Work Text:
Earth was exactly the way it had been when they’d left. Lance wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting. Perhaps an invaded and subjugated planet, one overrun with aliens. Some part of him had been hoping for a sort of welcoming party, like Voltron received on so many planets—he would never turn a good feast and party, not to mention all the hot alien chicks. Or guys. Most of the time, the aliens they rescued didn’t even have a binary gender system, but hey—Lance wasn’t complaining.
All that was to say that although Lance had been expecting some grand reception home, they received only an average-sized envoy of soldiers twenty minutes after they landed Red and Green in the desert near the Garrison. The scenery was no less beautiful than when Lance had first seen it, now three years ago. The jagged mountains were bright orange in the light of the slowly setting sun, and the golden sand was still warm from the oppressive daytime air, which, as they stepped out of the lions, was slowly fading, leaving a brisk coolness in its place.
There was a familiar sizzling sound as the lions’ particle shields went up behind them.
They had all elected to leave their armour in the lions, not wanting to present themselves as a threat, but as Lance peeked at the others, he noticed their wary looks and Pidge’s particularly regretful face as the soldiers surrounded them, aiming their guns. She had been the only one to argue for wearing the armour but had been overruled. Lance was pretty sure they were all regretting brushing off her idea.
Lance stepped forward, quickly, so that when Keith’s hand shot out to stop him, he was already out of range. All the soldiers’ guns swung towards him and he froze.
“Lance,” Keith hissed at him, but quieted as a few guns pointed in his direction at the outburst.
“Shut it, Keithy,” Lance whispered back. “I’ve got this.” He raised his voice to address the envoy. “Agent Leandro Álvarez, FBI.”
“Lance,” Shiro groaned.
“Lance, you idiot.” That was Pidge. Her disappointed-and-exasperated voice was one Lance was all too familiar with.
But instead of shooting Lance down for his insolence, one lowered his weapon slightly, squinting at him, and whispered something to the man standing in the centre of the group. After a beat, the centre man called out, “ID?”
“Not on me,” Lance responded, despite the hissed warnings from his team to be quiet. “Senior Officer Veronica McClain can verify.”
The same person who had asked him for ID—the C.O. of this mission, Lance figured—eyed him suspiciously, but waved at one of the other soldiers, barking, “Get Senior Officer McClain on the radio.”
They waited for a few minutes in tense silence, the guns still trained on them, as one of the soldiers fumbled around with his radio, going through a series of officers until, finally, there was a loud crackle. Even though the soldiers were a solid ten metres away, Lance could still hear Veronica’s voice ring loud and clear. It wasn’t one he’d ever forget.
“Code?” the spokesperson for the soldiers asked Lance.
“Lima-oh-four-oh-eight-six-three-nine-alpha.”
There was another pause.
Then a crackle.
“Welcome home, dumbass,” Veronica’s voice said. “Officer Jones, get them all back here. Now.”
A breath of relief rushed out of Lance’s lungs. That could’ve gone so wrong. If Veronica hadn’t been on site, that would’ve backfired big-time. As it was, he was for sure getting demoted after outing such a huge operation with a single sentence, but hey—he wasn’t about to get shot to save the FBI’s asses, again!
“I don’t know how the fuck you pulled that off,” Keith said, voice barely above a whisper in the still morning air. “But thank god you did.”
“What can I say,” Lance said, spinning to face the other Paladins. “I’m a genius.”
They were guided towards the soldiers’ trucks, Lance directed towards one, the other Paladins towards another. His friends protested loudly, despite the guns still at their backs, which Lance found strangely heart-warming, but he grinned at them.
“It’s all good, guys,” he reassured them. “We’re home.”
They didn’t look convinced. Pidge, Shiro, and Keith had been faced first-hand with the incompetence of the military, and Hunk, being his bestest bro ever, of course, didn’t want to Lance out of his sight. Lance appreciated their concern, but this wasn’t the time for being difficult, so Lance breathed out a sigh of relief, when after only a few more seconds of stubbornness, Keith led a stomping charge towards their transport.
Hunk mouthed be safe at him before disappearing into the back of the transport with a third of the soldiers. The remainder split up between the other two trucks, Lance hopping into the back of the first, along with Officer Jones.
“FBI, huh?” one of the soldiers leaned forward as the truck began rumbling in what Lance suspected was the direction of the Garrison, raising a curious brow. “You’ve gotta be so green.”
Lance grinned. It wasn’t often that he got to boast about this. “Recruited straight out of high school—started training at seventeen.”
The soldier let out an impressed whistle. Lance didn’t miss all the others perking up.
“That’s enough,” Jones reprimanded.
“Aw, c’mon, Jonesy,” one of the other soldiers wheedled before turning back to Lance. “So what were those lion-machine-thingys.”
“Classified,” Lance said cheerfully, to the exasperated groans of quite a few of the men.
“I hate FBI,” one of them muttered under their breath. Lance chose not to respond. Take that, Allura. He could be diplomatic. The soldiers hadn’t removed his Bayard from where it was slung at his hip, probably not registering it as a weapon, and it bounced comfortably against his leg as they crawled across the desert in the line of trucks. The key card and recorder that he took everywhere with him were a familiar weight in the pouch around his neck.
A creeping worry was clawing at the inside of Lance’s chest, but he dislodged its talons, trying to push it down. He’d been weighing it all up on the trip to Earth, knowing that once he got here, his identity would most likely be compromised. Even up until he’d spoken to the soldier envoy, he’d been tossing around the merits of revealing himself. It wouldn’t just be a betrayal to the other Paladins—because he knew they would see it in that way—it would mean the exposure of his three-year mission.
Or, well, it was meant to be three years, but he’d only lasted one in the Garrison before getting slightly side-tracked with the whole alien abduction thing.
Maybe they’d worked it out then—who he actually was. Maybe they’d realised that Lance McClain was dreamed into existence, and that the boy who had disappeared into space along with two of their Junior Cadets was an agent, planted to feed information to the FBI on the disappearance of one Takashi Shirogane.
Yeah, Veronica was going to kill him.
She’d helped him throughout his training, and Lance had been so excited to be working with her as his senior agent for his first mission. His cover had been as her younger brother, and even though they weren’t biologically related, he’d seen her as an older sibling since she’d showed up one day to train all the newbies during their analysis module, and never left. Lance was pretty sure she saw him as a sibling too, spending countless nights training with him, and giving him a fond hug and hair ruffle when he'd graduated from basic, when his parents had refused to attend.
When the higher-ups had hesitated to put him on such an important mission only a year out of the academy, she’d vouched for him, knowing how much he wanted it. He’d wanted to prove himself, and it didn’t hurt that it would be at the Galaxy Garrison. Lance had always loved space. But he had failed.
On the distant horizon, a building appeared. The thoughts he’d been pushing down roared back to life, like the sight of the Garrison was gasoline to the flames of fear consuming his mind.
He’d lied to the other Paladins for years. They were never going to forgive him. They didn’t know his name. They didn’t even know his age—he was almost twenty-two, not newly nineteen. He grown up in Havana’s slums, not on a beach, with a glittering sea at his back. The big family he’d told them about weren’t fictitious, but his relationship with them was. His pápa had left when he was thirteen, and it felt like his máma had disappeared too, leaving behind a gaggle of kids that struggled to feed themselves, let alone each other. He’d left as soon as he could. He wasn’t going to get kicked out of the FBI—the reports he’d recorded every day for the past two years, up in space, ensured that—but he wasn’t sure he’d still be a Paladin by the end of the day.
Although they’d all reverted to their original lions upon Shiro’s true return, Lance was pretty sure that Allura could still pilot Blue, if she had to. Lance wasn’t exactly an integral part of the team—the only thing keeping him a Paladin was his friendship with the others. Their bond. Their trust. In a few short hours, that would be destroyed. If they hadn’t already worked out that he wasn’t lying, as soon as they got to the Garrison, his identity would be revealed.
Indeed, if he wanted to keep his position in the FBI, he probably wouldn’t be allowed to continue as a Paladin, and which would he choose? The people he’d fought alongside with for two years? The people he’d lived and almost died with? Or Veronica, his job, his old life? With the Paladins, he wasn’t guaranteed any sort of future. Being in the FBI was dangerous, sure, but he was certainly more likely to keep his life with squads and weapons at his back than with a ragged group of five, plus a few robots. Very cool robots.
Lance stopped thinking, running his hands over his Bayard first, and then the pouch around his neck. Instead, he focuses on the rhythmic whoosh of the sand under tyres outside, the chatter of the other soldiers, who’d grown bored when he’d stopped responding to their questions. There was no point in worrying about what might happen—worry about it when it did happen. That was Veronica’s favourite saying.
She also said that planning was key, but Lance usually ignored that part.
As the Garrison neared, Lance began to work out what he was going to say to her. First and foremost on the list was assuring her that it hadn’t been his fault—that it was pretty much a kidnapping. And also, a bit not. In fact, now that Lance thought about it, it had kind of been all his fault.
He touched the particle barrier, he climbed into the lion when he should’ve called literally anyone to tell them, he piloted Blue right into a wormhole. The whole checking out Shiro’s crash had been part of his job, but everything that came after was due to his own curiosity.
He definitely wasn’t telling Veronica that. And now he was back at the start, wondering what to tell her. He didn’t have the chance to make any more plans, because suddenly they were pulling up at the gate to the Galaxy Garrison, Jones was jumping out the back to flash his ID, and they were trundling in.
The courtyard was practically deserted, silence blanketing the usually bustling and busy base. Lance filed out of the transport, along with the other soldiers, and was greeted with Commander Iverson standing alongside a set of senior officers. Veronica stood at the end of the line, her eyes, half-hidden by glasses, scanning the group until she found Lance. She visibly relaxed, almost sagging with relief, as their eyes met. Only Lance’s training kept him from running to her immediately. She seemed to be similarly struggling to hold herself back.
Lance stepped in front of Officer Jones, striding up to Commander Iverson, sparing Veronica and the other senior officers barely a glance.
“Commander Iverson,” he greeted, holding out a hand to shake.
“Junior Cadet Lance McClain,” Iverson responded, taking it and giving it a brisk shake. “Never thought I’d see your face again.”
“Not exactly a Junior Cadet, anymore,” Lance said sheepishly. “We’ll explain everything, inside.”
He inclined his head meaningfully at the soldiers, who weren’t even trying to disguise their eavesdropping. Behind him, the other Paladins were piling out of the second transport, and the third was pulling up.
Iverson waited until the others had shouldered through the crowd of soldiers to reach Lance, checking him over with keen eyes to ensure he hadn’t been harmed during their separation. He started walking in the direction of his office, dismissing the soldiers and half the Senior Officers as he went. Veronica was one of them.
Clearance? Lance mouthed desperately at her as she left. What do I say? How much do I tell them?
The woman bumped his shoulder comfortingly before disappearing into the crowd of soldiers and officers, whispering, “Clearance has gone out the window. Tell them whatever you want—I’ll be waiting for the real story, later. Roof of 2b. This had better be the best explanation of your life.” And Lance was left to walk alongside Keith, feeling horribly alone despite being surrounded by people. The other man kept looking at him like he was a bomb about to explode, but, thankfully, kept silent. Lance was not looking forward to any of the conversations he was going to have to have—with Veronica, and with the other Paladins. How strange to think that the easiest would be with Iverson, of all people.
“Let me take the lead on this one, yeah?” Lance murmured to Keith, who nodded slightly in acknowledgment.
“I trust you,” he said, dark eyes earnest, his pinkie brushing against Lance’s hand in silent support, and Lance felt like he was—quite possibly—the scummiest person to ever exist. The pouch around his neck hung heavy with secrets, dragging him down, and he plodded heavily towards what could be his doom.
The Paladins all piled into Commander Iverson’s office, along with a few Senior Officers that Lance didn’t recognise, but were carrying carefully concealed guns. There were only three chairs. Lance let the Hunk sit in one, because his knee was still killing him after he twisted it on a mission, and Pidge claimed another. Keith and Shiro did their whole eye-contact-squabble thing, but Keith eventually took the final seat, leaving Shiro to tower over the Officers, and Lance to lean on Iverson’s desk.
“Report,” Iverson commanded.
Lance watched his face with narrowed eyes. His gaze kept darting to the door, as if he was expecting someone to enter at any moment, and Lance wasn’t sure if his urgency was to be seen as doing something when they entered, or if it was to get this out of the way before they arrived. Either way, Lance was planning on being as difficult as possible. Thankfully, Keith had agreed to stay quiet, and Shiro and Hunk looked afraid to speak, so Lance was left to be their spokesperson, as usual. Pidge was surreptitiously tinkering with a piece of Altean tech that Lance hadn’t realised she’d brought.
“Clearance?” he responded finally, an easy grin spreading across his face. “Can’t tell you anything you’re not allowed to know.”
“I’m a Senior Commander,” Iverson snapped. “Tell me everything.”
“Hmm,” Lance stalled, looking at the Officers lined up against the back wall. “What about them?”
“They’re fine, Cadet McClain. Get on with it.”
“Not a cadet, anymore!” Lance protested, but at another sharp look from Iverson, and a few worried glances from his teammates, he relented. “Basically, what happened was, we got abducted by aliens.”
Silence.
Lance thought he heard a muffled snort from the back wall, but Iverson just sighed tiredly. “Elaborate.”
“On the night that Shiro’s pod crashed, we went to investigate, and were abducted by alien robots, who took us to real aliens, and we’ve been fighting in an alien war for the past two years.”
“An alien war?” Iverson asked, eyes widening. Lance watched him carefully. The worry lines between his brows had deepened in the years since they’d left Earth, and although he looked shocked at Lance’s story, there was something in his eyes that told Lance he wasn’t surprised—not really. He might not have known their story, but he knew countless others.
“Yeah,” Lance said, wondering what he could say that wouldn’t reveal too much. They’d come to Earth to invite them to the Coalition, but Lance wasn’t inclined to trust the people that had immediately tried to sedate Shiro when he’d crash-landed, without even trying to receive his warning. “We fight against the Galra in a group called Voltron, as Paladins, and amongst countless races. The Galra have maintained their hold over the galaxy for ten thousand years and are continuing to push onwards. Towards Earth.” Lance paused at the quickly smothered light of recognition in Iverson’s eyes. “But you already knew that, didn’t you?”
Iverson froze, then a slow smile spread across his face. It didn’t reach his eyes. “Here I was thinking they must’ve been lying about you, McClain. Or is that even your name?”
The other Paladins tensed, almost imperceptibly, but Lance didn’t bother to dignify that with a response. They both knew the answer. Instead, he said, “I think its best we talk to Admiral Sanda. She, at least, has the clearance to tell us what we need to know, and negotiate on the part of the UEN.” Lance could feel the stares of the other Paladins on him, but refused to look at them, partially not wanting to break eye contact with Iverson, partially not wanting to see the shock and disappointment in their eyes.
Iverson finally dropped his gaze to his desk, and Lance preened inwardly. “Admiral Sanda is on her way—ETA fifteen minutes. It’s your lucky day. She was planning to come in to check over operations tomorrow, anyway.”
“Thank goodness for that,” Lance said, with a sharp smile that was all teeth.
They waited in silence. Lance lounged against Iverson’s desk, Shiro standing ramrod straight behind Pidge, who was still fiddling with her device. Hunk kept looking like he wanted to say something—probably about seeing his mums, but kept quiet, experienced enough in diplomacy that he sensed speaking what break the delicate tension Lance had crafted.
Keith, his long hair falling out of the bun he’d tied it into, was picking at his nails with a knife he’d procured out of nowhere. It wasn’t his Luxite blade, which was hiding safely somewhere on his person, but all of the Officers looked too terrified to try and take it from him, nonetheless. They were shifting awkwardly from foot to foot in the back of the room, not wanting to face Iverson’s wrath by leaning against something.
Yeah, Lance had not missed the military.
After close to ten minutes of awkward waiting, a sharp rap on the door announced Admiral Sanda. She strode into the room, looking every bit the leader of the Galaxy Garrison, her short grey hair swept back beneath a black hat, charcoal uniform neatly ironed and starched. A few Senior Officers scurried after her, replacing some at the back of the room, who seemed eager to get out of the Admiral’s way. Sanda didn’t exactly look angry, but she didn’t look pleased, either.
Iverson jumped to his feet as she entered, snapping to attention with a salute. “Admiral Sanda.”
The Paladins remained where they were. If Lance hadn’t known his friends as well as he did, he would’ve said they were ignoring the new arrival, but as it were, he saw Pidge stiffen slightly, saw Hunk’s ear twitch, saw Keith pause before continuing to play with his knife, saw Shiro’s head turn.
Lance often felt almost as though he were privy to a great secret by being part of Voltron, by being lucky enough to have such incredible friends, to know them so intimately that they had become akin to family. Other times, like now, he thought that perhaps it would be better to hate them, or for them to hate him, at least so that when he inevitably betrayed them, it wouldn’t hurt so much for either party.
“What’s going on, Commander Iverson?” Admiral Sanda asked, waving at him to return to at ease.
Iverson lowered his arm but didn’t sit. “Earlier this evening, at approximately seventeen-hundred, a sentry spotted two unidentified aircraft land near Serpent’s Rock, and a retrieval mission was launched, ma’am. As you can see, the people inside the aircraft were former cadets Lance McClain, Keith Kogane, Pidge Gunderson, and Hunk Garret, along with former Lieutenant Takashi Shirogane, who crashed two years ago and promptly disappeared again, along with the cadets. Cadet McClain has told us some of the story. He claims they were abducted by aliens, ma’am.”
When Iverson paused to take a breath, Admiral Sanda surveyed the Paladins. Lance felt her eyes on him as if they were lasers cutting through his skin and cracking open his brain. Something about her piercing gaze, with eyes so blue they were almost grey, made him feel like she could see all of his secrets.
“So, former Cadet McClain, would you like to repeat your story to me?” she said. It was phrased like a request, but Lance was under no illusions—it wasn’t a question, it was a command.
Lance dutifully parroted what he had told Iverson back to her, offering up no more information, and no less. When he stopped, she nodded for him to continue, but Lance refused. “I’d rather not bore you with the details, Admiral,” he said, with a small, tight smile. “We have returned to Earth in order to negotiate. As a Paladin of Voltron, I would like to extend an official invitation to you to join the Voltron Coalition.”
“Hmm,” she mused. “Official, indeed. How do I know you’re not lying? Aliens—that’s a pretty far-fetched story.”
“You’ve known about the Galra longer than I,” Lance shot back.
Her eyes narrowed at that, and Lance felt a jolt of satisfaction run through him. He’d struck a chord. She didn’t know how much he knew—he was a wild card, and that made him dangerous. The Paladins all stiffened at his proclamation, trying to and mostly succeeding in hiding their varying shocked reactions. Sanda caught it all with keen eyes but didn’t comment.
Lance had figured it out almost immediately—why had the scientists in the tent ignored Shiro’s information about his team, that night they’d met Shiro and helped him escape? They’d seemed far more interested in the tech attached to his arm than talking with the pilot, despite his knowing essential intel on extra-terrestrial life. The only explanation was that they already knew—he couldn’t tell them anything new. They’d known about the Galra, about the war inching closer and closer to their humble little planet. They’d been studying the Galra’s tech, trying to figure out how advanced their weaponry was, because they knew that sometime soon, they’d have to fight against it.
The rest of the team had a litany of misgivings when it came to whether Earth would join the Coalition or not, but Lance had pushed for them to return home, not because he wanted to see the family he’d made up, as they had thought, but because he knew for certain that Earth would join them. They had no other options, and they knew it.
Admiral Sanda sighed heavily, as if it were an inconvenience to her to continue the conversation, but acquiesced, “Perhaps I know a little. I am willing to open negotiations with whoever leads your Coalition.”
Lance smiled again, faux politeness etched into every inch of his face. “I’m glad to hear that. Our leader, Princess Allura of Altea, will be in contact. Paladin Pidge can guide you through setting up the communications systems.”
Admiral Sanda nodded. “I’m sure Commander Iverson can direct her to a suitable space.”
Iverson saluted again at his name. “Yes, ma’am.”
When he waited a beat too long to get going, Sanda jerked her head at the door, and Iverson almost tripped over his feet trying to get out of the door. Pidge wandered after him, along with a few of the officers, fixing Lance with a look that said you’re not getting out of this conversation, bucko. Or maybe she was just pissed that Lance was forcing her to miss out on all the fun to hang out with Iverson, of all people.
“I’m sure you’ve gone through all the necessary security checks,” Admiral Sanda said.
Lance nodded. “Yes,” he said, the lie slipping off his tongue so easily. He’d always found dishonesty so simple on Earth, every second word a half-truth or falsehood. Sanda didn’t suspect a thing, because despite her years of training, Lance had lived and breathed lies since he’d made up his mind to join the FBI as a sixteen-year-old. He wasn’t sure he even knew how to tell the truth, anymore. “We’re very tired, and I’m sure you are too, from your travels. I was wondering if somebody could show us to some spare quarters, and we can begin negotiations in the morning?”
“Of course,” Sanda said smoothly. “Officer Sorenson can show you to our temporary accommodation.” One of the men standing against the back wall stepped forward hurriedly.
“Certainly, ma’am,” he said, voice nasally. Lance didn’t recognise him, but from the slight wrinkle of Shiro’s nose, he did, and there was no love lost between them. “Follow me.”
He took off out the door, and the Paladins exchanged glances before heaving themselves after him. Lance stopped by Sanda as they went, offering a hand for her to shake, which she did, reluctantly.
“I’m looking forward to working with you,” Lance lied with a bright smile.
“Likewise,” she said, her smile equally as fake.
Officer Sorenson took them the twistiest route possible to reach an unoccupied wing, dropping them off and scurrying back in the direction they’d come as quickly as possible after unlocking the door. Inside was a small sitting room, with a desk and printer in one corner and two couches taking up the rest of the space. A pen and a few mindless magazines sat on the coffee table between the couches, along with a set of five restricted-access visitor passes.
Once they were all inside, sans Pidge, who would probably be helping set up communications for at least another hour, Shiro turned to Lance and said what they were all thinking. “Lance, what’s going on?”
But Lance’s gaze was fixed on the passes. He raised a finger to his lips in the universal sign for shush and began to scour the room, practically turning it inside out and upside down. If they had enough time to prepare visitor passes and put them in this room for them, they also had enough time to bug it. He found three bugs and a camera in the sitting room, all of which he disabled, and only two listening devices in each of the three adjoining bunk rooms. Once they were all destroyed and flushed in the only bathroom, he emerged back out into the living area.
“Ok,” he said. “You can speak now.” He could only hope they didn’t have time to put some in the upholstery, or something equally as wild.
“That’s exactly our question!” Keith exploded. “How the fuck do you know how to do that? How did you know we were bugged?”
Lance collapsed onto one of the couches, long legs reaching out to rest on the coffee table, trying to display the devil-may-care aura he’d perfected instead of the apprehension he felt. Although he appeared sprawled out and relaxed, he was filled with tightly coiled tension. Keith and Hunk didn’t notice, but Lance saw Shiro’s eyes go flinty as he watched him make himself comfortable.
Lance wondered briefly if he could get away with lying to them but shut down that train of thought almost immediately. They deserved the truth, and he would just have to deal with the fallout. That was his responsibility. That was what he deserved.
“I, uh, wasn’t exactly a cadet at the Garrison,” he started. “Hey—maybe you guys should sit down for this conversation.”
“What do you mean, you weren’t a cadet?” Keith asked, venom in his voice, still standing where Shiro and Hunk obligingly took places on the couches. Lance held back his flinch. He’d known this would happen. They were all going to turn against him. This was why he’d held off on telling them for so long, and then longer he went, the worse it would be when he revealed it. Every second that went by, he had dug himself into a deeper hole, leaving him here, now, trying to crawl out of it.
“I mean,” Lance hesitated, then just ripped off the band-aid. “I’m an agent with the FBI. When we found Blue, I was undercover at the Garrison, investigating the disappearance and subsequent cover-up of the Kerberos Mission.”
The three other Paladins a jolted in their seats, leaning slightly away from him with varying degrees of shock and betrayal on their faces. Shiro looked mostly disapproving, but Hunk looked absolutely wrecked, and Keith had this look of realisation on his face that Lance didn’t like.
“Is that why you kept trying to be my friend?” he asked. “Back in the Garrison—even though you were a cargo pilot, you kept talking to me. And when that didn’t work, you said we were rivals.”
The guilty look on Lance’s face said enough.
“Did you do that to me too?” Hunk cried. “Were we ever really friends?”
“Yes!” Lance assured him quickly. “You were, like, the only person I didn’t have to get close to! Pidge—well, she was Katie Holt. Keith was Shiro’s brother-ish. Mentee. I chose to be friends with you.”
Hunk sniffled but looked less distressed.
“Great,” Keith said. “Thanks Lance. Glad to know I was just a mission to you.”
“At first!” Lance protested. “Our friendship was real. All bets were off once we got stuck in space.”
“And me?” Shiro asked. “Is that why you came to ‘rescue me’, the night I crashed?”
“Well, yeah, sort of. I didn’t know it was you until I got there, though.”
“But you knew about aliens before any of us did,” Keith realised. “Did you know about the Galra?”
“Not the Galra,” Lance told them. “But aliens—yeah. We’ve had evidence of that for a while now. The amount of people that get abducted from Kansas is unreal.”
Kansas, Shiro mouthed, shaking his head in disbelief.
“So, what else have you lied to us about,” Keith asked. “Do we even know anything about you?”
“I’m me,” Lance said firmly. “I didn’t make up some persona. In fact, in space, with all of you guys, I’ve been the most real I’ve ever felt. But there were a few things I, uh, fabricated.”
“Like what?” Hunk asked.
“Like his age,” Shiro responded, before Lance had the chance to. “You have to be at least eighteen to be an FBI Agent, plus training. And this wasn’t your first mission, was it?”
Lance didn’t refute it. “One of my first. I started at the Academy early, and I was nineteen at the start of undercover. I’m twenty-one, almost twenty-two, now.”
“You’re older than me?” Keith asked, horrified. That seemed to be the thing he was most surprised about, which Lance grinned at.
“Taller and older than you, mullet,” Lance jibed. Keith scowled at him.
“So, what did you actually do as an agent?” Hunk asked. Lance was saved from answering the question by a pounding on the door.
“Let me in, dickheads!” Pidge’s muffled voice came from outside.
Shiro heaved himself off the couch to open the door for her, and Hunk nudged Lance in the side. “Buried or cremated?” he joked.
Lance closed his eyes briefly, preparing himself for the metaphorical beating of his life. “Chuck me into space.”
“No problem.”
Pidge stomped into the room and Lance opened his arms. “Ay, Pidgey!” Lance crowed, but she was having none of it, stomping over to sock him in the arm.
“What the fuck is going on, Lance?” she shouted.
“Jeez, Pidge,” Lance said, rubbing his arm. “Patience, please.” He subjected her to the abridged version of things, figuring that the others could fill her in on anything else she missed later. By the end of it, she was sitting next to Shiro on the couch, deep in thought.
“That’s why you know how to shoot so well,” she said finally, a note of realisation in her voice.
“Uh, what?” That was quite possibly the last thing Lance had expected to come out of her mouth. Loud swearing, accusations of betrayal, yes. Complimenting his shooting? Not exactly a normal response. “Are you okay, Pidge?”
Even the other Paladins looked concerned.
Pidge scoffed, brushing their worries away. “Hey—I’m just saying, that’s why he’s so much better than us at shooting. Lance has a whole bunch of extra years of training!”
“Not with long-range!” Lance protested, because he had worked hard with his Bayard for his sharpshooting skills.
Pidge rolled her eyes and continued. “And it’s not like he actually betrayed us, or anything. Maybe it wasn’t a coincidence how we met, but he could’ve dipped out of there the moment he saw that funky blue lion, or called the FBI when Shiro turned up, but he didn’t.”
Lance blinked away the tears that had spontaneously sprung to his eyes and coughed away the lump in his throat, joking to hide how much that meant to him, “Aw, Pidgeon, I knew you cared.”
“Yeah, yeah, shut up,” she grumbled, but Lance could hear the hint of a smile in her voice, and the other Paladins were grinning. All except Keith, who was still looking slightly quizzical, a furrow forming between his brows.
Lance thought abruptly of the pouch hanging around his neck, the two years’ worth of reporting collected there, and his good mood vanished like vapour on a hot day. Maybe it would’ve been easier if the Paladins had hated him. Now he had to choose between Veronica, the first person to ever love him, and the family he’d carved for himself in between stars and battles. His sister, and the people he’d lied to, the people who’d forgiven him, even though he was still not telling them everything.
Keith opened his mouth to say something else, and that was Lance’s cue to push himself to his feet. “I’m exhausted,” he said quickly, not giving the other man the chance to say anything. He hadn’t spoken much throughout the entire conversation, except for his original accusations, and for once, Lance couldn’t tell what he was thinking. The others seemed to accept him, but Lance wasn’t sure Keith had forgiven him. Lance wasn’t sure he would forgive him, were he in their situation. Such a betrayal of trust was practically unpardonable.
“Me too,” Hunk said, with a well-timed yawn that set them all off.
Shiro stood too. “We’re talking more tomorrow, Lance,” he warned. “I still have a bunch of questions. But you’re right—we should get some sleep. Negotiations with Earth begin in the morning, and I think we all know it’s going to be impossible.”
Pidge pulled a face. “Fine. Dibs that room,” she said, pointing towards the one with a double bed. The others had two singles each. Lance made his displeasure known, loudly, even though he didn’t actually want the double bedroom. Shiro and Keith was almost certainly bunking together, and he liked sharing with Hunk.
The rooms were small, but the beds looked comfortable enough, for the Garrison, and Lance flopped on the bed closest to the door without a second thought.
There were pyjamas laid out on the end of each bed, but where Hunk grabbed his, Lance left them where they were, choosing instead to simply shuck off his shoes and prop himself up against the wall, stealing one of Hunk’s pillows while the other Paladin was in the bathroom. They had a delicate system, that system being that Lance like to sleep with as many pillows as he could get his hands on, and Hunk preferred just the one.
When Hunk returned, he turned out the light and got into bed. They talked quietly about Earth for a few moments—how beautiful it was, how much it had changed, and how much it hadn’t.
“I hope they tell my mums I’m back,” Hunk said.
“We’ll sort it tomorrow, if they don’t,” Lance reassured him, and gradually their conversation tapered out.
They lay in the darkness, unconsciously syncing their breaths in the way they had back in the first year they’d known each other, in the Garrison. Like this, with the lights out, Lance could almost imagine he was nineteen again, on his first deep-undercover mission, scared out of his mind with his only comfort the boy in the bed on the other side of the room.
“Are you going to stay on Earth?” Hunk asked, his voice barely above a whisper in the still air.
Lance took a deep breath in, and out. In, out.
“No.” He didn’t even know the answer until he said it, but once it was out in the world, he wondered how it hadn’t been obvious to him before. “I’m staying with all of you.”
“Good,” Hunk said, and rolled over in his bunk, facing the wall. “G’night for real, Lance.”
“Sleep tight,” Lance responded distractedly. He wandered out into the main living space again, grabbing the pen he’d spotted earlier and taking a sheet of paper from the printer in the corner of the room, by the desk. He quickly scrawled out a message—just a few short lines, then replaced the pen and folded the paper into a letter, placing it gently into his jacket pocket.
When he returned to his and Hunk’s room, the Yellow Paladin was already dead to the world, and he turned the lights out before getting into bed, still fully clothed.
He spent an hour staring at the ceiling, hand running over the edges of the paper in his pocket, waiting until the digital clock blinking beside him on the beside table read 22:15. He and Veronica had always met at 22:30, back when he’d reported to her every week on what little he had found out, and Lance was hoping that she’d meant that time, otherwise he was going to be faced with a very angry Veronica.
Lance slipped easily, silently, out of the quarters, and found her where they had agreed to meet, looking like she hadn’t been waiting long. She was already sitting on the edge of the roof, and her head whipped around to face Lance when he slumped down next to her, exhausted.
Veronica reached over to hug him tightly, in the way that she hadn’t been able to when they were surrounded by people. “I thought you were dead. I missed you so much, Leandro,” she whispered.
“Lance, now,” he responded cheekily, hugging her back.
He felt, more than saw, Veronica’s grin. “I missed you, Lance.”
“I missed you too, V. Every day. What have you been up to here?”
Veronica pulled away to fix Lance with a look. “Trying to find you. Tell me everything.”
Lance told her everything—every little detail—from the moment they saw Shiro’s ship crash land to the second they arrived back on Earth. Lance didn’t know how long he talked for, only that when he finished, feeling like he’d barely scratched the surface of the past two years, his throat was dry and scratchy.
“Wow,” Veronica said, after a few moments. “Well, I managed to cover up the whole ‘revealing yourself as an FBI Agent’ stunt you pulled. Said it was a joke from when we were kids, so that I would recognise you. Luckily, Iverson was too bull-headed to question it.”
“So, nothing’s changed, then,” Lance joked, and Veronica laughed.
“Pretty much.”
“Hey,” Lance said, suddenly sombre. He pulled the pouch that had hung around his neck for the past three years off and dumped it in Veronica’s outstretched palm. “Video diary, my reports—everything’s in there. And, uh, this.” He placed the folded piece of paper into her other hand.
Veronica opened the letter curiously, and skimmed over it, once, then twice, then a third time. “God, Lance, your handwriting is atrocious.”
Lance snorted, a wave of relief washing over him. “Thanks.”
“And I think you spelled ‘appreciate’ wrong, if that’s even what that says.”
“It was on short notice, ok?”
Veronica hummed thoughtfully, then folded the letter up, putting it into a pocket. “I’ll pass it on,” she said. “For the record, I think it’s a good idea. You look happy.”
Lance smiled. “I am happy.”
His older sister watched him for a few moments before dropping the pouch back in his hands. “I think you should keep this, too.”
Now that was a shock.
“Are you sure?” Lance asked.
“Yeah,” Veronica said. “Just don’t tell anyone I said it. The Bureau went to hell in a handbasket once you disappeared.”
Lance dropped his head onto her shoulder. “Thank you.”
There was a brief pause, and Lance watched her as she struggled to find the words to say what she wanted to.
“They thought you’d slipped up—that the Garrison had silenced you.”
That wasn’t a surprise. Despite Lance graduating top of his class at the Academy and proving himself countless times over in the field, the higher-ups always seemed to be finding reasons to discredit him.
“They said—” she cut herself off, disgust mired in the twitch of her lips, the frown she was trying to smooth away. “They said at least you didn’t give me up.”
“Huh,” was all Lance said in response. For some reason, to know that they’d doubted him so much that they’d thought he would give his partner—his sister—up hurt much more than their not sending a single rescue mission after him.
“I tried to find you,” Veronica said. She opened her mouth to say something more, but then closed it. There wasn’t really much more to say. Lance knew that she’d searched far and wide—if he was still on the planet, dead or alive, she would’ve found him.
“I know,” Lance said simply. Veronica snaked an arm around his shoulder, and they sat, staring out into the flat darkness of the desert night.
Keith found them like that half an hour later, and he stood at the door for a few moments before Veronica yelled at him to come over.
He jolted, as if not realising that they had noticed him, and Lance laughed. He doubted that Keith and the other Paladins would ever get used to him actually knowing what was going on. The clueless act he’d put on had worked a little too well. That wasn’t to say that Lance wasn’t him, but Leandro was sharp in a way his cover hadn’t been, if lacking in the survival instincts Veronica and all his trainers had tried and failed to instil in him.
“Uh, hi,” Keith said awkwardly, walking quickly to stand next to the two of them. He dithered, as if not sure if he should sit, until Lance patted the spot beside him. Lance wasn’t sure if the other Paladin had come up here to yell at him, or talk more, but he took the cue with a grateful smile. Something about the way Keith’s eyes shone dark purple under the moonlight, seemingly staring straight into Lance’s soul, made the tips of his ears burn red, and Lance hoped that the darkness concealed it. Veronica unwound herself from him with a snort, and Lance elbowed her to stay quiet, blushing even harder.
“Hi,” Lance said back, with an equally sappy grin, feeling like maybe, hopefully, Keith didn’t actually hate him, and apparently that was the first and last straw for Veronica.
“I’m off,” she said, patting Lance’s shoulder forcefully and standing up. “Don’t do anything dumb—I’ll see you in the morning.”
“Goodnight, V,” Lance called after her as she closed the door to the roof behind her, leaving Keith and Lance alone in the silence.
Before it could get awkward, Lance said, “You know, this is the spot that we saw Shiro crash from.”
Keith turned to look at him, brows furrowed slightly in confusion. “What?”
“That night—when we rescued Shiro, when everything started—me and Hunk and Pidge were sitting here, and we watched a pod crash in the desert, and we went to go check it out. And we found you and Shiro. All I could think the entire time was how pissed Veronica would be if she knew I snuck out.”
Keith hummed, leaning back to look up at the stars. “I’m glad you snuck out.”
Lance grinned, bumping his shoulder into Keith’s. “Me too.”
When he leant back on his hands, Keith followed suit, resting his head on Lance’s shoulder. His soft hair tickled the underside of Lance’s jaw, and Lance was glad Keith wasn’t looking at him, because his face went bright red. Smooth, Lance.
“What’s your name?” Keith asked, after a few minutes of silence.
“Uh, Lance?” Lance responded, still flustered by Keith’s closeness. Jesus—was his heart meant to be doing this? It felt like fifty baboons had been let loose in his stomach,
Keith laughed. Yep, Lance was fucked. “No, like, your real name.”
“Oh,” Lance said. The words brought him crashing back into reality, and Lance was grateful he didn’t have to look Keith in the eyes for this conversation. “I went by a few, but Leandro is what’s on the birth certificate. Leandro Álvarez.”
“Hmm.”
“My máma called me Lancito,” he added, as if that would help the fact that he’d lied to Keith for the entire time they’d known each other.
“Leandro,” Keith tried out. The syllables rolled across his tongue like water over river pebbles. Lance liked the way it sounded in his voice. Even though he was Lance—and had been for so long that the name his parents had given him in his youth, amongst a million other nicknames, seemed like it belonged to another person—there would always be something entrancing about the way Keith said it. Or perhaps that was just the way Keith spoke. Maybe Lance would forever be enchanted by him.
Keith lifted his head off Lance’s shoulder, and Lance turned to look at him. His eyes were soft and dark, lips slightly parted. His gaze darted down to Lance’s own lips, and Lance’s heart stuttered in his chest.
“Keith,” Lance breathed out, in much the same way as the other man had said his name, inching closer ever so slowly, giving Keith so much time to back away the Lance was almost afraid he would. But he didn’t. In fact, he moved forward, and instead of Lance sweeping Keith of his feet, it was the other way around.
Their lips met, and it felt like fireworks were going off in Lance’s brain.
Keith’s lips were slightly chapped—not dry, but not wet either. He kissed like a man drowning, and Lance kissed him back with equal fervour. One day, during a simple training exercise, he’d looked over at Keith, saw the light reflecting off purple irises, the flush to his cheeks, his black hair plastered to his sweaty forehead, and fallen in love, and all the feelings that had been bottled up inside of him since then seemed to spill out into this kiss, into this moment. The air between them felt charged, electric, and it was like the whole world stopped as they moved together. Lance tangled his hands in Keith’s soft hair, shivering when Keith’s hand landed on his waist to support himself as he tried to get closer.
Lance pulled away reluctantly, holding Keith back gently when he tried to chase after his lips.
“Pleasure to meet you,” Lance said, grinning, and slightly out of breath. Dios, Keith was good at that. “I’m Lance, ex-FBI Agent—"
“Ex?” Keith interrupted, eyes widening.
Lance laughed. “Couldn’t last two seconds, mullet? Ex-FBI Agent, full-time Paladin of Voltron, boyfriend of one Keith Kogane.”
Keith pulled him in for another kiss. It was even more perfect than the last.