Work Text:
The first time he sees her, she is made of slender silence and crystalline poise and pure intimidation. Her back is straight and her throat wrapped in stiff crimson fabric as she rides through the gate and down the streets lined with the people prepared to welcome her and the rest of the Recon Corps home from their latest expedition. They are all smiles and fresh faces, these people, some relieved that their taxes are “going toward something useful,” some young and not fully aware of the horrors out there, and some, like Levi, freshly-graduated trainees at casual attention, watching their leaders come forth.
Her horse is set at a walk that is neither prideful nor lowly, and she faces forward while speaking in hushed tones with one of the other squad leaders—Jaeger, if Levi remembers correctly. They’re far from where he and the other cadets are standing, but he doesn’t need to be close to her to feel her icy self-confidence. It’s all in the way she carries herself, the way she rides, and he knows other people can tell from the way they whisper about her. Corporal Mikasa Ackerman. I’ve heard people say she’s worth a hundred soldiers just on her own. The leader of the soldiers, isn’t she? The strongest of them all. God, what made her that way?
Levi scoffs at the words, because he certainly doesn’t need to hear them, and he’s sure that she doesn’t, either. Because there’s something indescribable in the way that she holds herself in front of all of these people that tells him that few things matter to her. There are titans, and there are people, and she only seems to care about killing the one and saving the other. He sees it as she approaches, as her head turns just slightly and she meets his eyes. He stiffens as though there is something in her worth resenting and respecting, and he’s sure there is, but she only nods at him and faces forward again, nudging her horse into a trot and receding with Squad Leader Jaeger like the near-regal being she is.
She is already down the street and out of sight when he tests her name on his tongue. It’s strong and hard and tastes of blood. It’s light and steely and cold, it pops against his teeth and weighs on the back of his tongue and it’s absolutely worthy of a one-woman brigade. He supposes, just from the weight of it, that he might like working with her.
—-
“I suppose you all know what you’re doing here.”
It’s half past seven in the morning, and she is pacing in front of them now, in full uniform, just as the rest of them are. They nod dumbly at her, stiff as boards, because she is a storm of a woman with a maroon felt beret, the same crimson scarf as before, and no time or heart to spare for trivialities.
She continues to speak, though Levi gets the feeling she is speaking at them rather than to them. She’s probably said these words plenty of times before; this can’t possibly be anything new to her; the words sound cold and tired and he knows all of this already, he knows. “And I think you’re also already smart enough to know you’re responsible for yourselves and each other.” The sand and gravel crunch under her boots, slightly scuffed and worn with battle and the blood of enemies and comrades alike. “I’m not going to tell you twice,” she says, her words as worn as her boots and as dangerous as the monsters just outside those walls. “This isn’t a place for fame or glory. This is a place to take action.”
The ground gives way particularly hard under her heel at that last word, and Levi thinks he might have heard someone gulp amid the cold morning breeze and the stiffness of his uniform.
“If you wanted to save humanity passively, then you should have signed up for the Stationary Guard. And if you wanted that cushy corrupted junk the Military Police has to offer, then you should have done better during your training. You had three years to do so. I’m not here for anything those divisions have to offer, and I expect that you aren’t either.”
The person next to Levi raises her hand, a girl with a messy brown ponytail and thick glasses. “Corporal Ackerman?”
She pauses her pacing for a moment and turns her head just so, and her sleek black hair brushes slightly against her chin. Levi finds it strangely delicate—frail, almost—but no less fitting for someone like her.
“With all due respect,” Hanji begins slowly, “have you considered other options for battling the Titans? Like researching how they function?”
The corporal raises a sculpted brow and folds her arms across her chest. “Hanji Zoe,” she says, almost as if reading off of a file. “Sixth in your class. An exceptionally good strategist.” It’s then that a smile cracks on her face the way the world cracks under her step, and for some inexplicable reason Levi finds it to be just as staggering. Perhaps it’s because he doesn’t expect someone like her to be capable of smiling, or of any emotion, really. “I’ll refer you to Squad Leader Arlert tonight. You’d work well together, I think. He can tell you more than I can.”
Hanji seems to brighten at that. Levi rolls his eyes.
Before they begin their training and sparring for the day, the corporal meets eyes with him the way she did when she rode through town. His hands curl into fists, ready to salute her in spite of himself, and he looks at her with fire; she returns his look with one of ice and gives him a stiff gesture that reminds him of who he is. “Go,” she says with a gentle yet unfeeling sort of force. “Get to work.”
He forgets how much he runs that day, how much he sweats, but her stony expression imprints itself on his mind and wills him to go faster, to work harder, if only to spite her and prove some nameless strength to her. It angers him, how much his subconscious seems to care about it. Still, he runs, he works, he sweats until it disgusts him, but nothing disgusts him—and yet reassures him—more than the single nod she gives him when it’s all over.
—-
“I’ve heard things about you,” the corporal says to him as she paces back and forth behind her desk. In that moment Levi decides he much prefers her in her civilian clothes, if only because of the way her shoes are laced just so, because of the crispness of her blouse and the accent of her cardigan and the fact that, dear God, she never takes that damn scarf off.
“Do you ever stand still?” he asks.
“How about you leave the questions to me, Cadet,” she says, the words like sweet poison that clings to her lips, and he falls reluctantly, indignantly silent.
“Levi,” she begins again. “Top of your class. Seemingly perfect control over your actions. A very precise way of moving, according to Instructor Springer.” There’s that file-reading voice, but he holds his ground, is in no way afraid, though in all his sixteen years of living he’s determined that sometimes the humans are the monsters. “Levi,” she says again with a stifled laugh and a hum that is neither impressed nor disapproving, her tone now curious where it was once bored and robotic. “That’s the name you gave Commander Kirschtein when he picked you up off the streets, isn’t it? Is that an alias?”
“What does that matter to you?” Levi spits.
“A lot. Or a little. It depends on how willing you are to actually survive your first mission without spraying tears and snot everywhere. Though from the look on your face and the way you stand in front of me…” There is a tone in her voice and a subtle sort of flourish in her gestures that bespeaks a wisdom unexpected for someone who appears so young. “I don’t think that will be a problem.”
Levi scoffs because he’s found the part of her that he resents. “Why did you call me here?” he asks with entirely no intention of ever addressing her by her title.
She taps a pen against the edge of her desk as she tucks some hair behind her ear. “Do you think you’re a perfect soldier, Levi?”
He looks at her incredulously. “What the fuck kind of—”
“Use that kind of language in front of me again.” Her eyes are at once dull like slate and full of fire as her head whips around. “I dare you.”
He starts again, utterly hating her and hating how much he respects her for holding an iron grip over him. “What kind of question is that?”
She settles into her way of walking and being again, something like a straightforward charisma. “I’ve met plenty of soldiers in my time,” she says, “and I’ve been a soldier long enough. And I know soldiers like you. Something happened to you to make you the way you are now. Something they don’t really understand, or pretend they understand.” She pauses, hands curled around her biceps, and everything about her seems to simultaneously fill up the room and creep in the corners, as though she wants to be seen and invisible. “Something happened, and because of that something you think you have perfect control over yourself. You think you can kill everything you see, you can fight for one thing, anything, and call it strength.”
She places her hands on her desk and leans forward on them, lips pressed together in a thin, firm line. “You are a child. You are a soldier, but you are a child. You’re a hotheaded, impulsive little brat in the making, and I can tell that you’re going to step out of line more than once for your own reasons.” She cocks an eyebrow at him, and everything she ever was before comes back to her in an instant. “You’d better quit acting like that and remember why you’re here before you have to learn it the hard way.”
“What do you know about that?” he asks with a glare, chest taut with animosity.
She meets him with a similar look, and he hates how it tames him. “Everything.”
Before Levi exits the office, he turns to look at her with one hand on the doorknob, and he thinks he can hear the cracks in her existence hiding in the way she opens the window behind her desk. He thinks he can see the ebb and flow in how she lives and carries herself hiding in the creases of her scarf and the pleats of her skirt. He thinks maybe he can see the hurt, the “everything,” in the way the evening breeze tousles her hair and chills her just slightly. He thinks this is the closest he’ll ever get to seeing Corporal Mikasa Ackerman show any sign of vulnerability, and he finds himself unable to consider it a victory when he’s too fixated by just how much hurt shows in her stature.
He thinks he’s waxing a bit too poetic for a corporal who’s probably been through hell and back a million times, but all the same, he bites out an icy “Then teach me to be different” as his grip on the doorknob tightens.
“In time, cadet,” she answers without tearing her gaze away from the world that is half-outside.
“Teach me to kill like you,” he insists, grumbling a barely audible Corporal to accompany it.
Her pale, slender fingers are splayed across the windowsill as if it were a set of porcelain piano keys, and he wonders how alive her eyes look now, how much dirt and blood she’s had to scrub off of her hands. What they’ve touched, what they’ve sliced, what they’ve ripped apart just to stay alive, to keep others alive. “You kill in cold blood, Levi. I can tell. I don’t need to teach you something you already know.”