Work Text:
Then:
It could never be said that Lance had a small family. It was kinda a long list: had tons of siblings, Aunts and Uncles he had his step siblings and his Pa. But then there was his OVERWATCH family.
When Lance was 13 years old he begged, and begged his Mom and Pa to let him sneak off for a couple months in the summer to travel with his Pa.
Pa of course promised not to let anything terrible happen to Lance, and Lance was just excited to go travelling. But Pa wouldn’t say exactly where they were going. Two plane rides, a cab, and a two hour hike and BAM Lance was in the best place in the universe. (well, the world at the time. Best place in the Universe was probably Earth as a whole, with the water planet with mermaids below, and closely followed by the Balmera but that was a thought process that would come much later.)
Watchpoint Gibraltar was huge, and on the side of a cliff, Lance was giddy just looking over the side (a good distance away at the suggestion of his Pa. “We don’t got many Pilots that can get you the millisecond you slip off the side kiddo, don’t wanna lose you so soon after I finally got you here.”
And the first person that Lance had the pleasure to meet on the trip was probably the greatest grandpa ever and his name was Reinhardt. He was big, and muscly and had SO MANY stories to tell. The big guy immediately took advantage of Lance's keen listening and sparkling eyes to share storied from his past. It had all a thirteen year old could ever want in a story. Violence, humor. (some suggestive content that Reinhardt non-subtly censored) but it was the way he told the story so keenly that drew lance in. Each word was important each action memorable. And this story was about to come to an end.
“And- and then I gave the final blow to him, knocking him down with a swing of my hammer and down he went like sack of bricks!! And I lean over to him,” He chortles, placing a hand on Lance’s shoulder the large appendage dwarfing the gangly boy, bringing him closer so he could hear better, “And I tell him this, Do I have your attention now?”
Lance laughed along with Reinhardt at the end of the story but Lance never forgot those words, those were words you told people when they just wouldn’t listen, and words they would remember when you taught them a lesson.
--
Now:
A battle shouldn’t be necessary. The castle ship should be able to handle the original problem all on its own. Lance should not be in blue flanking with the rest of the team facing off a platoon of alien ships.
These people weren’t even Galran. According to Allura they barely qualified as an ‘advanced’ species, their technological advances just a couple hundred years ahead of earth, and these people were in danger of being set back by about 300 years and losing a lot of lives if they didn’t help. The satellites around their planet had been destroyed in an accident and were wreaking havoc on the habitat station in orbit of the planet. Voltron had swooped in to help after intercepting their communications signals, but were met with hostile responses.
“All we want is to be left alone.” the Commander announced through the open com links, just a little too loud for Lance’s taste. Smaller ships, probably his troops, lined up in formation behind the larger command ship. They were bulky and it wouldn’t take much to take them down.
“Listen to us, we can HELP you get this debris under control, with our tech-“
“WE WILL NOT LET YOU INTERFERE WITH OUR AFFAIRS”
Lance sighed, “Pidgee-o-to gimme the status of when the next hunk of metal is headed our way.”
There was a stony look from Pidge on the visual, but they clicked away on their side. “I’d say we got about three clicks before the next big hunk of metal heads our way- and it’s gonna bring with it a whole shower of medium to smaller bits just a few units behind.”
“Not good, Allura, is there any way for us to expand the shields or set up a tractor beam?”
Lance was tapping on his joy sticks while Shiro still fruitlessly attempted to negotiate the small battalion out of the area, but they were having none of it, in fact it looked like they were charging up their weapons array, they didn’t have TIME for this, Lance could actually SEE the shrapnel comin’ for them.
There wasn't any time to okay this with the team. “Alright Blue, I’m gonna need you to work harder than you ever have before.”
I am with you. purred blue and he could already feel the ice laser charging up.
“Cover me boys, I’m goin’ in!” And Lance pulled off to the right to intercept, and stared danger right in the face. He took a deep breath, and focused on the Dead-Eye, focusing on the small details like how blue’s quintessence was humming all around him, electrifying his skin, the bead of sweat rolling down his temple and the blinking red on the monitor signifying the danger and eminent impact unless he stopped it here and now.
In these moments he took this chance to slip between the seconds and everything became so much clearer for him.
“Draw.” He mumbled to himself and the ice-beam blasted out bigger and faster than ever before pushing back against the space junk until was driven to a stop in one humongous heap, a monolith of ice and shrapnel, and there was lance at the base staring in giddy disbelief; but he turned Blue around slowly for a cool effect.
He let there be a moment of silence before asking in a loud strong voice over the public coms: "Do I have your attention now?”
Later after negotiations, apologies, and rebuilding (which took less than four days to the planets amazement.) they had another planet in the Voltron alliance but the strangest thing happened, instead of wanting the head of Voltron as their diplomat or the princess of the lost Altean people, the people of Bal’Tek wanted him at all of the meetings.
“A strong Nukheil as yourself deserves to have input at these meetings.” The commander said, helmet in his arm, revealing his face of green scales that blended into a short plume of yellow and orange feathers.
“Nukheil?” Lance asked, following him to the conference room.
“A warrior of sorts, one who commands respect and attention, a warrior that deserves the respect he or she demands. Whoever raised you must be proud.”
Lance thinks of his Pa, and Mom and his family, but at this time he goes back to the summer he spent at Gibraltor and the story Reinhardt had shared with him, about what he learned from that story.
“Yeah, yeah I think they would be.”
Even later after that Pidge would go crazy over where they had heard Lance’s one-liner before, and Lance grinned, not spilling his secret.