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He doesn’t know why he says it. Starring at the debriefing packet shacking in his clenched hands with wide eyes. Unable to look up because the shock is starting to set in.
“Excuse me?” And it’s Coran. Of course it’s Coran. Perfect, soldier Coran. And Lance can feel that familiar sneer forming across his lips as that same spark of stubborn determination that got him in this awful, stupid mess to begin with lights with vengeance.
“No,” he repeats, taking a deep breath and squaring his shoulders to look up. To meet their eye. He throws the debriefing packet down on the table and dares to look at Allura.
Her eyes are wide. Shocked. She hadn’t expected him to refuse. Of course, she doesn’t. She has no real idea what she is asking him to do, does she? She has no real concept of war, of what it means to take a life from a mile away or up close and personal. Has no idea what Lance has done to get access to his targets. And he has done things. Awful, horrible things.
But Shiro knows. Shiro is the only one and Lance glares harder at Shiro’s look of pity. How dare Shiro judge him?
“I won’t do it,” Lance clarifies, turning to meet Shiro’s eye before looking back at Allura.
“Lance,” she says, gathering herself. And Lance can’t keep his face from contorting into something awful, something ugly that has Shiro taking a step back with the same wide eyes. “Please. For the sake of the war…”
“You have no idea what you’re asking, Allura,” Lance snaps and it isn’t lost on the others how he doesn’t mention her title. “So no. I won’t do it. And I won’t change my mind.” He doesn’t expect his voice to break on that last word, but it does and he knows he needs to leave, needs to have his break down in private. Like always.
Shiro places a warm hand on his shoulder and Lance shakes it off. “I can't.”
It’s easy to walk away when no one tries to stop him.
.
“Lance,” its Keith.
Lance sighs.
Keith takes a moment to look at him. Lance doesn’t know what he sees in the slope of his shoulders or the tension of his jaw, but, in the end, Keith simply sighs. “Wanna spar?” he offers.
Once that statement would have held heat, a challenge. Now it just sounds tired, worn and comfortable. A common request less about trying to one up each other and instead an offer to be near each other without the ability to think too much.
Lance accepts.
...
The first away mission Allura sends him on is simple. Retrieval of a set of supplies Coran requested. Looking back Lance can only see it as a trial, a test that Allura hadn’t even realized she was giving.
Because the retrieval turned into an assassination long before Lance is able to register something has gone wrong. It’d been sloppy. Like all first times were. He made mistakes. Was forced to take out more people than necessary to avoid leaving witnesses. In the end, he killed the man in charge of the supply trades in that solar system, managed to secure the loyalty of the son who took his place, and retrieve the requested supplies and more.
Allura learns none of this. In the end, it is Coran who takes his mission report and swears him to secrecy. Coran had played the role of Spy Master under King Alfor’s rule and he planned to play the same roll under Allura, whether she knew it or not. Lance is his first recuit.
.
Shiro is his second.
.
By the time Shiro is brought in, Lance has been running missions for months. Has taken to coming home covered in scrapes and bruises he can’t explain away to the others. It leaves him isolated, cornered. Forced to hide from the others until he heals only to be sent out again.
It became common to miss major battles and events and diplomacy meetings that brought the other’s closer. Hunk, of course, continues to make an effort. That even on days that leave Lance too tired to socialize, Hunk is there with a warm word and a warmer hug. Capable of reading Lance even as Lance learns to hide his emotions more and more until sometimes not even Lance knows what he is really feeling.
But it is Shiro who takes the next step, who grows worried when Lance spends more days than not in silence. Who pushes and pokes first at Allura and then at Coran when it becomes obvious that the princess doesn’t really know what is going on, is still under the assumption it is simple missions. Oh, she knows there are moments when she sends him to kill. Assassinations are becoming Lance’s forte as his bayard transforms into more of a sniper rifle that a shotgun. But she doesn't know the extend. Doesn't know what he does to get access to his targets.
Coran is clever though. Clever than many gave him credit for. And sends Shiro on a mission with Lance to take out an enemy that requires Lance to flirt his way into the target’s bed. It is not the first time Lance has done this, but it is the first time someone other than Coran has known. And in the end, he can’t meet Shiro’s eye.
Shiro signs up for the next away mission before Lance has the chance to learn about it. The others argue. It is bad enough, apparently, that Lance is always missing, leaving them unable to form Voltron. But for the Decisive Head of Voltron to be out of action…
But Shiro is stubborn and Lance needs a break. It is easy to let him go, easy to watch him go. The first time Lance finds himself on a peaceful, diplomatic meeting he’d been forced to excuse himself so he could have his first break down in private. The war and the things he done catching up to him in the middle of a peaceful dinner as Allura talks politics and Pidge gossips with Hunk and Keth.
And when he feels a hand on his arm, he looks up expecting to find Hunk and instead sees Keith. Keith, face soft and lips turned down. Worry clear as day on his face. “Lance…” Keith starts, but Lance shakes his head, brings the other boy down so he can cry into a shoulder.
“I can’t,” Lance gasps, “I…Please.”
“Of course,” Keith says, rubbing circles on his back. “We don’t have to go anywhere. You don’t have to say anything.”
They spend the rest of the night in the gardens.
.
When Shiro returns, ashen-faced and shaking, he still greets the others with something like a smile. Lance thinks it's the first time the others truly realize something is wrong.
.
There is a lull in missions for a while. Voltron is needed and Lance finds himself piloting Blue more days than not again. It takes a bit to get back into the grove of things. Lance has changed. The other's have changed. But Lance likes to think they are still fundamentally the same.
The first time he forms Voltron after three months it’s like coming home. The warmth of the other's in the back of his mind chasing away the cold that has seeped into his very bones. The fight is easy. Arguably too easy. Four Galran battleships taken out as simple as breathing.
When Lance lands, Hunk pulls him in for a hug.
.
Sometimes on hard nights, Lance finds his way into Shiro's bed. Nothing sexual. Nothing like his teenage fantasies of what it meant to share a bed with an attractive man. No... It’s easy to say he's long lost the need for sex.
The first time Keith finds him there the next morning, his face matches his armor.
They never talked about it. Even when Keith starts joining them.
.
The first time Lance kills someone in front of the others, it is more instinct than forethought.
They are on another diplomatic meeting on another peaceful planet. Strong enough to have held out against the Galra for ten thousand years and a welcome ally. It is then, during the peace talks as they hedged out the contract, that Lance sees the flash of a blade.
He is moving before he can think about it.
The rich blue carpet turned a surprising green as Lance watched the yellow blood leave the would-be assassin. A rebel against the planet's new policy of getting involved with the on-going Galran conflict had managed to sneak past the guards. It is later found the blade had been poisoned. That even a the smallest cut against the Princess' skin would have been enough to end her life. So no, Lance can't find it in himself to feel regret. Can't think of anything other than us verse them and a bullet verses a blade.
What he does regret is the look of horror on Hunk's face as he lowers his bayard. The assassin's skull splattered and blending into Hunk's yellow suit.
...
"You want to talk about it?" Keith asks as they store their bayards. Chest heaving as Lance tries to catch his breath. Keith has gotten faster.
Lance shrugs, grabbing the water bottle. His lip is bleeding and the water tastes metallic.
Keith frowns, but falls silent. Waiting. They both know Lance will break soon enough.
"It..." Lance sighs as Keith fights back a grin. Smug bastard. "I couldn't take that mission."
"You've taken some fucked up missions," Keith reminds him. They both need a shower, Lance thinks watching a bead of sweat make its way down Keith's face to fall against his shirt.
Lance shrugs again. "I don't kill kids." The blood is dripping now, falling against the training deck in single drops.
And what can Keith say to that.
.
Coran tries to send Shiro on the mission. Shiro refuses. Hides behind Allura when Coran approaches with a determine set to his mouth.
There are some lines in war even they cannot cross.
.
"We don't send you on these missions without reason," Coran reminds him as they pass in the hallway.
Lance nods, "I know."
.
"I don't understand," Allura admits, looking to Lance with wide innocent eyes. And Lance understands. He does. He really does. He understands why Coran does the things he does. He understands why it is always best to hide some things from their Princess. Her faith and her hope and her innocents are necessary. They are the good things they fight for. They are reminds of why they do what must be done.
Lance shrugs and reminds himself she does not understand what she is asking him to do, beats down the anger with the patients he has learned from hiding on roof tops. "I know, Princess," Lance says. "And I won't change my mind."
…
Losing Hunk is a gradual processes. Lance sees it only in hindsight: the signs. But the pain… the pain is hard to miss.
It’s in the loss of warm hands. It’s in the loss of kind words. In the way Hunk no longer seeks him out. In the way Hunk no longer smiles just for Lance, no longer looks at Lance without a tinge of fear. The first time Lance draws his bayard outside of training after that mission, Hunk flinches.
(Lance tries not to throw up.)
Lance finds himself spending more and more time with Shiro in the aftermath. Unable to bear the knowledge that he has lost his one true friend to his own actions, his own lack of heart. Finding it easier to turn away, to try and hide. And in turn, he finds himself spending more and more time with Keith.
It’s an unexpected development: their friendship. Built on less mutual understanding and more on an appreciation for well-timed silence. And it doesn’t hurt that they enjoy beating the shit out of each other to pass the time.
Shiro disapproves. Sees their need to break skin and bruise faces as some surreal manifestation of their original rivalry played out as a one v. one now that they’re forced to spend an unprecedented amount of time together. In reality, it’s far simpler.
They’re stressed.
And if getting hit until Lance can’t tell what part of him isn’t bruised is the easiest way to put himself to sleep than he’s more than willing to take Keith’s offers for sparring up. And if maybe getting to beat the shit out of Lance and having the shit beaten out of him by Lance (because Lance has learnt how to hold his own by now) is doing a world of good for Keith as well. Then who can complain?
.
The first time Keith kills a Galran—not a robot or a beast, but a living breathing Galran soldier—it’s for Lance. They’re surrounded and cut off. Forced to fight their way to their lions when a Galran manages to sneak to close. And in that moment, watching Keith pause as the Galran’s blood seeps under their boots, Lance can’t help but think, bitterly, Hunk would never have done the same.
.
The divide widens.
Hunk and Pidge. Allura. And Coran. Shiro, Keith, and Lance.
.
They can’t form Voltron.
Allura sends Shiro and Lance on an away mission to a galaxy on the farthest region of a fourth southern sector.
They instigate a rebellion that kills four thousand people from the safety of their hotel room. Bloodshed and screams and the sound of gunfire something that gets easier and easier to fall asleep to so that by the time they return to the castle—the Galran hold in the south significantly weakened with the loss of six important trade routes—Lance has to relearn to sleep in silence.
.
They try mind melding. It is the first time Lance has sat so close to Hunk in months and he worries, stuffs the things he never wants Hunk to see in the back of his mind. It works as well as one expects.
“You need to open up, Lance,” Pidge barks as Allura and Coran watch on from the balcony. Her temper is short these days. The tension in the air wearing her thin. Wearing on them all. And Lance looks up, catches Coran’s eye to see him studying, judging.
“Sorry,” Lance whispers, taking his helmet off.
Shiro calls training off and Pidge throws them both a disgusted look.
.
And then Coran hands him a mission he will not take.
…
There is a point where Coran gets Shiro and Lance in the same room. “We won’t be able to handle Commander Sincline without this mission,” Coran insists. And they both nod. They know this. They do. Lance is no fool. Every mission Coran has given them has only aided them in the war. “One of you needs to take it.”
And here they disagree. “No,” Lance says, “Hire someone else, Coran. We’ve brought you contacts.”
“But we can’t do it.” Shiro finishes.
Coran’s face distorts, turns cold. “We need someone we can trust on this,” he snaps, “And if not you too than perhaps I can ask Keit-.”
Lance is moving before he can register. The sound of skin on skin giving away to shock as he watches Coran stumble back. Shiro moves forward, grabs Lance's shoulder, has his back. “You will not touch Keith,” Shiro says, voice steady. An unmovable force. When Coran says nothing, Shiro continues, “I think it’s best for everyone we forget this conversation ever happened."
.
Coran steps out of the healing pod.
When they fight Commander Sincline’s forces, the others are surprised by how easy it is as Shiro and Lance stand to the side in the aftermath, faces ashen for all that they are grateful. It is the first significant win they’ve had as a team in a while and when Pidge claps Lance on the shoulder, Lance has the strength to pretend. To grab her around the waist and twirl, cooing something about being the best.
But as the others leave, Keith makes a point of catching Lance’s eye with wide, worried eyes.
It seems Coran found his child-killer then.
.
Things even out after that.
Coran stops sending them on away missions. Instead watches them. Waits.
Hunk reaches out with uncertain hands and Lance knows better than to spurn an olive branch when he sees one. It is different. Surreal as the time gives away to show how they’ve grown, changed. Hunk still gentle and yet guarded. Weathering a war by wrapping steel around his too big, too kind heart. And yet still wishing for the best, hoping for peace. Lance brittle and cruel. Sharp words and sharper hands. A thirst for pain that grounds him in a universe that has shifted too fast for his shaking knees to keep up.
When they sit together, thighs just touching, the silence between them is heavy. Not uncomfortable. Not cruel. Just heavy. Different. When they speak, they choose their words more carefully. Aware of the walls that were not there before. Aware of wounds that need more time to heal. Betrayals they gave each other while trying to protect themselves.
But it is a beginning. A start.
Keith becomes gentler during spars. Doesn’t hold his punches, but isn’t as desperate. Sticks around longer after they’re finished to help nurse Lance’s wounds. Some days Shiro joins them, falls in step so it almost feels like a dance. Kick. Punch. Block. Duck. Twirl. Repeat.
Pidge’s temper settles as Lance finds his way to her workshop after months of absence. Her silence just as heavy as Hunks’. And these days where Lance goes, Keith is sure to follow until the workshops become more of a common area than the living room as Lance and Keith curl up to read a book as Shiro meditates and Hunk and Pidge loose themselves to their projects. Sometimes even Allura comes, hovering around the edge until Shiro brings her in with a few careful words and then it becomes normal to find the two speaking in whispers.
Shiro and Lance never say a word about the work they do in private.
The others have the sense not to disturb the careful peace they find.
.
They form Voltorn and win that day’s fight.
Chatter over dinner is easy.
Lance and Keith and Shiro share a bed without asking. The nightmares almost at bay.
.
Coran sends Lance on another away mission. This one as simple as Allura made it out to be. No words to read between the lines as he settles blue on a foreign moon to pick up simple trading supplies from an underground resistance trade route.
.
The assassinations do not stop. Neither do the rebellions. They see it on their star maps and hear it on the radio chatter. And Lance can only be grateful for the break Coran is allowing them. He knows it is short lived. And if his hands start to feel steadier than he is sure Coran has noticed.
.
Mind melding is easy, for once. Compartmentalizing easier now that Lance knows there is a silent agreement to respect certain boundaries. And if he feels Hunk’s touch on the edge of his mind than Lance can give him that.
He sends a feeling of warmth, of family into the mind meld and feels it echoed over the bond. Tentative, but there.
.
Coran sends him on a mission to take out a Duke of some sort on Kovin. Another easy mission. A way to let Lance just dip his toes in.
The feel of the rifle is familiar. The steadying of his heartbeat. The way he counts his breaths. All familiar. All well practiced.
He pulls the trigger with ease and drops. Knows better to stick around and confirm his kill as he slips out of the city limit just in time to hear the uproar as word spreads.
The flight home in his stolen Galran airship is exhilarating.
.
“I don’t like this,” Keith says a few days later. They’re in Lance’s room. They do that these days. Hide away together to talk about some things that are important and some that are not. “I don’t want to win the war like this.”
Lance doesn’t have to ask what Keith means. They both know. The reports of rebellion, of rioting in the streets of Kovin have spoken of nothing but the loss of too many lives.
“It’s not right,” Keith repeats, turning to Lance. There is an urgency in his eyes as he waits for Lance to answer. Like he needs Lance to agree. Like he needs to know Lance knows better.
But Lance has made his peace with this. That even though there are lines he will not cross, there is a reason why Shiro and he hold their silence. There is a reason why they don’t argue with the majority of the missions Coran sends them on, even the bloody ones. Even the ones one could argue were worse than murdering a child.
Lance shrugs. “It’s a way,” he says, voice steady even as Keith rises to his feet. Horror clear on his face.
It’s easy to watch Keith walk away when he can’t find the energy to call him back.
.
That night Shiro and Lance share a bed, waiting for Keith.