RivaMika Week 2 Day 3: Force Majeure
Title: blood will have blood
Rating: M (gore, yey)
Fandom: Shingeki no Kyojin, Attack on Titan
Characters: Levi, Mikasa Ackerman, Survey Corps, RivaMika
Summary: Mafia AU – Bloodshed is their mother tongue.
Notes: A continuation of my previous oneshot, Cage Fights and Cigarettes. To that one anon: it took me four months, but I did it! City Hunter also played a rather significant part.
The base is quiet for once, void of its usual hubbub. Erwin is out, Hanji is having her weekly sleep, and a few others are out on jobs; those who remain have congregated in the lounge, on grubby leatherette couches and armchairs leaking stuffing.
mir sleeps on Christa's shoulder, who polishes off the bottle of whiskey she and her partner had been sharing. Jean is at the monitor station, keyboard clacking, the glare of the monitors reflected in his wired glasses. Connie scams Sasha and Reiner out of money in a sedate game of poker, and Marco cleans his gun. Armin drafts a heist that she and Eren are supposed to be enacting next week as Eren breathes down his neck. Annie and Bertholdt are in the corner, talking in hushed tones.
Mikasa stretches languidly, enjoying the creak of her bones. Her book slips sideways, and she loses her place; cursing quietly, she tries to find it again with no success. She is too restless to read, and wasn't concentrating on the words at all. She has gone too long without a mission, and her nervous energy is boiling over. She hasn't been in the field since the incident at the Gentleman's Club two weeks ago.
She throws her book onto the floor and huffs. She has made a vow not to think about that, about him. It is not a crush, no matter what Eren may think; it is the fascination of finding someone who is as strong as she is, and maybe even moreso.
(The muscles are a bonus.)
But that is all it is, and Mikasa is determined not to let it get in the way; she learned her mistake last time. The last time she let her heart overpower her head, she lost her family for a second time, and she will not lose it again, no matter how big the threat. Not even to the mysterious Titans.
She is still not sure of the exact nature of the Titans, only that mentioning them to Erwin made him go white as bone. She had been forced to swear not to tell anyone. Mikasa didn't like it, but nobody disobeys the godfather, and the rare few who do never live to tell the tale.
Thus, she has kept quiet, even though it feels like the secret will burn a hole through her brain. She spent most of her time in the gym to distract herself, pretending the punching bag was Levi's angular face, but when her knuckles began to bleed through the bandages Armin forcibly ejected her and sentenced her to immobility.
Suddenly, Jean's machines begin to ping. He adjusts his glasses as everyone focusses on him and begins to type with feverish speed. "It probably isn't a threat, but... get ready just in case." He pulls his own gun out-but not fast enough. A bullet pierces one of his monitors, and before anyone has even raised a weapon, the door crashes open and a group of heavily armed men (or women; they are wearing full body armour, so gender is near impossible to discern) rush into the room and begin to fire. Most of the shots miss, but one-
One heads straight towards Eren.
Mikasa's mind slows down, calculating trajectory and speed. It will take the bullet roughly two seconds to lodge in her brother's brain.
She does the illogical thing and uses the two seconds to throw herself in front of Eren and take the bullet for him; it enters her back and punctures her right shoulder.
The pain is blinding, and the bang of Eren's gun as he fires over her shoulder at his assailant sounds like a bomb. "Get out!" he yells, pulling her up.
"I can't leave you!"
"You're injured! Go, Mikasa! Please!" His green eyes are pleading, and from the shake in his voice she can tell that he is close to tears. She nods, and runs, launching herself out of the window.
She doesn't make it far before she collapses to slide down a wall, leaving a streak of blood on the dirty paint. She pulls her scarf off and uses it to apply pressure to the wound. She is beginning to go into shock, something she can't risk. What if one of the intruders follow her?
Unfortunately, one does, but he hasn't noticed her yet. The man blunders around, eyes scanning for her. One-handed, she draws her gun, aims, and fires. Her aim is off; she meant to shoot him in the head, but instead she nails him in the neck. That does the job, so she isn't fussed, but the kill saps the very last of her strength; her arm slackens and falls, gun clattering onto blood-soaked pavement. Her vision begins to blur around the edges, and the arm that presses her scarf to the bullet wound is trembling.
She is well on her way to unconsciousness when the coal black Hummer pulls up, and three besuited men spill out.
"Where'd they go?" a voice wonders. "Slippery little shits, those Titans."
"Yeah, but- Fuck... Is that the Red Widow?" A different voice responds this time, shocked.
"Shit, it is...! Levi!"
"What? Why the f-"
Her eyes snap open as a black and white shape comes into focus to form a man in a natty suit made misshapen with armour, a black case slung over his back; she has no doubt it contains a rifle.
"Just the man I didn't want to see," she deadpans, struggling to keep her eyes open.
"Stop running your mouth. What happened?" He sinks to his knees in front of her, red staining his knees.
"... Titans invaded our base. I got in the way."
He swears. "I fucking warned you!"
"I told Erwin, and he told me to shut up or face a firing squad. I don't know anything beyond that!" She bares her teeth at him in a savage snarl, despite the blood pumping out of her.
His forehead creases. "...Where's your base?"
"If you think I'll tell you," she grinds out, "you can think again."
"Your brothers are dying," he hisses, "and you won't help me?"
She shakes her head vehemently. "I am loyal... something you wouldn't know about."
Levi growls. "Well, if you won't tell me willingly..." His hand clamps around her shoulder, fingers digging into the entry hole the bullet left behind. She lets out a broken whimper as his fingers force the slug further into her flesh. The pain is excruciating, and her head lolls forward. With a grunt, she shoves his gory hand away and meets his gaze.
"The townhouse... beside the garage..." she gasps.
He ignores her. "You hear that?" he yells to his flunkies. "Get your asses in gear! And don't shoot the Angels, or I will personally rip your testicles off!"
"Boss, aren't you coming?" The men sound baffled. Levi turning down an opportunity to take part in bloodshed? Unthinkable.
"I'd love to," he answers, voice dripping with sarcasm, "but unfortunately this woman is dying, and for some reason I feel obligated to help her. Go!" They hop into the cars and, wheels screeching, speed away. Only one vehicle is left, engine still humming.
Levi hooks his arm under her shoulders; without protest, Mikasa lets him hoist her up and bundle her into the car. He hops into the seat and sets off, driving haphazardly; he runs three red lights and almost commits geronticide. He swerves to a stop in front of what she thinks is a veterinary clinic and hauls her out.
"Petra!" he shouts, hammering on the door, "Petra, let us in!"
The door swings open to reveal a delicate ginger woman. She gasps, and quickly takes Mikasa from Levi's grasp.
"You have to remove it. It's a Titan bullet." Levi follows them as Petra lays Mikasa on the table, hand pressed to the hole in her shoulder.
"Poisoned bullets... Disgusting." Her sentence is punctuated by the snap of the latex gloves on her hands.
Suddenly, Petra looms over Mikasa. "Have you ever had a reaction to anaesthetic?"
Mikasa shakes her head, and Petra gives her a small smile. "Good. I'll have to put you under. Is that okay?" Mikasa nods again weakly.
The last things she feels is the slide of the needle into her arm.
–
When she wakes up, she is hooked up to some machine that beeps periodically. There's a tube leading out of her arm, filled with red liquid. Blood? She follows the path of the tube until-
Until it enters Levi's arm.
He's sitting up, watching her closely. He smirks when she shocks backwards, but it drops off his face when she lets out a wince; jostling the IV sends a twinge of pain through her arm.
"Sit still. It will end soon."
"Why...?" Talking is hard; her mouth is dry, and she feels more than slightly nauseous.
"You were shot. You remember that much." She nods in assent. "Well, obviously you lost a lot of blood. Seeing as Petra had no blood stocks, and I am, luckily, O negative..."
She takes a few seconds to respond, thoughts forming sluggishly in her mind. "I owe you my life."
"Why do you think I did this?" The smirk is back, igniting her anger, but she is too tired to let it take over like she normally would. Instead, she turns it towards herself. She let her heart overtake her head, and as a result she owes a blood debt to the most infamous gangster in the city; no, in the entire country.
"I need to get back to Eren," she says finally.
"Petra will take you. I have other business." Right on cue, Petra enters the room.
"All done," she informs Mikasa, disconnecting them. She hands her a bag of medicine, various pills and tablets made for popping. "Instructions are inside. Don't OD. And take it easy; gunshot wounds are no small thing, and the blood loss doesn't help. Shall we?" She ushers Mikasa out the door, but not before she sees Levi unzip his rifle and begin to load it.
When she enters the base, there is mass uproar; Armin breaks out in tears, and Jean has to leave the room. Eren, hugging her tight enough to break her, explains that they had thought her dead. Erwin manages to drag her away into the relative calm of what they call his office. He begins by insisting that Hanji check her up, even though she is more physicist than physician. When Hanji proclaims the wound clean and likely to heal, Erwin's composure breaks for a split second; just as quickly, he snaps back to indifference.
"How did you survive?" Hanji queries as Mikasa tugs her shirt back into place.
When Mikasa fails to answer, Erwin adds "Tell the truth."
You don't keep anything from the godfather.
She tells him the whole thing, and it comes out sounding much more fantastical than it originally seemed.
"Levi?" Erwin asks incredulously. "Saving someone's life?"
"I believe he sees me as an equal, boss. He enjoys having leverage over me." The bitter words burn her throat.
"Levi has always been domineering," Erwin mutters. "Those guards were his, correct?"
"He made me tell him the address." Mikasa bows her head. This is where her life ends, if not by death, then some other equally gruesome way. Erwin is not merciful.
"You did what you had to do. We're alive, but..." He sighs, and pinches the bridge his nose. "Stay on guard, stay alert, and armed at all times, even in the bedroom or bathroom. Understand?"
"Yes, boss." She's - she's alive?
"Dismissed."
Mikasa scarpers.
She doesn't join the others in the lounge downstairs, but instead retreats to her room. She strips to examine the ugly hole in her shoulder in the moonlight.
She would be dead if not for the man whose blood runs in her veins.
–
(When she falls asleep, she dreams in bright, bright red.)