Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Docking on the Atlas felt strange- simultaneously familiar and brand new. The Altean ship Lance was using was as different from the Lions as one could get, and he was in a communal hangar designed to house the ships of intergalactic delegates- which he was- instead of Red’s massive bay- which had probably been repurposed years ago. But it was still Shiro’s ship and it was still Veronica’s voice over the comms.

It was still the Atlas.

He watched as the particle barrier blinked into being, signalling that it was safe to breach his airlock. As he stood, he felt a surge of jitters. New job nerves, he reminded himself, perfectly normal. He smoothed out the creases in his uniform jacket and used the camera on his handheld like a mirror to make sure that he wouldn’t embarrass New Altea before he even got settled into his quarters. Satisfied that his new uniform was up to snuff, he activated the hover feature on his luggage and triggered the doors that would release him into the guest hangar.

He was alone on the flight deck, his steps echoing strangely off the metal and ceramics. Thankfully, he was assigned a docking slot close to the access to the main body of the ship, because after what he’d seen as a Paladin, he knew from experience that large empty sections of space-faring ships tended to get real creepy, real fast. He’d never really trusted airlocks after almost getting sucked out of one.

Sure enough, as soon as the door slid open, he was greeted by an overeager crew member. The snap of the salute was textbook perfect and he couldn’t help but smile. This woman looked like she was twelve! The baby-faced crew member nodded sharply, “welcome aboard the Atlas, Ambassador McClain! I’m Ensign Kym and I’ve been assigned to you for the duration of your stay with us. If you have any questions about the ship, please do not hesitate to ask.”

“Take a breath, Ensign Kym,” he said good-naturedly, “I don’t bite… and I’m not nearly as hard to please as my sister. Just, show me where to stow my crap and bring me to the Bridge and I’ll be golden. Promise.”

“Yes, Sir,” Ensign Kym nodded, gesturing for Lance to follow her. “You’ve been placed in quarters near the Captain and Executive Officer McClain.”

“How near?” he asked, trying to get the Ensign to relax a little, because if she was assigned to him, she needed to be comfortable around him. “Like- are they gonna come yell at me if I play my music too loud?”

She stopped walking, her face the very image of shock as she blustered and fumbled with her words, “it’s not- I can… umm… I think… well… I cannot imagine either of them doing that! Uhh… Sir!”

Lance laughed, “I promise you, they both have! More than once! At one point, Shiro had an entire vocabulary that was just… my name said with varying degrees of irritation or disappointment. But… that was a long, long time ago.”

“When you were a Paladin?” she asked, voice soft and slightly awed.

“Mmmhmm. We both were. He was in Black, I was in Blue- loud-mouthed seventeen year old kid with fancy wheels.”

“I thought… weren’t you the Red Paladin?”

“By the time we got back here, I was,” he explained, “but I started out in Blue. Hunk in Yellow, Pidge in Green, Keith in Red, and Shiro in Black… then Keith moved to Black, I was in Red and… uh… Allura… She… Princess Allura flew Blue.”

“I was just a kid. Pretty much everything I know about Voltron is from the show.”

“The show?!?” Lance stopped dead in his tracks, laughter bubbling through him, “oh wow- the show is way, way off! Don’t worry, before I leave, you’ll hear all the best stories about Voltron. Behind the scenes true facts that will blow your mind!”

By the time Lance got a tour of his ‘new’ quarters (they were the same ones he was given the last time he’d called the Atlas his temporary home), stowed his luggage and was escorted to the Bridge, both Shiro and Veronica had done whatever they needed to do to be able to leave the crew to it for a while. It was all formal welcomes and titles and protocol until they were safely ensconced in the ‘Captain’s Ready Room’ with the door shut behind him. Then his sister was crushing him in a hug.

“Look at you!” she cooed, shaking him softly, “my baby brother! Ambassador for New Altea! So fancy! Lemme see the new uniform!”

He lurched backwards as she shifted from the hug to shoving him back so she could see him. His uniform still felt strange to him. So close to what he always pictured Coran wearing, he still caught himself doing double takes whenever he passed a reflective surface. It wasn’t quite the same, the Alteans from the colony had different clothing trends than Alfor’s court had and the new official garments were a blending of the two. His experience with Altean clothing had been pretty limited, but despite the high collars and gold braiding, his official Ambassador threads were just as comfortable as the undersuit of the Paladin armor had been.

“Veronica,” he groaned in the patented and universal ‘annoyed baby brother’ voice as he rolled his eyes and fought the proud grin that would give him away. He loved that she was so excited for him. Loved that she was pumped to be working together again. Her excitement was contagious and it had done more than he wanted to admit to help him keep nerves and doubts at bay when he’d accepted Coran’s offer.

“You look like an actual grown-up,” she teased, “when did that happen?”

“By my math, he’s been an adult for, what… ten years now?” Shiro observed mildly.

“That depends entirely on how you are counting,” Lance answered. “If you are ignoring the time jump and just going by birthdates, it’s been eleven years. If you are like some people,” he glared at Veronica, “and claim that the three years we jumped don’t count just because we weren’t present for them, it’s been eight.”

“Uh-huh,” Veronica rolled her eyes at him, “I would like to remind everyone present that Mr. My-Birthdate-Is-My-Birthdate here conveniently dropped from twenty-four to twenty-one real fast because he was terrified of twink death.”

“What!?! Ruuuude!” He shoved her shoulder playfully, “twink death isn’t even a thing! I just… wanted to relive my youth a bit, that’s all.”

“Lance always did have a gift for exploiting loopholes,” Shiro laughed, finally wedging himself between the siblings to give Lance one of those hand-clasp-back-pat-hugs of his. It was familiar and grounding and any lingering nervousness that Lance had about the new job evaporated. There were few people he was closer to than Shiro and Veronica. They had his back and they had total confidence in his ability to do this.

He was really here. In space. On the Atlas. Working with his childhood hero and friend again. Working with his sister again. Spreading Allura’s message as an official representative of her people in the Coalition she started and built. It wasn’t Voltron, but in many ways, it was better. He wasn’t fighting a war. He was helping them heal some of the damage done by millenia of conflict.

“There’s an official event tonight to welcome you aboard,” Veronica was saying as she poured the three of them drinks, “not a dinner. Just a cocktail reception. You’ll meet the highest ranking officers on board, some of the other Coalition Delegates.”

“Lots of familiar faces,” Shiro added, “Sam and Colleen, the original MFE Pilots, some of the original bridge crew and tech-heads, Acxa, a few others. You’ll do fine… Ambassador McClain.”

“You didn’t pronounce that right, Shiro. It’s Am-Badass-ador McClain. Say it with me: Am-Badass-ador McClain.” Grinning he accepted the glass from his sister.

“Are you serious right now?”

“Hell yeah! Do you know how long I’ve been waiting to break that out?? C’mon… I know you appreciate a good pun, Captain Shirogane! Remember that New Year’s party where you kept drunkenly calling Keith your bro-gane?? Because I remember that weak ass joke.”

“That doesn’t sound like a joke I’d mak-”

“That is abso-fucking-lutely a joke you would make, Shiro, and you know it. So don’t even try,” Veronica cut in, laughing. “You’d make that joke sober!”

“Umm… helllo??” Lance waved his hand in front of Veronica’s face, “back to the matter at hand, please? What’s my title?”

She sighed, and he could watch her give in in the way her eyes slowly dulled. “Am-badass-ador McClain,” she dead-panned.

“Nice! Thank-you big sis! Your turn, Cap’n! C’mon… you know you wanna…”

Shiro looked at him, those gentle grey eyes skimming over his face (which was frozen in an expectant and overdone grin, like a comedian waiting for the punchline) and relented. “Am-badass-ador McClain.” Shaking his head, he waggled a finger at Lance, “you’re spoiled, you know that? Sometimes it is so obvious that you are the baby of your family!”

“You meant to say favorite, but that’s okay.” Sipping his drink, he nudged Veronica, “he meant to say it was obvious that I’m the favorite.”

“Clearly,” Veronica answered, rolling her eyes at him and hiding her smile behind her own drink. He’d known her his whole life, he was wise to her ways.

“How are the quarters?” Shiro asked, “there was some debate about whether you’d want them or a fresh start…”

“They’re good,” he answered, smiling reassuringly, “really. The quarters are all so cookie cutter on ships like this that I think it would be weirder to be in different ones that look the same, you know? And the mirror ones are like hers… This is good. It was the right call.”

“You’re sure? Because we can shuffle-”

“Shiro, I’m sure. They’re good. I’m already unpacked. Don’t make me pack my shit up now! I hate packing! Veronica, tell him!”

“It’s true, he hates it,” Veronica confirmed. “He always wants to bring every single thing he owns, and he’s a fucking packrat, so he owns a lot of shit. You should have seen the weird shit he’d tote around in his backpack as a kid. Rocks! Literal rocks! Back and forth to school with-”

“Yeah yeah yeah- I think he gets the point, Vero!” He shoved her playfully, “which is: I’m perfectly happy with my quarters and do not want to switch. In fact, I’m officially inviting you both over for poker night tomorrow after shift. We’ll need a fourth, though. Any suggestions?”

“We could invite Slav,” Veronica mused, eyes glinting. Lance didn’t miss the way Shiro’s jaw clenched. “Be interesting to see how he approached poker.”

“I think there are better options,” Shiro said mildly, as if he was totally cool with the idea of spending an evening with Slav for fun. “What about Nadia?”

“She’s on opposite shifts than us for the next cycle. Ina, too. Ryan might be available, though. Or James.”

“Oooh! Griffin! He’s got the worst poker face I’ve ever seen other than Hunk! Yeah, invite him.”

“Do not start off your new job by fleecing the Commander of the MFEs, Lance,” Veronica warned.

“Oh, I won't, I promise. I’m just going to bankrupt Keith’s boyfriend,” he grinned, “it’ll be fun.”

“He won’t take too kindly to being called ‘Keith’s boyfriend’ like that,” Shiro chuckled. “Not that I blame him- James Griffin is a highly decorated officer.”

“Listen,” Lance rolled his eyes, “you seem to forget that I was in their flight class. I had a front row seat to the two of them being bullheaded assholes. I had to talk Hunk down from a near panic attack after they got into a fucking fist fight. Then I had to watch the weirdly awkward courting ritual of the Edge-Lord Samurai and Rulesy McBlowhard. The more he hates it, the more I’m gonna refer to him as ‘Keith’s boyfriend’. I’ve fucking earned it, understood?”

“I swear to God, Lance, if you alienate James…”

“He won’t,” Shiro sighed, “your brother has a rare gift of knowing how to push someone to their absolute limit for annoyance without crossing over into unforgivable territory.”

“Awww,” he rested his hand over his heart and sighed, then blew Shiro a kiss, “you know me so well!”

“Just don’t come crying to me if your mouth breaks your own nose,” his sister warned him.

He gasped dramatically, “no one is breaking my nose! That’s not even funny!”

“Mmhmm… don’t come crying to me. That’s all I’m saying.”

“I can’t believe you! You’re my big sister! You’re supposed to have my back.”

“Hold on, aren’t you the one who is always crowing about your sniper skills? All the fancy schmancy combat training you got as a Paladin? Is this your way of saying you can’t take care of yourself and you need me to protect you like when you were four and picking fights with kids twice your size?”

“I didn’t say that!”

“I’m pretty sure you did, Lance,” chuckled Shiro.

“Having my back isn’t the same as fighting my battles for m- oh you know what? I’m not getting sucked into this! Just… poker night. My place. Let’s just leave it at that.” Eyes flashing, he planted one hand on his hip and glared at the both of them as he finished off his drink.

“Sounds good,” Shiro said easily, his lips quirking in the barest of smiles.

“Yeah. Poker night could be fun,” agreed Veronica, nodding like that whole fiasco hadn’t happened.

It was good to be back.

Being on board the Atlas made it very easy to develop a routine. The entire ship ran with military precision and it created a kind of rhythm that drew people in. Within two weeks, Lance’s life ran like clockwork. He started his day with a work-out. He, Veronica, Shiro, and Giles, one of the Alteans on board did circuit training together- cheering each other on and spotting one another.

Breakfast followed that, and then his work day was occupied with meetings, vid-conferences and research. At one point, he’d thought Ambassador work was nothing but fluff and schmoozing, but now that he actually had the position, he knew better. He had a whole new respect for Coran after a few days on the job. The level of studying he needed to do to ensure that he understood the history and cultures of the various delegates and representatives that he had to interact with was absolutely mind-boggling!

He’d never spent so much time with his nose buried in books in his life! It was so worth it though, and Veronica made sure he didn’t get too caught up in his work. As soon as her own shift was over, she swung by his office, and they spent an hour on the range, or sparring before eating together in the mess hall. His evenings were a mix of socializing with people on the Atlas- ranging from old friends to newly arrived Ambassadors from other planets in the coalition; catching up on correspondence; or indulging in one of his many hobbies.

It was a good kind of predictable. A good kind of exhausting, too. When Coran had first suggested this work to him, he’d thought he was joking. Then he thought it would be nothing but charming aliens. Once he’d gotten a clearer view of his responsibilities, he’d genuinely worried that he wouldn’t be able to do the job justice. There was a lot of pressure representing New Altea in his role as “Legacy Bearer”. At least once a day he caught himself wondering if Allura would agree with his decisions, with how he approached various challenges.

But, he was good at it. Genuinely good. It was a lot of work, a lot of learning, but it was also rewarding. He liked people, in a general sense, and he knew how important it was to treat new cultures with respectful curiosity. His outgoing nature and open-mindedness worked in his favor, and sure the history and political study was intense, but he was a better student than most people realised.

It was so gratifying to be working to heal some of the scars left by the war he’d fought. So rewarding to make sure that Allura’s legacy didn’t end with battles but with co-operation and rebuilding. Sure, sometimes it felt like the Atlas held ghosts of his younger years, but that wasn’t automatically a bad thing. It was nice, sometimes, to feel like he might run into Allura around the next turn. It didn’t hurt anymore. It hadn’t hurt in a long time. He missed her, he probably always would to some extent, but the things that used to feel like the universe taunting him with knowing she was part of everything but out of reach, only made him feel close to her now.

Time really did fly when you were busy doing something you loved and before he knew it, they were celebrating the halfway mark of their journey. Six months on board the Atlas, in his official capacity with hardly any skirmishes from lingering Zarkon Loyalists, or rogue splinter groups who weren’t receptive to the presence of the Coalition. He never would have thought that half a year in space could be so peaceful and safe.

Six months.

Five planetary visits.

Four Atlas-hosted diplomatic envoys.

Three newly signed trade agreements.

Two hilarious visits from high ranking Blade of Marmora members who knew him as a Paladin and had no idea how to react to him now. God, it had been a hoot to see Kolivan stumble over his titles. He probably shouldn’t have enjoyed that so much- but in his defence, he’d seen Shiro hide a laugh at least three times in response to Kolivan calling him ‘Paladambassador’. It was funny stuff.

One very proud Coran projected on the holoscreen in the midst of the Atlas ballroom offering a toast at the celebration- who was currently recounting a story about Lance teaching him to surf on New Altea and using it as a metaphor for rising to challenges… or something. Lance had had a little too much champagne to fully focus on a Coran story.

“You’re looking pretty chuffed,” Giles whispered as he sidled up to him and handed over a fresh glass of champagne.

“Well, I’m supposed to right now,” he pointed out, “given that I’m the one being toasted.”

“True,” he laughed, “you coming to the afterparty down in Joodum Sector? We’ve got juniberry cider!”

“Ooh,” he cringed slightly, “the last time I had a run in with juniberry cider at one of the Joodum Sector parties, I almost ended up in Laris’ bed and that would have been a bad scene!”

“I dunno… you could do worse than Laris. Laris is very attractive.”

“Laris is gorgeous. It’s not about that. I’m just not wired for casual stuff anymore, and Laris is alll about the casual stuff. Not a good fit.” He shrugged, “besides- pretty sure there is going to be a Voltron reunion at Shiro’s after this. Keith, and Hunk are both arriving at some point this evening. I’d be shocked if we don’t end up getting Pidge on a vid-call and spending the night hanging out.”

“Voltron was so long ago, though,” Giles sighed, “I don’t get it. But if you get bored, you know how to find us.”

“Head to Joodum Sector, then follow the music. I know how to find a party, Giles.” He winked and then nodded at the screen where Coran seemed to be wrapping up.

Sure enough, he laughed, blotting at his eyes and holding his glass aloft on the holoscreen. “To Ambassador McClain!”

“To Ambassador McClain,” the guests echoed and they all raised their glasses, turning to face him.

“Thank-you,” he replied, voice loud and clear, “it’s been my honor to join all the talented and hardworking people here on the Atlas. To my gracious hosts!”

Everyone drank, and with a quick, friendly squeeze to his forearm, Giles slipped away to flirt with one of the Blades that had joined the party. Once upon a time, Lance would have been right at his side, trying to charm a pretty alien or two. Now though, Lance knew better. The risk of offending someone, or committing some kind of slight or social faux pas was just too big, the stakes if he did so far too high to make it worth the effort.

He’d still flirt, of course. Weirdly, that was part of his job now. But it wouldn’t be serious, it wouldn’t lead to anything scandalous.

Once upon a time he’d be drinking with a purpose, but now he knew how to pace himself. He knew how to take part in the endless toasts and always have a drink in his hand without crossing the line from tipsy into drunk. Now, these parties, as pleasant as they were, were just as much about work as they were about fun. He’d come a long way since that first party on Arus… that had introduced him to Nunville and ended with an explosion and facing off against Sendak.

As usual, any thought of that particular Galra led to him scanning the crowd for Shiro. Without fail, he needed to see Shiro with his own eyes before that little tremor of worry would settle down. He was acutely aware that the overwhelming majority of the Galra were good people who just happened to be on the opposite side of the conflict than he had been. He knew how powerful Zarkon had been, how pervasive his propaganda machines had been, how entrenched his ideals had become in a population that had been fed lies for generations. Most Galra were, like Keith said, a proud and honorable people.

Sendak was not. According to Coran, he’d been a good man before the destruction of Daibazaal. By the time they’d crossed paths with him, though, he’d been thoroughly twisted by Haggar and Zarkon. So corroded by millennia of violence and hatred that there was no trace of that man left. Lance would never forget the look in Shiro’s eyes whenever Sendak was even mentioned. It wasn’t often that he felt protective of his old friend, but thoughts of Sendak was a surefire way to do it.

Shiro, of course, was fine. He was standing on a dias, looking like a recruitment ad in his dress uniform, talking to James and a tall Mirulean that Lance was pretty sure was named Klapchek (a name that admittedly stuck in his memory for very juvenile reasons). This particular round of accolades and toasts and speeches seemed to be over. The band started up again, playing a song he recognized as being Puigian in origin. The Atlas had a shockingly good band, who performed a wide range of songs from all over the coalition. Especially since it was almost entirely made up of hobbyist musicians.

Enough time had passed since he’d seen combat that his reflexes had relaxed a little. So, thankfully, when he felt the hand at his hip, his first instinct was not to flip the person that was touching him without warning.

“Hey, pointy-chin,” a familiar voice said, “what’s a girl gotta do to get a dance with an old friend?”

“Romelle!” He twisted toward her, grinning like a fool. She gave a little jump, catching him in a hug that he happily returned. “Oh, I’ve missed you!”

“I’ve missed you, too! It’s been too long!” She released him and stepped back, giving him a once over. “You look like something from a children’s book in that uniform! Soooo old-fashioned. Dashing, but old-fashioned. Very handsome!”

She was in a gown, which he’d never seen before. Her hair was twisted into several long ropes that were then pinned into bow-shapes starting at her temple and following her hair line, with tiny, shimmering jewels and small purple blossoms tucked artfully among them. Her dress was strapless, the color of the sparkling bodice and wide, floaty skirt shifting from a delicate pink to powder blue and every shade between them as she moved. “You’re one to talk! You look beautiful, Romelle! Like a fairy princess!”

“Awww, thank-you!” She didn’t blush- he’d never seen any of the Alteans from the colony blush, it seemed to be a trait that had vanished over the years- but the marks on her cheeks glowed softly. “Hunk and Shay will be here later, there was some paperwork they wanted to deal with. I suspect I was pouting about missing the party so they let me leave early. I do love big fancy parties!”

“Well, this definitely fits. It is very big and very fancy!” On impulse, he hugged her again, “have you said hi to anyone else yet?”

She shook her head, “Shiro and Veronica looked busy… and I want to dance, soooo…”

He laughed, “ah, I see how it is. Well then, you came to the right person.” He took her hand and dipped into a deep, courtly bow, pressing a kiss to her knuckles, “Romelle, would you kindly honor me with a dance?”

“Oooh charming,” she cooed, “of course I will!” Lacing her fingers with his own, she followed him to the dancefloor. “So, do you actually know this dance, or are we freestyling?”

“Freestyling?” He shook his head, settling his hand on her hip. “Hunk’s rubbing off on you! But, relax, Coran made sure I was well-versed in all sorts of dances. Including a Puigian Quarterflounce.”

“Wonderful! It’s one of my favorites.”

“Well, in that case, let’s show them how it’s done, shall we?” Without waiting for her response, he tugged her close, leading her into the first form.

Honestly, the Puigian Quarterflounce was one of his favorites, too. It reminded him a little of a paso doble from Earth, with its almost aggressive pacing and alternating open and closed steps.

The paso doble was a representation of a bull fight, and the Puigian Quarterflounce had a similar origin. It was a story dance divided into four distinct ‘quarters’ with different pacing and steps. The dance brought to life an old folktale about a brave warrior who faced a monster similar to a dragon to protect her people. According to the myth, the monster was so entranced by her grace and strength that it tamed his wild heart and transformed him, revealing that he’d been a Prince, under a curse the whole time.

It seemed like every culture had some version of the beauty and the beast fairytale. Redemption through love was a universal message.

So, the portion of the dance known as ‘the battle’, started with a lot of quick movements and intensity. There were quite a few spins and hold changes, pulling apart and coming back together- all representing the fight. Mid-song, that conflict shifted, the dance moving into its second quarter: the taming. This part was slower, showcasing more measured holds that were reminiscent of grappling and submission holds, with the female partner taking the lead.

As the climax of the music approached, they moved into the third quarter of the dance: the metamorphosis. Lance let Romelle push him backwards over her bent knee and they spun away from each other, moving in a slow circle from several feet apart, almost like the fight was about to resume. That was the part of the story where the monster transformed. He held his right hand out first, she knocked it away, sending him into a heel spin that ended with his left hand out and him craning toward her. She accepted that hand, stretching away and then spinning back into his embrace, and bringing them into the final act of the dance- the lovers.

Pressed close together, they glided around the dance floor, their movements in perfect concert. One thing he loved about it was that instead of clasped hands and hip/shoulder holds, this section of the dance had their left arms curled above their heads with the fingers laced together and their right hands cupping each others’ faces. There was something about the hold that conveyed so much intimacy and passion without resorting to bump and grind sexiness… and without being super awkward for a couple of friends enjoying a dance together.

The dance was a bit of a floor hog, but luckily, the dance floor wasn’t all that crowded, and most of the people using it were familiar with the Quarterflounce. With the exception of the transformation sequence, which was designed to be able to intersect with other performers, all the dancing pairs could easily avoid one another. The few couples that were, as Romelle put it, ‘freestyling it’ stayed on the outer edges of the dancefloor.

The song ended with Romelle holding him in a deep dip. A few of the guests applauded the band and the dancers as he regained his footing and she clutched his hand. “That was fun, but I really need a drink!”

“Drinks are an excellent idea. Champagne? Nunville? Water?”

She wrinkled her nose, “champagne tastes like bubbly fungus and nunville is nasty. Hunk makes this thing that is soo yummy! It’s pink and it tastes… kind of like those frozen treats on a stick you got for us that time in Cuba?”

“I think I know what you are talking about,” he chuckled, weaving through the crown with her, “or at least, I know of something close. Let’s see if the bar has the stuff to make you a pink lady.”

Romelle ended up drinking some frothy blue thing that smelled like cheese and bacon but tasted kinda like sour candies. It messed with his head too much to have more than a single sip, but she seemed to love them.

“Sooooo,” she crooned after a couple of the drinks. Her purple eyes were a tad unfocused, which really should have clued him in that she was about to make absolutely no sense. “I gotta ask… your sister.”

“You gotta ask my sister… what?” he coaxed.

Her blonde eyebrows drew together in confusion and her whole face scrunched up as she sucked on the straw in her drink, thinking. “Oh!” The confusion vanished in an instant and she slapped his shoulder, nearly knocking him down. He would never get used to Altean strength. At least Allura had been a trained fighter. Romelle looked like she was made out of spun sugar and eider down. You just didn’t expect that kind of power from her shoulder-swats. “Nooooo,” she laughed, “not ask your sister! Ask you!”

“Ask me what?” Her mouth clapped shut midway through her laugh, as she gathered her thoughts.

“Ask you… ask you… about your sister!” She beamed at him, “these drinks are yummy, I should get more…”

“I think you should hold off on more for a bit, maybe wait to have one with Hunk and Keith when they get here?”

“Ooooh… yeah! Good idea, Lance! You got smart!”

“Uhhh… thank-you? I guess? Pretty sure I’ve always been this smart, but… yeah, we’ll go with that. What did you want to ask me about Veronica?”

“Not Verommikle, the other sister… Rah… Roh… something like rocks, but not…”

Damn, those drinks hit like a mack truck! Mental note to make sure Romelle did a better job pacing herself! “You mean Rachel?”

“Yes! Rachel! She’s pretty… you ever think… sometimes… she… Oh! It’s Shiro!” She set her empty glass down and grabbed him by the wrist, dragging him across the room. “Shiro! Hi! Hi, Shiro!”

After that, the night was mostly a blur. Not that he’d followed Romelle’s example and overindulged at the bar or anything. It was simply that Hunk and Shay had arrived shortly after Romelle had cornered Shiro. Then Veronica and Acxa had joined them and they all settled into seats at one of the larger tables that was already occupied by Rivazi (he could never get used to calling her Nadia. Nadia was his niece and it just felt too weird, so she’d be Rivazi forever as far as he was concerned). Then Keith had shown up with James on his arm, and Ryan and Ina trailing along behind them. With so many old friends reuniting, the reminiscing got pretty intense. Stories that they all knew got shared, everyone talking over each other to add their own perspectives or crack an inside joke, and once that started, time just… flew.

There were more trips to the dancefloor, but none as structured as the dance with Romelle. They had another four rounds of speeches and toasts. Lance was not the only planetary diplomat on board the Atlas, and each of them were honored over the course of the evening. He’d gotten to know almost all of them pretty well in the months they’d been working together. Some of them had even become good friends. It was nice to see all their hard work get recognized.

Their own little cluster of friends split up when they left the party. Lance, Hunk, and Keith accepted Shiro’s invitation to hang out in his quarters and give Pidge a call (exactly as Lance had predicted to Giles- Shiro was a creature of habit). Shay had bowed out of any socializing in favor of grabbing a few extra hours of sleep. James and the other MFE pilots had opted to tag along with Romelle and check out the party in Joodum Sector. Veronica and Acxa were clearly looking forward to some alone time- which he tried not to think about too much. He and Veronica had leaned on each other so much when they were each figuring out their sexuality that it had fostered a very close bond. They were unusually open about their love lives, which meant that he was very aware of just how much she’d been looking forward to Acxa’s return. He just preferred to keep that knowledge as abstract as he could.

Shiro’s quarters were nice, but they weren’t exactly roomy. Space was always at a premium on any kind of ship, even for the Captain. Initially, Lance had just taken a seat on the floor while the others squished onto the couch to call Pidge, but she’d grumbled so much about only being able to see the top of his head that Shiro and Hunk had each grabbed an arm and hoisted him up. He’d ended up sitting half on Hunk’s lap and half on Shiro’s- which was much more comfortable than it sounded.

As usual, Pidge was working. Her attention was split between some kind of logic error in the code she was writing, and regaling them all with the ten ways Matt almost burned the lab down over the past week. Lance was pretty sure that at least half of Pidge’s ‘Matt explodes shit’ stories were actually about her, but he had no way to prove that and he liked his life the way it was, so he knew better than to state that opinion out loud.

“Told’ja you wouldn’t be able to top me for a work husband,” Hunk teased her when she grumbled about how Matt didn’t understand her ‘system’ and would try to tidy up her desk.

“This again?” She flipped up the protective visor she was wearing (even though she was just writing code… which seemed pretty safe to Lance) to roll her eyes at them, “that’s not even a thing. That whole ‘work wife’ and ‘work husband’ thing you talk about? It’s not a thing.”

“It’s totally a thing,” he argued, “like… okay.. Me and Shay are together, and I’m super happy about that, but at work? Romelle is my work wife. It’s just the way it is.”

“That’s a you thing, Hunk,” she insisted, “not an everyone thing. Keith! Tell’im!”

“No can do,” Keith laughed, “Acxa is definitely my work wife.”

“You are asking Keith?!?!” Hunk roared with laughter, “that’s rich! Lance was the original work spouse! Are you forgetting when Keith first took over in Black? The only reason anything got accomplished was because Lance could make him see sense!”

“Hey!” Keith reached across the back of the couch to smack Hunk playfully, “that’s a bit of an exaggeration!”

“I mean,” giggled Lance, “he’s not wrong you were an angry ball of chaos at first, Mullet.”

“I was the one who didn’t want the job, if you recall,” pointed out Keith with a huff.

“You and Lance always did balance each other out well when you weren’t arguing,” Shiro reflected. He was aiming for mild and sage, but Lance could hear the smirk in his voice, so he knew he was mainly trying to give Keith a hard time.

“That’s because they share a brain cell, Shiro,” teased Pidge, “it makes sense that it’s more functional when they are working together.”

“Harsh!” Lance covered his heart and flinched like she’d inflicted an actual wound. “Ever think that maybe I’m just a kickass second in command? Huh?”

“You’re right Lance… I have thought that before… remember that time I had that crazy high fever?”

“You are so lucky you are on a vidscreen, Pidgeon!” He threatened, fighting not to laugh at her antics.

“Still not buying the whole work spouse thing,” she insisted. “Shiro! Back me up.”

“Are you nuts?!?!” Lance laughed, “oh my God you have obviously been slacking off with the visiting if you don’t know that Shiro and my sister are an old fucking married couple at work!”

“It’s not that bad,” protested Shiro.

Shaking his head, Lance twisted to stare at Shiro, “how much did you drink tonight?? Without Roni you’d forget to eat lunch! The two of you finish each other’s sentences. You can do that whole ‘conversation without words’ thing. You know how to keep her from getting too caught up in making contingency plans.”

“We don’t need more than five contingency plans,” sighed Shiro, shaking his head, “five is plenty!”

“I know, man,” Lance soothed, shifting so he could pat Shiro on the back. “I know. Five is more than enough.”

“See? She’s his work wife,” Hunk sounded so proud of himself. “It’s a thing. You just don’t want it to be a thing because you’ve got a crappy work sibling instead of the awesome work hubby you had on the Castleship!”

“And whose fault is that?” Pidge demanded, “you know you’ve got a standing job offer with us! All you have to do is say the word and you can be on the cutting edge of tech again…”

“I know, I know… but I really like what I’m doing now.” They fell into one of those conversations that had been repeated so many times that it was basically a script. The mock squabble had the others laughing fondly. Even after years, some things never changed and it was reassuring that Hunk and Pidge’s unique friendship was one of those unchanging things.

To Lance, it almost felt like he could close his eyes and time travel back to the Castle of Lions. Without meaning to, he let his eyes shut, let his mind wander, let his attention drift.

He could so clearly remember all of it. The faint hum of the Castleship, the scent of the Altean cleaners they used, the familiar voices bickering over next steps in some project. All of them piled together on a couch to try to decipher some random Altean entertainment program that Coran or Allura recommended. The faint buzzing in the back of his mind that was his connection to his Lion.

He wondered if the others felt that silence the way he did. Like it was a hole in his head… or a dead pixel on a computer screen. Most of the time not even noticed, until you thought about it, and then it was distractingly absent. He wondered if the bond Shiro had with the Atlas felt the same as a Lion bond did.

Giles had, more than once, expressed his confusion about why the other Paladins were still so important to him. Lance was pretty sure that most people felt the same way. It didn’t match up with the way other people interacted after so much time. Even the ‘bonds of war’ didn’t really explain it.

It was deeper than that.

It was… that no one else could relate to the experience of being bonded to a sentient robot Lion.

It was… that no one else understood what it felt like to be completely surrounded by aliens except for each other.

It was… that no one else knew how surreal it was to step into some kind of epic sci fi movie and have it be your life. Like Alice in Wonderland, but in space... during a very real war.

It was… that no one else knew Allura the way they had. As a complex and real person, not just a figurehead and a symbol for a lost race.

It was… all of those things, but it was also Voltron itself.

Forming Voltron had taken a special kind of trust, and when they did, there was a psychic link. No one else would ever, could ever know him the way that these four people did. There was no way he could explain that to anyone else.

It had been years since the Lions left, but he was sure that they were still linked to some extent. That connection, it lingered, even without the Lions, even without Voltron. The words didn’t exist that would allow him to explain that to anyone else, but he knew he wasn’t the only one that felt it. He could tell just by the way that they all seemed to breathe just a little easier the more of them that were together.

Before he’d taken this job, he’d almost convinced himself that he was remembering things through the forgiving haze of nostalgia. He’d started to believe that the bond between them was no different than the one the MFEs shared. That it was just the result of depending on each other to keep one another alive, of living together on the Castleship, of shared trauma, shared loss.

Once he’d been on the Atlas for a few days, he knew that he’d been wrong about that. He and Shiro had an awareness of each other that Lance recognized. He felt the same knowing with Hunk and with Keith. It had been a long time since he and Pidge had been in the same room, but he was sure it would be the same with her.

Being around them made that little, empty, silent spot that used to be occupied by Blue and later Red, smaller somehow. The more of them that were together, the smaller it was… and the safer Lance felt.

So, he let himself relax and just soak up the rare opportunity to hang out with them outside of their annual memorial dinners on New Altea. He loved those dinners, but they were mostly about remembering her… this was different. Despite Hunk teasing Pidge about how well they worked together back then, this was just hanging out- being themselves as they were now, not how they used to be.

They weren’t scared kids thrown together by fate and surrounded by violence anymore. They were all adults, all on their own paths that diverged more than they intersected, but they remained important to each other. It was nice… better than nice.

He was barely tracking the conversation anymore. Keith was telling some kind of story about his work with the Blades, the others chiming in to make jokes or ask questions. It didn’t matter what exactly was being said. Just hearing their voices, relaxed and happy, was comforting.

He didn’t even open his eyes when he heard Pidge say goodbye, addressing him specifically. He just gave her a little wave and told her he loved her. Keith didn’t even get words when he said he had to head out. Lance just gave him a thumbs up that turned into a half-hearted finger gun. He smiled fondly when he heard Keith laugh.

Back then, he hardly ever laughed.

Lance wasn’t sure if it was because he found his mother, or because the work he was doing made him feel good about himself, or because of his relationship with James, or if it was a combination of things, but Keith laughed more now. His friend was happy and that made Lance happy.

They were all amazing people and they all deserved to be happy.

“... out like a light… I can help…”

“Shhhh… nah, s’okay…”

“... sure?” A large hand settled on his head, smoothing his hair back. It felt nice and he mumbled out a thank-you, the words heavy and sluggish. He heard quiet laughter as he was jostled, an arm holding him steady against a warm, solid chest, the quiet thumping of a heartbeat in his ear.

When he woke, it was the way he was used to. The lights on the Atlas brightened and dimmed to mimic day and night. He’d been living on a farm for most of his life, and that false dawn was usually all he needed to wake up. He had a back-up alarm, just in case, but usually, he shut it off before it had a chance to go off.

So, he didn’t immediately register that anything was different… and then it took another moment to figure out what exactly was… off.

He wasn’t in his bed.

He wasn’t even in his quarters!

Blearily, he lifted his head, only to almost get knocked to the floor when the body he was curled up on shifted and moved. One beefy arm curled around him to pull the fuzzy blanket higher, the motion effectively pinning him. As sleep receded, memories began to fill themselves in.

Shiro’s.

He was at Shiro’s place.

He must have dozed off while they were talking to Pidge.

Okay, that explained why he’d crashed on Shiro’s couch... it didn’t do much to explain why he’d conked out on Shiro!

Poor Shiro, too.

From the look of it, he’d fallen asleep sitting up, his head hanging back over the frame of the couch, and then… kind of… pitched over a little during the night. The way he was twisted and bent couldn’t be comfortable! He was definitely going to have a crick in his neck when he woke up.

On top of that, the poor guy was still in his dress uniform. Unlike Altean fabric, which was some kind of miracle fiber, Lance knew from experience that Garrison uniforms did not make comfortable sleepwear.

Why hadn’t Shiro just woken him? If not to send him off on the very short journey to his own quarters, then at least to let Shiro up?!?

It just didn’t make any sense!

Yeah, time to fix this mess. Thankfully, Lance knew that Shiro wasn’t expected on the bridge today. The Atlas was almost autonomous when they were in open space, Shiro didn’t actually have to be manning the Bridge unless they were in contested territory, travelling near enough to planets to be impacted by their gravitational pull, or otherwise expected to need quick decision making or combat abilities.

Currently, they were hosting so many people who had arrived with security details that the Atlas was at the center of enough smaller, armed ships that they’d reminded Lance of an asteroid field. None of the small splinter groups that didn’t like the changes since Allura’s sacrifice would stand a chance against so many armed ships, with so many unique weapons and disparate tactics. It would be beyond foolish, and those groups had only managed to stick around this long by being very smart in how they engaged the coalition.

The odds that Shiro was going to get called to the bridge unexpectedly were pretty much nil, which was good, because there was no way he’d gotten any decent rest. It took more persistence than he expected to free himself from the blanket and Shiro’s hold on him, but he managed. Shockingly, he felt more rested than he had in ages. Was it because he’d fallen asleep in a room full of Paladins?

He really hoped that it wasn’t because he slept better with someone else in the bed, because… honestly, that wasn’t really something he could see becoming the norm anytime in the foreseeable future. He was focused on work, and he’d long ago figured out that despite his flirty nature, he wasn’t cut out for casual flings. The few he’d had over the years had been pretty disastrous. Surprisingly, it turned out, Lance McClain was made out of one hundred percent pure boyfriend material.

Shiro grumbled in his sleep, patting at his chest where Lance had been using it as a pillow (and hopefully not drooling, that would be bad). Lance figured he was registering the lack of body heat and pulled the blanket a little higher. It seemed to work, the adorably scrunched up face of his friend relaxing back into peaceful slumber.

He’d gotten very familiar with Shiro’s quarters over the last six months. Several times a week he and Veronica had dinner with him here, and it was common for them to just hang out in one another’s quarters during downtime. So, he knew exactly where to find the pain meds he was sure Shiro was going to end up needing, and where the linen closet was. He returned to the couch with a proper pillow, another blanket, a glass of water and the bottle of pills… and stalled out.

Shiro was a big guy, and not exactly the heaviest sleeper in the world. How precisely was he supposed to get the guy properly horizontal without waking him?

It took longer than he cared to admit (because he had to move him like, an inch, then wait for his breathing to settle down again before moving him another inch) but eventually, Lance was able to maneuver Shiro into something that looked like a comfortable sleeping position. Once he was actually lying down, he curled around the pillow, hugging it tight to his chest and snuggled down into the two blankets. It was completely endearing and Lance had to resist the impulse to take a picture, because it wasn’t often that Shiro was cute.

Handsome? Sure.

Commanding? Absolutely.

Distractingly hot? Without a doubt. (Lance worked out with the guy every damn morning and after six months he was well aware that Takashi Shirogane was dangerously sexy when he was pushing himself at the gym, all flushed and sweaty and breathing hard. It was… just… impossible not to notice that.)

But cute? That was rare… and apparently, sleeping Shiro was downright adorable.

He made sure that the water and the pills were easily spotted on the coffee table and manually dimmed the lights so that Shiro could get some proper rest, and then he ducked out of his quarters… and ran smack dab into his sister and Acxa... sneaking out of Shiro’s quarters... in last night’s clothes.

Shit.

It totally looked like this was ‘a walk of shame’ situation.

“Good morning, Lance!” Veronica smiled like the cat that ate the canary, and leaned into her girlfriend’s side, “what did I tell you, mi luna?”

Acxa smiled in that shy way she did whenever Veronica called her that and looked him up and down. Her nostrils flared slightly and she shook her head, “I suspect there is a completely innocent explanation for this, Jewel.”

“Nice to know someone has some faith in me,” Lance muttered.

“He doesn’t smell like sex,” she explained, prompting Veronica to snicker.

“I fell asleep on the couch!” he yelped, for some reason Acxa’s bluntness, and the casual way that Galrans, in general, referred to information gleaned from their acute sense of smell, always managed to fluster him. “Also- I would like to know what, exactly, my sister told you that would relate to this situation!”

“We were just coming to get Shiro for our morning work-out,” Veronica said, completely ignoring everything he just said.

“You weren’t at home,” explained Acxa, “and your sister predicted that you were here.”

Right. Because she knew they’d all headed back here to call Pidge. He kicked himself mentally for thinking that his sister had assumed the worst. “Yeah, I guess I conked out before Keith and Hunk left. Last thing I remember is… Hunk talking about how he was the best work husband, I think? I feel like there was stuff after that… Keith telling a story or something? I dunno, it’s all kinda fuzzy. Shiro’s still asleep, we should let him sleep in for a change.”

“What is a work husband?” Acxa asked as they moved away from Shiro’s door towards Lance’s quarters- presumably so he could grab his workout gear.

“You know how you and Keith interact when you are in the field? He’s your work husband. It’s just… a term to describe someone you work really well with and rely on.”

“Ahhhh,” Acxa nodded, “we have a term for that, too… Vyran’chi. It translates to ‘battle mate’.”

“That sounds way more badass than work wife,” grumbled Veronica as she laced her fingers with Acxa’s.

“You really want to be referred to as Shiro’s ‘battle mate’?” Lance was incredulous.

Veronica made a face, “ugh- actually, you’re right. That… conjures… images… that… nope! Uh-uh, I’m way too fucking gay for that. Work wife is fine. I can live with work wife.”

He chuckled, “pretty sure Shiro is ‘way too fucking gay for that’, too… so I’d say you guys are in agreement there.”

“You have a point. One of the Mirulean delegates was flirting with him last night and I’ve never seen him look so panicked. She wasn’t even being pushy about it, just… kinda coy and obviously inviting.”

He didn’t know why he found that so surprising, Shiro was an extremely attractive man. He probably got flirted with all the time. Still, it left a bad taste in his mouth… especially the way Veronica said he was ‘panicked’ because of it. “When was this?”

“Just before Keith arrived,” she answered easily, “I remember because once I saw him, I knew you were on board and excused myself.”

“Impatient to see me Jewel?” Acxa asked, her voice tender, “that’s so sweet.”

“Hold up- Shiro was quote ‘panicked’ and you just abandoned him to deal with this chick because you realised your girlfriend was on board the Atlas?” He was irritated now, Veronica was supposed to be Shiro’s friend dammit! Friends didn’t bail on friends at times like that!

“Abandoned is a bit harsh, Lance,” she tsked, “Shiro’s a grown man, he can deal with some light flirting from someone he’s not interested in. Besides, you know Keith made a beeline to him, so he was only alone for like two minutes.”

“Do I?” He demanded, “do I know that? Are you forgetting that James was at the party, too? Keith and Shiro are close, but not like they used to be.” They reached his quarters and he triggered the door, practically stomping into his living room, the two women following behind him. “I can’t believe you! Even if Keith was for sure headed over to say hi to Shiro and not looking for James first, you knew he was uncomfortable and you could have waited the ‘two minutes’ for Keith to get there before you vanished.”

“Are you… seriously mad about this?”

“I’m not mad!” He snapped, “I’m… annoyed… on behalf of my friend.”

“You seem a lot more angry than annoyed,” Acxa interjected mildly, “do you think Shiro is incapable of discouraging an unwanted suitor?”

“Incapa- No! Of course not!” He took a breath, trying to keep from flying off the handle, “he just shouldn’t have to... and I don’t get why you don’t see that! He never would have done that to you, Veronica.”

“Okay, okay,” Veronica held her hands out, like she was trying to herd him or something. “You’re right. He never would have left me in that situation. I’ll talk to him. Today. Okay? I’ll apologize.”

“Good!” He closed his eyes, waiting for his breathing to settle. She had said she’d apologize, so he should start calming down now… right? He wasn’t though. His hackles were up and he was still irritated, although it wasn’t as bad as it had been. After a moment, he opened them again, “I really need to work-out. Gimme a minute to change my clothes and brush my teeth. I’ll shower after.”

Hunk, Shay, and Romelle were only on board for two days before they had to leave. Not nearly enough time as far as Lance was concerned, but he knew how busy they were. In the early days of the coalition, Hunk had been assigned to the Atlas, but Lance had been on the farm back then, dealing with his grief.

Now, Hunk’s particular brand of diplomacy had its own ship, with its own roster of high ranking coalition members, diplomats, and emissaries. It was entirely possible that after his tour with the Atlas, Lance might be assigned to the Bahamut and be working with them, the way he was working with Shiro and Veronica.

It was a good thing that the coalition had grown so much that they needed more than one ship to do this work. Lance found himself reciting that reminder often. He missed his friends, but they were doing good, important work… and really, they were never more than a vid-call away.

Keith and Acxa, and along with them, Ezor and Zethrid, on the other hand, stuck around for a few weeks. Their presence meant major shifts in Lance’s routine. He wasn’t complaining, he liked having Keith around, and he liked seeing Veronica so happy… he even liked Acxa, Ezor, and Zethrid. Mostly. It had been harder to trust Ezor and Zethrid than it was to trust Acxa, and he was a few years behind the others in terms of working with them. But, he got there eventually.

Veronica bowed out of their poker nights in favor of spending time with her girlfriend. Completely understandable, and Keith slipped into her spot effortlessly, since Griffin had become one of the regulars. It did mean that Lance lost more often, because Keith’s poker face was… un-fucking-real… but that was okay. He could deal with losing some money for the sake of a fun evening with friends.

It also meant more evenings of just him and Shiro hanging out, because it really felt like everyone else they knew had paired off. Giles had started dating Ina… which really just messed with Lance’s head, because… some couples just didn’t make sense to him, and that was one of them. But, hey, they seemed happy enough, so more power to them.

Again, it’s not like he was complaining about it. Shiro was awesome to hang out with! They played pool in the recreation room, or watched movies, or dared each other to try unfamiliar dishes from the alien menus- even discovering a few new favorites in the process. They were more likely to find activities in the common areas of the ship when it was just the two of them than when Veronica was around. Other people even commented on it, and on how nice it was to see the Captain taking a break for a change.

So, yeah, not complaining. It was more that he’d gotten used to one routine and then just as he’d settled into a new one, they were seeing them off again. Veronica was stone-faced and professional as she helped load luggage and supplies onto the smaller ship. Lance suspected she’d be showing up at his quarters with a couple of bottles of wine that night, though. She never showed any sign of it in public, but he knew it bothered her that Acxa’s work meant seeking out the areas of contention and providing support and protection for coalition settlements that were at risk from Zarkon Loyalists. It was hard to send a loved one into danger.

He got that.

Hell, Keith and his team were just his friends and he hated doing it.

Shiro was going to be a wreck.

He made a mental note to invite Shiro over ‘as moral support for Veronica’. (Because there was no way Shiro would admit that he needed the support just as much.) Keith was the closest thing Shiro had to family. It didn’t matter how grown-up and capable Keith was, Shiro was going to worry about him.

He wondered how many times they’d all had to do this for the packing of that ship to have taken on this level of coordination. The way they passed cargo back and forth and wove around each looked like it had been choreographed. He’d quickly figured out that his help was more of a hindrance than anything else. A discordant note in an otherwise expertly crafted piece of music.

So he hung back and he watched them work. Within a few minutes of him finding a good spot to lean, Kosmo joined him. He’d been idly chatting at Keith’s space wolf ever since. Lance had always been someone who talked to animals. He’d never really thought much of it. He’d grown up on a farm and it felt weird to him to be silent as he worked with the animals, so he’d gotten into the habit of thinking out loud, or carrying on one-sided conversations with them when he was around animals.

Kosmo was different though. He seemed eerily aware of what was being said around him. Lance suspected that he was far more aware and intelligent than most people gave him credit for being. But then, for all Lance knew, the space wolf couldn’t understand a word of spoken language but was psychic or something. After meeting mermaids and ending up in a weird game show that time, he was pretty much open to anything being possible.

“I know I don’t have to tell you to protect them,” he said softly, scratching Kosmo behind the ear. The massive wolf crowded closer, letting out a little huff and craning up into Lance’s hand. Grinning at him, Lance made sure no one was looking and dug out the bacon from breakfast that he’d saved for Kosmo, offering it up. “But, if you keep’em safe there’s more of that waiting for you next time I see you. Maybe even a steak if Keith is his usual reckless self.”

Although, to be fair, either Acxa, Ezor, and Zethrid’s healthy sense of self-preservation had rubbed off on the hothead, or being with James had done him some good. Lance couldn’t remember the last time he’d heard a new story of Keith being dangerously heroic.

Shit.

He was going to have to invite Griffin over that evening, too.

Kosmo lapped the last remnants of bacon grease off his palm, those spooky eyes of his peering up at Lance with uncanny intelligence. “Yeah, yeah… fine. I’ll keep an eye on Boy Band, too. For you. You better appreciate this. He’s not exactly my favorite person in the universe. Too… rulesy. That’s why he’s not here right now. You know that, right?”

His grumbling was mostly just tradition. A hold over from flight class days. Over the years, James had gotten less… prissy. Having actual responsibility had been good for him… and yes, there was that whole thing where James had tried to disobey orders to help Veronica before Voltron had gotten to Earth. He wasn’t so petty that he didn’t appreciate that. To be perfectly honest, he didn’t really have any issue with the guy currently. He’d bitch and trash talk and shit, but it didn’t have any real teeth.

Yeah.

He definitely was going to be hosting sad poker with wine tonight.

Fuck.

The good-byes took less time than he expected. One minute he saw Keith slap the side of his ship like it was a sale model on a used car lot, and it seemed like the next, he was getting one of those hand-clasp-back-slap-hugs that Keith had one hundred percent picked up from Shiro at some point. “I’d feel better if I was the one on your six,” he’d said, grinning, “but… you know… your little squad of lesbians are pretty decent, too.”

Keith laughed, shaking his head, “don’t let them hear you call them that! As far as they’re concerned, I’m the tag-along!”

“Well, we both know they are just putting up with you because no Keith means no Kosmo.”

He rolled his eyes, his smile faltering a little. “Hey, do me a favor-”

“You don’t even have to ask. I’m already planning poker night. I got this.” He gave a small, confident smile.

Keith studied his face for a minute then nodded, “thanks. This shouldn’t take long. We’ll secure the settlement and meet up with you soon.”

He gave Kosmo one last ear scratch for good measure, and then it was time to clear the hangar. Much like on the day of his arrival, Ensign Kym was waiting for him, this time with a datapad full of his commitments for the day. He nodded his good-byes to Shiro and Veronica while Ensign Kym was giving him a rundown of the various messages he’d missed while he’d been seeing the others off.

The rest of the morning was a blur of returned messages, and trying to figure out appropriate gifts to send to the Kythran Ambassador, whose mate had just laid a clutch of eggs. Gift giving was a mine-field of potential faux pas and slights. Just one of the unexpected challenges of the job.

He ended up deciding to take lunch in his quarters and reach out to Coran for suggestions… because he was stumped. Halfway through the vid-call, the signal dropped. He’d been about to check in with Veronica to see if there was an issue when the alarms started.

He slammed his hand down on the com-link built into his coffee table so fast it stung. “Bridge! Status update?”

“Ambassador McClain! We’re getting reports of fighting on the surface with orbital support. We are sending troop and MFE support now.”

Fighting on the surface with orbital support… Keith had landed smack dab in the middle of that mess… or a trap. Fuck!

Looked like that small group of Zarkon Loyalists were more of a threat than the intel led them to believe.

“Do we have a status update from the…” Shit. What was the actual name of Keith’s ship? Something Galran… the… uh… Zemdi? No! It sounded like sardine! “From the Zar’dyn?”

“Nothing since the initial mayday, Mr. Ambassador.”

He was sure he said something to end the conversation, because otherwise, the com-link would still be glowing and it wasn’t. He had no memory of it, but he knew it had to happen.

Nothing since the initial mayday…

That didn’t automatically mean anything bad. They were in the middle of a firefight. Updates to the Atlas would be low priority unless things went really well, or really badly.

Keith was solid in a fight. He’d been doing this for a long time.

Acxa had been doing it even longer.

Zethrid was formidable in her own right, and when she had Ezor with her they were even better.

Kosmo was with them. If things went bad, he’d get them out of there.

The Atlas was sending reinforcements. They had help on the way.

They were strong fighters and there was help on the way.

Lance bounced on the balls of his feet. Some things never changed. The bustle and rush of people clamoring to get into their combat gear, get their weapons, make it to the troop deployment shuttles was all comfortingly familiar. What wasn’t familiar was the lack of Red’s sparking presence in the back of his mind pushing him to hurryhurryhurry, the absence of his bayard hanging at his hip or ready in his hand. Standing there felt wrong.

Doing nothing felt… wrong.

He chewed his lip, glancing at the door. He’d kept up his training. His sniper scores were still top level. His hand to hand combat was… probably better than it had been when he’d been flying Blue, to be honest. He was in shape, he had the skills, and he had combat experience. Technically, Ambassador was a military rank on New Altea… even though he was recorded in the Atlas’ logs as a non-combatant.

Technically…

He was moving before he was even aware of it, yanking open the emergency locker at the foot of his bed and hauling on a depressurization suit. It wasn’t Paladin armor, but it was rated for both open space and planetary atmospheres, it contained a rudimentary biomed system, and it was at least somewhat armored. It would do for a sniper.

He was out the door in record time.

He knew he wouldn’t be able to hop in with the troops, but he’d flown his own ship from New Altea to rendezvous with the Atlas… and stowed safely within it were firearms that would work just fine for his purposes. Veering away from the crowd, he detoured through the hydroponics wing and skidded to a halt at the guest hanger doors.

It had only been a few hours since he’d been here, feeding Kosmo bacon and planning sad poker for that evening.

Punching his access code into the panel, he grinned as the doors slid open.

He was powering up his ship when his radio crackled to life. “Lance!”

“Greetings Captain Shirogane, please prepare for my launch in… mmmm looks like ten ticks.” He triggered the security harness, settling his weight back into the seat. His skin tingled, heart racing in his chest.

“Lance! Get out of there!”

“Ambassador McClain, please,” he answered, feeling the little shake that told him he’d lifted off the floor of the hangar. “Launching in four, three…”

“Quiznak!” The particle barrier flickered out of sight and he surged forward.

“You are a non-combatant, McClain,” Shiro growled in his ear, fury competing with panic in his voice. “Get back here! That’s an order!”

Two Galra fighters broke out of orbit and he swerved, blasting off five shots in quick succession as his little ship rolled through space. "Yeah, well, I dunno what to tell you Shiro, other than you are aren't my commanding officer and I just took out two of those little Galra firebugs, so I'm pretty obviously a combatant and there's gotta be some kind of typo in the official records."

“I cannot believe you, Lance!”

“Believe it… I can help, so I’m going to help. I’ve got this. I’m going to find a nice high perch and provide cover for our people. I’ll stay out of the fray, I promise, but I’m not coming back on board the Atlas!” He adjusted his trajectory, “shit! Shiro, you’ve got incoming… “

“I see them! On it,” the anger had bled out of his voice, replaced with calm resolve. “This conversation isn’t over, Lance… be careful out there.”

“Will do! I look forward to you yelling at me when I get back- it’ll be just like old times!”

“Lance!” This time it was his sister on the line and the brittle tone of her voice told him more than anything else. He could tell that she was trying her damnedest to sound calm and firm… and it wasn’t working. Things were bad on the surface. She was scared. His fearless big sister was scared. It felt so wrong. “What do you think you are doing?”

“I’m helping,” he said evenly, veering out of friendly fire range. There were so many more MFEs than he was used to, but he knew their flight patterns, so he could at least stay out of their way. “I’m going to the surface. I’ll find them, and I’ll cover them. It’s what I do best. Okay? Veronica? I got this… I’ll make sure they come home.”

"Lance Manuel Andres Ignacio Fergus McClain! You get back on this ship right now!”

“Oof… Even the Scottish middle name? You must be pissed!” He pulled up his nav systems, “send me their last known coordinates. I’ll be safer if I’m not searching blind. Veronica, they’re family. You can’t go, so I am.”

“I swear to God if you make me tell Mami that you died, I’ll resurrect you just to kill you myself. Got it?”

“Copy that,” he quipped, smiling as his nav screen lit up, a little purple light blinking on the surface. Altean lettering he could barely read scrolled over the screen and then there was a small jolt as the computers calculated the safest trajectory for him to breach the atmosphere.

The Galra ships were the same ones he used to fight in his Lions. Small and agile, individually they didn’t pose a major threat to a ship like the Atlas… or even to the MFEs. They always reminded Lance of wasps. One was a nuisance. Its sting hurt but for most people a wasp sting wasn’t much to worry about. The danger came when you got swarmed. Get enough wasps in one spot, all working to do damage and suddenly that nuisance became a palpable and lethal threat.

So, the real issue with the Galra ships came from their numbers. There had been times where it felt like fighting a hydra- cut off one head only to have three more sprout in its place. He had no idea how the coalition intel could have missed a fleet of this size, but that was a puzzle for other people to solve. Currently, Lance needed to focus on the swarm of Galra ships, and the dozen or so coalition ships that were zipping around him, weapons blazing.

Friendly fire was a very real thing.

His own ship was more modern than the little Galra ships, and it had weapons but it wasn’t designed to be a fighter and he’d never even run combat sims with its specs. The best thing he could do was exactly what he’d told Veronica and Shiro he was going to do- get to the surface, find their people, and lay down cover. He just needed to get through this chaos first.

It was the most challenging piloting he’d ever done, but he managed to clear the fighting and enter the atmosphere at a safe trajectory. His ship shuddered and rattled around him, the computer-guided controls needing a lot of human support to keep it from tipping in one direction or the other. The yoke fought his grip, bucking against him with a force that surprised him. It took a lot more strength than he anticipated, but he managed.

Once the atmosphere reached a specific density, the ship switched flight mechanisms. There was a jolt as the propulsion thrusters shut down and the afterburning turbofans kicked in. The rattling stopped and the yoke eased in his hands- the bucking replaced by a soft vibration that reminded him of an outboard motor on a boat.

According to his nav systems, the Zar’dyn was just inside the perimeter of the northernmost settlement, which was in a valley. Most of the newer settlements followed a pretty specific initial layout, and given what they’d thought the situation was, Lance figured that they were near the supplies depot and security hub.

Prime targets.

Ordinarily, that wouldn’t be much of a concern, but from the look of the readings he was getting, the particle barrier had been compromised somehow because there was no trace of it.

“Hailing the Zar’dyn.” No harm in at least trying to get them on comms. “Repeat. This is the Wimbledon hailing the Zar’dyn. Do you read?”

Nothing.

Shit.

“Keith! Acxa! This is Lance- can you hear me?”

Still nothing.

Motherfucking quiznak!

Okay… He took a breath. It wasn’t automatically bad it just meant that they either couldn’t hear the comms, or they couldn’t answer. Like, if they were not on the ship.

So, the next step was… He racked his brain for the protocol. The next step was to see if he could ping the Marmora suits themselves! All coalition ships had the ability to send a signal to Marmora suits within a set range with a short message and an ID code. He wouldn’t get any information back unless they chose to respond. It reminded him a little of those old pager things people used on Earth before mobile phones were a thing. It only took a few seconds to send the ping using the preset message options.

<Cover incoming. Status?>

He was almost there. Chewing on his lip he sent up a silent prayer that he wasn’t too late. God, if he was too late…

<Pinned down. Ship grounded. No crew injuries. Civilian status unknown.>

<Proceed w/caution Sharpshooter>

Keith. That was Keith testing to make sure it was really him flying the Wimbledon. He knew exactly how to respond.

<Hang tight Samurai>

Coordinates followed, two sets. The first was their location, and the second was where Keith wanted Lance to target. Inside the atmosphere like this, he was limited to projectiles only. When it came to a ship’s weaponry, energy based firepower did bad things everywhere except open space. So, he had a finite supply of ammunition, but he could definitely do some damage.

He pulled up the targeting interface and shook the tension out of his arms, one at a time. He wove through the mountains that bracketed the settlement. Once he got a visual on the situation he cringed. They’d seriously underestimated the size of the ‘splinter group’ that had been targeting this settlement! He was going to need back-up, so he toggled his com-link, “hailing the Atlas. This is the Wimbledon hailing the Atlas.”

“This is the Atlas. We hear you, Wimbledon.” The voice was familiar, but he didn’t know it well enough to recognize it with his attention split like this. “What is your status?”

“The crew of the Zar’dyn are unhurt. Particle barrier is down. I need support.”

He cleared the mountain and veered away from the vulnerable settlement, toward the wall of Galra ground transports that were closing in on them. It looked like something out of a post-apocalyptic movie. The transports were old and obviously patched and pieced together from salvage… but there were a lot of them.

“Ground troop drop ships are en route to your location.”

“Awesome, but if you could spare an MFE or two, that would be great. I don’t have enough ordnance to take out all these vehicles.”

He passed directly over them, laying down a strafe of heavy fire. It was clear that they didn’t expect in-atmosphere aerial support, because they hadn’t prepared for projectiles. The large caliber rounds tore through the patchwork vehicles easily. Several of them just flat out blew up, and quite a few more were smoking or in flames.

“We’ve got two MFEs on the way, Lance. Wait for the support!” That had been Veronica.

“I’ve got another pass… maybe two… then I’m going to land by the radio tower on the eastern cliff and start dealing with the smaller targets.” He silenced his comms, not needing to hear Veronica call him impossible and not wanting her to hear the gunfire. Then he banked hard, readying himself with a slow, steady breath, and doubled back.

This was so different from fighting in a Lion. He couldn’t say he was a fan, but he was very glad that he’d made the decision to come. Every second counted in situations like this and without him relaying the information to the Atlas, there was no telling how long the settlement would have been left without protection… How long their friends would have been sitting ducks. The four of them were some of the most badass fighters he’d ever encountered, but… he refused to think about what might have happened here without him going a bit rogue.

This time around the Galra were expecting the spray of bullets, many of them shooting at him with their handheld blasters. He took some damage, but it seemed to be mostly superficial. Ships designed to carry ‘high value personnel’ like Ambassadors tended to be pretty well protected, and he was just barely in range for handheld weapons.

He did a fair to middling amount of damage, more vehicles seemed to be out of commission, and the advancing line had halted, now scrambling to salvage what they could and regroup.

He’d bought them some much needed time and he was low on ammunition, so he decided not to do a third pass. If he needed to bug out before the fighting died down, he was going to need some kind of firepower until he got out of range.

Tapping his screens, he toggled his comms again. “Heading to make my nest. Sending you the exact coordinates. Tell your guys to try not to shoot me.”

“Copy that, Ambassador McClain. Go be great… and Lance? Stay safe out there.” That was Shiro. Veronica must be fit to be tied if Shiro had taken over the conversation.

“I’ll do my best, Captain Shirogane.”

It didn’t take him long to land his ship, setting it down on the same ledge that housed the radio tower that allowed the settlement below to get signals past the inhibiting mountain range with enough strength to communicate off-planet.

His initial plan had been to set up on the ground, but the layout of the settlement was such that the roof of the warehouse blocked his shots at oncoming Galra except at the very limits of his range. His bayard probably would have unlocked some kind of new form in this situation, but he didn’t have his bayard. He had an Altean sniper rifle, and a close quarters weapon designed for suppression fire.

This place was dry.

Still.

It reminded him of the desert surrounding the Garrison- except that the stone and the dust were a dull green color shot through with bursts of iridescent pinks and blues. The sun was bright and high in the sky, which was good for targeting because it meant fewer shadows and that he wasn’t trying to shoot into the light. Unfortunately, because of the warehouse, he needed a higher vantage point, which left him with three options.

Option one- find a higher cliff.

That would take too long and mean having to send updated coordinates and hope that the MFEs that were en route got the new info before taking him out. So, no.

Option two- climb the radio tower and rig up some kind of sniper’s nest in the scaffolding.

Again, time consuming. Plus there was the exertion of climbing in the heat, and the challenge of finding a workable position. Not ideal.

Option three- climb on top of his ship.

It wouldn’t give him a huge change in his targeting angle, but it might be enough to make it workable. It was faster, but there was no chance of shade and if the Galra had any weapons that could reach him, he’d be lying on top of their first target.

Sighing, he shouldered the strapping of the weapons and grabbed the upper lip of the frame of the hatch. He hoisted himself up with a grunt, scrabbling up onto the roof of the Wimbledon.

Now that he was closer, he tried hailing Keith again, this time using the comms built into the depressurization suit, but with no success.

Shit.

Okay. Okay. Things would be easier if he could talk to them, but to do his job, he didn’t need to. He just needed to hang tight and pick off anything that got too close to the settlement… and try not to think too much about the fact that these were people in his crosshairs and not droids. God, he never thought he’d miss the seemingly endless supply of Galra droids in a fight, but here he was.

“Atlas I’m in position. I have good visibility and am ready to do my thing. Tell those MFEs not to dawdle or they might miss the party.”

“I’ll let them know. Switching to a private line,” Shiro’s voice was clipped. Lance had heard Shiro mid-firefight enough to recognize the tone, the slightly different cadence to his words. There was a little click in his ear that told him that his words were not being broadcast to the entire bridge crew anymore. “Once they get there, you haul ass back to Atlas, Lance. You are a high ranking non-combatant asset. Do you have any idea how bad it would be for you to end up captured by Zarkon Loyalists?”

“Pffft… I haven’t been captured by anyone in years, relax!” He adjusted the scope on his rifle. A lot of sniper work was just… waiting. It didn’t seem like it would be a good fit for someone with as much energy as him, but complacency was a serious risk and his endless curiosity and racing thoughts seemed to help him stay alert. “I mean, I barely even remember what handcuffs feel like.”

“Lannnce,” Shiro groaned. Lance grinned. For the first time since he’d hit the atmosphere, this felt familiar. Good.

He had his eyes focused through a scope watching an alien landscape. His finger on the trigger of a sniper rifle. Providing cover for Keith, who’d ended up in some kind of impossible predicament… and Shiro was exasperated with him over comms. It was almost like old times.

Almost.

That little silent spot in his mind seemed bigger than ever. He missed Red… missed a lot… but that was okay. His life was different now, but it was good. It was really good.

“What? Facts are facts. I spent a really unfair amount of time in handcuffs for somebody who hadn’t filled out like a stack of consent forms at a really exclusive club. Unfair!”

The Galra had regrouped and the vehicles that were still functional were on the move. They were definitely former military. Lance could tell by the tight cohesion of the advance. Most of the vehicles were moving at the exact same rate, no one breaking out ahead of anyone else and making a target of themselves, no one burning fuel at a faster pace than their neighbors. A cloud of shimmery green dust billowed behind them, giving Lance a plethora of information about how the air was moving down there.

He didn’t even really think about the calculations anymore. Time, practice, and the specific way his brain was wired combined so that he saw the dust plume, saw that one transport pull ahead just slightly and he adjusted automatically.

Shiro was grumbling about not needing that level of information about Lance’s life, his voice familiar and comforting in Lance’s ear, even though Lance was only half-listening. He took a breath, held it for a beat, and squeezed the trigger.

Immediately, that transport veered off course, drifting into the path of its neighbor and losing momentum. The neighbor managed to avoid hitting it, but had to slow down and wait for the other vehicles to pull ahead before it could get moving again. That nice, tidy, precise line was already faltering.

Perfect.

“Hey now- I never said I have been to any of those clubs- just that they exist… and they involve paperwork,” he pointed out playfully. “There are fifteen transports closing in on the settlement. No idea how many ground troops each one is carrying.” He changed targets, choosing one toward the other end of his range.

Breathe.

Squeeze.

“Fourteen.” He shifted slightly, falling into a steady rhythm.

Shift.

Focus.

Breathe.

Squeeze.

Repeat.

Repeat.

Repeat.

“Nine. So, Shiro… no rush or anything, but these guys are getting pretty damn close. Any ETA on those MFEs?”

“Soon… they are trying to shake a couple of firebugs.” Shiro sounded strained, “there are so many of them. Where’d they all come from?”

“Yeah… someone really dropped the ball with recon. Don’t worry. I got this. You’ve got your hands full from the sound of it.”

“Don’t worry. I got this.” Shiro echoed, and Lance felt his gut drop. There were lots of ways that he and Shiro were not alike. But Lance knew him well enough to know that they were both trying to reassure themselves more than each other.

Fuck.

This was a mess.

“Seven. Listen, you gotta update those records… because that non-combatant thing? Definitely a typo. I mean… look at me, down here, combating left and right!” He joked, because it was better than worrying. Worry made you freeze.

Freezing would be bad for him.

Worse for Shiro.

So… jokes.

“I don’t have a visual on you, so I’m going to have to take you at your word,” Shiro answered, sounding a little more at ease.

“It’s a good thing you trust me then, right?”

“Yeah,” Shiro laughed softly. “Yeah, I trust you, Lance.”

“Smart man,” he grinned. The vehicles were getting closer to the blind spot behind the warehouse and making it hard to target them, so he had to change tactics. “Five transports made it through. I’m working on the peop- the occupants from the ones I stopped now.”

“Fifteen down to five is great work. Our people are in good hands.” Sometimes, Shiro was a fucking blessing. Lance knew he phrased it that way on purpose. He’d caught Lance’s self-correct and reminded him why he was doing this.

He didn’t like hurting people, but his targets were the ones that chose to attack a civilian settlement, and his friends were down there. He swapped out his scope for one with thermal sensors that helped him see through the dust and got back to work.

This was harder… in a few ways… and he went quiet, needing all his focus. Shiro went… well not quiet really, because he was still running the Atlas and issuing orders just as he had the whole time they’d been interacting, but Lance was already used to tuning those out, to paying attention to only the bits directed at him, able to tell the difference through years of experience. Still, hearing his voice did a lot to settle his nerves. Shiro had always had that effect on him- even when they were arguing.

He had no idea how long it had been (although, he knew it had been thirty-five shots, thanks to his cursed habit of counting), but he nearly cried with relief when he heard the distinctive sound of the MFEs nearby.

Two of the newer models screeched into view, already strafing the land beyond the settlement. Lance breathed a sigh of relief, his job wasn’t done, by any stretch of the imagination, but with proper aerial support the number of ground troops left to him and whatever fighting force there was on the ground would be cut back significantly.

“My dates arrived,” he said on a relieved laugh, “somehow I ended up with two. I don’t know how I’m going to keep them apart for the whole dance! Oh, me and my wacky shenanigans!”

“Typical Lance hijinks,” Shiro replied, “when are you gonna learn?”

Another scope swap and he scooted forward, wanting a better view of the gaps between the buildings. Some tiny, detached part of his brain made him think of the video games he’d played as a kid. High vantage point, urban-esque alien setting, high tech HUD feeding him information as he watched for targets.

“See? This is why I need a catchphrase! You have a catchphrase!”

“I don’t have a catchphrase!”

“Go be great, Shiro. Your catchphrase is ‘go be great’.”

He’d had so much fun playing those games, but this was real life and while he felt good about his skills, and there was certainly an adrenaline hit from being in combat… fun was one of the last words he’d choose to describe what he was feeling.

All too quickly, his skills were put to use. The first couple of Galra were well spaced and moving slowly. He had the time to get good, clean shots and they dropped fast. After that...

“Razzle dazzle,” Shiro said in his ear.

“What?” He’d had to roll up onto his side, his weight on his elbow and one knee crooked up to brace him and keep him steady as he twisted and pivoted to take shot after shot after shot. His aim was damn good and he had excellent equipment, but he was still just a human. As much as he hated that he had to take killshots, it bothered him more when they weren’t clean.

Suffering was not something he ever wanted to cause.

“Your catchphrase. It’s Razzle Dazzle,” explained Shiro. “Remember?”

“Oh,” he smiled, he’d forgotten all about that, “yeah. Yeah, I remem- shit!!” The noise of the MFEs laying down fire had completely masked the sound of an incoming ship. “We’ve got a firebug!”

One of the MFEs peeled away, climbing to a higher altitude as it banked toward the Galra ship. The fast paced maneuvers would have been impressive if they weren’t so damn deadly. Lance couldn’t afford to pull too much of his attention away from his own task, but it seemed like the MFE was succeeding in pulling the firebug away from the settlement.

“Status, McClain,” barked Shiro, making him realize he’d gone quiet.

“One of the MFEs is engaging. The other is still providing support. No sign of Keith and the others. Still more Galra incoming… what the fuck is so important about this settlement? How are there so many of them?”

“We’ll find out. We’ll get to the bottom of this! Expect more incoming support. Personnel transports are finally able to get through.”

“It’s about time, they nearly missed the whole dance. All the spiked punch is goooo- I have eyes on Keith! He’s okay… He’s… looks like he’s trying to get some kids to his ship…”

Where was Acxa… she had to be close by… where… where… where..

“The Zar’dyn is armored,” Shiro sighed, “safest place for them…”

There! Acxa, Zethrid and Ezor were ahead of Keith, clearing a path. Kosmo was harder to track. He kept popping in and out, herding kids that had started to fall behind and then zapping out of sight- presumably to deal with some kind of threat.

“I see the others. Visual confirmation all still in fighting shape.” His focus shifted, instead of trying to keep the Galra out of the settlement, in general, now he was concentrating on making sure none of them got anywhere near the little rescue mission on the ground.

Children were not dying on his watch!

No fucking way.

One by one he picked off potential threats. Shiro had gone so quiet in his ear that Lance was pretty sure he’d muted his end of the comms. He ignored the firefight happening above his head, not able to afford the distraction.

From where he was, the ship looked infuriatingly close to Keith and the kids, and it seemed like they were moving at a snail’s pace, but that was an illusion. Seeing things through a scope could distort distances in weird ways… and scared children weren’t as fast as he wished they were.

The most dangerous part would be when they had to run across the landing field to the ship. There was no cover at all and they were literally running toward the enemy.

It was so loud.

Surface fighting was so loud compared to fighting in space.

One of the personnel transports passed overhead, so close that Lance could feel the change in the air from their exhausts. They dodged three shots from the Galra ship, the blasts hitting the mountainside and sending rock and gravel skittering down. He smiled as they set down in his peripheral vision. The support was long overdue.

His job was almost done.

There was a horrible groaning noise behind him, somehow both low-pitched enough that he could feel the rumble of it shake through his ship and shrill enough that it made him wince. The sound itself was so painful that it took him a second to register when that blinding pain seemed to jump from his head to his leg.

Everything else fell away.

The only thing he could hear was the rushing of his own blood through his body...

... whoosh… whoosh… whoosh… whoosh...

… and the screaming, shrieking, blindingly bright pain.

His breath came in shallow, gulping gasps that tasted oddly like mint and antiseptic.

The pain was… everything.

… and then… it just… faded.

Every loud pulse in his ear seemed to push it back further, calm flooding into the gap it left behind.

He became aware of the world around him again like it was a computer image building itself in layers.

The rifle he’d dropped lying beside him.

The MFEs overhead.

The smoking debris of the Galra ship, scattered and smoldering in the dull green expanse beyond the settlement.

”Lance!” Oh… Shiro sounded freaked out.

“M’here,” he said. His lips felt odd, and he had a weird taste in his mouth.

“Are you alright? What was that noise?”

“Oh! Umm… Yeah! Yeah. I’m… fine.” It was true. He felt… alright. There was a weight across his back that seemed kind of wrong and his helmet was blinking some kind of message on his HUD… but the pain was gone and he felt… not great… but fine.

So, what was that noise?

He looked around… Oh.

Ohhh…

“I’m fine. I’m just… kinda… pinned?” He kept his voice calm, which was shockingly easy to do, really. “The radio tower… it fell on my ship. I’m pinned.”

“Come again?” Shiro sounded almost panicked. That was… not good.

“I’m fine. But the radio tower… it… uh… it fell over and pinned me to my ship.”

“I’m sending someone to help.” Yeah, Shiro still sounded pretty freaked out.

“No! It’s fine. Really. It’s not that bad. Once everyone else is dealt with, you can send someone to me.” He picked his rifle back up and wiped the back of his hand across the faceshield of his suit, clearing his vision. “Keith needs me to cover him and those kids.”

“You’re not hurt?”

“Shiro, I promise, I’m not in any pain. I’m just kind of stuck here.”

“Fine. Just… keep me updated on the situation.”

“Copy that, Captain Shirogane,” he teased. It took a minute for him to switch gears again and get back to work.

It took several more for him to realize that it should have taken longer.

That’s when he remembered the message on the HUD and spared a moment to read it.

<<Medical alert- multiple serious injuries detected. Body temperature readings below normal. Blood pressure readings below normal. Analgesic and panic suppression administered. Get immediate medical attention.>>

He should probably say something about that… and he would. As soon as Keith and those kids were either safe in the Zar’dyn, or the coalition support took over what he was doing.

The eerie calm he was feeling helped. It helped him stay focused and ignore the little niggling voice in the back of his head that told him to be scared, tried to make him feel bad about shooting Galra people instead of Galra droids. It kept his hands steady and his vision clear, even when a strange coolness started to spread through him.

“They are almost to the ship,” he said, as much to himself as to Shiro, “visual confirmation that they are all still in fighting shape. Visual confirmation of nine children- no visible injuries.”

“Good work. I’m sending people to you.”

“No! Not yet! The Zar’dyn isn’t big enough for that many- the kids… they need to be on the transport.”

“We are pulling you out of there, McClain. That’s an order!”

“You only outrank me when I am on the ship Shiro. I’m not, so you don’t. Get the kids safe first.” Lance giggled, “I don’t even have a curfew.”

“What?”

“I don’t have a curfew… cuz… the jokes about the party and the dance and dates and stuff? Kids have curfews. I don’t have a curfew.” It was funny. Shiro would get it in a minute.

His helmet bleated at him. Three quick, sharp bursts of sound and then there was a minty mist spraying into his mouth and nose.

<<Medical alert- multiple serious injuries detected. Analgesic and panic suppression administered. Get immediate medical attention.>>

“Lance! That was your biomed system! What’s going on?”

“M’face z’numb…”

Shiro started yelling at him, but it all kind of blurred together and felt far, far away.

He braced his rifle against his shoulder and forced himself to focus… to keep the kids and his friends… safe… They were… so close…