Wings in the Dark

Chapter 7: Subversion

*Levi's POV*

"I've been trying to catch her sneaking out for weeks, now, Erwin, but it's like she knows when I'm awake and watching for her. I can never catch her when she's leaving, it's always when she comes back."

Levi paced slightly in front of Erwin's desk out of agitation as he stressed why, after all this time, he still hadn't managed to follow her into the Underground and see what she was doing.

"Do you at least know when she usually sneaks out? The time, or the days?" Erwin asked calmly.

"It's always when everyone's asleep...and it is fairly regular. Every week, I think, though the exact day varies."

"If you can't follow her, then you'll need to get ahead of her. Get down there before her. You know the window of time when she'll be down there, and you know the Underground."

"But I have no idea what she's doing down there. It could be anything–and the Underground isn't a small place where I can wander around and hope I run into her."

"Then narrow down your search based off your theories. We considered she might have family down there, so you would be looking at residences, or asking around about a woman of her description. And your theory of the worst she could be up to–"

"Murder or treason. I know the places you'd go for that–more so than normal, anyway," Levi murmured, mind already conjuring the worst areas in the underground, the places where the Underground's worst elements like to stalk the streets, the areas of the highest risk, the worst gangs, the shadiest deals.

The residence search could take months–no one was going to want to talk to a soldier, a surfacer, even someone who had once been a part of the Underground. Not to mention, they had no idea what Y/N Frazier looked like, or what name she was going under while she was hiding in the Underground–if she was, in fact, hiding in the Underground.

Besides, shouldn't he rule out the worst, first?

"I know where to start," Levi said decisively. "It's still going to take some time, though, because she's still aware I'm watching her, and she's good at shaking tales and evasion. Not to mention part of it is going to be based on luck–that I manage to go to the right place at the right time without knowing where she'll be."

"You're good at what you do, Levi. You'll find a way."

So began the unpleasant ritual of Levi going down into the Underground every night of every other week, all in the name of hopefully, eventually, managing to find L/N. All it would take was one glimpse, one time seeing her, and he could follow her, learning from the mistakes of last time to make sure that he didn't lose her this time.

And he could finally find out what was happening below ground–what had been happening for years since she'd suddenly appeared on the surface.

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While Levi had made a name for himself Underground, enough so that it became general knowledge not to test him, he hadn't gone around looking for the kind of trouble that would have brought him to the places he found himself in, now. He'd always been aware of these dark holes in the Underground, and on a few unpleasant occasions had to make a trip to one of them. The worst elements of the Underground were found in these holes–she shadiest deals, the scum of the earth, the darkest corners with the most blood and carnage seeped into and tainting the earth around them.

Levi's every step in these places was careful and quiet, his guard always up, his hood always drawn to hide his face.

Even with the name he'd made down here, he was cautious to use it as a warning sign to keep danger at bay. Not only did he want to avoid sticking out and alerting L/N to his presence if she was down here, but there were always going to be the idiots who wanted to challenge someone who'd made a notorious name for themselves like he had. There might be more than normal who wanted to test him if they knew who he was, people who thought that he was a prime target because his name still stood, but his time above ground might have made him soft.