I have no idea where the ask to this went, or if it was even from an ask. Either way, I hope everyone enjoys! ❤️
When everyone got back to the Castle, Shiro had first priority over all of their attention since he came back close to death with his injuries and had to be put in the pods immediately. Lance brought up his concerns about mind-swishing to Coran before they joined the others and he took Hunk aside to another room to examine him for any neurological problems. While they waited for Hunk to return and Shiro to emerge from the pod they scattered themselves around the room.
“What happened to Shiro anyway?” Pidge asked, turning from where she was staring into the pod.
“The witch hurt him before we went through the wormhole but the fall really did some damage too, also those weird lizard monster things,” he added as an afterthought.
“Wait! Shiro fought monsters while he was bleeding out!?” Lance asked in shock.
“Well, kind of? He was more trying to get away from them then actually fight them, you know because he was bleeding out,” Keith said with a raised brow. Lance pouted and crossed his arms.
“I had to sprint across literally the entire planet to get to Shiro though, even jumped across a canyon with my boosters, and fought those lizard things off of him,”
“Coran and I were stuck in a time loop, every time we reset he got younger until he was just a baby,” Allura giggled. “The mice changed too, it was quite strange, we wouldn’t have been able to make it out if it wasn’t for Pidge and the Green Lion though,” she said smiling at the blushing green paladin.
“Whoa! Really? What happened?” Lance asked in amazement, rushing over to her. Pidge blinked up at him before giving him a proud smirk.
“It was nothing really, I just built a satellite to connect with the Castle,” she said as if it was no big deal.
“That’s so cool Pidge! I didn’t know you could do that!”
“Yeah, well,” she chuckled proudly.
“What happened to you and Hunk? As soon as Green and I got there I just saw you two burst out of the ocean,” Pidge asked curiously, leaning against the centre console.
“Me and Hunk saved the whole quiznaking planet and everyone living there,” he said proudly, puffing his chest out dramatically.
There was a second of complete silence before they burst into laughter around him. Lance looked at them helplessly as their mocking giggles cut through the air.
“Do you honestly expect us to believe that?” Keith chuckled holding his stomach as he doubled over.
“It’s true!” he insisted.
“Oh, come on Lance, you? Saving an entire planet? Please,” Pidge huffed crossing her arms.
“Yes Lance, it doesn’t seem very realistic,” Allura chimed in.
“Realistic? You were going through time loops, how is that realistic?” Lance argued turning to point an accusing finger at her.
“Why would Allura lie?” Pidge asked, her form tense as if the very accusation made her angry. Lance looked at her in disbelief.
“Why would I lie?” He practically cried. Keith let out a breath of laughter.
“To make yourself look better after sitting at the bottom of the ocean for help?” Keith smirked. Lance looked at him with wide eyes. Why would he think that? Did he really come off as such an attention seeker?
“What! That’s not true, we followed a mermaid ba-,”
“A mermaid Lance? Really? You couldn’t think of something better than that?” Pidge cut him off.
“Yeah, come on Lance! Shiro almost died and you can’t stay out of the spotlight long enough to tell us the truth,” Keith bristled in anger. Lance wasn’t sure when the conversation turned to the black paladin but they were there now.
“I am telling the truth, they were being brainwashed and they didn’t know it, not even Queen Luxia,”
“Wow, first brainwashing, now a Queen? Don’t tell me, she confessed her undying love to you too?” Pidge mocked. Lance jolted back.
“What! No, we-,”
“Finally the truth comes out, why can’t conversations with you be that easy?” Keith laughed.
“Why would you say something like that?” Lance asked looking down at the ground. He knew that he didn’t make life easy for Keith but it was more of a bonding tactic than anything else. He didn’t mean to make Keith hate him, it was never his intention. Maybe he was just an easier person to hate than like.
Keith looked like he was ready to say something else but they turned their attention away when they heard the doors to the med bay opening and they saw both Coran and Hunk walk in chatting happily to each other.
“Ugh, Hunk finally,” Pidge groaned walking over to him. Keith was following right behind her and they stopped in front of him with smiles on their faces.
“Tell us what happened when you and Lance got separated from the rest of us,” Keith pressed. They weren’t prepared for the excited grin that split across Hunk’s face at the suggestion.
“Oh my God guys, you wouldn’t even believe it! We quiznaking saved a whole planet!” He yelled in excitement, grabbing Keith’s shoulders and shaking him.
“We landed in the ocean and Lance saw a mermaid, at first I didn’t believe him but she was right there and we followed her back to her city and Queen Luxia. She let us have dinner with her but we ended up getting mind-swished, which is basically being brainwashed and then Lance got rescued by rebel mermaids and helped break me out of it, and we kidnapped Queen Luxia but it turned out that she wasn’t brainwashing anybody it was the Baku Garden which was really a giant sea dragon thing, oh man it was crazy! Then Lance hit it with a sonic boom and it dropped all these rocks on it, it was awesome!”
“I mean I guess Lance did most of it but I was there!” He recounted with sparkling eyes.
“Isn’t that awesome guys?!” He cheered looking at each of them. Except they weren’t looking back at him. They were both looking down at their feet, refusing to make eye contact with him and rubbing their arms awkwardly.
“Uh, guys?” He asked in confusion. “Um, Lance, what happen-,” he cut himself off as he finally looked over to his friend. His arms were at his sides, his hands clenched into fists and his eyes were narrowed into a glare directed at the ground. He could clearly see the beginnings of tear tracks starting to make his way down his face.
“Lance, buddy, what happened?” He asked gently, immediately walking over to comfort his friend. Lance silently shook his head, causing the tears that were welling up to roll down his cheeks.
“They didn’t believe me,” he whispered bitterly. Hunk tilted his head slightly in confusion.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, I told them everything that happened and they thought that I was a liar! They thought that I was lying to make them think that I was better than them! They said that I could never do something like that!” he yelled angrily pointing at them. With every sentence that was spat from Lance’s mouth, they flinched violently, not able to drag their gazes up.
“They said it like I didn’t already think that Hunk,” he muttered quietly in the silent room. Their eyes went from ashamed to shocked horror and finally, they looked up at him.
He was clutched in Hunk’s arms, his face buried in his shoulder. His shoulders were trembling and his fingers were digging into Hunk’s shirt. Hunk soothingly ran his fingers through Lance’s hair.
“How could you do that?” Hunk’s venomous voice cut through them and they looked away again.
“No, look at me,” Hunk demanded with a growl. Hesitantly they did just that and were met with a dangerous glare.
“Hunk-,” Allura tried to start but went silent when Hunk levelled her with a scowl.
“Why didn’t you believe him?” Was the simple question that he asked.
“I thought he was trying to put himself in the spotlight again, like he was better than Shiro even though he almost died,” Keith admitted quietly rubbing the back of his neck in nervousness.
“What? So just because your best friend got hurt, you get to attack my best friend?” Hunk snapped, stepping forward slightly. Lance stood between them, pushing Hunk’s body back with a grunt.
“Hunk, it’s fine,” he muttered looking at the ground.
“No, it’s not Lance! None of this is fine and they need to actually take responsibility for their actions, it’s not right,” he argued. He pointed a finger at Keith over Lance’s head.
“What about when Lance almost died? Did I come after Shiro because someone other than Lance should have spotted that bomb? No! You don’t get to take your frustrations out on somebody else like that Keith!”
“I’m sorry,” he tried but Hunk only spun around.
“Why didn’t you believe him?” He turned his attention to Pidge. She shrunk under his gaze.
“It just didn’t sound like something that Lance would be capable of, I mean, saving a planet?”
“You know better than anyone that when Lance gets something in his mind he will accomplish it no matter what, you’ve seen him through good and bad, how could you be so ignorant to expect anything less than extraordinary things from him, since you first met him, has he ever lied to you?”
“No,” she admitted quietly.
“I didn’t think so, besides he’s a paladin of Voltron and we’ve already saved plenty of planets, what makes this one so different?” He walked away from her, closer to where he could see Allura watching him with wary eyes.
“What about you?” He asked tiredly. He didn’t want to lecture all of them but they had to learn that hurting people was not okay. He knew that Lance wasn’t going to stand up to them, he would just laugh it off like it was fine.
“Lance hardly seems like the kind of person that could take a mission like that seriously,” she told him impassively. Hunk gritted his teeth in anger and clenched his hands tightly.
“That’s what makes you so infuriating to follow sometimes!” he snapped.
“Excuse me?” Allura gasped in shock.
“Don’t act so offended! You always think that you know so much better than any of us, why is that? Why do you get to look down on us when we were dragged from our homes, and forced to fight in a war that we have no reason to be in. We already had enough problems on Earth, problems that we were training to take care of, and Lance was our leader! So don’t think that you can dismiss him as a nuisance because I would turn my back to follow Lance instead of you in a heartbeat,”
Allura looked helplessly at the others in the room, gazing at Coran for longer but he only looked away in disappointment.
“I’m sorry,” she stuttered out.
“Don’t apologize to me, apologize to Lance he’s the one that you guys hurt,” he grimaced looking back to see Lance gazing at Shiro’s healing pod. His hood was covering his head with the straps cinched as if to try and block out the sound around him.
Hunk went to him, laying a hand on his shoulder. Lance looked over his shoulder at him, the tears had stopped falling but it was obvious that the pain in his eyes was still fresh. Both of their arms shot out when Shiro came tumbling out of the pod and right into their hands.
Shiro sat right where Lance sat when he came out of the healing pod, slowly eating a bowl of food goo and listening to what happened before he came out.
“Whoa, that’s crazy impressive Pidge!” He complimented her as she finished telling him about the giant satellite she built on Green’s back. His eyes drifted over to Lance and Hunk, strangely Lance had his hood built up and Hunk was standing closer than usual to him, almost protectively.
“What about you guys? What happened?” He could see that Lance’s eyes were a little puffy, perhaps from crying. It wasn’t something that he was about to bring up though, not in front of everyone else anyway. He would try to talk to him later to see if he could help in some way. With a slight nudge, Hunk bumped Lance forward. He looked back at him curiously but he could see him eyeing Shiro instead.
He looked back at Shiro and saw him smiling at him encouragingly.
“We, ah, we saved a planet,” he said quietly. At that, Shiro dropped his spoon with a clatter and gaped at him.
“What? No way! What happened?” He asked leaning forward in excitement. Lance’s eyes widened.
“You believe me?” He stated in shock.
“Well, yeah it’s not that hard to believe, I mean we are flying around space in mechanical cats,” Shiro laughed laying his elbows on the table. “Now tell me what happened!”
At that, Lance’s smile returned and he eagerly recounted their mission from the first glimpse of Florona to the kiss he got from Plaxum.
They watched Shiro and Lance talk and understood how they needed to change. They had to believe in their fellow paladin, their friend. He had listened to all of their stories with a sense of wonderment, never once thinking that they had told him lies. Even though he listened to them with such excitement, they shut him down within a few words with nothing else but their own opinions of him. Hunk was right, it wasn’t fair to him and the only thing they could do now was give it time.
Can you do one where Lance is super smart and he gets fed up with the team acting like he's stupid, so be basically snaps at them?? I love your stories!! They're awesome!
Thanks so much! I hope you like it!
“Thank you for agreeing to meet with us Princess Allura,” Kolivan bowed to her. She gave him a small smile and a nod. They were gathered around the dining hall table with the Paladins and Alteans on one side and the Blade of Marmora on the other. Kolivan pulled up a stolen layout of a Galran base and placed it on the table.
“There is valuable information, regarding the locations of important members of the Blade and our allied rebel forces stored in this base’s hard-drive, it is imperative that we get our hands on it and away from the Empire,” Kolivan started. “We need to find a way in without being spotted, and complete the mission without alerting the Galra. We were able to infiltrate successfully some time ago, and have access to some of the surveillance feeds and schematics,”
Immediately the room was filled with the sound of ideas being thrown around; Lance quietly listened to the different scenarios coming from his teammates and stored them in the back of his mind quickly picking out the flaws and how he could secretly tweak them when they were out in the field. He realized that the others would reluctant to listen to his ideas because of how he had already presented himself to the group. So he decided to quietly help them in the background instead. He pulled up the information on his screen and scrolled through the information available. Without a word he began highlighting points on his map that would require extra surveillance once they entered the base. Unbeknownst to him; Kolivan was watching over his shoulder with interest and nodding along to each dot. After Lance stopped and absentmindedly nodded his head, Kolivan put his hand on his shoulder. Lance yelped and he shot around to look at the leader of the Blade.
“Apologizes Blue Paladin, I would like to hear your ideas for this infiltration,” he admitted giving Lance all his attention. Lance gave a tentative smile and opened his mouth, only to be interrupted by Hunk and Pidge’s laughter. His head turned to the two and he shrunk into himself a bit knowing that the two were laughing at him. Kolivan only looked with a raised brow.
“Sorry Kolivan, but you don’t want to ask Lance for ideas,” Pidge giggled. The two of them cracked up into laugher, eventually dragging the rest of them minus Lance, Kolivan, and Coran who were looking at them incredulously.
“I apologize, but perhaps I’m misunderstanding. Please explain why I should not consider the Blue Paladin’s suggestions,” Kolivan said stepping forward. The laughter stopped aside from a few sniggers and they looked toward him.
“Kolivan. Its Lance, Mr. Razzle Dazzle, get all the girls and glory,” Pidge said with finality. “His plans probably involve a lot of shooting and not getting anything done,”
“Yah, he has fighting power but when it comes to infiltration…” Hunk continued with a shrug. Lance could feel the blush traveling up his face, and his shoulders bunched up further as if to protect him.
“All his brain can store, are cheesy pickup up lines and weak insults,” Keith commented. The others burst out laughing again; Allura and Shiro only giving weak smiles. Kolivan looked down at the blue paladin and while he seemed shocked and saddened; he could see anger stirring in his eyes as well.
“Hey! I have more in my brain than that, I have good ideas!” He cried trying to defend himself.
“Really, a thousand times ten?” Keith asked with a smirk. Lance’s eyebrows drew down with an angry grimace.
“I was trying to break the tension,” he growled. His hands were clutching the armrests of his chair tightly, his knuckles turning white from the pressure. Shiro stood up from his chair and carefully approached the angered teen.
“Its okay Lance,” he said soothingly. “We all have our weaknesses, this is just yours,” he gave him a soft smile. Lance looked at him in pure disbelief; this man was the leader of their group and he was going to let Lance believe that he couldn’t contribute to the planning of this mission.
“My weakness?!” Lance growled. “You know what?! I’m done!” He yelled jumping out of his seat and pulling his screen along with him to the front of the room. The others looked at him with quirked eyebrows.
“What? Going to shows us the pretty dots on your map?” Keith taunted with a smirk.
“No, each of these dots is a mistake that you over looked,” he hissed. He pointed to the first one and pulled up the surveillance from the base’s server room. “This is a PXY-6075 system, you were going to go in blind with a code not appropriate for this system, it would shut down the entire thing and we would lose everything,” he swiped across his screen and sent a code to Pidge’s system. She pulled it up out of curiosity and her jaw dropped before she looked up at Lance.
“Lance, this is genius,” she muttered. He ignored her and went to the next beacon. A security camera showed a hallway were Shiro suggested they infiltrate on the way to the server room. He turned to the leader with crossed arms.
“This hallway is filled with blind spots and vents, how could you even think that this was a good place to enter?” Lance asked with a quirked brow. Shiro only crossed his arms in defense.
“It is the fastest way to the server room, we need to get in and out quickly,” he replied. Lance gave him a short glare.
“So because it is the fastest way to the server room, it is automatically the safest, you’re putting the safety of your teammate on the line in order to complete the mission faster?” he asked getting closer to Shiro who tried to avoid his eye. “What would have happened if we went down here and there were drones or weapons in the vents, we could have died in there,” he pulled the map back and brought up a different hallway. Shiro looked at it and back at Lance for an explanation.
“It’s a maintenance hallway, the other direction from where this one is, it is fully surveillanced with no blind spots and no places for anything to be hidden,” he said pushing the screen into Shiro’s who looked at it sheepishly. He zoomed out letting the outside of the base show. He turned to Allura who jumped at being in the teen’s sights.
“The defense of the base is different from the cruisers we come across Allura; if we had gone on the mission and used what we usually did we would have gotten caught and the entire mission would be compromised,” he stated bluntly. He brought up the schematics of the base and pointed along the foundation “This area is susceptible to fire, if I send out an electrical pulse along the base, it should collapse the barrier without any alerts to the Galra,” she carefully nodded it response watching the tiny barrier breaking down on her screen. Lance looked around at the ashamed paladin avoiding his gaze around him.
“Need I go on?” He asked quietly. He humphed when he only received sheepish nods. He turned to Shiro and pushed a finger into his chest.
“Next time when you say something about someone’s “weakness”, don’t. None of us are weak and you out of all of us should be the one to see that,” he said pushing him back. He turned to Keith.
“You shouldn’t be so insulting,” he said standing beside his chair. “I know that I haven’t shown you what I’m capable of but you don’t have to be so condescending,”
“You shouldn’t be so quick to judge,” he stated turning to focus on Pidge. “I try to come off as the carefree goofball because let’s face it, we’re fighting in a war and we’re a bunch of kids who probably shouldn’t be out here,” he turned to look at Hunk as well at this point. “You should know that I’m smarter than I act, you have known me the longest,”
“Lance,” Hunk tried but Lance only raised his hand between the two of them.
“Please let me finish,” he pleaded. “I wasn’t at the Garrison as a charity case or anything, and everyone here ignored that. I tried to do the best I could to keep the peace and keep the image of comic relief because it seemed to help you perform better,” he looked down at the ground trying to avoid the gazes of his teammates. His hands were shaking by his sides, the only visible sign of his anger through the entire rant until he started to feel a tremble in his lip and tears gathering in his eyes.
“Lance…” he heard Shiro hesitant voice call. His head shot up causing a tear to roll down his cheek as his eyebrows furrowed in anger.
“No! I don’t want to hear it!” he shouted shocking the other into silence. “You have been pulling this shit for too long, and you didn’t think anything of it! Well, it hurts! It hurts and no one cared enough about me to stop it!”
“Lance, we’re sorry,” Pidge said reaching out for the teen trying to put her hand on his arm. He slapped it away and started making his way to the door to leave. Before he left he put his hand on the doorway and looked back at Allura.
“Call me for the mission, I need to cool down for a bit,” he said quietly. Angry tears still streaked down his face, be he felt and looked resigned now. He turned and left, leaving the bridge in thick silence. It was broken by Kolivan making his way to the entrance to follow Lance to wherever he decided to hole up. Just like Lance, he looked at the others before he left.
“Perhaps next time, you should get to know your soldiers before you judge what they are capable of,”
After a long, painful writing session, I bring you part two! I hope everyone enjoys as much as the first part! <3
“Blue Paladin!” Kolivan called looking to each side when he left the bridge. Lance looked behind him with a slight wince, but at noticing that it was Kolivan relaxed a bit.
“Sorry about all of that big guy,” he said sheepishly rubbing the back of his neck.
“We must talk Blue Paladin,” he stated, walking towards the boy.
“Oh, um, okay,” he started. “Is the lounge okay?” he asked.
“Wherever you are comfortable,” Kolivan replied putting his hand on Lance’s back. Lance nodded his head and started leading him to the room. They sat down on the couch and Lance looked down at the ground waiting for Kolivan to start. He expected the leader of the Blade to berate him for storming out of the room and nearly jumped out of his skin when he felt his hand settle on his upper arm. He turned to look at the galra, unlike usual, he had a soft open expression on his face.
“Please explain to me Blue Paladin, why does this upset you so much?” he asked calmly.
“You can call me Lance you know,” Lance muttered moving his gaze to the other side of the room.
“Lance then; I’m afraid I don’t understand much of what happened on the bridge, would you please explain to me? If you don’t mind,” Kolivan asked. Lance took a deep breath and nodded his head in understanding.
“Basically they were making fun of me, calling me stupid, saying that I didn’t understand anything they were talking about,” he said bitterly. He clenched his fists up on top of his knees glaring at the floor.
“But that isn’t true,” Kolivan finished for him. He nodded and closed his eyes against the rage that was building in him again. Just as quickly as it built, it fell and sadness grasped him instead.
“No it isn’t, in fact, it’s the exact opposite,” he said looking into Kolivan’s eyes. “Where I’m from, I’m considered a genius,”
“Is that so?” Kolivan drawled giving the young man a calm smile. Lance gave a small nod and looked forward.
“Yup,” he said popping the p at the end. “In Varadero, I was top of the class and ready to join the military there just like the rest of my family, but then the Galaxy Garrison found out about me and my skills as a tactician and programmer. They offered me a full ride scholarship and me and my family citizenship if I accepted, I mean how could I even think about refusing? I mean I don’t know how citizenship works in space, but I must have been somewhat important if they offered it to me,”
He couldn’t stay still anymore and leaped off the couch to pace in front of Kolivan who sat quietly to listen to the upset paladin. His face scrunched up a bit in confusion when Lance mentioned citizenship, but decided not to ask questions yet.
“So that's what we did, I accepted the offer and started learning English which isn’t fucking easy. But that's okay because we made it, and I had my family with me too which is something a lot of people can’t say,” he paused to take in a shaky breath and pushed his fingers into the bridge of his nose. He stood stiffly, letting himself take a few breaths before he continued.
“So the Garrison!” He cheered trying to perk himself up. “They offered to give me all of these things and in exchange, all I had to do was get a spaceship to Kerberos,” Kolivan quirked his eyebrow at the statement. “I know, easy right,” he said sarcastically.
“I thought the Green Paladin said that the mission that brought the Black Paladin here was the most advanced your planet has been with space exploration,” he said. Lance puffed up his chest and gave a smug little smile at the statement.
“Of course it was, that was why I was so important,” he started only to slump a moment after. “Well, I didn’t do it alone, of course, so I guess I’m not that important; never mind, we’re getting off topic,” he shook his head as if trying to dislodge the distracting thought.
“It is correct to assume that this Kerberos mission is important though?” Kolivan asked. Lance’s head whipped around to look at him with his mouth gaping.
“Yes! Its basically the only reason why I was at the Garrison in the first place, as I said before I was just going to join the military in Cuba with my family but this opportunity was to die for,” he stated, squeezing his eyes shut. He thought of the opportunities that opened up to them when they moved and sighed.
“Anyways, we went to America and next thing I know I’m at orientation for classes and I was going to just join the generic fields engineering, computer science, meteorology you know; but that morning before I went to go, my mamá sat me down and told me to find something that I would grow to love and I would never grow tired of. I was kind of confused because at this point I was so sure of my path, that I already had my class sheet filled up and ready to hand in at the end of the tour,” he thought of his mamá and the smile she gave him before he walked out that door. Looking like she already knew that he was going to have a great day.
“She was so adamant about it and I didn’t know why, I already knew what I liked and I was going to gain the key to my future as well, I thought she was crazy,” he admitted shaking his head and dropping to sit next to Kolivan again. He was about to open his mouth to comment but stopped when he saw the easy smile stretched across his face as he got lost in memory.
“That is until we visited the flight simulators; they walked us in and it was just the pod and blank space and suddenly it just got pitch black, we were all freaking out. But then, there was this big flash and there were stars everywhere and planets, galaxies and meteorites, just everything and it was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen in my life,” he gave a breathless chuckle as he looked at Kolivan. “Then the sim started and I was just mesmerized; whoever was in that booth was dominating the front lines, no one could get close to them and I must have stood there for twenty doboshes with my mouth hanging open, watching them. But then, they turned off the sim so we could meet the pilot and ask questions about the classes and stuff; and after a few minutes out pops Shiro,”
“I didn’t realize that you met the Black Paladin so soon,” Kolivan commented. Instantly Lance shook his head and waved his hands around frantically.
“Met is a loose term! A very very loose term, I didn’t even speak to Shiro until we saved him in the desert before coming to space,” he said flustered. Kolivan only nodded his head and looked forward.
“I see,” he said coaxing Lance to continue his story.
“Well, anyways, Shiro got out to do a little talk about the classes, what a pilot in the Garrison does, and all about the missions he had already been on; and when he talked about piloting I could see in his eyes how much he loved it, and that's when I knew that I wanted to fly and when I decided that Takashi Shirogane was my hero,” he admitted quietly rubbing the back of his neck. “I was right, I did love it, it was the one thing in my life so far that was actually difficult for me to learn, and I wasn’t good at it. I-I knew that I wasn’t but it didn’t matter because I loved it so much, it made me feel human sometimes,” His face was glowing with happiness, but as soon as it appeared it was gone again and the boy was looking dejectedly at the ground.
“I don’t know when Pidge and Hunk started thinking that I was stupid,” he said curling into himself. “I wasn’t around much during the first while of the Garrison, whatever free time I had I spent it with the other scientists working on the Kerberos mission. I guess it started when I used sneaking off into town as an excuse when they asked why I was gone for so long,” he let out a humourless laugh and felt his throat tighten. “Now that I think of it, it does sound like something an idiot would say,” Kolivan could see the paladin slowly breaking down beside him and scooted closer to offer some sort of comfort to the boy.
“Keith I understand, he hates me,” he muttered trying to blink away the tears that were forming in his eyes. “All he’s seen from me so far has been an empty-headed flirting mess,” He clenched his jaw tightly, he didn’t want to cry about this, and it was a dumb reason to. He curled his arms around himself and lifted his legs onto the couch.
“But Shiro, I thought he saw more to me than the others did, and it hurts but I guess I deserve it after getting him and his crew stuck in space,” he choked finally letting himself sink into the pain. Kolivan let out a quiet rumble and pulled the boy to his chest to rest underneath his chin. After a moment's hesitation, Lance gripped onto Kolivan’s suit tightly and let out a sad wail. The galra continued to rub his back and let out comforting noises.
“It was okay at the Garrison because I had my family to talk to and they knew, but out here they all thought I was some clueless idiot,” he whispered to Kolivan listlessly. “I’m nothing without my brain, so what was I even worth to them?” Kolivan closed his eyes and cupped the back of Lance’s head to cuddle him closer.
“Lance, you are worth much more than you realize,” he said softly. “You are an exceptional pilot, a glorious marksman, and now we realize you are a genius. Your teammates are the ones that assumed you to be something you’re not, now they have to face the consequences of their actions, not you,”
Lance didn’t answer and only nodded his head from where it rested on Kolivan’s chest.
The team turned to the doors when they heard them hiss open. Kolivan’s face was blank but he had his hand on Lance’s shoulder. Lance smiled up at the galra and walked to his friends who immediately started apologizing.
“I’m so sorry Lance!” Hunk cried grabbing him by the shoulders and sniffing as tears poured down his face.
“I’m sorry too!” Pidge joined latching onto Lance’s legs when Hunk lifted him in a hug. Lance gave them a weak smile and patted Hunk gently on the arm when he started sobbing into his shirt.
“It’s okay guys, I forgive you,” he replied. “Can you please let me down now?” he asked kicking his feet around.
“Sorry!” Hunk wailed as he placed his feet on the floor. He wiped his eyes and nose and looked guilty down at the ground as Keith walked up to Lance.
“I’m sorry Lance,” he said sincerely. “You’re right, I’m a condescending jerk sometimes and I let it get out of hand,” he shifted from foot to foot and avoid looking at him. Lance let out a huff of laughter that made Keith’s head shoot up.
“I forgive you,” he said punching him lightly in the shoulder. Keith gave him a hesitant smile and stepped back when Shiro came forward. He had a sad frown on his face and his eyebrows were wrinkled in guilt.
“I failed you as a leader and as a friend Lance, I should have paid more attention to my teammates, I am so so sorry,” he said weakly, guilt evident in his voice. He tried to keep his eyes on Lance’s face but slowly found himself looking to the floor instead. He looked back up when he felt a hand on his shoulder and found Lance giving him a soft smile.
“We all have something we could work on, that doesn’t mean you failed us as a leader Shiro, I forgive you,” Shiro let out a breath of relief and put his hands on his knees.
“Shiro?” Lance’s voice asked hesitantly. He stood up and looked at the paladin.
“Yeah?”
“I know it wasn’t really my fault but I need to get it out, so I’m sorry I got you captured on Kerberos,” he announced. Shiro’s face scrunched up in confusion as he looked at Lance.
“Huh? But you didn’t have anything to do with Kerberos,” he said cocking his head. Lance twiddled his thumbs absentmindedly and scuffed his shoe on the ground.
“Actually, I planned the entire voyage and programmed the ship,” he admitted not looking up from where he was looking. There was a beat of silence before they let out various sounds of disbelief, Pidge grabbed him by the shoulders and madly shook him screaming.
“I never noticed your name in the reports,” Shiro said thinking back, trying to pick out names from the papers.
“Oh, I had the codename Cub,” he said. At that Pidge’s arms and mouth dropped in shock.
“You’re Cub?” She asked, he nodded and gave her a smile. “Oh my god, you’re the best hacker I’ve ever seen, I based all of my codes off of yours,” she admitted, still in shock.
“Wow, thanks!” He said scratching the back of his neck in embarrassment.
“How the hell do you manage to pull this off?” Keith asked astonished. Lance looked around at his amazed teammate. They may not be the most perfect people in the world, but they were family to him. He put his hands on his hips and gave them a grin.
Hey. Could you do one where Lance saves the team but everyone thinks it was Keith, then Lance explodes because they don't appreciate him?
Here you go, I hope you enjoy it!
“We can’t hold on much longer!” Pidge cried into the coms. She once again tried Green’s control only to receive a sound of groaning metal as they struggled against the dark purple tendrils wrapped around their limbs and torso holding them to the ground.
Keith and Lance who were already on the surface rushing the civilians to safety, looked over to see the condition the lions were in and began running over to them. At seeing the Galra hoarding around the lions, Keith growled and summoned his bayard. Lance grabbed his arm and Keith looked at him.
“Ignore them, the lions won’t let them in,” he reasoned trying to pull him away. “We need to find out how they’re trapping them and free them,” Keith impatiently ripped his arm away and turned to the Galra. He gave a loud battle cry and sprinted into the fray leaving behind a face-palming Lance. He contemplated joining him but when a streak of the black lighting shot out from behind a nearby cove by the lions, he instead made his way to the spot and ducked down behind an outcropping. He peeked over it and watched the circle of four druids chant ominously and hold their hands out towards the lions. He breathed out and shot up, nailing one of the druids in the back knocking them down instantly.
“Ack,” he gasped when a bolt of lightning struck him on the side of the ribs. Thankfully his armour took the brunt of the damage but he still felt winded.
“Get him,” one of the druids hissed to the other two. They immediately turned and faced the rock that Lance was hiding behind. He didn’t give the chance before he was taking another shot that went through the left druid’s forehead. They slumped to the ground bonelessly and before Lance could take cover again he was snatched out from behind the rock and speeding forward and stopped right in front of the druid.
“Nice day?” Lance tried with a small grin. He couldn’t see the druid’s face but he could tell that it was unimpressed with him. He saw the druid’s hand slowly curl into a fist at his side and gradually felt his chest constrict. He started struggling earnestly and clawed at the front of his armour as his breath left him quickly and a crushing feeling built in his ribs. He felt his arms pin themselves to his sides and he couldn’t look away from the shadow where the druid’s face was supposed to be. It let out a deep laugh and clenched his hand tighter making Lance choke in pain. He lashed out with his foot catching the druid on the side and making it release it’s hold on Lance. He stuck his bayard in its gut and pulled the trigger, he didn’t allow himself to think anymore about it before he turned to the last druid. It was watching him with a blank stare but hadn’t made a move to stop whatever spell he had on the lions. Without hesitation, Lance took the shot and turned before he could see the body fall. He watched as the Lions took off from the ground and begin to battle the Galra ships and ran back to where Blue was waiting patiently behind her particle barrier.
“Alright, team lets finish this!” Shiro said encouragingly. Everyone cheered in response and threw themselves into the fight. They were able to destroy many of the fighter ships before the warship began to retreat away from them. They decided to chase after it for a bit before it flew into warp speed and disappeared from their sight.
“Let’s head back to the Caste, we’ll debrief on the bridge when we get back,” Shiro said turning Black around. There were sounds of approval and understanding from the paladins as they too turned and followed their leader back to the ship. They docked in their hangers and left their lions to head up to the bridge.
Lance leaned back in his chair and took a shallow breath in. He flinched and gave a short groan before tenderly touching his ribs. He knew that his ribs weren’t broken but it was possible that they were bruised. He heaved himself up, feeling the weariness in his body. All h wanted to do right now was go to sleep and not wake up for days. He sighed but started to drag himself towards the door. He walked through the bridge door and saw everyone gathered around a sheepish looking Keith. He quirked an eyebrow in confusion and started walking towards them.
“Thanks so much Keith, I don’t know what would have happened if you weren’t there,” Shiro said earnestly, giving the red paladin a pat on the back.
“Yeah, that was awesome!” Hunk cheered.
“How did you even do that?” Pidge asked inquisitively. Keith didn’t say anything and instead just shrugged his shoulders.
“Oh don’t be so modest Keith, you did something great today and saved three of your teammates,” Allura added with a smile. With that, Lance understood what was happening and he strode forward even quicker. He was used to not taking credit for some of his heroic actions but this time they didn’t even consider that it was him that he had any part of their rescue. Even though Lance told Keith that fighting the soldiers wouldn’t help anything.
“Hey, why are you thanking Keith?” He asked. “I’m the one that got the lions off the ground,” they looked at him with blank stares.
“What are you talking about Lance?” Hunk asked.
“Yeah, we didn’t even see you the entire time,” Pidge said. Lance’s eyes widened and he stepped back from them slightly.
“You don’t always have to try and take credit for other people’s accomplishments,” Keith said with a huff crossing his arms.
“What?” He asked in surprise. “I don’t do that,” he defended himself glaring at the red paladin who only glared back.
“Okay guys, knock it off,” Shiro said getting in between the two of them. Lance leaned back away from him, as did Keith. He sent a smirk to Lance.
“I did something cool and you can’t handle it, huh?” Keith mocked. Lance’s eyes widened and he looked at Shiro to gauge his reaction and only saw him looking at Keith fondly.
“Okay, you know what?” Lance started gaining attention from everyone in the room. “I can’t handle it anymore because you did do something cool. You left to pointlessly fight the Galra soldiers around the lions while I had to go and fight four druids all by myself and because you have a damn martyr complex,” he stepped past a silent Shiro and poked Keith in the chest.
“I told you that the lions weren’t going to open up for anything but you decided to not only risk the Galra taking the lions but also your own life; all for the sake of picking a fight with a few foot soldiers!?” Keith didn’t try to look in Lance’s face and instead decided to look at the ground. Lance sighed and stepped back to look at the rest of the team.
“I’m sick of you guys thinking that I’m not contributing to the mission, no matter what I do, no matter how many Galra I’m able to take down. You always think that it is someone else’s doing. I get it. I honestly do. I know that I’m not the strongest person on this team, and I understand that I’m the weakest link here but I’m not one to give up,” Lance stated earnestly looking at each of his teammates with tears in his eyes.
“I just wish that you could understand how much it hurts that you don’t even consider that I could save this team once in a while,” he broke out. His chin trembled in anger and sadness towards his teammates and he quickly swiped his arm across his eyes.
“I just want to help,” he stated brokenly before he ran out of the room in tears. They watched helplessly as he darted out of their sight.
“What did we do?” Pidge asked quietly to the silence of the room. They looked around at each other and could only shake their heads solemnly.
