#twingane

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Writer Nonnie watching the Iron Giant and thinking that Ryou would both love and hate this thing. It's a mechanical wonder that can put itself back together... but it eats metal. Ryou's work would not survive a day. Back to writing for Shiro's birthday week!

but seriously, Ryou with his love of all things mechanic - sigh.  Poor man.  He’d just have to start putting red paint all over his actual work and teach the Iron Giant red meant ‘no’.  On the upside - someone to dig through trash with him!

also tagging @theprojectava.  Because I think you would love this mental picture.

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That ask about Ryou going searching for Shiro made me think of something: Imagine Shiro and the other paladins seeing a broadcast about a special arena match featuring the return of the Champion and Shiro's heart just stopping when he see's a terrified looking Ryou on the screen.

welp.  You’ve done it now, nonnie.

“Shiro, could you come to the bridge please?”

The princess’ voice over the com and Shiro looked up from where he was working on training the rest of the team on hand-to-hand.  Lance took a pot shot at him with an elbow and Shiro, smiling a little, caught it in his palm without turning his head to look, peripheral vision easily catching the telegraphed move.

“Good job, Lance.  Always take the opening when you see it.”  He straightened and the rest of the team, looking relieved, and, in Hunk’s case, a little less scared, straightened as well.  “Be right there, princess.  All right team, take five. Then try out your new move on each other.  Gently.”

“That was her ‘uh oh’ tone,” Pidge observed, moving over to get her glasses.  Shiro didn’t comment on it because - well, Pidge was right.  Allura’s voice somehow got stiffer and even more enunciated and ‘proper’ when she was concerned about something.

“Uh oh voice?” Lance was suddenly interested - and giving Shiro the woolly eyeball.  Starting to grin.  “You’re in trouble,” he singsonged.  Shiro ran a towel over the back of his neck and debated getting back into his uniform.  He didn’t feel right coming into a situation, especially on the bridge and with Allura no less, out of uniform but he’d just get it dirty in his current state if he did and he didn’t think that tone of voice offered time for a shower and making himself presentable.   He accepted the water packet Hunk passed him with a smile and shook his head.

“Just keep up with your training.  I’ll be back to check on you once I get the chance.”

Lance gave him a salute - which he assumed meant the team was going to rest for at least ten minutes instead of five once he was out the door but he wasn’t going to call them on it.  They had been working hard.  Keith however fell into step next to him.  Shiro arched an eyebrow at him but Keith just scowled and kept pace with him for the door.  Keith had always stuck close but since the run in with Haggar and the crash landing on the planet with the space lizards, there was a definite shift in the way he - it wasn’t hovering but it certainly had a more protective feel to it.  Shiro appreciated it - and knew he was going to have to get it to stop.  Keith had other things he needed to concentrate on.  Just - not yet.  Whatever Allura wanted, Shiro didn’t have a problem with Keith hearing it too.  If anything happened to him, he wanted Keith to lead and that started with being part of making planes.

“What?  How come Keith gets to go?  Allura didn’t use her ‘uh oh’ voice on him.”

Which, Shiro suspected meant Lance was looking for a way out of more training but he shrugged.  It wasn’t as if they were keeping secrets about anything.

“Well, come on.”

Pidge and Hunk took one look at each other and scrambled to their feet as well, falling into quick step behind a trotting Lance.

Looked like Allura was getting the whole crew after all.

Not that she seemed particularly bothered by it, beyond a raised set of thin eyebrows when they all walked onto the bridge shortly after her call.  The main vid screen was up, trailing alien lettering across it like a marque sign.  A vicious looking face, something that looked like a bad mug shot, flared to life and somewhere in the back of Shiro’s mind, something went very cold.  His stomach rolled, nauseated without reason, and the next picture that flashed by was of the same alien, armed with dual knives the size of bastard swords in the middle of a fight, a frozen second of time in a death struggle that Shiro recognized the way a sick fever that had settled into the bones was recognizable each time it surfaced.  He averted his eyes from the screen and forced all his concentration on the princess.  Who was watching him with the tight lines of worry about her eyes.

“What’s going on?”  His voice at least stayed steady but he saw the way the other paladin’s craned their necks to see what was still flashing across the screen and he knew they were putting the math together and realizing what that was - and what it meant to him.  He refused to look at them.

“I’m sorry, Shiro,” still clipped but softer and he both appreciated that and registered that anything that started off with an apology was probably going to be uncomfortable, at the least, for him.  He unconsciously squared his already set shoulders and met her eyes.  He could do this.  He was the Black Paladin.  And he was the squad leader.  Everything else came second place to that.  Whatever Allura say she took it as her sign to continue.

“As you know, we had a constant monitor running on all the news sources we can access.  Both for any hints that will help us with assigning new targets and to keep an ear out for any news involving Voltron.  We programed in quite a few words that will immediately flag if they come up.”  She gave him another look, part apologetic, part ‘don’t ask me to apologize it was necessary’.  “One of those words is Champion.”

The sick feeling intensified, curling rotten in his gut, coiling up the back of his spine and wrapping around the base of it.  The fever dream feeling moved through the back of his brain, always there, just a little less dormant now.  He kept his jaw looked and his eyes straight ahead on her and he didn’t miss the way Keith stepped to his side and just a little behind him or the way the rest of the team went silent.  Coran interrupted.

“As you know, we run hundreds of words through the system every tic, sorting through the news and trying to find useful tips.  Most of its rubbish of course.  That and a few catchy song lyrics really.”  The brief distraction lost to his usual enthusiasm.  “But every now and then we get a useful hit!  Loose lips ground star ships and all that.”

“Right,” Allura took over again.  “We got a pip just a few moments ago.  It appears one of the more affluent planets is hosting a Gladiator event.”  Her tone made her opinion obvious as only Allura could.  Her eyes met his and her voice went gentler.  Almost apologetic again.  “Shiro, I thought you should see this.”

His common sense was screaming at him not to look.  That he already knew what the fighter scrolls looked like, that it would cause a flashback, that his team didn’t need to see him fall apart again - but if the princess thought it was important than he trusted her judgement.  Eyes narrowing a little, bracing himself, he turned to look at the screen. 

“They’re hailing it as quite the event.”  She paused, just for a second.  “And the core game is for the return of the Champion to the fight ring.”

The picture flashed up on the screen.  Dark close cut hair except for the longer fringe in the front, stormy grey eyes, a lean square face.  Shiro went completely still.  The universe stopped, in that split second, just before it crashed like broken glass into sand and something, small and foolish, thought - if he would just not move, maybe the rest of the world wouldn’t either and this wouldn’t be real.  Lance made a surprised noise.  And, surprisingly, it was Hunk that spoke, voice cracking a little, in surprise and hurt.

“Instructor Ryou?”

The ‘mug shot’ was a little out of focus and the man in it looked a bit worse for the wear, bruised and hollow cheeked, lip split.  But it was the eyes that tore the heart right out of Shiro.  The wide, scared, lost looking, unprepared eyes.

“Who?” Lance wanted to know as Pidge made a small squeaking noise and said:

“I didn’t realize they were identical.”

The next still was of the same man, the man that looked so much like a younger Shiro from only a year ago, teeth bared, pure fury and anger across his face, features splashed with something dark and teeth bared in a snarl as he lunged at something much bigger than him bare handed.

“It’s his brother.  Shiro’s twin brother.”  Keith was explaining but it was all buzzing in Shiro’s ears, somewhere distant and hollow.  He could taste metal in his mouth, tinny and foreign.

“He’s supposed to be on Earth though,” Keith’s voice was still going.  “He shouldn’t be out here.”

Safe on Earth.

Anywhere but here.

“Suit up, team.”  Shiro’s voice was flat and deathly calm.  He was already heading for his compartment, stride intent and irrevocable.  “We’ve got a fight to stop.”

part 2

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Random thought: Ryou is always trying to feed someone. Taka has to clean after Ryou when they cook. What if Taka has to clean because if no one does, the kitchen looks like a war zone. Stuff is on fire, pots are overflowing, a knife flies and nearly hits Ryou in the head. YET SOMEHOW THIS BOY HAS THE DEVIL'S LUCK AND ALL THE FOOD COMES OUT A++ 100% OKAY. Hunk and Coran nearly die at the sight of an unsupervised Ryou cooking.

you know, of the two twins, one of them has to at least be semi-proficient in the kitchen just so they don’t both starve when left on their own.  I’ve headcanoned before that one of the reasons Taka is so terrible at cooking is because he gets distracted away from it, look even five minutes in the microwave is five minutes he could be doing other things instead of standing there staring at the timer and in five minutes there’s a lot he can get into that can distract him away from dinner.  Give Taka anything that DOESN‘T turn itself off automatically like a microwave does and that’s just begging for disaster.  I would love to think that he and his twin balance each other out here and Ryou is the salvation of the younger Shirogane generation... but I’d honestly be lying if I thought Ryou was any better about not getting distracted away from things than Taka is when it comes to cooking.  Not to mention at any given time, half of their cooking appliances are probably in pieces because Ryou is in a never ending quest to improve them and - I think the Shirogane twins eat a lot of microwave food.  A lot.  Especially since, while eating itself is important and Ryou recognizes that - what he eats ... isn’t so much?  I mean, I think of the two of them Taka is the one eating Frosted Flakes out of the box and drinking milk afterward and calling it breakfast/dinner but while Ryou may be a bit better when it comes to ‘no, that only gives you a temporary sugar high, you need something that will give you energy all day and ‘OHMYGODTAKA! PUT THE MONSTER ENERGY DRINK DOWN!!’ I don’t think that stretches to included Ryou being any kind of miracle in the kitchen.  God knows, I suspect their mother (and possibly father) tried but it just didn’t take.  So Ryou relies on protein shakes and energy bars and just kind of puts them in front of his brother at random times knowing Taka will down them without question or really even too much realization (and if you think this hasn’t led to Ryou taking advantage with the occasional horrifyingly nasty concoction just to watch his brother’s face once his taste buds register it, you’re... not thinking of the same set of twins I am).  But - yeah, I can see Ryou actually being fairly decent when he applies himself - both because he can follow instructions and because he’s good at improving with designs.  I think, the rare times he does though, you’ve nailed it on the head and the kitchen is a the ending of a horror movie afterward and Taka doesn’t even really phase at cleaning it up because that’s just the way its always been.

What I think we’re both saying and agreeing is that Hunk and Coran need to keep both Shirogane out of the kitchen area as much as possible because there will be a fire every time they don’t.  Taka’s is just because he got caught up reading an article on black holes and Ryou because - well - explosions and flame make everything better so he sees no reason to stop a good one once its going and it DOES cook the food faster.  Either way, you’re getting mac and cheese out of the deal and just be glad that’s the height of their culinary skill.  Ryou’s just might have dill or paprika or cardamom in it.

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"Ryou is merciless to Keith" ....If he's a dick before knowing Keith is part Galra, what happens when someone casually slips that the little brooding emo is basically part "enemy"?

You know, I wondered when I wrote that if anyone was going to pick up on it.  Good eye, nonnie! 

All right, so let’s talk Ryou and Keith.  Because they both want top spot with Taka and I think, as competitive and honest emotion as they both are, its natural that they must jostle each other from time to time.  So, all his life, Ryou’s always been secure in his top spot with Taka.  He knows that, if he needs it, Taka will drop everything for him.  He doesn’t call it in often - but its still a warm, fuzzy spot deep in his heart.  And then this kid shows up and its not as if its the first time Taka’s taken an underclassmen or hurting kid under his wing because - well, it’s Taka and that’s pretty much what he does but this one is different.  This kid limpets to Taka and suddenly every time Ryou is dragging himself out of his classes and training to crash with his brother, there’s this kid already there.  A kid who doesn’t back off and give Ryou what he considers his rightful spot.  I’m not a shipper but even on a friendship/mentor level the way I see Taka and Keith, there‘s no doubt at all that the bond between the two of them is very strong and that it goes both ways.  And especially as its first developing, Ryou is going to, naturally, hit moments when his twin is talking about/worrying about/helping out someone else.  I think it would be impossible for both Keith and Ryou not to butt heads and honestly be jealous of what each other have with Taka.  And, honestly, there’s not much Taka can do about that beyond trying to stay balanced.  It’s really something that Ryou and Keith have to sort out between the two of them.  Especially at first, I think there was a lot of sniping that went on behind Taka’s back and I’ve got to say, sure he’s the older and more mature one, but I’m going to bet Ryou was the snippier of the two.  Because Keith - isn’t the best with knowing what to say or reading people and Ryou - Ryou is Taka’s brother.  Just because he works with machines doesn’t mean he’s not much more socially aware and good with knowing the right word for the right twist.  I would like to think that a part of him held back - because, again, he is Taka’s brother and I think both of the boys were raised to be aware that their actions have consequences and the strong protect the weak.  Ryou can’t, in good conscious, run over Keith to the extend he could once he’s sussed out his weaknesses.  Utterly destroying someone goes against his grain and - Taka cares about Keith.  That kind of thing puts a high value on anything for Ryou as well.  But I can’t pretend he didn’t snap back just as fierce and twice as vicious and I can’t pretend that sometimes he didn’t go out of his way to make things difficult when he knew Taka wouldn’t catch him.

But then

Because there’s always a ‘but then’ and I can’t imagine a Shirogane being comfortable being cold or cruel for long before it started to eat at them - but then something happened.  Keith failed a simulation, Ryou ran across someone else picking on him, parent-teacher night rolled around and no one showed up for the kid, he got stuck at a bust stop fifty miles out of town and Taka was on a training mission and Ryou was answering his phone.  Something.  Something that  triggered in Ryou.  Something that made him recognize what an ass he was being.  Something that showed him how hard the kid was trying against the odds.  Something - that honestly showed him why Taka was fighting so damn hard for this one’s future.  And Ryou looks at this scrawny, spit and fire, arms and legs and not much more fourteen year old kid and - he gets it.  He gets it.  And he feels like shit.

Things don’t go hunky dory after that.  Keith’s still ready to fight, because he’s the kitten that’s been poked too many times and he’s not expecting anything else.  And he still takes up more room in Taka’s schedule than Ryou is used to having to share.  Ryou isn’t going to apologize and sometimes - the kid still manages to get under his skin but - he gets it.  He sees where Keith’s missing a part, he sees where the kid had to cobble things together for himself because no one started him off right to begin, he sees just how much extra fuel Keith has to pour into everything just to get the things done that he needs to do.  He sees how gunked up Keith’s ‘engine’ is.  Ryou isn’t Taka.  He’s not even going to pretend.  But he’s got a fixer nature too and Keith is fighting the hardest he’s seen anyone fight for a place in life for a long time.  Where he can help, he will.  And it starts off by kind of adopting the gawky, spitfire kid into his family.  He’s not the gentle, encouraging older brother that Taka is - he’s the asshole brother.  But he’s the asshole brother that will stay up late and give up his sleep to work on your speeder because its making a noise he doesn’t like..  he’s the asshole brother that will make sure you’re eating by throwing breakfast bars and water packets at your head.  He’s the asshole brother that will rein down fire and cold hard fury on anyone that dares pick on this kid he’s adopted. 

He’s the asshole brother that will soup up a unused simulation pod so you can practice maneuvers in it that you’re technically too young to be qualified for.

He’s the asshole brother at the back of the room who shows up for each and every award and merit Keith earns, no matter what he’s supposed to be working on instead and he’ll stand in for Taka as the missions start to take him more and more away from Earth.  The first time Keith knocks on the door in the middle of the night because he can’t stand going back to his dorm room and finds out that Taka’s been called off planet on an emergency, it’s Ryou who lets him in and pops in a horrible B style sci-fi movie and doesn’t say anything other than ‘grab me a drink on your way over’.  They still scratch against each other from time to time but - its not that bad.  In fact, the scratching is kind of part of their relationship.

And then Taka goes missing, tallied down as dead on a moon so far away from Earth chances are they’ll never even be able to retrieve the body

and both of the boys are far too hurt to offer each other anything.

Finding out Keith’s been his brother’s right hand is going to be a relief and a little annoying for Ryou.  But - its still his adopted kid brother and he’s stood in for Ryou when Ryou didn’t even realize there was a spot.  They’ll have to work out a bit, bump around each other again a bit, resettle - but Taka needs them both because they’re the ones who realize the most how damaged he is and how much he needs support.  Keith has grown up some since, stabilized some since.  It’s easier to find a rhythm they can both fit into. Ryou can’t be as much of an asshole as he was before, the opportunities are less.  Them working together without having to talk about what they’re doing is happening more.  Ryou steps up on one side of Shiro and Keith is on the other more.  There’s a better balance.  Finding out Keith is Galra?  Not really an issue for Ryou.  I mean, of course, a surprise, a shock, a brief ‘I killed your kind in the Arena’ thought but - its still Keith.  Ryou might have a harder time if the kid looked Galra from a purely reactionary standpoint - his worst moments have been at Galra hands and there’s possibly still a bit of a latent physical kneejerk reaction to that but Keith... just looks like Keith.  Like he’s always looked.  Still acts like he’s always acted.  Ryou can hear that he’s Galra but his mind doesn’t see Galra when he looks at the kid.  The engine parts are still the same, different brand name, same engine.  If Keith physically mutates to such an extent that he’s unrecognizable, Ryou would probably double take and have to readjust but, right now, he looks and he sees Keith.  That annoying little brother that will fight the stars for a spot in them and maybe Ryou tosses the juice packets these days at hand level instead of head level lobs.  He’s still going to ruffle Keith’s ‘fur’ for the fun of it, but only the way an older brother that’s watching you grow up and find out who you are would. 

And he’ll still, cold, calmly take apart anyone that messes with the kid.  That’s his brother.  You don’t get to mess with Ryou’s family.

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Something Ryou has most likely done multiple times: Carefully taken apart a car/vehicle/other mechanical thing and organized its parts, basically telling its owner "fuck you" because they crossed him in some unredeemable way, like not pay him. /Something Shiro has most likely done multiple times: Support Ryou's brand of revenge by meticulously keeping records of that shit because no one disrespects Ryou like that and gets away with it.

oh, nonnie, he would be so talented at that.  Ryou strikes me as fairly chill most times so I can’t imagine what someone would do that would merit him doing that to someone (probably they messed with Shiro in some way that Shiro shrugged off but like hell is Ryou going to do the same) but I can see him sticking around afterward, leaning against a wall most likely, so that he got full credit for it and could explain exactly why he’d done it in the first place, every single piece down to the separate wires all laid out in size order on a nice white sheet in the middle of the garage.  Ryou probably has eyes that burn like ice if he gets a real glare going on (I imagine Takashi’s do too but I also suspect Taka’s ‘I’m disappointed in you’ is more devastating by far than anything else he could ever do or say to someone).

I also imagine Ryou gave his instructor’s mild heart attacks the first year or so at the Garrison when he’d, yet again, evaded curfew and sneak into the motor pool to take something Very Expensive And High Tech apart and was still in the middle of it the next morning when they found him.  When he was far enough along in the course, they probably just immediately handed all their new vehicles, etc over to him right off the bat because it was easier than trying to keep them a secret.  Taka test drives the new rides, Ryou takes them apart and puts them back together better. (’what are those?’ ‘pieces I didn’t need’ ‘but... those were in the pod’s engine originally’ ‘yep.’ ‘o..... kay?’)

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Ryu meeting the Voltron allies. Internal and externally screaming when exposed to Olkari technology, squeeing over Shay and Hunk's mutual cuteness and excited to meet the merfolk because he loves The Little Mermaid (he is singing Part of Your World all the way down)

Can you imagine how much everyone would enjoy introducing Ryou to ‘their’ alien group?  (and why did I never notice until now how On Spot each alien race is for one element?  Or I picked up on the Olkari for instance but completely missed that Shay and co. are ‘Earth’ elemental with the Hunk/Yellow Lion tie in)  But anyway, can you imagine, each of the paladins considers one of the groups’ theirs’ and after a while its ‘oh! It’s my turn to show Ryou a cool new alien group!’?

As for Ryou?  I think he’d love to get dragged around and shown everything (triple so if its one of the team and he can enjoy their enthusiasm) and he’s very much interested in culture (it’s just another branch of ‘how does this work’ to him) and seeing different ways people live but - I almost think he might be a bit disappointing if left on his own?  Not disappointed, but disappointing in that anyone expecting enthusiasm from him beyond ‘I love what you’re showing me’ is going to find him instead up to his nose in the local recycling plant digging through machine parts or buried in the engine of some street taxi or stuck in a building because the air recycling system is on the fritz and he just has to see how it works to fix it.  Ryou loves people but he’s not a people person.  He loves his people.  He’s sociable, he enjoys meeting new people, he is likely to adopt a stranger that hangs around long enough into his people.  But he’s machine-hearted and he’s going to tend to drift that direction if left alone with no one to tug him back.  So, while he’s going to be sociable, he’s going to be more interested in the Olkari technology than the plant powers, he’s going to be more in love with the Balmera itself than the Balmereans and he’s going to want to see how the merfolk created tech that works underwater more than he’s going to be into their local specialty foods.  Taka is the space explorer in the family and Ryou has always been more than happy to let him take point so Ryou can focus on the things that really interest him.  Like how crystals can provide renewable energy or the merfolk use the way water conducts vibrations to power their satellites or whether the Olkari tech’s ability to split and still be whole is liquid based.  Ryou enjoys the extended tour of the galaxy and meeting new people, but what he’s really there for is to take apart their tech.

He will always squee, and not necessarily too subtly, over Shay and Hunk’s mutual cuteness though.  Always.

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Pffft, and both Twinganes are just done with the other. "Taka just take a chill pill damn no need to punch their dick" "how bout i do anyway?" / "Ryou just punch them in the face, write a passive aggressive apology and be done with it" "That's too easy, go big or go home, maKE THEM SUFFER"

So I’m back from the con and yes, let’s talk the twinganes.  I think you’re completely right on this one, nonnie.  Taka, and the way I read Ryou at least, are very mellow when it comes to personal slights or insults.  Look, the more sure you are of who you are and where you belong, the less someone else taking a dig at you effects you.  Because, sure, its their opinion but you know better and the people that matter to you know better, and the people you work with know better and really - how much does one stranger’s opinion really matter (the answer being ‘not a hell of a lot’ (the answer also being ‘welcome to adulthood, this is one of the perks of it as you get older and more comfortable with yourself)).  Ryou and Taka aren’t that much older but they’ve got the bonus that they’re both top of their field and both of those fields are really some crazy competitive and advanced fields.  ‘I build space ships’ really does knock down the importance of someone that thinks Ryou cuts his hair wrong or that his tattoo (if we’re going with @theprojectava (which I am) is stupid or that he’s got shit taste in movies (he KNOWS he’s got AWESOME taste in movies thankyouverymuch anyway so there).  Add to that they do, in my headcanon at least, have supportive parents and grandparents and then throw on the fact that the most important person in their life, their twin, thinks they hung the moon and really, they don’t shake over a lot of the milder, subtle things that someone in their mid-twenties would still find enough to trip them.  Not that nothing ever bothers them and that little insults can’t get through their skin and that some things really DO throw them sometimes, even little things they know shouldn’t, but - they’re both in highly competitive fields.  They’ve probably had to develop a bit of a thick skin over the years against the people that would rather bite their heels than work with them.  So they’ve gotten pretty skilled at either letting it roll off their backs or acting like it has.  I think they both have surprisingly quick flashes of temper - you see it in Taka from time to time in the show, I’m thinking of the way he flared at Allura over having found out who the original Black Paladin was the way he did and how he sharp his reaction to Lubos but with both of those, if I remember right, that’s something he held back at first and waited for the right time to snap out.  Slav is another example of Taka’s quick flare anger and I think both of the twins have that even if Ryou is more likely to say something immediately while Taka is the type to hang on to it and see if he should say something or not.  That said, Taka doesn’t seem to hang on to his anger for long and I suspect Ryou would have a tendency to but I like to think that a lifetime of hanging around Taka has mitigated that a little and he, sometimes grudgingly, lets the anger or offense go in fairly decent time.

Except -

Except when the offense is against the other twin.  And I think you’re right and that’s when they trade places.  Because Taka also tends to charge when he’s attacked, as shown just about every time he gets caught in a fight unexpectedly in the series and while I think that reaction was exacerbated by his time in captivity when speed and surprise really were the difference between life and death, I can’t imagine that it all popped up out of nowhere.  So I can see Taka very much being a ‘that’s it, meet me behind the Denny’s.  Now.’ over insults to his brother while Ryou - hey, if he’s going to take apart your car down past the chassis, he’s going to need time and opportunity for that.  I think the twins usually let each other fight their own battles unless they’re tag teamed in.  There’s a lot of faith in each other’s abilities and also a lot of faith that, if it gets rough, their twin will tag them in for help but I don’t doubt at all that you’re right that, sometimes, they do have to talk each other down from that anger flare when they know its for their own sake. 

And it doesn’t always work.  But they can try, at various levels of actual attempt vs. just saying the words because someone needs to say them.

At least before the kidnapping and lost year.  Taka’s a lot more vulnerable now than he was then to other people’s opinions of him - and the gaps in his defenses are a lot wider and easier to guess at than they used to be.  Ryou’s been forced to kill since than as well.  You don’t do that and not change a little inside.  I suspect that he still lets Taka fight his own battles, at least to start, but there’s a lot less leeway in Ryou these days if you start prying at one of Taka’s insecurities - and its not your vehicle he’ll try to take apart down to the bone anymore either.

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Okay, I want to start off with saying I agree completely with @radioactivesupersonic.  I don’t actually gel well with most fanon on this one because I honestly don’t see the Garrison, or Iverson by extension, as villains or even bad guys.  We’ve both pointed out in the past as an example that sedating Shiro in the contam unit only happened after he started to freak out and they noticed his very obvious ‘alien attachment’ and if this had been a horror movie and not a kid’s show, their actions in doing so would have been seen by the entire audience as the Smart Thing and Keith and crew busting Shiro out would have been the set up that led to the alien taking over the ship and starting its crawl through the air vents.  I enjoy a good conspiracy theory as much as anyone, its just not my current working theory about the Garrison.  And as @radioactivesupersonic also pointed out in their Very Good summary, Iverson calls Shiro by his nickname, meaning there’s enough of a relationship there for him to call Taka a name his friends call him, not by his last name ‘military style’ or even his full first name.  Until I get otherwise, I tend to go with the headcanon that Taka, and by extension Ryou, had comfortable working relationships and even friendships with people in positions of authority and responsibility at the Garrison.  Pidge was a very emotional thirteen/fourteen year old breaking into rightly restricted areas that were potentially highly military and hacking into personal computers, and, when caught, she frankly sounded like a conspiracy theorist.  Considering the kind of legal ramifications that she could have had thrown at her, getting locked out of the Garrison was pretty damn mild.

(I could go on a rant here about how ‘unmilitary’ the Garrison is and why I have a hard time, time after time, buying that they’re directly military instead of just associated but that’s a different rant)

Anyway, dragging myself back to point, I think Ryou, and Taka, would both understand where the Garrison is coming from and why they labeled it ‘pilot error’.  Clockie did a better summary of this so read theirs but the argument for me basically comes down to ‘what else would the Garrison announce?’  It is most likely a five month mission out to Kerberos and no one has ever been anywhere near that far.  Who knows how long a delay there is on communication, when the shit with the aliens went down the team was outside their ship and its recording devices, far enough away from the ship that they used a rover to get there and anything that was recording what was going down at the time was destroyed or captured by that Galra tractor beam.  The Garrison literally has, unless canon reveals otherwise, no logical way of knowing what happened out there and no logical way of finding out without at least another five month trip that they probably weren’t prepared to just launch immediately.

So - how long do you think the media would be willing to wait before they blew everything out into a conspiracy theory and ran nuts?  The Garrison has to announce something and since the Garrison is unaware of aliens, their number of logical choices for what went wrong are really limited.  Ship or pilot error.  And the ship had been sending back ‘all good’ reports at each check in.  Was the investigation ongoing?  Seemed to be.  Did they have to give the families and public something in the meantime?  Probably.  Did they throw Taka under the bust - maybe.  But its easier to clear his name later when they finish their investigation and blame it on the ship than come out and vilify it later when it turns out it wasn’t the ship.  I don’t think it would be a stretch for Taka to understand and accept.  He knows he can clear his name later, he’s got bigger fish to fry and because he never seems to put much stock on his ‘reputation’, especially when it clashes with who he knows he is (one of the reasons the Champion one bothers him so much is because he doesn’t remember so he can’t hold it against what he knows he was during that time and judge it right or wrong).

Now, let’s take all that into the Twingane verse we’ve collectively created.  I’m not saying Ryou isn’t pissed.  Of course he’d rather take the annihilation to his career that being the man in charge of a ship that failed and killed everyone so publicly would cause than have Taka take the ‘pilot error’ but it wasn’t his call, living needs outweighed dead ones, and frankly until someone actually got out there again, and who knows how long a prep time that would take to even launch a prob, who could say what had gone wrong?  We all insist it couldn’t be Taka but - it could have.  Even the best people make mistakes.  I’d actually be more curious to see how the cadets disappearance was reported.  There’s footage of Lance helping break Taka out so is he considered ‘on the run’ and having criminal charges against him?  Are they still searching Earth for Keith, Taka and Lance like fugitives?  Did anyone in the pursuit vehicles that night recognize Hunk and, even smaller chance, Pidge in the escape vehicle?  There’s timing to tie the missing kids to the flying lion they saw the next day but not a scrap of physical evidence the two events are related unless they find Keith’s shack.  The Garrison could just report everyone’s dead in some accident but much more likely however many of the kids were recognized are wanted fugitives for helping ‘someone’(because that part I can believe they’d cover up initially) escape and their families, and the public, are aware of them in that aspect (and fuck it! The Garrison just had a HUGE alien ship show up out of nowhere on their radar in Earth’s very orbit (and while all the way out on Kerberos it could have been missed due to simple lack having enough things pointed in that direction and they may or may not have been picking up on the alien chatter Pidge was), there is no way a ship in Earth’s orbit was missed and the Garrison now really desperately needs to get its hands back on Taka since he seems to be the only one that really knows what’s going on and those kids took off with him to God knows where and is he even still alive considering he hasn’t tried to check back in?  What if his alien arm killed him?  What if it killed the kids?  Finding these kids and calling them fugitives so the rest of the public can help seems so much more sensible than trying to cover up their disappearance with ‘deaths’.

Oh and Ryou took the alien escape pod in our verse so they don’t even have that anymore, just half a robot drone.

I think it would be safe to assume that, barring a Galra invasion, if Earth was just left on its own, when the paladins (and Ryou) get back to Earth, its going to be less middle finger, you lying liars that lie, and more the Garrison going ‘you all would be in huge trouble but we’ve got a third of a puzzle put together and we really need you to just jump in and fill us in on what’s going on so we can come up with some kind of defense plan if these aliens are trouble (which they are, and that part Taka did communicate before his jailbreak very clearly).

Pidge and Ryou bonding over lost relatives though... and lost to the Galra no less, is enough to break anyone’s heart and I think they're both such private, self-protective people that that kind of vulnerability to someone they just met might not happen until Taka vanished at the end of season 2.  In which case it was Pidge that went looking for Ryou to offer her support and somehow that makes it, to me, even sweeter and terribly heart-wrenching too.