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Bakugou’s teeth are at Todoroki’s neck when Aizawa tugs him off.
It was a spar. No quirks. He figured he could look away for five seconds.
No such luck.
Because in those five seconds Bakugou managed to pin Todoroki’s wrists above his head on the training mat and press his canines to his tender throat, and Todoroki didn’t even fight him off.
He didn’t use his quirk at all.
He just. Laid there. Quiet and pliant.
And now Aizawa has a grumbling teen alpha staring at the tile floor in his office.
“What’s with you, kid?” he asks. “You’re smart. You know these things are forever. If you had broken skin—”
“Yeah,” Bakugou interrupts. “I know.”
Oh, Aizawa thinks, the start of a stubborn headache pricking at his temples. He wanted it to take.
He should have seen it coming. Ever since second year started, Bakugou is always sticking a little too close to Todoroki, always tugging him out of harm’s way first thing, always finding an excuse to brush up against him so his scent lingers.
Like an unspoken claim.
Aizawa is pretty sure he saw him quite literally tug the shirt off his own back and shove it at Todoroki, right before Todoroki’s last heat.
And they’re presumably not discussing any of this, because they’re seventeen.
“And here I was under the impression that your generation goes out for milkshakes, at least, before making irrevocable commitments,” he says. “Did I get that wrong?”
Bakugou’s head snaps up. “Of course I’ve bought him a milkshake,” he says, all puffed up with alpha pride. “What do you take me for, huh? I let him get all the extra toppings he wanted.”
“Well,” Aizawa says, resisting the urge to sigh, “was Todoroki aware of the implications of said milkshake?”
Because, you know, heaven forbid he unwittingly handed his virtue over for an extra scoop of strawberry lychee jelly, or something of that sort.
Bakugou falters. “Uh,” he says, “I guess?”
“Bakugou,” Aizawa says, as slow and even as he can manage. “Most people don’t get mated on the basis of an I guess. Even when they’re seventeen and hormonal.”
“It’s not just that,” Bakugou huffs. “Halfie’s real pretty, okay, and he smells like goddamn strawberries, because of course he does, because he’s actually trying to ruin my life, the bastard, and—and when I give him my hoodies for his nest, you know, before his heats, he’ll nuzzle them like a cat, right in front of me, and—and he cries at dumb romcoms that he’s seen a hundred times before, and he purrs when he’s happy, and one time he told me that my shoulder was the most comfortable napping spot he’s ever tried, so—yeah. He makes my teeth fucking itch. Is that so bad?”
Well.
It’s not like Aizawa would know much about loud, blond alphas who won’t leave you be and pawn off half their closet on you just so you smell like them from personal experience, so.
“That’s not the point,” he says. “You’re my ki—ahem, you’re both my responsibility, and if you had bitten Todoroki today, and if a bond had taken from that bite, then it would have been my responsibility to call your parents.”
Bakugou blinks. “Oh,” he says. “Right.”
And then, just as Aizawa gets a glimpse of light at the end of a long, paperwork-filled tunnel, Bakugou opens his mouth again.
“Do you think it would have?” he asks quietly. “Taken, I mean. If—if I bit Shouto.”
God, Aizawa decides, is not a merciful being.
“Yes,” he says plainly. “At the first scrape that drew blood, even.”
The corner of Bakugou’s mouth twitches. “Really?” he asks. “Shouto reads those ridiculous omega magazines, you know, the ones with objectively too much pink on the cover and articles titled stuff like Ten Ways to an Alpha’s Heart with a bunch of exclamation marks, and—and he was reading one of those on his bed when he looked up at me and said did you know that sometimes mating bonds don’t take at all? And I guess I—I guess it freaked me out, a little. It’s supposed to be a compatibility thing, right?”
“Mating bonds will take as long as they’re done with intent and the omega wants it,” Aizawa tells him. “All that other stuff is a bunch of crap. So don’t go biting Todoroki again. At least until it’s not my problem anymore. Because it is going to take, and I am going to have to explain that to your mother on the phone.”
“She likes Shouto,” Katsuki says. “She met him, once. Like—properly, you know? We were shopping together. And she just marched over and started cooing over how pretty he was. I don’t think I had ever seen her coo before.”
“Right,” Aizawa says. “And I’m sure she’s particularly enthused about the possibility of becoming a grandmother while her kid is still a high school student?”
“Sensei,” Bakugou hisses. “We don’t—we haven’t even—a pair of half ‘n half’s underwear got mixed in with my laundry, and the spoiled little princess wouldn’t talk to me for a week just because he got embarrassed when I gave them back. So they were pink. And a little frilly. Whatever. It’s not like I—you know.”
Judging purely off of how red he gets, Aizawa guesses that he deeply debated that you know, even if he did the honorable thing in the end.
“Yes,” he says, by now fully convinced that God is either cruel or particularly bored this morning, “I can assume.”
“I should have probably kissed him, huh?” says Bakugou. “Before trying to bite him?”
“Well,” Aizawa says, “if you’re trying to make my job easier you should probably keep a pillow between you at all times, but I doubt that’s high on your current list of concerns.”
“Sorry,” Bakugou says. “I’m really not trying to cause trouble this time, sensei. I just want to keep him. Forever. And I got worried that if I asked beforehand, he might say no or laugh in my face or—or realize that everyone loves him and he can do better?”
“In my experience,” Aizawa says, “matters of the heart aren’t quite so rational.”
(If they were, he’d probably have more time to go on vacation instead of dealing with teenage woes, for one. They say Kyoto is nice, this time of the year.)
“Oh.” Bakugou blinks. “Yeah, the class omegas have this betting pool about you and Present Mic. Shouto is stupidly invested in it. He has about 10000 yen riding on who the little spoon is when you cuddle. I’m pretty sure it’s because you’re both alphas.”
God, Aizawa decides then, is probably nothing but a hopeful fiction of the human mind.
“Hold out another year, kid,” he says. “Okay? I have this bad feeling that even if I tried to resign, the principal wouldn’t take it.”
“You can’t resign,” Bakugou says. “Halfie is going to pout forever and ever if he doesn’t get to the bottom of the little spoon thing.”
“See,” Aizawa says, “I know that at some point I’m going to have to let you out of my sight, and I know that even if I personally tape you to a chair, you will somehow miraculously find your way to Todoroki. So I’m going to respect you a little more than that. Don’t bite him. Don’t get him pregnant. If you have to kiss him, only kiss him in places that will not lead to getting him pregnant. Do you understand me?”
That headache is really starting to settle in.
“Uh,” Bakugou says, after some silence. “What if I’m very careful about kissing him other places? If he lets me, I mean. Is that okay?”
“Kid,” Aizawa says. “You have to start lying.”
Bakugou winces. “I just—,” he says. “I love him, I think? Or, uh, I know. I know I love him. So I want—I want it to be real. I want him to be mine. Wanna keep him forever, sensei.”
“Right,” Aizawa says. “And you can sort all that out after you graduate. So I can send you a gift basket instead of having to file a report about it.”
Bakugou looks particularly pained. “But sensei,” he says, “that’s more than a year.”
Like he can’t bear it. Like his dreams of having Todoroki all to himself, of keeping him forever and ever and then after that, are so all-consuming that he won’t be able to sleep at night if they spend so much as an extra hour apart. Like the world might end, otherwise.
Ah, to be young.
Aizawa doesn’t miss it, most of the time.
But sometimes—
Sometimes he almost thinks he does.
“You’ll survive,” he says. “You’ve survived worse.”
“No,” Bakugou says firmly. “Pretty sure I haven’t, actually. Shouto will wear one of those huge sweaters of his, and it’ll slip off his shoulder, and I genuinely get lightheaded. Is that normal? Do I need to talk to Recovery Girl about it?”
“You can,” Aizawa says resignedly. “If you want to. She’ll most likely give you protection designed to accommodate a knot and tell you to be responsible. And you’ll get a headpat, knowing her.”
“Uh,” Bakugou says. “I think I’ll pass.”
“Suit yourself,” Aizawa says. “But there better be no crying omegas in my office in the near future. Especially if the crying comes after they’ve had to pee on a stick. Got it?”
Bakugou nods. “Maybe I’ll swing by Recovery Girl,” he says. “You know, just to be safe.”
“Great,” Aizawa says. “Now get out. I need a nap.”
He should probably get Hizashi to book them a weekend trip to Kyoto, or something. He’s earned it. These kids...
(Well, they’re his kids, and he wants them to grow up healthy and be well, but still.)
...
“Was sensei too rough on you?” Shouto asks, later, fussing over him like a worried wife. “I’m sorry you got yelled at. It was my fault too.”
It’s kind of nice, honestly. Katsuki could get used to it. To always having Shouto this close.
“Nah,” he says, pulling his princess into his lap, nosing at his throat. “Wasn’t your fault. And it was nothing I couldn’t handle. Might have been worse for him than it was for me, actually.”
Shouto lets out a content little purr. “Um,” he says. “Did you really have to stop by Recovery Girl for—that stuff? Does sensei think we’re—you know?”
“Well,” Katsuki says, “it’s never too late to prove him right.”
Shouto pouts at him. And then he pouts some more. He knows he’s cute, the bastard.
But he doesn’t pull away.
“Mm,” he says. “Okay, but you should kiss me first. We haven’t done that either.”
“Yeah,” Katsuki says. “We haven’t.”
And then he gets to work on fixing that, because he’s never done anything by halves, and he’s certainly not about to start now.
But he’ll be careful. For Shouto. And so sensei doesn’t resign.