Work Text:
The taste of sweat, the salted burn of tears dribbling down cracked lips, the sound of too many voices crashing around him all kept Izuku from passing out. The cheer of a dozen men standing vigil around his restrained body as it split itself in half for their entertainment. This had all nearly broken him far too many times. He gagged back his pain, choked on the moaning wail trying to escape his throat, and pushed. It would not be over until he pushed past the blockade currently threatening to break his pelvis.
This was always the hardest part.
The crowd quieted down as a single voice demanded Izuku keep going. His hips were grabbed and violently shoved down until Izuku squatted over the bed. His arms were still bound above him, tied to a thick bar he could use for balance to help bear down. His shoulders howled against the force pulling him down. They’d dislocated once before, a few births ago. Izuku didn’t remember how many times he’d done this, only that it always hurt, and he’d always have to do it again.
Izuku was now an Omega. He hadn’t been born Omega, he’d been forcibly bitched with the expressed intent of using him as breeding stock. His captors kept him so drugged, he could barely move or think straight on a good day, even while pregnant. They kept him on quirk suppressants and something that partially paralyzed his legs. That’s why the only medical professional in the room currently held his legs in the proper position beneath him.
Izuku had assumed he’d been here for several months, but he didn't actually know. He had no real way to tell time outside of the pregnancies and subsequent births, and as far as he could tell, they weren’t all exactly the same. They’d used too many quirks on him, he didn’t know where he was, and half the time, he couldn’t even remember his own name. His body existed in a reality made of pain, discomfort, and confusion, nothing else got past the cocktail of drugs they kept him hooked up to.
“Push, Bitch! One more!”
Izuku screamed through clenched teeth until relief washed over him and the pressure on his pelvis finally released. His body hung limply, his arms stretched and his head fell back as much as it could in this awkward position. He hung there for some undetermined amount of time, likely until he’d passed the afterbirth and they’d checked that the birth was successful, but eventually, two voices appeared beside him again.
“Cut him down - reset and put him on a forty-eight hour hold. I’ll need to check on him before we do another round, that was a rough one.”
“Do you think this one’s damaged? The boss won’t like his top tier stock being damaged. His quirk is highly sought after.”
“There’s nothing we can do, a rough birth is a rough birth. Just reset him.”
“Very well.”
A cooling sensation coated Izuku’s body and the pain vanished. Whatever this quirk was, their description was accurate, it reset his body to a pre- and/or post-birth state. Izuku wasn’t sure which. After all, it didn’t seem to erase the mental or physical toll of a birth having taken place in his body. So, he assumed this quirk could only rapidly heal the body, or perhaps it directly affected reproductive organs? There was no point trying to figure it out, once the drugs picked up again (they went light during pregnancies), he’d be unable to analyze anything.
“Hmm, that appears to have worked better than expected. Forty-eight hours. I’ll check him after and if everything is good, we’ll do the next round.”
“Excellent.”
Izuku’s vision blurred as they wheeled his bed through the halls of the facility he’d been trapped in. The drugs had been upped again, he was slowly losing his ability to think and function, and he’d probably be back in that half-lucid, half-dead state where the world moved around him but he remained entirely still.
This all happened so suddenly, yet drug on endlessly at the same time. Izuku had been on work study in his second year of hero school. He’d been a student at UA, an up and coming rookie hero that everyone had already been idolizing as one of the next top five heroes. He’d been at the top of his class, top three.
He’d just presented Alpha, too. That’s what started this mess. Izuku presented Alpha, and it happened publicly while he’d been out with his friends on some movie night at the theatre near UA. Several Omegas had nearly lost their minds and gone into heat when it happened. His classmates had to carry him back to UA and he’d been locked in some padded cell for two days while he rode out his first rut. It was awful, but he’d survived it. Not three weeks later, on his very next work study, someone jumped him. It wasn’t easy to take Izuku by surprise. Danger Sense made it nearly impossible, actually. But a stealth quirk somehow surpassed Danger Sense and he felt the needle in his neck far too late to react.
That’s when the real horror began.
They told him flat out why he was here. These people, whoever they were, took powerful Alphas, bitched them, and used them to crossbreed stronger babies with even stronger quirks. In all of this, the only relief is that Izuku was naturally quirkless, and One For All would never pass down without his consent, and without the consent of the Vestiges still buried within his mind. If Izuku was too drugged to think straight, they could at least protect the quirk for him, and he knew they would.
He knew it took them five days to bitch him because one of the bastards in here had complained that it took far too long, that they’d never had a subject need five whole days of almost non-stop knotting to finally get bitched and fall into their first heat. Izuku had almost begged to redo his first rut; his first heat had been horrendous. Whatever drugs they had him on also increased his Omega hormones and pheromones. Izuku often lay in a fog of his own lust, and he hated it. The sharp smell of pine and earth with a sweet tinge around the edges, usually a gentle and refreshing scent, gagged him most days.
“Ah, Subject zero-two-five, how are you feeling?” The male nurse asked this question without the expectation of an answer. Izuku couldn’t answer. He couldn’t speak anything more than slogged gibberish. “Good. You did well. Your forty-hour hold is almost up.”
Forty-eight hours? But he’d just come from the birthing room…hadn’t he? Really, Izuku should know better. Time did not work right here, and though most of that was because of the drugs, a large part was also because of the quirks they used on him.
One quirk brought on his heat, another ensured conception, yet another progressed the pregnancy much faster than normal, again another initiated labor, and the last one reset his body so they could start the process all over again. He rolled his head to the side. The giant, wobbly figure of his usual nurse came into view. Despite the blur of his vision, Izuku could see that disgusting smile on his twisted face. A smile he’d learned to hate, to fear. That smile meant he was in danger, it meant his body had done whatever they wanted it to do, and he would just be waiting for the next round of pain and suffering.
“I think you’re ready again, and early, what a surprise. I’ll have the doctor check you out. If he thinks everything looks good, we’ll begin your next round. Get some rest, twenty-five.”
Izuku didn’t have a name here. He knew they knew he had one, there was no way they didn’t know All Might’s successor on sight. This was an attempt to dehumanize him, to demoralize him, to subjugate him into submission. Izuku had yet to be broken. He still fought and clawed and scratched and bit, when the drugs were at their lowest setting and he found some small strength to fight back, that is. All that earned him were black eyes and broken fingers. That’s all his captors were allowed to do, lest they risk his breedability.
“Very good. Very good.” A doctor’s voice echoed through the room, appearing suddenly, or had he always been here? “Yes, I think he’s ready for the next round. Call in the midwife to initiate his heat, and we’ll have the organizers provide the next Alpha sample.”
“Yes, doctor.”
They’d had Izuku restrained in this bed for far too long. He couldn’t tell time very well unless his captors spoke about it. Sometimes they did. Sometimes, they fucked up.
“This will be round twenty, yes?”
“Correct.” Papers shifted, a chart flipped. “A record speed, really. Four months. I think they’ll be picking more hero students in the future, his body has held up well, and should continue to do well, so long as the stimulation quirks keep his body in peak fitness.”
So, they were also using a fitness quirk to keep his body from atrophying in bed. At least he wouldn’t need to worry about losing muscle tone or weight. But did he really think he could be a hero again? After this? Could Izuku actually finish hero school? Four months meant he’d missed a semester. They’d be on summer break now, probably at their usual summer camp working on their quirks. Izuku, on the other hand, lay locked to a bed with his body used in ways he never thought possible.
He didn’t know what happened to the infants they produced with his incubator womb. He assumed they were sold off to rich people, maybe as future breeding stock for their heirs, or maybe as tools for sex trafficking and rut rings. Maybe they were running ‘legal’ adoption agencies with designer quirks and secondary genders. Izuku believed that option the most, and he found himself horrified at how easy that would be to get away with.
“Twenty-five. Wake up.”
Izuku blinked rapidly. His vision cleared by a small fraction. They’d lowered the drug cocktail coursing through his veins.
“There you are. Good. Let’s begin.”
No. Please. I don’t want to do this again!
But his mouth only made garbled nonsense. So there was no use in trying to beg for his life, or for his body to be left alone. A hand grabbed his skull like every other time. Izuku sobbed as the rush of hunger and need overwhelmed him. Slick poured onto the bed between his thighs from his ass, already fluttering and hot. Sweat beaded on his brow. The rush of his own scent struck him as vile; he gagged.
The very second his heat settled in, another body had climbed into the bed with him. He thrashed and screamed until his throat ached. He didn’t want to do this again! He didn’t want to do this ever-fucking-again. But he couldn’t stop the hands groping his ass and shoving his legs out of the way. He couldn’t stop the cock bullying itself into his slicked ass, plugging up his hunger like a cork to a wine bottle. Despite how much he hated this, his body wanted it. His Omegan nature needed it. If he did get free, he’d be suffering in agony from the heat they’d brought on too fast. Again, a hand touched his skull, and he knew they’d get him pregnant again. His body would do exactly what they wanted, no matter how hard he fought.
Pain blossomed across his cheekbone.
“Stop fighting, bitch. What use is a noisy sow?”
Izuku’s body went slack on the bed. For the first time, he found himself too exhausted to fight. So he lay there and waited for the Alpha above him to fuck himself stupid in Izuku’s ass. He waited until the man’s knot popped and latched them together, the pressure of it nearly choking Izuku’s breath.
“There you go, that’s better. I think this is the first time you’ve actually obeyed your betters.”
Obeyed. What a disgusting word. Izuku did not obey. But he didn’t have the strength to keep fighting every single time. So he didn’t. He just…stopped. He let it happen. Honestly, if he just allowed it to happen, then he could pretend it wasn’t happening to him. He could pretend he was having a much better life somewhere else, and this reality was just a nightmare.
“Excellent. Apply the progression quirk. We’ve got a buyer lined up for this one at a record price tag. How fast can you make it?”
“Eight hours is the limit. Any faster and the body goes into shock. I can go faster, but I think you like keeping your breeding cunts alive.”
“We do, yes. Eight hours, then. I’ll alert the organizers and the buyer.”
Eight hours is the fastest they’d ever done this. Normally, they’d go for twenty-four or forty-eight hours to avoid any issues, but it wasn’t uncommon for the pregnancies to last a few days, either. He’d never had a pregnancy round lower than eighteen hours before. The hand returned to his forehead, nails biting into his skin. A second hand joined, this one on his abdomen. A glow emanated from all around him, once more blurring his vision. Izuku assumed it was the hands glowing, but he couldn’t see straight enough to know for sure.
Pain crept across his pelvis. His ears rang loud enough to block out all of his own screams and anything his captors might have said before they left him to his suffering. He pulled at his restraints, desperately wanting to crunch into a ball and hold his stomach. Nine months of gestation condensed down into eight hours was just over a month per hour. His body couldn’t handle that, could it? The stretch of his skin is what took the most focus to grit through. Even with his usual forty-hour hour terms it didn’t hurt this much.
All that struck him as he writhed on the bed was why. Why was he here? Why had they bitched him? Why couldn't this be someone, anyone else? Did Izuku deserve this cruelty? He was supposed to be a hero in training. He was supposed to save people from these horrific places. He was supposed to end this cycle of abuse and hate and evil, not become an integral part of it. A very small piece of himself, a piece that kept growing day by day, believed himself to be a villain for having taken part in this. He knew it wasn’t his fault, and it was being done against his will, but he could have tried harder to fight, right? He could have tried harder to get free or to push his attackers away, or maybe he could try to just kill himself. Whatever it was, as a hero, he should be trying to stop them in some way.
“Izuku, sweetie, can you hear me?”
Nana. That was Nana’s voice. He cracked his eyes open as much as he could through the pain. Her figure slipped around his vision as his eyes danced in his skull, unable to focus on her materialized ghost in front of him.
“It’s time, dear. You need to fight back. I know you want to.”
But how could he? He could barely see straight. But the longer he stared at her, the clearer she became. His eyes stopped vibrating in his skull, and her loving, worried smile came into focus. Izuku gasped a few easy breaths as the wisp of her hand grazed his cheek.
“They lowered the drugs more than usual. We broke through. Diagoro is trying to get the IVs out with Blackwhip. Please hang on for us, just a little longer.”
He tried, he really tried, but he had no idea how long he’d been sobbing in pain, still tied to the bed soaked with his own sins. Nana vanished into the Vestige world, black smoke clouded his vision for a few seconds before he finally caught sight of a clock on the blank white walls across from him. His vision wasn’t entirely clear, but he could make out the time; seven. He didn’t know if it was am or pm, but when he finally looked down, he found his stomach well-rounded. The infant inside of him kicked violently, bringing Izuku back to the reality that he was still trapped in this fucked up facility.
A soft clatter pulled Izuku’s attention to his arm. The IV was gone. His arm bled from the violent pull but he hadn’t felt the pain. Blackwhip slithered across the bed, grabbed the restraints on his wrists and ankles and untied them all at once. Izuku coiled into himself and hugged his huge belly, both relieved and horrified.
“Izuku.” Yoichi called to him from inside his mind. “You need to get up. You need to move. They’ll be back for the infant in only a couple hours. Your clothes are in the closet across the room. If they didn’t inspect them too closely, your tracker should still be hidden in them.”
Yoichi was right. All hero students had a GPS tracker in their suits they could activate in emergencies. Izuku would be insisting on continually active ones the second he got free of this place. But right now, all that mattered was getting to the one he did have. The little tracker button lay hidden inside the padding of his suit, designed to be activated with a smack from the fist during the heat of battle. Unless someone tore the suit apart, they’d never know it was there.
Blackwhip laced itself around the railing of the bed and unlatched it, lowering it quietly. Izuku stared at the empty space in front of him. The floor was a mile away. His legs still felt like tingly jell-o, and not the good kind that came with nerves or excitement, no, the kind that told him the paralytic agent they used had not yet worked itself out of his system. But what else could he do but leap? He rolled himself onto his stomach as much as he could and grabbed the sides of the bed. Sadly, it wasn’t enough. Izuku landed on the floor in a painful heap.
A gush of water splattered the floor.
“Shit.”
Izuku froze. That was the first word he’d heard himself speak clearly in four months. But a moment later, before he could even process his thoughts, pain had doubled him over again. The bed rails became his support as his back arched over towards the floor and a scream tore itself from his lungs. The baby was coming, far too soon. They’d finally fucked up. His body couldn’t handle a birth this quickly. If his mushy-brain calculations were accurate, the baby was only seven or eight months along. It might be viable, but the stress of how fast it had grown lowered the odds of viability quite a lot, or so he assumed.
Izuku carefully slipped a hand between his legs and felt around until he could fit them into his ass and try to figure out how much time he had left… not much. Whatever high dose they gave him of that speed quirk somehow affected the birth, too. The infant’s head was already crowning.
“Fuck.” He gasped. “Nana?”
“I’m here, Izuku.”
“What do I do?”
“Get to the tracker. Right now. I know this hurts. I know, believe me, I’ve been through birth before. I know how shitty this feels, but you have to do this. If you don’t, they’ll just keep using you, and they won’t risk lowering the drugs ever again if they find you out of bed.”
Another scream rippled through him. Thankfully, his captors ignored the screams of their captives. It was pretty common to hear the whole facility roaring with howling Omegas either from being raped, having their pregnancies sped up and their bodies stressed, or from giving birth without any pain medication. So he shouted his pain into the floor for a few minutes, until the wave of contractions finally abated and he could breathe.
Yoichi knelt before him and slapped the floor. “Move, Izuku. Now.”
The teen clawed himself across the floor of this bland hospital-like room. The tiles were old and the grout between them cracking and porous, making them an easy hold for Izuku’s nails. His legs tried to kick and push him along but they were relatively useless. Plus, with the baby already trying to push out, he couldn’t do much more than leave his legs flopping wide to help the pain. Every drag of his body across the floor became a mountain he had to climb, but when he’d done it, the relief gave him hope. It took ages to get across the room, time Izuku didn’t have. Another wave of contractions struck him just as Izuku’s shoulder smacked into the closet he’d been trying to reach.
“Breathe, Izuku. Breathe through the pain.”
“I’m trying.” He growled through clenched teeth. Izuku loved Nana like a second mother, but after how many times he’d had to endure this kind of ruin, Izuku had no compassion left for anyone who tried to make him push out a baby.
Here he was again, in the same exact place he’d been before; stuck on the infant’s shoulders. His body just didn’t have the right shape for birthing. He’d been born an Alpha, and even if he’d been bitched, that didn’t change his bone structure, it just gave him a womb. So his hips were only just barely wide enough to accommodate the baby trapped between his legs. Every single time, he had to suffer through this grotesque torture, each time wondering if this would be the last. If he’d die, or if maybe the baby would die. If that happened, they’d kill him anyway, wouldn't they?
“Izuku, look at me.”
His eyes fluttered open, sweat and tears blurring his vision but Nana was right there. She was there, both hands on his face, and sadness in her eyes. Why was she sad now? Had Izuku failed? Had he not reached the closet in time?
“Sweetie, you need to use your hands. Diagoro is trying to help with Blackwhip but you need to help, too. The baby is tangled in the umbilical cord. It’s already dead. You have to get it out now.”
“Wha-” He gasped.
Hands searched between his legs. The infant was there, still stuck on its shoulders, but not breathing, not moving, not crying, nothing. As he searched down, he found the smoothness of the cord wrapped around its neck three times, strangled too tight. An unknown sorrow struck him violently, a pain he’d ever actually been able to feel before due to the drugs keeping him sedated. No matter how this infant came to be - it was still his. This life he’d made, regardless of not wanting to, still came from him, it was a part of him.
“Izuku, listen to me.” Nana insisted. “You need to focus. Get the infant out. You are slowly slipping into shock. If you do not do this, you’ll never get out of here alive.”
The urgency in her voice somehow shoved his grief aside. Perhaps it was due to the Vestiges being a part of his mind, and maybe they found a way to lock up his sorrow so he could focus. In the end, he had to focus. Grief could swallow him later. Right now, if he didn’t get out of this mess, he’d die here. Izuku would be used for the rest of his life, and he’d die in this hellhole. That wasn’t going to fucking happen.
Izuku grabbed the frame of the closet behind himself and bared down with every ounce of strength he had left. Tears burned his cheeks. Blood pulled under him as his body tore itself apart to free the strangled infant. Blackwhip had coiled around him like a harness, it pushed over his belly to give as much leverage as possible while another strand wrapped itself around the half-born baby and pulled. A withered gasp echoed through Izuku’s throat as the infant finally slipped free onto the floor with the afterbirth tangled around its body, limbs contorted and clearly broken, its neck at an odd angle. Horror choked him. Bloodied hands covered his mouth as he tried to hold in his sobs.
He fumbled for the closet door after taking a few minutes to regain his composure. Grief could come later. He had to focus. The door smacked his head as he wrenched it open, but he ignored it, he was already covered in blood. There, hanging tidy and clean, his hero suit as if he’d just taken it off in the locker room. The hanger skittered across the floor as he yanked the suit free to search for the GPS tracker buried in the padding of the hip. Izuku slammed it as hard as he could, and a red light appeared through the fabric.
Fear finally abated in his mind, he finally allowed himself to collapse onto the floor and just breathe. The heroes would come. They’d find him, and they’d save him from this monstrous nightmare. He wouldn’t die in this awful place. But with that relief, the grief finally surfaced. He’d only managed to push it away long enough to save himself. Now, all he could do is stare at the dead infant between his useless legs and cry quietly into the hero suit still clutched between his hands.
“Shit!” The voice of his usual nurse snapped at the door to his room. “What the hell have you done?!” But before he could get more than halfway across the room, an alarm blared to life all around them, filling the facility with too much noise, and the flash of red lights. “Fuck!” The nurse screeched over the alarm. “Fuck!” He finally stormed over to Izuku and grabbed the teen by the chin. That’s when he noticed the red blinking light from the suit Izuku held against himself. “You fucking little bitch.”
Izuku’s body slammed into the closet frame, a crack echoing inside Izuku’s body; ribs, broken. How many? Did it matter? A hissing breath escaped him. Small breaths, as small as possible. He’d endured so much more pain than this, and he’d broken his ribs more times than he could count. Izuku huddled himself on the floor, buried as close to the closet as he could. He wanted to hold the infant, but he couldn’t bring himself to touch it. Something about that felt…obscene, or maybe just gross. It was his child, but he felt guilty for killing it. His own body couldn’t handle the rapid growth of the fetus and that’s why it was dead. The logical part of his brain screamed out that that was so incredibly wrong, but Izuku still believed it.
The alarms cut out after what seemed to be an hour, maybe less, maybe more. But Izuku finally got his bearings back. His head had stopped spinning as the drugs worked out of his system. They must be short-lived, maybe that’s why he was on a constant IV of them. But his legs still wouldn’t do what he asked. They flopped around as he tried to sit himself up. He reached for the tiny baby but his hands shook too much to hold it and he kept slipping in the puddle of blood still growing around him.
“Izuku.” Nana came to him again, filled his vision, blocked out the grisly sight of his own body bleeding out and the child he couldn't have saved, even if he’d have wanted to. “Izuku, you need to stay awake. They’re coming. I can hear them, but you need to stay awake.”
That’s when the exhaustion finally struck him. Nana knew it was coming, of course the Vestiges felt it before he did. This violent birth had been worse than the one before it. His body had been destroyed by this cruel twist of quirk medical science. He didn’t want to look down, to see what had become of himself, but he feared the worst, and that caused another wave of anguished sobs to crush his chest.
The sound of running feet skidding on tile is what broke the panic. Izuku scrambled back against the closet. He grabbed the infant on instinct, clutched it to his chest and pushed a hand over his mouth to stop his own pain from echoing around the room.
“The signal came from this room, Eraser!”
“Got it! Go, catch as many of these bastards as you can.”
Eraser? Eraserhead? Aizawa-sensei? Was that-
Feet too loud for their owner thundered into the room and stopped when they came to the bed across from Izuku. The whole thing was soaked in blood, slick, and god knows what else. The dark-haired, exhausted hero hadn’t seen Izuku in the corner yet. All he could see was the grisly sight of the bed his student once inhabited, now a wreck from his escape. His eyes found the blood trail, followed it across the room until he found Izuku in the corner and his breath caught in his throat. He took one step forward. Izuku pushed himself back further into the closet.
The older hero stopped. Despite how familiar he was, how much Izuku desperately needed his teacher, or a parent, or a friend, the fear swirling around Izuku’s brain was too much. He shook his head, hand still plastered over his mouth. Eraserhead nodded. He understood. The older hero lowered himself into a crouch, less threatening, less scary. He even pulled his capture scarf off and offered it to Izuku while nodding at the infant in his arms.
“Izuku? Do you…remember who I am?”
The teen nodded.
“Can I help you?”
“I-” His voice cracked. “Please…please don’t touch me.”
“Okay. I won’t. I promise. Do you want to wrap the- uhm, the baby?”
“No. I mean...yes, but-” Izuku shuddered out a breath. “It’s dead.”
Izuku had never seen his teacher like this. Head bowed, a silent rage burning just under his usual smokey scent. The fingers gripping his outstretched capture scarf had gone white from how tight they’d become. He swallowed back something that tried to fight its way to the surface and took an extended breath.
“Okay. We’ll figure this out. Are you hurt, Izuku?”
“Yes.”
“Let’s focus on that.” He tapped the comm device in his ear. “I need EMS in room twenty-five asap.” Izuku didn’t hear the response. The older hero turned back to Izuku. “I’m going to get closer, is that okay? I need to- I need to know where you’re hurt.”
Izuku shook his head. “Ribs and- and-” He buried his face against the infant’s forehead, a cry lodged in his throat. “It got stuck. Cord around its neck. Had to use Blackwhip to-”
“Okay. It’s okay. You don’t have to say it. I understand.”
Did he? Izuku dared to look up and found his teacher’s eyes so full of compassion it nearly broke the teen in half. Just how many horrible scenes had this underground hero come across in his long tenure? How many shattered children had he saved? How many lives had he watched waste away before he could save them? Izuku most assuredly was not the first, and he doubted he’d be the last, either.
“Sensei?”
“Yeah, kid?”
“I want to go home.”
“Absolutely. You’re getting out of this nightmare. But before I can move you, I need the medics to check you out, okay? There’s a lot of blood. Can I-” He sighed. “Fuck. This is not what I thought we’d find when your tracker went live. I’m so sorry, Izuku. We should have found you sooner. This is all my fault.”
“I’m not…not mad at you, Sensei. Not you.”
No, Izuku had plenty of people to be angry at. But Aizawa didn’t even make the list by any stretch of the imagination. For now, that’s all Izuku could get out. The panic that had awoken him when Aizawa walked in the door had died out, and his body refused to keep him awake any longer. He felt his shoulders slide across the closet door, stopped only by the gentle arm of his teacher who quietly apologized for touching him.
Izuku’s vision faded into the blackness of the Vestige world as unconsciousness swallowed him.
~
Izuku blinked awake. He felt himself again, but he knew the instant he thought that, he was in a dream. But dreams could be just as necessary as reality. The darkness surrounding him on this small concrete platform filled with high-backed chairs had become a second home to Izuku. The Vestige world had become a comfort, solace in the madness of whatever had become his life.
“There you are.” Nana offered out her hands, materializing out of the darkness with the rest of the Vestiges behind her. “It’s so good to see you properly, Ninth.”
Izuku hugged her without question. He wrapped himself around her waist and allowed himself to feel her motherly love, something he’d so rarely gotten from his own mother, and something he so desperately needed now more than ever. Yoichi and Diagoro joined the hug and held Izuku until his mind ran clear, and the fear and panic and torment of the last four months had finally shrunk back into a corner of the Vestige world, and no longer drowned them all.
“You were so brave, Ninth. You’re safe now. We’ll protect you. Get as much rest as you need.” Yoichi promised.
~
Shouta had seen many horrific sights in his time as an underground hero. Hell, underground heroes saw the worst of this world on a daily basis. But he’d never be prepared for what they found in the facility Izuku had been held in. Something truly vile could not be put into proper words.
His student had been forcibly bitched and turned into an incubator. He hated phrasing it that way, but the worse it sounded, the more justified his anger became. Finding their facility had led to dozens of arrests, and the investigation of not one, but five adoption agencies. At least a couple hundred adoptive parents were now on notice that their infants were possibly (most likely) stolen illegal breeding pups that could be taken away at any moment, regardless of the parents’ lack of knowledge of how they came to be. Most of the parents were betas who wanted pups of their own. Given their lowered fertility rates, adoption agencies had cropped up all over the country, as well as the world. Thankfully, not many of them were fraudulent fronts for rut rings, but apparently…some were.
The records showed they’d stolen and bitched a dozen strong alphas and used quirk science to overproduce as many pups as they wanted, or needed, on demand. They also had Omegas already well known as missing persons who’d probably been bought or traded from other rut rings.
The hole in the drywall that Shouta left when he’d seen his student’s record wasn’t nearly enough destruction for what Izuku had endured. Twenty pups. In four months, they’d sped him through twenty fucking births, and he’d been awake and mostly-alert for all of it. Some rut rings had the ‘decency’ to put their Omegas into comas. This felt crueler somehow. The drugs in his system were a violent cocktail designed to keep him sedated but mostly alert. He’d even been given a paralytic so he couldn’t just get up and run, with or without the sedation and quirk suppressants.
The conference room door opened. Recovery Girl walked in. Nedzu was already sitting on the table, head in his hands for the last two hours. Present Mic and Detective Tsukauchi were talking quietly in the corner as Shouta went over the records they found on repeat, searching for anything he might have missed that could help them resolve this case. But resolution meant a lot of things, and right now, all that he cared about was his student’s safety.
“He’s stable.” The old nurse finally huffed. But she held up a hand before anyone could speak or even breathe a sigh of relief. “That does not mean he’s safe. Right now, he’s on blood transfusions, he lost a lot from the stillbirth he’s just endured. I have no kinder way to say this; his insides were torn apart. The records Shouta shared with me reflected that this last pregnancy had been sped up to a point of shock to the system. Less than twelve hours before we found him is likely when it started.”
Mic was already crying into Tsukauchi’s shoulder while the detective held him. Shouta wanted to comfort his mate, but the rage pouring off him might prove that was a bad idea right now. So he sat, and waited for the nurse to finish speaking. Nedzu had finally looked up, but Shouta couldn’t read the conflicting emotions on his face just yet.
“I’ve given him a very strong dose of my quirk. His ribs are almost healed, but the rest of his body will need time. I’m not sure how much yet. My current recommendation is we keep him sedated until he’s out of the woods, and once he’s in good health again, I’ll have him recommended for therapeutic studding, to return him to his natural state Alpha state. That is both for his own mental health, and his physical health.”
“What do you mean, Chiyo?” Nedzu asked.
She sighed. “The damage this pregnancy did to him is catastrophic. The placenta was ripped out of him along with the stuck infant. Not only did his anal canal and deeper vaginal canal both require reconstruction, but his uterus also took the brunt of his violence. The options are simple - either we do a full hysterectomy to prevent future complications, or we recommend him for studding so his body can naturally resolve itself back to its original state and properly heal. Either way, he won’t be having pups again, his body cannot handle that. This one damn near killed him.”
“We don’t even know what he wants.” Shouta gave Tsukauchi a disgusted look. The quiet beta held up a hand. “Don’t misunderstand me. I’m not trying to say he should stay this way. It was clearly done against his will. But we do not know what kind of conditioning he was subjected to. We don’t know what he wants, and that’s what we should care about - what Izuku wants and needs. It’s his body, we can’t make decisions for him if they aren’t medically necessary to keep him alive.”
“The detective is right. All I can do right now is ensure that he’s safe and healthy. After that, Izuku should be given the choices himself. I can only offer my recommendations on what would be best for his body and mind.”
“Thank you, Chiyo.” Nedzu gestured for her to sit down. “Now, to the other matter. The stillborn child.”
“It’s currently in the morgue. I don’t think any further examination will help us at this point. The cord strangled it to death and Izuku’s body wasn’t able to accommodate such a rabid progression. It was crushed in his birth canal.”
“Fuck. Can you say that a little less bluntly?”
“Sorry, Shouta.” The nurse shrugged. “The point is that the infant itself isn’t a primary concern. We’ll keep it preserved until Izuku is awake. It’s his pup, and he has every right to say goodbye, or have it buried or cremated. Again, I won’t make decisions for him.”
“The boy’s barely seventeen, he shouldn’t have to make these decisions.”
“Shouta, please.” Nedzu was the only one brave enough to get Shouta to back off when he lost his mind, or lost control of his emotions. “No one disagrees with you. But we need to focus on Izuku’s healing. You said he clung to that infant until he passed out. He deserves to be given a choice regarding his own pup.”
“Forgive me, Nedzu. I don’t disagree. I’m just too close to this. My students…they’re-”
“I know. I know they’re like pups to you. I know how much this hurts you all. Let’s work this case and let Chiyo bring little Izuku back from the brink of death, then we’ll go from there.”
Everyone nodded, but no one spoke. They didn’t have the energy or the strength to acknowledge just how nasty this situation had become. The arrests and subsequent convictions would take months, and the custody battles between the recovered captives and the adoptive parents of their stolen infants would be miserable on every side, and likely drag out for years or even longer.
Still, Nedzu was right. They should focus on the case and let Izuku heal while they work. That would be the best option for the moment. Shouta would just need to figure out how they could support Izuku once he did wake up.
~
The Vestige world faded as Izuku’s eyes finally opened. He recognized the UA infirmary immediately, and all tension fell from his limbs. He was home, he was safe, and his heroes had saved him. Everything felt…fine, just incredibly sore. Izuku had yet to move from his place propped up on the bed, so maybe he should take things slow.
A long-familiar scent caught his attention. Izuku wasn’t alone. Katsuki stood by the widow, arms crossed and shoulders leaning on the wall. He didn’t look at Izuku, but it was clear he was aware the injured teen was awake. The way his hands gripped his own crossed arms told Izuku everything he needed to know. Someone had given him half a dozen scent blockers littered along his arms and shoulders, peeking out of his collar and sleeves, and that still wasn’t enough to keep the delicate peace lodged between them. Izuku found his voice buried somewhere between his third and fourth rib.
“Kacchan?”
The blonde gasped a breath into his lungs like he’d been waiting to hear that very word from Izuku’s lips. When he turned, Izuku realized he’d been crying - a lot. His eyes were red and tear tracks littered his face. He didn’t move, not yet. He just stared at Izuku like the smaller teen might vanish if he looked away.
Izuku gingerly lifted his arm from the bed. “Kacchan, please?”
The bulky Omega bolted across the room and scooped Izuku into his arms. They matched now, their scents merging and muddling between their tormented emotions. Izuku knew the only reason they’d allowed his best friend in here was because he’d presented Omega. An Alpha might complicate things, or ruin whatever fragile safety Izuku felt when he woke up. Izuku wasn’t even sure how he’d react around another Alpha at this point. Too many had abused him, taken pieces of him. Katsuki had always been his safe space, the one thing he could find solace in.
Izuku had, in the brief few weeks of being an Alpha, debated asking Katsuki to be his mate once they graduated. They’d grown up together, they’d been best friends since birth. Their families spent all their vacations together. Everyone just assumed they’d get together, but everyone had also been surprised when they’d both presented opposite what everyone expected. Now, what could they be? Izuku didn’t know, not yet. But the comfort of his Omega hugging him was enough to soothe Izuku’s mind for the moment.
Eventually, Katsuki pulled back a little so he could sit down beside the bed. “How do you feel?”
“Uhm…tough question.” They both laughed, dry and quiet, no real humor. “I’m alive. I’m not…not in pain. Just really sore… confused. I’m not sure how to process anything that happened.” He took a breath that turned into a sigh. “Did they tell you anything?”
“They wouldn’t tell me anything I couldn’t figure out on my own. I can smell it on you…you’re Omega now…and you’ve- you’ve had pups.”
Izuku looked away, nodding.
“What happened, Izuku? What did they do to you? You’ve been in a coma for five days. They gave you blood transfusions and surgeries and who knows what else. I’m terrified to know…but I want to know. If you- if you want to talk about it.”
“I don’t. I mean- I don’t want anyone to know but you’re right…you can smell some of it on me. There’s no avoiding that.” He glanced down, hands on his flat stomach. He didn’t even look like he’d had pups, certainly not…as many as he had. He’d lost no muscle definition, no weight, he looked like a hero student still, like nothing had happened. “It took five days…to bitch me. Five…fucking days of them-” He cleared his throat. “I lost track of time, the drugs they had me on…everything melted into this weird distorted aurora. They just…they kept making me have pups. Over and over…I didn’t know why. I assumed it was for a variety of things but…”
“The arrests…on the news.” Katsuki cursed under his breath. “They’ve been arresting adoption agency workers for days. The whole country is in an uproar. Five agencies were shut down after they raided the facility where they had you and a dozen other Omegas. Now, I’d bet my life that most of them were bitched Alphas.”
Izuku nodded silently. “Yeah.”
“So does that mean…that you’ve got pups out there that people have adopted not knowing where they came from?”
Izuku had been trying to avoid thinking about that for four months. Izuku didn’t know any of the pups he’d given birth to. All but one had been taken from him, and the last had died before even taking its first breath. Did he really want to steal a pup from a loving family just because he’d given birth to it? Would they force all those parents to give up their children now that all the captives were freed? Maybe this was too much advanced thought for being fresh out of a coma.
“Can you ask Aizawa-sensei if-” The word wouldn’t come out.
“Huh?”
“If I can- can see- There was…there was one more, one last pup.”
“They didn’t take one of them?”
Izuku shook his head. “I was alone when I went into labor the last time. They lowered the drugs for that…The Vestiges got me moving…I found my suit and…Sensei found me after, but it- the pup didn’t make it. The cord…” Izuku rubbed a hand over his throat. Katsuki looked away, likely putting the puzzle pieces together.
“I’ll ask him to come talk to you. I refused to leave until they let me see you. I didn’t want you to wake up alone.”
“Thank you, Kacchan.”
The blonde stood up to leave. Izuku squeezed his hand before his friend left the room. They’d need to talk about…everything. But Izuku needed to know what was going on with his body and the case, and even his stillborn baby. He needed to know who he was now, and what all of this even meant for him. He’d need to grieve before moving forward. For now? He pushed it all back so he could keep moving, keep breathing, and not fall into a puddle of his own tears. Not yet.
Izuku was not alone for more than a few minutes before Aizawa rushed into the room, his eyes full of worry and pain in his scent. The relief that flooded him when he saw Izuku sitting up in bed and awake could have knocked Izuku sideways, had he not already been sitting down.
“Sensei, I- I’m so sorry-”
“What?” He made his way over to the bed and sat down. “You have absolutely nothing to be sorry for, Izuku. Nothing.”
“But- but you had to see all of that and-” It all just rushed out of him in this awful single breath until Aizawa hesitantly took his hands.
“None of this was your fault, Izuku. You are just a teenager, you were studying to be a hero, and that shouldn’t involve this kind of danger. I promise we’ll do better in the future as not only your teachers, but as your heroes. Absolutely none of this was your fault. Please, don’t ever blame yourself.”
The dam finally broke. Tears sprung fresh to his eyes but they didn’t sting this time. Crying became a release, not a burden. Aizawa held open his arms and Izuku dove into them, desperately needing the love that was offered so freely after he’d endured such cruelty. The older hero held him through his wrecked sobs, brushed fingers through his student’s hair and gave him soft, reassuring words until the teen calmed down.
They sat in silence for a while. Izuku couldn’t find the words to ask Aizawa the one question he knew would break him down yet again. Izuku knew his teacher could probably assume what was on Izuku’s mind, but he didn’t speak or ask. He let Izuku sit with his emotions and sort through them before he finally found his voice.
“Can I see the pup?”
Aizawa nodded. “Of course.”
“What- uhm- what will happen to the others?”
The teacher glared at the ground between his own feet for a while. “We’re not sure yet. Legally, the pups were kidnapped and effectively sold, which means the adoption contracts are void, and the infants belong to their legal parents. In this case, that would be you and the other victims. But, Izuku-” He finally lifted his head. “There’s nineteen of them. You’re seventeen years old and still a high school student. You can’t…you can’t take care of them.”
“I don’t want them back, Sensei, not like that. I wouldn’t tear infants from their loving parents just because I gave birth to them. That would be horribly cruel. I won’t stoop to their level.” He once more squeezed Izuku’s hands in a silent gratitude for Izuku’s words. “But I would like to meet them, maybe. I don’t want rights, or to be a parent. I’m not ready for that. But I just…I just- I want to say goodbye. They never let me hold them. They put me through all this pain, and I never even got to see their faces or hold them, or learn their scents. I could only listen to their cries as they were taken from the room while I stayed bound to a bar over the bed.”
Aizawa struggled to swallow back the anger Izuku could taste in the back of his throat. His teacher was likely not aware of the details Izuku had to endure. He had the numbers and likely the medical charts, but none of that reflected the violence enacted on Izuku himself.
“I’ll see what I can do. Do you feel up to walking? Unfortunately, the infant is in the morgue. We wanted to make sure you could see it, if you wanted to.”
“Yeah. Yeah, I’m okay. Uhm, did Recovery Girl say it was okay?”
The teacher nodded. “Yes. She just cleared you for general activity this morning before removing your sedation. You’ll be held back from physical training for a while, but it’s summer break anyway, so we won’t be in session for the next semester for another five weeks.”
“Okay.”
Aizawa helped him out of bed with a gentle hand. Once he was up, his IV pole was rolled over to him so he could hang onto something and also so he wouldn’t need to be disconnected from whatever meds were helping him. Izuku hadn’t known that UA had a morgue, and though it was a bit morbid for a school, it made sense. Heroics were dangerous, and after their first year under countless villain attacks and a narrowly avoided all-out war, he wasn’t all that surprised they had a morgue.
The walk wasn’t long, but they didn’t run into anyone else. Classes were out for the summer, so Izuku didn’t expect to see any other kids in the infirmary or halls, but he was surprised he didn’t see Nedzu, or even Recovery Girl. Maybe they were giving him space? Or maybe they were just busy. Aizawa opened the door to the morgue, one of those heavy swinging things with the circular peephole in the middle. The morgue wasn’t freezing, but it was several degrees colder than the infirmary building hallways. The older hero walked right over to one of the bay doors along the wall, but he stopped with his hand on the handle.
“If you’re not ready…”
“I am. I need to see it. I don’t even know if it’s a boy or a girl.”
“It’s a girl.”
“Can I name her?”
Aizawa smiled with such sadness, Izuku knew his own face must have been wrecked. “Of course.”
The drawer door opened with a clatter and a tray came out. The body atop it was much too small and took up no space at all. A folded cloth lay wrapped under the pup’s arms, over her chest. Her limbs, though clearly broken, lay delicately at her sides. She looked peaceful. The red marks from the umbilical cord still marred her neck but other than that, she looked like a newborn, snoozing away in bed. Izuku almost wished that was the case.
“The Vestiges helped me pull her out.” Izuku brushed a hand over the wisps of hair green atop the girl’s head. “I’m not sure I would have lived if I hadn’t been able to get her out. They said I was going into shock. I think the rush of emotions kept me awake, forcing myself not to grieve her kept me alive and moving.”
“The human body is resilient. But grief…is grief. It can either kill you, or keep you alive. I’m very glad you used it to stay alive instead of letting it swallow you.”
Izuku pulled back from the table. “What will happen to her?”
“That’s up to you. She’s your daughter. You might still be a minor, but under the secondary gender act, your rights as a parent are protected and no one can choose for you unless you give up those rights.”
“I think I’d like her cremated. I don’t want a fuss. Just…just dignity.”
“Okay. We can do that. Is there a name you’d like on the paperwork?”
Izuku debated it for a few minutes. He’d had plenty of time to think about names over the last several months, and he’d never gotten to use any of them.
“Aiyu, with the kanji for beautiful - no last name. I don’t want her to bear mine, and I don’t know who her father is.”
Aizawa nodded. When Izuku stepped back, he pushed the drawer shut and they just…stood there for a while, Izuku clinging to his IV pole and his teacher’s hand stayed white-knuckled on the morgue drawer handle.
“Can I be blunt with you, Izuku?”
The teen nodded.
“Recovery Girl has recommended that once you’re ready, you receive therapeutic studding. I know you’re probably horribly conflicted over all of this, but I want you to know that you aren’t alone, and we aren’t going to force you to remain trapped in a body that was used against you.”
“They can do that?”
“Yes. You’d need to wait until you were eighteen, and the formal recommendation would come from both Recovery Girl and Hound Dog, but there are medical treatments for secondary gender conversion in cases of severe secondary gender identity crisis.”
Izuku snorted. “I can’t think of anything more crisis than this. I feel so…unhinged, like it’s all this disgusting nightmare that some sick and twisted movie director thought up, and I’m just being forced to live through it. It doesn’t feel real.”
“I’m sorry, Izuku. We did everything we could to find you. They erased every trace of you. I’m sorry I couldn’t find you.”
Izuku believed him without even a second of doubt because his eyes held more exhaustion than Izuku felt. Aizawa had been run ragged by this missing student incident, more than all the villain attacks in their first year. He’d lost weight. It wasn’t too noticeable, but since Izuku hadn’t seen Aizawa in so long, he noticed it pretty quickly. He’d broken his own spirit trying to find Izuku and bring him home safely.
“I don’t blame you for any of this, Sensei. I blame the villains who did this to me. If you need to hear it, then you’re forgiven, but there’s nothing I need to forgive. You’ve been like a father to the whole class, Sensei. I’m so glad it was you that came into that room to find me.” But saying all of that made him realize something. “Uhm-?”
“Hmm?”
“Where’s my mother?”
“Ah, mmm… that was a conversation I was hoping to have later, when you were ready.”
The teen glanced between his teacher and the morgue drawer holding his daughter. “I’ll never be ready, but I can guess what you’re going to say. I’ll be eighteen in nine months anyway, so it doesn’t really matter if she doesn’t want to support me. I think the only thing I ever did that made her proud was presenting Alpha, and now all this and- I understand.”
“No one can ever understand why a parent would abandon their child, Izuku. It’s not right.”
“It hasn’t hit me yet, Sensei. When it does… I think everyone will know.”
The older hero sighed. “You’ve been placed in UA’s custody until we can form a plan, or until graduation, but Nedzu has agreed to help support you until you’re twenty-one regardless. You were under our care when you were kidnapped, after all.”
“Thank you.”
An unrelenting numbness had settled into Izuku’s bones. He knew that wasn’t a good thing, and it might ruin whatever small hope he’d found inside himself that things might work out in the end, but he couldn’t shake it.
“Let’s get you back so you can rest, okay?”
“Mhm. Thanks, Sensei.”
~
Shouta collapsed onto the couch in Chiyo’s office after helping Izuku back into bed. The teen instantly passed out, likely having overexerted himself from standing up too long. Shouta should have brought him back sooner, but their talk got out of hand somehow. The kid was shutting down. That might be expected, but Shouta had hoped to avoid it. That kid deserved so much more than pain, suffering, and dissociation. Shouta couldn’t even begin to imagine the horrors he’d been forced to endure at the hands of his captors.
“How’d it go?”
Shouta sighed. “He said goodbye, named her Aiyu. He shut down not long after that. I think he’s trying to avoid feeling any of it, or letting the reality of it all sink in. It’s not healthy, but I understand it.”
“Did he ask about the others?”
“Yeah. Doesn’t want parental rights, just wants a chance to say goodbye. It certainly uncomplicates the legalities, but I’m not sure any of the parents will agree to it since the kid is waiving his rights to the pups.”
“Make it a condition of his rights being waived, then. He deserves closure.”
“Yeah, he does. I’m not sure where to start.” Shouta rolled his head to the side. Chiyo sat at her desk filling out forms without looking up. “He told me they bound him to a bar over the bed each time he gave birth, and they’d take the pup away without him even seeing it.”
“I doubt he could have seen the pups had they offered.”
“What does that even mean, Chiyo?”
The elderly woman sighed. “The drugs they had him on would have made him so loopy, there’s no way he could have seen straight. One of those meds specifically has a side effect that causes nystagmus.” When Shouta gave her a confused look, she explained. “His eyes would have been shaking constantly, uncontrollably. His vision would have been so blurred he couldn’t see faces or even read a clock. It was likely done on purpose to ruin his sense of time and space. The paralytic they had him on also had side effects that would have been similar to Alice in wonderland syndrome. Things might look too big, or too small, or just out of time and proportion. That boy will need to be grounded back to reality before he can even start healing mentally.”
“Great.”
“If the case moves as fast as Tsukauchi wants, he’ll have to stand trial soon. I’ll have Hound Dog recommend he be deposed remotely, not in court. I’ve spoken with the other hospitals that have the other captives, some of them were so drugged they don’t even remember most of what they endured. A few of them were already broken Omegas from other rut rings, they’re catatonic and likely have been for years.”
“This is so fucked up.”
“I wish I could say this was my first pup ring, but it’s not. It is, however, the worst one.” She stood up to stretch. “Once I’m sure his condition is stable enough for general activity, he can head back to the dorms. I presume he’ll be staying with you and Zashi during the break.”
Shouta nodded. “Mhm, Nedzu asked me to watch over him and make sure he gets treatment.”
“The hard part is he won’t be cleared for physical training until he’s either had a hysterectomy or been turned back into an Alpha. Hero training would rupture what careful patching is holding his organs together right now. So, we’ll need to discuss that with him in detail soon.”
“I told him about your recommendation, but therapeutic studding can’t happen until he turns eighteen.”
“Well…” Recovery Girl waved a hand. “Given his age, health, and the situation, it’s likely to be approved by an advisory medical board immediately. The main challenge would be that he’d have to find someone his own age to help him, not an adult, obviously.”
“Pretty sure there’s already someone more than willing to do that.”
Chiyo smirked. “Those two boys are destined for each other. Honestly, the issue may resolve itself if they’re as close as they appear to be.”
“That’s a fair assessment, actually. Maybe we should take a hands off approach until we get close to the next semester.”
“You’re probably right, Shouta. Let’s not worry about it right now. His first appointment with Hound Dog is in a few days, once he’s been released from medical care.”
The exhausted hero pushed himself up off the couch with a heavy sigh. “Sounds good. Call me if you need me, I’ll be back tomorrow. If I don’t get some real sleep, Zashi is going to kill me.”
“Add me to the list, too.”
Shouta flipped off the old nurse on his way out, she laughed openly at his antics. Chiyo had known him most of his life, and frankly, she’d become a second mother to him. They had a good relationship, even if she did smack his ankles with her cane a bit too often.
~
~ 3 days later ~
After almost two days of arguing over it, Shouta finally agreed to tell Katsuki the whole story as he knew it. Izuku could fill in the details when he was ready to. When it happened, Izuku was still in his infirmary room, but he could hear Katsuki shouting and crying when he’d been given the whole picture of what really happened, along with the smash and clatter of furniture and windows. They were gone for hours. When Katsuki finally came back, he was somber, almost docile, his usual spark all but vanished from behind his eyes. His hands kept crackling his quirk every so often, and every time it startled the blonde.
Shouta came in a little while later and told them Izuku was cleared to leave the infirmary but Recovery Girl had some restraints on what he could and couldn’t do. He couldn’t physically train, obviously, but she also warned him that he should be careful going up and down stairs, and if he felt dizzy, he was supposed to immediately sit or lay down. She also gave him a wrap-around brace that was supposed to keep his insides…inside, a compression band that was commonly given to new mothers to help shrink their uterus back down and help repair their stomach muscles.
The last thing she clarified is what actually startled Izuku. All the rest could be taken easily, like being injured any other time. But to be told he’d eventually have to make a choice between getting a hysterectomy and staying Omega, or being converted back into an Alpha, that shocked him. Shouta had made it out to be a choice, and it was, he hadn’t lied, but this seemed more like a choice between life and death, or at least between never having kids again, or possibly swapping back to Alpha in hopes he might one day have his own pups with an Omega. Why were pups so important in their society now? A part of him never wanted to have sex again. A very large piece of Izuku did not ever want anyone touching him ever again. But still a larger part of him felt robbed of his chances to have pups at all. It all jumbled up in his head, a knot made of conflicting emotions.
He’d have to choose before returning to physical training as he couldn’t train without worrying about his insides ending up on his outsides, so to speak. Neither adult made him choose now, which was a blessing, but he’d have to choose in about six weeks, which wasn’t much time. Katsuki eventually took his hand and smiled, telling him that he’d support Izuku’s decision either way. That’s what finally calmed Izuku down.
Shouta took them back to the dorms and left Izuku and Katsuki to get his apartment ready since Izuku would be staying with him over the break. Izuku knew it was likely also partially to give the pair some time to talk about everything they’d just been told. Izuku sat quietly on his bed while Katsuki took his desk chair. There was a thin layer of dust over every surface from four months of his absence. They were both careful not to disturb it as they sat down.
“Is it selfish to ask if you still want to be with me?”
Izuku glanced up from his knees. “What? Kacchan, why would you think I wouldn’t want that? You’ve been my best friend my whole life. I just…I don’t think an Omega/Omega relationship will work.”
“Why not? Aizawa and Yamada do just fine as an Alpha/Alpha relationship. Why can’t we be like that? Even if you choose to stay Omega, I’ll love you no matter what. And if you want to be an Alpha again, well, I’ve got a pretty decent idea on how to make that happen.”
“Yeah, there’s a whole therapy system for it.”
“No, Dumbass - you can just use me. I’m already an Omega, it’s not like you can bitch me.” Izuku winced. “Shit, sorry.”
“It’s fine. I mean, you’re right, I guess. I just…I don’t want to put that kind of burden on you, Kacchan.”
“Burden? What about letting you fuck me into the ground is a burden?”
Izuku snorted. “Okay, fair point.”
“But you know I’d never…force you, right? I don't care what secondary gender you are. That doesn’t affect our relationship.”
“It does, though. If I stay Omega, I’d need to have everything that makes me an Omega removed. I could never carry your pups, and I couldn’t get you…you know.”
“Okay, and? If we wanted one so bad, we could-”
“If you even mention adoption, I’ll fucking vomit.”
Katsuki sighed. “Sorry.”
“Fuck - No, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have snapped like that.”
“You have every right to snap, Izuku. I just want you to understand that we have options.”
“Yes! Everyone says I have options, but I’m not feeling very option-filled right now, Kacchan. I just want my fucking life back. I want to forget any of this ever happened, and I want to not feel like some used up fucking breeding dog. I want normal worries for a seventeen year old, like grades, and finals week, and fucking dating. But I’m not a child anymore. I’ve spent the last four months strapped to a bed with no control over my own body, screaming in pain almost constantly, and I can’t get the image of that fucking nurse’s disgusting grin out of my head. So please, I just want everyone to stop reminding me I have options, and understand that right now, I don’t fucking need options, I just need to forget I have a goddamn body for five fucking minutes!”
The words just erupted out of him. Izuku hadn’t meant to shout them, but they just spilled out of him like a waterfall. The words didn’t feel wrong, either. Quite the opposite, Izuku felt better for having said them. For the first time in days, Izuku actually felt something. When he looked up from his lap, he found Katsuki staring at him. What he expected to find was his beloved Omega hurt from his words. Instead, the blonde wore this look of pride that honestly almost brought tears to Izuku’s eyes.
“Okay. Whatever you need, Izuku. Absolutely anything you need. If you want to sit here in silence and forget we exist, then that’s what we’ll do. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you.”
Katsuki’s quiet reassurance was everything Izuku needed. He wasn’t upset at Katsuki, it was just the situation he’d been forced into, a life he’d never get back, and the chance to create life he’d never have again. He spoke before giving himself permission to, once again, the words just needed to come out.
“I had been planning to ask you to be my mate…before they took me.” Katsuki sucked in a breath, shocked but patient as Izuku went on. “I still want that, someday. I don’t know…I don't know what I want anymore. I don’t feel right as an Omega, it doesn’t sit right in my chest the way being an Alpha did. But holding that little pup in my arms while Aizawa-sensei tried to keep me calm brought something to the surface I can’t name, and it hurt me so deeply that I’ll never get to experience that again.”
“You will. I promise. I swear on everything I am. If you want pups, I’ll give you as many as you want, Izuku. You will get to hold them, and name them, and watch them grow up.”
“I thought you didn’t want to get pregnant. I heard you muttering about it to Mina right before I presented.”
“What?” He searched the floor for a moment as the memory came to him. “No. Izuku, no. She asked me my thoughts on one of her siblings who got pregnant young and gave up on their dreams of college and a career. I told her I didn’t want to make a family like that. I told her that I could wait…you know, wait for the idiot I love to finally ask me to be his.”
Izuku blushed. “I guess the idiot finally came around, huh?”
“Yeah, I guess so.” Katsuki laughed, and it actually sounded pleasant this time, not fake or dry. He was happy. Izuku was, too. “Come on, let’s get you packed so you can go get your head unscrambled by Inui-san.”
“I can’t wait.” Izuku grumbled back.
~
“Where would you like to start, Izuku?”
“Uhm…where do people normally start?”
As much as Izuku knew he probably needed it, he’d never actually been to therapy before. Well, okay, the class had been required to do a preliminary session after each of the attacks they’d had from villains. Izuku had just never been held for further sessions after his initial meetings.
He’d endured some brutal abuse as a quirkless kid, but once he reached high school and inherited his quirk from All Might, the bullying and abuse stopped. So clearly, he didn’t need to deal with it, right? The problems were gone, so he didn’t need therapy for them, obviously.
“Well, that depends on the person. Some patients wish to start with just how they’re doing after the trauma ends, or they wish to start farther back, with what might have caused the trauma. In your case…uhh, let’s just start with how you feel right now.”
“Okay. I feel…” How did he feel? “I feel a lot of things. Confused, angry, hurt, ruined, disgusting, happy to be free, but robbed of something I didn’t know I wanted. It’s all so jumbled in my head. The whole ordeal feels like a terrible fever dream.”
“That’s entirely fair, Izuku. You have a right to feel all of those things and more. What concerns me most is finding out if you have any of those thoughts or emotions towards yourself.”
Izuku blinked away his confusion. “You mean you want to know if I’m suicidal.” The canine therapist only tilted his head in expectation of an answer. “I’m not. I mean, while I was there…I’d thought about it, as an escape. If I couldn’t run or use my quirk to defend myself…maybe I could just strangle myself in my IV line. But I don’t feel like that anymore. I want to live. I want to have a life with Kacchan, be heroes together.” He huffed a breath out through his nose. “I want to prove to those assholes that I’m better than them, that what they did to me didn’t break me.”
“That’s a damn good place to start, Izuku. Is there anything you’re worried about in the process of proving them wrong?”
“Like what?”
“Well, as I’m sure you know, your medical chart explains that you have a choice to make, an important one.”
Izuku let out a frustrated sigh. “Can we not talk about that? Everyone keeps saying I have a fucking choice, but I don’t want to think about it. I just had to say goodbye to the only pup I ever got to meet, and she didn’t even take her first breath. I may never get to meet any of my other pups, and I will never be able to carry one again. Can I not get over that first? Can we talk about that?!” He winced at his own volume. “Sorry, Sensei.”
“You can scream all you want, Izuku. It doesn’t bother me.” That was probably a lie. Inui-san had canine ears, the loud noise probably hurt. But he still lied for Izuku’s benefit anyway. “Let’s talk about loss, then. You’ve lost quite a lot in the last four months, probably more than anyone else may ever experience. I won’t sugar-coat this. You’ve had pup after pup ripped from your body and stolen. I won’t ask you how you feel about it, I’m sure I can assume. But I’m curious if you fully understand your experiences, if you know how to face them.”
“What is there to face? It happened to me, and I can’t get that time or those pups back. I can’t erase any of the damage done, and it will never leave me. It’s…it’s like scarred into my bones, into my fucking pelvis.”
“Did you name them all?”
“What? No.” Inui didn’t believe him. He waited. Izuku shook his head. “I picked out some names, not…not twenty, but a few. I don’t even know how many girls or boys I had. I don’t know what their quirks are, or if they’re safe and happy. I don’t know if they all survived.”
“Aizawa has stated he’s going to try and set up a meeting with at least a few of them, if possible. He’d like to make it a condition of you giving up your parental rights to the infants stolen from you. Would that help you with closure?”
“I don’t know. I told him I wanted to meet a few, just to- just to know they’re safe and loved. They might all be quirkless because I am-” He sucked in a breath. Izuku had never once revealed that truth to anyone but Katsuki. Very few people knew the truth behind One For All.
Inui snorted. “It’s alright. I know. All Might told me recently, after you were found. He thought it might have affected your experience. I guess it’s safe to say he was right.” The therapist gestured to Izuku. “You’re worried they’ll be bullied, right? I read your file. You have some seriously big scars even before being kidnapped.”
“Yeah, but it’s over now. I have a quirk now, so that doesn’t matter anymore. But those pups might still face bullying and hate for being quirkless. They’ll have to grow up in it, too, and they won’t get the same chance I got.” Avoiding the elephant in the room (his inherited quirk), Izuku just barreled on without letting anything get too deep. Sadly, Inui-san was too smart for that, and he could probably see right through Izuku’s guise.
“Abuse ending doesn’t equate to the effects of abuse vanishing overnight. You will live with those scars for the rest of your life, just like you will live with the scars of this kidnapping. My job is to limit how much those effects alter your life.”
“I’m fine, Inui-san. I’m not hated anymore, I’m not bullied here. I have a quirk. I’m just a normal teenager.”
“But you’re not a normal teenager, Izuku. You’re previously quirkless, and now, you’re-”
The coffee table between them flew across the room and embedded itself into the wall with a crashing slam. Izuku doubled over in pain when his stomach clenched. He shouldn’t have done that. Not just because it would hurt him, but because it was wrong, and overreactive, and violent. But Izuku needed to be violent, just once. He needed to snap and break something, or he’d absolutely go insane.
“I’m sorry, Sensei.”
“It’s alright, Izuku. Tables and walls can be repaired. Do you want to tell me why you did it?”
“I don’t know. I just…I didn’t want to hear you say it.”
“Say what?”
“That I’m just a bitched Omega now.”
“Are you ashamed of being an Omega?”
Izuku took a few slow breaths to ease the pain out of his abdomen, but it didn’t leave yet. “No. Not ashamed…just scared. If I’m stuck as an Omega, everything that makes me one is useless now; ruined. It doesn’t feel right, it’s never felt right.”
“That would likely be because this was done against your will. It’s more common to be bitched in the heat of the moment, during intercourse, when a mate-pair finds their own natural positions in the relationship. For you, it wasn’t a choice. It’s unlikely this will ever feel good.”
“Okay. I never said I wanted to stay an Omega.”
Inui stood up slowly. Izuku had yet to sit back down, and he’d started feeling light headed a moment ago. Something also struck him, something that Inui-san likely caught first. The scent of-
“You’re bleeding, Izuku.”
“Sensei-”
Inui caught him before he fell over. Izuku’s jeans were soaked. He hadn’t noticed it until his legs were grabbed up and they were already moving, a trail of blood dribbling behind them as they ran through the hallways of the school building.
“Just breathe slowly for me, Izuku.”
“Ugh- it’s my own stupid fault. RG told me not to exert myself.”
“I know. If I’d have known you were planning to do that, I would have stopped you. I didn’t think it hurt you much until I smelled blood. I’m sorry, I should have seen you getting so upset.”
“‘S not your fault.”
They crashed through the infirmary doors to a shocked Recovery Girl jumping out of a chair. She pointed to one of the beds and ushered Inui back out, ordering him to go fetch Aizawa before coming back to Izuku with a stern look on her face.
“I’m afraid you aren’t getting five weeks to decide.” She ran a hand over his sweaty face and shook her head once her quirk read his vitals and injuries. “Your uterus has ruptured. I need to remove it, now, or you’ll bleed out.”
“Fuck.” Izuku threw his head back into the pillows and glared at the ceiling. “So stupid! I got upset and flipped a table.”
“I’m not surprised, but don’t blame yourself. You didn’t cause this damage. I didn’t want to remove your uterus if I could have saved you from serious abdominal surgery that will likely put you on your ass for a week. I knew this wouldn’t hold if you wanted to go back to hero training, but I also knew that it was likely you’d want to be turned back into an Alpha, and then you would avoid the surgery by studding.”
“Thank you for trying.”
“Do I have your consent for the hysterectomy, Izuku?”
“Does this ruin my chance of studding later on?”
“No. Not at all. If anything, it will help as you won’t have hormones or heat cycles without Omega reproductive organs.”
Another wave of pain struck him. The bed was already stained red, a puddle forming under his legs. “Shit- do it. Just do it.”
“Deep breaths. The pain will be over soon. I’ll try to do this as minimally invasive as I can.”
“Th-thanks.”
She placed a mask over his face. Once more, darkness began encroaching around his vision. This time, it felt more like going to sleep than passing out, which was nice.
~
Shouta paced the conference room in the infirmary wing, waiting for any update on Izuku. He’d been taken into surgery immediately upon being brought to the infirmary by Hound Dog. Inui said their session got heated, Izuku lost control of his emotions and threw a table across the room, lodging it into the wall. The kid might be strong enough to do that without a quirk, but his body was not able to withstand that kind of exertion yet. Chiyo had warned them. But they should have expected his emotions were too volatile right now. Maybe he should have been kept on a light sedation while recovering.
“Nothing we could have done would have prevented this eventual outcome, Shouta. Stop running circles around your own mind.”
Shouta sighed. His pacing stopped when he turned back to Inui, who was reading a book at the table. “Yeah, but we could have at least given him more time. Instead, he’s being forced into another serious body modification that’s going to throw him for a damn loop, and that’s not fair at all.”
“No. It’s not. But no one here is at fault. Recovery Girl tried to give him as much time as possible, but in the end, the damage those monsters caused was just too great. At least this way, he’ll have an easier time returning to his Alpha nature.”
“Is that what he wants?” Shouta clicked his tongue. “I can’t ask you that, sorry.”
“I can tell you he didn’t specify his direct intentions, but, my assumption is that he will likely lean Alpha. It’s quite apparent. Even as an Omega, his rage is still quite easy, and surface level. I think he’s going to need a lot of therapy, maybe anger management. There’s so much eating him alive. It’s unfair, cruel, even. But I think he can work through it.”
Well, that was good news, hopefully. If Izuku could work through his grief and anger, maybe he could still get the life he wanted. The kid had to recover first, though. He had to make it through the wounds now threatening his life.
The conference room door opened. Both heroes snapped to attention, but it was only Katsuki who walked in. The teen held his hands up.
“Crack a damn window in here, you both reek.”
Shouta sniffed himself and cringed at the overly awful scent of sorrowed rage that rolled off him. “Sorry.” Inui actually did crack a few of the windows as their student sat down.
“Someone want to tell me why the fuck the Nerd is back in the damn infirmary and why I got a 911 text from Nedzu?”
Shouta looked to Inui for help. The canine nodded.
“He got upset during our session earlier and threw a table into a wall. Unfortunately, his uterus ruptured. Chiyo is attempting to save his life right now.”
“I thought he had time to decide on removing it.”
“That was only if his condition remained stable, Bakugo.”
Shouta held up a hand to stop what might become an argument. “He’ll be okay.”
“Yes, he will, Sensei, because you all know I’d raise hell to ensure that he is fucking okay.”
Yes, they did know that. Shouta had never in his life seen a pair more fated than his own two students. They knew each other forwards, backwards, and inside out. They could finish sentences for each other, or even say exactly what the other one would have said if they’d been paying attention. Katsuki had lost his mind when Izuku was kidnapped four months ago. It took several heroes to restrain him and keep him from blowing up a damn building.
Shouta had never met a more Alphan Omega in his life than Katsuki Bakugo. He certainly did not embody an Omega by any means, but somehow, that made it all the more suited to him. The pride he had in himself could not be shaken, and there was not even a single doubt in anyone who met these two that they’d end up mated one day. So yes, Katsuki would raise hell and high water to make sure Izuku was okay.
The conference room door finally opened after three hours. Chiyo walked in with a tired face but she didn’t seem upset, and hopefully she didn’t have bad news. When she looked around the room, the silent question became obvious.
“You might as well just say it, we’ll all find out eventually.” Shouta shrugged.
“Very well.” She pulled off her scrub cap and sat down. Everyone leaned in. “He’s alive. He’s stable. We performed a radical hysterectomy to remove all of his Omega reproductive organs. His ovaries were nearly crushed in a body not meant to house them, and his uterus had ruptured in two places. He lost a lot of blood. He’ll need another transfusion or two. I was able to perform the surgery laparoscopically and through his anal/vaginal canal, which avoided any large abdominal incisions, so he’ll heal much faster.” She paused to give them all a hard glare. “I want you all to understand that this boy cannot stress his body again for at least six weeks. If he does, I may not be able to repair the damage. His abdomen is in shreds.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“Bakugo-” Inui started.
Shouta held up a hand. “Just explain it, please, Chiyo.”
She sighed heavily. “This boy has been through hell. His body was repeatedly healed and wounded by incredibly fast gestation. Twenty times. His organs are bruised from the rapid growth and shrinkage. His ribs have more healed fractures than I first noted, and I had to place several stitches to prevent future hernias which were already starting to form. He’ll have scars from the laparoscopy incisions but that’s the best we could do to avoid cutting him open entirely. His body was not designed to give birth, and they forced it to more than any human body should. So yes, shreds. I mean this with every fiber of my being; he needs to rest. I’m half tempted to order six weeks of bedrest but I know he’d never stay put unless we strapped him down, and that would not be a good idea given his mental state and recent confinement. So, the next best thing is to ensure the people overseeing his recovery understand how serious I am.”
“We get it, old lady. Rest or death.”
“Mmm, rest or death. I’m holding you to that, Bakugo.” She stood up again, prepared to leave. “By the way, I believe his body is already shifting back.”
Shouta sat up straighter. “What? That’s not possible.”
“As soon as his uterus was removed, his scent changed, no longer holding that sweet tinge like Omegas have. His body thinned, de-bulked the cushion of the feminine aspects like an Omega. I think the only reason his bitching stuck was because they kept him pregnant. Without that, his body won’t hold onto it.”
“That’s good right?”
“Yes, Bakugo. It’s very good. It means he may not need therapeutic studding. The downside…he’ll be at risk of going into rut at any point. So, we’ll need to start him on hormone blockers for a while, so his body can heal first. I’ll go see to that, you can check on him once he’s moved to the recovery room.”
Relief washed down Shouta’s shoulders in a way he hadn’t been expecting. His student did not seem fitted to Omega life, and that was fine, not everyone is. Hopefully, this would be a less stressful way to handle the situation. It might not prevent the years of therapy Izuku would need, but maybe it would save him some grief and heartache.
Inui left with Chiyo to work on Izuku’s medical chart, which left Shouta alone with the one student he was never keen to be alone with. Katsuki had a temper, and despite Shouta’s best efforts, they almost always got into arguments when trying to work together, especially in the last few months. Shouta slumped in his chair, head thudding against the table.
“Do you even sleep?”
“Does it look like I sleep at all, Bakugo?”
“Tch-”
“Can we not do this tonight? I do not have the energy to argue with you over him one more fucking time, kid. I don’t. He’s alive, he’s safe, and that’s what matters.”
“Oh, that’s what matters?” Katsuki shoved the table a few inches as he stood up. “I thought saving him before he got fucking raped and bitched might have been important!”
Shouta kicked his chair back and rounded the table to grab Katsuki up, hair floating, eyes glowing, the kid couldn’t even get one spark out of his quirk before being shoved into the wall by his collar.
“If you want to be angry, be angry, but be angry in fucking therapy or one of the gyms. This school and every single hero and officer that worked Izuku’s case put everything they had into it. We did not sleep or eat for weeks. I’ve put enough hate into myself for my failures. You don’t get to be angry with me. Not you of all people. I have put my whole life into saving that kid, and I will not take your shit just because you have no other outlet. Go punch a fucking wall if you need something to break. I’ve already broken myself, thank you very much.”
Shouta shoved Katsuki against the wall one last time and walked back to the table so he could collapse into a chair and put his head in his hand. The teen didn’t speak for a while, and Shouta kind of just expected him to leave to go see Izuku once he’d been moved. The hardest part of this kind of trauma was the way it branched out and violated everyone around the primary victim. The people who cared about the victim were not innocent bystanders in the war that had been waged on the victim. They were also a part of the violence, and it often made them violent in return. Hurt people hurt people, right?
“I’d given up hope, Sensei.”
Shouta lifted his head.
“I thought he was dead. I refused to grieve him, but I didn’t think I’d ever see him again. I think I just…something inside of me broke. He’s not my mate…not yet, but I-” The blonde swallowed hard, choking on his own words. “I don’t think I can live without him.”
“He’s alive, Bakugo. He’s safe, and he’s finally stable.”
“But he’ll never- his eyes are so dead. I don’t recognize him anymore.”
“I know. Just be yourself. Love him the way you always have. He’ll come back to himself when his body finally realizes it’s not trapped anymore. It may take time.”
“You mean it will take until the bitching wears off.”
Shouta bit into the meat of his tongue to keep himself calm. “He’ll heal, Bakugo.”
“I don’t know that I believe you.”
Shouta wasn’t sure he believed himself.
~
Izuku felt like absolute garbage the next time he woke up. Everything below his chest was on fire and aching like he’d just gone ten rounds with a brick wall. Hopefully, the brick wall left some pieces of him intact. His hands searched the bed until he found the call button he knew Recovery Girl always placed with her patients and pressed it twice. That rabid double tap had become their go-to when Izuku woke up in agony. She’d know.
Sure enough, not even a couple minutes later, the old nurse toddled in on her cane and silently adjusted the meds going into his IV and gave him a shot of something to help. In seconds, relief washed over him and a soft sigh echoed through the room.
“You need more rest.” The woman chided. “You shouldn’t be awake yet. Your human shadows need more sleep, too.”
He assumed she meant Katsuki and maybe Aizawa. Those two probably lost more sleep over Izuku than he cared to know. But still, he nodded in agreement without ever opening his eyes. Recovery Girl gently brushed hand over his head before leaving.
“You’re stable. You’re not in danger. The surgery went well, and you’re responding well to medication and healing quirks. But you must rest.” She paused when his fingers grabbed for her lab coat before she could walk away. A frustrated grumble told Izuku she understood his question without it having to be asked. “If I tell you, will you rest?” Izuku nodded. “Very well. Right now, your body is in transition. Once we removed your Omega reproductive organs, your body kick started its natural hormones. You’re on blockers right now, but I presume once you’re healed, you’ll likely be back into a rut cycle.” The bedsheets were carefully tucked back over Izuku’s chest. “You might win me some new medical research awards. I’ve never heard of a case of self-reversed bitching. You always have to be the center of attention, don’t you?”
Izuku scoffed out a laugh, barely even a breath, it was all he had the energy for.
“Sleep, Izuku.”
He was out before the sound of her cane vanished into the hallway.
~
Izuku was relieved to find he wasn’t alone when he woke up again. He’d been in and out for who knows how long. Every so often he’d hear voices or catch a glimpse of someone nearby between long stints of sleep where he stayed in the Vestige world and talked with the Vestiges. They told him stories of their lives, their fights, their deaths. They told him all they’d learned about One For All while he practiced with their quirks inside their shared mindscape. Honestly, it might have been the most productive training session he’d ever had, even if it was inside his mind. Transferring what he learned to the real world shouldn’t be that difficult.
Aizawa had his feet propped up on the end of his infirmary bed with a book in his lap and a set of glasses on the end of his nose. Izuku didn’t know Aizawa needed glasses, but since he lost one of his eyes, maybe the good one needed some help. Izuku suddenly wondered if his teacher had issues with depth perception.
When he shifted on the bed, Aizawa looked up and pulled off his glasses, a placid grin on his face.
“Good morning, sleepyhead.”
Izuku chuckled. “Morning, Sensei. How long was I out?”
“Mmm, just over a week.”
“Seriously?”
“Chiyo was dead set on you getting rest. She’s been dosing you with her quirk the whole time to keep you healing and resting. The good news is you won’t need to be on bedrest now that you’re up and healed, but she still wants you to avoid physical strain until classes restart in a few weeks.”
“Yeah…I uhh- I’ll be more careful this time.”
The older hero snorted. “If you don’t, you’ll have an angry grandmother smacking your ankles with her cane and I won’t stop her.”
“You won’t stop her, huh? Scared of Recovery Girl?” Izuku taunted.
“Absolutely. You’ve never seen her angry, kiddo. I’m more afraid of her than I am of Nedzu.”
“Noted.” Izuku pushed a button on the bed rail and sat himself up so he could recline comfortably. “I’m starving, am I allowed to eat?”
“Sure. I’ll let Chiyo know you’re up. She’ll want to do some physical and cognitive evaluations before releasing you.”
“Where’s Kacchan?”
“We insisted he actually go spend his summer vacation with his family, he was stressing himself out way too much while you were knocked out. I’ll get your phone so you can let him know you're up and doing good, okay?”
“Thanks, Sensei.”
Izuku couldn’t imagine how hard it must have been to get Katsuki to leave the infirmary. Aizawa was right to do it, though. Letting Katsuki stress himself out and likely lose sleep and not eat while fussing over Izuku’s unconscious body wouldn’t help him, or anyone. If anything, it’d only make things worse, and then two students would be sick instead of just one. Maybe if he actually took a break and got some decent sleep, he’d be doing better once school started again.
Aizawa brought him his phone before heading off to grab something for them to eat and Izuku hit ‘call’ on Katsuki’s contact instantly.
“‘Zu? Is that you?”
“Hey Kacchan. Yeah, I’m okay. I’m up, and Sensei said after some evals, I’ll be good to leave, finally.”
“Restrictions?”
Izuku clicked his tongue. “Rest, obviously. No physical exertion until school starts in a few weeks. Can you let the rest of the class know I’m okay? Do they even know I was found yet?” There was a long pause where Izuku had to check the phone to ensure it hadn’t hung up. “Kacchan?”
“Yeah, sorry, no - the class doesn’t know. No one but the raid team, the Commission, the necessary UA staff, and myself knew what happened. The Commission has us all on gag orders. The media is in a whirlwind wondering why so many adoption agencies have been raided and dozens of arrests are being made. They haven’t even told all the affected adopted parents anything more than that their adoption contracts are void and more info will come later. It’s a mess. Mina saw me on the train coming back from UA after your surgery and I had to lie to her fucking face. I hated doing that, you know I don’t like lying.”
“Yeah. I can imagine how much of a wreck this whole situation is. But I guess the class will find out when they get back from break.”
“Mmm, yeah.”
“What’s wrong, Kacchan? You sound…off.”
A sigh echoed over the phone. “My parents found out. Well, they got the public facing info; that we found you. They knew that from the start since I went back to UA several times after you got back. But uh- they called Inko before I could stop them and she ignored the gag order Aizawa gave her.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah. So now they know most of what happened to you since Inko just blurted it out and- and she-” Izuku could almost hear the way his jaw clenched as he tried to speak. “She told them she didn’t want a defective son. I didn’t know she…I didn’t know she’d disowned you.”
“Mmmm…Aizawa told me enough. She gave up parental rights. I’m under UA’s custody until I turn twenty-one.”
“The old hag wants to talk to you, when you’re up for it. Pretty sure she wants to tell you that you’ll always be family to us, you know, all that gushy stuff.”
“Thanks, Kacchan. I’ll uhh, I’ll call her later, when I’ve had some time to process. I just woke up.”
“Alright. Text me. I gotta go. Love ya, Nerd.”
“You too, Kacchan.”
Izuku got out of bed after he finished the call. This infirmary room had only a single bed, and it was often where the most delicate patients ended up. Izuku usually landed here, rather than in the communal room with six beds. It did have a nice bay window, though. The view out past the training grounds and skyline of Musutafu was beautiful. Izuku realized it’s been four months since he’s seen the sky, even if most of his time locked away happened to be spent in a drug-fueled half-coma that made time all kinds of fucked up. So, none of this felt like four months. Well, it did, but it didn’t. His brain couldn’t really comprehend the difference between twenty births and four months. One felt real, the other didn’t make sense, and the two kept flipping back and forth in his head.
The weirdness of the moment kept increasing, too. He finally noticed his own scent, and for the first time in ages, it didn’t disgust him. The softness of a forest at dawn wrapped around him comfortably. The overwhelming notion that he’d found himself struck Izuku with enough force, he had to grab the window frame with both hands and lean over to soothe the nausea striking his stomach. The binder to protect his organs that Recovery Girl had him in wasn’t helping at all.
“Izuku?”
“Mmmm, m’fine.” He muttered, holding out a hand to Aizawa to try and wave off the worry. “Just…got lost in my head.”
“You okay?”
“Y-yeah, just…just realized that I actually feel a bit like myself again. It sort of…took me by surprise.”
“Ahh.”
The older hero joined him by the window after grabbing a couple chairs so they could sit down across from each other. Izuku was given a sandwich and a bottle of water, which he was more than happy to crack into and chomp down on. When they’d eaten half their meal, Izuku suddenly felt like talking.
“The drugs made time move weirdly.”
Aizawa looked up from his sandwich but didn’t reply more than to arch his eyebrow.
“Things were both too fast and too slow, all at once. Whenever I tried to open my eyes, the world would be moving in slow motion…or maybe a better way to say it is that I was standing still while the world moved around me. When my eyes were closed, things jumped forward. In seconds, hours or days would go by and I’d be so confused.”
“You said the Vestiges broke through?”
Izuku nodded. “They always lowered the dosage when I was pregnant. I think they notched it too low that time, maybe because the birth before Aiyu was rough or because hers was so sped up. Either way, the Vestiges were able to push through it and speak to me. Diagoro had to use Blackwhip to get Aiyu out while I pulled. It was…horrific.”
“Mmm, I don’t doubt that.”
“I’m not sure if it matters, but anytime I was wheeled into the birthing room…there were too many voices.”
The older hero tilted his head. “What do you mean?”
“I mean it wasn’t a procedure…it was a theatre.”
Aizawa set his sandwich down on his lap while one hand covered his mouth. Izuku imagined he lost his appetite after Izuku explained one of the worst aspects of what happened to him.
“I’ll update the case files, but we didn’t find any evidence of people at the facility outside of the workers and medical staff present on site when we raided the place.”
Izuku nodded. “Okay.”
Eventually, they both returned to eating. They silently watched the sun arch over the school grounds without looking at each other. Izuku was more than aware that Aizawa was probably uncomfortable, or perhaps he just didn’t know what to say. Honestly, Izuku didn’t either. Up until this point, he hadn’t really been alone with his thoughts to sort through all the pain he’d been through. For a brief moment when Aizawa left, he allowed himself to feel it. Izuku probably shouldn’t dive too deep into it, he might not find his way back out.
Thanks to the drugs, being here, head clear and body recovered, Izuku felt normal. He could almost believe all of that horror was just a shitty nightmare. The damage left no external traces, and his body even smelled like his old self again. But he knew it was real. He knew he’d been through something awful, yet when he looked down at his hands, all he saw was Izuku Midoriya. He didn’t see subject twenty-five anymore, and for some reason, that truth almost hurt.
If there were no scars to prove he’d survived it, had anything awful even happened?
~
The freshly painted patch on the wall of the therapy room in UA’s admin wing stood out harshly in the dim fluorescent lighting. Izuku wished they’d just painted the whole wall and not just the patch. Maybe they would, eventually. For now, it just reminded Izuku of his own anger, and how much what he endured had actually affected him. Inui-san was making them tea in the corner at his coffee station with an electric kettle and a whole shelf of teas and drinks, anything one could want to soothe their reason for being here.
Izuku had been out of the infirmary for a few days, finally released from medical care for sure, though he still had to do weekly and monthly check-ins, as well as stay on a wide array of medications to control his body’s transition back into Alpha until he was able to safely go through his first rut, which would mark the completion of his transition back from Omega. Recovery Girl had been right about his situation; she was getting a whole featured article in a medical journal for his case study. Izuku had agreed pretty easily to be a part of it, because it might help someone else in the future. It might even help some of the other victims of this awful case if they were forcibly bitched like he’d been.
He’d moved into the guest room of Aizawa’s apartment in the dorms while his room was professionally deep cleaned and also remodeled to accommodate some of his medical needs. His iron levels remained low, so he was on supplements and transfusions as needed, checked every week. They also had him on IV fluids and supplemental nutrition as the final tests before his release revealed there had been a significant deficiency in his treatment. They might have healed him with quirks while he was a captive, but that didn’t stop the obvious starvation from affecting him. They were adding some medical monitoring as well, which he’d be hooked up to while sleeping so the UA medical team would be alerted if anything happened.
Basically, Izuku would be made of glass for several months. Recovery Girl had not been lying when she said his insides were shredded. Quirk healing was fantastic, but it didn't fix damage already done. The abuse he’d given his own body through training a quirk far too powerful for him was also making itself clear. He’d need to start working with his legs now that his arms and hands were in tatters, and the nerve damage from being bound too tightly during his captivity made itself known.
But he could still be a professional hero, that was the main takeaway. Recovery Girl was confident that he’d be able to graduate on time, in a year and a half, with his class. She had a very pleasant outlook on his recovery, and assured him that if he stuck to the regimen she’d created, his body would catch back up, and he’d lead a relatively normal life.
A lot of that also relied on his return to being Alpha. Since he was on such heavy hormone suppressants, his whole system was functioning slower. Once he got back on track with his secondary gender, the rest should follow; healing, nutrition, even his nervous system and mental health would likely go back up. Izuku hadn’t been aware a person’s secondary gender was so closely tied to their health before.
Inui-san came back to the sitting area with two mugs of steaming tea and sat down with one of those groans adults let out when you know they’ve stood up for far too long.
“I suppose it’s moot to ask but how are you feeling, Izuku?”
The teen chuckled. “Actually, not bad. I mean, I have a lot on my mind but I’m in a much better place than the last time I was here.”
“I’ve been told I can give you some good news, if you’d like to hear it?”
“Of course.”
“Recovery Girl estimates we’ll be able to take you off the suppressants sometime in the first few weeks of classes. That being said, we’ll plan for use of the emergency cycle room so you can safely ride out your first rut.”
“Does she think it’ll be a bad one if I need to use the room?”
“Well, there’s no way for us to know. Since your body is going back to its natural state, there’s a high chance it will actually be a very diminished rut that you may be able to handle on your own with a rut aid, or….whatever it is that teenagers do when us adults aren’t looking.”
Izuku choked on his tongue. “Uh huh.”
“Still, it will be there if you need it. Otherwise, the plan is still to release you for physical training in the first few weeks of school. You’ll be able to do light work like physical therapy workouts and running until you’re released, so you can start building up to it.”
“Thanks, Inui-san.”
“Mhm. Now then - down to business, hopefully without any tables landing in the wall this time.” Izuku gave him a look. “Oh don’t you even start, you’re never living that one down, kiddo.”
Izuku chuckled. “That’s fair. What do you want to talk about?”
The older hound settled into his oversized armchair with the mug in one hand and a pen in the other, his notepad over his crossed knees. He flipped through the pages while Izuku sipped at his chamomile tea. When he finally settled on whatever he’d made a note of, he looked back to the teen in front of him.
“I need to make an evaluation before you can meet with any of the adopted pups. So, that being said, I’ll need to know your thoughts on them.”
“My thoughts…on the pups? Like, in what way?”
“Hmm- let’s see. Does thinking about them pull you down into a depressive state or upset you? Or perhaps does it make you happy to know they’re all safe and alive with loving parents?”
“Well, yeah, of course I’m glad they’re safe with loving parents. I didn’t exactly have a good example of that in my own life, not even as a kid. So I am glad to know they have safe environments to grow up in. But...I guess it does make me sad to think about them.” Izuku rubbed at the binder around his waist and pelvis, still compressing everything back into place while he healed. “I’m worried they’ll be affected by how they were born, or by my quirklessness. I’m worried there’s no way to know what kind of quirk they may get from whomever sired them. There’s a lot of variables that I don’t know, and that the parents could have been lied to about.”
“Do you think meeting with them would upset you or harm your recovery?”
“No…not necessarily. I know I don’t want to keep them, so it wouldn’t like…it wouldn’t be hard to say goodbye. That’s actually why I wanted to meet some of them, to say goodbye. I never even got to see their faces, or take in their scents before they were ripped from me. Being able to say goodbye would help, I think.”
“Okay. That’s good. Why don’t we swap gears and talk about your captivity itself?” Izuku didn’t respond. He waited for Inui-san to explain himself before freaking out. “I asked you last time if you fully understood your experiences. You were drugged so terribly that I’m not sure you’ve actually come to terms with what really happened.”
“You mean…repetitive rape, forced pregnancy, theatre style births, verbal and physical abuse, starvation, restraints, and probably a ton of other things I’m forgetting.”
“Yes. All of that and more.”
“I’m not sure anyone gets to come to terms with all that. Maybe one or two, but all of it?” Izuku sighed. “I do understand what happened, yeah. But with all the drugs they gave me, I’m not sure I really… uhm- I think that’s the disconnect.”
“Disconnect?”
“Yeah. I know I’ve been through something horrible, and I remember it, but I can’t see more than flashes in my head. I know it was real, it happened, but I can’t see it. When I look in the mirror, all I see is Izuku - the Izuku that everyone else knows, the one that they all expect to see when they come back to class in a couple weeks. I don’t see the Izuku that was pulled apart at the seams and rebuilt into something disgusting. So there’s this disconnect between the me in the mirror and the me in my head. I think that’s the hardest part to overcome, to face.”
“That’s an excellent point. It may take time for those two images to merge so you can-”
“I don’t want them to merge.”
Inui tilted his head a bit. “You want to lose the image they made, right?” Izuku nodded. The old hound huffed. “Well, unfortunately, that might not be possible. You became who you were to survive. That version of you doesn’t just vanish once you no longer need to survive something horrible.”
“Right, but I’m not that person anymore, Sensei.”
“But you were.”
Izuku’s fingers gripped at the arm of the chair, he felt the pull to stand aching his knees. The bubbling rage he’d felt the last time he’d been in here rose like a volcano through his veins but Izuku fought it. He couldn't risk hurting himself again, or making another hole in the wall. Inui watched him, but poised this time, ready to grab Izuku before he did something he later regretted. Izuku held his tongue while the therapist adjusted himself in his seat.
“Who you are is built up from who you were, all of the versions of you that have ever existed. We, as people, never stop changing. Who you are now is already both the Izuku you were before being kidnapped, and the one you had to become while captive. I know that’s not what you want to hear. I know that you probably want to destroy that awful image. But you can’t erase something that’s already happened, and you can’t erase a person you already were.” He lifted one paw. “You can, however, move forward and become someone new.”
“Someone both past me and future me?”
“Someone who acknowledges their past while moving towards their future.”
Izuku hated that idea. He hated it with a burning passion, and he was pretty sure that Inui was well aware of that fact, likely by the confused, horrified look Izuku knew he’d been unsuccessful in hiding.
“I know this isn’t easy, I’m not asking you to just step into that person right now. It’s going to be a long trek up that hill. Right now, let’s focus on who you are in this moment. What does this Izuku want?”
“He wants to forget.” Izuku grumbled. “But obviously that’s not a solution to the problem. So, I guess I’d like to call it a day and maybe take a damn nap. I can think about it later.”
“That sounds like a good idea. Aizawa should still be in the hall waiting for you.”
“Thanks, Inui-san, for everything.”
~
When they got back to the apartment, Izuku kicked off his shoes and was just about to head into his room when he caught sight of Yamada standing by the kitchen table, or rather, in front of it, with his arms tightly clasped over his chest, and a somber, almost sickly look on his face. His hair was down, which didn’t help. He always looked so cheerful when his hair was up.
“Zashi, you’re freaking the kid out, what’s going on?”
He didn’t reply. His head fell so he could stare at the floor for a moment. The tension in the room thickened. Izuku glanced between Yamada and the hallway off to the side where the guest room was. Could he just bolt and avoid whatever horrible conversation was trying to start? Maybe. Probably not. When he turned back, the blonde teacher finally looked him in the eye.
After a moment of really staring hard at him, the man finally stepped to the side. Behind him, sitting on the table, was a tiny golden box. The box itself was harmless, entirely innocuous. A little metal box couldn’t hurt Izuku. It wasn’t dangerous to him. The only danger he could find was the beautiful filigree lettering on the front. The kanji read: ‘Aiyu’.
Izuku threw his backpack into the corner to march himself over to the table. He ignored that dangerousharmless box and marched right up to Yamada, hand up and already curled, nearly into a fist.
“Get that moronic look of pity off your face. My daughter’s death will not be treated like something to be ashamed of. I’m not ashamed of her.”
“Izuku, please…” Yamada tried.
“No. I don’t care if you’re sad, or disgusted, or fucking disappointed, or whatever the hell this is. My life will not be reduced to the sorrow of a tiny box like it’s something to look at and cry about.” He snatched the box off the table and clutched it to his chest. “I am not something to fucking cry about, and neither is she.”
“Izuku-” Aizawa snapped. “That’s enough.”
“No. It’s not enough. It will never be enough until all of you stop wearing velvet fucking gloves around me. I’m not going to fall apart at the next light breeze. You don’t have to pass me between Recovery Girl and Inui-san like holding a damn butterfly between your fingers.”
“I get that you’re angry. Believe me, I understand. But that does not give you the right to attack the people trying to help you through this.”
“I am not angry!” Izuku slammed the box back onto the table, hard enough to crack the wood. Both teachers stepped back from the snaps of lightning that spread down his arms. “I am sick and fucking tired of being told what I can or should or have to feel.” Blackwhip spiraled around his limbs, holding onto him the way he so desperately needed but refused to accept. “I’m not fucking angry. I am in pain! You can’t possibly understand this. You have not had your face held down onto a concrete floor while someone brutalized your body into some ripped apart disaster. You have not spent endless hours begging for death, screaming as your body came apart at the seams, crying for the babies you never even wanted as they’re torn from your body for the entertainment of some sick pieces of shit and then sold for profit while you wallow in your own filth and blood. YOU DO NOT KNOW WHAT ANY OF THIS FEELS LIKE!”
The weight of his own words crashed around him, an Atlas stone rolling down the hill right over him. Izuku’s knees gave out under his own body. He collapsed into the table, tears already pouring from his face as he tried to stay upright. No one moved. The room was filled with only the sound of his sobs for too long. His words finally returned, hiccuped and gasped out of his throat.
“I- I couldn’t…I couldn’t even save- I couldn’t-” He took a shaking breath. “I couldn’t even save my own pups. What makes you think I could ever be a hero now?”
Finally, Yamada moved. He crouched down beside Izuku but kept his hands on his own knees. He thought about reaching out, his hand paused mid-air between them then returned to his knee. After a moment, he leaned his face on his arms and tried to offer a genuine smile.
“Being a hero is a choice, but it’s also a part of who we are. Kids don’t wake up one day and say ‘I want to be a hero’ without the drive already being somewhere inside them. That drive comes from deep within us, a desire to save the world, to save others, to save ourselves.” He wiped a couple tears from his own eyes with the heel of his hand. “One of the hardest things we have to learn as heroes is that; no matter how hard we try, no matter how much we may want it, we can’t save everyone. It hurts, believe me. The first break to our heroic worldview is the cruelest, but none have ever been more horrible than yours. I’m sorry.” He finally reached out and offered a hand to Izuku. When the teen didn’t take it, he gently brushed a few curls from Izuku’s face. “You’re not weak, Izuku, and you are not going to fall apart at the lightest breeze. You are one of the strongest kids I know.”
“I don’t feel strong.”
“No one ever does when their world falls apart. But it glues itself back together, eventually.”
Aizawa plopped himself down beside them with a groaning huff. “Yeah.” He gestured to Izuku. “I might not have gone through all that, but I do get this feeling right here. This…” He waved his hand in a circle. “Buried alive sensation. You’ll dig yourself out. Promise. I’ve dug that hole so many times.”
“He has, trust me.” Yamada chuckled. “But that’s a story for another time. How about a hot shower, comfort food, and a good movie?”
“Will that dig me out of this hole?”
“Probably not. But it helps with the crushing sensation.”
Izuku sighed. “Okay.”
They spent the rest of the evening in a quiet kind of peace, something Izuku had never had. He’d never spent time with parental figures or family that just wanted to exist in the same room as him before. They ate junk food and ordered takeout, watched two movies, and never said a word to each other. They spoke in smiles and hand gestures. Izuku sat with Aiyu’s box of ashes in his lap, curled up on the couch between his guardians.
One night gorging himself on junk food wouldn’t erase the pain, and it wouldn’t make up for what he said to his teachers. Izuku knew he’d need to apologize tomorrow, and he would, but maybe the words had to come out. Maybe it was better that they did. The longer all of that hurt and violence stayed locked up inside his mind, the worse he felt. But now that it’s all out, now that he’d finally said what was on his mind for weeks since waking up as if none of this had ever happened, he felt just a little bit better.
This one night wouldn’t fix the hole in Izuku’s heart, but the stitches had started to form, he could feel them now, and that’s what mattered.
~
Necessary.
Izuku was beginning to hate that word. Rest was necessary, medicine was necessary, physical therapy, suppressants, gradual binders and taping and wraps, added nutrition, transfusions, diets, the list went on and on. It was all fucking necessary. Izuku knew this. He understood it. Hell, he appreciated all the effort his whole medical team at UA was going to in order to make sure he could still live a normal life.
But this?
Aizawa and Izuku sat side by side at a conference table in the admin wing of UA. Across from them sat a row of lawyers Izuku didn’t have names for. He didn’t even know who they represented. UA had a team of lawyers on their side, too, though Izuku wasn’t on trial. He was a witness. The lawyers were only there to ensure that the questioning didn’t get out of hand. Nedzu sat at the end of the table taking notes. He hadn’t interfered with any of the bullshit the lawyers had been saying back and forth while preparing for Izuku’s deposition so they must have been behaving.
This whole living nightmare grew every second he waited while all these damn lawyers worked out their legal bullshit.
“Midoriya?”
Izuku cleared his throat. “Yeah?”
“Can you say your name and age for the record.” The lawyer across from him motioned to the microphone between them. There was a camera set up in the room as well, recording them all.
“Izuku Midoriya. I’m seventeen.”
“Let’s begin.”
Papers rustled. Someone clicked over the camera to start a fresh recording with Izuku as the main focus. He tried not to shift awkwardly. Another lawyer spoke up first.
“What do you remember about the day you were kidnapped?”
“Uhm - not much. Recovery Girl confirmed that I sustained a head injury, a moderate concussion that likely wiped most of that week. I do remember being on patrol, on my work study assignment. I got jumped. Uhh- I don’t remember much else besides a scuffle and then blacking out.”
“You woke up in the facility you were found in or did they take you somewhere else first? The investigators did not ask this specific question to you while you were interrogated.”
“I don’t know. I was already drugged when I woke up. My medical records would reflect the state I was in. I couldn’t see straight from the side effects, so I couldn’t tell you much besides what the room looked like. Sorry, the room I woke up in last, when Aizawa sensei found me.”
“How did you wake up before you were found?”
“They always lowered the drugs when I was pregnant. This last one, they uhh, they sped it up too fast. I think they lowered the drugs too much, they must have. I could see straight and uhh, I got myself to the closet, where they’d left my clothes.”
“You activated the GPS tracker yourself?”
“Yes.”
Another lawyer stepped in. “Did you see any of your captors or attackers?”
“No.” They began flipping pages. Izuku leaned forward again. “Just the nurse that tormented me.” They all looked up.
“I’m sorry?”
“The nurse they assigned to me. I saw his face when he came back before the heroes got to me, after the drugs wore off.”
The whole room froze for a second. Izuku had put that in the report to the police. Well, he said he’d seen the face of the nurse assigned to him. Maybe they didn’t read into that too much, and maybe he should have explained it better. Regardless, it was out there now.
“Given your drugged up state, it’s unlikely you can recall anything from those four months reliably, is that true?”
“No. No, that’s not true at all. I remember everything I heard and felt. The drugs might have kept my eyes crossed, but it didn’t put me into a coma. I was awake for all of it. I heard and felt everything they said and did to me.”
The recorder clicked off. The lawyers across the room huddled up to speak in whispers. Izuku leaned back into his chair and glanced at Aizawa beside him. The man shook his head minutely, almost like he didn’t want anyone but Izuku to see it. Their own lawyers were whispering to Nedzu. Things didn’t look good for either side. Izuku imagined their defense was reliant on Izuku and the other captives not remembering anything. He’d been told some of them had been kept in comas or catatonic. The rest? Izuku wasn’t sure. Maybe they dissociated, maybe they were too drugged to know what happened.
Izuku remembered. He didn’t plan to let them get away with any of this, if he could do anything at all.
“We’re taking a recess. We’ll reconvene after lunch around two pm as needed.”
The room emptied out of all the visiting lawyers. A court appointed person packed up the camera and voice recorded into a locked box and took it with them when they left. Nedzu stood up and trotted across the table to plop down on a stack of folders in front of Izuku.
“You’ve thrown a wrench in the gears for them, I think.”
“That’s…good, right?”
“Yes, it’s very good, Izuku.” The chimera smiled. “I doubt we’ll be reconvening today, not after they found out your testimony could damn them. I have a feeling they’ll try to get you removed as a witness.”
“But-” Nedzu held up a hand to stop his rebuttal.
“I’ve already had Recovery Girl and Inui-san give signed affidavits stating that you are sound and capable to stand trial, and that the injuries you suffered would not affect your perception or memory. I also had the drugs found in your system tested and verified as drugs that would not affect your memory. What you said was accurate. You might not have seen their faces because of the drugs, but you could still hear and feel perfectly fine. There’s nothing they can do to stop this. Delay - sure. But they’ll only be delaying the inevitable.”
Izuku sighed out some of his tension. “So they’ll go down for this?”
Nedzu flicked his eyes up. Aizawa leaned forward. “Remember that conversation about hard truths with Zashi?” Izuku nodded. “The second hard truth that heroes have to learn is that sometimes, the justice system doesn’t actually give justice to those hurt most. It’s not fair, and it doesn’t always make sense. It’s not likely that any of these people will get off scott free. But even with your testimony and all the evidence we found, they’ll likely be able to argue the charges down.”
“But- but they- Sensei, the things they did…”
“I know. I’m so sorry, Izuku. We’re going to do everything we can to make sure they see the inside of jail cells. But we need you to be prepared for the outcome that this case might not be what gives you closure.”
“Fine.”
Izuku threw himself away from the table. He desperately needed something to eat, and honestly he could absolutely do with a cigarette or a strong drink, but neither of those were options for him right now…mostly because he was still in recovery, but also because he was pretty sure Aizawa would never let him do either until he was an adult. His mother hadn’t cared if he stole a cigarette or two from her purse on bad days, and she never saw him take a beer from the fridge a couple times, even if they both knew she could count the difference when one or two ended up missing. She never mentioned it. Izuku didn’t have unhealthy habits, he just had unhealthy coping mechanisms that cropped up every few months when shit got bad. Being here at UA for this whole recovery had forced him to go without those coping options, and well, it’s likely why he’d ended up so loud and bitey.
Lunch Rush had come in for the deposition day to make meals for the staff and visitors on campus for the day. Izuku grabbed a bowl of teriyaki beef and rice and a bottle of water. He said a quiet thanks to their resident chef and wandered back out of the cafeteria to find a place to eat. Somehow, he ended up in the A classroom, his homeroom. His desk had flowers on it. Fucking flowers. They were fake, obviously. They wouldn’t be alive otherwise. Lilies in a delicate glass vase. Izuku sat down at Katsuki’s desk in front and ignored his own entirely.
Closure isn’t something Izuku had truly thought about, not yet. How does one find closure for all this mess? A good start would be putting the bastards who hurt him behind bars. But, Aizawa was right - the justice system didn’t always provide justice to the people harmed most. He trusted it to do what was right, what was legal, but at the end of the day, the judge and jury decided the fates of the offenders. They didn’t always agree with the victims on what should be done, and maybe that was the point. Izuku wanted them all to have life sentences, or worse, to be executed. But an eye for an eye only makes the whole world go blind, right? Maybe he wasn’t in the right mindset to judge fair consequences for unfair actions.
Izuku’s teacher found him a while later, still sitting at Katsuki’s desk after he finished lunch. The older hero didn’t say anything at first. He grabbed a chair from another desk, flipped it around, and sat on it backwards, arms over the backrest. He stole a wayward piece of beef from Izuku’s mostly empty bowl and munched it before finally deciding to break the silence.
“They’ve asked to reschedule the deposition after they’ve had a chance to review the evidence again.”
“Okay.”
“Would you like to speak with Inui?”
“No. I’m fine.” Aizawa gave him a look. “Okay, I’m not fine, but I’m not bad, either. I just don’t want to relive all of that if there’s no payoff. I thought that was the point. I suffer through this court case and then those assholes go down for it. That was supposed to be my closure, I think. Instead, I still have to suffer through this and there may not even be any closure in it for me. If that’s how cruel this world really is, I call bullshit. That’s entirely unfair.”
“It is unfair. But that’s a part of our job as heroes. Some villains might not face justice the first time, but villains don’t just do one crime and go back to civilian life. They’ll get caught again, and each time, shit gets worse for them and better for us. If any of the people arrested in your case have criminal records, there’s a good chance this will do them in. I wanted you to be prepared for the worst outcome, just in case.”
“Thanks, Sensei.”
He reached over and ruffled Izuku’s curls. “Let’s go back to the dorms. I’ll help you get moved back into your room. Nedzu just told me the cleaning and modifications were finished last night. Sound good?”
“Sure, sounds good.”
~
Unhooking from the mess of monitors was a pain in the ass each morning, but it was better than having to be checked on hourly by Aizawa and Yamada. Izuku actually slept through the night. Rolling up, he grabbed his binder and wrapped it around his waist so he could stand up and start peeling off all the leads he had to wear at night. One of the monitors above the bed gave him an ‘all normal’ message meaning no alarms had gone off while he’d been sleeping.
Today was the first day of classes. The rest of his classmates had returned to campus yesterday afternoon. Katsuki brought Izuku dinner to his room, secretly. Izuku had asked that they keep his presence a secret until this morning. Firstly because of the gag orders from the Commission, secondly because he wasn’t sure he was ready to deal with the insanity of seeing everyone again.
The door opened and closed quietly as Katsuki came in, already dressed for the day. Izuku had asked him to come early so they could talk, and Izuku could at least get the comfort of Katsuki’s scent before they had to take on the day.
“Morning, Nerd.” He settled onto the bed. “How’re you feeling?”
“Like shit, but alive or whatever. Not ready for this, at all.”
“Yeah, but I think all your friends will be more than relieved to see you.”
Izuku shrugged. “I know. I’m just not sure I’m ready to see them.”
“That’s why I’m here. I’ll keep them under control. You don’t have to be piled into a group hug or anything stupid if you don’t want to.”
Izuku settled his head on Katsuki’s shoulder. The bulky Omega rubbed his cheek over Izuku’s head, scenting him calmly. Izuku rumbled deep in his chest, happily snuggling into his perfect Omega. Katsuki kissed the top of his head for emphasis.
“The answer is yes, by the way.”
“Huh?” Izuku titled his head up.
“You said you’d been thinking about asking me to be your mate once we graduate. If you still want that, the answer is yes.” Their arms squeezed around each other tighter.
“Of course, Kacchan. I absolutely still want that.”
“Well, that’s settled. Go get ready. I’ll pack your bag. Did RG give you a pill case for your daily meds?”
“Yeah, on the desk. I already did the whole week’s setup.”
“Got it.”
Izuku hefted himself out of bed to stretch and crack a few joints. Most of his morning soreness was due to all the training injuries he sustained in their first year as well as how horribly he blew apart three limbs in the entrance exam. The damage to his bones and joints added up over time. Of course, several surgeries and procedures to fix the damage his captors caused only served to make it all worse. Recovery Girl had told him he’d probably be wearing the abdominal binders for a few months to help the hernia repairs heal in proper alignment.
Izuku had taken a shower the night before with Katsuki as a guard, so he just had to get himself ready for the day. This would be the first time in over five months Izuku would put on his UA uniform. That’s what made him stop when he opened the closet to stare at the row of jackets and pants freshly cleaned and folded over the hangers.
“‘Zu?”
Izuku choked in a breath. “Sorry. Sorry. I’m fine.”
“You do know it’s okay if you’re not fine…right?”
“Yeah. It’s just…” He gestured to the closet. “This feels weird, you know? I’m just going to put on my uniform like- like the last half a year never happened and-”
A gentle knock on the door startled them both. No one should know they were in here. If one of their classmates followed Katsuki, maybe they thought he was just spending time in here, but still, no one should know…except-
“It’s Jirou…I heard voices…Bakugo? Is that…is that really him?”
Katsuki asked Izuku with just his eyes if he wanted to let her in. Izuku nodded. He should have thought about Jirou, whose room was only a couple down the hall. A part of him had actually forgotten they had classmates with super hearing. Shijo was on a different floor, so it wasn’t likely he’d hear them yet.
The door opened enough for Jirou to slip into the room. The lights were still out. Her eyes roamed over all the medical equipment attached to Izuku’s bed first, then his open bag on the table along with extra medical junk all over the desk. Lastly, she turned to look at Izuku standing at the closet, still in just pajama pants with the giant black binder around his waist, fresh bandages and new scars all over his body, and messy curls framing his face. A few leads were still stuck to his arms and chest along with a picc line in his arm he’d yet to wrap up for the day.
“You’re alive.”
“Y-yeah. I am. Wasn’t sure I was for a while.”
“Can I- uhm, sorry-”
“It’s okay.”
Izuku opened his arms and Jirou all but dove into them. The hug was careful, not too fast or too tight. She seemed almost scared she might hurt Izuku. But even hesitant, the hug was warm and Izuku just about melted into it. He might not be as close to Jirou as some of their other classmates, but the whole class unit was one big family, a pack of sorts. They’d been through hell together with villain attacks and Nomu and cities burning, so they had a tight connection, and this hug meant so much more than Izuku could even express.
She finally pulled back, already crying. “You don’t have to tell any of us what happened. We’ve talked about it so many times. After so long, we knew it had to be bad, awful even. You don't have to tell us.” She turned to Katsuki, who’d gone back to packing Izuku’s bag with one eye on the pair across the room. “We knew, or we guessed, after Mina saw you on the train.”
“Tch- I’m a shit liar.” Katsuki muttered.
“You are. We figured they found something. Mina assumed that since you weren’t blowing up the train, Izuku had to be alive. But alive doesn’t mean…” She looked over Izuku’s body before glancing away. “It was bad, wasn’t it?”
“Very bad, yes.”
Izuku reached over to wipe a few tears from her face. He tried to force a smile, but he didn’t really feel like smiling. None of this felt like the time to smile. He was glad that his classmates still missed him, and still cared that he was alive and okay, but something just felt…walled up between them.
“I’ll be okay. It’s just going to be a while before I get back into major training. I uhh, I had a few surgeries. In the immortal words of Recovery girl; my insides were shredded. But you know me, can’t keep me - or the tables - down.”
Katsuki choked on a laugh, pointing at Izuku with a glare. “That wasn’t fucking funny, Nerd.”
“It was a little funny, Kacchan.” The blonde sighed and rolled his eyes. “Anyway- uhh- could you, maybe, not tell the class that I’m here. Aizawa wants to bring me in, and we’re all under gag orders from the Commission, so he also has to tell you all the rules about that.”
“Yeah, of course. I heard your voice, and for a moment, I thought I was losing my mind. Then you kept talking and I just had to know.”
“It’s okay. Just keep it to yourself until class later. I’ll see you then, okay?”
“Okay.”
She gave him one more hug and headed out. Her earphone jack connected with the door to check that no one was in the hallway before she slipped back out of the room. The somber mood returned once Izuku and Katsuki were alone again. Izuku rubbed over the side of his sore ribcage. Broken ribs always did leave him sore for months, no matter how fast RG healed them.
“They never gave up, you know?”
“Huh?”
Katsuki shrugged. “They never gave up hope that you were still out there, that you’d come back safe. Hell, I think most of them were ready to go search the streets themselves. I know some of them did during work study, even though they weren’t supposed to be doing it. No one ever gave up on you.”
“I know, Kacchan. I never thought any of you did. I was never angry at you or the police or the heroes. I know you would have done everything possible, and maybe more than is legal, to get me home. But uhh- I should get ready.”
“Mhm. I’ll head down and get breakfast ready. I’ll leave you something when we all head out. Jirou, if you’re listening, help me distract the Extras.”
Katsuki came over to kiss Izuku’s forehead and hug him tightly. They held each other for a long moment. Izuku rubbed his cheek along Katsuki’s chest, leaving his woody scent on the blonde’s clothing. That wouldn’t help keep the ruse going by any means, but it made Izuku feel better to know his Omega was coated in his scent, and vice versa.
“Damn Nerd.” Katsuki muttered. His wrist caught the edge of Izuku’s jaw, leaving a thick line of his sweet caramel scent right under Izuku’s nose. “Aizawa said he’ll come grab you once the Extras leave.”
“Thanks, Kacchan. See you soon.”
Izuku took his time getting ready after Katsuki left. He didn’t need to rush since he couldn’t leave until Aizawa came to get him. Putting on his uniform felt good. It was a homecoming of sorts. But still, everything that made Izuku feel more like himself made the last several months feel fake. The binder was a constant reminder, though, which was comforting in a weird way. If he remembered it all happened, then all this grief wasn’t pointless, right?
Aizawa found him staring at himself in the mirror maybe thirty minutes later. He had a granola bar and protein shake in hand, offering them with a little rattle of his hand. Izuku smirked. Katsuki had texted him that even with Jirou’s help, he couldn’t discreetly make breakfast so he left a snack for Aizawa to grab on his way up.
“Can’t avoid it any longer, kid.”
“Are you sure? I’m pretty sure I can stay locked in here for weeks and they’d never know.”
Aizawa chuckled. “Brave face time. You’re going to do fine. They’ll hug you and laugh and cry like stupid teenagers do when they get too emotional, and then you’ll take out your books, and become a student again. Then you’ll have lunch and we’ll do light gym work for foundational heroics today. It’s just Monday, nothing crazy, nothing special. Just Monday.”
“Right - just Monday.” But it didn’t feel like just Monday. It felt like a Monday to end all fucking Mondays. “Jirou found us this morning.”
“Huh?” The sudden shift in conversation startled Aizawa.
“She heard my voice. She’s only two doors down from me. She promised not to say anything until class. It just…it felt weird. Inui-san says we become the culmination of all the selves we’ve had to be, but I feel less like Izuku than I did six months ago.”
Aizawa sighed. “I’ll talk to Inui about it to see if he can do some deprogramming work.” Before Izuku could freak out, he held up a hand and went on. “They dehumanized you, Izuku. I saw the records. You were a number, not a person. That kind of conditioning leaves marks, wounds. I don’t think either of us realized how much it was affecting you.”
“I don’t think I did, either, not until I saw Jirou and this…wall appeared between us. I guess I just need to find whatever new Izuku exists in here.”
“You will find yourself again, Izuku. I know it’s hard, and you don’t think you can be a hero anymore, but I very much believe you’ve always been a hero. I don’t think there’s anyone more suited to it. So, step one - get back to class.”
“You’re probably right. Thanks, Sensei.”
Standing outside of the classroom where his dreams of being a hero truly started, Izuku tried to find the excitement he wished he could have. Returning was this duality of both comfort and unfamiliarity. This classroom was a home away from home, and had been for some time. It was also a place of grief to think about the four months he lost. The perpetual ache in his bones had become a constant reminder of all Izuku wanted to erase.
Aizawa was briefing the class while Izuku waited in the hallway. Thankfully, the rest of the school was in class, so he didn’t have to worry about running into any random students. A few teachers passed by and greeted him kindly. They’d been briefed last night about his return. Most of the school still didn’t know, and they wouldn’t know the details of the case until it was released to the public. Izuku imagined it would likely take months, maybe even years, to get through all of it and release the full case to the public, so there was no real point in worrying about it. Aizawa had not only promised to avoid the gritty details, Izuku knew he couldn’t talk about most of it.
Izuku stared down at his hands for a while. He’d held Aiyu’s ashes for a long time last night while trying to find sleep. He thought about all the things his daughter might have been, or might have wanted to be, had she been given the chance to live. Flashes of the day she died filled Izuku’s mind. He’d still been so fucked up on whatever drugs they gave him that everything had become a slideshow in his memory. The further away his captivity became, the less it felt like an actual event and the more it became like a shitty horror movie scrolling through his mind. Aizawa promised to help Izuku find his strength again, to help Izuku get rid of the crushing sensation of his grief.
Step one: get back to class.
The door creaked open.
“Ready?”
“Y-yeah. I’m ready, Sensei.”
He was ready. Izuku was ready to see his friends again, to be a part of something bigger than himself alone. He wanted to be a hero, if only to prevent what happened to him from ever happening to anyone else. Then, yes, he was absolutely ready.
Aizawa actually smiled, a real, full smile, for probably the first time ever. It was encouraging, and hopeful. Izuku didn’t think he’d see his grumpy, sour-faced teacher ever produce the proud smile of a parent watching over their child - but that’s exactly what it felt like. That’s exactly how Izuku felt; a child who needed comfort, standing in their parent’s shadow, terrified, but ready to take on the world with someone holding a hand on their back.
The silence of nineteen teenagers waiting with anticipation almost startled Izuku. Of course, two of them already knew Izuku was about to walk into the room. Katsuki, who Izuku could see straight across the room at the very front of the class, had his hands clutched on the edges of his jacket. Jirou would be in her regular seat in the back of class, so Izuku wouldn’t see her yet.
The door fully opened in slow motion. Izuku watched Aizawa’s hand fall back to his side as he stepped back into the room, his smile gone but the light in the corner of his eyes still bright when Izuku caught it from an angle as he turned through the door frame. A lightning bolt shot through the class; eyes went wide, tears - immediately falling. Bodies scrambled across the room. Desks scattered and chairs upturned. When the sound finally crashed into Izuku, his body was thrust into a pile of arms and faces, hugs and screams and cries of joy. Izuku clutched at as many of his classmates as he could, he clung to them, he cried with them.
The fear of being overwhelmed all but vanished from his body the very second he was wrapped in the love of his friends; the family he’d found and so desperately needed.
“You’re here! You’re alive!” Ochako pressed their foreheads together. She was floating above the pile of teens on the floor. “You’re home!” Izuku nodded over and over, unable to speak through his swelling emotions just yet.
Mina squeezed his waist. “I knew you’d come back. I knew it. I knew they’d found you when I saw Kat on the train that day. I could see it in his eyes. I could smell you on him.”
Izuku brushed a hand through his fluffy pink hair, his voice shaky and broken. “I’m here.”
They spent the whole homeroom class sobbing into each other's arms and reuniting themselves as a class. Katsuki finally joined them. No one stopped him when he buried his face into Izuku’s neck and scented both himself and Izuku at the same time. A few of their classmates laughed, even more barked that they’d called this pairing a year ago. One or two even traded money for whatever bet they’d placed on it.
Izuku was home. He was finally home, and the world stopped spinning. The ache in his chest, the loneliness he’d felt for four months buried alive finally began to shrink from his heart.
The grief eating away at his chest was still there, but it didn’t hurt quite as much anymore.
~
“Shit.” Izuku rolled out of bed and collapsed onto the floor. “Shit - not now. Please.” His body had woken up in a cold sweat. Every muscle inside him screamed for relief. His fucking dick was already pressing up into his stomach, dripping a wet spot onto his pajama pants.
Recovery Girl had been weaning him off his suppressants for two weeks, slowly taking down the dosage so he could ease back into his Alphan nature fully. But she’d warned him several times he’d go into rut whenever his body finally took over. They’d given him blockers and patches, but the look RG had produced was enough to warn Izuku they likely wouldn’t work in this situation. Sure enough, twenty-four hours after his last tiny dose, his body decided to kick itself into gear.
Izuku’s vision doubled, crossed, he stumbled on his hands and feet. The carpet was warm against his face, but all he could feel was the crying itch covering his entire body. He could swear he saw his own breath each time he exhaled. His hips had already started rutting into the carpet to find some kind of release for his throbbing dick, but he knew nothing would help but a warm cunt he could knot himself into.
“Hel…help..” Izuku gasped, his voice barely above a whisper.
Hands groped around his floor, searching for the phone he’d knocked off the bedside table in his tumble to the floor. It took far too long to find. He was barely able to move his arms by the time his hand closed around the phone and pulled it towards him. He could barely see so he acted on muscle memory alone. Ring, ring, ring…
“Izuku? It’s fucking four am, what the fu-”
“Kacchan…please…”
“Where are you?”
“Nnnn…mmm’dorm.”
The anger of being awoken far too early in the morning vanished entirely when Katsuki heard Izuku’s ruined voice, gasping for help.
He managed to roll himself into his back. Izuku’s fingers raked at his oversized t-shirt until he’d pried it over his head and felt only slightly less restricted. He’d meant to pry his own flannel pants off, too, but the very second he touched them, the fabric brushed over the head of his dick and sent him spiraling sideways into the carpet. The door opened and shut while Izuku moaned into the floor.
“Fuck! Izuku!”
“Please, Kacchan!”
“I’m here. I’m here. Shit, you smell fucking amazi- crap, crap, just, I can’t- hang on.”
Izuku had his eyes clenched shut. The short reprieve he got from what small orgasm he’d miraculously been given from brushing his pants wouldn’t last, but at least he could focus on Katsuki talking on the phone and actually hear the words.
“Yeah, I know. I- No- Shut up! Listen to me, Sensei, right now. He’s already in too deep to stop this, all I can do is help him through it. You said this was necessary to get him fully Alpha again, right?” Silence for a few seconds as Aizawa, on the other end, spoke. “Then yes, I can do this. Just- just don’t give us fucking detention for it, alright?”
“Kacchan…”
Katsuki grabbed his hand mid-aid as it grasped for the blonde. He cooed softly, purring deep in the back of his throat like the loving Omega he was. Izuku’s chest rumbled in response.
“I’m right here.” A hand brushed down the side of Izuku’s face gently and the Alpha leaned into it. “I can help you, okay? I can make the pain go away.”
But doing that would require-
“Kacchan, no. No…you can’t. We can’t. I’m- I’m so-” His teeth clacked shut. “We’ll…we’ll get in trouble.”
“Shhhh- I just spoke to Aizawa and RG. We knew this was probably going to happen, just not this…violently. I’m sorry, Izuku. I’m so sorry. RG’s projections showed you easing into your cycle. It shouldn't have come on like this.”
He finally managed to crack open his eyes and look up at the beautiful Omega leaning over him on the floor of his dorm room. The sweet scent of Omega in heat struck Izuku’s nose, and for the first time - it wasn’t from his own body. Izuku’s rut had triggered Katsuki into what was likely a faux heat. Izuku’s eyes flicked down. Sure enough, Katsuki’s sweatpants were soaked at the crotch.
“Mmmm’sorry.” He muttered.
“Idiot - everyone knows this happens with true mates. They always trigger each other’s cycles. If anything, it just proves my point that I’ll be choosing you, that I’ve already chosen you.”
Izuku let out a huffed laugh. “If you’re gonna do this…can you first-” Izuku heaved a few breaths through another needy pang of lust that surged through him. “-my shirt.”
“Huh?”
“Gag me.”
“What? Izuku, that’s-”
“So I won't bite you.”
Katsuki froze. What he first likely thought was some kind of self-punishment or maybe a kink, was in fact, Izuku trying to retain control of his body. This was all he could do because the rest of himself was already long gone, and out of reach.
“It’s okay if you do. I already told you that I want to be your mate.”
“I know. I know, Kacchan.” He shook his head, swallowed hard. “Not now. Not- not right after-”
Katsuki scooted closer. His knees against Izuku’s shoulders, distracting the Alpha. One hand landed on his shoulder, the other on his cheek. “Shhh, I’m sorry. I understand now. What- uhm- what would help you? What can I do without…without causing you pain?”
“Nnnnnnnn I don’t know! It hurts. Please, please, Kacchan. It hurts and it’s nothing like my ruts before. It’s so much worse. I don’t feel right. It’s never like this.” Without his permission, Izuku’s heels dug into the carpet so he could lift his hips up off the floor and thrust them into the air. “I need to knot something. Please- anything, your hand, your throat- I- I want-”
“You want me but you’re scared to ask.”
Izuku nodded, a whine trapped in his throat.
“Then don’t ask. I’ll give you what you need.” He leaned down. A kiss ghosted over Izuku’s cheekbone. Izuku swore he could cum from just Katsuki’s kisses alone. “Lay still for me, Alpha.”
“Mmmm mhm…” Izuku whined.
It took every single atom of concentration to keep himself still. His fingernails dug into the plush carpet so hard, he swore his nailbeds would bleed from it. Izuku knew Katsuki was climbing over him, he knew from the way the air shifted, from the shadow of his best friend looming over him that he could feel instead of see since his eyes were again clenched shut. But for a moment, nothing happened. He felt nothing more than the phantom weight of a body hovering over him, and the anticipation that came with knowing the outcome before it happened.
A hand quickly grabbed his face, smothered his mouth. In the same instant, Katsuki sat himself down directly onto Izuku’s erection. Warm, wet folds wrapping him in a world of pleasure he’d never imagined he’d feel after the torment of a thousand bodies touching him for months on end. This was nothing like that. Perhaps because his body was no longer Omega, or perhaps it’s because this was Katsuki. Maybe he was right - maybe they were true mates. Maybe that’s why this didn’t hurt. Izuku practically screamed into the hand covering his mouth, his body snapped upright. His own hands dug at Katsuki’s ass, hips rolled and thrust without the need for forethought. Izuku’s body knew what it needed, and sought it in the depths of the Omegan slit presented to him so willingly. The hand over his mouth loosened. Izuku licked the palm.
“Kacchan…so warm, so- so- nnnngh-ha- So tight.”
“Shhhhhhh-shit.”
Katsuki crushed their lips together to shut them both up. The pain of his body’s hunger quickly turned into pleasure, dissolving the agony of his rut. Izuku kicked a leg out, rolling them both until Katsuki’s back thudded into the floor. He grabbed the Omega’s legs to toss them both over his shoulders and bury himself into Katsuki with one long, slow push. They both put a hand over the other’s mouth, unable to kiss or reach in this position, but still well aware of their need to be quiet. Bright red eyes rolled back into Katsuki’s head. Izuku bucked forward, sliding them across the floor with each thrust until he had to grab the wall behind Katsuki to keep from smacking his Omega’s head off it.
Katsuki gasped into Izuku’s hand before prying it from his face. “‘Zu, fuck- slow down, please.” The blonde’s head thumped against the wall when Izuku managed to force his body to obey the request.
Izuku could feel his knot already trying to catch. As screwed up as his rut was, Izuku wasn’t surprised that he couldn’t last very long. His body just needed an outlet, relief. The beast in his chest needed to be sated just to know it existed, and that it was home, back in the place where it belonged in Izuku’s ribcage.
“Kacchan.” Izuku huffed, leaning down to scoop up his face in both hands. He kissed his Omega’s face everywhere as he slowly picked up pace again. Katsuki’s arms grabbed his sides, clawed his wrapped ribs. “Kacchan, I- I- hnnnnnn…” Words dissolved like sea foam in his throat.
The brush of his knot trying to catch had Katsuki twitching under him. He grabbed Izuku's hand, stuffed the whole side of his alpha’s hand into his mouth when he couldn’t hold himself back anymore. He screamed into Izuku’s hand, slick dribbled down his thighs, a mess left on the carpet Izuku could clean up later.
He couldn’t speak with Izuku’s hand shoved between his teeth, but Izuku understood it anyway; Katsuki was begging for his knot. His hips kept rolling into Izuku’s pelvis, harder, faster, he was trying to pull it out of his Alpha, and it was fucking working. Izuku’s head fell against Katsuki’s chest, his body curved over his Omega as his coordination slipped and he started rutting tirelessly to catch himself. Relief finally came when his knot finally popped, caught, and locked him in place.
Izuku's jaw snapped. They’d forgotten to gag him. He searched for something to grab onto with his only free hand. Katsuki was howling his pleasure into Izuku’s left hand while he scrambled for a shirt, or pants, something, anything. His mind fogged over the way it always did when he lost himself to his rut. Teeth grinding, he grabbed anything he could reach, flesh, an arm, a leg, hips, it didn’t matter. He clawed at it all one-handedly to try and distract himself from the need to bite.
“It’s okay, it’s okay.” Katsuki’s voice soothed the beast growling and gnashing at him. “Shhh, it’s okay.” Izuku got his hand back when Katsuki spoke, both clawing at the wall to keep from dragging his nails over Katsuki’s body too much.
Something soft forced itself between his teeth. T-shirt. It was Izuku’s t-shirt. The Alpha clamped down on the cloth, his head thrashing itself side to side until he’d expended all the tense energy he’d built up. His body collapsed, his knot still trapped in Katsuki’s cunt, but he had no desire to move anyway. The world faded back in around the edges until Izuku could open his eyes and the pain of his rut had passed. It wasn’t gone. He’d likely need hormone blockers and a stupid rut aid for a few days, but at least he could see straight, finally.
“Hey.” Katsuki pulled his face up enough that they could look at each other. “There you are.” Izuku huffed around the t-shirt in his mouth. Katsuki laughed. “I’ll assume you feel better?” The Alpha nodded. “Good.” Their foreheads knocked together. “Dumbass.”
Izuku choked out a laugh. After a moment he found his limbs and pulled the t-shirt from his mouth. “Sorry, Kacchan.”
“For what? Fucking my brains out?”
“I- I didn’t mean to lose myself like that.”
“Tch- do you really think you can control that? Come on, Idiot - no one can beat that side of themselves. It’s nothing to be ashamed of.”
Izuku carefully picked Katsuki up after tucking both legs around his waist. Moans vibrated his shoulders as he moved them to the bed so they could actually be comfortable as Izuku’s knot deflated. He opted to skip over the conversation about shame for the time being.
“Did you say you talked to Aizawa earlier?”
Katsuki nodded. He’d settled into Izuku’s lap and curled around him. “RG warned us, remember? About your cycle. But your hormones were trending down. There was nothing to suggest you’d have such a violent attack when your rut started up. One more thing for her to study, right?”
Izuku snorted. “Yeah. Probably. So he was- he was okay with this?”
“I mean…not really. We’re still breaking school rules - like I give a shit.” The blonde shrugged. “But if I opened that door again, you would have triggered the whole building, and that would have been an even bigger mess. Actually, shit, lean back so I can open your window and air this place out.”
“Sure.” It took a bit of work. Izuku scooted them back so Katsuki could open the window above the end of the bed and actually get some air flow in the stifled room full of their pheromones. “Did I-”
“No.” Katsuki cut him off immediately, likely sensing the shift in his mood. “You didn't bite me. Even if you did, I didn’t bite back, so it wouldn’t seal a bond.”
“I want to.”
“Huh?”
“I do want to mate you, Kacchan. I do. Please do not think I’ve changed my mind. I’m just…not ready. Not yet.”
“I know. It’s okay. When you’re ready, I’ll be here.”
“Thank you.”
Katsuki nuzzled his face into Izuku’s neck and purred happily.
The clock read seven am when Izuku finally cracked open his eyes again. They must have passed out in each other’s arms. Katsuki was curled up against him, one leg tucked over Izuku’s hip. They weren’t stuck together anymore. Instead, they were laying under Izuku’s sheets, cuddling in the warmth of his bed. Izuku realized they were both relatively clean and had sweatpants back on. Had Katsuki done that when Izuku passed out?
The Omega in his arms grumbled in his sleep. Izuku buried his face in blonde spikes and rumbled a soft, happy growl against Katsuki’s skin. He settled in his sleep and wrapped himself tighter to Izuku’s body. There was no way he was extricating himself from the arms locked around his chest. He did manage to lean over a bit to grab his phone from the bedside table. Katsuki must have put it back at some point.
“Hey kid. How’re you feeling?”
“I’m fine, Sensei.” He softly kissed Katsuki’s head, speaking quietly to avoid waking him up. “But uhh - I might need to take a few days off classes so my scent doesn’t bother anyone.”
“I figured. You’re already excused for the week. How’s your better half?”
Izuku chuckled. “Sleeping like a log. He’s fine.”
“Mhm. Anything I need to be worried about?”
“No. No, nothing crazy. Uhm, Kacchan might need-”
“There’s a bag at the door, from Recovery Girl.”
“Thanks, Sensei.”
“Get some rest. Tell Bakugo to be in class tomorrow.”
When he tossed his phone on the bed, Izuku realized he wasn’t alone anymore, or well, not the only one awake. A smile spread across his face as he caught the sleepy look of joy on Katsuki’s face. Freshly awake, he couldn't hide it all behind a scowl like usual.
“Morning, Kacchan.”
The Omega growled softly. “Fuck off, I just woke up.” He shoved Izuku’s face away, much to the Alpha’s laughing pleasure. “Go get the damn bag of drugs RG left.”
“Okay, okay!” He still stole a kiss from Katsuki as he got up.
“I’m blaming you if I’m too sore to work out today!”
“That’s what an Alpha is for, Kacchan!”
~
Izuku’s legs kicked under the park bench one after the other as he tried to wait patiently. Despite the hard work he’d done in therapy for several months, he still had anxiety over the coming meeting. Aizawa sat next to him quietly texting and continuously working from his phone. He’d tried to start a conversation a few times, but Izuku’s throat kept closing up on him, so they wordlessly agreed to wait in silence.
The Musutafu Central Park was much bigger than the park near Izuku’s house, the one he played in as a child. This park was in the city center, much closer to UA than to where Izuku used to live. The walking paths circled the outside and inside of the park, with large patches of green spread in between. There was even a playground with a jungle gym, swings, and see-saws, too. Izuku and Aizawa sat on a bench along one of the walking paths, waiting.
Today, Izuku was supposed to meet one of the pups he’d given birth to. This family was the only one that agreed to meet with him. Even though Aizawa had tried so hard, and tried to make meeting them a part of the agreement to give up his parental rights, the judge in the case claimed that was too cruel to make a legal requirement. Izuku had to either give up rights or accept them. While they’d been weighing their options, one of the families came forward and agreed. They wanted to meet Izuku, too. So Izuku had agreed to give up his rights to all the children, and he’d never get to meet most of them.
Recovery Girl had slapped like five pheromone blockers onto his back this morning when he’d come in for one of his last medical checkups after recovering from all his injuries and surgeries. She knew his anxiety would be far too high to go without them, but the corners of the patches were itching his shoulder blades. Still, he was glad she thought ahead.
“Izuku.” Aizawa called. “They’re here.”
Sure enough, when he looked up from his own kicking legs, he found a kind-looking couple walking up with a pram. The pup didn’t look older than maybe nine months or a year, which meant he was probably one of the first pups from Izuku’s rather large, cumulative litter. He had bright green eyes and curly brown hair, and this happy smile as he babbled away with hands grasping at the air around him, or the leaves falling every so often from the Autumn trees.
Izuku’s teacher stood up and bowed, so Izuku followed without thinking.
“Thank you for meeting us. I apologize that the circumstances are so…unfortunate. But we appreciate your kindness.”
“Thank you.” Izuku repeated after Aizawa spoke.
The woman stepped forward first. She immediately took Izuku’s hands and smiled at him in a way that nearly shocked Izuku off his feet. Then, he was pulled into a hug so tight, he actually felt the woman’s love burning into his skin through his jacket. When she pulled back a moment later, her eyes were full of tears.
“I know what happened to you was unforgivably terrible, and I am so, so sorry that you endured such horrors. But my son is the light of my life, and you brought him into this world. I will be forever grateful to you for that simple truth.”
“I- Uhm…” Izuku nodded. “Okay.”
What else was he supposed to say? He’d been trying to think it over for weeks. There was no way to know how this meeting would go. Despite the initial kindness to allow it to even happen, the parents could have been cold and crass, only doing this as an assurance that their pup wouldn’t be taken from them later. Instead, he was met with boundless love like he already belonged in this little unit of a family he’d help create, even if it’d been against his will.
“Would you like to hold him?”
“Y-yeah. If- if that’s okay?”
“Of course.” She turned back to her mate. He nodded energetically. “His name is Hikaru - the kanji mean; ‘born with the light’.”
Aizawa rubbed Izuku’s back. “That’s a beautiful name, isn’t it?”
Izuku nodded, trying to hold back his emotions.
The father brought over the smiling pup. The first thing Izuku noticed was the rich scent of the forest all over him. He smelled like Izuku, he smelled like home. But a pup’s scent was often determined by their parents until their secondary gender presented itself during puberty. The handoff was careful; Izuku was a touch insecure about holding such a large infant, but the father helped guide his hands to support the baby’s shoulders and neck. The instant the baby was in his arms, he recognized Izuku. A switch flipped and his face nuzzled itself into Izuku’s neck, right into the scent glands that matched his own, even through his pheromone blockers. Despite the anxiety eating away at Izuku’s soul, he let out this joyous laugh, a sound he didn’t think he even knew how to make anymore.
“Hello, Hikaru.” Izuku bounced the babbling baby that clung to his chest and played with his hair while purring into his skin. “You’re so big! How’d you get so big? I bet your mom gives you all your vegetables, doesn’t she?” The woman’s hands covered her brilliant smile and though she was still crying, it was clear she was happy.
A big leaf fell from one of the large trees around them, spiraling down until it actually landed right into the infant’s hands. He squealed happily, bouncing in Izuku’s arms. Izuku rumbled back at the pup, encouraging his happiness. But to everyone’s surprise, the baby offered the leaf to Izuku, held out with both hands and an expectant, wide-eyed grin.
“A leaf? For me?” Izuku took it carefully. “Thank you, Hikaru.” Izuku clutched the leaf to his chest in one hand and tried his beast not to break down. “Could you-?”
“Yeah, of course.” The woman took Hikaru back. The child whined and fussed for a moment, until he smelled his mother and realized he was safe, the momentary panic of the loss of familiarity gone. “I think he knows.” She brushed some of the curls from his face. “He looks just like you.”
“Yeah…he does. He’s perfect. I’m so happy he has a loving family.” Izuku hadn’t even read their names on the case file yet. He did so purposefully. Izuku didn’t want to hurt himself when they left. He’d almost asked them not to tell him the pup’s name. If he knew their names, he’d get attached, or maybe he’d blame them for the pain - not on purpose, just through his confused grief.
The mother and father looked between each other and the man finally spoke up.
“We talked about this a lot in the last few weeks leading up to all the court cases and this meeting. We did discuss this with our lawyers and they’re drafting up some agreements that we’d like you to review, when you’re ready.”
“Uhm…what kind of agreements?” Izuku glanced at Aizawa but the older man shrugged, he didn’t know either, so the papers hadn’t been shared yet. The mother offered out her hand, which Izuku took as she filled them in.
“We’d like you to continue being a part of Hikaru’s life.”
“Sorry…what?”
“What was done to you was awful, unjustified, and cruel. But our son wouldn’t exist without you. He deserves to know you, to have you as a part of his life as he grows up. I don’t know if you’re ready for something this big, but that’s why we wanted this to be legal, on paper, so that you know that when you are ready, the option is there, and won’t be taken away.”
“That’s uhh- that’s a lot to think about.” He tried to look at Aizawa for help, but the older Alpha only offered an encouraging smile and a nod. He was telling Izuku to go ahead and take this one, to push past his anxiety and fears and make a decision. “I’m not sure you want to hear this but- uhm… I’m not sure if being a part of his life will be good or bad for me, in the long run. I’m really not. What they did to me…” Izuku cleared his throat. “I wanted a chance to say goodbye, to see the face of one of the pups I brought into the world. I didn’t expect to ever be a part of their lives, and I don’t think I want to be. I’m not sure if seeing their faces will heal me…or remind me of what happened. But, I uhh- I’ll consider it, and discuss it with my therapist. I would be grateful if the offer remained open, in the event that I did decide to see him again.”
“The offer will be there if or when you’re ready.” The father insisted. “It will be there.”
“Thank you. Really, thank you.” Izuku wiggled his fingers at the pup. Hikaru giggled and waved back. “Bye bye, Hikaru.”
The little family left waving over their shoulders. Izuku stood there in the middle of the path, watching them disappear through the park. It took so much strength for him to admit that he didn’t know what his healing journey would look like. There might come a day when he could look at Hikaru and see only the love of the boy’s parents, and not the horrific things that were done to Izuku to create that little pup. But Izuku had no way to know when that day would come, or if it would come at all.
“You did good, kid.”
“Yeah? I feel like I’m falling apart again.”
“I bet. Remember what I said about grief?”
“It kills you or it keeps you alive, right?”
“Mhm.” Aizawa grinned behind his capture scarf. “So, which is it this time?”
What an awful question, but it had to be asked. For a second, Izuku hesitated, because he thought he didn’t know. But the truth is, he did know. The answer hadn’t changed from the last time Aizawa asked it. The hardest part was actually acknowledging that he knew the answer.
“It hasn’t killed me yet. I think I’ll be okay. Might take a while though.”
“One day, you’re going to have a kid of your own, one with those beautiful emerald eyes, and probably blonde hair.” The teacher glanced at him knowingly. Izuku blushed. “And you’re going to realize that all that pain and all that grief might still hurt, but it’s not heavy anymore, and it might even weigh less than that pup you just held. That’s when it stops killing you and starts keeping you alive.”
“Thanks, Sensei.”
“Anytime, kid. Let’s go home.”
~
~ Epilogue - 5 Years Later ~
“Kacchan! We’re going to be late!”
“No, we’re not, stop freaking out. The party is literally downstairs. Come here, you don’t even have your shirt buttoned yet.”
“Izumi needed help getting dressed. Here, just button me up. I need to get her shoes on.”
“Hey, whoa, take a breath.” Katsuki grabbed him by the shoulders so he could press a kiss on their daughter’s forehead and then one on Izuku’s lips. “It’s a birthday party for kids, not finals week back at UA.”
“I know but- but it means a lot to me, to Hikaru.”
“I know, Izuku. I know what this means. But taking a deep breath and slowing down will not make you late to this very important birthday party.”
Izuku finally took a deep breath like his mate insisted. Izumi in his arms cuddled his face, her arms barely reaching around his head. Izuku kissed their two year old daughter’s blonde curls and finally calmed down.
“He’s five today, Kacchan. It’s been five years. I just- I can’t believe it.”
Katsuki smiled, nodding as he replied. “It flew by, huh?”
“Yeah, yeah, it did.”
“Here.”
He took Izumi from Izuku’s arms and placed her in the stroller they’d set by the door. Once she was strapped in and wiggling happily, Katsuki came back to button Izuku’s shirt. The poor Alpha was antsy and eager, his body relatively unable to stand still, so he bounced on the balls of his feet.
“You’re signing the papers today, right?”
Izuku nodded. “Yeah, partial parental rights but Hikaru remains with his adoptive parents. I’ll be like a step-father, I guess. That’s how the lawyers described it. I won’t have first say, but I’m next of kin after his parents. We’re going to work out visitation later. I’m not sure I need to see him all the time. But I’d like to see him around holidays, maybe, and like this - on his birthdays.”
“Do you think you’ll ever tell him where he came from?”
Katsuki wasn’t trying to ruin the moment, despite the difficult question. He was thinking ahead, a place where Izuku wasn’t sure he could go right now. So he shrugged. Katsuki pressed his hands down over Izuku’s chest to smooth out his shirt as he stepped back.
“Maybe when he’s old enough - ya know, like twenty-five or something.” They both chuckled. “I want him to know that he is loved, that he wasn’t given up because of who he is or how he came to be. I want him to know that he was given to loving parents who would take the best care of him when I couldn’t.”
Izumi squealed from the stroller, her little arms and legs kicking. Izuku rushed over without thinking. It didn’t matter if his secondary gender had been swapped back to Alpha for several years now. He still felt the pull of his daughter when she called, even if Katsuki was the Omega who’d given birth to her. Katsuki handed off Izumi’s stuffed rabbit over Izuku’s shoulder and the toddler settled happily, almost immediately gnawing on the bunny’s ear.
“You are an excellent father, Izuku, my mate. Hikaru will grow up with three amazing, loving parents, four if you count me, since we’re kind of a packaged deal.”
Izuku smirked. “Yes, he will. Izumi will have a strong big brother, too.”
“She will.” The blonde leaned back against the wall, arms crossed and a smirk on his face. “And they’ll both grow up in a world where heroes keep them safe.”
“Promise, Kacchan?”
“You will never know that kind of grief again, Izuku. I swear it.”
Izuku let his daughter take his fingers to play with and bite. She was teething, just barely getting through without screaming from the pain. Izuku knew that feeling all too well. But Katsuki was right. These children would grow up in a world where they were kept safe, a world that had made leaps and bounds in the protection of Omegas in very short order, thanks to Izuku’s court case.
“The grief kept alive, Kacchan. It could have killed me. It could have destroyed me. Instead, it kept me moving. But no one should live in grief. No one can survive on grief alone.”
“So what do you thrive on now, Alpha?”
Izuku smiled at their daughter, and she smiled back. “That.” He nodded to Izumi. “That joy right there.”