Chapter One
"Are you sure about this?" Hange Zoe is the last person that Levi Ackerman thought he would look to for advice. She's someone he's known for most of his life even if she is a constant pain. He hadn't expected to find the woman standing outside his door with such a serious expression while asking if he was sure about his choice. When he had phoned her earlier, he guess he should've expected her to appear within the hour though.
"Good day to you too," he mutters, moving aside to let the tall woman in. He doesn't need to voice his order of having her remove her mud covered boots, but he does shoot her a glare to which she gives him a grin. Hange doesn't waste time in jumping onto the very large sofa and Levi scowls as she goes to cover herself in the grey blanket that rests on the black cushions.
"What's this I hear about you getting a kid?" coming to sit in the single seat across from the sofa, Levi ignores her question and instead fixes his face in a slight glare.
"Keep it down, she's sleeping." Spinning around, Hange's spectacles seem to glint as her eyes narrow onto the door that leads into the guest room she usually slept in when she stayed over. Levi could see the smirk forming on her face even before she turns around again and graces him with her teasing smile.
"Who would've thought the great Heichou would get saddled with a kid." Hange pouts when she doesn't get a reaction out of her friend, but seeing his narrow grey eyes having harden further, she finds her smile falling from her face. The serious expression once again comes to her face and Levi can't help but note that he didn't know which side he tolerated more - the goofy persona although annoying wasn't so sharp as she was when she was serious and he couldn't get anything past her. It annoyed him really, but he put it to the back of his mind for now. Now wasn't the time to think of such things.
"...hard."
"What?" Refocusing onto the woman he finds she has began to fiddle with a strand of her brown hair.
"I said it's going to be hard raising a kid on your own," she repeats. "I'm sure you're not going to get help from your family either."
"They don't want anything to with whatever Renee left behind. Not even her kid," he says, voice unreadable just as his face. "Not that I can blame them. My sister did something foolish and now she was paying the price - even in death."
Hange is silent, staring at the male who seems to be lost in his thoughts. Silence takes over the apartment and the young woman has no intention of breaking it just yet. She wanted him to gather his thoughts first.
"Uncle Levy?" A young voice calls, breaking the silence. Hange is startled to find the young child had appeared out of the room, yet she makes no move to part with the closed door. Turning fully, Hange sees that the young girl has not taken her eyes off of her. Having never met Hange, she guesses that's what makes her wary.
Looking at the child, she can see the resemblance between her friend and the girl that looked barely to be five. Thick black hair falls just above her shoulders and her long bangs are parted in the middle, her large grey eyes staring curiously at Hange. Inwardly, the young woman squeals at the sight of the small child in a pair of white onesies that seem to have a sort of pattern - she couldn't make it out from all the way over here.
"Lucy, you were sleeping." Hange can feel the irritation directed to her from his speech but ignores in favor of waving at the girl, a grin coming to her face.
"Hi there. I'm Hange, a friend of your uncle's," Slowly, Lucy makes her way over to where the two sat. "Nice to meet you, Lucy."
"Nice to meet you too." her voice is soft and she seems nervous. Hange blinks when the girl makes a beeline for where Levi sits and doesn't hesitate in climbing into his lap. Although Levi tries to school his features, Hange can see the annoyance flicker across his face. He doesn't make a move to remove the small child from his lap though and Hange cannot help but smirk at the sight.
"Did we wake you?" Lucy shakes her head, eyes never wavering from her stare down with Hange. The young woman cannot hide her amusement and her lips twitch up into another smile.
"Does Erwin know?" Of course he does, but Hange wants to start a conversation now. She needs to know what Levi is thinking - or try to get an inkling of what he's thinking seeing as he's so hard to read - so she needs him to talk.
"Yes," Levi doesn't look away from Lucy who doesn't seem to be listening to their conversation and is instead playing with the stuffed purple octopus she had come out of the room with. "I called him since we came back last week."
"And you only decided to call me today?" Hange pouts. She knew Levi had flown all the way to England to attend the funeral of his sister, and had been MIA for a few weeks. When she had received the phone call just an hour prior, she had been ecstatic to hear from her friend. Even though she had gone into a rant after calming down from her her joy of hearing from him again. What kind of friend went missing for nearly a month and not contact their friends? He had calmly stated he was a such a friend.
"Yes," She can only sigh because it wasn't her who was supposed to be riled up by the other's comments.
"I'm guessing you need a favor or something," Lucy removes herself from her uncle's lap and goes to lie on the carpeted floor, holding her toy above her.
Levi wasn't one to beat around the bush, no matter how embarrassing his request was. So of course he doesn't see anything wrong with him - a notorious business man who was once apart of the military as a high ranking soldier - asking for a little help from one of his most trusted friends.
"I don't know how to raise a child, and so I thought I should ask you." Hange raises an eyebrow at the request as she thought she would be the man's last choice on asking for help on something like this. As if hearing her thoughts, Levi lets out a sigh. "Erwin thought it would be best to ask you first seeing as you have younger siblings you helped raise."
Which is true. Hange was the oldest of her parents' children - eight including herself - and had helped her mother on raising her younger siblings. Matter-of-fact, she still had two to help with now - Hillary who was ten and Kevin who was thirteen - but it wasn't as bad now seeing as Hange was now successful enough to provide care takers to help her mother. Although the stubborn old bat of a mother didn't like it.
"How old is Lucy?" the woman asks instead of answering Levi's question. He knew she would help anyway, no need to voice it.
"I'm four and a half!" It seems the little squirt was actually listening to their conversation. She now sits up on her knees, holding up four fingers to show as well.
"What she said." Levi cross his left foot over his right, eyes glancing down at Lucy before looking back up at Hange.
"She's old enough to start daycare," Hange puts a finger to her chin, pursing her lips in thought. "But I don't think you should send her. Have one of your lackeys take care of her until she's old enough to attend elementary school."
He wasn't planning on sending her either way. He could just hire a tutor and let it be over with.
"No!" Lucy's voice interrupts their conversation. Both look down to the young child to see the frown on her features. "I wanna go to school."
"You'll go to school when you're old enough," Levi says, watching as the little girl turns around to face him. "Until then, you'll stay here and be tutored-"
"I don't want to be locked up in this place," Hange is a bit surprised by the child's vocabulary. Was she really only four? "I wanna go out and make friends."
The two Ackermans seem to be in a contest of some sort as they continue to stare at each other. Hange has to give the girl some credit from not backing down, and she can already see that Lucy was going to be one stubborn kid.
"Alright," Levi relents and Lucy begins to cheer. "But I'll be choosing the daycare you attend."
That was actually amusing seeing as Hange can't really see little Lucy being able to pick the school she wanted.
"Alright," holding out her hand towards her uncle who raises an eyebrow but grasps her hand and shakes it. "You have a deal."
Petra Ral has been the personal secretary for Levi Ackerman for almost three years now, yet there were things she did not know of her boss. As Olou Bozado - the driver for the business man for five years - had pointed out, Levi wasn't someone who let persons in on his personal life easily. So it really was a shock when her employer called her bright and early one morning and ordered her to look for the best daycare centers located in the area. She of course could not question her boss on why he would need such information and had set out to do her task right away.
Luckily, her answer was the little girl who answered the door that afternoon to her boss' penthouse home. Petra could only stare for a few moments - she looked so much like Mr. Ackerman! - before a smile graces her features.
"Are you here to see Uncle Levy?" The little girl asks, moving aside as Petra numbly nods her head with her smile never once removing from her face. She watches as the child disappears down the hall to Petra remembers to be where his office to be, unsure of what exactly to do. She has been here a few times but she has never had to go anywhere but straight to the doors that lead to the office. She had never had to wait.
"Petra," She is snapped out of her musings as her employer appears, the small child behind him with her eyes focused on the young woman.
"Sir, I have the information you requested of me." Presenting the folder from her bag, she lets the man collect them from her hands.
"Sorry I had you work on your day off," he says, eyes looking through the folder before glancing at her momentarily. "Something came up."
"Not something," mutters the girl as she grips onto the pant leg of Levi's clothing. "Me - I'm Lucy Ackerman, Uncle Levy's niece."
"Uh, nice to meet you, Lucy," glancing at her boss, she finds that he isn't paying them any attention and is instead reading through the folder. Focusing back on Lucy, she gives her another smile which the little girl returns with one of her own. "My name is Petra Ral."
"You work for my uncle, huh," it wasn't a question and the young girl comes to stand in front of Petra, grey eyes curious. "Is it fun? Do you get free food? Do you-"
"Lucy," Levi says that has the dark hair child pausing and looking back to find that his eyes are now on her. "That's enough."
The young girl huffs but otherwise relents and moves toward the living room where the television is, plunging onto the sofa and grabbing the remote. Giving Lucy one last long look, Petra looks back to her boss who lets a sigh.
"As I was saying, thank you for your work, Petra. I won't keep you any longer." Nodding her head, the young woman begins to make her way back to the door - she hadn't even notice that she had taken off her shoes and walked into the house! - but not before a young voice stops her.
"Hope to see you again, Ms. Petra!" Looking back, she finds the young girl waving at her, her eyes taken off from the distracting television show that can only be cartoons.
"You as well, Lucy." The girl beams at Petra and gets a smile in return. "Good bye, Mr. Ackerman. I will see you first thing Monday morning."
The man nods as the young woman walks through the threshold, not waiting to see her off and closes the door.
Blinking at the closed door, Petra lets out a sigh.
Petra Ral has worked for Levi Ackerman for almost three years, yet she is sure she can't say she knows him. With this new information of her boss somehow acquiring a niece, she hopes she can at least learn more of him - if not to make her job even easier. She has this gut feeling that the little Lucy Ackerman will even help in this. She truly looks forward to meeting the young girl again.
Sitting in the plastic chair for the past hour has made Lucy's butt hurt. The ticking of the clock above her does not exactly help the young girl in staying patient any longer. But she couldn't let this known to the nice receptionist that sits behind the desk not too far from her. Her mother had always admonished her about her patience.
"Come now, Lucy. You can wait a little longer, can't you?"
"But, momma..."
"What do I say at times like this?"
"Patience is not the ability to wait, but the ability to keep a good attitude while waiting." The little girl whispers out, her throat feeling tight. She didn't want to think about her mother right now. The woman would not be speaking anymore - would not be giving Lucy anymore of her 'life lessons' as she called it - and would not be with her any longer.
Lucy has to bite down on her lip to keep from sobbing. She could feel the tears coming but Auntie Viola - her mother's friend - had said to be strong, so she couldn't cry. She wouldn't cry.
"Lucy?" Looking up, she finds that the nice lady that had explained that she was her mother's lawyer before has appeared once more. She is pretty with hair in a bun and side swept bangs and brown eyes. Lucy remembers the woman had said her name was Annabeth and that she liked chocolate. "This is your uncle, he'll be taking care of you now."
She remembers seeing a glimpse of the man that stands beside Annabeth at the funeral that was two weeks ago. They had not talked, but Auntie Viola had said he was her uncle. He had not stayed after the burial to meet her which had made Auntie Viola quite mad.
"His name is Levi Ackerman," the man is silent and only continues to stare at her. He looked a lot like her mother which means he looks a lot like her. She didn't know quite what to say. So instead of talking, she had got up from her seat and walked over to stand in front of him. He was short - shorter than Annabeth too - and his face was kind of scary.
Lifting her hands up, she continues to stare at the man. He blinks and for a moment must not know what she wanted, but he eventually picks her up. She felt awkward in his arms, but she didn't care because she liked how he smelled. He didn't smell like her mom - who had smelt like baked goods and expensive perfume - but instead he smelt like the clean linen that her mother had always bundled her up in at home along with something else she couldn't place.
Resting her head on his shoulder, she awaits the man to relax.
"Nice to meet you, Uncle Levy." she finally says, eyes closed. She can hear Annabeth talking to the nice receptionist, but paid no mind to them and instead breathed in the scent of her uncle.
It takes a while for him to reply, and she wonders what he thinks of her - a little four year old girl that he didn't know existed until now and was somehow her uncle - and couldn't help but smile a little. She didn't quite care at the moment.
"Nice to meet you, Lucy."
Ah hello there! Welcome to my try at an AU Different world or whatever you call it, fic.
Some things I would like to warn my audience:
Updates will be unusual as I do not have a set date for updating this fic just yet.
Levi will be portrayed kind of OOC due to Lucy. And me because I don't think he would be as hardass here in this world as he is in AOT.
Pairings have been decided with Lucy being paired with Eren (way, way into the future). Other pairings are still a bit undecided so if you'd like to vote for those you can go ahead.
Hange Zoe will be portrayed as female in this fic. Her sexuality though will be bisexual (not that would have much to do with this fic... I think)
This is based off of Usagi Drop (a super cute anime you guys should watch) and the famous movie Game Plan XD
Do review and tell me what you think~!