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Hange encounters guns at multiple instances in her life. They came around once when she was small, frequently in her career, and then now. At each point in her life, they had a different meaning.
When she was small, gunshots had meant she was being protected by the police from dangerous criminals. It meant there was something interesting happening, something worth looking at. Gunshots generally brought her, as well as the rest of the kids in the neighborhood whom she didn’t quite get along with, to the scene of the crime to investigate. The first time Hange saw a gun, it was pointed at her face as she rounded a corner. It was tipped in some kind of red substance, sending her stumbling backwards just in time for the local police to come brandishing their swords, holding the criminal back with the flats of their blades and knocking the gun out of his hands with another set of blades. A blonde man displaying the red roses of the Garrison knelt and asked Hange if she was okay.
In her career, they had an entirely different meaning from her naïve- ten year old self’s point of view. In her career, there were two guns holstered to her hip. One shot colorful flares that would have made her ten year old self cheer and ask if she could try. The other, she used to kill those who tried to kill her.
The first time she used the flaregun, it was indeed fascinated. At the same time, she was running for her life on horseback, jamming the red capsule into the gun and slamming a hand against her ear, the impact rocking her ears and the loud bang from her gun making them ring. For a while, all she could hear was the ringing, and she depended mostly on the feel of her horse’s hooves hitting the ground and her somewhat dirty vision through her goggles to find the rest of her squad. Of course, they made it back intact. It was said that her red flare was what had saved the squad’s life, and she should feel a level of pride towards that. She grinned at them, but was quietly shaken.
The gun itself was an entirely different matter, however. It was not a hasty “now or never” shot like the flaregun, but rather a cold, calculated shot that required precision she had only been able to use in the lab before. The shot was one of the longest distances in the squad, and in one of the most peculiar spots that one could possibly take a shot from. Crouched inside the run-down home long abandoned by inhabitants and wrecked by titans, she crouched on a beam that had questionable stability. With Lev on the one next to her, she aimed her gun through a natural hole in the wood planks holding the house together. Neither of them were properly prepared for the noise the gun made, sending their ears ringing yet again. The kickback nearly made Hange fall off the rafter, if not for Levi’s quick leap across the gap to hold her steady, his legs splitting on it earning a wince from him. She checked her shot, satisfied to find she’d actually made it. There was no notation that she should have pride in her shot when they regrouped with the rest of the squads, but she did vomit outside of the barracks later in the dead of night, Levi giving her the same statements he gave Armin months before. He kissed her after she washed her mouth out and promised that it would get easier.
And now… now, she shouldn’t have to use a gun. This wasn’t the long type of gun she was used to where you had to manually clean it and load bullet after bullet… no, this was a handgun, with rounds and the ability to make one more shot. It was given to her for the reason of utmost safety within this open town, only to be used in an emergency.
Her job in the military protecting citizens, from titans or from humans, was never over. It was the same reason that her and Levi’s jackets proudly displaying the Wings of Freedom sat on pegs next to the door, and the same reason that they never quite took off their 3DMG straps. It was nighttime now, sometime around two o’clock, unusually muggy. The person outside let their gun off first, jerking Levi and Hange out of bed at the same speed the bullet flew. By the time the body hit the ground their gear was on, so they grabbed the guns under their beds – one each, as requested by headquarters – and crept out the door silently, surprised to find the dead body right outside their door. Hange stepped in the pool of blood forming in the dirt around it, contorting her face into a grimace at the feeling of warm liquid on her foot.
The shooter wasn’t silent, making his retreat hastily through the streets, a maniac laughter escaping from his lips. Lights appeared in the windows above, and the couple took that as their signal to send hooks into the nearby buildings and chase after the culprit, sailing through the air. The only noises that were around Hange was the sound of the wind rushing in her ears, nearly deafening, the faint laughter below her, and the noises of her slightly less oiled cables than Levi’s.
Her first instinct was to dodge when she heard another shot fired her way, earning a nasty swear from her partner. He knew she was okay, and waited until they were over a streetlight to fire a shot at the criminal. He fell silently, the pair landing next to him as his eyes rolled back in his head.
“Flare,” Levi declares. Hange shoves both hands over her ears, the bang of the colorful smoke a mere pop with both ears covered. Nearby, a woman opens her door, clutching a candleholder tightly in her hand while a child grips her skirts.
“Is it okay?” she asks, her voice uncertain. Both Levi and Hange straighten, but he signals for her to stay there as he consoles the woman. Across the street he tells her what happened, and at some point, the child leaves their mother’s side and comes to stand by Hange.
“Don’t look at this,” Hange murmurs to the child, palming their head, their face indistinguishable in the dim light. “This world is too cruel for you to see this at such a young age.”
The child ponders this for a moment before Hange kneels down next to them, eye level at this point. “Go to bed. Your life is fragile. Remember to live it.”
When she and Levi return home, dawn is breaking and the bags under Levi’s eyes are heavier than usual. People are waking up, confused and bleary from the activity of the night interrupting their sleep, surprised to see the two veterans walking arm in arm in a pair of blue striped pajamas and yellow ensemble, each strapped up in gear, earning confused and amused glances from citizens.
“The MP will take care of it,” he tells her as they reach the house. “Go get a little sleep, shitty-glasses. I’ll wake you up later.”
It’s a futile suggestion and he knows it. Hange’s already sat at their kitchen table, a pen in one hand and napkin in the other, hastily scribbling out the events of the night.