A Matter of Stature - Bonus Epilogue - Complete

Bonus Epilogue

(It's up to the reader to decide if the bonus is part of the story or not. I wrote it just for fun and it has a much bigger those of silliness than the rest of the story.)

You finished maintaining your ODM gear and polishing it, Levi would be proud. "Ok, I'm done, now we can play!" You looked around, but didn't find the one you were looking for. "Oh, oh..."

Levi showed up at the door to the equipment room and you smiled sweetly at him. "Hi Levi, look how shiny my ODM gear is!" You could tell by his expression that he wasn't amused. You pouted, "are you mad at me for some reason?"

Levi shook his head hopelessly, "(Name) I told you to keep a closer eye on him." Ah, so he had been found, good.

"I was, but I swear, that boy can teleport!" He couldn't do that really, a fact that you were immensely grateful for. The child was already a handful as he was, though you still loved the adorable chibi. "He didn't break anything, did he?"

"He got all dirty!" Levi exclaimed, as if it was an irreversible tragedy. "How is he even capable of getting so dirty so quickly? He doesn't get that from me."

You laughed lightly and gave your husband a quick kiss, "don't worry, he'll grow out of it." Every day you assured him that it was perfectly normal for a toddler to get a little dirty when playing. Yet every day Levi would worry that he was doing something terribly wrong and raising his son to be a slob. It was ironic that was the only thing he complained about, it wasn't exactly the worse thing the boy had inherited from you.

Levi finally took a moment to examine your ODM gear. "Not bad," he commended, running his finger on the gear's surface as if inspecting it for dust. "It looks like you're done with your assigned tasks for today, and Eren is giving our dear little mischief maker a bath, so we both have some free time right now."

You and Levi decided to make the best of that free time in whatever way happened to occur to you after you returned to the room you shared. On the way there, Levi told you exactly how he found your son, which was another alarming yet amusing tale for your collection of favorite memories.

xoxox xox xoxox

"Weeee!" Hange exclaimed as she was thrown through the air and caught in a fit of cheers and giggles.

"Put that down, it's filthy!" Levi scolded with urgency. Kids run around, it's normal, they trip, it happens, they scrape their knees, it's nothing serious... under normal circumstances.

The titan put Hange down, pouting with his overly cute baby face. "Aw..." Hange had a similar expression, as she had been enjoying the 'experiment.' "We were playing."

Levi glared at her, then turned his attention back to the titan. "Change back," he ordered impatiently. The titan only pouted some more, his eyes watering slightly. Levi took a deep breath and tried to calm down. 'It's ok, he's not too big yet...' though he seemed to be getting bigger. 'We're behind the Survey Corps base, no one from outside the scouts saw, it's still a secret...' "Look, I'm not angry at you. Change back, I know you can do it. C'mon, I can't pick you up if you're like this."

The titan seemed to calm down, and in a puff of titan mist, he disappeared, it was a special ability he had to turn back at will, though he still needed a trigger for the initial transformation. Where the titan used to be there was only a small toddler. He looked a lot like his father, having only inherited your eyes... and a manifestation of your 'special condition.' The little boy ran to Levi, lifting his arms in an indication he wanted to be carried. Levi picked up the boy and examined him. "I told you to be careful, look how dirty you got. You're a year old today, you should be getting used to keeping yourself clean." Levi continued the losing battle of trying to keep a toddler clean. His son only giggled in amusement at his neat freak father's attempt to clean his face, which had bits of chocolate on it. With all the sweets the scouts gave their little 'nephew' it was no wonder he was always hyper.

Though you and Levi had many friends that were quick to volunteer themselves as honorary aunts and uncles, dealing with a toddler who could turn into a titan wasn't easy. At least his titan form wasn't too big yet, though it had been proportionally growing along with him. You had initially thought that your child was the same as you and he would grow out of the transformation phase. However, your abilities were a modification of titan shifting and though you weren't a shifter yourself, your genetics carried the possibility. The boy's trigger was blood, it was the same as Eren's and all known shifters. It didn't help that kids tend to have an uncanny ability to hurt themselves in the most harmless of situations, it was simply the nature of being a child.

Fortunately, it was also in a child's nature to learn quickly by instinct, so it didn't take him long to get used to retaining his human consciousness while in titan form and he could change back into a human at will. Pain was still too much of a distracting factor for him to hold back the titan transformation, but he should be able to control that when he got a little older, until the possibility of scraped knees was no longer any more dangerous to him than to any other child.

Eren, Mikasa and Armin rushed over. "I found Eren!" Armin announced. The blond had a smear of dough on his cheek and a kitchen apron. He had witnessed the transformation from the window and ran off to find Eren, just in case.

"I'll stop him from running off! Don't worry, uncle Eren is coming!" Eren made a motion to bite his hand, but stopped when he realized there was no danger.

"The situation is under control," Levi informed.

"That's good..." Armin breathed. "I should get back to helping Sasha make the... you know what." Armin slipped away to the kitchen, refusing to say the word 'cake' though the birthday boy was probably too young to care whether or not the cake was a surprise, as long as there was cake.

"If you really want to help, give him a bath." Levi handed the one year old boy over to Eren.

"Didn't he already have two baths today?" Mikasa recalled, it was only the afternoon.

"Three," Levi corrected as he went off to find you. You had better done a fine job with your ODM gear maintenance to have lost track of the tiny titan shifter. He turned back for a moment as Eren, Mikasa and Armin walked off with the boy. "Don't make a mess."

"Aw, you won't make a mess, right?" Eren cooed at the little boy.

"Bubble!" Was the toddler's only comment about the whole situation.

"I was talking to you, Eren," Levi clarified and Eren only laughed nervously.

Mikasa recalled the occasion quite well. The little boy loved playing in the water and kept asking for more bubbles. Eren, being the sweet uncle he was, kept adding more bubbles to the tub until the bathroom was flooded in soapy foam. "I'll make sure the bath goes without incident," Mikasa offered. At least (Name) and Levi's child was generally careful in titan form and haven't had any accidents so far. Perhaps that time he stepped on a lego barefoot while learning to walk traumatized him. Mikasa sighed happily, picturing the day when she and Eren would be running around trying to stop their own child from stepping on people.

End