Secret Life

Letting Titan Mama Know

(A/N): For the purpose of this story, I will use "she" and "her" as pronouns for Hanji because, though I do see Hanji as both genders, I only want to use "it" for actual objects and "s/he" just doesn't cut it for me.

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For the next few days I couldn't look at him - not during training, not while giving him orders. I couldn't even trust myself enough to "escort" him to his room - my only excuse for spending alone time with him. Suppressing the poster in my mind is hard enough without wanting to fish it out from under the bed every night, but the video... the video's gonna break me if I don't figure out what all this means. It's all blackmail, but for what gain? What does that dipshit achieve by giving me all this? He knows I won't give Eren to him, no matter what, so why -

"LEVI! ARE YOU EVEN LISTENING TO ME?!"

"Damn it, Hanji! You keep yelling like that, I won't hear anything!" I know Hanji was going on about her latest experiment results on the shitty brat, but my mind was too hung up on the video to take it in.

"Levi, what's wrong?" Hanji asks pulling me into an empty room. "You've been out of it for days. We're getting worried."

"Just trying to make sense of all that work," I say partially lying. I am worried about the paperwork - just not as much as I should.

"That's Erwin's problem now, but your weird vibes and avoidance is affecting Eren, hence my results."

"How the hell am -"

"You know how he worries about your health, and you spacing out randomly is throwing up red flags in his mind."

"I -" I start but then sigh. I hope I don't regret this. "Can you do me a favor?"

"Anything, my little short stack," she says cheerfully.

"Come up with a list of things for some people to get in town, but YOU stay behind and meet me in my room. We need to talk."

"Must be serious if I get an invite to your room," she whispers the last words. "I'LL GET ON IT!" she screams before running off, laughing maniacally. Mike, please be right about this.

***

"SOMEONE'S AFTER MY TITAN BABY?!" Hanji screams hopping on my bed.

"Shut it Shit Glasses and listen to me," I sigh rubbing my eyes tiredly. I'm starting to regret taking Mike's advice.

"But I heard you: Dok wrote you a separate note saying my Titan baby sent him a letter blackmailing him into giving him everything he had, so he sent you everything he had on my precious Eren. Reversing a blackmail with a blackmail," Hanji responds happily waving the note around. I think she would know everything about the brat that there is to know. Maybe...

"Has he ever confided in you?"

"Just the usual teenage stuff - who likes someone, who's messing around, how much he wants to see the world beyond the walls, who he might like," she adds in a singsongsy voice. Eren likes someone? Who?

"Has he ever told you what he did or how he lived before the Training Corps?" I ask purposefully not taking the bait.

"Well," she says huffing, "After Shiganshina fell, they boarded a boat to Trost where he and the cute coconut and the female version of you (Tch) stayed in an orphanage for some time before moving to a farm a year or so before joining the Corps."

I pace my room taking it in. "Have you ever asked him if he's done anything else?"

"Kinda had to after the trial, remember? Him stabbing two sex traffickers to death before getting attacked by a third... yeah had to probe just a little bit, ya know?"