Chapter Text
Lance had known from a very young age what made him stand out.
In a family as large as his, standing out was part of how to cope. Everyone had to be known for something, had to be good at something. By the time Lance was born, everyone else had their thing and Lance needed something going for him beyond just being the baby of the family.
It wasn’t his humour, as much as he’d like to claim it. That title rightfully belonged to Luis, his oldest brother. God, Lance missed him. Luis was the family mediator, his ability at soothing arguments as impressive and natural as a mint balm. Luis helped Papa see Marco eye-to-eye about Marco’s truancy issues towards the end of high school (and successfully got Marco a much-needed ADHD diagnosis), helped stop Veronica and Rachel’s bickering about Santi (a neighbourhood boy both of them wanted to date who turned out to be queerer than Havana Pride), even stopped Abuela from critiquing Mama’s food, all through the work of carefully placed jokes and his easy-going smile. When Lance thinks about the kind of man he wants to grow up to be, all he can see is Luis—Luis is everything Lance wants to be.
God, he misses Luis.
He wasn’t the musical one, not with Marco for a brother. After wowing their entire extended family at cousin Amaria’s quince with a rendition of Willie Colón’s Oh que sera, his family couldn’t stop talking about how good a musician he was. From as long as he can remember, Lance’s evenings were filled with Marco singing in the shower, or drumming in the garage, or strumming his guitar in his bedroom. There was no escaping him—if Marco had the capacity to make noise, he was making noise. He was like a Cuban tree frog, forever invading Lance’s space and croaking late into the night. Many of their arguments before Lance left for the Galaxy Garrison revolved around that inescapable fact, Luis intervening when Lance got a little too heated.
In retrospect, Lance misses the music Marco brought to his life. Space is quiet and dark and cold. There’s only so much light Lance could bring on his own, only so much humming and tapping and fake-strumming he could entertain the others with. Even then, only Hunk and Coran seemed to like his attempts at music. He’d do almost anything to fall asleep squishing pillows and blankets against his ears to muffle Marco’s sound out.
It certainly wasn’t his fascination for space that made him distinguishable, much to his chagrin. By the time Lance had been born, Veronica had already claimed the affectionate family title ‘space nerd,’ Mama always joking that she would shoot for the stars and never come home. Ronnie never skipped class, a feat none of the other McClain kids could claim, and tutored the neighbourhood kids in math, science, and English. Lance endured year after year of teachers hesitating before reading his name out on roll call, then asking if he was related to Marco McClain or Veronica McClain, clearly hoping for the latter. And Lance’s favourite response was to smile mischievously before saying “both.”
Mama stopped joking about that after Kerberos. Veronica moved to the analytics department after graduating the pilot program. Lance’s parents forbade him from applying to the fighter class, then almost refused to let him move up to it after Keith flunked out. And now he’s in space, with no known way to get home, somehow the Paladin of the Blue Lion. A Paladin of Voltron, a legendary pilot requiring all the knowledge they could hold in their brain to save the world from enslaving, conquering cat-people.
Veronica would be better than him at this.
Lance wasn’t the brave one, either. Mama must have passed on all the bravery to Rachel, leaving Lance with close to none. Rachel was always getting into trouble. She spoke her mind, like when she told Santi not to lead her on if he wasn’t interested in women once Luis knocked sense into her. If Rachel wanted something from the world, she went out there and got it. That’s how she got the lead role in the school musical five years in a row despite not being able to sing particularly well, how she got hired at every job she interviewed for even if she lacked proper experience, how she was on the news at the age of eleven for jumping into a rip tide to rescue an unsuspecting tourist from being pulled out to sea. Rachel didn’t exactly think things through, not like how Lance did (he’d think and clam up and never get anything done), but once she knew what she wanted, may no one stand in her way or pay the price.
Everyone had their thing. Luis, the funny one. Marco, the musical one. Veronica, the smart one. Rachel, the brave one.
As family mediator, who else could it be but Luis to help find Lance’s differentiating skill? Granted, they both got in a lot of trouble for it (who in their right mind gives a five-year-old a BB gun? Who in their right mind gives a five-year-old a BB gun indoors?) but his aim impressed his parents enough to put him in the local cuatro esquinas makeshift league, then Baseball5 when he wanted to play more, then caved and bought him a video-game console for his tenth birthday. Luis gave Lance his BB gun for the same birthday—Lance made sure not to shoot it anywhere near Mama’s fine china.
Then Veronica got into the Galaxy Garrison, and half the family moved to Florida, and baseball was too expensive for Lance to sign up for. He got more video games as a consolation (and goodbye) gift from Luis, but he didn’t have enough ethernet to play them properly, so he started going out to internet cafes in early high school. He didn’t even have to get a real job, with all the money he made off people watching him play video games and the tournament pots (when he did sign up for them), but he and his stupid work ethic got him a job washing dishes in a kitchen bar when he was fourteen.
Him getting into the Galaxy Garrison was beyond Lance’s comprehension—how could he get into the same school no one thought Veronica, his older, smarter, better sister, could even dream of attending?
While the cargo pilot program was boring, definitely not what Lance would have signed up for had he known what the curriculum entailed, there were some things they got to do that the fighter pilots didn’t get to. Since the cargo pilots transported, well, cargo, they were often responsible for the loading and unloading of said cargo from their aircrafts. Sometimes those loadings and unloadings could get… dicey, if unfriendlies were involved. Lance only wanted to be a well-prepared, top-notch cargo pilot (as if he wasn’t already top of his class), and the Garrison banned video games following the Incident of 2299 (thanks, unnamed narc, and thanks, unnamed idiot who sapped too much of the Garrison’s ethernet on a reconstructed version of Doom Eternal for them to properly run their flight simulators for the entirety of exam season). He needed an outlet for all his creative energy!
All that to say, Lance may or may not have signed up for the elective titled “Tactics and Strategy: A Comprehensive Course” which went incredibly in-depth about military strategization for aerial, naval, and ground assaults and defenses. Lance may or may not have won an award for his performance in the course, and he may or may not have presented his research at the annual undergraduate student conference right before being moved up to fighter pilot.
So, when his bayard transformed into a sniper rifle much akin to his signature weapon in Call of Duty, Lance was far from surprised. He knows his strengths, and being a sharpshooter is top of the list.
He’s still a bit taken aback by the amount of pushback his teammates were giving him concerning the battle strategy for their training drill, though.
“That wouldn’t work,” is the first thing that tumbles out of Lance’s big fat mouth.
Keith, who had just told the team they should all storm the enemy lines together as a cohesive front, sputters, “What do you mean?”
What do you mean, what do I mean?
“See how they’re concentrating all of their men here?” Lance gestures towards the miniature holograph display of the battlefield Coran generated for them to strategize over.
Beside him, Hunk and Pidge lean in to see where Lance is pointing. The battlefield mimics a Galra air base they had seen a few times before on colony planets—it seems Coran went out of his way to update the holograph display settings to be a bit more… contemporary. There are twenty infantry stationed right by the entrance to the hangar, none seem to be near the ships. But if they went with Keith’s plan, their sheer lack of engagement would allow some of the unfriendlies to board their ships and simply fly away. The force from their take-off would likely kill them all, too.
“Yes, I can see that.”
“Well, then, you can see that we are outnumbered ten to one-”
“That’s why we have to overwhelm them!”
“Won’t they just overpower us first?” Hunk chimes in nervously, meeping a bit when the weight of Keith’s glare rests itself on him from across the table. Yes, thank you Hunk! Help them see reason!
“That is likely what would happen,” Shiro agrees, “Take another look, guys, what can we do?”
Keith, obviously annoyed, eyes the fake battlefield with a bit more attention than he had when Lance told him to look again. But he refuses to speak up.
Lance tries again, “If we want to overpower the base, we’d have to split up-”
“But wouldn’t we be easier targets, if we split up?” Hunk raises a hand to chew on his fingernail, “They could just pick us off one-by-one!"
No, Hunk, you were doing so well!
“We definitely need to split up,” Pidge says, moving closer to the display, “Maybe if we sent in Keith and Shiro for an offensive here-” and points towards the objectively-incorrect spot to lead the assault, “Then have me infiltrate here to mess with their hangar settings-”
“You’d get blown up before you could even reach the stairs, let alone the hangar settings,” Keith argues, “And Shiro and I should charge them here-” And points to an even worse place to engage in close-range attack, “It would get us to the base faster.”
“Faster doesn’t necessarily mean more effective,” Shiro says somewhat sternly, “The objective is to get in and out with no friendly casualties, guys.”
“Then how about here?” Pidge points to a better opening than before, but still too narrow. They shouldn’t be going in alone anyways. Pidge is small and quick, their bayard form naturally taking on that of an angular bladed cestus perfect for infiltration, but their skills would be better picking off stragglers rather than sneaking through the base in this instance.
Now that he thinks about it, maybe Keith is right. Urgh. Not about everything! Just that it would likely be best to storm as one unit—but Pidge is right too, they need to split up if they want any chance of besting the unfriendlies.
Lance lets the room devolve into squabbling as he investigates the holograph. Brows narrowed as if it will help him scope out any potential weaknesses he didn’t catch the first fifty times, he leans in closer. He lets himself get lost in battle tactics and formations as the other Paladins bicker.
No one is asking Lance for any of his thoughts. If anything, they’re brushing off every contribution he tries to make, speaking louder than him or waving their arms around as if that would make them more correct and factual for taking up more physical space. It’s like he’s at family dinner all over again, only this time he doesn’t feel quite so invited.
Finally, Pidge and Keith settle on a tentative battle plan that would get minimum half (and that’s a generous estimation) the Paladins killed, but they seem triumphant about it, blind to what will befall them if they actually went through with it. Coran seems slightly strained as he keeps a wane smile on his face, clearly not in agreement with Numbers Four and Five. Shiro also looks… not quite disappointed, but definitely not happy with what Pidge and Keith are proposing for their team.
Hunk, bless him, turns to Lance and quietly murmurs, “What do you think, man?”
“I think…” Lance starts soft and slow, “I think this plan…” before increasing his volume, “Is a hot pile of garbage!”
“What?”
“What?”
“Lance!”
“I’m sorry, guys!” Lance raises his hands apologetically, “but if we go with that plan, we’d be leaving with four casualties, one POW, and Voltron in the Galra’s hands. And that’s me being generous.”
“Then what would you do, genius?” Pidge says snidely. Their glasses flash, “If you’re so smart, just tell us what we should do!”
Lance shakes off the little spike of hurt he feels.
“Pidge,” Shiro warns, “Tone.”
“Keith was right,” He ignores Keith’s triumphant cry, “in that we need to charge them head-on.”
He looks at everyone. They’re listening to him now.
“And Pidge was right,” Pidge sniffs snidely, “when they said we need to split up, but we can’t split up everyone.”
Shiro leans in, interested, “What are you thinking?”
“We need a sniper. Coran?”
Coran startles, head bobbing up, “At your service, Number Three!”
“Where is the sun positioned?”
“This planet is circumbinary! Its first sun would be here, shining light here,” Coran gestures to the board, “And the other would be on the opposite side of the planet, over here.”
“So I’ll go here.” Lance points to the perfect spot, the one he’s been eyeing since he entered the room for their training.
“You?” Keith sputters, looking incredulous.
Wow. That time it stung. Lance knows exactly what Keith is implying and he doesn’t appreciate it. Just because he doesn’t swing a sword around like a brawny thug doesn’t mean he’s completely useless. Not everything can be solved with brute force.
“Yes, me,” Lance sniffs, “I’ll have you know I’m a sharpshooter!”
“Maybe in your dreams,” Pidge says. Another stab.
Lance brushes them off, though. No use getting upset now.
“I’ll station myself here. Because the sun is coming from behind me, if everyone else storms them head-on I can make sure you won’t take heavy fire. They won’t see where I am, but since I’ll be in an off angle position they’ll have to concentrate on finding me instead of banding together against you guys.”
He got closer to the board, using his hands to show where the shots would come from and where they would land.
“Any stragglers from the sides, I can pick off. And don’t lose my LOS!” At the blank faces he receives, he clarifies, “Line of sight. I need to see you all to make sure no one is coming up behind you, so don’t leave it. We can use our comms to communicate where everyone is, unfriendlies included, that way if you see someone who is outnumbered you can tell me where and I’ll incapacitate them. That’s when and how you’ll take the base over. It’s the only way with that many unfriendlies outnumbering us.”
Coran whistles between his teeth. His face is no longer stiff, his smile wide and eyes shining as he looks over the holograph again. Allura does the same; for once, she doesn’t appear annoyed at Lance speaking for a prolonged period of time (likely because he didn’t use it as an excuse to flirt with her). Pidge looks thoughtful, glasses no longer glaring as they seem deep in thought, before nodding slowly and softly in agreement. Keith still looks stormy but even he cannot deny that Lance’s plan is the best course of action and gives Lance a small nod. Hunk is a steady warmth by Lance’s side, saying nothing but Lance knows exactly what he’s thinking: good job, you did well, I knew you could do it, I’m proud of you.
And Shiro looks… deeply impressed. Almost as if he hasn’t been expecting this from Lance.
It makes him feel much worse than he expects it to.
“If that’s everything,” Lance smiles, more of a baring of his teeth than a smile if he’s being honest, “Then I’m going to catch up on some other training modules, some of those personal ones the Princess assigned us. Peace!”
Lance will never admit that he fled the training room but it’s a close thing, tail practically tucked between his legs as he leaves the room.
He can hear Hunk making his excuses to exit as well, stumbling over an excuse to marinate some tubers they found near the lakeshores of Arus.
“Lance? Lance!” Hunk is running after him. Lance purposefully speeds up, taking a left before taking another. Hunk still catches up to him, though.
“What’s wrong, buddy?” Trust Hunk to know when something’s wrong. It’s his hidden superpower, that heart of gold of his.
“Nothing, it’s nothing-” His voice catches.
Hunk moves closer. His eyes are soft, hands soft as they take Lance’s to hold.
“I just don’t know why they were all surprised, that’s all,” He spat, heart a little bitter. He can’t possibly be seen as completely useless, right? He’s here with them all, he’s the reason they’re all here to begin with.
“I’m sorry they were surprised, man,” Hunk tries to cheer him, “I wasn’t, if that makes you feel better!”
It does and it doesn’t.
“I knew the moment we walked into the training room that you were going to kick it out of the water,” Lance laughs a bit, both at Hunk’s enthusiasm and at his butchering of the idiom. The sound catches in his throat. Hunk continues, becoming more and more passionate as he rambles on, “Seriously, man, I’ve seen your homework. I’ve seen you play. I went to your presentation last year! I know you have what it takes, and, and if they won’t listen to you, then you’ll have to make them listen to you!”
“Woah, there, tiger,” Lance feels much better now, so much so that he bounds forward and gives Hunk a loose hug. He doesn’t notice that two corridors down, a certain man with a mullet has his ear and body pressed tight to the wall as if he’s trying not to be noticed, trying not to be seen. He’s too busy embracing his best friend.
“Thank you, buddy.”