Here's the thing. I'm not a big fan of omegaverse fics. So of course I decided I needed to write one. This story was created after doing research on actual wild wolf packs. It probably won't be perfect, but I'll do my best to keep researching and make everything as accurate as possible.

There will be little to no sex in this story. I'm all about the family feels.

Pidge uses they/them pronouns.

Alphas, Pidge thought, were a bit of a misnomer. In wolf packs, "alphas" were basically the parents. The mentality of alphas being aggressive and dominant was a purely human thing, stemming from outdated and incomplete research on wolves. The fact that misinformation was so widely accepted was unfortunate, but ultimately not a surprise.

No one really knows why humans developed the need to form groups widely referred to as "packs". Most cultures and religions had creation stories telling of how humans came from wolves or other wild canines. Maybe it was true. Pidge wasn't much of a religious or fanciful person, but they had to concede that there could be some truth to the old stories. In any case, humans, for some reason, developed a very complex but consistent set of social rules. In every "pack", there was at least one Alpha, one Beta, and an Omega. However, these positions weren't always concrete. One person could often cycle through all three positions depending on the pack they were currently with.

Alphas were typically leaders, parents, and teachers. Anyone who was in charge of other people, basically. They were often assertive and decisive, but also caring and sometimes nurturing. Many alphas were also aggressive, but Pidge thought that was more because of societal expectations. Somehow, society started to romanticize the Aggressive Alpha, which in turn made more people behave aggressively. Sociology was a curious thing. Pidge much preferred computers; they were far easier to deal with than people. Society also painted alphas as being lone leaders, but most alphas were parents who took on the alpha duties together.

Omega humans, like their canine counterparts, were typically at the bottom of the social group. That didn't mean they were unappreciated or disliked, really. At least, it wasn't that way in a healthy pack. However, omegas usually had the job of dispelling tension within the pack and keeping people's spirits up. This usually meant they were jokesters and often brought people's ire on themselves so that other pack members wouldn't fight amongst themselves. Extremely large packs might have more than one omega. Being an omega was a very important role, and some were better at it than others. Unfortunately, omegas were also the most frequent victims of abuse either by aggressive domineering alphas or unappreciative betas.

Betas were basically everyone else, which made them the largest social designation group. Betas often filled in alpha and omega positions, but some betas were just always betas. Additionally, Alphas and omegas could be betas if there were other alphas and omegas better suited to the jobs.

The Holt family was an example of a typical family pack; Mom and Dad were the alphas, and Matt and Katie took turns being beta and omega. Then Dad and Matt got lost on Kerberos and Mom… Mom wasn't in much shape to take care of anyone. Losing a packmate was always hard, nevermind two at once. But that's all they were- lost. Katie was damn determined to prove it. So they snuck into the Garrison to hack the computers. They felt bad about leaving Mom behind; humans never did very well without a pack. But Katie was doing it to make their pack whole again. That was excusable, right?

At the Garrison, things were a bit different. About 65% of cadets were betas, but that was normal. Typically, the pilots were alphas, though there were a good amount of betas too. It made sense, really, because the pilot made most of the critical decisions. Engineers were mostly betas along with some omegas and a handful of alphas. Communications was managed almost entirely by betas and omegas.

Lance was unlike any pilot Pidge had ever seen. Then again, he was also the only omega pilot they had ever seen. It was painfully obvious that Lance was an omega, and that he was the sort of omega that was always an omega. For some reason, though, he fulfilled the alpha role in their three cadet team. Pidge supposed that Lance was really the only one who could do the job. Pidge themself wasn't terribly interested in being part of the team and spent most of their time trying to find out the truth about Kerberos. Hunk functioned as the team omega with his self-deprecating humor. That left being alpha to Lance, who forged ahead with nothing but overconfidence and bravado. The thing was, though, that Pidge could see that Lance had potential to be a really good alpha. For all his shameless flirting and bad decision-making, Lance cared about people. No matter how many times Pidge refused to participate in team-building activities, Lance kept asking.

In the end, though, their three-cadet pack was a mess. The three of them just couldn't seem to mesh, though a large portion of that was Pidge's fault. They were so determined to find out what happened to half of their family pack that they didn't even consider building another pack.

Then, Takashi Shirogane came back to Earth, and suddenly they had a pack of five in an alien castle on the other side of the universe.

Shiro, of course, was their alpha. He was a natural leader and the head of Voltron, and there was something very soothing about him. The five of them were basically strangers, but he looked out for every single one of them. Even though he was the alpha, he took all their opinions into consideration. And the way Shiro had accompanied Pidge to find the Green Lion and told them to "be great" made them feel validated and secure in a way that an alpha should.

Keith, in another pack, might be an alpha, but he was a beta in the Voltron pack along with Pidge and Hunk. Keith was an alright guy, if a bit impulsive. Privately, Pidge wondered exactly how long the red paladin had been living in that shack alone.

Lance, predictably, was their omega. And he was damn good at it too. The thing with Lance was that he gave as good as he got, and somehow it worked for them.

Alteans apparently didn't have pack dynamics, but Pidge thought both Coran and Allura had Alpha traits.

And so began their robotic lion pack in space.

So there's Chapter 1. This won't be a linear story, it'll be more like vignettes I guess?

Special thanks to my buddy Clint for encouraging this idea.