"You aren't wearing a mask?"

Nanaba's surprise had caused Mike to look up as well. His eyes widened ever so slightly for a brief moment and his eyes darted between Levi and Eren. It was clear that Mike and Nanaba expected some sort of response and Eren wasn't about to say anything; it was entirely up to Levi as to how he wanted to play it.

"I didn't bother wearing one when we were playing Twenty Questions with the kid. He's seen my face now so I don't see why I should start wearing a mask again." Levi shrugged and walked off in the direction of Hanji's work station. "Mike, have you seen a red external hard drive around here? Hanji said it's around here but I'm not seeing it."

Mike got up from the table and walked over to help Levi look for the drive. Nanaba frowned but turned to continue shuffling through the papers. Leaning over Eren could see that they were blueprints, but of what he couldn't even begin to guess. He was just far enough away that he could only see vague outlines of the shapes. Besides, his thoughts were mostly occupied by Levi's half-truth.

I saw his face way before dinner at Hanji's. There was the time he tried to do self-defense lessons with me – and I really would have liked to continue those – and at the diner the one morning he had his hat pushed almost all the way back so he might as well not have been wearing one and then there was when he picked me up to go grocery shopping. I get not mentioning the self-defense lesson; that was a shit show but the rest…It started to dawn on him that Levi was leaving out the diner because he told him things he wasn't supposed to know at the time. And the grocery shopping trip was just another awkward encounter filled with the familiar feelings of kindness and coldness that Eren associated with Levi.

Mike and Levi were still shuffling around Hanji's work station, carefully moving things and trying to put the clutter back exactly where they found it while they looked for the hard drive. He could hear Levi muttering about the lack of organization and cleanliness and could see that Mike was trying to hold back a smile. He was still watching them vaguely when they all heard the outside door open and Hanji came bounding in with two shopping bags in hand. Levi didn't even give Hanji a moment to set things down before he addressed them.

"Shitty goggles, you said the drive was on your desk. We've been looking for fifteen minutes now and I haven't found shit." Eren was taken aback by Levi's angry tone whereas everyone else seemed to take it in stride.

"It's not there?" Hanji was looking confusedly at Levi. "I left it on top of the filing cabinet."

"There is a stack of dirty plates on top of the filing cabinet." Hanji walked over and unlike Levi was able to easily see the top of the tall cabinet. They reached up and grabbed what turned out to be a red external hard drive. Eren could see a muscle twitching in Levi's jaw as Hanji held it out to him.

"No fucking way am I touching that thing until it's been disinfected. I can't remember the last time we used those dishes and I don't even want to think about what crap is on that thing."

"Fine, fine." Hanji grabbed a box of disinfecting wipes (Eren noticed that there was dust on the box) from under their desk and rubbed down the drive before handing it to Levi. This time he grabbed it without issue.

Eren had expected him to immediately walk off with it to look at whatever was on it, but instead he set it back down on Hanji's desk and spoke again in an exasperated but somewhat gentle voice.

"Hand me those dishes. I'll go wash them and the rest of what's in the sink." He watched as Hanji grabbed the plates from on top of the cabinet and as they turned to hand them off they finally noticed Eren sitting awkwardly at the table where Mike had returned and continued to go over the blueprints from earlier. Levi stood with his hands out but Hanji didn't hand the plates off as they addressed Eren.

"Eren! I didn't expect you to be here to soon."

"Yeah, I finished at the lab earlier than I expected."

"Okay, well I need to put these things away, so if you can give me fifteen minutes…"

"That's fine." Hanji finally handed off the plates to Levi and he gave them a disgusted look before walking off towards the kitchen. Eren continued to sit awkwardly at the table while being thoroughly ignored by the other three people in the room. He figured that he might as well make himself useful and followed Levi.

Levi was facing away from the door when Eren entered the kitchen. He had put the plates in the sink and was currently pouring the contents of a bottle of cheap vodka over the plates he had recently received from Hanji.

"Gross, is that the shit you gave me the other night? That's practically lighter fluid." Levi didn't turn as he finished pouring every last bit of the liquor over the plates. "You had me drink something that you're using to disinfect plates."

"No, we finished that bottle ages ago. Hanji has sunk to new levels of shitty vodka. Though I think this one might actually be intended for experiments. Either way, I'm doing them a favor." He set the empty bottle aside. "Don't fucking buy anything in a plastic bottle unless you want to risk going blind."

"No shit. I've been able to buy my own for two years and I have a decent paying job. No way in hell am I going back to drinking crappy alcohol like before."

"So you're implying that you were drinking before you were of age. That's illegal you know." Levi finally looked back and Eren's eyes darted away as he shifted awkwardly. Levi gave an exasperated sigh. "Kid, I'm not the law, I'm a fucking vigilante. We don't give a shit if you've done a few shots when you were seventeen. If you were working for a syndicate selling drugs that would be a different story entirely."

Eren's mind caught on the word immediately.

"A vigilante? Not a superhero?"

"I'll wash, you dry." Eren froze for a moment. He felt like he had missed a step walking up a flight of stairs with the abrupt change of topic. Levi gestured to a drawer a few feet away. "There are dish towels in there."

"O-okay. Right." Eren grabbed a dish towel and started drying dishes as Levi passed them off to him and stacking them on the side as he finished drying them. Vigilante versus superhero…? He thinks of himself as a vigilante but not a superhero. Even though he works with a group of people who call themselves superheroes. Is there such a big difference? I guess "superhero" seems more respectable doesn't it? They're role model, people you want to look up to. They're symbolic. But a vigilante is just someone taking justice into their own hands. Is that what Levi thinks of himself as? Just someone who dishes out justice?

He pulled himself out of his thoughts as Levi handed the last dish to him.

"Hanji's probably done putting their shit away. Try not to have too much fun answering their questions. Just remember, it's for science."

Eren quickly realized just how sarcastic Levi was being when he said to not have too much fun. Thus far he had enjoyed talking to Hanji about their research, but apparently once they got going they were unstoppable and the questions they were asking became more and more invasive. He looked away from Hanji for a moment, pretending that he had to cough and saw that there was nobody there to save him; Mike and Nanaba had left and Levi was nowhere to be seen either. He said a silent prayer to whatever deity might exist that something would happen to distract Hanji.

Ten minutes later his prayer was answered when Erwin walked in.

"Hanji, if you aren't busy I'd like to talk to you about –" He immediately stopped speaking when he saw Eren and frowned and paused. "It isn't particularly pressing, I can wait."

"No!" Eren looked at the both of them sheepishly. "I need to get home anyway. I promised my sister I wouldn't be home too late and it's uh… getting to about the time I need to head home." Liar.

"I'm sorry Eren, I didn't realize that you needed to be home by a certain time. You should have told me." Hanji was looking at him giving him an apologetic look.

"It's totally okay. I'll be fine. See you… at some point?" Am I going to have to just show up here and refuse to leave until they give me some answers?

"Probably in a few days. Hanji will be in touch with you." Erwin gave him a slight smile. "Thank you for being patient with us."

"Yeah. No problem." No, really fucking big problem. I don't know shit.

Eren grabbed his things and moved quickly towards the door before Hanji could think of anything else to ask him. The brightness of the main room had blinded him slightly and when he walked into the hallway he ended up walking directly into Levi.

"Shit, I'm sorry. I couldn't see." The apology was immediate and he braced himself for some sort of sarcastic remark but none came.

"Everyone keeps saying they're going to replace the bulb and nobody ever does." Eren wasn't entirely sure from Levi's tone if he was stating that to him or simply musing to himself.

"Still… sorry for crashing into you."

"Hm. Done playing a second round of Twenty Questions with Hanji? How much fun did you have?" There's the sarcasm we all know and love.

"It was an… experience." He chose his words carefully, trying not to say anything that might be misconstrued. He did like Hanji and he knew that Hanji and Levi were fairly close.

"You're putting it pretty lightly."

"Okay fine, it fucking sucked. I didn't realize that I needed to share my bowel movements with them for science." Eren mimicked Levi's earlier tone and heard the other man snort in amusement. He suddenly felt a little weird about the situation. We're standing in a practically unlit hallway talking about whatever."Anyway, I'm heading out. It was nice to see everyone for once."

Levi didn't react to the jab at their near-complete lack of contact with Eren over the past two weeks.

"Do you need a ride?" Eren felt everything come to a screeching halt, like he had been blindsided. Eren felt a sudden surge of frustration course through his body.

"Be friendly or be an asshole. Pick one." It came out a bit harsher than he wanted but the strangeness of the situation amplified everything. He fumed all the way to the bus stop and as he sat there he felt the frustration to uncurl.

The first bus was packed but after he made the transfer the second bus was almost empty and dead silent, leaving Eren alone with his thoughts. All he did was offer a ride. And fuck, I didn't even thank him for the other night. Good job, Eren... It's not just him who's fucking up here, is it? It was just so out of the blue and half the times we talk we end up being assholes. Him more than me, but still. He didn't have to offer but he did

He didn't have to respond to my texts the other night either.

He didn't have to check in with me the next morning.

"It's not like he doesn't care at all… he cares in his own way." Eren mulled over Hanji's earlier text as he watched the sky began to darken. He cares because I'm important to the Survey Corps and he cares because that's what a hero does. He doesn't think of himself as a hero but he wouldn't do this if he was a complete misanthrope. And that's really what it comes down to isn't it? He can value human lives, but that doesn't mean that he likes interacting with people. He values humanity as a whole but he refuses to connect or interact with individual people.

"You seem really fucked up and I'm curious."

I'm curious about you too.