How was a terrorist so warm and so gentle? Hyoubu sang lullaby after lullaby in language after language, many that Andy couldn't even identify. Had he learned one for every kid he took in, so they would have something of the home they had lost?

It was everything he'd read about, that kids in books had and he and the others in the orphanage didn't, because they were espers and no one wanted them.

Touched and held and sung to and purred at in hopes he would heal: he felt wanted and he didn't know what to do with it. His arms shook with a need to do something, and Hyoubu guided his head to his neck, where he found his lips pressed to the mating bite. It had already healed over, when Hyoubu had such a healing factor with Andy's powers sealed, but he could feel the scar under his lips. He pressed them against it, traced it, opened his mouth to nibble and suck.

Hyoubu's breath hitched and his neck tilted to the side, giving Andy more access. He felt his omega begin to harden against his thigh, where they were pressed together, skin to skin except for the towel that now felt like the stupidest idea ever. He'd thought he was going to die, what, had he wanted Hyoubu to hate him slightly less when he should have wallowed in the feel of skin against skin and died happy?

He removed one hand from where it was wrapped around Hyoubu (keeping him from getting away, from pushing Andy away) and started to undo the towel and slide it from around him. He could smell Hyoubu's arousal: someone wanted him.

"Ah," Hyoubu said quickly, "Why don't you keep that on."

Then his mate's cock softened: huh? Right, the amount of control he must have over his body to keep a presentation on hold for decades must make that a cinch, but more importantly: "You don't want me," Andy knew, feeling more fierce than hurt, glaring up at the omega that couldn't be his. The old anger felt familiar, felt safe. This was why he hated espers. He wouldn't long for them to touch him if he hated them.

"I do," Hyoubu promised. "I've wanted a bond for so long." Old longing in his voice. "But you're a quarter my age, and you're in a vulnerable place now. I don't take advantage."

"Take advantage of what? I'm in my twenties, I'm an adult no matter how old you are." What was he doing, picking a fight with the most dangerous man on the planet? But a fight he knew what to do with, fights he liked. "You don't get to decide I'm a child. Where were you when I was a child?" he said, and felt his heart clench. Where was Hyoubu? Andy would have killed to have this as a child, would have joined PANDRA and killed people in a heartbeat, just to be held like this.

Hyoubu bowed his head. "I'm so sorry."

"Don't be sorry, just don't push me away." Like everyone else. Please, he thought, clinging to Hyoubu. Please don't.

"I won't," Hyoubu promised, running his fingers through Andy's hair.

He needed him now, needed to be sure this was real. "Can I touch you?" Andy asked, feeling his heart break a little expecting a no, because it was always a no until he'd stopped asking.

"I am your omega. You can do what you want with my body."

"…Okay, yeah, you are old." Old-fashioned Japanese, huh. Feeling like Hyoubu might have just given in because he felt he owed a bonded alpha sex or something made Andy ask, "Is it really alright? I'm not okay with you deciding I'm a child even though I'm a grown man, but you can say no." Even though he wanted to beg Hyoubu: please, please don't.

Hyoubu hummed, petting his hair. "Right now sleeping with an alpha who isn't him feels like the biggest possible 'fuck you' to Saotome, so I'd be lying if I said I didn't relish the thought."

Saotome? That must be the alpha he was in love with, the one who shot him and gave him those bullet scars.

Suddenly Andy felt horribly petty: he knew how much it hurt to be pushed away because of what you were, and for someone to give you bullet scars when what you wanted from them was a mating bite… His omega was in pain, he had to soothe those wounds somehow, he thought, and bent his head to Hyoubu's chest to nibble. "I could bite them off." The surface scars at least: the damage had to go much deeper into the flesh. But he could replace at least the surface scar with one from an alpha's bite, his mate's bite.

Hyoubu shuddered under him. "Eight million kami," he whispered, voice choked with longing.

Andy bit, and bit, and bit again at his mate's forehead. Sharp alpha teeth removed oval divots of flesh, tangs of blood filling the air and fading as the wounds instantly scarred over. Hyoubu snapped his fingers and a mirror appeared in his hands: he pushed his bangs up with his other hand and looked at the one on his forehead first, at the smooth scar tissue.

Then he lunged at Andy, kissing him, which put Andy in kind of a difficult position. He couldn't part his lips for that demanding tongue when there were chunks of skin in his mouth. Fortunately Hyoubu pulled back when Andy didn't respond to his kiss and Andy was able to spit them out into his palm. Hyoubu made them vanish, hopefully into a wastebasket or something.

"You erased his mark on me," Hyoubu said with the same kind of wonder Andy felt every time it started to sink in that Hyoubu was touching him. Clinging to him, right now.

Damn right he had, Andy's instincts said. Another alpha daring to mark his omega: Andy was going to beat the shit out of him and enjoy it even more than he always enjoyed a fight. The part of him that thought that way clashed with the part of him that still insisted Hyoubu being his made no sense? Had water started to run uphill, seriously what the fuck?

"Andy," Hyoubu breathed, nuzzling at his neck.

"Kyou… suke?" Was that alright?

A purr answered him. "I'm so open and wet for you," Kyousuke said in obvious invitation, pressing his lips to Andy's again. This time he opened his mouth for his mate as the invitation sank in. He could get even closer to Hyoubu, to Kyousuke, press into that delicious heat. Someone wanted to let Andy touch. Kyousuke was pregnant, and they'd said pregnancy did things to omega hormones in sex ed. Kyousuke might even demand that Andy touch him, he thought, and shuddered as he pressed into Kyousuke's body, feeling the easy slide. Feeling welcomed.

Kyousuke looked gentle and delicate, there in his arms. Ethereal, except for how he felt so solid and real around him. Except the fact it was too good to be true gave the whole thing a sense of unreality… He tried to forget those thoughts in the act of thrusting, lose himself in Kyousuke's body. (Because how long could this last…)

PANDRA had a chef, apparently.

"It's a cruise ship, of course we have a chef," was what Kyousuke had said about it.

So Kyousuke sent in their orders via telepathy and teleported the food into the room when it was ready.

"Milk?" Andy asked.

"I have to set a good example for the kids, otherwise they want soda." Kyousuke took a drink and got a tiny milk moustache.

Andy could reach out to wipe it off his face and Kyousuke pressed forward a bit to meet his hand instead of flinching back and it reminded him again that he was in love with this man.

He was ridiculously happy whenever he stopped freaking out about the fact the universe had clearly gone wrong somewhere, things like this did not happen to Andy Hinomiya. Maybe the terrorist thing balanced it out? Living on a cruise ship with room service was a pretty comfortable way of being on the run, though, he thought as Kyousuke fed him. Like, what percentage of Kyousuke's terrorist acts happened because someone fucked with one of his kids? Everyone knew omegas got violent if you threatened their children and he didn't have an alpha to support them and cruise ships had to be expensive. Shit, yeah, Andy was definitely going to have to become a criminal. Or maybe Kyousuke was right and he could make money as a bodyguard? Kyousuke could teleport him so he could commute?

He was an alpha, so if he didn't pull his weight he'd be a pathetic excuse for an alpha and Kyousuke might dump him.

…Kyousuke wouldn't kick him out in that case, would he? He'd be one of the children. He'd still be held, and allowed in the nest, he thought, and maybe shivered a little as the fear went away.

He wanted to try to hold on to his mate, though. Even if it felt just impossible that he would get to keep something like this.

"If we take too long Yoh will get worried and break down the door and I don't want to scar my children for life," Kyousuke said, adjusting Andy's tie. Because apparently PANDRA had a tailor, from whom Kyousuke ordinarily ordered nothing but school uniforms. "The normals have already done that. We're still a day early for the end of a normal heat," if Kyousuke hadn't made biology his bitch, "So there shouldn't be a problem."

"Is there anything I should do, or not do…" Andy knew he looked nervous.

Kyousuke leaned up to kiss his cheek and tapped the limiter. "Andy, espers didn't dislike you because you're not a likeable person, they disliked you because they were in pain." So there was no reason for Kyousuke's children to dislike Andy. "And it's been two days, you're covered in my scent." Kyousuke sounded a little gloating, as though Andy was something that other people wanted and couldn't have because he was Kyousuke's. "You're already family, as my bonded."

Before Andy could reply Kyousuke took his hand, snapped his fingers and they appeared by a pool. "Major!" several voices cried out in joy. Children started clambering and flying out of the pool, a woman in a swimsuit teleported herself up off a lounge chair, and a yellow flying squirrel slammed into Hyoubu's face.

"Major, I'm so glad!" Andy heard in his head. "You finally got over your Lolita Complex!"

Kyousuke grabbed it by the tail and ripped it off his face. "Don't say your misleading bullshit in front of my alpha!" he yelled as he tossed the squirrel into the distance.

The kids reached them and ignored Andy. Or maybe what they were doing was the opposite of ignoring him? They wanted to crowd around the Major, so they were crowding around Andy too, pushing and jostling against him and grabbing at his clothes too. They had to be espers, but they were okay with being near him? His hand went to the limiter around his neck. It really… just a tiny little thing made all this difference…

"Everyone, it's time to introduce you to our new alpha." Kyousuke picked up a child and hugged her, rubbed his cheeks against hers, then held out the child to Andy. After a second Andy took her, and she rubbed her dark-skinned cheeks against his. At least someone seemed to know what they were doing. "I'm Amana!" she said.

"I'm Andy," he introduced himself.

"I can fly! What do you do?"

"I give people headaches."

She giggled. "Like big brother Yoh?"

"Why you little!" A young man grabbed Amana out of his arms and started to tickle her. She made her escape into the air, laughing, and he grred and made a show of chasing her.

"This is Little Yoh, Yosef," Kyousuke told him, holding out another child to him. Andy took the child and looked at Kyousuke for guidance. "When children are introduced to alpha and omega family members, they need to learn their scents so they know who it's safe to go to."

And Andy wouldn't have known that because he hadn't had a family.

Yosef rubbed cheeks with him and then patted his head. "You have a family now," the child told him, looking at him with serious dark brown eyes, then jumped down out of Andy's hold, barely waiting a second for the other kids to see what he was doing and make room for him to land.

A psychometer? Had he gotten away before Andy could push him away, because that was how people normally reacted to having their mind read?

The children were handed to him already smelling like Kyousuke, like his bonded. Like family? He should find a book or something: if people were actually wanting to be around him he didn't want to hurt the kids' feelings.

The young man came in for a landing with Amana sitting on his shoulders. "I told them you were okay! Dragging a boytoy off to his bedroom is totally something the old man would do! At least it's not the Queen. Magi said that," he added a fraction of a second later.

"Stop lying!" Kyousuke said, aggravated, and shook his fist at the young man. "And be more polite to your new alpha. Yoh, this is Andy Hinomiya, my bonded. Andy, this is Yoh," he waved at the young man.

Yoh was one of PANDRA's field agents, according to his briefing. So was the young woman in the swimsuit, Momiji. "I'll go get Magi," she said when she saw Andy looking at her. Was there a reason she looked a little nervous?

"Momiji," Kyousuke said, and held out his arms.

With a glance at Andy she waded through the kids and let Kyousuke embrace her. Kyousuke turned to Andy. "This is my daughter, Momiji," he said with a trace of seriousness in his voice, as though he was telling Andy to remember this.

Then Andy breathed in and oh. Momiji was an alpha. An alpha with his omega's scent on her. Daughter, yes, daughter, he told himself. Don't get jealous and aggressive in front of kids.

He wanted these people to like him.

People had never liked him before, that wasn't how it worked, but Kyousuke wanted them to like him and he didn't want to fuck it up for Kyousuke.

Momiji took a careful step forward and he managed to paste on a smile and hug her, since that seemed to be how this went. As soon as his cheek touched hers his heart rate dropped back down to normal. Oh, that made sense. Alpha with his omega's scent on her: rival. Alpha with his omega's scent and his scent on her: mutual family. Daughter. Even though she might even be older than him. "It's nice to meet you," Andy said.

She grinned in relief and said, "I'll go get Magi!"

"Hello Yugiri." Kyousuke picked her up. "No one's taught you how to swim yet?" He must be asking because she was in an adorable little dress instead of a swimsuit.

She shook her head.

He frowned. "That's not safe, we'll have to fix that as soon as Andy is introduced to everyone. Kids can get hurt if they're around pools and don't know how to swim."

"Hello," Yugiri said shyly when she was handed to Andy.

"Hey." 'Did they hurt you?' he wanted to ask, but if they had he didn't want to remind her. "Swimming is a lot of fun," he told her instead, and when he put her down he saw Kyousuke gesturing for her to come over to his side as he picked up the next child. Seeing how he kept her close made Andy's chest feel warm. An omega protecting children. His omega.

"How many kids do you even have?" he asked Kyousuke.

"All the ones I could rescue." Shit, now he'd made his omega look sad. He was so not qualified for this stuff, he had no idea how to deal with people. Why had they sent him on an undercover mission again?

Right, to get rid of him.

"Major," a man said, approaching. He had to be Magi, the number two of PANDRA. "If you're recovered there's paperwork that needs to be done."

Kyousuke hovered off the ground to embrace him. "Of course Magi," he said indulgently. "Bring it by my – our rooms by this evening."

Magi looked startled but quickly recovered and Yoh sputtered. "Damn, Hinomiya, you got him in that good a mood? How good are you in bed!"

"Yoh…" Kyousuke said slowly and dangerously and he advanced on him after pushing Magi in Hinomiya's direction.

Rubbing cheeks seemed endlessly dignified when Magi did it. He was an unmated omega – not that Hinomiya was interested in him! Alphas bragged in the schoolyard about harems, but if Hinomiya hadn't known better than to hope, he would have wanted a mate bond instead of a harem, someone who would be by his side ever night instead of a rotation of people. And mating someone and then trying to mate their children, that was just a disgusting concept. There was something solid, caring and warm about Magi that he honestly would have ignored before he became bonded to Kyousuke, because why torment himself with what he couldn't have.

He followed Magi's gaze to where Kyousuke was in a play-fight with Yoh – beta males often play-fought to bond, and until Andy happened to him Kyousuke had been physically a beta, right. It was good that causing Kyousuke to present hadn't screwed up his dynamic with Yoh, even if normally betas were socialized not to fight with omegas.

"Major," Magi said, walking over to where Kyousuke and Yoh were pulling on each other's hair. "Should I gather the rest of the organization together?"

"Tomorrow," Kyousuke corrected him, teleporting back to Andy's side and wrapping an arm around him. "Andy isn't used to this many people: I think those on board the Catastrophe are enough for today. But we have a serious problem."

"What is it, Major?" Magi asked, all business.

"My nest isn't large enough." Kyousuke snapped his fingers. "Everyone," he said in the silence with everyone's voices muffled. "I need at least one soft thing from each of you. Three days from now, in the throne room, PANDRA will be holding a sleepover!" The pool deck echoed with cheers.