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Lance was late. His little sister had taken forever getting ready for her ballet class, and by the time he dropped her off and made it through the traffic to Voltron Studio, he was very, very late. Hopefully Allura wouldn’t kill him. Or Shiro.
He shoved the studio door open a little too hard and nearly tripped on his face. Everyone else was already there, of course, working on routines or just messing around.
Keith glared at him as Lance hastily dropped his backpack on the floor beside Pidge’s frankly enormous one and tugged off his shoes. The effect of the glare was somewhat lessened by the fact that the other boy was upside down, his back balanced on the soles of Shiro’s upturned feet. His hair flopped in his face as he shifted from whale to wheel, wrapping his hands around his ankles while Shiro stabilized them both with careful balancing touches on Keith’s shoulders. “You’re late,” Keith said as they settled into the new pose.
“Traffic,” Lance replied, dragging out a mat to stretch. Late or no, he’d learned his lesson about doing acrobatics without warming up beforehand. It was all pain.
“You’re lucky Allura had to help her dad at the offices today,” came Pidge’s voice from somewhere in the ceiling. Apparently they had gotten the high silks out today. “She would never let you hear the end of it.”
“Don’t I know it,” Lance grumbled. He rolled over as Hunk walked into the room, returning from refilling his water bottle.
“Why hello Lance, nice of you to join us,” Hunk said in a ridiculous imitation of Allura’s Irritated Voice. From the floor, Shiro snorted as he shifted his feet to move Keith into straddlebat.
Lance stuck his tongue out at his rude team and went to the lyra. Clearly someone (Hunk probably) had thought to get it out for him ahead of time. He swung easily up into a knee hang and started pulses, letting his body readjust to the feeling of being upside-down, of the heavy hardness of the hoop digging into the backs of his knees, of having gravity change its meaning.
He watched Keith roll from right-side-up in his inversions to upside-down and pull Shiro back up to standing (upside-down for Lance) as well. Keith moved off to do his own solo acrobatics (that boy had no bones) as Hunk meandered over. “Wanna fly, Shiro?”
They each had their own specialties – Keith and his gymnastics, Hunk’s silks, Shiro still sometimes worked with aerial straps but less frequently now, Pidge loved anything that got them off the ground, Lance and his beloved lyra – but all of the Paladins team did partner acro. Pidge was, of course, a flier (although they could and would base Keith, which was an impressive sight to see). Lance and Keith could both base and fly each other, although their inability to communicate without arguing led to a lot of dropping/getting dropped, some of it intentional. Hunk was officially the World’s Best Base (Shiro coming a close second), but the two were the only ones who could really base each other. Keith could fly Shiro if he tried, but it was never for very long and more often than not ended up with Shiro falling on Keith’s head.
At the offer, Shiro’s eyes lit up. The motorcycle accident had been almost a year ago, but his right arm could still not quite handle the strain of Shiro’s former favorite circus activity, aerial straps. He could still base as long as he didn’t have to use his arm too much (poses like shoulderstands were no longer an option), but it was an open secret that one of Shiro’s favorite things was flying. Keith took after him a little in that regard, although he didn’t have any interest in aerial rigs – acro and motorcycles was all he cared about.
Lance slid into man-in-the-moon, pressing his spine against the curve of the lyra, to watch Hunk fly Shiro. World’s best base indeed. None of the team were “exclusive,” but Lance and Hunk had been partnering long before they found Voltron Circus Studio. He knew just how good Hunk was. Lance fell all the time when he was flying with Keith (and, okay, maybe he dropped the other boy a few too many times as well), but when Hunk was the base, nobody ever fell. It was obvious that Shiro was ecstatic to fly. Knowing that you were safe, up in the air, fearless, was the best thing in the world.
There was a shift of fabric, a sharp intake of air, and then Pidge was falling. They had climbed up to at least two or three times Hunk’s height, and Lance’s heart leapt into his throat as he watched them drop.
They came to a sharp stop five feet from the ground, the loops and wraps of the silks keeping them from hitting the ground.
Lance let out his breath slowly. He never got used to that. No matter how many times Pidge practiced their falls, it still made his heart stop.
Shiro too. “I wish you would have a spotter,” he complained from where he was going through bird variations with Hunk. “Your drops take years off my life.” Hunk made an agreeing noise from the floor. He was very skilled with his silks, but didn’t do drops. Motion sickness or plain disinterest, he just didn’t.
Pidge, contrastingly, enjoyed the free-fall moment that came before the sharp stop, and had been learning every drop they could find. Hanging upside down from a complicated-looking wrap around their knees, they stuck their tongue out at the group leader. “Just don’t look then,” they said, unsympathetic as they swung back up and began climbing back to the top. “I’m not going to fall. I mean, not any more than I intend to.”
Shiro groaned at the comment.
Keith dropped out of his headstand into a forearm backbend, holding it for a breath before sinking to the floor and rolling back up to his feet. “We don’t fall, Shiro,” he reminded.
Lance, sitting on the top rim of the lyra, had to agree. “We’re just that good,” he said, swinging down and rolling into mermaid. “There’s a reason why Allura lets us practice here on our own without supervision. The Paladins are the best there is.”
“They had better be.” Allura’s voice startled everyone. Keith twitched; if he had still been upside down he would have fallen on his face. As it was, Lance almost fell out of the hoop, Pidge squeaked and flailed until they regained their grip on the silks, and Shiro jerked, wobbled, and was hastily and carefully set down by Hunk before he could fall on his head.
Allura continued as if she hadn’t nearly just scared the daylights out of the entire crew. “You’re my best weapon against Galra Studio. The circus arts festival is coming up, you all need to practice more. You –”
“We get it,” Lance cut in, before Allura could really get herself worked up. “It’s important. And we are practicing. We’re good, Allura, you know that.”
Shiro nodded, regaining his balance from the sudden landing. “Everyone is doing well. This is just individual time. We can show you tonight, if nobody has anywhere to be.” The team nodded. Then Shiro smiled, relaxed and happy the way he only was when he was at Voltron, when he was doing what he loved. “Come on, Allura. We’re all working hard, and you’re no exception. I know you’ve been at the office all day, have some fun and then we’ll show you the updated routines.”
Allura couldn’t resist. There was a reason why she was half-running the studio for her uncle – there was real devotion and dedication there. The studio’s “princess” finally let out a breath, relaxing for a moment before she settled on a mat near Keith and began her stretches. Pidge slid from the high silk to the trapeze without fully coming down (more years off Shiro’s life, he hated when they jumped between rigs) so that Allura would have access to her favorite silk.
As Allura began to climb, twisting and twining herself in the fabric, Hunk went to the other silk and Shiro came over to spot Keith’s handsprings. Lance watched Pidge flip from angel up to angel down, back and forth like their spine was made of slinky instead of bone, and rolled himself into bird’s nest, the metal of the lyra hard and strong against his skin.
Allura was right. The Paladins were good. They loved what they did, and that made them all the better. They could fly, and they had no fear of falling.
Galra Studio had no idea what was coming.