Work Text:
Levi is never clear with anyone how long he's suffered from his condition, but if you get close enough to study the practiced way he copes, and the deep, scarred bruises that go so much farther down than just the skin from the binding, you might draw the conclusion that he's never known life without it. Without them. He doesn't tell people about them much: it's not like they're going to be seeing him that close, that bare, anyway, not like he's going to let them. It's ironic, really: he's a man born to fly, and he has to do it with his wings strapped down and other straps wrapped around those ones to get him airborne. The maneuver gear's harness is painful and crippling, and by now, years after he first put one on, Levi isn't sure he could fly without it anymore.
Maybe he was born to be humanity's avenging angel, like his mother had said, a messenger from heaven itself sent to save mankind from the demons that menaced them. Maybe. Levi had lived too much and too hard to put stock in faith like that though, so he was more inclined to hold his father's beliefs: the wings were no blessing, they were a curse, and he was a monster for having them. Humanity's strongest soldier, and he's barely even human. Still, sometimes, when he let his mind stray a little, he would imagine unbinding them, showing the world his wingspan, and flying without the maneuver gear, fighting with his feathers out. There would be no fear of running out of gas, no need to anchor on trees or buildings to soar, just turning and adjusting as he knew in his bones how to do, and he'd be on his prey. He never let his mind stray too far, though, and he kept them bound, and secret, and safe.
---
The sun is setting, sending ripples of gold over the surface of the lake they've pitched their tents near and bathing the trees and grass in a soft, warm light. Frogs croak from the shore, crickets chirp on land, and above, nightbirds are beginning to sing. It's moments like this Levi is sure of his mission: the outside world is beautiful and vast, and worth fighting for. The serenity is incomplete, of course, with the threat of a titan attack ever present, but even with that, it's a night worthy of poetry, or at least of beautiful and painful secrets.
Levi finds Hanji by the fire, seemingly engrossed in the grass between their boots, and smiles in spite of himself, just for a moment, before leaning over Hanji's shoulder and inspecting the spot on the ground alongside them skeptically. "The grass cannot possibly be that engrossing," he says, and Hanji jumps slightly, startled out of their concentration, just enough to smack their shoulders up into Levi's chest lightly.
"Beetles!" Hanji replies enthusiastically, skipping an apology.
Levi squints; a trio of small, shiny, black beetles is milling about over the blades of grass. Beetles indeed. "Your ability to amuse yourself with nothing is truly inspiring," he tells them dryly, which elicits a frown from Hanji, who turns from the beetles to face Levi head on, so close their noses brush.
"It's not nothing," Hanji insists. "They've been doing this for ten minutes. I'm trying to figure out why. Generally, these kind of beetles, or, any beetles at all, any insects, any living creature really, when in such close proximity to a potential predator, such as myself, would flee. But they're not, which is odd! I think they might be sick. Or poisoned maybe? That would be awesome! You don't happen to have a magnifying glass, do you?"
"No," Levi replies, momentarily reconsidering his purpose in approaching Hanji: he is about to put his ultimate trust in a person who thinks that poisoned beetles are awesome and titans would make great pets. He shrugs it off. There are worse candidates for his trust, namely, everyone else who doesn't already have it. Levi is selective, and as irritating and ridiculous as Hanji can be, he trusts them, and he wants them to trust him too. "Well shitty glasses, seeing as you're not doing anything," he says, waving off Hanji's objection that studying beetles is definitely doing something, "I need you to follow me back to my tent. I have something to show you."
Hanji perks up like a puppy presented with a bone so quickly that Levi has to add, "And no, it's not a titan, don't get too excited." Their expression barely falters, and Levi gets an odd sensation sort of like a cool breeze suddenly starting up, but sort of inside of him, not out, and he looks away from Hanji's delighted looking face quickly, trudging off through the grass without waiting for further response, hoping he steps on a beetle or two on the way.
---
Levi double and triple checks the closures on all of the openings of the tent as soon as they're both inside (and Hanji has thoroughly wiped their boots on the rag Levi keeps by the door for just such a purpose), making sure that nothing, not even light, can get in. Outside, the darkness is gathering, and inside, Levi lights a candle lantern, hangs it, and fastens the last toggle on the tent. Satisfied in his security, he slips out of his jacket and lays it down neatly, then turns to Hanji, who is rocking back and forth on the balls of their feet slightly, like a kid at a Christmas, and they don't even know why they're there yet.
"What I am about to show you is not to leave this tent. If you tell anyone, we'll both have to pay for it." He pauses, measuring Hanji's reaction. Their glee is somewhat diminished, replaced with something like sternness, only Hanji is incapable of looking stern, so, sincerity? Maybe? "Don't make me regret trusting you."
"I won't," Hanji promises. Levi can tell that beneath the solemnity of the vow, Hanji is bursting to know what it is already. Nothing excites them like the unknown and inexplicable, except when it can be made known, and explained.
Levi has never been all that good with figuring out how to say it, and he figures actions speak loud enough, so he goes to unbutton his shirt. Hanji doesn't blink at the binding around his chest, but their eyes widen slightly as Levi unwraps some of it, uncoiling the binding that keeps his wings down, careful to keep it separate from the rest of the binding he wears. Feathers, now freed, begin to show, and he can feel his bones and muscles straining and stretching, wants to just extend to full wingspan right there and now, even though he knows the ache is impossible to dispel completely.
A question forms on Hanji's lips, but doesn't make it out of their mouth, and they step forward, hand slightly extended, reaching out. Levi turns, laying the unwound binding down with his jacket. "Gently," he says, answering the 'Can I touch them?' painted all over Hanji's wide-eyed face, and nods, just once.
Hanji closes the space between them in a few quick steps and, for a moment, their hands hover nervously (or perhaps reverently) over Levi's back, and then he feels fingertips in his feathers, and a shiver runs up and down his spine that makes him let out a shuttering, involuntary sigh, which he cuts off midway by biting his lip. The only other person in the legion he's told before this is Erwin, who he'd told ages ago now: the feeling of someone new investigating his wings, someone who pays such delicate and precise attention to beetles, no less, and finds gentleness in titans, someone who never watches, always observes, or studies, is… singular.
Hanji's fingers drift gingerly over one of the raw scars on Levi's left wing where the binding has cut into them. "This isn't good for you," Hanji says after a moment, "hurting yourself like this, it's not right."
"Pain is a fact of life," Levi replies curtly.
"So is discovery," Hanji says, "and good feelings too. Were you born like this, or did it happen to you? Is it a genetic mutation? It seems like an unlikely one, but I'm not sure I believe it could be magic, that sort of thing tends to be science no one's bothered to write down yet. Have you ever had any kind of testing done? No, of course you haven't, they'd lock you up or kill you, just like they do titans, without a question. People are too scared for their own good."
Levi leans into Hanji's ministrations, grateful for the touch, and the subject change. As annoying as their endless science babble can get, it's a sort of a comfort. "I'm not like a titan," he interjects. "I don't know what I am, but not that."
Hanji smoothes down the feathers around one of Levi's scars and then goes to tug at a loose bit of down. "No," Hanji admits, "not really. You're too small to be a titan." Levi elbows them in the chest.
Conversation drops off as Hanji crouches to examine more closely, stroking Levi's feathers investigatively, tracing the bone structure, musing aloud but too soft to be mistaken for attempts at conversing about a dozen things Levi doesn't know the meanings of and a handful others (like 'scientific miracle') that he's choosing to disregard. Besides, his senses are getting fuzzy. He'd forgotten how good it felt to be preened like this - it's not something he can do so well himself, and with hardly anyone else knowing, his options are limited. Erwin's done it a little, a few times, but not like this, not like he's trying to touch every inch of Levi's wings and the skin of his shoulders and back where they sprout, and around it, over the fabric binding and under it, but mostly between his feathers, and if Hanji could just stay there and touch them like that forever, he probably wouldn't complain, and then Hanji is laughing.
"What the hell is so funny, four eyes?" he demands, and turns slightly, feathers catching where Hanji is still holding onto them, to see them, smiling stupidly.
"You purr," Hanji explains, and Levi scowls. "What? You do! It's fascinating. You twitch sometimes too, which I'm definitely sure is involuntary, which I guess the purring is too. From what I'm picking up, these things are pretty sensitive for you."
Levi doesn't bother coming up with a rebuttal. "You stopped," is all he says, sounding sort of grumpy, and slightly defeated.
Hanji laughs again, and presses their hands back into Levi's feathers, preening and stroking and studying all at once, and Levi probably starts purring again, but he doesn't really notice, nor does he notice when his knees sort of buckle and they're forced to sit down, Levi half kneeling and half seated, Hanji crouching over him, next to his bedroll. He arches his back against Hanji's hands and lets out another sigh, but this time, he doesn't cut it off, nor does he keep back the other noises he finds himself making, soft, small noises that stretch out as Hanji's fingers brush especially sensitive spots. For the first time in a long time, Levi doesn't feel cursed. It would be hard to, he thinks, with someone like Hanji there.
"I trust you too, by the way," Hanji tells him, after a while of relative silence. "I mean, no big biblical sort of secrets hiding under my shirt to entrust you with, but if i did, I would."
Levi shivers as Hanji tugs out a loose feather. "Good," he says, eyes drifting closed in a rare expression of serenity.
---
Outside, the moon is rising over the lake, the frogs grow louder, as if challenging the crickets, and the nightbirds are composing a symphony about hidden feathers and cracked bones, and the things that made them that way, and about gentle, careful hands that care for both.