A/N: Just a silly idea that wouldn't leave until I wrote it. Manga spoilers, but it's a college AU so nothing too huge. Also the drinking age where I'm from is 18, so that's what it is here.

It's nearly three in the morning when Levi gets the call.

He's out of bed within five seconds, phone in hand. Erwin's name flashes on the screen, and he groans because he knows whatever he's about to hear won't be good. Erwin only calls him this late if there's a work emergency or a family emergency. He hopes to god it's not the latter.

"What's wrong?" he says, answering the call.

"Come down to the precinct and find out." Erwin says, and shit, the amusement in his voice tells Levi that it is a family emergency.

Goddammit.

"I'm going to kill her." he growls, before ending the call and rooting around for a clean pair of pants.

He reaches the police station ten minutes later, probably breaking a few speeding laws but whatever, he's headed to jail anyway. Entering the station he sees Erwin behind the desk, a smirk on his face. Fucking asshole.

"What did she do this time?" he sighs.

"I think its best you hear it from them." Erwin is enjoying this far too much. "She and her two friends are in holding cell three. They're very, very drunk."

"Of course they are." Levi mutters, yanking the keys from Erwin's hand and stomping off down the corridor towards the holding cells.

He hears them as he gets closer, Mikasa singing as loudly and out of tune as she can.

"Ninety nine bottles of beer on the wall, ninety nine bottles of beeeeer."

"Noooooo Mikasa you dummy, we were on sixty seven bottles! Tell her Armin!"

"Technically, you're both right. You wanna know why? I'll tell you why. Time… is an illusion. It's all just us trying to process the… the fourth dimension thingy. It's fucking cubes and… and some other geometry shit."

There's silence for a few seconds, save Levi's angry stomping as he walks towards the cell.

"Holy shit. Armin, you are so smart. What the fuck, how are you so smart? Time is an illusion holy shit Mikasa are you hearing this?"

"Two hundred bottles of beer on the wall, two hundred bottles of be-"

Levi slams open the door, thankfully putting an end to Mikasa's awful attempt at singing. She's seated on the bench in the holding cell, cuddled into Eren's side. Armin is curled up on the floor next to them, and he's the only one who stares at Levi with relatively clear eyes. Mikasa sees him too, but he knows she's completely out of it when her reaction is to smile.

"Hey guys look. It's Levi! How did he get here? Hey Levi, did the cops finally find out about all that illegal shit you've been doing?"

Christ. He forgot she was a chatty drunk.

"Shut up." he snaps, walking over and yanking her off the bench.

She gives a little whine and paws at Eren's arm. Eren continues staring off into space. Levi thinks he may have fallen asleep with his eyes open.

"I'm here to bail all of you out." Levi continues. "But first, I want to hear what you did, so I can decide whether or not to leave your miserable asses here until morning."

"What we did?" Mikasa blinks slowly, looking around. "Oh right, we're in jail. Ha. Armin why are we in jail again?"

Levi drops her back on the bench and turns to face Armin, who is clearly the only one not completely lost in a drunken haze. Judging by the stench of alcohol, all three of them are definitely hammered, but Armin at least seems to be capable of having a conversation.

"Ok let's see…" Armin frowns and concentrates on a spot in front of him. "Mikasa punched a cop."

"Fuck yeah I did."

"And then Eren tackled one and I panicked and crashed my car into their squad car."

He smiles apologetically up at Levi, who's struggling to find the words to express just how stunned and pissed off he is at the amount of stupidity these three are capable of when they get drunk.

"Explain." he finally gets out through gritted teeth.

Armin settles back against the wall while Mikasa rests her head on Eren's lap.

"So you know how we were going out to celebrate the end of finals week? That's where it starts."

8 hours earlier

"Why did you make us come out here again?" Mikasa asked grumpily. "You know parties aren't my idea of fun."

"Yeah, and you don't even like to drink that much Armin." Eren added as they moved towards the entrance to the club.

"But I like the atmosphere." Armin argued. "Plus all our friends will be here. This will be the last time we'll all be together until summer is over; you know you'd regret not going!"

"Fine." Eren sighed as they entered the club. "Now that we're here, might as well try to enjoy it."

Inside, they quickly found their friends, due to Connie and Sasha waving and being loud enough to be noticed despite the thumping bass booming through the building. The trio made their way over to the table their friends had secured and slid in beside a miserable looking Jean. Armin felt sympathetic since Jean still wasn't over Marco moving to America halfway through the semester, but he hoped Jean would brighten up at some point.

It was then that he noticed the many shot glasses scattered around the table.

"Free shots!" Connie yelled excitedly. "Apparently it's the strongest stuff they have too."

"We're all drinking it right?" Sasha asked.

Armin wasn't sure that Eren and Mikasa would be ok with it, since they hadn't wanted to get too drunk, but judging by the competitive glares between the two of them, Jean, and Annie, everyone would be downing shots tonight.

And he was right. Six rounds of shots later, his friends were all over the place.

Connie and Sasha were out on the dance floor, flailing wildly and whacking anyone who got too close. Historia had somehow started a drinking game with a bunch of grown men, and was currently drinking them under the table while Ymir watched adoringly. Reiner and Bertolt were crying in a corner for some reason, and Annie and Jean were still seated at the table trying to down more shots than Eren and Mikasa.

Mikasa stared calmly at Annie, who stared coldly back. Armin knew that they could go on like this for quite a while, but Eren and Jean were in much worse shape. Eren was still staring at his sixth shot like he was mustering up the willpower to down it, while Jean was glaring at him as if everything gone wrong in his life was Eren's fault.

While Armin was content to sit there and watch all the chaos his friends created, he knew that competitive drinking only made Eren and Mikasa grumpy, especially when they lost. Grabbing their hands, he attempted to drag them up, but swayed and knocked his head off Eren's shoulder instead.

Huh. He was usually the best of the trio at handing his alcohol, but maybe six shots had been a little too much. Damn peer pressure.

Instead of attempting to pull them up again, he pointed to where Connie and Sasha were still accidentally causing bodily harm to everyone attempting to have fun on the dance floor.

"Let's dance!" he cried.

Eren nodded and slowly pushed himself up, holding onto Armin for support. Mikasa stood up, sat down, got up again, fell over, and finally made her way over to them.

The next hour passed in a blur of noise, colours and drink. By the time they finally sat down, their friends had lost most of their energy and had gone on to the emotional drunk stage of the night. At least Connie and Sasha had the decency to make out in the bathroom corridor, Ymir and Historia were going at it right next to the thankfully unconscious men who'd failed to outdrink the pint-sized blonde. Annie, Reiner and Bertolt had gone outside, and from past experience Armin knew better than to interrupt them.

That left a still-moping Jean and the three of them relaxing at their table. Having no one to make out with, Armin instead poured all his emotion into talking about books.

"The library has so many good books… like soooooo many. There was this one about an Ecuadorian island where the birds have blue feet; I'm not kidding, blue feet! The island still has some prehistoric animals from the Mezzo… paleo… whatever. I thought it would be so cool if we could go there but I can't get the book from the library because they only let me take out five at a time!"

"That's bullshit." Eren said, having fully completed the process of becoming an angry drunk. "No one uses libraries except for you nowadays. They should be grateful! They should let you take as many books as you want!"

"They should." Mikasa echoed.

"You know what we should do? We should rob the library!"

"We should." Mikasa agreed sagely.

"Because you're awesome Armin, and you deserve all the books."

"All of them."

Something about Eren's logic seemed flawed, but as he finished his tenth? eleventh? drink, Armin couldn't quite put his finger on it. Jean was slumped over the table, probably asleep, so it wouldn't be rude to leave him. His friends seemed super enthusiastic, and he did love books, so why not?

"They won't just let us rob the library though. We'll need to… I know! Follow me."

Five minutes later the trio stood in front of a van in the alley next to the club. The large amount of alcohol coursing through their system kept them warm as they waited for Annie to finish rooting around her van. How she managed to fit it in the alley was beyond Armin, but he found it pretty cool.

"So you're sure you don't want serious weapons?" Annie asked, her voice slightly slurred. "I have a couple of handguns if you need them."

"Just the paintball guns please." Armin replied. "It needs to look real, but it can't actually be real. All part of the super-secret plan."

She nodded tossing three guns towards Mikasa, who caught them easily despite the spaced-out look in her eyes. Armin was no expert, but they definitely appeared realistic, so he nodded in approval.

"Thanks Annie."

"I owed you a favour." Annie shrugged, turning around to shut the van's back doors. "Try not to get arrested."

"Like that's going to happen." Eren laughed. "We've planned this out really well. It's gonna be totally smooth, you'll see."

It wasn't smooth at all.

The library was only a five minute walk away, and coincidentally it was where Armin had parked his car. None of them were stupid enough to drink and drive, but he still gave the hood a little pat as he walked to the library entrance.

Then they encountered their first problem.

"It's closed." Eren said, baffled. "Why is no one here?"

"It closes for the night." Armin suddenly realised. "I completely forget, how did I forget that? How are we going to steal the books if there's no one to hold at gunpoint?"

"I got this." Mikasa said, and when Armin turned around he saw she had dropped the guns and was holding a boulder the size of his head.

"Wait Mikasa, where did you even-"

With a war cry, Mikasa ran at the nearest window and flung the rock through it. Alarms went off instantly, and Eren cupped his ears, wincing. Mikasa paid the alarms no attention, gracefully diving through the window and tumbling back onto her feet. She ran to the front entrance and fumbled with the door.

"I can't open it. There aren't any keys."

Armin was starting to get the feeling that perhaps this hadn't been a good idea.

"Maybe we should-"

Three loud bangs interrupted him, and the door slammed open. Mikasa was breathing heavily, but she seemed uninjured despite breaking down a door with her leg.

"Nailed it."

Eren seemed to have regained his enthusiasm, and he raced inside, dragging Armin with him.

"Quick Armin now's our chance! Pick any books you want, the government doesn't deserve to keep them from you!"

Entranced by the idea of reading every book in the library all at once, Armin ran up and down the science section, grabbing any book that caught his interest. Eren ran next to him, yelling out any title he thought sounded cool.

"The Blue Planet? What's that about? Oh, this book is called The Universe in a Nutshell. Is our universe in a nutshell Armin?"

He was about to reply, when flashing lights outside caught his attention. He ran back outside to see Mikasa standing protectively in front of the library entrance, while two officers got out of a squad car.

"Nobody move!" The male policeman yelled, then he froze when he saw Mikasa. "Ah shit Nanaba, it's the Ackerman kid again."

"Is she drunk?"

"Of course she is."

The two officers approached her carefully, batons at the ready. Mikasa stood silently, Eren and Armin peeking out from behind her.

"Hey there Mikasa. You probably don't remember us since you were completely intoxicated last time we met, but we're going to need you and your friends to come with-"

Mikasa's fist snapped out, knocking Nanaba unconscious in one clean punch. Her partner yelled and reached for his taser, and that's when Eren leapt at him.

"Run Armin! Run and hide! Don't let them take your freedom!"

On instinct, Armin ran towards the parking lot, dropping a book as he fumbled with his car keys. He got the passenger door open and leapt inside. Was this a good enough hiding place? Maybe he needed to hide in the backseat. He started crawling over the front seat, but as he pushed his foot against something he heard a click, and suddenly the car was moving.

Oh whoops, that must have been the handbrake.

He had enough time to hear three people yelling before he felt the front of the car crash into something. Twisting himself around, he was horrified to see the squad car lights flashing right in front of him.

Oh dear.

Present time

Levi listens stone faced as Armin rambles through his story, occasionally getting side-tracked or interrupted by his friends as they corrected something (Mikasa interrupts a lot, usually not with any helpful information). By the time it's over, Levi's face is so rigid he wouldn't be surprised if it never relaxed again.

"You know what?" he growls, yanking the three of them onto their feet. "I'm bailing you all out and taking you home. You don't deserve the luxury of waiting until morning to face the music."

Mikasa groans as he dragged her from the cell, Eren and Armin stumbling after her. Erwin is waiting for them at the reception, looking very amused and not at all angry. Levi tosses the necessary bail money on the desk.

"I'm sorry to ask this Erwin, but could you…"

"Let them off with a warning? Let's see: breaking and entering, theft, assaulting an officer twice, destruction of government property as well as drunk and disorderly conduct? Not to mention this is their fifth time in this station."

Levi feels his blood pressure rise with each charge, and he knows Erwin can tell by how smug he looks. Thankfully, the taller man puts him out of his misery.

"I'll figure something out. Just sign here confirming that you're Mikasa's legal guardian and make sure they get home safe."

Levi snatches the paper out of Erwin's hands and roughly scrawls something that could resemble a signature.

"But Levi isn't my legal guardian, is he? Isn't Kenny technically the one who was given custody of me years ago, and he just left me with Levi?"

Internally screaming, Levi turns to glare at Mikasa. Why was she so fucking talkative when she was drunk?

"Shut. The Fuck. Up." Levi hisses, shoving the paper into Erwin's hand.

Erwin smiles politely and files the paper away somewhere. Levi knows he gets a kick out of all this, watching Levi be forced to care about a bunch of idiot teenagers.

"Let's go." he grabs Mikasa again, dragging her towards the door. "We'll drop Armin off at his grandpa's, Eren over to his parents and then you are coming home and getting locked in your room until college starts up again."

"Don't be so meeeaaann." Mikasa whines. "I'm nineteen, i'm a grown adult! You can't ground me. Plus I thought you'd be proud of me. Aren't you always saying fuck the police and that they're a corrupt bunch of pigs?"

Levi glances backwards. Erwin has one eyebrow raised and looks less amused than he had been a minute ago. Shit.

"Teenagers, eh? The excuses they come up with." Levi says weakly, hurriedly ushering the three kids out the door.

"I have never hated the three of you more than I do right now." Levi informs them on their way to his car. "On the bright side, the fact that I haven't murdered you yet is a sign that my self-control is improving, so perhaps you'll all live to see another day."

"Yay!" Mikasa says cheerily.

Then she throws up on his shoes.

Levi counts backwards from ten, ignores the loud reaction of the other two, and then shoves them all into the backseat of his car. He drops Armin and Eren off, savouring the loud argument that occurs when Carla Yeager finds out what her son has been up to. Once they reach the house he and Mikasa share, he kills the engine and turns around, ready to let her know just how angry he is at her.

She's asleep.

In the back of his car, with her hair falling into her face and her hands wrapped in her scarf, it reminds Levi of when she first came to him, asleep in the back of Kenny's stolen Mercedes. With a sigh, he gets out and opens her door, gently lifting her up and carrying her inside.

"Grown adult my ass." he grumbles, but if he tucks the covers over her and smooths her hair out of her eyes before leaving her to sleep, it's not like she'll remember it in the morning.