Chapter Text
It’s dark.
Not bedroom dark. Not power-cut dark.
Cold, metallic dark.
His head is splitting open from the inside, a dull, relentless pounding that makes him swallow against bile. If he moves too fast, he’s going to throw up. There’s a faint electric buzz somewhere beyond the walls - fluorescent, clinical. This is not his room. He pushes himself upright and immediately regrets it. The room tilts. Small. Bare. Too smooth to be concrete. Is some kind of jail cell? No bars, no windows, just seamless walls and a door that doesn’t look like a door at all.
How did he get here? He can’t seem to piece anything together. His head hurts enough without that mental strain on top of it. For now, all he knows is that he needs to get out of here. He takes a quick note of everything he has on him, which is some odd-looking broken armour, the chest part of which is lying on the floor next to him. No phone. No wallet. Great. Fantastic. Love that for him.
There are voices heading his way. Lance panics in a series of fast mumbled swear words. He wills his brain to remember how he got here, to know what to do. His head spins.
The door slides open with a hiss. Two massive purple - bats? - blink at him. One holds a tray of something grey and deeply unappetizing. They seem equally as confused as Lance, perhaps not expecting him to be awake. Lance doesn’t wait even a second longer, with dexterity and quick thinking that he’s sure he doesn’t have, he flips the food into the left bats face, his fist connects with something solid on the other bat and there’s a crack. He pivots, slams a skull into the doorframe, and watches as both bodies hit the ground. He feels like he’s having an outer body experience, Lance stares at his hands…When did he learn to do that? He knows he’s going to be doing combat training at the garrison when he starts in the fall, but the play fighting he does with his nephew most definitely does not translate to what he just did.
With one last look to the… aliens? People in costumes? Lance bolts. He has no idea where he’s going, the hallway stretches endlessly, everything looks identical, long, cold, and empty, illuminated by long soft purple lights, and not a single fucking sign. His lungs burn. His skull throbs in time with his pulse.
An explosion rattles the hallway to his right. The walls shudder. He freezes. Following explosions feels like a terrible survival instinct, but it’s also the only direction that isn’t silent. He moves toward it. Maybe someone’s rescuing him. That’s how these things go, right? You wake up kidnapped and then someone dramatically blasts through a wall to save you. Except… how would anyone know he’s here? He doesn’t even know he’s here. His brain offers absolutely nothing helpful. No memory of being grabbed. No van. No chloroform. No dramatic last words.
He thinks maybe this is some kind of underground warehouse, he heard the granny’s rumours when they gossip down by the local shops, whispers about dangerous men moving in near the cliffs, strange lights at night. This feels… slightly beyond “dodgy fishermen.” Another explosion rocks the corridor. Mama always told him not to wander so far down the beach. Said the caves weren’t safe. Said there were people hiding in there. She is never going to let him hear the end of this. If he makes it out of here, he’s grounded until he’s thirty. Which is fine. He does not need adventure ever again. His head throbs in sharp protest, vision swimming at the edges. He really, really hopes the explosion is the good guys.
The sound leads him to the edge of something enormous. He edges around the corner, and the hallway falls away into a cavernous hangar. It’s massive. Cathedral massive. Steel, strange, angular ships docked in neat, impossible rows. And at the far end - There is no wall.
There is only black.
Endless.
Absolute.
Scattered with distant, indifferent stars. There are no clouds. No horizon. No curve of Earth. Just vacuum and light and nothing in between. His pulse slams against his ribs. No. No, that’s –
He takes an involuntary step back, heel catching on the smooth floor. He’s in space? Is that space? The realization tilts through him like vertigo. Like gravity has quietly unhooked itself and forgotten to tell him.
The universe doesn’t give him long to process it. Another explosion tears through the hangar, snapping him back into motion. The sound ricochets off the metal walls, rattling through his skull. His head is not built for this. Shouts echo from every direction. A blast of light streaks past the opening and slams into the far wall, leaving molten metal in its wake. Lasers. Actual lasers. When he watches closer, he sees between all the bat people? Cat people? Lizards? Lance doesn’t have time to categorize, he spots movement that looks blessedly, reassuringly human in armour like the broken plating still strapped to his own body, though arguably in much better condition. The closest to him, is the only one not wearing a helmet. Dark hair plastered to his forehead with sweat, eyes sharp and locked onto the fight like he belongs in it. Lance’s brain slaps a label on him immediately: Red Armor Guy, and yep, that’s definitely a human, thank the lord.
Some part of Lance hopes he’s just gotten mixed up in a an aggressively committed sci-fi LARPing group, that have crazy resources, impressive special effects, method actors, the lot. He can almost see it: he wandered onto a set, tripped over a cable, knocked himself out. The two bat-things were just production assistants in unfortunate costumes. Right? Maybe they were coming to help him. He starts the feel bad. And then – A streak of white-hot light cuts across the hangar. It hits one of the bat creatures mid-stride. For half a second nothing happens, then the arm separates. Oh fuck. The limb hits the floor with a wet, meaty sound that echoes far louder than it should. Dark blood sprays in an ugly arc across the metal, steaming where it lands. The creature screams. The severed arm twitches once. Lance’s stomach drops straight through him. That’s not fake, no number of special effects can do that. Not prosthetic. Not foam. Blood. His vision tunnels. The edges go dark. His mouth floods with saliva. He clamps a hand over it, swallowing hard. His head spins, he’s going to throw up, he is absolutely going to throw up.
“Lance?!” The name cuts through the chaos like a blade. He jerks toward the voice. Red Armor Guy is staring straight at him. He knows me. The realization hits almost as hard as the explosion did. Should I know him? Fuck, where should he know him from? He knows he would have remembered a guy like that, he’s hot. He stops that thought.
“Lance, what the hell are you doing?!” Red shouts, already moving. “Shiro’s checking the cells for you!” Cells. For you. The words don’t land properly. Red pivots mid-stride and drives something glowing and lethal straight through a massive lizard-like creature. The alien drops instantly. He’s done this before. The hangar noise muffles suddenly, like someone stuffed cotton in Lance’s ears. Everything slows - flashes of light, falling bodies, Red moving with terrifying certainty. Lance can’t move. He just stands there, heart hammering, brain lagging seconds behind reality.
A hand slams down on his shoulder. He yelps - embarrassingly high - and whips around to find himself face-to-helmet with another armoured figure, this one trimmed in black.
“Thank goodness you’re okay Lance, good job getting out of there!” The voice is firm. Warm. This guy knows him too. “Let’s get back to the ship, stay with me.” Before Lance can process that - ship, stay with me, what - a gloved hand closes around his wrist. And then they’re running. Lance stumbles once before finding his footing, boots slipping against polished metal as he’s pulled through smoke and shouting and flashes of light. The world fractures into pieces - red blurs, purple bodies, the crack of weapons discharging. He doesn’t know what’s happening. He doesn’t know where they’re going. Because for some reason, illogical, instinctive, he trusts this guy. The realization is almost more unsettling than the battle. They break toward the edge of the hangar – and Lance nearly slams face-first into solid black metal when Black Armor stops short. He collides with his back, breath whooshing out of him.
“Sorry–” he starts, but the word dies. Because in front of them- Is a giant mechanical cat. A massive, armoured creature of black metal and glowing seams, crouched and waiting like it’s alive. Its eyes flare. Its mouth opens. Lance’s brain supplies absolutely nothing helpful.
“What the–” He trips backward, nearly planting himself flat on the hangar floor, but another set of arms catches him before gravity wins. Yellow armour.
“Got you, buddy!” Buddy. Sure. Is Lance supposed to know this guy too? Maybe when he takes his helmet off, he’ll remember him. His brain tells him he won’t. In front of them, the mechanical cat lowers its head further, maw wide, as if this is perfectly normal behaviour. No one else hesitates. He’s shoved, bodily, into the mechanical cat’s open mouth along with Black and Yellow, boots skidding against metal flooring that hums beneath him. The jaw begins to close. Red launches himself forward. There’s a split second where Lance is absolutely certain he’s about to watch him get crushed. Then Red hits the floor hard inside the lion as the metal jaws slam shut with a thunderous clang. The world seals. Lance’s pulse is in his throat. He grabs the nearest wall to keep from collapsing, fingers digging into cold metal. He is going to pass out. Or die. Possibly both.
The entire structure shudders violently as something outside slams into it. The floor tilts. Sparks flash overhead. Black Armor is already moving, not panicked, precise. He reaches a massive control panel, and his hands fly over it like he’s done this a hundred times before. The lion lurches forward. No. Up. The vibration changes - from grinding metal to a smooth, rising hum. Lance’s stomach drops out from under him. They burst from the hangar and - The stars move. They’re flying. In space. Flying. The black outside the viewport stretches endlessly, swallowing everything, and the hangar shrinks behind them into nothing.
“Oh my God,” he breathes. His brain short-circuits somewhere between awe and nausea. They’re headed straight toward the massive castle-shaped ship looming ahead - all sharp edges and glowing towers - like something out of a fever dream. A flash of green streaks past them. Another cat. Lion? Smaller. Faster. Firing blasts back toward the hangar with terrifying accuracy. There’s more of them. More giant robot cats. Of course there are. Why would there not be. Lance presses harder against the wall, like gravity might change its mind at any moment.
The Red Armoured Man is staring directly at him; Lance feels it before he fully registers it. He keeps his eyes fixed very deliberately on the opposite wall. What does he want? Does he know? The thought hits cold and fast. Does he know Lance has absolutely no idea what’s going on? Has he already figured it out? Has Lance said something wrong? Stood wrong? Breathed wrong? Maybe they grabbed the wrong guy. Maybe there’s another Lance out there, competent, space-trained, actually useful, and they’re about to realize they picked up the discount version and he’s preparing to eject him mid-flight? His brain helpfully supplies the image of the lion’s mouth opening and him getting tossed out into the vacuum like expired cargo. Maybe Lance is still unconscious somewhere and this is a concussion-induced hallucination. That would explain the robot cat. And the lasers. His throat goes dry. He risks a glance. Red doesn’t look away.
“Are you hurt?” The words cut clean through the noise in Lance’s head, it’s spoke low and tight, and he’s still slightly breathless from the battle. Lance blinks. For a second, he forgets how to answer. He forces himself to check. He knows his head is still throbbing, deep and relentless, like something is knocking from the inside. His ankle is in a bit of pain, but it’s more annoying than painful. He can feel bruises have formed and are continuing to form in many places around his body. It feels wet inside of his armour suit on his side, is he bleeding? But it’s not catastrophic. Not broken-arm-last-summer bad. Not hospital bad. Red is still watching him. Lance realizes he’s been standing there in silence far too long.
“My head hurts,” he says finally. The words sound thin. Insufficient. Almost stupid. Like a gross understatement. Red’s jaw tightens. His eyes narrow slightly, it makes Lances insides twist.
“You’ve probably got a concussion!” a bright voice crackles through the lion’s speakers. “After that hit from Haggar’s magic, we thought you were a goner!” A goner. The word lands strangely cheerful. There’s laughter behind it - light, casual, like they’re discussing a close call in a football game instead of… whatever that was. He was a what? He pictures it, his stomach flips. He lets out a small, automatic laugh, a half-second too late. Right. Yes. Near death. Hilarious. No one reacts to the delay. That’s almost worse.
“We’ll get you to Coran as soon as we dock,” Yellow adds easily. “Quick pod session and you’ll be as good as new, buddy.” As good as new; he isn’t sure what that would mean. He nods like that makes sense. He wonders who Coran is, he wonders what the hell a pod is. This is probably the moment to say something. Hey, quick question - who are you people and why am I in a robot cat? The words hover at the back of his throat. He swallows them, decides now’s not a good time, he’ll wait until he’s out the pod. Then he’ll ask. Probably. He stares very deliberately at the control panel instead of the viewport, because if he looks at the stars again, he might actually lose it. Mama is going to kill him for missing supper. Assuming he ever gets back to Earth.
---
The pod is less “medical equipment” and more “giant glowing coffin,” which is not a comforting aesthetic choice. He’s being gently but firmly herded toward it by an extremely enthusiastic orange-moustached man who talks like he’s hosting a children’s science program.
“Just a quick restorative session, my boy!” Restorative. Sure. That’s a word people use before putting you in tubes. No one has explained what the tube does. Or why he apparently needs it. Or why everyone else seems completely fine with the concept of climbing into a vertical water bottle and trusting alien technology with their organs. Is he supposed to know how this works? He glances around for the yellow armoured guy he walked here with, but he is already halfway out the room. “See you at dinner, buddy! Allura’s waiting for me!” Great, another name he doesn’t recognise. He nods like that means something to him. It does not.
He considers asking what the pod does. He considers asking literally anything. But everyone is moving with the confidence of people who’ve done this before, and he has the sudden, intense urge not to be the only one who hasn’t.
So.
Tube it is.
---
He stumbles out of the pod alone.
For a second, he just stands there, blinking under low, clinical lighting. The room hums softly - not loud enough to be comforting, not quiet enough to ignore. Somewhere nearby, something beeps in slow, patient intervals. He rolls his shoulders experimentally. He registers quickly that there’s no pounding in his skull. No nausea clawing up his throat. His ankle holds his weight without complaint.
Wait. He prods at his temple like the pain might be hiding behind a corner. Nothing. Did that glowing tube actually fix him? That’s… insane. That’s Nobel Prize, change-the-entire-healthcare-system insane. Why is this not trending on every news channel? Why is he apparently the only one impressed by the miracle coffin technology? He hopes he remembers to ask about this later.
He closes his eyes and reaches backward into his memory, trying to grab onto something solid. The beach. His niece’s laugh. Mama calling him in for dinner. Static. Nothing. Not even fuzzy edges. Just blank. He opens his eyes quickly, like the room might have changed while he wasn’t looking.
On a nearby bench sits a folded stack of clothes. His clothes. His jacket is on top, worn soft at the cuffs, one sleeve torn slightly at the seam. That definitely wasn’t there yesterday. He’s sure it wasn’t there yesterday. He would’ve noticed. Yesterday. Was it yesterday?
He changes out of the strange, too-smooth pod suit and into his own clothes, grounding himself in familiar fabric. The jacket smells faintly like metal and something he can’t place. Not detergent. Not home. He tugs it on anyway. His body feels steady now. His brain, however, is still very much buffering. Now, he needs to figure out what the hell is going on.
---
The giant castle spaceship thing he knows he’s on is only mildly less confusing than the last place. The corridors are all white and blue and endless. Too clean. Too smooth. He walks without direction, pretending he knows where he’s going. The doors slide open for him automatically, which feels either reassuring or deeply suspicious. Eventually, he hears voices. Laughter. He follows it like a lifeline. He comes up to a large room with a kitchen area on one side, and a large dining table, where six people are seated.
“My boy! You took longer than expected – come, come!” The orange haired man he knows to be Coran loudly exclaims. Lance obeys automatically and drops into the seat beside Red Armour Guy, because apparently self-preservation has limits. In front of Lance is a large plate of… green goo? It looks like the least appetising thing he’s ever seen, but everyone else is helping themselves to it like it’s the most normal thing in the world. Well, Lance has always taken pride in his ability to just ‘go with the flow’, so that he does. He once ate gas station sushi and survived. He scoops a cautious bite. it tastes like… nothing. Just texture – but he’s hungry and he guesses if they had better food, they wouldn’t all be eating this. Mama didn’t raise a complainer. (That is objectively false, but still.)
As Lance eats, the conversation moves around him, he studies them, Coran he knows. The one next to him is the Red Armour. He thinks he can tell the other two men are the Yellow and Black Armour ones, he guesses one of them is Shiro from what Red said. The smallest one is chatting with yellow, and Lance can tell that’s the voice that came over the speaker in the robot. And then at the end of the table is a regal looking woman, who might just be the prettiest girl Lance has ever seen. Is this Allura? Her and Coran have pointed ears and unusual face markings, they look real, more LARPers, but fantasy elf ones this time?
The image hits him without warning. The memory of the bat aliens’ arm being ripped off, the sound it made when it hit the floor – wet, harsh. The smell of something burnt and metallic. His fork pauses halfway to his mouth. Across the table, Allura is speaking calmly, elegantly. Her hands move as she talks. Long fingers. Pale markings. Pointed ears. He realises that these two people in front of him might be aliens too, nicer ones, hopefully. His stomach turns violently, green paste suddenly too close to the colour of exposed muscle. He swallows hard and it burns all the way down. He starts to worry these people are going to start asking him questions he doesn’t know the answers too. He laughs when someone else does, just in case. Too late. Too loud. He feels like a fraud. Red Armor Guy is watching him again, panic flickers low and hot under Lance’s ribs. He doesn’t know what Red is looking for. He doesn’t know what he’s supposed to be hiding. He just knows - with sudden, nauseating certainty - He’s getting something wrong.
“You’re awfully quiet Lance, is everything alright?” The alien lady is staring directly at him; how long has she been watching him? Her voice isn’t sharp. It’s gentle. He feels uneasy. His brain scrambles for the correct version of himself. He flashes a grin. He cracks a quick joke about feeling like he’s been hit by a bus, how he could sleep for a week. A few sympathetic nods. Someone chuckles. Her expression softens, satisfied enough. Crisis averted. You could tell them, his brain suggests helpfully. You could say you don’t remember any of this. You could admit you have no idea who they are. He takes another bite of green nothing and chews until the thought goes away.
Nope. Not doing that.
He listens harder now, Yellow is Hunk. That tracks. He is, objectively, a hunk. That means that Black Armour is called Shiro, is that a play on his bit of white hair? The nickname seems a bit on the nose. The smaller one is called Pidge, again, surely that’s a nickname. No one legally names their kid Pidge. Probably. Are all of these code names? Lance has a weird thought that maybe they are all spies. The regal looking lady is definitely Allura. Which leaves Mr. Brooding Red Armor. No one says his name. No one checks in on him the way they just did Lance. He sits quiet, intense, like that’s normal. Like that’s expected. Lance risks another glance. Red is already looking at him. Lance drops his gaze immediately, heat crawling up the back of his neck. He watches the rest of them instead.
The way Hunk bumps shoulders with Pidge. The way Shiro leans back in his chair like he trusts the room completely. The way Allura and Coran share half-finished sentences. They fit together. Effortlessly. There’s a sharp, sudden ache in Lance’s chest that feels embarrassingly close to homesickness. He doesn’t understand it. He doesn’t know what he’s missing.
Dinner dissolves like nothing happened. Plates scraped clean. Chairs pushed back. Casual goodnights. No one looks shaken. No one looks confused. They disperse with the ease of people who know exactly where they’re going.
Lance does not.
He hesitates half a second too long before deciding Hunk is his safest option, he seems the friendliest, and Lance doesn’t know his way around, so recons this is his best bet. He follows him down the hall, Hunk cracks a smile at him and talks the whole way - something about drills, something about Blue overheating last week, something about Pidge reprogramming a guidance system at three in the morning. Lance nods at the appropriate intervals. Blue. Still unclear if that’s a person, a weapon, or a pet. He files it away for later. They end up in a common room, a lounge type area, Hunk heads straight for a stack of translucent disks and holds one up.
“Want to watch this one again?” The disk is opaque with a light blue pattern and random symbols in a language Lance is sure isn’t real. Again. The word hits a fraction too hard. Lance keeps his face neutral.
“Yeah, sure.” He nods like he’s seen it before. They settle into the sofa, and the room dims automatically. Comfortable silence settles between them as they watch whatever weird movie Hunk is putting on. Lance’s chest tightens. This would be the moment. He could say it casually. Hey, funny story. I don’t remember literally any of you. He rehearses it. Too dramatic. Too awkward. Too likely to end badly. He feels an impending sense of doom, like the feeling when his mama would shout his name, and he’s not sure what he’s done, but he knows he’s about to be in big trouble. The feeling talks him out of saying anything, so he sits and watches the movie with Hunk. Staring at the people in costume in some kind of action movie. Wait, not costumes. Is that more aliens? Oh my god, Lance thinks, he’s so in over his head.
---
The movie ends in a blur of explosions and dramatic music, Hunk makes a big show of stretching.
“Training tomorrow,” he says around a yawn. “Catch you then.” Training. The word drops like a weight. “For…?” Lance almost asks. He doesn’t.
“Yeah,” he says instead, like that means something. Hunk claps him once on the shoulder and disappears down the hallway. And just like that, the room is too quiet. He stands there for a moment, hands awkwardly shoved in his jacket pockets, waiting for instinct to kick in. It doesn’t.
Last thing he remembers clearly: falling asleep after hanging out with his niece and nephew. Sand still in his shoes. Sunscreen and salt in his hair. He had plans the next morning. Meet the guys at the far end of the beach, where it curves into caves and cliffs. Mama hated that place. Said the tides were unpredictable. Said there were sketchy people hiding in the rocks. (Not that Lance ever saw anyone. Mama has a dramatic streak.)
Lance doesn’t remember going, but he must have, something must have happened there, he must have hit his head and forgotten a bit, it can’t be more than a week since then, he would know. God, a week is a long time to completely forget.
Did he get abducted? Because if he’s in space - and he is, unfortunately, very much in space - then that’s the obvious answer. If he misses the start date at the Garrison because he was abducted by literal extraterrestrials, they have to excuse that. That’s not a “late to orientation” situation. That’s a federal-level explanation. He worked too hard for that spot. They wouldn’t just give it away. They couldn’t. Right? His stomach tightens.
Okay. So maybe these people - Hunk, Shiro, Pidge, Red - were abducted too, from Earth. Maybe they escaped first. Maybe he got hurt. This “Haggar” person apparently blasted him in the head with magic. Magic. Sure. Why not. Maybe they came back for him. That’s when he woke up. That makes sense. He’ll go with that for now. He’ll just… ease into it. Play along. Memories come back after trauma all the time. That’s a thing. Probably. He’ll remember eventually. He just needs sleep. And Earth. And gravity. And his mama yelling at him for tracking sand into the house. The thought hits harder than it should, he swallows it down.
He must have a room here, right? The idea that he doesn’t know where it is makes his chest feel tight. He rubs the back of his neck. He heads for the hallway again.
---
He doesn’t know how long he’s been walking; the corridors blur into one another - blue light, white walls, the quiet hum of systems that don’t sleep. His footsteps echo too loud in the emptiness. Then the hallway opens. The room is wide and silent, dominated by towering windows that stretch from floor to ceiling. No glass glare. No reflection. Just black - endless and absolute - scattered with stars that look close enough to touch if he presses his palm to the surface. It steals the air from his lungs. It’s beautiful. It’s terrifying.
He’s always loved space. Loved the idea of it, anyway. That feeling of looking up and knowing there’s more. It’s why he applied to the Garrison. Space exploration program. Flight track. He’s going to be a pilot, like Takashi Shirogane, and explore the stars someday. The name sparks -bright and familiar - and for half a second he sees it clearly: posters taped crookedly above his bed, interviews playing on his phone, and then - Black armour, white streak, the image glitches in his mind, two versions overlapping. No. That doesn’t make sense. He pushes the thought away before it can settle.
The room isn’t empty.
There’s a figure near the window, hunched slightly forward, one elbow braced against the ledge, fist resting against his mouth. Red. The name sits just out of reach, he could almost grab it. It slips away. Lance hesitates, suddenly aware of the sound of his own breathing. He doesn’t know if he’s interrupting something. He doesn’t know if he’s welcome. He walks forward anyway, quieter than he means to be. Red lifts his head at the movement. Their eyes meet.
“You homesick?” The question is low. Not teasing. Not casual. Lance blinks. Yeah. Obviously. He’d trade this entire intergalactic nightmare for his mama’s cooking and sand stuck in his shoes in a heartbeat. He wonders - sharply, suddenly - if she knows he’s gone. If anyone does.
“Yeah,” he says, because that feels safe. Neutral. “Aren’t you?” It seems like the normal thing to say. It is not the right thing to say. Red’s expression tightens. A shift around the eyes. The jaw. Like something inside him just locked into place. There’s a beat too long before he looks away again. Lance’s stomach dips. Wrong answer. He doesn’t know why.
“Can I join you?” he adds quickly, gesturing vaguely to the space beside him, like he hasn’t already invaded it. Red nods but doesn’t say anything else. Lance isn’t sure if he should try making conversation or not, he feels like there’s eyes on him, but he pointedly tries not to look at Red.
He lets the stars hold his gaze, anything to stop himself from thinking. His eyes burn from exhaustion, from everything that’s happened today. It’s too much. He searches for something familiar. Anything. His grandmother taught him the constellations when he was little, pointing them out to him from the backyard - stories woven into light: Orion, Cassiopeia, the North Star. He used to trace them with his finger against the dark.
He doesn’t recognize a single one.