Chapter Text
Erza remembered when Natsu had first brought Lucy into the guild. She was a bubbly bundle of energy, brown doe eyes wide, taking in everything around her with such innocence and excitement that Mira remembered thinking This girl has never known pain. She was simply so carefree and optimistic that Mira just couldn’t imagine her with tears rolling down her cheeks.
Of course, she soon found out how very wrong she was.
The other thing about Lucy she noticed right off the bat was her connection to Natsu. Mira hadn’t seen him so interactive with someone aside from Happy since Lisanna had passed away.
Lucy, in turn, seemed to look at him like he hung the moon and stars. Even when she got peeved at his ignorance or ambivalence, her eyes still shone with the bright light of admiration and gratitude.
Mira remembered the way Lucy had bounded up to Natsu, flashing her fresh, bright pink guildmark; how her eyes had lit up with pride, deflated with annoyance, and then gleamed with interest.
Mira also remembered the way Lucy’s gaze had changed over the years. At first it was subtle; a gentle shift after Natsu had brought her back from the Phantom Lord headquarters. There was something softer in her eyes when she looked at him, like the sharp gratitude and praise from when he first led her to Fairy Tail, but somehow softer, sweeter.
And then—as they fought enemy after enemy, faced trial after trial—she watched that gaze soften even more, watched a warmth begin to emit with tenderness and empathy every time Lucy looked at her partner.
The day it clicked in Mira’s head was the day Lucy found out about her father’s death. She remembered catching a glimpse of them walking to Lucy’s apartment. They were talking about something Mira couldn’t quite hear, but she saw the look in Lucy’s eyes.
They were warm and pleading. Pleading for answers. Pleading for strength. Pleading for help. Because those eyes… They said she was looking for grounding that only Natsu could provide. They screamed that he was the only one she trusted to mend her broken, conflicted, pain-ravaged heart; to make sense of the chaos swirling around her.
Because she trusted him.
Because she loved him.