It had been two whole months since the fall of Wall Maria.
As the first wave of bitter aftereffects had died down and the Military Police were finally dispatched by the government to Wall Rose to accommodate the restless angry crowds, Erwin was finally able to order his soldiers to take a rest after two months of continuous labor.
The surrounding Scouts who were seated on the tables in the mess hall were shooting weird glimpses at the direction of one of the officers' tables at the far end of the hall.
They didn't know what to feel; because it was just sheer chaos looking at them.
Their Sergeant Major and recently promoted Section Commander were currently ganging up on Levi, chiding him for scaring an infant with his constipated-looking face, while his scowl only deepened; one of their highly-esteemed squad leaders, Mike, was trying to cheer up the said infant. Above all, their Commander, who rarely ever showed his face in the mess hall, was calmly seated amongst the chaos with a black cat on top of his head as he sipped his tea.
"Levi, you scared her," Hanji said with a disapproving frown at him, shaking her head, "you look like you're about to kill someone."
Isanna snorted. "That's just his face."
"Shut up," Levi growled at the two as he lowered his gaze back at his meal and continued eating. It wasn't his fault he was like this; being born and raised in the Underground wasn't exactly the ideal place to practice his smiles. If you smiled at anyone down there, it'll probably be the last thing you'll do before getting your own throat sliced.
Lauren was still sniffing as she buried her face into Mike's neck, her short arms wrapped around him while the blond patted her back.
"I'd say," Isanna piped up, pointing a spoon in the grumpy man's direction, "we should help Levi practice his babysitting skills. Everyone in favor say 'I'."
"I."
"I."
Erwin simply closed his eyes and wordlessly sipped his tea, ignoring their conversation for the sake of his peace of mind and sanity.
Levi glared at the woman sitting across him. "I don't want - "
"You'll do it," she insisted with a pointed look, "Sergeant Major's orders."
Levi couldn't believe it; she had used her position against him for such a menial task. He turned to Erwin, who was seated at the end of their table and gave him a 'is-this-even-legal?' look.
By this point, nobody bothered to laugh nor comment at the fact that Mhile was once again perched on top of his head since it had somehow become his favorite spot.
The Commander shrugged his shoulders in response without a word.
"Trust me," said Isanna, trying to convince him, "it'll be fun."
•
It was not fun.
The next morning, Levi realized he would have to insert babysitting Lauren into his cleaning schedule. He was currently in the empty mess hall, breakfast had just ended, and Isanna had handed the infant over to his responsibility before she left together with the rest, after giving him some helpful and specific babysitting tips like "relax" and "just be a decent human being".
Rude. Did she not think of him as a decent human being?
...
Okay, maybe he wasn't. But neither was anyone in the Survey Corps.
Levi sighed with a deep frown as he focused his eyes on the toddler that was sitting on the table, facing him with her doe-like features.
He clicked his tongue. Lauren flinched and her eyes immediately began to water.
"Fu - " Levi paused, his mind going back to a certain memory when they first took her in. Number one rule: never swear in front of the kid.
Great, just great. No swearing. That was basically cutting his vocabulary by eighty percent.
Levi held himself from sighing and raised a hand, about to pat Lauren by the head (Mike always did that to her, so he thought it was effective), the toddler visibly flinched from him, causing the raven man to return his hand to his side.
"What do you want me to do, then?" he mumbled aggravatingly. So much for trying to pat her.
Lauren sniffed back the tears that had began to form at the corner of her eyes. Just before she could erupt into a crying session, however, a black cat leaped up on the table where she was sitting at and padded over towards her little form.
Levi watched with bored eyes as Mhile nuzzled his furry face at Lauren's cheek, and she seemed to enjoy it since a smile was slowly forming on her lips.
Mhile sat down beside the toddler and haughtily lifted his face at Levi, green slits staring at the man as if to say: "She likes me better than you."
Levi was offended.
"Ugly cat."
"Meow."
The raven bit his tongue to stop himself from yeeting the animal across the room, before he released a shaky sigh and ran a hand through his dark strands.
::
Fortunately for Levi, Lauren didn't cry when he had picked her up and headed to the library section. The reason was mainly because she was amused at how Mhile was comfortable on his head as they walked.
After placing her on top of a table, Mhile quickly followed suit and jumped down from Levi's head, curling around the space next to the kid.
The raven man rolled his eyes at the cat and walked in to a small storage room (it had been dusty as fuck before, but he made sure to maintain its cleanliness) that was connected to the library; retrieving the necessary cleaning supplies as well as suiting himself up in his usual cleaning attire (which had earned him the nickname 'maid dwarf' from Isanna and Hanji).
With his cleaning glove pulled over his hands and a feather duster in his grip, Levi exited out of the storage room and immediately froze when his grey eyes landed on the spot where he had supposedly placed Lauren and realized that the kid was nowhere in sight.
"Meow!"
Levi darted his eyes towards the direction where the sound came from and saw that - for some fucking unknown reason - Lauren was now at the third shelf from the topmost of the nearest bookshelf from the table where he had placed her.
Mhile, who was standing on the shelf above her, hissed at Levi as if to say: "Get your short ass over here!"
Before the raven man could even react, Lauren toppled off from the edge of the shelf.
Levi swore his whole life flashed before his eyes.
But he wasn't called Humanity's Strongest for nothing.
Flinging the feather duster away, he lunged forward with all the speed he could muster in that brief time span, arms stretched out as he gritted his teeth. The moment Lauren's form landed on his arm, he tucked her closer as he rolled on the ground and stopped on his back with a soft grunt.
Levi scowled at the ceiling, mumbling about how the 'brat nearly gave him a heart attack' and that 'Erwin would kill him' as he sat up and scanned Lauren for any injuries.
Who would expect a newly-turned one-year-old could get that high?
Levi wondered why this whole situation felt so deja vu, until he remembered the library incident with Isanna. Come to think of it, he was also her cushion back then.
When he was sure that Lauren was safe from any injuries, he released a sigh as his shoulders slackened in relief.
Levi confirmed that killing titans was easier than handling kids.
::
One word and seven letters: diapers.
When Lauren suddenly bursted out crying as Levi was in the middle of arranging the books on the fourth bookshelf, he had been at a loss of what to do.
It wasn't until he picked her up did his nose catch a whiff of an unpleasant scent.
So now, he was currently in his room, fighting back the gagging revulsion threatening to lurch out of his throat as he kept a straight face while changing Lauren's diapers. It would've been more bearable if she wasn't crying the whole time.
Levi palmed his face as he sighed into his hand, becoming more and more frustrated with every passing minute.
His eyes caught something bright-colored from his peripheral and saw that Mhile was carrying something in his mouth while sauntering towards the kid.
Levi Junior.
Levi finally remembered that aside from retrieving Mhile, Mike had also brought the pink bear over to their new headquarters - because he just had his priorities sorted out like that.
He observed as Mhile prodded Lauren's crying face with the plushie, causing the kid to pause in her wailing session and eye the pink thing; when her mind seemed to process the toy, she slowly accepted it and eyed it.
In the next few minutes, she started cooing and giggling at the toy.
The raven stared at Mhile for a while before he lifted a hand and petted him at the head, causing the cat to purr under his touch.
Levi realized the cat wasn't so ugly after all.
•
Hanji and Isanna, accompanied by another soldier had just returned to headquarters that afternoon from overseeing and assisting the distributions of food rations to the refugees; it was quite a draining day, and by this point, the two women just wanted nothing more than to get some shuteye.
"Ma... ma!"
Both stopped in their tracks when familiar squeaky voice greeted their ears, and the two girls instantly whipped their heads to see that Mike and Levi was heading towards them from the horse stables, the latter carrying Lauren in his arms.
Lauren had actually began calling Isanna "Mama" around two weeks after taking her into the Survey Corps' new barracks. A week before that, she had referred to Erwin as "Papa" to Mike's jealousy; the look on Erwin's face when she had called him that was priceless, to say the least.
"Ren-ren!" Hanji beamed as she bounded over with glee forgetting the exhaustion in her limbs, "my favorite niece!"
"She's your only niece," Isanna muttered as she followed the brunette.
As Hanji took Lauren and swung her around, evoking the latter into fits of giggles, Isanna turned to the boys. "What're you guys doing outside?"
"Thought she'd need fresh air," Mike curtly replied.
The woman hummed, contented at the answer before she looked at Levi. "So.. how was the babysitting experience?"
Awful, Levi wanted to say, but he brought his eyes over towards Lauren and he couldn't help but smile a bit. "Not bad."
As soon as Hanji and Isanna saw the foreign expression on his face, the two exchanged shocked looks before the brunette handed Lauren over to Mike.
"Holy mother of Erwin's eyebrows.." Hanji whispered, raising a hand to cover her mouth as her eyes widened in disbelief, "Levi is smiling..."
She then repeated it with more volume, her voice filled with surprise as she began shrieking like a banshee, before turning to the soldier who had accompanied her earlier together with Isanna. "Levi is SMILING! MOBLIT! Quick, make a sketch! I'm selling it to his fangirls and raise some funds!"
The soldier, who was Hanji's newly promoted assistant who went by the name Moblit Berner, diligently nodded at his superior and took out a sketchpad and pen out from his jacket.
Isanna slowly looked at Hanji with her own widened eyes, like she had just said the most out-of-this-world idea. "Hanji, that's..... fu - brilliant!" She quickly caught herself before she could cuss, remembering that Lauren was within hearing range.
The Sergeant Major then stalked over towards Levi and planted her hands firmly on his shoulders, giving him a serious look.
"Levi. Strip. Now."
With an eye twitch, Levi harshly shrugged her hands off. "No, and don't touch me, you disgusting fuck."
Mike briskly covered Lauren's ear and pushed the side of her face closer to his chest to cover her other one; the little girl was innocently blinking at him.
"Come on, Levi! Show 'em pecs and abs! Flex your muscles! We need all the promotion we can get!"
Mike fake coughed, trying to get their attention. "He's not the only one who has abs."
"Shut up Mike, nobody asked you!"
Mike was offended.
Levi glared at the two women. "No, you fucking pervert; I'm not your fundraising puppet. And this is sexual harassment."
Isanna crinkled her nose at him. "Ew. Don't worry, you're not my type."
"Yeah, Levi, you should know better," Hanji had finally managed to calm down and tutted at him with a shake of her head, "she's more into intelligent blond hunks who are over six feet tall-"
Isanna snapped a horrified look at her. "SHUT UP HANJI!"
" - and have thick eyebrows," Mike added.
"MIKE!"
At the background, Moblit was sweat dropping as his pen hovered above the page of his sketchpad, listening to their conversation.
Levi clicked his tongue. "I already know her type."
"LEVI!"
By this point, Isanna was already as red as a tomato, giving her friends a murderous glare as they all knowingly smirked at her.
Moblit honestly didn't know what to think after witnessing their loud exchange.
::
Erwin was seated on the chair behind his desk as he worked on the mountain piles of paper, while Mhile was curled at the side of the table and accompanying him in silence.
Somewhere in the middle of the serene atmosphere inside his office, there was a distant noise of screaming, cursing, and laughing sounding from below the courtyard.
The Commander shook his head, not tearing his attention from his work. "They're quite loud, aren't they, Mhile?"
"Meow."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A/N: if youre wondering what you just read... dont worry. bc i have no idea either.
but pls, give mike the love he deserves. if he wants to flex his abs, HYPE HIM UP
anyway
we broke 13k reads and 1k votes! YOU GUYS ARE AMAZING ily all sm ♡