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“Okay, I get why he needs a partner, but I don’t see why I have to do it.”
Shiro gives a deep, put upon sigh. He drags his robotic hand across his face to calm himself and try not to strangle the cryokinetic boy standing before him. Lance, as unreliable a student as he may be, is likely the only person compatible to handle Shiro’s cousin when he joins them at Sky High tomorrow.
“Lance, I’ve explained this already,” Shiro patiently states. “Keith has had a rough time. He needs someone who can keep him balanced while he tries to adjust to the environment here. He’s entering as a junior, so he’s not getting the benefit of coming in with a bunch of other newbies who are still coming into their powers. The fact that he’s pyrokinetic isn’t going to help him make any friends here.” He can see that he’s getting nowhere with the Cuban kid pouting in front of him. “Okay, how about this? For every class we put you two in together, I’ll see if your professors can give you a five point curve on your final grade.”
That gets an enthusiastic smile out of the pain in the- the student . Shiro smiles in relief as he shakes Lance’s hand after they come to an agreement. At least Keith is going to have one person to turn to on his first day.
Shiro had said this guy was going to look weird, but Shiro didn’t say that his cousin would be bundled up from head to toe despite the temperature being well over 90. It’s still summer in August, so just who does this guy think he is wearing a beanie, long sleeves, mittens, a jacket that doesn’t even cover his stomach, and stupid looking boots?
“Keith Kogane?” Lance calls as he approaches the glaring kid. He can see the bag slung over Keith’s shoulder and the paper held in his mittened hand. “You’re Shirogane’s cousin, right?”
“Yeah. What’s it to you?”
Well isn’t he chipper? “I’m going to show you around,” Lance explains, trying to smile for the newbie. “Your cousin said that you’re new here and needed someone to show you the ropes.” No response comes from Keith so Lance just takes it as an opportunity to keep talking. “Just follow me. We’ve got a half hour before our first class.”
As Lance turns to walk towards the gym, Keith asks, “Our?”
“Yeah, “our.” Didn’t your cousin tell you that I’d be matching your schedule.” A quiet, "No," just makes Lance roll his eyes before reaching for Keith’s covered arm. “Well, come on. I’ll show you around.”
He really doesn’t expect for his hand to come back steaming as he yelps.
“First day of school and you’re already in the nurse’s office?”
Lance grins and hangs his head sheepishly. “Yeah, guess I didn’t really think it through, huh?”
Nurse Spex shoots him an unamused look over her glasses before turning to get him a lolli. “You know, for someone whose power is ice, I thought you’d be faster at cooling down a situation.”
“Oh, now that’s just cold,” Lance groans, smiling at her. She’s seriously the best. He hops down from the table after she passes the candy over. “But I’ll keep it in mind now. I hadn’t realized that he could do it to his skin, too. Woulda been helpful if Shirogane mentioned that, y’know, ever.”
“I’m sure he did,” she says as Lance leaves the small room.
He pops the candy in his mouth and stretches his bandaged hand as he heads towards his homeroom in Professor Coran’s class. After the little incident, he’d gone to get his hand checked while some professors came and lead Keith away to..somewhere. Lance doesn’t really know where, but he doesn’t particularly mind either. He sits down in his homeroom and relaxes while sitting next to Pidge. She’s hard at work with something that goes over his head for their weapons lesson later. He’s watching her for a while before he overhears something.
“...and now he’s in the detention room to cool off.”
“Seriously? And he just went and burned a kid for no reason?”
“Just like his mom…”
Lance loses whatever was being said as Coran greets them and begins to help explain what course they’ll be taking this year with him and what they can expect for their year to come. Tuning the professor out for a bit, Lance wonders what the other students were talking about. Maybe they were talking about Keith? But why would he go to the detention room to cool off? Lance had been the one who touched him…
His answer comes when Keith isn’t in the other classes he’s supposed to share with Lance. Guilt crawls in his stomach as he hears more whispers throughout the day. This is his fault. Keith couldn’t even start his first day without causing a scene because Lance was careless. After lunch arrives, Lance heads to the cafeteria to find Pidge and Hunk. He smiles in relief when he sees his friends, hoping that maybe this could be the way to fix his guilt. As he’s walking over, he doesn’t see one of the elastic kids stretch their arm out behind him. He hears the clatter of a tray and a thud as someone behind him falls victim to the juvenile prank.
When Lance turns to see a bundle of clothes on the ground with food splattered all over him, his heart sinks.
“Keith? You okay?” he asks as he kneels down to offer the other a hand up. His offer of help is glared at and batted away, so Lance just stands up and watches as Keith stands as well. “Dude, just brush it off. You can share my lunch or get a new one-”
Whatever Lance was saying was obviously not being heard. He knows that because what food had been on Keith was now either burning, evaporating, or on fire. Lance’s eyes go wide and he watches Keith turn to face the senior who’d pulled the prank. As Keith’s hand raises, Lance prepares himself and reaches to grab it.
It’s Keith’s turn to pull away and yelp when the cold hand grabs onto his hot one. Lance meets the angry gaze with his own calm one. “Not here, okay? It’s your first day,” he reminds as he lowers their hands, trying to ignore all the staring from the other students. “Come on.. Let’s go sit down with my friends. You can share my lunch.”
Lance isn’t exactly sure how that worked, but he’s thanking everything he knows that it did. They manage to sit down without anyone else trying to pull another prank. Lance smiles and pretends to not see that Hunk and Pidge are both gaping as Lance introduces them to Keith. He finally remembers to let go of Keith’s hand after he notices that Keith is staring at their hands. Lance simply laughs and apologizes as he lets go before passing Keith the fork to eat.
“It’s not the best food, but at least it’s fresh this time of year,” Lance jokes. He doesn’t think Keith gets the joke, though, since Keith doesn’t even smile. Giving a sigh, Lance turns to Hunk and talks with him about their afternoon classes. When it turns out they’ve got gym together, Lance beams and starts to talk about possibly teaming up for their tests, completely forgetting about his agreement with Shiro.
Lance is very glad when gym comes around at the end of the day. He’d not spotted Keith in the locker room so he’d assumed that Keith might’ve been exempt for the day or maybe called into his cousin’s office to debrief about their problem earlier. Either way, Lance doesn’t let it ruin his first day of Rescue the Civilian. He and Hunk have an easy enough time - Hunk’s telekinesis does well enough to dismantle the machine from the inside while Lance works to freeze over the area above the contraption in order to allow the civilian an ice slide to safety. Boomer isn’t happy, but Lance doesn’t care because he got to show off in front of Nyma.
After class, Lance and Hunk walk out together and talk about studying for their Hero-Civilian Relations class seeing as Pidge’s older brother is the teacher. They agree to meet for dinner just before Lance’s phone goes off. He apologizes and answers only for Shiro's voice to blast his ear.
“Have you seen Keith?”
“What? No,” Lance says, surprised by the urgency in the school counselor’s voice and the concern. “Why? I thought he was supposed to see you at the end of the day.”
“Yes, after your final class. You were supposed to walk him here so we could all see how the day went. Remember?”
Oh. Right. The agreement… “Oh.. I mean, I’ll look around for him, but I dunno where he might be? He ran off to the bathroom before gym and I’ve not seen him since-”
“I’ll come look for him, too.”
Lance frowns at his mobile after the call disconnects. “I so see how those two are related,” he sighs as he pockets his phone. “Hunk, buddy, I’m sorry. Looks like that new kid hasn’t shown up in his cousin’s room or something. I’m going to have to go look for him, okay..? I’ll try to make it to study tonight.”
“No worries dude.” Hunk really is the best. “Do you want me to help? I know this school is pretty big and I might be able to help find him.” Nope. Hunk is absolutely the best. Lance is sure of it.
“Totally, dude.” Lance smiles wide and heads back into the school with the greatest guy in the world.
Okay, so maybe Lance should’ve taken his part in this more seriously. He frowns at his bandaged hand as he sits with Hunk outside Nurse Spex’s office. Hunk pats Lance’s back but it really gives him no comfort… Seeing Keith huddled against the lockers, the metal melting against his back as those other kids used their powers to hurt him -
“How could they do that?” Lance demands, looking at Shiro as he paces in front of them. “How could they- He hasn’t even been here a day! He hasn’t hurt anybody!”
Shiro gives him no answer aside from a sad, patient look. He’s still pacing and Lance is still angry.
“Lance, maybe it wasn’t what it looked like-”
“What else could it be, Hunk? You saw him- Heck, you helped carry him for us! You had to reshape the melted lockers for us before we could even get him out of them…!” He feels sick just thinking about it. How could those kids do that to Keith..? And why? Because his parents were villains? What justification is that?
It’s a long, silent moment before Nurse Spex leaves her office. She pulls the door closed behind her. “On his first day, too,” she sighs.
Lance stands and tries to look over her shoulder to see Keith through the small window on the nurse's door. “Is he okay?”
“He will be,” she assures. Lance doesn’t feel very assured.
“Thank you, Spex,” Shiro says, the first thing he’s said since Keith was laid down on the table. “I’ll get him home so he can rest. I don’t think coming into school tomorrow would be a good idea..”
Oh, great… There’s that guilty feeling in his stomach again. Lance just loves it so much.
A week goes by before Lance is called into the school counselor’s office again. He dreads it but he goes. Lance feels his whole face light up when he spots a bundle of clothes sitting in one of the chairs across from Shiro. He rushes into the room with a smile on his face.
“Keith! Dude, are you okay?” he asks quickly, ignoring whatever weird look is on the counselor's face in favor of checking on his friend. “It’s been a week! Where’ve you been all this time?”
Apparently this was not what Keith was expecting if the look on his face is anything to go by. Lance can see the surprise and curiosity and - is that fear? Why would Keith be afraid because Lance is excited to see him?
His attention is taken away from his classmate when Shiro clears his throat. “Lance, have a seat. Keith isn’t going to be attending his classes today and will be staying with me," he explains, "but I want you two to have some time together to get to know each other since last week was so difficult for both of you."
“Yeah, okay, but why couldn’t we do this over the weekend? I’ve got Nyma as my lab partner in Weaponary Physics and-” He pouts when Shiro folds his arms. “Yeah, fine. I’ll sit in here.”
“Thank you,” Shiro says. He gives Keith some other weird look and Lance sees Keith’s head lower out of the corner of his eye. Weird… Shiro says something else as he’s leaving but Lance is already ignoring him in favor of talking with the new kid.
“Guess I should introduce myself finally, right?” he asks with a smile. Lance offers his hand and sees that same look as before come across Keith’s face again. “I’m Lance. We’re going to be partners in every class this year.”
When Keith doesn’t take Lance’s offered hand, Lance doesn’t pull back. “Go on. I’ll be okay this time. I’m ready,” he assures with a wink.
The obvious hesitance in Keith’s movements makes Lance feel that same guilt eating at his stomach again. He’s ready for when Keith takes his hand, though, and has his own powers working to cool the glove between them even as Keith’s powers are trying to warm the glove. Lance smiles again when he sees the confusion on Keith’s face. “See? You can’t hurt me twice,” he says, his smile turning more towards a smirk.
And then Lance’s whole chest feels like butterflies are flitting around because - ohmygod, did Keith just laugh? This kid who hasn’t even said two words since arriving at school just laughed and Lance feels- well, he isn’t sure, but it’s definitely more than pleased. He doesn’t pull his hand away, still proving a point to Keith as Lance decides to start a conversation.
“So where’ve you been for a week?”
Wrong move… Keith’s laugh and any evidence of it vanishes from his face and body. Even his hand feels warmer in response to the question…
“At home.”
“Really? That’s all? What’ve you been doing?” Lance is certain he can wheedle something out of Keith…
“Studying,” comes the short, clipped answer.
“Okay, yeah, but what about for fun?” That gets a brow raised, so Lance decides to pursue that line of questioning. Maybe he should sign of for Advanced Interrogation tactics of Side-Villains and Henchmen? He would so pass those tests.
“Why’re you asking?” Or maybe Lance wouldn’t be so great…
“Because, y’know, we’re going to be hanging out a lot this year, and I thought it’d be easier if I knew something about you,” Lance explains. Okay, maybe he’s really bad at this because now Keith is glaring and pulling his mittened hand away.
“You should know plenty about me. I don’t see why my cousin brought me to this school.”
“Probably because it’s a great opportunity and for you to get control, or something,” Lance suggests. “Or, that’s what he told me.” The heat rolling off of Keith is starting to make Lance uncomfortable. “Dude, it’s okay. This place is here to help us. We all gotta learn sometime how to control our powers, right? Why not a high school?” He grins at the last question, trying to diffuse the situation. It seems to work a little.
“I was doing fine at my house learning on my own.”
Still more than two words, so Lance counts that as a victory.
“Maybe you were, but what I’m seeing is that you need to get out of the house and have some friends.” He pauses at the glare coming from Keith. “Hunk and I were pretty worried about you when we saw you last Tuesday… How’d those kids even get you cornered like that?” he asks with a gentle tone.
Keith doesn’t answer at first, leaving a long, awkward silence between them as Lance just waits for him to say anything. Then it all comes out: Keith had gone to the bathroom before two of them grabbed him from behind. They’d gotten him into the janitor’s closet and locked him in there with flammable materials, so Keith had been forced to calm himself down before hurting himself. After the bell, they’d come back once the halls had cleared and dragged him out. Lance didn’t make Keith explain the rest.
“I’m sorry,” Lance says, meeting Keith’s gaze as best he can. “I really am sorry, Keith.. I had no idea anyone was going to pull that kinda thing-”
“Why are you apologizing? You weren’t the one beating me.” Geez, this guy is blunt. “Besides, it’s just another reason I was right that I shouldn’t have come here. Everyone knows about my parents, so I don’t know why Takashi thought I could-”
“Who your parents were shouldn’t matter, Keith,” Lance defends. “My parents are both civilians! Do you know how hard it was to even get into this school when my only power is freezing stuff?” When he finally has Keith’s eyes on him, Lance sighs. “I get it that your parents can shape who you are and stuff, but dude.. Hunk’s parents have super strength and telekinesis. He’s only a little stronger than average and his telekinesis can only affect inanimate objects. Pidge and her brother are both cyberkinetic, but their mom can fly while their dad is a civilian. Who your parents are doesn’t dictate who you’re gonna be. It just puts you on the path you have to choose.”
Something must’ve struck a chord for Keith because the room gets a whole lot cooler after Lance finishes talking. There’s the beginnings of a smile on Keith’s face that tells Lance that he won.
“Thanks.”
Maybe Weaponary Physics isn’t their thing. Lance has lost count of how many times he’s frozen a part by accident because he’s too distracted thanks to Keith’s bare hand being visible on the table today. It’s the first day that Keith has gone without his gloves. Lance found out after two classes of pestering that it’s because the gloves were ruined at home somehow - Keith had mumbled something about his father but quickly changed the subject - and now Lance is dealing with the repercussions of having Keith’s bare hands out on display throughout class.
He sighs and puts the part down again to let it defrost. Each time he touches the metal, it contracts with the cold in his hand because he simply can’t concentrate. Keith is beside him and struggling to prepare the plasma-based firing mechanism on Lance’s right. Irritated with how long this is taking, Lance props his head up on his left fist and watches as Keith struggles to get the right mixture of chemicals before it evaporates on him.
An idea strikes Lance in the middle of Keith’s stream of curses as another vial is going up in steam even faster than before. When Keith sets the flask in his left hand down, Lance takes the opportunity to hold Keith’s hand in his own. A cold right hand meets with a hot left hand, leaving both boys surprised and staring at the strange feeling. Lance feels his cheeks get hot when Keith looks at him for an explanation. “It should help keep you cool so you don’t evaporate everything,” he says with an innocent enough shrug.
The snickering from Pidge and Hunk’s table behind them is more than enough to discount the innocence of Lance’s shrug. Keith must be pretending not to hear them because he goes right back to work while Lance shoots the pair a glare. Innocent whistling can be heard from Hunk but Pidge just gives him the most devious grin.
Maybe she’ll turn evil one day? Lance is pretty sure she could pull it off if she just tried. She definitely makes Lance’s life difficult since Keith has willingly begun to hang around the trio. Oh, the torment she brings…
A squeeze on Lance’s hand brings him back to the project at hand. It’s much easier to finish putting the gun together now that he’s not being distracted by Keith’s bare hands.
Being in the detention room sucks . It sucks even more when you’ve got a black eye and some burns. Lance looks over at Keith to see that he’s still resting his head in his folded arms on the desk, his beanie pulled as far down as he can. After having seen Keith’s meltdown firsthand, Lance had rushed to his friend’s side. He’d managed to quell Keith’s flames, but he hadn’t been able to get Keith to say a word since… Principal Allura had brought them here and told them to remain in the room for the remainder of the day. Lance was okay with that.
He gets up from his seat and comes over to crouch by Keith’s desk. All the taunting and bullying had gotten to him finally… Why hadn’t he come to Lance about it? He would’ve been able to do something..! He would’ve helped Keith.
“Keith?”
No answer. Not even movement, aside from the shallow breathing Lance can barely see under all the layers.
“Keith,” he tries again, reaching to touch his friend’s arm.
“Go sit down, Lance,” comes Keith’s muffled answer to the touch. At least he doesn’t pull away like he used to before midterms..
“Not til I make sure you’re okay,” Lance answers, his determination evident in his voice. He finally spots Keith’s down-turned eyes after a few moments. He offers a brief smile and a gentle squeeze on Keith’s arm. “Did they hurt you this time?”
Keith shakes his head to say that he wasn’t hurt. Lance notices that Keith won’t look at him… He doesn’t want to bring it up just yet though.
“That’s good… Do you want to talk about what happened?”
Unsurprisingly, Keith shakes his head again.
“Fair enough…” He’s quiet for a moment before smiling again. “You wanna come over to my place after school? My mom is making chili for dinner tonight.”
The complete bewilderment on Keith’s face makes Lance’s smile grow. “You want.. You want me to come over to your house?” Keith asks with utter disbelief that punches Lance in his gut.
“Well, yeah,” he answers. “Dude, of course. I just asked if you want to. You’re my friend, plus you actually know what’s going on in Professor Coran’s class in the mornings, so maybe you could help me study, too?”
There’s a little smile on Keith’s face now. Lance can feel his heart racing and his guilt-free stomach doing flips.
“Yeah.. Okay, what time?”
So, maybe they should be studying their class work now, but Lance finds this much more interesting. Keith’s hands are cupped together and his face is focused solely on the flames that are just a hair’s breadth above his palms. Lance watches with fascination as the shapes twist and dance together, showing different colors and patterns without any smoke. The whole thing is amazing and it steals what little of his heart was still under Lance’s control.
When Keith parts his hands and the flames disappear, his smile is met only by Lance’s praise for his control and mastery. Those words stop when Lance sees Keith reaching for his new mittens that Shiro had bought after the midterms incident. “What’re you doing?”
“Putting my gloves back on,” Keith explains.
“Yeah, obviously, but why?”
“I need to-”
Lance frowns and folds his arms in front of his chest. “No, why are you putting them on? You just showed me that you don’t need to have them on, so why put them on?”
Keith is quiet for a moment, one glove already pulled on and the other in his hand. “I have better control with them on.”
“Keith…” Lance reaches across the couch they’re sitting on and holds his friend’s bare hand. “Buddy, no. You’ve got control. You just showed me that. What you don’t have is confidence in that control.” He pauses and gets an idea.
Lance smiles and pulls his hands back, cupping them similarly to how Keith had held his hands before. He focuses and builds up an intricate sculpture of ice in the shape of a heart. Once it’s made, Lance meets Keith’s confused look with a grin. “Take your glove off. Yes, don’t give me that look. I know what I said. Look. This is really, really delicate and thin ice. I made it that way on purpose. I want you to hold it without melting it.”
“Lance, I can’t do that,” Keith says, his gloves held in one hand. He’d been following Lance’s instructions but now he looks like he’s going to argue.
Lance doesn’t give him the chance. He puts the sculpture in Keith’s open palms and watches as it sits there. Of course, it melts anyway from Keith’s natural body heat, which Lance hadn’t accounted for in his plan, but it takes a few moments for the ice to begin dripping.
He beams at Keith. “See? You can control it. If you couldn’t, then it would’ve just been steam!” The look on Keith’s face takes Lance’s eyes off of the ice for a brief second before the ice become steam in Keith’s hands, obscuring Keith’s face from view.
Lance just laughs. He swears that Keith is blushing.
The winter formal is a big thing for the juniors. So much so that Lance has tried and failed to find a date with nearly every girl in his year. He even asked Pidge - whose immediate reaction was to point a freezer gun at him until he backed away.
Put out that he wouldn’t be attending his formal with a cute date, Lance has spent the past few days moping through his classes. He’d tried to be his usual chatty self, commenting on the fact that Keith is only wearing his beanie and gloves when it’s cold now and not all the time and still chatting and hanging with his friends, but it just hasn’t been the same.
In homeroom, Lance is sulking as another reminder about the formal comes through on the announcements, leaving him to pout into his arms as he hears Keith shuffling something around beside him. He doesn’t bother looking since Coran is passing out a quiz. Lance doesn’t bother to lift his head until after he hears Coran pass.
There on his desk, right on top of his quiz mind you, is an unsigned note that reads:
“You’ve done a lot for me, so let me do this for you? Will you go to the Winter Formal with me?”
Lance looks around, bewildered. Who put this on his desk? Everyone around him is already taking their quizes, so Lance pushes the note aside and answers what he can. When they pass the papers in, Lance notices Keith staring at the paper.
“Who put this on my desk?” Lance asks. He can already rule out their friends since Hunk isn’t here and Pidge is across the room. And Lance isn’t really near anyone who would classify as someone he’s done a lot for…
Keith doesn’t answer and that gets Lance’s attention. He looks at Keith and sees the red in his friend’s cheeks.
“Keith?”
No answer but plenty of heat rolling off his friend.
Oh.
“Keith, did you-?”
“You don’t have to, you know,” Keith says, his eyes on the paper sitting next to Lance’s hand.
Lance smiles and reaches across their desks to touch Keith’s bare hand. “I’d love to.”