A/N: Created 02 April 2015. It's RWBY Relationship Week on Tumblr; the challenge is to take two randomly-selected characters and explore their relationship, whether that be romantic, platonic, parental, mentor-apprentice, sibling, antagonistic, or what-have-you.

Thursday's Randomly-Generated Names: Professor Port, Velvet Scarlatina

Note: I personally added Professor Port to my roulette after removing some of the other names that I thought shouldn't be there. Hopefully the good Professor will be remembered next time! Incidentally, calling this pair Peter Cottontail.

Any Port In A Storm

Summary: Pre-canon, Team CFVY's first year. Velvet learns to always bring a spotter.

Velvet Scarlatina—poor, shy Velvet, she thought bitterly—had a problem. This problem came in the form of a barbell currently suspended, trembling, an inch or so above her chest, which she hadn't the strength to push back up to the rack. Worse, she had come straight here after a difficult bout against her teammate Fox in the coliseum, so her Aura was rather low. If she tried to move out from under the bar, she might drop it and seriously hurt herself. And worst of all, Velvet was willing to accept help from just about anybody right about now, but nobody knew she was even here. Velvet's eyes slid closed as she strained to keep the bar off herself. There was nobody coming.

The match against Fox had gone so badly… Not that he was insufferable about it; Fox seemed far too kind for that. But it had been a Dustless spar, and served to highlight just how far behind the rest of her team Velvet was, physically. She was fast, yes, and agile, but so was Fox, and Velvet's Faunus heritage that she had relied on until now simply wasn't enough to keep her ahead by itself.

That meant she had to get stronger, and she wanted to get stronger now. Her team had been so wonderful to her over the month since their initiation, beginning to draw the painfully shy Velvet out of her shell just a little while around them. They never pushed too hard, but that simply made Velvet's drive not to let them down all the more powerful. They were relying on her!

So she had slipped away from the showers as Coco had begun washing her hair for the second time, changed into a fresh set of workout clothes, and headed straight for the seldom-used traditional-style gym. Most students preferred to spar for their exercise, and the few she knew who actually lifted weights often had a set of dumbbells in their rooms for personal use. This early in the evening, as a dusky night just began to fall, the room was empty.

She clicked the lights on, decided to forego a warmup on the treadmill since she had just come from the coliseum, and began loading weighted plates onto a barbell. Squatting her own weight ought to be a good place to start, and she would figure out what came next later. She wouldn't inconvenience anyone, in the gym or out of it.

When she was done with the sets, she shifted the weight plates to another barbell on a bench press, ignoring the fact that she probably ought to reduce the total weight. Her Aura would take care of the difference, she thought…not realizing just how depleted she was. She didn't even make a single rep before she found herself stuck, arms shaking, and utterly panicking.

Velvet's eyes were squeezed shut as she tried to keep the barbell from crushing her. It wouldn't kill her, that was preposterous, but she could do herself a serious injury if she weren't careful. Just as Velvet was screwing up her courage to try escaping from under the bar, the majority of the pressure on her arms suddenly seemed to disappear. She opened her eyes, and found herself looking up into the crinkled, smiling eyes of Professor Port. He had a hand on the bar as well, taking most of the weight so that Velvet could push it back up.

Velvet's Aura sense hadn't told her he was even there, which implied he was suppressing his Aura entirely; something that only fully-qualified Huntsmen could manage. It also meant that he wasn't borrowing strength from his Aura at the moment, as he easily helped raise the bar she had struggled with off of her; her entire body weight lifted effortlessly with one hand and settled back onto the rack.

"You have been working hard, dear girl," he said, his bristling moustache billowing slightly. Velvet fought an insane urge to giggle at the sight. "To come build your strength even when your Aura is low shows the determination of a true Huntress!" Now Velvet felt herself smile, almost in spite of herself. "Still, prudence dictates that one keep oneself safe with a spotter, just as we Huntsmen keep ourselves safe in the field with the help of a partner!" Velvet hung her head, but Professor Port continued, kindly. "Would you do me the honour of allowing me to spot for you this evening, young Huntress?"

Smile returning slowly, Velvet gave a shy nod, absorbing the advice Professor Port wove through his usual bombast, as he went about reducing the weight on the barbell to a level he thought Velvet could handle. When the Professor mentioned coming to the gym every evening at this time, Velvet thought that she had found someone else, outside her team, whom she could be her quiet self around.

A/N: I wasn't sure how this was going to work out, but really, the idea of Professor Port as Velvet's mentor grew on me. "Peter Cottontail" works for me, firstly because Peter is Professor Port's first name, but also because in the original 1914 story, the character (at the time simply named Peter Rabbit) grew upset with his plain-sounding name and began calling himself Peter Cottontail because he felt it made him sound more important, and began acting haughtily and pretentiously because of it…which I can't help but compare to Professor Port's bluster. (Though, as I've hinted at in other oneshots, I happen to think there's respectability and power hiding behind that rambling, just as there was behind Oobleck's hyperactive silliness. Port is in his 50s in a dangerous profession. There's a reason he's lived that long.)