crews prefer to ambush me closer to downtown on my day patrols. It’s kinda nice being out here, just focusing on the work and the people I’m serving. It’s a little like old times,” he added with a sideways glance at Hitoshi.

“Why go the public route?”

Midoriya laughed. “I considered going underground. Good information networks and an element of surprise count for a lot without a quirk. But I couldn’t pass up Miruko’s offer.”

“Why?” Hitoshi persisted.

“I had a responsibility to my past self,” Midoriya said simply. “To every quirkless person, actually. I had to be visible.”

“That doesn’t sound fair to you,” Hitoshi said, regretting it the moment the words slipped out.

“Maybe, but I’m being more fair to myself than hero society ever was to me,” Midoriya said. “Sorry, that probably doesn’t make sense.”

“No, it does.”

He understood the drive, even if he had never felt pressured to be a role model himself. Probably because he’d never felt that there was a group of people like him. Each quirk was so unique. Sure, there were definitely other kids out there being told they had villainous quirks—kids with blood quirks, pain quirks, spider quirks, fear quirks—but even if he somehow hit the top of the hero charts, could they see themselves in him? He kind of doubted it.

Midoriya seemed to take Hitoshi’s silence the wrong way. “Sorry, I took the conversation down a kind of depressing path.”

That was so ridiculous that Hitoshi wasn’t sure how to respond to it. “I asked,” he pointed out eventually. “Hey, if we’re both done for the day, you wanna grab some dinner?”

“Sure! That izakaya on the corner has pretty good food, and they’re open late,” Midoriya suggested, pointing out a flickering neon sign a block over on the street below. “Unless you had something else in mind,” he added hurriedly.

“Uh, no, that sounds good.”

—

The place turned out to just be closing, but the owner knew Izuku and offered to pack some food up to go for him, so they ended up walking home together, each carrying a bag that radiated heat into the humid night air. It was probably for the best, Izuku thought. It was easier to relax, out here in the open air, not worrying about scents and space and all that crap. Shinsou seemed at ease, too, his conversation punctuated with the occasional smile or sarcastic crack. By the time they got back to their apartment, the sun was rising, outlining the rough edges of the concrete and flaking paint in black shadows, raking through Shinsou’s messy hair, gleaming brightly off his white-pupiled eyes and dimly off the matte black of the mask hanging around his neck.

Coming into the apartment, the grating alpha scent was like a slap in the face after the fresh morning air. Izuku gave in and opened the kitchen windows and got a cross-breeze blowing through the apartment. Not wanting the food to get cold, they sat down at the table still wearing their sweaty uniforms and broke out the boxes of yakitori and korokke. 

“So, I told you all about my support items. What about yours? Your capture scarf is the same as Eraserhead’s, right? Tuned to respond to low-level output from emitter-type quirks?”

“Um. Yeah, pretty much.”  Shinsou quirked a smile. “You know too much, has anyone ever told you that?”

“Says the guy who stalked me from high school. Besides, any hero worth their salt knows Eraserhead!” Izuku protested. Hell, he’d known about Eraserhead before he started high school, but he wasn’t going to bring that up now.

“That’s not true, but sure. Aizawa was my teacher at UA. His quirk isn’t very good for combat, like mine, so he trained me to use the capture scarf instead.”

“Oh cool! So what about the mask? I don’t think I’ve seen any reports about it at all, but you’re always wearing it.”

Shinsou’s amusement slipped away, and Izuku found himself regretting the question despite his burning curiosity. Shinsou’s hand drifted up to fiddle with the dials on the sides of the device. “They’re Artificial Vocal Cords. They allow me to modify the sound of my voice.”

Izuku’s eyes went wide. “Oh! Can they imitate specific voices?”

“Yeah.”

“How does it work? Do you need a recording?”

“No, I don’t.” 

Izuku knew he should probably take the hint from Shinsou’s terse responses, but he had been wondering about this for ages. And it wasn’t often he met a fellow hero who relied on support items as much as he did.

“So if it doesn’t work off a recording, do you program each voice in manually? That’s amazing; you must have a really good ear to manage that!”

That apparently was the right thing to say. A pleased smile tugged at the corner of Shinsou’s mouth and the set of his shoulders eased a little. “Do you want me to show you? I won't use my quirk.”

No duh. Izuku nodded eagerly. “Please.”

Shinsou lifted the mask to his face, locked it in place, and twisted a dial on the side. His slouch straightened, eyes crinkling in a smile. “Hi, I’m Deku!”

Izuku grinned. “Oh my god, you even put on my posture!”

“The mask shifts my pitch and timbre, but it can’t imitate someone’s tone or mannerisms, so I have to do a lot of the imitation too. It’s easier to get into the right voice if I think about impersonating them generally. I mean, I can imitate voices without changing my face if I’m trying to be stealthy; it’s just an extra effort, and I usually need to plan what I’m going to say and imagine how it should sound.”

Izuku hid his embarrassed smile behind his hands. “You even got the rambling down,” he mumbled. “You’re really good at that.”

“Well, my career kinda depends on it,” Shinsou said. He’d switched back to his own slow, even cadence, but he was still wearing the AVC set to Izuku’s voice, which was kind of uncanny. Izuku snickered.

Shinsou pulled the mask down and grabbed himself another skewer. “You never hesitate to answer when I ask you a question,” he observed suddenly.

Izuku met his eyes quietly, not sure what to say. Shinsou probably knew his feelings on quirk discrimination better than anyone except Miruko, who had seen his vigilante work firsthand. Surely he hadn’t expected Izuku to be afraid of him? “Why would I?” Izuku said at last. 

Shinsou snorted. “Do you really not know?”

“No, I mean, I know why some people would, but those are stupid reasons.”

“Well, okay then.” Hitoshi took another bite of chicken, and they spent a few minutes eating in silence.

“So, you gonna be patrolling there regularly?” Izuku asked.

Shinsou shrugged. “I went out there because I thought it wasn’t covered.”

“Doesn’t hurt to have a little overlap. There are probably things you could deal with as an undergrounder that I’d miss. Unless there are other gaps you need to cover.”

“Not geographically.”

Izuku wasn’t sure what that meant, as an answer.

“You know what, why not.”

Izuku hid a relieved smile behind another bite of korokke. Spending a few hours with Shinsou outside the apartment had felt like stepping into a whole other life. No need to feel defensive about his quirklessness, no need to keep secrets about his vigilante days, and as for his alignment issues, he could almost forget about them. He couldn’t remember the last time it had been this easy to share another person’s company. It couldn’t last forever, but maybe it could be a regular thing.

Hitoshi had figured that getting to know Midoriya (and especially having the “I know you were a vigilante” conversation) would make him less mysterious, but the more time they spent together, the weirder his roommate seemed. And it might be rubbing off on him. Midoriya’s soft beta scent was as static and unassuming as ever, but when Hitoshi was around him, he couldn’t shake the impression of a challenge—faintly, like a noise at the very edge of his hearing, or a darker shadow in a dark room—and he felt his hackles rise instinctively. Goddammit, he was going to do something incredibly stupid like snap at his roommate, and Midoriya was going to go to the landlord, and she was going to ask him what the hell his problem was, and he wouldn’t be able to explain that his beta roommate had issued a dominance challenge—psychically, apparently—and she was going to terminate his lease. So he was just going to have to get over it.

And Midoriya himself—sometimes Hitoshi was sure the beta was reacting to pheromones. But no, that didn’t make sense. Betas’ vomeronasal organs didn’t develop like those of alphas and omegas; no matter how keen their sense of smell was for other things, they just didn’t have the right receptors to detect pheromones. If Midoriya seemed acutely aware of Hitoshi’s mood, it was because he was reading his body language, not his scent signals. If he grabbed the chair in a funny way, it was just a coincidence that he was avoiding the spot Hitoshi had scent-marked. Why would Hitoshi even think that? That was such a weird conclusion to jump to.

When they went to the grocery store together, passing by apartment 302 on their way out, Hitoshi wrinkled his nose at the strong scent of an omega’s heat that leaked into the hallway. When he turned to speak to Midoriya, he saw the beta’s expression scrunch up. “What’s that face for?”

“Nothing. Um, the air’s dusty. I thought I was gonna sneeze.”

Hitoshi glanced around the freshly-mopped hallway and decided it would’ve been less confusing if Midoriya really did have an illegal tiger in his room.

More and more, Izuku found his relationship with Shinsou split into two halves. Outside the apartment they were friends, allies, secret-sharers. Inside the apartment, it was only getting harder to coexist. Before their issues had been one-sided, but by early May there was something distinctly off about Shinsou’s scent. He smelled more and more agitated, sharp like ozone, like he was about to issue a challenge. And Izuku just might have to move out, and forget the subletter, he’d just pay double rent for a few months, because today his jaw was trembling with the effort to hold back a growl every single time that Shinsou walked too close.

Breathing shallowly, Izuku grabbed himself some leftovers from the fridge, planning to eat in his room again. Cold dinner wasn’t pleasant, but two minutes of standing in front of the microwave while Shinsou was sitting a meter away at the table was a recipe for disaster.

It was a good plan while it lasted. Shinsou caught Izuku’s eye as he went for his room and stood up suddenly, blocking the path. Izuku tightened his jaw. Shinsou was acting normal. Izuku was the one being weird about this. Shinsou had no reason to think that this would upset him. It shouldn’t upset him. He shouldn’t—

He took a deep breath, which was a mistake, because the air was thick with cloying pheromones. He felt his lips start to curl against his will.

Shinsou’s white-pupiled eyes watched him intently, head cocked.

“What?” It came out more harshly than he’d intended, but he was lucky it had come out as a word at all.

And then, without a word, Shinsou issued a dominance challenge, a dizzying scent that hit Izuku like a brick. Against his will, he felt himself drop the food on the counter and step forward, nearly nose to nose with the alpha.

He just barely managed to swallow down the growl that rose in his throat.

Shinsou goaded him with a soft snarl, lips tightening ever so slightly to reveal a glint of teeth.

That was when Izuku finally lost control. The growl he’d been holding back all day—all month—clawed its way out of his throat. He leaned forward to snap his teeth in Shinsou’s face. In the split second that followed, a tiny, rational corner of his brain had time to think, I am about to get bitten by my roommate, and it will be my own damn fault.

Alphas had ways of resolving dominance challenges without real violence—scent, body language, growling. Snapping or worse, actual biting, were a last resort to warn someone who was ignoring other signals. But betas weren’t part of the dominance hierarchy, and they couldn’t send the right scent signals. A beta snapping at an alpha wasn’t communication, it was an act of unprovoked aggression, and Izuku had suffered the consequences more than a few times in his life. He braced himself for the sting of teeth—

But it never came. Instead Shinsou relaxed, his scent easing into something warm and soft. A yield. Izuku felt the tangled knot of feelings in his chest melt into confusion.

“So,” Shinsou said slowly.

“What are you doing?”

Shinsou sighed. “Look, I don’t really understand it, but… you’re not a normal beta, are you?”

“What—” Izuku’s voice came out as a rasp. He cleared his throat and tried again. “What’s that supposed to mean?” 

Shinsou shrugged. “You can smell pheromones, for one thing.”

Izuku met Shinsou’s eyes and hesitated. Shinsou was probably the closest thing he had to a friend. This conversation had only ever ended in disaster, but lying to Shinsou’s face when Shinsou knew something was up wasn’t a good option either. Hell, it was probably a moot point. He’d already snapped at the alpha; everything after this was just icing on the disaster cake.

“Yeah.”

“And you get defensive when I get too close.”

Izuku’s shoulders hunched. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine; I don’t really give a shit,” Shinsou said. “I challenged you; you won. Great, it’s done; it’s resolved, right? Is there anything else I should know?”

Izuku stared at him. “What?”

“Like about what scents you can smell, if they bother you. Just let me know.”

Izuku couldn’t really process that statement. All he knew was all of the things Shinsou wasn’t saying. You want a fight? Get out of my apartment. What the fuck is your problem? I’m calling the landlord. He had said none of those things. He had…

“Why aren’t you biting my face off?” Izuku heard himself ask.

Shinsou frowned. “What?”

Izuku gestured vaguely at the alpha. “I just attacked you? Oh my god I didn’t even apologize; I’m so sorry,” he muttered, covering his face in his hands.

“I mean, I growled at you.”

It was Izuku’s turn to frown. “I… so?”

“Most betas would be pretty upset about that.”

“Oh, right.” So technically, what he did was self-defense, even if that hadn’t exactly been his motive. Okay. If they were both at fault, then maybe they could just apologize and pretend this never happened.

“The fact that you just now realized that says a lot,” Shinsou said, looking amused. “Besides, I wouldn’t call that attacking. If you’d wanted to hurt me you would have actually bitten me.”

Izuku chewed on his lip, playing the moment back in his mind. Shinsou had growled at him, he’d snapped, Shinsou had— “But why would you yield? Wait, never mind, forget I said that. I’m sorry I snapped, we can just—” 

“You won the challenge,” Shinsou said, like that was a normal thing. “It felt pretty clear that you won that challenge.”

Challenges were won by scent signals, and Izuku couldn’t do those. “How could I have won?”

Shinsou shrugged. “I dunno, you can smell my scent, right? If I was dominant, you would’ve backed down. And instead you got frustrated when I doubled down. So that seemed like a pretty clear signal.”

“So you’re just like… taking my word for it?” 

“Why not?” 

Izuku didn’t have an answer for that. To be fair, his response had been instinctive; he didn’t think he could’ve lied or faked it or whatever. But most betas had way better control than him.

“We good?”

Establishing a hierarchy between an alpha and a beta didn’t make sense. Playing along was begging for trouble. But at the same time, Shinsou’s scent wasn’t scraping against Izuku’s raw nerves for the first time in over a month, and Izuku was so, so tired. “I guess if you’re okay, then we’re okay.”

“Great,” Shinsou said as he stepped aside, allowing Izuku to continue his path to his bedroom.

Izuku looked at his cold leftovers on the counter. “I’m actually gonna microwave this real quick.”

The next morning Hitoshi was sitting at the table sipping his coffee when Midoriya slipped out of his room. Their eyes met for a moment. Midoriya took a breath, and then his shoulders fell slightly. Something in Hitoshi’s scent or expression must have reassured him, although Hitoshi wasn’t sure what the beta had expected—or feared—to find. They didn’t talk about it.

Things got better as the week went on. Hitoshi hadn’t bothered controlling his scent when he didn’t think Midoriya was aware of it; now he tried to keep it at the same level he’d use if he were around Kaminari or another alpha friend: not repressing it, but not letting it take over the space either. Izuku, despite appearing more at ease, still mostly kept to his room, which Hitoshi chalked up to either habit or personal preference, until one afternoon.

Midoriya had opened his door and was just about to enter his room when Hitoshi suddenly realized that the pair of headphones he’d picked up were not in fact his, and stepped toward Midoriya. “Hey, these—”

Midoriya startled and immediately whirled around, eyes intent, blocking the doorway with his body.

Hitoshi took a step back and held up the headphones. “These are yours.”

“Oh.” All the defensiveness melted away instantly. Midoriya covered his face with his hands. He seemed to do that a lot. “Sorry, that was weird. Thank you! I’m so sorry.”

“It’s fine.” Hitoshi cocked his head. “Wait, are you territorial too?”

“I…” Midoriya floundered. “It’s not like I can mark a territory.” Which didn’t actually answer Hitoshi’s question. “I just freak out sometimes when people are in my space.” Which did.

“So, in other words, you’re territorial,” Hitoshi said dryly. “I can stop marking the living room and kitchen if it bothers you.”

“What? No, you don’t need to do that.”

“Does it bother you?”

Midoriya paused. “It doesn’t matter if it bothers me. You don’t need to keep suppressing your instincts for me.”

“I’m not,” Hitoshi said simply. It was hard to explain why he was not, but challenging Midoriya had felt more like giving in to his instincts than suppressing them. “I’ll stop marking the common area. Anyway, here.” He held out the headphones.

Midoriya took them hesitantly. “I realize this is a weird question, but I don’t know how to… Why aren’t you getting upset about this?”

Hitoshi thought back to their conversation that night, when they brought home takeout and stayed up talking in the pool of yellow light around the kitchen table, sweaty and tired and perfectly at ease. Hitoshi had said You never hesitate to answer when I ask you a question and Midoriya had said— 

“Why would I?”

Midoriya opened his mouth to speak.

“No stupid reasons,” Hitoshi reminded him.

So somebody knew about Izuku’s alpha problem, and the world had not ended. They were just sharing an apartment— their apartment—like everything was fine. They did all the same things they usually did: walked home from patrol, went out for groceries, watched the news. Except now all those things were easy and comfortable in a way they hadn’t been before. Even Shinsou’s scent seemed almost pleasant. It still had the bitter earthiness of an alpha scent, but it felt almost velvety on Izuku's palate, like a dark chocolate, without the harsh edge he was used to. It was bizarre.

“I’m gonna ask you a personal question,” Shinsou said one night over dinner. They’d started having meals together more often now. Now that Izuku didn’t go out of his way to eat when he knew Shinsou wouldn’t be in the kitchen.

“You know,” Izuku said, taking another bite, “usually people start that sentence with ‘Can I.’”

“What’s the point of that? You don’t know what it is yet. Once you’ve heard it you can decide if you want to answer or not.”

“Fair enough,” Izuku mumbled around his mouthful.

“What’s the deal with your alignment?”

Izuku paused, frowning at his food. Shinsou just took another bite, eyebrows raised expectantly. “I don’t really have an answer to that,” Izuku said at last. “I mean I’m a beta, obviously, but I don’t know where the aggression problem comes from. I’ve just always…” He shrugged, eyes fixed on his bowl.

“Always?” Shinsou asked, unbothered. “C’mon, when did you first notice you weren’t a normal beta?”

That was more straightforward. “Pretty much immediately. I presented, and it was a problem at school from day one. It hasn’t changed much, I guess; I have a better handle on my instincts now. A little. Mostly I just learned to keep my distance from alphas,” he added under his breath.

“That makes sense,” Shinsou said thoughtfully.

“What?” Izuku looked up, searching his roommate’s face for signs of judgment.

“It makes sense. You have alpha instincts. Most alphas have a hard time interacting with other alphas at first.”

Izuku shook his head. “It’s worse than that. Alphas can normally be in the same classroom without one of them needing to see the nurse,” he said with a bitter laugh. Not that he was an alpha, but for the sake of comparison.

“Yeah, but you know how most alphas are. We figure out our hierarchy, and then we have pheromones to recognize our pack and mark our territory and warn someone when they’re too close. Someone would have to ignore a lot of warnings before they’d get bit. Like they’d have to be deliberately stupid.”

“But I can’t signal with pheromones,” Izuku said slowly, setting down his chopsticks.

“And they’d never let you have a place in the hierarchy, so you’re always going to be unsettled,” Shinsou said with distaste. “Trust me, I’ve been there, and I definitely snapped at some people. And you’re pretty dominant, which is worse, because when there is a conflict, the other person should back off first, but they don’t. I’d definitely lose it, if it were me,” Shinsou added, taking another bite.

“The alphas in high school used to laugh when I’d growl at them,” Izuku recalled, chewing on his lip. “Sometimes they’d play this game, where someone would poke me with their finger over and over throughout the day, and they’d laugh if I started growling. And then I nipped one of them, and I tried to explain to the teacher what had happened, but she just said they wouldn’t be doing it if I wasn’t growling at them in the first place.”

Shinsou snorted. “Teachers.” 

Izuku thought for a moment, staring at the fake wood pattern on the laminate table. “You asked what was up with my alignment. But I don’t know why I’m like this,” he said again. “My mom took me to a doctor, but he just said I should talk to a psychologist.”

“Did you?” Shinsou asked, apparently well past any concerns about asking personal questions.

“She asked me a bunch of weird, leading questions about the difference between feelings and reality, and then she tried to teach me grounding techniques to stop myself from growling.” Not that it had done much good. Trying to count the things he could see, hear, and smell kind of backfired when his senses were dominated by the cloying scent of someone leaning over his desk, blocking his field of view and yammering loudly in his ear.

“Well that sounds like a load of bullshit.”

A few days later, when Shinsou came home from patrol one day with a busted lip and a bitter tang of upset in his scent, Izuku was surprised to find another growl building in his throat. For a moment, he was alarmed. He had been a lot calmer since he and Shinsou settled their hierarchy. It’d probably been too much to hope that would last forever. 

But then… there was something different about this time. As Shinsou came over toward the couch, the tightness in Izuku’s throat didn’t intensify. It remained low and steady. He watched out of the corner of his eye as Shinsou dropped himself onto the couch next to Izuku, mask and capture scarf still hanging around his neck. Izuku sat in silence for a moment, unsure how to respond to the instincts vying for his attention, before he gave up and pretended to scroll through his phone. Anything he did would just make things more awkward.

“You know,” Shinsou’s voice interrupted his rumination, “I really don’t care if you do alpha shit.”

Izuku froze, his eyes on Shinsou. What had tipped him off? Izuku’s weak scent never gave away his emotional state. Shinsou’s scent, on the other hand, was still oozing tension, even though the alpha looked perfectly at ease. His head was tipped over the back of the couch, eyes closed, long legs stretched out in front of him. It was an appealing look, even (especially) sweaty and rumpled from patrol. 

“I’m not going to growl at you,” Izuku said. 

Shinsou cracked an eye open. “Do I need to move away?”

“No. I’m not gonna… I don’t know. It’s not worse with you closer. Are you okay?”

“Fine.” He closed his eyes again. “Patrol was crap. It happens.”

“Do you need the med kit?”

Shinsou shook his head. “Nah.”

“Okay. I was thinking about making some tea if you—”

“No it’s okay,” Shinsou said, contradicting the brief burst of stress that bloomed in his scent. He quickly tamped it down and leaned back further. “I’m just gonna crash for a minute.” It occurred to Izuku suddenly that Shinsou had come to sit on the couch next to him, rather than going straight to his room or even taking the armchair on the side. 

“What happened?”

Shinsou sighed. “Last call of the night went sideways,” he said slowly. “Got beat around a bit before I finally managed to use my quirk. The guy I’d protected was scared shitless when he saw it. When the police came, he tried to get me arrested. Said I was a rival gang member or some shit. Looked horrified when I pulled out my hero license. And then the cop spent a good fifteen minutes inspecting my license and looking it up in the system to make sure it was real.”  

Funny, that was when the growl in Izuku’s throat slipped out, and Shinsou just laughed softly and said, “Oh, is that what you were talking about?” Because it wasn’t an aggressive growl at all; it was a protective one. 

He pressed his lips together and cut off the growl, feeling a bit silly. “I didn’t realize it was… I’ve never growled like this except at work or something.” The instinct had hit him before when he was protecting kids, and a few times with civilians who were critically injured, but never an adult just having a shitty day.

Shinsou opened his eyes again to give Izuku a measuring look. “Yeah, that’s usually a pack thing.”

“Oh. Sorry.”

“I’m not mad about it.” True to his word, his scent had softened slightly. 

“Okay. Shinsou? I’m sorry you had to deal with that. It’s bullshit.”

“Thanks.”

Shinsou was quiet for long enough that Izuku thought he might have drifted off. “You know, most of the alphas I know who live with other alphas have started a pack with their housemates, if they didn’t already have one. Makes things easier.” 

Izuku blinked. “Are you saying you want to form a pack?” He had to be misinterpreting that. It was going to be embarrassing when Shinsou clarified what he really—

“We could,” Shinsou said simply. 

“I’ve never been in a pack before,” Izuku warned. 

“What, not even in high school?”

“No. I bit people in high school,” Izuku reminded him. 

The alpha sighed. “Yeah, so did I. But luckily they gave me a shot anyway.” 

“Oh,” Izuku said, suddenly feeling very alone.

“So, speaking of giving things shots.”

“Huh?”

“Do you want to form a pack?”

“Oh,” Izuku murmured again. “I’d like that. Yeah.”

“Hm. All right then.” Shinsou sat up and leaned over to press his nose against Izuku’s neck, scenting him briefly. Then he drew back, his eyes meeting Izuku’s. 

Izuku leaned in and returned the gesture, memorizing the scent that had bothered him for so long. Up close it was richly and subtly layered, a blend of memory, emotion, and instinct. There was the dry, almost mineral smell of alpha. There was Shinsou’s personal scent, bitter but fragrant, like ground coffee and almonds. There was the stale scent of a long night, and an ashen scent of pain—only a faint hint of blood though, probably no more than the split lip.

Shinsou had opened his eyes and was watching Izuku now, quiet and curious.

Izuku realized he’d started purring and cut it off abruptly, feeling his face get warm.

—

Hitoshi might try to cultivate a callous image, but he had always been a sucker for a nice purr. And Midoriya, he had to admit, had some killer vocal chords. Shame he was scared to use them. Hitoshi felt a soft, staticky purr of his own build up in his chest. Midoriya hesitated for a moment and then tentatively started purring again, and Hitoshi melted like chocolate on a summer day. He dropped his head back on the couch again, a little closer to his new packmate now, and sank into the sagging cushions.

This was easier, that was all. This decision was based entirely on logic, and had nothing to do with the way Midoriya’s protective growl had lashed out at hearing about the police officer who’d harassed Hitoshi. 

Hitoshi waited a moment for Midoriya to start a pack-marking scent before he remembered that the beta couldn’t do that. Hitoshi would have to be the one to mark them as a pack. A little awkward since Midoriya was technically dominant, somehow, and had been uncomfortable with Hitoshi scent-marking before. But Midoriya seemed pretty chill right now, so maybe his instincts had gotten the we’re-a-pack memo, too.

“I’m gonna do a pack-marking scent,” Hitoshi warned. “Stop me if it bothers you.”

“Okay.”

Hitoshi relaxed his control slightly, and a heavy, warm scent blanketed them embarrassingly quickly. For fuck’s sake, his instincts had a mind of their own sometimes. Like how they always seemed to mark Midoriya as an alpha. What was the deal with that? They weren’t wrong exactly. Midoriya definitely acted like an alpha, and Hitoshi was getting the sense more and more that beta behaviors were a conscious effort for him. Hell, maybe Hitoshi’s instincts were more right than his eyes and nose. Maybe Izuku was actually an alpha who just hadn’t presented some of the alpha traits for whatever reason. Was that a thing? Eh, humans were complicated; everything was probably a thing. 

Hitoshi would tell himself it was none of his business, except he was pretty sure he’d just made it his business. You had to know what was up with your pack.

“Hey, uh,” —now that we’re packmates and I don’t know what that means and what do packmates even do— “now that it’s getting warm out, do you want to grab some ice cream or kakigori or something?” 

Hitoshi looked up from his phone. “Yeah, okay.”

“Great! You got a preference or…”

“I mean, you were living in this neighborhood last summer, right?”

“Yeah, I moved in in August.”

Hitoshi shrugged. “I’ll follow your recommendation then.”

“Okay, cool.”

They got ice cream. Chocolate for Izuku, lemon for Hitoshi. Izuku grabbed one of the outdoor tables for them. As Hitoshi circled the table to take his own seat, he passed his hand across the back of Izuku’s shoulders, and Izuku ducked his head away. 

Hitoshi sat. His scent faded, and Izuku couldn't be sure if it was because he was now sitting downwind, or if he was holding back.

It had reminded him a bit of Kacchan, Izuku realized belatedly. Not that Kacchan and Hitoshi were anything alike, just that sudden touch brought back old habits. 

“Sorry, I should have asked before I did that.”

Izuku shook his head. “No, it’s fine.” Outside of packs, alphas usually liked their personal space, but he knew that within packs sharing scent by touch was normal. “I just, I’ve never been in a pack before. I still need to get used to it.”

Hitoshi’s purple eyes considered him. “Whatever you’re good with. Does my scent still bother you?”

Izuku shook his head. “No. After the challenge it was already okay as long as we kept some distance, and now it’s…” He wasn’t sure how much he wanted to admit to exactly, but Hitoshi’s initial pack bonding scent had actually been really relaxing. Maybe a little too relaxing, like all this tension he didn’t realize he was holding in his body had just drained away and left him feeling raw and wrung out. “It doesn’t bother me at all. But it’s still kind of a habit to brace myself, so, y’know, the more practice I get the better?” Shit, was he coming on too strong?

“Okay, makes sense. I just don’t want to startle you.”

“I won’t bite you,” slipped out of Izuku’s mouth.

“I know. I’m not scared of you. I still don’t want to startle you.”

“Oh. Thanks.”

Izuku wasn't sure what to talk about. They’d hung out plenty of times, on patrol, getting takeout, running errands, and it hadn’t felt hard to talk to Hitoshi. But. In the past week, Hitoshi had learned about Izuku’s issues and then invited him to form a pack. And what was he supposed to think of that? Hitoshi said it was normal for alphas living together to form a pack, which made it sound like it wasn’t a huge deal, except it was a huge deal to Izuku, and besides, when he said “alphas,” what did that mean? Izuku wasn’t sure how to act anymore. He’d spent the past decade training himself to act like a beta, but apparently not doing a great job of it, and Hitoshi had made that comment about how he didn’t mind if Izuku acted like an alpha, but Izuku had no idea how to act like an alpha. Hitoshi had started the challenge and decided to stop scent-marking, except for pack-marking sometimes? So all of those had been Hitoshi’s decision really, and Izuku was along for the ride. Not that it was a bad ride, but he’d invited Hitoshi out because he wanted to figure out a new normal except he didn’t know how to do that because he wasn’t sure how to balance acting normal for a beta and acting normal for an alpha and Hitoshi was already going out of his way for Izuku and Izuku didn’t want to impose any more but also the changes had been a huge weight off his shoulders and he didn’t want to go back or—

“Izuku. I’m sorry, I’m not really following.”

“What?” Izuku asked, horrified.

“I only caught like, a quaarter of that.”

“I didn’t mean to say any of it,” Izuku said weakly. “What all did you hear?”

“Uh. You feel like you haven’t been making decisions about how to handle alignment stuff, and you don’t know what to do? I think that was the gist of it.” 

“I— Yeah,” Izuku conceded, cheeks warm. “I guess that was the gist.”

“Did I hear you wrong or did you say something about whether you should be a normal alpha or a normal beta?”

Izuku nodded. 

“I guess I never actually came out and asked, but what are your instincts telling you?”

“Right now?”

“Well— You know what, yeah. What are your instincts telling you right this minute?”

“Not much,” Izuku said, shrugging a shoulder.

“But a little?”

“Kind of the usual baseline stuff. I’m in public, so I’m thinking about who’s around, their scents.”

Hitoshi took a bite of his ice cream. “In a stressful way or just aware?”

“A little cautious,” Izuku admitted. “But not like, bothered.”

“And it was a coincidence that you sat with your back to the wind?” Hitoshi asked.

“What? Why would…” Izuku paused. He hasn’t consciously thought about it, but sitting the other way would feel awkward and somehow vulnerable. If he was facing into the wind, he could see and smell in one direction, but would get little to no information from the other direction. With his back to the breeze, he would smell anyone coming from behind. Huh. “I guess not. I wasn’t trained to use my sense of smell in the field the way alpha and omega heroes are. I just followed my gut.”

“You followed your instincts,” Hitoshi pointed out. “Are they telling you anything else?”

“I’m aware of you,” Izuku said hesitantly. “Like… wanting to have you where I could see you.”

“Like a threat?” his packmate asked, carefully neutral.

“No,” Izuku said immediately. “Like, more focused on people walking past you and stuff.”

Hitoshi smiled like he understood something. “When I leave the apartment, does it bother you that I’m leaving your line of sight?” 

“No, it doesn’t bother me,” Izuku said slowly.

“But?”

“Um, I am aware of it in the same way. Until you come back.”

But Hitoshi was laughing quietly. “Holy shit, you’re a total sheepdog.”

Izuku had heard that word applied to alphas before. Mostly alphas who were a little controlling of their packs.

“Is that bad?” he asked hesitantly.

“No, it doesn’t have to be. Do you know it?”

“I’ve heard it, but I’m not sure what it means.”

“For different alphas, some instincts are really strong, and others less strong. I’m not very scent-driven, but you seem like you are. That sort of thing.” Izuku opened his mouth to respond, but Hitoshi kept going like he didn’t realize what he’d just implied. “Protective instincts can take different forms. One way is, like, preemptively doing lots of threat signaling, using heavy scent. Another is more watching, keeping a strict territory, and being really vigilant about space. There's other kinds, and people have different stereotypes about it, but alphas who are more aggressive to outsiders are sometimes called guard dogs, and alphas who kind of keep a perimeter around their pack are called sheepdogs. It’s a joke, mostly. It’s not a bad thing, as long as you aren’t stressing over it or making it everyone else’s problem.”

“Oh. It kind of sounds like a bad thing.”

“Our instincts are what they are,” Hitoshi said with a shrug. “Everyone has to learn alignment skills to handle their instincts, even betas.”

Izuku snorted. “Yeah, I can confirm beta alignment skills are not as easy as people make them out to be.”

“Do you have any beta instincts?” Hitoshi asked, sounding genuinely curious.

“I… I don’t know?” Izuku couldn’t think of any.

“How can you learn to manage beta instincts if you don’t have any?”

Izuku blinked at him. He wasn’t wrong exactly. “Well, what about you? Guard dog or sheepdog?”

“Neither,” Hitoshi shrugged. “That’s a pack lead’s problem, and I don’t like being dominant. I’d rather worry about what’s going on inside the pack than outside.”

“People usually say that's a beta thing.” Izuku had spectacularly failed at being the ‘peacekeeper’ or ‘pack glue’ that everyone claimed he should be. He made eye contact with Hitoshi and realized what he'd just said. “Not that—”

“I’m not insulted,” Hitoshi said dryly. “Yeah, they do. But for me it usually manifests in how I deal with hierarchy stuff, so it's impossible to separate from alpha instincts.”

“So when I was acting weird about dominance…” Izuku realized.

Hitoshi ran a hand over the back of his neck. “When I get the sense that a hierarchy isn’t working right, my instincts are usually yelling that it’s my job to fix it. I’m not always good at that, but I’m worse at leaving it alone,” he said, shrugging. 

“You’re the first person to ever make a hierarchy with me. I mean, I don’t think you can fix what’s wrong with me no matter how good your alignment skills are,” Izuku joked, “but I think you’ve done better than any other alpha I’ve met?”

Hitoshi did not laugh at that. “What is it that you think is wrong with you?” 

“Um.”

“I have a better question actually. Without changing your instincts, what would it take for you to be happy with your alignment?”

“Be happy with my alignment? Does anyone really enjoy their alignment?” Izuku wrinkled his nose.

“I like mine a lot. I wouldn’t trade it for another one.”

“Okay, but without changing my instincts? They’re the whole problem.”

Hitoshi took a bite of ice cream as he considered that. “If you could change your instincts to be beta instincts, or your scent to be an alpha scent, do you know which you’d prefer? Or would you rather be like you are, if people could accept that?”

“I can’t imagine that.” Izuku frowned at his ice cream. He’d only eaten half, but it was mostly melted. “Like, everyone would include me in the hierarchies and respect my territory, even though they can’t smell my signals? How would that even work?” 

“I don’t know how you feel about it, but from my perspective it’s working pretty well so far.”

Izuku stared at the little iceberg dissolving into chocolate milk. He tried to imagine a world where everyone treated him like Hitoshi did. “I’d like that,” he said at last, his voice barely audible. “If I could have that or have an alpha scent, I don’t know which would be nicer.” Suddenly developing an alpha scent somehow felt more possible than changing the whole world. Ha.

“But not having beta instincts?”

“I mean, if it was a choice between that and the way things are now, I’d change my instincts. But if we’re talking hypotheticals…who wouldn’t want to be an alpha?” Izuku asked with a self-deprecating laugh. “People always say male betas have an alpha complex. I guess mine just got out of hand.”

“That’s bull. I’ve known plenty of male betas who wouldn’t trade alignments for all the money in the world.”

Izuku smiled weakly. “I think I’d trade mine for a moldy french fry.”

“How are you around omegas?” Hitoshi asked out of the blue one night.

“What? Uh, I’m not really interested in dating,” Izuku raised his voice over the sizzle of the pan.

“No, I mean like, are you okay being around them? How sensitive are you to omega scents?”

“Um. A normal amount?”

“Okay. Like, normal for an alpha or…?”

“Oh, no. Well—” Izuku moved the pan to the back burner and stepped away from the stove. “I can smell omega scents, but they don’t bother me at all.” That was a bit of an understatement. Izuku liked hanging out with omegas; they were the one alignment he felt sort of normal around. Maybe that was why he’d stuck by Kacchan through middle school, even though he’d turned into a raging asshole. For all the ways in which Kacchan mocked Izuku, he wasn’t a big enough hypocrite to mock Izuku’s alignment issues. Besides, Izuku’d rather hang out with someone who was going to hurt him than someone he was going to hurt. Whatever that said about him.

“Okay, cool. I was thinking of bringing some friends by. Maybe Saturday night?”

“Oh yeah, no problem.” Izuku squashed down the flicker of disappointment and forced himself to add, “That was considerate of you to ask.” Or just logical. He probably didn’t want his crush getting bitten by his feral roommate.

—

When Hitoshi had said he was bringing some friends over, Izuku had figured “friends” was a euphemism. He was surprised then, to come home that Saturday to a full living room of betas and omegas playing an intense card game that seemed to require a lot of swearing and carefully timed table-slapping.

“Oh! Hey hey hey, hang on a sec,” Hitoshi said, stopping people from laying more cards on the table. “Everybody, Midoriya Izuku. Izuku, this is Ashido, Asui—she prefers Tsuyu, Ojiro, Bakugou, Uraraka, and Kirishima.”

Izuku couldn’t decide what to freak out about first: Kacchan’s bright red glare or the fact that half of the infamous Class A was sitting in his living room. Obviously he knew Hitoshi was part of Class A. And so was Kacchan. But seriously, what the fuck. He’d just been thinking about Kacchan, too, he thought absently. Weird how that always happened. He was pretty sure there was a term for it in psychology.

“Deku?” Kacchan asked disbelievingly. Funny, the other people in the room must think Kacchan was being uncharacteristically formal, addressing Izuku by his hero name.

“Kacchan,” Izuku said, throwing out that assumption.

Hitoshi’s sleepy eyes went wide. “Wait, do you two know each other?”

“We went to middle school together,” Izuku explained. Then Kacchan had gotten into UA, and Izuku hadn’t. Throughout his high school years and his time as a sidekick, Izuku had watched Kacchan’s trajectory from a distance, along with the rest of Japan—as a former member of Class A who rocketed up the ranks to number two, it didn’t take much digging to keep tabs on him. Knowing Kacchan, he probably hadn’t followed Izuku’s career, but he must know Izuku had become a hero. There’d been a ton of news coverage.

“He saved my life when we were fourteen,” Kacchan said suddenly.

Izuku stared at him in shock. Over the years, Izuku had seen some indications that Kacchan was—not softening, exactly, no, but more of a team player, willing to recognize others and even accept help at times. He’d even let himself imagine that if they met now, Kacchan might not be openly insulting. Might even treat him as a colleague. In the nine years since he’d attacked that sludge villain, he’d never imagined Kacchan would acknowledge it in front of a room full of people. 

Hitoshi’s eyes were flicking back and forth between them.

“So. You’re the mysterious packmate Shinsou’s been telling us about,” Ashido interrupted the staring contest. She looked friendly at first, with fluffy pink hair and a rhinestone-studded jacket, but her black eyes were narrowed in cunning. It was hard to pick out the mingled scents, but some of them were definitely from the same pack, and Izuku could guess she was the lead omega.

“That’s me,” he agreed.

She gave him an appraising look. He tried to meet her eyes, feeling like he was hiding something and not quite sure what it was.

“Well? You gonna come join us?”

He did, and the game continued late into the evening. Kacchan was still fiercely competitive and foul-mouthed, so he hadn’t changed completely. He and Izuku didn’t interact, except as the game called for it, by a kind of unspoken agreement. Or maybe just out of awkwardness.

As the night wore on, Kacchan and Kirishima left together, and Uraraka soon followed suit, leaving only Ashido, Asui, and Ojiro left, who Izuku learned were all members of the 3-6-10 pack.

As the night wound down, Izuku took initiative to help clean the table. Ashido quickly followed him to the kitchen and waited until she had him cornered to ask, “So what’s up with you and Shinsou?”

“We’re packmates?” Izuku put the dishes in the sink and started filling it with water.

“Mhm, yeah, so...”

What had Hitoshi told her about him? “What is it that you think is going on with me and Hitoshi?”

She left him hanging for a minute before she finally spoke. “I don’t know. But I think he’s serious about this pack. And I think a lot of people form short-term packs with their roommates just for convenience, and they don’t take it all that seriously. And I think if you hurt him I’m gonna kill you,” she concluded with a sharp grin that was all the more shocking on her cheerful face.

“Oh, um… I don’t know how permanent this pack will be, but that doesn’t mean I’m not taking it seriously. And I’m definitely not going to hurt him,” he said. In retrospect, they’d kinda jumped straight into the pack thing without really talking about the details.

Ashido nodded and returned to the living room. “Shinsou, I like him!”

“What did you do?” Hitoshi demanded.

“Nothing! Just a very mild threat. No specifics. It was almost abstract.”

“We’re good!” Izuku called out from the kitchen.

“See? We’re good,” Ashido echoed, all sweetness. “Goodnight guys!”

When the guests were gone, Hitoshi joined Izuku in the kitchen to help with the plates. “What are you doing? Let me get that,” he said, elbowing Izuku away from the sink. “They’re my friends; you shouldn’t be cleaning up.”

“Your friends, huh?” Izuku said, refusing to budge. “Ashido seemed awfully protective of you.”

“Sorry about her, she’s like that.” Hitoshi moved around to Izuku’s other side to take over the drying. “She’s the co-lead omega of 3-6-10, but she has a habit of trying to look after people who aren’t actually part of her pack.”

“Oh. What do you mean co-lead?”

“Ashido’s mated to an omega, and they both lead the pack together. They don’t have a lead alpha.”

“Ashido’s gay?” Izuku exclaimed. Wow, his first impression of Ashido and Hitoshi’s relationship was way off-base.

“Yeah, she is,” Hitoshi said, his tone a little cool. “So am I. Ashido and I are pretty different, but we kinda bonded over that in school.”

Izuku’s stomach did a little flip. How the hell had this never come up before? Hitoshi was doing his best to act nonchalant, but Izuku could smell the sharp, piney touch of tension in his scent. “That’s cool. I am too.”

“Oh.” Hitoshi blinked at him.

“Oh yeah, I wasn’t asking because I was, like, mad or anything. I just thought she had a thing for you.”

Hitoshi snorted a laugh. “Yeah, never in a million years.”

“Alphas or betas?”

“Alphas,” Hitoshi said.

Izuku felt something tighten in his chest. He knew nothing would ever happen—Hitoshi would want an actual alpha, he’d want fangs and a knot and a strong scent. Not whatever hormonal anomaly Izuku had going on. But there was a part of him that couldn’t help thinking… Wouldn’t it be nice, to be wanted that way? He’d been with a few alphas, but naturally they’d all liked betas, and Izuku had learned that people could make alignment a part of anything: the ways they touched you, the pet names they used, the compliments they gave. Sometimes the other person’s attraction was so unbearable that he would almost prefer disgust. But all of that was irrelevant. Hitoshi wasn’t attracted to Izuku. And their relationship was fine as it was.

“Me too,” Izuku said after a moment.

“Huh?”

“I like alphas, too.”

“Oh,” Hitoshi said.

“I think that’s everything,” Izuku said, rinsing out the sink.

“Yeah.” Hitoshi was looking down at the last plate in his hands now like it could tell him what to say.

Izuku’s pack loyalty was tested just a couple days later, when he and Hitoshi were walking down to the grocery store together.

They were barely out the door when an alpha passing on the sidewalk brushed Hitoshi’s shoulder and turned around, snarling at him, a sharp scent of challenge flooding the air. Hitoshi gave a slight eye roll at the dramatics and turned to meet her challenge the same way he’d challenged Izuku: a lazy twitch of his lip and a rumble in his chest.

And then Izuku felt his feet move to step between them, eyes locked on the strange alpha’s. Everything after that happened in seconds. She stepped towards him, annoyed that a beta would try to interfere, and he felt his whole body tense, his teeth bared as her scent got stronger. The stranger lashed out suddenly, canines skimming across his cheek, and he tried to retaliate with a nip which she barely seemed to notice. When he didn’t back down, she snarled at him again and stepped forward. He grabbed her shirt and tried to shove her back, but not before her teeth sank into the meat of his trapezius. He hissed in pain but held on, training finally overcoming instinct as he hooked her knee and took her to the ground. He let go quickly after that, unwilling to escalate further. 

In an instant Hitoshi was pulling Izuku to his feet and putting himself between them, eyes furious, scent lashing out, snarling louder than Izuku had ever heard him. Damn, he was the best kind of terrifying right now, Izuku thought hazily.

The other alpha found her footing and backed off, hands raised as Hitoshi kept snarling. “Whatever,” she said, like it was nothing. And it was nothing for her, Izuku realized. His teeth hadn’t even broken her skin. “You know, if you care about your little boyfriend, you should probably think about a muzzle and a leash. He’s fucking nuts.”

Hitoshi started after the stranger as she turned her back to them, but Izuku had the presence of mind to grab his arm. Hitoshi whirled around. “Are you okay?”

“Fine. Just embarrassed,” Izuku muttered. Fuck, why had he done that? Idiot. Alphas who threw out random challenges to strangers were obnoxious, but not usually dangerous. If he’d let Hitoshi handle it, it would’ve been over before it started.

“C’mon.” Hitoshi led an unresisting Izuku back inside and upstairs to their apartment.

The alpha wasn’t wrong about the muzzle, Izuku thought bitterly. He’d thought he was under control, but all this playacting at being an alpha had his instincts running wild.

They took off their shoes and Hitoshi sat them firmly on the couch.

All that and his blunt little teeth didn’t even scratch her. If he were an alpha, he’d be a pathetic one.

Izuku’s spiraling thoughts were interrupted by a blanket of warm, gentle scent. It seemed to settle over him and seep into every tense muscle of his body. He suddenly became aware that Hitoshi’s hands were on his shoulders, and he looked up, confused.

“Let me see that,” Hitoshi said, taking Izuku’s chin in his hand and turning it gently to expose his cheek. He examined the two long scratches there for a moment, and then bent forward to lick them. Alphas’ saliva alleviated their bites, and the sting of the scrape faded quickly.

“Thanks,” Izuku mumbled.

Hitoshi turned without another word to the puncture marks in Izuku’s trapezius. For a moment, as Hitoshi’s open mouth bent to Izuku’s shoulder, Izuku had a deja vu impression that Hitoshi was going to bite him, or had already bitten him. A shiver ran down his back.

Hitoshi paused. “I’m not going to hurt you,” he said. Izuku just nodded. Hitoshi licked the bite and pulled back. On impulse, Izuku leaned forward, chasing that warm scent, and pressed his nose to Hitoshi’s neck. Hitoshi startled slightly but put his arms around Izuku.

“You don’t have to do this,” Izuku mumbled into his collar.

“This is what packmates do,” Hitoshi said simply.

“It’s no wonder I’ve never had a pack before,” Izuku said bitterly. “You’ve seen what I’m like now.”

“She—” Hitoshi bit off whatever he was about to say. “That was you being a good packmate. You’re dominant—” Izuku snorted “—it’s appropriate for you to take a challenge in my place. Even without a strong scent, you gave her plenty of warning, and she attacked first.”

“I’m so stupid. Eight years training as a hero and I tried to bite her with fangs I don’t even have.”

“You stood your ground. You’re a good alpha, Izuku.”

Izuku blinked and was surprised to find his eyelashes wet. He didn’t have it in him to argue right now. “Thank you.”

Hitoshi just purred.

When Izuku’s lease came up a week later, he renewed it without a second thought.

“Hey, so, a friend of mine is gonna be in town the day after tomorrow, and he’s planning to stop by.”

“Okay, thanks for letting me know.”

“He’s an alpha.”

“Okay,” Izuku said. He wasn’t sure if that was code for we’re going to hook up or please don’t make problems or both, but either way. “I can be somewhere else for the day.”

“He’s a really good friend,” Hitoshi said carefully. “And I’d like to introduce you guys.”

Oh. Izuku glanced up at Hitoshi’s pensive expression. “I lived with you for three months before we established our hierarchy; I’m not gonna bite his face off after a few hours,” he added with a half smile. It’d be a mildly stressful few hours, but no big deal.

“No, I know. How would you feel if I told him?” Hitoshi asked. “Or you told him. If he knew.”

Izuku felt like something cold and heavy had settled in his stomach. “If we told him I’m somehow secretly an alpha,” he said bitterly. “Hitoshi, that’s just going to make it weird.”

“I really don’t think it will,” Hitoshi said. “I know Kaminari, and he tends to roll with things. If you tell him you’re actually an alpha, I would bet money his exact words will be ‘cool.’ You won’t even need to challenge him, because he’s below me, so you’re dominant by transitivity. And if he’s going to be weird with you, then I don’t want him in my home anyway.”

Izuku frowned. “You can’t just decide that. You’ve known him longer than you’ve known me.”

“If he’s going to be an ass about something as random and superficial as alignment, then I don’t know him that well,” Hitoshi countered.

Izuku took in Hitoshi’s determination and, behind it, the subtle scent of pack bond.

“Ashido said something to me that first night we hung out,” Izuku said slowly. “She said you were serious about starting a pack.”

Hitoshi hesitated, and for a moment Izuku felt his hopes crumple. “I am,” Hitoshi said at last. “I know we haven’t talked about the future. You’re due for a better contract after this year, and I don’t want to hold you back if you’re thinking about signing with an agency somewhere else. But I think we make a good pack.”

Izuku smiled. “I do too. So this is you, introducing your friend to your new pack?”

“Right. And I don’t want to do that by lying to him. Or by making you change yourself around him. If you’re not ready to tell him, then I just won’t introduce you two. It’s okay.”

“You really think it would be a lie?” Izuku asked, tilting his head.

“I mean, a lie of omission probably, but yeah.”

“You believe I am... Not that I think I am, or I act like I am…”

“Say it,” Hitoshi said abruptly. “Say, ‘I’m an alpha,’ out loud, and if it feels like a lie to you then I’ll take your word for it.”

“I’m an alpha,” Izuku said quietly.

“So?”

It felt a little desperate. It felt like when he was a middle schooler and he’d say “I’m going to be a hero.” Not when he was four, and he said it with excitement. Not later, in high school, when he said it with furious conviction. In between, when he’d said it afraid and a little ashamed—but he’d still said it. It felt like that.

“It’s not a lie.” He felt his voice crack on the words. “It kinda scares the hell out of me though.”

Hitoshi purred, soft and low. “It’s okay.” He put a hand on Izuku’s back and rubbed small circles there as Izuku breathed slowly, in and out. “I— I don’t want to pressure you into doing something you’re not ready for. You don’t have to tell Kaminari anything. Just don’t lie to yourself.”

“I’ll tell him,” Izuku said, suddenly determined. He’d learned over the years not to let fears fester. When he thought of telling Hitoshi’s friend, it reminded him of how he’s felt around the alphas in his high school class, and he didn’t like the reminder. He was sick of apologizing for existing. “I’ll tell him; I just gotta figure out how.”

“Hi! What’s up?” Kaminari rushed to meet Izuku at the door to their apartment building, bag still in hand. “You must be Midoriya—Deku! You’re so awesome; I couldn’t believe it when Hitoshi told me you guys were roommates.”

Izuku blushed. He still wasn’t used to this. UA was a huge deal, and he’d gone to a shit school, and he’d kind of expected all of Hitoshi’s UA friends to be snobs when he met them in person. Besides, normally he was the one freaking out over meeting a hero; he still wasn’t used to being on the receiving end.

“It’s really good to meet you, too! I saw the news about you taking down that barnacle villain last week! You moved so fast he never knew what hit him.”

“I made a mistake introducing you two,” Hitoshi deadpanned.

“Aw, come on!” Kaminari gave Hitoshi a friendly punch on the arm, and Hitoshi made a mock-hurt face. “Don’t be a wet blanket. I’m finally meeting your pack!”

“All one of me,” Izuku laughed awkwardly, shrugging a shoulder.

“I’m sure you guys will find new members soon. Or not! Nothing wrong with a pack of two. So uh, we headin’ upstairs or what?”

“Well, actually there’s something I need to tell you first.” Izuku found his hand drifting to the back of his neck and consciously forced it down. Deep breath. Just say it. “I know I smell like a beta, but I’m actually an alpha. Um. My sense of smell works like an alpha’s, and my instincts do too.”

“Ohhh, so you wanted to get introduced first before I’m all up in your territory. Yeah, that totally makes sense! So what do we do?”

Izuku blinked.

“Well, he’s already dominant to me, so you don’t need to challenge him or anything,” Hitoshi explained.

“Okay, cool.” Hitoshi shot Izuku a look over Kaminari’s shoulder, as if to say told you so. “Hey wait, how do you know he’s dominant to you if you can’t do a challenge? Sorry, I hope that’s not super rude,” he amended, turning to Izuku. “I’ve never met an alpha without a scent before.”

“Hitoshi challenged me,” Izuku said simply. “He can usually tell what I’m signaling somehow.”

“Huh.” Kaminari cocked his head. “Is it weird that I kind of want to challenge you now? I mean, I know you’ll win, but just for the hell of it.”

Izuku felt a prick of excitement. Lots of alphas engaged in meaningless challenges when they were younger as a way of reinforcing the hierarchy and learning alignment skills. It was a part of teenagerhood that Izuku had missed out on.

“Do it! I’m kind of curious, too. No one’s ever challenged me except Hitoshi.”

“Okay!”

A faint ozone scent hit Izuku’s nose. It was much more relaxed than Hitoshi’s challenge, which had followed weeks of them both stewing in pheromones. Izuku let a light growl bubble up in his throat.

“Oh,” said Kaminari immediately, his scent softening to a yield. Out of the corner of his eye, Izuku saw Hitoshi relax fractionally.

“So, how could you tell?” Izuku asked.

“Hm, the body language for sure. And the growl, obviously. I’ve heard betas try to mimic growls as, like, a joke before, but they never really get it right. There’s something about your growl that’s pretty distinct, y’know?”

Izuku felt something warm and fluttery in his chest. “Okay, well, now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, do you want to come upstairs?”

“Hell yeah, I want to see your place.”

—

“Dude, I’m so jealous, you and Midoriya make a pretty great pack.”

Hitoshi grinned and stuck his hands in his pockets, suddenly feeling embarrassed. “Yeah, I think so, too. Thanks for being cool about his alignment, by the way. I can tell it’s a big relief to him not to have to defend himself for once.”

“Yeah, I mean no duh. I’m not a total asshole.”

“I know. I’m just glad.”

“So you and Midoriya?”

“Yeah?”

Kaminari elbowed him. “You like alphas… he’s an alpha… you like him… Is it clicking yet?”

“No. It’s not like that.”

“Okay, why not?”

Hitoshi wasn’t going to bother pretending he wasn’t interested. “We’re roommates. It’s a terrible idea.”

“You two already kinda committed to each other with the whole pack bonding thing. It’s not like you can go casual now,” Kaminari pointed out. “‘Sides, if you ever bring a third member into your pack, it’s gonna be awkward as hell if there’s like, unresolved sexual tension between the only other pack members.”

Hitoshi elbowed him playfully. “When did you get relationship wise?”

“Always have been! You just ignored my wisdom in high school.”

“That’s because your ‘wisdom’ was all about getting Ashido to go out with me,” Hitoshi pointed out, laughing.

Kaminari shrugged, but he was laughing too. “Hey, my gaydar may be way off, but that doesn’t mean the advice itself was bad.”

“Yeah, yeah. But seriously,” Hitoshi added, sobering up. “If he says no, it’ll make things awkward as roommates and as packmates. And if he does feel the same way, then things are gonna be kind of intense from the jump. Like you said, we’re already committed.”

“Waiting’s not going to make that any easier,” Kaminari answered, serious for once. “Bite the bullet. Or bite something else,” he added with an eyebrow waggle.

Hitoshi rolled his eyes.

Izuku and Hitoshi kept hanging out with the members of 3-6-10 from time to time, especially Ashido. Izuku’s early impression of Ashido was that she was conniving, but what she was conniving about he wasn’t quite sure. He thought she might be trying to fold them into her pack at first, but after a few weeks he noticed that she kept making excuses to drag new people along to their hangouts, and there was a certain pattern to how she introduced them. Today was no exception.

“Hi guys! Kendo, this is the 8-3-1 pack!” It always warmed Izuku’s heart a little to hear them referred to by their address, like a real pack. It sounded so official. “You already know Shinsou of course, and I’m sure you’ve heard of Midoriya; he’s awesome. They recently started a new pack together.” Ashido gestured to the orange-haired alpha accompanying her. “Midoriya, this is Kendo.” She gave a coy smile. “But I’m guessing you—”

“You’re Battle Fist!” Izuku cut in. “You’re amazing! I saw that new ultimate move you revealed last month. It’s so creative to weaponize the shifting in inertia from your quirk like that!”

“Thank you!” Kendo said, beaming.

From there, the evening went like it usually did. Food, a few drinks, good conversation. It wasn’t hard at all, being around another alpha for a couple hours in a neutral location like this. Izuku could almost forget about alignment bullshit and just enjoy hanging out.

Ashido, as always, had a way of bringing up everyone’s successes in conversation: Hitoshi had closed a big case; Izuku had been chosen to represent his agency at a public event; Kendo had signed a new contract. Kendo had to leave early that night, since she lived a bit farther out, and Ashido raised her eyebrows as soon as the alpha was out of sight.

“Isn’t she great?”

“She is! But Ashido,” Izuku said, “what is this about? Are you trying to set us up with new pack members?”

“Um, yeah?” She gave him a look like he was being a bit slow.

“We’re from different packs.”

“I mean, it’s not like 3-6-10 is looking for new members. We’re pretty big already. But it’d just be so sweet if we could be sister packs!”

“That’s not a thing,” Hitoshi said wryly.

“We could make it a thing! Come on, you make a great lead alpha.” Neither of them corrected her. “Especially now that you’re all grown up, and you’ve got your bite under control,” Ashido added teasingly.

Izuku couldn’t help shooting Hitoshi a curious glance. Hitoshi had mentioned his biting problem before, but Izuku had assumed all that was before he went to UA.

“Ugh, don’t remind me,” Hitoshi complained.

“Oh come on, remember the good old days? You got Kaminari so good he bled all over the floor.”

“Why is that the ‘good old days?’ Do you have a grudge against Kaminari?”

“Nah, I’m just giving you a hard time. Although it did make a hell of a first impression. I thought you were going to be some aggressive asshole, but you were actually really chill. Y’know. When you weren’t totally losing your shit.”

Hitoshi glanced briefly at the ceiling, like he couldn’t be bothered to fully roll his eyes. “Listen, it’s hard being a queer teenage alpha. It’s hard and no one understands.”

Ashido cocked her head. “Huh, I mean I’ve heard of that as a stereotype, but I always figured it was bull. Why is that a thing?”

Hitoshi leaned back with a heavy sigh. “It’s… Biting is… Okay, imagine this: You’re a young alpha. You don’t know shit about shit yet. You have all these instincts which are telling you to keep your distance from other alphas and bite them if they don’t respect your space. Which, at least the adults are kind of aware of all that and trying to teach you alignment skills and shit. But then there’s this other pile of instincts telling you to flirt with other alphas and get in their space and bite them in a sexy way. And nobody is really expecting that, so they aren’t picking up on the signals, and the adults don’t intervene, and the other alpha doesn’t really respond one way or another, which is confusing. And then both those instincts are screaming over each other so loud that the only part that comes through is the biting part.”

Izuku stifled a laugh. Fuck, it was so accurate. It sounded almost exactly like his high school experience, with the added factor that the other alphas ignored his challenges and got in his face.

He startled when he realized Ashido was looking at him quizzically. “You’re nodding along like you know all this.”

He decided to take the plunge. “Um. Yeah, actually, I do.” He took a deep breath. “I know this is going to sound weird, but I presented as a beta physically, but all my instincts are alpha. And I’m attracted to alphas, so I definitely know what Hitoshi means about that, like, weird Venn Diagram of dominance bites and mating bites.”

“Cool cool cool that totally makes sense, but can we rewind here a sec? You’re a mix of alpha and beta or…?” 

“Um, if that’s the way it makes more sense to you, I guess that’s accurate. But it makes more sense to me to think about it like I am an alpha, but other people just can’t tell because my scent’s really weak,” Izuku said, heart racing. He braced himself for her reaction.

“Okay well, good to know! I’ll call you an alpha from now on. Or wait, is it okay for me to tell my pack you’re an alpha?”

“Um. Sorry, what?”

“Is this a private thing?” Ashido reiterated.

He considered. “No,” he said at last, swallowing down a surge of anxiety. “You can tell people.”

“Well, now that that’s out, you should know that Izuku is actually lead alpha, not me,” Hitoshi said. Izuku glanced over to see a small smile on his lips.

“Oh, all right! Sorry about what I said earlier then.”

“No, it’s okay. You didn’t know.” She looked like she was going to ask more questions, and Izuku didn’t think he could bear talking about this for another moment. “Um, anyway, what were we talking about? Oh yeah, bad high school alignment skills. Do you have anything like that as a gay omega?”

“Oh, I guess so, except when gay omegas get confused about hierarchy-slash-flirting, the solution is usually cuddling. Which can still be hella awkward. Right after I presented I sat my whole self on this guy’s lap and scent-marked him, just out of the blue. We had, like, never talked before that. But honestly, I would take that over biting any day.”

“Cuddling’s nice, but even considering the downsides, I think you’re underselling biting,” Hitoshi said with a sharp grin that made Izuku’s cheeks feel warm. Probably the alcohol in his system.

Ashido wrinkled her nose. “No offense, but I just don’t get biting. I know some gay omegas who like their mate to bite them, even though it just leaves bruises, or they get fang toys or whatever, but personally one of the best parts of being mated to an omega is I don’t have to deal with all the aggressive stuff. It’s a huge turn off for me.”

Izuku had never hung out around other queer people much. Well, except for hookups during rut, when the interactions had been more… pragmatic. It was nice, he realized, talking like this. It wasn’t like he could relate to what Ashido said exactly, but the conversation still made him feel less out of place somehow.

Hitoshi, for his part, only laughed at Ashido’s distaste. “Agree to disagree.”

—

Izuku had patrol the next morning, so he was the next to head out. Hitoshi decided to stay a little longer and watched him go, lost in thought.

“So,” Ashido said, eyebrows raised. Her eyes flicked to the door where Izuku had disappeared and then back to Hitoshi.

Hitoshi took one look at her expression and groaned.

“What? I haven’t even said anything yet!”

“For fuck’s sake, I just had this exact conversation with Kaminari two weeks ago,” Hitoshi complained.

“And two weeks later nothing’s changed?” Ashido asked pointedly.

“Alright, I’ll talk to him. Are you happy? It just has to be the right moment.”

Ashido snorted. “Aren’t you gonna rut, like, a week from now?”

“Please don’t remind me.”

“The ‘right moment’ better come pretty damn soon, that’s all I’m saying.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“Also oh my god, did you see his face when you were talking about biting?” Ashido asked with a wicked grin.

“Okay, we’re talking about something else now.”

“You know,” Izuku said thoughtfully, changing to his slippers as Hitoshi locked the door behind them, “I know tonight didn’t go great, but I am glad we got to team up. It would have been worse alone. So thanks.”

“I’m only teaming up with you so I can crash at your agency after,” Hitoshi snarked, a faint purr contradicting his words. 

Izuku laughed. “That’s a perk for both of us. You not bringing your gross, sweaty uniforms into the apartment.”

Like most undergrounders, Hitoshi partially operated out of his own home. But Circuitrix had offered to let him use their facilities after she found out he and Izuku were a pack. It was nice, Hitoshi reflected as he changed his shoes, to come home showered and wearing clean civvies for once. It was nice to walk home with Izuku, too.

He met the other alpha’s eyes and looked away, embarrassed by the warmth he saw there.

“Hitoshi, I’ve been thinking—”

“Izuku, I wanted to—”

“What?”

“No, you—”

“You first.”

“Okay.” Hitoshi took a deep breath and collected himself. He wasn’t usually one to hesitate or fumble over his words, no matter how bad his crushes got. He wasn’t about to start now. “I was wondering if you’d like to go out with me.”

Izuku stared at him, and Hitoshi couldn’t tell if it was surprise or horror on his face. He liked Izuku’s gentle scent, but goddammit, it was hard to pick up any emotional cues.

He wanted to say that he knew it was risky, with them already being a pack and roommates. He wanted to say it was fine if Izuku didn’t feel the same way; he didn’t want to ruin what they had. He wanted to say he knew he wasn’t a great alpha by conventional standards, too detached and complacent by a long shot, but he’d do his best to be a good partner. He kept his mouth shut and waited. He’d said what he meant, and he’d be damned before he hedged it.

“You like alphas. Are you sure you’d be okay with me?” Izuku said at last.

Hitoshi frowned. “What? Izuku, I don’t have any doubts about you being an alpha.”

Izuku sighed impatiently. “It’s about more than just believing it, Hitoshi. I don’t have fangs. I don’t have a knot. My scent is weak. You have a winter rut, right? Maybe you’re fine with it now, but when your rut starts, are you really going to be satisfied?”

Hitoshi narrowed his eyes. “Satisfied?” he echoed, disbelieving. He saw Izuku wince. “You know when Ashido was talking about bites without fangs, all I could think was fuck, I want Izuku’s teeth to leave bruises on me.” He paused, looking for the right words. “It’s not that I don’t care about your body or your scent, Izuku. I do care, and I like it.”

There was a brief silence. Then Izuku pulled Hitoshi into a kiss.

—

Izuku kissed Hitoshi hard, noses squashed flat, his hands tangled in the other alpha’s hair.

He pulled back for breath eventually, licking the salty taste of Hitoshi’s pheromones off his lips. Hitoshi caught onto what he was doing and flashed a smug grin, fangs gleaming. He pulled Izuku into another kiss, pressing his own tongue into Izuku’s mouth this time, and dragged the tip across Izuku’s palate, over his vomeronasal receptors. It tickled horribly, but when he pulled back, Izuku felt like he’d taken three shots of liquor, face flushed and head buzzing from the pheromones in Hitoshi’s saliva.

Pulling back to catch his breath hardly helped when the air was thick with the other alpha’s scent. There was a prickly, aromatic note to it now, like black pepper. Izuku breathed it deep and felt it warm his chest. Attraction, that was what it was.

“Fuck,” he muttered against Hitoshi’s lips.

“So that’s a yes to going out with me?”

“I need to sit down,” Izuku panted. “Yes! Yes. That’s a yes.”

Hitoshi purred, smooth as velvet, and led Izuku over the couch. Izuku felt a flash of annoyance that Hitoshi was still steady. He wished his own pheromones were strong enough to affect his partner, but Hitoshi had said he liked Izuku how he was, right?

As if he’d read Izuku’s mind, Hitoshi gave him a brief, soft kiss as they settled on the couch, his purr deepening into a heavier rumble. “You taste amazing.”

Izuku purred back gently, twining his fingers through Hitoshi’s hair. It was surprisingly soft, despite what a mess it always was. Hitoshi nibbled on the crook of his neck, just below his scent gland. 

“Can I bite you?” Hitoshi’s breath whispered across Izuku’s skin.

“Yes.” 

Izuku gasped as fangs sank into his shoulder. Hitoshi held on longer than he expected, digging his teeth in, before he released Izuku and gave the mark a conciliatory lick.

“I’ve been wanting to do that for so long.”

Izuku purred, nuzzling against Hitoshi’s cheek. “Can I…?” He felt old fear stir in his chest like a hibernating monster. But no, this was Hitoshi. Hitoshi, who had already said he wanted Izuku’s bite. Hitoshi, who took everything weird about Izuku in stride. 

“Please.” 

Izuku clamped down, tasting sweat and musk. God it felt good to have Hitoshi’s skin between his teeth. He bit down hard, hard enough to bruise for sure, and Hitoshi whimpered. Izuku let go immediately, instinctively giving the spot a lick to soothe the pain and then feeling stupid. “I’m sorry, I can’t make it—”

“Do it again,” Hitoshi pleaded. The scent of arousal flooded Izuku’s mouth and nose, and he muffled his purr in Hitoshi’s flesh. He was startled when he tasted blood this time.

He wasn’t sure how long they continued like that, kissing and biting, hands exploring skin, faces warm, breaths coming fast and deep. 

Then as Izuku leaned forward for another kiss, Hitoshi surprised him by putting a hand on his shoulder and shoving him into the back of the couch. Izuku felt an instinctive snarl surge in his chest before he could tamp it down, horrified. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to—”

“It’s okay, Izuku. It’s okay.” Hitoshi took his hand away and relaxed his posture, settling himself into Izuku’s lap and kissing softly along his jawline.

“I’d never—” Well, that wasn’t true. He’d growled at partners in bed before, but he thought he had that stuff under control with Hitoshi. “I don’t know why it just—”

“Izuku, it’s normal.”

“Oh.”

“I was trying to get a growl out of you. If you don’t like it, I won’t do it again. But personally, I think it’s hot,” Hitoshi said, bending down to kiss Izuku’s mouth again.

Oh.

On impulse, Izuku flipped them around, barely avoiding falling off the narrow couch, and pinned Hitoshi down on the cushions with a palm spread on his chest. He opened his mouth and let whatever sound was building up in his chest rush out. It was somewhere between a growl and a purr, rough but sweet, and the effect it had on Hitoshi was beautiful to witness. The other alpha whimpered softly, tilting his head back to expose his neck. The rumble in Izuku’s chest dissolved into a full purr as he bent to kiss at the gland on Hitoshi’s neck, the salty-sweet taste of pheromones once again filling his mouth. Hitoshi grabbed his head, pressing him closer, and nibbled at the edge of his ear.

Izuku pulled back after a moment, blinking away the haze of arousal. “My room or yours?”

“Huh?”

“Couch’s too hard to clean.”

Hitoshi stared at him for a second, apparently struggling to call up his higher brain functions, before he mumbled, “Yours? Mine’s a mess.”

“Works for me,” Izuku said, pulling Hitoshi to his feet.

Hitoshi hesitated when they got to Izuku’s door.

“You coming in?” Izuku said, not sure what was wrong.

Hitoshi smiled as he stepped inside. “You inviting me into your territory?”

Izuku laughed as he knelt to rummage through the nightstand drawer. “Hitoshi, I wouldn’t have minded if you came in before. I’ve been leaving the door open for a while now.”

“Not the same as being invited.” He glanced around. “Hm, no tiger.”

“Huh? Oh, here they are,” Izuku said, pulling out two boxes of condoms. 

“Nothing important,” Hitoshi laughed, falling back on Izuku’s bed.

—

Afterwards, Izuku tangled his limbs in Hitoshi’s, staring at his face and cataloging all the things he had just learned about the other alpha.

It was funny just how complementary they were. Izuku was driven by scent. It was partly why he was so self-conscious about his own scent, because he knew he wouldn’t like it in a mate. But that was perfect, because Hitoshi had a beautiful, expressive scent—when he wasn’t trying to tamp it down to hide the fact that he was attracted to his roommate.

Hitoshi’s instincts, on the other hand, were all voice-driven. (The quirk geek in Izuku had so many theories about that.) Hitoshi purred and growled and occasionally even whimpered, and he reacted strongly when Izuku did, too. Which felt great, because his voice was pretty much the one thing Izuku felt secure about, alignment-wise, and it was so freeing to know he could take Hitoshi apart with that alone. He wondered if that was why Hitoshi had recognized him as an alpha when no one else ever had: because he’d been focused on his voice rather than his scent.

But now wasn’t the right moment to start speculating, so Izuku satisfied himself with just smiling at Hitoshi and whispering, “You really purr a lot.”

He was surprised when Hitoshi opened his mouth and then closed it again, looking awkward. “Yeah.”

Izuku kissed his nose, eliciting a small smile. “Don’t stop. It feels really nice.”

“Hm.” Hitoshi wrapped his arms around Izuku, tucking Izuku’s head under his chin, and started a purr so soft that even with his face pressed against Hitoshi’s chest, Izuku could barely hear it. Hitoshi’s fingers played lightly with the curls at the base of Izuku’s neck and Izuku melted into the embrace for a while.

“Izuku?” Hitoshi asked after a bit, tipping his head back to look at Izuku.

“Hm?”

“Do you get ruts?”

Izuku made a face. “Oh. Yeah.”

“What’s that face for?”

“I dunno, I’m used to dreading them I guess. They’ve always been kind of miserable.”

Hitoshi’s mouth twisted.

“So, does this… I mean. Do you want to be mates?”

Hitoshi smirked. “Izuku, I asked you out first. Yes, I want to be mates. Do you?”

“Well I didn’t think the answer would actually be no,” Izuku giggled. “I just wanted to say it out loud. Yes, I want to be your mate too.”

“Good.”

“So. You were saying. You have a winter rut, too, right?” They’d been living together since early spring, so.

“Yeah.”

“I’m really glad we figured this out when we did.”

“As opposed to having rut alone at the same time in the same house? It would’ve been a nightmare,” Hitoshi sighed.

“Or if you’d come home smelling like some other alpha, I don’t know what I would’ve done,” Izuku confessed.

“No,” Hitoshi protested, the word vibrating slightly with a trace of a growl.

“No,” Izuku agreed. He’d spent a lot of ruts alone. He’d also spent some ruts with partners who weren’t interested in anything other than what they already expected, who didn’t understand him and didn’t want to understand him.

This was going to be something entirely new. 

“Hey Hitoshi?”

“Hm?”

Izuku nuzzled into Hitoshi’s neck, breathing in damp earth and black tea and cardamom all the way to the bottom of his lungs. “I’m still going to take you up on that date. Just so you know.”

Hitoshi laughed.

Epilogue: A year and a half later.

“Deku!” Katsuki called, pulling his head out of the fridge.

“The cherries should be right there on the top left,” Deku shouted from the other room.

“No, I see them, obviously,” Katsuki said, pulling out the bowl. “What the hell are we celebrating?”

“Who says we’re celebrating anything?” Hitoshi asked from behind him, where he was chopping vegetables at the kitchen counter.

“The sea bream in the fridge does,” Katsuki retorted, shutting the fridge. “That shit’s expensive. Now spill already.”

“I have no idea what you mean,” Hitoshi replied.

Deku came around the corner. “What’s going on?”

“What’s the party for?”

Deku flashed a brilliant smile that undercut his next words. “What are you talking about? It’s just pack dinner, same as every week.”

Katsuki narrowed his eyes. “If you didn’t want me to see the fish, you shouldn’t have let me help with the cooking.”

Eijirou raised his voice from over at the kitchen table where he was slicing thin cuts of beef. “We’re making sukiyaki, but I’m not sure what the sea bream is for. I already bothered Hitoshi about it before you got here. He told me I’d have to figure it out myself or I wouldn’t get any desert.”

Deku gasped. “Hitoshi!”

“What? I think that’s fair,” Hitoshi said with a smirk.

Oh, no way in hell was Katsuki letting these jackasses get one over on him. He opened the fridge back up and reassessed. There were indeed several kinds of vegetables and mushrooms, as well as some agar and fruit. The makings of a nice dinner, but nothing to suggest a specific occasion. On a hunch, he went to open the tall cabinet where they kept their booze. Sure enough, there was a brand new bottle of sake there, and it was the good shit, too. The plot thickened.

“You’re looking in the wrong plaa-aace,” Deku sing-songed.

“Fuck you,” Katsuki muttered, throwing open more cabinets. Everything else looked normal. Spices, dishes, dry goods. He’d cooked in this apartment enough times to know that everything was in its usual spot. The rice cooker was already going. He leaned over to get a better look.

“Don’t let the steam out,” Hitoshi warned.

“I know more about cooking than you, dumbass,” Katsuki shot back. It looked like beans of some kind, but the lid was too foggy to tell. 

At that moment, Ochako let herself in, Tsuyu and Shouto close on her heels. When she saw Deku, she started screaming like they’d been apart for years. “Deku! Ahhh!” She seized him in a giant hug, and he just laughed. Clearly, whatever the fuck was going on, Round Cheeks was already in on it, or could tell at a glance. Frog Face tilted her head at first, then smiled suddenly. Half-and-half looked just as lost as Katsuki was.

“We’re celebrating something,” Eijirou explained helpfully to Shouto, “But these two are making us guess what. Last one to guess doesn’t get any desert!” Hitoshi didn’t protest the modification to his rule.

“Oh, should I not say?” Ochako asked, eyes shining.

“I dunno about ‘doesn’t get any desert,’ but now I kinda wanna see how long it takes them to guess,” Deku said with a smile.

Ochako grinned and went over to Hitoshi. He put down the knife just in time for her to throw her arms around him. Over by the door, Tsuyu was congratulating Deku.

Congratulations, huh? Congratulating Deku and Hitoshi… Oh, shit. Katsuki strode up to Hitoshi, grabbed him by the shoulder and turned him around. The alpha probably would’ve been pissed at Katsuki for manhandling him if he wasn’t too busy smirking. “Figured it out?”

For a moment, Katsuki’s eyes were locked on the faint imprint over Hitoshi’s right scent gland. Two semicircles of blunt toothmarks. “Congratulations.”

“Thanks,” Hitoshi laughed, sounding surprised.

Katsuki pulled him into a hug, and Hitoshi froze for a moment before he returned it. Even without scenting him, Katsuki could pick up their lead alpha’s smell mixed with Hitoshi’s own. It was subtle, but Katsuki knew it well enough to find it. “I mean it. You two are great and you deserve each other.”

“Oh. Thank you.”

“Don’t have to sound that shocked,” Katsuki muttered. Seriously, he could go fuck himself if he was going to act all surprised. Katsuki could be pleasant as fuck when the situation called for it.

He turned around and gave Deku a good look next. His was on his right, too: two neat puncture marks this time. “You heard what I told Static Head, so don’t make me repeat it. ‘M happy for you,” Katsuki said, giving Deku a hug.

“Kacchan,” Izuku said. His voice sounded a little wet. Fucking predictable.

“Wait, did you—” Shouto said suddenly. He opened his mouth and scented the air carefully. “Oh.”

“No, don’t let me be the last one!” Eijirou groaned dramatically. Katsuki couldn’t blame him; he was still dutifully prepping the meat. Besides, it wasn’t like he could read Deadbeats's scent on Deku.

“Their necks,” Shouto said helpfully. 

“Oh, damn, you claimed each other! Congrats guys!”

Izuku beamed. “We did!” 

Hitoshi, purring softly, came up and hugged his mate from behind.

“Finally!” Ochako said. “It’s been what, two, no—two and a half years?”

“A year and a half since we became mates,” Hitoshi said. “About two since we started the pack. It’s not that long to wait.”

“True. It feels like you’ve been together forever,” Ochako mused.

“I’m happy for you,” Shouto said. Katsuki knew him well enough by now to see the warmth in his eyes.

Izuku nodded in thanks. “It’s been a shitty month in a lot of ways,” he said, giving Shouto a meaningful look, “but there have been a few good things to come out of it. We wanted this to be one of them.”

“Great. By the way, I’m not letting you enforce the desert rule,” Katsuki informed Hitoshi.