Work Text:
Erwin had gotten over Marie.
Sort of.
Almost.
(Not at all)
Erwin had factored in that sort of sacrifice. He knew that love and romance were something he simply could not properly pursue. But something drew him to Hange. He hadn't entirely been sure of her gender upon meeting her. He hadn't entirely understood why he was attracted to her, he'd always been attracted to people he was certain were female. But he observed her, noticed her mannerisms her reactions. And he knew why he was feeling this way.
For the first time in a long time, Erwin found someone who was making as many sacrifices as he was. And he knew she needed to be thrown into her work to fully forget, or to at least feel like it was worth her while. He wanted her to do her experiments. Her open disappointment when he said no due to their lack of funds mirrored his hidden, silenced feelings. Hange was his ambition and enthusiasm unleashed. The titan research was all she had and he wanted to see her happy.
He hated to admit this to himself. He hated that he forgot Marie when he looked at this sloppy, genderless human that didn't seem to have a place for her identity. There seemed to be no time for social politics, not with a war going on. She seemed to know. She accepted her pronouns and titles as a label, it didn't matter if she was misgendered, not at the moment. The soldier who made the mistake would often be dead before he had time to get it right, or even begin to understand. He noticed she had long since stopped trying to get people to understand, and didn't correct or explain anything about herself.
(He didn't like that she had to stop trying to make people understand for her own mental health. So she wouldn't keep track of the people she'd “trained” to understand her)
The people who knew her well switched back and forth between her assigned pronouns and the ones she liked. Erwin did this as well, he didn't know when he started, but it slipped through. He'd hoped that he would be chosen to be the one to help her with other things to make her feel more comfortable with herself. To listen to her. To help her bind her chest (to help her take them off at night). To hold her.
(He wanted to love her. He loved her in ways he couldn't love Marie and it almost thrilled him)
But he couldn't. Because she chose Levi. To outsiders this seemed absurd. Erwin knew better. Levi only looked inaccessible. Erwin actually was inaccessible. So it was Levi who got to listen to her talk endlessly, first about titans then gradually about herself, her thoughts, her fears (her feelings). It was Levi who held her, kept her warm, breathed in the scent of her hair as a reward. It was Levi who helped Hange bind her chest in the morning (and certainly helped her out of them, kissed the bruises, and helped her brainstorm safer ways to bind).
So it was only fitting that Levi was the one to hold her when she died. All he could think of when he saw her bloody face was how long he spent wondering what her lips felt like instead of actually kissing them.
There was no time for that. In her death, he had gotten over Hange Zoë.
(No. That was a lie. She lingered in every corner of his consciousness and she was one of two deaths he could never atone for)