Lance cracked his knuckles and scanned the room, counting heads and mentally crossing those present off his mental checklist.

"Rizavi, what's the status on Kinkade?" Lance asked, dropping his hands to his sides to pat his hip holsters and verify that he had both pistols. It was more a force of habit than an actual concern; Lance never went anywhere without at least one gun on his person, courtesy of his position as commander of an elite tactical unit known as Alpha Platoon. He brought his arms up to his chest and crossed them as he stared down Rizavi. They'd fought together in three tours. He knew her husband and had babysat their daughter (only after abiding by their "no more than one gun per person in the house" rule which – since their daughter had zero – had left him with only two). He would die for Rizavi. He would die for any of his men and women, and they would die for him.

Lance knew that, and it meant that he didn't fuck about.

"Just walking off a headache in the medbay, Commander," Rizavi said. She'd been standing up in a somewhat relaxed stance before Lance had addressed her, but now she snapped to attention, shoulders squared, hands behind her back.

"A headache?" Lance asked, eyes flicking over to Griffin, who rolled his eyes. Had it been a different cadet, Lance would have called them out for doing so, but he and Griffin went way back. The beginning had actually been a bit rough, as Griffin had had a few more years of official military service than Lance (Voltron didn't technically count) and hadn't taken well to being passed by for the leadership position, but Lance had saved his life a time or two and Griffin had returned the favor without too much complaint.

"Just his time of the month, boss," Griffin said with a snort, and Rizavi leveled an unamused look at him.

"Laugh it up all you want, Wheatie, but some of us actually have ovaries, and we don't actually turn into werewolves when the full moon comes out, which you'd probably know if you'd ever spent any time with a woman." Rizavi was the only female in their elite unit and often the butt of a number of jokes. Lance had had her back from day one but had quickly realized that she didn't need his help, which was for the best. If Lance fought her battles for her, his men would never respect her as their equal. As it was, Rizavi gave as good as she got, and not a single man on his squad questioned her ability or combat readiness.

Griffin – aka Wheatie – just raised his eyebrows in mock surprise. "With those big furry eyebrows you got there, you could've fooled me."

"What I wouldn't give to shove a tampon up your ass."

"That's enough ladies," Lance interrupted, and the two snorted good-naturedly as Kinkade entered the tent.

"Sorry for being late, Commander," Kinkade said, and Lance's eyes flicked down to his watch. 0833. Before Alpha Platoon, Lance had been late to pretty much every single thing in his life. Even while working with Voltron, he'd often been the last to his lion, the last to the kitchen, the last to shower (and therefore the first to get only cold water). Here, he was obsessively punctual, and he took every shower cold by choice.

"You were in the medbay, Fruit Loop?" Lance asked, eyes sharp on Kinkade. They all had cereal brands as nicknames. It had started way back due to something stupid that Griffin had said (no real surprise there) – that Wheaties was the breakfast of champions. In the process of mercilessly making fun of him for it, the nickname had stuck, and others had been generated. Kinkade was Fruit Loop solely for the reason that he was the least Fruit Loop-ish person in existence. Or so that had been Past Lance's logic at the time; Present Lance had no idea what that even meant and wasn't inclined waste brain cells on investigating further.

"Yes sir," Kinkade answered, straightening up his posture as he sensed the critical onceover Lance was giving him.

Lance stared at him for a long moment. They had a mission today, an important one, and he needed his entire team boots on the ground for this one, but he wasn't about to risk a man's life – and the lives of his entire team – if he wasn't feeling up to it. Kinkade's wife was set to deliver their first baby boy in two weeks' time, and Lance knew he was anxious to get home. He'd been twitchy for the past few weeks, and Lance was worried that a headache wasn't the full of it. "Are you combat ready, Sergeant? And don't be a hero, just tell me the truth."

"Yes sir," Kinkade grunted, seeming to grow a few inches taller at the potential insinuation that he wasn't well enough for the op. "Born ready."

"Born ugly," Griffin corrected with a snicker, and Kinkade eyed him with a snort. Those two had been best friends for as long as Lance had known them, and they never stopped giving each other shit.

But that was Alpha Platoon. Unconditional camaraderie, nerves of steel, battle-honed bodies trained for only the most difficult of operations. And Lance was their leader.

"We head out for operation Zarkon's Fist at 1800," Lance said, eyes flicking between each member of his team before unfurling a map across the table in the center of the room. Including himself, Rizavi, Kinkade, and Griffin, there were fourteen members of Alpha Platoon in total. Each member shifted and leaned in, following his finger as he traced their path of entry. "The plan is to breach the subterranean sewer system, infiltrate the building through this access point–" He tapped a spot on the map twice. "-eliminate enemy hostiles, and take out the target. We have an exfil team ready to grab us for a speedy exit, but inside, we're on our own."

"Soft takedown or hard?" Griffin asked. Any trace of amusement from earlier was gone from his face, leaving behind a pair of steely eyes. A soft takedown meant that the target was to be immobilized and knocked out, likely to be brought back for intel. A hard takedown meant a bullet to the head.

"Hard," Lance answered, and one of his men replied with, "Hoorah."

"Fucking A," Kinkade said, clapping Griffin on the shoulder. "We've been tracking this guy for two fucking years. Let's put him in the fucking dirt once and for all."

"Fucking A," Griffin echoed. "Long live the brotherhood."

The other men in the platoon rallied around the chant, and Lance ran through everything in his head one more time. They'd gotten a tip about the location of their guy from a local merc they'd worked with before. They guy they'd been tracking was a mercenary as well, but instead of guns, he sold explosives. In order to demonstrate their value to potential buyers, he'd strapped them to children from local villages.

Like hell Lance would've called a soft takedown on this motherfucker.

In through the sewers, up through the access point, then clearing the building from the ground up.

This sort of op was routine for them. Lance had no particular cause for concern, but he'd lost a few special operatives over the years, and even though he hadn't been responsible for their deaths, it was impossible to convince himself of it. Keith had called bullshit on that more than once on the rare off-duty call Lance was able to squeeze in, and when Keith told him that their deaths weren't his fault, he got a little closer to believing that maybe Keith wasn't wrong, but he'd never be able to get to a point where he didn't blame himself.

He was the Commander of Alpha Platoon. He was responsible for every single person he brought into combat.

"That isn't being fair to yourself," Keith had complained.

It had nothing to do with fairness. It was about his job to protect his team, and it meant he had every intention of being really fucking good at his job.

--

He had taken apart his gun and was in the process of cleaning the components when his phone lit up with an incoming video call. His eyes flicked over; he would never openly admit that he'd been hoping it was Keith calling, but if someone had called him on it, he wouldn't have denied it. Lance had drifted into the military after their Voltron days were over, still craving that sense of purpose and drive, and Keith had joined Alpha Platoon for a few months before returning to the Blade doing who the hell knew what. It meant that Lance's calls often failed to connect, and even when Keith was on a planet where he had sufficient signal to send a message, contradictory time zones often resulted in missed calls with a "Catch you next time" text waiting for him in the morning.

Lance had asked Keith to come back time after time, but Keith continued to insist that they each had their own role to fill. And part of Lance, a part that the elite soldier in him refused to give credence to, believed that Keith was repeating actions of the past, leaving Lance behind to make sure Lance still had a spot because he had been the most expendable member of Voltron and surely wouldn't have been offered the position of Commander if Keith had been around. And Lance hated him a little bit for it, but he never brought it up, and once in a while with a prayer and good luck he'd call and Keith would pick up.

But it wasn't Keith calling today.

Lance stared at the screen, hesitating for a long moment before swiping to accept the call. He held the device up in front of his face, and his eyes crinkled when his sister Veronica came on the screen, her son Raphael squirming in her lap before settling down when he saw his uncle.

"Tío Leo!" Raphael yelled, grinning widely and reaching forward to try and grab the phone. Raphael had had a hard time pronouncing "Leandro" when he had been little and had only managed to get half the sounds. Somehow, "Leo" had stuck.

"Ah ah ah, mister!" Veronica scolded, scooping him back toward her with an arm. "Mama's holding the phone."

"My little man Raphael!" Lance greeted. He had no partner or children of his own, but when he came back from deployment, he stayed with Veronica and Raphael. Part of it was the fact that he didn't do well living on his own and she knew that and tried to keep him close; the other part was that her asshole of a boyfriend had left town when he'd heard the news of her pregnancy, and the protective streak in Lance felt the need to maintain a strong male presence in the house. "How's my buddy doing?"

"I've been working out!" Raphael, a six-year-old with stick arms punier than a sapling, tried to claim.

"That's right," Veronica said with a smile that teased Lance through his screen. "Raphael here has been chasing rabbits in the backyard."

"And lifting heavy things!" Raphael added indignantly. "I carried all those books yesterday!"

"Ah, yes, Raphie was helping me dust the bookshelves and he lifted all those heavy books by himself," Veronica said with a wink. Lance had built those bookshelves himself and happened to know that they were filled thin paperbacks and children's books.

"I need to go train more!" Raphael said suddenly, jumping up from Veronica's lap and running off screen before popping his head back in from the right. "Goodbye Tío Leo! Good luck catching all the bad guys!" And then he was gone, leaving behind a softening trail of footsteps.

Veronica's head turned to follow him before she looked back at the camera, her smile slipping a bit as exhaustion overtook her face. "I'm sorry, Lance. I know it's bad luck to call before a mission, but I–"

"Nonsense," Lance interrupted, wishing he could reach through the screen and wipe the dark bags from under her eyes. "That's just a stupid superstition." He paused, and when she didn't fill the silence, her eyes still troubled, he smiled softly. "Looks like Raphael is gunning to replace me as man of the house, huh?" he asked, and his statement had the desired effect as Veronica's mouth turned up at the corners.

She shook her head, a small laugh escaping her before she met his eyes again. "You know he adores you," she said, her voice quiet and warm. Lance did the math in his head and figured that it must have been after 9PM her time, half an hour past Raphael's usual bedtime. "He wants to be just like you."

God, I hope not, Lance thought to himself while fighting to keep the light smile on his face. I hope he doesn't wake up one day to find that he has a pivotal role to play in a war that is so much bigger and older than anything he could have possibly imagined. I hope he doesn't ever have to even touch a gun, let alone pull a trigger and watch someone's life blink out in front of his eyes. I hope he doesn't develop a cratering hole inside of him that constantly whispers that he isn't enough, that he will never be able to do enough good in the world to make his own existence salvageable.

"Every little boy wants to play soldier," Lance said, his smile slipping a bit but not falling off entirely. "I think he just wants to protect his mama," he said after a moment, and Veronica gazed at him with something akin to cautious hope.

"I want to protect him," she said, eyes lifting to the ceiling. Last time Lance had been back, he'd stuck a bunch of glow-in-the-dark stars to the ceiling in Raphael's room and a few in the kitchen as well. That had been Veronica's request, but Lance – as with most things in his life – had gone overboard to try and map out a somewhat accurate depiction of the constellations visible from their backyard. He couldn't remember which ones adorned the kitchen; Andromeda perhaps? "He's my everything, Lance," she whispered, "and sometimes I...I get scared that something might take him away from me. I get scared that I'm not a good enough mother." Her words were barely audible as though she wished to avoid even uttering them for fear of making them come true.

"You two are my everything," Lance promised, taking some comfort as Veronica met his eyes again, tears lining her own, only there was a quiet trust there, a faith in Lance, the same look his platoon gave him when he gave the call to head out. "And I promise you that I'm not going to let anything happen to either of you."

"I know that," Veronica said, wiping at one of her eyes. "I just...one of the wives here, her kid went off base alone and was hit by a car and I just...I kept imaging Raphael and..."

Her voice faded as a dull ringing began in Lance's head. He clenched his jaw and squeezed his eyes shut, willing it to go away, to go away and–

"Lance?"

He opened his eyes to find Veronica staring at him concern etched in her face. "Sorry, just a headache. But listen, I'll be home soon, why don't we plan a movie night – let the kiddo pick something out – and just relax for a few days? I know you can't help imagine worst case scenarios but a little R&R would do you some good, Ronnie."

She scoffed lightly. "If anyone needs R&R, it's you, supersoldier. This has been your what, seventh tour?" She paused, something hesitant flashing across her face. "Are you aiming for an eighth?"

Lance sighed, looking away from the screen and knowing that if he looked at her face right now, he'd see that horrible look of concern and disappointment. They'd had the same discussion three tours ago, four tours ago, even before his current deployment. Always the same discussion. Why do you keep going back? Haven't you done enough?

But he hadn't, there was no such thing as enough and even if there were, Lance certainly hadn't achieved it, not in his own eyes. War was the only thing Lance was good at; without it, he didn't know if he even had an identity.

It's not the only thing you're good at, it's just the only thing you've known, Keith had corrected him on one late-night call. Lance hadn't bothered to call bullshit.

"Listen, I've gotta get ready," Lance said, evading the question, and Veronica sighed but didn't push the issue.

"We'll talk when you're home," she said, indicating that the discussion wasn't over, and Lance didn't have the energy to refuse.

"Talk soon. Love you," he said, giving the camera a wave and half smile before ending the call.

He set the phone down and turned back to the disassembled gun lying in pieces around him.

He picked up the piece he'd been cleaning before Veronica had called and resumed his progress.

--

He called Veronica back seven hours later. She picked up immediately.

"Lance?" she asked, her voice rough for reasons other than the fact that he'd called in the earning morning. "Lance, please say...please say that it's you..."

"I'm here," he said after a moment, staring down at the dirt beneath his feet. At the new bloodstains on his boots.

"Thank God," Veronica whispered, and she inhaled sharply. She was crying. She was thousands of miles away and his sister was crying, and it was because of him. And it wasn't the first time. "Thank God, Lance, you scared me. I thought- I thought you–"

I thought you were dead. Lance could think the words about himself more easily than she could. That was another one of their standard arguments; he called himself a good soldier, someone ready to sacrifice his life for others. She called it a death wish.

"I'm right here, Ronnie," he said. He wished he could say more, give more, but he couldn't. Not right now. Not when it felt like he was floating a dimension away from his body and watching from afar as he drowned.

"They were calling all the families," she murmured. He tried not to picture her in his mind, but he knew that she'd be pressed up against the headboard of her bed, arm around her knees, rocking back and forth and trying not to wake Raphael in the other room. "I thought...I thought you–" Lance didn't say anything this time. Couldn't.

I wish I were.

"What...what happened, Lance?" she asked, her voice desperate for some combination of words that would make everything okay again. But there were no words, or at least, none that Lance could offer up.

"It was bad" was all he said.

"Are you okay?" she asked, pleaded.

Okay meant a lot of things to a lot of people, but it wasn't a word Lance would pick for himself in that moment. "I'll be home soon," he said instead and hung up. He knew it would hurt her, knew she would cry and find herself unable to fall back asleep and instead drift into the kitchen like a agitated wraith, staring at the coffee machine that she'd forgotten to start twenty minutes ago.

Knew, but couldn't care.

Twelve of his platoon, dead. Twelve families called in the middle of the night to receive the news. Twelve caskets heading back on a plane.

Keith's words drifted through his mind.

It's not the only thing you're good at, it's just the only thing you've known.

Maybe he wasn't all too good at it either. A regular ordinary fuck up.

But this wasn't on me, Lance tried to reason even as his very soul begged to assume culpability. He wanted to feel guilt, needed guilt, needed someone to blame, and who better than himself? Who better than the commander who had led them into a slaughter? But we had everything mapped out. Everything was fine until we were ambushed. The intel was bad. It wasn't on me.

But what did blame matter when his entire team had been wiped out with the exception of himself and Griffin?

He stared down at his phone, thumb hovering over Keith's contact. He'd called Veronica only because he'd known that she would have worried herself to death waiting for the news that he too had been killed in a dirty sewer system of a foreign land. But he didn't owe Keith proof of life. Keith hadn't even known that they'd been scheduled for a mission.

And it wasn't like Keith would be awake right now anyway. Last time he'd checked in, he was stationed on a planet with a longer than average nighttime cycle so-

His phone rang in his hands and for a second, he was back in the tunnels, bullets flying past his ears as Griffin hauled him up by his vest, yelling in his face to get up, get up, but Lance could barely hear him over the ringing in his ears-

The ringing ended, and a notification popped up on his screen.

1 missed call

Lance blanked, left hand gingerly feeling around on his bed, taking in the texture of the blanket. Blanket. His quarters. He was in his quarters, not in the sewer, not watching his teammates get gunned down one by one, falling into the water, splash, splash, splash-

The ringing came back. It was Keith, again.

And Lance realized that even though he'd wanted to call Keith, that he couldn't talk to him. Not right now. Because even though Veronica had known some of his men, her main consideration was him, and all she wanted to know was that he was okay, that he was coming home on his own two feet and not in a box. But Keith was different. Keith would try to console him, to tell him it wasn't his fault, tell him that he wasn't a fucking failure of a leader.

And Lance didn't want to hear it.

Instead, he pressed a button to reject the call, and the ringing disappeared once more, restoring silence to his quarters until a ding split the air.

A text from Keith.

Fucking pick up your phone Lance

Lance stared at it. He'd always had a difficult time differentiating between when Keith was angry and when Keith was scared because he tended to express the emotions in the same way.

I know you're there because you declined the call

And that was another thing. How had Keith even known to call? Had Veronica called him?

Without noticing, he'd accidentally set him thumb down on the notification, and their message thread popped open. A little symbol appeared next to Keith's message to indicate that Lance had read it.

Well, fuck, Lance thought, wondering how he was going to get himself out of this now.

Please. I just need to know that you're okay.

Lance sighed because that was it, wasn't it? Keith always seemed to know exactly what to say to both piss Lance off and to get him to do exactly the thing that Keith wanted him to do.

I'm operational, he typed back because he felt he owed Keith that much if just to get him to go away. Only he saw three dots pop up, meaning that Keith was typing, and Lance turned off his phone, chucking it under his bed and taking some satisfaction in the thunk it made as it bounced off the wall.

He laid back on his bed, laying on top of the covers with his arms crossed behind his head, and he stared at the ceiling. He didn't count sheep. This wasn't a night to sleep anyway.

Instead, he ran through the names and faces of every man and woman he'd lost today, all the men and one woman who wouldn't be able to call home to their loved ones.

Ryan Kinkade, Nadia Rizavi...

--

"Hey," Griffin said to him on the plane back, clapping a hand on his shoulders. "They went out with honor." The words weren't meant to erase the damage but perhaps to soften it.

"They should still be here," Lance said back, staring straight ahead. It was a bit different with Griffin since they'd known each so long. Maybe they hadn't always been friendly, but they had history and they bled the same red. With Griffin, Lance could let his guard down a little bit. He didn't have to be a supersoldier.

"Shit happens," Griffin said, his hand tensing. He'd lost brothers yesterday just like Lance had. "Somebody fucked us over." His words were cold, and he made it clear that he was going to find that somebody and return the favor. "What do you say we do a little digging stateside and see if we can't find our mystery man?"

"Fucking A," Lance said, clenching his jaw and clenching his fists at his sides. Killing the person who'd fed them bad intel wouldn't bring back his fallen brothers, but it was the least he could do in the name of justice for their families.

"Fucking A," Griffin grunted. "They'll pay, brother."

"I know," Lance said, cracking his knuckles and setting his hands back at his sides, knuckles brushing against the weapons strapped to his sides. "I'm going to fucking make sure of it." 

--

published 09/21/22 (mm/dd/yy)

4287 words

why hello there new readers :)