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Mikasa wasn’t by nature an open person. She liked to keep things to herself. Always had.
She knew that some thought of her as cold; closed off. She didn’t show her emotions easily, and only the people who really knew her – in other words, only Eren and Armin – could really tell what she was thinking.
Occasionally, a small, mostly-disinterested part of her wondered if her closed-off nature was related to the trauma she experienced that day in the mountains when her parents were killed. It was likely, she supposed.
It didn’t cause her undue concern though. It was just who she was. She felt no need to shout or show off, or even to necessarily make friends. She was strong enough on her own to protect herself and Eren and Armin, and that was enough for her.
She was more open to Eren than she was with anyone else. She let him see past the walls she constantly had around herself; let him see her upset and embarrassed and tired and happy the way she never let anyone else see her.
Still, there were a few things she kept secret even from Eren. Three main things.
The first, of course, was her own feelings toward him.
She had always loved him, in a way, ever since the day he had appeared in that cabin and saved from a horrifying fate. His simple, kind act of taking off his own scarf and wrapping it around her to keep her from the cold had changed her whole life. Since that moment, she had known that she would do anything to stay by his side and keep him safe.
It was years before she began to wonder if her feelings for Eren went further than that, and then another few years before she realised it didn’t matter either way. What she felt for Eren went beyond what words or even actions could ever express; she would let the world burn if it meant keeping him alive. Who could ever hope to understand devotion like that? What did it matter what other people thought of them? What did it matter if Eren even returned her feelings that way? He meant everything to her, and if no one else would ever understand that, then so be it.
Except, of course, as she realised when she joined Squad Levi, someone else could understand.
When she first saw the Captain and the Commander together – saw the way Levi moved when Erwin moved, how his eyes followed his movements in crowded rooms, how he looked at him when he thought he wasn’t looking – she saw so much of herself that it was a genuine shock to her system.
Erwin, she realised, was to Levi what Eren was to her. The thought was almost overwhelming: here was someone who felt the same intense, protective love as she did.
The realisation that she and Levi were quite alike in many ways went beyond that, of course. The Captain, like herself, was the strongest person in any room he walked in to. Mikasa had always moved faster than all her peers, cut deeper with her blades, reacted faster to danger. So did Levi.
She learned very quickly that there was a lot she could learn from him. Not just his skills – although she certainly found herself studying and imitating many of his movements. He noticed, too. Mikasa was sure that they only reason he hadn’t admonished her for trying to copy him was that he believed her to be the only other person capable of getting near his level.
They’d even trained one-on-one, a few times, once Levi had really seen Mikasa’s potential and Mikasa’s own intense dislike of him from that incident in the courtroom began to die down. Sometimes, after she had managed to successfully copy some intricate move of his with the 3DMG, she thought she could see pride in his eyes.
She noticed herself beginning to learn from him in other ways, too. Levi was an adult, one who had spent many hard years as a soldier and, it was said, many hard years on the streets before that. Despite all that, though, and despite his almost inhuman strength, Levi was one of the kindest people she knew.
Erwin meant the world to him, that much was clear to anyone with a functioning set of eyeballs (or maybe it was only clear to her, since she recognised so much of her own devotion to Eren reflected in Levi’s to Erwin), but not at the expense of everyone else. For so long, the intensity of Mikasa’s feelings towards Eren had felt nearly overwhelming sometimes. It occasionally felt like the affection and care she felt for Armin and her friends from the 104th paled to nothing when it came to Eren – but, observing Levi, it became clear to Mikasa that it didn’t need to be like that. Levi would do anything for Erwin, but he would also do anything to protect the ones around him. Despite his cold, tough exterior, she could see the love he had for Hanji, the other veterans, his comrades and his squad.
The second thing, therefore, that she kept secret from Eren was how much she had come to admire Captain Levi.
And the third thing?
The third thing she kept secret from Eren was how cute she thought Levi and Erwin were together.
Mikasa was nearly fully focused on Eren during the mission to Marley, but that didn’t stop her from noticing something was up with their officer.
He had thrown up on the boat over, but that didn’t mean anything, really. None of them had spent as long on the water as they did that day, and she had very quickly found herself joining him in puking her guts up over the side.
She had put it out of her mind until the second or third night they spent in enemy territory. She had woken up when Sasha had ended her watch shift and handed over to Levi. Sasha was a clumsy person, and she’d stuck her knee into Mikasa’s thigh as she tried to crawl over their sleeping bags towards her own spot.
After a glare from Mikasa she’d apologised profusely, crawled into her bag and proceeded to immediately fall asleep, leaving Mikasa half awake and unable to reach the dream she’d been having again.
She sighed, shifting a little in her own bag, and almost missed the sound of the kitchen door downstairs being yanked open. Mikasa’s senses, sharp most days, were heightened on this trip, in such an unfamiliar and potentially dangerous place, and the noise, distant as it was, seemed extra loud to her.
After a moment, she slowly raised herself up onto her elbows, and then gently disentangled herself from her sleeping bag. It was nearly dawn, anyway. Broken sleep at this stage wouldn’t hurt her.
She crept over to the window, much more stealthily than Sasha could ever manage in her wildest dreams, and looked out just in time to see her Captain vomiting into one of the kitchen bins.
Levi straightened himself up, and Mikasa watched with curiosity and mild worry as he sat down by the wall and buried his face in his hands.
Was he sick?
She had never known him to be seriously ill before, in all the years she had been serving under him. Was it some strange Marleyan virus that had gotten hold of him?
But no, that didn’t make sense. Why would he be trying to keep that a secret from them, if that were the case? Levi was a smart and not at all selfish man. He would tell them if he suspected he had caught something. There had to be something more to it.
The next few days, she kept a careful eye on Levi.
He didn’t look too different – or, at least, not to the casual observer. But Mikasa knew to be paying close attention, and her instincts rarely let her down. It became clear to her then, seeing the tiredness around her Captain’s eyes, the careful way he was starting to hold himself, that something was definitely up.
A suspicion began to form in her mind, and, one of their last days in Marley, Mikasa got the chance to test her theory.
It was morning, and they had stopped at a bakery on a side street near one of the main squares to get some things for breakfast. The rest of the squad had piled into the bakery, but Levi had stayed outside. As Mikasa approached the door she watched him blink slowly. She couldn’t think back to a time when she saw him this tired, even during his fairly regular periods of insomnia.
She stopped in front of him and waited until he looked up at her. She saw him tense slightly, and felt her doubts about her theory began to slip away.
‘Not going to eat?’
He held her gaze firmly.
‘Not hungry’
Mikasa pursed her lips. If what she thought was true – and it looked more and more likely that it was – then Levi needed to take care of himself more.
‘Hmmm. You should, you know’
Levi let his eyes slip back to the ground again, and it was in that moment that Mikasa knew she was right.
‘Yeah. I know’
Mikasa nodded, not giving herself too much time to think about this new development. She was sure Levi was thinking about it enough himself, and the most important thing on all their minds now was getting back safely.
Still.
Mikasa looked at her kind, tired officer and said, ‘I’ll get you something’
She made to follow her friends into the bakery but stopped short when she heard him say her name.
She turned around, and Levi was staring after her.
‘Thanks’
Mikasa nodded again, and smiled.
As she turned around and stepped into the stop, Mikasa allowed herself just one moment to think about it.
Levi was pregnant.
She guessed that was one more thing she would have to keep to herself.