Chapter Text
“Simulation failed” The screen lit up, as the doors to the simulator opened.
“Roll out, donkeys!” Commander Iverson yelled and a glum-looking Lance, Pidge, and Hunk- whose nausea was written all over his green face- exited.
“Well, let´s see if we can´t use this complete failure as a lesson for the rest of you students. Can anyone point out the mistakes these three so-called cadets made in the simulator? You, (Y/N)?”
Why me…
You hesitated for a second. You didn´t want to be the one to point out their failures and criticize them, but you had no choice. All the student´s eyes were on you and making Iverson wait for an answer for too long never ended well.
So you explained, “The engineer puked in the main gearbox, the Comm spec removed his safety harness and the pilot crashed.”
“Correct,” Iverson exclaimed. You gave your three friends an apologetic look.
“And worst of all, the whole jump, they´re arguing with each other! Heck, if you´re going to be this bad individually, you´d better at least be able to work as a team!”
He straightened his back and gave us students the kind of look that meant we had to listen carefully. Some people took out pens and paper. You rolled your eyes at that.
How unnecessary.
“Galaxy Garrison exists to turn young cadets like you into the next generation of elite astroexplorers, but these kinds of mental mistakes are exactly what cost the lives of the men in the Kerberos Mission.”
“That´s not true, Sir!” Pidge interrupted. She looked offended, kind of like a kid whose toy you just stole.
“What did you say?!” The class shuddered. His tone meant trouble, but Lance came to the rescue and clasped his hand over Pidge´s mouth.
“Sorry, Sir! I- I- I think he may have hit his head when he fell out of his chair. But point taken.”
Commander Iverson took a step in their direction, getting dangerously close.
“I hope I don´t need to remind you that the only reason you´re here is that the best pilot in your class had a discipline issue and flunked out. Don´t follow in his footsteps.”
You could tell from the look on Lance´s face that what Iverson said hurt him. He could barely hide it, pressing his lips into a line and averting his gaze.
“Next!” Commander Iverson yelled. Three other students passed them and entered the simulator, as Lance, Hunk, and Pidge made their way back and took their place next to you and the rest of the class.
You softly hit Lance´s arm with your elbow, “Lance, are you ok?”. He responded with a mere “mh-mh”, looking at the ground.
Oh man, Iverson sure knows how to ruin people´s moods..
---
The clock hit 1 PM and the classes rushed into the cafeteria.
“Guys,” Lance spoke excitedly, “I have a fantastic plan.”
You all picked your food and placed it on the food tray, before moving to look for a free table.
“But it´s top-secret, ok? So no snitching.”
You gave him a deadpan look, “Considering it´s top-secret, you sure do talk loudly. And weren´t you like, totally bummed just a few minutes ago? What happened all of a sudden?”
“Oh,” Lance waved his hand dismissively, “that´s totally water under the bridge now. But anyway, we have to sneak out tonight!”
You all placed your trays on the table at the end of the cafeteria.
Hunk was the first to interject, “Sneak out? I don´t want to get in trouble..
Have you seen Commander Iverson´s death stare today?” He shuddered at the memories of it.
“If we get caught, we´ll get that times ten. No, hundred!”
“That´s why we won´t let ourselves get caught, easy peasy!”
Pidge shook her head, “Count me out. I have other important stuff to do.”
“Like what?? We go at night!” Lance complained.
“Uhh, sleeping? My sleep´s important to me.” She slurped on her juice box, feeling caught in her lie and avoiding the gaze of the group.
“Nuh-Uh, no discussion! You´re coming with us. What about you, (Y/N)?”
You forked up some food, clearly unimpressed with Lance´s top-secret plan, “Why though, what would we even do out there?”
“Going on a walk, hitting the town, meeting some girls…” Lance´s cheeks turned red, he was clearly already thinking about the girls.
“We´ll see,” you said, still unimpressed, which actually meant no. Lance took it as a “Yes!”.
“Sweet, so it´s settled! We´ll meet at 9:55 PM.”
Lance continued eating happily, while Pidge looked at you guys with a furrowed brow, “Settled? Has anyone actually agreed to his plan?”
You and Hunk shook your head defeatedly. It was settled before he even brought it up, there´s no arguing with Lance when it comes to his super special top-secret plans.
---
“Lights out in five! Everyone back to their dorms now!” a voice echoed through the hallways.
Yet here you guys were, hidden from the guards behind the corner, even though you´d much rather be asleep.
Right before you went to bed, Lance and Hunk- but mostly Lance- barged into your room and made you change into your outside clothes again. They were lucky your roommate was out again.
“We planned this!! You can´t chicken out now!” is what Lance said, which was true but you kind of hoped they would have forgotten or just went without you. You weren´t part of the friend group until just recently. They´ll have fun without me anyway, is what you thought. But turns out, you thought wrong.
Lance insisted you go with them, “Think about the ultrahot guys you´ll meet!”
So you changed and threw some make-up in your bag to apply on the way there.
You weren´t planning on meeting any ultrahot guys, but since you went to the city you wanted to look somewhat presentable.
“We shouldn´t be doing this,” Hunk whispered. You gave him a soft hit on the shoulder, “You already forced me to go out here with you guys, there´s no going back!”
“Yes!” Lance whispered loudly, “Also, you heard Commander Iverson. We need to bond as a team.”
“Team? Why am I here then?” you asked him.
“(Y/N), no changing sides now! Think of the ultrahot guys!”
“Ugh…”
“The light´s about to turn off, let´s go!”
And so you rushed from one hiding place to another, from dark corners to trash cans until you reached Pidge´s room.
Before you could knock though, the door opened. Lance pulled you and Hunk around the corner.
Pidge peeked out the door, to the left, to the right, and took off.
“Where is he going?” Lance mumbled to himself, as he followed Pidge, “Must be his other important stuff..”
Following Pidge led you to the roof, where she had her tech spread out and seemed to be listening to something with her headphones on.
“Pshhh!” Lance held his finger in front of his mouth and sneaked to Pidge.
“Nobody said anythin-” “PSSSHHH HUNK!” “Sorryy…” Hunk mouthed.
Lance carefully removed Pidge´s headphones and spoke close to her ear, “You come up here to rock out?”, making Pidge yell startled.
“WHOA! Oh… Lance, Hunk, (Y/N)… No, um, just looking at stars.”
“Hey, where´d you get that?” Lance asked, “Doesn´t look like Garrison tech.”
Pidge grinned smugly, “I built it.”
Hunk held out his hand curiously, “You built all this?”, before getting his hand slapped away.
“Stop it! With this thing, I can scan all the way to the edge of the solar system.”
“That right?”, Lance looked surprised, “All the way to Kerberos?”
“Mh? Mhhh...” Pidged lowered her gaze.
“You go ballistic every time the instructors bring it up. What´s your deal?”
“-Second warning Hunk!” Pidge half-yelled at Hunk, who was trying to touch her tech again.
“Look, Pidge if we´re going to bond as a team, we can´t have any secrets.”
You nodded along to support his argument, curious as to if Pidge would finally tell the truth.
“Fine. The world as you know it is about to change. The Kerberos Mission wasn´t lost because of some malfunction or crew mistake- STOP TOUCHING MY EQUIPMENT!”
Hunk fell to his side, disappointed.
“So I´ve been scanning the system and picking up alien radio chatter.”
Lance didn´t seem to be convinced in the slightest with Pidge´s explanation and it would be a lie to say you weren´t either.
“Ok, so you´re insane. Got it.”
“I´m serious! They keep repeating one word: “Voltron”. And tonight it´s going crazier than I have ever heard it.”
“How crazy?”
Suddenly, the alarms blare. Iverson´s voice spoke over the intercom: “Attention, students. This is not a drill. We are on lockdown! Security situation Zulu Niner. Repeat: All students are to remain in the barracks until further notice.”
You guys looked around, looking for whatever could have caused the alarm until your eyes locked on a fiery object in the sky. It seemed to be falling and it was getting bigger by the second.
“Is that a meteor?! …A very, very big… meteor?”
“Looks like it,” you replied, but Pidge seemed to disagree, binoculars in hand.
“It´s a ship! But not one of ours..”
Seconds later, the object crashed, the Garrison already on the way with all their cars and equipment.
Lance and Pidge quickly started running to the door, “We´ve gotta see that ship! Hunk, (Y/N), come on!”
Hunk looks over to you, “That´s totally not a good idea, (Y/N).”
“Of course not,” you grabbed his hand and dragged him with you, “but we can´t pass up this opportunity!”
And so you ran to a hidden place at a safe distance. Unfortunately, that meant that your view was extremely limited, you could barely see anything.
“Man, we´ll never get past all those guards to get a look,” Lance complained. You snatched the binoculars from him to see what was going on over there for yourself but alas, there was only a huge tent with a few workers and cars around it in sight.
“What do you think happened? Maybe there´s some alien inside,” you wondered. You already pictured what that would mean for the future. The idea of meeting alien civilizations on future missions excited you.
“Wait,” Pidge interrupted your daydreaming, “they set up a camera in there and I grabbed its feed. Look!”
She faced her laptop in your direction and it turned out there was not the alien you were expecting inside, but- “Shiro..?”, you gasped. He´s alive?
He laid there, strapped to a table, frantically struggling against the restraints. “Hey! What are you doing?”
A few feet away stood Commander Iverson, telling him to calm down until they were done with some testing.
“You have to listen to me!” Shiro demanded, “They destroy worlds! Aliens are coming!”
“That´s Shiro,” Lance exclaimed, “the pilot of the Kerberos mission! That guy´s my hero!”
“Guess he´s not dead in space after all,” Hunk said.
How is that even possible? It´s been over a year since he and the crew vanished.
“But where´s the rest of the crew?” Pidge asked.
You felt bad for her, losing your family members like that must feel horrible.
She told you about her secret a while ago when you two met on the roof. You went there to get some fresh air and space from your roommate, who brought her new boyfriends over every other night.
You complained to your roommate about it once, but that just made it worse. Not only did she not stop, but after that you had her friends on your throat too, calling you jealous and whatnot.
The only good thing you got out of it was meeting Pidge that way and her introducing you to Lance and Hunk, your first friends at the Garrison.
Now with Shiro here again, you knew Pidge´s hopes of finding her family again were greater than ever before.
“(Y/N)! Did you hear that?!” Pidge pulled you out of your trance, “Shiro knows about Voltron! We have to get him out of there!”
“But how?” you asked. Getting him out would be almost impossible with how heavily guarded this place was, you feared.
Hunk confirmed your worries as he pointed out, “Uh, I hate to be the voice of reason here, but weren´t we just watching on TV that there´s no way to get past the guards?”
You glanced at the laptop, where Shiro lay in the room unconscious.
Man, the Garrison is ruthless, they didn´t even hear him out.
“That was before we were properly motivated. We´ve just gotta think. Could we tunnel in?”
“Tunnel?” you asked surprised, “They´d be long gone before we would finish that tunnel.”
“Maybe we could get some hazmat suits and sneak in like med techs.”
“And where exactly would we get those? No, we need a distraction,” you said, and like on cue an explosion went off in the distance, Garrison already on the way there.
Hunk tightly clung onto your arm. “Is that the aliens? Are they here? They got here so quick!” he whined.
“No,” Pidge said, binoculars in front of her face, “those explosions were a distraction for him. The Garrison´s headed toward the blast, and he´s sneaking in from the other side,” she explained, as Lance snatched the binoculars from her.
He inspected the scene for a few seconds, before running off all of a sudden.
“No way! Oh, he´s not going to beat us in there! That guy´s always trying to one-up me!”
You all followed suit, carefully sliding down the hill.
“Who is it?” Hunk asked. “Keith!” Lance shouted.
You halted for a second. Keith? You remembered you had detention with him a few times. He beat up some students, you heard, which is why he dropped out later on. You were there because you flunked too many lessons and left the Garrison grounds without permission. You two never really spoke to each other outside of detention though.
“Are you sure? Maybe it´s someone else,” you said.
“Oh, I´d recognize that mullet anywhere!”
And so you ran all the way from the hill to that tent, which honestly felt like a whole marathon to you. Your endurance was never that great, but Lance still seemed to be full of energy.
Upon entering, you instantly took in all the guards on the ground, knocked out unconscious.
Did he do all that on his own?
“Nope. No, you- no, no, no. No, you don´t. I´m saving Shiro,” Lance interrupted as he took hold of Shiro´s other arm.
“Who are you?” The black-haired guy asked confused.
So it really was Keith, you thought. His hair grew out a little and he grew a few inches, but other than that he looked pretty much the same.
He looked at the four of you until his eyes met yours. By the way his face changed, you knew he recognized you as well.
He quickly averted his gaze and turned to Lance.
“Who am I? Uh, the name´s Lance. We were in the same class at the Garrison.”
“Really, are you an engineer?”
You snorted at that, so much for ´always trying to one-up him´, he hardly knew Lance.
That reaction earned you an offended look from Lance.
“No, I´m a pilot! We were like rivals. You know, Lance and Keith, neck and neck.”
Keith´s eyes widened in realization, “Oh, wait, I remember you. You´re a cargo pilot.”
Lance huffed, “Well, not anymore. I´m a fighter class now, thanks to you washing out.”
“Well, congratulations,” Keith said flatly, before they proceeded with the rescue, carrying Shiro to his hoverbike.
“Uh, do you mind if we catch a ride with you?” Hunk asked, while already on the bike. Judging by the face, Keith did not look happy with giving us a ride at all, but the Garrison was already on the way, so he wordlessly jumped on.
You situated yourself behind him, holding a safe distance so as to not disturb him any further.
“Is this thing going to be big enough for all of us?” Pidge asked while struggling to hold Shiro up.
“No,” Keith exclaimed before taking off.
You guys drove further into the desert, you didn´t know where you were headed so you asked, “Where are you driving us to?”, which Keith either didn´t hear or totally ignored, you suspected the latter.
You huffed, slightly offended.
“Can´t this thing go any faster?” Lance shouted, the Garrison cars were catching up to you, the distance closing in by the second.
“We could toss out some non-essential weight.”
“Oh, right!” Lance looked around frantically until realization dawned on him. You couldn´t help but laugh at his reaction.
“Big man, lean left,” Keith instructed. The hoverbike tilted, making you lose your balance. You held on to his shoulders for stabilization but quickly let go and apologized when you felt him tense up under your grip. Behind you, the Garrison cars crashed into each other.
“Aw man!” Hunk shouted, “Mr. Harris just wiped out Professor Montgomery! No, no, he´s fine.”
“We´re doomed if they catch us!” you yelled.
“Big man, lean right!”
The hoverbike flew over a pretty big rift onto a lower ground, landing a little roughly. You almost flew off because you didn´t really have anything to hold onto.
You were relieved that you were still fine, but that relief was short-lived, as you recognized what Keith was steering you all to.
“Guys? Is that a cliff up ahead?” Hunk stuttered.
“Oh no, no, no!”
“Yup,” Keith replied smugly and sped up.
“No, you´re gonna kill us!” you screamed.
For the whole ride, you tried to keep your hands to yourself but right now you just couldn´t care less. You held onto Keith for dear life, wrapping your hands around him and burying your face in the crook of his neck, not wanting to look- what you believed was your undeniable death- in the eyes.
The drop in your stomach made you feel so unbelievably nauseous and your hands tremble like crazy.
What the hell was this guy doing, risking our life like that?!
Suddenly you felt the hoverbike tilt back and the fall stopped.
“Oh my god, we didn´t die!” Lance yelled.
“We didn´t?” Hunk asked, “It totally felt like it.”
You felt Keith shake his head at that, which made you realize that you should totally stop basically hugging him.
You pulled away quickly and scooted back a few inches, still feeling nauseous.
That feeling of lightheadedness didn´t leave you until a few minutes later.
When you finally arrived at the destination, it was about 2 AM, still well into the night. Keith halted in front of a shack and turned the ignition off.
“Hop off guys, we´re here.”
You dismounted the bike and made your way to Shiro, trying to help carry him inside but Keith beat you to it, swiftly cutting into your way without a word. Rude…
Lance jumped off and patted his pants down for dust. “Man, that was one hell of a ride back there! I felt like a criminal on a cop chase.”
“We were,” Keith said, struggling a little to carry Shiro all by himself until you helped out, taking his other side.
“That drop off the cliff was just insane!” Pidge geeked out, making Keith smirk with pride.
“Yes,” you said, “totally insane. I felt like Hunk after that.”
Hunk laughed, “Me too. I felt more like Hunk than ever before and I never wanna experience that again… “
Once you were inside, you laid Shiro on the couch. That´s when you actually noticed the metal prosthetic arm he had. You looked over to Keith, who eyed him with a pained expression. He must have been closer to Shiro than you thought.
When he saw you looking at him, his gaze hardened and he turned away in a swift motion.
“We have about 4 hours until sunrise, you should all rest. Make yourself comfortable or whatever,” Keith said, turning on his heel and heading to the door.
“Hold on a sec!” Lance called out, resting a hand on his hip and pointing at him with the other, “And where exactly are YOU going?”
You already sat down on the floor, not having to be told twice about getting some sleep.
“Lance, why do you care? Jus go t´sleep,” you mumbled, yawning at the thought of it.
“It´s none of your business, but since you care so much: I´m parking the hoverbike somewhere hidden so the Garrison doesn´t find us. And I´m keeping watch for a while in case they do anyway.”
You guys were so far from the Garrison grounds, there was no way they´d find you out here.
He was most definitely lying to get away from you guys for a while but you didn´t say anything. Who could blame him? All the things that happened tonight were a lot to take in.
“Do you wanna change shifts or something?” Hunk asked, “You must be tired too. Man, I sure am exhausted… and hungry. By the way, do you have some snacks here?”
“Ugh, Hunk!” Pidge whined.
“What? I haven´t eaten since dinner.”
Keith opened the door. “No need for shifts. I´ll only keep watch for like half an hour. If they haven´t found us til then, they probably gave up and headed back.” And with that, he shut the door behind him.
While Lance bickered with the other two, you were already half asleep, falling in and out of it for a while. The cold made it hard to catch some rest. The desert´s low temperature was on another level, it made you shiver like crazy.
The other three didn´t seem to be affected as much and were already asleep the next time you awoke, huddled together like a pack of kittens. It kind of made you feel like an outsider.
Yes, Lance, Pidge and Hunk were your friends but you just joined the group a little while ago.
Maybe you were just not used to having friends again but you were not as comfortable with them as they were with each other. Like the fourth wheel… to a tricycle.. or something.
You dwelled in your sorrow for a little while until you heard a click from the door. It was Keith.
Did half an hour already go by?
You quickly shut your eyes and pretended to be asleep, not wanting to talk to anybody right now.
Wallowing in self-pity made your throat close up, what a stupid idea.
Instead, you listened to the soft footsteps around the room. You could tell from the sound of them that he was trying to be careful as to not wake you guys up. They halted for a few seconds before continuing and then stopping again.
Listening to it relaxed you a bit and before you knew it, a blanket has been placed on you.
You immediately warmed up, both because of the blanket of course, and because of the unexpected kindness, feeling a flush of embarrassment spread through you as you have been caught off guard.
“You´re no use to us if you get sick, Princess.”
Oh what an asshole….