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There was two things Levi Ackerman knew would make him gray before he was forty.
The first was Erwin, who was always determined to go on survey missions and often coming back injured or with his prosthetic arm damaged. It had become so guaranteed he would be found in sickbay almost every time getting treated it was the most likely place to find him rather than he was in his quarters. The commander had even joked he'd seen more of the dents in the sickbay’s walls and ceilings than those in his own assigned sleeping chambers.
The second was Hange.
More particularly, it was Hange's requests to conduct her wacky experiments on a single member of the crew. Eren Yeager.
According to his file presented to the cranky first officer when the brat first came aboard, he'd been genetically modified with something called the "Rogue Titan" strain. It resulted in highly sensitive regenerative abilities that allowed any injury to heal without hassle and greater than normal strength in terms of lifting (though not as good as Levi himself and Yeager's adopted sister Mikasa -- a distant relation from the same family as him it seemed). Any limb that was sliced off could immediately be reconnected and any soft organ rebuilt itself easily. It was downright creepy to anyone, including the first officer himself.
The ability wasn't usually without cost. Blood loss may not have been of trouble to Yeager as it too regenerated, but the adrenaline hit from injuries tended to knock him out for hours and sometimes days when drained. The strain on his heart was also concerning that it now had a faster rhythm than a normal human, so much so that the brunet could be winded if he ran for too long without assistance. And if a broken limb wasn't set properly, it would heal like that. Poor kid once had his spine re-broken deliberately three times during a surgery after it didn't come back together properly, running the risk that he'd have been left unable to walk properly the rest of his life unless it occurred.
To say the brat was either amused or annoyed as the sadistic ship's doctor continued to do it while Mike Zacharias and his security team held back Mikasa from doing something worse to the woman until she was sedated and removed until it was over led the ship's gossip for a time until Levi and Erwin cracked down had been one of more humorous moments of Yeager's antics.
How he'd come into possession of this was uncertain. Even with questioning and a serious attempt at memory retrieval, all Eren could recall was that his father Grisha may have been involved somehow. The details were sketchy at best and no matter how hard it was tried to learn more, the kid had pretty much shut down afterwards. When his adopted sister and their best friend Arlert were also questioned over it, they didn't know what was been talked about. In fact, there was no evidence to reveal that Grisha Yeager was nothing more than a standard medical physician with no history of genetic engineering studies, even when his background linked back to the Marley-occupied Eldian colony of Liberio showed no experience. Yeager never spoke of it and Mikasa and Arlert were just as in the dark. But whatever the origins of these mysterious abilities, it made little difference as it couldn't even be replicated.
Eren Yeager was a genetic anomaly and a mule.
It could not be passed on, even to the kid's offspring.
Levi shivered when he'd been forced to put himself through that report by Hange. The seemingly mad chief science officer had apparently been more disappointed it wasn't in Yeager's sperm count and that it would go down when the brat when he passed on.
"So having the brat masturbate in your lab in front of you and your team wasn't just to proof a kink you had, shitty glasses?" Levi had asked when the report was completed.
Hange simply chuckled. "Considering I don't even have genitalia, Levi," the science officer replied, pushing their glasses up their nose bridge after slipping downwards in the enthusiasm of recounting. "I wouldn't be able to enjoy it sexually if I wanted to," they then smirked. "Arlert on the other hand --" they started.
"Don't even go there, Hange," the gray-eyed man interrupted. "I don't want to know."
Hange chuckled but said nothing else.
Hange's enthusiasm in taking on the teenage officer's abilities in science experiments, however, had been met with equal enthusiasm by the brat. There was practically nothing Yeager wouldn't do. Levi wasn't sure if the kid had a pain kink or just liked to show off. At least to his friends. Heck, the kid had only bulked at figuring out if his bits would re-attach if they had been cut off.
"I like my family jewels exactly where they are, Lieutenant Commander Zoe," Yeager had practically cried out when the suggestion had been given to him, his hands immediately going to his clothed crotch. "Even for you I'm not going that far."
Hange's disappointment had been one of the first times Levi could recall smiling openly in the company of anyone other than Isabelle and Farlan and perhaps Erwin on one or two occasions. He'd stopped bothering to hide it around the scientist, letting the little jab about the 'ice princess' thawing made by them slide just that once. The first officer took it upon himself to deck them twice more when Hange had made the comment once or twice.
But the experiments continued, and Yeager endured it well.
Fortunately, after a time, they'd been slowing down recently. So much so that the brat's duties weren't being juggled between others that he'd spent more time in a science lab than at his assigned stations. It hadn't been much of a burden. As much as Kirstein and sometimes Braun had complained about sometimes pulling extra duty in their colleague's absence, there was no heat behind it and they knew it was for a good cause (or the closest equivalent Hange seemed to believe would benefit their backwards people back on Paradis). To say Levi was impressed with how his friends -- complete polar opposites judging from the way they all interacted and even came back from -- gathered around him and protected him in a softer and more gentle way than Mikasa did was certainly endearing to the man who'd only had such a bond with perhaps five people in his life (of which two were dead the third was a jerkass coward Levi wanted to kill personally if he could get away with it). Yeager had over a dozen and he was always a smiling deadpan snarker when he wanted to be, refusing to be brought down by memories (real or fabricated, he couldn't be certain) and even doing what he could to shake off his adoptive sister's over-protectiveness and making sure Leonhart, Reiss, Ymir and Blouse were able to pull her away when he wanted to spend more time with Arlert, Kirstein, Bott, Braun, Hoover, Springer and Forster.
"He may never be interested in command or leadership," Levi remembered telling Erwin one day during a morning briefing after Yeager had risked his life to save his friends from yet another 'renegade' Marley attack. "But by damn that brat is too much of a natural for it."
Erwin had dropped a short laugh. "Keep him alive then, Levi," the blond man said, reflexing the then-latest prosthetic replacement after losing its then-predecessor in a minor incident with a broken lift shaft door jamming it. "And sane. The kid could be both a dangerous ally or an adversary, particularly with the way Zeke is after him."
It was an early morning whilst orbiting an abandoned outpost of the long-lost Eldian Empire on the edge of supposedly uncharted space (according to official charts anyway) and Levi was in his quarters enjoying his tea. With his fingers on the rim and his gray eyes scanning the overnight report from watch officers across the ship, a scoffing sound filled the otherwise quiet around the man when he read the section that Oluo had once again spent the night in sickbay after biting his tongue again. The overnight watch doctor was about ready to either remove the man's teeth or the organ itself, meaning he'd either lose the ability to eat solids or never speak again. Levi wasn't sure which was which, but he'd be amused if it was going to be the latter.
"As if I don't know he isn't impersonating me to impress Ral," the man said to himself. "And that she won't give him the time or day."
A chime on his door indicated he had a visitor. Putting down the report and sipping on his teacup, Levi turned in his seat and flicked a switch, unlocking the mechanism to allow entry. The door slid open, and Yeager entered, a data pad under his right armpit as he struggled to pull his sort-of long hair into a manbun behind it with both hands. The first officer raised an eyebrow.
"Yeager," Levi said, causing the younger to stop and halt in his effort to deal with his mess of a hair. "Did you oversleep?" he asked. "Because I'll accept that in why you haven't got your hair fixed up."
Moving forward, Yeager put the data pad down and was able to successfully tie his hair back. "I'd have to have slept in order to oversleep, sir," he replied. "But I was up in Commander Hange's lab last night for a sleep deprivation experiment," he then sat down, bringing him eye level to the shorter man. "I ended up hallucinating instead when I got my third booster. Thought I was speaking to my dad again."
Levi put his teacup down and narrowed his eyes. "I take it the experiment failed then?" he asked, remembering his own reluctance to allow the brat to go through it since there was a reason Yeager was not allowed near certain medications. Looks like anti-sleep boosters are top of the list. "And you won't try it again?"
The brunet nodded. "Looks like it," he replied. His green eyes then looked down to begin activating his data pad. "I think I may have forgiven my dad though."
"Oh?" Levi moved forward, placing his chin on his raised hands. "In what way?"
Yeager still looked down, but a small smile came over his face. "I think I figured out what happened with me," he answered. "Armin thinks my subconsciousness was blaming my dad for something that had nothing to do with him," green eyes looked up into gray. "I mixed up the death of my mum and my dad's last words before he committed suicide with a gap in my memory from when I was twelve."
The first officer snorted. "Figured as much," Levi replied. He then stood up and moved around the desk, crossing his arms across his chest to look at the younger officer. "Hange and I guessed you may have been a victim of the 'Paradis Warrior' Experiment, judging from what we gleaned from the Liberation of Liberio three years ago."
Eren looked up at the first officer. "Armin and Mikasa suspected as much," he replied. "Particularly after Zeke tried to nab me the first time when I was fifteen."
"Speeding up your class graduation by three years and finally ending the hundred-year cold war Paradis didn't even know we were fighting," Levi chuckled. "The monkey started a hot one and screwed up big time."
The brunet smirked. "Yeah," he replied. "And I found out about these abilities of mine."
"They have their benefits, Yeager," Levi said. "Even if it keeps me awake at night worrying about you, brat," he turned to look out the viewport towards the dead planet below. "And keeps shitty glasses gleaming like a child."
"At least I get better treatment from Commander Hange then scientists in central would give me, sir," Yeager supplied, a cheerful tone that was followed by a small yawn. "And I've handled it well."
Levi snorted. "Just keep that sister of yours away from me every time I get a request from Hange," he said, a small smile gracing his face. "I have little interest in kicking her halfway down a corridor again."
The younger man sighed. "I've tried to get her to back down but..." he trailed off and turned to look out the viewport. "...I think she has attachment issues and worries too much. In the end, I think she'll shut down if I'm killed or worse. She doesn't want to lose what she sees as the only family she has left."
"And more?"
"I don't deny my feelings for her are mixed between family and something more," Yeager said. "But we can't be together, much as it hurts us both," green eyes returned to the data pad. "It wouldn't be good for either of us."
Levi moved back to his chair and picked up his cooling tea along the rim. "I think it's time for the ship's therapist to have some sessions with her on that," he replied. "Or I'll reassign her to another ship until she deals with her attachment issues. They are very unhealthy, for you and for her."
Yeager looked up from him. "If it's for the best, sir," he said, a small smile on his face. "Then it wouldn't be too confusing for her. Meantime, sir, perhaps we shouldn't be partnered too much on-duty together. It might make the break easier for her."
Levi picked up his data pad and flicked to the duty roster. "I'll have her partnered with Leonhart or Blouse since she gets along well with them," his gray eyes moved to Yeager's name. "I'll assigned you to either Arlert, Kirstein or Forster depending on their duties," his eyes flickered to the younger officer. "Assuming you can get along with Kirstein without insults."
Yeager chuckled. "Jean and I buried our hatched couple of years back, sir," he said. "Reiner is the one who calls him 'horse face' more often than I do now."
The older man snorted. "I thought Braun had his arms full with Galliard since he and those others defected to us?" he asked.
"In more ways than one, sir."
Ah, Levi thought. It's reached that point. It finally explained why Hoover requested reassignment to bunk with the Grice siblings only a couple of weeks back instead of with the blond Liberian man.
"I'll see to it at the next rotation," Levi said, he then closed the roster page and moved to the daily report. "Meantime, let's get this business out of the way before I go wake up Erwin."
"Yes, sir," Eren answered, his professional face resuming over his usual as he slid into the duty of Levi's chief aide.
"Oh," Levi paused for a moment to look at his junior officer. "And Yeager?"
The brunet looked up with an eyebrow raised. "Sir?" he asked.
"After we're done here," gray eyes narrowed. "Go find Springer and get a damn haircut. Your shitty hair looks worse than a cat's nest and it doesn't suit your facial structure," he paused for a moment. "Not to mention unprofessional."
Eren's free hand moved to finger his hair. "I guess I let it get carried away, didn't I, sir?"
"Indeed," Levi said. "Get it sorted. That's an order."
"Yes, sir," Eren said, with a small mock Terucos salute.
"Good," eyes moved to their data pad. "Now, what's this issue in Engineering that Eld brought up following our last encounter with that Hiruzen raider ship?"
Three hours later, Levi was standing over Bott's shoulder as he was explaining the report from Moblit's ground scientists calmly (the first officer was ignoring the nervous tone from the younger man and the slight buzz from his cybernetic right eye and scarred visage) when the door slid open, and Springer's somewhat loud voice could be heard finishing his story. Yeager's laugh followed briefly before both turned and stood at attention.
Levi turned and snorted. "Better," he said, taking in Yeager's shorter hair. It was like Springer's current length with the slight bangs peeking out from otherwise the smoother hair style. He turned to the slightly shorter grayish-blond teen officer beside his aide. "I should make you the ship's hairdresser if you weren't good at monitor and tactical duty, Officer Springer."
Springer smiled. "High praise, sir," he said. "Willing to help out either way."
Levi straightened and gestured across the bridge. "Your stations then," he said. "I have a report to finish," he turned back to Bott. "Continue, officer," he said.
"Y-yes, sir," Bott answered and continued.
From behind, Yeager assumed a sitting station and logged himself in. Another yawn escaped him, but he soon began his duties. Levi heard it and decided to be nice by allowing the brat to finish his shift early to take a nap. Then he'll head down to the lab and see what wacky new experiment Hange can come up with to give him gray hairs. Or perhaps leave Yeager to have a chat once again with a hallucination with his mother this time. That brat really had issues and but luckily would be more likely to cooperate with the therapist than his sister. Though perhaps watching the recording of Yeager's hallucinations from Hange's lab would be more amusing.
Holding back a chuckle, Levi tuned himself back into the report from the young duty operations officer, awaiting the end of his day and hoping too that Erwin didn't break his prosthetic when he headed down to the surface again.
The joys of being a first officer and being Levi Ackerman.
Not all that bad, but sometimes it was worst.