Archive of Our Own ^beta

Shoto had thought about breaking the bond a lot.

When he heard a sound in the hallway outside his room and his heart jumped into his throat even though he knew with one hundred percent surety that his father wasn’t home. When he couldn’t sleep with adrenaline and anxiety biting at his mind, an endless prickling of ‘what if, what if, what if’. When his bones ached and his skin was blistered from his own Quirk, but he kept getting up. He had to get up, because his father’s Commands stained his thoughts like ink on a blank page, echoing and echoing in his mind, inescapable. They burned in his thoughts, clawing at his ears as he fought and trained and burned himself with Commands tearing at his will, he learned that there was nothing he hated more than his father’s Commands.

But he never acted on those thoughts.

Sometimes he would hold the bond in his mind, turning it over and over and picturing how he would do it. He thought he would probably freeze it colder and colder, until it shattered into a thousand glittering shards of ice.

But he never did.

His father’s was the only bond he had. Without it… Shoto wouldn’t have anything. He wouldn’t have anyone. No bonds in his mind’s eye, nothing to fall back on. He couldn’t even imagine how that would feel.

And anyway, it wasn’t really a problem. Usually, his father wasn’t awful. He wasn’t perfect, but neither was Shoto, and there was always the hope that maybe, if Shoto was better – faster, stronger, more obedient – then his father wouldn’t need to Command him. If Shoto could just do as he was told, then there would be no need for his father’s voice to rip his willpower apart and set him right again and again.

So, he tried.

He wouldn’t use his fire. It felt too much like his father’s voice in his ears, burning his hands and burning his face and burning his mother, so he didn’t touch it. He never even raised his left hand if he could help it. Instead, he relied on his ice. It worked. He could fight. He was good, a strong fighter, maybe even Number One material, in a few years. So, he was… fine.

Everything was fine.

Especially after Shoto got into UA and then the dorm system was established, so he didn’t spend near as much time with his father. He trained at UA instead, where there was no alpha voice just waiting for him to falter, for him to not stand up or hesitate a moment too long. Sure, there was Aizawa-Sensei, All Might, and Snipe-Sensei, but All Might was a beta, and the others didn’t use their Commanding voices almost at all.

So, it had been a while since Shoto had really thought about it. A while since he’d taken the bond into his mental hand and pondered what it would feel like if he froze it solid.

At least, not until his father appeared in the dorms and Shoto realized just how much he’d let himself go. He was learning to sew instead of studying. He was sitting with people he wanted to call his friends instead of training. He was eating whatever Bakugou made instead of sticking to his strict Hero-training diet, and he was sure his father could tell.

He could hear it in his father’s voice. Could hear the edges of Command that were clawing at Shoto’s ears, a breath away from turning to proper sharp-edged commands that dug deep into his skin and didn’t let his hands shake. He was fine, though. He was just fine, no need for anyone to worry.

Even when his father turned that furious voice on Shoto’s friends, it was fine. His father wasn’t their alpha. He didn’t have a proper hierarchy bond with any of them, so his Commands weren’t anywhere near absolute. And, considering Shoto’s friends and how strong he knew their wills were, even his father’s Command wouldn’t phase them much.

But then- Shoto knew he wouldn’t be expelled, not with Aizawa-Sensei and Nezu-Sensei as his advocates. But withdraw? Of course, he could withdraw. That option was available to everyone. He didn’t want to, but since when had his father ever taken into account what Shoto wanted?

And with his father’s Commands, then Shoto wouldn’t have a choice.

He wouldn’t have a choice.

If Shoto left now, he’d never get to come back. He knew that as a bone-deep, instinctive sort of truth. If his father Commanded him away from UA, Shoto would never come back. He would never see his friends again. He couldn’t do that. He couldn’t. He wouldn’t listen.

An alpha’s Command was only absolute to members of their hierarchy.

There was only one way out.

With a breath and a frigid thought, Shoto shattered the bond. He had only an instant to feel it break, to see ice crystalize in his mind’s eye and fracture into millions of spinning crystalline shards.

And then the world went cold.

Impossibly cold. So frigid that Shoto couldn’t breathe through it, and wasn’t he supposed to have incredible temperature resistance? He remembered one winter when his father had locked him outside the house for hours on end, and Shoto had merely sat in the snow and waited for the door to open again. He shouldn’t be cold. He shouldn’t feel this cold. It felt like half his Quirk was missing, and all that was left was the ice.

He used to be warm, right? He couldn’t… he couldn’t remember. There was nothing to remember, because there was nothing left inside him.

Shoto didn’t even think he existed anymore. An ice sculpture left to melt in the sun.

Some memory of heat tried to touch him, fire licking at his frozen mind and warm wind buffeting at his resolve. But heat was death, was pain, was worse emptiness than he already felt, and as much as Shoto yearned for the warmth, he steeled himself against it. He couldn’t give in. He clung to his freedom with frozen fingers, even as the recollection of why the warmth was bad trickled out of his mind.

And then… light.

Like the sunrise, it overtook him, and with the light came warmth. Not the fiery, all-consuming, overbearing heat, but a distant, comforting sort of sunshine warmth.

A part of the hidden and much-suppressed instinct-driven corner of Shoto’s mind whispered ‘omega’, and then, intent and bone-deep and as sure as he knew that the sun would rise in the morning and set every night, it hissed, ‘mine’.

His. His omega. In the way a man might be a painting’s creator or a woman a child’s mother, that was his omega. He belonged to them. Not like he belonged to the fire that nipped away his desires and burned away all but the perfect son, but in the way his ice belonged to him, like how Dark Shadow was Tokoyami’s and Midoriya was All Might’s.

With a desperate sort of need and fluttering strength, Shoto forced his eyes open.

There they were. His sunshine-warmth. His omega. His pack.

In the distant, logical, reasoning part of his mind, Shoto recognized the face in front of him. It was a face of order and strict obedience, a face associated with rules and instructions and vital decisions. A person to be respected if not feared, and to never be trifled with or underestimated.

The forefront, instinctive part of his brain agreed that yes, obviously, nobody would dare mess with a pack’s heart omega, and really the only issue with the current situation was just how far away that omega was. He should be closer. Much closer.

Shoto tried his best to fix that mistake. He reached out desperately to his omega, his limbs clumsy and body not working right. He needed them. He needed his omega like he needed water in the desert, like a man dying of frostbite needed warmth.

Fortunately, he didn’t have to wait long.

In moments, the omega was there, and he smelled of a distantly familiar scent that set off warning bells in Shoto’s long-honed survival instincts but made his ancestral inborn instincts hum with delight. Well, nothing bad had happened yet. Perhaps he’d… give it a minute, and see which side won out.

The sunshine grew brighter in Shoto’s head, basking him in impossible warmth, and he decided instantly that his ancestral instincts had been right all along. Nothing bad could come of this.

There was more light with every breath, the new sunshine presence joined by more and more until they formed a shining constellation, spilling light and warmth over Shoto like nothing he’d ever felt before.

Pack, hummed something wounded and ragged but still barely hanging on in Shoto’s psyche, this is my pack.

And that something only became more and more sure as the glowing constellation grew brighter and stronger and more real, and the memory of the painful touch of fiery Commands grew more and more distant, and other bonds settled like warmth on his face, and the room smelled of familiar and safe scents, and the only voices were safe ones, and Shoto was held in warm, safe arms that promised no pain.

Shoto opened his eyes and froze.

Aizawa-Sensei was holding him.

His teacher. Was holding him.

Emotions warred in Shoto’s chest. Panic was easy, and the familiar frantic anticipation of ‘he’s got me, I can’t move, what’s he going to do, watch out watch out watch out’ but they were both mixed with disbelief and confusion and feelings Shoto couldn’t even name. Aizawa-Sensei’s hold wasn’t tight or painful – yet, the old, jaded, surviving part of Shoto reminded him – but it also wasn’t familiar. It felt strangely… warm.

Not like his father’s grip, which was always seconds away from searing burning handprints into his skin, but something… else. Something Shoto didn’t recognize at all, and that made it a hundred times worse. What was happening? What had he missed while he was out of his mind? Where had his father gone? How long had he even been out?

Before Shoto could spiral too far, Aizawa-Sensei released Shoto with a heavy breath, dropping away to flop onto his back on Yaomomo’s familiar comforter. Shoto breathed a sigh of relief and mourned Aizawa-Sensei’s absence in equal measure. What was wrong with him?

“We’re in Yaoyorozu’s bed,” Aizawa-Sensei said, and Shoto frantically tried to pick apart his tone. Was he upset? Confused? Irritated? He couldn’t tell past Aizawa-Sensei’s usual blunt, tired voice.

“It’s fine!” Yaomomo chirped, and Shoto hoped she was right. Shoto didn’t even remember how he got to Yaomomo’s bed, but ignorance had never been a valid excuse for his father. It was his fault, anyway, for zoning out like that.

All Sensei said was, “We should go.”

As Aizawa-Sensei clambered off the bed with Mic-Sensei’s help, Shoto tried to steady himself.

“Can you move, Shoto?” Aizawa-Sensei asked. Shoto hid a wince. Of course, when Aizawa-Sensei had said ‘we should go’, he meant Shoto should also stop bothering Yaoyorozu. He should have left her alone as soon as he was coherent enough to realize where he was.

“Let’s go,” Sensei, said, holding out a hand.

Shoto forced himself to put his hand in his teacher’s, tamping down on the nerves that made him want to flinch away and withdraw from flaming palms and blistering hot fingertips. Sensei’s hand wasn’t hot. It was warm and callused and it guided Shoto gingerly off the bed and to his feet, which Shoto tried his hardest to keep.

Sensei was limping slightly as he walked out of the room, and Shoto pressed his lips together and held his hands flat against the sides of his legs, burning with shame.

“We need to talk,” Aizawa-Sensei said, almost distractedly, though as far as Shoto could tell, Sensei was almost never distracted. Shoto barely tamped down on another flinch. Talks with that sort of inflection on them never ended well. Aizawa-Sensei couldn’t burn him, but Shoto knew that there was more than one way to remind someone that they’d failed, especially with a bond in place, though Shoto didn’t know a lot about pack bonds. Hopefully, Aizawa-Sensei would give him a lecture, too, so Shoto would know what he’d done wrong and could fix it. Or at least try. Unless it was something like accidentally packbonding with him, which Shoto didn’t even know how he’d done. He was a beta; he shouldn’t have been able to create a bond like that.

“You’re not in trouble,” Aizawa-Sensei said abruptly, “and I’m not going to hurt you. We just need to discuss some things.”

Maybe Aizawa-Sensei was planning to let him off easy for a first offence? His father had sometimes done that, only lectured and insulted him for his ignorance, instead of burning him on the first time. Shoto really hoped it was something he could fix. He didn’t want to know what Aizawa-Sensei would consider a reasonable punishment. UA had Recovery Girl on staff, so Sensei could get away with almost anything as long as it wasn’t permanently damaging.

Aizawa-Sensei and Mic-Sensei led the way to Aizawa-Sensei’s suite at the back of the dorms, and Shoto kept his posture straight and face blank even as they passed briefly through the living room, where it smelled of Midoriya and Uraraka and others that made Shoto’s throat close with the need to call out for help. They couldn’t help him, anyway. Anyone who tried would just get expelled.

“I’ll leave you two alone,” Mic-Sensei said as he flung the door open, “Holler if you need anything!”

And he was leaving Shoto alone with Aizawa-Sensei, so Shoto would only get one punishment and it would be one from an omega, not an alpha. That was… good. Probably. Hopefully. Then again, Aizawa-Sensei was physically stronger and always seemed like he disapproved of something, so probably he’d been building up to this for a while.

“Come sit with me,” Aizawa-Sensei ordered, and Shoto hurried to obey, sinking into the nearest available sofa. Instead of standing over him, Aizawa-Sensei settled onto the kotatsu with a tiny wince. Another wave of guilt swept over Shoto. He had done that, hadn’t he? He’d hurt Aizawa-Sensei by… doing something wrong, and forcing Sensei to hurt himself to hold onto Shoto, and maybe Shoto had almost hurt someone? He couldn’t remember, but he remembered feeling very cold, so maybe his Quirk had gone off without him controlling it and frozen someone and Aizawa-Sensei had to come in and stop him from doing it again.

“Shoto,” Aizawa-Sensei chided, and Shoto forced his eyes to turn towards his teacher, his father’s reprimand to, ‘look at me when I’m talking to you, Shoto, or your punishment will be doubled’ echoing in his mind.

The brightest star in the constellation that now glowed in Shoto’s mind seemed to crack down the middle, and suddenly the sunlight it spilled over him was full of honesty-truth-reassurance.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” Aizawa-Sensei said firmly. “I don’t know exactly what Endeavor was doing to you, but I know he was hurting you, and it wasn’t your fault.”

Yes, of course his father hurt him. Shoto needed to be better. Maybe… maybe it wasn’t his fault per se, but it was his responsibility to make up for his failures, and to suffer the consequences of them.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” Sensei repeated, and the sunshine on Shoto’s heart gleamed brighter with protectiveness and rock-solid honesty, “and neither is anyone else. Certainly not Endeavor.”

Well, that wasn’t right. Endeavor was… he was Shoto’s first teacher. He wasn’t Shoto’s alpha anymore, but it was his job to teach Shoto, to make sure he could succeed and do well, and sometimes, when Shoto failed, it was Endeavor’s job to punish him. He was… “He’s my father.”

“He’s a bondbroken alpha, and I’m the omega at the heart of your pack. If you don’t want him anywhere near you, he’ll never come anywhere near you.”

Shoto blinked at him, confused. Sure, he’d broken the bond with his father, but that had been a necessity. Just so he wouldn’t have to leave UA. And surely, Aizawa-Sensei didn’t mean to say that he actually considered Shoto to be a real member of his… his… “Pack?”

“I’ve tied you into my pack,” Aizawa-Sensei said, and already Shoto was reeling. He barely caught the rest of what Aizawa-Sensei said. “Without any support, breaking your alpha bond could have killed you. Let me be clear.” Sensei took a breath and continued. “I created the bond to be functional, because I care about you.”

Shoto didn’t know what to think. Aizawa-Sensei had created the bond? Intentionally? And- Shoto had almost killed himself by breaking away from his father? Sensei cared about him?

The sunshine still continued to beat with patience and honesty and even, yes, caring. Shoto didn’t understand.

“I do care about you. You’re a part of my pack now, and they care about you, too. Not just because you’re hurt and in need of help, but because you’re ours now. We will do everything in our power to support you and keep you safe. We will not hurt you, we will not abandon you, and we will not force you to do anything you don’t want to.”

Shoto couldn’t breathe. This was too much. Words and even scents could lie, but hierarchy bonds couldn’t. He was pretty sure pack bonds were the same, but they couldn’t be. This couldn’t be real. Shoto clamped down hard on his side of the bond, trying to block off his own mess of emotions from Aizawa-Sensei’s side. He didn’t know what to think. He didn’t know what to do.

Aizawa-Sensei leaned forward, and Shoto almost jumped out of his skin as Sensei held out a hand. But he didn’t make contact. Did Shoto want Sensei to touch him? He didn’t know.

“Can I touch you?”

He had to decide.

Aizawa-Sensei’s face was unreadable. His scent was sweet and wild, like midnight wind, still clinging to Shoto’s shirt and skin. The sunshine in Shoto’s soul rippled with concern and kindness and buried embers of pain that Shoto knew he had put there, and Shoto finally managed to nod.

Aizawa-Sensei’s hand settled on his knee, and Shoto couldn’t think of anything else. Nothing but the warmth that slowly spread through him, billowing from Sensei’s hand like he was melting a patch of ice in the shape of a boy.

Shoto needed more. He needed it closer, needed to smell Aizawa-Sensei directly. Without thinking about it, he grabbed Sensei’s hand, skin to skin, and yanked it forward, pressing his nose into the scent gland on Sensei’s wrist.

Sensei followed the motion, but Shoto felt pain spike across the bond, briefly overcoming the concern and kindness before being swept away itself by a sort of resilience that Shoto recognized too well. Sensei was hurting to help someone else. Sensei was hurting because of Shoto. Freezing tears welled in his eyes, and Shoto hurriedly pulled Sensei up next to him, overcome with the need to stop the hurting. It wasn’t until Sensei slumped onto the cushions next to him – shoulders pressed against each other, thighs touching, Shoto’s nose still practically pressed to Sensei’s wrist – that Shoto relaxed.

Tears still trickled down his face, freezing into icicles on his chin in a blatant display of insufficient Quirk control, but Shoto couldn’t bring himself to care. His father wasn’t around to lecture him for it, and as far as Shoto could tell, Sensei wasn’t going to. Didn’t even want to, if the light was to be believed.

“What-” Shoto managed, “What are these- these lights? In my head? They came- when you bit me, I felt- and… they’re getting stronger.” Because he could remember the bite, now, the pinch of teeth in his skin just before the sun rose on his frozen heart, but the stars were from… something else.

“That’s your pack,” Sensei said in a voice that made Shoto want to melt into a contented puddle and never think again, “They’re all bonded to me, and, through that bond, to you now. You already know most of them, and you’ll meet the last one later, when you’re ready. One is Midnight. Another is Present Mic. One is the first Ingenium, Iida’s older brother. The one that feels strange and not quite real is Nezu. The very small one is Eri.”

“Oh,” Shoto said, and he had to pull Sensei’s scent gland away from his nose to keep his thoughts moving. “What about the very bright one at the center?” The sun. He thought he knew, he hoped he knew, but he couldn’t be sure. He had to ask. What if he was wrong?

“That one’s mine.”

“Oh.” Shoto had been right, and that meant… well, it meant a lot of things. Most notably, it meant- “I’m sorry.”

“What are you sorry for?”

“I…” Shoto knew the pain had come from Sensei’s metal leg, from wearing it too long, and it was Shoto’s fault that he’d been forced to keep it on. “I made you hurt.”

“It’s not your fault,” Shouta said

“But I… It was my fault.” Of course, it was his fault. “It’s always my fault.” That was what his father had always said. When Shoto couldn’t save someone in time, when he was too slow or his ice wasn’t as effective as fire would have been, it was his fault. Always.

“It’s not your fault,” Sensei repeated firmly. “I am an adult, and the omega heart of your pack. You are a child. It’s my job to take care of you. Not the other way around. Even alpha hierarchies go both ways; to earn loyalty, they need to give it in return. Anyone who ever tried to convince you otherwise was wrong and doesn’t deserve your loyalty.”

Shoto’s head hurt. Had his father ever given Shoto a speck of loyalty? If Touya’s fate was anything to go by, Shoto sincerely doubted it. Which meant… “Oh.”

The sunshine in his heart swelled with a lighthearted, friendly sort of amusement that mingled with anger Shoto knew was directed at someone else and more protectiveness and emotions Shoto had never felt through any bond before. Real affection and caring and an impossible to name I-want-him-to-succeed that felt so unlike his father’s desire for secondhand greatness. And maybe… maybe Shoto was glad. Maybe he could allow himself to be glad. To be happy. Finally.