a/n: Another Marley Arc fic. Lunarcrystal's VC!Annie AU is too much fun not to write for.
From the start, Leonhardt was powerless to stop what was coming, despite the Titan in her bloodstream. A fine-tuned weapon who promised her father she'd return home without expecting to live up to her comrades' achievements.
Her first chance to stop Eren Jaeger had been a wash, and now, as Vice Captain, here was another. Her final test of loyalty, to dispose of the only Eldian she'd trust with her vulnerability. He'd have made a decent Warrior, a great captain in the Scouting Legion.
Thus far, he'd refused to answer any of Zeke's questions during his internment. As Leonhardt took over, the War Chief's silence was his grant to settle the score.
Each time her boot connected, Krueger winced or grunted, accumulating bruises. Some visible and some obscured under clothing. But he wouldn't give up a name. Not Grice's or Braun's or anyone of interest.
No matter if she slit his throat. No matter if the firing squad took care of it or another Titan ingested his remains. The next Attack Titan would be reborn, and she'd sooner give up her life than see his eyes in the shell of another.
Two hours ago she was at his apartment. On a warrant, she told him when he opened the door. She'd only be a moment.
Krueger didn't ask for papers. He simply opened the door wider for her to step inside.
The kitchen decently-kept. A few dishes on the table, on the counter. The old Marley tenements didn't have running water or electricity, so the wood stove in the center of the room was the only source of heat in winter. Her eyes flickered to the half-empty bottle of alcohol on the table, glittering in the sunlight. Krueger stopped. "I wasn't expecting anyone." She said nothing. "You'll want to see the other rooms?"
"Lead the way."
He was so tall, even on crutches, that he had to bend down to clear the doorway into the next room.
There was a bed against the wall. Not much furniture to speak of beyond a beat-up wardrobe and a closet. If he were writing regularly to an outside party he'd keep the letters someplace clandestine. She walked the length of the room in a few paces. A light breeze shifted the curtains in front of the only window in the room, cracked open.
Krueger loomed in the doorway. Face-to-face, she came up to his breastbone. "Something else you want to look at?"
"I need to look at the dresser and wardrobe."
Krueger shrugged."All right."
The wardrobe had only a few ratty suits and a pair of boots, bottle of shoeshine. In front of the dresser she got down on her knees to rifle through a few shirts, rolled-up pairs of pants, old socks. The linen smelled faintly of mold. She shut the drawer and said in a tight voice,"The mattress, then."
"It's pretty heavy. I can help you with that."
She ignored the obvious lie and walked over to the other side of the room with the window behind her. She lifted it herself, but the light of day revealed nothing but a decrepit mattress. With a tic in her jaw she let it fall.
"God, that's terrible, isn't it? I'd burn it now if I were able to afford a new one."
The floorboards. That had to be it. She'd need a warrant, even in the slums of Liberio. She couldn't go back to Magrath empty-handed. She turned and glared at Krueger as if that would solve anything.
"Are you finished?" For the first time he smiled. "I think I've got some alcohol left over."
Leonhardt turned away. "You're out of your mind."
His expression hardened. "You're wasting my time and yours. Your compatriots are going to get the wrong idea if you keep following me around."
"You've been conversing with Warrior candidates when you have no obligation to do so."
Krueger rolled his shoulders. "Did he tell you about me on his own? Or did you rough him up first?"
"I'll be happy to drag you back to the courthouse and demonstrate."
"Listen to yourself. You're so sure I'm a threat, you sound just as brainwashed as the cadets."
"I can't let you roam the streets in any good conscience."
"I'll be whatever you want, Vice Captain." The humor in his voice was flat and insincere. His attention on her more direct than it had been in the street, outside. She didn't look away. He leant on the crutches and inhaled, exhaled. "There should be a clean glass."
Cheap whiskey burned on the way down. Her head spinning, she looked at him. Maybe in a different set of circumstances they would've had time to get to know one another as equals. Instead they were reduced to another stolen moment. Two lousy soldiers playing at love.
His working eye roved over her with a shamelessness she wasn't used to. She ought to kick out his leg and knock his head against the floor, if only it would make him forget whatever idiotic plan he'd cooked up. But it was his idealism in the face of the world's indifference that drew her to him in the first place.
They wound up on the sofa. She knocked away his crutch and pushed him onto the seat before pouncing on him. Her blouse unbuttoned, his mouth on her skin. Straddling his good knee in a way that had been innocuous only a moment ago, she reached to unclip her underwear from the garter-belt.
Krueger's hands settled on her waist. Easy to picture the muscles in his tendons slashed down to bone and reknitting. Easier when he opened his mouth to croak, "You're beautiful."
Her teeth sank into his chapped lower lip. He started trembling and she licked at his teeth, moving against his leg as her breathing changed. Hand in his lank hair dragged his face aside to mouth his carotid artery. If he felt discomfort he didn't indicate it, simply raised his good leg to meet her. A terrific mistake on her part, giving him the advantage. Free to whisper into her neck all the unspeakable things he'd do for her sake.
She sank her teeth into his clothed shoulder as if wounding him would absolve her orgasm. They had always been equals in the burden of their undue circumstances. It hadn't mattered in Paradis, back when she had the luxury of playing soldier.
He glanced down at the damp spot on his leg. Leonhardt redressed without looking at him.
The circumstances that brought them together wouldn't permit such an easy life, where they didn't inevitably turn against each other. A timeless moment without war where the sorrows of their future acknowledged but did not loom so close upon the horizon. The hard light of afternoon through the curtains. He turned away, dragging himself over to the crutch and picking it up. It was pitiful to watch but she couldn't make herself look away. He got to his feet and turned toward her.
"What happens if one of your Marley compatriots walks in?"
She held his gaze. "I'll have to take you into custody, regardless."
Krueger limped up to her. "What for?"
"Fraternizing with Warriors." She checked her shirt in the mirror but avoided her own eyes. "It won't amount to much."
He was looking at the chair next to her foot. "Want to elope?"
She froze. The sheer absurdity of what he had just suggested finally caught up to her. Her response was a little too hasty to be callous. "That—isn't possible."
"Why not? We're both Eldian."
She shook her head. "We just—we can't."
He paused. "There's someone else?"
Leonhardt barked out a laugh. "What man in his right mind would ask to marry a Warrior?"
"If I asked you, right now, what would you say?"
Looking at her head-on. As if it were so simple. She sneered without reservation. "That you're even more suicidal than I imagined." It was never in the cards. She'd have to marry a Marleyan, if she bothered at all. The type to get drunk with and fuck once or twice and swap goodbyes. A loyal husband that would outlive the Curse of Ymir and visit her grave each year. "And if that wasn't what you wanted to hear, you can ask me when the war is over."
He smiled. It didn't touch his eyes. "I'll remember."
She'd been knocking him around for half-an-hour when Zeke pulled her aside. Advised her, in delicate terms, to reconsider what she was doing here. That her hopes of finding the usurper had, perhaps, blinded her to the simpler truth: Mr. Krueger was just another shellshocked Eldian. Plenty of men in the world who would fit Eren Jaeger's description. That he wasn't right to fraternize with Warriors, but this show of violence would reflect poorly on her.
Leonhardt was forced to concede. Krueger's records checked out. Just a vet. A false alarm brought on by the fear of repeating a past mistake. No doubt she'd be rebuked. Her years on Paradis had poisoned her mind, allowing space for paranoia. Just like Braun went native, just like Hoover strayed and it cost his life. She couldn't afford to be reckless and sentimental but nothing of consequence would befall her as Vice Captain. Too ruthless to be questioned outright, but no longer unshakable.
She glanced at the door. They were alone at last.
She walked over to him and took him by the chin. His broken nose would have to be cracked back into position before it could heal. He ought to have healed minutes ago, but the strain of reopening wounds wore down a Titan Shifter's stamina faster than the regeneration itself. Pressing her mouth to his, cut up and warm, shivering as he exhaled. Aside from the copper taste of him on her tongue, on her boot, it would have been tender.
Through the blood in his mouth he said, "I'm sorry."
"I know."
The next time they spoke, they'd be trying to kill one another. There was no sense in apologies.