Chapter Text
"Alright gang gather around!" Shiro's voice echoes around the training room walls as the paladins walk up to Shiro, Allura and Coran who are standing in the middle of the training room. Lance feels the cool presence of Blue in his mind and smiles. He briefly glances at Keith as he takes a drink of water before mentally scolding himself. 'Concentrate on training Lance....' Lance's thoughts trail off as he feels a light blush on his cheeks and once again scolds himself internally. He tunes back in to hear Shiro and Allura explain that they'll be doing something a little different today.
"Yesterday was a tough battle but you all handled it well." Allura states as she looks around at each of the paladins. Lance feels Blue praising him on making the final shot and he smiles to himself. He sends Blue an image of him giving a thumbs up back to her and he can feel her chuckle at him.
"Because of how many battles we've been fighting as well as the intensive training, we will be doing something a bit different today" Shiro adds.
"Trust falls!" Coran shouts excitedly as Lance whoops and high fives Hunk. "Hunk and I are pros at this already ladies and gentlemen." Lance boasts as he wiggles his eyebrows at Hunk. "Oh yeah let the masters show you how it's done." Hunk adds as he opens his arms waiting for Lance to fall. Lance, ever the performer, spins in a pirouette on one leg with his arms above his head before falling back. Pidge aka the little gremlin chose that exact moment to dart around behind Hunk and tickle him making him squeal and jump away causing Lance to fall on the ground. "Ow...Pidge!! Hunk!! How could you do this to meee" he groans from the floor. "Sorry Lance, it was Pidge's fault!" Hunk tries to apologise to his besterino Lance as Pidge and Keith are rolling around in laughter while Shiro aka Space dad is standing with his head in his hands looking very done with his team. Blue laughs at her cubs antics and she sends him an image of his shocked face when he fell. Lance had to admit, it was kinda funny.
"Righto then, I'm not sure that's how Shiro explained it to me but I'm afraid I don't really see the point of falling onto the ground?" Coran questions while Pidge is still cackling away to herself and Lance just groans, still on the ground. "No Coran, Hunk was supposed to catch Lance but he didn't." Keith explains. "Ah, ok then."
"Ok team let's get on with this." Allura says. "Pidge will partner will Keith, Lance with Shiro and Hunk with Coran and I. We will swap around after we've done it a few times." There are murmurs of agreement from around the room. Lance jumps up from the ground suddenly making Hunk jump. "Alright it's razzle dazzle time!" Everyone chuckles at his behaviour, 'He could make the world laugh...' thinks Keith.
After all of them have done a few trust falls with everyone, they decide to kick it up a notch. Coran presses a few buttons on a control thingy and a huge climbing wall appears on one of the training room walls. It looks like a rock climbing wall but more rocky and mountainous. Lance can see Keith and Shiro eying it up for training and he laughs to himself. Pidge and Hunk are discussing Coran's controller thingy and wondering how they have never seen it before.
"The old paladins used this for training purposes and so will you but for now we will do a trust fall off of it." Allura explains. "One person will stand about halfway up the wall and will have to jump onto a trampoline net thingy that the others will hold."
"Uh... are you sure this is safe?" Hunk asks. "Relax paladins this is perfectly safe'" Coran reassures everyone. "Worst case scenario is that you miss the net and break a leg or two! Best case scenario is that you land on the net and survive! Really there should be no real danger, young grasshoppers like you should be well able to survive a small tumble like this."
"If you say so Coran..."
"So who wants to go first?"
Lance looks around and sees that Hunk has suddenly found the floor oh so interesting! And Pidge doesn't look too happy about going first so he decides that he'll step up and go for it before Keith can go first. "Well if no one is volunteering, I'll go!" Lance says. He has always liked heights and even went bungee jumping when he was younger! There's nothing like the adrenaline rush he gets when he's hurtling through the air.
"Righto my boy! Up you go now before you chicken out!"
Hunk wishes him luck on the way down and Lance begins his climb up. He looks down at the others and sees that Pidge looks like she can't wait to see him fall but also she's worried about him and Keith surprisingly looks a bit worried, Lance wonders, maybe he doesn't like heights? Definitely not worried about Lance or anything hahaha.
Lance looks down when he reaches the halfway mark and sees that it's actually not that high up at all. Haha why were they all worrying then if it's not even high up? Shiro tells him to jump whenever he's ready and to aim for the trampoline net thingy. Hard to miss it really when it's a bright blue colour. Blue tells him to stop daydreaming and jump already before he grows old. Haha very funny Blue. Lance takes a deep breath and jumps.
Lance's eyes widen when he's in midair because it's like the world changes to black and white with red hues in different places. Cracks appear in the walls and floor and the world flickers in and out of focus. Lance thinks he can see a shadow on the wall but the world flickers back to normal after only a second or two. He lands with a thump on the net. He must have imagined it right? It only lasted a second anyway so was probably just from jumping off the wall, he thinks to himself.
Suddenly he realises that he's just been sitting in a daze on the net staring at the wall where the shadow was. "Are you alright Lance?" Keith asks him Uh yeah I'm good! Just a bit surprised that's all." He responds. The others groan and ask him what it's like. "Gowan and do it yourself, it's not that high up!" He responds with a smile.
"Good job, Lance" Shiro says to him and Lance inflates at the praise from his leader. "Thanks Shiro!" He replies. Keith is next to jump and does so without hesitation. Next is Shiro, Pidge, Allura and finally Hunk after lots of debate about it. Coran decides to sit this one out claiming that 'he's not a young, frisky grasshopper anymore.'
After everyone has jumped, they regroup and decide to rest and relax for the rest of the day. Coran puts away the wall so that Keith can't go and train some more, the latter huffing and claiming that he'll climb it one day. Hunk goes off to bake dinner for everyone and Pidge goes to examine Coran's controller thingy with Coran following answering her questions, Allura goes to check on the castle and Shiro follows absentmindedly leaving Lance and Keith alone together. Keith glances at him a few times before speaking.
"Hey are you sure you're ok?" Keith asks. "You looked like you saw a ghost or something earlier."
Lance considers his question and feels a warm sensation in his heart because Keith was worried about him! So he does care.
"Yeah mullet I'm alright, just surprised that you asked if I'm being honest." He replies.
"Hey I care! I care about you, I mean we care about you loser"
"Haha only messing with you, don't get your mullet in a twist"
Keith huffs in reply, leaving the room. Lance laughs to himself about how easily wound up Keith gets.
Lance is left alone to wonder about that weird thing that happened with the shadow but decides that he just imagined it and shrugs. He decides to go get a shower and then to taste test Hunk's food. Maybe he'll stop by Blue's hangar on the way. He feels her purr in response.