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The fight had been going on for too long, and Keith had gotten separated from the rest of Voltron.
This was his shortcoming. He’d been so focused on just cutting apart the Galra sentrybots in front of him, hacking and slashing so that sparks nearly obscured his vision, that he hadn’t paid attention to the larger fight. Or where he was going.
So now Keith was essentially lost on a battlefield.
“A little help, guys?” he repeated into his helmet, blocking a strike from a sentry and cutting it in half a moment later. He’d gotten knocked down a while ago, and the comms seemed to have been damaged. The sentries weren’t slowing down, but Keith was. The battle was dragging on, and Keith was getting tired, and none of the other Paladins were anywhere to be found.
Just his luck.
Right when Keith was seriously starting to wonder if he was going to be in serious trouble, he heard a shout through the static in his helmet.
“Get down, Keith!”
Even fuzzy with wire damage, he knew that voice. And when Hunk told you to get down, you got the hell out of the way, because that cannon could blast through solid rock.
Keith dropped like a stone, and the light of the Yellow Paladin’s cannon fire lit the Galra sentries up like lightbulbs before they disintegrated into dust from the force.
He stayed down, and the cannon fired twice more, illuminating the very air itself as it blasted the sentrybots into nothingness. Finally, everything was still.
“Keith?” The voice was distant not with static but with physical space. He was close. “You okay, buddy?”
Keith rolled over, standing slowly. Now that the battle was over and the adrenaline was fading, he could feel every spot he’d been hit, every sore muscle and bruised bone. Those sentries hit hard. “Fine. M’fine,” he said, hopefully loud enough for Hunk to hear him from wherever he was, but holy shit was he exhausted. Probably nothing serious enough to need the healing pods, but Keith was going to be feeling this fight for a while.
There he was. Hunk came skidding over the ridge Keith had been pinned against, slipping and sliding on the loose rock. That had been one of the reasons why Keith hadn’t been able to escape the bots – it was too hard to fight them and climb the hill at the same time. “Boy, am I glad to see you,” Hunk panted upon reaching the bottom. “We didn’t know where you’d gone, and the comms were fritzing, and Shiro is kind of freaking out and man you don’t look great, we should get back to the castle and patch you up,” he added breathlessly.
Keith nodded slowly. He was crashing fast, the post-adrenaline wash and post-battle pain hitting him hard. “Sure,” he said, blinking and feeling the world flicker a little.
Hunk looked at him closer. “Dude, you don’t look so good. You okay?”
“Yeah.” He wasn’t lying. He’d had worse. “Just tired. That was a lot of sentries.”
The Yellow Paladin grinned. “It sure was! I can’t believe you were trying to take them all on at once, Keith!”
“Didn’t mean to,” Keith grumbled. “Got lost in the fight and lost track of you all. Just had to keep fighting.”
“Well, the fight’s over now,” Hunk said. He came to walk closely beside Keith, one arm reaching out to stabilize the Red Paladin. “Your backup came to the rescue, and we’re all okay. Now it’s time to rest.”
Rest sounded good. “Backup,” Keith mumbled, leaning more heavily against Hunk’s warm side.
The bigger boy shifted to accommodate him. “Backup,” he confirmed, easily taking his friend’s weight. “I am a Leg, after all. It’s my job to keep you up and going.”
“Well then, we won’t ever fall,” Keith said, and okay maybe he hit his head a little harder than he thought, because that right there was downright mushy.
But it wasn’t a lie. How could Keith ever fail, when Hunk had his back? If Keith couldn’t cut down the enemy, Hunk would blast them all away. Lance too – the Blue Paladin was a better sniper than he really gave himself credit for, underneath all the shallow bragging.
Outside of fights, too. Keith and Pidge were… not great at caring for themselves or others, to put it simply, and something in Shiro had changed fundamentally over his time in space (not that he’d ever been too great at that kind of thing even before). But Hunk and Lance kept them up and going. Hunk cooked, making sure they shared mealtimes together. Lance’s silliness kept things lighter, kept them smiling. They both came from big families, knew how to be around people and help them. Voltron could never stand without them.
“Thanks for being a Leg, Hunk,” Keith said.
Hunk laughed. “No problem, buddy. But let’s get you checked out, because I am starting to think that you got a little knocked around the head to be this nice.”
“Probably a good idea,” Keith grumbled, and Hunk laughed again, shifting to take more of his friend’s weight.