Pack

The Betas in the room reacted immediately, as they were trained to. Alya and Nino tackled Marinette while Max, Alix, and Nath worked on Kim. Mylène pressed herself against Ivan so her scent would override Adrien’s. Two un-bonded Alphas in a room with a heated Omega was bad enough. “Someone get the nurse!” Alya commanded, and Sabrina and Chloé raced out immediately. That left Rose to try to comfort Adrien and distract him from the onslaught of hormones he was surely experiencing.

Adrien. Marinette’s eyes focused back on him, taking in every aspect of his presentation with all of her senses. He smelled delicious, God, how had she not smelled him before? It seemed that her touch sparked the actual presentation, and he was now curled up on the floor in a foetal position. She saw the blood that stained the crotch and back of his jeans and found it in herself to wince; her uncle was an Omega, after all, and he’d given her all the gory details of the presentation for a male. To spare the worst, a new hole was torn to make room for the developing reproductive tract. The younger the Omega was, the easier the process, but Adrien was almost eighteen, so it must have been excruciating. Rose was crouched next to him, rubbing his back and whispering comforting words into his ear, but he didn’t seem at all placated.

Marinette let herself fall limp beneath Alya and Nino. It was standard procedure, she knew, to try to prevent an Alpha from getting to an Omega who went into heat suddenly in public, especially if there was more than one Alpha in the vicinity. The last thing a poor Omega needed was to be the cause of a frenzy. As soon as the nurse came to retrieve Adrien, she and Kim and Ivan would be released and allowed to go take care of themselves until they were fit to return to class. The same thing had happened with Rose’s and Mylène’s presentations, after all. It wasn’t as if this were a new occurrence.

At least, that was what she thought until Adrien spoke.

“Marinette.”

It was more a hiss than a statement or a plea, but it rang in the air, clear as day. Marinette began to writhe beneath her two friends. “He asked for me! Let me go!”

“He can’t give consent!” Alya hissed. “We can’t let you go!”

Marinette bit down the growl that threatened to bubble out of her throat. That would not do her any favors in getting to Adrien. “I’m lucid. I won’t do anything, I swear, but he’s in pain and he asked for me!”

“Adrien!” The boy seemed to jump at the sound of Nino’s harsh voice, but he moaned in response. “What’s your father’s name?”

“G-Gabriel,” Adrien managed to get out.

“What does he do for a living?”

“He’s a f-fashion designer. Owner of the Agreste brand.”

“What’s his assistant’s name?”

“Nathalie Sanc-coeur.”

“Do you want Marinette to be with you?”

“Yes.”

His lucidity confirmed, Nino and Alya let go of Marinette, and she rocketed to his side. True to her word, she maintained her calm, simply laying a hand on his feverish skin. “Hey,” she said, struggling to keep her voice even. She hoped her… situation… was well-hidden beneath her clothes, but she pressed her legs together where she knelt to make sure it was a little less obvious. “I’m here.”

His hands reached up to grasp at the material of her shortalls, chest heaving. “It hurts.”

“I know, Adrien, I know,” Marinette said in what she hoped was a soothing voice. “My uncle’s an Omega, and he told me what it’s like. It’s gonna hurt for a while, I won’t lie, but you’re strong enough to get through this.”

The nurse came charging in behind Chloé and Sabrina. She took in the scene before her and winced when she saw Marinette. “M. Agreste, I’m going to take you to the infirmary now, okay? We’ll get you laid down in a bed and I’ll call your father’s assistant and we’ll take care of you.”

“I want Marinette with me,” he panted.

The nurse’s face twisted in distaste, but she conceded, and she and Marinette helped Adrien waddle painfully to the lycée’s infirmary. If he hadn’t been presenting, Marinette knew the nurse would outright refuse the request. However, most healthcare professionals were now trained to grant the requests of Omegas during their presentations so as not to upset them any further. Stress, it had been proven, had negative effects on an Omega’s psyche, which was already thought to be weaker than a Beta’s or an Alpha’s by the general public. Since she had an Omega family member, Marinette never bought into that, but she was grateful for it now, so she could be a source of comfort to her friend.

When they had Adrien situated on a cot in the infirmary, he still clung to Marinette’s clothes. She saw his chest rise and fall rapidly, heard his breath come in short bursts, felt his heart fluttering like a hummingbird’s wings. His body writhed on the sheets and his eyes and jaw were both clenched shut. He’s panicking, her brain supplied unhelpfully. I should do something.

“Adrien. Look at me.” It wasn’t a request--Marinette used her Alpha Voice. It demanded his obedience, his submission, his unending cooperation. She rarely used it if she wasn’t in her suit, and even then it was only used to bark commands and get civilians to evacuate the area. She’d always been uncomfortable bossing people around, but Adrien was on the verge of a panic attack and a panicky Omega needed a calm, commanding Alpha.

His eyes snapped open, feverish, and she stopped his thrashing. He wasn’t limp yet, but he was still, and that was good enough. For now. “You need to calm down,” she continued. While her voice had softened, it was still commanding, still undeniably Alpha. It was taking every bit of Marinette’s control to not mount him, knot him and fuck him until he was round with her pups, but she wouldn’t do that to him. Not now, when he was scared and confused and in pain from new organs and holes growing where they should have grown years ago. She released pheromones to help his calming process (a trick her father taught her when she first presented), and soon he was pliant beneath her gaze, his hand gone limp and her clothes released. “The nurse is calling your dad’s assistant now,” she continued, even though the nurse had said that not five minutes earlier. “She’s a Beta, right?” At his jerky nod, she smiled. “That’s good. She’ll take care of you until your heat’s over.”

“It hurts,” he whined again, fishing his hands in the sheets. “I need-- I need--”

Perhaps foolishly, she let one of her hands fall on his clenched fist, feeling his feverish skin. “I know, Adrien.”

“Marinette, please!”

Oh, if fourteen-year-old me knew he’d be begging me to fuck him, she would have died on the spot, Marinette thought to herself with a  small amount of mirth. She shook her head at him, making him whine even louder and start squirming again. That wouldn’t do. “You stop that,” she commanded, a bit louder than strictly necessary, and she took a strange amount of pleasure in watching him immediately go limp. What a good little Omega. “You can’t give consent like this, Adrien. Even if you could, your body isn’t ready for any kind of penetration. This is your first heat, you’re not on suppressants or birth control, and I’m both your friend and a nearby Alpha. I’d be surprised if you weren’t begging for it. But you’re not in your normal state of mind or body, and I refuse to take advantage of you while you’re like this.”

“Mari,” he groaned pathetically.

She shushed him gently, bringing her spare hand up to cup his red cheek. “I’ll make you a deal,” she muttered, already starting to regret the words that were about to leave her lips. “When your heat passes and you’re well enough to come back to school again, you should go on birth control.” He made a mournful noise in the back of his throat, but she quickly smothered the protest with a sharp look. “Now, don’t give me that. You only want to be pregnant because you’re in heat. You and your dad can discuss the suppressants, but I won’t bend on the birth control. I don’t want to be a parent before I get into university.” He seemed to perk up at the idea of having her children, which brought her no small amount of glee, but she barreled on. “After you’re on it and your heat is over, if you still want me, I’ll start courting you. I won’t make any other promise, but I’ll court you, like a proper Alpha would.” She put a teasing lilt on the last few words, hoping to get a smile out of him, but he was far too out of it.

“Do you promise?”

“I promise, Adrien.”

She stayed in the infirmary with him until Mme. Sancoeur came to collect him. The older woman gave her quite a scathing look, but Marinette’s patience was wearing thin due to her long proximity to a heated Omega, and she pulled her lips back in a snarl at her. Properly shamed, Mme. Sancoeur and Adrien’s bodyguard, who she’d heard him call “The Gorilla” on several occasions, escorted him to the car he arrived to school in every day. She felt the overwhelming urge to follow the car, but she fought it down. She was stronger than her instincts.

She had to be.

Her teachers decided to let her stay home that afternoon instead of returning after lunch due to “the stress that being so close to an Omega in heat could have brought upon a young Alpha.” She hurried home, giving a rushed explanation to her parents before taking the stairs two at a time to reach her loft bathroom so she could… ahem… take care of herself. When she was finally calm, she let herself fall onto her chaise. “Tikki?” she asked, eyes following the red blur that shot out of her purse.

“That was quite intense,” Tikki said, and Marinette could hear the careful control she kept in her voice.

“Why do you think Adrien kept asking for me?”

That was the question, wasn’t it? Had she been in her right mind throughout the entire ordeal, she would have asked him. Sure, they were friends, she wouldn’t deny that. Once she got over her stupid stutter and could actually hold a conversation with him, they were great friends. They snarked at each other on a daily basis. He called her parents by their first names and had a place at their table for his cheat days. He was her second closest friend, just after Alya and tentatively tied with Chat Noir.

But why did he want her?

Because he did. He clearly wanted her, judging by his body’s reactions to hers. How much of that was the heat was uncertain, but some recent studies showed that a heat was much like intoxication; it didn’t fundamentally change a person, instead lowering their inhibitions. Making them more honest.

Out of all the people in that classroom, Adrien had begged to have Marinette with him.

And she couldn’t figure out why.

And what the hell was wrong with her? Where did horny Marinette get off on promising to court someone so far out of her league? She couldn’t provide anything material he didn’t already have, so courting gifts were out the window, and she couldn’t afford to take him out much. The only categories she would excel in would be providing food and clothing, like he didn’t have enough in his fucking mansion. Her provision skills were null and void.

And that was if he still wanted her when he wasn’t drunk on hormones. He’d probably snap right out of it as soon as his heat was over, and if she was lucky, he wouldn’t mention their deal to anyone else and save her the embarrassment.

What a shitty birthday, she thought to herself, rolling onto her side and gathering a large pink pillow to wrap herself around. The only thing that would make this worse would be--

“AHHHHHHH!”

“Fuck me in the ass,” she cursed. Of course. “Tikki! Transforme moi!”

She heard her kwami’s melodious giggle as she was forced into the earrings. Let’s get this over with, she thought grimly, swinging out of her window and heading towards the sound of the newest akuma attack. At least I get a workout.