*ding-dong*

Inko Midoriya snapped out of her exhaustion-induced daze. Only a couple of moments ago she had to calm a rabid Izuku as he just saw All Might once again defeat a slew of villains with just a single punch. No matter how many times she saw it, she couldn't really get the excitement of it nor did she really like the fighting, but Izuku would jump up and yell the various catchphrases the All Might would yell out. She didn't know how a five-year-old could be so excited about heroes.

Another press of the doorbell would lead her back to reality and take her out of the craziness that was Izuku's obsession. "I'm coming!"

"If this is another method for you guys to get me to buy something, again I'm not interest…"

Looking out from her door she wasn't met with a sleazy buttoned-up salesman trying to pull money out of her, but it was a young girl, around the same age as Izuku looking at her.

"...-ed."

Rabbit ears? This must be new…

"What're you doing here little one? You don't look like you should be out here alone. Where are your parents?"

The girl with the cutest smile (bar Izuku) looked up at her. "My family and I recently moved next door!"

"Is that right?" 'Maybe that's why there was so much noise last morning' I've never got your name…"

She looked at the kid waiting for an answer, but after a few seconds of awkward silence, she just guessed that it was too much for a 5-year-old girl to understand.

"What's your name, little one?"

"It's Rumi!"

"Well Rumi-chan, how about you bring your parents over so we can have a chat with each other hm?"

"Okay!" she exclaimed as she… hopped over next door and yelled for her parents "Mom, Dad! The neighbors want to meet you!"

Soon after Rumi went over to grab her parents, two other rabbit-eared people came over to her door. The mother of the group was the first to talk "Pleased to meet you…?"

"Inko Midoriya, but you guys can just call me Inko, we're going to be near each other quite often anyways."

"Oh, well as you may already know little Rumi-chan here, but my name is Kimiko, and my husband here is Dunichi."

"Nice to meet you both. I hope that the landlord has been treating you guys well so far!"

"Oh it's been great so far." replied Kimiko, "It's certainly new coming to the city area, so much that…"

A few minutes of chatter later, a pair of rabbit ears appeared in front of her. Busy with the chatting she almost forgot to introduce her own kid!

"Ooo, before you guys go back to whatever you guys were doing I have someone else you guys to meet." Turning back into her apartment "Izuku! Come meet the neighbors!"

Walking up to the front door he looked at his mom slightly dejected "But mom, All-Might was just about to leave!"

'Sigh, he'll never get over him will he?' "Well I just wanted you to meet the neighbors as they were nice enough to give us a greeting. They even have someone your age! This here is Kimiko, Dunichi, and Rumi-chan, this is Izuku. I'm sure he's pleased to meet you guys as well"

Looking back from his mom, he laid his gaze on the girl in front of him, only for his eyes to slowly track the rabbit ears that pointed upwards.

"Bunny ears?!"

Taking a slightly offended look Rumi responded "They're rabbit ears, not bunny ears!"

Ignoring the arguments between the children, Inko chuckled and turned her attention back to the couple, "I see that they're hitting it off already"

"Yes, yes they are." Dunichi replied, "I hope that our visit wasn't too long, but we've got to take care of some final things before we finally settle into our new apartment."

"Oh no, you guys are always welcome here!" She put her hand on Izuku's shoulder to halt their ongoing ramblings, "And Rumi-chan, if you need anything, you can come by ok?"

"How about Izuku-kun and Rumi have a little more time getting to know each other, while we finish up?"

"That'd be great!" Turning her attention to Rumi, "So how about it Rumi-chan, do you want to come and play with Izuku?"

"Of course!" she replied with a smile

"How about you two head inside and play, and I'll cook something up for the two of you."

As the two children went inside to bicker, she swore that she heard Izuku whisper to himself "Those were definitely bunny ears." Judging from their ongoing talking and laughter, she assumed that they'll have a great friendship in front of them.

[]

He was excited, it was finally time for him to go to the doctor and find out what his quirk was! Super strength? Flight? Maybe even both! He's been extra jumpy this whole week and watched even more heroes on his computer than normal.

'Invisibility maybe? What about super speed? I hope it's a powerful one! I want to be strong enough to be a hero after all.'

"Hello there Midoriya-san and Izuku-kun. Are you finally ready to see if you have a quirk?"

"YEAH!" Izuku yelled out. Chuckling a little inside, Inko knew that he would be excited for this but she didn't know that it would be to this level.

"You wouldn't know Shuntaro-san, I've gotten tired of just watching him be this excited. It really is telling of my age isn't it?"

"Hah, I would know Midorya-san, my own child was bouncing around and around before hearing what his quirk was."

"Kaa-san!"

"Oh of course Izuku, you've been waiting for this for a while."

"Well let's get to it then, as you know Izuku-kun, you've taken the x-ray last week, and we've been diligently looking for a quirk, and it seems…" Looking down at his paper, his expression fell.

"What is it? What is it?" Izuku practically begged.

Only moments of silence followed Izuku's incessant asking "... I'm sorry little one. But after looking far and wide… you don't have a quirk…"

As if his world shattered, Izuku stilled. Inko also couldn't believe it and was put into somewhat of a shock that Izuku was also feeling.

"There's no way right? I mean, there have been examples of people who've been quirkless, but those were all in the far past. So he should have a quirk right?"

Pulling up a piece of paper the doctor began to explain. "Well Midoriya-san, normally when we started to look for quirks we came across a genetic mutation that wasn't found in humans before, and this mutation was found to be present in someone with a quirk, but not in someone without one. So when looking, we generally look for an extra toe joint that should be here." He said as he pointed at Izuku's x-ray of his foot, "We looked and looked, but there was no extra joint! Frankly, the team back where we took the x-ray was confused, but we were also amazed at the same time."

"We're extremely sorry for this Midoriya-san, but there's no chance for your son to have a quirk now or well, ever. Seeing how much this is going to be a shock to you guys, we're not going to bill you guys for this."

"No no, it's fine," Inko replied absentmindedly as she took a look at Izuku who was on the verge of tears and hadn't said a word in the least couple minutes as he was slowly taking in the news. "Thank you Shuntaro-san, we'll come by for our checkup later," she said as she stood up and bowed as the Midoriya family began to leave the clinic.

The car ride back home was uneventful as well, both Midoriyas taking in the news in relative silence.

Once they got home, Izuku still hadn't said anything up to this point and walked straight to his room.

Inko didn't know much to say, as she knew how important this was to Izuku, walking up slowly to his room she opened the door carefully and quietly. There she found Izuku sitting at his computer and watching the same All-Might video that got him into heroes in the first place. Slowly trodding towards him, Izuku must've heard her and turned slowly.

"A-all Might's been there for everyone, he saves everyone with a smile too…"

Wrapping her arms around him, she brought him in for a hug. She could tell he's been crying for a while. "Shh, it'll be ok."

"Is it still possible? C-can I still be a hero like All Might?"

Those few words broke her heart. She couldn't really say anything to that. Affirming it will just give false hopes, and denying it will just make it worse. She just pulled him in closer, slowly sobbing herself, and Izuku was weeping his heart out.

Oh how bad of a day it was for the Midoriya household.

[]

Masegaki Primary School

It's been a couple days since Izuku has been at school. He's been quite depressed the last few days. So much so that Inko let him stay home to maybe recuperate, but try as she may, this was something that he would carry with himself for the rest of his life. Eventually, he had to go back to school. And eventually, he'd have to get used to being… quirkless.

"Izuku honey, I know I'm basically forcing you to be going to school, but please don't do anything too rash."

Izuku glanced back at his mom in the car and turned back to the school, starting to head back in.

'What am I going to do with him now…

Nothing felt too different as he walked through the halls to his homeroom, but everything felt a little more gray as he looked at the walls around him. Sitting at his desk he sighed.

"Hey 'zuku! Where were you the last couple days?" Rumi had asked from the desk next to him.

"Oh. Hey there Rumi. I was just at home." he replied dejectedly.

"I was just about to ask Auntie Inko where you were too! Why were you home anyways? Were you sick?"

"No, I wasn't sick Rumi, and I don't really want to talk about it."

Her ears visibly fell as he laid his head on his desk.

"Well okay then. Tell me when you want to…"

The rest of the day was uneventful. His head smacked the desk as soon as he saw the assignments given to them (It was simple addition), and there wasn't really much else, except for Rumi asking him again where he was. Maybe he should tell her, maybe he should keep it to himself. He didn't know, it was just all so new to him.

As he started his trek back home, he heard Rumi starting to hop towards him. Her ears were still down. Had his words really affected her?

"So 'zuku, I can still come by… right? It was so boring to just sit around, I couldn't really talk with anyone, they still think it's kinda weird that I have rabbit ears…"

Oh… that's what she was thinking about. He guessed she was right, she really did only talk with him. Maybe he was being a little too closed off after all.

He put his hands in his pockets and replied, "I never said that you couldn't come over."

Her ears instantly perked up, "Really? Let's go right now!" she said as she grabbed his hand and started to drag him back to their apartment.

[]

A/N

Believe it or not, I really love this pairing, but I might butcher your guy's perspective of Rumi, mostly because this is pretty AU, and I'm not really aware of her background and I get a lot of inspiration from stories that don't feature her personality like how it is in the manga or anime.

I hope to keep this and my other story sorta updated with 2k-ish words per chapter.

Check my profile for updates that I might give if there's another content drought.