Rumi was woken from her slumber by the loud chiming of her penthouse doorbell. With her long silver hair sticking out in random places and her rabbit ears flopping limply against her head she cracked an eye open and growled in annoyance.
Who had decided to make her doorbell so fucking loud?! To add on to that, what time was it?!
Tilting her head slightly so she could glance at her bedroom windows, Rumi was shocked to see that it was still dark outside, with the barest hint of a rising sun in the distance.
With the doorbell still chiming incessantly, Rumi fumbled her way out of bed and briefly considered punting whoever was at her door down the elevator shaft.
Dressed in an oversized t-shirt and baggy sweatpants, Rumi rubbed the sleep from her eyes as she trudged to the front door. Still half asleep, she wondered who had the audacity to wake her up at such an ungodly hour. Contrary to popular belief, she enjoyed sleeping in and treasured the mornings that were spent in bed under a pile of warm blankets.
Reaching the front door, Rumi flung it open and spoke without looking to see who it was.
"Listen jackass you better stop ringing my doorbell or I am going to fucking dropkick you!" She growled while suppressing a yawn.
Hearing a chuckle that made her stomach flutter, Rumi instantly woke up as she realized just who exactly she had threatened.
"I would like to see you try." Midoriya said mockingly. "I thought rabbits were supposed to be early morning animals?"
Frantically backpedaling, Rumi held her hands up apologetically as she blurted out a reply. "Shit! I'm sorry Midoriya, I didn't mean it! Well, I kinda did, but i didn't know it was you out there!"
Now fully awake thanks to that spike of surprise adrenaline, Rumi could not help but enjoy the sight in front of her. Midoriya was dressed in a gray polo shirt that subtly showed off his perfectly toned arms, and his blue jeans and black loafers completed his business casual look.
Honestly, with his athletic figure, height, playfully curly hair, and expressive face, Midoriya would not look out of place on the front cover of a men's fashion magazine.
Realizing she was staring, Rumi forced herself to turn around and motion for her liaison to come in.
"W-well come on in I guess." She said with fake bravado. "Gimme a sec to change."
Racing back to her bedroom, Rumi resisted the urge to scream in embarrassed frustration as she sifted through piles of clothes in search of a workout outfit. It was so goddamn unfair how hot Midoriya was! Talk about winning the genetic lottery! She wouldn't be surprised if Midoriya was a total lady-killer in highschool.
Finally finding a reasonably clean white t-shirt with a symmetrical blue design on the front, Rumi threw it on and hopped into a pair of black leggings. Patting her hair down into a reasonably manageable state, she took a steadying breath before exiting her bedroom and walking back to Midoriya.
However, she was surprised to see that the handsome man had found her workout room and was sifting through a black military-style duffle bag.
"Hey!" Rumi blurted out angrily. "You can't just go poking around someone's place without asking!" She said indignantly.
Midoriya did not even bother to look back towards Rumi, instead simply waving off her complaint like she was an annoying child.
"Oh calm down." He said patronizingly. "I knew you must have some kind of training room so I let myself in to start getting set up."
Spluttering in astonishment at the brazen intrusion of her personal space, Rumi clenched her fists and forced herself to speak in an even tone.
"Y'know Midoriya I am really trying to be nice to ya, but you are making it really hard for me to do that right now."
Standing up, the green-haired man turned around and gave Rumi a quizzical look. "I don't care if you are nice to me or not. As long as you treat me like an equal I am fine with being your liaison. Partners can disagree and have differences of opinions, but at the end of the day we are both fighting on the same side. As long as you keep that in mind we won't have any problems."
Rumi's ears twitched in annoyance as she frowned and tried to process what her liaison had just said.
So she could be mean to him, as long as she treated him like an equal?
Well that certainly made it easier.
Letting out an annoyed sigh, Rumi put her hands on her hips and watched as Midoriya went back to digging through his bag. "Well ya could have said that earlier. I thought you were gonna flip out if I so much as criticized your fashion sense."
Midoriya snorted in amusement as he retrieved a set of sparring gloves. "Hey, I think my fashion sense is just fine. Socks and sandals are not so bad once you try them."
Caught off guard by the joke, Rumi could not help but grin a little and relax her aggressive posture.
It seemed Midoriya had a sense of humor after all.
Curious as to what kind of training Midoriya had in mind, Rumi took a quick look around her workout room. The room itself was large and wide open, the middle of the floor covered in padded training mats and the edges littered with various pieces of workout equipment. She had to get most of the stuff custom made to handle her overwhelming power. Sure it had cost quite a bit more than normal, but it paid off when she could kick a sparring dummy at full power without it blasting through a wall and into the street below.
Rumi looked back to her liaison as he stood up and pointed at one of the dense punching bags on the perimeter of the room.
"So I'm guessing all your training equipment was built to handle your power right?" He asked astutely. "Go kick that bag as hard as you can."
Rumi nodded and walked over to the hanging punching bag. Squaring her shoulders and falling into her classic fighting stance, Rumi narrowed her eyes and struck with one of her iconic spinning kicks.
The impact barely moved the punching bag.
Sighing in disappointment, Rumi did not notice her ears droop slightly as she turned back to face Midoriya.
"See?" She said sadly. "Right now I am about as useful as a screen door on a submarine."
Midoriya shrugged uncaringly as he tossed the sparring gloves to Rumi.
"I am not trying to mock you." He stated. "I simply wanted to be sure that you wouldn't kill me by accident. Now put on those gloves and give me your best shot."
Furrowing her brow in confusion, Rumi complied and put on the fingerless sparring gloves.
"So just attack you? No secret super spy training technique or anything?" She asked.
Midoriya nodded and walked to the middle of the training mats. "Yup. You might be weaker, but you still have all your experience right? I want to see if your fighting style is effective even without your quirk."
Following her liaison to the training mats, Rumi put on a cheeky grin as she took a fighting stance. "Alright, but no whining if I give you a black eye."
Before Midoriya could respond she struck, aiming a sweeping kick at her partner's legs to knock him over.
However, Rumi's attack only hit empty air, and in what felt like the blink of an eye she was roughly sent sprawling onto her back.
"Really? Is that it?" Midoriya said tauntingly with an annoying smirk on his face. "Seems like the only thing amazing about you was your quirk after all."
Growling angrily Rumi hopped to her feet and glared at the man in front of her. "Shut up dickwad! You have no idea what it is like to be quirkless!"
The warm spark in Midoriya's eyes was snuffed out instantly, replaced by a cold stare that sent a chill down Rumi's spine. Before she could react, her partner had stepped forward and delivered an open-palmed strike that knocked the wind out of her lungs and sent her sprawling once more.
Wheezing painfully, Rumi wobbled to her feet as Midoriya glared at her with thinly veiled anger.
"Am I supposed to feel sorry for you?" He said coldly. "People go their entire lives being preyed upon by those with strong quirks. It just so happens that you now fall into that majority. You want to get stronger? You are going to have to do it the hard way. So quit crying like a wimp and fight me."
Rumi felt a spark of anger flare in her chest as she sucked in labored breaths. What the fuck was Midoriya's problem!? He was in no position to lecture her about quirks! He was not the one who had their quirk taken away!
Dashing forward Rumi made a feint as if to deliver a spinning kick, only to lash out with a punch aimed at Midoriya's chin.
But just like before it seemed Midoriya was one step ahead of her. Easily deflecting the punch, he grabbed Rumi's extended arm and threw her to the ground in a perfectly executed judo throw.
Laying on the ground, Rumi wondered just how long she was going to be pushed around by her liaison.
The sun was setting as Izuku walked up the stairwell to the floor his apartment was on. With his bulky black duffle bag slung over his shoulder, he fished his keys out of his pocket and stopped at his apartment door. Unlocking the metal door, the green-haired agent stepped into his apartment, turned on the lights, and dropped his bag full of training gear on the floor.
As he changed out of his clothes and into a simple robe, Izuku reflected on how Miruko's first day of training had gone. True to his word, Izuku had trained with Rumi until she could barely stand.
Well if he was being honest it was more like he bullied her relentlessly until she was about to pass out from exhaustion.
Sure it was unfair of him to take advantage of her weakened state, but working with the rabbit hero reminded him just how different they were. As much as he hated to admit it, even in her weakened state Miruko was more than strong enough to go toe-to-toe with a low ranked hero. The only reason he was able to push her around was because he had plenty of experience fighting people stronger than him.
Sighing in a depressed manner, Izuku trudged over to his tiny kitchen and made himself a cup of instant noodles. It was not the healthiest meal by a long shot, but he was not in the mood to make his usual well-balanced dinner.
With his steaming cup of noodles in hand, the green-haired man sat down heavily on the threadbare couch in front of his flatscreen TV. Turning the television on, he tried to find a show that would take his mind off the depressing facts bouncing around in his brain. After nearly half an hour of channel surfing he gave up and turned off the TV. Finishing his noodles, he threw the styrofoam cup in the trash and headed to bed.
Turning off the lights and crawling under the covers, Izuku went to sleep.
After an unknown amount of time the comforting darkness was replaced by disjointed images and sounds. Memories of the past blended together with dreams of the future as Izuku's consciousness floated in the middle of the sea of dreams like a bird flying high in the sky.
Suddenly everything changed, replaced with a vision that felt like he was watching a movie.
A memory surfaced and Izuku watched as a group of men wearing military clothes ran down a bombed-out street, a billowing cloud of white smoke looming behind them. One by one the men were swallowed by the thick cloud, each of them screaming in agony as their exposed skin was burned and their clothes set ablaze.
The scene changed, Izuku now standing over a hastily dug pit as he peered down over the edge. Dead bodies were piled haphazardly on top of each other, their limbs contorted into unnatural angles from being tossed uncaringly into the hole. The smell of decay and rotting flesh was oppressive, making Izuku gag reflexively as he continued to stare at the mass grave in morbid fascination.
Next he was walking alongside a group of people down a desert road, their faces blurred out like someone had smudged a fingerprint over a photograph. With the sun burning brightly overhead, Izuku's group came upon a rusty old bridge that extended over a dry riverbed. Dead bodies hung from nooses that had been strung up over the steel beams high above, the desiccated and withered corpses swinging gently in the mockingly soft breeze.
Then the memories began to blur together, speeding by almost too fast for Izuku to see. The fresh corpse of a woman lying in the street while a vulture greedily pecked away at her eyeballs. A bloody and ripped teddy bear sitting next to a baby cradle riddled with shrapnel. A tearful man begging for his life as the timer of his suicide vest hit zero. The splatter of blood against sterile white hospital walls as gunshots rang out in the distance.
None of it was good, yet all of it was viscerally real.
His eyes flying open, Izuku bolted upright as he heaved in panicked breaths. His body covered in a sheen of cold sweat and the blankets laying in a pile on the floor next to the bed.
With the taste of bile in his mouth, Izuku stumbled to the bathroom and barely made it to the toilet before retching up the half digested remains of his last meal.
Closing his eyes and forcing himself to breath slowly, the field agent clutched the cold porcelain of the toilet and gritted his teeth together until the wave of nausea passed.
The traumatic memories faded back into nothingness, and eventually Izuku calmed down enough to stand up and splash some cold water on his face. Staring at his bedraggled face in the bathroom mirror he grimaced.
By now he had gotten used to the occasional episode, where his sleeping mind dredged up the worst memories he had bottled up over the years and played them back like a demented movie reel.
But soldiers do not admit weakness.
Yes he had seen all the studies about PTSD. Yes he had seen the informational videos describing the best ways to get help. Yes he had seen the flyers at work for anonymous counseling sessions.
No he had not given any of it a chance.
He knew it was unhealthy, but he was determined to tough it out like he did with any other problem.
Knowing that there was no way he would be able to go back to sleep, Izuku got dressed and began preparing for a new day of training with Miruko.