The Voltron: Legendary Defendercharacters are under copyright or license by Toei Animation, World Events Productions, Netflix, Dreamworks Animation, Studio Mir and/or others. This is a work of fanfiction, for no monetary gain. This work is simultaneously being posted on .
Chapter 1 – I Don't Need Any of You
OK, so maybe deciding to sneak in and spar with Keith and the training bots wasn't my best plan ever, Lance belatedly realized, as he barely rolled away from the sword in time to escape with what he hoped was minimal injury, his heart almost hammering loudly enough to drown out Keith's frantic cry of his name, as his hand went to the searing pain in his left shoulder, which would have been in his chest instead, his heart, had he reacted just a fraction of a tick slower to the potentially fatal blow.
And then Keith was there, jamming his Bayard through the training bot, shorting it out completely, destroying it, instead of just disabling it.
What the hell is he doing in here, day after day? Does Keith have a death wish? That thing tried to kill me! This isn't training, it's gladiatorial combat!
"End training sequence!" Keith roared, and the half dozen other bots that had appeared with the destruction of his attacker froze.
"You idiot! What the hell do you think you're doing?" Keith demanded, as he fell to his knees beside him, dropping his Bayard to the floor, pulling at his right hand, which came away bloody and revealed an ugly looking slice.
"You could have lost your arm! You could have lost your life!" Keith yelled.
"Come on. I got away, didn't I? This is just a scratch," Lance claimed, trying to calm him down, because he didn't think he'd ever seen Keith this upset over anyone but Shiro, and while for some reason that made warmth blossom in his chest, it also made him feel guilty.
"What the hell are you doing here?" Keith demanded, clamping his own hand to the wound, and hauling him to his feet by the shoulder, either in anger, to hurt him, or to get help and try and stop the bleeding, which was actually a lot heavier than he'd hoped.
"I just wanted to see what's so appealing about this that you'd rather spend your time in here, with the bots, instead of with your teammates," Lance snapped back, relieved his voice sounded accusing, rather than hurt.
"I train so that I can protect you when you screw up and nearly get yourself killed," Keith snapped back, as he dragged him over to the medical kit on the wall that Lance hadn't even noticed. He slapped a spot on the wall, and an examination table slid out. Instead of ordering him to sit on it, Keith actually scooped him up in his arms and laid him down on it, before Lance realized what he was planning to do.
"Now stay still and let me treat you," Keith ordered, as he snapped open the kit, and took out scissors, antiseptic, sterile wipes, gauze pads, and medical tape, and began cutting away his shirt with confident speed and efficiency, as if he'd done this dozens of times before.
"So, do you get hurt a lot when you practice?" Lance asked, hating the silent accusation in Keith's face, because he hadn't done anything wrong. He had as much right to be in here as Keith.
"No," Keith snapped.
The single word answer was typically infuriating.
"But what if the bots went rogue again? Or if you got seriously injured?" Lance challenged. "If you're alone in here, there's no one to help you."
"I don't need anyone's help," Keith snarled, as he cleaned the blood from the wound and assessed it with a critical eye, and then pressed a gauze pad to it.
"Right. Mr.'I'm too cool for school' Academy dropout, got along just fine without a team. Blah, blah, blah," Lance taunted, making a talking motion with his right hand.
"I did. I don't need any of you," Keith claimed, as he began wrapping the medical tape around Lance's arm to secure the gauze pad, his chest heaving under his tight gray T-shirt, every breath highlighting the firm pecs and abdominal muscles of Mr. "I don't need you's" perfect body.
"Yeah? Well we don't need you either," Lance snapped, Keith's words hurting more than the wound, as he yanked the tape out of his hand and began wrapping the rest himself. "Honestly, what does Shiro even see in you? All the cadets in the Academy, and you're the one he wasted his time on? He was years ahead of you. You couldn't have had any classes together. How the hell did you two even meet, anyway?"
Something besides anger flared in Keith's blue eyes for a moment, something that looked surprisingly and uncomfortably like pain, before it was replaced by the more familiar flash of fury.
"You really want to know how I met Shiro?" Keith challenged. "I met him in an alleyway, at knifepoint."
Lance gaped. That was not at all what he was expecting to hear. "Knifepoint? No way! Shiro would never-."
"Not him, you idiot! Me," Keith scoffed, with a disdainful glare that made Lance's stomach flip in a weird way. "I was the one with the knife. I was mugging him."
"You…what?" Lance asked in disbelief.
"So stop trying to be friends with me, before I get you killed! I'm no one's friend." Keith snatched up his red jacket and stormed off the training room floor, and out of the room.
Lance stared numbly at the doorway. No, that can't be right. Keith and Shiro met in the Academy, right? They must have. Keith just made that up. And I can prove it. All I have to do is ask Shiro.
He headed back to his room first, to change his cut and bloody shirt, because he didn't need everyone to know he'd managed to get hurt again, not the way they worried about every scratch now, since he'd almost died when the Galra invaded the Castle.
After changing, Lance headed for the control room. Chances were, Shiro would be there, with Allura and Coran, planning, strategizing. But Coran was the only one there.
"Have you seen Shiro?" Lance asked.
"It's been a while. He and Allura were heading outside, to patrol the perimeter," Coran replied.
Lance nodded and turned. If it had been Shiro and Keith, Lance would have said, "Oh. Sure. 'Patrolling the perimeter'. Is that what they're calling it nowadays? Gotta love those Terran euphemisms, right, Coran?"
"Why are you scowling?" Pidge asked from right behind him, making Lance jump, and spin, and trip over his own feet. He would have fallen if Pidge hadn't darted out a hand, in an epic save, fortunately grabbing his right arm.
"I've told you not to sneak… wait. I wasn't scowling," Lance argued.
"Sure you were. You're doing it right now, see?" Pidge said, holding up whatever piece of tech she'd been tinkering with, something that looked like some kind of winged beetle, the shiny carapace making an effective mirror.
Yeah, that was definitely a scowl. "Well yeah, now I'm scowling. Because you snuck up on me."
"No, you were thinking about something that was upsetting you. Which means Keith and Shiro, because you don't glare quite that badly when it's just Keith," Pidge said in an offhand, knowing way that made Lance regret he knew she was really a girl, because he really wanted to wipe that smug grin off her face. Not that she was smirking, but it was implied, and-
"Fine. Don't tell me. I'm sure it's nothing I haven't already heard a million times already. 'Why is Keith such a jerk? Why is Shiro so perfect?' Blah, blah, blah." Pidge turned away and started down the corridor.
"Wait! Have you seen Shiro?" Lance asked.
It was Pidge's turn to frown, but it vanished so fast, he thought maybe he'd imagined it. "Yeah. He's 'patrolling the perimeter' with Allura," Pidge said, air quotes, snippy tone, catty innuendo, pout and all.
Lance was relieved to be back on familiar ground. "Ooh. S-o-m-e-o-n-e's jealous," Lance teased.
Pidge glared, then snorted. "Yeah. Takes one to know one, Romeo." And then she turned away.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Lance demanded. "I am not jealous of Keith. Or Shiro. Or anybody."
Pidge just waved her hand dismissively, not even deigning to turn back around, clearly done with their conversation.
Fine. Let her keep those wild suppositions cluttering up her devious little brain. Girls. Who needs them?
Lance headed outside, to look for Shiro. Because now he had to know how he and Keith had really met. If it was such a big secret that Keith was making up stories about it, something epic must have happened.
He'd always figured it had been a simulator battle, two pilots, facing off against one another in mock combat. Or maybe a literal battle, a fight inside the simulator, Keith being a typical hothead, screwing up the mission, and Shiro calling him out onto the carpet for it. Except that wasn't really Shiro's style. And pissed or not, Keith could fly pretty much better than anyone he'd ever seen, even Shiro, and he was a legend at the Academy. Why else would they have trusted him with the Kerberos mission, instead of a seasoned pilot?
Lance headed outside the Castle. It was a perfect, beautiful day, which only brought home the fact that this planet wasn't earth in vivid sense-around. Earth's sky had never been that shade of lavender before, except maybe at twilight, but it was midday. It might be hot during the summer, but he shouldn't be able to feel the heat just as strong from the right and the left, because Sol wasn't half a binary star system.
The smells were all wrong too: no Terran flower ever had that infuriating fried dough and cinnamon sugar scent that reminded him painfully of fresh churros. Plus the birds here whistled instead of chirped or sang, though they were actually more like flying reptiles with thin membranous wings like a bat's, but brightly colored like a butterfly's.
And he could literally taste the air – it was simultaneously both sour and sweet and thoroughly infuriating. Coran said it was actually the pollen in the air, from the trees, or what passed for trees here, but … I want to go home.
The yearning that had been a physical ache in his stomach was turning into something more like a knifing pain now, and… knife. Keith. Shiro. With renewed determination, Lance looked for Shiro and Allura, determined to learn the truth.