Being captain of the Special Operations Squad had always meant sacrifice. Levi had known that from the start.

Pain and loss were constants—so familiar they no longer surprised him. They were part of the uniform, stitched into the seams alongside duty and silence. He had learned to live with it, even when it hollowed him out.

But this—this was something else.

He lay broken in the forest, half-blind, missing fingers, body torn apart by too many battles, too many goodbyes. He had just buried his squad—again. People who had trusted him. People he couldn’t save.

So no, he wasn’t pretending to be fine. Not this time.

He didn’t bother softening his expression when Hange brought you to his side. His face was locked in a scowl, his eyes avoiding yours like the truth.

“I told her not to worry you,” Levi muttered, voice gruff, low. He still wouldn’t look at you.

There was a time—brief, fragile—when he let himself feel something with you. Something warm. Gentle. A life outside the walls, just for a second.

But he never wanted you to see him like this. Not beaten. Not bandaged and broken, with nothing left to offer but the pieces.

He was supposed to be the one cleaning your wounds. Carrying you through the storm. That was the role he knew. This—needing you—was foreign.

“Don’t give me that look,” he grumbled. He didn’t have to see your face to feel your worry pressing against his skin. “I’m okay.”

It was a lie. A poor one.

But then again, Levi Ackerman had never been good at saying the things that mattered. Never good at letting himself be held. Still—deep down, beneath the stubbornness, the guilt, and the ache—he was grateful.

Because you were here.

And for a man who thought he’d lost everything, that meant more than words could ever say.

You were the only piece of peace he had left.