All Regret (Isabel Magnolia x Reader)

Bonds

You've never seen Isabel away from either Levi and Furlan. Even as you watched her bounce around Shiganshina's streets, she seemed like a completely different person to you now. She had a few questions about the place, but she never asked about something you couldn't answer. She mostly kept out of trouble, but she was pretty prideful about being from underneath the city. Every so often she'd mention "how much different" things were up "here", and that it seemed that a majority of people were softer.

You always considered yourself thick-skinned. You didn't really necessarily deem yourself too worried about what others thought. But, the longer you spoke to her, the more you noticed your pride got involved. You wanted to prove that she was taking notice of the wrong kinds of people. She smirked somewhat and continued to recall the times she and her friends out maneuvered the Military Police and how long they were able to play around with the Survey Corps before finally getting caught.

She was quite snappy and proud, never failing to plug in Levi whenever she could to prove a point that didn't highlight just her. You found it amusing and first, and humored her with general interest. You truly did have some questions about her "adventures" from the underground ruins. When compared, however, they were nothing to the missions you encountered outside. You suppose those were missions and military tasks, not your daily every-day life.

"Well," you said, finally getting to the point of a counter. "I'm sure using the ODM gear down there was pretty easy. Up here you can't exactly shoot your wire wherever you want."

"Pssah!" She scoffs. "It's so much easier up here."

You stop walking and shift legs. "Is not."

Isabel knits her brows, crossing her arms and cocks her head. "Have ya' even ever been underground?"

No. But you weren't going to admit that so easily. "Of course I have. The few times I have I had found it fairly easy to get around."

She slowly nods, seeing past your lie without much trouble. "Issatso?"

Feeling a little nervous now, you nod in defiance. "It is so."

The weather forced you to dress down from your uniform's leather jackets, but you still had your canisters of gas with you - not to mention, the spool of wire on your back side with it. Isabel ran her finger along the metal build of her equipment and then sucked in her vanilla-colored cheeks. Her gaze shot outward as if gauging distance. "Alright."

She points her finger at the gate, which leads to the world outside the walls before she looks back at you again. Her green eyes flare up with her grin. "Let's race then!"

Your confidence made you smirk at her offer, which in return, made her brows furrow. "Ah, what? You don't actually think—"

She bursts into laughter. "You don't actually think you're gonna win, do you?!"

Suddenly, you felt your face heat up. Watching Isabel point and laugh at you made you feel incredibly self conscious. Her cackle was so loud that it drew a few eyes on you. You look up and see that there's a noticeable crowd building around you now, so you strike a pose by placing your hands on your hips and cock your head.

"What makes you so confident?" You spit. "You can't just latch onto just anything, you're actually gonna have to consider where you are going while swinging around."

Isabel stifles her laughter and wipes the tears that had formed during her fix. "I've run loops around the military police and managed to give even your most experienced elites a run for their money. So, what's someone who's avoiding the rookie gonna do?"

You grit your teeth. Though her words are toxic, you don't detect any kind of hostility behind her expression or sentence. She seems to be just harmlessly teasing, if not just being playful. "You little—"