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She's not trying to brag, or anything.
The fact is – and it is a fact – she's damn good at what she does. Top of her graduating cohort and the youngest corporal in the last decade, she's the crème de la crème, the darling of the Survey Corps. She's a leader, not a follower, and she has the kill count – and the leadership accreditations, and the references – to prove it.
Once upon a time, Erwin Smith believed that, too.
This must be how it feels when a newer, shinier model comes along, she thinks to herself miserably. Petra tries valiantly to tone down the glare. "Sir," she says, "I think I've proven myself, time and time again. I've gone above and beyond, and this – this rookie," she bites back a far nastier word, "has been in the corps for barely a year. It doesn't make any sense."
Erwin surveys her with that cool, intelligent gaze that immediately makes her feel like a petulant child. "It's not about what you have or haven't done, Ral," he says. "This decision to promote Levi to squad leader was an entirely independent one."
"Besides," he adds, "you know as well as I do that you're don't have quite enough experience for that position."
"I've been here plenty longer than that brat, though," she mutters. Erwin raises an eyebrow.
"That brat," he says, "is now a squad leader, and I expect you to address him as such. And furthermore, not that it's any of your business, Corporal Ral, but Levi has been using 3DMG since before you were a cadet. He might not have gone through the cadet corps, but he's been through plenty of informal training, I can attest to that.
"Now, if you have nothing further..." He turns back to the stack of papers at his desk, a clear dismissal.
Petra can think of a great many further things she'd like to say, but instead, she presses her lips together hard and gives him a stiff salute.
"Sir," she says, before turning on her heel and marching out of the door.
She makes sure to give the door a considerably louder slam than absolutely necessary.
She remembers the day Levi joined the regiment.
It'd been a good day. She'd just received top scores for the latest hand-to-hand combat training drill, narrowly beating out that try-hard Auruo Bozardo for the spot, and was fairly glowing with her success. Even the weather seemed to be in her favour – it was the middle of June, the hottest month of the year. But that day in particular was unseasonably mild, a light breeze ruffling her hair, dappled sunlight filtering through the puffy white clouds.
She'd been so distracted with her silent gloating, in fact, that she'd barely noticed the three unfamiliar new faces. Only Commander Shadis's booming, "Attention, all!" managed to snap her back to reality.
She'd heard the rumours that a couple of Underground kids were joining the Survey Corps directly, without even going through the cadet corps, which was of course a novelty in itself. And there was the whole thing about Erwin personally going down to recruit them – but what the heck, she thought as she surveyed the trio, slightly bored. Erwin's ideas weren't exactly conventional anyway.
Besides, the guy at the centre – evidently the leader, by the way his companions were gazing at him like he was the sun and stars – was short, sullen, and spectacularly unimpressive, especially given the drama-filled gossip that had been making its way round the corps.
He'd been the first to introduce himself. Arms folded across his chest, looking perfectly uncomfortable, he'd shifted his weight to the side, glanced up at the sky, and said shortly, "The name's Levi."
A gasp rippled through the audience. Petra looked at her comrades, faintly irritated. What, she wondered, was exactly so surprising about the fact that this Underground brat had no manners? Like that wasn't what everyone had been theorising anyway?
His companions were equally unremarkable. The girl, Isabel, looked barely more than thirteen – not even old enough to have made it through cadet training, Petra noted disapprovingly. And the other man, Farlan, was cute in the way water was tasty, but had sent a titter through the platoon by confidently saluting in the exactly wrong manner.
By the time the trio had been assigned to a squad, she'd switched to wondering what was for lunch.
Cut to the present, and Petra wonders how she'd ever been so stupid.
Wasn't that how predators in the wild managed to capture their prey? One second they're all boring and run-of-the-mill, all innocent la-di-da and pretending to look like scenery, and then the second you turn your back they've got their fangs halfway in your neck. Or, in this case, in your squad leader position.
He'd even seemed almost – nice, a couple times. Sure, they might have got off to a bit of a rocky start – Petra remembers the first time she talked to him, really talked to him. He'd skipped out on dinner for the fourth night in a row and her squadmates had bullied her into going to find him.
"You'll be fine, Pet," Nifa had said with an airy wave of her hand that fooled no-one, "Aren't you always going on and on about how you want more of a challenge? Although, um, here. Take my fork, just in case."
His reputation had preceded himself, even then. Petra'd steeled herself for a thug or worse, and instead found an awkward, potty-mouthed man wiping down an already-spotless bunk bed.
They'd talked a bunch of times after that, too, although their conversations did comprise substantially of Petra lecturing him about his painfully unapproachable personality.
Hell, she'd almost started to think they were friends.
And sure, she's seen him during trainings. Fine, he's good on the maneuver gear, and yes, he single-handedly took down the Abnormal that wiped out the rest of his squad, and of course all the officers are swooning, Levi's so fast and Levi's so strong and Levi's so –
"Were you mumbling my name under your breath?"
She shrieks, spins around so fast she nearly falls over. When she manages to steady herself, she looks up into a pair of bemused-looking blue-grey eyes.
"Oh," she grumbles, "of course it's you." She turns on her heel and marches swiftly towards the canteen, determined to make a dramatic exit.
Of course, he doesn't get the hint, instead matching her pace with ease. "You're in an awful hurry," he observes. "Is it pie day again?"
She shoots him an absolutely malevolent glare. "No, it is not," she snaps, not breaking her stride. "And I wasn't talking about you. Self-absorbed, much?"
Unfortunately, he follows her to the dining room, trailing behind as she collects her plate and beelines for her usual table with Auruo, Gunther, and Eld. "Hey, guys," she says, pointedly ignoring her unwanted companion. "What's up?"
"Not your rank, or so I hear," Eld cracks. Petra kicks him underneath the table. "Ouch! What was that for?"
"My foot slipped," she says, glaring at him. "And who knows, maybe it'll slip a little harder next time if you don't shut up."
"Hey, Levi," Gunther greets. "Sitting here today? Change of scenery?"
Levi grunts. "Got tired of hearing Hanji ramble on and on and on about titans. It really fucking messes with your appetite." He snorts. "She's a crazy one, that Four-Eyes."
"Well, here, you get to instead listen to Eld's stupid jokes, Auruo and Petra's endless arguments, and of course, my wonderfully witty commentary," Gunther says brightly. "Pass the salt, please?"
"What witty commentary?" Auruo scoffs. "You're too busy making eyes at every girl within a fifteen-feet radius."
"And they have my eternal sympathies," Petra adds, spooning a chunk of potato into her mouth. Despite Levi's wholly unwelcome presence, she can almost feel herself starting to relax, until –
"You're not making eyes at Ral," Levi comments.
She can feel her face turning bright red, as the whole table – except Levi – explodes into laughter. "Oh, yeah," Gunther says, dabbing at his eyes. "You're good, that's hilarious. But no, really, I mean, I'm in the Survey Corps and all, but I'm not that suicidal."
"Don't tell me you haven't noticed," Eld adds, disbelievingly. "This kid has a one-track mind, all she cares about is getting top marks in everything and beating everyone else to a pulp."
"Trying to beat everyone else," Auruo corrects. Petra glowers at him.
"I've beaten your ass nine times out of ten since we were cadets, Mr. Rank Number Two," she retorts, making him scowl. She tosses her hair neatly and smiles prettily, all sweet and innocent. "Besides, I'm way out of all these guys' league."
Auruo smirks at her. "And yet," he says, "there's someone at this very table whose ass you haven't kicked. In fact, a little birdie tells me it might have been the other way round."
Petra rounds on him. "Why, you –"
"All right," Gunther intercedes. "Guys, behave, we have a guest. I do apologise, Squad Leader Levi," he inclines his head at Levi in faux-politeness, who just looks mildly bemused, "I'd say we're not usually like that, but I'd be lying. Not sure if this is better than Hanji's titan talk, to be honest."
Petra jabs violently at her baked potato with her fork.
She doesn't say a single thing throughout the rest of the meal. She's out of the door the second the dinner bell rings, and beelines straight for her room, ready for a good, long sulk.
The whole situation is just so unfair. Squad leader positions don't open up every day – depressing as it may be, new hires are only needed in the event of rapid expansion (not happening), resignation (well, maybe – she's got a feeling Shadis is going to step down soon), or, of course, death.
She's worked her ass off for this. She's the oldest of five, and she's always felt a responsibility to be the best, to succeed, to provide. She'd studied like crazy in school, trained like a demon in the cadet corps. Even now, she works twice as hard as anyone else in the regiment, she knows it. She's a damn good soldier and a damn good leader and there's no-one in the whole damn military who deserves the spot more than her.
And then this kid comes along, a no-name from nowhere, doesn't even go through the three years of cadet training and all of a sudden, he's the best of the best. He flies through the air in his maneuver gear, like they're extensions of his own limbs more than chunks of steel and wire and gas, and now everybody can't stop fawning over him, oh, he's such an underdog, they gush, we all thought he'd be a fuck-up but look where he is now. And she gets it, he's an Underground brat without a friend in the world or a penny to his name, and it's not like he's had it easy – but still. It's like he's gotten everything she's ever wanted, everything she's ever worked so hard for, without so much as lifting a finger.
It drives her insane.
"Ral." She glances up from her reverie, and her eyes narrow at the sight. Of course it's him, the very one person she can't stand to see, arms crossed, leaning casually against the wall next to her door like he belongs there.
"Squad Leader," she says stiffly. "If you don't mind, you're blocking my way."
He doesn't move. "Oi. Are you pissed at me, or something?"
"Don't know what you're talking about," she snaps. "Now move, please. I'm tired and want to go to bed."
He lifts an eyebrow. "You're acting weird tonight," he comments. "What's up? Did you get some bad news from home?"
Even now, she thinks to herself incredulously, he's still pretending to care. What the hell. "You can drop the act now," she says, her voice coming out harsher and sharper than she'd intended. "You got what you wanted, so leave. Me. Alone."
Levi's brows knit together. "I haven't the faintest clue what the fuck you're talking about," he says, his tone turning from concerned to ice-cold. "But if you're going to be shouting at me unprovoked in the middle of the corridor, I think you owe me an fucking explanation."
She meets his gaze, and even though his expression remains as bland as ever, she recoils slightly to see in his eyes genuine confusion and – maybe even a bit of hurt. He can't really not know, she tells herself, but there's no conviction left.
She sighs. Elbows him gently out of the way and opens the door. "Come on in," she says. "You wanna talk? Let's talk."
Her room is clean, if not particularly interesting. There are a couple of letters from her family pinned to the wall, a drawing or two from her younger siblings. Mismatched cushions, embroidered by her late mother, line the sides of her bed. A soft wool rug from home, knitted by her sister, sits on the otherwise bare wooden floor. Her one concession to personal style is the scattering of glow-in-the-dark stars she's glued onto the ceiling.
She sinks into her bed. Levi looks particularly uncomfortable, standing awkwardly in the middle of the room, and she feels a stab of sympathy. "Welcome to my humble abode," she says, gesturing vaguely around the room. "Make yourself at home. This place is the de facto hangout spot for the guys, so just sit wherever."
As one of the few female officers, she gets the rare privilege of a room to herself, one that she – and her squadmates – take advantage of to the fullest. Levi sits down stiffly in her chair, seemingly at a loss as to what to say.
"This is the part where you say something like, 'cool room', or 'nice space'," she offers. He hesitates, glances around.
"Your stars are nice?" It comes out more as a question, and Petra giggles.
"It's funny," she comments. "You're so confident usually – like when you're fighting titans, you're so sure of yourself, you don't even care if you're holding your blades the wrong way, and screw anyone who tells you otherwise. And even with people, you're just like, all lazy insults and eye-rolls, you don't care about what anyone thinks at all."
He shrugs. "I care what you think. We're friends," is all he says, and Petra feels her cheeks bloom red.
"You really don't beat around the bush, huh," she says drily. "So you are my friend? You're not bullshitting?"
Levi looks at her, incredulous. "We hang out in the lounge every night. I make you tea. You're the only person I even talk to. I don't even know why, it's like you're a fucking hypnotist or something, but I end up saying things that I wouldn't dream of saying to anyone else." He groans. "Like that."
It's a cool night, but her face is still oddly warm. "Um – I'll open the windows." She turns around, takes a deep breath of the fresh night air. Her back still to him, she mumbles, almost incomprehensibly, "Iwasjealousofyou."
"What was that?"
"I was jealous of you." She whirls around, gestures wildly at the air. "You don't get it. You're one of those natural talents, you barely have to even try and you're soaring through the sky like a bird, haven't you heard the instructors talk? And then there's me – I work harder than anyone else here –"
"I think everybody knows that," Levi says patiently, but she's on a roll.
"I do, and suddenly everybody's only paying attention to you and it's like I'm yesterday's news, and you took that squad leader position from me you bastard."
He blinks. "This – this is about my promotion?"
"What. Else. Would. It. Be," Petra hisses. And without warning, all of a sudden – Levi laughs.
His laugh is soft and low, almost velvety, and it's all so unexpected that for a second, she doesn't say anything, just stares at him with her mouth open.
Then – "what's so funny, you – you – you little upstart!" The words come out in a sputter, and she's still half-stunned from the sheer shock because Levi is still laughing.
When he finally speaks again, his voice is muffled, like he's trying his best to control himself. "Just so we're clear, I'm not making fun of you, you ridiculous woman." He scratches his head. "Look, Ral – Petra – you're an excellent soldier, it's clear as day. You'll have plenty of opportunities for promotion in future. You don't have to be jealous," he shakes his head in amazement, "of me, of all people."
"You're just so annoyingly good at everything," she mutters. There's an amused gleam in his eyes now, and it transforms them from their usual steel to something much softer, that reminds her of rainy days spent under the covers and dammit, it's actually kind of endearing.
He shakes his head. "I'm not good at it because I'm some natural talent, or whatever it is that the rumours say." He rolls his eyes. "I learnt how to use 3DMG out of necessity. Eat to live, steal to eat, and all that bullshit. And yes, I became damn good at it, but that's just kind of what life-or-death does to you." A shrug, cool as you please, I'm good because I'd have died otherwise, whatever, no big deal.
Her cheeks are burning for an entirely different reason now. "Um," she says lamely. "Okay, fine. And –" she pauses, searching for the right words, "I'm sorry, for, you know. Being a jealous loser. And assuming you were, like, competing with me, and stealing my spot, and stuff. I'm not great at being in second place," she confesses, her words coming out in a rush, "but – I'll try not to be as much of an asshole about it."
"And," she adds, very quietly, "I'd like to be friends. Properly. You know, if you want."
He offers her a half-smile, and she feels the slightest – just the very slightest – of flutters in her abdomen.
"I'll take you up on that."
He invites her to join his new elite squad, and she accepts. Somewhat questionably, although who the hell knows what's going on in his mind, really – he invites Auruo, Gunther, and Eld, too.
Even though he's so different with just her, Petra's used to his unflappable confidence in front of others, so she's faintly amused when at the first team meeting, she sees him falter for the first time.
But when they walk into their assigned room, a dusty old thing at the corner of the second floor, his demeanour changes instantly. He stands a little taller, gets that steely look in his eye that transforms him from an awkward young man to a cold-blooded killer (in this case, of dirt and filth rather than titans). She can practically see his fingers itch to grab a broom and a dust pan.
"First order of business," he declares without preamble, "we're getting this shithole clean."
The boys grumble as they go to retrieve their weapons – a mop, a rag, a bucket of water. And as she watches their mighty leader – she's already started to hear the title Humanity's Strongest being thrown around – outfitted in a handkerchief and a face mask, she allows herself a small grin.
"Oi, Ral," he barks, as he throws the windows open. "Get on with it! Where's your broom?"
"Coming, sir," she says, and grins at his look of exasperation.
Maybe, if it's with him, she's okay with being a follower instead. Just for a little while.