Izuku yawned as he sat at his desk, staring at his laptop screen while his fingers tapped away at the keyboard. He was tired, but it was a good kind of tired. The kind of tired that one doesn't regret because the missed sleep had been replaced with good memories.

True to his word, Izuku had invited all of Bravo team out for celebratory drinks after the mandatory mission debriefing. Returning to the small pub he had previously discovered on his journey to get shitfaced, Izuku had made much better memories of the establishment celebrating the success of the raid.

After two hours of drinking and celebrating, everyone had decided to go home. Izuku had been the last one to leave the bar, insisting on paying the bill like a good commanding officer.

At least he thought he had been the last to leave.

Exiting the pub, Izuku had been surprised to find Bravo Two waiting for him. It had been clear that the shark-toothed woman was a little tipsy. Her cheeks were a rosy red and there was the slightest hint word slurring as she talked.

On the walk to the train station it had been abundantly clear what Miyu's (Bravo Two) intentions were. On the train platform she had offered for Izuku to come to her apartment for a little celebration of their own.

If Izuku was being honest he had been tempted to accept the offer, but they worked in the same department, and decisions made in the heat of the moment often had lasting consequences.

Politely turning Miyu down, Izuku had made sure she got on the right train before heading back to his apartment for some well deserved rest.

Now in his office, Izuku was faced with a mountain of paperwork. Being one of the strike team leaders, it was his responsibility to fill out all the required after-action paperwork that came with any large operation.

Suppressing another yawn, Izuku hit the enter key and watched as his screen was filled with yet another blank form.

Twenty-two down, thirty-six more to go.

Right as he was about to start typing, Izuku was interrupted by his office door opening to reveal the one person in the entire department that always managed to get under his skin.

"Yo Mido." Oscar said cheerily as he stepped into Izuku's office. "Man if I had known about all this stupid paperwork I would have never let the boss make me one of the strike leaders. I feel like my brain is going to ooze out my ears."

Rolling his eyes, Izuku tried to focus on the digital form in front of him. "So your first idea was to procrastinate and come bother me?" He said with weary annoyance.

"Yup." Oscar said honestly as he leaned against the wall. "I mean you are my buddy after all. What, I can't come and commiserate about this dumb paperwork with my comrade-in-arms?"

Gritting his teeth, Izuku looked up from his screen to glare at the grinning American. "Oscar I don't understand why you keep bothering me. Have I not made it clear enough that I do not like you?" Looking back at his screen, Izuku tried to get back to filling out paperwork. "In fact any professional respect I had for you was lost when I saw what you did to your team."

Unfazed, Oscar walked over to one of the two chairs in front of Izuku's desk and plopped down into it. "Hey if you have a problem with my training take it up with the cranky bastard in charge. I was just following orders like a good little soldier. Or wait, I guess the correct term would be agent?" He said absentmindedly. "In any case, I keep bothering you because I respect you Mido. I mean it's not everyday you see a quirkless person running counter-terrorism ops." He said in an offhand manner.

Izuku froze and slowly looked up from his screen at Oscar who was wearing a shit-eating grin.

"What did you just say?" Izuku said icily.

Smiling like a cat that ate the canary, Oscar leaned forward in his seat. "You heard me, it's honestly very impressive how far you have gotten in life. I mean if I found out I was quirkless I probably would have just…" He then mimed putting a gun in his mouth and pulling the trigger.

Closing his laptop, Izuku glared at the smug CIA agent with barely controlled hate. "I don't know what your game is Oscar, but if you are trying to blackmail me it won't work." Izuku said with pure venom dripping from every word. "I don't care what other people think of me, because I know that I have worked twice as hard as anyone else to get where I am today."

Holding up his hands in mock surrender, Oscar leaned back like Izuku was a blazing hot fire. "Woah there, calm down Mido. I am not trying to blackmail you or anything, I just wanted to see how you would react." He said placatingly. "Like I said, I respect you. Hell, you are probably the only person I respect in this entire department. So tap the brakes on those murder eyes of yours."

Izuku was silent as he tried to figure out what Oscar's game was. The problem was that the caucasian man could in fact be telling the truth, or simply waiting to use that information later. The creepy American had a perfect poker face, and Izuku had never been able to figure out what made the man tick.

Feeling a headache forming in his brain like thunderclouds on the horizon, Izuku sighed in resignation and re-opened his laptop. "Well I guess you got what you want then." He grumbled. "How did you find out?"

Oscar grinned in his usual smartass way and tapped his nose. "I can smell it." He explained. "Or more accurately, how you don't have a smell at all. I can smell people's quirks. It's hard to explain, but basically the stronger or more developed the quirk, the more someone smells. However, you just don't smell like anything. You could be hiding in the same room as me and I wouldn't know."

Oscar slowly leaned forward and sniffed like a hound catching a whiff of a scent. "But someone like Miruko? I could track her through miles of sewers if I had to."

Grimacing at the mental imagery, Izuku forced himself to keep his eyes on the screen before him. "Good for you Oscar. Now leave me alone, I have work to do."

Reverting back to his usual carefree persona, Oscar stood up and stretched his arms. "Yeah, I guess I took a long enough break." Walking over to the door, Oscar paused to speak before leaving.

"Good talk Mido, and dont worry, your secret is safe with me."

Rumi sat in her hospital bed and lightly raked her nails over the scar tissue on the end of her stump.

Holy crap it felt good to finally scratch that annoying itch!

Two days had passed since she had woken up, and Rumi was already bored out of her mind. The TV had kept her distracted for a few hours, but eventually even that had grown tiresome.

The previous morning, Miss Sasaki had dropped off Rumi's phone. There were no words needed to know exactly what the dour woman wanted. For Rumi to call Midoriya and apologize.

But it wasn't that easy!

How the hell was she going to randomly call the guy who hated her guts and apologize?! Not to mention the fact that even if she did call him she had no idea where to even begin her apology!

So contrary to everything she used to stand for, Rumi avoided what she needed to do and called someone else.

That person being Hawks, the second highest-rated pro-hero.

Hawks occupied a strange place in Rumi's (practically non-existent) social circle. He was not exactly a friend, but not just an acquaintance either.

Maybe he was more like a respected peer?

Yeah, that sounded about right.

Luckily Hawks had answered his phone, and Rumi had immediately asked for a favor. She had remembered that Hawks' assigned liaison was a bit of a gossip according to the winged hero, so she asked him if he could dig up anything about a guy named Midoriya.

It had been a strange request for sure, but Hawks had promised that he would find out all he could and visit her the next day.

So now here she was, waiting for Hawks to show up with nothing to keep her occupied. The other annoying problem was the fact that he was notorious for doing everything at his own pace, so Rumi had no idea what time the number two hero would drop by.

Right as she was about to call Hawks to tell him to hurry up, the door to Rumi's small hospital room opened.

Looking over, Rumi was pleasantly surprised to see the blonde-haired man walk in dressed in casual clothes.

"Took ya long enough." Rumi said impatiently. "So what did you find out?"

Hawks arched an eyebrow at Rumi and put his hands on his hips. "And here I was thinking that you might actually greet me like a normal person. Secondly, why the hell are you in the hospital?"

Rumi rolled her eyes and leaned back in her bed as she crossed her arms, or more accurately, crossed her one good arm. "Hi Hawks, thanks for coming. As for why I am stuck in this bed...it's a long story."

Pulling a nearby chair over to sit next to Rumi's bed, Hawks looked at her with a mischievous glint in his eye. "Hey I don't have anywhere to be, regal me with the tale of how the mighty Miruko came to be in such a sorry state."

Rumi grumbled in annoyance as she glared at the grinning Hawks, but after a few seconds of silence gave him the condensed version of everything that happened.

Leaning back in his chair, Hawks ran a hand through his hair as he made a small whistle of amazement. "Wow, I was not expecting something like that. The part about butting heads with your liaison is classic Miruko, but getting shot with an anti-quirk bullet and being rescued by the Ministry of Defense? Color me impressed." He went silent as he stroked his chin in thought and one could practically see the gears turning in his head.

"What are you thinking about Hawks?" Rumi said gruffly as she shifted positions in her bed. "I know that look, and it means you know a hell of a lot more than me."

Hawks nodded with a surprisingly serious look on his face. "Damn right I do. Let's start with this Midoriya guy. Ogawa, my liaison, was more than happy to tell me about him. Apparently he is basically the number one field agent out of his entire department. Charismatic, good looking, compassionate, humble, smart, the whole package."

Rumi nodded along eagerly as she listened with rapt attention. She already knew about the good looking part, but who could have guessed that Midoriya actually got along with other people?

"And that's not even the half of it." Hawks continued. "The guy is a military veteran with lots of awards to his name. Not to mention that his military career included time with the special forces and Japan's elite counter-terrorism unit. The way Ogawa talked about him you would think he is some sort of super soldier and perfect boyfriend rolled into one."

With a look of astonished disbelief on her face, Rumi gave Hawks an incredulous look as she tried not to fall out of her bed. "Are you sure we are talking about the same guy?" She said with a confused look. "Green hair, tall, with green eyes?"

"I am positive." Hawks affirmed.

Suddenly the winged hero began chuckling quietly as he shook his head in disbelief.

"What the fuck is so funny?" Rumi growled.

Composing himself, Hawks looked at the confused Rumi with the biggest grin on his face.

"Get this, Ogawa told me that Midoriya was in fact the one who led the raid on the warehouse. He took down an entire building of criminals and was the one who pulled you out of that basement."

As Hawks cackled at the number five hero's karmic retribution, Rumi simply stared at him in dumbfounded shock.

After a solid minute of shocked silence Rumi finally managed to get her mouth to form a full sentence.

"Well this fucking sucks."

Hawks nodded in agreement as he lightly scratched his chin. "Damn right it does, and you deserve every bit of it after what you put that guy through."

Well no argument there.

Laying her head back and staring at the ceiling, Rumi grabbed one of her rabbit ears and pulled it over her face. "Fucking kill me Hawks." She moaned in embarrassed agony. "The one guy who hates me turns out to be some sort of secret agent like in the movies. To top it all off, he was the one who saved me!" Putting a pillow over her face, Rumi let out a muffled scream of embarrassed frustration.

Standing up, Hawks patted Rumi's shoulder consolingly as he smirked. "Sorry, but I wanna hear what happens when you try to apologize to him. This whole situation is unreal, I swear it could have been pulled from a movie or book."

"Asshole." Rumi mumbled as she lay in her bed with a pillow over her face like some sort of angsty teenager.

Suddenly she sat up and fixed Hawks with a curious stare. "Hey wait a sec, how are your wings? I haven't seen much of you in the news lately."

Now it was Hawks' turn to sigh heavily as he took off his jacket and turned around. Rumi winced with sympathetic pain as she examined the damage.

Hawks' wings looked so frail and delicate without all the healthy red feathers, his bare skin stretched over the thin bones protruding from his back.

At least the skin that didn't look like it was warped, burnt, and unnatural.

It was obvious he was still recovering from his wounds he received during the PLF battle, and it seemed that the extensive skin grafts covering his body still had a long way to go before they were fully healed.

"Shit." Rumi muttered as her eyes followed a line of angry red skin that ran down the entire length of one of Hawks' bare wings. "That Dabi freak really did a number on you huh?"

For a split second Rumi saw Hawks' smartass facade crack. His eyes lost their jovial sparkle, and his face looked gaunt and pale. The man did a good job acting like he was fine, but it was clear the man was in immense pain both physically and mentally.

Letting out a weary sigh, Hawks pulled his jacket back up and shrugged. "I guess. The doctors said...they said my feathers should grow back in time. Problem is they don't know how long it will take. For all we know I will get my feathers back long after I have retired."

Rumi frowned as she stared at the hollow shell of a man standing beside her. She understood what the man was going through, but she knew there was nothing she could say that would ease the turmoil in his heart.

The two broken heroes did not speak for a few moments, both unsure of what to say to the other. Finally, Hawks broke the silence.

"Oh I almost forgot." He said as he put his carefree mask back on. "Apparently in two weeks there is going to be some kind of hero liaison conference. The email I got had lots of legal speak, but it basically boiled down to the fact that not everyone was happy with their assigned liaison. So this conference will be an opportunity for everyone to mingle and find a partner they like."

Rumi furrowed her brow as she tried to imagine how such a strange event would work. "So basically like a government sponsored mixer?"

Hawks chuckled and nodded. "Yeah, something like that. I am certain that people are going to be doing research ahead of time, and Midoriya will be at the top of lots of peoples lists."

Great, so now she had a short window to apologize to Midoriya and get his trust back before he was poached by other ambitious pro-heroes.

"Thanks for the info Hawks." Rumi said honestly. "I owe you one."

With a grin on his face but a despondent look in his eye, Hawks nodded as he left the room.

"Yes you do."

Edit/Author note: In regards to Hawks' wings I based my description around one picture from the manga. When Hawks is talking with Dabi in the warehouse there is a back view that shows Hawk's wings without any feathers. Just two short growths jutting out from his back that sort of look like skinny chicken legs. Hope that helped form a better mental picture.