Unnecessary Risk Part 2

Levi X Hange Fanfic

The night after his court martial, Levi Ackerman cleaned and re-cleaned his bedchamber six times before he finally sat down and opened a bottle of rum. It had been a while since he drank anything harder than wine, but tonight he couldn't help it. He had come this close to execution and for what? Four eyes?

Levi took a swig from his glass and savored the burning of the liquor in his throat. He had downed a couple more shots when there was a knock on his door.

"Come in," he said not looking up.

The door opened and Erwin entered the room. He took one look at Levi, got a glass out from the nearby cupboard, and sat down across from Levi. Erwin took the bottle from Levi and poured himself a bit of the rum and downed it. "So?" he said after he swallowed his second shot.

"So what?" Levi said pouring himself another glass.

Erwin stared at him in that way that only Erwin could. Cold yet still caring. Questioning but patient. His blue eyes stung through Levi though he wasn't glaring at him in anyway. It was enough to drive Levi insane.

"What was I supposed to do?" Levi demanded and slammed his glass on the table making it crack.

"Leave her," Erwin said calmly. "The same way we've all had to leave people. The same way Hange has left people. The same way we had to leave Petra and Gunter and countless others."

Levi sighed and pushed his back against the chair and let out a hard breath. Erwin had never seen him this agitated or exhibiting anything other than his usually cool demeanor.

"I tried to leave," Levi said finally. He was staring past Erwin at a spot on the floor that he must have missed during his six cleanings. He was looking at the spot but wasn't really seeing it. All he could see was that day during the expedition.

He saw Mikasa land beside Jean on the castle top where the squad had retreated to. Mikasa and Hange were tasked with retrieving an unconscious Eren from the Titans and though Levi could see the still unconscious Eren cradled in Mikasa's arms, Hange was nowhere in sight.

"Where's four eyes?" Levi said as Mikasa tried to revive Eren.

Mikasa looked up at him, her eyes low. "She saved Eren from a sixteen-meter titan, but got hurt in the process. My ODM gear ran out of steam when we were in top of the bell tower." Mikasa shook her head. "She gave me hers and told me to go on without her."

Levi looked from Mikasa to Erwin whose face was grim. "Alright scouts. Retreat!"

Everyone stood, Armin now helping Mikasa to hold Eren up, and moved toward the back of the castle where they kept the horses. They would have to run before the Titans realized where they were and came for them.

"I tried to go, I did," Levi told Erwin as he sat with him, still replaying the scene in his mind. "I tried to just walk away but—but every step I took felt heavier and heavier until I couldn't keep going."

Levi saw himself that day, trying to keep up with Erwin but falling further and further behind until he was at the very back of the squad. His heart was pounding so loudly in his ears that he couldn't hear anything else. He could barely see his squad in front of him either. All he could see was Hange with her stupid smile, poking at him or waving some book in his face. All he could make out was her dumb glasses and her brown hair as she flew beside him on their first expedition together. All he could picture was her crazed laugh when she captured her first Titan to experiment on. Before he or anyone else realized what was happening, Levi took off toward the bell tower.

Hange, you idiot nerd. You better be alive.

There was a sickening panic expanding in Levi's chest as he zipped from building to building. He swished through the air like lightening, too fast for any mere mortal to make out, though no one was watching him or at least that's what Levi hoped. He silently hoped that no one from the regiment followed him. He didn't want anyone else risking their lives. If he couldn't save Hange and if he himself died doing something so stupid, then so be it, but no more lives should be put in peril due to his own foolishness

Levi was only a few meters away when he saw it. The entire bell tower was surrounded by Titans, at least twenty of them. None of them were tall enough to reach the top of it where Levi could make out a motionless figure he assumed was Hange. The problem was that tower was crumbling. In a few moments the entire structure would give out and Hange, if she wasn't already dead, would be at the mercy of the Titans.

As Levi neared the tower, a titan hand reached out for him, missing him by mere inches. Levi swung around its wrist and sliced the hand off before rearing up ward and rolling on the top of the tower.

He rushed over to the motionless figure which was in fact Hange.

"Four eyes!" he said shaking her. "Hey shitty glasses! Hange!" But she gave no sign that she heard him. Her head hung limply to the side and one of the lenses in her glasses was cracked. Levi looked down and saw that her entire right leg was covered in blood. There were wide gaping gashes in her knee and it was positioned at an impossibly awkward angle.

Levi put his fingers to her neck and felt for a pulse. After a few horrifying seconds he finally felt a thump against his middle and forefinger. Breathing a sigh of relief, Levi put Hange's chest against his own and tied her to him using the straps of Mikasa's now useless ODM gear.

He stood up and tried to get used to the weight of her. He had never been quite this close to Hange before and as he looked into her face he noticed two tiny freckles on her nose. Just then the bell tower made a groaning noise and rocked.

"Shit!" Levi said realizing that an entire side of the tower had caved in. It was only a matter of time before the entire structure gave way.

It took twice as much steam from the ODM gear to support two riders. Before Mikasa and Eren had appeared, Levi had briefly checked his steam and saw that there wasn't much left.

But there was no time to worry about that. The building literally began to crumble around them. Levi took a running start and leapt off of the tower, narrowly missing the grasp of another Titan hand and just a second later the bell tower crashed down upon itself into a mess of rubble and dust.

Hange's head rolled from side to the side as they flew through the air. She seemed lifeless and though he had felt a pulse just seconds ago, Levi was afraid that he was still too late, that she had lost too much blood. They were nearly at the castle when Levi's gear sputtered.

"Fuck!" he swore. Not knowing what else to do, he took out all of the blades from his gear and dropped them below. He hoped that the lessened weight would help, but the steam continued to sputter. If they dropped now, they'd be in the middle of overrun Titan land with no way to defend themselves.

Levi's gear jerked mid-air and caused him to swing too far left, narrowly missing a building. He racked his mind trying to remember if there was anything else he could drop to lessen the weight but there was nothing. Nothing except for Hange.

No.

He wouldn't do that. He couldn't. He'd die first before he let her go. They jerked and lurched in the air like a bird with a broken wing, but Levi could finally see the castle where the scouts had retreated to in the distance. Hope swelled in his chest as they jolted and plummeted lower and lower.

They floundered in the air and the gear sputtered and choked out one last jet of steam when Levi and Hange crash landed on top of the castle. They rolled together a few times before coming to a complete stop. Levi looked down at Hange's pale face that was only growing paler the more blood she lost.

He looked up and saw Erwin and the rest of the squad staring at him.

"What are you doing? Come help her," Levi said. Jean and Armin rushed over to them and helped untie Hange from Levi. They wrapped her leg and tried to put pressure on the wound.

"She might lose the leg," Levi heard Armin whisper.

Levi looked away from them and toward Erwin who was staring at him with an eyebrow raised.

Levi said nothing. Instead he walked past Erwin and continued toward the back of the castle. "I thought you said we were retreating."

"You see I tried," Levi said to Erwin in his room. "I tried to leave but something stopped me. I don't know what it was, Erwin. I've seen so many people die. I never thought the thought of one more death would ever phase me, but when Mikasa said that Hange wasn't coming back I-I just couldn't." He hung his head low and shook it.

"Hmm," Erwin said. The truth was he had guessed as much. He just wanted to hear Levi say it. "Well, Hange is up and talking now. You have to tell her—"

"I'm not telling that four-eyed freak anything," Levi said.

"You have to tell her not to say anything," Erwin finished. "If anyone asks her, she can't tell them that you knew about her leaving Armin as her successor. That would invalidate your testimony today and then we'd both be facing a court martial."

Levi sighed. "Can't you tell her?"

Erwin took one last swig of the rum and stood up. "You're the one who saved her. You do it."