A/N: This is basically a dumping ground for a series of Rivetra drabbles I'm working on-canon-compliant, with a non-linear timeline, so they'll be jumping back and forth a lot. Title stolen from, yes, the Smashing Pumpkins song, "Disarm."

Basically Petra does things, and Levi doesn't know what to do with himself. (Awkward/panicky Levi is the best, IMO. Strongest dork in the world.)


Oh, and you're to take Petra with you to the New Year's ball, Erwin had said, his voice cool and level as though he had just ordered Levi to refill his gas, to get new blades, to retreat back to town, to die. It'd be good for people to see you with someone on your arm for once. Assure them you're human after all.

That barely perceptible twinkle in his eye had to have been a trick of the light.

Erwin, I don't need— he had begun to respond, although looking back on it now he supposes he must have known even then that it was futile, that when the commander spoke with steel in his voice the only acceptable responses were do or die.

That's an order.

Bastard. He stands now, washed and combed and pomaded and packed tight into the only good suit he owns, waiting for her at the foot of the stairs. He's been standing for at least fifteen minutes. She is usually so quick on the uptake, efficient and farsighted—that's why he picked her for his squad in the first place—and you'd think some of those qualities would translate into the process of getting ready for a stupid party, but no.

It puts a bad taste in his mouth to remember that she's still a woman, after all. It's generally easier not to have to think about such things. Most of the time, he doesn't need to.

He recognizes the sound of her gait before he sees her, hears her call out from the top of the stairs, "Sorry to keep you waiting, captain." Then her feet come into his view, then the hem of her skirt, then he raises his eyes to her face and he knows—

She's definitely one more reason to hate going to these parties, as if he didn't already have a mental list a mile long.

He's quick to school his features before his eyes go wide and his mouth drops embarrassingly open, but even inside that floaty pale green confection of a dress and those high-heeled shoes and those bobby pins stabbing her in the head, she's still Petra, and she's still got those eagle eyes.

"Erm, Petra Ral, reporting for duty," she says, with a little shrug and a half-smile, as if to say, Hey, I don't know how I turned out like this either. Only it's not Petra Ral, Petra Ral with the dirty uniform, blades singing in her hands and the dust of battle settling on her bright hair. But it also is.

She seems flustered when he doesn't answer right away, covers it up with more words. "My dad sent the dress from home. I haven't had a reason to put it on since I was sixteen, but the boys say it, uh, fits just fine, still, even if Auruo insists green isn't my color. How do I look?"

It's a deceptively simple question, but all he can do is stare at her like she's grown a second head. Possible responses war in his mind—What the hell kind of question is that and I don't care and All right, I guess and Fucking beautiful. Fucking beautiful.

He fixes his eyes back downward instead and scowls at her feet in their embroidered dancing shoes. Even those shoes make him angry. They're so pretty. So goddamn impractical. She'll probably have the time of her life tonight, dancing those shoes off with nobles and those powdered, perfumed little pricks from the military police whose training regimen is probably all dancing, etiquette, playing chess, drinking wine—

"You look fine," is all he tells her, in the end, hoping something so perfunctory will close the book on the issue of her appearance. "Come on, let's get this over with."

You'd think he'd be on high alert after having been so thoroughly caught off guard the first time, but he still isn't prepared for the way the smile widens across her face at his words, rising up from inside her like light, so impossibly warm. Or the way she says "Thank you, captain" with all the sincerity in the world, like it's the highest praise she could ask for and she doesn't know what she did do to deserve it. Or the way that smile bubbles over into a little bell-like laugh as she bobs a curtsey. Goddammit.

Levi turns, putting the warmth and the light at his back where they belong, and stalks ahead of her into the carriage without bothering to offer his arm.

They haven't even arrived at the damn party and already he wants to punch himself in the face.