Chapter Text
Lance had always liked people. Had always been an outgoing kid, running up to strangers with the biggest gap toothed smile he could possibly put on his face. It was how he’d met Hunk, on the playground in Kindergarten. Hunk was used to being pushed around for his size, but Lance had said a few words to the boys who’d pushed him down and as they ran off he offered a hand to the boy and dusted the wood chips off his back.
“I’m Lance, your new friend!” he announced, and that was that. Hunk had never had to deal with bullies again, even if Lance’s different plans to dig a hole to the center of the Earth got him dirtier than the wood chips. Despite the fact that Lance was only a child, it soon became obvious that Lance’s talent with people was more than just being a social butterfly. Lance had sat in a medical office, watching the crease between his doctor’s eyes and the way his eyes flickered to him with interest. He wondered if he’d spilled something on his shirt, because he could tell something about him fascinated the doctor, and he wanted to see more of him.
Lance’s right brain was discovered to be exceptionally advanced. In particular, his abilities with facial recognition. At the ripe age of six and likely quite a while before it was officially discovered, Lance had enough knowledge of the face to have abilities almost akin to being psychic. They couldn’t decide what to call him.
Genius, virtuoso, prodigy, were all used. The littlest things, a twitch of the lips or the way one looked could tell him eery amounts of information about whoever he observed. For example, Lance wasn’t quite sure what the whole ordeal was about, but as he saw his doctor hand the file to his receptionist an arch to her brow exposed that there was a secret there. He mentioned his speculations to his mother on the drive home and she nearly spat out her drink.
The doctor’s visit was far from his last. He was poked, prodded at, tested time and time again. Each time, he did not falter. People were easy. He fit in, cracked jokes while psychologists and professors scribbled down every word he said.
As Lance grew older, his knowledge of the world expanded. He’d always liked staring at the stars, and he latched onto that. Still, his appointments persisted and he soon realized he had anyone who’s face he could see in the palm of his hand. What he could tell about people became more accurate, in a very unsettling way. Then he started to use it to his advantage. The doctors had been convincing his parents for years to keep bringing him to appointments (free of charge, free of charge, they reassured them as they studied Lance like a lab rat) for his well being. Lance never told his parents how they cared for little more than the thesis that one intern was writing, or the possibilities of employing him in areas of the world like the justice system, or politics. Instead, he milked their interest endlessly. It was the least he could do, after spending years being their little project.
So, he convinced one to pay his family’s mortgage for the month, if he answered a specific line up of questions. Another for a few thousand dollars he put towards the hospital bill from the time his older brother broke his arm, in exchange for letting him do a special procedure he’d been working on. Lance was growing more and more sought after in the scientific world, despite that because he was a minor his identity had to be kept under wraps. Even in the face of his anonymity, the Garrison managed to track him down. The boy from Cuba who could stare at any face in the world and see what they were thinking, or at least a very good shot of it. The American government funded Lance’s education, and then some. Lance stopped indulging his doctors almost immediately, packing his bag and heading for the land of dreams.