“Yes,” Keith says. He’s realizing that he’s not helping theconversation move along at all, buthe has no idea what he’s supposed to be doing to help it. This is exactly why he never bothered to tryintegrating. “From the Garrison.”

Then, more out of curiosity than for the sake of etiquette,he says, “you know Shiro?”

“Oh, yeah,” Hunk says, nodding enthusiastically. Keith can’ttear his eyes away from the movement. “I knew him from his Garrison days too,but I only got to know him after I started taking over maintenance for his arm.I knew about you too, but I didn’t know you knew Shiro.”

Keith blinks.

“You knew about me?”

“Well, Lance did,” Hunk amends, sheepishly. Keith watcheshis hand reach up to scratch at his neck. “It’s, uh, hard not to. What with theleaving the Garrison and everything.”

Hunk pauses. He looks at Keith’s face, scanning hisexpression intently, and it’s only through practice and Shiro’s repeatedlectures that Keith stops himself from assuming a defensive stance and whippingout his knife. Whatever he’s looking for, he must have identified it, becausehe continues.

“Plus, Lance wanted to be in the fighter pilot division, butit’s not often they’ll let humans, augmented or not, in.”

Keith nods, gruffly. The conversation dies its inevitabledeath, and Hunk whistles to make up for the quiet, staring out into the desert.

For not the first time, Keith wonders where the hell Shirois and what is he plotting. I want you to meet some people, he’d said. It’llhelp you integrate better into society, he’d continued. He had naturallyassumed that this meant Shiro would actually be present, but clearly he wasgetting proved all sorts of wrong today. It’s not like him to be late, and it’sbeen seventeen minutes since the appointed time. He gives him thirteen minutes.He’s got better things to do, like. Like sharpening knives, or something.

“So,” Hunk starts, and Keith would have jumped if it weren’tfor the fact that he still hasn’t managed to shake off the ever-presentvigilance. “What do you do?”

Keith looks blankly at him.

“Well. The Garrison’s been shut down. I’m guessing you’renot really, like, blending in with humans and society? And I mean that in thenicest way possible. So what do you do in your spare time? Hobbies? Work?”

Keith stares. His first instinct is to state that it’s noneof his business, but if there’s one thing he’s learned about socialinteraction, it’s that he’s very rarely going to carry it out. Humanssmall-talk, Shiro said. They do it to be friendly and polite.

Except Keith knows for a factthat the man in front of him is not a human. If it weren’t for the factthat as an android, he’s pretty much programmed to recognise other androids onsight, he probably would’ve been fooled into thinking otherwise. He producesmovements that are entirely unnecessary and undirected but somehow makes themappear natural, appear human. Keithhas seen some androids trying to integrate and blend in, but a lot of them comeoff as insincere even when they carry out all the steps and actions correctly.Like they’re just carrying out another pre-programmed action. Keith would know –it’s how he often feels when he tries.

“Building,” Keith says, almost absently. Hunk lookssurprised that he actually responded. “Or looking. For machines, parts.”

“So when you say building...?”

“Machines. I’ve got a hoverbike.”

“A hoverbike!”

Hunk’s eyes are wide with what is unmistakeably awe, and thegenuine admiration is making him feel – well, feel. So like all other emotions, Keith does his best to stamp itdown and away.

“Where are you getting parts for a hoverbike? You buy them?”

“The desert.” Hunk’s eyes go even wider, this time inconfusion, and Keith backtracks, tries to find where he went wrong. “I live here.Near the original Garrison headquarters. There’s a lot of scraps, out in themountain ranges. Sometimes whole machines that are still working.”

He opens his mouth, wants to say more. Then he clamps itshut. Models that were made for the front line don’t tend to be oversharers ingeneral, but he doesn’t want to talk too much or reveal too much unnecessaryinformation. He finishes, instead, with, “you’d be surprised what’s out there.”

“Wow,” Hunk says, still awed. Then, “I thought you were afighter model?”

Keith shrugs. The movement feels foreign, awkward andforced, but Hunk says nothing, still peering at him curiously.

“Not a lot of fighting to do out in the desert.”

“Still,” Hunk says, shaking his head. “That’s super awesome.Seriously.”

Keith doesn’t know what to say to that. Thank you, probably.It’s not that great, maybe. They don’t feel right,though. Maybe it’s because he’s still not used to holding conversations withpeople that aren’t Shiro.

“So,” Keith says, tentatively, mirroring the tone Hunk used.Hunk immediately looks up. “What do you do? In your spare time?”

Hunk stares at him.

Then he actually beams.

“Well, I still like fixing things here and there and it’senough to put food on the table,” Hunk says, rapid-fire, and Keith is stillstuck on his wide and genuine grin, “but, well.”

He leans forward conspiratorially, cupping his hand aroundhis mouth. Despite himself, Keith ends up leaning forward and playing along,following his lead.

“My favorite thing to do is cook.”

It takes Keith a moment to process the words. Then he leansback, just enough so that he can squint properly at Hunk’s face.

“You... eat?”

Hunk puts a finger to his mouth and waves his other handvigorously, motioning for him to come closer again. Reluctantly, Keith does so.The entire charade is ridiculous to him, especially since there’s literally noone there but them, but for somereason is too easy to fall into. Much easier than stiff conversations where hedoesn’t know what the other person wants from him.

“Okay, so,” Hunk starts at a whisper, eyes shifting. “Somaintenance androids don’t taste, right. But,we can smell. That’s mostly for like, smoke or gas leaks or just when somethinggoes wrong and you have to smell it to figure it out. Right, so I can tell youif there’s carbon monoxide in the air, but food?I learned to tell them apart, but I still didn’t know what they were.

“So Pidge – that’s a friend of mine, she’s an AI for thismassive system thing but anyway – tells me, ‘when you smell something you’resupposed to also taste it sort of?’ Because for some reason she can tastethings and I can’t, but anyway. Shegoes to me and offers to like, install receptors and stuff to make it so I cantaste and like. Yeah, we’ve all been decommissioned but you’re not supposed totamper with Garrison property or whatever, so we keep it on the down-low but Isaid hell yeah, why not?

“And, Keith.” Hunk punctuates his statement with an armaround Keith’s shoulders, pulling him in close. Keith tenses, but mostly he’swondering why a maintenance model android has such soft skin. Maybe that wasalso a modification? “Keith. Buddy. On the day I first tasted food, I swear Iwas born for the first time.”

Keith makes a sound. He can’thelp it.

It takes him a moment to realizethat the sound he’s making is laughing.

“Wow,” he says, and he can’t stop.There are no tears gathering in his eyes – androids of his kind aren’t made thatway – but he’s sure that if he were human, he’d be sobbing at this point. Ittakes another minute for his laughter to subside and for his words to becomecomprehensible, but Hunk still has him pulled in close, eyes on him. “I’ll haveto try some of your cooking, then.”

Keith didn’t think Hunk’s smilecould get any wider, but at this point he’s welcome to being proven wrong againand again. “Seriously? You won’tregret it – like, not to brag, but I’m pretty damn good at cooking. Lancebasically died and went to heaven on the spot, like, humans have no idea. Wait, wait, you don’t havetaste receptors though?”

“Good thing you’ve got me here.”

The two look over their shouldersat the newcomer. On the edge of the roof stands a kid, short and messy-haired,and behind them a small ship is landing, voices obscured by the slowing engine.

“Pidge?”

Pidge grins smugly.

“Whoa, it really is you! In the flesh! With a body!”

She laughs as Hunk rushes over,spinning her around in his arms. They’re so comfortablearound each other. Affectionate, like people. He feels like an outsider,watching in on something he can’t understand, but that’s nothing new. What’snew is something that feels like jealousy,like he wants that sort of affection. Like he’s willing to try for it.

“Yeah!” Pidge says, almostbreathless, when Hunk finally settles her down on her feet. “Dad thought it’dbe a good idea to get me one. Though Matt wasn’t really happy when I cut thehair and pretended to be him at the academy for a while.”

“What’s happening? The party’s alreadystarted?” a voice pipes up from behind Pidge. A tall man comes into view, andhe narrows his eyes as he moves past Pidge. “Wait. Mullet?”

Everyone turns to look at Keith.Keith’s hand automatically shoots up to touch his hair.

“What are you doing here?”

“What are you doing here?” Keith shoots back, unable to help himself. The guy’stone was just incredulous and outright hostile– how else was he supposed to react? His fingers even twitch for his knifestrapped to his belt – he doesn’t take it. If he’s right about this asshole’sidentity, then he’s a human, and augmented or not, he can’t just fight a humanapropos of nothing.

“Whoa, Lance,” Hunk butts in,waving his hands in front of Keith. “He’s friends with Shiro! He got invitedhere, same as us.”

“You know Shiro?” Lance says,still squinting suspiciously, but his voice is no longer as hostile. It doesn’tmake Keith like him any more than before.

“Where is Shiro?” Pidge cuts in, pushing up her glasses and surveying thearea. Keith checks the time on his internal clock and finds that it’s beenforty minutes since Shiro was supposed to show up. Just how long had they beentalking, and how did he not notice? “Hewas supposed to be here first.”

“Maybe this is a trap,” Lancesuggests. “He’s gonna lock us in here until we can form one giant robotsuperweapon.”

Hunk and Pidge look exasperatedlyat him. Keith takes it as a safe sign that Lance was being (mostly) facetious.

Still, as much as he hates toadmit it, he’s had his own fair share of doubts about the entire situation. Hetrusts Shiro, he really does – but there’s too much about his behavior thatdoesn’t make sense. Keith isn’t exactly a fugitive anymore – still, it’s notunreasonable to have chosen the former Garrison as a meetup spot, especiallysince most of the people present are non-human. There’s a lot Shiro knows thathe hasn’t told anyone, not even him. Awhole year’s worth of experience he’s never shared. Keith would like to thinkthat it’s just his suspiciousness and paranoia talking, but whatever happenedto Shiro in that time had to be dangerous. It’s wishful thinking that maybeShiro brought them here to tell themsomething, something important, but what else could it be?

“Is this,” Keith starts, slowly.The possibility that is dawning on him is far from the most dangerous, but it’salso the most betraying. “Is this an androids anonymous?”

Hunk and Lance stare at him.Pidge is howling with laughter.

“I’m a cyborg, remember,” Shiro’svoice calls out, amused. He emerges from the other side of the roof, Keithnotes – meaning it’s more likely that Shiro has been here the whole time andwas waiting for his dramatic entrance. He doesn’t comment, though. “And Ipromise I would never do that to you, Keith. I’ve been doing some thinking, andthere’s something I think you should all know.”

He holds Keith’s stare, then nods.