Hand in Hand

1. Realization

"Section commander, please, hurry up or they'll leave without us! I know you're aware captain Levi won't hesitate to do this on his own; stop doing this to me, it's bad for my blood pressure!"

With a snarky grin, (y/n) said, "Gosh Moblit, you know better than to depend on Hanji to do anything other than what she wants. Got to love a titan obsessed dork huh?"

Looking up from her microscope and giving (y/n) a quick glare, Hanji waved the crystallized skin in her hand at Moblit and beamed at her specimen. "Oh calm down. It's not every day a titan shifter appears within the walls and I just need a better look." Putting her hand on her chin she added, "Although, now with Eren and Annie Leonhart, I wouldn't put the idea of another one past me... that's neither here nor there, let's hope."

Within the past month, the Survey Corps had lost an uncountable number of its members and now commander Miche Zacharias was nowhere to be found. A large majority of the Stohess District had been demolished by two titan shifters and the Survey Corps's reputation was slowly starting to be tarnished, even worse than usual. (Y/n) had stuck close to Hanji throughout the fifty-seventh expedition.

For the past four years, since the beginning of (y/n)'s career with the Survey Corps, she has been glued at the hip with Hanji, and though she didn't mind, Hanji couldn't help but wonder what she did to be seen as such a trustworthy figure in (y/n)'s eyes. Regardless, they both formed a relationship that no one else seemed to understand, benefiting from the care and admiration for one another. Now, here they were, in Hanji's lab, ready to leave in the dead of night and unmask the truth of the walls bit by bit.

"Hanji," (y/n) whined grabbing the crystal out of her hand, "We've got to go, now! Moblit is about to have a panic attack and if we don't leave now Captain Ackerman's short ass will come down here all high and mighty and lecture about punctuality."

Suddenly, (y/n)'s hand felt empty. Levi appeared to the right of her, the crystal in his right hand and a fist in his left. "I never said you could address me as anything other than Captain Levi. Hanji, get it moving, you can play with rocks on the way."

As he made his way towards the door, (y/n) couldn't help but feel the warmth depleting from her cheeks. It wasn't fair that someone who made her blood boil could also create such a feeling of loss in the room when they walked away.

During the chaos that had erupted along with the addition of the new 104th Survey Corps cadets, the Hanji and Levi squads had been working closer than ever. Annoyance was the first feeling (y/n) felt when Hanji told her that the two squads would be working together. It didn't help that everywhere she went stories of Humanity's Strongest Soldier were told. She couldn't help but be frustrated at the thought that soldiers put almost all of their faith in Levi instead of in themselves. She knew first hand that in the heat of battle, you could only depend on yourself.

However, it only took but only a few times seeing Levi up close to understand why he was so infatuating, almost intoxicating. Unlike the other soldiers, he killed mercilessly, but he was ever emotionless when he did. It was clear that he had met death in the past through the face of titans and had experienced loss. At the same time, it was almost as if none of the titans he ever killed from that point on interested him, he just killed and kept on killing, like a machine programmed to never let emotions interfere with work. After realizing that she and Levi might not be so different after all. The hate for him that resided so deep in her body had begun to waver without her even noticing.

From the middle of the room, a clearly annoyed Hanji gave Levi a rather primal grunt and gathered up Moblit who had been panicking in a corner. "Alright (y/n), time to put on a smile and be nice because tonight, we ride!" She stuck a fist up in the air and started running towards the exit of her lab, Moblit chasing after her.