A/N: Welcome to another very rare multichapter fic that features my two SnK OTPs; Markasa! And JeanMarco, but in this case it's more like a bromance they'll be sharing here.

This fic will start out very slow, to get a basic background, I guess you can say. I hope that there won't be too many chapters so this can be an easy read, but last time I expected 10 chapters, it was nearly 20.

Without further ado, here is my new fanfic.

(Feedback will definitely be appreciated and may motivate me to write the next chapter quicker!)

This is also on Ao3! : / / archiveofourown works / 1186268

Marco barely remembered the first few weeks of highschool at Trost. He could only recall how tired he was each morning, how long it took him to get from class to class, and how hard it was to shake bullies off of him every day. All they stooped to was insults, and they never had laid a hand on him. And Marco wasn't really affected by it all. He actually pitied them, he pitied that they felt the need to put others down to feel better about themselves. And thus he just brushed them off with a smile and a witty retort that left the group of troublemakers with their mouths gaping and with their moods sour as they hated Marco more and more.

Something seemed to have changed one day, however. Marco remembers the day, the Friday of the third week at highschool. Marco's assailants were trailing him and he knew it. He remembered when he should have a reply ready by, to stun them and make his getaway. But the only thing that was out of routine was that when they cornered him and spat insults at him and he just smiled- one of them, the leader, presumably, raised a fist. Marco was shocked but had just about no time to react as a hand was flying at his face. His head had roughly hit the wall behind him, but nothing made contact with his face. He peeked open an eye he didn't even realize was closed and saw that a tight set of knuckles were mere centimeters from his freckled nose. Upon further inspection, someone had grabbed the aggressor's wrist tight. The rest of the group, including Marco, turned to see a somewhat shorter boy with a flame, a spark, in his cerulean eyes. The gang didn't even bat a lid as they began to corner the boy instead, but when they heard another pair of footsteps coming up behind Marco's savior, they looked up, and hissed out a curse.

"Shit, Mikasa!"

"Run-!"

Before a woman, about the same height as the boy, made it to the big commotion that earned a lot of students' attention, the entire band of brigands had fled quickly down the hall. The leader had ripped out of the grip on his wrist, leaving the boy's hand suspended in the air. There was a moment of silence before his hand fell and he turned to Marco, looking him over.

"I'm Eren," he said suddenly, shooting out a hand for the freckled teen to take. Before doing so, he flinched.

"Marco," he responded, a smile beginning to stretch across his face. He then turned to the woman, her cold gaze making his grin falter slightly.

"Mikasa," she introduced herself, deadpan. She showed no more interest in Marco as she turned to Eren and gently pulled on his sleeve. "We're going to be late."

"Right," Eren nodded, taking one more look at Marco before he started to walk away with his sister. "See you around."

Marco waved them goodbye, and he headed for his next class as well, heart pounding in his chest.

Lunch time rolled around, and as usual, Marco found somewhere to sit that wasn't around a lot of people. He found it hard to befriend anyone. No one spoke to him and no one had the time for him, so he kept to himself. Sure he got lonely but he would take some time to stay in contact with his old friends through texts.

He didn't realize which table he sat at the end of until he heard Eren's voice call him over. Marco blinked up from staring at some green beans that were making him sick to his stomach, and saw Eren, Mikasa, and a bunch of their friends. Eren was inviting him to sit with them? He wouldn't let that opportunity pass as he got up and took a seat next to a guy with two toned hair who only moved because Mikasa glared at him. He felt a little awkward, but when he looked around, most of the eyes were kind and he felt welcome.

Eren let him know that he was welcome to sit with the group during lunch whenever he wanted, he shouldn't be looking so alone and sad like that, bluh blah. Everyone introduced themselves to him, besides Eren and Mikasa, as they already did so earlier. Armin was the blonde, smart kid sitting across from him, Jean was the grumpy two toned haired guy sitting next to him, Connie was the extremely loud "baldy" (Sasha's words) sitting across from Jean, Sasha was the extremely hungry redhead sitting next to Connie, Christa was the cute blonde sitting across from Sasha, Ymir was the freckled girl sitting next to Christa, Annie was the stoic and slightly scary looking blonde sitting across from Ymir, Reiner was the huge, muscled blonde sitting next to Annie, and Bertholdt was the super tall, nervous brunette sitting across from Reiner. He had noticed a majority of these guys from classes, but he never got the chance to talk to them. Turns out they were all really cool.

As the group began to chat about things amongst themselves, a few (Christa and Armin, and rarely, Mikasa) asking Marco some questions about himself, Marco felt more happy than he had in years. The period went by faster than he would have liked, but he would see them all Monday and during classes sometimes. Besides, he had traded numbers with anyone willing so he could talk to them over the weekend. He walked to math with Jean, a smile stretched out across his face. He was so unused to it, his jaw hurt.

The two walked in mostly silence, but as they waited around for their teacher to get his ass over there and open the door, Jean spoke up.

"I know it's none of my business but..." he trailed off, hesitating. Marco looked at him curiously, gently nudging him to tell him to keep going. Jean sighed and shifted his weight, "Well... I dunno. You just looked... sad, I guess. I don't know. Ignore me. I didn't say anything,"

Marco's face softened and he looked a while at Jean, until the other teen looked over and growled out a gruff "what". Before Marco could open his mouth and answer, Jean had disappeared when a crowd of students swept them both into the classroom.

Marco sighed happily, shutting his textbook with a satisfying "thud". He had pushed doing his homework away to Saturday, and he had an interesting conversation with Connie that distracted him from doing it. It was 8 in the evening and it took him roughly 3 hours to do a 20 minute assignment. He wouldn't have gotten it finished at all if it weren't for Connie's phone dying, and Sasha wouldn't let him have the charger "because she's a butt". Thanks Sash.

He stood up and stretched out. His neck popped and he just about collapsed back into the desk chair. He reminded himself not to sit in that position again, ever. His phone buzzed. and he almost considered not picking up in case it was Connie again. He grabbed it anyways and was surprised to see it was Mikasa who had sent the message.

His heart fluttered as he opened the message, but all it was, was an address and an in-character Mikasa invitation to play a match of soccer. At 8pm? Sounds fantastic. He shut off his desk light, dressed into more appropriate clothing, and told his mom he'd be back before midnight.

The highlights of the soccer match were as follows: Eren's team, consisting of himself, Mikasa, Armin, Marco, Sasha, and Bertholdt, was defeated against Jean's team, consisting of himself, Connie, Annie, Reiner, Christa, and Ymir. It was a close match, but Eren lost nonetheless.

Jean celebrated with a dance and proceeded to rub it in Eren's face for the rest of the time he was there. For that reason, he and Mikasa left very quickly. Armin left almost immediately after, as well as Christa and Ymir. No one knows when Annie disappeared, but Bertholdt and Reiner stayed to humor Jean, Connie, Sasha, and Marco. It was getting late, so the remaining six left all at the same time.

Marco was sore the rest of the night and the day after, but he was happy. He was extremely happy, so happy that his mom noticed a drastic change and hugged him and thanked whatever she believed in that her son was finally the happy little boy he used to be again.