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castlestormed · 3 years ago

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A Whole-ass Situation

SUMMARY:

April's week has been kinda normal so far. But then her phone — with its "unbreakable" phone case — breaks. And there is a lot of angry yelling coming from the lair.

(an exploration of April O'Neil and her place within her second family)

[ hurt/comfort, genfic, au, loosely based on events from the movie - which is to say less doomsday drama and more family drama ]

CHARACTERS:

April, the boys, Splinter

Read elsewhere: [A03]

---

April's week has been kinda normal so far — by April O'Neil standards anyway. She’d settled into a comfortable groove with her freshman classes at Eastlaird, she just got a big lead on a story she was working for the university press, and best of all her weekend was about to begin! All signs were clearly pointing towards an awesome one.

Then she gets butter fingers all of a sudden and drops her phone. It meets concrete and promptly shatters into a billion pieces. She's not too worried about losing what's on it; Donnie could fix it up for her before she really needs it. It’s just weird because she's never usually that clumsy. She's dropped her phone before and the cute cat case was usually pretty good at holding things together.

She brushes off the vague feeling of premonition on her way to the lair and has nearly managed to shake it off when she hears the yelling. The boys are always loud so the volume is not what sets off her weird meter for the second time that day. When she gets to the den, the tension in the air is so palpable that she does not even need to meet Mikey's panicked stare to know that something's wrong.

It's not weird that Leo and Raph are fighting again, but it's weird that Raph, who's usually so patient, can't seem to let go of this one. He continues to lose it for a solid minute after April arrives and she nearly covers her ears because it is loud in a way that Raph usually never is. The Raph that April grew up with was always careful about how much bigger he was than everyone else, so it was easy to forget that he could (and did — that boy definitely has not stopped growing yet) dwarf all of them put together. One glance around the room was enough to tell her that his brothers were also going through a similar, nervous train of thought.

Well, two of them were. The target of Raph's ire was doing his best to look as unrepentant as possible. She would have admired his composure in any other situation, but right now all she could feel was exasperation because now was not the time.

…okay. Okay. First things first.

April seizes an opening and wades in, planting herself between the guys. Shuts them both up before any more arguing can happen, and splits them up so that the tension in the room has space to let out. Raph, grumbling like an engine forced on standby, stomps to the garage. April sends Mikey to the kitchen to get something to sweeten the biggest brother's temper, then with Donnie at her side, wringing his hands as he provides a concise play-by-play of the evening to catch her up, she faces off with the fourth brother who has settled himself on the couch with nary a care in the world.

The things that make Leo the team's face man are also the things that make Leo difficult to level with when he does not feel like being serious. April, who likes straight lines in between points A and B, has to really reach for her patience for this one. Leo can and will talk circles around topics he doesn't want to touch and it's infuriating, but April's played this game with him before. There's a little moment in the bravado where he lets slip a little "Okay, yeah, I messed up, but—" and she sees some genuine regret on his face in the after of that thought. Small win, but she'll take it.

Ultimately the conversation ends with Leo steering it in the direction he wants it to go, which isn't ideal, but April just lets it happen. She smacks him lightly on the head with an open palm, half-jokes about him being such a troublemaker, and half-threatens that he better think over his actions next time or he'll have her to deal with if it all goes to shit.

When she goes to check on Raph, he's working out his frustrations on a near-decimated training dummy. Mikey's treats are perched nearby, untouched. April grabs two and munches on one. The other she makes Raph take. She has to bully him a little to get him to do so, and the fact that he lets her is something she takes as a good sign.

Unlike with Leo, she's the one who leads this conversation. She asks questions, Raph answers. She sympathizes while he ruminates. Out of the four, April's always found it easiest to talk to Raph. While not always the sharpest tool in the shed, Raph at least was earnest and honest. They're a bit similar, in a way. Shared short fuses and explosive tempers borne from holding things in too tight. Once the anger passed though, you could count on it being gone.

There's a hesitation in his tone when he apologizes for his temper. Didn't want her to see that. Must have been scary, coming from a big guy like him, but Leo was really pushing him and he couldn't stop—

April ducks under his arm and draws him into a hug before the catch in his throat makes his words unintelligible.

She leaves him to tidy up and nearly runs into Splinter on her way out. Looked like he'd been hovering by the entrance to the garage for a while. April wonders why he didn't go in. She also wonders, more importantly, why he didn't intervene in the first place. Splinter responds vaguely. Says that he did, that he’d assumed everything was alright, but it started up again for some reason. He doesn't even go into the garage; just peeks in, notes his eldest, and then walks off to... wherever.

And look, April loves Splinter just as much as she loves the boys. He has been nothing but kind to her, and more besides. But... Maybe it's because he's so much older than her that she just doesn't get him sometimes? Maybe she doesn't get it yet because he's the adult here and she doesn't know all that much about being an adult. If he thought it was better to leave the boys alone to work things out, then maybe that was the best thing to do.

It's hard to understand though because at this moment she doesn’t think it was the best thing to do at all. It’s harder still to reconcile how he can be so close to the boys and yet so distant at the same time, given all they've been through. One day she'll have the guts to ask him why that is. Not today though. Today's already kind of a handful.

Speaking of which, the brother that usually fits that descriptor is right where she expects him to be. He asks her to pass the sugar when she enters the kitchen, and that's when April realizes that Raph's treats had been homemade. Because of course they were.

Mikey's more than a little happy to receive the praise she heaps on him. If he notices that she lays it on a little thicker than usual, he doesn't comment on it.

While Raph was yelling at Leo, Mikey had been right in between them, frozen in the act of holding Leo back, directly in the line of Raph's fire even though he himself was not the target. The look on his face back then had said everything.

And they don't talk about it. Instead April alternates between helping him out and trying to be sneaky about sampling the cookie dough. He's only half serious when he tells her off for the latter; she can tell because he lets her have the spatula when he's done with it. She would have helped him clean up afterwards, but he shoos her out with a fresh batch of treats and glassy eyes that are quick to look away.

Because April can take a hint, she makes a mental note to give him a hug at some point in the next 24 hours before she makes her way over to the last resident of the lair.

Donnie's right where she expects him to be, too. As usual he’s working on something, but he drops everything at the prospect of freshly baked goods. April dutifully clears up some space on the next table and pulls up a stool, while Donnie does the same. When they're comfortably situated in the cool quiet of his lab, he casually asks if she managed to settle his dumdum brothers.

After he'd given April that rundown of the events that sparked the latest Raph-Leo altercation earlier, Donnie had quietly removed himself from further confrontation. April hadn't missed the way those hands — steady now as they held up delicious Mikey-made treats — shook ever so slightly in the aftermath of Raph's rage. While Mikey had held back Leo, Donnie tried to do the same with Raph but with spectacularly less success. It's not like it was unexpected. With the exception of Splinter (and maybe even that was just on his best days), there was nobody in the lair who had the raw strength to match up to an angry, uninhibited Raph.

Facts don't hold much weight to a bruised ego, though. Donnie used to nurse his pride with tears back in the day, but that's long since been replaced by snark so prickly that anyone who didn't know him would think that he didn't care for his brothers at all.

April, who did know him, kept her mouth stuffed with pastry and let him vent. There's an art to the way he does it so it's not like it's not entertaining. She's well-practiced at playing the audience, nodding, frowning or vocalizing whatever emotional response the current line of conversation calls for at just the right moments. Donnie complains about everything that went wrong about the mission. He complains about Leo's antics and the extra work they have to do now to make sure that the Foot isn't planning anything crazy. When he complains about Raph, it's framed like less of a complaint and more an off-hand comment on how annoying it is to have a brother that big. He already has his hands full keeping the lair tech up to date, gathering information for their missions, keeping tabs on villains and juggling all of that with training and patrols so that he doesn't physically fall behind. Don't get him wrong, those are all things he is reasonably-to-confidently certain he can do.

But... that whole situation earlier? Well.

The eyebrows on his mask crease together as he crosses his arms over his chest and hunches over the table. Scrubs away at crumbs on his cheek as he admits to following Mikey's lead and feeling sheer panic when he realized too late that Mikey was just as lost as he was on how to handle things.

He startles when April tosses her handkerchief at his face.

"Guess it's a good thing I came along, huh?"

That earns her a soft chuckle and affirmation, sincere with a touch of sarcasm.

And because this is Donnie, she finds a way to steer the conversation to something less touchy-feely — which is easy since she actually did need his help. That herbicide wasn't gonna test itself. There was the matter of her phone too, which Donnie immediately ribs her about, and the rest of the evening evens out into the lair's usual calm.

Mikey comes in at one point to say goodnight and he pulls both April and a reluctant but pliant Donnie into a hug.

April keeps Donnie company until she finds herself drooping drowsily over her research. She’s not sure if it’s the sleep fog playing tricks or what but she could swear that he’d mumbled a “Thanks” just as the door to his lab slid shut behind her.

Before she retires to her room, she brings some blankets to Leo, who'd fallen asleep on the couch, belatedly realizing that someone else had beaten her to it and also left a small stuffed bear to keep the sleeping turtle company.

The next morning, bright and early, April nearly runs into a barely-awake Donnie, who seems to have just emerged from his lab since the last time she saw him. They walk to the kitchen where Mikey’s at the stove, cooking up breakfast (waffles) while whistling the Jupiter Jim theme song under his breath. The two that were at odds with one another the other evening are seated on opposite sides of the counter, not making eye contact but not actively sniping at each other either. Splinter serves everyone tea, which Donnie grumbles about until Leo plops a mug of freshly made coffee in front of him and asks what sciency madness kept him up this time.

It’s just April’s luck that Donnie decides to tell them about her phone right then. Naturally, they all take turns making fun of her because how could you break it, April, didn’t Donnie make that case out of, like, reinforced steel or something?

She has every right to be grumpy about all the ribbing, but you know what? It’s fine. She steals some of Donnie’s coffee, sweet talks Mikey into giving her the best waffles off the iron, and unapologetically dumps most of the good butter on her plate to the pleasant cacophony of teenage mutant ninja protests.

#rottmnt #rottmnt fanfiction #april o'neil #rottmnt raph #rottmnt leo #rottmnt donnie #rottmnt mikey #rottmnt splinter #gen fic #fics

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castlestormed · 6 years ago

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Substitute

SUMMARY:

When Keith rejects the responsibility and Allura is rejected for it, Lance steps up to the plate.

Or at least, he tries to.

(an exploration of Lance as a potential Black Lion pilot candidate.)

[ bittersweet, genfic, au, canon divergent from s3 ]

CHARACTERS:

Lance, Black Lion

w/ Allura, Keith, Pidge, Hunk

Read elsewhere: [A03] [FFnet]

---

Filling in. That’s what Lance is good at, or so he thinks.

So when Keith rejects the responsibility and Allura is rejected for it, Lance steps up, jabs a thumb to his chest and says, “I’ll do it.”

He’s being totally serious about it too. Shiro’s been missing long enough for his return to have gone from certain to uncertain to questionable bordering on indeterminable. He’s had a lot of time to sink his thoughts into this, a lot of time to think about the consequences of a missing teammate and what that meant for Voltron and their ongoing battle with the Galra empire.

It’s weird how simple it is. The team needs the Black Lion, a leader, a good pilot. He’s not sure about the other two but if there’s one thing he’s confident about, it’s that he’s a damn good pilot.

“Let me try,” he says into the silence because everyone, it seemed, was too preoccupied with staring at him.

“You’re kidding, right?” Pidge pushes her glasses up the bridge of her nose and the frames catch a beam of light that momentarily obscures her squinted gaze. “You?”

That hurts a little but Lance brushes it off. Sticks and stones.

“Why not? Keith doesn’t want to step up —”

“That’s not—! It’s not that I—” Keith stutters, uncharacteristically flustered. There’s a good two seconds of him trying to push out words before he folds in on himself and bites out a stilted, “I just… can’t. Won’t. Sorry.”

Lance smothers a spurt of irritation — and pity, though he'd be loathed to admit it. Keith looks... lost. More closed up than usual. If this were about anything else, Lance would have maybe tried to muster up some sympathy. Maybe.

But this was about survival. This was about saving the world.

Keith’s name had rang out the loudest when discussions about who would take over the Black Lion began in earnest. The Red Lion was Voltron’s sword arm and literal right hand, after all. The princess pointed out that the previous Red Paladin — her father — had been something like a second-in-command, and that Keith had been filling a similar role.

Aaaaand as if the universe couldn’t be any more pointed, Keith reluctantly revealed that Shiro himself gave him his blessing (if he was to be believed).

Yet despite all the brightly-lit signs pointing his way, Keith was determined to stay out of the running because… because he didn’t want to? Because he was afraid of admitting that Shiro isn’t around anymore?

Lance doesn’t get this at all.

Thing is… yeah. Shiro isn’t around. There’s no skirting around that, and the motionless Black Lion in its hangar was the most critical sign. Keith was hot-headed, sure, but wasn’t he also sort of military-practical, to a fault?

If I were Keith, he’d said to himself when he was musing over his options, then what I need to do is obvious. The universe needs Voltron. Voltron needs a Black Lion. I can pilot the Black Lion. So ba-da-bing, ba-da-boom, I pilot the Black Lion.

It wasn’t even a matter of ego anymore; it was a matter of necessity. It was a matter of the universe’s safety.

If I have a skill that can be useful, I use it.

Not using it? Kind of a dick move. And also kind of a questionable move because why wouldn’t you help people if you had the power to do so?

He didn’t always understand where Keith was coming from but he'd never pegged him as selfish, until now.

“Like I said,” Lance says, turning away from Keith with a roll of his eyes, “he doesn’t wanna do it. And our next best option couldn’t make Black budge at all today.”

The princess’s arms tighten around herself and Lance can identify with the feeling she so openly projects.

“Yes, unfortunately the Black Lion has chosen to reject me,” she says, somehow managing to sound gracefully upset. She hasn’t worn any of her usual dresses since Shiro’s disappearance. In her pink-accented spacesuit, she would have fit right into the team. If anyone truly deserved to pilot the Black Lion, it was her — not Keith.

She turns tired eyes on Lance and gives him an equally tired smile. “I don’t see why you shouldn’t try, Lance.”

Warmth bursts through his chest — until she turns that tired smile on the whole room.

“And if Lance doesn’t work out, I believe the others should attempt it as well. Just in case.”

Hunk makes a startled squeaking noise, Pidge lets out a grumbled Ugh, and just like that, his carefully considered plan of solving everyone’s problem by volunteering to be the responsible one was downsized into a group effort. Nice.

Lance is quick to pick himself up though. This is good. Even if it were Hunk or Pidge and not him, at least they would have a Black Lion again.

Pidge goes first — “To get this over with,” she says tersely — and lasts a minute before tagging out. Her dismissive attitude doesn’t bother Lance. The youngest and smallest member of their team is more useful (and safe) behind the scenes anyway.

Hunk goes next, anxious energy tensing up his shoulders. Hunk has never spoken about wanting to be a pilot but Lance compares his friend’s broad frame to the sturdy bulk of the Black Lion and thinks that maybe Hunk would be the better match if it came down to the two of them. Shiro’s absence had been a blow; maybe Hunk and his big heart was what the team needed right now to fill that void.

(Better than Lance who could get stuck in his own headspace sometimes and went overboard with the jokes when a lighter touch was more appropriate...)

But not that many minutes later, Hunk exits the Black Lion, unsuccessful and somewhat relieved.

“Guess we saved the best for last?” he says with a sheepish grin, and Lance gives him a hi-five for that before taking his turn.

---

It is quiet in the cockpit, so quiet that he can hear the thrumming of the castle from outside. He takes a seat and drums his fingers on the armrests, surveying a dashboard not unlike the one in Blue.

His nerves ramp up as the silence settles around him. Blue's response to him had been instantaneous and intuitive, like picking up a new sport and making the happy discovery that you were naturally adept at it. The Black Lion's continued stillness didn’t bode well.

—but this was the Black Lion after all. The leader of the pack. Of course it wouldn't be that simple. He had to prove himself!

How though?

He coughs into the curve of a hand. “Hey, big guy. It’s Lance — you know, Blue’s pilot?”

There. Friendly but not too friendly; he figures that if this Lion was anything like its missing pilot, it probably wouldn’t appreciate an overly casual approach.

“Normally I’d try to sell you on my good points but I think I’ll just cut to the chase.” He clears his throat. “We, uh, we kind of need you out there. Think you have it in you to give me a shot?”

The silence stretches over his question. Lance swallows his unease. He reaches for the handles on either side of the chair, gingerly curling his fingers around the hand grips. He had hoped that the contact would spark something, build a connection like the one he had with Blue but… nothing. Of course.

Well, the show must go on.

“C’mon,” he says. “I’m not that bad. I can do it; and if I can’t, I’ll figure out how. Just ask Blue! She can totally vouch for what an awesome pilot I am!”

Nothing again. That last part might have been a bit much.

Okay, okay. Maybe a slightly different approach.

This time Lance closes his eyes and reaches with his mind.

Black? Uh, Black Lion. We need you, man. Look, I know I’m no Shiro but I’m here, I’m ready, and I’m… kind of all you’ve got right now. You turned down everyone else--

/ n o t t r u e /

The response comes so quickly that, at first, Lance isn’t sure if the words come from his own doubts or from the Lion. A sequence of images seem to come into focus all at once in his mind's eye, all with an undercurrent of red and a burst of emotion that he doesn’t immediately recognize. He feels a strong pull towards them but they move too quickly. He reaches out, grasping in vain — then vertigo clenches around his stomach, quickly replaced by pain as he trips over his own feet and crashes into the metal floor.

Lance lays on the ground for a good minute, gritting his teeth.

Also painful? What Black is trying to say.

“He doesn’t want to do it, okay?” he snaps. “He didn’t even want to try. There’s no talking to him once he’s made up his mind. That’s why I told you — it has to be me.”

His vehement declaration rings strongly (confidently, he thinks, with pride) in his own ears.

But following the pattern of this attempted conversation, it too is swallowed by the stillness of the Black Lion’s cockpit.

Lance bites down resentment as he picks himself up from the ground. It's tempting — so tempting — to kick that stupid chair. He doesn’t, though. Instead he glares at his dark surroundings, like he is staring down the great beast itself.

A guy could take a hint… but seriously?

This whole thing was stupid.

“I don’t even want to be your pilot,” he mutters, and there’s a stir in the air, like a chuckle, which gets on his nerves. “What? I don’t! And guess what, dude? Neither does Keith. But which of us is standing here right now, trying to take responsibility for it?”

(He deserves some credit for showing up and trying, right?)

(He deserves some credit for caring, right?)

“Maybe Keith really is the best guy for the job, but as I’ve told you a million times, he doesn’t want to be here. I am and I do— I mean, I know I just contradicted myself there, saying I didn’t wanna be your pilot, but...”

His gaze drops to the ground as he awkwardly rubs the back of his neck. But the quiet now is different from the stillness of before. It gives him some courage to keep going.

He clears his throat again and says, “I figured I could just... fill in, you know? ‘Cause we kinda need you. The universe needs you. And we can’t get you up and running without a pilot, right? So I can do it, until he’s ready. Okay?”

Lance is a little surprised to find that he means it, too. Like, real talk, he can’t imagine himself leading Voltron, de facto or otherwise. Keith, though… Keith could probably do it. When he finally grows a pair and learns how to put his personal shit aside, anyway.

“O-or, Allura,” he adds hastily, uncomfortably aware that he is just babbling now. “I still think it’s weird that you didn’t pick her, but I guess you have your reasons, huh? Just. Yeah. This’ll be a temporary partnership, you and me. Because we need you. And I’m your best bet right now.”

He opens his arms and tries a smile.

“So… partners?” he asks hopefully.

And he waits.

And waits.

...it’s excruciating. It’s worse than the first time he ever confessed his feelings to a crush. At least the girl had been nice enough to put him down gently. Today he learns that giant metal lions are not nearly as kind.

Enough time passes that it’s become too tiring to keep up the smile. He drops it, shoves his hands into his pockets, and finds his way out.

---

The whole team looks as tired as Allura when he drags his failure of a self over to them.

“Black’ll come around,” he says, eliciting a few wan smiles. They scatter to do their own thing not long after that.

Lance should have gone straight to his room but he finds himself slowing down and waiting till he is completely alone before retracing his steps. He stares at the Black Lion from the entrance of the hanger. It stares back with blank, dead eyes.

There’s a war going on, he wants to tell it, and you can do something about it. But here you are, sitting on your metal claws, for dumb reasons I can’t understand… kinda like Keith.

Huh. Maybe you two are meant to be.

That wasn’t the point though. He was here so that he could fill that spot — a spot that was necessary but unwanted. That’s what he’s good at, or so he thinks.

But of course it wouldn’t be that easy.

Getting into the Garrison wasn’t. Enduring as a cargo pilot wasn’t. Making it to fighter pilot wasn’t. Leaving Earth and fighting this impossible-sounding war with impossible-sounding technology certainly wasn’t...

So. Not easy? He was used to that.

He reenters the still, metal cockpit, and says, “Let’s try this again.”

#vld fanfic #vld #lance mcclain #black lion #keith kogane #allura #pidge gunderson #hunk garrett #katie holt #takashi shirogane #blue lion #gen fic #bittersweet #au #fics

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