Work Text:
“He’s eighteen, Hawks,” Endeavour says, exasperated. Keigo smiles his most beatific and yet smug smile in response.
“I’m twenty-two, man. He’s also about to turn nineteen.”
“He’s my son’s friend,” is what Endeavour stresses next, as if Keigo isn’t acutely aware that Shouto Todoroki and Izuku Midoriya come as some strange — hopefully — platonic package deal and have ever since their first year sports festival, when the world watched as instead of winning and going down in UA college history as the boy to beat Endeavour’s kid, Izuku elected to infuriate him until the arena was engulfed in flames.
Yeah, Keigo’s very well aware that Izuku is best friends with Shouto, despite Endeavour somehow thinking that the Wing Hero was the only person in the heroics world that missed that memo.
“Shouto’s a lovely boy.” It’s a calculated reply, designed to get his sort-of-friend-but-mostly-work-acquaintance to stop harping on Keigo’s crush — feelings, lots of feelings that Keigo isn’t sure he’s ever experienced before but will muddle through for Izuku, even if Izuku doesn’t know — on the current golden boy of UA and redirect him into overprotective father mode.
“Shouto isn’t even an omega, Hawks!”
Ah. It worked, and Keigo is immensely satisfied by this as he snickers and steals more of Endeavour's food. “I’m aware of that. He’s an alpha. If anything, he’s deliberately riling my instincts up by constantly being so close to Izuku.”
Keigo is fishing because if anyone has done the background checks and hired the private investigators with stealth quirks to find out if Shouto Todoroki is courting Izuku Midoriya in secret, it’s Endeavour. He’s fishing because honestly, accidentally becoming friends with Izuku and then starting to fall in love with Izuku was just alarming all around for Keigo. His alpha has never had an opinion on omegas before, and his heart certainly has never fluttered faster than his damn wings looking at someone before, and Keigo really doesn’t want to tell Izuku any of this if he’s covertly dating his best friend.
“Oh please. They’re like kittens that are trauma-bonded after being abandoned from separate litters and finding each other by chance in a gutter later on. They protect each other and they cuddle a disgusting amount but they both look utterly appalled whenever Natsuo or Fuyumi make jokes about them courting, and frankly, I wouldn’t— Hey! Is that what this dinner is? Not catching up, not discussing an upcoming case, but you wheedling information about those two out of me?”
Keigo shrugs. He’s innocent until proven guilty and he’s sure as shit not confessing if he doesn’t have to, but that doesn’t mean Endeavour doesn’t know him well and hasn’t already figured out his motives. The question is more of a formality than a necessity.
“Hawks, as much as I wish to set you on fire and watch you burn sometimes, you’re my friend. I would have told you if you just asked. Why wouldn’t you just ask?”
Mulling the question over, Keigo decides to go with, “I’ve never done this before. Feelings, wanting someone, alpha interested in an omega, any of it. I’ve found people attractive and my alpha’s always been like, repulsed, so I never took the attraction anywhere. Ten minutes with Izuku when Tokoyami just happens to bring him into work for — I can’t even remember what ridiculous reason he gave now — something, and my alpha won’t shut the fuck up. That was ten months ago. So it’s not going anywhere and I’m fairly certain I’m in love with one of the first friends I’ve ever had—”
Endeavour frowns and Hawks takes pity on him. “—that’s in my age bracket and I don’t know how to do this. I didn’t want to try and figure out any more, or tell Izuku if he was secretly being courted by Shouto.”
“And you’re emotionally stunted and feel vulnerable for caring, because you’re broken inside and the only whole parts of yourself are being saved for the omega that’s probably in my house making soba with Fuyumi right now,” Endeavour says, flat and deadpan like his damn kid.
Endeavour’s a dick and it’s exactly why Keigo is friends with him. He’s easy to deal with because he doesn’t have the energy to bullshit anyone, and while Keigo loves bullshitting other people, he hates it in reverse. He’s heard the saying, he knows he shouldn’t be dishing out what he can’t take, he just happens not to give a fuck about that.
“Right you are, Fire Daddy.”
“Don’t call me that. It’s awful. People will think we’re in a relationship.”
“I’m not seeing the problem, Fire Daddy. I’m a catch.”
“What would Izuku think if he saw in the tabloids that you were overheard calling me Fire Daddy?” Endeavour asks — threatens? He’s pulling out the big guns, and once again, Keigo thinks he’s a dick, but it’s also a good point. He takes ‘Fire Daddy’ off the list of things he’s calling Endeavour to wind him up and replaces it with Weakened by Extinguishers.
“Alright, alright. Fine. If I ask, will you be nice about it?” Keigo asks. He’s suspicious and certain he’s walking into a trap somehow, but Endeavour nods and swears to call him after he gets information out of Shouto, going so far as to promise to bribe him with soba if need be.
Keigo is correct, the offer was a trap. Not by Endeavour, oh no, that would make retribution far too easy for him, it’s a trap by the universe. His asshole friend calls him a day later and informs him that Shouto readily gave up the information because he’s well aware of Keigo’s pining, and would very much like the number two hero to ‘stop being such a winged coward and offer to court Izuku’.
That isn’t even the trap, although it doesn’t thrill Keigo knowing that Shouto knows. It is somewhat relieving to hear that Shouto and Izuku have a platonic non-mating bond — a rarity, yes, but not an impossibility — and Shouto isn’t competition, because Keigo isn’t sure he’d win that one.
The last person to be mean about Shouto is, as far as reports go, still refusing to enter UA purely because Izuku is in UA. They were a student, which has made things quite inconvenient, and when asked about it, Izuku is entirely unrepentant and tells people they should mind their manners if they don’t want consequences when they exhibit bad ones.
Given that Izuku is a quirkless omega — the first quirkless student in any hero course, a miracle as far as anyone else is concerned, though Keigo likes to dreamily think to himself that it’s more of an eventuality with how amazing Izuku is — it’s somehow even more terrifying that he’s managed to force an alpha with a very powerful quirk into territory submission, so no, Keigo is not sure he’d win if he was competing against Shouto romantically.
The trap he mentioned, the one the universe has laid out for him, is that evidently, most of the hero course is aware that Katsuki Bakugou, that horrible little shit that told Izuku to kill himself when they were younger — the real miracle isn’t Izuku being in the hero course, it’s that Keigo hasn’t yet shredded Bakugou’s throat with his bare hands for that one, but a bird can dream — is interested in Izuku as his omega.
Now, Keigo, were he just friends with Izuku, would be giving all kinds of shovel talks to that guy. With diagrams and pictures and all his backup plans for making sure Bakugou was never found dead or alive again if he so much as sniffed too close to Izuku, and they’d be detailed — but they aren’t just friends.
Hearing that Bakugou is interested in the omega he burnt and kicked and suicide-baited, the omega that Keigo would treasure more than his damn quirk and feathers and fried chicken put together is enough for Keigo to let go of all his I’ve-never-dated-before insecurity and decide to be reckless.
It should be normal for him — impulsive decisions, letting his instincts rule him, not caring what people think of him — and in a way it is, but not when it comes to Izuku. Keigo has always been nothing but thought-out and careful and tender when it comes to Izuku. Not treating him like fragile glass because he lacks a quirk, but with him as a person. He’s strong and somewhat terrifying with throwing knives and his friendship with the beta in the support department with the pink hair has landed them both on several watchlists, but his heart is delicate and deserves treating as such.
Until UA, until Shouto and the platonic bond, kind hands had never touched Izuku. Keigo knows because Izuku has spoken about it, though admittedly he refuses to admit the toll it’s taken on him internally. Keigo knows that Izuku hates being grabbed on the shoulder because he hears explosions and his handprint burn scar burns with phantom pain. He knows that he prefers to memorise things instead of taking notes because he’s conditioned to think his notes are temporary at best. He knows that Izuku likes people but doesn’t trust them — and all because of Bakugou.
He knows that Izuku trusts him enough to tell him things he’s only told Shouto in such detail, and Keigo won’t repay that with anything less than the caring, gentle, loving treatment Izuku deserves. Sometimes that’s sparring with Izuku to remind him that not everyone thinks he’s lacking without a quirk, sometimes it’s forcing himself to read up on a hero he has no interest in so he understands Izuku’s fast-paced analysis of them, and sometimes it’s pretending he doesn’t kind of want to burn a good portion of the world just because it deserves it for hurting Izuku.
Either way, until hearing that Bakugou had an interest in Izuku, Keigo has thought out every decision he makes whenever it relates even slightly to Izuku, but he can’t do that this time. It won’t work, his brain refuses to accept a solution to the problem that isn’t flying to fucking UA in the middle of the night so he can show Bakugou Izuku isn’t his.
Never will be.
Izuku, despite not being scared of Bakugou, is very scared of him. An oxymoron maybe, but true all the same. He doesn’t think Bakugou is going to turn villain and blow the world up, but even as tentative ‘frenemies’ as Monoma from class B apparently deems them, Izuku doesn’t like close physical proximity to Bakugou outside of training and other physical hero-related things.
What kind of mate would Bakugou be if his omega was scared to be physically close to him? Mates need scenting and cuddling and kissing and other things Keigo certainly isn’t thinking about while flying over sleeping people — he’s a hero and that’s just… no — and Izuku would despise Bakugou doing any of that to him.
But he’s an omega and Bakugou is an alpha and even though Izuku could and would defend himself from a physical attack if he thought Bakugou might kill him, he’s still conditioned to expect and accept a physical assault from the alpha. Allow him to do as he wishes to avoid the pain that comes with refusal. He’s not defenceless but just this once Keigo is letting his alpha run the show because Bakugou needs to get that there’s another alpha who’ll fuck his world right up if he goes near Izuku with anything less than child-friendly intentions.
Not that Shouto wouldn’t defend Izuku from Bakugou — he knows there’s been a good amount of snarling and growling and whatnot from Shouto whenever Bakugou crosses the lines he’s set as Izuku’s on-site platonic alpha, after talking about that arrangement at length with Endeavour — but it’s different coming from Keigo, an alpha who is absolutely going to court Izuku.
Shouto will find his own romantic omega mate one day and while the bond between Izuku and Shouto won’t diminish because of it, Shouto won’t always be able to be there, his scent won’t be under Izuku’s skin the same way Keigo’s will — would — be if they were mated and there were mating bites and… more things he’s not thinking about when he’s still flying over a residential area.
People are asleep down there. He knows he wouldn’t sleep well if he woke up and somehow found out an alpha was in the airspace over his home thinking about sex. What if they came back and kept thinking about sex above his house? Preposterous. He might never sleep again.
He arrives at UA about ten minutes before the usual time his good morning text from Izuku comes in and lands on Shouto’s balcony. He finds it by scent, muted and oddly sugary for an alpha, and knocks. He knows Shouto will be up, his morning routine is pristine and he’ll be meditating on the floor like some kind of monk by now.
The door opens and mismatched eyes regard him for a quick second before he’s invited into a room which smells like Shouto, mostly, but also content omega. Not turned on omega, just content and safe, and he knows it’s Izuku because Izuku smells like apple and honey.
He’s googled it before, and being able to identify the specific elements of a scent like that is supposed to indicate the closest thing to a ‘true mate bond’ scientists can explain. He wonders what he smells like to Izuku, and then he worries he doesn’t smell like anything so specific, because the articles didn’t say anything about the bond having to go two ways, and—
“You are more anxious than a teenage omega going through their first heat in a room full of alphas with bad manners,” Shouto says dryly. Keigo blinks and wonders if his father is aware Shouto is such a mouthy little shit when he’s not around. It seems unlikely despite the fact their fraught relationship has been on the ups ever since Endeavour went for counselling a year or so ago. He certainly isn’t going to be the one to break the news, not when he needs a favour from Shouto.
“Bakugou.”
One word and Shouto’s blank-but-amused expression becomes stone-hard. “I’m aware he’s a problem and I’ve made it very clear I don’t approve.”
Keigo doubts that will have made a difference to the brash young alpha. “And he said?”
“He said he wasn’t interested in Izuku, and that even if he was, the approval of a platonically-bonded alpha would mean less than nothing to him. Everyone knows he’s lying about the first part, and sadly, he’s telling the truth about the second.” Shouto pauses and his eyes take on a slightly unhinged gleam. “It doesn’t stop me from making it very clear that Izuku cares about my approval, or from snarling when he encroaches on Izuku’s physical space, or from—”
Keigo holds up a still-gloved hand. “Yes, you’re messing with Bakugou while protecting Izuku. Great stuff and I’m absolutely thrilled, but I’m here to hopefully fix it.”
Shouto cocks his head like a cat and Keigo’s bird instincts — unfair that he has human instincts, designation instincts, and quirk instincts to deal with, in his opinion — want him to fly far the fuck away, but he stays put. “How are you fixing it, exactly?”
Well. Now or never. “Your dad said you want me to stop being a coward and just court him.”
“Not an answer, but getting there.”
Mouthy little shit, Keigo thinks again. “I’m going to court him and make it very clear to Bakugou that I am. I might not be the most confrontational alpha in the world but I’m rapidly discovering my alpha will go pretty fucking feral if need be on this particular, um, subject.”
“The subject of mating Izuku,” Shouto summarises bluntly and horrifically. Keigo doesn’t want to think about that part in a house of mostly sleeping teenagers. It’s starting to get ridiculous. Is he only ever going to be able to think about sex when he’s in his house now?
“Yes,” he chokes out with narrowed eyes. Shouto looks far too amused.
Far too amused.
“Have I mentioned Izuku’s in my bathroom getting ready for his run?”
Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck—
“No, you little shit, you have not,” Keigo grits out dangerously. The other alpha looks positively delighted. No fear of the murder plans currently being moved from the ‘Bakugou’ section of Keigo’s brain to the ‘Shouto’ section whatsoever. Where is his survival instinct?
“Would you be happy if he overheard that?”
It’s a double-edged sword. It would mean that the hard part, the confessing part, is over and done with. But on the flip side, it would also mean he hadn’t got to choose how to say the words to his — hopefully — omega. He’s honestly not sure whether he wants Izuku to have heard, just to get the hard part out the way, or if he wants the tap to have been too loud so he can choose the right words and be more romantic about it.
Still, he decides he would be happy if Izuku heard. He would have heard the most honest form of Keigo’s feelings, and really, does Izuku deserve anything less? So he nods and tries very hard not to yeet himself back out the balcony doors as a defence mechanism.
Shouto’s eyes glitter and then there’s a very familiar body, shorter but just as muscular and dangerous as Keigo himself, throwing itself against his back. He wants to acknowledge the fact that Izuku is hugging him, he really does, because he’s certain he wouldn’t be getting hugged if Izuku’s answer was bad, but Izuku is also pressed against his wings and they’re sensitive and it’s distracting so he decides to address Shouto, eyebrow raised.
“He was on the balcony?”
“I like to climb up as the last bit of exercise after my run. Went early today,” Is Izuku’s muffled reply into Keigo’s back. His breath feels too good, too much on Keigo’s feathers, and that’s quite enough of that with an audience present, so Keigo pries the hands wrapped around his waist off and yanks Izuku around so he’s standing in front of him.
He takes in delighted green eyes with their flecks of every shade of the colour, a bright smile that makes Keigo’s heart do the fluttering thing, and freckles that he’s traced with his eyes so many times and really wants to trace with his fingertips, and his alpha settles.
Home.
“Out of my room, right now. No mating in my bedroom, nope,” Shouto interrupts, and Keigo glowers even though he’s in total agreement, he’s not mating Izuku in someone else's bedroom, because the courting process has just started. He’s not mating Izuku for another month as long as everything proceeds as it should.
Izuku rolls his beautiful eyes and smirks up at Keigo. “Are you sure, Shouto? It’s such a long walk down to, you know, the next floor down.”
Troublemaker. That’s what his omega is. Absolute troublemaker.
It sinks in then.
His omega.
Five weeks later, Keigo walks through the door of the Heights Alliance, because he can. His mate lives in those dorms, so he has a new UA pass — no longer one given because he’s a pro but because he’s an alpha to an omega living on campus — and he can come and go as he pleases. Especially with said mate at his side smelling like him.
Apparently, to Izuku, Keigo smells of lavender and honey.
Keigo choked around half-word half-sobs for five minutes trying to explain that Izuku smelled like honey too and they were meant for each other — or as close as science will admit people can be, at any rate.
Today is Keigo’s first time coming to the dorms since the courting process started back in Shouto’s room accidentally. They’ve kept everything quiet and out of the press, wanting privacy for a transitional and intimate bonding period between the two of them, and then they kept them private for a week longer because it took four days after the biting and bonding and things Keigo won’t think of around sleeping people for either of them to be willing to stop doing those things so they could leave Keigo’s apartment and go back to the dorms.
“Midoriya! You’re— oh my god,” Kirishima, a very nice beta that Keigo can’t understand due to his friendship with Bakugou, gasps as he takes in their scents and the places where Keigo has his arm and wing wrapped around his mate. Keigo smirks, smug and self-satisfied.
“It’s Izuku Takami now,” he sings. Izuku elbows him as if he isn’t just as smug about them being officially mated and even more of a troublemaker than Keigo himself. Kirishima seems torn between thrilled for Izuku and terrified, which Keigo understands because it’s Kirishima’s job to wrangle the feral mess Bakugou is going to become when he comes in and finds out—
“WHAT THE FUCK DEKU?!”
Ah. There it is.
Izuku doesn’t flinch away, because the accompanying explosions are at least on the other side of the room, but he does press against Keigo’s side a little tighter, and Keigo squeezes his hip where his hand currently rests.
“What are you shouting about, Bakugou?” Shouto asks as he breezes into the room, serene and already informed of the situation by Izuku via text before they even left Keigo’s apartment. He knows damn well what Bakugou’s shouting about, he’s just the same brand of chaos gremlin as Keigo’s mate and loves to cause trouble with him.
“Are you fuckin’ serious, Candy Cane?” the blond alpha demands, red eyes somewhat furious as he rounds on an unaffected Shouto. “He’s just shown up after a week off for ‘personal reasons’ with a fuckin’ mate!”
“Woah, Midobabe scored the number two hero? Nice,” Ashido grins, another brave soul who simply sneers down her pretty nose at Bakugou’s indignant explosions and sputtering.
“It’s Takami, now, Ashido, but thank you. I think,” Izuku smiles, then frowns. Keigo gets it. There are going to be people who say things about them, because Keigo is a little older, or because Izuku is quirkless, or for any number of reasons. They both know some people will congratulate Izuku because of Keigo’s position, but they also both know Izuku would never be so shallow as to mate someone because of their job, so it’s irrelevant.
“Takababe! Love it, love it,” Ashido continues, rolling with the punches as she dodges an explosion and shoves a confused-looking just-arrived Kaminari between herself and Bakugou. Bakugou’s explosion lands, startling Kaminari, who discharges a small shock in response. “So you guys have been courting for a whole month and kept it under wraps? Props to the stealth and your PR team, Hawksbabe.”
Keigo wrinkles his nose. He’s not sure he wants that nickname to stick, but it’s not the worst he could have been given, and Ashido’s easy acceptance of him has soothed Kirishima into looking only mildly concerned about a still panting with anger Bakugou, so he’ll let it slide.
“Oh my god! Tsu! Tsu, sweetness, light of my life, get your butt down here! Izuku has a mate, oh my god!!” Uraraka shrieks over her shoulder after wandering into the common room, grinning madly at Izuku. Izuku didn’t like keeping it from her but was adamant she’d struggle to keep it a secret, and Keigo is inclined to agree since his ears are still ringing slightly from that screech of excitement. Still, she is the most important friend of Izuku’s after Shouto, so he smiles his real smile at her.
“Hey there. Izu really wanted to tell you but, uh, we didn’t want drama or attention before we bonded? He’s told me so much about you though, Uraraka. Can’t wait to get to know you better with less of a circus around us.”
Her beta scent is calm and happy as she tackles Izuku in a hug without dislodging Keigo’s hand — very considerate — before giving Keigo the same bone-crushing treatment. He likes her already.
When her eyes turn sly and she grins at Bakugou, he likes her even more. “Bakugou! Aren’t you happy for Izuku and Takami?”
Bakugou yells obscenities and struggles against the hold Kirishima preemptively wrapped him in just as Uraraka turned as if knowing what those mischievous little eyes meant in advance. Excellent, Izuku’s friends are all troublemakers and Keigo is leaving his mate in a chaos gremlin stronghold when he goes, it seems.
It’s a shame they can’t live together, but Izuku has to finish another year of college before living off-campus, and Keigo has a job and apartment and agency that need his attention. They’ll have weekends, and Keigo isn’t afraid to delegate so he can spend time with his mate, nor does he care if his ranking slips at all because of that — or because his mate is quirkless. He doesn’t like it, but they’re both realistic enough to know it’s a possibility.
Chaos gremlin stronghold or not, though, Keigo will be just fine leaving Izuku in the care of so many people who seem to appreciate him for him as opposed to his quirk status… just as soon as Bakugou has got the message regarding how distinctly not-available Izuku now is.
They sit through more rounds of congratulations and some questions from everyone who slowly comes down the stairs, sleep-rumpled on a should-be lazy Sunday morning, and Keigo smiles serenely as Izuku curls up against his side with a very protective Shouto on his other side. The message to Bakugou is clear — this omega is not alone.
He watches, red eyes acidic and burning, practically dripping venom down his cheeks, as Izuku sighs happily and wraps his arm tighter around Keigo’s middle. His fists twitch like he wants to blow the whole damn room up, and then Shouto, mouthy little shit that he is, decides to enter the conversation.
“You know Aizawa said if you burned any more furniture you were being moved to a special room designed by support that you couldn’t explode. You should calm down, Bakugou. It’d be horrible if you had to leave the dorms.”
His voice is so faux-concerned it’s sugary and sweet and patronising as hell. Bakugou snarls through his teeth and Shouto, unfazed, lets out a much less loud but much more intimidating chest-rumbling growl in response. Keigo’s alpha wants him to join in because that’s the alpha that wants to take his omega, but he refrains. He has an example to set, a point to make.
The aggressive alpha didn’t win the competition. Was never even really in it, because of that aggression. Sure, Keigo still wants to tear his throat open and let him bleed out, but he’s not so immature as to let his instincts rule him entirely.
He is, however, just immature enough to kiss Izuku, smile beatifically at the coos at how adorable they are, and then look Bakugou in the eye and mouth ‘mine’. Bakugou’s eyes glow with rabid intent until they land on Izuku, who looks so happy and at peace, and the light gutters. It doesn’t die out completely, but that’s fine.
He understands that Izuku is not for him and never was, and that’s all Keigo wants. For Izuku to be safe and to be able to finish his studies without some scary-but-not alpha looming over him. He doubts Bakugou will take the loss lying down, he’ll probably go harder than he should in practical training and be snarling and snapping until a new omega catches his eye, but he’s an alpha, so that’s to be expected. His instincts have calmed because Izuku is claimed, and that should be enough to force some half-decent behaviour from him if nothing else.
And if not, well, Keigo has a friend that could burn him up so thoroughly his ashes wouldn’t even survive it.
He takes a look at Shouto, whose eyes are locked on Bakugou as he strokes Izuku’s wrist absent-mindedly.
Make that two friends Keigo has who could help him out.